In his book Nazis, Islamic Antisemitism, and the Middle East, Matthias Küntzel argues that the Third Reich’s efforts to export anti-Jewish propaganda to the Arab world went far beyond the famous meeting between Hitler and the mufti of Jerusalem, or hate-filled radio broadcasts in 1941 Baghdad. One key piece of evidence he considers is a pamphlet titled Islam and Judaism, which employs such phrases as “free of Jews”—an evident borrowing from the German Judenfrei, a term popular with the Nazis:

Islam and Judaism is significant because it is, as far as we know, the very first document to construct a continuity between Mohammad’s confrontation with the Jews in Medina and the contemporary conflict in Palestine, thus linking the 7th century to the 20th. It is the first written evidence for what I call Islamic anti-Semitism and the forerunner of [the Muslim Brotherhood theoretician] Sayyid Qutb’s 1950 pamphlet Our Struggle with the Jews.

The first Arabic version of Islam and Judaism was published in August 1937 in Cairo by the director of the Palestinian-Arab Bureau of Information in Egypt, who is believed to have had many contacts with Nazi agents. In 1938 a German version of was published in Berlin. . . . Finally, during the Second World War, this brochure was printed and distributed in large numbers by German forces and translated into several languages.

The very date of the pamphlet’s publication and dissemination . . . contradicts the widespread assumption that Islamic anti-Semitism developed as a response to alleged Israeli misdeeds. It was not the behavior of the Zionists that prompted the publication of this hostile text but rather the very first attempt to implement a two-state solution for Palestine. This fact suggests that Jew-hatred was a cause, not a consequence, of the crises in the [Arab-Israeli] conflict.

Israel’s goals of freeing the hostages and defeating Hamas (the latter necessary to prevent further hostage taking) are to some extent contradictory, since Yahya Sinwar, the ruler of the Gaza Strip, will only turn over hostages in exchange for concessions. But Jacob Nagel remains convinced that Jerusalem should continue to pursue both goals:

Only consistent military pressure on Hamas can lead to the hostages’ release, either through negotiation or military operation. There’s little chance of reaching a deal with Hamas using current approaches, including the latest Egyptian proposal. Israeli concessions would only encourage further pressure from Hamas.

There is no incentive for Hamas to agree to a deal, especially since it believes it can achieve its full objectives without one. Unfortunately, many contribute to this belief, mainly from outside of Israel, but also from within.

Recent months saw Israel mistakenly refraining from entering Rafah for several reasons. Initially, the main [reason was to try] to negotiate a deal with Hamas. However, as it became clear that Hamas was uninterested, and its only goal was to return to its situation before October 7—where Hamas and its leadership control Gaza, Israeli forces are out, and there are no changes in the borders—the deal didn’t mature.