I wanted to call attention to just two sentences in the editors’ of the Wall Street Journal’ remarks on Sen. Schumer’s and President Biden’s recent statements on Israel. First is this:

The joke around Jerusalem is that while Mr. Biden once worked to help Israel after Oct. 7, he’s now working on the “two-state solution”: Michigan and Nevada.

That comports pretty closely with my earlier observation: Sen. Schumer and President Biden are doing damage control, trying to avoid losing Jewish votes and Arab votes. I wish them luck. I don’t believe there is any way of threading that needle.

Here are the other two sentence:

To leave Hamas in power in Rafah is to lose the war, and to replace Hamas with Fatah is to lose the peace. That’s an Israeli consensus, not “Bibi.”

which comports with my observation yesterday that Sen. Schumer and President Biden are imagining an Israel that does not exist. That they are also imagining Palestinians who don’t exist doesn’t compensate for that. It actually makes it worse.

I think that Donald Trump is a loose cannon who says things for shock value, to rile people up, and to get headlines. I don’t think he’s temperamentally suited for the presidency.

I also think that importing Chinese EVs will be hard on the domestic auto industry. I have problems with importing any product from any country that has received massive state subsidies.

What do you think of Sen. Bernie Sanders’s proposal for a 32 hour work week (at the same pay). Sounds like he’s going after the Generation Z vote to me.

Tomorrow I plan to vote in the Illinois Democratic primary. The Cook County Democratic Party helpfully sent me a handout which I plan to take to the polls with me. It shows me exactly who I won’t vote for.

I wanted to make some observation on Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s recent speech on Israel. The full text of it is here, made available by the Times of Israel.

My immediate reaction to his speech was that as a good Democrat he was attempting to do damage control for President Biden’s, frankly, confused or conflicted policy with respect to Israel. As such his speech reflects the fantastical view towards Israel of American Jews and, indeed, many non-Jewish Americans. On the one hand there’s the fantasy Israel, a liberal democratic country, a sort of paradise on earth. On the other there’s the real Israel which, while more liberal and more democratic than its neighbors, is not that liberal or democratic and is far from a paradise and in which public opinion, under the repeated assaults of Islamist terrorist groups, has grown increasingly hostile to those groups.

I wanted to call attention to these passages:

Hamas has knowingly invited an immense civilian toll during this war. Their goal on October 7 was to provoke a tough response from Israel by killing as many Jews as possible in the most vicious manner possible — by raping women, executing babies, desecrating bodies, brutalizing whole communities.

Since then, Hamas has heartlessly hidden behind their fellow Palestinians by turning hospitals into command centers, and refugee camps into missile-launching sites. It is well documented that Hamas soldiers use innocent Gazans as human shields. The leaders of Hamas, many of whom live lives of luxury in places far away from the poverty and misfortune of Gaza, do not care one iota about the Palestinians for whom they claim to nobly fight.

and

The only just solution to this predicament is one in which each people can flourish in their own state side-by-side.

But for a two-state solution to work over the long term, it has to include real and meaningful compromises by both sides.

and

Right now, there are four major obstacles standing in the way of two states, and until they are removed from the equation, there will never be peace in Israel and Gaza and the West Bank.

Those four major obstacles are:

Hamas, and the Palestinians who support and tolerate their evil ways.

Radical right-wing Israelis in government and society.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Does anyone else see the cognitive dissonance in those statements? You can not coherently insist on a “two-state solution” and reject both Hamas and Palestinian Authority. Those are the alternatives for Palestinian governance. With whom would such a settlement be negotiated? There are no liberal democratic Palestinian parties with anything resembling majority support waiting in the wings.

And, of course, he’s assuming that whoever would replace Benjamin Netanyahu would be less “right-wing” and nationalistic than Mr. Netanyahu. IMO that reflects the fantasy Israel again. IMO Netanyahu’s bad polling numbers are due to the attack on 10/7 not because he’s not liberal or democratic enough.

This is an aspect of the situation in Gaza that I had not previously considered—the roles of tribes and clans. Jacob Magid reports at Times of Israel:

The Doghmosh Family — a major clan in Gaza — has issued a statement declaring that all Hamas members are legitimate targets after its leader was assassinated by members of the terror group along with ten other relatives allegedly for stealing humanitarian aid and being in contact with Israel.

The statement pledges retribution against all responsible and warns Hamas fighters not to test the clan’s patience.

Here’s an excerpt from a short paper at Middle East Brief by Dror Ze’evi on the tribes and clans in Palestine:

From March to July 2007, the British journalist Alan Johnston was held in the Gaza Strip by Jaysh al-Islam (the Army of Islam). It was later revealed that the epithet was an alias for a local group of families headed by the Dughmush clan, which is said to have been recruited by al-Qaeda.

According to some sources, it took a combination of Hamas’s military might and a hefty transfer of cash to convince the clan to give up its British Hostage. Then, in late October 2007, serious fighting broke out near the city of Gaza between Hamas and another clan, the Gaza-based Hillis family, said to be Fatah supporters, in which four people were killed and scores injured. An entire neighborhood was leveled in the fighting, which ended in a cease-fire agreement. Intermittent fighting between Hamas and these clans continues to this day. These incidents draw our attention to a seldom observed reality of Palestinian political life: Clans, which share many attributes with tribal structures but have developed along a different path, are a major factor in local politics and in many ways define the boundaries of what is politically possible.

In the Palestinian territories, clans (locally called hamulas, sing. pronounced hamoola) have become a focus of political activity and major hubs of local power. Since members of Hamas or Fatah invariably belong to their clans as well, when a member of one organization is killed by a member of another, and the killer’s identity is known, it is no longer just an issue of organizational enmity. The perpetrator is likely to be sued by the victim’s clan in accordance with local tribal law. Thus, Hamas in Gaza will take action in certain neighborhoods of Rafah or Khan Yunis only after informing the major local clans and asking their permission. In the West Bank, Abu Mazen’s Palestinian Authority will seldom appoint a senior official not approved by the local clans. Any attempt by the government to disarm militias is automatically perceived as an attempt to chip away at the power of the clans and encounters serious opposition.

I found the paper interesting but not particularly elucidating. I suspect these are social relationships into which you really must be born to understand. To my eye it highlights the many aspects of this conflict. It’s not just Israelis vs. Palestinians. It’s also tribe against tribe and clan against clan. All the more reason that we should be cautious in involving ourselves in these conflicts.

I’ve pointed this out before but not precisely in this context. There is an unappreciated similarity between Russian President Putin and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Newtanyahu. Neither one of them is a radical. They don’t represent the “far right” in their respective countries; they’re moderates by their own countries’ standards. Were they to be replaced the results would almost undoubtedly be worse for the outcomes we claim to want.

Putin represents the opinions of a majority of Russians; Netanyahu those of a majority of Israelis. We are kidding ourselves if we say we desire regime change.

I wish we were thinking about how Russian and Israeli opinion became what they have rather than dreaming about how nice things would be if we didn’t have Putin or Netanyahu to deal with.

I recommend that you read Nate Silver’s analysis of the shift in voting patterns among blacks, Hispanics, and Asians. Here’s his summary:

It’s worth pointing out that Black voters overall are still heavily Democratic. But going from 97 percent of the vote to 90 percent — not to mention 80 percent as more recent polls have found — is an enormous problem for the party. Democrats have become increasingly dependent on the votes of college graduates, but college grads are the minority — about 40 percent of people aged 25 and older have a bachelor’s degree or higher, and the share is no longer really increasing as the number of Americans attending college is leveling off, particularly among men. Without winning huge majorities of Black voters, and solid majorities of Hispanics and Asian Americans, Democrats’ electoral math doesn’t add up to a majority.

To win the election Republicans don’t need to receive a majority of the black, Hispanic, or Asian vote. They just need to reduce Democratic black, Hispanic, and Asian votes in the “battleground states” by a percentage or two. They’re not going to stop that with campaign strategies targeted at white, suburban, college-educated women.

I usually avoid remarking about political issues in states other than my own. Illinois has plenty of political problems of its own.

But I found this editorial in the Wall Street Journal complaining about the short memory of former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo sufficiently amusing I thought I would pass it. Here’s a sprinkle of quotes:

Is Andrew Cuomo suffering from long Covid? He seems to have forgotten and repudiated much of what he did during his 10 years as Governor of New York. See his amnesiac op-ed in the New York Post this week.

Mr. Cuomo called for suspending New York City’s congestion tax, which he championed and signed into law in 2019. Under the soon-to-be-implemented scheme, drivers will be charged $15 for the privilege of entering Manhattan below 60th St. The proceeds will ostensibly fund the city’s subways whose ridership is 30% below pre-pandemic levels.

and

In April 2021, he signed legislation raising the top income-tax rate in New York City to 14.8% from 12.7%—as the city was starting to recuperate from his disastrous Covid lockdowns. Mr. Cuomo pledged in March 2020 that he wouldn’t let then mayor Bill de Blasio lock down the city. Not long afterwards, Mr. Cuomo locked down the state.

The Big Apple still hasn’t recovered. Its 5.2% unemployment rate is a third higher than the national rate. Unemployment in Miami is 1.6%. Millionaires have been replaced by migrants. The city says 180,000 migrants have come since spring 2022. Nonetheless, it lost nearly 550,000 residents between April 2020 and July 2023, according to new Census Bureau data.In April 2021, he signed legislation raising the top income-tax rate in New York City to 14.8% from 12.7%—as the city was starting to recuperate from his disastrous Covid lockdowns. Mr. Cuomo pledged in March 2020 that he wouldn’t let then mayor Bill de Blasio lock down the city. Not long afterwards, Mr. Cuomo locked down the state.

The Big Apple still hasn’t recovered. Its 5.2% unemployment rate is a third higher than the national rate. Unemployment in Miami is 1.6%. Millionaires have been replaced by migrants. The city says 180,000 migrants have come since spring 2022. Nonetheless, it lost nearly 550,000 residents between April 2020 and July 2023, according to new Census Bureau data.

New York City’s exodus has also been fueled by spiraling public disorder. Blame a 2019 law signed by Mr. Cuomo that eliminated cash bail for most misdemeanors and nonviolent crimes. The law gave criminals a get-out-of-jail free card. They now attack innocents on the streets and subways, and toothpaste is locked up in drug stores.

New York City’s recovery also hasn’t been helped by the 2019 rent-control law Mr. Cuomo signed. Landlords have removed hundreds of thousands of apartments from the market because they can’t make money renting them out. As a result, rents have skyrocketed. Maybe the city wouldn’t have to pay $388 a day per migrant—you read that right—to shelter migrants if they could afford housing.

Apparently, in New York you can conduct a lively debate between Gov. Cuomo in office and Gov. Cuomo out of office.

I will only make one other observation. Contrary to what many politicians seem to believe there are no “do overs” in public policy. Undoing the outcomes of policy decisions takes more than just repealing the law. Better to make good policy choices in the first place. I recognize that violates the Politician’s Syllogism:

1. We must do something.
2. This is something.
3. Therefore, we must do this.