Terrorism on Yom Kippur

Summary

The Commentary Magazine Podcast – "Terrorism on Yom Kippur" (October 3, 2025)
Host: John Podhoretz
Panelists: Abe Greenwald, Seth Mandel, Christine Rosen

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Episode Overview

The October 3, 2025 episode of "The Commentary Magazine Podcast" deals with the terror attack targeting a synagogue in Manchester, UK, on Yom Kippur. The hosts examine the event's implications for Jews globally, the West’s responses to Islamic extremism, the contemporary surge of antisemitism, and the shifting social and political climate in the US and Europe. Trump administration actions, public discourse, and the intersection of populism and Jewish safety are recurring themes.

The discussion is impassioned and often draws on historical parallels and scriptural references, with the panelists voicing concern and frustration with both governmental and societal failures to address rising threats.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Yom Kippur Attack – Context & Reactions

• The Incident:
  While Jews observed Yom Kippur, a terror attack by an individual named "Jihad" took place at a synagogue in Manchester, UK. Details remain unclear, but troubling reports suggest potential mishandling by local police ([03:34]).
• Antisemitism vs. Anti-Zionism:
  John Podhoretz notes, "when you attack Jews on the holiest day of the year, that is antisemitism. It has nothing to do with Israel." He stresses that such attacks transcend political opposition to Israel ([03:34]).
• Historical Parallels:
  The attack is situated in a lineage of violent acts against Jews on Jewish holidays—the Yom Kippur War (1973), the October 7 attacks on Simchat Torah—underscoring the attacker's targeting of Judaism itself ([04:55]).

2. Media Framing and Political Evasion

• Failure to Name Perpetrators:
  Christine Rosen criticizes the reluctance of British authorities to name Islamic extremism as the driver behind such attacks:
  "Starmer... should be saying what is fueling this and who the people committing these acts [are]" ([08:47]).
• Media Bias:
  The panel notes mainstream outlets (e.g., NYT) that frame violence against Jews only in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, diminishing the specificity of antisemitic motives.

3. Celebration and Social Climate Post-Attack

• Public Reaction:
  Seth Mandel reads a timeline from The Telegraph highlighting that even before forensic teams had finished their work, "pro-Palestine demonstrations" were already underway in Manchester and "From the river to the sea" chants spread locally ([12:18]).
• Societal Deterioration:
  The spectacle of public celebration following attacks is described as borrowed from Middle Eastern street culture, utterly alien to traditional European conduct ([14:24]).

4. Climate of Fear & Policy Response

• Targeting Jews as a Signal:
  • John: "That's why Jews are uniquely threatened on this planet... the celebration is the point, because it's not just the killing, but the creation of an atmosphere that justifies and incentivizes more violence." ([14:24])
  • Christine: Islamic extremists seek to "create a climate of fear for Jews living outside of Israel... is Europe still a safe place for Jews to live in the 21st century?" ([18:12])
• Government Complicity:
  • Seth: "They [the mobs] are celebrated essentially by the government. When the government responds to hate marches by changing policy, these people... succeed in changing the policy of this government" ([19:26]).
  • Example: UK officials, like Keir Starmer, shift policy in response to anti-Jewish demonstrations, including restoring funding to controversial organizations ([19:26]).

5. Comparison to U.S. Trends

• American Parallels:
  John links mass protests and civil unrest since Ferguson (2014) and Occupy Wall Street to the tactics now being turned against Jews, notably on campuses ([24:57]).
• Terrorism’s Definition:
  Christine: "It is the textbook definition of terrorism. It forces the fear, forces people to change their behavior, to limit their own freedom. You don't need the government to limit their freedom because they'll do it themselves out of fear" ([29:29]).
• Institutional Abdication:
  The failure of urban officials to counter mobs, referencing historic policies and a reticence to enforce law during violent protests ([30:16]).

6. Campus Free Speech & Double Standards

• Censoring Dissent:
  Christine highlights incidents where campus events featuring Jewish speakers are canceled for "security reasons," which are really covers for not wanting those voices:
  "Whenever you hear someone say, we can't have this event on our campus because we can't ensure the security... that is whoever is in authority saying, I don't want this source, so the hell with it" ([38:55]).
• Contrast in Law Enforcement:
  Events with controversial left-wing speakers (Ta-Nehisi Coates, Angela Davis) are not canceled for security, exposing a double standard ([38:55]).

7. Trump, MAGA, and Jewish Safety

• Trump Administration’s Role:
  The hosts credit Trump’s aggressive interventions against antisemitism and enforcement of civil rights for Jews, suggesting Jews are "safer... than we would be had the election result gone the other way in November 2024" ([40:00]).
• Ambivalence Toward Trump:
  There is self-awareness of the irony that support for Jewish interests from Trump comes after much initial skepticism regarding his associations and priorities ([58:25]).
• Scriptural Parallel:
  John compares Trump to Balaam from the Bible: "there is something to the idea that Trump is Balaam, that it may not have been Trump's intention to... curse the Jewish people, but... now twice... what did he do?... he said to Balak in Gaza, I am here to praise the Jews..." ([60:09]).
• Broader Implications:
  The hosts debate whether this protection is Trump-specific or will persist with future MAGA leaders ([44:45]).

8. Jewish Community Self-Reliance

• Calls for Self-Defense:
  John: "...Jews need to take up their own self defense. Not only Rebuilding their synagogue buildings... but... money that could have been spent on other things... necessary to spend in order to prevent someone from ramming through the front door and killing us all" ([51:20]).
• Solidarity and Isolation:
  Seth observes: "The only people that I've ever seen stand outside a synagogue that I was a member of after something happened were Catholics..." ([53:25]).

9. Literary Recommendations

• Christine: Gabriel Garcia Marquez's view on three lives ("public, private, and secret") and how Margaret Millar explores the 'secret life' in her novels ([80:10]).
• John: Ross MacDonald's "The Moving Target," a classic California detective novel ([76:44]).
• Seth/Christine: Charles Willeford's "Pick-Up," lauded for its transformative ending ([81:00]).

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Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• On the Intractability of Antisemitism:
  "When you attack Jews on the holiest day of the year, that is antisemitism. It has nothing to do with Israel." — John ([03:34])

• On Public Celebration of Terror:
  "The celebration is the point, because it's not just the killing in itself but the creation of the atmosphere that says that the murder is justifiable." — John ([14:24])

• On Government Response:
  "March against Jews, and you will succeed in changing the policy of this government..." — Seth ([19:26])

• On the Failure to Identify Threats:
  "The refusal... to name that threat... to do it with clarity and say, we are fighting an internal threat here of Islamic extremist terrorism in our own country that is actively attacking Jews." — Christine ([08:47])

• On Terrorism's Real-World Impact:
  "It is the textbook definition of terrorism. It forces the fear, forces people to change their behavior, to limit their own freedom..." — Christine ([29:29])

• On Trump and Balaam:
  "There is something to the idea that Trump is Balaam... the first sign that he's made a mistake... is that his donkey starts yelling at him..." — John ([60:09])

• On Jewish Self-Defense:
  "If I am not for myself, who will be for me?" — (Scriptural reference, quoted by John, [51:20])

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [03:34] — Yom Kippur attack, antisemitism, separation from anti-Zionism
• [07:38] — Tucker Carlson’s conspiracy theories and antisemitism online
• [08:47] — Christine’s critique of UK authorities and framing in media
• [12:18] — Seth reads the Telegraph’s timeline of the Manchester attack
• [14:24] — Cultural analysis of celebration after terror; historical roots
• [18:12] — Climate of fear in the Jewish diaspora; Europe's safety for Jews
• [19:26] — Governments appeasing anti-Jewish protestors; policy changes
• [24:57] — Parallels with US protest tactics and societal shifts
• [29:29] — Terrorism as a tool for inducing self-censorship
• [36:35] — Self-censorship and threats to campus free speech
• [38:55] — Double standards in campus event cancellations
• [40:00] — Trump administration actions and protection for Jews
• [51:20] — Jewish communal self-defense and synagogue security
• [60:09] — The Balaam analogy and Trump’s unexpected defense of Jews
• [76:44] — Book recommendations

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Conclusion

This episode confronts the persistent pattern of antisemitic violence and the Western refusal to address its real sources. The hosts contextualize these issues within the broader political and cultural landscape, expressing both gratitude for those who provide protection (notably the Trump administration) and concern for the Jewish community’s future. Through historical analogies, religious texts, and trenchant commentary, the panel offers both critique and calls for resilience, urging vigilance, solidarity, and the necessity of forceful response to hate.

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For listeners seeking a deep dive into the intersection of Jewish safety, Western political culture, and the dangers of both external and internal complacency, this episode provides a brisk, unvarnished conversation with clear, forceful perspectives.

Transcript

[A]

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[B]

Expect the wor some preach and pain Some die of thirst no way of knowing this way it's going Hope for the best expect the worst.

[A]

Welcome to the Commentary magazine daily podcast. Today is Friday, October 3rd, 2025. I'm John Pot Hortz, the editor of Commentary. I hope you had an easy fast. I did, and I don't know how it went for my colleagues here. Executive editor Abe Greenwald. Hi Abe.

[C]

Hi John. Not easy.

[A]

Senior Editor Seth Mandel. Hi Seth.

[B]

Hi John. I had a tougher fast this year than last year. Actually, it was not an easy fast.

[A]

Sorry. And Social commentary columnist Christine Rosenberg, whom I expected not fast, but, but if you had an easy fast, I'm very happy for you.

[D]

I'm waiting for the hi, Christine. So I can repeat my. It's like a, you know, Pavlovian response so I can say, hi, John. No, I did not fast. I did not hear, hi, John.

[A]

Hi, everybody. While we were fasting, of course, a terrorist incident had a synagogue in Manchester, England, the details of which are very. Are surprisingly cloudy because of the apparent, what seems to be the unfortunate involvement in some of the violence of the Manchester police and mishandling or dealing badly with the chaos or something like that. All you need to know is that the first name of the person who perpetrated the incident was Jihad. So, you know, I guess we'll never know really. Once again, we'll never really know what motivated him because his first name is Jihad. You know, it's, it's now traditional for people to say that, you know, it's hatred of Israel, or even not hatred, opposition to Israel and its behavior and political opposition to Israel and all that has to be separated from. That said, anti Zionism or negativity towards Zionism is not anti Semitism, but when you attack Jews on the holiest day of the year, that is anti Semitism. It has nothing to do with Israel. Jews have celebrated Yom Kippur for two millennia without a state, and they will celebrate Yom Kipp according to the, according to the tenets of the, of the Torah. We will be celebrating it. It is a holiday for all time, I believe or I don't. It is one of the days that will not only supposedly be celebrated here on earth or commemorated here on Earth, but in the world to come when, after, after, after God's divine judgment, it will continue. As we hear about Passover on the, on the Passover holiday, that, that's, that's what it. All time. That means, like literally for all time. So if you attack us on Yom Kippur, you attack us on Sukkot, you attack us. And of course, the Yom Kippur war was in 1973, was an attack. The attacks of October 7 took place on Simcha Torah, the end of Sukkot. And so that's a very key signal that what is being attacked is Judaism at its root and not the existence of a country that has been there now for 48, excuse me, 78 years, 77 years. So that is something to be put in mind as we hear now, the sorts of things that I don't even Know, want to highlight this exactly, but sort of, because I don't want to play this game of giving Tucker Carlson's controversy oxygen, but went on. Went on social media in the last day or two to suggest that Israel was behind the promotion of anti Semitic tweets and social media posts in order to accelerate support against people who are. That Israel is playing a role in. What do they call that on social media? In, you know, sort of pushing anti Semitic posts, which is a new form of. I mean, to say that this is now adding a kind of epilogue or, you know, new afterward to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion is to understate the case. And this guy has the third largest podcast in the United States.

[B]

Is he saying something like that? Is he saying that he's backed by Israel? Because that's what it sounds like when you say all the anti Semitism on social media is really, you know, an Israeli op. It sounds like they're saying Israel is funding Tucker Carlson. Because I don't know how many people are adding more than Tucker Carlson to the anti Semitism on social media.

[A]

I mean, so we're all. Yeah, we're almost two years since. Since October 7th. And the story is that the world, in the face of an un. You know, an unprovoked attack on Jews that murdered more than a thousand and injured almost 4,000, that attack was an accelerant to the hatred of Jews. That's the key here, that everybody in the world who cares about Jews or Jews ourselves, have to reckon with that. The blood made people thirst for more blood. And that two years later, that seems to be getting worse, not better.

[D]

And the other part of this, and this is particularly important in the European and in the UK Context in particular, is the continued stubborn refusal to name who is committing these acts. So in 2017, in Manchester, which is where the attack of the other day happened, we had this terrible suicide, Islamist extremist suicide bombing at a concert which killed more than 20 people. That was 2017. And the UK government started tracking terrorist attacks. And if you look at between 2017 and today, they classify 11 of the 19 terrorist attacks in the UK as being fueled by Islamic extremism. And this attacker named Jihad is a perfect example of the community that those attackers are coming from. He was a British citizen, came as a child from Syria. He clearly was radicalized and living in a world that encouraged this sort of behavior. So the refusal of Kaisermer, whose wife, by the way, is Jewish, to name that threat and to do it with clarity and to say this is the we are fighting an internal threat here of Islamic extremist terrorism in our own country that is actively attacking Jews. And it wasn't just the synagogue being attacked by this murderous man. It was the fact that over the last several years, it's always been framed, as you say, John, in the context of Israel's war against Gaza. I noticed reports today in the New York Times and elsewhere that framed it that way. And I paused for a minute, I was drinking my coffee, I thought, no, actually was Hamas's attack on Israel. That is the proper framing of what's happened since October 7th. But these attacks on Jewish institutions, on schools, on shuls, on people who. Where the kipa in places like the UK and throughout Europe have been going on for more than a decade. So this is something that I think the leaders of these countries and Starmer is a terrible person to be leading a country in this moment because his entire Labour Party has been soaked in anti Semitism for years. They should be saying what is fueling this and who is who the people committing these acts.

[A]

You know, it.

[C]

Not just yesterday, but as Christine says, for the past two years. If you look at the images coming out of the UK and elsewhere, but really especially the UK out of London, the quote, protests, the riots, the, the, the, the pro Hamas mobs, these images and there's, you could, there's tons of them that happened in the wake of the attack yesterday. And it doesn't, it doesn't look remotely like Europe. I mean, it, look, it looks like you're looking at something out of the Middle east. You know, at any point in the past three decades there, there's just the density of the mobs waving Palestinian flags, shooting off like, I don't know, you.

[A]

Know, flares, flares, incendiary devices and ever.

[C]

Been full of smoke and it's, it's like the recreation of a battle zone. It's pathetic and disgusting and it, you know, when people talk about the death of Europe, you can see it in all this footage right before your eyes.

[D]

And Manchester, I read something. Jewish population outside of London, in the uk, it is the second largest Jewish population in the uk and that is. And there's also a very large Muslim population in Manchester. So that tension has been going on for a while.

[B]

Sorry, I want to read something real quick from the Telegraph. They have a timeline of key events from yesterday up on their website and here is the totality of the timeline. 11:15am, he has a bomb. Police told bystanders. 11:52am, Police being deployed to synagogues across the country. 12:17pm Two members of Jewish community killed. 3:30pm Manchester synagogue killings declared terror attack. 7:13pm Scuffles break out at Pro Palestine march in Manchester. 7:31pm I don't give a F about the Jewish community right now, says Pro Palestine Professor. 10:19pm this is the day we hoped we would never see, but we knew would come, says Chief Rabbi. That's the entirety of the timeline of events yesterday. It is attacks happening to Jews and in response pro Palestine, well, so called pro Palestine demonstrations in Manchester. What frame of mind you have to be in to demonstrate in Manchester amid while they're still combing the scene of a murder in synagogue on Yom Kippur in Manchester? I don't know, but it's not a good frame of mind. And it was a lot of people out there and then there were others posting videos of from the river to the sea chants at, you know, metro stops and whatever. I mean, what seemed to happen is that it's not just that the UK's culture produced the attack, it's that it was celebrated with victory dances in the place of the attack and in all around it caused a sort of spontaneous outpouring of additional anti Semitism, which I guess is the point, John, you were making initially, which is that blood and what Abe has the bang for more.

[A]

Blood and what Abe was making. Because the celebration of terror attacks on Jews is a key feature of Middle Eastern political action over the last 50 years. So if, you know, if stuff happens on the west bank and in Gaza and elsewhere on the Arab street, you get marches and celebrations and cheering and the firing of guns up in the air, then the bullets come down and kill people in the middle of those demonstrations. Since apparently if you demonstrate in favor of Jew killing, you don't understand that gravity plays a role in what happens to a bullet when you shoot it in the air. That is what gives it its uniquely Middle Eastern and non European flavor, which is, look, if you're going to celebrate the murder of Jews, if you're going to murder Jews by the millions, you keep it quiet. That's the European way, that's the Nazi way. It's not like you walk around and say, we're doing the Final Solution. You keep the Final Solution a secret and you find out about it when the war is over. It's determined to happen at secret conferences, you know, on lakes. And the point is, the celebration is the point because it's not just the killing in itself, but the creation of the atmosphere that says that the that the murder is justifiable and that the murder is something worthy of celebration and that that in itself creates the conditions for more. Because we all want, you know, what. What Francis Gamma called the thymonic urge, the need to get positive attention. And if you're. If the world in which you live, like. Like jihad, the. The Manchester killer is a world in which you and your family become celebrities because you were. You were the type of person who slaughtered Jews, then, you know, you're giving all kinds of ideas to other people in your community and elsewhere that this is a good way to. This is a good way to. To pursue your interests, not only in fame but also in saying that you're doing this, you know, to help your own people. And that's why Jews are uniquely threatened on this planet. This seems to be a particular blood thirst that, you know, I mean, we saw some blood thirst. An individual's bloodthirst against Mormons last week, obviously, in Michigan. It's not that it. Bloodthirst for people of a different kind is not a real thing. Wherever you go, somebody's killing. You know, somebody's killing half a million Christians in Africa for. For being Christians. I mean, it's. It. That's. It's not like. That's not a real thing. And I don't want to make it exclusively a Jewish thing, but this specific sequence that you laid out from the telegraph is, which is. People go. People are praying. Someone goes and. And. And. And drives and drives, smashes into the synagogue and stabs them. And within hours, there are celebratory dances taking place not only in Manchester, but also in London on. You know, on the. On that.

[D]

That evening outside Downing street, outside Downing street, outside the home of the prime minister that just recognized a Palestinian state. I do actually. I do think there's something specific to the Jewish people about this, and that is that it's also trying to create a climate of fear for Jews living outside of Israel. And that is what you saw in report. In report after this, people saying, is it still safe for me to live in Europe? This is a question. There have been plays written about this, that this question of is Europe still a safe place for Jews to live in the 21st century? That culture of fear is something that Islamic extremism cultivates, it nurtures, it's doing it in it to a different extent in places like Dearborn, Michigan, in the US as we saw with a recent city council meeting where the mayor told a Christian, we don't. We want to drive you out of here. There is a philosophy behind that, and I think, again, the unwillingness of large swathes of the liberal intelligentsia types in all these countries to name it and to point to it and to say, this is a threat to free society for everyone, not just Jews, but it is the Jews who they target first. And I think that climate of fear is what they're cultivating and what I think a lack of leadership on the part of these elected officials in these countries, the UK in particular, is, Is allowing to spread.

[B]

And also they should. They're not just celebrated by people in their community, but they're celebrated essentially by the government. When the government responds to hate marches by changing policy, these people, these mobs go out in the street against Jews. And Keir Starmer and David Lammy and people like that say, yeah, you're right. I mean, the Jews are, you know, they have a policy of intentional starvation and look at all the women and children that they're killing. And so what do you expect? Well, but this is, you know, it's not just. It's not just about the idea. It's not just. I mean, the blood libel is one thing, right? What they're saying about Jews and Israel is one thing. But what I'm saying is that there's a very real practical effect, which is Keir Starmer says, okay, we'll change our policy. You march, you know, for blood in the streets against Jews, and you will succeed in changing the policy of this government that is a legitimate democrat way to take part in the democratic process is to, you know, march against Jews and, and all this other stuff. And so we'll hold back weapons and we'll, you know, we'll start funding. Fine, we'll start funding UNRA again. You know, they suspended UNRWA when it turned out that some of the UN employees were involved in October 7th, and then they quietly went back. You know, they will. They will give. They will make concessions, policy, real policy, concessions that affect real world events to these people. And that is the most. That is the most valuable concession of all in a democracy.

[A]

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[D]

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[C]

Before Donald Trump was reelected, it was happening here. It was the beginnings of that were happening here. Kamala and Joe Biden were, you know, talking about how the protesters had a point and Biden, the administration denied it. But they were they slowed down weapons to Israel to a snail's pace. So, yeah, I mean, we would be in a, in a similar position today were it not for who's in the, in the White House now.

[A]

I mean, broadening this out beyond this. You can say that it's been happening here in the United States for 11 years since, I think, the Ferguson protests. Although you could date it back further to Occupy Wall street and to some other things that are not specifically obviously related to Jewish matters, which is to say the purpose of large scale violent action in democracies is to. Or semi violent or threatening violence with spasms or outbreaks of violence is either to create a counter response that shocks the conscience because the authorities do things or overdo things and therefore people feel sorry for the people. Protesters. Or to say, we no longer accept, we protesters, we no longer accept that the system that we are in can redress our grievances or answer our concerns. So we are taking to the streets in forms of direct action to see if pressure outside of legislatures and town councils and things like that can make it happen. And here in the United States, that proved to be a remarkably successful approach for the American left, which got changes in school curricula, got changes in police behavior toward, and political behavior toward things like mass riots in the middle of American cities in which mayors were hiding in their houses, as was the case with Jacob Fry and in Minneapolis. And the effort then to make, to sort of revalue things so that the issue wasn't the criminal behavior of protesters and rioters, but say, the criminal behavior of supposedly, of Kyle Rittenhouse, foolish young man who decided to go defend, you know, America against these rioters and ended up shooting three people, you know, in a place he probably should not have been, but was certainly not guilty of anything but self defense. And then we had to spend two years with the idea that he was the bad guy. And that transvaluation of values, which is what, which is what Nietzsche said was kind of the, the way in which the modern world was approaching Western tradition very much did not involve Jews, especially until 2023, until October of 2023. And then it all started then. All of those tactics that have been developed from, as Noah Rothman says in his landmark piece, the Clockwork Bl, published earlier this year, all these tactics that they began to innovate here in the United States, reckoning back to harkening, back to stuff from the 60s and early 70s really all coalesced. Stuff from the G20 protests in 1999, stuff from Occupy Wall street, stuff from the eco terrorist demonstrations in the Dakotas against fracking and stuff like that. And then, and then the, the Ferguson protests and then the George Floyd protests. All everything that was learned then just came together in a giant stew on college campuses and in neighborhoods leading to the deaths of Jews on a not routine basis. But you know, every couple of months somebody got hit in the head by something and died. And then a couple of months ago, two people are shot outside the D.C. jCC and woman is killed in Denver. And you know, so not only deaths, but just this general approach which is we don't like you and we're not going to follow the rules and you bend to us. And it's remarkable how successful that has been.

[D]

It is the textbook definition of terrorism. It forces the fear, forces people to change their behavior, to limit their own freedom. You don't need the government to limit their freedom because they'll do it themselves out of fear for their own and their family's safety. Synagogues have been dealing with this for a long time and it's been a slow accretion of a need for greater and greater security measures. Fewer public events, you know, staged outside where you cannot control the security perimeter versus inside. And that fear that, I mean, I remember after 9, 11 how all of us talked about we don't want to let the terrorists win. Well, we are letting the terrorism that is pursued by these groups win. And we're doing it very quietly because there aren't enough people standing up and being particularly among our elected officials, being very blunt and straightforward about this being a form of cultural terrorism.

[A]

I mean, I mean, I'm actually was talking about authorities. I think the issue here is not say individual behavior, which is what happens during, like what happened in the United States during the crime spree from the 60s to the 90s, is that everybody was effective. Everybody took, took a different way, had to adopt a different way of living to provide themselves with personal safety that was not being guaranteed to them by the police departments that were either overwhelmed or following demented, you know, policies in which the cops were staying in cars instead of patrolling streets and things like that. Here I'm talking about urban officials beholden to radical voters, part of their block who, you know, decided not to enforce the law, chose not to enforce the law in city after city, in Chicago, in Portland, in, in Minneapolis, in Los Angeles, against these demonstrators, people shutting down bridges, shutting down highways as a matter of, you know, which is a matter of deep public disruption. And then of course, doing things like vandalisms and, and and, and that sort of thing. And then you have the, you know, some state governments raising the amount that you could steal during, you know, during a looting incident so that if you only stole $200, you wouldn't be arrested or they would not be charged with a crime. That's not terrorism per se, but the disorder that was accepted and then even extended is a. Is a, is a real thing. I was just thinking about a novel I read in the late 70s, early 80s, I think. I reviewed it for the Wall by the German writer Heinrich Bol, who won a Nobel Prize at some point in the 70s called the safety Net, which is the greatest fictional portrait of what it was like to live in the 1970s during the terrorism spree that overtook Germany and Italy, in particular, the Red Army Faction in Germany, otherwise known as the Baader Meinhof gang. And the Red Brigades in Italy, which famously kidnapped the Italian politician Aldo Moro, who had been the Prime Minister and was about to become the prime minister again, kidnapped him, tortured him and killed him in 1979. And how the entirety of the political class in Germany came to live under personal security. The way you read about, sometimes rich people in places like Brazil or Mexico, where there are economic, where people are kidnapped for economic reasons, live, you know, basically with security around them 24 7. And this portrait of what it was like to. For these leaders and people and politicians and industrialists have to live in accordance on a tear all the time. Very vivid, very powerful. Bull was a man of the left. This wasn't, you know, wasn't his interest to, you know, portray his team in this fashion, but it was about the breakdown of civil society because the authorities were unwilling or unable or did not know how to confront the threat. Now, Germany, to be fair, I think it's also important to mention, since we're talking about the collapse of Europe, Germany. We are, we are. We were told this morning or late last night, Germany cooperated with the Mossad in breaking up a terror plot in Germany, that the Mossad had, had come across a terror cell, I think, in Hamburg that was interrupted and taken down with cooperation between the Israeli intelligence services and the German government. One gets the sense that we're the Mossad to contact Great Britain and say, we hear that something is going to go on in Manchester, at a synagogue, you should do something that that call would not be taken, or that somebody at MI5 would say, we're not cooperating with you anymore. You're under sanction. Or until you create a Palestinian, until you, until you give the Palestinians, the West Bank. We're not interested in really playing footsie with you, something like that. So that's the difference between the states that recognize the, you know, recognize the Palestinian state. And I just think it's a wonderful irony, or not irony. It's a perfect demonstration of what happens when milquetoasts surrender to the logic of the mob that Keir Starmer, you know, basically recognizes. The Palestinian state says awful things about Israel, monstrous awful things about Israel. Is the prime minister of a country whose police force seems more inclined to arrest Jews with kipot who want to stand and watch as they're. As they are defamed and our people are trashed and arrest them for their presence because their presence represents a provocation than it is in arrest, in doing something about the protesters. That he should be the subject of a giant demonstration outside 10 Downing Street. You get nothing. You. You concede to these people and you get nothing. You get more. You stir. The blood is in the water. They know that you are. You can be manipulated and you can be scared and you can be terrified and you're suing for peace. And they see it as war. And that's great. I mean, let's make sure that other leaders on, on the planet Earth understand that what happened to Keir Starmer will happen to them. Give them a little bit of what they want and they're not going to go away. It's the opposite.

[D]

Well, there's also this, this ideological tendency. And we see, again, we see this here at home. Just recently, NYU wants to cancel a debate I think Elio Shapiro was involved in because they couldn't, they couldn't maintain security, couldn't guarantee security, because obviously he was seen to have. I guess they assume he'll be too provocative. And we see this, this has played out on college campuses for a while. And obviously Charlie Kirk's assassination was the culmination of this trend, this idea that if you say something that the mob doesn't like, you are actually the provocateur there because they disagree with you. So, and so it's. The violence is actually acceptable against the thing that they're saying. And that is, that's a constant battle even here in a society that I think with greater free speech protections than a place like the UK for example, and with more, more lawfare in general, which allows people to sue for a kind of right to say what they want to say, where they want to say it. Even with those protections in place, I think every time that happens, it has to be pushed back against not just by leadership, but by anyone who cares about the right of people like Charlie Kirk or Elia Shapiro or anyone they might disagree with to go to a campus and say what they believe. That's actually a free society. And again, so I, I focus on the kind of self censorship because I think we've seen, particularly in younger generations, a real shift towards self censorship, a sort of, and it's part of the broader safety culture and all this, but it's being used as a weapon by people who, as you say, John, want to allow the mob to run rampant. And those people, often elected officials, often invoke safety as a means to the end of censoring people's right to say what they believe.

[B]

It's also, it's quite an admission. Right, because we anticipate certain protests and therefore don't expect to be able to protect you. Right. We don't expect to be able to have the resources to have, you know, Ilya Shapiro speak or whatever. And it's, that's quite the admission because if you don't have the resources, you know, who does? NYU, NYC, you can call in the N1. Well, not for long maybe. But if you want to protect campus at nyu, you can, you have to be willing to work with police, New York's finest. Yeah, because they're really want to protect people because they're, they don't want. Right.

[A]

Because in the end, this is all disingenuous. Whenever you hear someone say, we can't have this event on our campus because we can't, you know, we can't ensure the security of the speaker, that is, whoever is an authority saying, I don't want this source, so the hell with it. Or you know what? If it were Angela Davis, I doubt that they would be objecting. If it were Ta Nehisi Coates, I doubt that they would be objecting. If it were Ida. If it were Ida. Ida Bay. Well, if it were Hannah Nicole Jones, I doubt that they would be protesting. And if it were Rashid Holiday, I doubt they would be protesting. I mean, that is, or saying they couldn't, they couldn't secure, they couldn't make sure that it was safe. You know why? Because on very few occasions in the last 30 or 40 years, Jews do take up arms and can do terrible, you know, Baruch Goldstein can assassinate Yitzhak Rabin in a square in, in Tel Aviv and stuff like that can happen, but they're not scared.

[B]

Goldstein was the, the cave of the patriarchs.

[A]

The cave of the patriarchs. I'm so whoever it was this, whoever it was that assassinated Yitzhak Rabin. I'm not laughing about that. That. I, that, that right now, I, I confused the two of them. So occasionally there's Jewish terrorism, but there's almost no Jewish terrorism inside the United States, and nobody on campus is worried about Jews disrupting Arab events. And so if you have Ilya Shapiro, a Jewish speaker, cancel the event, because who's going to complain? Well, now, to be fair, you know who's going to complain? The Trump justice and Education departments are going to start complaining because you are not allowed to restrict speech. You are not allowed to violate Title 6 of the Civil Rights act because somebody's a Jew. Just because somebody's a Jew doesn't mean that he doesn't get to be protected by Title 6 of the Civil Rights Act. Although that would have come as a surprise to the Biden Justice Department and the Biden Education Department, which seemed to think that there was a Jewish exception to Title 6 of the Civil Rights Act. And the, and the Trump administration does not. So, you know, once again, we find ourselves this week with many reasons to criticize the Trump administration. You know, there's this question of how the military, of how the event with Pete Hegseth and Trump went down and what the nature of what Trump said in his speech and the nature of what Hegseth said in his speech and Trump tweeting out pictures of him laughing while looking at a Trump 2028 cap, thus suggesting that maybe he would do something to postpone the 2028 elections and three or four or five other things that have gone on, including the Comey prosecution and all of that. And at the same time, I cannot in good conscience stand here and say that, you know, I'm very disappointed and upset by all of these things. But I and my people, and this is a very important point for America, are safer in this country today than, as I think Abe is indicating, than we would be had the election result gone the other way in November of 2024. And because of the actions that the administration has been taking aggressively to confront these efforts to restrict Jewish speech and to interpose, the federal government is going after people who disrupted shul in New Jersey on grounds of civil rights violations that would not have happened under, under Biden. And so, and given what is not just what is most important to me parochially, but because if we don't establish rules of order here in relation to these behaviors against Jews, once again, Jews are a canary in the coal mine. We, when you come after us and you break down the rules of society to go after us, you're all next. In different ways. That is what the history of the west demonstrates, that bloodlust is not restrainable.

[C]

People clearly don't believe that, though. I mean, it's true. I'm not saying I don't. But when you say, look, they're coming after you next, no one, no one takes that seriously. Everyone wants to appease indefinitely, so long as it's just the Jews. You know, the fact that Trump has joined the fight on our side to some extent increases the opposition to our side.

[A]

Right.

[C]

But it doesn't matter because that was going to happen anyway. For the past two years, the bullying would have accreted more and more and more with or without Trump. Whether Trump was on this planet or not, that would have happened. So, yeah, I'm grateful. At least we have someone, we have an administration trying to enforce what's right.

[D]

Well, I think that's, I know we often spend time kind of parsing the threads, various details of MAGA world and who will succeed Trump, who will be his heir? Will MAGA continue? And I, as I'm sure all of our listeners and you guys know, have serious problems with Trump's populism in terms of the accretion of power to the executive that rightfully belongs in Congress and all of that stuff. But this question of whether it is Trump specific or MAGA policy to, to do what he's been doing to protect civil rights, to protect civil liberties, that is a real question because whoever comes next, the horseshoe theory has already shown us the prevalence of anti Semitism on the extreme ends. The question of who comes next in MAGA world, who will be his heir, what their policy will be about, protecting the rights of Jewish students to cross campus and go to the library, for example, is really up in the air. We don't know. And we also, as you know, and this is looking far ahead, but that actually does matter whether this is Trump specific or if it's a broader part of a philosophy of pushing back against what we've seen of the radical left and all of the things that you described earlier, John, about their tendency to promote mob violence.

[A]

Right. I mean, they want to.

[B]

One, I just want to add that to what Abe was saying, that the people who say, you know, nobody believes that, that, that the Jews are canary, the canary in the coal mine, that next they'll come for you, whatever. But you know who does say that? Everybody who, who thinks that they're being targeted because they're anti semites right. When, when somebody, when Mahmoud Khalil is arrested by ICE agents, we hear lots of, well, how, why aren't the Jews out there protesting for Mahmoud Khalil? Because, you know, it doesn't, it won't stop there. You know, eventually they'll come for the Jews. So when someone actually comes for the Jews, no one says anything. But when someone comes for the enemies of the Jews, they say, why aren't the Jews out there protesting? Because they'll come for you. I'm Oliver Darcy.

[A]

And I'm John Passantino.

[B]

We have spent years covering the inner workings of the news media, tech, politics, Hollywood and power. Now through our nightly newsletter status. And we're bringing that same reporting and.

[A]

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[B]

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[D]

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[A]

We also pull back the curtain via.

[B]

Our exception exclusive reporting to take you behind the scenes. My understanding having reported this is that the Pentagon protested to CNN and tried to effectively exile the CNN producer. And when the moment calls for it, we've got some hot takes. I just think Brad Pitt, honestly, he kind of seems a little washed up.

[A]

Oh my God. That's Power Lines presented by Status. Follow Power Lines and listen on Apple, Spotify, Apple, Amazon Music or your favorite podcast app. I'm Mark Alper and I want to let you know that two Way Tonight, the destination for the best political news and analysis anywhere, is now available as an audio podcast. Each weekday I'll be joined by special guests from the worlds of news, politics and the media, along with members of the two way community for conversations like no other. It's the best way to stay informed at the end of your day or first thing in the morning every weekday. It's a show like no other because we involve the community. We hear from people from around the country, around the world. They're part of a conversation. There is no other platform like this and I hope you will find it to be not only different than everything else, but more meaningful as you become part of a special community around the program. So listen and follow two Way tonight with Mark Alperin on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or any other major stream streaming platform. That's a very, that's a very good point. And part of the problem inside the Jewish community is that too many Jews in pro leader in positions of prominence Agree with that. And you know, yesterday and during the 10, during the high holy days when they have captive audiences in certain synagogues across the country, you know, spend their time not talking about the threats of the Jewish people, but the threats to, you know, to our civil society from the evils being perpetrated by the Trump administration and therefore once again do not defend their own. But look out in this kind of bizarre universalist way to the idea that it's much more, it's much more meaningful to talk about the crisis that is afflicting others than it is to talk about the fact that people keep trying to set your house on fire and that what you're supposed to do is then send out the, you know, be part of the auxiliary police that surrounds the other person's house to keep it from being set on fire. Which is, that's a, that is the crisis in liberal or leftist Judaism is this idea somehow that there is the true virtue is in we are obliged, according to Jewish law to welcome and defend the stranger among us. But of course that counts in a world in which you are the majority and in which the stranger comes among you as a minority and you, you know, instead of oppressing them, you're supposed to welcome them and essentially provide them with Torah and Talmud, lay out all sorts of rights that the stranger has that are relatively equal to the rights that the Jewish people have. But we are not the majority here. We are not the majority here, and we are the stranger. And this idea among Jews that we're not, that we're actually just, you know, like we're WASPs and we're just part of the general white majority and therefore must focus our concerns on the civil liberties threats to, you know, minority groups that are larger than ours. By the way, you know, blacks and Hispanics outnumber Jews by tenfold in the United States. And Muslims are, from what they're saying, are creeping up on our number altogether and are gonna, you know, out distance us in the next 10 years in part because of out marriage. And we're acting like we need to protect them when we need to be protected from them. And the only people who are going to, if we, you know, as he'll, you know, if I am not for myself, whom who will be for me? If I'm not going to defend and protect myself, who am I going to be protected from? Which is why you hear all this talk and Benjamin Kirstein has just published a book on this subject and others that Jews need to take up their own self defense. Not only Rebuilding their synagogue buildings and things like that. Like my synagogue, which just went through a renovation that cost probably a million dollars to make it more secure. Money that could have been spent on other things that would have been more intrinsically satisfying to the Jewish mission of my Conservative synagogue, but that was necessary to spend in order to prevent someone from ramming through the front door and killing us all on, you know, in Manhattan then people are talking about how Jews need to arm themselves. Because once again, if I am not for myself, who will be for me? If the police of New York City are going to be under the tutelage of Zoram Dani, who is going to move police protection from synagogues to mosques slowly and quietly and with very little fanfare, unless they're nice anti Semitic, anti Zionist chools like the one he sat in disgracefully next to Jerry Nadler and Brad Lander, his, you know, his Jew hatred washers, who will face their judgment in Olam haba for their behavior in relation to him. Like that's a real thing. And this conversation is real. And you know, that's also the canary in the coal mine, right?

[B]

I mean, it has become the Jews responsibility somehow to protect the antisemites from the consequences of their own anti Semitism. So our resources and our time have to be spent protecting others from the consequences of what they do to us. We should be out there protesting for Mahmoud Khalil and all the others. We should be defending the universities when the universities are violating Title 6, all this stuff. And yes, it doesn't. Harvard has, you know, or had before all this started, more money than God. And you know, there were all sorts of uses for that money. And it went to, you know, the things that they wanted to do. And when the government tried to tell them, you know, to spend it differently or whatever, people said, oh, that's such a violation. You know, this. Well, what about the Jewish community getting to spend its money on books instead of private guards? That would be nice. You know, we had like in Australia when there, maybe it was New Zealand. I remember when there was the, the, the mosque attack. There was a shooting at a mosque. You had this outbreak of drive a Muslim to work day or walk a Muslim to work day. Right. We don't even have that. You know, we'd be lucky to have that among Jews in America. Fellow Jews driving fellow Jews to. No, but seriously, when I, you know, the only people that I've ever seen stand outside a synagogue that I was a member of after something happened were Catholics. I saw Catholics, you know, have vigil and stand and hold candles and stand outside the synagogue. I so, you know, but that is, but and that's not to get into, you know, all that. But just it's rare is what I'm saying. It's rare to have, you know, in any other situation, you have to make it a national holiday. Today is Tuesday. So you need to drive a Muslim to work on Tuesday. But there are no such days for Jews. We have to figure out how to get where we're going to go safely. We have to spend our resources on staying alive in the in free countries, in the free West. And that somehow doesn't agitate people, that doesn't strike other people as absolutely unacceptable, especially, you know, in a free country.

[C]

In a democracy, there's this, the, the modern west. It loves to address the early warning signs of great historical crises and ignore the actual unfolding crises that are going on in the present. You know, everything's the history teaches us that we have what about what's happening now? And I think, you know, very pro Trump today, apparently. But I think part of the shift in governance since Trump has come to office is sometimes buffoonishly and however you want to criticize it, he's focused on the actual crises, not on the early warning signs that history teaches us could happen if they go after the schools and if the Islamophobia, the he's looking at, no, this is what's actually happening. What are you talking about?

[D]

Well, and that's where the contrast between had Kamala Harris won the election versus Trump is so stark, because we know now from her own book and from all of her aides who leaked to the press that she was incapable of making a decision, to say nothing of being capable of describing a situation as it is. He often says the quiet part out loud, as we like to say on this podcast. But there is something very it's kind of stunning just how unwilling the rest of the culture in this country is to acknowledge it. I was reminded of an essay, I think it was Dara Horne wrote some years ago when, when attacks on synagogues and Jewish institutions were starting to break through in sort of mainstream media is like, this is a problem. This is happening. And she was she went to a meeting about security and churches and synagogues. And the only she sat there shocked because the leaders of churches were saying maybe we should put a lock on the door because, you know, sometimes homeless vagrants who are mentally ill come in and threaten our congregants. And she was astonished because she'd been living in the world of constant security, armed private guards, all the money spent on resources to protect people who just want to come and worship. And that contrast, I think, is shrinking, as it should, because this country should understand that those attacks on people's ability to freely practice their faith will spread and, and are in certain enclaves already. But I mentioned Dearborn, Michigan, for a reason, but that the principle underlying that freedom is what everyone should want to protect, but they don't even know until recently that it is a problem. And I do credit Trump for saying that out loud over and over again, however bumbling he might be in other ways, as Abe says.

[A]

You know, as a form of thinking about Trump's last 10 years, when he came down the escalator and when his coming down the escalator helped trigger the first real open wave of social media anti Semitism that we still don't quite understand. The source of a lot of it seems to have come from server farms outside the United States or was amplified or whatever. But where Ben Shapiro was getting tens of thousands of messages a day, where Seth's wife Bethany was getting tens of thousands of messages, I was getting nowhere near that, you know, but enough. And it, what did seem like Trump's arrival had turned this rock over that we had been ignoring or had really not noticed this kind of festering world of Jew hatred inside the United States. And I was genuinely frightened about what his election might portend since his general line was he, he, he was happy to accept support from anybody who wanted to be, he would be nice to anybody who would want to be nice to him, right? The proud boys, this one, that one, whatever. Like, if you like him, he likes you. And if you don't like him, he doesn't like you. And that was the rule. And he wasn't going to question your motives. He wasn't going to. Do you know what, what? He wasn't going to disavow you, right? Even the proud boys, he said, stand. What did he say? Said stand by and stand down or something. He didn't say, don't, I'm against you, and you're didn't even know what he said. I disavow.

[B]

He knew what he was even saying.

[A]

To them, but it was clearly like something. But all he said was, I disavow, I disavow. But he didn't. So I, I was frankly very unnerved. And remember, he said he wanted to settle the, it was a great real estate, there could be great real estate deal in solving the Middle east problem. And a real estate deal, to my ears in 2016, meant Israel concedes and gives a lot of stuff up to Palestinians for no reason and in trade of nothing except, you know, false promises. So I was very frightened. And then, you know, things happened that led me to be less frightened. During the Trump term, the Abraham Accords, the appointment of David Friedman as the ambassador, the decision to move the embassy to Jerusalem, the recognition of the Israeli annexation of the Golan Heights, and moves to support Israel's increasingly conventional position in world affairs through the Abraham Accords. But still, there was something I, you know, he, he kept saying, any Jew doesn't support me is crazy. And how dare you. And a little unnerving, this. On, on the high holy days, we read from one of the great stories of the Bible from the Book of numbers, chapter 23. This is the story of Balaam, Balaam the prophet, who is a non Jewish prophet, but is understood, as the Bible does understand such things, to be a. He's a prophet, he's a. He's got, you know, magical powers of prophecy. There are. The Bible doesn't just say that God grants magic to Jews alone. The magician, the pharaoh has magicians who can duplicate some of the plagues. And so that's how the pharaoh thinks. Ah, who's Moses anyway? It doesn't matter. Numbers 23 tells the story. The story of Balaam is that he is hired by a rival ruler to go and curse Israel using his magical powers. And he is to go and curse Israel and curse the. Curse the people of Israel. And instead, the first sign that he's made a mistake in agreeing to this task, which he's doing for money, is that his donkey starts yelling at him. It's really the only openly comic story in the Bible where his donkey, the ass that he is riding on, starts to scold him and yell at him. And he's like, what's going on? This donkey is yelling at me. And then he hears God's voice telling him that what he is supposed to do is praise the Jews, not criticize them. And in Numbers 23 it says God met with him. And Balaam said, I've prepared seven altars, and on each altar I've offered a bull and a ram. That is, he was now going to sacrifice to the God of Israel. And the Lord put a word in Balaam's mouth and said, go back to Balak, that's the king of Hardim, and give him this word. So he went back to him and found him standing beside his offering with all his officials. And Balaam spoke the message that God gave him. Balak brought me from Aram. Come, he said, curse Jacob for me. Come denounce Israel. But how can I curse those whom God has not cursed? How can I denounce those whom the Lord has not denounced? From the rocky peaks, I see them. From the heights I view them. I see a people who live apart and do not consider themselves one of the nations. Who can count the dust of Jacob, or even a. Or number, even a fourth of Israel. Let me die the death of the righteous, and may my final end be like theirs. Balak says to Balaam, what have you done to me? I brought you to curse my enemies, but you have done nothing but bless them. And Balaam answers, must I not speak what the Lord put in my mouth? And I was dumbstruck reading this in synagogue this week, because there was a lot of talk in the first Trump miss among supporters of Trump that, you know, you had to look at him like you looked at King David. And Mayor Soloveitchik in our magazine said, don't compare Trump to King David. Like, just, that's. Don't go. Don't go there. That's too much. You're going too crazy. But I think there is something to the idea that Trump is Balam, that it may not have been Trump's intention to come out and curse the Jewish people, but he was given accelerant in this world in 2015 by this weird subculture on the. On the far right of people who hated Israel and hated the Jews. He's come into power once again and now twice. And what did he do? On Monday in the Oval Office, he said to Balak in Gaza, I am here to praise the Jews. Bibi, you're great. Do whatever you have to do. We're going to try to make peace here. But if you don't make peace, go do what you have to do. I am not here to criticize the people of Jacob. I am here to celebrate the people of Jacob, because God has put this in my mouth.

[D]

So in the Protestant tradition, the Moab sending Balaam to say these words, it's very clear that Balaam is a wicked prophet, but what he isn't is a false prophet. And that distinction is very much, I think, suits the message you're saying about Trump. You can be a very wicked prophet person, but you can't. You, at some point, you speak the truth, and you can't help but speak the truth. And so that that distinction between wickedness and truthfulness, I think was Always emphasized when, at least when I was taught that story.

[A]

Yeah, well, it is an important element of the story because as I said, the whole point about Balaam is that he's the real deal. Like, his curses would matter. If he cursed the Jews, the Jews would be in trouble from his curses because he did have some supernatural abilities, as I say, like the, like the magicians in Pharaoh's court. And it's rare that I have these moments. I mean, obviously people, people cite scripture all the time to reflect contemporary moments, but if there were a leader that you would have thought was going to be. And you know, who's. But like Tucker Carlson is Balaam without God putting words in his mouth. I mean that, you know, if you, if you, if you really wanted to sort of follow the logic here we have an image of Tucker puts the.

[D]

Words in his mouth.

[A]

It seems exactly right. Yeah. So I don't know. Anyway, I, I was very.

[B]

Tucker might have once upon a time been Balaam's talking ass.

[A]

Might have been. Right. When he was still eager for mainstream.

[B]

Someone has to be the donkey in this analogy.

[A]

I know. I don't know who. I don't quite know the donkey is, you know, Alex. Joe. Yeah. I mean, the donkey is Mencius Moldbug. I mean, whoever, whoever it is that was leading the charge of the anti Semites in 2015 that was, you know, made you and Bethany start worrying about your security for the first time in your life.

[C]

In fairness, you. Trump himself was never part of it, though.

[A]

I mean, I, I'm not. I remember. Yeah, but Balam was not part of it either. Balam is hired. That's the point. Right.

[D]

And so the mercenary sorcerer.

[A]

Yeah, mercenary sorcerer. He was being hired by this foreign power to curse. And so you could say that Trump, if you believe that Trump emerged from this weird world of populism, you could say that he was being hired by them. And a lot of them did think this was whom he was going to be. And I was worried that this was who he was going to be. And he has proven to be almost exactly the opposite. Before we go, I think it's worth pointing out that, you know, Trump, the question now is, is there a time limit on the Trump peace plan? Because he sort of said three or they have three or four days to agree. Seth, let me just ask you this before, before we end or whatever you all can. So he said, okay, you know, we're giving you three or four days, and then, you know, I'm letting BB loose. I don't really know what Difference there is going to be in BB being or the Israelis being let loose than what has gone on in the last three, four weeks. Exactly as they, as the Israelis have been moving on, on, on Gaza City. Do you, I mean, I'm not sure that there's a, okay, you've turned this deal down, you know, now, now, you know, go crazy. Not that I'm saying they're going crazy. They're going methodically and they're trying to achieve their war aims, which is to destroy Hamas's capabilities entirely and to maybe find the hostages. Do you see a distinction?

[B]

No, not really. I mean, the plan is basically, here's what's happening right when Trump presented it. Now, the difference is if that Hamas accepts the plan and it's implemented, the hostages come back and Hamas niks can leave if they want to leave the Gaza Strip and stuff like that. But, but the structure of the plan is going forward. I think that was Trump's message, you know, at such, you know, in the first period, Israel's backline boundary is going to be here in the red and then it's the yellow and then it's the green right on the map that they held up. That part is going through Israel's, you know, buffer zones and stuff like that is all because that's just how you do it. That's just the only way to do this. As you say, there's, there's, if you're going to go in and clear Gaza City, you go in and clear Gaza City. The difference is that there's just an offer to Hamas to end the, the bloodshed and, you know, do it the easy way. But I'm also, I would also remind Hamas that had a similar. They do, they, I, they listen.

[A]

They listen. They listen on one and a half speed.

[B]

But they're, I don't know, right. I don't know what the, I don't know what the wi fi is like in the tunnel where they are or somebody delivers them a handwritten message. Here is what Seth said on the Commentary podcast today. But I would like to remind them, if they're listening, that we had a very similar discussion when Trump said Israel is going to hold off, right? On striking Iran, its nuclear program. We're going to hold off. We're going to give them some more time. We've put up this new deal. Iran can say yes to the deal. You know, they're dragging. And then they said they're dragging this out. You know, we'll give them two weeks and like 48 hours later, American bombers were over Iran. So that's the thing that I think people should remember, is that there have been times in the recent past where Trump says, yeah, you have a few days, you have a week, maybe, whatever. And inside, he's. He's got a different clock counting down. And so I would just assume. And we never want to assume, but, you know, if past is precedent, he. Things are already put in motion when he says, you have a few days left or something like that. Usually he wants, you know, the sword of Damocles hanging right over your head when you have to make the decision.

[A]

Well, I guess you've answered my question, which is this question of whether or not there is a different and more aggressive strategy that can be pursued in the wake of the failure of the deal that we don't know about. I kind of doubt it, but who knows? I mean, direct American interest in striking the Israeli. The Iranian nuclear program, I think, is an argument that, you know, commentary has been making for, you know, nearly 20 years. Israel doesn't need the United States involvement in doing what it has to do in Gaza City, I believe, unless there is some, again, some idea in. In. In. In that we don't know about or some capability that Israel has, that it has not activated, as it has three or four times in the course of this. Of these two years. Right. There was the special weapon that was.

[B]

More likely to be restraining Qatar and having Qatar restrain who it's going to restrain. That's the sense I get from Trump putting out an executive order saying the United States regards an attack on Qatar as an attack on. Not exactly. That's not exactly what he said as. But that we will be obligated to make, redress and protect them and all this other stuff. And that sounds to me like part of a deal. That's not the sort of thing that American presidents go, you know, walk around tossing out. And that sounds like the eviction notices to Hamas and Qatar are coming. And whatever Qatar is doing to stir up trouble in some of these other places with its propaganda efforts with terrorist groups that it pays and stuff like that. That's what it seems like to me. Get Cutter to stand down. You know, and it's from ancient times they used to pay kings to not get involved in regional wars. Right. You pay them part. Part of the booty, right, when you won a war was you'd give to those who didn't get involved in the war. That's what this feels like to me. So, yeah, I mean, I just think it's. It's sort of closing a vise around, around the situation.

[A]

It's a very interesting point you make because I hadn't really thought of it. I've noticed that a lot of people have reacted with alarm at this executive order saying that we would regard an attack on Gutter as an attack on the United States. I thought that it was disingenuous in this sense, which is that Bibi has already promised that he was not going to strike gutter again and he apologized and Trump made him do it and Trump said they're not going to do it again and all of that. And then they issued this piece of paper as a kind of formal way of showing Gutter that they meant it so that, to, you know, to sort of to ensure Gutters participation in the peace deal. But the idea that it might be not about Israel attacking gutter, but about somebody else attacking Hamas attacking Gutter for kicking them out of gutter, that's interesting. Like I hadn't quite, hadn't quite thought of that. I think people's reactions to this have been a little crazy, particularly among this or among my Zionist Israel supporting friends. It's a document that has no meaning because Israel has already said, Bibi has said we're not, we're not doing this. And so, you know, issuing it to make Gutter feel good for taking what was actually is actually a pretty large step for them given their behavior over the last 20 years in saying, okay, this war should be over and you should lose. Hamas effectively was, was worth the issuing this piece of paper. But you know, Qatar is that, you.

[B]

Know, they're, they're, they're the, they're the bank behind the Muslim Brotherhood. And so it is something for them to kick Hamas out and say, Hamas, you lost this war, you should leave Gaza. That's that it is it, it does mean something for the locus of control of the Muslim Brotherhood world to essentially give up the Muslim Brotherhood's fight in, you know, what they regard as Palestine.

[A]

Yeah. All right, I'm going to give a quick recommendation and we can go for the weekend. So a couple weeks ago I recommended and have been continuing to read with incredible profit or pleasure, the works of Christine Favorite, also Margaret Millar. It's hard to describe what kinds of books she wrote. She wrote about 15 or 20 books. She's considered a grand master of mystery. She's not really a mystery novelist. She's a novelist of what is going on in the secret minds of ordinary middle class Americans as they go about their disappointing daily lives and their how Their. Their inner lives sometimes turn into kind of worldly chaos and horror. And that's like the book I recommended, the Fiend Christine recommended to me. I read a book called the Beast in View, which is a pretty extraordinary piece of writing. Her books have this one fascinating quality, which is that they end like the end of Carrie or something like that. They end. The last paragraph of her books features some kind of a holy crap moment that transfigures and transforms almost everything that comes before it. I don't quite know anything quite like it in my experience. It's not like a jump scare, but it is sort of like the perfect completion. And it's almost very, very dark and haunting. But she was married to a writer who became more famous than she, who wrote Kenneth Miller, who wrote under the name Ross MacDonald and wrote these mystery novels beginning in the late forties and became famous because Paul Newman made one of them into one of the movies that made Paul Newman a giant Superstar. Harper in 1965. The movie Harper is based on a. On a Ross MacDonald novel called the Moving Target, which is the first one of the Harper novels. Archer. He's actually called Archer in the books. It's called Harper in the movie, the Lou Archer novels. And I just read it in the last couple of days. It was published in 1949. And it's a classic California detective novel in many ways in the vein of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett and all that. But it's really, again, I mean, they were both remarkably good writers, remarkably, you know, adroit pro stylists. And this portrait of a. Of a kidnapping. The kidnapping of a. Of a rich oil man and his family's weird response to the kidnapping and how the plot goes in 15 different directions. I can't believe I've never read Ross McDonald before. It's a wonderful book with, again, a very sobering conclusion. So I recommend that heartily. Ross McDonald's moving target.

[D]

Can I add one? One thing about Maggie Millar's books. So when you said that. Trying to describe them. So another novelist, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, once said, people have three lives, the public, the private and the secret. And she is the novelist of the secret life.

[A]

That's a beautiful way to describe it.

[C]

When you talked about the ending that makes you go. That sort of cast the entire work in a different light. It reminded me of a book that I would recommend. It's not as great as. But I would recommend all of Charles Wilford's work. His second novel, pick Up. Don't read anything about it. Don't skip to the end. Literally, the last sentence of the book changes. Recast the in the entire novel.

[A]

Right. That's Williford L W I L L E F O R D Probably best known for writing a book called Miami Blues that was made into a movie with Alec Baldwin. But yeah, great. Hard boiled, right? Yeah. One of the ultimate hard boiled.

[D]

He's also kind of hard boiled.

[A]

Yeah, he understood Florida too.

[D]

Shout out to them.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

First.

[B]

First California.

[C]

He was first, like a great California writer. And then he. Then he moved to Florida. Became a great Florida writer.

[A]

Right. Okay, so we'll leave it there. Have a wonderful weekend. For Seth, Abe and Christina, I'm John Pod Horowitz. Keep the candle Bur.

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