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What Sodom and Gomorrah Teach Us About Hamas and Hezbollah
A Torah scroll. Photo: RabbiSacks.org.
There are times when mercy and compassion are essential, the very qualities that can help resolve difficult situations. But sometimes, kindness backfires — becoming not just unhelpful, but downright dangerous and counterproductive. The trick is knowing when compassion is misplaced.
One person who understood this very well was Sir Winston Churchill. Faced with the overwhelming belligerence of Nazi Germany’s advance in 1940, he stood before the House of Commons in his first speech as Prime Minister and declared, “You cannot reason with a tiger when your head is in its mouth.”
His strategy was clear: there had to be total, unrelenting resistance if Hitler and his thuggish violence were to be overcome. What Churchill recognized was that compassion for Germans and Germany in the fight against Hitler would be a dreadful mistake, and that the future of the free world hung in the balance.
General William Tecumseh Sherman shared this same insight, as his infamous “scorched earth” march through the South during the American Civil War vividly demonstrated. A pragmatic but devoted unionist, Sherman knew that anything less than decisive, overwhelming action — targeting both military and civilian resources — would likely fail to break the Confederacy’s resolve, prolonging the horrific conflict and deepening the Nation’s rift.
So, he took the hard road, leading a campaign so relentless it crushed the Confederate spirit and ultimately paved the way for the country to reunify.
While Sherman’s methods might seem extreme to modern sensibilities, his choices were grounded in a harsh reality: had he left room for the Confederacy to regroup, rearm, and resist, that would have meant decades of war and suffering that would have been far worse.
As brutal as it was, Sherman’s march was calculated to bring the suffering to a quicker end, because rebuilding could only happen after those intent on destroying peace were decisively defeated.
Similarly, Churchill understood that any attempt to negotiate with Nazi Germany would only prolong the threat, which was why he insisted that peace could only be secured by confronting the enemy head-on, often with military tactics that left devastation in its wake.
The Allied forces targeted strategic cities like Dresden, Rotterdam, and Berlin in overwhelming bombing campaigns that were aimed at breaking Germany’s ability to continue the war. As Churchill put it, there had to be “Victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be — for without victory, there is no survival.”
In Europe, victory required the calculated use of brutal force to dismantle the infrastructure that supported tyranny, paving the way for a postwar rebuilding grounded in true peace.
Now, let’s fast-forward to the present. The tragic events of last October 7th in Israel showed the world the cruelty that groups like Hamas are willing to inflict on innocent civilians without provocation or any attempt to try peaceful resolution first.
But even as Israel began its justified — and unquestionably harsh — military response, most international leaders could only bring themselves to offer cautious, watered-down support, and very quickly began to call for a ceasefire. The “support” offered was accompanied by the kinds of conditions that would inevitably blunt the effectiveness of what Israel was trying to do — namely, root out Hamas once and for all. Israel’s right to defend itself was affirmed with one breath and curbed with the next.
How can pure evil be defeated if misdirected compassion is continually used to tie the hands of those fighting it? By insisting on half-measures and quick returns to “stability,” the international community has only prolonged the suffering, allowing groups like Hamas to regroup and continue their cycle of terror. True peace demands the courage to confront and dismantle the forces of destruction—not giving them breathing room under the guise of compassion.
One can’t help but wonder how things might look today if, years ago, Israel had acted with Churchillian resolve in the face of Hamas, or had they, like Sherman, decided that the only path to peace was one that left no room for enemies to regroup. Instead, we’ve seen decades of half-measures, ceasefires, and so-called negotiations that have served only to buy time for Hamas to rearm and double down.
And it’s not just Israel. And it’s not just Hamas. For years, the Western world has danced around Iran, tolerating its proxy terrorism through Hezbollah in Lebanon, militias in Iraq, the Houthis in Yemen, and its entrenched role in supporting Hamas — and that’s before you consider their attempts to become a nuclear military power.
Iran’s regime is the most outstanding contemporary example of what happens when the world treats an existential threat with kid gloves. Imagine if decisive action had been taken against Iran when its terror network was still in its infancy. Imagine if the West had backed Israel, not with words, but solid, uncompromising support. Wouldn’t the Middle East be a very different place?
Which brings me to Parshat Vayeira, where we find Abraham pleading with God to spare the city of Sodom, bargaining with Him in the hope that even a small cluster of righteous people might justify saving the entire city. I have always struggled with this story. What is the point of the bible remembering Abraham’s abject failure to negotiate a reprieve for this doomed city?
But perhaps his failure is precisely the point. While Abraham’s compassion is admirable, and his willingness to challenge God heroic, ultimately, God is telling him that Sodom’s sins are so extreme, so corrosive, and so reprehensible that redemption is no longer an option.
God’s response is swift, and the angels sent to dispatch Sodom do what has to be done: they rescue Lot and his family and destroy the city until no trace of it is left.
That is the essential lesson here. Compassion has limits. God’s response to Abraham wasn’t dismissive or cruel. Instead, it was a recognition that certain evils cannot be redeemed, and therefore, no attempt should be made to try and redeem them.
Of course, God allowed Abraham to advocate, to hope, and to express compassion — we are always expected to explore compassion as an option. But in the end, Sodom’s fate was sealed. The destruction of Sodom didn’t mean Abraham had failed; even kindly Abraham had to learn that mercy, too, has boundaries.
As we look at the situation in Israel and the Middle East today, the parallels to Sodom and Gomorrah are impossible to ignore. Groups like Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and, in particular, their Iranian puppet masters, don’t just oppose Israel; they undermine regional and international stability and twist their own people into tools for a vile nihilistic agenda.
They have proven themselves beyond redemption, operating with methods that prioritize terror over any semblance of peace. And, just as Abraham learned, we too must realize that there are times when standing firm against such forces is not only necessary — it’s moral.
The incoming US administration’s cabinet and diplomatic appointments this week show that this message has finally made it to the highest levels, and the self-destructive mercy of those who advocate for a ceasefire might finally be overruled by those who have the greater good and a strategic vision at the center of their focus.
In Parshat Vayeira, we see that not every plea for mercy is good, nor every act of destruction bad. There is a place for compassion, and there is a place for resolve. And in a world where Sodom still thrives, knowing when to draw the line may be the key to safeguarding what we truly value.
The author is a rabbi in Beverly Hills, California.
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Canadian Man Sentenced to Jail for Antisemitic Assault on Jewish Couple After Synagogue Visit
People attend Canada’s Rally for the Jewish People at Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Ontario, in December 2023. Photo: Shawn Goldberg via Reuters Connect
A Canadian man has been sentenced to one year in jail and two years of probation after being convicted of assault in an antisemitic attack on a Jewish couple walking home from synagogue last year.
On Monday, the Ontario Court of Justice sentenced 36-year-old Kenneth Jeewan Gobin after his March conviction on two counts of assault and one count of breaching probation.
According to court evidence, Gobin — who has an extensive criminal record and was on probation for a previous crime at the time of the attack — deliberately planned the assault against the Jewish couple, driven by antisemitic hatred.
The incident took place on Jan. 6, 2024, when Gobin, riding an electric bicycle, approached four Jewish adults returning home from synagogue and deliberately mounted the curb to target them. He then began assaulting the two couples, hurling antisemitic slurs during the attack.
As he continued hitting the victims, he performed a Nazi salute and shouted antisemitic insults, including “Hitler should have killed you all” and “You should have died in the Holocaust,” striking one of the women in the process.
The sentencing came after a months-long trial, during which the court heard multiple victim and community impact statements.
Among several testimonies submitted to the court, Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center (FSWC) — a nonprofit human rights organization dedicated to Holocaust education and antisemitism programs — described Gobin’s attack as an “unprovoked, hate-motivated assault.”
“When expressions of hate are paired with physical acts of aggression, they pose a grave threat to public safety and social cohesion,” Jaime Kirzner-Roberts, FSWC’s senior director of policy and advocacy, said in a statement. “History has repeatedly shown that when this kind of hatred is ignored or minimized, it paves the way to more widespread and dangerous violence.”
“These acts are not isolated incidents — they’re part of a deeply troubling historical pattern whose gravity must be taken seriously,” Kirzner-Roberts continued. “Today’s sentence sends a strong and necessary message: hate-fueled violence cannot and will not go unpunished.”
As several other countries around the world, Canada has witnessed a surge in antisemitic incidents following the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
In 2024, the country recorded a record-breaking 6,219 anti-Jewish incidents, according to B’nai Brith Canada, up from 5,791 the previous year. Although members of the Jewish community make up less than 1 percent of the country’s population, they were targeted in one-fifth of all hate crimes.
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Yale University Leaves Pro-Hamas Hunger Strikers Hanging After Refusing Meeting
A Palestinian flag hangs over the doors of the Schwartzman Center with stickers covering Woolsey Hall during a demonstration at Yale University. Photo: Derek French/Sopa Images via Reuters Connect.
A pro-Hamas student group at Yale University has launched another disruptive protest to cap off the final weeks of the academic year, choosing this time to starve themselves inside an administrative building in lieu of establishing an illegal encampment.
“Hunger strikers have consumed nothing but water since Saturday,” Yalies4Palestine said in a press release explaining the action. “They have become hypoglycemic, are experiencing dizziness, faintness, extreme fatigue, inability to regulate their temperatures and concerningly low blood pressure, in addition to immense psychological pressure and stress.”
Yale administrators are refusing to meet with the students for a discussion of their demands that the university’s endowment be divested of any ties to Israel, as well as companies that do business with it, according to the Yale Daily News. On Tuesday, the fourth day of the demonstration, Yale student affairs dean Melanie Boyd briefly approached the students at the site of their demonstration, Sheffield-Sterling-Strathcona Hall, advising them to leave the space because “the administration does not intend to hold any additional meetings.”
A member of the Yale Corporation, the university’s board of trustees, previously met with a group of anti-Zionist students last September, to discuss their demands for the school to disclose and divest from any Israel-linked entities and military weapons manufacturers.
Now, however, Yale has no intention of holding another such meeting. School officials said that the latest hunger strike is being held in “violation of university policy,” noting that Yalie4Palestine was stripped of its recognized-organization-status due to similar, past transgressions — including an aborted attempt to camp out on the grounds of Beinecke Plaza in April.
In that case, the students eventually abandoned the demonstration after Yale’s assistant vice president for university life, Pilar Montalvo, walked through the area distributing cards containing a message which implored students to “Please stop your current action immediately. If you do not, you may risk university disciplinary action and/or arrest” and a QR code for a webpage which explains Yale’s policies on expression and free assembly.
The cards triggered a paranoiac fit, the News reported. Upon receiving them, the students became suspicious that the QR code could be used to track and identify those who participated in the unauthorized protest. “Do not scan the QR code!” they chanted in response. They decamped moments later, the paper added, clearing the way for public safety officers to photograph and remove the tents they had attempted to pitch.
This time, the students say they will not budge and are imploring their supporters to flood the phone lines of high-level Yale officials with calls demanding that they meet with the students.
Yalie4Palestine have provided the would-be callers a script. It says: “It is unconscionable that Yale administrators are more concerned about nonsensical university policies than the basic welfare of their own students and their complicity in the ongoing famine in Gaza. Yale must divest from military weapons companies aiding Israel’s genocide, end partnerships that normalize apartheid and occupation, and protect student protest rights.”
Yale University’s Advisory Committee on Investor Responsibility (ACIR) has before ruled against divesting from armaments manufacturers, saying in April 2024 that “it does not believe that such activity meets the criteria for divestment” because “this manufacturing supports socially necessary uses, such as law enforcement and national security.” The decision set off a raging protest which resulted in the assault of a Jewish student and the arrest of some 47 students who had trespassed Beinecke Plaza, where they vowed to abstain from food, as they are now, unless the university acceded to their demands.
The campus has seen a heightening of anti-Zionist and antisemitic behavior since Hamas’s invasion of southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Less than a month after the onslaught, the Yale Daily News came under fire for removing what it called “unsubstantiated claims” of the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas raping and beheading Israelis on Oct. 7 from an article written by Sahar Tartak. Published on Oct. 12, the column — which lambasted Yalies4Palestine for defending and seemingly applauding Hamas’s atrocities — was at some point afterward censored to no longer include a portion describing reports and eyewitness accounts of Hamas raping and beheading Israeli civilians. The paper later apologized.
Additionally, on the day of the massacre, Zareena Grewal — an associate professor of American Studies, Ethnicity, Race & Migration, and Religious Studies at Yale who describes herself as a “radical Muslim” — defended Hamas, saying it had “every right to resist through armed struggle” while denouncing Israel as a “murderous, genocidal settler state.”
In another incident, a pro-Hamas activist spat in the direction of Jewish students, a group which included Jewish civil rights activist and Yale student Sahar Tartak.
In December, Yale University students voted in favor of a referendum calling for the school’s divestment from Israel — a core tenet of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement.
“The referendum, proposed and written by the pro-Palestine Sumud Coalition, asked three questions. The first two ask whether Yale should disclose and divest from its holdings in military weapons manufacturers, ‘including those arming Israel,’ and the third asks whether Yale should ‘act on its commitment to education by investing in Palestinian scholars and students,’” the Yale Daily News reported at the time, noting that while each item received overwhelming “yes votes,” they equaled just over one-third of the student body.
The low threshold is, however, sufficient for the referendum questions being codified and passed as a resolution by the Yale College Council (YCC), which facilitated the referendum and spoke positively of it before students cast their votes. It also rings loudly to the school’s Jewish community, senior Netanel Crispe told The Algemeiner during an interview at the time, explaining that some 2,500 students voted for a policy aimed at compromising Israel’s national security to precipitate its destruction.
Yale University told The Algemeiner it will continue to foster intellectual diversity and a robust Jewish student life without discussing the merits, or lack thereof, of the referendum.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Most Jewish Voters Believe Trump Policies Fueling Antisemitism, Poll Finds
US President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance arrive for a ceremony with the 2025 College Football Playoff National Champions Ohio State Buckeyes on the South Lawn of the White House on Monday, April 14, 2025. Photo: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect.
Most Jewish voters in the US disapprove of President Donald Trump’s policy choices and have “negative assessments of his personal character,” according to a newly released poll.
A new nonpartisan group called the Jewish Voters Resource Center, which seeks to collect and disseminate data on Jewish voters, commissioned and published the survey, which was conducted by the polling firm GBAO Strategies from April 21 through May 1 among 800 registered Jewish voters.
Some of the terms which those polled most frequently applied to the president included “dangerous” (72 percent), “racist” (69 percent), “fascist” (69 percent), and, despite his administration’s efforts to counter anti-Jewish discrimination on university campuses, “antisemitic” (52 percent).
Respondents gave Trump an overall approval rating of 26 percent. This figure mirrors polling in recent years of partisan differences among Jews. A 2021 Pew poll found that 26 percent of Jews identified with the Republican Party.
The survey also showed continued worries about antisemitism, with 89 percent described as concerned and 62 percent “very concerned.” Antisemitism on college campuses also drew concerns from 77 percent, with 55 percent “very concerned.” The intensity of concerns showed a disparity with older Jewish respondents more worried than younger Americans.
The survey suggests that large numbers of Jews regard many Trump administration efforts to counter antisemitism as accelerants that will fuel more hate. Sixty-one percent said that deporting anti-Israel activists will make antisemitism worse, and 63 percent said that the ending of federal observance of Holocaust Remembrance Day will as well.
Last month, a survey conducted by the Mellman Group and published by the Jewish Electorate Institute found that an overwhelming majority of American Jews disapprove of Trump’s job performance thus far, including his efforts to combat antisemitism.
However, a poll commissioned by the Israel on Campus Coalition (ICC) and conducted by Schoen Cooperman Research that was published weeks earlier found that most American adults, including college students, support the Trump administration’s cancellation of federal funding to universities which fail to address the campus antisemitism crisis. The poll also showed strong support for Trump’s policy of deporting campus activists who allegedly express support for the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.
As for the latest survey published this week, 80 percent of respondents also said that billionaire technologist Elon Musk, head of the US Department of Government Efficiency, inflamed antisemitism with his unapologetic deployment of Holocaust jokes on his X social media platform and calls for Germans to move beyond guilt about the past. Vice President JD Vance also came in for criticism, with 76 percent saying his coziness with the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party would increase hate against Jews.
The pollsters also found that Jewish attachment to Israel had dropped to levels seen before the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led terrorist strikes across southern Israel. Following the attack, 82 percent of respondents expressed strong emotional attachment. Sixty-nine percent now hold such views. Generational differences also appeared in the poll’s results, with younger Jews (55 percent for those under 35) describing attachment to Israel while 79 percent of those over 64 did.
Seventy-two percent of those polled also believe that resuming military action in Gaza will make it more likely the hostages kidnapped by Hamas during the Oct. 7 onslaught will die, while the other 28 percent sees further fighting as a path to freeing the hostages.
The survey found Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at 34 percent positive and 61 percent negative, findings which the researchers called “consistent with his favorability ratings over the past five years.” Respondents also expressed similar disagreements over Netanayhu’s true motives for his military policy in Gaza, with 62 believing that he “resumed military action in Gaza for political reasons” while 38 percent regard his choices as driven by a sincere national security analysis.
“When Jews are looking at Israel and thinking about Israel, while they’re very attached to it, it’s very striking how negative the attitudes towards Netanyahu are,” said Jim Gerstein, a founding partner of GBAO Strategies.
:Part of what’s going on is that Jewish voters believe that the actions that the Trump administration is taking, statements that the president is making, statements and actions of others in his administration—that these things actually increase antisemitism,” Gerstein added. “It is very striking that a lot of things that are being done in the name of combating antisemitism, Jews in America actually believe that these things increase antisemitism, instead of reduce antisemitism.”
The survey includes a margin of error of 3.5 percent.
The researchers found that ideology in the Jewish community divided among 17 percent conservative, 34 percent moderate, and 46 percent liberal.
These cohorts then split into comparable partisan categories. In party identification, 59 percent aligned with the Democrats, 16 percent with the Republicans, and 25 percent rejected political tribalism, embracing an independent political identity. However, when GBAO Strategies pushed the independents to express which party they leaned toward, Democrat support rose to 69 percent, the Republicans increased to 23 percent, and the remaining authentic independents stood at 8 percent.
Jews saw greater unity in their negative view of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who 95 percent found unfavorable. They also expressed strong agreement in opposing making Canada a US state (93 percent), cutting funding for Medicaid (88 percent), taking over Greenland (84 percent), enacting a 145 percent tariff on all goods from China (77 percent), and transferring Palestinians to Arab countries so the US can control Gaza (74 percent).
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