Jessica Mendoza (Congress reporter): Hi everyone, welcome back to the grind! Hope you all had a nice Thanksgiving weekend, and have fresh minds – and full bellies – to take on a new wave of impeachment news.

Ahead of the break we asked readers to send in questions about impeachment. Elliot Kim from Fullerton, California, hit on something that’s top of mind for many right now: “What does this actually change? Both parties seem completely entrenched in their respective narratives, with almost no common ground between the two. What are potential strategic reasons for engaging in what’s being called by a great many analysts ‘political performance’?”

Linda Feldmann (Washington bureau chief and White House correspondent): It may be a “political performance,” but the Democrats have no choice now but to proceed. You don’t start an inquiry without knowing exactly where it’s going — and as of now, the House will impeach and the Senate will acquit. President Donald Trump will remain in office.

But that doesn’t mean things will stay exactly the same after acquittal.

Peter Grier (senior Washington writer): I would say the performance produced a fact record. There were two channels of foreign policy to Ukraine, one directed by Rudy Giuliani. A number of U.S. diplomats thought that Ukraine had to start investigations to get things it wanted from the United States. Nobody testified that they heard the president actually say that, though.

Linda: So there was something for each side in the hearings.

Jess: Peter, what’s the significance of this fact record? Why’s that important, if we already have a sense of how this may end? 

Peter: The fact record is not good for the president. How bad, depends on your interpretation of the seriousness of his actions. Remember, removal is not impeachment’s only consequence. He’ll have an asterisk next to his name in history. That’s not nothing.

Linda: He would be only the third U.S. president in history to be impeached (fourth, if you include Richard Nixon’s certain impeachment, before he resigned). For Democrats, impeaching Mr. Trump is important because, in their view, he has openly abused power, and is violating the Constitution. 

Democrats also believe they gain politically by moving to impeach – they are pulling their party together at a time of great intraparty division.

Jess: And Republicans? Do they have anything to gain from any of this, if things go as expected?

Peter: I think the short-term political consequences could go many different directions. It could fire up Trump voters. The public might see it as overreach. Or they might decide Mr. Trump is in essence guilty, even if not removed. The whole thing is an “onward through the fog” moment.

Linda: Impeachment is certainly firing up Republicans – but Trump voters are already fired up. Each still only gets one vote. 

Peter: Mr. Trump’s approval ratings have been remarkably stable throughout his presidency, and that’s continued during impeachment. In that sense, it is just more of the same – everybody is already dug into their opinion of our singular chief executive.

Jess: That’s one line of thinking that’s really taken hold, but I think there’s some polling that shows there’s some folks who might be willing to change their minds

Linda: There are some voters who are still persuadable on impeachment and removal. Women support impeachment way more than men and are more dug in than men. Some 20% of men compared to 9% of women say their opinion on impeachment could change, according to a recent Quinnipiac poll. 

Jess: That lines up with broader trends around gender and the Trump presidency.

Linda: I think it would take a massive blockbuster revelation to move public opinion in a major way. See “smoking gun tape, Richard Nixon.” 

Jess: So perhaps in the end it comes back to the long-term historical implications, and the more imminent political ones (i.e., 2020). What do we know about how President Bill Clinton’s impeachment affected politics after the fact? 

Linda: Things pretty much went back to normal, because it served the interests of both parties for that to happen. Longer term, the Republicans won the 2000 presidential election. Impeachment could have been a factor there.

Peter: In that sense, things did go back to normal. But in another, the Clinton impeachment changed what “normal” was. Mr. Clinton himself tried really hard to focus on day-to-day business, and he continued to do that. Without impeachment, would he have been less disciplined? Al Gore felt he had to show that he wasn’t aligned too closely with his boss, and didn’t ask for Mr. Clinton’s political help in 2000 – which he needed.

So who knows? That’s the “onward through the fog” effect I was talking about.

Linda: Yes – I agree. Mr. Clinton was furious that Mr. Gore distanced himself. Mr. Clinton was great at “rallying the troops.” Mr. Gore, not so much. Some people argue that that cost Mr. Gore the election. 

Jess: The difference, of course, is that Mr. Trump is running for reelection – not something we’ve seen before. But regardless, the results of impeachment will continue to shape the idea of what is politically “normal,” which is already something the country has been wrestling with since Election Day 2016.

Linda: I agree. We’re seeing a “normalization” of impeachment.

Jess: How might timing considerations affect the way impeachment plays out from here?

Peter: That’s a big question. Do Democrats continue to move quickly toward an impeachment vote? They’re on track to wrap up around Christmas. Or do they extend it? 

Jess: They’re pretty much hitting the ground running. This week, the House Intelligence Committee is set to review, and then vote on, the report they’re compiling. That vote, scheduled for Tuesday, will determine whether or not to send the whole matter over to the House Judiciary Committee, which is in charge of drafting articles of impeachment.

Peter: Judiciary is already set to begin hearings this week. The first is a panel of academic impeachment experts.

Linda: Is that just throat-clearing, or will anything serious come of that?

Jess: I’ve heard it said that this hearing is sort of an appetizer to the main course.

Linda: Perhaps a show of partisanship on each side? Judiciary is a much livelier bunch than the House Intelligence Committee.

Peter: Yes, I think it will be as much brick-throwing as throat-clearing. 

Jess: But the timing is tough for Democrats, with only a few weeks left in the year. Is there any reason they need to get all this done before the year ends?

Linda: They don’t want a Senate impeachment trial to crowd out the run-up to the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary, which are two months away. That would keep some key senators stuck in Washington, rather than out campaigning.

Jess: So we’re back to politics – and the promise of a very full legislative calendar in the coming weeks. (And that’s not even considering the fact that current government funding ends Dec. 20! Congress needs to come up with a deal for that, too.)

Peter: Democrats also don’t want the eventual nominee to be typed as the impeachment candidate. They want to make 2020 about other stuff, like health care. 

Jess: Makes sense – it’s how the party won the House in 2018. What will you be watching most closely in the coming weeks?

Peter: Right now, I am paying close attention to how partisans are already picking apart the testimony that has been given. Some people have contradicted each other, or said stuff that may not (or may) be credible. There’s a chance that becomes an issue in further hearings.

If the House votes to impeach, the Senate trial that follows will likely involve testimony about alleged misdeeds of Joe Biden and his son, and alleged Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election. It is going to be very interesting to see who gets called to deliver that testimony and what they say.

Jess: And whether the White House will even participate!

Peter: Right! They’ve turned down the opportunity to participate in Wednesday’s Judiciary hearing. But they’ve left open the possibility of joining in down the line in the House. And in the Senate, the GOP will control the proceedings.

Jess: So, just to sum up what to keep an eye on: possible fireworks as Judiciary picks up the mantle; who else will be called to testify; and how the Senate may decide to manage the proceedings if (and when) the House votes to impeach. It’ll be a busy few weeks in Washington.

Peter: Yes, hardly time for Christmas shopping! By the way, I recommend tree ornaments from the White House Historical Association – they have one for each administration. They’re great for political junkies.

For all of our impeachment coverage, check out and bookmark csmonitor.com/impeachment.

This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity and length.

When Daniel Goffart and Ulrike Demmer published their biography of Dr. Ursula von der Leyen five years ago, the reason for their interest in Germany’s then-defense minister was clear from the book’s title: “The Chancellor in Waiting.”

Now their publisher is rushing out a new edition, titled simply “Ursula von der Leyen.” She is not going to be Angela Merkel’s successor, as her biographers had expected. Instead, to continent-wide surprise, Dr. von der Leyen has become president of the European Commission, her term having started on Dec. 1.

Dr. von der Leyen emerged unexpectedly as a compromise presidential nominee in July, breaking an EU summit deadlock over how to share out the bloc’s top jobs. She is taking over at a delicate moment, with the union’s 28 members divided over issues such as immigration and climate change, and Britain expected to pull out of the EU early next year. 

As president of the commission she will shape the EU’s policy agenda and sit atop the institution that supervises member states’ budgets, handles international trade negotiations, and acts as a competition watchdog.

But Dr. von der Leyen, the first woman to take the European Union’s top job, has impeccable credentials for the post, observers say. She was born in Brussels where her father was one of the pioneer pan-European diplomats, she speaks fluent English and French, and in her ministerial career she has forged close ties with Germany’s neighbors.

“She doesn’t just believe in Europe, she embodies that and radiates it,” says Jan Techau, a political analyst at The German Marshall Fund of the United States think tank in Berlin. “That is a huge part of the deal.”

Dragging her party into the 21st century

Dr. von der Leyen arrives in Brussels with the reputation of a resilient and determined survivor, the only minister to have served in all of Chancellor Merkel’s cabinets since 2005 (while raising seven children).

She has politics in her blood. Her father became state premier of Lower Saxony and Ursula was his favorite daughter, says Mr. Goffart. “She would sit next to him and follow his discussions with his political visitors. She was infected with politics from childhood.”

But she did not immediately choose a political career. She studied economics and then medicine, going on to practice as a gynecologist. Only when she was 42 did she follow in her father’s footsteps.

She may have started late, but she moved fast, propelled by her famous pedigree, her TV-friendly style, and her appetite for work. No sooner had she won her first election to the state parliament in Lower Saxony than she was made a state minister. Two years later Ms. Merkel tapped her to be family affairs minister in her first government.

In that job, and later as labor minister, she made a name for herself as a briskly modern reformer dragging her party, the center-right Christian Democratic Union, kicking and screaming into the 21st century.

The CDU was largely a party of old white men who thought a woman’s role should be limited to “kinder, küche, kirche” – children, kitchen, church – says Mr. Goffart. “Merkel and von der Leyen abolished that.”

Hannibal Hanschke/Reuters

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen attend the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party congress in Leipzig, Germany, Nov. 22, 2019. The general perception in Germany three months ago was that Ms. von der Leyen's political career appeared to be reaching its end.

Among Dr. von der Leyen’s hallmark policies with a strong feminist flavor: providing daycare for all infants over 12 months, two months’ paternity leave for new fathers, and women’s quotas in the boardroom (though parliament voted this down). She also supported same-sex marriage.

Such reforms “were a very important cornerstone of her career,” says Mr. Goffart.

Though she comes from a conservative background, “she is on the progressive wing of the CDU,” says Mr. Techau. “She is not a conservative hardliner.”

Dr. von der Leyen herself has spoken of an “inner freedom” that she acquired in London during a year studying at the London School of Economics in the late 1970s, although she also admitted, in an interview with the German weekly “Zeit,” that “I lived much more than I studied.

“London was the epitome of modernity: freedom, the joy of life, trying everything,” she recalled in the interview. “For me, coming from the rather monotonous, white Germany, that was fascinating.”

She also has fond memories of her years in California, where she lived when her husband was teaching at Stanford University, Mr. Goffart says. “She found Americans much more tolerant of noisy kids than Germans. She said it was a lot easier to live with children there.”

While her years abroad may have given Dr. von der Leyen an international outlook, she honed her political skills in Germany, where negotiation and compromise form the bedrock of political life. “That’s her strength,” says Mr. Goffart. “She is used to finding compromises and that’s what you need in the EU.”

“A little over the top”

Already Dr. von der Leyen has shown signs of her inclination to be a conciliator, coming up with a policy platform striving for balance, that offers something to as many competing interest groups as possible.

But she is by no means a pushover, argues Mr. Techau. When she took over the Defense Ministry soon after Berlin abolished conscription, he recalls, she brought in measures to make military life more family friendly so as to attract more volunteers. “Old soldiers and pundits gave her a lot of stick for that, but she showed no nerves and it paid off,” he recalls.

Her public image, he adds, is of a “strong-minded” woman. “There is a strictness to her, a directness, even a certain hardness.”

Dr. von der Leyen has also attracted criticism from CDU colleagues for grandstanding, reveling in photo ops that advance her own career and “sometimes going a little over the top,” explains Mr. Goffart, such as when she visited a German Air Force base looking like Tom Cruise, in “Top Gun”-style aviator sunglasses.

If such behavior has made her enemies in her own party, her performance at the Defense Ministry – where she had several run-ins with the top military brass – has disappointed many Germans; she left office as the second least popular minster in the cabinet. “She was a falling star,” says Dr. Gero Neugebauer, who teaches politics at the Free University of Berlin. “She started strong and ended weak. But she survived.”

The general perception that she had failed at the Defense Ministry, however, put an end to her ambition to succeed her boss, Ms. Merkel, and three months ago her political career appeared to be reaching its end.

“Perhaps she was surprised by her good luck,” says Mr. Goffart. “I think she must be really happy now to have a chance that she never expected.”

The summer heat here scorches Republicans and Democrats with equal ferocity. Jacob’s Well and Blue Hole, two of the best natural swimming holes in the state, are thus fitting landmarks for this small city.

When temperatures and emotions run high, Wimberley, Texas, is where people come to cool off.

Wimberley’s location also reflects its political balance. A short drive from both the rapidly urbanizing Interstate 35 corridor and the rural Hill Country, Wimberley, population 3,000, is as close to 50-50 politically as you can get in America these days, residents say.

But like much of the rest of the country, polarization has seeped into political debates here.

The week before Thanksgiving, two dozen locals gathered at a church for a workshop organized by Better Angels Central Texas, a local chapter of a national organization working to depolarize America and promote civil discourse.

“We’re not trying to paper over disagreements or get people to necessarily moderate their opinions,” says Ciaran O’Connor, a spokesperson for Better Angels. “We’re trying to get people to build a little bit of trust and understanding.”

Better Angels is one of a number of similar initiatives underway across the country. But a glance at the current state of polarization in the U.S. illustrates the scale of the task ahead:

• A 2016 Pew poll found that 47% of Republicans viewed Democrats as more “immoral” than other Americans, while 35% of Democrats held the same view of Republicans.
• Thanksgiving dinners have gotten shorter since the 2016 election, one 2018 study found, with 34 million hours of crosspartisan discourse lost that year.
• 53% of Americans found it “stressful and frustrating” to have political conversations with people they disagree with, a 2018 Pew survey reported, up from 46% in 2016.

Jill DeTemple, a professor in the Religious Studies department at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, has been trying to do similar work in her classroom, using “reflective structured dialogues” (RSDs) to build empathy and curiosity in how students discuss contentious issues.

But while such dialogues can work well in isolation, it is still unclear whether they can work in the unstructured chaos of the outside world, or the anonymous echo chambers of social media.

“Students know they have dysfunctional discourse all the time in those settings,” says Dr. DeTemple, but “if we could maybe back off that immediate reactivity, we could learn more about people who don’t share our views.”

The 2016 effect

The Better Angels workshop in Wimberley began with ground rules such as not interrupting others to explain one's own views and not trying to change others' minds. Moderators guided preselected “red” and “blue” groups to list stereotypes they thought the other group had of them and what kernels of truth the stereotypes held. (“Ignorant” and “intolerant,” the reds concluded; “socialist” and “unpatriotic,” the blues concluded.) The whole group then reconvened to discuss. 

Henry Gass/The Christian Science Monitor

Connie Shortes, a moderator with Better Angels Central Texas, listens as a group of liberal "blues" think of stereotypes others have of them, Nov. 21. The workshops balance the numbers of left- and right-leaning participants and organizers.

A “fishbowl” exercise followed, with one group talking in a circle while the others listened, answering questions like why they think their side’s values and policies are good for the country, and what reservations they have about their side. At the end of the three-hour session, they talked about what they learned.

“There’s just a lot of fear, a lot of mistrust, on both sides,” said Mike McNeil, a red Wimberley resident.

“I didn’t realize y’all are afraid too,” added blue local Mindy Webber.

Better Angels, like many programs aimed at promoting civil discourse, launched in the wake of the 2016 election.

OpenMind, a psychology-based program begun at the New York University Stern School of Business, spun out this year into an independent nonprofit that uses “evidence-based research to create more open, ethical, and inclusive cultures and societies.” The Greater Good Science Center at the University of California, Berkeley is in the midst of a two-year “bridging differences” initiative aimed at highlighting “the skills and social conditions that are critical to reducing polarization and promoting more constructive dialogue.”

Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Essential Partners, meanwhile, developed RSDs in the early 1990s following the murders of two women outside local abortion clinics. RSD, according to the group’s website, relies on “preparation, structure, questions, facilitation, and reflection to enable people to harness their capacity to have the conversations they need to have.”

Dr. DeTemple uses RSD in her class sporadically in what she calls “dialogic classrooms” – a catch-all academic phrase for training students to listen and converse with more respect. Ideally, how students interact in dialogic classrooms will become a lifelong habit.

“They feel like they can speak and be heard better, [though] it doesn’t turn out that they agree,” she adds. “It’s an ecosystem.”

“We’re getting fed up”

Nancy Dyer, from Medina, Texas, said she felt “positive” after the Wimberley workshop. But could she have similar discussions in a less structured setting? Without moderators or clear ground rules?

“I am definitely not ready,” she answers. “I learned some skills. But I actually have to practice it quite a few times before it's [a reflex]. I feel like I'm a kindergartner right now.”

Active in all 50 states, and with close to 8,500 members, Better Angels wants to continue to grow, says Mr. O’Connor. But there are some issues to try to resolve before then, he acknowledges, including a self-selection bias.

“The ones who are coming to workshops are coming because they’re at least a little bit interested in talking with the other side,” he says.

In Central Texas, the local Better Angels chapter – active for just over a year – is not worried about attracting people from outside that self-selecting group. (Though the group is worried about diversifying beyond the uniformly white, older group that showed up in Wimberley.)

“For the first half of this year [we thought] we haven’t succeeded until we’ve reached those people” who are unwilling to participate, says Mike Seay, a liberal from Austin who also co-founded the Central Texas chapter. “But I think we’ve shifted that.”

“These are a self-selected group of individuals … but I think there are a lot more of those than you would think,” says Steve Saltwick, a chapter co-founder and conservative from Austin.

After the workshop in Wimberley, Ms. Dyer put a different spin on those scale concerns.

“8,500 people is pretty good, but it ain't that good,” she says. “But I do think that we're getting fed up. I mean, it's 8,500 more than we had two years ago.”

Gratitude, gatherings, and, of course, good food – I felt fortunate to enjoy all these on Thanksgiving, despite being far from grandmother’s house.

I’d expected just another day of political reporting in restive Hong Kong, where I covered Nov. 24 local elections that produced a resounding win for pro-democracy candidates. The victory buoyed protesters waging a 6-month-old campaign against Beijing’s curtailment of Hong Kong’s freedoms.

Then Thanksgiving morning, news broke that U.S. President Donald Trump, after sending mixed signals, had signed into law the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act (HKHRDA). The law, which won veto-proof, bipartisan support in Congress, is aimed at bolstering basic rights for Hong Kongers. Instantly, the quintessential American holiday took on new meaning in this semi-autonomous region of 7.4 million people.

At dusk, I joined tens of thousands of Hong Kong residents flooding into a large redbrick plaza in Central district on the shores of Victoria Harbor. Chanting “Fight for freedom! Stand with Hong Kong!” many waved U.S. flags as they spilled over into nearby streets in a huge Thanksgiving rally.

A gray-haired man in a baseball cap turned to me. “Where are you from?” he asked with the slight English accent common in this former British colony, which reverted to Chinese sovereignty 22 years ago, in 1997. I told him.

“Thanks for your country supporting the law!” said the man, Stannial Leung, a retired Hong Kong-born engineer and seaman. “Hong Kong will have no future if the government handles things like this,” he said, referring to Chief Executive Carrie Lam’s refusal to grant protester demands for greater autonomy and police accountability. “That’s why we need a revolution.”

Ann Scott Tyson/The Christian Science Monitor

Residents celebrate the enactment of the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, which in part requires the U.S. government to assess Hong Kong’s autonomy from mainland China and sanction Chinese officials for human rights abuses, on Nov. 28, 2019, in Hong Kong.

All around, strangers approached me with smiles and heartfelt thanks, a testament to U.S. influence abroad, where many still rely on Washington as a beacon of freedom. Such feelings are acute today in Hong Kong, which straddles the authoritarian and democratic worlds. Many residents fear China’s Communist Party is undermining the “one country, two systems” formula that protects Hong Kong’s independent, British-style legal system, basic political rights, and constitution for 50 years after the handover, until 2047.

Often while navigating Hong Kong’s thronging streets, I’m reminded of Chinese novelist Han Suyin’s famous phrase, “borrowed time in a borrowed place,” when the territory was under a 99-year lease to Britain. Now, once again, Hong Kongers feel the clock ticking.

“They say ‘one country, two systems’ but we feel it’s getting to be ‘one country, 1.1 systems,’” says Peter Wong, a retired pharmaceutical worker. “It’s moving so fast, we are so worried now.”

“Look at this beautiful city!” he says wistfully, standing under the city’s glittering skyline. “Why must we wear masks?” he asks, highlighting concerns about surveillance from mainland China.

People at the rally told me they hope the U.S. act will help buffer Hong Kong from such incursions. The HKHRDA requires the U.S. government to assess Hong Kong’s autonomy from mainland China each year, and whether it is sufficient to justify its current special treatment under U.S. law, and to sanction Chinese officials for human rights abuses in Hong Kong. A second U.S. bill signed into law Wednesday prohibits the sale of American crowd-control equipment like tear gas and rubber bullets to Hong Kong police.

“Today, Hong Kong is the new Berlin,” said Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas in one of several video-taped addresses by key supporters of the act broadcast at the rally on a giant screen. “The cause for freedom has never been greater,” Senator Cruz said, drawing applause from the crowd.

Ann Scott Tyson/The Christian Science Monitor

About 1,500 Hong Kong residents gather for a march to the U.S. Consulate on Dec. 1, 2019 to express appreciation for the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act. Some marchers carry a banner depicting a pro-democracy protester hosting a meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

Many at the rally hailed Mr. Trump as a hero. They held banners depicting him riding on a tank, and images of his head atop film character Rocky’s shirtless torso. “Donald Trump is the greatest president in the world,” a young worker who gave his name only as Mr. J told me, holding a U.S. flag. “I really like Donald Trump. He helps us fight China.”

China, for its part, warned of “strong countermeasures” after Mr. Trump signed the act, saying the U.S. law constitutes “interference in China’s internal affairs.” On Monday, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said Beijing has suspended U.S. Navy stops in Hong Kong. Such visits have been suspended in the past, including during the recent pro-democracy protests. Ms. Hua said Beijing would also sanction several U.S. human rights and democracy groups. “These NGOs have supported anti-China plotters who messed up Hong Kong,” she said, referring to the protesters. She declined to specify the sanctions.

At the rallies on Thanksgiving and again on Sunday, when about 1,500 people marched in appreciation to the U.S. Consulate in Hong Kong, residents told me they hoped the U.S. government would move swiftly to implement the act.

“We are putting faith in President Trump to take concrete actions and pressure the Communist Party to stop suppressing Hong Kong and allow universal suffrage,” said a middle-aged worker named Paul, holding a bold blue sign saying: “President TRUMP – Let’s Make Hong Kong Great Again.”

As the night deepened on Thanksgiving, the crowd broke out in song – first Hong Kong’s unofficial new anthem, “Glory to Hong Kong,” and then, “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Waving thousands of cellphone lights in the air like so many candles, as flags fluttered in the coastal, briny breeze, Hong Kongers expressed how much they cherish freedoms that Americans already enjoy beyond measure.

Something worth keeping in mind, I thought.

Oh, and about the food? The next day, I pulled up a stool at a large circular table in a dim sum restaurant packed with families joking and talking in Cantonese. It was the perfect cap to a Hong Kong Thanksgiving.

AP

Family and friends of two people killed in a terrorist knife attack, Jack Merritt and Saskia Jones, comfort each other at a Dec. 2 vigil.

Almost every terrorist attack offers lessons on how to prevent future ones. This may be especially true for a knife attack in London on Nov. 29.

The assailant, Usman Khan, was a convicted terrorist who, before and after his release from prison in 2018, had taken courses to “desist” and “disengage” from radical ideologies. He was also trained in how to gain a “healthy identity.” The two people he killed were advocates of such programs. In fact, all three were attending a conference on prisoner rehabilitation.

With an election just days away, many in Britain are now taking a break from the Brexit debate to ponder if such programs actually can turn around extremist offenders.

In the wake of the attack, in which Mr. Khan was killed by police, the Justice Ministry launched an urgent review of conditions used to release people sentenced for terror offenses. Prime Minister Boris Johnson pledged to introduce mandatory minimum 14-year sentences for such crimes. Mr. Khan served only six years of an 18-year sentence for an amateurish plot to bomb the London Stock Exchange. His lawyer admits he could have been deceived by his client, who claimed to have turned his back on radical Islam.

On the other side of the debate, the family of one victim, Jack Merritt, said he would not want to see harsher sentences for terrorists. Mr. Merritt was a coordinator for a prisoner program called Learning Together, which is associated with the University of Cambridge’s Institute of Criminology. “Jack lived his principles; he believed in redemption and rehabilitation, not revenge,” his family stated. The institute says he “worked tirelessly in dark places to pull towards the light.”

A similar tribute was given to the other victim, Saskia Jones, who was also part of Learning Together. The institute says she had “a strong belief that people who have committed criminal offenses should have opportunities for rehabilitation.”

This debate over the rehab of captured terrorists is not unique to Britain. Since the 9/11 attacks, dozens of countries have launched programs to reintegrate those convicted of terrorism into society. A group of countries, called the Global Counterterrorism Forum, was set up to build on the best practices of programs that have successfully “deradicalized” terrorists. Not all programs succeed, however, and the debate has turned urgent since the defeat of the Islamic State’s caliphate in the past two years. Thousands of people from Europe who supported ISIS are still in custody in the Middle East. Their future is uncertain as European leaders debate whether to take them back on the hope they can be rehabilitated.

Britain’s debate may thus lead to a useful drive to improve such programs and further erode support for ISIS. All the prisons and military drones in the world cannot defeat the radical ideas behind the kind of violence justified by wrong concepts about Islam. Rather, programs that give purpose and hope to such individuals, or values based on peace and empathy, can bring a final end to terrorist attacks. That might be the lesson from the London knife attack.