do you think mordy might one day make aliyah to a settlement?

also thread for me to talk about eternal jewish presence in hebron

Genesis 23:16 ¶ And Abraham hearkened unto Ephron; and Abraham weighed to Ephron the silver, which he had named in the audience of the sons of Heth, four hundred shekels of silver, current money with the merchant. [17] And the field of Ephron, which was in Machpelah, which was before Mamre, the field, and the cave which was therein, and all the trees that were in the field, that were in all the borders round about, were made sure [18] Unto Abraham for a possession in the presence of the children of Heth, before all that went in at the gate of his city.

such like the jews to be like - look, i paid good fucking money for this place

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C33kO3fvjkI

http://i.imgur.com/8BudiFu.jpg

אין דבר, טוב למות בעד ארצנו

what do ppl do once they get there?

have a TON of babies

Live there

for further reading:
http://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/dropzone/2012/12/Cohen-Gordon-graph6.jpg

you've already got a couple, right? what's 6 more?

http://i.imgur.com/BDBK4mR.jpg

http://cd.pbsstatic.com/xl/26/0026/9780553140026.jpg

interesting read thx mordy

lol @ that choose your own adventure

wdyll on yr birthright trip

https://scontent-a-iad.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/196_505579837317_8314_n.jpg

yes that's an aeropostle sweatshirt

i want u guys to have the full compliment of evidence

what are the theological implications of aliyah

it's a really big mitzvah. it's such a big deal moving to israel that the lubavitcher rebbe had to explain why he didn't move there (bc his chossidim were still in diaspora). there are laws about when you're allowed to move away from israel (acc to the torah). in fact, there's a discussion of this fact in the Ruth narrative bc it begins with the family moving away from Israel bc of a famine and there's a question of whether even a famine is sufficient cause to leave the country. (the biblical isaac is notable for having never left israel in his lifetime - bc he was sanctified as a sacrifice during the akeidak narrative he was too holy to leave the land.)

a cute side note - the babylonian diaspora was so productive for the jewish ppl that they said that just like it's forbidden to leave israel, it's forbidden to leave babylon - unless you're moving back to israel (cue Cyrus the Great). when i was in yeshiva they used to make a similar joek about brooklyn

'hallelujah' denied status as new blink-182 'i miss you' youtube still du jour by being a fairly catchy ditty in its own right

ok so theological demands are for strong & unified heartland. do you think this exists in microcosms around the world as well as in israel? obviously with less imperative but with a similar urge to thrive?

it's not just about strong & unified heartland. the land is central to jewish faith. it's ubiquitous in the foundational documents (torah, prophets + writings almost entirely about the land of israel), liturgical texts, etc. i know the concept of returning home is not unique to the jews (i was kinda surprised to learn that diaspora studies in academia has nothing to do w/ jews), but it's probably unique in terms of its extreme historical persistence.

the land is central to jewish faith

This land is my land.
That land is your land.
You stay on your land.
I'll stay on my land.
There's this here border
I drew between them.
This land was made for me, not you.

that's beautiful, aimless. where is it from? samuel 2?

robert frost

good news, thread. my friend in the settlements is sending me some photos of settler-life to share.

http://www.trendingcentral.com/boycott-israel-image-month/

weird thread. Fake Mordy?

false flag mordy

all that glitters

isn't this the ilidf board?

hurting, do u like my birthright pic?

is it true that there are religious jews in the settlements? would it therefore be boring to be surrounded by religious jews all the time, especially at weekends?

just thinking through the logistics before you buy a tract of land

JNF has planted more than 240 million trees and developed more than 250,000 acres of land since 1901, greening the landscape of Israel and preserving vital ecosystems. JNF’s forestry expertise and commitment to environmental protection makes it one of only two countries to end the 20th century with more trees than it had at the start.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

are you still on about this

i'm thinking about making a trip in april - not permanent tho

yeah im sure thats what you all say at the border

lol as if - who do u think is running the border?

if you can tell me without googling who ran the border at ballyshannon i'll let you have that point otherwise meh we all have our little local battles i guess

i could've sworn she died like a decade ago

Naturally, I googled. Wtf?!

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

if ariel sharon dies within the next 48 hours then YES [X]

if he outlives it then that is a sign that NO [X] the fierce old testament g-d has enough emissaries in israel for the time being

that settles it

lol punz

whats an aliyah to a setetlement... please dont use any fancy jew words when explaining to me

a shtetlment

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyTu_ZdcBCo

http://static01.nyt.com/images/2013/01/29/obituaries/20130129ArielSharonObit-slide-YW1Q/20130129ArielSharonObit-slide-YW1Q-superJumbo.jpg

Sharon talking to Rabin - Peres sitting to the side

the highest income tax rate in israel is 52%, comparable to the netherlands

http://www.timesofisrael.com/2013-record-year-for-tourism-government-says/

http://www.israeldailypicture.com/2014/04/breaking-news-thousands-of-vintage.html

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-AMQwnSL7Q4g/Tgq6DmJ6DgI/AAAAAAAABUM/F-8ki3eVmNY/s1600/Jer%2Btitle%2Bpage.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUDaLuwUiX8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUDaLuwUiX8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39W3oCzw4SQ

http://i.imgur.com/U70c7ak.jpg

http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/13743/israel-s-navy-transforms-itself-for-21st-century-power-projection

http://www.jpost.com/HttpHandlers/ShowImage.ashx?id=245270&h=236&w=370

lol

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Class_Championship_Wrestling#Israel_tour

http://online.wsj.com/articles/israel-issues-tenders-for-1-500-new-housing-units-in-west-bank-east-jerusalem-1401991417

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BpZNRyMCIAETZZW.jpg:large

who are they

the middle guy is mick jagger

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BpPDAFJCAAIb5ab.jpg:large

want

http://static.wixstatic.com/media/9b4a09_5ff3ed4485f0422c9d0679e149ffa828.jpg

do you think mordy might one day take aaliyah to a settlement?

people think her death was just a loss to rnb but it was a loss to delightful wordplay also

http://i.imgur.com/1pSCMJK.jpg

wonder if ppl would prfer liberman to bibi

obama has enough trouble with an asperger case, avigdor would alpha the fuck out of him every single time

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/11/10/would_hillary_be_good_for_the_holy_land_obama_israel_bibi

i believe jews should have the right to pray on the temple mount if they want

i know if means nothing but one of this week's terror victims shares the same name as my daughter and it is giving me heartache

http://www.timesofisrael.com/tel-aviv-dubbed-worlds-smartest-city/

Intel to spend $550 million in Israel through 2020
http://www.timesofisrael.com/intel-to-spend-550-million-in-israel-through-2020

that garbage sodastream story is neatly prefigured by this toaster related stramash at the same university two decades ago instigated by race theorist noel ignatiev

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1992/3/18/no-toaster-subsidy-pito-the-editors/

So could it be that Chinese food is a manifestation of Jewish life in America? Lee seems to think so. “I would argue that Chinese food is the ethnic cuisine of American Jews. That, in fact, they identify with it more than they do gefilte fish or all kinds of the Eastern Europe dishes of yore.”

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/12/why-american-jews-eat-chinese-food-on-christmas/384011/2/

...

From the early days of Sa
udi–Wahhabi expansion, the crucial element
was to gain submission to the tenets of Wahhabi Islam among the population,
both sedentary and nomadic. This submission led to the creation
of a quasi-tribal confederation with which to conquer further territories in
the absence of an identifiable ‘Sa
udi tribal confederation’.

Wahhabism provided a novel impetus for political centralisation. Expansion
by conquest was the only mechanism that would permit the
emirate to rise above the limited confines of a specific settlement. With
the importance of jihad in Wahhabi teachings, conquests of new territories
became possible. The spread of the Wahhabi da
wa (call), the purification
of Arabia of unorthodox forms of religiosity and the enforcement of the
shari
a among Arabian society were fundamental demands of the Wahhabi
movement. The amir of Dir
iyyah took the Wahhabi reformer, recently
expelled from
Uyaynah, under his wing, and accepted these demands.
Wahhabism impregnated the Sa
udi leadership with a new force, which
proved to be crucial for the consolidation and expansion of Sa
udi rule.

The historical alliance between the Wahhabi religious reformer and the
ruler of Dir
iyyah that was sealed in  set the scene for the emergence of
religious emirate in central Arabia. Without Wahhabism, it is highly unlikely
that Dir
iyyah and its leadership would have assumed much political
significance. There was no tribal confederation to support any expansion
beyond the settlement, and there was also no surplus wealth that would
have allowed Muhammad ibn Sa
ud to assemble a fighting force with which
to conquer other settlements. The settlement itself did not have sufficient
manpower to initiate conquest of other oases or tribal territories.

Most accounts of the success of the Sa
udi–Wahhabi
polity highlight the fact that raids were congruent with
tribal practice, and as such they encouraged tribal confederations to take
part in the expansion of the Sa
udi–Wahhabi realm with the promise
of material rewards.

However, this emphasis completely overlooks the
spiritual dimension, a strong motivating force behind the eager submission
of some sections of the population who had already been timidly
but persistently trying to develop a spirituality deriving from the sim-
ple and austere message of Wahhabism.

Ibn Sa'ud’s indifference towards the Palestinian problem was maintained
until the outbreak of the Second World War. This attitude was summed
up by his famous saying: ‘ahl filis in adra bi shiabiha’ (Palestinians know
better their own valleys).

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2015-01-22/israel-gains-as-france-loses-entrepreneurs-among-persecuted-jews.html

Bruce: I grabbed my copy of David Isby’s “Weapons and Tactics of the Soviet Army” off the shelf and blew the dust off the top. Published in 1981 (London: Jane’s Publishing Co.), it’s the perfect guide to the weapons of this game’s period. There is a separate section on Soviet anti-tank weapons, and covers both first- and second-generation Soviet ATGMs (anti-tank guided missiles). The Malyutka is actually the AT-3 Sagger, a first-generation Soviet ATGM. And right on page 151, there is a section on “Countermeasures.”

Soviet first-generation ATGMs are vulnerable to countermeasures. Many of the countermeasures developed by the Israelis during the 1973 War have been adapted and improved by the US, British and other NATO armies.

Yeah, right? Adapted and improved by the good ol’ US of A! Let’s see what we need to do here.

The Israelis discovered that the best countermeasure against Saggers was to destroy or suppress them using combined-arms tactics. They increased their use of artillery against suitcase Sagger gunners, who were without cover. Reorganised to meet the Sagger threat, Israeli armour units now had an even mix of tanks and armoured personnel carriers mounting at least three machine guns. They would advance in a checkerboard formation, tanks and APCs alternating. If heavy ATGM or RPG fire was encountered, the APCs would lead the advance, spraying suppressive machine gun fire while the tanks supported them with high explosive or blinded the enemy with smoke or white phosphorus. If the advance was halted, the infantry would dismount and clear the Saggers out.

Advancing Israeli armour in the later stages of the 1973 War also used the “Sagger watch” technique now adopted by NATO. Each tank and APC would search a key point of terrain where a Sagger might be located. When a Sagger was spotted in flight, the watching vehicle would give a warning to whoever appeared to be the target and would immediately fire in the direction of the Sagger launch, hoping to disturb the gunner’s concentration, make him lose control of the missile and obscure his vision with the dust raised by firing. Meanwhile, the target would take evasive action. Forces advancing against suspected ATGM positions can also use “bounding overwatch,” with half of the force moving while the other half remains in overwatch position, their weapons trained on likely enemy positions.

This stuff is, like, gold! Try to shoot me now, Soviet pinkos! There are like four more paragraphs of protips, but I’ll just finish with this part:

Hull-down tanks can dodge ATGMs spotted in flight by simply reversing down the slope and letting it pass overhead. Even if there is no cover, a tank can still outmanoeuvre a first-generation ATGM. It is difficult for the gunner to correct for sudden, sharp moves by the target, and a turn to the right or left by the target in the last four or five seconds before impact cannot be compensated for, and the missile will go past. Tanks can also dodge these ATGMs by following an erratic, swerving path. None of these first-generation Soviet ATGMs has an autopilot, so the gunner’s natural tendency is to overcorrect while trying to keep the missile on target, and thus to lose control. US Army officers estimate that dodging techniques alone can reduce first-generation ATGM effectiveness by at least 50% and possibly by as much as 70%.

During the 1948 Arab–Israeli War the Arab Legion was considered[1] the strongest Arab army involved in the war. Glubb led the Arab Legion across the River Jordan to occupy the West Bank (May 1948). Despite some negotiation and understanding between the Jewish Agency and King Abdullah, severe fighting took place in Kfar Etzion (May 1948), Jerusalem and Latrun (May-July 1948). According to Avi Shlaim,

Rumours that Abdullah was once again in contact with the Jewish leaders further damaged his standing in the Arab world. His many critics suggested that he was prepared to compromise the Arab claim to the whole of Palestine as long as he could acquire part of Palestine for himself. 'The internecine struggles of the Arabs,' reported Glubb, 'are more in the minds of Arab politicians than the struggle against the Jews. Azzam Pasha, the mufti and the Syrian government would sooner see the Jews get the whole of Palestine than that King Abdullah should benefit.' (p. 96)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bagot_Glubb

mordy have you ever read guy gavriel kays 'lions of al-rassan'? if so do you have any thoughts abt it?

i have not, but guy gavriel has been recommended to me in the past. should i read it?

yeah its an enjoyable book

but it has an idea of 'jewishness' that is interesting to me and maybe overly common amongst canadas professional/intellectual class (see also the depiction of the girl that david staunton loves in robertson davies).

PfJfJ

http://www.theguardian.com/profile/farah-halime

hi mordy, are there any books on judaism you’d particularly recommend? i’ve read a little robert alter but that’s more exclusively literary

i know the literature must be vast so it's an impossible question.

(me: one parent adamantly atheist jew who was sorta don draper denying background, other parent believing catholic; got family in israel; but anyway i’m shockingly ignorant, despite my ilx name and interests)

prob should find another thread to ask nakh for recs re islam & middle east history; i’ve only superficial knowledge; should i start with bernard lewis

oh i don't have any great knowledge of middle eastern history at all, just something i've taken a more recent interest in during the last periodic flare-up

bernard lewis' 'from babel to dragomans' is good certainly, i recommended this to mordy a while back, contains essays on sundry topics over many years

thanks nakh, looks good

what are your jewish interests? most of my background is in primary sources (tanakh, mishnah, talmud, shulchan aruch, chassidut) but if you let me know what you want to know more about (jewish history? law? scripture? classical, medieval, modern? diaspora, israel? ashkenazim, sephardim, persians, bukhara, morroco, ethiopia?) i might have some suggestions.

interested in lots of that, but for now let's say:
judaism as a "worldview", so any philosophical takes on judaism (its understanding of the world & what it is to be human in it), overall but starting with early judaism-- i guess that would incorporate early jewish history, law, scripture & its interpretation
what’s a good (possibly annotated) edition of the Hebrew Bible
generally speaking i'm interested in the origins & genealogy of things (ideas, practices, forms of life), I like starting “from the beginning” then following their development
interested in tradition of midrash
interested in history & history of ideas, especially classical, medieval, early modern period
if there’s a good overall history of judaism and/or the jews as a people i’ll start with that
particularly interested in ashkenazim
interested in modern jewish history too of course, again esp ashkenazim, & establishment of state of israel

ha, hardly narrowed it down; don’t know that that helps at all! seriously, don’t recommend books on all or most of that; just, if there are any books you especially like on one or a couple of the above topics, let me know

Heschel is the best and I recently read and really loved his On Prophets. If you do end up reading it I'd love to discuss it w u

thanks mordy, looks very interesting, will do

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sf4bK0c_tOM

South African supporters of Theodor Herzl contacted Smuts in 1916. Smuts, who supported the Balfour Declaration, met and became friends with Chaim Weizmann, the future President of Israel,

Smuts' wrote an epitaph for Weizmann, describing him as "the greatest Jew since Moses."[61]

Smuts once said:

“ Great as are the changes wrought by this war, the great world war of justice and freedom, I doubt whether any of these changes surpass in interest the liberation of Palestine and its recognition as the Home of Israel.[62]

today is my 10th year anniversary of my first post to ILX

yay!

http://rlv.zcache.com/happy_10th_anniversary_boxer_dog_greeting_card-rd5b65be8d4ab43d0b6c798fcb18cb3b6_xvuak_8byvr_324.jpg

we should mark this occasion. how are you celebrating? any regrets?

i regret getting addicted to ilx. i am celebrating from a hotel in phoenix while i work on my OSHA certification. despite these two downer conditions i am in good spirits.

phoenix is quite possibly the most depressing, ugly city i have ever had the pleasure of visiting - esp since i got here after spending half a week in paradise on earth denver.

i raise a glass to you, mordy

not had the pleasure of visiting phoenix but agree about denver

my addiction is incipient but already serious. i blame you for being a bad influence & enabler

I can not remember the password to my account I previously deleted my email associated with my facebook account so i'm unable to reset it and yahoo has stopped making the ymail accounts
I also never set up security questions or etc
can someone please help
The email associated with my facebook account is t0tal_nightm✧✧✧@ym✧✧✧.c✧✧
new email is dburnet✧✧✧@ivyt✧✧✧.e✧✧

― zionsmommy, Monday, 18 May 2015 00:58 (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

jesus christ i didnt see that email

i'm reading this book. it's good and often funny:

http://jewishtheater.org/Jewish%20Theater/Catch-the-Jew_image.jpg

http://www.amazon.com/Catch-The-Jew-Tuvia-Tenenbom/dp/9652297984

I go to see Jesus’ tomb.

A long line of people, which I estimate to be between one and six million, are in a queue to enter the tomb, perhaps hoping that they will rise to life after their deaths as well. There’s an entry point at one side of the tomb and a little room on the other.

In the little room they sell paper for those who want to write personal letters to Jesus, which many here do. Writing done, they drop their notes at the tomb for Jesus to read. I’m not sure why they are doing it, especially since Jesus got out of the tomb alive long ago and only God knows where he is today. The Jews who write letters to God are a bit smarter: they deposit their letters with His Wife, not at the empty tomb of His Son.

Some of the letter writers also attach money to their letters, obviously thinking that Jesus is in need of some cash. I’m not completely certain how the cash finally reaches Jesus but I can see the Greek monks faithfully collecting it for him.

There are other sacred things happening here besides cash.

An older monk approaches an attractive lady and, touching his head and his torso when he says this, tells her that he’s very happy because Jesus is in his mind and in his heart. He adds, speaking to the lady: “I can see that Jesus is also in your head and in your heart.” He gets closer to the lady, puts his lips on her face and her torso, exactly where Jesus resides, and kisses both with passion.

It is at this very moment of Holy Porno that I feel the need to butt in. This monk is more interesting than the man who looked like a bishop I met before.

Do you see Jesus in my mind and heart as well? I ask the monk.

“Yes.”

You sure?

“Yes!”

Would you mind kissing me too? On my head and over my heart, where Jesus is?

The monk gives me a spiteful look, but I insist that he kiss Jesus. He refuses. I raise my voice at him, for the Lord’s honor, and swear to him that I won’t leave the place unless he kisses my body with passion, “like you did the lady’s.”

The lady hears our exchange and promptly demands that he kiss me.

He does. Monks obey ladies.

The woman, who says her name is Olga, laughs loudly. I demand hotter kisses, as Olga looks at him with stern eyes.

While still in Tel Aviv, the Left Wing City of Israel, I go to meet Udi Aloni.

Udi introduces himself to me as a filmmaker and a writer with a Berlinale prize in his pocket, awarded to him by the German Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development, Dirk Niebel. Dirk again, the man busy in Development.

[...]

As we sit for coffee in one of Tel Aviv’s myriad cafés, Udi nostalgically recalls another place. “I lived in Jenin for one year, and in Ramallah for two.” A light shines in his eyes, as if he had just mentioned two women of his dreams.

Udi is a shining example of the new Left of Israel: the extremist Left. This is a Left that I don’t know, a Left as far as one’s left hand can reach. Gideon is not alone. He, Gideon, and the “political psychologist” I met earlier on, are members of a new club. “People in Tel Aviv don’t believe in God, but they believe that God promised them the land,” is how Udi describes the non-radical Left. His Left is different. He is on the forefront of the campaign to boycott Israel and Israeli products, he shares with me with ecstatic pleasure.

If his boycott campaign succeeds, he, as an Israeli, would suffer greatly. If Israel cannot sell its products overseas and no other nation were to sell any product to her, Israel would go under and people would die of starvation. Is this what he is after?

In a way, yes.

“At the end there should be one state here, with one man one vote,” is how he puts it.

In such a case, and since the Palestinians are likely to be the majority of this one state, the Jewish state would cease to exist, correct?

“I dream of it!”

In addition to this dream, he also has nightmares.

“For me, the thought that one day I’d wake up and there would be no Palestinians around me, is a nightmare.”

Do you speak Arabic?

“No.”

It is mind-boggling to me how people who say they love Palestinians so much and dedicate their lives for preserving Palestinian identity and culture, don’t even entertain the thought of studying this culture. They know Kant, they know Nietzsche, they know Sartre, they know Aristotle, but they know no Quran, no Hadith, and no Arabic.

I studied the Quran, I studied the Hadith, and I studied Arabic. Udi is an Arab lover. What am I?

Udi doesn’t strike me as being the self-hating Jew of the Gideon Levy variety. Udi is not a “patriot” Israeli; he doesn’t want a “Jesus” Israel, he wants no Israel. Udi is the normal self-hating person. He loves the Palestinians not for what they are, since he doesn’t really know them, but for what they are not: they are not Jews, they are the Jews’ enemies, and this makes them fantastic people.

***

A few hours later I go to a Georgian restaurant and sit at the table with an Israeli scholar. She is left-wing through and through and she loves Palestinians. So much so that she keeps mentioning to me – in case I didn’t hear it ten times already in less than an hour – that for years she had slept with a Palestinian. They weren’t going out together, not really, but they were having sex. An intellectual leftist sitting with us is very pleased and he gives her this remark: “I’m happy to hear this; now I know you’re okay.” She knows a big zero about the Palestinians’ culture, but she’s been sharing her bed with one. That’s respect, isn’t it?

Gideon [Levy] is in his newspaper’s office in Tel Aviv, where I have just arrived to meet him.

His father, he tells me, is from Sudetenland and he spoke German as a child.

But Gideon doesn’t care about Sudetenland, what he cares about is The Occupation. He wasn’t always like this, but when he started working for this paper “the more I understood that the occupation is brutal, criminal, and the more radical I became.”

Do you think that the nation of Israel is brutal by nature?

“No, totally not. Others are the same. But there is one thing that’s different from other nations, which is a DNA in the Israeli mentality, the belief that they are the Chosen People, which is a racist view, and this is something very deep in the DNA of the Israeli, of the Jew, that we are better than anybody, that we deserve everything, the kind of belief that Prime Minister Golda Meir had, that Jews can do anything they want, and this is in addition to the thought that we are the greatest victims of history. These are the very thoughts that make us believe that we have rights that others don’t have, and that therefore we can do anything. Out of these comes the demonization of Palestinians.”

Could we say that the Israelis and the Nazis are one and the same?

“No.”

Why not?

“You could make a comparison to the Nazis in the thirties. But that’s the most you can do, not more. Here there are no plans to annihilate other nations, no plans to rule over the world, no concentration camps. I prefer comparing Israel with South Africa during Apartheid.”

Is it ever going to change?

“Only if Israel pays for it. Only under pressure on the Israelis, economically or, God forbid, by bloodshed.”

Do you think Jews have always been like this, with this racist DNA?

“Certainly.”

In this kind of environment, I ask him, why doesn’t he just pack his suitcases, jump onto a plane, and simply leave this country?

“I’m an Israeli patriot,” he answers. Israel is very important for him, this is his place and, besides, he asks rhetorically: “What will I do in other places, write about tourism?”

Europe, as a rule, sides more with the Palestinians, while the United States sides more with the Israelis. What do you think is the reason for this?

“Europe is much more ideological, complex, intellectual. America is shallow, everything in black and white, and brainwashed.”

Under the intellectuals’ Rule of Generalization, Gideon should be stripped of his right to speak in public. This is never going to happen, of course, because Gideon Levy is practically the best source of information for all intellectuals with even the slightest interest in Israel.

Why, do you think, are the Europeans so interested in this land?

“Very complex. For one thing, you can’t ignore the past. In some European countries, I’m sure, and I’m talking about feelings they have in their sub-subconscious, there is this thinking: ‘if our victims are engaged in horrible acts perhaps it’s not that bad what we have done to them.’ It makes the Europeans feel better and it compensates for their guilty feelings. But it’s also true that Europe is more sensitive than America to human rights violations in general.”

We keep on talking, and Gideon tells me that he doesn’t speak Arabic. I ask him how can he write about the horrible things Israel is doing to the Palestinians, which he constantly does, if he doesn’t understand the language of his interviewees.

Gideon replies that his team includes Arabic speakers for those interviewees who don’t speak English or Hebrew. I mention to him that the people here speak in two languages, one amongst themselves and one with foreigners, and that if you don’t know their mother tongue they will sell you tall tales. Even Al-Jazeera is doing this, giving two very different viewpoints: One for the “brothers,” in Arabic, and one for Westerners, in English. But Gideon, who does not understand Arabic at all, claims that this is not the case. And when I ask him if he also reports on Palestinian human rights violations, he replies that what the Palestinians do is none of his business.

I have no clue how he can report on abuses of one side if he doesn’t even bother about the abuses of the other side. Violence, after all, many a time comes in circles: one shoots and the other shoots back, but if you fail to mention the first bullet and only report about the second, the second shooter turns into a plain murderer by the strokes of your pen, not because he really is.

What does he think of the settlers in Hebron?

“They are the worst. No doubt.”

His issue is not just the settlers.

“I think,” he says to me, “that the average Palestinian wants peace more than the average Israeli. I have no doubt about this.” Yet, despite his love for the Palestinians he doesn’t really know them. And he admits it: “All my friends are Israelis. I don’t have one Palestinian friend.”

This is sad. For so many years Gideon has championed the Palestinian cause, but not one Palestinian has befriended him, or he one of them. Obviously, despite what his articles may suggest, he really doesn’t care about the Palestinians, only about the Jews. He’s an Israeli patriot, as he says to me. He wants his Israel, his Jews, to be super-humans and reply to a bullet with a kiss. In short: he wants all the Jews to be Jesus and die on the cross.

There can be only one reason why he would want them to be a Jesus: Inside of this man’s heart, in its darkest corners, this Gideon is the biggest kind of Jewish racist that has ever existed. Jews must behave like super-humans because they are. And as long as they do not behave as a master Jesus race, he hates them. He is the strangest self-hating Jew you can find.

the sickest thing about the post-colonial critique of zionism is that it claims that a white european people came to a middle eastern country and kicked out the arabs, meanwhile it totally ignores that jewish expulsion victims from arab countries make up twice the number of palestinian refugees from the nakba. so when arabs claim that israeli jews aren't indigenous to the middle east are they just suppressing the fact that until very recently they lived next door to many of these jews before chasing them out?

vid about the tenenbom book:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiZ-nm8VlF0

http://www.rrc.edu/AR15/

http://www.weeklystandard.com/print/articles/attorneys-war_964911.html?nopager=1

Increasingly, the IDF, and Dabla specifically, have been taking grief from a surprising quarter for their unique policies on avoiding civilian harm: academics and lawyers who are otherwise friendly to the IDF, or at least not openly hostile. Take the case of Wolff Heintschel von Heinegg, a distinguished expert on military law at European University Viadrina in Frankfurt. Dabla recently brought this law professor, and other top military law experts from outside Israel, to further train IDF combat commanders in the intricacies of the law of armed conflict.

Speaking at a smallish military base outside Tel Aviv, the German lawyer acknowledged that the IDF went to “great and noble lengths” to avoid civilian casualties in Gaza and other recent conflicts. However, he believes that the IDF is taking “many more precautions than are required” and in doing so, he fears the IDF “is setting an unreasonable precedent for other democratic countries of the world who may also be fighting in asymmetric wars against brutal nonstate actors who abuse these laws.”

He’s not alone. When Pnina Sharvit Baruch, a former Dabla chief, attends legal conferences around the world, she says she faces “recurring claims” from other militaries’ legal advisers that the IDF “is going too far in its self-imposed restrictions intended to protect civilians, and that this may cause trouble down the line for other democratic nations fighting organ-ized armed groups.” Today, Baruch is a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv.

[...]

And maybe bad news for other Western nations as well. “The IDF’s warnings certainly go beyond what the law requires, but they also sometimes go beyond what would be operational good sense elsewhere,” says Michael Schmitt, director of the Stockton Center for the Study for International Law at the U.S. Naval War College. “People are going to start thinking that the United States and other Western democracies should follow the same examples in different types of conflict. That’s a real risk.” Schmitt is the author of a just-completed comprehensive analysis of the IDF’s targeting systems.

recurring theme of (internal & external) standards set, perhaps uniquely, on israel

it's interesting bc it lends truth to an argument i've heard (very quietly) from some on the left that they're uniquely pressuring israel bc it makes for an easier intervention for the entire west, that for whatever already existing structural reasons (well-financed arab opposition, still operative antisemitism, unique relationship to UN) critiques can be more easily integrated when lodged against israeli society that can then be used as precedence in future interventions. i think i most hilariously heard this idea from someone who argued [optimistically] that once israel is dissolved as a country that'll just lend credibility for dissolving other countries as well.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2015/06/10/its-a-happy-israel-after-all-world-happiness-report/

Embroiled in endless conflict and surrounded by hostile neighbors, how is Israel the 11th happiest nation in the world?

fp trying to convince me to move

extended family members in israel seem happy. not in chipper untroubled way, but... grounded.

(xp) never heard that argument! v interesting. privately honest explanation for (ostensibly well-intentioned) public dishonesty,

and/or rationalization for tacitly approving/ endorsing views of others who really do believe israel is worst human rights violator in the world (e.g. according to UN human rights council)

i finally got a paid gig to write hasbara :P the rumors are true!

just googled the term

really? interesting! can you share what that entails?

it's just doing some music journalism about israel for a website, but their explicit mission is to publish non-political, non-religious stories about israel to present it as a normal country. i've written coverage about israel before but never for an outlet that has such an explicitly 'hasbaraesque' mission statement.

ha excellent, where does the money come from?

lol that's the best part - the non-profit that funds the website is funded by sheldon adelson. honestly if it was about any other topic than music i might've balked but it's material i'd be happy to produce anyway, i don't mind taking adelson's blood casino money. :P

congrats on the gig!

it's telling (of present moment & not just present moment)-- cf bds, israeli schoolgroup snubbed in paris-- that there's need simply to present israel & its citizens as normal-- not exception(al).

you're our man on the inside, link your work when it's up!

http://forward.com/culture/yiddish-culture/320338/speaking-yiddish-in-gaza

slightly thrown by 'gutzul' for a second (ie 'hutsul' as it is usually transliterated)

this makes me so angry:

http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Abbas-Israelis-have-no-right-to-desecrate-our-holy-sites-with-their-filthy-feet-416307

describing jews visiting or praying at their holiest site a "desecration" is just the sickest bullshit. esp in a country where this related bullshit continues to happen:

http://www.timesofisrael.com/in-israel-more-jewish-holy-sites-desecrated-than-christian-muslim-ones-combined/

ugh depressing
kinda shocked by those quotes coming from abbas (maybe shdn't be)

1976 births, Living people, Bad Boy Records artists, Baalei teshuva, Belizean businesspeople, Belizean expatriates in Israel, Belizean musicians, Belizean Orthodox Jews, Belizean people of Ethiopian descent, Businesspeople in fashion, Children of national leaders, Def Jam Recordings artists, East Coast hip hop musicians, Converts to Judaism, Jewish fashion designers, Jewish rappers, Jews in the African diaspora, People banned from entering the United Kingdom, People convicted of assault, People deported from the United States, People from Belize City, Musicians from Brooklyn, People from Jerusalem, Rappers from New York City, Shooting survivors, Gangsta rappers, People from Flatbush, Brooklyn

https://www.facebook.com/theisraelproject/videos/10154516393317316/

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Yj7cTYhFkCw/VkYXLOvJxCI/AAAAAAAAs6w/XeUegx5fnQw/s640/ban%2Bkin.jpg

The Baron was born in 1869 to one of the best known family in the Prussian nobility. At the age of 21 he came to Wirtsburg to join the military. As a talented musician he served in a military band. At that time he got in touch with the Jewish community and developed close relationship with Torah and Talmudic scholars. He studied Torah in the Talmudic College (yeshiva), and expressed desire to convert to Judaism. His requests were repeatedly denied, but he persisted and eventually his sincerity won......

“In 1942 the Nazis ordered all the Jews of the Wirtsburg area to go to the city’s main square and from there marched them to the railroad station. Baron von Manstein came to the square covered with his prayer shawl (talit) and wearing phylacteries (tefilin) on his forehead and arm. The Nazis tried to turn him back saying, you are not a Jew, repeatedly, but he adamantly said, where the Jews go, I go too.”

“He was transferred with the rest of the Jews to the Terezinstadt concentration camp and died there two years later. Members of my family have said that most victims died in Terezinstadt from starvation. On his nephew, the General’s initiative his body was transferred to Wirtsburg and was buried in Christian cemetery with full Nazi honors.”

http://www.zeevgalili.com/english/2009/03/the-uncle-of-the-nazi-general-von-manstein-who-convert-to-judaism/

this is on libgen

http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/book.asp?isbn=9780300115314

look the settlements are a left-wing project!
http://www.timesofisrael.com/greece-to-defy-eu-order-on-labeling-settlement-goods/

http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Politics-And-Diplomacy/UN-index-ranks-Israel-as-one-of-worlds-most-developed-countries-437501

Czech parliament refused labeling Israeli settlement products by a large majority
http://echo24.cz/a/iFsis/poslanci-odmitli-plan-eu-oznacovat-izraelske-zbozi-z-osad

http://i64.tinypic.com/fctzqh.png

https://scontent-lga3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpt1/v/t1.0-9/11224212_1678438799069475_8846967488878692303_n.jpg?oh=45a3bdead1df8985788a889b49fee42d&oe=5719B57A

http://www.jpost.com/Not-Just-News/Meet-the-Israeli-who-is-trolling-BDS-and-Roger-Waters-438641

The prime minister seems to have formed a bond with the large, aging white dog. When his family adopted her, he called on Israelis to help rescue dogs and to look for a dog in a shelter before considering buying a purebred.

A photo taken during a recent meeting with US Secretary of State John Kerry, shows the prime minister smiling fondly as he looks down at the family’s newest member.

According to reports, Netanyahu himself was bitten by the rescue pooch earlier this year.

Kaia’s victims were MK Sharren Haskel and attorney Or Alon, the husband of Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely.

http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/196345/stop-worrying-about-israel

i admit this made me tear up a little near the end
http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/why-i-left-western-europe/

As someone with a pretty substantial, errrr, relationships with the Glasgow Jewish community, I don't recognize any of that, Mordy, but obv. it's that person's experience, so fair enough. Doesn't sound much like Glasgow though.

he sounds like he was very uninvolved in the glasgow jewish community and more heavily involved in the college activist leftist community? iirc he says something like his birthright trip was the first time he was in a majority jewish group? that would be v unusual for participants in the community

i'm like so full of shit btw i have zero intention of leaving the US. luckily yearning to move to israel w no actual plans or intentions to do so has a long tradition i can tap into.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/189626/americans-views-toward-israel-remain-firmly-positive.aspx

his birthright trip was the first time he was in a majority jewish group?

lol wtf

i just checked bc it is lol so tbf he says: "I went to Israel first on Taglit-Birthright. Just meeting the group I would be travelling with at Heathrow Airport was the most young Jews I had ever been around." "most young Jews I had ever been around" birthright iirc my trip had like... maybe 25-30? so not totally insane, but still probably means not a huge amount of participation in glasgow jewish life.

i won't hold my breadth for BDS advocates to address the new gallup numbers. for those guys the big revolution is always imminent if not sooner

personally I don't really know what to make of Americans' continued love affair w Israel - pro-Israeli Jews make up such a tiny portion of the overall American population it isn't too hard for me to imagine that the bulk of support is rooted in either a) general anti-Muslim sentiment and b) eschatological evangelicals, cuz really why else would yr average American give a shit about (or even remotely understand) Israel.

maybe 25-30? so not totally insane, but still probably means not a huge amount of participation in glasgow jewish life

yeah I don't think my kid has ever been around more than 25-30 young jews; e.g. the whole student population of his talmud torah is maybe about that much, so I guess there are times when there are that many young jews together in a building with him, but I'm not sure he's "around" the much younger or much older kids. There are no more than 10 Jewish kids in his entire school I'd say. That's just how it is when you don't live in a Jewish town!

25-30 is kind of a lot if you narrow it down to a particular age range, although there were various points in my life when I was definitely in a bunch of Jews of my age group (primarily summer camp sorta situations). But yeah my daughter's never been in a group of 25-30 Jewish kids her age. She's definitely been around more than 25-30 Jews tho!

ok so i've spent a lot of time thinking about this and my best answer is that americans identify very strongly with the jewish people. i'm not sure exactly why (something maybe related to self-identification as exceptional) but once you start looking for it you see it everywhere. the puritans saw themselves as enacting a certain kind of exodus and i've read that they heavily identified with the old testament and used it as a basis for their legal code (and that thanksgiving was originally thought of as a yom kippur analogue). you def hear it in the expression judeo-christian which obv was not invented by jews, and in hebrew roots phenomena. i've considered that black communities might have their own version of this re identification w/ the exodus narrative, and of course u have black israelites groups. i think that support for israel is related to this, and its refounding as a kind of seismic religious moment that is not exclusively eschatological. and then you have obv answers that for christians it is probably nice to have access to so many of their holy sites and there's a lot of american religious tourism. xxp

ok so i've spent a lot of time thinking about this

lol u don't say

I think a lot of it is as simple as "all those countries over there hate us - except for Israel!" and from there it's just a circle-the-wagons mentality + sure religious tourism

like the way i see it the eschatological stuff and anti-muslim stuff was grafted onto this original identification which is the real story (and i think has v interesting implications if you're interested in speculating about the future of religion in america). mormons have heavy philosemitic identifications too. (btw this isn't too uncommon and there's a thing where a royal english family identified as being scions of david or something? but i think totally ahistorical on a national level like we see today.)

mormons have heavy philosemitic identifications too

yeah I find this really annoying personally. But they were looking for a biblical analogue to their own experience and the OT was a better source (duh) than the NT. Same goes for the Puritans I suppose.

the puritans overlaid the entire narrative. they crossed a sea to enter a promised land. i feel like the US is indisputably the most philosemitic country in history.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Israelism

It's because the OT is a core text, surely?

which part? i think obv christianity's lineage has a lot to do w/ it but some of these things - like the ten lost tribes of israel - are post-OT

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/22/world/middleeast/yemen-jews-israel.html

JERUSALEM — They landed in Israel late at night — a man in a dark suit and traditional headdress, wheeling a suitcase; a mother, veiled, in a long black robe and holding a sleeping toddler; and a rabbi carrying a Torah scroll believed to be more than 500 years old.

They were among a final group of 19 Yemeni Jews who were spirited out of their war-torn country in recent days, the Jewish Agency announced on Monday, bringing a monthslong clandestine rescue operation to a close.

Photographs taken at Ben-Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv by a representative of the Jewish Agency, a quasi-governmental body that deals with Jewish immigration, documented the arrival late Sunday of the last of the Yemeni Jews who wanted to go to Israel.

They are remnants of an ancient and once-vibrant group that became increasingly imperiled by violence and anti-Semitism as Yemen descended into civil war.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BuHhRatCQAAd8eM.jpg

can someone with photoshop superimpose this on an irl map of the united states

daydreaming antisemites should probably transfer their planned new israel to an area of the united states that is less likely to contain native americans and other groups they might purport to care about

https://rosswolfe.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/stalin70th_pppa.jpg

http://www.wired.com/2016/05/israel-can-customize-americas-f-35-least-now/

http://nationalinterest.org/feature/how-israels-air-force-dominates-the-sky-16896

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/israel-proves-the-desalination-era-is-here/

http://nypost.com/2016/08/01/amare-stoudemire-i-rejected-nba-offers-to-fulfill-israel-dream/

no word on whether he's moving to judea & samaria

http://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-judoka-yarden-gerbi-takes-home-bronze-at-rio/

Israeli judoka Yarden Gerbi overcame an early loss to win the bronze medal at the Rio Olympics on Tuesday, becoming the first Israeli athlete to win a medal at the 2016 games, and the first Israeli Olympic medalist since windsurfer Shahar Tzuberi took home the bronze in the 2008 games in Beijing.

Gerbi defeated Japan’s Miku Tashiru in the repechage to claim the third place spot in the under-73 kg competition.

Gerbi, 27, and the 2013 world champion in her class, thus became the seventh Israeli athlete in history to be honored on the Olympic podium. She was also only the second woman to do so — the first being judoka Yael Arad, Israel’s first-ever medal winner, who took home the silver in Barcelona 1992.

Didn't see the medal match but she was impressive against the Chinese opponent I saw her beat.

i don't know the story behind it but Sae Miyakaya's floor routine was 100% using Kol haolam kulo as music.

https://kavvanah.wordpress.com/2017/04/04/infinite-jihad-rabbi-shagar-on-the-disengagement/

I will try to illustrate the contradiction in the lessons of the war through a discussion regarding who is our enemy.

The Lebanon War was waged against a religious enemy Nasrallah, the Radical Islamic fundamentalist. In this regard, at least externally, we would agree that religious extremism endangers us, being that the secular Arab governments of Jordan and Egypt have signed peace treaties with us.

Yet, conceptualizing the enemy in this way presents a challenge for us, because, as we’ve mentioned above, in the eyes of many secular people, our religious community, at the very least, parts of it, suffers from the same religious extremism. They hold that the resolution to the conflict lies in a movement of secularization that may allow for tolerance and openness, two prerequisites for peace. In truth, those secular pockets of the Arab world are perceived as more moderate and open to the concept of peace.

From this perspective, the connection between the Disengagement and the Lebanon War is the open and inner struggle against secular Israel, which enjoys the support of the secular west in their perceptions of religious extremism.

Yet, it is not so simple to get the full picture here. To wit, for Nasrallah, the state of Israel does not represent a rival religion, but rather the supremely hated secular, colonialist West. As religious people, where do we locate ourselves in all this?

Do we not identify somewhat with Nasrallah’s critiques?

If true, perhaps our enemy is actually secularism? If this is so, the connection between the Disengagement and the war is different. The war is the punishment for the Disengagement. We may rightly ask here if it was not a kind of secular extremism that employed its systems of power against the settlers of Gush Katif and their faith? We may relate to the perpetrators of the Disengagement as agents of a foreign culture ourselves. For many of us, they evince the feeling of “…and we have been exiled from our land and distanced from its [holy] ground”[4] – whether from a practical (the Disengagement) or metaphysical perspective (secularism).

Surely these mixed feelings are quite confusing, and a crucial question that stands before us now is whether the real battle is external – Iran and its proxies, Hezbollah and Hamas, or internal – the struggle against the secular left, and those on the right who have been ensnared in its positions. It is possible that this question stands behind the dispute between the statists (mamlachti’im), who say that we should continue to draft without question and are opposed to disobeying military orders, and those objectors (=sarvanim) who refuse to forget what has happened and for whom joining the army in defense of the state is not automatic.[5]

I think that specifically from this great paradox that a tremendous religious blooming may sprout forth. This contradictory situation is such that on one side Nasrallah depicts a negative, cruel, and perverted religious vision, and yet on the other we stand before a totalizing globalization lacking roots and identity (this too yields tragic results, even if they are generally hidden, and in many ways no less cruel than the fruits of radical religious extremism)

This situation must lead us to a third way, a combination of both messages. We must understand both the failings of secular Israeli culture and the failings of one-dimensional religious fundamentalism that has flourished in our world as well. This will bring us to the ability to transmit a new religious message.

In order to cultivate this message, it is incumbent upon us to break down the dichotomy of choice between warmongering religious extremism and westernizing peace-seeking which is built upon forfeiture of identity and roots. Religious must redeem the message of peace. A new kind of religiosity must develop. On the one hand, rooted in values and on the other hand, prepared to achieve real peace.

To me, it is beyond the shadow of a doubt that at the end we will indeed achieve a ‘religious peace’. This is because the left does not found peace upon deep respect for the religious other, but rather upon a total discount of religion, with the claim that it is the source of the war. The paradox here is that in doing so, the left actually intensifies the conflict. It is specifically here that the Muslim feels threatened, because the peaceniks approach him from the perspective of liberalism and globalization. [The Muslim] senses in this a sophisticated attempt to subjugate his values with western values, including the hegemony of their representative in the region – the State of Israel.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/two-muslim-states-in-africa-send-first-ever-envoys-to-israel/

(senegal and guinea)

Seeding Controversy: Did Israel Invent the Cherry Tomato?
http://www.annawexler.com/uploads/2/0/2/4/20246021/wexler-gastronomica-2016.pdf

https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2018/01/israel-palestinians-us-egypt-saudi-arabia-mahmoud-abbas.html

Meanwhile, some of the ideas that the American team looked into are starting to leak out, explaining why Abbas beat such a hasty exit from the scene. Although they have no formal confirmation, reports about them have started to appear on Al Jazeera's English-language website and various other places. These reports refer mainly to an old plan, already raised a decade ago. Now it seems as if most of the main players in the region, including the US team, are giving this plan another look. This would involve an exchange of territories by three or more parties (perhaps even four or five). What makes it different from prior efforts is that this time, the Egyptians and Saudis are in on it.

At the core of the idea is the creation of a major Sunni-Israel alliance, which would serve as a counterbalance to the victorious Shiite axis, which poses a threat in the north. The basic idea includes an extensive territorial exchange, in which Egypt would cede a piece of the Sinai Peninsula to the Gaza Strip. With this, Gaza's territory would extend southward along the seashore, making it three or four times larger than it currently is. This would make it possible to relieve some of the pressure in Gaza, but it would also shift the balance of power between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

According to this plan, the center of power in the future Palestinian state would be in Gaza, expanded toward the north of Sinai, rather than the West Bank. In exchange for the expanded territories that they would receive in the Gaza Strip, the Palestinians would give up territories in the West Bank, allowing Israel to annex the settlement blocs along with a generous amount of land around them, thereby maintaining some degree of territorial integrity between the various blocs. At the same time, Israel would give Egypt a narrow strip of territory along the lengthy southern border between the two countries. There is also the possibility that Saudi Arabia and Jordan would also participate in these territorial exchanges, with various ideas proposed.

Maybe there's a better thread for Israel travel talk? couldn't find one...

Aside from reading Catch the Jew, is there anything else I should think about in preparing for my first Israel trip later this year? I'll go for a couple of weeks, mostly in Jerusalem with probably a couple of days in Tel Aviv and in Haifa. It's an academic trip rather than tourism, but there'll be time for sightseeing and obviously eating. Does anyone here have advice on what are good neighborhoods to stay in Jerusalem? I'll want relatively simple access to the Hebrew University, that's my only constraint.

ok I see now that this is on a sub board I've never heard of, so I'll make an ile thread instead

https://www.israeltoday.co.il/read/analysis-israel-beats-the-odds-is-safest-corona-country/

Just wait till the conspiracy theory crew hear about this.