Addressing a congressional hearing last Thursday, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez complained that conservatives invoke religious freedom only “in the name of bigotry and discrimination.” Such arguments, now commonplace in progressive circles, often point to the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) and its state-level equivalents as especially suspect in this regard. That the claim is scurrilous is demonstrated by the recent decision of a federal district court in Arizona in favor of a group of Unitarian Universalists who illegally entered a wildlife refuge in order to provide food and supplies to illegal immigrants.

In the past few decades, the Jewish state has vastly expanded its diplomatic, economic, and sometimes military ties with South and East Asia, while doing its best to stay away from the conflicts that divide the countries in the region. Daniel Samet surveys the potential for these relationships, urging Jerusalem to avoid deepening cooperation with China and instead to focus on cultivating further its alliances-in-the-making with China’s competitors: