Since the U.S. announced its decision to remove all its troops from Afghanistan by September, there is widespread fear that the Taliban will soon vanquish the national government. Having lived through the Islamist group’s rule once already, the country’s last Jew has decided to leave. Sam Raskin writes:

Zebulon Simentov, who was born in the 1950s, has remained in the country throughout a Soviet invasion, imprisonment, and the Taliban’s reign—but the group’s potential resurgence may be the last straw. . . . “Why should I stay? They call me an infidel,” Simentov told [reporters]. Simentov, who lives in Kabul in its only synagogue, said he might move to Israel, where his wife and two daughters live, according to reports.

When the Taliban, a Sunni Islamist group, ruled much of the country from 1996 through 2001, Simentov was imprisoned four times by the “disgraceful” movement, he said. They also tried to convert him. . . . At one point while in prison, the obstinate Simentov argued so vehemently with the then-only other Jew in the country, who has since died, that they were both booted from prison.

Jewish merchants lived and traded in Afghanistan since at least the 7th century, arriving there from nearby Persia—although a local tradition has it that Afghan Jews are descended from the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. For most of the community’s history, the largest Jewish population was concentrated in the northwestern city of Herat, where Simentov himself was born, and which was home to a few hundred Jews in the 20th century. Now Afghan Jewry has gone the way of many Jewish communities of the Islamic world.

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.