War without and war within
Gaza, Chicago, Myanmar, Portland, Ukraine
It’s been a long year.
Two quotes come to mind, before news—
“We must have the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless furnace of this world. To make injustice the only measure of our attention is to praise the Devil.”— “A Brief for the Defense” by Jack Gilbert
“We’d ask Earl [Weaver] why what he said in March in spring training didn’t match what he did in May. He’d look at us like we were bugs and say, ‘Everything changes everything.’” —Thomas Boswell in his acceptance speech after becoming the 2025 winner of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America’s Career Excellence Award
On the ground in Israel, it looks like everything changes. A 20-point peace plan first presented by President Donald Trump late last month won initial acceptance from Hamas and early Friday received approval by Israel’s cabinet—setting the stage for a ceasefire in Gaza that’s now begun as Israelis prepared for Shabbat and giving Hamas 72 hours to release all hostages.
Who are the hostages believed alive in Gaza?
Israeli forces must withdraw from 70 percent of Gaza for the hostage release. Israel also has agreed to release Palestinian prisoners, and to reopen the Rafah crossing into Egypt, allowing what Gazans hope will be a surge of humanitarian relief.
The next phases could be more difficult, as the plan calls for disarming Hamas and introducing a multinational peacekeeping force in Gaza—now set to include 200 U.S. military personnel. The White House plan replaces Hamas control of Gaza with a “technocratic, apolitical Palestinian committee” overseen by a supervisory “Board of Peace,” chaired by Trump with assist from Tony Blair, the former British prime minister.
Long-time observers are cautiously optimistic—“because getting to this point really was hard … a geopolitical bank shot” (Thomas Friedman). Securing the peace will require the President’s continued engagement. Most agree it’s a genuine step forward, yet remains a tough neighborhood where distrust of key players runs high. “I refuse to be drawn into hope,” said one Jewish leader yesterday, speaking off the record, “as all parties involved have a long history of moving goal posts.”
Israeli Defense Forces are expanding operations in the West Bank and say they intercepted this week an Iranian weapons shipment to terror groups there. Trump perhaps surprised the Netanyahu government when he said in September he “will not allow Israel to annex the West Bank.” But a new report from the International Crisis Group warns that while world attention has focused on Gaza, “much of the territory has, in effect, already been annexed.”
With a warning from the Norwegian Nobel Institute in Oslo that “democracy is in retreat,” the Nobel Committee today awarded Venezuela’s opposition leader and pro-democracy activist María Coria Machado the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize. It hailed Machado, 58, as “one of the most extraordinary examples of civilian courage in Latin America in recent times.”
Republicans blocked a War Powers Act resolution aimed at halting the Trump administration from blowing up suspected drug-smuggling boats near Venezuela in international waters. In the past two months, the U.S. military has struck at least four boats in the Caribbean Sea, killing 21 people.
With a government shutdown likely entering a second week, The New York Times has a tracker on agencies and services affected.
Families across conflict-ravaged Myanmar are at the epicenter of suffering, as Russia and China are stepping up support for air attacks by the military junta against ethnic groups in a war that’s displaced an estimated 4 million residents. The UN says 40 percent of the population needs humanitarian assistance, and the U.S. was the largest humanitarian donor until Trump administration cuts to foreign aid early this year.
With no rations in squalid border camps, one survivor said, “Please drop a bomb on us—because we can’t continue in this way.’”
Dave Eubank, head of Free Burma Rangers, a medic and relief group based for decades in the area, told me it’s a complex picture and he has met with State Department officials to press for more assistance. “Most of the money never makes it to Burma, it stays between D.C. and the Thai border. But what makes it is very important, the numbers are all there …. [The cuts] are like throwing the baby out with the bath water. The bathwater definitely needs to be changed but you don’t want to throw out the baby.”
There are groups on the ground that can handle aid distribution, Eubank continued, and direct humanitarian assistance to local aid groups is one way to alleviate the suffering. But the biggest challenge is unimpeded and expanding airstrikes against a mostly civilian population. During a jet strike in June, Eubank’s group had one medic killed and eight wounded while evacuating villagers.
In Ukraine, Mark Sergeev and his family barely escaped a 550-pound Escondare Russian missile, one of 48 missiles and more than 500 drones Russia rained across Ukraine in a 12-hour span. The family’s Kyiv home was destroyed, the second home they’ve lost to the war. Russian forces confiscated their home in Melitopol, along with the church founded by Sergeev’s parents.
Everywhere dissembling seems the name of the game, and DR Congo and Rwanda are blaming each other for no progress in a peace settlement negotiated by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and signed in June.
On the “war from within” front—
The U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) has come to a halt and will remain frozen until President Trump issues a new refugee admissions target for fiscal year 2026. The target reportedly will be set at 7,500, the lowest in history, with the majority of slots reserved for white Afrikaners, according to reports from The New York Times and Reuters. The figure also will leave refugees around the world stranded, according to resettlement agency Church World Service, including thousands conditionally approved for resettlement to the U.S. when the refugee ban went into effect in January. Christian organizations in a letter to Trump urge, “One of the most essential tools the United States has historically used to uphold religious freedom is the U.S. refugee resettlement program.”
Trump significantly escalated what he calls the “war from within,” with domestic deployment of U.S. forces this week to Chicago and four other cities, with pledges for more despite court rulings and state and local official opposition.
In Chicago, enforcement agents increasingly have targeted clergy, including Chicago area Presbyterian minister David Black, who was videotaped while praying aloud when gunmen atop an ICE facility fired on him repeatedly with pepper balls—
One struck Black in the head, exploding into a puff of white pepper smoke and forcing him to his knees. Fellow demonstrators rushed to his aid, and as the pastor rubbed his face in pain, the agents continued to fire.
“We could hear them laughing,” Black said.
On Thursday, a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order as part of a case brought by journalists and clergy including Black. The order bars government agents from using forceful tactics against faith-based demonstrators—
The judge barred agents from using a list of “riot control weapons” on “members of the press, protesters, or religious practitioners who are not posing an immediate threat to the safety of a law enforcement officer or others.” The order also prohibits the firing of “compressed air launchers” and similar weapons at “the head, neck, groin, spine, or female breast, or striking any person with a vehicle, unless the person poses an immediate threat of causing serious bodily injury or death.” In addition, agents, who have been criticized for wearing face masks, are instructed by the order to wear “visible identification.”
In Portland, police logs over the past month chart a picture different from what Trump officials claimed ahead of the president’s Sept. 27 decision to send troops to the city—
“Saw 8 people out front and couldn’t even get one of them to flip me the bird… “Very low energy.”
Overall, there’s growing concern among federal law enforcement and former military officers that the focus on immigration enforcement is siphoning manpower and resources from national security and other crimes, with the U.S. particularly vulnerable during a government shutdown. And new focus on a conflict in the Middle East.
Let’s have some baseball.
Love the opening Jack Gilbert quote, what a jarring contrast to how we typically view a world filled with war and hostility. Thank you for orienting us!
Did you on a previous post recommend the book To Go On Living: Stories by Narine Abgaryan? If so, THANK YOU! Profound, moving, eye-opening, well worth reading.