For those who follow the endless cycle of media and social-media outrage, last week’s outburst was over the anathematization—in today’s lingo, “cancelling”—of certain works by the children’s author Dr. Seuss, which are no longer sold on Amazon and which are being dutifully removed from public libraries. This is but one example of the workings of a new breed of radicalism, which, to Peter Savodnik, is built on three pillars: “antiracism” (not to be confused with mere objections to racism), and an “opposition to any debate” about its own principles:

The anti-Semitism is the apotheosis of the antiracism. It cloaks itself, as it must these days, in anti-Zionism, and it was remarkable because, at first blush, it struck one as so off-topic. What did Israel have to do with [the killing of] George Floyd or equity or “white supremacy”? But it wasn’t off-topic. It was the logical outgrowth of a long and inextinguishable hate.

For a couple of years [after the Holocaust], the non-Jewish world (sort of) admired the Jews—when they were wandering and emaciated. But then [came] Israel, which was founded in 1949 and has morphed into the rationalization for the new anti-Semitism. Today, a good progressive doesn’t hate Jews qua Jews, or as racial inferiors, but as “colonizers” of “black people.” Exponents of a latter-day apartheid.

This [vision of the] Jew is just a version of the white-nationalist vision of the Jew: instead of imposing his will clandestinely, in the fashion of the Elders of Zion, he oppresses openly, in an IDF uniform, with his automatic rifle pointed at the head of a Palestinian. He is all-powerful, but instead of his power standing in opposition to “whiteness,” as the white nationalist understands things, it embodies whiteness. Viewed through the lens of the new radicalism, anti-Semitism is really anti-colonialism, and anti-colonialism is really antiracism in its most distilled form. Which means [that woke anti-Semitism] cannot be anti-Semitic, and if you say it is, you’re anti-antiracist. Which is the worst thing anyone can be.

Examining the effects of Iran’s decision to launch nearly 200 ballistic missiles at Israel on October 1, Benny Morris takes stock of the Jewish state’s strategic situation:

The massive Iranian attack has turned what began as a local war in and around the Gaza Strip and then expanded into a Hamas–Hizballah–Houthi–Israeli war [into] a regional war with wide and possibly calamitous international repercussions.

Before the Iranians launched their attack, Washington warned Tehran to desist (“don’t,” in President Biden’s phrase), and Israel itself had reportedly cautioned the Iranians secretly that such an attack would trigger a devastating Israeli counterstrike. But a much-humiliated Iran went ahead, nonetheless.

For Israel, the way forward seems to lie in an expansion of the war—in the north or south or both—until the country attains some sort of victory, or a diplomatic settlement is reached. A “victory” would mean forcing Hizballah to cease fire in exchange, say, for a cessation of the IDF bombing campaign and withdrawal to the international border, or forcing Iran, after suffering real pain from IDF attacks, to cease its attacks and rein in its proxies: Hizballah, Hamas, and the Houthis.

At the same time, writes Morris, a victory along such lines would still have its limits:

An IDF withdrawal from southern Lebanon and a cessation of Israeli air-force bombing would result in Hizballah’s resurgence and its re-investment of southern Lebanon down to the border. Neither the Americans nor the French nor the UN nor the Lebanese army—many of whose troops are Shiites who support Hizballah—would fight them.