Two weeks ago, a French high court upheld a decision not to try Kobili Traoré for beating and then murdering Sarah Halimi, a sixty-five-year-old Jewish woman, on the grounds that he was suffering from marijuana-induced insanity. That Traoré had shouted Allahu Akbar as he threw her from her window, that he had previously called Halimi’s daughter a “dirty Jew,” and other evidence that he was motivated by religious fervor and anti-Semitism did not figure into the court’s ruling. France’s President Emmanuel Macron has responded by calling for changes to the country’s laws regarding drug-use and criminal insanity. While doing so might be salutary, Melanie Phillips argues that it won’t make French Jews safer:

For the problem is not French law but France itself, where paralysis over dealing with Muslim violence against non-Muslims has made the authorities terrified of acknowledging its full nature and extent. For years, French Jews have been subjected to repeated anti-Semitic attacks and murders overwhelmingly perpetrated by Muslims.

Yet . . . French authorities and commentators have repeatedly sought to obscure the anti-Jewish nature of these crimes, ascribing them instead to “lone-wolf” attacks or the outcome of psychotic episodes. Mohammed Merah, for example, [who shot three children and a teacher at a Jewish school in 2012], has been widely portrayed in French media as a victim of prejudice, with his murders blamed on neo-colonial, anti-Muslim racism and discrimination. . . . When Sarah Halimi was murdered, the French authorities initially refused to classify this as an anti-Jewish attack. Indeed, it took two days before it was reported by the media at all.

And now the ruling by the [French high court] has also been barely reported outside the Jewish press and French media. . . . The reason for this indifference is obvious. The murder of Sarah Halimi and the attacks on other French Jews over the past few years tread heavily on some neuralgic left-wing toes. To acknowledge that people in France are being repeatedly attacked and murdered simply because they are Jews destroys the all-important fiction that attacks on Jews are motivated principally by hostility to Israel.

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.