Mourning in Jerusalem: Jewish Burials Across the Ages
Yehuda Lave is an author, journalist, psychologist, rabbi, spiritual teacher, and coach, with degrees in business, psychology and Jewish Law. He works with people from all walks of life and helps them in their search for greater happiness, meaning, business advice on saving money, and spiritual engagement. Now also a Blogger on the Times of Israel. Look for my column
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Record economic plunge, bleak jobs numbers reveal virus toll By MARTIN CRUTSINGER and PAUL WISEMAN(AP)
The U.S. economy plunged by a record-shattering 32.9% annual rate last quarter, and the coronavirus pandemic is still cutting a path of destruction, forcing millions out of work and shuttering businesses.
The economy's stunning contraction in the April-June quarter came as the viral outbreak pushed already struggling businesses to close for a second time in many parts of the country, sending unemployment surging to nearly 15%. The government's estimate Thursday of the second-quarter fall in the gross domestic product was the sharpest such drop on records dating to 1947. The previous worst quarterly contraction, a 10% drop, occurred in 1958 during the Eisenhower administration.
Soon after the government issued the bleak economic data, President Donald Trump diverted attention by suggesting a "delay" in the Nov. 3 presidential election, based on his unsubstantiated allegations that widespread mail-in voting will result in fraud. The dates of presidential elections are enshrined in federal law and would require an act of Congress to change.
So steep was the economic fall last quarter that most analysts expect the economy to produce a sharp bounce-back in the current July-September period. Yet with the rate of confirmed coronavirus cases having surged in a majority of states, more businesses being forced to pull back on reopenings and the Republican Senate proposing to scale back government aid to the unemployed, the economy could worsen in the months ahead.
In a sign of how weakened the job market remains, more than 1.4 million laid-off Americans applied for unemployment benefits last week. It was the 19th straight week that more than 1 million people have applied for jobless aid. Before the coronavirus erupted in March, the number of Americans seeking unemployment checks had never exceeded 700,000 in any one week, even during the Great Recession.
An additional 830,000 people applied for unemployment benefits under a new program that extends eligibility for the first time to self-employed and gig workers. All told, the government says roughly 30 million people are receiving some form of jobless aid, though that figure might be inflated by double-counting by some states.
The pain could soon intensify: A supplemental $600 in weekly federal unemployment benefits are expiring, and Congress is squabbling about extending the aid, which will probably be done at some reduced level of payment.
Last quarter's economic drop followed a 5% fall in the January-March quarter, during which the economy officially entered a recession triggered by the virus, ending an 11-year economic expansion, the longest on record in the The United States.
The grim economic news deepened losses on Wall Street. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down more than 300 points in late-morning trading.
The economic harm from the virus is extending well beyond the United States. On Thursday, Germany reported that its GDP tumbled 10.1% last quarter. It was the biggest such drop on records dating to 1970. And Mexico's GDP sank 17.3% last quarter, also a record.
The U.S. the contraction was driven by a deep pullback in consumer spending, which accounts for about 70% of economic activity. Spending by consumers collapsed at a 34.6% annual rate as travel all but froze and shutdown orders forced many restaurants, bars, entertainment venues and other retail establishments to close.
The plunge in GDP "underscores the unprecedented hit to the economy from the pandemic," said Andrew Hunter, senior U.S. economist at Capital Economics. "We expect it will take years for that damage to be fully recovered."
A resurgence of viral cases in the South and the West has forced many bars, restaurants, beauty salons and other businesses to close again or reduce occupancy. Between June 21 and July 19, for example, the proportion of Texas bars that were closed shot up from 25% to 73%. Likewise, 75% of California beauty shops were shuttered July 19, up from 40% just a week earlier, according to the data firm Womply.
And many states have imposed restrictions on visitors from states that have reported high level of virus cases, thereby hurting hotels, airlines and other industries that depend on travel.
Rubeela Farooqi, the chief U.S. economist at High-Frequency Economics, said the job numbers were disheartening.
"A resurgence in virus cases has resulted in a pause or rollback of re-openings across states, and the pace of layoffs is likely to pick up just as expanded unemployment benefits are expiring," Farooqi said. "The risk of temporary job losses becoming permanent is high from repeated closures of businesses. That could result in an even slower pace of recovery."
The picture looks dim for many of the jobless. Since she was laid off by a tech industry nonprofit in mid-May, Miranda Meyerson has been trying to find another job and to sign up for unemployment benefits.
"It's just incredibly frustrating and demoralizing," she said. Potential employers seem to be delaying hiring decisions.
"Nobody gets back to you," said Meyerson, 38. "You feel like there's only so long you can submit (applications) into a void.''
Meyerson and her partner had moved from New York to Oakland, California, in March, just as the virus began to spread rapidly across the United States. The move complicated her efforts, so far futile, to collect benefits from a swamped California unemployment benefits system.
"They're obviously totally overwhelmed," she said. "You can't even get on the phone to talk to anybody."
Many economists note that the economy can't fully recover until the pandemic is defeated — a point stressed Wednesday at a news conference by Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. The Fed chairman warned that the viral epidemic has been endangering a modest economic recovery and that as a result, the Fed plans to keep interest rates pinned near zero well into the future.
"A poorly managed health situation and depressed incomes mean the economy risks a double-dip recession without urgent fiscal aid," said Gregory Daco, chief U.S. economist at Oxford Economics.
"Fiscal aid is a must-pass," Daco said. "Without further fiscal assistance, many households across the country are going to be left without much of an income stream and will react by severely cutting back on spending."
Daco said the expiration of the $600 in federal unemployment aid means that many households could suffer a loss of income in the range of 50% to 75%.
"The economy," Daco said, "is going to be running on very little fuel at a point when the recovery has really stalled."
Trump's defining moment at Mount Rushmore Pres. Trump is at his best when he travels the high road and stands on the high ground. He did that at Mount Rushmore on July 3rd. Opinion.
Joseph Frager, MD , 17/07/20 09:38
Mount RushmoreiStock
President Trump is at his best when he travels the high road and stands on the high ground. He did just that at Mount Rushmore on July 3rd.
Unlike his predecessor President Obama who made the defining speech of his Presidency in Cairo, Egypt on June 4th, 2009, President Trump made his defining speech at one of America's greatest monuments in honor of Independence Day.
With the "cancel culture" in full metal jacket, President Trump came roaring back with an address for the ages. With monuments to George Washington and Thomas Jefferson already toppled in Portland, Oregon, the Lincoln Memorial spraypainted and vandalized and the Theodore Roosevelt equestrian statue assigned for removal at the Museum of Natural History, the President could not have picked a better time to raise the Flag of America and show the way forward. It was in stark contrast to the mayhem that had engulfed America since the tragic death at the hands of the Minneapolis Police Department of George Floyd on May 25th. It was also an uplifting and energizing speech compared to President Obama's depressing and denigrating speech in Cairo.
President Obama chose Cairo, Egypt for his quintessential Presidential address "to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world."
President Trump chose Mount Rushmore to "pay tribute to the exceptional lives and extraordinary legacies of George Washington , Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt. I am here as your President to proclaim before the country and before the world: This monument will never be desecrated. These heroes will never be defaced, their legacy will never, ever be destroyed, their achievements will never be forgotten, and Mount Rushmore will stand forever as an eternal tribute to our forefathers and to our freedom."
President Obama used his speech for the ages to berate Israel and praise the Muslim world. He said, "The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements." He went on to say that, "It is time for these settlements to stop." President Obama carried out his wish On November 9, 2009 by imposing a 10 month "Settlement Freeze" about which then Vice President Joe Biden chastised Israel on his visit there May 10, 2010 for Israel's approving 1600 units in "East" Jerusalem despite the fact that these units were three years in the making. President Obama further carried out his Cairo speech when he purposefully did not veto Resolution 2334 in the United Nations which stated Israeli Settlements have "no legal validity". President Obama's speech brought about the "Arab Spring", the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood and ISIS, and the murder of 500,000 Syrians. It did not bring about Peace in the Middle East. Quite to the contrary it brought about a Middle East on Fire.
President Trump in stark contrast used his once in a lifetime speech to talk about America and how to "preserve our beloved American way of life." He went on to criticize the "cancel culture", "In our schools, our newsrooms, even our corporate boardrooms, there is a new far-left fascism that demands absolute allegiance. If you do not speak it's language, perform it's rituals, recite its mantras and follow its commandments, then you will be censored, banished, blacklisted, persecuted and punished. It is not going to happen to us. Make no mistake: this left-wing cultural revolution is designed to overthrow the American Revolution. In so doing, they would destroy the very civilization that rescued billions from poverty, disease, violence, and hunger and that lifted humanity to new heights of achievement, discovery and progress." He later says, "their goal is not a better America, their goal is the end of America."
The New York Times headline for President Trump's speech was "Trump uses Mount Rushmore to deliver divisive culture war message" and reported that he "delivered a dark and divisive speech."
The Washington Post reported that President Trump gave a "harsh denunciation of the racial justice movement." The next day they ran an editorial headlined, "Trump plumbed new depths of depravity this Fourth of July." Neither statement could be further from the truth.
The Conservative Rich Lowry nailed it when he entitled his op-Ed "Trump's triumph at Mount Rushmore." He says astutely, "Patriotic sentiments of the sort that have adorned American oratory for centuries were deemed hateful. A celebration of the Founders that once would have been the stuff of schoolbooks was considered controversial. A defense of the nation's ideals was waved away."
Mount Rushmore was President Donald Trump at his finest. He delivered exactly the type of speech America needed at a very critical time. It was a defining moment for the President and the nation. History will view it it this way. Now it is up to the American People to to see it that way too.
Who was one of the most tragic persons in history?
Anneliese Michel
Anna Elisabeth "Anneliese" Michel (21 September 1952 – 1 July 1976) was a German woman who underwent Catholic exorcism rites during the year before her death. She was diagnosed with epileptic psychosis (tempor al lobe epilepsy ) and had a history of psychiatric treatment, which was overall not effective.
When Michel was 16, she had convulsions, a neurologist diagnosed her with temporal lobe epilepsy, which causes seizures, memory loss, and hallucinations. It can also give someone Geschwind syndrome, which can cause one to act in an overly religious manner. Shortly thereafter, she was diagnosed with depression and was treated by a psychiatric hospital. By the time she was 20, she had become intolerant of various religious objects and began to hear voices.
Her condition worsened despite medication, and she became suicidal, also displaying other symptoms, for which she took the medication as well. After taking psychiatric medications for five years failed to improve her symptoms, Michel and her family became convinced she was possessed by a demon. As a result, her family appealed to the Catholic Church for an exorcism. While rejected at first, after much hesitation, two priests got permission from the local bishop in 1975.
Her behaviors included urinating on the floor and licking it, barking under a table for days, eating spiders, and biting the head off a bird. She told the local bishop who was to exorcise her that she contained demons like Hitler, Nero, Lucifer, and others.
The priests began conducting exorcism sessions and the parents stopped consulting doctors. Anneliese Michel stopped eating food and died due to malnourishment and dehydration after 67 exorcism sessions.
While this was happening, she was starving herself and beating herself, worsening her condition. She also broke her knees from kneeling so much.
There are videos of her exorcisms online, but I am far too scared to look them up as they are supposed to be horrifying.
Anneliese died at 23 years old, weighing only 68 pounds. She was emaciated, had many damaged body parts, and had caught pneumonia. The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005), a horror film, was based on her after this traumatic tale.
Michel's parents and the two Roman Catholic priests were found guilty of negligent homicide and were sentenced to six months in jail (reduced to three years of probation), as well as a fine.
A Pandemic of Democrat Proportions By Michael J. Mueller
The most virulent scourge affecting the United States today is not the Wuhan coronavirus; rather, it's the politicization of the pandemic by leftist Democrats to remove a duly elected President. History has never witnessed a more concerted effort to negate the will of the American electorate. Donald J. Trump has endured this unprecedented onslaught of vitriol, hate, and falsehoods perpetrated by leftist Democrat politicians, mainstream propagandists, and liberal progressives. Consequently, the government has been at a virtual standstill as Democrats inflict one manufactured crisis after another on the American people with the goal of removing the President.
Case in point, the U.S. response to the Wuhan coronavirus has been gratuitously overblown. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the current infection fatality rate for the virus is less than 0.26% . The inordinate response to the virus resulted in the contraction of a once robust economy by 5% during the first quarter of 2020 thus ending the longest period of economic expansion in our nation's history. An unemployment rate under 4%, the best in half a century, jumped to over 13% in a matter of weeks. Six months after the first U.S. case of coronavirus was identified in Washington state, the country still languishes in a state of limbo between opening the economy and keeping the economy shut down.
This irrational response to a virus lethal to only a small segment of Americans, was meticulously orchestrated. In August 2019, Democrats first realized their best hope of beating Donald Trump in 2020 was a recession. Not just an economic downturn; but, a full-fledged, violent contraction of the mighty U.S. economy with all of its commensurate baggage including massive unemployment. Democrats understood Americans could not be compelled to vote for a party bereft of tangible ideas unless the country was suffering. Numerous liberal media outlets quickly chimed in with opinion pieces supporting this hypothesis including the Washington Post , New York Times , The Atlantic , the Boston Globe , The Hill and CNBC .
Still in the midst of a pointless impeachment of the President, Democrats had already concluded the coronavirus was "on deck" to become the next national "crisis." After all, the Ukraine debacle immediately replaced the Russia hoax when Robert Mueller couldn't come up with any dirt. Luckily for Democrats, the Wuhan coronavirus showed promise as the best vehicle to quickly undo three years of economic progress under Donald Trump.
After a partisan House vote to impeach the President took place on December 18, 2019, Speaker Nancy Pelosi did something strange. She delayed sending the articles of impeachment to the Senate for nearly a month, citing fears the Senate would not conduct a fair trial. Coincidently, during the delay, the coronavirus spread outside China and begin to infect people worldwide.
The first Chinese case of coronavirus was reported in Wuhan on December 1, 2019 fully two weeks before the impeachment vote. Two days after the virus was detected outside China and four days before the first confirmed U.S. case, Pelosi turned impeachment articles over to the Senate. Without enough Democrat votes in the Senate to convict Trump of the ludicrous charges dreamt up by Jerry Nadler and his cronies, Pelosi had positioned the Democrat party to begin the next phase (and there's always a next phase) to remove the President after his anticipated acquittal.
As the coronavirus began to infect Americans, the President was advised to curtail economic activity on a nationwide level by medical "experts" who, to this day, still peddle fear and uncertainty. The Democrat machine kicked-into action to ensure the shutdown would be long, excruciating, difficult and Trump's fault. Without a thought for their constituents, Democrat politicians at the local, state, and national level, used fear to keep the country from moving past the crisis.
Never have so few done so much to debilitate so many Americans. The medical "experts" issued frequent contradictory and increasingly draconian guidelines adding to the prevailing fear. Don't wear a mask. Wear a mask. Go to the grocery store; but, don't go to church. Protest, riot, loot, shoot, burn and run rampant through the streets of cities; but, don't go to school. No swimming, fishing, commuting, traveling, working, eating out, going to bars, partying or sunbathing until a vaccine is developed. Stay in your homes. Socially distance. Eat "contact free" pizza and tacos. Be together alone. Don't pay your bills. Go bankrupt. Do your part because we're all in this together!
When several states decided enough was enough and began to re-open businesses, an increase in testing identified numerous asymptomatic coronavirus infections and people with antigens. While the number of infections increased, deaths and hospitalizations did not return to previous highs. Democrats, once again, lambasted those governors who had the audacity to re-open prior to the November election calling them reckless, callous, selfish and greedy. Bending to the caterwauling, some governors reinstituted mitigation measures. But the increase in infections highlighted "an inconvenient truth" -- the more infections identified, the lower the infection fatality rate. This fact was buried by the propagandists in the media for failing to progress their narrative of fear.
According to the latest CDC statistics , 1 in 107 Americans have contracted coronavirus. That statistic is misleading since up to 75% of individuals infected with the virus are asymptomatic. The number of Americans infected with coronavirus is likely much higher than reported since people without symptoms typically don't get tested. Statistics also indicate approximately 1 in 2,500 Americans died due to coronavirus complications. Yet, when variables such as age, sex, medical conditions and commitment to social distancing are factored into the equation, the odds of death by coronavirus are significantly reduced. For example, if you are under the age of 25, your odds of being infected and dying of coronavirus are 1 in 1.8 million.
In response to the infection uptick, many local governments mandated the wearing of masks in public despite knowing that no face mask can completely filter out all coronavirus virions, which range in size from 0.06 to 0.14 microns in diameter. One study concluded cotton face coverings block only 28% of particles, surgical masks capture 80%, and a fit-tested N95 mask can block up to 99.7% of particles. If the goal is to protect the public from coronavirus infection, wouldn't mandating the wearing of N95 masks in public be more effective? Of course, it would; but, N95 masks are reserved for healthcare professionals. Though only partially effective, the wearing of face masks makes an unknowing populace feel safer. Government must be seen to be doing something even if those actions are only partially effective.
The President has his back against the wall enduring "death by a thousand cuts" as Democrat lies, misinformation and fearmongering continue to influence the electorate. When coronavirus infections diminish as expected in the coming months, Democrats will, once again, pull out their knives to make the next cut -- probably another impeachment. As we get closer to the November election, these new crises will undoubtedly make coronavirus and the violent riots against "systemic racism" pale in comparison.
Michael J. Mueller, MAEd, is a writer, eLearning developer, and former all-source intelligence analyst/reporter with the U.S. Navy.
INTO THE FRAY: Israel and the perverse paradox of Jewish "liberals"
By MARIN SHERMAN, IISS
Israel should be a source of pride for all Jews—but particularly for Jews who espouse liberal values of tolerance and pluralism, of individual liberty and of human advancement.
The notion that the state created by the sacrifice, blood, guts and brains of millions of courageous Israelis should be trashed because it doesn't measure up to the hopes of one presumptuous intellectual living on the Upper West Side of Manhattan is something so silly that you'd have to be an idiot (or an editor at The New York Times) to believe it. – Jonathan_S._Tobin , JNS, July 8, 2020.
Our brothers in Africa have begged, pleaded, requested – DEMANDED the recognition and realization of our inborn right to live in peace under our own sovereignty in our own country. How easy it should be, for anyone who holds dear this inalienable right of all mankind, to understand and support the right of the Jewish People to live in their ancient Land of Israel. All men of good will exult in the fulfillment of God's promise, that his People should return in joy to rebuild their plundered land. This is Zionism, nothing more, nothing less. Attributed to Martin Luther King (1929-1968).
Zionism is nothing more – but also nothing less – than the Jewish people's sense of origin and destination in the land linked eternally with its name. It is also the instrument whereby the Jewish nation seeks an authentic fulfillment of itself… – Abba Eban, former Foreign Minister of Israel (1915-2002).
Last week, Jonathan Tobin, Editor-in-Chief of JNS (Jewish News Syndicate), penned an insightful and incisive article—interspersed liberally (in the quantitative sense rather than the political), with some delightfully apt, if caustic barbs, entitled Understanding the collapse of liberal Zionism . In it, he focuses on the growing detachment of Left-wing (a.k.a. "liberal") US Jewry from Israel…and from reality.
Beinart as a prism
Tobin focuses his attention on two recent pieces by Peter Beinart , a well-known self-professed liberal Zionist (see here and here ), who for almost a decade has been one of the most persistent and pernicious critics of Israel and its policy towards the Palestinian-Arabs—as well as one of most relentless supporters of Palestinian statehood. Indeed, Tobin holds Beinart up as a prism, through which to view "the failures of [the liberal] American Jewish organized world", which he sees as "drenched in ignorance and Jewish illiteracy [and] suffering both a demographic implosion and a crisis of faith."
Discouraged by the outcome of the continual collision between the recalcitrant realities of the Mid-East, and his "lofty vision" of two states living side-by-side in idyllic tranquility and thriving prosperity, Beinart has decided to jettison his previously professed principles. Thus, in the New York Times—never adverse to anti-Zionist screeds—he posted a piece, headlined I no Longer Believe in a Jewish State ,which was essentially a synopsis of a 8000 word piece in the distinctly left-leaning Jewish Current , whose origins can be traced to the American Communist Party.
Thus, Tobin concludes his essay with these telling words: "The surrender of the self-described leading exponent of liberal Zionism speaks volumes about the failures of American Jewry ."
Beinart waxes delusion
Taking the non sequitur to rarely attained heights, he asserts that the Jewish state cannot—indeed, should not—exist if a Palestinian one does not, claiming: "Only Palestinian freedom—a precondition for true peace in Israel-Palestine—can make Jews whole" , leaving one to puzzle over how Jews might have attained "wholeness" prior to 1964—when the "Palestinians" invented themselves —or were invented by others?
Indeed, the fact that, at his time, not a single Palestinian-Arab or a single square centimeter of "Palestine" was under Israeli administration did not prevent Ahmad Shukeiry, Yasser Arafat's predecessor as head of the PLO, from declaring —on the eve of the 1967 Six-Day War: D-Day is approaching. The Arabs have waited 19 years for this and will not flinch from the war of liberation …This is a fight for the homeland — it is either us or the Israelis. There is no middle road. The Jews of Palestine will have to leave. We will facilitate their departure to their former homes. Any of the old Palestine Jewish population who survive may stay, but it is my impression that none of them will survive…. We shall destroy Israel and its inhabitants and as for the survivors — if there are any — the boats are ready to deport them. "
But beyond Beinart's shoddy historical references, it would be intriguing to learn whether he proposes that the existence of any other nation-state on the face of the globe is existentially dependent on the establishment of another—never mind, vehemently hostile—nation-state.
Moreover, in his Jewish Currents piece, Beinart waxes delusional: "For generations, Jews have seen a Jewish state as a tikkun, a repair, a way of overcoming the legacy of the Holocaust… But it hasn't worked ."
Concocting History
Indeed, reading Beinart, one might get the impression Zionism was a movement that began somewhere in the early 1930s, after the Nazis took control of Germany and instigated the persecution of Jews that was the precursor to the Holocaust. This of course, ignores the inconvenient fact that Theordor Herzl , recognized almost universally as the founder of the Zionist ideal, published his seminal Jewish State (Der Juden Staat) in 1896…four decades before any thought of the Holocaust was even relevant. In it, he calls for a Jewish state—not a Jewish community in a multi/bi-national state—and in the very first sentence in the preface , Herzl writes: "The idea which I have developed in this pamphlet is…the restoration of the Jewish State [sic]" .
He concludes the preface with words that might have been specifically directed at Beinart: "If the present generation is too dull to understand it rightly, a future, finer and a better generation will arise to understand it. The Jews who wish for a State shall have it, and they will deserve to have it ."
Just to put beyond doubt the fact that a Jewish state was the foundational fulcrum of Zionism, from its inception over a century and quarter ago, Herzl ends his seminal pamphlet thus: "Let me repeat once more my opening words: The Jews who wish for a State will have it. We shall live at last as free men on our own soil, and die peacefully in our own homes…And whatever we attempt there to accomplish for our own welfare, will react powerfully and beneficially for the good of humanity ."
Zionism: A noble vision fulfilled
In a recent article, Beinart's final-solution , Alan Dershowitz exposes the moronic mendacity of Beinart's claim that generations of Zionist endeavor "hasn't worked "—and underscores just how Herzl's prediction that the establishment of a Jewish state would prove "powerfully and beneficially for the good of humanity ", has been dramatically fulfilled.
He writes: "Despite its imperfections, Israel is a wonder to the world. It has given more to humankind—scientifically, medically, technologically, literarily and in so many other areas—in the 72 years of its existence than have the overwhelming majority of far-older countries throughout their entire histories."
On Israel's commitment to human rights and the rule of law—for Jews and non-Jews, for Israelis and non-Israeli—he underscores: "No nation faced with the threats comparable to those faced by Israel—including terrorism, rocket and terror tunnels attacks as well as Iranian aggression—has ever had a better record of human rights, compliance with the rule of law and concern for enemy civilians than has Israel ."
Indeed, as a failure, Israel and Zionism have been spectacular successes. After all, it is difficult to think of any movement of national liberation that emerged from the dissolution of Great Empires in the earlier 20th century that has provided the same degree of economic welfare, individual freedom and national sovereignty for its people as have Zionism and Israel for the Jewish people. Indeed, as Dershowitz points out, even far older and more established countries have not equaled Israel's overall performance as a nation, in terms of economic development, military power, scientific prowess, technological advancement, cultural achievement social cohesion…
Orwellian Beinart
Clearly then, by any criterion of empirical truth and/or common sense, Beinart's political diagnoses are preposterous and aptly fit the wry dictum, widely attributed (according to some, misattributed ) to George Orwell: "There are some ideas so absurd that only an intellectual could believe them. "
Indeed, invoking an Orwellian analogy in any critique of Beinart's political prescriptions (and by implication, those of the wider "progressive" US Jewish Establishment, for which he purports to speak) is compelling. For, they appear in perfect step with the oxymoronic rhetoric tradition in Orwell's Newspeak of "war is peace; freedom is slavery; ignorance is strength"
After all, what Beinart is, in effect, telling us is that Israel's success is Israel's failure—or in Beinartian/Orwellian Newspeak: "Success is failure".
But that is not the end of the self-contradictory "nostrums" that Beinart and the progressive US Jewish Establishment have embraced. Another might well be "Tyranny is democracy".
Thus, for decades they have embraced the idea of two-statism as the only enlightened resolution to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian-Arabs, somehow blithely ignoring that they were promoting the establishment of an entity that would embody the diametric antithesis of the very values they were invoking for its establishment!!!
Touting tyranny…in the name of democracy
There can, of course, be little reason to doubt that a prospective Palestinian state, in any conceivably plausible configuration, will be anything but what all other Arab states are, in some form or another: A homophobic, misogynistic Muslim majority tyranny—whose hallmarks would be gender discrimination against girls and women, persecution of homosexuals, religious intolerance against all non-Muslims, and oppression of political dissidents.
This is particularly pertinent given what has transpired in Gaza—perhaps the ultimate indictment of two-statism—where Palestinians were first given a shot at self-governance and which has become a bastion and safe-haven for Jihadi terror.
Indeed, there is scant cause to believe that what was in the past will not be again in the future—and even the most fervent two-state enthusiast has yet to offer up a persuasive argument why the envisioned Palestinian state would not quickly emerge as the said homophobic, misogynistic tyranny.
Accordingly, it is difficult to conjure up anything more perverse and paradoxical than liberal American Jewry support of the establishment of a political entity that will not only gravely imperil the democratic nation-state of their Jewish kinfolk, but comprises the utter negation of all they profess to cherish.
Embarrassing examples
True, Beinart has now relinquished his support of two-statism, not because the detrimental ramifications of this have finally dawned on him, but because he gauges, correctly, that it is no longer feasible. However, his response to this belated realization, is not to admit that he was wrong and retreat, chastened, to analyze the error of his ways, but to discard the idea of a Jewish nation-state altogether in favor of a bi-national state—Israel-Palestine—in which Israeli-Jews and Palestinian-Arabs would have equal national rights.
From his perch in the hallucinatory parallel universe, which he apparently inhabits, he asks us to imagine Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs, linked arm-in-arm, commemorating together both the victims of the Holocaust and sorrow over the Nakba —as if the two were in anyway even remotely comparable.
South Africa is a particularly incongruous example to cite. The conflict there was not remotely similar to that between Israel and the Palestinians, involving a massive disenfranchised Black majority against the monopoly of power by a small White minority on the basis of racial identity not national enmity.
Embarrassing (cont.)
However egregious one might consider the apartheid regime, it is difficult to deny that, since the end of White minority rule, the country has hardly been a glowing success story—either economically or societally.downgraded to junk. The unemployment rate was 30 percent prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, which is now wreaking further socio-economic havoc. The country is facing a grave energy crisis, with the economy plagued by frequent country-wide power outages . Even before the current pandemic, South Africa was wracked by disease and crime, suffering one of the world's highest rates of HIV and rape , with sexual violence appallingly prevalent across the country. Neither has the end of apartheid heralded the onset of idyllic racial harmony, with frequent racial violence and incitement still disturbingly prevalent (particularly against White farmers) and a steep decline in the White population, which is dwindling at a rapid rate—now considerably less than half the proportion it was of the total population in the late 1980s, just prior to the end of apartheid.
Today, Whites comprise just over 7% of the total population—which leaves us to puzzle over why he considers South Africa a persuasive example to cite as endorsing his one-state-for-two -people concept.
Intellectual gobbledygook
The case of Northern Ireland is hardly more apposite.
After all, it was far more an intra -ethnic than an inter -ethnic conflict, with the divide being one of different belief systems (within Christianity) and political allegiance (regarding ties to Britain), within an otherwise largely similar ethnic group . This is much more along the lines of the American Civil War, than a classic ethnic conflict between rivalrous groups with very distinct linguistic systems, cultural roots and societal norms as the one between Jew and Arab for control of the Holy Land.
Of course, Beinart totally omits any mention of a myriad of one-state experiences– either: (a) those in which conflict has been resolved by the slaughter/subjugation of one ethnic group by the other—as in Katanga , Biafra or Rwanda , in which millions lost their lives; or (b) those in multi-ethnic states, which split because of irreconcilable differences between rivalrous ethnic factions—either with violent bloodshed, and attendant atrocities—as in post-Tito Balkans —or peaceably, as in Czechoslovakia , in the 1993 "Velvet Divorce".
Unsurprisingly, Beinart studiously avoids any reference to these and other inconvenient examples of multi-ethnic state internal turmoil (such as Lebanon) or dissolution (such as Sudan). But, perhaps even more pertinent, it would be intriguing to pressure Beinart to identify any example where a sizable Muslim community has been conduced into the kind of durable egalitarian power-sharing arrangement of governance that he suggests—even in far more amenable conditions than those that prevail in the tumultuous conflict between Israeli Jews and Palestinian-Arabs.
For all these reasons—and more—Beinart's diatribe against a Jewish state is little more than intellectual gibberish and should be treated for what it is: A load of gibberish that is as pompous as it is worthless.
The puzzling paradox of liberal Jewry
The story of the Zionist endeavor and the establishment and evolution of Israel is one of the most stirring epics in the annals of modern history. It is one of endurance and accomplishment against all odds; of improbable survival and equally improbable success in the face of dauting threats, without imperiling the democratic nature of its system of governance.
Indeed, as Dershowitz pointed out: "Israel is a wonder to the world. It has given more to humankind…in the 72 years of its existence than have the overwhelming majority of far-older countries throughout their entire histories…No nation faced with the threats comparable to those faced by Israel…has ever had a better record of human rights, compliance with the rule of law"
As such, it should be a source of pride for all Jews—but particularly for Jews who espouse liberal values of tolerance and pluralism, of individual liberty and human advancement.
Yet this not the case. This is the puzzling and perturbing paradox of liberal Jewry.
How it can be confronted, countered and adequately contended with will be the focus of upcoming articles.
Martin Sherman is the founder & executive director of the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies
Fauci: Wear Eye Protection to Block Virus If You Have It 07/30/2020 0
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, speaks about the coronavirus in the James Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House, Wednesday, April 1, 2020, in Washington, as Vice President Mike Pence listens. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon) _ _ _
Dr. Anthony Fauci said that Americans "should use" eye protection to help slow the spread of the coronavirus.
During an interview with ABC News , the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases addressed whether people should cover their eyes in addition to their mouth and nose.
"You have mucosa in the nose, mucosa in the mouth, but you also have mucosa in the eye," Fauci said. "Theoretically, you should protect all the mucosal surfaces. So if you have goggles or an eye shield, you should use it."
He added that eye protection for the general public is "not universally recommended … but if you really want to be complete, you should probably use it if you can."
Fauci said there may come a point during the COVID-19 pandemic when wearing eye protection is an official recommendation.
"It might, if you really want perfect protection of the mucosal surfaces," he said.
The race to develop a vaccine for the virus continues, with several companies showing promising results in early trials. More than 17.2 million people worldwide have gotten sick and around 671,000 have died.
In the U.S., 4.5 million people have been sickened and more than 153,000 have died.
Twitter says on record in a portion of this video its ok for IRAN to say we will kill Jews
This is an hour show, but the disscusions about how it is ok to Kill Jews on Twitter at the Israel Knesset start about
See you tomorrow, bli neder
We need Moshiach Now
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