Soup

TTP

[Soup @1soupyday]

https://t.co/U2NUHmIU8E

[Soup @1soupyday]

@PHLEaglesNation Hank Baskett 84

[Soup @1soupyday]

@bomani_jones Bruce Springsteen and the E street band
The Grateful Dead
The Talking Heads

[Soup @1soupyday]

Boooooooo

[Soup @1soupyday]

@RealEmirHan King Pow: Enter the Fist

[Visegrád 24 @visegrad24]

It's the 85th anniversary of Kristallnacht

On November 9, 1938 German Nazi paramilitary forces & civilians attacked Jewish businesses & homes across Germany

- 7000+ Jewish businesses destroyed
- 30 000 Jewish men arrested &imprisoned in concentration camps

- 100+ Jews killed

[Bill Ackman @BillAckman]

I am pro-Palestinian. Some might be surprised by this due to my recent advocacy on @X for Israel, but you shouldn’t be.

I am anti-terrorist, not anti-Palestinian. It is not inconsistent to be pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian. And my pro-Palestinian viewpoint is not a new one. My pro-Palestinian perspective began more than 30 years ago when I was introduced to the Palestinian community and their plight in the early 1990s.

I have invested millions in helping promote Palestinian economic development and peaceful coexistence. We would do a lot more if we could be confident that the funds would be used productively.

The crisis in Gaza is largely due to a failure of leadership. The Palestinians elected Hamas in 2006 after Israel withdrew and evicted 9,000 of its own citizens from their Gazan homes. Israel withdrew from Gaza for peace. It was a small scale test of a two-state solution.

Rather than building the Singapore of the Middle East over the last 18 years, Hamas diverted funding to build tunnels, rockets and munitions to wage terror and war in an effort to eliminate Israel and kill Jews.

Like the Israelis, the vast majority of Palestinians want peace. They want opportunities for employment so they can earn a living wage to support and educate their families so the next generation can build a better life.

They want peace, beauty, happiness, health and prosperity as we all do. All of that would have been possible with Gazan leadership which focused on economic development rather than terrorism. Israel and (most of) the world wanted the Gazan experiment to succeed.

Israel simply wanted peace. Israel built a fence and created checkpoints to protect its citizens from suicide bombers and other forms of terror. The Egyptians built a concrete wall at their border with Gaza for the same reasons. The need for a fence and checkpoints is made self-evident by the catastrophic impact on Israel when the fence was breached on Oct. 7th.

Hamas is in the business of terrorism. Hamas makes money with grift, corruption, and funding from Israel’s enemies who support Hamas to achieve their own anti-Israel objectives. Hamas and those that support it don’t care about the Palestinians. The Palestinians are simply a tool to implement their anti-Israel and/or anti-Jew objectives.

Like other businesses, Hamas has a corporate hierarchy where those at the top make thousands of times more than the ‘workers’ at the bottom. Hamas’ leaders have put aside hundreds of millions and even billions for themselves.

Hamas uses their ‘culture’ of terrorism, cash, and other incentives to motivate young, brainwashed —often from youth—, radicalised militants to implement death, torture and destruction. Their ‘success’ at terrorism attracts more funding, amplifies Israel’s response, and the cycle continues.

Hamas does not care about the Palestinian people. Hamas knew with certainty how Israel would respond to the torture, rape, beheading, and slaughter of Israeli women, children, seniors and infants on Oct. 7th.

Hamas’ plan was to hide out in their tunnels and headquarters built under major hospitals, limit evacuations so that Palestinian citizens are exposed to the inevitable Israeli military response, and then rally the world against Israel in a globally coordinated response as innocent civilians die.

Israel has no choice but to destroy Hamas. It cannot allow its survival, as Hamas’ existence remains an existential threat. If ISIS invaded our southern border, we would do the same. We would warn civilians to evacuate and then we would go in and destroy the terrorists. We wouldn’t cease fire until they were obliterated.

The whole situation is an incredible tragedy. While I have always hoped for a viable and peaceful two-state solution, the Gaza experiment has been an abject failure. Future efforts for statehood for the Palestinians must learn from this catastrophe.

As always, I welcome your input, critiques and rebuttal.

What did I get wrong?

[John Aziz @aziz0nomics]

I'm Palestinian but I was angry with Hamas after the October 7 massacre.

I knew it would lead to war.

Yesterday I watched an anti-Zionist protest demanding the dismantling of Israel take over London.

This is the same ideology that caused the massacre in the first place.

[Richard Landes @richard_landes]

On the history of disproportionate force:

[Ben M Freeman - בן מ פרימן @BenMFreeman]

I am a proud Zionist.

I am proud the Jews decolonised their land in 1948 & began the ingathering of the exiles.

I am proud that Israel is a democracy.

I am proud of the Israeli people.

I am proud that once again we have sovereignty in our indigenous land.

Am yisrael chai

[Emanuel Miller ✡️ @emanumiller]

HERO

Not long after midnight on October 7, 47-year-old Bedouin bus driver Yussuf al-Ziadana dropped off a customer at the Supernova music festival.

A few hours later, at dawn, Yussuf received a frantic call from that same passenger, begging Yussuf to return and get him out of the hell that was unfolding.

Most people would think twice. Many would stay far away. Not Yussuf. He drove straight back into the line of fire, crammed thirty people on board his bus, and saved their lives.

Yussuf met today with Israel's President, Isaac Herzog. He told the President how his family are agricultural workers with strong ties to the many Kibbutzim in the Negev.

Herzog said, "I was excited to meet in Rahat an Israeli hero, Yussuf Al-Ziadana, who with unusual courage and determination saved the lives of least thirty young people that black Saturday from the festival in Re'im, including those who were wounded."

Yussuf said, "I am an Israeli citizen and I knew that I had to go and save them".

[U.S. Senator John Fetterman @SenFettermanPA]

I was profoundly moved to meet with survivors of the October 7th massacre and families of Hamas’ hostages. 

Together, we began to post photos of the hostages outside my office to stress the urgent need to bring them all home.

My office is posting every last one.

[Hillel Fuld @HilzFuld]

This video is a 10/10.

Who is she? I want to express my gratitude and admiration for her.

One of the best videos I’ve seen.

[Katherine Brodsky @mysteriouskat]

More on the topic of doubt, I wouldn't be honest if I didn't admit that in the current conflict between Israel and Gaza, despite my outspokeness, I also have doubts.

Do I know for sure that Israel is being as cautious as possible with their military tactics in order to avoid civilians? Well, how can I possibly know that not being on the ground. Do I know whether some Israeli soldiers aren't out for blood and revenge? I do not. It's quite probable that some are. There are horrible people in every nation, why should this be an exception? Bad people do bad things during times of war.

Do I know if morally it would have been better to do a ground invasion which would likely prevent as many innocent casualties on the Palestinian side...but end up in more deaths of Israelis?
I'm really not sure. A country has the responsibility to prevent the deaths of its own citizens first and foremost. But...it's a morally difficult situation. And I'm also missing much tactical information. Perhaps it's not even possible.

I don't know how many people died on the Gaza side exactly because Hamas is not a reliable narrator. But I know people who have lost many loved ones. I don't know what portion of their population supports Hamas. I know many do, but I'm sure some are complete victims in all of this, stuck in the middle.
I don't have certainty that cutting off water/food was the right strategy, but I've heard some reasonable arguments as to why tactically they felt they had to. I'm not convinced though that it was the right thing.

I'm uncertain about the future and what steps need to be taken. If it will be possible to save a new generation that has just seen their entire families killed from being radicalized. I can understand the way it seems from their side, particularly when they are being told what they are.

I don't know how many Gazans died because of Israeli fire or from Hamas misfired rockets, of which there are many. How many deaths were preventable because Hamas wouldn't let their own people leave or put weapons and build tunnels in buildings like churches, schools, and hospitals. Or how many places were wrongly fired on that shouldn't have been targets. How many of the deaths are innocent civilians vs terrorists.

These are some of the things I don't know, that I have doubts about.

What I don't have doubts on are the following:

The people in Israel who were kidnapped, murdered, tortured, and raped don't deserve any of it. It is not an act of "liberation." It's an act of absolute evil and cruelty. NOTHING justifies this. Nothing. NOTHING.

The innocent people in Gaza do not deserve their lives to be lost either. And each innocent life is as worthy as an Israeli one.

Israel exists. And that is a reality that needs to be accepted for a future that doesn't involve death and destruction, for either side.

You may disagree with how it was formed, think it unfair, wrong place, etc. But it exists.

Just like the settlements need to stop. Just like Israel needs to treat Palestinians humanely. They have the right to protect their border. But they don't have the right to treat people poorly when they allow them to cross it.

We all need to accept the realities of the needs and fears of the most moderate amongst both groups. Moderate Palestinians want to be treated with respect, have sovereignty and dignity.

Israel wants to ensure its safety. It wants/needs to remain its own state in order not to cease to exist.

Both want not to be killed or hurt.

And both need to come with equal desire for peace in order for the wishes of the moderate, decent people on each side to be fulfilled.

It's the only way.

The radicals need to be ousted.

It can't happen while people are chanting "from the river to the sea", justifying acts of terror, and tearing down posters of kidnapped children. And it can't happen if Israel doesn't do something different than what the Natanyahu gov has been doing either. It's not working.

Reasonable people must stand up

[Melissa Chen @MsMelChen]

This conflict weighs so heavily on me. I have Jewish friends and I have Muslim friends. I have a deep affinity for Israel and for Arab culture, and do a lot of work in the Middle East.

But let’s be clear about some things. Anti-Israel + Pro-Palestine demonstrations erupted around the world *before* Israel responded.

BEFORE.

Let's recap that sequence of events.

1. Palestinian militants wake up in the morning and decide to go and murder Israeli civilians, take hostages, and declare their intent to destroy Israel

2. Demonstrations erupt around the world supporting Palestine and condemning Israel

3. Israel responds to this threat

Go back over it again in case there is any ambiguity.

There is no moral grey area to inhabit here. No fog of war that one can hide behind.

Palestinian militants murdered civilians. In cold blood. They raped Israeli women. They set children on fire and beheaded them. Grandmothers were raped so brutally their pelvis was broken. A pregnant woman had her baby cut out of her stomach and beheaded, only to then suffer beheading herself. Palestinian militants murdered Jews, on a mass scale, in the most barbaric and heinous ways possible. And then vowed that they would keep going, to the thunderous applause of their sympathisers living in the West.

Members of our intelligentsia and elite students openly cheered Hamas, laying the blame *entirely* at the feet of Israeli policy. They justified the most barbaric atrocities under the banner of liberation and decolonization.

If you can't see the problem with that, I don't know what else to tell you.

It is easier of course to just keep quiet, to not talk about it. But I am compelled to.

Because 90 years ago, no one spoke up.

Yet.

It is important to recognize that this is war, and in this war, there are people are dying on both sides - children, women, civilians.

Many people have been trying to build bridges to bring about peace – and all their work crumbled just like that. The world before Oct 7 was a different world. Peace in the Middle East was achievable and now, we’re back to reliving ancient hatreds between the sons of Abraham.

One of the problems with discourse today isn’t just about the things we say; sometimes it’s about the things we don’t say.

Even when we think that “our side” may have not been totally right, we hold back from criticizing because we fear weakening the moral standing of “our side.”

So on one side, they cannot criticise Hamas, and on the other, they cannot criticise the Israeli government / IDF. But Hamas isn’t Palestine, and the Israeli government isn’t Israelis / Jews.

This distinction is important. And for those who say “but Palestinians support Hamas overwhelmingly,” please ask yourself exactly what choice you would have if you were born into the same cultural and social milieu?

You’ve heard the phrase the “bigotry of low expectations.” Sometimes it is compassionate to expect less.

Moral clarity is important, but so is being compassionate and not giving up on humanity.

When will we beat swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks? When will we no longer take up sword against each other, nor train for war anymore?

I recall the words of Rudyard Kipling:

“What profit to kill men?”

“Very little - as I know; but if evil men were not now slain; it would not be a good world for weaponless dreamers.”

[Visegrád 24 @visegrad24]

Israel starts releasing videos of interrogations of the Hamas terrorists they captured on October 7.

The terrorists admit they raped & beheaded Israeli civilians

Time for Western journalists to understand this isn’t an army. It’s a terrorist organization

[Charlie Kirk @charliekirk11]

Danish journalist, Jotam Confino, describes what he saw in the 45 min of raw Hamas body-cam video documenting their terror campaign against Israeli citizens including women and children:

"I think the best way to describe it really, is ISIS on steroids...I would like to explain what I saw, but I don't want to scare people off."

Piers Morgan then insists on hearing exactly what he saw. WARNING: While his recounting doesn't include visuals, it is extremely graphic and heart wrenching.

Civilization vs. Barbarism.

[Curtis Houck @CurtisHouck]

🧵Incredible @JakeTapper interview with Mosab Hassan Yousef, the son of the founder of Hamas, who actually was an undercover informant for Israel from 1997 to 2007.

Yousef: "Since I was a child I always complained to my father about hamas abuse of power and their brutality, you know, they're very strict and they -- they're religious -- they're fanatics".