MICHAEL FREUND: Ezekiel is commanded by God to take two sticks. On one, he is to write "For Judah," and on the other "For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim." Then comes the crucial instruction: "Bring them together into one stick so that they become one in your hand" (37:17). Ezekiel's vision is not one of uniformity. The two sticks do not cease to be what they are. Judah remains Judah; Joseph remains Joseph. Unity does not erase difference – it sanctifies and elevates it by placing it within a larger shared destiny.
Ketriel Blad: In other words, in order for a total restoration to take place, the restored Ephraimites from among the nations will have to become Jewish, in the legal sense of the word, thus accepting the Jewish authorities and becoming obedient to Jewish halachah. In the prophecy of Ezekiel 37:19 the Hebrew text can be understood as HaShem giving Yehuda's stick the function of being over Ephraim's stick and this way both sticks will become one. This teaches us that the Ephraimite movement that comes from heaven cannot rise apart from the Jewish people without submission to the Jewish leaders' authority. This is not for all the gentiles.
TOM O'CONNOR: Iran is seeking to extend a 20~year deal with Russia at the same time that the Islamic Republic negotiates a quarter~century agreement with China
JACOB NAGEL AND MARK DUBOWITZ: Beijing and Tehran will have great opportunities. For Israel, this is a clear sign that it is time to pivot from Beijing.
Iran welcomes @UNHumanRights urgent debate on human rights violations in the US. Systemic racism, police brutality & violence against peaceful protests represent just the tip of the iceberg. It's high time 🌎 works for the US regime's human rights accountability at home & abroad.
— Iran Foreign Ministry 🇮🇷 (@IRIMFA_EN) June 18, 2020
FRANKLIN LAMB: Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD), the doctrine of military strategy and national security policy in which a full-scale use of high-yield weapons by two opposing sides would effectively result in the potential annihilation of both the attacker and the defender, thus becoming a war that has no victor but only reciprocal destruction is increasingly becoming relevant to the Iran/Israel regional confrontation.
THE ECONOMIST: EVEN if Iran got the bomb, it would know that Israel had one too, and that knowledge would deter both countries from using their weapons, just as the doctrine of “Mutual Assured Destruction” kept America and the Soviet Union at peace during the cold war.
SCOTT RITTER: The centrifuges that could be used by Iran to produce enriched uranium capable of being used in a fissile device are housed in a hardened underground facility located near the town of Fordow. No conventional munition currently in the US arsenal can destroy Fordow.
SCOTT RITTER: Only a modified B-61 nuclear bomb can do the job.
JEFFREY LEWIS: The new facility is likely to be a far more secure location for centrifuge assembly — it is located far from a road and the ridge offers significant overburden that would protect the facility from air attack. Iran indicated it was rebuilding in the mountains.
The presence of #Iran at the #kualalumpur Summit shows that the meetings are about countries like Qatar and #Turkey and groups like #Hamas that work with Iran, contrasted with countries that currently do not work with Iran. https://t.co/AsGBIQoGEI
SARAH ZHANG: South Asians today descended from a mix of local hunter-gatherers, Iranian-related groups, and steppe pastoralists who came by way of Central Asia.
HIDEMITSU KIBE and KAORU YAMADA, Nikkei staff writers: The 21 Filipino crew members decided that remaining on the ship was unsafe, and they left the vessel on lifeboats. Lieutenant Colonel Earl Brown: Twenty-one mariners from the M/V Kokuka Courageous, who abandoned ship, are currently aboard USS Bainbridge. Jonathan Cohen, acting U.S. ambassador to the United Nations: Today's attacks on ships in the Gulf of Oman raise very serious concerns.
Neil Asher Silberman, Israel Finkelstein, David Ussishkin, and Baruch Halpern: The Book of Joshua (12:21) specifically mentions the defeat of the king of Megiddo and the allotment of his territory to the tribe of Manasseh;
NETANYA MUNICIPALITY: thanks to the Lord for giving them {Netan~ya, lot. "gift of God"} the ability to continue the legacy of the 12 tribes who settled in the Land of Israel, and particularly of the half~tribe of Manasseh, which settled in the region.
Stephen Epstein: Some went down the Mekong River into Vietnam, the Philippines, Siam, Thailand and Malaysia, while some of the Israelites moved to Burma and west to India.