Last week, two anti-Israel activists chased the chairman of the German Left party down a corridor of the Reichstag building and into a bathroom, where the harried parliamentarian locked himself in a stall until his pursuers left. The incident brought to a head a growing conflict between those in Germany’s largest opposition party who are willing to condemn anti-Semitism and those who support the destruction of Israel. Benjamin Weinthal explains:

On the one hand, key leaders such as [party chairman Gregor] Gysi, [Petra] Pau, MP Stefan Liebich, Klaus Lederer, head of the Berlin Left party, and Matthias Höhn recognize Israel’s existence and are willing, albeit sporadically, to confront left-wing anti-Semitism within their ranks. That may not seem like progress to an objective, detached spectator. It is, however, worth recalling that the Left party is the successor to the Stalinist East German state’s Socialist Unity party, which from 1949 to its demise in 1990 had flatly rejected Israel’s right to exist.

The second camp of Left-party MPs, on the other hand, is, from Israel’s perspective, a catalogue of horrors. Höger and Annette Groth were on the Turkish Mavi Marmara vessel, which sought to break Israel’s legal blockade of Hamas-ruled Gaza. Christine Buchholz supports Palestinian suicide attacks against Israel as a legitimate form of “resistance.” Party vice president Sahra Wagenknecht, Heike Hänsel, Sevim Dagdeln, and Buchholz refused to participate in a standing ovation for former president Shimon Peres on Holocaust Remembrance Day in the Bundestag, because of his role in Israel’s wars of self-defense. . . . According to critics, the war over the soul of the party will be determined only if the Left can decontaminate itself from anti-Semitism.

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.