just sayin':

noting similarity to a Lauren Boebert Chistmas card

Yglesias to Ponomarenko

From wikipedia on Benny Morris: 

[....] Morris told Shavit that his views changed in 2000 after the Palestinian rejection of President Clinton's peace accords and the beginning of the Second Intifada. He had originally viewed the First Intifada as a legitimate uprising against foreign occupation, and was imprisoned for refusing to serve in the occupied territories as a reservist. In contrast, he has characterized the Second Intifada as a war waged by the Palestinians against Israel with the intention of bringing Israeli society to a state of collapse. According to Morris, "The bombing of the buses and restaurants really shook me. They made me understand the depth of the hatred for us."[6]

Morris told Shavit that he still describes himself as being left-wing because of his support for the two-state solution, but he believes his generation will not see peace in Israel.[6] He has said, "I don't see the suicide bombings as isolated acts. They express the deep will of the Palestinian people. That is what the majority of the Palestinians want."[6] On the subject of "people the Palestinian society sends to carry out the terrorist attacks," he calls them "serial killers" and "barbarians who want to take our lives".[6]

In the same interview, Morris called Israeli Arabs "a time bomb," claiming that "their slide into complete Palestinization has made them an emissary of the enemy that is among us. They are a potential fifth column." On the subject of the potential expulsion of Israeli-Arabs, he stated that "in the present circumstances it is neither moral nor realistic. The world would not allow it, the Arab world would not allow it, it would destroy the Jewish society from within. But I am ready to tell you that in other circumstances, apocalyptic ones, which are liable to be realized in five or ten years, I can see expulsions. If we find ourselves with atomic weapons around us, or if there is a general Arab attack on us and a situation of warfare on the front with Arabs in the rear shooting at convoys on their way to the front, acts of expulsion will be entirely reasonable. They may even be essential."[6]

Morris called the Israel–Palestinian conflict a facet of a global clash of civilisations between Islam and the Western World in the Haaretz interview, saying, "There is a deep problem in Islam. It's a world whose values are different. A world in which human life doesn't have the same value as it does in the West, in which freedom, democracy, openness and creativity are alien...Revenge plays a central part in the Arab tribal culture. Therefore, the people we are fighting and the society that sends them have no moral inhibitions."[6] [....]

Again:

I don’t think folks are prepared for how devastating the Israeli response is going to be.

I’ve been asked how aggressive I think they’ll go?

At this point, I don’t think anything is off the table — up to and including a preemptive nuclear strike on Iran. https://t.co/jS5XNaWkAJ

— Angry Staffer (@Angry_Staffer) October 8, 2023

quoting

Senator Cory Booker, in Israel, describing what the beginning of the attacks were like

Among other things,I note he mentions being with "many Americans"

Obama statement:

continuation:

let alone sovereignty, without being a threat to the existence of Israel. We're back to June 11, 1967.

He is a research fellow at The Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), a non-partisan institution focusing on national security and foreign policy.

Here's the half-minute "the bulldozers are here, God is great..." video with subtitles. If you can stomach mad-dog religious fervor, I recommend watching with sound on

https://vp.nyt.com/video/2023/10/07/112054_1_07vid-israel-carousel-87892_wg_480p.mp4

the latest from current U.S. Sec. of State Blinken:

before those 2, he retweeted this from Pres.Biden 6 hrs. ago:

3 videos from the IDF:

What We Know About the Americans Who Were Missing or Killed

Officials confirmed that 14 U.S. citizens were among at least 1,000 people killed during an attack on Israel, and said “20 or more” Americans were missing.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/10/world/middleeast/israel-hamas-american-deaths-hostages.html

The information has fueled doubts in the United States that Iran, a longtime supporter of the Palestinian militant group, played a direct role in planning the assault in Israel.

Analysis that makes sense to me:

continued

a sense that the Israeli public now has the stomach for a high-casualty war (think 10s of thousands of IDF losses). If that’s the case, then all Hamas can do is hope that the US and other western powers eventually slam on the breaks before its military apparatus is effectively destroyed (or at least put into a state that will take many years to recover from). Bottom line: if Israelis are willing to die or sacrifice their children to beat Hamas, Hamas will ultimately be finished as a force capable of doing meaningful damage. (Of course, what happens ‘the day after’ is a question that I’m not sure anyone has a good answer to).

He's in the U.S. now but was a reservist with experience on the Gaza border a decade ago:

Laura Rozen

she retweeted

Dead is dead and murdered is murdered, but should you care about this sort of thing for another reason:

what I suspected may happen may be happening: Israel warns 1.1m people to flee north Gaza within 24 hours - UN is the current headline at BBC News' live coverage

Summary

1. Israel is telling everyone in north Gaza to relocate to the south of the Strip in the next 24 hours, according to the United Nations
2. It means the entire population of Gaza City and its surroundings - about 1.1 million people - having to flee their homes, the UN says
3. Israel's military has directly told Gaza City residents to leave for their "safety and protection", as its forces mass ahead of an expected ground offensive
4. The UN says the order will have "devastating humanitarian consequences" and has called on Israel to revoke it
5. Hamas kidnapped at least 150 people and took them into Gaza during deadly attacks on Israel at the weekend that killed 1,300 people
6. More than 1,400 people have been killed in Gaza since Israel launched retaliatory air strikes, Palestinian health officials say
7. The bombardment comes amid a total blockade, with fuel, food and water running out. Israel says it won't lift the restrictions unless Hamas frees all hostages.

 [....]

(my underlining) 

reiterated today

Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, called Hamas's attacks in Israel “terrorism” and “an act of war” and said that Israel had the right to defend itself. “Europe stands with Israel,” she told reporters in an event with Israel’s prime minister, Benajmin Netanayhu, adding, “Hamas’s acts have nothing to do with the legitimate aspiration of the Palestinian people. And I know that how Israel responds will show that it is a democracy.”

29 minutes ago @ NYTimes.com

Mohammed Shatayyeh, the Palestinian Authority prime minister, said in a news conference that the authority is coordinating with international parties to secure a “safe corridor” to deliver humanitarian aid through the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt.

15 minutes ago @ NYTimes.com

Officials from Iran and Hezbollah helped plan the attack, people familiar with the operation said, but the U.S. and its allies have not found evidence directly linking Tehran"

Oct. 13 NYTimes article By Farnaz Fassihi and Ronen Bergman

Farnaz Fassihi is a reporter for The New York Times based in New York. Previously she was a senior writer and war correspondent for the Wall Street Journal for 17 years based in the Middle East. More about Farnaz Fassihi

Ronen Bergman is a staff writer for The New York Times Magazine, based in Tel Aviv. His latest book is “Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel’s Targeted Assassinations,” published by Random House. More about Ronen Bergman

well summarized in a Twitter thread starting here

Aayan Hirsh Ali:

I was raised to curse Israel and pray for the destruction of Jews, writes AYAAN HIRSI ALI... That's why I know all too well Hamas is another ISIS - whatever useful idiots in the West say

An initial look at where Israel has hit Gaza (interactive map)

A new analysis of satellite imagery shows an estimate of the areas in Gaza that were significantly damaged in the first six days of Israel’s retaliatory airstrikes. The Israeli Air Force said it dropped about 6,000 bombs throughout Gaza over that time.

Oct. 14, 2023

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/10/07/world/middleeast/israel-gaza-maps.html

Aleppo’s international airport is closed after Israel attacked it overnight, according to Syrian state media. There was no immediate comment from Israel, but Joshua Zarka, a senior Foreign Ministry official, confirmed that Israel was seeking to preempt Iran from moving weapons to or via Syria. He did not specifically address the Syrian allegation that Israel had struck the airport.

Oct. 15, 2023, 2:47 a.m. ET 2 hours ago

Aaron Boxerman

Reporting from Jerusalem

poll of American public, support of Israel

continued

they do not believe the trap can be evaded. They believe that to allow Hamas to continue to exist on their border is certain destruction.

continued

2023 by consensus (with its 22 members states including Palestine voting yes) the land-for-peace initiative with Israel. Hamas refuses the Arab League plan, its charter says violence is only way to liberate Palestine from River to Sea.
- The Arab League in 1964, Organization of Islamic States in 1970, the UN General Assembly in 1974, Israel in 1993, all recognized the PLO as the “sole and legitimate representative of the Palestinian people.” Hamas is not member of PLO, and doesn’t endorse PLO charter for peace (as amended in 1988). Hamas doesn’t represent Palestinians.
- Arab League, PLO, and UN Security Council in its resolutions 1397 and 1515 all endorsed the two state solution. Hamas accepts none of these resolutions and insists on annihilating #Israel.
Hamas is an outlaw organization. It massacred Palestinians in 2007, Israelis in 2023. Its existence causes isolation of Gaza by Palestinian Authority, Egypt and Israel.
For the sake of Gazans and the Palestinian people, and for Israelis to live in peace, Hamas mand ust be dismantled.

 And yeah, this one is spot on, if you don't realize this, you are the one that's clueless:

Ex-ambassador named U.S. special envoy for Middle East Humanitarian Issues

David Satterfield will “focus on ensuring life-saving assistance can reach vulnerable people throughout the Middle East.”

Former U.S. Ambassador to Turkey David Satterfield will serve as the U.S. Special Envoy for Middle East Humanitarian Issues, the White House announced Sunday.

In the new role, Satterfield will “focus on ensuring life-saving assistance can reach vulnerable people throughout the Middle East,” National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said in a statement.

Satterfield’s appointment comes as Israel prepares to launch a ground invasion into Gaza, more than a week after the surprise attack on Israel’s southern border.

The Oct. 7 incursion was led by Hamas militants in Gaza, who killed at least 1,300 Israelis and other nationals and abducted dozens more. Israel has already fired its own barrage of retaliatory missiles, killing more than 2,000 Palestinians.

The Israeli government has begun a siege of Gaza, restricting access to food and electricity for the more than 2 million residents of the region that’s long been blockaded on all sides by Israel and Egypt.

Satterfield previously served as the assistant secretary for the State Department’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, as U.S. deputy chief of mission in Iraq and as U.S. ambassador to Lebanon.

“Ambassador Satterfield’s diplomatic experience and decades of work navigating the some of the world’s most challenging conflicts will be instrumental in our continued effort to address humanitarian issues in the region — a top priority for President Biden — including our efforts to bring urgently needed humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people, particularly in Gaza, in coordination with the U.N., Egypt, Jordan, Israel, and other regional stakeholders,” Sullivan said in the statement.

The U.S. is expanding its military presence near Israel.

The Pentagon is rapidly doubling the amount of American firepower deployed in the Middle East in an effort to deter a wider regional war and to carry out possible airstrikes to defend American interests, U.S. officials said on Sunday.

Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III said on Saturday that he had ordered a second aircraft carrier to the eastern Mediterranean “to deter hostile actions against Israel or any efforts toward widening this war” after Hamas’s attack on Israel last weekend. The second carrier, the Dwight D. Eisenhower, is expected to arrive in the next few days.

The Air Force is also rushing additional land-based attack planes to the Persian Gulf region, doubling the number of F-16, A-10 and F-15E squadrons on the ground. Combined with the four squadrons of F/A-18 jets aboard each carrier, the United States will have an aerial armada of more than 100 attack planes, officials said.

The Pentagon has also sent a small team of Special Operations forces to Israel to assist with intelligence and planning for any operations to help locate and rescue the 150 hostages Hamas is believed to be holding, including some Americans.

For now, U.S. officials said, the deployment of additional forces is meant to deter Iran, Syria or any Iran-backed proxy groups, like Hezbollah, from joining the conflict. But as Israeli troops massed near the border with Gaza on Sunday, preparing for a likely ground invasion, American commanders expressed fears that the United States could get dragged into the conflict.

Pentagon and U.S. intelligence officials are closely monitoring Hezbollah forces in Lebanon, as well as Iran-backed militias in Iraq and Syria that have periodically carried out strikes against American military personnel based in both countries.

After a U.S. civilian contractor was killed and six other Americans were injured in March in northeast Syria by a drone that U.S. officials said was of “Iranian origin,” President Biden ordered two F-15E fighter jets to retaliate by launching airstrikes against militant sites linked to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. That prompted Iran-backed militias to launch a volley of rocket and drone attacks that injured another American.

U.S. warplanes were poised to conduct a second round of reprisal strikes, but the White House held off. Since then, the militia threats against Americans have subsided. But that could change with an Israeli invasion of Gaza, U.S. officials say.

The carrier Gerald R. Ford was already in the Mediterranean when Mr. Austin last week ordered the warship to the eastern part of the sea, closer to Israel. The Ford carries four F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter squadrons, as well as electronic warfare and command and control aircraft. The carrier is also accompanied by warships armed with Tomahawk cruise missiles. The Eisenhower has a similar group of attack planes and warships.

The promise of additional military might was intended by the Biden administration to reassure Israelis of the U.S. commitment to their security and to demonstrate resolve to Hamas and Israel’s other adversaries in the region. It comes despite months of tension between Mr. Biden and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel over the prime minister’s pursuit of judicial reforms that critics say are undemocratic.

The additional deployments also reinvigorate American might in the region, at least temporarily. The U.S. military presence in the region has been shrinking with the yearslong wars in Iraq and Afghanistan winding down, and in response to the Biden administration’s stated pivot to focus on longer-term threats from China as well as the war in Ukraine.

Mr. Austin met with Israeli leaders on Friday and reaffirmed U.S. support to them in the first week of their war against Hamas.

Mr. Austin, who arrived from Brussels, where he was attending a NATO defense ministers’ meeting, got a firsthand look at some of the weapons and security aid that the Biden administration has rushed to Israel. A second shipment of arms arrived on Friday, Israeli officials said.

The Pentagon has sent Israel interceptors for its Iron Dome missile defense system as well as 250-pound “small-diameter bombs” designed to reduce the possibility of civilian casualties in a dense urban battlefield like Gaza, artillery shells and other ammunition, officials said.

Asked about the likelihood of civilian casualties in Gaza as Israeli troops prepare to mount a major ground assault there, Mr. Austin said Israel had the right to defend itself. He added that he had worked with Israeli forces over the years, when he was a top Army general.

“They are professional, they are disciplined and they are focused on the right things,” he told reporters after meeting for nearly two hours with his Israeli counterpart, Yoav Gallant, and the Israeli war cabinet.

The United States provides Israel more than $3 billion in military assistance every year, and Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken has said that much of the equipment from that funding is already “in the pipeline” to be sent to Israel. The Pentagon has also positioned stockpiles of arms and ammunition worth about $2 billion at about six sites in Israel. The stockpiles provide weapons and ammunition for the Pentagon to use in Middle East conflicts, and the United States has also given Israel access to the supplies in emergencies.

Use of the stockpiles is set up in a “dual key” arrangement in which both countries sign off on their use. For instance, the Pentagon, with Israel’s permission, has tapped into the vast but little-known stockpile to help meet Ukraine’s dire need for artillery shells in the war with Russia.

Mr. Austin said in Brussels that the United States would not put conditions on how Israeli troops use the American weapons in their fight against Hamas.

“Our focus is to make sure that we get Israel what it needs in order to protect itself,” he said.

Saying we are “on the verge of the abyss in the Middle East,” António Guterres, the secretary general of the United Nations, said Israeli hostages held by Hamas “must be immediately released without conditions.” And Israel, he said in a statement, must provide “rapid and unimpeded access for humanitarian aid” so it can reach civilians in Gaza.

I think this is spot on:

make sure you check the extended post

He's being too humble; this guy has exquisite spidey sense about such things after a career as a top journalist covering all things military:

A top Hamas commander described as its head of military intelligence is killed in an Israeli strike.

Oct. 17, 2023, by Hilda Yazbek reporting from Jerusalem for NYTimes.com/live coverage

The military wing of Hamas said on Tuesday that one of its top commanders was killed in an Israeli strike on a refugee camp in central Gaza, marking the first time that the group has acknowledged the death of one of its military leaders since it launched its deadly assaults on Israel.

The group identified him as Ayman Nofal, a member of the General Military Council and the commander of the Central Brigade in the Al Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the group. According to the Safa Press Agency, a Palestinian news site based in Gaza and linked with Hamas, Mr. Nofal was among the military leaders during the two Palestinian uprisings known as the first and second Intifadas. He was killed in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, Hamas said.

The Israeli military confirmed in a statement that it had killed Mr. Nofal and said that he was the former head of Hamas’s military intelligence. The military’s statement added that he oversaw the planning and execution of many attacks against Israelis, including helping to plan the 2006 abduction of Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier who spent five years in captivity.

Neither Hamas nor the Israeli military specified when the strike that killed Mr. Nofal took place.

Mr. Nofal — known by his nickname, Abu Muhammad — is the most senior and highest-profile Hamas militant that Israel says it has killed so far during the war. Video footage posted on Palestinian media showed a funeral for him on Tuesday afternoon, in which dozens of men prayed in front of his body, which was wrapped in a white cloth on a stretcher in front of a hospital.

According to Safa, Mr. Nofal was born in 1965 in the Bureij refugee camp, where he was later killed, and he held several military positions in the Al Qassam Brigades. He was jailed by Israel in 1991 and by the Palestinian Authority in 1997.

He was imprisoned in Egypt in 2008 after he was arrested after illegally entering Egypt along with thousands of Gazans to “obtain their basic needs after a stifling siege of Gaza,” according to Hamas’s official website.

The group added that he was severely tortured there “in order to extract confessions and information about the Palestinian resistance.” He was released in 2011 during the Egyptian revolution against former President Hosni Mubarak, the group said.

In an interview with Reuters shortly afterward, Mr. Nofal said that he would be joining his old brigade and that “we have chosen the path of resistance.”

“We will have victory or martyrdom,” he added.

Hamas earlier acknowledged the deaths of two senior members of its political bureau. The group said that Zakaria Muammar and Jawad Abu Shamala were both killed in Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip a week ago.

The Israeli Army confirmed that it killed both senior officials and identified Mr. Abu Shamala as the finance minister of the Hamas government, who managed the group’s funds. The military added that Mr. Muammar was the head of the group’s internal relations.

Aaron Boxerman and Iyad Abuheweila contributed reporting.

A prime-time address to the nation on Thursday will be the president’s third major speech on the Mideast conflict as his Democratic coalition strains over his handling of the violence.

When President Biden delivers a prime-time Oval Office address on Thursday about the wars in Israel and Ukraine, it will be his third major speech on the Mideast conflict as he grapples with a fragile Democratic coalition that is closely watching how he handles the outbreak of violence.

In his remarks last week and again on Wednesday in Tel Aviv, Mr. Biden sought to put no daylight between the United States and Israel — though in his second speech, he warned the Israelis not to “be consumed” by their rage about the Hamas attack this month that killed more than 1,400 people. He pleaded with the Israelis not to overreact, as he said the United States did after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

Mr. Biden’s speech comes as his political coalition has begun to fray over the Israeli conflict. Progressives and young Democrats are demanding that he press Israel to stop its incursion on Gaza, while more centrist Democrats who make up the core of his political base were nearly unanimous in their praise of his Tel Aviv speech.

“I am grateful to have @POTUS thoughtful leadership in this moment,” Representative Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri wrote on social media. “As we continue working save the lives of hostages and hold Hamas accountable, I encourage him to continue using his platform to call for restraint and the protection of innocent Israelis and Palestinians alike.”

Representative Steny Hoyer of Maryland said Mr. Biden “speaks for me and speaks for all of America” on Israel. And Richard Haass, the former chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations, called the Wednesday speech “nothing less than masterful.”

And while Biden campaign officials insist they aren’t planning to use the Israel trip as campaign fodder, Representative Jake Auchincloss of Massachusetts forecast what could become the sort of contrast the president’s aides and allies make with former President Donald J. Trump should he win the Republican presidential nomination.[....]

(retweeted by Laura Rozen)

She's exaggerating but it makes the point:

By Fehim Tastakin @ Al-Monitor, October 22

Turkey has been trying to carefully calibrate its stance in the face of the war that Hamas launched against Israel on Oct. 7, maintaining its advocacy of the Palestinian cause while cooling ties with Hamas and seeking to avoid a fresh fallout with Israel.

The crisis hit at a time when Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is pursuing normalization with regional powers, including Israel. After years of bilateral spats, Erdogan met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York last month and invited him to visit Ankara.

At first glance, one could suggest that the Erdogan government’s close relations with Hamas have now driven it into a corner. Moreover, one could expect growing US pressure on Ankara to sever ties with Hamas after the dust settles. 

Nevertheless, for the West, Turkey at present represents a partner who can talk to Hamas, and this serves as a sort of lightning rod for Erdogan’s government. The calls made to Ankara requesting its mediation for the release of foreign hostages held by Hamas have given Erdogan the opportunity to play the role he was hoping for. 

Unlike his vitriolic outbursts against Israel in the past, Erdogan has restrained his language this time, careful not to jeopardize the new chapter that he had just opened with Israel. He may have toughened his tone against Israel a bit over the mounting casualties in Gaza, but he has withheld the support that would please Hamas.

'Dissatisfaction with Turkey'

Acknowledging the disappointment on the Palestinian side, a Palestinian source in Ankara told Al-Monitor, “The Palestinian groups, including Hamas, have been dissatisfied with Turkey’s stance. Its statements are viewed as inadequate. They did not even summon the Israeli ambassador to the Foreign Ministry [for protest].”

Moreover, Ismail Haniyeh, the head of Hamas' political bureau, who was in Istanbul when Hamas stormed into Israeli towns, was politely sent away after footage circulated on social media showing him and other Hamas members prostrating themselves in a “prayer of gratitude” while watching news of the incursion on television, two different sources told Al-Monitor. Along with other Hamas leaders, Haniyeh lives in voluntary exile, splitting his time between Qatar and Turkey. Ankara was annoyed also by remarks that Saleh al-Arouri, Haniyeh’s deputy, made to Al Jazeera that day. Arouri bragged that Hamas had captured enough Israeli soldiers to force Israel to free all Palestinian prisoners in its jails and would continue to fight. According to the two sources, Ankara politely asked Haniyeh and his entourage to leave Turkey, unwilling to appear as still protecting Hamas after the group’s killing of Israeli civilians.

In an interview with Turkey’s Haberturk TV last week, Khaled Meshaal, another senior Hamas figure, implied that the group expected stronger support from Ankara. “I have great respect for Turkey. Turkey should say ‘stop’ to … Israel,” he said.

Still, Ankara may not be seeing the current cooling of ties as irreversible, and Hamas leaders may not make an issue of it in the hope that Turkey’s door remains open to them. 

However, Ankara is unlikely to toughen its stance on Hamas as much as its Western partners would like [....]

OPINION/GUEST ESSAY: Why Jews Cannot Stop Shaking Right Now

[....]The feeling of deep dread that these atrocities stirred in Jews was horribly familiar. This is what Jewish history has all too often looked like: not civilians tragically killed in war but civilians publicly targeted, tortured and murdered, with the crimes put on public display. Accounts of past crowd-pleasing killings are folded into Jewish tradition; every Yom Kippur, we recount the public torture and execution of rabbis by their Roman oppressors in a packed second-century stadium. Those ancient stories are consistent with the experiences of the more immediate ancestors of nearly every Jew alive today.

I’m not even talking about the Holocaust, which several of last week’s oldest escapees and victims also endured. (Far more Jews were killed on Oct. 7 than on Kristallnacht.) No, I’m thinking of the Farhud pogrom in 1941 Baghdad, a two-day rampage in which hundreds of Jews were raped, tortured and murdered. I’m thinking of the pogroms of 1918 to 1921 in Ukraine, in which an estimated 100,000 Jews were slaughtered in organized massacres, reminiscent of this month’s attack.

I’m thinking of the lynching of Leo Frank in Georgia in 1915, after which the delighted crowd’s snapshots of Frank’s body were made into postcards mailed around the country and pieces of his clothing were sold as souvenirs. I’m thinking of how many of the earliest books off Europe’s first printing presses were about the executions of Jews accused of blood libel and of a 10th-century massacre of thousands of Jews in the Spanish caliphate encouraged by a poem calling for Jewish blood and of the paintings and illuminated manuscripts showing Jews who were burned alive by the Spanish Inquisition and during the Black Death — all crowd-pleasing events celebrated in popular media and art.

Even ancient Romans celebrated their destruction of Judea by issuing commemorative coins featuring a bound Jewish woman and inscribed with the words “Judaea capta.” The humiliation and murder of Jews have always made a great meme.

Many American Jews, like Jews around the world, are descendants of those who survived. Our ancestors, in one way or another, were the ones who either made lucky decisions or barely made it out alive from Lodz and Kyiv and Aleppo and Tehran.

For diaspora Jews, the recent attacks were not distant overseas events. As was true in ancient times, the ties between global Jewish communities and Israel are concrete, specific, intimate and personal. My New Jersey Jewish Federation has institutional ties with the southern Israeli town of Ofakim and its surrounding communities, sharing annual home stays with a place whose death toll from the attacks already exceeds that of the notorious Kishinev pogrom of 1903, in which 49 Jews were murdered. Millions of American Jews, not to mention Jews in Britain, France, Australia and elsewhere, have friends and relatives in Israel. Even if Hamas hadn’t made it clear that they see all Jews as targets, our connection is personal and all too real.

We spent days desperately scrolling to learn who among our acquaintances was dead, maimed or captive, connecting American hostages’ families with State Department contacts, attending panic-stricken online briefings and pooling resources and supplies for victims — all while fighting obtuse official statements from our own towns, schools, companies and universities that refused to mention the words “Israel” or “Jews” in referring to the largest single-day massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, lest some antisemite take offense at the existence of either.

We have tried to get our children off social media, shielding them from images of the violence. We’ve held mass fasts, recited psalms and sung ancient prayers for the rescue of captives. And as we gather by the thousands despite our many contradictory opinions and despite the extra security required for our gatherings even here, we have returned to the words of our ancestors that have carried us through thousands of years: Be strong and courageous. Choose life.

Many of us were physically carrying those words during the weekend of the attack, celebrating Simchat Torah, a joyous holiday when congregations dance with Torah scrolls, read the Torah’s final words and then scroll back to the beginning to start the book again.

As a child, I found this baffling. Why read the same story over and over, when we already know what happens? As an adult, I know that while the story doesn’t change, we do. What defines Jewish life is not history’s litany of horror but the Jewish people’s creative resilience in the face of it. In the wake of many catastrophes over millenniums, we have wrestled with God and one another, reinvented our traditions, revived our language, rebuilt our communities and found new meanings in our old stories of freedom and responsibility, each story animated by the improbable and unwavering belief that people can change [....]

Editors’ Note: Gaza Hospital Coverage By The New York Times

continued:

so instead of having a thriving economy with the kind of opportunities that the children of the Palestinians deserve, we have a terrorist haven that is getting more and more rockets shipped in from Iran and elsewhere”

I'd love to hear the Hamas defenders respond to this.

his thread has lots of interesting analysis points of recent news, which he obviously follows carefully:

He's just sayin'

Just a reminder (and he is likely quite correct)