In the U.S., much scholarship of the Shoah has its roots in the first English-language books on the subject, published in the 1960s. Israeli historical research, by contrast, flows from the works of a different set of scholars, much less known on this side of the Atlantic, with a different set of assumptions and priorities. The deans of this group were Yitzhak Arad, Israel Gutman, and Yehuda Bauer—the last of whom died on October 18. Andrew Silow-Carroll describes how Bauer, as a graduate student, came to the subject:

In a conversation with Abba Kovner, the poet who had led the resistance to Nazi rule in the Vilna ghetto, the young historian said he knew there was a larger story to tell but admitted that he was fearful of taking on a subject as monumental as the Holocaust. Kovner convinced him that there was no more important event in Jewish history and that his fear of the subject was “a very good starting point.”

Bauer was born in Prague in 1926, and with his family left Czechoslovakia on March 15, 1939, the same day the country was annexed by the Nazis. The family fled to Poland and Romania before settling in British Mandate Palestine later that year.

Bauer attended high school in Haifa and served in the pre-state Jewish paramilitary known as the Palmach. He studied at Cardiff University in Wales on a scholarship, returning home to Israel to fight in the 1948-49 War of Independence. (Welsh was one of the nine languages he was able to speak.)

In 1998, Bauer gave a speech to the German Bundestag in which he proposed three additional commandments to the Ten Commandments. “I come from a people that gave the Ten Commandments to the world,” he said. “Let us agree that we need three more, and they are these: thou shalt not be a perpetrator; thou shalt not be a victim; and thou shalt never, but never, be a bystander.”

In 2003, the Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, spooked by the American display of might in Iraq, decided to destroy or surrender his entire nuclear program. Informed observers have suggested that the deal he made with the U.S. should serve as a model for any agreement with Iran. Robert Joseph provides some useful background:

Gaddafi had convinced himself that Libya would be next on the U.S. target list after Iraq. There was no reason or need to threaten Libya with bombing as Gaddafi was quick to tell almost every visitor that he did not want to be Saddam Hussein. The images of Saddam being pulled from his spider hole . . . played on his mind.

President Bush’s goal was to have Libya serve as an alternative model to Iraq. Instead of war, proliferators would give up their nuclear programs in exchange for relief from economic and political sanctions.

Any outcome that permits Iran to enrich uranium at any level will fail the one standard that President Trump has established: Iran will not be allowed to have a nuclear weapon. Limiting enrichment even to low levels will allow Iran to break out of the agreement at any time, no matter what the agreement says.

Iran is not a normal government that observes the rules of international behavior or fair “dealmaking.” This is a regime that relies on regional terror and brutal repression of its citizens to stay in power. It has a long history of using negotiations to expand its nuclear program. Its negotiating tactics are clear: extend the negotiations as long as possible and meet any concession with more demands.