We need to start from the dignity of every human life. Every person is precious. Forgetting that, or never accepting it, has left us here.

It hurts to admit this, but in so many places around the world the thugs are winning. If the good guys - those who want more freedom and more dignity for more people - don’t start working together, we are screwed.

I’m a New Yorker. New York will be fine.

We have everything we need to build a better world for all of us. We just need to get organized

I read news from all over the world, and almost everywhere there is a sense that we are stuck, that we are all growing farther apart, that there's no path and no horizon. And yet deep down many of us *know* that things could be better. Do you agree with both feelings?

So no protests against the cold-blooded killing of Venezuelans and Colombians in international waters merely for the suspicion of smuggling? The silence is loud and weird.

There are exactly zero excuses left for not letting international journalists into Gaza now. Open the damn gates.

All the feelings: Happy and relieved this deal is finally happening. Angry it didn't happen earlier. Heartbroken by all the suffering. Hopeful and wary about what comes next. Determined to continue doing what I can. Loving the lovers and bored by the haters. Enough! And onward!

I was at a conference on Friday where someone said that as long as most people in the US have “lots of calories, cheap gas, and videos to watch,” there would be no real pushback against authoritarianism. We are about to find out if that’s true.

We so urgently need a global coalition of the kind and the reasonable. That’s the only thing I want to work on from now on.

My dream team for the Nobel Peace Prize when it's announced in October: the doctors and nurses of Gaza, and Rachel Goldberg and Jon Polin, the parents of Hersh, the hostage who was murdered there a year ago.

The power of words. Tom Barrack, Trump's special envoy to Lebanon, goes to Beirut and tells Lebanese journalists at a press conference not to be "animalistic," thereby reinforcing every anti-American stereotype in the region. Maybe professional diplomats are a good thing?

Anyone can argue with Mamdani on the merits of what he says or does. That's America. But leave his religion out of it. That's also America.

On a very different note, this week my wife and I went to the Whitney to see an exhibition of Amy Sherald’s paintings. It’s literally breathtaking. If you are in New York, don’t miss it.

Two of the proudest and most stubborn nations in history, each with its own myths and stories of martyrdom and survival, bashing each other in the delusional hope that the other one folds first. What could go wrong?

God, we need better leaders.

Idealists of the world, unite! A better worid is possible. We all want this in our hearts. So let’s build it together, starting right now. Coming Tuesday to a website near you :)

Netanyahu while visiting a hospital and talking about the dead and wounded: “We are all paying a price. Even my son had to cancel his wedding.” Despicable moral midget.

What’s wrong when “they” do it, is also wrong when we do it. And vice-versa. Why is this so hard to grasp? Don’t target civilians. Don’t bomb hospitals. Don’t starve and terrrorize entire populations. No exceptions. And stop justifying it when it happens. What is wrong is wrong.

I’m Jewish. Antisemitism is real. And *therefore* it pisses me off when it’s cheapened by calling just anyone an antisemite. Apply wherever you like.

I hate the feeling of being afraid to go to bed because of I might read or hear in the morning.

A cliché that never stops being true. Most people simply want to a) be left alone; and b) live their life and raise their family with some measure of freedom, dignity, and security. All this BS, all over the world, is caused by a tiny minority of sociopaths, with, yes, too many passive followers.

If any Iranians read this, I want to say that there is at least one Israeli (and many more) who thinks that a war between our countries is an idiotic tragedy. God, I am pissed now.

To state the obvious: Trump should absolutely stop Netanyahu from launching an idiotic and politically self-serving attack on Iran.

We are all drowning in waves of BS.

With everything that’s happening around us, we urgently need a global coalition of good people. Of the kind and the reasonable. Of all those who want to help build a world where all people can lead free and dignified lives. And if we can also laugh as we go, even better.

A sign at a protest in Tel Aviv tonight. Yes, they do. (And before someone jumps on me, yes, of course Jewish lives matter too. The people holding the sign are Jewish. And they believe Palestinian lives matter. Walk and chew gum. It’s possible.)

In this moment we are in, humanizing one another is more important than ever. A few weeks ago, a friend who works with children in Gaza sent me this photo from a workshop there. This could be my daughter, or yours.

The silence over the deliberate starvation of Gaza is the loudest I’ve heard in my life.

No contradiction between being an idealist and a realist. Realist idealists are the best :)