Ian Buruma in NYRB in 1998: ‘Anne [Frank] is a ready-made icon for those who have turned the Holocaust into a kind of secular religion.’

And: ‘Otto, however, chose to read his daughter’s words in a different, more universal light. If the world and all peoples are to learn good, he thought, then all forms of discrimination must be tackled at once. When an Israeli journalist asked him whether he intended to continue his struggle against anti-Semitism, Otto answered: “No, not against anti-Semitism, but against discrimination, against lack of human understanding, and prejudice. Antisemitism is the primary example of these three. (…)” The reasoning is impeccable. But the problem with using a historical example for such a universal aim is that the specific is too easily overlooked.’

The problem of universalism: the specific must be overlooked.

The problem of identity politics: the specific becomes essentialized and fetishized.

(a sf 2214)

Der Spiegel: ‘It looks as though Mossad grossly overestimated itself and its capabilities [in Iran]. How could that have happened?’

And: ‘Mossad takes great pains to remain invisible. There is no official address, no listing on Google Maps, no photo of its headquarters.’

Also: ‘"If someone comes to kill you, rise up and kill him first" – this line from the Jewish Talmud remains the service's informal motto to this day. And that, of course, has to do with the Holocaust.’

As well: ‘To promote new developments and gain early access to them – in areas such as robotics, data analysis, profiling and drones – Mossad even founded its own venture capital fund for start-ups around 10 years ago.’

Regime change in Iran failed, this article suggests, because the Mossad became more loyal to the prime minister than to the state.

Too many states are run like mafia families, with all kinds of consequences.

(a sf 2213)

Haaretz: ‘The Israeli army said Wednesday that it had completed reviews of several high-profile "exceptional operational incidents" in Gaza since October 7, 2023, ordering Military Police investigations into the killings of five-year-old Hind Rajab and 15 Palestinians in Tel al-Sultan.’

And: ‘The killing of the Rajab family is perhaps the best-known such incident of the entire war. It drew widespread attention because of a lengthy recorded phone call between Hind Rajab, who was trapped in a car with the bodies of members of her family. (…) The call was cut off, and only 10 days later were Hind's body, the bodies of her relatives and those of the two paramedics who had tried to reach them found.’

Without international pressure, i.e. the courts in The Hague, these investigations would not have happened.

And as noted, only a fraction of the ‘incidents’ is under investigation.

Impunity spread like a virus.

(a sf 2212)

Suzanne Garfinkle-Crowell in NYT: ‘Several years ago, I started noticing something new when teenage girls or young women came to my office for their first psychiatric sessions. Patients used to dread being told that there was something, as they saw it, wrong with them. Now these young women were announcing their diagnoses — attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, anxiety, depression — almost before telling me their names.’

And: ‘We should take the therapy-speak, to borrow an expression, seriously but not literally.’

Also: ‘Ideally, we should create an environment in which girls can stop blaming their own brains for every problem and where they don’t feel they have to be sick to be heard.’

As a Dutch therapist recently said: we can no longer accept failure, so to make sense of it, we have to come up with an illness to explain it.

In the meantime, therapy-speak and other kinds of poetry.

(a sf 2211)

Sam Freedman in TLS: ‘One option is to assume that Trump’s erratic behaviour is part of a cunning plan to discombobulate opponents and get his way.’

And: ‘During the 2024 campaign, he told the Wall Street Journal that he wouldn’t need to use force against China because President Xi “respects me and he knows I’m fucking crazy”. (That these things are contradictory seems to have escaped him.)’

Also: ‘While other states find Trump hard to deal with, they have figured out that the best way to deal with him is through a combination of flattery, pretend compliance and waiting him out.’

Finally: ‘Bill Clinton’s decision to intervene in Kosovo also violated a narrow understanding of US interests, but it worked and it saved countless lives.’

Kosovo as the last highlight of American foreign policy. Poor Kosovans.

Less isolationism, more interventions? But not in Iran. Play it safe. Albania?

(a sf 2210)

Robert Probst in the Süddeutsche: ‘In the collective memory of the Germans, when they think of the Weimar Republic, three great fears are, it’s a kind of armchair psychology, deeply imprinted: the fear of inflation, the fear of a global economic crisis, and the fear of minority governments.”

Also: ‘Political scientist Christian Stecker argues that governments that have imposed on themselves the rule never to work with other parties wear themselves down over time, and that ultimately this is also bad for democracy.’

And: ‘The author does not engage at all with the AfD’s hostility to democracy and right-wing extremism, which is another clear shortcoming. Nevertheless, Stecker deserves credit for having accurately analyzed the CDU’s dilemma.’

The election in the state of Saxony-Anhalt in September will tell us something about the strength of the firewall against the AfD. Currently, the AfD is polling above 40%.

Absolute rule is close.

(a sf 2209)

The Economist: ‘A spate of startups offer screening services that allow couples having children via in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) to assess embryos based on their genetic risk of diseases such as breast cancer and diabetes.’

And: ‘A wave of investment means that the cost of IVF is likely to fall. If offered embryo screening at the same time, many couples will take it. One survey suggests that three-quarters of Americans support screening embryos for diseases; about a third say the same for non-disease traits. And that is before competitive pressure kicks in. Who wants to see their child bested by genetically selected classmates?’

Also: ‘Couples desperate for a clever child might be better advised to focus on what happens after birth.’

Yes, but parenting is difficult; screening embryos is easier. Especially if it costs less than spending two weeks on a Caribbean island.

The competition has only just begun.

(a sf 2208)