Pistachios. The green delicious nut that offers health benefits such as lower blood pressure and cholesterol, better gut health and improved eyesight. Moreover, the work involved in extracting the morsels from their protective shell is somehow calming. But for the past nine months, no amount of pistachio consumption could cure what ails me – my blood pressure has risen, my gut is twisted in knots and it has been extremely difficult to relax. And I am not alone.
October 7th 2023 shattered whatever false sense of security many Jews in both Israel and the diaspora have felt for decades. And with each passing day since that horror show, our collective angst and dread has only grown stronger.
So what on god’s green earth do those yummy treats have to do with Israel, Palestine or October 7?
Stick around. IDROS will get to that shortly. But before we crack open that mystery…
To begin, IDROS is reminded of the scene in Pulp Fiction in the basement of Maynard’s pawn shop. IDROS has dissected this seminal scene before, but now we can view it from another perspective. Butch had all but escaped after dispatching the Gimp. He was home free, but his conscience weighed on him…no matter what he thought of Marcellus ‘that’s your pride talkin’ Wallace, what Zed and Maynard were doing was so heinous and unforgivable that he grabbed the samurai sword, and headed back down to rapeville, to the bowels of hell. He risked everything for a man he loathed so much he had just hit him with his car…because the others were terrorists…worse than terrorists. Butch sliced and diced Maynard, and as he went for Zed to finish the job, we hear the shotgun cock and Marcellus bellow, ‘step aside, Butch!’ Then Marcellus told Butch he could go and proceeded to ‘go medieval’ on Zed and Maynard and their families.
On October 8, America should have been Butch. But it shouldn’t have taken a crisis of conscience…Israel was a close friend and essential ally for not only America, but the entire Western world. And Israel had just been invaded and violated as horrifically as Marcellus had been. And some of the hostages taken were American citizens for crying out loud. America should have stormed down those cellar stairs, guns blazing. Sure, Israel could have nudged its buddy and said, step aside partner, we got this.
The past nine months would have gone down much differently, for Israel, Jews and the entire world if America, who has entered many conflicts for much less of a reason, jumped in on day one and made it crystal clear that Hamas would pay a heavy price if every hostage was not returned alive immediately. Noone brazenly takes American citizens hostage, nor citizens of any American allies, and gets away with it.
Ah…what could have been.
Almost two months ago, we experienced a very uncomfortable Yom HaShoah. Sacred day, almost exactly 7 months after the worst violation of Never Again imaginable. And here we were, Jews the world over embroiled in mental and physical trauma, banging our collective heads against the Wailing Wall, asking unimaginable questions to ourselves, our families, our friends, our god…again. And the world, once again, had not come to our rescue. In fact, much of the world seemed to openly mock us, spit in our faces, or torture us with ambivalence.
And now, as I try to celebrate my birthday with family, I am left to think about those who are held in dark tunnels like Maynard’s basement, experiencing god knows what…just like that 12 year old girl in Paris. I think about their families. And all the families who have endured similar trauma throughout the ages, because of a dark and sinister and preposterous hatred that has bubbled in the recesses of humanity for thousands of years.
Here are some of the maddening topics that have ruined my birthday, and prevented so many others from experiencing their next celebration, many…far too many…for good.
- Please Stand Up – Why is nobody with any power in the entire Western World standing up for us Jews, demanding accountability and consequences, and doing more than meekly delivering hollow and worthless soundbites like ‘I condemn hatred in all its forms?’ These same people who scream from the rooftops when the pro-gun set offers ‘thoughts and prayers’ following every horrific school shooting somehow believe their qualified condemnations and platitudes will extinguish an exponential rise of the world’s oldest and most prolific form of hatred and vitriol and allay the fears of Jews who have literally been fearing for their lives since October 7. We are grateful for politicians like Stefanik, Hawley, Fetterman and Torres, who have been vocal and champions for our plight from day 1, but let’s be honest…nobody knew any of these representatives on October 6, and none of them are in a position to truly help turn the tide.
- The Miseducation of Our Best and Brightest – Stealing part of this bullet title from a noted celebrity antisemite because we need to upend the indoctrination of our children by nefarious actors in the dark recesses of radical Islamic interests. Led by Qatar, Iran and Saudi Arabia, billions have flowed to the most hallowed halls of academia throughout the western world since the rise of the Ayatollah, creating Middle Eastern studies departments rife with anti-Israel and antisemitic agendas, birthing and bolstering student and faculty led campus groups like SJP who use grass roots techniques to prey on and radicalize progressive students, and aligning with key progressive causes, groups and allies that once not only embraced Jews, but in many cases were created or largely influenced by Jews. By using a model of oppressor vs. oppressed, colonizers vs colonized and white vs. non-white, defining Jews and Israel as white colonizer oppressors – despite the fact that none of these definitions are remotely true, and Palestinians as non-white oppressed and colonized, slowly turned their progressive, liberal constituents against anything remotely supportive of Israel, Zionism and Jewish causes. If I weren’t so terrified for my family, friends and future generations of Jewish life, I would marvel at the intricate genius of the long con that has been perpetrated. But for now, I grapple with the serious questions surrounding how we can possibly undo the decades of radicalization of our most brilliant, supposedly educated students and recent graduates, the desecration of our universities and institutions of higher learning, and the rot that has infiltrated our educators, faculty and administrations, which has permeated not just higher education, but secondary and even primary educational levels in some ‘progressive’ communities.
- Refugees – there are two distinct phenomena that fall under this heading…both are tragic and both carry double standards. First, how are generations of Palestinians awarded refugee status perpetuating and exacerbating what is a devastating situation beyond the scope of any other people in the world? Somehow, this population has its own UN Relief organization dedicated to assist Palestinian ‘refugees,’ and despite this – and more on UNRWA later – their plight has worsened and their population has multiplied exponentially. And second, why are the people displaced in every other country involved in a war allowed to move out of harm’s way and migrate away from conflict to more peaceful countries in the world…but not the Palestinians? More than 6.5 Ukrainian refugees have fled war torn Ukraine in the past couple years, and almost 6 million more fled Syria during the recent Civil War there. But for Palestinians, they must remain in Gaza, an area not even 25 miles long and six miles wide, to be used to further alienate and burden Israel for the future, so despite there being 50-plus Muslim majority countries in the world, not one will open their borders to the Palestinians. Culpability for this phenomenon lies with many parties – the majority with the Arab League, who created the conflict by attacking en masse following Israel’s declaration of independence in 1948, their refusal to take in refugees since, attacking again in 1967 and 1973 and generally exacerbating tensions in the region ever since. Iran and Qatar’s role, which has jumped to the top of the list since 1979, will be explained in greater detail below. The UN and their evil stepchild UNRWA shoulder an enormous amount of the blame as well, allowing itself to be co-opted for nefarious plotting and undermining by terrorist groups and human rights offenders throughout the world. UNRWA was created to assist the Palestinians and allow them to shed their refugee status, but the group has been hijacked by terrorists and uses its entire massive budget for evil, teaching Palestinian children to hate Israel and the Jews from infancy in their ‘schools’ where they hide weapons stockpiles and terrorists. Finally, among those to blame for the crisis and conflict, we cannot forget the western democracies, led by the USA and the UK, who fund the UN, UNRWA and the terrorist groups who ‘govern’ the Palestinian citizens directly. Furthermore, it was the west, led by the UK, who spearheaded the partition plan in 1947 that led directly to this conflict, and who washed their hands of the situation after refusing to help the Jews, who found themselves mired in a regional war for their own survival against pretty much every surrounding nation as well as the Arabs who now call themselves Palestinians. Sure, Israel has some culpability in the current conflict and with the fact that there were some refugees stemming from the 1947 partition and ensuing war, but Israel DID NOT have anything to do with the UN’s partition plan map nor did Israel START the war in 1948, and Israel DID absorb hundreds of thousands of Arab Muslims and non-Jewish refugees in 1948, all of whom have been and remain full citizens of Israel today.
- Inversion Psychology – Words matter! And weaving the playbook of anti-Zionist jargon including genocide, apartheid, ethnic cleansing and colonialism into any and every soundbite is not only infuriating manipulation of the facts, but also are all explicitly triggering to Israelis and diaspora Jews because of our lived experiences. Every one of these words describes not Israel, but the Palestinians and their terrorist governments as well as most of the Arab League and Iran.
- Occupation – As with most facts, the truth that Israel hasn’t occupied Gaza since 2006 doesn’t seem to matter when arguing or debating with the pro-terror set. Worse, there have really been two Palestines since then, and that fact is used against Israel across every possible nuance of the conflict…Palestine and the people of both territories are united when convenient, and two separate entities under very different leadership when convenient. Also, every loser of a major war in our world, pretty much since the dawn of time, has been ‘occupied’ by the victor, and has had borders redrawn, territories annexed/lost, and created great migrations of refugees…occupations of the losing side are especially common when said loser started the war. The US and allies still occupy Germany, Japan and Korea, decades after those wars ended and will continue their military presence there for decades to come.
- Data Manipulation and Media Bias – nearly every major media company as well as the throngs on social media all parrot misinformation repeatedly, even long after it has been proved untrue. The George Costanza theory that ‘it’s not a lie if you believe it’ seems to have made serious inroads among antisemites and antidentites of the world. Even months after the Gazan Ministry of Health finally copped to inflating the numbers of the dead in Palestine, nearly every media outlet still quotes the inflated numbers. Worse still, trusted outlets like Wikipedia are littered with lies, omissions and manipulations of facts. And the gestapo that runs such outlets are precluding respected agencies like the ADL from helping to correct the widening morass of misinformation.
- It can’t get worse than what happened 10/7, right? The depressing and sometimes unbearable fact that things have gotten worse each day since October 7 weighs heavily on all of us.
- Silence is Deafening – the silence of our ‘friends’ and ‘allies’ has been a rude awakening, and continues to boggle our collective minds. With the surge of antisemitism on college campuses all around the country and world, the silence becomes magnified. We know it is risky for many of you to visibly and vocally support us Jews, and especially Israel for fear of loss of business and general safety…trust us…we are experiencing it daily. But we represent a mere rounding error in the global population, and not much more here in America, so without non-Jewish support, we are doomed. We are beyond grateful for those of you who have had our backs, but we need more support.
- Double Standards / Consequences- this may seem like the title of a suite or a Double Shot Tuesday entry by a 70s band like Foreigner or The Guess Who…if only. We could do a hypothetical for every detail of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, dating from before the Mandate through now, and Israelis and Jews get treated differently than any other country and people would in every situation…always. The most glaring is that Jews in the diaspora are immediately and negatively associated with and pay a heavy price for Israel’s actions – which, by the way, are always REactions. Name another ethnicity or religious group that is treated similarly. If any other country in the entire world was attacked even half as savagely and barbarically as Israel was on October 7, I guarantee there would be far more devastation and a much more violent response with far more casualties. Ukraine was attacked by Russia, and more than 2 years later and far more casualties later, they are still fighting back. Israel is not allowed to win a war, and that is why for almost 80 years, after winning 3 wars it didn’t start, going for a 4th, surviving two intifadas and countless terrorist attacks including at the 1972 Olympics, we still have the situation we do, and it has gotten worse and worse to boot. There are consequences for waging war against a sovereign nation, especially when you lose…for all instigators except the Palestinians. Similarly, there are consequences for all people who commit hate crimes against a minority or protected class…unless, apparently, it is a crime against Jews…even in 2024.
- The Legion of H, and their puppetmaster I with the funding of Q – I and Q are the masterminds behind not only the chaos in the Middle East, but also everything happening across the globe in city streets and on college/university campuses. The trio of H – Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis continue to wreak havoc and do the bidding of their masters, and the rest of the globe has pretty much accepted this status quo leaving Israel to fight a war on seven fronts – Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Iran and the media/global public opinion.
- DON’T – This policy by the Biden/Harris administration is a JOKE! Hezbollah has not stopped raining missiles on Israel since October 7…clearly undeterred by this misguided farce of a warning. Nearly 100,000 Israelis have been forced to evacuate their homes for nearly a year now, with no timeline or encouraging sign that they will be able to return any time soon. The Houthis similarly have continued to inflict damage on the world stage, and have caused shockwaves in the global trade economy by forcing cargo ships to reroute due to their threats and attacks. DON’T eerily reminds IDROS of Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement policy toward Hitler and the Nazis…not sure that one worked out so well.
- The Squad and the ‘Jewish’ Dissent – while this may sound like a dystopian Noah Baumbach film, this one stars elected members of the US Government who ooze antisemitic actions and tropes on the regular…and their token ‘Jewish’ counterparts that include our nation’s 2nd Gentleman, Bernie, Oscar winner Jonathan Glazer, Chuckie Schumer, and the worst offender, Jonny Stuart Leibowitz. These people, with large audiences and positions of power and gravitas, further alienate and marginalize, exacerbate the hateful rhetoric and lies, and, in the cases of the Jewish haters, are used as tokens to legitimize the antisemitism. We do get to hang a small win here with the recent defeat of Squad member terrorist-first-class Bowman being recently unseated, but these awful people who have attained positions of power and have millions of followers of their hateful bile continue to pull at the fabric of human decency, and make any peaceful resolution even more unattainable.
- Never Negotiate with Terrorists – what happened to rule number one in the counter-terrorist playbook? More hypocrisy when it pertains to Israel and the Jews…do as we say, not as we do. And of course, let the financiers of terror and Jew-hatred around the world serve as the moderators and facilitators of any negotiations. How is this Israel’s only hope of a resolution? How do Israel’s chief allies, who have their own citizens in captivity, allow this as an acceptable reality?
- The Innocence Project – Either Hamas was democratically elected – and because more than 70 percent of Palestinians support Hamas and the October 7 massacre still today, this is the likely scenario – in which case, the Palestinian citizens, tragic as it is, must face the consequences much like the German citizens under the Nazis and the Japanese citizens under Hirohito, and countless other ‘’innocent’ civilians have throughout history when their governments instigated/started a war. Or, Hamas ruthlessly came to power by force and the Palestinian citizens wanted no part of them – very unlikely – but even if this is the truth, then Israel has a duty to free the Palestinians from the terrorist group that holds them captive, and the Palestinians should support this. They don’t, nor does much of the world…because the majority of Palestinians aren’t so innocent…and because Jews don’t count.
- Masks – the fact that the terrorists themselves, and all in the world who have supported and continue to support them around the world, on campuses and city streets, in front of synagogues and on capitol hill, cover their faces with masks and keffiyehs, speaks volumes. Good guys and gals don’t wear masks, nor do they need to.
And last, but certainly not least,
- Hostages – Never forget them. Any realistic protests must begin with the return of those held, and raped and tortured against their will. Bring them home NOW!
So back to pistachios. Remember back in the 70s and early 80s when pistachios were red? That dye would get all over your fingers and around your mouth. Frank Dreben, played by Leslie Neilson, in the Naked Gun was a big fan. The majority of our pistachios at the time were imported from…IRAN. And in order to hide the imperfections on the shells, which became more pronounced as a result of prolonged timeframes from harvest to point of sale due to lengthy shipping routes and port inspections, Iranians would dye the shells red. It was all a lie. The nuts aren’t really red, nor are they really nuts. Pistachios are seeds that actually grow inside a fruit. And of course the red dye is cancer-causing as most red dyes are – not that this was an issue in the 70s, when smoking on airplanes was still a thing, and farmers bathed our produce in pesticides – so the Iranians were [inadvertently] poisoning us too while deceiving consumers by covering the ugly markings on the older seed shells. Furthermore and with a bit of irony, the dye made the nuts non-kosher. But in a strange turn of events, when the Iranians took American hostages in 1979, the US embargoed all Iranian goods, and thus began the American pistachio industry in California. The red dyed nuts were swapped out for pure, natural cream-colored shells, and now most, if not all pistachios consumed in America are domestic.
These delicious delicacies well represent the Jewish people. They have been lied about, misrepresented, and the truth about them was hidden from the general public by middle easterners protecting their own self-interest. There is record of pistachios dating back thousands of years. They are referred to as ‘choice fruits,’ or botnim in the Torah. Their benefits to humanity, especially health benefits, are vast and multifaceted. But most importantly, despite political strife and a hostage situation forcing them to relocate, PISTACHIOS ARE INDIGENOUS TO THE MIDDLE EAST!
Wishing you all a happy Fourth of July. And while you are reveling in your own freedom this holiday represents, IDROS urges you to pray for the freedom of the 120 remaining hostages, several of which are fellow Americans. #BringThemHome
idontrollonshabbas 