In the many centuries that Jews have lived in exile, they have time and again left their homes when persecution becomes too severe—not to mention the instances where they have been forcibly expelled. Surveying this history, Tevi Troy sees an important lesson for America:

According to just-released FBI statistics, hate crimes in 2020 reached their highest level in twelve years. Of religion-based hate crimes, 57.5 percent were targeted at Jews, who only make up 2 percent of the U.S. population. These figures, along with disturbing attacks this summer on Jews by anti-Semitic thugs in New York, Florida, California, and other places, have rattled many American Jews. Though American Jews have long been comfortable in America, the sad history of world Jewry suggests that no home for the Jews can be considered permanent. Yet, as the countries that have expelled Jews or encouraged them to leave have learned, things usually got worse, not better, after Jewish populations departed.

Anti-Semitism has a long, ugly history, going back thousands of years. In the 5th through 7th centuries, for example, the Visigoths in Iberia mistreated Jews in various ways, including enslavement and restrictions against intermarriage. These restrictions redounded negatively upon the restrictionists. As Violet Moller writes in The Map of Knowledge, “an increasingly oppressive attitude to their subjects (especially Iberia’s large Jewish community) resulted in stagnation in almost all areas of life. Trade reduced dramatically, there was widespread urban depopulation, and culture shrank to such an extent that some historians have nicknamed them the Invisigoths.”

The new hate-crime figures, as well as the recent and insufficiently denounced anti-Semitic incidents, are worrisome to the Jewish community, and should be disturbing to the nation as a whole. America’s Jews will continue to monitor the situation closely. It doesn’t take concentration camps or expulsion orders to send Jews looking for happier pastures. All that’s needed is for a government and its police forces to look away as Jews get attacked in the streets. We should all hope that the day never comes when the U.S. has to say, as other countries said before it, “We should have kept those 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.