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Progress Requires Balance, and Change Must Be Accompanied by Caution
A Torah scroll. Photo: RabbiSacks.org.
Let me introduce you to the Overton Window. It sounds like something out of a spy thriller, but it’s actually a brilliant way to understand how political and social change really happens. Named after Joseph P. Overton, a libertarian late 20th-century political scientist, the Overton Window explains how ideas go from being fringe and crazy to mainstream and acceptable.
Overton worked for the Mackinac Center, a right-wing think tank, and found himself constantly explaining to donors not just what think tanks do, but, more importantly, what they don’t do. Think tanks don’t directly push policies; they shift public opinion.
After hitting brick wall after brick wall, Overton came up with the concept of the “Window of Political Possibilities” to show that ideas have to pass through various stages before they’re ready to become policy, so they can be executed.
Here’s how it works: new, innovative ideas usually start off as “unthinkable,” in other words, way outside what society considers acceptable. If you bring them up in polite society, they’ll be laughed off as ridiculous. But slowly, through debate and exposure, and a little bit of savvy marketing, ideas shift through stages — they go from being unthinkable to being radical, and then acceptable, eventually becoming sensible, and then popular.
And eventually, with a good tailwind, they might even become policy. Once the ideas come in from the cold extremes of unthinkable and radical, they make it into the Overton Window of acceptable, sensible, and popular – the latter being at the very center of the window. That’s the Overton Window in action.
Of course, there’s a catch. When you push boundaries too far and too fast, society breaks down, and chaos ensues. Sometimes, trying to normalize extreme ideas doesn’t lead to progress; it leads to disorder.
History gives us plenty of examples. In the 1930s, radical nationalist ideas in Germany started small but quickly spiraled into the horrors of Nazism, when fringe ideas took over public discourse unchecked.
More recently, we see how efforts to push the boundaries on issues like transgender rights in sports — particularly in allowing biological males to compete in women’s events — have led to backlash and polarized reactions.
What might have been an opportunity for thoughtful dialogue instead ignited cultural conflict, with people on both sides of the debate digging in their heels. When society stretches too far without considering the consequences, it risks creating precisely the kind of disorder the Overton Window warns us about.
And if we look back, this isn’t a new concept. The Torah was already giving us cautionary tales about this thousands of years ago in Parshat Noach, with the stories of Noah’s generation and the Tower of Babel. Both narratives illustrate what happens when a society tries to force destructive ideas into the mainstream without limits. Spoiler alert: it doesn’t end well.
Let’s take Noah’s generation. This was a society that had lost all of its moral bearings. Violence, theft, and immorality became the everyday norm. They had stretched their Overton Window until “unthinkable” and “acceptable” practically swapped places.
What should have been fringe behaviors — theft, cruelty — were so normalized that the entire world was engulfed in corruption. It was as if they had collectively decided that moral boundaries were passé, something they could shrug off without consequence. The Torah describes it succinctly: “the Earth was filled with corruption” (Gen. 6:11). It wasn’t a society living on the edge; they had jumped off the cliff into the abyss.
And what happened? The flood. Total destruction. This wasn’t some random punishment; it was the inevitable result of a society where moral limits had completely evaporated. When the Overton Window stretches to a breaking point, society collapses in on itself.
Noah’s world shows us that without a foundation of shared moral norms, everything falls apart. If everyone does whatever they want, all the boundaries dissolve — and chaos reigns.
Then, we have the story of the Tower of Babel. After the flood, humanity regroups. Instead of learning from past mistakes, they double down on their ambition, deciding to build a tower that reaches the heavens. “Let’s make a name for ourselves,” they say, as if human greatness is something you can just declare into existence.
The Tower of Babel wasn’t just a tall building; it was a symbol of human overreach, an attempt to stretch the Overton Window into a realm where it no longer belonged.
The problem wasn’t their ambition; it was their arrogance. They wanted to control the heavens, to challenge the very order of creation. It’s as if they were saying, “we’ve conquered the Earth — now we’re coming for the Heavens.”
And God’s response? He scrambles their language and scatters them across the world. The project falls apart, and confusion reigns. They pushed too far, and the social fabric tore. Like an Overton Window stretched to fit something it was never meant to contain, their unity fractured into a thousand pieces.
So, what do these stories teach us? That boundaries exist for a reason. Pushing ideas and exploring new territory is all well and good, but not every boundary is meant to be broken. Stability comes from knowing when to say, “Enough.”
In Noah’s time, they ignored that wisdom and were swallowed by their own corruption. In Babel, they dismissed their limits and ended up fractured and scattered. Both stories warn us that when society tries to push extreme ideas into the mainstream, the results can be catastrophic.
It’s easy in today’s world to think that every new idea deserves a place in the public discourse and that every radical notion is progress just waiting to happen. But Parshat Noach reminds us otherwise. Not every fringe idea belongs in the Overton Window, and not every boundary should be blurred. Actual progress requires balance — moral progress without moral decay, ambition without arrogance, change with caution.
The Overton Window is a powerful tool for understanding how change happens, but it also shows us why restraint is essential. The lesson from Noah and Babel? When you push too far, you invite chaos. And sometimes, the wisest thing we can do is remember that some boundaries are there for a reason. Maybe it’s time we start paying attention to them.
The author is a rabbi in Beverly Hills California.
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Trump Proposes Resettlement of Gazans as Netanyahu Visits White House
US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meet at the White House in Washington, DC, US, Feb. 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz
US President Donald Trump on Tuesday proposed the resettlement of Palestinians from Gaza to neighboring countries, calling the enclave a “demolition site” and saying residents have “no alternative” as he held critical talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House.
“[The Palestinians] have no alternative right now” but to leave Gaza, Trump told reporters before Netanyahu arrived. “I mean, they’re there because they have no alternative. What do they have? It is a big pile of rubble right now.”
Trump repeated his call for Egypt, Jordan, and other Arab states in the region to take in Palestinians from Gaza after nearly 16 months of war there between Israel and the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, which ruled the enclave before the war and remains the dominant faction.
Arab leaders have adamantly rejected Trump’s proposal. However, Trump argued on Tuesday that Palestinians would benefit from leaving Gaza and expressed astonishment at the notion that they would want to remain.
“Look, the Gaza thing has not worked. It’s never worked. And I feel very differently about Gaza than a lot of people. I think they should get a good, fresh, beautiful piece of land. We’ll get some people to put up the money to build it and make it nice and make it habitable and enjoyable,” Trump said.
Referring to Gaza as a “pure demolition site,” the president said he doesn’t “know how they [Palestinians] could want to stay” when asked about the reaction of Palestinian and Arab leaders to his proposal.
“If we could find the right piece of land, or numerous pieces of land, and build them some really nice places, there’s plenty of money in the area, that’s for sure,” Trump continued. “I think that would be a lot better than going back to Gaza, which has had decades and decades of death.”
However, Trump clarified that he does “not necessarily” support Israel permanently annexing and resettling Gaza.
Trump later made similar remarks with Netanyahu at his side in the Oval Office, suggesting that Palestinians should leave Gaza for good “in nice homes and where they can be happy and not be shot, not be killed.”
“They are not going to want to go back to Gaza,” he said.
Trump did not offer any specifics about how a resettlement process could be implemented.
The post-war future of Palestinians in Gaza has loomed as a major point of contention within both the United States and Israel. The former Biden administration emphatically rejected the notion of relocating Gaza civilians, demanding a humanitarian aid “surge” into the beleaguered enclave.
Trump has previously hinted at support for relocating Gaza civilians. Last month, the president said he would like to “just clean out” Gaza and resettle residents in Jordan or Egypt.
Steve Witkoff, the US special envoy to the Middle East, defended Trump’s comments in a Tuesday press conference, arguing that Gaza will remain uninhabitable for the foreseeable future.
“When the president talks about ‘cleaning it out,’ he talks about making it habitable,” Witkoff said. “It is unfair to have explained to Palestinians that they might be back in five years. That’s just preposterous.
Trump’s comments were immediately met with backlash, with some observers accusing him of supporting an ethnic cleansing plan. However, proponents of the proposal argue that it could offer Palestinians a better future and would mitigate the threat posed by Hamas.
Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists started the Gaza war on Oct. 7, 2023, when they invaded southern Israel, murdered 1,200 people, and kidnapped 251 hostages back to Gaza while perpetrating widespread sexual violence in what was the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust.
Israel responded with a military campaign aimed at freeing the hostages and dismantling Hamas’s military and governing capabilities in neighboring Gaza.
Last month, both sides reached a Gaza ceasefire and hostage-release deal brokered by the US, Egypt, and Qatar.
Under phase one of the agreement, Hamas will, over six weeks, free a total of 33 Israeli hostages, eight of whom are deceased, and in exchange, Israel will release over 1,900 Palestinian prisoners, many of whom are serving multiple life sentences for terrorist activity. Meanwhile, fighting in Gaza will stop as negotiators work on agreeing to a second phase of the agreement, which is expected to include Hamas releasing all remaining hostages held in Gaza and the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from the enclave.
The ceasefire and the future of Gaza were expected to be key topics of conversation between Trump and Netanyahu, along with the possibility of Israel and Saudi Arabia normalizing relations and Iran’s nuclear program.
Riyadh has indicated that any normalization agreement with Israel would need to include an end to the Gaza war and the pathway to the formation of a Palestinian state.
However, perhaps the most strategically important subject will be Iran, particularly how to contain its nuclear program and combat its support for terrorist proxies across the Middle East. In recent weeks, many analysts have raised questions over whether Trump would support an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, which both Washington and Jerusalem fear are meant to ultimately develop nuclear weapons.
Netanyahu on Tuesday was the first foreign leader to visit the White House since Trump’s inauguration last month.
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Trump Reimposes ‘Maximum Pressure’ on Iran, Aims to Drive Oil Exports to Zero
US President Donald Trump speaks at the White House, in Washington, DC, Feb. 3, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz
US President Donald Trump on Tuesday restored his “maximum pressure” campaign on Iran that includes efforts to drive its oil exports down to zero in order to stop Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
Ahead of his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump signed the presidential memorandum reimposing Washington’s tough policy on Iran that was practiced throughout his first term.
As he signed the memo, Trump described it as very tough and said he was torn on whether to make the move. He said he was open to a deal with Iran and expressed a willingness to talk to the Iranian leader.
“With me, it’s very simple: Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon,” Trump said. Asked how close Tehran is to a weapon, Trump said: “They’re too close.”
Iran‘s mission to the United Nations in New York did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump has accused former President Joe Biden of failing to rigorously enforce oil-export sanctions, which Trump says emboldened Tehran by allowing it to sell oil to fund a nuclear weapons program and armed militias in the Middle East.
Iran is “dramatically” accelerating enrichment of uranium to up to 60 percent purity, close to the roughly 90 percent weapons-grade level, the UN nuclear watchdog chief told Reuters in December. Iran has denied wanting to develop a nuclear weapon.
Trump‘s memo, among other things, orders the US Treasury secretary to impose “maximum economic pressure” on Iran, including sanctions and enforcement mechanisms on those violating existing sanctions.
It also directs the Treasury and State Department to implement a campaign aimed at “driving Iran‘s oil exports to zero.” US oil prices pared losses on Tuesday on the news that Trump planned to sign the memo, which offset some weakness from the tariff drama between Washington and Beijing.
Tehran’s oil exports brought in $53 billion in 2023 and $54 billion a year earlier, according to US Energy Information Administration estimates. Output during 2024 was running at its highest level since 2018, based on OPEC data.
Trump had driven Iran‘s oil exports to near-zero during part of his first term after re-imposing sanctions. They rose under Biden’s tenure as Iran succeeded in evading sanctions.
The Paris-based International Energy Agency believes Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and other OPEC members have spare capacity to make up for any lost exports from Iran, also an OPEC member.
PUSH FOR SANCTIONS SNAPBACK
China does not recognize US sanctions and Chinese firms buy the most Iranian oil. China and Iran have also built a trading system that uses mostly Chinese yuan and a network of middlemen, avoiding the dollar and exposure to US regulators.
Kevin Book, an analyst at ClearView Energy, said the Trump administration could enforce the 2024 Stop Harboring Iranian Petroleum (SHIP) law to curtail some Iranian barrels.
SHIP, which the Biden administration did not enforce strictly, allows measures on foreign ports and refineries that process petroleum exported from Iran in violation of sanctions. Book said a move last month by the Shandong Port Group to ban US-sanctioned tankers from calling into its ports in the eastern Chinese province signals the impact SHIP could have.
Trump also directed his UN ambassador to work with allies to “complete the snapback of international sanctions and restrictions on Iran,” under a 2015 deal between Iran and key world powers that lifted sanctions on Tehran in return for restrictions on its nuclear program.
The US quit the agreement in 2018, during Trump‘s first term, and Iran began moving away from its nuclear-related commitments under the deal. The Trump administration had also tried to trigger a snapback of sanctions under the deal in 2020, but the move was dismissed by the UN Security Council.
Britain, France, and Germany told the United Nations Security Council in December that they are ready — if necessary — to trigger a snapback of all international sanctions on Iran to prevent the country from acquiring a nuclear weapon.
They will lose the ability to take such action on Oct. 18 when a 2015 UN resolution expires. The resolution enshrines Iran‘s deal with Britain, Germany, France, the United States, Russia, and China that lifted sanctions on Tehran in exchange for restrictions on its nuclear program.
Iran‘s UN ambassador, Amir Saeid Iravani, has said that invoking the “snap-back” of sanctions on Tehran would be “unlawful and counterproductive.”
European and Iranian diplomats met in November and January to discuss if they could work to defuse regional tensions, including over Tehran’s nuclear program, before Trump returned.
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Trump Stops US Involvement With UN Rights Body, Extends UNRWA Funding Halt
An UNRWA aid truck at the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip. Photo: Reuters/Amr Abdallah Dalsh
US President Donald Trump on Tuesday ordered an end to US engagement with the United Nations Human Rights Council and continued a halt to funding for the UN Palestinian relief agency UNRWA.
The move coincides with a visit to Washington by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has long been critical of UNRWA, accusing it of anti-Israel incitement and its staff of being “involved in terrorist activities against Israel.”
During Trump‘s first term in office, from 2017-2021, he also cut off funding for UNRWA, questioning its value, saying that Palestinians needed to agree to renew peace talks with Israel, and calling for unspecified reforms.
The first Trump administration also quit the 47-member Human Rights Council halfway through a three-year term over what it called chronic bias against Israel and a lack of reform. The US is not currently a member of the Geneva-based body. Under former President Joe Biden, the US served a 2022-2024 term.
A council working group is due to review the US human rights record later this year, a process all countries undergo every few years. While the council has no legally binding power, its debates carry political weight and criticism can raise global pressure on governments to change course.
Since taking office for a second term on Jan. 20, Trump has ordered that the US withdraw from the World Health Organization and from the Paris climate agreement — also steps he took during his first term in office.
The US was UNRWA’s biggest donor — providing $300 million-$400 million a year — but Biden paused funding in January 2024 after Israel accused about a dozen UNRWA staff of taking part in the deadly Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel by Palestinian terrorist group Hamas that triggered the war in Gaza.
The US Congress then formally suspended contributions to UNRWA until at least March 2025.
The United Nations has said that nine UNRWA staff may have been involved in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack and were fired. A Hamas commander in Lebanon — killed in September by Israel — was also found to have had a UNRWA job.
An Israeli ban went into effect on Jan. 30 that prohibits UNRWA from operating on its territory or communicating with Israeli authorities. UNRWA has said operations in Gaza and West Bank will also suffer.
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