On Friday, Buckingham Palace released its list of those who will receive knighthoods and similar honors from Charles III in 2022—which includes Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis as well as the president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews (Anglo-Jewry’s main communal organization) Marie van der Zyl, her predecessor Jonathan Arkush, and a few other prominent Jews who have been vocal in opposing anti-Semitism. Stephen Daisley observes:

They are not the only British Jews to be acknowledged on the New Year honors list but they have in common a commitment to confronting anti-Semitism and a record of making people in power take notice of the problem. In recognizing their efforts, the honors committee is expressing admiration for their public service and an affinity with the cause of fighting anti-Semitism. This is all well and good but it’s not enough. It’s not enough to give recognition or solidarity to Jews then go back to letting them tackle anti-Semitism on their own. Anti-Semitism and its suppression is not a “them” thing but an “us” thing.

The first six months of 2022 saw 786 anti-Semitic incidents in the UK, four in five of them taking place offline and one in ten involving assaults. Although this marked a reduction on the first half of 2021, another disturbing trend emerged: where age could be ascertained, one in five perpetrators were under the age of eighteen.

Commending Jews for standing up to all this hatred is like applauding when the woman you’re watching being mugged across the street gets a decent punch in. Challenging anti-Semitism is a moral imperative for non-Jews and one that is growing more urgent by the day.

Ron Ben-Yishai explains Hamas’s current calculations:

Strategically speaking, Hamas is hoping to add more and more days to the pause currently in effect, setting a new reality in stone, one which will convince the United States to get Israel to end the war. At the same time, they still have most of the hostages hidden in every underground crevice they could find, and hope to exchange those with as many Hamas and Islamic Jihad prisoners currently in Israeli prisons, planning on “revitalizing” their terrorist inclinations to even the odds against the seemingly unstoppable Israeli war machine.

Chances are that if pressured to do so by Qatar and Egypt, they will release men over 60 with the same “three-for-one” deal they’ve had in place so far, but when Israeli soldiers are all they have left to exchange, they are unlikely to extend the arrangement, instead insisting that for every IDF soldier released, thousands of their people would be set free.

In one of his last speeches prior to October 7, the Gaza-based Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar said, “remember the number one, one, one, one.” While he did not elaborate, it is believed he meant he wants 1,111 Hamas terrorists held in Israel released for every Israeli soldier, and those words came out of his mouth before he could even believe he would be able to abduct Israelis in the hundreds. This added leverage is likely to get him to aim for the release for all prisoners from Israeli facilities, not just some or even most.