Is anti-Zionism anti-Semitism?
It’s an old question. I agree with Brendan O’Neill when he writes this in response:
Is it anti-Semitic to criticise Israel? Of course not. No nation on Earth should be shielded from the brickbats or even the ridicule of the world’s citizens.
Is it anti-Semitic to rage day in, day out against Israel? To think of little else? To let this tiny state occupy your every waking thought? To call it uniquely barbarous, borderline demonic, a nation that lusts after blood like no other? To dream of its destruction? To traipse through the streets every week hollering for its obliteration? To call its citizens genocidal freaks and lunatics? To taunt them with memories of their ancestors’ extermination by branding them ‘Nazis’? To devote yourself so singularly to this one nation’s erasure that you come to define your entire political personality by that warped goal and proudly declare yourself an ‘anti-Zionist’?
Yes. Yes, that is anti-Semitic. If you maniacally obsess over the Jewish homeland, and detest Jewish nationalism more than any other nationalism, and gleefully chant for the death of the Jewish nation’s soldiers, and fantasise about the violent excision of the Jewish State ‘from the river to the sea’, then you have a problem with Jews. And more of us need to say so.
“Double standard” doesn’t even begin to cover it. Israel is judged by completely unique standards and subject to completely unique demands, in addition to having to withstand a constant barrage of accusatory lies.
Netanyahu interview at Triggernometry
I haven’t had a chance to watch this yet, but I bet it’s good:
If true, this is very good news about Elon Musk
Haven’t heard much from him lately. But here’s the report, according to “individuals close to Musk”:
Tesla CEO and former DOGE chief Elon Musk is reportedly backpedaling on the idea of forming a third political party and instead seeking to use his vast wealth to support the leading contender for the presidency in 2028.
Reportedly, Musk is keen on Vance in 2028.
[NOTE: This is my very first post in the category “Election 2028.”]
What would security guarantees for Ukraine look like?
Commenter “Niketas Choniates” writes:
If a country is in NATO, that is saying “America (and Europe) will send their boys to die there and take a nuke for it if necessary”. The more countries get added to NATO, the less likely that is, and NATO just becomes a paper tiger, its bluff will get called eventually, and then we either get a real war we never wanted, or NATO ends up on the ash heap with the League of Nations.
All the people saying “Neville Chamberlain”: do you or do you not support sending US troops to Ukraine, taking a nuke for it if necessary? If yes, awesome, convince the rest of us that Ukraine is worth dying for. If no, don’t pretend that we can fight half or a quarter of a war with no risk to us at home. Russia is not Iraq or Iran, that we can work our will on with no consequences at home. Keep pushing against red lines, and finally you’ll cross one, and then we WILL have years of flag-draped coffins and possibly some nukes. If you think the risk is worth it, have the integrity and the courage to say so.
And yet no one here is saying Ukraine would or should join NATO, and Trump has made it clear that NATO membership is off the table for Ukraine, as are US boots on the ground there. For that matter, I wonder if people in the US would “take a nuke” or send US troops in order to defend France or England or Germany at this point.
Ukraine has demanded security guarantees as part of any deal, and European nations committed to providing them with the assistance of the US – but what would they look like without NATO membership? Would they have any teeth at all? They would need some formidable fangs, given Putin’s continuing desire to take over Ukraine.
The details have not been made clear – surprise, surprise – and yet I have a feeling they would need to be at least moderately convincing for Zelensky to agree to them, or for Trump to advocate them. I don’t think Trump wants a peace deal that quickly falls through.
Here’s an article that tries to describe the security possibilities:
Zelensky said the U.S. had sent a strong signal on security guarantees but said he could not offer any more concrete information until more details were nailed down in roughly the next 10 days.
Ukraine has been wary of exactly what security guarantees will look like. Just before Monday’s meetings, Zelensky said peace must be “lasting” and not echo the “so called ‘security guarantees’ in 1994.”
“They didn’t work,” Zelensky continued.
In the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine agreed to give up nuclear weapons in the country in exchange for security “assurances” from the U.S, U.K. and from Russia. The agreement—a political pledge worded to safeguard the “independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine”—became known as the Budapest Memorandum. Russia violated the memorandum in 2014 and 2022. …
Zelensky also said security guarantees would also include an arms deal worth roughly $90 billion between the U.S. and Ukraine.
Russia has said it wants strict long-term limits on Ukraine’s military. Bloomberg reported on Tuesday U.S. and European officials will immediately start work on the security guarantees, and making sure there are no restrictions on Ukraine’s armed forces is a top priority.
Sounds like an impasse.
There’s talk of an Article 5-like type of guarantee, which would mean something similar to what NATO nations pledge to each other. But Article 5 has never been invoked except after 9/11, and that situation doesn’t resemble this one.
More possibilities:
Trump suggested that he wants Europeans to be “the first line of defence”, with the US providing intelligence, weapons (paid for by Europe) and air support of some kind. He was quite clear there would be no US “boots on the ground”.
Ukraine’s European allies are now mulling over what their role as guarantors of security for a peace deal might look like. It has been reported the head of the UK’s armed forces, Tony Radakin, will tell a meeting of military commanders at the Pentagon that the UK is prepared to send troops to Ukraine – not as a frontline fighting force, but to provide security at ports and air bases. How many members of the coalition of the willing are prepared to do the same remains uncertain.
It’s worthless if Putin doesn’t believe any of it will happen. It’s also at least partly dependent on who’s in charge in each country when any future Russian aggression towards Ukraine would take place. Another variable is Putin himself; he’s 72 years old, which in the present climate seems relatively young, but will his health hold out? And would a successor be inclined to have the same designs on Ukraine in the face of promised security guarantees?
Open thread 8/20/2025
Plans are afoot for trilateral Ukraine talks
Well, well, well:
Trump called Putin after discussing security guarantees for Ukraine during multi-phase talks with European leaders at the White House.
“I called President Putin, and began the arrangements for a meeting, at a location to be determined, between President Putin and President Zelenskyy,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
“After that meeting takes place, we will have a Trilat, which would be the two Presidents, plus myself,” Trump said, calling it a positive “early step for a War that has been going on for almost four years.”
Well, it’s not happening on the first day of Trump’s administration, as promised in typical Trump hyperbole that was preposterous on its face. But I repeat my previous statement that if he can pull this one off, I’ll be tremendously impressed. I’m already impressed by so many things Trump has done, but this problem seemed intractable.
Of course, time will tell.
One prediction I will make is that most Trump-haters will give him no credit no matter what he does.
NOTE: I think that some European leaders may be getting accustomed to Trump and his style.
Crime drops in Washington DC
Who would have thought?
According to the union, which represents the Metropolitan Police Department’s 3,000 personnel, carjackings are down 83% since federal control was enacted, while robberies dropped 46%.
Violent crime fell 22% in the seven days since federal law enforcement began patrolling D.C.’s streets, and car theft came down 21%. Assault with a deadly weapon and property crime are also each down 6%.
“While federal assistance gives us a boost, we must repeal the misguided Comprehensive Policing and Justice Reform Act in order to make these changes permanent,” the union wrote on X, Monday morning.
It’s not a mystery that cracking down on criminals might actually reduce crime. But Democrats seem to think that shouldn’t be the way.
The thing about crime rates, though – rising or falling – is that they are statistics, and statistics depend on how things are reported and defined. We all know they can be manipulated. So at the moment we have dueling statistics about what’s really going on in DC and elsewhere. The police have been saying that recent DC statistics – prior to Trump’s action – were artificially low.
NOTE: Here’s an interesting article on the lethality of crimes in DC.
Israel’s Hobson’s choice
[Hat tip: commenter “Barry Meislin.”]
I’m in complete agreement with this:
… [Israel] is caught in an equation deliberately made insoluble. On October 7th, by massacring civilians and abducting hundreds of hostages, Hamas triggered a war with no bearable outcome. Israel was not only surprised. It was trapped.
It is important to understand: Hamas is not seeking victory, it seeks the destruction of Israel. They do not care if Gaza burns, as long as Israel bleeds. This is an eschatological strategy: lose everything, as long as the other falls with you. And their strategy relies on entanglement, on emotion, on manipulating Western consciences. Their strength is not military, it is dramaturgical.
And perhaps the most chilling thing is this: they have understood the West better than many Israeli strategists. Their real front is Western public opinion, not the IDF.
By taking hostages, they forbid peace. By hiding among civilians in the most densely populated territory in the world, they forbid war. Hamas has invented a geometry of the trap: Israel is locked in a war where every victory is a loss. In this asymmetrical, post-modern war, it is not reality that counts—it is the image of reality.
This trap could not work without the cooperation of Western democracies. By reversing the pressure—not on the hostage-takers, but on those trying to rescue them—they legitimize blackmail. By recognizing a Palestinian state unconditionally, they turn a terrorist strategy into political capital. …
The hostages are trophies, levers, spotlights trained on Gaza to keep the war going. They will not all be returned: that is precisely why they were taken.
This strategy was apparent almost from the start, when the West – and most especially the Western MSM – began to play its role with perfection. The template was set early on, with the fake news on October 17, 2023, of the bombing of the Al-Ahli hospital, which was picked up and spread by Western media without questioning the obvious impossibility of the Gazans having a body count in no time at all, and without even trying to ascertain whether the hospital was even damaged (it was not) or investigating the provenance of the explosives (Hamas in origin). Hamas could put out any lie whatsoever that would make Israel look bad, and the propaganda would be promulgated by the MSM and then amplified on social media. It was a winning formula – “winning” in the sense of making Israel look bad in the eyes of so much of the gullible, Israel-hating world.
Many many times I’ve heard it said, and read it written, that Israel is terrible at communicating its message. This is usually stated with a condescending and deprecating air, as though there’s something Israel could do that it isn’t doing. But these criticisms almost always ignore what I think is glaringly obvious, which is that it is actually impossible to accomplish this. The reason? It’s the old saying: a lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its boots on. Lies are easy to tell and no proof is demanded if the recipient is already predisposed to believe the lie. The truth countering it requires facts, and facts take time. Plus, they are brushed away as self-serving lies by those who don’t want to see.
Israel has indeed been in a trap since 10/7, and the hostages are the key to the trap. It would be bad enough to wage the war against Hamas even without them, because lies like the one about the Al-Ahli hospital explosion would be continually told by Hamas and believed by those who demonize Israel. But the hostages make the dilemma far far worse because they make it very difficult to prosecute the war in a timely and effective fashion.
Hamas has always known this. As I wrote on April 10, 2024, about six months after the hostages were taken [emphasis added]:
… [T]he remaining hostages (except for the Bibas family) are in two major categories: military members and civilian men over 18. I believe (but cannot prove) that these two groups – especially the military – were singled out by Hamas for harsher treatment from the start. “Harsher treatment” can mean many things, including death. But Hamas was always going to keep these groups back and use them to bargain for the entire prize: the release of all Palestinian prisoners (numbering in thousands) held in Israel, the end of Israel’s offensive in Gaza, and the continuation of Hamas’ own powerful death grip on Gaza.
That’s how valuable the hostages are to Hamas.
NOTE: According to this article, Hamas has recently accepted a deal for about half of the hostages, but Israel is demanding them all. Israel is correct to demand them, but I doubt Israel will ever get them. The alternative is more war.
Open thread 8/19/2020
Traffic here has been somewhat down …
… and I wonder why. It had been stable for years and years, but has dropped off about twenty or twenty-five percent.
Maybe people on the right are taking a breather, now that Trump has been elected.
Maybe it’s just the usual summer downturn, although it started before the summer and just a couple of months after his election.
Maybe I’ve become boring.
Maybe blogs are passé, even among the more – ahem, mature readership in which I seem to specialize.
I also worry that – for the same reason of an older readership – some unknown number of readers have died or are ill. So folks, please take good care of yourselves and stay healthy! And I say that not just for selfish reasons.
Trump is planning voting reform
A new announcement from Trump:
In a lengthy post on Truth Social, Trump announced, “I am going to lead a movement to get rid of MAIL-IN BALLOTS, and also, while we’re at it, Highly ‘Inaccurate,’ Very Expensive, and Seriously Controversial VOTING MACHINES.” He argued that such machines cost “Ten Times more than accurate and sophisticated Watermark Paper, which is faster, and leaves NO DOUBT, at the end of the evening, as to who WON, and who LOST, the Election.”
Trump said the United States stands alone in continuing to use widespread mail-in voting. “We are now the only Country in the World that uses Mail-In Voting. All others gave it up because of the MASSIVE VOTER FRAUD ENCOUNTERED,” he wrote.
The president made clear that he intends to act quickly, pledging to use executive authority to move the plan forward. “WE WILL BEGIN THIS EFFORT, WHICH WILL BE STRONGLY OPPOSED BY THE DEMOCRATS BECAUSE THEY CHEAT AT LEVELS NEVER SEEN BEFORE, by signing an EXECUTIVE ORDER to help bring HONESTY to the 2026 Midterm Elections,” Trump said.
He also challenged the notion that states hold full control over election administration.
I assume the plan is that the EO is just the beginning to set the tone, and that Congress would need to act. It’s not even clear to me that Congress could keep states from having their own rules about mail-in voting, because although states don’t hold full control over federal election rules in their own states, they definitely have some. How far does that control go? I don’t think it’s clear.
When the Democrats were in power, they kept trying to pass HR1, which would have eliminated the states’ ability to impose certain aspects of voting security on federal elections, and been in some ways the reverse of what Trump is now trying to do. The measure didn’t pass, and therefore its constitutionality or unconstitutionality was never determined. Same with any bill a GOP-led Congress might pass in order to control mail-in voting and the like – its constitutionality would almost certainly be challenged. It’s definitely worth a try, though, because I think the reforms are needed.