The Enemy From Within (October 1, 2025)
Welcome to Home & Away. It arrives early this week given both the flood of news and the arrival of Yom Kippur. For those of you observing the holiday, I wish you a meaningful but easy fast.
Shutting Down
The government shutdown is now a reality rather than a possibility. Sooner or later, it will end (as have all shutdowns). The timing may well depend on which party blinks first, which in turn will likely reflect some combination of public unhappiness with the shutdown and which party is most held responsible for it. Obviously, the agreed upon terms to end the shutdown and return to business as usual, be they regarding healthcare or something else, are yet to be negotiated. But the entire process reinforces the view (which readers of Home & Away probably know by now) that this country is badly divided politically and increasingly unable to tackle the challenges it faces. I also expect that the process will be an opportunity for the administration to further gut the government as some of the furloughs become permanent.
Department of War
More disturbing was the content of the meeting between the Secretary of Defense, President Trump, and the nation’s military leadership. There was a lot of deriding of out-of-shape troops, previous military leaders, President Biden, diversity efforts, and more. But what caught my attention more than anything else was President Trump’s rambling set of remarks in which, among a good many other things, he spoke of the need to fight the “war from within.” He went on to declare that “We should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military.”
This comment raises the concerning possibility that the administration is preparing to dispatch the military to cities inside the United States, possibly under the authority of the Insurrection Act of 1807. This law allows a president to circumnavigate another law, the Posse Comitatus Act, that limits the use of the military within the country. The concern with this brazen move is that the objective would have little to do with promoting order (which is not in any real jeopardy) than to create an environment in which those supporting Democratic candidates are intimidated or blocked from voting so that Republicans manage to hold on to the House of Representatives in the midterms and the White House in 2028.
Trump didn’t bother to hide this. “Last month, I signed an executive order to provide training for quick reaction force that can help quell civil disturbances. This is gonna be a big thing for the people in this room, because it’s the enemy from within and we have to handle it before it gets out of control.” Speaking of individuals who disagree with this administration as “the enemy from within” is nothing less than alarming. One must fear for American democracy, as well as for the American military, which could be ordered to carry out a mission that will detract from its unity and lose the trust of wide swaths of the American public.
Giving Peace a Chance
There are two Middle East items I want to highlight. The first is the 20-point plan intended to bring peace to Gaza.
There is much to like in the plan: an end to Israeli military operations, the release of all the hostages, the effective end to Hamas as a fighting and governing force, resumption of “full” humanitarian aid, the creation of a temporary technocratic governing committee of qualified Palestinians and international experts, the establishment of an international stabilization force, and a commitment by Israel not to occupy or annex Gaza, to name a few.
That said, there is also reason to be skeptical. It is not simply that Hamas has yet to sign on to the plan and may not do so. But even if Hamas does, the plan is much more aspirational than operational. It is filled with imprecise and open-to-judgment preconditions that have to be met before much of what is called for falls into place. Such vagueness made it less difficult to reach an agreement with the Israeli government, but likely more difficult to get Hamas on board and even more difficult for the plan to be implemented.
As for the political aspects of the plan – “While Gaza re-development advances and when the PA reform program is faithfully carried out, the conditions may finally be in place for a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood, which we recognize as the aspiration of the Palestinian people. The United States will establish a dialogue between Israel and the Palestinians to agree on a political horizon for peaceful and prosperous coexistence” – they are so vague as to be meaningless. All of which is to say we are a long, long ways from peace or even a promising peace process.
A Real Warning for Israel
The other news relating to the region worth mentioning is a poll put out by the New York Times and Siena University revealing that Americans have gone from being staunchly pro-Israel to more or less split between sympathy for Israel and Palestinians. A majority of American voters (including 7 out of 10 younger voters) now oppose sending additional economic and military aid to Israel. 40 percent of voters said Israel was intentionally killing civilians in Gaza. Support for Israel among Democratic voters has dropped sharply; support among Republican voters has slipped somewhat but is still robust.
How did things get to this point? To some extent it may have been partly inevitable, as Israel morphed from David into Goliath. Some of the shift can no doubt be attributed to anti-Semitism and to the widespread lack of knowledge of history, specifically the forfeited opportunities by Palestinians to make peace. But the shift is also the result of Israeli policy, be it the lack of interest in diplomacy, the expansion of settlements, and the all too often indiscriminate use of force in Gaza over the past two years.
I expect many Israeli leaders and prominent Jews in this country will dismiss the findings in the polls, believing that they represent a temporary blip and finding reassurance in Republican support. They do so at their peril. Republican support for Israel is fragile given the anti-Semitism in some quarters on the right and the isolationist leanings of many. Of course, Democratic alienation is dangerous too, as it is a question of when, not if, Democrats will again share or hold power. All of which to say Jews, Israelis, and Israel’s staunch supporters here ought to consider the extent to which Israel might want to modify its policy to maintain strong support in this country, by far its most important ally.
The Sporting Life
I said what I had to say about the Ryder Cup, both the extraordinary golf and the unruly crowd, in a special edition of this newsletter released Monday. The only thing I would add is that careful thought ought to be given to whomever is chosen to be the American team captain for the next Ryder Cup, to be played in 2027 in Ireland. Nowhere is it written that it must be a current or even former professional golfer. The best college and professional coaches in other sports are often individuals who did not distinguish themselves as players, which is not all that surprising, as it takes a very different skillset to coach than to play.
Elsewhere in the world of sports, I am heartened and relieved that the Giants garnered their first victory of the season. Rookie quarterback Jaxson Dart is off to a good start. The same cannot be said for the Yankees, who lost the first game of their best of three American League wild card playoff with the Red Sox. Yankee manager Aaron Boone made the by-the-book decision to remove starting pitcher Max Fried from the game even though he was still going strong after 100 pitches, but it is far from clear that by-the-book decisions make sense in this format. The Red Sox kept their pitcher in for close to 120 pitches and came away with the critical first game.
The good news is that I will be in synagogue and miss tonight’s game, which I could not bear to watch if it proved to be the season ender for the home team. And if it’s not, if the Yankees win and there is a game three, I can catch it after the holiday ends on Thursday night. Hope springs eternal, which seems to fit the day and the season.
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Richard Haass in the news
Monday, September 29: Project Syndicate on the United Nations.
As a Canadian watching (as much as I could stand to) the Speeches to the assembled flag officers I was (again),appalled at Trump's wild meandering. At times he appeared to be half asleep. If Biden had delivered that, in that manner, he'd have been ridiculed even on CNN and MSNBC. His talk of 'the enemy within' should be truly frightening to ALL Americans. And I didn't much care for yet another 51st state allusion either. I fear your country has degenerated into a very bad state.
There’s a lot packed into this piece.
First, the dangerous casualness with which our leaders now speak about using the military “within” — rhetoric that undermines both civil-military trust and the very idea of democracy as self-government. Having served with many of the men and women now in uniform, I know how corrosive it is when they’re asked to become props in our political theater.
Second, the polling on Israel is a real warning sign — not just for Israel, but for America. A nation’s long-term strength depends not only on its military but on sustaining alliances and the trust of future generations. Losing that is far easier than rebuilding it.
If there’s a common thread here, it’s this: division at home and drift abroad reinforce each other. The harder work is not in scoring political points or securing short-term “wins,” but in doing the unglamorous work of compromise, diplomacy, and trust-building. That’s the only path back to resilience.