"Israel's Dilemma"

While, in my opinion, Israel’s plight against Hamas’ terrorism, along with Ukraine’s war against Russia, are the West’s most important fights – and, sadly, the West sems to be abandoning both projects (or at least not providing the tools needed to win) – conservatives in the U.S. are abandoning their fight for free speech. Brendon Carr should be fired for pushing ABC to fire Jimmy Kimmel. He was losing audience and would have been fired for business reasons, but government should not have forced the issue. As I told my grandson, Kimmel, in my opinion, is an ass, but he should be allowed to bray.

 

Censorship, as conservatives wrote continuously during the Biden and Obama Presidencies, destroys democracies. To now practice it, while in power, is hypocrisy of the first order. Throughout our history, censorship has been practiced by both sides: Democrat Attorney General Mitchell Palmer in 1919 during the “Red” scare; Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy in the early 1950s. There is nothing to prevent private companies from firing employees who they feel are hurting their business with crude or offensive comments but, apart from calling “fire” in a crowded theater when there is none or urging one’s friends to assault an individual or institution, government should allow people to speak freely. Words can be offensive to some people’s sensibilities, but that is not reason to censor what they say.

 

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Enough of that. Despite warm days, summer is at an end, at least here in the Northern Hemisphere, with the arrival of the autumnal equinox this afternoon. With celebrations for Rosh Hashanah and the start of the Jewish New Year beginning this evening, it seems timely to consider Israel’s dilemma.

 

Sydney M. Williams

 

Thought of the Day

“Israel’s Dilemma”

September 22, 2025

 

“The reality here is that public opinion is shifting

very quickly and very dramatically away from Israel.”

                                                                                                                Howard Wolfson, Democratic strategist

                                                                                                                As quoted in The Wall Street Journal

                                                                                                                September 13-14, 2025

 

In Hamlet, (Act 1, Scene 4) Marcellus, after seeing the ghost of the murdered king, says: “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.” In my opinion, something is rotten among Western nations – theoretically enlightened individuals and governments – in their attitude toward Israel, a country, a democracy, that is trying to survive almost continuous threats from state-sponsored terrorists and authoritarian governments. It is now involved in, as Lauren Smith wrote last week in The European Conservative, “...a war between the West and barbarism. It is a battle of truly civilizational proportions.”

 

This condemnation and abandonment by most Western democracies and the United Nations represents, in my opinion, the world’s biggest threat to Western liberal ideals and precepts. Israel stands accused of genocide in Gaza and then starving those they did not kill. That is wrong. Israel has done more to warn the citizens of Gaza of impending attacks than any other country in time of war. Unlike other nations involved in war they have helped their enemies’ civilian populations by attempting to bring in food and aid.

 

Israel – a Country of less than 10 million that sits amidst almost 500 million Middle Easterners – is engaged in an existential war, battling for its very existence. In perfect double-speak, the UN recently condemned the October 7 (2023) massacre: “We condemn the attacks committed by Hamas against civilians on the 7^th of October.” But then the document went on: “We also condemn the attacks by Israel against civilians in Gaza and civilian infrastructure, siege and starvation, which have resulted in a devastating humanitarian catastrophe and protection crisis.” 

 

“Any man’s death diminishes me,” wrote John Donne in 1624. The death of innocent civilians during war is a tragedy. It would be nice if war played out on assigned fields, with the only victims being combatants. However, that is not the way wars are fought. During three months in 1940 over 23,000 Londoners were killed in the Battle of Britain. A like number of Germans were killed in the February 1945 fire-bombing of Dresden. And more than 200,000 Japanese were killed in the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. It is estimated that total civilian deaths in World War II were over 50 million, almost two-thirds of the total. It is estimated that Korea saw about two million civilian deaths and Vietnam around 600,000. In both cases, civilian deaths exceeded military deaths. Unlike past more conventional wars, Hamas is using schools, temples and apartments to hide combatants, terrorists, weapons and hostages. And unlike the Allies (or the Axis) in World War II, or the combatants in Korea and Vietnam, Israel warns civilians of their intent. Too many in the West – political leaders and the media – simply accept Hamas’ reports of civilian casualties in Gaza. Responsibility for those casualties lies with Hamas, not Israel.

 

For the most part, the post-World War II order held through the collapse of the Soviet Union in December 1991. Walter Russell Mead wrote in the September 16 issue of The Wall Street Journal that the subsequent decade saw “the muddled thinking of a generation of policy elites, who foolishly supposed that geopolitical conflict had ended forever.” That thinking prompted Francis Fukuyama to write The End of History and the Last Man. What these globalists failed to understand was the nature of man and nations – that men seek power and power corrupts. While Western governments reduced defense spending over the past thirty-five years, China and Russia have grown stronger, absolutely and relatively. That naivete should have ended on 9/11 when 19 Islamic terrorists flew two planes into the World Trade Center, one into the Pentagon, and a fourth into a field in Pennsylvania, killing 2,976. 

 

But it did not. The lessons of World War I and World War II – the Armistice that ceased hostilities during the First World and the unconditional surrender of Germany and Japan that ended the Second World War – seem lost on much of Western leadership. Armistices and ceasefires do not work against those intent on global domination, as we saw in the two decades following the first World War, with the rise of Mussolini and Hitler. On the other hand, the unconditional surrender of Germany and Japan in 1945 allowed for the re-building of those defeated countries via the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan. By 1960, a mere fifteen years after surrender, West Germany and Japan, respectively, were their region’s largest economies.

 

One does not have to be a fan of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to appreciate what the abandonment of Israel by so many in the West means. Unlike its neighbors, Israel is a democracy. Its leadership changes according to popular elections. Since its founding in 1948, fourteen individuals have served as Prime Minister (the same as the number of U.S. Presidents who served during that same time). As well, Israel is more inclusive than its neighbors. About 20% of Israel’s population is Arab, while ten of the 120-person Knesset are Arab. Can one say the same about Qatar, Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, or Saudi Arabia?

 

Hamas, which has with the blessing of the Palestinian Authority governed Gaza since Israel withdrew in 2005, is intent on eliminating Israel. As Fred Fleitz, vice chair of the America First Policy Institute in the Center for American Security, wrote on americangreatness.com last Friday: “...the Palestinian leadership rejected statehood offers in 1947, 2000, 2008, and 2009.” Their goal is the eradication of Israel, and the establishment of a Palestinian state, “from the river (Jordan) to the sea (Mediterranean).”

 

Yet, the truth is that the Palestinian people will only survive and thrive if the terrorists who now lead them, in Gaza and the West bank, are eliminated. In a victory for Hamas and other terrorist organizations, twenty-three European states will have recognized Palestine as a state (a concept, not a physical place) by the end of September. That marks a defeat for Israel and, importantly, a defeat for the Palestinian people. For the West, it marks a big step in the wrong direction –  another rung down the ladder that leads up to liberalism.

"Are We What We Read?"

Neatniks will look at the photo of our library here at Essex Meadows and despair. But I find comfort amid the books, photos and pictures – as familiar to me as a pair of old shoes.

 

Sydney M. Williams

 

More Essays from Essex

“Are We What We Read?”

September 20, 2025

 

“We are what we read – and the power of books to transform the minds and

personalities of their readers can give cause for anxiety as well as for celebration.”

                                                                                                                Prof. Richard Kieckhefer (1946-)

                                                                                                                Northwestern University

                                                                                                                Introduction – Forbidden Rites, 1997

 

We have oft heard the expression that we are what we read. But are we? That I enjoy books is no secret to my family or friends. At our home in Old Lyme we had a library of 5,000 volumes. Even in our apartment at Essex Meadows, some 700-plus books keep me company, on shelves, furniture and the floor.

 

In the March 16-18, 1709 issue of The Tatler, a British literary journal founded that year, Joseph Addison wrote: “Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.” I hope he is right, as fear of dementia haunts many my age. In Between the Acts, her last novel, Virginia Woolf wrote: “Books are the mirrors of the soul.” If she is right, we must be cautious in our speech, and I must be careful in what I write.

 

However, reading may have limits. Albert Einstein – no slouch when it comes to brain power – is alleged to have said or written: “Reading after a certain age diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking.” As Einstein had a first class mind, we cannot dismiss his words as balderdash when we browse our local bookstore.

 

For the past twenty-five years I have kept a record of what I have read. The total comes to 849 books, with approximately two-thirds being fiction and one-third non-fiction. While that may seem a lot, keep in mind that according to a Google Search there are thirty-nine million books in the Library of Congress. With the choices we have, we should be selective in choosing what to read. 

 

While many of my men friends prefer non-fiction, I have always felt that good fiction is better at expressing eternal truths. Gerard Baker, in a recent issue of The Wall Street Journal, wrote “The good novel exploits the virtue of storytelling to capture a truth.” While he was writing specifically of Tom Wolfe’s The Bonfire of the Vanities and Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited, I could add Henry James’ The Portrait of a Lady and Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, both of which I have read this year. It is from great writers of fiction that we amass an understanding of myriad character traits: honesty, bravery, loyalty, empathy, patience and integrity, but also jealousy, pride, prejudice, arrogance, laziness and deceit.  Perceptive novelists write of immutable values and add perspective to historical events and people. They help us better understand the people and world around us.

 

So, are we what we read? Certainly, we are formed by what we read, but we are also molded by people around us, our families, friends, those we interact with, by travel, and by jobs and experiences. However and in my opinion(and in contradiction to Einstein), reading and re-reading, done for pleasure and/or instruction, can be creative. We come to understand the vanity of Lear, appreciate village life in Middlemarch, and sympathize with the social aspirations of Mrs. Bennet in Pride and Prejudice.

 

Worry not about the question and worry not about what you read. Just continue to read.

"The Lesson of Charlie Kirk"

 This has been put together quickly, so I am sure there are errors and omissions. Nevertheless, this is my say.  In certain respects, I feel an interloper in that I did not know much about Charlie Kirk before his assassination. But he was obviously an extraordinary young man. He has been compared to a youthful William Buckley, but Buckley had the advantage of wealth, a prestigious family and a Yale education. Kirk, without those advantages, reached out to young people, to high school and college students, to get them to think about politics and their beliefs. Like Buckley, he eschewed violence. And he was enormously successful in what he did. And he died far too early, a young husband and father, at age 31. 

 

Sydney M. Williams

 

Thought of the Day

“The Lesson of Charlie Kirk”

September 13, 2025

 

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible

will make violent revolution inevitable.”

                                                                                                                President John F. Kennedy

                                                                                                                Alliance for Progress

                                                                                                                March 13, 1962

 

Until his assassination last Wednesday, I never knew much about Charlie Kirk. But from what I have read, I believe his life and message provided a roadmap for a better Country. He loved to debate ideas and was a passionate believer in free speech. Sadly, he was killed exercising that freedom. 

 

Most everyone agrees that our Country has become divided, that extremism, on both the left and the right, has voided those things most of us have in common – a belief in a nation of infinite possibilities, a belief in the wisdom of our founders and the Constitution they bequeathed us, a Judeo-Christian heritage and its traditions, our history, and an appreciation for the benefits the Enlightenment brought to a darkened world. 

 

Self-righteousness of the Left and Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) have, in my opinion, brought great harm: Political correctness, despite its claim for doing good, censors speech, and inhibits freedom of thought and expression by denigrating and denying opposing opinions. Some words may offend sensitive feelings, but they do not beget violence. Identity politics has divided us by race, religion, and gender. The long-standing motto of the United States, E pluribus unum, seems no longer to apply.

 

How to subdue the flames of partisanship that consume us? Charlie Kirk believed the way forward was through debate, not lectures and certainly not violence. On college campuses, he invited those who differed to express their opinions, to debate him. It was, he believed, a better substitute than anger and violence. Ironically, it was during such a forum he was shot and killed.

 

How do we dampen those flames. The most expedient way to address the intolerance that permeates our politics would be for political leaders to act like responsible adults – to stop vilifying their opponents, and then temperately and respectfully debate the issues, as Kimberley Strassel advised in Friday’s Wall Street Journal. It would be helpful, but probably even less likely than politicians assuming a measure of maturity, if the media, rather than sanctimoniously blaring opinions, focused on news. I don’t know about you, but I have pretty much stopped watching cable and network news.

 

In my opinion, the best long-term answer to the political division and hatred that runs amok and mars our politics is to focus on education. Besides all the critical STEM programs, children, from an early age, should be taught to read history – to know our history but also that of other countries, especially that of Rome and Greece, the world’s first attempts at democracy. For perspective, they should read classical fiction, to imbibe the works of Shakespeare, Milton, Austen, the Brontës, and others who have influenced generations of teachers, philosophers and politicians. They should be taught the history of wars, for sometimes wars must be fought – why they began, how they were conducted and how concluded. They should process all they have learned so that they can form and articulate independently-arrived opinions – with the understanding that a democracy can only function when a citizenry is informed.

 

Sadly, that is not happening. The nation’s report card, the latest National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), yielded the worst fourth grade reading outcomes in twenty years, with 40% of students scoring below basic proficiency. For eighth graders, reading scores hit an historic low, with a third of the students performing below basic proficiency. In the meantime, chronic absenteeism was up, as were grade inflation and misbehavior. Teachers, administrators and their unions should be held accountable.

 

In high schools and colleges, students should be taught the rudiments of debate, and he encouraged them to debate issues respectfully and intelligently. When I was on a high school debate team, we were assigned topics and then told as to whether we would be arguing the affirmative or the negative. And we had to be able to debate both sides. Teachers and professors should leave their opinions in the cloak room, unless they are welcoming disagreement and debate. As Charlie Kirk would say, teachers should then ask: show me why I am wrong?

 

It is that which is the lesson of Charlie Kirk. Be passionate in your beliefs but don’t let passion morph into hatred and violence. Befriend those with whom you disagree. Be willing to listen to what they have to say and be comfortable debating your differences. I hope we never reach a point where we act like sheep, where we all accept, without debate, which policies are best. Neither the Right nor the Left has an exclusive on the correct way forward. But together, in discussion and debate, we should find the route most compatible to most people. Remember our motto; it still fits: Out of many, one.