In Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, Gulliver encounters various creatures speaking fictional languages long thought to be mere gibberish. Irving Rothman, a scholar of English literature, now contends that Swift, who learned Hebrew while a university student, employed variations of that language to create his invented tongues. Hayah Goldlist-Eichler writes:

One piece of evidence is straightforward: the alphabet in the land of giants—the Brobdingnags—consists of 22 letters, as does the Hebrew alphabet. . . .

[But] Rothman says his strongest evidence is his interpretation of the book’s use of “Yahoo,” [the name of] a human-like species described as wild and irrational. “[The Yahoos] represent . . . the bestial element in man—the unenlightened, unregenerate, irrational element in human nature,” according to Rothman.

He noted earlier interpretations suggesting the word comes from the four-letter holy Hebrew name of god, written YHWH and pronounced Yahweh. . . According to Rothman, [however,] the Yahoos . . . are referred to as “Hnea Yahoo,” and the word Hnea, if read right-to-left, as Hebrew is read, is the word “eyn“—the Hebrew word for “not.”

“Those beasts are the opposite of God and the antithesis of God,” explained Rothman.

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.