Category Archives: Iran

NEW (8/19): Flush ‘Em: Ceasefires À La Israel And America Are Layers Of Loo-Paper

America, Argument, Bush, Criminal Injustice, Donald Trump, Ethics, Foreign Policy, GAZA, Iran, Israel, Middle East, Natural Law, Palestinians, Private Property, Terrorism, UN, War

Podcast: Beware The JD Vance Political Production

GAZA, Ilana Mercer, Iran, Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Middle East, Military, Morality, Politics, Propaganda, Republicans, Technology, THE ELITES, The Establishment

“JD Vance, VP in the Trump regime, is a political production, not a real person, a production of the worst pedigree. Vance is a creation of a tech billionaire PAC, a ‘tech-aligned super political action committee’—people whose death-industries move humanity further away from community, from the locality; from honest industry, real knowledge and production and into a consumer, bubble-driven technocracy, anchored in illiteracy, gambling, speculation, buying and selling intangible derivative products….”

WATCH HERE:

RELATED ESSAY is “Here’s JD: The Unbearable Lightness Of VP Vance: A VERY Short Primer.” It’s on Substack, where we can interact, as well as on IlanaMercer.com.

https://ilanamercersfpvresistance.substack.com/p/heres-jd-the-unbearable-lightness

ESSAY: The Judaism-Zionism Bifurcation (Part 2): Tikkun Olam: Fixing The World, But For What, For Whom?

Anti-Semitism, Argument, Ethics, GAZA, Hebrew Testament, Iran, Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Judaism & Jews, Middle East, Natural Law, War

2 Replies

Having, attached yourself to the Palestine solidarity movement as an ultra-orthodox Jew; I’m not yet lavish in my praise for you. What excites suspicion is that your conduct, vis-à-vis Palestinian possessions, could be tied to the religious edicts surrounding the coming of messiah. Although the question of messiah’s arrival is more than likely immaterial—the question of ethics is not. ~ilana

Charity ought to be about fellow-feeling, not factional preferences. ~ilana

NEW ESSAY, and part 2 in a series of 3, IS “The Judaism-Zionism Bifurcation (Part 2): Tikkun Olam: Fixing The World, But For What, For Whom?” It was, on May 31st, a feature essay on The Unz Review. And it led the page, June 1, at LewRockwell.com, anti-state, anti-war, pro-market.

https://www.unz.com/imercer/the-judaism-zionism-bifurcation-part-2-tikkun-olam-fixing-the-world-but-for-what-for-whom/

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2026/06/ilana-mercer/the-judaism-zionism-bifurcation-tikkun-olam-fixing-the-world-but-for-what-for-whom/

Comment here: https://www.unz.com/imercer/the-judaism-zionism-bifurcation-part-2-tikkun-olam-fixing-the-world-but-for-what-for-whom/#comments

https://www.unz.com/imercer/the-judaism-zionism-bifurcation-part-2-tikkun-olam-fixing-the-world-but-for-what-for-whom/

Part 1 is “The Judaism-Zionism Bifurcation: Chosenness (Part 1).”

Excerpt from, “The Judaism-Zionism Bifurcation (Part 2): Tikkun Olam: Fixing The World, But For What, For Whom?”:

Contra classical natural law theory, my own religious order, Judaism in its popular rendering has always appeared to me quite sectarian. The faith to which I was born frequently seemed a we-only litany, more about Jews and for Jews than about the world, or for the good of the world.

For “a spectacular sense of otherness and unity” (Jon Krakauer, Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith, p. 262), only the Mormons, tethered to their territory of Utah, equal Jews, with whom Mormons also strongly identify.

Myself, I came alive ideologically when I reached the New World, in the mid-1990s. It was as though a new world of ideas heretofore unknown had unfurled to quench the soul and the intellect. Alas, it did not come from Judaism, to which I was born.

I discovered the very American libertarian non-aggression axiom, which flows, at least in my opinion, from Thomist Catholic philosophy, Just War theory, and the Stoic doctrine of natural law, whose first “interpreter and transmitter” was Cicero,[1] to be followed by Saint Thomas Aquinas and the Roman Church.

As plain as plain is the idea of charity. It’s a religion surety, I had surmised, that benevolence is meant to improve society, not the State; and to do so through personal, not political, acts in the community. Charity ought to be about fellow-feeling, not factional preferences. As instructed in Leviticus 19:18, “You should love your neighbor as you do yourself.”

Consider the concept of Tikkun Olam, the Jewish obligation to repair the world. Perhaps willfully—and to comport with my natural-law bias—I had always interpreted Tikkun Olam as a sublimely modest Jewish obligation.

Developed by the scholars and sages of a dispersed people, Tikkun Olam, I had hoped, was intended as a humble thing—as the duty of the Jewish individual to help, bit-by-bit, to bring about a better world in unassuming, day-to-day righteous acts. In his community and beyond.

In the best sense of that much-abused term “Orthodox” is a reader of ours, “a Torah observant Orthodox Jewish man,” and an attorney at law. JBS, Esq. speaks of Jewish “Chosenness” as follows:

As you are likely aware, Judaism is an ancient religion based upon God’s revelation of Himself to Hebrews at Mt. Sinai. Zionism is a recent [19th Century] political movement associated with Judaism but is not Judaism. Most Jewish people conflate and blur the distinction.The ‘Chosen People’ concept is misunderstood by most Jews. God ‘chose’ the Jewish people to receive, accept, keep and fulfill His Torah and teach it to the world, to be a ‘light unto the nations.’ That is all being ‘chosen’ ought to mean, not a Jewish ego trip.
As to Jewish entitlement to the land of Israel: fulfillment of their Godly duties is required. I think Zionists believe otherwise; that military capture is sufficient. God twice banished Hebrews from the land for their failures and sins. Many Orthodox Jews (myself included) believe that Jewish entitlement to the land of Israel will require the appearance of Mashiach, the Jewish messiah. I don’t know much about that. (May, 2026)

Although there is a certain degree of comic protest about my next question; I ask it not to be a Smart Alec:

Does what our laudable reader say mean that, come Mashiach, real or imagined, ultra-orthodox Jews could be given religious license to rob Palestinian homesteaders? That, you see, is unclear. With respect to the ultra-Orthodox anti-Zionist Jewry; although the question of messiah’s arrival is more than likely immaterial—the question of ethics is not.

In particular, the question of situational ethics and ethical relativism.

Having, attached yourself to the Palestine solidarity movement as an ultra-orthodox Jew; I’m not yet lavish in my praise for you. What excites suspicion is that your conduct, vis-à-vis Palestinian possessions, could be tied to the religious edicts surrounding the coming of messiah. History, more significantly, is replete with people who followed a false messiah. There is even a concept for this eventuality in Hebrew lore (mashiach sheker).

These days, my own humble perspective on the daily practice of piety is a mirage in the desert.

Certainly, my modest, morally universal interpretation of Tikkun Olam is not the one adopted by Jews who are “chosen”; namely favored, esteemed and elevated by gentiles and by institutional Jewry.

Starting with the barefaced Thomas Friedman, a New York Times columnist, …

…THE REST. NEW ESSAY, and part 2 in a series of 3, IS “The Judaism-Zionism Bifurcation (Part 2): Tikkun Olam: Fixing The World, But For What, For Whom?” On The Unz Review. And at LewRockwell.com, anti-state, anti-war, pro-market.

Comment here: https://www.unz.com/imercer/the-judaism-zionism-bifurcation-part-2-tikkun-olam-fixing-the-world-but-for-what-for-whom/#comments

Part 1 is “The Judaism-Zionism Bifurcation: Chosenness (Part 1).“

[1]. Heinrich A. Rommen, The Natural Law, A Study In Legal And Social History And Philosophy, Liberty Fund, Indianapolis, 1998

ESSAY (4/24/2026): Team Netanyahu/Trump Sinks Iran Talks; Kushner Beefs Up Rap-Sheet

America, Donald Trump, Foreign Policy, GAZA, Iran, Israel, Middle East, Morality, Natural Law, Paleolibertarianism, Palestinians, Private Property, Propaganda, Terrorism, The West, War

1 Reply

The US is violating Iran’s territorial sovereignty and denying that country’s riparian rights in the waterways that abut its territory. ~ilana

…[Israelis] don’t have to explain themselves to the world. Israel [should just] focus on the things that make them incredible …their ingenuity, their innovation, their compassion, …on being exceptional. ~ Jared Kushner

Jared, You forgot killing. Israeli pleasures and pastimes are killing. ~ilana

NEW ESSAY IS “Team Netanyahu/Trump Sinks Iran Talks; Kushner Beefs Up Rap-Sheet.” Read it now on The Unz Review and on LewRockwell.com.

It is now available on IlanaMercer.com: https://www.ilanamercer.com/2026/04/team-netanyahutrump-sinks-iran-talks-kushner-beefs-up-rap-sheet/

Excerpt:

We have a “good negotiating team, the best,” blathered Trump, with respect to the individuals he dispatched to the Pakistani capital of Islamabad, April 10, to dictate the terms of surrender to the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Team Trump was led by Israel firsters and Israeli assets like Jared Kushner, Steve Witkoaff (sic), and Vice President JD Vance, whose eyeliner only enhances the “degeneracy of manners and morals” he embodies and represents.

I’ll make this very simple. Against the Islamic Republic, victim of the US-Israel’s untrammeled criminality, the president’s men have committed the most egregious crime, the crime of aggression, categorized as such in international customary law—and in all systems of law, codified and uncodified.

By violating Iran’s territorial sovereignty and denying that country’s riparian rights in the waterways that abut its territory—by strafing Iranian cities, targeting life-sustaining infrastructure and industries; hospitals, healers and first responders.; historic sites and schools; wantonly murdering thousands of Iranian people, assassinating esteemed political and scientific leaders—Trump has demonstrated that he has assimilated Israel’s military doctrines. The president of the United States of America has Israelized the US Military and is ‘going Amalek’ on the Jewish State’s designated enemies.

The “accumulated evil,” another legal term invoked in international customary law with respect to the “supreme crime” of unprovoked aggression—this rot is evident in all Trump’s dealings and deeds. It is etched on his decaying Dorian Gray like countenance and is manifest in what is disgorged from the American president’s mouth.

By extension, it was quite clear what tone Trump’s team of choice would set for any and all “negotiation” proceedings with Iran.

Once the talks in Islamabad predictably collapsed, it transpired that Vance had likely been holding all information in reserve for Bibi Netanyahu’s edifications and approval.

Confirmed Netanyahu: “I spoke yesterday with Vice President J.D. Vance. He called me from his plane on his way back from Islamabad. He reported to me in detail, as this administration does every day, about the development of the negotiations.”

One wonders why Iran’s foreign minister, Seyed Abbas Araghchi, would sit down at the negotiating table with this coterie. After all, “in a phone call with his German counterpart, … Araghchi had proclaimed that Iran entered the failed April 10/12 talks in Islamabad with full distrust because of the US repeated breaches and betrayals of diplomacy.”

Foreign Minister Araghchi is certainly a class act. Team Trump/Netanyahu are class enemies. To wit, during the farcical negotiations, the US sneakily attempted to breach the Strait of Hurmuz, over which Iran has natural, riparian property rights. Simultaneously, the Washington Post ran an article by Marc Thiessen, a mediocre neoconservative, calling for the assassination of the Iranian negotiators if they refuse to submit.

Was it, then, prudent for Iran’s finest to grace with their presence such proven bad-faith actors? More important still, why trust Israel’s proxies—the detritus of humanity, human waste by any other name—with your life, Mr. Araghchi? Had not Mr. Araghchi’s predecessor, former Iranian foreign minister Kamal Kharazi and his wife, been murdered in “a targeted United States-Israeli strike on their Tehran home”? Indeed. So, too, is the supreme leader’s successor, Mojtaba Hosseini Khamenei, said to be languishing after wounds inflicted on him by this merged criminal cabal.

Just how duplicitous and vicious a people are we and our Israeli overlords?

A man is only as good as his word. Knowing that America’s word is shit, the Pakistan Air Force is purported to have “deployed an aerial shield” to escort the Iranian delegation, led by Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf,” safely into Pakistani airspace. On departure, their Pakistani hosts scrambled “advanced fighter jets” to protect the Iranians (to whom they had given a rock-star welcome).

True, one negotiates with foes, not with friends. Known, too, is the bravery and self-sacrifice of the Iranians and their leaders. Hours before his murder by Murder Inc., the equally impressive late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had stated that, as long as 90 million Iranians are without bomb-sheltering bunkers, so too will he, their spiritual leader, remain above ground, outside the shelter. He did. He died.

Iranians and their leaders seem to have so much more love and loyalty in them than their oppressors. But this does not mean you sacrifice your finest to Israel’s American idolaters. Trump and team are capable of surprising calculated, calibrated evil. Jared Kushner, in particular.

Behind Kushner’s sylphlike appearance is a boa constrictor anticipating its next meal. …

… Parenthetically, I’ll say that I’m sick of Gaza being reduced to no more than an ‘open-air concentration camp.’ Legally, this is true. But Gaza before the Holocaust was quite beautiful, certainly unique. It was a quaint community with a character and a history, some of it ancient. All of it well reflected in its public spaces. Gaza had nothing of the vulgar gilt of a Trump tower. To compare Gaza of yore to the Gaza dreamt up in the Kushner consortium’s Master Slave Plan for the Strip is like comparing a centuries-old church with the heavily adorned Trump White House and White House ballroom. …

…READ THE REST. “Team Netanyahu/Trump Sinks Iran Talks; Kushner Beefs Up Rap-Sheet” is on The Unz Review and on LewRockwell.com.

And on IlanaMercer.com: https://www.ilanamercer.com/2026/04/team-netanyahutrump-sinks-iran-talks-kushner-beefs-up-rap-sheet/

UPDATE (4/23): Genius Resistance Rap (via Dimitri Lascaris’ Reason2Resist).

AI LEGO Strait Outta Iran

https://x.com/drew_ponder/status/2045183966848934021

UPDATE 4/24:
Did I call it or not? Resistance Rap by young Iranian geniuses.