posty mctweeterman

English speaking Israeli with no patience for dishonest or confidently dumb talk on the Middle East

[posty mctweeterman @Mctweeterman]

@Figther_Saudi @hahussain Yes! Thank you! 🇸🇦🕊️🇮🇱

[posty mctweeterman @Mctweeterman]

@DrewPavlou Drew, next time you come to Jerusalem you can easily get khat in the Machneh Yehuda Market. I find the taste of khat horribly bitter, so you may opt to try it in the form of smoothie (mixed with etrog and other fruit) at a store called etrogman.

[posty mctweeterman @Mctweeterman]

@fab_hinz בהצלחה, חבר’ה 🇮🇱 ❤️🇩🇪

[posty mctweeterman @Mctweeterman]

@Aizenberg55 @martinshawx It's absolutely amazing that people like Martin Shaw, who have such specious, tendentious arguments, yet are constantly cited as part of a bogus consensus against Israel. Reminds me a little bit of how Omar Bartov just crumbled on Noam’s podcast. Kol hakavod aizenberg.

[posty mctweeterman @Mctweeterman]

@GerAmbTLV Good luck Mr Ambassador 🇩🇪🇮🇱

[posty mctweeterman @Mctweeterman]

@GerAmbTLV Thank you ambassador Seibert. 🇩🇪🇮🇱

[posty mctweeterman @Mctweeterman]

@MathildaHeller @visegrad24 https://t.co/tQOvr5J5js

[posty mctweeterman @Mctweeterman]

Important piece by @MathildaHeller on Sarah Hildering van Lith. One small fix: it reads “Bob Dylan” where it should be Bob Vylan (the band, listed alongside Kneecap). https://t.co/eEPCYKmuOu

[posty mctweeterman @Mctweeterman]

Important piece by @MathildaHeller on Sarah Hildering van Lith. One small fix: it reads “Bob Dylan” where it should be Bob Vylan (the band, listed alongside Kneecap). https://t.co/eEPCYKmuOu

[Avital Leibovich @AvitalLeibovich]

Same park in Tel Aviv:

On the left- Israeli Arabs marking Eid al Adha- last month.

On the right- Tel Aviv gay parade, yesterday.

Anyone wants to tell me that Israel is an apartheid state?!

( photo credit- Haaretz, TLV municipality)

[Jonathan Elkhoury- جوناثان الخوري @Jonathan_Elk]

From Tel Aviv 🇮🇱 to Beirut 🇱🇧, our rainbow is stronger than fear, louder than hate, and bigger than any border.

As an Israeli-Lebanese gay man, I carry two homes in my heart: Lebanon and Israel.

Today I walked alongside @Noatishby at Tel Aviv pride holding the Lebanese flag and Israeli flag with a clear message From Tel Aviv to Beirut:
Our rainbow stretches across the Mediterranean, serving as a bridge between our two peoples.

We are people. We are families, citizens, dreamers, and builders of peace.
As Lebanon and Israel engage in peace talks, I believe that only peace can protect the diversity of our region and allow all its people to live, love, be safe, and prosper.

And yes, WE WANT PEACE!
Not as a slogan.
Not as a dream.
But as a future we build together.

Happy Pride, Tel Aviv. 🌈
Happy Pride, Beirut. 🌈

[posty mctweeterman @Mctweeterman]

@gershonbaskin Stop spamming

[Izabella Tabarovsky @IzaTabaro]

What I find riveting about this clip is not that Sarah Wilkinson doesn't see Israelis as human—it's a given for people whose entire worldview is built around a Manichean spiritual dichotomy in which Palestine/Gaza stands for good and Israel/Jews for evil.

What's genuinely worth noting here are the last few seconds of the clip, where she says that she glimpsed Gaza right before the cruel Israeli monsters so abruptly ended her quest.

It's that twinkle in her eye and the swelling music that reveal the real meaning of Gaza for her: Gaza as the Holy Grail, an object of longing, a source of redemption for her and for all humanity, the closest thing to a divine revelation she's ever been granted.

The sense we get from those last few seconds is that, simply by glimpsing Gaza, she reached a level of spiritual transcendence that she will cherish for the rest of her life. And it's the sweetness of that moment, of redemption so tantalizingly within one’s grasp, that is going to bring her back, for one doesn’t abandon the holy quest simply because agents of Satan stand in one's way. Indeed, the greater the obstacles to redemption, the more resolutely one must persevere.

@RachelMoiselle has written about Palestinianism as a replacement faith for post-Catholic Irish. @HusseinAboubakr has a tour de force of a piece out now on Palestine as a symbol whose meaning changes depending on which groups and causes attach themselves to it.

This clip is an illustration of what both of them are talking about. I hope there are people out there studying Palestinianism as a psycho-spiritual phenomenon. It has to be one of the most fascinating subjects of inquiry today.

[Jacob L @JacobL1994_]

The best thing Jews can do for our own PR is not cry about antisemitism all the time. Nobody wants to be allies with whiny losers. They want allies who project confidence and strength under duress.

Now, at the same time we shouldn’t do “Sumud” like the Arabs do, where they continually insist everything is fine and they actually won every battle of every war and have no vulnerability at all. That mentality costs them wars and we can’t afford that.

We are as astonishingly resilient and antifragile people who have withstood things that nobody else could. We recovered and won back our homeland in a war against 5 armies within 3 years of losing 1/3 of our global population. Let’s start acting like it.

[AP @Average_NY_Guy]

There’s something about Israel that makes people uncomfortable, and it’s not what they say it is.

They’ll point to politics, settlements, borders, and wars. But scratch beneath the outrage, and you’ll find something deeper. A discomfort not with what Israel does, but with what Israel is.

A nation this small should not be this strong. Period.

Israel has no oil. No special natural resources. A population barely the size of a mid-sized American city. They are surrounded by enemies. Hated in the United Nations. Targeted by terror. Condemned by celebrities. Boycotted, slandered, and attacked.

And still, they thrive like there’s no tomorrow.

In military. In medicine. In security. In technology. In agriculture. In intelligence. In morality. In sheer, unbreakable will.

They turn desert into farmland.
They make water from air.
They intercept rockets in mid-air.
They rescue hostages under the nose of the world’s worst regimes.
They survive wars that were supposed to wipe them out, and win.

The world watches this and can’t make sense of it.

So they do what people do when they witness strength they can’t understand.

They assume it must be cheating.

It must be American aid.
It must be foreign lobbying.
It must be oppression.
It must be theft.
It must be some dark trick that gave the Jews this kind of power.
It must be blackmail.

Because heaven forbid it’s something else.
Heaven forbid it’s real.
Heaven forbid it’s earned.
Or worse, destined.

The Jewish people were supposed to disappear a long, long time ago. That’s how the story of exiled, enslaved, hated minorities is supposed to end. But the Jews didn’t disappear. They actually came home, rebuilt their land, revived their language, and brought their dead back to life — in memory, in identity, and in strength.

That’s not normal.
It’s not political.
It’s biblical.

There’s no cheat code that explains how a group of people return to their homeland after 2,000 years.
There is no rational path from gas chambers to global influence.
And there is no historical precedent for surviving the Babylonians, the Romans, the Crusaders, the Inquisition, the pogroms, and the Holocaust, and still showing up to work on Monday in Tel Aviv.

Israel doesn’t make sense.
Unless you believe in something beyond the math.

This is what drives the world crazy. Because if Israel is real, if this improbable, ancient, hated nation is somehow still chosen, protected, and thriving, then maybe God isn’t a myth after all.

Maybe He’s still in the story.

Maybe history isn’t random.
Maybe evil doesn’t get the last word.
Maybe the Jews are not just a people… but a testimony.

That’s what they can’t stand.

Because once you admit that Israel’s survival isn’t just impressive, but divine, everything changes. Your moral compass has to reset. Your assumptions about history, power, and justice collapse. You realize you’re not watching the end of an empire. You’re witnessing the beginning of something eternal.

So they deny it.
They smear it.
And rage against it.

Because it’s easier to call a miracle “cheating” than to face the possibility that God keeps His promises.

And He’s keeping them still.

[Lucythegreat @lucythegreat123]

Imagine being under constant attack from all sides for 78 years after losing 6 million people to genocide. You are trying to repopulate while losing lives daily to war and terrorism, building modern infrastructure, restoring ancient holy sites, absorbing refugees from Europe and the Middle East. In addition you need to grow an economy, educate your people, make the desert bloom, all while following a demanding and precise religion. The fact that someone thinks you have the time or inclination to train dogs to do the impossible just belies belief. Leave us alone you fucking freaks, you are either with us or we have no time for you. We have shit to do!

[The Civil Commission @theCC07]

After more than two years of independent investigation, the Civil Commission has released a comprehensive report documenting sexual and gender-based violence committed by Hamas on October 7 and during hostage captivity.

The report is not only a historical record — it is a call for recognition, accountability, and justice.

Please read and share:
https://t.co/3ASO3PWyNF

#October7 #NeverForget #HumanRights #Justice

[N Havs @NhavsMaimonides]

Those who demand military exemption because the Torah provides protection have reached a new level of religious prostitution in the transformation of the Torah into a functional tool for human interests.

Jeremiah foresaw that the Torah would be turned into a harlot, but even he never dreamed she would be expected to provide protection. After all, a harlot is usually the recipient of protection, not its provider.

"כָּל מְכַבְּדֶיהָ הִזִּילוּהָ כִּי רָאוּ עֶרְוָתָהּ" (איכה א', ח')

Maimonides writes:

“ The Gemara writes regarding a certain man who owned a vineyard that was being targeted by thieves. Every day, he saw his produce steadily diminishing, and he was certain that one particular thief had set his eyes upon it. This caused him great distress throughout the harvest season, until he finally harvested what remained and laid the grapes out to dry into raisins.
It is common practice that when people gather raisins, small berries and bits of figs or grapes fall and are left behind. These are permissible for anyone to eat, as they are considered ownerless (hefker); the owners typically abandon these small remnants for whoever finds them.
It happened one day that Rabbi Tarfon arrived at that vineyard, sat down, and began gathering and eating the fallen raisins. The owner of the vineyard arrived and, not recognizing him, assumed this was the thief who had been stealing from him all year. Although he had heard of Rabbi Tarfon, he did not know his face. He immediately seized him, overpowered him, placed him inside a sack, and hoisted him onto his back to throw him into the river.
When Rabbi Tarfon saw this, he cried out: "Woe to Tarfon, for this man is about to kill him!"
As soon as the owner heard this name, he realized who it was; he set him down and fled, believing he had committed a terrible sin. From that day forward, Rabbi Tarfon grieved for the rest of his life, mourning the fact that he had saved himself by utilizing the "honor of the Torah."
Since Rabbi Tarfon was a very wealthy man, he could have said, "Release me, and I will give you such-and-such amount of gold," and he would have paid it. He did not need to reveal his identity as Rabbi Tarfon; he could have saved himself with his money rather than with the Torah.
The Sages said: All the days of that righteous man, he was distressed over this matter, saying, "Woe is me, for I have made use of the Crown of Torah." For it is taught that anyone who makes personal use of the Crown of Torah loses his portion in the World to Come and is uprooted from the world”

I ask the Israeli Haredi leadership:

If using the Torah to save your own life costs you the World to Come, what does it cost to use the Torah to sacrifice the lives of others in your stead?

One may argue for exemption on socio-political grounds. But the moment the Torah is brandished as a shield for privilege, it is no longer served - it is used.

[posty mctweeterman @Mctweeterman]

At times I thought you were overly generous — people like Cooper come to mind. But I think that by having good faith, intellectually honest, and rigorous conversations with such people you expose them much better than people with more righteous anger but less quality ever could. Your interviews with Ken Roth, Bartov, and Glenn Loury were just superb. Don’t listen to the haters.

[posty mctweeterman @Mctweeterman]

@lizardconsul @noam_dworman @strxwmxn Yes but the job of a public intellectual is to try to understand and clarify for the public. Matt is failing

[posty mctweeterman @Mctweeterman]

@kimmonismus For those complaining about Opus 4.7: are you mainly using it in the chat interface via the app (desktop or mobile)? When I use it in claude code with high thinking the model seems good and better than 4.6