#its LITERALLY against international law!

[news4dzhozhar]

The heated discussion surrounding director Jonathan Glazer’s speech at the Oscars last night is mostly missing the point. His main message was simple and yet vital: empathy is not a zero-sum game.

Glazer did not "deny his Jewishness", as some seemingly purposely misunderstood. He took an unequivocal stance against the cynical utilization of Judaism and the Holocaust in the name of justifying the occupation. These "misunderstandings" sadly aren't new.

It’s possible to oppose the killing of innocent civilians in Gaza and still care for the safety of Israeli hostages. One can worry about Israelis who were evacuated from their homes after October 7th and still be horrified by the conditions in which so many are currently living in Gaza.

We refuse to let this harsh reality make us less human, and that we refuse to accept the ease with which the blood and lives of civilians is used as a justification for political ideologies, or as a bargaining chip.

- Breaking The Silence

[shhhhimwatchingthis]

Sort of bums me out that so many people didn't seem to Get the Cat King so here are my thoughts:

So let's start with Edwin's crime. He uses something the cat desires (a sardine) to lure the cat to him and then uses an enchanted string to trap the cat with magic. He demands the answer to a question in exchange for its release. Edwin knows it is dangerous to use magic on a cat, that it violates Rules but he does it anyway.

Binding a creature and agreeing to set them free under a certain condition is very Classic Fairytale. its also a favourite trope of Neil Gaiman's (he did not write this show but his influence is there). In both the Sandman and his novel Stardust (and the film adaptation) trapping a creature with magic and demanding a task/favour in exchange for their freedom is an extremely important plot point. Edwin binding a cat and demanding an answer in exchange is exactly in line with this Fairytale trope

And so is the Cat Kings response. The Cat King is a trickster. What he does to Edwin is exactly what Edwin did to one of his subjects. He entices Edwin, he binds him with magic and when Edwin demands to be free he turns his own words against him "why all the fuss for one little spell?" Edwin did something wrong. He imposed his will/magic on another creature and the Cat King is punishing him for it in a way that is poetic. Its fairytale. its trickster. its classic.

I've also seen people complain that the task Edwin was given 'count all the cats' is 'impossible'...except its fucking not. Edwin does it. He does it so well he actually BEATS the Cat King ("you didn't count yourself" Are.You.Kidding.Me. Classic!Fairytale!Vibes!)

The Cat Kings choice to bind Edwin to Port Townsend is good on so many levels. From a storytelling perspective it forces characters who can travel anywhere in the world to stay in one place, and increases the stakes for these characters who are supposed to be on the run. From a genre perspective...its an excellent use of fairytale tropes using both Rules of magic, a protagonist who is unkind to a seemingly weak creature who is punished by a more powerful law, a binding, a task to complete, etc

Which just leaves the character perspective which it ALSO does really fucking well and introduces the final aspect to the Cat Kings character. He's seductive. He is responsible for Edwin, 100 years old ghost boy, finally unpacking his internalized homophpbia. he is the catalyst (cat pun not intended)

He pushes Edwin, challenges him, at times literally forces the truth out of Edwin, but he really never does violate his consent. Significantly Edwin is attracted to him, like its an important part of his character that he is. He may not like the Cat King but he is attracted to him!

The Cat King is such a great example of a trickster, a morally grey character who imposes a sense of justice on Edwin after he crosses a line, but also has his own selfish interests and meddles. Hes so important to the plot of the show, to Edwin's character arc, to the genre.

And he's just fun. Unapologetically queer, powerful, complicated. Silly little outfits. Petty cat behavior. Deep heart.

Some of you just didn't get it. And I'm sorry for you. because the Cat King is Excellent actually.

[spacedace]

Had a dc x dp brain worm, feel free to use as a prompt <3

Sidenote, I decided to get fancy with the Ancients titles because of course I did lol

Shifting Where = Space (Danny)

Eternal When = Time (Clockwork)

Ever Onward = Speedforce (Ellie)

---

Bruce watched the footage again.

And again.

Again.

It didn’t make sense.

A week ago every television, radio, computer, phone - even the LED billboards - had been taken over to deliver a message. Across the United States. In every territory it held. Every military base. Down in the depths of the oceans where American submarines tried to creep past Atlantian patrols. In the endless cold white of Antarctica. Even far above in the International Space Station. Any place the United States Government had control over, any place one of its citizens found themselves. There was the message.

The face of an entity, human in shape but not in form. Hair as gleaming white as starlight, eyes bright as the twisting dance of the Aurora Borealis, skin as cold and blue as the tail of a comet. The entity wore armor as black as the depths of space with a crown to match, the later glinting and shifting with the twisting birth and death of galaxies. A cloak of nebulae danced down his shoulders, eclipsing the world beyond the entity entirely.

He named himself, jaw tight, expression serious.

High King Phantom of the Infinite Realms.

The Shifting Where. Son of the Eternal When. Father of the Ever Onward. His Epitaphs many and ever growing. The True Balance. The Bridge Between. The Devourer of Dark. The Last Child of Between. The Great One.

King of the Dead. King of the Infinite Worlds. King of so much more than Bruce had ever even known was possible.

King who had declared war. Who marshaled his endless armies. Who spoke of warnings, of efforts to reach a peace, of trying again and again and again to find a way to not plunge into violence and bloodshed. All things living come to call him King in time, he had no want or need to go out and hurry that along. But there were no options left to him now. He had tried for peace. He had been denied.

He would not see his people suffer any longer. Would not see those he’d sworn to lead and protect imprisoned by fools who had sworn themselves enemies to all the afterlives. Would no longer permit the vicious cruelty to continue.

The message was a final warning.

A final offer.

Three days, Phantom said. The United States government would have three days to release their prisoners, to begin the process of dismantling the laws that made death itself an illegal act.

If they refused, he would lead his endless armies personally in the war to come.

It had not been an idle threat.

Three days after the message, after Bruce and the rest of the Justice League scrambled to try and figure out just what it was it was all about, after Justice League Dark’s members shakily took turns explaining just how powerful the being that had gave that message was and how much danger the world was in should he and his armies march upon their world, war came.

Of all places, it began in a town in Illinois.

The sky shattered like broken glass above, Lazarus Green beyond, and the Dead poured out.

It started in Illinois.

It did not end there.

Bruce watched the footage of it all, eyes burning as he watched every second of CCTV footage, every shaky phone camera video, every news broadcast.

Most of them looked human enough. Changed in death, but recognizably human once. A pair of glowing teenagers on a motorcycle, a writhing shadow twisting about at their command sweeping chaos upon the battlefield. A young woman dressed to perform with hair a literal flame, burning bright blue and snapping furiously as she played devastation upon her enemies with her guitar. A child with corpse gray skin and luminescent green hair, flickering in and out of Bruce’s ability to see as if fighting against a law of existence to be visible, screaming orders to a skeleton crew from his place on deck of a 1700s ship that sailed through the sky, disappearing into clouds before raining down attacks from above.

There was more. Glowing skeletons dressed in the fashions of war spanning every culture going back millennia. Robots with weapons far beyond the technology they had even in the League. Creatures of myth and legend. Things of nightmares.

Leading them all, as he had promised, was Phantom.

He looked younger, smaller. Just a boy, really, a gangly teenager that hadn’t quite finished growing into himself. One holding power beyond anything Bruce could ever imagine, but still just a child as far as he could see, no older than Tim who’d just graduated high school. Frantic research found Phantom appearing as far back as human history, but those sightings had to have been after his death. Bruce can’t help but wonder how young the boy had been when he died, how much of that youth still clung to him through all these eons.

It wasn’t something he’d let him self consider normally, not with something like this.

A dangerous unknown appearing without warning and attacking with unimaginable power and seemingly endless forces. It was something that would normally eclipse everything else. Something that would make Bruce put aside the ache at seeing a face so young twisted in rage.

But.

He watched all the footage.

Civilians were put in the crossfire. Were shot at and endangered. Were left terrified and scrambling for safety in buildings that were rapidly being torn away by stray artillery.

But never by Phantom or his armies.

The dead, in fact, went very far out of their way to ensure civilians weren’t harmed. Sweeping people up out of the way of falling debris. Shielding them from attacks that would have most certainly killed a normal human. Some dead even helped evacuate, ushering a frightened and panicked populous to safety as gently as they were capable of. Some of the less human creatures - giant bear-like beings with horns and fangs and ice edging their burly frames - even rushed forward to offer medical aid.

When the sky shattered open and the armies of the dead swept in, they ignored the town below. They focused instead on what was discovered later to be the base of a secretive government agency. The dead’s fight focused on those individuals in sharp white suits, bearing weapons capable of actually injuring King Phantom’s people.

It was these agents that brought the fight to the streets to Amity Park. That fired recklessly and without thought or care to the casualties they could inflict. That didn’t seem to care if they killed a hundred civilians if it meant hurting just one of Phantom’s soldiers.

Bruce watched all the footage.

And again.

Again.

Phantom had declared war.

Phantom spoke in his message of being out of options, of attempting peace. Phantom gave three days time for the release of captives. Phantom lead armies who fought viciously but never once willingly harmed civilians.

Phantom declared war, but he didn’t want it.

“Amanda Waller has reached out.”

Bruce didn’t turn his attention from the screens before him, eyes burning as he followed Phantom as the King dove away from the middle of locked combat to shield a child from a pulse of green energy from something like a grenade another agent in white had carelessly thrown. The child was crying but unharmed. The left pauldron of Phantom’s armor cracked and shattered from a direct shot from the enemy he’d just been fighting that he’d turned his back on, a glowing green liquid uncomfortably like Lazarus Water dripped down from a smoldering wound.

Clark stepped up to stand beside him as he watched, face worn and tired. The League had missed the first battle, but they’d been quick to appear at the rest. Phantom and his army ignored them unless they put themselves purposefully in the way of the fight. They were, as Justice League Dark had warned, vastly out powered by the entities fighting. A hulking giant knight made of shadow riding a nightmarish steed had driven Clark six feet down into the dirt when he’d attempted to make his way to Phantom directly to try and talk to the king.

The depth Clark had ended up felt like a warning of what would happen if he tried to get close to the king again.

It probably was.

“She said they have intel for us.” A faint twitch of fingers, jaw clenching, voice flat in that way that told Bruce his old friend was fighting back anger with everything he had. “That she has options for how to deal with the insurgence.”

Bruce shut off the monitors.

He’d seen enough.

Now was time to get answers to just what, exactly, Amanda Waller and the US government had done to cause the Dead to rise and rage.

---

Part Two Part Three Part Four

[soon-palestine]

Israel continues to use the denial of water as a weapon of genocide against Palestinians. This past weekend, the Israeli military destroyed a reservoir in the Tel Sultan neighborhood of Rafah—another blatant and wanton violation of international law.

In a report titled “Water War Crimes,” @Oxfam estimated this month that Israel has reduced Gaza’s water supply by 94% since the start of its genocide against 2.3 million Palestinians. This means Palestinians in Gaza are limited to 4.74 liters of water a day per person on average, “just under a third of the recommended minimum in emergencies and less than a single toilet flush.“

It’s time to escalate #BDS pressure to stop supplying Israel’s genocidal war machine—every government has the obligation to do so. Full #MilitaryEmbargo now!

[internationem]

Just a reminder: intent is much, much more important to genocide than the amount of people dying. simply put, the amount of dead civilians isn't what makes a genocide a genocide.

for example, up to 33k bosnians are estimated to have died because of the bosnian genocide. in contrast, the estimated amount of japanese civilians dead during WWII is between 330k and 900k. yet most (serious) people wouldn't ever consider that there was a genocide against the japanese people. why? well, no government wanted to, planned or carried out systematic attacks with the intent of erasing, in whole or in part, the japanese people. yet, however, it is fairly easy to prove that the serbs wanted the bosnians gone and acted accordingly. You can even fullfill the material criteria for the Genocide Convention (ie killing people, or causing body or mental harm to a population) to a certain extent but if the intent behind those actions isn't to destroy a national/ethnic/etc group, then it's not genocide, the fullfilment of the material elements themselves aren't proof that there's a genocide without fullfilment of the mental element.

This isn't to overlook civilian deaths, but truth is, in modern warfare, civilians ARE gonna die, and that sucks massively, but we have a a whole branch of international law that help mitigate a lot of civilian deaths and allow for criminals to be held accountable for violation of civilian rights and livs, without having to erroneously call every single conflict where people die a genocide.

Similarly, it may be true that a lot more people are dying in the Israel-Gaza war than in the 7/10 attacks, but why did Hamas attack Israel in the first place? Why has Israel been attacked fairly frequently since it's independence? Because they want to completely erase Israel as a whole and expel (and kill, or best case scenario, convert) the jewish people out of the Middle East. This is very easy to prove, read Hamas founding charter and literally any history book that talks about wars against Israel or the expulsion of Jews from several ME countries. It's what the whole "from the river to the sea" slogan is about. It's also the very reason Israel needs to exist. But meanwhile, there's little to nothing that points out Israel wants to wipe out Palestinians as a group: 20% of their citizens are Palestinians who enjoy the same rights as Jewish citizens of Israel and aren't targeted, even Palestinians of the West Bank aren't usually targeted in a way that would even imply the IDF wants to erase them as a group, and even considering the Gaza campaign, its objective is to erradicate Hamas, not Palestinians, and nothing in Israel's policy outwardly implicates they want to erradicate all Gazans. Palestine, and especially Gaza, has massive population growth, which wouldn't make sense if there was a genocide campaign against them. This isn't to say the IDF is doing everything perfectly or that there aren't war crimes being commited. But war crimes don't mean genocide.

Calling what's happening in Gaza genocide is antisemitic, because not only are we applying different standards to Israel than we do any other country, we are also saying that Jewish people defending themselves is, inherently, a crime, one of the worst crimes defined at that. But it's also harmful to palestinians, because claiming that Israel's war against Hamas is a war against Palestinians equates Palestinians (many of whom just want to live regular lives, not war) with terrorists (who also target them, by the way), which seems islamophobic as hell if i'm being honest. it is also insensitive and damaging to every group that has been the victim of genocide, and every group which might be a victim of a genocide in the future, because how you're twisting the definition of the word to mean whatever you want it to mean. If everything is a genocide, nothing is.

[xclowniex]

Its crazy how so quickly, people from the pro palestine crowd are moving to silence the joy of the hostages being brought home.

I have gotten about 10 asks going "what about the dead civilians you probably don't care that they are dead"

And the thing is, it is bad and a tradegy that more palestinians civlians are dead. It also is not a bad thing for people to be happy that the hostages are brought home.

Since people are seeming to want a more nuanced take, here it is.

The hostages were found in civilian homes. That doesn't tell us much as whilst they are civilian homes, we have no clue who was occupying those homes with the hostages. There are 3 options

Hamasniks

Civilians who conspire with Hamas

Civilians who were forced by Hamas to keep the hostages

In all 3 cases, Hamas has committed a war crime by turning a civilian area into a military base/base adjacent by having the hostages kept there. Like it is literally against international law. The UN has even said before that Hamas does this and it is a war crime.

In the eyes of international law, Hamas is at fault for every civilian death due to the hostages being brought home. Why? Because it is expected as a fact of war, that it is pretty much impossible to carry out a military operation around civilians and not have any civilian casulties.

It also begs the question, whose life is more valuable, palestinian lives or jewish lives? and the answer is none. They are both equally as valuable. Which brings in more nuance of the fact that a country is responsible to do everything it can within reason, to protect its civilians, which is what Israel is doing with its military operations. It is very sad that Hamas is not doing the same as if they did, there would be less civilian deaths.

This is not me saying "the deaths were needed or good" as that is not what I am saying. What I am saying is that it is a complicated topic as for there to be no civilian deaths at the hands of the IDF, the hostages have to remain in captivity and likely end up being killed. If the IDF did nothing, the hostages would be dead due to inaction and if they did do something (which they did) palestinian civilians are now dead.

Essentially it is a horrible situation to be in for all parties involved and due to the nuance in it, I do have mixed feelings. Ideally I wish the hostages were brought home without any deaths. I wish no palestinians have died due to the war, however frankly that is not realistic and is actually something I struggle with which is why I have only limited my posts about the joy of the hostages being brought home as out of all of this, what I am happy about, is that the hostages are now home safe.

What i will say last is, it is truly terrible the situation we are in with having to sacrifce one groups lives over another and it is also truly terrible that palestinian civilians have been killed.

[northern-passage]

Read the full call to action here.

Tomorrow, November 29th, the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, the #BDS movement is calling for an all day social media storm. Our physical and digital actions can be used together to strengthen our demands: Permanent ceasefire and lifting the siege to stop Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Lawful sanctions on Israel, including a #MilitaryEmbargo. Pressure on the International Criminal Court (ICC) to issue arrest warrants for Israeli leaders. Click here for prepared messages and images to use for the social media storm. Over the last 7 weeks, millions of you have taken to the streets for the largest protests the world has seen in the last 20 years! We are grateful to each one of you who, through your voices and creative actions, have built up unprecedented grassroots power to end Israel’s genocidal war against 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza. Yet, Western governments are continuing to arm, fund and provide political cover for Israel’s genocide. We must act urgently to end all state, corporate and institutional complicity with Israel’s genocidal apartheid regime. Palestinian lives and livelihoods literally depend on it. To this end, and as time has shown, BDS is the most effective form of solidarity with the Palestinian liberation struggle. Tomorrow, we call for escalating worldwide peaceful mobilizations and expressions of meaningful solidarity to stop the genocide including: 1. Whenever feasible, organizing peaceful disruptions, sit-ins, occupations, etc. targeting  policymakers, as well as the corporate enablers of genocide and apartheid (arms manufacturers, investment firms), and institutions (media, universities, cultural spaces, etc.). 2. Disrupting the transport of weapons, or weapon parts, to Israel, including in transit states, by supporting trade unions refusing to handle such shipments, as has been done in Belgium, US, and the Spanish State, and as expressed by trade unions in India, Turkey, Italy and Greece.  3. Pressuring parliaments and governments to cancel existing military contracts and agreements with Israel, as Colombia’s president publicly espoused, and as demanded by the BDS movement in Brazil, a demand supported by civil society and more than 60 parliamentarians in the country. 4. Intensifying all strategic economic boycott and divestment campaigns against complicit corporations, and escalating campaigns to cut all ties to apartheid Israel and its complicit academic and cultural institutions as well as sports teams. Mobilizing your community, trade union, association, church, social network, student government/union, city council, cultural center, or other organization to declare itself an Apartheid Free Zone (AFZ) on November 29th, if it hasn’t already, and organize a solidarity event or action on November 29th. 5. Pressuring your elected officials, where relevant, through direct communication or collective direct action, to demand real pressure on the International Criminal Court (ICC) to urgently prosecute Netanyahu and all other Israeli officials responsible for genocide, apartheid, and war crimes. If not now, when? In solidarity, The Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC)

ABOUT THE BDS MOVEMENT

Cultural boycott guidelines

Economic boycott for consumers

[maxellminidisc]

Idk if you just can't face the fact that the apartheid state of Israel that you're in support of is inherently violent in not only literal violence by inacting a genocidal war against an entire people, but in its very foundation as a settler state that forcibly displaced people using international law, military power, etc, and then spent decades of time and money to further dehumanize said people so you'd be ok with the socially engineered violence so that it has a right to exist in your eyes, than yeah you're STILL supporting zionism lol all zionism is inherently wrong and it is violent!!

[whencyclopedia]

Sermon on the Mount

The Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of Matthew (chapters 5, 6, and 7) became a foundational element of the religion of Christianity. The sermon is based on the traditions of Judaism and the Law of Moses, but with added interpretations of the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. Matthew placed it at the beginning of Jesus' ministry, and its themes continued throughout the gospel.

Sermon on the Mount

Carl Bloch (Public Domain)

Background & Setting for Matthew

Like the other gospels, there are no internal dates in Matthew. The 2nd-century Church Fathers placed Matthew as the first gospel in the New Testament, but we know that Mark was the earliest, c. 70 CE or beyond. Matthew (c. 85 CE) and Luke (c. 95 CE) contained almost verbatim stories from Mark, so the consensus is that they had a written copy of Mark. The sermon is not in the Gospel of Mark. Scholars have concluded that Matthew and Luke had additional sources for Jesus beyond Mark, known as the "Q" source. It has not survived independently but was named "Q" for the German Quelle ("source") because German Bible scholars were the first to categorize these additional teachings. Luke had a similar version, in his Sermon on the Plain.

The provenance for Matthew is understood to be Galilee. This is derived from several factors, one of which is that the gospel ends with the resurrected Jesus telling the disciples to go to Galilee and meet him there. He then appeared and commissioned them "to make disciples of all nations", the Gentiles (Matthew 28:19).

When the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple complex in 70 CE, some Jews, which may have included some Pharisees, survived by escaping the city and establishing formalized schools for the study of their scriptures now that the sacrifices in the Temple cult were no longer possible. Some of these schools were located in Galilee and centered in the synagogues. This became the beginning of what is known as Rabbinic Judaism over the next centuries.

Throughout Matthew's gospel, the vitriol against the Jews increased. His Jesus consistently taught against doing things the way the Jews do it in their synagogues. We have an image that Christians may have literally moved out of the synagogues and established their own version, which became the early churches.

Christians claimed that Jesus was the messiah predicted by the prophets in the final days. God would then establish his kingdom on earth. But as the decades passed, the kingdom was not manifest. Early Christianity rationalized this with the concept of parousia, or second appearance. Resurrected and exalted to heaven, at a future time, Jesus would return and fulfill everything the prophets had predicted. The overall purpose of the sermon was twofold:

to state that Christians have the correct understanding of the Laws of Moses as opposed to the Jews

to teach believers how to live in the interim while awaiting the return of Jesus.

Continue reading...

[fairuzfan]

I dont know how to explain this but since Hamas took totalitarian power of the 25 mile long Gaza strip in 2007, they have built 450 miles of tunnels under civilian infrastructure and systematicatically transformed civilian infrastructure above ground to turn the Strip into the world's largest underground and open-air terrorist military base.

This applies to the ENTIRE GAZA STRIP.

The first and most important role of a goverment is to protect the safety of its civilians.

Hamas jeoprodized the safety of its civilians by turning almost every building in Gaza Strip into a valid war target, and if not the building itself then the tunnels underneath it. This is a war crime against the Gazans: https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/customary-ihl/v1/rule97

Hamas has failed and royally fucked the Gazans going into this war and transforming the strip into a giant valid and legal military target.

Hello. I'm not sure if you're honestly misinformed as you don't seem to be sending this in bad faith (though the ending is quite offensive) but this is not true. Please read Tareq Baconi's "Hamas Contained" for accurate information about the organization.

Israel is occupying the Gaza strip according to international laws' definition of the term, meaning they have a legal responsibility to provide for the strip and protect it. That is according to international law.

I'm not sure why you're sending me this. Hamas has a few rockets compared to literal tons of bombs. Even if Gaza were a "country," which it is not, this would be disproportionate force. Hamas has nothing to do with this. Israel fully intends to wipe out Gazans completely and to take over the strip. They always wanted to do this. It's just a convenient excuse that they're trying to "get back hostages" now.

Murder is not a transferable sin. Any person who kills a child trying to "kill a terrorist" cannot transfer their actions onto another person. And even then, I have heard stories of absolute terror from gazans where they were tortured and watched their family members killed purely for the fun of Israeli soldiers. So no. Hamas doesn't matter right now. They hate us so deeply that they want us gone. They're even trying to erase the memory of our people.

I'm asking you to please care about my people and stop making excuses for their slaughter. Please help them. They have absolutely nothing left.

[girlactionfigure]

What Happens When You Can’t Simply Arrest the Jews For Defending Themselves?

by Seth Mandel

The morning after Easter Sunday in 1903, Yehiel Pesker went to his shop at the Kishinev market to inspect for damage. The previous day, the early rumblings of a pogrom had unsettled the city. On his way back home, he saw about 200 Jews armed with clubs and even a few guns—the second wave of one of history’s most notorious pogroms would come that day and Jews wanted to be prepared. When the pogromists came there was a standoff, until the police intervened against the Jews and the deadly violence continued.

Although these Jews merely presented a desire to defend themselves should they be attacked, and although this was one brief moment on the second day of a three-day blood-riot that would shock the world, “local antisemites and their sympathizers,” according to historian Steven J. Zipperstein, tried to argue that this was an escalation by the Jews and therefore the victims were really to blame for the pogrom. Elsewhere in town, a nearly 60-year-old Jewish man fought off four attackers, who then spread the rumor that a Jew had murdered Christians. For some, then, a literal blood libel in the middle of an extended massacre was transformed into the origin story of the whole riot.

“In arguments made by defense attorneys at the trials of pogrom-related crimes, Sunday’s rioting was dismissed as a ruckus that would quickly have come to an end… had Jews not overreacted,” writes Zipperstein. “In this version it was the all-but-unprovoked aggression of Jews and subsequent rumors of attacks on a church and the killing of a priest that set in motion the unfortunate but, under the circumstances, understandable violence.”

That all may sound ridiculous, because few pogroms are better known than Kishinev and because it had such a profound effect on history: It shaped the perspectives of important Zionist figures and it alarmed the world, even becoming an element of the civil-rights fight in America as an example of why racial and ethnic minorities needed protection from the state enshrined in law.

But leave out the names of people and places, and you’d be describing the response to Hamas’s October 7 massacre. The Jews had it coming; the attacks were essentially an act of self-defense; it would’ve been a minor event had the Jews not escalated by defending themselves.

The Russian police director tried to argue at least for moral equivalence, based on these lies, between the Kishinev Jews and their murderers. You can hear a direct echo of this in Karim Khan, prosecutor at the International Criminal Court, filing applications for arrest warrants for both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas terrorist leader Yahya Sinwar: “if we do not demonstrate our willingness to apply the law equally, if it is seen as being applied selectively, we will be creating the conditions for its collapse.” That echo is arguably even louder in the New York Times, which describes the reactions to Khan’s stunt this way: “Mr. Khan’s decision to simultaneously pursue Israeli and Palestinian leaders was criticized by Israeli government ministers and Hamas alike. Both sides questioned why their allies had been targeted instead of their enemies alone.”

Ah yes, both sides. A month after the Hamas attacks, the author Sam Harris denounced this way of thinking on his podcast in a soliloquy that will stand the test of time. The key part:

Of course, the boundary between Anti-Semitism and generic moral stupidity is a little hard to discern—and I’m not sure that it is always important to find it. I’m not sure it matters why a person can’t distinguish between collateral damage in a necessary war and conscious acts of genocidal sadism that are celebrated as a religious sacrament by a death cult. Our streets have been filled with people, literally tripping over themselves in their eagerness to demonstrate that they cannot distinguish between those who intentionally kill babies, and those who inadvertently kill them, having taken great pains to avoid killing them, while defending themselves against the very people who have just intentionally tortured and killed innocent men, women, and yes… babies… If you have landed, proudly and sanctimoniously, on the wrong side of this asymmetry—this vast gulf between savagery and civilization—while marching through the quad of an Ivy League institution wearing yoga pants, I’m not sure it matters that your moral confusion is due to the fact that you just happen to hate Jews. Whether you’re an anti-Semite or just an apologist for atrocity is probably immaterial. The crucial point is that you are dangerously confused about the moral norms and political sympathies that make life in this world worth living.

And in Khan’s case, if you can’t or won’t differentiate between Hamas’s war and Israel’s, you possess a moral deficit that disqualifies you from any position of authority or responsibility over others.

More important, however, is the core idea behind this trend. For most of history you could simply punish Jews for defending themselves, for staying alive. A pathetic puffed-up prosecutor could watch in silence as Jews were murdered and then file charges against “both sides” as soon as a Jew picked up a club in self-defense. Because the law, you see, must be applied evenly. The world wasn’t going to do anything about Hamas, even after its demonic acts on October 7. A fair prosecutor must wait until there is a Jew to be put in the dock as well. That’s balance. That’s justice.

Karim Khan may be a feeble clown, but he makes an airtight case for the existence of the State of Israel.

[fuckyeah-bears]

Genuine question. What was it about Hamas breaking into homes, doing war crimes, killing civilians, raping women, killing and possibly beheading babies made y'all break your "no politics" rule to post support about it?

Condemning one side for genocide while ignoring the other side chanting "gas the Jews" is a special kind of irony.

i don't have the energy to respond to this right now. i never once said i approved of or condoned hamas. hamas is a terror organization and any and all killing of human beings is wrong. however you are listening to propaganda. most of the sensationalized headlines about hamas, specifically the beheading one have all been proven to be fake and have literally no evidence. hamas does not represent the palestinian people or the people of gaza. and yet the genocidal israeli government has decided to indiscriminately punnish all 2.1 million people living in gaza for the horrific actions of hamas. this is called collective punishment and it is literally defined as a war crime. gaza's population is 50% children. gaza is the world's largest concentration camp and open air prison. it has been under military blockade for the past 16 years. israel controls the food water electricity fuel movement of people and everything else going in and out of gaza.

this is a walled off open air prison that is extremely densely populated, extremely poor, and full of children. and israel is depriving the entire population of food, clean water, electricity, and carpet bombing them, using banned illegal chemical weapons, refusing to allow in humanitarian aid. they have bombed hospitals, bombed residential buildings, bombed people fleeing after israel told them to evacuate (but joke was on them because they can't evacute since there's no where to go because israel controls all the check points and refuses to let palestinians out, instead trapping them in gaza while there's still no electricity or water or food or any other supplies coming in.

and then don't even get me started on the propaganda israel has been using to demonize and dehumanize palestinians. the defense minister literally called all palestinians "human animals" and said israel would treat them as such. top government officials have released images depicting palestinians as cockroaches and insects needing to be exterminated. they have referred to all gazan's as terrorists to justify their massacre of them.

this is fucking genocide. this is exactly what the nazi's did to jewish people. this is genocide. this is genocide. this is genocide. i have not heard a single palestinian person directing hatred at jewish people. (which is not to say that there has been no antisemitism going on, because there absolutely has, and I wholeheartedly despise it). however i have heard them criticize the israeli government for its depravity and cruelty and literal fucking war crimes it is gleefully committing.

criticizing israel for committing genocide is not antisemetic. criticizing a government for doing horrific evil highly illegal things against international law and against literally all moral humanity and human decency is not antisemetic. it is literally the morally right thing to do. what israel is doing is evil.

there are jewish people who agree wholeheartedly that israel's illegal occupation of palestine and their apartheid and ethnic cleansing are horrific. because they are.

and don't talk about irony. israel is the biggest fucking hypocrite in the entire fucking world. surviving a genocide does not give you the fucking right to perpetrate another genocide. but here israel is. and despite everything they do, they somehow always always play the victim despite the fact that they are the oppressor. israel will always say that any criticism of them and their actions is antisemetic. when in fact, it is entirely justified criticism of a deeply awful and morally bankrupt governnment that is and has been perpetrating heinous atrocities against the people of palestine for decades.

israel gives all jewish people a bad name. because real jewish people know that genocide is never okay. real jewish people know that israel's actions against palestinians are horrific and in no way justified. real jewish people stand with palestinians and support a free palestine.

all this and more is why it is the morally correct thing to do to support palestine and take a stand agains israel

and because you asked, the reason i'm breaking the 'no politics' rule is because of the responses from people like you. so many people have bought into israel's propaganda and their dehumanization of palestinians. there is so much islamophobia that any time people hear a single critique of israel, they jump in to condemn hamas and say 'oh so you support hamas' 'what about hamas' 'so you approve of people wanting to kill jews', demonstrating the insane racist mental gymnastics they are doing by literally mentally equating all palestinians with terrorists who deserve to be killed. and this is so widespread. people and all the world governments are sitting back and watching as this happens without lifting a goddamn fucking finger. with ukraine and russia, everyone jumped in to defend ukraine and support them and condemn russia. immediately. but it's radio fucking silence for palestinne. because of racism and islamophobia and because people are too cowardly to take a stand and risk pissing off all the masses of misinformed racist islamophobic biased people who support israel. and not only are people not fucking talking about it (or only talking about poor innocent israel and their right to 'defend themselves' which is the biggest fucking load of shit ever), almost all of our governments are actively funding israel's military. the very same fucking military that is literally committing a genocide right now.

if you're not horrified by all of this, then you are not a human being. if you do not stand with palestinians as israel blatantly to tries to annihilate them, then you do not have an ounce of humanity left in your soul.

Free Palestine 🇵🇸

[soon-palestine]

Conversation with a Hamas leader: P: All this killing & destruction… for what?

H: In Vietnam, there's a General called Võ Giáp who got half a million of his men killed. Today his huge sacrifice is looked back at as essential for Vietnam's liberation…

P: We're not Vietnam, every liberation struggle is unique to its context.

H: Oppressed people always win against colonizers…

P: Not everywhere. Native Americans, Aboriginals, and Maoris never managed to drive the colonizers out!

H: We're not native Americans, every case is different…

P: But you weren't you just comparing us to Vietnam?

[Long argument]

H: So what is your alternative? Nothing else works with Israel, not Mahmoud Abbas' diplomacy, not non-violence, not the international community, not the UN…

In domestic Palestinian politics, Hamas always wins every argument not by the appeal of its ideology, but by the long foiling & betrayal of every single alternative Palestinians ever tried.

Palestinians tried the biggest non-violent protest in Gaza's modern history, the 2018-19 Great March of Return, tens of thousands marching to the fence every Friday bare-chested raising the Palestinian flag (never Hamas')… The IDF took potshots at over 30,000 protesters for sport & bragged about the joy of hunting down people's kneecaps!

Palestinians tried international advocacy, only to be smeared, shut down, labelled "antisemties", detained, harassed, made into cautionary tales…

Palestinians tried negotiations, accepted 22% of their historic homeland & called for international law to be respected, only to be called rejectionists, maximalists, uncompromising & "never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity" (although Israel's Knesset officially rejects the two-state solution in absolute terms).

Palestinians tried to knock on the doors of every UN agency and international court, only to be called "diplomatic terrorists" & for whatever historic decision we got to remain mere ink on paper; never to be implemented…

Palestinians tried collaborating with Israel & providing it with ultimate security (the Palestinian authority), only to be weakened, humiliated, smeared, abandoned, defunded & called "terror supporters"…

Some Palestinians tried even converting to Judaism, only to be automatically rejected out of hand by Israel. One, who changed his name to Davidi ben Abraham & studied the Torah in depth, was literally shot at a checkpoint by an Israeli soldier who got mad at "Davidi" for daring to call himself "Jewish". How dare he?

These failures upon failures have only ever lent credence to Hamas & strengthened it.

As always: Palestinian nonviolence requires global non-silence!

[technofeudalism]

north korea bad is popping off on reddit again. top post on the CIA-controlled subreddit with 43 million subscribers masquerading as a news community. i was intrigued by the source being NZ Herald but when i clicked on the article, my questions were answered.

now. for those of you unfamiliar. Radio Free Asia is basically a US propaganda organ that masks its intentions by attempting to appear objective.

although many will suggest that they no longer have direct affiliation with the CIA, and that may be true, it does not change the fact that they are funded by the US government and have been spreading blatant lies with literally no source to their extremely over the top claims for many years.

that being said, these perpetual lies happen to include misinfo regarding China's versions of the COVID-19 vaccine.

Some of the RFA articles reviewed lacked key context in describing purported issues with Chinese-made vaccines. This could enable the spread of anti-vaccine misinformation at a time when research suggests that exposure to online misinformation about vaccines can increase rates of vaccine hesitancy.  In one example, a November 10 article on RFA’s Cantonese website, headlined “Clinical trial of Chinese vaccine halted in Brazil after causing serious incident,” lacked important context from local authorities. A serious incident had indeed occurred: the death of a participant in a local trial of the Sinovac vaccine. But Reuters reported November 9 that the death had been deemed a suicide and that an official had denied any link to the vaccine, a detail not noted in RFA’s article.  The article, presented as a news story, also contained editorial comment dismissing China’s approach to vaccines. “This accident not only renews criticism of the ‘Great Leap Forward’-style of vaccine research and development, but also presents a serious setback for China, which is devoting all of its resources to this Covid-19 vaccine competition,”  the first paragraph reads. RFA continued to describe the trial’s suspension as owing to “severe adverse effects,” not mentioning the participant’s reported cause of death, in at least two subsequent articles.

there's a lot more at the source. it's a great read. but there's one more piece to this that is important to understand.

it has also been confirmed that, from spring 2020 to mid-2021, the Pentagon and by extension the US Government itself engaged in misinformation campaigns in Southeast Asia regarding Chinese vaccines.

The U.S. military’s anti-vax effort began in the spring of 2020 and expanded beyond Southeast Asia before it was terminated in mid-2021, Reuters determined. Tailoring the propaganda campaign to local audiences across Central Asia and the Middle East, the Pentagon used a combination of fake social media accounts on multiple platforms to spread fear of China’s vaccines among Muslims at a time when the virus was killing tens of thousands of people each day. A key part of the strategy: amplify the disputed contention that, because vaccines sometimes contain pork gelatin, China’s shots could be considered forbidden under Islamic law. The military program started under former President Donald Trump and continued months into Joe Biden’s presidency, Reuters found – even after alarmed social media executives warned the new administration that the Pentagon had been trafficking in COVID misinformation. The Biden White House issued an edict in spring 2021 banning the anti-vax effort, which also disparaged vaccines produced by other rivals, and the Pentagon initiated an internal review, Reuters found.

what a coincidence that Radio Free Asia just so happened to be engaging disinformation campaigns against the same exact vaccines as the State Department during the same exact timeframe. very strange.

obviously none of this information matters even a little to anyone on the shithole of a website that is reddit. xenophobia is dominating the convo as always. you could post literally anything about north korea on reddit and it will instantly shoot to the top of any decent sized community. but i had to post this somewhere or i was going to lose my mind.

[eroguron0nsense]

The Nagi Nagi no Mi and Trauma Defence Mechanisms

Not sure if anyone else has written on this but I've always found it interesting that they gave Corazon the power of silence to use as a defence against Doffy in both literal and metaphorical terms. Of course, it's a fairly practical thing for a covert operative like Cora to have in that it helps him conceal his presence, but it also protects him from Doffy and lets him fly under the radar because he's continually underestimated by the family because of his supposed trauma-induced aphasia and general clumsiness; it's assumed that he's good at fulfilling his assigned role, but that he's ultimately not a threat and he's only there in spite of his muteness because he's Doffy's younger brother. Even the children, who are under the impression that he hates kids, continually underestimate him and laugh at his antics, oblivious to his attempts to protect as many children as possible from his brother and the family's abuse.

On another note though, that avoidance and solitude might be interpreted as a perfect way to avoid the attention or ire of a terrible family member who is more than willing to hurt you for crossing them; even before he presumably ate the Nagi Nagi no Mi, he never gets any speaking lines in childhood save for begging Doffy not to kill their father. His silence maintains his nonthreatening, unobtrusive facade in front of Doffy, and even when he breaks that facade to protect another potential victim of Doffy's manipulation and violence, he quite literally uses his powers to protect Law from his brother at the moment of his death and allow him to escape undetected. His silence, which leads to his underestimation, is ultimately necessary to defeat the man who hurt him time and again, who robbed him of their father and left him for dead, who was eager to sacrifice him on the altar of his ambition.

We can see that Doffy is a pretty violent and sadistic child, who's internalized this horrifying entitlement and abuser logic by virtue of being raised in Mariejois, and his parents, while well-intentioned, do little to nothing to counter this conditioning or even intervene when he starts throwing tantrums in public where he calls for public executions and enslavement of regular townspeople. We know that he was more than willing to sacrifice Cora for the Ope Ope no Mi. We can also see that Doffy, for all his ostensible pride in his "family", cares nothing for them beyond how he can manipulate them to his own ends and only defends them publicly as extensions of himself. If that's how Doffy feels comfortable behaving in public, it's highly likely (even though its never stated) that he harmed or otherwise made Cora hate and fear him at home even before shit went south, with little to no real intervention from their parents. And I just like that, rather than cowardice, they made Cora's voluntary silence–his defence mechanism against his abusive brother– into something that he uses for the sake of undermining and ultimately defeating Doffy, and for the sake of protecting another child from his lifelong abuser.

[eretzyisrael]

by David M. Litman

Error #1: “Israeli air strikes on a camp sheltering displaced civilians…”

The Facts: In just the first nine words of the statement, the “experts” got two major facts objectively wrong.

First, there was one strike, not strikes plural, though according to the Israeli military the strike did involve two weapons.

The tragic deaths at Tel as-Sultan—180 meters away from the location of the strike—appear to have occurred due to unforeseen circumstances.

As the investigations continue, the most likely explanation emerging is that the strike ignited a nearby, unknown weapons cache, which set alight some of the shelters. The IDF has since shown aerial footage showing a rocket launcher located between the building struck and the shelters. Footage purportedly from the scene also supports this theory, showing what appear to be secondary explosions after the strike.

Error #2: “Reports emerging from the ground indicate that the strikes were indiscriminate and disproportionate…”

The Facts: Far from being indiscriminate, the strikes successfully targeted two senior Hamas terrorists, Yassin Rabia and Khaled Nagar. Far from being indiscriminate, “The strike was based on precise intelligence that indicated that these terrorists, who were responsible for orchestrating and executing terror attacks against Israelis, [and who] were meeting inside the specific structure” targeted. Furthermore, the precision munitions used were literally the “smallest the military’s jets can use” according to the IDF.

The claim about the strike being “disproportionate” is likewise contradicted by the evidence. Prior to the strike, the IDF surveilled the building and its surroundings and determined there was no significant civilian presence in the anticipated area of effect. The “experts” instead appear to be using an erroneous interpretation of the legal concept they claim to be experts on.

Proportionality is not a rule focused on the results of a strike, but rather on the decision-making before the strike is launched. The question is whether the anticipated civilian harm is disproportionate to the concrete military advantage to be gained. As explained by Lt. Col. Geoffrey Corn (ret.):

“In the context of hostilities, this is often translated into the ‘reasonable commander’ test: was the attack decision one that another reasonable commander, facing the same situation and with the same information available, would have also made? If so, the attack was lawful, even if the result turned out to contradict the expectation at the time it was launched. If not, the attack was unlawful. This is why the instinct to rely on ‘effects-based’ condemnations—to condemn an attack as a war crime based only on the civilian harm inflicted by the attack—is legally invalid.”

Error #3: “These barbaric attacks are a flagrant violation of international law.”

The Facts: See Errors 1 and 2. The authors are declaring a “violation of international law” based on inaccurate factual claims and erroneous interpretations of the law. It is worth pointing out, too, that these U.N. actors declared there was a violation based only on “reports,” without having engaged in any actual investigation or legal analysis. Worse, the authors omit entirely the legal responsibility of Hamas, which had embedded military targets in a civilian area near the shelters.