Two months since the beginning of war in Israel and Gaza

The latter is what Qanta A. Ahmed is focused on. She’s a Muslim physician and journalist, and she writes that she has seen many times the “monster” of radical Islam. This time, she has visited the sites of Hamas attacks and helped identify bodies; she has no doubt that “Hamas committed crimes against humanity in Israel on Oct. 7.”

As the world focuses increasingly on Palestinian civilians’ suffering in Israel’s counterattacks, Ahmed insists that Hamas’s initial provocation not be “consigned to the violent past.” She writes that Hamas leaders deserve to face trial at The Hague for their “genocidal” acts.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) agrees that Israel’s “war to end Hamas’s control of Gaza is just” — but adds that “it must be fought justly.” By his lights, that’s not what’s happening now.

Military operations are killing an “unacceptable” number of civilians, he writes, and Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is not sufficiently cooperating with U.S. efforts to deliver Gazans humanitarian aid. Rhetoric from some corners of Israeli leadership conflating Hamas with all Palestinians chills the senator.

Van Hollen, in an op-ed, calls on the United States not to support Israel — its biggest security-assistance recipient — in its resumed hostilities until it agrees to more accountability.

He also describes working on legislation that would require Israel to adhere to U.S. law, international humanitarian law and the law of armed conflict when using any U.S.-supplied weapons. This, he writes, “should not be controversial.”

This is a “critical juncture” of the war, he writes. It’s largely up to the United States to ensure that by the end of the next eight nights, things aren’t still growing darker.

Chaser: Hugh Hewitt hasn’t been particularly impressed with U.S. politicians’ defense of Israel, but he’s found one unlikely advocate to look up to: Hillary Clinton.

The inevitable Trump dictatorship, evitable after all?

Robert Kagan’s essay last week warning of our potentially inevitable trajectory toward a Donald Trump dictatorship certainly hit a nerve with readers — among them, we were excited to learn, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), who wrote a letter to the attorney general and secretary of state demanding Kagan be criminally investigated. This sets a new high-water mark for the impact we expect of our authors — if their piece didn’t merit calls for criminal investigation, was it published at all? It also confirmed Kagan’s hypothesis that Trumpists would immediately crack down on civil liberties if given the opportunity, bolstered by an acknowledgment from Trump himself on Tuesday that he would not be a dictator “other than Day 1.”

Anyway, as Kagan awaits a visit from the feds, he has delivered a Part 2 in which he slightly tempers his dark prophecy by saying there actually are a few things people can do to avoid a Trump dictatorship, particularly if those people happen to be Nikki Haley. But only slightly: “There is little evidence,” Kagan observes, “that the people we need to rise to the occasion are any more likely to do so than they have been for the past eight years.”

News from the home front

With these important stories out of the way, we must note that it’s walkout day here at The Post, as management and The Washington Post Guild negotiate a new contract. Here’s a characteristically excellent summary of what’s happening from “Washington Post Staff,” over on the news side. (You’ll notice that Washington Post Staff wrote this newsletter, too.)

We look forward to a resolution and to continuing our work under our bylines. Above all, we are grateful to you, our readers, for supporting our journalism and making what we do here count.

Chaser: As our “voluntary separation plan” intended to reduce staff count hits its deadline next week, Erik Wemple recently wrote about the bittersweet scenario under which younger employees at The Post can finally access a golden pension plan, a vestige of an earlier age. It involves them leaving.

Smartest, fastest

• Another observance today: the 82nd anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Dante Brizill, an author who writes on the Black patriots of World War II, would like to introduce you to one of the heroes of that day.
• Karen Tumulty watched the latest kids-table GOP primary debate so you didn’t have to and reports that it “seemed to be taking place in a different universe from the one in which Trump is sketching out a disturbingly vivid picture of how he plans to govern.”

It’s a goodbye. It’s a haiku. It’s … The Bye-Ku.

Washington Post Staff:

Solid byline in times of

Investigations

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