How To Fight The Excesses of Trumpism

Two things about Trump's Muslim video tweets:

Regardless, of what you think about their value, or Britain First, it's obvious that the man is just not going to stop. Y'all wasting your time. Why? Because he knows his supporters like it, and also are sick of politically correct garbage, when you are not allowed to open your mouth without being called an Islamophobes and have your legitimate concerns dismissed.

And populists take easy advantage of such grievances, and of course, take their new found freedom from PC all the way the other end. Don't like it? Start giving platforms to serious thinkers who can discuss Islamism without hysterics, and stop empowering the likes of Linda Sarsour. The more you attack Trump and ask him to stop, the more he will continue in the same vein just to piss people off, and the more his hardcore supporters will applaud him.

Second, the non-profits who are choosing to engage in Twitter wars with the President are not saving the country from White Supremacists. They are begging for money from their donors.

Start supporting people who are willing to discuss reasonable solutions, and you won't have room for demagogues, who have nothing to offer but bloviations that cater to emotions and fears.

But you won't see that happening, because non-profits need money and they can only get money if they fighting some grievance.

Will Insanity Lead to Sanity?

Being able to self-identify as something other than one's own sex, race, or any other biological factor should make affirmative action moot.

When a Clash of Ideas Unites - La Ciudad de las Ideas Beyond X

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/when-a-clash-of-ideas-unites-la-ciudad-de-las-ideas-beyond-x/

The past several years has showed an increasing sense of polarization of various groups over ideology, religion, political choices and positions, and even lifestyle choices.

Self-isolation into echo chambers on social media has not been helpful in promoting civility in discourse or opening minds to new ideas.

The proliferation of safe spaces and increasing pushback against controversial or politically challenging speakers on university campuses has reached the critical  level of presenting security concerns and creating a sense of spreading and viciously self-enforcing conformism and groupthink.

And grandstanding by leading politicians around the world has done little to address the substance of the issues that has caused a feeling of abandonment among the public and led to the hijacking of parties and movements by increasingly radical elements.  Bad news and politicization of any given topic is eagerly fed by the media, which overall, feeds off negative publicity and superficial soundbytes, regardless of perspective.

What is the solution to these isolating elements of modernity, which create nothing but friction, aggression, and atrophy of mindfulness.

Andres Roemer, the CEO of La Ciudad de las Ideas, found a solution by those who are willing to be challenged to the point of discomfort, rather than triggered, by different perspectives and unexpected ideas.

This year, the festival celebrated its 10th anniversary in Puebla, Mexico from November 16-19, bringing together thousands of people from all over the world, and hundreds of speakers from every imaginable backgrounds, as well as a spectrum of performers and artists, who entertained and stretched the horizons of the audience.

The theme of this year's gathering was "Beyond X", with the running refrain of "Do not believe everything you think". The festival was wholly dedicated to showcasing and promoting "dangerous ideas" from the world's most brilliant minds. Through a series of debates, panels, presentations, film clips, contests, and other expositions, the festival opened the eyes of the audience to paradigm-shifting experiences, innovations, and concepts. Where else would you have seen supporters and admirers of Steven Pinker and devotees of Noam Chomsky, whose ideas are frequently in tension, listen to both, and then chat amiably together over coffee?  Such open-minded and learning-oriented attitude may be seen increasingly as a rarity in the political correct climate of most of today's Western societies, but in the festival, the numbers of admirers of intellectual diversity has actually been on the rises (which works well to counteract the generally gloomy outlook for our collective future).

This year's spectacular extravaganza featured a number of innovative projects, which are growth and solution-oriented, and seek to create the dimension of practical skill-building to the academic, policy, and entertainment Colossus of Nobel Prize laureates, public intellectuals, and iconoclasts of all stripes. One such project was the inauguration of the Gifted Citizen contest, which identifies social entrepreneurs, who contribute solutions to global problems. The winner receives a check for a million pesos. Another contest was the British version of the Shark Tank, called "PitchPalace", run in conjuction with Prince Andrew, the Duke of York. The finalists would pitch their innovative concepts to the audience, who would vote for the top three via phone apps. Top two winners get to go to London to pitch their projects in front of an international audience.

Additional projects included an international cartoon contest, featuring sharp and creative social and political commentary through drawings from all over the world. The festival also paid homage to the victims and rescuers of the recent earthquake in Mexico.

A heated but fascinating moderated debate on climate change even managed to change a few minds, as we learned through an open feedback session from the audience afterwards.

And there was also plentiful opportunity for networking, including interactions with and among speakers, with an opportunity to apply the new knowledge from the areas as widespread as genetic engineering, AI, virtual reality, and the current advances in the quantum theory to the opportunities in meeting an 18 year old entrepreneur Julian Rios, who is disrupting the non-invasive breast cancer diagnostics market with his invention, the Mexican-born Dr. Tobias, the head of the neurosurgery department in the Israeli border hospital that operates on wounded Syrians, or the famed behavioral economist Dan Ariely.

We learn best not by retreating into our ideological and socioeconomic bubbles, but through a vibrant exchange of ideas with people who may disagree with us on every imaginable issue, but who are passionate, motivated, knowledgeable in their areas of expertise, and open to such contacts.

Thanks to Andres Roemer, perhaps many of us have taken our first steps towards overcoming the social tendency towards entropy and self-isolation, and towards a whole new world where knowledge is cool, and disagreement is embraced, celebrated, and used to advance society.

How to Preempt Republican Primary Challengers in 2020

Prediction: Every time Sheldon Adelson shows displeasure with Steve Bannon, or someone linked to Trump, or Republicans, Mike Pence, or someone from the administration will renew the promise of moving the Embassy to Jerusalem. The words "actively considering" without any specific date will reappear at some appropriate event. Meanwhile, we'll be no closer to any action than at the beginning of the presidency. Works every time. Like clockwork.

Coming Back to Puebla

http://diariojudio.com/opinion/coming-back-to-puebla/258372/

I have just returned from my first visit to Puebla, the central purpose of which was to attend Andres Roemer's fantastic festival "La Ciudad de las Ideas",  (Nov. 16-19), which focuses on bringing together the world's most brilliant minds for three days of engagement, conversations, and demonstrations of making the impossible possible, challenging one's thinking, and stretching every person's horizons on every possible level. While the festival itself left me more motivated and inspired than I remember being in a very long time, the impressions of Puebla where it all took place, likewise left an indelible mark on me. I had an opportunity to wander around for a day before the social activities began, and I returned home, treasuring every moment, and looking forward to one day coming back to explore more. I was surprised to discover how every time I visit a new country or city, I find myself growing enchanted and wishing to come back and learn more, look into every nook and cranny.  I guess, to paraphrase one of the speakers at the conference, the astrophysicist Mario Livio, curiosity is the best antidote to fear. But the experience jolted me in more ways than one. On the plane back to New York, I suddenly recalled my first encounter with Puebla... and how I learned to unlearn my fears.

22 years ago

I arrived with my family from Ukraine, and started attending fifth grade in an elementary school in Brooklyn. Because I started the year late, I ended up in a class that was not particularly academically challenging. A significant portion of the class consisted of immigrants of various backgrounds, and we all attended an ESL class together; however, most of the programming was in English. For me, the experience was a culture shock. I was brought up with fascination in other countries, cultures, stories, and traditions but spent my early years in a very homogeneous society, only a few years away from being also a closed society, and attended an insulated Jewish day school for the first three years.  Meeting all these people of different backgrounds and countries of origin was nothing like what I had imagined.  We were in a big inner city school, and the kids were noisy. Some came from troubled families, while others were simply from very big families crowded in small Brooklyn apartments. 

My first friend in the United States was my classmate from Puebla. When I came, I could read enough English to get by, but my listening skills were weak, and I could not string two words together.  My new friend was a year ahead in terms of being in the US, and it seemed like a lifetime to me. Nevertheless, her English was not too much better.  But she was friendly and reached out to me, and I was glad to have made a new friend so quickly. Soon, she introduced me to her friends - a group of kids from Mexico and various Central American countries. They accepted me right away, and we'd play ball games during recess and had fun, even though none of us really spoke English, nor did we speak each other's languages. I felt welcomed. My friend's mom was very kind to me, and even gave me some hand-me-downs, and the other kids never made fun of me or my accent and clothes, the way the American-born kids did.  Although I realized we came from very different cultures, I felt comfortable and happy.  Prior to that, the only exposure I had to Latin America was through the soap operas that were aired on Russian TV post-Soviet break up. 

But when I started junior high school, things changed. We drifted apart. I had learned English very quickly, and passed the ESL exam, soon entering an accelerated program, and thanks to a wonderful mentor, quickly making it into a specialized class focused on writing.  What motivated me was the hostility of the only other fluent Russian speaker in my class, who'd taunt me that I would never pass the exam and would be stuck in a bilingual program for years like everyone else. My friends, on the other hand, had no such pressure. They were friendly to each other, spoke Spanish together, and did not learn English quickly enough. They indeed ended up in a bilingual program.

And we drifted apart. I eventually made a good friend in my new class, and there was simply no opportunity to spend time with the old crowd. Additionally, the culture differences made themselves increasingly evident, and I grew increasingly ware of spending time with people whose families came from very different cultures, socioeconomic backgrounds, and education level than my own.  We just didn't seem to have much in common, nor, I thought, we ever would have. It's not that I was afraid of them, but we just did not seem to share the same interests. And as time passed, I grew increasingly prone to try to disassociate myself from groups of people, who increasingly, in school appeared to be either unmotivated or troublemaking, and I thought it was because of their culture.

In sixth grade, I started taking Spanish, as taking an additional foreign language was a requirement, despite the fact that I had just managed to pass an ESL exam, and less than a year after coming to the United States, was still getting my bearings in English. I had passionately wanted to take French, having grown up with French culture, and having romanticized it to some extent. My parents thought it would be a waste of time. Spanish speakers were a significant segment of the population in the US, whereas French was much less likely to be useful. But to me, Spanish was a "common" language; urban kids spoke it, and I had no interest in spending time in their communities or working with them in any way when I grew up. Besides, Spanish to me, was boring and cold, a language I associated with the Inquisition, though all of my family could not get enough of how beautiful it was. To me, it was dead. 

I, however, gave in to my parents and reluctantly agreed to take Spanish, figuring that I would always learn French at some later point. I intended to drop Spanish in high school and opt for French then,, having gotten enough of a background to make it easier for myself. For three years, I took Spanish and felt militantly indifferent about it. I just did what I had to do. The first year and a half, I ended up in a class where the teacher would not say a word in English to us. That intimidated me, especially in the beginning, but that was actually the best thing he could have done for us. At one point, we had a project, where we had to present (in English) in groups about various Spanish-speaking countries. My group chose Cuba. I had written and memorized the entire report. Cuba fascinated me even before then, but after the report, I felt somewhat more connected simply by virtue of having had to do some research. Nevertheless, I was counting down the days till I graduated and could finally embrace my real passion. And then....

Then the grades from the state exams came in, and I somehow ended up as one of the top people in the school, in a very small minority of people who got a perfect score.  Somehow, without even noticing it, I did pretty well in a subject I had no interest in.

This came as a surprise,  and for the first time, I questioned my decision regarding changing my language for high school. I thought that if I did so well, perhaps I could challenge myself and build on my strength. I still was not particularly thrilled with the language, but thought it would be easier and more worthwhile to continue what I had already started. I still had no interest of reconnecting with the people, but I was curious to see just how far I could go.

As it turned out, it was pretty far. I forced myself out of my comfort zone and took advanced placement classes (college level, for credit) in Native Spanish Language & Literature, and later, in Spanish culture. Most of those two years were a struggle. This was not the same as performing against a somewhat lazier kids who came in with the same level of the language (zero) as I did. The classes were filled with native speakers. And they all spoke differently. As did the teachers, one of whom spoke quickly and swallowed her "s"s, and the other, lisped. They spoke only in Spanish, and because they were talking with all the natives - and me - they spoke quickly. And I had to keep up, only I could barely understand what they said. I honestly thought my experience would end disastrously. It was not enjoyable at all, and I felt angry that I gave up on my dream just to show off how good I could be. I was not sure how I was going to pass the end of the year exams for college credit. 

And then I discovered Becquer, and Lorca, and Neruda... and my life changed forever.

I fell in love with the Spanish language slowly, painfully, and forever.

One day, we had to write a poem. And when I wrote mine, instead of hearing words, I heard music. It was rich, and delicate, like antique lace beaded with pearls.

I typed my poem on a beautiful piece of stationery with a fancy calligraphic font, because beautiful words deserve a beautiful presentation. I liked my own work product, but did not think much of it.

Then, my teacher came back to me and asked whether I was the one who wrote the poem. I told her that I did, and that the only help I got was from the dictionary. She framed it on the wall. And to me, it was a shock. 

That summer, I tried reading a book, then put it away. It was difficult, too much for me, and therefore boring. I was frustrated. I had picked it up at various times under pretense of learning the language, but overestimated my actual knowledge and did not get much past the title and the first paragraph. I did not get far enough even to learn that the author was a Cuban writer named Reynaldo Arenas, whose book would play an important role in my professional life many years later. At the time, however, I did not think it was worth my effort, but did power through One Hundred Years of Solitude, and although I did not agree with the politics of it, the magical realism spoke to me.

At the end of high school, not only did I pass the language exams and get credit for them for college, but  I got the top award for Spanish at graduation.

And then college came, and yet again, instead of finally plunging into French, I opted for more Spanish courses, and ended up having a minor in Latin American studies inside my International/Intercultural Studies major.  I was fascinated by the cultures, though all of that, to me was theoretical, and was more of an issue of appreciating literature and music and fine arts from a distance, while learning about social and political issues for the general understanding of the region. It had no practical consequence for me.  In law school, I ended up doing an Immigration Law clinic, and my first client ever was a Spanish-speaking woman, who needed help against her abusive ex-husband. Increasingly, Spanish entered my professional realm, not just the quite moments of leisure. I had to deal with Spanish-speaking witnesses during my professional internships.  I ended up having to translate documents. It became a practical useful skill. In law school, I was studying with students from various Spanish-speaking countries, including Mexico, and for the first time since childhood, I was fascinated, rather than repulsed. I saw them as human beings and fellow lawyers, rather than representatives of some largely fictional groups which existed largely in my imagination.

Flash Forward

Over the course of the following years, my life changed dramatically, and I refocused my efforts on work with people from various countries.  A lot of my life now revolves around relationship building with other cultures, including Jewish-Latino relations, as well as my research into the history of conversos, Jews from Spain, who ended up in North and South America. My interest in global issues expanded signficantly, and Latin America stopped being an abstracted blob and a half on the map, and became an area of professional interest.  And my focus on security made me believe that despite  years of largely tangential foreign policy, Spanish-speaking countries were central to US interests on a number of levels.

In 2015, candidate Donald Trump emerged, saying crazy things about Mexicans, and practically everybody else. Like many of my contemporaries, I did not initially believe that he himself was serious about his candidacy, nor that anyone else would take him seriously for long.  We know the outcome. His staunch supporters dismissed, explained away, or even embraced his comments. Candidate Trump managed to turn a sober discussion about border security and a security wall to prevent the proliferation of cartels into a nativist talking point, that was less about security and prevention of illegal immigration, and more about cheap jingoism that played well to the fears of people who were genuinely affected by the failed policies of the preceding administration. 

By 2016, I was getting a ton of flack from both sides - from the one, for allegedly failing to discern legitimate concern and that Donald Trump allegedly was the only one tough enough to talk straight about them, and from the other, for being an enabler of bigots, despite the fact that I was blunt about my choice in that election, and that choice was both significantly more conservative than Mr. Trump and thus reflective of my own values and not at all bigoted or racist. What I saw from that unique perspective was that neither side appeared to be dedicated to fairness. pursuit of truth, or frankly, even finding actual solutions to legitimate security problems. Instead, the election became about discrediting the other side at the expense of anyone who stood in the way, propagating  polarizing propaganda, and furthering identity politics - through cheap tokenism and disastrously superficial multiculturalism on the left and through obsession with a sense of white victimhood on the right. Human beings affected by this rhetoric were of no consequences, and I observed with concern the rise of populist demagoguery both in the US, and in Mexico.

When a friend, distressed by the situation, started sending me strong signals that some human grassroots effort was badly needed to streamline away from the alarming trends all around, I was initially reluctant to get involved in a community, with which I had had no formal contacts of any sort for most of my life, but eventually agreed to keep my mind open. That willingness brought about a series of unusual circumstances and events that brought me to Mexico.

Puebla

By this time, I had already visited a number of SPanish-speaking countries, including Mexico, but only as a tourist of sites and experiences. I had little interest, nor opportunity in spending too much time with the local populations.

Listening to my friend discuss her family life in Mexico, the community issues in the US, and the struggle of maintaining reason in an increasingly hyperemotional and polarized world, made me rethink my previous apathy, towards wanting to understand and learn more. Could it be that the situation with Mexico was so bad that the only thing it could produce was the erosion of respect for US immigration laws and drug money?

When I landed in Puebla, I was curious to see what I would discover. And the first thing that I discovered was that no one appeared to know a word of English, and although I have been very nervous about speaking Spanish for fear of getting something wrong, I was basically left with no choice but to plunge right in.

We had a few funny episodes, but I found myself naturally comfortable with everyone around me. Every person I met was patient, polite, respectful, and interested.  As we went shopping, the vendors were never overly pushy, and at times even welcomed us with milk candy.  Locals were happy to help with directions and did not turn away or pretend to be talking on the phone.  No one made fun of my thick accent or showed impatience at my linguistic shortcomings.  And on a tour, despite the fact that I was obviously a foreigner, tourists from other cities, happily engaged me and did not run off the moment it became clear that I was not a native-born speaker. I had an opportunity to interact with a wide variety of people during my brief time in Puebla - wealthy, middle class, and of humble descent - and did not have a single alarming experience. On the contrary, I saw hard workers, a growing trend away from the manyana syndrome, which had so irritated me in the cultures of the Spanish speaking countries.  The staff everywhere went out of the way to be helpful, and was genial and genuine about it. People were welcoming and warm and people did not try to take advantage of me as a tourist. It just was... normal.  Less normal were the extraordinary individuals I saw during the course of the festival, entrepreneurs who would rival anyone in the US, children, who get up in the morning to make bricks, then, after all day in school, go to take music classes until late evening, forward-looking specialists of every kind, all looking to make positive changes for the world and to make their country a better place.

Yes, there are cartels, and corruption, and populists, and lazy people who have not moved on with the times, and people in dire economic straights who take advantage of existing opportunities to break the law and break the law.  I am not excusing or diminishing any of that, and all problems should be dealt with according to what makes sense.

But I also realized that the sky is not falling and that all these problems are not the only side to the story. The other side, the side you won't find in the media, or in the rhetoric of the "nationalist populists", is the tremendous human potential right next door to us. 

They won't tell you about all the hard-working interested, curious human beings who are yearning to grow and break out of the existing frameworks, and outdated narratives.  They won't tell you about all the exciting projects in development from this country - breakthroughs in non-invasive breast cancer diagnostics, musical talents, scientists, and thinkers. They won't tell you that in addition to the crude stereotypes which arose from the heat of election rhetoric, and which never quite went away, there are normal, kind, considerate people who are working hard every day and who can be and are good neighbors.

And I would never have said what I am saying had I not seen it with my own eyes, and experienced what I did directly, without the interference of any special lens. Just on my own, exploring the city, in a regular every day context, away from the touristy beaches, from the business center of Mexico City, away from grandstanding politicians, and from the criminal gangs which hold entire towns hostage.

I came to the city and remembered my friend from Puebla, who extended a warm welcome to me before anyone else, and who provided me with refuge during a tough adjustment period to a new country, when people born and raised in the United States saw in me only a stranger.  A stranger that by the mere fact of being strange was infringing on their territory. I remembered where I felt wanted, if only for a relatively short while, and what it meant to be a human being despite the differences in language, culture, backgrounds, education, or even aspirations.  And I am afraid, that in light of what I had experienced then, and in light of what I am seeing now, we are on a very serious brink of throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Instead of embracing common opportunities and finding ways of solving problems that affect both countries, instead of developing valuable relationships, and exchanging ideas, we are mired in a sea of meaningless bloviations that take us further and further away from long-term answers and in the very dangerous direction of complete dehumanization of other people, all in the spirit of support of self-serving politicos. 

It took me many years, most of my life, in fact, to get over my fears, and to return to a place of simple respect, and ability to acknowledge the basic things people have in common despite whatever political and economic differences and conflicts - basic civil treatment, openness to the possibility of growth and something positive, willingness to look past pat answers, and to ask oneself and the other questions  - while listening. 

One day, the United States will have a president, who may, perhaps, speak more than one language - maybe even Spanish, and will utilize this skill to extract greater understanding and to break down barriers that stand in the way of resolving conflicts and overcoming challenges. One day we will have a president who will use these obstacles to unite the country rather than engage in simplistic polarization and reductionist dehumanizing rhetoric that plays to fears, rather than to reason and to problem solving. One day we will have a visionary leader who in his or her every action demonstrate the America's true greatness is in the acknowledgment of God-given rights and liberties, the centrality of freedom, common to every individual regardless of background and in the Constitution that protects these individual rights, and thus the concept of free will.  

The day will come when such a president will understand that great leadership means finding and working towards bringing out the best in our own citizens, and in our allies and partners, and utilizing the existing opportunities to create networks, generate ideas. Such governance will find possibilities for innovation that benefit both countries, and strengthen the United States through the richness of available talent, rather than through appeal to emotions, whether to worthless pity or fearmongering and isolationsim. However, until that day comes, we are still responsible, even without such an example at time, in engaging in the examination of what we know, what we think we know, what we are afraid to find out we may know, and question everything we hear, see, believe, or think we understand. Despite the pessimistic prognoses from the partisan polemicists on both sides of political aisle, there is more to life than governments, slogans, and sensationalist headlines. Most of life consists of ordinary human beings making a choice every day, whether to listen and engage, or to turn away in fear and avoid.

I spent most of my life running away from the unknown because of my assumptions, distortions, and preconceptions. I ended up limiting myself and almost missing out on unique experiences and relationships, which added spark and flavor to my life. Because I was so focused on the one thing I thought I wanted based on the limited experience that I had, I was willing to ignore the centuries of fascinating, rich history, culture, and heritage that was no less challenging, provocative, beautiful, and thought-provoking. And when I let go of my rigidity and of my fears, I found myself drawn in and charmed by the very things that I thought repulsed me. 

I spent three days in conversations with people who vehemently disagreed with me and with each other on every imaginable issue, yet were deeply fascinated by what the other had to say.

We came there to disagree. We came FOR the clash of ideas. We never, for a moment, let the differences in ideas, take away from our interest in the individuals or from seeing the same human nature.  These clashes of ideas did not create additional polarization; they created innovation in our outlook.

Thousands of strangers were gathered in one place committed to the goal of learning together, learning from each other, and changing perspectives. We were open to having our minds changed, and ended up having our minds blown.

I came to Puebla with an attitude of curiosity rather than distrust, disgust, and horror, and came away finding my old friend.  And after all the hardships, after all the blowhards on TV and on the internet who tell you how horrible other people are, and how dark our world is, and how nothing can ever change, or if it can, it can only do so through one set of means - what remains is the one thing that I had learned as a child but forgot as an adult. You always have a choice. You can always welcome a stranger, without abandoning your own culture or stopping to speak your own language. You can spend time learning from each other and enjoying your time together, and when the time comes, go your separate ways, having grown from the experience. Your humanity comes not from how many ideological opponents you "slay", "rip", or "destroy" on social media, but how many people you influence with kindness, positivity, courage, and moral clarity.

Puebla may be a provincial town away from the central government, but it made New York look small by comparison. Why? Because it was an open space, whereas my current reality is seeing just how many people are perfectly willing to isolate themselves in meaningless bubbles dictated to them by invisible forces that serve only their own interests and that no one even properly understands, and spend their lives fighting fruitless and meaningless battles, which are prefabricated for them by other people, complete with predictable rules, and equally uncontrollable precreated outcomes. In Puebla, I just was. It wasn't complicated and I didn't spend every minute in neurotic analysis of what  will happen if I exchange comments with a complete stranger. Who will judge me for it? Will my ideological allies turn away from me if I befriend the "wrong" kind of person?

What has happened to us that we've forgotten how to live, that all our conversations are about politics, largely outside our control, rather than about doing something productive with our times/ Where are our discussions about art - not politics in the arts - but art? About innovations? About science and medical research and ideas that lie outside the predictable talking points brought down to us from the Hill (rather than Mount Sinai) by the usual suspects? In Puebla, I saw life in its fullness - first, on the streets filled with regular people, so different from me, yet at the core, no less human - and then at the festival during a lively exchange of ideas, which left everyone feeling motivated, inspired, and energized, rather than obsessive, depressed, and belligerent.

When I left, I took a bit of Puebla with me. I remembered the good times I shared with my first friend. We did not speak the same language. We knew noting of politics or who was supposed to play what role.

For a few hours a day, we just were. We had fun, we spent time together, we treated each other with kindness, and then we went home.

We were children, but this is something that we need to relearn, before we find ourselves, sitting by ourselves, each in a dark webbed corner, wondering where life went and what went wrong.

Obama, Trump, foreign policy, and the Amazing Party Support Switcheroo

Obama and the Iran Deal.

The left: Obama is playing the long game.

The Right: Obama is endangering US national security, Israel, and world stability.

Trump ignoring Iran as it makes progress throughout the Middle East; Hamas and Hizbullah making deals.

The left: Trump has no idea what he's doing; this is a disaster.

The right: Trump is playing the long game; he knows what he's doing, you just don't have all the information. He'll first take out ISIS, and then he'll deal with Iran.

ISIS is taken out.

The left: So what about Iran and all the oil

The Right: Don't worry about it; Trump will take care of everything.

This sort of "logic" didn't work for me under Obama, and it doesn't work for me now.

I see no reason to trust the government, when the government is clearly being short-sighted and/or incompetent.

It's not Islamophobia When....

It's not Islamophobia to say, particularly after today's disgusting attack on Sufi mosque at prayertime in Egypt,which killed 250,  that the prime target of Islamists, such as ISIS, are other Muslims. It's not Islamophobia to say that even non-violent Islamists seek to create an illiberal environment where anyone who differs from them even an iota cannot worship freely. And it's not Islamophobia to say that apologists and liars, like CAIR and Linda Sarsour, who seek to create the ultimate end of this revolutionary political ideology need to be exposed and shunned, not embraced, coddled, and given ever-growing platforms in the Western world.

Commies Never Change

"White privilege" is just another way of saying "class war".

How US Unequivocal Support for Iraqi Nationalism Will Lead to Radicalization and Extremism

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/how-us-unequivocal-support-for-iraqi-nationalism-will-lead-to-radicalization-and-extremism/

Seth Frantzman, in a recent article, analyzes US position of neutrality on Baghdad takeover of Kirkuk, and further silence on the alleged human rights violations, and punitive actions such as the shut down of Kurdish press, Kurdistan24 and Rudaw. In sum, the thinking is that encouraging Iraqi nationalism, which is based in substantial part in anti-Kurdish sentiment, US will turn Iraq away from Iranian influence, and unify the country under the Saudi Arabia aegis against the spread of Iranian influence. The idea there is that if the Shi'a Iraqi government aligns with the Sunni KSA, together they can counter Iran. And indeed, Iraq has signed a corresponding defense treaty with KSA. However, that is not a meaningful agreement for two reasons: first, Iraq will do just about anything to play all sides, including the US, which has been arming its army. Second, KSA is far away, and Iran is close. Abadi and the Islamic Republic has been getting along quite nicely, and Abadi invited Iran to participate in takeover of Kirkuk. It clearly does not see Iran as a threat, though KSA does. And when forced to choose between its Shi'a neighbor, which has helped Iraq with the Kurdish issue and the Sunni Saudi Arabia, which is known to sympathize with Iraq's Sunni population, tribal and religious considerations will prevail over piece of paper.

The fact that the United States does not realize that shows the extent of ignorance of our foreign policy leaders of the cultures, which they are now trying to bring together through fictitious borders and imaginary alliances. The British, when they did the same, at least cynically imposed divisions to perpetuate their own power. The US leaders actually believe that this policy is going to work and that it's in the best interests of the Middle East and the United States. It is quite amazing.  This vision of a Baghdad-Riyadh alliance puts aside the dream of a free and democratic Kurdistan. The reason for this groupthink at top levels may be deeply rooted in the underlying psychological need to stay consistent. In other words, the US has already invested so heavily into Baghdad, that having realign its policy now would be equivalent to conceding defeat. In other words, the excuse that this is all about American interests is rational, but the reasoning behind is not. Otherwise, the weight that the US would be giving to other considerations would be at least equal to its own wishful thinking to see this implausible alliance of Iraq and Saudi Arabia to work for more than five minutes, until Iran decides that it should be otherwise.

Much has already been said and written about the potential boons of an independent Kurdistan for the United States - a trading partner with a vibrant economy, a buffer state against Iran's and Turkey's expansionist ambitions, a new model of indigenous evolutionary liberalization, a friendly state, open to Western values and partnership with Israel. All of these potential benefits, in the eyes of the generals, who are spearheading US foreign policy in the Fertile Crescent, is of less interest than having Iraq not be quite-so-pro-Iran.  There is no official analysis on how such calculations are figured, but there is also a darker side of this conversation that likewise does not appear to figure into the equation: the potential for the radicalization of the Kurdish region. Neither friends nor critics are particularly interested in touching on this sensitive topics. Those, who favor independent Kurdistan focus the bulk of their attention on the perceived betrayal by the US - in other words, a valid, but largely emotional talking point, whereas the critics cite the dubious benefits of yet another tribal Muslim state at the cost of weakening another ally - Iraq. The underlying working assumption, however, is that the US decisionmakers are correct in one way: Kurdish independence will bring greater instability than Kurdish "remain", at least in the short term.

Such position relies on the erroneous assumption that Iraq is open to various potential positions, and will pivot in the desirable direction if only the United States will do what Baghdad claims needs to be done to earn its favor - return the oil fields to Abadi's forces without a question, stay moot on the Kurds, encourage peace talks through gentle rhetoric, and ignore the Iran-backed militias and IRGC presence in the vicinity. If only the US does all these things, at some point, all will be well. IRGC will not do much damage beyond security the territory for Iraq and ensuring that the rebellious Kurds will not tempt its own Kurdish population; Turkey is all talk; ISIS has been taken care of, and US can reap the boons of its cynical wisdom. Such wishful thinking is no more practical than believing that Kurdish independence will come without a bloody fight against a variety of regional forces. That's not a commentary on the morality or benefits or likelihood of such a move; that's just a statement of logical observation based in the Middle Eastern dynamics. You get what you are willing to fight for, and only if you win with overwhelming force. In the meantime, US is so focused on its own line of reasoning that it ignores major red flags that undermine its position.

First, Iraq has already and openly pivoted to Iran. The actions of the last few weeks demonstrate it amply. US reasoning that by sacrificing Kurdistan it can stop Iraq from growing closer to Iran is not only mistaken; it is nothing short of appeasement.  Iran's interest is regional dominance. Abadi, if he wants to stay in power in the region, needs to abide by Iran's decisionmaking. It will, therefore, cooperate to whatever extent necessary that it is seen as a fully ally, reliable in supporting Iran's ambitions.  Iran will not stop at building IRGC military basis and headquarters in Kirkuk, nor does it make it any sense to stop when there is no resistance from anyone.

Second, Iran's presence in the Kurdistan area far exceeds what can be gauged from the coverage, especially after Kurdistan24 and Rudaw were shut down. According to one source, Iran has as many as 700 secret houses in Suleimanya alone. If that's accurate, it's quite plausible that Iran has extensive presence, both overt and clandestine, in every corner of Kurdistan. And it is there to stay, long-term.  From disputed territory between Baghdad and Erbil, Kirkuk province are becoming occupied territories, essentially colonized by Iran. If Iran continues to grow its military presence in the area, and there's every reason to believe that without a war, Iran is not going anywhere, the next step is indoctrination of the local population - ranging from forced conversions to political brainwashing.

It may already be building schools, whereas Western educational opportunities in the region are woefully missing. Furthermore, with Baghdad banning all commercial flights in and out of  Erbil, and potentially cutting off access to Syrian and Turkish overpasses, Kurds are not only economically isolated, but become wholly dependent on Baghdad and Tehran for humanitarian aid, educational maintenance, and even the news.And Iran is likely to radicalize the local Shi'a population through joint educational programming.  The religious element may prevail over tribal concerns, if Iran is seen as an economic benefactor, rather than an oppressor to the Iraqi majority. Meanwhile, it is taking every step to show who's the boss. Iran is opening up its border with Kurdistan - that is a sign that the regime has achieved a decisive military and psychological victory. It has nothing to fear from the Kurds.

At the same time, however, the support of nationalist sentiments among Iraqis is taking a turn less towards unity and more into anti-Kurdish xenophobia. Already, a Kurdish journalist was stabbed to death in Kirkuk. Iranian militias, not Iraqi forces, arrested dozens of young Kurds in a cafe in Kirkuk. Their fate is unenviable, as anyone, familiar with the brutality of the regime and its treatment of rebellious ethnic minorities will testify. And religious minorities all over the Kurdish region are threatened by the IRGC and the Iran=backed militias. Jewish and Christian sites near Al Qosh are in danger. Multiple Christian and Yazidi groups have expressed concern.  Militias are on full alert protecting civilians, yet they are outnumbered and outgunned by the well-equipped Iraqi forces, and the Iran=backed militias that are not answerable to Abadi's command.  This destabilization is precisely what US support for national unity was supposed to prevent. Instead, it is turning into the scapegoating and vendetta against the Kurds.

Third, these divisions are likely to be exploited by Sunni extremist groups, like Al Qaeda and remnants of ISIS and their ilk. Seemingly defeated, these groups await opportunity for strife in order to make a triumphant comeback, sow discord, and take advantage of other violent situations.  And ideological extremists will surely take the opportunity to appeal to the disenfranchised groups, proselytize among embittered and marginalized Kurdish peripheral regions, and go after every resentful person or group left hopeless after the takeover of Kirkuk.

Worse still, if Iraq continues to try to destroy Kurdish nationalism and sense of identity, as it's doing now, the resistance that will arise will become increasingly radical and violent, and the potential for militant action, all the way to terrorism against civilians is not to be ruled out. We have seen the way the Soviet Union had sown chaos among Turkish Kurds, eliminating all nationalist groups except for the PKK, and turning PKK into a Soviet terrorist group (which after several decades finally reformed, but not before costing many lives of innocent civilians in the process). Interestingly, Russia is moving back into Kurdistan, and is seeking a closer relationship with the Kurds. It's also looking to utilize them more in Syria.  That Russia will use this opportunity to play on the anti-American backlash through what is widely perceived as betrayal is quite obvious.

To make a long story short, the downside to the chimeric US strategy involving the one-sided coddling of Baghdad to the exclusion of all other interested parties, is that instead of building bulwarks against extremists, including Iran, which is the whole goal of this exercise, the US is actually making active enemies out of absolutely everyone in the region, strengthening the potential for extremism, and allowing radical actors to assume the vacuum of leadership, all in the name of unity and the US interests. But the region united by extremism is not in the US interests at all, and neither is giving up opportunities for economic investments and partnerships fall into the hands of Russia and Iran, which have not done anything positive with any place they have ever been involved in.

The administration should snap out of this dangerous delusion quickly, and start drawing and enforcing boundaries for its "ally" Baghdad, which include, first and foremost, getting Iran and out of the picture completely, and only then creating positive bilateral and equanimeous conditions for further negotiations. It should send a clear signal to Kurds that their identity is recognized and respected, and to all other actors, that US has a central role to play in the region, and that chaos and extremism of any sort is not an option and will not be tolerated - not after all the lives the US has sacrificed to get to where we are today. Most importantly, the US should remember that alliances among former enemies are temporary, and for that reason Iraqi-Saudi alliance cannot be relied upon to last.

But strong long-term relationship among groups of people who have a baseline of common interests, values, and a history of fighting together for common goals can endure and move in the most positive direction. We should not continue following the same failed policy of putting all our eggs in one basket (in this case, Abadi), only to be bitterly disappointed and face new crisis yet again.  We have the luxury of hindsight to make better, more informed decisions, and the richness of our experience to build a better, more secure future for ourselves, and the world that we want to live in.

Simple Rules for Sexual Harassment Claims

To those who are now gloating about Mike Pence's position on never having one-on-one dinner with women who are not his wife - that's his personal business, and I respect his position, but I do NOT want the United States turn into a cultural theocracy with Biblical laws being enforced for every interaction between the sexes. I'd rather risk being sexually harassed. That said, to guard people's reputations, the following guidelines should be ensured:

Any reporting of alleged harassment should be reported within a reasonable period of time (i.e. a few days), regardless of victim's age. If it's not reported within that time period, the victim automatically is assumed to be lying. Every reported incident should be investigated, but if there is no evidence to support what happened, the target of the probe should be publicly cleared.

And people of all backgrounds, ages, and both sexes should assume common sense when interacting with each other. Unless you think your advances are going to be welcomed (i.e. if you are in a relationship), leave the other person alone! Also, there is a difference between an unwelcome but not forceful advance, that stops as soon as the woman says no, or shows displeasure, and demanding sexual favors in return for a job. And if you are drunk and then change your mind later, that should absolutely count against you. Don't be so passed out drunk that you can be taken advantage of or that your judgment is so impaired that you make decisions you otherwise wouldn't. There is no reason why society or anyone else should be held responsible for your stupidity.

Why Baghdad's Move on Kirkuk Is Not about The Independence Referendum

Cross-posted at:

https://en.dailymail24.com/2017/11/22/why-baghdads-move-on-kirkuk-is-not-about-the-independence-referendum/

By now, it should be abundantly obvious that  Baghdad’s move to take over Kirkuk has been pre-planned and would have advanced with or without the independence referendum.

Iraqi forces and Peshmerga were allied against ISIS in the liberation of the territories, yet Iraq’s ultimate priority has always been in retaining the control over the oil fields and revenue from the Kurdish-held territories. And with Barzani’s resignation as KRG President, we now know that whatever criticisms could be made about the latter’s hold on power well beyond the constitutional provisions, his concerns about Kurdish security and move for independence were a great deal more than just power play. Further proof of Baghdad’s disingenuous bluster about territorial integrity and “unity” (carved out by the British under the Sykes-Picot agreement, that would intentionally keep different nations with disparate identities cobbled together, foster divisions, and allow the British Empire to maintain control) are Abadi’s actions with respect to the Kurdish citizens the moment the Baghdad-Iran alliance assumed control of much of the disputed territories and the oil fields, which were, in fact the central concern.

The legitimacy of Baghdad’s concern for its national sovereignty is undermined by the unnecessary assault on the Kurdish autonomy, which can only make the Kurds yearn for independence more, not less. Though Middle East is all about overpowering and crushing your enemy to make him respect you, the excessively vindictive actions by Baghdad, and its welcoming of a foreign regime (IRGC) into this punitive takeover is likely to have the opposite effect. Baghdad’s reimposition of power began with a crackown on Kurdish media – the banning of Kurdistan24 and Rudaw, two of the major local outlets, which have been providing detailed information about both the military action of the past few weeks and internal Kurdish matters of interest to their families in Syria, Turkey, and Europe, and enhancing the understanding of world leaders who would otherwise be uninformed about the alphabet soup of Kurdish parties and factions in the region.

This move signals illegitimacy of having a separate Kurdish identity, a bitter point for a nation of approximately 30 million people with distinct languages, culture, and indigenous roots in the region, but to this day without an independent state.  Second, it is an insurance policy that the international community will have no access to real-time information on the ground, and certainly not the English-language Kurdish take on it. There is a small coterie of Western journalists presence, but as the Israeli journalist Seth Frantzman has pointed out, they tend to rely on other Western journalists for information, and thus likely miss a great deal of internal dynamics and the full spectrum of regional narratives.  Lack of alternative information will go a long way towards creating an appearance of only one perspective: Baghdad’s position, made public through official channels and formal meetings.  Whatever public support the Kurds are currently getting is largely fueled by the unrestricted access to their voices. The legitimacy of Baghdad’s own actions are severely undermined by its move to squash down criticism from the significant portion of its population, and its ally in the war against ISIS.

Second, Baghdad has moved to pay salaries directly to the Kurdish civil servants, bypassing the KRG. This undermines the authority of the Kurdish leadership, and makes the Kurdish infrastructure heavily depended on, and thus potentially loyal to, Baghdad. For sure, even if the bulk of the Kurdish civilian forces grow resentful of this deprivation of a sense of autonomy, others will cling to security for their immediate situation, and Baghdad thus far successfully divides-and-conquers the already splintered Kurdish groups.  For the same reason, Abadi’s forces are seeking to cut off Peshmerga access to the pipeline that delivers oil to Turkey, and to provide all oil to Turkey, bypassing the KRG. It’s just another way of undermining Kurdistan, weakening its economy, undermining its business relationship with Turkey, and ensuring that Iraq is viewed as the central authority, whereas Kurdistan is merely a province with no independent power to make deals or provide anything of value to the region.

Third, Baghdad is seeking to undermine the use of Kurdish languages in the region, in order to weaken the sense of a national identity and common destiny among the Kurds in Iraq, as well as a sense of unity with the Kurds in other countries. The first sign of this cultural crackdown is the attack against a Kurdish official, who used his own language rather than Arabic, in a formal media setting. While Baghdad has not yet made this move an official policy, this disturbing incident is a sign of what it could do, and what it will likely do, following the example of Turkey, if Kurds continue to resist. Suppression of national culture is the best way to weaken a potentially rebellious or troublesome population. The Soviet Union has done that systematically to the Jews; Iran has persisted in its tactics against a whole host of national minorities; and Turkey before and during Erdogan has imposed fascist policies to ensure cultural conformity.

Fourth, Baghdad is looking to divide the minorities living in Kurdish area, and has already done so, in that various groups have associated themselves with Peshmerga, PMU (connected to Iran), or with Iraqi forces, that have been trained and armed by Americans.  At the same time, Iraqi forces claimed to have no control over the Iran-backed militias, that are retaking the territories, and have opened up civilians and minorities to potential exploitation and destruction by the militias.  Having gone as far as Al Qosh, these groups have threatened a Jewish historical site, and the Christian sites in the area.  And Christian groups have reached out to the international community to complain of threats directed at them by Hashd. Yet the forces have not stopped at the borders of areas that are of strategic and geopolitical importance to the Iraqi government. They have pushed out outwards, and have been repelled by Peshmerga in multiple places, and have made way in others. Although strictly speaking there has been a ceasefire, between Iraqis and Peshmerga, that has not affected non=Peshmerga Kurdish forces protecting civilians and minorities, and who are still under threat of Iran-backed militias and IRGC. At the same time, these moves are a clear indication that Baghdad is not seeking a truce. It is seeking domination and full control of the Kurdish population, a repressive and punitive one at that.

Thus far, the response from the international community, particularly from the United States, has consisted of calls for peace and agreement, support for Iraq’s unity, and proposals of mediation to the tune of “why can’t we just all get along”. None of that was aimed at curbing Iraq’s abusive behavior or at seriously reassuring our Kurdish allies as to the commitment of the US to their security, cultural preservation, and autonomy, even under our official position of preserving Iraq as a cohesive state – quite ironic, given that there is nothing indigenous about the Sykes-Picot treaty imposed on Iraq by the British. Furthermore, there is radio silence from the US administration as to the article 140 of the Iraqi constitution, assembled with the help of US State Department and top American lawyers, which provides for Kurdish independence. Certainly, such a provision would at the very least provide a level of recognition and provision for Kurdish rights.

And ironically, it is this potential suppression of Kurdish autonomy that provides the greatest justification to independence under international law. (The Katanga case). At the end of the day, however, any nation that feels oppressed or that is otherwise dedicated to independence and pursuit of its own destiny must come to terms of having to organize its forces into strong cohesive units, making at least temporary alliances with its factions abroad, procuring whatever is needed for strong offensive and defensive fronts, through subterfuge, if necessary, and being prepared for a military triumph and complete capitulation of its opponents. In other words, if Kurds want their own state, they are going to have to fight for it, and international support will emerge only once it becomes clear that they can actually win, and have the wherewithal to support their own state without anyone’s help. It’s not pretty, but this is how it worked out for Israel, which likewise was surrounded by overwhelming enemy forces, had very limited access to inferior weapons, and no international recognition – yet there she is, nearly 70 years later, small but independent.  I hope that the US administration will see that the Baghdad government is losing its own legitimacy with each oppressive step that it takes, that its direction comes from the Iranian ayatollahs and will do the only right and practical thing under the circumstances – change its policy to fully backing the Kurds and keeping the worst of Baghdad’s actions at bay. But I wouldn’t hold my breath or rely on that.  I would also not remain passive, waiting for miracles to happen or for these problems to resolve themselves. Time may very well be ripe for a Kurdish state – but are the Kurds themselves ready?

Irina Tsukerman, human rights and national security lawyer based in New York.

The Gathering at the Society for Crypto-Judaic Studies Leads to an Unexpected Discovery

https://jewishwebsite.com/community/the-gathering-at-the-society-for-crypto-judaic-studies-leads-to-an-unexpected-discovery/22138/

and diariojudio.com

The Gathering at the Society for Crypto-Judaic Studies Leads To An Unexpected Discovery
Deciphering the mystery of the disappeared conversos more than 500 years after the Spanish genocide

By JewishWebSight - November 20, 201726 0

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This year’s meeting of the Society for crypto-Judaic Studies took place at the National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia on November 5-7, and featured a odiverse gathering of traditional and independent scholars, researchers, and testimonials related to the study of crypto-Jewish history, genealogy, culture, and life. A number of speakers and participants came from crypto-Jewish Sephardi backgrounds from Portugal, Spain, and Italy via Brazil, Mexico, Central America, and the American Southwest. Their voices featured prominently as they explored the fascinating stories of self-discovery with the help of modern DNA testing, extensive documentation, and oral traditions of their families. But frequently what started out as an individual journey led into a broader fascination with the field, as these voices branched out to study the patterns in their community and to help others in their quest.

During the three-day series of panels, keynote speakers, and other events, participants also had an opportunity to introduce themselves to traditional Sephardi and crypto-Jewish songs, melodies, and liturgical poems; learned about the traditions of crypto-Jewish cuisine as Spanish families took to various “tricks” to hide their observance of the laws of kashrut from the Inquisition and neighbors; hear beautiful Sephardi poetry from such surprising figures as Emma Lazarus; and watch films about the exploration of Jewish identity, such as the wonderful “Challah Rising in the Desert” about the five strands of Jewish identity in New Mexico, which will be screened at film festivals in the near future. The participants were also treated to traditional food of the crypto-Jewish communities in Spain, such as the beef mint stew,  mentioned in one of his books by one of the keynote speakers, David Gitlitz.

One pervasive theme of the conference was the erasure of Jewish identity with the passage of time under the cover of the converso veneer and with the fear of sharing true information about one’s background with future generations, for fear of persecution by the church. Indeed, so many crypto-Jews have disappeared, assimilating both genetically and culturally, that there are no concrete signs of the vast number of Jewish descendants from Sephardi roots who immigrated to the territories of New Spain that later became Mexico and the American Southwestern states. Until now, the conventional wisdom was that many of the people who came to the Americas with or immediately after Christopher Columbus and with the most famed converso Luis de Carvajal assimilated out of existence or died out and no trace of most of them can ever be found, with untold numbers of people following Jewish traditions but unable to prove those roots. Many would-be descendants of the known converso families, however, seemed to have vanished without a trace, written off by historians as having assimilated or died out.. I came to question this assumption after a series of meetings with people of crypto-Jewish descent forced her to look in a different direction.

The first meeting that served as a clue in solving this 500-year-old mystery was a discussion with a Texas friend with roots in Mexico, who described her family’s involvement in the Assemblies of God, an international Pentecostal association. That side of her family had converso roots, and, she disclosed, some of the Assemblies of God chapters were organized by conversos.

The second experience was an unusual meeting in Miami after a conference devoted to the conversos and the building of Jewish-Latin American relations, which was strongly supported by Pastor John Hagee. On the way to a Cuban restaurant, the author was picked up by a Cuban-American Uber driver, who, in the process of a conversation related to human rights in Cuba, gradually revealed evidence of crypto-Jewish descent. He was initially Catholic, but spent about a year with Hagee’s congregations before finding it a poor fit, moving on to messianic congregations, and eventually, to a direct study of Judaism.

Finally, the author was put in touch with George Sprague, a Texan who is a descendant of noted Dr. George I. Sanchez, a civil rights activist for Mexican-Americans, and the catalyst for the Civil Rights Act of 1964, initiated under President Kennedy,  who even in the 1960s was afraid of revealing his Jewish descent. Sprague had spent many years researching his genealogy and found evidence of crypto-Jewish descent going back to the 1300s. He eventually made a full return to Judaism and is now a member of the Beth-El congregation in Austin.

He recommended watching “Assassin’s Creed,” a seemingly unrelated film based on a video game. The film had its roots in 1492, the year Jews were expelled from Spain under the penalty of death. It starts in Castillian and features a protagonist named “Aguilar” (“eagle”), a name common among conversos. The story tells the tale of two groups – the Assassins, whose insignia is a Star of David, and who harbor a mysterious secret of free will, contained inside a box shaped like an apple,  and the Knights of Templar, who are the agents of the Inquisition and are determined to destroy the Assassins. The Assassin’s Creed is the willingness to sacrifice one’s life to keep the secret safe. The secret is passed on through the generations even as the Assassins lose their lives. At one point, the secret is handed off to Christopher Columbus, just as he is about to sail for the New World, the day after the expulsion decree. The descendants of the Assassins find themselves in California and Texas, and eventually, gradually, and painfully uncover their past and their destiny. All of that sounds quite similar to the story of the crypto-Jews who were hounded by the church through the centuries and were forced to embrace Christianity even in Texas, because the Inquisition went after them there.

However, as the rabbi at the Spanish-Portuguese Congregation Mikveh Israel, which hosted the meals for the conference, noted during the Shabbat morning services in a sermon related to that week’s Torah portion, just as Abraham had to be ready to sacrifice his own son in service of God, crypto-Jews would burn at the stake rather than give up their identity. That begs the immediate question: Could it be that the people who have guarded their faith so staunchly, so cleverly, and at such great odds through the centuries, would all of a sudden just give up, stop sharing their “creed” with their descendants and disappear forever? I had trouble believing that, and the reflection on my earlier conversations brought me some clarity. What seemed much more likely was that, rather than completely assimilating, these descendants may have chosen a different hiding place – such as evangelical Protestant and messianic congregations, where anyone can start one’s own church, and which, particularly in recent times, have been far more tolerant of diversity, open to the emphasis on the Old Testament, willing to provide anyone with a Bible, and closer to Judaism than the Catholic Church with its focus on icons and saints, which are strictly prohibited by Jewish law.

My research on this subject yielded no results, no references to Jews and any type of Christianity except Catholicism. After the presentation, however, I was approached by a number of people at the event who revealed supporting evidence that made my hypothesis more worthy of exploration. Some told me about the formerly evangelical communities in Central America that, in reality, comprised crypto-Jews, embracing an alternative to the initially dominant Catholic Church, and who eventually became Orthodox. Others told me how crypto-Jews in Mexico would convert to a variety of Protestant denominations to get access to the Bible. And still others discussed how their family members would leave the church to start their own evangelical churches, which ended up spreading across Texas and other southwestern states. These churches incorporated Jewish practices as a transitional step away from Catholicism. The puzzle of the disappearance of crypto-Jews may yet be solved. Is it possible that crypto-Jews who had been holding on to remnants of their identities under the direst of challenges – in what could be considered a genocide against Sephardi Jews – have not vanished at all but have been right there under our noses this whole time?

The author is a human rights and national security lawyer based in New York.

Mugabe and The Dog's Ear

There's a good old-fashioned military coup in Zimbabwe with the horrible dictator Mugabe in custody, but no one cares because everyone's too busy discussing the breaking news brought to you by CNN of how Trump looks like the inside of a dog's ear.

What Does the Left Get Out of the Roy Moore Fiasco?

Ladies and gents, I bring to you the very obvious outcome of the left's efforts in handing the Ray Moore story.

The issue for the left is not whether Moore is guilty or innocent.

Not whether they will win or lose that one seat (that's not under anyone's direct control).

Not whether, he'll keep on fighting or leave the race. All those are factors, not central issues.

The central issue here is dividing and ridiculing the Republican party, having Republicans go at one and other, and discrediting themselves in a wide variety of ways.

So far, the plan is succeeding.

When You Think You Are Strong, When In Fact, You're Just SHort-Sighted

Democrats are ALWAYS trying to do hit jobs. That's called opposition research. Sometimes it bears out and sometimes it's pure fabrication. That's nasty, but it's politics so there is no excuse not to be prepared and not do your own job in looking at where your candidate might get hit.

And do all of you honestly believe that the Republicans woudn't do oppo research on a candidate and try to bring it up at a convenient time if they could? The better question is why are they so terrible at doing that. Is it laziness? Weakness? Corruption? Lack of access to quality operatives? I don't know. What I do firmly believe that all the people who are more than willing to overlook whatever Roy Moore did just because the Democrats brought it out of the closet at the last minute would do the same thing to the other side in the heartbeat, if only they could. But they can't, so they are doing their party a disservice twice: first, by talking the talk without walking the walk, and second, by failing to distance themselves from known liabilities and therefore opening themselves up to further attacks of the same kind.

I won't be surprised if more of this doesn't come out in a week or two, only much worse and with some awful evidence that will be hard to dispute.

Let's face it, 40 years ago, people did not keep good records. They weren't in the habit of instagramming their every move. There was no Instagram. 20 years from now? The young candidates running in local elections will be inundated with blackmail and revelations. And if we are still stuck in the mindset from 40 years ago 20 years from now, there won't be any elections worth winning left.

Stuck in the Middle With You... Oh wait.

Snowflakes to the left of me and snowflakes to the right...

OK, first of all I'm in New York, and there IS no one to the right of me.

Second, winter IS coming...

Third: with the ascent of Donald J.Trump, the words like "left" and "right" don't mean anything. Oh well.

Carry on then, and drink some covfefe.... just not from a Keurig.

Roy Moore's Defense Starts With Roy Moore

1. Roy Moore failed to publicly and unequivocally deny all allegations, including but not limited to accusations of attempted sexual assault, being banned from the mall for being too creepy even for that time and place, and the yearbook.

2. If in doubt, see one. I see no reason to defend someone who refuses to defend himself. Why are you killing yourselves and making yourselves look ridiculous over someone who refuses to simply state "There is not one word of truth in any of this"?

Roy Moore is Not The Hill Worth Dying On

Let me put it this way, whatever you think of cultural norms in Alabama 40 years ago, the bulk of the evidence, Moore's guilt or innocences, who is behind the current revelations, and whether or not it's appropriate to run such candidates, one thing is clear to me:

Moore is not entitled to support of anyone except the people who voted for him. No politician from another jurisdiction "has" to continue supporting somebody with a cloud of attempted sexual assault allegations hanging over his head. And not one conservative must act against his conscience and show support to somebody from another state just to virtue signal their opposition to dirty trickery by the Democrats. And if the v oters in Alabama decide that this guy deserves to be in the Senate, so be it. But he is not entitled to a single colleague's support there if they in good conscience believe that he is a liar and a pervert.

And if he continues tarnishing the brand of the Republican Party, the people who are vigorously supporting him now will have that to content with. If the Party continues to fail to recruit new people because GOP becomes associated with hypocrisy, complete lack of accountability, and lack of good judgment, Republicans will have only themselves to blame. There are many battles to fight against the left. Some Republicans were willing to hang themselves on the hill that was Michael Flynn. We all know how that turned out. Sometimes it's just not worth it, morally or practically. I am not willing to tie my personal reputation to Roy MOore, whom I didn't actually support to begin with, except in a very technical sense as the voters' choice for the general election in Alabama. And the PR winner in this battle is going to be the left anyway. By all means, expose dirty trickery wherever you see it - but only after making sure that you yourself are not going down with the people you are exposing.

Just The Facts, Ma'am

I don't see anyone debating or discrediting the testimony that Moore was banned from the mall in his town for being creepy. Either that is an objective fact, independent of any character witnesses, or it's not. Either he was banned or he wasn't. Should be easy enough to figure out for those who are willing to do so, instead of going in circles debating who would have or should have known what.

Why You Don't Have To Support Moore to Be a Real Conservative

It's astounding to see the very same people (literally) who expressed horror at Donald Trump's character last year, and were distressed that the Republicans chose him as their nominee in the primaries, and were shocked that the Evangelicals and other religious groups would endorse someone like that, the same people who refused to give him full-hearted support even after the nomination... suddenly defend Roy Moore with their dying breath AS IF THERE IS NO CAUSE FOR CONCERN whatsoever.

Now, don't get me wrong. I've been struggling with this issue myself since the story broke out. Unlike many of Moore's supporters, I never liked the man to begin with, but since this is the candidate Alabama voters have chosen, I was hoping, and could certainly understand, that Moore's conservative colleagues in the Senate would try to make the best of the situation, buddy up with him, and get him to vote for the right things and avoid saying and doing harmful things as much as possible. I would not be happy that he was there at all, but I could live with that outcome. I cannot live with a liar, who makes fools of his own constituents, and who appears to be completely non-chalant about the seriousness of the accusations by his detractors. I will be significantly less diplomatic about it than some people I very much respect were and say as following: sure, the timing MAY very well be entirely political and disruptive. But that does not justify Moore's crimes, if he is guilty of them, and it's certainly does not justify the lying.

And it absolutely does not justify those "conservatives" who are willing to put aside all moral judgment and support Moore EVEN if it turns out that all claims are true and he is indeed a pedophile and a liar. To say that I'm disappointed, not so much in the original Trump supporters, but in the people who did consider character an important issue to selecting a candidate and who now completely destroyed their credibility by trying to find excuses for the inexcusable, is not to say anything. I've already seen a fair number sliding down that slippery slope into blatantly favoring evil, not even the lesser evil, just evil, so long as it's "their" kind of evil, and this further degradation just adds an additional layer of disgust on top of it all. Now, I get if people are genuinely struggling with this issue. I myself expressed grave concerns about the high likelihood of defamation of character, conveniently launched by political operatives and picked up by those who simply dislike Moore.

For that reason, I have a great deal of respect for Steve Deace, who, in a very earnest statement, explained why he himself is struggling with this issue. I myself was not willing to "buy into" (as I was accused of doing) the political machinery behind the latest election-time shenanigans. I wanted to see what would happen next. I was sorely disappointed by Roy Moore's own actions, his loss of credibility on Hannity, and by the bandwagon of apologists, who do not care about truth, righteousness, or even legality of his actions, so long as he "wins" and they get to score points against the left. Once again, my advice to the conservatives: the road to hell is paved with good intentions. You might want to reconsider your own choices that keep leading you towards increasingly more impeachable candidates. There is no shortage of staunch conservatives without this kind of baggage. How about, instead of falling for the most shrill, grandiose megalomaniacs that you can find, supporting people with no dark secrets of the sexual crime variety, who will do their job earnestly, and who will not blatantly lie to you about the most basic facts of the situation?

I am further disgusted by the accusations of bad faith and being a tool of the left that are being launched at me now that after a time of carefully monitoring the situation and struggling with various angles of it, i have come to a personal choice that Moore is more likely guilty than not, and that he is almost certainly lying about at least some aspects of this situation. I took heat from the left when I cautioned against jumping at easy political bait and at the gravity of undermining someone's reputation. I am equally willing to take the heat now, because truth to me, matters a lot more than opinions of people on the Internet. I am not willing to make compromises with my own conscience and to support someone who engages in this level of deceit and is either covering up a crime, or is so narcissistic, that even for the sake of clearing his name and helping his party dig itself out of the moral morass, will continue covering up, lying, and equivocating.

I pray and wholeheartedly hope that Moore turns out to be entirely innocent of the heinous accusations against him. However, he disgraced himself on Hannity, and he disgraced himself further by refusing to clear his name and by not calling out to his supporters and cautioning them against their willingness to support criminals. That would have been the right thing to do in this situation. Unlike the many "conservatives" I have encountered, I remain fully confident that the State of Alabama, has, in fact, a number of viable, conservative candidates, who are neither pedophiles nor liars or equivocators, and who would make fine candidates in the event Roy Moore wisely decides to spare us all additional embarrassment and to withdraw. He is now a complete liability to the party, and the best he can do is come clear, apologize, and take his leave. If he stays in the race, somehow manages to win the election (which I doubt), and takes the Senate seat, he will have not only disgraced that institution, but he will be a political loss for conservatives. His vote will be tainted, and he will end up as disservice to his own state.

Bannon's schtick

Bannon's schtick is not about supporting stronger, more conservative candidates against RINOs. It's about finding the most shrill, rootless candidates he can possibly dredge up and then trolling - that's right, trolling - the entire party into supporting these naked Emperors for fear that they will otherwise themselves be deemed RINOs. It's very obvious what's going on here, folks. Use your common sense. If you want to find better candidates, by all means do so. Just don't let Bannon be in charge of that. He's already stiffed you with Roy Moore. Do you really want to see more of the same?

The Rise of Linda Sarsour and the Stagnation of Everyone Else

To everyone who is shocked at Linda Sarsour's rise to prominence and increasing legitimization by major institutions (albeit, as far as I see, it's still through traditionally hard left vehicles), I have one simple question.

If you have the power to promote alternative voices that you think contribute positively to the cacophony of increasing radicalization in the public sphere, what are you doing about it?
Are you identifying and recruiting new talents to write for your publications? Are you training pundits from various backgrounds to appear on TV the way the progressive organizations and Islamist institutions do?

Are you grooming the next generation of thinkers, activists, analysts and Jewish and conservative leaders to sit on panels and to organize and participate in events, to testify before Congress on relevant issues, to attend meetings with Important People, and to engage in our domestic and foreign policy? Or are you just waiting for someone else to do it? Are you just pushing the same types of people over and over again, waiting for someone to become a member of the "credentialed elite" before acknowledging them as a legitimate contributor? Are you evaluating potential influencers on the merits of their ideas and presentation or by how famous, connected, or affiliated they are?

I can tell you that while you are holding on to the old prejudices that may have worked to promote "your kind of people" 30 years ago, the world has long since moved on and you are losing this game. You are failing to promote new ideas, and to communicate messages that are relevant to the kinds of people you are targeting.

You are shooting yourself in the foot by choosing to reside in the world of ideological rigidity and a closed bubble of messaging dictated by the type of out outdated political operatives who should have retired a long time ago.

While you are holding out for corporate interests to dictate your op-eds, for a handful of "experts" to participate in your panel discussions, and for the same leaders of the same organizations to participate in your events and to organize them, the likes of Linda Sarsour proliferate and blossom and expand their horizons at a breathtaking rate.

Is Trump All That Different? Posted at TOI

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/is-the-trump-administration-all-that-different/

Is The Trump Administration All That Different? NOVEMBER 9, 2017, 12:07 AM   

Many, on both the left and the right, critics and supporters, have asserted that the Trump administration is like no other in history of the United States, or for that matter, the Republican party. But is the Trump administration all that different?

Trump has been a politically polarizing politician, but policy-wise, his administration is not too different from George W. Bush’s in many respects. And on some things, he basically continued with Obama’s policies. The major difference between him and Obama are 1. conservative judges and 2. deregulation. However, many of these regulations only came into place under Obama, so there isn’t actually a striking difference between the way life was under Bush and what it’s like under Trump. So then, leaving aside, Trump’s personal qualities, why is the reaction to his administration so hysterical, when there isn’t actually all that much that has changed, much less negatively affected anyone in the US? (I have yet to see one person who lost medical coverage because of Trump). Three things:

1. The hysteria started under Bush with completely over the top reactions to Iraq war. Many of the people who expressed their differences over the war were so hateful in tone that I wonder to this day whether they knew who the real enemy was. The people who now fondly recall the Bush eras, tend to forget the utterly hateful rhetoric surrounding the war in Iraq and all the names Bush was called, and so forth. Bush himself was significantly more civil in tone. Trump supporters now call it weakness. I think there is a middle ground between allowing your adversaries to walk all over you and reacting impulsively to every single negative comment about you. Those who think that Trump comes out as strong and in control by lashing out are doing so because they are projecting their own wish to see someone respond to the annoying media and leftist loons. And gratifying as it may be emotionally, it does absolutely nothing for Trump’s image otherwise. No one except his most hardcore supporters actually believes he is a strong president due to that. That’s not to say that people won’t vote for him given no other Republican alternatives. Incumbents tend to win, and most people are doing ok for now, so there is no reason to believe that unless his policy ends up putting us on a crash course, history won’t follow the examples of previous presidents who got reelected despite not being particularly outstanding on any one thing. But let’s not kid ourselves about how Trump actually comes across. Or that someone less polarizing wouldn’t have gotten the same share of attacks. Same people who “wanted” Jeb or Rubio would have turned to calling them fascist Islamophobes the moment they took office and shown opposition to the Iran deal or cracked down on terrorists (and they would have done exactly that).

2. Media – for all the talks about the failing media, there are now many more media outlets than under Bush. These echo chambers started mushrooming under Obama as a reaction to each other. On the part of the left, it was a deliberate strategy of amplifying the message, on the part of the right it was a reaction to a perceived bias in the MSM, and MSM’s unwillingness to cover issues of concern to conservatives or give voice to conservative perspective. All of which is perfectly ok, of course, so long as people are still willing to examine the other side. But neither the journalists nor the readers were willing to do that, although there is a number of very fair minded conservative journalists who do excellent investigative work. But many of them are outright dismissed as political hacks by all of the left, regardless of what they say. Yes, there is bias and tunnel vision on both sides. But I would say that more conservatives are at least willing to hear what the other side says, if only to debunk it, than progressives who don’t even read what conservatives have to say.

3. The rise of activist movements – BLM, Occupy Wall Street, and BDS movements have all contributed to the radicalization of the discourse on the left. And they are not really comparable to Tea Party, which had very specific economic goals, and moreover organized around electing more conservative politicians, rather than just having actions for the sake of actions, or changing culture, or infiltrating the academe. To some extent, I think it’s the failing of the conservatives to utilize the Tea Party momentum to that end. But regardless of that, I think it’s clear that the rise of radical activists galvanized the left, though not necessarily towards any helpful ends such as getting elected. It definitely influenced rhetoric and perceptions, so that even very mainstream, old-school Democrats found themselves having to move to the left in order to keep up with the party messaging and not be left out in the cold. You might say that Trumpism did the the same for conservatives, but ideologically that’s not really the case, because Trumpism didn’t make anyone (not one peson) more “conservative” in any traditional understanding.

It shifted the focus of conversation to particular concerns popular with the conservatives in recent years, but whereas the conservative platform had a broad spectrum of issues and perspectives, Trumpism was a nativist/populist focus on a few very narrow issues to the exclusion of discussion and understanding of anything else. To some extent, it’s more a demagoguic exploitation of deeply personal fears and problems than any political movement that that affects the reasoning of the party about its platform. it’s not cohesive, it’s not based in any principles, it’s reactionary, and unfortunately, it plays on emotions and poor understanding of economics and foreign policy for overwhelming majority of people, instead of addressing their concerns in a thoughtful way (which is the failing of conservatives – and that’s how Trumpism took advantage of the vacuum). It’s not that conservatism holds no answers, it’s that a combination of corrupt or weak politicians, lack of access to broader discourse with the public, and failure to organize conservatives on a grassroots level made the public ripe for a quick takeover by loud over the top brash voices, which are perceived as strong, more confident, more decisive, and having solutions because they tell people what they want to hear.

No one really wants to discuss the downsides of these “solutions”. That’s old school. That failed. That’s out the door. So at the end of the day, left wing activist movements took the Democratic party through the triumph of cultural rhetoric and socialist economic appeal, while the right has been largely abducted by populist nativism, which actually has very little to do with “nationalism” as most people view it. It’s more like the combination of 1920s nativism/Know NOthing party and early post-revolutionary Soviet Union, with the focus on taking down the corrupt economic elites and installing the Peope who surely knew how to address their own needs. That was actually the underlying political premise of the first years of Bolshevism. Though Trumpism doesn’t embrace communism, it actually has a lot more of socialism in it than anyone would care to admit, and anyone who compares it to Italian fascism or German Nazism is sorely deluded. The underlying premise is actually very particular to early Soviet populism, minus the violence. That Trumpism and left wing cultural activism both rely on Alinsky tactics to carry out their agendas, makes them both more alike than they are different. That’s not to say that Trumpism is practically useless, and that someone who embraces it, cannot execute a policy successfully. But let’s see who’s actually executing some of the more successful Trump policies. Are they actual true believer populists? Or are they hardcore pragmatists, who’d be doing the same thing in any Republican administration? I actually think there are significantly fewer populists in the administration than people on either side of the aisle believe.

I think if Trump were to retire from politics, the movement will quick die down for lack of leadership, so long as more traditional conservatives get their act together and put forth a cohesive vision, which they had failed to do during the election. And I think, results will sooner or later speak for themselves. It may not happen today or tomorrow, but Trumpian isolationism is not consistent with the security demands of modern reality, nor with the economic demands of a colossal economy that we have in place today. All of that will fall by wayside, and Republicans will either feel betrayed once again, or others will emerge to take advantage of the things the administration did right and build on it in a more traditional and thought out manner. It remains to be seen what actually happens. But from the left, no matter who takes the mantle after Trump, expect nothing but more hatemongering, dismissal and Alinskyite tactics. To contrast with conservatism, they are forced to rely on the polar extreme, simply because of who their constituency is. I am not sure how the left can ever roll back the excesses of intersectionality given the generations of mindless drones it has produced. If they do try to do so, it may end badly.

Meanwhile, the GOP has some demons of its own to exorcise.

We no longer have the specter of Hillary haunting our upcoming electoral future. How are Republicans going to motivate the voters into turning out en masse to the Congressional elections next year when a) the momentum is with the Democrats, who are staunchly opposing Donald Trump (and any Republican initiative) b) Republicans are disunited and ready to eat each other alive c) many Republican Congressmen are retiring, so many of the spots will be up for grabs and d) Republicans have thus far failed spectacularly to deliver on their promises?

You cannot keep scaring people with imaginary boogeymen forever, and you cannot keep feeding them incoherent and half-baked promises that your own state’s constituents don’t actually want or you are not ready to full-heartedly sell to them and to fight for in Congress. You also cannot keep backing Obama-lite foreign policy that leaves us and our allies less secure and dominated by aggressive and tyrannical powers. At the rate we are going, we are facing a massive and well-deserved blowout… which will not teach anybody, anything as Republicans, after each loss, will continue to use DOnald Trump’s unpopularity or failure of any particular candidate to align with him, for this loss rather than engage in self-reflection on how party can do better.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: you can bully people into supporting a particular candidate at the Convention. You cannot bully them or the entire country into sharing the spirit of the message that candidate brings. That just doesn’t work; GOP’s messaging continues to be behind the times and poorly delivered, and the same “old hands” from their positions of looking down, continue to believe that charging after your own and force feeding cheap propaganda somehow translates into unity building are completely delusional. I do not hope that the Republican politicians will take any lessons from last night’s electoral developments or the very obvious pattern easily observable on the ground, but I do hope that grassroots, sooner or later, and with however many election losses and intersectionality victories it requires, eventually figure it out.

Character Matters

Why character matters even in politics:

* Even if people are corrupted by power, why start with someone who is already fully corrupted? Can it really get better from there? No, it will only get worse.

* It's much easier to "use" someone with low character and poor reputation as a tool for various hostile agendas - through smear campaigns, through dwelling on personal flaws etc. WHy give free ammunition to your opposition?

* For those still making excuses for Putin or Erdogan, if you keep justifying alliances of convenience with no evidence that those alliances actually help in any way, with murderous thugs who seek to destabilize and corrupt everything around them, you yourself will end up becoming part of the problem. If you still think Putin or Erdogan are allies in ANY sense of the world, you are standing with bloodthirsty murderers who are enemies to freedom and who are seeking to destroy the United States.