The Moscow-based “World Without Nazism” (WWN) purports to be an independent organization dedicated to combating anti-Semitism and neo-fascism in Europe. In reality, it is a Russian-backed propaganda tool meant to defame leaders of former Soviet republics as the legatees of Nazi collaborators. James Kirchick writes:

World Without Nazism’s name harks back to cold-war days, when Soviet front organizations took on anodyne titles like the World Peace Council [or the] World Federation of Democratic Youth, and embroidered themselves in the general cause of “anti-fascism.” Blundering disingenuousness, however, did not go away with the collapse of the Soviet Union. . . . WWN focuses its energies mainly on the former Soviet Union, and has a particular obsession with Ukraine and the Baltic States. . . . The agenda of WWN with regard to those countries is to defame their governments—all resolutely opposed to Russian influence—with the “fascist” label. . . .

The difficulties that some post-Communist countries have had in wrestling with their Holocaust histories have necessitated careful work by researchers, scholars, and witnesses alike. But by perverting and politicizing the memory of the Shoah—digging into the Stalinist playbook and labeling anyone and everyone who disagrees with them a “fascist” or a “Nazi”—WWN has in fact contributed to the very problem it was purportedly founded to combat: it has trivialized the Holocaust.

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.