With Hanukkah having just ended, it seems appropriate to take a closer look at the years in Jewish history that followed Judah the Maccabee’s miraculous victory over the Greek-speaking Seleucid empire in 164 BCE. Lawrence Schiffman examines the wars fought by Judah and his successors—the Hasmonean dynasty—in the coastal territory known in the Bible as the land of the Philistines, and now known as the Gaza Strip:

From the breakup of Alexander the Great’s empire in 311 BCE, Gaza and the other areas of [Israel’s] southern coastal plain had been dominated in turn by the Ptolemies of Egypt and the Seleucids of Syria, two of the empires that emerged in the years after his death. Some soldiers from the area still called Philistia had joined the Seleucids in their war against the Jews. By then, the city of Gaza and the other cities in this area had been Hellenized, and the population was now a mix of the earlier Philistines and Hellenized Egyptians and Syrians.

Yet, apparently, the old antagonism between Philistia and the Jews, [described in the book of Judges and Samuel], still smoldered. So it is easy to understand why, as part of his efforts to obliterate idolatry, [Judah’s brother and successor] Jonathan made forays into this territory, destroying the pagan altars in Ashdod, burning their idolatrous images, and plundering the city.

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.