So far, American universities haven’t started burning books that students wish to see canceled. The Nazis, who famously burned the books they banned, for their own perverse reasons also sought to preserve them. Diane Mizrachi and Michal Bušek explain that policy, and how it resulted in six books bearing the stamp of a Jewish library in Prague turning up at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) library:

[The Nazis’] systematic looting of libraries all through Europe . . . resulted in the destruction and dispersion of an estimated 100 million books, and their celebratory bonfires of “un-German” books are well documented. While the overwhelming emphasis was on the destruction of Jewish books, the Nazis also targeted other literature they believed antithetical to their ideology.

Early on in the regime, however, they implemented a parallel strategy of building a core collection of Jewish works for their own scholars to study. They planned to build institutes where party scholars would interpret these texts and, using Nazi ideological perspectives, provide “scientific proof” of their racial superiority and justify their campaigns to demonize Judaism and annihilate the Jewish race. Amassing Jewish books for institute libraries was the first step in this plan. Even though these institutes and museums for “extinct people” were never built, Nazi agents stormed across Europe plundering millions of books and artifacts. They sent crates of loot to various centers for sorting and selection: preservation or destruction.

Among the thousands of libraries looted by Nazis was the Jewish Religious Community Library in Prague, . . . established in 1857 to accommodate donations of private collections from Jews as they became less interested in maintaining personal Judaica collections. It was opened to the public in 1874, becoming one of the first Jewish community libraries in Europe and among the richest. Its 1939 catalog, still in existence, records nearly 30,000 books, manuscripts, and periodicals. Like Jewish libraries everywhere under the Nazis, the collection was confiscated and dispersed.

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.