It’s become impossible to post anything constructive about Israel/Palestine without a bunch of idiots, fanatics, and bots jumping down your throat.

Words are good. Dialogue is good. Conversation and persuasion are good. Without that, nothing changes,

Thanks Grok. I’m impressed (truly).

I am 64. I hope that in my lifetime I will be able to drive up the coast from Alexandria to Gaza, Tel Aviv, Haifa, Beirut, Tripoli, Latakia, and on to Izmir, where my grandfather was born, in one beautiful and uneventful trip. Here's to that!

Remembering this random encounter I had in New York last year with this Catholic nun from Lebanon. It was so clear, within a few seconds, that we had so much in common across all the arbitrary lines that are supposed to divide us. Stand with your friends, and ignore those lines.

Thinking about all my Lebanese friends on this Independence Day. Much love to you and your gorgeous country.

Mamdani, like all of us, is many things. But above all he is a brilliant and super-ambitious achiever who wants to be not just a mayor, but a great mayor. Every decision he makes is easier to understand through that lense.

Do you think that a year from now things, in general, will be:

Dinner with an old friend a couple of days ago. Him: "We are living in dark times. All we can do is hold our family tight, and wait for the storm to pass. No use trying to fight it." Me: "I hear you, but if we all wait for it to pass, it will never pass." We are both right.

I don’t care if you are a progressive or a conservative, left or right, religious or not. If you want more freedom and more dignity for more people, we are in this together.

If you haven’t read it in a while, it’s a truly magnificent document:

It's always a bit stunning to go back to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. They basically had it all, almost 80 years ago. "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights..." Now if only every UN member state acted that way...

I’m a husband, a father, a brother, a Jew, a New Yorker, a Spanish speaker—and an idealist. And by that I mean that I want to help build a world where all people can lead free and dignified lives, and to do it in a spirit of generosity and mutual respect. I believe that we are

A good moment to be an idealist. Freedom and dignity for all.

New York will be fine. Or better.