It’s Not Just the Presidential Candidates

This week’s Zoom call will be at our regular time, Friday at 1 PM Eastern. Our guests will be Aziz Abu Sarah and Maoz Inon, co-authors of the new book, The Future is Peace. Aziz, a Palestinian born in the West Bank, saw his brother die from injuries sustained while held in an Israeli prison. Maoz, a Jewish Israeli born on a kibbutz near Gaza, lost both of his parents on October 7, 2023. Somehow, both men have turned their suffering into activism for justice and peace. We’ll talk about their personal journeys, about the challenges of joint Jewish and Palestinian struggle and about how they maintain their faith in a better future in Palestine and Israel despite the horrors occurring there every day.Please join us.Cited in Today’s VideoDan Shapiro’s comments on the Iran WarThings to Read(Maybe this should be obvious, but I link to articles and videos I find provocative and significant, not necessarily ones I entirely agree with.)In Jewish Currents (subscribe!), Tanvi Misra writes about the relationship between the denial of the right of asylum and the rise of authoritarianism.In The Nation, Ahmad Ibsais argues that under international law, Israel may be committing genocide not only in Gaza but in the West Bank as well.Gavin Newsom endorses Donald Trump’s blockade of Cuba.AppearancesOn April 20, I’ll be speaking at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire.On April 23, I’ll be interviewing Mohammed R. Mhawish, the award-winning Palestinian journalist and writer from Gaza City, at CUNY’s Newmark School of Journalism.On April 26, I’ll be speaking at Brown Memorial Park Avenue Presbyterian Church in Baltimore, Maryland.On May 6, I’ll be speaking to the Joint Christian Advocacy Summit in Washington, DC.See you on Friday,PeterVIDEO TRANSCRIPT:There’s been a fair amount of attention recently to the way the Democratic politicians are shifting in their attitudes towards Israel vote on weapons sales in Congress, and also a number of statements by Democratic presidential candidates on the subject of weapon sales.But one of the things that I think doesn’t get as much attention as it deserves is the attitudes of the kinds of people who would be advising the next Democratic president, the foreign policy class that exists inside the Democratic Party, because it’s quite common for politicians to say one thing while they’re campaigning—presidential candidates in particular—and then to do other things in office. And part of the reason is because of the people they surround themselves with.And in the Democratic Party in particular, there’s a history of presidential candidates sounding more dovish when they run but then being more hawkish in office. So, Jimmy Carter, for instance, questioned the whole paradigm of the Cold War, and yet, when he was elected in 1976, he chose as his national security advisor, a kind of Cold War hawk, as a visionary of Brzezinski.Barack Obama, in 2008, was elected in part because he had opposed the Iraq War. That’s one of the reasons he defeated Hillary Clinton in the 2008 Democratic primary. But then Obama turned around and chose Hillary Clinton as his Secretary of State, and she was more hawkish than he was, as were a number of his advisors.So, I think it’s important to look at the kinds of people who would be advising the next Democratic president if we actually want to see a real shift in U.S. policy. And in that regard, I think it’s worth looking at a recent podcast interview done with a guy named Dan Shapiro.Now, I say this not because I want to single out Dan Shapiro as a bad guy or anything like that. I’m sure he’s not a bad guy. I don’t like to kind of attack people in any ad hominem way. I’m sure he’s sincere in his views. But I think what Dan Shapiro says in this podcast interview just illustrates how, f