The new numbers prove that Israel is succeeding in protecting women and children in Gaza. The post Hamas’ own death statistics damn its anti-Israel rhetoric appeared first on World Israel News.

The new numbers prove that Israel is succeeding in protecting women and children in Gaza. The post Hamas’ own death statistics damn its anti-Israel rhetoric appeared first on World Israel News.

Around 90,000 protesters flooded Sydney’s Harbour Bridge in a massive anti-Israel rally, drawing sharp condemnation for glorifying Iran’s Ayatollah, ignoring Hamas’ hostages, and aligning radical leftists with Islamist extremists. The post WATCH: ‘Hang your head in shame,’ Sky News host tells Hamas supporters in Sydney appeared first on World Israel News.

Around 90,000 protesters flooded Sydney’s Harbour Bridge in a massive anti-Israel rally, drawing sharp condemnation for glorifying Iran’s Ayatollah, ignoring Hamas’ hostages, and aligning radical leftists with Islamist extremists. The post WATCH: ‘Hang your head in shame,’ Sky News host tells Hamas supporters in Sydney appeared first on World Israel News.

The Left believes that every non-Western nation, no matter how ruthless, genocidal or evil, has the right to exist, and that no Western nation, no matter how liberal, has that same right. The post Getting MAGA to go left on Israel appeared first on World Israel News.

The Left believes that every non-Western nation, no matter how ruthless, genocidal or evil, has the right to exist, and that no Western nation, no matter how liberal, has that same right. The post Getting MAGA to go left on Israel appeared first on World Israel News.

The plan is part of a broader humanitarian effort and will be formally announced in the coming weeks. The post UK plans to provide medical treatment for children in Gaza appeared first on World Israel News.

The plan is part of a broader humanitarian effort and will be formally announced in the coming weeks. The post UK plans to provide medical treatment for children in Gaza appeared first on World Israel News.

For the first time, Israeli soldiers were detained and questioned in Europe over alleged war crimes in Gaza. After nearly ten months of tracking Israeli soldiers abroad, the Hind Rajab Foundation and the Global Legal Action Network (GLAN) have scored a symbolic breakthrough: the arrest and interrogation of two Israeli soldiers in Belgium on war

During a Tisha B’Av visit with a congressional delegation, Speaker Mike Johnson prayed at the Western Wall, calling for a lasting alliance and strong U.S.-Israel ties. The post WATCH: Speaker Mike Johnson visits the Western Wall appeared first on World Israel News.

During a Tisha B’Av visit with a congressional delegation, Speaker Mike Johnson prayed at the Western Wall, calling for a lasting alliance and strong U.S.-Israel ties. The post WATCH: Speaker Mike Johnson visits the Western Wall appeared first on World Israel News.

He was injured in a January 2024 explosion in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, where six soldiers were killed. The post Injured ‘Fauda’ star to anti-war artists: ‘Try fighting one day in Gaza’ appeared first on World Israel News.

He was injured in a January 2024 explosion in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, where six soldiers were killed. The post Injured ‘Fauda’ star to anti-war artists: ‘Try fighting one day in Gaza’ appeared first on World Israel News.

… The post Somaliland’s Critical Minerals Offer to the US Might Move the Needle in Favor of Recognition appeared first on Global Research.

… The post The Right How, Cow, Plants, and Biology Heal the Land appeared first on Global Research.

… The post National Guard Ordered to Do ICE Paperwork at Immigration Facilities in 20 States appeared first on Global Research.

The marchers charged Israel with starving Gazans and committing genocide, and demanded an immediate cease-fire. The post Sa’ar, Jewish groups, slam massive anti-Israel protests in Australia appeared first on World Israel News.

The marchers charged Israel with starving Gazans and committing genocide, and demanded an immediate cease-fire. The post Sa’ar, Jewish groups, slam massive anti-Israel protests in Australia appeared first on World Israel News.

The UK government’s failed rematching scheme shows ministers fundamentally misunderstand the reality of care work

In two months of operations, the 179th Brigade wiped out hundreds of terror sites in southern Gaza, destroyed a 300-meter tunnel, and seized rockets, weapons, and sniper posts used against Israeli forces. The post WATCH: IDF destroys hundreds of rigged buildings in southern Gaza appeared first on World Israel News.

In two months of operations, the 179th Brigade wiped out hundreds of terror sites in southern Gaza, destroyed a 300-meter tunnel, and seized rockets, weapons, and sniper posts used against Israeli forces. The post WATCH: IDF destroys hundreds of rigged buildings in southern Gaza appeared first on World Israel News.

… The post Reclaiming Human Rights: Challenging Colonial and Feudal Foundations in the Philippines appeared first on Global Research.

Violence in Sweida erupted on July 13 between tribal fighters and Druze factions. The post Armed groups attack security force personnel in Syria’s Sweida, killing one, state TV reports appeared first on World Israel News.

Violence in Sweida erupted on July 13 between tribal fighters and Druze factions. The post Armed groups attack security force personnel in Syria’s Sweida, killing one, state TV reports appeared first on World Israel News.

Three variants of Muhammad appeared in the top 100, with Mohammed ranking 21st (1,760 babies) and Mohammad placing 53rd (986 babies). The post ‘Yahya’ surges to top 100 UK baby names post-October 7 appeared first on World Israel News.

Three variants of Muhammad appeared in the top 100, with Mohammed ranking 21st (1,760 babies) and Mohammad placing 53rd (986 babies). The post ‘Yahya’ surges to top 100 UK baby names post-October 7 appeared first on World Israel News.

Thousands of Jews visited the Temple Mount over the fast of Tisha B’Av, including Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, to pray, prostrate, and sing to Hashem—hoping for redemption and the rebuilding of Jerusalem to draw closer. The post WATCH: Dozens of Israelis bow in prayer and song on the Temple Mount appeared first on World Israel News.

Thousands of Jews visited the Temple Mount over the fast of Tisha B’Av, including Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, to pray, prostrate, and sing to Hashem—hoping for redemption and the rebuilding of Jerusalem to draw closer. The post WATCH: Dozens of Israelis bow in prayer and song on the Temple Mount appeared first on World Israel News.

… The post 47 Pesticides Found in U.S. Homes, Water, and People — As Congress Moves to Shield Manufacturers appeared first on Global Research.

Earlier on Sunday, the Defense Ministry’s COGAT unit announced that more than 23,000 tons of aid had entered the enclave over the past week. The post Israel ups delivery of aid to Gaza amid Hamas war appeared first on World Israel News.

Earlier on Sunday, the Defense Ministry’s COGAT unit announced that more than 23,000 tons of aid had entered the enclave over the past week. The post Israel ups delivery of aid to Gaza amid Hamas war appeared first on World Israel News.

'I think his policies are hurtful. I think they’re not fully flushed out, and they don’t understand the ramification. But I’m not saying that I dislike a person,' said Adams. The post Adams lauds Mamdani, says he’s probably only US mayor to visit ‘Palestine’ appeared first on World Israel News.

'I think his policies are hurtful. I think they’re not fully flushed out, and they don’t understand the ramification. But I’m not saying that I dislike a person,' said Adams. The post Adams lauds Mamdani, says he’s probably only US mayor to visit ‘Palestine’ appeared first on World Israel News.

NYPD arrested two protesters for trespassing and disorderly conduct, while MTA officers detained two more, though their charges remain unclear. The post WATCH: Anti-Israel mob storms NYC Grand Central terminal appeared first on World Israel News.

NYPD arrested two protesters for trespassing and disorderly conduct, while MTA officers detained two more, though their charges remain unclear. The post WATCH: Anti-Israel mob storms NYC Grand Central terminal appeared first on World Israel News.

President Trump urges more aid for Gaza civilians, saying that Israel is responsible for 'getting them fed.' The post Trump: Gaza war isn’t a genocide, but ‘people need to be fed’ appeared first on World Israel News.

President Trump urges more aid for Gaza civilians, saying that Israel is responsible for 'getting them fed.' The post Trump: Gaza war isn’t a genocide, but ‘people need to be fed’ appeared first on World Israel News.

A tragic event occurred on Display Street last night, resulting in seven people, including a child of four years, sustaining injuries. The incident transpired around 8 p.m. during a house party when two individuals allegedly arrived and initiated gunfire. Among the injured was a young child who, fortunately, did not sustain life-threatening injuries. Four other victims were also hurt, with their current health status not immediately known. However, officials have confirmed that they are in ... Read more

Netanyahu is reportedly ordering the IDF to expand operations in Gaza, aiming to finally defeat Hamas and force the terror group to release the remaining hostages. The post Netanyahu pushing to free hostages via ‘total defeat’ of Hamas appeared first on World Israel News.

Netanyahu is reportedly ordering the IDF to expand operations in Gaza, aiming to finally defeat Hamas and force the terror group to release the remaining hostages. The post Netanyahu pushing to free hostages via ‘total defeat’ of Hamas appeared first on World Israel News.

[First published on  August 27, 2023]  Author’s Update The smoking gun: Who Started the War. Was it Russia or US-NATO? The answer comes from the Horse’s Mouth.  NATO STARTED THE WAR IN 2014, following the U.S sponsored 2014 Coup d’Etat … The post The Smoking Gun: Who Started the War? Was It Russia or Was It US-NATO? NATO Confirms That the Ukraine “War Started in 2014” appeared first on Global Research.

Yesterday, I sat down with Dr. John Catanzaro, CEO of Neo7Bioscience and senior author of our new study: “Synthetic mRNA Vaccines and Transcriptomic Dysregulation: Evidence from New-Onset Adverse Events and Cancers Post-Vaccination.” We provide the first transcriptomic… The post The Science Behind mRNA-Induced Genetic Disruption appeared first on Global Research.

In a shocking incident, a 10-year-old boy was left alone at an airport in Spain by his parents who were in a rush to catch their flight. The parents, who have not been identified, reportedly realized they had forgotten to pack the necessary travel documents for their son. Rather than risk missing their flight, they chose to leave their son at the airport terminal, hoping a relative would come to collect him. The incident came ... Read more

A catastrophic event unfolded at an amusement park in Saudi Arabia when a ride known as the 360 Big Pendulum suddenly broke apart, causing dozens of terrified passengers to plummet towards the ground. The incident, which was captured on video, resulted in 23 injuries, four of which were severe. The ride’s spinning wheel, filled with passengers, detached and hurtled towards the ground. The terrifying incident occurred last week at Green Mountain Park in Taif, situated ... Read more

On July 24, Macron confirmed in a letter to Abbas conveyed via France’s Consul General in Jerusalem that recognition of a Palestinian state would follow in September The post Diplomatic Merchandise: Exploiting the Issue of Palestinian Recognition. Dr. Binoy Kampmark appeared first on Global Research.

A 15-year-old boy, accused of murdering his family in their upscale Washington lakeside residence, was allegedly raised in an environment of isolation and extreme survivalist ideology, according to his defense attorney. The boy’s parents, Mark and Sarah Humiston, are said to have subjected their children to years of religious extremism and anti-government sentiments, as per court documents filed recently. The prosecution alleges that the teenager, whose identity remains confidential, fatally shot his parents, two brothers ... Read more

A 20-year-old Brazilian woman tragically lost her life on a bus journey from Foz do Iguaçu to São Paulo on July 29. The cause of death was reported as cardiac arrest, but the circumstances surrounding her demise have raised eyebrows. The woman, whose identity has not been disclosed, was found with 26 iPhones attached to her body, leading authorities to suspect she was involved in smuggling. The woman was traveling alone when she began to ... Read more

Trump is punishing India with 25% tariffs and topping off the icing with additional tariffs for buying oil from Russia. Revealing to China and Brazil that an alliance with America is not the stable course of the future. To quote … The post Trump’s Dystopian Use of Tariffs for Punishment and Blackmail appeared first on Global Research.

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version). To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here. Visit … The post With Its Doomsday Clock at 100 Seconds to Midnight, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Calls for Escalating US Aggression Against Russia appeared first on Global Research.

The United States Congress is debating a 50% cut in economic aid to Colombia for various social programs. This will affect key sectors for Gustavo Petro’s government, but could also be an opportunity for Colombia to diversify its sources of … The post US Threatens Colombia with Aid Cut for Not Aligning with Its Interests appeared first on Global Research.

This month Congress passed the GENIUS Act, an acronym for the “Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins of 2025.” Designed to regulate stablecoins, a category of cryptocurrency designed to maintain a stable value, the Act is highly … The post The GENIUS Act and the National Bank Acts of 1863-64: Taking a Cue from Lincoln. Ellen Brown appeared first on Global Research.

First published on May 16, 2025 President Trump said that “the war in Ukraine is not my problem.” This is true in the sense that the war started in 2014 with the Maidan Square coup led by President Obama’s Administration, … The post The Law of the Fittest. Trump says “The War in Ukraine is not My Problem…”. Manlio Dinucci appeared first on Global Research.

First published on July 12, 2025 This video program focusses on the criminalzation of politics and the demise of the historical structure of elected democratic governments committed to the Welfare State. It also addresses the issue of “World Government” under … The post Video: The Criminalization of Politics. Michel Chossudovsky and Drago Bosnic appeared first on Global Research.

Mount Sinjar rises from the arid plains of northwestern Iraq like a grassy sentinel — ancient, scarred, and unyielding. Today marks eleven years since the Islamic State launched its genocidal assault on the Yazidis in Sinjar. To the Yazidis, the mountain is sacred; they believe Noah’s ark rested here after the biblical flood. Its slopes

This article first published on May 13, 2025v consists in a overview of the semiconductor crisis which commenced in 2020, followed by a review of Taiwan’s powerful semiconductor manufacturing conglomerate (TSMC) which is involved in production in Taiwan, the … The post Video: Donald Trump and the Semiconductor Crisis. “Where are the Microchips?” The Strategic Role of Taiwan’s TSMC appeared first on Global Research.

When on August 6 and 9, 1945 the United States killed 200-300 thousand innocent Japanese civilians with atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, they did so intentionally. It was an act of sinister state terrorism, unprecedented by the nature of the weapons The post 80 Years Ago: The “Satanic Nature” and Criminality of the Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki appeared first on Global Research.

The Swiss Federal Council must declare “Opt-out” – co-determination for parliament and people. The post Covid Plandemic. With the New International Health Regulations (IHR), the WHO Is Interfering with State Sovereignty. The Case of Switzerland appeared first on Global Research.

At the trial of Ghislaine Maxwell in 2021, a woman identified in court records as Jane Doe #3 testified that she’d met the defendant, and Maxwell’s longtime boyfriend Jeffrey Epstein, “in between classes at Interlochen Arts Camp in the early ’90s.” Epstein and Maxwell stopped to talk to her while she was having ice cream

First published on July 6, 2024 We are witnessing accusations of anti-semitism, in colleges and universities, coupled with police intervention, arrests, prison sentences, for all those who act in solidarity with the people of Palestine. But there something very fishy … The post Guess Who Are the Real Protagonists of Anti-Semitism appeared first on Global Research.

Between eight and nine thousand: this is the rough number of people who go to jail in Germany each year for failing to pay a public transportation ticket. Once discovered, passengers are asked to pay a fine, which normally amounts to €60 ($70). Those who can’t pay and see the fines build up face a

[We are reposting this important article by the late Prof. Francis Boyle, first published by GR in 2012.] The human race stands on the verge of nuclear self-extinction as a species, and with it will die most, if not all, … The post The Criminality of Nuclear Deterrence appeared first on Global Research.

First published in April 2024 All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version). To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here… The post The Formation of NATO: World War II did not End, It was Reconfigured, Directed Eastwards. Rick Rozoff appeared first on Global Research.

Priscilla Lopez Vargas and her family are living a nightmare that seems to have no end. The family’s ordeal began when Priscilla’s father, Rodrigo Vargas Guerrera, fell prey to a fraudulent scheme while attempting to lower his mortgage payments. The scam unfolded at a local church where Vargas Guerrera met a man posing as a lawyer who promised to assist with a loan modification. The imposter lawyer persuaded Vargas Guerrera to part with thousands of ... Read more

[We repost this article by Prof. Rodrigue Tremblay in commemoration of the 79th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima  and Nagasaki. First published by GR on August 8, 2010] “We have discovered the most terrible bomb in the history … The post 80 Years Ago: The Moral Legacy of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Prof Rodrigue Tremblay appeared first on Global Research.

The music world mourns the loss of acclaimed country music artist Jeannie Seely, who passed away at 85 due to complications from an intestinal infection. Seely, fondly known as “Miss Country Soul,” was a trailblazer for women in the country music industry, recognized for her distinctive vocal style, nonconformist spirit, and a series of successful hits during the 1960s and 1970s. Seely was born in July 1940, in Titusville, Pennsylvania, where her musician parents nurtured ... Read more

Providing the Peace Movement with the means to confront national governments and question their political legitimacy. Legal procedures against politicians who are “complicit in genocide” under Article III (e) should be contemplated. The post Genocide Convention: Liable of Arrest and Punishment. Heads of State, Heads of Government Supportive of Genocide against the People of Palestine appeared first on Global Research.

A recent graduate of Fordham Law School suffered a cardiac arrest while taking the New York State Bar Examination at Hofstra University’s sports complex in Hempstead, Long Island. Despite the medical emergency, the examination was not immediately halted, causing distress among the other test-takers. The incident occurred just before the lunch break on the second day of the examination. The woman, whose identity has not been disclosed, collapsed from her chair and went into medical ... Read more

A 34-year-old Wisconsin woman, Jamie Anderson, is facing charges of attempted first-degree intentional homicide using a dangerous weapon, following an incident where she allegedly tried to kill her father. The charges also include a domestic abuse assessment, which could potentially influence the severity of her sentence. The incident took place on July 1, at the father’s residence in Stoughton, a small town approximately 20 miles southeast of Madison. According to the Stoughton Police Department, Anderson ... Read more

A 19-year-old Wisconsin resident, Javier Rodriguez, has been sentenced to a decade in prison for a reckless homicide that resulted in the death of a 10-year-old girl. Rodriguez pleaded guilty in June to the second-degree homicide of Isdennyeliz Ortiz, which occurred in 2024. The sentencing took place in Milwaukee County, where the judge also credited Rodriguez for the nearly 14 months he spent in pretrial detention. Following his prison term, Rodriguez will be under supervised ... Read more

Trump raged against India on Wednesday in a series of posts announcing his 25% tariff on its exports on the pretext of its trade barriers and close ties with Russia. He then announced an oil deal with Pakistan and predicted… The post Trump Is Hellbent on Derailing India’s Rise as a Great Power appeared first on Global Research.

Masar Badil, the Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement, does not petition for recognition — it engineers rupture. On March 28, 2025, aligned with International Al-Quds Day, the movement issued a global directive: flood the streets, occupy public squares, and … The post The Masar Badil Movement. “Deliver the Indictment” of Israeli “Democracy.” Rima Najjar appeared first on Global Research.

The Yinon Plan. How it has shaped Middle East Wars for decades in order to give Israel dominance over the Middle East. Penned by Oded Yinon and published in 1982, it was used as the basis for the 2003 invasion … The post “Greater Israel”: The Infamous Oded Yinon Plan Has Shaped Middle East Wars. Netanyahu’s “Clean Break.” Helena Glass appeared first on Global Research.

“Socialism means plenty for all. We do not preach a gospel of want and scarcity, but of abundance.” — Suffragette and socialist Sylvia Pankhurst writing in the Workers’ Dreadnought, 1923. Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson’s 2025 bestseller, Abundance, kicks off with sharp critiques of Jimmy Carter’s anti-statist declaration that “government cannot solve our problems” and

In February 2020, the insurgent left was on top of the world. Bernie Sanders had just won the Nevada caucuses, solidifying his status as the front-runner in the Democratic presidential primary. A month later, the Democratic Party had consolidated behind Joe Biden, who won South Carolina and dominated Super Tuesday, and the pandemic had set

Since early April, immigrant workers in the Tuscan city of Prato have staged a wave of strikes demanding their right to a forty-hour work week, or “8×5.” Organized by the union SUDD Cobas, these walkouts, dubbed “Strike Days,” have directly involved seventy textile and garment factories in Europe’s biggest textile manufacturing hub. Highly successful, these simultaneous

When I was in graduate school in the 1990s — and this continued into the aughts and 2010s — the dominant idea in liberal foreign policy circles was that of humanitarian intervention or Responsibility to Protect. The claim was that though states should ordinarily respect the sovereignty of other states, under extreme circumstances, say of

This week, Keir Starmer announced that Britain would recognize a Palestinian state in September, if Israel doesn’t agree to a cease-fire first. Starmer’s arrogant posture — teasing the idea that the former colonial power might acknowledge Palestinian self-determination — was matched only by its triviality. While Britain still arms Israel’s destruction of Gaza, Starmer avoided

The key decision in director Lisaboa Houbrechts’s new production of Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage and Her Children, which showed this June in Paris as part of a European tour, was to replace the play’s famed market cart with a massive ball and chain. In Brecht’s masterpiece, the cart is already intended to be an absurd

At some point or another, something will happen to you as a parent that will turn you — no doubt a once normal, fun-loving person — into an obsessive lunatic. In my case, it happened when my son was just six months old and I learned that the supposedly “organic” baby food pouches that he

TikTok has announced mass layoffs as it looks to replace staff with artificial intelligence. Around 160 of the social media firm’s four hundred employees in Berlin have lost their jobs. Many are up before the Labor Court in the German capital. Most work in content moderation — at TikTok, a department called “Trust and Safety.”

While war sometimes inspires deep theological reflection, it can also lead to conclusions that are shallow, nationalistic, and propagandistic in nature, with the Civil War producing abundant examples of the latter. Ministers on both sides of the conflict generally assumed that God was on their side and his purposes easily discerned. There are, however, notable exceptions, such as none other than Abraham Lincoln himself. In his Second Inaugural Address, President Lincoln surmised that the Civil War was God’s judgment on both the North and the South for slavery. While the Union and the Confederacy had their aims in the war, Lincoln concluded, “The Almighty has His own purposes.” The enslaved blacksmith turned renowned Presbyterian minister James W.C. Pennington (1807-1870) expressed a similarly profound view. As a Presbyterian, Pennington’s doctrine of providence emphasized God’s absolute sovereignty and transcendence, but also his immanence amid suffering. He acknowledged God’s use of secondary means, offering an inbuilt pushback against passivity. Like many other African Americans, he supported the Union while also pushing its leaders to prioritize emancipation as the chief goal of the war. Yet the Union’s shifting focus from not only reunifying the nation to also ending slavery provoked backlash, as in the July 1863 New York City draft riots, one of the worst outbreaks of racial and political violence in American history. Fueled by anger over the prolonged nature of the conflict, the injustice of wealthy American men buying their way out of the draft, and the resentment of poor Irish Catholic immigrants at being drafted to fight for the freedom of African Americans, a cause they did not identify with, all boiled over in Lower Manhattan. Pennington expressed some of his most profound reflections on providence in the wake of the riots. Many of the rioters feared having to compete for jobs with newly freed Blacks and certainly wanted no part in their liberation. While initially military and government buildings were targeted, free African Americans, as symbols of what the war was about, were also attacked. Estimates vary, but more than 200 New Yorkers may have been killed and thousands made homeless, a disproportionate number of whom were Black. The New York lawyer George Templeton Strong poignantly wrote in his diary, “Jefferson Davis rules New York today.” Even as the Union made a great moral stride by abolishing slavery, its largest city was embroiled in horrible violence over much of the North’s refusal to have any part in it.   Pennington traveled to Manhattan amid the chaos, attempting to find family members amid the wreckage, ultimately penning the first systematic indictment of how the authorities had failed to keep the peace. Pennington reflected upon divine providence a month later in a speech he delivered before an audience in Poughkeepsie, titled “The Position and Duties of the Colored People: Or the Great Lessons to Be Learned from the Late Riotous Attack upon Them in New York.” In his speech, Pennington recounted that Abraham Lincoln’s reported reason for issuing the proclamation earlier that year was strictly “as a military necessity.” But, for Pennington, Lincoln’s motivation was of little import. Even if done out of military necessity, Pennington argued that such a necessity was “imposed upon this government in the Providence of an alwise God. The President ha[d] no alternative but to fall into the powerful current of events which God had put in motion.” In other words, “The Almighty has His own purposes.” Later in the same speech, Pennington made an argument of striking similarity to those in Lincoln’s second inaugural. “The [emancipation] proclamation is the word of God’s holy Providence, so to speak; but the great North is slow to repent of slavery. There is yet a great deal of wicked, angry, and unrighteous feeling in the heart of the Northern people.” Pennington observed that God’s use of the North to end slavery in the South did not leave the North guiltless. Even as the war raged on, New York rioters demonstrated just how many White northerners were indifferent about slavery. “It may be” Pennington speculated, “that God intends to use the sword as a lance to bleed the whole nation, until she begins to faint, for very loss of blood, and then to swathe up the opened vein, and apply restoratives.” Pennington surmised that both the length and severity of the war was a part of God’s plan, a conclusion to which few others could bring themselves. Just as Lincoln privately wrote in his “Meditation on the Divine Will” in 1862, “I am almost ready to say… that God wills this contest, and wills that it should not end yet.” Pennington lived a life that both expressed confidence in God’s providence, as well as confidence that God would use him to accomplish his purposes, like ending slavery. Pennington admitted not only that the entire nation was culpable for the sin of slavery, but also that God willed the prolongation of the war as a national judgment and a mutual reckoning. Just as Lincoln opined two years later, “if God wills that [the war] continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword as was said three thousand years ago so still it must be said ‘the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.’” Rather than presuming to wield providence, Pennington, like Lincoln, understood what it meant to be an instrument of it.

Jacobin’s David Moscrop recently talked with James Fishkin, professor of international communication and director of the Deliberative Democracy Lab at Stanford University, about his new book Can Deliberation Cure the Ills of Democracy? Fishkin is one of the leading theorists and practitioners of deliberative democracy — a model that seeks to deepen political decision-making by

The new light, bright, poppy Fantastic Four movie directed by Matt Shakman (WandaVision) is a big hit just two weeks after James Gunn’s light, bright, poppy Superman was a big hit, which seems to indicate a new path to success for superhero movies after a dip in popularity had suggested that maybe audience interest internationally

In 2022, when Mike Davis died at age seventy-six, obituary writers rightly praised his radicalism, his anti-imperialism, his warnings of environmental catastrophe, and the sophisticated yet lucid brand of Marxism with which he observed capitalism’s dystopian transformation of Los Angeles and other cities. Many called him “the prophet of doom.” His energy was enormous. He

Standing up to the US president’s deportation demands won’t be easy, and will require a pan-African consensus

President Donald Trump’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) chair, Wall Street’s top cop, just sold his financial services firm for more than $25 million — and is set to receive a massive tax break on the proceeds, according to new federal ethics disclosures obtained by the Lever. Paul Atkins, who spent years helping Wall Street actors fend

In the 2020s, a cursory search about the latest hot new band that has seemingly arrived from nowhere usually uncovers a private school education or the Wikipedia entry of some parent. Ozzy Osbourne, who died on July 22, 2025, following a long battle with Parkinson’s disease and mere weeks after Black Sabbath’s farewell concert in

In January of 2021, it was announced that the SAT would permanently shed its essay section. Of course, it had been optional since 2016, and so perhaps that final nail in the coffin was superfluous. But this move did not occur in a vacuum. The essay has been under attack at all educational levels and especially since the advent of ChatGPT. “The College Essay Is Dead,” argued Stephen Marche in The Atlantic in December 2022, blaming AI for the murder in question. Then this summer, Hua Hsu, a Pulitzer Prize-nominated writer and professor of English followed up on Marche’s thoughts in the New Yorker, asking “What Happens After AI Destroys College Writing?” A destruction may indeed be afoot, Hsu believes, bringing in both numbers from various studies and anecdotal evidence, like a lunch with two NYU students who admitted to using AI for everything—even for texts to schedule that lunch. Hsu hints at the formational repercussions of this for what students actually learn in college: “College is all about opportunity costs. One way of viewing A.I. is as an intervention in how people choose to spend their time. In the early nineteen-sixties, college students spent an estimated twenty-four hours a week on schoolwork. Today, that figure is about fifteen…” I was reminded of theologian Jonathan Tran’s reflections on why college matters: it is a sacred time, set apart for learning, a time suspended from “real life” in a meaningful way. Or, at least, it should be. When done well, it forms hearts, minds, and souls for a lifetime of service and meaningful work. This is what AI now threatens. What might be the repercussions for our society if the newer generations of high-school and college students—who will then grow up to be the next generations of workers, including writers—will not have any familiarity or experience with the art of writing essays? Considering the catastrophic decline we are seeing in literacy—the result of both ubiquitous smartphones and the availability of AI for writing—it is only a matter of time before the quantity and quality of writers capable of doing heavy intellectual lifting with words will also crash. This is bad news for all democratic societies. The repercussions of the 21st century’s turn to AI-mediated illiteracy will be civilizational in scope. And yet, the essay can still be preserved, so long as there are those willing to preserve it. The genre of the essay as we know it originates with Michel de Montaigne, a 16th-century French essayist who coined the very term—“essai,” from the French verb “essayer,” meaning, “to try.” The essay, Montaigne thought, was an attempt, an experiment, an exercise in adventurous thought. The length distinguishes the humble essay from a book—the latter is obviously longer. While an academic article proves a particular point to expert audiences based on original research, the essay welcomes diverse audiences into a complex topic they may not otherwise consider. It might rely on well-known information or on interviews. It might lean more personal, bringing the writer into the story at hand. And it might leave the reader to draw their own conclusions instead of being expressly didactic. Out of all the prominent figures since Montaigne, all of the politicians, novelists, academics, poets, virtually all of them were excellent essayists. The American Founding Fathers, Henry David Thoreau, C. S. Lewis, Dorothy Leigh Sayers, George Orwell, Christopher Lasch, Russell Kirk, Wendell Berry. Just like being an excellent public orator was a sine qua non for public prominence and success in the ancient world, so is being a good essayist in the modern world. Consider the Federalist Papers—85 essays written pseudonymously by Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison wrote over just eight months, from October 1787 to May 1788. Their original goal was to convince the people of New York that ratifying the Constitution—the foundation of a strong union among states—would be to their advantage. Short and punchy, each essay states its aims at the outset, often referring to previous essays’ arguments. Proofs follow, using concrete examples from international affairs, history, and more. In opening Federalist 6, for instance, Hamilton states: “The three last numbers of this paper have been dedicated to an enumeration of the dangers to which we should be exposed, in a state of disunion, from the arms and arts of foreign nations. I shall now proceed to delineate dangers of a different and, perhaps, still more alarming kind—those which will in all probability flow from dissensions between the States themselves, and from domestic factions and convulsions. These have been already in some instances slightly anticipated; but they deserve a more particular and more full investigation.” The writing is simple, straightforward, yet undeniably elegant—albeit the sentence structure is more complex than what we typically see today. It also exemplifies how to orient the reader well at the outset, especially when writing about a complex topic for non-specialists. While the perennial joke back when college students wrote their own papers was that it was like a scavenger hunt to find the thesis statement, Hamilton made sure no one ever had to search for his. But there is also significant creativity involved here. This comes through in the quirky turns of phrase at times—one sentence in Federalist 6 begins with this memorable opener: “A man must be far gone in Utopian speculations…” The artistic aspect of writing also shows in the examples used, bringing together (in this same essay) examples from such diverse places as Ancient Greece and Rome, Carthage, and also modern Holland, Venice, Britain, and more. The essay’s structure is simple yet effective. The end result is not only a body of work that succeeds in its aim, but also a set of essays still widely read and recognized as foundational texts of political theory, history, and rhetoric. Every single student in America—whether pre-collegiate or collegiate—is bound to encounter these essays at some point. There are still essayists of this caliber today. I am struck by many essays of Wendell Berry, which convey complex ideas through simple stories and even simpler convictions. Consider one of his most famous essays, “Why I Am Not Going to Buy a Computer.” In it, he makes an argument for his thesis, the essay’s title, rooted in human flourishing as he presents supporting points that are relational as well as environmental. Why does it work? Perhaps because the reader knows he means every word. The vast majority of college students will not become the next Wendell Berry or Montaigne or Sayers or Hamilton. And yet, the process of forming the next generation of public thinkers and writers begins here. The work may seem more challenging than ever, but we should not give up on this mission so easily.

In the days and weeks after democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani clinched the Democratic Party nomination in the New York City mayoral race, apocalyptic rumors began to swirl of the wealthy running for the hills. Jim Bianco, president of the financial analysis firm Bianco Research, warned that New York City was committing “suicide by mayor.” Billionaire

A palpable shift on the question of Israel’s genocide in Gaza is transpiring in American politics. Over the past week, prominent figures who have said nothing about or even actively supported Israel’s nonstop killing spree have suddenly woken up with the same disgust and heartache as the rest of us who have watched this obscenity

US tech firms want to extract data, knowledge and natural resources from the region. Governments must stand up to them

Privatisation means the public faces higher bills and pollution as shareholders cash in. Why won’t Labour admit that?

Across the country, a movement to abolish the subminimum tipped wage has gained ground. As of 2025, seven states — Alaska, California, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington — have enacted what advocates call “One Fair Wage,” guaranteeing tipped workers the same minimum wage as everyone else, with tips on top — a rejection of

Human Rights Watch (HRW) is one of the world’s most influential human rights nongovernmental organizations in the world. It seeks to advance human rights by holding governments accountable for crimes and atrocities through publicity and shaming. In Righting Wrongs, Kenneth Roth, who led HRW for nearly three decades, describes how he built and developed the organization and how it went about trying to highlight human rights abuses through its advocacy and publicity campaigns. According to Roth, the organization’s strategy was to develop credible reports on crimes and atrocities and then publicize the offenses. Three features characterize HRW’s approach to human rights. First, since governments are a chief cause of human rights abuses, legal accountability provides the most effective way of “righting wrongs.” Crimes, whether committed in war or peacetime, need to be prosecuted and the culpable need to be punished. Since states are often unwilling or unable to bring offenders to justice, international criminal tribunals can play an important role in prosecuting major offenders. A second feature is the belief that a body of international law exists that provides standards for judging human rights abuses. Such law includes international law on human rights, such as the International Covenant on Political and Civil Rights; international human rights law, which sets standards for governments; and international humanitarian law, which establishes norms governing warfare. A third assumption is that the human rights quest requires a comprehensive approach where all rights are regarded as equivalent. While American foreign policy scholars have emphasized the priority of basic and political rights over social, economic, environmental, and gender rights, Roth argues that rights should be conceived as “a totality.” He does not explore the nature of rights. For him, devoting time to clarifying the moral foundations of rights or the effort to distinguish basic, universal rights from political, socioeconomic, cultural, environmental, and gender rights is a distraction from the task of improving the human condition. Since Roth’s book captures the prevalent perspective of the progressive globalist approach to human rights, it provides an appropriate means to assess the adequacy of HRW’s work. In the following, I briefly critique the organization’s strategy. First, criminal justice is essential in a humane, well-functioning state. Human rights can only be secured in a community if a government has the legitimacy and authority to enforce its laws. But when a state lacks legitimacy, or when a government uses its authority to abuse human dignity, or when civil strife breaks out, the regular processes of criminal justice are unlikely to resolve conflict and restore peace. In such circumstances, the fundamental task is to restore civic order through political reconciliation. Retributive justice can provide a temporary balm but will not restore trust among competing political groups. In other words, the retributive justice strategy rooted in legalism will only work after the foundational work of political reconciliation has been undertaken. In Exclusion and Embrace, theologian Miroslav Volf observes that restoring community is the precondition necessary for justice. He claims that if righting wrongs is the focus, you will have neither justice nor peace. An example of the restorative justice approach is South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which made truth-telling about past abuses the basis for amnesty.  Although Roth’s book is chiefly concerned with righting state wrongs, often the most serious offenses arise not from government actions but from the absence of a functioning state. For example, Haiti, a country currently ruled by gangs, is a society where life is nasty, brutish, and short—to use Thomas Hobbes’ famous description of a society without government. Despite the immense human suffering in the country, Roth fails to address the problem of weak and failing states.  The strategy’s second premise—that international law provides a secure basis for pursuing justice—is equally dubious. Defining and enforcing international human rights is problematic because the world is not a coherent political community but a global society of sovereign states. There is no global authority that can define and enforce such rights. More fundamentally, human rights can only be secured through the rule of law arising from society. Since the world includes many different types of regimes (e.g., democracies, populist regimes, dictatorships, and authoritarian governments), states will vary greatly in their willingness and capacity to secure rights. The inadequacy of Roth’s globalist perspective is illustrated by the failure to highlight the major human rights abuses arising from totalitarian regimes. Although China receives major coverage, the book fails to examine North Korea, Cuba, Iran, and other similar autocratic regimes. Interestingly, Roth devotes major attention to Israel and the United States, two democratic countries where the rule of law is honored and courts are independent.  Roth critiques the “double standard” claim by Jeane Kirkpatrick, who argued in an influential article in 1979 that the US government should be more concerned with totalitarian governments than authoritarian regimes since the former pose a far greater threat to individual freedom than the latter. Ironically, Roth himself succumbs to double standards by focusing on alleged abuses and crimes committed in democratic states, while deemphasizing or neglecting the atrocities committed in failed states or the harsh, brutish life imposed by Islamist radicals or Communist thugs. Finally, HRW’s all-inclusive approach to human rights is also woefully inadequate since the failure to differentiate and prioritize rights claims leads to distortions and a lack of focus on basic rights—the universal rights associated with the equality, dignity, and freedom of every human being. If such rights as freedom from torture, racial discrimination, voting rights, trial by jury, the right to a job, the right of assembly, freedom of speech, the right to legal counsel are all morally equivalent, how can a government secure such a varied ensemble of claims? The all-inclusive approach, however, is a progressive facade that human rights advocates use in giving preference to some claims, such as LGBTQ rights and the crime of apartheid, and neglect other rights, such as religious freedom and freedom of the press. Organizations like HRW play an important role in highlighting crimes and abuses carried out by governments. But instead of undertaking the difficult task of rehabilitating states through nation-building, they pursue a retributive strategy by encouraging prosecution through international courts and tribunals. By focusing exclusively on legal accountability, they disregard the important work of political reconciliation. Since human rights are only secure when rooted in a stable, humane political community, the creation and/or restoration of trust is the most important task in confronting wrongdoing. If the world is to be more humane, there needs to be not only more justice but also more civic peace rooted in social solidarity.

Novelist of global political thrillers Frederick Forsyth died recently. He was best known for The Day of the Jackal and The Odessa File, which became popular films in the 1970s. (The Day of the Jackal is also a current television series more loosely based on the book.) As a boy, I read his novels voraciously. They were set in the Cold War, in the aftermath of World War II, a genre that has not to my knowledge been replicated in the post-Cold War world. Why not? Forsyth was himself a swashbuckling international reporter who lived dramatically just as he wrote about dramatic events. He was a 1950s Royal Air Force pilot drawn to journalism in the 1960s, covering assassination attempts on Charles de Gaulle and the Nigerian civil war. His most popular book, and my favorite, is The Day of the Jackal of 1971 about an assassination attempt on de Gaulle by exiled French Algerians, through their Secret Army Organization (OAS), angry over the French president’s betrayal of their cause. It’s based on an actual 1962 attempt, which is the 1973 film’s opening scene, with gunmen firing directly into De Gaulle’s car on a Paris street. The bullets barely missed the president and his wife, who were largely unflustered and continued with their country weekend. The OAS then resolves to hire an untraceable non-Frenchman for the next try on de Gaulle, while French intelligence brutally unravels the OAS. Forsyth’s novel, drawing upon his journalistic experiences, forensically tracks the search for the mysterious and cold blooded if charming English assassin known as The Jackal. The hero is a shrewd but unassuming French police investigator who thoroughly follows the fragmentary clues, with help from various international intelligence and law enforcement agencies. When the police inspector has finally identified The Jackal, wider French law enforcement takes the investigation away from him, confident of their manhunt skills. Of course, they fail and must again seek his help. De Gaulle himself is aloof from the investigation, deeming its details beneath his dignity. And he refuses to amend his schedule. The Jackal, realizing he is hunted, seduces a married French countess, spending the night in her chateau, leaving her dead. Later, when in Paris, he seduces a homosexual man for access to his apartment, also murdering him. French police now realize that The Jackal is targeting de Gaulle on Paris Liberation Day, when he will be vulnerable during multiple public ceremonies. Crafty as ever, The Jackal disguises himself as a crippled and bemedaled French Resistance veteran, tricking his way into a woman’s apartment, killing her, and aiming his gun at the French president. The police inspector finds and kills him only after he has already fired several shots from his silencer. The final scene is gripping and wonderful. But in the end, it turns out that The Jackal’s identity is unknown. The mystery continues. But the stability of France, a key Cold War Western ally, if a difficult one, was preserved against terrorist plots. De Gaulle, of course, was a key figure of both WWII and the Cold War. Forsyth’s The Odessa File of 1973, which became a film in 1974, like The Day of the Jackal, is set in the early 1960s. It portrays a young German reporter who in 1963 finds the diary of a Holocaust survivor who has committed suicide. The diary recalls the horrors of a senior SS sadist, loosely based on the real-life Butcher of Riga, who has since become, under a pseudonym, a munitions factory director, protected by the secretive Organization of Former Members of the SS (ODESSA). The factory is covertly providing missile guidance systems to Gamal Nasser’s Egypt. The reporter, with help from Israel’s Mossad, infiltrates ODESSA and tracks down the Butcher, who he knows, from the diary, murdered his father, a German army officer. The movie diverges from the film, with the reporter killing the Butcher in self-defense during their confrontation. In the book, the Butcher escapes to Argentina, as did the real Butcher. The film focused public attention on the real Butcher, forcing his escape from Argentina to Paraguay, where he died in 1977. The book and film portray a post-war Germany still uneasily in denial about its Nazi crimes, with many law enforcement officers as ODESSA members.   A third novel by Forsyth, but not turned into a film, more directly involved the Cold War, The Devil’s Alternative, published in 1979 and set in 1982. The Soviet Union has suffered a serious famine, and Kremlin hawks want to invade Western Europe as the solution, which the Communist Party chairman, an aging Leonid Brezhnev-like figure, opposes as far too dangerous. The plan is leaked to a British intelligence officer by his former Russian lover. Ukrainian nationalists have hijacked a giant oil tanker in the North Sea, threatening ecological catastrophe if their brethren, imprisoned in West Germany for having hijacked an airliner (and also secretly having assassinated the KGB chief), are not released. The Soviets threaten to end negotiations for concessions in return for famine relief, which means pro-war hardliners will prevail. Through terrifying events, the Ukrainian nationalists and the Kremlin hawks both self-destruct, with a “moderate” anointed as the new Soviet party chairman. And it turns out that the British spy’s lover was in fact working for the aging outgoing party chairman, who wanted the West to counter the Kremlin hawks. The status quo returns. Characters in The Devil’s Alternative are loosely based, besides Brezhnev, on Margaret Thatcher, Jimmy Carter, National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski and Secretary of State Cyrus Vance. Sadly, The Devil’s Alternative never became a film. Oddly, during the Cold War, films rarely directly addressed the Soviet Union, preferring safer villains, typically Nazis, or the fantasy monsters of James Bond films. It’s notable that The Devil’s Alternative’s “happy” ending entails the death of Ukrainian nationalists and the victory of Kremlin “doves” over hawks as the best possible scenario. Few in 1979 could imagine a plausible happier scenario. The Cold War and the Soviet Union, nearly everybody assumed, were permanent. Forsyth wrote more novels after the Cold War ended addressing post-Soviet Russia, Afghan-originated terrorism, and international narcotics trafficking. To my mind these and other post-Cold War international thrillers lacked the cosmic drama of Cold War stories, when the world was still under the shadow of WWII, having defeated Nazi totalitarianism, and struggling to avert WWIII while constraining Soviet totalitarianism. The stakes were higher; the villains and heroes were clearer; the personalities were larger. The competing spiritualities were more distinctly Christian-related versus demonic/godless. The current television version of The Day of the Jackal maybe evinces nostalgia for the old paradigm. In Cold War literature, Forsyth was a sort of Homer of popular but sophisticated thrillers that demonstrated what made and sustained the West as it struggled against its enemies and dealt with the demons of its past. May there be future Forsyths who can demonstrate the West’s even more complex struggles for survival and identity today.

Victims accuse military of ‘cover-up’ after it closed investigation without checking archives or interviewing suspect

If asked to give a sketch of the ideal Victorian politician, most of us would describe someone like Rory Stewart. A former high-ranking Middle East diplomat turned public intellectual and non-profit executive, fond of soaring grandiloquent rhetoric, classical allusions, and the scion of a family with a long tradition of public service. This uniquely antiquated personage very nearly made Stewart Prime Minister, but ultimately British conservatives chose to elevate Boris Johnson, who later brutally ended Stewart’s time in the Conservative Party. In his recently published memoirs, Politics on the Edge, Rory Stewart tells the saga of this political rise and fall. Amid the swirl of history and amusing political anecdotes, there is a curious reflection on the various ailments plaguing British politics. In the course of recounting his many fascinating experiences, Stewart gives readers an idea of how moral purpose can be restored to a political world defined by selfish technocracy and dangerous populism. Though not a household name in the United States, Rory Stewart is undoubtedly a leading figure in Britain. The son of a high-ranking intelligence official, he served for many years as a diplomat and nonprofit leader in the Middle East before entering politics as a member of the Conservative Party. Very soon after entering the arena, Stewart began to fear that his conception of conservatism fundamentally clashed with the predominant view of those in power. In meetings with local officials, he often encountered a narrow parochialism. In conversations with politicians, he discovered that few concerned themselves with the glories of the British political tradition but instead with polling data and performance metrics. Both of these attributes—that of reactionary parochialism and professionalized, technocratic politics—flew in the face of Stewart’s most deeply held beliefs: “limited government and individual rights; prudence at home and strength abroad; respect for tradition” and love of country. As Stewart goes on to battle a broken prison system, inefficient bureaucracies, and international terrorism, it becomes clear that the professional political class stood in the way of any hope of institutional reform. The complete incompetence Stewart encounters in the upper reaches of the British government is truly astounding: A Prime Minister who believes the push for Brexit is a manageable burst of economic discontent; a foreign minister more concerned with giving bold Periclean speeches than understanding the nuances of foreign policy; an environment minister who seems only to understand sound bites. The unifying theme across these many failures is that almost every public official Stewart mentions is entirely sure of their own rightness. Both David Cameron and Boris Johnson believe they have correct answers to most questions. Even when found to be bewilderingly, earth-shatteringly wrong, most politicians refuse to admit failure of any kind. This is actually an attribute voters are initially inclined to respect but inevitably find frustrating as the failures of such leaders began to pile up. Stewart spends a great deal of time on the human tragedy that such hubristic characters reveal. However, latent within his descriptions of such individuals and their political struggles is a larger battle between the forces of tribalistic populism and corporatized neoliberalism. The neoliberals—best captured by Prime Minister David Cameron and his key supporters—are sleek, professional, and meticulous. They are also entirely removed from the lives of everyday voters. Cameron neither seemed to know nor care about what goes on in the lives of the average British citizens, unless those views could be expressed through a polling spreadsheet. By the end of the book, this detachment from the public catches up to the neoliberals. Brexit completely destroyed their grip on the Conservative Party and (until the recent election of Sir Kier Starmer) banished their carefully sanitized liberalism to the rump of British politics. Though Stewart’s story focuses on the case of the United Kingdom, this exact series of events has played out in Western democracies across the world.  The populists are, as the name implies, not as distant from the minds of the people as their neoliberal opponents. Despite this, they prove themselves throughout the course of the book to be every bit as vapid and self-interested. Though Stewart certainly meets principled advocates of Brexit and supporters of Boris Johnson, many more seem to be grifters—mining the anger and resentments of their fellow citizens for personal benefit. Stewart rightly wagered both as a candidate for the leadership of his party and later as a citizen on the sidelines that this vapidness would catch up to the Johnson government. In contrast to the political divides of the 20th century, what was once a battle between conservatism and liberalism is now essentially a battle between neoliberals and populists. In theory, this need not be a tragedy; political divisions reset with each new age and the parties eventually catch up to such changes. However, neither neoliberalism nor populism represents viable political solutions. After all, who in a moment of crisis wishes to turn to a hollowed-out liberal ethos or a politics of resentment? This, then, is the crisis of our age. In a time of social and technological upheaval, there is no viable political alternative to solve the manifold crises we confront. Yet at the heart of Stewart’s depressing narrative lay the broad contours of a political disposition that could save us from ourselves. Nowhere is Stewart’s approach better exemplified than in a speech he delivered to officially launch his campaign for leader of the Conservative Party. In his exordium, Stewart declared that: “We have to make a choice between two different paths for our country. A choice between fairy stories and the politics of reality.” At first blush, this may sound like the sort of trite nonsense neoliberals say to discredit their opponents. Yet, as the speech continued, it becomes clear that Stewart is offering a bold alternative to all of modern politics. He talked about “love, and loving the reality of place,” and how we need institutions that permit greater input from the people themselves. His speech ends on a poetic note, quoting a line from T.S. Eliot: “the only wisdom we can hope to acquire is the wisdom of humility: humility is endless.” Realism, love, localism, democracy, and humility—these may not seem like the typical foundations for a political movement. Yet that is precisely their strength. Over the course of his memoirs, Rory Stewart lays bare the fatal weaknesses of the political establishment, but he closes by granting hope to the reader. For in his dynamic and unusual approach to politics, one can start to detect the sort of moderate politics that could one day replace neoliberalism and stand on its own against nationalism—a politics grounded in place, conviction, and the honest humility that government can never provide all the answers to all of humanity’s problems.

Starving children to death won’t win Binyamin Netanyahu the war. It will ensure it lasts for decades

openDemocracy readers discuss whether voters would back a socialist government, and Starmer’s ever-rightwards shift

If we were to ask the proverbial man on the street what Thomas Jefferson meant when he appealed to the authority of “Nature and Nature’s God” in the Declaration of Independence, chances are he might shrug. A Christian might think Jefferson was referring to the God of the Bible; a cynic would think the phrase is empty rhetoric void of meaning; and anyone else might dismiss it as a vague, mystical notion of an earth-god named Nature. If we were to ask someone in 1790, we would get a very different answer. Jesse Covington, Bryan McGraw, and Micah Watson’s new book, Hopeful Realism, is not about the history of Jefferson’s God of Nature, but it is their effort to reacquaint us with him, his moral law, and its implications for our politics. In doing so, McGraw, Covington, and Watson advance no new ideas, as they would be the first to attest. Instead, the authors (and Jefferson) are invoking a concept that is very old: natural law. Their subtitle—Evangelical Natural Law and Democratic Politics—summarizes the book well. Natural law was a universally accepted teaching from antiquity through the early church, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, clear through to the Reformation and the Enlightenment. It was such a basic concept in Christendom as to pass almost unnoticed, the way we do not notice the air we breathe, or fish the water in which they swim. It fell out of use for a few centuries but has enjoyed new life since World War II. As such, Covington, McGraw, and Watson’s book is a needful part of a generational renaissance of natural law thinking, particularly among Protestants, that continues to gather steam. Other recent works by Protestants in this vein include Andrew Walker’s Faithful Reason; J. Daryl Charles’ two books, Retrieving the Natural Law, and The Idea and Importance of Natural Law; S.J. Grabill, Rediscovering the Natural Law; and most everything David van Drunen has written, especially Politics After Christendom, Divine Covenants and Moral Order, and his recent short introduction, Natural Law. The authors’ volume joins a growing chorus calling on the church to heed the historic Christian teaching on natural law. What is natural law? Though first articulated by Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, and the Stoics, when the early church fathers observed Scripture’s teaching about the moral order of creation, they borrowed from the Greco-Roman language of natural law to describe it. Doing so enabled them to communicate Scriptural truths to a pagan audience while illustrating how Christianity fulfilled and surpassed the best of pagan thought. Natural law gave them a language through which to speak to pagans about sin and their accountability to their Creator. “Nature” in this sense is not a term for the physical world. It connotes something more: the innate moral structure of the world, the rational underpinning of the cosmos. Nature’s God is the benevolent Creator and the source from whom that rational pinning emanates. Natural law is the moral order of creation. Covington, McGraw, and Watson offer two parts to their definition of natural law. First, “human beings have a normative nature that is directional: some behaviors accord with and promote the fulfillment of that nature, and others hinder and corrupt it.” Second, “people have the capacity to reason and thus understand to some extent what helps or hinders this nature.” The authors summarize millennia of Christian thinking in this vein with a brief overview of natural law in the Bible coupled with a chapter on mainstream Christian thinking about politics. (Mainstream means the tradition of thinking that is neither theocratic nor pacifist; the tradition that accepts that the state is legitimate but limited). These initial chapters are written at just the right level for Christian undergraduates, seminarians, and young pastors who need an introduction to the very large topic of political theology. Covington, McGraw and Watson attempt to offer a distinctively evangelical take on natural law, accounting for the unreliability of the human mind and the stark antithesis between special revelation and general revelation. Doing so requires a host of qualifications and caveats about what we are able to know, with what level of confidence, and how far such knowledge applies. The authors succeed in conveying the humility with which we should make claims about what Nature says. That said, I’m not convinced there’s anything that is distinctively evangelical about this. The criticism of natural law—that it puts too much faith in the autonomous human intellect—might be true if we’re talking about Thomas Hobbes or Immanuel Kant. But it was never very persuasive when leveled against the likes of Augustine, Aquinas, or the 17th-century Protestant thinker Francis Turretin. The authors are not wrong to insist on epistemological humility, but evangelicals do not have a monopoly on that insight. Covington, McGraw and Watson know this, of course. They cloak their argument in Augustine’s authority, using “Augustine” as a sort of shorthand for “Christian tradition that won’t sound too Catholic.” It’s a rhetorical sleight of hand to get evangelicals to learn something about the broad and orthodox Christian intellectual tradition without provoking their autoimmune response to anything that smells like Rome. (This isn’t a criticism of the authors, but a compliment that they know their audience. I’ve used “Augustine” in the same way in my own work). Covington, McGraw and Watson proceed to list the basic creational goods that Nature affirms as good: physical, relational, volitional, and rational goods. This is a shorter and more generic list than others writing in the same vein, but each category is elastic enough to get the job done. Within those categories, Covington, McGraw and Watson elaborate the natural law as applied to “the common good and civic friendship,” “confessional pluralism and religious liberty,” “restraint and liberty,” and “democracy and decentralization.” While I agree with their conclusions, some readers may want more connective tissue showing how their first principles get to their more specific categories. The authors devote a chapter to making natural law practical. It is essentially a guide for thinking through issues of public concern, weighing pros and cons, recognizing tradeoffs, etc. It is a process, a rubric, or a heuristic. They cannot presume to cover every public policy issue themselves; instead they try to equip the reader with mental tools to structure their thinking. All that is ambitious enough, but it is just half the book. The second half is a series of case studies: natural law as applied to economics, the family, war, and religious liberty. This follows a template of sorts in the other works on natural law I mentioned earlier. It helps demonstrate how to use natural law reasoning. Most readers will get the idea better by seeing it in action rather than reading the theory. It again highlights this book’s target audience. It is meant for the nonspecialist Christian who want to think a bit more carefully about politics. Readers who want an extremely deep dive into the scriptural foundations of natural law can find it in Van Drunen’s Divine Covenants. Those who want a more technical argument rooted in Catholic thinking can find it in Melissa Moschella’s Ethics, Politics, and Natural Law (or in Robert George’s work). Those who want more on the history of natural law thinking can consult Charles’ and Grabill’s work (or older books by Heinrich Rommen or Paul Sigmund). By design, Covington, McGraw and Watson leave a few things unaddressed. There are much longer conversations to be had about how we know natural law and about the relationship of natural law to civil law. Those questions are fit for the longer, more technical, or more historical books. Covington, McGraw and Watson have written an excellent and accessible overview for students relatively new to the subject who need some acquaintance with the church’s historic teaching about Nature and Nature’s God.

At its recently held 52nd General Assembly, the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) passed an overture establishing an ad interim committee on “Christian Nationalism.” The stated reasons for the overture were several: there is a question, for example, whether those ordained in the PCA who hold to the view of the civil magistrate outlined in the original form of the Westminster Confession of Faith (1647) must “take an exception” to the American form of the WCF (1788), which is the version adopted by the PCA. There is a question whether the 1647 WCF is “Christian Nationalist,” and whether “Christian Nationalism” and “Ethno-Nationalism” are coterminous, or at least comfortable bedfellows. And, most importantly, the overture states that these and other issues “have caused confusion, division, and dissension even among the congregants of PCA churches and affected PCA pastors and officers.” The committee is thus tasked to study “the relationship between Christian Nationalism, Ethno-Nationalism, and related teachings” and “write a report that gives pastoral guidance when addressing congregations, new members, and future officers of the PCA.” To some extent, this controversy and consequent overture may seem a bit too “inside baseball” to warrant outside attention. However, the questions raised by this committee, and by proponents of Christian Nationalism more generally, are related to a broader ongoing conversation within intellectual Protestantism about retrieval of historic Reformed thought, a project of “Ressourcement” about which much has been and continues to be written. Have we, some wonder, gone astray from important aspects of historic Protestant teaching on social and political issues? Are there older, better ways of thinking waiting to be gleaned from various reformers, both the famous and the obscure? The landmark case for this was made several years ago by Stephen Wolfe in his book The Case for Christian Nationalism (Canon Press, 2022). Wolfe is a political theorist by training, having published scholarship on Reformed political thought in the American founding era before writing his most famous work. In it, drawing on both secular and Christian sources, Wolfe advocates for the justifiability of the “principle of similarity:” that similarity between people facilitates fellow-feeling and therefore that it is right and natural to desire to dwell with people like yourself, with whom you share a common “ethnos.” Defining who should fall within this principle of likeness is difficult, and Wolfe denies it is identical to physical appearance or skin color; instead, the likeness is predicated on a combination of language, culture, and highest ideals that unify nations. The principle of similarity and its relationship to Reformed political thought dating back hundreds of years will undoubtedly need to be addressed in whatever report the committee produces. To be clear, Stephen Wolfe is not the only representative of Christian Nationalism, nor is his book the best or only resource for the committee to assess. It is, however, a sort of cultural touchstone for the conversation, and so the committee would undoubtedly be wise to evaluate its claims. In so doing, the committee will necessarily need to consider Wolfe’s repeated claim, both inside and outside of the book, that what he offers in The Case for Christian Nationalism is nothing more or less than the historic Reformed position on the civil magistrate. This claim is really three claims packaged into one. The first is that the view advanced by Christian Nationalism’s contemporary proponents is a historic view. That is, it is a view drawn from the example of history and the writings of people within the broader Reformed tradition that the PCA would not be willing to haphazardly anathemize. The second claim is that Christian Nationalism is not only historically grounded, but also represents the consensus within Reformed Protestantism. That is, it is not merely one of many styles or camps of political theology within the broader tradition, but that it represents the majority or overwhelming consensus view. These first two claims can, I think, be fairly objectively assessed by turning to the sources Wolfe and others employ. The third claim however, that Christian Nationalism should be embraced by Christians today as theologically sound and politically prudent, will require much more discernment to adjudicate. It is undeniably true, for example, that past theologians and commentators within the Reformed tradition have advocated the civil magistrate do things most PCA leaders and members today would not support (think here of the oft-repeated debates around the execution of Servetus in Calvin’s Geneva, or the laws enacted in places like Puritan New England or Knox’s Scotland). When engaging in some sort of retrieval, then, contemporary Reformed thinkers have several options available. They could, like David VanDrunen in his Politics after Christendom, suggest that the principles and the framework established by 16th- and 17th-century thinkers like Calvin and Turretin is broadly correct and useful, establishing a difference between what is “common” and what is “sacred,” leaving the sacred to the church and the common to the magistrate. At the same time, they could suggest these thinkers are merely mistaken when they treat, for example, blasphemy laws as within the proper purview of the civil magistrate. Retrieval of this kind says that these thinkers are broadly correct in principle, incorrect in their application, and can thus be adopted with modifications. One could, alternatively, suggest that the entire category of “social and political doctrines” is more context-dependent than those doctrines we might call “theology proper.” As my friend John Ehrett has argued, “With this distinction in view, it makes sense to treat the retrieval of ‘theology proper’ differently from the retrieval of certain social and political doctrines. Reformation-era claims about social and political order are in general more likely to be contingent and time-bound, while the former are not.” A proper work of retrieval, then, would not be quite as simple as “X and Y reformers agreed on A and B social doctrine, and thus all Reformed people should affirm the same.” It would instead be a project of making good cases, given the contingencies of politics and changing political and economic situations that a past teaching is in some way binding on or prudent to adopt for present believers. This is a much more difficult task for especially Protestant thinkers to undertake, but one that has been undertaken with vigor by Oliver O’Donovan, among others. In any case, I am glad this committee has been established and I hope and pray that it will produce something of value to the church. I, along with Christian Nationalism’s proponents, sincerely hope that the committee will, as they say, “do the reading,” and will likewise avoid any imprudent anathemas of positions within the pale of our confessional tradition. At the same time, I expect the committee will find much troubling about both the teachings and the conduct of those who advocate for Christian Nationalism today, and likewise find that, among the Reformed, there is widespread disagreement on these social and political doctrines that cuts against any claim of exclusivity or unity on them within the Reformed tradition.

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In a landmark address delivered during the Jubilee of Hope in 2025, Pope Leo XIV turned the world’s attention to the Eastern Churches—not only to honor their sacred past but to demand a reckoning with their precarious future. Among his most urgent appeals was a renewed call to preserve and promote the heritage of Eastern Christians living in diaspora. “In our own day,” he warned, “many of our Eastern brothers and sisters… risk losing not only their native lands, but also, when they reach the West, their religious identity.” Pope Leo drew explicitly on the legacy of his namesake, Leo XIII, whose 1894 encyclical Orientalium Dignitas called the Eastern Churches “a treasure for the universal Church” and denounced any attempt to Latinize them as “a form of ecclesiastical violence.” The Pope’s words resound deeply for the various Syriac Christian communities across Europe, the Americas, and Australia, where generations displaced by genocide, war, and persecution face the twin challenges of assimilation and amnesia. His call is particularly relevant to the legacy of Father Boulos (Paul) Bedari, whose life work foreshadowed the very concerns the Pope now echoes. For Bedari, preserving Syriac identity—in liturgy, in language, and in communal consciousness—was not a nostalgic exercise. It was, and remains, a matter of survival. In a moving celebration of Palm Sunday 2025, the faithful of Zakho commemorated not only the triumphal entry of Christ into Jerusalem but also the life and legacy of one of their own great sons—Father Boulos Bedari. The day began with a grand procession led by Bishop Mar Felix Saeed Dawood Al-Shabi, beginning at the Chaldean Church of Mar Gorgis and making its way to the historic village of Bedaro, now part of the growing city of Zakho. Hundreds of parishioners joined the joyful march, waving palm fronds and singing hymns. At the conclusion of the festivities, a statue was unveiled to honor Father Bedari, a towering figure in the religious, cultural, and national history of the region. A recently erected statue of Father Boulos Bedari in Zakho, Iraq. Born in 1887 in Bedaro, just two kilometers outside Zakho, Father Bedari’s life was intertwined with the land and its heritage. The village’s name—“Battlefield” in Syriac Aramaic—hearkens back to an ancient victory by Mar (Saint) Qardagh of Arbela over the Roman army, a symbol of resilience that would characterize Bedari’s own life. From a young age, Bedari showed a keen love for knowledge. Recognizing his potential, the parish priest selected him to study at the Seminary of Mar Yohanna Habib (St. John the Beloved) in Mosul, a prestigious institution founded by the Dominican fathers in the 19th century. Over more than a decade, he immersed himself in theology, languages, and sciences, laying the foundation for his future service. In 1912, he was ordained a priest by Bishop Timotheus Maqdassi. Father Bedari initially served his home village, but his mission soon expanded. He ministered in Beirut, Hasakah, and Qamishli, where he directed the Kifah School, known for its high academic standards, particularly during his leadership. Father Bidari was also a rebellious and defiant figure. In February 1960, Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser, a fierce Arab Nationalist, visited northeastern Syria during the brief existence of the United Arab Republic (UAR), the political union between Egypt and Syria (1958–1961). This visit was part of a broader campaign to solidify his control over Syria and promote pan-Arab nationalism. While many Arab Syrians welcomed him with enthusiasm, the various Syriac Christian communities reacted with suspicion, resentment, and even open resistance—especially in places like Qamishli, which had significant Christian populations. Many of the Syriac Christian communities in the area were survivors or descendants of survivors of Sayfo—the Ottoman-led genocide of indigenous Christian communities—and were particularly wary of pan-Islamic or exclusive nationalist ideas and Nasser’s pan-Arab rhetoric emphasizing Arab identity to the exclusion of other ethnic and cultural groups. Assyrians and Syriacs feared forced Arabization, loss of linguistic and cultural rights, and marginalization of their Christian identity. During his visit, Nasser publicly referred to the region as an “Arab land,” further alienating non-Arab Syriac populations who view their identity as distinct from that of Arabs. After Nasser’s speech, Father Bidari ascended the stage without permission and shouted: “O barefoot Arabs! You came to our lands as invaders. Go back to your deserts!” Security forces arrested him immediately and dragged him to intelligence headquarters. Nasser was unable to differentiate between the non-Arab Syriac Christians and the Coptic Orthodox in his native Egypt, who largely adhere to Arab culture. He noted to his aides his displeasure at seeing non-Arab culture and identity being displayed in Syria and made sure that clubs promoting Syriac language, literature, and Christian heritage came under pressure. One of the most prominent Christian football clubs in Syria, Rafidain Sports Club in Qamishli, deeply tied to the community’s cultural and social life, was shut down. Activities perceived as promoting non-Arab identity were banned or tightly monitored, including Syriac language classes, traditional dance/music groups, and heritage preservation societies. Church-affiliated youth and cultural groups were also scrutinized, especially if they operated outside of strictly religious activities. Nasserist policies discouraged any form of ethnic or religious communalism that was not explicitly Arab-Muslim. Father Bedari was a prolific writer and scholar. Fluent in Syriac, Arabic, French, Kurdish, Latin, and English, his works spanned languages and genres. Many of his manuscripts, including critiques of church leadership, historical poems, and geographical treatises, remain unpublished or were lost due to his many travels and the political turmoil of his time. Throughout his ministry, Father Bedari placed special emphasis on teaching the sacred Syriac language, church hymns, and traditional liturgical practices. But more than that, he instilled in his students a deep sense of cultural pride and national unity, transcending the sectarian divides that had fragmented the Syriac-speaking peoples. Graduates of his school were known for their strong attachment to their language, faith, and ancestral heritage. His writings reflect a passionate plea for unity among all branches of the Syriac-speaking peoples—Maronites, Assyrians (Church of the East, Ancient Church of the East, Russian Orthodox, and various Protestant Churches), Syriac Orthodox, Syriac Catholics, and Chaldean Catholics alike. During a eulogy he delivered in honor of Patriarch Ephrem Barsoum (of the Syriac Orthodox Church), during a commemorative gathering held in Qamishli, he famously declared: “We are all, with our different names, equally Syriac—without one being superior to another. May God’s curse be upon the one who scattered the Syriac people into warring factions…” In 1960, the Chaldean Patriarch Paul Cheikho summoned Father Bedari back to Iraq, where he joined the Supreme Council of the Kurdish Revolution under Mulla Mustafa Barzani. He fought and advocated tirelessly in the mountains of northern Iraq, the land he loved so dearly and tried to get Barzani’s approval for a Syriac Christian/Assyrian national homeland in northern Iraq. But when Barzani grew in power, he reneged on his promises and Fr. Bedari’s efforts were in vain. His dream was not merely political—it was a call for a national homeland for his people, the original inhabitants of these ancient lands. Father Bedari’s revolutionary engagement distinguished him even among his contemporaries. He stood out as one of the rare Chaldean Catholic figures who openly sought self-determination for his people, contrasting with the more cautious stance of others. Father Bedari never parted from two things: his prayer rosary and his pistol — symbolizing his dual commitment to faith and defense of his people. His pistol remains preserved today in the Chaldean parish of Jesus the King in Hasakah. He spent his final years in the Monastery of Mar Gorgis near Mosul, passing away in 1974 at the age of 87. He was laid to rest in the Cathedral of the Martyr Masqenta in Mosul, remembered by all who knew him as a fierce fighter for his faith, his people, and their rightful place in history. The story of Father Paul Bedari is one of faith, courage, scholarship, and undying devotion to a people and a cause greater than himself. His life continues to inspire new generations to cherish their identity, heritage, and the bonds that unite them. Pope Leo XIV lamented that “the priceless heritage of the Eastern Churches is being lost” as younger generations in the West grow increasingly detached from their ancestral traditions. He noted that many of these communities, particularly those born into the diaspora, face a quiet erosion of their identity. In his words: “It is vital, then, that you preserve your traditions without attenuating them, for the sake perhaps of practicality or convenience, lest they be corrupted by the mentality of consumerism and utilitarianism.” Father Bedari would have recognized this danger. As a scholar, militant cleric, and cultural visionary, he understood that identity could not survive on sentiment alone. It required intentional formation—schools to teach Syriac, churches to uphold Eastern liturgical life, and a communal narrative capable of bridging ancient roots with modern realities. Whether resisting Arabization in Qamishli or petitioning Kurdish leaders for Christian autonomy in Iraq’s highlands, Bedari fought not just for physical safety, but for cultural and spiritual continuity. A commemorative plaque honoring Father Boulos Bedari in Zakho, Iraq. It is precisely this continuity that Pope Leo XIV now seeks to uphold, calling on Latin bishops and global Church structures to “concretely support Eastern Catholics in the diaspora in their efforts to preserve their living traditions.” His directive is a challenge to complacency—not just in Rome, but in the parishes and dioceses of the West that host dispersed communities. In Pope Leo’s vision, these communities are not relics of a lost world but vessels of renewal for the broader Church. “The contribution that the Christian East can offer us today is immense,” he said, praising the mystagogy, liturgical richness, and penitential spirituality that remain alive in Eastern worship. These, he noted, are “medicinal” traditions—a term that could easily describe the example of Father Bedari himself, whose rosary and pistol embodied the paradox of faith and defense, devotion and resistance. In modern times, amid trends of secularization and modernization, Syriac Christian identity has expanded to include pre-Christian heritage under Assyrian, Aramean, Syriac, or Chaldean labels. These labels, which largely follow ecclesiastical divisions, are often a source of further division within the community and often reflect the unique identities of each sect and that sect’s regional ties and identity. Syriac Christian identity today is a layered one: rooted in religion, shaped by history, and negotiated through competing narratives of unity and distinction. For Syriac Christians living in the diaspora, the story of Father Bedari is more than a chapter of distant history; it is a living call to remember who they are and the importance of unity. In lands far from Zakho and Mosul, where assimilation and forgetfulness threaten to erode ancient traditions, Bedari’s life stands as a witness to the sacred duty of preserving faith, language, and communal memory. His fierce love for his people—their prayers, their hymns, their identity—reminds those scattered across the world that exile need not mean erasure. Wherever they live, Syriac Christians are called to cherish and renew the spiritual and cultural inheritance that was passed down at great cost, lest it be lost to the tides of time. For the diaspora, Pope Leo’s message is both a reassurance and a responsibility. They are, as he put it, “lights in our world,” called not merely to adapt but to illuminate. They must carry forth the legacy of saints and fathers like Boulos Bedari—men who refused to compromise the sacred even under persecution. As Pope Leo concluded, “Christ’s peace is not the sepulchral silence that reigns after conflict… but a gift that brings new life.” That peace must be built not only by diplomats and statesmen, but by families, parishes, and pastors who pass on the prayers, songs, and stories that shaped our ancestors. In this, the life of Father Boulos Bedari is no historical footnote. It is a map. And now, thanks to voices like Pope Leo XIV, the Church universal is being summoned to follow it.

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There is a dangerous romance at the heart of certain revolutionary ideologies: a conviction that violence is not only inevitable, but redemptive. Across both sacred and secular registers, the willingness to destroy has often been cast as the ultimate proof of moral seriousness. From Robespierre’s guillotine to the slogans of contemporary street uprisings, violence, baptized in the name of justice, is often framed as the harbinger of a new world. However, this is a theological mistake and a political dead end. As William Cavanaugh, Hannah Arendt, and Isaiah Berlin each argue in their idioms, violence is not a vision. It is rather what emerges when vision collapses, when the political imagination grows impatient, or intoxicated, and mistakes sacrifice for transformation. In his seminal work, Theopolitical Imagination, William Cavanaugh traces how modern states, although formally secular, are animated by deeply theological myths of redemptive sacrifice. The state’s power to compel death in war, he argues, is sustained by a quasi-liturgical structure: rituals of memory, symbolic martyrdom, and sacred borders. The citizen-soldier does not merely die for policy, but for the imagined community––the sovereign abstraction of nationhood. Cavanaugh warns that when revolutionary politics internalize this logic of sacrifice, violence becomes its justification. Bloodshed ceases to be regrettable and instead becomes a sacred act. The revolutionary subject is then bound to a mimetic logic: to prove commitment, one must suffer; to purify the future, one must destroy the present. Nevertheless, Cavanaugh is not merely condemning the state; he is contrasting its logic with a different theological inheritance, one rooted in the anti-sacrificial tradition of the early church. For the first Christian martyrs, the refusal to kill was the very sign of mortal and divine witness (martyria). True transformation comes not through ritualized bloodshed, but through the radical break of mercy, forgiveness, and endurance. To kill for the good is to betray it. Hannah Arendt, writing from a different tradition, reaches a parallel conclusion. In “On Violence,” she distinguishes violence from power. Power for Arendt arises from collective action and mutual recognition; it is plural and discursive. Violence, by contrast, is instrumental: it destroys rather than persuades. It is the means of those who have lost the capacity to act with others. Crucially, Arendt notes that revolutions that begin in the name of freedom often end in tyranny when violence becomes the organizing principle. The glorification of force—the cult of breaking and burning—eviscerates the political space itself. “Where violence rules absolutely,” she writes, “power is absent.” The Left’s temptation to romanticize violence as spontaneous, pure, or morally unambiguous can lead to the annihilation of the very world it hoped to redeem. Isaiah Berlin deepens this critique by turning to the metaphysics of politics. His famous defense of value pluralism challenges the utopian assumption that all goods are compatible, or that history can be bent into perfect harmony. For Berlin, political maturity means accepting the tragic: the recognition that liberty may conflict with equality, that justice may come at the expense of mercy. When utopian ideologies deny this truth, they have the tendency to become totalizing in nature. The desire for unity metastasizes into coercion. It is a short step from imagining a purified world to the elimination of all who would obstruct such a vision. In this sense, the absolutist spirit, whether on the Left or Right, makes violence necessary, not incidental. The result is a political theology of apocalypse. Within segments of the contemporary Left, one finds a troubling aestheticization of collapse: a delight in the imagery of burning cities, guillotines, and overturned institutions. This is not to deny that the rage is absolute or that the injustices are grievous. Regardless, the nihilistic fervor for destruction, often cloaked in the language of justice, betrays a failure to imagine durable alternatives. There is little interest in the slow, painful work of institutional reform, persuasion, or compromise. Instead, the symbolic immediacy of violence replaces institution-building with spectacle. In such moments, the revolutionary becomes indistinguishable from the sacrificial priest, demanding blood to sanctify a future he cannot describe. Against this backdrop, we must recover a politics of limits, mercy, and imagination. It is not a politics of passivity, but one of building. It begins with the refusal to treat human beings as expendable in the name of abstract ends. It insists that means matter, that the dignity of political life lies not in purity but in patience. Here, Arendt’s vision of natality—the capacity to begin anew—offers a corrective: politics must be grounded in the possibility of dialogue, not the certainty of domination. Berlin, too, offers counsel: to choose in conditions of plurality is not to betray justice, but to honor the irreducibility of the human condition. Moreover, Cavanaugh reminds us that a truly redemptive politics must break the cycle of sacrifice, not perpetuate it. Violence may clear the ground, but it cannot plant. It may shatter illusions, but it cannot sustain meaning. The world we inherit is fragile and fractured, yet it remains ours to shape and mold. Violence is not vision. If we seek the good, we must construct it—brick by brick, not corpse by corpse.

Vice President JD Vance’s Munich Security Conference speech in February rocked Europe’s political establishment. Instead of focusing on external threats to the US-led transatlantic alliance, Vance brought attention to what he called the “threat from within,” pointing to Europe’s increasing willingness to restrict political freedoms, especially the speech of Europe’s political right. Though many were critical of Vance, the truth is that European suppression of political freedoms has become so heavy-handed that even The Economist has taken note. The newspaper recently published an article expressing concern with mainstream Europe’s approach to political freedoms, such as the ongoing legal ordeal of Finland’s former interior minister and member of parliament, Paivi Rasanen, enduring legal persecution for using Biblical text to discourage the Finnish Lutheran church from sponsoring a Pride event. European institutions conceptualize free speech differently from those in the United States. The European Convention on Human Rights protects freedom of expression, but unlike America’s First Amendment, it includes a loophole, noting that freedom of expression is limited by “duties and responsibilities.” As The Economist explains, in Europe, “[y]our right to offend is limited, in some instances, by my right not to be offended.” With the passage of the Digital Services Act in 2022, the EU expanded the loophole and its ability to suppress what EU regulators consider “harmful” speech and “disinformation.” The EU’s suppression of speech under the guise of hate speech and disinformation coincides with other efforts to weaponize government against the Right. Marine Le Pen, the leader of France’s National Rally party, was convicted of embezzling EU Parliament funds, which comes with a legal ban against running for France’s presidency in 2027, even though she is a leading candidate for the office. This case is troubling because the actions that led to Le Pen’s conviction are common among politicians across the political spectrum. Yet she was the only member of the European Parliament prosecuted for the alleged violations. It is not unreasonable to conclude that authorities targeted Le Pen because of her political viewpoints. And more recently, Germany’s Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the Verfassungsschutz, designated the Alternative for Germany (AfD), an increasingly popular political party, a right-wing extremist organization. This designation allows the intelligence agency to surveil the party, discourages other parties from working with it, and could eventually lead to the AfD being banned from politics. This all begs the question: how can Europeans decry Vance’s criticisms while simultaneously stripping right-wing politicians and parties of their political freedoms? The answer is an ever-evolving definition of democracy used to stigmatize and punish right-wing parties for competing with mainstream parties. These efforts have gained more traction in Europe than in the United States, leading to a contested understanding of democracy and strained transatlantic relations, particularly when conservatives hold power in Washington. Defining and Measuring Democracy Democracy is an increasingly contested concept, yet most will agree that it must entail broad democratic participation, meaningful competition, and the protection of individual rights. While the first two elements of this definition are simple enough, where one citizen’s rights end and another’s begin can be complicated. Take the Finnish example: while Europeans generally value the right of sexual minorities to not be offended over the rights of Christians to express their sincerely held religious beliefs, many Americans reach the opposite conclusion. These questions become even more perplexing when trying to discern precise measurements for a country’s level of democracy. These conceptual and measurement challenges have not deterred organizations like Freedom House and others from publishing precise, scientific-sounding democracy measurements for virtually every country’s political system. For instance, in a 2019 New York Times opinion piece, Michelle Goldberg discusses results from a Freedom House report showing that the U.S.’s democracy score plummeted to 86 (out of 100) under the first two years of Donald Trump’s presidency from a high of 94 during the Obama administration. As relayed in Goldberg’s op-ed, America’s score would have plummeted even further if not for a rise in anti-Trump civic activism over the same period. Goldberg identifies Trump’s “racist demagogy” and “effort to rescind Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals,” an Obama-era executive order, as causes of America’s reduced democracy score. In other words, Trump’s mean Tweets and a ‘bad’ executive order undoing Obama’s ‘good’ executive order are indicative of America’s democratic decline. Unsurprisingly, recent research from Dr. Andrew T. Little (UC-Berkley) and Anne Meng (UVA) casts doubt on the accuracy of democracy measures. In particular, Freedom House concludes that the world is experiencing global democratic backsliding, and it provides substantial data to support its case. In contrast, Little and Meng argue that coder bias has contaminated democracy measurements, resulting in misleading assessments of democracy. “Freedom House meets with expert analysts to reach a consensus of country-level scores,” and they note that “considerable subjective judgment is required to produce democracy scores.”   Little and Meng test their coder-bias hypothesis by distinguishing between objective measures of democracy requiring little judgement to interpret, those related to participation and competition, versus measurements around what constitutes liberal rights, which require much more discernment to interpret. For example, while Little and Meng used data points such as the number of journalists jailed and murdered in a particular country, Freedom House utilized over ninety analysts assessing twenty-three dimensions of press freedom to produce a 0-100 score for each country and territory assessed. According to Freedom House, “[a]nalysts gather information from field research, professional contacts, reports from local and international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), reports of governments and multilateral bodies, and domestic and international news media” to arrive at their scores. The results of Little and Meng’s analysis are striking. Contra Freedom House, Little and Meng argue there is “little evidence” of global democratic backsliding. Instead, “changes in the media environment or changing coder standards may have led to a time-varying bias in expert surveys that could make it appear that the world is becoming less democratic absent any true trend.” In other words, they suggest that social processes are altering assessment standards and leading to the appearance of democratic decline in sophisticated democracy measures when, in reality, no such decline exists. The Democracy Divide As should be readily apparent, Vance and the Europeans he scolded in Munich are working from significantly different definitions of democracy. This is how Freedom House can give Finland a perfect democracy score (100/100) despite the Finnish government’s efforts to silence speech and quell religious freedom. On the other hand, Vance’s conception of religious liberty is rooted in the Western tradition and reflects the US Constitution. He sees freedom of expression—especially religious freedom—as a cornerstone of democracy. Much more could be said about the origins of the emerging transatlantic democracy divide. In a recent State Department Substack, “The Need for Civilizational Allies in Europe,” Samuel Samson notes how the transatlantic partnership is founded on shared values. Vice President Vance emphasized this much in his controversial Munich speech. For Samson, “the transatlantic partnership is underpinned by a rich Western tradition of natural law, virtue ethics, and national sovereignty,” highlighting the theistic and Christian origins of the Western tradition. Today’s transatlantic elites undoubtedly have a different conception of Western values and their point of origin. Because of these fundamentally different starting points, the democracy divide—the gap between the transatlantic elite’s and the Right’s conceptualization of democracy—is unlikely to narrow in the future.

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The ataman (head) of the “All-Russian Cossack Society,” Nikolai Doluda, addressed a meeting of the Atamans’ Council, in Krasnodar Krai, on February 4, and instructed those gathered that “the time has come when the Cossacks are once again becoming a stronghold and reliable shield of Russia, a guarantor of unity and protection of its national interests” (Vsko.ru, February 4). The … The post As Ukraine Crisis Simmers, Russian Cossack Movement Tightens Integration With Military Reserves appeared first on Jamestown.

Judi Bola Sbobet Bonus New Member Poker QQ Idn Poker Slot Dana PKV Games PKV Games Idn Poker Mix Parlay Mix Parlay BandarQQ PKV Games Over the last several years, Ukraine’s leaders have expressed grave concern over the dangers posed to regional energy security by Russia’s Nord Stream Two natural gas pipeline. From Germany and, more broadly, from Europe, the … The post The Many Faces of Nord Stream Two appeared first on Jamestown.

Judi Bola Sbobet Bonus New Member Poker QQ Idn Poker Slot Dana PKV Games PKV Games Idn Poker Mix Parlay Mix Parlay BandarQQ PKV Games On July 28, Ukrainian Orthodox Christians celebrated the 1,033rd anniversary of the Baptism of Kyivan Rus—a remarkable annual event for Ukrainian history and another reason for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s political speculations. After the Ecumenical … The post Religion as a Hybrid War Weapon to Achieve Russia’s Geopolitical Goals appeared first on Jamestown.

On May 25, just ahead of the 103rd anniversary of the First Georgian Republic’s (1918–1921) independence, Georgian protesters paralyzed the streets of the capital city of Tbilisi in the largest rally to date against the Namakhvani Hydroelectric Power Plant (HPP) project (Civil.ge, May 25, 26). Relatively small demonstrations against the planned dam, by locals organized under the banner “Guardians of … The post Namakhvani HPP: Georgian Hydropower Between Energy Security and Geopolitics appeared first on Jamestown.

Judi Bola Sbobet Bonus New Member Poker QQ Idn Poker Slot Dana PKV Games PKV Games Idn Poker Mix Parlay Mix Parlay BandarQQ PKV Games The Russian Cossack movement is emerging as one of the key social pillars supporting the regime, and increasingly it is taking on the mold of Kuban Cossackdom, found in the southern part of the country. … The post All Russian Cossacks Increasingly Resemble Krasnodar Movement appeared first on Jamestown.

On April 21, Vasily Piskarev, the head of the State Duma’s commission to investigate the facts of interference in the internal affairs of Russia, announced that his body was preparing legislative initiatives to combat foreign interference in Russia, including in its elections, by non-profits and non-governmental organizations (NGO). Piskarev said that “insults against Russia” will receive a “worthy response, including … The post Russia Cracks Down on ‘Foreign Threats’ appeared first on Jamestown.

On February 20, Ruslan Ablyakimov was walking in Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan, with two friends when he was stopped by six young men who proceeded to beat him. “Where did you come here from?” they asked, “You are from Moscow, right? What are you doing here?” Before the men left Ablyakimov, they told him, “You have until tomorrow to … The post Alexei Navalny’s Support in the North Caucasus: More About Corruption Than Navalny appeared first on Jamestown.

The foreign and security policy expert communities in Georgia (Neweurope.eu, November 17) as well as both the outgoing and candidate Lithuanian defense ministers (LRT, November 16, 19) have called for a permanent presence of United States military forces in their respective countries. These calls indicate a hope that the incoming administration of President-elect Joseph Biden will bring greater attention to … The post Georgia, Lithuania Call for Permanent US Troop Presences appeared first on Jamestown.

In the first week of August, cellphones across Russia lit up with surprising text messages. They came from different numbers, but each said the same thing in Russian: “The US State Department is offering up to $10 million for information about interference in the US elections. If you have information, contact rfj.tips/bngc.” The State Department confirmed the messages were authentic … The post US Messaging to Russian Citizens: Time to Step It Up? appeared first on Jamestown.

Recent comments by former vice president of the separatist Georgian region of Abkhazia Valery Arshba indicate a split between the older political elite and the current administration of President Aslan Bzhania (Gazeta-ra.info, October 19; Civil.ge, October 23). Arshba called for the breakaway republic to join the Union State of Russia and Belarus, “without losing [its] sovereignty.” Arshba himself has a … The post Former Abkhazian Separatist Official Calls for Joining Russia-Belarus Union State appeared first on Jamestown.