A beautifully written, thoughtful column. My eyes continue to be opened (I’m 82 and have lived through a lot of evil). This is the kind of analysis that we will *never* see from corporate media, and, unfortunately, most people rely on corporate media and, even worse, politicians for their “information”. Thank you for writing it.
Arendt is surely in there but I also post below a Primo Levi quote that many people seem uncomfortable with:
“Monsters exist, but they are too few in number to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are the common men, the functionaries ready to believe and to act without asking questions.”
― Primo Levi
I appreciate your call to arms, as it were. I hope we are not too late.
I genuinely don't know how I feel about this piece (which is something I appreciate about Substack). I essentially agree with the arguments that a.) Israelis are human beings b.) America, as a state/ political entity has committed just as grave crimes over much longer period at greater scale. The important question is, what do we do with these facts?
As it goes, I don't much believe in free will (at the very least I have seen no more convincing proof of its existence than the existence of God or a God as conventionlly understood). I believe that the vast majority of people, if brought up in Israel with Israeli propaganda would believe the same horrendous things that the majority of Israeli citizens have been shown through polling to believe. As such, I don't believe the life of a newborn Israeli is worth any more or less than the life of a newborn Palestinian. I don't believe in a demon seed.
But, as you quote, "Politics, in essence, is to increase the number of our friends and decrease the number of our enemies". It isn't to debate //why// certain people became our friends or enemies outside of the degree by which knowing this helps us ensure more of them are our friends.
I feel this piece is a thoughtful work of spiritual humanism. But can spiritual humanism in any way stop genocide near its completion?
The question is what measures are the rest of the world willing to take to stop those with the power in Israel from committing the crimes that those beliefs lead to?
So far it seems like most of us are only prepared to take limited measures at best.
The fundamental problem with "Israel" is well the concept itself: the very construct of this state relies on crimes against humanity - crimes that no one has the right to commit.
This is why the narrative manipulators keep banging on these very specific and selected themes: "Israel has a right to defend itself" and "israel has a right to exist". As always, when manipulators react to certain things, in insist on certain sticking points, well that is exactly what you should examine - because that is what their lie is constructed upon.
An ethnostate constructed in a multi-religious territory is by defitintion committing crimes against humanity. A state constructed on the princinple of ejectiving natives of a religion defined as "unwanted", while awarding automativc citizenships to complete foreigners" of a "chosen religion", is also committing crimes againt humanity.
Colonialism and occupation are crimes agasint humanity, and a state constructed on this basis actually, as per international law, does not actually have the right to exist.
So that means it's irrelevant any story of "good" occupiers vs the ones who support genocide. Because both sets are committing crimes against humanity.
This does not refer to any ones who had jewish religon and their families were living there the whole time. They, just like the muslims and christians, should have the right to be there in a multiethnic state under whatever name you want.
But no one actually has a right to be there on the basis of colonial occupation or religious overlordship. And there is no defense for being there on that basis. No one has the right to commit crimes against humanity.
Strange we have to actually SAY this in this world.
But some people think the world is gullible and that they can just say antisemetism, when you point out that their very way of life and presense is based on living out crimes againt humanity.
And they are ALL complicit in this, as they all partcipate in "Service" in the Israeli Genocide Forece.
I may be wrong, but I think one of the author's points is that 'The fundamental problem with "Israel" is well the concept itself: the very construct of this state relies on crimes against humanity - crimes that no one has the right to commit' applies equally to America.
I'm not sure if talking or writing in terms of the rights of an abstract entity makes much sense anyway... especially when ethno-nationalists will always pick and choose the parts of their own country's history to support their arguments.
I think Britain has been the most destructive colonial force in world history. But if I just focused on the Roman invasion and celebrated pre-Christian pagan beliefs I could forge a narrative of a poor beseiged colonised island that only did unto others as was done unto it!
Ultimately what exists are humans occupying space and time + ideology. Now, personally I think Zionism is an inherently/necessarily destructive ideology and that followers of that ideology are currently committing, facilitating and/or supporting a genocide that should be resisted. But that doesn't contradict anything written in this article.
If somone has come to israel from a foreign country and settled there based purelt on themselves or their families practicising judaism, even as those born there are denied citizenship and stripped of their property - those people who emiigrated there are involved committing acts of colonialsm and disposesion.
The own personal actions of those emigrants to "Israel" actually involve crimes against humanity. And so they cannot really whitewash that merely by voicing an opinion that they are against genocide. Especially when they are members of the army enforcing colonial occupation, disposession and genocide, and while off duty benefitting from the above crimes.
These are personal acts involving the commission of crimes against humanity.
Those people should leave to wherever their other passports are from. Its the ethical thing to do instead of sneak whitewashing the existence of a colonial genocidal machine.
As many have said, it would be simple enough for those people of the historic lands of Palestine to have to have a stable peace if it was simply the jews, muslims and christians who are actually FROM there, living in a multiethnic state.
Indeed - I don't disagree. America also requires the continued subjegation of its indigenous population after a mass genocide.
I'm British and I think any British person who objects to the large level of migration we're experiencing having violently subjegated much of the world hasn't got a moral leg to stand on. Where do they think our wealth comes from?
I don't think the author is saying much more than Israelis are humans and that America is just as horrific. I'm not convinced those facts stand as defences personally so I think the title of the article is not really useful.
EDIT: Also, because the rights of children are so curtailed/ limited throughout much of the world, I don't think it is true to say that ALL Israeli citizen is complicit. (Also, as you recognise, a number of Jews are from the area). I don't actually know how useful or relevant that point is, though it stands as an argument not to nuke Israel in much the same way as retrospective arguments to not have nuked Hiroshima or bombed Dresden.
Since the author states as his perferred solution "The United Nations General Assembly needs to amend the mistake a very different version of itself made in 1947. No partition, just a single, secular state with equal rights for all, a truth and reconciliation commission, UN peacekeepers to deal with any Jewish or Muslim terrorist groups opposing the will of the (real) international community, and the Communist Party of Israel put in charge of de-Baathification" I don't fully understand what your issue with the article is.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this well rounded and detailed essay. It reaffirmed much of my understanding of the state of affairs, which is one reason I appreciate it, but it was also very entertaining in its witty banter and sarcasm. I do think it missed one important current affair but that’s understandable as this is a new phenomenon that I am just starting to understand myself. Israel and Iran are both being dismantled by the real money controlling the geopolitics of that region. And there is a chance both Netanyahu and Khomeini have been forced to go along with it - to get rid of the hardliners in their midst.
I just re-read the essay, and I think it brilliantly reinforces a sense that language is a major weapon for the purposes of those who know how to use it. And when lawyers and intellectuals and verbal architects toil in defense of injustice, language is where patriotic idiocy runs hot.
Given what I have read and lived and experienced, I think that I know that my country is a lie, deftly mastering stories that normalize a simple, never articulated dictum: MIGHT MAKES RIGHT. The lionization of the individual is step one in poisoning any attempts to be guided by fairness, by doing what’s right. From there the repetition and replication of forcefully uttered phrases that are logical fallacies and lies and BS. I believe that when might makes right is the ethos of an empire, that empire’s end can only be achieved when that empire recognizes its own vulnerability. Defeating the loud defenders of Zionism is a long slog, but I think the American public is fracturing on the issue of AIPAC election interference, and the value of unconditionally supporting Israel. Defending Israel is becoming a controversial exercise.
I don’t know why exactly, but after digesting the meaty points and asides in the essay, I was reminded of a quote attributed to Mike Tyson: “…everybody has a plan…until they get punched in the mouth.”
I think that a big part of what is so wrong about the current version of imperialism that the world is witnessing, is that the huge number of its mini-supporters identify themselves with all of their being as proud flag supporters, and they get nothing more than a worthless ego stroke for their trouble. They will probably be the least able to cope with the change on the horizon.
I heard Alex Krainer tell Glenn Diesen recently that an Islamic eschatologist told him that the majority of Israelis are deep in the throes of a cultish, religious fever that rationalizes the total annihilation of their nemeses. Krainer is a market analyst, and isn’t prone to repeating what he would typically dismiss as mental clutter, but he did add that Netanyahu confers everyday with a powerful rabbi who buys into the prophecy driven role of the Jews as the only ones who can trigger a rapture, and bring on the end of times. Essential to this role, is, first Israel must be reviled by the whole world. When I think of the mindset that can embrace the erasure of a people, I see a logic to such a mythology engendering such an outcome.
That was a great read. It has a poetic lilt. Personal disclaimer: I subscribed to The Economist for a term because it was required. On the other hand, I still subscribe to Monthly Review, because there is nothing like it that I have ever found. It informs with an unmistakable compassion for our world and all of its inhabitants.
Thank you, Peter and Karim for lovely mind-seeding.
Excellent piece--definitely made me think. The US is no doubt the greater criminal nation by far, especially as it has most of Israel's crimes on its list too. I think what makes the Israeli genocide (or whatever term or descriptors you agree to use for it) so much more abhorrent to most of the world's population (and has therefore made Israel such a hated state) is Israeli leaders' blatant no-holds-barred genocidal language, that it's being live-streamed and heavily documented in real time, and the polling that shows a significant percentage of the Israeli population in agreement with the government's actions. As to why the US isn't more hated--it should be #1 on the list, no question--my suspicion is that has a lot to do with decades of expertly-crafted propaganda blanketing the world, the worldwide reach and influence of the English language, and the fact that American culture, due to the ill-gotten wealth of the US, has been so dominant throughout the world for over a century. It's hard to hate a country whose movies and TV shows you're always watching and whose music you're always listening to.
Bravo. Thank you for the comprehensiveness. Thinking along similar lines I seem to feel, not sure yet, but that the line between religious faith, hard or soft, orthodox or liberal, and an ism I can only read as nationalism has fuzzed to the point of disappearance.
It is very noticeable coming to the US that an almost default place in the USian heart is the US. I don’t think this is just “spread.” I think it was inevitable, the God King replacement. Zionism is manifest destiny, were we not the New Jerusalem? Religion is barely necessary now. Exceptionalism is all.
I am doing some work on the Founder Gouverneur Morris, I am to read one of his speeches at a memorial event. He seems a charming and gifted fellow but his zeal is unrelateable. Almost as if he were born monotheist, grew out of it then awoke gripped by a new version: the American fantasy.
This is a deep dive with lots to add but it has always seemed to me that without the rites of passage more “primitive” peoples developed, rituals and life stages the monotheisms coopted then smothered as they feared for obvious reasons, the individuated person, the self defining person we have become very strange.
I saw a very interesting history peace a couple years ago on Youtube, about the Greek Persian Wars. It cartoonized Themistocles before the invasion rallying some young Athenian lads to fight at Marathon. “Why?” Asks one boy. “For the glory of Athens!” “What?” “The glor….. to defend your family!” “O them, they’re in Syracuse.” The boy is immovable, his mates too, smirking at frustrated Themistocles. At last, remembering his Iliad he says: “Fight at marathon to win undying fame that will echo down the ages.” “Alright!” Shout the boys.
So, on some level, I can the list, Jordanians, Jews, Saudis, Syrians. The collectives. The notion that we are each defined by the terms is on the deepest level, ridiculous. Or, a wise man said, beware the uninitiated, the unindividuated half people we cheer at every Political Rally. In this world Joe Biden’s anti Arabism is the deepest part of him, maybe because he is a Catholic but much more likely because he is a USian.
The culpability, so close to surface of the US as the worst nation on the face of the Earth, is being purged in Western Asia, as you say.
I think the only useful outcome should come from Islam, it could, it’ll have to, but it’s not looking good. Somebody has to say “No acts of vengeance, call a meeting of the five families. This war ends now!” Which, of course, it didn’t.
Joe Biden was a friend of Sen. Strom Thurmond, a proud racist and member of the KKK. He also admired Sen. Robert Byrd, a former KKK member and a reliable soldier for those with the deepest pockets in West Virginia. Joe Biden slimed Anita Hill, a model professional legal scholar who believed that Biden’s Judiciary Committee would be interested in the character of SCOTUS nominee Clarence Thomas, but she wasn’t reading the room.
Finally, Biden was a rabid lobbyist for a crime bill that set records for according long sentences to black defendants charged with nonviolent crimes. He has boasted about being a Zionist, so I would disagree with characterizing his anti Islamism as his strongest impulse. He is, by all signs, an equal-opportunity hate arbiter who fancies himself as always being a step ahead of the pack.
Don’t forget, too, that Menachem Begin told Joe Biden that one of his (Biden’s) plans for the Palestinians was “too radical”. “I am a Zionist first”, said Joe Biden.
A beautifully written, thoughtful column. My eyes continue to be opened (I’m 82 and have lived through a lot of evil). This is the kind of analysis that we will *never* see from corporate media, and, unfortunately, most people rely on corporate media and, even worse, politicians for their “information”. Thank you for writing it.
There is no defense of Israel. Israel is a genocidal colonial occupier in stolen land.
You are wrong. There IS defense of "israel", but it is based on lies because if it were based on facts it would not hold.
You hit the nail on the head there!
This is a really good piece of work. Thanks.
Arendt is surely in there but I also post below a Primo Levi quote that many people seem uncomfortable with:
“Monsters exist, but they are too few in number to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are the common men, the functionaries ready to believe and to act without asking questions.”
― Primo Levi
I appreciate your call to arms, as it were. I hope we are not too late.
I genuinely don't know how I feel about this piece (which is something I appreciate about Substack). I essentially agree with the arguments that a.) Israelis are human beings b.) America, as a state/ political entity has committed just as grave crimes over much longer period at greater scale. The important question is, what do we do with these facts?
As it goes, I don't much believe in free will (at the very least I have seen no more convincing proof of its existence than the existence of God or a God as conventionlly understood). I believe that the vast majority of people, if brought up in Israel with Israeli propaganda would believe the same horrendous things that the majority of Israeli citizens have been shown through polling to believe. As such, I don't believe the life of a newborn Israeli is worth any more or less than the life of a newborn Palestinian. I don't believe in a demon seed.
But, as you quote, "Politics, in essence, is to increase the number of our friends and decrease the number of our enemies". It isn't to debate //why// certain people became our friends or enemies outside of the degree by which knowing this helps us ensure more of them are our friends.
I feel this piece is a thoughtful work of spiritual humanism. But can spiritual humanism in any way stop genocide near its completion?
The question is what measures are the rest of the world willing to take to stop those with the power in Israel from committing the crimes that those beliefs lead to?
So far it seems like most of us are only prepared to take limited measures at best.
The fundamental problem with "Israel" is well the concept itself: the very construct of this state relies on crimes against humanity - crimes that no one has the right to commit.
This is why the narrative manipulators keep banging on these very specific and selected themes: "Israel has a right to defend itself" and "israel has a right to exist". As always, when manipulators react to certain things, in insist on certain sticking points, well that is exactly what you should examine - because that is what their lie is constructed upon.
An ethnostate constructed in a multi-religious territory is by defitintion committing crimes against humanity. A state constructed on the princinple of ejectiving natives of a religion defined as "unwanted", while awarding automativc citizenships to complete foreigners" of a "chosen religion", is also committing crimes againt humanity.
Colonialism and occupation are crimes agasint humanity, and a state constructed on this basis actually, as per international law, does not actually have the right to exist.
So that means it's irrelevant any story of "good" occupiers vs the ones who support genocide. Because both sets are committing crimes against humanity.
This does not refer to any ones who had jewish religon and their families were living there the whole time. They, just like the muslims and christians, should have the right to be there in a multiethnic state under whatever name you want.
But no one actually has a right to be there on the basis of colonial occupation or religious overlordship. And there is no defense for being there on that basis. No one has the right to commit crimes against humanity.
Strange we have to actually SAY this in this world.
But some people think the world is gullible and that they can just say antisemetism, when you point out that their very way of life and presense is based on living out crimes againt humanity.
And they are ALL complicit in this, as they all partcipate in "Service" in the Israeli Genocide Forece.
I may be wrong, but I think one of the author's points is that 'The fundamental problem with "Israel" is well the concept itself: the very construct of this state relies on crimes against humanity - crimes that no one has the right to commit' applies equally to America.
I'm not sure if talking or writing in terms of the rights of an abstract entity makes much sense anyway... especially when ethno-nationalists will always pick and choose the parts of their own country's history to support their arguments.
I think Britain has been the most destructive colonial force in world history. But if I just focused on the Roman invasion and celebrated pre-Christian pagan beliefs I could forge a narrative of a poor beseiged colonised island that only did unto others as was done unto it!
Ultimately what exists are humans occupying space and time + ideology. Now, personally I think Zionism is an inherently/necessarily destructive ideology and that followers of that ideology are currently committing, facilitating and/or supporting a genocide that should be resisted. But that doesn't contradict anything written in this article.
I am not talking just about states.
If somone has come to israel from a foreign country and settled there based purelt on themselves or their families practicising judaism, even as those born there are denied citizenship and stripped of their property - those people who emiigrated there are involved committing acts of colonialsm and disposesion.
The own personal actions of those emigrants to "Israel" actually involve crimes against humanity. And so they cannot really whitewash that merely by voicing an opinion that they are against genocide. Especially when they are members of the army enforcing colonial occupation, disposession and genocide, and while off duty benefitting from the above crimes.
These are personal acts involving the commission of crimes against humanity.
Those people should leave to wherever their other passports are from. Its the ethical thing to do instead of sneak whitewashing the existence of a colonial genocidal machine.
As many have said, it would be simple enough for those people of the historic lands of Palestine to have to have a stable peace if it was simply the jews, muslims and christians who are actually FROM there, living in a multiethnic state.
Indeed - I don't disagree. America also requires the continued subjegation of its indigenous population after a mass genocide.
I'm British and I think any British person who objects to the large level of migration we're experiencing having violently subjegated much of the world hasn't got a moral leg to stand on. Where do they think our wealth comes from?
I don't think the author is saying much more than Israelis are humans and that America is just as horrific. I'm not convinced those facts stand as defences personally so I think the title of the article is not really useful.
EDIT: Also, because the rights of children are so curtailed/ limited throughout much of the world, I don't think it is true to say that ALL Israeli citizen is complicit. (Also, as you recognise, a number of Jews are from the area). I don't actually know how useful or relevant that point is, though it stands as an argument not to nuke Israel in much the same way as retrospective arguments to not have nuked Hiroshima or bombed Dresden.
Since the author states as his perferred solution "The United Nations General Assembly needs to amend the mistake a very different version of itself made in 1947. No partition, just a single, secular state with equal rights for all, a truth and reconciliation commission, UN peacekeepers to deal with any Jewish or Muslim terrorist groups opposing the will of the (real) international community, and the Communist Party of Israel put in charge of de-Baathification" I don't fully understand what your issue with the article is.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this well rounded and detailed essay. It reaffirmed much of my understanding of the state of affairs, which is one reason I appreciate it, but it was also very entertaining in its witty banter and sarcasm. I do think it missed one important current affair but that’s understandable as this is a new phenomenon that I am just starting to understand myself. Israel and Iran are both being dismantled by the real money controlling the geopolitics of that region. And there is a chance both Netanyahu and Khomeini have been forced to go along with it - to get rid of the hardliners in their midst.
I just re-read the essay, and I think it brilliantly reinforces a sense that language is a major weapon for the purposes of those who know how to use it. And when lawyers and intellectuals and verbal architects toil in defense of injustice, language is where patriotic idiocy runs hot.
Given what I have read and lived and experienced, I think that I know that my country is a lie, deftly mastering stories that normalize a simple, never articulated dictum: MIGHT MAKES RIGHT. The lionization of the individual is step one in poisoning any attempts to be guided by fairness, by doing what’s right. From there the repetition and replication of forcefully uttered phrases that are logical fallacies and lies and BS. I believe that when might makes right is the ethos of an empire, that empire’s end can only be achieved when that empire recognizes its own vulnerability. Defeating the loud defenders of Zionism is a long slog, but I think the American public is fracturing on the issue of AIPAC election interference, and the value of unconditionally supporting Israel. Defending Israel is becoming a controversial exercise.
I don’t know why exactly, but after digesting the meaty points and asides in the essay, I was reminded of a quote attributed to Mike Tyson: “…everybody has a plan…until they get punched in the mouth.”
I think that a big part of what is so wrong about the current version of imperialism that the world is witnessing, is that the huge number of its mini-supporters identify themselves with all of their being as proud flag supporters, and they get nothing more than a worthless ego stroke for their trouble. They will probably be the least able to cope with the change on the horizon.
I heard Alex Krainer tell Glenn Diesen recently that an Islamic eschatologist told him that the majority of Israelis are deep in the throes of a cultish, religious fever that rationalizes the total annihilation of their nemeses. Krainer is a market analyst, and isn’t prone to repeating what he would typically dismiss as mental clutter, but he did add that Netanyahu confers everyday with a powerful rabbi who buys into the prophecy driven role of the Jews as the only ones who can trigger a rapture, and bring on the end of times. Essential to this role, is, first Israel must be reviled by the whole world. When I think of the mindset that can embrace the erasure of a people, I see a logic to such a mythology engendering such an outcome.
That was a great read. It has a poetic lilt. Personal disclaimer: I subscribed to The Economist for a term because it was required. On the other hand, I still subscribe to Monthly Review, because there is nothing like it that I have ever found. It informs with an unmistakable compassion for our world and all of its inhabitants.
Thank you, Peter and Karim for lovely mind-seeding.
Its great to read such finely nunaced and intelligent writing. Entertaining and thought provoking. Keep up the excellent work. Thanks for writing
Excellent piece--definitely made me think. The US is no doubt the greater criminal nation by far, especially as it has most of Israel's crimes on its list too. I think what makes the Israeli genocide (or whatever term or descriptors you agree to use for it) so much more abhorrent to most of the world's population (and has therefore made Israel such a hated state) is Israeli leaders' blatant no-holds-barred genocidal language, that it's being live-streamed and heavily documented in real time, and the polling that shows a significant percentage of the Israeli population in agreement with the government's actions. As to why the US isn't more hated--it should be #1 on the list, no question--my suspicion is that has a lot to do with decades of expertly-crafted propaganda blanketing the world, the worldwide reach and influence of the English language, and the fact that American culture, due to the ill-gotten wealth of the US, has been so dominant throughout the world for over a century. It's hard to hate a country whose movies and TV shows you're always watching and whose music you're always listening to.
Bravo. Thank you for the comprehensiveness. Thinking along similar lines I seem to feel, not sure yet, but that the line between religious faith, hard or soft, orthodox or liberal, and an ism I can only read as nationalism has fuzzed to the point of disappearance.
It is very noticeable coming to the US that an almost default place in the USian heart is the US. I don’t think this is just “spread.” I think it was inevitable, the God King replacement. Zionism is manifest destiny, were we not the New Jerusalem? Religion is barely necessary now. Exceptionalism is all.
I am doing some work on the Founder Gouverneur Morris, I am to read one of his speeches at a memorial event. He seems a charming and gifted fellow but his zeal is unrelateable. Almost as if he were born monotheist, grew out of it then awoke gripped by a new version: the American fantasy.
This is a deep dive with lots to add but it has always seemed to me that without the rites of passage more “primitive” peoples developed, rituals and life stages the monotheisms coopted then smothered as they feared for obvious reasons, the individuated person, the self defining person we have become very strange.
I saw a very interesting history peace a couple years ago on Youtube, about the Greek Persian Wars. It cartoonized Themistocles before the invasion rallying some young Athenian lads to fight at Marathon. “Why?” Asks one boy. “For the glory of Athens!” “What?” “The glor….. to defend your family!” “O them, they’re in Syracuse.” The boy is immovable, his mates too, smirking at frustrated Themistocles. At last, remembering his Iliad he says: “Fight at marathon to win undying fame that will echo down the ages.” “Alright!” Shout the boys.
So, on some level, I can the list, Jordanians, Jews, Saudis, Syrians. The collectives. The notion that we are each defined by the terms is on the deepest level, ridiculous. Or, a wise man said, beware the uninitiated, the unindividuated half people we cheer at every Political Rally. In this world Joe Biden’s anti Arabism is the deepest part of him, maybe because he is a Catholic but much more likely because he is a USian.
The culpability, so close to surface of the US as the worst nation on the face of the Earth, is being purged in Western Asia, as you say.
I think the only useful outcome should come from Islam, it could, it’ll have to, but it’s not looking good. Somebody has to say “No acts of vengeance, call a meeting of the five families. This war ends now!” Which, of course, it didn’t.
Joe Biden was a friend of Sen. Strom Thurmond, a proud racist and member of the KKK. He also admired Sen. Robert Byrd, a former KKK member and a reliable soldier for those with the deepest pockets in West Virginia. Joe Biden slimed Anita Hill, a model professional legal scholar who believed that Biden’s Judiciary Committee would be interested in the character of SCOTUS nominee Clarence Thomas, but she wasn’t reading the room.
Finally, Biden was a rabid lobbyist for a crime bill that set records for according long sentences to black defendants charged with nonviolent crimes. He has boasted about being a Zionist, so I would disagree with characterizing his anti Islamism as his strongest impulse. He is, by all signs, an equal-opportunity hate arbiter who fancies himself as always being a step ahead of the pack.
Don’t forget, too, that Menachem Begin told Joe Biden that one of his (Biden’s) plans for the Palestinians was “too radical”. “I am a Zionist first”, said Joe Biden.