Shabbat shalom!
A tip of the kippah this week to a group of leaders, Scott Galloway, Sheryl Sandberg, Sam Harris and Dan Señor, who will use their platforms to keep the hostages and their eventual freedom front and center. According to the Hostages Family Forum, “As the holiday season approaches, we’re confronted by the heartbreaking reality of 100 hostages who remain separated from their loved ones. The ongoing captivity in Gaza, including seven Americans, requires urgent international action. By amplifying these stories through influential voices, we hope to maintain global attention and pressure until a comprehensive deal secures the safe return of every last hostage.” And according to the latest polls, 72 percent of Israeli society is willing to end the war in order to bring back the hostages, which is the highest number since the beginning of the war. Netanyahu must see this too, and at the end of the day, if there is a moment to do this deal, that moment is now. Do the deal Bibi! And then please resign.
Now, onto a different topic.
Stepping into the wayback machine, here is a quick anecdote from my halcyon days at UMass Amherst, where I eventually graduated with a degree in English/Journalism. The year was 1978, and having a light course load, I found myself with a bit of extra time which I filled with various drug and alcohol induced moments of mayhem. It was probably during our weekly Wednesday liquid lunch at Mikes Westview Cafe (Mike’s wife made a mean meatloaf) that me and my friend and partner in crime, Bill Edelstein, crafted our idea to run for Student Government President as Co-benevolent Dictators. We ran against 10 other candidates, including “None of the Above”, and a real Yippie named Russel Swan, who’s running mate was a toy duck he would pull behind him at campaign events for his Swan/Duck platform. I am not joking. But, the Goverman/Edelstein campaign was a well financed and well organized machine with Edelstein smoking cigars and wearing army fatigues (and a Toronto Blue Jays cap) and speaking in what can only be described as “broken Cuban”, while I played the more serious traditional Co-dictator. It all sounds crazy, and believe me, it was more than that, but our real campaign coup was our decision to drop leaflets on the campus to promote our candidacy. We hired a plane out of Northampton Airport, printed 3,000 leaflets promoting “Goverman and Edelstein for Co-benevolent Dictators – In Us We Trust”, flew over the campus and dropped the leaflets on unsuspecting voters, but we did not account correctly for the wind, and most of the leaflets fell on an elementary school in Amherst, and, unfortunately for us, the Dean of Students house. Big oops.
Why am I recounting this tale of campus hi jinx? This might sound crazy, but I am trying to figure a new path for resistance to the clown show we are going to suffer through the next four years. While I am not proposing that we resurrect the Goverman -Edelstein platform, I do think that writer and military expert Malcolm Nance may be onto something when he proposes emulating the tactics of the French Resistance of WWII, something he calls FAFO, Focused Action, Focused Objectives.
The Resistance must organize into a unified machine but through simultaneous individual acts of defiance. Why? Your life as an American with rights may be in mortal danger. Some of us will end up in physical danger. Your way of life has already changed with compliant media and politicians genuflecting to Trump weeks before he is in power.
The only way out of this hole is to focus on carrying out single, unitary actions that achieve singular objectives simultaneously.
So, here is what I am thinking as one potential individual act of defiance. Let’s hit Donny-Dumb-Fuck where it hurts the most – his fat, inflated, and supremely delicate ego. Let’s get busloads to attend the inauguration, line them all up with their backs to the orange turd, and just as he puts his hand on one of his stupid junk bibles to get sworn in, everyone drops their pants and moons the moron. That would make for one hell of a news photo opportunity!
And I know what some might be thinking, that such an act would disrespect the institution and the ever important transfer of power. But, what goes around comes around. No-one has disrespected the norms and institutions of this great country more than the moron that this crazy country just voted for.
If you have any other FAFO ideas, feel free to send them my way.
On the news for the Jews, in addition to hopeful developments on the Gaza and hostage front, this week can be summarized as “a tale of two reports.” On the one hand, Andrew Fox, noted military expert, issued a report that is getting widespread attention in the middle east and beyond. Fox, a research fellow at the Henry Jackson Society, served in the British Army from 2005 to 2021, completing three tours in Afghanistan, including one attached to the US Army Special Forces. At the transatlantic think tank, he specializes in Defense, the Middle East, and disinformation. He holds degrees in Law and Politics, Modern War Studies and Psychology.
Fox and a team of researchers published a report titled, “Questionable Counting: Analysing the Death Toll from the Hamas-Run Ministry of Health in Gaza.” According to the report, the Palestinian death toll for the Gaza war appears to include thousands of people who died of natural causes as well as incorrect figures — partly in an effort to inflate the toll of women and children.
Worse, international media outlets are too quick to accept the figures from terror group Hamas — usually without the scrutiny and rigor that are applied when reporting numbers supplied by Israel. The Hamas-run Health Ministry’s figures, the report claims, are being manipulated for propaganda needs.
The Gaza health ministry, under Hamas, “has systematically inflated the death toll by failing to distinguish between civilian and combatant deaths, over-reporting fatalities among women and children and even including individuals who died before the conflict began,” the report said.
Of course, all war-related fatalities, civilian or otherwise, are horrible, and should be avoided at all costs. It is however, the dirty truth about any war and this one is no different. It is also true of war that atrocities and crimes against humanity will occur in due course. And, unfortunately, another report from Haaretz this week documented some particularly horrifying stories from IDF soldiers and commanders about indiscriminate shooting by the IDF of civilians in Gaza. This report is also getting a lot of attention in Israel, and does not help when the world is holding Israel to a higher standard and looking for ways to punish her. These accounts of indiscriminate killing and the routine classification of civilian casualties as terrorists emerged repeatedly in Haaretz’s conversations with recent Gaza veterans.
“Calling ourselves the world’s most moral army absolves soldiers who know exactly what we’re doing,” says a senior reserve commander who has recently returned from the Netzarim corridor. “It means ignoring that for over a year, we’ve operated in a lawless space where human life holds no value. Yes, we commanders and combatants are participating in the atrocity unfolding in Gaza. Now everyone must face this reality.”
Ugh. The war has dragged on for far too long. Israeli soldiers are tired, and many are demoralized. This shit has to end. Bibi, do the deal, then resign.
So now, without further ajieu, here is your weekly smorgasbord of superbly selected semitic stories from sources such as The Forward, JTA, The Times of Israel, Haaretz, Nosher, Kveller, and Jewish Boston to name a few.
- This just in: Houthis hit Tel Aviv – A missile fired by Yemen’s Houthis exploded in a public park in Jaffa, south Tel Aviv, overnight Friday-Saturday after attempts to intercept it failed. Medics said 16 people were lightly injured by shattered glass, including a three-year-old girl, while 14 were bruised while rushing to shelters. Footage from the park showed a crater where the missile had impacted.
- More on the war
- With hopes for a ceasefire agreement before the end of the year still high, no further progress was reported from Thursday talks. (Washington Post)
- Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will skip a commemoration of the upcoming 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, in Poland, over fears that the country might execute an International Criminal Court warrant and arrest him. (Times of Israel)
- Israeli settlers set a mosque on fire in the West Bank village of Madra overnight, and vandalized it, including with a spray-painted word translating to “revenge.” (Haaretz)
- Residents of a Syrian village near the Golan Heights say Israeli troops are preventing them from accessing the fields they farm for their livelihood. (Times of Israel)
- Israel’s Minister of Diaspora Affairs, Amichai Chikli, criticized Pope Francis’ call for an investigation into whether Israel’s war in Gaza constitutes a genocide, saying his remarks trivialize the weighty term. (Reuters)
- Who scored the first basket in the NBA? A Jew, that’s who! Friend of the JNR, Michael Stone, submitted this short film as an exclusive for the JNR. His oldest friend, Jeff Gurock, is a professor of Jewish history at Yeshiva (and also a former ass’t basketball coach there). He participated in this 8 minute tribute to the founding Jewish guys on the New York Knicks including Ossie Schectman who scored the first ever basket in the NBA!
https://app.frame.io/presentations/12a3f476-c397-403d-82de-f959aaab651c
- Here and there
- More Mush from Human Rights Watch issued a lengthy report this morning documenting Israeli restrictions on water in Gaza since the war began, arguing that they constitute acts of genocide and crimes against humanity.
- The group contends that Israel is going beyond its military campaign against Hamas and deliberately depriving Gaza residents of basic needs. It aims to prove intent largely based on public statements from Israeli officials.
- The Israeli agency that handles water in Gaza disputed the report’s conclusions and said Israel was doing what it could to keep the water flowing.
- Gerald Steinberg, a longtime critic of Human Rights Watch, reviewed a summary of the report and condemned it as “propaganda in the disguise of research.”
- More Mush from Human Rights Watch issued a lengthy report this morning documenting Israeli restrictions on water in Gaza since the war began, arguing that they constitute acts of genocide and crimes against humanity.
- Academy Preview – None of the eligible Israeli films made the Oscar shortlists in the high-profile categories that were announced Tuesday in Los Angeles.However, the documentaries The Bibi Files, which covers Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s trial, and No Other Land, about an alliance between a Palestinian activist and Israeli journalist, were both chosen for the Best Documentary Feature shortlist. However, A Real Pain, Jesse Eisenberg’s Holocaust Buddy Movie is getting great reviews! The story of two kvetching cousins (Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin) who reunite for a heritage tour of Poland after the death of their grandmother is according to one reviewer, “hilarious and heartbreaking by turns. Buoyed by supporting players who include Will Sharpe, Jennifer Grey, and Kurt Egyiawan, this gentle comedy makes a serious point about how grand tragedies and little hurts resonate for generations.”
That’s enough! Dayenu! Enjoy the holidays everyone! Stay healthy, resist, and as usual, let’s be careful out there.
Brad out.
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