“I know, you know, we believe in a land of love…”

—New Order, “The Perfect Kiss”

Rejoice, oh Humanity, for the butcher of Syria and Lebanon—Hassan Nasrallah—is no more. No longer shall he terrorize the innocents of the world at the command of his overlord Ayatollah Khamenei. Though I personally would have liked to see him tried and hanged for his many crimes against humanity, one thing is certain: he absolutely had it coming…

It’s old news by now (of course it would break the day after my newsletter), but considering that the Hezbollah pager and walkie-talkie explosions last week constituted probably the most effective singular counterterrorism operation in history, I think it’s worth contemplating how and why for anyone that may not be aware or may have even fallen for misinformation surrounding the just stunning and magnificent ‘Operation Beep Beep Motherf——’. Fog of war being what it is, I can’t tell you nearly as much as future historians will detail or probably even the Hollywood blockbuster that will follow in a decade or two. But I can tell you some…

It occurred to me after the million-and-oneth artist I know did their silly little “free Palestine” performative act, this time in song and dance. What exactly do these 21st-century clowns think they’re doing?

They live off the pop culture phenomenon of the moment. It’s not surprising to see them trying to cash in on the wave of Jew hate sweeping the world. Probably most of them are utterly clueless even as to its true nature. But the fact remains that they are siding with genocidal terrorists and fascists against the Jewish people, an unforgivable act in the eyes of history…

It was a realization I had not long after October 7th. In all the suffering, sorrow, and unimaginable tragedy of that day, not a single human being with a soul looked on without being moved to tears at the great injustice of it all. The things I saw just in the immediate aftermath will forever haunt my dreams. How could I ever forget Shani Louk…monsters among humanity took her life and the lives of so many others far before their time. They just wanted to dance at Nova; they just wanted to live peaceful lives in Kibbutz Be’eri or Nir Oz. I have such deep sadness for the suffering they endured; and such immeasurable rage…

An American is dead. Hersh Goldberg-Polin, son of Rachel Goldberg and Jon Polin, has been murdered by Hamas terrorists while in their captivity for over 300 days since October 7th, 2023. A victim of kidnapping, torture, and forced amputation, we cannot begin to imagine the suffering Hersh endured before he was slaughtered by the most brutal and barbarous terrorists our world has ever seen. And all for the fact that he happened to be Jewish. Words will never be adequate to express my emotion at the news, knowing how utterly devastating it must be to Hersh’s family after hoping all this time to see their son alive again. I am so angry it feels like a small star is burning in my chest. Where is justice in this life? How can something like this happen?…

There is a light at the end of the tunnel; metaphorically speaking, anyway. I make no metaphysical claims to an afterlife, much less a “good” one. But in our present reality, things will get better; so much so that the trials and tribulations of our modern catastrophe will seem like no more than troubled dreams of a past almost unthinkable. A new world and a new paradigm is just on the horizon; a world of decency and democracy, a world with strong checks on hate, warmongering, and terrorism. A world where all are if not accepted at least tolerated and allowed to live freely as themselves in an open society without fear of violence or threat. A world without dictators or despots and the wars they wage for the sake of their smallminded fantasies and compensating-for-something egos. All of these things and more are in humanity’s future; we just have to get there…

It is no accident of history that the development of systems of formal logic coincided with the development of rhetoric. Aristotle’s treatises on both subjects stood as the primary authorities in their respective fields for millennia, which should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with ‘The Philosopher’. While Plato (and Socrates before him) showed great disdain for the milquetoast rhetorical tricks of the Sophists, in Phaedrus Plato recognized that rhetoric in the hands of a proper student of philosophy can be a potent force for good in the world, or ‘The Good’ rather. Aristotle being Aristotle, ‘The First Teacher’ greatly expanded on what he had learned at Plato’s Academy and gave it a distinctly Aristotelian twist (peripatetic, if you will). In the field of rhetoric, he developed the familiar tripartite relationship of pathos, ethos, and logos: the three essential components of a proper rhetorical argument, and a tried and true method of persuasion through to the present day…

It is no secret that antisemitism is rising across the planet. Virtually every poll and metric available suggests a sharp increase in Jew hatred and antisemitic attacks worldwide following the October 7th massacre of 1,200 Jews and residents of the Jewish nation. Jew haters got a taste of blood that day, and they have not stopped calling for more. There are unfortunately far more antisemites in our world than I think any sane, rational person thought possible. If you had asked me on October 6th if I believed Jew hate was still a serious problem globally, my answer would have been far different from today…

‘Holocaust inversion’ is a term that immediately calls to mind the worst crimes against humanity in history. It describes when the horror of the Holocaust is used as a weapon against the very people that suffered it (usually the Jewish people, though hatred against Roma people and other targets of Nazi ire should not be overlooked). It is as evil and pernicious as its twin in deplorability, Holocaust denialism. And today, it is everywhere…

“A friend in need…”

When Israel called for support in the wake of the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, I and all decent humans across the globe showed up for the people of the Jewish nation. We didn’t check to see if our favoured political opinions had majority support among the electorate of the only democracy in the Middle East. Some things transcend politics. Atrocity transcends politics…

I have written several times before about the absurdity of UN resolutions demanding unilateral statehood recognition for the territory of ‘Palestine’. Not once in history has the former Arab partition or ‘Palestine’ as it is now known as wanted “independence” on the terms the rest of the world wants for it. Many times it has been offered, and many times it has been rejected. Because to accept statehood within the boundaries of the territory of ‘Palestine’ is to reject the claim they lay to the entirety of the Jewish nation…

…is an interesting thought experiment. Formulated by Leibniz, the original line of reasoning follows an appeal to the existence of an all-powerful, all-knowing and all-benevolent God and the reconciliation of such an idea with the ‘Problem of Evil’ (Hume puts the problem as such: Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is impotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?). If this reality is in actuality the “best” possible somehow, then God can actually be all three positive traits at the same time without breaking the rules of reasoning…

“History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.”

—ostensibly Mark Twain

There is a surprising amount of fiction out there about ‘the eternal cycle of history’ or something similar. The Mass Effect games, the Wheel of Time series, Mr. Nobody (starring Jared Leto), Cloud Atlas, and on ad infinitum. What has happened before will happen again, barring some completely unforeseen deus ex machina sweeping in to smash the cycle (like Commander Shepard, for example)…

It is a strange period of time to live in. All periods of time are strange in their own ways; but we in the present moment have the unique position of knowing our history and of seeing it repeat in front of our eyes. It is as if the entire Jewish nation has become its own Alfred Dreyfus in the eyes of the world. Countless “democratic” resolutions in the United Nations condemn Israel more than the Islamic Republic of Iran, the People’s Republic of China, and the Russian Federation combined. Supposedly “impartial” NGOs like Doctors Without Borders and the International Committee of the Red Cross seemingly care about everyone except the Jewish and Israeli victims of October 7th; not one humanitarian visit by any to the hostages of Hamas terrorists. It is a sick joke that the world is playing, blaming Jews for all the problems of the world yet again in history and dismissing their suffering as secondary or somehow “deserved”…

It is self-evident that our present moment is rife with intolerance. I have experienced it firsthand in several forms throughout my life. There are many still among us that are not content with leaving well enough alone in the lives of their neighbors and many that actively take measures against others for no other reason than the identity of their victims…

It is hard to put into words the levels of depravity that occurred on October 7th, 2023 and the utter atrocities committed by Hamas terrorists. It is harder still to reconcile the things that I have seen and witnessed from that day with the fact that I still want to maintain faith in humanity. It is just too horrible to comprehend. I cannot fit it into my paradigm of the world as an Alan Watts-esque “life as a game and dance” philosophy. But some things cannot be ignored. It is a choice between either sleepless nights as a result of acceptance of reality; or, denial of it…

Imagine if you will growing up in an active warzone. Picture the Blitz of London; or, for a more contemporary example, life for the past years in Ukraine. Now imagine a lower intensity but constant bombing and terrorism campaign against your home stretching out over decades, and one that occasionally escalates into unimaginable horror and tragedy…

I have written many times about the unbelievable historical miracle that is the modern nation of Israel. You may consider this article a synthesis of various things I have learned that I believe vital to understanding the Jewish nation and its place in history and in the ever-present moment…

After being involved in this fight for so long, I’ve learned a thing or two about the enemies of the tolerant society. It is no longer surprising to me to see antisemites lie even when the truth is presented directly in front of their faces. We’ve all heard the more egregious accusations of “genocide”, “apartheid”, and “ethnic cleansing” thrown ad nauseam against the Jewish state. No less evil are the assertions that Israelis kill Palestinians to harvest their organs or that Jews are “white colonialist”, “settler”, “occupiers” of the land they are indigenous to…