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“Gaza could have become a showcase of Arab enlightenment and enterprise”

Gaza could have become a showcase of Arab enlightenment and enterprise after Israel withdrew from the territory in 2005. It could have become a tourism haven and a crucible for learning and arts, science and technology.

Instead, Gaza has become a one-party Islamic dictatorship under Hamas, dedicated to the destruction of the Jewish state of Israel.

Thousands of precious lives have been lost in this macabre display of hatred disguised as piety.

Its not just Israeli Jews that have been targeted for death. Palestinians opposed to Hamas have been massacred to consolidate its power.

Tarek Fatah, “Stop the Jew-hatred​ and build Palestine”, Toronto Sun (22 July 2014) [Available online at http://www.torontosun.com/2014/07/22/stop-the-jew-hatred-and-build-palestine]

“Disruptive innovation is a theory about why businesses fail. It’s not more than that”

Disruptive innovation is a theory about why businesses fail. It’s not more than that. It doesn’t explain change. It’s not a law of nature. It’s an artifact of history, an idea, forged in time; it’s the manufacture of a moment of upsetting and edgy uncertainty. Transfixed by change, it’s blind to continuity. It makes a very poor prophet.

Jill Lepore, “The Disruption Machine”, The New Yorker (23 June 2014), 36.

“The problem is that death at the movies has died”

The problem is that death at the movies has died. The movie industry has corrupted one of cinema’s — if not all of fiction’s — most emotionally taxing moments into hollow formula, the kind of thing that passes in the blink of a plot point leading to a literal, if not figurative, explosive finale that takes up half the budget

Alexander Huls, “How Hollywood Killed Death”, The New York Times Magazine (20 April 2014), 44.

“when Israel’s security barrier is described with preposterous obscenities like “apartheid wall,” we must make sure people know the facts”

…when Israel’s security barrier is described with preposterous obscenities like “apartheid wall,” we must make sure people know the facts: that 96% of it is a fence, that there are Palestinians and Israelis, Jews, Christians and Muslims on both sides of it; that it was erected as a last resort by a prime minister long opposed to doing so, after more than a thousand Israeli women, men, and children were murdered by suicide bombers in cafes, malls, buses, and Passover seders; and that Israel’s Supreme Court has ordered it moved when it caused unjustified privation. Whatever our views on the security barrier, settlements, and “the occupation,” we are morally obliged to make it clear: that Palestinian terrorism preceded them—they were not its cause; that they are not the conflict’s origins, but its manifestations; and that they will not be resolved by boycotts, denunciations, or unilateral measures, but only by a permanent peace agreement that the parties alone can achieve.

Rabbi Richard A. Block, “How Should Rabbis Speak About Israel?”, The Tower Magazine, Issue 14 (May 2014) {http://www.thetower.org/article/rabbis-speak-israel-2/}

Rabbi Chaim Richman: “Do I have to apologize for the fact that Islam squatted on that spot?”

Asked about when and exactly how he envisions a Third Temple, Rabbi Richman demurs. That’s a political question he says that depends on when the “when the people are ready” to rebuild. As for the geopolitical fallout, he believes Israel shouldn’t be viewed as the problem in such a scenario, saying, “Do I have to apologize for the fact that Islam squatted on that spot?”

Joshua Mitnick, “Mounting A Challenge To The Status Quo”, The Jewish Week (11 April 2014), 35.

Use it or Lose it?: “We’ve given the impression that we don’t hold the Temple Mount dear, and we don’t care under whose sovereignty it happens to be.”

In recent weeks, a group of Religious Zionist rabbis signed a letter urging the government to erect a synagogue on the Temple Mount. One of the signatories was Rabbi Shlomo Riskin, the chief rabbi of Efrat and former leading New York spiritual leader, who said that even though he believes in a two-state solution and that a unilateral move would spark a war, a peace agreement should include a deal to add a place for Jewish prayer on the complex.

“I don’t think the government has made as much of a statement as it should have made that this is a holy shrine and we should be able to pray there,” he said. “My American experience teaches me that if you don’t use it you lose it. We’ve given the impression that we don’t hold the Temple Mount dear, and we don’t care under whose sovereignty it happens to be.”

Joshua Mitnick, “Mounting A Challenge To The Status Quo”, The Jewish Week (11 April 2014), 35.

“many Israelis see the demise of the country as not just possible, but probable. The State of Israel has been established, not its permanence”

…many Israelis see the demise of the country as not just possible, but probable. The State of Israel has been established, not its permanence. The most common phrase in Israeli political discourse is some variation of “If X happens (or doesn’t), the state will not survive!” Those who assume that Israel will always exist as a Zionist project should consider how quickly the Soviet, Pahlavi Iranian, apartheid South African, Baathist Iraqi and Yugoslavian states unraveled, and how little warning even sharp-eyed observers had that such transformations were imminent.

In all these cases, presumptions about what was “impossible” helped protect brittle institutions by limiting political imagination. And when objective realities began to diverge dramatically from official common sense, immense pressures accumulated.

Ian S. Lustick, “The Two-State Illusion”, The New York Times (15 September 2013), SR6.

“the ים של שלמה was the greatest intellectual endeavor in Jewish history”

Probably, the ים של שלמה was the greatest intellectual endeavor in Jewish history; meaning: what he tried to do was kind of more courageous than any book in Jewish history. He wanted to review all halakhic literature up to the year 1550 – that’s what he wanted to do. No one’s ever tried to do anything like that, but, sometimes, we say in English, “you bite off more than you can chew.” He bit off more than he could chew and, therefore, מהרש”ל is interesting to study, historically; practically, he’s not really relevant.

Rabbi Adam Mintz, “The Battles Of The Polish Rabbis Regarding The Methods Of Codification”, RabbiMintz.com (31 January 2012) {http://www.rabbimintz.com/audio/the-battles-of-the-polish-rabbis-regarding-the-methods-of-codification/}

“Putin’s current tactics for social control are cunning and effective”

Putin’s current tactics for social control are cunning and effective. His popularity rating––a vexed statistic in an authoritarian country––is at eighty per cent. “For less sophisticated people, he relies on brainwashing,” Guriev said. “For more sophisticated but less honest people, he needs to bribe them. For honest, sophisticated people, he uses repression.” The President doesn’t much care if he has pushed an independent mind like Guriev out of the country. He knows that his real cronies––the men from the K.G.B., from his judo club, from Ozero, his dacha co-op near St. Petersburg––have nowhere to go. They will either suffer the Western sanctions, which could cut into their billions, or make the highly dangerous move of plotting against their patron.

David Remnick, “Putin and the Exile”, The New Yorker (28 April 2014), 20.