This blog is closed

Dear friends:

After many months of pretending it was not true, I have to admit that I just don't have the fighting spirit to keep this little blog going. The conversation about Israel in the US and Europe (not to mention in Israel itself) has become so depressingly polarized that I really can't see myself mustering the effort required to even document it, let alone add my own opinion.

I can honestly say that after my year spent there, I care more about Israel than I ever have before. It is that outlook that makes bowing out of these conversations both as difficult and as necessary as it is. Israel is too important to me to tune in every day to hear it slagged by a left wing that has understood nothing about it, or a right wing content to use it as a political football and accelerate its destruction in the process.

I am now wholly immersed in drug policy, which I honestly believe will be one of the defining issues of this new decade (which I couldn't be more pleased about), and even conversations with insane DEA people seem tame compared to debates about Israel. I'm content to inch forward what few good ideas I have in this realm, and to hope that Israel continues to do what it has always done best, either as a people or a country: see to its own preservation, keep its own house and its own counsel.

Thanks to those who were reading, semi c-list prominent bloggers among you. I appreciate the support, the challenges that here at least were always respectful, and especially the opportunity to grapple in public and with openness with one of Israel's more difficult wars. This was a meaningful experience and not one that I will forget.

If you want to keep up with me or drop me a line, you can reach me via Facebook (Max Socol) or Twitter, where I am @mbsocol.