antisemitism in it.

"Never again" should have meant never again.

AKA
PRINCIPLES

Some of us think those are important.

They ignored the anti war protests and threats in 2024. Look what that got us.

In 2024, they actually were less kneejerk Pro Israel than the US typically has been. You could say the withholding the bigs bombs given the use they would be put to was too little, too late and had no impact on Netanyahu.

Politically part of the problem is that some of the better known US Jewish advocacy groups reject not just politicians rejecting actions of Israel's right wing government, but of mainstream Jewish groups like J Street. AIPAC in particular, at least around a decade ago, claimed they did not assess what policies should be, they just supported Israel. Polls of Non orthodox Jewish people showed that the position of J Street was more supported, but AIPAC has always had more money and was willing to use it against any legislator who disagreed.

Add to that the fact that evangelicals, at this point, might support Netanyahu at a far higher percent than non Orthodox Jews. The combination means that in many places, even the smallest deviance from supporting Israel is politically dangerous. Ask yourselves why calling for a boycott of Israel is illegal in many states that allow you to call for a boycott of another state!

Mixed with the massive ramping up in the Middle East.

I want to elect people who stand in their truth.

No more "see which way the wind is blowing".

If I run again next year - big IF - it is a campaign of Home Rule, encouraging gun ownership (dedicated hours at the police station to process applications), and allowing places of worship (both the Mosque and Temple are included) to have armed guards on their property. I would also like to offer security camera assistance as we do with carbon monoxide and fire alarms to all residents.

These aren't popular positions for Democratic Party members/voters all across America.

But in a town where Jewish and Muslims residents are starting to receive the same heat from outsiders that Black Americans in our town have received including myself - they are popular.

All politics are local. Global issues are permeating small towns in the North East. Let Netanyahu, Hamas, Hezbollah, and Trump be fucking assholes - because they are.

What works for Mamdani 45 miles away doesn't work in rural NJ.

I think HE can respect that. Every other Democratic Party member outside of my Borough needs to respect it too.

The wind may be blowing to turn our backs on certain religions -

Not in my town. If the Democratic Party doesn't like it? Then push me out. Tell me to go to hell.

for every penny in aid to any foreign government.

These are our values. You don't agree, you obviously don't need our money.

Haven't been for a long, long time. The early 20th century banana wars. And that whole Cold War thing. Ironically, we became very good at destabilizing democratically elected governments we didn't like. This whole Iran slog is rooted in that.

But I get your point. Just because we haven't doesn't mean we can't. We should. So lets tie aid to progress towards a 2 state solution or some other peaceful resolution of this mess. No progress, no aid.

Then again, why the hell are we sending aid to another highly developed, free market economy? Israel is more than wealthy enough to stand on their own 2 feet. Seriously, it's like sending aid to Belgium. What?! Why?! For the Amurka first crowd, imagine what we could do with that money here at home.

but I believe that Israel was at times in favor of a two state solution - even forcibly evacuated Gaza in 2005, although not specifically to enable that.

Let me ask:
Do the majority of Palestinians accept a two state solution?
Do they accept the existence of Israel as an independent Jewish State?

But it is from an aid standpoint. Palestinians get only a fraction of the dollars we pump into the Israeli military every year. Israel can afford to protect themselves.

You're right, there was progress in the 2000's and 20 teens. Since then, nutters on both sides have taken over , with the inevitable escalation. To the point now of being out of control. So what do we do? Keep pumping kinetics into the Israeli military to use on Palestinians? Seems counter productive in my mind. Both of them...either get your shit together or any aid, other than humanitarian, ends. Period. EOM.

Israel is playing us. Don't be played.

Upholding Human Rights.

We lost it long before the maga Pubs and Krasnov entered the scene. However, now the smoke screen is gone.

We've never been a Human Rights country - Genocide, slavers, Jim Crow, Etc etc.

I don't believe the bullshit about America anymore. It was always bullshit.

That kind of thinking led to the Mexico City Policy, because conservatives think abortion is immoral, so they conditioned aid based on it.

Conflict in Israel plays a heavy role in that. Fundie Christians have no great love for Jews, whom many believe were responsible for the execution of Jesus.

Wanting the end of the world -- with all the associated suffering and death -- qualifies as a very sick and dangerous cult, in my view.

Jim Jones with his kool-aid was a rank amateur compared to them.

After Oct. 7, many of us were in complete sympathy with Israel.
But the death and destruction visited on Gaza innocents since then has changed my mind.

It reminds me of how favorably the world viewed the US after Sept. 11. And how we completely f*&ked that up by launching the Iraq war.

..religious wars can never be won.

Sad to say.

And I can’t think of any way to solve that one. People cling to their religion like it’s a matter of life and death. And seems to me, far too many times, death can be the exact result.

Jews are a People, not just a religion.
Hitler agreed with that as he didn't discriminate on what people believe, but who they are.

Mordecai Kaplan:

He can't be taken seriously anymore. Something happened to him.

To me, it's not about standing up against Trump so much as it is about standing up against the oligarchs who apparently set the agendas of both parties.

A stalemate of terrible options.

Wow. I've never heard this before. /sarcasm.

I'm going to start dropping this post in all these threads...

Netanyahu's reactions were predictable and the goal of the Oct 7 atrocities.

Just simple observation tells me...

1. The Oct 7 attack was designed to be so horrific that Netanyahu would have an excuse to ramp up attacks on Gaza...

2. Where Hamas has deliberately embedded themselves into hospitals, schools, and homes, so that any attack on Hamas is an attack on civilians....

3. And upset many Israeli soldiers so much that war crimes became inevitable...

4. There was a well-designed propaganda machine ready to roll the morning of Oct 8, complete with cute emojis, spread through DSA and other youth-oriented movements in the U.S., which would ensure that....

5. There would be clashes on college campuses to provide headlines, excuses for congressional inquiries and deeply hypocritical and cynical accusations of antisemitism and toxic woke by the likes of Elise Stefanik, all designed to convince American voters that we have a CRISIS at WOKE UNIVERSITIES caused by Democrats that only Trump can fix...

6. And meanwhile don't vote for genocide joe or killer kamala, thus ensuring that Trump would win...

7. And enable Netanyahu to further ramp up human rights violations and further destabilize the whole region..

8. All to the benefit of sniggering sociopathic billionaires. Everybody else loses.

People don't realize that HAMAS has a robust propaganda wing, backed by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Brigade. (Al-Quds being the name for Jerusalem in Arabic.) They flooded TikTok, Instagram, Telegram, etc. with images of Palestinian kids being killed. They weaponized our empathy for the downtrodden. Especially those who are already marginalized in this country (LGBTQ+, African-Americans, etc.).

Additionally, you have to remember that Mossad is pretty social media savvy, too. I wouldn't put it past them to have been behind the "Genocide Joe" stuff in order to get Bibi's buddy TACO back into power.

Americans are getting victimized by propaganda and we don't even realize it.

As for Mamdani: I think he comes off an authentic.

https://m.

But whats going on between Israel and Palestine has never entered my thoughts when it comes to voting. We can cut off funding they'll continue killing each other. Making that a bigger voting issue over domestic policies for the average American is just shooting oneself in the foot.

Thats where im at I'm just not for making that a prime voting requisite

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

Since forever, long before Oct 7th. It's the WRONGNESS of it that I can't comprehend is allowed and even denied. Thanks for linking.

Will countries become even more cruel to others while people are complacent. Will social media become a place filled with images of dead kids, kids who are still alive screaming while their bodies are severely burned?Is this what our children will grow up watching? When I was a little kid, my mom had to take me out of the theater because I was crying so hard because Bambi died. The norm -our kids see mutilated and dead kids on their phones every day. The past two weeks have been super horrible- so many burnt kids and babies with no legs.

They don't have to watch it - they will see it on the street.

It won't really HIT people until they start picking up the 100's of thousands of undocumented European Immigrants.

50K from Ireland alone.

Tom Homan (maga pub) just said that elderly and children can pick lettuce - rather he can't see why they canNOT pick lettuce.

Ohhh - we know which Americans are going to be enslaved to do it. We are maybe a year or two away from Black children being stolen and given to white people to work as slaves.

Or - Black folks - we need to arm ourselves and do what we gotta do and ask questions later.

And anyone saying this is kooky or extremist?

Slavery by any other name never went away. Also -America has done this before (we are pieces of worthless shit as a country) obviously doesn't know how Amerikkka has always worked for Black people.