For the first time in many years, Israel’s ḥaredi parties are not included in the governing coalition. As a result, they are unable to stop the current government’s efforts to reform the chief rabbinate—which include measures currently before the Knesset that would break the rabbinate’s monopoly on kosher certification. Haviv Rettig Gur examines the response of ḥaredi leaders, focusing on those who have suggested the most radical of steps:

On Thursday morning, a startling column appeared in Mishpacha, the most-read ḥaredi weekly. Penned by the Jerusalem deputy mayor Haim Cohen, a longtime [affiliate of the Mizraḥi ḥaredi party] Shas, it carried the blunt headline: “Religion and State: Is It Time to Separate?”

Given the government’s new reforms, Cohen argued, and the resulting decline in ḥaredi control over religious standards, perhaps it’s time to consider dismantling the coercive state religious apparatus altogether. [But] a single column by a single ḥaredi politician isn’t the point. It is the response to it that signals a new disquiet within the community over the ḥaredi demand to control the country’s religious life. . . . [I]t wasn’t the usual run of liberalizing ḥaredi activists who have taken to discussing seriously the idea that religion and state should, for the first time, be separated in the state of Israel. It’s the mainstream.

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.