In 1666, the Jewish messianic pretender Shabbetai Tsvi was brought before an imperial Ottoman court on charges of sedition. Offered a choice between conversion to Islam and death, he chose the former. Most Jews who had believed in him were quickly disillusioned, but others maintained their faith secretly, viewing his conversion as an act of cosmic redemption, justified through the logic of his antinomian mysticism. While some of these true believers maintained outward conformity to Jewish orthodoxy, others, known as the Dönmeh, followed their leader into the Islamic fold. Cengiz Sisman explains:

After his conversion [to Islam], Shabbetai Tsvi’s worldly and spiritual merit was acknowledged by the Ottomans. He was granted a prestigious name, Aziz Mehmed Efendi. He was clothed in robes of honor and furs and presented with a few purses of silver; he was also granted the honorary position of a gatekeeper, with a royal pension of 150 aspers per day. According to a Dönmeh tradition, several more believers named “İbrahim, Murat, Suleiman, Mahmut, and Yusuf” followed closely in his footsteps. Their wives took the names Zehra, Ayşe, and Melike. Shabbetai Tsvi’s wife Sarah came to Edirne a week after the conversion episode and converted to Islam with the name of Fatima. We are not so sure how many believers followed in the footsteps of the messiah after the conversion event. Until Shabbetai resumed his missionary activity among his former believers two to three years later, the number of Shabbatean converts appears to have remained small.

Exhausted after an arduous conversion experience, Shabbetai Tsvi found himself partaking in a new social and religious world. He lived another ten years that were full of ambiguities and complexities stemming from his new identity as Aziz Mehmet Efendi, which began at the Edirne palace in 1666 and ended in Albania in 1676 as Sabbatai Mehmet Sevi. Interpretations of the conversion and his new identity were fashioned and refashioned during those years, by both himself and his followers. The dialectic between his self-perception and the perceptions of his devotees, his opponents, and the Ottoman authorities caused his identity to oscillate between and across the traditional boundaries of Judaism and Islam, leading to the emergence of a crypto-messianic sect that came to be known as the Dönmeh, who survived until the present day.

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.