On the Long Path

Exploring the Long Path, trails of the Palisades, Bergen Cty, Hudson Valley. Hike, run & a few wrong turns. Explore the long path of running goals & life.

[On the Long Path @OntheLongPath1]

@MosesSternstein Rockland and Ocean. Frum counties.

[On the Long Path @OntheLongPath1]

@coachbrucepearl @StandWithUs @CUFI @RJC I’m a big fan of you and your work. But when we are too quick to conclude this was a targeted anti semitic attack we risk credibility. This was a yellow school bus driving on the turnpike. More likely this was random albeit horrific. Glad the girl is expected to recover.

[On the Long Path @OntheLongPath1]

@piersmorgan Fool you once with their propaganda, shame on them. Fool you every damn day, shame on…. Never mind. You’re just an antisemite.

[On the Long Path @OntheLongPath1]

@realdogenews DHHS/CMS!

[On the Long Path @OntheLongPath1]

@ElishaWiesel Thank you 🙏🇮🇱

[On the Long Path @OntheLongPath1]

@coachbrucepearl Defund the UN and throw them out of NYC!

[On the Long Path @OntheLongPath1]

@MosesSternstein Unless you can keep your first mortgage at 3%.

[Hillel Fuld @HilzFuld]

Left me speechless. What a stunning production.

Netanel Hershtik (the main singer) and I go back about 3 decades. He was also the band at my wedding.

This is unbelievably beautiful.

[Ari Ingel @OGAride]

Israeli student at Columbia University, Shira Guez, is not a Jew with trembling knees.

Here she is excoriating the anti-Israel activists in the encampment.

#ColumbiaUniversity #Columbia_University

[On the Long Path @OntheLongPath1]

@EliseStefanik @Columbia I hope we all go give back our diplomas on commencement day.

[On the Long Path @OntheLongPath1]

@RitchieTorres I hope we all go give back our diplomas on commencement day.

[On the Long Path @OntheLongPath1]

@DavidM_Friedman @Columbia I hope we all go give back our diplomas on commencement day.

[On the Long Path @OntheLongPath1]

@EliseStefanik They’ve turned it into a brain dead institution. Let them sit around Alma mater and shout at themselves blaming others for their discontent. The rest of us move on and don’t look back. Have my diploma back.

[JewOC @RUOC90177786]

Remember, if your town is overrun by rape and genocide supporters, start singing the Star Spangled Banner, and they will flee. It's like garlic to vampires with them. #Teaneck

[Retsef Levi @RetsefL]

This is the reality that MIT President wants to hide. A letter from Israeli & Jewish MIT students:

To all students at MIT,

Today, Jewish and Israeli MIT students were physically prevented from attending class by a hostile group of pro-Hamas and anti-Israel MIT students that call themselves the CAA.

This is after students from the CAA harassed MIT staff members in their offices for being Jewish and interrupted classes in the past few weeks. All of this has occurred with no clear response from the administration. With each passing day, MIT admin’s silence makes Jewish and Israeli students feel unsafe at MIT.

Many Jewish students fear leaving their dorm rooms and have stated that they feel MIT is not safe for Jews. This message is compounded by the public and private warnings of Hillel and many faculty that Jewish students should not enter MIT’s main lobby today, November 9th, 2023.

Instead of dispersing the mob or de-escalating the situation by rerouting all students from Lobby 7, Jewish students specifically were warned not to enter MIT’s front entrance due to a risk to their physical safety. The onus to protect Jewish students should not be on the students themselves.

MIT administration recently announced guidelines to avoid illegal and unsafe protests on campus. The CAA, which planned the protest, knowingly and proudly violated these requirements, and even invited people from outside of MIT to join them. Their actions inhibit the possibility of safe and peaceful dialogue and endanger Jewish students on campus.

The CAA hosted a blockade that not only disregards MIT guidelines, but also obstructs Jewish students from attending classes.

Some Jewish students who saw the administration’s failure to respond to the targeted harassment of Jews on campus by the CAA came together to support each other and peacefully together stand against this threat to their safety.

Four hours after the blockade started, at 12 pm, the MIT administration passed a letter to all students, threatening their suspension if the crowds did not disperse from Lobby 7. Only the Jewish students left immediately. The CAA protesters did not cooperate. Indeed, the CAA proceeded to invite more students and non-MIT protestors to join them in calling for a violent uprising (“Intifada”) and justifying the terror attacks of Hamas on Israeli civilians.

At 5 pm, all students on campus were warned through MIT’s emergency notification system to “avoid Lobby 7” –– officially recognizing the danger present to students as a result of this violent protest. No Jewish or Israeli students were present at this point.

As of 10:30 tonight MIT has officially decided not to academically suspend CAA students who repeatedly violated the administration's guidelines and threats. They have shown that actions against Jews at MIT do not have consequences. Additionally, in an email to DUSP students, the Department Head indicated that he would protect any DUSP students involved in violating MIT’s rules today by protesting with the CAA. Not only do Jewish students feel unsafe on campus, but now they also feel excluded from and unsafe in DUSP.

Today, on the 9th of November, on the 85th anniversary of Kristallnacht, which marked the beginning of the Holocaust, Jews at MIT were told to enter campus from back entrances and not to stay in Hillel for fear of their physical safety.

We are seeing history repeating itself and Jews on MIT’s campus are afraid.

Signed,

The MIT Israel Alliance and its supporters

[Marina Medvin 🇺🇸 @MarinaMedvin]

Read every word.

[Random Walk @MosesSternstein]

If you were ready to believe that Israel would bomb a hospital bc Hamas told you so, then it's likely you have some very wrong priors about the conflict--probably because you genuinely want to be objective and lend credence to both sides, but that credulity has been used against you.

For starters, Israel doesn't commit "atrocities against civilians" (no matter how often its confidently asserted otherwise). It's a false claim. If someone or some outlet repeats it (which they do, all the time), immediately discount what follows by a factor of your choosing. You can disagree with the intensity or harshness of the security measures that surely impact civilians, but they do not constitute "atrocities against civilians" in the way that anyone understands those words.

Collateral damage? Yes, that happens because Palestinians want it to happen (bc it has precisely the effect that we've seen over the last 12 hours). Tbf, it's asymmetric warfare and there would be no fight at all, if civilians and civilian infrastructure weren't an integral part of their operations, but you can't blame Israel for that either (unless, ofc, you take the Palestinian position that Israel shouldn't exist, at all, which OK). That too, is what complicates the tradeoffs around security measures--the bad guys don't put up a sign "It's me, bad guy."

Palestinians wage a "meme" war. Some memes are for the home crowd and some are for the West, and some are for both. (The best weapon is the appearance of civilian casualties (with no actual casualties)--all the benefits, without the costs, which again, doesn't mean that innocents aren't killed bc they most definitely are, but it does mean that civilian status is often faked, as are deaths and injuries themselves.) This is what's referred to as 'Pallywood' and it goes back to the first conflict-by-media (i.e. the first Intifada).

Again, in fairness, it's not specific to Palestinians--everyone generally understands how mass media works--but people tend to suspend disbelief more so with this conflict than in other contexts. The incentives then become self-reinforcing of the practice. There is nothing 'hasbara' or conspiratorial about it. If you think the Palestinians don't do this, then you think the Palestinians are dumb. (Israel also fights a meme war, but the constraints are very different.)

Finally, even if Israel wanted to "massacre civilians," Israel isn't dumb either. Israelis and Palestinians both know that civilian casualties lead to the precise outcry being hollered by the bad faith and credulous right now. That's why (among other reasons) Israel avoids civilian deaths and Palestinians do the opposite. You don't have to assign moral superiority to Israel to acknowledge this point--you just have to believe they are not stupid.

More specifically, in this case, here's what we know:
--Palestinians fire rockets, and do so with a relatively high error rate. They indiscriminately target Israel, and misfires are common.
--Palestinians use hospitals (and other civilian infrastructure) as weapons caches and operational bases. It might be cynical, but it's a tactical necessity.
--They fired a whole bunch of rockets over the hospital, one of which appeared to explode.
--Shortly thereafter the hospital exploded, quite dramatically.
--Palestinians hold a big presser surrounded by what appears to be civilian casualties, the number 500 is ascertained almost immediately.

You don't need geolocation or a munitions background to infer in all likelihood what happened. It's yet another tragedy perpetrated by the Palestinians, although it seems pretty clear they intended the wanton slaughter of Israelis, and not Palestinians, so there's that. That's surely the default assumption, at least until there's strong evidence to the contrary.

Is it possible that Israel decided for the first time ever to take a random potshot at civilians 'just cuz' right before the president was set to arrive and erode its moral high ground, while whipping the Arab world into an even greater frenzy? Sure, it's possible . . . if your priors are deeply mistaken, and/or you're a bad faith idiot, but it's possible.

[On the Long Path @OntheLongPath1]

I don’t think I want to take a first day of school pic of my kids in masks tomorrow. I am excited for them. I know it’ll be a transition back but they are resilient. However, on this first day back, I’ve never been… https://t.co/C7INIDDPYR

[On the Long Path @OntheLongPath1]

#goodmorning to #dabronx from the #jerseyside #firstlight on the #hudsonriver #morningmeditation #hiking #nynjtc #palisadesinterstatepark #palisades #bigrocks #hot @ Palisades Interstate Park https://t.co/vPyrOrzzjm