The picture is no better on American college campuses. At George Washington University, student activists projected such pro-Hamas messages as “Glory to the martyrs” on the side of a building, and the police had to rescue Jewish students from a mob at the Cooper Union in New York City. For some insight into this insanity, I urge you to read this essay by John McWhorter, a linguistics professor and incisive critic of the perversions of the academy:

Some leftists are framing Hamas’s killing of 1,400 Israelis and abduction of 222 more as “decolonization,” believing they’re championing the cause of oppressed Palestinians. In reality, these leftists are condescending to them.

Mass murder, these leftists suggest, is the understandable consequence of Jewish “colonization.” Such a perspective is deeply insulting to Palestinian humanity. It implies that Palestinians are so controlled by circumstance that they lack agency. It implies that Palestinians cannot be expected to behave according to the same ethical standards of those who refrain from mass murder.

The Hamas cheerleaders are effectively saying: men butchered legions of people in your name. Hooray for them and hooray for you! Classifying Palestinians as “brown” people, purportedly enlightened souls applaud this savagery from their representatives—but from a position of unintended, but ugly, condescension.

McWhorter’s analysis put me in mind an essay Mosaic published in 2018 called “The Zombie Doctrine,” which is worth revisiting. Perceptive as McWhorter is, I wonder how much the sympathy for jihadists stems not from condescension toward Palestinians but from animus toward Jews.

Israel’s goals of freeing the hostages and defeating Hamas (the latter necessary to prevent further hostage taking) are to some extent contradictory, since Yahya Sinwar, the ruler of the Gaza Strip, will only turn over hostages in exchange for concessions. But Jacob Nagel remains convinced that Jerusalem should continue to pursue both goals:

Only consistent military pressure on Hamas can lead to the hostages’ release, either through negotiation or military operation. There’s little chance of reaching a deal with Hamas using current approaches, including the latest Egyptian proposal. Israeli concessions would only encourage further pressure from Hamas.

There is no incentive for Hamas to agree to a deal, especially since it believes it can achieve its full objectives without one. Unfortunately, many contribute to this belief, mainly from outside of Israel, but also from within.

Recent months saw Israel mistakenly refraining from entering Rafah for several reasons. Initially, the main [reason was to try] to negotiate a deal with Hamas. However, as it became clear that Hamas was uninterested, and its only goal was to return to its situation before October 7—where Hamas and its leadership control Gaza, Israeli forces are out, and there are no changes in the borders—the deal didn’t mature.