My last post explored the history and meaning behind:” Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf. To my mind, there is no better phrase that captures the Israeli zeitgeist since October 7th: the importance of facing up to the broken hopes and dreams of the past, harsh realities of the present and the rocky path forward. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf also captures the need for radical acceptance of the fallibility and even the corruption of UN leadership – the fish rots from the head – and hypocrisy and bias of leading global media.
In a nutshell “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf ” means who is afraid of staring our illusions full in the face, recognizing them, and naming them – no matter the cost, up to and including life itself.
Fundamentally I am a preternaturally happy and optimistic person – unlike Virginia Woolf, and appreciate your hanging with me for what is a necessary downer. (Stick with me on this and I promise to share an amazingly delicious high-protein summer cool chocolate treat for my next post.)
There also are just too, too many bad actors to include everything in one go. Today I am focusing only on the UN head himself – Secretary General Antonio Guterres and the destructive role he has played, together with the well-documented bias of global media, where the BBC provides a wonderful example of the worst of the worst.
It may be challenging for some to recognize that the core mission of the UN has been subverted – turned on its head – by design. In one example – something that I just saw online today –relates to Israel’s long delayed counter attack against the Houthis that literally have been attacking Israel for nine months. Predictably UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has issued a statement expressing his “deep concern” about Israeli airstrikes against Yemen, failing to include critical context that this Israeli counter-attack follows nine full months of unprovoked Houthi attacks on Israel, 220+ drone and missile attacks, and the most recent attack in Tel Aviv that killed one civilian in his home and injured 10 more.
Now we also know – from their own statements and actions – that Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthi and even terror proxies in Syria and Iraq have been funded, trained and supplied by governments in the self-described New Axis Powers: Russia, Iran, China and North Korea, together with supporting players Qatar – foreign policy vassal of Iran – and Turkey, where Iran is first among equals. It goes without saying that Guterres has never expressed concern about Iran’s transfer of offensive drones, missiles, etc., to the Houthis, Hezbollah, or Tehran’s terror proxies in Iraq and Syria. Instead he has falsely accused and targeted Israel for inclusion in a black list of states that targets children – not Hamas that has literally slaughtered and seized innocent children on October 7th, but Israel. Of course the UN has said nothing and done nothing to address the very dangerous role played by New Axis Powers. One hard reality – the one we need to face is that unless and until the New Axis Powers are forced to stop funding, supplying and training their terror proxies there can be no hope of peace.
And, believe it or not, instead of confronting Iran’s domestic widespread human rights abuses and its role as the single greatest funder of global terror, Guterres actually led a tribute to the late Iranian President Raisi following his death in a helicopter accident in May 2024, :
You literally can’t make this stuff up.
Turning from UN leadership to global media, we also need to recognize and call-out willingness of the BBC, Washington Post and New York Times, among others, to accept without question bald faced lies of Hamas and to blame Israel at nearly every turn regardless of the truth.
The BBC in particular has become the poster child for pro-Hamas coverage – an easy target for Israeli satire, but very damaging for the 400 million people around the globe who rely on the BBC for news of the world. Here are two particularly salient examples of BBC follies, seen through the lens of Israel’s long running satirical program Eretz Nehederet:
In a case of life imitating art, the BBC in real life once again had to apologize for baseless accusations against Israel just after the airing of the Eretz Nehedert skit. Again. you can’t make this stuff up.
(There are so many great satirical online sketches that have come out of the tragedy and horrors of October 7th. Let me know if you are interested in seeing more.)
The foregoing just scratches the surface, I realize. The important thing is to be clear-eyed about what is going on in the world around us, for example not to believe fairy tales about how the UN calls out evil and protects the global community, or that the global media has no bias. This is an important theme that I will return to in the future.
October 7th and its aftermath has proven the importance of living in reality, to recognize the world as it is and not as we wish it to be. Only then can we build a better, more peaceful future.
Your Second-Middle Age: 