Casey Anis

From Boston, MA. Maryland alum. NYC Public Defender

[Open Source Intel @Osint613]

A planned large-scale attack on Jerusalem was disrupted after Israeli forces found a 25-meter tunnel stocked with explosives and heavy weapons in an East Jerusalem village, Israeli authorities say.

[Haviv Rettig Gur @havivrettiggur]

Mehdi Hasan must hate Islam.

I never realized it. But I can think of no other explanation for this comment.

He’s coming after Israel for a feature it shares with Jordan Egypt, Lebanon, Iran, Kuwait, Qatar, Yemen, Libya, Afghanistan, and Saudi Arabia. A feature Israel inherited from the Ottoman Empire.

In other words, he’s coming after the most Muslim thing about us.

He’s also mostly wrong. Israel does have civil marriage, just not conducted domestically. It even has gay marriage with full rights of inheritance, end of life decisions, adoption. Again, you just have to get the actual marriage certificate somewhere else. Until 2014, Israel offered more robust marriage rights to gay couples than America.

Since my wife and I don’t like the state rabbinate, we are civilly married overseas. Israelis often take the short puddle-jumper flight to Cyprus to marry there, and in the waiting room at Larnaca City Hall they meet Lebanese couples doing the same thing for the same reason.

And these laws are far stricter in Saudi, Kuwait, Qatar, Yemen, Libya, Afghanistan, Iran, Egypt, and Jordan.

Oh, and in many places — including Iran, Yemen, Afghanistan and Iraq — marriage with very young girls is permitted and takes place routinely. They claim that’s what sharia law demands. Tens of thousands of girls under 15 are married to older men every year in Iran.

So if Mehdi cares about secular or civil marriage, he must be routinely outraged by the failure of the Muslim world in this regard. He must be questioning the wisdom and truth of an Islam that would lead to such benighted, antidemocratic outcomes.

Because otherwise, he’s just pretending to care about marriage as an excuse to hate Jews. And I can’t believe — won’t believe — that that’s what’s happening here.

[Shannon Watts @shannonrwatts]

Your inability to condemn the antisemitic attacks on Sen Scott Wiener without bringing up completely unrelated legislation regarding aid to Israel is exactly why he was attacked.

[Dan 🇮🇪 ✡️ @danielthemate]

Yesterday in Dublin at the Jewish Anti-Zionist Congress, a speaker took the mic to declare that “Jews” are “harmful to the whole planet” and described them as “the chaos engine of humanity”. He then went on to say that we need to change Jewish religion and culture to “save humanity”, which was followed by a round of applause.

This isn't new. In 1921, the Association of German National Jews was established and was defined by a radical, self-directed hostility toward traditional Jewish identity. They despised their own heritage, viewing Eastern European Jews with open contempt and fiercely opposing Zionism. They later went on to back the Nazi party.

Just like the Association of German National Jews, these antizionists goal are the total assimilation and self eradication of Jewish Identity.

Most antizionist Jews don't just hate Israel, they hate the Jewish religion, they hate Jewish culture and they hate Jewish history. Antizionism is a hate movement regardless of who's practicing it.

[David Bernstein @ProfDBernstein]

A very large % of people I encounter on X seem to think that civilians only died in WWII because of intentionally targeting of civilians, like the bombing of Dresden or the nukes on Japan.
That's just not true. Ordinary war, nothing that even today would be considered problematic, killed lots of people.
The invasion of Normandy is estimated to have killed about 30K French civilians. These were mostly people who were on the Allied side, they weren't targeting, they were just "collateral damage."
I think lack of understanding of just how brutal ordinary warfare explains at least some of the hysteria re Israel and Gaza--the false assumption that if a lot of civilians die, it must be due to "war crimes."

[Everything Price Sufferer (but especially eggs) @agraybee]

Scott Wiener has the same opinions on Israel as Graham Platner. I wonder what makes him different.

[The Undercurrent @NotTheirScript]

This is the DSA co-chair. Let me summarize what he says in this video:

We’re using the Democratic Party as a ballot-access vehicle, not because we share its goals. We build our own organization, get elected under the Democratic label, caucus with Democrats when it’s useful, and push our own agenda from the inside. We see the Democratic establishment as an obstacle, not a home.

[Kamel Amin Thaabet @K_AminThaabet]

Truth bomb: the Keffiyah-clad kids in the West hate Israel far more than they actually care for Palestinians. So this will be ignored.

[Ihab Hassan @IhabHassane]

To all Western media, including pro-Palestine outlets: right now, thousands of Palestinian civilians are taking part in massive anti-Hamas protests across the Gaza Strip.

Stand with them. Carry their voices. Don't abandon them.

[Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib @afalkhatib]

Hamas has launched an industrial‑scale campaign of terror, intimidation, interrogation, and blackmail against thousands of Gazans it suspects of planning to join tomorrow’s June 26 demonstrations against its violent, authoritarian rule. Hospitals across Gaza have been turned into makeshift police stations, interrogation sites, and torture centers. Clan elders are being coerced into issuing statements. Hamas operatives are stealing phones and posting fabricated messages to sabotage the protests. Families are being threatened, people placed under house arrest, and Hamas’s al‑Qassam brigades (the same forces responsible for October 7) have been fully mobilized to reinforce police and intelligence units with explicit shoot‑to‑kill orders.

Meanwhile, the mainstream press is largely absent, apparently because Israel is not involved – so no Jews, no news. And the Western “pro‑Palestine” industry is either celebrating the electoral victories of pro‑Hamas, hard‑left candidates or actively smearing Gaza’s protesters as collaborators undermining the “resistance.” As for the UN, NGOs, and major human‑rights organizations: silence. Not a word for Palestinians risking their lives to say they are done with Hamas’s terror and rule.

This is what the abandonment of Palestinians in Gaza looks like. Shame on all who stay silent in the face of jihadi, ISIS‑like violence against the very people they claim to champion.

[Brianna Wu @BriannaWu]

I don’t really have a kind way to say this, but if you think it’s a genocide, it’s because you’re either very vulnerable to propaganda or you hate Jews.

This has been an utterly conventional war with the lowest civilian to combat casualty rate in modern warfare.

The fact that y’all have no smoke for the terrorists using human shields shows it’s actually about hating Jews.

[Av Michal אביגיל מיכל @avygal]

Hamas is currently arresting peace activists in Gaza and holding them hostage and interrogating them at Al Ahli hospital ahead of the planned anti Hamas protests on Friday

Not one word from pro Palestinians

Not one

They don’t care about Palestinians they care only about destroying Israel

[Yehuda Teitelbaum @chalavyishmael]

The Yevsektsiya were Jews. They blamed Zionists and traditional Jews for alienating Soviet society. They believed that if Jews abandoned religion, nationalism, and every trait the regime found objectionable, Communism would reward them with acceptance.

They helped shut down synagogues, persecuted Hebrew teachers, and denounced fellow Jews as enemies of progress. When they were no longer useful, the Soviet state disbanded the Yevsektsiya. Many of its members were executed during Stalin's purges. Others disappeared into labor camps. Their loyalty bought them nothing.

The Antizionist League of Iraq was made up of Jews as well. Its members insisted that Zionism was the source of hostility toward Iraqi Jews. They argued that if Jews publicly rejected the idea of a Jewish state, suspicion and hatred would disappear. They were wrong. The League itself was dissolved and its leaders imprisoned. The Farhud left hundreds of Jews dead, Jewish homes and businesses were looted and destroyed, and over the following years an ancient community was driven into exile. Nobody stopped to ask whether their victims were Zionists before burning their homes or stabbing them in the streets.

A century ago, Baghdad had one of the largest Jewish communities in the world. Jews made up roughly a quarter of the city's population. Today there are fewer than ten Jews left in all of Iraq. Trying to prove that you are one of the "good Jews" has never altered the outcome.

German Jews were among the most assimilated Jews in the world. They were educated, patriotic, and deeply proud of being German. Many of them fought proudly in WWI. They often looked down on poorer Jews arriving from Eastern Europe. Some convinced themselves that antisemitism was directed only at those less refined than themselves. Even the Association of German National Jews sought accommodation with the Nazi movement and declared its opposition to Zionism. The Nazis outlawed the organization anyway. Its members were deported and murdered alongside the rest of European Jewry.

Today there are fewer Jews in all of Europe than there are Arab citizens of Israel. So much for Europe lecturing Israel about tolerance.

Once a society begins stigmatizing Jews, or even just one category of Jews, the writing is already on the wall. Assimilation has never provided lasting protection. Appeasement has never provided lasting protection. Explaining ourselves politely and hoping to be accepted as the "good ones" has never provided lasting protection.

We are living through a dangerous moment. The United States, and perhaps Argentina, remain among the few places where Jews are not broadly stigmatized. But even that cannot be taken for granted. A 2023 Harvard-Harris poll found that two thirds of Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 agreed that "Jews as a class are oppressors and should be treated as oppressors." Those young people will shape the future of public opinion.

We have no choice but to speak plainly about antizionism.

Because if antizionism were merely opposition to Netanyahu, it would not predate Netanyahu. If it were merely opposition to Israeli policy, it would not predate Israel. Long before 1948, Jews were being massacred for refusing to accept their place as a tolerated minority.

The uncomfortable truth is that antizionism did not emerge in response to Jewish power. It emerged in response to the idea that Jews should possess power at all.

Kind explanations did not save the Jews of Baghdad. Compliance did not save the Jews of Germany. Revolutionary zeal did not save the Jews of the Soviet Union.

Clarity matters. Memory matters. And the refusal to lie about what we are facing matters most of all.

[scary lawyerguy @scarylawyerguy]

I know twitter is not a place for nuance, but I wish Americans who love their country but hate Trump understand it is possible for Jews to love Israel but hate Netanyahu. Thank you for listening to my TED talk.

[Alex גדעון בן װעלװל @JewishWonk]

This is a difficult thing for outsiders to grasp, but the Jews involved in this leftist faction are mostly secular, assimilated, and actively hostile to Jewish communal life.

Like socialist movements of the past, they are accepted while useful. That has an expiration date.

[Shabazz Stuart @ShabazzStuart]

The optics of a mostly white crowd chanting "you're next" to the likely First Black Speaker of the House aren't spectacular. 🤷🏾‍♂️

[Heidi Bachram @HeidiBachram]

The remaining Flotilla members held for a month by Libyan militias have been released. They were held at black sites cut off from contact. This militia is notorious for torture, forced confessions, executions and hostage taking. Yet no 24 hour coverage or enquiries. We know why.

[Michael A. Cohen (NOT TRUMP’S FORMER FIXER) @speechboy71]

Here’s a good explanation for why so many Jews I’ve talked to tonight are genuinely afraid … this is the response of a prominent leftist journalist to the fear that a lot of Jews are feeling.

It’s not just that leftists are pushing anti-Semitic tropes .. they’re completely indifferent to the fears of a Jewish community experiencing unprecedented levels of anti-Semitic abuse and violence.

[Etana @Etanarachel]

The problem is that the fringe left has this view of Israel as like the lodestar of all modern evil and tends to ignore how and why the casual portrayal of all Israelis as inherently monstrous lends itself to antisemitism.

[Shannon Watts @shannonrwatts]

As a liberal progressive, I would be fine with the party moving left if these wins were about Medicare for all, reproductive rights, universal childcare, taxing billionaires, and creating affordable housing, But they weren’t.