Meanwhile, in Jerusalem...

[WhatTheBuck 28713]

17 hours ago, Brian Fantana said:

I have read it twice, as a teenager and as an adult. It certainly appealed to me a little bit as a teenager. I don't have a "problem" with it, so to speak, her writing is just terrible.

The strong negative reaction I have to her is mostly about objectivism. The libertarian comment has little to do with book. It's interesting how defensive you're being about it, though.

I don’t want to derail the thread further but I feel compelled to make one last comment on the subject. And I’m sure I’ll comment again sometime in the future in some other thread when the subject comes up again. I’ve read Anthem twice, The Fountainhead twice (and seen the movie countless times), and Atlas Shrugged three times - once in my teens, once in my 20’s, and once in my 30’s. I started to read it again in my 40’s but my old paperback copy has yellowing pages, my eyesight isn’t as good as it used to be, and I know the story well enough that it seemed pointless.

But I’ve enjoyed the story even though I don’t like Rand personally nor agree with her philosophy. I still like the comedy of Bill Cosby even though he turned out to be a creep. I still like some of Led Zeppelin’s music even though they were huge assholes who were destructive and abusive and used their money and lawyers to escape accountability for their actions. (Read Bill Graham’s autobiography.) I can separate the art from the artist.

You might find my defense of Atlas Shrugged confusing. I enjoyed it. It’s not perfect but there’s a lot about it that I find entertaining. Again, it’s a work of fiction. The fictional government portrayed doesn’t represent the real world American government. But as I pointed out before, I think the absurdity of it more closely resembles the last couple of GOP administrations. And I can’t recall off the top of my head the name of the Atlas parallel to Fountainhead’s Ellsworth Toohey, but those guys are much more reminiscent of guys like Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity in their methods.

There’s drama, mystery, and suspense. There’s science fiction. There’s also comedy, although I’m not sure if the things I find funny are things Rand meant to be funny. And yeah, it’s weird that her heroines like to get raped by men they deem to be strong and virtuous. I figure that probably reveals one of her personal peccadilloes.

But Hank Rearden didn’t underpay nor overwork his employees. John Galt never mentioned that his first obligation was to his shareholders. They were idealized versions of the creative entrepreneurs, but they showed a respect for the people they dealt with. (Granted, Rearden admitted to Dagny, when she said he could’ve charged her a lot more and she would’ve paid it, that he didn’t because he wanted to fuck her — like I said, it’s not perfect.) There was a devotion to quality and fairness that is rare to find in the real world where everything gets worse over time as the cutting of corners and sacrificing of quality in order to cut costs and increase profits leads to shittier and shittier products.

I’ve read We The Living but don’t recall anything about it other than it did nothing for me. You want to read hot garbage? Try reading An Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology.

Maybe you don’t understand my defense. I take a more academic view. But I know her work better than any “Libertarian” who claims to be a fan that I’ve ever met and they don’t get far with me. I know her works better than they do.

Also, Anthem is great and I’ve got Rush and 2112 to thank for turning me on to that.

 

[RPM 26229]

Ayn Rand would not have liked The Iron Dome. Too overreaching.

[InkaUtexas 25523]

7 hours ago, lmao said:

 

So we funded the creation of it and they won't give us the source code?

 

That is what it looks like at first but once Raytheon started to participate they had to. 

[Cacti 191]

It’s easy to make the case that the Iron Dome system saves not only Israeli civilian lives, but many more Palestinian lives. If the system wasn’t so effective, the Israelis would conduct a massive bombing and artillery campaign on Hamas, followed by a full-blown ground invasion of Gaza. Israel would lose some civilians and many soldiers in such a scenario but the Palestinian civilian casualties would be staggering.

13 hours ago, Anastasis said:

 In the case of Israel, we give them money that they can spend on buying arms from their own domestic complex.  Not only do we dump arms into the region, we actually support the domestic production capabilities. 

This is true but a bit misleading. As a condition to receiving military aid, Israel agreed in 2016 to spend approximately 75% of the aid on U.S.-based firms.

[Anastasis 23394]

43 minutes ago, Cacti said:

This is true but a bit misleading. As a condition to receiving military aid, Israel agreed in 2016 to spend approximately 75% of the aid on U.S.-based firms.

What other country is allowed to spend a percentage of US taxpayer aid greater than zero on domestic production?

[lmao 178]

4 hours ago, InkaUtexas said:

That is what it looks like at first but once Raytheon started to participate they had to. 

Source? I see articles say they never gave it up. The fact they even said no..the balls.

[lmao 178]

 

[Zepol87 9171]

How does this work? Do you just sign up on some Jewish relocation website or something? 

[Huckleberry 32703]

On 5/16/2021 at 3:08 PM, Ag with kids said:

I haven't read every single post on this thread but I've got the general idea that quite a few of y'all are are big proponents of coming up with a way to really solve the issue that the Jewish people are causing in the Middle East.  Something that would end the conflict once and for all.

Some kind of a final solution to the Jewish problem...

 

On 5/16/2021 at 3:33 PM, F250 said:

Username checks out.

 

 

On 5/16/2021 at 3:56 PM, hobbes2702 said:

Is this a real take? 

 

On 5/16/2021 at 4:03 PM, Anastasis said:

Of course it is. Cause if you think that we should not arm and fund an apartheid state that is systemically dehumanizing and terrorizing people in the occupied territories, that basically means you want to put Jews in gas chambers. This is what passes for intelligent thought in college station. 

Consider for a moment that the poster in question is actually one of the most intellectually curious and intelligent Aggies on the internet. Quite the endorsement of our branch in College Station, no?

[InkaUtexas 25523]

20 minutes ago, lmao said:

Source? I see articles say they never gave it up. The fact they even said no..the balls.

Read it in the CRS report I read briefly last night. 

 

[InkaUtexas 25523]

9 minutes ago, Zepol87 said:

How does this work? Do you just sign up on some Jewish relocation website or something? 

seekingsettlers.com 

 

[Brisketexan 104628]

2 minutes ago, InkaUtexas said:

seekingsettlers.com 

 

plentyofgefiltefish.com

[Cacti 191]

27 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

What other country is allowed to spend a percentage of US taxpayer aid greater than zero on domestic production?

I’m not familiar with conditions (if any) that are attached to our aid to other countries.

However, I am confident that some portion of the aid we sent to the Palestinians over the years has ended up in Hamas’s coffers. But since they don’t need our know-how to build tunnels or make rockets, I doubt if our industries have ever seen a dime of that money.

[Anastasis 23394]

1 minute ago, Cacti said:

I’m not familiar with conditions (if any) that are attached to our aid to other countries.

However, I am confident that some portion of the aid we sent to the Palestinians over the years has ended up in Hamas’s coffers. But since they don’t need our know-how to build tunnels or make rockets, I doubt if our industries have ever seen a dime of that money.

None of which has anything to do with subsidizing the arms industry of a foreign nation with taxpayer dollars. 

[Brisketexan 104628]

9 minutes ago, Cacti said:

I’m not familiar with conditions (if any) that are attached to our aid to other countries.

However, I am confident that some portion of the aid we sent to the Palestinians over the years has ended up in Hamas’s coffers. But since they don’t need our know-how to build tunnels or make rockets, I doubt if our industries have ever seen a dime of that money.

You know, if we really were "the greatest country in the world," we'd be smart, and make money selling a shitload of arms to both sides.  That's how the country I know and love would do it.  Man, what pathetic pantywaists we've become.

[F250 28691]

I admit that I don't know anything about anything but I am confident in my opinion about the Palestinians.

This thread delivers.

[Cacti 191]

36 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

... if we really were "the greatest country in the world," ...

That’s a wild hypothetical, especially since I don’t recall any CR poster saying that we are “the greatest country in the world.” So refresh my memory, who are your quoting?

[Brisketexan 104628]

2 minutes ago, Cacti said:

That’s a wild hypothetical, especially since I don’t recall any CR poster saying that we are “the greatest country in the world.” So refresh my memory, who are your quoting?

Like.....every MAGA person?  Every single one of them?  Is this a trick question?

[Cacti 191]

15 minutes ago, Cacti said:

That’s a wild hypothetical, especially since I don’t recall any CR poster saying that we are “the greatest country in the world.” So refresh my memory, who are your quoting?

 

12 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Like.....every MAGA person?  Every single one of them?  Is this a trick question?

Every MAGA person in the CR? Which one were you quoting? Surely you have someone specific in mind.

[MoJames 8241]

3 minutes ago, Cacti said:

Surely you have someone specific in mind.

Darius

[wildcat09 29258]

6 minutes ago, Cacti said:

 

Every MAGA person in the CR? Which one were you quoting? Surely you have someone specific in mind.

Slorch has said it before.

ETA: Also, so has Macklemore/Ghostuser/Icono

That's just from the first page of results when searching for "greatest country." Most of the other results were clearly sarcastic and I didn't bother looking at the 2nd through 5th pages.

Edited May 21, 2021 by wildcat09

[Brisketexan 104628]

14 minutes ago, Cacti said:

 

Every MAGA person in the CR? Which one were you quoting? Surely you have someone specific in mind.

And, I mean....really, I was just using that as a ticket to make a crack about us arming both sides to make extra dough.

[WhatTheBuck 28713]

10 hours ago, RPM said:

Ayn Rand would not have liked The Iron Dome. Too overreaching.

I think you’re forgetting the acoustic weapon in Atlas Shrugged. 

[Shady Ray 1633]

With respect to the issue of US aid to Israel, it is absolutely unparalleled...not only in expenditures, but HOW the aid is structured.

 

From the outstanding book, "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy" by Profs John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, University of Chicago and Kennedy School professors, respectively (and pardon the highlights, they are from some old research, but the entirety is valuable for context:

 

 

 

This is somewhat dated, as the book came out 15 years ago, but the amounts have only increased, along with the ridiculously undeserved special treatment.

[tantric superman 4667]

Good song.

 

[lmao 178]

29 minutes ago, Shady Ray said:

With respect to the issue of US aid to Israel, it is absolutely unparalleled...not only in expenditures, but HOW the aid is structured.

 

From the outstanding book, "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy" by Profs John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, University of Chicago and Kennedy School professors, respectively (and pardon the highlights, they are from some old research, but the entirety is valuable for context:

 

 

 

This is somewhat dated, as the book came out 15 years ago, but the amounts have only increased, along with the ridiculously undeserved special treatment.

Are those guys still professors? I have a feeling the ADL, etc., would destory their lives.

[hpslugga 4044]

9 hours ago, F250 said:

I admit that I don't know anything about anything but I am confident in my opinion about the Palestinians.

This thread delivers.

Fucking this

[hpslugga 4044]

8 hours ago, lmao said:

Are those guys still professors? I have a feeling the ADL, etc., would destory their lives.

Oh boy did they try. 

[Shady Ray 1633]

Oh boy did they try. 

Fuck yeah, they did. Had they not been established to the degree that they already were, their careers would have been over.

The concept for the book started with an article they had written, and when ADL et al went after them calling them anti-semites and blocking the publication in basically every US magazine/journal, they had to take it to Europe to be published.

Then they basically said, “Oh, ok...We’re gonna do a book on it now.”

[hpslugga 4044]

1 hour ago, Shady Ray said:

Fuck yeah, they did. Had they not been established to the degree that they already were, their careers would have been over.

The concept for the book started with an article they had written, and when ADL et al went after them calling them anti-semites and blocking the publication in basically every US magazine/journal, they had to take it to Europe to be published.

Then they basically said, “Oh, ok...We’re gonna do a book on it now.”

And this basically happens whenever some publication comes out and takes the piss out of the Zionist government. And it’s not because they think what’s in said publication is false, it’s because they know it’s true. They’re fine when Pat Buchanan or David Duke prattle about with their nonsense...but when Richard Goldstone or Norman Finkelstein or Walt/Mearsheimer choose to pipe in? Oh they go berserk. It’s a public relations extravaganza each time, and it’s gotten to the point where more and more people are seeing it for what it is: the spoiled brat country of the UN crying wolf. 

[WhatTheBuck 28713]

15 hours ago, tantric superman said:

Good song.

 

Better song. (Speaking of the ADL, who were none too pleased, and tried to have it banned. Zappa gave zero fucks, saying, “Well, I didn't make up the idea of a Jewish Princess. They exist, so I wrote a song about them." As often is the case, but not nearly as often many people think, the lyrics are NSFW. The theme would be reprised in Catholic Girls on Joe’s Garage which was the next album he released himself. Both are must haves.)

 

[cactusflinthead 27594]

 

[Anastasis 23394]

From Syria but still relevant. 

[Doc Reeves 6434]

Quote

Dozens of Jewish settlers, flanked by heavily armed Israeli special forces, stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied East Jerusalem in the early morning, hours after Palestinian worshippers were beaten and assaulted by Israeli police, according to the Islamic authority overseeing the site.

Citing witnesses, Palestinian news agency WAFA said Israeli police had earlier on Sunday assaulted Palestinian worshippers who were performing dawn prayers at the mosque and “excessively beat” them in order to make way for Israeli Jewish settlers to storm the compound – Islam’s third-holiest site.

 

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/5/23/backed-by-israeli-police-jewish-settlers-storm-al-aqsa-compound

[hpslugga 4044]

20 minutes ago, Doc Reeves said:

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/5/23/backed-by-israeli-police-jewish-settlers-storm-al-aqsa-compound

And yet there are still going to be people who defend this barbaric idiocy, and they'll even go so far as to defend their position by pointing out that the Palestinians are barbaric idiots. 

[WhatTheBuck 28713]

Israel has a right to defend itself, the Palestinians don’t. It’s that simple. It’s U.S. policy and our media only tells us one side of the story. Most Americans are totally unaware of how brutally the Israelis have treated the Palestinians for 70’ years. We don’t get reports about Israeli soldiers and settlers shooting Palestinians while they’re stealing their land and their homes. We don’t hear about when Palestinian activists shout “Free Palestine!” and then get arrested for incitement. We don’t hear about it when Israelis teach their children, “Death to the Arabs!”

There will never be a Palestinian state. There will never be peace until Israel’s slow-motion genocide of the Palestinian people is complete. And don’t kid yourself. That’s exactly what’s going on. And American Christians don’t care because they believe as much as the Jews do that the God of Abraham is real and really did promise them all that land. It’s bullshit and it’s just fucking sad. 

[Anastasis 23394]

3 hours ago, Doc Reeves said:

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/5/23/backed-by-israeli-police-jewish-settlers-storm-al-aqsa-compound

I heard about this this morning on NPR. It was described as Jewish tourists resuming tours of the Temple Mount after the conclusion of Ramadan. 

[Doc Reeves 6434]

2 hours ago, WhatTheBuck said:

There will never be a Palestinian state.

Exactly. Because if Israel didn’t exist Palestine would just be Jordan. 

[F250 28691]

23 hours ago, WhatTheBuck said:

And American Christians don’t care because they believe as much as the Jews do that the God of Abraham is real and really did promise them all that land. It’s bullshit and it’s just fucking sad. 

From what I understand, this wasn't even a belief within Judaism until the early 20th century. Zionism originated as a belief with the Christian Dispensationalists in Britain and after some time the idea caught on within Judaism. Now despite it being a very recent religious belief it's adhered to as if Moses said it himself.

 

[956 Worldwide 34444]

8 minutes ago, F250 said:

From what I understand, this wasn't even a belief within Judaism until the early 20th century. Zionism originated as a belief with the Christian Dispensationalists in Britain and after some time the idea caught on within Judaism. Now despite it being a very recent religious belief it's adhered to as if Moses said it himself.

 

Prayers by Jews living in exile for return to Jerusalem and reestablish Temple worship are old indeed, much older than the 19th century.

The real force of political Zionism is from the 19th century but it can’t be blamed on Christian dispensationalists.  It was mostly a secular current and can’t be understood apart from the wave of nationalism and anti-Semitism that swept across the old continent in the 1800s and that was itself considered very much enlightened and secular at the time. 

[formermav43 4599]

31 minutes ago, F250 said:

From what I understand, this wasn't even a belief within Judaism until the early 20th century. Zionism originated as a belief with the Christian Dispensationalists in Britain and after some time the idea caught on within Judaism. Now despite it being a very recent religious belief it's adhered to as if Moses said it himself.

 

And to follow up, it’s not a belief among the majority of American Christians either. Roman Catholics, Orthodox, Episcopalian, Lutheran, Methodist, even groups that might broadly be considered evangelical like many Reformed churches or those with roots in the Stone-Campbell movement-whether it’s official church teaching or just the historical reality for those without such a denominational hierarchy, they don’t embrace dispensational premillennialism.

Its just that the “Left Behind” people are really noisy. And it IS the teaching of a lot of really visible figures, unfortunately.

[Asithappens 974]

Here's an essay from The Economist. 

 

THE FIGHTING lasted less than two weeks, but there was no shortage of explosions. By the end Hamas, a Palestinian militant group, had fired some 4,000 rockets at Israel. Most were intercepted by Israel’s missile defences. Israel responded with hundreds of air strikes on Gaza, a cramped enclave ruled by Hamas, which had no shield. More than 200 people were killed, all but 12 of them Palestinian. The battle began to wind down on May 20th; after nightfall Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire. Assuming that calm returns, who knows how long it will last?

Fighting between Israel and Hamas has become almost routine. Since the Islamist group grabbed control of Gaza in 2007, the two sides have fought four wars and several smaller battles, costing thousands of lives (again, mostly Palestinian). The spark for the latest outbreak came in Jerusalem—but were it not Jerusalem, it would have been some other cause. Israel and Hamas are stuck in a perpetual crisis, trapped by the logic of war, which dictates that they keep going through the same motions.

Start with Hamas, which sees fighting “the Zionist invaders” as its raison d’être. Its campaign of suicide-bombings in the 1990s and 2000s bears much responsibility for destroying the Oslo peace accords. Because of its incessant attacks, Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005. The group expelled Fatah, its Palestinian rival, two years later. Today most Gazans see Hamas as authoritarian and corrupt. Unable to point to any achievements, it instead blames Israeli aggression and poses as the one true defender of the Palestinian cause. It had no plan to attack Israel; it merely saw an opportunity to assert itself after Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president and leader of Fatah, indefinitely postponed legislative elections.

Hamas’s attacks are futile: its rockets inflict relatively little damage. But Israel feels it has to respond. “If it happened to Washington or to New York? You know damn well what you would do,” said Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, on American television. So the cycle has continued. Israeli bombs hit Hamas’s offices, rocket launchers and tunnel complexes. Several of the group’s commanders were killed. Israeli officers say they have significantly degraded Hamas’s capabilities. But even they don’t think the group will be down for long. When the next spark comes, the militants will undoubtedly be there to fan it.

And be in no doubt that it will come. Both sides are content to leave Gaza a festering pit of misery that periodically erupts. Hamas’s control in some ways suits Mr Netanyahu, inasmuch as it weakens the Palestinian leadership and dims the prospect of a Palestinian state. Israel will still try to keep the group down, though. It and Egypt have kept Gaza under blockade since 2007, making it harder for Hamas to arm itself—and making life grim for ordinary Gazans. Restrictions on travel mean they cannot leave. The isolated, impoverished territory draws comparisons to an open-air prison.

Hamas’s policies make it more like a shooting range. The group sometimes shows little interest in actually governing. Its schools and hospitals can be used for storing weapons. The idea is that Israel won’t attack such sites or, if it does, Hamas can use it for propaganda. The militants were surprised by how hard Israel hit back after they launched their first barrage on May 10th. Still, even as the death toll mounted, they did not stop.

Yet there were new elements to this round of violence. A wave of clashes between Jewish and Arab citizens in Israel itself unnerved Mr Netanyahu. There are new types of pressure from abroad, too. Whereas President Joe Biden emphasised “Israel’s legitimate right to defend itself”, some fellow Democrats called for putting conditions on American aid to Israel.

But for now, none of that is likely to stop the cycle of violence. Israel and Hamas will come out of this battle much as they went in. Nothing has been gained; nothing has been resolved. And yet they are likely to do it again.

[bad_teammate 13132]

No mention of all as to what provoked the rocket attacks. 

Always framed to make it seem like the Arabs are mindless savages and the Israelis reluctant participants.

[hpslugga 4044]

9 minutes ago, Asithappens said:

Here's an essay from The Economist. 

 

THE FIGHTING lasted less than two weeks, but there was no shortage of explosions. By the end Hamas, a Palestinian militant group, had fired some 4,000 rockets at Israel. Most were intercepted by Israel’s missile defences. Israel responded with hundreds of air strikes on Gaza, a cramped enclave ruled by Hamas, which had no shield. More than 200 people were killed, all but 12 of them Palestinian. The battle began to wind down on May 20th; after nightfall Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire. Assuming that calm returns, who knows how long it will last?

Fighting between Israel and Hamas has become almost routine. Since the Islamist group grabbed control of Gaza in 2007, the two sides have fought four wars and several smaller battles, costing thousands of lives (again, mostly Palestinian). The spark for the latest outbreak came in Jerusalem—but were it not Jerusalem, it would have been some other cause. Israel and Hamas are stuck in a perpetual crisis, trapped by the logic of war, which dictates that they keep going through the same motions.

Start with Hamas, which sees fighting “the Zionist invaders” as its raison d’être. Its campaign of suicide-bombings in the 1990s and 2000s bears much responsibility for destroying the Oslo peace accords. Because of its incessant attacks, Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005. The group expelled Fatah, its Palestinian rival, two years later. Today most Gazans see Hamas as authoritarian and corrupt. Unable to point to any achievements, it instead blames Israeli aggression and poses as the one true defender of the Palestinian cause. It had no plan to attack Israel; it merely saw an opportunity to assert itself after Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president and leader of Fatah, indefinitely postponed legislative elections.

Hamas’s attacks are futile: its rockets inflict relatively little damage. But Israel feels it has to respond. “If it happened to Washington or to New York? You know damn well what you would do,” said Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, on American television. So the cycle has continued. Israeli bombs hit Hamas’s offices, rocket launchers and tunnel complexes. Several of the group’s commanders were killed. Israeli officers say they have significantly degraded Hamas’s capabilities. But even they don’t think the group will be down for long. When the next spark comes, the militants will undoubtedly be there to fan it.

And be in no doubt that it will come. Both sides are content to leave Gaza a festering pit of misery that periodically erupts. Hamas’s control in some ways suits Mr Netanyahu, inasmuch as it weakens the Palestinian leadership and dims the prospect of a Palestinian state. Israel will still try to keep the group down, though. It and Egypt have kept Gaza under blockade since 2007, making it harder for Hamas to arm itself—and making life grim for ordinary Gazans. Restrictions on travel mean they cannot leave. The isolated, impoverished territory draws comparisons to an open-air prison.

Hamas’s policies make it more like a shooting range. The group sometimes shows little interest in actually governing. Its schools and hospitals can be used for storing weapons. The idea is that Israel won’t attack such sites or, if it does, Hamas can use it for propaganda. The militants were surprised by how hard Israel hit back after they launched their first barrage on May 10th. Still, even as the death toll mounted, they did not stop.

Yet there were new elements to this round of violence. A wave of clashes between Jewish and Arab citizens in Israel itself unnerved Mr Netanyahu. There are new types of pressure from abroad, too. Whereas President Joe Biden emphasised “Israel’s legitimate right to defend itself”, some fellow Democrats called for putting conditions on American aid to Israel.

But for now, none of that is likely to stop the cycle of violence. Israel and Hamas will come out of this battle much as they went in. Nothing has been gained; nothing has been resolved. And yet they are likely to do it again.

More dishonesty.

Calling what the IDF does in Gaza "wars" is like calling pedophilia a sexual preference.

What happened in those instances were not wars. They were massacres. When one side is completely defenseless against that kind of firepower, that's a massacre. And @bad_teammate is correct: that article is categorically guilty of blame shifting and obfuscating the nature of the occupation. Hell, calling it a "conflict" or a "battle" is grotesque enough.

[MaybeACoordinator 8349]

On 5/23/2021 at 8:48 AM, WhatTheBuck said:

And American Christians don’t care because they believe as much as the Jews do that the God of Abraham is real and really did promise them all that land. It’s bullshit and it’s just fucking sad. 

Yes but the Christians believe that the lease one day will expire and convert to the True Believers in the One True Messiah and the Jews who don't convert will burn with all the rest of the heathens.

When I was a volunteer at Kibbutz Kfar Blum, I was called out of the kitchen by Itai, our volunteer boss, who'd somehow found out I was not only American, but a Texan. He normally was pretty neutral to me, which was a positive, because he yelled at people constantly, in a bitchy way; he was profoundly gay but deeply closeted. I mean, this guy's dot burned bright on even the shittiest gaydar screens; seeing him sashaying around in his IDF uniform was like a scene in one of those politically incorrect comedies from before the "Enlightenment" we live in today.

Anyway, he was downright chatty as we left the dining hall and headed toward the Jordan, which runs through or possibly borders Kfar Blum. Picture the Jordan River in your mind. Now picture one of Houston's lesser bayous, like Halls or Sims, near their headwaters, where the banks are still green and wooded....Anyway, that's about what the Jordan amounts to at Kfar Blum, at least in times of average rainfall. (As in Houston, some of us used as an accessory to our crimes: it was not unknown for some of the hooligans I volunteered with to steal bicycles from the volunteers on a neighboring kibbutz, where maybe they had a girlfriend or two, ride it back to Kfar Blum, and toss it in the Jordan to conceal the evidence.)

And then Itai got to the point...

"Your people," he said. "Do you believe they would to come here and get....what is it....baptized?"

I had to stifle a laugh, thinking of all the Evangelical idiots I'd known over the years.

"Of course they would Itai," I said.

And they would go back home and tell everyone what a soul-stirring, profoundly spiritual experience it was, getting dunked in a drainage ditch, which after all did happen to be what's left of the Jordan, right where it runs through the Upper Galilee. 

Itai almost certainly had to stifle a laugh himself, thinking of "my people" forking over thousands of dollars to his for the right to their little soul-bath there, and their thinking it would jump them to the head of the line when Jesus returned to levitate they the Faithful all up into Heaven and issue that Ultimate Ultimatum to his fellow Jews -- love me or burn forever. 

(It's unclear to me if they ever set up a baptismal site there, but they certainly use access to the Jordan's other baptismal sites in the promotional materials for their hotel.) 

Edited May 24, 2021 by MaybeACoordinator

[GW Hayduke 1952]

I was brought up through the Catholic school system including a Jesuit high school and was never subjected to anything related to Israel or the needs of Jews related to Jerusalem.  And trust me, they were not shy at all about pushing certain types of indoctrinations, like abortion.

[Brisketexan 104628]

2 minutes ago, GW Hayduke said:

I was brought up through the Catholic school system including a Jesuit high school and was never subjected to anything related to Israel or the needs of Jews related to Jerusalem.  And trust me, they were not shy at all about pushing certain types of indoctrinations, like abortion.

That's because the Catholics aren't Dominionists.  Dominionism is relatively recent utterly made up bullshit that has no basis in any scripture.  

[MaybeACoordinator 8349]

1 minute ago, Brisketexan said:

That's because the Catholics aren't Dominionists.  Dominionism is relatively recent utterly made up bullshit that has no basis in any scripture.  

The US media doesn't often tell the stories of Israeli persecution of Christian Arabs, of which there are very many in Palestine, and once were many more. I know about a dozen in Houston whose huge extrended family was expelled / fled from Ramallah decades ago. There are tons of little Catholic-ish, Orthodox-ish sects scattered from Ethiopia, through Egypt's Copts, and then in Israel / Palestine, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq. Sometimes it seems like each valley or village has its own official Rite...But to the Evangelicals, these are not real Christians, even though these are the descendants of the people who have been keeping the faith for the longest out of all Christians on Earth.

[lmao 178]

On 5/22/2021 at 3:20 AM, Shady Ray said:

Fuck yeah, they did. Had they not been established to the degree that they already were, their careers would have been over.

The concept for the book started with an article they had written, and when ADL et al went after them calling them anti-semites and blocking the publication in basically every US magazine/journal, they had to take it to Europe to be published.

Then they basically said, “Oh, ok...We’re gonna do a book on it now.”

What was their justification for labeling them anti-semitic? Any proof?

[956 Worldwide 34444]

3 hours ago, MaybeACoordinator said:

The US media doesn't often tell the stories of Israeli persecution of Christian Arabs, of which there are very many in Palestine, and once were many more. I know about a dozen in Houston whose huge extrended family was expelled / fled from Ramallah decades ago. There are tons of little Catholic-ish, Orthodox-ish sects scattered from Ethiopia, through Egypt's Copts, and then in Israel / Palestine, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq. Sometimes it seems like each valley or village has its own official Rite...But to the Evangelicals, these are not real Christians, even though these are the descendants of the people who have been keeping the faith for the longest out of all Christians on Earth.

The Christians caught it and catch it from both sides.  They are simply Palestinians to Israelis and are suspicious to the Hamas and the like.  They’ve also caught hell in Iraq. Many cities in what is now Israel or the Palestinian Territories were Christian well into the twentieth century. Lebanon is another place where for a while they gave as good as they got, but are now simply looking at mere survival. 
 

It’s gonna ironic if a couple decades of U.S. foreign policy destroys what 2000 years of empires, jihads, and crusades couldn’t.