Israel, Palestine & the Levant rolling events: Oct 23 on

Also, for context on the Kibbutz Be'eri post and those less familiar with the situation of the past 15-20 years (and again disclaimer I am hardly an expert myself): from Ariel Sharon onward, Israeli policy has been increasingly tilted toward a phony sort of "disengagement." In my mind, it traces back to the building of the West Bank wall although that could be simplistic take. But Netanyahu has turbo-charged this idea, basically that Israel could just kind of ignore the territories (at least other than soldiers stationed in the West Bank) rather than engage in any more ongoing negotiations, that the West Bank could continue to develop economically even without full agency or freedom, and that Gaza would be the kind of counterexample (i.e. life would be worse than in the West Bank) as long as Hamas was there. That terrorism could simply be prevented or minimized through "security," the settlements in the West Bank could continue quietly, and most Israelis would just live their lives and not worry.

Netanyahu is also notoriously corrupt and venal, and he has maintained power through a coalition with right-wing settler and religious parties, giving both more power (which also angers the more secular wings of Israeli politics as Israel gradually takes on additional trappings of theocracy, though it is hardly a full theocracy).

Netanyahu also favors his voters. The kibbutzes near Gaza tend actually to be center-liberal to left. They are not Netanyahu voters. There is a strong sense that Netanyahu "neglected" these areas as the girl expressed in her video, and that is also reflected in the sense that he neglected security near the Gaza border. I genuinely do not know whether Netanyahu "allowed" the attack but I seriously doubt it for reasons I stated in the prior thread. I think this was more hubris and stupidity and myopia.

"I don’t think it was mentioned but Humza Yousuf who is Scotland’s first minister has family trapped in Gaza. I am linking this video as I find this content extremely upsetting."

Mentioned this in the last Israel thread.

You can count on one hand the number of European leaders who have talked about Palestinians as human beings

And they’re all backpedaling now given protests and public pushback.

The President of the University of Pennsylvania has released her 3rd or 4th public statement apologizing for letting a Palestinian writers conference take place last month

The President of the University of Pennsylvania has released her 3rd or 4th public statement apologizing for letting a Palestinian writers conference take place last month

people are so fucking gross

Public statements issued by university presidents are generally tailored to a narrow and specific segment of the public, mainly anyone with influence over university revenues or endowments. They are paid to know how to read that room.

Aimless, we know. No offense.

Well, yeah. When you've got Dick Wolf threatening your donations because you let Palestinians into a building named after him...

a name like Dick Wolf must never be besmirched

Always guarantee the BBC will always be fucked.

The BBC admits that it misled the public about pro-Palestinian demonstrations in the UK. pic.twitter.com/oi4nVf5DN7

— Lowkey (@Lowkey0nline) October 16, 2023

i think about this poem by Palestinian poet Najwan Darwish all the time pic.twitter.com/jv5WOOjobb

— هستی hasti (@youarehasti) October 16, 2023

xp - That retraction was also poorly phrased and could be misleading.

This is @GhassanAbuSitt1, a surgeon who is currently saving the lives of Palestinians in a hospital in Gaza. He's just reported that counter terrorism police have showed up at his house in the UK and harrased his family.pic.twitter.com/GOvl5aQLHG https://t.co/bugmmZPAMM

— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) October 16, 2023

That retraction was also poorly phrased and could be misleading.

glad i'm not the only one who thought this

OTM

I know this is old news, but it still blows my mind that the range of Acceptable Opinions on Israel is narrower in the West than it is in Israel.

That Darwish poem is great. Notable that Armenians were just cleansed from Artsakh by Azerbaijan and absolutely no-one in the west cared.

Yup. Armenia could be invaded in the next few weeks btw.

xxp two words: Social Media.

Nuanced discussions are often lacking in the echo chambers of social media and the 24 hour news cycle. The only place where I've seen nuanced discussions about the topic are on platforms that favor more nuanced discussion, such as ILX and (yes, believe it or not) Reddit.

I do wonder if the "outrage economy" of clickbait extremism online and the 24 hours news cycle will finally hit a limit of societal acceptability in western democracies, but I'm not holding my breath, they still make $$$

"We called a pro-palestinian march pro-Hamas. We accept that this was a thing that we said". WTF.

Now here's the weather.

True, I understand in theory how misinformation supposedly works. But I'm finding it extremely challenging to trust some of the news sources being cited and finding myself turning to reddit, and other news sources that I don't normally consult trying to see what areas of dispute exist over even just the factual reporting.

xp

Interestingly enough, a private forum I participate in is completely avoiding talking about this, and honestly it might be for the best.

The ukpolitics sub is overall fanatically pro-occupation and pro-genocide, and they are gradually losing their shit as they observe the public becoming turned off by this stance. Also they are usually witheringly critical of the Tories but have suddenly become staunchly supportive of Sunak and Braverman.

Are you taking about Reddit or something

I have met exactly zero people in between.

To the extent I've talked to people about this, almost everybody I know IRL is "in between" the two positions you describe.

Reddit is a paragon of “nuanced discussion” now. We are truly fucked.

Actually was just thinking about this specific issue in non-Reddit terms which still definitely apply to Reddit. How this conflict is a godsend for the extreme right (and whatever apologists they may have claiming to be “leftist”). Because it so thoroughly divides actual leftists from liberals steeped in realpolitik or whatever they’re on.

a name like Dick Wolf must never be besmirched

There's nothing decent to besmirch. The Law & Order "franchise" is a formulaic, sensationalist pile of shit. All 1,316 episodes of it.

Also pretty depressing how my social media feed was blissfully Ben Shapiro-free until various people decided his thick-headed, one-dimensional take on the Middle East was the voice of reason this past week.

xxp two words: Social Media.

Nuanced discussions are often lacking in the echo chambers of social media and the 24 hour news cycle. The only place where I've seen nuanced discussions about the topic are on platforms that favor more nuanced discussion, such as 4chan and (yes, believe it or not) Stormfront.

We get it. You don't like Reddit.

I don’t like social media illiterates upholding a literal right wing extremist-captured disinformation service as their go-to for balanced discussion.

lol what

Lol hey i wasnt even posting here viborg

Yes, the famously extremist platform, reddit

Extremely milquetoast maybe

i know this is dumb and unhelpful, but to illustrate the kinds of things i’m seeing regular jewish folks share these days: https://www.instagram.com/p/CyZO9L8sM01/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

That’s depressing

As noted, I know numerous IRL people with Israeli flag avatars saying that they stand with Israel no matter what.

Plus I know IlXorz and others who almost uniformly condemn Israel as a brutal apartheid state that continues to use "but the Holocaust" as a laminated carte blanche for every atrocity the IDF wishes to commit. (There is a bit of a strawman in there but that's another topic for another time.)

I have met exactly zero people in between. I know it is not about me and/or my feelz. And I don't love "both sides"ing US politics either. The discourse is polarized and will remain so.

I have also been finding the discourse polarized online - less so in person - but I think the first position you gave is actually an in-between position. I think the two poles of the discourse are actually "I stand with Israel no matter what", versus "Israel should not exist, and any conversation about Israel needs to go back to the fundamental problem of it existing in the first place."

My position is that Israel is not, at this point, fundamentally different from the US or Canada or Australia or any other country that was created by settling already occupied land. It should not have been created, but now that it exists, we aren't going to wind time backwards and expel the Jews from Israel any more than we're going to expel white people from the US. I do agree that it's a brutal apartheid state that uses the Holocaust as an excuse to commit atrocities. But I would like to be able to have conversations on the left about what to do about this that don't start from the implicit premise that Jews should just clear out, as if Jewish settlement is somehow different and more reversible than the Christian settlement our entire country is built on.

While I'm at it, I would absolutely love to be able to jump into discussions about Israel and Palestine that are not filled with coded and not-so-coded antisemitism from people I fundamentally agree with. I would like it if people didn't have to dismiss the Israeli victims in order to show sympathy for the Palestinian victims, or the other way around. It would also be very nice if the New York Times didn't publish bullshit articles about how Jews in New York have put aside their political differences to come together in their shared grief for Israel, as if to confirm every anti-Semite's conviction that when the chips are down all Jews are Zionists at heart. I would like to stop reading about the Hamas attacks as "pogroms" and "the biggest attacks on Jews since the Holocaust," like, no, dude, Israel is a country, you can't frame attacks on your country as an attack on The Jews. It's a horrific mass murder but it's not a pogrom.

Maybe none of this makes any sense. I don't really feel I know enough about any of this, and maybe I've gotten it all wrong. But it's been a hard week. I don't mean to ask for special sympathy for myself as a Jew, because many people are suffering more here, but do please consider that your Jewish posters are under a lot of stress. Some of us (not me, but people I know) have friends and family in Israel, so we may be dealing with worry for them, or with having family members whose political opinions we find abhorrent, or both. We're having to navigate liberal spaces where the justified anti-Israel sentiment gets mixed in with a lot of stray antisemitism. I know I feel a lot more visible as a minority right now than I'm used to being in the US. And for people like me, who are descended from Holocaust survivors, there's also a particularly helpless horror and grief at seeing Israel do things to the Palestinians that were done to us in the Holocaust. I've never felt any sense of identification with Israel, I don't rationally think that being Jewish connects me to the Israelis, and yet the idea of Jews being the ones to create the ghettos and the death marches is viscerally appalling to me and I can't help feeling an irrational sense of guilt and responsibility. But at the same time I don't want the Holocaust and its after-effects minimized. I think there's a willingness to forget that Israel was founded by people who were terrified and traumatized to an extraordinary level, and much as I oppose Israel and its actions, that's something I can't mentally take out of the empathy equation because it's a trauma that's also embedded in my family.

Sorry about the long post, which kind of went all over the place. I just wanted to convey that I feel like I'm being pulled in a million emotional directions at once even if my politics are pretty aligned with ilx, and that this is likely the case for a lot of Jewish people you know. So just keep this in mind, folks, if you find yourself putting pressure on Jews you know to say the right thing in the right way.

<3

<3

appreciate the post, lily

Yeah great post Lily.

But I would like to be able to have conversations on the left about what to do about this that don't start from the implicit premise that Jews should just clear out, as if Jewish settlement is somehow different and more reversible than the Christian settlement our entire country is built on.

the serious position i encounter most commonly on the left (and support myself) is for a one-state solution - a single, secular democratic state, with civil rights for all, right of return for palestinian refugees and some form of reparations. a two-state solution may be nice in theory but most on the left would tend to agree it's a dead prospect these days - israel has done everything it can with the settlements to make it logistically impossible, and the prospect of a lasting peace from it seems like it would be even less likely. "jews should just clear out" is just more ethnic cleansing, it is not a serious or just position.

That’s an amazing post Lily, thank you for posting.

xxp two words: Social Media.

Nuanced discussions are often lacking in the echo chambers of social media and the 24 hour news cycle. The only place where I've seen nuanced discussions about the topic are on platforms that favor more nuanced discussion, such as 4chan and (yes, believe it or not) Stormfront.

i think viborg was just calling reddit a nazi site in a particularly oblique way there but i wouldn't blame anyone for taking it at face value

Oh wait, it was a parody. Ignore that. Sorry viborg.

Lily Dale, I understand your point of view and you don’t have to apologise for it, or for having complicated feelings, or anything. I don’t think anyone should be asking anything of their Jewish friends about Israel anyway, like you have to prove your views are the right ones. I would very much like to hope that this is widely understood but I know that it isn’t.

In any case, the situation you describe where people may have family over there is complicated and people are being really short sighted and tbh dismissive when saying it’s happening “over there”. The relationship with the diaspora is pretty unique in many ways, which you’ve mentioned. I don’t have to think that anything Bibi’s government does or did is justified or right to feel sorrow for the hostages or the victims of the massacres, some of whom were literal Holocaust survivors.

xp yeah that’s my fault I’m not very awake

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2025/12/16/israeli-raids-across-west-bank-as-gaza-reels-from-aftermath-of-storm

Infants dying of cold in Gaza

Egypt can say what it wants but purchasing $35bn of gas from Israel violates int'l law, including the ICJ advisory opinion of 2024, and is, honestly, an incredible sign of support to Israel during the genocide of the Palestinians.
States must stop placing profits above humanity. https://t.co/J3F7tMbPP1

— Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur oPt (@FranceskAlbs) December 20, 2025

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/12/26/israel-becomes-first-country-to-recognise-somaliland

From Haaretz - Iranian hackers said they hacked into the phone of PM Netanyahu's chief of staff and will soon publish sensitive information they obtained about the premier and his aides' alleged ties to Qatar. Far-right minister Ben-Gvir said that anyone involved in Qatargate "should be sent to prison for many years," while saying that he believes Netanyahu was not involved in qatargate affair

was looking up Somaliland and quelle surprise it is a zone of British neocolonial interest with no credible claims of sovereignty in the region other than from Israel.

It's kind of a self-negating move from a country that doesn't recognise one that 81% of the world does. But shameless is how they roll.

https://apnews.com/article/saudi-arabia-bomb-yemen-mukalla-weapons-uae-9fc56e4678a12f56d61b1ecf855d4a4e

thought this interview with a Palestinian writer was really interesting:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/20/magazine/raja-shehadeh-interview.html

"At the end of another brutal year of strife and suffering, with a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas holding"

Great interview, and yes I know it has been contentious here but the way he identifies Zionism as the central problem..

Something that has struck me in talking to you is a calm or lack of stridency in how you make your arguments, which seems very different than the stridency of younger pro-Palestinian activists. I’m curious if you see generational differences in how pro-Palestinian voices express themselves and the tactics that they call for? Yes, but I think that even when I was young I always had a mild tone.

So it’s you, not generational? I always try to understand the other side because I want to be effective and speak to the other side in a language that they can understand. I’ve always been hesitant to use strident language and to be extremist in order to win over the other side. That has been my effort all along — to win the other side — but it has never worked

This is something else.

Israel has attacked Lebanon nearly 30 times today alone. The latest drone strike targeted a vehicle in the village of Yater, south Lebanon.

— roqayah رقية (@roqchams) January 11, 2026

The Israeli army struck an area of southern Lebanon on Sunday, January 11, after issuing an evacuation warning, Lebanese state media said, with the military saying it attacked Hezbollah infrastructure. The strikes came days after the Lebanese military said it had completed disarming Hezbollah south of the Litani River, the first phase of a nationwide plan, though Israel has called those efforts insufficient

https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2026/01/12/israeli-army-strikes-south-lebanon-after-warning_6749308_4.html

Just adding more details re latest Israel strikes in Lebanon

Israel Is Still Demolishing Gaza, Building by Building
More than 2,500 structures have been destroyed since the start of the cease-fire, an analysis by The New York Times has found.

https://archive.ph/mNHmy

Just about to post that too re: Gaza

Curmudgeon - thanks.

I almost posted about babies in Gaza freezing to death a few days ago, but decided not to since there were also several depressing articles about the West Bank and I wasn't sure what the point of posting was. Everyone understands the genocide is still ongoing, right?

yes

https://www.middleeasteye.net/live-blog/live-blog-update/statistics-bureau-says-gaza-population-fell-106-due-killing-and

The hunger strike for Palestine in British jails has ended in victory as Elbit Systems is denied £2bn contract with UK military.

In addition to improved conditions and the disclosure of Elbit export licenses during genocide.

History has been made by hearts hungry for justice.

— Lowkey (@Lowkey0nline) January 15, 2026

that is good news, was hearing very worrying reports about the strikers

This is a statement on all of this.

https://prisonersforpalestine.org/statement-three-end/

xp

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/charlie-kirk-israel-award-antisemitism-b2900983.html

Netanyahu announces Israel will honor Charlie Kirk with award for fighting antisemitism

lmao

I'm old enough to remember when Netanyahu was vehemently denying that he had anything to do with Kirk's death, so obv going by his standard m.o. he did have him killed then!

absolutely zero credit goes to scumbag war criminals Starmer and Lammy in ending the hunger strike. These evil fucks would have idly stood off until people died and didn't care a jot.

We'll see whether this is the case soon.

"The Washington Post reported yesterday that the Israeli and Iranian governments passed messages to each other via Russia late last month, before the Iranian protests began, with each disavowing any plan to attack the other. The Israelis, according to this story, are planning a major military operation against Hezbollah and wanted to minimize the chances of Iran getting involved. Maybe that explains Netanyahu’s position."

Contract that was intended to go to Elbit has apparently gone to Raytheon instead.

Yeah the (right wing) accounts posting below this just said "this is a tender process". Time will tell.

TODAY: Israeli authorities demolish the UNRWA headquarters in Jerusalem.

Videos by @OrenZiv_ pic.twitter.com/7VT389NWQc

— +972 Magazine (@972mag) January 20, 2026

🇮🇷 🎥 WATCH: U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent brags at Davos about the role U.S. sanctions have played in collapsing Iran’s economy, fueling public anger, and driving the recent nationwide protests.

Speaking to Fox News, Bessent said: “It’s worked because in December, their… pic.twitter.com/BmzobJJPgT

— Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) January 20, 2026

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/31/israeli-strikes-gaza-kill-at-least-12-reports

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvg5x2l3v0qo

Palestinians, Arab countries, Israeli anti-occupation groups and the UK have condemned new steps approved by Israel's security cabinet for the occupied West Bank, saying they amount to de facto annexation.

Far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich announced the moves that would make it easier for Jewish settlers to take over Palestinian land. "We will continue to kill the idea of ​​a Palestinian state," he said.

All settlements are seen as illegal under international law.

The measures - which are expected to be signed off by Israel's top military commander for the West Bank - aim to increase Israeli control over the territory in terms of property law, planning, licensing and enforcement.

The partial reopening of Gaza’s southern Rafah crossing with Egypt has been marked by chaos and severe restrictions imposed by Israel, as tens of thousands of Palestinians continue to wait for medical evacuation to receive urgent care outside the Gaza Strip. According to U.N. data, only 36 Palestinians in need of medical treatment were allowed to leave Gaza during the first four days of the crossing’s reopening. Palestinians permitted to reenter Gaza have also reported abuse and hourslong interrogations. This comes amid growing skepticism over the implementation of the second phase of the Trump-brokered ceasefire, which Israel has repeatedly violated with near-daily attacks across Gaza since the truce took effect in October.

“No one inside Gaza is calling this a ceasefire,” says Arwa Damon, former CNN correspondent and the founder of INARA, a nonprofit organization that supports children impacted by war. She says ongoing Israeli restrictions on medical evacuation are essentially a death sentence for many people, including children. “They are either going to end up with permanent injury or they are going to die.”

Transcript

https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/israeli-soldiers-accused-of-using-polymarket-to-bet-on-strikes-72d53012?st=WX5EDN&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

Israeli Soldiers Accused of Using Polymarket to Bet on Strikes

Internal security agency alleges suspects used classified information from their jobs to inform their wagers

Israel has arrested several people, including army reservists, for allegedly using classified information to place bets on Israeli military operations on Polymarket.

Shin Bet, the country’s internal security agency, said Thursday the suspects used information they had come across during their military service to inform their bets.

One of the reservists and a civilian were indicted on a charge of committing serious security offenses, bribery and obstruction of justice, Shin Bet said, without naming the people who were arrested.

vile but I wonder if the entire world needs a cleansing fire

Israeli military activities have been a popular subject for bets on the platform. With tension again growing over Iran’s nuclear and ballistic-missile programs after they were pounded by Israel and the U.S. last June, there were more than $3 million in bets on “Israel Strikes Iran” by Feb. 28, March 31 or June 30 this year, with most of the action focused around the end of March.

Users can also bet on the date Israel next strikes Gaza or Lebanon, the number of countries Israel will strike in February, and progress in Gaza peace talks. There are bets on U.S. strikes on Iran and whether the U.S. or Israel will strike Iran first.

Among the questions with the highest trade volume on Polymarket currently is when Washington will carry out military action against Iran. The current trading volume for that question is over $238 million.

On organ harvesting of Palestinian bodies..

https://thebaffler.com/latest/im-not-done-with-you-turfah

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/us-offer-passport-services-west-bank-settlement-first-time-2026-02-24/

Recognition of settlers by the US

From Haaretz re Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon-

Israel has indirectly communicated to Lebanon that if Hezbollah joins any U.S.-Iran confrontation, Israel would respond with major force, including by targeting civilian infrastructure such as Beirut's airport, two senior Lebanese officials told Reuters on Tuesday.