Growing up in an Orthodox Jewish community, Celeste Marcus thought she knew something about dogmatism. Then she went to college:

College students, whether they are secular or religious, . . . have dogmas, cults, temples, scriptures, prooftexts, prophets, and methods of excommunication. Their loyalty to the group and its doctrine is often about the reward of belonging to a culture and a community. But inside their institutions of faith and ritual, they pursue the good life that their gods prescribe. . . .

I was raised in an Orthodox community, and so I recognized the religiosity and the piety. But I must note a significant difference. My denomination of Judaism, which calls itself Modern Orthodoxy, allowed for students to ask why we think what we think and why we do what we do. We were permitted to speak skeptically and express doubt. . . . (Granted, we still had to keep performing the practices, despite the overwhelming stream of underwhelming answers). The spiritual leaders—the good ones, anyway—are trained in a dialectical tradition, and they must show that they have mastered the vast and quarrelsome literature of the rabbis before they can claim, and are given, authority. They are trained to hold long, complicated conversations about hard questions.

So it was surprising for me to discover secular orthodoxies that are even more insular and disciplined than religious ones. The secular faiths that I see on campus demand certainty about questions that are too complex and too broad for certainty to be possible. They do not allow for questioning.

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.