Simon
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@EasySimon
No one's slave & no one's master!
.@SecGenNATO Mark Rutte applauds @POTUS' leadership on the world stage, says we're "coming together to make sure that we can be able to secure the Strait of Hormuz."
This is how dangerous the Iranian regime is.
First, some basic math. According to Pew, Israeli Jews self-identify as follows: • Hiloni (secular): ~45% • Masorti (traditional): ~24% • Dati (religious/Orthodox, incl. most settlers): ~18% • Haredi (ultra-Orthodox): ~13% That means 45 out of every 100 Israeli Jews openly say they are not religious at all. Now add this: The vast majority of Haredim are not Zionists. Even if we assume—generously—that only 80% of Haredim reject Zionism, if we assume the rest of Israel are Zionists, the result is still clear: ➡️ Most Zionists in Israel are not religious. Why? Because Zionism is not a religious movement. It is a secular nationalist ideology, created largely by secular—and often explicitly anti-religious—Jews. Its purpose was to replace Judaism as the defining Jewish identity with nationhood, relegating Judaism to a kind of “national religion.” What about Masorti? Masortim are primarily culturally and emotionally attached to Judaism, not religiously observant. They may keep holidays, kashrut at home, or lifecycle rituals—but they are not religious in the halachic sense. So how many Israelis are “religious Zionists”? Pew didn’t ask. But other research (about a decade old) found roughly 22% self-identified as “religious Zionists.” Today, that number is likely similar or lower. Religious Zionism is not Judaism plus nationalism. It is a hybrid ideology that fuses nationalism into Judaism. And this matters, because Judaism explicitly rejects Jewish nationalism. Turning nationhood into a sacred value is, in Judaism, a form of idol-worship—a redefinition of Jewish identity itself. Zionism is therefore a different religion, regardless of how much Jewish language it borrows. This is separate from the additional, well-known prohibition against creating a Jewish state before the messianic era—ignored by secular Zionists and selectively distorted by religious Zionists. An Orthodox religious Zionist occupies the same halachic category as ancient religious idol-worshippers—people who kept mitzvos while serving another god (e.g., Baal worshippers). Yes, it’s contradictory. Yes, it’s a distortion. And yes—people routinely live with incompatible beliefs. So: Secular Zionism is not even a religion. "Religious Zionism" is a religion. It is not Judaism. Now the next question: Does that mean Zionists are not Jews? The word “Jew” is used two ways: 1) A practitioner of Judaism 2) A person bound by the Sinai covenant, whether or not they believe or obey Judaism teaches two covenants: • The Noahide covenant (for humanity) • The Sinai covenant (for those who accepted the Torah, and their maternal descendants) That’s why even non-observant Jews are still called Jews: They are obligated, even if they deny it. Someone who denies the Torah itself is called a kofer (denier). Such a person: • Has no covenantal privileges • Is not part of the Jewish religious community ("umah") • Cannot fulfill mitzvos validly without belief As Maimonides writes: “They are not in the category of Jew.” (or: not part of the Jewish collective - אינם בכלל ישראל) Yet obligations remain. One cannot escape responsibility by denial. At the same time, a person can believe in the fundamentals of Judaism and still commit idolatry. Such a person is still Jewish, but a sinner practicing another religion. Therefore, there is no blanket answer. Each Zionist must be assessed individually: • If he denies or disagrees with the Torah → heretic and not a Jew (except regarding obligations and strictures) • If he accepts the Torah but sins out of temptation→ Jewish sinner • Either way → repentance is required (Based on x.com/yaakov_shapiro… and other rabbinic sources)
If the Diego Garcia strike report is accurate, then one of the central assumptions about Iran’s missile program has just collapsed. For years, the accepted ceiling was around 2,000 kilometers. A ballistic missile reaching Diego Garcia suggests something in the neighborhood of 4,000 kilometers, which pushes it out of the medium-range category and into the intermediate-range class (IRBM). That is a strategic leap. The real story is not whether the missile was intercepted. It is that Iran may have demonstrated reach far beyond what much of the world believed it possessed. A 4,000-kilometer capability changes the map. Major European capitals begin to enter the conversation. Paris comes into range. London moves much closer to the edge of vulnerability depending on launch point and payload. This would mean the missile threat is no longer confined to the Gulf, Israel, or parts of South Asia. It would mean the radius of deterrence, defense, and fear has expanded dramatically. If confirmed, Diego Garcia was not just a target. It was a message.
Parastesh Dehaghin, an Iranian pharmacist and University of Tehran alumnus, was killed in US-Israeli airstrikes on Tehran's Apadana neighborhood on March 9. She was working at her pharmacy when the strikes happened, her brother wrote on social media
