Now compare that clip to this . . .

I suppose the first question is, how accurate is this list. Well, let’s take them one by one.

The cell phone . . .

I heavily abuse Claude’s research capabilities, but I force him to do work because he was a little all over the place on this, especially once he tried to reconcile Huckabee’s claim. But it comes down to this: three people are credited with “inventing” the cell phone in various steps . . .

Okay, John Francis Mitchell . . .

American, born of Catholic immigrants.

Now Rudy Krolopp, who doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page in English . . .

Also an American, born to Eastern European Catholic immigrant parents.

Finally, Martin Cooper . . .

Born to Ukrainian Jewish immigrants, but nothing Israeli about him. In fact, Israel never claimed him, even remotely.

In fact, the only non-American and non-global award I see is this one . . .

In other words, the Russians made more claim on Martin Cooper than the Israelis.

So how is Israel trying to make this claim?

Motorola had an R&D division in Israel.

That’s it.

GPS car navigation . . .

This was a group effort.

The mathematics and science behind mapping the earth and satellite geodesy came from . . .

She is neither Jewish nor Israeli.

Three military researchers were involved . . .

And . . .

And . . .

None of these men were Jewish much less Israeli.

As for who first put a GPS in a car . . .

So . . . also not Jews and not Israel.

So once again, upon what is this claim based?

Someone in Israel invented an app.

Honestly, I thought WAZE was some sort of music program, a badly spelled “Waves.”

And I doubt the Lebanese are using it.

USB drive . . .

Yes, Israel did combine already existing flash drive technology with USB ports, but this was a case of converging research. In other words, plenty of people were working on combining flash drive tech with USB ports for a highly portable drive. Israel just got there first, or at least filed its patent first.

But it is hardly true that were it not for Israel, we would have no USB drives.

So before we get to cherry tomatoes and seedless watermelon, because the symbolism is so good, we need to take a break and talk about «looks around and whispers» the Nazis «straightens back up» and the Arabs and Persians. Because if we’re going to talk about contributions to humanity at large, we need to look at the two groups that Israel and its defenders have set up as the ultimate boogeymen.

What do we find? Something very inconvenient.

The “enemies” invented things too.

You see, Germans are smart, and Nazi Germans were no exception.

Yes, they might have invented nerve gas, methamphetamines, and the cruise missile and experimented on humans, but they also invented V-2 rockets, which would go on to serve as the basis for both the US and Soviet space programs, jet-powered planes, the first viable helicopter, the first synthetic rubber, polyurethane, an early portable infrared night vision, Fanta, and the Olympic Torch Relay. Those last two are not life changing perhaps, but they’re pretty much in line with cherry tomatoes and seedless watermelon.

In fact, the Nazi scientists were so smart the US imported them as part of Operation Paperclip.

One of American histories dirty little pragmatic secrets.

As for the Arabs and Persians, let’s start with the fact that you would be trying to add Roman numerals if it weren’t for the Arabs. The Arabs gave us the ten digit mathematical system. They also developed algebra and laid the foundation for modern astronomy. Other inventions include the first pharmacies, the distillations of medicine, and the most advanced irrigation systems of the Middle Ages.

Oh, and chess. Well, not invented so much as took what came before and finalized the game. The term “checkmate” comes from the Persian “shah mate,” meaning the “king is dead.”

That all kind of puts cherry tomatoes and seedless watermelon to shame.

Speaking of which . . .

The “invention” of cherry tomatoes and the anti-semitic “trope” . . .

Did Israel really invent the cherry tomato. No more than they “invented” anything else. Tomatoes were domesticated and cultivated by South Americans, long before Europeans arrived. They even grew some that were tiny and in clusters like grapes.

So what did the Israelis do that they claim they “invented” the cherry tomato?

So they just made them commercially viable. Of course, others would go on to develop other varieties of cherry tomatoes. So it’s not like we wouldn’t have cherry tomatoes if it weren’t for Israeli scientists.

But as Claude and I talked, and this is what Claude is good for and I won’t pretend I’m not making use of him, I discovered something interesting.

The cherry tomatoes were not the Israelis’ idea, meaning they didn’t make a cherry tomato because there was a call for one in Israel itself. And from there our story falls into a familiar pattern.

Two Israeli scientists, Nahum Kedar and Haim Rabinowitch, were approached by the chief food specialist, Nathan Goldenberg, for Marks and Spencer, a British grocery chain. I know what you’re thinking because I asked Claude the same thing: why the hell would a British grocery chain hire Israeli scientists?

Well, here is the answer, and you already know it if you’ve been playing this game for a while . . .

Now do I really find this offensive that Jewish Brits reached out to Israeli scientists because they had connections both places and/or were trying to economically support Israel?

Not really, but you can’t scream about the “anti-semitic” trope of “dual loyalties” when every Zionist, past and present, fits that trope.

It’s not a “trope” but a truth, and you’d be wise to move on from trying to shame people from noticing to explaining it and making sure it doesn’t get out of control, as it has.

I enjoy cherry tomatoes. I don’t care that British Jewish retailers hired Israeli scientists because they were Zionists. I do care that I am required to not notice the pattern has continued in less pleasant and more bloody ways.

Speaking of which, we come to the seedless watermelon.

The seedless watermelon and a bit of symbolism that’s a little too on the nose

So personal rant here, I dislike “seedless” watermelon. When I was a kid, you had trouble finding one. They were a novelty. Now the only seeded watermelons I can find are at the end of the summer at the farmers’ market, when the Hutterites bring them in. And they are so much sweeter and so much better than the seedless variety. Of course, most things not grown thousands of miles away are, but when Huckabee said Israelis invented seedless watermelon, my reaction was . . .

In the grand scheme of what Israel has done, taking the seeds out of my watermelon is probably the least of it, but—

Oh, wait, I’m getting something from Claude (after asking him for several rounds of clarification) . . .

I’m starting to see a pattern here.

So I can’t blame the Israelis for taking the seeds out of my watermelon. That’s okay. I’ll blame the Americans and the Japanese.

But even if Israel didn’t “invent” the seedless watermelon, the symbolism is too perfect, and they made the claim, so they’re fair game.

If you know anything about the pro-Palestinian movement, you know that watermelon, with seeds, is their symbol.

While the exact history of watermelon symbolism in Palestinian history is not locally and universally agreed upon, renowned Palestinian artist Sliman Mansour says the idea of the watermelon’s connection with the Palestinian flag came from an Israeli soldier who was trying to censor his gallery in the 1980s.

Mansour told Morning Edition the story of when Israeli officials came to his studio and confiscated some works that depicted the struggle of the Palestinian people.

“They recommended that we do the beautiful flowers and beautiful nude figures, and he said that he would buy it from us,” Mansour said. He added that the Israeli officer then gave the gallery two orders: “We are not allowed to make an exhibition unless we get the permission from them to exhibit the works, and we are not allowed to paint in red, green, black and white. These are the colors of the Palestinian flag.”

Isam Bader, another artist in the Palestinian gallery, asked the Israeli official what would happen if he drew a flower with those colors? Mansour described the mood changing in the room. “Then the interrogator said they will confiscate it. Even if you paint a watermelon, we will confiscate it,” he recalled.

Mansour explained the banning only inspired further resistance.

“This created the kind of sensation among artists, you know, like forbidding artists to paint in certain colors,” he said. “So we had a lot of support from many artists from around the world and also from Israeli artists.”

Tell me again how Israel is such an open and liberal society and the Palestinians are so free. 😏

However, back to the watermelon . . .

The first evidence of the cultivation of watermelons in general was in the Nile River valley during the Egyptian empire, about five thousand years ago, based on renderings in tombs.

That’s at least a thousand years before Jewish civilization even started. In other words, the watermelons have been in the region longer than the Jews and the Jews came along and took the seeds out of them and then expected everyone to thank them for it.

A little like how they’re trying to remove all the Arabs from the region and have us thank them for it.

Sometimes I wish I were as clever as Kurt Vonnegut. There’s a novel in there.

Where am I going with all this?

Well, nowhere and everywhere.

You remember this little clip from our old Zio-pal Douglas Murray . . .

Doug has nearly ruined the British accent for me. It should be illegal to say something so stupid in such a cultured accent.

But let’s look through this list: the Israelis invented none of this, other than cherry tomatoes, and that was at the behest of Israeli aligned Jews elsewhere.

How much else that Jewish culture (not Jews, because plenty of Jews have made plenty of contributions) has supposedly given to humanity has been blown out of proportion?

But let’s say Israel did invent all this. Would that make up for what they’ve done?

Well, do people remember the Nazis for forming the foundations of the space program and for Fanta and synthetic rubber?

No, they’re remembered for gas chambers and concentration camps and causing death in the most efficient and industrial way possible.

No one goes “Thank god for those Nazis. Otherwise we wouldn’t be putting satellites in space. We need to reevaluate this.”

We take the invention and we move on.

And how about the Arabs and the Persians and all their great inventions? What do we see when we look at Arabs and Persians today?

So if all these really truly great inventions can’t buy the Nazis goodwill, and we can’t even remember what the Arabs and Persians did, what is the cherry tomato supposed to do?

That is really what it comes down to. The Israelis have given us violence on a scale we haven’t seen in a long time. It’s not that other societies have not also and are not also going through violent spurts. It’s not that other countries are not doing mass killings.

But, other than the fact that you and I are called anti-semites for not wanting to pay for and politically support Israel’s violence, no one suggests that we forget about the people being slaughtered in Nigeria because Nigerian Muslims invented a better smelling rose or something. No one says Russia should be forgiven for invading Ukraine because they gave us the periodic table and AC current. (Heck, we can’t even forgive them for invading Ukraine even though we really gave them no other option in the end and provoked them into it.)

But somehow we’re supposed to forget about exploding pagers and flattened cities because . . . USB drives and Waze.

One day Israel will be gone, at least in its current form, not because people hate Jews but because Israel, as a Jewish ethno-state run by bloodthirsty fanatics, has turned itself into a global threat. And contrary to Mr. Murray, the world will survive once Israel ceases to exist. In fact, I’m quite certain that Jews will survive.

And how will Israel be remembered?

I can’t tell you for sure, other than probably not for tomatoes and watermelon.

Okay, so I have to tell you about using Claude to fact check this article. AI is not for the faint of heart. You really have to push it.

For example, the discussion about the seedless watermelon. First I asked for a fact check on whether Israel “invented” the seedless watermelon. I got a “no” because the Japanese had one in 1939. But the sources Claude cited had nothing to do with seedless watermelon or Japan, but Israel’s claim on the cherry tomato. So I pushed Claude harder for a source. He apologized because he’d used a TikTok video as a source, so it was back to Israel being the inventor, but then I pushed harder because that claim about the Japanese had to come from somewhere. Claude digs deeper and comes up with the final verdict: not Israel but an American scientist and a Japanese scientist got there first. But this is a good lesson: check the sources the AI gives you and push if something isn’t setting right.

Just you know, a little FYI tip from one person to another.

As I say, I’m not worried about artificial intelligence becoming more intelligent than humans. I’m worried about humans not understanding its limits.

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