One reason I object to Israel’s behavior is that it brings anti-Semitic creeps out of the woodwork. Thanks a lot, Israel.
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Production Precedes Distribution
The progress of civilization has meant the reduction of employment, not its increase. It is because we have become increasingly wealthy as a nation that we have been able to virtually eliminate child labor, to remove the necessity of work for many of the aged and to make it unnecessary for millions of women to take jobs. A much smaller proportion of the American population needs to work than that, say, of China or of Russia. The real question is not whether there will be 50,000,000 or 60,000,000 jobs in America in 1950, but how much shall we produce, and what, in consequence, will be our standard of living?
The problem of distribution, on which all the stress is being put today, is after all more easily solved the more there is to distribute.
We can clarify our thinking if we put our chief emphasis where it belongs—on policies that will maximize production.
– Henry Hazlitt, Economics in One Lesson
Is Israel Our Ally?
While I was sleeping, did “our representatives” in the U.S. Senate ratify an alliance treaty with Israel, complete with a NATO-style Article 5, obligating us to defend Israel if attacked?
Haaretz: IDF Bombed Aid Convoy on Approved Route
Haaretz has more details on IDF drone strikes that killed seven international aid workers on Monday night.
The victims included two US-Canadian dual-national Palestinians and five citizens of Australia, Poland and the UK. (Edit: World Central Kitchen – the NGO that employed the aid workers – has since identified those killed and clarified their nationalities: one US-Canadian, a local Palestinian, three UK nationals and citizens of Australia and Poland.)
Per IDF sources cited by the newspaper, Israeli forces had approved the convoy’s route, but suddenly realized a single “terrorist“ was present and had to be executed immediately. A Hermes 450 drone proceeded to methodically bomb all three vehicles in the convoy, one after another, killing all of its passengers.
They did not include the nameless “terrorist.“ He remains at large, “ostensibly armed.“
Israeli military sources say the convoy was hit by 3 drone strikes while driving along an approved route in clearly marked vehicles.
The IDF unit in charge of securing the route thought it was bombing an “ostensibly armed” “terrorist.” No name given. pic.twitter.com/AWRgQWJCVg
— Will Porter (@TheWillPorter) April 2, 2024
One source claims (questionably) that IDF is “trying [its] hardest” to avoid killing civilians, but says he’s annoyed that field units end up bombing targets with no military value. pic.twitter.com/GZsryxi0Bd
— Will Porter (@TheWillPorter) April 2, 2024
Israel Gives Cover to Anti-Semites
Israel identifies itself as the Jewish state and claims to represent “the Jewish people” everywhere, not only Jewish Israelis. Thus Israel’s atrocious treatment of the Muslim and Christian Palestinians at least tacitly encourages the anti-Semites, who are eager to point to anything they can describe as bad acts committed by “the Jewish people.” The Jewish state equals the Jewish people — that’s what they’ve been told. (It’s not true.)
In other words, Israel’s own definition of itself and its own treatment of the Palestinians ratify the anti-Semites’ crazy ideas about the malevolence and collective guilt of all Jewish people. The anti-Semites are encouraged to ignore the super-large number of Jewish people outside of Israel who vociferously oppose both Israel’s self-identification and its oppression of the Palestinians.
Israel then makes matters worse by conflating the rotten but fringe anti-Semitism it encourages with sincere anti-Zionism (principled opposition to Israel and by implication any ethno-state). That in turn gives cover to the crazy anti-Semites, who can hide in plain sight among the anti-Zionists, Jews included.
Israel encourages and then protects the anti-Semites!
You’d think that would be a bad thing. And it is. So why do Israel’s leaders and supporters make it happen?
Oriental Despotism Israel Slaughters Aid Kitchen Workers
They do things like this because they think it’s hilarious fun to slaughter and starve innocent people.
Post Discovers Apartheid
In Afghanistan.
Anti-War Quote from 400 B.C.
To kill one man is to be guilty of a capital crime, to kill ten men is to increase the guilt tenfold, to kill a hundred men is to increase it a hundredfold. This the rulers of the earth all recognize, and yet when it comes to the greatest crime — waging war on another state — they praise it!… If a man on seeing a little black were to say it is black, but on seeing a lot of black were to say it is white, it would be clear that such a man could not distinguish black and white… So those who recognize a small crime as such, but do not recognize the wickedness of the greatest crime of all… cannot distinguish right and wrong.
– Mozi (470–391 B.C.), Condemnation of Offensive War I, Book V
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