Last week, three Arab Israelis shot two policemen dead on the outskirts of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem and then ran onto the Mount, where they were killed by Israeli security personnel. The Israeli government responded by briefly closing the Temple Mount for prayer, reopening it first to Muslims, then to Jews. In addition, it proposed stricter security measures, with predictable results, as Shmuel Rosner writes:

[Israel] installed metal detectors at the entrance to the site to prevent visitors and ostensible worshipers from smuggling weapons into the place—as Israel suspects some did. Israel also intends to install cameras to monitor the Temple Mount compound. For some reason, the new equipment “fanned criticism and protests that Israel had unilaterally changed the rules regarding religious worship and tourist visits at the complex.” . . .

[This is] a change that Muslim authorities should have embraced, unless there is something they want to hide from the cameras or a reason for them to evade the detectors. In other words, ask not why Israel insists on installing new security measures around the compound; ask why the Muslim authorities respond to these measures with such rage.

The answer to this question is also simple. The metal detectors are truly bullshit detectors. [The fact is that] the Temple Mount is not just a holy [place] of worship—it is also, and at times even more so, a political tool with which to hammer Israel. . . . So now the metal detectors are the new tool [for Palestinian propagandists] to manufacture a made-up threat to the Mount. The ultimate goal of the detectors’ opponents is not to heighten security or prevent bloodshed; it is to delegitimize Israel’s rule of the Old City. . . .

Israel is the one concerned with security—but the other side is not. The other side sees the terror attack at the compound as an opportunity to further its claim against Israeli presence in Jerusalem. If you remove all the “settlers”—that is, all Israelis—and all “soldiers”—that is, Israel’s security forces—from the area, [the logic goes], there will be security. Simply put: no Jews, no bloodshed.

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.