Neglected Armageddons
The Wisdom of Crowds Substack newsletter last Monday featured an article entirely in line with my thinking about the state of geopolitics. There, writer Damir Marusic reviewed the evident widespread chaos in international affairs that we in America have been hoping wishfully would simply go away if we either refused to engage with it, or decided to opt out of it when confronted. With some encouragement from hostile powers’ propaganda efforts, we had come to assume that peace was the natural state of global affairs, and that our meddling was the source of most conflict.
The reality was that the relative peace after World War Two was a garden that required our tending.
Our predecessors bequeathed to us a period of unprecedented tranquility. They were not infinitely wise in getting us here — no wiser than we are. But we grew up used to it in ways they could never imagine. We assumed order was normality, that peace was what naturally arose when power-hungry hyperpowers minded their own business.
I was as happy as anyone when the Berlin Wall fell, the Soviet Union collapsed, and the Cold War ended. Within a few short years, we had the first American Iraq war, and then the Clinton presidency during which we would finally get to invest the post-Cold-War peace dividend at home. We could draw down the military and save money. Democracy had defeated totalitarianism and would spread on its own. Everything we would do from now on would amount to futzing with the layers of icing on the cake.
For some time it appeared that democracy was on the march. It is impossible to overstate how much the Soviet collapse improved human development, and how much Chinese economic liberalization helped reduce poverty for hundreds of millions of people as well. Yet history wasn’t quite over—even if we collectively decided to disregard troubles abroad assuming they would blow over. We instead turned our energies to self-destructive domestic politics.
We spent little time contemplating contradictory signals like the first bombing of New York’s Twin Towers, the U.S. embassy bombings in Africa, the attack on the USS Cole—and then 9/11 happened, snapping our attention to what was going on in the world. Our newfound engagement was violent, but eventually we grew tired of just how insoluble other countries’ problems were—and returned to exacerbating the insolubility of our own. The unhappy experience at home implied that democracy wasn’t worth much as a means of solving problems, rather than for making them worse. Why would we engage the world trying to spread it?
As Marusic concludes:
[S]omething is happening. I feel it. I think many others feel it. The jungle is growing back. And we naive civilized folks, we couldn’t even start a fire without matches, much less feed or defend ourselves in the wilderness.
Sometimes necessity is the teacher we wind up learning from—for lack of alternatives.
I guess I better quit poking the bear. Now I have responses from Pat Riot mentioning male genitals and I thought I had been pretty reasonable before that. Quite unexpected for a Monday. Or any day. What a riot.
David just sent this with a note that it replaces the earlier email because there was an important error. I have not looked to see what it was, but he asked that any of us forwarding his letters also send this replacement.
We are in Day 10 of the Hamas War.
The title of these letters changes today to “Letters from the Exile.” We had planned to leave on Tuesday but that flight got canceled. And we had planned to leave on Wednesday on a flight that did not get us to Geneva but our agent suddenly came up with two tickets for Monday, today, which went all the way through to Geneva. So, we decided to take those. We are now on the airplane. We are very, very sad about leaving Israel. Our children and grandchildren are there. Our people are there. Our land is there. Our dead, our wounded, and our soldiers are there. And we are leaving. Still, given our ages and handicaps and given the fact that the family needs to get on with its life in these dangerous times, it was the right decision.
We are very, very grateful to our children, Philippe and Jonathan, and their families. They have been so supportive, sheltering us, providing us with the feeling of safety, and doing all the small things that make us feel cared for: taking us everywhere, making food, cleaning up, making arrangements, going to prayers with us, helping us to help others, and much more. We are grateful even as we are weary from all the natural tension of living out of suitcases and coordinating our movements with everyone, plus the tensions of the situation. Family really does count. Thank you also to all of you have been reading these letters and responding and passing them on to others. Your responses have strengthened us and have given us something to do that is useful to others. At least, we are able to do something. I shall continue writing from Switzerland.
Meanwhile, the Tel Aviv airport as always was a “balagan,” extraordinarily disorderly. People lined up, baggage, etc. Today, even at 5:30 a.m., it was exactly that. Fortunately, we are elderly and incapacitated enough that we have wheelchair service so we got through with a great deal of help working with us and in plenty of time. The children, however, were what made it exciting. They brought their scooters with them and zoomed in and out everywhere. There was one young girl who got on her scooter, crouched down, and pushed herself with great speed and grace under ropes and through lines. It’s great to be young.
Several of you have asked very good questions. I will try to answer those in the next few days when I can get to a wifi and do a little research. Meanwhile, a few suggestions: For those of you who want to hear the news as Israelis get it and as active Jews hear it, should follow the Times of Israel (timesofisrael.com) and/or the Jerusalem Post (jpost.com). Both are published daily in English and are available on the internet. Both also distinguish editorials and opinion pieces from the news. To make it easier, just subscribe after a few days. It’s a minimal cost and gives you better coverage. For those of you who want a summary of the Arab media, you should follow MEMRI (memri.org). The material is pretty raw, but so is the situation. You don’t really understand the other party unless you read what he is saying. Memri does a good job of summarizing and does catch both the positive and the negative voices. The positive voices will not surprise you but the negative voices are not believable unless you hear them. I don’t speak Arabic but I do read it and I can follow the English translations enough to vouch for them on Memri. Do not, however, make the mistake of thinking that these are the “extremists.” Look at the titles of the speakers. Some are “extremist” but some are quite mainline. And even the “extremists” are very attractive and powerful (as they are in the U.S. too). You can subscribe at no cost to the Memri weekly summary. The daily briefing will make you sick.
A few words of advice: First, know that it is okay to be angry. It is okay to be outraged. Westerners have a tendency to be stiff-upper-lipped. Don’t be that western. If you run across a university president or a religious or political leader who is not outraged enough, call them out on it. Don’t be shy. Second know that it is okay to cry. Some things require tears. A person who does not cry is not quite human. Third, do pray even if it is not your usual custom and even if you don’t believe, or are not sure of what you believe. Prayer, that is, turning to a Presence that is beyond us, is natural. Just put yourself in the Presence and say what comes from your heart. It doesn’t hurt, really.
At several points in our liturgy, we pray for yeshu’ot ve-nechamot, that is, for salvation and for comfort. When you think about it, that is a strange combination of things to pray for. How does salvation get linked with comfort? Actually, this is a very deep prayer. I sat with the man next door who lost his son in the early stages of the war and I told him that I pray for salvation for the people and for the land, and I pray for comfort for him and for all those who have lost loved ones. Salvation has a price, and we pray that God comfort those who pay that price. Try doing that.
Blessings and peace to all of you,
David