Five Open Questions

I have long been a supporter of Israel.  See here, here, and here.  There are others.  I continue to believe that Israel has the right to exist and the right to defend itself as any other nation.  But today I have some questions that I can no longer ignore.

1.  Who killed JFK?

2.  Who killed Charlie Kirk?

3.  What happened on 9/11?

4.  What happened to the USS Liberty in 1967?

5.  Why were Israeli Defense Forces pulled off the border with Gaza on 7 October 2023 in the exact area where Hamas attacked?

Kennedy was assassinated 63 years ago this November.  Why not release all of the files?  I do not know the answer to that question.  But surely one possible answer is that doing this would cause harm to Israel.  Yes of course, even today.  No matter what you think of this theory, I think we can all agree that Kennedy was not killed with Arlen Specter's magic bullet.  If Israel was not involved, release the files and let us see what happened.  I am talking to you Donald Trump.

And do we really believe that Charlie Kirk was assassinated by a 22-year-old, trans-furry goofball, with an old hunting rifle that would have taken Kirk's head off?

Engineers say the World Trade Center buildings should not have fallen on 9/11.  Certainly not Tower Seven.  Are they lying or is the government lying?

The USS Liberty, a gray naval vessel flying the American flag was mistaken for an Egyptian warship?  By Israel?  Really?

The point of this post is not to probe each of the above questions.  There's more than enough of that on the internet and I invite you to do your own research.

No, the point is:  The US government is lying about the first four of these questions.  Not sure why, but it is clear they are lying.  What would cause them to do so?  At some point the cumulative dubiousness of these open questions becomes unavoidable.  And they all seem to trace back to Israel.

I include the fifth question because it is so very odd.  So odd that it stinks.  Could the Israeli government have known about the impending attack, and therefore chose to let it happen?  And why would they do that?  Is everything that happened in the subsequent months and years the answer to that question?  Could the Israeli government be that evil?

Should we not now reconsider the first four questions based on our consideration of Question Five?

It is interesting to note that the US response, in the immediate aftermath of all of these incidents, was to act in a way that benefited Israel.  So allow me to just ask the obvious question bluntly:

Could it be that the Israeli government engineered all of these incidents in order to engender support from the American government and the American public?  Or to influence US policy in the Middle East?

I know, I know, such a question is antisemitic.  But like the term racist, the term antisemitic has been abused to the point that it no longer means much.  Criticism of the Israeli government is not antisemitic, any more than criticism of the government of Congo is racist.  Or criticism of the government of France is anti-Gallic.

The point of calling people antisemitic is not to call out genuine bigotry.  Rather it is to stop inconvenient questions.

Call me whatever you like.  But answer my damn questions.

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The Cartesian Crisis in Gaza

Is this physician telling the truth?

What is going on in Gaza?  How do we know?  For many months, I viewed this question as, well, you can accept reporting from Israel or you can accept reporting from Hamas.  Take your pick.

I can tell you, I will never accept anything coming out of Hamas.  Anyone who uses civilians as human shields is not honorable and not credible.  But after Trump's appalling behavior since his second election, and after Thomas Massie's failed  re-election, I have to question everything coming out of Israel as well.  And while I am generally supportive of the war against Iran, it seems completely obvious to me that Benjamin Netanyahu is also not credible.  And that he has some kind hold over Donald Trump.  That also seems obvious.

We can speculate:  It seems that Netanyahu wants to milk his hold over Trump for all it is worth, while he has the opportunity.  Maybe he views this as now, while he has Trump in his pocket, or never.  I have no idea what is really going on, but it is strange that the American president seems to be acting on behalf of another nation.  While we may not know exactly what is going on, we can see the results.  And we can know the tree by its fruit.

For many years, I have given Israel the benefit of the doubt.  But I am just not sure this can continue.  I am no longer convinced that they are deserving of our trust.  On the other hand, the people who are convinced that there is a genocide happening in Gaza mostly seem to accept Hamas reporting, either directly or indirectly.

Anyway, this physician, Nick Maynard, does seem credible to me.  Is he linked to Hamas, or Islam, or some Arab money, etc.?  Maybe he holds some Arab-funded chair at Oxford?  I do not know.  He just seems believable.  That alone does not make him honest, but judge his reporting for yourself.

I have been fooled before.  Of course; we all have.  And Gaza offers the most recent, and perhaps best, example of the Cartesian Crisis.

Broadly speaking, today we are witnessing the complete absence of honest journalism.

So in 2026, how can we know what is true?
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Two Trump Supporters Grow Cold

When Trump lost the Carlson brothers, he lost the Right

Watch the whole thing, but the last twenty minutes are truly revealing.

Open questions:  Before his assassination, was Trump about to lose Charlie Kirk's support as well?  Why is the FBI only pretending to investigate Kirk's death?  Who wrote the now famous Tyler Robinson text messages?  Why all the subterfuge surrounding the Kirk assassination?  And most importantly, why does Trump allow Benjamin Netanyahu such latitude to prosecute the Iran war as he sees fit, even though Israel is clearly the very junior partner in this endeavor?

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Epistemic Humility on Display

Goliath expanded

It was Bret Weinstein, during the Covid response episode, who first introduced me to the contemporary metaphorical concept of Goliath.  It may be a metaphor, but it represents something real.  This is clearly true even if we cannot identify exactly what that something is.  Matthew 7:16 taught us to know a tree by its fruit.  Using this lesson, we may not know exactly what Goliath represents, but we can know its purpose by what it does.  The purpose of any system is what it does.  And today, I think we can broaden Matthew:  By its fruit, we know it exists.

There is much in this two part conversation that I disagree with; there is much more that I do agree with.  Plus, I also share many of Weinstein and Carlson's open questions.  In any case, if you want to be smarter about what is going on in the world today, have a listen.




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Principles of Zionism

Why support Israel

I am not Jewish and have no desire to become Jewish.

I am not Christian nor Muslim, Hindu, or Buddhist.

I am not an adherent of any of the numerous religions scattered about the world.

I do believe that almost all people practice some religion formally or informally, or at least adhere to religious principles to varying degrees.  Religion seems to be a human imperative across cultures.

This includes almost all people who are self-declared atheists.  They may not believe in a supreme deity or deities, but most of them absolutely practice other forms of religion, and follow the doctrines and dogma of those religions.

I am a skeptic of all forms of religious faith, including these atheistic religious ideologies.

I first clarify the religious question because my support for Israel is not based on any religious beliefs.

So with that, I am a committed Zionist.

I believe that the Jewish people have a right to live in the area we today call Israel and I believe that these people have a right to a state of their own.  Why?

I believe that it is a benefit for all of humanity that this state exists.

And further, I believe that Christians of any stripe should be supportive of the idea that their sacred places are administered by the Jewish state of Israel, rather than any conceivable alternative.  If nothing else, the state of Israel insures freedom of movement into and out of the birthplace of Christendom.

I believe that Israel has a right to defend itself as any other state.

I believe that if a state, any state, is attacked by combatants out of uniform, using innocents as shields, and taking civilian hostages, women and children, then that state will, out of necessity, have to use unconventional tactics to counter-attack.

If collateral damage is high, the culpability for this lies exclusively with the attacking combatants and their cowardly form of warfare.

If one blames the state that is so attacked then one fails to offer that state the same sovereignty, respect, and agency that one would offer any other state.

If you single out the so attacked state as unable to respond to such an attack, you can only have personal animus towards the people of that state.

For what other reason would you wish to limit their available responses?

Israel really has only two possible responses:  Conduct the counter-attack as they have or surrender.

If your family and friends and neighbors were so attacked, would you surrender?  What if you knew beyond doubt that if you surrender, there would be more attacks?

There is a name for this double standard:

Antisemitism.

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The Pretty Face of Anti-Semitism Today

On Candace Owens and Contemporary Anti-Semitism

I am not sure what happened to Candace.  But since October 7th, she has been slowly losing her mind.  She likes to talk about her Christianity.  But for the life of me, I do not understand how you can be a true Christian and not fully support Israel.  What does she think will happen to Israel, and yes, to the holy land it occupies, without Christian support?  She's smart; she knows.  Watching her today, and I do, is like watching Howard Beale.

First, why watch Candace Owens at all?  To my knowledge, she is the only person on the planet investigating Kamala Harris' background.  That is, Kamala's family history and genealogy.  Owens' contention is that while the Harris family comes from Jamaica, there is not one drop of African blood in her.  So why the pretense?  Why does Kamala Harris sell herself as the first African American vice president?  Going so far as to insert fake black ancestors into her family tree.  Since she is clearly a person of color, why is this necessary?  What is she hiding?  Owens suggests that instead of being African American, Harris comes from a family of high-caste Indian slave traders.

Yeah, one might want to hide that.

Now, as for Owens (and many others) holding Israel responsible for the deaths of innocent, non-combatants in Gaza:  Given the cowardly manner that Hamas and Hezbollah engage in fighting, using women, children, hospitals, schools, mosques, etc. as shields, of course you will see a high rate of collateral death.  But if you then turn around and hold Israel responsible for that death, as Owens does, there can only be one reason for your logic.  You are a raging anti-semite.

To argue that Israel can simply stop the war is to allow an untold number of combatants, proven killers, to live to kill Israelis another day.  And not just Israelis, but additional Palestinian women and children.  I mean does anyone really believe that the combatants will change their tactics, put on uniforms, and fight honorably?  Everyone who argues this position certainly knows the future result.  They just don't care.  What they want is for the Israelis to simply not fight back.  Or if possible, to be prevented from fighting back.  No, Palestinian fighters need to be exterminated like the burrowing cockroaches they are.

Finally, the argument that Israel is simply creating the next generation of young Palestinians who will hate them all the more.  Well it is those same innocent non-combatants who teach their children to hate Jews.  These people are manufacturing the gleeful killers that we saw on October 7th.  And it should be added, they elected Hamas and then helped them hide the Israeli hostages.  They may be innocent of murder, but that does not make them innocent.

You cannot and should not kill innocents.  Short of stopping the war, Israel does everything it can to limit the deaths of non-combatants.  But long term, they will have to find a way to contain the hate.  If for no other reason, so that Candace Owens can safely pilgrimage to her own Christian holy land.

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Three Questions

Three questions we should all ask ourselves about Israel

Questions for Muslims

Collective Punishment?  What about Collective Beliefs?

When it comes to Gaza and the Palestinians, there's a lot of talk about the evils of collective punishment.  And maybe that is correct.  Israel and the IDF are certainly trying to avoid it.  But I think it's long past time to have a serious discussion about what Palestinians and Muslims collectively believe.

Let's start with some questions:

What percentage of Palestinians support Hamas?

What percentage believe that Israel should not exist?

What percentage believe that homosexuals should be killed?

What percentage believe that apostates should be killed?

What percentage believe all Jews should be killed? 

Here's a few more to ask them:  What should be done with a woman who commits adultery?  What should happen to a woman who is raped?  What should be done with a Palestinian daughter who wants to marry a Jewish man?

How much moral ambiguity do these questions allow?

And then, just for fun, ask these same questions in other Muslim countries.  Start with sunni Saudi Arabia and shia Iran.  Even with their supposedly vast theological divide, you'll get a lot of agreement on these questions.  You know, questions that matter today.

I would love to add that we should ask these same questions to Muslims residing in the West.  But I don't think you could get honest answers.  Muslims behave so much better when they are less than five percent of a society than when they are, say, twenty percent.  Although we have learned that if they cover their faces and go protest in the street with their coreligionists, they're more likely to tell you the truth.

Here's another question to ask Muslims:  What should happen to the infidels?  And especially as the percentage of Muslims in a society rises?  You know, all those people who do not see, in fact refuse to see, that a murderous, pedophile, rapist, polygamist, warlord was the perfect man for all time.  Can these non-believers breathe the same rarified air as Muslims?  Here again, not when Muslims are a well-behaved five percent of a population, but when they are approaching twenty percent, or more.  What then Muhammad?

In fact, why is it that the only peaceful Muslim societies have either less than five percent or more than ninety-five percent Muslims?  And between these extremes, we find bloody conflicts and generational wars of attrition.

Should we not look to history for the answer to these questions?  Sweden, are you not interested in these questions?  Maybe the Humanitarian Superpower should consider all of these questions before it becomes another Bosnia.  Of course, the bombings have already started.

And while we are looking to history, here are some additional questions.  Whether you believe in the divinity of Jesus, or not, he was a Jew living where?  In fact, how many Jews were then living in the area we call Israel today?  And finally, how many Muslims?  I ask these questions not for myself, because I do not think they are terribly important, but rather for Muslims and their decolonization allies.

Now, just for fun, let's answer these last few.  Jesus was a Jew living in what we today call Israel.  How many Jews lived there at the time?  ALL of them.  Yes, at the time, every Jew in the world lived there.  And how many Muslims?  Exactly zero.  Let that sink in.

To be fair:  Were there also pre-Islamic Arabs?  Undoubtedly.  Nomadic, tribal, and warring to be sure.  But the religious injunction to hate and murder Jews came only with the birth of Muhammad and his creation of the Islamic faith – 600 years later.  Six hundred years.

I remember when the particularly nasty Helen Thomas said that Jews are occupiers, and that they should go home...to Poland and Germany.  So many Muslims and decolonization types think this way.  At the time, I remember thinking, why does no one ask her Where the Jews came from?  That is, Where were they before they fled to Poland, and why did they flee?

No, the question of Who was there first? does not help the Muslim argument.  And while I don't find the question very important or relevant today, I am not the one asking it.  If Muslims and decolonizers want to argue We were here first, I think they have a historical problem.

The Nakba of 1948 followed the Nakba of 570 with the birth of the murderous maniac Muhammad.  Both continue to this day.

Now, as the argument goes, one is ancient history and the other is within living memory, and therefore, somehow actionable.  Whatever that might entail and however bloody that might need be.

But in the 1,400 years since Muhammad’s reign of terror, Islam has conquered its way from the Atlantic coast of north Africa to Indonesia just off the Pacific.  That's from the Atlantic to the Pacific, the long way.  Now it’s working its way north and south over this same multi-continental span.  We cannot and will not dismiss over a millennia of Muslim aggression and conquest because it had a minor setback in 1948.  So yes, we can carve out a little space for a Jewish homeland, and yes, we can defend it.

But in fact, they only ask the question as an excuse – A justification to eliminate the state of Israel and to murder Jews.  That's it.  Helen Thomas knew this.  Palestinians know this.  Iran knows this.  Muslims know this.

The decolonization types don't know anything other than the doctrine of virtue signaling.  They only know that they are on the side of the oppressed.  More accurately, they are on the side of those they have been told are oppressed.  As if Muslims do not have fifty-seven nations of their own...including the richest nations in the history of the planet.  And as if the Jews are not the most oppressed people in the history of the world...with one tiny little sliver of an enclave, about the size of New Jersey.  You raging ignorant lunatics.

So our Muslim Question is:  What should we make of all this and what should we do about it?  At a minimum I think all of us who believe in western civilization need to understand who we are dealing with and what they believe.  Until then, we will never be able to address the civilizational problem before us.

And for those of you in the West who do not believe in western civilization, well I have never seen one of you, of any background, who did not reap the benefits it offers.  Not one.

One final question for Muslims:  What do you think should happen to someone who asks these questions and shares this opinion?  Try to be honest.  Let everyone see who you are.

But show us your hands.

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Articulated Rage

Douglas Murray has long been one of my favorite commentators.  He has always been a rather levelheaded conservative.  But in this new video one senses an undercurrent of rage.  Which I completely share.

But I do not share his confidence that the people of Britain will stand up to the intolerance in their mist.  Or that the people in the United States will.  It is nice to think so.  But to believe that this will happen, in either of these countries, one has to believe that we have, still, a moral and principled public.  I no longer believe this is true.

Near the end, Murray says:  It is not Jews who should be fearful in the UK, it is the people who would make Jews fearful.  Dear reader, just ask yourself, is this true?  Or just wishful thinking?  Righteously enraged wishful thinking, sure.  But wishful thinking nonetheless.

And the UK and the US sit at one end of the spectrum.  Ask yourself also, what are the French going to do?  That is, their entirely useless government or their public which can be summed up as one big Gallic shrug?  And Germany, Belgium, Sweden?  The idea that these nations will do anything, at either the government or public level, is absurd.  These nations have not had anything resembling a moral, principled public in well over a hundred years.  The idea that they'll develop one to deal with the genocidal manics currently in their mist is ridiculous.

It is interesting to note that there are at least two types of genocidal manics running around the streets of London and New York.  Those we have allowed in through irresponsible (and anti-western) government policy.  And those we have created ourselves with an incompetent education system, capped with a college indoctrination program.  Our very own homegrown Hitler Youth.  If you listen to these sociopaths, they share all the self-righteous zeal of their progenitors.  All that's left is for them to re-enact their destiny.  And they will.

And if there was any doubt that the woke fanatics were transforming into our Hitler Youth...I think their performance since Saturday, October 7th finally puts that question to bed.

Oh sure, eventually, the Muslims will kill them.  I mean good Muslims can only suffer Queers for Palestine for so long.  Not to mention, the trans activists, other alphabet people, atheistic types, and those on the intersectional hierarchical spectrum.  But for now, can you just imagine the surprised glee of the Islamists?  For the unexpected help.  These useful idiots offer invaluable service, and faux intellectual cover, for the immediate program:  Killing the Jews.

Now, as a First Amendment absolutist, should these idiots, of both varieties, be allowed to spew their venom?  Absolutely, er...well maybe.  We need to clearly understand that they are calling for a second Holocaust.  Certainly the Islamists mean it.  Our Hitler Youth are too stupid to mean anything they say.  They should be held accountable nonetheless.

Let's come back to accountability.  Here, let's stop and ask:  Should incitement to Holocaust be allowed under our current conception of free speech?  And no matter where you come down on this question, it is a question worth asking.  As Bruce Bawer famously pointed out years ago now, tolerance of intolerance is not tolerance at all; it is suicide.  So how much tolerance are we going to allow before we say enough?  Personally I am not feeling very tolerant of this river to the sea crowd that we are currently witnessing globally.  Again, this is not some innocent slogan; they mean it.

And although they could not find the Jordan River on a map, our Hitler Youth are clear accessories.  Accessories to Holocaust.  Their parents must be so proud.

Back to accountability:  Who is going to hold them accountable?  Joe Biden?  His string-puller, Barack Obama?  New York governor Kathy Hochul?  Or New York City mayor, Eric Adams?  How about British prime minister, Rishi Sunak?  Or my personal favorite, London mayor, Sadiq Khan?  So that leaves our amoral and unprincipled public.  A public which tolerates immigrant rape gangs in the UK and castrating children in the US?  A public completely bullied, and frankly cowed, by nonsensical woke fanatics?  You know, the very same Hitler Youth.  That public?

Public support for our Hitler Youth is the problem.  But, but, we read, most people do not support the woke agenda.  Even those on the left do not support the woke fringe, we're told.  And sure, if asked, they may not agree with castrating children, immigrant rape gangs, vandalizing artwork, cancel culture, censorship, pronoun insanity, DEI nonsense, academic intolerance, open borders, and most importantly, the Oppressor/Oppressed narrative.  But they nonetheless vote for people who will not stop it.  Time and time again.

I have made this point many times before:  At least half the public either believe in the woke cause, fully support the cause, or tacitly support the cause.  And it is actually much more than half of the public because so many of these supporters do not vote or cannot vote.  But it is the tacit supporters who are the most pernicious.  If you are a moderately left-of-center voter, who excitedly voted for Barack Obama (twice), and then unexcitedly voted for Joe Biden, who goes on to support gender-affirming care for minors and all the rest of the woke agenda, well moderate though you may be, you are the problem.  Stop and read this paragraph again if you must.  You are the problem.

And if you are a left-voting Jewish American, who now finds the Biden administration rather weak on anti-semitism, you are also the problem.

These voters are the public.  The point is, it is the public that is the problem.  They will not save us.

So no, there will be no consequences whatsoever.  Much as I value and appreciate Douglas Murray, he's just understandably and wistfully wrong about this.  The moral and principled public on which he relies, well they no longer exist.  And without it, we will see our societies fall first into anarchy and then later into authoritarianism.

We have the unique distinction of witnessing the death of the West.  I did not think it would come in my lifetime.  Yet here we are.

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Fauda on Netflix

If you have not seen the Israeli series Fauda, on Netflix, you are missing some of the best television of the last few years.  It is mesmerizing and difficult to watch at the same time.
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