The State of the Union

MAGA is pretty much dead. At least as a political force. At least as defined by President Trump. (Although a better name for this phenomenon is “Trumpism” rather than MAGA. More about that later.) While there are still plenty of Trumpists, their numbers have dwindled to the point that I don’t think they can recover. I don’t see them determining the Republican future.

I had no problem with the slogan from which the term MAGA was derived. Who in their right mind wouldn’t want to “Make America Great Again”? The problem, of course, is the way the president wanted to do that. At least during his second term.

His first term was, in part, what gave him his second term. The economy was doing quite well under Trump until COVID-19. If not for that, he probably would have won a second term right away. Be that as it may, voters understood that Trump’s policies during his first term had indeed given Americans a better economy than they had under his successor, Joe Biden.

Trump’s second term has been a disaster, to put it mildly. Instead of lowering prices, one of the first acts of his second term was to implement tariffs on goods produced in foreign countries. His goal was to restore the American jobs lost to foreign competition. Foreign companies were able to produce goods more cheaply than American workers, thereby allowing American companies to charge less for their products because they were being made more cheaply in foreign countries.

Tariffs changed all that. Now, buying the same foreign goods meant having a surcharge tacked onto the purchase price of foreign goods because of the tariffs the president imposed. Long story short, prices of just about everything went up. That is not what the electorate voted for.

That was strike one.

His crackdown on illegal immigration was another policy that backfired on him. While most people liked closing the borders to illegal immigrants, no one appreciated the draconian way immigrants already here were treated. In essence, all recent immigrants (even legal immigrants in some cases) were terrified that they would be deported at a moment’s notice. As many of them were.

It was, by far, the most inhumane treatment of the immigrant community in American history. Innocent people were killed by ICE agents in pursuit of that policy! All of which turned a formerly very pro-Trump Hispanic electorate almost entirely against him.

Then there was the Iran war. Even though there are very good reasons for initiating the war against Iran, Trump did a terrible job explaining it. The cost of living went from bad to worse because of Iran’s ability to control the flow of oil through the strait of Hormuz.

From the very start of his second term, prosecuting his political enemies seemed to be his primary agenda. And rewarding criminals who supported his contention that the 2020 election was rigged by pardoning all those who stormed the Capitol on January 6^th on his behalf. Egged on, if not directly urged, to do so. He pardoned them all, including the violent ones and the white supremacists among them.

People who disagreed with him didn’t stand a chance of surviving in his administration.

Then there was the perception that the president was more interested in enriching himself than in serving his country.

And finally there is Trump’s demeanor as president. No one who behaves anywhere near the way Trump does should ever sit in the Oval Office. Because of his oversized ego, Trump seemed to be more focused on placing his stamp on Washington DC at every turn than on actually making America great again. His name was placed everywhere.

In short, it was the president himself that destroyed MAGA.

I should add that in spite of all that, I do not regret supporting certain aspects of his agenda. He stands alone as the most pro-Israel president in American history. His attitude with respect to radical Islam is the right one. His antisemitism polices are truly appreciated. As is his support of religious values over the values of moral relativism of the left. That has given us a conservative supreme court that is far more friendly to a God centered life than was the case under the formerly liberal supreme court.

The biggest loser of the Democratic tsunami is J.D. Vance.…

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When Feminism Clashes With Faith

I have always been opposed to mixed-gender army service. The purpose of an army is (to quote the late General Colin Powell) to kill people and break things. Unlike the current zeitgeist of feminism that has permeated Western culture, I don’t think women should be involved in those things, even if they want to be. Wanting to do something doesn’t make it the right thing to do.

But in today’s progressive world, wanting to do something is enough to upend centuries of tradition and religious teachings. Teachings that separated the sexes as a moral imperative. Again, something Western culture has completely abandoned as an ideal. The current cultural attitude harkens back to the sexual revolution of the 1960s, whose mantra was, “If it feels good, do it.” And if more than one person is involved and they are consenting adults, why stop it?

Morality, Shmorality.

There is another aspect of sexual morality that feminism ignores: the physical attraction that can lead to sexual relationships. Physical attraction is actually a good thing. It can and often does eventually lead to marriage and having a family. But it is ignored in the face of the feminist ideal of equality between the sexes. So if it is a matter of giving a woman a role equal to a man’s, there can be no such thing as an obstacle like sexual morality being allowed to get in the way.

If I had to define the biggest clash between Western culture and religion, it would be which side of that divide one stands on. If one favors the right of women to participate equally with men, then the morality of separating the sexes is shunted aside, and religion must suffer the consequences.

When women are given that equal benefit in the military and placed in close quarters with men, feminists will argue that men must simply control any lust that overtakes them. That is, of course, true halachically. But it I also true is that religious law - Halacha requires us not to place ourselves in that kind of situation in the first place.

There is no reason for women to serve in the army other than in ancillary positions. There is for example - no tactical need for a woman to be placed in a tank with three men for days at a time. Four men could do the job. The only reason to do so is to satisfy feminist equality. But doing that undermines the religious sensitivities of religious soldiers.

It would be one thing if the army had no choice. If, for some reason, they had to have a woman in a tank with three men for tactical reasons, that would be a different matter. But this is about the most absurd assertion anyone could make. When the IDF does that is is almost certainly done to satisfy feminist agendas.

Denying women service of that type in the army would indeed be seen as a setback for feminism. Which is why Israel’s pro-feminist Israeli courts keep ruling in favor of legislation that gives women equal status with men in all cases. But when it comes to IDF service, femismim ought to not take precedence. The IDF is there to protect the Israeli people. And because of religious sensibilities it should be men doing it. Even if woman are physically and mentally capable of doing it. Not everything that can be done, should be done. Especially if doing it violates the rights of others…

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Revisiting Antisemitism

Where is it coming from and why

“Bike to Boycott’ protesters in Philadelphia (Jerusalem Post)

I keep seeing things that I find hard to believe. The rise in antisemitism since October 7^th is real. And it is significant, having permeated both the political right and the left. What makes it particularly frightening is that Jews are participating in it. Only now, it is called being anti-Israel. Which means they can get away with it because, after all, they aren’t bashing a religion. Just a country they see as failing to uphold international law. The fact that they happen to be Jewish is beside the point. They can say whatever they want about the Jewish state and get away with it because they make that distinction.

Now, in some cases, criticism of the Jewish state is legitimate. Even if I don’t agree with the criticism, I can understand why someone might see things differently than I do. And that is, I suppose, how the Jews who join antisemites in Congress get away with it. They are, after all, Jews. So how could they be antisemitic?

They see Netanyahu turning a blind eye to ‘settler’ violence, and his war against Hamas destroying Gaza much the way the United States destroyed Dresden during World War II. Destroying home after home, building after building, and killing more than 40,000 ‘innocent’ Palestinian civilians in Gaza. Indiscriminately, it seemed.

Claims by Israel that it is not an ‘apartheid regime’ and has not ‘enslaved its indigenous peoples’ since occupying the West Bank in 67 are dismissed by those saying they are true. They conder them established facts. Too many Jews in Congress buy into that narrative. And there are some well-meaning non-Jewish members of Congress who buy into it, too, without the slightest compunction that there might just be another side to the story. One that would place responsibility for the devastation experienced by Palestinians where it really belongs: on the Palestinian leadership, which would have it no other way than to see large numbers of casualties among its own people, upon which it can blame Israel.

Hard to believe something like that. Which is why they don’t. But the truth is the truth.

Until Israel’s military response to October 7^th, there were few in Congress or the mainstream media who saw Israel this way. There was still a residue of sympathy for Jewish refugees of the Holocaust who had suffered the loss of six million relatives and had nowhere else to go. But that sympathy has almost entirely disappeared, except among a few diehards who have retained it. Jews included.

Now there are actual antisemites in Congress who get away with it by bashing Israel. I believe Senator Chris Van Hollen qualifies for that distinction. I am sure he would deny being antisemitic until his dying day. But he was anti-Israel long before it became popular among Democrats (and a few Republicans) to be so. He is sponsoring a bill that would basically severs the US relationship with Israel. And convinced 12 of his Democratic colleagues to join him.

Those most guilty of this kind of bias are the young. People who have no memory of the Holocaust. People who are now a few generations removed from it, many of whom have never even heard of Auschwitz. And if you try to remind them, they will usually respond with something like, ‘Get over it!’ It happened over 80 years ago, and who really knows what happened there anyway?

What these young people value now is progressive ideology. While that may not be universally true, progressive politicians are increasingly winning over young voters.

Most young voters believe in the values of humanism upon which progressivism bases its political philosophy. The more humanistic one is, the less inclined one may be to see the importance of nations and borders. The more one embraces the world envisioned in John Lennon’s Imagine...

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The More Things Change...

Yisrael Beitenu party leader Avigdor Liberman (TVJ News)

Looks like the changing of the guard may not usher in the changes that many of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s detractors were hoping for.

One of the primary criticisms of Netanyahu was his desire to retain power at any cost. To that end, he brought very unpopular political factions into his ruling coalition to guarantee the minimum 61 seats needed to do so: the extremist right-wing factions of Ben-Gvir and Smotrich, and the Charedi parties, whose condition for joining the coalition was a full exemption for Charedim from the IDF.

The Charedi refusal to serve in the IDF was particularly egregious after October 7, when Israel needed to declare war against Hamas in Gaza, thereby requiring as many able-bodied Israeli reservists as possible to serve in combat.

There was a shortage of manpower, which Charedim could easily have helped fill had they been subjected to the same rules as everyone else in Israel. Their continued refusal to serve - allowing the rest of the country to do it for them - meant that reservists’ tours of duty were extended far beyond any reasonable expectation of time in service.

The fact that there were not enough reservists to lighten the load and spare soldiers such lengthy tours of duty meant that more people served longer periods and were therefore more exposed to injury and death, disruption of careers and jobs and family disunity that often included PTSD than by far there would otherwise have been had sufficient personnel been available.

Charedim absolutely refused to serve in any capacity. Their leadership even refused to allow those who were not learning full-time to serve. This left everyone else to do the bleeding for them.

Now that Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog has asked Gadi Eisenkot to form a coalition government, a sense of relief might normally have fallen over all those serving in the IDF and their families. After all, Eisenkot said that under no circumstances would anyone be exempt from army service. The entire country - including Charedim - would have to serve.

One of his likely coalition partners, Avigdor Liberman, had previously said he would never join a coalition that included the Charedi parties.

But you know what they say: Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely...

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Whose Side Are You On?

OK, so Democrats won the election. They were the ones most loudly clamoring to end the war in Iran. Of late, they have been joined by the Vice President, who correctly believes this is what the American people voted for. But I think the electorate was wrong. They have made a big mistake here by putting their financial needs ahead of doing the right thing.

None of this is new. I’ve said it all before. But it is important to understand what the electorate will actually be getting out of this.

One may legitimately ask: How can so many Americans be wrong, in my eyes? Doesn’t the magnitude of the electoral message against the war speak volumes about what the right thing to do really is? How can I say with any degree of confidence that the American electorate was so wrong?

The way to judge whether the electorate was right or wrong is to see who sides with them and who doesn’t. As noted in the Algemeiner:

The Iranian regime has welcomed the Democratic Party’s sweeping victory in the US midterm elections, presenting the results as a rejection of President Donald Trump’s policies and his war against Iran…

Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf was among the first senior Iranian officials to comment on the results. In a post on X, he wrote, “Conscience or the cost of living, Americans said No To War, and we endorse this message.” He also warned Washington against disregarding the American electorate’s wishes.

Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei offered a different but equally hostile assessment of the American political system in his latest written statement, declaring that “the process of the US’s collapse has accelerated.”

I don’t know about anyone else, but getting high praise from a terrorist regime like Iran for the way I voted would not make me feel too good. It would instead give me second thoughts about whether I had made the right decision.

Contrast this with what most Republicans had wanted. They did not want to end the war with a whimper, leaving things in worse shape than they were before the war started. They wanted to end the war with a victory against a regime responsible for so much devastation in the world. You know who agrees with them? The Iranian people who are not under the spell of extremist Islamist ideology that rules in Iran.

While some Iranians see the Republican defeat as a setback for an American president they hoped would bring an end to the Islamic Republic, others fear that a Democratic-controlled Congress could weaken Washington’s willingness to confront Tehran. In either case, the response is disappointment…

Tehran has correctly portrayed the Democratic victory as evidence of American opposition to the war. And they are thrilled! But ordinary Iranians don’t share their government’s opinion. For them, it isn’t about which party controls Congress, but which party is more likely to put pressure on the Islamic Republic. The Iranian people don’t think Democrats are willing or able to do that.

Thus, there was a great deal of disappointment in Iran over Republican losses. Everyday Iranians want an end to the regime. Not an end to the war without a victory…

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Why Republicans Got Trounced

Vance: "It's the Jews fault"

The Democratic landslide last Tuesday was not an endorsement of the leftward trend taken by the party. While it might seem that the election of a number of far-left Democrats would imply otherwise, I don’t think that’s the case. In the two short years since Republicans achieved successes in both houses of Congress, the American people did not suddenly go from that to becoming Democratic socialists.

I tend to believe that most Americans are centrists. Meaning that despite the pollical affiliations - they are neither Republican nor Democrat ideologues but rather tend to vote for candidates who speak to their issues. In 2024, that meant Trump and the Republicans. After two years of economic disaster, they voted to correct their mistake by rejecting Trump and anyone associated with him. In short, MAGA is dead.

So what happened last Tuesday was not so much a victory for Democrats as it was a total rejection of Trump. The public simply no longer buys a presidency that seemed to do everything it could to lose the trust of the American people. The promise of a Trump presidency making America better than it was under Biden never materialized. Instead, the economy was hurt by economic policies that caused prices to rise quickly and stay there.

Making the economic situation even worse was the decision to attack Iran without finishing the job. We are now left with a prolonged stalemate in which the US military has its guns pointed at Iran but refuses to pull the trigger. Meanwhile, Iran’s countermeasure of blocking the Strait of Hormuz has caused an unprecedented pain to the American pocketbook. Driving up the cost of just about everything else.

Vice President Vance said the war was what everyone voted against. But the truth is that there has been no military action to speak of for months. No American military personnel have been killed or even injured during that time. Truth be told, what the American people really object to is the cost of the war. More precisely, it is the increased cost of living that this standoff with Iran has caused. The bottom line is that it’s really about the bottom line. Not the war itself. Which is not much of a war since there isn’t any fighting going on.

But then Vance decided to blame the Jews, too. That the US had to change its relationship with Israel.

So, according to Vance, it’s the Jews fault…

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Why We Are There

Vice President Vance is right. The Iran war is to blame for the political tsunami that happened last Tuesday. You don’t need a PhD in political science to figure that out.

The American people rightly reject the idea of US participation in foreign wars, much less starting one. If the lessons learned from the Vietnam War taught us anything, it is that whatever our noble intentions were in that war, we gained nothing from it. And that we ought to stay out of foreign wars altogether.

The objections to that war were mostly about the American casualties we suffered. Forty thousand American soldiers were killed, and countless others permanently injured, suffered from PTSD, or both.

The same cannot be said about the Iran war, which has thus far been only an aerial war. The objection to this war is mostly financial. Long story short, Iran took control of the Strait of Hormuz, blocking oil tankers from delivering oil to this country and much of Europe. That caused a spike in gas prices and collateral spikes in the prices of all goods that require transportation.

There are, of course, other factors that raised prices, for which the president and his party, the Republican Party, can be blamed. The tariffs placed on goods manufactured in other countries and sold to America made things more expensive, too. But the Iran war is the granddaddy of the issues that made mincemeat of the Republican Party last Tuesday. It was the biggest sweep for Democrats in decades.

What the Vice President is not right about is his suggestion that we should get out of the war now and find some sort of exit strategy to do so. Without achieving the war’s aims. As if that’s going to solve anything. That has been the Democrats talking point from the very beginning. On that issue, he and the Democrats are entirely wrong.

The US did not get into that war for financial reasons. It was not a war of choice against a relatively docile country with no ill intentions toward its neighbors or, ultimately, the rest of the world.

The idea that we should have ignored Iran’s goal of enriching uranium to weapons-grade levels is beyond stupid. Those who think we should have left Iran alone must believe that leaving Iran to its own devices is a good idea. They apparently think that attacking Iran with the goal of destroying its nuclear program was something we could not be remotely successful at. And that therefore we should not have tried/

Really? Even if one might agree that trying to destroy Iran’s nuclear program is not near impossible, that should not free us from attempting it. The alternative is too horrible to contemplate.

Vance and the Democrats think that’s OK? As long as the price at the pump doesn’t increase, that’s all that matters?

I’m sorry. Letting Iran continue their evil ways with impunity is not an option. Some things are more important than money.

Of course, they will argue that the original deal (JCPOA) with Iran slowed Iran down enough. It did slow them down, supposedly.

Enough? What does that even mean? That deal did not address their ballistic missile program, which was in full gear, nor did it address their funding of terrorist proxies all over the Middle East, mo stly targeting our ally Israel and its 7 million Jews. That funding culminated in the October 7 massacre by Hamas.

Nor did it prevent that regime from massacring tens of thousands of Iranians protesting their government. Protesters whom the regime called terrorists!

In what world does a humane nation ignore that? If the US is supposed to be a beacon of light and morality, we cannot allow any country to get away with that litany of evil.

Unless someone has a better idea about how to stop Iran from pursuing its nefarious intent, war was the ONLY option. Those who opposed the war because it raised the cost of gas have a warped sense of morality, in my view.

While the US has not yet succeeded in its goal of fully preventing Iran from getting nuclear weapons, to quote the great Yogi Berra, “It ain’t over till it’s over.” Getting out now would make the entire war effort almost meaningless…

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It’s the Economy, Stupid!

El-Sayed declaring victory yesterday

It’s unsurprising that Democrats had a good day yesterday. There was little doubt that they would take control of the House. The Senate, on the other hand, was a surprise. The biggest surprise, however, was the magnitude of their victory.

I had hoped that Republicans would retain control for two reasons.

Republicans tend to be more pro-Israel than Democrats. And while most mainstream Democrats are not anti-Israel, the support of many of them came with strings attached.

The other reason I supported Republicans is that, for the most part, their conservative values tended to be more in line with traditional Jewish values. Democrats tend more towards moral relativism. Which means that their sense of morality is relative to the times. Behavior that is considered immoral by biblical standards is not necessarily considered immoral by today’s cultural standards.

The primary reason Democrats won so big yesterday is the same reason Republicans won so big in 2024: the economy. It was the issue then, and Trump and the Republicans were seen as the solution. Now, a mere two years later, the opposite has happened, and the party in power – the Republican party - is being blamed.

The president’s economic policies did not produce an improved economy. They did the opposite. His tariffs increased prices on many foreign-produced goods purchased by American manufacturers. Who then passed them along to the consumer. His goal of returning manufacturing to U.S. soil was the correct one. But that has not worked out well for consumers. And has yet to be achieved to any significant degree.

Still, tariffs are peanuts compared to what the war against Iran did to the economy. It drove gas prices to levels not seen in years, which increased the cost of anything that needed to be transported by trucks. Most of those vehicles use diesel fuel, which have reached unprecedented prices, creating enormous costs for the transportation industry.

Of secondary importance, but significant nonetheless, was the war itself. Most Americans have been convinced by the arguments made by Democrats that the war was unnecessary. That attacking Iran was a big mistake, causing more harm to the economy than good.

And with respect to the U.S. relationship with Israel, that too became an issue, albeit not quite to the same extent as the economy. The constant haranguing by many Democrats, including Jewish Democrats, along with their willing accomplices in the media, kept characterizing Israel’s defensive war against Hamas causing far too many innocent Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

That view was bolstered by nightly images of the devastation caused by Israeli airstrikes in Gaza. Every night, images of Gaza that looks like Dresden after the U.S. bombing were broadcast by media outlets. Which were never particularly inclined to support Israel in the first place.

They were quite happy to show Israel’s “true colors” as a military occupier executing an Apartheid regime. Caring little about Palestinians living in the West Bank. And caring little about the innocent Palestinian casualties in Gaza. They bought fully into the “blame Israel for everything” narrative promoted by Palestinian “journalists,” Hamas, and their willing collaborators at the UN.

And honestly, looking at the moonscape that much of Gaza has become as a result of Israel’s war against Hamas, it was difficult not to see Israel that way. Without the context that would explain it and make Israel’s case them - those images are devastating to Israel’s image.

These issues helped determine yesterday’s outcome. The Democratic narrative blames Netanyahu for what they perceive as immoral conduct during the war. A view bolstered by the ICJ indictment of Netanyahu as a war criminal.

But blaming him ignores the fact that there was near unanimity among Israeli leaders on both the right and left that Israel had no alternative but to declare war on the group responsible for the October 7^th massacre.

The public did not accept Israel’s explanation that it went out of its way to warn Palestinians to get out of harm’s way before attacking Hamas targets. The images of dead Palestinians, the moonscape Gaza has become, and the constant refrain from Palestinians and their sympathizers in academia and the media that Israel was committing “genocide” all contributed to that rejection.

The result was a huge decrease in American support for Israel, something the new Democratic majority in Congress is surely eager to act upon.

But it’s wrong to blame Netanyahu for the decline in American support for Israel on Netanyahu. True, his reliance on extremist right wing ultra-nationalists to retain power makes him an easy target. It is a legitimate criticism. But his conduct in the war is not…

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Israel at a Crossroads

Eisenkot, Trump, and Netanyahu

There has been a lot of understandable hand-wringing over the last few days about events that will affect Israel’s future, which at this moment seems quite uncertain. One of those events hasn’t even reached fruition yet. The midterm election in the US is taking place at this very moment, and the results are far from clear. We have no way of knowing whether the new Congress will be more anti-Israel than the one we have had until now. Even though polls suggest that Democrats who have strongly criticized Israel are likely to win their elections, that is far from certain.

But that isn’t the only thing to worry about. There are several issues, one of which is the disappointing showing for the new Charedi party, Hatzibur HaChareidi. There were a lot of high hopes among many pundits who believed that they would receive enough votes to make a difference. Even if they didn’t get enough votes to secure seats in the Knesset; they would at least get enough to change their trajectory towards a more conciliatory approach to army service and educational reform. It was thought that the expected huge numbers of Charedi voters voting for Hatzibur HaChareidi would effect serious change in that direction. So that the large numbers of Charedim who felt this way could be accommodated.

That was more wishful thinking than reality. The poor showing of about 10,000 votes seemed to show that the Charedi populace doesn’t want change at all. That they are happy with the status quo of learning full-time, not getting any kind of secular education, and avoiding the army. That the hardships and sacrifices the rest of the country has endured—and is still enduring - don’t seem to faze them that much.

So change will not happen. Israeli Charedim have been indoctrinated into thinking along these lines. That they are not willing to serve is bad enough. But that they have become so callous to the suffering of others while exempting themselves from any possibility of such suffering seems to be how they wish to live. I see no hope for change or any kind of reconciliation between Charedim and the rest of the Jewish people in Israel. I see only greater distance being created between them.

Not at all happy about that. To say the least!

Then there is the election itself, which nobody won. And, it seems, nobody will be able to form a government. The enmity between the two camps is so great that a unity government is about as likely as El-Sayed converting to Judaism and becoming a supporter of Ben-Gvir. This will perpetuate the hatred between the right and the left.

I see no alternative to yet another election three months from now, which will likely return the same results. That may mean another election three months after that. On the other hand, the tens of thousands of expatriate Israelis who flew back to Israel to vote against Netanyahu are unlikely to do that again. And the huge Arab turnout that gave them 19 seats in the Knesset this time is unlikely to be repeated. So it is quite possible that a coalition could be formed by voters who will gravitate to one side or the other.

In the meantime, Netanyahu remains prime minister. Which, if you are a supporter, is a good thing…

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The Final Solution

Vice-President J.D. Vance and Tucker Carlson

One of the most troubling members of the Trump White House is an individual the president cannot fire.

Vice President Vance is, in my view, the greatest disappointment of the Trump presidency. A man whom I would otherwise admire because of his back story has proven to be a very slippery politician, one who can put other politicians to shame in that regard. He has managed to appear supportive of the President’s foreign policy agenda while simultaneously trying to undermine it.

Case in point.

As far as I am concerned, the President’s military attack against Iran has been a spectacular failure. Not because he was wrong to attack. It was exactly the right thing to do to a nation sworn to destroy both the US and Israel. Iran had openly been pursuing that goal - racing to enrich uranium to weapons-grade levels, developing a ballistic missile system already capable of delivering nuclear destruction to Europe, and supporting proxies throughout the Middle East, all of whom were devoted to the complete annihilation of Israel, an important US ally.

There was no alternative to hitting that rogue Islamic nation as hard as the US and Israel, had done.

That did, in fact, set Iran’s nuclear ambition back, as well as weaken its proxies’ ability to destroy Israel. But it was a spectacular failure because the job is not finished. Iran needs to be wiped out. Anything less is a victory for Iran. As long as it exists at any level, it will rebuild and rearm with greater determination than ever.

Negotiating with Iran is a fool’s errand, not only because Iran will never agree to the president’s terms, but, more importantly, because it will surely lie about any agreement it may eventually reach.

This is where Vance’s subtle undermining of the President’s goals comes in. Whenever there is talk about military action, he ends up convincing the President to give diplomacy another try, as though it will work better this time than it did the last.

Vance is also very clever about expressing his views regarding Israel. Knowing that the President is a huge supporter of both Israel and Prime Minister Netanyahu, he is not about to criticize the country or its leader directly. But there have been many cases in which his disagreements have surfaced in ways that make it obvious (at least to me) that he has no love lost for Israel or its leader.

To the best of my knowledge, Vance has never spoken with any kind of passion about Israel. To the extent that he has said anything positive at all, it has usually been almost in passing, and with qualifying exceptions. (Yes, I support Israel, but… or Yes, Israel is an ally, but…). Never the kind of full-throated support one would expect from someone who genuinely regards Israel as an important and valued ally.

My guess is that, in his heart of hearts, Vance does not support Trump’s foreign policy, nor does he think much of the State of Israel. But he is able to camouflage that with an occasional positive, if qualified, reference to her.

I wish I were wrong about him. But his friendship with one of the most disgusting Jew-haters in America proves to me that his views are not that far removed from those of his friend, denials to the contrary notwithstanding.

I don’t know how anyone who is a friend of the Jewish people can remain friends with an antisemitic bigot like Tucker Carlson. His attacks against Israel and the Jewish people have been many and vile. For Vance to simply say that he disagrees with him but still considers him a friend means that Carlson’s views do not really disturb him all that much.

Of course, friends do not have to agree on everything. But there are some things that cross a line and should end a friendship. Some opinions are so vile that, as soon as they are expressed, friendships should cease immediately! And yet Vance has yet to break off his friendship with Carlson and, to the best of my knowledge, still considers him a friend.

In today’s Algemeiner Jeffery Lax reports yet another despicable antisemitic act on Carlson’s part:

Tucker Carlson Books has announced a title that reads Peace Is the Only Final Solution for Jews, with a foreword by Tucker Carlson on the cover. It publishes Nov. 17, and Simon & Schuster is the distributor.

The use of the phrase “Final Solution” and “Jews” in the same sentence is about as despicable a comment as anyone can make. It doesn’t even matter what the intent of the book is. It should also be noted that Carlson has now replaced the word Israel with the word Jews, making his antisemitism even more direct…

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