Just as there are stages of grief, there are stages of war. Not yet two weeks after Hamas’s surprise attack, Israel is still in a raw, early stage. My colleague Graeme Wood, who arrived in Jerusalem this week, described it to me this way: “Israel is still reeling from the trauma of the attack on October 7. That manifests in a number of ways. And one is that there’s a certain amount of Israeli policy that is driven right now by wrath.” Israeli officials insist that they are targeting Hamas, not Gazan citizens. But the situation on the ground for Gazan citizens is dire—a humanitarian crisis of catastrophic proportions, according to the United Nations and other agencies. Wood told me that, among many of the Israelis he’s interviewed, the prevailing attitude is a dangerous if understandable combination of anger, fear, and mourning. The atrocities committed against Israeli citizens on October 7 were especially inhumane. And, as one Israeli I talked to put it, this society’s worst nightmare is vulnerability. What happens when a nation makes …