Day: June 10, 2024

The fires of Kibbutz Be’eri, Kfar Aza and Nahal Oz eviscerated the last vestigial support for a grand bargain with the Palestinians. Decades of terror had already shrunk the peace camp in Israel to a small core of true believers. Last year’s mass anti-judicial reform demonstrations made clear that the Israeli left was far more energized than it had been for years by a culture war versus the peace movement. 

When Hamas burst out of Gaza on Oct. 7, they didn’t just commit the worst atrocities against Jews since the Holocaust. They also triggered a geo-political earthquake centered on Israel, that has roiled the West’s ideological fault lines, buried the Oslo era and left Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s post-Oslo program tottering as well. 

In Oct. 7’s wake, opposition among Israeli Jews to a Palestinian state rose from 69% to 79%, according to a new survey by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. The poll confirmed that even as the Israeli right has presided over a disaster, Israelis across the political spectrum have become more hawkish. A hostage deal at any cost, not a peace deal at any price, is now the rallying cry of the left. 

The final death of Oslo’s two state vision in the Israeli mind sets the country on a collision course with the Biden administration, which early on drew the exact opposite conclusion about Oct. 7 from the Israeli electorate and called for a renewed push for a two state solution. 

But in tandem with the demise of the two-state solution, its successor has been dealt a body blow. Beginning in the 2010’s, Netanyahu spoke with increasing confidence of inverting the paradigm of Middle East peace — bypassing the Palestinians and coming to terms with moderate Arab states eager to access Israeli tech, fearful of Iran and exasperated with Palestinian corruption. Ron Dermer, the former Israeli ambassador to the United States, told me in a 2020 exit interview that in private, Bibi had been speaking of the concept for 20 years before the breakthrough. 

Confounding the skepticism of officials in both America and Israel still wedded to the old paradigm, Netanyahu’s vision received stunning vindication with the 2020 Abraham Accords, which delivered a cascade of peace agreements with Muslim countries over the heads of the furious Palestinians. 

Despite President Donald Trump’s defeat later that same year, the Accords’ political legacy seemed secure. The Biden administration’s initial cool view of the agreements gave way to a push for Israel-Saudi peace which — although it pledged to leave open a path to peace with the Palestinians — preserved the wider strategy of the earlier agreements of focusing on peace with other Muslim countries in the region. 

Then came Oct. 7. One of the terrible ironies of Israel’s many failures that day is that it came on the watch of a leader who has dedicated his political career to warning the world about the threat of Iran. While Bibi fought a shadow war to slow Tehran’s race to a bomb, his government did little to counter those proxies’ metastasizing military capabilities. So it was that as Netanyahu successfully guided Israeli diplomacy into a post-Oslo era focused on making peace with the moderate Arab states like United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, Hamas was preparing to strike at the heart of the Accords as part of the radical Iranian axis. 

Amid the campus antisemitism, media demonization and accusations of genocide, it can be easy to miss the nature of Hamas’ achievement. As his killers poured across the Israel-Gaza border, Hamas’ leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, succeeded in propelling the Palestinian cause to the center of world politics. If Bibi’s post-Oslo triumph was to leapfrog the Palestinians, Sinwar’s counterstroke was to make Gaza the subject of demonstrations on college campuses and city centers across America and Europe. So effective has been that strategy that President Biden has chosen to exert immense pressure on Israel in a bid to shore up his base in an election year. 

Ironically, it’s now the baying of progressives on the left which is the biggest obstacle to Netanyahu’s post-Oslo vision. While Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has banned speaking out against normalization with Israel, Western politicians seem cowed by the size of anti-Israeli protests in their cities and university campuses. 

With European politicians falling over themselves to recognize a Palestinian state, Arab leaders unsurprisingly can’t afford to be left behind. The post-war settlement that the Saudis, UAE and Egypt now envision is far more hostile to Israel than that discussed prior to Oct. 7, including immediate recognition of a Palestinian state and peacekeepers in East Jerusalem. The very fact that it’s on the table at all is testament to the devastating effectiveness of Sinwar’s attack. 

Traumatized by antisemitic savagery that most Israelis imagined was a relic of the past, the country won’t countenance a peace deal with the Palestinians. Triumphant from their initial success on Oct. 7, and safe in the knowledge that scenes of Gaza’s destruction play well in newsrooms across the world, an unbowed Hamas and Iran won’t agree to anything less. If America insists on setting the clock back by reviving a two-state solution with some cosmetic changes, it will be a betrayal of Israel and a giant reward for terror.

The post Palestinian terror should not be rewarded with a state appeared first on The Forward.

The algorithmic world has, some might argue, dampened the element of surprise. But these 10 albums that came out in the thick of the streaming age are all full of pleasant shocks—sometimes ones that seem to be even felt by the artists themselves.

Here are the 10 best albums of the year, so far.

Tierra Whack, WORLD WIDE WHACK

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Since releasing her written-in-sketches 2018 debut mixtape Whack World, the Philadelphia MC and singer Tierra Whack has become beloved for her wild creativity, which she distills into brief, yet far-flung trips into different dimensions. On her first proper album, Whack whirls around her own set of frequencies, following the underworld marching-band stomp of “X” with the couples-skate-ready yet lovelorn “MOOVIES” and reflecting on depression’s ripple effects on the glassy “27 CLUB.”

Shellac, To All Trains

Famed engineer and critic (and poker champ) Steve Albini passed away unexpectedly in May, and his band’s sixth album, recorded at his Chicago homebase Electrical Audio with bandmates Bob Weston and Todd Trainer, only added to the weight of the loss. Shellac’s lye-dipped noise rock sounds absolutely alive, with To All Trains’ 10 tracks allowing each member to flex their musical muscles in a way that winks at virtuosic excess while also being utterly self-assured—perhaps unsurprising for an album that ends with a grimy cut called “I Don’t Feel Hell.”

English Teacher, This Could Be Texas

The Leeds foursome English Teacher’s debut full-length balances the pensive with the punky on songs that vibrate with curiosity, even when their lyrics feel world-weary. The galloping “Nearly Daffodils” and the gleaming “Not Everybody Goes To Space” contend with life getting in the way of dreams. Closer “Albert Road” is a slow-to-combust ballad about a town where “the world around us never showed/ how loving can be fun,” an ideal that’s espoused by English Teacher channeling its frustrations into music that often sounds like it’s surprising itself.

WILLOW, empathogen

Willow Smith’s pop career is in its early teens, and over that time she’s amassed a singular catalog with forays into bedroom-R&B, pop-punk, and other hyphenated genres that show off her robust yet sprightly voice and penchant for writing sneaky hooks. On her sixth album, she’s bringing even more elements into the mix—“no words 1 & 2” veers between feather-light scatting and heavy shredding before showing off Smith’s talent for stacking harmonies, while “i know that face.” is the sort of sprint that makes you marvel at just how fast her mind works.

Jane Weaver, Love in Constant Spectacle

For more than 20 years, the English songwriter, producer, and composer Jane Weaver has made music to accompany her inquisitive journeys through the world. On her 12th album, she breaks down the building blocks of reality before reconstituting them in ways that incorporate resolute basslines, fluttering synthesizers, and home-movie haze. Take the dreamy “Romantic Worlds,” a potent meditation on modern love topped by a singsong melody and framed in fizzy guitars.

Sprints, Letter to Self

Irish punkers Sprints make ferocious, cathartic anthems designed to lift up those who might feel ground down by the world’s churn. Vocalist-guitarist Karla Chubb has a mighty instrument that feels as menacing when she’s in steely-eyed mode as it does when she’s in full wail (she’s cited PJ Harvey as an influence), and she takes no prisoners; the careening “Adore Adore Adore” takes on the careless ways female musicians are discussed and discarded, while “A Wreck, A Mess” is a stop-start travelogue through those claustrophobic moments when one wonders, “Is everyone a wreck? Is everyone stressed?”

Billie Eilish, HIT ME HARD AND SOFT

Halfway to EGOT status before she turned 20, Billie Eilish shows no signs of resting on her laurels with her third album. Defiantly brief—it’s a slim 10 tracks, confounding streaming-era sales mandates—and placing her whisper-soft voice at its core, HIT ME HARD AND SOFT marinates in a very self-aware darkness: “The internet is hungry for the meanest kind of funny/ and somebody’s gotta feed it,” she muses on the bleakly lacerating opening track “SKINNY.” But Eilish’s music has a lightness about it that makes it undeniably pop, particularly on tracks like the glitchy “LUNCH” and the stages-of-heartbreak diptych “L’AMOUR DE MA VIE.”

Kali Uchis, Orquidéas

Kali Uchis’ follow-up to last year’s winning Red Moon In Venus is another statement of self, with the Colombian-American singer asserting her excellence while exploring musical ideas from the Spanish-language diaspora alongside fellow travelers like the regional Mexican breakout star Peso Pluma (her foil on the starlit “Iguial Que Un Angel”) and the reggaeton hitmaker Karol G (who joins her for the coquettish “Labios Mordidos”). Even in its most beat-heavy moments, Uchis’ music retains a dreaminess that makes each one of her songs feel like another piece of her ever-growing puzzle.

Mdou Moctar, Funeral for Justice

The latest album from desert blues outfit Mdou Moctar is heavy in sound and subject, with its eponymous guitarist’s virtuosic playing and his bandmates’ chugging rhythms grounding lyrics that denounce the history of colonialism in his homeland Niger and throughout Africa. With a playing style that marries the nimble fingerwork of Eddie Van Halen and Jimi Hendrix to traditions borrowed from traditional Tuareg music, Moctar’s spellbinding riffs and unyielding sense of purpose turbo-charge tracks like the propulsive “Tchinta” and the psychedelic “Sousoume Tamacheq.”

Beyoncé, COWBOY CARTER

On the one hand, the second album in Beyoncé’s trilogy project is an exploration of Americana that interrogates ideas about genre that have been seemingly hard-screwed into culture. On the other hand, COWBOY CARTER is a rip-roaring record with enough boot-scooting moments to give its predecessor, 2022’s clubland chronicle RENAISSANCE, a run for its cover-charge money. Beyoncé’s revival tent is big enough to accommodate big names from pop’s past like Dolly Parton and The Beatles, emerging artists like Shaboozey and Tanner Adell, and fellow A-listers like Post Malone and Miley Cyrus; from song to ideal-bending song, her view of what makes country music “country” honors the genre’s Black roots while leaving in the dust any notions of music that were designed to split audiences.

Portland, Ore. — The U.S. Food and Drug Administration says consumers should avoid eating shellfish from Oregon and Washington state as they may be contaminated with toxins that cause paralytic shellfish poisoning. At least 31 people have been sickened in Oregon so far, according to state health officials. Here’s what to know about the federal agency’s advisory.

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What’s the FDA warning?

The warning says to avoid oysters and bay clams harvested from Netarts and Tillamook bays in northern Oregon since May 28, as well as shellfish harvested from areas around Willapa Bay in southern Washington since May 26. They may be contaminated with high levels of paralytic shellfish poisoning, or PSP, a naturally occurring toxin produced by algae.

Shellfish harvested from those areas during that period were distributed beyond Oregon and Washington to Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada, New York. The FDA has warned restaurants and retailers in those states not to serve it.

What do we know so far?

Elevated levels of toxins were first detected in shellfish on the Oregon coast on May 17, state fish and wildlife officials said.

Since then, a paralytic shellfish poisoning outbreak has sickened at least 31 people in Oregon, according to the Oregon Health Authority. The agency has asked people who have harvested or eaten Oregon shellfish since May 13 to fill out a survey intended to help investigators identify the cause of the outbreak and the number of people sickened.

Oregon authorities have closed the state’s entire coastline to the harvesting of mussels, razor clams and bay clams. Agriculture officials have also closed three bays, including those named in the FDA advisory, to commercial oyster harvesting.

Officials in neighboring Washington have also closed the state’s Pacific coastline to the harvesting of shellfish, including mussels, clams, scallops and oysters, a a shellfish safety map produced by the Washington State Department of Health shows.

What is paralytic shellfish poisoning?

Paralytic shellfish poisoning, or PSP, is caused by saxitoxin, a naturally occurring toxin that’s produced by algae. Saxitoxin is a neurotoxin, meaning it can damage nerve tissue.

People who eat shellfish contaminated with high levels of saxitoxins usually start feeling ill within 30 to 60 minutes, according to Oregon health officials. Symptoms include numbness of the mouth and lips, vomiting, diarrhea, shortness of breath and irregular heartbeat in severe cases.

There is no antidote to PSP, according to the health agency. Treatment for severe cases may require mechanical ventilators to help with breathing.

Authorities warn that cooking or freezing contaminated shellfish doesn’t kill the toxins or make it safe to eat.

What is causing this?

A “very large” algal bloom has resulted in “unprecedented levels” of PSP toxins along Oregon’s coast, Matthew Hunter, shellfish program manager for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, said during a briefing.

The toxins have accumulated in the shellfish, sickening some people who have eaten them.

While the factors that create harmful algal blooms are not well understood, certain factors — resulting from both natural processes and human activities — are believed to play a role, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

“Studies show that many algal species flourish when wind and water currents are favorable,” the agency says on a webpage dedicated to explaining harmful algal blooms. Some blooms, it says, stem from “sluggish water circulation, unusually high water temperatures, and extreme weather events like hurricanes, floods, and drought.”

Algae growth can also increase when nutrients used in fertilizers, mainly phosphorus and nitrogen, flow into bodies of water, according to the agency.

How long will this last?

Oregon officials said it may take weeks, months or even up to a year for toxin levels to subside, depending on the type of shellfish.

Mussels can accumulate paralytic shellfish poison rapidly, but also rid themselves of it quickly, according to Hunter, the Oregon fish and wildlife official. Because of this, it may take anywhere from two weeks to a month for mussels to eliminate the toxin.

Razor clams, however, are slower to do so. It may take them several months to a year to cleanse themselves due to the current high levels of toxin, Hunter said.

How common is this?

Such high levels of paralytic shellfish poison haven’t been detected in Oregon in decades, according to Hunter, who cited a previous shellfish harvesting closure in the state in 1992.

However, PSP has been prevalent in the regional waters for centuries, he said.

What’s the economic impact?

The harvesting closures may deal a blow to Pacific Northwest fisheries.

The shellfish industry generates $270 million each year for the region’s economy, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and employs some 3,200 people.

Math is going to be a lot easier on the iPad now.

Apple announced at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference keynote on Monday that it will finally be bringing the Calculator app to the iPad, receiving praise from those in attendance and on social media. The first version of the iPad was released in 2010, and in the 14 years since then, the tablet has never had Apple’s official Calculator app. Without the official app, iPad users who wanted to do math on their tablets either had to turn to a web browser or download a third-party app.

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But that will change when iPadOS 18 arrives this fall. In addition to the usual math calculations, the app will be able to do unit conversions. 

The new iPad version of the app will also include a new feature called Math Notes, which will allow users to write math problems by hand with the Apple Pencil, and then the Calculator app will automatically solve the problems. Users will be able to go beyond basic math problems to use functions from the scientific calculator, such as logarithmic equations.

Read More: Why Apple’s New iPad Pro Ad Has Sparked Backlash and an Apology

The announcement that Apple was bringing the Calculator app to the iPad was met with cheers from the crowd at the conference Monday.

“Why is the new Calculator app for iPad actually sick,” one user posted on X. “I guess this is why it took them 14 years.”

iPadOS 18 will include other new features, such as improvements to the tablet’s interface.
The Calculator app is the latest official Apple app to be added to the iPad—the official Weather app was not initially part of the iPad, and was only added to the tablet in 2022, according to IGN.

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Los Angeles — A Southern California socialite was sentenced Monday to 15 years to life in prison for the hit-and-run deaths of two young brothers in a crosswalk more than three years ago.

Authorities said Rebecca Grossman, wife of a prominent Los Angeles burn doctor, fatally struck Mark Iskander, 11, and brother Jacob, 8, while speeding.

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A Los Angeles jury in February found Rebecca Grossman guilty on all counts: Two felony counts each of second-degree murder and gross vehicular manslaughter, and one felony count of hit-and-run driving resulting in death.

Superior Court Judge Joseph Brandolino sentenced her to two concurrent 15-years-to-life sentences, plus three years for fleeing the scene of the fatal crash that would run concurrently with the two other sentences, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The judge called Grossman’s actions “reckless and unquestionably negligent.”

The deadly crash occurred on the evening of Sept. 29, 2020, in Westlake Village, a city on the western edge of Los Angeles County.

Prosecutors presented evidence that the data recorder in Grossman’s white Mercedes showed she was speeding at up to 81 mph (130 kph) and tapped her brakes, slowing to 73 mph (117 kph), less than two seconds before a collision that set off her airbags.