Last April, a Parisian Muslim with a history of drug addiction and crime entered the apartment of his neighbor—a sixty-seven-year-old Jewish woman named Sarah Halimi—beat her savagely, and then threw her out the window to her death. The French authorities, along with the press, obscured evidence suggesting that Halimi’s killer had religious motivations. Now her family’s lawyer has released further information confirming that he sought out a Jewish victim and prayed before and after committing the murder. Marc Weitzmann comments:

The Halimi family is now calling for a reclassification of the murder as a terrorist act with torture and with anti-Semitism as an aggravating circumstance. Yet, if the anti-Jewish impulse is indisputable, describing the murder as terrorism seems dubious, as everything indicates that [the killer, known to the public only as] Kobili T., acted on impulse. In fact, Sarah Halimi’s murder looks a lot like the killing of Sébastien Selam [another Jew murdered by a Muslim] that occurred in 2003, coincidentally in the same neighborhood. . . . It is difficult to draw an equivalence between the sudden upsurge of a murderous impulse and a planned killing that came at the end of months of preparation and training.

What should be understood is how the violent anti-Semitic impulse serves as a base and a justification for subsequent terror planning. In 2014, the year preceding the major terror wave that continues to this day in France, the figures on spontaneous anti-Jewish aggressions as given by the Ministry of Interior reached 800—two a day, directed against a total population of 500,000 people. . . .

Isn’t it striking, also, that, from the Kouachi brothers [who carried out the Charlie Hebdo/Hypercacher killings] to the Bataclan commando members, the killers involved in recent terror attacks voiced their hatred of Jews and “Zionists” while committing their deeds, regardless of whether their actual targets were Jewish?

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.