The Little Steps Doctrine.

Morning, Threaders, Threadheads, and all in between. Saturday coffee.

Photo Op.

After the announcement by Hakeem Jeffries that Democrats will stop saving Republicans from themselves and not vote for the one month Continuing Resolution that would allow government funding until April it seems like a shutdown is eminent. But is it?

I often wonder why Democrats are lost in terms of a coordinated response to any threat posed by the reactionary GOP, now turned full blown fascist, and mince no words exposing them as collaborators. Is this a new phenomenon, though? To me, and I may be wrong, it seems like the obvious answer has always been to present the American people with a solid progressive program. Looking back, closely, into what progressive ideas were advanced by Democrats, that never happened.

I am not talking about the extreme nonsense proposed by so called socialist democrats, who still live in the XIX century, fighting Industrial Revolution demons. No, shutting down all fossil fuel production is not the solution, nor is outlawing private property, and certainly not killing all the Jews on Earth or converting our society into Sharia Law versions of tolerant delusion. See how quickly the Socialist Democrat ideology derails into nonsense? That’s not it.

While some of those delusional left wing Democrats seek to prevent people from having elective surgeries or driving expensive cars or being rewarded fairly for their individual achievements, dreaming of all cooperative enterprises and yet another form of government control, those who would be wise to embrace social democracy fail to do so at every turn. The ACA is the crown jewel of progressive achievement and yet it’s no more than a hand out to the insurance industry.

Other initiatives, like the Green New Deal, end up being diluted into Infrastructure bills that, while incrementally beneficial like the ACA, end up falling short of being truly revolutionary and include plenty of benefits to corporations, often many times superior to those we, the people, get from them. Being revolutionary in government is different from being revolutionary on the streets. A truly revolutionary government is precisely what prevents a street revolution.

Contrary to popular belief, the main objective of a social democratic society is to make the individual happy. At its apex, social democracy makes every individual happier, which ensures society itself is happy. Happiness is an elusive concept and if it is impossible to achieve in concrete terms it’s also possible to reach by pursuing it fiercely and in so doing making sure each individual is respected and granted the basic rights at its foundation.

We are not looking for chimeras or utopian ideas but for what others already achieved. The most advanced societies in the world got started by social democratic ideals and while their citizens have not attained “blissful happiness” they are pretty happy individuals. So happy they don’t realize it and start taking it for granted. But that’s another story. The point is we know how it’s done. So why don’t we do it here?

It was not until the 1970s, after top individual tax rates fell from around 90% and corporate tax rates from about 50%, that we began to see the expansion of private charities. Until then they were mainly driven by mutual funds, with few exceptions, like the one instituted by Henry Ford. Charities multiplied exponentially and became a very profitable business with a virtual nonprofit disguise. America is not only addicted to charity, it’s controlled by “charitable” people.

This appalling aspect of American society is one that illustrates how the illusion of care is institutionalized and how beholden Democrats became to those who benefit from it: from the suburbs of Detroit to the slums of Kinshasa. And you can always contribute $19.99 a month to save the Polar bears too, if you are so inclined. This inability to solve our problems, local and global, is not a result of lack of imagination but of lack of will.

In a globalized economy, in a world where problems became everyone’s concern, global complexity became an excuse for local inaction. It also became a rallying cry for populist nationalist movements: why send money overseas when children are hungry on our shores? This dark picture is the backdrop for the unwillingness to solve problems in a true progressive way. Incremental progress is a reality but it became something else as Democrats embraced the Little Steps doctrine.

Nothing meaningful ever gets done because of it and the proponents of this doctrine range from Bernie Sanders to Barack Obama. The “little steps” became shorter and shorter and are now Democrats favorite excuse for getting nothing substantive done. When they tell us they got the Republicans “on the run” you may want to look closer. You will find Democrats running alongside them. This unwillingness Democrats show to change our society is by design.

They are as guilty of the corporation take over of every aspect of society (especially the government) as anyone else. The platitudes and the meek calls for bipartisanship are not new. One day they sit quietly, embarrassed by those who stand up, the next they show up on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, as if they are the reincarnation of John Lewis. I miss him… In this country where so many have suffered for so long we keep talking about their suffering as new.

Fingers are pointed at those in power as if all the problems in the world just started because of them. The reality is the suffering has been here for a very long time and those who now accuse others of causing it missed every chance to end it. On purpose. On purpose by refusing to fight both the excesses of Republicans and some of their fellow Democrats that they keep as pets to appease the uneducated masses. On purpose by denying social democracy a chance.

To my dismay, I see a Democratic Party beholden to those we fight, in a perpetual photo op I no longer can stomach. I realize we are on our own, with few exceptions that are rendered irrelevant by the party’s Little Steps doctrine that now feels like it’s going backwards. In a world of ping pong paddles choose to hold a walking cane. It’s up to us to lead now. Maybe we can make them follow.

Resist & Oppose!

Silence.

Morning, Threaders, Threadheads, and all in between. Strong black coffee.

Democracy dies in silence.

People assume this silence comes during the rise of authoritarian regimes when those who should speak up do not. It doesn’t. The silence that kills Democracy comes before. You don’t notice it because it is wrapped in tolerance to the point where empathy is used as a weapon against it.

Elisabeth Bumiller wrote a piece for the New York Times with the opening title “People Are Going Silent”. I know it’s the @nytimes but it’s worth the read. It’s an analysis of the present situation, where those who should speak up see their convictions fade away in fear. This is the silence that comes after the one that is responsible for their cowardice. This silence is not Democracy’s assassin: it’s Democracy’s pallbearer.

Democracy is a Phoenix. It has in itself the power to rise from its own ashes; yet we must remember that among its ashes are those of many people, innocent and guilty, who are consumed by its burning death. History has shown us this over and over and I fear we have learned nothing from it. An ideal as strong as Democracy is eternal but humans are not. There will be no rising from the dead for us.

Courage is what makes us go into battle with this knowledge. Cowardice is avoiding the fight because of it. Before the silence swiftly expanding before us, carrying Democracy to its grave, came the one responsible for its death. The one that matters most. Now they tell us empathy is Democracy’s greatest weakness as if such aberration deserves debate and consideration. And yet it makes perfect sense.

We allowed this idea to grow among those who despaired watching Democracy fail to address its true weakness: tolerance. Not only are we inclined to tolerate discussions of how empathy is dangerous, we were inclined to allow the debate of the intolerable as normal democratic discourse. We did not silence hate when we could: we made hate acceptable as part of a healthy debate of ideas. We allowed hate to transform into an ideal and welcomed its ideologues to the table as equals.

We went as far as qualifying hate and ranking its disassembled parts one by one, as if some are less hateful or even not hateful at all but misconceptions of hatred. All lives matter became the quiet mantra of this trend, one that is unspoken and yet found in every aspect of this perverse behavior that mixes equality with equity and extends a hand to all human beings of “good will”. We so quickly forgot the lessons of the Civil Rights movement.

Dressed in our tolerant robes we opened our arms to all because free speech is the corner stone of Democracy and in doing so we crushed its true foundation beneath it: the law. It is much easier to break the law than to make it better. It is also easier to keep a broken law than to fix it. We brushed the law into the courts for interpretation and allowed them to become instruments of political interests, no matter which.

Our legislators were given permission to stop legislating altogether and what was left of our Democratic process was slowly handed over to judges, supposed to make up for the lack of courage of the lawmakers. And when the courts obviously failed this task they were accused of all our troubles and misfortunes. Fault became a ball thrown around and never to be held, and in doing so we transform the meaning of tolerance, weakening it to the point where empathy becomes “the problem”.

What is this tolerance supposed to accomplish? What are we tolerating that we should not? The root and the cause of all our problems: poverty and hate. We didn’t just become numb to hate but especially to its instigator: poverty. We wilfully ignored it and denied it. We still do. “No democracy this old or this rich has ever broken down”, says Steven Levitsky, a Harvard professor. “Rich” is the key word. We’re not rich. Far from it.

We may be the richest country in the world, but we are also one of the most unbalanced, where the top 10% of households hold over two-thirds of the country's wealth. That makes us a poor country, outside of the illusion of GDP charts and stock market analysis. Housing, health, and education are luxuries too many can’t afford or can barely have. The poverty resulting from this reality is both material and spiritual, becoming a breeding ground for hate.

Even highly educated and truly rich countries face problems posed by excessive tolerance, but when the absence of education joins hands with unbalanced wealth distribution, tolerance and empathy wither to the point of rupture. Societies tolerant of poverty become tolerant of hate because they need escape valves for the building pressure that threatens them; and the most effective escape valve for the poor and the uneducated is hate.

Poverty and hate are intertwined and we ignore them at our own peril. In doing so we open the door to those who offer the ones affected by both an easy way out. They come with solutions that are simple and effective and immediate. The poor and the hateful are to be dealt with, they say, but not through messy legislative processes they quickly accuse of generating them. Law and Order is not the answer. Order alone can save us. Law is the problem.

Those pesky legislators are to blame (which is true) and as such must be replaced by an enlightened ruler who will restore Order. As appealing as this may be to the uneducated poor it is appalling to the few educated among us, who understand what it means. Poverty will not be eradicated, it will be swept away from view. Hate will not be eliminated from speech: speech itself will be destroyed. Those of us who claim to fight for the right of others to speak will perish with it.

Freedom of speech means nothing without reason and tolerance becomes nonsense when it allows the intolerant to grow strong in its warm embrace. When Democracy stays silent in the face of poverty and hatred, no matter which, it dies. The silence we face afterwards is nothing but that of hope, walking on the ashes of our foolishness, as we watch Democracy being laid to rest. It will rise again. But not for us.

Let us not die in silence.

Dancing on a pile of rubble.

Morning, Threaders, Threadheads, and all in between. Black coffee, please.

Demolition.

By definition it implies collapse. There’s a perception laws are being upheld against the government’s thousand illegal actions, maybe even the hope for enforcement against itself, given the SCOTUS last ruling on USAID funds. We are deep into a Constitutional crisis, but the demolition is ongoing. Strong.

USAID is a case study in demolition; the proof collapse is not just an abstract post crisis event but an actual process happening in real time. The demolition crews are busy doing what they were hired for. They shut down the logistics, fire the personnel, freeze contracts and funding, force the people in charge to move out and find an alternative to their lives and their families lives. The results of the demolition are the immediate collapse of the targeted institution.

They are no longer able to do their job, the people they’re supposed to be helping and the assets they’re supposed to care for are abandoned to their fate. Then a few good lawyers step in and if they are lucky they find a judge with integrity. If they are really lucky the SCOTUS may even uphold the favorable ruling. They show up at the site they allegedly saved with a court order that says: “All good!” And they find themselves standing on a pile of rubble.

They saved nothing. It’s all gone. They just got a (maybe) permission to rebuild from scratch. Who will rebuild the collapsed institution? The very same people who demolished it. Even assuming they will, every step will require yet another judicial uphill battle. While all this happens, the infrastructure is gone, the logistics are gone, the few people who are told to come back to work have no phones, no computers, no money (the cheque is in the mail), and no directives.

Now it’s the Department of Education’s turn. Its new Secretary is about to enter the last phase of her “final mission”, as directed by an unlawful executive order. I am certain some court, somewhere, will “stop it” in the terms described above. It will stop nothing. By the time the order arrives at the site it will find a pile of rubble. Then there will be a victory dance on it and the order to rebuild. An order directed at the demolition team.

It’s not only a problem of Constitutional crisis when the perpetrator condemned by the court is the enforcer supposed to correct it. It’s a matter of a collapsed system whose authors are the demolition managers the courts direct to rebuild their handy work. “Sorry, your honor, we know how to blow shit up. No clue how to put it back together.” All the appointees this administration got through Congress (plus Musk Incorporated) are demolition managers.

They don’t know how to run things except to the ground. They have no clue how things work because demolitions don’t require such knowledge. And it’s no consolation they are not experts: they really don’t know where the best place to put the charges is, but at the end of the day it doesn’t take a demolition expert to blow shit up. It’s actually much worse. It’s like bringing down a high rise in the middle of a city block without a controlled implosion. It’s chaos.

But chaos is the point. Expertise is not a requirement for these demolition teams. It’s actually not welcomed. The sloppier, the better. As I see it, “response teams” are not the solution to this crisis, just as FEMA is not a solution for hurricanes. Response teams just help after the catastrophe has happened. These illegal actions by our government are as inevitable as a natural disaster. It is the nature of this administration to destroy everything, just as a hurricane would.

The solution to this type of catastrophe is not to respond to it. It’s to limit the damage to the maximum extent by early warnings, preemptive actions, and safeguards to protect the most of the people and structures that will inevitably be affected. Including those affected down the damaged pipeline. Response is NOT a strategy to prevent collapse. Response happens AFTER the collapse. And when the responders who are expected to fix the damage are the ones who caused it…

This is why I get so mad and frustrated at Congress Democrats who come to us with warnings of catastrophes we already are aware of, assuring us their response is being studied in their little response groups and panels. We know collapse will happen, what we want to know is what’s being done to prevent the damage from being irreparable. And how soon can we reverse this chaos.

It’s like watching climate change happening without doing anything to prevent its inevitable impact but assuring us that once half the Eastern seaboard is gone there will be a great response. Not to worry. We have no use for response; we need preemptive and preventive actions. We know damage WILL happen, there’s no stopping it in this crisis. Collapse is not imminent, it’s happening. How much of it can we prevent and how many people and infrastructure can we protect?

The only way to stop this madness is to change the government. Together with those efforts, Democrats need to stop responding and start preemptively acting to preserve and protect as much as they can. This is the kind of leadership we need. I don’t see it, but I still hope it will happen. It better happen fast, though, or we will be doing our victory dance on a pile of rubble.

Resist & Oppose!

Fight the fuck back!

Morning, Threaders, Threadheads, and all in between. Not enough coffee!

I didn’t watch. I didn’t have to.

I didn’t watch the rebuttal either.

I saw clips after. Not of him, though. I saw clips of the Congress Democrats. And clips of the rebuttal. And I read your words through the whole thing. I have some words too.

Dear Congress Democrats,

How are you doing this morning? Pretty good? It’s March 5; rise, shine, and fundraise! You’re only 12 hours behind speaker emerita Pelosi, who started texting people to “chip in” from her seat in Congress as the speech began. Have you learn nothing from her? Chop, chop! Time to monetize those lies, folks. Am I right? I mean, what else can you do? Well, let me tell you something…

You can grow a fucking spine, for starters. I know. People are bashing you left and right and I should bite my tongue and feel real sorry cause you work so hard for us browsing the internet for things to copy paste back to us and sending us desperate pleas for five bucks because “we’re losing, but with your bucks we can win.” I don’t give a fuck so I will just tell you like it is even if you won’t listen. Somebody will. Maybe.

What we witnessed last night was you, Congress Democrats, have no clue what you are doing. You had like 10 different strategies going into that speech and none of them worked: including the one where you should sit down and take it like good boys and girls. The only one that would have made a difference was lost in the chaotic performance of all the others: walking out. Yes, you should have stood up and walked out. All of you.

When Al Green did just that, and was thrown out because he reminded the dear leader he has no mandate to destroy Medicaid, you ALL remained in your seats. In the absence of a plan for concerted action, Al Green tried to give you a chance to do something. And you ALL failed miserably. You just sat there, most of you with embarrassment stamped on your faces, like schoolchildren afraid of being scolded and marched out of class by the sergeant at arms. You were embarrassed by Al Green.

He was raining on your rainbow parades: the one where you applauded a little to “respect the office”; the one where you booed from the comfort of your off camera anonymity; the one where you raised your little signs that didn’t even match (dear God, you couldn’t even get that one right); the one where you just sat in pink looking pink; or the one where you got up and walked out in little groups or one by one, ignored by the cameras to the delight of the fascists.

In summary, you showed us you don’t have a clue how to fight back. You have many ideas, most of them mediocre or really bad, the few good ones being drowned by the sheer amount of the former. You showed us your leadership is worried about decorum and status quo and chip in texting and little else. You showed us no solidarity with those among you who tried to do something and just how upset you were by those who tried.

As the endless speech progressed, your lack of respect for yourselves was laying the ground for your idea of an “epic rebuttal”, and on cue, a nice white woman, alone with the mandatory 4 or 5 American flags behind her, told us nice things about Ronald Reagan for about 11 minutes. At least it was just 11 minutes, but we got the message: Turd bad, Reagan good. And please chip in to help Reagan win. I really don’t know if to laugh, cry or just throw up.

Many Americans were already ashamed of what our country is becoming. After last night we are now ashamed of what you, Congress Democrats, have become. Shame on you. Shame on those of you who are doubling down on your donation emails after what you consider a great night and shame on you who are coming to Jesus this morning and saying you should have walked out. No shit. We told you to walk out before, but you were too busy to listen, counting the pennies of the fools who still chip in.

The few among you who are trying to fight back are crying in the wilderness of Congress, sidelined by your overall lack of vision and integrity. Your entire strategy for the resistance is summarized by last night’s actions: coordinated outfits, uncoordinated signs, decorum, chip in texting, and Ronald Reagan. Good luck with that. As for the so very few who are trying to break through the stagnant lot you became: thank you. But you’re not enough.

The little that is being done by a few Congress people is lost as random, isolated acts of kindness towards a frustrated audience of millions who take to the streets comforted by them but with little hopes they will do much to change the course of the Democratic Party. Jasmine Crockett tells Musk to fuck off and Ken Martin feels obligated to tell him to go to hell and the next one will say the next watered down platitude available. Decorum.

Jasmine Crockett calls TFG Putin’s ho and Elissa Slotkin calls him the destroyer of Reagan’s memory. After tonight, despite the calls to “preserve and protect” Jasmine Crockett (what!?), it was clear she should have delivered the rebuttal; not from home but from the steps of the Capitol with all 260 democrats present after walking out. You don’t want to “protect” her. You are protecting yourselves from her.

Not just from her, but from the other few who tell it like it is and spell out “fascism” and “treason”. You are so afraid to ignite the spark that will cause a civil war that you completely miss the burning embers you are standing on. You are tragically leading us into violence by refusing to act; by “being nice”; by ignoring us. Yes, we are out on the streets but without your support and respect our frustration will grow into anger and soon all bets are off.

If the worst should happen, the crowds without leadership will become mobs. The peaceful protests will transform into riots, with people in full black riot gear clashing with the police, while keffiyeh wrapped idiots will beat up anyone holding an American flag, and the eat the rich crazies will burn down middle class neighborhoods cause they look nice. Chaos. They will start shooting us in the legs. If we’re lucky. And that will be on you, Congress Democrats.

Grow a fucking spine. If you want to prevent a war on the streets fight one in Congress. Get your shit together and fight back as one. We are watching and we are ready. And start by shutting the fuck up about Reagan, already. He’s the reason we’re here. One of you had a little sign that read: “This is not normal”. We know.

Fight. The fuck. Back.

Ein Li Eretz Aheret.

Morning, Threaders, Threadheads, and all in between. Must have more coffee.

Ein Li Eretz Aheret.

Since 1948 the Jewish people stand their ground on the land of their ancestors for they have none other.

“I have no other land

Even if my ground is burning

Only one word in Hebrew penetrates

My veins, my soul

With an aching body, a hungry heart

Here is my home.”

The verse is from a song by Ehud Manor with the Hebrew title I started this piece, meaning “I have no other land”. It was written in 1982, during one of Israel’s incursions into Lebanon I discussed in one of my previous writings. Manor’s brother was killed in that war and it was that personal tragedy that inspired him to write this song. Since then it has been adopted as a rallying cry by all sides in the Israeli political spectrum but it echoes a much older spirit.

The spirit of recogintion Am Yisrael cannot exist without Eretz Yisrael. For they have no other land. No. Other. Land. The exact title of a very controversial documentary about a Palestinian area in the West Bank, near the Green Line, called Masafer Yatta; a group of 19 villages South of PA controlled Hebron, the largest Palestinian city and one of the holiest Jewish sites, the burial place of Abraham and Jacob. For context. No other land indeed.

That documentary won the Oscar in its category, last night. I was not surprised. Its two most publicized directors, of the total of four responsible for the film, shared the acceptance speech to a standing ovation. From the Arab, Basel Adra, an inhabitant of Masafer Yatta, the expected mentions of “occupation” and “ethnic cleansing”. Time constraints kept him from mentioning also “apartheid”, which he did before in other venues. No mention of “pay for slay”.

From the Israeli director, Yuval Abraham, a stunning statement: “Why can’t you see that we are intertwined, that my people can be truly safe if Basel’s people are truly free and safe?” - Abraham stated. He went on to uphazardly mention the Israeli hostages in one very short line, as if obligated to do so. No mention of Hamas. “Intertwined” is a tragic choice of words.

“Intertwined” as Oded Lifschitz, of Nir Oz, was with the children he carried from Gaza to Israeli hospitals? “Intertwined” as the Israeli children like Ariel and Kfir Bibas, who could have played with the children of Gaza while their parents helped each other? “Intertwined” like the young Israelis at the Nova Festival, so many of them involved in social activities promoting the coexistence with those living in Gaza? That “Intertwined”?

“Intertwined” like the many, many Israelis who opened their doors to Palestinians from Gaza in the kibbutzim by its border, only to see them kill their wives and their children on October 7? “Intertwined” would not be my word of choice, were I an Israeli. Not after that day. Although I recognize the importance and danger that radical settlement policies pose to Israel herself and the sinister intentions of their proponents, like Itamar Ben Gvir, I didn’t see that reference last night.

What I saw was pure propaganda and misinformation under the cover of the suffering of those who, like in Gaza, are unable to break free from their genocidal, suicidal masters, who plunge them into a life of misery from which the best way to escape is a stipend as reward for martyrdom. Many Israelis oppose the settlement policies set in motion in the 1980s but NONE of them are terror apologists. There are ways to criticize the excesses of the Israeli right wing. This isn’t it.

That was the part of Yuval Abraham’s speech that really struck me. Speaking to an audience of millions of people, mostly uneducated about the Middle East, he chose to gaslight them instead of educating them. He compared his life in Israel, where Arabs sit in the Knesset, to the life of his director friend in the Hebron mountains, very few miles away from the only Palestinian city that, against the Arab’s wishes, has a small Jewish community whose existence relies on IDF protection.

Even among the highly educated, hypocritical Oscars audience at the former Kodak Theater I wonder how many realize that. What was the name those segregated Jewish communities were given in a not so distant past? At least now they have an army protecting them. So much for “apartheid”. The amount of willful ignorance, misinformation and gaslighting displayed at the Oscars last night during the Best Documentary feature award was astounding. But expected.

As expected as the replacement of the now ignominious red hand pins by those with a white dove with a genocidal inscription on it, barely legible: “Free Palestine.” Too little room to add “From the Jews”, I guess. But we get the message. The reason this documentary got a standing ovation last night was shame. The everlasting Western shame that once turned a blind eye to Islamic fundamentalism and now holds it in a suicidal embrace.

Yes, the fate of all Palestinians, defined as those who inhabited the region before 1948, is forever connected. Long before then, when there were no partition maps and no British Mandate, European Zionists clearly understood that if there was to be a Jewish State in Eretz Yisrael the future of the Arabs residing in it would come into play. Back then Jews were buying land from them. Arid land. Land they transformed into a paradise. A paradise to which Arabs made no contribution.

A paradise they now claim as theirs, regardless of the sale receipts. A paradise they refuse to build for themselves regardless of all the opportunities they were given to do just that with their portion of it. A paradise they aspire to turn into hell for themselves, provided all Jews are pushed to the sea in the process. That’s a documentary that will never win an Oscar or get a standing ovation from those whose guilt and shame turned blind.

There is no other land. No other land for a people who have no choice but to fight for survival where their ancestors lived, because those who would share it with them, and rightfully so because they have for many years lived there too, refuse to live in peace and build their own paradise, preferring to call for a blood bath instead. The shame that should prevail is the one from not recognizing this, instead of the shame that makes so many ignore it and will eventually destroy us all.

In the end, it would be Adrien Brody, a Jew who has not spoken up since October 7 (that I know of), who would remind us of that true shame: the one from antisemitism. I hope more that like him have been silent start speaking up, before it’s too late for peace. Eretz Yisrael. Ein li eretz aheret.

Remember that. 🇮🇱

* Photo: Israeli paratroopers at the Western Wall. Jerusalem, 1967.

Asymmetry.

Morning, Threaders, Threadheads, and all in between. Sunday coffee.

Asymmetry.

Phase one of the ceasefire deal is over. In total, 33 Israeli hostages were returned (among which 8 bodies of those who were killed in captivity) plus five Thai nationals. Phase two has been stalled since Bibi’s last visit to the US. It was now abandoned. The deal is over.

The information available points to irreconcilable differences about what “ending the war” means, as part of phase two. We all remember how a Hamas made glitch paused the last stages of phase one and also the way many Jews praised TFG’s “I own Gaza” insertion as the reason for the reluctant compliance of Hamas to finish the trade off ending phase one. Turns out all it did was help putting an end to phase two.

Now TFG’s “special envoy” Steve Witkoff comes up with a new deal: a ceasefire during Ramadan/Passover with half the remaining hostages delivered at the start and the other half by the end (?). Of course there are no details or considerations for the day after or a permanent ceasefire or talks about who should and how to rebuild Gaza. A concept of a plan quickly renounced by Hamas, followed by Netanyahu’s declaration of a siege, blessed by Ben Gvir.

“Better late than never”, said the former Minister of National Security. He resigned a few days ago in protest for ANY deals made with Hamas. The siege means stopping all aid deliveries to Gaza. “This should be the policy until the last of the hostages is returned. (…) Not to settle for just half of the hostages, but to return to President Trump's ultimatum – all the hostages immediately or hell will break loose on Gaza.” - Ben Gvir added.

All this is smoke and mirrors to, while the world is focused on Ukraine, distract from what really happened. Netanyahu abandoned the phased negotiations that were allowing for the return of the hostages and embraced the all or nothing approach. That’s what happened. Considering who he’s dealing with, a bunch of suicidal maniacs with no interest in peace, nothing seems to be the most likely outcome, with tragic consequences for the hostages.

This tragedy is unfolding while we are focused on the collapse of post WW2 world order and the alignment of the US (and Israel) with the authoritarian Russia against NATO. Our governments (US and Israel) are betraying us on the world and the national stages and further dividing their citizens. Many Jews are saddened by the outpouring of support for Ukraine, wondering where has the support for Israel been since October 7.

The reason why there are so many Ukrainian flags flying on SM and our streets and so little Israeli flags are seen is not because fighting Russian invaders is so different from fighting Islamic terrorists. The reason is the face of Ukraine is Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the face of Israel is Benjamin Netanyahu. Most keep identifying the people with their leaders, a phenomenon we need to adjust to in the US as the world sees Americans through the actions of our elected government.

Like the millions of Russians who wept for Navalny’s murder and the millions of Israelis who reject their radical government we, who are fighting fascism at home, are about to be thrown under the bus with all the magats and seen as “crazy Americans” by the rest of the world. While this dark play progresses we must keep hope alive and express our support for the ideals our flags do stand for: the aspirations of the people to be free and live in peace.

The fight of the Ukrainian people is the same as that of the Israeli people: a fight for their independence, their sovereignty, and their territory. Unfortunately for Israel, their leader is nothing like Zelenskyy but that doesn’t mean the aspirations of the people are not equally valid and undeniable. Israel has the right to exist just as Ukraine does. Those who use old blood libels to say different are showing their antisemitism.

Eyes on Ukraine and eyes on Israel. May one day they both live in peace, free from the existential threats they face. Today, with fear for our humanity, in a sea of Ukrainian flags I choose to fly the flag of a people fighting for their independence, sovereignty, territory, and their very existence since 1948. You are not alone. May your loved ones be returned home against all odds.

Am Yisrael Chai.

Negative Sum.

The mystical Orient.

On my self imposed break from SM I spent most of the time reading. I used to read a lot more than I do but I was never one for novels or romances, although poetry and poetic writings are still favorites. History and sociology, anthropology, those were my books. So I picked one of them.

I was not ready for the result. When you are confronted with truths you lived yourself as witness on the ground they took place, and that happens many years passed, hindsight becomes judgement. The book was “Can ‘the whole world’ be wrong?”, by Richard Landes. I found myself reading my own writings, contemporary to those truths, and was quite disturbed by them. You see, I didn’t realize how much I was oblivious of betrayal.

I was saved from complete collapse by my subconscious, that never surrendered to the prevailing sentiment of Western shame towards the Orient we, Europeans, became masters of when we centered all geography on our soil and in our souls. To the point where, in our ashamed hubris, we determined Europe would become the next superpower. In an enlightened era of revived Renaissance.

The irony is, supreme, it was the Orientals once among ourselves who provided the spark to the secularism without which the original Renaissance would never have existed in the first place. The supreme aspect of such irony is we recognized this while failing to understand how the Orient had since obliterated that spark in its own midst. We projected our core values onto those who despise them.

In doing so we deny reality in favor of a dream we dreamed half consciously, as if afraid to wake up and realize it was but a dream while its fragments inevitably slip into oblivion. As they almost always do. In my case, back in the early 2000s, it was the poet in me reaching for the stars as I walked on the remnants of an advanced civilization that lived on “my soil” for nearly seven centuries.

A civilization with urban lighting and centers of knowledge, with mathematics and astronomy, and philosophy. Ibn Rushd, known to us as Averroes, lived among us then and planted the seed of secularism in Andalusian soil. A seed the Christian crusaders tried to crush as much as they did the Muslim presence in Europe.

Luckily for our yet to be born Renaissance, they succeeded the latter and failed the former. The pen remained mightier than the sword. As a romantic I dreamed the dreams of the lost gardens of Cordova for the expelled, but through the eyes of an imagined Salah ad-Din in all his tolerance and magnanimous deeds, allowing all faiths to worship within the walls of Jerusalem.

Later on I realized such romantic notions could be found in men born to other faiths who held on to Averroes spark and were not as religious as one would expect, such as Theodor Herzl and his dream of yet another cosmopolitan Jerusalem, open to all in peace. Always Jerusalem. The inexorable center of the universe, the ultimate conquest.

My deep rooted love for Israel and my subconscious admiration for the only religion “that is not a religion”, Judaism, and for the Jewish people, balanced my feelings for this unnatural positive sum game we played with Islam in the early 2000s. Unlike most Europeans on the streets back then, I was not protesting Western culture when I joined their protests. I was defending it.

As I rallied against the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, disturbed by the nonsense it was to wage “war on terror”, I didn’t realize my fellow secular protestors were acting as defenders of a faith they did not understand, confusing it with the culture that once sparked their precious secularism but had since crushed it. Dreamers. Dangerous ones.

As an European living these events in Europe I was attracted to the romanticism of the children throwing rocks at tanks but my eyes clearly saw they were really grown men blowing up buses full of children. That had already been my impression before, in the three years of the first intifada, ending in 1990, and so it was in 2000.

While many others allowed the image of Muhammad al Durah, the Palestinian 12 year old shot in the arms of his father, to erase the little Jewish boy in the Warsaw ghetto from their minds, I found that very thought abhorrent and repulsive. The narrative of that incident (al Durah) was exacerbated by the European press and media. I was there.

I remember feeling anguished by it, but still in my subconscious the little Jewish boy’s arms held up at the Warsaw ghetto were like waving me off the cliff. The press I trusted was revealing its nature, betraying me. And then the prophet’s cartoons happened. Again those who I had protested with were out on the streets, defending Sharia Law with all their secular might. I was not.

The perfidious Da’Wah was nothing but Jihad’s sister and its true motives became clear. We played the positive sum game for too long with a zero sum player. We were on negative sum territory. And we were losing badly. Personally, the result was defeatist and I let the Kahanist portrait of Israel lead me to believe Israel was doomed to demographic induced collapse.

The fear of that very possibility consumed me and I couldn’t understand why Israelis and their diaspora couldn’t see it as such. To this day it is that fear that still convinces me a two state solution is the only alternative for the enduring existence of a democratic Jewish State in Israel. Many believed this in Israel herself until October 7, 2023.

The Am Yisrael Herzl dreamed of was a manifestation of a people engaged in a positive sum game living in peace with its neighbors, close and far. The more realistic Zionists of his time were neither secular nor detached from the zero sum game humans had naturally played for thousands of years. The human nature secular values wish to tame and transform.

That is the very essence of democracy: the constant restraint of human nature in a world where it is no longer possible to sustain a zero sum game without going mad. Without mutually assured destruction. There’s just too many of us with too little room to indulge in our destructive nature without a negative sum outcome.

Our only hope remains to ensure a positive sum environment where we all thrive before we are destroyed. The problem with that is we cannot go from our current state to such a solution directly. Our first step must be to reach zero. In order to do that we must admit we are deep into negative territory and why. We can only do this by recognizing the nature of our opponents.

If we are to prevail in our aspirations for a better world where our secular values are the norm and the guarantee of true freedom, including religious freedom, we must apply the same fervor against ALL those whose objective is to impose their beliefs on us. We no longer tolerate a Christian based totalitarianism. We must extend that intolerance to the one Islam seeks to impose.

Our colonial guilt, as Westerners, must not result in such shame that prevents us from recognizing our enemy, or projecting that guilt on the innocent that play no part in it, such as the Jewish people, while ignoring it in the design of a global caliphate, as if doing so would make us xenophobic. The same way being intolerant of Nazism is not a sign of xenophobia towards Aryans.

The West is playing the same game Israel has been playing since 1948. Siding with her enemies is no longer a safe exercise in self righteousness to quell our colonial guilt but a suicidal surrender to shame that prevents us from successfully engaging those very enemies within our borders. Failing to recognize this will eventually lead to a new holy war, in which secular people have no part to play.

The opposition to Islamic fundamentalism in our societies cannot be left to Christian nationalists, no matter how successful their XXI century crusaders may be. It must be embraced by those of us who believe in a secular future without room for the intolerant. Before we can successfully play a positive sum game we must engage and win a zero sum one.

All we hold dear, the little things and the big ones, from a simple gathering with friends around a drink to the right to love whoever we like, is being lost as a result of the negative sum our delusions of positivity and inclusivity produced. We better open our eyes and stand our ground. While we still can.