For decades, the canard that Israel tricks America into fighting wars on its behalf has been a favorite of anti-Semites of both left and right. Among those who have echoed it is Colin Kahl, who served as then-Vice-President Joe Biden’s national-security adviser and whose nomination for undersecretary of defense for policy is now being considered by the Senate. Kahl made the insinuation after Israel announced the capture of an Iranian nuclear archive in 2018, tweeting, “Let’s see what this is. But this sure has an eerie pre-2003 Iraq vibe to it”—implying, it seems, that Jerusalem hoped the U.S. would use the finding as reason to invade the Islamic Republic. Tony Badran comments:

How can we understand that Kahl’s response to reported news of Israeli spies uncovering a “huge amount of new and dramatic information on the Iranian nuclear program” was to retail, publicly, a patently false anti-Semitic conspiracy theory? The possibilities are finite. . . . Maybe the top-secret U.S. government intelligence that Kahl was privy to before 2018 was in fact blind to Iran’s nuclear program, and really did make it seem reasonable to assume that the Iranian documents were forgeries. If not, and U.S. intelligence had long corroborated Israel’s eventual findings, then Kahl’s use of an anti-Semitic canard to deflate the new revelations was viciously cynical.

From an American national-security standpoint, Kahl’s inability to tell the difference between friends and foes would appear to be matched by his failure to analyze intelligence material correctly, which might ordinarily seem like a prohibitive defect for the guy in charge of policy at the Pentagon. But these are not normal times. For Kahl’s brazen public supporters, the nominee’s empty toolkit must come second to his allegiance to the party line—which now apparently includes the idea that Israel lies America into wars.

It is worth noting that the Jewish state was a victim of the 1991 Gulf War, during which it bowed to U.S. pressure and did not defend itself against Saddam Hussein’s rocket attacks. As for the 2003 Iraq war, whose “eerie vibes” so trouble Kahl, then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon cautioned President George W. Bush against it.

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.