Thomas Friedman in NYT; Dear President Trump,

There are very few initiatives that you’ve undertaken since coming to office that I agree with — except in the Middle East. The fact that you are traveling there next week and meeting the leaders of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar — and that you have no plans to see Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel — suggests to me that you are starting to understand a vital truth: that this Israeli government is behaving in ways that threaten hard-core U.S. interests in the region. Netanyahu is not our friend.

He did think he could make you his chump, though. Which is why I am impressed by how you have signaled to him through your independent negotiations with Hamas, Iran and the Houthis that he has no purchase on you — that you will not be his patsy. It clearly has him in a panic. The notion that Israel has a government that is no longer behaving as an American ally, and should not be considered as such, is a shocking and bitter pill for Israel’s friends in Washington to swallow — but swallow it they must. I will leave you with the words of the May 7 Haaretz editorial:

“On Tuesday, the Israel Air Force killed nine children, between the ages of 3 and 14. …The Israeli military said that the target was a ‘Hamas command and control center’ and that ‘steps were taken to mitigate the risk of harming uninvolved civilians.’… We can continue to ignore the number of Palestinians in the Strip who have been killed — more than 52,000, including around 18,000 children; to question the credibility of the figures, to use all of the mechanisms of repression, denial, apathy, distancing, normalization and justification. None of this will change the bitter fact: Israel killed them. Our hands did this. We must not avert our eyes. We must wake up and cry out loudly: Stop the war.”

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“Isn’t spirituality a far larger concept than religion, being to the latter what the Universe is to Planet Earth?  And are the religious or people of faith the only ones who can lay claim to being spiritual? What about the spirituality of atheists, communists and millions of people who don’t need the megaphone of religion to advertise their innate human quest for rising above purely material ambitions or desires?”

“These are questions that are relevant at a time when a rash of neo-fascist regimes pop up around the planet, using the hold of religious faith over the masses to propel themselves to power, with thoroughly irreligious motives. From the Hindu revivalism of Narendra Modi to the evangelical Christianity of Donald Trump through the Islamic nationalism of Tayyip Erdogan the contemporary world is rife with examples of fascists and rightwing extremists, backed by billionaires, misusing religion for achieving and consolidating power.”

“Spirituality—that yearning for meaning beyond material existence, that sense of connection to something larger than oneself—transcends religious boundaries. It flourishes in secular spaces just as vibrant as in temples or churches. The time has come to openly acknowledge and celebrate the fact that even the most ordinary folk are often far more spiritual than all the snooty, self-appointed custodians of the Gods.”

“However, given religion’s profound influence on human society, I think that abdication of engagement with religious institutions represents a strategic error on the part of atheists and the non-religious. After all, Marx also called religion the ‘sigh of the oppressed, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless”.

“Rather than dismissing religion entirely, those concerned with human wellbeing should actively participate in religious spaces, working to transform them into more democratic, inclusive, and genuinely spiritual communities. The manipulation of religious institutions succeeds partly because progressive and secular voices have abandoned religious spaces rather than contesting their direction.”

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“In a blizzard of executive orders and emergency declarations, President Donald Trump has taken a hatchet to the American government and the global order. He is wrecking the administrative state, shuttering entire agencies and departments, laying off federal workers, firing inspectors general. He is deporting permanent residents for speech protected by the First Amendment, revoking visas from international students, sending immigrants to the military camp at Guantánamo Bay and a mega-prison in El Salvador, and trying to eliminate birthright citizenship. He is defunding research universities and attacking the legal profession. He is threatening draconian tariffs on the country’s closest allies and neighbors, demeaning their leaders, and pulling the United States out of longstanding international commitments. Every day, he launches another unprecedented offensive or changes course; he creates ambiguity and fuels confusion, leaving his critics to second-guess themselves while giving himself cover. “

“In fact, the Trump II administration represents the demolition phase of a new offensive in a decades-long counterrevolution. The conservative activist Christopher Rufo said in a recent interview with the New York Times: “What we’re doing is really a counter revolution. It’s a revolution against revolution.” Mr. Rufo added: “I think that actually we are a counter radical force in American life that, paradoxically, has to use what many see as radical techniques.” In effect, President Trump’s actions during the first hundred days of his second mandate are the latest episode in a vast and coherent modern counterrevolution with a longer historical arc and a broader global reach.”

”  The only counterpower in the U.S. at this point seem to be the lower federal courts, which have preliminarily enjoined over a dozen executive orders. The sole form of concerted resistance are the many lawsuits brought by Democratic attorneys general, legal nonprofits like the ACLU and the Center for Constitutional Rights, civil rights lawyers, and some law firms; and they have been effective at impeding or delaying the demolition phase that is Trump II, at least at the federal district court level. So far. It is uncertain how long the executive branch will abide by or enforce federal district court orders enjoining it. The constitutional crisis that many legal scholars fear may still be in the offing. The Trump administration is, for example, defying the federal courts on two deportation cases. And Vice President Vance has advised President Trump: “when the courts stop you, stand before the country like Andrew Jackson did and say: ‘The chief justice has made his ruling. Now let him enforce it.’” 

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By Mohsen Mahdawi

Mr. Mahdawi is a Palestinian human rights advocate and Columbia University student.

“On April 14, 2025, I was detained during what should have been my citizenship naturalization interview. After more than two weeks of unjust imprisonment, a federal judge ruled in favor of releasing me. In a major victory for democracy, I may be the first of the many student activists who have been detained by the Trump administration to be freed from detention.

The Department of Homeland Security had effectively orchestrated a trap. It dangled the prospect of becoming an American citizen, only for masked agents to apprehend me after I finished the interview and signed a document saying I was willing to take an oath of allegiance. Government agents separated me from my lawyer, who had gone to the appointment with me. They planned to whisk me from my home state, Vermont, to a detention facility in Louisiana.

The trap was not a complete surprise to me. It came after other arrests of students for exercising their right to free speech in opposing Israel’s relentless killing and destruction in Gaza. I had prepared by contacting lawyers, my Vermont senators and my House representative, the media and a group of community members. The Department of Homeland Security’s plan did not go smoothly, as we missed the flight to Louisiana by minutes. Those few minutes changed the course of my legal case and, ultimately, led to my freedom from detention because I was able to fight for my rights on fair ground. Unlike other students who continue to languish in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody, I’ve been afforded the “privilege” to seek justice while not in prison.

Despite spending 16 nights in a jail cell, I never lost hope in the inevitability of justice and the principles of democracy. I wanted to become a citizen of this country because I believe in the principles that it enshrines. When Judge Geoffrey W. Crawford ruled in my favor, he reassured me, along with the American people, that there is still reason to hope in those principles. But the road to justice is long. My freedom is intertwined with the freedom of the other students, who exercised the same free speech rights as I did yet languish in jail, and is intertwined with that of the Palestinians, who are fighting for their right to life and justice, too.”

“Once the repression of dissent, in the name of security, becomes a key objective of a government, authoritarian rule and even martial law are not far off. When they look at my case, all Americans should ask themselves: What is left of our democracy, and who will be targeted next?

Israel’s actions in Gaza have resulted in the deaths of more than 52,000 Palestinians since Oct. 7, 2023, according to the Gazan Health Ministry. A majority of the dead are women and children, and a recent study suggests the number is likely a vast undercount. This is a war of madness and revenge that relies on American weapons, funded by U.S. taxpayer dollars and justified by American politicians.”

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