Re: Nate Friedman versus fake protestors

On 2025-05-28 1:41 PM, Adam H. Kerman wrote:

Rhino <no_offline_contact@example.com> wrote:

On 2025-05-28 3:36 AM, Adam H. Kerman wrote:

Adam H. Kerman <ahk@chinet.com> wrote:

 

In Providence RI, Jewish city council member flies Paleetinian flag at
city hall (illegal to fly a foreign flag on a public flagpole under
state law), and encounters pro-Israel protestors, who speak to him, and
pro-Palestinian protestors, some of whom hide their identity. He begins
to suspect some of the Palestinian protestors are being paid.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQRqg-kkMrY

 

That makes no sense.

 

How so? . . .

 I left words out and had to rewrite it.
 

Nate Friedman is in Providence, RI. He finds a Palestinian flag at city
hall put up by a Jewish city council member . . .

 

I'm sure I've heard of far left Jews in Israel who support the
Palestinian cause. In that case, it's not so hard to believe some
American Jews would have the same views where its easier since they are
not in anywhere near the same danger as Israelis.

 In Israel, the politics of Left and Right, as understood in Europe, have
no meaning. Unlike too many other places, Kibbutzim were literally
agricultural communes, an implementation of pure communism, nothing like
the political distortions that gave the world Lenin and Stalin and Mao,
in which both deliberate and failed state policies would result in
starvation deaths in the 10s of millions, plus routine large scale
slaughter through state murders. Israel, decades before the creation of
the state, had the Histadrut, sort of a universal labor union that today
provides health insurance services and other fringe benefits. Anywhere
else in the world, the Israeli Labor Party would be seen as well to the
right of anything directly or indirectly influenced by Leninism or later
forms of communism.
 There's no Left versus Right with regard to the army. Everybody supports
the army. There's no Right with regard opposing progressivism. The
religious tend to keep to themselves and are not part of the Left or Right
for the most part, and the religious parties only once, briefly, held
Prime Minister during that power-sharing government that briefly took
office away from Netanyahu. The religious parties tend to form
coalitions with whichever party can form the government and they get
what they want: Legal enforcement of the Sabbath (El Al does not fly on
Saturday for example), rabbinical students don't get draft, no civil
laws on marriage, etc.
 Left versus Right tends to be about little more than the degree to
which punitive measures are taken with regard to the occupation.
Everybody pretty much both recognizes the occupation as a complete
failure but withdrawing from occupation of Gaza was also a complete
failure.
 There are Israeli Jews who want to live in peace with the Arabs,
especially the very people murdered, kidnapped, and raped in the October
7 attack. There are Israeli Jews who have criticized the harshness of
occupation tactics used by the army in the West Bank. There is plenty of
criticism of the Settlements. But each and every time in the last couple
of decades there might have been an Israeli government elected willing
to bend over backwards, a la the Oslo Accords, in support of a
two-state solution, the Palestinians can be counted on to stir up just
enough unrest and trouble, with terrorist attacks, that Israeli voters
will not elect another such government.
 Netanyahu entirely owes his political career to Palestinian terrorism.
 There have always been Religions Zionists (versus Political Zionists,
supporters of the creation of the modern state of Israel) who live there
without supporting the modern state of Israel itself as not part of
Bible prophecy, but they are sure as hell not in support of the
Palestinian cause.
 But only outside Israel are there willingly duped and deluded Jews (and
plenty of others who truly should know better) who ignore a radicalized
Arab group that utterly lacks rational ambitions, who cannot see acts of
terrorism and war, and utterly blame Israel for the fact that there is
no Palestinian state within the pre-1967 boundaries or if the state of
Israel were still to exist. I don't think there are too many living in
Israel apologizing for or supporting terrorism and acts of war. There
are Arab Israelis who sure as hell don't want to live in Arab states.
 I think living with terrorism and the results of terrorism, and building
design in large cities set up to thwart bombing attacks at building
entrances largely mitigates against entertaining any stray thoughts that
anything good and peaceful can come of terrorist tactics.

Fair enough; my phrasing was probably a little too generic in terms of characterizing people as left or right given the historical (and current) situation in Israel.
One of the women interviewed by Nate Friedman - she was Jewish and carried a sign supporting the protesters and got interviewed toward the end - identified herself as belonging to a group of American Jews that called for an end to the attacks on Gaza. I'd heard of this group before for similar actions but I'm blanking on the name of the group right now and can't spare another 40 minutes to watch the video again. I imagine you know which group I mean.
I've also heard people like Douglas Murray and Melanie Phillips stating their opposition to certain Israeli Jews that seemed more than a little sympathetic to the Palestinian cause and their aspirations. I wish I could remember the names of these individuals but it was many months ago that I saw those videos. (Norman Finkelstein *might* be one of the names but he could have been someone mentioned in a totally different context.) Not having heard directly from the individuals in question, I'm at a loss to give specifics of what they propose. I don't suppose they'd be keen on a full Hamas conquest of Israel (unless they're clinically insane) but their views were characterized as excessively sympathetic to the Arabs in Gaza, Judea and Samaria.
One question about the religious Jews. Didn't the Knesset vote to end the exemption of religious Jews from the IDF around a year ago? I seem to remember seeing that in the news. It was supposed to come into effect within a few days and they were anticipating significant resistance from the religious Jews. But then I never heard about any resistance so I'm wondering if the government backed away from that? Or did the religious Jews (Haredi? Or am I misusing that term?) have a change of heart and turn up at the IDF ready to begin training without protest?
--
Rhino