In the wake of the Bolshevik takeover of Russia, most of the country’s ḥasidic courts quickly emigrated and sought to re-establish themselves elsewhere. The rebbe of the Chabad-Lubavitch Ḥasidim, Joseph Isaac Schneersohn, insisted however in remaining—despite the increasing repression of religion. In 1927, Schneersohn was arrested as part of a broader crackdown. Dovid Margolin tells the story of a Latvian parliamentarian who helped obtain the rebbe’s release, and his emigration from the Soviet Union:

Mordechai Dubin [was an] influential Jewish community leader in the then-independent Baltic state of Latvia . . . and an elected representative in every sitting of the country’s parliament, the Saiema, until its dissolution in 1934. Before that, he’d been a member of Latvia’s provisional National Council and interim Constituent Assembly. Dubin, a dedicated and pious Chabad-Lubavitch Ḥasid, . . . led the [Orthodox] Agudas Yisrael political party in Latvia, though Chabad had formally withdrawn from the worldwide Agudah organization in 1909.

On June 2, 1927, Latvia signed a trade deal with the Soviet Union. Though economically Latvia needed this deal much more than the Soviets did, the Bolsheviks had their own reasons for seeing the deal through. Yet, due to well-founded fears of Soviet encroachment on Latvia—after all, the country had been a Russian territory for some 150 years prior to the Revolution—there was strong internal Latvian opposition to the deal, and it still needed to be ratified by the Saiema. Dubin’s party at that point held two seats in parliament. When the rebbe was arrested less than two weeks later, the thirty-eight-year-old Dubin found himself in prime position to play hardball with the Soviets.

As Margolin goes on to explain, it worked.

If there is to be peace, Palestinians will have to unlearn the hatred of Israel they have imbibed during nearly two decades of Hamas rule. This will be a difficult task, but Cole Aronson argues, drawing on the experiences of World War II, that Israel has already gotten off to a strong start:

The population’s compliance can . . . be won by a new regime that satisfies its immediate material needs, even if that new regime is sponsored by a government until recently at war with the population’s former regime. Axis civilians were made needy through bombing. Peaceful compliance with the Allies became a good alternative to supporting violent resistance to the Allies.

Israel’s current campaign makes a moderate Gaza more likely, not less. Destroying Hamas not only deprives Islamists of the ability to rule—it proves the futility of armed resistance to Israel, a condition for peace. The destruction of buildings not only deprives Hamas of its hideouts. It also gives ordinary Palestinians strong reasons to shun groups planning to replicate Hamas’s behavior.