Exiting the Columbia University’s Graduate Faculties in 1981, my long-pursued degree in hand, I was ready for the next step. At that time, the start of my career, my sole aim was to teach and do research in the field of international relations. I could not even imagine anyone suggesting that I might end up in the halls of the U.S. government, in the mountains of Afghanistan, in Iran, or in any other unusual place. Yet the academic phase turned out to be but one facet of an unusual path.

One of the many fascinating aspects of a career full of surprises, and at times of dangerous situations, were the people with whom I came into contact. Some were well-known and in high positions, some not so high. Some were courageous and principled, some with blood on their hands. Some with whom one would not wish to be alone in a dark alley and some who died violent deaths.

It is as if a massive tsunami had hit the U.S., its shock waves quickly spreading across the world! The reference here is not to the geographic phenomenon but to its political equivalent: “Trump-in-action” or, for lack of a better term, “Trumpism.” The rapid-fire, multi-sphere initiatives, pronouncements, and moves of the initial weeks of his second term, along with their vast scope, have been as unprecedented as they are unconventional. To say “unconventional” is actually an understatement; President Trump has given new meaning to the term.

It could probably be said without too much exaggeration that few, if any – from the proverbial man-in-the-street to the experts to government officials – understand what, and why, the President is doing what he is doing. Confusion reigns. And it is the aggregate of all the still ongoing stream of far-reaching, even radical, moves – not any individual component – that has everyone snowed under and taken by surprise and that has kept the targets of the President’s activities off-balance.

Pro-Hamas protests on U.S. campuses are a small, albeit significant, element in a wider anti-Israel/antisemitic global campaign. The virulent and worldwide launch of an unparalleled explosion of outright, explicit antisemitism advocating the outright slaying of all Jews wherever they might be was clearly triggered by Hamas’ heinous slaughter of large numbers of innocent human beings just inside Israel on October 7^th. It is clear from the “in-your-face” disruptive tactics that there is no interest in “winning over” public opinion. Clear also is the intent to intimidate, to further cow not just the general population but also the authorities into

acceding to outrageous demands. The protests, now occurring widely outside the United States as well, are clearly different from earlier ones, if only in their antisemitic focus. What do they mean? What do they portend? What are their antecedents? The pages that follow will try to clarify their role and significance within the broader strategic picture.

“President Biden told the world on Monday, August 16, that he doesn’t regret his decision to withdraw rapidly from Afghanistan, or even the chaotic, incompetent way the withdrawal has been executed. He is determined in retreat, defiant in surrender, and confident in the rightness of consigning the country to jihadist rule.” So did a Wall Street Journal editorial of August 16, 2021 aptly sum up the situation.

With the Taliban’s victorious entry into Kabul in mid-August 2021, the American military intervention in Afghanistan has come full circle. Undertaken to destroy Al Qaeda following its deadly 9/11 attack on American soil, and to remove Afghanistan as a base for global terrorism, it has now, 20 years later, ended up where it began. Instead of building on the significant progress achieved, it is witnessing the triumphant return of those terrorists in a stronger position than ever. President Biden’s assertion that the U.S. “mission” had been accomplished is exposed as the boldface lie it is by the glaring reality of the shameful rout.

“Ululations of orchestrated hysteria went up from the nation’s media,” wrote Gerard Baker, columnist at the Wall Street Journal, decrying the reactions of the mainstream media to Donald Trump’s election to the presidency in 2016. “It was 1933 again. Late Weimar America would succumb to an authoritarian with a distinctive haircut and a penchant for intolerant rhetoric.”[1]  

Fast-forward to September 2020: Former Vice-President Biden, in a television interview, described President Trump as “sort of like” Nazi Germany’s Goebbels, the head of Hitler’s propaganda machine – or, in the first presidential debate, as “the man is a clown…a liar.” Biden again: Trump is “more like Castro than Churchill.”[2]  

The time from Pesach to Shavuot, as we renew our preparation for the receiving of the Torah, is a particularly apt one to reflect on fundamental values. That becomes even more important – and difficult – in what seems to be a truly “upside-down” world, possibly the most worrisome state of affairs in quite some time.

It is consequently appropriate to dissect key ongoing trends to see whether certain patterns can be discerned, and then to see whether one can see the way ahead in some fashion.

It is not only the rapid pace of events but also their hectic tempo that are disturbing and make them hard, if not impossible, to grasp. How can one make sense of these rapid-fire events both here and abroad? Hardly a day goes by in the U.S. without some mass shooting – whether at schools, stores, or malls? Can we possibly explain those other apparent innovations of “Palestinian” terrorists – the random knifing of civilians or the use of vehicles as weapons of mass murder, in Israel, Europe, and now in Canada? Clearly, not all of these have been the work of terrorists. The latest, in Canada, so far seems not to have been. Neither was the horrendous mass shooting in Las Vegas or recent school shootings. Nevertheless, the spread and adoption of the techniques by unbalanced individuals of all stripes is new to the digital age and represents an alarming trend. The types of people who are committing these crimes were always there. They somehow did not tend to act out in this manner. It is as if some psychological barrier has been breeched, as if such behavior is now an acceptable manner to seek attention and vent feelings.