I was wondering what, exactly, had happened this week such that a) Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman backed away from a Palestinian state; b) President Joe Biden backed away from a Palestinian state; c) Biden dropped criticism of Israel's judicial reforms, at least in public.
The answer dropped late on Wednesday.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the U.S. (with Israeli assent) will assist Saudi Arabia in enriching uranium on Saudi soil. This is another anonymously sourced report, but I believe it because the Biden administration's promises to adhere to "non-proliferation" while doing the opposite sound authentically lame to me, and there is little else that could explain the sudden change in Saudi tone.
So the peace deal would mean that the Saudis get nukes (quietly), Israel gets peace with Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Sunni world, and the Palestinians get concessions that fall short of statehood.
As to the problem of a nuclear Saudi regime: we'll worry later?
It might, after all, be worth the risk, for a variety of reasons.
This week's show will be slightly different from the norm: we'll focus on clips and topics, rather than guests -- and that, hopefully, will mean more input from the callers (unless you are all watching football on opening weekend).
Topics:
- The state of the economy
- The fight against crime
- The midterm election fight
- The struggle for peace between Russia and Ukraine
- The airstrike on the Venezuelan drug cartel
- The attempt to sink Kennedy
- The war in Gaza
- The case against Harvard
- The Trump presidency
Tune in: SiriusXM Patriot 125, 7-10 p.m. ET / 4-7 p.m. PT
Call: 866-957-2874
This week's Torah portion includes several laws about conduct in civic and personal life, the common theme of which is boundaries -- setting bounds to what one may do at home, at work, and even in the battlefield.
One noteworthy passage concerns Amalek, the evil nation that attacked the Children of Israel as they made their Exodus from slavery to freedom. Deuteronomy 25:17-19 commands Jews to obliterate Amalek's memory.
The South African government accused Israel of genocide on the basis of a story about Amalek in the Book of Samuel, in which King Saul was commanded to wipe out the entire evil Amalekite nation.
Because Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu quoted this week's portion -- "Remember what Amalek did to you" (25:17), the South African government claimed he was commanding soldiers to commit genocide.
It was an absurd and malevolent misreading of the Bible and of Jewish tradition. The commandment, as observed by Jews today, is to remember the evil of Amalek and fight ...
