#Gazans are Hamas' pawns

[yourtoradorasextendedwarranty]

So this should have been an ask rather than a message. But I'll hide your name so there's no claims of doxxing.

Ok so first I'll address the last claim.

Gaza is extremely anti LGBT. Most of the Muslim world actually is. Because in miss countries that practice Islam have a few practices to deal with gay people. Castration, jail, or death. It's extremely common to find in most nations. Gaza isn't an exception. The region has it's own laws, specifically that of jailing people whom are gay. For 10 years.

The second claim revolves around the fact that scholars have made pretty definite claims that most all the Philistines are fundamentally gone. Sure it's likely you'll find traces in your blood line somewhere but no that land area has not been occupied by "Palestinians" for a long time. It's actually rather recent.

Also I can separate the people who support Gazan people from people who suppose Hamas, except you all give me on reason to. You lie about hostages, beheadings, and rapes. Most all of you call the Jewish people colonizers when historically almost ALL of that land is their land. What's more while there isn't a voting system in Gaza, Hamas was supported into a position of power through bribery etc by the current people of Gaza.

Believe whatever you want. But don't pretend that one of the most traditional conservative (to an extreme) religions on earth is actually pro LGBT. They aren't. You are all a disposable pawn in their quest to purge the world of every faith not their own. What's more, I'd treat most of you in better faith if most of you were not liars who believed in propaganda. News comes out of a bomb or rocket blowing up a hospital by hamas. Then mainstream leftists do nothing but cover that Non-Stop. Then come to find out it was actually a rocket fired by Hamas that misfired fell back down and blew up a parking lot.

I would treat you all in better Faith generally if y'all didn't believe the mindless propaganda of people who want to see the Jewish people wipe from the face of the Earth. Because it's been pro hamas people and pro Palestinian people who have torn down missing persons signs from the October 7th attack. It's been pro Hamas and pro Palestinian people who have said that Hamas did nothing wrong. It is pro Hamas and pro Palestinian people who have shouted a genocidal term which is from the river to the Sea. Except again historically that land never belonged to them.

I hate taking sides on these wars and other things across the world because it always gets polluted by bleeding heart leftist who think brown people good white people bad and y'all consider Jews white which is the only reason most of you are even upset. I would honestly treat most of you and better faith, if I did not see leftists and progressives harass Target and threaten none Israeli Jews around the world because of a fight going on in a different country that these people have nothing to do with.

If you have zero sympathy for the people who got raped beheaded murdered or kidnapped on October 7th you are pro Hamas. And people who say that their pro Palestinian will never ever get an ounce of Mercy from me. And if you want to know why it's because those same people absolutely never care about the victims on the Israeli side. They either say that they deserve it they call them colonizers or they excuse it because they are "not human".

Having said that, if you are one of the people who cares about both sides in this fight especially all of the innocent people. I will treat you with some level of good faith. But if you have no care for the Israelis that were hurt killed or brutalized. Then I absolutely believe 100% you are pro Hamas. Because as far as I'm concerned you all take pro Hamas propaganda at face value which is a group of people who want Jews wiped off the Earth and everything that comes out of Palestine news wise is almost completely Hamas propaganda in their quest to destroy Israel. That land in mass does not belong to the current residence of Gaza. Almost unilaterally that land belongs to people of Jewish descent. And the fact that they gave that land to the current people referred to as Palestinians should show that they actually care at least a bit. Because honestly if they wanted genocide like everyone claims they could glass Gaza and every other place with Palestinian residents overnight. And I mean glass in the literal sense.

Because the fake before and after photos we keep seeing of Gaza show that it was extremely high-end. They were rich. We're all Palestinians rich? Probably not but a lot of the before and after photos showed a lot of really really high-end housing hotels and businesses. And yet the people who are pro Palestine insist that it was an open-air prison and that they were just treated to the worst atrocities. Sure.

[sethshead]

The "No cease-fire" chant while Van Jones was speaking is deeply regrettable, based on a complete misunderstanding of what he was saying. He was not calling for a cease-fire while Hamas still rules Gaza, but speaking of a true and lasting peace between two nations.

Nonetheless, there should not be a cease-fire until the campaign is concluded and Hamas has been uprooted. We have seen what Hamas intends to do time and again, by their own promises. We have seen how Hamas treats its own people as expendable pawns for PR.

Anyone who cares about Palestinians, about peace, about the establishment of a free and sovereign Palestine, must be on the side of Hamas's removal. There is no way forward while they continue to wield military and political power. So long as they exist, the blockade must remain. There will be no reconstruction because all materials will be confiscated by them to rebuild their tunnel networks and luxury resorts for tourists and party members, but not for ordinary Gazans.

This fight is not to punish Palestinians or kill civilians. Quite the opposite. It is to eliminate a savage terrorist organization from a position whereby it can dictate two peoples' trajectories for the worse.

Hamas can abandon hospitals. Hamas can don its uniforms. Hamas can come out from behind its civilians. Hamas can abide by the rules of war. Instead, Hamas shows contempt for international humanitarian law and for its own people. It shows contempt for prior agreements and cease-fires. Therefore there is no further negotiation with them. They must be destroyed if both Israelis and Palestinians are to be free.

[boreal-sea]

It's actually almost impossible to be in a position to want to openly call out Israel, call it wrong for the way it has treated Palestinians for almost the whole time it's existed, without calling for Israel to be destroyed, and to be against American antisemitism because it feels like that category doesn't exist?

I think:

Zionism is the belief that Jews are native to the Levant and deserve self-determination in their homeland

Israel deserves to exist just like any other country

Israel has been abusing Palestinians for decades and should be held responsible for this abuse

Israel is the one with power between Israel and Palestine

Hamas is a violent antisemitic terrorist group and benefits no one

American leftists have become violently antisemitic since Oct 7th

Israel has lived in fear of the surrounding Arab states since its founding while also abusing its Palestinian neighbors, which further fuels hatred against Israelis, and fans the flames of their fear. All of these statements are true. Israeli fear is valid, and Palestinian anger is valid, too. The antisemitism of the surrounding countries isn't valid, and they're a big player in this conflict too.

So I guess, if that's your belief set too, let's be friends?

Reblogs are on for now, unless people start to get antisemitic...

Israel is wrong about a lot of things. It needs major reform as a country. It owes Palestinians reparations. Netanyahu needs to be removed from office along with all of his right-wing friends. Settlements in the West Bank need to cease, Israeli military presence needs to be withdrawn, and a long-term land-back initiative needs to be enacted, one that doesn't involve kicking people out of their homes right now, but rather returning that land and property to Palestinians after the Israelis currently living there move out. Israel could absolutely incentivize Israelis to move back into Israeli territory if they wanted to, just like they incentivized them to move into Palestine in the first place. I also think Israel's forced draft is wrong and should stop. The Kahanists and extremist settlers need to be dealt with. The current government of Israel does not want to do any of the above. This is a problem.

Hamas is wrong. Their only goal is the eradication of Jews and Israel; they currently do not have an ideology that contributes to peace in the region. They refuse to cooperate with other Palestinians trying to form an actual government. They got elected on the anger of abused Gazans and then stole that power and have never given it back. They treat the citizens of Gaza like pawns, they put them in harm's way because they know every Palestinian death at the hands of the IDF makes them support Hamas more. Gazans deserve freedom from Israel AND from Hamas.

Palestine deserves the 1967 borders back. It deserves a strong, unified government that represents its people fairly. They can't do that with organizations like Hamas undermining them at every turn. Netanyahu is partially to blame for this! He didn't create Hamas but he has admitted to supporting them, another reason he needs to be gone from power.

There is hate on both sides. Personally, a lot of Palestinian hate is understandable given how they've been abused since the Nakba. I get it. I get why Gazans voted for Hamas for the same reason I get why Americans voted for Trump. I empathize with Gazans; Israel has been undeniably abusing them for decades, even after "withdrawing". Gazans just want to be free. West Bank Palestinians just want to be free, to have their land back. Palestinians deserve freedom.

On the other hand, it's unfair to ignore that a lot of the hate aimed at Israelis is specifically antisemitism and that many groups and countries in the area are using antisemitism to inflame Palestinian anger. Hamas is one such group. So is Hezbollah. Both are funded by the surrounding Arab states, which are also fueled by antisemitism. These countries didn't want Israel established in the first place - not because it was colonialism, but because it would be Jewish.

And on the subject of colonialism, no, I don't think a Jewish state in the Levant is inherently colonialism. I DO think that the modern state of Israel was established through the mechanisms and violence of settler colonialism though, and the settlements in the West Bank absolutely ARE settler expansionism. They are immoral. They are stealing from Palestinians. There is a lot of harm Israel has committed, period.

I hold Israel responsible for its treatment of Palestinians. For treating Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza like second-class citizens. For occupying their land, for allowing "legal" and illegal settlements on their land. I hold Israel responsible for the anger of Palestinians, too. Organizations like Hamas probably would have come into existence regardless of how Israel treated Palestinians, because Hamas is founded on antisemitism, however, I think you do have to place at least a little blame on Israel.

I hold the surrounding states responsible for their antisemitic treatment of Israel. For funding the endless rockets of Hamas and Hezbollah. For encouraging their suicide bombers and terrorism. For keeping the region destabilized so Israelis never know a single moment of peace. There is a reason Israel forces its citizens to join the military, even though I think that is in and of itself an immoral thing to do to your people.

[hussyknee]

honestly judging journalists for doing their job is such BS. like in my eyes…. it reflects even more poorly on israel bc we’ve all seen how badly palestinians want liberation. we’ve seen how long they’ve been fighting for freedom. they want their land back.

the fact that they’re so frustrated they’re willing to just give up… it shows how badly this genocide is breaking them down. they feel hopeless. and we are in no place to judge them for that. our job isn’t to criticise them for wanting to survive. it’s to keep insisting that israel be stopped and dismantled.

also it’s so funny bc i spoke to my arab friend and she explained how the motaz clip specifically did not criticise hamas. he said that the oppression led to a natural retaliation of resistance forces. and he said he’d live to live in peace.

people are picking apart individuals being bombed 24/7 and it’s just so– sigh.

i really hope we can stop being sidetracked this way. the focus should always be on palestinian liberation and rights. we shouldn’t be sitting around judging people in gaza for being exhausted. we should be empathetic and keep protesting and insisting for an end to occupation.

tbh it genuinely feels like people are getting sidetracked and distracted from the point of this cause :/ which is exactly what the zionist lobbies want. like bro get it together!

I think it's somewhat to be expected at this point because popular support for Palestine is going turbo the more the Israelis escalates, but it doesn't mean much when the Biden Administration is stonewalling us harder than Bush. So all hopes do rest on Hamas and its allies, which makes people insanely protective and reactionary at the expense of, you know, the actual victims. It's very hard for coalition movements to hold longer than its forward momentum, which is the exact thing being sabotaged by the US. I'm afraid that the longer we stay stymied, the more the disparate factions will fall apart.

Okay so, this is veering into conjecture but here's what I think: popular support for Hamas, which was at an all-time high before Oct 7th, might now be waning in Gaza for obvious reasons. It will likely recede further when the grief sets in properly. Hamas couldn't have foreseen this level of carnage, but I'm pretty sure they prepared for an intense retaliation, and Gazans were the ones who always had to live with the fallout. I have no doubt that they'll manage to beat the IOF if the current trajectory stays on, but it might turn out to be a Pyrrhic victory in the end. And it's not certain that the trajectory will hold, because Israel still has an endless well of support from the Western and Arab governments and the Western right-wing, as well as aircraft attack capabilities which is basically what makes the US so formidable. What is working is the sabotaging of the Israeli economy, but again the question becomes how long can they keep it up. With these obvious pressures and time crunches looming, I can see the most fanatical of Hamas supporters deprioritizing actually rescuing the Gazans and even consigning them to "martyrs for the cause". For this element the Gazans would be valuable political pawns and their suffering a tool for destroying Israel's narrative. I'm not sure whether this includes Hamas's own leadership and rank and file. Israel is unequivocally the Bad Guy, but the fact is that there are no "Good Guys" in a war. All militaries involve a high level of indoctrination and ideological loyalty over dedication to the humans they're supposed to protect. I'm not speaking of militant Palestinians themselves; I'm guessing it would also include a sizeable chunk of Arab nationalists and the Tankie infestation that's jumped all over the pro-Palestine wagon. So it's very possible that the divergence between the military objective of the resistance and humanitarian objective will be highlighted more and more by the Gazans themselves, turning them from asset to liability. As I see it, this is the main faultline of the coalition.

I might be reading tea leaves at this point, but what I'm saying is that I can see where this asshole contingent might originate from. It's impossible for fanatics and armchair warriors to see people as people instead of props and tools for their pet causes and agendas. You can't reason with these people, only deplatform and block.

[blue-ish-sky]

If anyone has the energy and time to spare, I could use some help.

I, like many others, emailed my MP about the genocide currently happening in Palastine. Today I recived a response. I'm trying to formulate my own response, but I'm struggling to sort through sources and find ones that couldn't simply be brushed away as baised. Any and all info would be really appreciated. I'm also going to put the mp's response under the cut incase anyone has any thoughts.

Trigger warning for incredibly infuriating, upsetting and callous things being said regarding the Palestinian genocide by Israel.

"The situation in the Middle East is extremely difficult, heartbreaking and we all wish it wasn’t happening. We all want a resolution as swiftly as possible and all wish that we were not in the place that we are. Whilst I think it is going to be extremely challenging, I hope that a way can be found as soon as is practical to calm the situation.

The challenge I’m afraid, though, is in when that happens. What is happening in Gaza is a war situation and, regrettably and very terribly, that means we have seen difficult days and that there will be further ones ahead. That war was created by Hamas, a terrorist organisation, indiscriminately killing 1,200 people and dragging another 200 back into Gaza to use as pawns in a political game. It is absolutely, utterly outrageous what they have done and they have caused the events which have ended in the place they are.

Whilst I understand the point you are making, the challenge I have is that Israel must, in my view, have the ability to defend itself. They must be able to look their citizens in the eye and confirm that they are not going to be murdered in cold blood by a terrorist organisation that is willing to execute grandmothers and then upload footage of that execution to her own Facebook page so her family can see. Israel has been very clear that it seeks to minimise casualties and it has made clear attempts to do so (including having been criticised for elements of that policy); it drops leaflets in advance of its operations, it has been clear that it would be safer for civilians to temporarily move out of the northern part of Gaza and it has people embedded into its frontline army operations, who do not report into the military chain of command but instead the Israeli attorney general separately, to assess the proportionality of what it is doing. Whilst war situations are always very difficult, it is trying to minimise casualties whilst focusing on the ultimate objective – to remove the terrorist organisation that is Hamas. That ceasefire and the suffering could be ended, right now, if Hamas laid down their weapons, stopped using hospitals as command centres, stopped firing rockets (badly) so they end up killing their own people and stop using the Gazan people as human shields.

You ask for a ceasefire. I would love to see hostilities end but, practically and logically, I don’t understand how that is possible. Hamas are bad faith actors. They behead people. They throw their own people off buildings. Is that who we should encourage the Israelis to seek a permanent ceasefire with? And, if a ceasefire is agreed, what conditions should Hamas be given? Because, if the past is to go by, all Hamas do is regroup and get ready to create the next terrorist attack to start another cycle of violence. They have literally said that they would repeat 7th October time and time again, given the chance to do so.

If you, like I, want peace in the Middle East, work night and day to get rid of Hamas. If you want to ensure that we are not back here every time Hamas find a way to commit new atrocities, support the removal of that barbaric organisation which kills its own people. If you believe in the long-term prospects of peace in the Middle East, start with the right of Israel not to have 1,300 of its defenceless citizens executed. I deplore the loss of a single human life and badly want the situation in the Middle East to be resolved – but the first and only way to do that is for Hamas to be removed.

I am sorry that we are unable to agree on this matter but I hope the above is helpful in some way. I want this situation resolved as quickly as possible and for peace to come to the whole of the Middle East. Yet, I cannot and will not support actions which simply will embolden terrorists in the long-run. None of this had to happen. It only did because Hamas chose to come into Israel, execute, maim, burn, behead, rape and kill. That is the reason for what is happening. If you are concerned, angry, frustrated and despairing of what is happening in the Middle East, blame Hamas. And demand with every sinew of your being that the action to remove them is quick, successful and allows a new chapter to open for everyone – and lays the foundation for peace in the long-term."

[compassionatereminders]

that's the main thing i want to push back on - hamas is not powerless. at all. but there are governments that work for their people, and there are governments that work for themselves, and hamas falls squarely into the latter category. their leaders in gaza are safe in their underground bunkers, and their leaders abroad live lavishly in qatari and turkish penthouses. the gazan civilians - powerless. absolutely. and devastatingly so. they have no advocates, and the one group whose interest SHOULD BE to protect them uses them as pawns to gain favor and enrich themselves.

and that, to me, is the main difference between western principles and authoritarian principles. i think it's really really hard, truthfully, for people who live in places where the government DOES work for the interest of their people to fathom that there are places where this is not the case. because the thing about democracies is that they have to account for the interests of an entire, pluralistic, population who all want different things. so it can sometimes feel to people who live under these systems that the government IS working against them as a nation. when in actuality it's still working on behalf of a large part of the population, which of course comes with its own set of problems, often based on race, gender, sexuality, class, health and so on and so forth but the point being these governments do work in the favor of their constituents, even just partially.

authoritarian governments work exclusively for themselves, which is why they can appear powerless when viewed through a western lens - they wield their power in a subversive, countereffective way.

Absolutely, and me not supporting western imperialism is not the same as me supporting authoritarian governments outside the west. I think those suck too. I am not actually saying that any country outside the west is inherently a better alternative. They can easily be just as bad!

[eaglesnick]

“One of my first reservations about Zionism was and is that, semiconsciously at least, it grants the anti-Semite's first premise about the abnormality of the Jew.” ― Christopher Hitchens, Hitch 22: A Memoir

Day after day, week after week, the dreadful plight of the Palestinians in Gaza has filled the airwaves. Almost every hour our main media outlets send us pictures and give commentary concerning the death of civilians -  particularly children - within Gaza. As I write this Hamas claim over 10,000 Gazan citizens have been killed by Israeli bombings.

The condemnation of the Hamas massacre of innocent Israeli families, and the kidnapping of men, women and children to be held hostage and used as pawns in the Hamas war against Israel, has now been drowned out by the condemnation of the Israeli response to this deliberate, face-to-face terrorist massacre of its civilian citizens.

 The question I am asking is why are people so exercised by this particular war? Why are thousands of people on the streets demonstrating against this particular conflict in the Middle East when other conflicts have exacted an equally, and in many cases more horrific death toll of children and civilians?

The civil war in Yemen was between the Houthi Shia Muslims and the Shiite Muslim led government. The Saudi’s, backed by Britain, the US and France, began air strikes against the Houthis in 2015 fearing the Houthis would give Iran, a Shia Muslim State and a political rival, a foothold in the region.

What resulted was a major escalation in hostilities leading to:

“8.4 million people at risk of starvation and 22.2 million people - 75% of the population - in need of humanitarian assistance, according to the UN. Severe acute malnutrition is threatening the lives of almost 400,000 children under the age of five.”  (BBC NEWS: 13/06/18)

Where were the mass protests and daily news coverage of this humanitarian crisis? There were protests, but nowhere on the scale of the pro-Palestinian marches we are witnessing today, despite the vastly greater number of casualties:

“Yemen war deaths will reach 377,000 by end of the year: UN.”  (Aljazeera: 23/11/21)

The civil war in Syria has been raging for the last 12 years. Although there were demonstrations against the war initially these slowly petered out, and over recent years the continuing conflict in Syria hardly gets a mention. Yet, the UN calculates that 306,887 civilians were killed between 2011 and 2021, and by March 2023 this figure had risen to over half a million dead civilians.

Where are the protestors concerning these deaths? Nowhere to be seen! There have been more deaths in this conflict than in Gaza, yet “righteous indignation” seems to have dried up for the victims of President Assad’s genocide of his own people

The point I am making is that our media and the protesters are being very selective when it comes to  deaths of innocent civilians killed in conflict areas. What is it that makes one conflict more “news worthy” than another? What is it about the Hamas - Israeli conflict that grabs the attention of the protesters more than Middle-eastern  conflicts with far greater civilian death tolls?

 Accompanying the intensive media coverage and protests concerning Hamas and Israel has    been a massive increase in anti-Semitism  in the UK:

“Anti-Semitic hate crimes in London up 1,350%, Met police say.”  (Guardian: 20/10/23)

Such a massive rise in hate crimes against our Jewish population raises the question of a GENERAL anti-Semitic culture within sections of our society. (Anti-Islamic incidents have also increased but to a lesser extent) How many in the media and how many on the pro-Palestinian marches are giving vent to conscious or unconscious anti-Semitic feelings rather than having genuine humanitarian concerns for the people of Gaza? I would like to think none of them but  I fear I would be wrong.

[iwantjobs]

2/2/2024: Currently the big Jew in America (Chuck Schumer) is working out a revised military aid budget which includes emergency American tax dollars to help his Jewish people in Israel to fight militant indigenous poor people of Palestine and Israel (Hamas and Palestinians who voted for Hamas as the government of Gaza) who used terrorist tactics (violent poor indigenous people's tactics) to kidnap Israeli baby settlers (to be used as precious pawns to end the war) and shot Israeli baby settler in cribs. So far, your generous and kind 3.5 billions American tax dollars every year in free of some biggest American bombs to Israel have killed ¿???????? Gazan children (Palestinians in Gaza) leaving 17,000 children with no parents to take care of them in this war because their parents died, and many children disfigured and lost of limbs. Killing children in this massive number in a war, in such a short amount of time, with 35% of the population is under 18 years old, in a tiny piece of land surrounded by military fence of Israel, with 100% water cut off by Israel, Israel blocking aid trucks is a genocide in my eyes for children, water, food represent life and liveness of a group of people or Gazans and Palestinians. Congratulations to you Genocide Americans for staying quiet while for your genocide batches are getting bigger and bigger everyday thanks for you not telling your senators, House representatives, secretary of state, and president to stop sending military support to Israel. Netanyahu said he doesn't trust Hamas telling us how many dead children and people have died in Gaza; however, as human being with common sense, I used the satellite image showing half of Gazan buildings has been destroyed as reported by BBC satellite, UN said 30% of Gazan has been destroyed, and read how many bombs got dropped and rockets were shot into a land of 37 miles with 2.3 millions living in there (Gaza was told to be the most dense city in humanity so far). Trang at 50.8 years old. So far, Israel's death toll had been lowered to around 1,150 from 1,200 with around under 130 people still being kidnapped by the Hamas militant-terrorists.

[abbinurmel]

So, it's gotten a bit hard out there, being a Jew and all, particularly if yer one of Israeli conservative parents. You kind of are fucked and despised by people who want to see all Israel gone, and by the people who wanna see Israel make all Arabs gone, and people who want not just Israel but all Jews gone, AND the people who want all the minorities and the Left gone, AND the people who also want not just all the Jews but all of The Right gone as well. Saying a thing like "maybe be less shit to Palestine civilians" is a controversy, cos, it's no secret how shit Hamas and entrenched it along with antisemitism genuinely is there too. This is one of those annoying problems we don't get to place in a nice tidy box with nice easy to delineate solutions....so I won't bother trying to even touch on the Palestine issue, I will let everyone with more expertise on that matter and experience with that culture say what has always been said for decades, it was never my place-...

SO.

Israeli government. Here is the facts. Even if we brush aside this entire Palestine matter, and let's just pretend this WAS some nice easy black and white, open and shut case and no basic human rights or bunches of issues were fired up by this production of yours, and let's say in some imaginary parallel dimension, each and every Gazan that you bombed was an actual terrorist, including every kid, granny, or hospital worker, let's just say for simplicity's sake and nothing else,your entire ideology wasn't genuinely fucked up, and was completely justified for your people's security...

You still. SUCK. ASS.

I have been over to Israel and I have family there and even my most conservative relatives will tell you. That your country does shit for your own people, but most especially not for the Jews you love most to uphold and wave as pawns in these games. You were built up from the ashes of the Holocaust, you say you do this to combat the sentiments of Nazi sympathizers; but you could not give a flying damn about taking care of your actual Holocaust survivors living in poverty, like, I recall reading about this shit in magazines since the 2000s. You said this was all about saving hostages yet you already killed some, and if you ever gave a damn, and listened to their families, maybe you'd actually hear what they have to say and realized none of this is helping their survival odds or is close to any idea of what they want done in their name. You put even more Jews at home and abroad at risk, because now joining groups like Hamas is the 'cool' thing to do, do you have put all of your own citizens and outside Jews at jeopardy. And you have history of treating many groups of the Jewish people, even those with European descent, as STILL NOT PERFECT BLOOD enough, and label them 'Mizrahim', and had for decades not regarded them as equals. When even it comes to your main groups of citizens, you still treat them like piss. When I stayed abroad, there was homelessness rampant on every street in Israel, and the signs of the poor men and women who slept on cardboard there, were just as much often in Hebrew as it was in Arabic. You treat our fellow homeless Jews like piss. Your treat the middle classes like piss. You force every child to become a killer whether they want to or not, and you claim to be progressive but yet you are so undeniably sexist and full of fundamentalist backwards ass settlers who own multiple wives and treat them as tradable objects, who are forced to cover their bodies or suffer violence, just as much as any "barbaric" fundamentalist Arab patriarch does, whom you love to brag you are so different from. You brag about your science and environmental energy policies, yet when I was last there, about a decade ago, you were literally losing the entire Dead Sea, and the forests. I am not even gonna touch upon what you have done to the olive groves.

None of this is necessary. Your people would prosper if all you did from the getgo was embrace your roots of community and socialism. You didn't always have "An Arab Problem". You used to get along, not perfectly, but reasonably and decently enough. Instead of choosing to flourish in trade and allow open swap of cultures, you stifle and ostracize yourself, by claiming you're special, somehow, yet you spit upon the people of the US and the UK even as they helped you create it. Even American Jews are seen as lowly and not good enough in your eyes. You are not good enough of a Jew if you are from this country, or this country, or have this mixed percent of goyim in your mother's family tree... Where does it stop. You say you deserve your own ethno/religious state, cos everyone else in the Arab world around you gets one. Have you not noticed that all the countries based the most upon settling upon a sole identity based on one only fixed religion, be it Shia or Sunni, Hindi or Catholic, its always THOSE countries that have usually the most inner conflict??..., the worst poverty, the worst oppression, the worst civil wars, the worst treatments of women and girls? Cos when you make this "a land of ___ and noone else", you suffer as a country. It's a fact. You miss out culturally, but you also miss out economically. And what you are doing is shooting yourself in the foot entirely, cos all of this time, instead of the arts and infrastructure, and diplomacy, and technological scientific development, all that stuff YOU'RE BRILLIANT AT, you waste everyone's money, mental energy and blood on this.

Israel I for one, if out of only pure selfish reasons, do not want you to die.

But I hope every last member of your cabinet eats shit. No one can call me a self hating Jew, when all you have ever done for the past thirty to fifty years, is spit upon your own native Jews of every walk of life, and made life even more unstable for us Jews everywhere. You suck and God is so shamed by you and I hope one day you will realize you made a big mistake doing this, when all it took was a small crack team to pin down Hamas; the same way all it took was a small crack team to pin down thay sonuvabitch Bin Laden, instead of invading Iraq and Afghanistan, and killing thousands of innocents. Now we got twelve hundred mini Bin Ladens, and now, your actions will hopefully create only half of such a mess as Bush left us saddled with. You stupid stupid fucks.

[mightyflamethrower]

Does Iran Realize Its Own Growing Danger?

Victor Davis Hanson | Oct 20, 2023

an understandably believes it is riding relatively high.

It is flush with cash. It hints it almost has the bomb -- and might use it soon.

The Iranians are bragging about their new tyrannical allies like Russia and China.

Iran boasts of now being the self-proclaimed leader of jihad on behalf of all Muslims. It gloats that it is feeding the Russian war machine by exporting its own drones.

Tehran proudly supplied and funded Hamas's savage murder of Jewish children in Israel.

It eggs on its other pawn, Hezbollah, to launch a reputed 100,000 Iranian-supplied missiles into Israel.

It constantly provokes the U.S. -- primarily by veiled threats to unleash anti-American terrorists in the Middle East and perhaps inside America itself.

But above all, Iran is giddy over the appeasing Biden administration.

Biden resurrected the unhinged Obama administration plan of empowering a "Shiite crescent" -- of Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah, including Hamas.

This American idea of a radical bloc would supposedly birth "creative tension" and, on autopilot, balance the dominance of our friends in Israel and the Gulf regimes with our new Iranian clients. Yet the logical result of such madness was the massacre we saw in Israel.

Biden put pro-Iranian envoy Robert Malley -- now under FBI investigation -- in charge of begging Iran to restart the disastrous Iran Deal.

The anemic Biden administration has reportedly replied only four times to some 83 Iranian attacks on Americans.

Biden lifted sanctions, allowing Iran to garner tens of billions of dollars in new oil sales -- to be routed to all of Israel's terrorist enemies.

He sought to pay ransom to Iran to get back five American hostages -- at a cost of $1.2 billion per captive and a green light for Tehran to take more.

The Biden administration restored in aggregate $1 billion in aid to the West Bank and Gaza despite the long history of radical Palestinian terrorism.

This mollification of Iran also led its appendages, Hamas and Hezbollah, to believe that if any of them started a war against Israel, then Iran would guarantee their victory, the U.S. would do nothing -- and likely force Israel to do the same nothing.

Yet a delusional Iran still is not fully aware how its loud bragging about and support for its client Hamas's barbaric killing of Jewish civilians have put it into an unprecedented, dangerous predicament.

For the first time in decades, no nation can restrain Israel from destroying Iran's pawn, Hamas -- not after it butchered 1,400 Jewish citizens. At the same time, radical Palestinians in Gaza keep celebrating the slaughter and promising more such savage mass murders.

Iran's other proxy, Hezbollah, still issues blood-curdling threats to launch missiles. But it privately knows if it hits Israel with them, Beirut will resemble something far worse than its rubble of 2006 during the last Middle East war.

The world despises Iran and now finally accepts it cannot be appeased. Arab nations neither want Gazan refugees anywhere near them nor their terrorists whom Gazans one-time voted into power.

Even Europe abhors Hamas's precivilizational butchery of Israeli civilians.

Russia, Iran's new patron, will be of little help to it -- bogged down in Ukraine and hemorrhaging under sanctions and global ostracism. Nor has Moscow forgotten its own long, violent history with Islam.

China cares only about the delivery of Middle East oil, calm sea lanes -- and injuring the U.S.

Otherwise, Beijing has no desire to risk its economy by pushing an Iranian theater war --especially when China has jailed a million Uyghur Muslims in forced labor camps.

Public opinion will force even Biden to retaliate if the two substantial American carrier groups parked in the Eastern Mediterranean are attacked by either Iranian or Hezbollah missiles. And the response will not be street-fighting block to block-in Tehran or Beirut.

Instead, it will be a medieval rain of destruction on either or both from the air.

After the Afghanistan humiliation, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Chinese flagrant spy balloon mission over the American heartland, eight million illegal aliens waved in across the southern border and woke hysterias, Americans may have finally woken up that they dangerously -- almost fatally -- have squandered prior hard-won deterrence and must reboot.

To play its global jihadist role, Iran must always keep upping its terrorist ante and constantly louder threats.

It assumes the Middle East is business as usual -- when it is insidiously becoming just the opposite. An appeasing Biden is not driving events but being driven by them, whether he knows it or not.

The Iranians have little clue that they and their vassals are one stupid missile volley or one reckless intervention away from a devastating Western response that would not necessarily be "proportionate."

Such retaliation would be welcomed by Iran's numerous enemies, privately applauded by its small number of supposed "friends," and largely shrugged off by its even fewer allies.

an understandably believes it is riding relatively high.

It is flush with cash. It hints it almost has the bomb -- and might use it soon.

The Iranians are bragging about their new tyrannical allies like Russia and China.

Iran boasts of now being the self-proclaimed leader of jihad on behalf of all Muslims. It gloats that it is feeding the Russian war machine by exporting its own drones.

Tehran proudly supplied and funded Hamas's savage murder of Jewish children in Israel.

It eggs on its other pawn, Hezbollah, to launch a reputed 100,000 Iranian-supplied missiles into Israel.

It constantly provokes the U.S. -- primarily by veiled threats to unleash anti-American terrorists in the Middle East and perhaps inside America itself.

But above all, Iran is giddy over the appeasing Biden administration.

Biden resurrected the unhinged Obama administration plan of empowering a "Shiite crescent" -- of Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah, including Hamas.

This American idea of a radical bloc would supposedly birth "creative tension" and, on autopilot, balance the dominance of our friends in Israel and the Gulf regimes with our new Iranian clients. Yet the logical result of such madness was the massacre we saw in Israel.

Biden put pro-Iranian envoy Robert Malley -- now under FBI investigation -- in charge of begging Iran to restart the disastrous Iran Deal.

The anemic Biden administration has reportedly replied only four times to some 83 Iranian attacks on Americans.

Biden lifted sanctions, allowing Iran to garner tens of billions of dollars in new oil sales -- to be routed to all of Israel's terrorist

He sought to pay ransom to Iran to get back five American hostages -- at a cost of $1.2 billion per captive and a green light for Tehran to take more.

The Biden administration restored in aggregate $1 billion in aid to the West Bank and Gaza despite the long history of radical Palestinian terrorism.

This mollification of Iran also led its appendages, Hamas and Hezbollah, to believe that if any of them started a war against Israel, then Iran would guarantee their victory, the U.S. would do nothing -- and likely force Israel to do the same nothing.

Yet a delusional Iran still is not fully aware how its loud bragging about and support for its client Hamas's barbaric killing of Jewish civilians have put it into an unprecedented, dangerous predicament.

For the first time in decades, no nation can restrain Israel from destroying Iran's pawn, Hamas -- not after it butchered 1,400 Jewish citizens. At the same time, radical Palestinians in Gaza keep celebrating the slaughter and promising more such savage mass murders.

Iran's other proxy, Hezbollah, still issues blood-curdling threats to launch missiles. But it privately knows if it hits Israel with them, Beirut will resemble something far worse than its rubble of 2006 during the last Middle East war.

The world despises Iran and now finally accepts it cannot be appeased. Arab nations neither want Gazan refugees anywhere near them nor their terrorists whom Gazans one-time voted into power

Even Europe abhors Hamas's precivilizational butchery of Israeli civilians.

Russia, Iran's new patron, will be of little help to it -- bogged down in Ukraine and hemorrhaging under sanctions and global ostracism. Nor has Moscow forgotten its own long, violent history with Islam.

China cares only about the delivery of Middle East oil, calm sea lanes -- and injuring the U.S.

Otherwise, Beijing has no desire to risk its economy by pushing an Iranian theater war --especially when China has jailed a million Uyghur Muslims in forced labor camps.

Public opinion will force even Biden to retaliate if the two substantial American carrier groups parked in the Eastern Mediterranean are attacked by either Iranian or Hezbollah missiles. And the response will not be street-fighting block to block-in Tehran or Beirut.

Instead, it will be a medieval rain of destruction on either or both from the air.

After the Afghanistan humiliation, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Chinese flagrant spy balloon mission over the American heartland, eight million illegal aliens waved in across the southern border and woke hysterias, Americans may have finally woken up that they dangerously -- almost fatally -- have squandered prior hard-won deterrence and must reboot.

To play its global jihadist role, Iran must always keep upping its terrorist ante and constantly louder threats.

It assumes the Middle East is business as usual -- when it is insidiously becoming just the opposite. An appeasing Biden is not driving events but being driven by them, whether he knows it or not.

The Iranians have little clue that they and their vassals are one stupid missile volley or one reckless intervention away from a devastating Western response that would not necessarily be "proportionate."

Such retaliation would be welcomed by Iran's numerous enemies, privately applauded by its small number of supposed "friends," and largely shrugged off by its even fewer allies.

[the-record-columns]

September 26, 2018: Columns

There is no shame to cry about your dog...

By KEN WELBORN

Record Publisher A trip to the Post Office was an event for me when I was a little kid. 

I can clearly remember my, daddy, the Preacher, holding me up and letting me put the key in the box and pull out his mail.  I would always look inside that small window to the inner workings of the Post Office.  I will never forget one morning when I opened the box and the then Postmaster Maurice Walsh's face was directly in front of me.  He said, "Boo," and I almost wet my pants.

As an adult, the Post Office has been a great place to stop and visit with folks -- one of my favorites being my second father-in-law, William Bundy.  Our schedules meshed perfectly and many was the day we have discussed everything from his daughter, to the weather, to even – gasp - politics and religion. 

Well today, I want to mention one of my current favorite Post Office partners, and, although our visits are infrequent, they are always memorable; and that person is Dorothy "Dot" Beamon.

Interestingly enough, it is through her friendship with my aforementioned father-in-law that I first heard about this wonderful lady and the blessing she has been to so many through the years as a mental health counselor and grief recovery specialist.

Well, the next best thing to visiting with Dot Beamon at the Post Office is to get mail from her.  In last weeks Record, I wrote about losing my dog, Powder, back in February, and the struggles involved with his fight with cancer, and just missing all the things he did to make life better for anyone he ever met. I was heartened by the many comments from other dog lovers, and in my mail I received a message from Dot. 

In her note she expressed her own sympathy for Powder’s passing and, in true Dot Beamon fashion, enclosed a sheaf of papers she had collected and copied about dogs through the years.  They included everything from sad to down-right funny, as she said, and I truly appreciate them. What follows is one of the things in Dot's care package for Powder and me.

A dog's nose in the palm of your hand can cure almost anything.

Dogs are made of love and fur.

Let your dog take you for a walk.

Dogs are a sure ting.

Some little known dog secrets:  Dogs have no secrets.

Dogs are like vanilla ice cream; reliably delicious.

Dogs are wise agents direct from Heaven.

If you had a tail, wouldn't you wag it?

There are no bad dogs.

Be your dog’s best friend.

Dogs like dancing, drive-in movies, and dreaming.

God made dogs and spelled His own name backwards!

Dogs make great therapists.

Kiss your dog all the time.

Some dogs are lap dogs.

Dogs invented unconditional love.

Dogs are party animals.

Apply dog logic to life: eat well, be loved, get petted, sleep a lot, dream of a leash-free world.

Live your dog's life!

Dorothy, I have no idea who wrote down all those things, but they must have known Powder.  I thank you for playing such an important part in the well-being of so many folks, and I thank you for being my friend.

And Powder’s.

Who are you?

By LAURA WELBORN

For The Record

You can look at “gossip” in several ways.

One it is the word on the street about what people think about something.  The other way to look at it is to examine what you are saying. Or maybe it is what people say about what they sense when they encounter us, their impression of what they see.

How often do we think about what we do in terms of the message are we sending out?  Is it one of forgiveness?  Love? Caring for others?  

We think of gossip as negative, but really if it is what people see us doing and if we are doing kind good things, then is it still gossip?  

I think about how our thoughts about ourselves direct us to how we act. When we feel good about ourselves we will feel better. What plays in our mind is so powerful, it determines our health and actually how we look.

I have a tendency to get ready in the mornings way faster than Ken. His response is: “It takes a long time to look this good.”

What if we spent as much time on working on the inside (our self esteem) as we do our outside?  If our inner person is good then the outside gets even better.  

So what is the recording you play about yourself?  What do you want other people to see and talk about?  The old saying if you don’t believe in yourself no one else will.  I think that it goes one step further, and that is, your inner peace and soul will shine through and blind everyone to your outside appearance.  When we think negatively we act that out and become less attractive.  

It’s when we let bitterness, or pity for ourselves about a situation consume us, our outside changes and we become heavy- and it shows.  When we let go and act out of kindness for others despite what they do to us we glow with a spirit that brings goodwill back to us.

Think of hurricanes and the eye of the storm which is calm when everything is swirling around outside of the eye. I want to stay inside the eye of the storm in my own peace and let the world spin around outside in chaos and destruction.

All this is to say, it’s not as important what people say as to how we act and feel about ourselves. I want to remind myself of my intentions and how I am working to live my life, for that will direct who I become. Laura Welborn, Mediator and Counselor for Donlin Counseling Services.

Do you know someone who is struggling with being over consumed with something in their lives (addictions of eating, alcohol, drugs or relationships)?  Refer to Donlin Counseling Services for help. DonLin has Licensed Clinical Addiction Specialists, Licensed Counselors who accept Medicaid or insurance. Certified Hypnotherapist and Herbalist on staff.  Individual and group therapy is available.  The Addiction Group meets on Sundays.  For more information visit  www.donlincounseling.com or call 336-838-7371.

The Weapon is Demographics 

By EARL COX

Special to The Record

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency or UNRWA as it is commonly referred was established for the sole purpose of assisting the Palestinians.  Never before has the UN established and staffed an agency to serve only one people group.  President Trump’s decision to slash U.S. support for UNRWA may dismay Islamists and their global backers but it’s good news for Palestinians languishing in refugee camps. For 70 years, UNRWA has refused to resettle the Palestinian refugees, leaving them in perpetual limbo, and lacing their school curricula with hate, martyrdom and terror against Israel, and promoting its replacement by a Palestinian state. 

But UNRWA’s most malicious strategy is its systematic goading of students (and adults) with false hopes for the “right of return” to Israel as an “exclusively Palestinian country,” according to the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education.

The primary tool of UNRWA’s “right of return” mantra is the fraudulent inflation of the real number of Palestinian refugees; from 20,000 according to a State Department report classified by the Obama administration to a whopping 5.3 million today. UNRWA pulled these reproducing rabbits out its hat by multiplying five generations worth of refugees’ descendants—regardless of their settlement (and citizenship) in other countries, or homes—not refugee camps—in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. 

This exponential increase inflated UNRWA’s staff and budget, ballooning into billions in “humanitarian” aid from the world community for millions of Palestinian claiming refugee status when, in fact, they are not refugees at all. 

Demographic fraud lies at the heart of UNRWA’s failure to thrive as a humanitarian institution created to help, not thwart refugees.

In 1965 and 1982, UNRWA changed its definition of a Palestinian refugee to conflict with that of the UN, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and international law. 

UNHCR resettles its refugees, demolishes their temporary camps, and rarely, in special cases, adds their descendants to its rosters. “UNRWA is the only refugee agency in the world whose purpose is not to resettle refugees and help them go on with their lives,” said Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice and counsel to President Trump.

Why? What’s the logic behind a U.N. agency created to provide humanitarian, medical and educational services to one sole ethnic group? Why change its mandate to distort the real numbers? And why did Palestinians in camps start burying their dead at night, not declaring them, asks documentary filmmaker Pierre Rehov for the Gatestone Institute? “As a result, for nearly 20 years, the official death rate in the camps was close to zero.” 

Israeli novelist Amos Oz hits the nail on the head: “The Palestinian right of return is a euphemism for the liquidation of Israel." 

The weapon is demographics. 

To confront the nay-sayers, consider Israel’s 1960s self-rehabilitation project in the former Egyptian area of the Gaza Strip to help Gazans become self-sufficient. PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat persuaded the UN to condemn Israel. The project was abandoned, and the refugees forced to return to their camps, Rehov said. 

As an example of Arab states’ manipulation of the Palestinians as a pawn against Israel, consider Gamal-Abdul Nasser’s 1961 statement: “If the refugees return to Israel, Israel will cease to exist.”  More recently, a 2017 UN Watch publication examined the Facebook pages of 60 UNRWA educators, revealing “gross breach[es]” of neutrality required of UNRWA staff. 

UNRWA teacher Khader Awad’s public Facebook page features an image of a Jew with three guns and a knife pointing at his head. Hebrew and Arabic captions read, “Blood=Blood. #Kill them” and “Kill the settlers.” 

Senior UNRWA assistant head teacher Mohammad Alsayyed celebrated the murder of three Israeli teens by Hamas that ignited the 2014 Gaza war. “Makes me happy, “ he wrote. “News of the awesome kidnapping. Their freedom in exchange for our freedom.”

Considering UNRWA’s history, these role models are no surprise. Since 1975, the PLO turned UNRWA refugee camps in Lebanon into “military bastions,” said author Thomas G. Gulick, quoting Lebanese Ambassador to the UN Edward Ghorra’s letter to Secretary General Kurt Waldheim. Ghorra attached a second letter from Lebanon’s deputy prime minister documenting PLO installation of “heavy weapons” in UNRWA camps in Lebanon as early as 1969, and the PLO “occupying UNRWA offices in the camps.” Waldheim did nothing. 

The reasons for Trump’s cuts are clear. UNRWA's biggest donor is the American taxpayer—to the tune of $360 million in 2016. U.S. Rep. Steve Rothman (D-NJ) vowed to “make certain not one cent of U.S. taxpayer dollars provided to UNRWA is redirected to terrorists or activities that support terror or promote a culture of hatred.”

President Donald Trump’s funding cut to UNRWA sends a strong message to radical Islamists, especially the Palestinian Authority and Hamas: The U.S. government will no longer fund those who support or collude with terrorists. 

Nor will the US support an agency that defrauds its donors and misappropriates humanitarian aid to implement a violent political agenda. 

If UNRWA reform is in the wings, America may once again support it—unless the baton passes to UNHCR. This may be the only stable path to statehood and sustainable development for the Palestinian people.

Just as the US expresses willingness to work toward reasonable solutions to ultimately benefit the Palestinian people, we will continue to defend Israel’s right to exist as a sovereign Jewish state, to choose its own capital and to defend its borders. 

[mytraceyblodget]

To the Gaza front and back: Smoke, fire, tragedy and calm

One could not help but feel the tragedy of the average Gazan who seemed like a pawn caught up in a bigger dangerous game playing out between Hamas and the IDF. To the Gaza front and back: Smoke, fire, tragedy and calm published first on https://medium.com/@Sex777

[newstfionline]

Palestinian Power Struggle Threatens Further Gaza Power Cuts

AP, May 31, 2017

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip--When Gaza’s 2 million residents break their dawn-to-dusk fast during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, much of the territory is engulfed by darkness and homes have to rely on generators or batteries for the post-sundown family meals.

Rolling power cuts, a mainstay of life in a decade of Hamas rule in the blockaded Gaza Strip, have never been worse.

Power is only on for four hours at a time, followed by 14 to 18 hours of outage--and the blackouts could grow even longer amid an escalating struggle for dominance between the Islamic militant Hamas and its West Bank-based rival, the Palestinian Authority of internationally backed President Mahmoud Abbas.

Abbas, whose government pays Israel for the electricity, has stepped up financial pressure on Hamas in recent weeks by threatening to reduce its funding in hopes of forcing his rivals to cede ground.

But in a new twist, Israel’s energy minister said he would block any additional electricity cuts until further review. Yuval Steinitz argued that Israel should not be drawn into an internal Palestinian problem, a decision that also effectively shields Hamas, Israel’s enemy, against Abbas.

Gaza’s residents have adapted to worsening hardships with ingenuity and stoicism.

In some apartment buildings, residents have pooled resources to buy communal generators. Most Gazans buy food daily because they can no longer use refrigerators. Formerly routine activities such as showering or running a washing machine are done at odd hours, when power is on.

Gaza City resident Raed Ashour, 31, said he believes the situation is allowed to fester, in part, because people are afraid to speak out. The security forces of the authoritarian Hamas quickly quelled a rare mass protest over the power cuts in January.

“Now we are entering the second or third month of four hours of electricity, yet there is no sign of public protest,” said Ashour, a pharmacist. “It’s a political problem.”

Gaza hasn’t had full-time electricity in more than a decade, largely because of the international isolation of Hamas. Israel and Egypt, which border the coastal strip, imposed a blockade on the territory after Hamas’ takeover in 2007. Since 2008, Israel and Hamas have fought three cross-border wars.

Since April, Gaza’s power crisis worsened, in part because of Abbas’ new strategy. After years of failed reconciliation efforts, he began cutting back Gaza support payments to pressure Hamas. The group says it will not yield.

Gaza’s sole power plant stopped working in April, after it ran out of fuel that had partially been paid for by Qatar and Turkey, one-time regional backers whose support appears to have cooled off.

Hamas could not afford to buy new fuel, leaving Gaza with 10 power lines from Israel as the main source of electricity--about 30 percent of the territory’s needs.

The Israeli electricity is funded by the Abbas government at a cost of about $11 million a month. The monthly payment is deducted by Israel from customs and tax reimbursements it collects on behalf of the Palestinian Authority every month.

In May, the Palestinian Authority informed COGAT, a branch of the Israeli Defense Ministry that deals with Palestinian affairs, that it would only cover up to $7 million of the monthly electricity bill. In response, the head of COGAT, Maj. Gen. Yoav Mordechai, said last week that electricity in Gaza would have to be scaled back further.

This elicited a sharp response from Steinitz, the energy minister.

In a letter published by the Israeli media last week, Steinitz wrote to Mordechai that “we should be the ones to decide where to cut electricity,” sarcastically suggesting the Abbas headquarters in Ramallah as a starting point. Israel should “not become a pawn in their hands,” Steinitz wrote to Mordechai, referring to the Palestinians.

The minister’s office said Steinitz will seek a broader review of the issue.

Israel may be concerned the international community could blame it for further deterioration of conditions in Gaza. There are also fears that more instability in Gaza could lead to renewed rocket fire by militants.

In a veiled warning that Gaza-Israel tensions might flare up again, Hamas spokesman Salah Bardaweel said on Tuesday that in the event of further power cuts, “no one can ensure the (current) relative stability” of the region.

Israel withdrew its settlers and soldiers from Gaza in 2005, arguing that this ended its military occupation of the territory.

The international community, however, has a different view. The United Nations considers the lands Israel captured in 1967--the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem--as a single unit and holds Israel, as the occupier, responsible for the welfare of more than 4 million Palestinians living there. Since the 2005 withdrawal, Israel has continued to control access to Gaza by land, sea and air.

Last week, the U.N. coordinator for the region, Nickolay Mladenov, said Israel, Hamas and the Abbas government “all have obligations for the welfare of Gaza’s residents.”

Speaking from Jerusalem to the U.N. Security Council, Mladenov warned of a “humanitarian crisis” if power is cut further.

[mytraceyblodget]

To the Gaza front and back: Smoke, fire, tragedy and calm

One could not help but feel the tragedy of the average Gazan who seemed like a pawn caught up in a bigger dangerous game playing out between Hamas and the IDF. To the Gaza front and back: Smoke, fire, tragedy and calm published first on https://medium.com/@Sex777

[the-record-columns]

April 11, 2018: Columns

Spring Chicken

By KEN WELBORN

Record Publisher

When I think of warm weather - and surely it will be here to stay soon — I think of barbeque chicken.

That that end, a few years ago, the Historic Downtown North Wilkesboro Association had a barbeque chicken cooking event and I was pleased to enter. 

I have been cooking chicken the same way since I was a teenager — a long time.  And, if I do say so, the chicken is really good because I was taught by the best — Isaac “Ikey” Eller. 

The event was held on a Saturday at Memorial Park in North Wilkesboro as part of the kick-off of North Wilkesboro’s participation in the N.C. Small Town Economic Prosperity program (N.C. STEP.)

Now, many barbeque grills are worn down by the elements, but I wear them out cooking.  Some years ago, when I was “grillless,” I went out to Church Hardware on the 421 By-Pass and watched a Holland Grill demonstration.  Bought one on the spot from Rick Church and have never looked back.  It is just the best grill I have ever owned.  In fact, Church Hardware loaned me a Holland Grill for the Cook-Off because I would have to take my grill apart to get out of my apartment above The Record. 

The other chicken cooker that day was Reavis Handy.  The minute he started setting up, I knew he was a serious cook because he still uses charcoal — Kingsford Charcoal. Reavis and his mother and sister set about getting ready to barbeque, and you could tell they had been to the rodeo before.  It was truly a fun day of cooking and visiting, and, in the end, everybody won. Reavis Handy took the People’s Choice award and Isaac Eller’s famous recipe swayed the judges, and I got the credit.

I got to know Ikey through my teenage job at Howard Strader’s Tru-Value Hardware Store and the Straders friendship with Ikey’s brother, Bill.  Ikey and his chicken were simply legendary — in his own time, so to speak.  His house was in the first part of the curve on Coffey  Avenue in Finley Park across from the big rambling house Jim Lowe built which Ikey often referred to as “Lowe’s Motel.”  Every Sunday morning Ikey would make his way out to the gazebo/barbeque pit below his house and cook.  Once and a while he would be by himself, but more likely than not friends and neighbors from all over would stop in for a taste of his famous chicken.  Ikey used a variation of the old Clifton Pratt recipe, which he would cheerfully share with anyone.  He used to say that he couldn’t cook chicken for everyone, so why should he begrudge the recipe to anyone who wanted it.  He would rattle it off from memory, as folks would be jotting down notes to take home.

I loved to hear him talk.  He would speak of himself in the third person as he admonished all to prepare the chicken the same way each and every time — no adjustments or substitutions allowed, “Now, who brought this salad oil?  Did Ikey not plainly say Crisco shortening?”  When I would brag on Ikey’s chicken he was always quick to remind me that if you “… fix it like Ikey shows you, yours will be just as good.”  In the 50-plus years I have been cooking Ikey’s chicken I have stayed faithful to the recipe and the admonitions — no shortcuts, no substitutions, and no hurry. 

Patience and consistency was Ikey’s mantra — good traits to cook by as well as good traits to live by.  I can still see Ikey standing in the smoke serving someone a piece of chicken hot off the grill and saying, “…if you can’t make a meal out of this, you just ain’t hungry.”

He was right.

I made it clear to the judges that Saturday that anyone could make chicken just like I did if they will “…do like Ikey tells you, and it will never let you down.”

I did and it didn’t.

Ikey’s million dollar recipe

Here is what I feel to be the best barbeque chicken recipe ever.

“A stick of margarine, ¼ cup of lemon juice, ½ cup of Crisco shortening, 2 cups white vinegar, 1 tablespoon of salt, 1 tablespoon of black pepper, ½ tablespoon of red pepper, ½ tablespoon cayenne pepper.  Simmer the sauce, never let it boil. Make the sauce one batch at a time – never double up the recipe.  Skin, de-vein, de-fat and clean your chicken thoroughly; cut it into small pieces and cook it slowly — very slowly high up off the fire. You cannot baste the chicken too much.  In fact, if you don’t have to add charcoal at least once while you are cooking, you’re cooking it too fast.”— Isaac “Ikey” Eller.

 Desperate thoughts

By LAURA WELBORN

When desperate thoughts compel your actions, what can you do?

I think it is very common for people to have desperate thoughts from time to time. I know I do. Think about this: your thoughts guide your actions. Desperate thoughts that lead to desperate actions can change your life. And sometimes these life changes are very uncomfortable.

 So, I ask again: what can you do? I think it is what we do with desperate thoughts that keep depression, anxiety and hopelessness at bay. Alex Korb, PhD, is a neuroscientist, writer, and coach. He has studied the brain for over 15 years. In his book “The Upward Spiral” Dr. Korb discusses using neuroscience to reverse the course of depression and gives us some simple things we can do to redirect our thoughts toward living without desperation: He calls it “one small change at a time.”

 You start with gratitude. Spend 10 minutes writing in a journal three things from your day for which you are grateful. This small thing can move your focus away from desperation. You can write down what you did today, what you tried to accomplish, where you made mistakes, and more. It’s a place to step back, reflect and capture important thoughts and to sort out where you’ve been and where you intend to go. Your time spent focusing inward and journaling doesn’t just help you—your mind is powerful and your thoughts create ripples in the world around you.

When you bring clarity into your life, you bring the best of yourself into everything you do—you tend to treat yourself and others better, communicate more constructively, do things for the right reasons, and ultimately improve the world you’re living in. This is why journaling for a short time every day can actually make a significant real-world difference in your life. And it’s one of the most underused, yet effective tools available to let go of desperate thoughts.

 This form of letting go is not giving up. It’s about surrendering any obsessive attachment to particular people, outcomes and situations. It means showing up every day in your life with the intention to be your best self, and to do the best you know how, without expecting life to go a certain way. Stepping back and allowing certain things to happen means these things will take care of themselves and your needs will also be met.

 Creating positive habits takes repetition and, interestingly enough, bad habits take less repetition than positive habits. Self-affirmation can help us reinforce the positive habits we want. Asking yourself what you have done to encourage someone or cheer someone is just an example of self-affirmation and it leads us to being able to fulfill a positive habit that can be life changing. It is when we resolve to change in specific ways that we have a better chance of making it happen- creating that positive habit.

Dr. Korb says you are the magnifying glass in your own life. You can intentionally focus the energy you get from the world on one single thing at a time. The simple act of making a decision, a small decision, can move you forward, away from desperation. This helps you feel success even if it does not work out exactly as you imagined. So if you find desperation taking over, focus on the positive. Make a decision to move forward even in the smallest of steps. Be grateful for everyday things. Let go of the things you obsess over. Create positive habits.

  Replace Bullets and Incitement with Sound Government 

By EARL COX

Special to The Record

 The public record is clear. Terrorist group Hamas started this fight. The “March of Return,” deceptively billed as a “peaceful and nonviolent” protest along Israel’s border with the Gaza Strip, turned violent from Day One, as armed terrorists mingled with women and children, and several militants tried to breach the border of the sovereign nation of Israel.

 Hamas is desperately trying to pick a fight with Israel that would result in civilian casualties among the very people they claim to represent. While proclaiming over loudspeakers, “We are with you,” they rally women, children and the elderly to the borderand mix them lethally with armed militants. Thus they inciteviolence to provoke condemnation of Israel—readily availableamong anti-Semitic groups and politicians, and the leftist media.

 Whether Hamas is trying to trigger a propaganda battle, a real war or both, Israel is not looking for war. It is doing what any sane, sovereign nation would do—defending itself and its citizens from hostile forces bombarding its border. And Israel would likely support a peaceful Palestinian state on its borders that is not devoted to its destruction. 

 But despite the oppressiveness of its constant dirge of threatsand belligerent posturing, Hamas’s incitement presents a golden opportunity. A war started by Hamas could well end without Hamas. A Hamas-initiated war at this time could give Israel and its stakeholder allies an opportunity to replace Hamas with new leaders. Only this response has the most genuine, on-the-groundpotential to resuscitate the suffering Gazan people, whom its leaders treat as dispensable pawns. 

 I am not advocating a banana republic-style coup d’état—though if that’s the best option, then the sooner the better, with Iran and its axis waiting in the wings. I’m saying it’s time for a change of leadership for the Palestinians. This may be the only way to work toward a durable peace in the region – new leaders whowill respect the sovereignty of Israel, a viable Palestinian state,and enforceable harmony between the two. 

 Hamas considers its mantra to destroy Israel nonnegotiable. They thus have rendered themselves nonnegotiable. Dismantling Hamas has become a linchpin to peace with Israel.

 The same principle applies to the Palestinian Authority. Until fresh leaders are set in place, both Hamas and Abbas (and any successor who follows his flawed, corrupt model of leadership)— will continue to sabotage and hold hostage the suffering Palestinian people, along with any possibility for peace. 

 It would be prudent for a fledging Palestinian state to be supported in its initial stages as a protectorate with regional and international assistance and oversight. Gen. MacArthur oversawJapan dismantle the kamikaze approach to foreign affairs; culturally sensitive administrative programs and de-escalation of militant Shintoism were hallmarks of his efforts. The World War II victors issued “mandates” designed to guide the mandate countries through the process of becoming stable independent states. Perhaps we could learn from both the flaws and strengths of these historical models to help the Palestinians achieve their dream.

 A new Palestinian leadership could also open the door forregional Arab states to take on an enhanced statesmanlike role. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and other Gulf states may be willing to help their Palestinian brothers forge more stable solutions to their economy, healthcare, education and other sectors. Undoubtedly, a greater role could be played by the Gulf states once they acknowledge that every sovereign state—including Israel, has the right to secure and defensible borders.

 Once its security concerns are addressed, Egypt also may be willing to help alleviate the suffering of Gaza Strip residents by opening the Rafah border crossing, said Middle East scholar Bassam Tawil for the Gatestone Institute. Though Israel has kept its Erez border crossing with Gaza open to the flow of merchandise, people, and international aid agencies, until Egyptsteps up to the plate, “even Arabs who want to help the people of the Gaza Strip are forced to enter through the Erez border crossing because the Egyptians do not give them permission to use the Rafah terminal,” Tawil said.

 It’s high time for change. The Palestinian people deserve leaders who will give them not only jobs, healthcare, and electricity, but sound governance—not bullets and incitement.