Myopic American Jews Ignore the Dangers Facing Their European Cousins

In recent weeks, American Jewish communities have been beset by a rash of bomb threats, acts of vandalism, and the like aimed at Jewish institutions. Responding to a rabbi who urged American Jews to see the threats they face in light of the (supposedly) far more severe dangers faced by other groups in the U.S.—like Muslims and homosexuals—Bethany Mandel suggests consideration of what their fellow Jews in Europe are undergoing:

[I]n the last two months the Anti-Defamation League has issued two press releases about “transgender” issues and three in response to President Trump’s executive orders on immigration, yet it rarely highlights its support for the European Jewish community.

Just in the month of February, two brothers wearing yarmulkes in Paris were ambushed and abducted, with one having his finger sawed off in the attack. Meanwhile, French far-right leader Marine Le Pen warned French Jews in possession of Israeli citizenship that they’ll have to relinquish it. And this week started “Israel apartheid week” in France. . . . And that’s just the bad news for Jews out of France!

Loving our fellows is a key component of Jewish tradition, found in Leviticus 19:18, and it continues to inform how the Jewish community is structured in the present. Of late, an obsession with liberal politics has changed the way we identify who is worthy enough of being a victim for many Jewish organizations and individuals. Is it so much to ask for Jewish communities and organizations to take the position that Jewish lives matter as well?

Read more at Forward

More about: ADL, American Jewry, Anti-Semitism, European Jewry, Jewish World

What a Strategic Victory in Gaza Can and Can’t Achieve

On Tuesday, the Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant met in Washington with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Gallant says that he told the former that only “a decisive victory will bring this war to an end.” Shay Shabtai tries to outline what exactly this would entail, arguing that the IDF can and must attain a “strategic” victory, as opposed to merely a tactical or operational one. Yet even after a such a victory Israelis can’t expect to start beating their rifles into plowshares:

Strategic victory is the removal of the enemy’s ability to pose a military threat in the operational arena for many years to come. . . . This means the Israeli military will continue to fight guerrilla and terrorist operatives in the Strip alongside extensive activity by a local civilian government with an effective police force and international and regional economic and civil backing. This should lead in the coming years to the stabilization of the Gaza Strip without Hamas control over it.

In such a scenario, it will be possible to ensure relative quiet for a decade or more. However, it will not be possible to ensure quiet beyond that, since the absence of a fundamental change in the situation on the ground is likely to lead to a long-term erosion of security quiet and the re-creation of challenges to Israel. This is what happened in the West Bank after a decade of relative quiet, and in relatively stable Iraq after the withdrawal of the United States at the end of 2011.

Read more at BESA Center

More about: Gaza War 2023, Hamas, IDF