According to the most recent report by the UK’s Community Security Trust, 2021 saw a 34-percent increase in hate crimes against Jews, yielding the highest number of cases ever recorded. Jake Wallis Simons reports on how the trend has reached the highly ranked public school in his genteel neighborhood:

A few months ago, a boy picked up his books and declared, “I’m not sitting next to the Jewish girl,” before moving to another seat. When she told me about it, my daughter, who is fourteen, said the kid had just been seeking attention. It was a one-off, she said. She didn’t want me to contact the school. So I decided to let it go; the lesson for her, perhaps, was that this stuff happens in life.

These days, apparently, a favorite school trick is to ask my twelve-year-old son if he’s “a Jew.” When he nods, the kids reply, “Heil Hitler.” It happens about three times a week, my son told me. Sometimes they simply ask, “is your sister a Jew?” and laugh. Or they hoot, “Jew, Jew, Jew,” when they see my kids in the corridor.

The school has a problem with swastikas. People think it’s funny to scratch them into tables and walls, and the teachers don’t do anything about it. There was a craze recently to draw a swastika on your hand in chalk and slap somebody on the back, so the imprint is left on their blazer.

When speaking to my son, I asked him if the kids behaved this way towards other minorities at school. Black children, for example. His eyes widened. “Of course not,” he said, a note of irony in his voice. “That would be racist.”

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.