The 1994 bombing of a Jewish center in Buenos Aires killed 85 people and wounded hundreds more. After interminable blundering, the Argentine government named five Iranian citizens as its prime suspects, but then made public a preposterous solution that compromises Argentinian sovereignty and ensures that those responsible will not be brought to justice. To add insult to injury, President Cristina Kirchner used her recent UN speech to criticize not Iran but Argentinian Jewry.

The reasons behind this abandonment of justice are several, writes Eamonn MacDonagh, but uniformly ugly. Among them are

the “anti-imperialist” and anti-American beliefs that are common in many strata of Argentine society, and particularly close to the hearts of some elements of the government’s political base. Those who hold such beliefs are inclined to have feelings towards the Iranian regime that range from a sneaking respect to frank admiration. Iran, they tell themselves, stands up to the arrogance of American power and is the sworn enemy of a nation which many of them regard as the acme of evil, i.e., Israel.

If there is to be peace, Palestinians will have to unlearn the hatred of Israel they have imbibed during nearly two decades of Hamas rule. This will be a difficult task, but Cole Aronson argues, drawing on the experiences of World War II, that Israel has already gotten off to a strong start:

The population’s compliance can . . . be won by a new regime that satisfies its immediate material needs, even if that new regime is sponsored by a government until recently at war with the population’s former regime. Axis civilians were made needy through bombing. Peaceful compliance with the Allies became a good alternative to supporting violent resistance to the Allies.

Israel’s current campaign makes a moderate Gaza more likely, not less. Destroying Hamas not only deprives Islamists of the ability to rule—it proves the futility of armed resistance to Israel, a condition for peace. The destruction of buildings not only deprives Hamas of its hideouts. It also gives ordinary Palestinians strong reasons to shun groups planning to replicate Hamas’s behavior.