Category Archives: Opinion

Abbas Failed To Capitalize on Trump’s Gift

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Not long after Donald Trump assumed the presidency of the United States, he made overtures to the Palestinians in the hopes of brokering a peace deal. He invited the acting-President of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, to the White House on May 3, 2017. They discussed tackling terrorism and building economic prosperity for Palestinian Arabs and the promise of working together to build a better future for the region.

Shortly thereafter, on May 23rd, President Trump visited Abbas in Bethlehem and reiterated the need to confront terrorism, “Peace can never take root in an environment where violence is tolerated, funded and even rewarded…. The terrorists and extremists, and those who give them aid and comfort, must be driven out from our society forever.  This wicked ideology must be obliterated — and I mean completely obliterated — and innocent life must be protected.”

Just a week later, Trump handed a peculiar gift to Abbas: on June 1 he removed the Abu Nidal Organization (ANO) from the list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations.

ANO was part of the October 1997 initial class of FTO’s along with HAMAS and Hizbullah. ANO carried out roughly 90 hijackings, assassinations and kidnappings of diplomats, and attacks on synagogues during the period 1974-1992 killing about 300 people to earn the FTO designation. The group targeted people viewed as moderates – including Palestinians – who contemplated the ongoing existence of the Jewish State. When Abu Nidal died in 2002, the group went inactive.

Which begs the question of why Trump took a 15-year defunct group off of the FTO list, right after meeting with Abbas.

Terrorist Sabri al-Banna, better known by his nom de guerre, Abu Nidal

Abbas was (and remains) a very unpopular leader among Palestinian Arabs who have wanted him to resign according to each poll taken over the last many years, with 64% holding such opinion at the time of the Abbas-Trump meeting. Abbas polled to come in third in a theoretical three-candidate presidential race at that time!

So Trump threw Abbas a bone to boost his standing among Palestinians, to demonstrate that he could deliver results with the new U.S. President. It was arguably a meaningless gesture as the group was inactive, but it was symbolic in clearing the name of one of the most radical and notorious Palestinian terrorist groups.

In exchange for the Trump pardon of the ANO, Abbas advanced the idea of stopping the pay-to-slay program in which the PA paid the families of terrorists in Israeli jails. The proposal landed with a thud among the Palestinians, with a nearly unanimous 91% of Palestinians standing opposed to messing with the martyr-moolah.

Things then soured at the United Nations.

Abbas met with Trump on September 20, 2017 and voiced optimism regarding the efforts Trump’s team had made with over 20 meetings with Palestinian officials in the first months in office, but he then launched his habitual screed before the United Nations General Assembly with comments about Israeli Jews living in “East Jerusalem” which will “stir religious animosity and may lead to a violent religious conflict,… playing with fire … drag[ing] us into a religious war. This is dangerous, extremely dangerous for you and us,” in a not so subtle threat of a global jihad against Jews.

Abbas further threatened Jews and insulted Trump by declaring at the end of his speech “I salute our glorious martyrs and our courageous prisoners in Israeli jails,” to appease his Arab base. This embrace of terrorism and public challenge of Trump’s demand to stop rewarding terrorism was too much. Less than three months later, Trump recognized Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish State.

Abbas squandered Trump’s gift of removing an evil jihadist group from the U.S. list of terrorist organizations to gain Palestinian support. Instead, he elected to boost his own jihadi bona fides and stood before the world glorifying Palestinian terrorists who killed Israelis and threatening a global jihad if Jews continued to live in their holiest city of Jerusalem. Trump’s reaction was swift in recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Abbas’s political self-immolation continues to burn to this day.

Related First One Through articles:

The US Recognizes Israel’s Reality

Paying to Murder Jews: From Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Iran to the Palestinian Authority

When Power Talks the Truth

Abbas’ European Audience for His Rantings

Trump Reverses the Carter and Obama Anti-Israel UN Resolutions

The Nerve of ‘Judaizing’ Neighborhoods

I call BS: You Never Recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s Capital

Considering Carter’s 1978 Letter Claiming Settlements Are Illegal

The Palestinian-American You Never Heard Of: Issam Akel

The Time Factor in the Israeli-Arab Conflict

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Proposed Lame-Duck Actions for Israel

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In the waning days of the Obama-Biden administration, President Obama decided to stick a finger in the eyes of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and all Israelis, breaking with decades of U.S. policy allowing UNSC Resolution 2334 to pass, declaring that Israeli Jews living east of the 1949 Armistice Lines was illegal. The action set the stage for various BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) movements of Israel around the world.

Now, as the Trump administration heads into its final days, it is also considering some parting actions, following up on its pro-Israel initiatives according to U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Below are some recommendations.

At the United Nations

The hostility towards Israel at the United Nations has not abated. While the United States will not be able to get any pro-Israel items through the UN Security Council, it could set markers for future U.S. administrations.

  • Ending Phrase “occupied East Jerusalem” and “Haram al Sharif”. The UN regularly passes resolutions which are incorrect and insulting to the Jewish State. As all of Greater Jerusalem and Greater Bethlehem were separated in the 1947 UN Partition Plan (which did not pass) and the Jordanian annexation of eastern Jerusalem was illegal, there is no basis for calling the eastern part of the city as “occupied Palestinian territory.” Additionally, only calling Judaism’s most holy location, the Temple Mount, by its Islamic name is insulting. The US should declare that it will automatically oppose any resolution with such flawed verbiage, regardless of the contents of the resolution.
  • Dignity for Jews at the Temple Mount. UN resolutions routinely call for dignity of Palestinians but only security for Jews. They also calls for changing the status quo of Jerusalem but not for the holy sites. This outrage and hypocrisy is disgusting. A call for Jews to be allowed to pray on the Temple Mount at specific times just as the Muslims and Jews share the Cave of the Jewish Patriarchs and Matriarchs in Hebron should be clearly articulated.
  • Biased Supporter of Israel. The Palestinians complain the United States is not a neutral mediator in trying to resolve the conflict. It should not be. Not only is Israel a strong American ally but the Palestinians have not abandoned the incitement and reward for terrorism. Further, until the UN stops singling out Israel in its resolutions, the U.S. should make abundantly clear that it will stand with Israel in the global forum and not pressure Israel into any concessions with the Palestinian Authority.

Refugees

The situation of Palestinian “refugees” going on for generations and not having self-determination must end. It is bad for the Palestinians and is bad for the peace process which cannot move forward as it undermines the very basis of two states for two people.

  • Prepare the Compensation Mechanism. UNGA Resolution 194 which passed in 1948, sought to bring refugees who fled the war back to their homes or compensate them for their losses, provided they were willing to live in peace with Israel. Many wars, intifadas, electing a Holocaust denier to the presidency and a terrorist group to the majority of parliament long sealed the fate of how this would play out. It is time to begin tabulating the compensation for ALL Palestinians who fled from the war (not just those under the UNRWA mandate). Similarly, compensation for the Jews who fled from Arab lands should also be calculated.
  • Demand Self-Determination Now. Every person as a human right to self-determination. The Palestinians who live in refugee camps in Lebanon, Syria and Jordan (even though almost all of them were born in those countries) should be granted citizenship and full rights in each respective country immediately. The people who live in Gaza, Areas A and B under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority should be able to vote in Palestinian elections, and all people – Jew and Arab – who live in Area C should be allowed to vote in Israel, if and until other dynamics change that administrative equation.
  • Dissolve UNRWA. The unique agency for Palestinians is bloated in terms of funding and personnel compared to the global UNHCR and foments hatred for the Jewish State. It’s duties should be folded into UNHCR immediately and ultimately the need for the group disappears with the actions taken above.

Jerusalem

Jerusalem has been home for the three monotheistic religions for over a thousand years, and only under the Modern State of Israel have all religions been able to live and pray in their holy city.

  • More Jewish homes. While the city has blossomed, it has done so very unevenly. The Arab population continues to grow dramatically (counter to the false claims that Israel is ‘ethnically cleansing’ the city), with the Arab population growing 38% between 2000 and 2010 and then 29% between 2010 and 2018. Meanwhile the Jewish population in the city only grew by 12% and 13% in those time periods, respectively. All of the growth for Jews was from births as there was actually a net migration out of the city of thousands of people (6,000 in 2018 alone) because of limited housing and costs. The US should support the building of additional homes in and around Jerusalem.
Muslim population of 196,900; 272,000; 349,600 and 439,600; 491,800; 555,800 for Jews

Security

Israel has the terrorists group Hezbullah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza at its borders. Iran, the leading state sponsor of terrorism which supports both groups, has threatened to wipe Israel off of the map. The Obama administration gave over $100 billion to Iran and a legal pathway to nuclear weapons threating the survival of Israel.

  • Bunker Busters. The United States is one of the few countries that has the weaponry to blast underground facilities. These armaments should be sold to Israel to enable it to deal with the nuclear facilities in Iran and the missiles in Lebanon.
  • Palestinian Terrorists. The US should make clear that no terrorist group will be allowed in a Palestinian government. Should any group not give up all weapons to the Palestinian Authority and commit to recognize Israel in becoming part of a Palestinian government, the US should cease all aid in all forms to the Palestinians, and label the PA itself a terrorist group.
  • Terrorism in Territories. The State Department under the Obama administration gave scant attention to terrorism that was not committed in Israel proper. Such approach fueled additional terror. It is bad enough when the UN and BBC blame the victims, but the US should make clear that any and all terrorism committed anywhere is appalling and commit to fighting terrorism aggressively, something the Obama administration only did for other countries.

Anti-Semitism

Anti-Semitism is found throughout the world both in official laws and in civilian actions. The United States should encourage other countries to join Israel in routing this global scourge.

  • Jews Should Never Be Banned. The world has a long history of placing Jews in ghettoes and determining where they can and cannot live. It’s a disgrace. Israel is not the world’s Pale of Settlement and Jews should be allowed to live and work anywhere. Anti-settlements is anti-Semitism in its core and should be called out as such. The U.S. should call on all governments to condemn the notion of “Judaizing” a neighborhood, regardless of where it is located.
  • Anti-Kosher/Halal and Anti-Circumcision Bills. Many governments are advancing laws targeting Jews and Muslims, making it impossible to live peacefully as neighbors. The U.S. should be a beacon of openness by calling out anti-circumcision and anti-ritual slaughter laws which are thinly-veiled methods of getting rid of Jews and Muslims.

Overall, the Trump administration should recommit to the 2004 President Bush letter to Ariel Sharon which gave Israel assurances to take risks for peace. The formula led Israel to give up Gaza which rapidly became a hotbed for radical Islam and terrorism. There is no chance Israel will take any future actions to make additional concessions to the PA which not only give it moral support but guarantees for its dignity and security.

The politeness of politics catering to anti-Semites has hindered the promotion of Jewish rights for too long. The Trump administration can still take actions to right these historical wrongs.

Related First One Through articles:

How the US and UN can Restart Relations with Israel

The Parameters of Palestinian Dignity

Squeezing Zionism

Anti-“Settlements” is Anti-Semitism

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Too Many and Too Few Charges of ‘Nazi’

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Over the past several years, people on the political left-of-center chose to label those right-of-center as ‘Nazis.’ Actual Nazis, not just ‘depolrables‘ the way Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton had called them.

Current Democratic President-elect Joe Biden said that President Donald Trump was “sort of like Goebbels,” referring to Adolf Hitler’s propaganda machine’s mastermind. The left-wing media leveled accusations that Trump welcomed Nazis into the Republican Party. There were slurs by lower level Democratic politicians about Republican rivals in local elections that they were Nazis. And so many American citizens – including employees at Google tasked with fact-checking – condemned conservative commentators such as Ben Shapiro (who is an Orthodox Jew), as modern Nazis.

All of this slander despite Trump having an Orthodox Jewish daughter, creating a new position in the State Department to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism, and being the most pro-Israel president in American history.

Meanwhile, these same leftists simultaneously refuse to call out as Nazis the most anti-Semitic people committed to killing Jews and to destroying the Jewish State.

Palestinian Arabs voted the terrorist group Hamas to a majority of Parliament with the most anti-Semitic foundational charter ever written. The bile in its charter and daily calls to murder Israeli Jews are readily available to see, yet the left-wing media writes that Palestinians are “resorting to violence.” On the rare occasion that the left-wing media labels Hamas as a terrorist group, it calls it a “right-wing” one, even though it is nothing of the sort but a devoutly Muslim one.

Cover page of the Philadelphia Daily News in December 2015 essentially calling President-elect Trump a Nazi “fuhrer” for a “Muslim ban,” a fake media charge

We are now at a pivotal time when the Democrats who besmirched those to the right of them as Nazis are about to assume control of the White House. This Biden/Harris ticket said it will reverse many pro-Israel positions taken by the Trump administration. Kamala Harris said the new administration “will take immediate steps to restore economic and humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people, address the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza, reopen the US consulate in East Jerusalem and work to reopen the PLO mission in Washington.” [note that the US consulate was in WESTERN Jerusalem, not East Jerusalem]. The new administration said it is eager to re-enter the JCPOA which gave Iran, the leading state sponsor of terrorism which has threatened to destroy Israel, a legal pathway to nuclear weapons.

These are all plain and terrifying facts.

If this country truly wants to unify and overcome hate, this administration, the media and every American must finally stop besmirching people with whom they disagree as ‘Nazis’ and simultaneously condemn and punish the terrorists and genocidal maniacs hell-bent on killing Jews and destroying the Jewish State.

Related First One Through articles:

Extreme and Mainstream. Germany 1933; West Bank & Gaza Today

New York Times Recharacterizes Hamas as a Right-Wing Terrorist Group

I See Dead People

Examining Ilhan Omar’s Point About Muslim Antisemitism

A Country Divided

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Vote Purple

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American society has fractured. Badly.

The middle has been collapsing for some time. Senators like Joe Lieberman (D-CT) and John McCain (R-NV) could no longer exist in today’s political climate. The moderates in both the Republican and Democratic parties have been expunged in their respective primary seasons.

Fringe parties like Democratic Socialist and the Working Families Parties have successfully inserted themselves into America’s main parties. Far left extremists like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar are no longer on the outside looking in, but have seats in Congress, are members of important committees and been endorsed by the heads of the Democratic National Committee and the Speaker of the House.

In New York State, Democrats forcibly retired politicians that considered bi-partisanship a noble idea. The majority Democratic Party is now looking to seal the fate of the state by actively looking to expel the last of the moderates and achieve a super-majority to advance extremist ideas. The terms “DINO” and “RINO,” Democrats In Name Only and Republicans In Name Only have become slurs.

The dynamics extend beyond state politics and congress. The Democratic Party has selected, Kamala Harris, the most liberal and least bipartisan member of the Senate to be Vice President. They have made clear their intentions to establish long-term changes to America in packing the Supreme Court and adding Washington, D.C. as a new state.

For their part, the Republicans can’t stand the incumbent president of their own party, with dozens upon dozens shunning Trump. It’s an unheard of dynamic in the history of American elections: Republican hate Republicans and Democrats hate Republicans. It sounds like an easy vote this election.

Not so.

The cleft in society will not be bridged with endorsing a party that has swung far from the center. It will also not be cured with a vote for an Independent or Libertarian, which might feel like good, but does as much as throwing a pebble into the trench.

In this contentious election, the best path forward to heal the country is to vote purple – not all blue (Democratic) or pure red (Republican) up and down the ballot, but to vote for a mix of both parties. If you live in a deep blue state, vote straight red, and if you’re in a deep red state, vote blue in every race. Americans must force the parties to find common ground, as a sweep for Democrats or Republicans in 2020 is a vote for extremist ideologies and policies.

The protests in the streets of America have ranged from Black Lives Matter, COVID-19 lockdowns, abortion, immigration policies and more

Related First One Through articles:

A Country Divided

Vote Harvesting

The Mason-Dixon Plaid

The U.S. is Stealing Real Choices from the Voters

Let’s Make America VOTE Again

Libertarian Validation and Absolution

Naked Democracy 2

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The Media’s COVID Bias

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The pandemic of our time has killed over a million people worldwide. One would imagine that such a global scourge might bring people together, or at least allow the media to rise above partisan politics.

But that is wishful thinking. There are other pandemics today including the polarization of politics and the death of unbiased media.

Consider the graphic shown on The Wall Street Journal’s cover page on October 15, 2020. It showed that despite the summer flattening of the positive cases of COVID-19 in Europe, the continent has spiked alarmingly and now surpasses the U.S. in terms of cases per million people.

Cover page of the WSJ with graphic showing steep increase in COVID cases in Europe, now surpassing the United States

This graphic, together with the article on page A9 exposed a narrative quite different than the Democratic Party is actively imparting to voters just a few weeks before elections – that the Trump Administration has been a grotesque failure at handling the pandemic, particularly relative to the rest of the world.

So The New York Times came to put the anti-Trump narrative back on track the following day.

New York Times cover page of October 16, 2020 with three large US maps and a chart dominating the entirety of the page

The entire middle of the front page from the very top to the very bottom was covered with graphics in red. The title of the charts read “U.S. Virus Cases Climb Towards Third Peak.” This was the message that the Times wanted readers to focus on, that things are getting real bad once again in the United States. The cases in Europe went unmentioned.

Reuters covered both stories over the past several days, in particular highlighting the troubling trend in Europe in several articles. One of the articles included this remarkable comment, that “Europe is reporting more daily cases than India, Brazil and the United States combined.” As of this writing, the NY Times has ignored the devastating trend in Europe.

The pandemic is destroying lives all around the world while the liberal and conservative media outlets post alternative facts to make us love or hate politicians. It’s a sad state of affairs and one likely to just make us all sicker.

Related First One Through articles:

The CoronavirUS is Not Us Versus Them

Where the Virus is Killing the Most: Countries with Socialist Leaders

The U.N. Doesn’t Care About Middle-Aged White Male Victims of Covid-19

Genes Versus Leadership in the Pandemic

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Facebook’s Censorship is a Problem

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When Facebook announced that it was banning Holocaust denial on October 12, many people celebrated. The dismissive language and attitudes related to millions of slaughtered Jews during World War II is viewed by many as not only offensive but the foundation for new hate crimes today. As such, the removal of such content and the platform’s limitation on sharing such articles was welcome news for many well-meaning people.

But censorship is a cruel hack that silences opinions and stories that stray from today’s new strictly-enforced orthodoxies.

This blog has been writing stories consistently for six years covering anti-Semitism, Zionism and American politics. The opinions have taken sharp aim at the liberal press’s criticisms of Israel during that time and was never shy in highlighting the deep anti-Semitism found in the foundational documents of Palestinian society, including the Hamas charter.

The articles have principally been shared on Facebook. Consequently, the platform’s decisions on which articles should be censored due to content – or author – directly impacts the blog’s viewership.

And since the end of September, the readership has suddenly plummeted.

Historically, popular First One Through articles were read by thousands and typical articles were read by several hundred. It was rare to ever have an article be consumed by fewer than 80 people. But over the past three weeks, not a single article has surpassed that total.

The September 25 article on “NY Times Tries Hard to Paint Obama/Biden as Pacifists and Trump as Mercenary” had only 101 views, a very poor showing. Remarkably, that is the highest total since that date. A true story relayed in “Vote Harvesting” got only 76 views even though it is a critical story being discussed today. The numbers have only gotten worse.

Friends found the story on vote harvesting impossible to believe and asked that I take it down since it was fanning distrust in the upcoming elections. It is a sentiment shared by the censors at Facebook. It has seemingly marked the FirstOneThrough blog as dangerous for society and is curtailing its viewership.

The notion that the good guys always win or that truth will always prevail are myths. Emboldening powerful platforms to censor stories it deems unworthy or incompatible with its worldview is toxic to a healthy democratic society.

First they came for my articles but I did not speak up because they did not censor mine…

Related First One Through articles:

Opinions on Facebook

The Press Are Not Guardians of the Galaxy

The Noose and the Nipple

New York Times Confusion on Free Speech

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Voting the Time Warp: Palestinians 1967 and Democrats 1988

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Many people have their taste in music locked in by their mid-20’s. They typically find it hard to add new artists to their song lists and revert to their old favorites each day.

Similarly, people see their spouses and old friends through old lenses. They don’t really age in their minds who remain as youthful and energetic as their memories allow, not as they truly exist today.

We see this dynamic playing out in politics today as well.

The Palestinian Arabs call for a new state to be established on lands ruled by Jordan and Egypt way back in 1967. The fact that over fifty years have passed since those illegal occupiers were routed by Israel does not seem to faze the leadership of the Palestinian Authority. Many Palestinian Arabs are even more ambitious with seemingly older memories when they chant “we don’t want two states; we want ’48,” in a call to recreate a reality from 1948 before the Jewish State was reborn.

American voters are doing it as well. They have deluded themselves into believing they are voting for Joe Biden as he was in 1988 and not the man as he exists today in 2020. They ignore his clearly compromised facilities and pretend he is up to the task of running the country.

I do not fault people for seeing the world as they want it to be or as they really visualize it. But it is madness to pretend that others share their time-warped perceptions. It is delusional, off-putting and not constructive.

When a fellow American says they cannot vote for a 2020-Joe Biden or an Israeli says that he is not going back in time to set borders from 1948 or 1967, it doesn’t mean that they do not share some common desires like peace in the Middle East or a president that is not Donald Trump. It means that they see the world as it truly exists today and will act accordingly.

Looking at the world through vintage glasses is wonderful when engaging with close friends and family members but is dangerous when negotiating or entering the voting booth. Democrats are doing both when they dismiss the Trump peace plan which considers reality in Israel and its territories, and when they delude themselves into talking about 2020-Joe Biden as if he’s still 1988-Joe Biden.

Related First One Through articles:

Eyes Wide Shut

Schrodinger’s Cat and Oslo’s Egg

When Power Talks the Truth

Trump’s “eastern Jerusalem” and Biden’s “East Jerusalem”

The Peace Proposal Monologues

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For the Sins of 5780…

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… for supporting the antisemitic and racist Black Lives Matter group

… for apologizing to Blacks when Blacks kill Jews

… for pretending that only White people are anti-Semites and that there hasn’t been a spike in Blacks murdering Jews

… for defending rioters attempting to destroy America’s founding principles

… for enabling the Progressive war on Israel

… for believing the news from CNN and The New York Times

… for pretending that the problem is all in social media and not the mainstream media

… for voting for Socialists

… for contributing to alma maters which promote antisemitism

… for donating to J Street

… for using J Street’s tagline “Pro-Israel, Pro-Peace” when it is nothing of the sort

… for giving cover to politicians who slam Jews

… for inviting anti-Israel speakers into our synagogues

… for being silent when liberal politicians sought to funnel money into Gaza

… for considering qualifying or reducing investments in Israel

… for not clearly identifying Hamas as an antisemitic terrorist organization

… for not holding Palestinian Arabs accountable for their actions and statements

… for not advocating for Jewish prayer on the Jewish Temple Mount

… for still referring to a place called “East Jerusalem” which only existed for less than two decades in the 1950’s and 1960’s

… for the cultural appropriation of the term “promised land” and not ascribing it to Jews and Israel

… for saying Donald Trump has done nothing positive for Israel

… for dismissing antisemitism while being particularly sensitive to racism

… for demanding nothing from Jewish leadership

… for fighting against funding police for Jewish institutions

… for pretending that something that makes you feel spiritual is Tikkun Olam and the essence of Judaism

… for not articulating clearly the difference and inter-relationships between Jews, Judaism and Israel

… for not advocating for the dismantling of UNRWA

… for being silent as European countries banned kosher meat

… for not taking COVID-19 seriously

For all these things, please pardon us.

Related First One Through article:

For the Sins of 5777 of…

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Naked Democracy 2

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The 2016 U.S. presidential election was a bizarre and emotionally-charged affair. Not only did two highly disliked politicians face each other but the Republican and Democratic parties used very different paths to electing their ultimate candidate. That history set the course for the subsequent elections which we are seeing played out in 2020.

The Republican establishment and media scorned Donald Trump. Not only did he spend most of his life as a Democrat and outside of politics, but his personality and temperament accosted the party’s sensibilities. Sen. Ted Cruz called Trump a “pathological liar,” Sen. Marco Rubio said he was a “con artist” and Sen. Lindsay Graham said Trump hasn’t “displayed the judgment and temperament to serve as Commander in Chief.” 

The list went on and on.

The media acted much the same with conservative publications refusing to endorse Trump during the primaries, hoping someone would save the election and the Republican party.

Cover of the Conservative Magazine National Review

Republicans ignored their leaders and nominated someone from the outside of their party and politics who ultimately secured both the nomination and the presidency.

Democrats came close to electing an outsider as well.

The incredible run of Sen. Bernie Sanders to almost win the Democratic nomination mirrored the rise of Donald Trump in the Republican primaries. The Vermont Independent rarely caucused with Democrats during his time in the Senate and had virtually no impact on passing legislation over his entire tenure. However, he attracted the attention of the far-left public who rallied to his cause and nearly secured his position at the top of the ticket. He did so without the help of the Democratic machine and press which heavily favored Hillary Clinton.

The long-time political insider’s loss to a brash novice like Trump was too much for the left-wing to bear and they decided to remake the Democratic Party much the way Trump  had done to the GOP.

A new far left-wing group called the Justice Democrats formed and took aim at moderate Democrats in primaries in an effort to shift the party far to the left. It secured victories in 2018 with Democratic-Socialists like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib getting into congress. In 2020, they succeeded again with wins including Jamaal Bowman defeating long-time Democratic congressman Eliot Engel as well as other victories.

By all accounts, the insurgents would never have found a home inside the established Democratic Party in the past, and would have run on the Green Party or Working Family Party tickets. But the treatment of Sanders in 2016 and ultimate defeat of Hillary Clinton made them take up arms against the Democratic machine and are now effectively reshaping the party in their extremist image. The establishment is cow-towing to the fringe with its leaders saying that AOC is the “future of the party” and backing Ilhan Omar’s reelection.

Meanwhile the Republicans are not so sure that winning is everything and are contemplating their current situation of letting their party get hijacked by an outsider.

Many Republicans in the media and politics initially chose to look away from Trump’s statements in 2016 and back the new president in the hope of influencing Trump’s policies and securing gains for their constituents. But four years later many cannot look away from Trump’s acerbic personality. Sen. Mitt Romney and former-Secretary of State Collin Powell have said they will not support Trump’s re-election and former Ohio Republican governor and congressman John Kasich has accepted an invitation to speak at the Democratic National Convention against Trump.

In a curious situation, the loser is seeking to emulate the winner while the winner is debating the cost of the win.

A two-party democracy works best when the choice before voters is center-right versus center-left. Should society seek to have a voice for radicals, a parliamentary system would be most efficient in which those sentiments would be heard, but in whispers at the edges. But America is moving in a dangerous direction with its two-party system tacking to the fringes, destroying moderate politicians and the mainstream media which has pivoted in kind.

Related First One Through articles:

The U.S. is Stealing Real Choices from the Voters

Libertarian Validation and Absolution

I Love 5-to-4

In The Margins

“Coastal Liberal Latte-sipping Politically-correct Out-of-touch Folks.”

Liberal’s Protest Bubble Harms Democracy

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The Mason-Dixon Plaid

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The Mason-Dixon Line was known as the demarcation between the northern states and the southern states in the US Civil War. The line clearly separated those states in which slavery was prohibited (the Union north of the line) and the slave states (the Confederacy south of the line).

The Civil War waged from 1861 to 1865 and was the bloodiest war in American history with 618,000 killed, more than all other U.S. wars combined (WWII and WWI had 405,000 and 116,000 fatalities, respectively). The death total was roughly 2 per cent of the country, equivalent to over 6 million people today. It is remarkable to think about the millions who fought to preserve (and counter) a preferred form of government, rather than let the country divide seamlessly.

It is difficult to imagine how the Civil War would have played out if the warring parties were not delineated by the neat Mason-Dixon line but a patchwork of alternating states. Would the war have ended faster and with fewer deaths if a few surrounding states ganged up on a common enemy in the middle? Or would the destruction have been far longer and worse for each side with alternating gains and losses on multiple fronts? Imagine if the dynamics were even narrower, with alternating cities and neighborhoods which pit neighbor against fellow neighbor.

A civil war between standing armies would be nearly impossible in such configuration. It would more likely resemble a series of micro-battles in which one square of the plaid pattern attacked another rectangle. A raging riot would break in part of one city and a pogrom in another. Lawlessness would prevail as police forces fragmented between the sides.

It is doubtful such war could conclude with long-term stability and peace. The tensions would likely come to the fore every so often, much like the hundred-year battle between the Arabs and Jews in Israel. Competing visions for a single land is unsustainable as simmering feuds between neighbors and clans never dissipate as people mourn for the loss of family, friends and illusion that the past can be recreated.

The United States is an increasingly polarized society. Radical leftists are taking over the Democratic Party while the Republican Party disembowels itself under President Trump. The alt-left and alt-right visions for America are radically different as the country that once touted itself as the home of the middle class has jettisoned the political moderates. While the deep blue is mostly on the coasts and deep red is predominantly in the middle of the country, the depth of colors offends every non-zealot in every corner.

At this same moment in time, the pandemic has introduced a mindset that one’s neighbors can literally kill them. The notion of “give me liberty (to not wear a mask) or give me death” is being shouted at the man on the street, not a monarch thousands of miles away. The stresses of financial and physical health against a backdrop demanding purity of thought at the risk of losing one’s job have pushed people to the edge.

The Mason-Dixon Plaid has crisscrossed the country amid a pandemic setting the stage for a long and brutal battle pitting neighbor against neighbor. It is being launched with ostracizations and evictions, boycotts and theft, and weapons are being drawn. This civil war will not end when the pandemic eases, but with a turn towards the center where neighbors can speak and listen to jointly compromise on a shared vision for the land.

Related First One Through articles:

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Mike Bloomberg, Where #NeverTrump Meets #NeverBernie

American Hate: The Right Targets Foreigners, The Left Targets Americans

Naked Democracy

Eyes Wide Shut

Magnifying the Margins, and the Rise of the Independents

Please Don’t Vote for a Democratic Socialist

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