#Explainers

[eretzyisrael]

MLK's Jewish Connection | Unpacked

[kawareo]

Art snobs are actually a thousand times less annoying than people who respond to everything with "it's not that deep bro"

[captainobviois]

Training my parents to be funnier

[crunchynoodle]

"Everything you hate in nature - the ticks, the territorial wasps, the stinging plants - are pretty much nature's immune system."

@bogleeac

Mosquitoes actually are not replaceable in any ecosystem that naturally has them and that includes replacing them with any of the non biting species because these are the traits that make them so core to food webs:

Tiny

Can use every single pool of moisture to raise generations no matter how dirty and stagnant and low in oxygen

Can fly

Males get by on just sugars

Females take protein from larger animals to manufacture thousands more eggs

All these things combined allow thst ecosystem to make huge volumes of insects from conditions barren to most other macroscopic life. You might think there are other insects that seem to make huge massive swarms out of nothing but there's really nothing that hits all the same qualities *except other insects that also suck blood.*

It's the precise combo of being able to "prey" on things millions of times larger and breed in nothing but a few drops of filthy rainwater or the moisture in a rotten log. That's the most efficient combination for anything that size to multiply that rapidly where nothing else can even survive, except of course the things that can move in because they eat them :)

[homunculus-argument]

No wait, random worldbuilding idea:

A people who have an age-old tradition, that when warriors left home to go to war, their family that remains home prepare funeral goods for them while they wait, sewing them the clothes and preparing the tools and all that they will be buried with - to emotionally prepare them to the hard possibility that the one who left will not return home alive. If the warrior returns, their burial goods are all burned in a bonfire that is lit for the celebration of their return.

And to this modern day, mothers of the culture will tell their children "fine, but let me take your measures for burial clothes before you go" as a way of telling them that something they're about to do is lethally stupid. Sharing stories about just how dramatic their mothers are, someone tells their group of friends that his mother once actually took out a measuring tape to start taking his measures when he said he's leaving home for a work trip.

And another one goes "pfft, yeah. This one time I went to a rock concert and came back home to mom sitting on her sewing machine, fucking making me a funeral coat."

[unsolicited-opinions]

Doesn’t the Egyptian navy also enforce the blockade?

I thought it was Israel and Egypt both. But I’ve seen no mention of Egypt’s involvement recently.

(I did see that Egyptian authorities have stopped, detained and deported many of the “march to Gaza” activists.)

Explained: Egypt, the Gaza Blockade, and the March for Gaza activists

If you've seen MSM coverage about the Gaza blockade, you may well believe that Israel is the only country enforcing it.

Egypt has also enforced a blockade on Gaza since 2007. This isn't a secret, it's a long-standing policy, but it rarely shows up in activist slogans, protest chants, or international outrage.

That's part of the reason why western March to Gaza activists were so confused by what they encountered in Egypt.

I can't find any clips of these encounters which aren't biased, so this will have to do:

So let's put this in context.

What Is the Gaza Blockade?

In 2007, after Hamas took control of Gaza from the Palestinian Authority in a violent coup, Israel and Egypt both imposed blockades on the territory.

Israel's blockade focuses on land, airspace, and maritime access (because it shares all of those with Gaza) with the stated purpose of preventing weapons smuggling and rocket attacks. Egypt's blockade is focused mainly on the land border at the Rafah crossing - the only non-Israeli border Gaza has.

Both countries restrict what and who can move in and out. Both justify it on security grounds. Israel cites rocket fire and terror tunnels. Egypt cites Hamas’s ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, a banned and often brutally suppressed group inside Egypt.

What did Egypt do differently at their border with Gaza after Hamas took over?

Tightened Restrictions: Egypt imposed much stricter controls on the movement of people and goods in and out of Gaza.

Rafah Crossing Closure and Intermittent Openings: The Rafah crossing was largely closed by Egypt after the Hamas takeover. It has only been opened intermittently since then, primarily for limited purposes, such as allowing special shipments of medical supplies or facilitating travel for individuals requiring medical treatment.

Participation in the Blockade: Egypt joined with Israel in enforcing a blockade of Gaza, aiming to prevent weapons smuggling and exert economic pressure on Hamas. The blockade has severely restricted the flow of essential goods, contributing to economic hardship and limiting the freedom of movement for Gazans.

Crackdown on Smuggling Tunnels: Egypt launched efforts to destroy the smuggling tunnels that had become a vital lifeline for goods entering Gaza, going so far as to flood the tunnels in 2015.Mediation Efforts: Egypt has engaged in mediation efforts between Fatah and Hamas, the two main Palestinian factions, attempting to broker reconciliation agreements. The Rafah crossing has sometimes been used as a tool in these negotiations.

Focus on Security Cooperation with Israel: Egypt has coordinated closely with Israel on security matters related to the border, which has contributed to the tightening of restrictions on the Rafah crossing. 

Egypt's policies regarding the Rafah crossing have not been static. They have varied depending on internal Egyptian politics, regional dynamics, the state of relations between Egypt and Hamas and security concerns.

Here's a snapshot from August 2023 put out by OCHA, using data provided by Hamas (accuracy questionable, but this demonstrates international attention to the matter.)

While participating in the blockade, Egypt has also sought to facilitate the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza, particularly during times of crisis. For instance, in 2014, Egypt permitted the World Food Programme to bring food through the Rafah crossing.

Does Egypt Enforce a Naval Blockade Too?

Not like Israel does because it doesn't have to. Egypt controls its own coastal waters, but doesn't patrol Gaza's maritime border.

It does tightly restrict access to its land border at Rafah and coordinates with Israel on border and security policies. So while there isn't a direct Egyptian naval blockade, Egypt enforces restrictions on movement and trade just as seriously on land.

Why Don't Activists Talk About Egypt's Role?

Egypt's participation in the blockade is a matter of record. It controls a major border crossing. It restricts people and goods. It's even used violence to destroy smuggling tunnels and detain activists. Yet I've never seen news of protests against Egypt.

Why? Because nuance messes up the narrative and doesn't fit into the oppressor/victim dynamic.

The dominant narrative in much of the West frames the Gaza conflict through the lens of settler colonialism, with Israel as the powerful, evil, European colonizer and Palestinians as the indigenous, helpless, innocent, virtuous colonized. That framing doesn't leave room for Arab states to be seen as complicit or even hostile to Hamas. It flattens the region's politics into a binary that leaves out information which is needed to understand the region.

Put another way, it's easier for some activists to blame Israel alone. Criticizing an Arab country like Egypt (especially one run by an authoritarian government) complicates the story. Also, it doesn't fit on a sign or in a hashtag.

What About the "March to Gaza" Activists?

As noted above, Egyptian authorities detained and deported international activists trying to join a solidarity march to Gaza. These are the same types of activists who accuse Israel of violating human rights for restricting access to Gaza.

So finally, a certain kind of Westerner has noticed that Egypt also has a blockade. Even so, there were no major headlines, no global protests against Egypt, and barely a whisper on social media. Ground News shows the coverage spread is spread pretty evenly.

When Israel stops people at the border, it's called apartheid. When Egypt does it, it's mostly ignored. Why the double standard? (You know why.)

Why Does Egypt Enforce a Blockade at All?

Egypt sees Hamas as a national security threat. Hamas is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, which Egypt's government sees as a terrorist organization. President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi came to power after removing a Muslim Brotherhood president from office in a military coup. Sisi subsequently was elected as Egyptian president and enjoys substantially more support than his predecessor. He has cracked down hard on violent Jihadist/Islamist movements of all kinds.

In September of 2013, an Egyptian court banned the Brotherhood and ordered the seizure of its assets and associations. In December of 2013, the Sisi government officially declared the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization.

In addition to targeting the Muslim Brotherhood, Sisi's government has waged a continuous and often brutal campaign against various jihadist groups, most notably Wilayat Sinai (formerly Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis), which pledged allegiance to ISIS, in the Sinai Peninsula. This campaign has involved large-scale military operations, curfews, and the displacement of residents.

The Sisi government consistently frames its actions as a necessary "war on terror" to protect Egypt from extremism and instability, and this narrative has resonated with many Egyptians weary of political turmoil.

So Egypt's policy isn't about helping Israel. It's about controlling what happens on its own border and containing a group it sees as dangerous and destabilizing.

Why Does Any of This Matter?

If you want to understand the blockade (and the conflict in general) you need the full picture.

You need to embrace complexity nuance, and shades of grey. You need to let go of the egotistical Western view that the world generally thinks like you do and shares your general values. They don't, it doesn't. The world is too complex to flatten to a binary. Here are some complexities which many Western leftists seem not to grasp:

Arab Regimes are neither Anti-Zionist Saints nor Pro-Hamas Allies.

A common but false assumption among many Western activists is that Egypt and other Arab states are natural allies of Palestinians in their struggle against Israel. Egypt:

Is deeply suspicious of Hamas (an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is outlawed in Egypt and viewed as a terrorist threat).

Has its own national security interests that are often at odds with Palestinian groups.

Maintains its own blockade on Gaza, which predates and operates alongside Israel’s.

Western activists who believe that "Free Palestine" is the unifying moral cause of the Arab world often miss that most Arab regimes are more concerned with their own security concerns, domestic stability, counterterrorism, and maintaining authoritarian control than championing Palestinian liberation. It just doesn't matter to them the way it matters to the Western "Pro-Palestinian" activists.

Egypt Co-Enforces the Gaza Blockade

Egypt controls their Rafah border, the only crossing from Gaza not controlled by Israel.

Egypt routinely keeps the Rafah crossing closed, except for specific humanitarian cases or diplomatic arrangements.

Egypt blames Hamas for instability and violence that spills into the Sinai, and it does not want a flood of refugees escaping into the Egyptian Sinai.

Anti-Imperialism Has Become Weirdly Pro-Imperial

One of the bitter ironies of the Western left's approach is that their anti-imperialism tends to romanticize or whitewash non-Western authoritarian states.* In the name of fighting US or Israeli imperialism, they ignore or excuse:

Egypt's military dictatorship and brutal police state.

Assad's war crimes in Syria.

Iran's suppression of women and minorities.

Russia's aggressive expansionism.

China's human rights abuses against many, including the Uyghurs

This highlights broader confusion among Western "Pro-Palestinian" activists

They seem to reduce every situation to "colonizer vs colonized," or "Oppressor vs Victim" and place all Arab actors automatically on the side of victims justly seeking justice...ignoring that states like Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Saudi Arabia have their own histories of colonialism, suppression, and regional imperialism which are varied, complex, and frequently in competition.

They treat Hamas as if it's just a resistance movement rather than a militant Islamist regime which is:

Hostile to Egyptian authority,

Fundamentally illiberal

Hostile to the rights of women and LGBTQ+ persons

In conflict not just with Israel, but also with Fatah (the Palestinian Authority), Egypt, and much of the Arab world.

Missing out on post-colonial dynamics

Try to watch this with Egyptian eyes:

The Egyptians in the video don't just despise Hamas. There's more happening here.

Keep in mind that Egypt was ruled (in whole or in part) by the British as a colonial power from 1882 to 1956.

This uninvited guest, this British Welshman who doesn't speak Arabic and knows nothing about Egyptians or Gazans...is condemning and lecturing Egyptians on their moral obligations as Muslims...on their own soil...with patronizing language like "I believe that the people of the Arabic nations have a white heart."

How might you feel if you were an Egyptian cop or soldier who was expected to be calm while being condescended to this way by this man?

Can you see the extraordinary privilege of which this Welshman is totally unaware and how inappropriate his actions are even by the Western left's own domestic standards and social mores?

His condescension to Egyptians is textbook Orientalism. It's cringe on so many levels.

Projection of Western Political Tropes

These activists (instead of learning about peoples who are geographically, ideologically, and politically distant from them and just as complex as people anywhere) project their own local, parochial, left-wing, binary, intersectional frameworks onto a region where those frameworks don’t translate.

In Egypt, you don’t get to chant "Free Palestine" and assume the police will see you as righteous or even harmless. You're more likely to be detained, interrogated, or worse - and not because they oppose dignity, safety, and self-determination for Palestinians, but because they oppose dissent and are sick to death of being condescended to by Westerners who don't know a single thing about them.

Well, Israelis don't know anything about them either!

~20% of Israel's citizens are Arab and speak Arabic. Another 20% of Israelis who are Jews speak fluent Arabic and you can study Arabic as a second language in Jewish public schools in Israel.

About 40% of Israeli citizens speak Arabic.

Most Jewish Arabic-speakers' families came to Israel from Arab lands where they'd lived for centuries as second-class citizens. They know Arab people and Arab culture. They have Arab co-workers, Arab doctors, Arab judges, and Arab members of their parliament. They have no problem seeing Arabs, individually and collectively, as complex, sophisticated people with intelligence and agency.

Israeli journalist Haviv Rettig Gur:

Western activists seeking to enter Gaza via Egypt discovered to their horror this week one of the most obvious and basic facts about the Gaza war: That Egypt's military dictatorship doesn't care one whit how much Palestinians suffer behind the heavily-armed border fence it has installed between Egypt and Gaza. That this came as a shock to Western activists is itself a function of the fact that they know very little about the subjects of their moral emotions, because the basic purpose of Palestinian activism in the West isn't to move the needle for Palestinians - a task that would require knowledge and nuance and a capacity for self-critique - but merely to experience those moral emotions. I know it can be hard to see it, but this is as far from actual focused concern for Palestinians as Iran's, Egypt's and France's diverse hypocrisies. If given the choice between, for example, an Israeli victory that produces a free and prosperous Gaza and an Israeli loss that sends Gaza back into the clutches of Hamas for another generation, most of these activists will enthusiastically endorse the latter. Because feelings.

Yep. Because feelings.

Tacked on at the End: The Open Air Prison Myth

The claim is often made that the blockade by Egypt and Israel made Gaza, until 10/7/23, an open air prison.

I'm not even going to waste words disputing this. Watch these:

(*Any interest in a future explainer on Tankies?)

Further information:

[crunchynoodle]

"... as long as you can love without expectation or entitlement, your love will enrich your life. to love things is to be human and to be happy. it only causes problems when you feel like your love of something has earned you control over it. and that goes for all your other relationships, too."

Ahhhgh, this applies to so many things, too. In a literal and figurative sense, free flow will always be impeded by what seeks to control it.

"To love is to be human and to be happy," and I recall the many times I twisted over what it meant for me to be happy because I put conditions on it. Conditions and expectations, measuring things out transactionally, even though i didn't realize it at the time. It was what I knew growing up, see.

Now? Just let it. Let them. Let it go. Let it be. Simply let. Breathe and be with what is. Let it all unfold without terms and conditions, fine print and small print, to-do's and what-next's.

Breathe. Behold. Behold! "If this isn't good, I don't know what is."

I think this blog is helping me learn how to be less parasocial because before now I’ve only ever heard it used when referring to crazy insane fans who think their favorite blogger/youtuber/streamer/whatever is in love with them but this is making me realize that that isn’t the case. parasocialness can happen even with seemingly small things. all in all be mean to your anons it helps them and I’m sorry if this is parasocial in and of itself

idk what you’re blogging about rn but I hope you get that man pregnant or whatever 👍

the thing about parasociality is that it's undergone a rather bizarre transformation wherein the connotation is almost always a negative one, when the actual definition is merely describing a very human ability to feel connected to and concerned with people who we've never met and even "people" who might not really exist - the term was coined in the 50s to describe the attachment and investment that people felt in fictional television characters.

there's nothing innately negative OR positive about a parasocial relationship. to your example, a relationship doesn't become parasocial when you convince yourself that your favorite media personality is in love with you, but rather when you develop a sense of fondness for them in the first place.

I have no illusions about now attached my favorite youtube yoga instructor feels to me, personally (she doesn't, at all, because we've never directly interacted) but I feel warmly about her all the same, frequently feel cheered after following along with her yoga routines, and will be sad when the dog who appears in many of her videos inevitably dies. that's a parasocial relationship and it's fine! it's not bad to care about people you don't know personally, and that is arguably an important thing to be able to do.

you feeling warmly about my tumblr persona and appreciating what I do here is also parasocial, and that's okay! like I said, that's neither good nor bad! the parasociality can be harmful, but it's all nuance baybeeee!

[aroaceleovaldez]

i had a thought of "do people not know what AUs are anymore?" and then i remembered nobody explains fandom stuff to new people anymore so it is entirely plausible people genuinely don't know what AUs are and nobody has explained it to them, so for today's lucky 10,000:

"AU" stands for "Alternate Universe" or "Alternative Universe" (same difference) and is basically any thought scenario for a fandom that isn't canon and can't fit within the canon universe. If it takes place in the canon universe but something is notably different, that is typically what's known as a "Canon divergent AU," because it diverges from canon.

an AU can be absolutely anything. There's a couple of widespread pan-fandom au scenarios that often get thrown around, like coffee shop aus, genderbend aus, hanahaki aus (hanahaki is a whole thing in itself i'd recommend researching on your own), etc. One you might hear sometimes is "crossover AU" which is when you have characters from one fandom interacting with characters from another.

You can have as many aus as you want. They can be whatever you want and you can do whatever you want in them. It's a sandbox for you to play around in and explore how things would be different or how the characters would act in those circumstances or environments. Maybe they have different relationships with each other. Maybe they behave slightly differently. Or you can just say "Okay, [x] is true. How did they get here? How would things have to be different for this to occur?" which can also be fun.

If you are ever confused about why people ship something that seems completely out of the blue or doesn't make sense to you in the canon setting, there's a good chance they like it in an AU setting! Not everything everybody is interacting with is necessarily the canon! Not everybody wants things to exist in canon and just want to explore playing dolls in a different sandbox and that's okay. And their sandbox might look a lot different than yours, and that's also okay. You have the freedom to make your sandbox whatever you please. Do whatever you want forever. Get funky with it. AUs are fun.

Okay that's my schpeal. everybody go have fun and play nice now.

[dreadfulman]

It is genuinely fascinating how many feminist cis women, including those who are on paper openly supportive of trans people, struggle to actually think about trans men as a concept.

A few months ago I ended up having a very long talk with a friend of a friend. She told me that she'd never really spoken to a trans man before, the only trans people she knew were trans women. There was a point, after the third time I reminded her that I was a man, that she just sorta of slotted me into her mental box of "man", and I could tell that happened because after that point she started trying to explain things to me as if I was a cis man.

I categorically do not "pass" and likely never will. I'm very short, my hips are prominent because I'm fat, I keep my hair long, charitably I could be said to have a baby face, I have D-cups and cannot bind due to spinal problems. To the majority of cis people I do not "look like a man".

But for the rest of the conversation I had with this friend of a friend I had to keep reminding her of how other people are going to view me, because there was no room in her mental idea of "man" for a man who is not treated as one. This was not malicious on her part, she was very nice to me, and I believe her when she says she wants to support trans people. I do not think she was lying when she told me how horrified she was to learn about how her trans woman friends were treated.

She said she was envious of me going out alone and how I need to understand that's a facet of male privilege and I asked her to look at me and explain why I'd be any safer. She was shocked to learn that I've been catcalled, been assaulted, that I regularly get spoken down to by cis men, shocked to learn I don't have a single transmasc friend who hasn't. She couldn't understand that I'm going to be treated the same by misogynists as any fat cis woman who doesn't wear makeup. There was no room in her feminism for trans men, because there was no room in her understanding of gender for men who are not cis.

We ended up talking about politics. She told me she was terrified of abortion being banned, and that this would never be a threat if men could get pregnant.

[crunchynoodle]

Oh.

This is so interesting. I'm thinking back to my grandparents' time, and realized that WWII devastated our metropolitan areas so the infrastructure we have now was based on what people thought was best practices at the time. How much progress have we made in the seven decades since, when land and resources are finite and the population had exploded? Where can we look to see best practices in motion/real-life?

Another complaint we get is that when we plant trees, we only plant small trees which isn't equivalent to the ones we chop down. And it's like... the trees are small because they're younger. I promise if you go to the older parts of town you'll see that they do not stay small.

[fishandshesmygills]

they should invent an understanding and intellectualizing your feelings that makes them go away!!!

[theincpost]

Pakistan’s Nuclear Gamble: How Far Can Threats Go?

[beaft]

the fact that "bicurious" is an option on feeld is really funny to me

[ochibrochi]

bok bok bok bok baaawk 🐔