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I had the privilege of meeting with Madagascar’s Ambassador to the United Nations this past week. Madagascar is the fourth largest island in the world. It is a biodiversity haven and hotspot. Ninety percent of its wildlife is endemic. It has been in the news since an Israeli from Bnei Brak was imprisoned for trying to bring rare turtles back to Israel to delight his children. Both China and Russia have tried to gain a foothold in Madagascar since it is strategically situated in the Indian Ocean. It was annexed by France in 1897. It gained its independence in 1960.

I just got back from visiting Israel with Governor Mike Huckabee and about 30 Americans, most of whom had never been to Israel even once. Without exception, they all felt it was a life-changing experience. The group was diverse. We had a CEO from Utah whose grandmother escaped pogroms in Odesa, a former South Carolina Congresswoman who found her family listed at Yad Vashem as having been murdered by the Nazis, and we had the largest grower of watermelons in the United States who marveled at the agricultural accomplishments of Israel. All on the trip were true patriots. None of them winced at traveling to the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron or visiting Ateret Cohanim in the Old Jewish Quarter (the so-called Muslim Quarter). This is the new and at the same time old reality of Israel.

Former National Security Adviser General Michael Flynn made some outrageous comments about the Holocaust recently. He said that there were “thousands of them and not many guards,” implying that the Jews could have fought bare-handed against machine gun nests and survived.

At 5:29 a.m. on July 16, 1945, the first atomic bomb was exploded in the New Mexican desert. The world has never been the same since. A movie devoted to the father of the atomic bomb, Robert Oppenheimer, is currently a hit at the box office, marking 80 years since that fateful day. Oppenheimer apparently said, when watching the explosion, “Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.” Oppenheimer had his regrets, but World War II was finally brought to an end because of his efforts.

On September 1, the American political season begins in earnest. In 2016, the Republican Party had the largest number of candidates to vie for the nomination of either party ever – 17. President Trump was the eventual nominee.

After five elections since 2018, Prime Minister Netanyahu was able to cobble together a coalition of 64 members in December of 2022. Seventy percent of the Israeli population voted. In the United States, only 62.8% of Americans voted in 2020. The year 2020 saw the largest turnout ever for a Presidential election at 158 million.