Once home to the largest Jewish community in the western part of Georgia, Lailashi is now a remote village with no Jews to speak of, although efforts have been made recently to preserve its synagogue. It is also the location of an extremely rare codex of the Pentateuch, thought to have been written in the 10th century and complete save for a few chapters. Thea Gomelauri writes in a December 2020 article:

The provenance of the Lailashi codex . . . is as mysterious as its authorship and its ownership. According to the legend, the codex was brought to Georgia on an angel’s wings. The villagers saw a floating book in an unnamed river, and they rescued it from the stream. This unique codex was said to have miracle-working powers. It became an object of [veneration] for both Jews and Georgians.

How this priceless codex was “found” in a small, unprotected community synagogue during the unfortunate times of the Soviet reign is unclear. . . . The codex . . . was seized by the Communist authorities, and was brought to Tbilisi. Originally, it was kept in the Georgian Museum of Jewish History, but the museum was closed in 1951 [at the height of Stalinist anti-Semitism]. In 1957, the Lailashi manuscript emerged in the possession of the Kekelidze Institute of Manuscripts of the Georgian Academy of Sciences.
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What makes the Lailashi codex unique among its counterparts is that this treasure of biblical scholarship is entirely understudied. The only scholarly article about it appeared in 1968 in [a Georgian-language journal], but the codex has never been studied by Hebrew paleographers. . . . Supposedly, it was written by different people and at different locations: in Palestine, Egypt, and Persia.

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.