8 Things You Should Never Say to Your Partner, According to Therapists
Having a fight? “You’re overreacting” will only make it worse.
A friend of mine, a couples counselor, stopped by to see me after a long week. She sank into my couch, closed her eyes and said: “You know what phrase I wish I could ban couples from saying? ‘I never said that.’”
It was a sentence, my friend told me, that she heard almost every week. And once someone said it, the whole session would usually devolve into an argument about what the person did or did not say.
This made me wonder about other phrases therapists wished couples would stop saying during conflicts.
Here are their candidates, why we should avoid them and what to say instead.
Generalizations
“You always …” and “You never …” These terms are often exaggerations, and they don’t acknowledge any efforts your partner is trying to make, said Kier Gaines, a licensed therapist who works with individuals and couples in Washington, D.C.
And your partner might get defensive, he added: “So you’re not even having a problem-solving conversation anymore. You’re just going into full-blown argument mode.”
Instead of delving into the past, make an effort to stay in the present. “When you go back into history, it turns the conversation into a different thing,” Gaines said. Focus on the problem at hand, he added. (You might say, I’m noticing that you’re not helping to pick up after the kids; here’s why it’s bothering me.)
Deflections
“Yes, but …” Alexandra Solomon, a psychologist at the Family Institute at Northwestern University and the author of “Love Every Day,” said she hears this phrase all the time.Oneperson will voice a concern, and the other will agree — then add a caveat.(“You were 10 minutes late,” one person might say. The other might respond: “Yes, but you were late last week.”)
Using the word “but” implies that “‘it was kind of perfunctory for me to honor your concern, but really, I don’t understand it or validate it,’” Dr. Solomon said.
Instead of mounting a defense, she said, reflect your partner’s words and feelings. Try saying something like, “What I’m hearing from you is …”
Comparisons
“You should be more like _____.” Comparing your partner with someone else is “never, ever a great strategy,” Gaines said.
“I see it a lot: ‘Well, Danny takes his wife on a date three times a month,’” he continued. “Danny is a different person. His partner is a different person. You can only be who you are.”
Playing the comparison game can lead to jealousy, Gaines said, and “breed a lot of issues with self-image and self-confidence and self-esteem within a relationship.”
“This was never an issue in my other relationships.” This verbal bomb “really chips away the trust and security that you have with your partner,” said Wonbin Jung, a therapist in Silicon Valley who specializes in treating L.G.B.T.Q. couples. “The hidden message that I hear as a therapist is, ‘The problem that we have in this relationship is because of you.’”
Keep other people out of it, Gaines said, and concentrate on talking about your own needs. This can make you feel more vulnerable, but it’s much more productive.
Dismissals
“You’re overreacting.” No one person is “the actuary of emotional responses,” Dr. Solomon said. One person does not get to determine which reactions are appropriate, she said, adding that this phrase is often used to bypass accountability.
Instead of judging, said Dr. Solomon, you can say, “‘OK, I’m listening. Tell me more. Help me understand what you’re having a hard time with.’”
“Calm down.” Urging your partner to take it easyalmost always has the opposite effect, Dr. Jung said. “It’s like oil in a fire. So is, ‘You’re crazy.’”
If one partner is agitated, or both are, Dr. Jung usually advises them to take a short break and cool down.
Or, Dr. Jung said, you can ask your partner, “What do you need right now?” (Maybe it’s to be helped, heard or hugged.)
“It’s not that big a deal.” When you say that one of your partner’s concerns is not serious, it’s belittling and inaccurate, Gaines said. “You can’t measure how something feels to someone else,” he added. “You have no frame of reference. You can’t make that call.”
Instead, Gaines said, respectfully acknowledge that you have different perspectives. Then ask your partner to help you understand why an issue is important, and offer whatever support you can give.
Gaines told me that his wife, Noémie, is neat and organized, while he is not. Once, he said, he left a crusty bowl of oatmeal in her freshly cleaned sink; she jokingly accused him of “trying to destroy” her.
My husband and I have a similar dynamic. After I heard Noémie’s line, I used it on my husband when he left a pungent pile of his cycling gear on the floor.
“You always make me laugh,” he said. (That’s the good kind of “you always.”)
“Stop eating processed food!” Have you heard that before from your favorite wellness guru? Usually in the next video, that same person is eating Greek yogurt with honey on top. However, did you know these are two processed foods?
Don’t be misled by people who view all processed foods as the same thing. Although they might mean well, the oversimplification can be dangerous. Not all processed foods are the same, and some are much healthier than a can of Pringles or TV dinners.
What is processed food?
By definition, this describes any food that has been altered in some manner. It could be as simple as freezing vegetables. This is not to be mixed up with the societal definition of “processed food,” which is more so referring to stuff like chips, cakes, and pies.
We tend to lump all processed food together as one thing, but in reality, there are levels of processing that are put in place in order to accurately distinguish between a vegetable and a slice of chocolate cake. The NOVA classification system is the most popular way to classify processed foods.
Group 1: Unprocessed and minimally processed foods
Unprocessed foods are the edible parts of fruits, vegetables, and other plant foods as well as animal foods like eggs. Minimally processed food describes the removal of inedible or undesirable parts of natural foods through means of crushing, roasting, filtering, boiling, pasteurizing (think about milk), etc.
Group 2: Processed culinary ingredients
This includes ingredients like oils, butter, lard, sugar, and salt. All are derived from group 1 foods and made into processed ingredients.
Group 3: Processed foods
Canned beans and vegetables, sardines in oil, fresh breads, bacon, and other similar meats are included in this category.
Group 4: Ultra-processed foods
Ultra-processed foods undergo the heaviest levels of processing. These are foods like sodas, high-fat snack foods, and desserts that we are all familiar with when we hear the phrase “processed food.” Colors, flavors, emulsifiers, and other food additives are typically used to make the final product tasty and keep you coming back for more.
After breaking down the classifications, it’s clear that even the milk in your fridge and the black beans in your pantry are considered “processed.” This does not negate their nutrition and so the assumption that all processed foods are unhealthy is flawed.
“Stop eating processed food,” being the most common thing pushed by health and wellness gurus also just isn’t realistic for the average person. It is barely realistic for the person saying it. Canned fish, neatly packaged cuts of meat, rolled oats, and chopped vegetables are all processed foods that are not only highly nutritious but convenient for people to include in their diets because they are processed. Who has the time and energy to go find and gut their own salmon for dinner? Not most people.
People with low incomes and living in food deserts may also struggle to buy anything else except for canned vegetables and fruits for their families. Are we to tell them that it all needs to be fresh and from the highest quality source even if it comes at a great expense?
Let’s change our language
Instead, it’s more appropriate to specify that limiting ultra-processed snacks, fast food, desserts, and sodas is what is important. Even still, “limit” is the keyword here. It is not within everybody’s social or financial means to completely cut out TV dinners if they have no time to feed their kids anything else. It is also not necessary nor realistic to tell people to never eat a donut again in their lives. Striking a healthy balance that prioritizes whole fruits, vegetables, proteins, and carb sources is what matters most.
Bottom Line
Not all processed food is the same. Processed food being called unhealthy and being demonized isn’t warranted considering nutritious foods like frozen blueberries are processed. There are different levels of processing. Foods like sweets, salty snacks, and meals are ultra-processed. By lumping all processed foods as one, it removes the necessary nuance and ignores the needs of vulnerable populations, such as those who live in food deserts and struggle with food insecurity.
Khaled Abu Toameh is an award winning Arab and Palestinian Affairs journalist with the Jerusalem Post. He is Senior Distinguished Fellow at the Gatestone Institute and a Fellow of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.
(November 30, 2023 / Gatestone Institute)
The Hamas terrorists who attacked Israel on Oct. 7 did not kill only Jews. The terrorists also murdered and kidnapped scores of Muslim Israelis, including members of the Bedouin community. The terrorists’ murder spree made zero distinction between young and old, Muslim and Jew.
More than 1,200 Israelis were murdered in the massacre, while another 240 were kidnapped and taken to the Gaza Strip as hostages. Scores of Arab Israelis were murdered, wounded or taken hostage. Among the kidnapped is Aisha al-Ziadna, a 16-year-old Muslim citizen of Israel.
The first wave of Hamas’s attack hit a music festival at Kibbutz Re’im which had an estimated 3,500 young people in attendance.
The magnitude of the onslaught became apparent as bloodied and panicked people staggered into the medical tent screaming for help.
Finally, the medical staff was ordered to flee along with everyone else.
Awad Darwashe, 23, an Arab-Israeli paramedic, remained behind, refusing to abandon the wounded. “I speak Arabic. I think I can manage,” Darawshe said. Perhaps he thought the terrorists would not harm a fellow Muslim Arab. He was wrong.
Hamas mercilessly beat, humiliated, abducted and murdered their fellow Muslims, including Darawshe as he was bandaging the wounded. After Darwashe was murdered, his ambulance was stolen and driven into the Gaza Strip.
Abed al-Rahman Alnasasrah, 50, was murdered by Hamas terrorists when he attempted to rescue people from the music festival. He was married and a father of six children.
Fatima Altallaqat, 35, from the Bedouin village of Ar’ara, was also murdered, while working with her husband near the city of Ofakim in southern Israel. She was a mother of nine children, the eldest nine years old and the youngest six months. Her brother said that Hamas terrorists shot 40 bullets into her.
“We’re a religious Muslim family and she wore the traditional headdress of a devout woman. It is inconceivable they [Hamas terrorists] could not see who was inside [the car]. They were five meters away from her as they passed. She said she could not feel her legs. Her head was opened and I could see her brain. I knew she was close to death.”
Suleiman Zayadneh, brother and uncle, respectively, to four of the Arab-Israeli hostages, describes himself as proud to be a Palestinian and Muslim. He vehemently rejects what he views as Hamas’s negation of both identities:
“What national pride? What religion? The people who came to shoot and kill—they know nothing of religion. These [Hamas] people came and killed left and right.”
Lt. Col. Wahid al-Huzeil, an IDF liaison with the Bedouin community, noted:
“The fact that Hamas abducted innocent civilians, including women and children, shows that this organization doesn’t represent Islam… [which] opposes the murder of women, children and the elderly…. this incident shows how much… their struggle isn’t a religious one…. Israeli society must realize that its struggle isn’t against Arabs, it’s against Hamas.”
Asked in early 2023 about their general quality of life in Israel, many Arab Israelis responded positively. A hijabed young woman replied:
“We live in a country that gives us many things, from the perspective of the laws, benefits, and everything else. It is the best. In comparison to other countries, it is really good. I study, I work, I enjoy life.”
Ibrahim, a middle-aged man, was unequivocal when interviewed in 2014: “I never felt that I’m deprived in any way.” Asked if he felt inequality in treatment between Arabs and Jews, he retorted:
“Stop the nonsense. It is empty whining. I don’t believe in that. Everyone here can get where they want. What—the country doesn’t let them study? Y’allah, be a lawyer, be a teacher. Does anyone stop you? Even in prayer. Does anyone stop you praying? We pray five times a day, five times no one stops us. Whoever wants to be successful can be successful. Whoever doesn’t want to be successful blames the country, the government.”
Where in the Middle East are Arabs thriving throughout society, not just in a privileged world of favors and nepotism? Israel.
Two days after the Oct. 7 massacre, Nuseir Yassin, a video blogger with 65 million followers, posted:
“I realized that… to a terrorist invading Israel, all citizens are targets. More than 40 of them [the murdered] are Arabs. Killed by other Arabs. And I do not want to live under a Palestinian government. Which means I only have one home, even if I’m not Jewish: Israel…. So from today forward, I view myself as… Israeli first. Palestinian second. Sometimes it takes a shock like this to see so clearly.”
There have been many stories about reciprocal inter-communal generosity and heroism in the aftermath of this national tragedy, and they create hope for the future.
The family of Darwashe, the paramedic who would not abandon the wounded, stated:
“We are very proud of his actions… This is what we would expect from him and what we expect from everyone in our family—to be human, to stay human and to die human.”
Ali Alziadna, whose four family members are currently held hostage by Hamas in Gaza, is touched by the outpouring of support:
“People from all over the country come to hug and support the family. The entire nation is one family now.”
Many Arab citizens of Israel serve as IDF officers and policemen, risking their lives for their fellow Israelis. Many have created life-saving medical innovations. Many are serving at the front lines, saving lives.
Undoubtedly, one of the objectives of the Hamas massacre, in addition to slaughtering as many Israelis as possible, was to thwart normalization between Israel and Arab countries, especially Saudi Arabia. Hamas may also have aimed to damage relations between Jews and Arabs inside Israel.
The terror group was, without doubt, hoping that we would witness another cycle of violence between Jews and Arabs inside Israel, similar to that which erupted in May 2021. Then, Hamas succeeded in inciting a large number of Arab citizens of Israel to take to the streets and attack their Jewish neighbors and Israeli police officers.
This year, however, the Arab-Israelis have not heeded the calls by Hamas. One reason is that Arab-Israelis saw, with their own eyes, how Hamas terrorists make no distinction between Jews and Muslims.
Hamas has repeatedly demonstrated thatit cares nothing for the well-being of Arabs and Muslims. From their luxury homes and hotel rooms in the safety of Qatar and Turkey, Hamas leaders give the orders to attack Israel and then sit back and let the world weep over the destruction they wrought upon their own people.
On Oct. 7, Hamas metaphorically shot itself in the foot by showing the world, with unfathomably ghoulish pride, by way of Go-Pro cameras and other self-documentation, that it has neither a religious nor a secular-humanist set of values. Perhaps the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip should look at the Arab citizens of Israel and note how they enjoy equal rights, democracy, freedom of speech and a free media. If Palestinians wish to live well, like the Arab-Israelis, this is the time for them to get rid of Hamas and all the terror leaders who, for seven decades, have brought them nothing but one disaster after another.
As you know, I try to avoid political topics on this blog. But the following (warning: it’s long!) has enough stories of heroism and coexistence to warrant sharing. These stories of everyday people are fascinating, illuminating, and encouraging. I hope you’ll read it all the way to the end.
Opinion Columnist, reporting from Rahat, Israel, Nov. 22, 2023
I confess that as a longtime observer of the Arab-Israeli conflict, I aggressively avoid both the “From the river to the sea” activists on the pro-Palestinian left and the similarly partisanzealots on the “Greater Israel” Zionist right — not just because I find their exclusivist visions for the future abhorrent but also because the reporter in me finds them so blind to the complexities of the present.
They aren’t thinking about the Jewish mother in Jerusalem who told me in one breath how she just got a gun license to protect her kids from Hamas, and in the next about how much she trusted her kids’ Palestinian Arab teacher, who rushed her children to the school bomb shelter during a recent Hamas air raid. They aren’t thinking about Alaa Amara, the Israeli Arab shop owner from Taibe, who donated 50 bicycles to Jewish kids who survived the Hamas attack on their border communities on Oct. 7, only to see his shop torched, apparently by hard-line nationalist Israeli Arab youth, a few days later, only to see a crowdfunding campaign in Hebrew and English raise more than $200,000 to help him rebuild that same shop just a few days after that.
Over the last half-century, I have seen Palestinians and Israelis do terrible things to one another. But this episode that began with the barbaric Hamas attack on Israelis, including women, little kids and soldiers in communities alongside Gaza, and the Israeli retaliation against Hamas fighters embedded in Gaza that has also killed, wounded and displaced so many thousands of Palestinian civilians — from newborns to the elderly — is surely the worst since the 1947 U.N. partition days.
But those on all sides who read this column know that I am not one for keeping score. My focus is always on how to get out of this eye-for-an-eye, tooth-for-a-tooth horror show before everyone is left blind and toothless.
To that end, I devoted a lot of time on my trip to Israel and the West Bank this month observing and probing the actual day-to-day interactions among Israeli Arabs and Jews. These are always complex, sometimes surprising, occasionally depressing — and, more often than you might expect,uplifting—experiences. Because they reveal enough seeds of coexistence scattered around that one can still dream the impossible dream — that we might one day have a two-state solution for Israelis and Palestinians living between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River.
So, this Thanksgiving week, I ask you to spare a few moments with me to reflect on some of these people, including some of the extraordinary acts of rescue that they committed on Oct. 7. They will give you more faith in humanity than the headlines around this story would ever suggest.
To put it another way, a friend once described my worldview as a cross between Thomas Hobbes and Walter Mondale. For several days on my trip, I let out my inner Mondale to chase some rays of hope shooting through the darkness.
It began soon after I arrived in Tel Aviv, when I sat down with perhaps the most courageous Israeli political leader today, Mansour Abbas. Abbas is a Palestinian Arab citizen of Israel who happens to be a devout Muslim and a member of Israel’s parliament, where he leads the important United Arab List party. Abbas’s voice is even more vital now because he did not respond to the Hamas terrorism with silence. Abbas understands that while it’s right to be outraged at the pain Israel is inflicting on Gaza’s civilians, reserving all of your outrage for Gaza’s pain creates suspicion among Jews in Israel and worldwide, who notice when not a word is uttered about the Hamas atrocities that triggered this war.
The first thing Abbas said to me about the Hamas onslaught was this: “No one can accept what happened on that day. And we cannot condemn it and say ‘but’ — that word ‘but’ has become immoral.” (Recent polls show overwhelming Israeli Arab condemnation of the Hamas attack.)
Abbas sees the complexities lived by that Israeli Jewish mother in Jerusalem who never lost trust in her kids’ Palestinian Arab teacher, and by that Israeli Arab bicycle shop owner who spontaneously reached out a hand to ease the pain of Jewish children he’d never met. At the same time, though, Abbas spoke about the searing pain Israeli Palestinian Arabs and Bedouins feel at seeing their relatives pummeled and killed in Gaza.
“One of the hardest things today is to be an Israeli Arab,” Abbas said to me. “The Arab Israeli feels the pain twice — once as an Arab and once as an Israeli.”
That’s the thing about this neighborhood: If you only look at one group or the other under a microscope, you want to cry — the brutal massacre of Jews, the harsh treatment of Palestinians by Jewish supremacist settlers. The list is endless. But if you look at their stories through a kaleidoscope, observing the complexity of their interactions, you can see hope. If you want to report accurately about Israelis and Palestinians, always bring a kaleidoscope.
Which brings me to the stories of the Israeli Bedouin Arabs and Oct. 7.
Avrum Burg
About a week into my trip, I got a call from my friend Avrum Burg, the former speaker of the Israeli Knesset, whose grandfather was the chief rabbi of Hebron in 1929. He told me that he and his pal Talab el-Sana — an Israeli Bedouin Arab who served with him in the Knesset, and who provided a key vote that gave Yitzhak Rabin the majority that enabled him to make the Oslo peace deal — wanted to take me to meet some “righteous Bedouins.” These were Arabic-speaking but Hebrew-fluent Muslim-Bedouin citizens of Israel, who had played heroic roles in saving Jews from Hamas’s attack.
Bedouins in Israel are a nomadic community who largely reside in Israel’s Negev Desert and are part of the Israeli Arab minority — 21 percent of the country — spread across cities and towns. There are some 320,000 Bedouins in Israel, with about 200,000 living in government-recognized communities and about 120,000 in makeshift, unrecognized shantytowns. Many Bedouins have served in the Israeli Army, often as trackers, because of their deep knowledge of the area’s geography from generations of roaming desert terrain.
Well, it turns out that some Israeli Bedouins who lived near or worked in the border communities ravaged by Hamas helped to rescue Israeli Jews there. Some Bedouins got abducted by Hamas along with Jews, while others were murdered by Hamas because the terrorist group treated anyone who lived or worked in Israeli kibbutzim and spoke Hebrew as “Jews” — deserving to be killed.
And after Oct. 7, some of those Bedouins who saved Israeli Jews found themselves being treated to hostile glances and quiet slurs by other Israeli Jews, who automatically assumed they were Hamas sympathizers.
And all along, both Jewish and Bedouin victims of Hamas were treated together in Israeli hospitals, where nearly half of all the new incoming doctors are now Israeli Arabs or Druze, as are some 24 percent of the nurses and roughly 50 percent of the pharmacists.
Yup, an Israeli Bedouin Arab can save an Israeli Jew on the Gaza border in the morning, be discriminated against by Jews on the streets of Beersheba in the afternoon and boast that his daughter — a doctor, trained at an Israeli medical school — stayed on her feet all night taking care of Jewish and Arab patients at Hadassah Hospital.
It’s complicated.
El-Sana and Burg took me to two Bedouin villages to meet young men who saved Jews. Joining us was Ran Wolf, an Israeli urban planner who specializes in building shared spaces — innovation centers, cultural centers and markets — to be used by both Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs. We stopped at Ran’s home in Tel Aviv on the way to get some water, where he told me this story:
After the Hamas rockets started falling on Tel Aviv on Oct. 7, he called his regular contractor, Emad, an Israeli Arab from Jaffa, to say that the doors on the bomb shelter in his basement couldn’t be closed. “The problem was happening in a lot of shelters, and after Oct. 7 everyone wanted to get theirs fixed,” said Wolf. Indeed, when his neighbors got wind that a repairman was on the block, they asked him to fix theirs, too.
“Emad is a good friend, and he refused to take any money for two days of work,” said Wolf. Keep in mind, he added, that Emad lives in Jaffa, south of Tel Aviv. In the 1948 war, Emad’s father stayed in Jaffa and his uncle fled to Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip. “So he was raised in Israel — but half his family is now in Gaza,” Wolf said. “He himself got a Hamas missile 200 yards from his home in Jaffa” the other day, he added.
Get out your kaleidoscope: Today you have Jaffa Palestinian refugees living under a Hamas government in Gaza who are firing rockets at Jaffa Palestinians who are Israeli citizens, one of whom repaired the rocket shelters of his Jewish friends in Tel Aviv — for free.
Ran Wolf
When we arrived in Rahat, the largest Bedouin town in Israel in the Negev Desert, el-Sana, sitting in the back seat of the car, managed to one-up that story.
He explained that some of the first Israeli victims of the Hamas rocket attacks on Oct. 7 were actually Bedouins, many of whom live in unrecognized villages in the Negev that are not listed on any digital maps. (The Israeli government has not kept up with their population growth, as it has for most Jewish towns.)
Those villages do not have municipal bomb shelters or warning sirens to protect their people when Hamas rockets start landing, but — and you cannot make this up — el-Sana explained that the way Israel’s Iron Dome antimissile system works is that when Hamas launches a rocket it automatically plots the trajectory to determine if that rocket from Gaza will land on a settled space in Israel, and kill people, or on an empty field or in the sea. If it is an empty space on a map or in the sea, Iron Dome won’t waste one of its expensive rockets shooting down a cheap Hamas rocket.
Six Bedouins were killed by a Hamas rocket that landed on their village of Al Bat — including two brothers, ages 11 and 12 — because that Bedouin town is not on any official Israeli map loaded into the Iron Dome database, el-Sana explained.
Meanwhile, eight other Bedouins who worked in Jewish communities near Gaza were murdered by Hamas and at least seven more Bedouins, all Israeli citizens, are believed to have been kidnapped and taken to Gaza.
And yet days later some of these same Bedouins did not hesitate to help rescue Israeli Jews, along with their cousins.
El-Sana had set up an interview for me in Al Zayada village, an unrecognized Bedouin settlement in the Negev, at the unrecognized home of Youssef Ziadna, 47, a Bedouin driver who had been recognized for rescuing Jews on Oct. 7. Ziadna, a bus driver, explained that on Friday, Oct. 6, he was hired to drive a group of Jewish kids to an outdoor trance music festival called the Supernova Sukkot Gathering, celebrating the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, adjacent to Kibbutz Re’im, which is adjacent to the Gaza border.
“After I dropped them off, we agreed that on Saturday I would come back and take them home at 6 p.m.,” he told me. But early on Saturday morning, “I got a call from one of them, Amit,” telling him to come immediately, he said. “They were being attacked and there was gunfire everywhere.”
As he rushed to the scene and got near the kibbutz, Ziadna said, “I saw a barrage of rockets and many cars coming toward me — escaping — blinking their lights for me to turn around. Some people who stopped and jumped out of their cars said there were terrorists in Be’eri, so ‘run away.’ I got out of my car and hid on the side of the road and every time I raised my head I got shot at. But I committed to pick these people up, and it was a kilometer away.”
Ziadna said that when the shooting subsided for a bit, he managed to get back in his vehicle and use his cellphone to link up with Amit and his friends — and anyone else he could cram into his minibus. Instead of driving back on the road, where “I knew they’d kill us,” he said, “I drove through the fields.”Image
Talab el-Sana
As a Bedouin, Ziadna had intimate knowledge of the terrain that proved lifesaving. He was able to cut a route through fields and avoid the main thoroughfare near where Hamas terrorists were ambushing escapees from the music festival. Many other escaping cars then also jumped off the road and followed Ziadna’s minibus through the fields, he said. He told The Times of Israel, which profiled him, that he crammed some 30 people into his vehicle, even though it was licensed for only 14 passengers.
A few days later, he said he got a call from a phone number he did not recognize but that he believed was from Gaza, and a voice said in Arabic: “Are you Youssef Ziadna? You saved the lives of Jews? We’re going to kill you.”
He reported the call to the Israeli police. It’s just one reason, he said, that he still needs daily phone calls with a psychologist to try to overcome his trauma from Oct. 7.
Another family member at our gathering, Daham Ziadna, 35, said a total of four of their family members were abducted by Hamas; one was killed for sure, and three others are still missing. Two of them were last seen lying on the ground in a TikTok video released by Hamas, with two gun-toting Hamas fighters standing over them. For Hamas, said Daham, “everyone who lives in Israel is a Jew.”
Daham told me that a few days ago he had gone to the local bank to withdraw some money from the A.T.M., and two Israeli Jews passed him on the sidewalk. “One had a Russian accent. As they walked past me, the Russian guy said, ‘Here’s another Arab.’ I said to him: ‘These “Arabs” you are talking about on the morning of Oct. 7 were on the border of Gaza fighting for the Israeli state — regardless of Jews or Arabs — and the ones who destroy the country are people like you who incite poison.’”
Israeli Arabs live between a rock and a hard place, he added: “Many Jews look at us as if we are all Hamas, and the Hamas people look at us as if we are all Jews.”
A few miles away, in Rahat, el-Sana introduced me to the al-Qrinawi family, who had their own remarkable tale to tell. Their family spokesman, Ismail, led me through the drama, flanked by his male cousins and a giant platter of rice, chicken and chickpeas.
On the morning of Oct. 7, as word spread of the Hamas attack, they discovered through their family’s WhatsApp group that three of their cousins who worked in the dining room at Kibbutz Be’eri had apparently been abducted. Around 10 a.m., one family member got a call from the phone of an Israeli woman named Aya Medan that was strange. It turned out she had met up with one of their missing cousins, Hisham, and they were hiding together from the Hamas terrorists in the same thorny bush near Be’eri. Hisham used her cellphone to call his Bedouin clan for help. Their other two cousins had fled in another direction.
Their uncle, the family patriarch, ordered four of his nephews to get in the family Land Cruiser and go rescue them, since the area was normally about 30 minutes away — but not that day. They grabbed two handguns and sped off.
“When we got close, we found that all the roads were closed,” Ismail told me. “So we went through the woods and through a deep wadi in order to go around. Our car almost flipped over in the wadi.”
First, “we bumped into people running away from the party,” he said. “We gave them our phones to call their parents and made sure that they got into other cars that were driven by Israelis. We managed to rescue 30 or 40 people at the party. But all the time, I am talking to Aya, trying to locate her and Hisham.”
It was taking forever. After two and a half hours of dodging gunfire and Hamas rockets, Ismail said, they managed to find Aya and Hisham hiding in bushes very close to Kibbutz Be’eri. The two had sent a cellphone picture of the area where they were hiding so they could be more easily located. Minutes later, Aya recalled for The Times of Israel, Hisham tugged at her, saying, “Aya, they’re here, they’re actually here.”
The cousins opened the car doors, Aya and Hisham scrambled inside and the Bedouins again used their off-road skills to get them to safety. Sort of.
The most terrifying moment of the day, Ismail told me, was when they got back onto a main road. They got stopped at a makeshift Israeli Army checkpoint, with jittery Israeli soldiers who could not identify friend or foe from afar. “The Israeli soldiers surrounded our car and every one of them was pointing a gun at us. I shouted: ‘We’re Israeli citizens! Don’t shoot!’”
Aya told The Times of Israel that she was asked by an Israeli soldier whether she was being kidnapped. She said, “No, I’m from Be’eri, and they came from Rahat to get us out of there.”
Bedouins saving Israeli Jews from Hamas being saved by a rescued Israeli Jewish woman from being shot by the Israeli Army after they rescued her … kaleidoscopic.
While I was interviewing the al-Qrinawi family, they introduced me to Shir Nosatzki, a co-founder of the Israeli group Have You Seen the Horizon Lately, which promotes Jewish-Arab partnerships. Immediately after learning of the rescue, her husband, Regev Contes, made a seven-minute video in Hebrew to share the tale of the Bedouin rescue team with his fellow Israelis. It has reportedly garnered hundreds of thousands of views in Israel. I asked Nosatzki why they made the video.
“It was to show that Oct. 7 was not a war between Jews and Arabs but between darkness and light,” she said.
Before driving back to Tel Aviv, el-Sana insisted on taking us to his favorite kebab restaurant in Rahat. There we sat: an Israeli Bedouin who had served in the Knesset, the grandson of the former chief rabbi of Hebron and a Jewish New York Times columnist from Minnesota who had reported from both Beirut and Jerusalem in the 1970s and 1980s. We reflected on the day in a crazy mix of Hebrew, Arabic and English
Between grilled lamb and hummus, we all came to the same conclusion: Even at this dark hour, we had just seen something hugely important — “the seeds of coexistence, in death and in life,” as Burg put it, seeds that Hamas set out to destroy. These seeds, el-Sana added, “should give us hope that we can build a common future based on common values that cross borders of Jewish and Arab ethnicity.”
They are right. These seeds, small as they might be, have never been more important than they are right now. Why? Because this Israel-Hamas war, whenever it ends, has been so traumatic for everyone already that it will trigger the biggest debate about what the relations and boundaries between Israelis and Palestinians should be since the U.N. partition plan in 1947. I am sure of it — because anything less will mean permanent war.
I can already tell you that there will be a lot of destructive voices in that discussion: Palestinian and Arab Hamas apologists, who are already denying or playing down Hamas’s atrocities; Jewish supremacist settlers, eager not only to expand in the West Bank but also, insanely, to Gaza, and who show no apparent concern for the devastating suffering of Palestinian civilians killed in Israel’s retaliation there; Benjamin Netanyahu, who will sell Israel’s future down the river to stay in office and out of jail; and Hamas’s useful idiots in the West, particularly on campuses, where students denounce all of Israel as a colonial enterprise while chanting “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”
(Please spare me the explanation that this is really a call for coexistence: I was in Beirut in the 1970s when this chant was popular, and I can assure you it was not a call for two states for two peoples. If you have a mantra that needs 15 minutes to explain, you need a new mantra.)
Given all these wrecking crews waiting to go to work, we are going to need more than ever to elevate the authentic voices of coexistence — leaders with the integrity of those Israeli Bedouins, ready to do and say the right things, not only when it is not easy but also when it’s dangerous.
Which brings me back to Mansour Abbas of the United Arab List.
His party, broadly speaking, comes from the same Muslim Brotherhood wing of Palestinian politics as Hamas — only where Hamas worships violence and exclusion, Abbas advocates nonviolence and inclusion. Abbas was a key power broker helping Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid forge Israel’s 2021 national unity government. Netanyahu, ever the divider, brought that government down in part with anti-Arab and anti-Muslim tropes directed at Abbas.
Abbas understands that coexistence means saying the right things, not only when it’s politically difficult but also when it’s dangerous. After viewing videos of the Hamas attack in the Knesset, he told Arabic Radio al-Nas about Oct. 7: “I saw a father with two children who went into a bomb shelter outside their home, and they threw a grenade into the shelter. The father jumped on the grenade and was killed, and the two children were wounded and remained alive. The massacre is against everything we believe in, our religion, our Islam, our nationality, our humanity.” Hamas’s actions do “not represent our Arab society, nor our Palestinian people, nor our Palestinian nation.”
In our interview, Abbas told me that we need “a new political rhetoric” and not to get drawn back into the old games. “This ‘river to the sea’ talk is not helpful,” he said. “They are making a mistake. If you want to help Palestinians, then talk about a two-state solution and peace and security for all the people.”
That is why, he added, “I am working on a plan that starts by ending the current war and ends with the creation of a Palestinian state alongside of Israel.”
Abbas is clear-eyed about the difficult road ahead. I am, too. I finished my recent journey with two takeaways. The first is that this Gaza war is still far from over. Israel believes there will be no peace in or from Gaza as long as Hamas is in power there.
But the other is that just as the darkness of the Yom Kippur War produced the dawn of the Camp David treaty, and just as the viciousness of the first intifada and the Israeli pushback led to the Oslo Accords, out of the horrors of Oct. 7 will one day come another attempt to build two states for these two indigenous peoples. Otherwise, this whole corner of the world will become uninhabitable for any sane person. There are just too many people with too many powerful weapons today.
And when that day comes, it will take a bridge-builder like Mansour Abbas — who understands the true kaleidoscopic reality of this place, and the authentic connection of both communities to it — to nurture the seeds of coexistence that are still here, albeit buried deeper than ever. Abbas, Youssef Ziadna, the al-Qrinawi family, Aya Medan, my friends Avrum, Talab and Ran — they will be the rescuers.
I was happy to read that the Mediterranean diet, newly repurposed as the MIND diet, is said to help prevent dementia. To no one’s surprise, it emphasizes fresh fruit and veggies, whole grains, olive oil, fish, etc.
I can’t help wondering, though, why no one is touting the MINDLESS diet, which has been proven to help prevent depression.
This classic meal plan, first discovered during those critical, formative teenage years, is equally helpful in attaining mindless hedonism in adulthood. Its key components are:
1 bag of chips per day
1 pint of ice cream twice weekly (do not substitute ice milk or frozen yogurt); extra benefit from additions such as chocolate chips, fudge, and salted caramel
2 cocktails per evening
1 bottle of wine per dinner (serves 2)
French fries (actually, fried anything)
Include plenty of fresh bread, cookies, pies, cakes and pastries
Level up to vegetable stir fry or tempura – so much more festive than raw or steamed veggies
Remember the 3 P’s: Pasta, Potatoes, Pizza
At least monthly: savor an ample cheese board with brie, goat cheese, Stilton, cheddar (may substitute grilled cheese on buttered bread as desired)
Dessert twice daily, preferably with whipped cream
SINGAPORE — Move over carrots, grapes may also benefit your eyes as well, according to new research.
Researchers, supported by the California Table Grape Commission, say eating just a few handfuls of grapes daily for four months appears to enhance significant indicators of eye health. The reason? Eye degeneration is attributed to oxidative stress, and grapes are rich in antioxidants.
Researchers from the National University of Singapore conducted a study involving 34 adults. Participants were divided into two groups: one consuming one and a half cups of grapes daily, while the other ate a placebo over a span of 16 weeks.
The group that consumed grapes exhibited a notable increase in macular pigment optical density (MPOD), plasma antioxidant capacity, and total phenolic content, compared to the placebo group. Conversely, those who did not consume grapes witnessed a significant rise in damaging ocular advanced glycation end products (AGE) in their skin.
The study highlights that oxidative stress and elevated levels of AGE are primary risk factors for eye diseases. AGEs, in particular, can harm the retina’s vascular components, compromise cellular functions, and amplify oxidative stress.
Being a natural reservoir of antioxidants and polyphenols, grapes can curtail oxidative stress and obstruct the formation of AGEs. This could lead to potential benefits on the retina, such as an uplift in MPOD.
“Our study is the first to show that grape consumption beneficially impacts eye health in humans which is very exciting, especially with a growing aging population. Grapes are an easy, accessible fruit that studies have shown can have a beneficial impact in normal amounts of just 1 ½ cups per day,” says Dr. Jung Eun Kim, the study’s co-author, in a media release.
Q (me): So, what I want to know is, how many glasses of wine is that?!
A (Internet): Alas, there is no straightforward answer. It depends on everything from varietal to winemaking technique. This answer isn’t as satisfying as we’d like, however, so we’ll go with a safe average of about 80 grapes in a glass of wine and 400 grapes in each bottle.
I don’t normally address politics in this blog but this is too important to ignore. The writer addresses some uncomfortable truths we all need to understand. I’ve highlighted some key points.
Hamas’ charter needs to be taken seriously, it calls for the obliteration of Israel and its replacement with an Islamic state and the obliteration of Jews.
By DAVID BREAKSTONE The destruction caused by Hamas Militants in Kibbutz Be’eri, near the Israeli-Gaza border, in southern Israel, October 11, 2023. (photo credit: OREN BEN HAKOON/FLASH90)
I just checked. For anyone harboring any doubts, the horror of 9/11 was perpetrated by terrorists. Every American newspaper and news station reported it that way. Curious, then, that so many of the world’s most respectable news outlets, including CNN and The New York Times, are now reporting that the barbarism recently visited upon Israel was perpetrated by militants.
Militants: those intensely devoted to a cause, promoting their beliefs with the full power of their convictions, but not generally violent. I may not be totally objective, but that doesn’t sound to me a particularly fitting description of those who indiscriminately butcher babies, rape women, slaughter young festival goers, murder children in front of their parents and parents in front of their children, pile handcuffed civilians upon one another and burn them alive, and ruthlessly abduct infants and the infirm along with everyone in-between.
The savagery and the numbers are staggering. The more than 1300 dead, 3600 wounded, and 199 hostages are proportionally far greater than the casualties of the heinous attack on the Twin Towers. Ten deaths for every million Americans back then; 140 for every million Israelis today. Why, then, the refusal to call out Hamas for being the heinous terrorist organization it is? Antisemitism is too easy an answer. There may be an element of that in the equation, but it is far from a sufficient explanation.
The reason may be better attributed to the inconceivably lingering perception of Hamas as a humanitarian organization, concerned with the welfare of the Palestinian people, which is how it presented itself to the world when it came to power in Gaza in 2007. That, along with the persistent perception that it is Israel and its policies that are the root cause of the sadistic violence that has now erupted with unprecedented depravity. As casualties in Gaza continue to mount and as the humanitarian crisis there continues to deepen, demands that Israel explain itself are going to become increasingly strident. That might not be fair, but it’s already happening.The destruction caused by Hamas Militants in Kibbutz Be’eri, near the Israeli-Gaza border, in southern Israel, October 14, 2023. (credit: Omer Fichman/Flash90)
SOME QUESTIONS and answers, then, for those prepared to take on our detractors:
1. Isn’t Israel’s occupation of the West Bank the real reason for the Hamas invasion of Israel – and doesn’t the cycle of violence that Israel and Hamas have been caught up in for years suggest that one side is as much to blame as the other?
While Hamas indeed declares its aim is to end the “occupation,” the occupation it seeks to end is that of the entire State of Israel. Israel’s 1998 offer to withdraw from 96% of the West Bank as part of a comprehensive peace plan was summarily rejected by the Palestinians. Its 2005 unilateral withdrawal from Gaza, rather than being welcomed as a harbinger of peace, has been met with a 17-year barrage of tens of thousands of rockets targeting civilians.
Hamas’ charter needs to be taken seriously. It asserts that “Palestine is an Islamic Waqf, land consecrated for Muslim generations until Judgement Day” and calls for the obliteration of Israel and its replacement with an Islamic state extending from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea (Article 11), an objective fueled by vitriolic hatred of the Jew. “The Day of Judgment will not come about until Muslims fight the Jews, when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say, ‘O Muslim, O servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him’” (Article 7), precisely the harrowing script played out on October 7.
Israel’s genuine desire for peace was signaled by its unilateral withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 and its ongoing efforts at rapprochement, which have been steadfastly rebuffed by Hamas who has remained true to its unequivocal declaration: “There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through armed struggle [and that] so-called peaceful solutions… are in contradiction to the principles of Hamas” (Article 13), decrying any attempt by Arab countries to enter into a peace agreement with Israel as a betrayal of Islam (Article 32).
In contrast, Israel has consistently advocated for a two-state solution to end the conflict. There is no case to be made for moral equivalency in judging the two sides joined in battle. Regardless, there is no justification for the war crimes committed by Hamas, deliberately targeting Israel’s civilian population while using its own as a human shield to deter Israeli retaliation.
2. Doesn’t Israel’s stranglehold on Gaza leave Hamas with no choice but to resort to violence?
After its 2005 withdrawal, Israel signed an Agreement on Movement and Access with the Palestinian Authority. It would have granted the Palestinians control over their own borders, allowed for imports and exports, and the construction of a seaport. Then came the 2006 elections in Gaza which brought Hamas to power after a bloody struggle that decimated the Palestinian Authority and rendered the accord obsolete. Nevertheless, Israel has continually facilitated the import of humanitarian aid and the supply of electricity and water. This continued even as Hamas channeled the massive amounts of building supplies and billions of dollars it received for construction of hospitals and schools into the construction of tunnels and the procurement of weapons for attacks against Israel’s civilian population rather than serving the needs of its own.
Still, right up until Hamas launched its brutal attack, Israel was allowing 18,000 Gazans daily to cross its border for work.
3. Even if Israel has a legitimate right to retaliate against the massacre of its citizens, doesn’t the death toll of Palestinians relative to the number of Israeli casualties indicate a disproportionate response on its part?
The death of every innocent Palestinian is a tragedy, and Israel, abiding by the rules of war, has been doing its utmost to avoid that. The problem is, that while Israel uses its weapons to defend its people, Hamas is using its people to defend its weapons. It not only launches rockets from schools, hospitals, and mosques, but endeavors to prevent civilians from evacuating areas Israel has expressly warned them to leave.
What does proportionality mean?
As to proportionality, what would that mean? Killing the same number of civilians in Gaza as Hamas slaughtered in Israel? That would be tit-for-tat, revenge, retribution. Israel has no interest in that. It wants only to render Hamas incapable of inflicting any further casualties on its citizenry. Ever. Its resolve in this regard is ironclad. Hamas will have to decide how many of its own civilians it is prepared to sacrifice in its attempt to save itself. In the meantime, Israel is doing what it can to mitigate the suffering of Gaza’s civilian population, having established a corridor for the safe passage between Gaza and Egypt of civilians and the humanitarian aid they require. These are all things the world needs to know. Words matter.
The Hamas Charter matters. Hamas’s actions matter even more. Its members are terrorists, not militants, and the victims of the October 7 massacre, and the entire enlightened world Hamas threatens, deserves to hear the story told as it is.
The writer is currently engaged in establishing the Navon Center for a Shared Society. He previously served as deputy chair of the Jewish Agency and World Zionist Organization and was the founding director of the Herzl Museum and Educational Center. breakstonedavid@gmail.com
5,000-year-old wine jars in the tomb of Queen Meret-Neith in Abydos during the excavation. The jars are in their original context and some of them are still sealed. (Credit: EC Köhler
Cheers! 5,000-year-old wine collection discovered in tomb of ancient Egypt’s first female pharaoh
ABYDOS, Egypt — This gives a whole new meaning to “aging like fine wine.” Archaeologists from Germany and Austria have discovered a treasure trove of wine in the tomb of Egypt’s first female pharaoh.
The team, led by Christiana Köhler from the University of Vienna, was conducting an excavation of Queen Meret-Neith’s tomb when they found hundreds of large wine jars. Remarkably, some of these jars were in pristine condition, even preserving remnants of 5,000-year-old wine within them. Inscriptions discovered within the tomb further indicate Queen Meret-Neith’s significant influence, revealing her control over pivotal government sectors, including the treasury.
The tomb complex of Queen Meret-Neith in Abydos during excavation. The Queen’s burial chamber lies in the centre of the complex and is surrounded by the secondary tombs of the courtiers and servants. (Credit: EC Köhler)
Meret-Neith, a key figure around 3,000 BC, stands out not only as the most influential woman of her time but also as the sole woman to have her own monumental tomb in Egypt’s first royal cemetery at Abydos. The team’s new findings have reignited discussions about her unique place in history, as her true identity remains shrouded in mystery. It also hints at the possibility of Meret-Neith being the first female pharaoh of ancient Egypt.
Excavations in the tomb complex of Queen Meret-Neith in Abydos. (Credit: EC Köhler)
The expansive tomb complex of Meret-Neith in the Abydos desert is not limited to her burial chamber. It also encompasses the tombs of 41 courtiers and servants. Made primarily from unbaked mud bricks, clay, and wood, the intricate structure showcases multiple construction phases spanning a relatively extended period. Such evidence challenges earlier beliefs of human sacrifices accompanying royal burials during the 1st Dynasty – a concept frequently assumed but never definitively proven.
These excellently preserved grape seeds were found in the sealed wine jars in the tomb of Queen Meret-Neith in Abydos. (Credit: EC Köhler)
Köhler’s team is the result of a collaboration among multiple institutions, including the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, the German Archaeological Institute in Cairo, the University of Vienna, the Vienna University of Technology in Austria, and Lund University in Sweden. Their work has been made possible through the support of the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) and the German Research Foundation (DFG).
This weekend I enjoyed watching the movie Jules starring Ben Kingsley, Jane Curtin and Harriet Sansom Harris. So when I saw the following article I had to share it. (Apologies for wonky formatting issues.)
Do you find the idea of “aliens” alarming, comforting, or just good fun??
NASA can’t rule out ‘potential unknown alien technology’ in Earth’s atmosphere
But it says it prefers to call them UAPs – ‘unidentified anomalous phenomena’
NASA cannot rule out that ‘potential unknown alien technology’ is operating in the Earth’s atmosphere, a new report has concluded.
The study of flying saucers, UFOs, and claims alien spaceships are visiting the earth has long been the preserve of mavericks and the unhinged.
But yesterday, NASA said it wanted to dispel the ‘negative perception’ surrounding Unidentified Flying Objects and make it a scientifically respectable field of study.
As part of the effort to put the study of UFOs onto a more scientific footing, it said it preferred to call them UAPs – ‘unidentified anomalous phenomena’.
A NASA panel, comprising 16 experts in scientific fields and ranging from physics to astrobiology have compiled a report into UAPs which it called ‘one of our planet’s greatest mysteries.’
(Pictured: NASA Administrator Bill Nelsonspeaking recently.)
Above, a weather balloon careens through the air following its release from the Cape Canaveral weather station in Florida. NASA’s panel included this image in their report as an example of the striking, highly unusual objects that nevertheless have a terrestrial explanation.
The report said: ‘Observations of objects in our skies that cannot be identified as balloons, aircraft or natural known phenomena have been spotted worldwide, yet there are limited high-quality observations.
‘The nature of science is to explore the unknown, and data is the language scientists use to discover our universe’s secrets,’ the report said.
‘Despite numerous accounts and visuals, the absence of consistent, detailed, and curated observations means we do not presently have the body of data needed to make definitive, scientific conclusions about UAP,’ it added.
The report said there is ‘no reason’ to conclude existing UAP reports have an extraterrestrial source.
But it said if it is plausible that there are extra-terrestrial life forms in the galaxy, it is also plausible that there is ‘potential unknown alien technology operating in Earth’s atmosphere’.
NASA has previously revealed the characteristics of the typical UFO, including the colour and the shape, velocity, and flight level.
Two ‘aliens’ were officially unveiled at Mexico ‘s Congress (pictured) as politicians held their first ever hearing on UFOs, but was everything as it seemed?
The report was not a review of previous UFO incidents but a ‘road map’ of how to scientifically study and evaluate UAPs in the future.
It also only referred to unclassified reports – with the report’s authors acknowledging that the US Military also has secret images and reports of UAPs not available to the public.
NASA said it would make a ‘concerted effort’ to scientifically study UAPs, using its satellites, as well as commercial satellites, as well as using artificial intelligence to analyse data.
The public could help too, using smartphone apps to take pictures of potential UFOs.
NASA said it had appointed a new director of UAP research – who it is not naming – who will be in charge of creating a ‘robust database’ for evaluation of future UAP.’
The director will not be named as members of the panel had received ‘harassment’ and ‘threats’ while working on the report, NASA officials said.
The report added that it was important to get to the bottom of UAPs as ‘the threat to U.S. airspace safety posed by UAP is self-evident.’
At a news conference yesterday one of the report’s authors, Dr Dan Evans, was asked why the report had to rely on unclassified material – while the US Department of Defense holds onto classified images and videos.
Dr Evans said: ‘One of the reasons we restricted ourselves this study to unclassified data is because we can speak openly about it,’ Dr Evans said. ‘And in so doing, we’re aiming again to alter the discourse from sensationalism to science’.
Navy 2021 flyby video of an unidentified aerial phenomena
The scientists were asked by to comment on a recent claim by a UFO expert, Jaimie Maussan, that he had discovered two ancient ‘non human’ alien corpses in Cusco, Peru in 2017, which are 1800 years old and are claimed to have 30 per cent DNA of an ‘unknown’ type.’ Dr David Spergel, who chaired the panel, said samples from the corpses should be made available to the wider scientific community.
NASA issued a watershed report in 2021 compiled by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in conjunction with a Navy-led task force encompassing numerous observations – mostly from military personnel of UAP.
The report included some UAP cases that previously came to light in the Pentagon’s release of video from naval aviators showing enigmatic aircraft off the U.S. East and West Coasts.
The report said defence and intelligence analysts lacked sufficient data to determine the nature of some of the objects.
British astronomer Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell was the first person to discover a pulsar in 1967 when she spotted a radio pulsar.
Since then other types of pulsars that emit X-rays and gamma rays have also been spotted.
Pulsars are essentially rotating, highly magnetised neutron stars but when they were first discovered it was believed they could have come from aliens.
‘Wow!’ radio signal
In 1977, an astronomer looking for alien life in the night sky above Ohio spotted a radio signal so powerful that he excitedly wrote ‘Wow!’ next to his data.
The 72-second blast, spotted by Dr Jerry Ehman through a radio telescope, came from Sagittarius but matched no known celestial object.
Conspiracy theorists have since claimed that the ‘Wow! signal’, which was 30 times stronger than background radiation, was a message from intelligent extraterrestrials.
Fossilized Martian microbes
In 1996 Nasa and the White House made the explosive announcement that the rock contained traces of Martian bugs.
The meteorite, catalogued as Allen Hills (ALH) 84001, crashed onto the frozen wastes of Antarctica 13,000 years ago and was recovered in 1984.
Photographs were released showing elongated segmented objects that appeared strikingly lifelike.
However, the excitement did not last long. Other scientists questioned whether the meteorite samples were contaminated.
They also argued that heat generated when the rock was blasted into space may have created mineral structures that could be mistaken for microfossils.
Behaviour of Tabby’s Star in 2005
The star, otherwise known as KIC 8462852, is located 1,400 light years away and has baffled astronomers since being discovered in 2015.
It dims at a much faster rate than other stars, which some experts have suggested is a sign of aliens harnessing the energy of a star.
Recent studies have ‘eliminated the possibility of an alien megastructure’, and instead, suggests that a ring of dust could be causing the strange signals.
Exoplanets in the Goldilocks zone in 2017
In February 2017 astronomers announced they had spotted a star system with planets that could support life just 39 light years away.
Seven Earth-like planets were discovered orbiting nearby dwarf star ‘Trappist-1’, and all of them could have water at their surface, one of the key components of life.
Three of the planets have such good conditions, that scientists say life may have already evolved on them.
Researchers claim that they will know whether or not there is life on any of the planets within a decade, and said: ‘This is just the beginning.’
RIO GRANDE DO SUL, Brazil — A 265-million-year-old skull belonging to a terrifying and “bloodthirsty” creature has been discovered in the rural area of São Gabriel, Brazil. According to scientists, this ancient predator, named Pampaphoneus biccai, was the largest meat-eating animal of its time.
An international team of researchers found the “astoundingly well-preserved” skull, along with some ribs and arm bones, during a month-long excavation. Study delays due to the pandemic meant it took an additional three years for the fossil to be cleaned and thoroughly analyzed.
Pampaphoneus lived just before Earth’s largest mass extinction event, which wiped out 86 percent of all animal species worldwide. It belonged to a group of animals known as dinocephalians — large, land-dwelling creatures that included both meat-eaters and plant-eaters. The term “dinocephalian” translates to “terrible head” in Greek, a nod to the group’s notably thick skull bones.
The researchers explain that while well-known in South Africa and Russia, the animals are rare in other parts of the world. Pampaphoneus biccai is the only known species in Brazil.
Skull of the new Pampaphoneus biccai specimen. (credit: Photo by Felipe Pinheiro)
The skull provides crucial insights into the creature’s morphology, or physical structure, due to the excellent preservation of its bones. It is the second Pampaphoneus skull ever found in South America and is larger than the first.
“Finding a new Pampaphoneus skull after so long was extremely important for increasing our knowledge about the animal, which was previously difficult to differentiate from its Russian relatives,” says Mateus Costa Santos, the study’s lead author from the Federal University of Pampa (UNIPAMPA), in a media release.
Researchers estimate that the largest individuals of this species could have reached nearly 10 feet in length and weighed around 882 pounds. Potential prey for this fearsome creature have also been discovered in the same area, including the small dicynodont Rastodon and the giant amphibian Konzhukovia.
“It was the largest terrestrial predator we know of from the Permian in South America. The animal had large, sharp canine teeth adapted for capturing prey,” says senior author Professor Felipe Pinheiro, also of UNIPAMPA. “Its dentition and cranial architecture suggest that its bite was strong enough to chew bones, much like modern-day hyenas.”
The study also reveals Pampaphoneus fed on small to medium-sized animals.
“This animal was a gnarly-looking beast, and it must have evoked sheer dread in anything that crossed its path. Its discovery is key to providing a glimpse into the community structure of terrestrial ecosystems just prior to the biggest mass extinction of all time,” says co-author Professor Stephanie Pierce of Harvard University.
The destruction caused by Hamas Militants in Kibbutz Be’eri, near the Israeli-Gaza border, in southern Israel, October 14, 2023. (credit: Omer Fichman/Flash90)
(Pictured: NASA Administrator Bill Nelson speaking recently.)
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