#would shout FREE PALESTINE left and right

[shellshocklove]

brat two: i might say something stupid | joel miller

pairing/AU: joel miller x brat!female!reader – no outbreak

summary: joel is continuing to have a brat summer.

warnings: this is an 18+ fic so mdni! age gap, enemies to lovers vibes? swearing, use of pet names, smut, brat taming?, dom!joel, some daddy!joel, manhandling, some light bondage, a little exhibitionism? a little dacryphilia, praise, degradation (whore, slut), some sub space territory, edging, creampie, unprotected sex (don’t do it!!), no use of y/n

a/n: ok, so a part two to this!! i’m giving reader a backstory in this so if that’s not your cup of tea and prefer the reader to be a blank slate, then maybe this isn’t for you. as always i wanna give a little shout out to @dustydaddyyy for always helping me when i'm stuck! <3 i know it's demure fall soon, but there's still some brat summer left, so happy reading! 💚

main masterlist / series masterlist / ao3

from the river to the sea, palestine will be free 🇵🇸 this account stands with palestine. the creator of tlou is a zionist, and the second game is largly based on israel/palestine. please, everyone who interacts, educate yourself about the genocide happening right now, and support/donate.

Joel.

Joel. Joel. Joel.

Joel Miller.

Miller. Miller. Miller.

The cicadas rattled in the breeze coming through the window of your childhood bedroom. It was hotter than Satan’s ass crack, and sleep couldn’t pull you under. The hem seam of your ratty sleep shirt was fraying, and you couldn’t keep yourself from picking at it – pulling at the threat.

Pull, pull, pull.

Joel Miller. That was his name on the mailbox, but he’d only told you Joel. Just Joel.

Yes, sir. Please, Daddy. Bye, Joel.

With a huff you sat up, your back resting against the headboard as your eyes rolled over the darkened room. The shadows shapeshifted before your eyes like ghosts, and you wondered if you deserved to be haunted.

It hadn’t even been twenty-four hours.

You could still feel the phantom stretch of his cock inside you, and your cheeks were sore from his spanking, but it was nothing compared to your thoughts plagued by him.

God, you felt crazy, like a little girl with a school crush on the teacher.

Except, you didn’t have crushes, didn’t like, or fall in love, with anyone. People had a crush on you, people fell in love with you, people liked you.

Biting down on the soft skin of the inside of your cheek, you ripped away the thin blanket covering your bottom half as your feet touched the cold hardwood floor.

The switch on your bedside lamp clicked as the warm glow seemed to scare the ghosts away. The ratty shirt fell over your knees as you walked across the room and flung open the door. A triangle of light cut the hardwood floor in two as you made your way down the hall and stairs. The slapping of bare feet against wood echoed against the tall ceiling, and eyes followed you from the faces on the wall.

Stepping into the kitchen, you were alone. Pierre had left right after dinner, and Eva had left early with her daughter. You didn’t like to keep them longer than needed, especially on weekends. Your father would pay them the same, anyway – and it was just you here.

You hated the other house. It was no place to live, it was a place of business, for politics. You hated this house too, but for other reasons – too many memories, plastered on smiles and lies. The dentist had told you to start wearing a night guard when they divorced, but you’d stopped wearing it when you went to college.

Grabbing a glass from the cupboard, you made your way over to the fridge. Your whole body felt heavy, your head rolling off your shoulder when something caught your eye in the backyard.

It was gone.

“Shit.”

An ice cube escaped the rim of your glass and split into a thousand pieces on the tiled floor. You pulled your glass from the dispenser in the fridge, and hunkered down, ice melting between your fingers.

With a sigh you watched the splintered ice vanish, dripping in an erratic rhythm that added to the small puddle on the floor. You didn’t want to feel like this. Why were you feeling like this?

You left the glass of ice on the counter– let the ice melt on the floor and escaped through the sliding doors into the backyard. The sky was bright with light pollution over the trees, and everywhere the buzzing of cicadas filled your ears. With a sigh, you fell into one of the chairs, the cushion stiff against your back as your eyes landed on the large oak. You trailed your eyes over the branches, the one’s you’d known every crook and cranny of when you were a child.

It was gone.

The small crooked, and probably dangerous, treehouse where you’d spent so many hours hiding away as a child. Not that they ever noticed, your parents, too busy yelling at each other to see where their daughter had vanished.

Of course it was gone.

Gone, like the happy little girl you’d used to be. And what had taken her place? A party girl? A mess of a woman hiding behind the disguise of a sharp tongue?

Jesus Christ, you needed to get your shit together. Distract yourself– pull yourself away from all the feelings you couldn’t control.

Shifting uncomfortably, you fished your phone from where it had drowned in the cushions. The bright blue light burned your eyes as you scrolled, pulling you from everything real to unreality. Plastered on smiles and perfect bodies, sunny beaches, and aesthetic photos. You handed out hearts like they cost nothing, and pretended you hadn’t seen your DMs.

Still, you couldn’t shake the thought of him. The way the weight of him had felt over you, how he’d spoken, voice rough and commanding, but still playful. It was like you were guided by a puppeteer when your thumb hovered over the google search.

Joel Miller.

You didn’t know what you’d expected – Joel Miller wasn’t a one in a million name, and now you were scrolling through every Joel Miller famous enough to throne at the top of a google search. But, you weren’t going to give up that easily. You moved on to Facebook. He was old, he’d have to have one.

Bingo.

There he was. A few years younger, his hair a little messy, smiling bright. His profile was private, and you sure as hell weren’t sending him a friend request, but something inside you screamed to know more about the man you’d let come inside you less than twenty-four hours ago.

You tried to click your way through his pictures, but there was nothing to see. Next, you tried the about page: Lives in Austin, Texas (this you obviously already knew)… born September 26th… Male… Single… You felt a smile tug at the corners of your mouth, as you continued to scroll... Works for Miller Contracting… And finally, his family: Tommy Miller.

His brother’s profile needed a lesson in internet safety. This man shared everything and all for strangers to see. You flicked through photos of neighborhood cookouts, date nights with his soon to be wife, the same graduation pictures of a girl you’d seen hanging on Joel’s wall.

‘Proudest uncle in the world! Congratulations, Sarah Miller! 😄❤️ The smartest and most talented Miller! 🙌’

Your finger hovered over his daughter’s name, curiosity gnawing at your insides. Shaking your head, you clicked away. You could own up to stalking his Facebook, and his brother had basically invited you to stalk, but his daughter? It felt like crossing a line you couldn’t come back from. Back on Tommy’s profile you noticed he also worked for Miller Contracting.

A family business.

Continuing your research, you clicked through to the business’ profile. The profile looked to be run by Tommy, with frequent updates on projects they’d worked on, from renovations to outdoor landscaping, to new condos, Miller Contracting had a broad resume, but the contact person was set to one Joel Miller.

A thought tickled at the back of your brain then, and your gaze flicked from your phone to the low-lit backyard. A smile you couldn’t fight back pulled at your lips.

The sun beat down on the men as they worked. A bright yellow dot in the clear blue sky. From your bedroom window you watched them, how they’d turned the previous green patch of grass into a deep moldy hole.

Convincing your father had been easy enough; he’d shrugged, and given his default answer to pretty much any request you had, which was a bored ‘Yes, sweetie.’ For years now, the rule of thumb with your dad had been: as long as you didn’t bother him and his busy schedule, he didn’t care what you did. 

Well, that wasn’t entirely true. As long as nothing you did reflected badly on him, and especially on the carefully curated image of ‘loving family man’ his constituents seemed to love so much, he didn’t care. The Governor of Texas couldn’t have his daughter’s bad decisions cost him votes, after all.

Your mother had always said it, always complained over her extra dry martinis, that your father only cared about one thing in his life, and it wasn’t his family. Your face soured as you thought about it. 

Votes. 

Your mother hadn’t been right about a lot of things in your life, but she had been right about this. Votes, and power. That’s all he’d ever cared about. It had been like that ever since you were a child, and over time, you’d learned to exploit that fact like you would a weakness, holding it as leverage over his head if he ever told you no, which he naturally never did. The agreement was silent, but clear as day; as long as you got your way, you would cater to his image, and behave. 

And you did; showed up when needed with a smile that hurt your cheeks, kept up his image, and in turn you got your way.

The swimming pool was just another ask in a long line of wishes. He’d questioned you at first, ‘You want to build a pool in the middle of summer?’ The pool you didn’t care for, it was the men who’d build it. You’d given your father your look, the one where you tipped your head down slightly, bit your bottom lip and looked at him with doe-y eyes. He’d had a landscape architect draw up something for you by the end of the week, and by Monday he’d had the city approve the changes to the premises. He’d given you a rise of his eyebrow when you’d pitched the contractors you wanted for the job, but nevertheless, he’d put his assistant on the job right away.

They’d arrived bright and early this morning, their shouts over loud machines pulling you from your slumber. You’d pulled your pillow over your head, dying to catch some more Z’s, it was summer break after all, but the pull of seeing him again was too strong. The excitement bubbled in your chest, and a satisfied grin spread across your face when you’d realized your plan had worked.

Joel Miller was in your backyard, standing under the oak tree with his hands on his hip, as he carefully watched over his crew. His work clothes fit him just as well as the t-shirt and jeans he’d worn at the club, but he looked less polished– his hair messier with a carpenter’s pencil tucked behind his hair. Your eyes trailed over him from where you watched from the house, how he moved about the site, helped his men when needed, evaluating every step, studying the drawings carefully as he ordered his men around with the same authority you’d come to know him for after the night you’d spent together.

If all of this went well, you’d have him again.

“Looking good, guys! But it’s a bit loud,” you shouted over the excavator, one arm raised to shade your eyes from the sun from where you stood at the edge of the veranda.

You watched how the men milled about, squinting up from their work at you. Their gazes lingered over your body, they weren’t subtle about it, and the little outfit you’d thrown together seemed to do its job, a short summer skirt with a matching top– it was hot out in the Texan sun, and you wanted to make it hotter.

“We’ve been disturbin’ your beauty sleep, princess?” One of the men spoke up, and your eyes narrowed at his use of the pet name. His grin was too confident, hiding his laugh between his teeth. You set your eyes on him and gave him a pitying look.

“Yes, actually! It’s hard work looking this good, but you wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?” you snapped back. A sound of snickering laughs from the men at their coworker’s expense could be heard through the yard, and you felt a saccharine smile cover your face.

“So, who’s in charge of all this noise anyway?” you asked, voice bored, when the laughter had died.

“You gotta take that up with Miller,” another one of the men replied, your first victim quickly forced into silence.

“And who’s that?”

The man nodded his head in the direction of the man you’d weaved into your web. He didn’t look impressed where he stood under the shade of the oak tree watching you. He had his arms crossed over his broad chest, the fabric stretching around his biceps, as he shook his head at you as you walked closer.

“Mr. Miller.” You couldn’t help the pleased smile spreading across your face.

Clasping your hands loosely behind your back as you pushed your chest out innocently, you slowly stepped closer, his jaw clenching tighter with each of your careful steps through the grass.

“We’ll try ‘nd keep the noise down f’ya until nine am, Miss, but after that we’ll need to use our bigger tools if ya want this done before the summer ends.” He kept his voice steady and professional, his southern drawl like soft silk in your ears. His eyes never left your face once, even with the deep neckline of your top.

Standing a little too close to him, to be considered appropriate for someone who you’d just met, your teeth caught on your bottom lip coquettishly. “Oh, I want you to use your big tool that’s for sure.” It sounded ridiculous, and you had to bite down harder to keep from bursting out laughing.

Joel didn’t seem to think it was funny. Something flickered in his gaze, before it hardened, eyes boring into yours as he asked you through his teeth, “Whatchu think your doin’, huh?”

You shrugged playfully with an exaggerated sigh, “I don’t know, Mr. Miller, isn’t it obvious?”

“Oh, ‘s obvious alright.” He shook his head in disbelief, and looked away for a beat, before his eyes found yours again.

“It’s so hot out this summer,” you continued your jest with a hooked finger along the hem of your shirt, tugging at it, “I just wanted something to cool down.”

He narrowed his eyes at you, “‘m sure you did.”

Continuing your game, you widened your eyes in an attempt at feigning innocence, “But I don’t mind breaking a sweat if need be.”

“’nd how do you like to break a sweat, princess?” he asked, putting pressure on the nick name his men had given you.

“Oh, I think you already know that, Mr. Miller.”

Joel’s eyes hardened as the flirty words fell from your lips. Shifting his weight from one leg to the other he raised a finger at you. “Listen’ up, brat,” he told you in a lowered voice, “Ain’t nothin’ more happenin’ between us, you understand? It’s inappropriate– you’re my employer and I don’t do that shit.”

It was almost too easy. Biting back a smile, your thoughts wandered back to the last time you’d had him like this; riled up, and willing to put you in your place. A slick wetness coated the gusset of your panties, already, at the thought.

“I understand, Daddy.”

With a sigh Joel turned away from you with a shake of his head, muttering under his breath, “You’re ridiculous.” 

You were, he was right. But it was so fun. 

A smirk tugged at your lips when he turned back to look at you. He wanted to say something, you could see it in the way he shifted his weight from one foot to the other, his hands fidgeting on his hip, but he changed his mind as he shook his head again. 

Victory had never tasted so sweet.

All week you’d played a game of cat and mouse with Joel. One day you’d ignored him completely as you flirted with the crew, exaggerating your laugh at jokes that weren’t even close to being funny, and touching too many sweaty biceps to count. Then the next you never left him alone, buzzing like a mosquito in his ear asking all kinds of silly questions, slipping in an innuendo or two, and teasing him for a reaction other than an annoyed grunt.

He’d have to break at some point. You could see it in his eyes. He might play the annoyance up, but there was a softness to the way he looked at you. It was there– you weren’t making that up!

The sound of the juicer buzzed in your ear as you chewed on your lip. Your hand rested lazily on the kitchen counter as you stole glances out the window as you waited. Pierre was quiet as he worked, only throwing a curious glance your way every once in a while, as he mixed together the jug of lemonade you’d requested.

The day had scorched since early morning, and you’d had no choice but to throw on your skimpiest bikini. A smile tugged at the corner of your mouth at the thought – well, there was more appropriate outfits for this heat, but you didn’t want that.

What you wanted, was to get your brains fucked out.

You’d played all your cards right, but nothing had seemed to make Joel simmer over with a need to put you in your place again. In the need for a new plan, you hoped showing off your body to all his men while serving them a nice cold glass of lemonade would do the trick, hoping he’d get jealous. The pool had already started to take shape, and your time was starting to run out.

“Here you go, ma belle,” Pierre slid a newly filled jug of ice-cold lemonade down towards you over the marble, “let me know if you need anything else, yes?”

Nodding your head in gratitude, you lifted the jug onto the tray you’d prepared, “Merci, Pierre.”

Slipping carefully through the sliding doors you made your way across the veranda to place the tray on the outdoor dining table. The tray was heavy, and you moved fast to make sure you didn’t spill the lemonade all over yourself.

“HEY BOYS!” you shouted over the sound of the heavy machinery, waving a lazy hand at them, beckoning them closer like a siren. “I hope you’re thirsty,” you laughed.

A low whistle could be heard as they came closer. Eyes lingering on your skin, trailing over your body as they gathered around the table, helping themselves to the citrus-y delight.

“If this ain’t the sweetest thing I think a client has ever done for us,” Tommy smiled as he helped himself to a glass, “You mind if I take a picture of this setup? To post on our Facebook page.”

You shook your head, “Take as many pictures as you like,” you told him, but your eyes wandered.

Joel had hung back, walking slower behind the rest of his crew, and was finally walking up the couple steps to the veranda. His work boots echoed over the planks as he walked closer. He didn’t seem happy as he locked eyes with you, his eyes quickly rolling over your almost naked body.

Taking advantage of the opportunity, you poured him a glass; the ice cubes splashing as you poured, cold drops splashing and coating the skin of your exposed chest. Joel pretended he didn’t notice, but you saw the way he looked at you. You’d seen that look so many times, eyes hungry and desperate for something they knew they couldn’t have, shouldn’t have. The only difference this time was that you’d let Joel do whatever he wanted to you.

“Here, Mr. Miller–”

Your voice was cut off by the sound of a phone ringing at the loudest volume. The suddenness of the sound made you jump, spilling the glass of Joel’s lemonade all down your hand and chest.

“Yellow,” you heard Tommy shout into his phone.

“Oh, oops,” you said, your voice laced in an innocent laugh. Drops of sticky lemonade ran down your body, darkening the fabric of your bikini, and making your skin shine with wetness under the Austin sun.

Looking up from your body at Joel, your teeth caught on your bottom lip at the way his jaw clenched, his eyes running down your body like they were drops of lemonade. You laughed again, sugary sweet as you made a show of placing the glass on the table, spreading your arms like you didn’t know what to do.

“Y’need to be more careful, sweetheart,” Joel mumbled as he fumbled for some napkins from your tray.

You shook your head at him when he handed them to you, instead you ran a finger up your chest, catching the drops and sucking the cool drink from your fingers, slowly, licking up every drop. It was bold, and you couldn’t contain your giggle when Joel’s eyes widened at you. It was quick, the wave of shock at how blatantly you’d flirt with him like this, before it crashed into the shore with a stern look. The other men had to be looking too, you could feel the way their eyes burned your skin, but you only cared about one man’s warm eyes on your body.

“That was so clumsy of me,” you giggled, the laugh forced and too sweet, but it didn’t matter, Joel didn’t buy it either way.

“’m sorry ‘bout that,” Tommy’s voice boomed, as he hung up the phone, “It was the missus– or soon to be missus.”

“Oh, you’re getting married?” you queried, the lemonade soaking you forgotten now that the moment had been ruined. Beside you, Joel picked up the glass you’d tried to hand him, drying the sides with the superfluous napkins.

“Yes, ma’am,” Tommy beamed, “tyin’ the knot this Saturday in fact.”

“Oh, that’s wonderful,” you smiled, an idea popping up in the back of your head, “Congratulations!”

“Thank you, thank you,” he beamed, taking a big gulp of the lemonade.

“So…” You stepped closer to Tommy, leaning your hand against the table. Joel’s eyes followed you, you could feel it, so you sneakily popped your hips out, giving him a nice view of your ass. “What’s the plan? Big church wedding?”

Tommy laughed, “Don’t know ‘bout big– we’re doin’ one of those barn weddings, you know? Out on a ranch and everythin’, they got it all on those big ranches nowadays.”

“Really?” you smiled, “Which ranch?”

“Oh, it ain’t far! Only ‘bout a fifteen-twenty minutes’ drive from downtown. Pecan Grove Ranch it’s called. They even got these nice cabins on site, for accommodation– which is nice for close family and those who’ve traveled far. You know, Maria’s family ain’t from Texas, so we got lots of folks flyin’ in.”

“Is that her name? Maria?” you asked. The way Tommy’s face lit up when you mentioned her name made your heart squeeze.

“Yeah,” he nodded, “love of my life she is!”

“I need to talk to you.” Joel cut your conversation off while his hand snaked its way around your upper arm, tugging you lightly towards him. When you turned your head to look at him, one eyebrow raised, his face shifted into a deep frown. “’s ‘bout the tiles,” he grumbled.

A smile tugged at the corners of your mouth. Finally.

You excused yourself to Tommy, and let Joel drag you with him. Throwing your head back you watched how the rest of the crew enjoyed their small break in the shade sipping on Pierre’s lemonade.

Joel crossed the yard in big steps, making a beeline for the shed tucked away in the back corner of the yard. He pulled at the door harshly, like it couldn’t happen fast enough, and pushed you inside. The door to the shed slammed shut behind him and covered you both in a cool darkness. Your eyes relaxed as you adjusted from the bright daylight to the dim lighting – the only light coming through a small window almost completely overgrown with climbing vines. Joel’s grip around your arm loosened as he pushed you deeper inside.

Taking small steps, you looked around, eyes scanning over the room as a thought of how you couldn’t remember the last time you’d stepped a foot inside the shed crossed your mind. It was hidden away in the corner of the garden, overgrown in a tasteful way, like how you’d see in garden magazines. These days the only person who used it was the gardener, if the miscellaneous tools and garden machines were to be believed.

“Put your hands on the table,” Joel ordered, his voice a low hum.

Outside you could still hear the shouts of his men, laughter, as they lounged about on their break. Every one of his men had seen you step into the shed together, and the thought sent an electric bubbling feeling straight to your cunt.

“Y'got cotton in those ears, girl? Put your hands on the table.”

A shiver traveled through your body, and you had to bite down on your lip to hold back your smile. Finally, finally, finally. With your back turned to him, you shook your head slowly, daring him to put you in your place again.

And Joel took the bait.

His rough hand slid over your waist as he stepped closer. He let it glide across your exposed skin, the dried lemonade sticky as he teased you. His rough hand slid upwards, hooking a finger under your bikini strap, slowly, pulling at it before he unhooked it, letting it fall to the concrete floor.

“Aren’t you gonna behave, princess?” he spat out the new nickname. “Didn’t I teach ya last time what happens when you ain’t a good girl f’me?” The low bass of his voice ghosted over your ear and had your blood buzzing under your skin.

His rough hands continued to explore you, gentle touches over your skin, getting you worked up, but never where you wanted his hands the most. When he pressed himself against you, letting you feel the hard shape of him through his work pants, you let your head fall against his shoulder with a content sigh.

“No, Daddy,” you shook your head.

Joel couldn’t hold back his groan at that word. The gentle hands who’d explored your body, tightened across your chest, pressing you tight into his chest as he bucked his hips harshly into your ass.

“I think I did,” he spoke into your ear, “broke that pretty brain on my cock, didn’t I, and now that greedy cunt wants more, ain’t that right? Can’t get enough of this big cock?”

A breathy gasp escaped you when he bucked his hips against you again, and you shook your head.

“That’s what I thought.”

The speed at which he moved almost gave you a whiplash. He pushed you against the table along the wall, your hands coming down to brace yourself as he pressed your chest down and put your ass, covered only by your skimpy bikini bottoms, on display for him.

“Such a slut for cock she can’t be a big girl and ask for it– no, princess, you’re so desperate for it, you make me come all the way to your rich daddy’s house, bring my crew and everythin’ just so I’ll fuck you again.”

Joel laughed and you couldn’t help but squeeze your thighs together. “That’s ‘nother level of desperate, ain’t it?”

You felt a heat spread across your face at his degradation, but it just turned you on more, and Joel knew it. He trailed a finger down between your cheeks, pressing down to feel how you’d soiled your bikini bottoms in your arousal.

“But that’s just what you are, aren’t you? A desperate whore dyin’ to get fucked?”

The hand between your legs vanished, and you braced yourself for a spanking, holding your breath as the excitement grew, but the slap of his rough hand never came. Instead, he unhooked a rope off the peg board in front of you.

You resisted a little when he grabbed your hands, slipping your hands from his grip playfully, your face turned to watch how his face grew sterner. The tired, disappointed sigh it earned you made you smile.

Gripping both your hands tightly, he crossed one wrist over the other before he tied them together at the small of your back, and you let it happen. Under your skin, the anticipation buzzed. With nothing to help you brace yourself, the hard surface of the table pressed harshly against your naked skin.

“Hey,” Joel’s voice was suddenly gentle as he cupped your face and turned you to face him, “you remember our rules?”

A small ache stung in your heart. Our.

You nodded, “I say ‘red’ or pinch you if I want you to stop.”

A pleased grin spread across his face as he tapped at your cheek gently, “That’s a good girl, baby.”

His hand slid down your body, from your face down your neck, from your neck over your shoulder, and then from your shoulder down your naked back. “How’s this?” he asked, hooking a finger under the rope, “Not too tight?”

You shook your head, or tried to, with the way your cheek was mushed against the table.

“Words, princess, need to hear ya say it f’me.”

The softness in his voice when the pet name left his lips, made a fluttering feeling bubble in your core, and it was hard to fight the grin from pulling at your lips.

“Am I your princess now?” you asked with fluttering eyelashes, “I thought I was your desperate slut?”

Behind you, you could hear Joel let out a deep sigh. A finger traced small circles over your ass, making goosebumps blossom over your skin, before it hooked into the band of your bikini bottoms, tugging them slowly down and exposing your wet cunt to him.

“You know,” Joel sighed again, pausing to let the sound of his fly being undone fill the space between you. You almost moaned at the sound, pushing your ass out, desperate for any kind of friction. “I was plannin’ on bein’ nice t’you, but now…”

The blunt head of him pressed against you, running it up and down your cunt, coating it in your slick arousal, and you almost held your breath. The anticipation like a fist around your chest. Your heart drummed in your chest, almost drowning out the wet slick sound between your legs.

“I don’t want you to be nice,” you almost whispered, your fist tightening around each other at the small of your back.

“I know, princess…” he whispered back, and pushed at your opening, “I know.”

He was too big, the girth of him splitting you in two on his cock. It burned deliciously, and you savored every inch he gave you until he was fully seated inside you. Only then were you able to whimper out a moan, your breath finally released.

His hands gripped your wrists like a handlebar, something to hold on to, something to guide you back and forth on his cock. He pushed himself even deeper, releasing a deep groan in your ear as he leaned over you, the weight of him heavenly as he made room for himself inside you, his heavy balls pressed against you.

This was what you’d wanted. Just to feel him again like this.

“Shit…” you sighed, eyes almost rolling back into your head.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” he whispered in your ear, “get a cock in you, and you turn into a good girl f’me.”

You wanted to push back, to give him something to prove him wrong, but you had nothing.

“Please,” you whispered, your eyes squeezed shut tightly.

“Please what, princess?” You could hear the smile in Joel’s low rumbling voice.

“Fuck me, sir,” you pleaded, “Fuck me, Daddy, please.”

“Oh, now she’s askin’ nice.” Joel pulled back and thrusted back inside in one hard thrust, pushing your body against the table, a line surely indented in your skin by now.

A whimper fell from your lips.

Joel started fucking you slowly, but hard, the table rattling with each thrust, one hand wrapped around your wrists to keep his balance. Under him you couldn’t fight back your moans, small content squeaks escaping you when he pressed himself firmly against your ass, burying his cock deeply inside you with every thrust.

“That’s it, slut, that’s a good girl,” Joel praised over you, “takin’ that cock so well, princess.”

The world started blurring around the edges with each thrust, a soft, warm feeling wrapping itself around your heart as he thrusted inside you. You were dying to touch your clit. His cock reached so far, pressing perfectly against your g-spot with each push. You were so close. If you could just touch your clit.

“P-please,” you mumbled lowly, your face scrunched tight as you clenched around his cock.

Joel grunted behind you and stepped away. You could almost cry, and maybe you did because rough pads ran over your cheek as he shushed you.

“No-no-no, it’s okay baby,” he mumbled, “calm down.”

“Please,” you tried again. Please let me come.

“I need you to do somethin’ f’me,” he told you as he guided his cock back to your ruined entrance, slick with want.

“I’ll do anything you ask,” you hurried.

“Anythin’?” Joel rubbed his cock up and down your slit as a slick sound filled the air.

“Anything.”

Behind you, Joel laughed, and pushed inside you again, making a big smile spread across your face.

“Alright, princess,” he said with a hard thrust, “what you’re gonna do f’me is when you feel like you’re close, you’re gonna tell me, tell your Daddy, alright?”

You nodded into the wood, head almost delirious with want, “Okay.”

“You wanna feel my cum inside you, don’t cha, want me to fill y’up to the brim?” His voice was so soft, almost soothing, as he fucked you hard.

“Please, Daddy, want you to come inside me, please.”

A grumbling laugh escaped Joel as he continued his harsh thrust – your skin clap clap clapping together as he hauled you towards the edge of your orgasm. It built deep in your core, coiling in on itself as he brought you closer and closer and closer.

“Joel,” you gasped, “I’m gonna come.”

Quickly, and without warning, Joel pulled out, leaving you trembling, and on the edge.

“No, you ain’t,” he told you sternly, “you’re gonna hold it.”

A rough hand smoothed over your right ass cheek, small taps to your skin reprimanding you as he rubbed his cock over the other, soiling you in your own desperation.

You felt like you were heaving for breath underneath him, eyes squeezed tight as you tried to stave it off.

“That’s it,” he praised, “that’s a good girl. Hold that orgasm f’me.”

Focusing on the way his hand rubbed over your skin, you tried to calm down and steady your breathing. It could’ve taken a minute or an hour, you didn’t know, but the feeling of falling over the edge of bliss fizzled out slowly. Joel leaned over your body, whispering praises into your ear, telling you how good you were for him. When you’d calmed down completely, you lifted your head to look at him, to catch his eyes.

Blown out and big, the warmth of them looked back, a deepness to get lost in. A small smiled tugged at his lips before he leaned down and peppered a soft kiss to your shoulder. It lasted only a second, but it made fluttering wings expand in your tummy.

When he pushed inside you again, your tied hands reached for his. His thrust came quicker than before, sloppier, as he chased his own high, his hand interlaced with yours.

“God fuckin’ slut,” he rambled.

“Takin’ that cock so fuckin’ good.”

“I’m gonna fuckin’ come– gonna fill that cunt up.”

With a hard slam of his hips against your ass, pushing himself as deep as he could, Joel came inside you with a deep grunt. “That’s it– take all that fuckin’ cum inside.” A warmth filled you from the inside as his cock twitch inside you, coating your walls in thick spurts of his cum.

“Good fuckin’ girl,” he mumbled, as he thrusted his cum back inside you, making sure he’d emptied himself completely before pulling out, sliding his softening cock from your denied cunt.

“Joel,” you whispered, but he didn’t hear you, too busy with tucking himself back into his work pants, and pulling up your bikini bottoms, soiling them in his cum starting to leak out of you.

“What about me?” you asked, confused, as he undid the rope around your wrists.

“What ‘bout you?” he repeated, helping you up and turning you to face him.

A chuckle rumbled in his chest as he took in your disappointed face, a large hand coming up to cup your chin. “What?” he teased, “don’t like your punishment?” He padded your cheek and pulled away, picking up your bikini top from the floor.

“’f you’re gonna act like a fuckin’ brat– havin’ your daddy hire me to have an excuse for seein’ me again, when you could’ve just called, then you’re gonna get treated like a brat, you understand? You gotta earn your orgasm, and you ain’t earned yourself nothin’ prancing around half naked in your garden while I’m trying to work, princess.” 

With that, Joel threw you your bikini top, and you barely managed to catch it between your fingers before you watched him walk out the shed, leaving you half naked, as his cum leaked down the inside of your leg.

part three -> here!

hopefully this was okay? please let me know what you thought of the new part! a comment telling me your favorite part is always welcome, and my ask box is always open to chat <3 and thank you for reading!!

© shellshocklove, 2024 i do not give any permission to repost, translate, feed to AI or redistribute any of my writing, with or without credit!

[brainscrems]

Making a little pinned post for goyim who stumble across this blog. Nothing in your background, none of your experiences with marginalization, nothing at all makes you exempt from having internalized antisemitism. The best thing you can do is seek out a wide range of all jewish voices with no preconceived notions, hear how different things affect their lives and oppression, and take that into account about what you say and do. Next thing to address. Antisemitism from the left DOES exist and it IS in your movements for palestinian liberation, as ugly a truth as that is. I support a free palestine and an end to genocide. So, when I showed up to my first protest and saw a displayed swastika with hundreds of people around, I was extremely dismayed that not a single one was willing to stand up and say a goddamned thing. This is the state of antisemitism on the left. Most people won’t *openly* spout hateful rhetoric, tho those who will are quite loud. The real problem is that there is no collective willingness to go after the open antisemites in these movements. It’s deemed acceptable because it’s for a good cause. And let me tell you, this shit is quite typical and we jews see it constantly. Just because you aren’t seeing antisemitism doesn’t mean it’s not there. Of course you aren’t seeing it. You’re not jewish. You don’t have the background to notice shit that you’ve been taught is normal and fine. Yet, your silence in the face of these things or even your engagement in them still hurts us. And. You know what they say. If nazi joins 4 people at a table and they do nothing about it you have 5 nazis. So. What can you do? Seek out jewish voices and LEARN!! Don’t tokenize us. Don’t choose ones you already agree with. The first resource I recommend for dealing w antisemitism in leftist spaces is called “The Past Didn’t Go Anywhere” by April Rosenblum. This is a jew with a long history of palestinian advocacy and she has done a great job at breaking down where antisemitism happens. Link at the bottom. It was written in 2007 and remains depressingly relevant today. This pamphlet is 24 pages, a bit long, but very thorough. This pamphlet is the barebones details of what’s antisemitic btw. The things listed in there are basic “nearly every jew in the world” would agree things. There is more than just what is contained in there that’s antisemitic and your best resource is gonna be listening to jewish voices. No tokenizing. No dismissing. Just listening and seeing what makes sense. That said, this shit is essential reading because it gives you the tools to start making spaces safe for jews. If you don’t care about that then, well, you probably don’t belong on this blog.

EDIT: In an ideal world I would like a binational one-state solution with a right of return for jews and palestinians as well as massive reparations for palestinians. I don’t identify as a zionist. And. I know jews who identify as zionists who want the exact same things I do. If your rhetoric is calling for violence against those people you can fuck right off. Zionist is a jewish word that has been appropriated by goyim, both by christian “zionists” and those who wish to discredit jews wanting to live peacefully with palestinians in our shared homeland. It means whatever the jew using it says it does in the context of their speech. The people who support the ethnic cleansing and genocide of palestinians or the treatment of palestinians as second class citizens are called kahanists and racist assholes, not zionists. Stop misusing our fucking word. Learn what the word means from actual members of our community instead of shouting about it as a fucking outsider and appropriating a term with deep community roots. Yea, Israel has committed so many war crimes and is currently committing genocide. This is not what zionism represents to most zionists so if you’re pushing that narrative just fucking do better and stop putting jewish lives at risk with your irresponsible rhetoric. I once again redirect you to the linked pamphlet. This is not a heavily focused on topic in it, but it gives clear instructions on what not to do, even if it doesn’t give you all the details on the why.

[beardedmrbean]

I bet the last thing Bernie Sanders expected upon his arrival in Ireland and Britain was to be met by angry protesters—to find himself heckled and damned as a sellout by the kind of radicals who would have been shouting his praises just six months ago. And yet that is what happened: Some of Britain's Bernie Bros have morphed into Bernie bashers.

Why? Because he refuses to describe Israel's war on Hamas as a "genocide" and he doesn't approve of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement against Israel.

Quick—cast him out. Unperson him. He has ventured outside the parameters of acceptable Left-wing thought and must be punished.

It all kicked off in Dublin. Senator Sanders, who is on these isles to promote his book, Why It's OK To Be Angry About Capitalism, was speaking at University College Dublin. A group of pro-Palestine protesters assembled at the entrance to the venue, all wearing the uniform of the virtuous: a keffiyeh. "It's OK to be angry about capitalism, what about Zionism?" they chanted.

It got heated inside, too. Sanders was interrupted by audience members. "Resistance is an obligation in the face of occupation!" one shouted. "Occupation is terrorism!" yelled another.

Sanders kept his cool with his reply: "Good slogan, but slogans are not solutions," he said.

It continued at Trinity College the next day. Sanders was in conversation with the Irish journalist Fintan O'Toole. Outside, a small but noisy gaggle of anti-Israel agitators displayed a banner that said: "Boycott Apartheid Israel."

"Free Palestine!" they chanted. (Deliciously, a woman who was queuing for the Sanders event bellowed "from Hamas!" every time they said it.)

Again, Sanders was heckled by hotheads. "Ceasefire now!" they shouted. At one point, in the words of Trinity News, Sanders "threw up his right arm in frustration and looked at O'Toole, as if to ask him what would be done."

It is little wonder he felt frustrated. Sanders was there to talk about capitalism, yet angry youths kept badgering him about Zionism. He is used to a fawning response from Socialist twentysomethings, and yet now some were effectively accusing him of being complicit in a "genocide." It's quite the downfall for one of the West's best-known leftists.

The turn on Bernie is underpinned by a belief that he is too soft on Israel. The radical Left will never forgive him for initially supporting Israel's war on Hamas. Even his more recent position—he now says there should be a ceasefire—is not good enough for these people, who seem to measure an individual's moral worth by how much he hates the Jewish State.

They want Bernie to say the G-word. They want him to damn Israel as uniquely barbarous. They want him to agree with them that it is right and proper to single Israel out for boycotts and sanctions.

In short, they want him to fall into line. They want him to bend the knee to their Israelophobic ideology.

These illiberal demands on Bernie to bow down to correct-think continued when he arrived in the U.K. A group of communists protested against him in Liverpool. Normally, Sanders would have been shown only love in a historically radical city like Liverpool, said the Liverpool Echo, but this time, "the atmosphere was different," for one simple reason: "his refusal to brand Israel's actions in Gaza as 'genocide'."

Sanders' resistance of the G-word haunted him in his media interviews, too. Ash Sarkar of Novara Media, a key outlet of Britain's bourgeois Left, asked him three times if he would call Israel's war on Hamas a "genocide." He refused and it went viral. Armies of ersrtwhile Bernie fans damned him as a "genocide denier."

There is something quite nauseating in this spectacle of an elderly Jewish man being pressured to denounce the world's only Jewish State as genocidal. Millennial Gentiles who want to trend online might be happy to throw around the G-word. But Senator Sanders, who lost family in the Holocaust, clearly has a deeper moral and historical understanding of what genocide is. And it seems he is not willing to sacrifice that understanding at the altar of retweets or an easy ride.

Good for him.

Sanders' father was born in Poland, where most of his family were exterminated by the Nazis. Sanders is a son of the Shoah, a descendant of survivors of the greatest crime in history. To subject him to the modern equivalent of a showtrial in which you demand that he scream "Genocide!" at Israel feels unconscionable. As does branding him a "genocide denier."

Why won't he call Israel's war on Hamas a "genocide"? Maybe, says a writer for the Jewish Chronicle, it's because he lost so much of his family to Hitler's gas chambers and therefore he "knows what a genocide is, what a war crime is." He knows that while the war in Gaza, a war started by Hamas, is "horrible," to use his word, it cannot in any way be compared to the Nazis' conscious efforts to vaporize an entire ethnic group.

There has been a Inquisition vibe to some of the Bernie-bashing in Britain. At times it has felt cruel. The sight of fashionable, privileged Israel-bashers haranguing a man who will have heard stories from his own father about the genocidal mania of the Nazis has come across like Jew-taunting rather than political critique.

More broadly, this unseemly episode gives us a glimpse into the authoritarian impulses behind the Left's obsessive opposition to Israel. Israelophobia, it seems, is less a rational political stance than a borderline religious conviction. There are true believers, who dutifully repeat the G-word like a mantra, and sinful outliers, who refuse to treat Israel as uniquely "problematic."

One's moral fitness for radical society is increasingly judged by one's willingness to treat Israel as the most wicked nation in existence. The dangers of making hostility to the Jewish State a requirement of being a Good Leftist should be clear to everyone.

Sanders is wise to resist this tyrannical zeitgeist, and to say what he believes rather than what he believes will be popular.

Brendan O'Neill is the chief political writer of spiked. His new book, A Heretic's Manifesto: Essays on the Unsayable, is available now.

The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.

[flowersinthegrocerystore]

I think that one of the greatest things I've seen over the past 100 or so days, when I first started putting up posters, is community. For context: I've been stickering/chalking my town every weekend for weeks now, raising awareness about Palestine.

The first time I did it, it was rainy out, and I was writing on the pavement. People came up to me a lot and asked what I was doing. When I told them what I was writing, that one half of Gaza were children, they'd walk away. Then this couple came up, and started telling me that what Israel was doing "wasn't a genocide" and that it had a "right to defend itself". They were going on and on about it when another man passed by.

He had an accent and asked if the couple was bothering me. They started insisting that no, we were just talking, but when they left, I saw the man and the couple shouting, the man talking on my behalf. He offered to walk me home, and while I declined, I thanked him, told him he was a good man, and he told me that I had to "believe what I wanted to believe". I agreed.

As time went on, people would smile at me more and more.

An old man with white hair told me that I was doing the right thing.

A Middle Eastern man said "thank you, sister", as he passed by.

A runner in her twenties shouted "Free Palestine" when she passed and smiled when I shouted it back. She told me my signs were amazing.

My favorite was a little girl, about 8 years old by the looks of it, who ran up to me while I was putting up signs. She thanked me for what I was doing and told me we were going to pray for Palestine. I thanked her and told her she made my day. I don't think she saw the tears in my eyes when I turned around.

Anyway, what I'm saying is that this fight is universal. The people that you would least expect are all around you. I don't know how to describe it, but there's a community, a sense of spirit in these people that I've never seen in my town before.

I think that makes a difference. A small one, but still. A difference.

[maplewoodstreet]

The Pro-Palestine Self-Immolation of Aaron Bushnell

CONTENT WARNING: extreme, self-inflicted violence

Self-immolation is an extreme and brutal form of protest in which the protester purposefully sets themselves on fire. The act is excruciatingly painful and can result in death.

The Self-Immolation Protest Event

On 25 February 2024 at around 1 p.m., a 25-year-old active US Air Force serviceman named Aaron Bushnell dressed in military fatigues doused himself in flammable liquid and lit himself on fire outside the Embassy of Israel in Washington, DC. This act of self-immolation was done to protest Israel's genocide of Palestinians.

Before the event, Aaron Bushnell had emailed several left-wing news outlets saying he will "engage in an extreme act of protest against the genocide of the Palestinian people". He also posted on Facebook a Twitch link with this caption: "Many of us like to ask ourselves, 'What would I do if I was alive during slavery? Or the Jim Crow South? Or apartheid? What would I do if my country was committing genocide?' The answer is, you’re doing it. Right now."

As he was livestreaming the event on Twitch outside the Embassy, he said, "I am an active duty member of the United States Air Force. And I will no longer be complicit to genocide. I am about to engage in an extreme act of protest. But compared to what people have been experiencing in Palestine at the hands of their colonizers—it's not extreme at all. This is what our ruling class has decided will be normal." After lighting himself on fire, he repeatedly shouted "Free Palestine!" until he collapsed.

Meanwhile, a police officer aimed his gun at the man as he was on fire. Another policeman said, "I don't need guns, I need fire extinguishers!"

From ignition to extinguishing, Bushnell was burning for approximately 90 seconds. After fire extinguishers were used, Aaron was transported to the hospital and at 10:06 p.m. was pronounced dead.

A censored version of the video can be found on Twitter.

This is the second pro-Palestine self-immolation performed by US citizens. The first was by an unknown woman performed outside the Israeli Consulate in Atlanta, Georgia on 1 December 2023.

Reactions to the Protest

An unofficial group of White House administration staffers created a statement calling for a permanent ceasefire and criticizing President Biden for not using his power to prevent Israel from committing genocide.

Bernie Sanders responded to the self-immolation saying, "It's obviously a terrible tragedy, but I think it speaks to the depths of despair that so many people are feeling now about the horrific humanitarian disaster taking place in Gaza, and I share those deep concerns. Children are starving. People are dying—29,000 Palestinians have died, two-thirds of them women and children. The United States has got to stand up to Netanyahu and make sure this does not continue. We are increasingly isolated. The international community understands that what Netanyahu is doing is a humanitarian disaster. It is a horror, and we continue to be one of the very few countries in the world that stand by Israel, and I think that is a terrible, terrible mistake. And as you may know, I'm doing everything I can to make sure that the United States government does not send another nickel to Netanyahu to continue this terrible war." Despite outcry from his followers, Bernie Sanders still has not supported a ceasefire.

Green Party Presidential Candidate Dr. Jill Stein responded by saying, "May his sacrifice deepen our commitment to stop genocide now."

News outlets like FOX News, USA Today, Reuters, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and CNN neglected to include the reason for the self-immolation in their headlines.

There have been vigils held throughout the United States. A vigil in New York City had NYPD officers with riot helmets and batons ready one hour before the vigil started.

There is speculation that Aaron Bushnell may have been a closeted transgender woman and used the name Lilly. Aaron's Twitch username was LillyAnarKitty. The "AnarKitty" could also be a play on words for "anarchy". The profile picture for this account was of the Anarchy symbol.

Various Internet User Reactions:

The Most American Thing That Has Ever Happened by Caitlin Johnstone

BabyHilton

Rayne Fisher-Quann

MaxBluementhal

MicahinATL

TroyTheCatfish

Sean McCarthy

[zoe-and-quinn]

Unrelenting darkness. Harsh voices. Cramped spaces and sweaty bodies pressing in on all sides. Muffled sobs and whines of pain.

Pain.

So much pain.

This is all they have known since the 'arrest'. They have no clue how long ago it was. The days and nights blurred together.

Back then, back before bound limbs and blindfolded eyes and angry shouts, they worked as a doctor in a hospital. They were always working. With bullets raining down more often than water, with bombs arriving more frequently than food, doctors were needed. They weren't a surgeon initially, but that didn't matter after a while. There were no surgeons left, and they could do better than anyone else.

So many broken bodies to fix.

So many more to bury.

The soldiers came at night. They pushed their way into the hospital, and people jumped to get out of their path. They demanded the doctors, and they found one.

Zip ties. Blindfolds. Cramped trucks full of shaking, terrified people. Interrogations which yielded no release, no change in treatment. Barbed wire fences caging in the concrete prison. Shouted orders to shut up.

Pain for any who disobeyed.

Days bled into nights. The doctor cried for their family, praying they were alive and well, knowing that was all-but impossible. They cried for the suffering people around them, for a detainment which seemed it would never end.

They cried for their people. They cried for themself.

And they continue to cry.

Because this is happening right now.

This is happening in Palestine.

This story was based on reports of detainment centers run by the Israeli government, where Palestinian people are held for up to 45 days without a warrant. They are often blindfolded, ordered to stay silent, restrained with zip ties that tear open skin and invite infection.

And the suffering surpasses these camps by far. Israel has been targeting Palestine for the past 8 months, dropping bombs and firing on civilians and terrorists, without bothering to distinguish between the two.

This has never been about Hamas. This is a genocide.

Donating money is one of the best ways to help the Palestinian people right now.

Which is why I have an offer to make.

I will write a free, personalized whump scene for anybody who donates to an organization offering aid to Palestine, no matter the amount. If this sounds like something you'd be interested in, make a donation and send me a picture of the confirmation page or a receipt, as well as your request for a short scene.

As a person with very little income to spare, I would like to help ease this suffering as much as possible. Please, share this with friends, like and repost, and do your best to speak out against this genocide.

Because suffering is only fun when it's fictional.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Batya Ungar-Sargon

Published: Nov 8, 2023

About a week after the October 7 massacre, I passed a large group of people in an airport who were waiting to check in for a flight to Cairo. One of the women ostentatiously clocked the Jewish star I wear around my neck and started whispering with her compatriots. As I walked by, she shouted at me, “Palestine will be free!” 

I chuckled as I walked to my gate, thinking, Not if Egypt has anything to say about it.

Before October 7, I would have considered this whole scene to be wildly offensive. A stranger shouting an anti-Israel slogan at me, holding me responsible for the actions of the Israeli government simply because I am a Jew. 

But in the post–October 7 world, I had a different reaction: let her scream. 

It’s uncomfortable to be barked at by strangers. It’s not pleasant to find out that your classmates will not condemn the murder of your people, or to hear thousands of them gleefully chanting the slogans of a genocidal death cult committed to your erasure from this planet. It’s unsettling to know that your peers have adopted a worldview that allows them to convince themselves that you are the bad guy, you are the privileged monster who wants babies to burn—even as they justify and celebrate the burning of Jewish babies.

It is scary to realize that the same administration that “protects” your fellow students from every perceived slight and insult will side with them against you as they literally call for your annihilation. It can be deeply isolating to open social media and see post after post calling your people the perpetrators of the exact forms of murderous violence that was done to them not three weeks earlier. And it is maddening to watch those who hate us and wish violence upon us fashion themselves as victims—even as heroes.

But that feeling you get when you are facing those things down, that quickening of your heart rate, the flush on your face, the chill down the spine—these unpleasant sensations are what courage feels like. They are the physical symptoms of a moral compass that works, the manifestations of pride in who you are, of the fact that despite millennia of calls for our murder, we’re still here. You’re still here.

Treasure those feelings. Do not cower. Do not tremble.

I’m not suggesting you put yourself in actual danger. The assaults on Jewish students at Harvard and UMass are crimes and should be prosecuted as such. On Sunday, 69-year-old Paul Kessler dared wave an Israeli flag on a Thousand Oaks street corner and died after being assaulted. His murderer should spend his life behind bars.

But the worst thing that could come out of this moment would be for Jews, especially Jews on campus, to embrace the victimhood narrative that their peers subscribe to—and that universities large and small have reified in sprawling DEI bureaucracies. That worldview is a large part of what has brought us to this moment.

So do not cast your lot as a competitor in the oppression Olympics. Instead, reject that entire way of looking at the world.

Here’s the thing: it’s good to be unpopular with a mob whose worldview has done away with the concept of right and wrong and decided, with a Nazi-like commitment to racial ideology, that you are Jewish and therefore you are white and therefore you are bad. It is good to be unpopular with people who spent the weeks after October 7 on the hunt for Jewish exaggeration, Jewish lies, Jewish crimes. It is good to be unpopular with people who cannot separate evil from power and virtue from skin color. (Unpopularity, for now, is your fate, unless you are willing to cosign your own humiliation and join the left’s token “good Jews” who advocate against Zionism from the comfort of the diaspora for plaudits from the Squad.) We don’t answer to them; we answer to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the Rock of Israel and its Redeemer.

The good news is: it may not feel like it, but this country is on your side. College students are in one of vanishingly few spaces in America that sides with Hamas. Your professors will live and die in irrelevance, signing their names to their silly little letters and coming up with new jargon with which to defend terrorism while nurturing their grandiose hero complexes. Most of your peers will grow up and abandon their radical chic commitments. The progressive movement has taken a big hit, having shown its true colors to a nation that knows what is good and what is right, that can separate barbarism from civilization. 

But for now, remember this: to be a Jew is to refuse to kneel and refuse to bow. The stakes of standing upright have never been clearer than they are today, in this post–October 7 world. It’s good to have these people as your enemies, because the world will always have people who oppose what’s right and what’s good, and it is our destiny to fight them. Do it with pride.

==

"Sometimes it's better to be known for one's enemies."

[wolfgabe]

I have been observing the whole mess down in Israel right now over the past few weeks and have been reluctant to share my thoughts here considering how my thoughts will likely get me branded as pro genocide by the internet hive mind, but I feel I need to get this off my chest now.

Do I acknowledge Bibi is a piece of garbage who played a large part in sparking this conflict and making things worse? Yes.

Do I recognize that Hamas is a terrorist group that is basically the reason why its practically impossible for there to be any true peace between Israel and Palestine? Also yes.

Calling out Hamas for the shit they have done does not make one pro genocide. It's frankly been infuriating seeing how people seem to gloss over the fact that Hamas has no issue with using their own civilians as literal meat shields or how they have been hording stockpiles of fuel and supplies in their underground tunnels. There are people who really want to leave but can't simply because Hamas won't allow it.

The problem is a lot of these people you see online screaming free Palestine probably never even heard of Gaza up until now nor would they be able to actually locate it on a map if they tried. It's basically East Palestine all over again with bad faith actors capitalizing on the conflict for easy clout or closet right wingers looking for a convenient excuse to bash Biden only it's 100x worse.

It's been quite depressing really how this conflict has ended up exposing a lot of people on the left as raging anti semites. People can scream how this will haunt Biden in 2024 all they want but frankly I would say this has probably done more damage to the left wing movement than Biden's reelection prospects. The hard truth is a majority of Americans think Biden is doing the right thing with Israel and see Hamas as the one most to blame. There is a reason why supporting Israel often falls within America's own interests especially considering they are our closest ally in the middle east. Tearing down posters of Jewish kidnapping victims doesn't make one pro Palestine. It's also quite telling how a lot of these anti-Israel protesters apparently get mad very quick when you point out that Hamas are in fact terrorists.

Those who demand a ceasefire between Israel and Gaza are not serious about actual peace in the middle east and/or are woefully ignorant of the reality of the situation. If you honestly expect Israel after suffering one of the worst terror attacks it has seen in decades to suddenly agree to a ceasefire with a Terrorist group that has openly called for the eradication of all Jews which they will likely violate just like they did with the last ceasefire that was brokered by Egypt, then I got a magic bridge to sell you. A ceasefire at this point is basically the equivalent of slapping a band aid on an open wound and the only one who really benefits from it is Hamas since it grants them time to rearm and regroup.

Just suddenly barging into a neighboring country and indiscriminately kidnapping, killing and beheading adults, children, and babies is not liberation. Mind you it was not just jews but also Arabs, Muslims, Ethiopians, African Guest Workers among others that were among the 1400 needlessly executed by Hamas on that day. I also will remind people there are innocent nationals including Americans that are being held hostage right now so no it's not just Jews that are suffering.

And I just would like to give a shout out to Biden here. I don't he is getting nearly enough credit for the fact that he might be the one person that is seriously preventing this conflict from spilling out into the rest of the Middle East. And this is on top of pushing for more humanitarian assistance to Gaza residents as well as pressuring Israel to hold off on a ground invasion and working to open humanitarian corridors. I find it ironic how people can scream Joe Biden is pro Genocide when he has probably been one of the most pro Palestine presidents seen in decades.

War sucks all around that's a fact and its even more frustrating in this day and age with places like Twitter having become certified disinformation cesspits. As the old saying goes truth is often the first casualty in war.

And perhaps a bit of advice if you are looking for reliable news sources right now on Israel and Palestine. I would probably avoid Twitter and TikTok like the plague.

[mental-mona]

Excerpt:

(November 13, 2022 / Jewish Journal) Last year, at University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign, a pro-Palestinian student threw a rock at Jews standing by Hillel, the Jewish students’ organization. At the University of Oregon Hillel, vandals left an illiterate, hate-filled message: “Free Palestina You genocidal rasist f..ks.” At an unnamed college, a student tried blocking a Jewish student from her friend’s dormitory unless she said “Free Palestine.” 

These were among the 2,717 incidents of assault, harassment and vandalism directed against American Jews in 2021. America’s small Jewish community endures nearly two-thirds of all anti-religious hate crimes annually. Few criminals who have attacked visibly Orthodox Jews in Brooklyn have been imprisoned. Paul Pelosi’s hammer-wielding attacker spread antisemitic conspiracy theories. And on Nov. 3, the FBI issued a rare warning against New Jersey synagogues being targeted.

In this age of outrage, the once-clear distinction between the left-leaning Jew-hatred of the salon and the right-leaning Jew-hatred of the street may be breaking down. The Jew-hatred of the salon is now increasingly violent, while the Jew-hatred of the street is now increasingly ideological, “justified” by theorists of white supremacy or black power. But regardless of the source or the forms of expression, the target remains the same: Jews, individually or collectively—making it imperative to reject all manifestations of this Jew-hatred of the sewer.

...

There is no stupider debate in the American Jewish community today than the one asking “which is worse, right-wing Jew-hatred or left-wing Jew-hatred?” It’s like debating whether you would rather be run over by a truck or killed by poison. All forms of Jew-hatred are unacceptable, even when our political allies perpetuate it. Jewish conservatives waste their breath railing against university Jew-hatred, just like Jewish liberals waste their breath railing against MAGA bigots. And we all delight our enemies by fighting one another rather than uniting against them. It is increasingly obvious that in an increasingly polarized America, Jewish Trumpians have to call out right-wing Jew-hatred, while Jewish Progressives have to call out left-wing Jew-hatred.

...

That both are equally contemptible doesn’t mean that right-wing and left-wing Jew-hatred are the same. Right-wing Jew-hatred is the antisemitism of the street. It’s usually more thuggish, more violent, more brazen. It most targets the Jewish body, and rarely disturbs the Jewish soul because it’s so extreme, so cartoonish, so intellectually disreputable. True, extremists from Louis Farrakhan to the leading white nationalists try to give their particular forms of Jew-hatred some rationale, but the claims are so outlandish as to be laughable. 

...

Today’s Jew-hatred of the salon, however, lurks under the radar—or behind a mask of social-justice talk. It’s far more subtle, insidious and disturbing because it comes with mortar boards, tweed jackets and hipster tattoos. And it launches a series of guided missiles aimed at the Jewish soul, making too many of us feel guilty for being attacked and too many others feel ashamed of our identity or our homeland. That’s why the silence that greeted the ADL analysis amid the Kanye West shout-storm is so disturbing.

...

These attackers reject Israel for what it is, not what it does—often blaming every Jew for Israel’s existence. “Our goal is not to document or quantify routine criticism of Israel’s actions or policies,” the ADL authors explained, “but to provide a snapshot of a more radical activist movement which places opposition to Israel and/or Zionism as core elements of campus life or as a prerequisite for full acceptance in the campus community.”

It’s stunning. If Catholic students on dozens of universities across America found themselves “cancelled” and sometimes physically threatened by pro-choice activists because the Vatican remains anti-abortion, wouldn’t there be an outcry? What if African-Americans were targeted because of some African dictator? Wouldn’t college presidents, alumni, donors, parents, professors and students rally to their side? Wouldn’t inter-university task forces be established, responding to indignant editorials nationwide? And wouldn’t fighting such hatred become a top priority for all these new Diversity, Inclusivity and Equity administrators draining money from traditional university activities like teaching?

Instead, worse than silence, there is often annoyance. On campuses hypersensitive to micro-aggressions, Jews are expected to swallow macro-aggressions. In a universe privileging certain victims’ “lived experiences,” Jewish victims are gaslighted, told their supposed “white privilege” means any harassment cannot be harassment. Jews are bombarded with justifications for this obsessive assault on the world’s only Jewish democracy. Even victims of violence have been assured that their assailants were not anti-Jewish, “merely” anti-Israel.

...

In the 1970s, the Palestinian scholar Edward Said attacked “Orientalism,” scholars’ supposedly “crude, essentialized caricatures of the Islamic world.” Such cultural imperialism, he argued, exposed the “Orientalists’” prejudices. Today, the illiberal liberalism and unscholarly scholarship spreading crude, essentialized caricatures of Israel, Judaism and Zionism could be called “DisOrientalism.” DisOrientalism misreads Israel through a partisan Western prism, in a true act of cultural imperialism. Forgetting that Judaism and the Jewish people never fit easily into neat modern categories of “religion” and “nation,” DisOrientalists treat Judaism and Zionism as Western transplants lacking authentic Middle Eastern roots.

These Bash-Israel-Firsters then dismiss the Jewish national liberation movement, Zionism, as “settler colonialism,” negating Jews’ 3,500-year-old ties to the land of Israel. They call little, multicultural, polychromatic Israel racist and imperialist, although Israel has no empire and is fighting a national battle with Palestinians, not a skin-based color war. And they accuse pro-Israel Jews of promulgating “Jewish supremacy,” a term wrenched from the Nazi handbook for demonizing Jews.

Many anti-Zionists also appear disoriented—supporting feminism and gay rights everywhere, yet overlooking Palestinian society’s rampant sexism and homophobia. They champion democracy and dissent worldwide, yet excuse the autocracy and oppression committed by the Palestinian Authority and Hamas in Gaza. They claim to pursue peace everywhere, yet endorse Palestinian terrorism anywhere.

...

Having cast the Jewish state as “the Jew” of the world, deemed to be the source of so much evil, the haters naturally spill over into hating the Jews in today’s world. Given Zionism’s centrality to modern Jewish identity, all Jews are found automatically guilty, co-conspirators in Israel’s alleged crimes—unless they make loud, flamboyant declarations of anti-Zionism.

...

Hate breeds hate. Like all thought-viruses, Jew-hatred fuels other bigotries and respects no boundaries. Progressive antisemitism may begin with Zionophobia, disdaining Israel as too conservative; right-wing antisemitism may begin with Judaeophobia, disdaining Jews as too liberal. But, feasting on millennia of the same misanthropy, the same lies, they meet in exaggerations about Jewish money, power and evil.

These prejudices must be fought simultaneously, with partisans cleaning their own camps. Limiting your battleplan to confronting only right-wing Jew-hatred or left-wing Jew-hatred is as futile as fighting pollution over Beverly Hills and not Beverlywood. 

Moreover, while rooting out the rot, refusing to settle for cheap, symbolic victories, we also have to fight the growing despair. America still is different. Unlike in Medieval Christian Europe or today’s Muslim world, most incidents of Jew-hatred in America have happy endings—with broad condemnations from neighbors, co-workers, celebrities, politicians and thought-leaders...We still need to define America by its majority of decent-people rather than its shrill minority of haters. 

But the haters are both ever-louder and ever-more subtle. Without a united, multi-pronged front, glued together by zero-tolerance for the Jew-hatred of the street and the salon, this Jew-hatred of the sewer will get more toxic, will spill over more broadly, and become harder to combat.

[clockworkprism]

Finishing Mike Duncan's revolutions series and I'm sad to think of all the people that would have loved the 21st century.

Prince Rupert would have a series of tik toks on hair care products and occasionally one on proper horse riding techniques

Jefferson would be on Threads posting nonsense for views, blocking anyone who asks him about Palestine

Marat would be on Twitter and be insufferable. Just terminally online brain rot. Novel length threads that never end.

Saint-Just would be posting detailed take down videos on YouTube

Louverture would probably be on Tumblr, in a constant feud with Sonthonax. They both blocked Napoleon

Rochambeau meanwhile would be posting incredibly offensive things and claiming they're just jokes.

Bolivar gives strong Facebook energy. He's Facebook friends with Miranda, but Miranda is Facebook friends with about 3000 people so it's not much.

Louis Phillipe is 100% on Threads posting the most perfect centrist takes of all time. He also blocks you for mentioning Palestine.

Lajos Kossuth had a giant following on Tumblr, but seriously fucked it up when he went on a rant about immigrants not learning the language of the country they immigrate to. Also he turns out to be a TERF.

Everyone from the Paris Commune is on Tumblr and are just constantly screaming at each other. Alphonse Tierre is the Tumblr admin who keeps shutting down trans blogs.

Pancho Villa is an expert level shit poster on Twitter. Just brutal take downs left and right.

Trotsky would be posting absurdly long posts on Tumblr that no one reads but everyone shares. Stalin screenshots things out of context to make him look bad.

Lenin somehow shouts free Palestine while also saying Ukraine is the real aggressor.

[panacrine]

Diaries of Resistance, part 1

I've kept a note open in my phone since October 2023 for every moment watching human suffering and scrolling past it wasn't enough. It's horrifying that as I scroll down the note now, I know exactly when I wrote it because every day brings a new atrocity.

I am sitting in a car of white people saying that they’re concerned about the polarization of “the conflict,” that people are shouting about Palestine on the path to the dining hall, and that they have the audacity to write “Free Palestine” on the whiteboards of the science building

You too would have stood by silently as the US bombed the hell out of Vietnam and Cambodia, dropped Agent Orange on the children, raped the women and said “the situation in Vietnam is too complex”

You continue to stand by silently as 6 million people are enslaved in Congo mining the cobalt running your tech start up

I feel like I should be doing more somehow. I am guilty that I didn’t say anything earlier when I was exposed to the history while at Columbia. Why didn’t I say something when I heard from a classmate who literally ran away from IDF soldiers shooting at her? Why didn’t I don the keffiyeh when it was offered to me?

Guilt does nothing for the past. I can only move forward now.

My grandma tells me about her brother who was shot and murdered by French soldiers while he was wandering in the fields because they thought he was a revolutionary fighter. They didn’t even bother to tell our family about their little misfire. Someone found his body in the ditches and ran back to tell us.

My grandma is the last one alive out of her siblings. There is no else left to mourn my great-uncle’s premature demise but her. Where is his monument, the tomb of the unknown Vietnamese man? Perhaps I’ll stumble into his ghost wandering the quiet rice fields of Long An.

Did you know that there are Facebook groups for Vietnamese people who used to be in the refugee camps? They share pictures of the food labels of the UN aid they received and pictures of the captains that steered the boats of desperate hungry people safely to shore. I read a poem about the instant noodles they used to eat. My dad remembers his time at the Thai refugee camp as a good time. “The Catholic priests put us all to work,” he says. “I don’t mind working.”

The UN gave out plastic food toys to the children of Gaza. To the starving children of Gaza. How can I describe violence when its verdict is death by apoptosis, one cell at a time?

I’ve cried every day for the past month. It’s because even the thought of it, the thought of the little boy clutching his beloved cat, the mother screaming for her daughter in the halls of that hospital, and the father straining to hear the voices of his children under the rubble, it hits my central wound. Israel is not just tearing limbs and families apart: it disfigures every aspect of Palestinian identity. It is a poison that mutates a child into a headless corpse, a doctor into a childless parent, and an olive tree into dust. It denies the Palestinian spirit the right to exist as it is and how it should. Watching these videos, it’s as if I’m torn apart too as I’m transported through time. I see my grandma, then 8 years old, leave her school as French soldiers surround it, never to return; I see Bella Hadid’s father kicked out of the home that his family had opened to the Jewish refugees who were now appropriating it. So I cry silently in my room, door closed, sounds of airstrikes and begging children threading through my AirPods. I cry until my eyes run dry, then I put my phone away and go back to my homework. I’ll be back tomorrow.

I have to remind myself that to cry is to feel the wound of humanity for myself. To cry is to open myself to the possibility of living other people’s deepest pain. To cry is to resist the mainstream’s tendency to turn people into numbers or human shields. To cry is to be aware and awake. To cry is to accept my place in the universe as just another human connected to other humans by nature of existing. 

[alexsmitposts]

Lies Which the West Manufactures and then Consumes After my work in the Middle East had finished, at least for the time being, I was waiting for my flight to Santiago de Chile. In Paris. I could count on a few ‘free’ days, processing what I had heard and witnessed in Beirut. Day after day, for long hours, I sat in a lounge, typing and typing; reflecting and typing. As I was working, above me, France 24 television news channel was on, beaming from a flat screen. The people around me were coming and going: West African elites on their wild shopping sprees, shouting unceremoniously into their mobile phones. Koreans and Japanese doing Paris. Rude German and North American beefy types, discussing business, laughing vulgarly, disregarding ‘lower beings’, in fact everyone in their immediate radius. No matter what was happening in my hotel, France 24 was on, and on, and on. Yes, precisely; for 24 hours, recycling for days and nights the same stories, once in a while updating news, with a slightly arrogant air of superiority. Here, France was judging the world; teaching Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America, about themselves. In front of my eyes, above me, on that screen, the world was changing. For many months I had been covering the nightmarish riots of the treasonous violent ninjas in Hong Kong. I was all over the Middle East, particularly Lebanon, and now I was on my way to my second home, Latin America, where socialism has kept winning elections, but was getting beaten, even terrorized, by the corrupt and crooked Western empire. All that France 24 kept showing, I have been habitually witnessing with my own eyes. And more, much more, from many different angles. I have filmed it, written about it, and analyzed it. In many countries, all over the world, people have been sharing their stories with me. I have seen barricades, photographed and filmed injured bodies, as well as tremendous revolutionary enthusiasm and excitement. I have also witnessed betrayals, treasons, cowardice. But in the lounge, in front of the television set, everything appeared pretty groovy, very classy, and comforting. The blood looked like a well-mixed color, the barricades like a stage of the latest Broadway musical. People were dying beautifully, their shouts muted, theatrical. The elegant anchor in a designer dress was beaming benevolently, whenever people on the screen dared to show some powerful emotions, or were grimacing in pain. She was in charge, and she was above all of this. In Paris, London and New York, powerful emotions, political commitments and grand ideological gestures, were made outdated, already a long time ago. During just the few days that I spent in Paris, many things have changed, on all the continents. The Hong Kong rioters were evolving; beginning to set on fire their compatriots simply because they dared to pledge their allegiance to Beijing. Women were unceremoniously beaten, with metal bars, until their faces were covered in blood. In Lebanon, the big clenched fists of the pro-Western regime-change Otpor were suddenly at the center of the anti-government demonstrations. The economy of the country was collapsing. But the Lebanese ‘elites’ were burning money, all around me, all around Paris and all around the world. Poor Lebanese Misérables, as well as the impoverished middle class, were demanding social justice. But the rich of Lebanon were mocking them, showing. They had it all figured out: they have robbed their own country, then left it behind, and now were having a great ball here, in the “City of Lights”. But to criticize them in the West has been taboo; forbidden. Political correctness, the mighty Western weapon used to uphold the status quo, has made them untouchable. Because they are Lebanese; from the Middle East. A good arrangement, isn’t it? They are robbing their fellow Middle Easterners, on behalf of their foreign masters in Paris and Washington, but in Paris or London, it is taboo to expose their ‘culture’ of debauchery. In Iraq, the anti-Shi’a and therefore anti-Iranian sentiments have been dispersed, powerfully and clearly, from abroad. The second big episode of the so-called Arab Spring. Chileans have been fighting and dying, trying to depose a neo-liberal system, forced down their throats ever since 1973 by the Los Chicago Boys. The Bolivian socialist government, successful, democratic and racially inclusive, has been overthrown, by Washington and Bolivian treasonous cadres. People have been dying there, too, on the streets of El Alto, La Paz, and Cochabamba. Israel was at it again, in Gaza. Full force. Damascus was bombed. I went to film the Algerians, Lebanese and Bolivians; people who were pushing for their agendas at the Place de la Republique. I anticipated the horrors that were waiting for me, soon; in Chile, Bolivia and Hong Kong. I was writing, feverishly. While the television set was humming. People were entering and leaving the lounge, meeting and separating, laughing, shouting, crying and making up. Nothing to do with the world. The outbursts of indecent laugher erupted periodically, even as the bombs were exploding on the screen, even as the people were charging against the police and the military. *** Then, one day, I realized that nobody really gives a damn. Like that; so simple. You witness what happens, all over the world; you document it. You are risking your life. You are getting engaged. You get injured. Sometimes you come close, extremely close, to death. You do not watch TV. Never, or almost never. You appear on the television, yes; you supply stories and images. But you never watch the results; what emotions your work, your words and images, truly evoke. Or do they evoke any emotions at all? You only work for the anti-imperialist media outlets, never for the mainstream. But for whomever you work for, you have no clue what the facial expressions your reports from the war zones are arousing. Or what emotions any war zone reports stir. And then, you are in Paris, and you have some time to watch your readers, and suddenly you understand. You get it: why so few are writing to you, support your struggle, or even fight for the countries being destroyed, decimated by the empire. When you look around, observing people who are sitting in a hotel lounge, you clearly realize: they feel nothing. They want to see nothing. They understand nothing. France 24 is on, but it is not a news channel, which it was intended to be, many years ago. It is entertainment stuff, which is supposed to produce sophisticated background noise. And it does. Precisely that. Same as the BBC, CNN, Fox and Deutsche Welle. *** As the legitimately elected socialist President of Bolivia was being forced into exile, tears in his eyes, I got hold of the remote control, and switched channel to some bizarre and primitive cartoon network. Nothing changed. The expressions on the faces of some twenty people around me did not change. If a nuclear bomb would have exploded on the screen, somewhere in the Sub-Continent, no one would pay any attention. Some people were taking selfies. While I was describing the collapse of the Western culture on my MacBook. All of us were busy, in our own way. Kashmir, West Papua, Iraq, Lebanon, Hong Kong, Palestine, Bolivia and Chile were on fire. So, what? Ten meters away from me, an American businessman was shouting into his phone: “Are you going to invite me back to Paris in December? Yes? We have to discuss details. How much am I getting per day?” Coups, uprisings, riots, all over the world. And that plastic, professional smile of the lady, the news announcer, in her blue and white retro designer dress; so confident, so French, and so endlessly fake. *** Lately, I keep wondering whether the inhabitants of Europe and North America have any moral right to control the world. My conclusion is: definitely not! They do not know, and they do not want to know. Those who have power are obliged to know. In Paris, Berlin, London, New York, individuals are too busy admiring themselves, or ‘suffering’ from their little, selfish problems. They are too busy taking selfies, or being preoccupied with their sexual orientation. And of course, with their ‘business’. That is why I prefer to write for Russian and Chinese outlets, to address people who are scared like myself, anxious about the future of the world. The editors of this magazine, in faraway Moscow, are; they are anxious and passionate at the same time. I know they are. I, and my reports, are not some ‘business’ for them. People whose cities are smashed, ruined, are not some sort of entertainment in the editorial room of NEO. In many Western countries, people have lost their ability to feel, to get engaged, and to fight for a better world. Because of this loss, they should be forced to give up their power over the world. Our world is damaged, scarred, but is tremendously beautiful and precious. It is not a business, to work for its improvement and survival. Only great dreamers, poets and thinkers can be trusted, fighting for it, steering it forward. Are there many poets and dreamers amongst my readers? Or do they look, do they behave, as those guests in the hotel lounge in Paris, in front of the screen beaming France 24?

[beardedmrbean]

Chancellor Olaf Scholz says he's "ashamed and outraged" at recent antisemitic attacks in Germany.

He was speaking at an event to mark the anniversary of the November pogroms of 1938, sometimes known as "Kristallnacht."

Berlin's staunch diplomatic support for Israel is often described as a matter of historic responsibility.

But, as fighting continues between Israel and Hamas, social discord is emerging in Germany.

I meet a woman called Noa at a Berlin synagogue where she tells me how she has family who survived the Holocaust by hiding in Poland.

Some Jewish people in today's Germany, she says, are now hiding their identity.

"It's scary. Why should I live and be afraid of who I am?"

Aaron doesn't feel comfortable showing items traditionally worn by Jewish men in public, either his kippah or his tzitzit, the tassels of his prayer shawl.

Having fled the war in Ukraine, he believes Berlin is unsafe because "a lot of people support terrorist organisations".

Fears about a rise in antisemitism, since the outbreak of hostilities between Hamas and Israel, are widespread across Europe.

For Germany, incidents such as two petrol bombs being thrown towards a Berlin synagogue in October spark acute anxiety due to the nation's Nazi past.

Cases of antisemitism were, according to preliminary police figures, already on the rise this year before the Hamas attacks - the majority committed by the far right.

Since 7 October, senior politicians have urged people, particularly from parts of the political left and Muslim backgrounds, to distance themselves from the actions of Hamas.

Israel's security is a fundamental cornerstone of German foreign policy with the former chancellor, Angela Merkel, declaring it to be a Staatsräson - reason of state - in 2008.

On a recent visit to Israel, Olaf Scholz said: "In such difficult times there is only one place we can be: at Israel's side."

But Germany's state doctrine is being visibly challenged on the streets of cities like Berlin.

"Your staatsräson sucks!" read one placard at a recent pro-Palestinian demonstration.

This march was permitted to take place whereas many have been banned.

Nadim Jarrar, who attended the 9,000-strong demo, tells me he's frustrated by the "one-sided" narrative.

Half-German, half-Palestinian - he thinks Germany must be more prepared to talk about the actions of Israel.

"It's a healthy process for every nation to get criticised and to have a discussion about what's going on."

Any German discomfort with that debate, he believes, cannot lead to shutting it down.

Sami, who has family in the West Bank and lives in Stuttgart, says people must be able "to show we are in pain about what's happening in Gaza".

"What's been done to the Palestinians since 1948... We've all seen the videos of what they're doing to our children."

In a widely viewed video message, Germany's vice-chancellor, Robert Habeck, said that criticism of Israel is "of course allowed" but its right to exist must not be "relativised".

"Israel's security is our obligation," he said.

Some demonstrations have led to violent clashes between police and protesters.

The authorities are investigating reports that black and white banners, which are used by jihadist groups and feature the Islamic statement of faith, were flown at a march in the city of Essen.

There was outrage when one group, subsequently disbanded by government, appeared to be celebrating the Hamas atrocities of 7 October on the streets of Berlin.

Felix Klein, the government's Commissioner for Jewish life in Germany, says it has become apparent that there is a big problem in Germany's integration policy.

"It is problematic when it turns into antisemitic and anti-Israel hate where people shout 'From the river to the sea, Palestine shall be free' - which would deny Israel's right to exist."

However, there has been criticism that the messages coming from the government have veered towards stoking anti-Muslim sentiment.

Debate about the German government's foreign and domestic positioning is likely to persist for as long as the conflict between Israel and Hamas lasts.

"Every time there's a war in Israel," says Noa, "it just hits us again and again that we are not a full part of the society".

"We will always be different. We will always be the ones that are not fully German."

There is real anguish in Germany, rooted in its past, that Jewish people don't feel safe. But there is also an anger, bubbling in some communities, about a perceived reluctance by the political classes to break a German taboo and criticise Israel.

[ianpricepsychauthor]

Tell me how things would be worse right now with Corbyn as PM.

I can remember the last time I watched live news on the BBC. It was the night of the December 2019 election and I remember footage of Steve Baker filmed in tears of relief when the exit poll was broadcast. I had similar emotions. As a Conservative party member at the time, I felt sure that Corbyn’s Labour Party in government would have been an egregious disaster. I had a personal feeling for feeling relieved - as a Jew I’d seen Corbyn allow anti-semitism to become normalised among his supporters.

Eighteen months on, the government I voted for is in thrall to left-leaning (in some cases avowedly Communist), misanthropic scientists who regard ordinary people as inconvenient pathogen vehicles. Wretchedly risk-averse ministers are concerned only with self-preservation and preventing the bad “optics” of an over-run NHS regardless of the costs.

Corbyn’s magic money tree has been replaced by Sunak’s money-printing forest with high taxes and low growth as the economic route out. Small businesses have been allowed to wither often without financial assistance as the Treasury has been permitted to execute its long-cherished desire to crush the unemployed. Would even Corbyn’s government have excluded 3 million from assistance in the way the Conservatives have done.

As for the anti-semitism, some of my Jewish friends that I grew up with are making plans to leave Britain. Who can blame them when protesters drive through their neighbourhood in convoys shouting “F*** the Jews. Kill their wives. Rape their daughters.” Not exactly what you’d call a microagression. What’s happening in Israel is a fig-leaf. Chinatown is untroubled by the same people objecting to Uyghur mosques being bulldozed by the Chinese. This is Jew hatred. Why do they feel able to do it? Because they sense impunity. Police officers are filmed walking alongside protesters shouting about spilling Jewish blood but not arresting them for inciting racial hatred. Another officer was filmed shoutlng “Free Palestine!” at a protest she was supposed to be policing.

Meanwhile the Prime Minister speaks at the G7 about building back in a greener, more “feminine” and “gender-neutral” way. Tell me how things could possibly have been any worse under Corbyn.

I

[danielyrosner]

Fanfic - Neil's Chains - Chapter 4

Chapter 4 -  My new life

March 23 , 1994

 My children were born yesterday, today when I look at them in the cradles my heart is filled with joy but also with despair, because I don't know what can happen in the future, these crazy people can change their minds and try to hurt them or try to make them become the target of your research.

 As for Cassandra, she is a little better than yesterday, she wanted to see the children, but because of her condition, Jefford's asshole forbade her to see them and me to take them to her, did this imbecile forget that the children they need to feed and that she’s their mother’s bitch. Whatever, I will stay here with them, I made a rocking chair and left it on the balcony so that I can enjoy the night with them in my arms.

.

 August 22 , 1994

 The children are already four months old, Cassandra improved about three months ago and during the day she tries to spend as much time as possible with the children and when they sleep, they come to me to do the 'Research' find a day they will end up killing me. When night falls they leave me alone to be with my children. Even though I am injured, tired and very hungry, seeing them makes me happy. They bring me hope that there is still goodness in this world. They are so equal and yet so different! Gil is more of a crybaby - when he's away from his sister or when I'm not around, have you heard, lol , his lungs are very powerful. Lukka is already more quiet even - when this hungry, she hardly cries. However, she knows exactly when I am in pain or sad. When that happens, the little girl cries until I catch her, as if she wants to comfort me in those moments.

.

 October 18 , 1994

 The children started to crawl, the room is a mess they end up throwing everything on the floor as healthy children always do and Cassandra seems to have forgotten them, but it doesn't matter, because when it is over, I go away and take my children with me.

 Jefford has been pushing her to have another child this time. However, he has freaked out more and more with my children and this has worried me a lot I hope he is not crazy to do anything to them.

.

 December 25 , 1994

This is the children's first Christmas, I asked them to leave me free today, tomorrow they could intensify their research, but today I would like to spend a happy day, without pain or sadness with my children, they allowed it with much hesitation, if not had it been for Cassandra, Jefford would not have allowed it. His hatred for me and my children has grown, now I can see perfectly why he wants to try to hide.

 Christmas was perfect, I had never been happier for millennia of existence, despite being tortured every day, I was very happy, my children were perfect and grew up every day. It was also on that same day that both spoke the first word “Daddy”, that was without a doubt the best gift I got. That day was no longer remembered as the day I fell into a trap, but as the day when my children they called it daddy, the day of his first words.

 Since I was in prison, I didn't have much to give them, just the two little jewels I kept with me centuries ago, one of them was mine and the other was going to be handed over to Cassandra the night we would run away, luckily I didn't do it, now they belong to you children, i hope it helps to remind you of me if i don't get out of this prison.

.

 March 22, 1995

 I already got used to the torture of these assholes even though I was hurt, my kids make me want to get up at night, if it weren't for them they would have gone crazy a long time ago. Speaking of them today they complete a year of life, I decided to take them to the garden to feel the earth under my feet, but I don't know if I will have the energy to run after Lukka - after she learned to walk and speak, it has been like a hurricane; it has energy to give and sell. Gilthunder, on the other hand, has been quieter. He lives behind me, ashamed or afraid of something. The two learned to speak and walk perfectly early more . Right after Christmas they grew up a lot and they already have the intelligence of 5 year old children ... I think it is because of my blood.

 ~ • ~

"Boys, let's go out for a while" Neil says opening the door.

 "Daddy, where are we going?" Gil question

 "Who cares? I want to leave this room" Lukka says jumping on the bed.

 “Lu, I told you to stop this, you will end up getting hurt" Neil scolds her putting her on the floor “where's your necklace?”

 “I kept it safe, I didn't want to spoil it" she says with her head down.

 "I kept my dad too, couldn't I?" Gil asks his father.

 Neil smiles with emotion at the children's attitude, he puts his hand over their heads “Don't worry, those necklaces have been around for centuries, it's impossible for you to break or lose them” he gets up and takes the necklaces in the drawer “Let's go down, I'll tell history of these necklaces for you "

 “ Ebaaaaa ” Lukka shouts with joy, takes his brother's hand and runs towards the door.

 Neil laughs at his daughter's reaction, we walk the stairs to the twins in front and I behind with my little bottle of baptized blood and a towel to throw on the floor. When we arrived at the garden they were impressed, it was not so beautiful, but something different for us to go, Lukka ran across the field and as incredible as Gil seems too. I spread the cloth on the floor and looked at those two little beings having fun and smiling.

 Neil smiles and sighs "Lu, Gil, don't you want to hear the story about the necklaces and about Dad?"

 " Simm " they respond unisoramente , they run and sit on his father's lap.

 He looks at them and begins “I was in the 5th century, close to ancient Palestine, I had just transformed and the people were full of superstition, for that reason, I was impeached for days , months and some years. It was when I met a humble family that took me in, one of his children was deformed so they felt sorry for Daddy "he looks at the little ones, his eyes shone with his story and he continues" Daddy was a great negotiator and they started having some possessions because of me. Then one day I went to a lake, the night was beautiful and the vegetation beside it was stunning, further on that lake there was a small waterfall, that's where I found these small stones, they shone by the moonlight even in the rough. For this reason I took them home, and polished them, I made the leather tapes ”he looks at the moon, sighs and his eyes change with sadness“ One day while I was in town on business, some men invaded the family property in searching for the necklaces and me, but both were not at the house, for this reason they hurt the family a lot and dad decided to leave and the necklaces were always a small reminder of that humanity that he felt at that time, and that today I felt again "

 "What is humanity, daddy?" Gil asks.

 "Humanity is our feelings, from people to other people, isn't it Daddy?" Lukka answers him.

 "That's right daughter" Neil says hugging them.

 “But what have you been transformed into? And did those men really have to go after you? ” She questions him

 "Really, you didn't do anything for them" Gil adds.

 Neil looks at them and rubs their faces “One day Daddy will tell you what I am; and men are sometimes very mean, they do nonsense things, which can end up hurting others, so you have to protect yourself, you always have to be together, even if daddy can't, but live with you ”

 "But why?" They ask.

 "One day you will understand" He answers them "Now we have to go inside, soon it will be dawn and you need to sleep"

 "Not a father!" They scream

 "Please, we do not ta sleepy" Gil says

 "Yeah, we want to hear another story, please" Lukka adds.

 "Okay, but I'll tell you only if you're in bed and ready to sleep" Neil replies.

 Lukka and Gil look at each other and agree, they go up to the bedroom, get ready to sleep, Neil puts them to bed and starts talking to them “Well, let me see, about two thousand years ago, when people they still lived in tents or small ones, the Vikings were scattered across the land, they were barbarians and powerful ”

 "Were you one of them?" Lukka asks.

 "I was, I was one of the greatest warriors they had, we dominated the people, until I realized that they were very bad, so I left, to live another kind of life, so ..." Neil looks at the children already asleep smiles, gives a kiss on each and the covers up to his neck "Sleep well my little angels, Daddy loves you so much."

 ~ • ~

 I returned to my room that night, when it was dawn, they came, Jefford seemed to have more ambition, more desires, it was really a very long morning of pure agony, they chained me, they took several pieces of me, he screamed with despair and agony, they didn't care, they just cut and punctured me, when I started spitting black blood it was the moment I lost consciousness, so I didn't know what they did to me for the rest of the day ...

[divanquotes]

Alexandre Louis Félix Alix, Precise History of the Ottoman Empire since its Origin v2, 1822

Page 4: The Valid Sultana, indignant at the contempt which the emperor affected for his sex, and for the lack of credit which he granted to himself, was not long in conspiring against him. This Kislar Aga, due to the indifference of the monarch, lost all the authority of which his place was susceptible; the mufti, having seen the Sultan more closely, was more convinced than any of the other officers of the empire of his profound incapacity, and they conferred together to find a means of raising the janissaries and the spahis. A crowd of timariots of every rank helped them in their design. Mustapha had stripped several of their timariots, under the most frivolous pretexts; so he was despised among the troops, as he was in the seraglio and the Divan. 

Page 6: Prince Othman soon appeared in the midst of the people, who responded by his acclamations to the wishes of the militia. He was girded with the scimitar and placed on the throne of the Divan, before Mustapha had heard of the army returning, nor any of the events that had taken place in Constantinople. 

Page 7: The Cayman, who always stands in for the Grand Vizier at Constantinople, whenever the prime minister is commanding the armies, was to preside over the Divan and consequently send orders to the provinces. The boasting pacha, captain of the guards, and the chief of the eunuchs had a great share in his favor. The Valid Sultana and Othman’s grandfather had also acquired great rights to his confidence.

Page 24: The people, who were not armed, seized in the second courtyard the logs found in piles, each of which had been made of masses or clubs. As soon as the cannon shot down the gates, the populace crowded inside. Some icoglans, baltagis, and bostangis told the grand vizier that the people were in the Divan, but that there were no soldiers. Although Dilaver, who was in the Divan room with the pashas of the bench and the effendis, had heard that his head was proscribed or banned, he hoped that his presence would impose it on a leaderless population, and that firmness would bring him back into duty. He went out with some chiaou and pachi bostangi; the other people in the Divan, less reckless than the Grand Vizier, closed the doors on him as soon as he was out. Barely had the minister appeared, than he was struck by the very people he had claimed to disperse. The bostangi pachi was liked; in spite of the fury of the people, it was not to harm to this officer that the janissaries were loudly protesting; he escaped into the crowd, and did not reappear during the entire revolution.

Page 25: Meanwhile the troops were deployed in battle formation in the courtyard of the Divan; Dared and his lieutenants disposed of the guard corps who were outside of and surrounding the seraglio, without first daring to attack the buildings. The people and the soldiers constantly repeat the names of the outcasts, demanding that the Emperor promise to renounce the journey to Mecca, to dismiss the new militia, and the repudiate his wife. The fate fate which the Grand Vizier had just experienced had deprived the other ministers, who remained shut up in the Divan, of wanting to open the doors. The Emperor and all his people remained shut up indoors and persisted in keeping quiet. 

Page 26: He was taken from his place with ropes. As soon as he breathe that air, he lost consciousness, and remained a long time without recovering consciousness. However, due to the sound of what was happening inside of the seraglio, the doors of the Divan were finally pond, and all of the effendis, leaving at the same time, managed the rebels with pleading hands, assuring them that Sultan Othman had renounced his plan of going to Mecca, that he had signed the order to lay off his troops in Cairo, and that he was ready to repudiate his wife, and that he would give them the proscribed as soon as the odas returned to duty.

Page 35: The old eunuch received similar answers on all sides, and his orders became illusory. The Valid Sultana, who regretted Dared, her son-in-law, undertook to have him returned to the Divan in the position of Captain Pasha, which was not vacant. The sums of money which Darud’s wife and mother-in-law poured out with full hands, reconciled this parricide with the principal of his old comrades, who had raised the janissaries against him. Dared reappeared at the Port; it was only a matter of plucking the place of capitan pasha from Calil, who was wearing it. The Valid Sultana and Darud accused him before the Divan of having intelligence of the revolted pashas; but he defended himself  with as much intelligence as firmness, in the presence of the Divan, where were the principal officers of the janissaries and shapes, and he completely proved his innocence. The accuser was confounded….

Page 37:  The officers of the spahis and janissaries, who were more than twenty on the Divan, drew their sabers and exclaimed: “We swear by the prophet that Dared will die tomorrow.” Neither the Valid Sultana nor the Grand Vizier, nor did Mustapha himself think that he was powerful enough to save a head which the Janissaries had proscribed. In the absence of authority, the Sultana had employed the resources of weak princes, violence, artifice and corruption.

Page 39: It was unanimously decided that the ghost of the monarch occupying the throne should be removed. It was only a matter of agreeing on the form that would be given to his deposition. Th chief officers wanted the troops to proclaim for Amurat, nephew of the emperor, as they themselves had proclaimed during the deposition of Othman; but the people of law represented that this form gave too much empire to a soldier whom the least dissatisfaction could arm; that it was necessary, if possible, to make this change without any disturbance, and by doing so, to convince the entire Divan and the ulema of Mustapha’s profound incapacity. In effect, the Grand Vizier scheduled for next day an assembly of the Divan, and the mufti the same of the ulema. As soon as they had met in the great hall of the seraglio, the leader of the religion and the prime minister, followed by one of the effendis, and another, and also several pashas, went to the door of the interior, asking to speak to the Emperor on behalf of the entire state. The doors were opened, and the deputation appeared before the prince. The mufti, after kissing the hem of his jacket, conjure him in very strong terms to descend to the Divan, to listen to the complaints of his faithful subjects and to remedy the disorders that afflicted the empire.

Page 40: Then the imbecility of Mustapha was manifest to all eyes. This prince only answered with puerilities, accompanied by a laugh that demonstrated what had always been suspected. Despite the cries of the Valid Sultan, the deputies went down to the Divan and described everything they had just seen and hard. After this detail, which left no hope for Prince Mustapha, the assembly rid out that there was a need for an empire. The choice could only fall on one of Achmet’s children: the eldest, named Amurat, was under the age of fifteen. An advantageous figure and more intelligence than one might expect from a prince of that age, raised in a prison, raised hopes that he would one day repair the evils that afflicted the empire, and until then he would listen to those who were able to guide him. The same members who had gone to Mustapha went, in the name of the Divan, the ulema and the troops, to offer the empire to his nephew. The young prince, who had been instructed by the Sultaness, his mother, whom we will discuss later, began by refusing this honor. He said that he would not strip his uncle of an authority that he legitimately possessed; but the deputies reiterating to him that that prince was in a state of imbecility that rendered him absolutely incapable of the throne, Amurat went down to the Divan, where he spoke with great precision and grace.]

Page 41: All that remains was to have the new emperor girt with the sword of Othman. This ceremony would be beset with difficulties. It was the first time that the Divan and the ulema had undertaken a revolution in the empire: till then the tremors had always ben caused by the troops, and especially by the janissaries, who had usurped the right to raise and deposit the emperors. The coffers were empty, and if the odas had opposed the proclamation, the disorder would have ben at its height.

Page 42: Three days after Sultan Mustapha had refused to appear on the Divan, the troops repaired in order to the first courtyards of the seraglio, shouting, “Long live Amurat IV, our mighty emperor!” The pashas of the various orders, sangiaks, agas, and principal officers, both of the troops and of the ulema, were entered into the Divan. The mufti asked aloud of this imposing assembly if thy wanted Amurat for their emperor; all responded with shouts of approval and of joy. Then the young prince, speaking with dignity, exhorted the mufti and the Grand Vizier to enforce the laws and to restore the order too much altered in the empire. 

Page 48: The grand seignior wished to appear to confirm of his own free will the election of the Khan Mehemet, and after this prince had sent his homage to the feet of the emperor, serious attention was paid to the affairs of Asia. it was time. The grand vizier, instead of marching against Abassa, as had been agreed in the Divan, went to consume his army before Baghdad, leaving behind him the provinces of the empire in flames. The Persians had entered at four different places. The sophian himself had led an army in the Diarbekir, and he had conquered the whole country beyond Baghdad, which the rebellious Pasha had won difficulty in surrendering to the enemy. Another Persian army had entered Palestine, under the orders of Facardin, prince of the Druses. The sophi wants to make this emir a Sudan tributary of Persia. Another Persian army had passed the Euphrates, marching toward Trebizond. And finally, a fourth had entered Arabia, and had seized Medina. 

Page 63: Finally the Sultan abandoned the one he had been honoring for many months, and to whom he seemed to have given all his confidence. As the old Emir was sitting in the Divan, a pasha of the bench accused him aloud of alternately professing Islamism and Christianity. The Emir stood up to begin his justification: the mufti, present at this Divan, close his mouth, pronouncing a fete that condemned to death any relapsed or hypocritical persons who may profess one religion externally while keeping another in the bottom of his heart. It was useless for the old Facardin to deny that he was a Chrsitian, or to demand the holy word of the emperor; the Sultan was not attending this Divan.]

Page 70: However, the prince seemed to yield to the wish of the army. He wrote to Mehemet a letter in which he appealed his father. He approved of his conduct, but he begged for the seals, wishing, he said, to discharge him from a burden too heavy for his age; he invited him to go to Constantinople, promising him all the consideration due to his long service. Mehemet, on the faith of his mater, left the army to reappear on the Divan; but the apology which he still made of his conduct could not spare him from a very considerable fine, to which the Sultan thought it was his duty to condemn those he was accusing of having mollified or appeased the Persians. 

Page 80: Amurat had scarcely expired, when the grand vizier, newly returned from Asia, the mufti, the two cadileskers, the pashas of the bench, and all those entitled to attend the Divan, went there in large numbers: the officers of the janissaries had murmured about the elevation of Ibrahim, the only prince who remain of the Ottoman race, but who was said to be incapable of reigning. The khan of the Tartars, whom the election alone could consider, and who did not know the weakness of Ibrahim, had made no attempt. Kiosem, Valid Sultaness, mother of Ibrahim as of Amurat IV, had so disposed the spirits, that as soon as the emperor was dead, the great officers unanimously agreed that the last scion of the house that had reigned for nearly there centuries alone had the right to the throne. 

Page 81: The new emperor seemed to have ascended the throne only to fall asleep; he abandoned the weight of affairs to his vizier and the Valid Sultaness; their authority was absolute as long as they lived in good intelligence. Kiosk attended the Divan, or rather she listened to what was agitating in this assembly, by a window, covered with a veil, and was considered dangerous, because this opened a gallery of the seraglio, to the room of the Divan, where the Sultans are in a position to hear from there all that is going on between their ministers. Sometimes emperors opened this window to give strict orders according to what they had just heard.]

Page 93: For a long time it had been believed that the large fleet preparing Constantinople was a threat to the Maltese rock. The Grand Master did not doubt that they would not have to pay the spoils which the knights had won and the glory that they had boasted of in having taken a prince of the Ottoman race as their prisoner. All the knights were sent, and all the ports of the island were put in a defensive position, but it was represented in the Divan that Malta had already been attacked without success; that this conquest, probably very painful and very deadly, would produce only the possession of a barren rock; that the orders of St. John would not be taken down, and that it would be reestablished elsewhere; that it was necessary to strike enemies who had more to lose; that since the Venetians were complicit in the contempt of the Ottoman Empire, they had to seize the island of Candia, which would largely compensate for the wrong of which they had to complain. 

Page 94: The expedition was resolved against Candia, but everything was happening on the Divan in the deepest secrecy. It was all the easier to keep, because the preparations appeared to threatened the island of Malta. The Venetians, however, united their vessels and amassed munitions of war and of propaganda, either to defend their possessions or to help their allies. Finally, in the spring of 1645, the Ottoman fleet was able to weigh anchor. It consisted of 82 galleys, 20 vessels, and 300 saïque boats, mounted by 74,000 troops, 15,000 of whom were janissaries or spahis.

Page 107: After this decision, the whole assembly proceeded to the seraglio. They passed through two rows of janissaries; the shapes on horseback filled the Hippodrome and the other squares of Constantinople. The chiefs, having arrived in the hall of the Divan, ordered the white eunuchs to bring Ibrahim from the women’s apartments and to bring him into their presence. This prince, obliged to appear before those whom he had tried to intimidate, resorted to prayers, and to reminders of his benefactions; but the memory of the insults was more recent. The mufti overwhelmed with reproaches the one whom he saw only as the ravisher of his daughter. All who had helped to dethrone this prince had agreed not to dip their hands in his blood. The mufti and the Grand Vizier signaled the Icoglans to drag Ibrahim away to the prison which had already ben prepared for him.

Page 118: Sciaus reassured the child and the mother as much as possible, and thought it necessary to place the young emperor on his throne, in order to expose him to the eyes of those who were to defend him. When he reached the throne room, h found their several viziers, pashas and kadileskers whom the order of Sciaus had called to the seraglio, and who had brought soldiers and ammunition to them. Then the Grand Vizier, speaking, learned from the Divan what he had seen and heard that evening in the mosque of Ortadjami. 

Page 119: He could not refuse the fetfa that the Valid Sultaness, the Grand Vizier, and the whole Divan were earnestly requesting. It was written on tablets: “What must be done with the grandmother of the emperor, who conspired against his grandson and has master?” The mufti wrote: “This woman must die.” At once the Grand Vizier drew up the death warrant, which the Emperor tremblingly sign. This sentence was handed to the Icoglans, who held it over their heads while walking with the troops towards the women’s apartment. The black eunuchs who guarded the gates read this order on their knees, and they allowed a few Icoglans into the apartment where Kiosem was shut up. 

Page 140: In fact the pasha of Buda required contributions from the cities, or left garrisons there. Agassi first wrote to the Porte to demand capitulations and to complaint that he felt nothing but oppression on the part of those whose help he had expected. The slowness of the Porte consumed this unfortunate province; the vaivode got no answer from the Divan. In this extremity, Abassi wrote to the Emperor of the West and the King of Poland to represent to them the unhappy state to which Transylvania was reduced, and to ask for assistance. The monarchs only thought of fortifying their frontiers. 

Page 141: The Austrian minister replied that heaven and earth would be joined before the emperor, his master, could be resolved to sign such a treaty. However, soldiers were transported from all parts of Anatolia. The boats went continually from Scutari to Constantinople. The rendezvous of this numerous army was reported to Sophie for the month of April; and, as early as February, the tughs, or tails of horses, were standing in front of the door of the Divan, a signal of the war. 

Page 153: This feast had already begun, when it was learned that the battle was lost, that the Grand Vizier had retreated with the troops who had not crossed the river, and with the others who had been beaten. The Divan could only advise Muhammad to seek some way of negotiating a prompt peace. The Turks retreated and the Austrians are pressing them hard. Montecuculli had reached them and was preparing to beat them a second time, when letters arrived from the Emperor’s envoy to the Porte, who was detained in the grand vizier’s camp. This minister announced to Montecuculli that the Ottomans wanted to make proposals for peace. Orders soon arrive from Vienna to suspend hostilities. 

Page 178: At the beginning of the year 1673, M. de Nointell, Louis XIV’s ambassador, concluded an advantageous treaty for France; the Greeks had seized the holy places in Jerusalem, and ransom the pilgrims whom devotion brought to the cradle of their faith. It was stipulated that the church of the Holy Sepulcher should be returned to the Latins; that Christians who go on pilgrimage to Jerusalem should not be troubled in any part of Turkey; that the churches of Galata and Pera, belonging to the French, should be rebuilt in case of fire; that the French should have the right to make wine at home and to sell it to all who are not Muslims; that customs duties would be reduced to 3 percent; and, finally, that the differences arising in matters of commerce between the consuls of France and the officers of the Porte, would be decided in the full divan. This treaty had a full execution for all that concerned commerce; but the restitution of the holy places suffered many difficulties by the greed of the pashas and cadis of Palestine, who favored the Greeks, in recognition of the considerable sums which they drew from them unceasingly. 

Page 183: Upon the refusal of the Greeks to return it (the holy places), the Latins thought themselves authorized to form a sort of crusade, to conquer this armed chapel. In the quarrels between Roman Christians and Greeks, Musims always take the side of the latter. The sangiak helped them. Not only did they recover the chapel of Bethlehem, but they dared to attack the Latins as they celebrated Christmas in the Holy Sepulcher. The blood of some religious persons of both parties defiled the sacrifices offered on this holy night to the redeemer of the world. The Latins were defeated, and when they complained to the Divan of the offenses to the treaty, they were told that the titles of the Greeks announced an ancient possession. 

Page 184: Only the claims of the ambassadors were granted, which the Greeks, possessors of the holy places, should allow the pilgrims should be allowed a Latin rite, on the basis of a royalty for which the Greek prelates would pay the Sulan an annual sum; which satisfied the greed of both. This decision, so contrary to the new treaty, was pronounced in full Divan. 

Page 200: All the Christian ministers were ready to take sides in this quarrel, when a sum of fifty purses was furnished by all the English merchants for whom the time consumed in negotiations was causing great injury. Mustapha, fearing that the claims of all the ambassadors would generate a storm in the Divan, which he could not afford to war off, contented himself with this new boon, and handed over the capitulations. 

Page 202: At last the Grand Vizier gave to France and the other ambassadors of the crowned heads the honors which the caprice and pride of his character had previously refused them. However, Mustapha’s credit began to fall; and the first officers of the Divan, who perceived this, were reporting him to the Grand Lord or Sultan, whenever they found occasion. 

Page’206: This power had, as we have seen, concluded with the House of Austria a truce of twenty years, four of which had not expired. When the Grand Vizier proposed to the Divan to send troops to Tekeli, he made a general complaint. Cara Ibrahim, the first pasha of the bench, represented that the faith of the treaties still bound the two empires; that the honor of the Ottoman name was opposed to attaching an ally who had not failed in his engagements. Cara Irahim’s advice echoed that of the Valid Sultaness, the Mufti, and the entire Divan in which several pashas began to speak against the Grand Vizier’s views. Cara Mustapha replied to all these opponents, that a Muslim prince was obliged to extend Mohammad’s faith whenever the opportunity arose; that Hungary seemed to offer itself to the yoke of the East; that Austria was so exhausted that she offered the Porte a vast field to conquer; that the Ottoman Empire should tend to recover all hat had formerly made up the Roman Empire; and that there were always sufficient reasons to fight the infidels when one could hope for victory. Muhammed managed to bring the Valid Sultaness back to his opinion. 

Page 207: Cara Mustapha, after having determined his master to declare war on Austria, appointed to command 10,000 men sent to Count Tekeli, the same Ibrahim who had appeared in the Divan to oppose the rupture of the truce. The vizier, wishing to remove this dangerous rival, in case the troops were beaten, would blame him. Before the departure of these troops, a chiaoux was despatched to the Emperor Leopold, to declare to him that Tekeli and the Hungarian nobility had implored the protection of the Ottoman Empire; that thus the Sultan required that the Emperor Leopold recall the German troops already arrived in Hungary, unless he wished to be considered an offender of the truce. Leopold sent a minister to the Porte to demand the execution of the last treaty, and to represent that he did not refuse the Hungarians the justice that they had affected to ask for in terms of troops, to cover their rebellion with a pretext. 

Page 229: The insinuations of the Sultaness, who had always loved this minister, persuaded the Grand Lord or Sultan that all the harm that the sacrificed pashas had done had been repaired by he wisdom of the vizier. But after the route of Strigonia, and its seizer, had been learned, the immense losses had reduced such a fine army to less than half; when Tekeli, accused by Cara Mustapha, had come to Constantinople to justify his conduct and the memory of those to whom the Grand Vizier had imputed all of these misfortunes; what remained of janissaries with the Sultan, the Divan, and of the Ulemas, began to rise against a minister as unjust as he was imprudent. Unfortunately for Mustapha, the Valid Sultaness died, and the sister of the Emperor, wife of Cara Ibrhahim, who had been the first victim of the Grand Vizier, sent out all those who had complaints to make. The janissaries assembled one day in the courtyard of the seraglio during the holding of the Divan; and when they had heard that the Great Lord or Sultan, frightened, had just himself up inside of his harem, they protested that they would not eat until the death and dishonor of their leaders and their comrades was avenged by the torment of those to whom the were to be imputed. 

Page 230: The ministers charge the Kilsar Aga with telling Muhammad about the danger of a riot, which he had always feared more than anyone. No one spoke in favor of Mustapha; the defterdar added to all of the reasons for proscribing this minster, that his succession would return to the treasury all the money which had been drawn from it to raise a numerous army which his obstincy, his incapacity, and his cowardice had dissipated. Mahomet went out of the hraem to sign the order condemning the Grand Vizier to perish by the cordon; he was shown to the magistrates who were besieging the doors of the Divan; the sight of him calm them and dispersed them immediately. 

Page 241: The Seraskier Soliman pasha, summoned like the other two generals, thought for a time that the fate was destined for him. But his success had turned to him the eyes of the princes, of his minister, and of the whole Divan, as if upon whom the hopes of the Empire awaited or depended. The Grand Lord or Sultan wrote to him in his own hand, a rare honor in the East; he told him that he was reserved because of his talents and his valor to restore the affairs of the Ottoman Empire. 

Page 252: These sacrifices and promises, however, could not appease the mutineers, and the army was advancing in long days. The Sultan assembled his Divan every day; he descended to justifications, and even to prayers. The pashas and the lawyers answered by telling him that they were not the ons to win. 

Page 256: The two effendis were immediately conducted to the apartment in which Prince Soliman was kept. This prince, who was 46 years old, constantly meditate on the Koran, and had never taken part in the intrigues and revolutions which had several times threatened his life. He had, or appeared to have, some difficulties in accepting the Empire, saying that the habit of a retreat of forty years had allowed him to acquire other knowledge than that of the Koran and the Sunnah. “Mighty emperor,” replied the chief of the Emirs, “that law which you have studied is the one with which you will govern us; it is also that which your brother has so indignantly transgressed. God and the holy prophet command you, by our voice, to come and sit on the throne of your fathers.” The new emperor obeyed with an affected repugnance. He was clothed in a robe lined with sable fur, the three egrets were put on his turban, and the dagger adorned with diamonds, marks of sovereignty. He was brought into the Divan hall, where all the great officers and the principal scholars were waiting to kiss the hem of his jacket. 

Page 257: While being conducted to this ceremony, he asked what would become of the dethroned prince; when the answer given was that Mahomet would occupy the apartment from which he had just been removed, Suleiman, whether from pity or fear of the reproaches of his brother, pray that he should not be required to meet him. This prince showed by his timid countenance that the pomp which surrounded him and the authority with which he would soon be overwhelmed were also foreign to him. He confirmed the Grand Vizier Sciaus Pasha in his dignity, as well as all of the officers who composed the Divan.   

Page 263: The certainty that it would soon come into his hands cooled the ardor of the devotees of Soliman. He put at the head of the army, which he no longer wanted to command, the sergeant Rejeb, formerly a brigadier, who was supposed to have great talents for the war, because he had desolated Asia, and had made himself formidable to the pashas, and the members of the Divan, who had found it safer to admit it than undertake to punish him, were frightened. 

Page 266: Mustapha was deposed and sent into exile to one of the islands of the Archipelago, after seeing his property confiscated. This unfortunate vizier, full of sorrow, survived only a few months of his disgrace. Kiupruli, recently at the head of the Divan, changed the whole interior of the administration, and proved that the resources of a great state are immense, when order and economy are succeeded by depredations. However pressing the need for money, Kiupruli began by relieving Constantinople and the provinces of an arbitrary tax which his predecessor had placed on meat. This unexpected liberality filled the people with joy, and all the officers with surprise. 

Page 288: The Grand Vizier Parabolas Ali wished to place on the throne, Ibrahim, son of Achmet, who was only three years old. He ordered the officers of the seraglio, witnesses of the death of their master, to hide this event. The vizier and the mufti knew Mustapha for a prince who would like to reign. They hoped, on the contrary, to be absolute masters under the name of a child. While deliberating on the Divan, no longer about the choice of sovereign, but on how to proclaim the chosen, the Seliktar Aga and the Chiaoux Pacha appeared in the assembly: they command the Mufti and the Grand Vizier to go immediately to prostrate themselves at the feet of Mustapha II, who was waiting for them on the throne. 

Page 292: Mustapha made Elmas Pasha, who had won his confidence, his grand vizier. During deliberations in the Divan about the maritime operations of the ensuing campgin, a pirate of Tunis, named Mezzomorto, hearing that it was proposed to remain on the defensive, raised his voice, and assured that if he were entrusted with four ships and eight galleys, he would take back the island of Cyprus. To some objections of the captain Pacha, who seemed to want to impose silence on him, the sailor explained his project, the success of which depended on the divisions between the Latins and Greeks, which were extreme, and on the ease of approaching the island. Mustapha, who heard this discussion from behind the curtain of the dangerous window, ordered that Mezzomorto be given the resources and the crew which he judged necessary for this conquest; the pirate justified the trust of his master. 

Page 293: The Grand Lord or Sultan having learned of these succeses, deposed the captain pacha, and conferred his dignity on the pirate of Tunis, and made him a pasha of the bench. In spite of these honors, Mezzomorto never wish to quit the sailor’s uniform, in which he always appeared at the Divan as on the ships. “If the captains pasha, my predecessors,” said he, “had never worn this habit or robe, the navy of the Empire would be in better condition; instead of taking back what they have lost, I would have made new conquests.” Ever since Mezzomorto, the captains pasha have always worn the sailor’s habit, although made of rich stuffs and precious furs. 

Page 298: Finally Mustapha was ready to form the siege of Peterwaradin, believing that Prince Eugene was encamped under Ségedin, until he perceived the Austrian army advancing between the Turks and the place that they wished to besiege. It would be necessary for them to pass the Danube on a bridge they had recently built to attack the enemy before forming the siege. It was the opinion of the Grand Vizier, who presented it with authority in the Divan; but an old pasha of the bench, called Coja Jafer, strongly opposed the proposed project, saying that his experience of wars with the Germans had taught him that in the plain their superiority was infinite. 

Page 299: He recalled their resistance in recent battles, and said that in order to profit by the superiority of numbers, it was necessary to wait until on was attacked. All the pashas were of Jafer’s opinion. The Grand Vizier, indignant at this slowness, perhaps even more so from a pacha inferior to him, to train the votes, replied angrily, calling him a traitor. Jafer exclaimed: “Sublime Emperor, if you hear me, draw the curtain that veils you, and judge for the interest of your glory between your grand vizier and myself.” Mustapha was indeed behind the veil which, in the pavilion of the camp, as in the hall of the Divan of Constantinople, represents the dangerous window, and serves the emperor to hear everything without being sen. The Sultan appeared, and Jafer represents to him with renewed force the reasons for the retrenchment, in order to oblige the enemy to make the first motion and to bear the first blows. Mustapha, presumptuous as he was, bent over the old Pasha’s feeling. 

Page 318: The Grand Vizier proposed that the Sultan give him a pachalik; but the mufti, of whom Rami was a creature, sensed the trap; interested in supporting the work of peace, he obtained that Rami, instead of being a one-tails pasha in some small province of Asia, would be a three-tailed pasha of the bench, a member of the Divan, without any particular pachalik demanding any other residence than that of the court. Daltaban realized that another credit of his hand admitted to the Divan the one he had claimed to raise only to later precipitate his fall. 

Page 319: Mustapha, too accustomed to taking all the impressions that the mufti Fesula wanted to give him, saw Daltaban only as a traitor and an assassin, and the time of his death had been resolved; but as the vizier was supposed to be rebellious, a pretext was needed to draw him away from the seraglio. He was told to come and confer with the Emperor about a khatdi-sherif, which he mediated. The grand vizier, coming to the seraglio and entering the hall of the Divan to wait for the chief of the white eunuchs to introduce him to the Grand Lord or Sultan, saw with some surprise that the bostangis were guarding the doors of the hall, where he found no one. Soon after the Chiaoux Pachi appeared and asked the Grand Vizier, on behalf of Mustapha, for the seals of the Empire. 

Page 325: Mustapha, upon reading the manifesto, ordered that a march against the rebels. He assembled the leaders of the Divan, and made them swear that they would shed their blood for his defense. Then Grand Vizier Rami put himself at the head of about 15,000 men who were at his disposal. The mufti Festal issued a fetfa in opposition to that of the rebellious mufti. As soon as the rebels saw the troops coming out of Adrianople, they took up arms and advanced in battle array. 

Page 327: Mustapha, in fact, had no sooner read the letter addressed to his brother, than he himself bore it, and having kissed this prince, said: “Since heaven wishes it, go up to my place on the throne of our ancestors; remember, as long as I was your master, I treated you kindly. I give you all my rights; but do not forget that your elevation is the work of a few rebels who will treat you the same way if you leave their crime unpunished.”

He begged his brother to go to the Divan room, and he remains in the apartment that the prince was leaving.

Mustapha came down from the throne on August 24, 1702, forty years old, after ruling seven years. The beginnings of his reign had given great hopes; but his blind confidence in the mufti Fezula had enervated his soul, extinguished his lights, and was the cause of his loss. He died of dropsy a year after he was deposed.

Page 328: Acumet went to the throne room, accompanied by all the officers of the seraglio who had led his brother away; he ordered the grand vizier, the mufti, all the chief officers of the ulema, the Divan, and the army to pay their tribute. Though he had kept the words of Mustapha in his heart, he received with kindness those to whom he owed his elevation, and he enlisted in the army. Knowing that Mustapha had been accused of staying in Adrianople, he returned to his capital, where he held the sword of Othman. Achmet was thirty-six years old; he was not without instruction. 

Page 333: Then there was a new spectacle in the Ottoman Empire: a Sultan who neglected his harem to go disguise to seek his mistress in a foreign house, and who held council, no longer in the Divan, but in the apartment of the woman of his grand vizier, where this minister received the orders of his master and the one who was said to be his wife. The credit of Sarai was such that the Valid Sultaness sometimes sought the support of the woman whom she had removed from the frank of Hassessky. 

Page 346: Charles XII had intercepted letters addressed to the khan of the Tartars, according to which he persuaded himself that there were plans to remove him during his journey, and to deliver him to the king of Poland; and although he had received from the Sultan 1200 purses to pay his debts, he was confirmed more and more in his determination to not leave because anything could happen. The king, having this new motive for prolonging his stay, asked for a thousand purses or scholarships from his envoy to the Sultan. His highness was angry and sent the prisoner to prison, having assembled the Divan and expounded on all that he had done for the King of Sweden, to whom he had generously grand hospitality, and asked if he was not allowed to return it by fair means or foul. The whole Divan replied that the Grand Lord or Sultan was acting with justice, and the mufti immediately gave his fetfa. The Pasha of Bender, having received the order and the fetfa, went to Varnrtz to inquire whether the king wanted to leave as a friend, or to be reduced by the orders of the Sultan. Charles XII threatened was not master of his anger. 

Page 351: When Stanislaus was near that city, the Pasha, who was returning after having accompanied Charles XII, a few miles away, sent a magnificently harnessed Arabian horse to the King of Poland, and had him welcomed at Bender by the sound of artillery. Meanwhile the Divan, irritated by the King of Sweden, threatened to relegate him to one of the islands of the Archipelago. It seems that it was proposed to also relegate King Stanislaus to one of these islands, but a few months later the Sultan released him. 

Page 357: Europe did not know what power was threatened; but it was obvious that an expedition by sea was planned. The rumor spread that an attack on the rock of Malta was intended. Coumourgi was not sorry that this error was growing stronger. The Grand Master of the Order sent a declaration to all of the knights, and increased the fortifications of the island. When it was no longer possible to doubt the designs of the Turks on the Morea, the Emperor Charles VI offered to mediate; but the Divan always answered with assurances of an inviolable fidelity to the existing treaties. 

Page 360: The Austrian resident told the Porte that if they did not accept the mediation of the Emperor, this monarch would declare war on them. The Divan had already made preparations. The square of Temeswar was repaired; the column that were to compose the army marched on various sides to Adrianople, where they were reviewed by the Sulan; he entrusted the fleet to the Captain Pacha to attempt the conquest of Corfu, and commanded 150,000 men under the command of his Grand Master Coumourgi, who had never commanded or even served in the lower ranks.

The Vizier had declared war on the vow of the ulema. The effendis The effendis said that a treaty had been breached although the Germans had not missed; that God would not bless the weapons of the Great Lord or Sultan. Coumorgi, wishing to quell these rumors, assembled the Divan and admitted all of the mullas of Adrianople. The mufti, when asked if he would give his fetfa, replied submissively that his fetfa was ready, and immediately he read it.

Page 364: The Grand Seignior or Sultan, during the first bout of his fright, was thinking of returning to Constantinople, but the plague, which was ravaging this great city in a dreadful manner, and the assurance given by his ministers that it was safe to stay in Adrianople, changed his plan. Several members of the Divan wanted to take advantage of this terror to inspire a desire for peace; but the moment was not favorable for starting a treaty. Besides, it was hoped that France would make a diversion to preoccupy the Germans.]

Page 370: The Grand Vizier had neither good intentions nor the same views. A multitude of cases were judged in Turkey on the sole confirmation of the witnesses. Ibrahim, revolted by the multitude of what he was sure were false testimonies, resolved to frighten the guilty by examples. He made the Divan carry imaginary causes. The pretended litigants addressed those who made a profession of selling their testimony. More than fifty of these unfortunates attested to chance what they had been charged to certify, without suspecting the snare laid for them. It was not difficult to convict them of this crime, and they were all impaled on the same day.

Page 373: These successes alarmed the Turks. The khan of the Crimean Tartars demanded that the Russians should fortify their conquests, and maintain intelligence with the Prince of Georgia; that if the Ottomans remained inactive, Russia would spread so much that all of the possessions fo the Porte in Asia would be surrounded. Achmet did not like war; his grand vizier feared it as much as he did. The officers of the Divan and those of the janissaries, however, said loudly that it would be too shameful and too fatal for the Ottoman Empire to let the czar of Russia seize Perisa. Forced by these maneuvers, the Grand Vizier made preparations. The Pashas had orders to assemble the troops of their governments. 

Page 375: In Constantinople the war against Russia was the only topic of conversation. Th Pasha of Diarbekir had entered the province of Erivan; and the Pasha of Van, invited by the Armenians of Nakivan, dissatisfied with Thamas, had seized this country without striking a blow. The Grand Vizier having summoned a general Divan, attended by the principal ulemas and the chiefs of the militia, the dragoman of the Porte spoke for the ambassador of France, mediator. 

Page 386: Ibrahim thought he was stifling the discontent of the people by announcing that the grand seignior or Sultan would himself march at the head of a considerable army. He made the levies begin, and replied to the ambassador of Persia that with the help of God, the Sword of the Sumnits would defend their conquests against the detractors of the law. Achmet passed the strait with great pomp, and went to Scutari, where the court remained for some days in tents; but he did not take a long time to change his way of life, and soon returned to a pleasure palace called the Mirrors, to find his wives, his heaps of gold, and engage in the most futile occupations. All the officers of the divan followed his example in the houses which each had on the banks of the Bosphorus. 

Page 390: He learned that the rebels, encamped in the Ameidan, were guarding them as if the enemy; that the patrols roamed the city, where fires had been lit to avoid surprises; advice was given at that very hour; all the officers of the Divan had returned from Scutari, with the grand seignior or sultan, and the wiser ones said that, without delay, it was necessary to gather as many troops as the seraglio and the odas could provide, to arm all that would have zeal and courage, and to attack the rebels, while their number was not very considerable; but the great lord or sultan, to whom this plan was proposed, preferred to wait for the daylight, adding that the rebels appeared to be peaceful, and that the orders he would then send them could disperse them. 

Page 392: Patrona Calil, whose army was growing visibly, sent a body of six hundred men a short distance from the sacred standard: Ali, who commanded it, was ordered to deflect by promises and threats those who would appear to wish to rank under the banner of Mahomet, and to charge this troop in case of necessity. This precaution was very useful to the rebels, and the standard remained almost isolated. The inaction, the confusion which reigned in the seraglio, announced the terror of the master and of the whole Divan. They had wished to assemble the bostangis; but fear had scattered them, to the point that it was scarcely possible to gather thirty. The icoglans were too few to be opposed, even to Ali's troupe. The capitan pasha, braver than the other members of the Divan, wished to gather his levantis; he ordered the galleys to be brought to the point of the seraglio; he walked there himself. Four hundred levantis had already been landed, and the box or drum was beaten to gather the others, when the small flags of Patrona appeared. He had not lost a moment since he had learned of the movement of the galleys. Two battalions, advancing in good order, fired point-blank at the levantis, who were not yet forma for battle. 

Page 396: In the midst of the dreary silence that Zadi's speeches had occasioned, the viziers were informed that Achmet was ordering an assembly of the divan, at which he wished to be present. The pashas entered the palace, followed by the effendis. And as the emperor asked in an altered voice if the rebels were still in arms in the Ameidan, and what they could still desire: "Lord, tell him the effendi with assurance, your reign is finished; your subjects no longer want you as master; they ask loudly for your nephew Mahmut. You flatter yourself in vain for a return.” At these words the prince turned pale; but having resumed his wits: "Why did not I learn the truth sooner?” he said. “Everyone follow me.” Immediately he went to the prison of Mahmut with his cortege; and having taken this prince by the hand, said: "Fate has pronounced for you," leading him to the hall of the Divan. “I give you the throne that my brother resigned me on a similar occasion.”

Page 399: Mahmut gave a hundred thousand sequins to him who had placed him on the throne, and to let his master retire where he pleased. “I do not need money,” said the rebel, “since all the purses of Constantinople are at my service,” and he added, throwing a lightning glance at the Aga: “Never meddle with what looks at me, if you do not want to suffer the fate of your lieutenant." The rebel, seeing that his master had the design of removing him, redoubled his audacity and license, either to enforce it or to enrich himself before his disgrace. Although the greater number of Janissaries had laid down their arms, Patrona, Muslu, and Ali, presented themselves every day on the Divan, armed with large scimitars; they sat together next to the grand vizier, giving orders in his name, and almost always in spite of himself; they forced the vizier to name their creatures, without the minister daring to resist them. He even appointed a butcher of his friends to the dignity of Prince of Moldavia. Soon it was learned that Patrona wanted to replace the grand vizier, with one more suited to his devotion: he intended the office of Aga of the janissaries for Muslu, and himself claimed to be captain pasha. 

Page 400: In order to dispose of it safely, it was resolved that it would appear that an order had been given by Patrona to admit only a few persons to a Divan which he had organized; thirty years later, after the three tyrants had been brought into the seraglio, they were held in the last court. The only pachas on the bench and a few effendis admitted into the assembly alone, were not surprised to be separated from their courtyard, and to see in the hall of the Divan some gossip, about needing to wait for the orders that would have to be worn. It was agreed, in a word, that the Grand Vizier should say, the claws would be thrown on the three rebels and on two effendis to whom sangiakas had just been distributed, in order to make them lose the exemption to this plea that was enjoyed by all the members of the ulema. 

Page 410: Topal, who had the advantage of the position, beat his opponent again, killing 7,000 men, and taking 3,000 prisoners. He pursued the Persians relentlessly, reached them at Keilan, a town six leagues from Kerkoud, and beat them a third time. Then Thamas Kuli-Kan sent two deputies to ask the conqueror for peace. The Divan was ready to declare war on Russia. These were the motives: a Muscovite army opposed the passage of the Tartars into Persia, and moreover this power, together with the Emperor Charles VI, had sent troops to Poland to support the election of King Augustus II against that of King Stanislas Lecsinski, whom the Poles had called a second time to their throne, and who was favored by the kings of France, Spain, and Sardinia. M. de Villeneuve, ambassador of France at Constantinople, showed the Divan that his interest was to oppose the choice of the emperor of the West. 

Page 411: The discontent was at its height, when two months later it was learned that Achmet, Pasha of Baghdad, who was plenipotentiary for peace with Topal Osman, had concluded, just after the death of his colleague, a treaty with Persia, by which all of Georgia was returned. The muphti, after having lamented in the Divan the loss of Topal Osman, whom he attributed less to the iron of the Persians than to the malice of his enemies, declared that the peace which had just been made with the usurper of the Persia, was against the letter and the spirit of the Koran, which forbids the voluntary surrender to infidels or heretics of the places in which a legitimate worship has been rendered to God. The cries of the effendis and all the Muslims were such that the vizier was compelled to appear to disapprove of the peace. 

Page 412: But the Divan demanded that France promise not to leave arms until the Ottoman Empire had made peace. Louis XV and Cardinal de Fleury, his minister, were reluctant to make an alliance with the Muslims against a Catholic power. During reviewing the temperaments or attitudes, a treaty of pacification was concluded between the houses of Austria and Bourbon. France and King Stanislaus renounced all claims, either in Italy or in Poland, to the property of Lorraine, which Stanislas was to enjoy the rest of his life. The Turks soon knew that they could not hope for any diversion on this side. While the Divan foresaw a war against Russia, with which it was still feared that Charles VI would unite, it was learned that Abdala, far from following the instructions he had received, had dared to measure himself with Thamas Kouli-Kan. and that he had been beaten flat out near Erivan. 

Page 414: The Czarina exhibited there, for reasons of rupture, the races made by the Tartars on Muscovite lands, and the refusal of the Porte to repress them. The Empress, however, foresaw the possibility of accommodation. The ambassadors of England, of Holland, and the residence of the Emperor, offered their mediation. The Turks had motives for defying these powers; the Emperor had the greatest interest in weakening them; England and Holland were linked with the house of Austria. But the Divan, led by a eunuch and by women, showed only weakness and incapacity.

Page 442: The Janissaries, degenerate and degraded, had preserved nothing of their old discipline; the spahis, ruined and softened by luxury, were unable to enter the field; Egypt was agitated and Mecca threatened by the Wahabis. Mustapha yielded to the peaceful advice of the Divan, and contented himself with the assurances Catherine gave him, that he would withdraw his troops from Poland, and that the nobility of that kingdom would be restored to its dignity and independence. 

Page 461: The Turks had left the Danube in disorder, and the fugitives returned to Constantinople at the very moment when that city had just learned of the burning of the fleet and the appearance of the Russians at the Dardanelles. In the midst of these calamities, the Sultan thought that the glory of the empire must bow before the salvation of his people and the will of Heaven. He summoned a Divan to which the principal members of the ulema and all the pashas of the first order were called. "The courts of Vienna and Berlin offer me their mediation," said the Ottoman Emperor; the basis of the negotiations which they propose to open would be that the two belligerent nations would return to their limits, and that the Russians would undertake to evacuate Poland. Thus the true object of war would be fulfilled, and the justice of nations and sovereigns would be satisfied.”

The Divan opted for peace; but during the negotiations, Mustapha made new efforts to support the war. New reinforcements were sent to the army of the Danube, which was entrusted, as well as the seals of the empire, to Schifar Mohammed. Forty thousand Bosnians or Albanians were recruited, and the Baron de Tott ordered a considerable quantity of artillery and ammunition for Varna. But disorder and indiscipline made all these efforts almost useless. 

Page 468: On the shores of the Adriatic, two pachas appeared to be rebellious to their sovereign's orders. Mahmout, in Scutari, and Ali, in Janina, braved the threats of the Divan in the midst of their troops and fortresses. To the east of the empire, Achmet, who ruled Baghdad, was no longer subject; but he repressed the Persians, and preserved the integrity of his territory.]

Page 473: To make matters worse, the Russians demanded that Prince Repnin, their ambassador, make his public entrance to Constantinople, escorted by six hundred armed men. The conditions of such a disadvantageous treaty excited the just alarms of the Divan. It was not difficult to foresee that the independence of the Tartars was only a first step in their meeting with Russia, and that the safety of the capital itself might be compromised by the introduction of the Russian fleets into the Black Sea. As soon as peace had allowed the Porte to cast a glance at the state of its provinces, it took care to punish the traitors who had favored the enemy and the rebels who had increased the disorders during the war. A capidji was charged with bringing to Constantinople the head of Ghicca, hospodar of Moldavia, who had not known how to hide his inclination for Russia. The minister of vengeance of the Divan was able to fill his sinister mission with as much skill as success.

Page 476: The Greeks of Bulgaria crowded past the Danube to take advantage of the privileges granted to Wallachians and Moldavians. At the same time, on the banks of the Nieper, was the city of Cherson, whose port was to contain the fleets that Russia was building on the Black Sea. The policy of the Porte, both weak and cruel, could only alienate more and more the Christians subjected to Ottoman rule. The general proscription of all the Greeks was proposed in the Divan; and without the opposition of the capitan pasha, perhaps the judgment of extermination would have been pronounced. But Hassan soon tarnished the glory that such a noble resistance would have acquired for him. Charged with punishing the Greeks who had taken part in the last insurrection, he went to the Morea, and after having beheaded all the inhabitants whom he judged guilty, he had a pyramid erected with these heads, which outlined all the ferocity of these barbarous peoples. 

Page 478: However, the weak and unhappy Saïm-Gueray, displeased with the Russians, who had abandoned him, was reluctant to yield to the treacherous insinuations of the Divan, which offered him asylum in Constantinople. As soon as he entered the Ottoman territory, he was exiled to Rhodes, and soon put to death. 

Page 479: These arrangements were maintained by the envoys of London and Berlin. They represented to the Sultan that the circumstances were favorable to erase the shame of the last treaties. Prussia promised to hold the Emperor of Germany in check if it were necessary, and England declared that Sweden and Poland would arm in favor of Turkey. Emboldened by these promises, the Divan demanded of Catherine the evacuation of Georgia, the extradition of the Prince of Moldova, Mauro Cordato, who, unfaithful to the grand seignior or sultan, had taken refuge in Russia, and the right to visit the Russian ships, when they passed the walls of Constantinople. 

Page 495: Prince Repnin had just repulsed Joussouf Pasha, who had been recalled to the Vizierate: the place of Varna, the granary of Constantinople, and the Ottoman armies, found themselves threatened again; but the events which had just broken out in France acquired such a character of gravity that England and Prussia interposed between Russia and the divan to put an end to hostilities. The negotiations opened at Galacz prepared a definitive treaty, which was concluded at Yassi on January 9, 1792. 

Page 503: Meanwhile the ambassadors of London, Vienna, and St. Petersburg prevailed; it was decided that M. de Semonville should not be received, and the pashas had orders to oppose his passage. But some time after, the French armies having obtained advantages over the imperial troops, this circumstance induced the Divan to put the matter under deliberation. As, according to the religious ideas of the Turks on predestination, victory is a gift from Heaven and an effect of the judgments of God, it follows that in their eyes the strongest are always right. It was therefore resolved that M. Descorches, who had just been substituted for M. de Semonville by the French Government, should be admitted and recognized as ambassador of the republic. At the same time the Porte occupied itself with putting the frontiers of the empire in a state of defense. 

Page 505: But soon troubles of an even more serious nature broke out on the banks of the Danube. The Pasha of Widdin, so-called Passewan Oglou, raised the banner of the revolt, and drew into his party several other pashas and governors of cities. The rebels seized Orsowa and Tirlova, and threatened Servia and Wallachia with an invasion. At this unfortunate news the divan ordered fifty thousand men to be assembled under the walls of Adrianople, where the Beglierbey de Romelie, Akir Pasha, went at the head of four thousand Janissaries to take command of the army. This seraskier easily succeeded in dispersing the brigands who infested Bulgaria and part of Romania; then he obtained some successes against the rebels of the Danube. 

Page 508: The advantages which Akir Pasha had first gained over Passewan Oglou were followed by setbacks which led to the dismissal of the head of the Ottoman army. The Divan substituted for him the Beglierbey of Anatolia, Alo Pasha; but before he had reached the Danube with a reinforcement of Asian troops, the rebels had seized several fortresses and made further progress. At the same time, a frightful event resulted in the destruction of part of the city of Smyrna. 

Page 509: The Divan, frightened by the number and audacity of the partisans of Passewan Oglou, charged the Prince of Wallachia to begin a negotiation with him; but the rebel carried his pretensions so loudly that all conciliation became impossible. Then his head was priced at sixty thousand piastres, and new levies were ordered from all sides. 

Page 516: The old vizir Mehemet was deposed and replaced by the Pasha of Erzerum, Amidin Jusuf However, it was still swayed for some time to declare war on the oldest ally of the empire. But the representations and proceedings of the ministers of London and Petersburg, as well as the news successively received from the progress of the French army in Egypt, finally determined the Divan to conclude a treaty with England and Russia, an alliance in which these three powers guaranteed the integrity of their territory. 

Page 526: Bonaparte on the same day made his entry into the capital of Egypt with his staff, and published the next day the following proclamation: "People of Cario, I am happy with your conduct: you did well to take sides against me. I came to destroy the race of the Mamelukes, protect the trade and the natives of the country. May all those who are afraid be calmed; that all who are far away return to their homes; that prayer takes place today as usual, as I want it to continue always; do not be afraid for you, families, houses, your  properties, and especially for the religion of the prophet, whom I love. As it is urgent that tranquility be not disturbed, there will be a Divan of seven persons, who will meet at the great mosque; there will always be two members of this Divan near the commandant of the place, and four will be busy maintaining order and watching over the police.” 

Page 539: Then Bonaparte ordered to save the suppliants and to stop the fire. However, fourteen sheikhs and lawyers having been appointed as the principal authors of the sedition, eleven of them were condemned to death; six were shot in the square of Ezbekieh; the others were beaten. Several members of the divan having been compromised in the revolt, this assembly was dissolved; but two months after, the general-in-chief being satisfied with the calm of the inhabitants of Cairo, ordered the formation of a new council, composed of the principal sheikhs of Cairo and the environs, of which there were sixty. 

Page 543: It was on his journey to Suez that the general-in-chief learned of the occupation of Fort El Arich on the road to Syria in Egypt, by a detachment of the Mamelukes of Ibrahim Bey and the troops of Djezzar. Informed, moreover, that the Grand Seigneur or Sultan formally declared himself against the French, he prepared to lead his army on new fields of battle. In the last few years the Pasha of Acre, Achmet Djezzar, had shown himself little subject to the orders of the Divan; but the invasion of the French into Egypt put an end to this misunderstanding. Anticipating that, after having established their dominion in this country, they would turn their arms towards Syria, Djezzar hastened to make common cause with Ibrahim Bey and with the Porte, in order to resist the army of which he was threatened. Bonaparte was in fact meditating an expedition on Syria, when he learned that the Pacha of Acre had already put troops in motion, and had seized the fort of El-Arich which is situated on the borders of Egypt. 

Page 558: Kleber was at Rosette, when he received the letters by which Bonaparte, announcing his departure, invested him with the command of the troops and the colony. He went to Cairo immediately, to be recognized by the army, the members of the Divan, the sheikhs and the ulemas of that capital. He promised the people of Egypt to respect their religion, and to take care of their  happiness. "Reassure yourself," said he to the assembled Muslims, "the government of Egypt has passed into other hands; but all that can be relative to your happiness, to your prosperity, will be constant and immutable.”