The Philosophy Now Forum

Zionism contained within it the seeds of its own unraveling right from the start. Zionism is just one more aspect of Jewish Fate — a fate really unlike any other that I am aware of. Jewish Fate is tragic and by dint of its very definitions must always be tragic. Zionism is, in this sense, a fantasy of resolving Jewish fate and Jewish tragedy, so completely baked-in the Jewish identity. As I have said a dozen times: Jewish history is not over, though it seemed that Israeli nationalism would end the calamities of Jewish Fate.

Fact: as long as there is Jewish Identity there will be all that attends Jewish fate. Double-down on Jewish identification (and turbo-charge it with Zionist militancy) and it it is like quicksand: it sucks you down into the mortal struggle. That has become the existential battle that defines Israel today. It takes the form that all political extremism must take: it becones (excuse the glossary term) fascistic. That is, if you will, the “mood” that allowed the immense destructive of Gaza to occur. And when the (pulverized concrete) dust settles, Judaism, diaspora Jewry, and Israel will have to deal with that. Heaven only knows how that will be dealt with.

This is something that both Janoah and Novak cannot, it seems to me, even begin to consider. Yet they are stake-holders because technically they are Jews. So Israel is consequential. But to the others? It is a vague idea really. There is no real investment in the exigencies of nationalism.

Gary, Lacewing, Seeds — these are in one sense “stateless people”. Gary especially cannot have any sort of nationalistic identity nor the responsibilities of “ownership interest”. I sympathize. For a man without attachments or responsibilities, and consumed by psychological angst, looking out the window is itself agony. Similarly, M. Seeds looks out the window and sees only the horrors of a nightmarish dream — from which it is only verbally, and with fantastic elipses (…) possible to escape. Lacewing naturally chimes in because conversationally to give assent to M. Seeds ur-idealism gives her “winning ground”.

Janoah however cannot escape the exigencies of reality. He is, essentially, a propagandist in this conversation. Because he is living Zionist nationalism. The sirens are heard daily, both as metaphor and in daily life. In this sense ‘his back is against the wall’. Can he ‘tell the truth’? Of course not!

Only Alexis Jacobi can realistically establish the parameters of a realistic conversation. Because he floats miles & miles above the earth, like a wondrous blimp of concentrated clarifying intelligence …

Gary appears to have some "ownership interest" in the US.

Obviously, you have differences on how that manifests.

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Sun Sep 27, 2026 12:07 am

Janoah wrote: ↑Sun Sep 27, 2026 12:05 am One moment, Gary, have you written the letter to the ayatollahs yet? Otherwise, it turns out to be "we've been working hard."

Huh? Where does "we've been working hard" fit into anything? I don't see a coherent point to answer.

***we can dump Trump***

Gary, WE can't until you write a letter!
But since there is no longer a need for war, but only diplomacy, the position of the commander-in-chief of the army can be reduced and the money distributed to the proletariat!

..

MikeNovack wrote: ↑Sat Sep 26, 2026 11:30 pm

Janoah wrote: ↑Sat Sep 26, 2026 11:22 pm . On Khamenei's orders, more than 30,000 protesters were killed, including 226 children.

/unbelievably good avoidance of killing children.

It's probably time for you to write a laudatory letter to Khamenei in hell, he'll be delighted!
But it seems that planes are not flying there now, due to Trump's sanctions.

mickthinks wrote: ↑Sun Sep 27, 2026 10:42 am

Walker wrote: ↑Sun Sep 27, 2026 12:15 am Those countries who privately thank the US and Israel, but then walk out of the UN …

There’s Walker repeating Netanyahu’s bullsh*t as if it were gospel truth. The derangement is strong with this one.

Netanyahu does not speak bullshit.
mickthinks does speak bullshit.

Take it to the bank.

phyllo wrote: ↑Sun Sep 27, 2026 12:41 pm Gary appears to have some "ownership interest" in the US.

Obviously, you have differences on how that manifests.

Actually, and I think honestly, he does not have “ownership interest”. He is part of a large population that are alienated.

Comment: In addition to being notoriously bad international neighbors, the Islamists are not so nice to their own, either.

To paraphrase a resident war strategist, who knows nothing of the power dynamics of the middle east, and who has no access to classified information ... If those Islamist idiots, the actual rulers of Iran, would just step aside and allow intelligent people to take over …

Center for Human Rights in Iran
September 24, 2026
https://iranhumanrights.org/2026/09/un- ... -protests/#

UN: Iranian Authorities Committed Crimes Against Humanity in January 2026 Suppression of Nationwide Protests

Key Findings of the FFMI’s September 2026 report:
1. A significant escalation in lethal repression

2.Security forces used lethal force against people who posed no imminent threat

3. Children were among those killed and seriously injured

4.Authorities interfered with medical treatment and targeted healthcare workers

5.The nationwide Internet shutdown obstructed communication and access to information

6. Large-scale arrests, detention and torture

7.Authorities interfered with the burial and mourning of those killed

8.The death penalty was intensified as a tool of repression

9.Children were sentenced to death

10. The Mission’s central legal finding: crimes against humanity
The Mission finds that many of the gross human rights violations committed by the Iranian authorities amount to crimes against humanity, including: murder; imprisonment and other severe deprivation of physical liberty; torture; and other inhumane acts.

The Mission concludes that these acts were committed as part of a “widespread and systematic attack directed against a civilian population”—namely protesters, including children, their supporters and perceived dissenting or opposing actors, including members of political groups, civil society organizations and professional associations—and therefore amount to crimes against humanity under international law.

Overall conclusion
The Mission concludes that the Iranian Government’s response to the 2025/26 protests was a significant escalation in the scale of killings and violence, the severing of communications, the use of repressive laws and the increasing use of the death penalty.

Its findings establish a pattern extending from the streets to hospitals, prisons, courtrooms and the treatment of victims’ families: lethal force against protesters and bystanders; severe injuries, including permanent blindness; interference with medical care; mass arrests; torture and ill-treatment; restrictions on information and communications; interference with mourning; and executions following proceedings that frequently violated fair-trial guarantees.

Most importantly, the Mission concludes that many of these violations amount to crimes against humanity, committed as part of a widespread and systematic attack directed against a civilian population. For the full report, see here.

(continued)

Imagine such a neighbor
Committing more atrocities against their own
Staging them for anti-West propaganda …
… it isn’t hard to do.

Nor is it difficult to imagine a Lefty rag eagerly gobbling up the propa.

A UN report which is critical of Iran. Good.

A UN report which is critical of Israel. Bad.

A UN report which is critical of the US. Terrible.

LOL

Reasoning based on observable facts about the Iranian Islamists,
their national and international victims,
and their apologists.

Priceless.

:Thumbsup:

Walker wrote: ↑Sun Sep 27, 2026 1:18 pm Netanyahu does not speak bullshit.

Former Mossad chief Meir Dagan lambasted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a Channel 2 interview previewed Thursday, calling his speech before Congress “bullshit,” Times of Israel

Netanyahu is full of it, and Walker defends it because he’s a shill for fascism.

***Former Mossad chief Meir Dagan lambasted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a Channel 2 interview previewed Thursday, calling his speech before Congress “bullshit,” Times of Israel***


This was said by a former military commander in 2015.
Quite a few of these exes start to go crazy on their way to politics.

In the years since 2015, everything Netanyahu said has only been confirmed.
Israel and the world should be grateful to Netanyahu, despite the obstruction and bullying from within and from without that he has endured, he has been able to boost the economy and defeat global Islamist terrorism.

Janoah wrote: ↑Sun Sep 27, 2026 3:05 pm Israel and the world should be grateful to Netanyahu, despite the obstruction and bullying from within and from without that he has endured, he has been able to boost the economy and defeat global Islamist terrorism.

More truthfully, when examined without prejudice and bias, the establishment of Israel, and its on-going expansionist project, has been nothing but trouble for the region. What most (Gentiles) do not grasp is that both the consolidation of Jewish presence in the US, largely unencumbered and welcome by the native population, was for world Jewry a first in its long, troubled history. Never before had the “doors” so to speak been so open when the history of Judaism is examined.

For this reason the United States is the most vital element in the new, Zionist phase of Jewish history. It is a “strategic holding” and this explains why the native population of the US has become vitally concerned for the power-plays of Israeli Zionists and US native Jewish Zionists. I doubt you-plural pay much attention but the critique of (as they might put it) the “Jewish Zionist take-over” of American state policy in the ME is now a common conception. Naturally, the critique is bashed as “anti-Semitism” but the fact is that, if anything, the critique was outlined by diaspora Jews.

There is a very significant and consequential power-play occurring in our present which dovetails with global power-machinations, and this has to do with who will control American policies in the ME, and specifically vis-a-vis Israel. Then, there is an overarching issue of the US consolidation of its dominance in its hemisphere. That explains Venezuela (a conquest of a vital energy region with immense relevance in the next decades) and the whole Greenland thing. And Canada: a region also of vital US interest. Too bad that Trump is so brazen, so completely non-subtle in his manoeuvres. But really these are structural interests of the US planners and power-brokers.

In the power-play over a regional power like Iran, which cannot or will not bend its knee to a particular international order, it must necessarily be weakened, controlled or eliminated. But as Meershiemer points out, the badly conducted (failed) attack on Iran allowed Iran to grab hold of a regional power it had less of previously. It is a minor nation but now has a role far in excess of its importance and power. It is likely that simply from a strict business perspective (“the Shelves of Walmart”) that Iran lose and Israel, somehow, manage to “win”. But as I say, and all of you should be aware, Israel is in the midst of an existential crisis the like of which it has never confronted.

So, a valid (though perilous) area of consideration, and certainly this is a major conversation among influential Jews, and you can bet also by the Israeli state apparatus and its crucial intelligence-military establishment, is How will this predicament for Israel be settled? The plan of course (as stated by the Apparatus) is to gain editorial control over the media entities that distribute viewpoints.

For this and for so many other reasons we must see and under We are in a time of war, but 4th and 5th generation warfare. I do not think you (‘a person’) can trust even their own perceptions simply because the battlefield is exactly that: the field of perception.

Ask this: Is it “better” that Iran (somehow) falls and the present régime remodeled? Or is it “better” that Iran consolidate and increase its power? The ‘game’ being played by China and Russia is to use Iran as a proxy to weaken the US. Except in truth China certainly depends on a vital US. It also has a stake in the reestablishment of an order conducive to business.

How can Israel be in an existential crisis when it is making significant progress in Gaza, the West bank and Lebanon?

And it has lost no significant support from the US. It still gets funds and armaments and it still has the US veto in the UN.