David Rothkopf/Haaretz:
Why Netanyahu Loves Antisemites Like Elon Musk So Much
By cosying up to the world’s most prominent Jew-haters while denouncing his critics, Netanyahu is betraying Jews wholesale. Musk is only the latest, dangerous example, but welcoming him to Israel in the middle of the Gaza war is particularly odious
One by one, Netanyahu and his courtiers have reached out to some of the world’s most prominent Jew-haters, offering them absolution for their sins and Israel’s official license to carry on. By taking Musk to the scene of the Hamas massacres, he is also expropriating Jewish suffering to whitewash his antisemitism and his promotion of other antisemites on his website.
“I’ll overlook your hatred of the Jews if you bond with me on the basis of our mutual authoritarianism and racism,” is their message. And it has led to close ties with a vile club of the world’s most notorious antisemites including Putin, Orban, Musk, Erdogan, Trump and others.
That’s … pretty foul. And though there’s no recent poll, Biden is almost certainly more popular in Israel than Netanyahu, giving the White House some leverage over the embattled Israeli prime minister. That leverage will be needed in the coming weeks.
Ben Samuels/Haaretz:
Israel’s Repulsive Embrace of Elon Musk Is a Cynical Betrayal of Jews, Dead and Alive
Welcoming such a toxic mogul with open arms and taking him around sites of a massacre that has been belittled, demeaned and denied on his watch should be a stain on Netanyahu’s legacy
The Israel visit comes just weeks after Musk, adopting rhetoric used by the far right’s most prominent figureheads, directly engaged and platformed the antisemitic conspiracy theory cited by Robert Bowers, the assailant behind the deadliest massacre of American Jews in U.S. history.
This is not the first time Benjamin Netanyahu has, for the sake of political expediency, plummeted to the depths of sycophancy regarding Musk. Visiting the United States in mid-September, at the height of the controversy surrounding his government’s plans to gut Israel’s judiciary, the prime minister visited Tesla HQ after failing to score a White House invitation. At the time, he defended Musk against allegations of antisemitism while implying that the entrepreneur was more powerful than the U.S. president.
Up-to-date analysis of hostilities and the pause from Martin Indyk on X via Threadreader (there’s more there):
1. Hamas remains in control in Gaza capable of enforcing the ceasefire on all the other terrorist groups, including PIJ.
3. PIJ’s submission to Hamas’s command is an indication that Iran supports the ceasefire. Note that all of Iran’s proxies, including Hezbollah, have ceased firing despite…
The Times of Israel:
US: IDF should not displace Gazans en masse in the south like it did in the north
US officials say Washington is urging Israel to delineate several locations near UN shelters where IDF won’t operate; say US planes will bring vaccines to prevent spread of disease
“You cannot have the scale of displacement that took place in the north replicated in the south,” said one of two senior administration officials briefing reporters on condition of anonymity.
The remarks came a day after US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said that the Biden administration wanted Israel to “learn the lessons” of its ground incursion in northern Gaza and not begin operating in southern Gaza until it can ensure that Palestinian civilians are able to avoid the fighting.
Washington Post:
Antagonisms flare as red states try to dictate how blue cities are run
State lawmakers proposed nearly 700 bills this year to circumscribe what cities and counties can do, according to Katie Belanger, lead consultant for the Local Solutions Support Center, a national organization focused in part on ending the overreach it calls “abusive state preemption.”
The group’s tracking mostly found “conservative state legislatures responding to or anticipating actions of progressive cities,” she said, with many bills designed to bolster state restrictions on police defunding, abortion, and LGBTQ and voting rights. As of mid-October, at least 92 had passed.
Small government conservatives. Yeah, right.
Donald P. Moynihan/New York Times:
Trump Has a Master Plan for Destroying the ‘Deep State’
I study government bureaucracies. This is not normally a key political issue. Right now, it is, and everyone should be paying attention.
Donald Trump, the former president and current candidate, puts it in apocalyptic terms: “Either the deep state destroys America or we destroy the deep state.” This is not an empty threat. He has a real and plausible plan to utterly transform American government. It will undermine the quality of that government and it will threaten our democracy.
A second Trump administration would be very different from the first. Mr. Trump’s blueprint for amassing power has been developed by a constellation of conservative organizations that surround him, led by the Heritage Foundation and its Project 2025. This plan would elevate personal fealty to Mr. Trump as the central value in government employment, processes and institutions.
It has three major parts.
Perry Bacon Jr./Washington Post:
We need less talk about ‘democracy’ and more about our actual disagreements
President Biden recently described “preservation of American democracy” as the “central issue” of his presidency. In September, the foundations for 13 recent U.S. presidents from both parties released a joint statement to “reaffirm our commitment to the principles of democracy.” Press critics say the news media should take a “pro-democracy” approach to covering politics. Even this newspaper has adopted the slogan “Democracy Dies in Darkness.”
These are admirable sentiments and initiatives. But “democracy” is becoming a buzzword. It’s invoked too often and in imprecise ways, essentially as a synonym for “good” or “things I agree with.” We need less general talk about “saving democracy” and more about specific policies and principles that we want to defend and promote.
Perhaps it’s about theatre and not issues at all.
Split Ticket:
What Happened In Mississippi?
On a night of surprisingly strong Democratic performances in the 2023 elections, Brandon Presley’s 3.2% loss in Mississippi’s gubernatorial election stands out. Facing an incumbent governor in a Trump +17 state in the Deep South, most had already written off the Presley campaign. Then, a catastrophic October Democratic underperformance in demographically-similar Louisiana made Presley’s chances look even slimmer.
Presley’s surprise overperformance was powered by three factors: strong Black turnout, exceptional Black support, and relatively strong white support. Tapping into the white electorate was one of the biggest reasons that Mississippi was so much closer than Louisiana. Furthermore, while Black turnout was abysmally low in the latter state, it was remarkably robust in the former.
Speaking of scorn, Cliff Schecter reviews the reviews of Marjorie Taylor Greene’s book: