shown the UN’s leniency towards groups like Hamas and Hezbollah.
I hope I’m wrong, but the international community may end up handing $800 million to Hezbollah — enough for them to rearm and escalate attacks on Israel.
For "the UN’s leniency towards groups like Hamas and Hezbollah", better "the UN’s cooperation with groups like Hamas and Hezbollah".
rds the establishment between the Blue Line [the Israel-Lebanon border] and the Litani river of an area free of any armed personnel, assets and weapons other than those of the Government of Lebanon and of UNIFIL deployed in this area.’ UNIFIL has failed at this, and appears to have done so willingly.
There are tunnels a stone’s throw from UNIFIL bases that the ‘peacekeepers’ must have watched Hezbollah construct, and kept quiet about. This complicity with Hezbollah running roughshod over Resolution 1701 perhaps explains the somewhat hysterical reaction of UNIFIL in trying to thwart Israel’s effort to enforce 1701. No doubt some UNIFIL troops, especially the Irish contingent, sincerely believe the anti-Israel narratives and regard themselves as bravely protecting Lebanese civilians by offering themselves as human shields for Hezbollah. But the rational among them have an equal stake in preventing Israel getting a look at what has gone on under UNIFIL’s watch in southern Lebanon for the last eighteen years.
Meanwhile, the United States has contrived an approach to Lebanon that might politely be called incoherent. The U.S. is reportedly trying to capitalise on the weakness of Hezbollah after Israel mauled the group to install a president in Beirut—a post vacant for two years—who is not Suleiman Frangieh, the candidate insisted upon by Nasrallah. A focus on rearranging the faces in the Lebanese government, such as it is, is strange, though it does conform to the long-term U.S. policy based on a fantastical theory of how Hezbollah’s hold on all actual power in Lebanon can be loosened. But the U.S. is combining this focus with a call for a ceasefire, which would alleviate the pressure on Hezbollah, removing any incentive for Hezbollah to make even cosmetic concessions. Shortening Israel’s window for action in Lebanon seems like the only potential tangible outcome of this American diplomacy.
In a rational world, the U.S. would focus on ensuring Israel had the material and the time to deal with the Islamic Revolution’s outposts in Gaza and Lebanon: these are threats to American security and interests, too, and a friend is offering to solve the problem without the U.S. risking a single life. It can be added that Israel is bringing belated justice for many Americans—a significant number of the terrorist operatives Israel has eliminated over the past year have had American blood on their hands. But America has always seemed to struggle with such calculations. The late Bernard Lewis used to quote a Turkish General, who said to him in the 1950s, as Turkey was brought into NATO: ‘The real problem with having the Americans as your allies is you never know when they will turn around and stab themselves in the back.’
A conclusion that matches Jonathan Spyer's analysis.
We heard about this gender doctor a couple of days back, from detransitioner Clementine:
When she was 12, Johanna Olson-Kennedy at the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles put her on puberty blockers.
At 13, she was put on testosterone.
At only 14 years of age, she was given a double mastectomy!
Clementine had suffered sexual abuse, and that was the source of great trauma, and is why she didn’t want to be a girl.
Johanna Olson-Kennedy didn’t care about that. Within 30 minutes of her first appointment she was told she needed to go on puberty blockers, or she might kill herself.
Now we learn she's been suppressing a study which didn't show what she wanted it to show. She was concerned that it might be "weaponized" by opponents of her brand of "gender affirming" medical mutilation.
Wow. The US government funded a $9.7 Million dollar study where they gave puberty blockers to kids in an effort to prove that it was healthy for kids to be transitioned. The study proved that it WASN’T good for the kids though.
Now they refuse to release the study because the… pic.twitter.com/nDuuNp0PTa
— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) October 23, 2024
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"Now they refuse to release the study because the lead doctor is afraid that it will be used to ban sex changes for kids. These people are evil."
Arthur Rothstein, December 1937. "Abandoned store in Chaneysville, Pennsylvania, once a prosperous mining town."
[Photo: Shorpy/Arthur Rothstein for the Farm Security Administration]
Many Jewish friends have asked why I choose to be outspoken even at the risk of physical safety, losing friendships, etc….So maybe now is a good time to explain.
During my first visit to Yad Vashem in 2021, I passed by a wall with fifteen male faces on it. Our tour guide…
— liv (@liv_laynee) October 23, 2024
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During my first visit to Yad Vashem in 2021, I passed by a wall with fifteen male faces on it. Our tour guide stopped, staring at the men for a moment, before explaining that these faces belonged to the individuals who participated in the Wannsee Conference.
"These men," He explained, "considered the backbone of the Reich, convened to discuss the implementation of the Final Solution. The meeting lasted 90 minutes. We possess comprehensive records detailing their names, rankings, and what each person said during the conference because we have the official meeting transcript…"
"One man in particular was present at the conference. He's documented in the meeting notes as an attendee, but there's no mention of him in the transcript, indicating he didn't contribute verbally. He didn't say anything. Now, years later, we're left to speculate whether his silence stemmed from hesitance to voice dissent or if he merely agreed with the Nazi ideology and had nothing to add."
With a sweep of his hand toward the lineup of men depicted on the wall, the tour guide concluded, "We'll never truly know whether his failure to speak was due to fear or agreement."
I knew in that moment that I never wanted to be that person- the type of person that my kids and grandkids would look back at my life and wonder what I stood for.
I visited Kfar Aza multiple times before 10/7. I visited it after. There are some things you can’t unsee.
I have friends in the IDF, who put their lives on the line for their country- and what kind of person would I be if I didn’t fight for them here, in whatever way I can?
My parents taught me that it doesn’t matter if you’re the only one of the room who speaks out. If you see something wrong, you call it out- no matter the consequences.
But the reality is, whatever I’ve “lost” for standing with Israel- I’ve gained within the Jewish community tenfold. The love, the community, the compassion. In ways that my other friends cannot understand, the Jewish community has seen my pain and not only validated it, but amplified my voice and stood with me. The resilience and the strength I have are in large part thanks to them. And for that I truly am eternally thankful. More than you’ll ever know.
territory, but it does not even command the single strongest military force. That honour belongs to Hezbollah, the Iranian-inserted proxy which, in most ways that matter, functions as the true government of Lebanon. Similarly, the Lebanese ‘state’ is unable to impose its will on the stronger de facto Hezbollah/Iran government.
All this means that two of the pillars the US envoy listed as his preferred means for implementing a new mechanism for making Resolution 1701 a reality on the ground are quite plainly not fit for purpose….
The situation regarding Blinken’s mission in Israel is essentially similar. Speculation that the removal of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar might lead to greater flexibility in Hamas’s stance toward a ceasefire and hostage release appears to have been groundless. There is no reason to think that Mohammed Sinwar, the dead leader’s brother and replacement, will take a more accommodating stance than his sibling regarding the demand for a complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and the consequent survival and reconstruction of Hamas governance in the area. Hamas fighters have demonstrated in recent days their ability to still inflict significant losses on the IDF, with the killing of Colonel Ihsan Daksa on Sunday. He was the most high-ranking IDF officer to have been killed in Gaza since the beginning of the war.
But Daksa’s death does not change the general picture in Gaza. There, Hamas central command and control has ceased to exist, and its ability to fire missiles and rockets at Israel reduced to nuisance level.
In both the north and the south, Israel currently feels it has the advantage and is pushing ahead with degrading its enemies’ capacities. Neither Hezbollah nor Hamas, meanwhile, appear inclined to soften their positions, despite the losses. For as long as this situation pertains, America’s current shuttle diplomacy is likely to yield little, save generating extra air miles for Messrs. Hochstein and Blinken.
As a journalist, my heart breaks for these two amazing Iranian reporters. Look at their beautiful eyes, full of life and courage.
Elaheh Mohammadi and Niloofar Hamedi were among the first to report on Mahsa Amini’s tragic murder at the hands of the morality police, igniting the… pic.twitter.com/ypExMF2pXu
— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) October 21, 2024
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Elaheh Mohammadi and Niloofar Hamedi were among the first to report on Mahsa Amini’s tragic murder at the hands of the morality police, igniting the fight for freedom across Iran.
Despite winning the UNESCO World Press Freedom Prize, they’re being forced back to prison.
So basically A woman who dared to show her hair was killed, and now two brave women who reported on this atrocity are being sent back to prison. This is the harsh reality of life in Iran today.
Every day we forget, we give the Iranian regime more power to silence them and continue its brutal crackdown.
WxnVfmU&dib_tag=se&keywords=uprooted+lyn+julius&nsdOptOutParam=true&qid=1729511473&sprefix=lyn+julius%2Caps%2C210&sr=8-1″>Uprooted: how 3,000 years of Jewish civilisation in the Arab world vanished overnight, writes in Fathom on The Three Best Books on the Farhud. Her introduction:
The 7 October Hamas attack has been commonly described as the worst massacre since the Holocaust. But among Jews born in Arab and Muslim countries, it has stirred memories of deadly violence perpetrated by local mobs. The pogroms recall a familiar modus operandi –rampages replete with slaughter, burnings, rape, mutilation, destruction, looting. One of the most serious was the two-day Farhud (A Kurdish word meaning murderous breakdown of law and order): the June 1941, Nazi-inspired massacre of Jews in Iraq. Some 179 identified Jews were murdered (some estimates put the toll as high as 600, or even 1,000), 2,000 were wounded and 900 homes and 586 Jewish-owned businesses were destroyed.
This episode shook the 150,000-member Jewish community as never before. The Jews had been settled in the region for almost three millennia – since the Babylonian exile. The Farhud sounded the death knell for the Jews of Iraq. 120,000 fled ten years later. Other riots followed (Libya in 1945 and 1948 – 148 Jews dead), Aden (87 Jews dead) Syria (the Aleppo Great synagogue destroyed), Morocco (48 dead) as Jews felt the full force of state-sponsored incitement and persecution in Arab states.
Mob violence or the threat of violence on the eve of Israel’s declaration of independence was a key factor in undermining the Jewish sense of security in a world already buffeted by the forces of Arab nationalism and anti-colonialism. The result was a mass exodus and the extinction of age-old Jewish communities.
Although the Farhud was a trauma already deeply embedded in the collective memory of the Jews of Iraq, it is only in the last 15 years that the term has become familiar to a niche English-speaking readership – thanks in part to the following three books…
You'll have to read the article for those recommendations…..
Former Republican PA Congressman Jim Greenwood:
“The choice is pretty simple. It's between a guy who’s mentally, morally, physiologically, intellectually unfit to be president of the US, & a woman who’s decent, honest…”pic.twitter.com/F89FI6zUQo
— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) October 22, 2024
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Well yes, every word of that on Trump – and see also in the NYT, where John Kelly, the White House former chief of staff, says that Trump would rule like a dictator and meets the definition of a fascist – but it's an unfortunate effect of a two-way contest like this that he feels the need to praise Kamala Harris in such fulsome terms. To my mind she's a lacklustre performer with little going on behind that smile and the vacuous soundbites, and it's a disgrace that the Democrats are running with such a weak candidate. Of course that pales next to the Republican disgrace of sticking with Trump, but still…
Bret Stephens, as quoted by Jerry Coyne, admitting that he'll vote for Harris – but very reluctantly:
I really would rather have just sat out Election Day. But Jan. 6 and election denialism are unforgivable. And as my friend Richard North Patterson likes to say, “Donald Trump is literally bleeping crazy.” And what crazy brings in its wake is JD Vance, whom I find worse than Trump, because he’s just as cynical but twice as bright. And what it also brings in its wake is Tucker Carlson and the Hitler defenders he likes to platform….
It’s a 99.999 percent vote against Trump and a 0.001 percent vote for Harris….
If the G.O.P. had nominated Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis or Doug Burgum, I’d be voting Republican. Probably even Tim Scott: That’s how reluctant I was to vote for her.
I fear that Harris is every bit as vacuous behind the scenes as she seems to be on the public stage. I fear she will be tested early by a foreign adversary and stumble badly, whether it’s in stopping Iran from building a nuclear weapon or China from blockading Taiwan or Russia from seizing a portion of a Baltic country. I fear she will capitulate too easily to her party’s left flank, especially when it comes to identity politics, economic policy or polarizing cultural issues. I fear she’ll have no domestic policy ideas that don’t involve mindlessly expanding the role of government. I fear she’ll surround herself with mediocre advisers, like her embarrassingly bad veep pick. I fear she won’t muster the political will to curb mass migration. And I fear that a failed Harris presidency will do more to turbocharge the far-right in this country than to diminish it…
Yep. It's a grim choice.