This is Israel: one day it is a prosperous offshoot of the West and then, the next day, it descends into a Middle East nightmare. One day the nightly news is about the Tel-Aviv stock exchange and then the news deal with death and destruction. Only yesterday one of the major issues was whether or not to move the planned international gay pride parade from Jerusalem to Tel-Aviv and now the main question is “when, if at all, will this ever stop?”

Indeed, many Israelis think that this is just a curtain raiser to the total war Iran and its allies — Hezbollah and Hamas — have been planning against Israel. The curtain was raised before its intended time, revealing the massed might of Hezbollah, simply because of the unforeseen Israeli reaction to the kidnapping of its two soldiers. Thus, despite the dead and wounded on both sides, from Israel’s point of view this “premature” raising of the curtain is beneficial, as it comes before Iran and its allies have acquired a nuclear, or a “dirty,” bomb. It also came at time when Iran’s role in fomenting terrorism and acquiring weapons of mass destruction are exposed for all to see.

The preparations for this total war which seeks, in the Iranian president’s words, “to wipe Israel off the map,” have been going on for a long time. Indeed, only the blind failed to see that fanatic, fundamentalist drunk-with-hatred Iran has supplemented the Arab world as Israel’s greatest enemy. These preparations began long before Mr. Ahmadinejad became president. His blunt words simply utter aloud thoughts his predecessors dared not express. Dictators usually conceal their aggressive intentions. This one could not care less.

As part of these preparations, a mini-state, a bastion of military power, has been established within Lebanon equipped with top notch weapons (many NATO countries have not got the advanced missile which incapacitated the Israeli missile-boat and killed four of its soldiers). They have ensconced themselves into Lebanese towns and villages, thus producing the tragic loss of life and untold sufferings of the Lebanese people entailed by the Israeli bombardment.

Two steps have exacerbated Israel’s predicament and have enhanced Iran’s power: the first was the hasty Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon without assuring the exclusion of Hezbollah from that strategic area; the second was the victory of Hamas in the last Palestinian elections. Thus the threat of total war and destruction slouched towards Israel from near — from Hezbollah and Hamas menacing tiny Israel’s borders — and from afar — from Iran’s long-range ballistic missiles.

The kidnapping of the Israeli soldiers and the consequent Israeli action removed the mask behind which Iran hid, and at least delayed the outbreak of the total war against Israel.

How could Iran and the Hezbollah make such a mistake? Why did the Iranian masters of Hezbollah agree to the incursion into Israel and the killing and kidnapping of its soldiers? Dictators are notorious for misjudging what goes on within democracies: both Hitler and Stalin are infamous instances of such errors of judgment. The rulers of Iran and Hezbollah were certain that Israel will not react to this act of aggression, just as it has not reacted in the past. Israel seemed to them isolated internationally and fragmented from within — “a spider’s web” is the term used by the head of Hezbollah. They read the international press and saw a country vilified, boycotted, denounced, and divested every Monday and Friday; they read the Israeli press and saw a house divided, full of anti-war demonstrations and anti-Zionist professors in Israeli Universities denouncing their own country. And from their point of view they were right to predict that Israel would take this aggression lying down. But their mistake is apparent for all to see: the bash-Israel campaign has evaporated; in public opinion polls conducted there is a surprising support for Israel’s actions — this despite the fact that it involved bombing civilian targets; within Israel a rare consensus supports the action — a consensus not seen since the 1967 Six-Day-War, and the Minister of Defense, who directs the action, is not only from Labor but also a well-known dove and a supporter of Peace Now. Teheran committed the fatal mistake of taking too seriously the outer trappings of a free press and not suspecting the inherent dormant strength of a democratic regime.

Yet, Israel’s grave security problems will not be solved even if Hezbollah is eventually smashed to smithereens in Lebanon. Israel’s enemies are bound to acquire, some time in the future, nuclear, or al least “dirty,” weapons. The only way to secure Israel’s survival in the face of this menace is twofold: to develop — even at great costs — a reliable anti-missile missile system and, secondly, to use every political channel in order to include Israel within a mutual defense pact with America — either within or outside NATO. Such a pact might reduce Iran’s willingness to enter into a total war, the first act of which is being acted prematurely in Lebanon’s Hezbollah bastion.

Mr. Rubinstein is president of the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, Israel.