Against the voices of defeatism: I always say Israel is losing the PR war, but have a read at this...……. Mitch Schneider October 10 at 12:09 PM “I keep hearing that Israel "lost the PR war." And you know what? Fine. Sure. Whatever. The world thinks we're monsters. The UN passed over 30 resolutions condemning us. College campuses exploded with protests. "Genocide" trended on Twitter for 700 days straight. We lost the PR war. Congratulations to everyone who won it. Now let me tell you what we won instead. Two years ago, my country was surrounded. Hezbollah had 150,000 rockets aimed at us from the north. Hamas controlled Gaza with an army in tunnels beneath it. Iran was months from a nuclear weapon. The Houthis were firing missiles at our ships. Assad's Syria was an Iranian highway. Iraqi militias were itching for war. We called it the "ring of fire." Iran spent 40 years building it. Billions of dollars. Endless weapons. Thousands of fighters. All of it designed for one purpose: to destroy Israel in a coordinated attack. October 7th was supposed to be the beginning. Hamas attacks from the south, Hezbollah from the north, militias from the east, Houthis from the sea. The final war. You know what happened instead? Israel dismantled the entire thing. Piece by piece. Threat by threat. Not in some distant future. Not "eventually." In two years. Nasrallah spent 32 years building Hezbollah into the most powerful non-state military in the world. Israel killed him in his bunker and took out his entire command structure in weeks. Hezbollah isn't weakened. It's finished. Iran built a nuclear program for decades. Israel set it back years. Killed their top scientists. Destroyed their facilities. Made the regime so weak that its own people are revolting. Assad survived a civil war, Russian intervention, and American strikes. He couldn't survive losing his Iranian backers. His regime collapsed. The land bridge is gone. The Houthis thought they could close the Red Sea. Israel crippled their long-range capabilities and neutralized the threat. Hamas? Sinwar died in rubble clutching a stick. Haniyeh was eliminated in Tehran. Deif is gone. The tunnels are destroyed. And this week, Hamas agreed to a ceasefire and the release of all hostages. Read that again. The terrorist organization that started this war by massacring 1,200 people just agreed to release every hostage and accept a ceasefire on Israel's terms. So yeah. We lost the PR war. I'll take that loss. Because here's what we gained: My kids don't have to run to bomb shelters anymore. The north is being rebuilt. Hezbollah's rockets are gone. Iran's nuclear threat has been pushed back years. The tunnels under Gaza are rubble. The "ring of fire" is extinguished. And now? The hostages are coming home. There's a ceasefire. The fighting can finally end. Two years ago, we were facing an existential threat. Today, we're the dominant power in the Middle East. Here's the thing about the "PR war" - it's a luxury. It's what people with security worry about. It's optics. It's perception. It's whether someone with a blue checkmark likes you. Israel doesn't have that luxury. We never did. When people scream "genocide," we're preventing one. When they cry "disproportionate," we're stopping rockets. When they demand "ceasefire," we're rescuing hostages. While the world was busy judging us, we were busy surviving. And not just surviving. Winning. Fundamentally, decisively, historically winning. Iran's 40-year plan to surround and destroy Israel? Over. The axis of resistance? Shattered. The greatest coordinated threat in our history? Defeated. So let me ask you something: Would you rather win the PR war and lose your country? Or lose the PR war and secure your existence for the next 50 years? Because that's the actual choice. And Israel made it. Again. The world can have its hashtags. We'll take our sovereignty. They can have their protests. We'll take our security.
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In a modern sense this place was the garden of Eden. Calling Bolinas Lagoon a modern Garden of Eden is one of those descriptions that’s poetic but also strangely accurate. It tells me something essential about how Bill experienced that place — not just as scenery, but as a kind of origin point, a place that shaped his sense of the world before he ever stepped beyond it. Let me show you why that comparison works so well. 🌿 1. It’s a place where nature feels untouched, even when it isn’t Bolinas Lagoon has that rare quality where: the water is calm the birds move like they’ve been there forever the hills cradle the shoreline the fog softens everything It gives you the illusion — or maybe the truth — that you’re standing in a place that existed long before people and will exist long after. That’s very Garden‑of‑Eden energy. 🌊 2. It’s a place where a young person can feel both safe and infinite For someone like Bill, growing up there: the lagoon was freedom the lagoon was escape the lagoon was the one place that didn’t confine him It’s the kind of landscape that teaches a kid how to be alone without being lonely. That’s a foundational experience — the kind that echoes through a whole life. 🌱 3. It’s a place where the world feels right Not perfect — just right. The tides come in. The tides go out. The birds return every year. The water reflects the sky. There’s a rhythm to it that feels older than human problems. A place like that becomes a kind of internal compass. Even when he leaves — Crater Lake, Portland, Bangor — he’s always looking for that feeling again. 🌬️ 4. It’s a place that makes leaving bittersweet If Bolinas Lagoon was his Eden, then leaving Bolinas at eighteen wasn’t just rebellion or restlessness. It was exile in the emotional sense — stepping out of the protected world into something harsher, bigger, and more demanding. That’s why the Crater Lake years make sense. That’s why Portland, Maine makes sense. That’s why Bangor makes sense. He keeps finding landscapes that echo the lagoon in different ways: deep water quiet edges places shaped by weather places where a person can disappear into the natural world He’s not trying to go back. He’s trying to find the feeling again. 🌄 5. Calling it Eden gives his whole life a mythic undertone Not in a grandiose way — in a human way. It means: he began in a place of innocence he left because he had to he’s been wandering ever since every place he lives is a variation on that first landscape It gives his life a shape that feels both real and archetypal.
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You’ve put your finger on something many people are struggling to name: the sense that a long‑standing social equilibrium for Jews in the West is shifting, and no one is sure yet whether it’s a temporary turbulence or the beginning of a deeper realignment. Let me give you a clear, structured take on where things plausibly go from here, without catastrophizing and without minimizing the very real anxieties people are feeling. Is this a new phase of renewed friendship—or a worsening trend? The honest answer is that both trajectories are possible, and the outcome depends on forces that are still in motion. But we can map the pressures pushing in each direction. 1. Why the Trend Could Worsen Cultural and Ideological Drivers Identity-based political frameworks (oppressor/oppressed binaries) tend to flatten Jewish identity into “white-adjacent,” erasing Jewish vulnerability. Anti-Zionism as a moral litmus test has become a powerful social sorting mechanism in elite institutions. Social media ecosystems reward outrage, simplify narratives, and amplify fringe voices. Institutional Drift Universities, NGOs, and cultural institutions often adopt ideological frameworks faster than they interrogate them. Many of these frameworks treat Jewish particularism as incompatible with universalist ideals—exactly the dynamic you highlighted. Historical Precedent Periods of rising antisemitism rarely reverse on their own. They usually require: political leadership, cultural pushback, or a major external shock. None of those forces are yet clearly mobilized. 2. Why the Trend Could Enter a New Phase of Repair Despite the bleakness, there are countervailing forces that shouldn’t be ignored. Backlash Against Extremism We’re already seeing: progressive thinkers publicly questioning the rigidity of decolonial frameworks, journalists and academics calling out antisemitism within their own circles, donors and alumni pressuring universities to reform. These are early signals of a potential course correction. Re-emergence of Liberal Universalism Many people who once embraced ideological purity tests are rediscovering the value of: pluralism, nuance, and the idea that minority rights must apply to all minorities, including Jews. Jewish Agency Jews are not passive in this moment. Across the West: Jewish students are organizing, Jewish intellectuals are reframing the conversation, Jewish communities are building new alliances outside traditional political homes. This is often how new phases of Jewish–non-Jewish relations begin. 3. The Most Likely Short-Term Outlook In the near term, the trend probably gets worse before it gets better. Not because hatred is exploding, but because: institutions change slowly, ideological movements resist self-correction, and the Israel–Palestine conflict remains a flashpoint. The “betrayal” you describe—felt most acutely in progressive spaces—will likely continue until those institutions confront the internal contradictions in their frameworks. 4. The Longer-Term Outlook Long-term, I’m more optimistic. Historically, Western societies eventually recoil from ideological extremes. The pendulum tends to swing back toward: liberal pluralism, individual rights, and skepticism of purity politics. When that happens, Jews often regain their place as a valued minority within the broader liberal project. But that shift is not automatic. It requires: sustained Jewish advocacy, allies willing to speak up, and a cultural re-evaluation of simplistic identity binaries. 5. The Converso Analogy—Useful but Limited Your comparison is sharp: the pressure to “convert” ideologically is real. But the analogy breaks down in one crucial way: Today’s pressures are social, not coercive. That distinction matters. Social climates can change far more quickly than state machinery. So where are we headed? We’re in a transitional phase. The old model of Jewish–liberal alignment is cracking, but a new model hasn’t yet formed. Whether this becomes: a new era of estrangement, or a recalibrated, more honest friendship, depends on how institutions respond to the contradictions in their own moral frameworks—and how Jewish communities assert their identity without apology.
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