RafiL

Phila-Scotian, real estate developer, attorney & (slow) open water swimmer.

[Rachel Moiselle @RachelMoiselle]

I would actually go further:

I would contend that the adoption of the Palestinian cause as being core to Irish identity has been the most culturally, diplomatically, and reputationally catastrophic move for our country in the last decade.

Culturally speaking the dominance of Palestine in the arts has eroded the focus on our own stories and talent, in addition to cultivating an atmosphere of exclusion and bigotry. My own grandmother spent her entire professional career in the Irish theatre and film industry. I often think about what she would feel if she were alive to see the (both state funded) Abbey Theatre and National Concert Hall refuse to host a play about October 7th. What a tragic state of affairs for Irish theatre this egregious censorship is.

Diplomatically, we have embarrassed ourselves on a world stage with our self-righteous posturing as all-knowing moral arbiters on this issue. At this point every sane politician knows it, which is why most members of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have been uncharacteristically silent on Israel/Palestine as of late. I have friends in Brussels who tell me that Irish MEPs are a known laughing stock with their deranged tirades.

Reputationally, I think we are aware by now what it has caused us. Irish people can throw a conspiratorial hissy fit and claim it is a ‘smear campaign’ all they like. The reputation has been solidified. How could it not when a major Irish music band scream ‘up Hamas, up Hezbollah’ on stage and our media class continues to platform and laud them? How could it not when an Irish television presenter on our state broadcaster brings up Palestine when talking about an attack on British Jews? How could it not when a former Taoiseach (Prime Minister) refers to a young Irish child saved from Hamas captivity as being ‘lost and found’? It goes on and on and on.

Irish people have every right to feel deeply about the Palestinian cause and advocate strongly in support of it. What should never have been done, however, is the imposed adoption of the Palestinian cause as being core to Irish identity by our political, media, NGO, and academic class. It has resulted in Irish people downplaying, excusing, and in some cases celebrating great evils being done in this cause’s name; because it was positioned as our own.

It is not. It has never been and it will never be.

[John LeFevre @JohnLeFevre]

I often criticized Lindsey Graham. But this weekend, I learned his full story:

- Orphaned young, he adopted & raised his little sister instead of letting her go into the system.

- Grew up dirt poor, racking balls in his parents’ pool hall.

- In search of opportunity, he joined the Air Force. Served 33 years. Retired a Colonel.

- Then spent decades in Congress, earning respect across the aisle.

- Bashed Trump hard in ~2016, then respected the will of the voters, and grew to become a loyal ally.

- Humble. Devoted to his constituents.

- Driven by patriotism (even when misguided). Never in it for the money. Could've cashed in any time like most of his colleagues.

- That Disney trip everyone mocked? Just a good uncle taking his beloved nieces. He smiled through (and ignored) the hate to protect his family.

RIP to a self-made American original.

[Mason Home Builder @bankertobuilder]

Bought this old house from some guy named Frank

Removed the water feature (maintenance nightmare), cleaned up the overgrown shrubs, and rezoned it to commercial

Now it’s actually a useful structure

Not sure what this guy was doing

[Jon Geeting @jongeeting]

What are we even doing here? If we can’t even be chill about live music at bars on freaking South Street…

[olexander scherba🇺🇦 @olex_scherba]

A fine Russian “kitchen joke” of today. I.e. not be used in public, only in the kitchen. In whisper.

A pro-Putin guy pulls into a gas station and asks:
- How much for gasoline?
The attendant answers:
- 200 rubles a liter.
- What do you mean, 200?! Yesterday it was 100!
- That’s right: 100 rubles is for the gasoline, and another 100 goes toward building a multipolar world.

The pro-Putin character sighs, but proudly hands over 200 rubles.

The attendant takes the money, hands back 100, and says:

- There’s no gasoline.

[Jonah Platt @JonahPlatt]

Always listen to what Mamdani says. Carefully.👇

@amiKozak

[Eylon Levy @EylonALevy]

Genuinely thought this was Khamenei’s funeral.

When the only way to tell the difference between Iran and Spain is the architecture, someone has a problem and it isn’t Iran…

[Hon. Vickie Paladino @VickieforNYC]

If you want to understand the DSA, you have to follow Stu Smith here from the Manhattan Institute. It's a MUST. The research and archiving he's doing is invaluable.

[Brian Hart @BrianHartPR]

I’ve never in my life seen that before. Behind the back between the legs to same hand?! And reverse finish for the chef’s kiss…

[Tymofiy Mylovanov @Mylovanov]

Petraeus: Ukraine will manufacture 7 million drones this year, doubled from last year. They use 10,000 per day.

Software changes every week or two, hardware every three to four weeks. About 60% of battlefield drones now use fiber optic cable extending 30 to 35 kilometers. 1/

[Philadelphia is a nice city and you should visit🔔 @PhillyGov]

Say it with me:
Philadelphia is a nice city and you should visit!

[Marc Zell - מארק צל @GOPIsrael]

Here’s a great video about a great Polish Jew who financed the American Revolution 250 years ago and died penniless 9 years later. His name was Chaim Solomon. Make it go viral before America’s 250th anniversary next month

[Kosher @koshercockney]

British Barrister and International law expert Natasha Hausdorff explains to you exactly what is happening in the Middle East

Under International Law there is no “Illegal occupation” by Israel

None. Share it, educate

Via @triggerpod

[Haviv Rettig Gur @havivrettiggur]

This is inversion so callous it's hard to believe.

The Holocaust had a survival rate of about 30%. Millions of people disappeared from European cities and towns over several years. Everybody knew because it was happening all around them.

Gaza has a survival rate, despite the worst and most deadly and horrible periods of the war, of 97%.

All the dead Jews were noncombatants. A large percentage of the dead Gazans were combatants.

And the Jews of Europe, even as their millennia-old civilization was being systematically wiped out, wanted nothing from the societies that surrounded them except to be allowed to live in peace.

Gaza's leadership of religious fanatics, meanwhile, wants every last Israeli dead and gone, is willing to fight to the last Gazan to achieve that aim, has said so publicly and worked for decades to blow up every peace attempt -- and even now believes that Gaza's destruction would be a worthwhile sacrifice to lay on the altar of Israel's destruction, because their god told them so.

So Israelis can reasonably believe, given those features of the Gaza war that aren't true about any genocide ever, and were pretty much the opposite of what was happening in the Holocaust, that Gaza's suffering is a bad and painful war, but not remotely a genocide.

But the point of it all, of course, is not to analyze Gaza, but specifically to lump it together with the Holocaust -- to cast the Jews as the new Nazis.

The only reason this person would dare to make such an insanely ahistorical and immoral parallel is because this is the heart of the bigoted propaganda campaign in which he enthusiastically participates: The point of it all is to make the Jews into the Nazis.

A culture that obsessed about Jews being evil and was then shocked by the Holocaust into obsessing about dead Jews as the apotheosis of righteous victimhood is now obsessively engaged in knocking Jews off that moral pedestal they themselves put them on.

That's why they don't care one whit about Hamas massacres of Gazans, about genocidal wars in Syria or Yemen (even when they've funded and armed the sides), about flotilla activists currently held by the Libyans...literally nothing triggers a response except Jews.

They still, even after all these generations, no matter what else is happening in the world or in their own societies, can't stop thinking about Jews.

And as we Jews learned in the 1940s -- the actual, historical 1940s, not the weird fantasies conjured up by these bigots -- a whole society can be in the grip of a callous, destructive bigotry and still believe it is true and righteous.

[Mor Edge Insight @MorEdge_Insight]

Listen to Saudi Minister Adel al-Jubeir laying it out straight at the Council on Foreign Relations.

He flat out called out Qatar for paying $500 million to Hezbollah in Iraq alone. This isn’t some vague rumor, it’s on record.

Qatar has been playing both sides for years, funneling money to terror groups, backing the Muslim Brotherhood, and giving safe haven to Hamas leaders while acting like the reasonable mediator on the world stage.

They pour cash into Western universities and sports to buy influence and silence, all while destabilizing the region and spreading extremism.

The Gulf had to isolate them in 2017 for exactly these reasons, and nothing’s really changed.

Enough with the glossy PR and victim act. Qatar is a terrorist state. They are the Muslim Brotherhood. And Trump can sing their praises all he likes… it doesn’t change the fact that they are one of the most divisive, dishonest, corrupt, and dangerous Islamic terror states in the world today.

Huge credit to @visegrad24 for the full video.

[UN Watch @UNWatch]

WATCH: @HillelNeuer reveals which U.N. officials are funded by Qatar, China, and Russia to attack America, Israel, and the West at the United Nations.

Read UN Watch's new report here: https://t.co/1sryrmtv8E

[RafiL @RafiL6]

@mnolangray And StuyTown & Peter Cooper Village https://t.co/8Ut7zZbI9w

[RafiL @RafiL6]

@MarioNawfal Brilliant - but couldn't they invent a bigger cup?

[RafiL @RafiL6]

@jongeeting If you permit it, they will build!

[RafiL @RafiL6]

@jongeeting You're a lucky guy