This morning, I noticed that the United Arab Emirates had congratulated the new Israeli government. This is a mere formality, but it is also extraordinary and would have been unthinkable a year ago or so.
I have long felt that not enough has been done to honor and appreciate the UAE government and that of other Arab and Muslim countries who have reached out in peace and friendship to Israel over the past year, and whose ties to Israel survived the recent war with Palestinian Hamas terrorists.
In fact, the Biden administration seems to be looking for ways to punish countries that made peace with Israel, suspending an arms deal and reversing a tariff exclusion that President Trump had given to the UAE, in part as a reward for peace.
Anyway, I tweeted thanking the UAE, as a pro-Israel U.S. citizen. Obviously, that's not enough, but it's something. We ought to reward peace if we want more of it.
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
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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 ...
