Donald Trump has been actively drawing God into his campaign for the past few weeks. It started with the claim earlier this month that his Democratic rival, Joe Biden, a devout Catholic, is “against God,” has “no religion” and will “hurt the Bible, hurt God.”
“With so much riding on Florida’s 29 electoral votes in the presidential election, and the crucial role the state’s 450,000 Jewish voters may play in the outcome, the national Biden campaign is being cautious to the point of being cagey about what their strategy will be.”
Aaron David Miller is a veteran Middle East peace negotiator, analyst and author, now a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Miller spoke with Moment editor-in-chief Nadine Epstein about the recent Israel-UAE peace deal.
“In this age of pandemics and polarization, it may be hard to envision. But it’s not a mystery. Someone who prizes decency and embodies dignity. Someone who exercises empathy and exhibits patience and understanding. Someone who lives, breathes and acts on the basic beliefs which are unique to Jewish tradition and universal in application—to pursue justice, welcome the stranger, open your hand and your heart to the needy and love your neighbor.”
In Our Boys, Tel Aviv native Adam Gabay stars as Avishay Elbaz, a troubled Yeshiva student suspected of taking part in the murder of a 16-year-old Palestinian boy. Lilly Gelman spoke with Gabay over Zoom about his methods of character development and what he learned from his time on the screen.
What are the chances of this dramatic step actually taking place? Is this an inevitable result of the new government formed or yet another election-promise bound to be discarded as campaign rhetoric makes way to reality?
It all depends on four key players, their motivation, and their ability to influence the course of events.
But it’s hard to substantiate Pompeo’s claim that Americans are now safer or that the Middle East is more peaceful, and recent events in the region offer facts that argue otherwise. In the two years since the U.S. dropped out of the deal, tensions in the Persian Gulf had reached a boiling point, freedom of passage in the crucial Gulf waters has been jeopardized, fighting spread to Saudi Arabia and endangered critical oil infrastructure, and U.S. and Iran came to the brink of a full out war after the killing of Qasem Soleimani and the retaliatory Iranian attack on an American base in Iraq.
In many ways, sharing pain seems to be a radical, dangerous act. If we focus solely on our own hurt, we may not have to ask why we were hurt. But if you accept “the other’s” pain, you start to think that pain might not be necessary for either side.
At this point, the restrictions are being eased—and Israelis are becoming increasingly doubtful that we should be taking the remaining restrictions seriously.
On Tuesday, members of the Conference of Presidents will vote on the approval of Dianne Lob as the next chairwoman of the organization, a two-year position that would make her the group’s top lay leader. Initially, she was supposed to take office immediately upon approval, but a last-minute change will make Lob chair-elect for the next year, after which she will assume the chairmanship—more on that later.
