When Isaac Mayer Wise—the principal architect of Reform Judaism in America—met then-President Zachary Taylor in the White House, he was not meeting a U.S. president for the first time, but Taylor was meeting a rabbi for the first time. At least, that’s what Wise claims in his memoirs, and there is no evidence to the contrary. Allan Arkush describes both this meeting and some of Wise’s other presidential audiences:

When he went to the White House in February 1850, Wise himself was not yet the distinguished president of the Hebrew Union College or the Central Conference of American Rabbis; he was just a thirty-year-old pulpit rabbi from Albany, New York. Zachary Taylor, the Mexican War hero, had been president of the United States for less than a year when Wise, who was traveling south for his health, arrived in Washington, DC.

A Bohemian-born immigrant who had been in the US less than four years, Wise was eager to observe the American government at work. He could hardly have picked a more exciting moment. The debate over the Missouri Compromise was raging, and . . . Wise owed his meeting with the president to one of the principal debaters—William H. Seward—who was a friend of his from Albany, where the senator had been a lawyer for a number of years between his terms as governor of New York and his election to the upper house in 1849.

It seems . . . that newspaper reports of the very fact that he had met with the president made Wise into an instant celebrity. The following day he had a long conversation with Daniel Webster, who was so impressed by his erudition that he offered to get him hired at Boston University.

Two of the most important questions about the recent agreement with Hamas are “Why now?” and “What is the relationship between the deal and the military campaign?” To Ron Ben-Yishai, the answer to the two questions is related, and flies in the face of the widespread (and incorrect) claim that the same agreement could have been reached in May:

Contrary to certain public perceptions, the military pressure exerted on northern Gaza in recent months was the main leverage that led to flexibility on the part of Hamas and made clear to the terror group that it would do well to agree to a deal now, before thousands more of its fighters are killed, and before the IDF advances further and destroys Gaza entirely.

Andrew Fox, meanwhile, presents a more comprehensive strategic analysis of the cease-fire:

Tactically, Hamas has taken a severe beating in Gaza since October 2023. It is assessed that it has lost as much as 90 percent of military capability and 80 percent of manpower, although it has recruited well and boosted its numbers from below 10,000 to the 20–30,000 range. However, these are untrained recruits, often under-age, and the IDF has been striking their training camps in northern Gaza so they have been unable to form any kind of meaningful capability. This is not a fighting force that retains any ability to harm the IDF in real numbers, although, as seen this past week with a fatal IED attack, they are able to score the odd hit.

However, this has not affected Hamas’s ability to retain administrative control of Gaza.

Internationally, Hamas sits alone in glory on the information battlefield. It has won the most resounding victory imaginable in the world’s media, in Western states, and on the Internet. . . . The stock of the Palestinian cause rides high internationally and will only get higher as Hamas proclaims a victory following this cease-fire deal. By means of political pressure on Israel, the international information campaign has kept Hamas in the fight, extended the war, prolonged the suffering of Gazan civilians, and has ultimately handed Hamas a win through the fact of their continued survival and eventual rebuild.

Indeed, writes Fox in a separate post, the “images coming out of Gaza over the last few days show us that too many in the wider world have been played for fools.”

Hamas fighters have been seen emerging from hospitals and the humanitarian zone. Well-fed Palestinians, with fresh haircuts and Adidas tracksuits, or in just vests, cheer for the camera. . . . There was no starvation. There was no freezing. There was no genocide.