Yesterday, the Jewish Chronicle—the usually restrained, 178-year-old Anglo-Jewish newspaper—published a front-page editorial urging not its regular readers but the general British public to vote against the Labor party in the December elections because of the anti-Semitism that has engulfed it. Tanya Gold, among the many British Jews who have forsaken the party over its hostility toward them, describes the current climate:

“Jew’” is absolutely a loaded word again. I have been told, very recently, that the Rothschilds control Europe—at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting of all places; and by a socialist, naturally. This is normal. When I ask Labor members about anti-Semitism, they react with denial or, more likely, fury: why do we seek to maim the [socialist] utopia, and why do we not do something about Islamophobia? (I wish I could; but how does ignoring anti-Semitism further the anti-racist cause?) I know they think my testimony is suspect—oh, lying Jew!—but my antennae are set to peril, and I trust them.

I also trust that things will get worse; that the more [anti-Semitism] is tolerated, the more it bleeds across the culture. Do people really think that a far-right thug will pause before he punches a Jew and think: hang on, didn’t this rhetoric emerge from Stalin’s Russia? The left provides the script, always, for they are the pseudo-intellectuals writing their borrowed lies; the right, the fists.

That Labor call themselves progressives, and yet are imbued with the infection of ancient Christian Jew-hatred—the murder of God was our original sin—is . . . laughable. We [Jews] have returned to our settled place; too proud, in every sense, to assimilate; rather, we drift across the world to where we feel safe.

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.