I dare you to answer these 15 questions about Israel’s ongoing conflict with Hamas in Gaza without cracking a bitter smile and heaving a sigh of cynical disbelief.

Reducing enemy capabilities and ambitions in Gaza requires Israeli military readiness and government willingness to use force intermittently, while maintaining a healthy and resilient Israeli home front.

It is unmitigatedly maddening to see Western leaders and media succumb with equanimity to Hamas’ obvious criminal stuntsmanship on the Gaza border. What is Western support for “Israel’s right to exist within secure and recognized borders” worth if those borders cannot be defended?

Nobody in the world has the right to criticize Israel’s defensive actions on the Gaza border, even if Israel had used significant force against the Hamas mobs – which it didn’t.

Israel must flex some muscle to disabuse Abbas of the delusion that he can bully Israel into retreat. Tactical Israeli restraint, like the decision to retreat from justified security measures at the Temple Mount, comes-off as capitulation to Palestinian terrorism. It reinforces the rejectionist and triumphalist Palestinian narrative.

It hurts when radical Palestinians exploit Israeli goodwill for nefarious purposes; to act with humanity while our enemies act with cruelty… Stories from the world of Israeli medicine and Palestinian abuse of our compassion.

A roundup of recent deep-think articles on reforming American politics and rebuilding American power, confronting Islamism and checking resurgent China, and tapping into Biblical teachings as the source for a renewed Western freedom agenda.

Trump and Netanyahu must together craft a strategy to combat the malign influence and hegemonic ambitions of the mullahs.

The Elor Azaria trial should be plea-bargained to a quick end, cutting-short ugly attempts to indict half the country for fanaticism.

My selection of the best essays of the past year on Israel, the Mideast, Obama and Iran, the conflict with the Palestinians, Jewish life, and anti-Semitism.