A recently published collection of some 700 of Norman Mailer’s letters (selected out of many thousands) suggests that the famed author was the sort of person who always had something to prove. It also contains some scattered yet revealing discussions of Jewish identity, and how Mailer felt it shaped him as a writer. Adam Kirsch writes:

[I]t is in a 1960 letter to [Diana] Trilling that Mailer gives the other longest explanation of what Jewishness meant to him. As a writer, Mailer grants, he lacks “definition,” he is given to posturing and role-playing. Yet “it must be remembered,” he insists, “that he is a Jew and that being a major novelist is not a natural activity for a Jew.” (Note the passing insistence that what he is is a “major” novelist—a certainty that may, of course, conceal a deep insecurity.)

Mailer goes on to sketch an ambitious theory of the history of the novel, according to which the classic 19th-century novel was devoted to the “roots” of society: “the novel came into existence . . . as the avatar of society at the moment society developed roots too subtle for the historian to trace.” At this stage, however, the Jews of Western Europe were only recently emancipated; they had no deep social roots, and so they were unable to be either the heroes or the authors of novels. Major Jewish novelists could not emerge until after World War II, because by then “the 20th century had ripped up all the roots.” The Jew, in his homelessness and insecurity, was now a representative figure: “he never had the genteel security of relaxing in a habit . . . the Jew was always a bloody schizophrenic, his parlor manners greasy and his aspiration incandescent. . . . But now the world was schizophrenic. H-bombs and PTA committees. The Jew—those who were left—could be the first to swim the divided waters.”

For some time, opponents of U.S support for Israel have been urging the White House to end the war in Gaza, or simply calling for a ceasefire. Douglas Feith and Lewis Libby consider what such a result would actually entail:

Ending the war immediately would allow Hamas to survive and retain military and governing power. Leaving it in the area containing the Sinai-Gaza smuggling routes would ensure that Hamas can rearm. This is why Hamas leaders now plead for a ceasefire. A ceasefire will provide some relief for Gazans today, but a prolonged ceasefire will preserve Hamas’s bloody oppression of Gaza and make future wars with Israel inevitable.

For most Gazans, even when there is no hot war, Hamas’s dictatorship is a nightmarish tyranny. Hamas rule features the torture and murder of regime opponents, official corruption, extremist indoctrination of children, and misery for the population in general. Hamas diverts foreign aid and other resources from proper uses; instead of improving life for the mass of the people, it uses the funds to fight against Palestinians and Israelis.

Moreover, a Hamas-affiliated website warned Gazans last month against cooperating with Israel in securing and delivering the truckloads of aid flowing into the Strip. It promised to deal with those who do with “an iron fist.” In other words, if Hamas remains in power, it will begin torturing, imprisoning, or murdering those it deems collaborators the moment the war ends. Thereafter, Hamas will begin planning its next attack on Israel:

Hamas’s goals are to overshadow the Palestinian Authority, win control of the West Bank, and establish Hamas leadership over the Palestinian revolution. Hamas’s ultimate aim is to spark a regional war to obliterate Israel and, as Hamas leaders steadfastly maintain, fulfill a Quranic vision of killing all Jews.

Hamas planned for corpses of Palestinian babies and mothers to serve as the mainspring of its October 7 war plan. Hamas calculated it could survive a war against a superior Israeli force and energize enemies of Israel around the world. The key to both aims was arranging for grievous Palestinian civilian losses. . . . That element of Hamas’s war plan is working impressively.