With the anniversary of the Hamas atrocities of October 7 falling on Monday, Gaza reduced to rubble and graves, 101 Israelis still in captivity and the streets of Canada’s cities routinely erupting in the worst spasms of Jew hatred in living memory, cause for hope is sparse and meagre.

But some hope can be taken in the evidence that after a year of war, Israel appears to be winning. Although backed by the torture-state alliance of Iran, China and Russia, the heavily-armed Islamist forces arrayed against the Jewish state, from Lebanon to Yemen and beyond, have not prevailed.