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Post by jdredd on Feb 10, 2018 19:29:10 GMT -5
www.nytimes.com/2018/02/10/world/middleeast/israel-iran-syria.html?&hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news"JERUSALEM — Israel clashed with Syrian and Iranian military forces on Saturday in a series of audacious cross-border strikes that could mark a dangerous new phase in Syria’s long civil war. The confrontations, which threaten to draw Israel more directly into the conflict, began before dawn when Israel intercepted what it said was an Iranian drone that had penetrated its airspace from Syria. The Israeli military then attacked what it called the command-and-control center from which Iran had launched the drone, at a Syrian air base near Palmyra. On its way back from the mission, one of Israel’s F-16 fighter jets crashed in northern Israel after coming under heavy Syrian antiaircraft fire. It is believed to be the first Israeli plane lost under enemy fire in decades." Another episode in Israel's 70 year legacy of violence.
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sparky
Junior Member
“The way to show that a stick is crooked is not to argue about it or to spend time denouncing it, bu
Posts: 47
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Post by sparky on Mar 4, 2018 3:02:51 GMT -5
The centuries old JQ.
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Post by jdredd on Mar 7, 2018 3:05:17 GMT -5
Netanyahu and Trump: Love at first sight.
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sparky
Junior Member
“The way to show that a stick is crooked is not to argue about it or to spend time denouncing it, bu
Posts: 47
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Post by sparky on Mar 7, 2018 7:02:43 GMT -5
Netanyahu and Trump: Love at first sight. What's up with the Barbara Spectres of the world? Europe MUST take in savages? Take in a rape culture?
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Post by jdredd on Mar 31, 2018 14:00:02 GMT -5
So Israel kills 15 protestors on the border of Gaza. I'm sure the Israel Can Do No Wrong crowd (and there are a lot of Christian Evangelicals in that group) will think nothing of it. As for everyone else, most people pay no attention. But it is one more incident in a 70-year Zionist legacy of violence. And the Zionists keep succeeding in connecting being anti-Isreal with being anti-Judaism. We will see what that means for the fate of Judaism.
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Post by jdredd on Apr 7, 2018 3:06:19 GMT -5
www.nytimes.com/2018/04/06/world/middleeast/gaza-palestinian-protest-israel.html?&hpw&rref=world&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region®ion=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well"NAHAL OZ, Israel — With tear gas and burning tires fouling the air and gunfire periodically ringing out from one direction, Palestinian demonstrators and Israeli soldiers faced off along the fence hemming in the Gaza Strip for a second week on Friday. Ten Palestinians were killed, including two teenagers, and a thousand were wounded, Palestinian officials said. The demonstrations were smaller than those last week, when 21 people were killed. But the death toll was significant, despite a pledge by Hamas, the militant group that controls Gaza, that the protest would be peaceful, and by Israel that it had learned from last week and would use live fire judiciously." Ten more Palestinians become martyrs fighting for Palesitinian freedom. This can all only end one way.
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Post by jdredd on Apr 21, 2018 2:17:15 GMT -5
www.nytimes.com/2018/04/20/opinion/israel-70-anniversary-jews.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-left-region®ion=opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region"But there’s a more basic reason. Jews cannot rely for their safety on the kindness of strangers, least of all French or German politicians. Theodor Herzl saw this with the Dreyfus Affair and founded modern Zionism. Post-Hitler Europe still has far to fall when it comes to its attitudes toward Jews, but the trend is clear. The question is the pace. Hence Israel: its army, bomb, and robust willingness to use force to defend itself. Israel did not come into existence to serve as another showcase of the victimization of Jews. It exists to end the victimization of Jews. That’s a point that Israel’s restless critics could stand to learn. On Friday, Palestinians in Gaza returned for the fourth time to the border fence with Israel, in protests promoted by Hamas. The explicit purpose of Hamas leaders is to breach the fence and march on Jerusalem. Israel cannot possibly allow this — doing so would create a precedent that would encourage similar protests, and more death, along all of Israel’s borders — and has repeatedly used deadly force to counter it." The NYT's new Gen X columnist from Murdochland is obviously in the "Israel-can-do-no-wrong" brigade. "Robust willingness to use force"? No shit. Alas, who's book says "He who lives by the sword dies by the sword"?
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Post by jdredd on Aug 7, 2018 0:34:18 GMT -5
www.nytimes.com/2018/08/06/world/middleeast/syrian-rocket-scientist-mossad-assassination.html?action=click&module=Ribbon&pgtype=ArticleJERUSALEM — Aziz Asbar was one of Syria’s most important rocket scientists, bent on amassing an arsenal of precision-guided missiles that could be launched with pinpoint accuracy against Israeli cities hundreds of miles away. He had free access to the highest levels of the Syrian and Iranian governments, and his own security detail. He led a top-secret weapons-development unit called Sector 4 and was hard at work building an underground weapons factory to replace one destroyed by Israel last year. On Saturday, he was killed by a car bomb — apparently planted by Mossad, the Israeli spy agency.It was at least the fourth time in three years that Israel has assassinated an enemy weapons engineer on foreign soil, a senior official from a Middle Eastern intelligence agency confirmed on Monday. The following account is based on information provided by the official, whose agency was informed about the operation. He spoke only on the condition of anonymity to discuss a highly classified operation. Ha-ha! Those wacky fun-loving Israelis at work! By the way, Aziz's security detail: You're fired!
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Post by jdredd on Aug 20, 2018 1:53:02 GMT -5
www.nytimes.com/2018/08/18/opinion/american-jews-israel-liberals.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-left-region®ion=opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region"A startling opinion survey released this summer revealed just how wide is the rift between the world’s two largest Jewish communities. Israelis approve of President Trump’s handling of United States-Israeli relations by 77 percent, which is hardly surprising for the most pro-Israel occupant of the White House in many years. But only 34 percent of American Jews feel the same way, and 57 percent disapprove of Mr. Trump’s approach to Israel, according to the same poll, which was taken by the American Jewish Committee. This division reflects disagreements over West Bank settlements, Iran and other political issues. But Israel’s departure from its secular origins — including its recent downgrading of non-Jewish citizens’ status and the stranglehold of the Orthodox rabbinate over civil laws and women’s rights — has also rankled many American Jews. Israelis are red-state Jews. American Jews are blue-state — politically liberal in their outlook." It is America which will save the Jews, not Israel. Israel is hurting them.
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Post by jdredd on Oct 30, 2018 2:57:20 GMT -5
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Post by jdredd on Nov 29, 2018 17:31:17 GMT -5
www.nytimes.com/2018/11/29/opinion/antisemitism-europe-jews.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage"Finally there is the hatred from the left, which comes cloaked in the language of progressive values. This includes the perhaps unwitting anti-Semitism of college professors who refuse to write letters of recommendation for students wanting to study abroad in Israel or who seek to suspend study-abroad programs to Israel entirely, without thinking of sanctioning, say, China or Russia. Or turning a blind eye to unconscionable comments like one from Minnesota’s new congresswoman Ilhan Omar, who tweeted in 2012 “Israel has hypnotized the world, may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel” — because she is breaking ground as a Muslim woman of color." The Israel-can-do-no-wrong crowd continues to make the same mistake, conflating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism. By doing so, they help exacerbate anti-Semitism. The sooner they realize Israel is a lost cause, the better it will be for Judaism.
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Post by jdredd on Dec 13, 2018 11:25:23 GMT -5
www.nytimes.com/2018/12/13/opinion/anti-zionism-anti-semitism-israel.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage"All this is to say that Israelis experience anti-Zionism in a different way than, say, readers of The New York Review of Books: not as a bold sally in the world of ideas, but as a looming menace to their earthly existence, held at bay only through force of arms. It’s somewhat like the difference between discussing the effects of Marxism-Leninism in an undergraduate seminar at Reed College, circa 2018 — and experiencing them at closer range in West Berlin, circa 1961. Actually, it’s worse than that, since the Soviets merely wanted to dominate or conquer their enemies and seize their property, not wipe them off the map and end their lives. Anti-Zionism might have been a respectable point of view before 1948, when the question of Israel’s existence was in the future and up for debate. Today, anti-Zionism is a call for the elimination of a state — details to follow regarding the fate befalling those who currently live in it." Hey, I read the New York Review of Books! It's awesome. But this is a good sign: The Zionist fanatics are on the defensive. Yes, I'm sure many anti-Semites are anti-Zionists, and some anti-Zionists are anti-Semites, but they are still not equivalent. I stlll believe Zionism is a bigger danger to Judaism than Hezbollah could ever be, and history may prove me right.
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Post by jdredd on Jan 5, 2019 13:58:09 GMT -5
www.nytimes.com/2019/01/04/opinion/sunday/israeli-jews-american-jews-divide.html?fallback=0&recId=1FMKYgmyzvoqH44oKL1kXQAyztC&locked=0&geoContinent=NA&geoRegion=CA&recAlloc=als1&geoCountry=US&blockId=trending&imp_id=590510917"Yossi Klein Halevi, the American-born Israeli author, has framed this moment starkly: Israeli Jews believe deeply that President Trump recognizes their existential threats. In scuttling the Obama-era Iran nuclear deal, which many Israelis saw as imperiling their security, in moving the American Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, in basically doing whatever the government of Benjamin Netanyahu asks, they see a president of the United States acting to save their lives. American Jews, in contrast, see President Trump as their existential threat, a leader who they believe has stoked nationalist bigotry, stirred anti-Semitism and, time and time again, failed to renounce the violent hatred swirling around his political movement. The F.B.I. reports that hate crimes in the United States jumped 17 percent in 2017, with a 37 percent spike in crimes against Jews and Jewish institutions." Not only could Trump still be the worst thing that ever happened to the GOP, it could be the worst thing that has happened to American Jewish support of Zionism.
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Post by jdredd on Jan 14, 2019 16:59:50 GMT -5
www.nytimes.com/2019/01/11/opinion/gadi-eisenkot-israel-iran-syria.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage"That means Hezbollah is unlikely to soon start another war with Israel. Suleimani has pulled his forces back from the border with Israel and withdrawn some altogether. The resumption of U.S. sanctions has also put a squeeze on Iran’s ability to finance its regional adventures. Israel also thought it had won a reprieve of sorts when John Bolton indicated the U.S. would not quickly withdraw from Syria, thereby obstructing Iran’s efforts to build a land bridge to Damascus, though that reversal seems to have been reversed yet again. Iran may now turn elsewhere. “As we push them in Syria,” Eisenkot says, “they transfer their efforts to Iraq,” where the U.S. still has thousands of troops. Thanks to Gadi Eisenkot, at least we know the Iranians aren’t invincible."
Of course they aren't. But then again, neither is Israel.
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Post by jdredd on Apr 4, 2019 12:55:43 GMT -5
www.nytimes.com/2019/04/04/world/europe/antisemitism-europe-united-states.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage""Far-right political figures like Mr. Orban have drawn close to Israel, while leftist anti-Semites revile it. But both do so for the same reason: They perceive Israel as a country that has done its best to preserve its ethnic and religious character at the expense of a Muslim minority. The main difference is that Mr. Orban, the prime minister of another small country fighting to preserve its ethnic identity, sees this as a virtue, whereas leftist critics of Israel, such as the supporters of the British Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, largely do not. Both left and right “have the same image of Israel,” said David Hirsh, a sociologist at Goldsmiths College, University of London, and a critic of Mr. Corbyn who campaigns against the academic boycott of Israel. “Corbyn says that Israel is a uniquely belligerent human-rights-abusing state that defends its purity at all costs against Muslims,’’ he said. ‘‘And I suspect that people on the far-right have exactly the same picture of Israel — that it is a belligerent country that defends itself against Muslims.”
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