November 8, 2023 - About Republicans and a Plan for Middle East Peace

 

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About Republicans

When are we going to realize that we cannot deal with most of today's Republicans in a normal, civilized, manner?  

They are little better than the Tories of 1776, the Secessionists of 1861, the Nazi sympathizers of the 1940s, and those who tried to overthrow our government on January 6, 2021, denying the results of a legitimate election.

Some of this latter group are now in prison, but those that instigated their actions remain free to sow seeds of rebellion in the country.  They include the defeated former president who, as I said in the last posting of Jackspotpourri, will never see the inside of a prison.

Republicans are not running a campaign aimed at gaining control of the government and managing it based upon more conservative principles.  That would be acceptable.  They are running a campaign based on destroying representative democracy in the United States, permanently!  And for the time being, they have the unrepresentative majority on the Supreme Court on their side.

Republicans accuse the Democrats of ‘weaponizing’ the justice system against them.  No such thing is happening.  The Department of Justice is just doing the job it was intended to do.  But such ‘weaponizing’ is exactly what Republicans would do if given the chance once they gained control of the DOJ.  Listen to the words their indicted and leading candidate for the presidency speaks, including his insults to the court in his civil litigation!  He makes no bones about his authoritarian posture.

But there are always exceptions like Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger who have long since been read out of the Republican Party.  Those with open minds that remain are insultingly denigrated as Republicans in name only – RINOs. 

On Monday former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, who is among the competitors with Donald John Trump for the 2024 G.O.P. presidential nomination, after being booed by a pro-Trump audience, smiled and responded by telling them ‘Your anger against the truth is reprehensible.’  (Christie made the error of using a five-syllable word in addressing Trump supporters, something far above the ability of most of them to process.)

All the groups mentioned in the first paragraph of this article believe that a democracy entitles those who live in one to use its freedoms to bring it down.  

They are about to nominate someone under indictment for numerous serious federal and State crimes to run for president, believing those indictments are to his credit!   

They have no respect for government institutions that occasionally attempt to regulate things for the public good, suspecting that to have the aroma of socialism.

That’s in addition to their having hog-tied the function of what was supposed to be ‘the peoples House,’ and have there just installed a new Speaker of the House of Representatives, Michael Johnson, who denied the results of the 2020 presidential election and honestly believes, despite having a law degree, that the document our government is based upon is the Bible and not the Constitution!  

Speaker Johnson advocates a ‘biblical worldview,’ just like the ayatollahs who run Iran do, only he substitutes the Bible for the Koran.  He has remarked that his profession as a lawyer is actually a ‘legal ministry.’  A graduate of LSU’s law school, he had been named as dean of a ‘Christian’ law school in Louisiana that never opened.  He is a disgrace to the House of Representatives, the Republican Party, and the nation!  Only religious extremists or people who ignore history would vote for such a party’s candidates.

C'mon. Within the limits of our laws, it is time to stop being polite in dealing with such people.  Racism and bigotry, and promoting seditious ideas, are not lessened by the wearing of a lapel pin identifying a member of Congress or wielding the Speaker's gavel.

Some of them even believe that the country is in such dire straits that it has reached a point where democracy is a luxury we can no longer afford!  This is historically the argument of those who would be dictators, and has given birth to Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, and numerous rulers of countries that started out as democracies.   

It is up to us to disprove this quotation from William Butler Yeats’ poem, ‘The Second Coming” - - -  ‘The best lack all conviction, while the worst / are full of passionate intensity.’

Yesterday’s mid-term voting was a good start in Kentucky, Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and elsewhere.  The protection of abortion rights was the issue that provided the conviction and intensity necessary to win elections.  We must keep it up.  Remember that polls do not decide elections.  Voters do!

JL

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 About Israel and Palestine

First, a few words of clarification:  ‘Palestine’ is a geographic location and all those living there up until partition in 1947 were considered as Palestinians, regardless of their ethnic or religious identity, just as all of those living in Texas, for example, are considered to be Texans.  Another example: Most of the musicians in the 'Palestine' Philharmonic Orchestra, founded in 1935, were Jewish before it changed its name to the Israel Philharmonic in 1948.  It is a geographic term and not an ethnic one, although it is now commonly used to exclusively describe those of Muslim or Arab descent living there, as this posting does.                                                            

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Many will disagree with the following, believing it to favor the Palestinians at the expense of Israel.  That is because it involves gradually getting rid of the 'settlements,' which I think is a necessary step, the only way to reach a two-state solution, something I see as the only pathway to peace there.

As for a ’ceasefire,’ as is being demanded by many for humanitarian reasons, that would leave Hamas in existence to claim victory and able to prepare for additional attacks and is therefore out of the question.  Israel is correct in insisting on first getting the hostages back and destroying Hamas military ability, regardless of how long that takes.  

Hamas does not care about the 10,000 Palestinian deaths in Gaza that their October 7 attack on Israel brought about.  In fact, it enables them to paint Israel as the cause of the current war which they started on October 7 and a ceasefire would be to their advantage, enabling them to rearm and reorganize.   

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Here is what I think will happen in the Israeli-Hamas War starting over the next few weeks and thereafter, including a suggested plan to achieve a two-state solution, proceeding incrementally, once the Gaza Strip is peacefully integrated into a Palestinian state. 

•    Israel will eventually announce that it has destroyed Hamas as a threat, even though that might not necessarily be true because of the possible of a continued token presence of some armed Hamas fighters still within the Gaza Strip, but without heavy weapons or missile capabilities.  Most of the surviving hostages will be returned and humanitarian aid will flow into the  Gaza Strip unimpeded.  This may occur sooner than most observers suspect.   
•    Once Israel is certain that Hamas or similar groups dedicated to its destruction have been eliminated from the Gaza Strip, they will withdraw its troops and turn it over to the United Nations, which will monitor its demilitarization, until it is becomes part of a Palestinian state, ideally under the governance of the Palestinian Authority.  This will take a long time. Years, perhaps.  Remember that in 2007, the Gazans threw the Palestinian Authority out militarily, preferring Hamas, after Israel pulled its troops and residents out of Gaza, hoping peace would ensue there.  Israel will not repeat that mistake, and should recognize the issues that gave rise to Hamas, and address them.
•    The cost of rebuilding Gaza will be shared by neighboring Arab states, and most likely, the United States as well.
•     A demilitarized Palestinian state will be established including the West Bank and the eastern part of Jerusalem, as anticipated by the 1947 partition plan, ultimately to include the Gaza Strip as well.  

• 

  Except for a divided Jerusalem, this is pretty much
  what a two-state solution would look like.

  
  
•    There will be no limitation on Muslim access to the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, in an international zone, continuing to be maintained by Jordan but policed by Israel.  That location also is ‘holy’ to Jews. The rights of both religions there must be protected.
•     Israel will immediately stop establishing ‘settlements’ in the areas that would comprise the Palestinian state.  Palestinians will immediately stop claiming all of Palestine, including the State of Israel, as belonging to them.
•     Existing Israeli settlements in the areas that will become the Palestinian state will be turned over to that state over a twenty-year period commencing no sooner than the peaceful integration of the Gaza Strip into the new  Palestinian state, with the Israeli government financing their residents’ resettlement in Israel.  Initially, perhaps over the first two or three years of this period, this would apply only to ‘outpost’ settlements and other settlements that are not extensively built up and not bordering on the State of Israel.
•     Other settlements in these areas that are adjacent to the State of Israel, or are more extensively built up, will be gradually turned over to the Palestinian state over the next twenty years, after Gaza is integrated into the Palestinian state, as Israel’s resources become available for resettling their residents. (Check out the previous posting for photographs of two settlements.  Many are quite substantial.)
•     As settlements are turned over to the new Palestinian State, Palestinians who had fled the area when the State of Israel was established, or after the 1967 War, might have the opportunity to return to them as Israelis leave them.
•    The demilitarized nature of the Palestinian state would be monitored by the United Nations.  Any violations of it, in the Gaza Strip or elsewhere, including cooperation with aggression against Israel by neighboring Muslim states, including Iran and those groups it controls, would result in Israel immediately postponing or cancelling its removal of settlements.

Noteworthy is the apparent reluctance of Iran to become more involved in the Israel-Hamas War.  This is probably the result of its recognizing that doing so would activate the naval support for Israel that the United States has stationed in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, and elevate the level of the conflict, something they want to avoid.  

As for the multi-step scenario described above, Israel will be giving up a lot in abandoning the security based on its settlements. Similarly, a new Palestinian state would be giving up having any armed forces while Israel’s military strength would not be diminished.

But it would give the Palestinians a state of their own, provide an avenue for Arabs who fled Israel to return, and remove their continuing resentment of Israel presented by its occupying territory primarily not inhabited by Jews. These steps, I believe, will contribute to peace for Israel and a Palestinian state.

I believe that the Palestinian Authority under Mahmoud Abbas or his successors would go along with this, despite opposition by Palestinian extremists, significantly weakened by the demise of Hamas. 

As for Israel, there would have to be a significant change in their government for Israel to buy into it.  Right now, I believe they would not accept it, but Netanyahu’s days as Prime Minister are numbered and I do not believe the majority of Israelis will continue to support the extreme right wing religious parties that have kept him in power.

JL

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Housekeeping on Jackspotpourri

Email Alerts:  If you are NOT receiving emails from me alerting you each time there is a new posting on Jackspotpourri, just send me your email address and we’ll see that you do.  And if you are forwarding a posting to someone, you might suggest that they do the same, so they will be similarly alerted. You can pass those email addresses to me by email at jacklippman18@gmail.com. 

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There’s another, perhaps easier, method of forwarding it though!   Google Blogspot, the platform on which Jackspotpourri is prepared, makes that possible.  If you click on the tiny envelope with the arrow at the bottom of every posting, you will have the opportunity to list up to ten email addresses to which that blog posting will be forwarded, along with a comment from you.  Each will receive a link to the textual portion only of the blog that you are now reading, but without the illustrations, colors, variations in typography, or the 'sidebar' features such as access to the blog's archives.

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Again, I urge you to forward this posting to anyone you think might benefit from reading it.

 

JL

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November 3, 2023 - More Constitutional Misinterpretation, Israel, Trump, and the World Series

 

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More Misinterpreting of the Constitution

It isn’t bad enough that a politicized Supreme Court misinterpreted the Second Amendment back in 2008 (Check out Justice Scalia's opinion in D.C. vs Heller) by allowing the uncontrolled proliferation of weapons in this country, ignoring the Amendment’s first thirteen words, and bringing about many deaths.  

Speaker Michael Johnson,
a defender of God against big government

Now we have a religiously minded House Speaker who honestly believes that the purpose of the First Amendment is not, as intended by the Founding Fathers, to protect the people from a government-endorsed religious preference, but rather to protect established religions from an encroaching government!  And the Republicans in the House actually voted for him to be the Speaker.  Wow! 

And speaking of this character, you can figure out what masters he really serves by noting that he supports our military aid to Israel but only if those funds are taken away from the IRS's budget, a tremendous benefit to some businesses and the extremely wealthy whom the IRS would suddenly lack the resources to audit.  Notice his smirk in the photo above.   

The solution:  Never, ever, vote for a Republican for any elective position whatsoever.  By and large, they neither understand history nor our representative democracy and are unfit to hold public office.  Electing even just one, even to minor local posts, strengthens their overall organization and results in the likes of the new Speaker, Matt Gaetz, Jim Jordan, Ron DeSantis, and of course, Donald Trump winning elections. 

The decent ones, the Liz Chaneys and Adam Kizingers, have long since been thrown out of the G.O.P., or left politics, leaving us with the likes of phony baloney George Santos whom they lack the guts to expel.  The Republican Party, if you have a long, long, memory, once was respectable but no longer is.

This weekend is just one year from Election Day, Nov. 5, 2024.  Time to get to work to keep the presidency and the Senate blue, and take back the House from Republican scoundrels like the new House speaker!

JL 

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Not Good News from Israel

A question for you:  When Israeli intelligence learns that there is a Hamas installation firing off missiles or being used for any other military purpose in attacking the State of Israel, and it is at a location amidst or tunneled underneath residential dwellings, hospitals, school, or mosques, what are they supposed to do? 

Right now, Israel is urging Palestinian civilians in Gaza to move from such locations, but there really is no place to which they can go.

Ideally, those who urge Israel to stop bombarding such targets for humanitarian reasons should tell Hamas to first cease using innocent civilians in that manner.  I believe the large number of innocent civilians being killed or otherwise affected by Israeli bombardment are the result of Hamas’ intentionally putting these civilians in the way of such Israeli actions and blaming their deaths on Israel.  Hamas has no more respect for Palestinian lives than it does for Israeli lives.  And there is little that outsiders can do about it.

Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, killing about 1,400 Israeli civilians living near the Gaza border.  If Hamas is allowed to continue to exist, which is what a ‘cease-fire’ would amount to, that could happen again, elsewhere.  That is why Israel is now committed to destroying Hamas, a terrorist organization recognized as such by the United States and the nations of the European Union. 

Right now, the United States is urging Israel to consider ‘brief pauses’ in their bombardment of the Gaza Strip, to allow for humanitarian aid to reach there, and for hostage negotiations to proceed. This would fall short of a ‘cease fire’ something that would greatly benefit the Hamas terrorists, but might be acceptable to Israel.  One such ‘brief pause’ did take place last week, for long enough for two hostages to be released, but that is far short of a ‘cease fire.’

Digging deeper, however, with the aim of resolving the circumstances that motivated that attack, requires negotiating, but Hamas is not an acceptable negotiator, being committed to the destruction of Israel.  

That might be the role of those states supporting Hamas in varying degrees, especially Iran which also backs similar Hezbollah terrorists on Israel’s northern borders, but there is little chance of that happening today.  Even the suggestion of the United States talking to Iran (which we of course do through intermediaries) results in Republicans in Congress becoming apoplectic and going on the warpath. That leaves Israel with no alternative other than its war to destroy Hamas, while trying to avoid civilian casualties in Gaza as best they can, an almost impossible task. 

The negotiations that are going on via Qatar, Egypt, and countries like the United States, seem to be dealing with hostages and humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, but not the basic causes of the problem.

Any cease-fire agreement, in the eyes of Israel, would validate Hamas October 7 attack as more than an act of terrorists, and constitute a victory for such terrorism. That is why Israel is correct in its efforts to destroy Hamas, just as Western nations and moderate Arab states fought to destroy ISIS and Al Qaeda, and other terrorist groups. 

Up to now, I have believed that whenever ‘real’ negotiations ultimately take place, as well as focusing on concluding the Israeli-Hamas War, they must at the same time address establishing a ‘two-state’ solution, as envisioned by the 1947 partition of Palestine.  Failure to accomplish that has been the basis of all conflict between Israel and the Palestinians for the past 75 years.  

But now I have my doubts.  Such a ‘two-state’ solution has been shoved into the distant background by extremists on both sides.  These include Arabs who are implacable in their efforts to exterminate the State of Israel, and Israelis who have moved into the West Bank and East Jerusalem, with the support of the Israeli government, establishing many settlements there on land supposedly intended to be part of a Palestinian state, but lost by them in the unsuccessful wars Arabs fought to destroy Israel.  

These 'settlements,' believed by successive Israeli governments to be a ‘security’ measure, on land where a Palestinian state was intended to be, seem to make a ‘two-state’ solution almost impossible at this point, leaving us only with ‘one-state’ solutions, all of which are fraught with danger.

These 'settlements' are much more than mere outposts, as the word ‘settlement’ suggests, envisioning a very basic ‘pioneering’ environment.  Many have grown into bustling neighborhoods of apartment houses.  It has been reported to the United Nations that there are almost 700,000 Israelis living in them, about a third in East Jerusalem and the rest on the West Bank, both areas that would have been part of the Palestinian state in the ‘two-state’ solution envisioned at the time of partition in 1947, but lost in 1967 by the Palestinians in their failed war against Israel.

I don’t believe that these ‘occupied’ territories, because of the presence of such numerous settlements, can be readily returned to their ‘pre-settlement’ status, and that severely cripples the idea of a ‘two-state’ solution, at least for the time being.  That may be sad, but it is difficult to deny.

The Ma'ale Adumim settlement, pictured below, is in the West Bank, about five miles east of Jerusalem.   The Har Homa settlement, also pictured below, is in East Jerusalem.  From either, Israelis can take a bus to downtown Jerusalem.  Look at them.  It's not a matter of tearing down some tents or cabins.  Draw your own conclusions.  

No Israeli government would be agreeable to abandoning ‘settlements’ like these.  They remember what happened when they moved Israeli settlers from Gaza in 2005, hoping for peace, turning it over to the Palestinians, who made it into the cancer that Israel is battling right now. 

This is a tremendous problem for Israel and its supporters.  A solution would require the wisdom of King Solomon.  I am not optimistic.

Ma'ale Adumim Settlement on West Bank
 five miles from Jerusalem

Har Homa Settlement in East Jerusalem

JL

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Not Good News About Trump

Don’t you get it? Donald Trump actually wants the judges hearing his case to enforce the gag orders they have imposed on him, intended to prevent his threatening witnesses and potential jurors and attacking members of the legal system that are prosecuting him. That’s why he continues his outrageous claims.

He doesn’t want to be asked to pay monetary penalties. He wants to be handcuffed and taken to the slammer.  Preferably on Fox News. 

For a former president, that wouldn’t be so intolerable, since he probably would be incarcerated in comfortable quarters in some four-star hotel that would include accommodations for his Secret Service contingent.  Then, he would have to finally shut his mouth.  But other voices would be raised!

His supporters’ fury would be ignited. They would march and demonstrate and make the same threats that brought about the  former president’s silencing, totally permissible for them under the First Amendment, because they are not under indictment.  They would scream about the Second Amendment being made for situations like that.  They would point out that this is what is done to political opponents in third world countries, even in Russia.  The white supremacists, the bigots, the haters of government, the evangelicals, and the tin horn politicians who got elected due to his endorsement would have a field day. 

And that is why, no matter how great his violation of a judge’s gag order may be, Donald John Trump will not be jailed. 

Come to think of it, if he is found guilty of any of the crimes for which he has been indicted, Donald Trump will never see the inside of a prison.  House arrest at Mar-a-Lago for a few months would be about as tough as his sentences will be, probably including the freedom to travel anywhere nearby within Florida, enabling his access to golf courses.

And he will write a book.  Millions of his supporters will purchase it.  His ghostwriters might title it ‘My Battle.’  (Translate that into German.)

 

JL

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The World Series Versus the MLB Playoffs

Now that the Texas Rangers have defeated the Arizona Diamondbacks in the World Series, it’s time to think about whether a series of playoff games are the best way of determining Major League Baseball’s championship team.  Neither of these two teams were the best team in the Majors in 2023! 

The World Series traditionally pits the best team in the American League against the best team in the National League, based on their performance over an entire grueling 162 game season.  Neither the Diamondbacks nor the Rangers fit that description. 

The D-Backs and the Rangers were great teams over the final weeks of the season, survived three playoff rounds (2 of 3, then 3 of 5, then 4 of 7), and benefited strategically from additional players acquired before the August 31 playoff eligibility deadline.  That is to their credit.

The playoffs were extremely competitive and enjoyable, but the 90-win Texas Rangers, over the entire season were inferior to the 101-win Baltimore Orioles, the 104-win Atlanta Braves, and the 100-win Los Angeles Dodgers, as were the 84-win Diamondbacks.

The playoffs are great, affording a dozen teams the opportunity to participate (and a lot of time for advertisers to pitch their products), and there is a place for them in baseball, but it is my opinion that the World Series is not that place. (Perhaps they might be inserted in baseball’s schedule right after the All-Star game, providing a mid-season break in the regular season, and giving the participating teams a chance to reassess their talent.)

The World Series should bring together the two teams with the best record in each of the two leagues.  Period.  A game in May should count as much as a game in September.  This year, with apologies to the 2023 World Series winner, the Texas Rangers, those teams should have been the Atlanta Braves and the Baltimore Orioles.

(For the record, the Rangers split their six games with the Orioles in the 2023 regular season, lost two of three to the Braves in interleague competition while the Diamondbacks split their six games with the Braves, but lost two of three to the Orioles in interleague competition)

And that is my opinion.

JL

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Housekeeping on Jackspotpourri

Email Alerts:  If you are NOT receiving emails from me alerting you each time there is a new posting on Jackspotpourri, just send me your email address and we’ll see that you do.  And if you are forwarding a posting to someone, you might suggest that they do the same, so they will be similarly alerted. You can pass those email addresses to me by email at jacklippman18@gmail.com.

Forwarding Postings: Please forward this posting to anyone you think might benefit from reading it. Friends, relatives, enemies, etc.

If you want to send someone the blog, exactly as you are now seeing it, with all of its bells and whistles, you can just tell folks to check it out by visiting https://jackspotpourri.blogspot.com or by providing a link to that address in your email to them.   I think this is the best method of forwarding Jackspotpourri. 

There’s another, perhaps easier, method of forwarding it though!   Google Blogspot, the platform on which Jackspotpourri is prepared, makes that possible.  If you click on the tiny envelope with the arrow at the bottom of every posting, you will have the opportunity to list up to ten email addresses to which that blog posting will be forwarded, along with a comment from you.  Each will receive a link to the textual portion only of the blog that you are now reading, but without the illustrations, colors, variations in typography, or the 'sidebar' features such as access to the blog's archives.

Either way will work, sending them the link to https://jackspotpourri.blogspot.com, or clicking on the envelope at the bottom of this posting, but I recommend sending them the link.

Again, I urge you to forward this posting to anyone you think might benefit from reading it.

JL

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Behind the Israeli-Hamas War

Only when Hamas stops firing missiles into Israeli communities will Israel stop bombing and shelling the sites from which such missiles are shot off, and which house other military installations, purposely embedded among civilian populations and gathering places, in an effort to demonize Israeli retaliation to their terrorism.

But Israeli attacks on other Hamas military installations, hopefully not in civilian locations, to pave the way for a possible invasion to destroy Hamas permanently, will continue, even then.  Remember that while Israel is a nation, Hamas is labeled as a terrorist group, in the category of Al Qaeda and ISIS, and deserving of such treatment, if only it can be separated from killing and making homeless the mostly innocent civilians in the Gaza Strip.  And that is proving difficult for Israel.

Original 1947 Two-State Solution.

                                                       Gaza is the yellow area between 

                                                       Israel and the sea adjacent to Egypt.

The Arabs living in Palestine, and surrounding Arab nations, refused to accept the United Nations’ partition of Palestine in 1947 and the establishment of the State of Israeli a year later.  At that time, both Israel and the Palestinian Arabs were envisioned as living side by side within a peaceable ‘two-state’ arrangement, but the Arab states supporting the Palestinian Arabs chose to go to war instead, and lost, as they’ve done on several occasions since then.

The Arabs who fled, expecting to soon return after their ‘victory,’ were left stranded and embittered in refugee camps, where their descendants remain today. 

The Gaza Strip was similarly populated by those who fled,  It was occupied by Israel until 2005 when its troops were withdrawn and the Israeli settlements there disbanded.  The aim of that disengagement was to yield a tentative peace and make Israel more secure.  That turned out to be a mistake because the following year, Hamas won legislative elections in the Gaza Strip, and after a military confrontation, ousted the Palestinian Authority (see the next paragraph) from any role in Gaza.  There have been no elections there since then.

Those who remained in the primarily Arab West Bank, although eventually occupied by Israel, are still governed to a limited extent by the Palestinian Authority, heir to the PLO, but a group willing to reach a fragile accommodation with Israel .

The Palestinians missed the opportunity to have a state of their own, something they had never had before, in the hope of acquiring all of Palestine.  (Abba Eban, the late Israeli diplomat, once commented that the Palestinians ‘never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.’)

Continued Palestinian efforts to rewrite history militarily have resulted in many Israelis no longer supporting a ‘two state’ solution.  They see it as a danger to Israel and treat what would have been the Palestinian state as ‘occupied territory’ available for Israeli settlements. 

Hamas, which rules Gaza, not accepting the Palestinian Authority, continues to see a ‘one-state’ solution as well, with Israel eliminated.  This is a mirror image of the ‘one-state’ solution, with all Arabs moved out, that some Israelis see.  And it is this latter group that Benjamin Netanyahu depends upon for the votes to keep him in office.

And here is the part that no one talks about, but which sooner or later will be part of negotiations.  Did the specifics of the 1947 partition of Palestine treat the Jewish population of Palestine more generously than it treated the Arab population of Palestine? 

I suspect that was the case, probably because of sympathy for the Jewish survivors of the Holocaust, seeking a place to go to.  But that has, except for Jews, receded into a cubbyhole of history, unknown to many born since those days.

Holocaust survivors were not welcomed in more than token amounts at that time by major Western nations who were quietly pleased that the creation of the State of Israel lessened the pressure on them to accept refugees.  

Similarly, Palestinian Arabs, once they had lost their portion of the land a ‘two-state’ solution would have provided, found that they were not being welcomed by neighboring Arab states whose military support of them had failed.  ‘You have no place to go to? That’s your problem.’  Some turned to violence, but the real answer to this problem is to restore the ‘two-state’ solution idea, but today, there are obstacles to that. Let’s look at them.

Partition of Palestine took place 75 years ago and a lot of history has taken place since then.  It is not too late to remedy problems that started then, but it cannot be done so long as Hamas and its Iranian supporters continue to demand the extermination of Israel, and while some in Israel want to continue to encourage settlements in areas it won in wars that Arab nations repeatedly lost, areas approaching Israel’s ancient biblical borders.

Once the weapons are silenced, these issues will become prominent. The chief obstacle right now to silencing them is that a ‘cease fire’ leaves Hamas’ terrorism unpunished and makes their attack seem worthwhile, something that is totally unacceptable to Israel. Remember that the United States as well as the European Union has declared Hamas to be a terrorist group.

It’s an awful question to ask, but how many of the Gaza Strip’s non-combatant civilian population, amidst whom Hamas’ military institutions are purposely located, have to die in bombings to satisfy Israel’s understandable need to avenge the 1,400 of its non-combatant civilians killed by Hamas terrorists on October 7, and the hostages Hamas kidnapped on that date, whose fate still remains uncertain?

Most recently, Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has said that two goals have been set for Israel’s war with Hamas: ‘To eliminate Hamas by destroying its military and governing abilities, and to do everything possible to bring our captives home.’

Within Israel’s military establishment, however, there is concern that Israel’s goals will be blurred if Mr. Netanyahu follows through on that promise to simultaneously seek to attain these two goals. 

The second goal, concerning the hostages, requires negotiation and accommodation with Hamas’s leadership (even if through intermediaries), while the first goal requires the elimination of Hamas’ military and governing abilities — a difficult balance to strike, two senior Israeli military officials recently said.  The question seems to be how you go about negotiating with someone you are intent on destroying? 

That’s why Israeli military action on the ground penetrating into the Gaza Strip have been limited and tentative.

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A sad and overwhelming view of the tragedy occurring in Israel and Gaza today will appear in the Nov. 6 issue of the New Yorker magazine.  It is not easy reading and New Yorker editor David Remnick does not offer solutions.  In fact, the first sentence of his lengthy article reads ‘The only way to tell this story is to try to tell it truthfully and to know that you will fail.’ 

You can read it at https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/11/06/israel-gaza-war-hamas or by CLICKING HERE.

Finally, Israel should think about the quote often attributed to Casey Stengel, when he managed the NY Yankees:  ‘If you don’t know where you’re going, you may end up somewhere else.’  That seems to describe the political situation in Israel today.

JL

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Antisemitism in the United States

One cannot get involved with the subject discussed above without relating it to antisemitism in the United States.  For a shocking overview of that, critical of both our political parties, read S.E. Cupp’s column from Saturday’s Palm Beach Post.  (Cupp is a life-long Republican.)  More than a decade ago, Ms. Cupp shared an afternoon news commentary roundtable on MSNBC that featured several unknown but up-and-coming young voices, including Ari Melber, now an MSNBC mainstay.

Here is what she wrote last week:

“The Far Left Has a Serious Antisemitism Problem”

S.E. Cupp

 

“The headlines paint a troubling picture: 

'Liberals Need a Reckoning With Antisemitism.'

'How the Democrats betrayed the Jews.'

'The Left Faces a Reckoning as Israel Divides Democrats.'

 

The conflict between Israel and Hamas, a terrorist group that barbarically murdered 1,400 innocent civilians in a coordinated attack on Israel, has unleashed a shocking and appalling level of antisemitism from the left.

 

From a disturbing indifference to Jewish suffering, to an inability to make obvious declarative statements about Hamas’ atrocities, to a repeated moral equivalency between Israel and Hamas — the latter of which explicitly wants to wipe Jews off the planet — to outright hostility toward Jews, the ugly invective is coming from some unexpected places.

 

Inside the Democratic Party, elected state officials and members of Congress have refused to condemn Hamas and many have called for an immediate Israeli ceasefire, essentially demanding the IDF leave Hamas alone.

 

Rep. Rashida Tlaib and others are offering conspiracy theories about the attacks akin to 9/11 trutherism. Tlaib, for example, does not believe U.S., Israeli and media reports that an Islamic Jihad rocket misfire — not Israel — caused an explosion at a Gaza hospital. Instead, she believes Hamas, the terrorists, and is demanding an independent investigation. 'Both the White House and the Israeli government have long, documented histories of misleading the public about war and war crimes,' she said.

On college campuses, many of which are now infamous for trigger warnings, banning offensive speech and creating 'safe spaces,' professors and students are trafficking in viciously antisemitic comments in support of Palestinians, with one national student group celebrating the massacre as a 'historic win for the Palestinian resistance.'

 

In left-wing and mainstream media, a slew of commentators, hosts and reporters have pushed Hamas propaganda and anti-Israel sentiment.

 

According to Gallup, Democratic voters are also now more sympathetic toward Palestinians than Israelis, for the first time since it began asking.

 

This has all led to some soul-searching and exasperation among American Jews who once counted Democrats as supporters. Rabbi Joel Simonds says, 'In these last few days, the silence is deafening and it is hurtful and a betrayal on so many levels. It’s not going to change the way we look at justice. It’s going to change the way we look at our allies.'

 

Playwright David Mamet wrote of 'the sick thrill of antisemitism' inside the Democratic Party, that they 'repeat and refuse to retract the libel that Israel bombed a hospital, in spite of absolute proof to the contrary, and will not call out the unutterable atrocities of Hamas. The writing is on the wall. In blood.'

 

Jewish celebrities including Amy Schumer, Josh Gad and Debra Messing have all addressed antisemitism they’ve encountered.

I know how disorienting, disappointing, and distressing this is for my Jewish friends, as many have shared with me how scared and unsafe they suddenly feel in a country they thought would 'Never Forget.'

 

Back in 2017 I was shocked when hundreds of white supremacists, neo-Nazis, racists and bigots marched at a Virginia rally — unmasked and unashamed — wielding tiki torches, and screaming racist slogans like, 'Our blood, our soil,' 'Jews will not replace us,' and 'White Lives Matter!'

 

In the wake of the Charlottesville violence, where one neo-Nazi rammed his car into a crowd of anti-racist protesters, injuring dozens and killing one woman, the president told America that there were 'some very fine people on both sides.'

 

I had to reconcile with a fact that made me physically sick to my stomach: this naked and appalling bigotry and hate is coming from inside my own political party.

 

Racism, of course, wasn’t new. It’s always been here. But to watch this level of proud intolerance take hold of a wing of the Republican Party, metastasize over the ensuing years, infect Congress and the right-wing media, and receive comfort from the party’s biggest standard-bearer — the president — has been one of the hardest things to watch in my career in politics.

 

If you’d told me 25 years ago that the Republican Party of Lincoln would one day elect white nationalists to Congress, that a president would dine openly with neo-Nazis and Holocaust deniers, that a presidential candidate would insist that slavery had its upside, I wouldn’t have believed you.

 

Similarly, if you’d told me that the Democratic Party of Harry Truman would struggle one day to defend massacred Jews against Islamic terrorists whose stated purpose is the destruction of Israel and the annihilation of the Jews, I wouldn’t have believed this either.

I know it’s a painful reality to confront. But just as Donald Trump exposed a dark and ugly underbelly of the far right, Hamas has exposed a dark and ugly underbelly of the far left.

 

S.E. Cupp is the host of 'S.E. Cupp Unfiltered' on CNN.

 

JL

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Contrarian Opinions

For several ‘contrarian’ opinions on American foreign policy, specifically concerning Israel and Ukraine, check out several articles Bari Weiss included in her ‘Free Press’ blog the other day. (Weiss is a former NYTimes writer who left that publication because of conflicts between its editorial staff and herself and has since moved rightward politically.) 

Whether one agrees or disagrees with these viewpoints is not the question.  It is a matter of being exposed to ideas not commonly discussed elsewhere.  Check them out at https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/WhctKKZNzNSffHmSvlvmfGVdFwgvbktxNVjPbLSrQhbtfZzxcbjdcBTfQPgBlDgbqwzBskV  or just CLICK HERE.

JL

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Housekeeping on Jackspotpourri

Email Alerts:  If you are NOT receiving emails from me alerting you each time there is a new posting on Jackspotpourri, just send me your email address and we’ll see that you do.  And if you are forwarding a posting to someone, you might suggest that they do the same, so they will be similarly alerted. You can pass those email addresses to me by email at jacklippman18@gmail.com.

Forwarding Postings: Please forward this posting to anyone you think might benefit from reading it. Friends, relatives, enemies, etc.

If you want to send someone the blog, exactly as you are now seeing it, with all of its bells and whistles, you can just tell folks to check it out by visiting https://jackspotpourri.blogspot.com or by providing a link to that address in your email to them.   I think this is the best method of forwarding Jackspotpourri.

There’s another, perhaps easier, method of forwarding it though!   Google Blogspot, the platform on which Jackspotpourri is prepared, makes that possible.  If you click on the tiny envelope with the arrow at the bottom of every posting, you will have the opportunity to list up to ten email addresses to which that blog posting will be forwarded, along with a comment from you.  Each will receive a link to the textual portion only of the blog that you are now reading, but without the illustrations, colors, variations in typography, or the 'sidebar' features such as access to the blog's archives.

Either way will work, sending them the link to https://jackspotpourri.blogspot.com, or clicking on the envelope at the bottom of this posting, but I recommend sending them the link.

Again, I urge you to forward this posting to anyone you think might benefit from reading it.

 

JL

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