#Challenges Faced by Women Entrepreneurs in Iran

[charliebroger-blog]

My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel

Ari Shavit

**NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW *AND THE ECONOMIST***

****Winner of the Natan Book Award, the National Jewish Book Award, and the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award** ** An authoritative and deeply personal narrative history of the State of Israel, by one of the most influential journalists writing about the Middle East today   Not since Thomas L. Friedman’s groundbreaking From Beirut to Jerusalem has a book captured the essence and the beating heart of the Middle East as keenly and dynamically as My Promised Land. Facing unprecedented internal and external pressures, Israel today is at a moment of existential crisis. Ari Shavit draws on interviews, historical documents, private diaries, and letters, as well as his own family’s story, illuminating the pivotal moments of the Zionist century to tell a riveting narrative that is larger than the sum of its parts: both personal and national, both deeply human and of profound historical dimension.   We meet Shavit’s great-grandfather, a British Zionist who in 1897 visited the Holy Land on a Thomas Cook tour and understood that it was the way of the future for his people; the idealist young farmer who bought land from his Arab neighbor in the 1920s to grow the Jaffa oranges that would create Palestine’s booming economy; the visionary youth group leader who, in the 1940s, transformed Masada from the neglected ruins of an extremist sect into a powerful symbol for Zionism; the Palestinian who as a young man in 1948 was driven with his family from his home during the expulsion from Lydda; the immigrant orphans of Europe’s Holocaust, who took on menial work and focused on raising their children to become the leaders of the new state; the pragmatic engineer who was instrumental in developing Israel’s nuclear program in the 1960s, in the only interview he ever gave; the zealous religious Zionists who started the settler movement in the 1970s; the dot-com entrepreneurs and young men and women behind Tel-Aviv’s booming club scene; and today’s architects of Israel’s foreign policy with Iran, whose nuclear threat looms ominously over the tiny country.

As it examines the complexities and contradictions of the Israeli condition, My Promised Land asks difficult but important questions: Why did Israel come to be? How did it come to be? Can Israel survive? Culminating with an analysis of the issues and threats that Israel is currently facing, My Promised Land uses the defining events of the past to shed new light on the present. The result is a landmark portrait of a small, vibrant country living on the edge, whose identity and presence play a crucial role in today’s global political landscape.

Praise for My Promised Land

“This book will sweep you up in its narrative force and not let go of you until it is done. [Shavit’s] accomplishment is so unlikely, so total . . . that it makes you believe anything is possible, even, God help us, peace in the Middle East.”—Simon Schama,* Financial Times***   “[A] must-read book.”—Thomas L. Friedman, The New York Times*** *  “Important and powerful . . . the least tendentious book about Israel I have ever read.”—Leon Wieseltier, The New York Times Book Review ***   “Spellbinding . . . Shavit’s prophetic voice carries lessons that all sides need to hear.”—The Economist***   “One of the most nuanced and challenging books written on Israel in years.”—The Wall Street Journal

[itunesbooks]

My Promised Land - Ari Shavit

My Promised Land The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel Ari Shavit Genre: Middle East Price: $14.99 Publish Date: November 19, 2013 Publisher: Random House Publishing Group Seller: Penguin Random House LLC NEW YORK TIMES  BESTSELLER • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW AND THE ECONOMIST Winner of the Natan Book Award, the National Jewish Book Award, and the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award An authoritative and deeply personal narrative history of the State of Israel, by one of the most influential journalists writing about the Middle East today   Not since Thomas L. Friedman’s groundbreaking From Beirut to Jerusalem has a book captured the essence and the beating heart of the Middle East as keenly and dynamically as My Promised Land . Facing unprecedented internal and external pressures, Israel today is at a moment of existential crisis. Ari Shavit draws on interviews, historical documents, private diaries, and letters, as well as his own family’s story, illuminating the pivotal moments of the Zionist century to tell a riveting narrative that is larger than the sum of its parts: both personal and national, both deeply human and of profound historical dimension.   We meet Shavit’s great-grandfather, a British Zionist who in 1897 visited the Holy Land on a Thomas Cook tour and understood that it was the way of the future for his people; the idealist young farmer who bought land from his Arab neighbor in the 1920s to grow the Jaffa oranges that would create Palestine’s booming economy; the visionary youth group leader who, in the 1940s, transformed Masada from the neglected ruins of an extremist sect into a powerful symbol for Zionism; the Palestinian who as a young man in 1948 was driven with his family from his home during the expulsion from Lydda; the immigrant orphans of Europe’s Holocaust, who took on menial work and focused on raising their children to become the leaders of the new state; the pragmatic engineer who was instrumental in developing Israel’s nuclear program in the 1960s, in the only interview he ever gave; the zealous religious Zionists who started the settler movement in the 1970s; the dot-com entrepreneurs and young men and women behind Tel-Aviv’s booming club scene; and today’s architects of Israel’s foreign policy with Iran, whose nuclear threat looms ominously over the tiny country. As it examines the complexities and contradictions of the Israeli condition, My Promised Land asks difficult but important questions: Why did Israel come to be? How did it come to be? Can Israel survive? Culminating with an analysis of the issues and threats that Israel is currently facing, My Promised Land uses the defining events of the past to shed new light on the present. The result is a landmark portrait of a small, vibrant country living on the edge, whose identity and presence play a crucial role in today’s global political landscape. Praise for My Promised Land “This book will sweep you up in its narrative force and not let go of you until it is done. [Shavit’s] accomplishment is so unlikely, so total . . . that it makes you believe anything is possible, even, God help us, peace in the Middle East.” —Simon Schama, Financial Times   “[A] must-read book.” —Thomas L. Friedman, The New York Times   “Important and powerful . . . the least tendentious book about Israel I have ever read.” —Leon Wieseltier, The New York Times Book Review   “Spellbinding . . . Shavit’s prophetic voice carries lessons that all sides need to hear.” —The Economist   “One of the most nuanced and challenging books written on Israel in years.” —The Wall Street Journal http://bit.ly/2VNtRgr

[courtneytincher]

AOC-Style Challengers Looking to Unseat the Dems’ Top Brass in 2020

Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast/GettyThe House Judiciary Committee was in the middle of considering a resolution expanding Democrats’ impeachment proceedings when Rep. Matt Gaetz decided to get personal. Decrying Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler’s escalating impeachment inquiry into President Trump, the right-wing Florida congressman fired a shot at the integrity of the hearing—and at the man holding the gavel. “I would hope,” Gaetz said, “that these proceedings are not about the chairman’s upcoming primary challenge.” The quip prompted some shocked groans on the Democratic side of the dais—and silence from Nadler. But the cheap shot raised by Gaetz is central to the argument that one of Nadler’s Democratic primary opponents, Lindsey Boylan, eagerly makes herself. “Without my challenge, I have no doubt in my mind he wouldn't be aggressively acting the way he is,” said Boylan in a recent interview. “But it's not enough.”Boylan, a former official in the administration of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, is one of four candidates seeking to unseat Nadler in the New York City district he has represented since 1992. She has raised some $350,000 for her campaign so far—$85,000 of it from herself—and is the best-resourced candidate in a field of challengers that includes two other women who are also several decades younger than Nadler and are also enthusiastic backers of lefty policies like the Green New Deal.It’s not just Nadler who is feeling some fresh heat from his own party. After years of targeting moderates and backbenchers, anti-establishment elements in the Democratic Party are directing their energy toward unseating their most influential lawmakers, smelling blood after Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York shocked the political establishment by defeating former Rep. Joe Crowley in a 2018 primary. That trend is cresting in 2020, with upstarts around the country taking on the Democratic lawmakers who are setting the party’s priorities on not only impeachment and oversight but also health-care and spending policy. Serious challengers with electoral experience and promising grassroots support are gunning for no fewer than five influential committee chairs—Nadler, Richard Neal of the Ways and Means Committee, Eliot Engel of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Nita Lowey of the Appropriations Committee, and Frank Pallone of the Energy and Commerce Committee. The top two House Democrats, Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer, also face primary rivals who have garnered some attention, but defeating those two is a far taller task.Several of these primaries will air substantial policy differences over the issues dominating debate among Democrats right now, like Medicare-for-All. In other races, the ideological daylight between candidates will be slim.But on the whole, 2020’s bumper crop of challenges centers on how well a new generation of Democrats can sell the idea that the party’s old guard is no longer capable of forcefully leading on a range of key issues—including, as Gaetz’s trollish interlude underscored, their commitment to holding Trump’s feet to the fire. According to Neal Kwatra, a Democratic strategist in New York, the phenomenon amounts to an escalation in Democrats’ internal debates over what they stand for. “What you’re seeing is, these broader challenges are much less about ideology and more about the fighting spirit of the party, what it’s willing to do, how it’s going to hold Trump and the Republican Party writ large accountable,” Kwatra told The Daily Beast. “I think that’s a generational challenge.”The challengers to Neal and Nadler in particular reflect the phenomenon. Both chairmen face their most serious races in years from candidates loudly criticizing their commitments on everything from countering Trump to serving their districts. That dynamic figures to put additional pressure on both chairmen as they try to steer their committees’ respective agendas, both of which are crucial to Democrats’ oversight of the president and policy priorities more broadly. Neal, who has represented a solidly Democratic, largely white western Massachusetts district since 1988, is a moderate in today’s party. Due to his perch on the powerful Ways and Means Committee, he’s turned into something of a villain for progressives over his opposition to Medicare-for-All and his seemingly cozy relationships with corporate interests.But it was Neal’s unique authority in the House to obtain Trump’s tax returns that was the final straw for some on the left. It was expected that Neal would leverage that power and ask for the tax filings immediately after Democrats took the House majority—instead, he did not do so until April, and he did not file a lawsuit to get them until July. A federal judge has blocked House Democrats’ bid to expedite that lawsuit; it could be months or years before it is resolved.Alex Morse, the 30-year old mayor of the town of Holyoke, is weaving all these threads together in his challenge to Neal, which has already attracted some buzz in the media and among the left. “There’s an urgency to this moment and the urgency is not matched by this member of Congress,” Morse told The Daily Beast in an interview. “His core argument, the argument of his supporters is, why would we give up that power—but what’s the point of having power if you’re not using it to hold this president accountable?”The essence of that critique is the same in Nadler’s Manhattan- and Brooklyn-based district, but the Judiciary Chairman is a far different animal: among the most progressive senior leaders in the House, he has long enjoyed widespread support in this district, a hub of affluent liberals; one Democratic operative called him “the godfather of progressive politics in New York.”Nadler’s challengers argue that the district deserves even more aggressive and more progressive leadership from its representative, not only on impeaching Trump but on climate change and income inequality. Boylan in particular has relentlessly hammered Nadler for his handling of the impeachment inquiry, which she mocks as an “Inception-like, dream-within-a-dream” amid muddled messaging and widespread clamoring from the party base for Nadler and Pelosi to move forward in bringing an impeachment inquiry. She casts the stalled impeachment proceedings as exhibit A of why the district should replace their representative. “This community has not seen Congressman Nadler lead on the issues of the day, and the one most in front of our faces, impeachment,” she said. “It's time for the next generation.”In suburban New York City, meanwhile, the challenge to Engel, the Foreign Affairs Committee chair, leans less on his stewardship of oversight matters and more on generational change. His leading opponent, Jamaal Bowman, is a 40-year old school principal in the Bronx, and his campaign launch video pulled clips from Engel’s three decades in Congress to spotlight his political stances, like his advocacy for the 1994 crime bill, that have aged poorly. The possibility of an energetic campaign from a black leader in the community excites many progressives, and Bowman is viewed as perhaps the most viable primary to a top Democratic lawmaker anywhere in the country. The fundamentals of the district also favor him more than other challengers: just north of Ocasio-Cortez’s district, it is deeply liberal and is one of only a few majority-minority districts to have a white representative. These races are in their early stages, but the challengers have showed signs of fundraising prowess—or at least a willingness to self-fund enough to get their message out. New York Democrats are anticipating Boylan’s next fundraising quarter with interest to see if she can build on the $350,000 she’s raised so far. Another candidate running against Nadler, entrepreneur Holly Lynch, has seeded $125,000 of her own money to her campaign, which she is kicking off this week. Nadler, who has often run unopposed for the Democratic nomination in New York’s 10th District, has faced well-resourced primary rivals before. In 2016, the last time there was a primary race, businessman Oliver Rosenberg poured $350,000 of his own money into a campaign that targeted Nadler almost entirely over his support for the Iran nuclear deal. Ultimately, Nadler won with nearly 90 percent of the vote.Morse, meanwhile, called The Daily Beast from New York City, where he was tapping his network of friends and contacts for fundraising. He’ll need every cent he can get: Neal, who runs a committee that’s coveted by lawmakers as a veritable ATM for campaign cash, is already sitting on a campaign war chest of nearly $4 million. But a hot primary is hardly a symmetrical war, say some operatives. “The beauty of it is,” said Karthik Ganapathy, who co-founded a progressive strategy firm intended to help challengers, “you don’t need to match incumbents one for one—you just need to have enough money to get your own message out there.”Promising candidates could eventually earn the imprimatur of Justice Democrats, the left-wing organization that’s become a primary race kingmaker after sparking the rise of Ocasio-Cortez in 2018. The group has already endorsed several challengers, including Bowman.Progressives might be clamoring for that leftward intervention to unseat some incumbents. But the idea of putting real time and resources into defeating loyal liberals like Nadler makes Democrats of different ideological stripes uneasy about the growing primary trend and concerned about the impact it could have on their stated top priorities—defeating Trump and taking back the Senate.“How anyone views getting rid of Jerry Nadler as being anything on a top 2,000-list of problems the Democratic Party has,” said a veteran Democratic strategist, “is a ridiculous waste of time.”A New York-based Democratic strategist told The Daily Beast that many progressives agree, and are not prioritizing Nadler’s race, instead focusing on Engel and Lowey. “You should have to defend and show your record to the people. The fact that Nadler has to go to his community and say, here’s what I’ve done for you,” the strategist said, ”I think he can do that successfully.”In an environment where all incumbents are watching their backs, it’s unlikely any will be caught as flat-footed as Crowley was in 2018. Notably, Neal is already coming out swinging against his opponent: in a statement to The Daily Beast, campaign spokesperson Peter Panos argued Neal was on the “front lines” of holding Trump accountable, and went after Morse’s stewardship of public schools in Holyoke, which were taken over by the state for poor performance in 2015, four years into his tenure as mayor. “Where was his urgency,” asked Panos, “to improve the schools in his city?”Nadler’s campaign did not comment for this story. But New York Democrats say that the chairman’s extensive political network is poised to be put to work in his race. Key local leaders like Corey Johnson, the speaker of the New York City Council, are vouching for Nadler’s work in Congress and back home.“If there are members of the Democratic caucus who are out of sync with Democratic values, we should be challenging them,” Johnson told The Daily Beast, specifically mentioning Rep. Henry Cuellar, a Texas moderate who’s previously been backed by the National Rifle Association. “We need to be strategic about these things,” he said. “Jerry’s not a person who’s out of sync with our values or hasn’t delivered for our district.”Though even those who are bullish on the challengers expect most of them, if not all, to lose, there is hope that they might push these entrenched incumbents toward the positions the challengers are advocating. The New York Democratic strategist, for example, was quick to point to the campaign of Cynthia Nixon, who fell far short of upsetting Gov. Cuomo in the state’s 2018 primary but successfully pressured him to adopt more progressive positions. “New York has entrenched representatives who aren’t shaking things up,” the strategist said. “These people just respond to primaries.”The candidates themselves, of course, don’t view that as a consolation prize. “Success for me isn’t moving him anywhere,” Morse said of Neal, who he described as set in his ways. “It’s winning… These victories are more possible than ever.”The small group of House Democrats who have defeated incumbents themselves are watching from Capitol Hill, meanwhile, with an attitude that this competition is good for Democrats, no matter how intense it may get."Look, it’s healthy,” said Rep. Ro Khanna, who unseated longtime Rep. Mike Honda in a deep blue Bay Area district in 2016. “We're living in a time of great anxiety, great change, and there should be competition for these seats. They aren’t entitlements.”Neither, apparently, are fancy titles and powerful gavels. “Don’t try,” he cracked, “to become a committee chair in Congress.”Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines

Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast/GettyThe House Judiciary Committee was in the middle of considering a resolution expanding Democrats’ impeachment proceedings when Rep. Matt Gaetz decided to get personal. Decrying Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler’s escalating impeachment inquiry into President Trump, the right-wing Florida congressman fired a shot at the integrity of the hearing—and at the man holding the gavel. “I would hope,” Gaetz said, “that these proceedings are not about the chairman’s upcoming primary challenge.” The quip prompted some shocked groans on the Democratic side of the dais—and silence from Nadler. But the cheap shot raised by Gaetz is central to the argument that one of Nadler’s Democratic primary opponents, Lindsey Boylan, eagerly makes herself. “Without my challenge, I have no doubt in my mind he wouldn't be aggressively acting the way he is,” said Boylan in a recent interview. “But it's not enough.”Boylan, a former official in the administration of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, is one of four candidates seeking to unseat Nadler in the New York City district he has represented since 1992. She has raised some $350,000 for her campaign so far—$85,000 of it from herself—and is the best-resourced candidate in a field of challengers that includes two other women who are also several decades younger than Nadler and are also enthusiastic backers of lefty policies like the Green New Deal.It’s not just Nadler who is feeling some fresh heat from his own party. After years of targeting moderates and backbenchers, anti-establishment elements in the Democratic Party are directing their energy toward unseating their most influential lawmakers, smelling blood after Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York shocked the political establishment by defeating former Rep. Joe Crowley in a 2018 primary. That trend is cresting in 2020, with upstarts around the country taking on the Democratic lawmakers who are setting the party’s priorities on not only impeachment and oversight but also health-care and spending policy. Serious challengers with electoral experience and promising grassroots support are gunning for no fewer than five influential committee chairs—Nadler, Richard Neal of the Ways and Means Committee, Eliot Engel of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Nita Lowey of the Appropriations Committee, and Frank Pallone of the Energy and Commerce Committee. The top two House Democrats, Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer, also face primary rivals who have garnered some attention, but defeating those two is a far taller task.Several of these primaries will air substantial policy differences over the issues dominating debate among Democrats right now, like Medicare-for-All. In other races, the ideological daylight between candidates will be slim.But on the whole, 2020’s bumper crop of challenges centers on how well a new generation of Democrats can sell the idea that the party’s old guard is no longer capable of forcefully leading on a range of key issues—including, as Gaetz’s trollish interlude underscored, their commitment to holding Trump’s feet to the fire. According to Neal Kwatra, a Democratic strategist in New York, the phenomenon amounts to an escalation in Democrats’ internal debates over what they stand for. “What you’re seeing is, these broader challenges are much less about ideology and more about the fighting spirit of the party, what it’s willing to do, how it’s going to hold Trump and the Republican Party writ large accountable,” Kwatra told The Daily Beast. “I think that’s a generational challenge.”The challengers to Neal and Nadler in particular reflect the phenomenon. Both chairmen face their most serious races in years from candidates loudly criticizing their commitments on everything from countering Trump to serving their districts. That dynamic figures to put additional pressure on both chairmen as they try to steer their committees’ respective agendas, both of which are crucial to Democrats’ oversight of the president and policy priorities more broadly. Neal, who has represented a solidly Democratic, largely white western Massachusetts district since 1988, is a moderate in today’s party. Due to his perch on the powerful Ways and Means Committee, he’s turned into something of a villain for progressives over his opposition to Medicare-for-All and his seemingly cozy relationships with corporate interests.But it was Neal’s unique authority in the House to obtain Trump’s tax returns that was the final straw for some on the left. It was expected that Neal would leverage that power and ask for the tax filings immediately after Democrats took the House majority—instead, he did not do so until April, and he did not file a lawsuit to get them until July. A federal judge has blocked House Democrats’ bid to expedite that lawsuit; it could be months or years before it is resolved.Alex Morse, the 30-year old mayor of the town of Holyoke, is weaving all these threads together in his challenge to Neal, which has already attracted some buzz in the media and among the left. “There’s an urgency to this moment and the urgency is not matched by this member of Congress,” Morse told The Daily Beast in an interview. “His core argument, the argument of his supporters is, why would we give up that power—but what’s the point of having power if you’re not using it to hold this president accountable?”The essence of that critique is the same in Nadler’s Manhattan- and Brooklyn-based district, but the Judiciary Chairman is a far different animal: among the most progressive senior leaders in the House, he has long enjoyed widespread support in this district, a hub of affluent liberals; one Democratic operative called him “the godfather of progressive politics in New York.”Nadler’s challengers argue that the district deserves even more aggressive and more progressive leadership from its representative, not only on impeaching Trump but on climate change and income inequality. Boylan in particular has relentlessly hammered Nadler for his handling of the impeachment inquiry, which she mocks as an “Inception-like, dream-within-a-dream” amid muddled messaging and widespread clamoring from the party base for Nadler and Pelosi to move forward in bringing an impeachment inquiry. She casts the stalled impeachment proceedings as exhibit A of why the district should replace their representative. “This community has not seen Congressman Nadler lead on the issues of the day, and the one most in front of our faces, impeachment,” she said. “It's time for the next generation.”In suburban New York City, meanwhile, the challenge to Engel, the Foreign Affairs Committee chair, leans less on his stewardship of oversight matters and more on generational change. His leading opponent, Jamaal Bowman, is a 40-year old school principal in the Bronx, and his campaign launch video pulled clips from Engel’s three decades in Congress to spotlight his political stances, like his advocacy for the 1994 crime bill, that have aged poorly. The possibility of an energetic campaign from a black leader in the community excites many progressives, and Bowman is viewed as perhaps the most viable primary to a top Democratic lawmaker anywhere in the country. The fundamentals of the district also favor him more than other challengers: just north of Ocasio-Cortez’s district, it is deeply liberal and is one of only a few majority-minority districts to have a white representative. These races are in their early stages, but the challengers have showed signs of fundraising prowess—or at least a willingness to self-fund enough to get their message out. New York Democrats are anticipating Boylan’s next fundraising quarter with interest to see if she can build on the $350,000 she’s raised so far. Another candidate running against Nadler, entrepreneur Holly Lynch, has seeded $125,000 of her own money to her campaign, which she is kicking off this week. Nadler, who has often run unopposed for the Democratic nomination in New York’s 10th District, has faced well-resourced primary rivals before. In 2016, the last time there was a primary race, businessman Oliver Rosenberg poured $350,000 of his own money into a campaign that targeted Nadler almost entirely over his support for the Iran nuclear deal. Ultimately, Nadler won with nearly 90 percent of the vote.Morse, meanwhile, called The Daily Beast from New York City, where he was tapping his network of friends and contacts for fundraising. He’ll need every cent he can get: Neal, who runs a committee that’s coveted by lawmakers as a veritable ATM for campaign cash, is already sitting on a campaign war chest of nearly $4 million. But a hot primary is hardly a symmetrical war, say some operatives. “The beauty of it is,” said Karthik Ganapathy, who co-founded a progressive strategy firm intended to help challengers, “you don’t need to match incumbents one for one—you just need to have enough money to get your own message out there.”Promising candidates could eventually earn the imprimatur of Justice Democrats, the left-wing organization that’s become a primary race kingmaker after sparking the rise of Ocasio-Cortez in 2018. The group has already endorsed several challengers, including Bowman.Progressives might be clamoring for that leftward intervention to unseat some incumbents. But the idea of putting real time and resources into defeating loyal liberals like Nadler makes Democrats of different ideological stripes uneasy about the growing primary trend and concerned about the impact it could have on their stated top priorities—defeating Trump and taking back the Senate.“How anyone views getting rid of Jerry Nadler as being anything on a top 2,000-list of problems the Democratic Party has,” said a veteran Democratic strategist, “is a ridiculous waste of time.”A New York-based Democratic strategist told The Daily Beast that many progressives agree, and are not prioritizing Nadler’s race, instead focusing on Engel and Lowey. “You should have to defend and show your record to the people. The fact that Nadler has to go to his community and say, here’s what I’ve done for you,” the strategist said, ”I think he can do that successfully.”In an environment where all incumbents are watching their backs, it’s unlikely any will be caught as flat-footed as Crowley was in 2018. Notably, Neal is already coming out swinging against his opponent: in a statement to The Daily Beast, campaign spokesperson Peter Panos argued Neal was on the “front lines” of holding Trump accountable, and went after Morse’s stewardship of public schools in Holyoke, which were taken over by the state for poor performance in 2015, four years into his tenure as mayor. “Where was his urgency,” asked Panos, “to improve the schools in his city?”Nadler’s campaign did not comment for this story. But New York Democrats say that the chairman’s extensive political network is poised to be put to work in his race. Key local leaders like Corey Johnson, the speaker of the New York City Council, are vouching for Nadler’s work in Congress and back home.“If there are members of the Democratic caucus who are out of sync with Democratic values, we should be challenging them,” Johnson told The Daily Beast, specifically mentioning Rep. Henry Cuellar, a Texas moderate who’s previously been backed by the National Rifle Association. “We need to be strategic about these things,” he said. “Jerry’s not a person who’s out of sync with our values or hasn’t delivered for our district.”Though even those who are bullish on the challengers expect most of them, if not all, to lose, there is hope that they might push these entrenched incumbents toward the positions the challengers are advocating. The New York Democratic strategist, for example, was quick to point to the campaign of Cynthia Nixon, who fell far short of upsetting Gov. Cuomo in the state’s 2018 primary but successfully pressured him to adopt more progressive positions. “New York has entrenched representatives who aren’t shaking things up,” the strategist said. “These people just respond to primaries.”The candidates themselves, of course, don’t view that as a consolation prize. “Success for me isn’t moving him anywhere,” Morse said of Neal, who he described as set in his ways. “It’s winning… These victories are more possible than ever.”The small group of House Democrats who have defeated incumbents themselves are watching from Capitol Hill, meanwhile, with an attitude that this competition is good for Democrats, no matter how intense it may get."Look, it’s healthy,” said Rep. Ro Khanna, who unseated longtime Rep. Mike Honda in a deep blue Bay Area district in 2016. “We're living in a time of great anxiety, great change, and there should be competition for these seats. They aren’t entitlements.”Neither, apparently, are fancy titles and powerful gavels. “Don’t try,” he cracked, “to become a committee chair in Congress.”Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

September 17, 2019 at 10:29AM via IFTTT

[lorettafarquhars-blog]

Dreadful Cover Letter To JPMorgan Becomes Laughing Stock Of Wall Street.

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[rubywilll-blog]

My Promised Land - Ari Shavit | Middle East |591644042

My Promised Land Ari Shavit Genre: Middle East Price: $12.99 Publish Date: November 19, 2013 NEW YORK TIMES  BESTSELLER • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW AND THE ECONOMIST Winner of the Natan Book Award, the National Jewish Book Award, and the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award An authoritative and deeply personal narrative history of the State of Israel, by one of the most influential journalists writing about the Middle East today   Not since Thomas L. Friedman’s groundbreaking From Beirut to Jerusalem has a book captured the essence and the beating heart of the Middle East as keenly and dynamically as My Promised Land . Facing unprecedented internal and external pressures, Israel today is at a moment of existential crisis. Ari Shavit draws on interviews, historical documents, private diaries, and letters, as well as his own family’s story, illuminating the pivotal moments of the Zionist century to tell a riveting narrative that is larger than the sum of its parts: both personal and national, both deeply human and of profound historical dimension.   We meet Shavit’s great-grandfather, a British Zionist who in 1897 visited the Holy Land on a Thomas Cook tour and understood that it was the way of the future for his people; the idealist young farmer who bought land from his Arab neighbor in the 1920s to grow the Jaffa oranges that would create Palestine’s booming economy; the visionary youth group leader who, in the 1940s, transformed Masada from the neglected ruins of an extremist sect into a powerful symbol for Zionism; the Palestinian who as a young man in 1948 was driven with his family from his home during the expulsion from Lydda; the immigrant orphans of Europe’s Holocaust, who took on menial work and focused on raising their children to become the leaders of the new state; the pragmatic engineer who was instrumental in developing Israel’s nuclear program in the 1960s, in the only interview he ever gave; the zealous religious Zionists who started the settler movement in the 1970s; the dot-com entrepreneurs and young men and women behind Tel-Aviv’s booming club scene; and today’s architects of Israel’s foreign policy with Iran, whose nuclear threat looms ominously over the tiny country.   As it examines the complexities and contradictions of the Israeli condition, My Promised Land asks difficult but important questions: Why did Israel come to be? How did it come to be? Can Israel survive? Culminating with an analysis of the issues and threats that Israel is currently facing, My Promised Land uses the defining events of the past to shed new light on the present. The result is a landmark portrait of a small, vibrant country living on the edge, whose identity and presence play a crucial role in today’s global political landscape.   Praise for My Promised Land “This book will sweep you up in its narrative force and not let go of you until it is done. [Shavit’s] accomplishment is so unlikely, so total . . . that it makes you believe anything is possible, even, God help us, peace in the Middle East.” —Simon Schama, Financial Times   “[A] must-read book.” —Thomas L. Friedman, The New York Times   “Important and powerful . . . the least tendentious book about Israel I have ever read.” —Leon Wieseltier, The New York Times Book Review   “Spellbinding . . . Shavit’s prophetic voice carries lessons that all sides need to hear.” —The Economist   “One of the most nuanced and challenging books written on Israel in years.” —The Wall Street Journal From the Hardcover edition.

[annerodr-blog]

My Promised Land - Ari Shavit | Middle East |591644042

My Promised Land Ari Shavit Genre: Middle East Price: $12.99 Publish Date: November 19, 2013 NEW YORK TIMES  BESTSELLER • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW AND THE ECONOMIST Winner of the Natan Book Award, the National Jewish Book Award, and the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award An authoritative and deeply personal narrative history of the State of Israel, by one of the most influential journalists writing about the Middle East today   Not since Thomas L. Friedman’s groundbreaking From Beirut to Jerusalem has a book captured the essence and the beating heart of the Middle East as keenly and dynamically as My Promised Land . Facing unprecedented internal and external pressures, Israel today is at a moment of existential crisis. Ari Shavit draws on interviews, historical documents, private diaries, and letters, as well as his own family’s story, illuminating the pivotal moments of the Zionist century to tell a riveting narrative that is larger than the sum of its parts: both personal and national, both deeply human and of profound historical dimension.   We meet Shavit’s great-grandfather, a British Zionist who in 1897 visited the Holy Land on a Thomas Cook tour and understood that it was the way of the future for his people; the idealist young farmer who bought land from his Arab neighbor in the 1920s to grow the Jaffa oranges that would create Palestine’s booming economy; the visionary youth group leader who, in the 1940s, transformed Masada from the neglected ruins of an extremist sect into a powerful symbol for Zionism; the Palestinian who as a young man in 1948 was driven with his family from his home during the expulsion from Lydda; the immigrant orphans of Europe’s Holocaust, who took on menial work and focused on raising their children to become the leaders of the new state; the pragmatic engineer who was instrumental in developing Israel’s nuclear program in the 1960s, in the only interview he ever gave; the zealous religious Zionists who started the settler movement in the 1970s; the dot-com entrepreneurs and young men and women behind Tel-Aviv’s booming club scene; and today’s architects of Israel’s foreign policy with Iran, whose nuclear threat looms ominously over the tiny country.   As it examines the complexities and contradictions of the Israeli condition, My Promised Land asks difficult but important questions: Why did Israel come to be? How did it come to be? Can Israel survive? Culminating with an analysis of the issues and threats that Israel is currently facing, My Promised Land uses the defining events of the past to shed new light on the present. The result is a landmark portrait of a small, vibrant country living on the edge, whose identity and presence play a crucial role in today’s global political landscape.   Praise for My Promised Land “This book will sweep you up in its narrative force and not let go of you until it is done. [Shavit’s] accomplishment is so unlikely, so total . . . that it makes you believe anything is possible, even, God help us, peace in the Middle East.” —Simon Schama, Financial Times   “[A] must-read book.” —Thomas L. Friedman, The New York Times   “Important and powerful . . . the least tendentious book about Israel I have ever read.” —Leon Wieseltier, The New York Times Book Review   “Spellbinding . . . Shavit’s prophetic voice carries lessons that all sides need to hear.” —The Economist   “One of the most nuanced and challenging books written on Israel in years.” —The Wall Street Journal From the Hardcover edition.

[djgblogger-blog]

Iran's startups promise paradise for the country's unemployed youth

http://bit.ly/2w56VvZ

Will the development of tech industry change the economic and social life Iranian youth? Blondinrikard Fröberg/Flick, CC BY-ND

Iran’s self-proclaimed Silicon Valley stands on the road to mount Damavand, the tallest mountain in the country. Set up in 2005, its name is ambitious: Pardis, a “paradise” for technology.

Pardis is where Tehran just hosted the 6th International Innovation and Technology Exhibition (INOTEX2017) which opened on May 23.

More than a year after sanctions imposed on the country by the West for its nuclear program were lifted, technology and innovation may well be the key to Iran’s economic recovery.

Resetting the economy

On July 14 2015, Iran and the P5+1 group of world powers (the United States, United Kingdom, France, China, Russia and Germany) signed the historic nuclear agreement that led to the lifting of sanctions.

A day after the so-called “implementation day” of the deal – January 17 2016 – President Hassan Rouhani, who recently secured a second term announced his number one objective was to cut the Iranian economy’s “umbilical cord” to oil revenue.

Pardis Technology Park, the self-proclaimed ‘Silicon Valley’ of Iran. Rmzadeh/Wikimedia, CC BY-ND

The president’s main challenge 16 months later is the nation’s high unemployment rate. It stands at 12.7% overall but is 27% for youth and more than 44% among women.

Reducing unemployment means boosting the economic agenda. Rouhani’s pledge to look beyond oil as the main source of government income is the first step to diversifying the economy and giving impetus to job creation in the country, especially among young educated Iranians.

In fact, during his 2017 presidential campaign, Rouhani pledged to create 900,000 new jobs a year.

The Inotex 2017 fair in Tehran where many local start-ups get a chance to network. Inotex

Highlights and lowlights

Iran is a nuanced start-up incubator, with a range of companies such as Takhfifahn, the local version of Groupon; Digikala, the Iranian version of Amazon; ZarinPal, the Paypal twin in Iran; and Expedia’s Iranian model Zoraq.

Local hi-tech firms and entrepreneurs, specialised in software creation or online app services, such as Tap30 (the Persian Uber), could become the connection between the government’s openness to innovation and tangible results in terms of jobs for the youth.

But this rosy picture overlooks several obstacles. Even though sanctions have been removed, Iran’s economy has yet to deal with structural problems.

Rouhani has promised to reform the management of oil export revenues, so its proceeds can be used for long-term investments. But how he intends to do this is not yet clear.

Despite the president’s rhetoric, program for improving internet infrastructure and insistence on expanding 3G and 4G services (together with broadband connections for homes), start-ups face connectivity issues, mainly due to access restrictions and internet filters.

Advertisements for iPhones and 4G in Tehran. Yuen Yan/Flickr, CC BY-SA

And even though the Iranian communication ministry’s 2015 budget was its largest ever (well over US$80 million), the overall amount may be cut by 16.5% this year.

What’s more, the country’s ultraconservatives fear too much internet freedom. Supreme leader Ali Khamenei fosters the idea of enlarging the local knowledge-based industry (and support for Iranian high-tech companies) because it chimes with his idea of the so-called “resistance economy” (a term that emerged as a response to the Western sanctions with the objective to strengthen the Iranian economy).

But free internet with connections to global social media is seen by hardliners as a threat to the moral values of the Islamic republic, in a country where about 60% of the population uses the internet.

Currently, about 57.7% of Iranian families have a laptop or tablet, although there’s a significant difference between cities (64.8%) and rural areas (36.1%).

The fear of the ultraconservatives about losing control of the people may well be justified. During last February parliamentary elections, for instance, Aparat, the Iranian version of Youtube, featured a video showing the former reformist president Mohammad Khatami, who has been prohibited from speaking in public since 2009 because of his support for the leaders of the Green Movement.

In it, Khatami asked Iranians to vote for reformist candidates. The authorities tried to stop the circulation of the video but failed to do so because the video was already viral.

Breaking more barriers

Before the lifting of international sanctions, Iran’s hi-tech industry was strongly undermined by the lack of access to advanced technology. Many companies could not buy necessary components for their work and exports of Iranian products were prohibited.

But, as underlined by researcher Mahmoud Pargoo, the sanctions also meant that Iranians started to purchase an increasing number of domestic products – from software to electronics.

Stopping relying exclusively on oil revenues and opening up to innovation and technology will require accepting changes in civil liberties and transformations across the society, trusting local entrepreneurship, and breaking the legal barriers on civil rights and freedoms, internet access and filters. Iranian start-ups would benefit from these changes.

Iranian conservatives fear that the youth enjoy too much freedom. Stella Morgana

In 2013, Rouhani told an Iranian magazine that “in the age of digital revolution, one cannot live or govern in a quarantine”. Although the country has taken a few steps forward, Iranians are still waiting for a real, free digital revolution.

But a cautious approach is needed because there are a number of consequences from fostering and embracing a technology industry, within the framework of Rouhani’s neoliberal economic policies. The labour market may be affected in terms of more short-term contracts, precarious work conditions, and also overall impact on the other sectors, potentially affecting working class identities.

Another dilemma may be the management of tech-related activities and their privatisation. Would this be done at the expense of Iran’s public sector companies, as intensively happened in the past 15 years, together with semi-public entities?

Young Iranians seem to be ready for a domestic technological upheaval. But are local policymakers prepared to allow the resulting process of social transformation?

Stella Morgana does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.

[dawnlindse-blog]

My Promised Land - Ari Shavit | Middle East |591644042

My Promised Land Ari Shavit Genre: Middle East Price: $12.99 Publish Date: November 19, 2013 NEW YORK TIMES  BESTSELLER • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW AND THE ECONOMIST Winner of the Natan Book Award, the National Jewish Book Award, and the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award An authoritative and deeply personal narrative history of the State of Israel, by one of the most influential journalists writing about the Middle East today   Not since Thomas L. Friedman’s groundbreaking From Beirut to Jerusalem has a book captured the essence and the beating heart of the Middle East as keenly and dynamically as My Promised Land . Facing unprecedented internal and external pressures, Israel today is at a moment of existential crisis. Ari Shavit draws on interviews, historical documents, private diaries, and letters, as well as his own family’s story, illuminating the pivotal moments of the Zionist century to tell a riveting narrative that is larger than the sum of its parts: both personal and national, both deeply human and of profound historical dimension.   We meet Shavit’s great-grandfather, a British Zionist who in 1897 visited the Holy Land on a Thomas Cook tour and understood that it was the way of the future for his people; the idealist young farmer who bought land from his Arab neighbor in the 1920s to grow the Jaffa oranges that would create Palestine’s booming economy; the visionary youth group leader who, in the 1940s, transformed Masada from the neglected ruins of an extremist sect into a powerful symbol for Zionism; the Palestinian who as a young man in 1948 was driven with his family from his home during the expulsion from Lydda; the immigrant orphans of Europe’s Holocaust, who took on menial work and focused on raising their children to become the leaders of the new state; the pragmatic engineer who was instrumental in developing Israel’s nuclear program in the 1960s, in the only interview he ever gave; the zealous religious Zionists who started the settler movement in the 1970s; the dot-com entrepreneurs and young men and women behind Tel-Aviv’s booming club scene; and today’s architects of Israel’s foreign policy with Iran, whose nuclear threat looms ominously over the tiny country.   As it examines the complexities and contradictions of the Israeli condition, My Promised Land asks difficult but important questions: Why did Israel come to be? How did it come to be? Can Israel survive? Culminating with an analysis of the issues and threats that Israel is currently facing, My Promised Land uses the defining events of the past to shed new light on the present. The result is a landmark portrait of a small, vibrant country living on the edge, whose identity and presence play a crucial role in today’s global political landscape.   Praise for My Promised Land “This book will sweep you up in its narrative force and not let go of you until it is done. [Shavit’s] accomplishment is so unlikely, so total . . . that it makes you believe anything is possible, even, God help us, peace in the Middle East.” —Simon Schama, Financial Times   “[A] must-read book.” —Thomas L. Friedman, The New York Times   “Important and powerful . . . the least tendentious book about Israel I have ever read.” —Leon Wieseltier, The New York Times Book Review   “Spellbinding . . . Shavit’s prophetic voice carries lessons that all sides need to hear.” —The Economist   “One of the most nuanced and challenging books written on Israel in years.” —The Wall Street Journal From the Hardcover edition.

[joycelow-blog]

My Promised Land - Ari Shavit | Middle East |591644042

My Promised Land Ari Shavit Genre: Middle East Price: $12.99 Publish Date: November 19, 2013 NEW YORK TIMES  BESTSELLER • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW AND THE ECONOMIST Winner of the Natan Book Award, the National Jewish Book Award, and the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award An authoritative and deeply personal narrative history of the State of Israel, by one of the most influential journalists writing about the Middle East today   Not since Thomas L. Friedman’s groundbreaking From Beirut to Jerusalem has a book captured the essence and the beating heart of the Middle East as keenly and dynamically as My Promised Land . Facing unprecedented internal and external pressures, Israel today is at a moment of existential crisis. Ari Shavit draws on interviews, historical documents, private diaries, and letters, as well as his own family’s story, illuminating the pivotal moments of the Zionist century to tell a riveting narrative that is larger than the sum of its parts: both personal and national, both deeply human and of profound historical dimension.   We meet Shavit’s great-grandfather, a British Zionist who in 1897 visited the Holy Land on a Thomas Cook tour and understood that it was the way of the future for his people; the idealist young farmer who bought land from his Arab neighbor in the 1920s to grow the Jaffa oranges that would create Palestine’s booming economy; the visionary youth group leader who, in the 1940s, transformed Masada from the neglected ruins of an extremist sect into a powerful symbol for Zionism; the Palestinian who as a young man in 1948 was driven with his family from his home during the expulsion from Lydda; the immigrant orphans of Europe’s Holocaust, who took on menial work and focused on raising their children to become the leaders of the new state; the pragmatic engineer who was instrumental in developing Israel’s nuclear program in the 1960s, in the only interview he ever gave; the zealous religious Zionists who started the settler movement in the 1970s; the dot-com entrepreneurs and young men and women behind Tel-Aviv’s booming club scene; and today’s architects of Israel’s foreign policy with Iran, whose nuclear threat looms ominously over the tiny country.   As it examines the complexities and contradictions of the Israeli condition, My Promised Land asks difficult but important questions: Why did Israel come to be? How did it come to be? Can Israel survive? Culminating with an analysis of the issues and threats that Israel is currently facing, My Promised Land uses the defining events of the past to shed new light on the present. The result is a landmark portrait of a small, vibrant country living on the edge, whose identity and presence play a crucial role in today’s global political landscape.   Praise for My Promised Land “This book will sweep you up in its narrative force and not let go of you until it is done. [Shavit’s] accomplishment is so unlikely, so total . . . that it makes you believe anything is possible, even, God help us, peace in the Middle East.” —Simon Schama, Financial Times   “[A] must-read book.” —Thomas L. Friedman, The New York Times   “Important and powerful . . . the least tendentious book about Israel I have ever read.” —Leon Wieseltier, The New York Times Book Review   “Spellbinding . . . Shavit’s prophetic voice carries lessons that all sides need to hear.” —The Economist   “One of the most nuanced and challenging books written on Israel in years.” —The Wall Street Journal From the Hardcover edition.

[leahbroo-blog1]

My Promised Land - Ari Shavit | Middle East |591644042

My Promised Land Ari Shavit Genre: Middle East Price: $12.99 Publish Date: November 19, 2013 NEW YORK TIMES  BESTSELLER • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW AND THE ECONOMIST Winner of the Natan Book Award, the National Jewish Book Award, and the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award An authoritative and deeply personal narrative history of the State of Israel, by one of the most influential journalists writing about the Middle East today   Not since Thomas L. Friedman’s groundbreaking From Beirut to Jerusalem has a book captured the essence and the beating heart of the Middle East as keenly and dynamically as My Promised Land . Facing unprecedented internal and external pressures, Israel today is at a moment of existential crisis. Ari Shavit draws on interviews, historical documents, private diaries, and letters, as well as his own family’s story, illuminating the pivotal moments of the Zionist century to tell a riveting narrative that is larger than the sum of its parts: both personal and national, both deeply human and of profound historical dimension.   We meet Shavit’s great-grandfather, a British Zionist who in 1897 visited the Holy Land on a Thomas Cook tour and understood that it was the way of the future for his people; the idealist young farmer who bought land from his Arab neighbor in the 1920s to grow the Jaffa oranges that would create Palestine’s booming economy; the visionary youth group leader who, in the 1940s, transformed Masada from the neglected ruins of an extremist sect into a powerful symbol for Zionism; the Palestinian who as a young man in 1948 was driven with his family from his home during the expulsion from Lydda; the immigrant orphans of Europe’s Holocaust, who took on menial work and focused on raising their children to become the leaders of the new state; the pragmatic engineer who was instrumental in developing Israel’s nuclear program in the 1960s, in the only interview he ever gave; the zealous religious Zionists who started the settler movement in the 1970s; the dot-com entrepreneurs and young men and women behind Tel-Aviv’s booming club scene; and today’s architects of Israel’s foreign policy with Iran, whose nuclear threat looms ominously over the tiny country.   As it examines the complexities and contradictions of the Israeli condition, My Promised Land asks difficult but important questions: Why did Israel come to be? How did it come to be? Can Israel survive? Culminating with an analysis of the issues and threats that Israel is currently facing, My Promised Land uses the defining events of the past to shed new light on the present. The result is a landmark portrait of a small, vibrant country living on the edge, whose identity and presence play a crucial role in today’s global political landscape.   Praise for My Promised Land “This book will sweep you up in its narrative force and not let go of you until it is done. [Shavit’s] accomplishment is so unlikely, so total . . . that it makes you believe anything is possible, even, God help us, peace in the Middle East.” —Simon Schama, Financial Times   “[A] must-read book.” —Thomas L. Friedman, The New York Times   “Important and powerful . . . the least tendentious book about Israel I have ever read.” —Leon Wieseltier, The New York Times Book Review   “Spellbinding . . . Shavit’s prophetic voice carries lessons that all sides need to hear.” —The Economist   “One of the most nuanced and challenging books written on Israel in years.” —The Wall Street Journal From the Hardcover edition.

[phylliscru-blog]

My Promised Land - Ari Shavit | Middle East |591644042

My Promised Land Ari Shavit Genre: Middle East Price: $12.99 Publish Date: November 19, 2013 NEW YORK TIMES  BESTSELLER • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW AND THE ECONOMIST Winner of the Natan Book Award, the National Jewish Book Award, and the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award An authoritative and deeply personal narrative history of the State of Israel, by one of the most influential journalists writing about the Middle East today   Not since Thomas L. Friedman’s groundbreaking From Beirut to Jerusalem has a book captured the essence and the beating heart of the Middle East as keenly and dynamically as My Promised Land . Facing unprecedented internal and external pressures, Israel today is at a moment of existential crisis. Ari Shavit draws on interviews, historical documents, private diaries, and letters, as well as his own family’s story, illuminating the pivotal moments of the Zionist century to tell a riveting narrative that is larger than the sum of its parts: both personal and national, both deeply human and of profound historical dimension.   We meet Shavit’s great-grandfather, a British Zionist who in 1897 visited the Holy Land on a Thomas Cook tour and understood that it was the way of the future for his people; the idealist young farmer who bought land from his Arab neighbor in the 1920s to grow the Jaffa oranges that would create Palestine’s booming economy; the visionary youth group leader who, in the 1940s, transformed Masada from the neglected ruins of an extremist sect into a powerful symbol for Zionism; the Palestinian who as a young man in 1948 was driven with his family from his home during the expulsion from Lydda; the immigrant orphans of Europe’s Holocaust, who took on menial work and focused on raising their children to become the leaders of the new state; the pragmatic engineer who was instrumental in developing Israel’s nuclear program in the 1960s, in the only interview he ever gave; the zealous religious Zionists who started the settler movement in the 1970s; the dot-com entrepreneurs and young men and women behind Tel-Aviv’s booming club scene; and today’s architects of Israel’s foreign policy with Iran, whose nuclear threat looms ominously over the tiny country.   As it examines the complexities and contradictions of the Israeli condition, My Promised Land asks difficult but important questions: Why did Israel come to be? How did it come to be? Can Israel survive? Culminating with an analysis of the issues and threats that Israel is currently facing, My Promised Land uses the defining events of the past to shed new light on the present. The result is a landmark portrait of a small, vibrant country living on the edge, whose identity and presence play a crucial role in today’s global political landscape.   Praise for My Promised Land “This book will sweep you up in its narrative force and not let go of you until it is done. [Shavit’s] accomplishment is so unlikely, so total . . . that it makes you believe anything is possible, even, God help us, peace in the Middle East.” —Simon Schama, Financial Times   “[A] must-read book.” —Thomas L. Friedman, The New York Times   “Important and powerful . . . the least tendentious book about Israel I have ever read.” —Leon Wieseltier, The New York Times Book Review   “Spellbinding . . . Shavit’s prophetic voice carries lessons that all sides need to hear.” —The Economist   “One of the most nuanced and challenging books written on Israel in years.” —The Wall Street Journal From the Hardcover edition.

[tragicbooks]

5 real things you can do right now to fight Donald Trump's 'Muslim ban.'

The president's executive order is a shocking reversal of American values.

<br>

On Friday, President Donald Trump enacted harsh restrictions on immigration and refugee intake via executive order.

Titled "Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States," the executive order has the effect of placing a hold on the U.S. refugee program and restricts travel from Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen. The order also stipulates that of the refugees who are let into the country, Christians will be prioritized over Muslims.

Photo by Pete Marovich - Pool/Getty Images.

Within hours of the order's signing, its effects became clear. At major U.S. airports around the country, more than two dozen individuals covered by the newly implemented restrictions were detained upon arrival. Additionally, the Department of Homeland Security confirmed that the order would also have the effect of banning green card holders from seven countries from re-entering the U.S. In all, the order could block up to 500,000 legal U.S. residents from exiting and re-entering the country.

Though the administration has insisted this is not a "Muslim ban," Muslims will be disproportionately affected by Trump's actions. In December 2015, then-candidate Trump called for "a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on." For what it's worth, Michael Flynn Jr., son of Trump's National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, celebrated the order on Twitter as a "Muslim ban."

Protestors rally during a protest at John F. Kennedy International Airport on Jan. 28, 2017. Photo by Stephanie Keith/Getty Images.

Banning people on the basis of where they're from or what their religion is, is quintessentially un-American. It's a slap in the face to the men and women who founded this country on a principle of religious liberty, and it's a show of disrespect for the men and women who have put their lives on the line to protect our national ideals at home and abroad.

Since the order was signed, people have taken to the streets in protests, donated to causes dedicated to ensuring the safety and rights of immigrants and refugees, and legal challenges have already begun to work their way through the courts, with stays reportedly being issued Saturday evening to halt any immediate deportations.

The fight on this is just beginning. Here are five things you can do right now to help:

1. Donate to causes supporting legal challenges to the order.

The American Civil Liberties Union has filed suit against the Trump administration, arguing that his executive order is unconstitutional.

The ACLU filed the lawsuit along with the International Refugee Assistance Project at the Urban Justice Center, the National Immigration Law Center, Yale Law School’s Jerome N. Frank Legal Services Organization, and the firm Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton.

We filed suit against @RealDonaldTrump's #MuslimBan https://t.co/pcs3TM4qqq

— ACLU National (@ACLU) January 28, 2017

On Twitter, musical artist Sia announced matching donations to the ACLU up to $100,000, and entrepreneur Chris Sacca said he woudl match donations up to $75,000.

2. Join a protest.

As news of the challenges facing the detained travelers emerged, protesters began showing up at the affected airports with a simple message: This is not who we are.

Think Progress has a running list of upcoming protests against the ban.

Photo by Stephanie Keith/Getty Images.

3. Donate to the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

In the lead-up to last year's election, anti-Muslim sentiment seemed to be on the rise. In the months since, documented instances of Islamophobic attacks and hate crimes have seen a spike. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is a civil rights advocacy organization that works to resolve instances of anti-Muslim discrimination through mediation, negotiation, public pressure, and legal action.

On Twitter, musician Grimes offered to match donations to CAIR up to $10,000.

hey, i'll match all donations to CAIR up to $10,000. tweet a screencap of your receipt to me https://t.co/tNaqrxOm7a

— Grimes (@Grimezsz) January 28, 2017

4. Call your lawmakers.

Where do your politicians stand on Trump's executive order? Have they released any sort of statement? Either way, it's a great chance to reach out to their offices. Representatives and senators cannot single-handedly undo an executive order, but they can put pressure on the administration to roll back the changes.

Photo by Stephanie Keith/Getty Images.

A number of lawmakers from both parties have spoken out against the order on social media. Even if your representatives have taken a stand against the order, you can call to say thanks.

Rep. @NydiaVelazquez at JFK Airport: "Mr. President, look at us. This is America. What you have done is shameful." https://t.co/o9ZkNFkI5Z http://pic.twitter.com/CvgJMDd5kP

— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) January 28, 2017

Statement on Border Security and Muslim Nations: https://t.co/aA4OEaKDkb http://pic.twitter.com/lh7mrEyrZV

— Senator Ben Sasse (@SenSasse) January 28, 2017

5. Speak out, speak up, and let it be known that this is not who America is.

No matter how we voted in November, we are all a part of the same country — and that country should be a welcome home for all.

To paraphrase Emma Lazarus: We should aim to be a welcoming home to the tired, the poor, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the homeless, and the tempest-tossed. That's the America we should aspire to be.

So tell your friends, tell your families, share messages of support on social media. We don't need to fear the unknown. In fact, the odds of an American dying as the result of an act of terrorism carried out by a refugee is a minuscule 1 in 3.64 billion in any given year.

Photo by Stephanie Keith/Getty Images.

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[joycelow-blog]

My Promised Land - Ari Shavit | Middle East |591644042

My Promised Land Ari Shavit Genre: Middle East Price: $12.99 Publish Date: November 19, 2013 NEW YORK TIMES  BESTSELLER • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW AND THE ECONOMIST Winner of the Natan Book Award, the National Jewish Book Award, and the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award An authoritative and deeply personal narrative history of the State of Israel, by one of the most influential journalists writing about the Middle East today   Not since Thomas L. Friedman’s groundbreaking From Beirut to Jerusalem has a book captured the essence and the beating heart of the Middle East as keenly and dynamically as My Promised Land . Facing unprecedented internal and external pressures, Israel today is at a moment of existential crisis. Ari Shavit draws on interviews, historical documents, private diaries, and letters, as well as his own family’s story, illuminating the pivotal moments of the Zionist century to tell a riveting narrative that is larger than the sum of its parts: both personal and national, both deeply human and of profound historical dimension.   We meet Shavit’s great-grandfather, a British Zionist who in 1897 visited the Holy Land on a Thomas Cook tour and understood that it was the way of the future for his people; the idealist young farmer who bought land from his Arab neighbor in the 1920s to grow the Jaffa oranges that would create Palestine’s booming economy; the visionary youth group leader who, in the 1940s, transformed Masada from the neglected ruins of an extremist sect into a powerful symbol for Zionism; the Palestinian who as a young man in 1948 was driven with his family from his home during the expulsion from Lydda; the immigrant orphans of Europe’s Holocaust, who took on menial work and focused on raising their children to become the leaders of the new state; the pragmatic engineer who was instrumental in developing Israel’s nuclear program in the 1960s, in the only interview he ever gave; the zealous religious Zionists who started the settler movement in the 1970s; the dot-com entrepreneurs and young men and women behind Tel-Aviv’s booming club scene; and today’s architects of Israel’s foreign policy with Iran, whose nuclear threat looms ominously over the tiny country.   As it examines the complexities and contradictions of the Israeli condition, My Promised Land asks difficult but important questions: Why did Israel come to be? How did it come to be? Can Israel survive? Culminating with an analysis of the issues and threats that Israel is currently facing, My Promised Land uses the defining events of the past to shed new light on the present. The result is a landmark portrait of a small, vibrant country living on the edge, whose identity and presence play a crucial role in today’s global political landscape.   Praise for My Promised Land “This book will sweep you up in its narrative force and not let go of you until it is done. [Shavit’s] accomplishment is so unlikely, so total . . . that it makes you believe anything is possible, even, God help us, peace in the Middle East.” —Simon Schama, Financial Times   “[A] must-read book.” —Thomas L. Friedman, The New York Times   “Important and powerful . . . the least tendentious book about Israel I have ever read.” —Leon Wieseltier, The New York Times Book Review   “Spellbinding . . . Shavit’s prophetic voice carries lessons that all sides need to hear.” —The Economist   “One of the most nuanced and challenging books written on Israel in years.” —The Wall Street Journal From the Hardcover edition.

[dawnlindse-blog]

My Promised Land - Ari Shavit | Middle East |591644042

My Promised Land Ari Shavit Genre: Middle East Price: $12.99 Publish Date: November 19, 2013 NEW YORK TIMES  BESTSELLER • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW AND THE ECONOMIST Winner of the Natan Book Award, the National Jewish Book Award, and the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award An authoritative and deeply personal narrative history of the State of Israel, by one of the most influential journalists writing about the Middle East today   Not since Thomas L. Friedman’s groundbreaking From Beirut to Jerusalem has a book captured the essence and the beating heart of the Middle East as keenly and dynamically as My Promised Land . Facing unprecedented internal and external pressures, Israel today is at a moment of existential crisis. Ari Shavit draws on interviews, historical documents, private diaries, and letters, as well as his own family’s story, illuminating the pivotal moments of the Zionist century to tell a riveting narrative that is larger than the sum of its parts: both personal and national, both deeply human and of profound historical dimension.   We meet Shavit’s great-grandfather, a British Zionist who in 1897 visited the Holy Land on a Thomas Cook tour and understood that it was the way of the future for his people; the idealist young farmer who bought land from his Arab neighbor in the 1920s to grow the Jaffa oranges that would create Palestine’s booming economy; the visionary youth group leader who, in the 1940s, transformed Masada from the neglected ruins of an extremist sect into a powerful symbol for Zionism; the Palestinian who as a young man in 1948 was driven with his family from his home during the expulsion from Lydda; the immigrant orphans of Europe’s Holocaust, who took on menial work and focused on raising their children to become the leaders of the new state; the pragmatic engineer who was instrumental in developing Israel’s nuclear program in the 1960s, in the only interview he ever gave; the zealous religious Zionists who started the settler movement in the 1970s; the dot-com entrepreneurs and young men and women behind Tel-Aviv’s booming club scene; and today’s architects of Israel’s foreign policy with Iran, whose nuclear threat looms ominously over the tiny country.   As it examines the complexities and contradictions of the Israeli condition, My Promised Land asks difficult but important questions: Why did Israel come to be? How did it come to be? Can Israel survive? Culminating with an analysis of the issues and threats that Israel is currently facing, My Promised Land uses the defining events of the past to shed new light on the present. The result is a landmark portrait of a small, vibrant country living on the edge, whose identity and presence play a crucial role in today’s global political landscape.   Praise for My Promised Land “This book will sweep you up in its narrative force and not let go of you until it is done. [Shavit’s] accomplishment is so unlikely, so total . . . that it makes you believe anything is possible, even, God help us, peace in the Middle East.” —Simon Schama, Financial Times   “[A] must-read book.” —Thomas L. Friedman, The New York Times   “Important and powerful . . . the least tendentious book about Israel I have ever read.” —Leon Wieseltier, The New York Times Book Review   “Spellbinding . . . Shavit’s prophetic voice carries lessons that all sides need to hear.” —The Economist   “One of the most nuanced and challenging books written on Israel in years.” —The Wall Street Journal From the Hardcover edition.