On Sunday, news that a flight from Tel Aviv was about to land at the Makhachkala airport in the Muslim-majority Russian province of Dagestan led a mob to show up, some armed with knives, and search the incoming flight for Jews to attack. Fortunately, they had little success. Avital Chizhik-Goldschmidt puts the incident in context:

On October 28, the Flamingo Hotel in Khasavyurt, Dagestan was stormed by a group of men looking for Jews. On October 29, the Jewish community center in Nalchik was set on fire—along with an inscription on one of its walls: ​​“Death to the Jews.” In Cherkessk, on Russian Telegram, [a group-message app], videos circulate of locals calling for Jews to leave the country.

All these places are located in the Russian Caucasus, not far from Chechnya, a quasi-autonomous province ruled by the viciously anti-Semitic Islamist Ramzan Kadyrov. Chizhik-Goldschmidt adds:

Note that the airport pogrom occurred three weeks after President Putin’s all-too-evenhanded comments on the Hamas massacre of October 7. It came after Russia’s UN Security Council resolution last week, which avoided mention of Hamas, and days after Moscow welcomed a delegation from Hamas, led by the official Moussa Abu Marzouk. . . . This is not long after a Moscow-based cryptocurrency exchange, Garantex, transferred $93 million to Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which took part in the attacks on October 7.

Today, in the wake of the airport mob, the Russian press Secretary Dmitry Peskov has wasted no time in redirecting the blame and declaring that the airport attack was “Western meddling” intended to “divide Russia.”

But the Makhachkala airport scene was no backwater dream of a pogrom in some far-off republic. It is a whisper of something else, something far more sinister. That is, Russia’s attempt to direct its starved and war-devastated masses to blow off steam about the zhid as in times of old. It is the oldest trick in the book: let them focus on the Jew, not on the falling ruble and the rising cost of food, not on the failing war that has ravaged their sons. It is the Jew that is the problem.

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.