Jonah Goldberg often marvels that Israel treats rocket attacks by Hamas less like an act of war than like weather.

Every now and then a barrage of rockets is fired, most end up being intercepted by the Iron Dome system, and life resumes. It’s not much more extraordinary or disruptive than a thunderstorm, albeit with greater danger from the “lightning” than in other countries.

Jonah’s point is meant as a compliment. For all the accusations of warmongering leveled at Israel, it goes to great lengths to avoid war. No other nation treats regular bombardment by an enemy as something simply to be tolerated, without warranting massive reprisal. It’s a sort of goodwill gesture from the Jewish state to its skeptics around the world: We’re so eager for peace, Israel means to demonstrate, that we’ll treat terror attacks like cloudbursts.

There’s a criticism hidden inside Jonah’s compliment, though. Perhaps Israel wouldn’t suffer as many “thunderstorms” if it weren’t so willing to treat them as a fact of life. Had Hamas paid a higher price for its rocket attacks in the past, it might have thought twice about planning the pogrom of last October 7. Israel’s air defense system may be a miracle of technology, but insofar as it’s bred a degree of complacency on both sides with the status quo, it’s unclear if it’s helped or hurt the cause of peace in the long run.