As revelation follows revelation of nasty comments by Labor politicians about Jews and the Jewish state, it has become increasingly evident, argues Nick Cohen, that the problem is not one of a few bad apples. Rather, he writes, anti-Semitism lies close to the very core of the party’s dominant ideology:

[The Labor parliamentarian] Naz Shah’s picture of Israel superimposed onto a map of the U.S. to show her “solution” for the Israel-Palestinian conflict was not a one-off but part of a race to the bottom. But Shah’s wider behavior as an MP—a “progressive” MP, mark you—gives you a better idea of how deep the rot has sunk. She ignored a Bradford imam who declared that the terrorist who murdered a liberal Pakistani politician was a “great hero of Islam” and concentrated her energies on expressing her “loathing” of liberal and feminist British Muslims instead.

Shah is not alone, which is why I talk of a general sickness. Liberal Muslims make many profoundly uncomfortable. Writers in the left-wing press treat them as Uncle Toms, as Shah did, because they are willing to work with the government to stop young men and women from joining Islamic State. While they are criticized, politically correct criticism rarely extends to clerics who celebrate religious assassins. As for the anti-Semitism that allows Labor MPs to fantasize about “transporting” Jews, consider how jeering and dishonest the debate around that has become. . . .

Challenging prejudices on the left wing is going to be all the more difficult because, incredibly, the British left in the second decade of the 21st century is led by men steeped in the worst traditions of the 20th. . . . When Jeremy Corbyn defended the Islamist likes of Raed Salah, who say that Jews dine on the blood of Christian children, he was continuing a tradition of Communist accommodation with anti-Semitism that goes back to Stalin’s purges of Soviet Jews in the late 1940s.

With the IDF engaged in ground maneuvers in both northern and southern Gaza, and a plan about to go into effect next week that would separate more than 100,000 civilians from Hamas’s control, an end to the war may at last be in sight. Yet there seems to be no agreement within Israel, or without, about what should become of the territory. Efraim Inbar assesses the various proposals, from Donald Trump’s plan to remove the population entirely, to the Israeli far-right’s desire to settle the Strip with Jews, to the internationally supported proposal to place Gaza under the control of the Palestinian Authority (PA)—and exposes the fatal flaws of each. He therefore tries to reframe the problem:

[M]any Arab states have failed to establish a monopoly on the use of force within their borders. Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, and Sudan all suffer from civil wars or armed militias that do not obey the central government.

Perhaps Israel needs to get used to the idea that in the absence of an entity willing to take Gaza under its wing, chaos will prevail there. This is less terrible than people may think. Chaos would allow Israel to establish buffer zones along the Gaza border without interference. Any entity controlling Gaza would oppose such measures and would resist necessary Israeli measures to reduce terrorism. Chaos may also encourage emigration.

Israel is doomed to live with bad neighbors for the foreseeable future. There is no way to ensure zero terrorism. Israel should avoid adopting a policy of containment and should constantly “mow the grass” to minimize the chances of a major threat emerging across the border. Periodic conflicts may be necessary. If the Jews want a state in their homeland, they need to internalize that Israel will have to live by the sword for many more years.