When Deborah Lipstadt authored her first book on the subject of Holocaust denial, the “revisionist” historian David Irving took her to court. Because of the idiosyncrasies of Britain’s libel laws, Lipstadt and her lawyers had to prove that the Holocaust actually happened. The trial is the subject of the recent film Denial. In his review, Gavriel Rosenfeld writes:

Denial . . . portrays Irving as a self-described “outsider” who seeks to provoke an establishment whose acceptance he secretly craves. . . .

Denial thus joins the growing chorus of opposition to the epistemological skepticism that came with postmodernism. As the prominent theorist Bruno Latour recently argued, the postmodern notion that “facts are made up, that there is no such thing as natural, unmediated, unbiased access to truth” has been exploited by “dangerous extremists.” . . . As conspiracy theorists and others abuse the idea that facts are socially constructed, the time has arrived, Latour concluded, to get “closer to facts.”

This injunction is not, of course, a specifically Jewish one, but Denial shows the dangers of spurious skepticism by showing the continuing threat posed by the epitome of unreason: anti-Semitism. . . .

Beyond defending reason and truth, Denial suggests that an effective response to hatred may be found in the unapologetic embrace of one’s own identity. Lipstadt is seen in the film quietly chanting the traditional funeral prayer El maleh raḥamim together with [the historian Robert Jan] van Pelt on their visit to Auschwitz. In an even more revealing scene, she is horrified by the passive attitude of some British Jews toward anti-Semitism. When some guests at a dinner party organized to help support her defense suggest that she just settle with Irving, she rejects the request out of hand, calling it “appeasement.”

Although the world faces new dangers, Denial shows how an important victory over an age-old prejudice can inspire us to trust our convictions.

While the far left and the extreme right have responded with frenzied outrage to Israel’s attacks on Iran, middle-of-the-road, establishment types have expressed similar sentiments, only in more measured tones. These think-tankers and former officials generally believe that Israeli military action, rather than nuclear-armed murderous fanatics, is the worst possible outcome. Garry Kasparov examines this mode of thinking:

Now that the Islamic Republic is severely weakened, the alarmist foreign-policy commentariat is apprising us of the unacceptable risks, raising their well-worn red flags. (Or should I say white flags?) “Escalation!” “Global war!” And the ultimate enemy of the status quo: “regime change!”

Under President Obama, American officials frequently stared down the nastiest offenders in the international rogues’ gallery and insisted that there was “no military solution.” “No military solution” might sound nice to enlightened ears. Unfortunately, it’s a meaningless slogan. Tellingly, Russian officials repeat it all the time too. . . . But Russia does believe there are military solutions to its problems—ask any Ukrainian, Syrian, or Georgian. Yet too many in Washington remain determined to fight armed marauders with flowery words.

If you are worried about innocent people being killed, . . . spare a thought for the millions of Iranians who face imprisonment, torture, or death if they dare deviate from the strict precepts of the Islamic Revolution. Or the hundreds of thousands of Syrians whose murder Iran was an accomplice to. Or the Ukrainian civilians who have found themselves on the receiving end of over 8,000 Iranian-made suicide drones over the past three years. Or the scores of Argentine Jews blown up in a Buenos Aires Jewish community center in 1994 without even the thinnest of martial pretexts.

The Democratic Connecticut senator Chris Murphy was quick and confident in his pronouncement that Israel’s operation in Iran “risks a regional war that will likely be catastrophic for America.” Maybe. But a regional war was already underway before Israel struck last week. Iran was already supporting the Houthis in Yemen, Hamas in Gaza, Hizballah in Lebanon, and Russia in Ukraine. Israel is simply moving things toward a more decisive conclusion.

Perhaps Murphy and his ilk dread most being proved wrong—which they will be if, in a few weeks’ time, their apocalyptic predictions haven’t come true, and the Middle East, though still troubled, is a safter place.