#adi callai

[houseofpurplestars]

"The most radical position comes directly from the simplest question: are Palestinians human beings? If your answer is emphatically yes, unambiguously and without reservations, then you are a lost cause to Zionism. Because if Palestinians are human beings, then their self-defense is legitimate, and the defense of their continued existence is necessary."

[bicokun]

Great Analysis video form Israeli activist Adi Callai.

Especially struck by the analysis of how ruthless the IDF is even toward their own citizens. Like, these guys were told that there were Israeli children sheltering in houses on during Operation Al-Aqsa Flood and they went ahead and shelled them anyway, and one survivor even heard and saw these kids get blown away by the IDF artillery. It also really gives a deep dive into the historical context of Palestinian resistance and the Israel-led genocide.

[sossupummit]

Author: Adi CallaiTitle: The Gaza Ghetto UprisingDate: May 2024Source: TO THE HEART OF IT: Gaza has been a free kill zone and a “concentration camp” (to quote Israel’s National Security Director Giora Eiland in 2004), long before October 7. In light of this, the most radical position comes directly from the simplest question: are Palestinians human beings? If your answer is emphatically yes, unambiguously and without reservations, then you are a lost cause to Zionism. Because if Palestinians are human beings, then their self-defense is legitimate, and the defense of their continued existence is necessary. Gaza, this black box, this holding pen for refugees from the 1948 ethnic cleansing of Palestine—can we think of its people as we think about ourselves, imagining being enclosed, imprisoned, in a small stretch of land forever, for no reason other than being born into a specific ethnicity? A place that has been cut off from the world to varying degrees since 1948. And a place that since at least 2003 has experienced multiple devastating large-scale military operations. Gazans had survived twelve of these since 2003, with a death toll of over 8,000 people, before October 7. Since then, that number has grown by over 34,000. And every minute there’s a new update of more deaths from Gaza from Israeli fire, but now also from starvation. No fuel, no food, no water, no medicine. Whatever is coming in is like “a drop in the sea,” to quote UN officials, in a place that these officials had already, in 2018, predicted would soon be “unlivable,” unfit for human life—a place that was experiencing what Ilan Pappé called “an incremental genocide” already in 2006. This is the context that we need to have in mind when thinking about the attack on October 7. And then we need to ask ourselves, what would we do in that situation? Do you acquiesce and die? Or do you fight? And if you fight, then how? George Orwell wrote about Gandhi being asked this question about the Jews in Europe in 1938, before the Holocaust. Gandhi said that the Jews should stage a kind of collective mass suicide to show the world the brutality of the Nazis, and then the world would have to intervene.[1] Orwell thought this was unhinged. But the Palestinians, in fact, kind of did this in 2018–19, during the period of the Great March of Return, the Palestinian equivalent to the Salt March in India. On the first day, about thirty thousand Palestinians marched towards the fence, and this unarmed protest was gunned down by Israeli snipers. Over one thousand people were injured and at least seventeen people were killed, just on the first day. And the world did nothing. Liberal politicians extended some vague condemnations, often against violence on both sides. Imagine looking at that and condemning violence on both sides. So what would you do? Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak—the architect of the 2007 siege, considered a liberal Zionist—answered this question himself in 1998, saying he would have joined armed Palestinian resistance had he been born on the other side. We think of Gaza, “we Israelis,” think of Gaza as a place that warehouses violence. It contains the refugees who must hate us so badly for what we did to them. This is also how Americans think of prisons, as places that warehouse violence, contain it so that we don’t have to think about it. But actually, the prison produces violence, and it flows out of the prison and into our seemingly removed lives. That’s why moralistic questions on violence are beside the point. As for what happened on October 7, I’ll try as much as possible to stick to verifiable observations. It is very easy to fall into moralistic analysis, and we obviously can’t avoid it, but we should try to understand what actually occurred. And what happened, as far as we’re able to gather within the sea of misinformation and disinformation and whatever kind of psychological operations are happening? What happened, gathering from GoPros, surveillance footage, first person accounts, as well as reading everything I could put my hands on: military analysts, testimonies, media from both sides of the fence? What happened was that armed resistance factions in Gaza—not only Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiya (the Islamic resistance movement, Hamas), most prominently, but also the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which is a Marxist-Leninist organization, and other factions—launched a meticulously executed guerrilla operation, which immediately turned into a popular insurrection, against military bases and settlements surrounding the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023. Around 6 a.m. local time, the resistance[2] deployed a wide array of forces—totaling an estimated 3,000 fighters—on sea, land, air, and underground. They started with what Israelis call a “diversion,” by launching an unusually extensive missile strike targeting the so-called Gaza Envelope and the coast, up to Gush Dan (the Tel Aviv metropolitan area). Simultaneously, they attacked Israel’s panoptic surveillance systems and their cameras above and around Gaza, with what appeared to be relatively cheap commercial drones with DIY explosive capacities. And then they approached and breached the fence with multiple guerrilla army units, blowing holes in fences around Gaza at many points with specialized explosives, and laying down metal railings over which armed motorcyclists in groups of two could ride rapidly. Then heavy construction equipment like bulldozers and front-end loaders moved in to expand the breaches so that pickup trucks and sedans could drive through, carrying more armed fighters. Videos show that well-before 8 a.m. other factions (in this video, the Mujahideen Brigades) were in full gear and uniform, ready to participate in the uprising. With these forces the resistance completely overwhelmed Israeli defenses across many locations simultaneously, taking over the Erez Crossing—which is the main checkpoint separating Gaza from the world (alongside Rafah, which separates Gaza from Egypt to the south)—catching soldiers in their underwear in the bases, taking over entire settlements, killing many hundreds of Israeli soldiers and civilians—the death toll currently stands between 1,100 and 1,200[3]—killing and capturing high-ranking army officials; killing one mayor, too, the head of the municipal authority of the Gaza Envelope, and kidnapping over two hundred people into Gaza. ...

[houseofpurplestars]

Halfway through but the Sodomites is so good ❤️ more anti-occupation novels pls

[houseofpurplestars]

"There is joy here. They are simulating a revolution, transgressing the fear, simulating what needs to be done to enact a revolution. Life has to spring from the void."

The Sodomites

[houseofpurplestars]

"I'm running from the city. That's why I'm here."

"And it follows you, doesn't it?"

"It follows me everywhere. But once I find my spot, I'll fight back."

"Fight the city?"

"Industry, tourists. I'll scare them off."

"And when the cops come?"

"I'll fight them too."

"And when you lose?"

"It's okay. At least I'll fight."

Aya says, "maybe you won't lose if you're not alone."

- The Sodomites

[sossupummit]

Author: Adi CallaiTitle: The Gaza Ghetto UprisingDate: May 2024Source: TO THE HEART OF IT: Gaza has been a free kill zone and a “concentration camp” (to quote Israel’s National Security Director Giora Eiland in 2004), long before October 7. In light of this, the most radical position comes directly from the simplest question: are Palestinians human beings? If your answer is emphatically yes, unambiguously and without reservations, then you are a lost cause to Zionism. Because if Palestinians are human beings, then their self-defense is legitimate, and the defense of their continued existence is necessary. Gaza, this black box, this holding pen for refugees from the 1948 ethnic cleansing of Palestine—can we think of its people as we think about ourselves, imagining being enclosed, imprisoned, in a small stretch of land forever, for no reason other than being born into a specific ethnicity? A place that has been cut off from the world to varying degrees since 1948. And a place that since at least 2003 has experienced multiple devastating large-scale military operations. Gazans had survived twelve of these since 2003, with a death toll of over 8,000 people, before October 7. Since then, that number has grown by over 34,000. And every minute there’s a new update of more deaths from Gaza from Israeli fire, but now also from starvation. No fuel, no food, no water, no medicine. Whatever is coming in is like “a drop in the sea,” to quote UN officials, in a place that these officials had already, in 2018, predicted would soon be “unlivable,” unfit for human life—a place that was experiencing what Ilan Pappé called “an incremental genocide” already in 2006. This is the context that we need to have in mind when thinking about the attack on October 7. And then we need to ask ourselves, what would we do in that situation? Do you acquiesce and die? Or do you fight? And if you fight, then how? George Orwell wrote about Gandhi being asked this question about the Jews in Europe in 1938, before the Holocaust. Gandhi said that the Jews should stage a kind of collective mass suicide to show the world the brutality of the Nazis, and then the world would have to intervene.[1] Orwell thought this was unhinged. But the Palestinians, in fact, kind of did this in 2018–19, during the period of the Great March of Return, the Palestinian equivalent to the Salt March in India. On the first day, about thirty thousand Palestinians marched towards the fence, and this unarmed protest was gunned down by Israeli snipers. Over one thousand people were injured and at least seventeen people were killed, just on the first day. And the world did nothing. Liberal politicians extended some vague condemnations, often against violence on both sides. Imagine looking at that and condemning violence on both sides. So what would you do? Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak—the architect of the 2007 siege, considered a liberal Zionist—answered this question himself in 1998, saying he would have joined armed Palestinian resistance had he been born on the other side. We think of Gaza, “we Israelis,” think of Gaza as a place that warehouses violence. It contains the refugees who must hate us so badly for what we did to them. This is also how Americans think of prisons, as places that warehouse violence, contain it so that we don’t have to think about it. But actually, the prison produces violence, and it flows out of the prison and into our seemingly removed lives. That’s why moralistic questions on violence are beside the point. As for what happened on October 7, I’ll try as much as possible to stick to verifiable observations. It is very easy to fall into moralistic analysis, and we obviously can’t avoid it, but we should try to understand what actually occurred. And what happened, as far as we’re able to gather within the sea of misinformation and disinformation and whatever kind of psychological operations are happening? What happened, gathering from GoPros, surveillance footage, first person accounts, as well as reading everything I could put my hands on: military analysts, testimonies, media from both sides of the fence? What happened was that armed resistance factions in Gaza—not only Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiya (the Islamic resistance movement, Hamas), most prominently, but also the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which is a Marxist-Leninist organization, and other factions—launched a meticulously executed guerrilla operation, which immediately turned into a popular insurrection, against military bases and settlements surrounding the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023. Around 6 a.m. local time, the resistance[2] deployed a wide array of forces—totaling an estimated 3,000 fighters—on sea, land, air, and underground. They started with what Israelis call a “diversion,” by launching an unusually extensive missile strike targeting the so-called Gaza Envelope and the coast, up to Gush Dan (the Tel Aviv metropolitan area). Simultaneously, they attacked Israel’s panoptic surveillance systems and their cameras above and around Gaza, with what appeared to be relatively cheap commercial drones with DIY explosive capacities. And then they approached and breached the fence with multiple guerrilla army units, blowing holes in fences around Gaza at many points with specialized explosives, and laying down metal railings over which armed motorcyclists in groups of two could ride rapidly. Then heavy construction equipment like bulldozers and front-end loaders moved in to expand the breaches so that pickup trucks and sedans could drive through, carrying more armed fighters. Videos show that well-before 8 a.m. other factions (in this video, the Mujahideen Brigades) were in full gear and uniform, ready to participate in the uprising. With these forces the resistance completely overwhelmed Israeli defenses across many locations simultaneously, taking over the Erez Crossing—which is the main checkpoint separating Gaza from the world (alongside Rafah, which separates Gaza from Egypt to the south)—catching soldiers in their underwear in the bases, taking over entire settlements, killing many hundreds of Israeli soldiers and civilians—the death toll currently stands between 1,100 and 1,200[3]—killing and capturing high-ranking army officials; killing one mayor, too, the head of the municipal authority of the Gaza Envelope, and kidnapping over two hundred people into Gaza. ...