3: Palestine

30: Palestine

What This Israel-Hezbollah-Hamas-Iran Conflict Is Really About To understand why and how Israel’s devastating blow to Hezbollah is such a world-shaking threat to Iran, Russia, North Korea and even China, you have to put it in the context of the wider struggle that has replaced the Cold War as the framework of international relations today. ............. the post-post-Cold War: a struggle between an ad hoc “coalition of inclusion” — decent countries, not all of them democracies, that see their future as best delivered by a U.S.-led alliance nudging the world to greater economic integration, openness and collaboration to meet global challenges, like climate change — versus a “coalition of resistance,” led by Russia, Iran and North Korea: brutal, authoritarian regimes that use their opposition to the U.S.-led world of inclusion to justify militarizing their societies and maintaining an iron grip on power............... China has been straddling the two camps because its economy depends on access to the coalition of inclusion while the government’s leadership shares a lot of the authoritarian instincts and interests of the coalition of resistance. ........... You have to see the wars in Ukraine, Gaza and Lebanon in the context of this global struggle. Ukraine was trying to join the world of inclusion in Europe — seeking freedom from Russia’s orbit and to join the European Union — and Israel and Saudi Arabia were trying to expand the world of inclusion in the Middle East by normalizing relations........... And if Israel were allowed to normalize relations with Saudi Arabia, not only would that vastly expand the coalition of inclusion in that region — a coalition already expanded by the Abraham Accords that created ties between Israel and other Arab nations — it would almost totally isolate Iran and its reckless proxies of Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen and the pro-Iranian Shiite militias in Iraq, all of which were driving their countries into failed states. .............. Indeed, it is hard to exaggerate how much Hezbollah and its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed by an Israeli strike on Friday, were detested in Lebanon and many parts of the Sunni and Christian Arab world for the way they had kidnapped Lebanon and turned it into a base for Iranian imperialism. ............. the flood of social media postings from across Lebanon and the Arab world celebrating Hezbollah’s demise and urging the Lebanese government to declare a unilateral cease-fire so the Lebanese Army could seize control of Southern Lebanon from Hezbollah and bring quiet to the border. The Lebanese don’t want Beirut to be destroyed like Gaza and they are truly afraid of a return of civil war

Why Everything Is Suddenly Spiraling for Israel the unfolding of an Iranian grand strategy to slowly destroy the Jewish state, weaken America’s Arab allies and undermine U.S. influence in the region — while deterring Israel from ever attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities — by using Iranian proxies to bleed Israel to death. ........... The Iranian strategy is exquisite from Tehran’s point of view: Destroy Israel by sacrificing as many Palestinians and Lebanese as necessary but never risk a single Iranian life. The Iranians are ready to die to the last Lebanese, the last Palestinian, the last Syrian and the last Yemeni to eliminate Israel (and distract the world from the Iranian regime’s abuses of its own people and imperialist control over Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq and Syria). .......... Netanyahu thought he could just tell the world that Israel was defending the frontier of freedom against Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and Iran and everyone would fall in line behind Israel. What would you do? But the only place in the world that that gets you a standing ovation is in the U.S. Congress. ........... Netanyahu’s strategy is a disaster. As a veteran U.S. military commander who has observed close up Israel’s war strategy in Gaza told me privately, anyone with two eyes in his head knows that the only way to defeat Hamas is a strategy of “clear, hold and build”: Destroy the enemy, hold the territory and then build an alternative local, legitimate Palestinian governing authority. Israel’s strategy in Gaza, he said, has been: “Clear, leave, come back, clear again the same place, leave again, come back and clear again.”



Ex-PM Olmert, ex-PA foreign minister propose plan for two-state solution to conflict The two leaders agree to the territorial solution proposed by Olmert during his time in office based on the 1967 borders but with land swaps to account for Israeli settlements and Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem; a Palestinian capital in Arab neighborhoods in East Jerusalem; and the administration of the Old City by a trusteeship of five states including Israel and Palestine. .......... They agree that an Israeli withdrawal and a Palestinian, technocratic governing council linked to the PA is necessary in the Gaza Strip and that the West Bank and Gaza Strip should be prepared for elections within 24-35 months ............ An Arab peacekeeping force, called the Temporary Arab Security Presence (TASP) will be needed to “stabilize” the Strip, in cooperation with the Israeli military, to prevent terror attacks from Gaza. ......... “Finally, they agreed on the need of a donors conference to rebuild the Gaza Strip with a serious participation of wealthy countries”

Israel vs. Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran — and Itself It’s been almost a year since Oct. 7. More than 40,000 Palestinians in Gaza are dead. ........... He’s now, so far as we know, underground and has been since Oct. 7 and communicates with the outside world and his Hamas colleagues by runner and by written message because he doesn’t trust electronic communications. .......... And in Israeli jail, he decided with a great sense of determination — because he wanted to be a leader of Hamas and was committed to armed struggle — he learned Hebrew. And he learned it perfectly. He read Israeli papers. He watched Israeli television. He became incredibly familiar with and fluent in Israeli society, language, politicians. He read memoirs of security chiefs, prime ministers and all the rest. ............ One thing I heard from a lot of Israelis at different levels of Israeli society was that they feel he understands them, and they don’t understand him. He’s talked about using prison as a sort of study hall in the Israeli psyche. .......... It’s not a great literary novel, but if you want to know something about Yahya Sinwar, it’s very much worth reading. And it’s a portrayal of the making of himself — how he became this political leader, military leader, terrorist, strategist, what the roots of his politics and fury are. And they’re rooted in his family’s exile, obviously as Palestinians from where they lived originally in Palestine into the Gaza Strip. They’re rooted in his witnessing close at hand the 1967 war, which everybody around him thought was going to be a great victory. And a week later, it was a humiliation. Same thing in 1973. ............ You might imagine the leader of Hamas is somebody whose experience is waging war against Israelis, killing Israelis. But his experiences, at least before prison, appear to be in killing Palestinians. ............ he says to this dentist at some point that he’s ready to sacrifice 20,000; 30,000; 100,000 Palestinians in order to obtain —— ................. I think in jail, the most important thing that happened to him that helped shape events was the increasing awareness on a tactical level that the taking of hostages was effective. ........... Twenty years ago, you had a situation where members of Hamas came across the border, the fence, and kidnapped, in a raid, a young Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit. One. Brought him into Gaza. And for the next five years, while Shalit was in the hands of Hamas, Israeli society was obsessed with this case. ............. And finally, he was released for a thousand Palestinian prisoners. One of them was Yahya Sinwar. ........... So if you’re an Israeli, you are not seeing what’s going on in Gaza every night, not on Channel 12, not on 13 and certainly not on 14, which is the kind of Fox News station. You’re seeing military operations. You’re seeing the military spokesman taking an embed of some correspondents into the Philadelphi Corridor near Rafah. Much more, you’re seeing lots and lots — understandably — about the hostages, about internecine political battles, street demonstrations. .............. And, as you said earlier, if 20,000 or 30,000 or 100,000 Palestinians have to die for the liberation of Palestine — and the liberation of Palestine also in his view repeatedly means the elimination of what we now know as Israel — then so be it. ........... part of what distinguishes this part of the world is that there are political actors on both sides who are fantasists. Fantasists with guns ........... there was a conference sponsored by Hamas, sponsored by Sinwar, about what taking over would look like. And there were all kinds of speeches and very specific plans about what would happen on the day after Israel was eliminated and Palestine was liberated in their terms. What should we do about the Jews? Should we kick everybody out or kill them? Or should we keep the ones that are really valuable, who are doctors or advanced computer programmers? That conference of the hereafter took place — that was on the level of fantasy. ............ when he unleashed his soldiers on Oct. 7 ........ it was basically a suicide mission to spark something even larger, if possible. .............. we will have exploded Israel’s sense of the status quo. I think that was what it was about. ............. Remember, Oct. 7 was Oct. 7. That was an attack from Hamas. Something happened the next day, on Oct. 8, which is that Hezbollah began to attack northern Israel. .............. Hezbollah is a Shiite group, heavily militarized, infinitely more sophisticated than Hamas, infinitely better armed, and it obviously doesn’t have the sense of isolation. And in fact, in a relatively failed state of Lebanon, its power there is immense. .............. Americans old enough to remember even during the Reagan administration that Hezbollah killed hundreds of Marines. ......... what you have right now is a depopulated northern Israel ....... Israel has shrunk. In a strategic, geographic sense, Israel — already a tiny state — has shrunk. ............... I think Gallant also recognizes that the vaunted Israel Defense Forces proved that it was deeply flawed on Oct. 7 and that it is now exhausted. It’s suffered losses. Forget the criticism from abroad — that the idea that they’re now going to wage war in Lebanon is something that Gallant objects to. ..........

Every single Israeli I spoke to believes the real enemy for them is Iran.

............ And they don’t think it because they have a rich imagination. They think it because for years and years, the leadership of Iran has made it absolutely plain in its rhetoric — and in its actions — that its intentions, the reason for being, for the state, to some degree, is the future elimination of the State of Israel. It’s part of the national project. .............. they see themselves as locked in an ongoing multigenerational war against a patient adversary who strikes at them from all directions using all kinds of different clients and may one day — in fact, one day soon — have nuclear weapons. ............. by shattering the Israeli sense of security, by exposing the weaknesses of the Israeli military, or the degree to which it’s overextended — that it’s not some mythological institution that could fight on infinite fronts. By arousing the fury that you see in the West Bank, rather than a kind of terrible resignation, by arousing Hezbollah and, by extension, Iran, or the other way around, into action, by tripping off a set of events in which Iran, for the first time, directly sets missiles off toward Israel, well, in Sinwar’s mind, that’s an enormous victory. ............... Bill Clinton, remember him leaving a meeting with Netanyahu, and he said out loud, wait a minute, who’s the superpower here? ............... Barack Obama, whom Netanyahu loathed, extended himself to such a degree that Netanyahu made his cynical speech at Bar-Ilan University, hinting that he might be for a Palestinian state. It was all a sham. ........... and the MAGA-like rhetoric of Yair Netanyahu, the son, who sounds like somebody who’s just never off of Truth Social, going on and on about how the Israeli people, and particularly the media, are ungrateful ............. Any compromise is thought to be a betrayal of the Jews and Jewish history. And all of it informed by an intense knowledge of and feeling about everything from the inquisition to the Holocaust. ............. And I’m talking now about Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich. Ben-Gvir and Smotrich are vile creatures. They’re thugs. They’re not just annexationists and extremists. Their background — they were in trouble with the law. Ben-Gvir couldn’t serve in the military; he was in so much trouble with the law.

Israelis Are Not Watching the Same War You Are Netanyahu has become an anti-system candidate. .......... But after Oct. 7, the topic in Israel is no longer judicial reforms; it’s security. ......... According to a new poll, 65 percent of the Israeli public define themselves as 50 shades of right wing and only 12 percent as left or center-left. So for every leftist in Israel, you have five to six right-wingers. ............. Israelis ceased to believe in the two-state solution, which would be achieved through a bilateral negotiation, because they saw what happened last time. In 1993, following the Oslo Accords, Israelis experienced an awful lot of suicide bombers. And following the Camp David summit in 2000, when Ehud Barak offered Yasir Arafat, give or take, everything, including half of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount, we got the second intifada. ............... We saw that the unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000 and from Gaza in 2005 didn’t lead to a new equilibrium in which everyone can live happily and freely but to more tense times of security. ................ The fact that this horrendous terrorist attack came from Gaza, which Israel ceased to occupy in 2005, and that only gave them time and money to actually create a monstrous terrorist army — it’s the last time unilateral withdrawals will be experienced in Israel. So we don’t have a left here. ................ Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip, evacuated each and every settlement, took out dead from the graves and withdrew from the international border. And Israel, at the same time, stayed in Judea and Samaria, the West Bank, in order to preserve its security in a bearable condition. ........... So Israelis say, “Perhaps we should stay there as much as needed, pay the price and prevent the situation in which we are attacked. Perhaps the attempt to buy international legitimacy with the currency of territory doesn’t pay.” ..................... Gantz and Netanyahu voted exactly the same for the consecutive 91 meetings of the war cabinet, which means that there is a consensus in Israel of management rather than ideology. ............. Fatah was thrown from roofs in Gaza in 2007. But it’s not that Fatah wants Israel to exist. When people chant, “From the river to the sea, Palestine shall be free,” it’s not a Hamas phrase; it’s a Fatah phrase. When 72 percent of the Palestinian population in Judea and Samaria in the West Bank support the massacre of Oct. 7, it’s horrifying. .................... We all have a dream about two Western democracies living side by side in peace and harmony. Unfortunately, this is not the case. ................ And the grave mistake was, when President Clinton, it’s amazing to remember, came to Gaza as the president of the United States to stand alongside a mass murderer, Yasir Arafat, they wanted him to be Nelson Mandela. .......... Hamas is becoming more popular. Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president, is extremely, extremely unpopular. .............. yes, this is Smotrich’s ideological purpose. He doesn’t want, in the long run, the Palestinian Authority to exist, because it’s against his idea of sovereignty on every single inch of Greater Israel. .............. And the idea is shrinking the conflict — that, look, there’s no two-state solution, there’s no one-state solution, there’s no deal. Let’s just try to make the roads better, make more Palestinian roads that are not going to have checkpoints, push for economic development. It has some resonances with an old idea from Netanyahu, which is economic peace, which is different from actual peace. ............... No one wants to annex three million Palestinians to Israel. ......... prior to Oct. 7, no one thought that Israel would invade Gaza. .......... But it’s not the case with Lebanon. You can never cut the lifeline of Hezbollah, because Lebanon is connected to Syria and then Iran. So you can’t stop Hezbollah from getting more weapons and more soldiers. And you can’t eliminate Hezbollah. Plus, Lebanon is a country. It’s not like Gaza or the West Bank. It has more legitimacy in the world. It’s way more difficult. ................ “No, you Americans completely misunderstand this. Hezbollah is Iran. Iran is connected to China. It’s connected to Russia. Americans don’t understand countries with imperial pasts or even countries with current imperial ambitions. And it is, in a way, implacable because its ambitions here are ideological. It doesn’t care about the Palestinians.” ................. what we learned, the tragic lesson from the last decade is that peaceful periods do not equal a peaceful future. ..............

There is a square in Tehran in which there is a clock counting down to the year 2040, in which Israel would be eliminated.

And the intelligence in Israel says that they no longer see 2040 as the date but way earlier. So not tomorrow but maybe 2030, 2032. .................. Hezbollah is a very important ingredient in this scheme, because they got 200,000 rockets that will land here in Israel. ............... to build an army that is well equipped and well trained to fight the Iranian octopus — Hezbollah, the Houthis, maybe the threat that comes from terrorists who come from Jordan — and to prepare for the next war, which will come. ............... President Biden wants Israelis to stop the war when Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’s leader in Gaza, is still on his feet, and most Israelis don’t want it. Biden still believes in the idea of two-state solution. Seventy percent of the Jewish Israeli population is against it. ................. the way to have a peace with the Middle East is not going through Ramallah. You can have peace with the moderate Arab countries based on interests against Iran. ............... Israelis and Saudis and Jordanians want Israel to defeat Hamas. They want Iran to be defeated. They want Hezbollah to be defeated. ................. They don’t want the world to end. They want Hamas to be eliminated. But the funniest thing I heard was from a senior figure in the United Arab Emirates. Remember that in the last government, there was a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood here. And he was furious. And I said, “Why?” I mean, finally, an Arab-Jewish cooperation. He said, “No, the Muslim brotherhood — the only place they are allowed to be in office is in Israel. You’re crazy.”

In North Carolina, Remnants of Helene Become an ‘Unprecedented Tragedy’ Thousands of people struggled to cope without basic necessities as authorities searched for the missing, and the overall death toll from the storm surpassed 100. ........... Magda Randolph, 72, who has lived in Asheville for 24 years, said she had never experienced a flooding event this powerful and wondered about the long-term impact........ “Our water system is greatly compromised. Our landfill got compromised,” she said. “It’s unclear what the quality of life is going to be like here for a while.”

Why the World’s Biggest Powers Can’t Stop a Middle East War The United States’ ability to influence events in the Mideast has waned, and other major nations have essentially been onlookers. ............ “There’s more capability in more hands in a world where centrifugal forces are far stronger than centralizing ones,” said Richard Haass, the president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations. “The Middle East is the primary case study of this dangerous fragmentation.” ........... Mr. Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah over more than three decades and the man who built the Shiite organization into one of the most powerful nonstate armed forces in the world ............ Whether full-scale war will come to Lebanon remains unclear. .............. “Nasrallah represented everything for Hezbollah, and Hezbollah was the advance arm of Iran” ............. China, a major importer of Iranian oil and a major supporter of anything that might weaken the American-led world order that emerged from the ruins in 1945, has little interest in donning the mantle of peacemaker. .......... Iran is cautious because it knows the cost of all-out war could be the end of the Islamic Republic; Egypt fears an enormous influx of Palestinian refugees; and Saudi Arabia seeks a Palestinian state but would not put Saudi lives on the line for that cause. .......... As for Qatar, it funded Hamas with hundreds of millions of dollars a year that went in part to the construction of a labyrinthine web of tunnels, some as deep as 250 feet, where Israeli hostages have been held. It enjoyed the complicity of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who saw Hamas as an effective way to undermine the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and so undercut any chance of peace. ............... So in their annual pilgrimage, world leaders troop to the meeting of the General Assembly of the United Nations, where the Security Council is largely paralyzed by Russian vetoes over any Ukraine-related resolutions and American vetoes over Israel-related resolutions. ..................... There is no global consensus on the need for peace or even a cease-fire. In the past, war in the Middle East led to soaring oil prices and tumbling markets, forcing the world’s attention. Now, said Itamar Rabinovich, a former Israeli ambassador to the United States, “the attitude is, ‘OK, so be it.’” ................. Mr. Netanyahu has shunned a serious American effort to bring about the normalization of relations with Saudi Arabia, perhaps the most important country in the Arab and Islamic world, because its price would be some serious commitment to the establishment of a Palestinian state, the very thing he has devoted his political life to preventing................ “The institutions that have guided international relations and global problem-solving since the mid-20th century are clearly no longer capable of addressing the problems of the new millennium,” Mr. Heintz wrote in a recent essay. “They are inefficient, ineffective, anachronistic, and, in some cases, simply obsolete.” ...... That, too, has been a lesson of the year since Hamas struck.

Iran Is Losing. That May Matter More Than Israel’s Mistakes. Israel’s inexcusable complacency on Oct. 7, 2023, allowed Hamas, a terrorist force with a small fraction of the military strength of the Israel Defense Forces, to kill more Israeli civilians than the vast armies of Egypt and Syria and their allies did at the height of the Arab-Israeli wars of 1967 and 1973. ........... Israel’s stunning airstrike on Friday on Hezbollah’s underground headquarters near Beirut, which killed the group’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, the fortunes of war have shifted against Israel’s enemies since Oct. 7. Hamas is losing. Hezbollah is losing. And most important: By extension, Iran is losing. ............. Even if Israel ultimately wins this war, it will have paid a dreadful price. .......... As of late last month, Israel claimed it has killed as many as 17,000 Hamas fighters and “dismantled” 22 of its 24 battalions, while losing fewer than 1,000 soldiers in action in almost a full year of war. ........... On Sept. 17, Israel reportedly orchestrated an attack in which thousands of pagers detonated in the hands and pockets of Hezbollah operatives. The next day Israel reportedly detonated hand-held radios that Hezbollah also used to communicate, and then executed a devastating airstrike on an in-person meeting of Hezbollah leaders, killing several of its senior officials............ In August, the Biden administration approved a $20 billion arms deal with Israel that will allow it to purchase 50 new F-15IA fighters from the United States (helping ensure its qualitative military edge for a generation). And there is currently a huge American naval buildup in the region. The American Navy is fighting Iran-backed Houthi rebels in the Red Sea and attempting to deter Iran from launching fresh attacks against Israel.......... the West’s jihadist enemies: Defeat demoralizes them. It’s not that their resistance collapses entirely, but jihadism waxes and wanes depending on its battlefield success.

27: Palestine

Progressives’ embrace of Disney in battle with DeSantis over LGBTQ rights comes with risks
Just about anybody in America can officiate a wedding, thanks to the internet – and one determined preacher
Federal government is challenging Texas’s buoys in the Rio Grande – here’s why these kinds of border blockades wind up complicating immigration enforcement
Israel: unpopular judicial reform involves repeal of law set up under British colonial rule in Palestine – here’s what that tells us
How the Soviets stole nuclear secrets and targeted Oppenheimer, the ‘father of the atomic bomb’

DOES SAM ALTMAN KNOW WHAT HE’S CREATING? The OpenAI CEO’s ambitious, ingenious, terrifying quest to create a new form of intelligence ...... The powerful AI that his company had released in November had captured the world’s imagination like nothing in tech’s recent history. ......... In small doses, Altman’s large blue eyes emit a beam of earnest intellectual attention, and he seems to understand that, in large doses, their intensity might unsettle. In this case, he was willing to chance it: He wanted me to know that whatever AI’s ultimate risks turn out to be, he has zero regrets about letting ChatGPT loose into the world. To the contrary, he believes it was a great public service. ........ .

When I was a kid, my grandfather told me the story of the Buddha and the Angry Man.

It offers two powerful lessons that we all need to hear:

One day, the Buddha was walking through a village when a young man approached and began yelling at him.

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— Joe Trippi (@JoeTrippi) July 25, 2023

Worldcoin, a cryptocurrency project founded by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, launches on Monday. The project’s core offering is its World ID, an account that only real humans can get. More here: https://t.co/S3SET7Ekmq

— Reuters Business (@ReutersBiz) July 24, 2023

Gaze into the Evil Eye of global digital ID.

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— Joe Allen (@JOEBOTxyz) July 26, 2023

⚡Worldcoin token launches ⚡

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Hundreds signed up to get their eyeballs scanned for Sam Altman’s “Worldcoin” wallet, which ties your biometrics to an online, global wallet.

Money talks and folks will sell their privacy. With critical mass, you can say hello to the dystopian future. pic.twitter.com/DApA9q0GVf

— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) July 26, 2023

Want to win at entrepreneurship?

Brains and connections aren't enough.

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— Brandon Arvanaghi 🐱 (@arvanaghi) July 20, 2023

It's no longer an "AI or crypto" debate as OpenAI CEO Sam Altman launches Worldcoin, the token for his eyeball-scanning project https://t.co/V8FYC4dZEU pic.twitter.com/p4WpJakatI

— Bloomberg TV (@BloombergTV) July 25, 2023

Most people even today:

Bitcoin: A Ponzi scheme as we don't know the founder.

Worldcoin: A great revolution since the "chatGPT" guy Sam Altman is behind it.

— Kashif Raza (@simplykashif) July 26, 2023

Go ahead, make the comparison. “There’s not a day that goes by where we don’t talk about Theranos multiple times,” says the CEO of Vital Biosciences. https://t.co/HXEybJSTDe

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damn i love custom instructions pic.twitter.com/su0BlttJF7

— Sam Altman (@sama) July 22, 2023

I cannot begin to adequately express how increadibly dystopian this concept is: to have to gaze into a silver orb that scans your face and iris, be assigned a 'unique number' to be entered into a database, in order to "prove" you are human. Why?? https://t.co/a80PeEZkWr

— Elke Schwarz (@ElkeSchwarz) July 25, 2023

The only time I met Sam Altman was a 20 min meeting during YC W15. I had just sold 7% of my company to YC and he was president.

He spent the first half on his phone, completely disengaged, didn't look at me. He spent the second half bragging about his new McLaren to another…

— kepano (@kepano) July 27, 2023

What people think might be hard, and what they think might be difficult: pic.twitter.com/r0tN4cWE9T

— Paul Graham (@paulg) July 26, 2023

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India is already 3rd largest economy on PPP basis.

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— ॐ SwamyBhakt ॐ (@SwamyBhakt) July 26, 2023

JUST IN: 🇺🇸 Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says the financial system is designed for the rich to strip the middle class of their assets and equity. pic.twitter.com/BKLWMyyaM1

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Unsurprising: Many of my friends with 3-7 years in VC are questioning if their large funds can be feasibly returned (not to mention in multiples).

Surprising: So many of them think they can feasibly raise their own $10-$15m fund in this environment 🤔

— Dylan Itzikowitz (@ditzikow) July 26, 2023

By working together, the U.S. and India can defeat cancer within 20 years ... by me in @FortuneMagazine
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— Vivek Wadhwa (@wadhwa) July 26, 2023

The best part about content that goes nowhere is that no one saw it.

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— Dickie Bush 🚢 (@dickiebush) July 26, 2023

Delhi gets a modern and futuristic International Exhibition-cum-Convention Centre, which will boost conference tourism in India, thus bringing people from all over the world. The economic and tourism related benefits of the centre will also be multifold. pic.twitter.com/57cdCnu63T

— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) July 26, 2023

Q: Other than valuation, what else should founders optimize for when fundraising?

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— Yong-Soo Chung ✈️ (@YongSooChung) July 27, 2023

Trump's Map For Palestine

Trump peace plan: Palestinian state, Israeli control of settlements

Trump's peace plan is a realistic vision Trump has shown a propensity to violate accepted norms. And when you have a conflict that has existed for so long, with all the players refusing to deviate from many assumptions - you need a leader who can operate outside those lines. ..... Trump has approached the conflict through a sober lens rooted in reality. ..... If the Trump plan is even partially embraced, this would demonstrate that the Israeli public has completely moved on from the failed thinking of the last many decades, pushed by the DC/European based peace process industry. ....... The key to actually ending the conflict is having the bravery to live in reality and allow any peace process that is proposed to be based on that truth. It is that need for courageous action that has stymied every US President - until now.

The international community should say no to the Trump plan runs counter to previous Israeli-Palestinian agreements and understandings on core issues of the conflict: borders, settlements, Jerusalem, and even refugees. It serves a right-wing political ideology and electoral goals, while distancing peace. ...... endangers Israel’s future in the Middle East rather than improves it. ..... ....The administration adopted a series of measures that affected the situation on the ground and, in fact, promoted the principles of the plan even before its publication.

Why the Palestinian leadership should not reject Trump’s peace plan We are hopeful that many Palestinians will see the advantages of counting to 10 before officially reacting to the proposed peace plan and the vision it contains for both Palestinians and Israelis............. it would not surprise anyone if the Palestinian Authority’s first reaction will be outright rejection of the plan without even reading it. ....... what of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad? One does not have to wonder what their likely reactions will be. ....... review the plan, study it and systematically outline its objections to it ....... Palestinians can keep waiting for a better deal, but in all likelihood, it may never come........ Palestinians should recognize what is possible and refrain from being driven solely by what they view as just. ....... The likelihood of another presidential term for President Trump is extremely high......... A main Palestinian objection to their participation in the Bahrain Economic Conference held in 2019 was the introduction of the economic portion of the peace plan prior to the political portion. With the release of the political portion of the peace plan, Palestinians can now understand the tremendous advantages of the economic benefits that a signed peace agreement can provide to all Palestinians.......... Within a decade’s time, Palestinians can become economically successful, trading freely and securing investment from all over the world. There is no reason why Palestinians cannot become another “start-up” society. ......... Americans and Israelis, among so many others, can be trading with and investing with Palestinians...... Palestinians have much to lose if they reject the proposed peace plan.

The PLAN

Trump unveils Middle East peace plan with two-state solution, tunnel connecting West Bank and Gaza "This is a great deal," Trump said. "And the Palestinians may not have this opportunity ever again." ...... The Israeli leader added that past deals had not had the "right balance between Israeli security and Palestinians aspirations." ....... Under the plan, the Palestinians would have to reach certain benchmarks to achieve a state. Those benchmarks include rooting out terrorism, stopping what they call “pay to slay,” implementing steps toward free speech, and other political reforms. ...... The plan is a basis for negotiations with Israel, Trump officials said, claiming many of the Palestinians' red lines are met, including their calls for a Palestinian state and a capital in parts of East Jerusalem........ The vision calls for more than doubling the amount of territory the Palestinians control. ...... This is the first time Israel has agreed to a Palestinian state with defined borders. ...... A small strip of land between the Egyptian border and the proposed land swap areas south of Gaza would remain Israeli territory and be subject to Israeli security control. This was requested by Egypt as a buffer against cross-border terrorism. ...... As part of the plan, Israel has agreed to halt settlement construction for four years. But in one detail sure to provoke Palestinian objections, the plan recognizes Israeli sovereignty over major settlement blocs in the West Bank.....

Both Netanyahu and his political challenger, Benny Gantz, have agreed to implement this plan, regardless of the outcome of the upcoming March 2 election.

........ the Trump administration’s moves to relocate the embassy and recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan were important confidence-building measures that led to this plan. ........ While Trump and Netanyahu were giving their comments, Palestinian leaders were meeting in the West Bank to discuss the plan....... Hamas, the Palestinian Sunni-Islamic fundamentalist militant organization that has waged war with Israel for decades, rejected the plan and called it a "theatrical presentation to sell illusions" in a comment to Fox News.

Arafat rejects Clinton peace plan The US president-elect, George W Bush, said that Mr Clinton was "giving it the very best shot he can, and I certainly hope it works".

Arafat didn't negotiate - he just kept saying no The true story of Camp David was that for the first time in the history of the conflict the American president put on the table a proposal, based on UN Security Council resolutions 242 and 338, very close to the Palestinian demands, and Arafat refused even to accept it as a basis for negotiations, walked out of the room ......... The proposals included the establishment of a demilitarised Palestinian state on some 92% of the West Bank and 100% of the Gaza Strip, with some territorial compensation for the Palestinians from pre-1967 Israeli territory; the dismantling of most of the settlements and the concentration of the bulk of the settlers inside the 8% of the West Bank to be annexed by Israel; the establishment of the Palestinian capital in east Jerusalem, in which some Arab neighborhoods would become sovereign Palestinian territory and others would enjoy "functional autonomy"; Palestinian sovereignty over half the Old City of Jerusalem (the Muslim and Christian quarters) and "custodianship," though not sovereignty, over the Temple Mount; a return of refugees to the prospective Palestinian state though with no "right of return" to Israel proper; and the organisation by the international community of a massive aid programme to facilitate the refugees' rehabilitation.......

Arafat said no. Enraged, Clinton banged on the table and said: "You are leading your people and the region to a catastrophe." ...... Today Barak portrays Arafat's behaviour at Camp David as a "performance" geared to exacting from the Israelis as many concessions as possible without ever seriously intending to reach a peace settlement or sign an "end to the conflict"....... "He did not negotiate in good faith; indeed, he did not negotiate at all. He just kept saying no to every offer, never making any counterproposals of his own"

...... He seems to think in terms of generations and hesitantly predicts that only "80 years" after 1948 will the Palestinians be historically ready for a compromise. By then, most of the generation that experienced the catastrophe of 1948 at first hand will have died; there will be "very few 'salmons' around who still want to return to their birthplaces to die". ....... Barak recalled seeing David Ben-Gurion, Israel's founder and first prime minister (1948-53 and 1955-63), on television in June 1967 arguing for the immediate withdrawal from all the territories occupied in the six-day war in exchange for peace, save for East Jerusalem........ "Many of us - me included - thought that he was suffering from [mental] weakness or perhaps a subconscious jealousy of his successor [Levi Eshkol, who had presided over the unprecedented victory and conquests]. Today one understands that he simply saw more clearly and farther than the leadership at that time."

This is what a future State of Palestine can look like, with a capital in parts of East Jerusalem. pic.twitter.com/39vw3pPrAL

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 28, 2020

Trump's Map For Palestine https://t.co/NDxbjDAUX4 #DealOfTheCentury #Israel #Palestine #abbas #hamas #Netanyahu #Netanjahu #Trump #DonaldTrump #Kushner #PeacePlan #Peace #MiddleEast #MiddleEastPeacePlan

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) January 28, 2020

They want to put us in permanent, high-tech cages and call it peace. #DealOfTheCentury #ApartheidDeal #Palestine #PalestinianFreedom

— Noura Erakat (@4noura) January 28, 2020

A terrible moment in history, when an impeached #American President & an indicted #Israeli PM, both responsible for much of the turmoil in the region, stand in front of the world pontificating & pretending they are men of peace.#DealOfTheCentury

— Hala Jaber (@HalaJaber) January 28, 2020

I worked on a Kibbutz in Israel in the late 1990s & had many Jewish Kibbutzim friends

I lived in Palestinian East Jerusalem shortly afterwards & began to learn about the oppression of the people there

Trump's #DealOfTheCentury is the insult of the century to the Palestinians

— TheLuckyHeron🌍 (@LuckyHeronSay) January 28, 2020

I keep seeing tweets that say the #DealOfTheCentury is apartheid.

No.

There has already been apartheid in Palestine for decades.

The Deal of the Century is just an American stamp of approval to the continuation of apartheid in Palestine, but as formalized annexation.

— Nooran A. (@nooranhamdan) January 28, 2020

The fact that this is all happening on Arab leaders watch AND they support it is heartbreaking and terrifying there’s no future for us. if we lose Palestine we lost everything #DealOfTheCentury isn’t a deal it’s occupation.

— R (@daaiiiaah) January 28, 2020

Ain al-Hilweh camp, northern of Lebanon, rises up against the #DealOfTheCentury.#FreePalestine pic.twitter.com/HrAMienasi

— Palestinian Eve (@PalestinianEve1) January 28, 2020

Palestine is not for sale#DealOfTheCentury #صفقة_القرن 🤝 pic.twitter.com/ercKxYvKVx

— abdullateif (@A024x_) January 28, 2020

Trump's so-called #DealOfTheCentury 'nothing but a plan to finish off the Palestinian cause', says Palestinian PM https://t.co/avrqUgwtv6 pic.twitter.com/EvtttkUROM

— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) January 28, 2020

Trump plan will 'finish off Palestinian cause', PM warns US president's proposal will dash hopes for an independent state, Palestinians officials say. ....... Palestinian leaders say they were not invited to Washington and no plan can work without them. ..... Shtayyeh said Trump and Netanyahu were using the proposal as a distraction from their domestic troubles. ........ "This plan is to protect Trump against being impeached and to protect Netanyahu from going to jail, and it is not a peace plan," Shtayyeh said at a cabinet meeting in Ramallah.

Kashmir Deserves Normalcy

India is no longer a democracy if Kashmir can not be like any other state in India. If the regime in Delhi will not respect human rights, it is not a democratic regime. Elections do not make a democracy, respect for human rights does. Delhi must restore normalcy to Kashmir. Israel occupied Palestine is nobody's gold standard, nobody's north pole, least of a country that claims to be the largest democracy.

Shows the fascist mindset of the Indian govt's RSS ideology that has continued the siege of IOJK for over 100 days, subjecting Kashmiris to the worst violation of their human rights while the powerful countries remain silent bec of their trading interests. https://t.co/ESZiaVp563

— Imran Khan (@ImranKhanPTI) November 27, 2019

آر ایس ایس کے نظریے پر کھڑی بھارت سرکار کی فسطائی ذہنیت نمایاں ہے کہ 100 روز سے زائد عرصہ بیت جانے کے باوجود مقبوضہ جموں وکشمیر کامحاصرہ جاری ہے اور کشمیریوں کو انسانی حقوق کی بدترین پامالی کا سامنا ہے جبکہ دنیا کے طاقتور ممالک محض اپنے تجارتی مفادات کے پیش نظر چپ سادھے کھڑے ہیں۔ https://t.co/fZE6KMpAlr

— Imran Khan (@ImranKhanPTI) November 27, 2019

India consul general in United States calls for 'Israeli model' in Kashmir Indian official tells New York meeting: 'It has happened in the Middle East. If the Israeli people can do it, we can also do it' ........... the Indian government’s goals of a settler-colonial policy for the valley, which Kashmiri academics and scholars have long warned is the ultimate ambitions of the Indian state. ...... there remains a deep anxiety among Kashmiri Pandits that their pain is being weaponised to further the goals of the BJP-led government. ........ Thus far, only a far-right European delegation has been allowed in while foreign journalists have not been allowed to enter the valley since August 5. ........ Estimates vary, but more than 100,000 Kashmiri Hindus left during the upheaval. According to government figures, 219 Kashmiri Pandits were killed between 1989-2004. ........ Since the insurgency began in the late 1980s, more than 70,000 Kashmiri Muslims have died, while an estimated 7,000 others have "disappeared". ....... Israeli-India relations have intensified since the election of Narendra Modi in 2014. India is Israel's biggest purchaser of arms, amounting to $1bn per year. ........ On Monday, Agnihoti delivered a lecture at an event jointly organised by the American Jewish Council and the Hindu Jewish Council. ......... Arab regimes are fully on board with India's settler-colonial project in Kashmir ......... “The violent re-writing of the subcontinent’s history is angering, stunning and also tiring. It’s a familiar tactic that relies on nationalism, Brahminism and Islamophobia. It has little to do with displaced Kashmiri Pandits” ......... .....Though landlines and post-paid mobile phones have been reconnected in Kashmir since the communicat9ions blockade was announced, prepaid phones, text messaging and internet services are still down in Kashmir. ........ ...There are more than 700,000 Indian troops in Kashmir, in what is described as the most militarised region on earth. Since 1947, Kashmir has been divided between India and Pakistan, with a small portion held by China.

India's blockade of Kashmir: 100 days in, the world's silence is deafening Kashmir is under a tight grip, its people occupied and their movements monitored......... Even Pakistan’s Imran Khan, who has championed the cause since 5 August, seems to be running out of steam ......... whereas Muslims facing persecution around the world are not likely to be holding out for words of comfort or solidarity from Saudi Arabia, the UAE, or any other Arab country for that matter, the resounding silence from other Muslim majority countries has been particularly shocking. ........ Turkish President Recip Tayyip Erdogan’ comments at the UN General Assembly in September have earned the wrath of India's government with Prime Minister Modi's planned visit to Ankara postponed as a result. Likewise, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad's comments during his address at the UN summit, describing India has having “invaded and occupied” Kashmir, have led nowhere either........... Even Pakistan’s prime minister, Imran Khan, who has championed the cause since August, seems to be running out of steam. So, too, has the silence been from almost all quarters of the western world, otherwise evangelical in their approach to spreading democracy and justice......... On Tuesday, it will be 100 days since the blockade began in Kashmir and very little has changed on the ground..........

In the sky, drones conduct sweeping Israeli-inspired surveillance over protest sites, helping armed forces identify "miscreants".

........ Kashmir is under a tight grip, its people occupied and their movements monitored. ....... The crackdown has seen thousands of ordinary people arrested, including children picked up by India’s armed forces - some held for a few hours, others held indefinitely - without any transparency from the state......... Parents are said to be going from prison to prison in Kashmir, only to find that their sons, held without any charge, have been transferred to prisons in a different state thousands of kilometres away. ........In mid-October, 18 female activists and academics, one as old as 82-years-old, were arrested for staging a silent protest. They were only released when they promised not to speak or protest against India, a tactic authorities are using to quell dissent. .......

Over the past week, a series of unusual and record snowfalls hit the valley, leaving residents without electricity for three days. Kashmiris were just left in the dark and in the freezing cold without the ability to call even their neighbours, emergency services or the outside world for help.

........... The spectre of Hindu-only settlements has left Kashmiris concerned that their home will resemble the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Crucially the demographic shift will render the UN mandated question of self-determination obsolete....... Kashmiris are not oblivious that their plight is among a number of vicious resource-driven and politically motivated campaigns against Muslims (often instrumentalised by Islamophobia) around the globe. ........ Kashmir is not just about territory disputed between India and Pakistan. Both countries rely heavily on the water that flows through the region. ....... On Monday, The Gambia took Myanmar to the International Court of Justice, accusing it of genocide against the Rohingya Muslim minority. ........ The case, filed at the behest of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, has been touted as a historic one, for it gives the Rohingya a chance to seek justice and accountability.

"Not sustainable and not good": German Chancellor Angela Merkel criticized New Delhi's clampdown in Kashmir during her visit to India. pic.twitter.com/NeaYtWWuTG

— DW News (@dwnews) November 1, 2019

Historic moment as The Gambia officially files a lawsuit against #Myanmar for acts of #Genocide against the #Rohyinga. The case was filed today @CIJ_ICJ by a legal team led by Hon. Aboubacar Tambadou, Attorney General & Minister of Justice of The Gambia. pic.twitter.com/Ui2b8Z1L4i

— Ministry of Justice (@Gambia_MOJ) November 11, 2019

India's annexation of Kashmir is straight out of the Israeli playbook With more than 700,000 Indian soldiers, paramilitary and police in the region, the most militarised region on earth, they argued that Kashmiris were living under client leaders held firm by the might of the Indian military establishment. ........... Revoking article 370 paves the way for a full settler-colonial project in Kashmir, much like Jewish settlements in the West Bank......... This included ending the "privileges" enjoyed by Muslims - even if they were and remain the poorest and most undeveloped community in India. It also included framing Kashmir as one dotted by shrines and temples, and part of Hinduism's glorious past in the Himalayas.......... ... a full settler-colonial project in Kashmir with the next stage likely to involve Hindu-only enclaves, much like Jewish settlements in the West Bank. ........ Pakistan has supported the armed movement, but its security agencies also fear Kashmiri independence as much as India does........ his popularity increases each time Hindu-Muslim tensions rise in the country. He is a master manipulator and puppeteer of majoritarian ambition, scapegoating widespread economic failure to those who fall outside the national project, be it Muslims, or Kashmiris, or those who dare to express dissent.

When it comes to Palestine and Kashmir, India and Israel are oppressors-in-arms The hue of 'democracy' has given India and Israel special gravitas and legitimacy, while human rights violations continue unchecked......... In a back alley in downtown Srinagar, the capital of India-controlled Kashmir, a string of words splashed on a wall reads: "Long Live Palestine". Nearby, "Free Gaza" screams from a shutter on a store. .......... For many Muslims around the world, Palestine holds a special place in their political consciousness. Al-Aqsa Mosque, after all, is one of the most important sites in Islam. Those on the left, whether millennial radicals or grey-bearded Marxists, have also supported the Palestinian cause over the zealous imperialism of Zionist settler-colonialism, ethnic cleansing, displacement and war-mongering........... in Muslim-majority, India-controlled Kashmir, the subjugation of Palestinians is a personal matter - a reminder of their own condition...........

When the last Gaza offensive began in July 2014, Kashmiris took to the streets daily to protest against the Israeli bombardment.

....... Kashmir has been claimed in full by both India and Pakistan since 1947. A de facto border separates the Indian-controlled from the Pakistani-controlled parts of Kashmir. Three out of the four wars fought between the two countries have been over the dispute. ........

with around 700,000 troops amid a population of 14 million, Kashmir is the most militarised place on earth.

....... This is a society harassed by checkpoints and army convoys, terrorised by troops able to operate with impunity under the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, and mired in a legal malaise called the Public Safety Act that allows young boys to be picked up and held indefinitely without charge. This is not dissimilar to the Israeli policy of "administrative detention" that has seen thousands of Palestinians held indefinitely. ............ For years, Indian forces have used lead-plated pellets as a method of "crowd control". These have blinded 1,000 people and wounded 10,000 others, with injuries ranging from torn tissue to internal organ damage............. As if violence was not enough, the Indian state regularly disconnects the internet and telephone services to discourage grassroots organising and the dissemination of information, and to cut off Kashmiri people from the rest of the world. ......... Between 2013 and 2017, India was the largest importer of Israeli arms. Israeli Rafael's Spice 2000 missiles as well as Heron drones reportedly played a significant role in India's recent "surgical strike" in Pakistan on 26 February. Just days before the strike, India ordered 50 more drones in a deal worth $500m.......... Israel has systematically ethnically cleansed Palestinians, taking over their homes, buying off resistance, quelling dissent, and appropriating elements of their culture - even cuisine - as part of a larger bid to remove the Palestinian footprint from these lands. As a result, Palestinians are essentially second-class non-citizens. .............In comparison, India, through a policy of "domestication" - or to use BJP leader Ram Madhav’s words, "instilling India" into Kashmiri Muslims - seeks to make Kashmiri Muslims relinquish their political identities and submit to the larger Indian project.............. They would then become "Indian Muslims," who, by all measures of success and equity in Indian society, are second-class citizens. The end game is to facilitate a demographic shift in Kashmir itself, bringing in more Hindus from India to settle into Kashmir............ Both Israel and India employ a sophisticated, securitised, statist language - parroted by their jingoistic media - that helps to legitimise the occupation, along with related human rights violations and crackdowns. ......... The quick resort to Islamophobia is an easy sell to justify their actions. Just as Israel describes its invasions of Gaza as a "defence" against "radical Islamist" Hamas members, Indians are still able to invoke their international brands of "Gandhi" and "yoga" while unleashing ammunition into protests by Kashmiri youth, saying that they are Pakistan-sponsored terrorists or radical jihadists.............. Israelis famously picnicked on hilltops to watch as the bombs rained down on Gaza in 2014. This week, as Indian jets flew over Pakistani territory to kickstart war, Indian celebrities cheered them on Twitter..............

Just as Israelis or Zionists intimidate academics, journalists and intellectuals who question Israeli policies, so too do the strong, often nationalistic Indian diaspora in media houses and schools around the planet attempt to suppress any discussion of Kashmir.

........... Like Palestinians, many young Kashmiris, powerless in the face of state machinery, have resorted to stone-pelting. The fact that Indian authorities use disproportionate force - including burning down villages, homes and crops of those loosely acquainted with rebel fighters - is also conveniently ignored........... Both Palestine and Kashmir have neighbours operating primarily on self-interest. If Palestine has Jordan and Egypt undermining its cause, Kashmir has Pakistan, which seeks little more than allegiance and a worthy alibi in India to deflect from the real and legitimate concerns of Kashmiris.............. This comes after Kashmiris in various Indian cities were beaten and intimidated by mobs who screamed "Dogs welcome but not Kashmiris," following the attack on paramilitary forces on 14 February. ............ The hue of "democracy" has given both India and Israel special gravitas and legitimacy; their supposed utility - India's economic power and Israeli's technological prowess - for the rest of the world has also granted them a certain immunity. Israel might still have its detractors, while India is still "a lesser evil". But together, they are formidable.

Kashmir Deserves Normalcy https://t.co/bEJX3Ctr2p @narendramodi @AmitShah @BJP4India @PrashantKishor @NitishKumar @RahulGandhi @republic @ImranKhanPTI @PTIofficial @PTIKPOfficial @SMQureshiPTI @priyankagandhi #Kashmir #India #Pakistan #HumanRights #democracy

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) November 27, 2019

Formula For Peace Between Israel And Palestine

• Given that it is wrong for any human being to be stateless, that every human being has a fundamental right to be a citizen of this or that state,
• Given that Israel would like to continue as a Jewish state, 
• Given that there are plenty of countries on earth in the form of enclaves,
• Given that no one group of people can lay claim on Jerusalem,

It is imperative that two states be formed, one Israel, another Palestine, but both be tied into an economic union at birth, having the same currency, and the same central bank, with travel between the two to be mutually determined, that Palestine have the Gaza Strip and the enclaves inside the West Bank, and for territory that used to be the West Bank and now is Israeli settlements, the state of Israel pay into a trust fund for Palestine, an annual sum, to be determined, for the next 50 years, and Jerusalem be given the status of an international city like no other, neither just Israel, or just Palestine, but both and more, and the countries of the region and the world come up with an aid package to lift the battered economy of Palestine going forward.

A Creative Solution To The Palestine Problem
The Stupidity Of The Ayodhya Dispute
Saudi-Iran: Imran Is The Only One Who Can
Hong Kong: Endgame Scenarios

Formula For Peace Between Israel And Palestine https://t.co/UZBvF6bQBd @IsraeliPM @netanyahu @Palestine_UN @un @PalestinePMO @pmofa @asadabukhalil @AliAbunimah @intifada @nadplo @PLO_DPDP @DrHananAshrawi @PalMissionUK @hzomlot @nujoud @972mag #Israel #palestine #peace

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) October 20, 2019

A Creative Solution To The Palestine Problem

The Stupidity Of The Ayodhya Dispute
Saudi-Iran: Imran Is The Only One Who Can
Hong Kong: Endgame Scenarios
New Capitalism Is Techno Capitalism, Hello Marc
Middle East: Cold War, Cold Peace, Warm Peace
The Nation State In Peril

Let's get less ideological about it. Let's get pragmatic. Let's get creative.

Before Zionism: The shared life of Jews and Palestinians There were those who called for unity, such as Jerusalem Mayor Raghib al-Nashashibi, who wanted not to speak of Arabs and Jews, but of Palestinians. Klein debunks the myth according to which the residents of the country before the advent Zionism or the Arab national movement lacked all identity. Instead, he describes a lively and vivacious community with its own traditions and customs, bringing testimonies from Jews, Muslims and foreigners as proof......... Both Zionism and Arab nationalism came to Palestine from outside the country. The two movements developed in the diaspora but both saw the territory between the river and the sea as part of their war for control; they drew borders in a place that had been borderless at the expense of those who lived here. Palestinian residents distinguished between “Arab Jews” — a common identity of Jews who were either born here or in other Arab countries — and Jewish immigrants from Europe who arrived to redefine the land......... The idealistic reality described by Klein seems almost like a dream today. He quotes the memoirs of Ya’akov Elazar from Jerusalem, who remembers how “the Muslim women cooperated respectfully with the customs of the Jewish religion…the Muslim neighbors allowed the Jewish women to pump water necessary before the Sabbath.” Klein also describes how some Muslims even joined their Jewish neighbors in reciting religious prayers. He describes the cheder (a traditional elementary school where the basics of Judaism and the Hebrew language were taught) run by Hacham Gershon in the neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, where Arab parents brought their children so that they would learn how to behave properly. Klein also writes that sexual relations and marriages between Jews and Arabs were not unheard of, even if they were not considered legitimate. ......... when the Ashkenazi Jews immigrated they brought with them their customs, clothing, and lifestyle, and did not adapt to the cultures of Palestine: “They speak Yiddish and maintain the Jewish street accent of their home countries. They are different from their Sephardic brothers not only in language and appearance but also in their worldview.” Or take Palestinian activist Ghada Karmi, who says: “We knew they were different from ‘our Jews,’ I am talking about the Arab Jews. We saw them as foreigners who came from Europe more than as Jews.” ........ the Zionist establishment invented and nurtured the idealistic image of the Jews as Hebrew-speaking tzabars — as opposed to the Arab Jew. The myth of the tzabar was formed by a culture of immigrants who wanted to see themselves as natives. Maps were redrawn and Arab names of places were ignored or changed to Hebrew names. This was done not only to transform the immigrants into natives, but also to inherit the place of those who were here before. When Yosef Shlush, one of the founders of Tel Aviv, complained that he was attacked by Arabs, the heads of Jaffa’s Arab clans responded: “Who is at fault for all these incidents if not the Bolsheviks you brought from Moscow?”........... Salim al-Husseini, the mayor of Jerusalem at the end of the 19th century, is quoted: “This is not a political movement as much as it is a settler movement, and I am sure that not a single intelligent, wise Zionist does not imagine the idea of establishing a Jewish state in Palestine.” Najib Azuri, a Maronite Christian from Lebanon who served in the Ottoman administration in Jerusalem and was one of the harbingers of Arab nationalism, said this in 1905: “Both these movements will be resigned to continually struggle until one wins out, the fate of the entire world rests on the results of this struggle between two nations who represent two opposing principles.” ............ It is not that the first part of the book is bereft of violence, riots, murder, and clashes between groups — but there is some kind of balance. One group kills, the other responds, then they reconcile and go back to living together. Until the next time......... Klein claims that 1948 and 1967 were not two separate wars, but rather two rounds of the same war, basing his theory on a convincing comparison and many testimonies from both Jews and Palestinians. He writes about the expulsion of Palestinian from their homes, which were then re-populated by Jews — both in ’48 and ’67.......... He describes the stories of refugees who returned to visit their homes and properties that were taken in 1947, and the meetings with the new residents who weren’t always happy to see the refugees. Supreme Court Justice Zvi Berenson, who lived in a Palestinian home, refused to show the house to its former owners, claiming that he had invested much money in renovations. A different refugee who arrived at her old home ran into a Jewish immigrant from Poland who argued that the Poles took her old home, in an attempt to justify the fact that she has done the same thing to the Palestinian standing before her......... Even the personal relationships between Jews and Muslims were disrupted by the wars, such as the one between Ishak Musa al-Husseini and his childhood friend Yaacov Yehoshua. Both studied together and remained friends until they were separated by the 1948 war. After ’67, Yehoshua became a top Israeli clerk, while al-Husseini, whose family lived in the West Bank, came to his Jewish friend to ask for help in retrieving his family’s property. Yehoshua decided not to help him, writing in is journal: “It turns out that you have yet to come to terms with the new Jew — the same one you scorned in the past has now become a brave soldier, a tank crewman, a pilot.”...........

a different reality that existed before the rise of Zionism and Palestinian nationalism.

....... just maybe, there is hope for a shared life in this land — after all, that reality already existed. He proposes that the two nations, which have been fighting over the same piece of land for the past 100 years, may just be able to go back to living together.

Right from Kashmir all the way to Palestine, you have one knotty problem after another. There is Kashmir. There is Afghanistan. There is the Iran-Saudi tussle. And then you have the mother of all tussles: Israel-Palestine.

There is the spiritual dimension. And this might be key. The three major religions are all talking about the same God.

Then there is the existential issue for Israel. They have the Holocaust hangover. Never again is their mantra. With countries like Iran still not truly accepting Israel, that country stays paranoid.

And then there is geopolitics. The Middle East geopolitics chessboard is the most complex.

Every human being has a fundamental right to citizenship of this or that country. The Palestinians can not be kept stateless forever. It is wrong to keep them in this limbo.

Is there a one state solution? Will both groups become one country? That does not seem to be the Israeli desire.

So, obviously, you are going to have to create a state for Palestine. Israel already is a state.

As to what shape and size that Palestinian state will be is a question made more complex by the day.