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

What organizations are you all donating to? Trying to figure out what's going to be most useful.

We gave to Oxfam. It sounds like the amount of aid going through is starting to increase but still not enough. They work in the West Bank as well though.

Palestinian Medical Assistance & Anera are two I’ve donated to.

the distance between seemingly all govt and many non govt parties across the west and actual polled citizens opinion

Agreed. Among the exceptions to this would be some of the leftist governing parties in South America (e.g., Bolivia, Chile and Colombia are pulling their ambassadors to Israel).

I did World Central Kitchen and Doctors Without Borders

aid money for Gaza going missing was a problem in my country a few years ago, so these days local activists recommend donating only to the red cross/red crescent

fwiw the UN says that so far there is no evidence that aid has been diverted to Hamas or criminal groups.

I’m interested in people’s news diets on this. It’s so overwhelming. I am doing a pretty good job of completely avoiding social media. Pretty much all day I focus on work.

- In the morning, the radio (World Service or Radio 4)
- links people send me. ILX.
- In the evening, Al-jazeera if I feel like I can handle it. I often can’t or won’t, avoiding the news completely, or tune in to a brief bit of Newsnight and/or rolling news.

I think what’s missing is… blogs? I’d be interested in reading niche specialists who can illuminate the web of alliances in the region for instance

I think Michael Walker most evenings on Novara Live has been valuable.

I've become a regular watcher because it has been the only bearable UK coverage of Palestine.

This kind of shit doesn't help either.

Hamas official promises: 'We'll repeat Oct. 7 massacre until Israel is annihilated'

I read Haaretz daily, and +972. I have Twitter alerts set up for key news sources on an old Wifi-only phone so I’m not inundated through the day. I have blocked three “pro-Palestinian but anti-Semitic” Twitter accounts that were popping up a lot in my feed

My diet consists of:
- Jewish Currents
- N+1
- Electronic Intifada (yes, very biased, I know)
- Al-Jazeera
- some occasional blogs
- one or two social media pages that I click on when I check in, which is rarely!!

This was a good read, some seemingly obvious concepts are sharply clarified

https://www.thenation.com/article/world/antisemitism-zionism-nikki-haley/

This conflation of anti-Semitism with anti-Zionism isn’t about protecting Jews. It is a way of isolating, shaming, and even ruining individuals who oppose the war agenda of the Israeli state. It is a way also to chill the actions of budding activists who are against racism, against apartheid, and against a logic that has brought us to the brink of a Palestinian genocide.

Similarly, to say that anti-Semitism is anti-Zionism is also a way of communicating the idea that Jews are by definition Zionists. This is dangerous and anti-Semitic, branding Jewish people as supporters of Israel’s war on Gaza no matter our personal politics. Its assertion also pours gasoline on the fires of anti-Semitism by creating a savagely unfair guilt by association.

This kind of shit doesn't help either.

That kind of rhetoric falls in line with Saddam Hussein promising the "Mother of All Wars" when it was apparent that the USA would invade. It may be tone deaf in terms of seeking western support, but the message isn't designed for that purpose. It tells Gazans "we are not helpless; we are fierce".

Just to note that Israel created Hamas and officials mostly agree on that history

I read most things people link here, including Forward, Guardian, Jewish Currents, CNN, Al-Jazeera, BBC, and the New York Times. I also seek out coverage from media outlets whose coverage on other issues diverges from mine or is opposite to mine, such as the Wall Street Journal.

Sometimes I look at Shayan Sardarizadeh's Xitter account (@Shayan86). He does a daily thread of Israel-Hamas war misinformation.

A lot of the above plus El País. For reasons I’ve yet to figure out, I suffer less when reading about all this in Spanish.

Just to note that Israel created Hamas and officials mostly agree on that history

― butt dumb tight my boners got boners (the table is the table)

can you go into more detail on this please?

Galit Distel Atbaryan, Likud party member, was Minister of Information until she resigned on Oct 12, now a member of Knesset, tweeted this a few hours ago:

https://x.com/galitdistel/status/1719689095230730656

Maybe something is lost with the “translate tweet” function, but:

Don't hate each other.
The monsters hate you enough.
Hate the enemy.
Hate the monsters.
Any vestige of internal bickering is a maddeningly stupid waste of energy.
Invest this energy in one thing;
Erasing all of Gaza from the face of the earth.
That the Gazan monsters will fly to the southern fence and try to enter Egyptian territory.
or they will die.
And their death is evil.
Gaza should be erased.
And fire and smoke on the heads of the Nazis in Judea and Samaria.
Haron is also a Jew who will shake the earth of the world.
A vengeful and cruel IDF is needed here.
Anything less is immoral.
Just unethical.

^complete mental derangement, but expressed very poetically

Definitely more poetic than Lindsay Graham, yes

crut, Mehdi Hasan has a good basic explanation here.

In essence, tho, Israel helped support the founding of Hamas as a reaction against Arafat and Fatah. Israeli authorities thought that by supporting a religious political and social organization like Hamas, the more secular and pan-Arabic inclinations of Arafat could be counteracted.

Obviously, this is not what has happened. This doesn’t excuse the horrible actions of Hamas, but is simply objective history in many ways.

A not totally perfect analog could be the way that the US armed Afghans against Russia in the 80s. Look how that turned out!

361 foreign nationals and 45 severely injured Palestinian people were permitted to leave the Gaza strip today, according to the NY Times (gift link)

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/11/01/world/israel-hamas-war-gaza-news?unlocked_article_code=1.7Ew.-9l7.qH_VsBrxETnT&smid=url-share

One thing that twitter/social media has bought to me is (beyond posters who really keep an eye on things) is people posting through these catastrophes directly from Gaza. People saying their last goodbyes and dying (?) or being glad they made it the next day.

That and the scale of protests from around the world.

It simultaneously manages to be too much and not enough...

thanks, felicity

xp it's true.

I am still thinking about the tweet you linked from the Palestinian doctor xyzzzz

I think this was the one where everything just stopped for me. I will never get this post out of my head.

I don't even want to check whether he's alive.
---

Belal Aldabbour
@Belalmd12
Soon, the last sliver of electricity and connection will be exhausted. If I die, remember that I, we, were individuals, humans, we had names, dreams, and achievements, and our only fault was that we were just classified as inferior.
10:58 am · 11 Oct 2023
·

Oh man

do we know what happened to them

Just looked at the account of this Palestinian doctor. Not liked or posted anything since Oct 25th. Don't know beyond that

Re: more on Hamas and Netanyahu.

https://haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-10-20/ty-article-opinion/.premium/a-brief-history-of-the-netanyahu-hamas-alliance/0000018b-47d9-d242-abef-57ff1be90000?gift=aae3865949294be5bc344f77306e71d3…

Marwa Fatafta مروة فطافطة
@marwasf
Health ministry just announced that the main power generator at the Indonesian Hospital has fully stopped putting patients and the injured at imminent risk.

They’ll turn on a secondary generator but to survive they’ll cut down on some functions and services. 1/

Reflecting on Gaza's open air prison with such a network of things we recognise: schools, hospitals, a university, places of worship, so much housing, much of its construction helped by other countries...lots of it reduced to rubble now.

trying really hard to ignore amy schumer (and celeb opinions in general) but she just keeps on being the worst. no accident of course that of everyone who’s called her out, she went after the one actress who’s young, black and Asian

https://x.com/aasian/status/1719717713700962720?s=46&t=Tla_umwUcZ65VjpyvvZGOQ

jfc, that's vile.

They lost Piers Morgan. Hell is freezing over in the middle of global warming https://t.co/s5rw0aNuBn

— Chanda Prescod-Weinstein (@IBJIYONGI) November 1, 2023

god, Amy Schumer is the worst.

guys this is insane. how can we all go on?

“This is for Chandler Bing.”

I love that we still have a sense of humor. I hope we never lose it. pic.twitter.com/wUwOOWMuUN

— Hillel Fuld (@HilzFuld) November 1, 2023

Someone needs to take away Schumer's fucking phone away. Genuinely amazed that she managed to turn this into something all about her. The post yesterday written on her notes app talking about being the most famous female comedian was just. Jesus. Also, hi HS. It is and i have no fucking idea tbh.

Hi Erica! ❤️wish I were greeting you under better circumstances!

https://www.npr.org/2023/10/25/1208227647/israel-gaza-hamas-jewish-palestinian-peace-activists-lod

In the city of Haifa last week, police broke up a rally in support of Gaza. "I am giving you precise instructions: zero tolerance for any incident of incitement — not by a nurse, not by a doctor, not by a singer," said Israel's police commissioner, Kobi Shabtai, in a video posted to the Arabic-language TikTok channel for the police. "Anyone who wants to sympathize with Gaza is welcome to get on a bus and go there."

After the left-wing journalist Israel Frey recited the Jewish mourner's prayer for dead civilians in Gaza, he says a right-wing mob attacked his home and threatened his wife and children. In a video released on social media last week, he said he was in hiding. "They went after me because I talked about the need for empathy and prayer for Gaza's children," he said.

Against that backdrop, Shofet and Standing Together's national co-director Rula Daood arrived at the community center in Lod with a group of volunteers. The main event was a donation drive for people suffering economically from the war — many shops and restaurants have been closed and tourism has dried up. About a dozen people — some wearing headscarves and modest clothing, others in V-neck T-shirts and open-toed shoes — chatted in a mix of Arabic and Hebrew as they packed up boxes with basic groceries.

The activists also brought a pile of posters to put up in town, if it felt safe to do so. The day prior, Standing Together activists in Jerusalem tried to put up stickers with a message of Jewish-Arab solidarity, and it didn't go well. "The police just came in and arrested two of our activists," said Daood.

"Anyone who wants to sympathize with Gaza is welcome to get on a bus and go there."

special place in hell, etc.

him and the Chandler Bing jokesters

alleged mosque arsonist put in charge of Israel's West Bank committee:

https://www.timesofisrael.com/ultranationalist-mk-tzvi-succot-appointed-head-of-knesset-west-bank-subcommittee/

cool cool

The Turkish Friendship Hospital, Gaza's only hospital for cancer patients, ran out of fuel yesterday. Patients are already dying.

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/gazas-only-cancer-hospital-goes-out-service-health-officials-2023-11-01/

US House approves $14.3 billion in aid to Israel as it fights a war against Hamas, setting up a showdown in the Senate https://t.co/nKJu5ew5wM

— CNN Breaking News (@cnnbrk) November 2, 2023

Hind Hassan
@HindHassanNews
·
22m
The 27th Palestinian journalist, killed by Israel in Gaza since Oct 7th was buried this morning. A microphone & press jacket was placed on top of his body. Colleagues in press jackets carried him to rest . The bravest of the brave. Rest in Power Mohammed Abu Hattab

Clear target of Palestinian infrastructure and intellectual capacity: journalists, doctors.

It leaves a damaged people, potentially pushed to the desert who will bide their time and fight back one day, with even less to lose.

Hind Khoudary
@Hind_Gaza
If anything happens to me, remember I am not a number.