On Friday, the former Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O’Connor died at the age of ninety-three. Appointed to the court by Ronald Reagan, she served from 1981 until 2006. Kelsey Dallas assesses her legacy when it comes to issues of freedom of religion:

O’Connor joined the majority in cases that enabled public money to go to private, religious schools. Those decisions stood out to Richard Garnett, a professor of law and political science at the University of Notre Dame, when I asked him to reflect on O’Connor’s religious freedom legacy in an email.

“She was a consistent vote . . . for the principle that the Establishment Clause does not require education-funding programs to discriminate against parents who choose religious schools for their children. She was, in other words, a key player in one of the more significant First Amendment developments of the last 50 years,” he said.

O’Connor, as well as Kennedy, seemed to feel that the government could find a way to give all faith groups equal access to funds and, in that way, avoid unlawful favoritism. . . . But in the context of religious displays or religious expression, it’s much harder for officials to treat all religions equally.

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.