President Biden snuck an op-ed into the Washington Post on Saturday. Here’s a snippet:

Today, the world faces an inflection point, where the choices we make — including in the crises in Europe and the Middle East — will determine the direction of our future for generations to come.

What will our world look like on the other side of these conflicts?

Will we deny Hamas the ability to carry out pure, unadulterated evil? Will Israelis and Palestinians one day live side by side in peace, with two states for two peoples?

Will we hold Vladimir Putin accountable for his aggression, so the people of Ukraine can live free and Europe remains an anchor for global peace and security?

And the overarching question: Will we relentlessly pursue our positive vision for the future, or will we allow those who do not share our values to drag the world to a more dangerous and divided place?

I only have one question: how? The entire situation reminds me of the ultimate rhyme about supply chains:

For want of a nail the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
For want of a horse the rider was lost.
For want of a rider the battle was lost.
For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.

Ukraine’s artillery alone is firing more shells in a week than the entire European Union produces in a year. In a month they’re firing more shells than the U. S. produces in a year. That’s just Ukraine.

Could the U. S. ramp production up to meet the challenge? Given the time and materials yes. But not immediately. And not while reducing our production of greenhouse gases.

Let me add another complication. Given a choice among supporting Ukraine, supporting Israel, and supporting Taiwan, which is the best course of action. The answer is obvious to me: Taiwan. As noted above we cannot do all three at the same time.

What I thought was best about Ben Caspit’s column at Al Monitor was that he was thinking about what happens after the conclusion of Israel’s war in Gaza. He suggests three “day after” options:

• Egypt assumes control of Gaza
• The Palestinian Authority returns to Gaza
• Some international organization assumes control of Gaza

All of these options are fantasies. To give you some idea of how fantastical the third option is (besides, as the author notes, that never works) here’s a snippet:

One creative solution being floated is the construction of a huge artificial island off the coast of Gaza.

“It will be cheaper and faster than rebuilding the Gaza Strip itself,” a very senior former security official told Al-Monitor, seeking to promote his brainchild. “There is technology, means and money. Abu Dhabi and Dubai have huge numbers of such artificial islands, which have become hubs of tourism, commerce, housing and infrastructure. It is relatively easy. It is cheap and it will allow everyone to turn over a new leaf. The Gazans will receive a new land with efficient infrastructure. There will no longer be a land border between Israel and Gaza.”

The source warned that any attempt to rebuild Gaza is doomed given the massive underground tunnel network into which everything could collapse.

“The underground city will suck up what is above it. Disaster is yet to come,” the former security official said. “This island could be a pretty good solution.”

I seriously doubt that Egypt will accept the first option. The Israelis don’t want the second option. The “international” option would end up being the status quo ante.

IMO there is only one stable outcome and it’s unacceptable—remove the Jews from Israel in one way or another. A Palestinian state alongside Israel would inevitably be a return to the status quo ante.

His “fantasy island” could actually take place—just not with Gaza’s present population.

After enumerating the aspects of its war on Ukraine that Russia is winning including the military, economic, and diplomatic fronts, in their piece in the >Wall Street Journal Eugene Rumer and Andrew S. Weiss turn to next steps:

Taken together, this state of affairs poses an unprecedented challenge for Western leaders. Washington and its allies have been remarkably effective at tackling the most urgent aspects of this problem: staving off Ukraine’s collapse, keeping it well-supplied with advanced weapons and real-time intelligence, and devising sanctions against Russia.

But now is the time to transition to a long-term strategy that increases and sustains the pressure on the rogue regime in the Kremlin. There should be no illusions that any possible combination of short-term steps will be sufficient to force Putin to abandon his war.

What Western leaders conspicuously haven’t done is level with their publics about the enduring nature of the threat from an emboldened, revisionist Russia. They have indulged all too often in magical thinking—betting on sanctions, a successful Ukrainian counter-offensive or the transfer of new types of weapons to force the Kremlin to come to the negotiating table. Or they have hoped to see Putin overthrown in a palace coup.

During the Cold War, U.S. foreign policy thinkers didn’t bet on a sudden change of heart by the Kremlin or the overnight collapse of the Soviet system. Instead, they put their faith in a long-term vision of resisting a dangerous regime and making the required investments in national defense and the military capabilities of our alliances—a policy, in George Kennan’s classic formulation, of “patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies.”

A policy of containment today would mean continuing Western sanctions, isolating Russia diplomatically, preventing the Kremlin from interfering in our own domestic politics, and strengthening NATO deterrence and defense capabilities, including sustained U.S.-European reinvestment in our defense-industrial base. It would also mean mitigating all of the damage—diplomatic, informational, military and economic—caused by Putin’s war.

What I’m missing in their article is how to contain Russia without containing China which rather obviously is something we are unwilling and unprepared to do. Quite to the contrary what I believe we’re succeeding in doing is containing ourselves without containing Russia or China.

It’s also worth noting that Germany’s military spending, despite its public statements, has remained stubbornly right around where it was 20 years ago as a percentage of GDP. As have those of Poland, France, and the United Kingdom.

Our presumed allies are simply not mobilizing as one might expect to meet such a threat. If your retort is that they’ve increased since 2022, my response would be yes, they have. Very minorly. Maybe about 5%. Something doesn’t add up. They either don’t see a threat or they’re depending on good old Uncle Sugar to bear the costs of meeting it.

In his Wall Street Journal column Daniel Henninger remarks that Hamas’s strategic objective in their October 7 attack was not merely to provoke a response but to promote a narrative:

Every war is a humanitarian crisis. But Gaza is the first humanitarian-crisis war, presented to the world almost entirely in terms of the suffering of civilians. That is no accident.

Before the Israel Defense Forces entered the Al Shifa Hospital compound Wednesday, the media had reported extensively how its medical personnel and patients, including infants, were at mortal risk. President Biden on Monday said the hospital “must be protected.” His national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said, “We do not want to see firefights in hospitals.” Some 500 Biden administration employees signed an open letter insisting on a cease-fire.

Where the logic of this leads is obvious: The overwhelming responsibility falls on Israel to make the suffering end.

That is the narrative that Hamas is promoting.

He concludes:

Hamas knew that the humanitarian-crisis narrative after the IDF chased them into Gaza’s teeming neighborhoods would isolate Israel politically. In that crude sense, the day of slaughter was a success. But even more cynical than their naive Western counterparts, Hamas always knew their isolate-Israel narrative had no practical solution. It was zero-sum from day one.

Rubbing the public’s face in unsolvable problems over time causes a coarsening of that same public’s sensibilities. Eventually people just want someone to clean up the mess, like the drug-addicted homeless or wandering migrants. And it’s never pretty.

Hamas wanted a humanitarian crisis. It got that. But it also got something more familiar—an ugly war.

The Israelis showed that they had their own narrative 75 years ago.

Lest there be any ambiguity I condemn Hamas for its actions. Its members could end the war today if they laid down their arms. They will not do that because their objective is to establish an Islamist state in Palestine. They are not merely indifferent to civilian casualties, they rejoice in them. I don’t understand that because I’m not an Islamist but they rather clearly think that civilian casualties move them closer to their desired end.

However, I don’t support the Israelis, either. I do support a peaceful, multi-ethnic, multi-confessional state in the land once called Palestine. There’s no way to accomplish that with both Israelis and Palestinians believing the things they do. Were Israel merely to annex the West Bank and Gaza, Arabs would outnumber Jews in the expanded Israel. Were Israel to completely exit Gaza and the West Bank, they’d continue to receive attacks from the newly-formed Palestine.

Kathleen Parker’s Washington Post column is largely a lament over Israel’s war against Hamas:

With Israel’s release of a video taken inside Gaza’s al-Shifa Hospital, where weapons and other evidence confirm that Hamas probably was using the hospital as a shield, one can hope for less stridence from anti-Israel protesters.

Israel Defense Forces entered the hospital and found artillery and Hamas supplies, but no members of Hamas. The IDF also found a Hamas tunnel and a vehicle loaded with weapons. As media teams try to understand what’s happening there, details are few, leaving much room for speculation and/or affirmation of one’s preferred narrative.

Even so, the video, which has been replayed by dozens of news outlets, seems to confirm what Israel has long claimed, that Hamas uses innocent Palestinians as barricades by installing their headquarters and arsenals beneath schools, hospitals and other public institutions in a vast complex of subterranean tunnels.

It’s unfortunate that so many people took to the streets to protest Israel when so little was known about the inner workings of Hamas and so little was understood about Israel’s survival imperative. It’s horrible that so many innocent Palestinians have died, but the blame for this war belongs to Hamas. Its surprise attack on Oct. 7 brought death on both sides.

Was Israel’s response disproportionate, as some argue? Its forces have reportedly killed more than 11,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, compared with 1,200 Israelis dead. I know only that there is no number of dead on either side that could end this debate. Israel has promised to keep pushing forward until all Israeli hostages, estimated to be 243, are released, and that’s understandable. But Hamas wants to perpetuate the war.

In what world would any amount of evidence reduce the “stridence” of the anti-Israel protesters? It should be observed that, according to the Capitol Police, the protesters were not merely strident but actually violent:

We have handled hundreds of peaceful protests, but last night’s group was not peaceful. The crowd failed to obey our lawful orders to move back from the DNC, where Members of Congress were in the building.

When the group moved dumpsters in front of the exits, pepper sprayed our officers and attempted to pick up the bike rack, our teams quickly introduced consequences – pulling people off the building, pushing them back, and clearing them from the area, so we could safely evacuate the Members and staff.

Six officers were treated for injuries, from minor cuts to being pepper sprayed to being punched.

Hamas is an Islamist organization, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood. Its charter demands the extinction of the state o Israel. It is not merely fighting for Palestinian statehood but for an Islamist state. After its October 7 terrorist attack Hamas promised to repeat such attacks until Israel was destroyed.

That’s what you support if you call for a ceasefire—more opportunities for Hamas to mount attacks. While your intention might be to protect civilians the effect would be to deny Israel the ability to defend itself.

The other day I read an article about polling data that recently found that 80% of Palestinians support one terrorist group or another. I was reminded of this old story:

20 And the Lord said, “Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grave, 21 I will go down now and see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry against it that has come to Me; and if not, I will know.”

22 Then the men turned away from there and went toward Sodom, but Abraham still stood before the Lord. 23 And Abraham came near and said, “Would You also destroy the righteous with the wicked? 24 Suppose there were fifty righteous within the city; would You also destroy the place and not spare it for the fifty righteous that were in it? 25 Far be it from You to do such a thing as this, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous should be as the wicked; far be it from You! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?”

26 So the Lord said, “If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare all the place for their sakes.”

27 Then Abraham answered and said, “Indeed now, I who am but dust and ashes have taken it upon myself to speak to the Lord: 28 Suppose there were five less than the fifty righteous; would You destroy all of the city for lack of five?”

So He said, “If I find there forty-five, I will not destroy it.”

29 And he spoke to Him yet again and said, “Suppose there should be forty found there?”

So He said, “I will not do it for the sake of forty.”

30 Then he said, “Let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak: Suppose thirty should be found there?”

So He said, “I will not do it if I find thirty there.”

31 And he said, “Indeed now, I have taken it upon myself to speak to the Lord: Suppose twenty should be found there?”

So He said, “I will not destroy it for the sake of twenty.”

32 Then he said, “Let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak but once more: Suppose ten should be found there?”

And He said, “I will not destroy it for the sake of ten.” 33 So the Lord went His way as soon as He had finished speaking with Abraham; and Abraham returned to his place.

The Israelis are not as patient and forgiving as God.

The editors of the Chicago Tribune are shocked:

The number of police on a particular set of streets should not be based on how much an alderman supports an administration’s agenda. The Fire Department should not arrive more slowly to a fire in a ward represented by a recalcitrant. Ambulance response times should not be dependent on how much an alderman supports the mayor’s agenda on, say, real estate transfer taxes.

All of this would seem so obvious as hardly to merit an editorial. But under this current administration, it clearly does.

To wit, Ald. Bill Conway, 34th, made the following statement Tuesday: “When the mayor’s office offered to address rising drug and violent crime incidents under the viaducts in my ward only if I agreed to support two of their legislative priorities, I was shocked. When I subsequently learned the mayor’s office canceled plans to address those issues after I didn’t vote according to their wishes, I was speechless.”

I wonder why either the editors or Ald. Conway are surprised? It’s been like that in Chicago for as long as I can recall. I remember when a politically-connected neighbor of mine explained the political affiliations in my neighborhood like this: “Here a Democrat is an independent who want his trash picked up.” That was 20 years ago.

The editors conclude:

Sure, Johnson needs to lobby for his point of view, and we don’t doubt the increasingly outspoken Conway has his own future agenda in mind too. And we’ll also stipulate that crime in this city exceeds the resources presently available to tame it. So, yes, some tough choices have to be made. But they should be made on their merits, based on the needs of Chicagoans, and not used as leverage for political support.

The mayor should direct the staff in his office to end this practice of offering more police attention in exchange for legislative support, before it causes yet more chaos in a young administration desperate for firm and ethical direction from the boss.

The problem of crime in Chicago is easy to explain but hard to solve. If criminals are arrested, the Cook County States attorney won’t prosecute them. If the states attorney prosecutes them, the judges won’t convict them. Why arrest them?

I wonder what led New York Times columnist Pamela Paul to the recognition that progressives were not liberals?

Whereas liberals hold to a vision of racial integration, progressives have increasingly supported forms of racial distinction and separation, and demanded equity in outcome rather than equality of opportunity. Whereas most liberals want to advance equality between the sexes, many progressives seem fixated on reframing gender stereotypes as “gender identity” and denying sex differences wherever they confer rights or protections expressly for women. And whereas liberals tend to aspire toward a universalist ideal, in which diverse people come together across shared interests, progressives seem increasingly wedded to an identitarian approach that emphasizes tribalism over the attainment of common ground.

More reactionary still is the repressive nature of progressive ideals around civil liberties. It is progressives — not liberals — who argue that “speech is violence” and that words cause harm. These values are the driving force behind progressive efforts to shut down public discourse, disrupt speeches, tear down posters, censor students and deplatform those with whom they disagree.

I wish I could say “Welcome back to the fight; this time I know our side will win” but I’m increasingly beginning to doubt that. Is this morning or twilight?

Nicholas Kristof’s latest New York Times column takes as its point of departure three “myths”:

• The first myth is that in the conflict in the Middle East there is right on one side and wrong on the other (even if people disagree about which is which).
• The second myth is that Palestinians can be put off indefinitely, strung along by Israel, the United States and other countries.
• The third myth is found on both sides of the conflict and is approximately: It’s too bad we have to engage in this bloodshed, but the people on the other side understand only violence.

I’m afraid I disagree with his underlying premise:

Israelis deserve their country, forged by refugees in the shadow of the Holocaust, and they have built a high-tech economy that largely empowers women and respects gay people, while giving its Palestinian citizens more rights than most Arab nations give their citizens.

I don’t believe that such a right exists for the Israelis, the Palestinians, or anybody else. What has actually happened in the real world is that people have banded together and seized countries for themselves by force of arms and they keep them in the same way. Example: the United States. We’re not alone. It pertains to Germany, France, Italy, China, and every other country of which I’m aware. It’s harsh but it’s real.

I’m not claiming that might makes right. No. My point is that right has nothing to do with it. It’s a cold, cruel world.

Indeed, that’s what’s going on right now. Hamas is trying to seize control of a country, proclaiming it theirs by right. The Israelis disagree. The ire is an outcome of the cowardly way in which Hamas is prosecuting its claim.

Mr. Kristof does point out some interesting things:

A great majority of those killed have been women and children, according to Gaza’s Hamas-controlled Health Ministry, and one gauge of the ferocity and indiscriminate nature of some airstrikes is that more than 100 United Nations staffers have been killed, which the U.N. says is more than in any conflict since its founding.

Why does he conclude from the large number of UN staffers killed that Israel is bombing indiscriminately? I can think of at least two other explanations:

• there is substantial overlap between Hamas and UN staffers
• Hamas is exploiting UN staffers as “human shields”

of which I prefer the second to either Mr. Kristof’s or my first explanation. Why does he believe what he does? He does not explore that in the column. Indeed, I think pretty much the opposite. I think the preponderance of the evidence suggests the Israelis are showing substantial discrimination under very difficult circumstances.

Here’s another interesting observation he makes:

Israel has a right to feel anxious in any case, but I suspect that the best way to ensure its security may be not to defer Palestinian aspirations but to honor them with a two-state solution. This is not just a concession to Arabs but a pragmatic acknowledgment of Israel’s own interests — and the world’s.

I agree with that but I probably think the outcome would be different from that which Mr. Kristof apparently does. I think that Israel should grant the West Bank and Gaza statehood and, when Israel inevitably is attacked from the newly-formed country, they should seize a buffer and annex it. Lather, rinse, repeat. As long as enough Palestinians are willing to take Hamas’s route, a two state solution would doom the Palestinian cause rather than being their salvation.

Which brings us to Mr. Kristof’s third myth. Is he really arguing that because 100% of Germans did not support Hitler during World War II, we should not have waged war against Germany? Or that because 100% of Japanese were not militarists we should not have made war against Japan?

The sad reality is that Hamas has something between 40% and 60% support among Palestinians. The exact number does not matter. It’s a large percentage—more than were Nazis in Germany or Communists in the Soviet Union.

Under the circumstances, sad as it is to say, if Israel wants to preserve the country Mr. Kristof says it has a right to, they’re going to kill a lot of Palestinians. Mr. Kristof concludes with an appeal to emotion:

These are people like Mohammed Alshannat, a doctoral student in Gaza, who has been sending desperate messages to friends who shared them with me; he agreed to allow me to publish them as a glimpse into Gazan life.

“There was heavy bombing in our area,” he wrote in English in one message. “We run for our lives and I lost two of my children in the dark. Me and my wife stayed all night searching for them amidst hundreds of airstrikes. We miraculously survived an airstrike and found them fainted in the morning. Please pray for us. The situation is beyond description.”

“I see death a hundred times a day,” he wrote another time. “We defecate in the open and my children defecate on themselves and there is no water to clean them.”

If he survives the war, what will we Americans say to him and his children? How will we explain that we supplied bombs for this war, that we were complicit in his family’s terror and degradation?

My heart doesn’t just bleed for Israelis. It bleeds for Israelis and Palestinians and anyone else injured in war. I hate war and I believe we should only engage in war as a last resort.

It appears to be a last resort for the Israelis but it’s not for us and we should avoid making it into our war.

The editors of the Wall Street Journal take note of the pushback that President Biden is receiving from the federal bureaucracy on his policy with respect to Israel. The short version is that he has received letters from the National Security Council, the Department of Justice, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the Department of State demanding he call for an “immediate ceasefire” and “de-escalation”. The number of signatories in total to these letters amount to something like 2,000 appointees and staff.

It should be noted that any ceasefire in the conflict between Israel and Hamas works to Hamas’s benefit. It’s an opportunity to regroup and reload. One wonders how many of those signatories are materially in support of Hamas. It’s quite fashionable in some circles.

The editors remark:

If democracy means anything, perhaps they should lose their jobs or, better yet, they should resign honorably if they can no longer support the boss’s agenda. The malcontents are a sliver of the federal workforce. Yet the job of the executive branch is to implement a President’s policies, not run a pressure campaign to change them via anonymous letters and leaks.

Unhappiness at Mr. Biden’s Israel policy is also circulating at the State Department in dissent cables. One difference is that this is a normal channel for internal criticisms, created amid the Vietnam War and used in recent years to raise alarms about Mr. Biden’s disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal. The signatories on the State Department cables aren’t public knowledge, but they aren’t anonymous.

Part of the problem here is that civil-service protections are so extensive that it is hard to discipline much less fire a dissenting career bureaucrat. This gives them a certain impunity when they want to agitate against an elected President’s policy.

But this isn’t how democratic government is supposed to work. Political appointees and bureaucrats are free to argue up the chain of command for a different course of action. If they don’t succeed, they can continue to do their jobs, or else they can resign. But it’s a dereliction of duty for federal workers to spend their time trying to stymie the policy of elected officials.

which you may notice is similar to things I’ve been saying here for years. It has been over a century since we’ve had major civil service reform. A century ago the federal bureaucracy was a fraction of the size of the present one. The idea behind the Civil Service Act was to create a more competent and conscientious federal workforce not a permanent and unassailable “shadow government”. Regardless of what they may believe it is the job of the federal bureaucracy to implement policy not to formulate it. They may contribute to that formulation but determining what is or is not policy is the president’s job not theirs.