Ending the occupation is not a charitable gift to the Palestinians. Only by accepting their right to a state of their own will Israel remain a Jewish and democratic state enjoying peace and security, instead of being drawn toward an abyss from which there is no salvation.

Unrest in the Middle East has been an unrelenting problem for centuries, the Gordian knot that cannot be cut. The Camp David Accords marked the first substantive step toward that end and still stand as a watershed moment.

Yehuda Avner personified Generation World, and as I celebrate his memory, I celebrate what I can learn: that age is irrelevant; that we need to be empowered to self-direct; that we can't get lost in hardware definitions; that "mobile" means "freedom"; that we must love the world and learn from it; and, most importantly, that we should never, ever be afraid to evolve and reinvent ourselves.

We live in an age in which the attack on language is endemic; an age in which techniques like the filibuster have been used to effect mass dysfunction in governance and prevent people from talking to one another.

In any case, Washington's influence is limited: The Sisi regime will do whatever it believes necessary to retain power. Whatever America does, Egypt is likely to end up without liberty or stability. Washington should step back from a crisis that it can't resolve.

This project is the responsibility of Muslims themselves. It cannot be imposed from the outside. But it is necessary to tame religion, bring it back to the private sphere, and separate it from politics.