Over the past few decades, Israel underwent a remarkable transformation, growing much more politically powerful, economically richer, and seemingly more secure in the region. Along the way, even as Hamas solidified its control in Gaza and Iran continued its path toward nuclear weapons and regional domination, Israelis began, little by little, to convince themselves that they could live mostly normal lives. If Israel was once the “New Sparta” (in the words of French historian François Furet) because of its single-minded focus on security and the martial virtues necessary to guarantee it, it had recently come more and more to resemble a middle-class liberal democracy, albeit with its own special characteristics. After 10/7, everything will be different. Israel’s holiday from history is over. And the country will have to rediscover the single-minded attention to security that typified its early days.