Marco Bellocchio’s Kidnapped! The Abduction of Edgardo Mortara and Roman Polanski’s An Officer and a Spy are both recent films that deal with historic instances of anti-Semitic prejudice that, in their own day, captured the attention of the European press. The subject of the first is the kidnapping of a six-year-old Jewish boy by the papal authorities, who insisted that he be raised a Catholic. The second tells the story of the French Jewish army officer Alfred Dreyfus’s imprisonment on trumped-up charges of espionage.

Reviewing both films, Michael Sragow writes:

Bellocchio delivers his epic yet incisive version with heart-stopping immediacy and clarity. He generally follows the factual narrative but inventively heightens and condenses the action to depict the effects of religious extremism and brainwashing. . . . Bellocchio’s prodigious talent takes us inside his characters while the action plays out on a grand scale. He and his superb cast bridge the contradictory narratives that filled Jewish and Catholic journals in 1859, characterizing Edgardo either as a bereft boychik or a spiritual savant instantly embodying Christian grace.

Polanski, by contrast, focuses on one character: Georges Picquart (played by Jean Dujardin), the intelligence officer who discovered that Dreyfus had been framed:

In Dujardin’s virile, hyper-alert performance, Picquart is a casual anti-Semite overtaken by his sense of justice and decency. When he meets with Louis Garrel’s intense, disciplined Dreyfus after the Jew’s exoneration, there is no hint of sentimentality or false uplift. Unexpectedly at odds over Dreyfus’s request for a promotion, they do each other the honor of speaking honestly and directly.

Concluded in 1979, the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty ended nearly 30 years of intermittent warfare, and proved one of the most enduring and beneficial products of Middle East diplomacy. But Egypt may not have been upholding its end of the bargain, write Jonathan Schanzer and Mariam Wahba:

Article III, subsection two of the peace agreement’s preamble explicitly requires both parties “to ensure that that acts or threats of belligerency, hostility, or violence do not originate from and are not committed from within its territory.” This clause also mandates both parties to hold accountable any perpetrators of such acts.

Recent Israeli operations along the Philadelphi Corridor, the narrow strip of land bordering Egypt and Gaza, have uncovered multiple tunnels and access points used by Hamas—some in plain sight of Egyptian guard towers. While it could be argued that Egypt has lacked the capacity to tackle this problem, it is equally plausible that it lacks the will. Either way, it’s a serious problem.

Was Egypt motivated by money, amidst a steep and protracted economic decline in recent years? Did Cairo get paid off by Hamas, or its wealthy patron, Qatar? Did the Iranians play a role? Was Egypt threatened with violence and unrest by the Sinai’s Bedouin Union of Tribes, who are the primary profiteers of smuggling, if it did not allow the tunnels to operate? Or did the Sisi regime take part in this operation because of an ideological hatred of Israel?