Alan H Spiro

@shannonrwatts You have always and you continue to be a leader for goodness and integrity

There’s a lesson in there about the integrity of voters and the lack of integrity — and therefore weakened legacy — among some Dem leaders.

Last night, Dems lost a seat they held for 38 years after voters rejected a candidate with a history of making racist, sexist and antisemitic comments. Some Dem leaders refused to call on Casim to resign because the GOP “routinely ignores Trump’s overt racism.”

@RitchieTorres Thank you Congressman for speaking the truth.

It is profoundly disturbing to see young social media influencers casually rationalize Hitler and the Nazi regime’s systematic extermination of six million Jews during the Holocaust. The only thing more terrifying than Holocaust denial is Holocaust glorification. The comfort with which these commentators defend the most evil man ever to roam the earth should send chills down the spine of every decent person.

Proud to be the 171st 😎 on @BackerKit for Pluto Dinerama: Build Your Own Diner in SPACE!. pluto-dinerama.backerkit.com/community_shar…

@RitchieTorres Ritchie Torres for President

Peter Beinart has an op-ed claiming that outrage among young Black Americans against Israel is one of the causes of Democratic defeat in the 2024 election. Beware of white progressives who project their own ideological biases onto working-class communities of color. Here’s the ground-level truth. If you’re a young man of color struggling to pay your rent, put food on the table, and keep your family afloat, the furthest issue on your mind is a conflict 5000 miles away. The existential issue for you is inflation. The crippling cost of living is the cause of your discontent. Anyone claiming otherwise is representing their own ideological imagination rather than reality.

October 10 marks the birthday of my late son, Danny, who would have been 61 today. I wish to thank all readers who wrote to me about what Danny meant to them. A diehard humanist who wanted to believe that man is not a predator to other men. The October 7 massacre, and the subsequent surge of anti-Israel propaganda have tarnished our hopes that Danny's murder would mark a turning point in the history of man inhumanity to man. But the steady regrouping of the world's conscience around Israel is now restoring our hope.

I had the wonderful experience of being at Ginny’s live performance as it was being filmed. It is fantastic

I just backed Pluto Dinerama: Build Your Own Diner in SPACE! on @kickstarter kickstarter.com/projects/pluto…

@thenation @ginnyhogan_ This is a terrific analysis and is totally on point. It doesn’t matter what your politics are. This is an important article in our current political world.

The online jokes are not just about having fun. They represent a newfound political energy within the Democratic Party, @ginnyhogan_ explains. bit.ly/46N96XL

I'm truly relieved for the families of the four Israeli hostages who were freed from the Nuseirat area, especially Noa Argamani, whose family and parents I got to connect with and have developed particular empathy for her mother, facing terminal brain cancer and wanting to see her only daughter one last time before she passes. I'm deeply saddened by the losses of Palestinian lives that occurred during the raid, which entailed intense bombardment throughout central Gaza. This is what makes Hamas so exceptionally evil and ruthless: placing hostages that it refuses to release amongst the civilian population, knowing very well that doing so compromises everyone's safety. Sinwar rejected the recent proposal by the US to gradually end the war and is slowly losing the only "leverage" that his group has, to the point where even Qatar is reportedly threatening to expel the group if they don't accept a hostage/ceasefire deal. Hamas is not only holding Israeli hostages but millions of Palestinians in Gaza. Yes, I'm relieved for Noa and her mom, Liora and dad, Yacov; I'm relieved for the parents of Meir Jan, Andrey Kozlov, and Shlomi Ziv. But I'm also sad and heartbroken by the loss of dozens of Palestinian lives and the continuation of a war that's so clearly futile and destructive to the Palestinian people because two psychopaths, Sinwar and Deif, think they know what's best from their damp rat holes underground. I also would caution against the euphoria of this successful operation blinding people to the still persistent need for a ceasefire/exchange deal to ensure the safe release of all other hostages. May this terrible tragedy end soon, and that the killing of Palestinians in Gaza stops, for this horrendous war is going nowhere. It's time for Hamas to end its reckless endangerment of Gazans and to stop this madness; the group must take responsibility for what it has brought upon the people of Gaza. And if you claim to be pro-Palestine, then call out Hamas and stop protecting them from overdue critique and condemnation. I'm glad you're home with your parents, Noa.

I wrote about how a cascade of media failures led to a bunch of inauthentic, mistranslated, and truncated quotes from Israeli officials about Gaza being cited everywhere from the New York Times, NPR, and the BBC, to the International Court of Justice. theatlantic.com/international/…

Meanwhile, over the past 12 hours, a portal to Kristallnacht has opened in the Caucasus. In Dagestan, a raging crowd besieged a hotel in which Jews were allegedly hiding. A Jewish cultural center was set on fire in Nalchik. Yesterday, at a rally in Karachay-Cherkessia, local residents demanded that all Jews be evicted from the republic.

This should be required reading in all colleges and universities. John McWhorter is one of our great intellectuals of our day and his endorsement of this essay alone speaks volumes.

🚨 Wow. A forceful, morally clear statement, signed by dozens of @NorthwesternU faculty — including the two immediate predecessors of the current, equivocal university president. “Although we grieve for the loss of all innocent lives, the loss of life is on the bloodied hands of Hamas. There are not two sides to barbaric behavior. Hamas is displaying unimaginable evil that is unacceptable in any civilized society, and there is no justification for pure evil.” THANK YOU! 💜🇺🇸🇮🇱 dailynorthwestern.com/2023/10/27/lat…

Our message to NYU and our communities is clear: we are strong, we are not afraid, we are outraged by supporters of terror and we join with good people everywhere to fight back!

@shlumpsters The use of the category 'indigenous' outside a few limited contexts (mostly Americas and the Antipodes) is useless at best and fascistic at worst

Dozens and dozens of Arab friends (Lebanese, Iraqis, Palestinians and Gulfies) are jamming my inboxes with messages saying that they support dismantling Palestinian Hamas and peace with #Israel. These people cannot express their opinions out loud for fear of social shaming, bullying or physical hurt. We might not be in the majority, but we are many, and most of us are scared to speak out against Medieval Islamist #Iran and its Hezbollah and Hamas. If we were allowed to speak freely and campaign for our thought, we would not be in the minority anymore. In every country, majority and minority trade places, except for countries living under the tyranny of political Islam. These try to convince the world that since 1948, Arabs and Muslims have had only one fixerd opinion: That nakba was a disaster that should be reversed (reversal means destroying Israel, like the nakba war was designed to do).

"Leftwing Jews need to understand that the Jewish people cannot afford the purity of powerlessness, while rightwing Jews need to understand that power requires moral limits." From my essay in the Times of Israel, "What This War Is About" blogs.timesofisrael.com/what-this-war-…

At tonight’s @Timberwolves game the Twolves uniforms were blue and white with Israeli flags. Each player wore a tshirt with a picture of an #Israeli hostage. #BringThemHome #NBA

On Bob Marley’s son’s instagram. This will upset all the right people.