Kerby Anderson
The world has always been a dangerous place. But those dangers are accentuated due to erroneous assumptions about war and foreign policy. Jakub Grygiel highlights three foreign policy illusions.
“The first is that leaders are responsible for wars and these countries are our rivals only because of their bad leaders.” One example can be seen in the statement by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who placed the blame of the Russia-Ukraine war on Vladimir Putin. “One man chose this war. And one man can end it.” But a recent poll showed that three-quarters of Russians support the war.
“The second illusion is that international organizations and global governance can overcome contentious national and regional politics.” President Franklin Roosevelt believed the Soviet Union would behave better once it joined the United Nations. Western leaders hoped China would also be more responsible after joining the World Trade Organization. That has not happened in either case.
“The third illusion is that greater trade and wealth produce peace.” Nations proposed a naïve principle of “change through trade.” The US hoped trade with China would make that country more peace-loving.
Nations engaged in trade in order to gain advantage over their commercial partners. In many ways, trade fosters a desire for power. As nations grew economically, they also grew militarily so they could protect their commercial interests.
These significant conflicts between nations cannot be changed through leadership changes nor through international organizations nor through trade. Conflict between nations can be checked or even defeated, but that comes from military power.

Kerby Anderson
Antisemitism is on the rise in nearly every country. Who would have expected to hear “Gas the Jews” in Sydney, Australia? Jewish students in Germany are being warned by their parents not to wear the Star of David in public. Justin Cohen in a BBC story warns, “The Jewish community at the moment is full of dread, full of fear, like I’ve never seen before.”
Those are just a few examples cited by Michael Brown in his commentary, “Wake Up World Before Jewish Blood is Shed in Your Country.” He is pleading with the public to take the recent antisemitic events seriously. He says we need to stand up, speak out, and push back.
The problem of antisemitism has become so severe that the European Union issued a statement about antisemitic incidents in Europe. “The spike of antisemitic incidents across Europe has reached extraordinary levels in the last few days, reminiscent of some of the darkest times in history. European Jews today are again living in fear.”
Alan Dershowitz concludes that “the Democratic Party now faces a choice.” He sees a fracture in the party between centrist and liberal Jews and the woke, anti-Israel progressives. He understands that left-leaning young people often inject vitality and enthusiasm into progressive causes. But now they seem to be embracing bloodlust. And he also points to faculty on elite college campuses that have signed open letters supporting the Hamas attacks.
He first voted for John F. Kennedy in 1960 and has voted for democrats ever since. But if the woke-hard-left succeeds in taking over the party, he predicts that millions of American Jews like him will turn from blue to red. This has implications for our next election.