In a German-language book whose title translates as Moses and Homer: Greeks, Jews, Germans: A Different History of German Culture, the historian Berndt Witte examines the ways great German thinkers from the late 18th century onward idolized ancient Greek civilization. While the subject—what one British writer in 1935 dubbed “the tyranny of Greece over Germany”—is nothing new, Witte’s argument that this Hellenophilism went hand in hand with a rejection of Judaism, and ultimately the Jews, is indeed new. Steven Aschheim writes in his review:

Goethe, Schiller, Hegel, Herder, and [others] valorized Grecian ideals as part of their modernizing zeal, while attacking the God of Judaism and Christianity. But, Witte argues, because Christianity was supported by state power, their rhetorical onslaught was concentrated on Judaism. Under the rubric of ancient polytheism, these thinkers promulgated the worship of the cosmic forces of “Nature” and set the autonomous person—typically in the form of the conquering warrior—as their crowning ideal.

Homeric history, Witte asserts, is one of murder, war, and death. Positing society as a ruthless site of struggle, German Hellenophiles promoted a worldview that increasingly suppressed the Judaic affirmation of God-created life and the proscription, “Thou shalt not kill.” In its place, they constructed a ruthless image of society. This, Witte argues, was the other side of the Enlightenment, and it left a deep mark on 20th-century German culture.

Although warning that this argument lends itself to exaggeration—can Nazism really be blamed on the 18th-century archaeologist and art historian Johann Joachim Winckelmann?—Aschheim finds much to praise in this book.

Witte . . . draws our attention to the fact that Jewish chosenness came to be represented [by Witte’s subjects] as a kind of arrogant and aggressive separatism—a cunning move whereby the victims were transformed into putative perpetrators. Even more challengingly, he suggests that there was a kind of ironic interdependence between the Jewish and German notions of the Chosen People. German racists often borrowed from the Jewish example in a kind of perverse usurpation. Thus, Hitler himself invoked a distorted Judaism, writing that “no one knows better than the Jew” about blood purity.

I believe that a subtle, unstated, scholarly polemic runs underneath the text of Homer and Moses with regard to these issues. . . . [I]t seems to me that the entire work stands as an intriguing refutation of the famous German Egyptologist and cultural theorist Jan Assmann’s most provocative thesis. Assmann has argued that it is precisely the “Mosaic distinction”—between the one “true” God and “false” religion—that stands at the root of Western “conflict, intolerance, and violence,” whereas ancient polytheism rendered different cultures mutually compatible. Some have read Assmann as arguing that because Jews initiated the “first distinction” and have been resented for it ever since, they may have been, in some sense, partly responsible for the ghastly fate that overtook them.

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.