The wave of anti-Semitism is not confined to America. In Sydney, Australia, a Jewish man was recently assaulted by a mob of what Sky News calls “Palestine supporters” and severely beaten; he is now recovering in a hospital. In the same city, a mass protest occurred on October 9 where demonstrators chanted “gas the Jews.” Nor has Great Britain been spared. Stephen Daisley, writing from that country, comments on why so many young people seem to be drawn to anti-Semitism:

It’s not that the world is particularly woke to anti-black or any other form of racism, but that it is particularly unwoke to anti-Jewish racism. There is an empathy gap when it comes to Jews, a mental or emotional distance from their suffering that is either not present with other groups or not as respectable to let slip. This may be a generational phenomenon. In the world the baby boomers grew up in, the Holocaust was the recent past. The war loomed over the culture and, in the liberal West at least, the death camps became the ultimate symbol of evil.

The TikTok generation are coming of age in a world where Israel is no longer seen as the miracle in the desert, the return of a nation to its homeland in the shadow of its near extinction, but the racist oppressor of the indigenous Palestinians. They have no frame for understanding anti-Semitism because they have been taught that the world is divided into white victimizers and black and brown victims. Jews don’t fit into that formula, Israeli Jews certainly don’t, and nor do the Palestinians, but as the formula is all they know, it must be made to fit.

Jews are the last minority it’s acceptable to hate, and not just acceptable but progressive.

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.