I think Ta-nehisi Coates has become a very influential figure for many young people and perhaps some older ones. I believe he is a fine writer, he has the gift of craft. That said, his rhetoric about Israel is disturbing particularly because he has no deep historical knowledge about the relationship between the Israelis and the Palestinians who have both lived on that land for thousands of years. I can't say exactly the same thing for his stance on the race issue, but I am in disagreement with much of what I read and heard. The problem is that he, and most people seem to be speaking from a place of comparison. To use the words apartheid and genocide to describe the situation in Israel is wrong. There is no similarity between the relationships of blacks and whites in South Africa, or what was happening here in America, with what is happening in Israel. When we make that comparison, we are conflating two distinctly different historical events that have no cultural connection whatsoever, but the words we're using to describe these events are inflammatory and re-create painful images that tell the wrong story. Coates has not done a deep dive into the history of that land, and therefore should refrain from making such careless statements without digging much further into the history and relationship of Arabs and Jews of that land over centuries.
i find it odd that John would critique a book he hasn't read based on a review by a person whose knowledge (of Israel) is limited to books, a government sponsored trip and a handful of extreme pro Israel pundits. Coleman didn't bother to visit the West Bank or the South Hebron Hills or talk to Palestinians. perhaps, John, you should read the book and then take a trip to see what Ta-Nehisi Coates is writing about. Israeli apartheid stands alone, it has nothing to do with October 7. BTW, i am an Israeli/ American i know the country, it's history and the people well. the situation there is awful. both within the green line and in the West Bank. don't make anti black victimhood sensibility determine how you see the Palestinian issue vis a vis Israel. that's rigidity. open up your sources of information.
Glenn, as well as others, you’ve lost me on your Coates take as well.
Coates writes like Marvel makes movies. Lots of spectacle, a lot to catch your eye and distract your attention, and zero substance. If Coates wrote poetry for poetry’s sake; whatever, to each their own. But Coates has such a cloying manner of writing it drives me insane. Also, to think he’s thought of as an intellect with novel ideas is crazy-making. Sure, he has his flowery style. He has his way of saying 1,000 words without ever getting even remotely near a target while making you feel like you’re on some sort of journey. Sure. I’ll give him that. But again, relegate that to poetry if you must have it at all.
Glenn I have listened to you for years. I have disagreed with you on a ton of things. You calling Coates “brilliant” is the first opinion you have had that has made me think less of you. Hahaha that sounds unbelievably harsh. And unnecessarily so. But, dear god I have no idea what you’re talking about.
One of my favorite AA sayings is, “Working hard without doing the hard work.” Having spent the majority of my adult life in the epicenter of progressive academia, all too often this saying rings true. And again and again the progressive invocation of Zionism comes to serve the same dramaturgical function as the conservative invocation of Abortion. I imagine TNC could have deftly written an equally compelling heart-aching narrative poetically condemning abortion and linking it to the same ideology that creates racialized oppression in the US. As a process observation, over the past 20 years, whenever I’ve watched a brilliant academic engage in cliche Israel bashing, I imagine their thought bubble saying, “I give up. I’m tired of the world being so complicated. I just want to be angry and feel good about that anger.” And without fail, they are full of deep and genuine emotion and say the very things Glenn and TNC have said…that they are being brave and believe they have an understanding of things that is new and discerning and profound, and are saying something that needs to be said but no one is allowed to say but they’re going to say it. And damn, bashing Israel looks like it feels so f-ing good. Like that first sip after prolonged sobriety. Finally quenching the hungry ghost longing for emotional comfort. And honestly, I’m just sad to see Glenn fall into this dramaturgical cliche. It’s a rejection of the neverending hard work of complexity that economic thinking makes primary. It’s a rejection of the Chicago approach, with the constant endeavor to add variables that untether the binary from significance. For an example of complex analysis on Israel that attempts to criticize without cliche, I recommend reading Isaac Saul and The Tangle. As an alternative to TNC, for a deep analysis into racial oppression in the US and antisemitism, I recommend reading Eric Ward. His essay “Skin in the Game: How Antisemitism Animates White Nationalism” is illuminating. He also has some of the most essential analysis of the dramaturgical function of antisemitism in political ideologies. If Glenn had a conversation with Eric Ward, I would probably renew my subscription to listen to it. But at this time, I’m done.
“Ta-Nehisi Coates suggests he's not above taking part in an October 7-style attack:
"And I grow up under that oppression and that poverty and the wall comes down. Am I also strong enough or even constructed in such a way where I say this is too far, I don't know that I am."”
Approximately 900,000 Jews were evicted from muslim countries in Africa and Asia– told to get out, andmuch of their property confiscated. JEWS ARE NOT ALLOWED IN THOSE COUNTRIES.
It seems this is much closer to apartheid than Israel, considering there are muslims living in Isreal. Coates is a complete, reprehensible, liar and propagandist.
Coates' interview with Ezra Klein at NYT dropped today. It's easily the best one up until this point. Klein gives Coates' pushback from the Israeli center left perspective, though it's not confrontational, and Coates offers interesting answers. Coates also (if you haven't read the book, as I haven't for e.g.) offers his broadest thinking to date on the topic, how and why he arrived at his conclusions. Coates' doesn't come across as blinkered or stupid in the slightest (to his credit) though my (constructive) criticism would be he lives in a utopian humanist mindset and of course, his views on EVERTHING, and Palestine, are/were colored by his views/experience on race and history of the U.S. I believe he also admits that in his leftist/radical upbringing, Palestine/Palestinians were compared to the 70's race struggle in the U.S. (though I'm not a 100% sure, will have to re-listen. But I do think he offers the best defense of his position. To wit, he says that Israeli Arab citizens do not have the same rights, because their rights are limited to keep up the majority "ethnostate" (he cites Israeli laws on marriage to someone from West Bank for e.g.) and he never outright states that the state of Israel doesn't have a right to exist (he may in the book, but doesn' state it to Klein). He was very much shaped/affected by what he observed in the West Bank (and that's where Israel govt. policies are particularly prone to vociferous opposition, not only from the standpoint of how Palestinians are treated but the ongoing growth of illegal Israeli settlements, not to mention settler attacks on Palestinians. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/11/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-ta-nehisi-coates.html
Coates is a jackass on the subject and I only need one point to prove it.
He spent 2 weeks in Israel and wrote a book calling the conflict “simple” to understand. Only a mentally challenged dullard or a megalomaniac, narcissistic, self obsessed douche bag would ever say such a thing.
To be clear, I do not think he’s a dullard. I think he’s a religious zealot who isn’t half as smart as he believes himself to be. Hence why his “views on EVERYTHING” were colored by one period in history specific to one country. It’s religious adherence.
He seems to assume that an "ethnostate," as the term is being used here, is illegitimate if it imposes any controls over the cultural and religious affiliations of its citizens. Most states have controls over who gets admitted and under what conditions. Certainly, we have, until the latest unhinged border disintegration that is causing enormous disruptions here now. Restrictions of some nations are cultural and religious (far more stringently so throughout the Middle East than in Israel), for some nations (ours) they are about other things. If people cannot see the dire history that justifies the Jewish state wanting to remain Jewish, I suggest that is a failure of historical understanding and sympathetic imagination of a very serious order.
I'd also suggest there is a very big irony in focusing on the settlements within the context of this issue. Why are the settlements such a problem? Is it inconceivable that a future Palestinian state might have some portion of Jews in its population. That seems to be the assumption, and yet it is an assumption by those who then turn around and excoriate Israel for its Jewish enthno-statism, even though it does have 20% non-Jewish Arabs living peacefully within its border.
because settlements are and were never included in any future Palestinian state negotiations. In fact, that was one of the big supposed Palestinian objections to Clinton's deal he so ardently wanted. The existence of settlements and including them into Israel proper created what Palestinian called a collection of "Bantustans" You'd also have to be insane to believe they would ever live under Palestinian political authority. The settlers are ideologically speaking, the Israeli Hamas. They believe in a greater "Judea" (and Samaria) and would ethnically/religiously cleanse out others just as Hamas would. They were also responsible for assassinating an Israeli prime minister who truly believed in peace and a modus vivendi with Palestinians.
Coates insulted all African Americans with his book. Let’s think about it .
Gaza received 7bb in foreign aide . Did they build schools , hospitals or invest in their own people ? No . They built tunnels a s them hide in them behind woman and children . No Black leader would have down that
Israel left in 2007 and then Hamas was elected (none since ) and immediately planned to attack Israel . Kids were educated in hatred for Israel . The African American community produced MLK - Hamas and radical Islam - Sinware .
The Palestinians have sided what enemies of Israel with the hope Israel will be destroyed . African Americans fought for America and only wished to be equal partners in Amercia
You can be an excellent writer and/or orator without having much -- or any -- depth as far as what you're actually SAYING. To me, Coates is clearly agile with the pen, but there's barely any substance there to support the elegance of his prose. (Not to mention that the agility just isn't there when he's speaking.)
And his reductive mantra of "white supremacy!" as the source of all our ills has always struck me as overly simplistic to a laughable/obscene degree. It works as a baby food-like salve for polite society's need for absolution and self-flagellation at the same time. People of a certain breeding/education prefer to have their social conscience spoonfed to them in the most reduced, easy-to-swallow form. Like when children have their steak or chicken nuggets cut-up for them into little tiny cubes.
It felt obvious from the first time I ever heard Coates speak that he was precisely the kind of figure that polite society would anoint as its racial savior -- a token by any other name. And it was nice to see John stay firm in opposing the utter hollowness of his ideas (if we can even call them that). He's not a thinker, he's a spellcaster spinning teleprompter scripts into elaborate swirls of text.
On the other hand, it's almost just as dismaying to listen to John talk about Israel. While John is 100% right in saying that people who equate Israelis to "whites" and Palestinians to "people of color" are lazy (and fraudulent), the fact is: killing tens upon tens of thousands of people -- including untold numbers of civilians -- in response to October 7th is just beyond the pale.
I'm not sure why even some of the most astute intellectuals can't bring themselves to see the grotesque excess in Israel's response. We >can< condemn October 7th while >also< condemning Israel's actions. We can walk and chew gum at the same time, for fuck's sake. And just because October 7th was heinous doesn't allow us to rationalize the >state< of Israel's outrageous barbarity. Someone like John should know better -- and I would argue he >does< know better.
Meanwhile, invoking a performative, finger-wagging clown like Douglas Murray is, frankly, beneath a thinker like John. John and Glenn are (from what I can tell) public thinkers in good faith, with a lot of conceptual backbone and intention behind the assertions they make. Douglas Murray is like a self-styled pro wrestler going off the top rope in the most cartoonishly crass -- and staged -- gladiator arenas of the culture war.
There's virtually no difference between him and Macho Man Randy Savage getting paid to bellow "Snap into a Slim Jim!" on-camera in a commercial we all chuckle and shrug at. He's getting paid to act that way, almost for our entertainment. Yuck.
What's really ironic about all of this is that I thought it was John Mcwhorter who would be the one drove me to cancel my subscription. He's been super-annoying lately.
If you told me a couple months ago that it would have been Glenn who jumped the shark I never would have believed you.
On the Coates portion: Bravissimo, John!! Glenn, Israel, is surrounded by apartheid states that treat women extremely poorly from a Western perspective and Jews and gays even worse. If you "know thing all the way down" can you possibly think that human rights in Israel aren't vastly superior to every other government from the river to the Sea of Japan?
Hey Glenn, John, how about getting out and about and listening to some facts from another journalist who happens to be a British Jew, living in Israel part of the year. Go on give it a go, you will learn something for sure:
I think Ta-nehisi Coates has become a very influential figure for many young people and perhaps some older ones. I believe he is a fine writer, he has the gift of craft. That said, his rhetoric about Israel is disturbing particularly because he has no deep historical knowledge about the relationship between the Israelis and the Palestinians who have both lived on that land for thousands of years. I can't say exactly the same thing for his stance on the race issue, but I am in disagreement with much of what I read and heard. The problem is that he, and most people seem to be speaking from a place of comparison. To use the words apartheid and genocide to describe the situation in Israel is wrong. There is no similarity between the relationships of blacks and whites in South Africa, or what was happening here in America, with what is happening in Israel. When we make that comparison, we are conflating two distinctly different historical events that have no cultural connection whatsoever, but the words we're using to describe these events are inflammatory and re-create painful images that tell the wrong story. Coates has not done a deep dive into the history of that land, and therefore should refrain from making such careless statements without digging much further into the history and relationship of Arabs and Jews of that land over centuries.
i find it odd that John would critique a book he hasn't read based on a review by a person whose knowledge (of Israel) is limited to books, a government sponsored trip and a handful of extreme pro Israel pundits. Coleman didn't bother to visit the West Bank or the South Hebron Hills or talk to Palestinians. perhaps, John, you should read the book and then take a trip to see what Ta-Nehisi Coates is writing about. Israeli apartheid stands alone, it has nothing to do with October 7. BTW, i am an Israeli/ American i know the country, it's history and the people well. the situation there is awful. both within the green line and in the West Bank. don't make anti black victimhood sensibility determine how you see the Palestinian issue vis a vis Israel. that's rigidity. open up your sources of information.
Glenn, as well as others, you’ve lost me on your Coates take as well.
Coates writes like Marvel makes movies. Lots of spectacle, a lot to catch your eye and distract your attention, and zero substance. If Coates wrote poetry for poetry’s sake; whatever, to each their own. But Coates has such a cloying manner of writing it drives me insane. Also, to think he’s thought of as an intellect with novel ideas is crazy-making. Sure, he has his flowery style. He has his way of saying 1,000 words without ever getting even remotely near a target while making you feel like you’re on some sort of journey. Sure. I’ll give him that. But again, relegate that to poetry if you must have it at all.
Glenn I have listened to you for years. I have disagreed with you on a ton of things. You calling Coates “brilliant” is the first opinion you have had that has made me think less of you. Hahaha that sounds unbelievably harsh. And unnecessarily so. But, dear god I have no idea what you’re talking about.
How “brilliant” is this, Glenn?
Ta-Nahesi Coates writing on 9/11:
''Everyone knew someone who knew someone who was missing. But looking out upon the ruins of America, my heart was cold.
I would never consider any American citizen pure.”
https://x.com/drewpavlou/status/1844912051812172127?s=46
One of my favorite AA sayings is, “Working hard without doing the hard work.” Having spent the majority of my adult life in the epicenter of progressive academia, all too often this saying rings true. And again and again the progressive invocation of Zionism comes to serve the same dramaturgical function as the conservative invocation of Abortion. I imagine TNC could have deftly written an equally compelling heart-aching narrative poetically condemning abortion and linking it to the same ideology that creates racialized oppression in the US. As a process observation, over the past 20 years, whenever I’ve watched a brilliant academic engage in cliche Israel bashing, I imagine their thought bubble saying, “I give up. I’m tired of the world being so complicated. I just want to be angry and feel good about that anger.” And without fail, they are full of deep and genuine emotion and say the very things Glenn and TNC have said…that they are being brave and believe they have an understanding of things that is new and discerning and profound, and are saying something that needs to be said but no one is allowed to say but they’re going to say it. And damn, bashing Israel looks like it feels so f-ing good. Like that first sip after prolonged sobriety. Finally quenching the hungry ghost longing for emotional comfort. And honestly, I’m just sad to see Glenn fall into this dramaturgical cliche. It’s a rejection of the neverending hard work of complexity that economic thinking makes primary. It’s a rejection of the Chicago approach, with the constant endeavor to add variables that untether the binary from significance. For an example of complex analysis on Israel that attempts to criticize without cliche, I recommend reading Isaac Saul and The Tangle. As an alternative to TNC, for a deep analysis into racial oppression in the US and antisemitism, I recommend reading Eric Ward. His essay “Skin in the Game: How Antisemitism Animates White Nationalism” is illuminating. He also has some of the most essential analysis of the dramaturgical function of antisemitism in political ideologies. If Glenn had a conversation with Eric Ward, I would probably renew my subscription to listen to it. But at this time, I’m done.
What do you think of this, Glenn?
“Ta-Nehisi Coates suggests he's not above taking part in an October 7-style attack:
"And I grow up under that oppression and that poverty and the wall comes down. Am I also strong enough or even constructed in such a way where I say this is too far, I don't know that I am."”
https://x.com/nickfondacaro/status/1844499893442007450?s=46
People mistakenly believe that history of the "conflict" between Arabs living in Judea and Samaria and Israel is enormously complicated. It is not. https://open.substack.com/pub/irislee/p/come-and-kill-the-jew?r=h9qg8&utm_medium=ios
Is Glenn ok? He didn’t look like himself at all.
Approximately 900,000 Jews were evicted from muslim countries in Africa and Asia– told to get out, andmuch of their property confiscated. JEWS ARE NOT ALLOWED IN THOSE COUNTRIES.
It seems this is much closer to apartheid than Israel, considering there are muslims living in Isreal. Coates is a complete, reprehensible, liar and propagandist.
be fair though. This happened post establishment of state of Israel. This should actually make the Zionists happy, no?
Coates' interview with Ezra Klein at NYT dropped today. It's easily the best one up until this point. Klein gives Coates' pushback from the Israeli center left perspective, though it's not confrontational, and Coates offers interesting answers. Coates also (if you haven't read the book, as I haven't for e.g.) offers his broadest thinking to date on the topic, how and why he arrived at his conclusions. Coates' doesn't come across as blinkered or stupid in the slightest (to his credit) though my (constructive) criticism would be he lives in a utopian humanist mindset and of course, his views on EVERTHING, and Palestine, are/were colored by his views/experience on race and history of the U.S. I believe he also admits that in his leftist/radical upbringing, Palestine/Palestinians were compared to the 70's race struggle in the U.S. (though I'm not a 100% sure, will have to re-listen. But I do think he offers the best defense of his position. To wit, he says that Israeli Arab citizens do not have the same rights, because their rights are limited to keep up the majority "ethnostate" (he cites Israeli laws on marriage to someone from West Bank for e.g.) and he never outright states that the state of Israel doesn't have a right to exist (he may in the book, but doesn' state it to Klein). He was very much shaped/affected by what he observed in the West Bank (and that's where Israel govt. policies are particularly prone to vociferous opposition, not only from the standpoint of how Palestinians are treated but the ongoing growth of illegal Israeli settlements, not to mention settler attacks on Palestinians. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/11/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-ta-nehisi-coates.html
Coates is a jackass on the subject and I only need one point to prove it.
He spent 2 weeks in Israel and wrote a book calling the conflict “simple” to understand. Only a mentally challenged dullard or a megalomaniac, narcissistic, self obsessed douche bag would ever say such a thing.
To be clear, I do not think he’s a dullard. I think he’s a religious zealot who isn’t half as smart as he believes himself to be. Hence why his “views on EVERYTHING” were colored by one period in history specific to one country. It’s religious adherence.
I think your last sentence is pretty much spot on though I might not use "jackass" to describe him. He is definitely a dreamer though
He seems to assume that an "ethnostate," as the term is being used here, is illegitimate if it imposes any controls over the cultural and religious affiliations of its citizens. Most states have controls over who gets admitted and under what conditions. Certainly, we have, until the latest unhinged border disintegration that is causing enormous disruptions here now. Restrictions of some nations are cultural and religious (far more stringently so throughout the Middle East than in Israel), for some nations (ours) they are about other things. If people cannot see the dire history that justifies the Jewish state wanting to remain Jewish, I suggest that is a failure of historical understanding and sympathetic imagination of a very serious order.
I'd also suggest there is a very big irony in focusing on the settlements within the context of this issue. Why are the settlements such a problem? Is it inconceivable that a future Palestinian state might have some portion of Jews in its population. That seems to be the assumption, and yet it is an assumption by those who then turn around and excoriate Israel for its Jewish enthno-statism, even though it does have 20% non-Jewish Arabs living peacefully within its border.
because settlements are and were never included in any future Palestinian state negotiations. In fact, that was one of the big supposed Palestinian objections to Clinton's deal he so ardently wanted. The existence of settlements and including them into Israel proper created what Palestinian called a collection of "Bantustans" You'd also have to be insane to believe they would ever live under Palestinian political authority. The settlers are ideologically speaking, the Israeli Hamas. They believe in a greater "Judea" (and Samaria) and would ethnically/religiously cleanse out others just as Hamas would. They were also responsible for assassinating an Israeli prime minister who truly believed in peace and a modus vivendi with Palestinians.
Coates insulted all African Americans with his book. Let’s think about it .
Gaza received 7bb in foreign aide . Did they build schools , hospitals or invest in their own people ? No . They built tunnels a s them hide in them behind woman and children . No Black leader would have down that
Israel left in 2007 and then Hamas was elected (none since ) and immediately planned to attack Israel . Kids were educated in hatred for Israel . The African American community produced MLK - Hamas and radical Islam - Sinware .
The Palestinians have sided what enemies of Israel with the hope Israel will be destroyed . African Americans fought for America and only wished to be equal partners in Amercia
There is so much more
Coates is a fool
You can be an excellent writer and/or orator without having much -- or any -- depth as far as what you're actually SAYING. To me, Coates is clearly agile with the pen, but there's barely any substance there to support the elegance of his prose. (Not to mention that the agility just isn't there when he's speaking.)
And his reductive mantra of "white supremacy!" as the source of all our ills has always struck me as overly simplistic to a laughable/obscene degree. It works as a baby food-like salve for polite society's need for absolution and self-flagellation at the same time. People of a certain breeding/education prefer to have their social conscience spoonfed to them in the most reduced, easy-to-swallow form. Like when children have their steak or chicken nuggets cut-up for them into little tiny cubes.
It felt obvious from the first time I ever heard Coates speak that he was precisely the kind of figure that polite society would anoint as its racial savior -- a token by any other name. And it was nice to see John stay firm in opposing the utter hollowness of his ideas (if we can even call them that). He's not a thinker, he's a spellcaster spinning teleprompter scripts into elaborate swirls of text.
On the other hand, it's almost just as dismaying to listen to John talk about Israel. While John is 100% right in saying that people who equate Israelis to "whites" and Palestinians to "people of color" are lazy (and fraudulent), the fact is: killing tens upon tens of thousands of people -- including untold numbers of civilians -- in response to October 7th is just beyond the pale.
I'm not sure why even some of the most astute intellectuals can't bring themselves to see the grotesque excess in Israel's response. We >can< condemn October 7th while >also< condemning Israel's actions. We can walk and chew gum at the same time, for fuck's sake. And just because October 7th was heinous doesn't allow us to rationalize the >state< of Israel's outrageous barbarity. Someone like John should know better -- and I would argue he >does< know better.
Meanwhile, invoking a performative, finger-wagging clown like Douglas Murray is, frankly, beneath a thinker like John. John and Glenn are (from what I can tell) public thinkers in good faith, with a lot of conceptual backbone and intention behind the assertions they make. Douglas Murray is like a self-styled pro wrestler going off the top rope in the most cartoonishly crass -- and staged -- gladiator arenas of the culture war.
There's virtually no difference between him and Macho Man Randy Savage getting paid to bellow "Snap into a Slim Jim!" on-camera in a commercial we all chuckle and shrug at. He's getting paid to act that way, almost for our entertainment. Yuck.
Douglas Murray has moral clarity on Coates 🙌
https://www.foxnews.com/video/6363122738112
What's really ironic about all of this is that I thought it was John Mcwhorter who would be the one drove me to cancel my subscription. He's been super-annoying lately.
If you told me a couple months ago that it would have been Glenn who jumped the shark I never would have believed you.
On the Coates portion: Bravissimo, John!! Glenn, Israel, is surrounded by apartheid states that treat women extremely poorly from a Western perspective and Jews and gays even worse. If you "know thing all the way down" can you possibly think that human rights in Israel aren't vastly superior to every other government from the river to the Sea of Japan?
Hey Glenn, John, how about getting out and about and listening to some facts from another journalist who happens to be a British Jew, living in Israel part of the year. Go on give it a go, you will learn something for sure:
https://youtu.be/lpylVjt-jwQ?si=D9zartd0HzprJNhI
Coates’ point is there is no problem getting hearing the viewpoints of Israelis. If you show sympathy to Palestinians, you are labeled an anti-Semite.
Coate’s guide has to jump through hoops to access water and is unable to walk down certain streets.
When Netanyahu spoke to the United Nations, delegates walked out. Israel is not gaining friends.
All 3 of these paragraphs are woefully obtuse. Willful, even?
The statements are clear and to the point
1. Factually incorrect, and misleading.
2. Those 'hoops' didn't fall outta the sky, my friend. So also misleading.
3. Those who walked out are the usual suspects. So also misleading.
So, again, your 3 paragraphs are quite clearly willfully and woefully obtuse.
What fell out of the sky was Palestinians being removed from their ancestral lands. Europeans murdered Jewish people. Palestinians paid the price.
The current situation is that citizens in the United States have little interest n being pulled into a regional war in the Middle East.