Something elementary: I regard the Israelis as exceptionally brave. Same with the Ukrainians. Both peoples face monstrous enemies. Both are fighting annihilationist forces. They should have the support of the world at large. But it has never been so. Never. Never will, surely.

The news photo, below? One of the most striking I have seen.

• Sometimes, Israel’s enemies hang back. They lie low. These periods can last years. There is quiet (relative quiet). And then . . .

If the case for Zionism needed to be made, before last month, Hamas has made it amply — along with people all over the world, rallying behind Hamas and spewing venom at Israel.

Not just at Israel, of course: at Jews, merely for being Jews, wherever they live: whether they are secular or religious, political or apolitical, left-leaning or right-leaning, etc.

Zionism says this (among other things): If our enemies are going to kill us, they’re going to kill us — but at least we will defend ourselves, with our own weapons in our own state. We’re not going to die quiet.

You know what one of the most radioactive phrases in all of Israel is? A phrase that will start, not just an argument, but a brawl? “Like sheep to the slaughter.”

Anyway, Israel fights back.

• A press release from U.N. Watch is headed “U.N. condemns Israel 8 times, rest of world 0.” As usual.

• Have a look at this young woman:

Will, one day, she be ashamed of her behavior as a college student? She may well be. It is to be hoped for.

• I sometimes write in jaundiced or world-weary tones. The truth is, I am capable of shock. Something like the below — it ought not to be. It ought not to be in America, or anywhere else.

Sarah Lawrence College, in Westchester County, N.Y., is ranked seventh on Hillel’s list of “Top 60 Schools Jews Choose,” because of its high percentage of Jewish students. But at the left-leaning college, students who support Israel say they can feel isolated.

“There was an active campaign on campus of saying that if you go to Hillel, you’re racist,” said Sammy Tweedy, a Jewish student from Chicago, who described himself as sympathetic to both sides in the conflict.

Mr. Tweedy said he began to feel particularly ostracized after attending a Birthright trip to Israel in 2020. “I did not have friends anymore,” he said. “And I would hear that people had heard I was a fascist or a Nazi or a racist. And I was like, ‘Where is this coming from?’”

The problems accelerated when the war broke out; he was studying in Tel Aviv. He shared Instagram screenshots with The New York Times in which students went so far as to tell him, “The blood of Gaza is on your hands.” . . .

The student, Sammy Tweedy, has decided to finish his degree in a study-abroad program. “I have a pact with myself that I will never, ever step a single foot on their campus again,” he said (referring to Sarah Lawrence’s).

(To read this story, go here.)

• At some point, the explosion of anti-Israel and anti-Jewish sentiment on U.S. campuses will subside. Things will return to “normal.” But some will never be able to forget — never be able to forget what this period has revealed about so many professors, administrators, and students. There is no “unseeing” it, really. No unhearing it.

• Will some of them grow out of it? Some of the students, I mean? Will they grow out of the anti-Israel and anti-Jewish miasma into which they have been led (or misled)? Some will. How many? What percentage?

A Twitter thread from Tom Nichols on the subject is interesting:

• Have a look at the below. I would then like to tell you a story.

When I was young — in my teens — I had a misimpression about the Arab–Israeli conflict. I thought it was akin to our civil-rights drama — America’s civil-rights drama. The Israelis were the oppressors; the Arabs were the victimized and oppressed. Menachem Begin was like George C. Wallace (or Orval Faubus or Lester Maddox or take your choice); his defense minister, Ariel Sharon, was like Bull Connor.

Flash forward, years. I read the book by Douglas Brinkley about Jimmy Carter’s post-presidency. Carter said to Brinkley, “The intifada exposed the injustice Palestinians suffered, just like Bull Connor’s mad dogs in Birmingham.”

In my defense, I had been a teenager. But Carter had been president of the United States.

• You know how people say, “Anti-Zionism, not antisemitism”?

• Don’t they know it? At some level, at least?

• I have been seeing a lot of the below in recent weeks. I wonder what percentage of the vote he would get — Hitler would get — in various countries.

• This is really good — striking. Momentous, even.

November 9 is an interesting date. Terribly interesting. It stands for something horrific: Kristallnacht. And for something magnificent: the Fall of the Berlin Wall.

• It ought to be remembered, especially in gloomy moods: These are Frenchmen too:

• Well said, Boris — really well said:

• A headline, from the Associated Press: “Nearly half of Democrats disapprove of Biden’s response to the Israel-Hamas war.” (Article here.) Spells trouble for his reelection. Would be an honorable way to lose. You stand by Israel in “its darkest hour” (as David Horovitz has called it), and your party penalizes you for it.

Oh, well.

• I agree with Bari Weiss. When you have ten minutes, listen to Hillary Clinton. Crystal clear, and utterly straight.

• Sometimes, the right person is in the right position at the right time. Deborah Lipstadt is a lifelong scholar of antisemitism and a bold opponent of it. I think I first heard of her from David Pryce-Jones — when she was tangling with David Irving, and prevailing. The State Department has a “special envoy for monitoring and combating antisemitism” — and she is it.

• Did you see this? I thought of Walter Cronkite — who, for months, ended the CBS Evening News by noting how many days Americans had been held hostage at our embassy in Tehran:

• I frequently have occasion to say, “Bret Stephens ought to be awarded a second Pulitzer prize for commentary.” In a recent column, he wrote, “More than 3,800 years of Jewish history keeps yielding the same bracing lesson: In the long run, we’re alone.” Not entirely. Not entirely. But I can understand how it can seem that way. And the case for Zionism — well, it’s closed.