We moved my youngest son into his apartment last weekend. Next week is his law school orientation, and the week after he begins his first year of law school. This means that we no longer have any children living at home, just the two of us, our dog Charlotte (Charlie), and cat Fester. It’s a major life change that we knew was coming at some point, then knew exactly when it was coming, and yet somehow are still not prepared for it. The house is very quiet and feels very big. There is a lot of room in the refrigerator and the pantry. The thermostat is set differently. Our lives have completely shifted overnight from what they have been like for the past 26 1/2 years since our oldest child was born. It feels weird.
It’s all part of the circle of life. Change is the constant in life. As I have been paying attention to this change, it has made me realize how frequently we experience change early in life, followed by a long gap. Here are some examples:
- Birth
- Crawling
- Walking
- Talking
- School
- Turning double digits
- Bar/Bat Mitzvah
- Drivers license
- Graduating High School
- College
- Graduating College/working
- Marriage
- Children
- Empty Nest
Most things happen within months or just a few years, except for that last phase of children to empty nest. In my case, it’s been 26 1/2 years in between them, not months, but years—nearly 3 decades. I started wondering what else in the world is like that, and I came upon something else: leadership.
Our leaders in the United States, members of the US House and Senate, serve indefinitely. Lindsey Graham z’l served 23 years before passing away and was running for another 6-year term when he died this year. Joe Biden served 48 years as a Senator, VP, and President. Representative John Dingell of Michigan (1955-2015) served just over 59 years. Robert Byrd of West Virginia began in 1951 and served 51 years in the Senate. We have had 10 other Senators serve at least 40 years, while another 13 have served at least 36 years. The House of Representatives isn’t any better. While 33 members of the House have served at least 40 years, currently there are 10. Almost 1/3 of all members of the US House serving 40 years are currently serving. That’s a shocking number.
For 15 1/2 of the past 17 years, Bibi Netanyahu has been Prime Minister of Israel. For nearly 22 years, Mahmoud Abbas has been the President of the Palestinian Authority (he was elected to a 4-year term, and there have never been elections since then – a fact the world doesn’t care about). Once again, we have examples where the circle of life, the change needed to ensure progress, isn’t happening. Change is an essential part of life and society, and we simply aren’t getting it from leadership.
As I experience the change in my life, no longer having any children living at home, and look at what’s happening in the US and the world, I find myself inspired by Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead. It’s easy to want to give up when you see Jew haters being elected to leadership positions in the US and around the world. It’s easy to feel hopeless and helpless when the lies are told so frequently it feels like Germany in the 1930s. It’s easy to shake our heads and walk away when the two major political parties in the US go so far left and so far right that they are almost the same. It’s been helpful to me to see so many Democrats now standing up against the extreme part that is taking over their party—to see them openly state there is a line they won’t cross. Hopefully, we will see the Republicans do the same. James Carville, a Democratic icon, has been public about it and speaking out loudly.
One of my favorite songs by the Grateful Dead is “The Wheel.” I love the music, the jam that is included, and the words. A few years ago, Dead and Company played a show at The Gorge where they played “Playing in the Band,” then right into “The Wheel,” and then finished with “Playing in the Band” once again. It’s one of my favorite things to listen to, and this 28-minute version of these songs is something I listen to at least once a day. The words, the music, the jamming touches my soul. The more I have listened to it during this time of my life and with what is happening in the world, the more the words of “The Wheel” inspire me to continue forward, to continue the fight, and to believe that we can have a better world, despite the challenges we face with leadership around the world, in the US, in Israel, in the PA, with growing Jew hatred, the lies of the media, and the unwillingness for so many to bother to learn and challenge the lies.
The chorus begins with The wheel is turning and you can’t slow down. This reminds me that the world is constantly moving and changing. I don’t have the power to stop or even slow down the problems with our leaders in the world, in the US, in Israel, of the PA, or the media lies and the massive Jew hatred. The world keeps moving. The key word that is easy to miss in this lyric is “YOU“. It doesn’t say the world can’t slow down; it implores you, the individual, not to slow down. The more the world turns, the more we have to keep up. The more we have to fight. The more we have to be unwilling to give up.
The next line is You can’t let go and you can’t hold on. What a lesson! Quitting and giving up is simply not an option. Holding on and hoping that you will survive as the world turns and changes isn’t an option. Once again, we are being told that we must take action. The status quo is not acceptable; it will not work. History has shown us that those who let go don’t survive. Those who hold on and hope that, because they held on and stayed with those who hated them, they will be allowed to remain. They never are. They don’t survive either. The only way to survive and thrive is to keep moving, keep working, and, as in the first lyric, not slow down but speed up.
The third line reiterates in clear words what has been said in the first two lines. You can’t go back and you can’t stand still. What was is no longer. We can’t return to the days of Israel being a bipartisan issue in the US. Those days are gone and will not come back. We can’t go back to the time when being Jewish or supporting Israel excluded you from being a Progressive. The days when the value of the US-Israel relationship was understood and valued are gone. We can’t go back to where we were, nor can we stay where we are. The sand is shifting and collapsing below us. We must move forward. We can reach a better place and build a new reality, but it will be a new one, not the old one. We must take action.
The final line has always been one of my favorites for many reasons. Now it’s a powerful reminder of what happens if we don’t heed the lessons of the first three lines. If the thunder don’t get you, then the lightning will. There is no safe place to just stay. If it’s not the thunder it will be the lightning. If it’s not the far left, it will be the far right. If it’s not Iran it will be Qatar or the Houthis or Canada or Spain or France or the UK. Standing still and hoping for a better outcome without taking the action to make the better outcome happen means somebody will get us. There are enough out there that hate us, that want us dead, that it will happen. Unless we take action. Unless we fight. Unless we educate ourselves and speak out.
I had the opportunity to spend time with three former Israeli ambassadors while visiting Israel and the West Bank two months ago. They all told me that the upcoming election is for the ‘soul of Israel.’ I have no doubt about that. I have seen through my cousins in Israel and my friends in Israel what is at stake. I have seen firsthand what is happening in the West Bank as a result of this government’s policies being driven by Smotrich and Ben Gvir with Bibi’s implicit approval. The world is telling us that they need to see a different leader of Israel to believe there can be a different future. So I learn. I talk to Israelis to engage them in dialogue so I can learn. I am inspired by the number of younger Israelis who are now running for office in the upcoming election and am excited that while I can’t vote because I’m not an Israeli citizen, I will be there during the upcoming election in October.
America is no different. The midterm election in November may well be for the soul of America. Will we elect moderates or extremists? Will we elect those who love America or hate it? A perfect example of if the thunder doesn’t get you, then the lightning will.
The Wheel was written in the very early 1970s and first appeared on a Jerry Garcia album in 1972. Yet in 2026, it may be more important than ever. It is up to us to not slow down. It is up to us to not let go and not hold on. Because we must always remember that if the thunder doesn’t get us, then the lightning will. James Carville knows this and can show us all both what to do and how to do it.
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Keith, my long time Friend, I agree with almost everything you’ve written here, except your implication that the 4,000 year old extensively corroborated ancestral homeland of the Jewish People must remain the mere 9-15 mile wide sardine can of a state that the ‘49 Auschwitz/armistice lines left it as.
ARABISM has forcibly conquered, colonized, settled, and stolen most of the over 6 million square miles of land it now possesses from assorted other non-Arab peoples, yielding Arabs almost two dozen states to date, including one lopped off of the original 1920 Mandate of Palestine in 1922 and known as Jordan today.
Please don’t tell me that you believe Judaean/Jews have no legitimate rights in Judaea and Samaria —where ARABS, not Jews, were the true relative late comers into the land.
Àn ancestral people doesn’t forfeit its rights in international law to their land because they suffered repeated imperial invasions over millennia, including by invading jihadi Arab armies from the 7th century C.E. onwards.
At minimum, UNSC Res. 242 called for àn effective and reasonable territorial compromise in Judaea and Samaria (and elsewhere as well).
Don’t demonize Israelis and others who insist that Judaeans/Jews get what is rightfully theirs so that Israel does not have to remain àn extremely vulnerable nation while surrounded by millions of enemies seeking its destruction and the slaughter of all of its Jews.
Jerry
Nowhere did I say that. The reality is that ‘Greater Israel’ is not going to happen. Syria is Syria. Jordan is Jordan. Saudi Arabia is Saudia Arabia. The West Bank/Judea and Samaria – call it what you want (I’ve chosen West Bank to be as politically neutral as possible during these times) will end up being what is negotiated. I don’t expect that it will all become Israel for many reasons. The question is what is rightfully theirs and what Israel is willing to give up for long term peace and security. I will demonize those who are terrorists and involved in terrorist behavior. If we can’t call our own out, we have no right to expect anybody else to do the same with theirs. The new ‘settlers’ are stooges of Smoltrich committing crimes and are not being arrested or held accountable for it. I hope that you, my long time friend, understand the difference between the Jews who are creating cities and living in peace and those who are terrorizing those who live there to get them to move.
Here’s the one thing ARABISM will never have despite its concoction of obfuscating fairytales and outright lies to try to prove otherwise:
https://www.newenglishreview.org/in-the-arab-israeli-conflict-the-one-crucial-thing-arabism-will-always-lack-is-corroborating-evidence/
I have spent plenty of time with Palestinians (its what they call themselves and I’m ok using what they want to be called) who want to live in peace with Israel, hate the PA, hate the terrorists, and want a better future for everybody, Jews and Arabs. The PA is the big problem along with Iran, Hamas, and Hezbollah as well as this current Israeli government.
It’s time to stop looking back and trying to argue over who’s land it is. Both peoples have lived there a long time. We have been there longer but they aren’t newcomers either. The key is finding a way to live together TODAY and into the future. It’s our only hope for the Israel we want. It won’t be easy, it won’t be fast, and will require a different reality on the ground that may take a long time to create. The ‘all or nothing’ approach hasn’t worked for either side.
Please note I said a reasonable territorial compromise à la UNSC Res.242 was what I expected, and that Jews not be expected to give up their ancestral claims simply because they were conquered by assorted imperial powers over the millennia, including by the alien Arab caliphal armies as well.
Of course Jewish terror must be addressed. But to equate it with what Arabs from both the Pay to Slay Fatah/PLO/PA and Hamas and Islamic Jihsd have exposed Jews to, resulting in thousands of Jews butchered, decapitated, disembodied, gang raped, and so forth plays right into the hands of those trying to claim moral equivalency between Israeli normative behavior and that of far too many Arabs towards Jews.
Arabs can travel through Israel without fear of being slaughtered.
Just yesterday an Israeli couple accidentally wandered into àn Arab town and was savagely attacked, and had to be miraculously rescued by the IDF..
You put too much faith in alleged Arab moderates, who too often in the past had a change of heart when realizing that, after all, their ingrained age old religious teachings about Arab and Muslim supremacy, especially towards “kilab yahud (Jew dog sons of apes and pigs)” once again is recalled.
Are you familiar with the Hebron Sheikhs who despise the PA and Hamas, and whom Professor Mordechai Kedar has been in touch with?
He says they’re willing to truly make peace with Israel and join the Abraham Accords as the Emirate of Hebron—having good relations with the Jewish community there.
The man stumbling block is that the State Department has poured in billions of dollars into the PA and built it a virtual army of 70,000 men with substantial military equipment and training.
Given the Perfect Storm, what do you think might very well happen if Israel doesn’t get a reasonable territorial compromise in traditional Jewish ancestral lands where their Prophets preached, kings were anointed and born, where they rose up in revolt against Macedonian Greeks and Syrians trying to outlaw their religion, rose up four more times from the 2nd century to 7th century C.E. against Rome and Byzantium—right up until the eve of the Arabs’s own colonizing, settling, imperial jihadi conquests.
If Great Britain can go to war and demand sovereignty over the Falkland Islands 8,300
miles away from London; if America can claim sovereignty over Guam and Samoa; etc., etc….how can anyone dare claim Judaeans/Jews don’t have any substantial rights in the very land that their name comes from? Judean, Jew, a person whose origins were originally in the land of Israel/Judaea/Zion?
Again, an ancestral people doesn’t lose their rights in international law because they suffered repeated imperial invasions and forced exiles.
I wish I could be joining you, my Friend.
The main library system of the Abraham Accords’s UAE is the latest to incorporate my forever timely book into their educational network http://q4j-middle-east.com
It’s in active use, along with some of my other publications, in numerous universities and other institutions of higher learning all over the globe…Georgetown, American University of Beirut, Cornell, Bethlehem University in Fatahland (courtesy of Slick Wiliy’s infamous Oslo Peace (of the grave) Accords, Tel Aviv University, NYU, UF, Kobe University Japan, UC-Irvine, University of Alberta, Wesleyan, Penn State, Paris’s acclaimed Institut d’Etudes Politiques (Sciences Po), and so forth.
Please consider spreading the word around about it in your travels. Can be acquired via Amazon and such, or personalized via Gerald.Honigman@gmsil.com
Be well…All my best wishes…
Jerry
It’s not up to us to decide. It’s up to Israel and the Israeli government. I’m not advocating a bad deal or any deal. And now isn’t the time for any deal until the PA is out of power. The Palestinian people who aren’t on the PA payroll hate them.
The current government of Israel is also a terrible problem. This election is critical for Israel and the Jewish diaspora.
The argument about history has proven to be a losing one. We aren’t going anywhere. They aren’t going anywhere. So eventually we are going to have to figure out a way to live together. That’s the reality.