Born in 1780 to a Jewish family with its origins in Spain, Jean Lefitte, together with his brother Pierre, became involved in piracy sometime in the first decade of the 19th century. Robert Rockaway pieces together the facts about his life:

Surviving sources indicate that Lafitte was sharp and resourceful. . . . He was known to affect aristocratic mannerisms and to dress better than most of his fellow privateers. His native language was French, but he spoke English reasonably well and had a working knowledge of Spanish. During his life he acted as a soldier, sailor, diplomat, and merchant, displaying a gift for leadership in all roles.

In 1812, war broke out between England and the United States. . . . [I]n return for a legal pardon, Lafitte and his fleet helped Andrew Jackson defend New Orleans from the British. After Jackson secured victory, he paid tribute to the Lafitte brothers’ efforts and those of their fellow privateers. . . . [The brothers] displayed great courage and heroism. . . . After Jean Lafitte’s death, two fishing communities in Louisiana were named after him, as well as a town hall and a Jean Lafitte Boulevard. His name was also installed on a National Historic Park and Preserve located 25 minutes from downtown New Orleans.

In his own journal, Rockaway notes, Lafitte recalled that his Sephardi maternal grandmother:

told me repeatedly of the trials and tribulations her ancestors had endured at the time of the Spanish Inquisition. Grandmother’s teachings inspired in me a hatred of the Spanish crown and all the persecutions for which it was responsible—not only against Jews.

Lafitte shared these sentiments with other Jewish pirates:

What is ultimately clear is that Jewish pirates did not hide their origins and had no problem expressing their Jewish identity. They were proud of what they did. They named the ships they captained after biblical characters such as the Queen Esther, the Prophet Samuel, and the Shield of Abraham. The fact that ships from Spain, a kingdom that had committed unspeakable crimes against their ancestors, were such bountiful targets clearly provided extra motivation for their deeds.

As this newsletter noted last week, Gaza is not suffering from famine, and the efforts to suggest that it is—which have been going on since at least the beginning of last year—are based on deliberate manipulation of the data. Nor, as Shany Mor explains, does international law require Israel to feed its enemies:

Article 23 of the Fourth Geneva Convention does oblige High Contracting Parties to allow for the free passage of medical and religious supplies along with “essential foodstuff, clothing, and tonics intended for children under fifteen” for the civilians of another High Contracting Party, as long as there is no serious reason for fearing that “the consignments may be diverted from their destination,” or “that a definite advantage may accrue to the military efforts or economy of the enemy” by the provision.

The Hamas regime in Gaza is, of course, not a High Contracting Party, and, more importantly, Israel has reason to fear both that aid provisions are diverted by Hamas and that a direct advantage is accrued to it by such diversions. Not only does Hamas take provisions for its own forces, but its authorities sell provisions donated by foreign bodies and use the money to finance its war. It’s notable that the first reports of Hamas’s financial difficulties emerged only in the past few weeks, once provisions were blocked.

Yet, since the war began, even European states considered friendly to Israel have repeatedly demanded that Israel “allow unhindered passage of humanitarian aid” and refrain from seizing territory or imposing “demographic change”—which means, in practice, that Gazan civilians can’t seek refuge abroad. These principles don’t merely constitute a separate system of international law that applies only to Israel, but prolong the suffering of the people they are ostensibly meant to protect:

By insisting that Hamas can’t lose any territory in the war it launched, the international community has invented a norm that never before existed and removed one of the few levers Israel has to pressure it to end the war and release the hostages.

These commitments have . . . made the plight of the hostages much worse and much longer. They made the war much longer than necessary and much deadlier for both sides. And they locked a large civilian population in a war zone where the de-facto governing authority was not only indifferent to civilian losses on its own side, but actually had much to gain by it.