Wherever you go, you’ll find imperialist wars described, particularly by their self-styled liberal opponents, as “wars of choice.” Having described a given war as a “war of choice,” the critic will then go on to criticize it as ill-conceived and ill-executed while conceding the underlying reason for going to war. The unspoken implication is that the same war, conceived and executed more competently, would have been perfectly justified. It’s just that this particular iteration is not. Continue reading
Tag Archives: Israel
The Carlson-Huckabee Interview (1)
There are many things to be said about Tucker Carlson’s remarkable interview with Mike Huckabee, too many to say all at once. So I’m going to take my time to say them, and say them in bite-sized portions.
There’s a distinction in ancient Greek philosophy that’s useful here, between virtue and skill. A virtue is a specifically moral disposition to thought and action, like honesty or justice. A skill is a pragmatically useful but morally neutral sort of know-how, like knowing how to play the guitar or ride a bike or swim. The possession of a skill is not the possession of virtue, and virtues in turn aren’t reducible to the possession of a skill or sets of skills. They’re just categorially different things. That said, both virtues and skills are objects of praise, just not the same kind of praise. They’re both achievements, just achievements of different kinds. Continue reading
The West Orange Anti-Semitism Task Force (2)
Second Statement to West Orange Town Council on its Proposed Anti-Semitism Task Force
66 Main St
West Orange, New Jersey
February 10, 2026
Last time I was here, I criticized a proposal for an anti-Semitism task force. In response, some speakers suggested that I was being insensitive to the dangers faced by Jews in West Orange. I don’t agree, so I’m going to respond. Continue reading
Free Speech in Montgomery
Statement to Montgomery Township Committee
100 Community Dr
Skillman, New Jersey
February 5, 2026
Revised for presentation (to better fit the 3-minute time limit), February 5, 2026
On January 7th, Sadaf Jaffer, the former mayor of Montgomery and former head of its Democratic Organization, made public something that this Committee has known for a year. About a year ago, she said, Mayor Neena Singh and Deputy Mayor Vince Barragan demanded her resignation from the Democratic Organization because Montgomery Township was being denied state and county funds in retaliation for, her, Jaffer’s, criticisms of US and Israeli policy in Palestine. I have an audio file of Mr Barragan’s making this demand.
Continue reading
The West Orange Anti-Semitism Task Force: A Response
This is a statement given to West Orange Township Council, January 20, 2026. It’s the first of several I intend to give there on this topic. The comment of Sheila Lefkowitz from the November 12 meeting (mentioned below) appears at 1:33:33 of this video. My statement below appears around minute 49 of this video. I’ll discuss the responses to my statement in a later post. This article gives a good overview of the current state of discourse on this topic in New Jersey.
On November 12 last year, I spoke here on the matter of the Immigrant Trust Act. While I was here, a resident, Sheila Lefkowitz, rose to speak about the need for an anti-Semitism task force. I took strong exception to Ms Lefkowitz’s claims at the time, but haven’t had a chance to respond until now. Admittedly, three months have passed since then, but I think a response is in order, however belated.
Continue readingStatement of Sadaf Jaffer to Montgomery Township Committee
This is a statement by Sadaf Jaffer, former Mayor of Montgomery Township, New Jersey, to the Montgomery Township Committee. I fully agree with her that “the public deserves clear answers and ethical leadership,” and urge others who agree to contact the Committee and make your views known. I’m pleased to say that Sadaf has agreed to be featured in a future edition of my Activist Interviews series, where I’m sure we’ll hear more about the backstory here. More soon.
Good evening. I am a former mayor of Montgomery Township, a former Assemblywoman, and a former chair of Montgomery’s Democratic Organization.
On multiple occasions over the past year, Mayor Neena Singh and Deputy Mayor Vince Barragan told me, and told others, that Montgomery Township was being denied county and state public funds because of my opposition to Israeli and U.S. policy in Gaza. Continue reading
Activist Interviews: Emanuelle Sippy
This is the first in an ongoing series of interviews I’ll be doing with a variety of activists and practitioners I’ve worked with or met over the years. Emanuelle Sippy was the head of Princeton University’s Alliance of Jewish Progressives during the Gaza Solidarity Encampment of the spring 2024, and both a forceful and articulate presence throughout. My interview with her was conducted May 4, 2025 at Terrace Club, Princeton University.
Q: You were brought up Jewish, the daughter of a Reform rabbi in Kentucky. What was that like? How would you describe the Jewish part of your upbringing, including your education? Continue reading
Stirring the POT (5)
Politics and the Problematics of Fun
I started my “Stirring the POT” series earlier this year as a vehicle for announcements, but it gradually morphed into a series of ruminations on conferences I attended. The latter turned out to be the more interesting enterprise, so I’ll close out the year with a belated conference rumination. This past April, I went to San Francisco, at the invitation of Roderick Long and the Molinari Society, to be on an Author-Meets-Critics panel on Gary Chartier’s Christianity and the Nation State. It promised to be a good time, and it was. Continue reading
Those “Drowned Out” Zionists
Joshua Leifer’s “Conflictedly Connected” Liberal Zionist Center
The well-regarded left Zionist writer Joshua Leifer has a much fawned-over piece in Ha’aretz that’s been adopted in some quarters as the expression of profound wisdom. In it he argues that there’s a “conflictedly connected” Zionist quasi-left “majority” that’s been “drowned out” by the extremist voices of the “ultra-hawkish right” and the “anti-Zionist left.” If only this “conflictedly connected” majority could be liberated from the shackles placed on it by these twin extremists, the Golden Mean would prevail, and virtue would flourish on the topic of Israel and Palestine. Continue reading
If You Want Blood
Do yourself a favor. Go back and re-read the Declaration of Independence, but do it this way: skip the beginning and the end, and read the bill of particulars in the middle. It’s too long to quote here. You really just have to read it for yourself. Once you do, you’ll see that details aside, we’re living in the very world that the Declaration describes, excoriates, and uses as the basis of its declaration of war. Virtually everything in it is something that our present government is doing to us. Like the people of British North America ca. 1776, we are a people under military occupation. Continue reading
Policy of Truth 