On Saturday, both NBC News and the New York Times published articles about the hardships experienced by Gazans observing Ramadan during wartime. The Washington Post, for its part, focused on how the war has dampened the festive mood among the Muslim community of Yorba Linda. Before the holy month began, the White House had spoken of efforts to convince the warring parties to agree to a pause in fighting for the holy month. Robert Satloff points out that, historically, Muslim rulers have had no qualms about waging war during Ramadan:

The 1973 Arab-Israeli war may be known to Jews as the Yom Kippur War, but it is widely known in the Arab world as “Harb Ramadan”—the Ramadan War—given that Anwar Sadat dispatched Egyptian forces to cross the Suez Canal during the holy month. But it is only a relatively recent example of Arab or Muslim armies waging war during this month.

The Saudi newspaper Arab News provided a helpful primer on the topic in 2014: “While much literature has been written on Islamic conquests focusing on strategy, many victories occurred during Ramadan due to the focus of the Ummah on Allah Almighty and this removed fear from the hearts of the Muslims.” . . . More recently, take a look at the bloodthirsty Ramadan record of Islamic State.

For Hamas and its fellow travelers, waging war during Ramadan—including sacrificing fellow Muslims as pawns in the fight against Israel, inciting tensions at Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa mosque to trigger violence at that holy site and launching terrorist attacks against civilians—are all acceptable military tactics, as valid during Ramadan as they are the other months of the year.

In fact, Al Jazeera published an article in Arabic in 2021 glorifying the various acts of terror committed by Palestinians during Ramadan, which it described as “the month of jihad and victories in Islamic history,” during which Muslims exhibit “greater readiness for self-sacrifice.”

Yesterday I saw an unconfirmed report that the Biden administration has offered Israel a massive arms deal in exchange for a promise not to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities. Even if the report is incorrect, there is plenty of other evidence that the White House has been trying to dissuade Jerusalem from mounting such an attack. The thinking behind this pressure is hard to fathom, as there is little Israel could do that would better serve American interests in the Middle East than putting some distance between the ayatollahs and nuclear weapons. Aaron MacLean explains why this is so, in the context of a broader discussion of strategic priorities in the Middle East and elsewhere:

If the Iran issue were satisfactorily adjusted in the direction of the American interest, the question of Israel’s security would become more manageable overnight. If a network of American partners enjoyed security against state predation, the proactive suppression of militarily less serious threats like Islamic State would be more easily organized—and indeed, such partners would be less vulnerable to the manipulation of powers external to the region.

[The Biden administration’s] commitment to escalation avoidance has had the odd effect of making the security situation in the region look a great deal as it would if America had actually withdrawn [from the Middle East].

Alternatively, we could project competence by effectively backing our Middle East partners in their competitions against their enemies, who are also our enemies, by ensuring a favorable overall balance of power in the region by means of our partnership network, and by preventing Iran from achieving nuclear status—even if it courts escalation with Iran in the shorter run.