On Yom Yerushalayim—which celebrates the liberation of the historic Jewish capital from Jordanian occupation—Haviv Rettig Gur laments how the holiday has become politicized and too often focuses attention away from shared national joy to internecine divisions. Gur looks to the day’s history, along with the poetry of Ḥaim Ḥefer and Yehuda Amichai, to recover its true significance:

In the immediate aftermath of the 1967 Six-Day War, Jerusalem Day, first formally observed in 1968, was a holiday of liberation. More specifically, it was a day of gratitude established by a people that felt itself to have been rescued from the jaws of death. Until the Six-Day War, Israelis did not really understand that they had become a powerful nation. They faced the run-up to the war with existential dread.

And that made the astonishing successes of the IDF something far larger than mere military victory. It was for ordinary Israelis an emergence from a long dark tunnel, a glimpse of the sunlit pastures of strength and safety. The first Jerusalem Day meant different things to different people. But at its core, it was for most Jewish Israelis a celebration of a sudden lifting of the great burden of fear, a discovery of one’s own power not yet sullied by the use of that power.

Three generations later, Jerusalem Day should be about more than remembrance and relief. It must be an expression of love—love not only for the abstract Jerusalem of our imaginations, but for the reality that surrounds us. It is a day that must turn our gaze to our own time and place, to our neighbors, to the real living city that must find a way to thrive amid and despite the whirlpool of sacred abstractions that surrounds us.

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.