Israel on the Brink & Dems’ TV Takeover

Hello, and welcome back to The Best & The Brightest, your daily dispatch on all things politics. It’s foreign policy Tuesday, and I am your host, Julia Ioffe. This is my last letter to you for a while, as I am going on maternity leave starting next week. And though it makes me sad to not engage with all of you and the world for a little while, I know you’ll be in excellent hands with the entire TBTB team. Before we get into the marrow of the letter—October 7 and all it has wrought—two things from two books….

Woodward’s War: D.C. is abuzz today with morsels from Bob Woodward’s latest tome, War. People keep asking me what I think about the claim that Donald Trump called Vladimir Putin at least seven times after leaving office. And that, as president, Trump sent Covid testing machines to the Russian president at the height of the pandemic, when they were a precious rarity even for Americans.Look, it’s damning. And it’s yet another clear illustration of Trump’s priorities—elevating adversarial dictators like Putin over the needs and interests of American citizens. Alas, I have no doubt that it will change no one’s mind and that this news will be spun by Trump and his defenders as proof of his ability to forge diplomatic relationships with American adversaries—even if they question why Putin needs to be our adversary at all.
‘The Islamic Moses’: Second, I want to bring your attention to the book a dear friend of mine has just published. The Islamic Moses, by Mustafa Akyol, a Turkish American scholar and writer, looks at the Judeo-Islamic tradition as well as the history of Jews living in Muslim lands. It is a history that is often invoked—and often distorted—for political purposes, sometimes to say, essentially, Look how great things were in the Middle East before the creation of the state of Israel. The book documents how the two religions coexisted, learned from each other, and how, in contrast to medieval Christian Europe, the Muslim rulers were far, far more tolerant of their Jewish subjects. In other words, it didn’t have to be this way. The work, which reflects Mustafa’s deep understanding of both Islam and Judaism, as well as of the history and the present of this horrendous conflict, is indispensable for anyone who doesn’t want to just grieve and commemorate, but who wants to look forward and to find a way out of this Mobius strip of horrors. Ironically, Mustafa, who was forced to flee Istanbul with his family when President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan began a furious crackdown on journalists, handed in the manuscript for this book a week before October 7. (Thus the very somber epilogue.) I’ve spent hours talking to Mustafa about all this, about our shared pain over this war, and there have been many times when I’ve simply wanted to record him and send you all an audio file of our conversation. And maybe, post-maternity leave, we’ll do just that. In the meantime, read his book, which is brilliant, thoughtful, and, above all, humane.

Now, here’s Abby Livingston’s timely update on the House ad wars…

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The Dems’ TV Takeover

The only thing on any Washington insider’s mind these days—beyond, of course, the terrifying Hurricane Milton—is fundraising and TV ad spending. In recent days, we’ve learned that in the House ad wars, both Republican and Democratic super PACs had record-setting third quarters. But what’s shocking is how much the Democrats’ House Majority PAC outraised the Republicans’ Congressional Leadership Fund—about $100 million to $81 million, respectively—this past quarter. The C.L.F. had the upper hand for most of the cycle, but the two super PACS are headed into the final stretch at near parity in cycle-to-date fundraising, at $212 million and $210 million. The third-quarter numbers followed the news that the D.C.C.C. also outraised the N.R.C.C. in August. As these numbers trickled out, Republican candidates largely stayed quiet as Democratic candidates released blockbuster figures for individual campaigns. (Conspicuous silence is often a tell that candidates are lagging in fundraising and waiting until the October 15 deadline to reveal their numbers.) The sense I’ve gotten over the course of the cycle at the House level is that whenever Republicans believe they’re raising significant money, they are inevitably stunned to learn what the Democrats hauled in. This fundraising, of course, is directly funneled into ad campaigns, and that spending is one of the leading indicators that suggests which races each side is prioritizing. But money isn’t everything in TV spending—gross points are, which are the units that TV stations sell for individual ad time. And in the last week, Democrats “outpointed” Republicans in 12 House races, while Republicans had the upper hand in 11 House races, according to data shared with me by a Democratic source who tracks ad buys. Intriguingly, three races are effectively tied in points: Colorado’s 8th District (incumbent Democrat Yadira Caraveo versus Republican Gabe Evans), Iowa’s 1st District (incumbent Republican Mariannette Miller-Meeks in a rematch against her 2022 opponent, Democrat Christina Bohannan), and Oregon’s 5th District (incumbent Republican Lori Chavez-DeRemer versus Democrat Janelle Bynum). The top five races where Democrats are “outpointing” Republicans are: New Mexico’s 2nd District, by 4,505 points, in support of Democratic Rep. Gabe Vasquez; North Carolina’s 1st District, by 4,246 points, in support of Democratic Rep. Don Davis; Pennsylvania’s 7th District, by 4,039 points, backing Democratic Rep. Susan Wild; Maine’s 2nd District, by 3,691 points, in support of Democratic Rep. Jared Golden; and New York’s 19th District, by 3,064 points, against Republican Rep. Marc Molinaro. The five races where Republicans are outpointing Democrats are: New York’s 22nd District, by 3,027 points, in support of Republican Rep. Brandon Williams; New York’s 17th District, by 1,716 points, where Republican Alison Esposito is challenging Democratic Rep. Pat Ryan; California’s 45th District, with 1,135 points, in support of Republican Rep. Michelle Steel; Virginia’s 7th District, by 901 points, in the open-seat race to replace Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger, who is running for governor; and Texas’s 15th District, by 852 points, with support of Republican Rep. Monica De La Cruz. —Abby Livingston

Tomorrow Will Be Worse

Of all the worst-case scenarios I imagined for Israel, the cruel reality of the present moment—with tens of thousands dead and Israel fighting two wars, one in Gaza and one in Lebanon—has exceeded even my eternal pessimism. Will Israel, which was created as a safe haven for Jews, always be like this?

JULIA IOFFE

As I write this, the sun is setting on October 7, 2024, one year since Hamas terrorists burst across the Israeli border and hunted people in their homes, raping, burning, shooting, torturing, massacring. Readers of my work have sometimes poked fun at the way I sign off my emails for Puck—“Tomorrow will be worse”—but the past few years have shown me just how inadequate that phrase is, how difficult it is to imagine or anticipate the depths to which humans can sink, and the boundless creativity with which we approach the dehumanization and annihilation of our fellow people. And October 7, in particular, has begotten a grotesque string of horrible tomorrows. The truth is, this is not where I thought we’d be a year on, with tens of thousands dead and Israel fighting two wars, one in Gaza and one in Lebanon, and the Middle East seemingly on the brink of a regional conflagration. Of all the worst of the worst-case scenarios, even I, in my eternal pessimism about how geopolitics tend to play out, did not think we’d be here. I was, it turns out, an optimist.

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Unfortunately, I’ve learned that ideology, for both the left and the right, is far more important than human life. How many times have you heard the left say that there are no civilians on the Israeli side, because they are all complicit in “settler colonialism”? Or heard from the right that civilians in Gaza and southern Lebanon are all complicit in the crimes of Hamas or Hezbollah? Suddenly, in a region of millions and millions of people, there are no true civilians anywhere, not even among children. I’ve learned that, in the words of a senior Biden administration official, “Hamas and Bibi deserve each other.” Netanyahu is happy to accelerate the widening gyre of war, in order to stay in power, to stay out of jail, to reinforce the notion he’s fostered and exploited that everyone will always hate Israel, no matter what it does and that, as a result, Israel can only depend on itself—and on Bibi—to survive amid a sea of enemies. And if hostages have to be sacrificed to win the fight, so be it. Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, meanwhile, believes that the more Palestinian “martyrs” his guerilla war produces, the better the optics of his political project. Both men believe in a one-state solution premised on the ethnic cleansing of the other. And not only are neither of them going anywhere, everyone seems to have given up on swaying them. I’ve learned just how malleable a political force antisemitism is, how quickly it can become socially acceptable. How, in an increasingly hyperpartisan world, it is one of the few ideologies to infect both the far right and the far left. And I’ve learned that, when it comes to conflicts like these, no one reads, because no one really cares about complexity. Watching a TikTok is easier than reading a history book, and posting a simplistic slogan on social media is certainly easier than grappling with the impossible fact that two peoples both have a legitimate claim to the same tiny sliver of land, and have hurt each other so much that every potential future is clouded by the trauma of the past.

Cruel Jokes

Now what? Hamas is decimated, but how many new sympathizers and recruits has the last year produced? Before October 7, Israeli leaders would speak of “cutting the grass.” Now they’ve razed the lawn and salted the earth. How long will it buy Israelis quiet before the next big explosion? Because there will be another, as long as the Israeli government only treats the symptoms, and not the cause, of the problem. In the words of my dear friend Leon Wieseltier, “It does [Israel] no good to confirm themselves in their old habit of militarizing the Palestinian problem, when, in fact, it is supremely a political problem.” In the absence of that understanding—and action that reflects it—there will only be periods of tense, unsustainable quiet, never peace. In the north, what can Israel do? Unlike with the Palestinians, there is no political treaty to be signed, no diplomatic understanding to be reached with Hezbollah, let alone with the government of Iran. Both Hezbollah and Iran are parasitic opportunists, taking advantage of the war in Gaza, of Israel’s distraction. To say that they are firing on Israel “in solidarity” with the Palestinians is a cruel joke. Nor do Hezbollah and Iran care how many Lebanese civilians are displaced or hurt in the crossfire. What will be done about these two forces? What can be done about them?

More than that, I wonder: Will Israel, which was created as a safe haven for Jews, always be like this? Will it always be destined to fight wars or maintain a military occupation over millions of people while squinting and pretending that it is a first-world, democratic country and a delightful place to live? How many Israelis—at least those who aren’t messianic zealots and psychopaths—will want to keep having children whose destiny is manning checkpoints and protecting settlers in the West Bank, or participating in yet another “limited operation” in Lebanon, the way their fathers did, or, for that matter, dismantling Hamas—or whatever organization replaces it—for the hundredth time? On my last trip to Israel, in 2016, I could not shake the feeling of just how unsustainable it all felt, even then: the intense pretense of normalcy while Gaza and the West Bank were right there, and young Israelis had to tarnish themselves with their occupation in mandatory service to their government, which was leading them closer and closer to the precipice of another war. I write this on the eve of giving birth to a little Jewish boy, and I am so glad that he will not be subject to that duty. That, unless he makes that choice later in life, he will not have to live in a place that seems destined to keep exploding over and over and over again, out of some kind of principle. Then again, I don’t know that he will even have that option. I don’t know if Israel as I and others knew it will still exist by then. It all still feels so very unsustainable, now more than ever.

That’s all from me, friends. If all goes well, I’ll see you back here in the new year. Until then, enjoy the dispatches from my colleagues. Good night. Tomorrow will be worse,Julia

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