As reported by the Times of Israel, the following comes from the country that brought the world “Death to Israel!”
Iran treats all threats as credible, even if meant as scare tactic, defense minister says
Iran’s threats — to Israel and the USA — are not looking so smart now. Perhaps that is what’s to be expected if you take a combination of student politics and antisemitism to the world stage.
The foul Iranian regime cannot fall soon enough.
Zohran Mamdani’s campaign for him to become mayor of New York City included a promise that he would arrest Bibi Netanyahu if he entered New York.
There are several interesting points to be made.
Now in the closing part of a dreadful anti-Israel rant, he admits that the promise was legally impossible. He refuses to say when he knew this.
Do people really think this kind of behavior is acceptable? Is this what politics has become?
This week marks my umpteenth aliyahversary — my arrival in Israel as a new immigrant and my return to the homeland of the Jews. Although I reap the benefits every day I am here, it’s good to take time out to consciously mark the occasion and say thanks.
I love living life to a Jewish beat, to a Jewish rhythm.
Instead of going from New Year to Easter to Christmas, I go from Rosh Hashanah, via Yom Kippur, to Sukkot, Chanukah, Purim, and Pesach — with a few fast days thrown in.
I love seeing the various Jewish festivals being marked in the shops, on buses, on the streets, and in the media.
I love that I live my life as a Jew, free from worries about the temperamental hostility of my fellow citizens. I can wear a kippah, should I choose to do so, and it’s not like putting a target on my back unlike in the rest of the world. (Isn’t that shocking and sad?)
Instead of going from Monday to Sunday, I go from Sunday to Shabbat.
I love the growing calm, peace, and quiet that Friday afternoon brings as people get ready for Shabbat, however they may mark it.
And Friday night dinner is a major family occasion here, regardless of religious belief or observance. It’s wonderful and life affirming to experience and see it. Sometimes, on my way to shul on a Friday night, I see visitors coming to our apartment block, typically loaded with one or more trays of food, joining family or friends or both to enjoy a Shabbat evening meal.
I love the regular surprises that the Israeli people bring to the world. For the avoidance of doubt, I’m not arguing any superiority, just celebrating our successes. And, yes, we have our failures to mourn, mainly our political leaders. Our current Prime Minister and government are an embarrassment. Hopefully the next election will sort that out. If not, next year’s aliyahversary post may be more somber!
So, another glorious year of living in Israel has gone by. Here’s to the next one, and many more.
(Let’s not forget this benefit.)
Who said this:
I believe that a strong, independent court allows for the existence of all other institutions in a democracy… Show me one dictatorship, one undemocratic society, where a strong independent court system exists. There’s no such thing. In places with no strong and independent court system, rights cannot be protected. In fact, the difference between countries in which rights are only on paper and those in which there are actual rights — that difference is a strong, independent court. That is the reason that I am doing, and will continue to do, everything I can to protect the court system [so that it remains] strong and independent…
Over the past few months alone, I have scrapped every law that threatened to harm the independence of the system — from the attempt to hold hearings for judges in the Knesset, through limiting petitions to the court, to changing the composition of the committee for selecting judges. I will continue to operate this way. Every time a bill comes across my desk that could harm the independence of Israeli courts, we’ll take it off the table
Was it:
a) Bibi Netanyahu
b) Yehud Olmert
c) Arik Sharon
And the answer is… Bibi Netanyahu.
The hypocrisy is off the scale. The brazen self-interest he promotes is shocking. And yet, there’s every chance he will win the next election. When people say democracy is a poor system — though better than all the rest — this is an outstanding example.
I do, however, wish to make one clarification. Much of the hateful invective towards Israel is allegedly driven only — ha! — by antipathy and worse towards Bibi. If we had a different prime minister, things would be different. That’s what people say. But I don’t believe it. Israel is facing a relentless campaign against the country and all it institutions. Regardless of who is prime minister, they won’t stop Fortunately, we won’t either.
Am Yisrael Chai. Despite Bibi.
I’ve gone back to school. I’m taking a summer course at Reichman University, Herzliya.
The course runs 08:30-13:00 Sunday to Thursday until the end of July, ensuring a bit more hectic life as I try and pack the usual errands and leisure activities into the reduced free time.
It’s strange being back on a university campus after such a long time. In a way it reminds me of working here — surrounded by people most of whom are decades younger than me.
Reichman is a modern campus with just a few hints of its history. It’s interesting to compare it to my first university campus, the University of Strathclyde. It was a city center collection of disparate buildings of varying ages from old to modern. Reichman is almost completely modern though a sprinkling of the older stuff — like what now forms the student union building — remains. The campus is compact, with plenty of open space. Its country setting gives it an added air of detachment.
The university is on land that was a Royal Air Force base during the British Mandate. In the War of Independence, it housed the Israeli Air Force’s very first squadron, becoming the main base of the IDF’s anti-aircraft force. Herzliya airport, which I presume was part of the original setup, is across the road. You are reminded of this by the regular buzzing as small one and two-engined planes land and take off in close proximity.
The IDF gave up the land in 1994, title passing (I believe) to the local authority. At this time, law professor Uriel Reichman stepped in. He wanted to establish a new kind of Israeli higher education institute modeled after elite, private Ivy League schools in the United States. Thus was born the private, non-profit college called the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya, or IDC Herzliya.
The first year there were about 240 students learning in classrooms made from repurposed military barracks. Since then, it’s grown into a full, private university and one of the major centers in the country for international students. For example, my classmates include students from Argentina, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Panama, Russia, Switzerland, South Korea, Ukraine, and the USA
In 2021, the name changed from IDC to Reichmann University to honor its founder.
This place is one of the many jewels in the Israeli state. As much as I’m enjoying my time, I remind myself that I’m lucky to be able to be here and do this.
Much of the hateful discourse in the media (mainstream and social) during the hot war with Iran has been about the relationship between Trump/USA and Netanyahu/Israel.
The general thrust of the poison was (and is) to the effect that Trump does what Netanyahu wants, that the war was Israel’s, and that the USA had no option but do what its Zionist overlords ordered. In other words, The Jews controlled America.
This, of course, is hateful nonsense.
As Sartre said:
Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words…
The anti-Semites…like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.
Source: Anti-Semite and Jew by Jean-Paul Sartre, 1944
With that in mind, let’s turn to an article in today’s Times of Israel:
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi warns that the US-Iran memorandum of understanding obligates US President Donald Trump to “muzzle” Israel and prevent it from militarily threatening Iran, in response to remarks by Defense Minister Israel Katz.
“The terms of the Islamabad MoU are crystal clear and public for all to see. POTUS has committed the US to muzzling its pets in Tel Aviv. If they ignore their master, Iran will school them. Any threat against our People and Leadership will receive Immediate Powerful Response,” Araghchi warns in a post on X.
Yes, you read that correctly. Apparently, the story has changed: now it’s America that controls Israel.
Truly, to be an antisemite is to be especially blessed: you have the capacity, if not the requirement, to hold two conflicting racist tropes in your mind at the same time. Such is the duality of antisemitism.
One of the surprising benefits of me making aliyah (emigrating to Israel) is seeing how much it gets under the skin of many of the antizionists antisemites out there, especially on social media platforms. My aliyah drives them nearly insane. Cue the usual insults and libels.
But no matter how much rage they direct at me, the situation remains the same:
Antizionism is a hate movement.
This initiative has gained traction and is worth following and supporting.
As the Times of Israel reports here:
National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir posted a video on Wednesday in which he is seen taunting activists from a Gaza flotilla intercepted by Israel, immediately sparking an international outcry.
Dozens of activists can be seen in the clip forced to kneel on the ground, with their hands tied, at an Ashdod port facility where they were being processed ahead of their likely deportation.
Those aboard the flotilla intercepted by Israel earlier this week included Italian and Spanish nationals, whose governments said they would summon the respective Israeli ambassadors in their countries for a reprimand over Ben Gvir’s behavior. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a rare rebuke of the far-right cabinet member he appointed, insisting that the national security minister’s conduct was not in line with Israel’s values.
The detained activists are criminals because they tried to break a legal blockade. I have no sympathy for them. If their conditions are not Hilton-level hospitality, that’s tough. But what Ben Gvir did was stupid and unnecessary. It achieved no good. (Well, I’ll come back to that.) It certainly caused Israel harm. The man is a racist, a buffoon, and a disgrace to the country. I despise him. I wish he were gone.
That brings me to the next point. As much as Ben Gvir did the harm, Bibi enabled it by appointing him to the government. Bibi knew what Ben Gvir was, but Bibi’s personal needs — staying in power — were more important to him than the needs of the country. In a responsible democracy not only would Ben Gvir resign, but so would Bibi. Of course, neither will, which says everything about the lack of principles and professionalism in our blasted government.
The second point is to explain why Ben Gvir acted like this. He knows it’s wrong. However, his voters love it. They very much enjoy seeing Israel’s enemies not only beaten, but humiliated. (The same principle drives his death penalty obsession.)
If an Israeli and an Arab fight, for example, a judo contest and the Israeli wins, what should he do? He should shake hands with his opponent. He should be gracious in victory (and defeat). If his Arab opponent refuses to shake hands, that’s on him. The world looking on will form an opinion. If the judo fighter were Ben Gvir, he wouldn’t offer to shake hands. He would laugh, gesticulate, and do his level best to humiliate the losing opponent. Guess what? The world looking on will form an opinion.
The final point about this tawdry episode is that it also highlights that a universal suffrage democracy is not a perfect system. Everybody gets one vote, but not all votes are cast by principled thinkers. Some of the population are like Ben Gvir. They like to lord it over beaten enemies. So, they vote for Ben Gvir. And, so the circle continues, that’s why Ben Gvir acts the way he does. I don’t offer this observation as a precursor to damning democracy, but instead to remind us all that it has its advantages and disadvantages.
I suspect, but this is pure speculation, Israel would benefit from moving away from a countrywide proportional representation system to one with constituents. That should dilute the Ben Gvir rabble enough to enable better quality candidates. And, yes, I recognize this is not an objective observation; it’s purely subjective and prone to bias.
I thought about how to punish the flotilla criminals. I posted this on X:
As for a suitable punishment for the flotilla members, I suggest they be sentenced to 21 days hard labor working to help deliver aid to Gaza. Let them schlep crates and sacks for three weeks and actually deliver aid!
If you have any better ideas, do share them!