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Alex גדעון בן װעלװל Profile picture
Alex גדעון בן װעלװל
@JewishWonk
Columnist @JDForward. U.S. Foreign Policy and Jewish communal concerns. Bylines in @TheAtlantic, @WashingtonPost, @TabletMag. All bad takes are mine alone.
6 subscribers
Nov 8 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
I am seeing a lot of folks expressing a lot of intense emotions on Twitter in the aftermath of the elections.

Some things to consider if you are looking for something other than despair. 1) Parties that take unified control (House, Senate, White House) have a bad habit of overshooting.

Bear in mind this is how our institutions reflect what was a close election.

47.7% of Americans didn't want this.

A competent politician would govern from the center.
Nov 6 • 10 tweets • 2 min read
I have a few opinions on this. A quick thread. 1) I don't think Democrats can win the majority of White men. Fundamentally our politics has a color line and many white men, knowingly or unknowingly, like it and want to preserve it.

You can, however, reduce the GOP's margin and improve it for Democrats.
Nov 6 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
Quick reactions to the election news, a thread. 1) It doesn't matter how much wages rise. Or how you have the best performing economy in the developed world. Or how you pass generational legislation to keep us competitive.

Voters hate inflation.

Liberals will have to internalize that lesson for future policy goals.
Nov 3 • 25 tweets • 7 min read
I'll be voting for Harris today. A brief thread of my reasons why.

This is not to argue with Trump supporters, this is to share with anyone who is on the fence. 1) Economic issues.

I am a refugee from a country that collapsed. The scope of your imagination for what a "bad" economy is widens quite a bit with that experience.

Trump has dangerous ideas about the economy.
Oct 14 • 7 tweets • 1 min read
The Columbus shenanigans remind me that one of the most frustrating things about the "who is a Jew" question, particularly when discussing historical figures, is how often the debate is informed by ideas that are alien to Judaism. Judaism is an ancient and deeply communal religion. It predates concepts of race, DNA, and individualism.
Sep 28 • 14 tweets • 2 min read
Some thoughts on the situation regionally in light of the confirmation that Nasrallah is dead, a thread. 1) The performance of the IDF and Israeli intelligence in dealing with Hezbollah is markedly better than their engagement with Hamas.

That's not a weird quirk. It reflects the strategic read of Israel about which war they anticipated and prepared for before 10/7.
Sep 26 • 12 tweets • 3 min read
For no particular reason, a thread of American politicians the Turkish government has tried to influence lawfully and covertly. 1) Eliot Engel, Jamaal Bowman's predecessor, was a vocal critic of Turkey’s policies, particularly on issues like the Armenian Genocide and Turkey’s conduct in Syria's civil war.

Bowman wasn't. Turkish affiliated groups donated tens of thousands of dollars to him. Image
Sep 16 • 10 tweets • 3 min read
Couple of comments on Edelstein and Russian-speaking Jewish politics in Israel to supplement this reading in an incoming thread. 1) For the unfamiliar, Edelstein was a prominent otkaznik ("refusenik") from Soviet Ukraine. For the crime of being a Jew who wanted to reclaim his culture and his ties to the Jewish people, he was sent to the Gulag. Image
Sep 2 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
It's very difficult to parse the debate about the Philadelphi corridor. It's clear Hamas wants Israel out so they can renew smuggling weapons into the strip. It's also clear Israel's public and security establishment don't trust Netanyahu to negotiate for the hostages. The messaging coming out of Israel's security establishment is that Netanyahu included Philadelphi in the negotiations to stall the talks. Probably has truth to it.

What I struggle with is their claim, repeated by Gallant in multiple forums, that they can simply return.
Sep 1 • 46 tweets • 8 min read
How I am thinking about the hostages Hamas executed, the politics around it, and where we go from here. This thread will probably not be short. A preface: I am hearing from friends who knew the murdered hostages. I am seeing the posts from hostage families.

I will do my best to think critically, but I am no more detached than anyone else in the Jewish world. I may come to view things differently with more time.
Aug 13 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
I used to think that the ultra-wealthy were singularly focused on taxes but I'm starting to realize there's a theory of social hierarchy that probably supersedes that for at least some of them. The return to office policies have very little to do with productivity of workers. But they do make bosses feel more in control of people and let them feel important as they walk around an office.
Aug 11 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
2 million views for this. A brief thread.

1) Soviet archives were released in the 90s. We have confirmation that Julius was a Soviet spy and Ethel was aware of and supported his activities Image 2) It's extremely rich to talk about your outrage over antisemitism. The judge and the prosecutor were both Jewish. This was post-war America, both of them knew exactly what public demonization of Jews led to in Europe.
Aug 11 • 33 tweets • 6 min read
For many years, I have not fasted on Tisha B'Av. I have honored the holiday in my own way, but objected to it in some aspects in my own peculiar way.

This year I will be observing the traditional way. I'd like to explain why for those Jews who may be considering it as well. A preface:

I did not grow up frum (religious). I came to observant Judaism as an adult. I am still learning. Things I may describe in here may not be consistent with how frum folks talk and teach this day. I often shy away from talking about Judaism for this reason.
Aug 7 • 27 tweets • 6 min read
The anti-Israel movement on the far-left had its highest engagement this year between protests, encampments, and online activism.

Here's a thread of how they have failed to transform that activism into electoral power and why. 1) Rep. Bowman, who has demonized Israel before and after 10/7 but especially after, lost his primary to a pro-Israel Democrat.
timesofisrael.com/congressman-bo…
Aug 6 • 15 tweets • 3 min read
Couple of thoughts on Jews and the Democratic party in light of the Walz selection, a thread. 1) If you are Jewish and politically engaged but not a political insider, what you saw for the past 2 weeks was an enormous explosion of online antisemitism against Shapiro using fig leafs like misquoting statements on protests, school vouchers he didn't pass, or other things
Jul 31 • 35 tweets • 7 min read
In public and in private I have gotten the question "Is Harris really better for Israel than Trump?"

The short answer is yes.

The long answer is incoming in the below thread. 1) When it comes to foreign affairs, what we are observing is a complex interplay of different factors, players, priorities, etc...

Very often the discussion about Trump and Israel is reduced to "well he moved the embassy and said nice things about Israel."
Jul 21 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
Some thoughts in response to the news that Biden is not running for reelection, a thread. 1) I'm angry. My phone is blowing up with texts from normie libs across America who are angry too.

The guy we voted for and who delivered for us was browbeat out by a hostile media.

We don't even have the time to stay mad. The election is still on.
Jul 10 • 17 tweets • 4 min read
Some thoughts on the state of Biden's candidacy 1) The American system for elected office does not enable the same kind of political discipline you see in parliamentary parties.

Despite getting the majority of electeds in congress to publicly back Biden, the drip drip of doubts and even open opposition continues.

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Jul 5 • 24 tweets • 4 min read
How I'm thinking about Biden and the election, a thread. 1) Elections in theory are about assessing who would do the job of president better.

Under Trump we saw massive tax cuts as his signature legislation, an attempt to repeal Obamacare that failed, mismanagement of a pandemic response, and an attempted coup.
Jun 26 • 22 tweets • 5 min read
News sites are beginning to call the primary for Latimer. I made a thread tracking this primary going back to January. Some thoughts on the Bowman v Latimer primary in a thread 1) There's going to be a great deal of spin in all directions because this involved a member of an outspoken leftist faction in Congress. Fans of Bowman's will decry the outside money. Fans of Latimer will point to local focus of his campaign.
Jun 25 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
This fight was there in 2018. The DSA, Justice Democrats, and most famously the Women's March leadership were already hostile to liberal Jews. The difference between then and now is the relative salience for everyone else. Linda Sarsour, then one of the faces of the Women's March, began openly demanding litmus tests for Jews on Israel questions. She declared Zionism and Feminism are incapatable.
haaretz.com/us-news/2017-0…