"The attack into Lebanon, following a year of brutal fighting in Gaza, following the brazen assassination of Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, represents the culmination of Netanyahu’s go-it-alone strategy. From a geopolitical perspective, it is hard to understand how a strategy like that could possibly be sustainable for a nation as small and embattled as Israel."

~ Sam Kahn

#Israel #Lebanon #Palestine #Netanyahu
/1

https://www.theunpopulist.net/p/israel-cant-survive-by-a-go-it-alone

Israel Can’t Survive by a Go-It-Alone Strategy that Squanders International Goodwill

Its people should not have to spend the next Rosh Hashanah in bomb shelters

The UnPopulist

"Netanyahu’s speech at the U.N., as well as his video directed at the Iranian people, were interesting above all as a departure from Israel’s existing communications strategies. Simply put, Israel, over the course of the last year, has barely even bothered to justify its conduct to the international community."

#Israel #Lebanon #Palestine #Netanyahu
/2

"I cannot remember a Rosh Hashanah when the collective moral stakes were any higher for the American Jewish community than this year. I would even go as far as to say it may be the most morally consequential High Holiday season of our lifetimes. As we begin this new year, the shofar calls us to account for a genocide, ongoing even as we speak, perpetrated by a nation acting in the name of the Jewish people."

~ Brant Rosen

#Israel #Lebanon #Palestine #Netanyahu
/3

https://truthout.org/articles/we-charge-genocide-the-shofar-calls-us-to-account-on-rosh-hashanah/

We Charge Genocide: The Shofar Calls Us to Account on Rosh Hashanah

In the Jewish new year, we must confront the carnage that Zionism has wrought.

Truthout

"More than ever before, this High Holiday season calls for Jewish communities to reckon seriously with what Zionism has wrought. …

This is what comes of an ideology and movement that from the beginning viewed Jewish safety as zero sum; in which our security can only be achieved at the expense of others, empowerment gained through the sheer power of superior military technology, stronger weapons and higher walls."

#Israel #Lebanon #Palestine #Netanyahu
/4

@wdlindsy I have not read the piece you linked to nor have I heard of its author. However, I’m utterly offended that you have posted this on Rosh Hashanah, despite the author’s claim that he knows what I, an American Jew, should be thinking about. Today of all days, when every Jewish religious and community site is battened down with security and hardened against potential violent attack, the last thing we need is another guy telling us about what is “wrong” with Zionism. 1/2

@JaneinNJ It appears you may not know that Brant Rosen is an American rabbi.

You want to censor him? Why? If he thought that it was important, as a Jewish religious leader, to make this statement during Rosh Hashanah, I wonder why he thought that.

@wdlindsy Here’s a link my rabbi’s sermon from this morning, which he posted on FB. He expresses far better than I ever could where I am coming from. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-kaDLQy42Ffat5x9ogpqtyOl62z34z7ZBXURHBzCSp0/edit
@JaneinNJ Thanks for helping me see where you're coming from. I have very significant (to me, they are) conversations with my Jewish neighbors, whom I esteem, and who represent a Jewish identity and viewpoint that is strongly critical of Zionism and of the alliance of some of their fellow Jews with the worst right-wing folks (as my neighbors and I see things) in the U.S.
@wdlindsy (6) To me, a not-terribly-observant American Jew, that is a horrible insult and a terrible way of looking at the situation. Do I have answers? Not really. I read a lot, think a lot (which I had planned to do on Rosh Hashanah), and try to sift through all of the facts and analyses. Here’s an opinion piece from today’s Forward that ties a peace plan with the return of the hostages and the additional benefit of getting rid of Netanyahu. https://tinyurl.com/peerryy All for now.
@JaneinNJ I'm sorry you took something I said as an insult, Jane. I certainly have not intended to insult you — and I don't how what (6) means, so I have no idea what you found objectionable in what I said. Should I, as a non-Jew, listen only to the kind of Jews of whom you approve? Should I ignore what seems to me valuable moral insight grounded in deep faith among Jewish people who see things differently than you do? Why does my listening to them insult you as a Jew? I don't understand.
@wdlindsy You hit a raw nerve. As I have said, in the vernacular around here these days, Zionist is a code word for Jew, so that hits the generational trauma, even if it’s not intended. Let’s call it a day with this. You have your perspective and I have mine. We both hope for peace in the Middle East and, I assume, the return of the remaining hostages. One way or another, let it happen.
@JaneinNJ Shabbat shalom — I mean no harm and I do understand, from the outside looking in, the deep feelings of a group of people historically vilified and abused in atrocious ways by people who profess my own faith. I stand with you against such hate, always have, always will.

@wdlindsy if you haven’t seen it, here’s a recent piece by the estimable #MashaGessen in the New Yorker. A nuanced view from the ground at Wahat al-Salam/Neve Shalom, an intentional Jewish/Arab settlement in Israel.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/06/17/wahat-al-salam-neve-shalom-israel-gaza-october-7th

How a Palestinian/Jewish Village in Israel Changed After October 7th

Wahat al-Salam/Neve Shalom was founded on a total belief in the power of dialogue. Masha Gessen writes about the community in the aftermath of the Hamas attack and amid Israel’s war in Gaza.

The New Yorker

@JaneinNJ Thank you. I'll look for the essay and read it. You may also like, if you haven't seen it, Naomi Klein's long read in The Guardian today: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2024/oct/05/israel-gaza-october-7-memorials

And this from Meredith Shiner in New Republic:

https://newrepublic.com/article/186577/ta-nehisi-coates-media-antisemitism

How Israel has made trauma a weapon of war

A year later, memorials to the 7 October attacks use art, virtual reality and dark tourism to stir support for limitless violence. But there is a different way to remember

The Guardian