Politics & Stuff

[Vesper 28,593]

4 minutes ago, cosmicway said:

The so called Palestinians

You are showing your fidelity to the vile framings of the ultra RW racist tribal-supremacist zionists by adopting the verbal posturing used by so many of the worst of that lot.

You are trying to dehumanise and erase an entire group of people.

Amazingly similar to how the Nazis used framings to do the same thing to the jews back in the day.

 

[Fernando 6,436]

1 hour ago, Vesper said:

Hasbara

Hasbara is Hebrew for The Explanation. It is the official multifaceted, holistic, systemically controlled state (extrapolated out to global levels) propaganda campaign/infrastructure of not just the Israeli government but many parts the jewish diaspora itself. 

Think AIPAC in the USA, the MSM in the entire West, the Bretton Woods international banking system (as well as the multinational private banks) , Hollywood, many structural parts of worldwide universities, most neocon and neoliberal think tanks, the MIC within most of the US/UK/NATO superstructure, etc. etc. etc.

These move in hyper-complicated interlocking (both direct and indirect) mechanisms at a multiplicity of levels to promote and control  and ensure that the narratives and geo-political, geo-cultural, geo-economic, geo-military outcomes always are steered to favour and empower that particular small, tribalist, racist, supremacist group.

Endless wars, endless debt (at all levels from personal up to commercial, from municipal, up to state/provincial levels, from national up to supranational) endless 'strategies of tensions' at all levels, from socio-cultural, socio-economic, up to military at massive trans continental levels. Also the use of systemic banking control to weaken all resistance and put the boot-heels to the so-called middle-class of the West and other parts of the world (think austerity regimes and IMF/World Bank crisis capitalism and state economic dis-empowerment.) who are the natural bulwarks against the entire systemic control.

A perfect example is the Arc of Crisis. From the Western part of Africa, up through the Maghreb, over into the Levant, then the Middle East, and onward into Afghanistan, etc, right up to the door of China and southern Russia. Light it up with decades of war, which in turn causes massive inflows of refugees spilling into the West, thus destabilising their populations.

When the Bush/Blair regimes leave power after spinning up Iraq and Afghanistan, you bring in Obama (war slag Clinton included) and other neoliberal pro-empiric war Euro leaders who then crush Libya, and try to crush Syria, etc, with the endgame in that arena being the destruction of Iran. This whole accordion (a bit of the old in/out in/out) action template continued on with Trump and now Biden. All are or were parts of the dog being wagged by the tail.

In terms of the socio-political, the Likud and other RW Israeli (and indeed elements with the diaspora itself) parties openly now work with radical far right parties, up to and including neo-nazis and christofascists, in Europe, the US, and other parts of the 'West', all under the common public rubric of being 'anti-Islamic' (the old 'enemy of my enemy is my friend' shite). This all also ensures vast socio-political and socio-cultural instabilities that can be further manipulated for economic and political gain and the furtherance of neo-feudalism and debt slavery at most all levels.

This sounds plain conspiracy theory. 

Like Israel and USA it at fault for all the issues in the world. 

In Mexico with the cartel, in El Salvador with the murder capital of the world until one men step in (Dislike by the UN it seems because he goes against them), the crazy violence in Ecuador, the ethnic cleansing in Sudan. 
All western democracy fault.....right. 

Conspiracy theory galore. 

[Fulham Broadway 16,774]

18 Oct 2024

With a recorded vote of 124 nations in favour, 14 against,  the resolution calls for Israel to comply with international law and withdraw its military forces, immediately cease all new settlement activity, evacuate all settlers from occupied land, and dismantle parts of the separation wall it constructed inside the occupied West Bank.

The General Assembly further demanded that Israel return land and other “immovable property”, as well as all assets seized since the occupation began in 1967, and all cultural property and assets taken from Palestinians and Palestinian institutions.

The resolution also demands Israel allow all Palestinians displaced during the occupation to return to their place of origin and make reparation for the damage caused by its occupation.

 

[robsblubot 3,481]

25 minutes ago, Fernando said:

This sounds plain conspiracy theory. 

Like Israel and USA it at fault for all the issues in the world. 

In Mexico with the cartel, in El Salvador with the murder capital of the world until one men step in (Dislike by the UN it seems because he goes against them), the crazy violence in Ecuador, the ethnic cleansing in Sudan. 
All western democracy fault.....right. 

Conspiracy theory galore. 

Yeah. Check Anne Applebaum on YouTube videos, or articles. There was one in particular where she lists Iran, Russia, and N. Korea as an "Axis of Evil" of sorts, but even then she says that the relationship is of convenience--no grand plan or scheme. 

This one (long)

 

Edited Wednesday at 19:40 by robsblubot

[Vesper 28,593]

30 minutes ago, Fernando said:

Like Israel and USA it at fault for all the issues in the world. 

never said this

not my problem you cannot follow complex system analysis

as for you trying to falsely label it 'conspiracy theory' that just betrays your inabilty to refute what I said

it is a weak fall-back attempt at using ad hominem to try and dismiss positings you do not like

Edited Wednesday at 19:46 by Vesper

[Fulham Broadway 16,774]

Long before George Orwell popularised the expression “war is peace” in his 1949 novel, Zionism understood well that its colonial strategy depended on a deliberate and insistent confusion of the binary terms “war” and “peace”, so that each of them hides behind the other as one and the same strategy: “Peace” will always be the public name of a colonial war, and “war”, once it became necessary and public in the form of invasions, would be articulated as the principal means to achieve the sought after “peace”.

Waging war as peace is so central to Zionist and Israeli propaganda that Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, which killed 20,000 civilians, was termed “Operation Peace for Galilee”. War and peace, therefore, are the same means whose only and ultimate strategic goal is European Jewish colonisation of Palestine and the subjugation and expulsion of Palestine’s native population.

[Fulham Broadway 16,774]

The Zionist leader, Vladimir Jabotinsky, following Herzl’s strategy of securing the patronage of major world powers articulated the Zionist position thus:

Zionist colonisation must  proceed regardless of the native population. Which means that it can proceed and develop only under the protection of a power that is independent of the native population – behind an iron wall, which the native population cannot breach. That is our Arab policy; not what it should be, but what it actually is, whether we admit it or not. What need we, otherwise, of the Balfour Declaration? Or of the Mandate?  Their value to us is that outside Power has undertaken to create in the country such conditions of administration and security that if the native population should desire to hinder our work, they will find it impossible. 

[Vesper 28,593]

8 minutes ago, Fulham Broadway said:

The Zionist leader, Vladimir Jabotinsky, following Herzl’s strategy of securing the patronage of major world powers articulated the Zionist position thus:

Zionist colonisation must  proceed regardless of the native population. Which means that it can proceed and develop only under the protection of a power that is independent of the native population – behind an iron wall, which the native population cannot breach. That is our Arab policy; not what it should be, but what it actually is, whether we admit it or not. What need we, otherwise, of the Balfour Declaration? Or of the Mandate?  Their value to us is that outside Power has undertaken to create in the country such conditions of administration and security that if the native population should desire to hinder our work, they will find it impossible. 

Ze'ev Jabotinsky declared that settlement of the "land" is the only "law". He declared:

"There is no justice, no law, and no God in heaven, only a single law which decides and supercedes all---- [Jewish] settlement [of the land]." (Righteous Victims, p. 108)

According to Ze'ev Jabotinsky, European Jews have little in common with the "Orient". He stated:

"We Jews have nothing in common with what is called the 'Orient,' thank God. To the extent that our uneducated masses have ancient spiritual traditions and laws that call the Orient, they must be weaned away from them, and this is in fact what we are doing in every decent school, what life itself is doing with great success. We are going in Palestine, first for our national convenience, [second] to sweep out thoroughly all traces of the 'Oriental soul.' As for the [Palestinians] Arabs in Palestine, what they do is their business; but if we can do them a favor, it is to help them liberate themselves from the Orient.'" (One Palestine Complete, p. 151)

The concept of a Jewish majority in Palestine was an essential pillar for Zionism to be realized. This point was repeated over and over by all Zionists, not just Jabotinsky. For example, Ze'ev Jabotinsky introduced the Betar's Oath as follows in 1934:

"I devote my life to the rebirth of the Jewish State, with a Jewish majority, on both sides of the Jordan." (Israel: A History, p. 76)

Similarly, he stated

"For a long time, many Jews, including Zionists, were unwilling to understand the simple truth. They maintained that the creation of important positions in Palestine (settlements, cities, schools, etc.) is enough. According to them a national life could be freely developed even though the majority of the population were to be Arab. This is a great mistake. History proves that any national position, however strong and important cannot be safeguarded as long as the nation which built it does not constitute a majority. A minority can safeguard its cultural position only as long as it can control the local majority. Sooner or later, every country in the world is to become the national state of the predominant nation there. Thus if we desire that Eretz Yisrael should become and remain a Jewish State, we must first of all create a Jewish majority." The Ideology of Betar by Ze'ev Jabotinsky

Like all Zionists, Jabotinsky advocated not just a Jewish majority in Palestine but also the use of force to "transfer" them out of their homes, farms, and businesses. Ze'ev Jabotinsky stated in a letter to one of his Revisionist colleagues in the United States dated November 1939:

"There is no choice: the Arabs must make room for the Jews of Eretz Israel. If it was possible to transfer the Baltic peoples, it is also possible to move the Palestinian Arabs." (Expulsion Of The Palestinians, p. 29)

Similarly, he envisioned "brooming" the Palestinian people out of their homes in 'Eretz Yisrael". He stated:

"We Jews, thank God, have nothing to do with the East. . . . The Islamic soul must be broomed out of Eretz-Yisrael. . . . [Muslims are] yelling rabble dressed up in gaudy, savage rags." (Expulsion Of The Palestinians, p. 29)

Using the term "brooming" is meant to portray the Palestinian people as "subhuman", a term often suitable to describe flies. It is very sad how often politicians resort to dehumanizing their enemies to make a political point. What is even sadder, that this tactic was advocate by many Zionists who themselves had been victims of similar dehumanization tactics. Click here if you wish to read more racist Zionist quotes.

Just before Jabotinsky died in 1940, he justified "transferring" the Palestinian people out of their homes as follows:

"The world has become accustomed to the idea of mass migrations and has become fond of them." He later added, "Hitler--- as odious as he is to us---has given this idea a good name in the world." (One Palestine Complete, p. 407)

[Fernando 6,436]

1 hour ago, Vesper said:

never said this

not my problem you cannot follow complex system analysis

as for you trying to falsely label it 'conspiracy theory' that just betrays your inabilty to refute what I said

it is a weak fall-back attempt at using ad hominem to try and dismiss positings you do not like

It's just conspiracy theory. Your statement says this: 

Endless wars, endless debt (at all levels from personal up to commercial, from municipal, up to state/provincial levels, from national up to supranational) endless 'strategies of tensions' at all levels, from socio-cultural, socio-economic, up to military at massive trans continental levels. Also the use of systemic banking control to weaken all resistance and put the boot-heels to the so-called middle-class of the West and other parts of the world (think austerity regimes and IMF/World Bank crisis capitalism and state economic dis-empowerment.) who are the natural bulwarks against the entire systemic control.

That is just conspiracy theory. 

[Fernando 6,436]

1 hour ago, robsblubot said:

Yeah. Check Anne Applebaum on YouTube videos, or articles. There was one in particular where she lists Iran, Russia, and N. Korea as an "Axis of Evil" of sorts, but even then she says that the relationship is of convenience--no grand plan or scheme. 

This one (long)

 

In general you will have this with many countries. It's just convenience. 

But the idea that the jews are behind every wrong in the world is just dumb. No nation, ethnicity is enough to control the world. 

As bad as Iran is, they have their hand in the middle east, but not the entire world. 

As bas as Russia is, they have their hand in certain parts of the middle east and in Venezuela but not the whole world. 

No one group or nation can control the whole world. USA is a dominance but not to that extent where every little crime in the world is their causing. 

In Ecuador, USA nor Israel have any hand to all the crime that is happening there. Is just organize crime that stems from drug cartel, which in turn because of money and power. Not to mention the mass corruption that has happen in Ecuador and many other countries like in the middle east, Africa and all over the world. 

But a small group to control the whole world like Zionism, please. 

Edited Wednesday at 21:10 by Fernando

[Vesper 28,593]

30 minutes ago, Fernando said:

It's just conspiracy theory. Your statement says this: 

Endless wars, endless debt (at all levels from personal up to commercial, from municipal, up to state/provincial levels, from national up to supranational) endless 'strategies of tensions' at all levels, from socio-cultural, socio-economic, up to military at massive trans continental levels. Also the use of systemic banking control to weaken all resistance and put the boot-heels to the so-called middle-class of the West and other parts of the world (think austerity regimes and IMF/World Bank crisis capitalism and state economic dis-empowerment.) who are the natural bulwarks against the entire systemic control.

That is just conspiracy theory. 

It is not conspirarcy theory in the slightest.

It is global systems analysis.

It is based entirely upon facts on the ground and actual outcomes.

Massive debts at all levels (from public to private), brutal austerity regimes, crisis/disaster capitalism, and the economic disempowerment of nation states' sovereignty via banking systemic interlocks are entirely real manifestations.

Ludicrous to try and claim otherwise.

Edited Wednesday at 21:29 by Vesper

[Vesper 28,593]

AI Is Threatening More Than Just Creative Jobs—It’s Undermining Our Humanity

The debate on AI and job loss misses the deeper impact: by automating creativity, we risk devaluing the very essence of human expression.

https://www.socialeurope.eu/ai-is-threatening-more-than-just-creative-jobs-its-undermining-our-humanity

Something is missing in the debate about generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) and creative workers losing their jobs. The current conversation reduces creative activity to content production: marketable output. But creativity is so much more. It’s our attempt to articulate what we feel inside, both intellectually and emotionally. Being creative means grappling with the mess we encounter in our lives and on this planet—and somehow coming to terms with it, both collectively and individually. A debate that suggests only jobs are lost when generative AI takes over misses the essence of what creativity entails.

Let’s take a step back for a moment. AI has its hype cycles, and so do the doom scenarios it spawns. A decade ago, when neural networks took off, they were seen as dreadful harbingers of impending mass unemployment. Now, in 2024, many European companies struggle not with mass lay-offs but with filling vacancies. Company bosses with tech Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO) promise to “definitely look into” adopting AI in their firms. However, it rarely goes much further than that. For better or worse, economy-wide AI implementation lags behind expectations.

Was the job market doom just a false alarm? Not quite. In many sectors, AI is not a major concern so far. Most taxi drivers need not lose sleep yet over self-driving Waymo cars. In some sectors, though, AI does encroach on jobs, and creative roles are on the front line. Generative AI is already quite capable, and it’s improving daily.

Top-notch opera composers or painters with work in the Guggenheim may have nothing to fear. However, people who pay the rent by creating, say, illustrations for websites or jingles for radio ads are right to be nervous. Like many others who see their livelihoods under threat, it’s legitimate for them to protest and demand a debate about their future. And let’s not forget: today’s Grammy winners started out small, probably funding their first steps with run-of-the-mill creative work. Eliminate that, and you dry up the pipeline for tomorrow’s superstars as well.

That is the state of play in the “AI and creative work” debate in a very small nutshell. However, something has always felt wrong to me about it, and I think it is its narrowness. Framing the issue as one of job loss views creativity through the economistic lens of the company boss or consultant: content in exchange for money. If there’s a cheaper way to produce something that sells just as well, what’s not to like? Job types have always come and gone. Is it a bane that, at least in wealthy countries, no one ploughs fields by hand anymore? And from that perspective, is automated text writing any different from using a machine, rather than hands, to sort through rubbish in a recycling plant?

I think it is. Creativity is communication. People start playing music to connect with others, not to earn money. They craft lyrics to touch others, to soothe them, to express their anger, whatever. Just as people wield a paintbrush to project something onto the canvas that is still nestled somewhere between their heart and brain, they show others what they could not possibly articulate in words.

Creativity is also self-reflection. People used to write diaries to order their thoughts, to delve into their feelings, and to express them. It can be a cathartic experience, or simply a calming one. If you’ve tracked your life in a diary—as a teenager, perhaps?—you’re familiar with this moment: once you listen inwardly to write down what’s truly going on, things emerge that we would otherwise never articulate. Secret longings, frustrations at work, relationship troubles, fears. Diary writing is not about chronicling your life but about reflecting on it.

Self-expression, communication, and reflection help us navigate days, months, and years. If you walk around with open eyes, there is enough beauty, violence, existential questions, and agony out there to bewilder us. Whether you prefer Beethoven’s 9th Symphony or UK Grime, here are real people making music to translate their experiences into something that resonates with fellow human beings. Others use TikTok videos or novels as their medium of choice.

Long story short, creativity is a virtue that deserves nourishment (I borrow the virtue aspect from Shannon Vallor’s fantastic books on philosophy and technology). Creativity, even in small doses, can help us grow into better people, happier people, for ourselves and for each other. That’s why we should allow children to doodle and engage in handicrafts at school, and why a liberal arts education might encourage students to keep a diary. Even if you’re not a professional painter or writer of any kind, being creative is beneficial. It fosters empathy and forges connections with others, often on a visceral level—like sampling food that just tastes great, no explanation required. Creative expression can link people in the same way.

But this creativity is like a fragile plant. To blossom, it needs care, nutrients, and regular watering. Enter GenAI. Yes, algorithms are impressive at making hip-hop beats or wallpaper designs. However, the more we outsource creative work to algorithms, the more we allow creativity, as a faculty in our society, to shrivel. In theory, GenAI could be a tool to boost your creativity, producing even funkier creations (you’ll find quite a bit of that in contemporary art galleries these days).

But I bet that in practice, GenAI is mostly a quick fix to produce more content more cheaply and quickly, not a means to elevate artistic expression to a whole new level. It would be a shame if people stopped making pencil drawings because, by now, DALL-E is so much better. It would also be a shame if people stopped penning poems because now Meta’s Llama outperforms them.

I realise that even now, hobby poets are rare. But if anything, we should want more of them, not fewer. Cultural traditions and religions around the world prize self-reflection and artistic expression. Secular thinkers like Karl Marx and John Maynard Keynes hoped that technological progress would eventually free us to devote more time to play and create.

There is no news here, but that’s not the world we live in in 2024, despite the abundance of new technology. We do find people in our societies who earn money through creative work—even if it is rarely substantial. They combine commercial work, such as magazine illustrations, with their non-commercial projects, like pictures they give to friends as gifts. Most musicians never break through on Spotify, getting by instead on guitar or clarinet lessons for children. There is a creative stratum in society, in short, that isn’t about artsy superstars but consists of people who keep alive the creative dimension of our human existence.

If these people were to lose their livelihoods, not only would their jobs disappear. The musical education for our children would also vanish, along with the creative classes at community schools, the art classes at colleges, and the entire notion that investing time in honing creative faculties is worthwhile. Algorithmic “content production” would, de facto, if not intentionally, devalue creativity in its entirety.

And that would be a loss for all of us. Open a newspaper or your social media feed, and you find discord all around—frequently in the form of deadly violence on small and large scales. This world could use all the healing it can get. And creative faculties could help. So, automating our creative side away would come with collateral damage far beyond some lost employment down the line.

Compare that to the message of the recent Draghi Report. The ex-ECB boss’s message to the EU was: invest and compete, or die. Digital technologies, with AI central among them, are key domains that Draghi believes need boosting. Put on narrow economistic glasses, and you can see his point. People do need jobs and cash to buy food and pay the rent. But a thriving society is not just a web of economic nodes that shuffle money and products around. So when we debate GenAI and creative activity, it is at our own peril that we sever the economic side from the rest of our existence. It is not just jobs that are at risk.

[IMissEden 18]

Lived a lot of life. Varied. Genuinely, never heard, experienced, someone as stupid. I think you guys know she’s a brainless puppet pushing others plans - and don’t mind that, since it infers being taken care of by a big group who want to handle things. 
 

Doesn’t change facts. 
 

Hard to find someone as lacking in ability to form thoughts. Is genuinely incredible. 

Note the scrambled brain, dishonesty, dodging, swaying, oozing of anxiety. Disgusting puppetry, and disgusting to condone it. Wrong side of history, but just lambs lead by a well dressed shepherd. No idea. Really. Seriously.   
 

Always mock-laughs, forcing it, when talking Trump, to try belittle, as cannot win on ideas or merit whatsoever even an iota. Definition of a popularity contest. Again, one side is largely honest, one side is not. 

 

Edited Thursday at 06:32 by IMissEden

[cosmicway 1,308]

12 hours ago, Vesper said:

You are showing your fidelity to the vile framings of the ultra RW racist tribal-supremacist zionists by adopting the verbal posturing used by so many of the worst of that lot.

You are trying to dehumanise and erase an entire group of people.

Amazingly similar to how the Nazis used framings to do the same thing to the jews back in the day.

 

The region was called Palestine under the British mandate.
Palestine it was named by the Romans.
The Arab tribes living there were not calling themselves Palestinians.
A few years after the six day war Yassir Arafat invented the Palestinians.

[Fulham Broadway 16,774]

 

• U.S.
• Donald Trump

Donald Trump’s Long Love for McDonald’s, Explained

5 minute read

Republican presidential nominee former U.S. President Donald Trump works behind the counter during a visit to McDonald’s restaurant in Feasterville-Trevose, Pa., on Oct. 20, 2024.Doug Mills—Pool/Getty Images

 

Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump’s campaign stop at a McDonald’s in suburban Philadelphia on Sunday has sparked bemusement and bewilderment from onlookers. 

 

Could be related ?  

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued a warning about an active E. coli outbreak, with cases linked to McDonald’s popular Quarter Pounder sandwich.

This outbreak is currently affecting 12 states and has already led to 49 reported illnesses, 10 hospitalizations, and one death.

[cosmicway 1,308]

---
 

 

Edited Thursday at 09:54 by cosmicway

[Vesper 28,593]

3 hours ago, cosmicway said:

The region was called Palestine under the British mandate.
Palestine it was named by the Romans.
The Arab tribes living there were not calling themselves Palestinians.
A few years after the six day war Yassir Arafat invented the Palestinians.

No.

Genetic studies indicate a genetic affinity between Palestinians and other Levantine populations, as well as other Arab and Semitic groups in the Middle East and North Africa.

Historical records and later genetic studies indicate that the modern Palestinian people descend mostly from from ancient Levantines, extending back at least to the Neolithic inhabitants of the Levant, over twelve thousand years ago (when the Neolithic age began there), and likely far longer. 

They represent a highly homogeneous community who share one cultural and ethnic identity, speak Palestinian Arabic and share close religious, linguistic, and cultural practices and heritage with other Levantines (ie Syrians, Lebanese, and Jordanians).

The Neolithic age began around 12,150 years (that date is being constantly revised and narrowed to a more exact date as futher archaeological evidence is found) ago, when farming appeared in the late Epipalaeolithic Near East (including the Levant) and Mesopotamia, and later in other parts of the world. 

The Early Epipalaeolithic, also known as Kebaran (approximately 20,000 to 12,150 BP, subject to revision as futher archaeological evidence is found) followed the Upper Paleolithic Levantine Aurignacian (formerly called Antelian) period throughout the Levant.

The Levantine Aurignacian (approximately 40,000-20,000 BP, subject to revision as futher archaeological evidence is found) is an Upper Paleolithic culture of the Near-Eastern Levant that evolved from the Emiran culture.

Emiran culture (approximately 60,000–40,000 BP, subject to revision as futher archaeological evidence is found) was a culture that existed in the Levant (Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, Israel, Jordan and Arabia) between the Middle Paleolithic and the Upper Paleolithic periods. It is the oldest known of the Upper Paleolithic cultures. It transitionally has no clear African progenitor. 

[Vesper 28,593]

17 minutes ago, Vesper said:

No.

Genetic studies indicate a genetic affinity between Palestinians and other Levantine populations, as well as other Arab and Semitic groups in the Middle East and North Africa.

Historical records and later genetic studies indicate that the modern Palestinian people descend mostly from from ancient Levantines, extending back at least to the Neolithic inhabitants of the Levant, over twelve thousand years ago (when the Neolithic age began there), and likely far longer. 

They represent a highly homogeneous community who share one cultural and ethnic identity, speak Palestinian Arabic and share close religious, linguistic, and cultural practices and heritage with other Levantines (ie Syrians, Lebanese, and Jordanians).

The Neolithic age began around 12,150 years (that date is being constantly revised and narrowed to a more exact date as futher archaeological evidence is found) ago, when farming appeared in the late Epipalaeolithic Near East (including the Levant) and Mesopotamia, and later in other parts of the world. 

The Early Epipalaeolithic, also known as Kebaran (approximately 20,000 to 12,150 BP, subject to revision as futher archaeological evidence is found) followed the Upper Paleolithic Levantine Aurignacian (formerly called Antelian) period throughout the Levant.

The Levantine Aurignacian (approximately 40,000-20,000 BP, subject to revision as futher archaeological evidence is found) is an Upper Paleolithic culture of the Near-Eastern Levant that evolved from the Emiran culture.

Emiran culture (approximately 60,000–40,000 BP, subject to revision as futher archaeological evidence is found) was a culture that existed in the Levant (Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, Israel, Jordan and Arabia) between the Middle Paleolithic and the Upper Paleolithic periods. It is the oldest known of the Upper Paleolithic cultures. It transitionally has no clear African progenitor. 

compare that to

Abraham (c. 1813 BCE - c. 1638 BCE) (the person that Jews, Christians, and Muslims all trace their eventual founding paths to, ie the 3 'Abrahamic religions')

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/abraham

According to Jewish tradition, Abraham was born under the name Abram in the city of your in Babylonia in the year 1948 from Creation (circa 1800 BCE). He was the son of Terach, an idol merchant, but from his early childhood, he questioned the faith of his father and sought the truth. He came to believe that the entire universe was the work of a single Creator, and he began to teach this belief to others.

Abram tried to convince his father, Terach, of the folly of idol worship. One day, when Abram was left alone to mind the store, he took a hammer and smashed all of the idols except the largest one. He placed the hammer in the hand of the largest idol. When his father returned and asked what happened, Abram said, "The idols got into a fight, and the big one smashed all the other ones." His father said, "Don't be ridiculous. These idols have no life or power. They can't do anything." Abram replied, "Then why do you worship them?"

Eventually, the one true Creator that Abram had worshipped called to him, and made him an offer: if Abram would leave his home and his family, then G-d would make him a great nation and bless him. Abram accepted this offer, and the b'rit (covenant) between G-d and the Jewish people was established. (Gen. 12).

The idea of b'rit is fundamental to traditional Judaism: we have a covenant, a contract, with G-d, which involves rights and obligations on both sides. We have certain obligations to G-d, and G-d has certain obligations to us. The terms of this b'rit became more explicit over time, until the time of the Giving of the Torah. Abram was subjected to ten tests of faith to prove his worthiness for this covenant. Leaving his home is one of these trials.

Abram, raised as a city-dweller, adopted a nomadic lifestyle, traveling through what is now the land of Israel for many years. G-d promised this land to Abram's descendants. Abram is referred to as a Hebrew (Ivri), possibly because he was descended from Eber or possibly because he came from the "other side" (eber) of the Euphrates River.

But Abram was concerned, because he had no children and he was growing old. Abram's beloved wife, Sarai, knew that she was past child-bearing years, so she offered her maidservant, Hagar, as a wife to Abram. This was a common practice in the region at the time. According to tradition, Hagar was a daughter of Pharaoh, given to Abram during his travels in Egypt. She bore Abram a son, Ishmael, who, according to both Muslim and Jewish tradition, is the ancestor of the Arabs. (Gen 16)

When Abram was 100 and Sarai 90, G-d promised Abram a son by Sarai. G-d changed Abram's name to Abraham (father of many), and Sarai's to Sarah (from "my princess" to "princess"). Sarah bore Abraham a son, Isaac (in Hebrew, Yitzchak), a name derived from the word "laughter," expressing Abraham's joy at having a son in his old age. (Gen 17-18). Isaac was the ancestor of the Jewish people.

Abraham died at the age of 175.

Edited Thursday at 11:51 by Vesper