According to a recent report, 2020 saw slightly fewer anti-Semitic incidents than the previous year, but nonetheless had the third-highest number since 1979. Nathan Diament writes:

[D]uring the past year alone, 2,024 anti-Semitic incidents ranging from harassment to vandalism and assault were recorded—a mere 4-percent decrease from the all-time high of 2019. During COVID-19, far from dissipating, the assaults often shifted online: 114 schools, synagogues, and other Jewish institutions were the targets of anti-Semitic “Zoom bombing,” with perpetrators using Nazi symbols, other anti-Semitic messages, and verbal assaults to disrupt live video conferences and intimidate participants.

The FBI’s most recent hate-crimes report affirms these findings and notes that Jews remain by far the religious group most targeted for hate crimes, comprising 60 percent of them. Muslims, the second-most targeted group, faced 13 percent of such crimes.

There are several steps Diament recommends in response, including passing the Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act currently before Congress, and providing more funding to police:

Most local police departments lack sufficient resources to patrol our communities sufficiently in the face of current threats, leaving too many synagogues—as well as mosques, churches, and other houses of worship — to scrape together the money to hire off-duty police or private security guards to protect their congregations. If government’s first obligation is to keep its citizens safe, this is absurd. Congress must direct some of the millions of dollars in grants distributed by the Department of Justice to police departments to support increased patrols at houses of worship—particularly during times of heavy attendance such as the Sabbath and other holidays.

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.