Back to the subject:

I recently saw the pictures of that Israeli woman behind a pickup truck. I usually try to avoid visual news stories when they are too graphic. Needles to say that it’s rather normal for Israelis to do exactly what they are doing.

But no one seems to have a plan for a more durable solution in that region. I see all the population of the entire region as being trapped between a Jewish types of fundamentalism (messianic approaches that do not correspond to the reality of our world) and an Islamic brand of fundamentalism (which, as I tried to explain in all of my posts, has nothing to do with any type of spirituality that I know of).

In the colonial era and even as late as the 60’s this entire area was something. Cities like Beirut, Tehran, Cairo, Kandahar, and Baghdad were rather nice places to live in. Today you could nuke the whole place and no one will notice.

Beyond any other issue, people have lost the feeling of being civilized. I think the whole world has to meditate on that aspect of the problem.

Pro-Palestinian University protests do not seem to be ending. Here is an image from Wayne State University in Detroit:
 
 

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Israel is also divided between proponents of peace and those who simply want to annex all of Palestine. Spain-Ireland-Sweden have already recognized Palestinian Statehood and many other countries like France are also set to do so in the future.
 
I am starting to believe that there may be steps (after this war) to changes the 75 years old status-quo and hypocrisy in that issue and thus a more logical approach to the whole problem in general.

Very interesting images are coming from around the white house:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/smoke-palesti...39719.html

The IDF has liberated 4 Nova Festival hostages yesterday. It’s good to see the Israeli Prime Minister visiting them like he did after the hell they have been through during more than 6 months. But the next report I saw after that was one full of corpses (as it is the case… since I was old enough to watch the news essentially).

Russian State Media is currently saying that Mr Netanyahu is trying to add his name to history books as the conqueror of Gaza.

So like those young Protestors in D.C. I think there has to be more initiative for more peaceful solutions to this conflict.

I guess they should shut down the dome because we need more violence and death in the Israel-Palestine conflict.

I came upon two very interesting Noam Chomsky Videos yesterday that I think might give us some insight on this seemingly endless conflict happening in the middle-East. I personally like to take most of Mr. Chomsky’s words with a grain of salt because on the inside, he is still a far-left individual who belongs more to the 60’s and 70’s than the present era (in terms of energy and ideological convictions).





 
03:40 – 04:00 part is very interesting. Noam Chomsky is saying “Israel provided a major service to the united states by destroying secular Arab Nationalism (a major enemy of the United States” and supporting Radical Islam (Translation by me: Political Islam) which the US supported and continues right until the present).
 
+ Mr. Chomsky is very critical of the US invasion of Vietnam, Iraq (and also Afghanistan).
 
This is what I call “The Works of the Weapon’s industry lobby”. Sadhguru says that once you start building massive numbers of weapons, it is foolish to think that these will hopefully never be used. I am convinced of the fact that after a given limit, supply is creating demand more than the opposite.

I also found this video that is a shorter version of the previous video:





 
 I like the ideas in this video because as a historian of some sort, my first knowledge about a Jewish State in Palestine goes back to the time of King Herod in the 1st century AD. And the cause of the exodus of Jew from Judea was that they were forced to leave by the Emperor Trajan who invaded the whole area and renamed it a Palestine after a revolt in the beginning of the second century AD.

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Here is a relief from Arch of Titus in Rome:



(Roman Soldiers here are returning from Judea carrying a Menorah + other objects from the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem).

 

I don’t know about if there was a Jewish state in Israel / Palestine / Judea / whatever before that. I’m almost sure there wasn’t anything like that in the Bronze Age because this was an area that was contested between the Hittites and the Egyptians with many principalities vowing allegiance to one side or the other.

 
So the issue is more complicated that the claims of ultra-orthodox Jews that’s for sure

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I think that both of the videos here are pointing to the fact that a better approach that is based on more rational and more constructive ideas is clearly needed here. I’ll leave the more philosophical aspects to Mr. Chomsky (he has other videos on the issue if you are interested) but on a more practical level, they may be headed toward a problem without a solution.
 
My greater concern is: If you bury secular Arab Nationalism and hand over an entire region to Radical Islam (that I prefer to describe as “political Islam”) then what happens with an increasingly ultra-orthodox Jewish state which happens to be located in that very same area?
 
/ I think everyone needs to start thinking about what it is they are trying to do here, don’t you agree?

This video of Arnie somehow appeared right after I wrote the stuff above. People were naïve to think everything was over in May 8th 1945 when Nazi Germany surrendered to the Allies. Jean Paul Sartre warned us that “The germs of the black death had not simply vanished but that they were waiting, hidden in some dark places to resurface again when the time would come.

 
So Arnie has some interesting ideas on that and I think it’s worth watching:

Weird protests are happening in the NY subway. I didn’t quite get it. (This sheet they are holding against the cameras is called "Keffiyeh". It’s a headdress that you fixate on the head with some round rope like element that makes you look like a real MBS )

I just listened to the speech of the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the US Congress (allegedly his 4t speech there / and it is a privilege: not every foreign politician gets to address the US Congress). It wasn’t a bad performance either. I think the man has a point on many issues. I was also impressed by the overall enthusiasm of the audience. The simple fact is: there is no other approach toward what is pure and simple Barbary.
 
The nuance I would add to this is: Israel / Netanyahu himself (+ the US of course) did everything to destroy the secular PLO and promote (some people say radical- Islamists other say barbaric) Hamas terror group just to have a pretext to do exactly what they are doing right now in Gaza and in the West Bank.
 
I will even be a little Chomsky-like on that and add that many foreign powers were and are still involved with those “radical Islam” entities like the IRI and this in turn is coming back and biting these very same entities (Like Bin Laden being trained by the CIA and using everything he learned to kill Americans in 9/11).
 
So I have to disagree with Netanyahu’s view on Pro-Palestinian Protesters. I don’t think these guys are anti-Semite + they are definitely not “Backed by Iran”. IRI spoke persons are no different than Putin on this respect. Putin could be on Rossiya 1 right now saying beautiful things about us right now, I don’t think it would mean anything to anyone.
 
Besides, Mr. Netanyahu is a controversial figure even within Israel. I personally don’t think he understands that long-term peace is simply too difficult without a permanent, secular and democratic Palestinian State that is not being permanently harassed by the IDF and extremely radicalized Jewish settlers. But we all have our opinions right? 
 
https://www.yahoo.com/news/capitol-hill-...31146.html

(July 24, 2024 at 3:51 pm)Leonardo17 Wrote: I just listened to the speech of the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the US Congress (allegedly his 4t speech there / and it is a privilege: not every foreign politician gets to address the US Congress). It wasn’t a bad performance either. I think the man has a point on many issues. I was also impressed by the overall enthusiasm of the audience. The simple fact is: there is no other approach toward what is pure and simple Barbary.
 
The nuance I would add to this is: Israel / Netanyahu himself (+ the US of course) did everything to destroy the secular PLO and promote (some people say radical- Islamists other say barbaric) Hamas terror group just to have a pretext to do exactly what they are doing right now in Gaza and in the West Bank.
 
I will even be a little Chomsky-like on that and add that many foreign powers were and are still involved with those “radical Islam” entities like the IRI and this in turn is coming back and biting these very same entities (Like Bin Laden being trained by the CIA and using everything he learned to kill Americans in 9/11).
 
So I have to disagree with Netanyahu’s view on Pro-Palestinian Protesters. I don’t think these guys are anti-Semite + they are definitely not “Backed by Iran”. IRI spoke persons are no different than Putin on this respect. Putin could be on Rossiya 1 right now saying beautiful things about us right now, I don’t think it would mean anything to anyone.
 
Besides, Mr. Netanyahu is a controversial figure even within Israel. I personally don’t think he understands that long-term peace is simply too difficult without a permanent, secular and democratic Palestinian State that is not being permanently harassed by the IDF and extremely radicalized Jewish settlers. But we all have our opinions right? 
 
https://www.yahoo.com/news/capitol-hill-...31146.html

The moment he halts the attack on Gaza, he will face, and likely lose, a vote of confidence due to the Hamas attack being a complete surprise.

   While these university protests are actually the only force that can bring this almost century-old war to an end it is good to keep some distance with these protests. That’s what vice-president Kamala Harris did in her latest rally:
 
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/poli...714086007/
 
(She says “If you want Donald Trump to win, then sat that otherwise I’m speaking”)
 
I think the Biden camp has already displayed a lot of criticism against Netanyahu’s openly extremist policies while the republican camp has a more anti-Hamas type of attitude (which is a position that has very obvious reasons too).
 
For me the simple reality is that there is a more extreme type of Zionism (that aims to take over all of Palestine) which is feeding in the first place more extreme versions of political Islam. Which is giving a pretext to the Zionist by allowing them to say things like “these are all modernized savages”. Which is causing eve the more neutral elements in middle-eastern societies to adopt a more anti-Israel stance. Which is causing the Israelis to feel all alone and “special” and therefore to do more damage on local populations.
 
   So a balanced approach is needed. I think Vice President Kamala Harris can do that if she is elected. I think pro-Palestine student movements can support her in doing it.

   Protests have been organized before the Democratic National Congress in Chicago. The main message here is “10 months of genocide is ten months too much”.
 
https://www.yahoo.com/news/pro-palestini...55379.html
 
   The problem here is that Zionists don’t seem able to solve this. Political İslamists are not (cannot) be anywhere close to solving this issue. If this was a street fight there would have been two solutions. 1) You let them fight until both of them gets tired. 2) You separate them and you make sure these two remain separated for a few days.
 
   So that’s what these protests are about. On a personal level I dislike all political islamist movements and I dislike Israel’s far right in the same way I dislike the far-right in any other nation in the world. I see this type of approach as pure arrogance that doesn’t have a place in this century.
 
That’s why these protests are so important.