As the Israelites prepare to enter the Land of Israel in Matot-Masei, the tribes of Reuben and Gad ask for permission to settle east of the Jordan. Moses agrees – but with one condition. They may not enjoy the security of their own homes until they first help the other tribes secure theirs.
The message is striking. Before you settle comfortably into your own inheritance, help your community establish theirs. It is not charity but community responsibility.
Every tribe had a rightful place in the land. Every family deserved the opportunity to build a secure home. The community could not be considered settled until everyone had the chance to settle.
Thousands of years later, most of us no longer inherit farmland. We build our lives through careers instead. Our “land” is our livelihood.
That is where another Torah command offers a practical model.
Earlier in the Torah, God commands farmers:
“When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap all the way to the corners of your field… You shall leave them for the poor and the stranger.” (Leviticus 19:9–10)
The mitzvot of pe’ah and leket required every farmer to leave part of the harvest behind. Generosity was built into the act of production itself.
Jean-François Millet’s The Gleaners, 1857
Today, our field is no longer measured in acres but in calendars. So what if we left the corner of our workweek instead?
Imagine reserving part of every Friday to help someone establish a livelihood. Mentor a college student wondering how to begin a career. Introduce an unemployed neighbor to someone in your network. Coach an underemployed professional preparing for interviews. Spend an hour helping someone discover opportunities they cannot reach alone.
The greatest barrier facing many young adults today is not a lack of talent. It is a lack of access – to mentors, relationships, introductions, and guidance. A single conversation can redirect a career. One introduction can change the course of a life.
Matot-Masei teaches that we are responsible for helping others reach a place of security before we simply enjoy our own. Pe’ah teaches us to leave part of what we produce for others.
Together they suggest a modern mitzvah: leave the corner of your workweek to help others.
The harvest is no longer wheat for many of us. It is knowledge, experience, influence, and opportunity. So perhaps one of the holiest things we can do is use part of ours to help someone else build a future of their own.
The debate over American support for Ukraine and Israel has largely focused on the cost. Politicians argue over billions of dollars appropriated, weapons transferred, and whether American taxpayers are carrying too much of the burden. Far less attention has been paid to the return on that investment.
Since 2022, the United States has authorized roughly $195 billion related to Ukraine and approximately $16–22 billion in supplemental wartime assistance for Israel. Critics see enormous expenditures. Strategically, however, those dollars have enabled two allies to inflict historic damage on two of America’s principal adversaries – Russia and Iran – without the United States deploying large combat formations or suffering the thousands of battlefield casualties that defined Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan.
That comparison matters.
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan cost the United States more than $5 trillion in direct and related costs, with broader post-9/11 war obligations rising above $8 trillion when future veteran care, interest, and long-term commitments are included. Nearly 7,000 American service members were killed. More than 52,000 were wounded.
And what was the lasting strategic benefit?
Afghanistan ended with the Taliban back in power. Iraq removed Saddam Hussein, but the aftermath empowered Iran, fractured the region, drained American credibility, and produced years of instability. The United States paid in terrible blood and treasure, and the final balance sheet is hard to defend.
Ukraine and Israel present a very different model.
Consider Russia.
More than four years after launching its invasion of Ukraine, Russia has suffered an estimated1.4 million military casualties, including approximately 450,000 dead. Its armored forces have been severely depleted. The Black Sea Fleet has largely been driven from its historic operating areas. Ukraine has repeatedly demonstrated the ability to strike deep inside Russian territory. The military once regarded as NATO’s greatest conventional threat has been dramatically weakened.
“The number of Russian casualties and fatalities are astonishing. Since World War II, no major power has suffered anywhere near these numbers of casualties or fatalities in any war…. Russia’s economy is in distress, and Russia’s wartime spending may be increasingly untenable.” – Center for Strategic and International Studies July 2026
Now consider Iran.
For four decades the leading state sponsor of terrorism invested billions of dollars constructing what it proudly called the “Axis of Resistance” – a network stretching from Iran through Iraq and Syria to Lebanon and Gaza. Hamas, Hezbollah, Shiite militias, the Houthis, and the Assad regime were components of a single strategy designed to project Iranian power, surround Israel and challenge American influence in the region and threaten much of the global oil supply.
That strategy has suffered a tremendous setback.
Hamas has lost much of its military and infrastructure. Hezbollah has absorbed devastating blows to its command structure and missile capabilities. The Assad regime in Syria – Tehran’s indispensable Arab ally and the geographic bridge connecting Iran to Hezbollah – has fallen, shattering the land corridor that Iran spent decades building. The regional network that once appeared to surround Israel and terrorize America’s Arab allies now is dramatically weakened.
Iran’s nuclear ambitions have suffered major setbacks as well. Israeli and American strikes severely damaged key nuclear facilities, disrupted important elements of Iran’s enrichment infrastructure, and forced Tehran to devote enormous resources simply to rebuilding capabilities it once assumed were secure. Intelligence agencies continue to debate precisely how long the program has been delayed, but there is broad agreement that it suffered one of the most significant setbacks in its history.
None of this diminishes the immense human suffering. Ukraine has endured staggering casualties and destruction. Israel suffered the deadliest attack in its history on October 7 and has paid a heavy military, economic, and emotional price ever since.
But viewed through an American lens of grand strategy, another reality emerges.
Rather than sending hundreds of thousands of American troops to fight Russia or Iran directly as was done in Afghanistan and Iraq, the United States enabled allies already under attack to defend themselves. Those allies have imposed extraordinary military and strategic costs on governments that have spent decades challenging American interests.
This is what is so often missing from the public debate.
The wars are typically discussed separately. Ukraine is presented as a European conflict while Israel is portrayed as a Middle Eastern conflict. Yet both Russia and Iran were strategic partners, cooperating militarily, economically, and diplomatically while sharing an interest in weakening the United States and the Western alliance. Seen together, Ukraine and Israel have not merely been fighting for their own survival, they have been successfully degrading two pillars of a powerful anti-Western axis.
The long-term upside could be enormous. A surviving, Western-aligned Ukraine would become one of Europe’s most battle-tested militaries, a major reconstruction market, an energy and agricultural partner, and a permanent barrier to Russian expansion. A stronger Israel, with Iran weakened and Syria and Lebanon no longer functioning as Tehran’s strategic bridge, could help reshape the Middle East around technology, defense cooperation, energy corridors, trade, and normalization with Arab states that increasingly fear Iran more than they resent Israel.
That is the opportunity Iraq and Afghanistan never produced. Those wars consumed American power and America left no assets behind. These wars, fought by allies, may extend American power with powerful allies at the vanguard.
History may conclude that this period represents one of the most effective uses of American alliance power in generations. For roughly $215 billion – less than one-twentieth of the direct and related cost of Iraq and Afghanistan – the United States helped enable allies to severely weaken Russia’s conventional military, fracture Iran’s regional proxy empire, remove Syria and Lebanon from Tehran’s sphere of influence, and significantly set back Iran’s nuclear program, all without committing large American ground forces or sustaining the massive battlefield casualties that characterized previous generations of U.S. warfare.
America’s greatest military victory in the past 75 years may ultimately be its most subtle.
This week, the UN will commemorate the genocide at Srebrenica under the theme “From Words to Violence.“ The lesson is that language is never merely language. The words societies choose shape how they understand people, history, and ultimately what actions become acceptable.
That lesson should not stop with Srebrenica.
Over the past month, another campaign of words has accelerated – not directly aimed at the destruction of lives, but at the erasure of history.
A month ago, I wrote about the battle over Solomon’s Pools. At the time, the concern was that one of Judaism’s great archaeological treasures was being detached from the people who built it.
Today, the campaign has moved far beyond stewardship.
The Palestinian Authority’s official news agency, WAFA, now repeatedly describes Solomon’s Pools as “Palestinian archaeological and heritage sites,” “Palestinian cultural heritage,” and “an integral part of the Palestinian people’s national identity.” It accuses Israel of attempting to erase the site’s Palestinian identity while announcing plans to seek UNESCO protection for that very narrative.
This is historical revisionism.
For more than two thousand years, Solomon’s Pools have been recognized as part of the ancient water system that supplied Jerusalem and the Second Temple. Yet the new narrative increasingly erases that Jewish history while attempting to replace it with a Palestinian Arab one.
That is how historical erasure begins, with words.
It continues with cultural appropriation – taking another civilization’s achievements and presenting them as one’s own. A site built to sustain Jewish Jerusalem is no longer described as part of Jewish civilization, but as an expression of “Palestinian national identity.”
Solomon’s Pools is not an isolated example.
Over the years, Palestinian rhetoric has increasingly described biblical figures and ancient Jewish sites through a Palestinian national lens.
The Jewish Temples are falsely described as being located in Yemen.
Ancient Jewish heritage sites have increasingly been recast as Palestinian heritage, such as the Jewish Temple Mount being only called the “al Aqsa Complex” and as a purely Islamic site to prevent Jews from praying at their holiest site.
Individually these statements may appear rhetorical. Collectively they reveal a sustained and malicious effort to replace one people’s historical memory with another’s national story.
When a people’s documented history is systematically erased, it reveals a bigotry directed not only against living Jews but against Jewish civilization itself. It reflects national chauvinism, elevating one national identity by absorbing the achievements of another.
And it does this with particular purpose: to strip Jews of their indigeneity in their holy land, to recast them as interlopers and “European settler colonizers” which is deeply infused with a righteous sense of xenophobia.
That is why UNESCO’s role matters.
An organization created to preserve humanity’s cultural heritage should never become an instrument of historical revisionism. If it legitimizes narratives that obscure the well-documented Jewish origins of sites like Solomon’s Pools, it is no longer merely protecting monuments. It is helping redefine what future generations believe those monuments represent.
Turkish media TRT lies to the world that Solomon’s Pools are a 6,000 year-old Canaanite site, as Palestinian Arabs have attempted to recast themselves as ancient Canaanites to pre-date the Jewish forefather Abraham
The danger is larger than a single archaeological site. Words are attempting to erase Jewish history and heritage throughout the Jewish homeland.
The United Nations is correct: words can lead to terrible consequences.
And these words and actions have a particularly dangerous strain of antisemitism. It does not involve attacking Jews physically, which Palestinian Arabs have done repeatedly at scale. It is an insidious attempt to get the world to endorse a narrative that Jews are foreigners in the land to frame a future without the Jewish State. This is the destruction and genocide that emerges from language.
When international institutions lend their authority to that process, they cease to be guardians of history and become participants in its erasure.
The train rolled quietly toward Tel Aviv, its rhythm broken only by the soft buzz of conversations and the glow of phone screens. Across from me sat two young soldiers. Their rifles rested casually against their legs while their attention was fixed on their cellphones – one scrolling through messages, the other smiling at a photo someone had sent. It was a striking image of modern Israel: a generation carrying both the tools of war and the ordinary routines of youth.
Israeli soldier with cellphone and gun (created by First One Through)
After two years of war, the sight no longer seemed unusual. Uniforms had become part of daily life. The soldiers were not isolated behind military bases; they were students, siblings and neighbors riding the same commuter trains as everyone else.
Stepping off at Tel Aviv’s HaShalom – “the Peace” – station, another reminder of the country’s debate awaited. Stickers were plastered on walls and signposts declaring, “גיוס שווה לכולם” – “The draft should be equal for everyone.” The slogan was impossible to miss. It reflected the growing frustration of many Israelis who believe military service should be shared by all citizens, particularly as the controversy over exemptions for many ultra-Orthodox men has intensified during a prolonged war.
Sticker on train station in Tel Aviv about the draft (created by First One Through)
From the station I walked up the street toward Sarona.
The mood shifted almost instantly. The urgency of the train gave way to quiet streets lined with restored nineteenth-century stone buildings, their green shutters and warm walls carefully preserved. Families strolled through the park, office workers carried coffee between meetings, and children played on the lawns.
Sarona, with its mix of old buildings and new skyscrapers (created by First One Through)
Rising above this tranquil scene were gleaming glass towers – headquarters of technology companies, investment firms and startups reaching into the Mediterranean sky. The contrast was remarkable. The old Templar colony had not been erased by progress; it had been woven into it. History remained at street level while the future climbed overhead.
From Sarona I continued west beneath long rows of jacaranda trees. The sidewalks were broad and shaded despite the afternoon heat. Cyclists glided silently along dedicated bike paths while dog walkers stopped to exchange greetings in Hebrew, English, French and Russian. The city moved at an easy rhythm, confident and unhurried.
Tel Aviv street winding its way from the train station to the beach (created by First One Through)
By the time I reached the Mediterranean, the sky had begun to soften into cooler shades of blue. A young woman played a steel drum near the promenade, the Caribbean melody drifting above the soft crash of the waves. Just up the gentle hill, an ultra-Orthodox man sat quietly, listening. His eyes wandered beyond the music toward the sailboats slowly crossing the horizon, their sails turning black against the fading sun.
As darkness approached, I turned back toward my hotel. Along the route, fresh rails stretched down the center of the boulevard. Fences, construction equipment and unfinished stations marked the slow progress of Tel Aviv’s expanding light rail. The war had left its mark here, as many Israeli construction workers had been called into reserve duty, while restrictions on Palestinian Arab workers entering Israel had reduced another important source of labor. Even in a city racing toward the future, history and security continued to shape the speed of ordinary life.
Tel Aviv’s light rail under construction (created by First One Through)
Night settled over the White City. Above the Bauhaus facades and surprisingly green parks, a deep red crescent moon hung low before slipping toward the Mediterranean. It seemed a fitting end to the day. Tel Aviv is often celebrated for its beaches, cafés and nightlife, yet what lingered most was something less obvious: a city where soldiers and software engineers share commuter trains, where old stone houses stand beside glass towers, where debates over duty appear on stickers at the station, and where, despite the burdens of war, people still ride bicycles beneath leafy boulevards toward the sea as both sun and moon set over Israel.
Red crescent moon sets over Tel Aviv (created by First One Through)
The next morning I woke before dawn, courtesy of jet lag. It was barely five o’clock, and rather than fight the early hour, I headed outside and walked toward the beach, turning south in the direction of Jaffa.
The city was just beginning to stir.
On a grassy stretch above the promenade, a group of women had gathered for morning exercise. Jews and Arabs stretched side by side as the first rays of sunlight crept across the lawn. No one seemed interested in the differences that so often dominate headlines. At that hour, they were simply neighbors greeting another day.
Jewish and Arab women stretching above Tel Aviv’s beach at daybreak (created by First One Through)
The rising sun appeared between the towers, casting long golden reflections across the sea. As I continued south, I crossed the invisible boundary where Tel Aviv gradually becomes Jaffa. There is no wall, no gate, no sign announcing the transition. Modern boulevards slowly yield to older stone buildings until, ahead, the ancient hill of Jaffa emerged from the morning haze.
Sunrise over Tel Aviv-Jaffa (created by First One Through)
The old city looked timeless. Its limestone walls glowed honey-gold beneath the rising sun, church towers rising above clusters of palms that have watched merchants, pilgrims and conquerors arrive for centuries. Behind me stretched one of the world’s youngest major cities; before me stood one of its oldest. Few places compress four thousand years into a morning walk.
Old City of Jaffa (created by First One Through)
Yet the promenade is also a walk through painful memory.
Every few hundred yards another monument interrupts the rhythm of the sea. A simple memorial recalls the Altalena, the tragic 1948 confrontation in which the fledgling Jewish state nearly fractured before it had fully been born. Farther along stands the memorial to the Dolphinarium bombing, where a Palestinian Arab suicide attack murdered young people waiting to enter a beachfront nightclub, freezing forever what should have been an ordinary summer evening.
The newest memorials are not carved in stone. They are printed on paper.
Walls, bus stops and utility boxes are covered with hundreds of stickers bearing the faces of young men and women killed since the October 7 massacre and the war that followed. Some are soldiers, others are civilians. Each bears a photograph, a name and often a brief message from family or friends. Individually they are easy to pass without notice. Together they form an unofficial memorial stretching across the city, reminding everyone that the smiling faces should still be walking these same streets.
Stickers of young people who were killed in the Iranian proxy war against Israel (created by First One Through)
Turning back toward my hotel, I watched the city awaken.
At first there were only a handful of runners. Then another dozen. Within minutes the promenade had become a river of joggers moving north and south along the shoreline. Cyclists moved passed them in dedicated lanes while the Mediterranean rolled steadily against the seawall. The volleyball courts still stood empty, their nets waiting for the first matches of the day.
Despite the hundreds of people already enjoying the morning, security remained almost invisible. The only uniformed officers I encountered were two young policewomen sitting beside their patrol car, laughing as they leaned together to take a selfie. It was another reminder that life here is lived in layers. A country still at war. A city that had known rockets and sirens. Yet on this morning, two officers paused, like young people anywhere else, to capture a moment with a cellphone.
Policewomen taking a selfie in Tel Aviv (created by First One Through)
As I approached my hotel, another juxtaposition caught my eye. Apartment balconies facing the street served as tiny windows into the lives of their occupants. On one balcony hung a rainbow Pride flag. Just a window away fluttered a yellow Chabad Moshiach flag, proclaiming hope for the coming of the Messiah. In many places, those symbols might be seem irreconcilable. The flags did not suggest agreement but coexistence. The residents likely disagreed about politics, religion and the future of Israeli society. Yet neither had torn down the other’s banner. The building itself had become a quiet lesson in democratic life.
Pride flag and Moshiach flag hang together facing the Tel Aviv beach (created by First One Through)
Back at the hotel, breakfast was every bit as impressive as the Mediterranean outside the windows. Fresh salads, nuts, cheeses, shakshuka, breads still warm from the oven, amazing fruit, squares of halva and strong Israeli coffee made lingering far too tempting.
Eventually, I pushed away from the table and traded dawn’s leisurely pace for another walk, this time inland.
In barely forty minutes, the sea breeze gave way to glass towers, venture capital offices and the headquarters of companies whose software, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and communications products are used around the world. The transformation was remarkable. One moment I was watching paddleboarders on the Mediterranean; the next I was surrounded by one of the world’s great technology hubs. Tel Aviv’s reputation as the “Startup Nation” is not an abstract slogan. It is a city where people can begin the morning watching the sunrise by the sea and arrive at meetings shaping the future before most cities have finished their commute.
Part of the Tel Aviv skyline near the train station (created by First One Through)
After the day’s meetings, I made the walk back toward the coast. The beach had transformed once again.
The jogging dawn promenade had given way to the rhythm of a summer afternoon. The surf clubs were busy, rows of brightly colored boards stacked outside while paddleboards waited for the next calm outing. A sign pointing toward the nearest bomb shelter hung beside the entrance, blending almost unnoticed into the scene.
Paddleboards for rent at Tel Aviv beach (created by First One Through)
The unmistakable crack of matkot echoed across the sand – the sharp wooden sound of paddle meeting ball, as much a part of an Israeli beach as the waves themselves. Surfers searched for the best breaks while others stood atop paddleboards gliding across the calm Mediterranean. Families spread towels across the sand. Friends settled into circles, talking for hours, absentmindedly cracking open sunflower seeds and dropping the shells into cups which had been drained of beer, as the afternoon slowly slipped toward evening.
After showering off the salt, I headed back into the city for dinner.
Tel Aviv has quietly become one of the world’s great food cities.
Its chefs draw inspiration from every corner of Jewish history and the Mediterranean – Galilean vegetables, Persian spices, North African traditions, Yemenite breads and European techniques – all combined with remarkable creativity. Restaurants that would command attention in New York, London or Paris line streets that only a generation ago were known more for falafel than fine dining.
One change particularly fascinated me.
Not long ago, many ambitious chefs viewed kosher certification as a limitation. Today, more and more of the city’s finest restaurants proudly operate under kosher supervision. The change has been driven as much by economics as religion. As Israel’s high-tech economy expanded, so too did a generation of young Modern Orthodox professionals – engineers, entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and lawyers – who wanted exceptional dining without compromising Jewish dietary law. Restaurants discovered that serving remarkable food and remaining kosher were no longer competing ideas. In many neighborhoods, they had become a winning combination.
Dvora Restaurant on Ben Yehuda St. in Tel Aviv (created by First One Through)
Leaving Tel Aviv, I found myself thinking less about any single building or beach than about the extraordinary coexistence of opposites. Here, memory lives beside innovation. Faith shares walls with secular life. War intrudes, but never fully defines the city. Every morning begins with people running toward the sea rather than away from fear.
Perhaps that is Tel Aviv’s greatest contradiction. It has not escaped history’s burdens. It simply refuses to allow them to define the city. Despite carrying them every day, Tel Aviv has become one of the world’s most vibrant, creative and optimistic places to live.
Long before the current war began, prominent advocates for the Palestinian cause were describing Gaza as “hell on earth.”
In January 2009, Palestinian Queen Rania of Jordan released a video for UNRWA titled “Hell on Earth.” Eight months later, speaking at UNRWA’s 60th anniversary, she recalled that video and lamented that Gaza was still “Hell on Earth.”
Palestinian Queen of Jordan Rania called Gaza “Hell on Earth” in 2009
In May 2021, UN Secretary-General António Guterres declared, “If there is a hell on earth, it is the lives of children in Gaza today.”
When Israel began to respond to the war waged by Gazans in 2023, UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini said Gaza had become “a living hell.” In January 2024, UN humanitarian coordinator Sigrid Kaag told the Security Council, “Gaza is hell on earth.”
The description has been remarkably consistent. What has often been missing is the question: Why?
Hell is not merely a place of suffering. It is a place where evil reigns.
Hamas violently seized Gaza in 2007 after defeating Fatah in a brief but brutal civil war. Fighters executed political rivals, threw some from rooftops, publicly brutalized opponents, and dragged the bodies of alleged collaborators through the streets. Those who challenged Hamas risked imprisonment, torture, or death. Independent political life disappeared, and an entire generation grew up under the rule of an armed Islamist movement that prioritized rockets, tunnels, and perpetual conflict over building a prosperous society.
Hamas drags a disloyal Gazan through the streets to his death
And Hamas was a known entity, a political party which won 56% of Palestinian parliament in elections with the most antisemitic political charter ever written. It remains the most popular political group to this day, expected to win Palestinian elections in every poll.
Calling Gaza “hell on earth” without acknowledging who built that system leaves the story unfinished. Should people want to transform the region, they must work to end the evil rule and worldview that turned part of the holy land into such a place in the first place.
For more than fifteen years, Boko Haram has waged one of the world’s deadliest terrorist insurgencies. Since 2009, the group has been responsible for the deaths of more than 35,000 people, with some estimates placing the toll significantly higher when indirect deaths from the conflict are included. It has massacred civilians in villages, churches, mosques, schools, and marketplaces. It has bombed public places, murdered those who refused to submit to its rule, and driven millions from their homes across Nigeria and neighboring countries.
Kidnapping has been one of its defining tactics. The 2014 abduction of 276 schoolgirls from Chibok drew worldwide attention, but it was only one of thousands of kidnappings. Women and girls have been forced into marriage and been raped. Boys have been recruited as child soldiers. Entire communities have lived for years under the constant threat of murder, abduction, and terror.
Boko Haram rejects the legitimacy of Nigeria, a United Nations-member state. It seeks to replace it with its own extremist Islamist regime.
Yet almost no one argues that Boko Haram deserves its own country. No demonstrations demand that its leaders be rewarded with sovereignty. No governments argue that decades of massacres, hostage-taking, and terrorism should culminate in international legitimacy.
There are now 157 countries that recognize Palestine. That look at the war between Israel and Palestine as one between two sovereign states, one which invaded another, raped and burned people alive, and took 251 hostages. These nations didn’t pause to question whether Palestine has a right to exist, but got three more countries to join in their sadistic effort.
Perhaps it is time for the 36 countries which do not recognize Palestine to put a resolution before the UN to recognize Boko Haram as the legitimate government of Nigeria, or at least a breakaway state in the northeastern corner which they control.
Outside the Jaffa Gate in Jerusalem, the day unfolds with layers of complexity. The stone walls, ancient and storied, bear witness to the lives that pass through.
On this morning, an Arab man stands near the portal entrance, his posture slumped, eyes lowered. His expression speaks of a quiet sorrow—perhaps personal, perhaps born of circumstances beyond his control.
Picture amalgam of four different scenes, presenting a view of the entry portal of the Jaffa Gate in Jerusalem, Israel (by First One Through)
Meanwhile, just feet away, an Orthodox Jewish man, dressed in traditional black attire, moves with purpose. He hurries toward his daily prayers at the Kotel, following a routine as old as the stones beneath his feet. The rhythm of Jerusalem’s life, with its sacred moments, continues without pause.
Standing between them is a medic from Magen David Adom. His presence is a testament to the tension that often simmers beneath the surface of the city. He watches both men—attentive, calm, ready to act if needed. His role is not in the realm of politics or faith but in the safeguarding of human life.
This moment encapsulates the juxtaposition of daily routines—spiritual devotion, personal struggle, and the ever-present readiness to heal. In Jerusalem, where layers of history meet contemporary reality, even the quietest scene can tell a deeper story.
Every July, as heat waves grip North America, Europe, and much of Asia, Earth reaches one of the least intuitive moments of its annual journey.
It is at its greatest distance from the Sun.
Around July 3-5, Earth reaches aphelion, approximately 94.5 million miles (152.1 million kilometers) from the Sun. Six months earlier, around January 3-5, Earth passes through perihelion, just 91.4 million miles (147.1 million kilometers) away.
The difference is roughly 3.1 million miles – about a 3.3% change in distance. Earth actually receives about 7% more solar energy in early January than it does in early July.
Yet July is the hottest time of year across most of the Northern Hemisphere.
The explanation reveals something profound about our planet and it is not that we have internalized the Global North’s view of seasons.
Distance matters far less than direction.
Orientation. Earth is tilted approximately 23.4 degrees on its axis. During the Northern Hemisphere’s summer, that tilt turns us toward the Sun. The midday Sun climbs much higher into the sky, allowing its rays to strike the ground more directly instead of spreading over a larger area. At the same time, daylight stretches for hours longer, giving the land far more time to absorb heat.
A tilt of just 23.4 degrees overwhelms a separation of more than three million miles.
The proof is visible every day.
When New York swelters in July, Buenos Aires shivers through winter. Both cities are essentially the same distance from the Sun. Only their orientation has changed.
Tilt, not distance, governs the seasons.
One might assume the Northern Hemisphere, basking in these long summer days, must also be the warmer half of the planet. Yet the opposite is closer to the truth.
Makeup. The Southern Hemisphere is covered by approximately 81 percent ocean, while the Northern Hemisphere is only about 61 percent ocean. Water absorbs enormous amounts of heat, releases it slowly, and moderates temperature throughout the year. Land behaves very differently. It heats rapidly under summer sunshine and cools just as quickly during winter.
The Northern Hemisphere is a hemisphere of continents. The Southern Hemisphere is a hemisphere of oceans.
That is why the Northern Hemisphere experiences the world’s greatest seasonal extremes, from scorching deserts to bitter continental winters. The Southern Hemisphere, despite receiving slightly more solar energy during its summer because Earth is closest to the Sun in January, enjoys a far more moderate climate because its vast oceans absorb and redistribute that energy.
There is another layer to the story.
Movement. The 23.4-degree tilt that shapes our seasons is not fixed. Over approximately 41,000 years, Earth’s axis naturally oscillates between about 22.1 degrees and 24.5 degrees. Today the planet sits near 23.4 degrees and is slowly moving toward its minimum tilt, a journey that will take roughly another 10,000 years.
As the tilt decreases, summers become slightly cooler and winters somewhat milder, particularly in the higher latitudes. These subtle changes alter where sunlight falls on Earth and have helped drive the slow rhythm of glacial and interglacial periods over millions of years. Left to these natural orbital cycles alone, Earth is presently in a phase that favors an extremely gradual cooling over many thousands of years.
Yet perhaps the most remarkable character in this story is neither the Sun nor the Earth.
It is the Moon.
Background. Earth’s relatively large Moon acts as a gravitational stabilizer, quietly holding our planet’s axial tilt within a remarkably narrow range. Without the Moon, simulations suggest Earth’s axis could have wandered chaotically by tens of degrees over geological time, perhaps swinging from nearly upright to more than 60 degrees. The resulting climate would have been far less stable, with vastly more extreme and unpredictable seasons.
Instead, our planet gently rocks back and forth by only a couple of degrees over tens of thousands of years. That stability has allowed climates to remain sufficiently consistent for forests to mature, civilizations to emerge, agriculture to flourish, and complex life to evolve under recognizable seasons.
The hottest days of July, arriving when Earth is farthest from the Sun, remind us how often nature overturns our assumptions. Climate is not governed by a single variable but by an intricate interplay of orbital distance, axial tilt, oceans, continents, and the quiet gravitational influence of a companion world orbiting nearly a quarter of a million miles away.
Perhaps there is a lesson beyond astronomy.
We often assume influence is primarily a matter of proximity. The closer something is, the more powerful it must be.
Nature suggests otherwise.
Those who shape us most are not always the ones nearest to us. They are the ones toward whom we are oriented – the people whose character we admire, whose ideas we embrace, and whose example we choose to follow.
Then there is the Moon. Nearly 240,000 miles away, it quietly stabilizes Earth’s axis, preserving the rhythm of the seasons over millions of years. So too, the most enduring influences in our lives are often the quietest: timeless principles, faithful mentors, strong families, and lasting institutions that keep us steady without demanding attention.
Relative to the Earth’s oceans and continents, is our personal makeup – how each of us absorbs ideas and the actions we are inclined to take. While our consistency drives us towards or away particular personalities and concepts, it also impacts the way we consider such variables that are subtly different than the people around us.
The deepest influences are not always the closest. They are the ones that orient us and keep us pointed in the right direction.
Much of the discussion about Israel’s security focuses on borders, settlements, or ceasefires. Less attention is paid to a more fundamental reality: Israel is surrounded by governments that have failed – or have yet to demonstrate they can function as sovereign states.
To Israel’s north lies Lebanon, a country where the government spent years unable to enforce a monopoly on force within its own territory. While the Lebanese Army wore the national uniform, Hezbollah built an independent army, amassed an enormous missile arsenal, dug tunnels, launched drones, and ultimately dragged the country into war. A sovereign state that cannot control its own territory has surrendered one of the defining responsibilities of statehood.
Lebanese pound to Israeli shekel exchange rate, defaulting on debt in March 2020, enormous explosion in Beirut for stored Hezbollah weapons in August 2020. The bank devalued currency by 90% in February 2023 and again in February 2024
Next to Lebanon is Syria. More than a decade of civil war shattered the country’s institutions, fractured its territory among competing armed groups and foreign militaries, and left millions displaced. Syria has long stood as one of the clearest examples of state failure in the modern Middle East.
Syrian civil war killed nearly 600,000 and dispersed 13 million. It is now ruled by Abu Mohammad al-Jolani who headed ISIS in the region
To Israel’s south lies Gaza. Hamas spent years and billions of dollars to build an underground military fortress instead of a functional society. The result was war after war after war. Destruction and death.
Hamas on October 7, 2023 slaughtered 1,200 people in Israel and brought over 250 people as hostages into Gaza to cheering crowds.
In the West Bank, the picture is different but equally troubling. The Palestinian Authority maintains civil institutions in parts of the territory, yet it has never established a monopoly on force or unified governance. Rival armed factions continue to operate, political legitimacy remains deeply contested, and governance has been divided from Gaza for nearly two decades.
The collapse of governance in the states surrounding Israel has turned the region into one of the world’s greatest concentrations of terrorist groups. This is the strategic reality Israel faces every day.
Its neighbors are not peaceful democracies with settled borders and accountable institutions. They are governments weakened by civil war, dominated by militias, or unable to establish unified authority. Israel is repeatedly asked to take security risks on the assumption that these entities will prevent terrorism and enforce agreements, even though their recent history demonstrates the opposite.
The tragedy is not only Israel’s. The greatest victims of failed governance are the Lebanese, Syrians, and Stateless Arabs from Palestine (SAPs) themselves. They deserve governments that build economies instead of militias, schools instead of tunnels, courts instead of armed factions, and national institutions instead of perpetual conflict.
Peace agreements are negotiated between states because states can make commitments and enforce them. Militias cannot. Failed governments cannot. A failed state in waiting cannot.
Until the governments surrounding Israel control their territory, uphold the rule of law, and prioritize their people over perpetual conflict, Israel’s security challenges will remain the consequence of failed governance, not simply hostile neighbors.
Human rights organizations earn credibility by applying the same principles to everyone. The moment they tell only half the story, they cease to document conflict and begin shaping a narrative.
That has been the history of Amnesty International‘s sole focus on Israel as it fights a multifront war. It showed why it deserves no support again this week as it took aim on Israel’s fight against Hezbollah, the Iranian proxy terrorist group inside Lebanon.
The report argues that a proposed ceasefire agreement could deny Lebanese victims an avenue to pursue justice for alleged Israeli war crimes. Astonishingly absent from Amnesty’s presentation is the war that made the agreement necessary in the first place and justice for Israeli victims.
There is virtually no discussion of Hezbollah’s decision to begin attacking Israel on October 8, 2023, opening a second front one day after the Hamas massacre. There is no meaningful discussion of the years Hezbollah spent building an armed state within a state in southern Lebanon despite international commitments to disarm. There is no recognition that Israeli towns endured months of rockets, missiles and drones, forcing tens of thousands of civilians from their homes. Instead, 98 percent of the focus is on alleged Israeli violations and on preserving legal avenues to prosecute Israel.
Perspective matters.
Imagine writing about the Second World War while barely mentioning who invaded whom. Or discussing a peace agreement without explaining why civilians had to flee their homes on both sides of the border. A report that omits the conflict’s central facts cannot claim to provide a complete moral picture.
Even when Hezbollah is mentioned, it is a single sentence in passing. The sustained campaign against Israeli communities, the human cost borne by Israeli civilians, and Hezbollah’s own violations of the laws of war receive scant attention compared with the extensive treatment of allegations against Israel.
Perhaps the clearest indication of how this report is perceived came not from Israel, but from Hezbollah’s own media ecosystem.
Al-Manar, Hezbollah’s media network, prominently highlighted the report’s conclusions.
When the propaganda outlet of a terrorist group that initiated the northern front eagerly amplifies your work, it is time to confront the reality that your organization no longer serves the cause of universal human rights.
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