Twit Searcher

[Twit Searcher @twitsearch18]

@hoopsgem @GrahamStag @Daniel_Sugarman @sobrickaey So, if Jews aren’t native to this land, why are texts buried or hidden in it for two millennia written in a language only they know, speak and write? (See eg, Dead Sea Scrolls). Why do their ritual texts appear on 1800 yr old mosaics recently excavated? (Mosaic of Rehob)

[David Wurmser @Wurmserscribit]

No, I am not mad at NatCon. And yes, I do agree vehemently with the bottom line: israeli self-reliance. As some would say: “I violently agree.”

And I’ve been arguing that for 30 years.

And that Israel understands that and is developing a strategic concept of far greater self-reliance tells me Israel will be just fine.

Also, I agree that we have a very grave problem in our youth here about which we can ignore and be ostriches, but at our own peril, to say the least.

All more true, in fact, than the speakers themselves emphasized, in fact.

But there were certain assumptions:

1. that the US has acted in the region under an Israel-first policy, and that Israel just wants the U.S. to do the heavy lifting for it, which is rank gibberish and frankly bizarre given the immense human cost young Israelis have paid in holding the front lines of civilization and freedom against barbarism and tyrannical insanity over the last three years;
2. that the antisemitism should and could safely be ignored, or at least diminished in our priorities and ought not be the main issue Jews and Israel should concern itself with, and certainly should not guide our views of certain actors, and finally, the kicker …
3. … We should accept and adjust to entitlement and closed-mindedness of our youth rather than fight it hard.

The problem is that all these assumptions are wrong and dangerous, not only regarding Israel, but in terms of American and civilizational survival.

But the speakers gave no indication of a plan to fight these views, and to various degrees sought to excuse them and basically suggested some of these assumptions were correct.

All were left on the table unexamined; that was disappointing.

And perhaps because they seem content to adjust to, indulge or accept the crisis of American youth’s lack of commitment to civilizational survival, they were oblivious to the reality to which they were just exposed.

They were visiting in a nation whose youth are displaying exactly those qualities which are dying in our youth. Those young Israelis are providing a glaring counterpoint to the deterioration that can end our greatness if not even terminate our civilizational survival.

Israeli youth are displaying in droves right now the Greek quality of thumos — valor and civilizational vitality — to which Secretary Rubio appealed last week and is dangerously absent in other western countries.

And yet, the speakers simply seemed unable to rise above an obliviousness to the examinable model of thumos glaring at them outside the conference hall.

Which then raises a very serious question as to how much of a solution their brand of political thinking, with which I mostly agree, actually is to the obvious problem we have.

[Israel Defense Forces @IDF]

🔎 NOW REVEALED: Armed Hamas terrorists at Kamal Adwan Hospital, which continues to serve as a major hub for Hamas terrorist activity.

As previously revealed, the hospital and its surrounding area have been used by Hamas and Islamic Jihad in recent years to advance terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians and IDF soldiers.

Hamas terrorists continue to use the hospital to advance attacks & restore Hamas’ capabilities, while exploiting the presence of patients, medical staff, and using civilians as human shields, in violation of international law.

[Spencer Joseph @SpencerJJoseph]

By around 1900, Ottoman Palestine was estimated to have a sparse population of only 580,000–600,000, of which the large majority (about 90%) were Arabs (both Muslims and Christians).

What is less well known is why :

1. Successive waves of imperialism and colonialism had greatly reduced the Jewish population via persecution and the subsequent imposition of Arab and Islamic rule.

2. The Ottomans had already restricted Jewish settlement from 1881 (a form of apartheid against Jews).

3. The region contained large areas of swamp and desert, and was riddled with malaria. Only the Jews, who had also been the majority ethnic group in Jerusalem for decades, had the skill and vision to build the infrastructure for a modern society that could grow to easily support a population in excess of 10 million.

4. Religious Islam - as reflected in the Quran - acknowledges the ancient historical and spiritual connection of the Jews (Bani Isra'il) to Israel, viewing them as the previous rightful inhabitants and recipients of divine scripture there. However, political Islam saw a problem with the return of Jews to their indigenous land and wanted to prevent the possibility of a new State of Israel.

[Lars Nordal @nordal_lars]

Judar köpte lagligt stora mängder mark i Mandatory Palestine – främst från frånvarande arabiska jordägare – och ärvde omfattande statlig mark efter det ottomanska rikets fall. Araberna däremot hade omfattande svartbyggen på mark de inte ägde. Enligt kartläggningar från organisationen Regavim finns det tiotusentals olagliga strukturer byggda av beduiner. Siffrorna har legat runt 80 000–100 000+ strukturer under de senaste åren.
Araberna förkastade FN:s delningsplan 1947 och startade kriget. De startade också 1948-, 1967- och 1973-krigen och förlorade dem alla. Israel lämnade tillbaka hela Gaza 2005. Resultatet blev Hamas, raketer och 7 oktober.
Det är inte judarna som stulit mark. Araberna byggde olagligt och startade krig de förlorade.

[Twit Searcher @twitsearch18]

@NickKristof Call vivian silver.

[Guy Benson @guypbenson]

Left-wing capture of higher education & malignant algorithmic manipulation is brainwashing young people into hating our country & our system … and even convincing many of them that we deserve mass murder. Our enemies are contributing to this — and must be thrilled.

[FTIsrael @ftisrael_org]

The FT Israel website is live!

FTI has a unique and urgent mandate – to expose and dismantle slanderous falsehoods leveled at Israel and Jews wherever they appear – in politics, journalism, cultural settings, education, medicine and more.

Now the work of our experts is gathered in one easy to use website that includes deep analysis, short newsbriefs, cultural critiques, and more: https://t.co/ZTmGTYOU73

See you there!

[Riley Read-Only @HotForMoot]

Interestingly enough, October 7th didn’t change my view. Learning Arabic and getting to know the Palestinian people deeply, years earlier, as a leftist, did.

[Twit Searcher @twitsearch18]

@benpetahtikvah @Kangaskhan6 Except that is complete garbage too. Total ignorance of what has actually happened over the last 20 years. Educate yourself

[Andrew Fox @Mr_Andrew_Fox]

The civilians who participated in 7 October, now recognized by other Gazan civilians, prove that the problem is much bigger than Hamas; it's a radicalism and an ideology of hatred that has penetrated all sectors of Gazan society that needs to be rolled back. Deradicalisation must accompany demilitarisation.

[Rachel @rachelbsol18]

This myth that Jews stole Arab land really needs to die. It is a huge reason why the conflict is perpetuated.

[Pierre Rehov @rehoov]

Il y a une différence fondamentale entre pénétrer dans une maison de civils, tuer le père, violer la mère, torturer les enfants avant de les assassiner, abattre le chien, voler tout ce qui peut être emporté, d'une part... ( C'est à dire ce qu'ont fait les Arabe de Gaza le 7 octobre ) Et envoyer des soldats se battre, prévenir une population que des bombardements vont avoir lieu, viser des terroristes qui se cachent derrière des civils, les éliminer et, dans certains cas, provoquer des dommages collatéraux qui n'en sont pas vraiment, car il y a, de fait, très peu d'innocents à Gaza.
C'est toute la différence entre le génocide du 7 octobre et la guerre qui a suivi, conduite par une armée trop morale et de jeunes soldats souvent trop gentils.
Si le 7 octobre s'était produit contre n'importe quel pays au monde, sauf Israël, l'humanité serait débarrassée à tout jamais de Gaza.

[Mike @Doranimated]

Jonathan Keeperman (@L0m3z) gave a speech at the Nat Con conference, and I posted a crude reaction to it. He asked me politely if I would explain myself. Here is my response:

Jonathan, thank you for your gracious response to my rather ungracious characterization of your speech. I appreciate your civility. Let me explain what provoked my reaction.

I agree with your central premise. Today's political climate calls on us to justify the American-Israeli alliance in terms of American national interests. But after calling for a hardheaded accounting of costs and benefits, you never actually perform one. Instead, you offer a selective account of the grievances that some American nationalists harbor toward Israel and its supporters. At several points, you toggle almost imperceptibly between describing those grievances impartially to validating them, without acknowledging the toggle.

You came to Jerusalem while the United States and Israel were engaged in a war against Iran. American and Israeli forces have fought alongside one another on an extraordinary scale. Both countries have committed military power and made great sacrifices in a struggle against a common enemy. Yet you barely acknowledge the war, let alone consider what it reveals about the value of the alliance.

Surely that experience belongs at the center of any serious discussion of what America gains from Israel.

There is also a question of elementary respect. You came to a country at war to explain why Americans are growing weary of its demands on their attention and resources. You found time to discuss the immigration preferences of liberal American Jews and the political sins of the ADL, but not the soldiers fighting, the lives being lost, or the sacrifices being made in a common struggle. Whatever your intentions, that is a failure to recognize the gravity of the occasion.

And it is inseparable from the larger failure of your analysis. You tell us that Israel receives $3.8 billion annually in American assistance. But what does the United States receive in return? What is the value of Israeli intelligence, military power, technological innovation, and cooperation against common adversaries? What role does Israel play in America's competition with Iran, China, and Russia? What would it cost the United States to replace the capabilities and regional influence that the alliance provides?

These questions are the beginning of the prudential calculation you call for but never undertake. More importantly, what would happen if Washington weakened the relationship to the point that Israel concluded it could no longer rely on the United States?

No sane Israeli wants that outcome. But national survival may force Israel to contemplate it in the coming years. Israel would not simply disappear as a strategic actor. It would become a more independent one, making decisions about war, peace, deterrence, and relations with other powers with less regard for American preferences.

American support does not give Washington control over Israeli decisions, but it does help keep Israeli military power integrated into an American-led regional order. That is an asset with considerable strategic value. If Israel became a de facto free agent, Washington might save money and escape some immediate obligations, but it would also surrender influence over one of the most formidable military powers in the Middle East.

And Israel would not be operating in a vacuum. China and Russia would have opportunities to exploit the resulting realignment. Iran would have opportunities of its own. The regional order would change, and not necessarily to America's advantage.

Perhaps you believe this would be a good bargain. But you never consider the possibility, much less calculate its costs. You call for realism while leaving the most consequential strategic questions unexamined.

Your treatment of the American right is similarly selective. You emphasize the growing skepticism of younger conservatives, but you never mention that Donald Trump, the dominant figure in the nationalist movement you describe, has taken American military cooperation with Israel to unprecedented levels.

Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital, recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, withdrew from the Iran nuclear agreement, and brokered the Abraham Accords. In his second term, he went much further, committing American military power to a joint war against Iran. How does his record fit your account of national conservatism? Why does the behavior of the nationalist president receive less attention than the attitudes of young nationalists? Is Trump an anomaly? Does he misunderstand the movement he leads? Or might his support for Israel reflect a nationalist assessment of American interests fundamentally different from the one you describe? These questions are indispensable to your argument. Yet you don't address them.

I am also troubled by your treatment of antisemitism. You correctly observe that accusations of antisemitism no longer carry the political force they once did. But the declining effectiveness of an accusation tells us nothing about the reality or seriousness of the phenomenon it describes.

There has been a conspicuous resurgence of antisemitic rhetoric in parts of the American right. Influential voices have promoted the idea that American foreign policy is controlled by Jews or manipulated on Israel's behalf. Such claims encourage Americans to interpret strategic decisions through theories of sinister manipulation rather than through an examination of American interests.

Antisemitism, therefore, is not simply a problem for Jews. It is a problem for American national security, political judgment, and national cohesion. It also offers opportunities to foreign adversaries seeking to weaken the United States from within.

Yet in a speech devoted to explaining declining support for Israel on the right, you give remarkably little attention to the role that antisemitic agitation has played in producing that decline. Instead, you place considerable responsibility on Israel's American defenders. You blame neoconservatives for opposing Trump, liberal Jews for supporting immigration, and even the ADL for antagonizing populists.

Your reference to the ADL is particularly strange. What do the immigration preferences of liberal American Jews have to do with the strategic value of America's alliance with Israel? The ADL is an American Jewish organization, not an arm of the Israeli government. American Jews are predominantly liberal. They disagree with national conservatives on many domestic questions. So what?

Even if every criticism you make of the ADL were justified, what do they have to do with the value of Israel as an American ally? Nothing, unless one assumes that Israel bears responsibility for the political behavior of American Jews. That is precisely the kind of collective attribution that ought to be examined critically, not casually incorporated into an explanation of why Americans are turning against Israel.

The same problem appears in your treatment of America's wars in the Middle East. You say they are closely associated with Israeli interests. Associated by whom? Which wars? Which interests? And how accurately does that association explain actual American decisions?

You leave those questions unanswered. Instead, you point to deeply tendentious interpretations of American foreign policy -- ones often advanced by antisemites such as Tucker Carlson -- as though they were established facts. Arguments frequently employed by Israel's worst antagonists enter your speech disguised as an objective description of American attitudes.

This brings me to a broader problem with your method. You present yourself as a relatively detached observer of Israel and an informed observer of the American right. But throughout the speech, you alternate between describing the attitudes of nationalists and adopting their explanations for those attitudes. Reporting that some conservatives blame Israel for America's Middle Eastern wars is one thing. Treating that blame as an adequate explanation of their alienation is another.

Political attitudes do not develop in a vacuum. Personalities, institutions, and campaigns of persuasion shape them. Yet your account assigns considerable agency to Israel's defenders, whose conduct supposedly alienated the nationalist right, while giving remarkably little attention to the people on the right actively encouraging hostility toward Israel and Jews based on the most vile lies. You thus present the consequences of an ideological struggle as though they were an impersonal historical development to which Israelis must accommodate themselves.

Finally, there is something peculiar about the posture of the speech itself. You begin by explaining that Israel has never occupied a central place in your thinking and that you make no claim to expertise about it. Fair enough. But you then proceed to deliver sweeping judgments about the future of the alliance and the political adjustments Israelis must make.

There is nothing wrong with an outsider offering uncomfortable observations. But the authority of those observations depends on their accuracy, not on the speaker's professed detachment. You conclude by imagining an Israel that Americans "do not have to think about."

But the Middle East will not cease to matter to the United States simply because Americans grow tired of thinking about Israel. Iran will not abandon its ambitions. China and Russia will not relinquish their interests. And Israel's enemies will not stop threatening it because American voters would prefer to concentrate on domestic affairs.

The question is whether America is better positioned to manage those challenges with Israel as a close ally or with Israel acting increasingly on its own. That is the prudential question you say would should address. It is also the question your speech conspicuously avoids.

I don't know you. I have no basis for judging your intentions. I accept that you may regard your speech as a candid warning delivered in good faith. But whatever your intentions, its effect is to give a veneer of dispassionate analysis to a series of highly dubious claims about Israel, Jews, and American foreign policy. That is what I objected to. And it is why I reacted so strongly.

[Twit Searcher @twitsearch18]

@TheFrumInvestor I think a person who believes the only reason to keep mitzvos is because of the reward shouldn’t be criticizing others for “fundamentally misunderstanding Yiddishkeit”.

[Twit Searcher @twitsearch18]

@TheFrumInvestor @DBashIdeas Wild for someone supposedly so “frum” to have a hashkafah as treif as chazer regarding the most basic yesodos of torah. Perhaps one ought to be עושה האמת מפני שהוא האמת.

[Twit Searcher @twitsearch18]

@jpodhoretz And the God who judges each one of us — even Attorney Generals — is not as easy to avoid.

[David Harsanyi @davidharsanyi]

"The tragedy of the Internet is that it has elevated the village idiot to the status of a bearer of truth.”

[Cillian @CilComLFC]

Why don’t more people talk about the fact that ~2,200 Gazan civilians were involved in the October 7 Attacks?

Gazan “civilians” directly participated in the massacre of Israeli civilians at Be’eri and Nir Oz. Civilians also participated in the abduction of Israeli hostages, including children and an 85-year-old woman. Others looted homes, desecrated bodies, and participated in the abuse of hostages.

Gazan civilians were NOT merely innocent bystanders on October 7.

[Savva 🇨🇩 @s4vva]

You can’t get more performative than this

[נועה מגיד | Noa magid @NoaMagid]

Dozens of bullets were fired by Hamas terrorists at the door of Tamar and Johnny’s safe room on October 7.

Even as they lay dying, Tamar and Johnny kept holding the door shut, trying to protect little Shahar, Arbel, and Omer until their final moments.

Tamar managed to send a text saying they had been shot and were critically wounded.

Then the terrorists set the house on fire.

Tamar, Johnny, Shahar, Arbel, and Omer all burned to death.