The willingness of devotees of humanitarian or environmentalist causes to endorse the most vicious anti-Semitism has by now become evident to anyone paying attention. It is also nothing new.

In the late 19th century, hats decorated with feathers—and especially ostrich feathers—were considered the height of style among American women. Jews at the time played an outsized role in the trade in ostrich feathers, a fact that was not lost on the Audubon Society, which began the first major public campaign to protect animals. Jenna Weissman Joselit writes:

Alarmed by what they took to be the pillaging of America’s natural resources to satisfy the whims of the fickle consumer and horrified by the cruelty to animals that sustained it, a band of well-heeled women sought to protect the country’s avian wildlife by putting an end to the traffic in feathers.

That both branches, the high end and the inexpensive end, of the industry were manned largely by Jews didn’t help matters. Nor did the observation in a 1905 editorial titled “Aliens,” in Bird-Lore, the [Audubon] society’s house magazine, that the “foreign-born part of our cosmopolitan population are giving the Association a great deal of trouble and some hard work. They seem to have an inconquerable [sic] desire to kill something, and no respect for the law.” And if that weren’t enough to put you off your feathers, the notion that the “foreign-born” were somehow impervious to nature’s charms did the trick.

Once in the hands of the Audubon Society, it didn’t take much for the wearing of feathers to be construed as un-American.

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.