I am not sure that I quoted Cole Porter exactly right above, but it’s close enough for government work. And speaking of government work, now that I am back home, I am able to look at a morning newspaper, in this case the NYT, and refresh my perspective on the world.

There are two articles on the front page of the NYT that caught my attention, and that you may want to look at. The first one is headlined “Syrians, Needing U.S. Help, Invoke Trump Name”. Looking at that headline, you might imagine that they are talking about a large movement composed of Syrians who need some assistance to navigate this world. But, no, they are talking about the Al-Khayyat family, led by three brothers who seem to control everything worth controlling in the new Syria. The article starts out by talking about the Al-Khayyat plan to build a mega-resort on the Syrian coast, and how for this to be accomplished they needed, among other things, the relaxation or elimination of sanctions against the company, and how they accomplished this by one simple move. They decided to name the resort after President Trump. The article goes on to discuss the corruption of the Al-Khayyat family and the corruption of the Trump family, and how while the Al-Khayyat family may be working in the way wealthy families normally work in Syria, the Trump family has turned American standards and morals upside down. No surprise here, but the article lays out the relationship between the two families very clearly and makes for very interesting reading. For example, while all this is going on, did you know that the Ivanka Jareds are helping finance a large Al-Khayyat family resort development in ……….. Albania?

The other article is “Justice Dept. Installs Trump Loyalist to Head Effort to Paint Foes as Conspirators”. The question is: “whether former federal officials committed crimes in investigating President Trump”. The investigation is being undertaken in Florida, using a grand jury supervised by good old Judge Aileen Cannon (Trump’s favorite) and headed by a new “counselor to the Attorney General”, Joseph diGenova. DiGenova, who is 81 years old and a former U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, is a nut (that probably goes without saying; it is obvious or he would not have been selected for this task). I quote from Wikipedia: “He is known for promoting conspiracy theories about the Department of Justice and the FBI. He……frequently appeared on Fox News and Fox Business channels, until [he] used a November 2019 appearance to spread conspiracy theories about George Soros, leading to widespread calls for him to be banned from the network”.

It just goes on and on. And we have no idea, of course, what is happening with the war against Iran – I will say that the turns and twists are interesting and entertaining. I just wish they didn’t affect real people. My assumption is that things will probably work out before we go back to active war (my assumptions are right about 50% of the time, you know), and that there will be some accommodations on the Strait of Hormuz (hence the Strait of Trump/Hormuz, and the most beautiful strait of them all) that will satisfy the Iranians and the Trump family.

I also assume that the Trump family will be satisfied once things are more clarified in Gaza and they can begin to build their resorts there (perhaps with the Al-Khayyat family in tow). Today is Memorial Day in Israel, a serious day indeed, when everything stops and silence reigns for a short time, bringing all traffic to a halt in the country. And, of course, it is being memorialized at a time when the country is at war (ceasefire or no) with both Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon, and yes still with Hamas in Gaza.

Let’s repeat what I have suggested before. The current government in Israel, which shows no real signs of changing or disappearing, will not be satisfied until Israel’s boundaries go from the sea (including all of Gaza) to the rivers (plural, because I am referring to the Jordan to the east and the Litani to the north). The theory is that these areas are all infested with Hamas and Hezbollah, and their Palestinian or Lebanese supporters, and the only way to rid the areas of mortal danger to Israel, is to engage in what is in effect ethnic cleansing, although this can never be admitted.

The problem is, that as much as this goes against both international law and the sense of morality that most of us have grown up with, it may be correct. It may be a question of Palestinian suffering today, or Israeli suffering tomorrow. And that, if the ethnic cleansing is not successful, Israel will always be in danger of attacks from across borders. This makes the moral judgment of what is going on now much more difficult that one would like it to be. And, as I have said several times, if the Netanayhu government is successful in pacifying (by whatever means) Gaza, southern Lebanon and the West Bank, so that Israel can live in security over the next 50 or 100 years, he will be a hero. And if he is not successful, or if his success is short lived, he will be a villain.

Whether it is what the next step regarding Iran should be, or what the next move for Israel should be against Iran or Iranian backed groups just over its borders….the world is just not as simple as one would like. But somethings are clear, like: Donald Trump is evil. There can be no equivocating on that.