Nearly half of British Jews considered leaving UK due to antisemitism

 https://www.jpost.com/international/article-778447

Nearly half of British Jews have considered leaving the UK since October 7 due to antisemitism, according to polling data collected by the Campaign Against Antisemitism. Four out of five Jews surveyed identified as Zionists.

The polling was conducted from November 12-17 among 3,744 respondents.

Based on the CAA survey data, 69% of UK Jews agree (40% of them strongly) that they were less likely than they were before the October 7 massacre to show visible signs of their Jewishness, such as wearing a Star of David or kippah. Another 15% disagreed, and the rest did not say.

Think Strategy, Not Tactics

 https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/11/strategy-not-tactics-israel-hamas-war/675863/

Both sides are driven by total objectives. For Hamas, this is nothing new: In its 1988 covenant, it committed itself to the annihilation of the state of Israel, and then and since, to the extermination of as many of its citizens as possible. Like most extreme Islamist movements, it distinguishes only loosely, or not at all, between Jews and Israelis. This objective justifies in its view the ultimate in violence, all of which was horrifically on display in the October 7 massacre, accompanied by the murder of children, rape, torture, beheading, and kidnapping. Behind its strategy is a long-term theory of victory: that such attacks, coupled perhaps with strikes by Hezbollah and Iran, or the risings of Palestinians in the West Bank, will cause Israel to collapse. In Hamas’s view, Israeli counterattacks on Gaza, which will inevitably kill many civilians, contribute to its objectives because they undermine support for Israel abroad, and inflame its many enemies.

Is rape and sexual assault part of the Hamas tactic of war?

 https://thehill.com/opinion/international/4365815-is-rape-and-sexual-assault-part-of-the-hamas-tactic-of-war/

In the Israel-Hamas war, the horror of the act of rape grips us and shocks the consciousness. The idea that these mass rapes were not simply the spoils of war but a tactic intended to instigate the current Israeli response must be realistically considered. Hamas has shown itself to be capable of playing a deadly long game and proven itself implacable, cruel and single-minded. As Hamas seeks to crush Israel from the river to the sea once and for all, it draws Israel into the predictable response that will see tens of thousands of Gazans killed. Hamas appears willing to make that sacrifice. The undecided question is whether Hamas will rise out of the rubble that remains of Gaza, however miserably, by this “risk it all” bet. 

Hamas, Gen Z and the 'River to the Sea'

 https://www.newsweek.com/hamas-gen-z-river-sea-1853419

The majority of young Americans are the only age group where the majority does not want a two-state solution, which is heavily favored by older Americans. More than half of 18- to 24-year-olds want Israel to be ended and given to Hamas and the Palestinians, while 32 percent favor two states.

But the poll also showed there were strong anti-Hamas and pro-Israel sentiments among Gen Z, suggesting the conflict is much more complicated than simply siding with Israel or Palestinians.

Trump Doubles Down On Anti-Immigrant ‘Blood’ Slur—Despite Widespread Criticism He’s Quoting Hilter

 https://www.forbes.com/sites/saradorn/2023/12/17/trump-doubles-down-on-anti-immigrant-blood-slur-despite-widespread-criticism-hes-quoting-hilter/?sh=755d267978b7

Earlier Saturday at a rally in New Hampshire, Trump said illegal immigrants were “poisoning the blood of our country,” a phrase that closely mirrors one used several times in Hilter’s “Mein Kampf” to describe the “influx of foreign blood” as “poison.”

Trump on Saturday also quoted Russian President Vladimir Putin and praised dictators Hungarian President Viktor Orban and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un.

Trump said “even Vladimir Putin” says that President Joe Biden has led “politically motivated prosecution of his political rival.”

An Antisemitic Occupation of Harvard’s Widener Library

 https://www.wsj.com/articles/an-antisemitic-occupation-of-harvards-widener-library-politics-anti-israel-bias-e4cea52a?mod=hp_trending_now_opn_pos2

My thoughts then turned to Harvard undergrads. Imagine if you were an 18-year-old Jewish or Israeli student, or even a pro-Israel Catholic like me, and you wanted to study for your chemistry final in the Widener Reading Room on a Sunday morning. Imagine being confronted by this protest, obviously condoned by Harvard’s leadership and commandeered by the Palestine Solidarity Committee, the group behind the notorious statement that holds “the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence” in the immediate aftermath of the Oct. 7 attack.

U.N. Calls for Investigation of Deaths at Hospital That Israel Says Was Hamas Command Center

 https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/u-n-calls-for-investigation-of-deaths-at-hospital-israel-says-was-hamas-command-center-7c02ac1d?mod=hp_lista_pos3

United Nations officials called for an investigation into an Israeli military raid on a Gaza hospital during which patients died and the armed forces said they detained scores of Hamas militants and recovered a trove of weapons and other military equipment, some of which officials said was hidden inside an infant incubator and a resuscitation station for newborns.

Israeli forces withdrew from Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza on Saturday after entering the facility on Tuesday. The U.N. Human Rights Office said it was calling for an investigation of what transpired during the raid, citing allegations from medical staff that patients had died because of the conditions in the facility.

How One Jewish American Family Wrestles Over Israel

 https://www.wsj.com/us-news/jewish-american-family-wrestles-over-israel-2b8019f1?mod=hp_lista_pos2

Emanuelle Sippy, a 20-year-old junior at Princeton University who heads the campus’s Alliance of Jewish Progressives, came to believe in recent years that Israel is an apartheid state guilty of committing human-rights abuses. The war in Gaza has reinforced her views, and she has responded by participating in vigils, walkouts and other actions demanding a cease-fire.

Sippy’s father, David Wirtschafter—a Reform rabbi in Lexington, Ky., who attended rabbinical school in Jerusalem—aches when he hears some of her harshest criticisms of Israel. And Sippy’s grandmother, Carol Wirtschafter, who lived with her husband and children in Jerusalem during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, laments that Sippy has lost hope for the country.

“I think she’s given up on Israel,” she said. “That makes me sad.”

Language – At a Loss for Words

 https://hamodia.com/columns/language-at-a-loss-for-words/

Among the casualties of the war are the very words used to describe it. As the words get repeated, the meaning drains out of them. Even words like brutal, heinous, horrific, monsters and atrocities have become anemic, feeble, lifeless …

Psychiatry Won’t Solve Our Mental Health Crisis — Only Politics Can Do That

 https://jacobin.com/2023/12/psychiatry-history-trauma-politics-medicine-mental-health

In a New York Times op-ed titled “Mental Health Is Political,” anthropologist and historian of neuroscience Danielle Carr asked, “What if the cure for our current mental health crisis is not more mental health care?” Carr argued that the conversation about mental illness frequently elides and displaces politics, ignoring the collective social and economic decisions that give rise to mental phenomena like anxiety, paranoia, and depression. Often the prevailing mental health discourse “puts the focus on the individual as a biological body,” writes Carr, “at the expense of factoring in systemic and infrastructural conditions.”

GOP senator: Israel must accept two-state solution to normalize ties with Saudis

 https://www.timesofisrael.com/gop-us-senator-israel-must-accept-two-state-solution-to-normalize-ties-with-saudis/

Arab countries will not agree to normalize ties with Israel unless Jerusalem agrees to a two-state solution, Republican US Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said Sunday.

The comments amounted to a rare recognition by a Republican lawmaker that Palestinian statehood is a condition for the expansion of the Abraham Accords, a series of US-brokered normalization agreements between Israel and Arab states negotiated under the administration of former US president Donald Trump. They came as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was weeks into a public post-October 7 campaign in which he has vowed to block the strategy.

The Crazy Conservative Scheme to Make Trump Look Normal: Rehabilitate Nixon

 https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/12/15/nixon-trump-young-conservatives-00131637

“If we can rehabilitate Richard Nixon in a balanced and fair manner — or even if we can just create questions in the public discourse about Nixon and about Nixon’s presidency — then I think, by way of analogy, it will provoke similar questions about Donald Trump,” said the conservative activist Christopher Rufo, who published a lengthy defense of Nixon earlier this year for City Journal. “It will give us the kind of template, it will give us the precedents, it will give us the skills, where we can more effectively defend a conservative president against these kinds of attacks.”

Rambam and Agada

 The Toldos HaPoskim notes that the Rambam does not differentiate between halacha found in halachic discourse in Talmud and readily decides halacha based entirely on Agada or midrashim

Poll: Most young Americans think Israel should be ‘ended and given to Hamas’

 https://www.timesofisrael.com/poll-most-young-americans-back-ending-israel-many-find-jewish-genocide-calls-okay/

Majority of all respondents support Israel, but results from 18-24 age group show majority think IDF campaign ‘genocidal,’ while saying calls for genocide of Jews is are legitimate