Authors of Their Own Misfortune

Many apologists for Israel and its government claim that the recent sea change in Western attitudes towards Israel is largely due to Hamas propaganda. Such are much too generous in this accreditation (as well as implicitly condescending of Western peoples). The Palestinian motto “from the river to the sea,” unreasonable and pragmatically impossible in light of the facts on the ground, only appeals to an extremist minority and repels the rest.

It is rather that the Israeli government and Jews, both Israeli and Diaspora, have become their own worst enemies. In their hubris, the Netanyahu government thinks that they can do in Gaza what the Americans could not do in Afghanistan, namely, to extinguish the organization that massacred innocent civilians. Even if the IDF could exterminate Hamas, they could not extinguish the animus. Other violent partisans would just replace them.

Continue reading “Authors of Their Own Misfortune”

A Christian Iconoclast

This web site is dedicated to a grandiose project, certainly one too grand for me to accomplish, yet necessary if Christianity is to remain a vital and vibrant force. As we fall short of even that to which we aspire, we might as well aspire large.

That Christianity shall again become a vital and vibrant force; I have little doubt. But this is far from true in the West at the present time.

Continue reading “A Christian Iconoclast”