Last week, during a campus appearance, Kamala Harris was asked by a student about the recent vote in Congress to fund Israel’s Iron Dome antimissile system. The student stated that “it hurts my heart” to see America supporting a country responsible for “ethnic genocide.” While the vice-president isn’t known for anti-Israel sentiment, she made no effort to correct her interlocutor or explain the importance of America’s relationship with the Jewish state. Instead, she responded, “Your voice, your perspective, your experience, your truth cannot be suppressed, and it must be heard.” Jonathan Tobin comments:

Not everyone is always ready with the right response or quip in the moment when it’s needed. A lot of us have to think a bit before we realize what is happening in a conversation and then only come up with what should have been said until much later. But Harris—a quick-witted veteran attorney, prosecutor and politician—is actually known for her sharp tongue and readiness to use it on anyone with whom she disagrees. . . . It’s also true that politicians are generally not in the business of telling people “no.” They love to be loved and generally seek applause wherever they go.

Yet in order to understand the significance of an incident that loyal Democrats insist is a meaningless kerfuffle, ask yourself this question. What would Democrats have said if the former vice-president Mike Pence had responded with the same sort of blather about diversity and pluralism if he was confronted with a question by someone who expressed racist views disparaging African Americans or Hispanics?

More than an example of liberal hypocrisy, what happened at George Mason was likely an expression of the dynamic that currently exists on the political left these days. Harris went to the school to generate support for her party’s positions from student activists. . . . Speaking up for the Jewish state, under those circumstances, would have undermined the whole point of the appearance and alienated the very leftist base that is the cutting edge of Democratic-party activism these days.

Her instincts were to stay silent because that is what she and many others in her party think are in their best political interests.

Examining the effects of Iran’s decision to launch nearly 200 ballistic missiles at Israel on October 1, Benny Morris takes stock of the Jewish state’s strategic situation:

The massive Iranian attack has turned what began as a local war in and around the Gaza Strip and then expanded into a Hamas–Hizballah–Houthi–Israeli war [into] a regional war with wide and possibly calamitous international repercussions.

Before the Iranians launched their attack, Washington warned Tehran to desist (“don’t,” in President Biden’s phrase), and Israel itself had reportedly cautioned the Iranians secretly that such an attack would trigger a devastating Israeli counterstrike. But a much-humiliated Iran went ahead, nonetheless.

For Israel, the way forward seems to lie in an expansion of the war—in the north or south or both—until the country attains some sort of victory, or a diplomatic settlement is reached. A “victory” would mean forcing Hizballah to cease fire in exchange, say, for a cessation of the IDF bombing campaign and withdrawal to the international border, or forcing Iran, after suffering real pain from IDF attacks, to cease its attacks and rein in its proxies: Hizballah, Hamas, and the Houthis.

At the same time, writes Morris, a victory along such lines would still have its limits:

An IDF withdrawal from southern Lebanon and a cessation of Israeli air-force bombing would result in Hizballah’s resurgence and its re-investment of southern Lebanon down to the border. Neither the Americans nor the French nor the UN nor the Lebanese army—many of whose troops are Shiites who support Hizballah—would fight them.