There is something tragically instructive about the Palestinians’ destructive behavior last Friday, when for the second time in consecutive weeks rioters set fire to the Kerem Shalom border crossing, the only point of entry for goods traveling between Israel and the Gaza Strip… the Palestinians do not appear to have any collective impulse to mobilize against their rival leaderships, which have indoctrinated their respective publics with a rabid anti-Israelism in order to insulate the political class by attributing blame exclusively to the “occupation.”

The terror group gambled all its chips on this new type of fight with Israel: neither suicide bombers nor rockets, but a mass protest marching toward the fence in a bid to break through into Israel… Hamas’s enormous efforts to stoke public opinion and convince Gazans to join the marches on the border all lead up to Monday, and if the masses are missing, the march strategy will have fallen short.

Those young Palestinian men need to stop pestering the Israelis and instead learn from their neighbors’ success in building the prosperous country that is Israel. I hope they will try to emulate the Israelis in their land of Gaza and the West Bank. Hate achieves nothing and brings no prosperity to those who thrive on it. Finally, Israel, like any other country, has all the right to defend itself.

Barzilai’s victory already constituted a stinging defeat for the BDS campaigners, who had urged Eurovision participants to boycott Israel’s entry by giving it zero points. In the event, the juries from the participating nations elevated Israel to an impressive third place, and it was then the viewers’ votes in those 43 countries that lifted Barzilai into top spot — a win by genuine public acclaim.

When the votes came in from around the world and Ms. Barzilai’s performance beat songs by rivals from nations like Austria, Cyprus and Sweden, many Israelis hailed it as a diplomatic victory and national vindication… The Eurovision win may also have even helped soothe bruised feelings after the Israeli-born, Oscar-winning actress Natalie Portman backed out of a major award ceremony in Jerusalem, saying she did not want to endorse Mr. Netanyahu and was taking a stand against “violence, corruption, inequality and abuse of power.”

Another dimension to the win, after the initial euphoria subsides, is that Jerusalem has just officially stolen some of the cultural thunder away from the Israeli city that’s more accustomed to generating it—namely, Tel Aviv. This is because traditionally the winning contestant’s home country, and generally its capital city, hosts what has morphed into a very glitzy extravaganza the following year. Israel hasn’t won the contest since 1998 and images of likely Eurovision venues in Jerusalem have already been appearing on social media.

An alliance against Iran has tightened, with the United States, Israel and the gulf countries united in opposition. But if they are now more committed than ever to challenging Iran’s reach, their abilities are limited. The United States is hesitant to get entangled in new wars in the Middle East. Mr. Trump has cut some foreign aid in Syria and said he wants to bring home the roughly 2,000 American troops deployed there fighting the Islamic State.

Does Europe still have a partner, a big brother across the water? One which can be a scold, a nag, an annoyance, a puzzle – but which has always been there for it? A partner that is also a protector, with a military and security network of unrivalled power and reach? Is the United States still that partner?… This is not just America First, but America Alone. It’s a posture which portends turbulence, or even war in the Middle East; a Europe no longer able to believe that the West can present a united front; and a United States losing the store of trust and affection on which it has been able, even in disputatious times, to count. Sad!

European economies can certainly survive without trade with Iran, but European sovereignty in foreign affairs can hardly survive passive compliance with the new dictates from the White House. Compliance would mean few would trust the E.U. as a sovereign actor in foreign and security policies. I guess few tears would be shed in the White House if that were to happen. Key people there are known to despise the efforts of European states to try to work together within the E.U. framework.

Democrats will have to nationalize this election with a push for impeachment and obstruction of President Trump and his agenda. The insular base of the Democratic party that chooses their party’s primary candidates are energized by this talk of #RussiaGate and (literally) re-litigating the 2016 election. This effort provides an opportunity for Republicans to survive their races by exploiting the soft underbelly of their opponents’ narrative: Americans do not want impeachment and obstruction. They want a better future for themselves and their families.

The great talisman for Democrats heading toward November has been the consistent over-performance of their candidates in special elections, which suggests to some that the polls aren’t adequately capturing Democratic “enthusiasm.” …there is some reason to wonder if Democrats will be able to maintain their “enthusiasm gap” in the context of regular midterm elections in which key components of their coalition (young people and Latinos, in particular) have traditionally failed to vote in numbers proportionate to the older white voters now leaning Republican.

After months of confidence that public discontent with President Trump would lift Democrats back to power in Congress, some party leaders are fretting that their advantages in this year’s midterms are eroding amid a shifting political landscape. Driving their concerns are Trump’s approval rating, which has ticked upward in recent weeks, and high Republican turnout in some recent primaries, suggesting the GOP base remains energized. What’s more, Republicans stand to benefit politically from a thriving economy and are choosing formidable candidates to take on vulnerable Democratic senators.

Identity Politics can work to mobilize the members of any group. But that’s not what’s happening in the U.S. Rather we have a cultural revolution going on regarding race and gender – a non-democratic one led by cultural elites in the press and Hollywood – that is focused on having everyone represented and everyone heard in civil society. But it is not political in the sense of exercising power within institutions. Institutional politics is not about recognition; it’s about having a goal and figuring out how to reach it with others…

Thoughtful conversations and meaningful activism require a measure of openness that the current paradigms for identity politics don’t always allow. We have to make sure that our exchanges do not reproduce oppressive power dynamics, but every challenge is not oppressive. An identity politics that is not principally concerned with dismantling all forms of inequality quickly devolves into a never-ending game of oneupmanship where self-satisfaction is all that’s won. For marginalized people, our power comes from seeing identity as a starting point, not the end.

New Deal liberalism was, in part, identity politics. Appeals to identity — whether by farmers, veterans, workers, or immigration opponents — have always been a potent political force. The main difference is that, unlike previous versions of identity politics in the US, the identity politics of the New Deal era was not limited to white Americans. The lesson of the New Deal coalition for liberals today is not that they should turn away from appeals to the identities of particular groups. Instead, liberalism is at its strongest when its advocates understand that justice for each group is essential to achieving justice for all.

Amazon is building a 12-person health and wellness team within its Alexa division to help make the assistant more useful to the health care sector, according to CNBC. This includes ensuring its functionality is compliant with health privacy laws. Diabetes management, care for the elderly, and care for new mothers and infants are specific targets of the team. Integrating Alexa with health care—particularly in managing chronic illness like diabetes—makes sense.

Another interesting example of deep learning can help machines make better decisions than their human counterparts is the proliferation of clinical decision support (CDS) tools. These tools are usually built into the EMR system to assist clinicians in their work by suggesting the best treatment course, warn of potential dangers such as pharmacological interactions or previous conditions, and analyze even the slightest detail in a patient’s health record.

It takes pharmaceutical companies an average of 10 to 15 years to discover and develop a new drug. Some companies, including International Business Machines (NYSE:IBM), believe that AI can drastically reduce the time to find new drugs by sifting through vast amounts of genetic and clinical data. IBM says that its Watson for Drug Discovery uses natural-language processing to “read millions of pages” and comprehend contextual meaning in the research.