[AmericanThinker] The wave of alleged "pro-Palestinian" demonstrations whose slogans embrace the Iranian-backed Hamas terrorist group are routinely denounced as anti-Semitism. Certainly, the brutality of the attacks by Hamas on October 7, which were directed at civilians including the beheading of babies, expressed genocidal hatred. And chants by misnamed "antiwar" protesters on college campuses and in the streets to "gas the Jews" and wipe Israel off the map "from the river to the sea" are also genocidal threats. But what has triggered these actions is more complex than anti-Semitism and broader in ambition.
The Department of State has a section on its website dedicated to defining anti-Semitism and presenting examples. One of the most common is "Accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of their own nations." This leads to defining Jews are being "them" rather than "us" and justifying actions against them as aliens. Closely related is "the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy or of Jews controlling the media, economy, government or other societal institutions." So, they are hostile aliens. There are clearly elements of both in the current protests and in the ideologies that have generated the protests. This is true, sadly, even in some mainstream venues such as "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy" by professors Stephen Walt (Harvard University) and John J. Mearsheimer (University of Chicago). This accusation is made to advance the authors’ campaign for an isolationist foreign policy which they see the alleged Israeli lobby as thwarting by keeping us engaged in foreign wars. There is a long dark history behind this argument.
J. A. Hobson in his seminal 1902 book Imperialism: A Study alleged that Jewish bankers were behind Western expansion across the world and were the only ones who gained by war because they financed what came to be called the "military-industrial complex." As late as 1938, when Nazi Germany was conducting its pogrom leading to the Holocaust, Hobson’s new edition still accused "men of a singular and peculiar race" of being the main element of "the central ganglion of international capitalism." Like Walt and Mearsheimer, Hobson was using the defamation of Jews as a means to an end, in his case the overthrow of capitalism. And it is this tactic that expands anti-Semitism into a threat that menaces all of us. It assails the modern world created by the vigorous and innovative economic system of capitalism, bounded and guided by the values and energy of western civilization. If Jews were once attacked for being outside society, they are now being attacked for being the vanguard of society. And in the Middle East, Israel is called a "Crusader State" established as an outpost of the West.
Student activists and the faculty members who have filled their heads with this mush (to use Rush Limbaugh’s polite term for what we really know originates from where the sun don’t shine) have no direct interest in the Israeli-Hamas (Iranian) conflict. So why would they choose against Israel, a democratic society with liberal values allied with the country within which they live? Is it pure ignorance, like the Harvard group "Queers for Palestine" which does not seem to realize that under Palestinian law, being homosexual is punishable by up to 10 years in prison and in Hamas-ruled Gaza, by death? Or has Israel simply been assigned a role in a larger ideological drama: the domestic war against western values and success?
The success of the West in creating the modern world, first in Europe and then by extension, pollination, and imitation around the globe, is undeniable. The original Marxist notion that it would become unbearable for the vast majority of exploited workers has proven to be nonsense as living standards have risen to heights undreamed up before the wave after wave of Industrial Revolutions. The leftist vision of despair has manifested itself far more often in areas that tried to substitute intellectual theory for this real-world experience. The evolution of China is the most spectacular case of a land with a rich heritage being driven into the ground by the Marxist radicalism of Mao Zedong. Yet, despite its brutality, Julia Lovell has shown how "Maoism" was held in high regard by leftists everywhere, including in American universities. Post-Mao reformers adopted a form of state capitalism which generated rapid growth in national capacity and personal wealth even if it adopted only part of the Western model.
...The intellectual attack is no longer based on claiming they could do better. It is now based on claiming our success is immoral, the result of slavery at home and imperialism overseas; and with the sin of climate change recently added to the list. The charge that Israel is a "settler colony" is the tip of the iceberg in this campaign as the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and other affluent remnants of empire also fit this description. They think they can use Islam. That's on par with "Queers for Palestine".
Posted by: Grom the Reflective ||
11/01/2023 05:29 ||
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[ZERO] The backlash to woke culture - which is championed by annoying, politically correct, judgemental, authoritarian, censorious, hypocritical self-anointed masters of the universe - is reaching a crescendo.
Last week we noted how Disney punted its Snow White remake into 2025 as Southpark destroyed them for woke casting in general.
#3
Last week we noted how Disney punted its Snow White remake into 2025 as Southpark destroyed them for woke casting in general.
I've seen a couple reports that Disney's Kathleen Kennedy - a primary target of the South park ep - has had at least a couple Biblical-level meltdowns over it.
#4
^ It takes a speshul talent to destroy that many franchises and lose so much money
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/01/2023 8:54 Comments ||
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#5
The think is they lost *potential* money on Star Wars but each film actually made money so they were able justify the damage they've done as worthwhile or just blame the predictions as being overly enthusiastic.. At least they could until now.
#6
If it makes you feel better grom, she was going to be the best part of the movie and likely the one the majority of the potential audience cheers for.
If it even comes out. I understand it has been shit canned for at least another year.
[RT] From Hollywood studios to beer makers and personal hygiene brands, for the past decade corporate America has been pushing increasingly progressive ideology, often to the outrage of a large portion of its target audiences and even to the detriment of its sales. But judging by recent statements made by some of the most influential figures in finance, there may be a small glimmer of hope at the end of this "woke" nightmare.
Over the years, the phrase ’get woke, go broke’ has time and time again proven to be more than just a popular catchphrase. Take for example Gillette, which cost its owner Procter & Gamble $8 billion after the release of its infamous commercial that tried to take a dig at "toxic masculinity." Or Budweiser, whose Bud Light used to be one of America’s top-selling beers but is now facing a nationwide boycott after the company did a catastrophic collaboration with transgender activist Dylan Stench of Death Mulvaney ...the transexual influencer who single-handedly trashed a major American beer brand owned by a Belgian company, tainted Maybelline and Condé Nast, and then demanded that anybody who called him/her/it a man be arrested... And, of course, there are Disney and Netflix who are still trying to win back their audiences after consistently releasing formulaic, preachy, LGBTQ agenda-driven films and TV shows that audiences are refusing to watch.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Grom the Reflective ||
11/01/2023 00:00 ||
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#1
With Lower to Middle America's net income $$$$$ stretched thin and the 21+% Shrinkflation rates of many basic items. It is not hard to boycott any business that wants to play Social politics and instead staying focused on producing a good & affordable product.
[Federalist] While America’s military leadership once prioritized the well-being of their troops, today, it seems far more concerned about funding abortions and never-ending proxy wars.
On Friday, Military.com reported that the military has failed to compensate roughly 9,000 National Guardsmen "the bonuses they were promised for signing up" to serve, with some payments having "been missing for years." According to the report, the Guard is also "tracking an additional 3,900 soldiers who completed their service and left the military without getting any bonus payment, though some may have lost eligibility."
As noted by the outlet, these bonuses, which can total as high as $20,000, are divvied up over the course of soldiers’ enlistment contracts, with the first half to be distributed after an enlistee completes initial service training. Meanwhile, the second half is "disbursed halfway through soldiers’ first contracts."
Guard officials claim the usual waiting period to receive the first bonus is six months, although enlistees and their families have indicated "it can take years" to receive the payments.
#5
The key term is "National Guardsmen". The social hierarchy in the military establishment roughly goes (top) "Ring Knockers" officer graduates of the service academies, NROTC officers, regular enlisted, with the Reservists and then National Guardsmen being the last in line for benefits. Having a powerful ranking member in Congress can somewhat offset this, but...
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited by Aleksandr Kargin
[REGNUM] The war in the Middle East will end sooner or later, and Israel will fully ask the age-old Russian question “who is to blame?” Who is responsible for the failure of the IDF on the first day of the war and the dire consequences associated with it?
It started the same way on Yom Kippur, 1973.
Most likely, the country's leaders will be declared guilty. In fact, the heads of the Israeli intelligence services and Prime Minister Netanyahu have already admitted that what happened is the result of their failure.
In parallel, there are now many conspiracy theories circulating within the Jewish state that are intended to somehow rationalize and explain what happened.
But what if the matter is somewhat different?
It is possible that the sad answer for the Israelis is about the reason for the effectiveness of the bloody attack by Hamas militants in the other direction and at the same time on the surface.
I believe that any person who has lived or often visited Israel knows that, along with the sea, the sun and sympathetic people, one of the main characteristics of Israeli society is a mess.
We are talking about the appalling disorganization and sloppiness that permeate almost all spheres of Israeli life.
Literally no matter what.
A terrible post office that loses almost a third of all items, and those that arrive take months. And this despite the fact that all of Israel is smaller in territory than the Moscow region. Public transport always running out of schedule and breaking down. Disgusting delivery, when the order is thrown at the entrance of the house, without reaching the apartment, or can be left on the next street.
In general, service in Israel is practically absent as a phenomenon.
This also includes banking: anyone who has encountered Israeli banks knows that it is hell with eternal confusion, freezing applications, unqualified employees and a lot of time wasted on simple banking transactions.
This mental specificity of Israeli society dates back to the birth of the Zionist movement.
After all, Israel was built by idealists who came from Jewish shtetls - everything was based on personal relationships, informal interaction and horizontal connections, and not a strict hierarchical system.
Plus, at the time of the founding of the state, the socialists prevailed, who incredibly strengthened the trade unions. For this reason, in Israel, dismissing a negligent employee is still an incredibly difficult task, which clearly does not encourage people to conscientiously perform their duties.
Returning to the possible cause of the “Black Shabbat” catastrophe (as October 7 of this year is called in Israel), we summarize: the disorder taking place almost everywhere in Israel, alas, could not help but sooner or later spread to the security sphere.
After all, a girl waitress who forgets and confuses an order is the same soldier who must carefully (!) and without distraction (!) monitor the situation at the border on the monitor.
Even now, when hostilities are in full swing, the peculiarities of the Israeli worldview have not disappeared. Various videos and photos are popping up on the Internet of how men come to do manicures to mobilized female soldiers stationed on the border with Gaza, and in the evenings relaxed soldiers throw parties with barbecues, music and dancing.
During the time of young Israel, all these mental characteristics were leveled out by the increased personal responsibility of Israelis for themselves and their country. After all, behind that generation stood the Holocaust, not the memory of it, but directly the catastrophe of European Jewry itself.
The era has changed. However, as life shows, Israel should not expect a cloudless future and much will depend on how willing Israelis are to change in a rapidly changing world.
#1
1) What 'failure' are they talking about? It's not explicitly mentioned in the article.
2) This war's going to be a long one. it's like a sports columnist shitting on a team when they might be down by a run in the first innning of the first game of a seven game series.
Tet Offensive-a sneak attack...
"The Viet Cong (VC) and North Vietnamese People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) launched a sneak attack on January 30, 1968, against the forces of the South Vietnamese Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN), the United States Armed Forces and their allies."
#4
Both Israel intel and operations failures will be diligently investigated.
Many people will have jobs lost and reputations ruined. This in the IDF, Mossad, Shin Bet and govt.
Unlike in the USA where nobody is held responsible for the disaster of the Afghanistan withdrawal chaos or the weakness that led to the Ukraine invasion, etc.
Posted by: lord garth ||
11/01/2023 14:20 Comments ||
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[GlobesIsrael] The Gaza Strip is one of the poorest places on earth, but its leaders bask in huge wealth.
Much like its underground tunnel network, it can't be seen from the surface but the underside of Gaza City is lined with cash. While Gaza is considered one of the poorest regions in the world, its leaders enjoy lives of luxury, many with fortunes of millions or billions of dollars.
Gaza suffers from an unemployment rate of over 60%. In a 2022 World Bank report, GDP per capita in Gaza was estimated at $1,257, approximately one-fourth the estimated $4,458 GDP per capita in the West Bank. These figures make it one of the world's most impoverished places. Many attribute its limited economic growth to the Israeli-Egyptian blockade that, since 2007, has imposed restrictions on goods entering or exiting the Gaza Strip. This argument, however, ignores a fundamental issue in Gaza, which is the wealth of the Palestinian leadership.
The Hamas leadership built its wealth mainly through the booming tunnel industry, with Hamas officials imposing taxes, generally 20%, on all goods smuggled through the tunnels. Unlike the secrecy surrounding the tunnels themselves, their role in enriching Hamas and its supporters has long been out in the open.
Today, more than half of the residents of Gaza live in severe poverty, but already in 2012, there were reports of some 600 millionaires living in Gaza, who made their fortunes thanks to the hundreds of underground tunnels along the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt. At that time, newspaper Al Monitor, as cited by The Tower, described the trade through the tunnels as the factor that "gave birth to a new class of rich people who managed to accumulate a huge fortune in a short period of time".
Many of the senior members of the terrorist organization that controls Gaza keep a low public profile, and some have spent a considerable proportion of their lives evading assassination attempts by Israel. For years, their wealth was also considered a mystery. Today, much is already known about the way in which these individuals, born and raised in refugee camps, were transformed into reclusive tycoons. But since the day Hamas shocked Israel with the deadliest attack ever launched from Gaza, questions have surfaced anew.
PRIVILEGES AND PERKS FOR HANIYEH'S OFFSPRING
A few hours after the outbreak of the Hamas attack on Israel, according to The Times of Israel, Hamas leader and puppet-master Ismail Haniyeh (61) was seen on video celebrating the invasion from his luxurious office in Doha, the capital of Qatar, while he and other senior Hamas officials cheered happily before prostrating themselves on the floor, in praise of Allah.
During his long years as a senior Hamas official, Haniyeh, who was elected head of the organization's political bureau in 2017, has accumulated an impressive fortune. He has lived in Qatar since 2019. His exact net worth is unknown, but today is estimated to be at least $5 million.
Haniyeh, who in 2018 was designated as a terrorist by the US State Department, has acquired impressive assets over the years. In 2010, Haniyeh paid $4 million for a 2,500 square meter plot of land in Rimal, Gaza's posh beachfront neighborhood, near the Shati refugee camp where he grew up. He registered the land in his son-in-law's name, according to Egyptian weekly Rose al-Y?suf.
Since then, Haniyeh has reportedly purchased additional houses and registered them too in the names of some of his 13 children. One of his sons is even known in Gaza as Abu al-Akerat, or "father of real estate". Haniyeh's children exploit their privileged status both inside and outside Gaza. Having obtained a Turkish passport, according to reports, Haniyeh's son travels to and from Gaza, investing in properties in Turkey, joining the family's international enterprises. Meanwhile, according to reports, Haniyeh's children own generators, and sell electricity inside Gaza, a rare commodity that they themselves get for free.
Already in 2021, The Jerusalem Post reported on intelligence information indicating that, from the early 2000s and up until 2018, Hamas controlled some 40 commercial companies in Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Algeria and Sudan. Citing business intelligence website Double Cheque, it was reported that most of the companies were in the real estate and infrastructure sectors. "Hamas has chosen to manage its secret investment portfolio in Turkey because of the weak financial system in Turkey, which enables Hamas to hide its money-laundering activity and tax violations from the regulatory bodies". According to Double Cheque, these were assets worth about $500 million.
PERSIAN GULF REAL ESTATE AND FINANCIAL CONGLOMERATES
Haniyeh isn't the only one. Towards the end of last year, according to The Times of Israel, more and more high-profile Hamas officials moved from Gaza to luxury hotels in Beirut, Doha, and Istanbul, where they maintain a life of opulence and extravagance that the residents of Gaza - whom they claim to represent - would not dare dream of in their wildest imagination.
The person leading Hamas inside the Gaza Strip, Yahya Sinwar (60), has also amassed a considerable fortune, estimated at $1-3 million, according to the BBC. Sinwar, who was born in the Khan Yunis refugee camp during Egypt's rule of the Gaza Strip, is the founder of the Hamas security service. Although he was sentenced to four life sentences in Israel in 1988, he was released in deal to bring back captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, and was reinstated as a senior Hamas leader. In 2017, he was appointed chief of Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
In addition, there is the person known to the Palestinians as "The Brain", to the Israelis as "The Cat with Nine Lives", and now also as the planner (together with Haniyeh), of the most recent terrorist attack. For years, Israel has considered Mohammed Deif among the most wanted Hamas leaders, as well as among the most elusive. To date, a total of three photos of Deif have been issued: one of Deif in his twenties, another in which he wears a mask, and a the third where only his shadow is visible.
Deif (58, born Mohammed Masri), who leads the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Hamas movement, was nicknamed thanks to having evaded seven Israeli assassination attempts, the last one in 2021. According to media sources, at June 1, 2023, Deif's estimated net worth was approximately $5 million.
Khaled Mashal (67), who was born in Silwad in the West Bank, then under Jordanian control, was also central to the terrorist organization. In 1992, Mashal played a key role in establishing the core Hamas leadership, and eventually rose to the top. Like Haniyeh and others, he also lives in Qatar today, and is known for having invested in Egyptian banks, and real estate projects in the Persian Gulf countries, amassing considerable wealth. He is considered one of the leadership's richest people. His personal wealth was estimated to be in the billions of dollars a decade ago by publications in the Arab world. It is currently estimated at about $5 billion.
Mashal's deputy, Dr. Musa Abu Marzouk, previously considered number two in the Hamas hierarchy, has also long since established his position on the Hamas list of tycoons. According to Dr. Col. (res.) Moshe Elad, lecturer in Political Sciences and History of the Middle East at the Western Galilee College, back in the early 1990s, Marzouk launched a fundraising campaign in the US among wealthy Muslims, and at the same time founded several banking operations. Elad told Globes that Marzouk had turned himself into a conglomerate of 10 financial enterprises, giving loans and making investments.
CRYPTO - THE INTERNATIONAL SANCTIONS WORKAROUND
In addition to the tunnels tax industry, global financing networks, and international businesses, Reuters recently reported that senior Hamas officials had found a way to circumvent international sanctions: cryptocurrency.
American counter-terrorism expert Matthew Levitt told Reuters that the bulk of Hamas's budget, more than $300 million, came from taxes on businesses, as well as from countries such as Iran and Qatar, or charities. Hamas, which has been sanctioned as a terrorist organization by the US and Britain, for example, has increasingly used cryptocurrencies to avoid international restrictions, Levitt said.
Tom Robinson, co-founder of blockchain research firm Elliptic, told Reuters that "Hamas has been one of the more successful users of crypto for the financing of terrorism". After the outbreak of violence of May 2021, Hamas-controlled crypto addresses received more than $400,000, according to blockchain researchers TRM Labs.
However, reports Reuters, after large losses this year, and because of the ability to track transactions in the cryptocurrency accounting system, senior Hamas officials said they would stay away from these currencies. It is likely that these crypto losses will be easily recouped, thanks to support from Iran, which last year significantly increased annual funding for Hamas's military wing from $100 million to about $350 million.
Posted by: Tom ||
11/01/2023 12:26 Comments ||
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#3
The way it’s going, having a tunneling concession in Gaza will prove increasingly lucrative. Folks will be needing tunnels to get just about anywhere.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
11/01/2023 13:10 Comments ||
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#4
My twitter I have a half dozen posts about the Gaza "Open Air Prison".
- They have fancy five star beach front Hotels
- They have a Michelin Star Restaurant
- Fancy Bed and Breakfasts
- A nice beach with fun and games
- They even have a trendy gato / cat cafe
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
...the transexual 
