Showing posts with label Derechology. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 23, 2025

The Manufactured Crisis: How Falsifiability Can Save American Politics from Its Extremes

In the 1930s, the United States faced a real, system-level crisis. The Great Depression produced mass unemployment, widespread poverty, and genuine fear that the existing order could no longer provide stability or dignity. When people lose trust in a system because it has visibly failed them, they naturally search for alternatives. Often, those alternatives are extreme.

At the time, the most radical options gaining traction were Communist and fascist movements. Both promised certainty, moral clarity, and decisive action. Given what was known then, and how desperate circumstances were, many Americans found elements of those arguments disturbingly plausible. The language these movements used was not obviously monstrous. It sounded moral, patriotic, humanitarian, and urgent.

Only in hindsight is the danger unmistakable.

Today, we are seeing similar extremes gain traction within both major political parties. On the left, radical movements frame politics almost entirely through appeals to social justice, power hierarchies, and moral urgency. On the right, radical movements frame politics through appeals to nationalism, civilizational decline, and suspicion of institutions. The emotional structure of the arguments is familiar.

But there is a decisive difference between the 1930s and today: we are not living through a depression-scale crisis.

America today has serious problems, but they are not existential. There is no mass starvation. There is no systemic unemployment. Elections are held. Courts function. The stock market has controls to minimize the risk of a catastrophic crash. Deposits at banks are insured. Information is widely available. By nearly every objective measure, Americans are as prosperous, safe, and empowered as any population in history. That does not mean the system is perfect or just. But the system is functioning fairly well.

So why are the extremes growing?

Because this time, the crisis is not the cause. It is the product.

Modern extremism depends on manufacturing a sense of catastrophe in order to justify radical solutions. Ordinary political disagreement is reframed as civilizational collapse. Institutional friction is labeled oppression. Incremental reform is dismissed as complicity. Everything is urgent. Everything is existential. And everything demands suspension of normal constraints.

America is not uniquely terrible - on the contrary, it remains, today, the greatest country on Earth. But extreme ideologies cannot survive without the perception of imminent disaster. So they use their platforms to convince the American people that things are on the verge of collapse and they are the only solution.

This is fundamentally anti-American,.

The American system is built on a civic covenant. It assumes equal opportunity under the law, no religious establishment, the dignity of work, and the belief that individuals can improve their lives through effort within a shared framework. This vision was never perfect, and it was partly aspirational. But it was true enough to encourage responsibility, honesty, innovation, and unity across differences.

The extremes reject this American covenant.

On the far right, liberty is hollowed out into loyalty, institutions are treated as legitimate only when aligned, and minorities or dissenters are framed as threats. On the far left, justice is transformed into moral absolutism, disagreement becomes harm, and power is justified by outcomes rather than consent. In different ways, both sides abandon the American idea that legitimacy flows from process, pluralism, and correction over time. The idea of "We the People" does not exist on the extremes - on both sides, the people are pawns to be endlessly manipulated with propaganda and scare tactics.

The choice is not right vs. left. It is whether America will be governed by reality or by falsehood.

Historically, extremist ideologies succeed not because they are persuasive on the merits, but because they share a common structural flaw: They are unfalsifiable. This means that no amount of evidence can disprove the ideologies - every shred of evidence is twisted into proof. Think about how climate change was used to explain both extreme heat and extreme cold: facts were twisted to fit the ideology, not the other way around. And the same applies to QAnon style conspiracy theories; no actual events can ever disprove the theory.

When an ideology cannot be meaningfully tested, corrected, or challenged from within, it ceases to be a political philosophy and becomes a closed system. Evidence against it is reinterpreted as proof of conspiracy. Dissent becomes betrayal. Institutions are delegitimized rather than improved. At that point, persuasion is replaced by enforcement.

This is where my Derechology falsification audit becomes useful. This identifies load bearing assumptions of the ideologies; if they are false the ideologies themselves are false.

On the far-Left, the load bearing assumption is that everyone is either oppressor or oppressed. For some it is boss/worker, for others it is white people/people of color, and for yet others it is colonizer/colonized. This binary is never true and without that assumption the entire edifice collapses.

On the far-Right, the load bearing assumptions is that America was meant to be a Christian country, or that the only workable moral system is Christianity. Neither of those are true.

In both cases, the ideology becomes immune to correction. That is the danger.

Every major political party faces the same dilemma: how to remain inclusive without being captured by extremists. The usual approaches fail. Either the tent is so wide that it admits corrosive ideas, or boundaries are enforced arbitrarily and politically.

The falsification audit offers a third option.

Political winds shift - the definition of conservatism or liberalism has changed over the decades. A Reagan Republican is not the same as a Bush Republican or a Trump Republican. I strongly disagree that America should abandon Israel, but the opinion itself (if it is based on legitimate assumptions) does not fail this audit for the Right, at least in theory.

Here are some rules that can be offered for both parties to reject opinions that are based on falsehoods.

If an opinion cannot be challenged without moral condemnation, cannot be disproven by evidence, treats disagreement as illegitimate and requires a permanent crisis to justify itself, then that opinion is not to be considered. This allows and encourages debate among the valid positions within a party. It allows good faith debates between the Right and the Left.

Foreign adversaries understand how damaging extreme partisanship is. They do not need to persuade Americans of alternative ideologies. They only need to amplify crisis narratives, erode trust in correction mechanisms, and reward the loudest extremes. That strategy works only when internal guardrails fail.

The solution is not moderation for its own sake, which cannot be clearly defined. It is epistemic discipline.

Ideas that cannot be tested cannot build. Movements that reject correction cannot endure. And political parties that cannot distinguish legitimate opinion from propaganda will eventually collapse under their own contradictions. The particular ideologies are not nearly as important as the structure behind them - can they adapt to reality, are they corrigible, can they be defended on their own merits.

The future of America is at stake.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024)

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

A Derechological Chanukah Vort: Chanukah as a Response to Greek Philosophy

(This Chanukah thought is heavily based on my work on extracting Jewish wisdom for today's world, which I am calling Derechology.)

The Chanukah menorah is not only a lesson in the miracle of the oil. It is a lesson about how the world should be.

Greek philosophy, from which all Western philosophy is based, treats light as the primary metaphor for good and truth: knowledge is illumination, ignorance is darkness, and once truth is fully seen, order is expected to follow naturally.

Judaism approaches light very differently.

The Chanukah lights are not one large torch, but multiple distinct flames. This mirrors Creation itself: the first thing God did after creating light was to separate it from darkness. Light alone was not enough. God imposed structure around it.

Greek “holiness” (aretē, excellence) is about perfection, maximization, and the fullest realization of an essence.

Jewish kedushah is fundamentally different. As Rashi defines it, kedushah means separation - and as Ramban explains, restraint even within what is permitted.

Greek ethics seeks the fullest expression of capacity. Jewish ethics sanctifies the withholding of capacity.

This difference becomes concrete in halacha. According to Jewish law, the lights of the menorah may not be used for any purpose other than to be seen. Each flame has its own role. Using them instrumentally invalidates the mitzvah. When they are used only for the mitzvah and nothing else, they are holy - kodesh heim.

Kedushah means that things belong in proper categories and roles - sacred and mundane, human and animal, child and adult, man and woman, obligation and permission. Moral societies depend on such distinctions not to flatten human beings, but to assign responsibility, limits, and purpose.

Chanukah makes this unavoidable. The light is there, yet we are forbidden to use it.

Greek philosophy assumes that absolute knowledge is attainable through reason alone. Jewish thinking holds that only God knows the full truth, and that human beings approach truth not through certainty, but through structure. The menorah has precise placement, strict order, defined timing, and limitations of use. It must be lit whether or not we grasp all of its history and symbolism. Actions and responsibilities are not dependent on complete understanding.

This rule is what makes morality possible. If moral action depended on full understanding, then anything could be justified once the story was told persuasively enough. We see that failure of morality everywhere today.

Structure is what prevents entropy - and creating structure is how human beings imitate God, who created a bounded universe out of nothing so that we could complete His work by building moral order within it.

That is the Jewish answer to Athens.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024)

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

Bondi Beach as a Refutation of Secular Teleology

The murderous Chanukah attack at Bondi Beach should not have happened.

That statement is not merely moral. It is philosophical.

One of the dominant assumptions of modern Western thought is that history is moving, more or less inevitably, toward justice, tolerance, and moral enlightenment. Under that framework, acts of naked antisemitic violence are predicted to be fading into irrelevance. They are relics of a less educated, less inclusive, less enlightened past. When they occur at all, they are assumed to be marginal, residual, or explicable as temporary aberrations.

Bondi Beach is therefore not just a tragedy. It is a refutation of a specific belief: that history itself is doing the moral work for us.

This belief has become accepted as fact in the Western world. And that is dangerous.

Secular Teleology

Teleology is the belief that history has an inherent direction and an endpoint: that events are not merely unfolding, but unfolding toward something. In religious traditions, that “something” is redemption, salvation, or divine judgment. In modern secular thought, God is removed, but the structure remains.

Beginning in the Enlightenment, a range of philosophers secularized this idea. History was no longer guided by divine will but by impersonal forces: reason, science, economic laws, technological development, or moral awakening. The destination remained moral improvement; only the engine changed.

This secular teleology appears in multiple modern forms. In Marxism, history inevitably culminates in a classless society. With scientific or technocratic optimism, knowledge and innovation will dissolve moral conflict. Progressivism says social norms converge toward justice over time. Decolonial and liberation frameworks claim historical forces guarantee emancipation.

What these systems share is not policy content, but structure: history is treated as a moral agent, and the future as a validator of truth.

What is striking about secular teleology is not that it hopes for progress, but that it asserts inevitability. There is no historical law demonstrating that societies must become more just. There is no empirical data showing that hatred naturally declines with education (recent studies show the opposite.) We have no scientific principle proving or even suggesting that moral norms converge over time rather than fracture, mutate, or regress.

None of this is to deny that many things are better today than in the past. Local improvements exist. Institutional reforms can work. But inevitability is a faith claim, not a finding. It is asserted, not demonstrated. Once inevitability is assumed, evidence no longer tests the theory; it is absorbed by it.

Despite its lack of necessity, secular teleology has become ambient in modern Western thinking.

We speak casually about “the right side of history.” We assume that moral disagreement is generational rather than substantive. We expect that today’s taboos will expand tomorrow, and that yesterday’s hatreds cannot seriously return. We have inherited a narrative - in education, in media, in political speech - that simply has no factual basis.

It is a narrative about how time works. And time doesn't really care about inevitable social justice.

Backlash: The Non-Falsifiable Escape Hatch

Every dogma must contend with counterexamples. Secular teleology does so through the concept of backlash.

Backlash is presented as an explanation for regression: when hatred or violence increases, it is framed not as evidence against progress, but as proof that progress is succeeding and provoking resistance.

This logic allows even extreme historical regressions, including Nazi Germany, to be interpreted not as refutations, but as temporary backlashes against inevitable progress. This idea can even explain how the most modern, industrialized, culturally mature nation can choose genocide as its most important task. It is not viewed as a refutation but an inevitable temporary backlash against inevitable progress.

When a theory claims to explain all evidence and counter-evidence as proof, the theory becomes non-falsifiable. If bigotry declines, progress is working - and if bigotry increases, backlash also proves progress is working.

No possible outcome can count as disproof. At this point, secular teleology quietly shifts its theory of truth.

It pretends to embrace scientific thinking, but instead of correspondence theory used by science, it relies on coherence theory: only accepting new facts can be fitted into the existing narrative.

This is why regression is reinterpreted rather than confronted, and why warning signs are treated as misreadings rather than data.

Teleological Secularism as Religion Without God

Once history itself is sacralized, secular teleologies take on all the functional features of religion. They have an eschatology (“the arc of history”). a moral hierarchy (progressive vs. regressive), a theodicy (backlash), heresy (questioning inevitability), and even clerisy (authorized moral interpreters like academia.)

God is absent, but destiny remains. Redemption is promised, but vigilance is dismissed.

This causes major problems. A worldview that assumes history will take care of injustice becomes complacent in the face of threats that do not obey its narrative.

If hatred is supposed to be disappearing, early warnings are dismissed. If violence is assumed to be regressive noise, preparedness feels unnecessary. If time is the moral engine, human responsibility diminishes.

This is not merely mistaken. It is dangerous.

Antisemitism as the Persistent Falsifier

Every teleological system eventually encounters a fact it cannot absorb. For secular teleology, that fact is antisemitism.

By its own logic, Jew-hatred should be declining steadily. Instead, it resurges repeatedly, often in morally confident societies, often clothed in the dominant ethical language of the era.

This is not new. Antisemitism has previously appeared as historical analysis, scientific racism, economic justice and anti-imperialism. Each time, it presented itself as progressive, enlightened, and necessary. Each time, it was treated as history moving forward.

This is a cycle, not an arc.

Modern secular dogma resolves the problem by redefining antisemitism as anti-Zionism and then recasting it as a progressive force rather than a regressive one.

If antisemitism can be reframed as resistance, liberation, or historical necessity, then the theory survives. Jews - not so much.

The language gives this away: “right side of history,” “inevitability,” “everyone knows a Palestinian state is necessary,” “justice will prevail.”

These are not political arguments. They are teleological claims.

Groups like Bend the Arc are especially revealing. They explicitly invoke the moral arc of history as an authority that overrides Jewish historical memory and Jewish ethical vigilance. In doing so, they abandon Judaism's historically grounded skepticism of inevitability in favor of a secular redemption narrative that has repeatedly turned against Jews.

This is not a new error. It is an old one with modern language.

History Is Not a Straight Line

History did not begin in 1948 or October 7. It did not begin with colonial theory or modern nationalism. It stretches back thousands of years, and Jews have been unwillingly centered in its false redemptions more times than most societies can remember.

That is why Jews recognize false teleology quickly. It isn't cynicism; it is lived experience.

Bondi Beach did not violate history. It violated a false story we told ourselves about history.

When we believe that history will inevitably solve our problems, we lose all agency. We lose vigilance. And we lose the ability to analyze and protect ourselves against entire classes of very real dangers.

Judaism never taught that history improves automatically. It teaches responsibility, today, for all of us, to guard against the constant possibility of regression. It recognizes hate clothed in the garb of justice.

Secular teleology promises moral comfort. It reassures us that time itself is on our side.

Bondi Beach reminds us that it is not. Antisemitism is not fading - it is accelerating.

Progress is possible and historic improvement is real. But inevitability is a lie, and a costly one. When societies outsource moral responsibility to history, they stop seeing danger until it arrives fully formed.

Antisemitism has always been the warning sign. The question is whether we will finally treat it as such.

History does not bend. History doesn't even care.

That is our job.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024)

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

How Jewish Ethics Can Help Jews on Hostile Campuses - and Give Hillel Back Its Soul

Across North American campuses, Jewish students are facing levels of hostility that would have seemed unimaginable just a few years ago. Zionist students report being ostracized, harassed, and even threatened. Traditional Jewish perspectives are often met with ridicule or dismissal. Meanwhile, the very institutions designed to support Jewish student life are struggling to respond with coherence and conviction.

Over Shabbat I read a sobering story from Commentary about how Hillel - the international Jewish campus organization - has lost its way. In its eagerness to accommodate progressive Jews, Hillel has lost its Jewish soul. The article noted that some Hillel directors couldn't even take a side in the Israel/Hamas war.

Many Hillels have tried to accommodate this difficult climate by adopting a lowest-common-denominator approach. In their efforts to include all kinds of Jewish students - religious and secular, Zionist and anti-Zionist - they have often diluted the substance of what it means to be Jewish. The result is a vague, feel-good version of Judaism that emphasizes cultural identity and social justice but lacks a clear ethical and philosophical foundation. This leaves students spiritually unmoored and intellectually defenseless.

But there is a powerful, underutilized resource that can help: Jewish ethics. The framework I have been developing, Derechology, offers Jewish students and educators tools to clarify their values, articulate their positions, and stand strong in the face of ideological confusion and pressure no matter what their level of religiosity. It replaces partisanship and politics with something Judaism knows something about - morality.

What Hillel lacks today is not good intentions, but a coherent derech - a well defined path and trajectory. Derechology is not a new denomination, ideology, or partisan stance. It is a value-centered philosophy grounded in Jewish tradition, capable of providing moral clarity while honoring pluralism. It offers a Jewish framework that is both unapologetically particular and universally resonant - something that Jews can be proud of and others can respect.

Derechology answers the core problem facing Hillel today: How do you unite a diverse Jewish student body without reducing Judaism to an empty shell? The answer is to offer something substantial, something undeniably Jewish, but flexible enough to speak to different types of Jews. Derechology is that something.

What Derechology Offers

Rooted in halachic principles, moral philosophy, and the lived tradition of Jewish civilization, Derechology equips students to:

Recognize the difference between free speech and hate speech disguised as "just another opinion."
Defend Zionism not merely as a political stance but as a deeply Jewish moral derech.
Engage with opponents without losing sight of their own ethical trajectory.
Navigate progressive spaces without sacrificing Jewish values on the altar of ideological trendiness.

A Concrete Example: Hosting an IDF Soldier

Imagine a campus Hillel invites an Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) soldier to speak - not a political figure, but someone who served in Gaza and is prepared to give a firsthand account of their experience. The soldier intends to explain how the IDF navigates morally complex combat situations, including rules of engagement, efforts to avoid civilian casualties, and the emotional toll on soldiers themselves.

Predictably, protests erupt. Flyers label the event “Zionist propaganda.” Progressive groups call for boycotts. Some Jewish students feel uncomfortable - not because they disagree with the speaker, but because they fear being associated with controversy. Hillel is caught between wanting to support the speaker and the students, and wanting to avoid a public relations storm.

Derechology equips students and staff to approach this situation with confidence and principle. Instead of caving to external pressure or reacting defensively, they can ask:

Is the act of bearing moral witness to one’s experience in war a Jewish value?
What does Jewish ethics say about truth-telling, responsibility, and moral nuance in the fog of war?
How can we uphold free speech while protecting Jewish dignity and safety?

With those questions guiding them, Hillel could frame the event clearly: not as political advocacy, but as moral testimony. They could prepare students with derech-based tools to understand, engage, and defend the speaker’s right to share their experience. They could also prepare respectful, values-rooted responses to critics, including anti-Zionist Jewish critics, distinguishing between disagreement and demonization. And they can expel those who disrupt the talk and violate Hillel's moral code without apology.

This approach doesn’t just preserve the event. It models moral courage and leadership.

Derech, Not Dogma

Derechology is not about rigid orthodoxy. It's a values-based method that respects diversity within the Jewish community. Whether a student is frum or secular, politically right or left, Derechology helps them ask: What is the moral arc of this tradition? What are its highest priorities in a time of danger, confusion, and change?

It also provides vital tools for distinguishing between authentic Jewish ethics and modern ideological overlays. When everything is framed as social justice, Jewish ethics can be diluted into whatever is culturally dominant. Derechology restores specificity, purpose, and strategic clarity.

The founder of Hillel, Rabbi Benjamin Frankel, believed that affiliation with Hillel meant declaring "I am a Jew," and earning respect on campus through moral strength and Jewish learning. Today, Hillel can rediscover that mission - not by reacting defensively, but by proactively teaching the moral substance of Jewish civilization.

Introducing Derechology into campus programming - through classes, dialogues, fellowships, and staff training - can restore Hillel’s credibility and empower students. It offers a path toward non-partisan, principled Jewish leadership. It helps students stop apologizing for being Jewish and start leading from Jewish values.

Jewish students deserve more than safety. They deserve strength, clarity, and confidence. Chabad does this from a religious perspective, but some want a different approach. By teaching the structured ethical vision of Derechology, Hillel and other campus institutions can meet today’s threats not with fear, but with derech.

Because if we are not for ourselves, who will be?

_______________________________________

(I'm still writing my Derechology book. Let me know if you want to know more about it. Meanwhile, my blog posts about Derechology can be seen here. )

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024)

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

Everyone is teaching the Holocaust wrong

There has been an uproar over comments by Sarah Hurwitz at the General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America this month. As JTA reports:

“Holocaust education is absolutely essential,” she said. “But I think it may be confusing some of our young people about antisemitism, because they learn about big, strong Nazis hurting weak, emaciated Jews, and they think, ‘Oh, antisemitism is like anti-black racism, right? Powerful white people against powerless black people.’ So when on Tiktok, all day long, they see powerful Israelis hurting weak, skinny Palestinians, it’s not surprising that they think, ‘Oh, I know the lesson of the Holocaust is you fight Israel. You fight the big, powerful people hurting the weak people.’”

Immediately the "progressive" Left attacked her, saying that she was justifying Gaza "genocide" and other nonsense.

Hurwitz is correct. Holocaust education falls into a number of buckets, all of which are problematic for one reason or another. Some make it into a vapid lesson on generalized tolerance. Others use it as a tool to compare the Holocaust with other genocides, without noting the particular horrors that make it unique. Some concentrate on Jewish victimhood, making Jews passive characters in the only narrative they are confutable teaching, "oppressor vs. oppressed." Yet others concentrate on democracy and anti-authoritarianism, implying that something like this could never happen here. All the while, some Jewish groups think that Holocaust education is some sort of magic bullet to fight today's antisemitism.

Everyone is ignoring the real lesson of the Holocaust - how we cannot be complacent, because we can also fall into the same mindset that the Germans did. Some of the most cultured, educated and technologically advanced people in the world descended into supporting the horrors of genocide in less than a decade. How could this happen, and how can we ensure it never happens again?

This is a lesson in ethics, a topic that public education seems allergic to for fear of offending someone. But without a strong ethical backbone, any Holocaust curriculum is not going to accomplish what it is supposed to. And there are basic ethical imperatives that everyone should be able to agree upon.

This is exactly where the philosophy I have been developing, Derechology, shows its value. Together with my Derechology AI GPT, I came up with a sample curriculum that makes the Holocaust relevant to today. It doesn't shy away from hard questions - it is meant to make students uncomfortable in an age-appropriate way.

In the derechological curriculum, students don't just learn about the Holocaust: they are trained to think ethically:

They learn to identify moral collapse through values like Tzelem Elokim (the sacred image in every person), Pikuach Nefesh (life trumps ideology), and Anavah (moral humility).
They study how professions failed—medicine, law, academia—and how moral distance allowed people to commit atrocities while feeling innocent.
They engage in Moral Audit Projects—applying Holocaust ethics to modern issues: medical ethics, refugee policy, social media algorithms, and more.
They reflect on moral resilience—what Jewish tradition preserved under annihilation, and how spiritual courage outlasted empire.

The sample curriculum spans eight modules. Here’s a taste:

Ground Zero of Moral Collapse — This module begins with the question of how a civilized society—full of artists, scientists, and thinkers—could become a machine of genocide. Students are introduced to key ethical values and the idea of structural moral failure. The focus is not on Jews or Nazis yet, but on the disappearance of override values like human dignity and mutual responsibility under the guise of "science "and "progress." Racial theories were accepted as scientific fact by everyone in the early 20th century. Are there any current social theories being taught today that might be disproven tomorrow?

How Antisemitism Functions — Antisemitism is not just another form of hate; it’s a diagnostic tool for system failure. Students learn how antisemitism morphs across ideologies and Jews are blamed for contradictory crimes. They will examine how antisemitic ideas infiltrated German law, theology, education, and popular culture, becoming the emotional and ideological engine of genocide. Students also examine how tropes from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion—accusations of secret Jewish power, global manipulation, and dual loyalty—have not disappeared but adapted to modern political language. Conspiracy theories portraying Jews as both omnipotent and subversive remain widespread across ideological spectrums. The module challenges students to understand how these narratives persist even when explicitly disavowed, and how they distort ethical reasoning. This module challenges students to recognize similar rhetorical and structural patterns in contemporary discourse.

Collapse of the Professions — Doctors, lawyers, engineers, and professors were not exceptions to Nazism: they were instruments of it. This module shows how professional codes eroded when they aligned with racial ideology and state power. Medical ethics books justified extermination of "subhumans." Students learn how moral collapse isn’t chaotic - it can be planned, bureaucratic, credentialed, and efficient.

Moral Arrogance — What happens when humility is removed from the ethical system? This module introduces Anavah—moral humility—as a structural necessity. Nazis didn't think of themselves as monsters - they were in the forefront of animal ethics while justifying the murder of millions of humans. Students explore how Nazi ideology elevated certainty, hierarchy, and dehumanization over ethical restraint, creating a worldview where genocide felt like progress.

The Machinery of Death — The Holocaust was a technological, administrative, and logistical operation as much as it was ideological. Students learn about the train systems, data tracking, and bureaucratic layers that allowed millions to die while most participants believed they were “just doing their jobs.” The concept of “moral distance” helps explain how ordinary people justified extraordinary evil. Some resisted but the vast majority did not, thinking that their parts in the genocide were too inconsequential to matter.

Mass Consent: The Storytelling of Genocide — This module explores how the Nazis used propaganda to normalize the abnormal. Students analyze films, speeches, posters, and school materials that reframed genocide as moral duty and racial hygiene. They study classic persuasion techniques—repetition, euphemism, scapegoating, visual symbolism—and compare them to how modern media and social platforms and advertising shape narratives today. The goal is to train students to detect ethical hijacking before it becomes cultural collapse.

Jewish Ethical and Physical Resistance — Against totalitarian power, Jews didn’t just survive—they preserved structure. Students learn about the Jews who fought in the Warsaw Ghetto and in partisan forces. But beyond that, they embraced spiritual resistance: holiday observance, Torah study, mutual aid, even ethical debates in camps. This is framed not as passive suffering but as the fierce refusal to let moral structure die even when they had no control over any other aspect of their lives.

Teshuva Epochs — After the Shoah, some systems tried to reckon with their collapse. Students examine examples of postwar repentance: Christian theological shifts, German reparations, the Geneva Conventions, and the moral rebirth of Israel. The challenge here is to distinguish real teshuva (ethical return) from performative gestures ("we're sorry you were offended.") it is not about guilt, but about a true change in one's derech (moral path.)

Moral Audit Project — In the capstone module, students apply Holocaust ethics to contemporary moral dilemmas. They identify a system where human dignity is at risk, run a derechological analysis, and design an override mechanism. This turns memory into action—and trains moral architects, not just historians.

Students come away not just with knowledge, but with conscience - and tools that would help them navigate real life.

They learn that remembering isn’t enough. “Never Again” means never again on your watch. The Holocaust is not a Jewish story with universal lessons—it is a universal story revealed through the unique Jewish experience.

This is only one version of the curriculum I've developed. There are many other subtopics and ethical entry points into the Holocaust that could be explored. I believe specific vignettes are especially effective—moments students can visualize and emotionally process. For example, while Nazi death camp commandants could spend their evenings listening to music and enjoying a hearty meal with their families after a day of mass murder, Jewish prisoners would sometimes share a single potato peel found in the dirt as if it were treasure. One dinner table preserved privilege; the other preserved dignity.

This curriculum doesn’t teach certainty. It teaches the humility to recognize that you might be wrong and the courage to act before it’s too late.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024)

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

How to tell the difference between a legitimate argument and well disguised hate speech

As I've been saying, I've developed a philosophy called Derechology based on Jewish thinking that is an entirely different way of looking at the world than what all of us have learned in the West - and it is much more closely aligned with reality.

The sheer amount of antisemitic lies online is overwhelming. And, as I've seen firsthand over the past two decades of blogging, facts themselves are not enough of a defense. The forces of hate make their arguments more sophisticated over time to obfuscate the facts. The third party observer cannot tell which set of facts is accurate so in the end they choose to trust one side, and very often that side is the one that gives the answers that are attractive, not accurate - seeming solutions that appeal to emotion and to self-interest.

Blaming an entire class of people for one's problems is incredibly attractive.

So I worked with an AI to use my Derechology framework to come up with an audit - a test that anyone can use to determine if an argument they see online is legitimate criticism or just well disguised hate.

We came up with a four part test. All four tests must be passed for the argument to be legitimate. It is not based on fact, but on structure - the haters' argument must use a structure that itself is destructive, while legitimate debaters use a more positive, constructive structure.

Here are the four tests and how they apply to modern antisemitism, but they work for everyone, Right or Left or in between.

The Goal Test:

Legitimate critique aims to improve and build. Critique focuses on correcting flaws to achieve a better outcome, such as greater dignity, life, or justice.

Hate aims to sever and purify: The haters' claims focus on elimination of the target to achieve their aims. The goal is not reform, but removal of their opponent.

Using modern antisemitism as an example, you never hear anti-Zionists say they want to improve Israeli society to fix problems of inequality or helping achieve peace. They position all of Israel as evil. This is the logic of BDS - even the biggest critics of Israel are guilty and must be silenced if they do not share the maximalist goals of the haters.

Focusing on the arguments gives them a victory because their eliminationist goals are considered to be morally equivalent to the side that wants to survive. They are not - they are simply hate, and the structure of their supposed criticism reveals that.

The Process Test:

Legitimate critique uses reasoning that is transparent, falsifiable, and open to change if new evidence contradicts its premise.

Hate's narrative converts all criticism, counter-evidence, or opposition into proof of the enemy's cunning or deceit, thus self-validating the original hatred. No facts will change their position, when confronted they will rely on conspiracy theory. Haters run away from debate that may expose this.

The Diagnosis Test:

Legitimate debaters accept complexity and context. They acknowledges the target is complex, capable of being both positive and negative like everyone else. Real debaters critique actions or policies, not the identity.

The haters enforce a totalizing binary. Their claim structurally defines the target as monolithic evil. They rejects all evidence of complexity because the simplicity of the binary is essential for their philosophy.

You will often find the anti-Zionists say this explicitly and proudly, telling their followers not to accept the idea that the conflict is complex. This is the psychology behind the genocide lie: not just that the facts don't support it, but the accusation itself was chosen to paint the Israelis as cartoon-villain, Nazi-level evil.

The Target Test:

Legitimate critics will only talk about actions and policies. Their language is proportional and focused on behaviors. They never deny the target's inherent dignity and humanity. They separate acts from people.

Haters attack the identity and/or existence of their targets. The language is disproportionate, dehumanizing, and justifies or advocates for relational severance (destruction, elimination, banishment). They deny their target's basic human dignity and claim that their opponents have forfeited having any rights altogether.

As mentioned, failing any one of these tests shows that the argument is not legitimate to begin with, no matter what facts they claim to have. The style itself delegitimizes them because it betrays their true goal are not critique but power.

Indeed, sometimes one comes across a sophisticated hater who skillfully cherry picks absolutely true claims to build their case which is ultimately bigoted. Pointing out their omissions, while necessary, is rarely a winning strategy because the people who are not emotionally invested in the debate will tend to believe the confident side with seemingly lots of facts over the opponents who are forced, always, into a defensive position.

When the arguments are only about the facts, the haters are legitimized. But they cannot change the structure of their arguments, because their goal is never truth but destroying their opponents' legitimacy and humanity. Anti-Zionists cannot claim to only be criticizing Israeli policy, because there is nothing Israel can do to satisfy them. They cannot admit when their facts are wrong - they double down and insist that counterproofs are fabricated. (They still insist there were no rapes October 7.) They cannot admit that Israel might have a legitimate reason to do what it does. They cannot agree to Israel's existence or legitimacy or right to defend itself in any conceivable universe. These aren't factual issues - they are structural in their positions. And that is what shows that they are using the pretense of honest argument to look like they are "just criticizing."

This audit indeed shows that some anti-Palestinian, anti-Muslim arguments have some or all of the same features. And those arguments should be condemned as well. There are plenty of ways to strongly oppose policies, call out immoral actions and expose systemic problems without attacking the dignity of every member of those groups.

This test exposes what Derechology proves: that with the correct structure there are multiple ways to have a moral position, but without a proper structure things can and will go very bad.

Here is a summary of the Structural Integrity Audit:

Test Category	Legitimate Opinion (Structurally Sound)	Structural Hate (Malignant)
1. The Goal Test	Aims to Improve and Build: Critique focuses on correcting flaws in policy, action, or structure to achieve a better outcome (greater Dignity, Life, or Justice).	Aims to Sever and Purify: Claims focus on elimination of the target to achieve "Ontological Closure" (restoring a simplistic binary). The goal is not reform, but removal.
2. The Process Test (Corrigibility)	Is Corrigible: The claim is falsifiable, transparent in its reasoning, and open to change if new evidence contradicts its premise. It admits its own potential for error.	Is Anti-Corrigible (Rigid): The philosophy converts all criticism, counter-evidence, or opposition into proof of the enemy's cunning/deceit, thus self-validating the original hatred.
3. The Diagnosis Test (Complexity vs. Simplicity)	Accepts Complexity and Context: Acknowledges the target entity (e.g., Israel, a political movement) is complex—capable of being both powerful and threatened. It critiques actions or policies, not the identity.	Enforces a Totalizing Binary: The claim structurally defines the target as monolithic evil (e.g., 100% Oppressor). It rejects all evidence of complexity because the simplicity of the binary is load-bearing for the philosophy.
4. The Target Test (Dignity and Proportionality)	Critiques Actions/Policies: The language is proportional and focused on behaviors. It never denies the target's inherent dignity/humanity.	Attacks Identity/Existence: The language is disproportionate, dehumanizing, and justifies or advocates for relational severance (destruction, elimination). It engages in premise smuggling to deny the target's basic human dignity.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024)

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

Gemini 3 book review of my Derechology (in-progress) manuscript

As I've mentioned, I've been working hard on my Derechology book (and not blogging as much.) I have a workable manuscript but I still have a lot of editing to do and many appendices to add.

But since Google just released its latest AI model for Gemini, I thought I would feed the entre manuscript (currently some 350 pages) into the AI and ask for a book review. This give me ideas of what needs to be done yet but also helps me see the forest while I work on the trees.

This review gives you a good idea of the scope of my project, although I actually think it is even bigger than this review indicates.

The Engineering Manual for Morality

A Review of Derechology: The Science of Human Morality by Eldad Tzioni

We live in an era of institutional vertigo. Universities, media organizations, and public health bodies—once the bedrock of social trust—seem to be collapsing under the weight of their own incoherence. In Derechology, Eldad Tzioni argues this isn't a personnel problem; it’s a software problem. Western civilization is running on a corrupted operating system, one that has been crashing with increasing frequency since the Enlightenment tried to reboot it without its original kernel.

Tzioni’s ambitious, sprawling, and often brilliant book offers a replacement OS. He calls it "Derechology" (from the Hebrew derech, meaning "path" or "way"). It is an audacious attempt to reverse-engineer the survival strategies of Jewish ethics, strip them of their theological casing, and offer them as a universal architecture for a secular world that has forgotten how to function.

Athens vs. Jerusalem: The Core Conflict

The book’s central thesis is a high-stakes revisiting of the ancient tension between Athens and Jerusalem. Tzioni argues that Western philosophy, dominated by Greek thought, committed a foundational error by treating the isolated individual (the atom) as the fundamental unit of reality. This choice led to a 2,500-year struggle to solve insoluble problems: logic that breaks when values conflict, "rights" that have no mechanism for adjudication, and a definition of truth that demands impossible perfection.

In contrast, Tzioni posits a "Relational Ontology." The fundamental unit of reality, he argues—supported by metaphors ranging from quantum entanglement to mycelial networks—is not the particle, but the relationship.

From this pivot, the book constructs its most valuable contribution: the Ethoskeleton. Tzioni suggests that trustworthy systems (whether individuals, corporations, or nations) must possess specific structural components to survive entropy. These include "Override Logic" (a transparent hierarchy for resolving value conflicts), "Corrigibility" (the structural capacity to admit and repair error), and "Relational Integrity" (obligations that scale with proximity).

It is a compelling argument. By shifting the focus from content (what values we hold) to architecture (how our systems process those values), Tzioni offers a way out of the culture wars. He doesn't ask us to agree on every political outcome; he asks us to agree on a structure that makes disagreement survivable.

The Physics of Good

Perhaps the book’s most daring leap is its attempt to bridge the gap between "is" and "ought" using the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Tzioni defines "Good" not as a matter of preference or divine command, but as anti-entropic direction.

In a universe continually sliding toward disorder, "Good" is the creative, energy-consuming act of building and maintaining complex relationships over deep time. Evil is not a force, but the surrender to entropy—the dissolution of bonds, the degradation of systems, the slide into chaos. It is a definition that feels rigorous and surprisingly intuitive, grounding ethics in the physical reality of the universe rather than abstract idealism.

The "Antisemitism Diagnostic"

One of the book's sharpest tools is its analysis of antisemitism. Tzioni reframes antisemitism not merely as racism, but as a "system error flag." He argues that ideologies turn antisemitic precisely when Jews—who stubbornly refuse to fit into neat binaries like "white/non-white" or "oppressor/oppressed"—break the ideology’s categorical framework. When a system cannot tolerate complexity, it tries to eliminate the anomaly. Thus, antisemitism becomes a diagnostic tool: if a movement hates Jews, it is structurally incapable of handling complexity and will eventually turn on itself.

Strengths and Weaknesses

Derechology is not a light read. It is dense with coined terminology ("Yesod Ethics," "The Falsification Audit," "Secular Covenantalism") that can occasionally feel overwhelming. The author asks the reader to learn a new language to understand his new world.

Furthermore, while the book explicitly claims to offer a secular system, the final act makes a sophisticated pivot back toward theology, arguing that the structure of the universe implies a "Unbound Domain" (God). While logically consistent with his arguments, this may alienate the strict materialists the book works so hard to court in its opening chapters.

However, the "proof of concept" chapters—specifically the section detailing "AskHillel," an AI programmed with these ethical rules—are fascinating. They demonstrate that this is not just high-minded philosophy; it is computable logic. Tzioni shows that an ethical system with clear "override logic" can navigate complex dilemmas (like triage or self-driving car ethics) better than our current vague notions of "do no harm."

The Verdict

Derechology is a work of significant intellectual engineering. It moves beyond the tired "faith vs. reason" debates to offer something more practical: a blueprint for building institutions that don't collapse.

It is a book for the institutional homeless—those who find the rigidity of the far-right and the incoherence of the far-left equally uninhabitable. Tzioni offers a "place to stand," a foundation built on humility, transparency, and the relentless, anti-entropic work of keeping promises. It is a demanding book, but for a civilization currently crashing, it might just be the manual we need.

Rating: 4.5/5

______________________

If any philosopher, theologian or other credentialed thinker is interested in seeing the book as it stands now and is willing to give me feedback, let me know!

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024)

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

The Philosophical Core of Anti-Zionism Is Antisemitism

We’re told over and over again that anti-Zionism is not antisemitism. It’s just politics, we’re told; it is opposition to one state’s policies, not a judgment about Jews as Jews. In fact, calling it antisemitism is a form of censorship, a way to silence a legitimate political opinion.

On the surface, this claim seems plausible. People criticize countries all the time. Saying “I oppose China’s treatment of Uighurs” doesn’t mean you hate Chinese people. So why should opposing Israel mean you hate Jews?

The strongest rebuttal so far has been that anti-Zionism denies the Jewish right to self-determination. But the anti-Zionists answer that by saying that most Jews don’t live in Israel and are happy citizens of other countries. They don’t need national self-determination. That’s just a Zionist ideology, not a universal Jewish claim, and opposing Israel's existence as a Jewish state is therefore a moral political opinion and Zionism is an illegitimate form of Jewish supremacy.

And there the argument usually ends. One side says Jews deserve a state; the other says Jews have no such right and in fact their desire for a state in the Levant is colonialist. It sounds like a disagreement about values, with two legitimate opinions. And if they are both legitimate opinions, then the anti-Zionist side wins by default, because antisemitism is illegitimate but political opinion isn't. Being anti-Zionist cannot be considered truly antisemitic - perhaps some extremists are, maybe Hamas is, but opposing Israel has nothing to do with Jews as Jews and therefore is fine.

Until you dig deeper.

I’ve been developing a new method of analysis called Derechology. It begins with a basic principle: everyone has a derech — a consistent moral path. Even when someone’s statements or actions seem contradictory, their derech is usually more coherent than it appears. Contradictions only appear that way because we haven’t yet uncovered the deeper assumption that holds their worldview together.

Which brings us to Professor Ramsi Woodcock.

Woodcock is a law professor at the University of Kentucky. In late 2025, he was suspended after publicly calling for every country in the world to make war on Israel — not metaphorically, but literally — until Israel surrendered unconditionally to Palestinian rule over the entire land from the river to the sea.

He defended this position:

He said his calls for military intervention against Israel, and his views that the future of Palestine should be determined by Palestinians alone – including Jews who lived in Palestine before large-scale Jewish immigration began in the late 19th century – are consistent with recognizing Israel as a colonial project. Woodcock, who is part Algerian, often refers to that country’s experience of ending French colonial rule as a basis for his argument.

He supports Palestinian nationalism while condemning Jewish nationalism as illegitimate. In his view, Jews who lived in the land before Zionism could be considered Palestinians and equal citizens, but everyone else - including Holocaust survivors and Jews from Arab countries and their descendants - are foreign colonizers.

At first glance, this seems like hypocrisy. Why is Palestinian nationalism considered noble, but Jewish nationalism a crime? Why does he support decolonization in one case and not the other? Why does he say that Jews whose families arrived 140 years ago should be subject to a referendum by Arabs but Arabs whose ancestors immigrated to Palestine in the early 20th century are fully Palestinian and have the right to stay?

If we assume his derech is internally consistent, there must be a hidden assumption that resolves the contradiction.

That assumption is this: Jews are not a people.

Jews are merely a religious group. They are not a nation, not an indigenous group. Just a religion. They are merely a group of individuals who have no collective claim to history, land, memory, or destiny.

If you believe that, then Zionism isn’t a form of national liberation. It’s a fraud - a manipulation of categories. There is no “Jewish people” in the national sense, so any attempt to behave like one is inherently illegitimate.

That is Ramsi Woodcock's philosophy. If you ask him if there is a Jewish people, he will have to claim there isn't - because he is a professor who has thought deeply about this and has made anti-Zionism the centerpiece of his identity. The very first word on his personal webpage is "Antizionist."

But if you think about it, this is the underlying philosophy behind all of today's anti-Zionism. Arab media denies Jewish peoplehood explicitly, claiming that Jews are really Khazars with no history in the land to begin with; Palestinians routinely claim that all archaeological evidence of a Jewish people in the land is fake and that every Jewish shrine is really Muslim.

The idea that Jews aren't a people is a fundamental, load bearing premise behind anti-Zionist philosophy. The only way people can believe that Jews have no national rights is if they believe there is no Jewish nation to begin with.

Once you accept the anti-Zionist premise that Jews are not a people, a whole new moral framework emerges. Any Jewish effort to act collectively as a people - even outside Israel - becomes suspect. Jewish summer camp becomes indoctrination. Singing “Am Yisrael Chai” becomes a supremacist chant. Prayers that speak of “Your people Israel” become racist. Chanting "Next Year in Jerusalem" at the Passover Seder is colonialist aggression.

This isn’t an accidental side effect of anti-Zionism. It is the logical structure beneath it, and it is the logical result of following its philosophy. You can’t consistently oppose Jewish nationalism while affirming other forms of nationalism - unless you believe Jews are not a people.

Which means that all consistent anti-Zionism is built on the denial of Jewish peoplehood. Woodcock is not an outlier. He is just saying explicitly what anti-Zionists must believe if they are consistent.

And that’s antisemitism.

It isn't mere criticism of a government. Anti-Zionism erases the Jewish right to exist as a collective - as a “we” - not just in Israel but anywhere.

And when that erasure is dressed up as progressive, anti-colonial, or humanitarian, it becomes even harder to detect - and even more important to expose.

Denying Jewish peoplehood is at the very core of anti-Zionism. If Jews are a people, the entire argument against Israel falls apart. And until anti-Zionism emerged, no one in the world denied that Jews are a people. That denial is a recent invention - a retrofitted premise created to justify a political conclusion.

It is easily possible to criticize Israel and not be antisemitic. But it is structurally impossible to be anti-Zionist without being antisemitic.

Once you realize this, the landscape changes. Anti-Zionism isn’t merely entangled with antisemitism. It doesn’t simply echo older tropes.

Anti-Zionism is antisemitic by definition.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024)

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

Has He Really Changed? The Case of Ahmed al-Sharaa

In the Derechology framework I am developing, actions speak louder than words—but trajectories speak louder than both. Jews call this derech: the visible moral path that an individual or nation follows over time. And that derech is usually remarkably consistent. Whether for a person or a society, derech tends to stay the same until something disruptive happens—an upheaval, a revolution, or teshuvah—true repentance.

Changes in derech are rare but they do happen. When one is being claimed, how do we know it is legitimate and not window dressing?

When a former jihadist like Ahmed al-Sharaa rises to lead a transitioning Syria, we are faced with a serious question: has his derech changed—or just his outfit?

This is not a theoretical problem. The fate of lives, alliances, and legitimacy hangs on whether moral transformation is real or performative. Derechology does not shy away from this challenge. It offers us a layered framework to test what kind of change we are actually seeing.

There is no doubt that Syria, as a nation, is undergoing a derech change. The Assad era—with its brutal repression, sectarian warfare, and alliance with Iranian and Russian power blocs—has ended. Al-Sharaa’s rise represents a new chapter. Institutions are being rebuilt. Borders are shifting. New diplomatic gestures are being made. A new government with new policies, new alliances, and new political structure indicates a new derech.

But we must distinguish between a regime change and a personal moral transformation.

Al-Sharaa has a past steeped in jihadist networks. He was affiliated with Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham, an Al Qaeda offshoot. He now presents himself as a head of state, speaking of reform and stability. But has he renounced the ideology that justified violence in the name of religious purity? Has he made any public reckoning with his past?

Not that we’ve seen.

In the derechological framework, teshuvah—the genuine transformation of moral trajectory—requires more than new behavior. It requires a reordering of values, visible in pattern, policy, and persistence.

Here’s what we look for:

Visible break with past ideology: Not just silence, but renunciation. A derech pivot requires disavowal of prior loyalties or justifications for harm.
Emergence of a new value hierarchy: If before, power justified cruelty, does the new system prioritize dignity, justice, or peace?
Persistence under pressure: Does the new derech hold when it costs something, or only when it’s convenient?
Accountability for past actions: Even partial, symbolic, or rhetorical reckoning matters.
Broad-based moral coherence: Has the change spread beyond one person to the institutions and culture he shapes?

So far, al-Sharaa has offered diplomacy, not repentance. There is no public renunciation of or apology for his actions or decisions as a jihadist. We are only seeing strategic gestures, not ideological evolution. We do not see the markers of teshuvah. On the contrary, we have seen reports of sectarian violence, particularly against the Druze in southern Syria, and the empowerment of former Islamist militias within state structures.

In derechological analysis, when personal or institutional actions appear inconsistent, we keep probing until we identify a coherent moral trajectory. In this case, there is one: not the old Syrian derech but a continuation of Al Qaeda's derech.

Al Qaeda’s long-term goal has always been the construction of a Sunni-led Islamic ummah or caliphate. Unlike ISIS, which rushed the process, Al Qaeda plays a long game: gradually destabilizing secular or Shi’a-aligned regimes, replacing them with Sunni Islamist governance, and building regional cohesion under a transnational religious vision. It is centered on controlling territory.

Seen through that lens, toppling Assad is stage one. Establishing Sunni control over all of Syria is stage two. And, long term, rebuilding Syria as a Sunni-controlled, Islamist-aligned state is stage three.

Al-Sharaa’s regime has been consistent: his forces are fighting and suppressing non-Sunni factions (Druze and Kurdish) while there is no criticism of the Turkish occupation of huge parts of Syria. Because that territory is already under Sunni control.

This is derech continuity—not rupture.

What we may be witnessing is not moral transformation, but instrumental reform: reforms not rooted in changed values, but in strategic necessity. Al-Sharaa wants to realign Syria from the Shi’a-dominated Iran–Russia axis toward a new, Sunni-led regional order. To do that, he needs Western recognition, Gulf backing, and diplomatic legitimacy. That means talking about democracy and peace, even if the core ideology remains Islamist.

Using diplomacy and reform as camouflage is strategic discipline, not repentance. Where reforms help attract support or funds, they’re made. Where Islamist dominance can be preserved (e.g., militia control, Turkish alliance), it is.

This is a consistent derech towards Sunni Islam supremacist goals over the long term. But Syria is weak today so it needs Western help to rebuild for now - the end of sanctions, Western investment, western humanitarian aid.

That does not mean engagement with al-Sharaa is forbidden. Diplomacy often involves strategic interaction with flawed actors. Jewish ethics includes realism—Peace first, strength always. But it also includes truth and moral visibility. Granting someone moral validation before it’s earned degrades the ethical vocabulary.

To be blunt: You can shake his hand, but don’t call him a reformed man until he shows you his teshuvah.

Syria may be on a new path. That is good, and we should pray and act to support the best possible future for its people. You may even claim that Syria is in much better shape under Sunni control than it was under the brutal Assad regime.

But Ahmed al-Sharaa’s personal derech remains unproven. Until he walks in the light, we are not obligated to pretend the shadows never existed. And so far, he is not doing anything inconsistent with what Al Qaeda leaders would approve for a long term strategy.

The world needs moral clarity as much as it needs peace. Jewish ethics demands we offer both - without confusing one for the other.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024)

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)