Of course, it’s not just governments that risk falling into moral confusion, and it’s not just large international organizations with outsized budgets that propagate it. At Harvard, a group of over 30 student organizations quickly responded to Saturday’s atrocities with a statement that they “hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence.” Similar declarations emerged from other top-tier colleges, like the 50 student groups at University of California, Berkeley who joined together to express “unwavering support for the resistance in Gaza.”

J.J. Kimche, a doctoral student at Harvard whose explorations of Jewish thought may be familiar to readers of this newsletter, takes the statements of his schoolmates seriously:

Not only have our fellow students failed to condemn this proto-genocide; they have justified and celebrated it. The authors and signatories of this statement, men and women with whom we share dormitories and libraries, have exposed themselves as worse than common anti-Semites. They are enthusiastic proponents of our slaughter, a vanguard of apologists for those who seek the extermination of the Jewish people.

This realization has grave consequences not only for Jewish life on campus but for the university’s existence as a community. How can we share dormitories, classrooms, and ideas with students who would makes excuses or even celebrate if we and our families were hacked to death by a Hamas terrorist tomorrow?

Harvard’s top administrators made no effort to assuage such fears. . . . Only on Tuesday did President Claudine Gay “condemn the terrorist atrocities perpetrated by Hamas.” She didn’t condemn the statement excusing Hamas, but merely distanced herself from it: “No student group—not even 30 student groups—speaks for Harvard University or its leadership.”

One might defend Gay’s pusillanimity with the argument that issuing statements about current events, no matter how horrific, is well outside the remit of university presidents. But nowadays Harvard presidents feel obliged to issue declarations about the war in Ukraine, the murder of George Floyd by a police officer, and much else. Why do they find it so hard to spare a few words to condemn the slaughter of Jews?

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.