If the Israel-Hamas ceasefire agreement really does herald the end of this war, then combined with the transfer of power in Washington, the political world will largely move on from its yearlong fixation with the Mideast. But we’ve learned some important things about American politics that should inform any attempt to go “back to normal.”

The Israel-Hamas war exposed, for example, the hypocrisy of the #MeToo movement. The more that evidence of Hamas’s use of mass rape and sexual torture mounted—including detailed and graphic admissions by Hamas terrorists who carried out these monstrous acts—the more progressive voices denied it.

We also learned the hard way that “speech is violence” contains some important caveats. The truth, we now know, is that as far as campus activists and Squad-affiliated members of Congress are concerned, Jewish speech is violence—and anti-Jewish violence is speech.

The struggle against racism is noble, which is why it must be continued without the participation of people who fill the streets chanting for the Houthis, a slave-driving and institutionally racist arm of Iranian expansionism, and without white kids from Brooklyn who scream “white imperialist” at a woman from Ethiopia because she wears a Star of David around her neck.

The fight for artistic freedom and freedom of speech will be an uphill battle. The publishing industry has gone to great lengths to suppress Jewish voices; the same is true of the music industry and Jewish performers. The banishing of Jewish authors from bookstores and films with Israeli characters won’t make it any easier, nor will the violent hounding of Jewish and Israeli speakers from campuses.

Speaking of which, reclaiming academic freedom might be the longest of the long shots, as loyalty oaths have come roaring back in America’s institutions of higher learning. Nor does the anti-disinformation campaign have much hope, led as it is by those who post only disinformation and blood libels.

I could go on, but the point is made. Of all the hypocrisies facing the Jewish community post-ceasefire, however, surely none stings more than the one regarding the concept of ceasefires itself.

Within Our Lifetime, a virulently anti-Zionist group, welcomed the ceasefire thus: “Gaza will always be victorious. From Gaza, the intifada was born, and from Gaza, the flood will continue.” UCLA’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine crowed, “Freedom will not come from negotiation tables; it is within the masses who dedicate their lives to liberation.” Columbia University Apartheid Divest insisted that “this is not time for us to rest! This victory is Gaza’s alone, we must fight and escalate!”

Most telling of all was the reaction in New Orleans—location of a recent mass-casualty terror attack by a man who pledged fidelity to ISIS. A local NBC affiliate sent a reporter out to get the pro-Palestinian and Jewish-community takes on the ceasefire agreement. Here is what they found:

“Haikm Murad, a local activist with the Palestinian Youth Movement told WDSU, ‘We must aim higher than a ceasefire, our goal is liberation and liberation is our North star. We owe that to all of the Palestinians who have been killed.’

“Aaron Bloch, director of the Jewish Multicultural and Governmental Affairs said, ‘The Jewish Federation of Greater New Orleans is eagerly optimistic that there will be a hostage agreement and a ceasefire put in place as it is being negotiated right now.’”

Welcome to being Jewish in Western politics in 2025, where “ceasefire” means an end to the fighting right up until Israel agrees to one, at which point it means “there will be blood.” As Elvis Costello would say, what’s so funny about peace, love and understanding?

What is a person to do with this information, that the only time campus activists mean what they say is when they say they want to kill Jews? Perhaps the most important lesson comes from Golda Meir. After the Yom Kippur War, Meir called for a gathering of the Socialist International to find out why the socialist governments threw her under the bus and left Israel to fend for itself. She said:

“We are all old comrades, long-standing friends.… Believe me, I am the last person to belittle the fact that we are only one tiny Jewish state and that there are over twenty Arab states with vast territories, endless oil, and billions of dollars. But what I want to know from you today is whether these things are the decisive factors in Socialist thinking, too?”

That was 50 years ago, but clearly not much has changed.

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