Israel to World: "Suck It."

apparently Israel will make no effort to protect the hostages while bombing Gaza. wonder how many Gazans will need to die before Western countries start gently saying "oh that's enough now." It's really sickening.

American promises of weapons and equipment for Israel. Moving an aircraft carrier closer to Gaza!

A decent explainer given the source: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/gaza-strip-controls-s-know-rcna119405

Al Jazeera is mostly staffed by ex-BBC broadcasters and journalists including my old friend Imran Khan, who is currently reporting from Ramallah. I’m terrified for him but if you’re on Insta he’s @imranism and worth a follow.

"Deescalation is not possible when they are taking hostages. Israel did not ask America to deescalate on September 12, 2001. We stand w/ Israel.

the thing that with the benefit of hindsight everyone can agree was a smashing success: America's response to 9/11

One of the things that's most strongly come to mind while processing all this. (It's surpassed only by my memory of Rabin's assassination and reading the assassin's chilling and sickening reasoning - altogether my sobering introduction to the perpetual turmoil of the Middle East.) All sorts of responses on my social media feed, at least one classmate has openly chastised everyone she's accusing for being too "quiet" about this, and my immediate thought is my memory of America post-9/11 and the bullying brought on and encouraged by the right for anyone who didn't get behind the push for their horrendous war. (They did not hesitate to evoke the 3,000 dead from 9/11, a pretty shitty justification for the eventual ~110,000 dead civilians from the Iraq War.)

Context never mentioned in US media- 30 yrs ago, the PLO did everything the US told them to: accepted 2-state solution, renounced violence, recognized & made peace w/ Israel.

In return, Israel only doubled down on occupation & apartheid, & got rewarded w/ unwavering US support.

— Jeff Schuhrke (@JeffSchuhrke) October 9, 2023

there is reporting that many senior members of Hamas leadership were kept ignorant of the attack in order to make sure the plans wouldn't leak. if they didn't know about it, the regular citizens of Gaza definitely didn't know about it. Israel responding to the attack with full-scale collective punishment is so monstrous

It's surpassed only by my memory of Rabin's assassination and reading the assassin's chilling and sickening reasoning - altogether my sobering introduction to the perpetual turmoil of the Middle East.

the most successful assassination in history (people like to say)

god Rabin feels like 100 years ago now

It's mind-boggling that the assholes who branded Rabin and the Labor Party as Hitler and the Nazi Party and incited the insanity that led to his death (Netanyahu himself led a mock funeral procession featuring a coffin and hangman's noose at an anti-Rabin rally where protesters chanted, "Death to Rabin") have won and taken over the country. It's also thoroughly disgusting that there's been an ongoing campaign to free Rabin's unrepentant assassin, a guy who openly expressed his disgust at seeing Palestinians celebrating in peace and harmony with Jewish Israelis, arguing that "we need to be cold-hearted" against the Palestinians.

god Rabin feels like 100 years ago now

It doesn't to me only because Netanyahu remains a key figure (now more prominent and powerful than ever), but I know what you mean.

there is reporting that many senior members of Hamas leadership were kept ignorant of the attack in order to make sure the plans wouldn't leak.

Didn't the IRA do almost the same thing when the cities were flooded with informers, segregate major planning to more isolated groups?

Cell based attacks

A more devastating domino effect of an assassination than Indira Gandhi’s? I guess both really set both countries back by many years

Including people who died from sanctions, the death toll from America’s adventures in Iraq/Afghanistan is in the seven figures

yeah but at least they got rid of the Taliban

Where America goes, misery follows

When I wrote The Perfect Police State, I hoped to help shine a light on the genocide that the world had overlooked, the largest internment of a people since the Holocaust. Now I write with deep disappointment of so many friends in the Muslim Uyghur, Rohingya, and Syrian refugee…

— Geoffrey Cain 🇺🇦 🇮🇱 🇹🇼 (@geoffrey_cain) October 9, 2023

Why would you post this unless you have a fetish for being yelled at online?

wow what an asshole

This is a pretty good bunch of tweets

.@gabrielwinant has clearly and powerfully articulated something I've been struggling with for the last two days (shared with permission) pic.twitter.com/u1HdxOIBa8

— Sarah Osment (@sm_osment) October 10, 2023

My friend E is a DJ based in Tel Aviv and she has just been telling me ‘there is an amazing civil network growing here - Israeli government is non-functional but we are’. Another friend in Tulum is looking for news of her friend who went to Israel for the festival and hasn’t been heard from since Saturday, and E will be able to find out what has become of him through said channels, so fingers crossed.

Courageous statement from 31 Harvard student organizations pic.twitter.com/UNxh8hMXWK

— Mohammed El-Kurd (@m7mdkurd) October 9, 2023

A friend of mine shared that Harvard statement yesterday and was pretty enraged.

The only post that's come up that had something like comfort attached to it was from an old professor of mine, who made a simple plea to Israel re: retaliation by remembering the wisdom of Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof.

But yeah, the anger towards any criticism towards Israel and the way it's be redefined as lack of empathy for those killed, kidnapped or raped or as a sign of propaganda doing its work, brings back all the memories of 9/11 where any hard truth can't be acknowledged much less confronted via criticism - its really the pathway to revenge i.e. further, excessive and conscienceless destruction.

Going back to the how it happened the main two things (other than the far right coalition members wanting military moved more towards West Bank) I could find were

The fasting growing section of Israeli society are orthodox that aren't joining the army, and that this has been a factor for some length of time

IDF rift with Netanyahu (over judicial reforms?), people refusing to either show up or join up, some level of disillusionment.

Hezbollah commenting on the above earlier this year and saying this presented an opportunity in the north but then not really acting on it

Also saw Hamas leader Haniyeh multiple trips to Moscow in recent times (but then Dodik of Srpska ha been going to Moscow seemingly every other week the last year or two so visits from this type of leader not necessarily uncommon)

So who better to handle the current crisis than the guy who caused it in the first place.

The WSJ story claiming Iranian involvement in the attack is getting knocked down in a way you rarely if ever see pic.twitter.com/muc07CbL5K

— Max Fisher (@Max_Fisher) October 9, 2023

The hospitals, because of the seige, are so short of supplies that we had to clean a teenage girl with 70% body surface burns with regular soap because the hospital is out of chlorehexidine (antiseptic).

— Ghassan Abu Sitta (@GhassanAbuSitt1) October 10, 2023

Gabe Winant and I went to high school together— his sister is the leftist photographer/public artist Carmen Winant. I always enjoy seeing him lay down some truth on social media.

Israel celebrates Indigenous people's day by being at war with the indigenous people of the region. Nice.
Red Nation has an interesting take on the current situation.

So who better to handle the current crisis than the guy who caused it in the first place.

― The First Time Ever I Saw Gervais (Tom D.),

I dont think thats necessarily an unusual eventuality. If voters believe they are potentially under attack that can lead to a rallying around the flag situation which can benefit the incumbent. Afaict the last year or so there's been a pretty high level of division with protests, plus the ongoing corruption thing. It might be that he can move that into a "you might not like me but who else are you going to let handle this" type scenario, and consolidate power.

No idea if thats what will happen but could see the rationale

That's the argument he's used consistently to get elected in the past, it's looking pretty threadbare now

That's the argument he's used consistently to get elected in the past, it's looking pretty threadbare now

Oops.

that eerie video shot at the rave, of the innocuous looking hamas paragliders slowly emerging over the horizon is something I want to erase from my memory.

Yeah that rave party is already the terrorist attack of the year. The two-state solution has never looked so far away and blood-thirsty Israel probably could not have wished for a better occasion to dig the knife even deeper. Who knows how far they can go now until the US tells them it's too much. Netanyahu can probably get away by shifting blame - maybe fire a few high-ranked officials - but we're basically back to the late 90s / early 00s and if the last twenty years were grim, the twenty next look grimmer.

just a note, Calz, that the video you are speaking of has been widely debunked.

it's a little US-centric and maybe you're not interested in a meta-media critique right now, but I thought this made a good (and not unfamiliar, but here we are) point about the uselessness of the term "terrorism": https://www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/retire-the-word-terrorism

xp
oh right, the Graun still haven't twigged on this.

the way the media is referring to the Israelis as having been "killed" whereas those in Gaza just "died" - often within the same headline! - is giving me major 9/11 flashbacks

Good catch.

there's a video showing parachuters up close that's been debunked but the one that calzino is referencing has not been, afaict.

Also reminded me of the Katrina photos that showed black New Orleanians "looting" while white people were "gathering supplies".

the way the media is referring to the Israelis as having been "killed" whereas those in Gaza just "died" - often within the same headline! - is giving me major 9/11 flashbacks

Similarly, Israelis are described as "people in Israel" while Palestinians are only ever described as "Palestinians."

Or "human animals" if you're the Israeli Defence Minister. A phrase I note that was somehow edited out when he was quoted by most of the media.

its been fun watching so many celebrities talk about how the Israel bombings just broke their heart because of all the poor innocent families torn apart, how it's not even about politics or "choosing a side" but purely a humanitarian thing, all of whom are basically silent now that it's Gaza being bombed and threatened with eternal hellfire

can’t believe there are those who would politicise this tragedy

i have a friend who lives somewhere east of Tel Aviv and i'm not sure what's going on with her or her family. just a dreadful situation all around.

*southeast

Earlier, Cleverly called on supporters of Palestine to stay at home, after protests in London.

The foreign secretary said: “There is no need, there’s no necessity for people to come out. It causes distress. This is a difficult, delicate situation.”

Eat shit Jim