#war of the 7th coalition

[empirearchives]

Napoleon busting out of exile circa 1815:

[jewish-sideblog]

Obviously Hamas actions are abhorrent and the rise in antisemitism is uncalled for. What is the proper the response to 75yrs of apartheid though? Something has to be done about that or his cycle will never cease.

So you came from the post in which I explicitly named three organizations working for a two-state solution. And didn’t think… to look into… their proposals for a two-state solution…

As a reminder, before Hamas’s attack, Israel was working on normalizing peaceful relations with Saudi Arabia. That’s dead in the water because Hamas broke a ceasefire and killed a thousand Jewish civilians.

Before Hamas’s attack, there were massive, frequent, and often daily protests among the Israeli public, speaking out against an administration comprised of anti-Palestinians. Those are on hold now, because a thousand Jewish civilians were killed, and the country is at war. But Netanyahu’s coalition of asswipes is built like a house of cards, and they’ll suffer in the next election. That much is clear.

Hamas wasn’t looking to gain territory, win, or free Palestine on October 7th. Israel has never lost a war in its modern history, and it has overcome far worse odds than a couple thousand terrorists. There’s no feasible way for Hamas to have won. They broke the ceasefire and killed civilians anyway. Why? Why waste those lives and those resources, knowing that Israel would retaliate against Gazans?

Because Hamas looked around and saw something that horrified them. They saw Arab nations, once their allies, walking away from the idea of killing millions of Jews in favor of normalization and peace with Israel. They saw the citizens of Israel, rallying in unprecedented numbers for peace and democracy. They saw Fatah, their Palestinian enemies since 2007, ready to come back to the bargaining table for a peaceful two-state resolution.

Hamas broke a ceasefire for a media ploy. They did it, knowing that it would stop the normalization process between the Saudis and Israelis. They did it, knowing that it would bring an abrupt halt to Israeli protests. They did it, knowing that Israel would retaliate, and that the world would be watching as Hamas put Palestinian civilians in the line of fire and blamed it on Israel. They were looking to propagandize a dying movement, and friend, it seems like you bought into it.

Something does have to be done about Israeli’s treatment of Palestinians. Something does have to happen to end this cycle of violence. And plenty of things were being done about it, in the Knesset, on the streets of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. But Hamas considers peace without genocide to be a failure. Peace without genocide leaves Hamas out of a job. So they put a stop to it, at the cost of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian lives.

And you don’t gotta take that from me. Ask them. They aren’t trying to hide it, they’ve been saying it all month. It’s in their founding charter.

[sayruq]

This is all due to Hezbollah's operations at the border which they've helpfully summarised for us

According to the group, they've barely used 5% of their capabilities but it's still proving to be too much for Israel. The northern settlements have evacuated. They have lost billions of dollars in military equipment, installations, and bases (Hezbollah even destroyed an entire base before the temporary truce). Every attempt to try and rebuild its security along the border always ends the same way for Israel, ie a precision guided missile.

If war does break out, it wouldn't be surprising at all to Hezbollah. According to Nasrallah, the general secretary, they're engaging in a strategy called escalation ladder where one end of the ladder is peace and the other end is open war. Every day, Hezbollah's operations increase in intensity. The same goes for Israel who recently destroyed an entire southern Lebanese village, killing countless of civilians. Netanyahu has been publicly threatening war for a while now but that was just him bluffing. His war cabinet, as well as his coalition, seem far more eager. To put it simply, each side will escalate until they're truly at war.

Most of Israel's Brigades are in Gaza right now, 22 of them to be exact. It will be very difficult and costly to bring some of them to the border for war. It might be possible that Israel intends to end the war on Gaza to focus on Hezbollah. They've been forced back to the negotiating table after storming off on the 2nd. Hamas has made it clear that they won't exchange any prisoners without a comprehensive ceasefire, aka no more temporary truces.

A war with Lebanon will be disastrous for Israel. They lost the 2000 and 2006 wars against a much weaker, less armed Hezbollah. Hell, they didn't even win against the Resistance in Gaza in 2014 and they're actively losing today. It's clear that the army of conscripts are under trained and not battle ready. Besides desertion, the Israeli army has to deal with soldiers that flee from the fighters instead of holding their positions and fighting back (Here's a Al Qassam Brigades video where the Palestinians ambush a tent full of Israel soldiers, only for 9 out of the 10 to flee).

If 500,000 Israelis fled the country because of Oct 7th and the war in Gaza, how many more would flee if war breaks out between Hezbollah and Israel? Not to mention, how many more would be internally displaced? This is a war that might end up lasting years. Even 6 months of war might prove too much for a country that is more fragile than we realised before Oct 7th.

Oh and this is Israel's FDI in the first quarter of 2023

It has definitely tanked even lower since then. That's just one aspect of the economy, imagine all the others especially with hundreds of thousands of workers conscripted, displaced, or have fled the country.

A war with Hezbollah will effectively bring about Israel's collapse. It will no longer be happening 'within our lifetime,' it will be happening within the next ten years.

[gael-garcia]

Writers Against the War on Gaza (WAWOG) is an ad hoc coalition committed to solidarity and the horizon of liberation for the Palestinian people. Drawing together writers, editors, and other culture workers, WAWOG hopes to provide ongoing infrastructure for cultural organizing in response to the war. This project is modeled on American Writers Against the War in Vietnam, an organization founded in 1965.

Statement of Solidarity

October 26, 2023

Israel’s war against Gaza is an attempt to conduct genocide against the Palestinian people. This war did not begin on October 7th. However, in the last 19 days, the Israeli military has killed over 6,500 Palestinians, including more than 2,500 children, and wounded over 17,000. Gaza is the world’s largest open-air prison: its 2 million residents—a majority of whom are refugees, descendants of those whose land was stolen in 1948—have been deprived of basic human rights since the blockade in 2006. We share the assertions of human rights groups, scholars, and, above all, everyday Palestinians: Israel is an apartheid state, designed to privilege Jewish citizens at the expense of Palestinians, heedless of the many Jewish people, both in Israel and across the diaspora, who oppose their own conscription in an ethno-nationalist project. 

We come together as writers, journalists, academics, artists, and other culture workers to express our solidarity with the people of Palestine. We stand with their anticolonial struggle for freedom and for self-determination, and with their right to resist occupation. We stand firmly by Gaza’s people, victims of a genocidal war the United States government continues to fund and arm with military aid—a crisis compounded by the illegal settlement and dispossession of the West Bank and the subjugation of Palestinians within the state of Israel.

We stand in opposition to the silencing of dissent and to racist and revisionist media cycles, further perpetuated by Israel’s attempts to bar reporting in Gaza, where journalists have been both denied entry and targeted by Israeli forces. At least 24 journalists in Gaza have now been killed. Internationally, writers and cultural workers have faced severe harassment, workplace retribution, and job loss for expressing solidarity with Palestine, whether by stating facts about their continued occupation, or for amplifying the voices of others. These are instances that mark severe incursions against supposed speech protections. Specious charges of antisemitism are leveled against Zionism’s critics; political repression has been particularly aggressive against the free speech of Muslim, Arab, and Black people living in the US and across the globe. As was the case following the September 11th attacks, Islamophobic political fervor and the widespread circulation of unsubstantiated claims has galvanized a US-led coalition of military support for a brutal campaign of violence.

What can we do to intervene against Israel’s eliminationist assault on the Palestinian people? Words alone cannot stop the onslaught of devastation of Palestinian homes and lives, backed shamelessly and without hesitation by the entire axis of Western power. At the same time, we must reckon with the role words and images play in the war on Gaza and the ferocious support they have engendered: Israel’s defense minister announced the siege as a fight against “human animals”; even as we learned that Israel had rained bombs down on densely populated urban neighborhoods and deployed white phosphorus in Gaza City, the New York Times editorial board wrote that “what Israel is fighting to defend is a society that values human life and the rule of law”; establishment media outlets continue to describe Hamas’s attack on Israel as “unprovoked.” Writers Against the War on Gaza rejects this perversion of meaning, wherein a nuclear state can declare itself a victim in perpetuity while openly enacting genocide. We condemn those in our industries who continue to enable apartheid and genocide. We cannot write a free Palestine into existence, buttogether we must do all we possibly can to reject narratives that soothe Western complicity in ethnic cleansing. 

We act alongside other writers, scholars, and artists who have expressed solidarity with the Palestinian cause, drawing inspiration from the Palestinian spirit of sumud, steadfastness, and resistance. Since 2004, the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) has advocated for organizations to join a boycott of institutions representing the Israeli state or cultural institutions complicit with its apartheid regime. We call on all our colleagues working in cultural institutions to endorse that boycott. And we invite writers, editors, journalists, scholars, artists, musicians, actors, and anyone in creative and academic work to sign this statement. Join us in building a new cultural front for a free Palestine.  

Signed,

WAWOG Interim Organizing Committee

Hannah Black

Ari Brostoff (Senior Editor, Jewish Currents)

Elena Comay del Junco

Kyle Dacuyan (Executive Director, Poetry Project)

Kay Gabriel (Editorial Director, Poetry Project)

Kaleem Hawa

E. Tammy Kim

Shiv Kotecha

Wendy Lotterman (Associate Editor, Parapraxis)

Muna Mire

Perwana Nazif

Brendan O'Connor

Alex Press (Staff Writer, Jacobin)

Sarah Nicole Prickett

Dylan Saba

Zoé Samudzi (Associate Editor, Parapraxis)

Jasmine Sanders

Claire Schwartz (Culture Editor, Jewish Currents)

Janique Vigier

Harron Walker

Chloe Watlington

Gabriel Winant (Department of History, University of Chicago)

Audrey Wollen

Hannah Zeavin (Founding Editor, Parapraxis)

Signed, In Solidarity

Fatimah Warner (Noname)

Saul Williams

Susan Sarandon

Janeane Garofalo

Gael García Bernal

Danez Smith

Ocean Vuong

Aria Aber

Saidiya Hartman

China Miéville

+ full list here

[uboat53]

I had an exchange recently that revealed to me how fast Netanyahu's speedrun of the autocrat's playbook is going. Let's dive in for a LONG RANT (TM).

THE AUTOCRAT'S PLAYBOOK

What I'm calling the "autocrat's playbook" is a simple procedure that autocrats or would-be autocrats take when they feel that their domestic power is under some kind of threat. Specifically, it involves creating external conflict in order to rally domestic support. The steps are fairly simple: (1) start a conflict, (2) use the conflict to muzzle your opposition, (3) use a vague but patriotic excuse for war combined with aggressive tactics to push your military into committing atrocities, (4) use the international backlash to atrocities in order to buttress your own support.

Simply put, Netanyahu is doing this because his position is under threat by his unpopular attempt to destroy Israel's judiciary, his indictment on some pretty severe criminal charges, and his inability to do anything about Hamas' October 7th attack on Israel. By using the autocrat's playbook, he's hoping to hold onto his political position and put off both the collapse of his coalition and the criminal cases against him personally. In the last 6 months, he's already gotten well into Step 4 which may be a record for a leader who wasn't technically already a well-established autocrat. To see how he's doing this, let's start with Step 1.

CONFLICT

The first thing you need in order to distract from your domestic troubles is a foreign conflict. In Netanyahu's case, he already had a conflict after Hamas' attack, but it was a bad conflict because it made him look weak. The best case scenario is that he was a bumbling fool who failed to do anything to prevent Hamas from launching a major attack, the worst case scenario is that he deliberately weakened Israel's defenses against Hamas in order to aid his racist coalition partners in illegally seizing territory in the West Bank. No, that conflict wouldn't do, he needed a different one.

Bombing and invading Gaza is a much better conflict. He gets to appear the aggressor, strong and in command, which is exactly what you want to look like as an autocrat. This is his Step 1, attack Gaza. Now for Step 2.

THE WAR CABINET

Now, Netanyahu isn't an established autocrat yet, he's more of a wanna-be. Israeli news media still criticizes him, civil society still organizes against him, the judiciary still rules against him, and his opponents still have the possibility of ousting him in the Knesset, so he doesn't get to just shove all his opposition in jail on trumped up charges the way Vladimir Putin does. Instead, he's found a better way of muzzling his opposition, give them a title.

That's what the Israeli "war cabinet" is, it's how he muzzles his opposition. Now, I should be clear, a war cabinet isn't necessarily just a muzzle, sometimes it's a legitimate way to ensure support and input from across the nation for a war. But that's not what Netanyahu is using it for, and the way to tell is actually fairly simple. You see, in a true war cabinet, the leader gives up some control to his opposition in order to ensure that they're truly represented, but Netanyahu didn't do that.

You see, there are six members of the war cabinet, three full members and three observers. Of those six, four of them are either members of the Likud Party (Netanyahu's party), members of the Shas Party (one of his coalition members), or a close confidant of Netanyahu's (Ron Dermer). More importantly, only those members that are directly tied to Netanyahu have an actual portfolio (Defense for Likud member Yoav Gallant and Strategic Affairs for Dermer).

In other words, the opposition is in the cabinet, but has no ability to push policy and, even after policy is agreed upon, has no say in how it's carried out. However, as long as they're in the cabinet, they can't speak out publicly against the decisions made. Netanyahu has used the war cabinet to muzzle his opposition without giving them any actual power. Now, with competing voices largely silenced, we move on to Step 3.

HOW TO MAKE ATROCITIES HAPPEN

Atrocities used to be fairly common in warfare, even expected, but modern militaries actually have fairly good discipline, structure, and clear rules of operation that prevent them from doing this on any kind of large scale. In order to get a modern military to commit atrocities, you have to press it in a very specific way.

First, you have to give it an objective, preferably a vaguely defined but intensely patriotic one; bonus points if it's not practically possible. In Netanyahu's case, he ordered the military to destroy Hamas. This may be an achievable objective if Israel had spent years gathering detailed intelligence on the group and had a clear plan for how to separate Hamas fighters and leadership from the civilian population, but the ease with which Hamas carried out its 10/7 attack shows that even the first condition is not even close to being met. Destroying Hamas is an easy goal to defend in public debate, of course everyone wants to destroy Hamas, but it's not one that brings any specifics and it's certainly not something that the Israeli military can do without substantial support from both spies and diplomats even if the required preparations had actually been made.

The second step, though, is equally important; you press aggressively for results. A military given a vague mission that isn't really possible will go through the motions and not do all that much. In order to make atrocities happen, you have to push them to go hard. Bomb that building that may or may not relate to the objective, better to act than to delay! Shoot that person in the distance that may or may not be a Hamas fighter, better safe than sorry! The hospital might be a command post you say? Best to go in with full force!

By giving a vague and impossible mission and then insisting on rapid action, you can force any military to commit atrocities. Then you just wait to start Step 4.

RALLY AROUND THE FLAG

As soon as a country's military commits an atrocity, the international community will react with at least some sort of condemnation. This, at least, is as predictable as clockwork even if the consequences will vary widely. If you're an autocrat with a popularity problem, this is your moment; you're going to defend the troops with every ounce of breath in your body and, with your opposition muzzled, there will be no one to point out that the atrocity wasn't even their fault in the first place, it was yours.

And so, with one fell swoop, you identify the country as being under attack and yourself as its fervent defender, fulfilling the tactic described by Hermann Goering:

"…the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger."

COMPLICATIONS

Of course, it's not necessarily so simple. There are always things that can trip you up and it takes a fairly deft hand to navigate those issues. For example, if you're not careful to distance yourself, it can become obvious that you're the one responsible for the atrocity, not the military. This is where other tactics can come into play.

The most obvious one is just to deny facts that are inconvenient. This is actually what led me to write this up, an exchange I had recently in which someone denied that Israel had, in fact, struck the Iranian embassy in Damascus with an air strike in order to frame Iran's response as unprovoked aggression. This kind of thing doesn't tend to happen (at least, not outside very fringe circles) unless all four of these steps have had a pretty reasonable amount of success which is why I've expressed surprise at how quickly Netanyahu has accomplished all of this.

Facts in general, though, are the most common type of complication. Finding ways to hide, deny, or otherwise elide the fact that you're the one responsible for the atrocity, that it's not just the soldiers making hard calls on an otherwise positive battlefield, are key to making this procedure work.

It's useful for those of us who are not interested in Netanyahu's party line to note that the Israeli military is already showing signs of breaking in the ways that the US military did in Vietnam when discipline and basic chain of command broke down. Simply looking at the sheer number of Israeli soldiers posting social media videos of themselves casually looting or blowing up the homes of Palestinian civilians or shooting people on the street is enough to demonstrate fairly clearly that even basic communications discipline is in rough shape.

So far, though, Netanyahu has been able to control the narrative in Israel, even if the international narrative is turning against him. It remains to be sees if he can continue to do this.

CONCLUSION

Netanyahu has followed a pretty standard 4-step autocratic procedure in order to position himself as the protector of the country and distract from the many, many things that were making him unpopular and threating to remove him from his position of power. In fact, if you look at Israel's strike on Iran's embassy in Damascus, it appears that he's actually starting the whole process over again as the Gaza offensive stalls and he needs further distraction from his other issues.

I should also note that none of this is actually making Israelis any safer, quite the opposite really. The only remaining question is how much of Israel's security and how many Israeli lives Netanyahu is willing to sacrifice for his own good.

[flipshitz]

Refuting common blood libel about Jews and israel:

gen·o·cide

noun

the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group.

"a campaign of genocide"

From 1990 to 2022 the population of Palestine increased from 1.98 million to 5.04 million people. This is a growth of 155.0 percent in 32 years. The highest increase in Palestine was recorded in 1991 with 4.58 percent.

Israel is estimated to possess somewhere between 75 and 400 nuclear warheads (one can be used to wipe out all Palestinians if wanted but Israel will not)

What percent of Gaza's population has been killed?

1%

7, 2023. With 23,357 killed in Israel's military operation in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health, the Gaza Strip population has now lost 1% of its 2.3 million residents. (There is no reason to believe these numbers are true as hamas is a terrorist organization with no intention of reporting accurate numbers therefore we can estimate less.)

Jews originally trace their ancestry to a confederation of Iron Age Semitic-speaking tribes known as the Israelites that inhabited a part of Canaan during the tribal and monarchic periods. Modern Jews are named after and also descended from the southern Israelite Kingdom of Judah.

With this we know that Jews come from Judea and Arabs come from Arabia.

49 Muslim countries 2 billion Muslims

To 15 million Jews in their one Jewish state the size of New Jersey. 100 to 1 odds.

Zion: the hill in Jerusalem where king David built his kingdom -David (flourished c. 1000 bce) was the second ruler of the united kingdom of ancient Israel and Judah

Israel predates Islam by 1500 years.

ZionISM: the believe that Jews have the right to self determination in their homeland.

Muhammad Amin al-Husayni (189?-1974) was the Mufti (chief Muslim Islamic legal religious authority) of Jerusalem under the political authority of the British Mandate in Palestine from 1921 to 1937. His primary political causes were: -exiling and further blocking from Jews in diaspora from immigration.

-Organizing pogroms against Jews

-meeting with Hitler

-launching a war that would they would again lose & effectively displace thousands of Palestinians back into their neighboring Arab countries where they came from and blaming it all on the Jews.

After three defensive wars in 1949, 1956, and 1967, Israel had expanded its territory, leading to heightened tensions with the Arab states. On October 6, 1973, an Arab coalition of Egyptian and Syrian forces launched a surprise attack on Israel on Yom Kippur—the Jewish holy day of atonement.

After these victories and acquiring of more land, the Israelis chose to give back their ancestral soil as a land for peace deal which the Palestinians would violate year after year by electing genocidal governments that seek to finish hitlers bidding.

To date; The bilateral agreements between Israel and the Palestinians contain no prohibition against the building or expansion of settlements.

Despite contrary allegations repeated ad nauseam.

2001 Israelis uprooted its citizens who had settled in Gaza already in order to make way for the Arabs to settle in an effort for peace but almost immediately they elect Hamas which is a proxy of Iran much like Hezbollah who’s only political agenda is to kill all Jews.

Oct 7th is a direct result of what happens when you invite terrorists to your front door.

For more copy and paste link:

SATURDAY-OCTOBER-SEVEN.COM

For the “UN” excuse;

Islamic Countries in the UN (46): Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Egypt, Turkey, Iran, Sudan, Algeria, Afghanistan, Morocco, Iraq, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan, Yemen, Syria, Kazakhstan, Niger, Burkina Faso, Mali, Senegal, Tunisia, Guinea, Azerbaijan, Somalia, Tajikistan, Sierra Leone, Libya, Jordan, UAE, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Chad, Lebanon, Kuwait, Albania, Mauritania, Oman, Bahrain, Qatar, Gambia, Comoros, Djibouti, Maldives, Brunei, Lebanon. All of which are under the influence of IRAN which guess what? Owns Hezbollah and Hamas as its proxies. All of these nations have genocided or exiled all of its Jews. It’s no wonder they all take a majority vote over israel while simultaneously burying their crimes against humanity - but no mention of that from the peanut gallery on ur end right? Doesn’t fit your shill narrative. And to make matters worse; Iran's appointment to chair UN yes that’s right IRAN was appointed as chair for human rights - which drew rightful criticism at least thank god. Oh and 450 terror operatives in Gaza, mostly Hamas members, are also employed by UNRWA

Attacks on Israel: (still on going)

Shlomo Zalman Zoref 1851

Battle of Tel Hai 1920

Jaffa riots 1921

Meora’ot Tarpat 1929

Hebron Massacre 1929

The great revolt 1936-1939

*in the years 1937-1939 was funded by nazi germany*

War of independence 1948

Scorpions pass massacre 1954

Palestinian fedayeen

Jerusalem bombings 1969

Lord Airport massacre 1972

Munich massacre 1972

Yom Kippur Surprise attack 1973

Ma’alot Massacre 1974

Coastal road massacre 1978

Lanarca yacht killings 1985

1st intifada 1987-1993

Tel Aviv Jerusalem bus 405 attack 1989

Night of the pitchforks 1992

Western wall tunnel riots 1996

2nd intifada 2000-2008

Dolphinarium Discoteque massacre 2001

Sbarro restaurant suicide bombing 2001

Haifa bus bombing (16 suicide bombs) 2001

Passover massacre 2002

Yeshiva beit Yisrael bombing 2002

Cafe moment moment bombing 2002

Matza restaurant suicide bombing 2002

Yagur junction bombing 2002

Rishon lezion bombing 2002

Meggido junction bus bombing 2002

Patt junction bus bombing 2002

Karkur junction bombing 2002

Kiryat Menachem bus bombing 2002

Tel Aviv central bus station massacre 2003

Beersheba bus bombing 2004

2nd rosh ha’ir Restaraunt bombing 2006

Kedumim bombing 2006

Eilat bombing 2007

Jerusalem bus stop bombing 20011

Itamar massacre 2011

Tel Aviv truck attack 2011

Shaar ha negev school bus attack 2011

Tel Aviv bus bombing 2012

Gush Etzion kidnapping and murder 2014

Jerusalem synagogue attack 2014

Stabbing intifada 2015-2016

Tel Aviv shooting 2016

Temple Mount shooting 2017

Ariel stabbing 2018

Samaria combined attack 2019

Wave of terror 2022

Jerusalem bombings 2022

Bizengoff shooting 2023

Ramot junction attack 2023

October 7th massacre 2023

[old-school-butch]

hamas is trying to return the hostages in exchange for Israel pulling back and Netanyahu refused. It's pretty clear this is just a pretense for genocide. What will it take for you to see that? Because this whole time people have been saying "just return the hostages" (as though civilians have any control over that) but as soon as Hamas offers to make these terms, Israel backs off. You fell for their propaganda. It was always a lie.

It's interesting to see what sliver of information is selected for the information war.

Hamas's demands were actually:

-complete withdrawal of IDF troops from Gaza -unconditional release of all Hamas prisoners, thousands at this point, including those identified as being part of the Oct. 7th attacks -acknowledgement that Hamas will remain in power -Hamas will in return release the hostages... at least the ones it has... who are not identified, its not clear if they are dead or alive. It's already known that a large number are actually held by PIJ or by individual Gazan men who followed the pogrom on Oct. 7. Their fate would not be guaranteed.

Israel has lately counter-offered, in rather confusing separate offers:

-return all the hostages for a 2 month ceasefire -an exchange of prisoners in return for IDF withdrawal from key area in northern Gaza -fuck everything we're just going to take over Gaza again

The threat to occupy Gaza is something I completely oppose. I think good fences make good neighbors. Israel should have as little to do with Gaza and the West Bank as possible. Of course, Netanyahu also doubled down and rejected a two state solution. If anyone's asking, Hamas also rejects the 2 state solution, by the way. It's ridiculous. Israel did attempt to get several Arab neighboring states to setup an administration of Gaza, which they all unhelpfully (but sensibly in political terms) rejected. A broader international coalition was also rejected - not that they could even find anyone willing to take it on. I can see the dilemma of trying to remove Hamas and find someone less terroristy to govern, but I don't think Israel should step in. And fuck all the 'ceasefire' nonsense - can we force both sides to start an actual peace and declare an independent state of Palestine next to the state of Israel- you have people, you have land, stop fighting and create a paradise on the sea! Not that anyone is asking me...

Anyway, Saudi has said they won't sign their peace treaty with Israel without a plan for a Palestine state, U.S. is adding pressure too, we will see what offers will fly back and forth in the weeks to come. The good news is that the bullshit demands and declarations seem to be face-saving motions that might actually represent a genuine desire on both sides to stop this particular war at least, and I welcome that.

[a-wartime-paradox]

The Eighth Doctor during the Time War in Heaven, a "grandfather paradox" of undone Moments

Okay so this is just a canon-weld in pure in-universe style, like a wiki article (because I really enjoy writing it like that much more than in the style of a historical article). The parts that are just completely made up are written in bold, but do remember that this is all, at least partially, speculation (although I'd love to convince many of this account)

The Eighth Doctor appears to end the War (NOVEL: The Ancestor Cell), in reality "falling out" of it (SHORT STORY: The Story So Far...), with the fallen Gallifrey's Matrix becomes trapped within his mind (NOVEL: *The Gallifrey Chronicles*). Eventually, he attempted to restore it at the end of the universe, thus creating the Imperial Throneworld (NOVEL: *Hope*) as some kind of temporal echo (read: similar description) of Gallifrey Eight (NOVEL: *The Taking of Planet 5*). Eventually, the Doctor, now calling himself the Emperor (NOVEL: *Father Time*), travelled back into the War to rule a decadent splinter of Faction Paradox, led by Mother Mathara, and called himself "Grandfather Paradox" - but not being the true Grandfather of House Paradox (REF: AHistory extract) - invading Gallifrey and apparently destroying it (NOVEL: *The Ancestor Cell* from Grandpa P.'s perspective) using the Moment (SHORT STORY: *Doctor Who and the Time War*) to apparently end the War. However, this instead "rewound time" so that the Eighth Doctor had never interacted with the future War, and in order to do this, the universe prevented him from ever returning to Sam Jones in the Greenpeace rally (NOVEL: *Vampire Science*), which started his intersection with the War (NOVEL: *Alien Bodies*), instead travelling Charley Pollard (AUDIO series: Main Range), Lucie Miller (AUDIO series: The Eighth Doctor Adventures - Series 1-4), Molly O'Sullivan and Liv Chenka (AUDIO boxset: *Dark Eyes 1-2*), before eventually (NOTE 1) using the Moment in an attempt to end the Time War by destroying Gallifrey (SHORT STORY: *Doctor Who and the Time War*), but instead rewinding time again to make it so that he never pressed the button (SHORT STORY: *Out of the Box*), which actualised in an extended history past his adventures with Molly O'Sullivan, including further adventures with Liv Chenka (AUDIO series: Dark Eyes 2-4) alongside new companion Helen Sinclair (AUDIO series: Doom Coalition - AUDIO boxset: Connections) and later dorning his final outfit, travelling with Josie Day (COMIC series: *Doctor Who: The Eighth Doctor*), dealing with the Kutturah Crisis (MULTIMEDIA: Time Lord Victorious), and finally aiding in the Time War with companion Bliss (AUDIO series: *The Eighth Doctor: Time War*), ultimately regenerating on Karn into the War Doctor (LIVE ACTION: *The Night of the Doctor*), who refused to use the Moment (LIVE ACTION: *The Day of the Doctor*), instead teaming up with all his incarnations, past and future, to extract Gallifrey into a "parallel pocket universe" (NOVEL: *The Day of the Doctor*), finally regenerating (NOVEL: The Day of the Doctor, SHORT STORY: Doctor Who and the Time War) into the Ninth Doctor LIVE ACTION: *Rose*).

NOTE 1 - the Doctor says he "has the right" (contra Genesis of the Daleks), and the Master is resurrected (referencing The Sound of Drums), also came out before 2013's The Night of the Doctor, although this is a weaker point because it could still the Ninth Doctor.

When I wrote this (7th of June 2023), I believed it. Since then, and before posting (9th), I now don't but shall share regardless because I enjoyed writing it, and someone may like it.

[hussyknee]

honestly judging journalists for doing their job is such BS. like in my eyes…. it reflects even more poorly on israel bc we’ve all seen how badly palestinians want liberation. we’ve seen how long they’ve been fighting for freedom. they want their land back.

the fact that they’re so frustrated they’re willing to just give up… it shows how badly this genocide is breaking them down. they feel hopeless. and we are in no place to judge them for that. our job isn’t to criticise them for wanting to survive. it’s to keep insisting that israel be stopped and dismantled.

also it’s so funny bc i spoke to my arab friend and she explained how the motaz clip specifically did not criticise hamas. he said that the oppression led to a natural retaliation of resistance forces. and he said he’d live to live in peace.

people are picking apart individuals being bombed 24/7 and it’s just so– sigh.

i really hope we can stop being sidetracked this way. the focus should always be on palestinian liberation and rights. we shouldn’t be sitting around judging people in gaza for being exhausted. we should be empathetic and keep protesting and insisting for an end to occupation.

tbh it genuinely feels like people are getting sidetracked and distracted from the point of this cause :/ which is exactly what the zionist lobbies want. like bro get it together!

I think it's somewhat to be expected at this point because popular support for Palestine is going turbo the more the Israelis escalates, but it doesn't mean much when the Biden Administration is stonewalling us harder than Bush. So all hopes do rest on Hamas and its allies, which makes people insanely protective and reactionary at the expense of, you know, the actual victims. It's very hard for coalition movements to hold longer than its forward momentum, which is the exact thing being sabotaged by the US. I'm afraid that the longer we stay stymied, the more the disparate factions will fall apart.

Okay so, this is veering into conjecture but here's what I think: popular support for Hamas, which was at an all-time high before Oct 7th, might now be waning in Gaza for obvious reasons. It will likely recede further when the grief sets in properly. Hamas couldn't have foreseen this level of carnage, but I'm pretty sure they prepared for an intense retaliation, and Gazans were the ones who always had to live with the fallout. I have no doubt that they'll manage to beat the IOF if the current trajectory stays on, but it might turn out to be a Pyrrhic victory in the end. And it's not certain that the trajectory will hold, because Israel still has an endless well of support from the Western and Arab governments and the Western right-wing, as well as aircraft attack capabilities which is basically what makes the US so formidable. What is working is the sabotaging of the Israeli economy, but again the question becomes how long can they keep it up. With these obvious pressures and time crunches looming, I can see the most fanatical of Hamas supporters deprioritizing actually rescuing the Gazans and even consigning them to "martyrs for the cause". For this element the Gazans would be valuable political pawns and their suffering a tool for destroying Israel's narrative. I'm not sure whether this includes Hamas's own leadership and rank and file. Israel is unequivocally the Bad Guy, but the fact is that there are no "Good Guys" in a war. All militaries involve a high level of indoctrination and ideological loyalty over dedication to the humans they're supposed to protect. I'm not speaking of militant Palestinians themselves; I'm guessing it would also include a sizeable chunk of Arab nationalists and the Tankie infestation that's jumped all over the pro-Palestine wagon. So it's very possible that the divergence between the military objective of the resistance and humanitarian objective will be highlighted more and more by the Gazans themselves, turning them from asset to liability. As I see it, this is the main faultline of the coalition.

I might be reading tea leaves at this point, but what I'm saying is that I can see where this asshole contingent might originate from. It's impossible for fanatics and armchair warriors to see people as people instead of props and tools for their pet causes and agendas. You can't reason with these people, only deplatform and block.

[empirearchives]

Approximate Route that Napoleon took from Elba to Paris in 1815:

Includes alleged newspaper article titles recounted by Alexandre Dumas.

I’ve never read any of Dumas’ books, but was he mildly obsessed with Napoleon? All the time I see stuff he wrote about him. He wrote a whole thing detailing the Paris apartment Napoleon lived in during the early 1790s. He wrote plays about him, included him in his books, and even researched newspaper titles about him.

[r0yal-guardian]

◼◼/◼◼/1945

Mopping up operations

Coalition task force led by MTF Alpha-1, involving the recently activated MTF Nu-7, cleaning up the remnants of Ahnenerbe Obskurakorps in the waning days of the 7th Occult War. 

In desperation chemical, biological, and anomalous weapons are used against Foundation forces.

[infinitemonkeytheory]

More than 40 founders, investors, engineers and others in the tech industry are today announcing a coalition called Tech for Palestine to build open source projects, tools and data to help others in the industry advocate for the Palestinian people.

The launch of the group comes during a tense time in the region. Hamas’s October 7th attack on Israel led to the deaths of more than 1,100 individuals. The war in the Gaza Strip that followed has seen the displacement of millions of Palestinians and tens of thousands of deaths.

[…]

Paul Biggar, the founder of Tech for Palestine, hopes to raise more awareness of the war in Gaza, fight for a permanent ceasefire and provide ways for those who are afraid to speak publicly in support of Palestine to still offer support. It is one of the first tech initiatives to take a public stance supporting Palestine and could represent a turning point in the venture industry’s posture regarding the Israel-Hamas conflict as more people seek to speak out in favor of a ceasefire.

[geneeste]

“I will be candid:

I’m wary about writing about this, but I also feel a responsibility to write about this. The history of Hanukah involves Jews waging war in the Land of Israel—there will be a lot of people with a lot of takes. One of mine is linked, above. I hold by that one, too.

I just… this can’t be the year that I elide the hard stuff about the Maccabees’ war, or any war, with metaphors, you know?

This can’t be the year it gets sidestepped.

Israel has bombed Jabalya refugee camp, and they’ve expanded ground operations. They are sending people to evacuate and then bombing the evacuation routes. So far, the bombing has killed more than 16,200 human souls, each holy, irreplaceable, created in the divine image.

In the West Bank, more Palestinians have been killed than in any year since 2005—over 220 people in less than 2 months. Settler violence is so bad that over sixteen Palestinian communities have been driven out of their homes since Oct 7th for fear of their safety.

Bibi Netanyahu has already been indicted on counts of fraud, bribery and corruption. He knows that he is likely ousted the moment Israel goes out of crisis mode.

If this war ever ends he’ll have to face the rage of people in a country about the size and population of New Jersey for propping up Hamas for years—including enabling money to come in from Qatar to fund the massacre, the mass rapes (all the trigger warnings at that link) and the kidnappings that began this chapter of horror.

Remember that judicial overhaul that Israelis protested for 40 weeks straight? That whole thing was to weaken the judicial branch in order to -- ultimately-- disappear his legal troubles. If he’s ousted before he gets to finish all that corruption? Welp.

He’s also appeasing the more genocidal factions of his government, who have threatened to bounce from his coalition if he doesn’t continue the war.

There are a lot of pieces of this (but one of them is that an amoral, panicked man is going scorched earth on an entire population of human beings as an attempt to keep evading the consequences of his actions. It’s a little hard to comprehend.

Now let’s get into the Wayback Machine. First we’re going to go over some of the basics of the Hanukah history. And then we’ll look especially at Maccabee fellas.”

[hjohn3]

The Forever War

How Binary Positioning on the Israel/Palestine Conflict Ignores Its History

Source: BBC News

By Honest John

POLITICS LOVES binaries. There is nothing that pundits, journalists, activists and the committed like more than a straight good guy/bad guy narrative in which complex issues can be reduced, ultimately, to that of a wholly malign force oppressing a virtuous victim bravely standing up for freedom, democracy, common sense or equality - particularly on the left. And no issue dispenses with subtlety and context more readily and thoughtlessly than the tragic forever war of the Israel/Palestine conflict. Since the Hamas attack on the border settlements of southern Israel on 7th October, the partisans have been out in force. Whether it is the pro-Israel “shoulder to shoulder” rhetoric of the US, EU and U.K. governments, Keir Starmer and most of the conservative media offering almost unconditional support to the Israeli regime in the face of those attacks , or the pro-Palestinian sectarian left, street protestors, Muslim communities worldwide and much of the liberal left press appalled at the extent and depth of the Israeli assault on Gaza in response, the space for nuance seems vanishingly small. Lines are drawn: you are either with Israel and its right to defend itself, or you are a hate-filled terrorist apologist and borderline antisemite; or you are either with the Palestinian population being bulldozed in Gaza or you are supporter of neo-colonialism, racism and violent attacks on a defenceless civilian population. It has always struck me as curious that one of the least straightforward geopolitical issues in the world can be reduced to emotional adherence to one cause or the other, each filled with an enraged righteousness that is unwilling to give any room to the narrative or case of their opponents. No wonder this conflict appears intractable. But this habitual positioning is simply not good enough. If the partisans in a conflict now nearly a century old cannot even begin to discover empathy for the other side then the war, violence and misery that infects this narrow eastern Mediterranean coastline will truly never end.

On the left, nothing triggers moral outrage more than the plight of the Palestinians at the hands of the state of Israel. Since the end of South African apartheid, no other issue of social or political justice arouses such passion, denunciation and disproportionate attention than the spectacle of the Israeli military pulverising Gaza or protecting the settler extremists in their efforts to seize more and more of the West Bank from the enfeebled grasp of the Palestinian Authority. Much of the left’s position on Israel is indeed a moral standpoint that supports an asymmetrical struggle of street resistance against overwhelming military force, particularly since the PLO ceased to be a credible military presence in the 1980s. But the left’s position is not motivated purely by liberal handwringing. Its roots lie in the ahistorical ideology of anti imperialism, a transfer of the moral turpitude of apartheid South Africa seamlessly to the state of Israel, and a far darker antipathy to a Jewish ethnic state that leans into the long and ignoble history of left wing antisemitism.

Where the left analysis, such as it is, is so inadequate is in its bending of inconvenient truths about the foundation and development of Israel into a sub-Trotskyist narrative of neo colonialism versus internationalism. It is simply untrue to characterise Israel as a neo-colonial tool of the US, which is the standard narrative of far left parties and the Stop The War Coalition: in fact American military support for Israel did not become significant until after the Six Day War in 1967, when Israel was attacked by six Arab nations committed to destroying it. Before then Israel had looked to France and Britain for support, with the USA wary of Israel as a disruptive force in the region. It is equally incorrect to describe Israel as a “European settler state”, characterising it as a projection of European land grabbing power into the Muslim world. This account demonstrates a failure to understand what European settler colonialism actually was and ignores the status of Israel as a Jewish homeland, which is its fundamental purpose. Indeed, it is impossible to understand why Israel behaves as it does without also understanding the Jewish historical experience of lethal antisemitism.

The Jewish contact with European Christian civilisation was characterised by, at best, a grudging tolerance, punctuated by occasional bursts of terrifying violence. Whether this was the burning alive of Jews in York in the twelfth century; the expulsion of Spain’s Jewish population in 1492; the vicious antisemitism of the early Reformation; the regular lethal pogroms in Eastern Europe or the culmination of anti-Jewish genocide in the Holocaust which, in a sick irony, took place in Germany, a country viewed by many Jews as an accepting refuge, the message appeared to be the same: European Christians hated Jews and frequently wanted them dead. The Holocaust, with its industrialised slaughter, removed all meaningful opposition to the establishment of a Jewish homeland: the German National Socialists had proved the Zionist case for them in the most graphic and horrendous manner. Getting away from Europe for many Jews in the late 1940s was not a matter of land grabbing or colonialism, it was a matter of survival. When the leadership of the new state of Israel said “never again”, it absolutely meant it.

Taken in an historical context, therefore, the Hamas attacks were simply a continuance of the centuries-old murderous assaults experienced by Jews in Europe. Israeli fear of physical extermination is hardly pacified by the fact that Hamas is probably the most antisemitic organisation the world has seen. Its founding charter calls not only for the eradication of the state of Israel, but seeks the physical liquidation of all Jews in Palestine and the wider Middle East. Netanyahu and his gang of nationalists and racists may have viewed Hamas as useful idiots to keep the West Bank PLO survival, Fatah, weak, but its radical Islamist ideology was always there in plain sight. The 7th October atrocities were simply the gruesome enactment of that nihilistic world view. From the Israeli perspective therefore calls for restraint when faced with an enemy as ideologically committed to the killing of Jews as the Nazis ever were, is a luxury. Does Israel care if its air and ground assault to dismantle Hamas kills thousands of civilians in the process? Not at all: from the Israeli perspective it’s them or us, the same reductive mindset as their enemies.

There is therefore an historical context to the systematic brutality of Israel’s dealings with the Palestinians, especially in Gaza. But just as its critics show little interest in the history of antisemitic persecution and death that directly led to the foundation of the Jewish homeland, so Israeli public discourse allows little or no concern for the Palestinians, a dispossessed people oppressed and murdered in their own land without even the restraint of common humanity when it comes to the inflicting of mass civilian casualties, including those of children. Whatever moral high ground Israel may have been able to claim after the psychotic Hamas attacks last month, this has been utterly undermined by its policy of collective punishment and war on non combatants. The war crimes inflicted by Israel on the people of Gaza in acts of rage and revenge have effectively put the country beyond the pale of moral acceptability. These actions infuriate international public opinion, radicalise another generation of Gazans and give succour to those who would see Israel wiped from the face of Palestine “from the river to the sea”. In this inferno of never ending grievance and hate, it is hard to find any hope. However, there is a fundamental truth that may yet, one day, see an end to this forever war. Both Palestinians and Israelis have one overwhelming urge in common: both wish to live in peace, dignity and security. If one day the two communities can rid themselves of their current calamitous leaderships, understand each other’s history and thereby glimpse the humanity of their enemies, the realisation may dawn that continued attempted mutual destruction provides no security at all.

6th November 2023

With thanks to Chris Alcock, conversations with whom have helped inform this blog

[connorthemaoist]

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A post shared by ILPS SoCal (@ilps.socal)

This past Sunday, October 8, ILPS SoCal joined over 500 individuals in Little Arabia to rally for Palestinians' right to resist. Various organizations and alliances mobilized, including @palestinianyouthmovement, BAYAN SoCal, UC Divest Coalition, and Students for Justice in Palestine.

Dubbed “Operation Al-Aqsa Flood,” the recent advancements in the Palestinian struggle for liberation are a response to over 75 years of violent Zionist occupation, denial of refugees' right to return, perpetual invasions of Al-Aqsa Mosque, and the capture and torture of thousands of Palestinian political prisoners. 

Al-Aqsa Flood has broken the facade of the invincibility of the Zionist occupation—since October 7th, settlers have fled Israel in droves, and the US-backed occupation has put its distress on display. Knowing that Palestinian liberation and the fall of the settler-colonial ethno-state are inevitable, Netanyahu has imposed a complete blockade on Gaza, cutting off food, water, and power. ​​​​​​​Over 12,000 Palestinians, including children, have been killed in the last 5 days in a desperate attempt to crush the resistance and the resolve of the people.

The US imperialist state is the number one instigator of war globally, actively working to squash liberation struggles through heightened militarization. It strives to assert its hegemony and maintain control of resources in the Middle East—​​​​​​​already, US President Biden has written a blank check to send additional billions in aid to Israel to allow the Zionist regime to continue committing genocide. 

Resistance is necessary in the Palestinian people's struggle for national liberation. The advancement of the Palestinian resistance is an advancement for revolutionary struggles across the world, striking major blows at global imperialism. We call on the international community to condemn imperialist intervention and to organize and mobilize in solidarity with the Palestinian people!

LONG LIVE INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY!

-ILPS SoCal on Instagram

[kudzucataclysm]

History leading up to the year 2005

heavily redacted btw :(

250 Ma –‘Them’ arrive and influence life on Earth.

5 BCE - Martian history begins with the Firsts.

Late 1800s – “Aliens” on Mars make contact with major earth governments; this begins a period of unprecedented scientific advancement.

November 30th 1905 – The first version of the superintelligent AI known as ‘Hammond’ is created.

1911 – First man lands on the moon. 

1915 - Lupe Altena is born.

1931 – The first instance of Martian Pneumoconiosis aka Adirondack Plague (ADP) is detected on Earth.

1937 – Lupe Altena and Hammond meet.

1943 – Carmine Keller is conscripted into the Wehrmacht at the age of 26. 5 months into his service, he is presumed KIA.

November 1945 – a comet known as Gabriel’s Arrow suddenly enters the solar system.

December 1945 – Gabriel appears in the sky on Earth. ‘Outbreaks’ of spontaneous human combustion and seemingly supernatural events occur worldwide for 6 days, and on the 7th day the Arrow leavesAround 40% of the human population at the time developed superpowers.

February 1947 –  the Yellowstone Caldera shows sudden, unusual signs of imminent eruption. The event is easily swept under the rug due to the global outbreak of superpowers.

1951 – a group of superpowered humans affected by Gabriel’s Arrow form the United Heroes Coalition overseen by the US government; world nations, especially the UN, NATO, and the Warsaw Pact sign the Stockholm Concordat, an international agreement that regulates the activities of ‘altered individuals’ to be under supervision of the UN as well as the individual’s respected government.

1952 - 1956 – Civil war on Mars occurs. The lone king, ALDEBARAN, is overthrown and eaten by 5 of his sons.

1952 – the US government publicly establishes ABIS, a form of weather modification to assist in agriculture and to potentially use in armed conflict. 

1953 – The World Stock Market collapses.

1954 – Martial Law is declared in the United States, and the US Constitution is suspended.

1957 – 1959 – Tension between Earth and Mars simmers, as it’s discovered that the Martians have been sending infiltrators to spy on earthlings for decades.

1960 – Richard Nixon wins the 1960 US presidential election. Martial Law in the US ends.

October 27th 1962 – Cuban Missile Crisis goes hot- Nixon launches airstrikes against the nuclear weapons stored in Cuba, leading to catastrophic loss of life. The USSR invades Berlin. NATO attempts to de-escalate the situation; the USSR resists all attempts at negotiation.

October 31st 1962 — Martial Law is reinstated in the US. Congress is suspended until further notice, and the military assumes control over the legislative and judicial branch.

November 30th 1962 – the USSR launches a nuclear retaliation strike against the US and Europe. The nukes detonate in the heartlands of the mainland decimating the agriculture industry. Millions die from the blasts, and nuclear detonations occur over the east coast and western Europe leading to blackouts of the electrical and ABIS grid.  The continental crust is destabilized, and the Yellowstone Supervolcano finally experiences a limited eruption, breaking open the tectonic plate under the Midwestern states.

[Collapse of the ABIS grid as well as the deaths of those who operated it irrecoverably decimates the world’s weather system.]

LUPE ALTENA, with the assistance of the USSR superhero VERONIKA, stops the caldera from completely erupting through unknown means.

The US Urban Civil War period begins months later.

1967 - 198X - The European Resettlement Program is initiated and overseen by the Sinosphere. The European diaspora results in over 200 million refugees. Europe is abandoned.

197X – Lupe Altena founds the PROMETHEAN SOCIETY.

198X – A diplomatic Martian fleet appears above Earth, offering aid and scientific knowledge in exchange for diplomatic relations and earth’s resources. The emergence of the half-Martian half-human Chimera species follows. The US Urban Civil War period ends.

August 1990 – Francis Mueller hatches from her egg. This is also the year where Gabriel’s Arrow returns.

November 30?, 1991 – Desmond Arkady is born in the shattered remains of the American Midwest.

2005- current year