Things People Blame the Jews For, Volume LXXXI: Migrants from Morocco

On Thursday, a large influx of migrants (reportedly 60,000) crossed from Morocco into Ceuta, a Spanish exclave on the mainland African coast. This has led to a lot of far-right chirping and no small number of conspiracy theories. And where there are conspiracy theories, well, you know what's going to follow -- it's a Zionist plot, done to "punish" Spain for its pro-Palestine advocacy.

At first it was just the usual assortment of Twitter randos, notable only for giving us the never-before-uttered phrase "Zionist-occupied Morocco". But it has definitely broken containment. Al-Jazeera has a "just raising questions" column that doesn't allow a complete lack of evidence to interfere with a "[w]hether Israel is indeed involved ... remains to be seen" conclusion. Then Javier Bardem got in on the action, with a profoundly weird Instagram post implying that actually Morocco is a European power invading African Spain (with the same "we don't know who engineered this crisis", but we sure feel confident suggesting it's Israel!).

One thing this particular incident inspired me to do is reflect on how I deal with statements blaming "Zionists" or "Israel" in this series. It's called Things People Blame the Jews For, and as approximately three million BlueSky users are quick to remind us, "Jew" is not a synonym of "Israel" or "Zionist". And of course, I do not contest that Israel does any number of things for which it can be "blamed" for (and which it would never occur to me to put into this series). So what does make a "blame the Zionists" post TPBTJF-qualified?

The basic answer is that I'll include an incident if it's clear that "Israel" or "Zionist" is standing in for the role Jews have historically occupied in conspiracy theories -- as a ready-available source of blame for generic bad things that have no significant connection to Israel or Jews at all (beyond the normal connections that can always be found between one significant social group and another). People race to that explanation not because it's objectively all that plausible, but because it will always feel plausible to those for whom "it's the Jews fault" always has an above-baseline ring of truth to it.

If one buys into the "punishment" argument, one could basically say that any bad thing that happens to any country which is critical of Israel can be plausibly suggested to trace back to Israeli malfeasance (see also: Egypt suffered from some controversial World Cup calls because Israel). This is very convenient for the leaders of said country, but not very convenient for people actually interested in the true sources of said bad thing.

Good Government Backsliding

One of Zohran Mamdani's signature policy initiatives just launched -- a tax on pied-à-terres. The tax would apply to second homes (i.e., those not occupied as a primary residence) worth over $1 million.

I won't claim to be a housing (or tax) policy expert, but this seems perfectly reasonable to me. Admittedly, given the cost of NYC real estate a one million dollar home maybe isn't as opulent as one might imagine elsewhere.  But a one million dollar second home undoubtedly qualifies as a luxury, and it is no foul to ask people who live in luxury to pay a little extra to support the rest of society.

So far, so good. Unfortunately, the rollout of the tax has apparently been beset with problems. The city released a list of 960,000 properties it thought "could" be subjected to the tax, far in excess of the 10,000 units predicted to actually qualify for the assessment. Reportedly, even though the tax is explicitly targeted at second homes, quite a few homeowners received letters telling them they were on the hook for their primary residence. And a relatively quick deadline set for challenging the assessment (near the end of August) has been paired with a malfunctioning mechanism for actually filing the challenge, causing panic amongst a significant quotient of homeowners who were not intended to and should not be covered by the tax:

Ohlerking’s notice said he could apply for an exemption to the tax by submitting proof online that the home was his primary residence. 

But, when Ohlerking, who is blind, logged on to the prescribed website with the help of his friend Jennifer Stadnik, they were met with a nonfunctioning blank white screen.  

So, the pair printed out a cache of documents to take to the Department of Finance’s Brooklyn office—only to be told by employees that the office couldn’t accept Ohlerking’s proof of residency at that time because they were busy setting up a designated intake center for people claiming they wrongfully received pied-à-terre tax notices, Stadnik said.

On Friday, Stadnik said the office called Ohlerking to tell him it would be able to help him on Monday morning.

I'll pause here to say two things. One is that part of good government is good execution, no matter what it is you're doing. Whatever one might think about the policy, the execution seems to have been a screw-up here, and for that the Mamdani administration deserves to take a few lumps. The other is that mistakes happen. No administration ever does everything perfectly. Taking a few lumps is one thing, but stories like this don't on their own justify some sweeping indictment that the Mamdani administration is essentially or uniquely incompetent.

And in an ideal world, that's all that would need to be said. But on BlueSky, I've seen an alarming number of posts not just excusing the rollout mishaps, but taking a tone of sadistic glee that people are being subjected to these mistakes (and an apparently Kafka-esque process for challenging said mistakes). "Oh yes, what a colossal mess, asking wealthy property owners to prove they live in those properties," sneered one journalist. An article in the Free Press titled "Why Mamdani Is Asking My Mom to Pay His Pied-à-Terre Tax" was met with a snarky "I'm guessing he's asking her because she owns a pied-a-terre" -- but the point of the article is that no, she doesn't, this is her primary residence (the author in question is Alex Berenson, and I deeply resent having to say anything remotely defensive on his behalf).

At the risk of being cringe liberal, it is never good to revel in another's suffering for its own sake. If Mamdani's tax is good, it's because it raises revenue from those who can most afford to pay to fund projects necessary for the good of the city as a whole. It's not good because it aggravates people who own lavish second homes in New York that they don't live in. It's certainly not good because it aggravates people who are mistakenly asserted to be owners of lavish second homes in New York that they don't live in. At that point, one is saying that it is good to immiserate the innocent in the service of attempting to immiserate the enemy class. This is not a healthy attitude. Once that sort of atavistic sadism is allowed to let slip, it always leads to dark places.

A few days ago, I said that "Half of Mamdani’s genius is convincing ordinary people that progressive ideas will materially benefit their lives and aren’t scary communism, and the other half is convincing terminally online leftists that basic good government is progressive and isn’t neoliberal shilling for evil corporations." I stand by that, and I don't think this blip falsifies the broader point that for the most part Mamdani genuinely has tried to focus on basic good government and that doing so is part of being a progressive, not a betrayal of it.

But it's pretty clear that many of his supporters, at least, have not quite internalized the lesson yet.

Blamed For (Not) Our Crazies

This year, animal rights activists in Oregon tried to get a petition on the ballot that would extend the state's animal cruelty laws to all animals, including those in the wild or being farmed for agriculture. That description may or may not seem extreme, but the practical upshots are absolutely extreme: a total ban on hunting and fishing, a ban on livestock slaughter, a ban on most forms of animal husbandry, even a ban on most types of pest control.

Unsurprisingly, it was not popular -- receiving essentially wall-to-wall denunciations from major politicians of both parties. Ultimately, it did not receive enough signatures to make the ballot, and one would think we could all chalk it up to "there are fringe radicals everywhere" and leave it there.

Or we could engage in our favorite pastime and say that the existence of this petition proves Democrats are terrible. Enter Erik Loomis' post on the initiative, which begins as follows:

Oregon Democrats: A Parody of Liberals

I cannot imagine a worse or stupider ballot measure than what Oregon liberals are trying to push here. Evidently, Democrats never want to win a rural voter ever again.

What's amazing about this is that the article Loomis proceeds to block quote tells us both that the initiative is poised to fail to qualify for the ballot and that it was generally opposed by statewide Democrats (and Republicans). So how does it reflect poorly on "Oregon Democrats"?

The people behind this initiative, I am absolutely certain, do not care a whit about "Democrats" or Democratic electoral prospects. It's a fair bet that they're not actually Democrats themselves. The only thing Democrats have done with respect to this initiative is successfully oppose it. Yet it's still framed as proof of Democratic idiocy and/or malfeasance.

The real irony is that Murc's law was created at LGM!

There's a Print Club, and I'm In It

 

As some of you know, my recent hobby-obsession is art collecting. And while I don't limit myself to one particular medium, to the extent I have a concentration, it's on prints.

Being the self-reflective sort, I wondered why editioned prints in particular appeal to me so much. The standard "pitch" for prints is that they are a cheaper and more accessible point of entry into the fine art world than other mediums. We've talked before about how the same A-tier artists whose paintings go for a million dollars-plus have editions available you can snag for a thousand dollars or less.

Being a cost-conscious sort (and certainly not a megamillionaire), that's definitely playing a role. But there are some other things I like about prints in particular.

One is that prints are limited editions, but not one-of-a-kind. People who are purists about paintings over prints often harp on the uniqueness of the former. But I actually kind of like the communal aspect of sharing in a particular work -- at least, to a limited extent. A club that anyone can join is pointless, but a club that only has one member is pretty boring. Print ownership is like being part of an exclusive but still interesting club.

For example, the image pictured above is an etching I recently acquired by Leonard Baskin, titled "Artemis". In addition to his "regular" artistic career, Baskin founded and owned the Gehenna Press, which published limited edition fine arts books. One such book was an edition of the Greek tragedy Hippolytus, of which only 200 copies were made, and included with the book were ten illustrations, "Artemis" being one of them. Outside those 200, Baskin created a supplemental edition of 90, which is where my copy comes from. So 290 total -- not too many, in the scheme of things. And even better is who else is in that small circle. For "Artemis", I now know that a piece on my wall also is in the collection of (among other locales) the Delaware Art Museum and the Cornell University Art Museum. That's pretty neat! I won't claim that all or even most of the works I own are represented in museums, but I do have pieces that also are found in the National Gallery of Art, the Walker, the National Gallery of Australia, and Cambridge's Fitzwilliam Museum. That's a pretty good club to be a member of!

And lest we find all this talk of museums and exclusive clubs a bit too posh, there's a related phenomenon that I am quite sure plays a large role in my love for prints: they're numbered. "Artemis", for instance, is numbered 68/90 (the 68th example from the edition of 90). And I love those numbers.

Why? Well, you see, long before I was an art collector, I was a baseball card collector. That was my big childhood hobby, and while I've long since gotten out of that game, I still have my old collection. Interestingly, even as a child one of my favorite things to collect were vintage cards from the 1950s and 60s. But in terms of contemporary cards, the coolest ones were the rare inserts. And the coolest of the inserts were the cards with an individual serial number.

We in the baseball card collecting biz were very naive when this started to become a thing. The 1998 SPx Finite set's common cards were individually numbered to 9000 -- huge, by art world standards, but I remember thinking it was the coolest thing in the world. And of course, some cards were rarer, and some were a lot rarer. I have a Greg Maddux numbered to 11 and a Scott Rolen numbered to 25 that I kept in a bank deposit box for decades, less because of their value than because I was freaked out at the prospect of losing them.

Anyway, the point is that seeing a limited edition print numbered X of Y pulls on a deep, deep well of childhood excitement and enthusiasm and nostalgia. A painting may be unique, but it doesn't have the number attached to it. And while that might not be the most sophisticated impetus for a collecting interest, I think there are worse grounds for a building a hobby than that.

Say That I Do, Not That I Say

The other day, I put up a skeet complaining about the faction of progressive commentators who were mad at Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear for not just declaring Mitch McConnell dead and calling a special election to replace him. Their complaints generally took on the theme of aggrievement at Democrats who don't "fight" and a concurrent demand that Beshear "do something" rather than just sit around and vegetate while another Republican lie goes unchallenged. Why don't Democrats ever play hardball?

The problem with this hue and cry, I pointed out, is that it completely misreads what the "hardball" play is. As long as Mitch McConnell is missing, he can't cast votes -- functionally losing the GOP one sorely needed seat. If he dies (or we just decide he's dead), and Beshear calls a special election to replace him, that special election will be won by a Republican who can cast votes, giving the Senate GOP its seat back. Calling a special election helps Republicans. Keeping McConnell's seat in purgatory indefinitely helps Democrats. The hardball move isn't for Beshear to just unilaterally declare Mitch McConnell dead; the hardball move is for Beshear to say he'll do nothing until he sees a long form death certificate and then disconnect his phone.

Nonetheless, the amount of traction the "do something" calls against Beshear has gotten is worrisome. For starters, we shouldn't look past the fact that it is at best conspiracy theory adjacent (it is extremely unlikely that McConnell is secretly dead and that fact is being hidden by nefarious GOP operative -- if for no other reason than, again, his death would be good for the GOP as against the alternative of him lingering but incapable of casting votes). But beyond that, it is the apex of a certain type of brainrot which is so mad at supposedly sclerotic Democratic leadership that it fetishizes the appearance of "doing something" above all else. This is itself a gateway to fascism -- a feature of which Umberto Eco identified 30 years ago as including the cult of action for action’s sake. (“Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, any previous reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation.”) -- but even if it wasn't, it's just stupidity wrapped in an angry self-righteous shell. It's a large part of what gave us Graham Platner, and what made Platner immune to so many normally career-ended scandals until he finally wasn't -- all could be forgiven because "at least he's a fighter."

This is the problem. Too much of our political energy is being channeled exclusively through the lens of "doing something", where that marks out the sole criteria for goodness or badness, in a way that leads to counterproductive or just bizarre contortions. To give a different example, earlier today Nexus issued a statement defending New York City major Zohran Mamdani from allegations of antisemitism leveled by ADL chieftain Jonathan Greenblatt. Someone on BlueSky, while purporting to "applaud" Nexus for calling Greenblatt out, found the statement to be woefully insufficient. The "absence of action is deafening," he wrote. Nexus' "commitment to fight antisemitism rests on what you do, not just what you say/post."

So what is it that Nexus should have "done", as opposed to just "said"? They should have issued a "call for [Greenblatt's] removal from leadership."

Now, maybe that's a good thing for them to do, maybe not. But I could not help but point out that "calling" for Greenblatt's removal is ... a call. It is words. Again, that doesn't make it pointless -- Nexus doesn't sit on the ADL's board, so they can't actually "do" anything. The point is, though, that if there is a divide between "what you say" and "what you do", this falls pretty decisively on the "say" side of the line. And I flag this here because it seems pretty clear that this was an example of someone for whom "doing" is inherently good and "saying" is inherently inadequate, and so they just instinctively decided that their own preferred tactical intervention had to be a "do" even though it was exactly as much of a "say" as the statement whose inaction was so deafening.

To be clear, I'm not urging a return to cautious moderation. Much the opposite, I think Democrats need to be bold, and when they take back power, they need to exercise it. Recall my wishlist for the first week of the next Democratic administration:

By the end of the first week, I'd want to a complete pro-democracy package (including DC statehood) on the president's desk. I want to see prominent Republicans and ICE leaders who've committed crimes frog-marched in handcuffs. I want the corporate executives who approved "settlements" for Trump's frivolous lawsuits indicted for bribery. I want to see public resources and opportunities expressly redirected away from companies and firms who caved to Trump, and towards those who showed backbone, to show that there are penalties to being a quisling. I want the DOJ to announce an anti-corruption task force geared at identifying all the money stolen from the American taxpayer by the Trump family and clawing back as much of it as possible, and I want them to name and shame the Supreme Court as among the primary obstacles to providing accountability for their crimes. I want to uncover the corrupt insiders who bet on the lives of American servicemembers and have their identities blasted across every newspaper in America in advance of their trials. Do it all, do it fast, weather the storm, then consolidate your position.

These are, I hope one would agree, pretty "fight-y" in character. And importantly, I'd defend all of them on the merits of being good policy, not just as short-term political expediency but in terms of long-term political health. Critically, they are not good just because they give a powerful aura of fighting and acting. And by the same token, while many of these good things can be announced quickly, a lot of them to be fully operationalized do require a lot of the "boring" work of planning and organizing and thinking and researching in order to actually accomplish what they set out to do. Doing that sort of thing isn't backsliding, it's part of making action work.

It is absolutely true that a political movement, to be worthwhile, has to do some things. We're not a philosophy club; the point is to translate some ideals into practice. But the thirst for action needs to be tempered -- it cannot be its own justification. When we let ourselves indulge action for actions sake (again, even leaving aside the pipeline to fascism risk), we will continually bash our heads into easily avoidable walls and be mad at those not running full speed along side us. That's what we're seeing with the attacks on Beshear, that's what we saw for too long from those demanding everyone hop aboard the Platner train, and that will ultimately rip the party and the movement to shreds.

Permanent Hypermilitaristic Suppression of Palestinians Hasn't Failed Because It's Never Been Tried?

In a recent blog post, Nachum Kaplan claims that the shift in Israel's security orientation post-10/7 stems from its rejection of "the West's most dangerous illusions." It begins as follows:

October 7th was a catastrophic security failure for Israel and an intellectual demolition.

In a matter of hours, assumptions that had governed Israeli strategy for decades were exposed as manifestly inadequate.

So far, so good. Indeed, immediately after the attacks, I said something to this effect:

Hamas' operation represents an explosive repudiation of the notion that Gaza and Hamas could be besieged into obedience. The right-wing fantasy-nightmare that Israelis could (only) be kept safe through ever-greater oppression of Palestinians has been finally and completely falsified. From an Israel security standpoint, the rightwing playbook has only accomplished an unprecedented endangerment of Israeli lives in service of the furthest right-wing fringe. At what point do we say these policies are leading to nowhere but universal damnation?

Except, somehow, these aren't the "assumptions" Kaplan has in mind. In his telling, the policy structure that was exposed as inadequate is a brainchild of liberal internationalism inspired by post-war Europe, centered around shared economic prosperity and political integration. What is replacing it is a "harder" view of power, one that rejects the belief "that every conflict is a misunderstanding, every enemy a potential partner, and every murderous ideology an unmet socioeconomic need waiting for a development grant to address."

This makes me want to scream. I simply do not understand how someone can look at Israeli policy towards Gaza over the decade or so leading up to 10/7 and think it was characterized by economic interdependence under the umbrella of diplomacy and a rules-based international order that would keep everyone safe. That's just not what the policy was. It borders on delusion to assert that's what the policy was. The policy was that Gaza could be kept under indefinite conditions of besiegement and economic isolation, and Israel could successfully avoid significant security blowback because of its vastly superior military and intelligence apparatus.

That's the policy that was in place on 10/7. That the policy that failed on 10/7. It is maddening that the political faction that was in power on 10/7, and for virtually all of the preceding twenty years leading up to 10/7, and whose political raison d'etre was to savagely dismantle any semblance of this liberal, diplomatic, Oslo-inspired policy because it was not sufficiently "realist", can invert reality on this. It was not the liberals who set the policies or priorities that prevailed on 10/7. So why are we acting as if their outlook is what failed? Why are we acting as if "diplomacy and political resolutions are dead ends; the only thing that matters is the size of our tanks" is a strategic pivot, as opposed to returning to the same dry well?

If you want to be skeptical of political resolutions, I don't begrudge that skepticism. It's entirely understandable to imagine a future where there is a decisive political resolution imposed to "settle" the Israel/Palestine conflict, one which at least purports to protect the political, economic, and security interests of all parties, and it still ends up collapsing back into terrible violence and mayhem and oppression. But if you are going to be skeptical of that imagined, as-yet-unattempted future, then surely one must be at least as skeptical of the very real, absolutely-attempted past and present that fervently asserted military might was the only thing that truly mattered. One you are imagining to fail, the other already actually has failed.

Again, the inversion of who has to explain themselves to who is infuriating. Kaplan concludes by demanding that "those promising coexistence, deterrence through prosperity, or security through international guarantees must now answer a more brutal question. What happens when you are wrong?"

To which I want to reply, what if you're wrong? No, check that: you already were wrong! Kaplan's belief is that a "harder" view of Palestinians, one that is less concerned with diplomatic niceties or economic development (to say nothing of political equality) and one that relies on "military capability, credible deterrence, intelligence competence, and the willingness to use force" will keep Israel safe. That view is not a departure from the one that governed on 10/7, it is the view that was in force on 10/7 and which failed on 10/7. In a sane world, we who supported political equality and diplomatic resolution would not need to restore our credibility to the militarists, they would need to restore their credibility to us.

Perhaps Kaplan wants an "but even more so" version of the preceding years militarism. But we still, we can ask "what if you're wrong?" What if, it turns out, the near-exclusive reliance on military might, and the belief that Palestinians can be subjected to political subordination and economic devastation in perpetuity, does not prevent October 7ths from occurring? We have powerful evidence from experience on this point. And even if Kaplan wants to contest that his version of military power über alles is different from the prior iterations, "[w]hat cannot seriously be disputed is that the burden of proof has changed."

But people like Kaplan seem to genuinely not see this. And that is wild to me.

Confused Jews are Scared Jews

A small independent movie theater near me with a reputation for witty marquees put up the following display to advertise Christopher Nolan's "The Odyssey":

Before there were the Jews ... there was The Odyssey.

This set off a lot of consternation. All the local papers have stories on it. It was included in an all-congregant email sent by my Rabbi, alongside other concerning events such as a Jewish community member's car defaced with swastikas (very concerning) and the majority of Oregon's House delegation voting against military aid to Israel (less concerning).

From my vantage point, the marquee is mostly confusing. I don't get it. It doesn't seem to have a clear point, or tie into any particular narrative (positive or negative) about Jews. Even at its most literal, it's not clear the Odyssey in fact does predate the existence of Jews. So why does this message feel so off?

The best answer I can give is that -- for better or for worse -- when I see something snarky that mentions Jews that doesn't have a clear punchline, my first assumption is that it represents some sewer meme from 4chan or whatnot that hasn't yet broken through into the public consciousness; a shibboleth that signals "I'm talking shit about Jews in a way (((they))) won't get and can't get me for." Remember "noticing"? Or the echo signs, for that matter? It's rarely good when people talk about Jews in elliptical ways, and so when we see people talking about Jews in ways that are opaque and confusing we rationally respond with alarm.

In any event, the theater's GM has now revealed his intentions behind the marquee ... sort of. Judge for yourself:

“My intention is never to influence opinion or fan flames, but to say: it’s okay to raise eyebrows, though I hope my messages reflect a depth of understanding others find in themselves but not always in the world around them,” said [Jordan] Perry by text message. “Through the media I consume, I believe modern-day antisemitism is exaggerated, mostly as a defense for Israel’s actions in the Middle East and its involvement in our politics, and my intention in referencing Jewish people on the marquee was to prod at everything being seemingly antisemitic with a statement that couldn’t possibly be construed as antisemitic.”

A man who thinks antisemitism is greatly exaggerated, but also doesn't understand antisemitism well enough to comprehend why his marquee would be alarming. One might hope that this dissonance would prompt some self-reflection, but I somehow suspect it will do the opposite. 

Hand Foot Mouth Cock Sacky, Part II

Nathaniel has been sent home from daycare again, with suspected hand foot and mouth disease (aka coxsackie). As you may recall, he had this back in January. As you may also recall, I also had this back in January, with much more severe symptoms.

The timing is ... interesting. My parents were here to visit and literally left this morning. In fact, they were still at PDX airport when we got the call. I admit, my first thought was "great -- Nathaniel's sent home right when we lose extra babysitting." With a little time to reflect, I begrudgingly concluded that it was probably better that my seventy-five-year-old parents were not in our house with a highly contagious disease floating about.

As for Nathaniel, I don't begrudge him getting coxsackie again. He is a baby and his immune system is puny and weak. My immune system, by contrast, is strong and virile, and so I should resist the disease much better this time -- right?

We'll see. Right now, half of my brain is interpreting every twinge and ache as a blister that's about to burst forth, while the other half is wishfully insisting that these symptoms are entirely psychosomatic. I guess we'll know for sure in a few days. Hopefully, I don't nearly pass out in any public places this time.

You Got Meta In My Google!

I have a confession to make.

I enjoy googling myself. Okay? I admit it.

And as embarrassing as that admission is, I'm also going to really out myself as elderly and plea for help in using google.

So lately, when I google myself -- "David Schraub", in quotes, limited to hits from the last week or month -- a lot of the recent hits are from Facebook and, less often, Instagram. The little snippet you get from Google suggests that it's someone (a poster? a commenter?) talking about something I've written. But if I click the link -- nothing! The comment isn't there. I'm nowhere to be found on the page! The page and the Google snippet result seem to have nothing to do with one another. What gives?

Now, to some extent, the question of "is Google screwing up Meta or is Meta screwing up Google" feels like a por que no los dos? situation. But nonetheless, I am confused about what is going on, and what these search results purport to be. Does anyone know?

(And more broadly: does anyone know how to search for anything on Instagram? I only use it for art related things, but I confess I don't understand the app at all).

Avoiding the Obvious

Rabbi Seth Winberg, executive director of Hillel at Brandeis, has an interesting/infuriating essay up on JTA about the growing number of young Jews who express preference for a single, binational democratic state in Israel/Palestine. Winberg specifically is focusing on a subset of these Jews, those who are not true anti-Zionist believers but who remain supportive -- at least in concept -- of Israel as a Jewish, democratic state. What explains their support of this plan?

To this question, Winberg gives a summary that is, more or less, exactly correct.

The first, two states for two peoples, looks dead after the peace process has repeatedly failed to deliver that outcome for their entire lives. It’s certainly not an option according to the Israeli consensus, with only 15% of Israeli Jews currently supporting two states. 

The second, in which Israel annexes the West Bank and Gaza and rules millions of Palestinians who cannot vote, seems to be the vision of Israel’s current government.

The third option, one democratic country, imagines equal rights for everyone. To a young American of decent instincts and thin knowledge of the region, schooled to see the conflict as a matter of racial equality, the last sounds like simple justice: one person, one vote.  

This, broadly speaking, is exactly correct (if maybe a bit patronizingly put). There are three possible solutions to the conflict: some form of a two-state solution, a one-state solution without equal rights (i.e., apartheid), or a one-state solution with equal rights. If the apartheid option is viewed as unacceptable, and the two-state solution is viewed as unfeasible, that leaves door #3. It's really not that complicated. And if you're aghast at young Jews picking door #3, then your options are either to make apartheid sound acceptable (hopefully not) or make a two-state solution seem feasible. Again, not that complicated.

But here is where things fly off course. Instead of accepting the obvious point, Winberg veers off into a long digression about connections to Jewish peoplehood and imbrication in Jewish texts and patriotism and distinguishing between country and government. It's long and meandering and frankly I had trouble following it, but more importantly it just has nothing to do with the problem he accurately identified above.

Let's say a group of the young Jews in question takes on Winberg's ideal course of study. They spend a year in his dojo, burying themselves in Jewish text and ritual. They emerge with a genuine, emotive connection to the entirety of the Jewish people -- in Israel, in America, and around the world. They know full well the difference between country and government. They are proudly part of a live and living Jewish tradition.

They then return to the above trilemma: two states, one apartheid state, or one equal binational state. What's changed? Do they now find apartheid attractive? I hope not! Do they now see two-states as more feasible? I don't see why. Nothing has changed, and so nothing will change. The basic trilemma is identical to what it was before, and so the outcome will be the same as it is before.

Everything Winberg is suggesting about cultivating Jewish connection and peoplehood and authentic bonds may be good for its own sake. None of it changes the dynamics of the problem he's accurately identified. And the most maddening feature of all is that the answer to that problem actually is obvious. If you don't like the binational one-state option, and you're not willing to endorse the apartheid one-state option, then the only move is to do whatever you can to make a two-state solution viable. Actually viable, not just a talking point. That should be the full-court press move of Winberg and all the other Jewish organizations fretting about this problem. Do whatever it takes to bring a two-state solution to fruition, no matter who's standing in the way.

Of course, framed that way, it's obvious why the obvious solution is resisted. In the present moment, genuine, material, full-throated support for a two-state solution puts one in sharp opposition to the Israeli government (and a pretty wide swath of the Israeli Jewish populace too). That opposition is not just rhetorical, it'd be material too -- the government would actively be sabotaging your proposed initiatives, and so many of your initiatives would be directly antagonistic to the government (anything from sanctioning price tag terrorists to imposing boycotts on settlement goods to recognizing a Palestinian state on 1967 borders). For all the talk about separating the concept of Israel-as-a-Jewish-state from a particular suite of government policies, this is what Winberg and his ilk recoil from. They cannot bring themselves to occupy the position of clear and vocal opponents of the Israeli government.  They also cannot bring themselves to endorse either of the two alternatives to the two-state solution. So they start spinning out long complex essays with long complex proposals that sound attractive except for the part that they change nothing about the fundamental problem, which is that you have to back either two-states, one-state with apartheid, or one-state binationalism.

I'm picking on Winberg's essay not because it is unique, but because it is of a type. The trilemma above is a variation on the trilemma we've known about for years: Israel can be Jewish, democratic, or in control of the West Bank and Gaza -- pick two. You can pick any two, but you can only pick two. And everyone kind of knows this, but also resists actually picking the two. They say "it's essential for Israel to be a Jewish, democratic state." Okay, then you must support ending the occupation? "Well," they hem and haw, "I'm not sure about the timing, and there are genuine security needs, and after 10/7 Israel can't be expected to cede control over Palestinian territories." Okay, so if Israel has to stay in control over these territories, democracy means that the Palestinians who live there must get equal voting rights, yes? "No -- that would mean the end of Israel as a Jewish state!" "So control of the territory but no equal rights ... apartheid then?" "How dare you! Israel must be Jewish and democratic." Round and round we go.

There's a lot about Israel/Palestine that is complicated. But this part of it is not complicated. Winberg is right that even among young Jews, there is not a wholesale rejection of the idea of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. What is there is a wholesale rejection of apartheid and a fatalistic sense that a two-state solution is unfeasible. That leaves one equal state. If one doesn't like being left there, your choices are to make apartheid okay again or to make a two-solution viable again. There isn't another move.

Project Runway Season 22: Opening Thoughts

Long-timers may recall that periodic Project Runway chirping is a recurrent feature on this blog. The oldest post I was able to find about the show was yelling about Mondo's loss in Season 8 (of course it was), but I've seen every season and (I think) every spin-off, and started watching them live as of Season 5.

Anyway, the first episode of Season 22 just dropped. It's the second season on Freeform, whatever that is, or Hulu or Disney+ if you're a normal person. It's either a sign of how far Project Runway has fallen or how far Google has fallen that I cannot for the life of me find pics of the designers' looks from this episode, so I'm going off of memory and hastily fast-forwarding through my recording.

The immediate gimmick was that they're starting with a whopping 22 designers (For season 22! Get it?), but cutting six of them right off the jump. It wasn't even a real Project Runway challenge -- they got to bring a look from home, and just had to fit, edit, and style it. I actually don't mind the concept here -- let's let people put their best foot forward -- but the opening cut (six going home out of a bottom eight) was pretty brutal.

Anyway, I won't comment on everyone or everything, because who has the time, but here are my initial thoughts. First, the general stuff:

• The sassy chyrons continue to be the best innovation of the Freeform era. The stupid "to be continued" cliffhangers continue to be the worst. What, are you afraid I won't watch another episode if I'm not on tenterhooks from the last one? Try making a good product and you solve that problem.

• I've never liked Tyra Banks, and I can't imagine starting now. I suppose she's still better than Isaac Mizrahi. Still, even more than before, I just pray that Nina Garcia actually shows up for more than three episodes this season.

• JosephMcRae is polarizing, and I get that, but as returning designers go I'm not mad about it. The "eliminated by your fellow designers" bit he was subjected to last season was bullshit.

• Law Roach is polarizing, but I am liking him a bit more this time around. Jill was cackling about how he absolutely refused to engage with any of the contestants if they tried to joke around with him.

• There's clearly some tension between the RuPaul fandom that invades Project Runway now that their people are being cast on the show, and the OG PR fandom. I'm very much the latter, and know nothing about the former, which makes it weird to see people on Reddit talk about how they've only watched the former and have no exposure to the latter. Perhaps for that reason, it would be very funny to me if both the Drag Race alumni were eliminated immediately this season (and I think they both deserve it).

And now, the designs (or at least some of them).

• Overall, I thought this was a strong runway -- as one would hope, given the infinite time allotted. I'm not sure I'm convinced Andriy's look deserved to be in the top. I also cannot figure out why I liked his Russian bestie Bobby's look as much as I do, given that it looks like a comforter, but the heart wants what it wants.

• The hat was too much on JosephMcRae's look, but the pattern was actually gorgeous. Learn to edit, my man!

• Bi's coat genuinely did rock. What was originally under it genuinely was tragic, and it probably did need something else there to end up on top. Also, I hate to say it, but that sweatshop joke (a professor called him a "one-man sweatshop", and he was offended because "I don't sweat!") was hilarious.

• Chloe's look had some very good ideas -- the wide-open back was fantastic -- but it seemed to be ill-constructed.

• Octavius' look was pretty cool. He ended up in the middle, but said that if he was sent home it basically would mean "they don't like me." That sure seems like a healthy attitude.

• The collar on Jude's look was fantastic. I'm a sucker for a tailored suit though.

• Elizabeth's look didn't feel fresh to me. I don't hate it, but I felt like I'd seen it before.

• I'm a little sad we didn't get commentary on Anna's unconventional-materials-in-a-conventional-challenge look. It was very well done! Kudos to her for showing looks like that can hang with the big dogs!

• Look, Bryan: you can have the giant sleeve or the poofy stomach, but not both. Or do both and end up on top -- clearly, I'm not the one you need to impress.

Moving to the bottom designers.

• Jennifer is a former Project Runway model. That could have been a cool angle, and I didn't mind the Poison Ivy costume, but I get why it was sent off. Still rough to be the first one auf-ed though.

• I did kind of find the pants on Andrea's look interesting, and I liked the layers-on-layers concept, but it just didn't all work together. You could make a case for her staying on "has ideas" grounds, but her elimination is not protest-worthy.

• Lre the Artist was fine, but not notable. Goodbye! I won't remember you!

• There really weren't many outright bad outfits on the runway today. Dani's was one of them (did someone say "pirate princess"?). I absolutely cannot fathom how, in a world where three-fourths of the bottom designers were eliminated, she got a reprieve. Completely undeserved.

• Robby's look was also outright bad. He's part of the cliffhanger quartet, but I can't imagine he survives.

• Jeffrey's dress looked, as my astute wife observed, like a fungus.

• I liked the spiked purse Plane Jane's model was carrying. That concludes the parts of Plane Jane's look I liked. The spike-nipples were in particularly ghastly taste.

• The final member of the cliffhanger quartet (along with Jeffrey and Plane Jane) is R'Bonney. So here's the thing. Every few seasons, a designer comes on and brings out a look with an Assassin's Creed style hood. And every time, I like it, because I think that hood looks cool. And every time, the judges hate it, because reasons. At least this time around, I called my shot and said as soon as the model walked "I like that but the judges will hate it, because it has that hood." And wouldn't you know it if she's on the bottom, with Tyra Banks yelling platitudes about how it's good but that's not good enough.

So we have four designers in limbo, and three will be eliminated. Who will be the survivor? I like R'Bonney the best, but the judges will never reward someone they think is boring this early in the competition. And Robby's look was a trainwreck. So that leaves Plane Jane and Jeffrey. I guess I'm pulling for Jeffrey, since he seems less insufferable? Slightly?

To another great season, and may there be 22 more!

Things People Blame the Jews For, Volume LXXX: The Fall of Graham Platner

(It's a TPBTJF double-header -- click here!)

Maine Democratic Senate nominee Graham Platner has dropped out of the race following accusations of sexual assault by a former girlfriend. Probably. He said he will, but he also said he's waiting until the last possible day for completely inexplicable reasons. Such a stand up guy.

Of course, nobody can blame any of Platner's backers for what went down here. It would have taken some sort of oracle to spot the red flags, like the Nazi tattoo, or the inflammatory Reddit posts, or the sexting, or the other women who had already said he was abusive during their relationship. You know, microscopic specks like that. There's a reason why folks like Ken Klippenstein feel as if they should apologize for nothing.

But even as Platner (probably) drops out, there are folks out there who see a conspiracy against him -- with varying degrees of explicitness on regarding (((who))) is behind it. Cenk Uygur said, with no evidence, that the accusations trace back to AIPAC -- apparently not realizing that he was paying AIPAC a compliment (if AIPAC indeed was behind us finding out that Platner's a sexual predator, which, again, they almost certainly were not). Platner's own withdrawal speech was filled with petulant complaints that he was the victim of "those in power" -- left vague as always.

But not everyone is being vague at all. In a since-deleted post, a "left of left" journalist named Mark Weaver went all in on defending Platner, up to including diminishing the allegations against him as (this is a direct quote) "lite-rape". But as others noted, Weaver also made a point to count all the Jew-y Jews who were involved in this conspiracy: The New York Times ("owned by the Jewish Sulzberger family"), "the Jewish Dana Bash", "Jewish anchor Jacob Tapper" (has anyone who's not an antisemite or Tapper's mother called Jake Tapper "Jacob"?), and Politico editor Jonathan Greenberger ("well, is Jewish"). I know I just wrote about Jews thirst for representation, but this is ridiculous.

Things People Blame the Jews For, Volume LXXIX: Egypt Losing in the World Cup

(It's a TPBTJF double-header -- click here!)

I've been watching some of the World Cup, though not every game. For example, I missed the Argentina/Egypt game -- unfortunate for me, since apparently it had a very exciting ending, with Argentina coming back from down 2-0 with three goals in the last fifteen minutes of the game to win.

There also was a lot of complaining about the officiating in that game, with the Egyptian coach going so far as to claim the game was "rigged" (most of the controversy centers around a disallowed Egyptian goal earlier in the game).

I'm no soccer expert, so I can't speak to whether the complaints are justified. Of course, anyone who knows anything about FIFA knows that both incompetence and corruption are hardly inconceivable possibilities. And anyone who knows anything about the internet knows that someone will have a different explanation for the outcome of the match.

Since Egypt’s dramatic World Cup exit on Tuesday, French referee Francois Letexier has become the target of intense scrutiny around the globe.

[...]

Within hours of the game ending, someone had edited Letexier’s Wikipedia page to say that he was “born to an Orthodox Jewish family.” The editor later added that the referee’s grandfather fled Nazi persecution.

There was no evidence for the claim — the anonymous editor’s only citation was an article that made no mention of Letaxier’s religious background. But after a screenshot of the edited page was posted on X, soccer fans quickly pounced. 

“Born into an Orthodox Jewish family,” wrote one X user. “That explains a lot of things.”

When one user questioned the claim’s veracity, Grok, X’s artificial intelligence tool, confirmed the misinformation, citing Wikipedia. The Wikipedia page was then updated again to cite Grok.

The referee’s fabricated Jewish identity stayed on the page for nearly eight hours before it was removed, enabling the claim to spread widely. On social media platforms where antisemitism often goes unchecked, simply sharing a screenshot of the Wikipedia page was enough to start a feeding frenzy.

Even after the claim was taken down from Wikipedia — and the responsible editor banned — others shared screenshots of the removal as proof of a coverup.

Grok coming in with the antisemitism assist is, of course, transcendent. And there's something extra to be said about the double-bind Jews find ourselves in, where correcting obvious antisemitic misinformation is proof of a coverup.

In any event, I can't root for Argentina since they ousted my beloved Cape Verde. So who's my team now? Norway, I guess? Their Sam Denby lookalike is pretty good!

The New Politics of Jewish Invisibility

New York City has put out a map of its "immigrant neighborhoods", and some people are complaining that Jewish neighborhoods aren't represented. These complaints, in turn, are generating a counternarrative expressing the irony of insisting on the foreignness of Jews when the Jews in these neighborhoods are, overwhelmingly, not immigrants.

I'm going to try to fall in the middle on this. First, let's highlight the words of one activist quoted in the article, Isaac Choua, a board member of the Sephardic Jewish Brotherhood of America who specifically flagged a "major Sephardi corridor" in south Brooklyn that was not found on the map:

"This is not a small omission," he went on. "It is one of New York’s most distinctive immigrant-descended Jewish communities, and it gets erased from the story. Weirdly enough, Zohran Mamdani’s office wanted to speak with me about this very issue and has not followed up since the election."

The emphasis is mine, and of course it is a telling descriptor: immigrant-descended. An odd phrase, that, since it raises the question of which neighborhoods in NYC have residents who are not predominantly descended from immigrants (I don't think there's currently a "Little Lenape" in New York). Assuming that the map covers neighborhoods that have large quotients of immigrants (and the article does quote a city official as saying the map is meant to cover neighborhoods with "substantial foreign-born populations"), and assuming further that the Jews in most of the predominantly Jewish neighborhoods are not generally "foreign-born", that could be the end of that.

In terms of this being a scandal, I do think that basically suffices as an explanation (again, assuming the premises are true, which I can't verify). But I also think that lurking behind this is a more legitimate concern that's worth excavating. As in many things, Legitimate Concern + Mamdani Derangement Syndrome = Unnecessary Hysteria, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't figure out what the legitimate concern is.

What's being pushed against here is a sense that Jewish distinctiveness is being erased -- that when we talk about diversity and difference in American politics, Jewishness is elided as a relevant contributor. Obviously, this was a theme of my White Jews article as well as "The Baggage of Whiteness", and it's one reason I think the counter-claim that the protesters here are themselves being antisemitic by presenting Jews as "foreign" is too cute by half. The critique presumes that being associated with "immigrant" is inherently endangering to the targeted community. In certain contexts that might be true, but this map hardly seems one of them. "Immigrant" is a focus of celebration for this map, not a vector of threat. We can imagine a critic lambasting this map as providing a target list for ICE, but that critic is a product of our imagination -- the actual communities listed seem to find security in recognition, which should make it legible why another community, not included, might feel vulnerable for the omission. It is not the case now (if it ever was) that highlighting a minority group's distinctiveness (or even "foreign" roots) is necessarily a harbinger of discrimination, and there's no reason why Jews must be different in this respect.

So while at first blush this debate (in the Jewish case) may seem to be another iteration of the age-old assimilation vs. differentiation contretemps, I actually think it's a somewhat novel and mutant version of it. In its original form, assimilation vs. differentiation was a debate over what would keep Jews most safe as against antisemitism. But, despite the claim that Jew-as-immigrant-as-"foreign" = antisemitism, I don't really think the argument being made here is about maximizing Jewish safety. Those who push back most aggressively on Jewish attempts to highlight our differentiation, these days, tend to treat Jewish assimilation not as a normative goal but as a descriptive reality, and then treat those Jews who resist that description as engaging in a sort of stolen valor. We're not actually different from the White American majority, and when we pretend otherwise we're trying to unfairly claim a share of the diversity spoils from communities actually entitled to it. I flagged this dynamic in my White Jews article:

As one Jewish feminist [Joyce Antler] related being told (at a conference that featured presentations by Black, Latina, and Irish Catholic women), “Jewish women are just White middle-class women.” Consequently, her interlocutor went on, “There is nothing that differentiates them from the ruling majority. There is no reason to treat them as a specialized minority or to devote any of our time to their particular experience.” To demand significant time and attention be devoted to the Jewish case is little different from demanding still more resources and consideration be accorded to White people—that is, an insistence from those who already have so much that they should be given yet more.

That style of argument -- one which treats Jewish efforts to mark out Jewish difference as a form of cheating -- is one that will rightfully chafe many Jews who recoil at the notion that highlighting our community's distinctiveness is an illegitimate move, particularly in political contexts that for other groups treat such highlighting as constitutive of social inclusion.

If we go back to Mr. Choua's complaint, it seems pretty clear that something like this is playing a role (and the last sentence, where he indicates that Mamdani initially did express interest in highlighting the distinctive NYC Sephardi story but then ghosted them, is a further clue unlocking this particular reaction). The American Sephardic community, in particular, is very sensitive (and appropriately so) to how its narrative and history is regularly elided both when speaking of "Jewish" history but also "ethnic" history (see also: the California Ethnic Studies curriculum controversy). They feel like they are perpetually rendered invisible, and that stings. They feel as if the same people perpetuating their invisible status are too often those who are -- at the very same moment they suppress Jewish difference -- proudly in the midst of highlighting the diversity of others, and that stings more. They want representation. That's a legitimate want. And to reduce it to a sort of self-inflicted antisemitism attributable to Islamophobic ressentiment is I think profoundly disrespectful (in addition to completely missing the mark as to what's happening).

So there's a real, legitimate sore spot here, that extends well beyond this particular map project.  To be clear, I have no doubt that this real sore spot is being mixed with a healthy dose of Mamdani-hate to bring matters to a frothy boil. Again, it is perfectly appropriate that a map of immigrant neighborhoods not include neighborhoods whose residents are predominantly non-immigrant (Jewish or otherwise).

But it is true, and it has been true for a while, that many Jews feel as if Jewish distinctiveness is systematically occluded when we as a society purport to celebrate difference. And that rawness that exclusion engenders won't go away until it's made clear not just that Jews are welcome, but that Jews are welcome as Jews -- as a distinct group, with a distinct history and distinct triumphs and tribulations, and it isn't treated as cheating when that distinctiveness is explicitly claimed.

DMFI Yields To Rahm-Bo

As you may have heard, former Chicago Mayor (and Obama White House Chief of Staff) Rahm Emanuel went to Israel and delivered a tough love address: lambasting "Greater Israel" and calling for an array of sanctions on Israeli politicians, businesses, and other figures who support violence against Palestinians or illegal West Bank settlements.

To me, this matters only in terms of "which way the wind blows". Despite often seeing Rahm's name next to the words "2028 presidential candidate", I don't see any universe where he's viable in the Democratic primary. Nonetheless, it's clear that Rahm views taking a stance like this as crucial to having any future in Democratic politics (which is not to say he doesn't believe what he's saying -- I'm actually very confident he does -- only that it matches up with his raw political calculation). And, whatever one thinks about Rahm in general, it is absolutely a good thing that someone who still holds certain cachet in certain circles is talking like this. Rightly or wrongly, when he speaks in these terms, it koshers certain discourses and positions in a way that a generic replacement Democrat couldn't do.

And in similarly meteorological-but-not-practical data, I was very intrigued to see that Democratic Majority for Israel issued a statement praising Emanuel's speech. Again, that matters not because I see DMFI as an especially relevant or influential institution (it's in fact been impressively inept throughout its existence), but because Emanuel's jeremiad was of the sort one would have expected DMFI to be appalled by (Sanctions? On Israel? Heavens to Murgatroyd!). And a few years ago, had a speech like this been given, I bet they would have expressed apoplexy -- but then, a few years ago, Rahm Emanuel would not have delivered this speech. The significance here, I think, is that DMFI can no longer hold the line on unblinking support for Israel in Democratic Party politics in a world where even folks like Rahm Emanuel are challenging it. DMFI may be dim, but they're not so dim as to think that they could retain any practical relevancy as Democrats in a universe where they're trying to throw Rahm Emanuel out of the tent.

Party On

I don't have much to say about the latest Graham Platner allegations. Of course he should drop out. Of course he's being extra-selfish in trying to extort concessions from the state party in exchange for dropping out (Rep .Sean Casten brings the heat).

"I'm not taking no for an answer until you let me impose my will on this process" is a hell of a hill for Platner to die on.

— Sean Casten (@seancasten.bsky.social) July 7, 2026 at 6:19 PM

Of course there were plenty of red flags before the latest one, though I'll continue to assert that Platner's Nazi tattoo was unfortunately part of what attracted people to him and that we need to reflect on what that means. Everyone's got their I-told-you-so on this, and it will surprise no one that mine is "when you pick candidates based solely on an aesthetic of 'I'm a fighter and I hate the establishment' and nothing else, bad things happen." And of course, right now everyone is running away from Platner and acting like it was only other people who supported him. Victory has a thousand fathers and defeat is an orphan, after all.

But perhaps related to that last point: the particular iteration of buck-passing that's getting my ire up the most comes from those who somehow blame "the Party" for not waylaying Platner in the first place. How could the Democrats not found a better candidate than Platner (where Mills doesn't count as "better" because she reminds us of our mom or something)? Platner was clearly and unambiguously a vanguard of the anti-establishment wing of the party, but it's still really the establishment's fault for not stopping us.

This drives me nuts. We have endured years upon years of conspiratorial sour grapes whining about "the Party establishment" supposedly "rigging" primary elections in favor of its preferred candidates. But now, in a situation where there can be no question that "the establishment" took its hands off the rudder and let the process play out (not that I concede they were "rigging" other races), we get a novel round of whining that they didn't interfere enough?

Spare me. Or better yet, learn a lesson. The folks in "the establishment" -- however you define that -- are by no means perfect. But they are in fact not just a bunch of fat cat idiots cashing checks to dole out plum candidate nominations to their buddies and nepo babies. They in fact perform a valuable service vetting people, and head off potential disasters ahead of time. The purpose isn't to ensure only "smoothgroined" androids get a shot. The purpose is to ensure that a guy with Nazi tattoos and a history of sexual predation doesn't storm to a swing seat nomination because a bunch of podcasters think his beard is manly in all the right ways.

Politics is a job, and not an easy one. It is not the case that any idiot with a working class affect who yells in the right tone can win an election, and it's even less of the case that said idiot will be an effective legislator. The vetting process exists for a reason. Dismiss it at your peril.

Could You Bari a Network?

July 4 seems like a good day to talk about hubris.

You've all read those articles about men and hubris -- the absurd number of men who think they could take a tennis game off Serena Williams or could win a fight against a bear.

I do not share that hubris. But I do have my own version of it. One manifestation is that I honestly believe I could hold my own in an interview with Isaac Chotiner (surely, that's the intellectual equivalent of "win a fight against a bear"). But another that I just realized is that I earnestly think I could successfully Bari a network news program.

Here are the parameters for how I define Bari-ing:

1. You come in with virtually no relevant experience or qualifications aside from being a pundit (check).
2. You remake the news program in line with a particular political ideology.
3. You have the absolute support of the network owners for whatever you do (so if you fail, it won't be simply because you tick off your bosses).

A successful Bari means that the news program is, you know, successful (gains viewers, is influential, etc.). Basically, everything Bari Weiss hasn't done at CBS. (To be honest, I suspect that "Bari" as a verb will inevitably incorporate a tenor of failing at this project. To "Bari" a network is to fail at doing the above in spectacular fashion. One can even slant-rhyme it with "bury". But for purposes of this exercise, we'll associate it with the attempt, not the outcome).

Under this framework, Bari Weiss Bari-ed CBS by trying to turn it into a network Free Press -- alt-center quasi-contrarian sucking up to the powerful.

By contrast, my ideological line would basically be Last Week Tonight without the comedy, and with an especial laser focus on public corruption. Most importantly, though, it wouldn't pull punches. "Supreme Court decimates Voting Rights Act." "White Supremacy Spreads Amongst Trump Administration Officials." "Trump Takes Billions Through Apparent Insider Trading Scheme." No tap dancing around with the rhetoric. Just call it as it is.

Would this work? Would it quench the thirst of American viewers desperate for a news network that doesn't bowdlerize the truth because straightforward descriptions feel "partisan" (someone -- I feel like on Lawyers Guns and Money -- once said something like "the greatest act of partisan media bias is accurately quoting what Republicans say, verbatim")? I dunno. But I earnestly believe it to be so, and that despite lacking any formal qualifications I could make it so, and that's my version of overwhelming male hubris.

The End of Caring What Jews Think

Bruce Pearl, Auburn basketball coach and prominent Jewish Republican, has delivered an ultimatum unto Vice President J.D. Vance: cut ties with Tucker Carlson, or he won't support Vance's 2028 presidential bid.

I don't know if Pearl will stick to his guns on this. I do feel quite confident that Vance will not oblige Pearl. Vance, if nothing else, sees which way the winds blow, and there is increasingly little profit in politicians paying heed to Jewish objections.

This, alas, is not unique to any party. If anything, it is more noticeable amongst Democrats -- not because the problem is "worse" there, but because Jews are of course far more successfully imbricated in the Democratic Party coalition and so the waning of influence is far more noticeable. But this cycle has already seen a slew of "local Jews raised the alarm about [candidate]" followed by "[candidate] wins anyway." It's gotten noticeable.

And while sometimes the "alarm" is making a mountain out of perfectly reasonable molehills, it isn't always. Graham Platner's totenkopf is an obvious example; Avila Chevalier attending an October 8 pro-Hamas rally is another. And while Melat Kiros' demurral on whether the Boulder firebombing murder was antisemitic isn't quite as bad as one might think from the topline description, it certainly isn't good. While it is clear (and I'm gladdened) that Kiros is quite clear in condemning the murder, it is in fact still quite bad when "is burning an elderly American Jewish woman alive because one is mad at Israel antisemitic?" is treated as a sort of trick question one must tip-toe around.

These are, in short, reasonable alarms to raise; and it matters that they are often ignored with impunity. And that's a change. So what caused it? Obviously, a lot of factors are in play, but one that looms large for me is that fragmenting of a hitherto relatively unified Jewish political consensus over the past few years. The Leviathan has fallen, and we are now in the era of the warring kingdoms. Here was my prediction at the onset of Trump 2.0, tell me if it looks familiar: 

So what we are looking at over the next several years is an American Jewish community that simultaneously is under unprecedented threat and is wracked by unprecedented internal division. What I expect to see, then, is that a depressingly large proportion of Jewish political action will take the form of fratricidal squabbling and internal jockeying for position. If the suzerain is falling, the border lord upstarts are going to race to annex as much territory as possible.

[....]

Even as external threats grow ever grimmer, Jews will relentlessly concentrate on our own internal power plays -- trying to grab space for ourselves and prevent the growth of our rivals.

Now again, maybe you think that the status quo hegemony of the ADL-type organizations was sufficiently awful that this transition is necessary and salutary, notwithstanding the growing pains. I won't argue the point here. But necessary or no, during the anarchic interregnum it's hard to imagine Jews being able to leverage much in the way of political influence. We are weak externally, and we are weak internally, and that is a very scary position to be in no matter how you slice it. 

I take no pleasure in vindication here. And (since this sort of caveat is always necessary whenever a Jew has a temerity to speak about Jews) I don't claim that this vulnerable position is unique to Jews, or is worse for Jews, or falsifies other vulnerabilities, or anything of the sort. I'm speaking about Jews-qua-Jews, not making some tacit comparative point. But for Jews, this is where we are. And it is a very unpleasant place to be.

This is a change for Jews. It used to be that "Jews are upset about X" was a substantial political negative, either intrinsically (people genuinely cared about Jewish feelings) or at least instrumentally (people correctly calculated that being perceived as being hurtful to Jews was a political loser), now both of those premises are increasingly shaky. The former has been rattled, but (perhaps more importantly) the latter has been decisively falsified. The lesson of 2026 is that backlash from Jews (and I'm trying here to be agnostic as to whether the backlash is "fair" or not) can be safely ignored.

Indeed, I might go further: it's not (at least not always) just a matter of people no longer feeling the need to listen to the Jews. It's more than agnosticism; Jewish discomfort or anger or panic is seen as a sign one is doing right -- akin to (in the Democrats case) learning that an evangelical church is sounded the alarm about the candidate. But even that undersells it, because it doesn't account for the libidinal sense of release being experienced. There is, at least in some quarters, a very strong undercurrent of glee in standing against the Jews -- a sensation that people are throwing off shackles that had constrained them. So it's more than just not caring about what Jews think, and it's more than a sort of negative polarization based on correlating Jews with conservatism. It's a more primal desire that associates Jews with these negative feelings of self-censorship and walking on eggshells and suppression, and now suddenly feeling free to break the chains.

This was central to my thesis about Platner, of course. And he's hardly alone. What crystallized this thought for me was an odd duck story about a local Portland coffee shop, Heretic Coffee, which received a donation routed through the Jewish Federation (the shop had made the news for offering free meals to persons facing hunger due to SNAP cuts). There was clearly some confusion about the donation, which was unsolicited. The shop owner initially reached out unsuccessfully to the Portland JFed, when the gift actually was from someone working through the SF JFed (hence perhaps why the former initially had no idea what the coffee shop was assking about). And the shop owner didn't seem to realize that it wasn't really a gift from the JFed at all, but rather an individual Jewish donor using the federation as a donor-advised fund.

But what could have just been a comedy of errors became something grimmer when the shop owner decided to "do his own research", determined that the gift must be "blood money" due to the JFed's alleged support for Israeli genocide, and defiantly tore the check up. Again, much of this misapprehends the structure of a donor-advised fund in the first place, but I don't actually want to focus on these details. Rather, what stood out to me was the owner's preemptive acknowledgement that he would likely face severe backlash from the Jewish Federation's supporters, and that he was ready for it and eager to receive it and prepared to be martyred by it. At one level, it stands out for viewing Jewish antipathy as a positive -- if the Jews cry out, he won't take that as a cause for concern but as further proof of his righteousness. But at another level, the bravado about his bold stand masks a pretty clear calculation -- and I think probably a correct one -- that the owner doesn't think he'll be martyred at all. For every mad Jew, there will be countless others ready to fete him for his bravery (see also: the Cornell student who said he wasn't interested in working for a Jew and then quickly raised $20,000 off the ensuing backlash).

So yeah. This is a new era for Jews in American politics -- an era where Jewish concerns are routinely ignored, if not viewed as an outright positive. It won't last forever -- nothing does -- but I don't harbor much optimism for the near-term.

The Lovable(?) Selfish Incompetent

I'm going to describe a character archetype to you, found in many modern comedies. These characters have an extremely high opinion of themselves, but are generally incompetent. They are also typically portrayed as selfish and self-absorbed, though occasionally one will get a peek at a supposedly deep-seated vulnerability or "heart of gold" in extreme situations. Finally, and essentially, the characters are not presented as antagonists even though 85% of the time they make a good person protagonist's life harder (either through the aforementioned incompetence, selfishness, or both). From the show's perspective, one is clearly supposed to find these characters lovable -- if only in a "oh, that rascal!" sort of way.

Examples of the archetype include:

• Tom Haverford (Parks and Rec)
• Bender (Futurama)
• Kayla (Hacks)

My question is: why? Why are we supposed to like these characters? Why are we supposed to view them as anything other than antagonists? Why is the incessant message that they deserve infinite grace and good humor and are, underneath it all, good people? They're not! They're obnoxious, terrible people who rarely (if ever) face any accountability for being self-absorbed entitled jerks.

Am I the only one who hates these sorts of characters? I'm not saying they shouldn't be on television -- bad people can make good characters -- but it's maddening that the shows don't seem to present them as truly bad people, when they are. At least with Eleanor Shellstrop her being objectively terrible (at first) is the explicit plot of the show. Yet I talk about how Kayla is an objectively awful human being, and people act as if I'm punching a puppy. I'm sorry, but "lovably chaotic" my ass. If this person was in your life you'd want to chuck them out the window, and if you couldn't do it because she's an untouchable nepo baby it would only accentuate the hellish injustice of being in a society where people like her get to fail up.

Okay, rant over.