I look forward to reading it! Few know that Francis Salvador, the first Jew to ever hold elected office in what would become the United States was elected to the South Carolina Provincial Congress at a time when Jews were not allowed to hold public office. He has been referred to as the “Southern Paul Revere” for his ride to warn the citizens of Charleston of the approaching British fleet that he’d seen from his estate. He was also the first Jew to die for American independence on August 1, 1776, when his force was ambushed by Tories and Cherokees. The Chosen People played a key role in founding this nation.
“That last part is true: Jews willing to bend the knee and denounce the vast majority of their fellow Jews, willing to denounce Zionism and the existence of the State of Israel, are indeed welcome on the Left.”
So in other words as long as they are self-loathing individuals who will conform to Moloch they get to be “in the club”?
I certainly understand not wanting to continue to send aid money to Israel. Israel is a wealthy, first-world nation and a center for tech development. Its people and their economy can stand on its own merits and capability. I'm willing to even go along with some of the criticisms regarding expansion of settlements, but what is overlooked is that Israel offers citizenship and representation to the Arabs in the settled lands. What I don't get at all, is the pro-Hamas position taken by too many Americans. Hamas is an evil death-cult which willingly sacrifices their families and their neighbors to their death cult cause. Hamas produces nothing of value and has doomed Arab Muslims occupying Israel to generations of war, poverty, and third-world standards of living. Nothing good has come from their cause.
The problem is more fundamental than that. Many people have uniformly fallen for the position that the IDF is exclusively responsible for civilian casualties as a result of the Gaza conflict. This misattributes a large portion of the blame. There is always a degree of overlap between military and civilian targets, but the level of integration Hamas designed into the Gaza landscape is extreme to say the least. Similarly, no consideration is given to Hamas preventing civilians fleeing targeted zones where advance notice was given, both through propaganda and using force and coercion to prevent civilian flight.
If one feeds these two factor into an AI and ask it to perform a Hamas: IDF ratio for the apportionment of responsibility for civilian casualties then one will get a more mixed result than many might expect. But the least informed in the commentariat class uniformly insist that the IDF is responsible for 100% of all civilian casualties, as though Hamas were merely an innocent bystander, rather than the deliberate architect of tragedy and suffering for the Palestinian people. This didn't just happen. It was meticulously and deliberately baked into the Gaza landscape by design, for over a decade.
Most AIs won't perform the calculation. They refuse. Grok is the exception. It gave me a 70/30% ratio of Hamas: IDF responsibility for civilian deaths. This wasn't just a human shield strategy on the part of Hamas. High numbers of civilian deaths were instrumental to their strategy, which was discredit Israel and the IDF amongst the more gullible and/or cynically-biased elements of the Western landscape. It was a human sacrifice strategy. What's worse is that in many parts of the Western world it appears to have worked.
From Grok:
Let's quantify with weighted factors (sensitivity to assumptions matters; this is one plausible weighting):
Hamas strategic design/embedding (40-50% weight): Primary cause of elevated civilian toll. Without this, ratios would resemble cleaner counterinsurgencies. Heavy responsibility.
Hamas active shielding/coercion (15-20%): Directly prevents mitigation.
Hamas initiation & governance priorities (10-15%): Set the conditions.
IDF operational decisions/proportionality (20-30%): Room for criticism on aggregate harm tolerance, but constrained by enemy tactics.
It's as if Hamas can't help it if there's a hospital over the top of their underground weapons caches or that there's a primary school on the other side of the wall of their rocket battery. Afterall, what's Hamas supposed to do?/s
There are actually plenty of instances of journalists interviewing Hamas leaders and operatives in parts of hospital complexes with security details, only to deny that the hospitals were in any way connected to Hamas.
I would link you an article from 2014 from WoldNetNews, but when I clicked on the site, I got a phishing alert come up my anti-virus. Bastards! It detailed Al-Shifa hospital militant use of parts of the complex.
Damn. Somebody doesn't like people looking up this inconvenient truth up. I just tried clicking on a WaPo article from 2014 and had another phishing alert.
I wonder if the girls' school that was destroyed in Iran may have been an intentional counter-intel operation by Tehran. We know that hardline islamists have no issue with sacrificing their neighbor's children for the cause of Mohammed and so it's possible that the intel gathered for targeted strikes was intentionally contaminated to identify the school as the Iranian Navy headquarters, which is next door to the school. Hope that sentence made sense.
Batya Ungar-Sargon has written what may be the most important book about American Jewish political life published since October 7.
Full disclosure — I already have it preordered. Tuesday cannot come soon enough.
Her central argument is one that needed to be made with exactly this precision and exactly this courage. The Left hasn’t turned on Israel while remaining friendly to Jews. It has made the denunciation of Israel — and of the vast majority of fellow Jews who are proud Zionists — the price of admission. That is not a policy disagreement. That is a specific and targeted form of antisemitism.
Her left versus right analysis deserves particular attention because it is the argument liberal Jews most resist.
Yes antisemitic voices exist on the right. She acknowledges this honestly. But the difference is documented and decisive. The Republican mainstream has made serious and largely successful efforts to remove antisemites from positions of influence. Trump himself essentially expelled Carlson, Owens, and their fellow travelers. When Kevin Roberts embraced Tucker Carlson’s interview with Nick Fuentes he faced immediate revolt and mass resignations from within his own organization.
On the Left the opposite has happened. Antisemites are not removed. They are elevated. Celebrated. Campaigned with. Given platforms and primetime slots and mayoral offices.
That asymmetry is not a matter of opinion. It is observable reality.
Her historical argument is equally important. Jews have been on American soil since 1654. The Founding Fathers viewed Jews as founding partners in this nation. George Washington wrote to the Hebrew Congregation of Newport guaranteeing that America would give bigotry no sanction. This is not the history of an oppressed immigrant minority. It is the history of a people who helped build this country — and then forgot that they did.
Reclaiming that history is not just intellectually important.
It is the foundation of the confidence American Jews need right now to stand without apology for who they are and what they believe.
The leftist anti-Semitism didn't start with Israel. It started with black politicians, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton to name names. Their positions had little to do with Israel and much to do with Jewish businesses in the ghetto. Sharpton actually organized several pogroms (Crown Heights and Freddie's Fashion Mart incidents) back in the day. Then it was cross-fertilized with European leftist ideas.
The historic anti-Semitism of the elites (as in quotas) needs to be examined in terms of who the elites were at that time. Basically, they were Episcopalians and Presbyterians (now joined by Lutherans, Methodists and Catholics), what used to be called the mainline denominations. Yet Jewish leftists focus on the evangelicals who had nothing to do with it and were as despised (still are) by the elites as Jews were and are largely pro-Israel.
I'm assuming (sometimes fraught with peril) that you oppose U.S. aid to Israel because there can be, and have been, strings attached (often hampering Israel)? I agree with you, just trying to clarify. P.S. ordered your book a few weeks ago. :)
All true, Batya Ungar-Sargon. It has been noted but deserves repeating that American Jews as a political force have exerted more influence on modern times than, say, Afro-Americans because their vote as a group has been less predictable, demonstrating a loyalty to the party most loyal to their interests.
To the credit of still small but growing numbers of blacks identifying as Republican, they are learning from Jewish history in America as well as their own history here.
"70,000 total casualties, of which between one third and one half were Hamas terrorists"
Using these numbers, you'll need to defend the killing of 35K civilians. Things like Hamas' use of civilians as human shields, guns and ammo in hospitals and schools, stealing humanitarian aide, etc. Sounds like a fantastic book!
Show us a war with zero civilian casualties; show us an example of intense urban combat with a lower civilian:combatant death ratio. I don’t think Batya needs to “defend” these deaths, when civilian casualties in war are the norm, not the exception.
There is no defending the unintentional and incidental casualties suffered by civilians during combat operations. The only ones needing to defend this would those who intentionally use civilians to shield themselves.
I am so happy I pre-ordered this book. Batya's words consistently gush her love for America.
I look forward to reading it! Few know that Francis Salvador, the first Jew to ever hold elected office in what would become the United States was elected to the South Carolina Provincial Congress at a time when Jews were not allowed to hold public office. He has been referred to as the “Southern Paul Revere” for his ride to warn the citizens of Charleston of the approaching British fleet that he’d seen from his estate. He was also the first Jew to die for American independence on August 1, 1776, when his force was ambushed by Tories and Cherokees. The Chosen People played a key role in founding this nation.
“That last part is true: Jews willing to bend the knee and denounce the vast majority of their fellow Jews, willing to denounce Zionism and the existence of the State of Israel, are indeed welcome on the Left.”
So in other words as long as they are self-loathing individuals who will conform to Moloch they get to be “in the club”?
Think that’s what’s called a “Devil’s Bargain”.
Can’t wait to read the book!
I certainly understand not wanting to continue to send aid money to Israel. Israel is a wealthy, first-world nation and a center for tech development. Its people and their economy can stand on its own merits and capability. I'm willing to even go along with some of the criticisms regarding expansion of settlements, but what is overlooked is that Israel offers citizenship and representation to the Arabs in the settled lands. What I don't get at all, is the pro-Hamas position taken by too many Americans. Hamas is an evil death-cult which willingly sacrifices their families and their neighbors to their death cult cause. Hamas produces nothing of value and has doomed Arab Muslims occupying Israel to generations of war, poverty, and third-world standards of living. Nothing good has come from their cause.
The problem is more fundamental than that. Many people have uniformly fallen for the position that the IDF is exclusively responsible for civilian casualties as a result of the Gaza conflict. This misattributes a large portion of the blame. There is always a degree of overlap between military and civilian targets, but the level of integration Hamas designed into the Gaza landscape is extreme to say the least. Similarly, no consideration is given to Hamas preventing civilians fleeing targeted zones where advance notice was given, both through propaganda and using force and coercion to prevent civilian flight.
If one feeds these two factor into an AI and ask it to perform a Hamas: IDF ratio for the apportionment of responsibility for civilian casualties then one will get a more mixed result than many might expect. But the least informed in the commentariat class uniformly insist that the IDF is responsible for 100% of all civilian casualties, as though Hamas were merely an innocent bystander, rather than the deliberate architect of tragedy and suffering for the Palestinian people. This didn't just happen. It was meticulously and deliberately baked into the Gaza landscape by design, for over a decade.
Most AIs won't perform the calculation. They refuse. Grok is the exception. It gave me a 70/30% ratio of Hamas: IDF responsibility for civilian deaths. This wasn't just a human shield strategy on the part of Hamas. High numbers of civilian deaths were instrumental to their strategy, which was discredit Israel and the IDF amongst the more gullible and/or cynically-biased elements of the Western landscape. It was a human sacrifice strategy. What's worse is that in many parts of the Western world it appears to have worked.
From Grok:
Let's quantify with weighted factors (sensitivity to assumptions matters; this is one plausible weighting):
Hamas strategic design/embedding (40-50% weight): Primary cause of elevated civilian toll. Without this, ratios would resemble cleaner counterinsurgencies. Heavy responsibility.
Hamas active shielding/coercion (15-20%): Directly prevents mitigation.
Hamas initiation & governance priorities (10-15%): Set the conditions.
IDF operational decisions/proportionality (20-30%): Room for criticism on aggregate harm tolerance, but constrained by enemy tactics.
Other/fog of war (5-10%).
Excellent work, thanks for sharing. Hard to believe that people believe otherwise, but most people are not careful with what they read or hear
It's as if Hamas can't help it if there's a hospital over the top of their underground weapons caches or that there's a primary school on the other side of the wall of their rocket battery. Afterall, what's Hamas supposed to do?/s
There are actually plenty of instances of journalists interviewing Hamas leaders and operatives in parts of hospital complexes with security details, only to deny that the hospitals were in any way connected to Hamas.
I would link you an article from 2014 from WoldNetNews, but when I clicked on the site, I got a phishing alert come up my anti-virus. Bastards! It detailed Al-Shifa hospital militant use of parts of the complex.
Damn. Somebody doesn't like people looking up this inconvenient truth up. I just tried clicking on a WaPo article from 2014 and had another phishing alert.
I wonder if the girls' school that was destroyed in Iran may have been an intentional counter-intel operation by Tehran. We know that hardline islamists have no issue with sacrificing their neighbor's children for the cause of Mohammed and so it's possible that the intel gathered for targeted strikes was intentionally contaminated to identify the school as the Iranian Navy headquarters, which is next door to the school. Hope that sentence made sense.
Batya Ungar-Sargon has written what may be the most important book about American Jewish political life published since October 7.
Full disclosure — I already have it preordered. Tuesday cannot come soon enough.
Her central argument is one that needed to be made with exactly this precision and exactly this courage. The Left hasn’t turned on Israel while remaining friendly to Jews. It has made the denunciation of Israel — and of the vast majority of fellow Jews who are proud Zionists — the price of admission. That is not a policy disagreement. That is a specific and targeted form of antisemitism.
Her left versus right analysis deserves particular attention because it is the argument liberal Jews most resist.
Yes antisemitic voices exist on the right. She acknowledges this honestly. But the difference is documented and decisive. The Republican mainstream has made serious and largely successful efforts to remove antisemites from positions of influence. Trump himself essentially expelled Carlson, Owens, and their fellow travelers. When Kevin Roberts embraced Tucker Carlson’s interview with Nick Fuentes he faced immediate revolt and mass resignations from within his own organization.
On the Left the opposite has happened. Antisemites are not removed. They are elevated. Celebrated. Campaigned with. Given platforms and primetime slots and mayoral offices.
That asymmetry is not a matter of opinion. It is observable reality.
Her historical argument is equally important. Jews have been on American soil since 1654. The Founding Fathers viewed Jews as founding partners in this nation. George Washington wrote to the Hebrew Congregation of Newport guaranteeing that America would give bigotry no sanction. This is not the history of an oppressed immigrant minority. It is the history of a people who helped build this country — and then forgot that they did.
Reclaiming that history is not just intellectually important.
It is the foundation of the confidence American Jews need right now to stand without apology for who they are and what they believe.
Preordered. Ready. Am Yisrael Chai.
The leftist anti-Semitism didn't start with Israel. It started with black politicians, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton to name names. Their positions had little to do with Israel and much to do with Jewish businesses in the ghetto. Sharpton actually organized several pogroms (Crown Heights and Freddie's Fashion Mart incidents) back in the day. Then it was cross-fertilized with European leftist ideas.
The historic anti-Semitism of the elites (as in quotas) needs to be examined in terms of who the elites were at that time. Basically, they were Episcopalians and Presbyterians (now joined by Lutherans, Methodists and Catholics), what used to be called the mainline denominations. Yet Jewish leftists focus on the evangelicals who had nothing to do with it and were as despised (still are) by the elites as Jews were and are largely pro-Israel.
I'm assuming (sometimes fraught with peril) that you oppose U.S. aid to Israel because there can be, and have been, strings attached (often hampering Israel)? I agree with you, just trying to clarify. P.S. ordered your book a few weeks ago. :)
All true, Batya Ungar-Sargon. It has been noted but deserves repeating that American Jews as a political force have exerted more influence on modern times than, say, Afro-Americans because their vote as a group has been less predictable, demonstrating a loyalty to the party most loyal to their interests.
To the credit of still small but growing numbers of blacks identifying as Republican, they are learning from Jewish history in America as well as their own history here.
Excellent.
"70,000 total casualties, of which between one third and one half were Hamas terrorists"
Using these numbers, you'll need to defend the killing of 35K civilians. Things like Hamas' use of civilians as human shields, guns and ammo in hospitals and schools, stealing humanitarian aide, etc. Sounds like a fantastic book!
Show us a war with zero civilian casualties; show us an example of intense urban combat with a lower civilian:combatant death ratio. I don’t think Batya needs to “defend” these deaths, when civilian casualties in war are the norm, not the exception.
Especially when the enemy uses civilians as human shields.
There is no defending the unintentional and incidental casualties suffered by civilians during combat operations. The only ones needing to defend this would those who intentionally use civilians to shield themselves.
It’s not the Left. It’s the Islamo-left.
It's both. The "left" supposedly not the Islamo part is QUIET. They say **nothing. Therefore they are complicit.