news

Public high school students are occupying Chicago City Hall chanting “Biden Biden you can’t hide, you’re supporting genocide!”

The kids are alright.

lol CNN had on a talking head who was getting choked up over one of the dead soldiers. They want this war so bad.

"Hyuk hyuk, Iran's about to find out why Americans don't have free healthcare"

-US soldier, seconds before dying to a gmod contraption

A good reminder that the UNRWA is a seperate UN entity because Israel wanted it that way, special treatment for the Palestinians in negative terms, is in Jonathon Cook's latest article In waging war on the UN refugee agency, the West is openly siding with Israeli genocide:

UNRWA is separate from the UN’s main refugee agency, the UNHCR, and deals only with Palestinian refugees. Although Israel does not want you to know it, the reason for there being two UN refugee agencies is because Israel and its western backers insisted on the division back in 1948. Why? Because Israel was afraid of the Palestinians falling under the responsibility of the UNHCR’s forerunner, the International Refugee Organisation. The IRO was established in the immediate wake of the Second World War in large part to cope with the millions of European Jews fleeing Nazi atrocities.

Israel did not want the two cases treated as comparable, because it was pushing hard for Jewish refugees to be settled on lands from which it had just expelled Palestinians. Part of the IRO’s mission was to seek the repatriation of European Jews. Israel was worried that very principle might be used both to deny it as it wanted to colonise Palestinian land and to force it to allow the Palestinian refugees to return to their former homes. So in a real sense, UNRWA is Israel’s creature: it was set up to keep the Palestinians a case apart, an anomaly.

https://archive.is/EdUjW

A senior BBC employee branded Jewish people “Nazis” and white people “parasites” in a string of social media posts.

no she didn't, she called zionists nazis, but she does have massive brainworms in other things she said

Ms Queva, whose location is listed as London on her Linkedin profile, also brands the UK “bigoted” and “genocidal” and claims white Europeans are “melanin-recessive parasites”.

Absolutely pissing myself laughing at "melanin recessive parasites".

I love how the EU just pledged €54 billion in aid to Ukraine and nobody is talking about it.

Leave it to the Europeans to start throwing money at a war when the US basically already pulled out and nobody gives a fuck about it anymore. Pure self-destruction.

Iran, the only more-or-less decent new BRICS+ member.

Also, UNRWA has announced a possible suspension of humanitarian aid into Palestine is now looming on the horizon. According to liveuamap, it is likely by the end of February. The primary cited reason is funding cuts but even if hypothetically, China, Ireland and South Africa stop pissing about and pick up the slack, there's the matter of military and "civilian" rioters going out of their way to prevent the delivery of food and medicine.

The is of course, celebrating it. There is also no longer any functioning fire engines, with Civil Defense and medical functions all but collapsed. This in an area where the population density may have swelled to at least 20,000/km2.

Allegedly, the Gaza Civil Registry has also been destroyed. There is no more record of degrees, birth/death certificates, addresses, families, etc. essentially declaring the 2.3 million people nonexistent, save for maybe a refugee in Johannesburg who still has their papers. Of course, the destruction of any legal documents will also throw a spanner in the works for any prospective asylum seekers. If they manage to flee the strip, then what? Hoof it for over 6,000 kilometers across the entire continent to South Africa?

along with Finland, Italy, Austria, Romania, Netherlands and Estonia have cut funding as of writing this.

Conservatives attempting to weaponize the fact that the US soldiers that died were black on twitter is fucking making me want to tear my eyes out.

Lots of takes like: WElL I gUess TO thE Left bLAcK LIvEs ONly MATteR if TheY arEN’T AmERiCAN hERO SoldieRS

wHy Are thErE nO pRoTESTs WHEN bLAcK MEN arE mURdeRED bY mUsLiM TerRoRiSTs????

The level of cynical dipshittery is really something to behold

Unfortunately, the Namibian president who gave us the legendary "why you talk about the Chinese, talk about Germans" clip, Hage Geingob, has died today.

https://nitter.cz/comradesipho/status/1754099107516317908

https://twitter.com/comradesipho/status/1754099107516317908

My fucking god Chomsky has become so donkey-brained these days. Watched a video in which he says Democrats (as in the party, not voters) have soured on Israel, and that it's all Republicans who support it now. Meanwhile, the fascist you obsessed on telling people to vote for in swing states because lesser-evil is actually perpetuating the genocide as we speak, Noam, and even bypassing Congress to do it. Fucking hell.

Global sea surface temperatures have reached an all-time record in February, two months ahead of the March-April biannual peak (when the sea is hottest in the southern hemisphere, because most of the world's water is there)

The orange line was 2023, so already a massively standout year - sea surface temperatures were only very gradually increasing year-on-year before that point. This year may be even toastier.

Tabaivka had a prewar population of 34 btw

…

WHEN THE FUCK CAN THEY CUT THEIR LOSSES

The United States soon

BIRD NEWS: Indian police clear a suspected Chinese spy pigeon after 8 months in bird lockup

It's always a little surreal entering this thread and reading about what's going on in the world. I don't hear anything about the Middle East conflicts in my everyday life and daily conversations revolve more around the latest game, fight, or celebrity drama.

Israeli special forces disguises themselves as medical personnel in order to carry out an assassination

John helmer's latest on the strike on Americans in Jordan/Syria

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2024/01/the-tower-22-strike-in-jordan-triggers-us-israel-into-all-front-war-the-arabs-and-iran-are-ready-the-russians-too.html

“This is a major embarrassment and a message for the US and its allies”, the military source concludes. “It should resonate with all of them. It’s the conclusion to be drawn from the fact that the systems they have relied on have been defeated on land [in the Ukraine] and are now defending their ships on the Red Sea, and being defeated there too. The implications of all of this are enormous. Now, even the smallest maritime country, at a relatively low cost, can project force and inflict harm on the traditionally dominant actors. No need for expensive fighter or strike aircraft, let alone the pilots to operate them, or technicians and facilities to maintain them. No need for specialized military ship-building facilities. Any bulk transport, cheaply got, will do.”

The proliferation of effective, weaponized drones and EW is like the invention of the crossbow in the days of knights.

New slammer meme

I have some blueskkky codes if you nerds want them

(Canada) Gaza protesters blockade truck access to Port of Vancouver

Iran is about to learn why we have student lunch debt and 40,000 gun deaths every year 😎

liberals to iraq rn (excuse the ifunny only place I found the pic on)

Everyone who gets the chance to ask a politician questions should start with "Do you condemn the genocide Israel is committing?"

wishing all american occupation bases in the middle east a very being annihilated by ballistic missiles

ABC news and others have been adding the phrase "the Hamas-run Palestinian Health Ministry" when running the already slanted AP/Reuters story on the hospital assassinations. Apparently now the West Bank and in particular the Palestinian Authority are also run by Hamas.

there once was a country called the United States of America, and its propaganda was so good it even fooled itself

One wonders if the reason why the rumor that a ceasefire and an all-for-all prisoner exchange had been accepted by both sides when Hamas is still several days away from even fully reviewing it is to a) try and pressure Hamas to accept a subpar deal that wouldn't involve reparations or reconstruction or an end to the siege on Gaza (which Zionism cannot accept, especially now), and b) if that fails, then to portray Hamas as the ones who are unwilling to make peace and thus the unreasonable aggressors here, which could even preempt starting a war with Hezbollah as a "necessity" in the face of the Resistance unwilling to make peace

and also I suppose c) to try and turn the civilians of Gaza against Hamas; I've heard rumors that some people in Gaza were celebrating the "ceasefire" by taking down their tents

The current crypto-fascist, blue-MAGA tactic is to "worry that Trump might do genocide even worse than Biden". Love takin' muh hypothetical as an excuse to support the genocide which is unfolding before muh very eyes. So fuckin' classy!

Wait so there's NEW TikTok hearings? With that hapless TikTok CEO again? ("Sir, are you a sino-bolshevist traitor from Pee-king?" - "Uhm senator, I'm from Singapore...")

Please post many funny things from these hearings, had a blast last time.

Wake up babe new tunnel news: Indian Maoists are using tunnels as secret bases

Can anyone else just not do the 9-5? I hate working in the morning (or doing anything in the morning) and also hate capitalism

JUST IN: An enemy drone launched by Iranian proxies that ended up killing three U.S. soldiers was trailing a U.S. drone that was returning to the base in Jordan, allowing it to evade detection, according to a DOD official.

https://nitter.cz/laraseligman/status/1752031440391295373#m

Politico archive link: https://archive.is/hkon3

Lmao just sneak in behind the American drone

Israel Plans to Attack Lebanon Because Israel Is Not Winning Against Hamas

By Naked Capitalism on January 30th, 2024.

TLDR: An Israeli attack on Hezbollah is probably inevitable despite it presenting a truly existential threat to Israel. The failure of the Israeli military in Gaza, and the movement of Israeli settlers away from border areas, is producing a mass psychosis inside the Israeli population that is difficult to analyze currently. Needless to say, Israel is attempting to substitute victory via genocide of civilians for victory via the military defeat of Hamas. A keystone of Israel's strategy has always been to create deterrence and fear in the region - this deterrence has been largely destroyed at this point, and actually reversed, such that Hezbollah and friends are now asserting deterrence on Israel. The introduction of US refueling planes suggests that the US and Israel greatly fears the potential of having their jets destroyed on airfields, which is probably a very justified fear and speaks to the dire situation they are in. Hezbollah has grown exponentially in strength since their victory in 2006, while Israel has more-or-less stagnated, and we've all seen the footage of their godawful fighting abilities within the Gaza Strip, so they might actually be a worse army than they were in 2006. All of this is compounded by the threat of siege by Yemen, Hezbollah, and Iraqi/Syrian groups.

Once in a great while, things so speak for themselves that there is not much point in going on overmuch. Israel is not winning against Hamas. So it plans to take on a much tougher opponent, Hezbollah, which will be the result of executing on its plan to enter and occupy Lebanon up to the Litani River. This is not the way clear-thinking people operate.

But as Alastair Crooke explains (more on this soon), the Israelis recognize that they are no longer feared militarily in their ‘hood. Maintaining that fear is fundamental to Israeli citizen’s sense of security. Proof comes via Israel having had to pull its citizens out of the border to Gaza and Lebanon and not having been able to turn things around so they can return. Although I cannot prove a negative, Crooke and some Twitterati maintain that this effective loss of territory very much puts Israel on the back foot, since Israel historically has used buffer zones as an interim step in increasing the area under its control, and understands the risks when that process goes the other way.

Despite the assumption by many military experts at the start of the Israel campaign in Gaza, that the IDF would prevail given its much greater resources and ease of resupply, here we are, over 100 days in, and Israel is not all that much closer to victory, save in exterminating the Palestinian population in Gaza, as opposed to eliminating or at least crippling Hamas. Israel has not killed any of the leadership of Hamas’ military wing. Israel has not rescued any hostages. It is not clear how many Hamas fighters Israel has killed, but its claim of 10,000 versus the 27,000 dead reported in Gaza seems unreasonably high, particularly given admissions that schemes like flooding the tunnel system have not worked very well. Hamas has been retaking Northern Gaza after Israel claimed to have secured it. And on top of that, as an article in today’s Links pointed out, Israel is having to husband its artillery use in Gaza in light of global shortages. So they plan to take on Hezbollah with less than a full magazine?

There are signs of dissent within Israel over where to go in the war. More and more family members of hostages have been getting sympathetic coverage in the press and support from some officials for their demand that Israel negotiate with Hamas now to get the hostages back. A new story in Christian Science Monitor recounts a key rupture:

The cracks in what had been near universal public unity supporting Israel’s war aims in the conflict’s first few months have even reached the five-person wartime Cabinet tasked with prosecuting the campaign against Hamas. In a bombshell television interview on Israel’s Channel 12 this month, Gadi Eisenkot, a centrist politician and former military chief who joined Mr. Netanyahu’s wartime coalition in October, said the welfare of the hostages had to take precedence. The government, he added, needed to stop “selling fantasies” to the public that their release would be achieved through force alone.

But at this point, with Hamas doing not badly given the givens, it has escalated its demands. Israel meeting its demands for their return would be seen by its citizens as a capitulation:

Hamas offered to return all its hostages in exchange for an end to occupation and apartheid, a release of the thousands of Palestinian hostages held by Israel, and peace. Israel, which says its "waging war to return all hostages", has rejected the deal. Genocide is the point.

Netanyahu, who also has his own survival to consider, is fiercely maintaining that defeating Hamas remains the priority, and the release of the hostages will follow from that. Mind you, there are recent reports of negotiations between Israel and Hamas over the release of the hostages. With Tony Blinken involved, I didn’t see much reason to be optimistic (how many deals has Blinken said were imminent, like Egypt accepting Palestinian refugees in bulk, that came to naught?). Alastair Crooke, who has long-standing, high-level contacts all over the Muslim world, didn’t see fit to dignify them in his recent presentations. A new report in the Times of Israel suggests they are not going anywhere. The subhead:

Terror group appears to pour cold water on mediators’ latest offer after Qatari PM says ‘good progress’ made; Israel said open to lengthy truce but refuses to end war

On top of that, Israel is telegraphing its intent to go into Lebanon, despite the Anglopshere media not taking much notice. Israel first engaged in the lame pretext of “negotiating” with Lebanon to pull back to the Litani, as in cede a habited area to Lebanon for the benefit of Israeli settlers near the border. Israel is housing these families at what is reported to be non-sustainable cost. The border residents have said they won’t return until they can’t see Lebanese from their homes. Quite the ask, and Israel has said it will deliver. It has promised these border denizens they will return. The initial promise was by the end of January, which is clearly na ga happen. But Israel is signaling it plans to move soon. From the Times of Israel over the weekend:

The IDF said Saturday it was further increasing its preparedness on the northern border, publishing footage from recent “intensive” training exercises carried out by the 226th Reserve Paratroopers Brigade, as Hezbollah-led forces in Lebanon continue to launch attacks on Israeli communities and military posts along the border… The drill by the health system this week dealt with a variety of potential scenarios involving the operation of hospitals, health maintenance organizations’ community clinics, medical evacuations, and the provision of support to chronically ill people in need of immediate assistance.

Yes, Hezbollah has been shelling the border area, but in tit for tat attacks. Crooke contends that both sides so far have been somewhat careful, hoping to goad the other side into a disproportionate reaction they can use to justify a larger attack. But reminiscent of the Great Ukraine Counteroffensive, Israel is committed to Doing Something, and is making that awfully clear in advance too.

Without belaboring the issue, there is no reason to think Israel will win against Hezbollah. It was eventually beaten in 2006. Hezbollah is a much better fighting force than then while Israel is no better and perhaps worse. Among other things, Israel is betting on the US entering the conflict and saving its bacon, when Scott Ritter has warned that recent war game have shown Israel to lose against Hezbollah even when the US saddles up. And those didn’t factor in the Houthis interfering with ship getting to Israel’s ports. On top of that, the US has brought aerial refueling planes after the supposed drone attack on an outpost in Jordan that killed three service members. Many observers claim that means the US feels it needs to keep its jets in the air so as not to have them destroyed on the ground. That would have to complicate air support for Israel in Lebanon.

All the iranian recruits I met in Iran were pretty nice, if very dissatisfied by the very low pay, bad food and generally bad conditions in the military. They were quite open about it too.

Also shoutout to the IRI official having tea with me and roasting my back then liberal ass in regards to my inciherent positions to EU foreign policy. The tea was veey good, and it is a funny memory. Lovely people all in all. The youth all hate the goverment.

A Nigerian chap at work verbatim told me that "as an Estonian-South African, I shouldn't focus on Middle Eastern politics". This was simply in response to me having a little South African and Palestinian desk flags sticking out of my front pocket (and how another coworker actually grabbed the Palestine flag and kissed it, ngl totally based). Of course I'm not allowed to voice my views/perspectives because I come from an enemy country and know too much.

Coincidentally, when the Russian-Ukraine War of 2022 kicked off, the company Slack was basically a bukkake of

https://www.cpusa.org/article/cp-says-all-out-for-strike-struggles-and-coalition-to-defeat-maga-right/

Yet again the central committee of CPUSA states it is rallying the whole party to participate in the presidental election and endorses the democratic party and stands behind Joe Biden while playing word games and dancing around with sophistry of "we're not actually openly endorsing the DNC, we're just against the Republicans and any independent presidential candidates"

When you tear out all the fluff they use to pad out the article to try and make what they're doing look good and sound appealing, they're tailing blue maga again.

My wife has been the happiest she's been in months over Yemen getting bombed and it makes me so happy to see. She said tonight she'll let me sleep in the bed, the first time in 4 years, wish me luck lads!

Those hospital murders are going to make me vomit, such obviously disgusting tactics. Death to Israel, death to the occupiers

Common Palestine Action W:

https://twitter.com/Pal_action/status/1753396383506149493

https://nitter.cz/Pal_action/status/1753396383506149493

BREAKING: Logistics giant, Kuehne + Nagel, confirm they've cut their contract with Elbit Systems and will not work with the Israeli weapons maker again.

This victory comes after Palestine Action targeted the firm over their transportation of Israeli weaponry.

FOUR MORE FRONTS! FOUR MORE FRONTS!

I know we've all been saying that the situation is on the brink for months now but it really does feel like the next 4-5 days are the brink of the brink, and it's all behind-the-scenes so I genuinely cannot make any predictions. Will the Resistance take a subpar deal under pressures both known and unknown to us, and thereby potentially doom Gaza? Has Israel merely set up this deal predicting that the Resistance will reject it, so as to provide a pretext for further action including against Hezbollah? Will the deal merely involve a lengthy ceasefire and a prisoner exchange leading to the war flaring up again later as neither side wants to give in? Will Iran and its allies meaningfully respond to US strikes or just take it on the chin? Will the US agree to withdraw from Iraq or has it all been a feint? What would Hezbollah do if there was a ceasefire in Gaza? What will Netanyahu do? What will happen to Zionists and Zionism as a whole given that most of the non-Western world now hates them and they failed to destroy Hamas or permanently kill off the Gazans and annex the territory, as well as the settler anxiety at the northern border?

It's amazing how obvious it is that Zelensky is just a regional manager propped up by the Corporate HQ in Washington.

Love how in all of the coverage of Neuralink I'm seeing on the news there's no mention of how horribly murdered the monkeys used in its experiments were. I fucking hate this fucking country

More video comes out of arresting and humiliating Palestinians who are fleeing to the safe places they told them to go.

Stripping them, making them kneel and sit in muck and firth. Some were UN workers. Some were beaten, tourtured, held for a month and released with only a diaper.