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

I know but I also get the sense linking from twitter angers people who are not on the platform, but it is the aggregation of news, has Palestinians posting on it so ignoring it is a no no but I hope this is a way of defusing the issue a bit.

(I see copying is also creating this argument now but I think it might be better this way as users can just go look up a tweet if interested)

Xyzzzz - if I haven’t said so, thank you for posting these delinked tweets, or Xs, or whatever we call them now. They’re appreciated.

Cool

C+p all day, xyzzzz, I try to avoid Twitter except for “a daily examination” so your info gathering is appreciated

the link stripping is appreciated by me at least, thanks

I'm certainly not holding my breath that protests will influence Netanyahu or Biden or Sunak

as far as biden goes -- i am! hundreds of thousands of people all over america who largely voted for him in the last election are protesting against him in what is now easily the most public and contentious policy fight of his presidency, a year before the election. polling shows that he's bleeding support among arab americans across the country and specifically in michigan, which could outright lose him the election. i'm very confident there's a number of democratic operative types & ppl w/in his administration sounding the alarm over fractures in his constituency that could prove fatal, so even if it's purely cynical self-preservation on biden's end, i am retaining optimism that he is going to listen to his base. 100k of them just marched right up to his doorstep, after all.

hamilton nolan wrote a great piece last week about how biden has a number of domestic policy accomplishments to his name that liberals can be proud of but that he's risking all of it in order to support israel bombing children.

https://www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/it-would-be-a-shame-if-you-sacrificed

what I don't understand here is that Trump is even more rabidly pro-Israel? I know it's hard to be worse on this than Biden has been, but I think Trump would in fact be worse.

Can't afford abstention

Well, this sounds pretty awful: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/11/07/world/israel-hamas-war-gaza#netanyahu-says-israel-could-hold-overall-security-responsibility-over-gaza-for-some-time-after-the-war

As the Israeli military campaign against Hamas entered its second month, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu offered the clearest indication to date about what Israel has planned for the war’s aftermath, warning that Israel will need to oversee the security of the Gaza Strip once the fighting is over to prevent future attacks.

His plan, if enacted, would appear to stop short of a full reoccupation of Gaza — a move that the United States and others have warned against. He provided few details about the post-war plan and said the security situation would be “for an indefinite period,” in an interview with ABC News that aired on Monday.

Mr. Netanyahu did not say who he thought should govern the enclave after Hamas, which now governs it, is gone. But asked specifically, Mr. Netanyahu responded only that he thought Israel would “have the overall security responsibility” over the territory indefinitely.

“We’ve seen what happens when we don’t have it,” the prime minister told ABC’s David Muir. “When we don’t have that security responsibility, what we have is the eruption of Hamas terror on a scale we couldn’t imagine.”

Israel has said its aim is to destroy Hamas and eliminate the possibility of it repeating an attack like the one on Oct. 7 in southern Israel.

There appeared to be broad political support for Mr. Netanyahu’s stance in Israel. Yair Lapid, the centrist opposition leader, said he agreed with the prime minister, speaking in an interview on Tuesday on Kan, Israel’s public radio. But he, too, cautioned against taking over Gaza’s government.

“We don’t want to finance schools for the children of Gaza and their hospitals,” he said. “It’s in Israel’s interest to return the Palestinian Authority.” The Western-backed Palestinian Authority exercises partial control over parts of the occupied West Bank and was forced out of Gaza by Hamas in 2007 in a violent struggle, after Hamas won elections the previous year.

“But,” Mr. Lapid added, “the prime minister is right. The security control has to be ours."

There have already been indications that if Hamas is defeated, the Palestinian Authority, led by Mahmoud Abbas, could have a part in governing Gaza.

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken has made it clear that the Palestinian Authority should play a central role in the enclave’s future, according to a senior State Department official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Mr. Abbas, who has for years had a contentious relationship with Hamas, has not publicly condemned the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks, as he tries to strike a balance with Palestinians, who have struggled under an Israeli military occupation in the West Bank and with whom he is largely unpopular.

President Biden has warned that it would be “a big mistake” for Israel to reoccupy Gaza, which it withdrew from in 2005, and U.S. officials have said Israel has been “very clear” that it does not want to do so.

Mr. Netanyahu did not elaborate in the ABC interview on what “overall security responsibility” over Gaza would entail but said, “Those who don’t want to continue the way of Hamas” should be in charge.

Military analysts have said Israel faces a tough choice between reoccupying Gaza and withdrawing, warning that the mass displacement and civilian suffering caused by Israel’s airstrikes and ground invasion could risk the emergence of another militant organization promoting violent resistance to Israel.

Mr. Blinken told reporters in Tel Aviv last week that the United States was in talks with Israel and other regional leaders on what comes “the day after,” and that two things were clear: Hamas cannot remain in power, and Israel has no desire to reoccupy Gaza.

I don't believe any of that for a second, tbh

True, I suppose it's not worth thinking about too much right now. Just struck by "security responsibility" + "“We don’t want to finance schools for the children of Gaza and their hospitals" = essentially we want Gaza to be more miserable than ever

I like that Hamilton Nolan piece, though, thanks J0rdan

what I don't understand here is that Trump is even more rabidly pro-Israel? I know it's hard to be worse on this than Biden has been, but I think Trump would in fact be worse.

― out-of-print LaserDisc edition (sleeve), Tuesday, November 7, 2023 11:57 AM (thirty-one minutes ago)

i don't think he is risking people migrating to trump. what he is risking is people saying "i can't in good conscience vote for someone who is funding and supporting the systematic bombing of children, and thus i am sitting this one out/voting for the green party." the result of that may be a trump win! but that's a different discussion than what it means on a personal moral level to cast a vote for joe biden

i'll also just paste the end of article i posted

Biden is sickening people. Biden is making people who voted for him in the last election despise him. For good reason. Thousands of innocent civilians, dead, thanks to us. That is a substantive reason. The feeling of disgust that that provokes will, I assure you, cause some number of people to resolve never to cast a ballot for Joe Biden again. If the Democratic Party’s plan for this is “lecture voters more,” they will lose the election. This is a substantive issue that can only be solved by substantive change. A ceasefire, not a lecture, is what is necessary. As soon as possible. Followed by a whole lot of work to show us that the administration understands the scale of the mistake that they just made.

That’s simply not going to happen.

I'm really not positive that Biden can force a ceasefire. they could start more forcefully advocating for it though, and stop shipping weapons over there.

It’s possible (cut off aid to Israel, sanctions) but not realistic.

Biden doesn’t really have a move here - he got on board 110% with the Israeli response initially, extra funding, etc. and is left in a spot where he can’t actually influence events and there’s no way to backtrack from that initial support.

The leverage that the US theoretically holds over Israel has very seldom been seriously invoked by any president or party leader, even as a remote possibility. It is no wonder that Netanyahu understands that he has essentially a blank check from the US government. But the speed with which Biden instantly granted his full-throated approval of Netanyahu's coalition government's actions in Gaza and that he has not budged an inch from that line frankly has shocked me. And not much about US politics shocks me.

I'm really not positive that Biden can force a ceasefire. they could start more forcefully advocating for it though, and stop shipping weapons over there.

I mean, Biden's "suggestions" effected the ceasefire in the 2021 crisis. It's interesting, reading this summary, to see such a familiar escalatory pattern, statements made by political leaders, UN resolutions going a particular way:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Israel–Palestine_crisis

dunia 🫒
@missfalasteenia
I’m shocked they actually aired this on CNN
---
Interview with an American nurse who was in Gaza...no words.

I saw that, sharing the link because it didn't come through in your post, it should be heard:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gk7iWgCk14U

Adalah
@AdalahEnglish
1/ BREAKING: The Israeli parliament (Knesset) has amended the Counter-Terrorism Law to criminalize the "consumption of terrorist publications," which is passive social media use, with a penalty of up to one year's imprisonment

^^^

Wait, what?

(Which is my reaction to a lot of the news in these threads tbh but this leapt out at me in a different way)

https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/knesset-passes-law-making-it-illegal-to-watch-pro-terror-content/

Don’t dare ask what “pro-terrorist” content is? I have a feeling it’s like Moms For Liberty’s definition of “pornography “.

I haven't read the law myself obvs, but even that summary makes it seem like a ready-made justification to target whoever the govt has already decided to target

they claim it is to avoid lone wolf incidents. what laws have been shown to reduce the efficacy of stochastic terrorism and agitation?

i actually wondering about it a while ago and like found a "project" at planck institute about it but couldn't reach any output i think this is the page i found

https://csl.mpg.de/en/projects/philosophical-and-public-security-law-implications-of-stochastic-terrorism

“tHe oNlY dEmOcRaCy iN tHe mIdDlE eAsT”

I’m glad you’re here table, I feel like you’re keeping my own convictions in check, lest I start screaming “sorry you read something that hurt your feelings; here are 100 videos of people collecting the remains of their children into grocery bags”

fgti, i'm glad you're here, too, for similar reasons....and also beyond those reasons <3

WASHINGTON (AP) — White House: Israel agrees to 4-hour daily 'humanitarian pauses' in fighting in Northern Gaza to allow civilians to flee.

— Seung Min Kim (@seungminkim) November 9, 2023

woeful

it's going to be "I told you there were no civilians" isn't it

I can't see how this is not going to be permanent expulsion from the area.

The plan seems to be for a 2nd Nakba and a continuation of encouraging settlers to claim lands in the West Bank while turning the strip into an even more nightmarish carceral landscape.

https://x.com/YairWallach/status/1722726146452734321?s=20

whoops, anyway, a left-wing jewish activist was arrested for "intent to commit treason" for some palestinian-sympathetic instagram posts (literally just pictures of palestinian children)

Shameful to call that four hour pause "humanitarian".

2/3 weeks ago we were doing hospital discourse now no one can be fucked.

https://x.com/atyanibaker/status/1722653871166619813?s=20

It is with deep sadness that @ThePCRF learned of the bombing deaths of Farid, 12, and Qossay, 14, Salout, in Khan Younis yesterday. Their father, brother, and others were also killed. We sent boys to Shreveport in 2016 for craniofacial surgery. This was their last photo in #Gaza pic.twitter.com/FZz5JlfBhv

— Steve Sosebee (@Stevesosebee) November 9, 2023

Thread is pretty unbelievably devastating tbh.

absolutely heartbreaking

stop fucking bombing civilians, for god's sake

Guardian is reporting dire but predictable revelations regarding Netanyahu’s hostage non-negotiation, based on anonymous sources:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/09/netanyahu-rejected-ceasefire-for-hostages-deal-in-gaza-sources-say

He is a monster. I don’t even know how to process what I am seeing in Gaza. It feels dystopian, senseless, nihilistic. I don’t even believe there is some hidden master plan, or at least not one that could be achieved. Just destruction.

Over the last three years, settler violence steadily increased day after day. Those of us who live in villages near the settlements know these settlers, especially the violent ones who assault and try to expel us. Four days ago, they came to my village at night. They forcibly entered my neighbor’s home and detained all the men and held them at gunpoint. Then they took them outside the house, and with an M16 gun pointed to the head of the house owner, they told him he had two options, and there wasn’t a third: “Leave or die.”

Netanyahu's disregard for the hostages' safety is really disgusting.

Israelis in my feed are also saying that he shows no empathy for any of the victims' or hostages' families when he meets them, and that he tries to avoid them.

I mean, caring about the hostages would mean admitting that he was in the wrong. Fascists never admit being wrong, they simply divert attention from their own failures via violence or threats of violence

Or, as is mentioned, ignoring the glaring quality of their failures when it’s right in front of them

“I like people who weren’t kidnapped.”