In his 1929 short story “In the Basement,” the Soviet-Jewish writer Isaac Babel reminisces about his childhood in pre-Revolutionary Odessa, his befriending of a classmate from a well-to-do family, and his boyish shame and adult pride at his lower-class, quarrel-filled, and very Jewish home life. The story, in a new translation by Maxim Shrayer, begins thus:

In my boyhood, I was prone to lying. This resulted from reading. My imagination was always inflamed. I read during lessons, on breaks, on the way home, at night—under the table, disguising myself behind a drooping tablecloth. Over the book, I missed out on all the affairs of this world. I didn’t ditch lessons and run off to the seaport, or observe the start of the billiards game in the coffee houses of Greek Street, or go swimming at Langeron beach. I had no companions. Who would care to associate with such a person?

Once, in the hands of our top student, Mark Borgman, I saw a book about Spinoza. He’d just finished reading it and couldn’t resist telling the boys who surrounded him about the Spanish Inquisition. It was all educated mumble, what he was saying. There was no poetry in Borgman’s words. I couldn’t help butting in. I told those who were willing to listen about old Amsterdam, dusk over the ghetto, and also about the philosophers—the polishers of diamonds. I added much to what I’d read in books; I just couldn’t do without embellishment. My imagination enhanced the dramatic scenes, rearranged the endings, tied the beginnings into knots of mystery. In my imagination, Spinoza’s death, his free, lonely death, appeared as a battle. The synedrion tried to coerce the dying Spinoza into repenting, but he didn’t give in. I also managed to weave Rubens into this fabrication. I imagined that Rubens stood at the head of Spinoza’s bed and executed his death mask.

Yesterday I saw an unconfirmed report that the Biden administration has offered Israel a massive arms deal in exchange for a promise not to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities. Even if the report is incorrect, there is plenty of other evidence that the White House has been trying to dissuade Jerusalem from mounting such an attack. The thinking behind this pressure is hard to fathom, as there is little Israel could do that would better serve American interests in the Middle East than putting some distance between the ayatollahs and nuclear weapons. Aaron MacLean explains why this is so, in the context of a broader discussion of strategic priorities in the Middle East and elsewhere:

If the Iran issue were satisfactorily adjusted in the direction of the American interest, the question of Israel’s security would become more manageable overnight. If a network of American partners enjoyed security against state predation, the proactive suppression of militarily less serious threats like Islamic State would be more easily organized—and indeed, such partners would be less vulnerable to the manipulation of powers external to the region.

[The Biden administration’s] commitment to escalation avoidance has had the odd effect of making the security situation in the region look a great deal as it would if America had actually withdrawn [from the Middle East].

Alternatively, we could project competence by effectively backing our Middle East partners in their competitions against their enemies, who are also our enemies, by ensuring a favorable overall balance of power in the region by means of our partnership network, and by preventing Iran from achieving nuclear status—even if it courts escalation with Iran in the shorter run.