The Man

Teacher. Opinions are procedurally generated on a femtosecond schedule.

[The Man @Mr_Bickers]

@VinnysCorner1 Ryne Sandburg

[Luai Ahmed @JustLuai]

In honor of Pride month, here’s a list of countries in the Middle East that recognize same sex marriage:

1. Israel

[The Man @Mr_Bickers]

@Lulamaybelle @IMAX I love that pairing.

[The Man @Mr_Bickers]

@max358japan Hours and hours of labor is not "magically."

[The Man @Mr_Bickers]

@Hwdgfly I could not care less about Hollywood nepotism. I don't know whose kids are whose.

I care about good movies.

[The Man @Mr_Bickers]

@KatyaSedgwick @AidanSimardone One can hope.

[The Man @Mr_Bickers]

@Bobby2Bags @MikeBajda Michigan was certainly in that category, and still lost to TCU. 😆

[The Man @Mr_Bickers]

@MisterFabulist Mother of God

[The Man @Mr_Bickers]

@HistoryBoomer A moron at the time.

Keeping it once he knew the meaning (generously assuming he didn't initially) is a whole other level.

[The Man @Mr_Bickers]

@DavidKlion Something about leopards eating faces...

[The Man @Mr_Bickers]

@funesmemorioso @Oddernod @edzitron Bad analogy

[The Man @Mr_Bickers]

@Annod2125 @bonchieredstate @abcnews @GOP Look past the partisanship; the press wasn't Trump-friendly in 2015.

Why no news in 2021-2025? C'mon, Dems could've buried him if they had the info.

The reality probably isn't what we want it to be, and we'll likely never know.

[The Man @Mr_Bickers]

@Annod2125 @bonchieredstate @abcnews @GOP Epstein is bad press for both parties. He was bipartisan in his attempts to gain influence over people.

[The Man @Mr_Bickers]

@HistoryBoomer 3 for 3, baby!

[The Man @Mr_Bickers]

@ChelseaRAR Saw that same shirt in DFW last week. It's an ... odd fashion choice.

[The Man @Mr_Bickers]

@HeterodoxWoman @catlady4sense @HistoryBoomer As you say, location matters. As does licensing reciprocity.

[The Man @Mr_Bickers]

@HeterodoxWoman @catlady4sense @HistoryBoomer The good news is that the vast majority of medical care does not require an MD. I don't remember nurse practitioners being much of a thing when I was a teenager, but they're very prevalent and very helpful now.

[The Man @Mr_Bickers]

@catlady4sense @HistoryBoomer My last Dr visit was scheduled only two days out and cost me nothing out-of-pocket. A far cry from 30 years ago.

Anecdotes aren't data.

[Dr. Brian L. Cox @BrianCox_RLTW]

I am not a Jew. But as a professor of international law & retired military lawyer who studies how distorted legal rhetoric is used to justify hate & violence directed against Jews, you are 💯 mistaken to believe your safety "as Jewish New Yorkers" is "inextricably intertwined with Palestinians."

I am not progressive, either. But based on your comments in this clip & my background with the study mentioned above, I do have a few tips you should consider exploring if you are genuinely concerned with your safety as a Jewish New Yorker.

Spoiler alert: these tips have absolutely nothing to do with Palestinians - at least, not directly.

1. Stop blaming @Israel for what you refer to as "the utter destruction of Gaza."

First of all, #Gaza isn't "utterly destroyed" to begin with. There are absolutely areas that are currently uninhabitable due to the conflict. But it's not all of Gaza. This perception has been carefully curated by influencers showing isolated clips of select destroyed areas while giving the false impression that this visualization represents the entire Strip.

It doesn't. If you think otherwise, do yourself a favor & find/follow accounts like @GAZAWOOD1 that present clips of videos that are posted from people living inside Gaza right now.

If you believe Gaza is utterly destroyed, educate yourself. You are being played, and only you can stop it.

Second, learn at least something about international law. Like this.

You criticize your opponent @RepDanGoldman for supporting "unconditional aid to Israel" (Ilana Glazer's words) "even despite Israel's utter destruction of Gaza" (your words).

Here, you are actually supporting strategic objectives of literal terrorists whose only goal is the utter destruction of Israel. #Hamas committed the atrocities of 10/7 to provoke a large-scale armed conflict in order to derail normalization between 🇮🇱 & select Arab countries.

Their best shot at getting away with it was for sympathetic partisans throughout the West - such as yourself & Ilana Glazer - to convince Israel's traditional closest partners & allies to restrict military aid & pressure Israel into implementing a ceasefire as early as possible. Doing so would ensure Hamas could survive to continue in a governance role in Gaza after the conflict.

And the way to convince Iran's useful idiots, such as yourself, to pressure Western governments to restrict military aid is to manipulate the language of international law to make it seem that these countries are failing to comply with their own legal obligations or even "complicit" in systemic "war crimes" by failing to condition or restrict aid.

It's a hoax, and it always has been. Determining whether a war crime has been committed requires evidence of the knowledge & intent of personnel responsible for each attack at the time. If you don't believe me, study this highlighted excerpt of the Rome Statute (pic 1).

Yes, neither 🇮🇱 nor 🇺🇸 have ratified this multilateral treaty. But the main war crimes provisions in Article 8, as well as the mental element/mistake of fact provisions of Articles 30 & 32, are consistent with our military doctrine. And guess what evidence you need, pursuant to this doctrinal source, to determine a war crime has been committed.

That's right! If a war crime involves "intentionally directing an attack against" civilian persons or property, and "intent" means "awareness that a circumstance exists," and the "circumstance" is the civilian (not taking direct part in hostilities) character of the person/object attacked, then we require evidence demonstrating personnel responsible for each attack were aware of the civilian character of the target at the time & they attacked it anyway.

Any guesses what you can't determine just from looking at "utter destruction" in a battlespace? Right again! Knowledge & intent of personnel responsible for each attack at the time that led to that utter destruction.

Maybe - just maybe - a transnational terrorist organization committed one of the most horrific atrocities in living memory then deliberately hid & fought among its own civilian population in the ensuing large-scale armed conflict it decided to provoke. And maybe they hid IEDs in every structure they could so that @IDF troops clearing the area successfully capturing it would still continue to perish. And maybe that is cumulatively the reason for the "utter destruction of Gaza."

News flash: that is exactly the cause of most of the destruction in Gaza. And because that's the case, there is no obligation to condition military aid to Israel. No clear risk of systemic war crimes being committed with arms supplied to Israel (🇺🇸 hasn't ratified the Arms Trade Treaty, but we have a similar process for determining whether to provide military aid nonetheless) means no requirement to condition aid.

The reason the language of international law is routinely distorted in this manner, btw, is to convert a policy argument into what appears to be a legal one. A "should" to a "must."

But if you believe 🇺🇸 is failing to abide by its international law obligations by providing military aid to 🇮🇱, once again you are being played. Stop.

2. Stop perpetuating the "genocide" blood libel.

As you criticize Dan Goldman for supporting "unconditional aid to Israel," along with the "utter destruction" nonsense you also say he does so, "Even despite Israel's utter destruction of Gaza, which I consider a genocide" (emphasis added).

There are a lot of people nowadays who believe Israel is responsible for genocide in Gaza. But all of you who do simply demonstrate you don't understand what "genocide" actually is.

See, if we start with the doctrinal definition from the Genocide Convention, we see that this crime of crimes is committed by engaging in enumerated acts (not pictured) "with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such" (pic 2, especially red highlight).

Guess what doesn't qualify as a "national, ethnical, racial, or religious group". Right! Terrorist groups like Hamas.

And take a wild guess which group IDF ops in Gaza intend to destroy. If you said "Palestinians," you are, once again, just another of Iran's useful idiots. If you said "Hamas," give yourself a pat on the back.

The stated intent, from the very beginning of Swords of Iron all the way until today, has been to: 1) eliminate the enduring security threat posed by Hamas; and 2) repatriate all hostages. If you're not sure about that, I invite you to review these excerpts from public remarks provided by @IsraeliPM @netanyahu in October 2023 (pic 3) & October 2025 (pic 4). Slightly different wording, same intent.

Yes, I've heard the argument too many times to count now that most major "human rights" orgs & a number of "genocide scholars" & a UN commission of inquiry & even a handful of countries have all determined Israel is responsible for genocide. But they ALL use the same flawed methodology, and so their conclusions are also irreparably flawed.

That is, they ALL begin with a few specimens of political rhetoric from various Israeli officials, most of which are misrepresented or taken out of context to begin with, to establish the requisite "intent." Then they take an equally selective collection of "evidence" - much of which is from untrustworthy or unreliable sources anyway - to establish the enumerated acts to go along with the purportedly genocidal intent.

It is, once again, a hoax. Not a single one starts with the actual stated intent (eg pics 3 & 4 attached here) then takes a balanced, unbiased approach to assessing whether actions actually observed in the battlespace are consistent with the intent to destroy Hamas or, instead, to destroy Palestinians in whole or in part as such.

If you do that - if you understand the correct methodology & you apply it rigorously - there is only one conclusion: Israel is not committing genocide in Gaza, nor has it ever.

It doesn't matter what "you consider" it. You are being played, because you are ignorant. Stop, by educating yourself.

3. Stop blaming "Trump and Netanyahu for setting the Middle East on fire."

Do you know who actually set the Middle East on Fire? Terrorists like Nasrallah, Deif, Sinwar, and the Ayatollah Khamenei, along with the militaries & proxies armed groups they led. And they did so on 10/7, once again, simply to derail normalization.

In doing so, these literal terrorists demonstrated that the status quo of appeasement & diplomacy in pursuit of peace in the Middle East & a two-state solution was no longer tenable. Tbh that approach wasn't tenable for quite a while - but 10/7 proved that to be the case.

And now Trump & Netanyahu are the two world leaders with both the intestinal fortitude & the resources to establish a new status quo. That's what Swords of Iron & Rising Lion & Midnight Hammer & Roaring Lion & Epic Fury have been all about - achieving a new status quo after the aforementioned literal terrorists actually (literally) set the Middle East on fire.

The only way to successfully achieve a new, acceptable status quo is through force of arms - not arms embargoes. If you believe otherwise, you are being played. Stop it. Open your eyes & educate yourself.

Okay, those are three suggestions for specific actions you can take to help improve your safety as New York Jews. The same goes for Jews really throughout the West.

Because here's the thing. Your safety as Jews in the West has absolutely nothing to do with Palestinians. It has everything to do with countering the false narratives - primarily involving misrepresentations of international law - that are being used to justify hate & attacks against Jews.

It doesn't matter how much you try distance yourself from Israel, or zionism, or Bibi, or Trump. That won't stop some crazed lunatic from pulling a gun on you or siccing his dog on you or driving his car into your synagogue or throwing bricks at your head or any other number of seemingly random & horrific attacks against Jews we've seen escalate in the West since 10/7.

G-d forbid any of these or other acts of violence ever happens to you or someone you love. But if it does, recent experience suggests the perpetrator - and his supporters afterward - will accuse you of supporting genocide & war crimes just for being Jewish.

Because Jews are being regarded as proxies for Israel, and Israel is being regarded as a proxy for zionism, and Hamas doctrine justifies the "struggle" against the "Zionist entity" known as the State of Israel.

I've heard the term "self-hating Jew" be directed toward folks like yourself. Oftentimes you're referred to by the term "As-a-Jew." @GadSaad would probably diagnose you with suicidal empathy.

Regardless of whether any of those descriptions apply, as someone who specializes in international law I can definitively affirm you are both ignorant & naive.

If you're concerned about your safety as a Jew, stop perpetuating the lies & distortions that are - unfortunately - putting you most at risk. Stop blaming Israel & @AIPAC & conservatives like Netanyahu & Trump for ... well, everything in the Middle East & at home in New York.

Learn how to push back, with precision, against the false narratives that are being used to justify hate & violence directed against the Jewish population. This is the most effective direction you can take if you are genuinely concerned about your safety as a Jew.