One subject of the above-linked conversation between Reynolds and Novick is the Christian discomfort with the particularism of Jewish self-understanding, and the different ways Christian theologians have responded to its presence in the Old Testament. Perhaps the impulse of some Christians to erase Jewish distinctiveness in favor of universal messages is behind the phenomenon Dave Rich notices in the film Lee. Opening in American cinemas tomorrow, the movie tells the story of Elizabeth “Lee” Miller, a photojournalist who covered World War II for Vogue. Rich writes:

Lee is a good film, or at least it’s a film with a very good central performance by the main star (Kate Winslet playing Lee Miller), but it’s also the latest Holocaust film to downplay the fact that Jews were the main victims of Nazi genocide.

Thousands of people disappeared from Paris under Nazi occupation, we are told in one scene—“not only Jews” but also socialists, “homosexuals,” and lots of other categories of people. That’s the only explicit mention of Jews in a film that climaxes with the liberation of Buchenwald and Miller’s photographs of wagonloads of corpses and skeletal figures in striped uniforms.

Oh yes, there’s also the moment where Miller’s photographer buddy David E. Scherman sobs “these are my people”—but we haven’t been told he’s Jewish, so it’s a line that you could easily struggle to understand. The Nazis hated photographers?

This is becoming a pattern, after the biopic of Sir Nicholas Winton, One Life, did something similar. It’s as if for a Holocaust movie to fit with today’s Zeitgeist it has to be inclusive and can’t privilege one group above others as victims of Nazi terror. That Nazis hated everyone equally because they hated diversity and multiculturalism is the underlying message. Except that isn’t true: the Nazis persecuted many groups, but their ideological and practical commitment to eradicating Jews from the face of the earth outweighed all others.

Ron Ben-Yishai, reporting from a visit to IDF forces in the Gaza Strip, analyzes the state of the fighting, and “the persistent challenge of eradicating an entrenched enemy in a complex urban terrain.”

Hamas, sensing the war’s end, is mounting a final effort to inflict casualties. The IDF now controls 65 percent of Gaza’s territory operationally, with observation, fire dominance, and relative freedom of movement, alongside systematic tunnel destruction. . . . Major P, a reserve company commander, says, “It’s frustrating to hear at home that we’re stagnating. The public doesn’t get that if we stop, Hamas will recover.”

Senior IDF officers cite two reasons for the slow progress: meticulous care to protect hostages, requiring cautious movement and constant intelligence gathering, and avoiding heavy losses, with 22 soldiers killed since June.

Two-and-a-half of Hamas’s five brigades have been dismantled, yet a new hostage deal and IDF withdrawal could allow Hamas to regroup. . . . Hamas is at its lowest military and governing point since its founding, reduced to a fragmented guerrilla force. Yet, without complete disarmament and infrastructure destruction, it could resurge as a threat in years.

At the same time, Ben-Yishai observes, not everything hangs on the IDF:

According to the Southern Command chief Major General Yaron Finkelman, the IDF is close to completing its objectives. In classical military terms, “defeat” means the enemy surrenders—but with a jihadist organization, the benchmark is its ability to operate against Israel.

Despite [the IDF’s] battlefield successes, the broader strategic outcome—especially regarding the hostages—now hinges on decisions from the political leadership. “We’ve done our part,” said a senior officer. “We’ve reached a crossroads where the government must decide where it wants to go—both on the hostage issue and on Gaza’s future.”