In a discussion touching on religious violence, relations among Jews, Christians, and Muslims, and several other topics, Jonathan Sacks cautions against heeding those who prophesy the imminent death of religion. (Interview by Jack West.)

[T]he thesis of secularization was a belief much cherished by Western intellectuals since the 18th century, but even in 1831—as Tocqueville wrote, all 18th-century religious intellectuals believed that religion was dying—[it was clear that] the truth doesn’t bear that out at all. We are 180-plus years on, and Western intellectuals are still making the same mistakes.

In the end, there are three questions that any serious, self-reflective human being will ask: Who am I? Why am I here? How then shall I live? Those three questions are not and cannot be answered by the four major institutions of modernity: science, technology, the liberal democratic state, and market economics. Those are procedural rather than substantive and they therefore cannot answer those three questions. Since we will continue always to ask those questions because we are meaning-seeking animals, religion will always have a place in our thinking as social beings in our pursuit of meaning.

Examining the effects of Iran’s decision to launch nearly 200 ballistic missiles at Israel on October 1, Benny Morris takes stock of the Jewish state’s strategic situation:

The massive Iranian attack has turned what began as a local war in and around the Gaza Strip and then expanded into a Hamas–Hizballah–Houthi–Israeli war [into] a regional war with wide and possibly calamitous international repercussions.

Before the Iranians launched their attack, Washington warned Tehran to desist (“don’t,” in President Biden’s phrase), and Israel itself had reportedly cautioned the Iranians secretly that such an attack would trigger a devastating Israeli counterstrike. But a much-humiliated Iran went ahead, nonetheless.

For Israel, the way forward seems to lie in an expansion of the war—in the north or south or both—until the country attains some sort of victory, or a diplomatic settlement is reached. A “victory” would mean forcing Hizballah to cease fire in exchange, say, for a cessation of the IDF bombing campaign and withdrawal to the international border, or forcing Iran, after suffering real pain from IDF attacks, to cease its attacks and rein in its proxies: Hizballah, Hamas, and the Houthis.

At the same time, writes Morris, a victory along such lines would still have its limits:

An IDF withdrawal from southern Lebanon and a cessation of Israeli air-force bombing would result in Hizballah’s resurgence and its re-investment of southern Lebanon down to the border. Neither the Americans nor the French nor the UN nor the Lebanese army—many of whose troops are Shiites who support Hizballah—would fight them.