“Who is my neighbor?” remains the essential political question. Trump has just won a clear majority that agrees with his claim that immigrants are enemies who are not worthy of proper hospitality. Hostility and hospitality have a common origin in Latin that helps to think our relationship to foreign immigrants. Latin hospes is at the origin of host (in the sense of army) or hostile and hostility as well as host (in the sense of guest and host) and hospitality, hostel, or hospice. An alien could become a guest or a hostile host (Benveniste, Le vocabulaire des institutions indo-européennes, Paris: 1969, vol.1, 355). So, beyond our family, friends, and ethnic group, there is an overwhelmingly large group of people that we perceive as potentially hostile or hospitable.

Can we consider people who do not belong to our ethnicity or social class, people who are not in a position to reciprocate the favors we did to them (or thought we did), can we think of them as potential neighbors? Or are we to consider them as permanent hostile enemies? And if they become our neighbors and they are in need of help, are we expected to do away completely with self-interest? Or are there boundaries to what we perceive to be our duty to help? How do we define this limit? How am I to be a neighbor to others?

One kind of answer is given by Hesiod. Like Latin, he defines neighbor as being someone between the two extremes of kin and enemy. According to Hesiod who agrees here with all of antiquity’s wisdom, ideal relations with neighbors are based on their capacity to reciprocate. One is supposed to remember exactly what neighbors do for you, and vice versa:

Call your friend to a feast; but leave aside your enemy;
and preferably call him who lives near you:
for if anything happens in the village,
neighbors rush in ungirt, but kins would gird themselves.
A bad neighbor is a catastrophe, as a good one is a great treasure;
he happens to be fortunate who has a good neighbor;
not even an ox would die but for a bad neighbor.
Measure well what you get from your neighbor and reciprocate well
with the same measure, and more generous, if you can;
so that if you are later in need, you may find him sure.
(Work and Days 342–51)

The question has been raised with more urgency by other traditions, especially Leviticus 19:17–18 and the parable of the so called “Good Samaritan” found exclusively in Luke 10:25–37. The Samaritan’s story may be an expansion of the brief text of Mark 13. But I will focus on this parable and ask especially why it is the Samaritan who is considered most likely to show compassion. Jesus tells a story about a man who falls victim to bandits on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho, and is ignored by a priest and a Levite before being helped by a traveling Samaritan. The parable is most often attributed to Jesus, but there are excellent grounds to think that it is the creation of the evangelist rather than of Jesus. See especially Meier, Probing the authenticity of the parables 2016, pp. 199–209.

29 But he [the lawyer], wanting to justify himself, said to Jesus: “And who is my neighbor?“ 30 In answer, Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell among robbers, who after they stripped him and inflicted wounds, went away, leaving him half-dead. 31 It happened, however, that a priest was going down that road and, seeing him, passed by on the other side. 32 Likewise a Levite also passed by on the other side when he reached the place and saw him. 33 A Samaritan who was travelling came to the place and when he saw him, he had compassion, 34 and coming close, he bandaged his wounds, pouring oil and wine. After setting him up on his own animal, he took him to an inn and took care of him. 35 The next day, he took out two *denarii* and gave them to the inn-keeper, saying: ‘Take care of him and whatever more you spend, I myself will reimburse you upon my return.’ 36 Which of these three, in your opinion, was a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?” 37 He said: ”The one doing charity to him” Jesus said to him: ”Go and you too do likewise.”

No original Good Samaritan appears in recorded history, but the historical conditions that make it possible to imagine the telling of this story are most interesting. One could suppose an audience composed of people hostile to Samaritans, yet all sharing or willing to understand the ideal of compassion. One could even draw an analogy triggered by the modern situation and think of a leader of the Israeli settler movement telling followers a similar story involving a compassionate Palestinian. Or a leader in the Palestinian movement… etc. What are we to imagine about the response of the audience? That Jesus did not say it, but the evangelist did, or some tradition incorporated at a later stage, that makes the story only more resolute and risky.

Why does the Samaritan show compassion to the injured man in Jewish territory (ἐσπλαγχνίσθη), and not the priest or the Levite? The road from Jerusalem to Jericho is in Judaea, and the priest and levite are arguably Jewish authorities and on their territory. In fact, the story becomes more challenging if one imagines the Samaritan being outside of his Samaritan territory and near the Jerusalem temple where he cannot and would not worship because of the hostility between Judaeans and Samaritans. He is the only character in the story that is able to see himself in the injured man because he himself is risking a lot in order to trade outside of Samaria. So, the Samaritan shows compassion to the injured man because of his perception of danger. He opens jars of wine and oil that he planned to market and even uses his money at the inn. This is why he becomes eventually seen as “the Good Samaritan”. It is the dynamic nature of the story that explains the compassion of the Samaritan, not his innate qualities.

Granted, compassion may hit any one, some would be quick to claim (perhaps a genetic predisposition, according to the sociobiology of a few decades ago or modern genetic studies), but this explanation conveniently avoids seeing the dynamics of the situation imagined by the writer. The Samaritan is able to feel compassion and act upon it because a) he didn’t belong to the “house” (or the “nation”) defined by the Jerusalem temple (he has his own temple at Mount Garizim, the center of his ethnic group) b) he was himself on dangerous enemy territory, presumably thinking about it (or the implied reader easily could supply the thought), and therefore able to imagine or see himself in the nearly dead victim before him.

The road from Jerusalem to Jericho is located within Judea, which means that the priest and Levite are likely Jews who are passing through their own territory. It may well be that both the priest and the Levite have their own reasons not to stop and care for the half-dead person. And perhaps it is the storyteller’s anti-Judaean attitude that explains what he sees as a failure of the priest and the Levite to show compassion and come to the help of one’s brother. The story may highlight the failure of some Jewish leaders to show help to someone in need, even when they’re on their own territory and close to the Jerusalem temple. Of course, that the man is naked means first of all that he is not socially rankable on the reciprocity scale. That alone can explain the failure to help of the priest and levite.

On the other hand, the Samaritan’s womb-like compassion and full help to the injured man are not simply a display of innate kindness and automatic generosity. Rather, it’s a response to his heightened perception of danger and of the risk that he shares with the bandits’ victim. He is an outsider in Judaea and an enemy alien. not simply an alien.

Note that the Samaritan’s actions (obvious depth of care, time taken, initial payment at the inn) are probably taken by the Jericho inn-keeper (as imagined by the audience of the time) to be a guarantee that the Samaritan will indeed return to the inn and pay the rest of the bill. The Samaritan himself counts on the inn-keeeper’s feeling (or greed?) that the Samaritan is taking care of a kin or a friend. So, there is an element of craftiness in the Samaritan’s compassion. That is, the Samaritan expects the innkeeper to assume the presence of a solidarity and reciprocity that only kinship and friendship could impose in the ancient world in restricted and restrictive circles such as Samaria and Judaea.

To conclude: At the end, the original question by the lawyer is not simply altered but reversed. There is an alternation of spoken and silent expectation. At the beginning, the lawyer asks “Who is my neighbor?” His silent question is: “Where does my duty of love and reciprocity begin and end?” Perhaps he expects a commentary on Deuteronomy because it makes much of brotherhood. Jesus is portrayed answering the silent question: “Where did the Samaritan’s love end?” Samaritans were understood by Judaeans to be somewhat under the Torah also, yet at the opposite end of the priest and levite. He implies: “Whom are you a neighbor to?” In this dignified, respectful exchange, the lawyer is not put down and is not commanded but asked to respond with compassion.

Finally, the expression “Good Samaritan” doesn’t necessarily describe the Samaritan’s permanent or innate character. He becomes “good” along the centuries because of our tendency to explain extraordinary and heroic behavior as stemming from permanent, inner, and natural qualities rather than from frequent situations that demand our quick decision and sudden engagement.

In the long electoral period leading to the recent win of a foolish and scary apocalyptic figure, the New York Times kept talking about Trump on its first page, no matter the inanity of the news: two articles on Thursday the 11th of January 2024 for instance. The first one explains why a new breed of evangelical Christians supports the ex-president in spite of his lack of Christian bona fide or perhaps because it allows supposed Christians to have a taste of hell.

Some Christians justify their vote by comparing him to a messianic Cyrus the Great and his support of Jewish subjects in the sixth century BC. No matter that the passage of Isaiah 45 is a pure piece of ideology and that Persian kings would in fact use compulsion and violence when necessary against their internal and external enemies. The repression of Egypt’s repeated rebellions is a case in point. Successive empires, including Persia, nonobstant the glamorous reputation made to Cyrus II, used the same combination of force and religious pressures, not to say political, to enforce tribute and avoid further rebellion. Like all large realms before and after them, the Achaemenid kings were seeking political gains and order at the lowest transactional cost possible once they were at the head of a large empire and had reached the typical limits of their power to conquer.

The messianic cloak given to Cyrus by the “second book” of Isaiah is therefore to be replaced in that old (and not so old) context. Only insiders who accepted Persian domination could interpret the Bisitun inscription of Darius I as “a peaceful state made up of many nations maintaining the protection of the cultural and religious integrity of each” (Schmid 2019, p. 241). The inscription makes clear that obedience and fidelity were considered paramount and that numerous wars and demonstrative cruelties awaited those ethnic groups that rebelled. Still, why was it politically required for the author of deutero-Isaiah to
declare Cyrus II to be YAHWEH’s messiah? I would think that the answer is in an attitude that was parallel to that of the priests of Marduk in Babylonia—and that those positions could change quickly. Finally, let it be said that the Marduk and Judaean priests were not the only subjects forced to invent the protection of a new master. Even modern Christians are apparently drawn do the same conclusion and tempted to recast Trump as their only Persian-like (Iranian?) messianic master. It is most puzzling and even contradictory to see the MAGA crowd need to take such a long detour in the feverish hopes they nurture. They consider the renewal of America’s greatness an urgent and spiriitual modern matter when what is at stake, now and then, is how to share the spoils.

I shall end here with the story world of Cyrus. He made sure that broadly known legends circulated about his birth and suggested that his destiny was out of the ordinary. Like Sargon of Akkad (23d century BCE) and even like the legendary Moses—though in reverse order—, Cyrus was expected to die by exposure but of course did not. A modest (wild?) shepherd, Mithridate, adopted him and staged an elaborate deception in which his real baby son was set to float on a river. You will need to fish the details in Pierre Briant’s book: L’histoire de l’empire perse (Paris: Fayard, 1996), 25–26.

My latest ruminations follow a conversation a few days ago about power and fascism on NPR (“Why Trump is a fascist”), and a dialogue yesterday between Ezra Klein and Jon Stewart regarding the massive following that Trump generates (“Jon Stewart looks back with sanity and/or fear”). I was impressed by the straightforwardness of the participants in the NPR discussion, and the heightened sense they gave me of their notion of service. They insisted that their service was to the nation, not to a party, not to a king, not to a would-be dictator. Are Donald Trump and his followers fascists? In the case of John Kelly and others, the word is being used by top officers who know the risk of complete obedience.

But the larger question circles back to the US election that is ominously taking place today. It is one thing to wield words like weapons and wonder what is fascistic in Donald Trump or Steven Miller. Or rather, what has become fascistic in them, or what is becoming totalitarian in their view of the world. It strikes me as a completely different question to explain why so many followers of Donald Trump—almost half of the US population—are happy with the clownery. The explanations provided so far are not satisfactory, as Jon Stewart says repeatedly in his conversation with Ezra Klein. Even though he has a sharp sense of our greedy capitalist economy and knows well the moralizing hypocrisy of much of the media, he is not content with the economic explanation.

The economic and social differentiation do play a role in growing and spreading the anger of many, most certainly, and being easily riled up by the likes of Trump. Perhaps capitalism needs this anger to function, as Jon Stewart says in passing. But it doesn’t strike me either as a complete explanation. Nor do the cultural aspects of that anger, or the claimed idiocy of the so-called “deplorables” who are opposed to many aspects of progressive rationalism. As Stewart and others perceive, a better explanation is needed, without dismissing any of the others.

Trump, Vance, Miller, etc., are still sharpening their teeth on the anger of the people and may not even know for what purpose yet. This new form of political search for power has no name yet. One path for it is the slow unfolding of a pleasurable viciousness that was reported by one of the commanders of the US immigration agency on the NPR mentioned above. Cruelty and indifference extend to this day, when there are children still separated from their parents and whose chances of being reunited with their families are slim. Or Trump followers may be both surprised and exhilarated by an ex-president of the USA who advises that spikes be set at the top of the border wall in order to injure those who climb the wall. Or drones that could shoot on both sides of the border, against all laws. And his frequent remarks on retribution and vengeance. Et cetera…

So, the glide into fascism still looks hesitant but there are people around Trump who are prepared to make something new out of the chaotic power of this ex-president. And there are plenty of followers ready to submit. Something in the nature of domination is gathering force. Will we let it fashion the world as it sees it, push away the use of laws, the rules of civility and of proper behavior? This, to me, is the big question lurking behind all of this rot. If Trump and his acolytes are elected tonight, will others have the will, the know-how, and the courage to fight the drift towards what can be called fascism, no matter the danger? Because there is no doubt about the will of a Trump government of bullies. It will use all the tools that are at its disposal, especially scapegoating, to scare and frighten people into submission. It will put laws and regulations at the service of money interests. Its megalomaniac promises to the nation are not about regaining respect but fostering a humiliating violence that could spread and unfold in a dark history that cannot be mocked anymore. This is the ultimate reality show of Donald Trump.

The situation in the Middle East is changing rapidly. Radical adjustments are occuring in the Persian Gulf and Iran as well as in Israel, Palestine, Gaza, Lebanon. My sense and fear are that Ukraine, Russia, both Koreas and Japan, not to mention China are also changing rapidly, though for their own reasons and not because the USA manage to wield their power as efficiently as ever. We are far, to note but a change, from the strange attempt to convert the peoples of the Eastern Mediterranean to the economic faith of the Abraham Accords. Who could have thought that through these accords almost ten million Palestinians were going to be abandoned to their daily indignities?

Israel: for a number of reasons, the right wing government is intent on doing war on four fronts: Gaza, the West Bank, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Iran. This multifacetet war has goals other than defense. Part of it is a powerful response to Hamas’ vicious attack of October 7, 2023, but other aims are the displacement of large sections of the Palestinian population and the eradication of the last crumbs of political control it may still have. There are about 750,000 people of Jewish background presently living in the West Bank and Jerusalem. Israel is now in a surprisingly strong position not only because of its military successes, but also because the people in the US are worrying about their presidential election—rightly so—and more importantly because the US appears to be losing interest in world leadership. This is happening even though the US economy is far outperforming Europe, China and other countries.

It is clearly in the interest of Israel, itself an undeclared nuclear power, to eradicate the nuclear weaponry that Iran has been working on, according to Iran’s enemies. But now one more factor needs to be taken into account. North Korea has accepted to fight on Russia’s side in Ukraine. What did North Korea get in exchange? Did they get money, which one assumes must be needed when buying the dictator of North Korea? Or more evidently, were they promised atomic weaponry and missiles? Confronted with a much more experienced Ukrainian army, is the use of nuclear weaponry by North Korea imaginable? How is South Korea, which has a very important arms industry, going to react? Is it going to be interested in developing its own military capacities even further? For related reasons, is the conservative leadership of Japan going to accelerate its own rearmament?

On voting day, these are some of the questions that are worrying signs of trouble.

Last week, Peter Beinart published an article in the New York Times that criticized President Biden for having no Middle East policy. He tied this failing to the moral contradiction and blindness that have become the drivers of Biden’s relationship with the Israeli government and particularly his Prime Minister, Netanyahu. In his 2021 inaugural address, Biden described the history of the United States as a “constant struggle between the American ideal that we are all created equal and a harsh, ugly reality that racism, nativism, fear, and demonization have long torn us apart.“ He clearly sees Trump as an enemy that must be defeated. And he rightfully condemns the horrific actions of Hamas. But his unconditional defense of Israel and his inability to negotiate with Netanyahu lead many in Israel and here to question his ethical principles. The US President strongly believes that the core of the United States is based on the notion of equal rights, not on religion or ethnicity. Yet, that is what much of modern Israel has become based on, especially since 2018. For religious reasons, it is unable to write a constitution but it claims religion and ethnicity nevertheless as the foundations of the state. In opposition to many Israelis of the past and of the present, it proclaims that only people of Jewish ancestry can claim a national destiny. In spite and because of their long history, Palestinians are systematically rejected as undeserving of the rights and protections afforded by such a state. And unfortunately, Biden allows his fundamental principle of equal rights to have a major exception and be trampled by the present political authorities of Israel. Gaza has become his signal failure, totally in contradiction with his policy regarding Ukraine and Russia.

Hassan Nasrallah and many other heads of the Hezbollah have been killed by the IDF in a sophisticated operatipn that consisted of infiltrating the upper ranks of the organization and activating pagers bought and used by the Hezbollah. It looks like a great victory on the part of Israel. It is especially a vindication for the present government led by Netanyahu, even though it is even more unlikely than ever that any hostage will be freed by Hamas. I note in passing that Hamas and the Hezbollah have been enemies in Syria. The military action by the IDF means that Iran is on the back foot and needs to be prudent in any thought of retaliation. It needs to be much more careful than it has been recently if it wants to avoid the wrath of the US, especially in an electoral period when everything is so unsure. It also looks like Israel is closer to bringing the US into a conflict with Iran, in spite of US protestations. Another major consequence of the military action by Israel is that the politics of Lebanon and probably Syria are going to change rapidly since the Hezbollah, though not destroyed, will find its influence much diminished and the patch up minorities that constitute modern Lebanon will have to renegotiate their relationships on a new basis. Will it be a pyrrhic victory on the part of Israel? What is certain at the moment is that Israel holds the keys to the conflict and it is hard to predict what form it will take in the near future.

The NYT is calling on President Biden to do the right thing by the country and leave the race. In the so-called debate of Thursday night, he appeared as a shadow of the great public servant he once was. He presently is the only person who can rise to the occasion and bar the way to a second mandate of an indicted Trump by pulling out of the race. He would be keeping his reputation intact rather than be the candidate that gave us Trump. The risk is too great to find ourselves in a strong man’s regime, a dictatorship. There is no reason to run that risk when there are many more good choices in the Democratic Party and there’s ample time to choose a candidate who can take on Mr. Trump. The paper reminds us that it is Mr. Biden who challenged Trump to a verbal duel. The fact that he stumbled when presenting his own vision and responding weakly to Trump’s lies and provocations means that he foundered by his own test. The responsibility now lies with the Democratic Party to choose someone else since the Republican Party is willing to ruin the Republic by being completely beholden to Trump. There is no dearth of prepared democratic candidates, such as Newson, the governor of California, or Widmer, the governor of Michigan.