Israel

That these pundits denounced a small democratic country for employing targeted air strikes to defend its citizens… was bad enough. That they did so while pretending to be neutral—and even, God forbid, Christ-like—was appalling.

For proportionality to remain a helpful category in limiting the horrors of war, it needs to remain a calculation of costs against effects—measuring the goods to be achieved by two measures of harms, including that which will be likely done if force is not used,

The warnings of the US State Department, the Netherlands, and others show quite plainly that times are changing. British foolishness may delay Islamic Relief’s reckoning, but it will not prevent it.

But it’s important for the souls of democracies that, even as they must make nasty accommodations in pursuit of a wider good, that they fully admit to themselves this reality, without self-delusion.

Palestine’s regional Arab allies, not Israel, should lead efforts to secure vaccines for the Palestinian population. The current crisis presents an opportunity for Arab countries to build goodwill internationally and support the Palestinian people by providing vaccines to the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The normalization between the Arabs and Israelis diminishes Turkey’s role as the chief mediator between Israel and the Muslim world, so Erdogan’s anguish probably comes from fear of an “Arab option.”

The Christmas story doesn’t tell us how to reconcile the virtues and the vices of universal cosmopolitanism and local loyalty. But it suggests that we can somehow try to be true to both ideals: to be loyal members of our nations, our families, our tribes—and at the same time to reach out to the broader human community of which we are also a part.

A healthy majority of people in Lebanon continue to reject the sectarian, clannish, and quasi-tribal order of Lebanese politics, and the US should use Global Magnitsky sanctions against the country’s corrupt rulers.

The November 27 killing of Iranian nuclear physicist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh in a roadside ambush near Absard, Iran, has engendered conversation about the morality, legality, and prudence of assassination.