Guaranteed To Keep You Up At Night

To better understand the extent of the crises facing Israel and American Jews, I strongly recommend you read (or listen to) these three sobering analyses.

“How To Build A Palestinian State” with Haviv Rettig Gur on Call Me Back - with Dan Senor

Perhaps a better title for this 50-minute podcast would be “How Not To Build A Palestinian State.”

Dan Senor, the co-author of “Start-Up Nation” and, most recently, “The Genius of Israel,” hosts this weekly podcast, “Call Me Back,” that since October 7 has focused on the Israel-Hamas war. His most frequent guest is Haviv Rettig Gur, the insightful Times of Israel analyst. 

I recommend all of the episodes, and especially this one in which Rettig Gur explains the many reasons why he and most Israelis who long for a peaceful two-state solution are deeply skeptical and fearful of such an outcome in the way it is being discussed by would-be peacemakers today. 

The discussion is based in part on, “The Two-State Delusion,”  an article in Tablet magazine (Feb. 1) by Elliott Abrams, a senior fellow on the Council of Foreign Relations.

“Five Myths About Israel and The War in Gaza” (January 30), a podcast and/or full transcript by Sam Harris, a best-selling author on religion, moral philosophy, violence and neuroscience.

Before countering myths like those asserting Israel is committing genocide, that Israelis are colonizers and that the Hamas attack on October 7 was a legitimate response to oppression, Harris makes two major points: one is that the current war is not just between Israel and Hamas but part of a larger clash of cultures taking place around the world between jihadists (Islamic extremists) and “ordinary human beings struggling to maintain the norms of open societies.”

And second, he asserts that “sometimes war is necessary” and “jihadists are Nazis who are certain of paradise … eager to die and have their children die because they actually believe in martyrdom… This is fundamentalist religion in its worst form.”

“They’re Coming After Us” a major article in Commentary magazine’s February issue by the editor, John Podhoretz

“It wasn’t just the fact that the world didn’t instantly react to the Hamas invasion of Israel the way it did to the attacks of September 11 or the invasion of Ukraine—with an outpouring of support and sympathy across the globe,” Podhoretz writes. “What civilized person wouldn’t feel the attack was a monstrous barbarity? The answer was: plenty of people, everywhere. That was bad enough. What was worse was how anti-Israel and anti-Jewish actions came flying at us from everywhere simultaneously. ‘It’s happening all at once,’ I told a friend who asked me why this felt so different from other bad moments for American Jews.”

Podhoretz discusses the article with Dan Senor on Senor’s podcast, “Call Me Back.” The interview, which can be heard here, is from January 19, and titled “The End of a Jewish Golden Age.”

As always, I welcome your responses.