This could be the first war Israel could lose.

What does Hamas want, aside from its long-stated goal of eradicating Israel as a Jewish state from the map?

Let’s break it down:

(THREAD) ➡️ > Conduct an attack so heinous that it will embed tribal hate in its victims for generations. Check.

> Provoke a tremendous overreaction from Israel that kills tens of thousands of innocent Palestinians, advancing Hamas's aims of eclipsing any sympathy Israel temporarily gained for the worst terrorist attack in its history. Check.

When forming your opinion about the Israel-Palestine issue, ask yourself:

Do I want justice, or do I want peace?

If you seek full justice, you will never achieve peace.

But if you are seeking peace, you can get at least some justice.

[THREAD] For tribal conflicts dating back decades, if not centuries, justice is impossible. Every new tragedy and every atrocity is the effect of / response to / result of a prior cause—and each of these causes is the effect of another cause preceding 𝘪𝘵.

Either you’re pro-Palestinian or pro-Hamas.

You can’t be both.

Some things to note about this current conflict:

(thread) ➡️ Hamas is more loyal to the Iran’s mullah leadership than it is to its own Palestinian people. It is a despicable group that fires rockets from its own hospitals and schools to get Israel to bomb them so it can exploit dead Palestinian children to get the world’s sympathy. Hamas is no more loyal to the Palestinian people than the Islamic Republic of Iran is to the Iranian people.

The question isn't 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 Andrew Tate @Cobratate is exploiting Islam to grow his Muslim fanbase, but 𝘸𝘩𝘺 he finds Islam so compelling in the first place.

Let’s dive in.

Thread ⬇️ Look at verse 4:24 in the Quran. It starts as follows, and the consensus on translation is pretty much universal:

---
"And all married women (are forbidden unto you) save those (captives) whom your right hands possess. It is a decree of Allah for you." [Pickthall]

2

In a break from most of my friends, I’m a big admirer of Elon Musk. I think he is the Edison (Tesla?) of our times.

Unlike billionaires like Warren Buffett, who made their fortunes by investing in other people’s ideas, Elon has made his by pursuing innovative,

/1 difficult challenges that required lots of risk and very few people thought were realistic pursuits. If it were just about the money, he could easily have gone the Buffett route after selling PayPal, or any of the other easy routes. So I don’t think it’s as easy as the

/2

Ah, Woody Allen again. It's tragic all around if you want to believe the victims. Dylan Farrow claiming abuse by Allen. Moses Farrow and Soon-Yi claiming years of abuse by Mia Farrow.

This isn't about believing victims—it's about choosing *which* victims to believe.

Are some /1 alleged victims more credible than others? I don't think any are lying—I think they're all sincere about what they believe.

When you watch the HBO doc, you believe Woody's guilty—for all his artistic genius, the guy's creepy. But when you read Moses Farrow's and Soon-Yi's /2

Learnings from last night:

1. Biden likely wins. He's got AZ and NE-2 and WI, is holding NV, and if he wins MI (he's leading there with over 90% of the vote in), he's already at 270. He won't need GA or PA then, but could win at least one of those too. 2. Bernie would NOT have won this. Big lesson: The socialist/communist tag Trump pinned on Biden/Dems worked. Cuban Latinos likely cost him Florida. This could've been a wider effect if Bernie was the nominee. Far-right candidates can win in America but far-left candidates can't.

This must be said:

Democrats need to go and VOTE IN PERSON.

Put on your masks and sanitizer, keep your physical distance, and VOTE. IN. PERSON.

Do not vote by mail-in ballot, unless absolutely necessary.

There are now two huge reasons why this is necessary: 1. Mail-in ballots are rejected at much, much higher rates than in-person ballots.

Missing or mismatched signatures, envelope problems, missed deadlines, and other issues resulted in **OVER 500,000** mail-in ballots being rejected in the primaries.

Seriously.

I don’t understand this naïveté around hoping that some Republicans will “do the right thing” and vote against moving ahead with filling RBG’s seat. Even the Republicans who hate Trump are with him when it comes to the Supreme Court. It was a major motivating factor for them back in 2016. Now they’re looking at a 6-3 conservative majority Supreme Court. So WHY WOULDN’T THEY DO IT?

If the situation was reversed and Clarence Thomas had just croaked and Democrats had a chance to have a liberal majority SCOTUS just before an election where Republicans were

What do the rise of the far right, the far left "woke" movement, cancel culture, recent spikes in racial tensions, violence and vandalism have in common?

They all happened during the Trump presidency.

And now Trump is asking you to re-elect him for four more years. Okay, fine, here's some context (thread):

What I'm getting at here is the rise of these previously fringe ideologies into the mainstream. The far-right is in the White House, and the far-left is heavily influencing mainstream Democrats — though the far left still hasn't fully

This may well be one of the most important video clips about Islam ever, and it comes not from any secular activist, but Islamic scholar @YasirQadhi himself. The printing press was indeed declared haram by the Ottoman Empire, and the use of it was punished with death.

/1

https://twitter.com/abdullahadam/status/1298318437882765317

So while Christian Europe underwent an Enlightenment that skewered Christian theocracy and propelled it out of the Dark Ages into the enduring and prosperous time of secular liberalism we have today, the Muslim world stayed where it was—a place where

/2

THREAD:

A lot of these culture wars are just the same age-old generation-gap “Ah, kids these days...” conflicts. The difference is, everyone has a Twitter platform to vent their recreational outrage. There are bigger battles to fight than getting triggered over “individuals with a cervix.” Who cares? Trans men have cervices, and millions of women who’ve had hysterectomies don’t. What difference does it really make to your life if...

Thread.

"The United States is one of the least racist countries on the planet."

This is a fact. And most immigrants in the US who grew up in places like the Middle East, Asia, or even the nation-states of Europe know this. The US and Canada are two of just a handful of countries composed almost entirely of immigrants. And when you do see racism in countries like the US and Canada, it's not because it's more PREVALENT than in China or Saudi Arabia; it's because it's more VISIBLE: we have robust systems of transparency, accountability, and

Thread:

It is fascinating that the same Bernie supporters who thought Hillary Clinton was a lying, untrustworthy snake in 2016 are now firmly in the “believe all women” camp with Tara Reade — a documented defender and admirer of Vladimir Putin until last month.

1 The protocol should be straightforward:

—-
1. Take every accusation seriously. Never automatically assume that an accuser is lying.

2. Never call anyone a rapist unless the evidence has shown them to be a rapist.
—-

Assume the innocence of the accuser—and the accused—until

/2

Former Biden staffer Tara Reade’s article, “Why a Liberal Democrat Supports Vladimir Putin”: web.archive.org/web/2019040404… As recently as December 2019...

Urgent message from a physician friend in Los Angeles:

—-
“FRONTLINE DOCTORS AND HEALTHCARE STAFF ARE AT RISK.

We need a national quarantine TODAY, not in 5 days.

This is why:

(Thread) We can’t safely cohort people with fever and cold symptoms in the hospital unless we have rapid COVID testing.

In the absence of rapid COVID testing, determining the risk level of anyone with a cold, the flu or any other non-COVID illness SAFELY requires

Love @NickKristof, but this just goes to show that NOTHING terrifies believers more than someone reading their holy books literally, ie *the way they're actually written.*

Apparently God can't explain himself as articulately as his human interpreters.

/1 nytimes.com/2019/11/11/boo… @NickKristof This quote is especially astounding. What really gives Scripture a bad name is the fact that it makes SCIENTIFIC claims—claims about nature, the origin of the universe, the emergence of life, etc—that we know for a fact to be false. And then, it claims to be Absolute Truth.

/2

What's @TwitterSupport doing?

@YasMohammedxx, Egyptian-Canadian secular activist who once escaped a forced marriage w an AlQaeda member—SUSPENDED

@ArminNavabi, Iranian secular atheist human rights activist—SUSPENDED

Are only Jews/Christians allowed to be atheists, Twitter?

/1 @TwitterSupport @YasMohammedxx @ArminNavabi @RichardDawkins @SarahTheHaider @ExmuslimsOrg @MoTheAtheist @MaryamNamazie @MaajidNawaz @AmericanAtheist @FFRF The Twitter account for our podcast, @SecularJihadist — which has promoted LIBERAL, SECULAR voices across the Muslim world, often persecuted and silenced — also suspended.

For @TwitterSupport, talk liberalism and secularism only if you're white and named Richard or Sam.

/2

Recall that the @AmerAcadPeds also endorsed FGM in 2010 before a well-merited backlash forced them to retract the recommendation—which was not made on medical or scientific grounds: nytimes.com/2010/05/07/hea… /1

https://twitter.com/Yair_Rosenberg/status/1082032742693523460

Religious and cultural reasons are cited frequently by American organizations in support of routine infant genital cutting, while they acknowledge that the practice is not medically necessary. /2

In 2010, #AasiaBibi, a poor Christian woman in Pakistan, was sentenced to death for blasphemy against Islam. When the governor of the province, Salman Taseer, voiced opposition to the verdict, he was assassinated by his own bodyguard, Mumtaz Qadri. /1 Mumtaz Qadri was outraged that the governor would stand with a woman who had allegedly insulted Islam and its prophet Muhammad. He believed that not only should #AasiaBibi be executed, but Salman Taseer too. So he shot the governor dead—and immediately became a hero. /2

THREAD: Why Trump *Really* Won

There are a lot of theories about why Trump won. Some say liberals became complacent and lazy, took a Democratic victory for granted, and didn't come out to vote. Some say conservatives were energized because of the condescending and elitist... ...attitudes of liberals out of touch with the needs of regular Americans. Some warn that Trump will win again if you don't put up a fight and resist in every way possible. Others warn that speaking up too much is why Trump won in the first place.