Many have observed that the beliefs and conduct of the self-styled “woke” left in many ways resemble those of a religion, complete with rigid orthodoxies, the denunciation of heretics, ritualized professions of piety, and a sharp delineation between the saved and the damned. Exploring this analogy further, Molly Brigid McGrath suggests that the way online leftist mobs “cancel” public figures who offend their beliefs by subjecting them to general shunning is akin not so much to the eradication of heresy as to sacrifice:

The idea [of sacrifice] occurs across cultures, and with great variety: sacrifices may include money to a temple, food, and libations, “spiritual sacrifices”—or animals and people. There’s a lot of variety, but sacrificial victims always carry symbolic significance. One of the ways ritual sacrifice can work is that we use the victim symbolically to reenact and expiate our own guilt. We get clean.

The sacrificial core of the [woke] movement comes out most clearly when a blasphemer gets publicly excoriated. These humiliating spectacles do not merely punish or correct individuals. They are public sacrifices seeking communal atonement (and policing communal unity). Otherwise, it’s hard to account for how disproportionate the response may seem. Within the sacred system, the response seems totally justified.

Our blasphemers—publicly shamed, de-platformed, ostracized, often slandered and fired—are symbolic substitutes made to bear the punishment of the social structure and the individual injustices enabled by it. That’s a lot to bear, and that’s what justifies the unmeasured response of activists and social-media mobs in their own eyes. As a symbolic punishment on a substitute, the act is impotent. It cannot repair or avenge. The sacrifice must be repeated again and again. There are no rites of forgiveness.

Yesterday, the Iranian foreign minister flew to Geneva to meet with European diplomats. President Trump, meanwhile, indicated that cease-fire negotiations might soon begin with Iran, which would presumably involve Tehran agreeing to make concessions regarding its nuclear program, while Washington pressures Israel to halt its military activities. According to Israeli media, Iran already began putting out feelers to the U.S. earlier this week. Aviram Bellaishe considers the purpose of these overtures:

The regime’s request to return to negotiations stems from the principle of deception and delay that has guided it for decades. Iran wants to extricate itself from a situation of total destruction of its nuclear facilities. It understands that to save the nuclear program, it must stop at a point that would allow it to return to it in the shortest possible time. So long as the negotiation process leads to halting strikes on its military capabilities and preventing the destruction of the nuclear program, and enables the transfer of enriched uranium to a safe location, it can simultaneously create the two tracks in which it specializes—a false facade of negotiations alongside a hidden nuclear race.