Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Abe Silberstein @abesilbe.bsky.social · 2h

The New York Young Republicans Club went groyper several years ago. Anyone who cared to know this already knew. A bunch of Madison Grant types control an old organization with a permanent residence on the Upper East Side.

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Abe Silberstein @abesilbe.bsky.social · 7h

Not magic, but it's a bright red line for supporters of Israel.

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Abe Silberstein @abesilbe.bsky.social · 7h

In any case, she didn't say: "Of course Israel—the only democracy in the Middle East, our best friend in the world, etc.—didn't commit genocide." A major pro-Israel politician not willing to say Israel is not potentially guilty of genocide. That's astonishing.

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Abe Silberstein @abesilbe.bsky.social · 7h

Perhaps I'm just reluctant to credit a shift. She has acknowledged the devastation and the large number of children killed. I don't know if she intended to say it was of genocidal proportions, but I agree it's how her answer appears.

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Abe Silberstein @abesilbe.bsky.social · 7h

Classic Cory satisfying his interested supporters with an answer that would impress any IR undergrad just introduced to realism.

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Abe Silberstein @abesilbe.bsky.social · 8h

Pro-Israelists will not like this answer, even though it basically says nothing. They don't want nothing. They want a firm rejection of this charge. Anything less is a demonstration of their weakened position.

Emissary Of Night | ليلى @diplomatofnight.com · 8h

On MSNBC, Kamala Harris was asked if she agreed that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians.

“I will tell you that when you look at the number of children that have been killed [...] the refusal to give aid, we should all step back and ask this question and be honest about it, yeah.”

Former Vice President Kamala Harris held back from labeling Israel's actions in Gaza a "genocide" on Sunday but said it was an appropriate question.
"A lot of folks in your party have called what's happening in Gaza a genocide. Do you agree with that?" correspondent Eugene Daniels asked Harris during an interview on MSNBC's "The Weekend."
"Listen, it is a term of law that a court will decide," Harris responded. "But I will tell you that when you look at the number of children that have been killed, the number of innocent civilians that have been
killed, the refusal to give aid and support, we should all step back and ask this question and be honest about it, yeah."

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Abe Silberstein @abesilbe.bsky.social · 8h

It's also just nonsensical "criticism." Neither of those counterpoints have anything to do with the academic paradigm of settler colonialism. It makes one thankful for even Adam Kirsch's poor reading of the scholarship. This is more akin to Mark Levin's "criticism" of the Frankfurt School.

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Abe Silberstein @abesilbe.bsky.social · 9h

Do we have to do the "critics have argued" thing when the critics in question are obvious ignoramuses?

Adanedhel🌹 @danielwaweru.bsky.social · 11h

Professor Mamdani writes that the conflict in Israel, which traces back to the early 20th century, is not primarily a clash “between Jews and those who hate them” but rather “between settlers and the community they dispossessed.”

In his accounting, Zionists—proponents of creating an explicitly Jewish state—went from being victims of the Holocaust to oppressors themselves, taking Palestinian land and creating a legal architecture to make them second-class citizens.

Critics have argued that any settler-colonial framework applied to the Middle East unfairly casts a group of Jewish refugees as malevolent actors, while discounting the long history of Jewish life in the region and minimizing the hostility of Arabs toward Jews.

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Abe Silberstein @abesilbe.bsky.social · 1d

This reminds me of the time a Twitter kahanist called me a capo. I tried to walk out on the bill at Rocco's the next day.

Republicans Against Trumpism @rpsagainsttrump.bsky.social · 1d

Chris Christie: “Thie is no longer, the Department of Justice, is no longer the premier prosecuting office in America. What it is now is a capo regime who goes out and executes hits when directed by the Don to do so. That’s what it is.”

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Reposted by Abe Silberstein

southpaw @nycsouthpaw.bsky.social · 1d

Auspicious start for the new CBS News, laundering unattributed cop shit-talking through the incoming editor-in-chief’s blog and failing to correct a misspelling of the story subject’s name in the web headline for three days.

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Reposted by Abe Silberstein

Scott Tobias @scotttobias.bsky.social · 1d

A satisfying takedown of all things Bari, but I especially enjoyed the description of Skydance failson David Ellison as having "resting checking-into-the-White-Lotus face."

Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 1d

Absolutely brutal.

Bari Weiss: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

YouTube video by LastWeekTonight

www.youtube.com

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Abe Silberstein @abesilbe.bsky.social · 2d

A major difference between leading a congregation and "leading" an alphabet soup organization is that a pulpit rabbi can't deny the evident divisions in front of her. She has to accommodate them in some way. A Reform congregation in Park Slope is not "united" for or against Mamdani. That's reality.

Abe Silberstein @abesilbe.bsky.social · 2d

What's interesting here is that by most standard metrics, CBE has a much stronger claim to representing "the establishment" than these protesters. It is the largest Reform congregation in Brooklyn. It may be time to be more specific and talk about the legacy non-denominational organizations.

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Abe Silberstein @abesilbe.bsky.social · 2d

What's interesting here is that by most standard metrics, CBE has a much stronger claim to representing "the establishment" than these protesters. It is the largest Reform congregation in Brooklyn. It may be time to be more specific and talk about the legacy non-denominational organizations.

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Abe Silberstein @abesilbe.bsky.social · 2d

Sam is right, though I wish pernicious claims of cultural essentialism and purity (and thus the consequent illegitimacy of those with "impure" inheritances) were limited to Nazis. Unfortunately, they never have been.

Sam Brody @samuelhayimbrody.bsky.social · 2d

The reason Nazis make memes like this is to get leftist crossover and inspire others to make their own copies. People fall for it

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Abe Silberstein @abesilbe.bsky.social · 2d

A lopsided two-income household can pull it off. One earns the 64K and the other 100K+. Just don't have kids!

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Reposted by Abe Silberstein

Tom Scocca @tomscocca.bsky.social · 2d

Describe the opposite of The Free Press in a sentence

Screenshot of text:

It’s a business story. [Highlighting begins] Everyone in journalism has known for years that there’s been a huge opportunity for a publication that employs the traditional methods of U.S. journalism—reporting, deep sourcing, fact-checking, fearlessness—to subjects that either don’t get covered enough or get covered only from a certain perspective. [Highlighting ends] If creating such an enterprise seems simple

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Abe Silberstein @abesilbe.bsky.social · 2d

Did I ever tell you my first job was as an unpaid intern for this billionaire's organization? Anyway, it's a fascinating history. The WJC was always pro-Israel, but their mandate clashed with Israel's self-image as the natural representative of Jewish interests on the world stage.

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Abe Silberstein @abesilbe.bsky.social · 3d

A lot of well-meaning American liberals are surprised to learn that West Germany's bureaucratic echelon was filled with barely deprogrammed Nazis and Nazi collaborators.

Old White Nepo Hat @kenwhite.bsky.social · 3d

Also: if you work for ICE, even if you’re not one of the ones arresting citizens or tackling 15-year-olds or zip-tying kids together and segregating them by race, you’re part of the mechanism making it happen, and you should suffer long-term social and post-regime-change consequences.

Ari Cohn @aricohn.com · 3d

Some weirdo on Twitter has been absolutely melting down for like 36 straight hours because I posted:

When this is over, do not forget what ICE did, and what ICE is. And do not make room for them in society. Make sure they know that they are, and will continue to be, reviled and beneath contempt.

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Abe Silberstein @abesilbe.bsky.social · 3d

And even if you want to adopt the cynical analysis, it makes perfect sense: Hamas getting Barghouti freed makes the current leadership of Fatah look like chumps.

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Reposted by Abe Silberstein

Joel S. @joelhs.bsky.social · 4d

If the party leadership admits this, they have to admit that we are not in normal political times anymore and that the response cannot be to just do normal political campaigns on topics like healthcare coverage, and they are not prepared for that world.

bort @crushbort.bsky.social · 4d

is it not weird that every day there’s a new video of anonymous masked men having the time of their lives beating/shooting/disappearing people and the dem response from the top down is “republicans want to double your health insurance premiums”

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Reposted by Abe Silberstein

Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 4d

And yes, they're trying to intimidate us but Pritzker's right -- everyone needs to be out in numbers at these events.

Greg Sargent @gregsargent.bsky.social · 4d

By contrast, JB Pritzker told me that people should flood the No Kings protests precisely in order to let the American people know that something is deeply amiss.

More Dems should be doing this, to send the message widely that we are in real trouble right now.

newrepublic.com/article/2016...

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Abe Silberstein @abesilbe.bsky.social · 5d

This week, I attended a talk where the presenter—a respected writer outside the academy—started off lecturing the assembled group of scholars and graduate students that we needed to read more Shakespeare and Dickens so we can write better. Friends, his subsequent talk was no Shakespeare or Dickens.

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Abe Silberstein @abesilbe.bsky.social · 5d

Come on, it's been done already.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZA2...

Reposted by Abe Silberstein

Mark Bray @mark-bray.bsky.social · 5d

Friends and comrades made a crowdfunding page for my family.

It’s really hard to post this. I know that there are a lot of other important issues asking for money but things have gotten to the point where we need to open ourselves up to your support.

Thank you for your consideration.

"Help us leave safely" on FreeFunder

Click here to support "Help us leave safely" by Dara on FreeFunder!

www.freefunder.com

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Abe Silberstein @abesilbe.bsky.social · 5d

Fascism with Curb Your Enthusiasm characteristics.

Justin Baragona @justinbaragona.bsky.social · 5d

Besides linking Tylenol in pregnant women to autism, RFK Jr. now says circumcision is part of the reason why kids are autistic.

"Children who are circumcised early have double the rate of autism, and it's highly likely because they're given Tylenol. None of this is positive..."