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Wars Against Humanity: Who Speaks for the Iranian People?

The news of the past few days has brought international justice into sharp focus. On October 9, Navi Pillay, a former judge of the International Criminal Court (ICC) was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her work on accountability under international law.This development prompted me to reflect on a question that has troubled me for some time: Are we applying the principles of international justice consistently, regardless of who commits the crimes and who the victims are?That question brings me to the suffering of the Iranian people, for example. Why does the suffering of the Iranian people so often seem to receive less international attention than other human tragedies?The Islamic Republic of Iran has turned its weapons against its own citizens. In January 2026, security forces massacred tens of thousands of protesters demanding freedom and fundamental change. The full death toll remains uncertain because the regime restricted internet access, making independent verification extr

A Small People, An Outsized Contribution — And the Power of Education

After writing about October 7, I found myself thinking about something quite different — but, in a way, connected to the same larger story.Jews make up only about 0.2% of the world’s population. And yet, 22 percent of Nobel laureates have been Jewish.That is an extraordinary statistic. But what interests me even more is not the statistic itself. It is the question: How did such a small and dispersed people come to make such an outsized contribution to science, medicine, literature, music, economics, and the intellectual life of the modern world?I don’t think there is a single answer.One part of the answer may lie in something deeply embedded in Jewish culture: the value placed on learning, questioning, and intellectual debate. Growing up, I was struck by how comfortable Jewish tradition seemed to be with questions. The Talmud, for example, preserves disagreements between scholars rather than simply erasing the losing argument. Two people can reach

What AI Can Teach Us About Being Human

Panic around AI often focuses on whether machines will replace (or simply kill) us. AI does more than stunning recombination of everything that has already been said and provides instant summaries. AI has also become good at judgment — the capacity to weigh, to discriminate, to sense that one answer is true and another not.As someone who has taken a couple of graduate courses in logic (an aspect of philosophy), I wasn’t surprised that AI companies have increasingly drawn on philosophers to help think through questions of reasoning.But where does the difference between us and AI cut deepest? Perhaps the answer is consciousness. And this is why Universal Consciousness — or what I sometimes call Divine Intelligence or Awareness — matters even more, not less, in the age of AI.WHAT DO I MEAN BY CONSCIOUSNESS?The word “consciousness “is used so casually that we can easily miss how mysterious it really is. It isn’t something we process with

Two Peoples, One Family Home: Israelis and Palestinians

The more I learn about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the more I realize how each side has its own story of belonging. Each has memories of persecution, displacement, loss, fear, and survival. And when those stories are told in isolation, it becomes remarkably easy to conclude that the other people simply do not belong.But what if we begin somewhere deeper? What if we begin with a fact that two peoples with deep historical roots are claiming a homeland in the same land.The Jewish people originated in the ancient Levant — the region encompassing modern-day Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria. Their history in the region stretches back more than 3,000 years, rooted in ancient kingdoms, temples, and the Hebrew language and culture. Long after the Roman period, Jewish communities continued to exist there in varying numbers — maintaining an unbroken presence through the centuries — before forced exiles dispersed some of them across the world.But something

Six Truths About Aging We May Need to Make Peace With

Last night I came across a reflection in Farsi about six truths of aging. Some of them are difficult to hear because they ask us to let go of things we have spent much of our lives holding on to — our youth, our expectations, our relationships, our appearance, and even the identity we built around our physical selves.Yet perhaps aging is not only about losing things. Perhaps it is also an invitation to discover what remains when some of those things fall away. Here are six truths worth contemplating:1. Your body will not remain the same.Your body at 60, 70, or 80 will not look or function the way it did at 25. Your strength, energy, appearance, and physical abilities will change. Fighting every change can become exhausting. Instead, perhaps we can learn to align with our changing bodies — to care for them, appreciate what they can still do, and accept that aging is part of being alive.2. No one is obligated to provide you with emotional support.People we love

When Anger Becomes Chronic: Refusing to Reproduce Hatred

I wonder what happens to the anger of Iranians living in Iran who have lost loved ones in protests, prisons, and public executions, or who have spent 47 years watching their country suffer under a radical, extremist, and brutal regime. Even if that regime eventually falls, what happens to all that accumulated anger?Some wounds do not disappear when the source of the wound is gone. After years of injustice, fear, humiliation, and loss, it is understandable that anger can become chronic and eventually settle into the way they see other people.But there is a danger in carrying it forward indefinitely.When we transfer the anger of one generation onto another, we have allowed the original violence to reproduce itself inside our own consciousness. We turn anger into hatred, and hatred into another form of separation.This does not mean forgetting what happened. It does not mean forgiving before we are ready. And it certainly does not mean pretending that the suffering was somehow meaning

Seven Morning Habits That Bring Me Back to Myself

I want to share seven morning habits inspired by one of my favorite spiritual teachers, Eckhart Tolle. I’ve rephrased them here in my own words — and added a little of what I personally practice. What I love about these habits is that they aren’t about becoming a more productive version of ourselves. They are about remembering who we are before the noise of the day begins.1. Choose silence before scrolling.When I first open my eyes, I try not to reach immediately for my laptop. Instead, I spend a few quiet minutes in bed simply being present — sometimes listening to my heartbeat, and often, my favorite, bringing my attention to the subtle sensations and waves I can feel in the palms of my hands. There is something about beginning the day with sensation (rather than thought) that brings me immediately into the present moment.2. Give your mind its first thought.Our minds are remarkably impressionable in those first moments of the day. Rather than al

The House That Burned, and the Faith That Did Not

Some stories belong to the past. Others refuse to stay there. This is one of those stories — one that has stayed with me because what happened then still echoes in the world we are living in today.I have the distinct privilege of sharing with you the story of one of my very best friends, Parivash.She happens to be Bahá’í.I say “happens to be” because, to me, her faith has always been only one part of who she is. She is a loving, intelligent, generous woman; a loyal friend; and someone whose friendship has become an important part of my life.But in Iran, being Bahá’í has never been simply a private matter of faith. It can determine where you can study, where you can work, whether you can obtain a business license, whether you can bury a loved one according to your traditions — and, at times, whether you can even remain safely in your own home.GROWING UP “UNCLEAN”From childhood, Parivash becam

The Two Truths We Are Not Seeing: Grieving Those Killed in War While Confronting a Regime That…

The Two Truths We Are Not Seeing: Grieving Those Killed in War While Confronting a Regime That Kills Its Own PeopleEvery morning, I do something that has become almost a ritual: I glance through the headlines of a dozen newspapers.And lately, something has been bothering me.I have seen extensive coverage of the five Iranian civilians killed at a wedding in southern Iran in what appears to have been a U.S. strike. A four-year-old child was among those killed. More than 60 people were injured. It was a tragedy and it deserves to be reported.But where is the comparable attention to what has been happening inside Iran?o Where is the sustained coverage of the tens of thousands of young Iranians who were killed when the Islamic Republic violently crushed the January protests?o Where is the outrage over the young people who continue to be executed?o Where is the attention to the families who wait outside prisons, knowing that a son or daughter may never come home?o And where is

When We Cannot Hold Two Truths

Yesterday, on my daily walk, I had a brief conversation with a neighbor I know to be a kind, spiritual, and thoughtful person.Then she said something that stopped me in my tracks.She told me that she would rather see the United States lose the war against the Iranian regime than see Trump come out of it as a winner.It was an “uh-oh” moment for me. What struck me was something deeper: how difficult it is for the human mind to hold two opposing realities at the same time: (a) “I deeply dislike Trump, and (b) I still want the brutal Iranian regime to be weakened, not only to give the Iranian people a better chance to confront it and determine their own future, but also to reduce the danger of a nuclear conflict that could devastate Israel and inflict enormous suffering on Americans and people elsewhere — especially since the regime itself has defined so much of its identity around the chants, “Death to the Great Satan, America” and “Deat

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