תקראו את הדברים החשובים של יובל בלומברג: מדינת ישראל נמצאת בסכנה קיומית אמיתית ומוחשית. אם האיראנים ישיגו גרעין, שום דבר כבר לא ישנה יותר. הכל כל כך טפל אל מול הסכנה הקיומית של איראן והציר השיעי. הסערות המבוימות והמומצאות חדשות לבקרים נועדו להסיט את תשומת הלב מהדבר האחד שהוא החשוב ביותר: סיום העבודה באיראן. זה נוגע בקיום הפיזי של כל אדם ואדם כאן. יש לנו עוד שנתיים של טראמפ לסיים את העבודה באיראן, ואין לדעת מה יהיה לאחר מכן, אם זו תהיה קמאלה האריס, או תואם מאמדני כלשהו. זה חלון הזמן שנותר לנו כדי להשלים את העבודה הנדרשת כדי להבטיח את הקיום הפיזי שלנו לשנים הבאות. כל משאבי המדינה הנדרשים, צריכים להיות מושקעים במשימה הזו. קטאר, חרדים, אוריך, גיוס, התראות. הכל מסך עשן ענקי כדי להסתיר את הנושא היחיד שניצב מעל כולם בפער. אם יפלו במרכז הארץ שתי פצצות אטום, את מי יעניינו כל סערות הסרק האלה? הדורות הבאים לא יסלחו לנו אם נפספס את חלון ההזדמנויות ההיסטורי שמאפשר לנו לנסות ולהשלים את המשימה הקריטית ביותר שעומדת בפני הדור שלנו. זה לא יקרה עם ראש ממשלה שמוחזק בצווארו על ידי האחים המוסלמים וסייעני הטרור. זה לא יקרה עם ראש ממשלה שלא מסוגל להרים את הטלפון ולנהל שיחה אינטימית רציפה עם טראמפ. זה לא יקרה עם ראש ממשלה שלא מסוגל לעמוד בלחץ של ראיון טלויזיה. השינאה לנתניהו, ככל שהיא עולם ומלואו עבור מחנה שלם, לא תעזור מול הגרעין האיראני. כל אחד שדואג לקיום הפיזי שלו, של משפחתו, ושל אהוביו, ידו צריכה לרעוד לפני שהוא בוחר במישהו שלא יהיה מסוגל להשלים את המשימה, ובכך לדון את עצמו ואת משפחתו לסכנה של שואה שניה, בגלל השינאה הפוליטית שלו או בגלל סערת דמה מטופשת וחסרת חשיבות.

Benjamin Moser traces Zionism to Protestant restorationists who advocated Jewish return to Palestine before Herzl. Yet in 1836, sixty years before Der Judenstaat, Rabbi Kalischer appealed to Rothschild to finance Jewish restoration and challenged rabbinic quietism. Moses Hess took up his proposals in 1862, and Kalischer cofounded a settlement society with Rabbi Elijah Guttmacher in 1864. Moser starts with the stronger idea that Zionism was “not even a Jewish idea to begin with.” He maintains that, until the 19th-C, hopes for Jewish return existed mainly among a minority of Protestants, that Jewish leaders rejected restorationist proposals as alien, and that Jews had “never evinced any desire to immigrate to Palestine.” Those sweeping claims overlook Jewish arguments, migrations, and settlement projects that preceded Herzl and helped shape Zionism. Moser’s definition of Zionism also shifts. If Zionism means the modern organized Jewish national movement, Protestant restorationism belongs among its antecedents. If Zionism includes earlier religious projects for Jewish return, Jewish restorationists deserve the same consideration. A definition broad enough to include Christian expectations must also accommodate Jewish efforts. Late 18th and early 19th-C Jewish migration complicates Moser’s account. In 1777, approximately 300 Hasidim moved to Ottoman Palestine. The Vilna Gaon’s disciples and their families followed in 1808–1811, establishing religious communities and purchasing land to observe commandments associated with the Land of Israel. Scholars dispute the extent of their messianic ambitions, but their willingness to migrate is clear. Limited migration is not evidence of nonexistent desire. In Seeking Zion, Jody Myers traces active messianism through Jewish tradition alongside quietist interpretations that later became dominant. Many rabbis read the Three Oaths in the Babylonian Talmud as prohibiting collective return by force and attempts to hasten redemption. The upheaval surrounding Sabbatai Zevi deepened rabbinic suspicion of theurgy and premature messianic claims. Kalischer challenged quietist interpretations through Jewish law, arguing that peaceful settlement could begin redemption. He also assigned renewed sacrifices a theurgical role, expecting them to elicit divine mercy. Whats more, other rabbis disputed whether Temple worship could lawfully resume before the messianic age. Kalischer’s 1836 letter to Amschel Mayer Rothschild proposed acquiring Palestine and facilitating Jewish return. He interpreted the banker’s wealth, political influence, and piety as signs of divine purpose, even assigning Rothschild a potential messianic role. Kalischer envisaged redemption unfolding in stages. Jewish settlement would prepare the way for restored sacrificial worship in Jerusalem. Myers also describes the sacrifices as theurgical: human ritual acts were expected to expiate sin, elicit divine mercy, and help bring about redemption. Religious belief supplied a reason to act. Now, some Protestant restorationists anticipated Jewish return as part of a prophetic sequence culminating in Christ’s Second Coming. But Kalischer believed Jews could help initiate redemption through their own actions. Purchasing and cultivating land would begin the restoration, while renewed sacrifices would elicit divine mercy and hasten its miraculous completion. In other words, land acquisition and settlement began the redemptive process, while sacrifices supplied its clearest theurgical mechanism. Kalischer's argument was that human initiative below could prepare the way for divine intervention above. Rabbi Judah Alkalai, a Sephardic rabbi in the Balkans, developed another practical program. In Minchat Yehuda (1843), Alkalai proposed a worldwide Jewish organization to acquire land from the Ottoman authorities and facilitate settlement. He also connected restoration with agriculture and the revival of Hebrew. Kalischer’s proposals certainly provoked opposition from other rabbis who remembered the Sabbatean heresy. Meir Auerbach challenged his expectations of impending redemption. Jacob Ettlinger disputed the permissibility of renewing sacrifices before the messianic age. Kalischer answered quietist interpretations of the Three Oaths by distinguishing peaceful settlement with the ruler’s permission from forcible reclamation and rebellion. He argued that Jews could begin restoring the land while respecting Ottoman authority. The disputes concerned Jewish law, Temple worship, and the limits of human participation in redemption. Opposition to sacrifices could coexist with support for Jewish residence and communal improvement in Palestine. Orthodox anti-Zionists invoked the prohibition against hastening redemption to challenge Jewish political independence before the Messiah. Secular nationalism introduced further objections concerning religious authority and sovereignty. The theological disagreement Kalischer confronted continued as Zionism became a political movement all before Herzl. Kalischer also tried to put his program into practice. In 1860, he became involved with Hayim Lorje’s Kolonisations-Verein für Palästina, which published Derishat Zion in 1862. When the society disbanded in 1864, Kalischer and Rabbi Elijah Guttmacher established Hevrat Yishuv Erets Yisra’el. Working from their homes, they collected donations, recruited agents, and sought land for agricultural colonies. In 1866, they persuaded the Alliance Israélite Universelle to serve as their parent agency. Guttmacher shared Kalischer’s activist messianism. In 1874, he argued that an agricultural colony of 130 Jewish families could mark the atchalta de-ge'ulah, the beginning of redemption. The Alliance opened the Mikveh Israel agricultural school in 1870. Its educational priorities sometimes brought it into disagreement with Kalischer. Kalischer wanted agricultural training to support permanent Jewish settlement and the observance of commandments associated with the land, while the Alliance pursued its own educational goals. Their cooperation connected Kalischer with Jewish organizations raising money, acquiring land, and developing agricultural education. Progress for land purchases remained slow. By the summer of 1874, Kalischer and his associates had arranged to acquire a small plot outside Jerusalem; he died before the final payment was made. Nearly four decades separated his ambitious appeal to Rothschild from that modest achievement. Kalischer’s ideas also reached Moses Hess. In 1862, the same year Derishat Zion appeared, Hess published Rome and Jerusalem. In its 12th Letter, Hess reproduced Kalischer’s proposals for land acquisition, agricultural settlement, financing, protection, and education. Hess endorsed cooperation between religious and secular Jews around national restoration. Hess also welcomed a French Christian restoration proposal, observing that writers starting from different positions had reached similar conclusions. Hess drew on both Jewish religious proposals and Christian advocacy in arguing for Jewish national restoration. Later, Herzl would read Hess and write "everything we have tried is in his book." The national movement expanded with the immigration and settlement associated with Hovevei Zion from 1882. Some religious advocates continued to understand settlement in messianic terms. Myers identifies arguments resembling Kalischer’s in an 1891 collection supporting Hibat Zion, although their wider influence is uncertain. Other religious Zionists adopted his practical arguments while distancing themselves from his expectations of imminent redemption. Shmuel Mohilever and Isaac Jacob Reines emphasized poverty, persecution, and Jewish survival. Mohilever defended settlement through the duty to protect life, while Reines stressed the urgency of relieving Jewish distress. Both directly borrowed and refined Kalischer’s non-messianic religious arguments while largely setting aside his interpretation of contemporary events. Reines founded Mizrahi in 1902, giving religious participation in the Zionist movement an enduring organization. Kalischer’s arguments for Jewish initiative survived even as later religious Zionists revised their understanding of redemption. Christian restorationist proposals circulated in Kalischer’s environment, and he later referred to Protestant advocates. Emancipation, antisemitism, European nationalism, and imperial politics also shaped Jewish national thought. Kalischer’s influence on Hess and later religious Zionists establishes his contribution without requiring a direct line of influence from Kalischer to Herzl. Moser gives all of this Jewish contribution insufficient weight. Jewish restorationists developed practical programs, built organizations, and supplied arguments that later nationalists read and adapted. Their disputes with quietist rabbis anticipated controversies that continued as Zionism developed into a political movement. For historical context, certainly the Jewish critics Moser recovers deserve to be covered in these types of historical treatments. Their warnings of continuing war and the accusations of self-hatred directed against them warrant separate scrutiny. Religious quietism was only one source of Jewish opposition to Zionism. Other critics objected to nationalism, political separatism, or the consequences of Jewish settlement for Palestine’s existing population. Establishing Zionism’s Jewish intellectual roots leaves those moral and political criticisms open to debate.

I said I wasn’t going to weigh in on who should be prime minister of Israel as that is a decision for Israeli citizens. I did, however, want to share one point of view from the perspective of someone who has an understanding of how Israel is perceived in America. Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich have caused Israel enormous reputational damage with their statements and actions which are presented in the global media as representing the voice and will of all Israelis. As such, a government formed without Ben-Gvir and Smotrich will send a message to the rest of the world that Israel is turning a new page. This will allow Israel to rebuild lost credibility, increase the opportunity for an expansion of the Abraham Accords, and enjoy a better relationship with Democrats and Republicans and Americans at large.

American has been researching Islam and what he’s learned has horrified him “I'm a gay guy reading the Quran, and I literally cannot sleep tonight because of what has happened over the last 3 weeks of reading this book — I'm not just reading the book, I'm studying it. I look at verses using different translations, I look at Prophet Muhammad, and like I've been learning all about the history, the context, its relationship to other religions. To be completely honest, I've become much more fearful of Islam than when I even started this journey — I don't want to spread hate towards general people who are Muslim because I do believe that probably a vast majority of Muslim people do not actually have an extremist point of view. But I also at the same time believe that it only takes 5 to 10% of Muslims in Islam to exist with an extremist view to be a genuine threat to Western life and democracy. 🚨 The reason I become more fearful is because I genuinely am coming to believe, looking at not just the Quran but also Islam as a culture and history surrounding Islam, that the goal of Islam actually is to come in, in the name of peace, get into politics, conquer and then turn the country into Islamic law, which doesn't actually make room for religious freedom or a lot of the freedoms that we're used to in democratic life Like, I'm gay. That ain't gonna fly when they come in and take over. So what do we do? Let's have a conversation about this” I can tell you what we should do about this. We need mass deportations. We need to denaturalize and deport. We need to revoke visas, status and citizenship of Muslims and mass deport them while we still can. I don’t care if that’s controversial, that’s the answer

A ninth century manuscript - confirmed authentic - includes a confession from Jewish conspirators explaining how ten Rabbinic scholars converted to Islam to protect Jews from Muhammad, write the Qur’an for him, and base its law off of Jewish precepts. Oh, and it’s not just their random confession without evidence. Those Jewish scholars placed “Easter eggs” inside the Qur’an to verify Jews wrote it, and then disclosed what they were in that confession. Again, it’s a valid manuscript, historically authenticated, and it circulated over several centuries in different languages, taking credit for Islam. A century before, a Christian church leader made the same accusation of ten Jews who at first converted because they thought Muhammad was the perfect warlord Messiah they were looking for. But after watching him eat a camel, they decided they were wrong, but stayed “converted” to help shape the Qur’an. They were particularly proud of crafting Shariah off of Halakha, and weaving in hostility toward Christians. There’s motive. There’s verifiable evidence in the Qur’an. There’s an allegation from a Christian witness there to see it in person. And a century later, a confession from the Jews themselves. That’s case closed. Either the Jews wrote the Qur’an and shaped Islam, or the Jews were lying, and bragging about doing it. That would be a pretty weird flex. But that wouldn’t explain how their clues exist in the Islamic canon itself. Islamic history is Jewish history. Read more at Insight to Incite. Link in bio. Audio available.

I’ve heard this is a very popular book at the Quality Learing Center. Go check it out before all the copies are stolen!

🚨🚨 THE DEMOCRACY FILES / ILLEGITIMACY PLAYBOOK, PART 7: THE SECRET MEGA-ALLIANCE WAITING FOR A RED LINE TO BE CROSSED 🚨 What do you call a mega-alliance that: • Covers hundreds, if not thousands, of protest organizations • Covers all the lawfare-related organizations • Liasions with governors when a Constitutional crisis is crossed • Consults federal workers on how to block emergency efforts • Runs a situation room for the midterms and beyond • Is credited to regime change expert and professor Erica Chenoweth • Is operationalized by National Security Leaders for America, an organization of 1,600 retired officers, spies, and diplomats • ... and determines the "red lines" for mobilization of the above? Meet the United Democracy Alliance (UDA). UDA is the secret alliance behind the messaging we saw this week: • JB Pritzker's warning that states will "strongly resist" • Governor Newsom's office declaring a "CODE RED" • Norm Eisen talking about "war rooms" • Slotkin predicting a "national security incident" You will not find any mentions of the United Democracy Alliance (UDA) on the web. It is a mega-alliance of resistance NGOs ready to deploy on a moment's notice, monitoring every action President Trump takes and monitoring every polling place. We only can put together the pieces by recordings. Some key quotes: • "if there's a moment where there's a constitutional crisis, like one of the UDA four red lines, if they get crossed… governors then become the kind of lead anchor for political power." (Zeitz, Aug 6) • "the big, big, big, big, big tent that's being organized in the blocking community so that if there is a red line crossed in terms of a constitutional crisis, like, everybody's already pre-organized." (Reiff, Aug 5) • "We are also starting to consult federal workers on how to do some blocking inside the govt agencies during emergency situations" (Eric Manton, Zoom chat, Aug 6) According to @JeffClarkUS , the last point above about federal workers conspiring to block emergency responses may violate serious statutes. More on federal workers involvement in Drop 8. Compilation of recordings below:

Great stuff from @shaneharris: "Armed with information that the U.S. provides, Ukraine’s military has launched strikes deep inside Russia. And U.S. spy satellites provide early warning about incoming missiles and drones. Among U.S. personnel on the ground, 'the CIA is in the lead,' a retired senior officer who travels frequently to Ukraine told me. If anything, the Ukrainians, with the CIA’s help, have gotten too good at hurting Russia for Trump’s taste." theatlantic.com/national-sec…

People are growing really tired of Abdul's smug, whiny, fake tough guy schtick. Angry snark works great for a couple of weeks, early in the cycle, but then you need to attenuate it and dial up the optimism and hope as you close. Now, every single clip of Abdul in memory is him with a furrowed brow looking smug and offended and angry, so it's painting one consistent picture...Abdul's a little bitch.