While Israeli hospitals and physicians have proved anything but callous when it comes to caring for infants born in enemy territory, Great Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) has recently shown supreme callousness in the case of eight-month-old Indi Gregory, who was removed from life support and allowed to die of a rare congenital illness despite the objections of her parents. Part of the problem, writes George Weigel, is Britons’ “obsessive and often mawkish devotion” to the “false god” that is the NHS:

[B]eing the object of misplaced worship by the British public seems to have convinced NHS doctors that they are, in fact, God.

There are doubtless circumstances when overwrought and distraught parents cannot face the reality of a terminal medical situation, but this does not seem to have been one of them. Great Britain has not (yet) embraced euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide. But its National Health Service personnel seem to believe that some of their patients have a duty to die, and if their relatives won’t cooperate, then the docs and the law will take control of the situation and see that the duty to die is fulfilled. Thus does the godlike status of the NHS express itself through its medical personnel.

[W]hen Indi was six months old, her doctors decided that they should withhold further “invasive” treatment. When Indi’s parents disagreed, the hospital went to the courts, where the doctors later changed their request and asked to be permitted to remove critical care, saying that it would be kinder to let her die. The parents continued their legal battle; Rome’s Bambino Gesù Pediatric Hospital offered to accept Indi as a patient, while the Italian government gave her Italian citizenship and said it would cover all costs; but the judge decided that a move to Rome was not in the baby’s best interest.

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.