The World is Turning, as always.

 Iran Rattled as Israel Repeatedly Strikes Key Targets

Recent attacks suggest that Israel has a clandestine network inside Iran and that Iranian security services have been powerless to break it.

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Why does the whole world keep picking on one belligerent little country that 50 years in, her survival as a religious state is no more secure than when the Brits first donated their share of the land... ?

Maybe because it's not acceptable warfare to most to allegedly assassinate scientists in rivaling countries, or pre-emptively attack -- continually! -- other countries that you are not officially warring with, and yet cry out expecting pity when your children are slain in their homes, in their beds, when the unofficial war rules you write are used against you and the wars are once again re-visited within your own religious state borders....  

This is not the Christian Golden Rule at work.  America learned our lesson in the Bush/Cheney years that wars that will work in Israel cannot be successfully sold and supported here at home.  Took a damn long time to admit though.  Washington was once "captured" like that, but the old lions of the Senate are passing, and the new voices are irreligious and all...

Sometimes I think, in their naive innocence or ignorance, false pride and a overconfident sense of strongman security, Israel simply never expects what she  dishes out to be served back to her own  She sets poison upon the table, and then expresses astonishment when her own children disobey their father's house rules and drink of it themselves...

The funny thing is, pundits who mock beliefs of the Christian religion -- here, NYT columnists Bret Stephens (formerly managing editor of the Jerusalem Post; he returned to the United States of America to raise and educate his children here) and Gail Collins (an elderly but experienced "first woman editorial page editor" and NYT columnist whose parents educated her in Catholic schools and Marquette, back in the 50s and 60s but who no more "represents" Catholic women than the 1950s stereotypes she knew then)  -- never seem to poke the same fun with core Jewish beliefs. Why?  Why not? When will this oversight be rectified? By whom? If not now, and if not me... ;-)*

On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram and said, "To your descendants I give this land, from the Wadi of Egypt to the great river r, the Euphrates— the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites and Jebusites."

If we chose in America to disrespect the religious beliefs of others, it won't just be Christianity that falls...  

And if your national state is built on shifting sands, not upon a Rock;  not on independence but as a religious state based on religious beliefs with religious men leading religious followers based on those religious belifes, well then dare I say, your country will likely fall too when such beliefs as respect, tolerance and justice are mocked, faith falls, and nobody much puts any stock in your stories... Who amonst her neighbors will speak for Israel then?

Think of the Evangelical Christians too, who have financially been amongst Israel's founding partners from the start.  I know they don't believe in the Marian doctrine that Bret mocks, but as a self-identified jewish man, he should take care to tread lightly

I guarantee you the youth demographics coming up in America today -- those currently out in the streets being encouraged to "make change" there, using only their bodies and voices as weapons against deadly forces while those ensconced within The System watch this real-life entertainment unfold for their viewing pleasure... fires! broken glass! maybe blood?! -- cannot place little Israel on a map, much less will be keen in the future agree to send billions of American tax dollars there.  The Evangelical Christian, America to Israel gravy train will end one day.

But the love of the Lord will live on in so many hearts and homes.  Pity Bret Stephens, a family man blessed so many times in his life and his career, who currently has a platform that could be put to good logical use, wastes his talents mocking other religious believers.

In America, that's not cool.  Politics, religion and money.  Tread lightly when you converse on these issues, Brett.  And perhaps don't rely on the reactions of your 1950s and 60s Catholic-school-educated talking partner* to steer you south?  Hth.

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*  Nevermind that the Church itself, and the people in the pews actually "practicing", likely differ greatly from Mrs. Collin's youth memories, bragging of 14 years Catholic education.  In my humble opinion, those Catholic-school educated in the primary grades were not as intellectual thinkers, nor as accepted in motley crew company, as the young Catholics whose parents invested in good homes in the suburbs with solid public schools, and their religious training through weekly catechism classes in the parish, usually taught by parent volunteers -- smart Catholics with good jobs who sent their children to public schools.

Ethnic and working class, you will find no stronger combination of C/catholic than one educated with others of different faiths, or no faiths, in a place where the academic content is stressed separately from spiritual studies.  You see, this allows those young Catholics to actually practice and test their faith daily outside of the parochial "safe zones", and have it reinforced in the home and wider ethnic and religious community with naturally  assembled (wait for it...) diversity! Not cherry-picked tokens chosen to represent a pretty rainbow, while assuring one remains in the "majority" and in the top conversational positions with the monied conservative white males, at that...

Catholic schoolgirls like Mrs. Collin's who brag of spending 14 years being taught only with like-minded souls are not years later sparring as adults with other women (ie/she's never had a female partner to converse with in the history of the NYT feature and this Stephens, the current male conversant now, is 20+ years younger...)

You wonder, what would an honest conversation sound like between a Catholic woman and a Jewish man in America regarding the future of Israel the ally's role in the region, and when our diverse American taxpayers will start questioning the heft of AIPAC and the Evangelical Christian lobbies upon the neocons and the bought-legislators still operating in Washington.

The world is turning. Eyes on the prize: don't look back!

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*Thanks Hillel! Imma take that one with me and put it to use in my life... Like discarded  books, sometimes the original owners don't know what they have.

#RememberPatTillman