#economic jihad

[cartoonmirror]

Godi Media War

[tamamita]

hey sal feel free to ignore this but i got into an argument with a zionist who claimed that arabs sold their lands to them, is this true

This is interesting, because it ignores a lot of context. Keywords to remember is the Ottoman capitulation, the Felaheen, the Sursock purchase and the eviction of Palestinians that inhabited the area at that time.

The Sursock family was a family of Aristocratic landlords with strong ties to the Turkish and European nobility dating back to the 19th century. The Sursocks were known to have mass purchased land in Palestine from the Ottoman Turks. While they were absentee landlords, they hired Arab labours who inhabited the purchased land at that time. When the Turks capitulated following WW1, the Turks were pressured into allowing the land to be sold to the PLDC, the Palestinan (later Israeli) Land Development Company. The PLDC sought to purchase the Jezreel valley, which consisted of 20-25 Arab villages, from the Sursock. . Keep in mind that the Jezreel valley was the most fertile land of Palestine and close to the economic city of Haifa. Following the mass purchase of land by the PLDC, the Jewish landbuyers expelled Arab tenants and depopulated the Arab villages despite their usufruct, and right to toll on the land. This all came as a surprise to the Arab inhabitants. This was all part of the idea that cheap Arab labour should be replaced with Jewish labour, this despite the fact that Arab labourers had greater expertise on the agricultural field; the settlers were unfamiliar with the land. Keep in mind that according to JNF, the Jewish national fund, only 3% of the Palestinian land were uncultivated, destroying the myth that the land bloomed as a result of its settler colonizers. The Hashomer Hatzaeer would come to be the center of these kibbutzim and would establish over 30 kibbutzim built ontop of the Arab villages before 1948. As a result, the Arabs, or Felaheen (The Arab peasant class) put up a resistance against the JNF out of concrete material reasons and attempted to fight back against the expansion of these kibbutzim. This was the first instance of Arab resistance against Zionism.

All of these lands were purchased before 1948 and the Arabs were expelled and depopulated only for the kibbutzim to be established with the help of the money provided by the Jewish Colonization association and its organs. However, the British mandate did not require the landowners to compensate for the expelled Arab tenants. The Arabs were forced to migrate to slums and towns. In one of these towns, a notable Syrian resistance fighter would rise up, namely, Izz ad-Din al-Qassam, and declare jihad on the British. When the Arabs resisted their dispossession by every means necessary, even violence, the Zionists used this as an excuse to fortify their colonizers and expand them due to "escalating security needs". Since the colonizers were too weak to face the resistance, they turned themselves to the British to gain their support in an attempt to expand their lands as means of security for the Kibbutzim. In a memondarium written by the Kibbutz Hazora (a settlement in Jezreel) to the Jewish Agency in 1936: "Our basic demand is for our own instutions to help us ugently in getting the British authorities to expand our territory--this is a vital issue for us.". A similar pretext is used whenever the colonized put up resistance against their colonizers, in which the same excuse is used to further expand and colonize the lands. This is the logic of the oppressor in any context, whether it is colonial or in the class struggle.

[adorkableshephard]

Okay also, Dune isn’t just about Paul being The Villain. Like, as far as Frank Herbert wrote, there was a legitimate point to Paul’s action in unleashing the jihad and becoming a messiah. The answer at the end of the series is that Paul’s Jihaad and the God Emperor’s terrible reign were the Only way for humanity to evolve far enough and grow strong enough as a species to defeat the AI machines that enslaved their ancestors.

The world of the Dune books does technically-as far as Paul and Leto II can be trusted- need a messiah to push and squeeze and prune humanity into a mass that can survive forever.

And what we learn is that to do that, to follow Any messiah figure, The Worst of Atrocities must be committed at unimaginable scale. Billions dead, suffering, relocated, imprisoned, whole peoples slaughtered, and then the whole empire forced into isolated planetoid islands. Thats the cost of a messiah. Is it worth it? Paul started the path and decided it wasn’t. Leto stuck with it and everyone was saved, but he sacrificed everything he had to fulfill the role.

If humanity’s only hope is a messiah, we’re fucked, the cost in human blood will be unimaginable. Any so called messiah would be a devil for leading people through that path. So, it’d be a lot better if everyone figured out how to get by without one instead, because looking for a messiah will lead to ruin.

There’s a separate discussion to be had about Paul and Leto being false messiahs since they lie, or allow their priesthoods to lie, about what the point of all this is. The point is to get on the golden path of species survival, but both allow or encourage the belief in spiritual, ecological, or economic salvation.

[eretzyisrael]

Saudi school textbooks drop hatred of Israel

A bright spot in the current gloom that is the Middle East is Saudi Arabia: a new report idenitifies a strong shift in the Saudi education system away from anti-Israel ideology and toward more liberal, Western ideals. The Palestinian textbooks, regrettably, show the opposite trend. The New York Post reports:

De facto’ Saudi ruler Mohammed bin Salman

The Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se), issued a report on the 2023/24 curriculum in Saudi Arabia. Following a critical review of 371 Saudi textbooks from 2019 to 2024, IMPACT-se evaluated changes made to textbooks for the current school year. As always, we measured them against internationally recognized UNESCO standards of peace and tolerance in education.

What we found was very encouraging. Continuing a steady positive trend in Saudi textbooks over the last several years, passages that endorsed violent jihad have been removed, antisemitic language is no longer found and texts that in the past promoted male superiority over women have been removed or altered, providing much-needed gender-parity in a region where it’s been lacking. Meanwhile, Zionism is no longer portrayed as the product of European colonialism.

As Saudi ruler Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) works towards implementing his comprehensive vision for his Kingdom’s future, the way Saudi children are being educated is instructive. It is no coincidence that these textbook changes are taking place as MBS, who has faced scrutiny, opens his Kingdom up to the world. As the Saudi desire for economic development, modernization and closer relations with the West persists, a curriculum which is increasingly tolerant and inclusive makes this prospect all the more likely.

Read article in full

[beardedmrbean]

How can we understand the terrible, self-imposed deprivation now gripping the people of Gaza? The heart-wrenching stampede that unfolded in Gaza last Thursday casts a stark light on the brutal reality of life under Hamas's rule. It is a somber reminder of the urgent need to address the suffering of Gaza's people, but it also serves as a crucial moment to clarify the accountability for Gaza's plight.

The chaos and desperation that led to this tragedy are direct outcomes of Hamas's governance, which prioritizes violence and killing Jews over the welfare of its population. The stampede, occurring during an aid distribution, tragically underscores the severe humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Driven by sheer desperation, people found themselves in a deadly crush, a situation that should never occur.

To pave the way for peace and stability for my brothers and sisters in Gaza, it is essential to acknowledge the root causes of their suffering. Hamas's diversion of resources, suppression of dissent, and neglect of civilian needs must end. The international community, along with the Palestinian people, must demand accountability and seek a future where governance prioritizes human dignity, economic opportunity, and peaceful coexistence. Only through addressing these fundamental issues can we hope to prevent such tragedies and build a brighter future for all Palestinians.

As a Palestinian human rights activist deeply sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinian people and the complexities of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, I can tell you beyond the shadow of a doubt that the terrorist group Hamas is responsible for the suffering of Gazans.

Outside obfuscators often try to misplace blame for the suffering onto Israel's "blockade" on the Strip, but a brief consideration of the timeline shows the absurdity of this conceit. Israel unilaterally withdrew all of its soldiers and settlers from Gaza in 2005. Within hours, Hamas-aligned looters had stripped bare and destroyed the greenhouses and farms Israel had left behind for local sustenance. In 2007, Hamas seized military control of the strip in a brutal local coup against the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority (PA), throwing its supporters off the roofs of buildings.

Since then, rather than engage in peacemaking and economic development, Hamas, like a Mediterranean North Korea, has diverted all of its resources to warfare. It and its ally, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), have repeatedly fired rocket salvos into central Israel—in 2008-9, 2012, 2014, and 2021. In October 2023, Hamas breached all precedent with an all-out invasion of Southern Israel, massacring over 1,200 innocents in a single day—including 300 young people at an all-night nature dance party celebrating peace.

Rape, torture, and bodily mutilation were reported on a systemic scale, and over 240 innocents were dragged back to Hamas's terror emirate in Gaza as hostages. Hamas is still holding over 130 of these innocents hostage.

As a human rights activist and a human being, I recognize that it defies all rules of geopolitics, morality, and human nature to suggest that Israel not respond militarily to dismantle Hamas and rescue its people, who we now know are being raped and psychologically tortured in captivity.

Read more

I'm a Palestinian. Hamas Alone Is Responsible for the Blood Shed in Gaza

We Palestinians Must Dump Our Leaders and Accept Israel's Offers for Peace

Hamas Is Committing Terrorism Against My Palestinian Brothers and Sisters

And yet, amidst the intensity of the ongoing war, Israel has facilitated the transfer of international aid to Hamas-controlled territory—while Hamas has been seizing these essential supplies and transferring them for military purposes. Hamas has built a massive network of tunnels under the Strip that exceeds the New York subway system in length, where hostages have been kept underground without light and used as human shields to protect terrorist commanders. Hamas's cannibalization of the civilian economy has gone so far as to dig up water pipes and convert them into makeshift rockets to fire into Israeli territory.

Beyond economic manipulation, Hamas's rule in Gaza is marked by a severe crackdown on political dissent. Opposition and press voices are silenced, often violently, with human rights organizations reporting arbitrary arrests, torture, and extrajudicial killings. LGBTQ+ individuals, and anyone else who defies the harsh religious extremism governing all life in the Strip face torture and execution.

The real victims of Hamas's governance are the ordinary people of Gaza, who endure the consequences of their rulers' bloodthirsty actions. The youth, facing unemployment rates that are among the highest in the world, see their futures evaporate in an economy stifled by mismanagement and artificially exacerbated conflict. The sick suffer from a health care system in disarray, with hospitals overwhelmed and under-resourced, in part due to the diversion of medical supplies to serve Hamas's fighters and the repurposing of these healing spaces into military command centers.

As a Palestinian human rights activist, my loyalty lies with the Palestinian people, whose rights and future have been compromised by a cruel leadership that prioritizes military and terrorist objectives over human welfare. For those of us caught in the middle, the path forward requires an honest confrontation with the reality of our situation.

The plight of Gaza is a wound at the heart of the Middle East, a testament to the failures of an international policy that has foolishly coddled a brutal tyrant and implacable foe. Only by dismantling the governing rule of the irredeemable Hamas can we begin to heal this wound and move toward a future where the rights and dignity of all Palestinians are upheld, and peace and economic development alongside our Israeli neighbors can at last bear fruit for both sides.

Bassem Eid is a Palestinian human rights activist. He lives in the West Bank.

The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.

[probablyasocialecologist]

As Sheila Ryan writes, from 1948 until mid-1973 “Israel had received the staggering sum of over $8 billion in economic assistance from various foreign sources, or $3,500 total for each Israeli – an average of $233 per year per capita in aid. Thus, an average Israeli each year received in aid alone more than double the per capita income of an Egyptian ($102 in 1969).” Between 1943 and 2023, the US has provided Israel with $160 billion in aid (with inflation adjusted reaching about $260 billion), without considering the regular loan guarantees extended to the entity that are worth billions. This aid to Israel is an investment in militarism for US-led imperialism. The peculiarity of the Zionist entity lies in it being a settler-colonial formation, as much as the US, incubating a mode of consciousness that promotes imperialist values and secures US hegemonic domination in the region. By acquiring nuclear weapons and through its numerous military attacks on and invasions of other countries of the region – i.e., such as Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Israel has been the major force behind imperialist capital accumulation and its corollary, Arab de-development. As the Palestinian leftist circles in the 1960s-70s consistently emphasised, Zionism is the spearhead of imperialism in the region. As much as the liberation of Palestine is a struggle against US-led imperialism on whose behalf Israel acts as a gendarme, an attack on Israel is an attempt to undermine directly the core interests of the US and its reactionary allies in the region. As per the oil-rich Gulf monarchies, the control of the ruling classes of these political formations guaranteed the supremacy of the US dollar at the international level through dollar-denominated oil sales, which were then being recycled in the purchase of US treasury bonds and weaponry. In recent years, following the various attacks on the sovereignty of secular Arab republics (Iraq, Libya, and Syria), coordinated with the money and weapons of the Gulf countries, the US has also pushed an agenda of normalisation with Israel. The more Israel is recognised officially in the region, the more secure the interests of US-led imperialism are.

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

by Seth J. Frantzman

Israel conducted an airstrike overnight between June 5 and June 6 that targeted Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists who had illegally taken over part of a UN school in Gaza. The UN has complained about the airstrike and various reports have parroted these claims. However, the presence of terrorists at a UN facility once again shows that the UN is not doing enough to protect civilians from Hamas.

“Overnight, the IDF conducted a precise, intelligence-based strike targeting dozens of Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists hiding inside a UN school in Gaza. Some of these terrorists participated in the Hamas Massacre of October 7. I will soon reveal the identities of some of the terrorists we eliminated,” the IDF said.IDF spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari went on to note, “The terrorists were operating from this UN school. They were planning and conducting attacks from inside classrooms of this UNRWA school. Our precise strike was based on concrete intelligence, from multiple sources. The terrorists inside this school were planning more attacks against Israelis, some of them imminent. We stopped a ticking time-bomb. This is what it was.”

The UN undersecretary for humanitarian affairs said that the strike is “yet another tragedy proving there is nowhere safe for civilians in Gaza. The rules of war must be respected. Civilians must be protected. States must use their leverage: Diplomatic and economic pressure, conditioning arms exports, and cooperation in fighting impunity.”

The Israeli claims and the UN claims once again show how the UN and other international organizations in Gaza are not doing enough to protect civilians from Hamas.

[zvaigzdelasas]

[The Hill is US Private Media]

Earlier this year, The Hill published an Op-Ed I wrote that was titled “Puerto Rico’s political status, an issue of national security.” In that piece I presented a series of events to stress and relate the political future of Puerto Rico, its importance to the U.S. national security needs and how foreign powers push their agenda through the pro-independence movement within the island.

This past June, the United Nations Decolonization Committee met to discuss the issue of Puerto Rico at the request of Cuba. That body also passed the 41st consecutive resolution asking for the island’s self-determination and independence, with complete disregard of the will of its residents, who are US citizens. I tried to set the record straight by submitting a written and oral statement but the representative of Cuba had other plans. My statement blew the Cuban representative’s mind that led to an interruption rampage. Somehow my statement[...] made him forget that he was not in Cuba and that the UN is a place where different points of view are supposed to come together in order to encourage a thorough discussion of the issues pressing the world. I can attest that this wasn’t one of the UN’s best moments. 

But what was he trying to hide? Simple, for the Cuban representative, the truth is inconvenient. Its ties with China and Russia are publicly known and widely reported. The Wall Street Journal, in June 20, 2023, wrote “Beijing Plans a New Training Facility in Cuba.” This is something that the Cuban representative did not want on the UN record. But why would China want to establish a military training facility in Cuba? Maybe for the same reason, the Chinese wanted to buy what used to be Roosevelt Roads Naval Station in Puerto Rico but couldn’t. [...]

In June 2023, Francisco Urdinez wrote for the [US industry thinktank] Wilson Center, “At the OAS, where China is an observer, an analysis by George Meek showed that between 1948 and 1974, the United States influenced 75 percent of the 297 roll-call votes. That influence has clearly diminished. Between 2001 and 2021, countries in which China has displaced the United States economically were 26 percentage points less likely to vote in alignment with Washington than other member states.” This clearly represents a shift in political power because of ill conceived policies that fail to recognize the importance of U.S. leadership in Latin America.[...]

It is important to remember that the involvement of foreign powers and interests in Latin America is not new. In 2011, the subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence of the U.S. House of Representatives held a hearing on Hezbollah in Latin America — Implications on U.S. Homeland Security, and received the testimony of Ambassador Roger F. Noriega, former US Ambassador to the Organization of American States (OEA) and stated, “Hugo Chaves hosted a terror summit of senior leaders of Hamas (supreme leader “Khaled Meshal), Hezbollah (unnamed “chief operations”), and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (Secretary General Ramadan Abdullah Mohammad Shallah) in Caracas on August 22, 2010. That extraordinary meeting was organized at the suggestion of Iran,… In addition to the summit, operatives from other countries gathered in Caracas to meet with these terrorist chieftains.”

These are but a few indications that Puerto Rico’s political status may have a significant impact on U.S. security and foreign policy interests. The island’s current political status is not sustainable and when it comes to an end there will be only two options: it either becomes a state, thereby ensuring a strategic U.S. presence at the crossroads of the Americas, or it becomes a sovereign country which would be tantamount to ceding the island to our adversaries. The longer Congress takes to act on Puerto Rico’s political status, the greater the likelihood of the latter outcome.[...]

[The Author] José Enrique Meléndez-Ortiz, Esq., LLM., is representative at large in Puerto Rico’s House of Representatives.

"Puerto Rican Independence is a Russian-Chinese-Iranian Plot" now a mainstream narrative being pushed among self described progressive media by sitting politicians [22 Oct 23]

[secular-jew]

Since 10-7, if you're like me, it's easy to lament the historical repetition of Islamic colonial oppression which others seem to be overtly ignoring.

Unfolding before our very eyes, in this generation, our generation. That which we thought -- unthinkable.

We are not the generation of our great grandparents. We are not the generation of economic depression and drought. We are not the generation of poverty and world war. We are not the generation of blood libel and property dispossession. We are not the generation of cattle cars and death camps. We are not the apathetic, naive generation. And mostly, we are NOT the generation of silence.

Never again meant what exactly?

Many discouraged colleagues have disconnected from social media. Gone underground for the most part. Hiding from exposure, doxxing, or worse.

We are living in an age of outspoken antisemitism reincarnate. 1930s Nazi propaganda has been effectively adopted by the Islamists, focused on Israel as a stepping stone to the re-colonization of Andalusia (Spain), the rest of Europe, and North America, also in their sites.

Highlighting Islamic oppression, jihad/terrorism has led to being cancelled, silenced and demonized on social media, the new technological ally of the Islamists. Our social media accounts frozen or closed-down entirely.

Exodus redux? Feels like wandering aimlessly in the dessert, similar to the ancients searching for Canaan, but without a guide.

Whatever one thinks about Tumblr, I can tell you from experience, that life is much worse on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram, and much better on Twitter (X).

For instance, Zuckerturd has doubled down on censorship and overrun his site with state-sponsored "fact-checkers."

At the same time, Musk has held true to his word, reinstating banished voices who have taken on numerous global tyrants, almost single-handedly.

They say history repeats. But it doesn't need to be that way. We seem to be approaching the rubicon.

[randomshobhit]

It is now clear that BJP will not be able to form government on its own unlike the last 2 terms and has to rely on its coalition partners to survive. Many people rightly called that the results provide a sense of breathing space for the independence of the institutions and the future of democracy in the country, since the government will not be able to bulldoze its will the way it has came to be known for. It's worth celebrating.

Yet, those of us who wants to see a truly democratic and truly secular India should not get too carried away with the results. The roots of hindutva fascism has been penetrated deeply in the Indian society in last several decades, backed by systemic and organised forces.

Family WhatsApp groups will still receive islamophobic forwards, cause of poverty will still be blamed upon "population explosion" and conspiracy theories like love jihad and land jihad will still circulate. Many of the supporters and members of the opposition coalition are just as communal, sexist, and bigoted as those who are in the government and despite being less authoritarian in some ways are still representatives of the capitalist class.

The real enemy is capitalism itself which has to be overthrown in order to defeat fascism. As Lenin said "Fascism is capitalism in decay", and to ignore the root cause of fascism and pin it solely to some inherent authoritarianism of some individuals would be foolish.

We should use the newly found breathing space provided to us by the results of the 2024 elections in order to take anti-capitalist program to the people, educate them about their cause of misery and explain how this capitalist system is inherently incapable of fulfilling their needs. We should highlight how communal propaganda blooms in times of economic distress and are a means of diverting the blame away from the wealthy and powerful to a section of common people so that exploitation can continue.

[satellitebroadcast]

Senior Hamas leader Osama Hamdan in a speech addressed to Arab foreign ministers in Cairo, Egypt:

In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. In light of the brutal aggression and war of genocide being waged by the occupation against our steadfast people in the Gaza Strip, and the daily massacres it commits, the latest being the massacre that took place at dawn today, where enemy aircraft targeted displaced people's tents in the Mawasi area of Khan Younis, which had been declared a safe zone, with heavy bombs. Amidst what our people in Gaza are enduring from siege, hunger, and deprivation, especially in the northern part of the Strip where people lack the basic necessities of life such as food, water, clothing, and shelter, deadly diseases are spreading while the healthcare system is incapacitated due to the continuous targeting by the occupation of its facilities and staff. As a result of the procrastination by the occupation government and its obstruction of mediators' efforts to cease fire and end the war of genocide in Gaza, as well as the exchange of prisoners, they hinder all these efforts by committing more massacres and imposing more impossible conditions. In light of the blatant violations by the extremist settler government, which threatens to change the status quo in the West Bank and Al-Quds, and directly supports settlement activities and the Judaization of Al-Aqsa Mosque, and in light of the killing and destruction carried out by the occupation forces, especially in the northern West Bank, with the aim of repeating the crime of genocide in our occupied West Bank. In the face of all these crimes and violations, we place our Arab brothers, the foreign ministers, before their genuine Arab responsibilities, and we emphasize that the continuation of the occupation and aggression poses a danger not only to Palestinians but also to the collective Arab national security. In this context, we remind the esteemed foreign ministers of Arab states and His Excellency the Secretary-General of the Arab League of the outcomes of the joint summit between the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation last November, which was held in the Saudi capital, Riyadh. The summit emphasized the need to work towards an immediate halt to the aggression, provide relief to the Palestinian people, and lift the siege. At this critical moment in the history of our people and the region, we look forward to your meeting producing the following: - First, immediate and direct action to pressure the occupation and its supporters to halt the aggression and war of genocide in the Gaza Strip. - Second, providing relief to our steadfast people in Gaza by opening the crossings and directing urgent aid in the form of food, medicine, clothing, and shelter supplies. - Third, we look forward to a clear condemnation of the occupation’s practices and its ongoing crimes in Palestine, and the pursuit of legal and judicial accountability for the occupation state and its leaders in all international forums. - Fourth, we expect the exposure of the occupation's intransigence and its stalling of mediators' proposals, and holding it fully responsible for the failure of efforts to achieve a ceasefire and prisoner exchange, especially since Hamas and the resistance agreed to the latest proposal presented by mediators on the 2nd of July. - Fifth, taking all necessary measures to protect Al-Quds and the sanctities, and preventing the zionist enemy from continuing its plans to change the status quo at Al-Aqsa Mosque and Judaize the holy city. - Sixth and finally, we look forward to the immediate severance of political, diplomatic, and economic relations with the zionist entity, which persists in killing our people and committing genocide. We ask Allah, the Exalted, to guide us towards what is good. It is a jihad of victory or martyrdom.

[ooooola]

Recent days, Dune part 2 was released, and I went to see the iMax version for the first time, and the grand visual scenes were really better presented on a larger screen. In the whole process of watching, my mood also changed like the heroine Chani, which is also the best part of the director's adaptation of the original work, Chani is fully supportive of Paul's cause in the original work, but in the film, she created a rebellious spirit and opposed to the deification of a person. However, throughout the film, Paul gradually grows up under Chani's gaze and becomes a "savior" image in the eyes of the public. Chani gradually feels pain and disappointment in this absurd and grand "god creation" activity. Only she treats Paul equally throughout the whole process, treating him as a person with feelings rather than a majestic and ruthless "God". So it makes sense that Chani ended up driving the sandworms deeper into the dunes. So what I felt after watching it was the same as Chani, but with more fear of this "artificial god", Paul was forced to become the messiah in the eyes of the people, and he gradually became more cold and ruthless, just as he had foreseen - becoming Hackonnen, and he accepted his messianic identity, and everyone fanatically supported him. This irresistible flood of people's thoughts, what they think you are, you are what you are, and your character will even change accordingly, which is also very common in our reality. However, thousands of years later in the movie, human beings are still like this, and people who are more oppressed by religion and politics are overwhelmed, human alienation is more extreme, people seem to have become a tool in a huge system, and people who really have independent thoughts have become heresies, which is very frightening. Why after thousands of years of development, human beings are still under such serious control and the gap between class status is still very large, which is what Dune brings us to think. So I look back at the background of the original story and find that human beings used to use artificial intelligence to assist management for a long time, but because of the awakening of artificial intelligence, "Omnius" ruled mankind for thousands of years, and finally human beings rose up against it. A two-century-long Butlerian Jihad, after which artificial intelligence ceased to exist, and after which a return to the social system ruled by the feudal empire, seems to me to be a regression of the social system, and the result of the superstructure not keeping up with the economic base. At present, the controversy of artificial intelligence is indeed increasing, and perhaps the story of sand Dune is the possible future, which is the answer we are looking for.

[bearkunin]

New Rho Under Siege

CW: discussion and a few images of urban conflict some may find disturbing. I've tried to avoid any actual depictions of death however.

The Locked Tomb series receives a lot of gushing praise (quite rightly) for its intricate and complex depictions of relationships and love, sexuality and gender. But something I've seen less praise for (though I'm sure it exists) is the incredibly rich depiction of what an urban environment during warfare and civil strife looks like.

One of the unfortunate facts of urban warfare is that civilians are almost inevitably present, even in the most dire circumstances. Take the Bakhmut as an example. Despite months of fighting, thousands lived on in the city and region right to at least the very closing moments. This is despite the city being essentially entirely destroyed.

👆 civilians still lived through these conditions.

New Rho in Nona the Ninth feels incredibly lived in. The city supposedly contains ~9 million people, and you can believe it. There are all sorts of people, there are different groups and socio-economic areas, people have different responses to the situation they find themselves under, but they all living complex lives. This goes well beyond the key characters or even the side characters, but is captured by the existence of a barter economy, background vigilante and militia groups, the daily grind of workers desperately seeking ad hoc jobs.

They walked alongside all the other workers - the ones who didn't get picked up in the morning in the worker vans, or didn't have a job that merited a worker van, or didn't have a job but lived in hope - and they all trudged slowly through the street in clusters, parting only when a truck ground through, the driver leaning on the horn if someone didn't move out of the way quick enough.

I reckon some of the super fans here could pull out all sorts of fascinating little details in the world building of New Rho to discuss here.

[A civilian woman with a grocery bag walks through a levelled market in Grozny, Checnya during the Chechen War]

The Irish Troubles produced a number of iconic photos showing the dichotomy of urban conflict amongst civilians.

Perhaps one of the best parallels would be life in Palestine, particularly the Gaza Strip. The Gaza Strip, with a population of >2 million has lived under blockade for many years with frequent intervention/incursion by Israel.

[Aftermath of Israeli strikes in Gaza City, 2021]

One of the interesting parallels with Palestine is the plethora of different actors and resistance groups, just a fractious and secretive as New Rho's Blood of Eden and other militants, and who often seem to spend more time fighting themselves and civilians rather than their main enemy.

The Marxist-Leninist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) gave us the splinter groups PFLP-SC (Special Command), PFLP-GC (General Command), PFLP-EO (Executive Order), Palestinian Popular Struggle Front, Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Popular Revolutionary Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and had complex intertwined relations with groups like the Black September Organisation, Palestinian Liberation Front, Arab Liberation Front, Palestinian National Salvation Front, the Abdul Nidal Organisation, Fatah al-Intifada, Vanguard for the Popular Liberation War - Lightning Forces, and dozens of others. On the Islamist side there is similarly a plethora of groups, from Hamas, to Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Sheikh Omar Hadid Brigade (Islamic State in Gaza), the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade, the Army of Islam, and Jund Ansar Allah. It's almost comical to write them out.

New Rho itself is home to many refugees and "re-settled" peoples, which is somewhat reminiscent of Palestinians and the related conflict spilling into Lebanon, Jordan and other neighbouring areas. The complexity and number of groups involved skyrocket.

[Shatila Camp, Lebanon during the War of the Camps]

Rarely is war as simple as "Good Guys vs. Bad Guys" or even "Bad Guys vs. Bad Guys." There is almost always a vast number of interest groups and competing organisations at stake, even in some of the more black and white wars like WW2. Muir just hits this nail right on the head in my opinion.

You could also make similar parallels to the Syrian Civil War, which has an equally complex mix of militants and groups. Despite all of that, of course, life still goes on. School kids still attend school, even in bullet ridden buildings.

These kids are your Hot Sauce and Honesty and Kevin and Beautiful Ruby.

Typically the books I've read depicting a place under siege or at war (at least in sci-fi / fantasy) have a focus on the main characters leading the war effort. There may be issues of water or food shortages, but they're largely somewhat abstract political complications being dealt with by key rulers or the like. Often times war is simply sanitised completely (think Star Wars), or it is portrayed through a military lens, or when it deals with civilians it focuses on the destruction and death of civilian life.

I just found Nona wonderful in depicting the mundanity, the boredom, the regularity of life in a war zone, as well as the sudden shocks of change and turmoil and fear, and then as well the glimpses of joy and pleasure that humans still experience. I'm just really quite blown away by Tamsin Muir, and I wonder if she had a specific conflict as inspiration for her writing here.

[mariacallous]

On Oct. 7, Hamas militants surprised Israel and slaughtered 1,200 people while taking more than 200 as prisoners. It was an impressive tactical success for the group. But as Israeli forces steadily increase their hold on Gaza, leaving much of it in ruins and killing around 19,000 Palestinians, what can Hamas claim it has achieved?

It is helpful to think about what Hamas has accomplished, and where it has failed, by examining three different dimensions: Hamas’s struggle against Israel, the intra-Palestinian arena, and the group’s international position.

Successes Against Israel

Hamas’s terrorist attack brought pain to Israel and shattered its sense of security—both Hamas goals. The attack exposed the Israeli government’s ingrained belief that Hamas lacked both the intention and capabilities to launch a full-scale assault on Israeli soil. This assumption, despite evidence to the contrary, left Israel unprepared for Hamas’s devastating incursion. The resulting intelligence failure and the sheer brutality of the attack, with its mutilations and rape, which was reportedly more successful than Hamas planners anticipated, will leave deep psychological scars on Israeli citizens and force Israel to reevaluate its approach to security moving forward.

Until Oct. 7, and with the exception of sporadic rockets fired into Israel from Gaza that Israel’s missile defenses largely handled, Israelis could largely ignore Hamas and the Palestinians in general. When the occasional crisis flared up, as happened every few years, both sides eventually agreed to go to some version of the status quo ante. From Hamas’s point of view, however, the status quo was slowly suffocating the Palestinian cause, with Israel triumphing on the ground. Each year, settlements expanded in the West Bank, while Gaza at best stagnated, with little hope for its people. Now Israelis must reckon with the unfinished conflict with the Palestinians rather than ignore it.

Israel’s response could also strengthen Hamas. Hamas forced the Palestinian cause back to the forefront of world news, and Israel’s military campaign in Gaza—with its enormous cost to Gaza’s civilians—keeps it there. Israel’s ground offensive plays into Hamas’s narrative of Israeli aggression, alienates Israel from its neighbors, and exacerbates regional tensions. In the longer term, the conflict fosters a new generation of Gazans with grievances against Israel, which could bolster support for Hamas in the future.

Successes Within the Palestinian Community

Hamas has restored its so-called resistance credentials among the Palestinian people. After Hamas took over Gaza in 2007, it found itself confronted with the day-to-day demands of governing Gaza. This often required avoiding conflict with Israel to ensure that the country’s already considerable economic pressure on Gaza did not increase and that Israel did not conduct destructive military strikes on Gaza. This, in turn, led Hamas to limit its own attacks and at times stay out of the fighting when Israel struck the more radical Palestinian Islamic Jihad. As a result, Hamas found itself in the position of being Israel’s police officer rather than its most-feared enemy, angering its military wing and leading to criticism from militant circles that the group was slowly abandoning armed struggle.

The devastatingly effective Hamas attacks increased support for resistance in general and restored Hamas’s credentials in particular. Although we do not yet have robust polling from the post-Oct. 7 period, limited polling of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank as well as anecdotal reporting indicate strong support for the Oct. 7 attacks and suggest that the Israeli response in both Gaza and the West Bank has infuriated many Palestinians who are not otherwise Hamas supporters. Israel is also releasing Palestinian prisoners, who are greeted as heroes in the West Bank, in exchange for Israelis whom Hamas captured on Oct. 7—a clear victory for Hamas, which can argue that its attacks, not negotiations by the rival Palestinian Authority (PA), are what led to the prisoners’ freedom.

All this comes at the expense of the PA and Palestinians who favor peace. By not fighting, and even cracking down on anti-Israel demonstrations, the PA looks cowardly relative to Hamas. The Israeli response that Hamas provoked also discredits those who say that Israel can be a partner for peace.

International Successes

For years, the Palestinian-Israeli dispute seemed to be on the world’s back burner. The United States focused on China and on Russian aggression in Ukraine, while Arab governments were content to largely ignore the issue despite the occasional lip service. Now the Palestinian issue is front and center.

Israel’s retaliation to Hamas’s attack furthers Iranian narratives painting Israel as an occupying power brutally repressing Palestinians. The continued conflict and subsequent humanitarian crisis in Gaza undermine Israel’s image in the region and bolster support for those, like Iran, who oppose it. Although Iran denies direct involvement in the attack, the success of the operation may embolden Iran to invest even more heavily in its “axis of resistance,” a regional network of militant groups aiming to destabilize Israel and its allies.

The attack also temporarily halted U.S.-backed normalization talks between Israel and Saudi Arabia. If Riyadh recognized Israel, it would lay the foundations for other Arab nations to do the same. This would leave Hamas increasingly isolated and with few partners to champion the Palestinian cause. Following the attack, however, Saudi leaders distanced themselves from Israel and issued statements supporting Palestinians. These actions were largely to appease the country’s overwhelmingly pro-Palestinian population after months of negotiations with Israel, rather than a pro-Palestinian turn in Saudi policy. However, they suggest that the political cost to Riyadh of normalization with Israel, always high, is now far higher.

Beyond the Middle East, the war has generated considerable support for the Palestinian cause. Pro-Palestinian demonstrations have occurred throughout Europe. With few exceptions, the global south has embraced the Palestinian narrative, portraying the war as one of a powerful country attacking a defenseless population and lamenting what many see as the West’s hypocrisy in defending Ukraine while ignoring the rights of the Palestinians.

Hamas can even claim a few wins in the United States. Although most Republicans and U.S. President Joe Biden have embraced Israel, the broader Democratic Party is divided, with younger Democrats in particular critical of Israel. Although none support Hamas, some Democratic lawmakers have called for a cease-fire, restrictions on U.S. military aid, and other steps that go against Israeli policies.

The Price of Success

Whatever Hamas’s gains, they come at a huge cost. Both Hamas’s leadership and its military apparatus are likely to be degraded by the Israeli military campaign: Israel claims it has killed dozens of commanders and over 7,000 Hamas fighters. Moreover, Israel is likely to continue an assassination campaign against Hamas leaders for years or even decades to come.

Ordinary people in Gaza, of course, will pay the highest price. Many of the around 19,000 dead are children, and the devastation of the Gaza Strip and the displacement of much of its population will create an enduring crisis even if a cease-fire happens soon. Gazans will need to rebuild, with at best limited world assistance for doing so.

This pain, in turn, may inflict the highest price for Hamas: the loss of support among ordinary Palestinians. As the suffering of war fades while the loss and destruction endure, Palestinians may see Hamas as a dangerous organization rather than a heroic one. For that to be true, however, there need to be credible options for negotiations and other peaceful ways for Palestinians to achieve statehood and other goals. Only this will truly discredit violent resistance as the best option for Palestinians.

[eretzyisrael]

By Bassem Eid

Outside obfuscators often try to misplace blame for the suffering onto Israel's "blockade" on the Strip, but a brief consideration of the timeline shows the absurdity of this conceit. Israel unilaterally withdrew all of its soldiers and settlers from Gaza in 2005. Within hours, Hamas-aligned looters had stripped bare and destroyed the greenhouses and farms Israel had left behind for local sustenance. In 2007, Hamas seized military control of the strip in a brutal local coup against the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority (PA), throwing its supporters off the roofs of buildings.

Since then, rather than engage in peacemaking and economic development, Hamas, like a Mediterranean North Korea, has diverted all of its resources to warfare. It and its ally, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), have repeatedly fired rocket salvos into central Israel—in 2008-9, 2012, 2014, and 2021. In October 2023, Hamas breached all precedent with an all-out invasion of Southern Israel, massacring over 1,200 innocents in a single day—including 300 young people at an all-night nature dance party celebrating peace.

Rape, torture, and bodily mutilation were reported on a systemic scale, and over 240 innocents were dragged back to Hamas's terror emirate in Gaza as hostages. Hamas is still holding over 130 of these innocents hostage.

As a human rights activist and a human being, I recognize that it defies all rules of geopolitics, morality, and human nature to suggest that Israel not respond militarily to dismantle Hamas and rescue its people, who we now know are being raped and psychologically tortured in captivity.

And yet, amidst the intensity of the ongoing war, Israel has facilitated the transfer of international aid to Hamas-controlled territory—while Hamas has been seizing these essential supplies and transferring them for military purposes. Hamas has built a massive network of tunnels under the Strip that exceeds the New York subway system in length, where hostages have been kept underground without light and used as human shields to protect terrorist commanders. Hamas's cannibalization of the civilian economy has gone so far as to dig up water pipes and convert them into makeshift rockets to fire into Israeli territory.

[beardedmrbean]

Sept. 3 (UPI) -- Days after Israel's military recovered the bodies of six hostages killed in Gaza over the weekend, the U.S. Justice Department announced terrorism charges against the six senior leaders of Hamas for their role in "planning, supporting and perpetrating the terrorist atrocities" in Israel on Oct. 7, and the "brutal murders of more than a thousand innocent civilians, including over 40 American citizens."

The charges against Ismail Haniyeh, Yahya Sinwar, Mohammad Al-Masri, Marwan Issa, Khaled Meshaal and Ali Baraka were unsealed Tuesday. Haniyeh was assassinated in Iran in July. Sinwar, one of the alleged planners of the Oct. 7 terror attack on Israel, took over as Hamas' new political leader.

"The Justice Department has charged Yahya Sinwar and other senior leaders of Hamas for financing, directing and overseeing a decades-long campaign to murder American citizens and endanger the security of the United States," Attorney General Merrick Garland announced Tuesday.

"As outlined in our complaint, those defendants -- armed with weapons, political support and funding from the government of Iran and support from Hezbollah -- have led Hamas' efforts to destroy the state of Israel and murder civilians in support of that aim," Garland said.

"On Oct. 7, Hamas terrorists -- led by these defendants -- murdered nearly 1,200 people, including over 40 Americans, and kidnapped hundreds of civilians," Garland added. "This weekend, we learned that Hamas murdered an additional six people they had kidnapped and held captive for nearly a year, including Hersh Goldberg-Polin, a 23-year-old Israeli American."

Garland warned these "actions will not be our last."

"We are investigating Hersh's murder, and each and every one of Hamas' brutal murders of Americans, as an act of terrorism. The charges unsealed today are just one part of our effort to target every aspect of Hamas' operations," he said.

According to court documents, Harakat al-Muqawamah al-Islamiyya -- or Hamas -- is a terrorist organization founded in 1987 and was designated a foreign terrorist organization by the United States in 1997. Hamas' stated purpose is to "create an Islamic Palestinian state throughout Israel by eliminating the state of Israel through violent holy war, or jihad."

"Hamas is a Foreign Terrorist Organization with a long history of violence, and the group's actions have resulted in increased terrorism threats in the United States and against American interests throughout the world. Countering terrorism remains our number one priority and our work continues," said FBI Director Christopher Wray.

The complaint unsealed Tuesday charges each of the six defendants, some of which are deceased, with conspiring to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization resulting in death; conspiring to provide material support for acts of terrorism resulting in death and conspiring to murder U.S. nationals outside of the United States. All of these charges carry a maximum penalty of life in prison.

Additional charges include conspiring to bomb a place of public use resulting in death and conspiring to use weapons of mass destruction resulting in death. Both of these charges carry a maximum penalty of death or life in prison.

The charge of conspiring to finance terrorism and conspiring to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act both carry a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.

"Yahya Sinwar and the other senior leaders of Hamas are charged today with orchestrating this terrorist organization's decades-long campaign of mass violence and terror -- including on Oct. 7. On that horrible day, Hamas terrorists viciously massacred nearly 1,200 innocent men, women and children, including over 40 Americans, kidnapped hundreds more, and used sexual violence as a weapon of brutality," said Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco.

"Since that horrific day, we have worked to investigate and hold accountable those responsible, and we will not rest until all those who kidnapped or murdered Americans are brought to justice," Monaco added. "Our thoughts continue to be with the families of all the victims of this barbaric terrorist attack."