Not only is Naftali Bennett the first strictly observant Jew to obtain the Israeli government’s highest post, he is probably the first to hold such a position since the fall of the Hasmonean dynasty. David Stav, a leading religious-Zionist rabbi, comments on the implications:

Naftali Bennett’s election illustrates that Torah observance is not an inherent barrier to serving in the top position of the Israeli government. . . . Bennett’s religious observance will be on greater public display than it has been in the past. Certainly, that alone creates a great kiddush Hashem—a public exaltation of God’s name. And the very fact that a prime minister of a Jewish state is able to act fully within the guidelines of halakhah further exalts the Divine Name.

The Jewish tradition dictates that even the highest-level public servant, such as a king, or in this case the prime minister, is not above the law, and is subject to the same halakhic requirements as every subject or citizen. This includes upholding the halakhic principle [that] saving a life . . . takes priority over nearly every other matter of Jewish law. This responsibility to safeguard the primacy of life is manifest in an even more comprehensive manner when applied to the practice of a national leader.

On such grounds, writes Stav, Bennett would, for instance, be given a wide berth to violate the Sabbath to tend to matters of security and public safety. Stav sees such conflicts not as awkward problems, but as opportunities:

Though it would seem that the questions of how one can manage religious observance while the state makes its many demands spotlight the potential for conflict between the two, really the country should focus instead on the beauty of halakhic practice, and its dynamic nature. . . . Deliberations and debates that were once the purview of only certain rarefied elements of Jewish society are likely to become of interest to the broader [Israeli] public in ways that I firmly believe will allow it better to recognize and to appreciate the beauty and meaning of our halakhic-legal system.

As this newsletter noted last week, Gaza is not suffering from famine, and the efforts to suggest that it is—which have been going on since at least the beginning of last year—are based on deliberate manipulation of the data. Nor, as Shany Mor explains, does international law require Israel to feed its enemies:

Article 23 of the Fourth Geneva Convention does oblige High Contracting Parties to allow for the free passage of medical and religious supplies along with “essential foodstuff, clothing, and tonics intended for children under fifteen” for the civilians of another High Contracting Party, as long as there is no serious reason for fearing that “the consignments may be diverted from their destination,” or “that a definite advantage may accrue to the military efforts or economy of the enemy” by the provision.

The Hamas regime in Gaza is, of course, not a High Contracting Party, and, more importantly, Israel has reason to fear both that aid provisions are diverted by Hamas and that a direct advantage is accrued to it by such diversions. Not only does Hamas take provisions for its own forces, but its authorities sell provisions donated by foreign bodies and use the money to finance its war. It’s notable that the first reports of Hamas’s financial difficulties emerged only in the past few weeks, once provisions were blocked.

Yet, since the war began, even European states considered friendly to Israel have repeatedly demanded that Israel “allow unhindered passage of humanitarian aid” and refrain from seizing territory or imposing “demographic change”—which means, in practice, that Gazan civilians can’t seek refuge abroad. These principles don’t merely constitute a separate system of international law that applies only to Israel, but prolong the suffering of the people they are ostensibly meant to protect:

By insisting that Hamas can’t lose any territory in the war it launched, the international community has invented a norm that never before existed and removed one of the few levers Israel has to pressure it to end the war and release the hostages.

These commitments have . . . made the plight of the hostages much worse and much longer. They made the war much longer than necessary and much deadlier for both sides. And they locked a large civilian population in a war zone where the de-facto governing authority was not only indifferent to civilian losses on its own side, but actually had much to gain by it.