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Briefs

Friday, August 4th, 2023

Thursday, March 2nd, 2023

A State at Any Cost: The Life of David Ben-Gurion

Tom Segev

♦♦♦♦

Just as author Tom Segev relates that Ben-Gurion increasingly harked back to the episodes that shaped him in his earlier life, so too are these episodes more vivid to us than later ones. This would be fine and even impressive as a literary gambit, having the reader feel about Ben-Gurion’s life the way Ben-Gurion himself did, but at least for this reader it was somewhat disappointing in that it’s the later events — founding and leading the State of Israel — that we are reading for. But again, this too may be a literary achievement, suggesting that for the subject of this biography, it was the younger man’s experiences that were important — and that by extension this is the case for all lives. But I’m not sure that’s accurate; surely the ambitious younger Ben-Gurion would have been overjoyed at the eventual achievements of his later self.

It’s a strange complaint to make, but I feel this book wasn’t long enough; each of the many episodes, particularly the later more historic ones, I felt could have withstood more detail.

I was pleased to learn of Ben-Gurion’s erratic behavior and attitude towards his family, and of his penchant for travel and mild but somewhat constant womanizing, and his growing intellectualism alongside faddishness. Segev concludes that Ben-Gurion’s philosophical disposition is basically that of Anglo-American liberal; all to the good. Almost. The implication is that this temperate poise made him the wise indispensable man, but also open him to more exciting dead-end intellectual enthusiasms.

Friendships, sex, religious relations, despair — the richness of the subject matter’s life encourages in the reader a life in politics as it’s a life in full.

Sunday, October 2nd, 2022

The Arc of a Covenant: The United States, Israel, and the Fate of the Jewish People

Walter Russell Mead

♦♦♦♦

Mearsheimer and Walt — three words that do not appear once in this 1045-page book but are clearly its raison d’etre. John Mearsheimer is Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago; Stephen Walt is Professor of International Relations at Harvard Kennedy School; together they are the respectable face of American anti-Semitism, sufficiently reputable that Walter Russell Mead seems unwilling to criticize them by name, sufficiently retrograde however that their book The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy infuriated our southern-born dean of foreign relations to work on this book for a dozen years or so.

The Wikipedia article on the Lobby book illustrates Mead’s Southern Gentleman approach; whereas Israeli historian Benny Morris says “their work is riddled with shoddiness and defiled by mendacity,” Mead applauds the authors for “admirably and courageously” initiating a conversation on a difficult subject, but more in sorrow than in anger laments that while their intentions are surely strictly honorable, they commit “easily avoidable lapses in judgment and expression.”

Making multiple approaches from multiple angles, Mead demolishes their central notion, giving it the withering moniker of Vulcanist thinking. (Actually I take issue a little with this label, because since the book is so long I forgot the elegant historical anecdote that originates it — a theory of astronomy that attempted to explain celestial workings by means of an undetected planet that doesn’t actually exist. Instead I mentally defaulted to popular culture, where Star Trek’s Vulcan is a stand-in for excessive logic — a characterization quite antithetical to his notion of Vulcanist thinking. This is a shame because the term therefore probably won’t catch on, which it could have perhaps as a shorthand for tendentious yet respectable and therefore ultimately even more ridiculous thinking.)

Especially enriching are his fleshing out of the geopolitical maneouverings among the US, Britain and Russia at the time of Israel’s founding. Important here for Mead’s thesis is that the legend of Truman’s Jewish friend from back in Missouri inveighing on the flummoxed President to recognize Israel be relegated to Queen Esther-echoing myth. For it is WRM’s contention in his chapter “Cyrus Agonistes” that American support for Israel is endemic to the United States, rather than due to the influence of the American Jewish lobby qua Walt and Mearsheimer. Moreover this support comes despite American Jews, whose leaders have for most of Israel’s history been actively working against a Jewish state, their energies only turning once America as a whole pursued full-throated support for Israel after it became the Middle East’s unambiguous Six Day War strong horse.

It’s also a helpful historical insight that WRM groups 19th century American support for Jewish return to Israel with support for the birth of the Italian and Greek nationstates:

In the ancient world, as Americans saw it, the Greeks, Romans, and Hebrews had been much like Americans of the nineteenth century. They were mostly agrarian people, nations of family-owned farms. They had free institutions and their societies were grounded in virtue. But corruption, urbanization, and monarchy had wreaked their ugly work; in time, all three of the ancient peoples fell from their virtue and freedom into slavery, superstition, and oppression.

As the nineteenth century progressed, and the Greek and Italian independence movements advanced, the possibility of a restored Jewish commonwealth also began to gleam on the horizon.

In fact the discussion of nationalism’s birth pangs from the empires of eastern Europe, the chapter entitled “Maelstrom”, is perhaps the richest part of the book.

As a columnist I have been irritated by what I perceive as WRM’s intellectual mealy-mouthedness. But as a full-throated podcast guest I realize this is merely his print persona, a tic I suppose similar to what he probably views as his Straussian icy politeness regarding Mearsheimer and Walt. That said, I took umbrage when in the book he referred to the Second Intifada, a wave of despicable terror attacks against Israel in the wake of the Oslo Agreements, using the BBC-like passive even-handed term: “violence flared”. I instantly recalled eyewitnessing the shellshock in the hours after the Dolphinarium suicide bombing that killed and maimed dozens of partying teenagers. I was only somewhat mollified later in the book when he mentioned this particular bombing by name, without mentioning that the victims were teenagers.

This is a book about America not Israel, and as well as constituting a scathing retort to Mearsheimer and Walt, is a continuation by other means of his 2001 book Special Providence that classifies the various streams of America’s foreign policy; in portraying America’s relationship with Israel, Arc explicates the fullest expression of the Jacksonian stream, a Meadian classification that, unlike Vulcanism, does seem to be sticking.

Sunday, September 25th, 2022

If “the Jews” ran America, immigration would not have been restricted and Israel would likely not exist.

Walter Russell Mead, The Arc of a Covenant (p. 251)

Tuesday, May 17th, 2022

Hispanics: the new world-historic anchor whilst America’s Whites flounder.

Religious liberty, always. Parental rights, always. Right to life, always. Free markets, always. Compassionate but firm on immigration, always.

Friday, February 11th, 2022

Goldman is moved by Reacher:

Radical Protestantism leads the pilgrim from the “howling wilderness” and the “enchanted ground” of the Old World and leads him to the Canaan of the spirit. The question is addressed to, and answered by, the individual pilgrim. The Jew is born into the people of Israel; the Christian seeks adoption into the Israel of the Spirit. American Christianity retains the radical individualism of its Protestant forebears, who chose as individuals to become Americans. We have become Americans by adoption, and we have adopted the history of Israel as our national common memory. A profound parallelism is involved. The biblical Election of Israel was not a prize that God awarded to an unlikely nation of shepherds, but rather the outcome of Israel’s free choice to accept the Torah and the responsibility of election. It is our free choice to become Americans that is the cornerstone of our culture.

Wednesday, January 12th, 2022

Nice to see David Goldman finally with a simple plan to save the world. I mean, I’ve been thinking this for years, and Matt Yglasias got a book out of it, One Billion Americans. So here’s Goldman the Wise in one sentence on the USA in “Import Americans”:

Our capacity to integrate human capital is our only natural advantage and it may prove to be our decisive strength.

I’m not sure about only natural advantage — the USA has probably the most natural advantages among all the world’s nation-states, but still.

Tuesday, November 16th, 2021

I’m pleased to see this — Fathom, the organ of BICOM, the British-Israeli thinktank, has a series of articles under the rubric UK-Israel 2021. They are:

I want bilateral histories.

Friday, April 3rd, 2020

Once Upon a Country: A Palestinian Life

Sari Nusseibeh

♦♦♦♦

Nusseibeh’s central thesis (well, secondary thesis, the primary implicit one being that the Palestinian people should all along have appointed both his Dad and then him their oh-so-reluctant leaders) I too have felt almost in my bones: that Israelis and Palestinians are natural allies. Or, more accurately, that there’s a natural affinity which will enable us to be powerful allies if and when we ever get over our admittedly fundamental conflict.

Monday, October 7th, 2019

Sunday, May 26th, 2019

Monday, May 13th, 2019

A manifesto for the remaining sensible: “Tucker’s Right” by Michael Anton.

Monday, March 5th, 2018

Ladies and gentlemen, hidalgos and Iagos, may it please you to join Andrew Klavan on this sharp essay through racism and religion via Shakespeare.

Thursday, January 18th, 2018

Next step in the Trump strategy for wrapping up the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: US cuts payments to UNRWA by about half.

Saturday, December 2nd, 2017

Ivan Rogers, the UK’s Permanent Representative to the EU during David Cameron’s tenure as Prime Minister, speaks to the events leading up to the Brexit referendum. There’s so much detail, and we see where Cameron was succeeding, but nonetheless a failure happened here.

Tuesday, January 10th, 2017

Ian Buruma on Brussels. I found it a pretty exciting city so when I saw this article I jumped on it (plus I vaguely remember being impressed by something else this fellow wrote) and it’s pretty sweeping and fun.

Wednesday, November 9th, 2016

Tuesday, July 26th, 2016

On “the Weimar aspect of our current moment”: I haven’t read Andrew Sullivan for a long time, but he seems to be hitting it here, Democracies end when they are too democratic, in New York magazine.

Saturday, April 23rd, 2016

Possibly the world’s most important story at the moment? American middle-class impoverishment, or as the author—himself afflicted—calls it, financial impotence.

Tuesday, December 8th, 2015

Quite the sentence, this, from Walter Russell Mead: “Products of meritocratic selection who hold key positions in the social machine, the bien-pensant custodians of post-historical ideology—editorial writers at the NY Times, staffers in cultural and educational bureaucracies, Eurocratic functionaries, much of the professoriat, the human rights priesthood and so on—are utterly convinced that they see farther and deeper than the less credentialed, less educated, less tolerant and less sophisticated knuckle-dragging also-rans outside the magic circle of post-historical groupthink.”

Sunday, September 13th, 2015

A week in Berlin, where all anyone can talk about is refugees, and the author observes: “All this moral unction reminds me of the reality-challenged 1920s in Europe, which gave rise to the very ugly 1930s.”

Wednesday, July 15th, 2015

Thomas Piketty, author of Capital in the Twenty-First Century, talks to Die Zeit about Germany’s own debt relief and the proper way forward now.

Wednesday, November 5th, 2014

Tuesday, October 30th, 2012

Tuesday, July 10th, 2012

On the touchy (for me) topic of Anglo accentim (or is that accentiot?) in Hebrew. Huge comments section to a short (follow-up) piece.

Monday, May 23rd, 2011

Wednesday, August 18th, 2010

Sunday, May 16th, 2010

Chomsky denied entry into Israel. Personally I hope his ticket was non-refundable.

Monday, April 19th, 2010

The Strong Horse: Power, Politics and the Clash of Arab Civilizations

Lee Smith

♦♦♦

A rich mixture of travelogue, history and policy pamphlet that is ultimately more of the former than the latter, it casts itself as a critique of Bush’s invasion of Iraq, but isn’t really. Rather, it’s a diving in. A lively and exciting diving in. I did want it to be longer than it is.

Tuesday, December 1st, 2009

The Cameron Way: What American conservatives should learn from the British Tory leader, by Joseph Loconte in National Review.

Wednesday, August 5th, 2009

Saturday, March 21st, 2009

Condi Rice, for the hour, on Charlie Rose. What a babe at 54. “The United States is too big a country, too important a country, too gracious a country to have permanent enemies.”

Sunday, March 8th, 2009

Check out the global intifadah: close footage of bad Arab vandalizing Swedish police vans outside the tennis stadium where an Israeli player was competing.

index topics immigration immigration

Israel–Iran Proxy War, Day #50

Midway through the hostage deal and ceasefire are two concerns: will the ceasefire become permanent, letting Hamas remain in place? And on what basis does US support for the war rest and will it continue?

Simchat Torah War, Day #17

The US sent an aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf, Israel postponed its ground incursion, and the Western media acknowledged its erroneous reporting.

Arab Insanity Pull-up

What shame, to have degraded with one’s own madness such benevolent standards as civil aviation, human rights — even non-combatant status in war.

Denver Met

My intent here is not only to participate in a conference but to suck up myriad Americana as a thirsty exile catapulted back in for a primer.

Yes

It’s a Somewhat Rauschenberg World

I don’t like this use of animals, like Damien Hirst’s. The artist could not have asked the goat for permission so should not have assumed it was granted.

Black Tracks the Presidents

The great virtue of Conrad Black’s Flight of the Eagle is its steady track across the entirety of the nation’s history, treating each president equally under its own law and order.

Homepage Design 2016

Even if a web site appears differently at different screen sizes, it should still feel like itself. On a larger canvas more expression abounds; distill this into the smaller screen and get more personality; do “mobile first” second.

Yes

From iPhone 4S to 6S: An Appreciation

The increased size, something I was so hesitant about, feels fine to me now. And because it’s thinner it feels less obtrusive in my pocket.

Spectreview

With the villain’s quasi-sibling bond to the hero, 2015’s 007 movie deflates to an incestuous Möbius Strip.

In Gaza, Israel Should Own its Terrible Tactic

Although such excoriating labels as “collective punishment” and “state terrorism” aren’t entirely wrong regarding Israel’s application of the Dahieh Doctrine in Gaza, history does suggest that the method is effective in fighting a fundamentally defensive war.

Go Deny Yourself

This four-letter little word undermines our modern values of tolerance and presumption of innocence.

Some Consumer Affairs

I’ve tried to enjoy schlepping water, thinking that it serves to keep us to some human roots.

Yes

From Nokia N95 to iPhone 4S

Annoyances and upsets with the iPhone 4S have been more than offset by its screen, the silkiness of its surfaces, the camera, and the third-party market for both software and hardware.

2001: A Space Odyssey: Dry, Juicy, Linear, Luminous

The dancers in the ape-suits; how they move is an incredibly energetic output for us. Contrast their physical reaction when witnessing the monolith to that of the astronauts in the newly-minted 21st century.

The Mouse and the Cantilever

Steve Jobs we lost at the age of 56; when Frank Lloyd Wright reached that age it was 1923, the time of merely his second comeback with Tokyo’s Imperial Hotel.

Friendship is for Weenies

It’s amazing, given the adulation he enjoyed elsewhere, that the Israeli public knew from the start not to trust US President Obama.

Before the Setup

It’s 1983: Go for the Apple IIe with 64k that could be opened up as a hobbyist machine? Or the smaller, sleeker and newer IIc with double the memory but a closed case?

At Modi’in Mall

There’s nothing else around here except empty desolate pretty hills. The Israel Trail passes by a bit to the west. The shops are mostly franchises, almost all homegrown: Super-Pharm, Aroma, Tzomet Sfarim, Cup O’ Joe’s, LaMetayel, Mega, Fox, Castro, H&O.

Yes

The Israel I Love, the Bad So Far

If the signage were a bit more effective, the staff’s diction and demeanor more professional, then we might have avoided this testy altercation.

Shanghai Europe

So, finally, we stopped yesterday; the Israeli assault on Gaza of late 2008/early 2009 is over. With it, Israel lost moral purity and made vital strategic gains.

Yes

Panning for MacBook Pro

Even if it did nothing, was just a prop in a futuristic movie, the MacBook Pro would be impressive; it’s like a sculpture of my previous computer, the MacBook, except it’s actually an improved computer!

Stop Yesterday

Is the goal of Israel’s current assault on Gaza to discourage Hamas from firing rockets or to render them incapable of doing so? These are two quite different projects.

Short-circuiting Place-based Longing

If there’s one tangible benefit to having lived in a variety of places it’s that it furnishes evidence of the futility of longing to be elsewhere.

A Crawl Across Crawley, Part 1

Irit, the Jam and I walk from Brighton to Gatwick Airport.

Clash of the Midgets

I was annoyed to have my sauna moments despoiled and dominated, reverberating with this old geezer’s most naff yap.

Yes

Israel’s Greatest Victory Since Osirak?

If Ariel Sharon’s withdrawal from Gaza was part of a masterplan to staunch the damage done by the victory of the Six Day War in 1967, then today we see another step in its unfolding.

The Small Adventures, Part 2

There in the empty restaurant by the water at Dieppe I had toast with foie gras, a carafe of red wine, a huge plate of mussels and chips, and finally a crème brûlée. Somehow, though I’ve eaten in restaurants hundreds of times, I felt grown up.

Yes

The Small Adventures

Late for the 11pm train to Milan, we enquired frantically among the taxis for one who’d accept the two dogs and take us to Termini Station so I could begin our journey to Britain.

Tony Blair and the Four-State Solution

Ariel Sharon’s disengagement policy reflected an understanding that ownership of the Palestinian issue is shared with Egypt and Jordan. If Tony Blair were to acquire this view, perhaps he really could help facilitate an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

A Restoration and Return

There she was, sitting outside the apartment block! How did she do it? Dogs—or at least Jam—must have some sort of navigational sense we don’t understand.

Curs to Fate

Yesterday I lost Jam in Villa Borghese, the central park here in Rome, some five miles from Talenti, the neighborhood where we’re staying. She has not turned up since.

Yes

Jam and Bread, Jam and Bread!

My dog Jam has spent over a third of her time here in Italy as her fixtures have fallen away—first Maddie, then me. But now I’m back!

Yes

This Trip’s Last Day

I went to Astor Place Haircutters. I crossed Manhattan Bridge on foot. I walked west along Canal St, seeking a bamboo steamer.

I, Thou and Pastor Bob

At the Calvary Church here in Fort Lauderdale the Biblical locations feel so far away that they can be abstracted and spiritualized. There is religious energy here.

Yes

The Big and Easy

The American stage is grand, as are the achievements and ambitions, but daily life seems lamed by a compulsive denaturing.

A Drop in Time

The camera hit the ground lens first, bashing it in so that it would no longer wind in and out, and couldn’t switch on. Without it, my perception of an important personal era was degraded.

A Ride to Gatwick Airport

Airports. They’re so charged, so symbolic, and so empty once you’re at one; I dream of them so often.

Only the Rustle in the Trees

Grief, loss — these are the great teachers surely. What one has will pass.

A Cabaret, Old Chum

It’s a last bastion of civility, being allowed to drink at Penn Station, Brian mused ruefully as we carried our beers to his train home to Great Neck.

Fatahland and Hamastan

Now Israel has a dog in a real Palestinian fight: the nationalists rather than the Islamists.

Yes

Stars, Stripes & Superlatives

Here in Los Angeles I am bombarded with superlatives. Daniel’s record collection. The Bikram Yoga College of India world headquarters. Larry David’s Curb Your Enthusiasm. All mixed in with the most ravaging mediocrity.

Shite on Brighton

“Like many provincial towns,” the Private Eye reviewer stabs, “Brighton, as depicted in this hacked-together tribute, defines itself more by what it isn’t than by what it is. It’s not London, for one thing.”

Daily Yin

For my first test of the day as day, I open the back door and step outside to the little patio to see the sky and feel the air. I realize not everybody does this, so if people tell me I’m a miserable bastard then perhaps this little habit will correct their impression.

Mind the Dream

Dreaming about our passed companions as if they are alive requires tricks to the dreaming mind to overcome what it believes and knows to be true.

The Dharma Tits

Buddhism is the philosophy and psychology closest to Cognitive Therapy and vice versa.

Yes

Still Got the Jam

Jam was one of Maddie’s nine puppies, the one who remained after the others were all taken. That was always my plan, to keep the runt.

Such a Tramp

Maddie, who died 18 months ago today, was a mangy mutt and stank, but she was also among the most beautiful dogs I’ve ever seen and for me the longest, richest, widest, deepest streak of feeling lucky.

So You Noticed

I have had something very flattering: a request. Juan Carlos has asked me for comments on Casino Royale.

Reminds Me of Tel Aviv

You get to a stage in life where you are already formed by the past. Thoughts and dilemmas about place are either central questions or a distraction from real issues.

Fly the Blag

Ryanair has brought wretchedness to the skies. Rather than existing on a privileged plane, you stew in a poisoned atmosphere.

Approaching Infinite Justice

Immediately after 9/11, the burgeoning war on terror was named “Operation Infinite Justice”. Within days it was renamed “Operation Enduring Freedom”, but is the new name a mere cloaking of the first?

On the Seventh Day

The Mrs is skeptical of David Allen’s Getting Things Done self-management system because it eschews the rigors of time management in lieu of what feels right. But GTD is about informed feeling.

Don’t Panic!

An academic romp through Jewish American comedy starts out as a veritable rollercoaster ride, but grinds to halt with its obsession with one Bob Dylan.

Photographing a Handsome Old Man

I want to get people in my pics, but it’s tougher when you’re no longer a wide-eyed teenager, because people generally don’t like to think they are a spectacle.

The Beauty of Rain

Rain makes the rocks shine. It puts in motion things that are otherwise static. It illustrates gravity most prettily.

Ode to Salame

It’s supposed to be the arsehole of Tel Aviv, Salame Street, running east-west at its southern tip, but it always does me darn good.

I Love Laundry

How pleasing it is to have my own washing machine. If all isn’t right with the world, not even in my world, at least the laundry cycle is functioning.

Lovely Scenery, But Walks Getting Boring

Unless I drive somewhere new, it’s not much fun to just step out the door and wander. But driving to go for a walk seems a tad ridiculous.

For Love of Economy

It disturbs me to be driving a car that gets fewer kilometers to the shekel than did my previous.

Shinui and the Seven-Year Itch

How refreshing to see Asian faces out shopping in Tel Aviv, or Africans riding the bus to Ra’anana. With them Israel is given fresh wellsprings of culture.

Allah Help the Jackals

While it’s obvious that overplaying your power can result in a downfall, it’s less obvious that underplaying it also leads to trouble. America did this in the 1970s under Carter. Israel seems to have done it almost perennially.

Yes

For Tel Aviv, Better a Skylift Than a Subway

Rather than copycatting a transportation system from the 19th century, Israel could inject into its civic planning the same audacity and resourcefulness that it has historically brought to agriculture and defence.

Yes

Canada Obscura

There’s not a patch of water to be seen—the most liquid thing is the word “Coffee” on one of the low-slung strip-mall buildings. It’s a scene more artful than art itself.

Tour of Kitchen Duty

There was yelling and spray and I raced to keep up. One can enjoy, briefly, the company of men.

Shiny Bright Toadstool

In Israel’s case, burgernomics don’t add up because significant factors contribute to the 30%-odd surcharge on a Big Mac.

The Fresh Jewels of Spring Mound

Quality of life in Tel Aviv is fundamentally enhanced by two simple factors: trees are everywhere, and so are apartments.

Independence Park Up for Grabs?

To this day men of many ages walk these bushes, they delicately lurk these bushes, and stand in places odd to choose.

We Tri Harder

A land could be governed not only by the three separate arms of government, but by three sovereign states.

Yes

Tira Saunters

The one-lane road is empty; down below is the Sharon Plain, looking vast. Israel may be a small country but we’re still speaking here of land.

A Call to Thumbs

When you hitchhike it’s out of your hands, and that’s therapeutic. Paradoxically, you also see how much control you do have.

 

Briefs (cont’d)

Tuesday, November 5th, 2024

The turnaround had perhaps begun, not a moment too soon: beloved Boeing sheds DEI. This pernicious practice may not have been the original source of the rot at Boeing but its acceptance at an engineering firm was at very least a symptom.

Thursday, October 31st, 2024

Interesting erudition on Jews and Adventists [PDF].

Monday, October 28th, 2024

The Knesset has finally banned UNRWA, the humanitarian agency serving as strategic weapon against Israel since 1949.

Sunday, October 27th, 2024

Jordan B on Donald J. You know what, i think it’s all gonna be okay.

Friday, October 25th, 2024

The Manhattan Institute surveys American Jews. The more Jews attend synagogue, the more they support Trump. Only the Orthodox care most about Israel — and are the only Republican Jews. As a whole, American Jews are mostly sticking with the Democrats despite qualms. Conservatives most care about the economy and abortion equally. Reform Jews care most about abortion (wishing to enable it, presumably).

Sunday, October 20th, 2024

On Sky News, former Head of MI6 Sir John Sawyer disagrees with David Patraeus’s characterization of Sinwar’s takeout being more important than that of Osama Bin Laden — because as opposed to being “a global struggle against the West” Hamas is merely limited to “the occupied territories of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank”. I presume Sky News asked this question in order to get this answer. And it perfectly encapsulates my personal fundamental incompatibility with the established British viewpoint.

Saturday, October 19th, 2024

In Newsweek, Spengler on Orban’s European Zionism:

European nationalists look to Israel as a beacon of hope. It’s the only high-income country with a fertility rate above the 2.1 breakeven level — so far above breakeven at three children per female that its working-age population will more than double from today’s 4.5 million to 11 million by the end of this century, according to UN demographers.

As a member of a scientific advisory board to the Hungarian government, I have had the opportunity to speak to numerous high-ranking officials, and can attest that their admiration for Israel and the Jewish people is sincere, principled and deep. They view Israel as “the exemplar and paragon of a nation,” as Franz Rosenzweig put it.

Liberal American Jews cannot wrap their minds around the new philo-semitism among conservative European nationalists.

No further Ribbonfarm story of ribbonfarm has been, in a small one-of-a-million threads way, the story of civilization itself, through the 2007-24 period. Venkatesh Rao writes:

The story of ribbonfarm has been, in a small one-of-a-million threads way, the story of civilization itself, through the 2007-24 period.

There’s even wit in the laudatory comments.

By Armin Rosen in Unherd, the most important thing I’ve read about Sinwar and his passing:

A significant body of facts suggests that Sinwar believed he would succeed in destroying the state of Israel on or about October 7, 2023. A few years before the attacks, he co-sponsored a conference at a Gaza City hotel entitled “Promise of the Hereafter: Post-Liberation Palestine” in which participants discussed topics such as the enslavement of educated Jews and the mass execution of alleged Arab collaborators in the aftermath of Israel’s imminent violent destruction.

Thursday, October 17th, 2024

Great thread: To whom to send condolences on the death of Sinwar. A lot of Greta Thunberg.

Tuesday, October 15th, 2024

I keep going back to it to see if he’s reconsidered, so I guess I need a link to it. Paul Graham, startup hero, in his sharp and well exquisite style, tweeted on October 9th:

65 doctors, nurses, and paramedics told the New York Times what they saw in Gaza. What they saw was a pattern of children being shot in the head.

PG’s artful repetition of the fragment “what they saw” expresses his suppressed fury at Israel’s ongoing moral repugnance. I wonder, once this blood libel is debunked, if he will revisit this thread and more importantly his own priors. In such a sharp mind it’s difficult to imagine the thought framework required to arrive at this fury. PG presumes it’s true; wanting to believe it’s true requires a lot of scaffolding; actually believing it’s true requires still more.

[Update 2024 Oct 19:] Nope, he’s still at it, retweeting more of this kind of thing. Though the only thing he’s tweeted on the topic himself since is this on October 17th:

When I first saw this tweet I was horrified. Then I read the account name and I was relieved. This is from 1940. Then I remembered that the same things are happening right now, and I was horrified again.

He’s referring to this tweet from @RealTimeWWII:

Kennington Park rescue worker: “Whole thing’s blown to bits- heads, arms, legs, feet lying about. Only way you can tell girls from the men is their hair.”

Monday, October 14th, 2024

Tal Becker, a great thinker, on Call Me Back.

Monday, October 7th, 2024

Pretty troubling — in this interview with Hugh Hewitt, who asks repeatedly and gets the same answer again, Trump believes a deal can be made with Iran once they are sufficiently impoverished.

I would have had a deal a long time ago, because they were bust. They were totally busted. They were ready to make a deal. They would have made a deal. … I would have gotten, in my opinion, 50/50 chance, maybe more than that, Iran would have been in the Abraham Accords. They wanted to make a deal so bad until we had that phony election.

To his credit, Hewitt pushes back with: “I think they’re fanatics, and you can’t deal with them.”

The Jerusalem Post reports on Hamas Rape Tunnels of Gaza posters being put up in Tube stations. Generally I abhor the the mournful, sanctimonious, dull tone of British Jewish statements, but this is excellently acerbic. Very well done (I see in the bottom right corner they even put their names to it, that is unusual).

Unpleasant but necessary: this fellow Pataramesh provides sober intel on Iranian capabilities. He seems to think they are the good guys. He’s arguing that Iran’s missile strike was calibrated and limited and sends signals that it can do more.

On Twitter, Dan Linneaus writes (he’s pinned this one to the top of his profile):

Taking out Iran’s oil and nuclear facilities puts the cart before the horse..

He provides more detail here and here. This all makes sense to me: defang them first; this has the added benefit, apart from being smart, of doing what Biden asks: not hitting the oil nor nuclear facilities. Yet.

Israel just pulled off this snake-charming trick against Hizballah, degrading them for a year before delivering a hammering burst of coups de grâce; can it be done again. You know, I bloody think so.

Saturday, October 5th, 2024

Thursday, October 3rd, 2024

Good piece looking at things more from Iran’s perspective in Asia Times, “Iran has everything to lose in direct war with Israel” by Shahram Akbarzadeh.

Fighting Israel is very much a pillar of state identity in Iran. The Iranian political establishment is set up on the principle of challenging the United States and freeing Palestinian lands occupied by Israel. Those things are ingrained in the Iranian state identity. So, if Iran doesn’t act on this principle, there’s a serious risk of undermining its own identity.

Things have come down to the wire, as they do. Reportedly, the Israeli cabinet has decided on its response after a 4-hour meeting. Going by experience it will be shock and awe.

David Goldman often looks to demographics. “Improbable as it may seem,” he writes, “the core scenario according to present trends will make Israel the economic center of the Middle East sometime toward the end of the century.”

Goodness, Niall Ferguson on Bibismarck.

David Goldman tours the world with Caroline Glick with an emphasis on Israel and China.

Wednesday, October 2nd, 2024

Here we fucking go, this didn’t take long.

“We’ll be discussing with the Israelis what they’re going to do, but all seven of us (G7 nations) agree that they have a right to respond but the response but they should respond proportionally Biden told reporters before boarding Air Force One.”

One advantage of striking back immediately would have been not having to deal with this bullshit.

On the other hand, Biden is reliable; if he says he does not support an attack on Iran’s nuclear sites, then an attack on Iran’s nuclear sites it is. And they made a show of helping repel the attacks. And they may put in place more sanctions against Iran. And if they are willing to get out of the way, as they have eventually done each step of the journey, that is likely enough.

Stories like The Wall Street Journal’s “Israeli Response to Iran’s Attack to Set Course of Widening War” are faintly ridiculous in their discourse of retaliation and restraint. A typical quote:

“Israel will seek to reinforce the idea that its technological superiority and military skill allow it to strike any target in Iran,” said Norman Roule, who served as the top U.S. intelligence officer on Iran from 2008 to 2017. But Israel is likely to avoid striking targets that could spark a full-scale war with Iran, Roule said

Wrong. Israel is no longer playing the game of retaliation — and has stated so explicitly, as least vis-a-vis Hizballah — nor of message-sending. Whatever happens next is not retaliation but simply the next move in an existential conflict that is therefore indeed all-out war, albeit less visibly so than most due to the complexity of the theater. Further quotes in the article are more on track: “In the end, decision makers in Tehran settled for the idea that restraint would not help to avoid a bigger confrontation anyway,” they quote Walter Posch, a senior researcher with the National Defense Academy in Vienna.

Remember, Netanyahu gave what is in retrospect the most credible wartime speech ever at the UN, one that demands being pored over given that even while he spoke Nasrallah was being assassinated at his order. Much of that halo remains for a subsequent video Netanyahu made to the Iranian people, in which Israel’s long-serving Prime Minister tells them they’ll be free “sooner than people think”. I choose to take this not as credibility-spending bluster but rather with credibility-maintaining seriousness.

After all, Israel had spent much strategic energy on the devastating, ingenious take-out of Hizballah — We’ve been waiting for this opportunity for years, was the IDF’s line — but Hizballah is merely Iran’s proxy. It strains credulity therefore that the forthcoming operations against Iran will be any less historic and gob-smacking. Israel would not have begun Operation New Order with the pager attack against Hizballah’s fighters without having in place the plan for Tehran.

Tuesday, October 1st, 2024

Netanyahu: “When Iran is finally free — and that moment will come a lot sooner than people think — everything will be different.”

Ohad Merlin’s Indigenous Pact:

Israel’s challenge in the next stage is to create a mirror image of [Iran’s] bloody proxy war. Everywhere Iran has sent its arms – that’s where Israel needs to forge alliances and contribute to the cutting of the regime’s arms. Following Ben-Gurion’s “Periphery Alliance” and Begin’s “Minority Alliance” policies, Israel must now forge the “Indigenous Alliance” between the Jewish people and other indigenous peoples and religious communities in the Middle East who are suffering under the oppression of Khamenei and his emissaries throughout the region: Druze, Arabs, Kurds, Sunnis, Christian denominations, anti-regime Shiites – and fight the Islamic Republic together.

Been wondering who is this Khaled Hassan on the Twitters. My pet theory: there’s gonna be a lot more converts to Judaism like him once this damn war is won. It’s gonna be like moving to the New World.

Monday, September 30th, 2024

“There’s something so dazzling about the contemporaneousness of the attacks,” articulates Abe Greenwald on this celebratory episode of the Commentary Daily Podcast.

Netanyahu speaks in English directly to the Iranian people. Portentously, given the newfound utter credibility he has after the last month of military voodoo, he says: “When Iran is finally free — and that moment will come a lot sooner than people think — everything will be different.” Italics mine.

One thing does give me pause: that this is really a speech for a United States President to make. Maybe though I’m thinking too small and it is actually an Israel-scale job to take on Iran while the USA focuses on the larger-power horizon. Maybe it’s actually a fine one-two posture where the USA is willing to defend Israel to the point of insisting others contribute, then is unhappy yet ultimately tolerant when Israeli goes on the offensive. But regardless, you go to war with the army and allies you have.

Thanks for this, jpod. In “Israel Rises”, at his Commentary Magazine, John Podhoretz feels compelled to give thanks by listing Israel’s military successes in the past month.

Whatever the divisions and concerns and cautions inside the corridors of power about the astonishing onslaught of Israel against the Iran Axis of Evil, the fact is Israel stared into the abyss and said, “Not today. Not this week. Not this month. Not ever.”

Saturday, September 28th, 2024

True to form, The Wall Street Journal’s Editorial Board sums up the situation pithily in “Israel Sends Nasrallah to His Just Reward”. I like that they too noted the headline on the Jeremy Bowen BBC piece “Bowen: West left powerless as Israel claims its biggest victory yet against Hezbollah” (to be fair to him, he doesn’t put it this way in the text) placying Israel beyond the West. They commend Israel for its “remarkable display of intelligence, technological skill, and above all political will.”

Through perhaps gritted teeth and scripted statements and a day later, Biden/Harris nonetheless take the win. The line: “a measure of justice” has been served.

What a day, what a night. Between one thing and another this war has become epic. Yediot reports on the lead-up to the Nasrallah attack, emphasizing that Bibi approved it before his UN speech and that it is a continuation of the operation that began with the pagers [Hebrew]. I’d like to know when precisely it happened: presumably during the speech? And which countries stayed and who walked out. And how many people watched it around the world. And on which platforms.

Thursday, September 26th, 2024

What really is the point of designating an organization terrorist if they are to be accorded the respect of nationstates rather than cancers within nationstates? Under the hapless wastrelhood that passes for American leadership these days, the entire world is pushing for a ceasefire between Israel and Hizballah.

Perhaps however given that Saudi Arabia and the UAE are signatories, it’s merely a UN-esque burlesque, as these neighbors would like to see Hizballah gone almost as much as Israel does, and they know there is no danger of a ceasefire transpiring since these murderous fanatics Hizballah will never agree to it.

That said, while I deeply appreciate that Emirates has continued flying in and out of Ben-Gurion through thick and thin, it would be nice if they were brave enough to stand up and say No, actually we support the expunging of ruinous terrorist statelets.

This would give others pause — maybe not France, with her quaint delusions of Lebanese patronhood (if there were anything behind this anachronistic pose they’d be the ones enforcing Resolution 1701) — but the USA and Germany might be shamed into reconsidering.

Wednesday, September 25th, 2024

UN General Assembly speeches this week:

Tuesday, September 24th, 2024

The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board skewers Biden’s legacy. It’s hard to fathom people who see things otherwise; cascading from the Afghanistan withdrawal, facts are facts.

Sunday, September 22nd, 2024

Jeremy Bob nails it again.

The whole purpose of Hezbollah from Iran’s perspective, which provides its rocket arsenal, funding, and training, was to deter Israel from ever attacking Tehran’s nuclear facilities, lest it give up its ace in the hole.

What if Sinwar had led Hezbollah into a war it was not ready to fight, with the IDF achieving massive strategic surprise and suddenly degrading the Hezbollah threat to a point where it no longer served to deter the Jewish state from acting against Iran?

Indeed, and it seems yet to have sunk in, the massive scale of Israel’s victory. On Israeli TV today I saw one pseudo-intelligent panelist warning his colleagues against crowing and maintain humility. Well, we’ve wallowed lower than humility this past year; hostages still in tunnels notwithstanding, Israel’s preparations have born huge fruit these last few days and weeks.

History twists and turns in mysterious ways. The way may soon be clear to move on to the final threat — Iran’s regime. If we prevail — and the alternative is rather unthinkable — the longer-term future is cascadingly bright. As Michael Ledeen was wont to end his articles: Faster, please!

Wednesday, September 18th, 2024

What’s nice, impressive and persuasive in this Jerusalem Post analysis by Yonah Jeremy Bob laying out the case that war with Lebanon is now closer, is that it’s due to eminently sensible rather than the media’s usual ludicrously cynical motivations. For instance:

Despite Netanyahu’s publicly threatening words and tone, another major reason that war has not broken out is that the prime minister was privately terrified of how many Israelis might die from an estimated Hezbollah onslaught of 6,000-8,000 rockets per day.

While “terrified” seems an unnecessarily disparaging choice of word, nonetheless the meaning is clear: Netanyahu is adjusting to the fluid situation that is war. What he deemed reckless and premature 10 months ago may be the obvious and inevitable now.

On August 25, the IDF did not just beat Hezbollah – it cleaned house … The military blew up the vast majority of the rockets and drones with which Hezbollah had intended to attack Israel before these threats could even be launched.

In this particular attack, Hezbollah neither killed nor damaged anyone or anything of significance, while the IDF destroyed thousands of rockets.

Suddenly, Netanyahu has a newfound confidence: that he actually can afford a major operation against Hezbollah – with much fewer losses to the home front than he had expected.

Bob’s editors might not like it, but there’s a way to describe this in two words: responsible leadership.

Monday, September 16th, 2024

Think about MSNBC and CNN, the New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, Reuters, AP, etcetera as a set of instructions for how to keep your job.

Eric Weinstein, Modern Wisdom podcast, Episode #833

What if the USA acted like the USA?

But of course, the US and all decent people worldwide condemned the Hamas murders. The Biden-Harris administration was “pained” by the murders (not outraged) and toothlessly jabbered that “Hamas leaders will pay for these crimes.” But this was not followed up by any moves against the genocidal terrorist group and its regional backers: anything concrete that would impose “full accountability” on Hamas.

Rather, the Hamas execution of Israeli hostages was followed up by pressure on Israel to make concessions to the perpetrators and essentially concede defeat to them. President Biden took to the microphone to accuse Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of “not doing enough” to secure a hostage deal.

Another scathing piece on Biden.

Monday, September 9th, 2024

Showing interest is a tremendous thing in the human arsenal.

Esa Saarinen, “Magnificent Life” lecture

Thursday, September 5th, 2024

By the UK Government’s own admission and statement regarding its prominently-stated suspension of some 30 export licenses to Israel, this is not about the actual items being sent nor even their past or future use. Rather it is a knuckle-rapping for Israel’s policies on humanitarian aid — “Israel could reasonably do more to facilitate humanitarian access and distribution” — and detainee conditions — “Israel continues to deny access to places of detention for the International Committee of the Red Cross”. Both of these are contentious. There’s a reasonable argument for allowing no humanitarian aid in at all as siege warfare is a complicated thing in international law and by the looks of it beyond simple legal interpretation, but to punish Israel because it could be doing more seems unreasonable. Second, Israel is under no obligation to allow Red Cross visits as Palestinian terrorists do not qualify as POWs. British government lawyers must know these things — is this the best they can do? What is going on here really?

Sunday, September 1st, 2024

Factoring the constraint into its own method allows us to give it an intention-revealing name that makes the constraint explicit in our design. It is now a named thing we can discuss.

Eric Evans, Domain-Driven Design

Friday, August 30th, 2024

Ha ha! The Guardian reports that some special relationships are more special than others. Ok that’s not quite right. He’s saying to Starmer’s Britain: don’t be assholes. Knowing The Guardian, they probably view an arms boycott of Israel as a happy two-fer: boycott Israel, get disengagement from the US for free! Little Satan, Big Satan.

Thursday, August 29th, 2024

Versatility, simplicity, and explanatory power come from a model that is truly in tune with the domain.

Eric Evans, Domain-Driven Design

Once again Herb Keinon is proving his worth as veteran Jerusalem Post diplomatic correspondent. For the first time I’m seeing argued that the October 7th invasion has changed Israeli doctrine: threats must no longer be allowed to metastasize but instead must be nipped in the bud, unpleasantness and opprobriation notwithstanding. So Israel has made the most powerful incursion since Sharon ordered Operation Defensive Shield in 2002.

Just for shits and giggles, here is The Guardian addressing the same topic. Holding my nose, I quote two hall-of-mirrors sentences:

The world’s powers must ask why they seem incapable of finding an agreement to end the current bloodshed. Without a deal, faith in the global institutions risks withering away.

What does the first sentence even mean? Which powers? The implications here are multi-fold: 1) it is outside forces who must impose an agreement, rather than an attacked nationstate defeating the terror army that attacked it. 2) Such powers are actually able to impose this agreement but are just pretending they can’t due to certain reasons — presumably Jewish influence on them. 3) In the real world, global institutions are being eroded not by Israel fighting for its survival but by the cynical lawfare campaign being waged against it, with total disregard for the long-term viability of such institutions by submerging them in, yes, genocidal politicized mendacity.

I am annoyed with myself I even looked at this twisted stuff.

Friday, August 23rd, 2024

According to Gabi Siboni, the main reason why it’s taking such a long time to destroy Hamas is “the IDF’s unwillingness to take over the distribution of humanitarian aid, as required by international law.”

 
 

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