A clue as to why the prob­lems that beset the world seem intractable lies in the sad fact that the only vote against a UN res­o­lu­tion for  a small but pos­i­tive con­tri­bu­tion to resolv­ing them, was cast by the U.S. delegate.

The res­o­lu­tion was for a plan to adopt a world map that reflects the actu­al size of con­ti­nents, as opposed to the stylised (but nonethe­less extra­or­di­nary) Mer­ca­tor map drawn in the 16^th century.
U.S. deputy rep­re­sen­ta­tive Yary­na Fer­encevych derid­ed the African-led ini­tia­tive as part of a “rad­i­cal ide­o­log­i­cal project” at a time when the inter­na­tion­al body should be focused on “gen­uine prob­lems of inter­na­tion­al peace, pros­per­i­ty, or good relations.”
The capac­i­ty to enter­tain and deal with oppos­ing views is an essen­tial skill for lead­ers, pol­i­cy advis­ers and diplo­mats; peo­ple whose jobs descrip­tions alone imply intel­lec­tu­al intelligence.
A crisp def­i­n­i­tion of that asset  is: “a men­tal qual­i­ty that con­sists of the abil­i­ties to learn from expe­ri­ence, adapt to new sit­u­a­tions, under­stand and han­dle abstract con­cepts, and use knowledge…”
An Ital­ian short­hand expres­sion sums up the dan­ger­ous dearth of those assets in places and at lev­els where they are most need­ed: “Mag­a­ri”. Would that it were so.

                     HOWEVER AND ALAS                                

The  U.S. delegate’s argu­ment is espe­cial­ly spu­ri­ous con­sid­er­ing Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s inane com­pul­sion to try to rename Lake Ontario at a time of tur­moil which he plays no small part in cre­at­ing, cour­tesy of  his inabil­i­ty to see beyond his own ego, and the atten­tion span of a gold­fish, minus the intel­lec­tu­al curiosity.
The con­se­quences of treat­ing parts of the world as incor­rect­ly and unjust­ly delin­eat­ed, based on what you con­sid­er polit­i­cal­ly expe­di­ent or in keep­ing with your ambi­tions and per­son­al beliefs, is on full and obnox­ious show in the form of Amer­i­can ambas­sador to Israel Mike Huckabee.
His insis­tence on using the term “Judea and Samaria” instead of the UN-des­ig­nat­ed, and almost uni­ver­sal­ly accept­ed “Occu­pied West Bank” to describe the area adja­cent to Israel’s inter­na­tion­al­ly accept­ed bor­der, amounts to overt sup­port for vio­lent Israeli set­tlers. The hav­oc and often dead­ly vio­lence they wreak on a dai­ly basis is unabashed­ly tout­ed as cal­cu­lat­ed to dri­ve out Pales­tini­ans (whose roots there go back to Bib­li­cal times, too) on the basis of reclaim­ing land that is Bib­li­cal­ly (mean­ing God-giv­en) des­ig­nat­ed for Jews only.
No less a body than the Amer­i­can Jew­ish Com­mit­tee (AJC) has warned that set­tler vio­lence, “under­mines the rule of law, and ulti­mate­ly weak­ens Israel’s long-term security.”
The AJC also main­tains that set­tle­ment expan­sion “is incon­sis­tent with the aim of a two-state accord.”
The set­tlers world­view is restrict­ed to the bound­aries and hori­zon pre­scribed by the preach­ing and pro­nounce­ments of big­ot­ed and demon­stra­bly brute-mind­ed lead­ers, who appear inca­pable of apprais­ing two things at the same time; today’s deeds and the more recent than Bib­li­cal past.
To whit: “The (Nazi)) Brown­shirts are infa­mous for their oper­a­tion out­side of the law and their vio­lent intim­i­da­tion of Germany’s left­ists and Jew­ish population.”
Apart from their cho­sen ene­mies, the only thing that dif­fer­en­ti­ates vio­lent Israeli set­tlers from Brown­shirts, is a bris.               

                    ON A LESS VIOLENT NOTE                     

Trump and his aides have repeat­ed­ly mocked their Cana­di­an coun­ter­parts over the com­par­a­tive sizes of their econ­o­my and
military.
Appar­ent­ly fac­tor­ing in the pop­u­la­tion dif­fer­ence was beyond their capabilities.
Trea­sury Sec­re­tary (sure­ly a job that requires tact, intel­li­gence, and grav­i­tas, among oth­er assets) Scott Bessant opt­ed for the “Might Makes Right” approach to Canada’s response to Trump’s lat­est tar­iffs: “I don’t think you can be in a tit-for-tat with some­one who’s 13 times larg­er than you are.”
As an insult, that’s on a par with the school­yard taunt “mine’s big­ger than yours”
As both a nego­ti­at­ing tac­tic and point of view. it’s tun­nel vision — and I speak with author­i­ty when I say that’s a decid­ed­ly dis­ad­van­taged way to deal with the world.
It also ignores the results a recent poll that found 20 per­cent of Amer­i­cans sup­port new tar­iffs on Cana­di­an imports, while sev­en­ty-five per­cent of Cana­di­ans back Prime Min­is­ter Mark Carney’s pushback.Add that to Trump bray­ing “nation­al secu­ri­ty” to jus­ti­fy or back up his offen­sive, cocka­mamie Truth Social (per­haps the first-ever dou­ble-end­ed oxy­moron) flat­u­lence that pass­es for pol­i­cy, and you have a tac­tic that isn’t just over-worked, it’s down­right sad.
Worse, the dark­ness of the para­noia it masks obscures an obvi­ous pair­ing of ideas — the more friends you can rely on, the few­er ene­mies you have to fear.
But that, of course, requires an abil­i­ty to deal with two ideas at the same time.
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