In the third game of the World Baseball Classic last month, a nineteen-year-old unknown struck out a thirty-year-old veteran. Such an upset would be noteworthy in itself, but what makes the event truly surprising is that the pitcher was an Orthodox Jew named Jacob Steinmetz, playing for team Israel, and the batter Manny Machado, considered one of the best of the Major League, playing for the powerhouse team of the Dominican Republic. (During the regular season, Machado is the third baseman for the San Diego Padres.) Elli Wohlgelernter writes:

It was July 13, 2021 [when] the Arizona Diamondbacks selected seventeen-year-old Jacob with the 77th pick of the amateur draft, a month after he graduated from high school. It was a watershed pick: Jacob became the first practicing Orthodox Jew drafted to play organized baseball, dating back to the first draft in 1965.

Arizona wasn’t worried about caring for Steinmetz’s religious needs when they drafted him. According to the scout [Alex] Jacobs, the senior vice-president and assistant general manager of the Diamondbacks, Amiel Sawdaye, is a practicing Jew . . . who explained the inside baseball of kosher to the front office . . . and assured them that it would not be a problem.

“In fact,” Jacobs said, “they called his agent right before they were going to draft him and said, ‘Listen, we’re going to accommodate everything you could possibly need to make this as comfortable as possible for you so that you can be set up for success.” And so they have. Whereas once upon a time, Jacob had to pack his mom’s sandwiches in a cooler bag when traveling to tournaments, frozen packages will now be shipped to the team from a catering company once a week to wherever Jacob is playing.

As for Machado, he proved himself a model of sportsmanship, autographing a ball for Steinmetz after the game with the words, “Great pitch. Keep working. The sky’s the limit.”

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.