Considering New York City’s new plan to increase the enrollment of black and Hispanic students at selective public schools, Abe Greenwald concludes that at its heart the plan is a product of prejudice against Asian Americans, who constitute a disproportionate presence at these elite schools. The same prejudice, writes Greenwald, can be found in Harvard University’s attempts to limit the numbers of Asian Americans in its student body—a policy on which the Supreme Court is expected to rule in the coming year. And there is something familiar in the efforts of these educational institutions:

At Harvard in particular, the attack on Asian-American applicants is so clear, deliberate, and systematic as to be disturbingly similar to the most bigoted chapter in that institution’s history—its campaign to purge Jews from its student body throughout the early decades of the 20th century.

There are differences between the two episodes, to be sure. The limiting of Jews [in universities] was an overt part of a broad cultural wave of bigotry and anti-Semitism, while the campaign against Asian Americans is cloaked in the language and ideology of diversity. But in any event, academia—as represented in New York’s elite high schools and Harvard University—is once again singling out one group for exclusion and perpetrating a great sin against thousands of individuals who are poised to seize the American dream. . . .

Not all Asian Americans . . . are against changing the way things are done—[which is another way] American Jews and Asian Americans have much in common. Jews in large numbers continue to vote faithfully for a Democratic party that drifts ever further into anti-Israel activism and the functional anti-Semitism of intersectionality theory. And as the American Enterprise Institute’s John Yoo pointed out in the Los Angeles Times, 73 percent of Asian-American voters voted Democratic in 2012 and two-thirds voted Democratic in 2016. Yet it’s the progressive Democratic base that backs the discriminatory policies in New York and Cambridge. . . .

Liberal Jewish activists often wield the Torah’s command to “love the stranger” in defense of affirmative action. But it is also permitted to love those who are not so very strange to us. In their achievements against tough odds, their passion for learning, their stunning success in the United States, and the very obstacles they face, Asian Americans today are movingly like the American Jews of the past. Their cause is wrapped up in our own.

Why, ask many Israelis, can’t we just end the war, let our children, siblings, and spouses finally come home, and get out the hostages? Azar Gat seeks to answer this question by looking at the possible costs of concluding hostilities precipitously, and breaking down some of the more specific arguments put forward by those who have despaired of continuing military operations in Gaza. He points to the case of the second intifada, in which the IDF not only ended the epidemic of suicide bombing, but effectively convinced—through application of military force—Fatah and other Palestinian factions to cease their terror war.

“What we haven’t achieved militarily in Gaza after a year-and-a-half probably can’t be achieved.” Two years passed from the outbreak of the second intifada until the launch of Operation Defensive Shield, [whose aim was] to reoccupy the West Bank, and another two years until the intifada was fully suppressed. And all of that, then as now, was conducted against the background of a mostly hostile international community and with significant American constraints (together with critical assistance) on Israeli action. The Israeli chief of staff recently estimated that the intensified Israeli military operation in the Gaza Strip would take about two months. Let’s hope that is the case.

The results of the [current] operation in [Gaza] and the breaking of Hamas’s grip on the supply routes may indeed pave the way for the entry of a non-Hamas Palestinian administration into the Strip—an arrangement that would necessarily need to be backed by Israeli bayonets, as in the West Bank. Any other end to the war will lead to Hamas’s recovery and its return to control of Gaza.

It is unclear how much Hamas was or would be willing to compromise on these figures in negotiations. But since the hostages are its primary bargaining chip, it has no incentive to compromise. On the contrary—it is interested in dragging out negotiations indefinitely, insisting on the full evacuation of the Gaza Strip and an internationally guaranteed cease-fire, to ensure its survival as Gaza’s de-facto ruler—a position that would also guarantee access to the flood of international aid destined for the Gaza Strip.

Once the hostages become the exclusive focus of discussion, Hamas dictates the rules. And since not only 251 or twenty hostages, but any number is considered worth “any price,” there is a real concern that Hamas will retain a certain number of captives as a long-term reserve.