Attention to the Unseen

Politico reports: Roman Protasevich knew something was wrong when Ryanair flight FR4978 that was supposed to take him from Athens to Vilnius diverted toward Minsk. “Don’t do this. They will kill me. I am a refugee,” he reportedly told a flight attendant on Sunday as the airliner headed to the Belarusian capital escorted by a fighter jet. He had reason to be afraid. When the Ryanair plane eventually landed in Vilnius with a more than seven-hour delay, he was no…

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Anne Applebaum writes: The Belarusian regime abused air-traffic-control procedures that are designed to inform pilots about genuine emergencies in order to kidnap a dissident. In other words, this is a story that belongs alongside the Russian use of radioactive poisons and nerve agents against enemies of the Kremlin in London and Salisbury, England; Saudi Arabia’s brutal murder of one of its citizens inside a consulate in Istanbul; Iranian assassinations of dissidents in the Netherlands and Turkey; and Beijing’s kidnapping and…

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The Washington Post reports: A series of attacks on Jews in the United States in recent days, linked to the conflict between Israel and Hamas, has increased pressure on law enforcement officials, lawmakers and the Biden administration to take more steps to quell antisemitic violence. Since May 10, at least 26 instances of antisemitism have been reported across the United States, from Los Angeles to New York, according to the Anti-Defamation League and news reports. The cases range from protest…

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Adam Entous writes: In the fall of 2020, [Mark] Vandroff [a retired Navy officer picked by Robert O’Brien, the then new national-security adviser and deputy national-security adviser Matthew Pottinger, to investigate the Havana Syndrome] and his colleagues were shocked by the new cases that came rolling in. One of the most dramatic episodes involved a U.S. military officer stationed in a country with a large Russian presence. As the officer pulled his car into a busy intersection, he suddenly felt…

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Yasmeen Serhan writes: In a conflict where words matter (so much so that even using the word conflict invites disagreement), it’s notable when the words used begin to change. And when it comes to discussing Israel and Palestine in the United States, the words have changed. The first, most obvious shift has come from Congress, where more and more (predominantly progressive) voices have criticized Israel’s human-rights abuses, as well as the U.S. government’s role in sustaining a status quo that…

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Arielle Angel writes: On Nakba Day, 15 May, amid the outbreak of war in Israel/Palestine, I attended a rally in Bay Ridge in Brooklyn, to commemorate the expulsion of more than 700,000 Palestinians from the new Israeli state in 1948, and to protest against the oppression of the Palestinian people in the land between the river and the sea. From the signs I saw as part of that crowd – “This Jew will not stand by” or “Another Jew for…

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NBC News reports: Rabbi Shaoul Hamaoui’s synagogue, the Persian Hebrew Congregation in suburban Chicago, had never been defaced while he’s served as spiritual leader for more than a decade. But that changed Sunday afternoon when a window was shattered and surveillance video captured two people, one carrying a stick and another holding a “Freedom for Palestine” sign. No one was at the synagogue at the time, and police in Skokie, Illinois, said they are investigating the vandalism as a hate…

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The Wall Street Journal reports: In 2008, deep-blue California banned same-sex marriage. In 2018, steadfastly conservative Arkansas and Missouri increased their minimum wage. And last year, Republican-controlled Arizona and Montana legalized recreational marijuana. These moves were all the product of ballot initiatives, a century-old fixture of American democracy that allows voters to bypass their legislatures to enact new laws, often with results that defy the desires of the state’s elected representatives. While they have been a tool of both parties…

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Russell Berman writes: For a politician who’s never lost an election, Phil Scott is not much for campaigning. He didn’t formally announce his candidacy last year for a third term as Vermont’s governor until the state filing deadline in May. Scott ran his race, such as it was, out of a small garage on the outskirts of town that he rented to keep his motorcycles. The space had internet but no plumbing, so his two campaign staffers used porta-potties outside….

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David Brooks writes: Some people get their worldviews from ideological constructs or philosophical movements like “conservatism” or “progressivism.” Biden derives his worldview from lived experience, especially the world of his youth, and how his parents taught him to see that world. It created the moral underpinnings of the big legislative packages he is proposing. The story about his father includes the key elements of the Biden worldview. First, a social location. What matters is not only how a person sees…

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