Seventy-five years ago this month, the war-crimes trials of the leading figures in the Nazi regime commenced in the German city of Nuremburg. The trials concluded the following October, so that the first of the eleven convicts sentenced to the gallows—the propagandist Julius Streicher—was hanged on the Jewish holiday of Sukkot. Meir Soloveichik observes:

Every Sukkot, Jews read Ezekiel’s apocalyptic vision of “Gog and Magog.” The prophet describes an international axis of nations that sets out to destroy the Jews, whose ultimate defeat will be marked by the celebration of Sukkot.

This passage was brilliantly explained by Samson Raphael Hirsch, rabbi of 19th-century Frankfurt. The ancient tale of the Tower of Babel, he wrote, describes a pagan, tyrannical society that created an edifice in worship of its own power; it is just such nations that hate the Jews, who preach a God of morality and justice. By celebrating for seven days in what seems to be a mere shack, the sukkah, Jews signify their certainty that the ethos marked by Babel will be ultimately undone. The people who suffered most at the hands of tyranny nevertheless confidently predict that world history, which began with a totalitarian tower, will end in a holiday of huts, a defeat of evil, and a recognition of God as the true source of power and justice.

Thus a sublime symmetry emerges that the Allies could never have foreseen. It was in Nuremberg that [Hitler’s favored architect] Albert Speer had built the “Hall of Honor,” an enormous structure towering over the rally grounds where the Nazis gathered to celebrate themselves. Architecturally celebrated in Germany, the Hall had been inspired by the ancient altar of Pergamon in Greece. To watch film of the Nuremberg rallies in a pagan structure reborn is to see a prophecy pronounced by the 19th-century German-Jewish poet Heinrich Heine terrifyingly fulfilled: “The ancient stony gods will rise from the forgotten debris and rub the dust of a thousand years from their eyes. . . .”

In the end, the Nazi Hall of Honor, like Babel’s tower of old, was undone. . . . . It is fitting then, that the destruction of the Nazi “edifice complex” was to be followed, in the very same city, by a hanging of Nazis on the holiday of huts.

Yesterday, President Biden reportedly met with his advisers to discuss how to achieve a breakthrough in hostage negotiations. Meir Ben Shabbat takes a closer look at what the terrorists themselves are saying:

Khalil al-Hayya, Hamas’s deputy chief in Gaza, reiterated that this issue is merely one of several demands his group has put forward as conditions for a deal. “We stress that any agreement must encompass a full cessation of hostilities, complete withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, including the Philadelphi Corridor and the Rafah crossing [which allow Hamas to smuggle weapons and supplies from Egypt], unimpeded return of displaced persons to their homes, aid and relief for Palestinians, Gaza’s reconstruction, and a prisoner exchange,” al-Hayya stated.

This stance isn’t new. What stood out in its presentation was the self-assurance displayed by the senior Hamas official, during a week when he and his associates were expected to be on edge, fearing repercussions for the killing of six hostages. However, the reaction to this in Israel and the United States prompted an opposite response from them. From their perspective, not only did they avoid consequences for the heinous act, but through it, they managed to escalate tensions and internal disagreements in Israel, while also prompting Washington to consider presenting a framework defined as a “final offer, without room for negotiation.

Hamas assumes that a final American proposal will inevitably come at Israel’s expense. The primary pressure to reach an agreement is already being applied to Israeli leadership. Hamas faces no consequences for prolonging the process, and so long as it holds hostages, it can always resume negotiations from where they left off.