braindump

Middle East/Palestine/Israel stuff:

• Found out Roald Dahl wrote a review of a book called "God Cried", which is about the Israeli siege and bombing of Beirut in the 1982 Lebanon War. This review sparked a fury in Zionist circles, and he was accused of anti-Semitism for his review of the book, and apparently there is now a play called "Giant" that dramatizes the reception of the review starring John Lithgow as Dahl. (I know only as much about the play as the Wikipedia summary.) Anyway, while trying to find more information about this particular event, I came across this blog post by the chairman of Quartet Books, Naim Attallah, who passed in 2021, about what happened from his point of view.  Also an explanation of where the title came from: Its title derived from a piece of Palestinian black humour circulating in the Middle East at the time, it being said that God had agreed to answer one question each from Ronald Reagan, Leonid Brezhnev and Yasser Arafat. The American president asked his question first, wanting to know when an American would become leader of the whole world. ‘In fifty years,’ said God. And Reagan cried. When God asked him why he cried, he said, ‘Because it won’t happen in my lifetime.’ Next it was the turn of Brezhnev, who wished to know from God when the whole world would be communist. ‘In a hundred years,’ said God. And Brezhnev cried for the same reason as Reagan. And when it came to Arafat, he asked God, ‘When will my people have a homeland of their own?’ And God cried.
• There was a plot to firebomb Palestinian activist Nerdeen Kiswani's home that was disrupted by an undercover operation by NYPD. The accused assassin was identified as a member of JDL 613 Brotherhood. The JDL is recognized as a hate group by SPLC. Somewhat unusually, the NYC Mayor put out a statement condemning the assassination attempt and also highlighting the increased attacks on Palestinian human rights advocates. 
• In other unusual news, AP put out a press explainer for why they're calling the invasion of Lebanon by Israel an invasion. 
• CNN documented the detainment and assault of their crew in the West Bank and confirmed the IDF echoing settlers' ideology and talk of revenge. 
• In more recent weeks, pro-Israel American politicians who have generally not called what's happening in Gaza a genocide, have been sounding the alarm about what's happening to Palestinian residents in the West Bank. I'm not sure what to make of it. 
• Haaretz interviewed Jewish Currents editor Arielle Angel. It's a long interview that is very challenging, sometimes difficult to read, but also very honest. Here's the archive.is link.

Other politics news:

• I really enjoy Zeteo and have a subscription because I find a lot of their content valuable and they often go places and interview people nobody else would and hire people who are often left out of mainstream American/British media. That being said, I do not love Mehdi Hasan's penchant for actually going on stuff like Jubilee. Interviewing the Iranian foreign ministry spokesman? Sure, that's fine. Interviewing controversial "Professor Jiang"? Ugh. Like that guy needs more publicity. 
• I do not know what to make of the trial about social media addicts, but I do take the concerns that TechDirt has with it seriously. 
• At work, I found out about a law that passed in CA that actively makes my job harder to do. It reads like it was created by a bunch of interest groups who do not understand what my actual job entails, and why it requires time to actually do the job properly. It goes into effect in 2027, and there's already a bill introduced this year that would expand the same requirements to Medi-Cal the year after. 
• A law in CA got passed that I am actually pleased with. Sahil Mehta, along with our friend Rayaan Kolte, championed the passing of AB 703, which allows you to check a box on your CA state tax return to contribute to pediatric cancer research. Sahil wrote an op-ed highlighting the benefits of checking the box.