In his review of Jonathan Sacks’s Not in God’s Name: Confronting Religious Violence, Phillip Cary pays special attention to the book’s treatment of the various sibling rivalries in Genesis, and of the metaphorical sibling rivalry among Jews (descendants of Jacob), Muslims (who consider themselves descendants of Ishmael), and Christians (who, in rabbinic literature, are seen as descendants of Esau). These biblical rivalries are complicated by God’s choosing of certain sons over their brothers, from Abel to Ephraim. Cary writes:

It seems God has favorites, yet he wants us sympathizing with the others, those who are not favored. Sacks shows us how the Bible enlists our feelings on their behalf, highlighting their emotions. For example, in contrast to the terse narrative of Abraham going off to sacrifice his son Isaac, which leaves all human emotion unspoken, there is the previous chapter in Genesis, which is clearly meant as its counterpart, where Hagar goes off with her son Ishmael into the desert, raising her voice and weeping because she cannot bear to watch her son die, and the child, too, crying aloud in his thirst.

Who would not hear such crying? God does, and sends an angel to address Hagar’s emotions with tender words he does not give to Abraham in the next chapter: “Fear not.”

Likewise, argues Sacks, Jews can continue to see themselves as chosen while tolerating, and even loving, Christians and Muslims, while devotees of the other two religions can do the equivalent. Cary explores what exactly this would mean for believing Christians:

To take up Sacks’s invitation . . . requires [Christians] to renounce a crucial element of their own sibling jealousy, which theologians have come to call “supersessionism”: the notion that Christians have now superseded and replaced the Jews as God’s chosen people—as if only Christians were the true Israel, the proper heirs of Jacob, because the Jews have sold their birthright like Esau. Renouncing supersessionism is something most Christian theologians since the Holocaust have been glad to do, supported now by the Vatican II document Nostra Aetate. . . .

[It] is [a] fundamental biblical teaching that Gentiles are blessed through the Jews, who are chosen and beloved by God for precisely this purpose. Genesis repeatedly tells us that in the children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, “all nations shall be blessed.” If we who are Gentile Christians really believed this, . . . we would rejoice that the Jews are God’s chosen people. This is a way of unlearning the murderous jealousy of Cain: to be glad that blessing for us comes from them. When Christian teaching makes this kind of rejoicing its own, then Jews will at last be safe from Christian anti-Semitism.

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.