I'd forgotten how important the Colbert Report and Daily Show were for getting me through the Bush years and beyond. Truth is I've never been able to take conservative media straight, ever; too cruel and enraging and bad for my peace of mind. I need filters. So I've gone back to watching Colbert's opening monologues for his Late Show. These days they're almost always about the latest stupid affront to human decency perpetrated by the current regime and make it easier to laugh when you might otherwise feel like crying. Clearly a fan favorite are Colbert's impressions, mostly of Grump, but this one includes a hilariously spot on rendition of Bernie Sanders. For some much needed comic relief to our rolling disaster, I would like to suggest.
Likewise, I feel increasingly out of step with my age cohort on Israel and Palestine. When a longtime favorite music writer issued a hysterical post about the protests on college campuses against the war in Gaza last year I felt initially some sympathy for his obvious duress as a Jew but also felt increasingly alienated by the intransigence of his position. I believe Israel has a right to exist; I believe it has a right to defend itself against the violent attacks of its Arab Muslim neighbors. But I don't think it has a right to settler colonize the West Bank, or even the Muslim sections of Jerusalem, which it has been doing for decades. And I don't think it is has the right to indiscriminately bomb civilian targets in Gaza, as part of any military mission to remove Hamas, or win the return of hostages; and which, let's stipulate, nearly two years later has NOT achieved either of those goals but has resulted in over 50,000 deaths, many women and children, and, I'm sorry to say, at this point looks exactly like a genocidal terror campaign to ethnically cleanse Gaza of Arabs and Muslims. That is fucked up and wrong. And, of course, we shouldn't be harassing and jailing or even deporting people in the US for protesting Israel's war in Gaza. One of my go-to journalist sources, Josh Marshall @ TPM (might be behind a paywall; so subscribe, essential perspective on the news), shared the other day the longwinded reflections of a Jewish friend, worried about the impact of Mamdani's possible election as mayor of NYC. Not as hysterical as my music writer last year but my takeaway from this person's remarks was more or less the same: any opposition or protest of Israel or Zionism or Judaism has its way, even if unintended, of expanding antisemitism and so random violence and acts of terror against Jews. Maybe. There is certainly no lack of evidence of that in history. And I do think that terrible history does lend credibility to Zionism, the Jewish aspiration for a national homeland, even when I don't think Ethnonationalism as a rule is a very good idea. But this history can't exempt or pardon Israel from turning that same kind of violence and terror on others. Obviously, that is not okay and, equally obviously, it is only isolating Israel in the world. I hope Mamdani can reassure the Jewish community in NYC, while not abandoning the plight of Palestinians, because, to me, a Muslim-American mayor of NYC, the most populous center of Jewry outside Israel, a Muslim-American mayor that allies with Jews like Lander, and one that opposes all violence and war and terror in the Middle East between Muslims and Jews, might be in fact one of the best things that could possibly happen to the Israel vs Palestine conflict, or outside Israel anyway. Netanyahu is all pumped up with Israel's recent military success but Israel can't bomb their way out of their problems with their neighbors. Maybe some cooperation between Muslim and Jewish Americans can demonstrate a better way.
Anyway, now that I've heard Mamdani speak a little I'd have to say he sure doesn't sound like an antisemitic terrorist to me. Hear him for yourself.