Month: May 2026

Not “genocide,” not “apartheid”

We all have heard the buzzwords regarding the war in Gaza such as it’s a “genocide” and Israel is an “apartheid” state who has no claim to the land. None of which is true.

The term “genocide” refers to both the act of killing and the intent to destroy a group. It’s not solely about the act of killing, but rather the deliberate and systematic effort to destroy a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. That’s not what we’re seeing in Gaza. Do you know that there are over two million Palestinians living in a very densely populated area and after two years only seventy K have been discorporated in this war. If Israel wanted to commit genocide the body count would be much higher but it isn’t because Israel warns Gazans before a bombing by dropping leaflets, sending text messages and “roof-knocking” (something only the Israeli military does). Also if the standard for genocide was civilian casualties and destruction in war, then the term would apply to virtually every modern urban conflict since WWII: Mosul (2016), Fallujah (2004), Aleppo (2016), Kabul (2001-2021), Marawi (2017), Grozny (1999-2000), etc. Does anyone honestly believe Israel is trying to destroy a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group?

Do you know that nearly 20% of Israeli  citizens are Arab Muslims? Two million are Arabs and 1.7 million are Muslims. Supreme Court Justice Khaled Kabub  is an Arab, Lucy Aharish  is a news anchor and Dr. Shadan Salameh is an Arab woman leading the biggest ER In Israel. You can’t do so as a Jew in Gaza. How many Jewish leaders or judges rule over Gaza or anywhere in Palestine? Israel Arabs enjoy a much better life being treated as equals than Jews do in Gaza (as the only Jews in Gaza were the hostages). Is that fair?

I think we  can all agree that nobody wants to see children harmed, but sadly in war children suffer the worse (even more so because Hamas terrorists wear children as human armor). In the Iran-Iraq war there were over 100,000 civilians casualties and in the US war after 9/11 387,000 civilian casualties. That’s not terrorism or genocide, that’s war. In Nuseirat refugee camp they found alive hostages, in Rafah (refugee camp) they found Sinwar, Hamas fighters and hostages. Hamas member Ismail Barhoum was killed at Nasser Hospital. Mohammed Sinwar a Hamas member at the European Hospital complex in Khan Younis was killed.

Stop using heavily populated refugee camps, schools and hospitals then playing victim afterwards.  Hamas wages a war and then hides in their tunnels as their civilians are stuck above ground. Not to mention the many children Hamas killed or kidnapped on Oct 7th such as Kfir Bibas (9 months old) and his brother Ariel Bibas (4 years old), Shahar Siman Tov (age 6), Arbel Siman ToV (age 6), AOmer Siman Tov (age 2), Tahel Bira (15 years old), Yahel Sharabi, (13 years old), Noya Dan (she was 12), and Liel & Yannai Hetzroni (both 12), Aline Kapshetar (8 years old), Eitan Kapshetar (5 years old) among many others.

Now for the claim of occupation. Before Israel was there Palestinians didn’t own any of the land. The Ottoman Empire had it before the British government. The British government gave the land to the Jewish people. It’s legally theirs. Palestinians at the time were little more than squaters with no land.

Before the British government and even before Ottoman Empire had the land, was there a country called Palestine? Nope, it was under the Mamluk Sultanate and before that under the Ayyubid dynasty, then Fatimid Caliphate, the Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphates. Additionally, the Kingdom of Jerusalem (a Crusader state) briefly controlled parts of the region before the Ayyubids reconquered it. We can go further there never was a Palestine, but history does show during the Iron Age, the land belonged to the Israelite kingdoms, Israel and Judah. The land was restored back to the Jews to become Israel  in 1948.

If anyone disagrees answer me this simple question, what year was Palestine Independence Day established?

Israel has pursued lasting peace and even two state solutions with the Palestinians on numerous occasions such as 1947 (UN Partition), 1967 (Khartoum Resolution), 2000 (Camp David), 2001 (Taba), 2008 (Olmert offer), 2009 (Bar-llan Initiative), 2016 (John Kerry plan), and 2020 (US Peace Plan). Palestinians rejected all roads to peace. Today Palestinians are in the “Frak Off” stage of “Frak Around, Find Out” after the (real genocidal) massacre on Oct 7th.

Sharps disposal SCAM

A lot of pharmacies are distributing  one page pamphlets and displaying posters promoting the proper (and legal) disposal of sharps. Sharps are syringes and injection pens used by all sorts of patients (diabetics for example).  The pamphlets promote a program called the MED-Project, and it sounds like it’s a government program that will supply you with sharps containers that you just have to mail (pre-paid postage adhered to boxes).

I tried it. After filling out a form online, I received a 1.4 qt. plastic sharps box. All good I thought.  Between my wife and I, we filled the container in about six weeks. Them I packaged it up in the box supplied, and dropped it off at the Post  Office. Sounds great right?

It’s not free. The initial text implies it is, and I guess technically that first box was free. But, you have to order your supplies, and the company you order from is called Pureway.  They have several different choices in sizes. The basic one, the one I initially received from them is a 1.4 qt box. They offer them in six pacs (each one comes with it’s own pre-paid mailing box) and these six packs are $118.00, so if you use one each month, you are looking at $236 per year.

In contrast, (and this is the way I usually go) Amazon sells a five pack of 5 qt containers for $28.95. Typically we fill one up 2.5 months. The catch is that I have to take the container to a designated sharps disposal bin (there are several around the town I live in), so no different then taking one to the post office.  Those 5 containers last just over a year, for a savings of $207 each year.

In other words, MED-Project AKA Pureway is ripping you off $207 yearly, and there’s no real convenience, unless you live in a rural town that provides no sharp disposal bins.

Let the buyer beware.

Why the “palestinians” are interlopers

One of the biggest and lesser known stories of Nov 29 is that the lands allocated to a Jewish state (two color map) were essentially those the Zionists reclaimed from malaria through land purchase, science and education (the two-tone blue map is the incidents of malaria and the middle map shows Jewish land ownership of those lands reclaimed from malaria).

Moreover, the sudden and extremely rapid increase of the Arab population in the 1920’s and 1930’s in this barely populated backwater region (this was the highest population increase rate in the world in 1931/2) was only in part due to immigration spurred by Zionist development of the land. The major share of the massive Arab population increase was thanks to Malaria eradication, which was the work of the Galician born famed microbiologist and ardent Zionist Dr. Israel Kligler (credit to the great historical work of Anton Alexander).

With this knowledge it remains even a greater tragedy that the now much more numerous Arabs of the land directed their efforts towards brutally fighting Zionism rather than choosing to live side by side with an emerging Jewish state. More than a year after the Oct 7 massacre we mark once more the Nov 29 moment when the Jews said yes to the UNGA plan of partition (having prioritized having a state, even if tiny and mostly desert and lands reclaimed from malaria and no Zion and no Judea) and the Arabs said no and proceeded to wage a brutal war to the present day (having prioritized – still – the goal of the Jews not having a state at all and of any size).

 

(Note on map titles: for twenty centuries, before a campaign of denial was underway, it was well understood that the name “Palestine” merely denoted the Roman/Christian/Colonial/European name for the geographic region where the Land of Israel was and was therefore deeply associated with Jews and the their continuous connection to the land.
Hence the League of Nation in establishing the mandate recognized the “historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine” as the “grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country” and which is why the Palestine Philharmonic Orchestra of Jewish musicians became the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra…)”