Celia Dropkin (1887-1955) was one of a number of women, mostly living in New York City, who began writing Yiddish poems for publication in the 1920s, when Yiddish literary circles were still very much male-dominated. Analyzing a poem in which the speaker describes being humiliated and morally crushed by the accusations of an unnamed tormentor, Ruth Wisse writes:

The woman in the poem does not say what, if anything, she has done to earn her accuser’s mistrust. Although she is the poem’s subject, its tone is determined by the person who has turned her into its object. . . . The phrase that kept reverberating in my head was the one . . . that serves as the poem’s title, in koyt fun dayn fardakht. You soak me . . . not simply in dirt, which would have been shmutz, but in koyt, in the filth, of your fardakht, the Germanic term for suspicion or distrust. The grating and guttural sounds of those two nouns . . . have the power to turn the woman into an odious, hideous creature. . . .

As I say, the poem got under my skin but I could not say why. None of my complicated experiences in love or antagonism had ever made me feel ossified, as the woman is here. . . .

One day during a trip to Israel in 1994 a Hamas suicide bomber detonated a bus in Tel Aviv killing 22 people and wounding 50 others. A paper I was reading published a copy of the Hamas covenant and I read through the preamble’s determination to obliterate Israel. . . Unbidden, the words leapt to mind: “Vos ikh zog un, / alts toyvlstu in koyt fun dayn fardakht” (Everything I say and do / you soak in the filth of your suspicion.)

I rehearsed the poem again and yes, there was just what I was feeling. Your pathology turns me into an ugly and malicious creature, glued to the floor, immobile, unable to exact revenge. It was suddenly clear to me why the woman in the poem could not act on her fury. It wasn’t because she was a masochist and enjoyed rebuff. She cannot strike back because she wants to be accepted by the very person who will not grant her love.

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.