Last week, Donald Trump hosted the rapper Kanye West—who recently made headlines with a series of anti-Semitic outbursts—for dinner at his Mar-a-Lago home. Also present was Nick Fuentes, a far-right provocateur, anti-Semite, and Holocaust denier. The former president has since sought to distance himself from Fuentes, and claims he was not aware beforehand that West planned to bring him as a guest. Jay Nordlinger comments on the incident:

When an ex-president sups with anti-Semites, and notorious ones, does it aid the normalization of anti-Semitism? I think it does. What presidents do matters, and what ex-presidents do matters. They are leaders. They are in the public eye. They set tones, for better or worse.

Following the dinner, Trump got a lot of criticism, true. But I caution: there is always a lot of criticism en route to normalization.

Earlier this year, two congressmen spoke at Fuentes’s America First Political Action Conference: Marjorie Taylor Greene, of Georgia, and Paul Gosar, of Arizona. Both are Republicans. Greene, I wrote, “was the star speaker.” And “the number-two star, probably, was” the organizer himself: Fuentes.

It is possible to make too much of anti-Semitism (and too much of racism and other evil things). It is possible to make too little of it. You don’t need to be looking for anti-Semites under every bed. Then again, many are jumping up and down on the bed. If I had to err, I would err on the side of making too much of anti-Semitism. An excess of vigilance is not a bad thing. The record of anti-Semitism is catastrophic.

Even if the agreement with Hamas to secure the release of some, and possibly all, of the remaining hostages—and the bodies of those no longer alive—is a prudent decision for Israel, it comes at a very high price: potentially leaving Hamas in control of Gaza and the release of vast numbers of Palestinian prisoners, many with blood on their hands. Nadav Shragai reminds us of the history of such agreements:

We cannot forget that the terrorists released in the Jibril deal during the summer of 1985 became the backbone of the first intifada, resulting in the murder of 165 Israelis. Approximately half of the terrorists released following the Oslo Accords joined Palestinian terror groups, with many participating in the second intifada that claimed 1,178 Israeli lives. Those freed in [exchange for Gilad Shalit in 2011] constructed Gaza, the world’s largest terror city, and brought about the October 7 massacre. We must ask ourselves: where will those released in the 2025 hostage deal lead us?

Taking these painful concessions into account Michael Oren argues that they might nonetheless be necessary:

From day one—October 7, 2023—Israel’s twin goals in Gaza were fundamentally irreconcilable. Israel could not, as its leaders pledged, simultaneously destroy Hamas and secure all of the hostages’ release. The terrorists who regarded the hostages as the key to their survival would hardly give them up for less than an Israeli commitment to end—and therefore lose—the war. Israelis, for their part, were torn between those who felt that they could not send their children to the army so long as hostages remained in captivity and those who held that, if Hamas wins, Israel will not have an army at all.

While 33 hostages will be released in the first stage, dozens—alive and dead—will remain in Gaza, prolonging their families’ suffering. The relatives of those killed by the Palestinian terrorists now going free will also be shattered. So, too, will the Israelis who still see soldiers dying in Gaza almost daily while Hamas rocket fire continues. What were all of Israel’s sacrifices for, they will ask. . . .

Perhaps this outcome was unavoidable from the beginning. Perhaps the deal is the only way of reconciling Israel’s mutually exclusive goals of annihilating Hamas and repatriating the hostages. Perhaps, despite Israel’s subsequent military triumph, this is the price for the failures of October 7.