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Of course, the sentiments of Hay and Palmerston are from long ago. It is likely that Joe Biden and the people around him feel about those attitudes the way John Kerry felt after Vladimir Putin went into Ukraine the first time in 2014: “You just don’t, in the 21st century, behave in 19th century fashion.”

National honor, in any robust sense, presumably strikes them as atavistic and chauvinistic, too simplistic and unyielding for the demands of our complicated times. Hamas, though, isn’t playing by 21st-century rules. It is acting by the same bloodyminded imperatives of barbarians from any time or place. We may think we are responding with great subtlety and sophistication, but we shouldn’t be surprised if they consider us weaklings and fools.

Rich Lowry is editor of the National Review.

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