As a generation of Americans and Europeans with fewer siblings than their predecessors in turn has fewer children than previous generations, the result is that today’s children often have no cousins, or very few. Timothy Carney comments on the results:

Historically, in the West and elsewhere, cousins, along with aunts and uncles, have played crucial roles in family life. . . . “It takes a village,” as a wise woman once said, “to raise a child.” That’s an old African proverb. Historically, the “village” was extended family, capacious both vertically (spanning generations) and horizontally. In other words, the village is largely cousins.

Ask a modern parent which days involve the least supervision of his or her children, and it’s those holidays when little Bobby and Sue are too busy playing with their cousins to ask for anything. If we want happier children and less anxious parents, we need to save the cousin.

The decline of the cousin connects to another phenomenon Carney remarked upon a few weeks earlier: “a rising tide” of claims in advice columns, magazine articles, and so forth that “being expected to care for other people is traumatic or even harmful.” In particular, the argument has been made that it’s “vaguely sexist” to ask an older daughter to care for a younger sibling.

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.