"History will remember this day— when an American President and Vice President abandoned all we stand for"

Peter Baker: “Trump and Vance Berate Zelensky During Testy White House Meeting.”

President Trump and Vice President JD Vance berated President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine on Friday in an explosive televised Oval Office shouting match that ultimately blew up plans to sign a rare minerals deal and signaled a dramatic break in relations between two wartime allies.

In a public confrontation unlike any seen between an American president and foreign leader in modern times, Mr. Trump and Mr. Vance castigated Mr. Zelensky for not being grateful enough for U.S. support in its war with Russia and sought to strong-arm him into making a peace deal on whatever terms the Americans dictated.

With voices raised and tempers flaring, Mr. Trump threatened to abandon Ukraine altogether if Mr. Zelensky did not go along. After journalists were escorted out of the Oval Office, Mr. Trump canceled the rest of the visit, including a planned joint news conference and signing ceremony for the minerals deal. A grim-faced Mr. Zelensky then strode out of the West Wing, climbed into a waiting black sport utility vehicle and departed the White House grounds.

“I have determined that President Zelenskyy is not ready for Peace if America is involved, because he feels our involvement gives him a big advantage in negotiations,” Mr. Trump wrote on social media. “I don’t want advantage, I want PEACE. He disrespected the United States of America in its cherished Oval Office. He can come back when he is ready for Peace.”

Some other quick reactions (quotes and links from Charlie Sykes' Substack newsletter today).

Liz Cheney:

“Generations of American patriots, from our revolution onward, have fought for the principles Zelenskyy is risking his life to defend. But today, Donald Trump and JD Vance attacked Zelenskyy and pressured him to surrender the freedom of his people to the KGB war criminal who invaded Ukraine. History will remember this day— when an American President and Vice President abandoned all we stand for.”

Tom Nichols:

Friday, February 28, 2025, will go into the history books as one of the grimmest days in American diplomacy, the beginning of a long-term disaster every American, every U.S. ally, and anyone who cares about the future of democracy will have to endure. With the White House’s betrayal of Ukraine capping a month of authoritarian chaos in America, Putin, along with other dictators around the world, can finally look at Trump with confidence and think: one of us.

Michael Weiss:

Increasingly obvious they invited him to Washington to humiliate him. This is theatre for the benefit of their base and of course a suddenly very happy man in Moscow.

Susan Glasser:

If there are any illusions about what side Trump is on between Russia and Ukraine, this should dispel them.

Damon Linker:

That event in the Oval Office is going to send shock waves across the world -- far more so than Vance's Munich speech. We're the most powerful country on the planet, and we are Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde from admin to admin. Today Mr. Hyde made his full debut.

Gregg Nunziata:

I’m hard-pressed to think of a more disgraceful and damaging performance by a U.S. President on the world stage than what we just witnessed in the Oval Office.

Mark Hertling:

Some have disappointed, some had bad policy, some made big mistakes. But I’ve never in my life been ashamed of American leaders. Until today.

David French:

This is utterly shameful. This is Vladimir Putin's best outcome. The U.S. is placing pressure on a free nation fighting for its life while giving aid and comfort to an authoritarian thug.

Mona Charen:

We are a completely different country from what we were 2 months ago. Bully. Aggressor. Putin suck-up. Betrayer of allies. Rude. Crude. Dishonest. The most dishonorable display by an American president in our lifetimes.

Shiri Bibas was not returned with the bodies of her two sons today

It seems there is no end to evil. 

This morning (between 9:00-10:00 am Israel time, between 2:00-3:00 am east coast US time, Hamas handed over four coffins to the International Committee of the Red Cross - supposedly containing the bodies of Shiri Bibas, her two sons, Kfir and Ariel, and Oded Lipfschitz. 

But this was not a quiet handover - no, Hamas put on a spectacle, placing the coffins on a stage with a grotesque caricature of Benjamin Netanyahu on a sheet behind them, and a masked Hamas terrorist giving a speech with music in the background. The crowd around the stage and the ICRC included armed terrorists with green headbands and civilians - children and women among the men. Some of them took photos or videos of the scene with their cellphones, as if this was a play or a movie.

I watched some of it on a livestream from several different news organizations, including Reuters and AP (I don't know whose cameras were actually there).

But it turns out that Shiri Bibas was not one of them. The IDF was not able to identify the body.

From the Times of Israel today, after Hamas returned four coffins to Israel this morning.

IDF: Remains of Kfir and Ariel Bibas ID’d, 3rd body sent by Hamas isn’t their mom Shiri

By Lazar Berman

The military informs the Bibas family that the bodies of Ariel and Kfir Bibas have been identified after their remains were given to Israel by Hamas on Thursday.

However, the third body at the Abu Kabir Forensic Institute was not that of their mother, Shiri Bibas, says the Israel Defense Forces. Specialists at Abu Kabir were not able to identify the body.

The authorities, using forensic evidence and intelligence, assess that the two young boys were ‘”brutally murdered” by terrorists in November 2023, says the IDF. Ariel was 4-years-old and Kfir was 10-months-old when they were murdered.

“This is a very serious violation by the Hamas terrorist organization, which is required by the agreement to return four dead hostages,” says the IDF. “We demand that Hamas return Shiri home along with all of our hostages.”

“We share the deep sorrow of the Bibas family at this difficult time and will continue to make every effort to return Shiri and all the hostages home as soon as possible,” says the IDF.

Trans people were at Stonewall!

Among the many evil things the Trump administration has already done only in his first month in office (hard to believe!) is their attempt to erase trans people from American life and memory. One thing they did was to try and erase the role of trans people in the Stonewall rebellion that began the modern gay liberation movement (as it was first called). From a letter of protest written by scholars of the movement:

On February 13, 2025, the National Park Service, following an executive order issued by the Trump administration on January 20, 2025, “to recognize [only] two sexes, male and female [that] are not changeable,” removed references to transgender people from the web pages of the National Stonewall Monument in lower Manhattan. Later, the word “queer” and the letter “Q” were also removed.

This part of the letter explains the rebellion:

As scholars who study the history and politics of sexuality and gender, we write to testify that these changes are not supported by the historical record concerning the events that the monument commemorates.

The National Stonewall Monument commemorates an important event in the history of LGBTQ+ activism. During a six-day conflict that began at a New York City tavern called the Stonewall Inn in the summer of 1969, commonly referred to as the Stonewall riots, LGBTQ+ New Yorkers resisted systematic harassment and mistreatment by police in a series of clashes that continued in Greenwich Village for several days. The Stonewall Inn’s patrons and the participants in the subsequent uprising were predominantly young New Yorkers who defied dominant sexual and gender norms. Some understood themselves as gay or lesbian or queer, and some lived part or all of the time as members of a sex other than the one assigned to them at birth. Some called themselves “drag queens” and “crossdressers,” others “transvestite” or “transsexual,” and still others used ambiguous terms that could describe both sexuality and variation in gender expression. The rioters at Stonewall varied in their class background, their racial and ethnic identity, and in words they used to describe themselves. This range and complexity of variation in gender expression and sexuality were common in the gay liberation, lesbian feminist, and trans movements of the period, which were characterized (like all social movements) by some disagreements and debates about language as well as shared visions of liberation.

Diversity in both sexuality and gender expression, forms of human variation often inextricably related to one another, are empirically verifiable parts of the historical record, even as the terms different societies use and the particular meanings of those terms change over time. Neither “transgender” nor “queer” were commonly used as terms of identity in 1969, but “transvestite,” “transsexual,” and other terms were, including by people at the Stonewall Inn and the protests that followed. Notable examples included Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, influential activists who were assigned male at birth but lived for periods of their adult lives as women.

Participants in the Stonewall riots challenged both mistreatment based on the kinds of sexual partners they sought and mistreatment based on how they performed gender in everyday life. Efforts to address both forms of oppression were part of the riots in 1969 and the civil rights struggle that followed. Any accurate account of the Stonewall Riots and the subsequent fight for LGBTQ+ civil rights must recognize the full range of people who joined the battle and the full scope of the oppression they faced. The actions of the National Park Service reduce these events to a story that is only about sexual orientation, but that interpretation lacks basis in historical fact and distorts the legacy of this important event in American history.

"With burning anxiety"

 

"Solidarity in Struggle: Black and Palestinian Resistance" - a shameful discussion in Ithaca on February 1, 2025

The Southside Community Center in Ithaca is hosting a panel discussion on "Solidarity in Struggle: Black and Palestinian Resistance," on February 1. One of the speakers is Russell Rickford, a professor at Cornell University whose first response to the October 7, 2023 Hamas massacre of 1,200 people and kidnapping of 250 more was that he was "exhilarated"!

This is some of what he said at a rally on the Ithaca Commons on Sunday, October 15, just a week after the massacre (text is from the Cornell Daily Sun article on the rally):

“Hamas has challenged the monopoly of violence. And in those first few hours, even as horrific acts were being carried out, many of which we would not learn about until later, there are many Gazans of good will, many Palestinians of conscience, who abhor violence, as do you, as do I. Who abhor the targeting of civilians, as do you, as do I,” Rickford said during the rally. “Who were able to breathe, they were able to breathe for the first time in years. It was exhilarating. It was energizing. And if they weren’t exhilarated by this challenge to the monopoly of violence, by this shifting of the balance of power, then they would not be human. I was exhilarated.”

He added: “What has Hamas done? Hamas has shifted the balance of power. Hamas has punctured the illusion of invincibility. That’s what they have done. You don’t have to be a Hamas supporter to recognize that,” Rickford said. “Hamas has changed the terms of the debate. Israeli officials are right — nothing will be the same again.”

Russell Rickford was exhilarated by murder, rape, torture, and kidnapping. By the time he made that speech, we already knew about the about the "horrific acts" that he pretends to condemn by saying that he "abhor[s] violence." Those of us paying attention, like I was, knew about them already on October 7, because we were following the reports from Israel. For him, "Hamas has changed the terms of the debate" - and he commends them for it.

Another speaker is Momodou Taal, a graduate student at Cornell. He was one of the leaders of the Cornell Coalition for Mutual Liberation group, which was one of the main organizers of the Cornell protests last year and this year. He has spoken out in support of "armed resistance."

This is a quote from a speech he made on campus in early February, 2024 (text from Cornell Daily Sun).

About 70 demonstrators gathered outside of Day Hall on Friday afternoon to protest the Student Assembly’s 16-4 rejection of Resolution 51, which called on Cornell to end partnerships with and suspected investments in arms companies — such as Boeing and Raytheon — that provide weapons to Israel.

“We don’t take our cue from some bullsh*t Student Assembly at Cornell,” said Momodou Taal, grad, who led chants throughout the event. “We take our cue from the armed resistance in Palestine. We are in solidarity with the armed resistance in Palestine from the river to the sea,” he continued, garnering some cheers from the crowd.

Ceasefire? Return of the hostages?

I feel tremendously embittered. The war between Israel and Hamas has gone on for fifteen months since October 7, 2023. The Israeli hostages are still rotting in the tunnels in the hands of Hamas guards who abuse them physically and sexually. Tens of thousands of innocent civilians in Gaza have been killed, and Gaza is full of rubble where homes and schools and businesses used to be.

"Light at the end of the tunnel"
Today's "Daily Postcard" from the Israel artist Shoshke (Zeev) Engelmayer,
depicting Israel hostages in the tunnels with a tiny flower of hope blooming. 
Link to his Facebook page with this image. 

Apparently Israel has finally agreed to the ceasefire with Hamas, as of a few hours ago, but the security cabinet will only vote on it on Saturday night, according to the Times of Israel. Prime Minister Netanyahu the coward is still trying to keep the criminal Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir in the cabinet (he actually is a convicted criminal - look it up). This means that the hostages who were supposed to be released on Sunday will be released instead on Monday. If Netanyahu and the government ministers truly cared about the lives of the hostages they would have agreed to a ceasefire many months ago. 

Happy Eighth Day of Hanukkah!

This year Hanukkah extended over two secular years - into January 1 and 2, 2025. A few years ago the first day of Hanukkah was on Thanksgiving - so it is a moveable feast, as a friend of mine said today when we talked.

Links to a couple of interesting articles about Hanukkah from the Torah.com website -

Chanukah: The Greek Influence of Martyrdom.

On Chanukah we celebrate the miraculous military victories of the “few over the many,” and of Jewish culture over Greek. Ironically, however, Chanukah has also bequeathed to us a new genre of Jewish literature, one that has been in frequent use ever since: Greek-style stories of bravery in defeat and dying for the cause.

Megillat Antiochus: The Biblical Chanukah Scroll 

The medieval Scroll of Antiochus does more than enrich Chanukah with details. It models the holiday after Purim by telling the story in the biblical language and idiom of Daniel, Ezra, and Esther.

For a minor Jewish festival with no biblical command or account as its origin, Chanukah plays a major role in the Jewish yearly cycle. It includes a highly visible formal ritual —the lighting of the chanukiah/menorah—its own liturgy, folk practices like spinning the dreidel and eating latkes, jelly donuts, and chocolate coins, and the singing of catchy tunes. For many diasporic Jews, Chanukah is the Jewish answer to Christmas while, for many Israelis, it provides an opportunity to reflect upon Jewish military might. 

What does Chanukah celebrate? The books of 1 and 2 Maccabees present the earliest and most comprehensive versions of the story, but as they were not accorded canonical status by Jews, they were soon lost to Jewish tradition—though preserved by Christians in the Apocrypha. In contrast to Purim, whose story is told in the biblical book of Esther, traditional Jews for millennia relied mostly on bits and pieces preserved in the Chanukah liturgy, the Talmud, rabbinic midrash, and collective memory. Thus, most Jews throughout the ages were aware of some form of persecution, Judah Maccabee, a hard-fought war won, and something about a miracle involving oil. 

To fill this gap, an author living in the mid to late first millennium C.E. composed the Megillat Antiochus (The Scroll of Antiochus; also known as “The Greek Scroll” and “The Scroll of the House of the Hasmoneans”), which presents itself as the narrative explaining the events leading up to Chanukah. The author has little direct access to more historical sources like 1 and 2 Maccabees, and he uses biblical and rabbinic ones as well as his own expansions and Jewish collective memory to tell the story.

Megillat Antiochus was written in something akin to Late Jewish Literary Aramaic, yet, at the same time, anyone familiar with Biblical (i.e., imperial) Aramaic would sense that the text wishes to give a feel as if it were composed in that dialect, by deploying words and forms that characterize Biblical Aramaic but were no longer used in later Aramaic dialects. In addition, it copies, draws on, riffs upon, and develops the language and narrative style of Daniel, Ezra, and the book of Esther to enrich and inform its overarching narrative.