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

What an utter scumbag. Still, carry on supporting him, Biden, Starmer etc.

The IDF has reportedly kidnapped award-winning poet Mosab Abu Toha, also the founder of Gaza’s first English-language library.

https://lithub.com/reports-suggest-palestinian-poet-mosab-abu-toha-has-been-kidnapped-by-israeli-forces/

The future is bright:

Haaretz.com
@haaretzcom
U.S. President Joe Biden's energy security advisor is visiting Israel to discuss potential economic revitalization plans for Gaza centered around undeveloped offshore natural gas fields

Many leased have already been signed— this happened in late October.

https://newrepublic.com/article/176917/fossil-fuel-companies-plowing-ahead-profit-israeli-gas

Necropolitics at its most stark and vulgar

Well, whaddya know: a decent summary of what happened b/w Israel and Palestine in the goddamn NYT:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/11/20/magazine/israel-gaza-oslo-accords.html

looks like we've got a deal: https://www.ynetnews.com/article/bkjolhqva

Knesset votes on it today, with the Ben Gvir gang voting against releasing Israeli hostage women and children, just to once again demonstrate how deeply sincere their concern was

"...and attempt to release 20 more."

I heard this is because Hamas is not actually holding all the hostages.. they've been dispersed among other militant groups, and even some private citizens

Saw earlier that South Africa has passed a resolution to close the Israeli embassy, expel the ambassador, and suspend diplomatic relations with Israel. I mean, granted, they're not the South Africa of old, but still, that's gotta hurt. "As a former apartheid state, trust us when we tell you, you're fucking up."

Séamus Malekafzali
@Seamus_Malek
Israel's Minister of Communications calls on the IDF to cut off the foreskins of Hamas fighters as revenge, as David did with the Philistines in the Tanakh.

I am not joking.

This is a real post by a verified account of an Israeli cabinet minister

https://www.snopes.com/news/2023/11/20/israeli-children-singing-annihilate-gaza/

Is This a Real Video of Israeli Children Singing ‘We Will Annihilate Everyone’ in Gaza?

(spoiler alert: It is.)

Words fail (again)

Mine haven't but I can't type them here.

really interesting article from 2014 about the rise of fascist sentiment in Israel and the political economy of the region in which Palestinians become “surplus population”

https://truthout.org/articles/the-political-economy-of-israeli-apartheid-and-the-specter-of-genocide/

Yeah..

https://x.com/sanasaeed/status/1727200823976087871

There is such a thing as a "bilateral genocide," where two groups are locked in a mutually lethal death spiral. Some genocide watch websites cite Rwanda as an example.

Last I checked, between the diaspora and the Levant, there are roughly the same millions of Palestine and Jewish people left in the world. Give or take a million. Not a lot.

Here are the 10 stages of genocide:

https://www.genocidewatch.com/tenstages

Here are things that can be done to counteract the stages.

https://tolerance.tavaana.org/en/about

So idk, maybe this is a wacky idea, but ... maybe try to look at your own behaviour to see if you're contributing to any of these things?

Better yet, why not consciously work on counteracting genocide? Read a story from the folklore of the "other" group? Demand a ceasefire and release of the hostages at the same time? Try to understand the view most diametrically opposed to your own? Get comfortable saying "I don't know"? Admit that these two groups of people hate each other for many, many reasons, and not because one group is good and the other is evil?

I don't really know who that's aimed at here but the view most diametrically opposed to my own is that slaughtering thousands of children is good actually and that the US government should be supporting and paying for it. Really not super interested in understanding that view, tbh.

No group is ever "evil", but groups do evil things. As a point of example my reading of American and British folklore has not dissuaded me from believing those country's foreign policies are evil, nor does reading folklore of my own background make me question whether what Portugal did in Angola, Mozambique, etc. was evil. It was.

I can't claim to have read Israeli folklore but certainly the Israeli artists I follow in literature and cinema seem convinced that what Israel is doing right now is evil too.

Yair Wallach
@YairWallach
300 Palestinian prisoners are slated for release.
17 were convicted of attempted murder
283 for less serious, often far less serious charges
123 are under 18y old, most of them in prison for stone throwing.

This statement from the Colombian president back in October has come up on my feed again. Genocide as what's being carried out by several states in the global north against the global South population.

Palestine as the blueprint of what's to come if we don't keep marching in the streets, at the very least.

The barbarity of consumption based on the death of others leads us to an unprecedented rise of fascism, and therefore, to the death of democracy and freedom. It's barbarism, or global 1933, as I call it. 1933 was the year Hitler came to power.

What we see in Palestine will also be the suffering in the world of all the peoples of the south.

The West defends its excessive consumption and its standard of living based on destroying the atmosphere and climate, and to defend it, knowing that it will cause the exodus from the south to the north, and not only of the Palestinian people; he is ready to respond with death. It does not want to transform its economic system except as far as the market goes to decarbonize it. And he knows that the effort will be minuscule to save life on the planet. His policy seeks to defend the consumption bubble of the rich on the planet and not save humanity, whose majority is disposable, like the children of Gaza.

That's why the strong anti-immigration policies, the concentration camps for immigrants, the thousands of dead shipwrecks, that's why the Darién plug, that's why the economic blockades of rebel countries.

The right in the West sees the solution to the climate crisis as a "final solution", the right once again dreams of Hitler and conquers the majority of the rich and Aryan peoples of the West and our Latin American oligarchies, who do not see another world where live than that of the "malls" of Florida or Madrid.

The southern right uses violence, they break democracy, they feel, in the north, legitimized to do so. They believe they can kill and commit genocide, they just need the blessing of world power.

We are going to barbarism if we do not change power. The life of humanity, and especially of the people of the south, depends on the way in which humanity chooses the path to overcome the climate crisis produced by the wealth of the north. Gaza is just the first experiment in considering us all disposable.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/nov/21/pressure-benjamin-netanyahu-potential-truce-gaza-hostages

"Netanyahu’s shift may have been critically influenced by his personal encounter with hostage families, after weeks during which he refused to meet them. Netanyahu and his Likud party have lost the trust and confidence of most voters, who blame them for 7 October lapses and complacency. Polls suggest they would lose an election if one were held now. As ever, calculation is mixed with compassion."

Dark lol

This is on Sudan but much of the below might be in store for the Palestinian people.

Israel will harden the blockade, with little to no reconstruction, work permits will be ended, a barely functioning healthcare system with the Israeli political system hardening their stance once all hostages are eventually released (even if Netanyahu is toast). What then?

Barry Malone
@malonebarry
Away from the headlines, the situation in Sudan is dire:

- More than half the population in need of aid
- Violence against civilians
- Outbreaks of cholera, dengue, malaria and measles
- More than 70% of health facilities in conflict areas out of service

Thanks for that from the Colombian president, xyzzz.

felicity, I appreciate your post, but perhaps acknowledging that Israel has acted on every stage of the ten stages of Genocide would be good. That the state was founded upon several actions related to genocide, partly as a reaction to the Shoah and previous oppression of Jews, is part of the biggest tragedy here. But neither the Shoah nor anything else excuses the crimes of the Israeli state against the Palestinian people, and claiming that the crimes of Hamas and other bad actors are equivalent to those of one of the most heavily militarized states in the world is not just inaccurate, it verges on ludicrous victim-blaming.

Or put another way, looking at “both sides” without acknowledging the vast power imbalance between the two is to engage in a kind of fantasy. Any analysis of politics or war has to also be an analysis of power.

Who are the sides in the both sides? Is Hamas one of them, or the Palestinians? Unless we're conflating, which doesn't feel right

Of course it isn’t right, but considering Israel seems to be able to find Hamas in the mouths of five year old Palestinian children, it might be worth considering who is creating the “sides” that Tracer Hand is speaking of.

https://euromedmonitor.org/en/article/5965

Geneva - Israel has deliberately destroyed archaeological monuments in the Gaza Strip as part of its ongoing bloody war in an explicit targeting of Palestinian cultural heritage, Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor said in a statement issued on Monday.

Israeli air and artillery attacks have targeted many prominent historical sites important to the cultural heritage of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, said Euro-Med Monitor. This has included archaeological sites, historical buildings, places of worship, and museums, and has caused great destruction.

Euro-Med Monitor stressed that international humanitarian law prohibits in all circumstances the deliberate targeting of cultural and religious sites, which do not constitute legitimate military objectives nor an imperative military necessity. The Geneva-based rights organisation cited the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict as well as the Second Protocol to the Convention of 1999.

The Israeli army targeted the historic Al-Omari Grand Mosque in the centre of Gaza City, destroying its minaret, which dated back 1,400 years. With a total area of roughly 4,100 square metres—including 1,800 square metres of covered area—Al-Omari Grand Mosque is the largest and oldest mosque in the Gaza Strip.

Three historic churches in the Gaza Strip were also attacked by the Israeli army, one of which being the long-standing Church of Saint Porphyrius. Built atop a wooden pagan temple, the church dates back to 407 AD. Israel’s army has also destroyed most of the Old City of Gaza City, Euro-Med Monitor added, which contains 146 old houses in addition to mosques, churches, markets, and historically significant schools.

I'm just wary of conflating the two, as it seems that what Israel wants us to do. They're not elected and have had at least indirect Israeli support in the past (albeit I guess a while ago)

obv the IDF has killed lots of children but we shouldn't pretend that Hamas didn't kill children as well.

Who is doing that?

I haven't seen anyone defend Hamas! But people seem to be conflating Hamas with Palestine, which may just be shorthand rather than intentional but still feels weird

yeah I'm confused. If these posts are in response to felicity's, she didn't say the word Hamas and instead implied that Jewish people and Palestinians "are locked in a mutually lethal death spiral" and that "these two groups of people hate each other for many, many reasons."

my response did not include the word Hamas, fwiw

perhaps acknowledging that Israel has acted on every stage of the ten stages of Genocide would be good.

table, I acknowledge what little I've seen indicates that many of the stages are there, if not all. I found it dismaying that none of the genocide watch sites I looked at seemed to mention the situation as a historical fact or current threat.

rob please don't explain what I implied.

If I misspoke I will correct it.

For anyone confused, I meant there are extremists in Hamas and Israel.

my response (which happened before I had coffee, admittedly) was in relation to the idea that both sides are locked in a death spiral, and have many justifications for why they hate each other, which is something I agree with. I do not conflate Hamas with Palestinians nor do I equate all Israelis with the government of Israel or the IDF; however, Hamas is made up of Palestinians, just as the government of Israel and the IDF are made up of Israelis. Horrific actions by either side feed into fears on the other side. Increased horrible actions by Israel are likely to create more terrorists and more Palestinians sympathetic to Hamas, and vice versa.

Israel has election cycles which have constantly elected these genocidal fascists in government. Israel has a highly equipped military, and we've seen what they can do to a population.

How is this comparable to a people who have faced a blockade for over a decade?

@tamars
Some of the Palestinian children kept in Israeli detention that will be considered for 2nd swap deal round. One boy was detained by Israeli state 4 days after his 16th birthday solely for throwing stones and has been in captivity for 6 months

Is this person a reliable source? I'm kind of wondering how she knows the identity of specific individuals "considered" for a swap?

Sorry nevermind I found her twitter, and she links to this (although I'm not clear on whether this is a list of prisoners in the current deal, up for consideration, or what)

https://www.gov.il/he/Departments/DynamicCollectors/is-db?skip=0

From this list linked here, I think.

“Convicted terrorists”

But: “the status of the majority of the teens who are up for release is arrest because their trial didn’t start yet.” https://t.co/jWGRkr0mMv

You can also see that in the list the Justice Ministry released. “מעצר” means arrest. https://t.co/gjOyyetqUb https://t.co/FoTqeC2jkD pic.twitter.com/7UEBv2bMuO

— Abraham Gutman (@abgutman) November 22, 2023

I think it's fair to say an 18 year old detained for attempted murder is not equivalent to a baby taken hostage, even if the former hasn't been tried, and even if you view the attempted murder as part of a right to resist. The hostages taken by Hamas weren't "convicted" of anything either, nor were they even arrested for anything.

The planner of the October 7 attacks had been imprisoned for kidnapping and murdering two Israeli soldiers, and was freed in a prisoner exchange.

Is this person a reliable source? I'm kind of wondering how she knows the identity of specific individuals "considered" for a swap?

― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Wednesday, 22 November 2023 bookmarkflaglink

Lives in Israel, looks at the situation closely and I see that often what she says are being said by one or two others. Obviously these are developing situations so if you know different say.

She did have some other speculations in the past that I found a bit too online and I haven't bought that here.

I wonder in how many parts of the world "throwing rocks" is considered "attempted murder." You can kill someone with a rock, but you also can with a lot of other non-weapons.

I think it's fair to say an 18 year old detained for attempted murder is not equivalent to a baby taken hostage, even if the former hasn't been tried, and even if you view the attempted murder as part of a right to resist. The hostages taken by Hamas weren't "convicted" of anything either, nor were they even arrested for anything.

I don't think it is? The people on the list who are detained for throwing stones seem to be listed as detained for throwing stones, so I assume if it says "attempted murder" that means something else.

Ok, I was responding to the link I posted which was specifically about stone throwing. I took your comment as a reply to mine.

Israel has election cycles which have constantly elected these genocidal fascists in government.

Is the argument that Gaza's genocidal fascist government was only nominally elected? I suppose Israel's current government was only nominally elected as well.

I don't think anyone itt is unaware that there are extremists on both sides, but nonetheless it remains that one side actually has the military capacity and international support to fulfil their extremist's dreams should they choose to and the other doesn't. So talk of a mutual genocide becomes equating an actual possibility with a thought experiment.