2024: A Year in Review

A Dose of Sanity wouldn’t really be a newsletter if I didn’t do one of these. I kicked this weekly letter off on May 28th of this year. 33 editions (including some extras) later and I’m still here with no intention of slowing down. I have recorded death and I have recorded hope. Tragedy and loss mixed with what I hope has been inspiration and a little wisdom. My biting wit and anger at injustice in the world. My hopefully amusing anecdotes and sidetracks of random history.

But to take it from the top:

January 1st, 2024. I was still a student of law. I had just published my very first book Letters To Leadership: A Chronicle Of Moral Failures, which was an attempt to hermetically seal the hatred of our present moment into the pages of history. I really did have high hopes going into the new semester and the new year. Surely people would recognize the patterns of history in our present trajectory and course-correct. Surely.

Ah, sweet naïveté. The fight was only just beginning. An entire year and more letters, writings, pictures, and posts than I can count and I’m still here fighting the same fight. It doesn’t feel like the side of the Good has gained much ground; but I think that we have nonetheless. A few candles shine through the dark despite all the hate in the world bearing down on them. And there is certainly plenty of hate to go around.

Let’s start with the genocidal terrorists that kicked off this chapter of world history on October 7th, 2023. To this date Hamas still has not released over a hundred hostages they took that day. Every subsequent action taken by the people of Israel has been in service of bringing their own home. The destruction of Gaza and the suffering of its people—there is only one responsible party, and their name is Hamas. As Haviv Rettig Gur put it, even assuming the best of Israelis the people of Gaza are still suffering terribly. The best hope of everyone involved is for Hamas to finally be totally eliminated and the general population deradicalized; then and only then will we see true flourishing in Gaza.

Likewise with the suffering of the Lebanese under Hezbollah. Hezbollah terrorists started launching rockets at Israeli civilians shortly after October 7th and never stopped, internally displacing somewhere in the range of a hundred thousand Israelis from their homes in the north. When Hezbollah killed twelve Druze kids playing soccer in Majdal Shams and injured dozens more, Israel finally took action to stop the same from happening again. Israel assassinated the leader of Hezbollah (after Operation Beep Beep Motherf—— sent thousands of Hezbollah’s terrorist management department to the hospital)—Hassan Nasrallah—who had brought ruin to the entire region at the behest of his overlord Ayatollah Khamenei. And then Israel proceeded to kick the teeth in of every terrorist as far north as Tyre. With Assad now gone and Hezbollah a smoldering ruin, hopefully the people of Lebanon can regain control of their country.

All of the suffering I’ve talked about so far has been in the Middle East; yet, Jews worldwide have been under unrelenting attack for now hundreds of days. Amsterdam witnessed a pogrom for the first time in decades. A synagogue in Australia was just burned out. Not to mention countless shootings, firebombings, vandalism and other unacceptable violence we have seen strike Jewish communities across the globe. The fundamental lesson of world history is this: when the gentile world sees Jewish blood, a not-insignificant percentage of people will demand more of it.

And then there were the “campus intifadas” that I all but predicted in my numerous and voluminous letters to “leadership” across the states and the world. If you somehow missed that deplorable piece of news: basically, a bunch of fascists and Jew haters (and a few well-meaning useful idiots, to be sure) decided to forcefully and sometimes violently occupy campus spaces and expel anyone they deemed “Zionist”, i.e. Jewish. Khamenei’s footsoldiers in America. But it’s okay, because they called themselves “anti-Zionist” first.

Disgraceful. Some of the most horrific scenes of modern-day America have come from these circles of depravity. Jews ridiculed, harassed, closed in, assaulted, pushed around. Endless slander, libel, and hate. And all just peachy keen in the eyes of campus “leadership”.

Every single individual in “higher education” across these United States ought to feel ashamed of yourselves. Through your cowardice and inaction in the face of hate we are seeing levels of antisemitism in academia that we haven’t seen since the Third Reich. That is not hyperbole. Just look around.

Blatant and horrific civil rights violations like we haven’t seen in at least a generation. Is Harvard allowing the Menorah to be lit at night yet? No? And why not, exactly? Afraid your own hateful students will deface it?

You thought this would all “blow over”. I’m sure a few well-intentioned Germans thought the same in the 30s. Academia was one of the first dominoes to fall to the Nazis. I don’t know why there is this weakness among the supposed “enlightened” among us; but it is quite terrifying.

And that’s not even the worst of antisemitic hate in our institutions of “higher” learning. I wrote and wrote and wrote to these “leaders” about the dire problems at their schools and got only crickets in reply. You can read all my 2024 letters in Letters To Leadership II, which I published on my LinkedIn as a pdf. When it was clear that campus leadership didn’t give a toss, I turned my focus to political leadership. I even wrote to then-Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and let him know exactly what this American thinks of their Jew-hating ‘British Broadcasting Corporation’.

As if this year could not get any more depressing, Jimmy Carter just died at the ripe age of one hundred years young. A man arguably more famous for the things he did after serving as the leader of the free world. Rest in peace, Mr. Peanut President.

But we also have plenty of reasons for hope this new year. Khamenei’s “empire of terror” is crumbling to dust primarily thanks to the bravery and sacrifice of the people of Israel. Perhaps in the next year we will see what Iranians have been dreaming of for decades: an end to the fascist, fundamentalist Mullahs’ regime that as of yet still occupies their home.

There is no question that Khamenei and Co deserve a swift kick up the backside. It was through his support that October 7th could occur in the first place. Without the financiers of international terrorism, fanatical groups like Hamas are DOA. Maybe such a day isn’t too far away.

Throughout the pain and the suffering and the anxiety and the sacrifice, the people of Israel have stood as a beacon of hope and light to the world. Quite literally tikkun olam. I have never in my life truly experienced something I would call “spiritual”; but, the inspiration I draw from the people of Israel every single day is about as close as I’ve ever gotten.

Take the rescue of Noa Argamani. Waking up and seeing news of the daring and successful operation to bring her and three other hostages home safe and sound is among the happiest moments of my entire life. Tears were shed. I’m a pretty emotional guy to begin with; but let me tell you that I have never, ever felt happiness and sadness like I feel now with you all. It’s the most bizarre and incredible thing I have ever been a part of.

Or Eurovision. I said in Zionist Musings that it takes something extraordinary to get an American emotionally invested in Eurovision; and man, did Eden Golan do the trick. Best 20 quid I ever spent was voting for her. And she did deserve to win it all, not just the popular vote that she nailed.

The world still doesn’t understand Israel. But we are changing that. Eventually, it will have no choice. A world that embraces Zionism instead of shunning it is just on the horizon. Maybe we can even make it this year.

Okay, okay, I’ve never been one for false optimism. But seriously, we are making progress. A Zionist future is not so implausible. A Zionist Middle East, even. Just look at Bahrain and the UAE. Israelis vacationing in Dubai. And the literal center of the Islamic world—Saudi Arabia—has warming relations with the Jewish state. The future is bright, I’m telling you. And I will continue telling you every week.

And with that, I bid you adieu until 2025. Thank you, everyone, and happy new year.