1. An interesting aspect of ancient vs modern, that struck me while traveling in Israel, is how geography there has swapped places.
2. In ancient times, the Israelites lived in the rugged hills and their arch-rivals the Philistines along the more fertile seacoast.
3. Today, the Palestinians - with the exception of Gaza - live in the rugged hills and most Israelis live along the more fertile and urbanized coast.
4. One can easily make too much of the parallel, but it's interesting to consider.
5. This isn't an entirely a product of recent history, either. It dates from the original proposed UN partition in 1947, based on pre-state Jewish settlement.
6. It's also why, ironically, many of the places (like Hebron) with the profoundest links to Jewish Biblical heritage are in the predominately Palestinian West Bank, and therefore the focus of new Jewish settlement and heated conflict.
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1) There certainly was foreign interference in the 2016 election. It involved hacking crimes for which several people were charged.
2) Whether Trump's campaign had any involvement is unproven.
3) There is no evidence the interference involved altering actual vote counts.
4) Donald Trump was legitimately elected President, under the Constitution's rules, in 2016, though he did not have the political mandate that comes from winning the most votes nationwide.
5) He did not win, under those same rules, in 2020.
6) Many people were distraught at Trump's election in 2016 and some spoke loosely of an "illegitimate" victory.
7) No one of any stature made any effort to prevent Trump from taking office or exercising its powers.
1. I have an announcement - and a kind of invitation - to make for all of you who, whatever your background, who are interested in US-China relations.
2. Every year, for the past six years, I have taught a practical class in US-China negotiations at @ColumbiaSIPA.
3. 16-20 students, from the US, China, and elsewhere, were broken into 4 diverse teams and negotiated in class on a variety of "ripped from the headlines" topics I gave them.
The US reported +2,309 new coronavirus deaths today, bringing the total to 305,082. The 7-day moving average rose to 2,479 per day.
The US had +220,298 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 today, bringing the total to over 16.5 million. The 7-day moving average rose to nearly 217,000 per day.