“Part of this Israel-Hamas war reminded me of the “Trolley Problem” — a speculative puzzle that incorporates inaction as a consequential option in a moral choice”

Posted on February 24, 2024 by ArchitectGuy

FUTURE OF JEWISH
Can you hear the runaway trolley in Gaza?
Yishai Jusidman
February 24, 2024

…In philosopher Philippa Foot’s original 1967 outline, a runaway trolley is on a downhill course about to hit and kill five people down its main track, yet the trolley can be diverted by its driver to a side-track, such that one person on that track would otherwise be killed. What should the driver do? Divert the trolley to the side-track, or avoid intervening at all? To what extent would the driver be held responsible by diverting the trolley or refraining from doing so? Much ink has been spilled over whether doing nothing amounts, in this case, to doing something. Most people’s gut reaction to the basic Trolley Problem is: Do something! Divert the trolley and save a net of four lives — all lives being equally sacred. For the protestors in pursuit of an immediate ceasefire in the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, there is no mystery either…READ MORE

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Days after the Hamas onslaught, filmmaker Duki Dror headed to the devastated rave site near Re’im. It is now his mission to show the world ‘Supernova: The Music Festival Massacre’

Posted on February 23, 2024 by ArchitectGuy

TIMES OF ISRAEL
Documentary on October 7 Supernova festival massacre makes US debut
Rich Tenorio
February 23, 2024

Just three days after the October 7 Hamas terror onslaught on Israel, longtime Israeli filmmaker Duki Dror visited the location of an infamous massacre from that Saturday morning — the site of the Supernova music festival. Dror is a veteran documentarian, and his films have tended toward geopolitical subjects in recent years. Now he took on a more visceral subject. Four months after that first visit to the Supernova site, he brought the finished film to the United States: “Supernova: The Music Festival Massacre.” “It was really tough,” Dror told The Times of Israel. “I think it’s the hardest film I ever made. I did a few in my career. This one was really tough, really hard emotionally.” Just under an hour in length, “Supernova” conveys the terror of the massacre at the rave, which came as thousands of Hamas-led terrorists launched a widespread onslaught into southern Israel, butchering 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and abducting 253 more, while committing horrific acts of brutality including rape, torture, dismemberment and mutilation. READ MORE

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Rachel Goldberg-Polin’s son, Hersh, was kidnapped on Oct. 7 and his family has had no word of him since

Posted on February 23, 2024 by ArchitectGuy

WALL STREET JOURNAL
‘Stay Strong. Survive.’ The Mother Who Became the Face of Hostage Advocacy
Elizabeth Bernstein
February 20, 2024

Rachel Goldberg-Polin numbers her days. On Day Seven, she spoke to President Biden on a Zoom call. On Day 37, she was forced to wear her hair down for a TV interview after she lost her hair clip. On Day 88, a college student asked her a question no one else had thought to ask: “What can we do to ease your pain?” Day One was Oct. 7. That’s when her 23-year-old son, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, an American-Israeli, was severely injured in the attack on the Tribe of Nova music festival in Israel, then kidnapped and taken to the Gaza Strip. “My son was stolen,” she says. Rachel, who is 54, was a teacher and a mom when she woke up that morning, the kind who baked chocolate-chip cookies from scratch, then warmed them up individually when her children came home from school at different times. READ MORE

COMMENTARY How the Free World Is Failing the Hostages Nobody in the British government, MP Andrew Percy said to the House of Commons last week, “has any business [or] agency at all in telling the state of Israel where it is able to operate to seek to rescue hostages who are being raped by Islamic terrorists who hold them.” The clip of Percy’s speech—which included other noteworthy lines—quickly made the rounds on social media precisely because it stood out. But it shouldn’t have. Every politician in the free West should talk this way.

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Mark Twain: “The Jew saw them all, beat them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert and aggressive mind”

Posted on February 23, 2024 by ArchitectGuy

GATESTONE
Tribute to Samuel Clemens, Pen Name Mark Twain
Lawrence Kadish
February 25, 2024

…Yet there have always been strong, courageous voices outside the Jewish community that have pushed back against the bigotry. Consider the essay of Mark Twain who, in 1899 wrote an essay in the publication Harper’s that is relevant today as it was at the turn of that century. An excerpt reveals his insight:

“If the statistics are right, the Jews constitute but one per cent. of the human race. It suggests a nebulous dim puff of star-dust lost in the blaze of the Milky Way. Properly the Jew ought hardly to be heard of; but he is heard of, has always been heard of. He is as prominent on the planet as any other people, and his commercial importance is extravagantly out of proportion to the smallness of his bulk. His contributions to the world’s list of great names in literature, science, art, music, finance, medicine, and abstruse learning are also away out of proportion to the weakness of his numbers. He has made a marvelous fight in this world, in all the ages; and has done it with his hands tied behind him. READ MORE

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This will likely not impact New York State 2024 election results but, if accurate, an interesting data point

Posted on February 23, 2024 by ArchitectGuy

JNS
Majority of New York Jewish voters intend to vote for Trump
Andrew Bernard
February 21, 2024

A poll of registered New York voters suggests that a majority of Jews in the state intend to vote for former President Donald Trump in the presidential election in November. New York Jews now favor Trump over President Joe Biden 53 per cent to 44 per cent, according to the Siena College poll, released on Tuesday. Jews in the state said that they intend to continue to back Democrats over Republicans 54 per cent to 39 per cent in congressional elections. The poll has an overall margin of error of 4.2 percentage points in either direction, which means that a gap of 8.4 percentage points could potentially be dead even. READ MORE

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US veto of UN Security Council ceasefire resolution prevented the world body from dictating a Hamas victory. Still, the administration’s alternative is almost as dangerous.

Posted on February 22, 2024 by ArchitectGuy

JNS
Biden’s ‘help’ at the UN will put Israeli lives at risk
Jonathan S Tobin
February 22, 2024

Once again, President Joe Biden came to the rescue of Israel at the U.N. Security Council. The administration’s decision to veto a resolution sponsored by Algeria calling for an immediate ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hamas was condemned by most members of the world body, as well as many in the president’s own Democratic Party. But it was lauded by both the State of Israel and its supporters. It was the third time since the start of the current conflict that Washington had cast the sole “no” vote on a resolution that would have halted the fighting. Any resolution that forces Israel to stop its counter-offensive into Gaza before the complete defeat of the terrorists who began the current conflict with the largest mass murder of Jews since the Holocaust will enable Hamas not merely to survive but essentially to win the war it started. READ MORE

ARUTZ SHEVA Netanyahu presents: The plan for ‘the day after Hamas’ Prime Minister Netanyahu brings before the Cabinet his proposal for the “day after” Hamas, which includes the shutting down of UNRWA…There will be a complete demilitarization in the Gaza Strip of any military capacity, beyond what is required for the needs of maintaining public order. The responsibility for realizing this goal and overseeing its existence in the foreseeable future is given to Israel. On the civil level – as much as possible, the civil administration and responsibility for public order in the Gaza Strip will be based on local officials with administrative experience. These local entities will not be identified with countries or entities that support terrorism and will not receive payment from them.

FDD BRIEF Evacuated Israelis May Return to Homes Near Gaza The Israeli government authorized residents of evacuated Israeli communities on the Gaza Strip to return to their homes on February 22. The advisory reflects the success of the Gaza offensive in degrading the rocket and armed incursion capabilities of Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist groups. The Israeli military said that communities located at least two miles away from the Gaza border no longer face a security threat that warrants residents staying away. The military issued a similar advisory for 18 communities within two miles of the border while noting the continuing risk of short-range mortar attacks.

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“Hamas forced some families in kibbutzim to witness the rape or sexual assault of their own family members, in their own homes”

Posted on February 19, 2024 by ArchitectGuy

NATIONAL REVIEW
Hamas’s ‘Sadistic’ Sexual Assault Detailed by Israel’s Rape Crisis Centers
Haley Strack
February 21, 2024

Hamas sexually assaulted Israeli women “in all arenas” where the October 7 massacre took place, the Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel revealed in a recent report. The ARCCI is an “umbrella organization for the nine regional Rape Crisis Centers (RCCs)” in Israel, its website says, and the organization provides support for victims of sexual abuse. The report details Hamas’s onslaught at the Nova music festival at which terrorists gang-raped, mutilated, and beat women. When bodies arrived at morgues from the festival, some were reportedly partially clothed or unclothed and were still bleeding from their pelvic areas.  Kibbutzim in the south, where Hamas broke into homes and murdered whole families, were the site of horrific sexual assaults. Hamas slaughtered around 10 percent of the population in Kibbutz Be’eri and raped women and girls in their bedrooms, while some were “partially dressed in their pajamas,” the ARCCI reported based on several testimonies. READ MORE

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Former Canadian PM Harper: “It is foolish to think a two-state solution will emerge while so many Palestinians still reject the existence of a Jewish state”

Posted on February 19, 2024 by ArchitectGuy

NATIONAL POST
Israel’s war is just, Hamas must surrender or be eliminated
Stephen J. Harper
February 18, 2024

…This was not random murder. It was more than some settling of inter-communal scores. It was beyond even brutal military action. These were acts of extermination — the killing of no mere enemy, but of those who, in the killers’ eyes, were less than human, whose very existence was to be viewed as a scourge. It was, in short, the urge to commit genocide at its most evil. This may not have been a Holocaust in scale, but it was in kind. And, for the Israeli nation, born as it was in the shadow of the Holocaust, it can be interpreted no other way. Nor can this be regarded as some isolated episode of anti-Israeli violence. It was the consequence of decades of institutionalized antisemitic indoctrination of a population — indoctrination to the point where such murderous acts become regarded as not merely expedient or tolerable, but as necessary and praiseworthy. READ MORE

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“AP willfully chose to turn a blind eye to these facts, and instead profited from its terrorist photographer’s participation in the massacre”

Posted on February 18, 2024 by ArchitectGuy

NEW YORK POST
Oct. 7 survivors sue AP for hiring freelance photographers ‘embedded with Hamas terrorists’
Susan Edelman and Allie Griffin
February 21, 2024

Several survivors of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel have accused the Associated Press in a new lawsuit of aiding and abetting the terrorist organization by using freelance photojournalists believed to be embedded with the violent militants. The plaintiffs — Israeli-Americans and Americans who attended the Nova music festival raided by Hamas as well as loved ones of victims — are suing the news outlet for damages under the Antiterrorism Act, according to the federal complaint filed in the Southern District of Florida Wednesday night. They are being represented by lawyers working with the nonprofit National Jewish Advocacy Center who accuse the major media company of “materially supporting terrorism” by paying alleged Hamas-associated photojournalists for images captured during and immediately after the Oct. 7 invasion. READ MORE

JPOST NYT journalist accused of infiltrating into Israel on Oct. 7 wins award The organization said they won for “chronicling Israel’s bombardment and invasion of their homeland, Gaza. The two photographed the conflict from its opening hours on Oct. 7.”

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Melanie Phillips joined the CAMERA group to view scenes of the October 7 atrocities, one of them Kfar Aza.

Posted on February 18, 2024 by ArchitectGuy

MELANIE PHILLIPS SUBSTACK
Never again
February 15, 2025

I made a pilgrimage this week to the the area of the south-western Negev that was devastated by the Hamas pogrom on October 7…The eerie silence of Kibbutz Kfar Aza, whose once idyllic aspect is still visible through its shrubs and spacious landscaping despite the wrecked and deserted houses…Further into Kfar Aza, the scene is very different. This is not tranquil. This is a place of the utmost horror. These houses are laid out in neat rows with neighbours facing each other across the pathway. In two of these double rows, the inhabitants of every single house were murdered or kidnapped. Not one house was spared. Every house is wrecked. Outside each one are pictures of the murdered or the kidnapped who had lived there. Most are taped off. Every house has symbols painted on the outside by those who came to retrieve the remains of the slaughtered. A circle with a dot, we are told, means a body or body parts were inside. READ MORE

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