Comment for Dan Senor on His Interview with President Herzog

1:40 AM Friday. 

"Thank you, Dan. Deepest respect for the Jewish people in Israel and Diaspora, and for your President. What a remarkably good man from an amazing Jewish family. God no doubt chose President Herzog to help Israel through the trauma of October 7 and its aftermath. President Trump's success with UNSC Resolution 2803 is another miracle of Providence. If the world is going to make it work, we need a counterpart of President Herzog's caliber on the Palestinian side. Mayor-elect Mamdani is young and idealistic, and in all fairness, he seems to have many of President Herzog's good communication skills. Mamdani is no Abbas. President Herzog may run a risk of appearing out-of-touch with the younger generation if he pushes too hard against Mamdani. Jewish safety in NYC is going to be crucial moving forward, but what happened at the Park East Synagogue sounds to me like a policing failure under the watch of Jewish NYPD Commissioner Tisch and outgoing Mayor Adams. More pointedly, but I think still fairly, why shouldn't NY-proud two-state Zionists and UN Charter loyalists like me expect a settlement freeze in Judea and Samaria as a reasonable condition for aliyah from NYC until we get UNSC Resolution 2334 straightened out? Would it be too politically charged for President Herzog to concede that continued settlement expansion contrary to 2334 is giving leverage to Israel's youthful critics and increasing their vulnerability to radicalization? Argument for the sake of Heaven. Happy Hanukkah."

End 1:43 AM.

Update 4:43 PM. I received a comment from @doryfishie2. Here it is:

Communication and rhetoric is only useful for getting votes in safe countries, and absolutely worthless for real issues. Obama was 99% rhetoric in his two terms, the only party he was harsh on was Israel. The entire Middle East laughed at Obama and the US when he chickened out over his red line on Assad. Also when he gave sanctions relief to Iran. Mamdani is 2025 Obama but much more dangerous to Jews. He's not Abbas, he's worse than Abbas since he knows how to mask it under "progressivism" so that it is palatable to Western leftys. Antisemitism is very acceptable to leftys if they package it the right way.

If you asked the "younger generation" about Obama, they'd say he's a nice guy and a good speaker. They know nothing else and he's useful for nothing else. Clinton was the last semi-useful Democrat president. Mamdani is worse than useless. The younger generation is out-of-touch with reality and history. They're even regarding Barghouti as some sort of Mandela or Gandhi figure. 

I mean, you don't know anything either. You, a sheltered lefty Westerner living in a safe country, trying to prescribe bs solutions to a dangerous territory. Save your activism for your own country. Read up on history first if you want to get involved. If you're pro-2SS, even before Oct 7, I would consider you mentally disabled.

Settlement expansion is irrelevant to the Pali issue. There were no settlements before 1967, how many wars did Israel go through in just those 2 decades? Said "youthful critics" would continue complaining even if Israel vacated J&S. They would only be satisfied if Israel ceased to exist. Their "vulnerability to radicalization" is YOUR country's domestic problem. You continue to push bs lefty interpretations of history, you refuse to take a harder look at foreign propaganda on social media. There are so many things you can go down the list to address in your own country, without having to reach halfway around the world to wag your finger at Israel.

And this is how I responded:

Thanks for taking the time to share your perspective with me. I have a lot of respect for the right as well as the left in both Israel and the US. To me, real communication is about much more than empty political rhetoric by privileged elites in safe countries. It's about intelligence and character. Take the October 7th intelligence failure. Wasn't that in part a really serious breakdown in absolutely worthwhile (and usually exceptional) Israeli communication skills? 

Mamdani might be more dangerous to Jews than Abbas, or that might be a ridiculously unfair comparison. I for one believe the ICC should have issued an arrest warrant for Abbas for pay-for-slay long before the Court issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu. I don't think Mamdani has plausibly violated the Rome Statute yet, but he did edge up to the line of incitement to genocide and was roundly criticized for it. Ultimately, Trump demonstrated exceptional post-election communication skills in the way he handled Mamdani at the White House. I completely agree that we face a challenge in the US social media sphere from foreign-backed antisemitic propaganda, but I see this as a challenge on the right as well as the left.

I believe the younger generation here in America is very much in touch with aspects of reality that many in the older generations on the right are still denying or intentionally covering up. Like the importance of working harder on climate change. Younger conservatives are much more concerned about stewardship of the atmosphere. They want a next generation Clean Air Act and maybe a new agency to administer it. But then again, we have a lot of realistic older right-wingers on the energy security side of the equation. Yes, younger generations are idolizing Barghouti in false Mandela and Gandhi images, and it's devastating for those of us who (think we) know better. But let's be over-50, hard-bitten, war-veteran-sounding adults about it. The ICC arrest warrant for Netanyahu concerns a far larger civilian casualty count than the Israeli arrest warrant for Barghouti, and neither Barghouti nor Netanyahu have demonstrated any teshuvah that we know of. From the majority point of view, it might not matter that the IDF doesn't target civilians, in contrast to Barghouti, who did. If Barghouti confesses and shows teshuvah and promises to help build a truly deradicalized and decolonized Palestinian state in peace and harmony with Israel, let him say so in a pardon request and let's leave it up to President Herzog to decide.

Last I checked, I am commenting on an American podcast about New York news and policy. As far as my mental disability is concerned, I didn't think it was that obvious, but yes, I have a psychiatric disability. No one has yet told me that the two-state solution is a symptom, however. Look, you're funny. Don't worry. I am not going to accuse you of ableism. Maybe one Jewish state with local voting rights for Arabs (and no voting rights for Knesset seats) is the best way to go. David Friedman thinks so, and who am I to argue with him, never having set foot on Israeli soil, much less served in the IDF? And a Gentile, no less? I totally get it. I've spent years looking into the question of Palestine from a distance, I've changed my mind several times, and I am still just a beginner. Take my vote with a grain of salt. But please don't deny my right to have a grain-of-salt's say as an American on UN Security Council resolutions. It's a heavy responsibility and until we figure out a way to reform the UN Charter we are stuck with it.

I disagree on the relevance of settlement expansion to the Pali issue and to our global responsibilities to counter Abrahamic radicalization, but I completely take your point that an Israeli pull-out from J&S might not be enough to satisfy the disgruntled masses. That's kind of exactly my point, too, just seen from a different angle.

America reached halfway around the world to wag a finger at Iran, not Israel. I wouldn't say we've done anything to wag a finger at Israel. I am glad that Senator Sanders is speaking his mind on the issue, but that's probably some American exceptionalism on my part. I certainly don't mean to come across as finger-wagging toward Dan, toward President Herzog, or toward any of my Israeli friends and allies on either the left or the right. If that's how I came across, my deepest apologies. It wasn't intentional. Shalom.

End 4:45 PM.