President Trump mentioned Fort Bragg (both a city in Northern California and a fort in North Carolina) this week and asked Chris Wallace rhetorically in his Sunday morning interview on Fox if these ought to be renamed after the Reverend Al Sharpton instead, revealing yet again the racism of the President.

I did not know who, in fact, Braxton Bragg was and so I checked Wikipedia and Ron Chernow’s remarkable biography Grant (i.e. General Ulysses S. Grant). Here is part of what I learned:

Wikipedia – (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braxton_Bragg):

“Braxton Bragg (March 22, 1817 – September 27, 1876) was an American army officer during the Second Seminole War and Mexican–American War and later a Confederate army officer who served as a general in the Confederate Army during the American Civil War, serving in the Western Theater…

In November 1862, Bragg’s army was routed by Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant in the Battles for Chattanooga and pushed back to Georgia. Confederate President Jefferson Davis subsequently relieved Bragg of command, recalling him to Richmond to serve as his chief military advisor. Bragg briefly returned to the field as a corps commander near the end of the war during the Campaign of the Carolinas.”

Ron Chernow says of him:

“Braxton Bragg, a North Carolina native and West Point graduate, who had met Grant during the Mexican War and later worked as a Louisiana sugar planter [Bragg was an owner of many human beings as slaves]. A cold martinet with a gaunt, narrow face and beetling brows, Bragg had flashing eyes that suggested his combustible temperament…

He was possessed of an irascible temper, and was naturally disputatious. A stickler for rules, Bragg took sadistic delight in punishing people for violations, forcing fellow soldiers to witness executions of deserters. ‘He loved to crush the spirit of his men,’ said a soldier. ‘Not a single soldier in the whole army ever loved or respected him.’” (p. 316)

At Missionary Ridge, Chernow notes:

“‘An Army never was whipped so badly as Bragg was,’ exulted Grant… ‘Bragg is in full retreat, burning his depots and bridges. The Chickamauga Valley, for a distance of 10 miles, is full of the fires lighted in his flight.’

..For Braxton Bragg, the disgrace was total. ‘Bragg looked scared,’ one Confederate soldier remarked. ‘He had put spurs to his horse, and was running like a scared dog…Poor fellow, he looked so hacked and whipped and mortified and chagrined at defeat.’ When Bragg forwarded his resignation to Richmond, the Confederate government hastened to accept it.” (p. 325)

“Bragg is generally considered among the worst generals of the Civil War. Most of the battles in which he engaged ended in defeat. Bragg was extremely unpopular with both the men and the officers of his command, who criticized him for numerous perceived faults, including poor battlefield strategy, a quick temper, and overzealous discipline. Bragg has a generally poor reputation with historians, though some point towards the failures of Bragg’s subordinates, especially Leonidas Polk—a close ally of Jefferson Davis and known enemy of Bragg—as more significant factors in the many Confederate defeats at Bragg’s command. The losses which Bragg suffered are cited as principal factors in the ultimate defeat of the Confederacy.” (Wikipedia)

From these accounts, Braxton Bragg is presented as a sadistic owner of human beings, a traitor to the Union, and a failed Confederate General.

If Trump wants to keep Bragg’s name on a city and on a fort, that says as much about Trump as a heartless, racist, and failed Commander in-Chief as it does about Bragg himself.

The following quote reveals Congressman John Lewis’ reliance on the principles of his religious faith and the philosophy of non-violence that he, Dr. King, and others made real in the Civil Rights Movement. His death is a significant loss to Congress, to the American people, and to humanity as a whole. May John Lewis’ life, courage, and moral leadership be remembered always.

“Non-violent suffering affects not only ourselves but it touches and changes around us as well. It opens us and those around us to a force beyond ourselves, a force that is right and moral, the force of righteous truth that is the basis of human conscience. Suffering puts us and those around us in touch with our consciences. It opens and touches our hearts, makes us feel compassion where we need to and guilt if we must… One method of practicing this approach when faced with a hateful, angry, aggressive even despicable person is to imagine that person, actually visualize him or her as an infant, as a baby. If you can see this full grown attacker who faces you as a pure innocent child that he or she once was, it is not hard to find compassion in your heart. Then it wasn’t just a tactic. It was a way of life. It was embracing the Biblical proscription that one must love one’s enemies. And it’s the hardest thing in the world to carry out.”

-Transcribed from the NY Times Daily Podcast “The Life and Legacy of John Lewis” – July 20, 2020

I continue to read with increasing sadness the charged discussion in the American Jewish community provoked by Peter Beinart’s long essay in Jewish Currents and much shorter op-ed in the NYTimes in which he explains why he believes that a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is dead and why he now advocates for a one-state solution to this seemingly intractable conflict.

See Peter’s essay in Jewish Currents at https://jewishcurrents.org/yavne-a-jewish-case-for-equality-in-israel-palestine/ and his op-ed in the NYTimes – https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/08/opinion/israel-annexation-two-state-solution.html

Many have written thoughtful and persuasive rebuttals to Peter’s ideas in the American and Israeli press. Most recently, Middle East experts Dennis Ross and David Makovsky, who had senior roles in past U.S. government efforts to advance the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, wrote for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy why they believe, contrary to Peter’s position, that the two-state solution remains viable and is essential for Israeli-Palestinian peace – “Don’t Give Up on the Two-State Solution” (July 14, 2020) – https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/dont-give-up-on-the-two-state-solution. I recommend their piece most especially. I agree with them.

I add as a warning only the words of the late Israeli writer and peace activist Amos Oz who, in his last book Dear Zealots – Letters from a Divided Land (New York: Mariner Books, 2019) wrote:

 “Apart from Switzerland, all bi-national and multinational states are either barely squeaking by (Belgium, the United Kingdom, Spain) or have already deteriorated into violent conflict (Lebanon, Cyprus, the former Yugoslavia and the USSR). There’s no successful historical model of two people’s living side by side in one state, especially in the Middle East… 

“There must be compromise between Israel and Palestine. There must be two states. We must divide this land and turn it into a duplex.

On both sides there are many people who loathe the very idea of compromise, viewing any concession as weakness, as pitiful surrender. Whereas I think that in the lives of families, neighbors, and nations, choosing to compromise is in fact choosing life. The opposite of compromise is not pride or integrity or idealism. The opposite of compromise is fanaticism and death…” 

Indeed, any action taken unilaterally by Israel (e.g. building and expanding more West Bank settlements, annexing portions of the West Bank, confiscating privately owned Palestinian land, destroying “illegal Palestinian homes,” intensifying the military occupation of East Jerusalem and the West Bank) or by the Palestinians (e.g. cancelling security agreements with Israel, initiating violence against Israelis, declaring an independent state outside of bi-lateral negotiations) that makes a two-state solution more difficult to achieve ought to be condemned by all who support both a secure Jewish and democratic State of Israel and the legitimate national rights of the Palestinian people to a state of their own peacefully existing alongside Israel.

I hope and pray that a President Joe Biden and a reconstituted American State Department will bring the Israelis and Palestinians back into good-faith negotiations to assure Israeli and Palestinian security, justice, human rights, national dignity and sovereignty to the Palestinians, and peace between our two peoples.

The Pulitzer Prize winning presidential historian, Doris Kearns Goodwin, delivers a number of short sessions on a new web-series called “Masterclass.” Throughout her long career she has written extensively on Presidents Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Lyndon B. Johnson.

As I listened to her, I copied her definition of what constitutes great leadership and couldn’t help but compare the four great presidents above to the current occupant of the Oval Office. She said:

“Leadership is the ability to use one’s talent, skills and emotional intelligence to mobilize people to a common purpose and to make a positive difference in people’s lives. The qualities important for great leadership are humility, empathy, resilience, self-awareness, self-reflection, the ability to create a team where people can argue with you and question your assumptions, and the ability to communicate to people with stories to make them feel a part of what you’re saying. The most important thing is the willingness to take a risk because the ambition for the greater good has become greater for you than for yourself.”

There are four moving musical videos within the article (link below).

After the musicians play so beautifully, they all go down on their knees in an attitude of prayer and solidarity against racism and injustice and in affirmation of Black Lives Matter.

The musicians are Anthony McGill (clarinet), Allison Loggins-Hull (flute), Laurence Brownlee (voice), and the Duke Ellington School of the Arts, Annapolis Symphony Academy, The Northwest School in Seattle, Washington, and Antigua & Barbuda Youth Symphony Orchestra.

https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2020/06/15/clarinetist-anthony-mcgill

In thinking about how Joe Biden and Democrats can win their respective races in the 2020 election, I’ve been paying close attention to a number of Democratic and former Republican political analysts and talking heads. They all acknowledge Donald Trump’s deep personal flaws and failures as a leader, but they warn against Democratic over-confidence. Though 2020 is different than 2016 in a number of ways, they remind us that Trump won once and he could win again.

I list here Trump’s historic failures as President and offer a synthesis of what these political pundits agree can bring victory to the Democrats.

Trump’s failures:

• The Trump administration is, without question, the most incompetent, chaotic, and corrupt in our lifetime, perhaps in the history of the United States;
• Trump has disastrously mismanaged the pandemic and resulting economic catastrophe;
• Trump’s serial lying, self-delusion and denial, fantastical thinking, and disdain for scientific advice and empirical evidence of the threat of the coronavirus unnecessarily killed tens of thousands of Americans who ought to be alive today with possibly more than 200,000 deaths by Election Day;
• Trump constantly divides the nation through his demagogic and racist dog-whistle white supremacy;
• Trump every day sullies the office of the President through his coarse and nasty rhetoric, tweets, and behavior, his personal attacks against critics, political opponents and journalists, and his bullying anyone who doesn’t play nicely to his malignant narcissism;
• Trump has broken more social and political norms than any President in modern history;
• Trump has undermined America’s Intelligence organizations, the State Department, the Military, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Justice Department, and others;
• Trump has dramatically diminished international respect for the United States by withdrawing from international agreements and alliances, catering to despots, insulting allies, scapegoating international institutions for his own failures, making America a global health risk, and worst of all, betraying our men and women in uniform;

All of the above are reasons enough to defeat him and his Congressional Republican sycophants in November. However, it is likely that the large margins that Joe Biden and many Democrats now enjoy will shrink between now and Election Day.

To win big means that not only do we need constantly to shine a light on Trump’s manifest failures as President, but to engage more citizens to vote against him who are and have been marginal to the political process in the past, who have not voted before, and who believe  that their vote does not matter. It does. We can’t forget that Trump won the Electoral College because 80,000 votes in 3 states went to him thus giving him the election even though he lost the national popular vote to Hillary Clinton by 2.87 million votes.

Though it ought to be clear that this election is about a president’s integrity, common decency, empathy, civility, competence, and steady leadership, these virtues may not be enough to bring the needed numbers of people to vote Blue unless we do everything we can to bring out the vote.

To get people to vote, the experts all agree that this election must be about issues that affect American’s quality of life. Specifically, it’s about

• saving the Affordable Care Act and expanding health care to millions of Americans
• envisioning a Green New Deal that will reverse climate change while creating millions of high paying jobs
• reforming the immigration and criminal justice systems and community policing
• supporting small businesses and helping the working class to earn a living wage
• getting government assistance to help pay down student debt and helping students pay for the education they need and deserve
• fighting the NRA and enacting sensible gun registration laws
• appointing judges who will support LGBTQ people and a woman’s right to choose and  preserve the independence of the courts and the Justice Department from encroachments by the Executive Branch
• enfranchising through statehood 700,000 Washington, D.C. American citizens
• restoring the United States as the international leader on behalf of human rights, the environment, justice, and peace.

Above all, it’s about electing officials who are committed to strengthening human solidarity by regarding all Americans as fellow human beings deserving of dignity and respect regardless of race, class, ethnicity, national origins, religion, gender, and sexual orientation.   

To win big, the political experts all say that we need to focus our attention and resources on winning core battle-ground swing states for Biden and candidates for the Senate and Congress. They argue that social media will be the critically important tool in this election and that all of us can make a difference by using social media to persuade the people we know (family, friends, co-workers, and others) in Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida, and Arizona to vote for Biden and Democrats up and down the ballot. 

Republicans have 23 Senate seats (mostly in Red states) to defend, compared to the 12 Senate Democrats who are up for reelection. Four states are highly competitive for Democrats and now have Senate seats held by Republicans that could switch: Colorado, Arizona, Maine, and North Carolina. Several more Senate seats are in play for Democrats as well including Montana, Georgia, and Iowa.

If Democrats win the White House, a majority of the Senate, and grow our margins in the House, November 3 can be the corrective to 4 years of corrupt and hard hearted Trumpism and the beginning of a new era of American democracy.

In sum, these experts remind us that

• Every vote matters.
• People should vote by mail and vote early. It’s a mistake to wait until the day of voting itself. The more people who vote early, the shorter will be the lines on Election Day. Every core battle-ground state has vote-by-mail despite Trump’s histrionics. If people don’t receive their ballots, they need to vote anyway, to put on their masks and gloves and stand in line for a few hours, if necessary, to vote.
• Polls giving Biden and Congressional candidates the advantage now could lead to over-confidence in November. Over-confidence could cause us to lose this election. We need to think and act as though we’re behind in every race.
• Current polls showing Biden’s lead are not necessarily real. The numbers certainly will tighten come Election Day.
• It will be harder this time for a lot of Americans to vote because of Covid19, voter malfeasance, Russian interference, and deliberate Republican attempts to suppress the vote. Democrats will need, therefore, a substantial surplus of votes heading into the election.
• Young adults historically do not vote in large numbers relative to their percentage of the population, nor do Latino citizens. Therefore, we need to impress upon our adult children, grandchildren, and Latino friends to vote, and that they need to get their peers to vote.

Feel free to use any of the above without attribution to disseminate in your own social media as we move towards November 3.

“Chaim Constantinidis tells the extraordinary story of Zakynthos’s Jewish community, the subject of two upcoming productions

In the late spring of 1944, Nazi ships of death were making stops in the ports of the Ionian Islands. They had stowed 2,000 Jews from Corfu in their holds and another 400 from Cephalonia, and were heading for Zakynthos. The mission of the SS squads was to round up all of the members of the Jewish community in the region and sail them to the western port city of Patra, where they would be transferred onto trains for Auschwitz.

…The story is set to come alive on the big screen in two American productions: The first is “No Man Is an Island,” a documentary directed by Yannis Sakaridis, and the second a feature film by Theo Papadoulakis, which is still in the making. Two Greek Americans are behind the projects, producers Gregory Pappas and Steven Priovolos, who rallied eminent members of the diaspora in the US and, of course, Hollywood, behind the projects. One of the executive producers is Sid Ganis, a former president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences whose Greek-Jewish family hails from Ioannina in northwestern Greece.”

This is a remarkable and inspiring story – see full article here:

https://www.ekathimerini.com/161394/article/ekathimerini/community/the-greek-island-that-hid-its-jews-from-the-nazis

On June 11, I wrote in my Times of Israel blog to ask JNF-Israel not to evict the Sumarin Family from its home of 50 years in Silwan just South of Jerusalem’s Old City Walls. This is a matter of fairness and justice.

Here is that blog – https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/jnf-israel-dont-uproot-the-sumarin-family-from-its-home-in-silwan/ It in I explain the issue and list a number of articles in the Israeli press that goes into greater depth.

Here is a short video that interviews the Sumarin family.

I ask you now to sign the petition lending your own support for the Sumarin family that has lived in its home for more than 50 years. I also ask you to forward this blog with your own request through your social media to ask others to sign the petition.

Many thanks in advance.

https://www.ipetitions.com/petition/prevent-the-eviction-of-the-sumarin-family

Colum McCann’s new novel Apeirogon is based on the actual murder of two young girls, 13-year-old Smadar Elhanan who lost her life when three Palestinian suicide bombers exploded themselves on Ben Yehuda Street in West Jerusalem on September 4, 1997, and 10-year-old Abir Aramin who was shot in the back of the head ten years later in Anata just four kilometers Northeast of Jerusalem’s Old City by an 18-year-old Israeli soldier as his jeep sped around a corner.

The girls’ fathers, Rami Elhanan (an Israeli Jew) and Bassam Aramin (a Palestinian Muslim) met at the Hotel Everest between Jerusalem and Bethlehem through Combatants for Peace, an organization of former Israeli soldiers and Palestinian fighters who shared one thing in common, “that both sides had once wanted to kill people they did not know.”

For my review of the book, see my blog at the Times of Israel – https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/apeirogon-by-colum-mccann-book-recommendation/ .

Yesterday, the LA Jewish Journal printed my op-ed that called upon American lawmakers to make clear that annexation is a reckless and destructive step that would have serious long-term ramifications for the region and for the American-Israeli relationship.

See – https://jewishjournal.com/commentary/opinion/317501/american-lawmakers-just-weeks-to-take-a-stand-against-annexation/