In 1991, I had the unique opportunity to host three foreign exchange students from the United Arab Emirates at my home in South Florida.

It was a fascinating window into a culture fundamentally different from our own.

Having previously served as a Peace Corps Volunteer and Instructor of Biology at the University of Liberia (1972–1975), I was intensely curious about the social frameworks that shaped different civilizations.

In West Africa, the traditional system of dispute settlement known as the palaver bears a distant resemblance to a filibuster. Both sides talk, negotiate, and marshal support. The larger and more influential the factions involved, the more likely the matter ultimately rises to a chief or clan elder for resolution.

One evening, discovery came through a casual conversation. One of the students mentioned he had three mothers. Fascinated by the logistics of a polygamous household, I asked what it was like growing up with so many siblings and mothers under one roof.

His answer was strikingly direct.

“It is simple. There is strength in numbers.”

He explained that in the traditional world from which his culture emerged, the group with the greatest numbers usually prevailed in conflict. Maintaining a large family was not merely family planning. It was protection, influence, and survival.

At the time, I viewed his answer as a remarkable piece of sociological insight—a window into an ancient, clan-based worldview. Thirty-five years later, I have come to see it differently.

The German ambassador to Egypt works out of a house that used to belong to a Jewish family. So does the Swiss ambassador. So does the American one. The homes were confiscated in 1956, when the Egyptian government declared, in a proclamation read aloud from the minarets of Cairo and Alexandria, that all Jews were Zionists and enemies of the state.

The families were given one suitcase. They signed documents “donating” everything else to the government. Then they left. The houses are still there; the families are not.

This is where the argument about Israel begins — not in Europe, but here.

There is a story told about Israel with remarkable confidence in universities, at the United Nations, in the opinion sections of newspapers that should know better. The story goes like this: European Jews, traumatized by European persecution, arrived in a land populated by indigenous Arabs and established, by force, a settler state. European guilt. European migration. European power. Colonialism wearing a Star of David.

The story requires you to ignore the majority of Israelis.

Ukraine's increasingly effective long-range drone campaign is piling pressure on Vladimir Putin, striking at the heart of Russia's oil industry, embarrassing the Kremlin on the world stage and compounding a growing list of military and economic setbacks.

The latest blow came on Wednesday when Ukraine staged a massive attack on a major oil port in St Petersburg just hours before the opening of Putin's flagship international investment summit.

The oil terminal on the Gulf of Finland is one of Russia's largest fuel storage and export facilities, handling 12.5 million tonnes of fuel annually.

The strike occurred shortly before the St Petersburg International Economic Forum, known as “Russia's Davos,” where Putin seeks to project economic strength and international relevance despite Western sanctions and the war in Ukraine.

The attack made a mockery of the forum's theme, “Pragmatic dialogue - the path to a stable future,” while also exposing glaring weaknesses in Russian air defences.

The facility is located just 12 miles from the forum venue, yet Moscow failed to prevent the strike.

It is the latest in a string of successful Ukrainian long-range attacks that have increasingly targeted the infrastructure underpinning Russia's war effort.

Europe’s leaders are waking up to the terrifying danger that China could obliterate much of their industrial base within less than a decade, shattering the old political order and the EU project itself.

The Rhodium Group says the Chinese Communist Party is digging in its heels, doubling down on a strategy of systemic over-investment and over-reliance on exports that cannot be absorbed by the rest of the world, and certainly not a Europe already in semi-slump.

The original “Made in China 2025” plan a decade ago targeted a clutch of specific technologies. Beijing is now expanding this into an “industrial policy of everything:” cars, machinery, chemicals, pharma, software, AI, you name it.

China is pursuing this ruthlessly, aiming to capture a larger share of global value added with vertical control of the entire lifecycle.

It is moving towards autarky* in its home market while undercutting the West in its own market and in third countries – everywhere and in every product. [*Autarky:  an economic system or national policy where a country strives for total self-sufficiency, operating as a closed economy without relying on international trade, foreign aid, or global supply chains]

It devours foreign technology without releasing its own. The Rhodium Group said the foundations of G7 manufacturing are under comprehensive threat.