Israel’s Friends Are Urging Patience. That’s Good Advice.

The US has asked Israel to delay its Gaza ground invasion to make time to negotiate hostage releases and, reportedly, to rush extra missile defenses to America’s military bases across the Middle East. No doubt Benjamin Netanyahu will oblige his most important ally — it should take just a few days. But the better reason for the prime minister to take his time is to be sure he’s doing the right thing for Israel, not to mention his own damaged reputation.

Netanyahu on Wednesday reiterated that he plans an invasion to “crush’’ Hamas. He quoted the Bible and cast Israel as a force of light against darkness, but didn’t address the plight of civilians in Gaza, an approach that’s unlikely to persuade many at home or abroad. Let’s assume there is a smarter, more granular debate going on behind the scenes, including some good advice advice from close allies.

CNN says the US has sent Israel high-powered US military advisers who are counseling against an all-out invasion altogether. They’re said to argue that the cost of such house-to-house fighting could prove untenable in lost Israeli and civilian Palestinian lives, the fate of more than 200 hostages, and the potential for Iran and its Lebanese proxy Hezbollah to get involved.

One of the advisers was a Marine commander in the second battle of Fallujah, which involved about 13,500 troops on one side and, at most, 4,000 insurgents holding the city of some 250,000 people. The fight took six weeks and cost the lives of more than 60 US-led troops and up to 800 civilians, plus many more wounded. The fighting was brutal.

Israel’s force would be many times larger, but so too that of Hamas, which unlike the assortment of insurgent groups in Fallujah has had time and resources to prepare its defenses, including a vast network of tunnels. (Fallujah had tunnels too, but many fewer.) The area Israel has indicated as a battle space began with a population of about 1.1 million.