After 15 months of genocide - and resistance to it - the Israeli regime realized that they could not win a military victory against Hamas, and were forced to sign a humiliating ceasefire in order to get their hostages returned.
With much of Syria under the control of Al-Qaeda, and an increasing level of covert infiltration into Lebanon, the crisis in the Middle East is not over, and we may still be in its beginning stages, as the center of hegemony continues its gradual shift away from the United States. Their navy, once considered the best in the world, is likely also not very happy about their ships and aircraft carriers being forced to retreat by Yemen, one of the poorest countries; and all eyes are on Iran, who has, over the last year and a half, demonstrated a newfound confidence and strength to directly strike Israel.
The recovery for Gaza will take, at a minimum, decades; it could indeed never fully recovery to even how it was before, considering it is not in Israel's interests to see their concentration camps recover. But Hamas has proven to be steadfast and the tunnel network has proven its resilience, despite facing some of the most powerful conventional bombing in history. This shows that Palestine's liberation is a when, not an if; and hopefully a much sooner "when" than expected before October 7th.
Last week's thread is here. The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
Please check out the HexAtlas!
The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.
Israel-Palestine Conflict
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA reports on Israel's destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news.
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don't want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it's just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists' side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR's former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR's forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster's telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a 'propaganda tax', if you don't believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
Well it seems that despite the brave face and fiery rhetoric from Colombia, they have completely folded on the key issue towards the United States, the issue of the freedom of navigation for US military aircraft in Colombia. United States military aircraft are allowed to fly into Colombia unrestricted, including to deport migrants, according to a statement from the White House. In exchange, the sanctions and tarrifs on Colombia are placed in reserve, and the visa restrictions will be lifted as soon as the first US plane lands. Colombian president Gustavo Petro reposted this statement on twitter, before quickly deleting the repost.
Axios News: Trump pausing Colombia tariffs after migrants deal, White House says, 27 January 2025
So now the question is what does this mean for México, will they also fold to the US and allow US military transport aircraft to fly deportation flights inside their airspace? Colombia only managed to resist for half a day, and got made an example of quickly. The warning is loud and clear. The United States is prepared to follow through on their threats. Trump is actually serious about this, or at least playing the part. México don't really have many options here. I also think these kind of power moves will be very popular amongst the average US citizen, so there can be no reliance on any internal resistance to stop it.
My guess is that Trump will find a few small countries to bully to make a big show about it. Then once everyone believes he’s serious, they’ll be more open to conceding to Trump’s proposals and demands.
His mistake last time was that everyone saw him as a clown and laughed him out of the room. He probably learned that lesson by now.
Also the Democrat libs are absolutely relishing in this. They really really want to see immigrants getting deported because “Latinos voted for Trump!” let’s see how they like it now
They're also in complete denial of reality and a state of defeat. The best reason libs could come up with on why the US shouldn't sanction Colombia was that "coffee would get more expensive", which ignores the dynamics at play (power imbalance between the USA and LATAM), ignores what this is actually about (freedom of navigation for US military aircraft), and makes them sound like selfish treat obsessed spoiled children (the Republicans are framing this as a national security issue, moaning about coffee prices instead of debunking that argument is the worst way to approach this). Instead of actually analysing the situation, libs just went into denial. If they continue like this, Trump policies could hit a 75% approval rating similar to G.W Bush Jr during his first term. Illegal immigrant deportations are already at 66% approval, there's not far to go, and we'll get there soon enough if libs keep making foolish arguments against Trump policies.
This makes me so fucking mad, I despise the US and anyone who lives there who supports this kind of imperialist bullshit.
What can be said except Marg Bar Amerika and all that
This is bad. The American Trump regime just learned that tariff bullying works. The rest of the world just learned what happens when you tell the evil empire no. They're going to do a lot more of that in years to come.
I seriously fucking hope that things like this is making everyone who's not the US start to seriously reduce their exposure to the yanks. On a sufficiently large timescale I hope China is going to grow enough economically and politically that the yanks lose their ability to do economic blackmail against the rest of the world.
Too bad their propaganda is so effective many will think “yeah but China and Russia would be worse”
The reality is that is always been like this, but none of the recent presidents actually pushed the button. Trump just did.
Yeah, in the long run we've now got our chains yanked and know exactly what they are. I suppose a movement towards this situation specifically will start to form
his statement (translated here) which he posted 8 hours ago is still there as of right now
I meant that he reposted the White House statement before deleting it.
Could they even do anything considering there already is US bases there?
They could never really do anything even aside from that, their biggest trade partner is the US. It would be economic suicide to accept the tarrifs. They tried to negotiate by even offering the presidential plane to take migrants, and the US refused. The bravado by Petro of threatening counter tarrifs barely lasted a few hours before crashing down to reality. They'd be royally screwed in such a scenario. This was never even about the migrants really from a US perspective, it was about making an example out of a LATAM country.
What stops Trump from strong-arming practically any country with threats of tariffs?
I've been thinking about the tariffs shit from a Canadian POV. Politicians up here have been talking about how they'll retaliate if Trump places tariffs on Canadian imports (e.g., no more LNG, oil, alcohol, etc.)... but it feels like Canada relies more on the US than the inverse, so I'm assuming the damage on the Canadian economy would be much worse than for the American economy.
It's like picking option A) "give US what it wants" or B) "Risk your country's economy collapsing"
Nothing much if you live near the USA. It's always best not to anger your larger (in economy and population), more powerful neighbour. Not that I think it will come to this, but Ukraine, even with a ton of western support, is still facing dire consequences for doing just that. Unless Canada wants to fight it out, I guess that the US will seize those Arctic shipping lanes and mineral rights eventually.
So the west will finally know what the global south has been suffering for the past century
damn, for real. the imperial boomerang, like Aime Cesaire described. I hadn't connected those dots 'til now.
There's little stopping the US from blackmailing individual countries into submission with tariffs. What could work is if many countries banded together in a sort of economic warfare alliance, where they all would retaliate to tariffs against one. The chances of that happening are slim.
what's the nation-state equivalent of having no class consciousness?
BRICS please