"This is not the end, but it is the end of the beginning." Nadav Eyal captures the moment perfectly.

That said, this is far, far from over. Israelis are resilient, increasingly optimistic and very, very tired.

Nadav Eyal is without question one of Israel’s most esteemed journalists. He is, to put it mildly, no fan of this present government, was deeply opposed to the way that judicial reform was rolled out, has been highly critical of many dimensions of the war in Gaza and much more.

But unlike many who might be no fans of Trump or Netanyahu, he has the intellectual honesty to acknowledge the magnitude of this moment, not only for Israel, but for a West that still believes in itself.

He wrote a piece for YNet in Hebrew that you can find here (and if you’re interested, have Google translate for you), but he also posted a précis of his piece on X, which we’re linking to here and which translates as follows:

“After all the questions, a simple fact remains: the United States bombed Iran’s nuclear facilities, and the President thanked Israel, the IDF, and the Prime Minister. Those who claimed that Trump would flinch and back down at the last moment, that he is always afraid to take the next decisive step, were proven wrong. The Chinese watched and saw a great power willing to defend its interests and its allies in the region. The Russians saw Iran’s capabilities—some equipped with Russian weapons systems—easily crushed by the Israeli Air Force. By deciding to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities, Trump has begun to rebuild the image of a superpower that stands by its principles and is ready to deter its rivals. This is not only important for Israelis, but for the entire world. This is not the end, but it is certainly the end of the beginning.”

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True, many of us have a hard time trusting Bibi or Trump, and we know that the West has a glorious history of letting victory slip between its fingers. As we’ll share in the days and weeks ahead, this is still the same largely incompetent government that failed to provide for its citizens who were made homeless on October 7.

• What systems have been put into place since then to provide for the needs of the citizens who are now homeless because Iran has destroyed their homes? Very little.

• What is the plan for getting the remaining hostages out and shutting down the Gaza War? None of us has a clue.

• Police are using the cover of the Iran crisis to arrest protesters who are, as far as the videos we see suggest, are not breaking the law in any way. An order from the top? Hard to know thus far.

And on and on and on. So yes, the people running this country are every bit as problematic as they were before, but we should also give credit where credit is due: they did the smart thing, they did the moral thing, they did the courageous thing, and so far, it seems to have worked.

For just this moment, as Eyal notes, that is what we need to let sink in.

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Beyond the successes to which Nadav Eyal points above, the overwhelming feeling here is one of exhaustion. Yes, there is impressive resilience on the part of the Home Front, the citizens who have been in bomb shelters more times and for longer than we can recall ever since this started. And interestingly, if you listen to the news, there is increasing optimism about the future of this country.

Yet there is also exhaustion.

Here, a few quick indications from Israeli social media, and one photo that while kind of cute, also reminds us that we have no idea what the impact of all this on a younger generation is going to be in the long run.

The above post on X appeared a few days ago. It reads:

“It’s hard to believe that it’s already been a year since last week.”

Touché.

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When Israel first began the campaign against Iran, businesses were shut down and so were schools, child cares and all that. So parents were cooped up with their kids at home, day after day, not venturing too far outside because they needed to be near a shelter, and nervous because, well, you’d have to be insane not to be nervous.

“When Covid meets October 7th,” many people called it.

Then, the government announced that many businesses could reopen. But no, schools and child cares would not, at least for the time being. “If we have to go back to work, what do we do with our kids who have no school?” people asked by the thousands.

Oops. It appears that no one up in those higher echelons had thought about that. It was ludicrous. “Luckily,” one might say, the US bombing of Iran closed down businesses again. So while there’s still no school, at least parents can be home to babysit (and go nuts).

Hence the caption of the above cartoon. Iran’s “Supreme Leader,” Ali Khamenei, is saying:

Stay strong. The Zionists may control the skies, but another week of no school for their kids, and they’re going to convert to Islam of their own accord.

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Finally, a family photo.

One of our kids lives right around the corner, but their building has neither a Safe Room nor a Shelter. So when the advance warning (15 minutes or so before the missile hits) goes off, they come scampering over to our house and we all get into the Safe Room together.

A few days ago, it was the seven of us in that very small room, and this little guy was bouncing off the walls. Fair enough — he’s two. AND though he can’t articulate it, he senses that something is “off.” All the adults in the Safe Room are on devices, following the news, waiting for the Home Front Command indication that we can unlock the heavy metal door and exit the stuffy room.

Though he of course doesn’t understand why there are sirens or what we’re “hiding” from, he can tell that his older sisters are stressed, too. I can’t help but wondering what’s going on in his head, and perhaps even more important, how this is shaping him.

Anyway, when we were in the Safe Room a few days ago and he was bouncing off the walls, we were (utterly uselessly) trying to teach him how to use his “inside voice.” But then we got the all clear signal, we exited the Safe Room and his parents took him home.

The moment that they walked in the door, he apparently decided to go to the sofa to rest or sleep. But he didn’t make it. It was the middle of the day and he no longer naps, but he literally ran out of steam before he could get all the way onto to sofa.

It’s cute, but it’s not. He’s out of emotional gas.

It’s a good metaphor for how all of us feel. And it raises the very serious question of how all of this is going to play out in the lives of a young generation that is living a life that we could never have imagined for them.

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