Driving down 3rd Ave. yesterday we were stopped by a demonstration. Hundreds of people, many of them carrying Palestinian flags, were leaving the plaza of the federal courthouse and heading east on Broward Boulevard. Policemen blocked traffic and, at Federal Highway, the demonstrators, no doubt fearing they were headed to the Downtown Jewish Center Chabad a couple blocks down on Broward.
It was refreshing to see a political demonstration downtown, in a city that often seems more interested in boats than in world affairs (the boat show was taking place a few miles away) yet it was depressing too: pro-Palestinian demonstrations are often not just pro-Palestinian, they are also anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic. Like much of the world, the demonstrators were concerned about the people of Gaza, but what about the hostages being held by Hamas? Are their lives unimportant because they’re citizens of Israel, the country viewed as the oppressor? Or, more sinisterly, because they’re Jewish? It would be incredibly refreshing if people could look beyond politics and focus on humanity.
I ran into our Turkish neighbor yesterday evening and asked her how she felt about the election in her country. As I expected, she was very depressed about it. Then she gave me the best political analysis I had heard: “We democrats did not multiply,” she said. She noted that she and her three sisters had produced, among them, only two children. While the less educated, more religious segments of the population were procreating at a much higher rate. This struck me as a problem not just for Turkey, and made me wonder about the future viability of democracy.
We’ve all heard about the persecution of gays in Qatar – and the threat by European teams at the World Cup to have their captains wear armbands bringing attention to it. A letter in the Spectator last week noted that another persecuted group in the country is Christians. According to the letter writer, the watch group Open Doors has Qatar at #18 on its list of countries where Christians are persecuted, one notch below China. He then goes on to suggest that, along with rainbow armbands, the players could wear those with crosses.
I watch political debates out of my love of theater. Last night's duel between Governor Ron DeSantis and Charlie Crist didn't disappoint, the latter at one point accusing the former of telling lies. When this happened, DeSantis wore the look of a stoic but sulking schoolboy. That inner rage and indignation reminded me a little of Richard Nixon, and I wondered if they will carry him as far as they did Tricky Dick.
I suspect most Americans are looking forward to the end of political ads, but probably only here in Florida are they equating our country with Cuba.