In the 1990s, a German artist began to place cobblestone-sized brass markers on the sidewalks of German cities, each one commemorating a single victim of the Nazis who lived nearby. Now over 40,000 of these Stolpersteine (stumbling-stones) can be found throughout several European countries. The German town of Villingen, however, has repeatedly refused to take part. Lisa Lampert-Weissig writes:

It is . . . precisely the possibility of people encountering the history of Villingen’s Jews at every turn . . . that has led some civic leaders to reject the Stolpersteine, first in 2004 and then again at the end of 2013. Prominent local politician Renate Breuning, who belongs to the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the party of Chancellor Angela Merkel, carefully explained her opposition to the Stolpersteine in the local paper . . . in 2004. Breuning expressed concern that marking the sidewalk in front of specific homes might give the impression that their current owners benefited financially from the Third Reich’s theft of Jewish property. Noting that there were already memorials to Villingen’s Jews, Breuning further argued that it was time to stop creating new memorials and to allow Germans to go about their day-to-day existence without having to confront the past.

A decade later Breuning appears fed up with the controversy, and her careful discourse has devolved into vulgarity. According to the . . . Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, soon after the 2013 vote Breuning responded to a reporter’s query about the Stolpersteine with a crude sexualized expression, asserting that the controversy was of no concern to anyone outside the local community.

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.