Mideast War blowback

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I had a conversation with a Jewish acquaintance yesterday. She said that Israeli politicians and some Zionists actually think it's a good thing if the politics of Israel creates anti-semitism around the world. That scares the European and American Jews and makes them support Israel as a possible safe haven.

I had a conversation with a Jewish acquaintance yesterday. She said that Israeli politicians and some Zionists actually think it's a good thing if the politics of Israel creates anti-semitism around the world. That scares the European and American Jews and makes them support Israel as a possible safe haven.

Maybe, Maybe not.

Has that acquaintance actually experienced antisemitism? I ask because I have read and listened to a number of Jews claim they have experienced no antisemitism until recently. Even those that grew up in the 60s and 70s like me. I found that hard to believe until I realized they probably grew up in an all or highly Jewish neighborhoods.

Maybe that would scare many other people too ??.? Countries and people sometimes respond to those fears in unpredictable ways ? .....(maybe think of fears created by Germany and Japan in the beginning of WW2?)

I had a conversation with a Jewish acquaintance yesterday. She said that Israeli politicians and some Zionists actually think it's a good thing if the politics of Israel creates anti-semitism around the world. That scares the European and American Jews and makes them support Israel as a possible safe haven.

This post is complete gibberish.

There was very little fear of Germany and Japan "at the beginning of wwii" compared to how much the world SHOULD have feared Germany and Japan.

yes this above response to my post appears as gibberish too.. Not being aware or reacting to "the obvious" enevitable threat gave us massecres of large numbers of human life.Even before the USA declared War at that time. You are being redundant in concepts versus the intended meaning of my posting . " Should have" ie. redundant concepts , and using the word gibberish as referencing my post might appear as intentional obnoxiousness .

Well...

Instead of defending a nonsense post with more nonsense...why not find some better way to state what you meant in the first place...and do so in a way that makes sense to most readers?

Ill help you out.

If I went on Utube or Chatgrp with a video of myself pointing a gun at my pet cocker spaniel and threatened to shoot him "unless you viewers send me rent money ASAP"...and I succeeded in getting you, and a million other folks so upset about my poor dog that you sent me money. And I were to receive so much excess money that I was able to buy a yacht. Then THAT might be a better analogy to what you're trying to say.

I am not sure you got the point of what I wrote. If she has experienced antisemitism or not is irrelevant.

A "dangerous object" found outside the Israeli embassy in Stockholm has been destroyed, Swedish police say.

The incident - labelled an "attempted attack" by the Israeli ambassador - saw officers cordon off a wide area nearby.

Police told the BBC it was too early to give further details on the object. They said no-one had been injured.

A spokesman later told the AFP news agency that staff had found a "live" device and alerted officers at about 13:10 local time (12:10 GMT).

The object was assessed by the national bomb squad, who chose to destroy it, the spokesman added.

Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said the situation was "very serious" and Sweden's Security Service are investigating "who is or who are responsible".

Surveillance of the embassy and of Jewish institutions had been tightened, Mr Kristersson added.

The Chicago City Council has passed a resolution calling for a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war despite opposition from several council members.

The measure had backing from Mayor Brandon Johnson, who broke a 23-23 tie to get the resolution passed. Some members were not present for the vote.

Some city leaders had been working on a largely symbolic resolution that would serve as an on the record call for the war between Israel and Hamas to pause.

Wednesday morning, several groups spoke before the council meeting to support the resolution. Reverend Jesse Jackson attended that news conference.

They want this to send a message.

"Today we say we care because it matters here at home as well and we care about our brothers and sisters in Palestine and today we say yes to cease-fire, yes to the resolution, yes to change here in Chicago and across the world," 25th Ward Alderman Byron Sigcho-Lopez said.

Many Jewish groups called on the council to vote no on the resolution. Some are questioning why city council is devoting time and energy to the Israel-Hamas war while there are so many other problems under council's direct control such as crime.

A federal court in the United States said Wednesday in response to a petition that Israel’s war against the Hamas terror group in Gaza is aimed at wiping out the local population and therefore may be genocide.

The United States District Court for the Northern District of California found Israel’s military offensive “is intended to eradicate a whole people and therefore plausibly falls within the international prohibition against genocide.”

The petition filed by Defense for Children International–Palestine charged the US government, on behalf of Palestinian rights groups and Palestinians in Gaza and in the US, with “failure to prevent and complicity in the Israeli government’s unfolding genocide against them, their families, and the 2.2 million Palestinians in Gaza.” It urges the government to block aid to Israel.

He conceded the plaintiffs’ point that “it is plausible that Israel’s conduct amounts to genocide,” and he implored the White House “to examine the results of their unflagging support of the military siege against the Palestinians in Gaza.”

Plaintiffs included Defence for Children International, based in Ramallah, West Bank, and Palestinians in Gaza and in the US, including Waeil Elbhassi, a US citizen of Palestinian origin who lives in San Ramon, about 30 miles (48 kilometers) from Oakland.

The political branches of the US government have wide authority over foreign policy, as the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled when the family of US college student Rachel Corrie tried to sue US bulldozer maker Caterpillar for aiding Israel in war crimes. Corrie was run over and killed in 2003 while trying to stop the demolition of a house in Gaza. The IDF said its soldiers could not see her.

After listening to hours of testimony Friday, White called the issue before him “the most difficult judicial decision that I’ve ever made,” according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

Plaintiff Laila El-Haddad, a journalist in Maryland, said she had lost nearly 90 members of her extended family to Israeli attacks, the newspaper reported.

Dr. Omar Al-Najjar, also a plaintiff, said he works at a hospital in the southern Gaza city of Rafah where more than 2,000 new patients a day require treatment for severe injuries or illnesses, but there is little to no medicine, the newspaper reported.

The music rights company BMG has dropped Roger Waters, Variety reports, confirming a claim that Waters himself made in an interview in November. Waters, whose equivocal stance on the Russia-Ukraine war provoked similar pushback in 2022, alleges that pressure from pro-Israel groups prompted the decision, though neither he nor BMG responded to requests for comment. BMG had been due to release Waters’ re-recording of Dark Side of the Moon last year, Varietyreports, but incoming CEO Thomas Coesfeld killed the deal and the album eventually went to Cooking Vinyl. Last year, Bertelsmann, the German company that owns BMG, expressed “solidarity with Israel” in a statement on the Hamas attacks of October 7.

The BMG exit comes amid renewed attention to Waters’ anti-Zionist and anti-Israel stance, which some allege has crossed into antisemitism. Last spring, Waters won the right to perform in Frankfurt despite serious opposition due to contentious elements of his set. Among them were a video montaging victims of state violence that placed Anne Frank alongside the Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh. A section in which a pig emblazoned with the Star of David floats over the crowd was later adjusted to feature the logo of an Israeli arms company.

The more egregious elements of Waters’ set, such as the Nazi-style costume that prompted investigation by German police, are adapted from Pink Floyd’s The Wall, the satirical story of a rock star who slides into fascism. Waters has strongly denied antisemitism, claiming that Israel is just one target of a broad, anti-fascist stage show. Last year, however, a documentary collected numerous claims, including from Waters’ musical collaborators, that he had repeatedly made antisemitic slurs in private. An investigation by the Campaign Against Antisemitism, which informed the film, unearthed emails in which Waters proposed scrawling the inflatable pig at his concerts with an antisemitic slogan and “bombing” audiences with confetti in the shape of swastikas, Stars of David, dollar signs, and other provocative symbols, The Guardian notes.

Waters did not respond at the time, but has previously said, “I have spent my entire life speaking out against authoritarianism and oppression wherever I see it. When I was a child after the war, the name of Anne Frank was often spoken in our house, she became a permanent reminder of what happens when fascism is left unchecked. My parents fought the Nazis in World War II, with my father paying the ultimate price.”

I never understood hating someone because of what they are, how they look, race or religion, etc…
I can understand hating actions.

Approximately 200 students gathered in Willard Straight Hall on Thursday to rally both for and against a resolution calling upon the Cornell Board of Trustees to divest from companies “complicit in committing morally reprehensible actions” in Gaza. The resolution was rejected by a vote of 16-4.

The Student Assembly heard comments from seven supporters and seven critics of Resolution 51, which stipulates that Cornell should not invest in companies that are “perpetrating plausible genocide, maintaining an apartheid state in occupied Palestine and perpetuating systemic cruelty to children throughout Palestine during the war.”

The resolution, which was sponsored by Students for Justice in Palestine, Cornell Young Democratic Socialists of America and Jewish Voice for Peace, among others, comes after months of turmoil on Cornell’s campus over the Israel-Hamas war. Last October, the S.A. was presented with a resolution that called for Cornell to contextualize the Oct. 7 attack on Israel “as a direct response to decades of Israel’s occupation,” which was ultimately not considered.

Cornell Hillel argued that BDS resolutions, a movement that calls for boycotts, divestment and economic sanctions of Israel, “have historically deepened a climate of marginalization and intimidation of Jewish students on campus.”

A group advocating for the Palestinian cause, the Coalition for Mutual Liberation, however, released a statement condemning the University for how its “investments facilitate the ongoing genocide, apartheid and systemic cruelty against children committed by Israel.” Israel has denied that it is committing genocide in Gaza as it awaits a verdict from the International Court of Justice, which has called the charge “plausible.”

The group called upon Cornell University to “abide by [its] own divestment standards … [and] immediately liquidate all of [its] holdings,” in a list of condemned companies, referencing the 2016 Standard Guide to Divestment Consideration, which states the Board of Trustees “will consider divesting its endowment assets from a company only when the company’s actions or inactions are ‘morally reprehensible,’ constituting apartheid, genocide, human trafficking, slavery or systemic cruelty to children, including violation of child labor laws.”

In 2006, Cornell divested from Sudan in response to the Darfur genocide, during which the Sudanese government armed ethnic Arab militia groups to attack ethnic African groups. This precedent has fortified current pro-divestment arguments that claim that the Israeli government is committing comparable genocide in Gaza.

Students appeared to self-divide to sides of the room depending on their ideological stance on the divestment cause.

Several pro-Palestine advocates donned keffiyeh, a traditional Arab scarf that has become a cultural symbol of Palestinian identity, while many pro-Israel advocates wore kippas, a small head covering traditionally worn by Jewish males for religious purposes, and distributed military-style dog tags which have been worn in solidarity with hostages after the Oct. 7 attack on Israel.

Prior to the start of the meeting, pieces of paper displaying the word “KIDNAPPED” and including information about hostages held by Hamas were placed on seats.

While Resolution 51 was rejected, Resolution 50 was passed unanimously. This resolution would create a committee that would “draft a report on the University’s corporate social responsibility and environmental, social and governance policies related to the University’s endowment.”

During the comments portion of the meeting, Hasham Khan ’26, social chair for Students for Justice in Palestine at Cornell, urged the S.A. to represent the interests of students by approving the resolution — an interest Khan said was demonstrated through conducting protests, holding a “mock trial” of President Martha Pollack and occupying Day Hall.

While officially introducing the resolution, Sara Almosawi ’25, co-chair of Cornell Young Democratic Socialists of America, clarified that the resolution was not intended to single out Israel but instead urged the University to follow the 2016 Standard Guide to Divestment Consideration.

While many supporters of the resolution including Almosawi argued the divestment proposals were not fundamentally anti-Israel — particularly due to targeting predominantly American weapons manufacturers — Zora deRham ’27, freshmen representative of the S.A., questioned: “If [the] resolution is not anti-Israel — not about Israel — then why is Israel mentioned 20 times?”

S.A. Dyson School of Business Representative Yash Moitra ’27 similarly said that he believes the University should not “actively invest our tuition money into a company that creates war,” but disagreed with the resolution’s sole focus on the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.

“I recognize that the people in this room are hurting and with this resolution with this language, they will hurt more,” Moitra said. “I am hoping that you are open to the compromise of simply removing every specific reference to this ongoing conflict.”

In an interview with The Sun after the S.A. vote, Jonathan Emmanuel ’26, who presented the resolution at the meeting, said that the “uncomfortable” outcome reflects a larger issue of the S.A.’s lack of initiative to represent all sectors of the student body.

Emmanuel also rejected the notion that the resolution was anti-Israel.

“I feel CML supports the collective liberation of Israeli students and the voices of Jewish people,” Emmanuel said. “I just have a really deep vision that a lot of the conversation that was going on today was rooted at U.S. imperialism.”

Annie Lennox is taking to the Grammy Awards stage to call for a ceasefire in Gaza amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas.

The “Sweet Dreams” singer performed during an in memoriam segment at the 66th annual Grammys on Sunday in Los Angeles

In the final moments of her performance of Sinéad O’Connor’s “Nothing Compares 2 U,” Lennox raised one of her fists in the air.

“Artists for ceasefire,” the 69-year-old Scottish entertainer exclaimed to the crowd.
“Peace in the world,” she yelled out.

Lennox was one of many high-profile figures — including Jennifer Lopez, Joaquin Phoenix, Janelle Monáe, Dua Lipa and more — who signed a December open letter to President Biden from the organization Artists4Ceasefire calling for “an immediate de-escalation and ceasefire in Gaza and Israel before another life is lost.”

Naming attacks at music venues around the world over the years, including Hamas’s Oct. 7 invasion in Israel, Mason said, “That day, and all the tragic days that have followed, have been awful for the world to bear as we mourn the loss of all innocent lives.”

“We live in a world divided by so much, and maybe music can’t solve everything. But let us all agree, music must remain the common ground upon which we all stand, together in peace and harmony,” Mason said.

Mason noted that a string quartet that was performing during his comments was made up of a group of musicians “of Palestinian, Israeli, and Arab descent.”

Now is the time for us, for humanity, to play together, to come together, with empathy and with love,” he said.