In the wake of Iran’s attack on Israel with hundreds of drones and missiles last weekend, Israel must decide how to calibrate its response. The spectrum of possible actions is wide and includes strikes on Iranian interests outside Iran and targets inside its borders.

Israeli leaders faced a similar decision after the Hamas attacks of October 7. Back then, the question was whether they should respond to the Hamas attack primarily by sending troops to Gaza with the goal of ending Hamas’s domination of that territory and its ability to threaten Israel militarily, or also (or instead) pursue Israel’s more powerful and dangerous adversary to the north, the Iranian-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah—even though it was not directly involved in the October 7 attacks. Israel chose the first option, a decision that has shaped the conflict to this point.

The question for the Israeli leadership now is which steps against Iran would demonstrate resilience and maintain credibility without escalating the conflict into a full-scale war. One part of Israel’s response must be to stay the course in the Gaza Strip, despite tremendous pressure from the United States and others to retreat into what would amount to a strategic surrender. In practice, that means proceeding with plans for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to enter the southern Gaza city of Rafah, eliminate the Hamas brigades and leaders based there, and deepen planning for a “day after” in Gaza and a long-term resolution to the conflict with the Palestinians that is predicated on reality rather than on American fantasies about a “two-state solution” that represents no solution at all.

The argument for taking on Hezbollah after October 7 was that the Hamas attack had proved that Israel needed to defang its enemies rather than imagine it was deterring them or had achieved a permanent modus vivendi with them. Military leaders, including Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, reportedly favored that option. But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister and IDF chief of staff Benny Gantz overruled Gallant, and the war cabinet decided that the immediate target must be Hamas and not Hezbollah.

An Israeli attack on Hezbollah in Lebanon would have brought immense destruction to both countries, and the pressures on the IDF to curtail its operations there would likely have been greater than those it has faced regarding Gaza. In 2006, Hezbollah attacked Israel, and the George W. Bush administration, in which I was serving at the time, gave the Israelis strong support—but only for a couple of weeks, after which Washington pressured Israel to end the war by extending assurances that have never been met and never seemed likely to be. The terms of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which was passed in August 2006, included an end to arms transfers by any state to Hezbollah and total Lebanese army control of Lebanon’s south. Neither stipulation has ever been enforced—a testament to the dangers of relying on a paper peace rather than conditions on the ground. Israel learned the lesson.

That is why it is resisting international pressure, especially from Washington, for a cease-fire that would leave Hamas in control of parts of Gaza, with its high command intact and able (with Iranian help that would surely be forthcoming) to regenerate a fighting force that could once again threaten Israel. Netanyahu has pledged to continue the attack on Hamas. Israel is pursuing a temporary cease-fire that would free some Israeli hostages in Gaza and Hamas prisoners in Israeli jails, but Netanyahu is intent on returning to the fight against Hamas after that. Israel believes that the Hamas military leadership and its remaining four battalions of organized troops are in or near Rafah and that the full defeat of Hamas requires attacking them there, even if the fighting and civilian casualties arouse harsh American and international criticism.

Despite that risk, Israelis across the ideological spectrum agree that Hamas must be crushed because they see the fight against the group as an existential conflict. Hamas can’t destroy Israel by itself, but all of Israel’s enemies are watching to see whether Israel can fully recover from the October 7 attack. If they conclude that it cannot, the Jewish state will find itself in mortal peril. Israelis saw the astonishingly brutal Hamas attack, reminiscent of anti-Semitic pogroms and the Holocaust in its treatment of Jewish men, women, and children, as a test of who will prove to be more resilient, the Jews or their murderers.

Israel gained Arab partners in the region through demonstrations of strength, not........

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