BREAKING: Masked Islamists in Montreal paraded a Jew being hanged through the streets.
Get every single one of these terrorists out of the West.
Enough of this.
The globalized intifada shot 20 bullets into my boyhood synagogue in Toronto. The supposed line between antisemitism and anti-Zionism is a semantic device, not a real barrier. Latest in @TheAtlantic https://t.co/pXkkga2Vhg
Because this is circulating again: Mr. Abu Toha is a gifted writer who has endured tremendous loss. But with all due respect, he lied extensively in our interview, specifically about his past comments on social media. And those lies have since gone viral because they have been excerpted and shared without context. Here is some of the context.
Most of our interview was about his personal story of grief and suffering, and his writings about this topic, which were honored with a Pulitzer. His award was controversial at the time, however, because of some of his social media posts excusing or rationalizing violence on Oct. 7. The controversy surrounding his honor was readily apparent from any basic Google News search about him at the time. Among other things, he said that the Israeli hostages taken by Hamas, a recognized terrorist group, were not really “hostages,” and essentially had it coming. For example he mocked one specific hostage by name (Emily Damari), who was abducted from her home on a kibbutz on Oct. 7; shot; and subsequently starved and abused underground for 500 days. (She released an open letter to the Pulitzer Board after Mr. Abu Toha's prize was awarded.) In another post, Mr. Abu Toha criticized the BBC and CNN for “humaniz[ing]” Israeli Jews. I am including screen shots of examples of those posts. Mr. Abu Toha has since deleted these posts, which may tell you something about whether he thinks they were wise to publish.
In our interview, I asked Mr. Abu Toha if there was anything he would like to clarify about the Facebook posts he had deleted. He responded by lying about what he had said. “First of all, I did not question her status as a hostage, because she is a hostage,” he replied, adding that he had said only that Palestinians should be treated with compassion. This representation is false. If that anodyne statement had been entirety of his prior Facebook remarks, it indeed might look outrageous that a journalist would ask him about any “controversy.” But that is not the case.
Mr. Abu Toha is a poet awarded a prize specifically for his words; some of those words have attracted substantial criticism because they countenanced violence. To not ask about those words and the ongoing storm surrounding them would be a dereliction of our jobs as journalists.
The most successful European startup journey:
1. Have an idea
2. Get six co-founders, ideally in their 50s
3. Spend four months to set up a legal entity
4. Apply to Y Combinator, get rejected
5. Write angry LinkedIn post about tech bro culture in the US
6. Raise €50k for 75% equity from top European VCs
8. Do external GDPR audit before users sign up
9. Co-founder leaves to do a second PhD
10. Apply for an EU grant
11. Move headquarters to Estonia for e-residency
12. Launch product, get four users
13. Pivot to sustainability consulting
14. Become the AI innovation advisor to EU Parliament
Silicon Valley simply cannot comprehend what we are building here
I recently saw a revival of an old JCPOA propaganda talking point that the JCPOA was the most extensive/intrusive verification regime ever negotiated. Surprised that this exaggeration would be dredged up. The denuclearization and verification arrangements covering Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War were both more extensive and intrusive, by far. No one doubts today that under that arrangement, Iraq completely denuclearized, and its many undeclared nuclear materials and activities were found by the inspectors.
In contrast, the JCPOA had particular failings on verification. It did verify the hell out of declared programs but failed to find the undeclared uranium and activities that is known to exist. It did not provide the leverage or even advocate for the IAEA to go out and show the existence of undeclared materials or ensure their absence. In the JCPOA, the P5 tended to see the IAEA’s mandate to seek a complete nuclear declaration as potentially rocking the boat on the JCPOA. Moreover, the JCPOA in practice provided no effective leverage to address the issue of a well-documented lack of a complete Iranian nuclear declaration or to ensure the presence or absence of undeclared nuclear materials and activities.
Freed of constraints, and with a new Director General, the IAEA did post-JCPOA identify undeclared uranium and activities that were there during the whole period of the JCPOA.
The IAEA finding grew out of the information in the Nuclear Archive, revealed in 2018, in the months before the US left the JCPOA. Would the IAEA have acted on the new information in the Nuclear Archive that was key to the its findings on undeclared material and activities, if the JCPOA had continued? Very unclear. The IAEA was very slow to act in any case. And when the archive was revealed the JCPOA parrots quickly cawed “Nothing new.” How wrong they were, but it was a clear message to the IAEA not to rock the boat. It likely took the US leaving the JCPOA for the IAEA to have the headroom to act on the information in the archives.
The world has moved beyond the JCPOA; it is archaic, hardly a comparative benchmark. Already, the wars have accomplished what the JCPOA never could; Iran is no longer enriching. And Iran’s remaining enriched uranium stocks are bottled up in caves, and its nuclear weaponization capabilities, untouched by the JCPOA, are in ruins. Under the JCPOA, Iran would today be increasing its enrichment capacity and safe in keeping its nuclear weaponization materials and activities free of that bothersome IAEA meddling.
But the struggle to stop Iran’s nuclear weapons ambitions and efforts is not finished. The remnants remaining in Iran are dangerous and unverified. Rebuilding, while time consuming, can be done. In that effort, any new nuclear deal should rhyme with the 1991 Iraqi verified denuclearization arrangement, not the JCPOA.
This is extraordinary.
Ukraine is winning the oil war by bringing it home to Russia - in the Urals.
Perm is 1,000 miles east of Ukraine.
The killer in the Kremlin is losing.
@shadihamid@coldxman The predominant ideologies of the left hold that all American institutions and systems are racist and exploitative. So it reasons that Democrats would hate America.