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

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Smotrich is living in a dreamworld if he thinks he can get Israel to go along with that.

Guayaquil (eephus!), Sunday, 31 December 2023 20:32 (ten months ago) link

Part of being a politician is that the concept of word magic, or speaking your wishes into reality, has a more practical meaning than for us ordinary schlubs who have no access to the power of the state. Smotrich has parleyed leadership in a minority party into an important cabinet portfolio, so his understanding of what he's doing must be placed in that context.

more difficult than I look (Aimless), Sunday, 31 December 2023 20:48 (ten months ago) link

blair's involvement has been debunked btw

kissinger on my list (voodoo chili), Monday, 1 January 2024 15:34 (ten months ago) link

That’s good, though that wasn’t the main problem with that.

mojo dojo casas house (gyac), Monday, 1 January 2024 16:13 (ten months ago) link

Here is more from Israeli Youth who are refusing to serve in the IDF

https://www.972mag.com/israel-refusers-youth-against-dictatorship/

xyzzzz__, Monday, 1 January 2024 23:03 (ten months ago) link

Good thread on what Israeli Palestinians are facing.

Not that i owe u anything, but here's a clarification of My Situation

- I am a Palestinian with Israeli citizenship, a status I hold due to my family's struggle to remain on their lands
- Under Israeli law, I am considered a second-class citizen, lacking the rights you enjoy.

— Zز 🇵🇸🇦🇲🍒 (@z_00pIz) January 1, 2024

xyzzzz__, Tuesday, 2 January 2024 13:50 (ten months ago) link

Another week another school.

A massacre inside a school in Gaza city |

16 Palestinians killed and tens of others injured after Israeli artillery shells hit Loloa Qotami school near Ansar junction, west Gaza city.

West Gaza city is under full Israeli control, but they slaughtered civilians anyways.

— Younis Tirawi | يونس (@ytirawi) January 2, 2024

xyzzzz__, Tuesday, 2 January 2024 16:19 (ten months ago) link

six martyrs so far, including Al-Arouri. today it's a targeted assassination of a Hamas leader, tomorrow it's full-scale bombardment in Beirut. Israel knows no limits, and no sovereignty or stability is possible in the region without its dismantling. we are all collateral. pic.twitter.com/7cyPBeRNzG

— bassem 𓂆 (@bassem__saad) January 2, 2024

xyzzzz__, Tuesday, 2 January 2024 17:25 (ten months ago) link

Central bank of Israel basically advocating for a mix of cuts and tax rises so that markets are calmed, as the cost of atrocity grows.

https://www.ft.com/content/eb0d73ec-f6cf-495c-a09a-86acc8e131a0

xyzzzz__, Tuesday, 2 January 2024 18:30 (ten months ago) link

Always works out well aiui

Its big ball chunky time (Jimmy The Mod Awaits The Return Of His Beloved), Tuesday, 2 January 2024 18:42 (ten months ago) link

Courtesy of Owen Jones on Twitter, a link to S Africa’s ICJ case for genocide. Evidence of intent starts on pg 59. Very difficult to read the evidence collated as it is, “difficult” as in “it left me feeling cold and still”:

https://www.icj-cij.org/sites/default/files/case-related/192/192-20231228-app-01-00-en.pdf

he’s an adventurer (derogatory) (flamboyant goon tie included), Wednesday, 3 January 2024 02:57 (ten months ago) link

Shades of the Nazis wanting to send the Jews to Madagascar.

Expansion to Mackerel (Boring, Maryland), Wednesday, 3 January 2024 12:54 (ten months ago) link

Boaz Bismuth is one for the Pynchon names thread (as well as the ICC).

Expansion to Mackerel (Boring, Maryland), Wednesday, 3 January 2024 17:03 (ten months ago) link

Beirut attacked yesterday, now terror in Iran. Whether Israel is behind the latter or not you can't escape the feeling that '24 will see a regional conflict.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/03/dead-in-blasts-at-memorial-for-assassinated-iranian-commander

xyzzzz__, Wednesday, 3 January 2024 17:04 (ten months ago) link

Insane to reenact some dumb action film in their heads

לקח לריאות pic.twitter.com/OqB5ioo40q

— ינון מגל (@YinonMagal) January 3, 2024

xyzzzz__, Wednesday, 3 January 2024 17:46 (ten months ago) link

this morning my brother showed me a video of the IOF bulldozer’s scraping over graves in Al-Batish graveyard in gaza city. doaa and sham’s grave is there. just thinking that they might’ve gone over their grave makes a lump in my throat. gazans aren’t safe; even in death.

— shayma (@dpechesmode) January 6, 2024

xyzzzz__, Saturday, 6 January 2024 13:14 (ten months ago) link

Gaza is now flooded due to Israel shutting down the sewage system.

We are witnessing yet another phase of this genocide. Starvation, infection, and diseases.

Just because you've stopped talking about it doesn't mean it isn't happening.

— missfalasteenia (@missfalsteenia) January 5, 2024

xyzzzz__, Saturday, 6 January 2024 20:47 (ten months ago) link

Beirut attacked yesterday, now terror in Iran. Whether Israel is behind the latter or not you can't escape the feeling that '24 will see a regional conflict.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/03/dead-in-blasts-at-memorial-for-assassinated-iranian-commander

― xyzzzz__, Wednesday, 3 January 2024 17:04 (three days ago) link

Hamas's goal was to provoke a regional war. They hoped Hezbollah would join in to a much greater degree -- Hezbollah started shelling on Oct 7 but hasn't done as much as Hamas hoped. What's striking is how much time has passed *without* this becoming a larger regional war.

longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Saturday, 6 January 2024 21:38 (ten months ago) link

More striking to me than the length of time that has passed is just how dire the death, starvation, and utter destruction in Gaza have become *without* this becoming a larger regional war. Perhaps the conflicts in Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Yemen have provided enough object lessons to have a deterrent effect.

more difficult than I look (Aimless), Saturday, 6 January 2024 21:46 (ten months ago) link

Deterrent against who though?

longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Saturday, 6 January 2024 21:56 (ten months ago) link

To judge by the modest regional escalations that have been employed so far, against Iran mainly. Syria seems entirely disinterested in opening a larger war in support of Gaza.

more difficult than I look (Aimless), Saturday, 6 January 2024 22:03 (ten months ago) link

What's striking is how much time has passed *without* this becoming a larger regional war.

Is this that striking? Who is there to go to war with? (other than Iran) Why would any of the neighboring states go to war over Gaza, and what would they go to war with? Are any of the Arab states that have been getting closer to Israel shown any signs of reversing that? Saudis are on pause but surely they'll continue especially when MBS takes over fully

Hamas might have hoped to cause unrest in Arab states and provoke overthrow of increasingly Israel-friendly regimes, and maybe that still might happen but it doesnt suddenly create capable militaries there

anvil, Saturday, 6 January 2024 22:23 (ten months ago) link

"Hamas's goal was to provoke a regional war."

Which is why we need a ceasefire with negotiations rather than Israel bombing innocent civilians and the wider middle east.

xyzzzz__, Saturday, 6 January 2024 22:48 (ten months ago) link

Israel says it has completed mission to destroy Hamas infrastructure in northern Gaza
The Israeli military says it has completed its mission to destroy Hamas’s infrastructure in northern Gaza and has scaled back its military operations there as the offensive moves south, AP reports:

In recent weeks, Israel had already been scaling back its military assault in northern Gaza and pressing its offensive in the territory’s south, where most of Gaza’s 2.3 million Palestinians are being squeezed into smaller areas in a humanitarian disaster while being pounded by Israeli airstrikes.

The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, on Sunday again insisted the war would not end until the objectives of eliminating Hamas, getting Israel’s hostages returned and ensuring that Gaza won’t be a threat to Israel are met.

“I say this to both our enemies and our friend,” he told his cabinet. “This is our responsibility and this is the obligation of all of us.”

xyzzzz__, Sunday, 7 January 2024 13:02 (ten months ago) link

scaling back its military assault in northern Gaza

translation: northern Gaza is under military assault

more difficult than I look (Aimless), Sunday, 7 January 2024 18:30 (ten months ago) link

…to destroy (-Hamas-) infrastructure

Pat Methamphetamine Trio (is this anything?) (Boring, Maryland), Sunday, 7 January 2024 21:19 (ten months ago) link

🧵Daniella Weiss, a senior leader in Israel's settler movement, announces plans for a convoy heading to the northern areas of the Gaza Strip, where former settlements were located pre-2005, this Thursday 11 Jan.

The aim is to establish, renew & expand Jewish settlements in Gaza pic.twitter.com/PN1GTjPWRV

— Younis Tirawi | يونس (@ytirawi) January 8, 2024

xyzzzz__, Monday, 8 January 2024 10:26 (ten months ago) link

"John Vorster, the then prime minister, was feted on a visit to Jerusalem in 1976 despite having been interned during the second world war for Nazi sympathies and membership of a fascist militia that burned Jewish-owned properties."

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/08/south-africa-genocide-case-israel-apartheid-history

xyzzzz__, Monday, 8 January 2024 16:19 (ten months ago) link

looking at the stats:

The situation in Gaza over the last three months has been so chaotic that much of the data available comes with some sort of asterisk: it might be incomplete, or out of date, or drawn from a source that is claimed to be unreliable.

But on even the most frequently disputed point – casualty figures from Gaza’s Hamas-run ministry of health – there are few plausible critiques of the broad scale of what is being shown. And in many cases, the numbers published by the UN, independent aid agencies and others are likely to be at the low end of the possible range. So it is reasonable to view the picture presented by these sources as a conservative account of the situation, rather than conclude that the reality is hopelessly occluded by the fog of war.

Here are some details on specific aspects of the crisis.

Deaths
Gaza’s ministry of health says that at least 22,835 Palestinians had been killed by yesterday, with another 58,416 reportedly injured. That figure does not distinguish between combatants and civilians, but an estimated 70% are women and children. About 7,000 more are reportedly missing and most are likely dead.

Israel’s final count for Hamas’s 7 October massacre is 1,139: 685 Israeli civilians, 373 members of the security forces, and 71 foreigners. Deaths in Israel since then bring the total to about 1,200. Thirty-six of the victims were children. The Israeli military says 174 soldiers have been killed in Gaza, and 1,023 injured.

Because Gaza’s ministry of health (MoH) is run by Hamas, the tally it provides has been repeatedly questioned by Israel. But last month, when the MoH figure was 15,899, a senior Israeli official confirmed a reported Israeli estimate of 5,000 dead Hamas militants and roughly twice as many civilians, giving a similar total of 15,000. (An IDF spokesperson called that ratio of two civilians to one combatant “tremendously positive”.) The MoH’s track record across multiple conflicts is broadly consistent with other sources: for example, after a short war between Israel and Hamas in 2014, it gave a figure of 2,310 dead, while the UN later arrived at an estimate of 2,251 and Israel put it at 2,125.

The 22,835 dead represent about one in a hundred of Gaza’s total population. They have been killed at a rate of just under 250 a day (an average that has come down a bit in the last few weeks). It is not known exactly how many of those killed were combatants, but Israel’s own ratio would suggest that on average, more than 160 civilians have died each day.

That is a much faster rate than in other broadly comparable recent conflicts. The US-led coalition fighting Islamic State in Raqqa killed 20 civilians a day during a four-month offensive, the BBC reported, while the nine-month battle for Mosul between US-backed Iraqi forces and IS killed fewer than 40 civilians a day.

Also: internal displacement, destructiom(housing etc.), critical infrastructure, and a lot of links for verification, more detail.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/08/the-numbers-that-reveal-the-extent-of-the-destruction-in-gaza

dow, Tuesday, 9 January 2024 00:39 (ten months ago) link

A group of South African lawyers have written to the US President warning his government that they intend instituting proceedings against them for being complicit in ongoing international crimes perpetrated by Israel against the people of Palestine. pic.twitter.com/WJMuKKgQjD

— Ismail Abramjee (@IsmailAbramjee) January 9, 2024

xyzzzz__, Wednesday, 10 January 2024 08:45 (ten months ago) link

“They’re hard core,” the second U.S. official added. “Bibi, while weak and problematic personally, is not an insane ideologue like these guys.”

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/01/08/netanyahu-israeli-leader-losing-control-00134146

dow, Thursday, 11 January 2024 03:41 (ten months ago) link

Narrator: Bibi was an insane ideologue nonetheless.

more difficult than I look (Aimless), Thursday, 11 January 2024 04:05 (ten months ago) link

Just started Nur Masalha's Palestine a 4000 Year History and the introduction itself is fact filled enough so looking forward to getting into the text.

Read a few Ilan Pappe and need to read more. Shlomo Sand too. But they're both Israelis and I need to read Palestinians.

Stevo, Thursday, 11 January 2024 07:55 (ten months ago) link

Shlomo Sand is an antisemitic crackpot.

longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Thursday, 11 January 2024 08:12 (ten months ago) link

South Africa is taking a case at the Hague against Israeli genocide. Live stream from the court case https://webtv.un.org/en/asset/k11/k11gf661b3

Stevo, Thursday, 11 January 2024 10:22 (ten months ago) link

Shlomo Sand is an antisemitic crackpot.


The guy is also an anti-Palestinian crackpot, fwiw

butt dumb tight my boners got boners (the table is the table), Thursday, 11 January 2024 12:29 (ten months ago) link

anti all-semites

Pat Methamphetamine Trio (is this anything?) (Boring, Maryland), Thursday, 11 January 2024 13:00 (ten months ago) link

UK and US strikes are likely tonight on Houthi missile sites in Yemen. As I understand it, Starmer - who has been briefed by Downing St - accepts the PM’s right to take military action without securing prior parliamentary approval, though Labour would expect a statement on…

— Robert Peston (@Peston) January 11, 2024

xyzzzz__, Thursday, 11 January 2024 23:52 (ten months ago) link

The basic (colonial) double standard of the Israel Palestine "conflict" is that any Palestinian violence justifies any Israeli violence, but no Israeli violence ever justifies any Palestinian violence, and once you see it, you'll never stop seeing it.

— Aaron Bady (@zunguzungu) November 6, 2023

Humanitarian Pause (Tracer Hand), Friday, 12 January 2024 19:11 (ten months ago) link

That's an all time great little tweet. See it pop up every now and then over the last three months.

xyzzzz__, Friday, 12 January 2024 20:04 (ten months ago) link

I guess that’s true, but I think most people see Israel’s actions, no matter what they do, as never the instigators of violence, but rather always the victims of it.

B. Amato (Boring, Maryland), Friday, 12 January 2024 21:27 (ten months ago) link

“Perpetrators” of violence might have been more accurate of me to say.

B. Amato (Boring, Maryland), Friday, 12 January 2024 21:29 (ten months ago) link

This statistic. pic.twitter.com/ueHssWYCV8

— Ben Phillips (@benphillips76) January 7, 2024

xyzzzz__, Saturday, 13 January 2024 15:20 (ten months ago) link

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/13/it-is-a-time-of-witch-hunts-in-israel-teacher-held-in-solitary-confinement-for-posting-concern-about-gaza-deaths

The evidence compiled by police who handcuffed him, then drove to his apartment and ransacked it as he watched, was a series of Facebook posts he’d made, mourning the civilians killed in Gaza, criticising the Israeli military, and warning against wars of revenge.

“Horrific images are pouring in from Gaza. Entire families were wiped out. I don’t usually upload pictures like this, but look what we do in revenge,” said a message on 8 October, below a picture of the family of Abu Daqqa, killed in one of the first airstrikes on Gaza. “Anyone who thinks this is justified because of what happened yesterday, should unfriend themselves. I ask everyone else to do everything possible to stop this madness. Stop it now. Not later, Now!!!”

...

He was interrogated again before a second judge ordered his release. Questioners told him his posts were like the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, among the most famously antisemitic documents in the world. “I’m a history teacher, so I asked, ‘Did you ever read them?’ They didn’t respond.”

When his name is clear, Baruchin plans to sue Israeli media who reported police charges without asking for his response or looking for evidence, and accused him of justifying and legitimising Hamas.

He says he has not been traumatised by the experience, as for him the fate of Palestinian civilians and Israeli hostages in Gaza is much more disturbing. He still follows what is happening there closely, and flicks on his phone through images of the recent dead, a journalist, a violinist, a baby.

His latest post before the Observer interview was an image of an improvised grave marker, that looks like part of a broken piece of furniture. “Unknown martyr, green jacket and trainers,” the inscription reads.

“The whole story in one picture,” he says. “The Israeli mainstream media don’t broadcast this picture. They don’t get this picture, and don’t want to get this picture.”

symsymsym, Saturday, 13 January 2024 21:54 (ten months ago) link

good messaging i think

We will restore security to both the south and the north. Nobody will stop us – not The Hague, not the axis of evil and not anybody else.

— Prime Minister of Israel (@IsraeliPM) January 13, 2024

JoeStork, Saturday, 13 January 2024 22:03 (ten months ago) link

seems legit

Humanitarian Pause (Tracer Hand), Saturday, 13 January 2024 22:23 (ten months ago) link

I embrace the families of the hostages, with whom I and my wife meet all the time. These are personal, heart-rending meetings. We embrace them and listen to them.

— Prime Minister of Israel (@IsraeliPM) January 13, 2024

Very Trump-like

Beyond Goo and Evol (President Keyes), Saturday, 13 January 2024 22:28 (ten months ago) link


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