Two decades ago this week on the Hebrew calendar, a typical Thursday in downtown Jerusalem was instantly transformed into a horrifying day of carnage when a Palestinian suicide bomber entered a crowded Sbarro pizza restaurant intent on committing mass murder.

It was on the 20th of Av, or August 9, 2001, that Izz al-Din Shuheil al-Masri, a 22-year-old Palestinian from a well-to-do family, detonated an estimated five to 10 kilograms of explosives hidden inside a guitar, killing 15 people and injuring 130 others. Two of the dead, 15-year-old Malki Roth and Shoshana Greenbaum, who was pregnant at the time, were US citizens.

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The plot was audacious: Agents of the Islamic Republic of Iran would kidnap an American citizen on American soil. Masih Alinejad, an Iranian-born journalist and human rights activist, was to be grabbed, spirited out of Brooklyn to Venezuela, and then on to Tehran where she would have been imprisoned, tortured and, almost certainly, executed.

Last week, the FBI, to its enormous credit, foiled the plot. "Not on our watch," FBI Assistant Director William Sweeney told reporters.

Spokesmen for the Islamic Republic dismissed the charges as "ridiculous and baseless." If you believe that, Ms. Alinejad can get you a good price on a bridge not far from her home.

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Quakers and Reform Jews

Quakerism has long had a certain appeal to Jews; its pacifist nature and liberal values harmonise well with the universalism of most Jews on the religious and political left. But its influence on American Judaism in the 20^th and 21^st centuries has been poorly charted. At the extreme, that influence is seen in 'Quaker Jews,' who purport to unite the doctrines of a 17^th century Christian dissenter sect with those of Judaism, in the manner of 'Buddhist Jews' and other syncretisms based on agnosticism. The irony of liberal Jews 'quaking' before God – like Haridim who 'tremble' – is rich, but is pointed out mostly in vain.

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Emmy and Tony award-winning comic and social commentator Jackie Mason died this weekend at 93. Though Wisconsin-born, Mason became a quintessential New York character, and his career witnessed extreme ups and downs across 60 years of making people laugh. His laugh-out-loud political commentary was a staple of his act, but it often caused him trouble, as many of his worst moments stemmed from politically related incidents.

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History, they say, doesn't really repeat itself, but it does sometimes rhyme. That's an apt description for the Biden administration's policy toward Afghanistan, which risks recreating the very conditions that made possible the September 11 attacks against America two decades ago. In one sense, the current U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan is quite predictable. Twenty years after the terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon, popular support for the U.S. presence in Afghanistan has fallen off dramatically. Afghanistan is now seen as a "forever war" – a conflict with unclear objectives which continues to cost the U.S. dearly in both blood and treasure. The numbers tell the story. In an April MorningConsult poll, some 69% of respondents backed the administration's decision to withdraw forces from Afghanistan by the twentieth anniversary of September 11. Such stark figures are why, during its time in office, the Trump administration sought to strike a truce with the Taliban as a precursor to withdrawing forces from the country. And it is also the reason that the Biden administration, for all its public opposition to the priorities of its predecessor, has followed the same policy – although on a slightly longer timeline. Yet if the withdrawal makes sound political sense, its practical effects are likely to be ruinous.

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The leaders of 16 political parties from across Europe have announced an unprecedented alliance to defend the sovereignty of European nation states, protect the nuclear family and preserve traditional Judeo-Christian values.

The July 2 "Joint Declaration on the Future of the European Union" represents the first significant endeavor by euroskeptic parties to jointly oppose efforts by European federalists to transform the European Union into a godless multicultural superstate.

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Joe Biden and Donald Trump don't agree on much, but both have argued that America's seemingly forever war in Afghanistan, the nation's longest, must end. A majority of Republicans and Democrats also now apparently share their view that U.S. troops should leave Afghanistan and Afghans to their fate. As President Biden argued Thursday, in an impassioned speech defending his decision to withdraw all U.S. forces from Afghanistan before Sept. 11, "We did not go to Afghanistan to nation-build."

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With the Biden administration, and specifically the Department of Education, openly pushing the teaching of CRT in U.S. public schools, the situation is raising alarm among educators, parents, legislators, and ordinary citizens. As embedding of CRT into Ethnic Studies programs in California and other states became widespread over the last several years, parents increasingly began to realize the malignant nature of what was being taught to their children.

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In the wake of a complex property dispute between Jews and Arabs in East Jerusalem, waves of violence rocked Israel in May. The most acute threats came from the relentless Hamas rocket salvos. Israel's remarkable Iron Dome air-defense system neutralized most of the rockets. However, some snuck through, hitting civilian homes, with one projectile striking the strategic Ashkelon gas pipeline. Israel responded by striking key Hamas leaders as well as rocket production and storage facilities. Hamas has an estimated 30,000 rockets in its arsenal, enough to sustain a lengthy conflict. Israeli officials watched nervously as riots spread in towns and cities with large Arab communities.

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