Zionism is not Talmudism

I link the Talmud as an interesting historical/religious document to my blog, because I've seen so many misrepresentations of it.

Though I'm pretty sure that (like nearly everyone) I had Jewish ancestors, I am not a Jew.  I do no believe in 'God.'  I believe monotheism and perhaps all theisms lead to disaster.

East Asian religions of Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism may be better.

But there is no need for any of them.  We each have the ability to construct a framing reality to our experiences, and it is both our freedom and our responsibility to do so.

Along with ethics, social practices, personal habits, and more, the stuff normally associated with religions.

It's a problem that essential social functions (notably gathering, friend finding, and mating) are NOT very well handled completely with secular alternatives, but effectively outsourced to religion, as if atheists should not have friends and families.

Anyway, I do not believe the Talmud is the source of modern genocidal Zionism.  Zionism was created by non-religious Jews, and religious Jews bitterly opposed it (even to their deaths during the Holocaust!).  Only by a process of elimination (don't forget that part, the Jews who were murdered were mostly anti-Zionist, and many Holocaust survivors still are), corruption, propaganda, and shock did Zionism become the view of the majority of Jews.

If anything, the religion of Judaism resisted it for at least 1747 years, from Bar Kochba to Modern Zionism, and many Jews always continued to reunounce Zionism as being the opposite of Judaism (at the present time, that number is rapidly increasing).  Some Jews, including at least one notable Holocaust survivor back in the day, called Zionism the same as Nazism, and many still do.  It is basically true, except that Nazism was a movement of authentic nationalism (exposing the evil that nationalism can be) whereas Zionism was a based on ethnic religious settler colonialism.  Notably in both cases it subordinated the darker people, in both cases the people with the larger proportion of middle eastern ancestry.  Zionism is antisemitic, similarly to Nazism.

Right up front the Talmud has the Three Oaths, which forbid the creation of a Jewish State in Palestine or anywhere else!  It is for God, and only God, to do that.  (The first part of that has always seemed to me to be sagacious wisdom.  The second part of that has always seemed to me to be a kind of sweetener thrown in to make the package easier to sell.  I think it was a sell out from the beginning.  Religions are always full of sweeteners like this, like taking over pagan holidays.)

It would have been better go go further, and say that God no longer wishes the Jewish People to be largely in Palestine at all, but all over the world wherever they can be, and fighting for all persecuted people including Jews if they are being persecuted.  Tikkun Olam, that's the Judaism I respect, the Judaism I might have joined when I was much younger.  All my respect went out the window when I heard about the Nakba from a Jewish Communist when I was 13.  It was then many years until I discovered the vast array of Jewish voices among many others condemning Zionism, and finally came to understand that 'Israel' was not the 'Jewish State' as I had been told since birth, but something more like its antithesis, a replacement of rule obeying thoughtfulness with ethnic sentimentalist fascism.

Even letting 'God' bring all the Jews to Israel in the distant future maintains the fiction that it would be a good idea, the stuff  of dreams and toasts.

(Note that even among Religious Jews, the Talmud is not the Word of God but only the views of ancient rabbis interpreting it.)

I'd say the moral collapse among Jewish Zionists is 99% because of Zionism and not Judaism.

Many of the best opponents of Zionists are anti-Zionist Jews.  They already have been fighting for persecuted people including people persecuted at the hands of other Jews.  Anti-Zionist Jews face among the worst discrimination in modern times, they are often bumped from Academic careers (such as Norm Finkelstein), government careers (such as Tony Greenstein, expelled from Labour on false charges of antisemitism), and sometimes even their own friends, families, and synagogues.

Many of these people have had better Talmudic education than most Zionists.

So I hardly lay any blame on the Talmud, though it does at least two bad things (all religions do lots of bad things...):

1) Because it promotes the idea that it's God's Will that Jews ultimately return to Palestine, it creates a nightmarish fantasy in disguise.

2) It does systematically try to say how Jews should treat other Jews different from non-Jews (which most all religions do).  I understand it promotes fairness to non-Jews and more-than-fairness to Jews.  That may be better than most.  But even establishing that there should be a difference is wrongheaded.*

Notably, however, the Torah does say those things also, just less systematically, and the Torah could also be interpreted in more universalistic terms because of its ambiguity (thus leading to Christianity, which emphasizes exactly that interpretation--often practiced in the breach--as do many Jews--including Tony Greenstein who has said that the lesson of the Torah is to Love your Neighbor as Yourself (which comes straight from Leviticus, and is repeated not invented by rabbi Jesus).

All religions are full of crap, the true judge is how people actually act in this world, and especially towards others, the poor and needy, even their 'enemies.'

And for at least 1747 years, between Bar Kochba and Zionism, Jews were doing pretty well, no worse than others as far as I can tell, and causing fewer wars than Christians or Muslims (the Muslim wars so often decried by Zionists were mostly in the very distant past, while Christian wars began with the Roman Empire and are still 'leading' the world).

(*Note that in all my many personal dealings with Jews, I felt they were always being more-than-fair with me, perhaps all the better since they had imbibed the details of what that meant, and not trying to be 'just fair' as some might interpret an ancient religion to mean.  Except perhaps in arguments...)

My own interpretation of the Torah (as a tiny part of where I gather the things I believe in, if not God per se) is exactly the one given by rabbi Jesus and Tony Greenstein.  I would express it unambiguously as universal love, just as Jesus took the boundary case and said "Love your enemies and do them good."  But also, the historical sweep of the Torah might best be summarized as: "States, you don't want to mess with States and, don't make waves with them, and be rid of them as soon as you can.  However good great and glorious they start, in human hands, they won't end well."  (That was why ultimately a divine Messiah was called for, but I don't believe in that part, I don't believe in personalized divinity, only the combined forces of everything adding together.  Every damned kook is going to claim to be the Messiah, or that his expired supposed predecessor was--that's a more profitable schtick btw.)  

I take that as cautionary advice.  As a Communist, I still believe in building a socialist state, but long for the day when even that is no longer necessary.  And recognize it won't be easy or magnificent.  There is no short cut to doing things honestly, fairly, and of course with love.  Otherwise you may not have socialism but fascism.

Updated debunking of the October 7 Rape Claims

The UN report debunks the October 7 rape claims made by Israel and western media ever since.

Here is the zei_squirrel (he's the best) thread.  And here (this is linked in the previous thread but you might overlook, and it's the best part of all)

Here's zei_squirrel on NYTimes separation from Anat Schwarz

 

The Final State of Palestine

Final state?  The defacto one state from the river to the sea.

Except, it must grant equal rights to all within, regardless of race or religion, or the "state" identity (Israeli or Palestinian) they previously held.

It must implement a full right of return for all displaced Palestinians to their original homes.

What about the Jews who have immigrated under Zionism?  Many, including Jewish Neturei Karta, say they should leave.  I agree that would be justice.  But justice is not always for us to achieve, if it requires driving yet another set of people out of their homes, many of whom may have simply been foolish.

IMO settlers not in previously unsettled areas do not have to move at all.  Settlers in previous Palestinian homes should give them up and accept resettlement elsewhere.  All Zionist settlers must accept the new expected Muslim majority state, so long as it implements equal rights for all regardless of religion, and non-discrimination, as the Hamas Charter of 2017 specifies.

Jews in Israel should stay, and fight for equal rights instead of supremacy.

Can diaspora Jews still emigrate to the renewed Palestine?  It's not mine to decide, but I'd say it's fine as long as they do not participate in terror against the new state, and Palestinian return is taken care of first.

Zionists call such ideas ridiculous.  Hamas will implement sharia law, they say.  That is not what Hamas says in their 2017 charter, and there are also many non-Hamas segments of Palestinian population who would also not call for that, Palestinian society is far more progressive, say, than Saudi Arabian.  And religious law and discrimination are exactly what needs to be resisted by Jews, as a new ethnic minority, and not the fundamental right of right of Palestinians to return to their homes that were seized in the violent creation and maintenance of the Zionist Entity.  One should resist what is wrong, and never what is right.

I am not calling for the immediate restoration of lands to their former condition, say orchards of olive trees.  Clearly compensation for lost properties...including community assets...would be justice.  But actual restoration of everything is impossible.  Also, Zionists should not smash and burn their actual contributions (though it would be fine if they smashed their apartheid structures including walls checkpoints) as that is the allowance made for not requiring everything to be completely restored to its former condition either.

Monotheism is fascism

 All monotheism inherently creates the false notion of a single "good" (God's will).

This false notion is not only harmful to greater understanding and reflection, it creates the basis for exclusionary religions, ideologies, and governments.

It is inherently proto-Fascist if not Fascist.  It leads to endless Holy Wars.  In that crucible, and luck, the "West" was born.  It had a glorious burst of world domination, now busting.  It will not be remembered kindly.

Traditional Asians, apt to freely combine ideas from multiple faiths, had the right idea on that.

It's no wonder that monotheism emanated from great empires, first "Persian" (Zoroaster) which led to a reformulation of Judaism into a monotheism, then Rome who captured the originally resistive "Christian" faith tailor made for empire by Herodian stooge Paul, then Islam from the burgeoning Arabian empire.

I believe that churches should be civic institutions open to all "faiths."

(So, actually, I do not believe in separation of church and state.  I believe in separation of religion from church and state.)

"Private" churches not open to all faiths should be taxed.

From a vast array of private untaxed churches, we predictably get endless sectarianism.

Which is useful for our post-Civilization rulers to remain unchallenged in their cash-and-grab international imperial racket.

But universal churches can hardly be imposed when most people are monotheists.

One more way the future does not look nice for humanity.

I speak meaningfully only to the post-Collapse generation therefore.  Don't do it this way.  Don't make our mistakes, which are diverse, but including this.

Zionism in a nutshell

Fascist settler colonialism based on blinders and historical myths, and sadly exceeding all previous Jewish and Hebrew fascist regimes in the scale of depravity.*

(*They had genocide--see the story of Amalek--and all that before.  But rather than so much apartheid they did forced conversions under the Hasmonians.  Jewish and Hebrew regimes made up a tiny fragment of the total history of Palestine/Canaan and their departures were not lamented by all.  Even Jews didn't all or so much care for the place, for the longest time.  But then a fascist sentimentalism based on myths with a dash of truth was empowered by UK then US imperialism.  Also enabled by Air Conditioning.)

Beheaded Babies Atrocity Propaganda

Twitter link

Tireless researcher zei_squirrel show the two journalists who originally disseminated the beheded babies atrocity propaganda did so, with many referencing their "findings" but few keeping up with later debunkings.

People I know still believe this and repeat it.

In fact, the truth, as reported in Haaretz, is that just one baby was killed on October 7, and it was not beheaded.

It was apparently killed in crossfire.

And I also don't understand the morality that sees the beheading of babies as greater abomination than carpet bombing their prison enclave into oblivion and starving them for months, resulting (as of this writing) in 12,300 child deaths known so far.

Was Mossad a/the key player in JFK assassination

The case for the key role of Mossad in JFK assassination is very well presented here.

This was apparently also the conclusion reached by Piper in a series of JFK Assassination theory books.  Piper is one of the most well known JFK conspiracy researchers.

I like the theory presented because it explains the role of Oswald and E Howard Hunt, which fits one of my long held ideas.  That Oswald was supposed to carry out a "fake" assassination (which would fail), Oswald would be shuttled out of the country, and it would be blamed on Cuba and the Soviet Union, giving reason for more aggressive action against both.

But unbeknownst to Oswald at first, a real assassination was being set up at the same time.  When the assassination actually happened, Oswald had figured he had been set up as the patsy.  (I suspect he may have figured it out earlier when something like this happened: his promised contacts at the Book Depository didn't show up.)  After the assassination he tried to make the connections which were supposed to get him out of the country, but instead he was framed for an earlier murder of a policeman and arrested.

Another lady who may have had a very close relationship with LBJ was Mary Meyer Pinchot, the wife of Cord Meyer.  (She may have been closer than another lady I recently mentioned in an earlier post.)

 

Social Media in China

China does not ban any social media companies because of their country of origin.

What China does is block all social media that does not comply with Chinese law.

1) China requires data about Chinese people be kept in servers in China.  Facebook and Twitter have refused to do this.  TikTok does this for American users by having servers in Texas ("Project Texas").

2) China requires social media companies to cooperate with Chinese law enforcement.  Facebook and Twitter cooperate with US law enforcement, but they have refused to cooperate with Chinese law enforcement.

After the platforms of US social media companies were used to organize terrorist attacks in Xinjiang in 2009, 200 people died.  Facebook and Twitter refused to cooperate with Chinese investigators.

3) China has certain content restrictions, as in almost every other country, though there is somewhat more restriction in China than in USA.  For example, China does not permit porn.  Facebook and Twitter have refused to cooperate with Chinese content restrictions.

The Chinese domestic version of TikTok, called Douin, enforces these restrictions.  TikTok which is intended for other countries does not.

TikTok has already gone above and beyond US legal requirements, but the US government simply does not want a social media company owned by China, as it cannot be pressured by actors associated with the USA, including Israel, to make editorial decisions those actors want.

(Many Zionists including ADL have been complaining about all the information about Palestine that young people get on TikTok.  And unlike with US social media companies, Israel can't drag the owners of TikTok to Israel to kiss the rock and the ring of Netanyahu.)

It's also pretty clear that US operates it's social media companies as international spyware and for organizing coups and terror.  When the US complains about China doing these things, it is projection.

 

Having it both ways on the Partition Plan

https://twitter.com/Alonso_GD/status/1768005563902734399

"Who was there first"

I have addressed this question similarly in many previous posts and tweets.  Here's Rabbani saying mostly the same things somewhat more coherently and authoritatively.

The two correct answers are "both" and "irrelevant."

Second Wave "Feminists" were Zionists and Imperialists

Tony Greenstein names the Zionist Imperialist "feminists":

Betty Friedan

Letty Pogrebin

Andrea Dworkin

Quoting Tony:

Radical feminism has always given cover to imperialism, be it in Ireland or Palestine so we shouldn’t be surprised. The darlings of American feminists – Betty Friedan, Letty Pogrebin and Andrea Dworkin – were all Zionists. American feminism has until recently, and under the pressure of Black Lives Matter and third world women, been a bastion of support for imperialist ventures.  For example Susan Nossel. former head of Amnesty USA justified the Afghan war with feminist arguments.

Feminism as a western movement has, by its very nature, viewed society as primarily divided into men and women. Race and class has been largely absent from Western feminist narratives and it is no accident that the racist trollops of Brighton Women Centre have come to dominate the women’s movement and feminism.

Western feminists such as Betty Friedan fought hard against Palestinian demands for liberation and in practice what was called second wave  feminism ended up in the right-wing feminism of the ‘Blair babes’ who voted overwhelmingly in Parliament for the Iraq War in 2003.

The election of 100 Labour Women MPs in 1997 resulted in a situation where 25% of women MPs (mostly old-style socialists like Alice Mahon) voted against the war compared to 40% of male MPs. So much for the sexist idea that women are more peaceful.

In more recent years it has been female Zionist  MPs such as Margaret Hodge, Louise Ellman, Luciana Berger and Ruth Smeeth who led the ‘anti-Semitism’ fight against Jeremy Corbyn and the left in the Labour Party.

Further underlining the fact that women are not necessarily more 'peaceful,' here in USA we have such figures as Hillary Clinton, Victoria Nuland, and Nicky Haley. 

Not a single Hamas rape victim has been identified

It's all smoke, mirrors, and racism.

 

Mossad did 9/11

I think there's enough evidence now to regard this as likely true,  regardless of whether you think explosives were used (warning: this Wiki includes contributions of varying quality).

It certainly advanced Israeli interests, with the US launching into decades of attacks against Israeli enemies.

Although certainly Bush and his cronies were involved, it was probably too secret for official channels, not a CIA project as such.  But suitable for Mossad, which has vast experience in false flag attacks.

It did not advance Muslims, Arabs, or Palestinians in any way.  However, a small number of controlled extremists might be made to believe that.

Furthermore, both Al Qaeda and ISIS are western inventions and loosely controlled assets, a controlled militancy to shake up pan Arabism, non-Alignment, and cooperation with Russia, or domestic US pacifism.

All following in line with the original British recognition of the most religiously extreme as rulers in the 19th century, following similar thinking.

Holodomor was/is Nazi disinformation

https://archive.org/details/891762PB

X marks the spot

Twitter was always controlled media.  New ownership has simply shifted the controls slightly to the right.  Questioning the US oligarchic empire too much will get you banned or worse, just like before.  Scott Ritter was banned, now he's "back" (I think).  Kit Klarenberg was banned.  There is no evidence that speech has become any freer, if anything the reverse.

Shadow banning seems worse than ever.  Many people I follow say their follower saw precipitous drops to 1/10 or even 1/100 of what they had before.  I used to get up to 5 likes, now I can make 100 posts to get one like.

When you are reading a thread, there may be multiple shadowed dialogs you can gain access to which warn of "offensive" dialog.  Few of the messages I've seen contain abusive language.  My carefully written posts sometimes end up below the second "offensive" warning.

I notice I get a red line under such words as Hasbara and Zionism.

IOW, all the words an anti-racist and anti-imperialist might use are on the list of offensive words.

Tweet to Biden

To Biden bragging about the economy under his administration, I replied about real things and not just numbers.  Real things including lives and goodwill lost forever.

How much have we spent, killed, and destroyed on proxy wars in Ukraine and Palestine?  Eroded international trust in the dollar through  sanctions?  Crippled the energy conversion with economic war on China?  Punished our European allies by halting energy from Russia.

Electoral Causality

It should be clear from elementary first principles of causality that voting for Cornel West or any other 3rd Party candidate is not voting for Trump.  If everyone followed the same example, Trump would not be elected, Cornel West would be.  No amount of votes for Cornel West will ever get Trump elected.

Now it may be true that voting for a 3rd Party candidate is not voting strategically to stop Trump from getting elected.

I will try to parse the ethics of that.

Consider the first case, where Trump is metaphysical evil, and his major party alternative is metaphysical good.

OK, in this case why aren't you voting for metaphysical good?  But this case never happens.  But this is of course what every partisan is mostly going to argue.  They're not going to bring up any deficiencies of their side unless they can't avoid it.  Whether they concede such deficiencies the interlocutor claims may depend.  Such arguments quickly become pointless because they are merely contests of rhetorical skill and guile.

Now consider a more likely case, where Trump is still metaphysical evil but Trump's major party alternative is a mixture of good and evil.

In this case, Trump is clearly a greater evil and Trump's alternative is clearly and undeniably a lesser evil.

On that basis alone, a vote for the lesser evil is for the greater good and will therefore be the better choice.

But in combination with that strategic vote for the greater good, there is also acceptance, ownership, causality, and responsibility for the lesser evil.  (That itself is a complex issue to be expanded below.)

And there is also inability to discipline the lesser evil party over time, and perhaps the ability to build serious alternative parties (note that such a party needs to be on the way to becoming more popular than one of the existing major parties...fringe ideologies are unlikely to make it...what's needed for Communists is Popular Fronts--which may be near centrist in general ideology, as for example Roe v Wade was a a compromise between liberals and conservatives before "conservatives" went full on fascist.)

Now, materialists (including most often Marxist-Leninists) and other pragmatic people often write the ethical value of things like protest votes as irresponsible personal styling (self-righteousness) at the expense of material results.

Taking an inflexible stand like that is not only denying the abilities to discipline parties, build new ones, etc.

Furthermore, it deprives people of something fundamental, the ability to express themselves and take full ownership of the responsibilities of their action.

There is no question about it, voting for Biden is not only not-voting for Trump, it is also unequivocally voting for Biden.

If that bothers someone's conscience, who am I to judge?

Surely you wouldn't want to vote for a serial killer who has kept on a rampage throughout his administration and protected by that status, even if it was the only alternative to Fascism.

In this case, we have Genocide Joe, who has lavishly supplied Israel with vast quantities of bombs even while they are breaking international law and genociding 30,000 and rising numbers of Palestinians.

This is unacceptable.  I will not vote for a genocider, and nor can I make any demands on anyone else to do so.

The fact is, and it's very problematic, that the US is not only not a democracy, it is not a good democratic republic either, it is an outlaw plutocratic and oligarchic warmongering empire with periodic "elections" among candidates acceptable to the deep state who are by that time fully wired up to deep state control systems including bribery (Campaign Contributions, Soft Money), blackmail (Roy Cohn, Epstein), and assassination (JFK, RFK, Wellstone).

In such a situation as living within such an entity and being forced to do the unthinkable, it might well be that the most morally valid option is ritual suicide.  It can be as morally valid as anything else that could be done and far better than most, heroic may apt if the situation deserves it as it does in the case of Aaron Bushnell.  But simultaneously I also strongly discourage it and so no moral principle or god could ever require it.  No principle requires you to be heroic and every wise sage will counsel against it.  One could also simply fail to perform the unthinkable task and then accept the resulting punishment, though it could be less heroic.  Or even take a more active role opposing the evil as justice allows.  However the truly heroic also have their place.

Solving our future problems will necessarily require something radically different than what we have now.

Because of that, it may sometimes be necessary to shake things up.  Really shake things up.

So I think strategic (lesser evil) voting has it's limits, and they apply in spades to Genocide Joe Biden.

It could even be argued, we need to hand Genocide just a loss (which he is almost certain to achieve anyway) but a huge loss, as a denunciation of genocide.

Even though Trump may be no better, we must force someone to come up with a better option.

Finally, following on the arguments I made with regards to heroism, no god or principle can require you to vote strategically if in even the slightest way you feel upset by both choices.  Everyone is perfectly entitled to vote for the actual candidate they like best, or not vote at all.  No god or ethical principle requires you to (insignificantly) move the levers of US state power.  You are perfectly entitled to leave the such decisions to everyone else.  You are absolutely free to vote for whoever you like or it's not voting, it's forced acquiescence.  Even while voting strategically to block a greater-evil candidate from power is often adviseable from ethical principles, there are other tests, and ultimately the smell test.  How much filth are you putting your fingers on (and that is exactly what you are doing, not merely stopping a greater evil but announcing tolerability with the lesser one).  So that is the ultimate question.  How does the range of choices (and strategies) actually smell?

Whose responsibility is it if instead of the polls best representing the feelings of people is not best achieved by each person voting with their feeling?  Well to some degree it may include the voters as much as they are being irrational.  But in larger part it is the fault of the designers and maintainers of the political system and those who wield power in it.  Blaming the people for voting their feelings is blaming the victims.

Your input has essentially nil effect anyway, it's hardly worth the trouble of voting usually, though most often I do (and most often following lesser evil Popular Front principles, voting Democratic).

In US discourse, the importance of each persons vote is way overamplified.  Even collectively, the mass of public voting has only 11% effect on government policy.  Our "republic" largely runs on capitalist and deep state power.  Futhermore, the effect of our republican system is to insulate existing power, most districts and states are not politically in play, not even remotely.  The chance of affecting them is smaller than small.  Only a few districts and states are poltically in play even among the exising major (and deep state owned) parties.

3rd party voting is usually materially and politically better than not voting because it reveals an underlying preference.  This is sometimes of importance, as reflected in the toungue lashing often doled out to 3rd party voters.

I am also disgusted by the endless US arming of Ukraine after provoking a war there and rebuffing pre and post invasion Russian settlement offers.  Many people see that issue differently than I do, they think Biden is defending Ukraine.  I see it as an imperial proxy war, with Russia defending ethnic Russians in historic Russian lands that got conglomerated with western leaning lands.

While much more total death and destruction has been caused by US meddling in Ukraine, the skill of fighters on both sides is such that the actual number of civilian casualties is far less than what has been seen in Gaza, a far smaller area.

As Scott Ritter explains, the Israeli army is very unprofessional, they know how to blow things up and murder civilians but little else.  They are even losing the war militarily (not just in world opinion).   Scott also praises the planning and professionalism of the hamas attack of 10/7 saying it will go down in history as a miracle of resistance warfare.

Iran is better name than Persia

I had long thought Iran to be a modern name that was applied to the ancient country of Persia.

But in fact, Iran (with many different spellings, including Aryan) was the name used by Iranians themselves for millenia to refer to the entire region, ever since the time of Zoroaster (1000 BCE).

The kings of the Achaemenid era were from a smaller region within Iran called Parsa.  The Greeks fought them and called them Persis, which is the origin of the name Persia.  However the Achaemenid kings still called themselves Aryan.

Twitter/X thread.

Prejudicial Statements

Recently, many analysts I like have been using phrases like:

"Jewish Billionaire Class"

"Brooklyn Jewish Class"

These statements appear to be prejudicial ("antisemitic"), although the first being limited to billionaires might not be.

It's not too hard to turn these into phrases that would not be prejudicial simply by adding the word 'Zionist.'

 So:

Jewish Zionist Billionaire Class

Brooklyn Jewish Zionist Class

It does add one more word, precisely because Zionists are not necessarily Jewish, and non-Jewish Zionists are different in some ways, such as being enabled to emigrate to Israel.  Also Jewish Zionists might have more personal commitment to the Zionist project, so Jewish qualifier may be apt, though it 'sounds bad' and should probably be avoided for that reason unless really necessary.

So if emigration to Israel or some other critical distinction is not an issue, then we could possibly in many cases leave out the 'Jewish' qualifier.  Hence:

Zionist Billionaire Class

Brooklyn Zionist Class

These are preferable IMO except in a narrow set of cases.  Personally I'd avoid using the word 'class' as well, since it adds nothing except implications.  Thus we have:

Zionist Billionaires

Brooklyn Zionists

(As I understand, there ARE anti-Zionist Jews in Brooklyn, including the orthodox and other kinds.)

Few in the world understand and deploy these distinctions as adroitly as journalist and publisher Phillip Weiss of Mondoweiss.

Note how he consistently uses phrases like 'American Zionists'.

However, when he gets to the big 5 Jewish Zionist organizations, he also deploys the phrase:

Organized Jewish Community

That's probably OK, because the organization of the whole may be different from the organization of the parts...  But JVP and IfNotNow are organized' too they're just the organized part of the anti-Zionist part (which is a small part...and it might be ridiculous to suggest they carry as much weight...but if we'd like that situation reversed perhaps we should not insist on it with our words).

Anti-Zionist Jews might not be the larger part of Jews, but there is no reason why we have to insist that it is through our rhetoric.  If we do, we're making a case for Zionists.

NUMEC affair

There is enormous evidence, albeit not proof, that Israel smuggled enriched uranium for it's nuclear bomb program from the NUMEC plant in Apollo, Pennsylvania.  While many redacted documents have been released, the CIA is still holding on to key details 50 years later.  Is this stonewalling really to protect "Sources and Methods" or are there possibly foreign policy considerations driving it?

A Rumble Video.

It's not in the above, but somewhere I read about NRC official who went straight to President Johnson with his fears about the NUMEC diversion, and Johnson simply laughed. 

Many believe now that Israel assassinated President Kennedy precisely because he started demanding an investigation of the Israeli nuclear program in April 1963.  I think there are many other sides to the assassination, but Israel probably had one part of it, certainly if Israel knew anything about the assassination plot, which it probably did, it would not have interfered to stop or reveal it.  And then there's a long list of Jewish Mafia figures believed to be involved, including Meyer Lansky and Jack Ruby.)  Johnson immediately stopped Kennedy's effort to investigate the Israeli nuclear program, and much later ignored the Israeli bombing of the USS Liberty.  It does seem like Johnson was the first fully committed Zionist US President, and they've all remained true to Zionism first ever since.  One of Johnson's closest friends was Mathilde Krim, a very committed Zionist scientist who had smuggled weapons to the Irgun back in the day.  Johnson got closer to Krim after his long time paramour Alice Moon dumped him because of the Vietnam War.

The Israeli Occupation is illegal

 The Israeli Occupation is illegal and must be terminated immediately. The creation of Israel itself was illegal, and Israel is not a legal successor to Mandatory Palestine.

Playboy Mansion

Here's a pretty good story about the Playboy Mansion in LA from someone who spent most days there for ten years in the 1990's.

I could have gone to the Playboy Mansion in the 1970's because a friend of mine had a friend who often worked there.  But I never did, because I believed the real Playboy Mansion was in Chicago, so I thought why bother.*  

I regretted that, and tried to sign up for access to parties in (gasp) 2010.  It was not offered to me, I was told they'd become much more limited.

If you believe that Hefner was the ultimate sexual assaulter, etc, you need to read the many articles I've written going way back.  My short history is:

1) Hefner, who generally liked the pro-environment and anti-war positions, published an interview with Seymour Hersh, who had just exposed the Mai Lai massacre, in Playboy in 1967.  That was not unlike the Playboy Magazine of the 1960's, pushing the boundaries of 'acceptable opinion' in a good way.

2) Not long after, a CIA affiliated spook who had done undercover work in Europe, Gloria Steinem, works undercover in the Chicago Playboy Club and writes a damning book about it.  (Though nothing Steinem alleged was beyond the pale in such clubs or even ordinary restaurants of the time.)

3) Having made a name for herself, Steinem became the go-to Feminist in the USA for the next 5 decades.  She generally wasn't arguing for greater equality, but that women deserved a place at the top along with the top men.  So she firmly supported Hillary Clinton vs Barck Obama, etc.  (Quite often these women she backed could be categorized as liberal imperialists.)

4) Having suffered a blow to his reputation, Hefner moves to LA, and the magazine gives up any pretension of intellectualism.  It becomes all about lifestyle, such as selling high end booze.  LA is the most appropriate location now.

5) By the 1980's, Hefner quit editing altogether, giving that role to his daughter, though he still was involved in the centerfold photography selection, his favorite part.

6) After a trying marriage (in the era described by Lorraine Nicholson) Hefner goes back to being single in the 2000's and Ken Burns (known for PBS Documentaries) produces four years of a TV program about the Mansion life of Hef's girlfriends.  (It's intellectually vacuous, but somewhat dramatic and the only "reality TV" show I've ever found worthwhile and fun to watch.  It also clearly shows prejudices of the time, such as support for the War in Iraq, about which Hef says only "support the troops," but Bridget's brother is fighting in so she wants that and more--we need to bring freedom and democracy to Iraq.)  So Playboy has gone from Seymour Hersh to Bridget--who otherwise, I should note, was probably the nicest of Hef's girlfriends on TV.)

In his way, Hefner just became another American Celebrity (not unlike his accuser Steinem) and his limited hangout was ever more limited.  I should't worship Playboy that much, it really only had an all-too-brief era of intellectual significance, later just become more cable TV.  But I still think of it fondly because it was right there just as I was becoming aware.

(*My feeling was also that Playboy models, except in the December issues, were too thin and non-busty for my preferences.  Only by the end of the 1970's did I discover a legion of soft porn magazines including Gent, Juggs, and Score which catered specifically to my "taste".)

Limited Hangout

It's taken many years for me to figure out the meaning of the conspiracy and espionage term limited hangout.

I kept thinking it was just certain people hanging out together.  But it has a similar meaning as another term I heard years ago in the dramatization of the novel Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy: chickenfeed.

Both of these terms apply to a kind of propaganda where you include some elements of the truth, including details previously not revealed, but of course not the whole story, in order to protect some new lies or spin around that whole story.

So a "limited hangout" means that part of the previously unrevealed story is put out, but not the whole story just a limited part.  There's a classic quotation from the Nixon tapes where Haldeman is talking to Nixon and suggesting a limited hangout exactly like this.

Now we are seeing a similar phenomenon, or maybe I just see it that way, in which writers properly denounce Israeli atrocities, and lump them in with the defensive actions of Russia in Ukraine.  On the first part they may do admirably but on the second it's pretty much just all smear job (no details or arguments, simply relying on predjudices from earlier disinformation).

So for example this story in London Review of Books does an excellent job of deconstructing Israeli misuse of the Holocaust (which it call Shoah), including this little tidbit about Biden:

In 1982, shortly before Reagan bluntly ordered Begin to cease his ‘holocaust’ in Lebanon, a young US senator who revered Elie Wiesel as his great teacher met the Israeli prime minister. In Begin’s own stunned account of the meeting, the senator commended the Israeli war effort and boasted that he would have gone further, even if it meant killing women and children. Begin himself was taken aback by the words of the future US president, Joe Biden. ‘No, sir,’ he insisted. ‘According to our values, it is forbidden to hurt women and children, even in war ... This is a yardstick of human civilisation, not to hurt civilians.’

I knew Biden was not merely a recently purchased tool in the toolbox, but a longstanding supporter of Israel going way back.  But I would never have imagined Biden an the far side of Begin.

Is it no wonder that in "Our Democracy" we are not allowed to chose any other serious alternative to Trump (who himself was so captured by Zionism that he moved the US Embassy to Jerusalem, a longstanding Zionist goal that previous US Presidents had rebuffed).

It's Uber Zionist B vs Uber Zionist T.

Anyway, even while going way beyond ordinary western media in it's deconstruction of the western misguided love affair towards Israel, the above LRB article simultaneously just loves to smear Russia and Russian allies at every opportunity, without any argument, such as:

Israel today is dynamiting the edifice of global norms built after 1945, which has been tottering since the catastrophic and still unpunished war on terror and Vladimir Putin’s revanchist war in Ukraine.

Not a word about protecting ethnic Russians from western backed Nazis who want to ethnically cleanse if not genocide them.

Actually, people like me and those I follow in alternative media and X/Twitter see the similarities, not the differences, in US support for both Israel and Ukraine.  In both cases, the US is arming and assisting its client states (Ukraine and Israel) to perform genocide against an ethnic group (though in the case of supporting Ukraine, US support has done little except enable massive Ukrainian casualties).

But while many (and probably most) westerners are now beginning to understand the heinous crimes of Israel since and before its creation, few are understanding what has been happening in Ukraine for the past 75 years, even though at their roots, it's a similar story of US imperial rule through meddling and war.

Basically, all of western media, including the above average LRB, is a limited hangout.

In every case, I have to make a rough judgement as to whether the plusses from an article outweigh its minuses before posting to social media.  In the case of Mishra's article, though the digressions are rather small, I think I'll pass.  In two minutes of editing I could have made it acceptable.

Fraudulent Reporting

Ali Abunimah explains that two reporters with zero reporting experience, and related to each other, became star co-authors in the New York Times stories about rapes that allegedly occurred on October 7, rapes for which there is still no material evidence (despite a massive effort including, yes, DNA testing hundreds of bodies), only very unbelievable stories from claimed witnesses (not actual victims).

Much of this reporting has now been debunked, and New York Times is ending it's association with one of the authors after their very racist "likes" on social media were discovered (in violation of Times policies).  But it still has not described how two people from Israel rose to become star co-authors in the paper of record so quickly.

Here's the Grayzone article which first discussed the fraudulent reporting in the NYTimes.  (The fraudulency of the rape allegations themselves were discussed in previous articles.)

Here's The Intercept article which builds upon the Grayzone article (but fails to acknowledge the Grayzone's earlier and pioneering reporting on the issue).

Genocidal Statements

Israel supporters often say that genocidal intent must precede genocide, thereby Israel is absolved because Israel only has beneficial-for-all intent.  (They must be under some rock.  I've heard many such statements even in pro-Israel US mainstream media, such as Prime Minister Netanyahu invoking Amalek.)

Here is the database of often very explicit statements expressing genocidal intent made by Israeli officials of all kinds.

I found this in a long X/Twitter thread debunking a recent NYTimes oped denying a genocide is being conducted by Israel and calling these claims "The New Antisemitism."

Films on Palestine

https://palestinecampaign.org/resources/films-about-palestine/

(BTW, following Tony Greenstein's critique of them as not-very-radical cowards, I am not endorsing PSC as such, but it seems like their list of movies is good--though perhaps incomplete.  I checked them out with other sources to be sure, and ended up selecting the most recent and popular movie, Farha, for my movie party.  I had previously seen Where Should the Birds Fly which is an excellent film.  PSC is not radical so anything they suggest should not be considered as such--though Israel supporters have been trying to get Netflix to take down Farha,  which is in the set of Palestine films that Netflix decided to show for balance with their pro-Israel films which Palestine supporters have been protesting.)

Here are films from the most recent London festival of Palestine films:

https://www.palestinefilm.org.uk/lpff-2023

More on Navalny

https://www.thekomisarscoop.com/2023/02/navalny-documentary-nominated-for-march-12-oscar-is-crude-disinformation/

Olive oil sandwich

First put one corn tortilla on a plate.  Spread 1-2 tablespoons of olive oil.  Apply second corn tortilla on top.  Cook in microwave at 1000W for 39 seconds.  (Too long will make it tough.)

Eat with fork, like a waffle.  It's oily and slightly sweet.  

Makes a great hard snack in combination with a low carb protein drink.  (Mine is 1 scoop whey isolate, 1 tsp chocolate powder, 1/2 tsp sugar, 2/3 cup water, heated in microwave for 39 seconds, stirred, cooled with 2 ice cubes, then poured over a glass of ice, with 1 tablespoon cream.)

Why corn tortillas?  Corn tortillas have negligible sodium.  Wheat tortillas, like most wheat products, are loaded with sodium.  A single wheat tortilla can have as much sodium as a serving of luncheon meat.  I now use wheat tortillas very sparingly.

Wheat needs sodium for leavening, preserving, and covering up the inherent taste, which is slightly bitter.  Corn is sweet and needs nothing like that, salt would only get in the way of its natural sweetness.  Corn tortillas are simply pressed corn flour, which pulls right apart until cooked somehow (usually in oven).

And unlike most oils and fats, olive oil is positively beneficial.

To add more protein to the "sandwich," spread 100% peanut butter after cooking.

Latest letter to Congress

It is unacceptable and disgusting that the Biden Administration has now vetoed 3 UN Security Council resolutions for a ceasefire in Gaza.  For supporting and continuing to arm Israel during an ongoing genocide of Palestinians is making the US more a pariah state than Trump ever did.  I will not vote for Joe Biden and I know others who feel the same.  The excuses are lame: ignoring all the Hamas offers for releasing hostages in coordination with releasing prisoners in the west bank.  The US, like Israel, simply refuses to recognize such offers.  In the minds of many, this is not because Israel has any burning desire to get their hostages back (in fact, they seem to have none) but of their true aim of finishing the job of ethnically cleansing Palestinians out of the last bit of ancient Palestine, so Israel can rule with only a token and submissive number of Palestinians from the River to the Sea and erase the independent minded Palestinian identity forever.  In fact, Israel will not erase the Palestinian identity, they will never do it, and all their apartheid structures and genocidal vengeance will only hasten the end of the days of the the discriminatory apartheid and genocidal State of Israel, which should and must be dismantled at the soonest opportunity, driven by international sanctions.

Please refuse to vote for any more weapons for Israel.

Isolationism Reconfigured

A review of a book by Nordlinger, a political science professor who sadly passed away in 1994.

 

A long article

 Here's a long article about Zionism.

Notably it has two links to academic papers on genetics showing that Palestinians are the descendants of Canaanites while Jews as a whole have less such descent.  And that's only one out of 100 topics.

I think it tries to be fair to Zionism and Israel perhaps slightly too much for my taste.

For example, it describes the October 7 attacks by Hamas as a war crime.  While it attributes some deaths to Israeli forces, it does not go as far as those I follow who attribute the majority of civilian deaths to Israeli forces--which makes sense because they had a zillion times more firepower and they've long been known to have the Hannibal Directive which demands that hostage taking be prevented by any method even if it results in the death of Israeli civilians.

(Meanwhile, supporters of Israel define the October 7 attack as genocide and therefore apparently worth killing 100 times or more as many Palestinian civilians as well as leveling their cities and even pushing them out into other countries, which Israelis describe as self defense, and of course their forces are the most moral army on earth*, and Israeli forces have lawyers to make sure this is so.)

That just one paragraph out of 30 pages of fair minded and potentially useful material in arguing with a Zionist, and most useful of all it includes references.  (Not that I'm saying you should do this.  There's hardly a more futile thing to do.)

(*Terms and Conditions may apply.)

The Brits did it

International Relations analyst Gilbert Doctorow believes that Navalny was ultimately poisoned to death by...the British.

The Brits are more deeply involved in the war in Ukraine than most people realize.  Recently, for example, Ukraine was in the midst of exchanging hostages with Russia, but someone shot down the plane of Russians soldiers for Russia.  Russia honored the deal anyway, returning Ukrainian soldiers.  Why did Russia do that???  Because the Ukrainians convinced the Russians that the shooting down of the plane was not caused by them...but by the Brits.

And then there was Boris Johnson, who scuttled the first peace deal in 2022.

How could the Brits have done it?  They have Russian speaking spies in Russia who could easily have bribed someone in the prison.

The One State Solution

 A single state, with equal rights for all and no discrimination regardless of religion.

That's the preferred outcome in the Hamas Charter of 2017.

(There's not a single word about pushing Jews into the Sea, etc.)

However, Hamas also accepts a true two state solution as an interim measure.

Most Zionists in Israel, including Netanyahu, insist there will never be a Palestinian State.

Hamas Charter of 2017.  I find it to be very reasonable and well written.

Here is Tony Greenstein discussing why the Two State Solution is simply a continuation of fascism.

One state was the demand of the anti-Apartheid movement in South Africa. Only far-right White racists wanted a White state. The two-state solution in Palestine, which the West supports, is an apartheid neo-colonial solution. It leaves a racist Jewish state intact.

 Tony also claims this is view of the widest majority of Palestinians, which I believe is true.

Even more ubiquitously, the "two state solution" is views as an excuse for doing nothing.  Everything about the second state will need to be endlessly negotiated.  The result of an earlier round was the widely denounced Palestinian Authority, which operates more like a corrupt security contractor for Israel than an actual state.  Israel will never accept an actual sovereign Palestinian state, as such a state would be able to buy arms openly and defend itself.  Israel wants a puppet it can control.

Navalny: A US intelligence asset

 Navalny, trained in a special international leadership program at Yale, was a US intelligence asset, often used to smear Putin.

His popularity never got above 3% in Russia.

He was basically to the right of Putin ("except" as he would fully cooperate with the west).

He was a fascist and Islamophobe.

Video of Navalny at fascist rallies

Navalny was a joke in Russia.  Putin would gain nothing by assassinating him.  More likely his death was self or CIA inflicted.

And many are pointing out the hypocrisy as no mainstream US journalists recognized the death three weeks ago of an actual US citizen, Gonzalo Lira, who had a bit of social media popularity as a critic of Zelensky and showing the feelings of people in the Donbas.  The ongoing plight and trials of Julian Assange are rarely mentioned.  The 30,000 dead in Gaza, or the millions elsewhere who have died from US wars and sanctions.

A death is only important to mainstream media when it was a person important to the advancement of US geopolitics.  Millions of others aren't mentioned.

Quoting Netanyahu

Netanyahu has always opposed a Palestinian State.  After recent meeting with CIA director Burns (probably the best person in the Biden Administration), Netanyahu stated:

“My positions can be summarized in the following two sentences. Israel categorically rejects international dictates regarding a permanent settlement with the Palestinians. Such an arrangement will be reached only through direct negotiations between the parties, without preconditions.

IOW, never.  Israel will never accept a sovereign Palestinian state, because a sovereign state would be able to openly buy arms and defend themselves.  Israel will only accept a puppet administrator which is "protected" by Israel.  That's what the Palestinian Authority is.

Israel must negotiate with the real representatives of the Palestinian people, not a fake they construct.  At this time, that means Hamas.

The West must accept Hamas as the best political agency of the Palestinian people at this time.  Their support among Palestinians has never been higher.  They have the organization and the credibility. 

The Problem with Signal

 I've long known of Yasha Levine's criticism of Signal: it was funded by the US Government who needs encryption for it's own spy apps, and it needs other people to use them (!!!) or it's obvious that everyone on them is spies.

So, we got Tor, and also Signal.

That doesn't necessarily mean they're bad, does it?

But signal has other issues.  The use of phone number identifiers, the centralization, and the laws of the USA which prohibit any company revealing that they provide info to spy agencies, which you can assume that all telecommunications companies do (and I learned about this years before Snowden, but Snowden confirmed that it was indeed actually true).

So the US government axiomatically has access to all the metadata, the who contacted whom and when.  Which is all they generally need or use.

Here's an article laying out other options, which would include such things as self-hosting (which Signal manages to block).  Top of the list (and I've seen this elsewhere) is Matrix (client name Element), whose identifiers are as secure and non-linkable as you want to make them (so do), and comes with Jitsi a free self hosted video teleconference program.  Briar, XMPP, and SimpleX are interesting alternatives.

I'd be interested in these things if I were organizing.  Otherwise, I simply assume I'm always being watched.  So with that assumption, Signal is fine, heck, even Facebook is fine.  I live electronically, I'm not willing to give that up, and I know what it means.  But I don't much care.

There is of course the fact that if you use any internet protocol, the US government will know where it came from and where it went.  They have people listening to the radio too.  And the more effort you try to put into staying under cover, the more it may be obvious that you are doing so, and raise suspicion for that reason alone.

If I knew the best solution I wouldn't say.  Perhaps resign yourself to futility.  No resistance organization will ever be capable of bringing down the empire.  The best the resistance organization could be is pick up the pieces when it falls apart.  (That's the way I see it as a US citizen.  It may be different as a Palestinian, etc.)

That's what Lenin did, and even with his organized cadres it was pretty difficult to keep it from getting subverted, as ultimately happened with Yeltsin.

More ICJ news

ICJ has made several more rulings which appear to diminish longstanding claims of the US, and which you are unlikely to hear much about on western mainstream media.

Ukraine was suing Russia for terrorism following the Maidan Revolution.  The ICJ ruled that Russia's supplying Donbas militants with weapons was not terrorism, and further than the Donbas militant groups were not terrorists.  This is significant because these were the claims used to justify Ukraine in attacking Donbas which resulted in 10,000 casualties after 2014.

The ICJ also refused to rule that Russia was responsible for the downing of MH17.

And the ICJ refused to hold Russia accountable for ethnic discrimination against Ukrainians and Tartars in Crimea.  (These claims were very rich considering how Ukraine has made the Russian language illegal in Ukraine, waged war on Russian Orthodox churches, shut down pro-Russian and other opposition parties, etc.)

 

UNRWA

Why do Palestinians have a separate UN refugee agency?  Because in 1948 Israel insisted on it.  They hoped the separate Palestinian agency would get Palestinians to go away.

 

More on October 7

 Israeli media confirms IDF were ordered to fire on cars fleeing the Nova fest, echoing the supposedly inactive 'Hannibal Doctrine,' to kill civilians rather than allow them to be taken hostage.

As many as 70 cars, not just one, often killing everyone in the car.

Many other details in this compelling retelling (the link is actually safe).

Calls for Genocide

Explicit calls for genocide against Palestinians by Israelis and their supporters are so common in my newsfeed I'm surprised everyone isn't aware of them by now.

Foremost, you had Netanyahu invoking the Amalek treatment: kill all of them, every man, woman, and child, along with their animals.

'Death to Arabs' seems to be commonly chanted at Zionist rallies in Israel.

Meanwhile, the Harvard President resigned for failing to censor the free speech rights of Palestinian supporters for chanting "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free." and equating that with a call for genocide, when in fact it's a call for universal freedom which doesn't mention death or genocide.  Nevertheless, serious Congressional hearings were held, and a resolution was passed.

(It uses that forbidden word 'Palestine')

Anyway, here's the 'comprehensive' database of explicit calls for genocide. 

Montagu on the Balfour Declaration

https://x.com/KMPrimAcct/status/1736202142539542982?s=20

When Edwin Montagu, the only Jew in the British Cabinet, heard about the Balfour Declaration of 1917, he sprung into action writing a deeply heartfelt and logically argued memorandum opposing it.

While denying he feels this way about the government or the people involved, he declares that the Balfour Declaration is deeply antisemitic and harmful to Jews in England and elsewhere.

(I believe Jews at the time were generally opposed to Zionism in similar terms.)

He calls Zionism a mischievious political creed.

He points out that the original justifications for Zionism involved the oppression not in England but in Russia, which were no longer applicable with the new Russian government.

Jews headed to Israel may speak different languages, and have fought on different sides of WWI.

He says that Jews can't have it both ways, any English Jew who pines for Judea isn't really an Englishman, so the existence of a 'Jewish Homeland' will call into question the loyalty and nationalities of Jews in England and everywhere.

He points out that the creation of a 'Jewish Homeland' means that Christians and Muslims in Palestine will become foreigners and at best second class citizens in their own homeland, while Jews around the world become foreigners in the countries of their birth.

He asserts there is no 'Jewish Nation.'  It is no more true to say of Christian Englishman and Christian Frenchman are of the same nation.

He feared that the present inhabitants of Palestine would be driven out.

He supported the view that it would require Divine leadership to bring all the Jews back to Palestine, and he asserted no supporter Mr Balfour or Lord Rothschild was claiming them to be the Messiah.

He denied that today Palestine is mostly associated with Jews.  He said key parts of Jewish history occurred in Palestine, but the same is true for Christians and Muslims.  By singling out Jews, they are being put into a position they are not entitled.

There are about 3 times as many Jews in the world as could possibly fit into Palestine, even if you remove everyone there now.  So what happens to the 2/3 of world Jewry that does not fit into Palestine?

He says outsiders don't recognize the widespread antipathy of Jews to Zionism.

He and other Jews fear it will result in an explosion of antisemitism around the world, as Jews are no longer seen as fellows of their countrymen.  British Jews have done very well with excellent future prospects and this will greatly harm them.

He proposes that immigration to Palestine not be based on any form of religious discrimination, and the government should go no further.

Atrocity Allegations

 Here is a thread of threads about the allegations made by Israeli sources about atrocities by Hamas fighters.  (No actual 'evidence' is ever provided other than unbelievable stories by people who were not themselves raped, etc, or blood on dead bodies that has multiple alternative explanations including friendly fire.   Israeli credibility on such matters is shot after having lied about everything for decades.  International investigators have not been permitted to examine anything.  And though it's a useful distraction, none of it justifies the Israel's murderous and genocidal campaign of carpet bombing and targeted assassinations of journalists which followed. )

Taba Negotiations

Here is the best record of the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations at Taba which followed the Camp David Accords.

Zionists claim that Palestinians rejected a two state deal and never made a counter offer.

The truth was that Israel never offered Palestinians a 'sovereign state,' only the certification of theft of even more territory.  Palestinians had counter-offers.  In the end, Israel broke off negotiations at Taba, there was no 'final proposal.'

Zionists claim that the Second Intifada was Arafat's response to their negotiations.

That's impossible, because the Second Intifada began months before the Taba negotiations even started.

Twitter/X Thread.

Robert Malley (Palestinian Negotiator) on the talks.

Palestinians accepted side-by-side Israeli and Palestinians states on the 1967 borders.

From that 1967 baseline, Palestinians accepted land swaps with certain constraints:

1) Equal size and value

2) Swaps must maintain the contiguity of their own lands, and not lead to the incorporation of Palestinians into Israel.

Subject to these constraints, Palestinians accepted that the vast majority of Israeli settlers could remain in the West Bank (a remarkable concession).

Israel rejected these constraints.

Malloy's synopsis:

Over a decade later, Malley was a key player in Barack Obama's negotiations for the 'Iran Deal' (JPCOA).  Although quite radical in his views (not unlike me) he remained in senior State Department roles until 2023.  Though many have smeared and blasted his report on the Taba negotiations, such as this article in Commentary, I have not seen a detailed deconstruction of his facts and timeline.  I think it's a fair and honest report that many voices in the establishment do not want to accept.  Since 2023 he's been under investigation for allegedly leaking confidential information.  His security clearance was revoked, but no charges have been made.  This looks like a witchhunt to me.  Otherwise, his State Department CV is incredibly impressive for a person with 'radical' views.  If he is so toxic, why had he remained in senior positions for 23 years after the Taba negotiations?  In contrast, Malley's critics, like the Commentary reporter Eli Lake are morons and moral midgets who, for example, touted Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction.