Huckabee wants to remove his yellow pin, because it would mean all the hostages came home
The US ambassador to Israel also attended the dedication of an ambulance donated by Evangelicals.
One would expect the dedication of an ambulance to take place in the parking lot of a hospital, health clinic, or the organization to which the ambulance was donated - but not in a museum.
However, there are always exceptions to the rule, and the bulletproof ambulance donated to Magen David Adom by Samaritan's Purse and Harvest Christian Fellowship was dedicated at the Tower of David Museum in Jerusalem just a few hours prior to the onset of Shavuot.
The date and the venue were not coincidental. King David, who made Jerusalem the capital of the Jewish people, was born on Shavuot, and the museum bears his name.
The ambulance which was the 42nd donated by Samaritan's Purse since October 2023 massacre by Hamas, was dedicated in the presence of scores of MDA personnel, including MDA global president and former Israel ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan past and present MKs and local authority officials, numerous Evangelicals including US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, US embassy staff, three generations of the family of Reverend Franklin Graham, the President of Samaritan's Purse, Senior Pastor of Harvest Christian Fellowship Greg Laurie, and some dozen stills and video photographers.
Also present were returned hostages and members of hostage families including Karina Engel, who, with her two daughters, were abducted by Hamas and returned in November 2023 with the first of the released hostages. Her husband Ronen, an MDA volunteer, was murdered by Hamas and taken to Gaza, where his body is still in captivity. An ambulance in his memory was dedicated in January 2024.
Engel told her story with tears streaming down her face and her voice choked with emotion. She has developed a special relationship with Graham and his wife, who both hugged her when she finished speaking.
Huckabee said that when he came to Israel, he was asked what he wanted to do during his tenure. Pointing to the yellow ribbon pin on his jacket, he said that he wanted to take it off and never have to wear it again, because that would mean that all the hostages had come home.
Huckabee is familiar with the Samaritan's Purse, where his wife Janet has been a volunteer for years. He had high praise for the Evangelical aid organization, which he said, shows up wherever there is a calamity in the world and continues to help people who are in harm's way.
Referencing the saying in Jewish tradition, that he who saves a single life is as one who saves a whole world, Erdan said that through Samaritan's Purse and Harvest Christian Fellowship, many lives and many worlds had been saved. What they have done, he added, is a powerful proclamation that Israel is not alone. 'You answered hatred with hope,' he told the Evangelical leaders.
There was no better place than Jerusalem for the dedication of the ambulance, he said, because Jerusalem is the city holy to Jews, Christians, and Muslims, and MDA staff and volunteers are made up of people of all faiths.
Erdan also pledged that Israel will never waver in its determination to defeat terror, and will never rest until all the hostages have been brought home. He declared that 'Israel's fight is civilization's fight against terrorism and radical extremism.'
Graham had been curious as to when the first ever hostages were taken prisoner and abducted, and found the answer in the Scriptures in Genesis 14, where Lot is taken hostage and Abraham goes to rescue him. Graham described Abraham as 'the first responder of his generation.'
Listing some of the things that Samaritan's Purse has done, Graham gave credit to many of those present. When President Isaac Herzog had asked him to provide an ambulance for the north of the country, he had turned to Laurie and had impressed on him that the ambulance had to be delivered immediately. In addition, 14 severely damaged ambulances were replaced.
Samaritan's Purse also concerned itself with people evacuated from their homes and placed in hotels. Instead of giving them food parcels, Samaritan's Purse gave them gift cards so that they could buy what they wanted and needed. The organization also thought of other ways to help. To determine the needs, Graham has been a frequent visitor to Israel.
Laurie considered it a privilege and an honor to be able to help Israel. 'We want to say to the People of Israel and to the Jewish People generally, that we stand with you, and that we want to do something tangible.'
Quoting the biblical blessing given by God to the Children of Israel, Laurie said: 'We are an extension of the blessing of the Lord.' He was also proud of the fact that (in 1948) the US had been the first country to recognize Israel's legitimacy.
In the face of antisemitism, Laurie has spoken aggressively on university campuses across America.
MDA Director General Eli Bin recalled that when watching President Donald Trump's inauguration on television, he had caught sight of Graham, and had sent a WhatsApp message to Erdan asking whether this was indeed their Reverend Graham. When Eldan confirmed that it was Graham, Bin's reaction was, 'Now we have two Israel ambassadors in the US.'
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‘The Kindling Is a Lot Drier Than It Used to Be'
How does political violence come to an end? It's been a lingering question the last few years in the wake of shocking episodes like the Jan. 6 Capitol riot or the assassination attempts on Donald Trump. And it's become newly pressing following the antisemitic fallout of the Israel-Hamas war on American soil. In the last two weeks, we've seentwo Israeli embassy workers fatally shot in Washington, D.C. andeight members of the Jewish community burned in an attack in Boulder, Colorado. There has also beenviolence against Muslims andpeople of Palestinian descent since the war began. William J. Bernstein, a neurologist and the author ofThe Delusions of Crowds, a book about the consequences of mass hysteria in history, expects the waves of political violence to eventually stop — but perhaps not until we reach a terrible episode that serves as a tipping point. 'Eventually, they burn themselves out because it's so awful,' he said in an interview with POLITICO Magazine. It's a cycle that's been repeated throughout history, Bernstein says: After that extreme moment of violence, the attacks fizzle out — from exhaustion, or even just the lack of novelty. Getting to that end point, however, will be a painful one, and our political system isn't built to soften the blow. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Some people believe we are seeing an increase in political violence in our country, most recently as a surge in antisemitic attacks in response to Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza. What is causing this? I think it's a combination of the Manichean mindset and group dynamics and confirmation bias. The Manichean mindset — this in-group, out-group kind of behavior — you can see historically, and you can also demonstrate experimentally in psychology labs. It's extremely widespread, and it's extremely pervasive. The other thing, which we're just starting to get a handle on, is how genetically determined it is. So if you look, for example, at twin studies, and you look at the psychological characteristics of twins, they're highly concordant. And one of the things that's been looked at is the tendency toward binary thinking; that is Manichean thinking. The sort of online communities and social media communities that form around these issues, I think, attract those kinds of people. But that's not a new phenomenon. We probably would have seen the same thing in anarchist groups 100 years ago. Online communities are more accessible though, right? Yeah, I think that the kindling is a lot drier than it used to be. What drives political violence? Is it beliefs, grievances, or something else? It's like any complex sociological, sociopolitical phenomenon. It's multifactorial. There's the genetic component toward binary thinking. There's the thing that we've already talked about, which is the increased herding of people that's been brought by social media. But there are genuine grievances. There's always a genuine grievance involved. And it's easy enough to see what those grievances are. I mean, what's a good life? A good life is being able to afford a house and being able to afford medical care and education for your children and being able to afford retirement and not being crept with debt up to your ears while doing all those things. Most people feel at least two or three of those things, if not all four of those things. I think one thing that the political right in this country understands to a devastating effect is that identity trumps self-interest. How many times a day does someone remark to you, 'I just don't understand the political right. They're going to lose their Social Security, they're going to lose their Medicaid. Their kids aren't going to be getting preschool paid for. They can't afford medical care. Why are they voting for Republicans?' And the answer is because Donald Trump knows how to push the identity — the us versus them — button. A few years ago, there was a lot of concern about violence coming from the political right, but the attacks of the past few weeks seem to be coming more from the political left. Is some kind of shift taking place? I don't think so. I think there is some epidemiological and even functional [brain] imaging evidence that the right is a little more prone toward conspiracy thinking and Manichean thinking. But there are plenty of Manichean people on the left, too. I mean, a lot of Manichean behavior, most of it was located on the left 60 years ago. I would even say it's just noise in an oscillating system. You've written about the consequences of mass mania in your book The Delusions of Crowds. How does mass mania contribute to the political violence we're seeing in the U.S. right now? If you put a bunch of people in a room, and let's say you're talking about abortion. Let's say there's a median position on abortion, it's exactly right in the middle. So there's a zero, which is people who are absolute anti-abortion opponents. And then you have a 10, which is people who are rabidly pro-abortion. Well, if you put a bunch of people together who are a six, what you see happening is that they slide off to that side because they want to seek the approval of the group, and they find that by making more and more extreme statements, they can garner more approval. So when you put people together like that, their opinions tend toward the extremes, either one or the other. And eventually, you get to the point where you're advocating violence. I think it's just a natural progression of that sociological phenomenon. The classic type where you saw this happen was with people who were concerned about the Covid-19 vaccine. And it started out with the moms' groups: 'Should I get my kids vaccinated? I have some concerns. I want to talk about this and be better informed.' You put a bunch of people like that together, and pretty soon, that morphs into political violence. Is there anything that U.S. politicians — on the left or right — could do to tamp down on anti-Israel or antisemitic political violence in the United States? I'm pretty cynical. The answer I would give you is nothing that will improve their vote count. The name of the game these days is to energize your base, particularly with our primary-based system. Do you think our existing system rewards political violence? I think so, yeah. I'm old enough to remember when there wasn't a lot of ideological difference between Democrats and Republicans. If you did a Venn diagram of their policy positions, there was a lot of overlap. Now there's almost no overlap. With the primary-based system, what's going to happen is that it favors extremism on both sides. Now what's the solution to that? It would be nice if we had an open primary system. It would be nice if we had more objectively and rationally drawn congressional districts. Those two things would help, but to depend upon the goodwill of ordinary politicians in the public interest of our political class these days, and particularly, the way that elections are funded, I think that's a very, very big ask. A year ago, you told an Atlantic reporter that you don't think political violence 'ends without some sort of cathartic cataclysm.' Can you expand on what that means? What does a 'cathartic cataclysm' look like? Well, I think a cathartic cataclysm is when you see law enforcement officers in masks, snatching people into vans and shipping them abroad, or at least to Louisiana, because they have a political opinion. I mean, that's state violence. And let's call a spade a spade: The assassination attempt on Donald Trump during the election campaign was probably politically motivated as well. But what's a cathartic turning point look like? Well, a cathartic turning point looks like an awful piece of mass violence. It would have to be an episode of mass violence that is directly attributable to an easily identifiable political player. I thought Jan. 6 was that, but I guess Jan. 6 wasn't cataclysmic enough. What comes after the 'cathartic cataclysm?' Can there be a moment of reckoning that means less political violence for a while? Well, people just get sick of the violence. It's what happened in all major civil wars. Eventually, they burn themselves out because it's so awful. It's what happened in Northern Ireland. It hasn't happened in the Middle East yet, in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but eventually it does happen. I can remember back in the '60s, early '70s, it felt like the political violence was never going to end. I mean, if you were an Italian in the '60s or the '70s, major political and judicial figures, including prime ministers, were getting bumped off on a regular basis. And it seemed like it was never going to end, but it did. It seemed like the anarchist violence of the early 20th century — it lasted for a couple of decades, killed the U.S. president — it seemed that was never going to end either, but it does. These things burn themselves out. I guess the best way of putting it is that human beings seek novelty, and after a while, political violence gets to be old hat and uncool. What's an example of cathartic violence from history? Well, I think that the political violence of the late 1960s was cathartic. You had the assassination of the U.S. president, of Martin Luther King, of Bobby Kennedy. And then it stopped. People shied away from political violence. Exactly why it stopped, I don't know, but it did. It wasn't just assassinations, it was also street violence. And then things calmed down. If I had to come up with a reason why, it's that people get bored. Initially, politically posturing and making violent threats gets you admiration and psychological support from other people, but eventually it gets old, and people stop doing it. Do you see the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol or last year's attempted assassination of Donald Trump as having contributed to the political violence we're seeing today? Is all of this building up in our society? Yeah. And unfortunately, a big part of that is institutional. I mean, what does it say when you commit violent crimes en masse and then the president of the United States pardons you? It basically tells people, 'Yeah, you've got a free pass the next time.' In that previous interview, you suggested that the Jan. 6 riot wasn't a turning point for political violence in our nation, because it didn't end up worse — there wasn't a 'cathartic cataclysm' with the killing of a politician, for instance. Is there any way to subdue violence without having to embrace that kind of extreme ending? How do we lower the temperature in America? If you're lucky, it burns itself out without a cataclysmic event. And I stand by what I said, which is that, had they actually killed Mike Pence, I think that would have ended it right there.
Axios
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Jewish members of Congress are worried by a spate of attacks aimed at Jews — and are openly saying they may be next on the target list. Why it matters: There has been a sharp rise in antisemitism and threats against lawmakers in recent years. For some Jewish representatives, the two trends are eerily correlated. "The number of times in the course of a week I'm called a 'Jewish demon' is pretty unsettling," Rep. Greg Landsman (D-Ohio) told Axios. Landsman said "most" Jewish members are "facing these very unsettling and potentially dangerous situations," pointing to the pro-Palestinian encampment that was erected outside his house in Cincinnati. Driving the news: Capitol Hill was rocked last month when two Israeli embassy staffers were fatally shot outside an American Jewish Committee meeting at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C. The suspect, Elias Rodriguez, shouted "free, free Palestine" as he was arrested by police. "I have had a hard time getting the image of being shot and killed out of my head. It happens almost every time I'm in a big crowd now," Landsman said in a statement after the shooting. The incident came after a man who set fire to Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro's official residence cited the Jewish governor's stance on the war in Gaza as a factor. State of play: Concerns about Jewish safety spiked again this week after a man yelling "free Palestine" threw Molotov cocktails at attendees of a Boulder, Colorado, rally advocating for the release of hostages held by Hamas. The attack left at least eight people — four women and four men, aged 52 to 88 — hospitalized. What they're saying: Rep. Brad Schneider (D-Ill.) said in a phone interview that he "increased our investment in security" after the D.C. attack. "It's a dangerous world," he told Axios. "I will not let this become normal ... and I will not let this force me to back away or fail to do what I need to do representing all my constituents in the 10th district." Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) said: "I've always thought we were in jeopardy and jeopardized when we were on the Capitol campus." And Rep. Laura Friedman (D-Calif.) added: "The Jewish community is very much on edge ... and elected officials in general, I think, are feeling less safe." Zoom out: Beyond their personal safety, several lawmakers previewed a renewed push to fund the Nonprofit Safety Grant Program, particularly to provide security for houses of worship and faith-based organizations.
Politico
an hour ago
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How Political Violence Finally Ends
How does political violence come to an end? It's been a lingering question the last few years in the wake of shocking episodes like the Jan. 6 Capitol riot or the assassination attempts on Donald Trump. And it's become newly pressing following the antisemitic fallout of the Israel-Hamas war on American soil. In the last two weeks, we've seen two Israeli embassy workers fatally shot in Washington, D.C. and eight members of the Jewish community burned in an attack in Boulder, Colorado. There has also been violence against Muslims and people of Palestinian descent since the war began. William J. Bernstein, a neurologist and the author of The Delusions of Crowds, a book about the consequences of mass hysteria in history, expects the waves of political violence to eventually stop — but perhaps not until we reach a terrible episode that serves as a tipping point. 'Eventually, they burn themselves out because it's so awful,' he said in an interview with POLITICO Magazine. It's a cycle that's been repeated throughout history, Bernstein says: After that extreme moment of violence, the attacks fizzle out — from exhaustion, or even just the lack of novelty. Getting to that end point, however, will be a painful one, and our political system isn't built to soften the blow. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Some people believe we are seeing an increase in political violence in our country, most recently as a surge in antisemitic attacks in response to Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza. What is causing this? I think it's a combination of the Manichean mindset and group dynamics and confirmation bias. The Manichean mindset — this in-group, out-group kind of behavior — you can see historically, and you can also demonstrate experimentally in psychology labs. It's extremely widespread, and it's extremely pervasive. The other thing, which we're just starting to get a handle on, is how genetically determined it is. So if you look, for example, at twin studies, and you look at the psychological characteristics of twins, they're highly concordant. And one of the things that's been looked at is the tendency toward binary thinking; that is Manichean thinking. The sort of online communities and social media communities that form around these issues, I think, attract those kinds of people. But that's not a new phenomenon. We probably would have seen the same thing in anarchist groups 100 years ago. Online communities are more accessible though, right? Yeah, I think that the kindling is a lot drier than it used to be. What drives political violence? Is it beliefs, grievances, or something else? It's like any complex sociological, sociopolitical phenomenon. It's multifactorial. There's the genetic component toward binary thinking. There's the thing that we've already talked about, which is the increased herding of people that's been brought by social media. But there are genuine grievances. There's always a genuine grievance involved. And it's easy enough to see what those grievances are. I mean, what's a good life? A good life is being able to afford a house and being able to afford medical care and education for your children and being able to afford retirement and not being crept with debt up to your ears while doing all those things. Most people feel at least two or three of those things, if not all four of those things. I think one thing that the political right in this country understands to a devastating effect is that identity trumps self-interest. How many times a day does someone remark to you, 'I just don't understand the political right. They're going to lose their Social Security, they're going to lose their Medicaid. Their kids aren't going to be getting preschool paid for. They can't afford medical care. Why are they voting for Republicans?' And the answer is because Donald Trump knows how to push the identity — the us versus them — button. A few years ago, there was a lot of concern about violence coming from the political right, but the attacks of the past few weeks seem to be coming more from the political left. Is some kind of shift taking place? I don't think so. I think there is some epidemiological and even functional [brain] imaging evidence that the right is a little more prone toward conspiracy thinking and Manichean thinking. But there are plenty of Manichean people on the left, too. I mean, a lot of Manichean behavior, most of it was located on the left 60 years ago. I would even say it's just noise in an oscillating system. You've written about the consequences of mass mania in your book The Delusions of Crowds. How does mass mania contribute to the political violence we're seeing in the U.S. right now? If you put a bunch of people in a room, and let's say you're talking about abortion. Let's say there's a median position on abortion, it's exactly right in the middle. So there's a zero, which is people who are absolute anti-abortion opponents. And then you have a 10, which is people who are rabidly pro-abortion. Well, if you put a bunch of people together who are a six, what you see happening is that they slide off to that side because they want to seek the approval of the group, and they find that by making more and more extreme statements, they can garner more approval. So when you put people together like that, their opinions tend toward the extremes, either one or the other. And eventually, you get to the point where you're advocating violence. I think it's just a natural progression of that sociological phenomenon. The classic type where you saw this happen was with people who were concerned about the Covid-19 vaccine. And it started out with the moms' groups: 'Should I get my kids vaccinated? I have some concerns. I want to talk about this and be better informed.' You put a bunch of people like that together, and pretty soon, that morphs into political violence. Is there anything that U.S. politicians — on the left or right — could do to tamp down on anti-Israel or antisemitic political violence in the United States? I'm pretty cynical. The answer I would give you is nothing that will improve their vote count. The name of the game these days is to energize your base, particularly with our primary-based system. Do you think our existing system rewards political violence? I think so, yeah. I'm old enough to remember when there wasn't a lot of ideological difference between Democrats and Republicans. If you did a Venn diagram of their policy positions, there was a lot of overlap. Now there's almost no overlap. With the primary-based system, what's going to happen is that it favors extremism on both sides. Now what's the solution to that? It would be nice if we had an open primary system. It would be nice if we had more objectively and rationally drawn congressional districts. Those two things would help, but to depend upon the goodwill of ordinary politicians in the public interest of our political class these days, and particularly, the way that elections are funded, I think that's a very, very big ask. A year ago, you told an Atlantic reporter that you don't think political violence 'ends without some sort of cathartic cataclysm.' Can you expand on what that means? What does a 'cathartic cataclysm' look like? Well, I think a cathartic cataclysm is when you see law enforcement officers in masks, snatching people into vans and shipping them abroad, or at least to Louisiana, because they have a political opinion. I mean, that's state violence. And let's call a spade a spade: The assassination attempt on Donald Trump during the election campaign was probably politically motivated as well. But what's a cathartic turning point look like? Well, a cathartic turning point looks like an awful piece of mass violence. It would have to be an episode of mass violence that is directly attributable to an easily identifiable political player. I thought Jan. 6 was that, but I guess Jan. 6 wasn't cataclysmic enough. What comes after the 'cathartic cataclysm?' Can there be a moment of reckoning that means less political violence for a while? Well, people just get sick of the violence. It's what happened in all major civil wars. Eventually, they burn themselves out because it's so awful. It's what happened in Northern Ireland. It hasn't happened in the Middle East yet, in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but eventually it does happen. I can remember back in the '60s, early '70s, it felt like the political violence was never going to end. I mean, if you were an Italian in the '60s or the '70s, major political and judicial figures, including prime ministers, were getting bumped off on a regular basis. And it seemed like it was never going to end, but it did. It seemed like the anarchist violence of the early 20th century — it lasted for a couple of decades, killed the U.S. president — it seemed that was never going to end either, but it does. These things burn themselves out. I guess the best way of putting it is that human beings seek novelty, and after a while, political violence gets to be old hat and uncool. What's an example of cathartic violence from history? Well, I think that the political violence of the late 1960s was cathartic. You had the assassination of the U.S. president, of Martin Luther King, of Bobby Kennedy. And then it stopped. People shied away from political violence. Exactly why it stopped, I don't know, but it did. It wasn't just assassinations, it was also street violence. And then things calmed down. If I had to come up with a reason why, it's that people get bored. Initially, politically posturing and making violent threats gets you admiration and psychological support from other people, but eventually it gets old, and people stop doing it. Do you see the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol or last year's attempted assassination of Donald Trump as having contributed to the political violence we're seeing today? Is all of this building up in our society? Yeah. And unfortunately, a big part of that is institutional. I mean, what does it say when you commit violent crimes en masse and then the president of the United States pardons you? It basically tells people, 'Yeah, you've got a free pass the next time.' In that previous interview, you suggested that the Jan. 6 riot wasn't a turning point for political violence in our nation, because it didn't end up worse — there wasn't a 'cathartic cataclysm' with the killing of a politician, for instance. Is there any way to subdue violence without having to embrace that kind of extreme ending? How do we lower the temperature in America? If you're lucky, it burns itself out without a cataclysmic event. And I stand by what I said, which is that, had they actually killed Mike Pence, I think that would have ended it right there.
