#hey what’s up with those settlements in the West Bank

[heydrangeas]

zionists on this site are some of the most delusional people on the world wide web.

[jewishvitya]

hei. i enjoy your blogs, i hope you could clear something up for me., i just saw someone claim to be "zionist as in i believe jewish people have the right to self determination in their indigenous homeland",, ive actually seen the claim that jewish ppl are indigenous to israel and are somehow denied that identity as a form of anti semitism and erasure of jewish experience multiple times.. and it always confused me so much cuz like israel was set up as this nationalist project in 1948, before the region was a mess mostly under the rule of the ottomans, but the palestinian culture and ppl were always there. how can someone be indigenous to a region if they werent there before? is there any truth to the claim or is it just co-opting leftist language again?

its so evil how the state of israel could jist completely legitimize itself by co-opting jewish culture and pretending like being in support of it is a fundamental part of jewishness :(

Thank you!! I'm glad you do.

I can try, but I'm not sure how good I'll be at explaining this. Maybe someone else can add to this. If I repeat things I said before, I apologize.

That is a definition of zionism used by many zionists who lean politically to the left. I don't subscribe to these softer definitions of zionism because saying it's just "the right to Jewish self determination in our ancestral homeland" ignores that in practice over the last century the next words are "to the exclusion of others." I define zionism through its practical outcome - which is what we did to Palestinians.

Jewish people originate here. Our religious laws and practices (many of which are regularly disregarded by Israel and by settlers when they do things like destroying olive trees and water sources) are tied to this specific land. There are holidays and religious rituals that are either fundamentally changed or can't be practiced at all if we're anywhere else in the world. Culturally most branches of Judaism maintained this connection throughout our history. And we didn't leave willingly. An empire expelled us from the place that was our land. When the point of indigeniety comes up, this is why. You'll see arguments like - when does indigeniety expire? How many generations until you no longer have a claim to the ancestral homeland you were driven away from?

So this is the cultural context for Judaism. This is something that I also can't really ignore. I can't pretend I don't care about this land and the connection we always had to it.

That said, I still see this as using leftist terminology inappropriately.

To talk about Israel, a lot of us talk about colonialism, and specifically settler colonialism. I lived in the West Bank settlements so to me this really resonates. The argument I get at that point is that an indigenous group can't colonize their own land.

And this is why I'm saying it's a misuse of terminology. We're using that label to absolve ourselves. As if the word "indigenous" is a stamp of approval we get to apply to our actions while we repeat the violence of colonizing forces in history.

Ethnic cleansing, occupation, building settlements - and now also genocide. The tools we use resonate with indigenous people all over the world, because they suffered through similar kinds of oppression. Always with differences and different contexts, these things are never 1:1, but there's a reason indigenous groups around the world are in solidarity with Palestinians. I shared about a video from a Korean person talking about how colonialism by Japan broke the thread of their history - old buildings that had to be rebuilt instead of being preserved, historical cultural practices and art forms being lost or changed due to the loss of artisans. These are things Israel is doing now.

So to me, this is using the word "landback" and "liberation" for a violent takeover of land from an indigenous group. You mentioned the Ottomans - Palestine has been conquered over and over throughout history. Those regimes, sure, fighting them off can be liberatory, if the intent isn't to become the conquerors in their place. But there's nothing to liberate from Palestinians, because they're not colonizing anything. They belong in this land.

I'm really angry that so many of us try to deny the Palestinians their own connection. They have roots here, a long and rich history shaped by life in the land. While we destroy so much and say our claim is so strong we get to kill or drive them away for it.

[jujusjunk]

anon said "they could end this war tomorrow by returning the hostages and having Hamas step down from government."

Netanyahu literally spelled it out for you that even if all the hostages were returned, the war on Gaza would continue.

Many of the hostages have now been killed as a result of Israel's constant bombing.

With this logic, this all could've been ended if Israel had released the Palestinian hostages that led to Hamas attacking in the first place.

Who has the billions of dollars of funding and advanced weaponry here?

Who has the strongest military power in the world backing them up?

Who receives thousands of soldiers from other countries to fight their war for them?

"Hamas step down from government" You think Palestinians in Gaza would then be left alone if that happened? You think Israel which went in front of the whole world and showed a map of Palestine with all the Palestinian Territories wiped out and controlled by Israel will stop if Hamas stopped existing?

The horrors we see were happening before Hamas was a thing by DECADES. Criticize Hamas all you want, acting like they are the problem when these issues have existing before them and would exist should they stop existing is disingenuous at best.

Truly believing that the only reason Israel is currently committing these crimes in Gaza is for the hostages when they have made it clear since day one that hey give exactly 0 shits about the hostages, is ridiculous. They killed their own people for fuck's sake.

Not to mention, the horror and deaths and kidnapping happening in the West Bank despite no hostages being there. This is not about the hostages and never has been. they just used them as the reason to remove as many Palestinians from most of Gaza as possible (whether by killing them or displacing them). Goal was always to take the Palestinian Territories too. That's why illegal settlements keep being built in the West Bank.

But that doesn't suit your narrative, does it? You all have to grasp at straws to try and make sense of what's happening and use mental gymnastics to excuse or defend or justify or reason Israel's actions because the truth would be too difficult to hear. Living in denial and ignorance because you can't face the reality that those you defend and stand by wouldn't hesitate to murder thousands of innocents, of CHILDREN for imperialistic goals. For power. For land.

Like look at Lebanon now. Either y'all are making jokes and cheering at the deaths or you're trying your hardest to search the entire internet for anything to suggest that no civilians got hurt in order to continue standing in support of Israel with a conscious mind.

Actual people losing their limbs and eyes, and arms and actual health rovers and children dying are things you refuse to believe and you'll try to reason in it with "children ding is wrong of course, but collateral damage. but Israel could've been more careful" while completely ignoring how this exact scenario and these exact justifications play out EVERY TIME Israel has any operation.

You think the mutated dead corpses of babies in Gaza were just unfortunate collateral damage, or fake photos, don't you?

We are not humans in your eyes, are we? No matter how much proof, no matter how much suffering it'll never be enough to admit that Israel doesn't shy away from killing innocents and never has.

I could list all the young kids that were shot in the head, people and loved ones I myself know , and you'd still try to find a way to reason "it was just one bad soldier" "it's not the norm" "maybe the 4 year old had a rock" like you all sound exactly like those racists that will work days and night to try and justify cops killing indigenous and black people in North America. Literally no difference.

We live in a time where mass killings and mass ethnic cleansing, forcibly expanding land, killing people at the drop of a hat, "end justifies the means" is all considered wrong and those who did it in the past get criticized in every way, but somehow that goes out the window when it's Israel doing it because "safety :("

On Point.

Hezbollah also spelling it out yesterday in a speech, “if Israel stops its assault on Gaza and pulls out and returns its hostages, Lebanon will stop. All of this will stop if Israel stops so it truly is in the hands of the enemy.

Also sir, I’m a Palestinian…

[fatehbaz]

where can i read more about the devegetation of north africa? (reliable sources that you prefer)

Hey hi.

So just wanna be very clear that this is not really my “area of expertise.” (More focused on North American environmental history; most reading on North Africa limited to megafauna distribution range.) More like a fun side-interest that I revisit from time to time. And these resources are mostly just about the Sahel, specifically. Including the environmental history of the Holocene (past 10,000 years in the Sahel), and also the dynamic and drastic ecological change that took place between 1895-1960, during colonial and post-independence land management schemes. But some of the resources here also deal with the geography of the Sahara. (There is also an interesting history of the Sahara during the Holocene, when the desert was full of lakes and river courses. Up until the 1970s, there were still isolated populations of hippo and crocodile in remote Sahara lakes and oases.)

I’ll recommend some of the older “classics.” As usual, I’d try to recommend writing from local people who are explicitly willing to share their ecological knowledge. But a lot of my recommendations are unfortunately from academics. And I’m sorry for that.

Assuming you’re referencing this:

When searching online for environmental histories or local environmental knowledge case studies of the Sahel, I see a lot of stuff sponsored by NGOs, the UN, and US academia, which will emphasize “rediscovery” or “utility” of “using” traditional knowledge for “combating climate change,” and many mentions of the “green wall” proposals. I’ll also see “white savior complex” kind of stuff, which talks about “crises” and “civil wars” as if they’re “endemic” to the Sahel. But (just my opinion), I don’t like those resources. They engage in cultural appropriation (”acquiring” local Indigenous knowledge), superficial posturing (Euro-American academics using cute language about “local knowledge” without holistically contextualizing the devegetation), weird culturally-insensitive elitist chauvinism (continuously talking about “religious conflicts” and “civil wars” in North Africa and the “urgency” to use “agriculture” to establish stable economics and therefore “law and order”), and reductionism (talking about importance of halting southward desertification and expansion of the Sahara, without acknowledging role of World Bank, IMF, etc. in continuing to use lending/debt to hold West Africa hostage.) Part of my skepticism of these sources is because I’ve met and/or worked with agricultural specialists from institutions in the Sahel and environmental historians who had worked for many years in the region. (They’ve shared some really cool anecdotal stories about the sophistication of dryland gardening in the Sahel, and how local horticulturalists would laugh at the Euro-American corporate agricultural agents and USDA staff sent in with their special “space-age chemically-coated super-moisture-retaining” seed supplies after independence.)

Fair warning: Most of my recommendations are a little old, from the 1970s and 1980s. Two of the main drawbacks of these “outdated” sources: since their publication, scholars have since greatly expanded lit/research about both imperialism and traditional ecological knowledge. (West Africa had only been “independent” for a short period of time, and the hidden machinations of neocolonial institutions weren’t as clearly visible as they are to us, today, I’d imagine. And some academics, writing about the Sahel in the 1980s, weren’t as willingly to openly call-out major institutions.) But I think they provide a brief background for Sahel’s ecology and agroforestry/horticulture.

So both of these are available free, online, through the New Zealand Digital Library. (Don’t wanna link them here, but you can find them online pretty easily.)

Firstly, from 1983/1984, there is this summary of desertification, traditional environmental knowledge, traditional land use systems, and agroforestry in the Sahel: National Research Council. 1983. Agroforestry in the West African Sahel. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.

Something that was always exciting for me ...

Despite how dry and hot the Sahel is, fruit trees and gardens are actually very fertile and productive, for many reasons, mostly related to sophistication of local ecological knowledge of nutrient-replenishing relationships between different plants. An excerpt:

“Today, a number of agro-silvicultural systems appear to be practiced in the Sahel. Gardens are found within settlements where water is available, usually with a tree component that provides shade and shelter and, often, edible fruits or leaves. The same holds true for intensively managed, irrigated, and fertilized gardens near urban centers. Both subsistence home gardens and cash-generating market gardens are highly productive. Fruit and pod-bearing trees, shade trees, and hedges or living fences are the "forestry" components, sometimes supplemented by decorative woody plants. Mangoes, citrus trees, guavas, Zizyphus mauritiana (Indian jujube), cashews, palms, Ficus spp., and wild custard-apples are prominent kinds of fruit trees. Shade is often provided by Azadirachta indica or similar species, while fencing is provided by thorny species of Acacia and Prosopis, and by Commiphora africana, Euphorbia balsamifera, flowery shrubs such as Caesalpinia pulcherrima (paradise-flower), and other species.

Close to the settlements is a ring of suburban gardens, often irrigated, in which cassava, yams, maize, millet, sorghum, rice, groundnuts, and various vegetables are grown, for subsistence as well as sale, depending on the ecozone.”

---

Then this sounds more like what you might be looking for? Basically, a history of environmental knowledge and the ecological trends of the past 10,000 years in the Sahel.

National Research Council. 1983. Environmental Change in the West African Sahel. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.

Though this report from 1983 is now kinda outdated, and has some iffy elitist and vaguely-chauvinist language at times, but it is still accessible, generally easy to read, concise, and  it goes out of its way to say that 1970s drought and current environmental crises in the Sahel cannot be understood without addressing the early Holocene ecology of the Sahara/Sahel.

So the report emphasizes the importance of context, by addressing the drying of river courses and lakes in the Sahara of the Late Pleistocene, the early domestication of crops, the emergence of cattle and goat over-grazing, the importance of gum arabic and acacia trees in maintaining moisture in gardens, early trans-Sahara caravan travel, medievel geographical knowledge of the Sahara, etc.

“Because climatic change and variability are regular features of the Sahel, the native plant and animal communities of the region are generally well adapted to the range of climatic variation existing in the region. [...] Many efforts in "development" or modernization have also contributed to their plight. [...] In order to provide a better understanding of the role of human activity in modifying Sahelian ecosystems, this chapter briefly explores nine agents of anthropogenic change: bush fires, transSaharan trade, site preferences for settlements, gum arabic trade, agricultural expansion, proliferation of cattle, introduction of advanced firearms, development of modern transportation networks, and urbanization. These agents illustrate the breadth and diversity of the human impact on the region.”

----

Then there is this: Jeffrey A. Gritzner. The West African Sahel - Human Agency and Environmental Change. 1989.

And I also recommend the work of Jeffrey A. Gritzner. He’s American, but respectful and knows what he’s talking about. Gritzner works with dryland ecology; human ecology, especially relationships with plants/vegetation; environmental change during the Holocene (past 10 to 12,000 years); and traditional environmental knowledge. And he’s especially knowledgeable about the Sahel, North Africa, and Persia/the Middle East, where he worked with region-specific horticulture in the 1970s in Chad, Senegal, etc. during the peak of the drought, and had personal observations of post-independence neocolonial mismanagement and continued corporate monoculture from World Bank, IMF, etc. His writing contrasts local/traditional gardening/plant knowledge with imported corporate/neocolonial agriculture.

---

Beginning in about the 1990s, it seems to me that Euro-American geography/anthropology departments were much more willing to use words like “empire” and “neocolonialism” and more willing to call-out corporate bodies and institutions, so there are many better articles from after that period.

Keita, J. D. 1981. Plantations in the Sahel. Unasylva 33(134):25-29.

Winterbottom, R. T. 1980. Reforestration in the Sahel: Problems and strategies--An analysis of the problem of deforestation, and a review of the results of forestry projects in Upper Volta. Paper presented at the African Studies Association Annual Meeting, October 15-18, 1980, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.

Glantz, M. H., ed. 1976. The Politics of Natural Disasters: The Case of the Sahel Drought. Praeger, New York, New York, USA.

National Academy of Sciences. 1979. An Assessment of Agro-Forestry Potential Within the Environmental Framework of Mauritania. Staff Summary Report, Board on Science and Technology for International Development, Washington, D.C., USA.

Huzayyin, S. 1956. Changes in climate, vegetation, and human adjustment in the Saharo-Arabian belt with special reference to Africa. Pp. 304-323 in Man's Role in Changing the Face of the Earth, William L. Thomas, Jr., ed. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois, USA.

Vermeer, D. E. 1981. Collision of climate, cattle, and culture in Mauritania during the 1970s. Geographical Review 71(3):281-297.

Smith, A. B. 1980. Domesticated cattle in the Sahara and their introduction into West Africa. Pp. 489-501 in The Sahara and the Nile, M. A. J. Williams and H. Faure, eds. A. A. Balkema, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.

Again, these resources are mostly just about the Sahel.

Then, since the early 1990s, for better or more specific case studies of local-scale environmental knowledge, I think it might be easier or more fruitful to search based on subregion or specific plants. My perception is that, though much of the woodland and savanna ecology might be similar across the region, the Sahel is still spatially/geographically vast, stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea. And so, there are so many different diverse communities of people, with long histories situated in place, and there are diverse local variations in approach to horticulture. So, if you’re more interested in traditional ecological knowledge and local food cultivation, it might be easier to pick a specific subregion of the Sahel, or to pick a favorite staple food, and then to search those keywords via a university library website, g00gle scholar, etc.

(About the distribution range and local extinction, in the Sahel, Sahara, and Mediterranean coast, of lion, cheetah, elephant, giraffe, rhino, desert hippos, the “sacred crocodile,” etc. More my cup of tea. I’ve got some maps and articles, I’ll try to put them into a list of resources, too.)

[dechart]

So I'm asking because I really want to hear your opinion, absolutely no judgement. But what do you think about Palestine? What are your feelings on the matter?

mmm. hey hey. knew someone would eventually ask about this. i am 16 though, so please take whatever i say with a grain of salt.

i think, wholeheartedly, the Palestinians need their own country, there's no going around it, we will never, ever be able to live together. no matter how many times America tries to intervene, it'll fail.

there is a difference between the Palestinians - who live in the west bank - and Israeli Arabs, who live in Israel. while the latter work and go to university (and since most of them are Christians, they also serve in the army), the former have a corrupt government that basically says, "killing people is how you'll get to heaven". and they believe it, because they were raised to never question their government and leaders. and they kill us. they throw stones, they go on terrorist attacks with knives, they do everything they can to kill as many of us as they can. children, women, men, everything in between. a major misconception worldwide is that we Israelis do the same. as someone whose entire family served in the army and who'll have to do it as well in a year, we never, ever harm innocent civilians. they throw stones to kill, we halt them. if someone kills/shoots without a reason, they will get the same treatment as any other terrorist - see here. the Palestinians, most of them, will never resort to peace.

they are occupied. i agree. BUT. and that's a very important but. we tried to return the areas we conquered to Jordan. (the west bank, including the Palestinians living in it, was theirs. we conquered it in 1967). jordan said they didn't want it back. the reason for that was the Palestinians weren't from Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia or any other country - they were nomads that settled there. this is why Jordan preffered them away. and they let us have them.

as for settlements on the west bank - i am against it. i do think that area is theirs and it is very stupid to provoke them. BUT. and here's another but. the fact that they choose to break into homes and kill children and people in their sleep (see here, here and here, and i have many more) is horrific and i cannot hear ANYONE talking about it outside Israel. murder erasure. i volunteered to raise awareness of those incidents worldwide.

to sum up: both sides need to stop playing cat and mouse. the world needs to see the horrors being done to us. (i can't stroll around Jerusalem or even tel aviv without being scared to get a knife stuck in my back, or walk around my hometown without being deathly frightened of being blown up by a rocket. everyone here has serious ptsd but that's for another ask.) we need to see that we're all human and have the same innards. and. AND. the world needs to understand BOTH sides equally.

that is all i have to say. i hope it's sufficient. thank you for asking and raising awareness.

[halalchampagnesocialist]

hey ur blog seems really cool and ive wondered, im an israeli and i consider myself an antizionist because we cannot detach how zionism is rooted in racism and how a jewish state as it is now is responsible for the occupation of palestinians / is discriminating arabs/palestinian israelis by identifying as a jewish state as long as it keeps the occupation on such large non jewish people / citizens. but (1/2)

what are your thoughts on the idea of two state solution? i used to say im a zionist when i was younger, before understanding things i do now, because i believed, like i still do now: that people, especially oppressed groups, better have their own country who looks out for their interests and preserves their cultures and not rely on other -hence palestinian state- im not saying israel is doing it (it treated badly mizrahim + ethopians etc and is bs) but do u think “jewish state” has value? (2/2

hello and thank you!

honestly i’m against the two-state solution for so many reasons and rather than get into the semantics of why, i’m just going to say that a two-state solution is no longer feasible, that’s what i believe anyway.

i can definitely understand where the yearning for a jewish state comes from and a place to have your own autonomy after centuries of persecution but it’s kinda impossible to implement the concept without there being problems. don’t get me wrong, states that also call themselves ‘muslim states’ (saudi, iran etc) also have minorities which face persecution but the issue there is that those states don’t particularly claim to be democratic the way israel does. so i think in theory, a jewish state has value, but in practice… it ends up being the mess it is today.

but to go back to the question of a 2ss. honestly i think in this point in time, it is no longer feasible because israel has shown itself to not be interested in it. for israel, they want as much land as they can get, and hence why it’s part of the reason the settlements keep growing and growing. not to mention that everytime the palestinians push for resolutions at the UN (such as recognition), israel always votes against it. contrary to popular belief, palestinians only have total control over 3% of the west bank, and it would take an entire withdrawal inc settlers to implement a full palestinian state which is a problem because where would you go with hundreds and thousands of settlers? not to mention, how corrupt the palestinian parties are. palestinians need genuine leadership that would be able to handle a new state and i don’t think the PA is equipped enough for that, sadly.

the occupation has honestly gotten deep, and therefore, i think the only way forward is a one-state solution with a one-man, one-vote approach. although i think there are definitely steps to be taken (such as ending the occupation, removing the smaller settlements, and other things) before absorbing palestinians from the wb/gaza into that state as citizens otherwise it’ll be a bit of a civil disaster.

[sarenstuff]

Israel and the Palestinians, part 2

@angrybell So, picking up from where we last left off: 

The League of Nations granted mandates to the British and the French. The Mandates required them to exercise control until they could grant independence to new countries. Among those, they decided that one of the territories would be a Jewish National Home.

And what right did they have to give the ancestral homeland of the Palestinian people to people who didn’t even have any provable ancestral connection to the land? Please explain. 

What we are left with is this: Israel’s control of Judea and Samaria is entirely legal.

So all of the UN resolutions passed declaring the occupation completely illegal have nothing to them, then? They’re all bullshit? 

Until the Arabs and Israel arrive at a settlement on the territory Israel is willing to give to a new Arab state

There isn’t going to be any “settlement” as long as Israel chooses to exist as a Jewish state. There can’t be any settlement unless Israel agrees to respect the three basic rights of the Palestinian people as set forth by the BDS movement. 

there are no de facto or de jure borders for the mythical “Palestine”, but there are for the State of Israel.

No, there aren’t. Israel has no borders. It doesn’t recognize its own borders. Doing so would mean recognizing the complete illegality of its settlements in the West Bank, the Jordan Valley and the Golan Heights. 

Now, if Israel was truly eradicating all signs that Arabs had been living in the region, why would Arabic be on the road signs?

Non-Jewish Palestinian citizens of Israel don’t have the same rights as Jewish citizens do. Israel has recently been making efforts to make Arabic a lower status than Hebrew across the entire country. 

And why would [the Dome of the Rock] be allowed to remain if Israel was actually destroying Arabic connections to Israel?

Because there’s only so much that even Israel could get away with. If they did that, even the US wouldn’t be able to protect them. 

However, you cannot ignore that Israel is an inclusive society, despite what some fringe elements call for, which has not erased the connection of the Arabs to the region.

No, it is not an inclusive society: 

Also, are you familiar with these lovely statements from Israeli leaders and founders? 

“Palestinians are beasts, they are not human.” - Deputy Minister of Defense, Eli Ben-Dahan

“The Palestinians are like crocodiles, the more you give them meat, they want more.” - Ehud Barak, when he was Prime Minister of Israel

“The Palestinians are beasts walking on two legs.” - Menahim Begin, Former Prime Minister of Israel

“When we have settled the land, all the Palestinians will be able to do about it will be to scurry around like drugged cockroaches in a bottle.“ - Rafael Eitan, Former Chief of Staff of the Israeli Defence Forces

”We declare openly that the Arabs have no right to settle on even one centimeter of Eretz Israel… Force is all they do or ever will understand. We shall use the ultimate force until the Palestinians come crawling to us on all fours.“ - Rafael Eitan, Former Chief of Staff of the Israeli Defense Forces

“There was no such thing as Palestinians, they never existed.” -Golda Maier, Former Israeli Prime Minister

“We shall reduce the [Palestinian] Arab population to a community of woodcutters and waiters.” - Uri Lubrani, Former Israeli Prime Minister’s special adviser

“We have to kill all the Palestinians unless they are resigned to live here as slaves.” - Shlomo Lahat, former mayor of Tel Aviv

“We must use terror, assassination, intimidation, land confiscation and the cutting of all social services to rid the Galilee of its [Palestinian] Arab population.” -Yosef Weitz, a former director a the Jewish National Fund in the 1940s, a group that’s responsible for organizing Zionist settlements

And that doesn’t even include Ayelet Shaked’s infamous “little snakes” comment. So, yeah: please explain how it is an “inclusive society”? 

But according to you, that’s stealing.

No, according to me, the Nakba was stealing (and ethnic cleansing, and mass murder). 

So how good was the economic conditions? By far, the Mandate territory had the best per capita income and daily wages in the region.  It was causing a flood of illegal immigration.

Palestinians are not illegal immigrants: 

http://jurhfalastini.tumblr.com/post/162977518288/hey-you-know-angrybell-has-claimed-that-most

Under your thesis, Arabs and Muslims get a pass because, after blowing their chance to ethnically cleanse and create apartheid states of their own, they now seek to smear Israel with the crimes that they they attempted. And that this somehow differentiates their anti-semitism from the Nazis and others.

No, under my thesis, the Palestinians were resisting Zionist colonization, whereas the Nazis just wanted to straight-up fucking murder every single Jew in the world. 

It does not matter whether the person trying to extirminate the Jews from some part of the globe wears a swastika, crescent moon, or a funky looking cross. The methods they use may be different, but in the end, they are fundamentally the same: they are antisemites.

No, they are not. Anti-Zionism will never, ever, ever be antisemitism, no matter how much you fucking screech about it! 

And then there was the Secretary General of the Arab League, Azzam Pasha, who proclaimed,

“This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacre and the Crusades.”

Kinda sounds like they wanted to exterminate all the Jews in Israel.

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

Anti-Zionism is Anti-Semitism. Its simple.

No, it isn’t.

You are denying Jews the right to their ancestral homeland for one simple reason: they are Jews.

There’s not a Jew on the planet who can trace his or her ancestry back to the Ancient Hebrews. I think that Jews belong in the countries in which they are born. I believe that a Swedish Jew is a Swede and an American Jew is an American. You Zionists don’t. You believe that Jews will forever be strangers in their actual homelands! 

You can criticize Israel and not be anti-Semitic.

Yeah? That’s exactly what I’ve been doing all along! 

However, to attack Zionism is to effectively deny Judaism because so much of Judaism is wrapped up in the idea that someday all the Jews will be back in Israel. It is part of our prayers. It is part of festivals and holidays. It is part of our scripture.

I don’t care. You do not get to ethnically cleanse an entire population and steal their land based on what your religion tells you. If the Zionists had merely immigrated, that would not have been a problem. The problem is what they did to the Palestinians in 1948. 

And to you, Jews exercising their freedom of speech is the same as declaring war.

No, to me, ZIONISTS committing ETHNIC CLEANSING is the same as them committing ethnic cleansing. 

Then you claim that the BDS movement is the best representative of the Arab people in the disputed territories.

Yeah, it is. Without a doubt. 

These are the same people who forced the closure of businesses in PA controlled territory that provided the best salaries, working conditions, and benefits by far.

Yawn! Palestinian civil society - when they called for a global boycott - already decided that this is a very small price to pay in order to achieve their freedom. Oh, and also:

https://palestinianliberator.tumblr.com/post/140378641412/the-independent-jew-jewishwarriorprincess

Anything else?

But hey, creating discontent and discord is good if you want to keep the fighting going.

Israel created discontent and discord, not BDS. 

Preventing Israel from creating bridges and harmony with the Arabs is the priority.

Oh, just fuck off! The only necessary bridges already exist: the bridges leading from Jordan into the West Bank. They’re the bridges which I expect the Palestinian refugees in Jordan and Syria will use when they finally get to go home. 

But I guess living in Sweden, you could care less about the plight of the Arabs because you can assuage your feelings by knowing that you are morally pure by supporting BDS.

What does me living in Sweden have to do with anything? 

By the way, are you using a computer with an Intel processor?  Perhaps you use Bing or Google for your searches?

All developed in Israel.

I don’t think you understand what BDS actually means. Also, would you be okay with someone throwing you out of your house and living in it instead, as long as they invented some stuff while they were there? 

Then you go on to say that Hamas has suddenly decided to not want to destroy Israel because of making one statement.

They do want to destroy Israel - but not Israelis. 

Well, Ras al-Naqurah is a town on the border with Lebanon. Umm al-Rashrash is Eilat, the southern tip of Israel. The River Jordan is pretty self explanatory as is the Mediterranean. So basically, Hamas is still claiming all the land that is Israel.

Yep. Because that is their ancestral homeland. 

So Hamas is not in a struggle with Jews, just Zionists, but almost all the Jews who live in Israel are considered Zionists. Great. So a fraction of Israel is now safe from the depredations of Hamas.

Do you expect them to not be in conflict with the people who have been oppressing them for seven decades? 

To you,the answer to all the problems is simple: Zionism is the problem. Well, does history back that up? Absolutely not. The Arabs have been regularly conducting pogroms and massacres of Jews long before Herzl ever started the Zionist movement. There was, and this is not the full list, the

1834 Looting of Safed (Arabs attack and looted Safed’s Jewish community)

1838 Safed attack (Again, the Jews are attacked and robbed)

1847 Jerusalem pogrom (started because of a blood libel rumor)

1850 pogrom Aleppo (Eretz Israel was at that time part of the Syria Vilayet)

1848 Damascus pogrom

1862 Beirut pogrom (Again, this was part of Syria Vilayet)

1875 Beirut pogrom

1875 Aleppo pogrom

1890 Damascus pogrom

But hey, Zionism was responsible, right? Or maybe its because the Arabs anti-Semites who can’t stand to live with Jews.

That was antisemitism. What has happened between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea since the passing of the criminal and immoral Balfour Declaration, however, is because of Zionism. 

You claim that the Arabs had access to all the land that held by the government prior to Israel’s independence. I have seen nothing that supports that. Some of the areas, probably. All of it? No. And even if you were right, which I do not believe, that did not create ownership rights for them. If it did, I would have ownership rights to several interstate highways because I travel on them regularly.

I don’t own all of Sweden. Yet I have access to the entire country - my home country (which incidentally is also the home country of about 18,000-20,000 Jews). 

Furthermore, the Arabs, like every other country, wish to control who can enter their land. To that end, they have banned Jews with certain exceptions. So why then is it wrong for Israel to not allow foreign Arabs to freely roam land that is within Israel’s borders? Oh that’s right, its because they are Jews and Jews are not allowed the same rights as everyone else.

LOL, “foreign Arabs”… 

Then you make the claim that Israel never existed before. To an extent, this is true. A nation called Israel did not exist. However, a Jewish political entity did. There was the confederation of the tribes. There was Kingdom of Israel. This was broken up by civil war into the Kingdom of Israel (aka Northern Kingdom of Israel) and Kingdom of Judah. Eventually it was reunited, and it was the Hasmonean Kingdom.

And the Palestinians are the direct descendants of those people - Muslims, Christians and Jews alike. 

So “the State of Israel” did not exist. But as a political entity, the Jewish nation did and does exist. Hence why it is Israel’s independence is a reestablishment of the Jewish state.

I don’t follow your logic here. 

And then you dodge the question of proof. You make the assertion that the reestablishment of Israel did not have the support of the Jewish community. Its a statement you have made time and again without giving any support. Prove it. Otherwise, its as false as the rest of your drivel.

Are you dense? I’ve already told you that I’m not going to prove a negative! Once again: the burden of proof is entirely on you. You have to prove that most Jews did support a Jewish state in Palestine at the point of Israel’s creation or in the preceding decades. But you won’t be able to do that, because they didn’t. 

Then, because you don’t like DNA studies, claim that Jews cannot be related because we do not look like each other.

They can be related in the sense that they might have had a common ancestor, but they are not in any way, shape or form a single people. They lived thousands of kilometers apart, in different countries, on different continents, speaking different languages and eating different foods - and yes, they also looked completely different. 

The Jewish people were exiled from their home in Eretz Yisrael. And quite literally we were scattered to the four corners of the planet. So yeah, I’m not going to look like a Cochin Jew. Hell, even though I am Ashkenazi, I don’t look like any other Ashkenazi Jew. But that does not matter.

Nonsense. Why would the Roman Empire have expelled an entire population after the Bar Kokhba revolt instead of keeping them on the land and taxing them? It makes no sense. A land without a people is worthless as a province. 

That means “I am a Jew.” And the studies show that the Jews come from Israel. So whether I look like Jackie Mason, Paul Newman, or Peter Sellars, is irrelevant. I am Jewish. I am part of the tradition, religion, and nation that goes back five millennia, just as anyone else who joined up along the way is.

What studies? And do those same studies also show that Palestinians don’t come from that same area? 

The Tsar’s subjects, the Roman soldiers, Nazis, and the Arab terrorists never cared about how  far back my family goes in the community. They attacked us all the same. So I do the same when I consider whether someone is “Jewish enough”. Its an in or out thing which someone like you does not get to decide.

When did I ever try to decide that? 

As far as Rafeef Ziadah is concerned, I suspect she supports terrorism. After all, this is a woman who has no trouble avoiding directly answering her family’s history.

What about her family history? Why should she even have to answer that? 

She also has promoted the lie, which has long since been debunked, that the IDF regularly rapes Arab women and attempts to harvest Arab organs for sale.

Why do Palestinians have to be infallible to you in order to speak for their own liberation? 

She has been calling for the repudiation of the Oslo Accords.

Of course she has. The Oslo Accords are completely unjust. 

[studentofrhetoric-blog]

Part 1, Monday, April 3rd, 2017

International News:

--- "Australia's effort to improve the lives of its impoverished indigenous population is being undermined by a centralized, bureaucratic aid program delivered in sometimes culturally inappropriate ways, a United Nations official said on Monday. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians rank near the bottom of every social and economic indicator, which exacerbates tension in the communities belonging to the world's longest continuous civilization. While Australia has devoted billions of dollars to improve the welfare of its indigenous population, Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, special rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples at the U.N., said good intentions were being offset by poor policy. "The compounded effect of these policies has contributed to the failure to deliver on targets in the areas of health, education and employment," Tauli-Corpuz said in Canberra, the capital, at the end of a two-week visit to Australia. Tauli-Corpuz was critical of Australia's decision to channel aid through the office of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, describing the process as "bureaucratic, rigid and (having) wasted considerable resources on administration"."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-australia-un-indigenous-idUSKBN1750E5?il=0

--- "Russia has developed the capability to launch an attack on the Baltic states with as little as 24 hours' notice, limiting NATO's options to respond other than to have military forces already deployed in the region, Lithuania's intelligence service said on Monday. Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, annexed by the Soviet Union in the 1940s but now part of both NATO and the European Union, have been increasingly nervous since the Russian takeover of Crimea in 2014. The Lithuanian intelligence service said in its annual threat assessment that Russia had upgraded its military in the Kaliningrad region last year, reducing lead times for any attack and potentially preventing NATO reinforcements. The Russian upgrade included Su-30 fighter aircraft and missile systems allowing ships to be targeted almost anywhere in the Baltic Sea. "This is a signal to NATO to improve its decision speed," Lithuanian Defence Minister Raimundas Karoblis told reporters on the sidelines of the presentation of the report. "NATO's reaction time is not as fast as we would like it to be.""

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-lithuania-russia-idUSKBN1750Z0?il=0

--- "European Council President Donald Tusk said in Macedonia on Monday he hoped the country's leaders would avoid fueling ethnic tensions and focus on advancing toward EU membership instead. The Balkan state, with a Slav majority and a large ethnic Albanian minority, has been without a government since December, when inconclusive elections led to feuding over the influence of ethnic Albanians in a proposed coalition administration. Tusk met President Gjorge Ivanov on Monday to discuss ways out of the political crisis that has mired the country since a 2015 surveillance scandal that forced nationalist Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski to resign. "I came here with the strong message from the EU leaders that commitment to European perspectives is unequivocal," Tusk told reporters after meeting Ivanov. "I therefore hope that you will continue to follow this compass and avoid anything that could further fuel tensions also along ethnic lines.""

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-macedonia-eu-tusk-idUSKBN1751ZI?il=0

--- "The United States has carried out about 20 additional strikes in Yemen against al Qaeda militants since the middle of last week, a Pentagon spokesman said on Monday. Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis told reporters that since Feb. 28, the United States has carried out more than 70 strikes against al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) "militants, infrastructure, fighting positions and equipment.""

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-yemen-strikes-idUSKBN1751XN?il=0

--- "The European Union should try to limit the fallout from Britain's decision to leave the European Union, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Monday, conceding that some damage was inevitable."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-politics-idUSKBN1751B8?il=0

--- "Germany has no plans to introduce an 'Islam law' codifying the rights and obligations of Muslims, a government spokesman said on Monday, dismissing an idea floated by allies of Chancellor Angela Merkel ahead of federal elections in September. Merkel, who will seek a fourth term in what is expected to be a close-fought ballot, has come under fire for opening Germany's doors to refugees, more than one million of whom - mostly Muslims - have entered the country over the past two years. Seeking to boost support for the chancellor's conservatives, senior Merkel ally Julia Kloeckner stoked the integration debate at the weekend by calling for stricter rules for Islamic preachers and a ban on foreign funding of mosques. Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert dismissed the idea, which Kloeckner - who is deputy leader of the chancellor's Christian Democrats (CDU) - and other senior party members want to enshrine in an Islam law. "Such a law is now not an issue for government business," Seibert told a news conference, stressing the high regard Merkel's ruling coalition has for religious freedom in Germany."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-election-muslims-idUSKBN1751SW?il=0

--- "U.S. President Donald Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, flew into Iraq on Monday with the top U.S. military officer to get a first-hand assessment of the battle against Islamic State from U.S. commanders on the ground and to meet Iraqi officials. For Kushner, who has not been to Iraq before, the trip comes at a critical time as Trump examines ways to accelerate a U.S.-led coalition campaign that U.S. and Iraqi officials say has so far been largely successful in uprooting Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria. The visit appears to demonstrate the far-reaching portfolio of Kushner, 36, who is part of Trump's innermost circle and who has been given a wide range of domestic and foreign policy responsibilities, including working on a Middle East peace deal. Marine General Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the U.S. military's Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he invited Kushner and Tom Bossert, White House homeland security adviser, to accompany him so they could hear "first-hand and unfiltered" from military advisers about the situation on the ground and interact with U.S. forces. "I said, 'Hey, next time I go to Iraq, if you're interested, come and it’d be good," Dunford said, adding he extended the invitation weeks ago. That kind of ground-level awareness of the war helps inform strategic decisions, Dunford said, adding it was the same reason he regularly leaves Washington to visit Iraq."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-iraq-kushner-idUSKBN17515U?il=0

--- "President Tayyip Erdogan on Monday called on Turkish voters in Europe to defy the "grandchildren of Nazism" and back a referendum this month on changing the constitution, comments likely to cause further ire in Europe. Erdogan has repeatedly lashed out at European countries, including Germany and the Netherlands, in campaigning for the referendum, accusing them of "Nazi-like" tactics for banning his ministers from speaking to rallies of Turkish voters abroad. Both the Germans and Dutch have been incensed by the comparisons to Nazism and German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said the references must stop. "With this determination, we will never allow three or four European fascists ... from harming this country's honor and pride," Erdogan told a packed crowd of flag-waving supporters in the Black Sea city of Rize, where his family comes from. "I call on my brothers and sisters voting in Europe...give the appropriate answer to those imposing this fascist oppression and the grandchildren of Nazism." Erdogan is counting on the support of expatriates in Europe, including the 1.4 million Turks eligible to vote in Germany, to pass constitutional changes that would give him sweeping presidential powers."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-turkey-referendum-europe-erdogan-idUSKBN17517P?il=0

--- "South Korean human rights lawyer Moon Jae-in won the liberal Democratic Party primary vote on Monday, setting him on course to become the next president and perhaps take a softer line on North Korea. Moon has been leading in opinion polls ahead of the May 9 election to succeed impeached Park Geun-hye, who was dismissed last month over a corruption scandal involving family-run conglomerates, or chaebol. If elected, Moon, 64, is expected to soften South Korea's policy toward North Korea, possibly delay deployment of a U.S. anti-missile defense system that has enraged China and get tough on corporate criminals, including chaebol bosses. "I will do everything I have to do to look after the failing standard of people's living, revive the economy and resurrect national security that's been riddled with holes," Moon told an enthusiastic party crowd in his acceptance speech. In a major policy statement in March, Moon said there was no choice but to recognize Kim Jong Un as the leader of reclusive North Korea and deal with him."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-southkorea-politics-idUSKBN1751BJ?il=0

--- "To the world, the narrative on settlements often reads one way: more of them being built, with more settlers moving in. But there are cracks in the picture, and signs Reback's perspective is not uncommon - settlers are getting fed up. Statistics show the population continues to rise, having now reached around 400,000 in the West Bank and 200,000 in East Jerusalem. But behind the figures lies a different story. Although the population may have risen by nearly two-thirds in the past decade, the rate of increase has slowed sharply, according to Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics. A decade ago, for every 1,000 settlers already living in occupied territory, 20 more arrived each year. Now the expansion rate is just six per 1,000. "The settlement enterprise is waning and what is left is being artificially kept alive by the government pouring money in," said Shaul Arieli, an analyst at the Economic Cooperation Foundation, a think-tank that advocates for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict...While Israel's right-wing government is in talks with the Trump administration about limiting expansion, it has also promised to build thousands more units this year to accommodate what it calls "natural growth" - families having more children. Yet while population growth in the settlements is higher than the national average, its rate is also falling: In 1995, it stood at 10 percent. By 2015, it had dropped to 4 percent. Leaders of the settler movement acknowledge the decline but say it does not reflect falling popularity. While the downturn is a concern, they say it stems from government curbs on construction: people aren't moving to the settlements because there aren't enough homes to house them. "The pioneering settlement spirit, the desire to return to those places where the people of Israel have always been, is just getting stronger," said Yigal Dilmoni, deputy head of the Yesha Council, the settlers' main representative body."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-palestinians-settlements-idUSKBN1751HF?il=0

--- "Germany's far-left Linke party said on Monday that NATO should be replaced by an alliance including Russia, called for an end to weapons exports as U.S. President Donald Trump urges more defense spending, and demanded an end to German combat missions. But the party did not insist on withdrawing from NATO while presenting its draft program for a Sept. 24 election as it eyes a possible 'red-red-green' alliance with the center-left Social Democrats (SPD) and Greens. The Linke's opposition to NATO contributed to its status as political pariah in the past. The latest polls show the Linke on 8 percent support. Some have suggested a three-way left-leaning alliance could just about muster enough support for a majority in the Bundestag lower house of parliament. The three parties have already held talks to explore that coalition option. "Other parties always assume that leaving NATO is a red line for us, but that's a misrepresentation of our position - we're fighting for NATO to be replaced by a collective security system that involves Russia," said co-chair Katja Kipping. "We're not doing that because we're great fans of (Russian President Vladimir) Putin ... If you want peace in Europe you need de-escalation and cooperation with Russia ... but saying we must definitely leave NATO isn't a red line for us," she said. The Linke will not join any government that goes to war and it wants the German armed force's current foreign deployments - such as in Mali and Afghanistan - to end, Kipping said."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-election-linke-idUSKBN1752BM?il=0

--- "The United States does not believe that the Syrian people want President Bashar al-Assad as their leader any longer, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said on Monday. "We don't think the people want Assad anymore," Haley said at a news conference on Monday, when asked about U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's remarks in the Turkish capital Ankara last week, in which he said that Assad's status would be decided by the Syrian people."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-usa-haley-idUSKBN1752BW?il=0

Domestic & International News:

--- "Global equity markets eased on Monday as investors awaited the first meeting later this week between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, as the dollar gained amid a positive U.S. backdrop of rising interest rates. European shares touched a 16-month high before paring gains as they tracked Asian shares higher in the wake of upbeat manufacturing data out of Europe and China. Shares on Wall Street fell in morning trading as investors assessed how Trump's protectionist stance on trade will play out during meetings with Xi slated for Thursday and Friday. Trump held out the possibility, in an interview published on Sunday by the Financial Times, of using trade as a lever to secure Chinese cooperation against North Korea. "The market will be anxious and will be eager to glean whatever they get from those talks," said Andre Bakhos, managing director at Janlyn Capital in Bernardsville, New Jersey. "The market was a little taken aback by Trump's comments recently about the meeting," he said."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-global-markets-idUSKBN175025?il=0

--- "The United States set up on Monday a likely showdown with Russia and China later in April over its plans to hold a U.N. Security Council meeting on human rights, an issue that Moscow and Beijing oppose being broadly discussed by the 15-member body. The United States is council president for April. At a closed-door council meeting on Monday to agree to the council's work for the month, the proposed April 18 meeting on human rights and its ties to conflict was left off the calendar. "It will be a broad debate, not intended to single out any countries, but more just to talk about the topic and how that relates to conflict and if there are things that we can be doing going forward," U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley told U.N. member states on Monday."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-un-rights-usa-russia-idUSKBN17524E?il=0

--- "U.S. President Donald Trump moved to reset U.S. relations with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on Monday after the prior Obama administration's strained ties, giving him firm backing and vowing to work together to fight Islamic militants. "I just want to let everybody know in case there was any doubt that we are very much behind President Sisi. He’s done a fantastic job in a very difficult situation. We are very much behind Egypt and the people of Egypt," Trump said in an Oval Office meeting with the Egyptian leader. The trip was Sisi's first official U.S. visit since being elected president in 2014. Trump's predecessor, Barack Obama, never extended an invitation. Obama froze aid to Egypt for two years after Sisi, then a general, overthrew President Mohamed Mursi in mid-2013 after mass protests against Mursi's rule. Mursi, a Muslim Brotherhood member, had been elected the previous year. The one-on-one meeting between Trump and Sisi, followed by a separate gathering with top aides, showed how intent the new U.S. president is on rebooting the bilateral relationship and building on the strong connection the two presidents established when they first met in New York last September."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-egypt-idUSKBN1751WT?il=0

Domestic News:

--- "The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected New Hampshire's bid to revive a state law barring voters from taking "selfie" photos with their ballots during elections that a lower court struck down as a violation of free speech rights. New Hampshire banned such selfies in 2014, saying the photos could set the stage for a return of the kind of vote-buying or voter intimidation that was rampant in the 19th century. The Supreme Court declined to hear the state's appeal of a ruling by the Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last September that the law ran afoul of the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment, which guarantees free speech. The state cannot curtail speech based on a hypothetical danger, the appeals court stated. Ballot selfies have become a popular way for voters to show support for favored candidates through postings on social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and Snapchat."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-selfie-idUSKBN1751IY?il=0

--- "Lawmakers in Kansas on Monday failed to override Republican Governor Sam Brownback's veto of a bill expanding eligibility for Medicaid for the poor under the federal Affordable Care Act (ACA), local media reported. The Kansas House of Representatives voted 81 to 44 in favor of overriding the veto, falling three votes short of the 84 needed to advance the override, the Topeka Capital-Journal said. State lawmakers in the Republican-controlled senate voted in favor of the measure last week, just days after President Donald Trump's efforts to repeal and replace the ACA, also known as Obamacare, ended with the bill being pulled from a vote. The Republican-controlled House also voted in favor of the measure, but Brownback quickly vetoed the bill on Thursday. the House took up a debate on overriding the veto that day, but postponed a vote until Monday."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-kansas-medicaid-idUSKBN175258?il=0

--- "A coalition of U.S. states has mounted a broad legal challenge against what it called the Trump administration's illegal suspension of rules to improve the energy efficiency of ceiling fans, portable air conditioners and other products. The challenge, also joined by environmental groups, came after the U.S. Department of Energy last month delayed standards proposed under the Obama administration to reduce air pollution and operating costs associated with the products. Ten Democratic attorneys general, plus New York City and a Pennsylvania regulator, on Monday notified Energy Secretary Rick Perry of their plan to sue in 60 days for stalling proposed standards for air compressors, commercial boilers, portable air conditioners, power supplies, and walk-in coolers and freezers. The same group, excluding Maryland, on Friday petitioned the federal appeals court in New York to force the administration to implement ceiling fan efficiency standards that were to have taken effect two weeks ago, but have been delayed to Sept. 30. Implementation was delayed after White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus on Jan. 20 directed federal agencies to put new regulations on hold until their new leaders could review them. The Obama administration issued a similar directive in 2009."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-energy-lawsuit-idUSKBN1751R3?il=0

--- "The U.S. Federal Communications Commission is reversing a requirement imposed under the Obama administration that Charter Communications Inc extend broadband service to 1 million households already served by a competitor, under an order to be made public on Monday. The decision was a win for a group representing smaller cable companies that sought to overturn the "overbuild" requirement and marked the latest reversal of Obama-era requirements by the new Republican-led FCC under President Donald Trump. As a condition of approval for its acquisition of two cable companies, Charter had agreed in May 2016 to extend high-speed internet access to 2 million customers within five years, with 1 million served by a broadband competitor. Under the new order, Charter, the No. 2 U.S. cable company with 26 million residential and business customers in 41 states, must add service to 2 million additional potential subscribers in places without existing service, FCC spokesman Mark Wigfield said."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-charter-idUSKBN1751LQ?il=0

--- "Rising student loan debt in the United States could ultimately hurt overall home ownership and consumer spending and erode colleges' and universities' ability to elevate lower-income students, a top Federal Reserve policymaker said on Monday. New York Fed President William Dudley, an influential monetary policymaker who was citing research from his institution, pointed to rising costs of higher education and student debt burdens as culprits in the troubling trend. Overall U.S. household debt is expected to surpass its pre-recession high later this year. Proportionally, Americans have shifted away from housing-related debt and toward auto and student loan debt, with aggregate student loan balances $1.3 trillion at the end of last year, up 170 percent from 2006. Dudley, whose Fed monitors economic indicators but who does not have any control over fiscal policies like college funding, noted that overall delinquency rates "remain stubbornly high" and repayments have slowed, even while the job market improved the last few years."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-fed-dudley-idUSKBN1751RY?il=0

[newstfionline]

Israel’s right-wing revolutionaries

Christa Case Bryant, CS Monitor, February 14, 2017

JERUSALEM--As a leftist 20-something in the 1990s, Anat Roth railed against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for not making peace with the Palestinians. She recruited university students and organized demonstrations day after day outside his house, his office, anywhere--armed with slogans such as “the wild right is a danger for Israel.”

“It was very noisy and it was very effective,” recalls Ms. Roth, noting that Mr. Netanyahu lost to a pro-peace candidate in 1999. “We succeeded ... to get rid of Netanyahu--big time.”

Today, Netanyahu is back in power, and Roth is opposing him again--but for a completely different reason. She thinks he isn’t conservative enough.

Netanyahu has said in the past that he supports the establishment of a Palestinian state, a move that she now believes would be suicidal for Israel. She has come to that conclusion after years of Palestinian bombings, shootings, and stabbings that have killed more than 1,200 Israelis; after Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip that led to the rise of a terrorist regime that showered her fellow citizens with rockets; after her liberal friends failed to answer her increasingly persistent questions about how to protect the country.

Roth has also become more religious and moved from her small Jerusalem apartment to a spacious home in Efrat, an Israeli settlement in the West Bank. In the last election, she ran for parliament with a party to the right of Netanyahu. She has given up entirely on the two-state solution she once fought so hard to achieve.

“You have to fight for what you believe in,” says Roth. “But if you realize that it is not achievable, and that the theories and assumptions you believed in are not right, you need to have the guts, the strength, to confront it and look for other options and not be stuck in prior assumptions that don’t bring you anywhere.”

Roth’s transformation in many ways mirrors what has happened to Israeli society. Over the past two decades, Israel has undergone a fundamental shift that has brought to power the country’s most right-wing government in history.

And it may be about to get more conservative.

Netanyahu--whose hard-line stances taxed his relationship with former President Barack Obama and other Western leaders--is being pulled inexorably to the right by rising rivals, toughening public opinion on security issues, and by the increasingly religious tilt of the Israeli population.

For years, when Netanyahu wanted to check the power of interest groups to the right of him--most notably the settler movement--he could always invoke the United States: Washington, he’d say, won’t let us build more. But now that could change. President Trump has signaled a more hands-off stance toward Israel--including a pro-settlement pick for ambassador, David Friedman. Right-wing elements see a chance to move the country decisively against the formation of a Palestinian state and perhaps toward formal annexation of lands in the West Bank, which they refer to by the biblical names of Judea and Samaria.

All this could fundamentally change Israel’s standing with much of the West, at the United Nations, and with other countries in the volatile Middle East--a region already seemingly in a perpetual state of war and splintering increasingly along religious lines.

“I think Israel is at a unique junction,” says Naftali Bennett, one of the most prominent politicians pulling the Israeli government to the right. “For the first time in 50 years, we need to ask ourselves, what do we really want? There’s a unique opportunity for Israel to go through quantum change.”

While Roth has given up completely on a Palestinian state, many Israelis have shifted more conservative largely out of a loss of hope--though not a desire--for peace with the Palestinians. But there are other factors behind the hardening attitudes as well.

Israelis have long touted the dual nature of Israel as Jewish and democratic. In the past, when asked to choose which of those foundational principles should take precedence, they would refuse. But increasingly Israelis are revealing a preference--and it’s “for the Jewish element,” says Yohanan Plesner, president of the Israel Democracy Institute (IDI), an independent research center in Jerusalem that does extensive polling.

The growing presence of religious Jews, both in number and influence, is challenging the secular Zionist vision that has long dominated Israel’s elite institutions: its parliament, courts, military, and media. A religious nationalist vision, one that sees Israel establishing its sovereignty over Judea and Samaria as a prelude to the Messiah’s coming, is increasingly moving from the fringes of Israeli society into politics. It is spurring right-wing parties, which now make up about half of the political spectrum, to try to outdo each other ideologically, says Dahlia Scheindlin, a political scientist and pollster.

The most visible sign of this, and the one arguably of most concern to the international community and its hopes for ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, is the rising clout of the settler movement. Ideological settlers have become a critical part of Netanyahu’s base in the Likud party, and key supporters of his chief rival, Mr. Bennett of the Jewish Home party--the party to which Roth now belongs.

Her move to Efrat, a ridge of red-roofed homes surrounded by Palestinian farmland, is part of a surge in the Israeli settler population in the West Bank, which has nearly quadrupled since the 1993 Oslo Accord. Since Mr. Trump’s inauguration, the government has approved another 5,500 homes in the settlements.

The settlers are now “probably the most effective interest group in the country,” says Mr. Plesner.

Bennett, a software entrepreneur who made millions before going into politics, is pushing a far-reaching--and controversial--solution in the West Bank: Extend Israeli sovereignty to the 61 percent of the area that is already under full Israeli control. Allow the more than 400,000 Israeli settlers there to stay in their homes, offer Israeli citizenship or residency to the area’s estimated 80,000 Palestinians, and let the rest of the West Bank Palestinians live in autonomous areas under a government of their choice. He’d couple that with a “massive Marshall Plan” to improve infrastructure and economic opportunity.

Bennett plans to introduce a bill in the coming weeks that would extend Israeli sovereignty over Maale Adumim, a settlement of 40,000 people just outside Jerusalem. Nearly 8 in 10 Israelis support such a move, but it would set a legal precedent for implementing the rest of Bennett’s plan--which is not as widely accepted. Only 44 percent of Israelis support annexing the West Bank, according to IDI. “I feel that if we don’t make our move now, and apply Israeli law based on my plan, we’ll miss this window,” he says.

If Bennett succeeds, that would effectively kill the prospects for the two-state solution, ending the international community’s decades-long drive to establish a Palestinian state alongside Israel.

“There would be no need to talk about a two-state solution in a scenario of annexation of occup[ied] territory,” says chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat in a statement to the Monitor. “[It] seems that the ‘two-state solution’ that Israel is talking about is the State of Israel and the state of the settlers that this extremist government has been vigorously building. Their vision is one of ‘one state and two systems,’--apartheid, rather than two states. Without international intervention, it will be very difficult to save the prospects of a sovereign and independent State of Palestine.”

Bennett admits that his vision for a Greater Israel is not appealing to the world, but says people respect a “coherent vision.” If there’s one thing he says he’s learned from doing business in America, it is to be honest.

If there’s a problem with your product, “Call the guy, tell him the truth, tell him what you know, tell him what you’re doing about it, bite the bullet,” he says. “They’re not going to be happy ... but they’ll respect you.”

“What I think is unacceptable is when we say, ‘Hey, we want a Palestinian state but but but--this and that,’ “ says Bennett.

Many analysts are skeptical that Bennett will succeed in implementing his vision, given Netanyahu’s considerable legislative power as prime minister, as well as the prospect of international opprobrium. But in a tumultuous era of populism that brought “Brexit” and now a Trump White House, it’s not inconceivable.

Even during her years as a peace activist, Roth found it painful to accept that Israel should give up the West Bank, which it conquered in the Arab-Israel conflict of 1967, to create a Palestinian state.

“The basic thing is that you don’t want to get rid of it because it’s ... one of the limbs of your body,” she says. “When do you amputate a limb? Just when you’re forced to.”

When Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005, with no negotiations or concessions from the Palestinians, the militant Hamas movement took credit for pushing Israel out--and won elections the following year. Gaza militants showered Israel with rockets, despite periodic poundings by Israeli planes that killed thousands of Palestinians. The 2014 war, in which Hamas even targeted Tel Aviv, sending parents and children scurrying to bomb shelters, shattered the idealistic notions that many leftists had harbored.

“Gaza is like a laboratory of what will happen in Judea and Samaria,” says Roth, who formally left the Labor Party after those attacks. “The security threat of having a Palestinian state next to us is more dangerous than the demographics.”

To be sure, there are security risks involved in denying Palestinians a state as well. “No one can control the new generation” of Palestinians, says Issa Samander, a former Palestinian activist in the West Bank, who sees the seeds of a new Palestinian uprising germinating. “[Israelis] don’t know the new generation.... They will be surprised.”

But for religious settlers, it goes beyond safety to a sense of mission. This is why Roi Harel still lives in his home on a windswept hill surrounded by Arab villages, with the skyscrapers of Tel Aviv visible in the distance.

One morning last March, while his five kids and wife were still sleeping, Mr. Harel opened his door on his way out to serve in the army reserves. Suddenly, in the predawn darkness, two Palestinian teenagers assaulted him with baseball bats and knives. They pushed him back into his home, down a corridor. Unarmed and wounded, he was all that stood between the assailants and his family. He shouted to his wife to call security. Then, somehow, he managed to push the intruders outdoors. Soon thereafter, security forces found the Palestinians and killed them.

Palestinians, many of whom feel justified in defending their homeland by force, pointed out that six times as many Palestinians as Israelis had been killed in the most recent wave of violence.

Netanyahu, for his part, called Harel to congratulate him on his bravery, while local schoolchildren made a sign for the family’s front door that celebrated “the hero.”

For some Israelis, formally extending the country’s sovereignty to the West Bank is fundamentally opposed to its nature as a Jewish and democratic state. For either Israel would have to absorb so many Palestinians that Arabs would become the majority in the near future, or it would have to relegate Palestinians to a different civil or legal status.

Palestinians, for their part, already see Israel’s claim to being a democracy as a sham. Not far from the West Bank settlement of Eli, a small outpost called Amona has become a firestorm of controversy, a symbolic battle against the entire settlement enterprise and its legal underpinnings. Palestinians claiming ownership of the land celebrated when Israel’s High Court of Justice ordered the outpost evacuated. The government complied earlier this month. But its offers of compensation and resettlement, as well as a new law to legalize homes built on private Palestinian land, are seen as running counter to the court decision.

“I feel the democracy in Israel is just for their people,” says Mayor Abdulrahman Saleh in the neighboring Palestinian town of Silwad, who has been involved in the legal battle. “But for Palestinians, either in [historical Palestine] or here--it is like Bashar al-Assad,” he adds referring to the Syrian strongman. “It is dictatorial.”

Hilik Bar, the deputy speaker of Israel’s Knesset (parliament) and a friend of Roth’s since her Labor Party days, is among the shrinking minority of Israelis who haven’t given up on a Palestinian state.

As head of the lobby for the two-state solution since 2013, Mr. Bar has pitched his plan to the Knesset and the Israeli president. He’s gone to Ramallah to talk to Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president. He’s even consulted with leaders from the broader Arab and Muslim world, whose support he sees as crucial for such a deal.

He insists that a two-state solution can be achieved without endangering Israel’s security.

“Look, Israel is surrounded by many, many enemy states with ordinary armies, with long-range missiles, with tanks, with combat jets--and we are living. We won five [or] six wars in seven decades against almighty armies of Arab states, because we have a very strong army and the most courageous soldiers that you will meet,” Bar says. “And this is why it seems to me very defeatist to assume that ... we should be afraid to do a peace agreement because of a small, demilitarized ... state that will be in some of the areas in Judea and Samaria.”

It’s not that he’s sanguine about the Palestinian leadership. In fact, he says he has “no confidence” that Mr. Abbas can broker a deal. “He’s not strong, he’s not always reliable, he’s often closing his eyes against incitement,” says Bar. But, he adds, “We will never find a Palestinian president who will be a great Zionist and have ... an Israeli flag in his office.”

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“Sometimes I wake up grumpy; other times I let him sleep.” Kids in NY are sleeping in since the schools are closed today. But if you worked for Deutsche Bank on the mortgage side you may not be sleeping well: the DOJ is probing people who worked in DB’s mortgage unit.” No one likes being probed. Shifts in minimum wage may be causing people to lose sleep. Many cities and states have raised their minimum wages in recent years, but many of those laws leave at least one group out: tipped workers, such as waiters. The gap is most pronounced in Massachusetts, where minimum wage earners make $11 per hour while tipped workers make $3.75 an hour.

“I rob banks because that’s where the money is.”

If Willie Sutton were alive he could probably count the number of new, de novo, banks in the last several years on two hands. But things are heating up, possibly in expectation of an easier regulatory environment. The U.S. is seeing startup banks: eight banks filed applications with the FDIC in 2016. This is a far cry from the peak when you would see 250-300 applications.

One thing non-depository mortgage banks don’t have to deal with is Basel. Bank for International Settlements General Manager Jaime Caruana expects the Trump administration’s approach to regulatory reform to affect coordination of Basel IV capital rules for banks. “This will probably take some time, but we need to wait for the position of the Americans — and we don’t know yet,” Caruana said. The word “limbo” popped up, and no one likes being there.

US bank stress test scenarios for the ’17 CCAR (Comprehensive Capital Analysis and Review) came out. As a reminder to non-bankers, since non-depository lenders don’t have to worry about it, CCAR is a regulatory framework introduced by the Federal Reserve to assess, regulate, and supervise large banks and financial institutions. The Fed seems to envision a more severe downturn in economic conditions compared to the 2016 testing cycle. And we’ll probably see more questions about commercial real estate in 2017 since the ’17 CCAR assumptions include a larger focus on commercial real estate prices compared to the ’16 scenarios.

Certainly depository bank M&A continues unabated. In Pennsylvania, the Bryn Mawr Trust Co ($3.4B) will acquire Royal Bank America ($828mm) for about $127.7mm in stock (100%) or about 2.47x tangible book. In Texas Vista Bank ($395mm) will acquire Hamlin National Bank ($84mm). Green Dot Bank ($1B, UT) will acquire prepaid debit card company UniRush, LLC for $147mm in cash and an earn-out of at least $20mm. UniRush has 175,000 active cardholders, offers RushCard and is backed by hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons. In Illinois Multi-bank holding company First Busey Corp ($5.4B) will acquire First Community Financial Bank ($1.3B) for about $235.8mm in cash (10%) and stock (90%) or about 2.1x tangible book.

In divestiture news, French bank BNP Paribas will offer 25mm shares of its subsidiary First Hawaiian Bank (HI) as it seeks to reduce its roughly 83% ownership stake down to about 62% and raise an expected $984mm. Dutch banking giant ABN Amro said it will cut 60% of its senior management jobs and cut the number of top executives by 50%, as it moves to cut costs. The bank remains 70% owned by the Dutch government.

Servicing prices influences borrower’s rates.

Let’s see what’s been happening over the last month or two. The talk a few months back in MSR trading wasn’t credit or prepayment speeds, necessarily, but rather the size of offerings. MountainView Servicing Group was the exclusive sales advisor to a $3.19 billion FHLMC/FNMA/GNMA servicing portfolio. The 100% retail originated portfolio consists of Conventional: 100 percent fixed rate 1st lien product, 3.875% WAC, 752 WaFICO, 78% WaLTV, $191k avg loan amount, with top states: Texas (27.2 percent), California (8.0 percent), Virginia (6.0 percent), and Maryland (4.7 percent); and Government: 100 percent fixed rate 1st lien product, 694 WaFICO, 96% WaLTV, 3.78% WAC, $177k avg loan amount, with top states: Texas (20.8 percent), Florida (7.4 percent), California (7.2 percent), and Ohio (5.2 percent).

I’ve seen two Incenter Mortgage Advisor packages; the first was for $1.45 Billion in Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac Bulk MSR offering. The 6,500-loan package had a $222k average loan amount, 4.151% WAC, 90% O/O SFR, 77% purchase, 77% WaLTV; the second offering is for a $4 Billion FHLMC 23,000+ loan package. The portfolio has a 3.952% WAC, 76.6% WaLTV, 752 WaFICO, 92% O/O, 67% SFR 27% PUD, 56% Purchase, and a current escrow balance of $29mm.

Phoenix Capital’s Project Valor: a $2.4 Billion GNMA, 98% Fixed 30, 1% Fixed 15, <1% ARM, 3.837% (F30) Note Rate; 3.408% (F15) Note Rate; 3.134% (ARM) Note Rate, $200k average loan amount, 684 WaFICO, 99% WaLTV, Geography: 9% TX, 9% FL, 6% GA, and is 100% retail. Project Sparta is a $35-60 Million per month flow package. The seller estimates the flow will be on average similar to October through December production; Conventional: approximately $30-$35 million per month, 84% Fixed 30, 16% Fixed 15, avg bal $232K – $269K, 56% purchase origination, 100% retail originations, 90% single family/PUD properties, 91% OO, 42% MD, 40% VA, 12% NC, 750 WaFICO, 79% WaLTV; Government: approximately $20-$25 million per month, 59.7% VA, 36.6% FHA, 3.7% USDA, avg bal $245K – $252K, 82% purchase originations, 100% retail originations, 94% SFR/PUD properties, 99% OO, 39% VA, 36% MD, 19% NC, 705 WaFICO, and 97% WaLTV.

RoundPoint Mortgage Servicing has been selected as the sole servicing partner by Point, for its growing portfolio of fractional residential real estate assets. Under the agreement, RoundPoint will manage assets acquired by Point. Homeowners sell Point a fractional interest in their properties in exchange for a tax-deferred lump sum without interest rates or monthly payments. Within 10 years, the homeowner exits the agreement by either selling their home or buying out Point. Most homeowners use the capital to diversify their wealth, invest in their businesses, renovate their homes, or pay off debts. Point provides homeowners with a brand- new finance solution that aligns homeowner and investor interests and, for the first time, investors can buy fractional interests in owner-occupied residential real estate through a digital platform.

The weather outside is frightful…

This winter has been harsh in most parts of the country. Even California, at least the northern portion, has seen an unusual amount of rain and snow. What are lenders and investors doing in terms of disaster updates? Hey, and don’t forget, if you need a flood map, FEMA’s your place!

In response to the severe storms, tornadoes and Straight-line winds and in response to a Federal Disaster Declaration, M&T Bank will enforce the Disaster Re-Inspection Policy for all Georgia properties located in the counties of Berrien, Cook, Crisp, Dougherty, Turner, Wilcox. The same is true for Mississippi Counties of Forrest, Lamar, Lauderdale, Perry.

Because of severe storms, tornadoes and straight-line winds in Georgia (Georgia Severe Storms, Tornadoes, and Straight-line Winds (DR-4294 and DR-4297), FEMA declared a major disaster area. Loans scheduled to close in these areas may need to be delayed until confirmation of the property’s condition can be obtained. Plaza will reassess the collateral for these loans and prepare them for closing as soon as possible.

The SunWest Mortgage disaster area policy is as follows: For loans submitted with an appraisal dated on or before the incident period end date or for those submitted without an appraisal, Sun West will require an interior and exterior inspection prior-to-funding or purchase of any loans with subject properties that are determined to be at risk. The inspection must verify that the property is sound, habitable and in the same condition as when it was appraised.

Per FAMC’s Correspondent Lending Bulletin, effective immediately, a buyer will be allowed to assume the seller’s flood insurance policy and retain the same rates provided the loan is not a construction loan and the policy states it is transferrable. Please review the updates to the Flood Disaster Protection Act chapter of the manual for specific requirements. Also, FAMC has updated its guidelines to align with FHA’s current 4000.1 policy, as announced in FHA INFO#16-64. The total amount of required repairs must not exceed $10,000 for HUD REO properties insurable with a repair escrow.

NewLeaf issued the following information regarding active loans in the pipeline: Because of Severe Storms, Tornadoes, and Straight-Line Winds occurring in Georgia from January 21, 2017 (incident start date) through January 22, 2017(incident end date), the President issued a federal disaster declaration on January 26, 2017 for the following counties: Berrien, Cook, Crisp, Dougherty, Turner and Wilcox. All subject properties in the areas impacted by the disaster require evidence that the subject sustained no damage from the identified disaster. If the subject property is in an impacted area, with a completed appraisal dated prior to the incident start date, a 1004D re-inspection completed by the Appraiser must certify that the property is free from the applicable natural disaster damage.

Capital Markets: interest rates go up and down

And this week it’s been down. Those who follow the 10-year yield as a benchmark saw its yield hit 2.33% Wednesday morning. Why? Lack of turmoil overseas, perhaps. Or some thinking that the expected “Trump Bump” to the U.S. economy may not happen overnight. Who thought it would? We had the usual small movements between coupons, securities, and maturities, and the NY Fed was in doing its usual buying of $1-2 billion a day. The improvement paused when the Treasury auctioned off its 10-year T-note, but its yield still ended the day at 2.35% and its price improved nearly .375. The 5-year T-note and agency MBS prices improved .125-.250, depending on coupon.

This morning we’ve already clocked in with the usual Thursday Initial Jobless Claims (-12k to 234k; 101 weeks below 300k). At 10AM ET we’ll have December wholesale inventories, as if that stat ever moves markets, but later we’ll have the Treasury peddling $15 billion of 30-year bonds. The 10-year’s yield is sitting around 2.36% and agency MBS prices are down/worse .250 versus Wednesday’s close.

Jobs and Announcements

Compass Analytics is actively seeking Business Analysts to support expansion of the product teams in its Washington DC and Irvine, CA offices. This role will be very hands-on and involve all phases of product management ranging from analysis and requirements gathering to functional design, testing, and implementation. “Strong project management, communication, project implementation skills are required in addition to agile development methodologies. The ideal candidate will have mortgage or finance industry experience, 2+ years business analyst experience, and working knowledge of SQL and SDLC tracking systems. Compass is an innovator in the exciting and growing FinTech industry and offers a unique opportunity for growth and experience, with a casual-yet-focused, fast-paced work environment including an outstanding compensation and benefits package. Interested candidates should email a cover letter with resume to Marketing Manager Sarah Slagle.”

Pacific Union Financial, LLC continues to expand its national footprint and enhance the Distributed Retail management team with the hiring of new Retail Regional Vice President, Ron Agasar. Mr. Agasar has more than 30 years of experience in retail mortgage management and will lead sales efforts in the Northeast Region. If you’re considering a career move and want to explore opportunities with Pacific Union Financial, contact him at the link above.

Flagstar Bank has added a heavy hitter to its all-star team of warehouse lenders. The new team member is Heather Slapak who comes to Flagstar after an 18-year career as a relationship manager in warehouse lending. Flagstar’s been in the warehouse biz since 1991, and under the leadership of industry veteran, Joe Lathrop, since 1999. It offers lines from $1M to $100M with no minimum volumes required to be sold to Flagstar’s wholesale division. Borrowers receive a dedicated relationship manager and a dedicated processor-no phone queues. You can reach Heather at (248) 408-0078.

In more retail personnel news, congrats to Brian Jensen! Inlanta Mortgage, Inc. announced the addition of 26-year veteran Brian as its Regional Vice President of Business Development. Last year Inlanta moved its corporate headquarters to a new building to accommodate expanding staff, added 4 branches in the 4th quarter, and is focused on expand its footprint in Colorado, Texas, and in the North East. Inlanta Mortgage was established in 1993 and has grown to 39 branches in 16 states and over 250 employees. If you are a mortgage professional and looking to make a career change, please contact Brian Jensen at 630-927-0380.