Samuel Stern

If my posts here over the past few weeks have felt repetitive, I apologize. I’ve been banging the same drum because I believe we’re entering a very dangerous phase, and lately I’ve felt like I’m screaming into the void. Yesterday, a person who responded to a terrorist attack on Jews with “hurt people hurt people” was elected to one of the highest positions of trust in the United States. That was a BC/AD moment. It was one for Jews, but it was also one for the future of the West. Several forces are converging at once, and together they’re producing something without precedent: 1. Immigration and the erosion of trust. Unfettered, irresponsible immigration into Western nations that were historically liberal and tolerant is changing their culture, norms, and values, and eroding the sense of a high-trust society. You see this most clearly when foreign conflicts like the Middle East, which were never central to domestic politics, suddenly take center stage. Culture-war discourse is the natural result. 2. Captured institutions. Bad actors are using media channels, NGOs, influencers, and academic institutions to shape how the issues they care about are discussed and taught. The result is a shift in the zeitgeist on geopolitical hotspots like Ukraine and the Middle East. The goal is an army of ambassadors who will change policy. Political funding and donations, amplified by the demographic shift in #1, are a big part of this. 3. Scapegoating. We’ve reached a fever pitch where Israel is blamed for nearly every misfortune and malady. The Left was doing this before the election. Judging by the discourse from Vance and others, the Right now blames Israel for the loss too. With reports that American Jews kept voting Democratic, expect attacks from both sides. This kind of scapegoating is medieval-coded. Some people believe it because of the constant drip of imisnformation. Some were raised to see Jews as satanic. Others grew up in cultures where it’s simply the norm. The result will be a rise in antisemitism (which yes, includes anti-Zionism by way of advocating for the destruction of the world's only Jewish state). But as I’ve said before, the change underway in Western nations goes far beyond Jews. The closest analogy I can find is a slow-moving toxic revolution. The liberal institutions that have historically upheld our norms are being co-opted and turned toward policy goals with irreversible consequences. This is about changing the values and systems that underpin our societies. And most dangerous of all, it's about changing history. It's about turning heroes into villains and changing stories. Deprive people of their story, and they’ll go looking for meaning elsewhere: in a religion, a belief, or a cause that sets their heart on fire. I don’t usually share anything about myself here. I prefer to let the content speak for itself. If it’s valuable, it floats to the top. If it’s garbage, it sinks. But I’ll say this much. I’m Jewish. I love the West, and I hate what it’s turning into. I’ve created jobs, worked hard, and never taken a handout. I’ve always done things by the book. So this all feels like a betrayal to me in a way. I used to call myself a liberal, but as I watched what was happening on the left, I drifted right. I can’t stomach Jews siding with people who advocate for our destruction or disappearance. I believe that those who do have had their story supplanted by something else. I’ve never been particularly religious, but members of my family survived the Holocaust, and that made Israel’s importance clear to me early on. I spent years learning the history so I could speak to it. For a long time, most people seemed to understand why Israel was necessary. They understood that its peace efforts were made in good faith, and that several two-state solutions were possible over roughly sixty years. Now, something has shifted. This is all raw, but I’ve been considering a radical change in where I put my energy for some time. It will likely mean significant personal changes. I may share more when the time is right. What I will say is that the world is changing, and Israel’s future is tied to the future of Western civilization. That isn’t a ploy to bind the two issues together. It’s simply a fact: if they succeed in coming after Jews in their homeland, they’ll turn their energy elsewhere next. And the bad actors have already sunk their teeth in in case you haven't noticed. I always thought of the paradox of tolerance as somewhat distant - I've spoken about it on here previously. But like the Holocaust, Karl Popper was tinged in black and white. But he was correct, and the liberalism that built our societies is now being turned against us like an assassins dagger that was hidden behind the throne for years waiting to be wielded. I expect that what will come next is some form of attempt to apply an inordinate amount of pressure on Israel to come to the negotiating table (again) with the Palestinians. No regard will be given to the fact that one of their two governments just tried to destroy Israel. This will take the form of economic sanctions on the banks, import/export bans, and the institutionalization of BDS policies the world over. Once US policy is either onside or indifferent and the UNSC veto is removed, coupled with the likely finding of genocide from the ICJ (after they lower the bar for such a finding) the gloves will come off. Any flare up in regional tension or violence as it relates to Israeli/Palestinian relations will be used as justification for military intervention by third parties. Whether they would actually do so is another story, but its much more likely that the anti-war coaliton can be converted to be pro-war as easily as they could be convinced of everything else spoken to here. Regarding looking elsewhere for alliances: South America will be off the table and subject to US policy. Europe will be mostly aligned on this as well. Overtures may even be made to the bad actors that caused some of this discourse, demonstrating a capitulation to the fact that their information war against the West has been successful, and that the only way to stop the damage is to try to get onside. A terrible outcome for what it portends, and one that is unlikely to succeed. This won’t end with Netanyahu stepping aside. Think what you want of him; it isn’t the point. Israel needs a wartime unity government as soon as possible. This is a five-alarm fire. It isn’t moving as fast as Egyptian tanks rolling across the Sinai, but the intent and end goal are the same. The time to prepare for the new normal is now. It's easy to forget that all of this came to a head with the massacre of Jews on October 7th, 2023. That set off a chain of events in which we’ve been turned into villains, accused of conspiring to destroy a world that has tried, again and again throughout history, to destroy us. A history that colors the way we view the present and the future. The gaslighting is the point - it's a critical variable in the calculus that is itself a cudgel of hatred. Some will call this alarmism, and I'm sure many in Israel will too, given the lackadaisical culture. But I have an unfortunate track record of being more right than wrong. I hope I’m wrong this time. I hope those who call me foolish turn out to be right. I would love nothing more than to be the village idiot. But right now, I have a pit in my stomach.