Unlike most countries in the Middle East, Jordan has diplomatic relations with Israel and allows Israeli citizens to enter its borders. Jordanian law, however, prohibits Jews from becoming citizens or owning property. A handful of Jewish students and aid workers do currently live there, but they keep their Jewishness secret. Avi Lewis writes about their lives:

Jordanian society has a peculiar attitude when it comes to Jews. Walking through Amman, one can find copies of Hitler’s Mein Kampf and the notorious Protocols of the Elders of Zion, translated into Arabic and proudly adorning the windows of bookstores and street newspaper vendors. . . .

Moshe Silverman [a pseudonym] . . . encountered overt anti-Semitism—not directed at him specifically but as a general antipathy to Jews that engendered a sort of camaraderie among people as it unified them in acrimony toward Jews. . . .

Silverman related a conversation he took part in at the local gym, which he visited regularly. He and the gym owner had become quite close, trading jokes and spotting one another at the lifting station. “One day I asked him what would happen if he saw that a Jew had joined his gym . . . ,” Silverman told me.

“He responded that, ‘if I meet a Jew in the gym, I will drag him out into the street and beat him to a pulp’—and he said it in such a friendly way, as if this was a perfectly normal thing to say.”

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.