Our Friday News Analysis | What the World Reads Now!

Living Words of Saint Pope John Paul II | “Don’t Get Discouraged So Easily”

What will become of our world—divided by armies, ideologies, poverty, wealth, freedom, and oppression? Wars cause death and sorrow, spreading terror.
We recall loved ones injured or killed by violence close to us.
It’s hard to grasp how far human minds and hearts can stray from the truth.

On this dark horizon, the Gospel calls: “Do not be easily shaken.” These struggles test truth and build courage. They challenge us to shape a just, humane, divine-worthy world and to embrace our roles in society, government, and the Church.

Amid shadows, goodness quietly persists, unseen like a seed until it blooms.
Mother Teresa began with humble acts before her work gained global recognition.
So, don't lose hope too quickly.

Look for the good. Believe in it. Help it grow.

Saint Pope John Paul II
München, 19. November 1980

This week’s reflection: “Don’t Get Discouraged So Easily”

Building the Bridge Foundation

               Saint Pope John Paul II spoke to billions over six decades, to young people, to presidents and peacemakers, and to the forgotten and the powerful alike.

               John Paul II was a theologian, a world leader, a statesman, a poet, and a pastor, revered by billions.

               He addressed war and peace, human dignity, mercy, and the deepest longings of the human heart.

               Those words did not stay in the past. They are living words. And they speak now.

               Even more alive in our time, the Pope's Message invites readers to pause and reflect.

               evangelicalpope.org

               There is no cost. There never will be.

OUR WEDNESDAY NEWS ANALYSIS | U.S., ISRAEL, PALESTINE: THREE DRAMATIC ELECTIONS IN ONE MONTH

‘IN ENGLISH, HE PRAISES TRUMP’: ARAGHCHI SAYS NETANYAHU IS A ‘SERPENT’

By Palestine Chronicle Staff
Published August 31, 2026

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi accused Benjamin Netanyahu of deceiving Washington into fighting Iran while publicly praising President Donald Trump.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. (Design: PC)

Key Takeaways

• Araghchi accused Netanyahu of deceiving the US into waging war against Iran on Israel’s behalf.
• He pointed to Netanyahu’s remarks about spending 1,000 hours on US television to “influence” American opinion.
• His comments follow reported concerns among Trump’s “America First” allies over Netanyahu’s push for further escalation against Iran.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of manipulating the United States into entering the war against Iran, describing the Israeli leader as a “serpent” and pointing to his own public statements about influencing American opinion.

In a post on X, Araghchi said Netanyahu had spoken openly in Hebrew about his ability to influence Washington while adopting a markedly different tone when addressing the US president in English.

“Netanyahu explicitly laughs about how he ‘influenced’ America through 1,000 hours of airtime on US networks,” Araghchi wrote. “In English, he praises POTUS’ leadership,” he added.

Editorial | We Can All Do Better If We Work TOGETHER

By Abraham A. van Kempen
4 September 2026

To be continued on Monday, 14 September 2026.

Please note! We’re taking next week off and will resume our three-weekly editions on Monday, 14 September 2026.

With Every Good Wish to you, I am,

Sincerely yours,

Abraham A. van Kempen
Senior Editor

Building the Bridge Foundation, The Hague
A Way to Get to Know One Another and the Other

Remember! Diplomacy is catalytic—transformative —while military action is cataclysmic—destructive and catastrophic.

When faced with the options to be good, bad, or ugly, let’s build bridges, not burn them. After all, mutual deterrence reigns.

PUTIN SIGNALS OPENNESS TO UKRAINE DEAL, THANKS US AND CHINA FOR PEACE EFFORTS

Putin signaled his willingness to pursue a deal to end the war in Ukraine, while US President Donald Trump said he was ready for another summit with Putin when both sides are prepared to work toward a peace agreement.

Russian President Vladimir Putin. Photograph: (AFP)

By Ajaypal Choudhary
3 September 2026

Russia and Ukraine continue a fierce, four-and-a-half-year war of attrition. During this ongoing conflict, Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested on Thursday (September 03) that he is open to a resolution, stating, "Ultimately, the problem must be resolved by the countries involved in the conflict – Russia and Ukraine. This is the correct approach."

Putin also expressed gratitude to several nations, such as the United States and China, for their efforts in supporting a potential peace agreement. "We appreciate everyone working towards a settlement. Is there a hope? In my view, yes."

During an economic forum in eastern Russia, Putin accused Ukraine of targeting civilian merchant ships and allegedly threatening civilian aircraft with attacks. He called these actions “acts of state terrorism” and stated they hinder the progress of bilateral peace negotiations.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy warned airlines and insurers this week that Russian airspace is now perilous because of Ukrainian drones. Nevertheless, he assured that Ukraine will only focus on Russian military sites and will not pose a threat to civilian aircraft.

The front lines have mostly stayed static throughout the conflict, transforming it into a drawn-out war of attrition. Peace negotiations have been on hold since February. Meanwhile, both sides have increased long-range air strikes targeting each other's territories and key infrastructure.

Putin signals continued US engagement

Putin said Russia stays in touch with Trump's administration, which tries to broker peace between Russia and Ukraine.

               “We favor restoring full-scale relations with the United States. However, this does not depend on us alone; it depends on the American side. But from what I understand, sense, and observe, President Trump is committed to such positive, constructive engagement,” he said.

Putin stated that Russia and the US maintained communication via their intelligence agencies and Trump's representatives. Last week, CIA Director John Ratcliffe met with Russian intelligence leaders in Moscow, but neither party revealed the details of their discussion.

Trump wants the right time for another Putin summit

Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump has said he is ready to hold another summit with Putin, but wants the meeting to take place when Moscow is prepared to work towards a peace deal to end the war in Ukraine.

Asked whether Putin would agree to another summit in the near future, Trump said he believed the Russian leader would be willing to meet. However, he stressed that he wanted the meeting to happen at the right time.

               “He'd do it. I want it, but I want to do it when we're ready to do a peace deal,” Trump said to reporters at the Oval Office.

IS THE SHANGHAI COOPERATION ORGANIZATION (SCO) CHALLENGING THE WESTERN-LED WORLD ORDER?

The leaders of China, Russia, Iran, and other Eurasian powers gathered in Kyrgyzstan for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit.

• As conflicts from Ukraine to the Middle East reshape the global order, many critics see the SCO as a growing challenge to the West.
• Can Türkiye balance its NATO commitments while deepening ties with Eurasia?
• A quarter century ago, China and Russia quietly set out to build a regional security group.

Today, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization spans much of Eurasia, representing nearly half the world's population. What began as a forum focused on regional security has evolved alongside the growing global ambitions of China and Russia.

• Many critics now see the SCO as an emerging challenge to the Western-led order.
• That was on full display at the latest SCO summit in Bishkek. Russia and Iran, both facing Western sanctions over the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, used the gathering to project an image of partnership rather than isolation.
• China, meanwhile, continued its balancing act, maintaining deep economic ties with the West while strengthening relations with Moscow and Tehran.
• President Erdogan also attended as Türkiye seeks a greater role in Eurasia. He met President Putin to discuss the war in Ukraine and security in the Black Sea. He also met Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev as Ankara looks to revive normalization efforts with Armenia.
• As wars reshape alliances and rival blocs gain influence, the bigger question is no longer whether the global order is changing, but who will shape what comes next.

Guests: Einar Tangen, Senior Fellow at the Center for International Governance Innovation; Glenn Diesen, Professor at the University of Southeastern Norway

Watch the Video Here (25 minutes, 27 seconds)

TRT Turkey
1 September 2026

ESSAY | The West Should Listen: The World Is No Longer Whispering – The Shanghai Cooperation Organization is not merely a summit. It is a warning that neither unipolar command nor multipolar isolation can save us; the only future worth having is connective, relational, and peaceably shared.

By Abraham A. van Kempen
4 September 2026

Let me say it as plainly as I feel it: the world is tired of being spoken down to, but it should also be tired of being divided into rival fortresses. When the Shanghai Cooperation Organization gathers in Bishkek, I do not see another gray parade of diplomats and paper flags. I see a storm front over Eurasia. I see old ceilings cracking. I hear countries that were once told to wait outside the room now dragging their own chairs across the floor—not to build a new throne, but to build a wider table.

For decades, too many nations were asked to call dependence partnership, humiliation patience, and obedience peace. They were lectured about democracy by powers that embraced convenient tyrants, preached sovereignty by governments that crossed borders, and scolded about rules by capitals that treated the dollar, the bank, the base, and the blacklist as instruments of discipline. I am not asking you to mistake Beijing for a saint, Moscow for a savior, or Tehran for innocence. I am asking you to see the cage. A gilded cage is still a cage.

“The prime directive is not one empire, or many lonely sovereignties. It is connection: nations doing better because they choose to do better together.”

That is why Bishkek matters. Around that table sit rivals, wounded powers, sanctioned states, hard bargainers, and governments no honest writer should baptize as angels. But history rarely moves through clean hands. It moves through coal dust, oil routes, rail lines, ports, and bruised pride. And beneath all the discord, one drumbeat keeps rising: the script is no longer yours alone.

This is what Western elites keep missing. The SCO is not powerful because it is pure. It is powerful because grievance has grown bones. Resentment now has roads, pipelines, payment systems, energy deals, security talks, and summit photographs. But if those roads become only escape routes from one master to another, the world will have learned nothing. Connectivity is the point: ports that feed people, corridors that reduce fear, currencies that widen choice, diplomacy that keeps neighbors talking, and cooperation that makes conflict less profitable than peace.

Washington may call this revisionism. Europe may draft another worried statement and pretend concern is strategy. But out beyond the club, nobody is required to confuse Western anxiety with world danger. The scandal is not that countries are diversifying away from U.S. dominance. The scandal is that anyone believed they would remain grateful tenants in a house they helped build.

So no, the SCO’s rise does not mean the West is finished. It means the West can no longer snap its fingers and expect the planet to stand at attention. But the answer is not a new autocracy with a different accent, nor a multipolar world of proud islands staring each other down. The answer is relationship. The old gatekeepers still speak as if history belongs to them, but history has slipped its leash. It is moving through ports and pipelines, currencies and corridors, side meetings and midnight bargains. The question is whether those connections become weapons—or bridges. If they become bridges, the tide will not drown us. It may finally carry us toward one another.

No More Kneeling

Say it cleanly. Say it without trembling. The world is not a colony with better lighting. It is not a waiting room for Western approval. It is not a battlefield where the same old powers get to bomb, bank, blacklist, and baptize their actions as order. The rise of the SCO is the sound of the lock snapping. It says: no nation should have to bow to trade, kneel to borrow, starve to comply, or surrender its voice to be called civilized.

The future will not belong to those who command the world,
but to those brave enough to connect it.

This new world will not be clean. It will not arrive perfumed, perfect, or innocent. But it will arrive. It is already arriving—in rail lines, ports, currencies, summits, oil routes, security pacts, and the stubborn heartbeat of nations that have had enough. Yet the goal cannot be revenge. It cannot be permanent camps, permanent suspicion, permanent retaliation. Dignity without connection becomes loneliness. Autonomy without coexistence becomes another cold war. The real victory is not to make the West smaller or the East larger. It is to broaden the human circle.

So remember this: people remember. Nations remember. Continents remember. They remember the lecture, the loan, the threat, the base, the blacklist. They remember who built cages—but they also remember who built bridges. And when memory finally stands up, let it not kick the door open only to build another wall. Let it open the door wider. Let it choose contact over contempt, coexistence over command, and a world where everyone does better because everyone is finally allowed to belong.

Call to Action: Build the Wider Table

So let us stop worshiping maps as if borders were destinies and start treating them as seams that can be stitched. Let leaders compete less over who commands the world and answer one harder question: who is willing to connect it? Build the rail lines, open the ports, protect the food routes, de-weaponize the banks, keep the diplomats talking, and make peace more profitable than fear. Refuse the old choice between empire and enclosure. Refuse the new temptation to answer domination with domination. The task before us is larger, braver, and more human: build systems where dignity travels, where security is mutual, where prosperity is shared, and where no people must disappear for another people to rise. If the world is no longer whispering, then let it speak in the language of bridges. Let it choose the wider table.

Let it begin now.

MEARSHEIMER: HAS THE WAR TURNED AGAINST IRAN?

The common belief is that the US's confrontation with Iran has been a major strategic mistake.

• As John Mearsheimer has consistently pointed out, Washington entered the conflict aiming for regime change, halting Iran’s uranium enrichment, destroying its missile capabilities, and dismantling its militia networks.
• None of these goals have been achieved.
• Additionally, the damage to America’s alliances and the risks to US military bases across the region highlight why Mearsheimer’s view—that President Trump’s approach was a foreign-policy failure—has gained widespread support.

However, what if Iran itself is now in real trouble?

• The US naval blockade is causing economic hardship for Iran, while Tehran’s efforts to close the Strait of Hormuz have so far not triggered the predicted global energy crisis.
• The global economy remains surprisingly resilient, and Iran’s oil exports are severely limited.
• Could it be that, as Walter Russell Mead suggests, Trump might keep energy flowing through the Strait while tightening sanctions on Tehran?

Have Iran’s leaders overestimated their position?

John Mearsheimer is a Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago and wrote The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (2001).

Watch the Video Here (34 minutes, 21 seconds)

Switzerland with Tom Switzer
Substack.com
2 September 2026

ESSAY | Pain Is Not Victory

By Abraham A. van Kempen
4 September 2026

Wars rarely fail all at once. They fail first in language: when pressure is called progress, when damage is mistaken for strategy, and when leaders begin measuring success not by what has been achieved, but by what has not yet collapsed. That is why the exchange between Tom Switzer and John Mearsheimer is worth taking seriously.

Switzer asks the questions that should not be brushed aside. What if the world economy has absorbed the shock better than expected? What if the Strait of Hormuz is not quite the hand around the throat of global commerce we imagined? What if pressure on Iran is not theatre, but weather—slow, enclosing, patient?

I understand the force of that argument. Oil has not exploded into panic. Markets have adapted. Tankers have found other paths. The great machinery of the world has groaned, adjusted, and kept moving. There is a lesson in that, and Switzer is right to insist we see it.

Switzer’s Question

His value is that he disturbs certainty. Those of us who distrust war can become too comfortable in our distrust. We can assume failure too quickly, as if pessimism were proof of wisdom. Switzer reminds us that events sometimes refuse our scripts. Systems bend. States improvise. Pain accumulates in silence.

But there is a line I cannot cross with him. A lower oil price is not a peace settlement. A rerouted tanker is not surrender. A country made poorer, angrier, and more isolated has not necessarily been defeated. Sometimes it has only been driven deeper into itself.

Mearsheimer’s Answer

That is where Mearsheimer’s realism cuts cleanly. Pain is not victory. Suffering is not capitulation. Pressure matters only if it achieves the political end it promised. Otherwise, it becomes punishment searching for a theory, violence dressed up as patience.

This matters because nations under existential pressure do not always soften. Often they harden. Fear, pride, grievance, and survival can fuse into something dense and defiant. The blows meant to bend a people may instead teach them to stand more stubbornly in the storm.

And war has its own quiet bookkeeping. Depleted arsenals. Strained fleets. Nervous allies. Higher prices. Rivals watching from the wings. The bill does not always arrive with smoke and sirens. Sometimes it arrives as fatigue, distraction, and the slow narrowing of national imagination.

Where I Come Down

So I find myself listening to Switzer with respect, but ending with Mearsheimer. Switzer is right to ask whether the pessimists have become too certain. Mearsheimer is right to ask the harder question: what, exactly, has been won?

If Iran has not surrendered, if its regime has not fallen, if its strategic capacity has not been decisively removed, then we should be honest enough to say so. Endurance in the market is not success in war. Avoiding catastrophe is not the same as achieving victory.

The danger, always, is that leaders continue not because the strategy is working, but because stopping would reveal how badly it has failed. They call stalemate patience. They call exhaustion resolve. They ask ordinary people to pay for language that has lost contact with reality.

My verdict is simple: pressure without a political result is not strategy. It is a road with no destination. And once power starts walking that road, citizens have a duty to ask where it leads, who must bleed for it, and who benefits from pretending the map still makes sense.

The most dangerous phase of war is not the first shot, but the long aftermath of refusing to admit it missed. That is when hope impersonates strategy, stalemate is sold as resolve, and citizens are asked to fund the theatre of saving face. A war that cannot name its victory should at least be honest enough to name its failure.

RUSSIAN RUMORS OF MOBILIZATION /ANDREI MARTYANOV & LT COL DANIEL DAVIS

Ultimately Deterrence Reigns

Lt. Col. Daniel Davis’ conversation with Andrei Martyanov presents a forceful discussion of Russia’s military-industrial capacity, air defense depth, and the strategic vulnerabilities attributed to Ukraine and NATO.

• The speakers frame the conflict less as a contest of isolated battlefield events than as a test of industrial endurance, intelligence quality, and integrated defense systems. Particular emphasis falls on missile and drone production, refinery strikes, energy infrastructure, and the gap between public claims and operational realities.
• ANDREI MARTYANOV is knowledgeable about Russian military and naval topics. Born in Baku, USSR, in 1963, he graduated from the Kirov Naval Red Banner Academy and served as an officer on ships and in staff roles with the Soviet Coast Guard until 1990.
• In the mid-1990s, he relocated to the United States, where he worked as a laboratory director at a commercial aerospace firm.

Martyanov blogs at Reminiscence of the Future and authored Losing Military Supremacy, The (Real) Revolution in Military Affairs, and Disintegration: Indicators of the Coming American Collapse.

Watch the Video Here (34 minutes, 07 seconds)

Host: Lt. Col. Daniel Davis (Ret.)
Deep Dive
3 September 2026

ESSAY | Stop Cheering. Start Counting – A spoken-word warning about war, evidence, factories, and the price of believing noise before numbers.

By Abraham A. van Kempen
4 September 2026

Listen!

Martyanov’s argument comes like cold air through a broken window. You feel it before you like it. It does not comfort. It does not flatter. It asks one hard question: are we looking at this war as it is, or as we need it to be?

Because wars are not won by applause.

• Not by slogans.
• Not by studio maps.
• Not by soft words wrapped in flags.

Wars are fed by steel. By fuel. By factories. By workers on night shifts. By repair crews with dirty hands. By radar screens glowing in the dark. By warehouses that still have something left when the sirens start again.

So count.

• Count the drones.
• Count the missiles.
• Count the interceptors.
• Count the factories.
• Count the days it takes to replace what was burned. Count the difference between a promise and a production line. A speech can warm a room.

A factory fills the launcher.

But do not bow to numbers just because they arrive loud.

• Numbers can wear uniforms too.
• They can salute.
• They can march.
• They can lie for a flag.
• So drone counts need proof. Missile counts need proof.
• Refinery damage needs proof. Interception rates need proof.
• Claims about NATO weakness need proof. Show the photos.
• Show the budgets. Show the satellite images.
• Show the wreckage.
• Show what came down.

Show what got through.

That is the heartbeat of the piece.

Do not swallow Martyanov whole. Do not spit him out because he sounds harsh. Hold the claim up to the light. Turn it slowly. Ask what supports it. Ask what weakens it. Ask who gains if you believe it too quickly.

And still—do not look away.

Russia has absorbed punishment. Russia has adapted. Russia has kept producing. That does not make it invincible. That does not make every claim true. But it does make the question thunder in the room: can NATO build fast enough, move fast enough, replace fast enough, if the storm grows wider?

Hope is not a plan.

• Pride is not protection.
• A flag is not an interceptor.
• A headline is not a factory.

So, start counting first.

• If the evidence is weak, say so.
• If the evidence is strong, face it.
• War punishes dreams.
• It sends the bill in smoke.
• In steel.
• In darkness.
• In lives.

Trust the Evidence, Not the Volume

The strongest way to read Martyanov is neither to swallow his claims whole nor dismiss them because they are uncomfortable. The right test is evidence. Russian production numbers should be checked against budgets, procurement, factory expansion, launch rates, and intelligence assessments. Air-defense claims should be measured against confirmed impacts, damage reports, satellite imagery, and recovered wreckage. Refinery and energy-strike claims should be compared with fuel prices, export restrictions, repair timelines, and grid data. The conclusion is simple but demanding: powerful arguments deserve powerful scrutiny. If the facts support them, they matter. If they do not, they belong outside serious analysis.

Russia’s impact on deterring NATO could be decisive.

BERLIN APPROVES $930 MILLION IN ARMS SALES TO ISRAEL

The major deals follow a temporary suspension of exports over West Jerusalem’s plans to occupy Gaza

FILE PHOTO: German Chancellor Friedrich Merz (L) shakes hands with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (R) at a joint press conference in West Jerusalem, Israel, on December 7, 2025. © Global Look Press / Amos Ben Gershom

HomeWorld News
Published 3 Sep, 2026 02:19

The German government authorized nearly €800 million ($930 million) in arms exports to Israel from January to June, four times the total approved for West Jerusalem last year, according to Der Spiegel citing a government reply to a parliamentary inquiry.

The government states about 20% of exports related to German-Israeli defense collaborations benefiting the German Armed Forces. Over two-thirds of the export value involves the INS ‘Drakon’, a Dolphin II-class submarine built for Israel by TKMS, nearly 70 meters long. This submarine, capable of staying submerged for weeks, left Kiel on Tuesday and likely heads to Israel.

Berlin said the rest included non-weapon equipment like small arms, ammunition, explosives, and drones, according to Der Spiegel.

READ MORE: Germany to lift arms export restrictions on Israel

The Left Party criticized Berlin for exhibiting "boundless double standards" regarding the deals. Lea Reisner, the party’s MP, pointed out that while [Chancellor] Friedrich Merz appeared to be outraged by [Israeli Security Minister Itamar] Ben-Gvir’s inhumane remarks, the federal government was still engaging in cooperation with a government and military facing genocide charges before the International Criminal Court. Additionally, it was supporting settler violence in the West Bank and maintaining the occupation of southern Lebanon.

Last month, the controversial Israeli minister said he considered the enclave “to be ours” and urged the IDF to carry out dozens of “targeted assassinations” there each night, claiming that some in the Palestinian enclave “are not people.”

Germany’s War Weapons Control Act requires that licenses be “always denied” when there is a risk that weapons will be used in “peace-disturbing acts” or when Germany’s obligations under international law could be impaired.

READ MORE: If only there was a German word for Berlin’s UN humiliation

In August 2025, Berlin temporarily halted arms exports to Israel over West Jerusalem’s plan to seize Gaza City, but lifted restrictions in November after a US-backed ceasefire with Hamas. Since then, Israeli forces have continued operations in Gaza and southern Lebanon, where they occupy parts of Lebanon.

Berlin is expanding military cooperation with West Jerusalem. The German Navy tested an Israeli ballistic missile in the North Atlantic, with a range of up to 500 km. Germany has no ballistic missiles, only Taurus cruise missiles.

Germany’s firm support of Israel, accused of genocide in a South Africa case at the International Court of Justice, likely affected Berlin’s global support, shown by its failure to secure a Security Council seat in June.

CHAS FREEMAN: U.S. & IRAN BACK AT WAR & NATO'S ABUSE OF UKRAINE

Ambassador Chas Freeman, a former Assistant Secretary of Defense, received the Department of Defense’s top public service awards for his work on creating a NATO-focused European security framework after the Cold War and for restoring defense and military ties with China. He also served as the U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia during Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm.

Watch the Video Here (56 minutes, 10 seconds)

Host: Prof. Glenn Diesen
Substack.com
3 September 2026

When Power Forgets Wisdom – Ambassador Chas Freeman’s warning is simple and severe: bombs do not buy obedience, sanctions do not replace diplomacy, and a great power that refuses the off-ramp may find itself driving deeper into the storm.

Ambassador Chas Freeman’s warning is not wrapped in thunder for drama’s sake. It is the quiet bell before the storm. He argues that America keeps mistaking force for strategy, sanctions for diplomacy, and escalation for strength. Again and again, Washington finds an exit ramp, then drives past it with its eyes closed.

Freeman’s point is painfully simple: bombs rarely teach obedience; they breed resistance. Sanctions, once imposed, become political theater at home and survival training abroad. Nations adapt. Markets bend. People find another road, another currency, another partner. Pressure meant to isolate can instead weave new alliances.

He sees the same tragic rhythm in Iran and Ukraine: provoke, punish, deny, repeat. Each strike invites a counterstrike. Each humiliation hardens the heart. Each missed chance for negotiation makes the next one colder, costlier, farther away.

And here is the ache of it: real power is not the clenched fist. It is the open door. It is the courage to bargain before graves multiply. Freeman is asking us to remember that wisdom is not weakness. Peace is not surrender. Sometimes the bravest empire is the one that finally stops swinging.

BUILDING THE BRIDGE! | A WAY TO GET TO KNOW THE OTHER AND ONE ANOTHER

Making a Difference – The Means, Methods, and Mechanisms for Many to Move Mountains

Photo Credit: Abraham A. van Kempen, our home away from home on the Dead Sea

By Abraham A. van Kempen
Senior Editor
Updated 19 January 2024

Those who commit to 'healing our broken humanity' build intercultural bridges to learn to know and understand one another and others. Readers who thumb through the Building the Bridge (BTB) pages are not mindless sheep following other mindless sheep. They THINK. They want to be at the forefront of making a difference. They're seeking the bigger picture to expand their horizons. They don't need BTB or anyone else to confirm their biases.

Making a Difference – The Means, Methods, and Mechanisms for Many to Move Mountains

Accurate knowledge fosters understanding, dispels prejudice, and sparks a desire to learn more about the subject. Words have an extraordinary power to bring people together, divide them, forge bonds of friendship, or provoke hostility. Modern technology offers unprecedented possibilities for good, fostering harmony and reconciliation. Yet, its misuse can cause untold harm, leading to misunderstandings, prejudices, and conflicts.

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