#the making of the modern middle east

[peoplefromheaven]

Books I’ve read in January:

The bell jar by Sylvia Plath

Lord of the flies by William Golding

Strange case of dr Jekyll & mr Hyde and other stories by Robert Louis Stevenson

The picture of Dorian gray by Oscar Wilde

Pingpong by s. Carmiggelt

Maus by Art Spiegelman

The making of the modern Middle East by Jeremy Bowen

The honjin murders by seishi yokomizo

The hate u give by angie Thomas

Het achterhuis by Anne Frank

The man at Mulera by Kathryn Blair

[unopenablebox]

i admit that i find it a little bit frustrating how Wildly Astonished other antizionist jews act when i tell them my israeli jewish family have lived in the region since [some unknown length of time before 1800 when there start being records about it]

[opencommunion]

recommended resources on Lebanese resistance and its context

this has been in my drafts for a long time bc I wanted to find more audio resources but in light of recent events I'm posting as is, and will add more later. pdfs for texts without links can be found on libgen ⭐ = start with these 📺 = video resource 🎧 = audio resource Hizballah ⭐ Lara Deeb, "Hizballah and Its Civilian Constituencies," in The War on Lebanon: A Reader, eds. Nubar Hovsepian and Rashid Khalidi (2007)

⭐🎧 Electronic Intifada Podcast with Rania Khalek, "Why Hizballah would deal Israel a deadly blow" (2024)

⭐🎧 Electronic Intifada Podcast with Amal Saad, "How Hizballah Aims to Deter Israel" (2024)

📺 Rania Khalek, Interview with Hezbollah's Second-in-Command Sheikh Naim Qassem (2023)

🎧 Rania Khalek and Julia Kassem, "The Hybrid War on Lebanon is All About Weakening Hezbollah" (2022)

Hassan Nasrallah, "Voice of Hezbollah: The Statements of Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah," ed. Nicholas Noe (2007)

Judith Harik, "Hizballah's Public and Social Services and Iran," in Distant Relations: Iran and Lebanon in the last 500 years (2006) Sarah Marusek, Faith and Resistance: The Politics of Love and War in Lebanon (2018)

Abed T. Kanaaneh, Understanding Hezbollah: The Hegemony of Resistance (2021)

Karim Makdisi, "The Oct. 8 War: Lebanon's Southern Front" (2024) Political theory ⭐ Ussama Makdisi, "Understanding Sectarianism," in The War on Lebanon: A Reader, eds. Nubar Hovsepian and Rashid Khalidi (2007)

⭐ Rula Juri Abisaab and Malek Abisaab, The Shi'ites of Lebanon: Modernism, Communism, and Hizbullah's Islamists (2014)

Ilham Khuri-Makdisi, The Eastern Mediterranean and the Making of Global Radicalism, 1860-1914 (2010) Tareq Y. Ismael and Jacqueline S. Ismael, The Communist Movement in Syria and Lebanon (1998) 2006 war ⭐ Gilbert Achcar and Michel Warschawski, The 33-Day War: Israel's War on Hezbollah in Lebanon and Its Consequences (2007)

The Electronic Intifada with Dahr Jamail, "The world just sat by" (2006)

The Electronic Intifada with Bilal El-Amine, "Lebanon in Context" (2006) The War on Lebanon: A Reader, eds. Nubar Hovsepian and Rashid Khalidi (2007)

Civil war and 1982 invasion ⭐📺 Up to the South, dir. Jayce Salloum and Walid Ra'ad (1993)

⭐📺 Wild Flowers: Women of South Lebanon, dir. Mai Masri and Jean Khalil Chamoun (1987)

⭐ Souha Bechara, Resistance: My Life for Lebanon (2003)

Jean Said Makdisi, Beirut Fragments: A War Memoir (1990)

Bayan Nuwayhed al-Hout, Sabra and Shatila, September 1982 (2004) Ottoman era Charles Al-Hayek, "How, then, did you try to rebel?"

Lebanon Unsettled, "Lebanon's Popular Uprisings"

Axel Havemann, "The Impact of Peasant Resistance on Nineteenth Century Mount Lebanon," in Peasants and Politics in the Modern Middle East (1991) Ussama Makdisi, The Culture of Sectarianism: Community, History, and Violence in Nineteenth-Century Ottoman Lebanon (2000)

Peter Hill, "How Global was the Age of Revolutions? The Case of Mount Lebanon, 1821" (2020) Mark Farha, "From Anti-imperial Dissent to National Consent: the First World War and the Formation of a Trans-sectarian National Consciousness in Lebanon" (2015) French mandate era ⭐ Kais Firro, Inventing Lebanon: Nationalism and the State Under the Mandate (2002) Sana Tannoury-Karam, "Founding the Lebanese Left: From Colonial Rule to Independence" (2021) Idir Ouahes, Syria and Lebanon Under the French Mandate: Cultural Imperialism and the Workings of Empire (2018)

Malek Abisaab, Militant Women of a Fragile Nation (2009) Misc ⭐📺 Leila and the Wolves, dir. Heiny Srour and Sabah Jabbour (1984)

⭐ Fawwaz Traboulsi, A History of Modern Lebanon (2007)

Karim Makdisi, "Lebanon's October 2019 Uprising" (2021)

[mashpotatoe]

im a white jew, i was born in israel,

ive lived there all my life and was brought up in an environment that fosters racism driven by nationalism, nationalism driven by racism.

in israel, they teach you jews and muslims (though usually, they just say arabs) have always been enemies, the same way the US deems the entire middle east as a inherent war zone, ridding them of the responsibility for perpetuating war in thst region.

they tell you "were the fair and humane side who strives for peace! its the arabs who never accept the offer!"

i remember the first time i began doubting that sentiment was in fourth grade, when we were having a discussion in class about the character of Saul from the Torah. the teacher was talking about how Saul, the first monarch of the Kingdom of Israel, used to fight the Philistines, and when she added that the Philistines were the natural enemy of the Israelites, she asked the class what group of people is their modern equivalent to which everyone very eagerly replied "Arabs!" and nevermind that there in that same class sat two arab boys, one of whom sat next to me, who i looked at and thought "but he isnt my enemy? hes just a boy in my class."

they teach you to hate arabs. sometimes they say it outright. sometimes they say it more carefully, or make a distinction between good and bad arabs, those who are with us and those who are against us.

in a state based on the idea of (white) jewish supremacy, they teach you jews are naturally superior. they use the conspiratorial narrative of "jews controlling the world" to their favor, giving their own watered down explanation for why antisemitism exists, saying that it must be driven by jealousy.

the zionist movement always used antisemitism to its advantage, either for reinforcing the notion of jewish supremacy or appealing to the real pain and trauma of generations, people who survived the holocaust, connecting them to stolen land where they are "guaranteed" safety ergo granting "justification" for the suffering of others.

its using peoples real pain that makes fear mongering so effective, and when the israeli population grows up being told all of their neighboring countries want to kill them, they quickly get defensive of the "only land where they can feel safe", but the only explanation ever provided for Why these neighboring countries are considered enemies is because theyre arabs.

and when it comes to palestine, it isnt even recognized as a country, nor identity. just a threat. ive talked to many people who are genuinely unaware of the occupation, and they arent willing to believe it either, because the media narrative has successfully shifted the blame on hamas. because "how could it be us? we want peace! its the terrorists who make us look bad! and their children, they grow up to be antisemites*, might as well get rid of them too!" they never stop to think what environment these children must grow up in to develop these "radical" ideas.

* what they mean by antisemite is really just antizionist, but the term anti/zionist isnt practiced in local dialect, being a zionist is treated as a given

any jew who stands against israels oppression is dubbed a self hating jew, but the biggest contributors to antisemitism is the people in charge of an ethnostate, because at any moment they could decide who is not white enough to be jewish, who is too jewish to be white, who stood against the current coalition government and who is an obedient dog.

israelis arent a monolith, but many of them have been won over, convinced its an "us v them" situation, when in reality it could never be the "us" that "loses"

the israeli government was waiting for an event like the massacre on the seventh of october to declare war, to have the so called "right to defend itself", so they could initiate the final steps of an ethnic genocide and displace, if not kill, all remaining palestinians. under the guise of bringing peace.

it isnt too late to call for a permanent ceasefire, to end the occupation.

please contact your representatives, attend protests and rallies if you are able. palestine will be free, and the flowers will rise again.

[charlietheepicwriter7]

Danny ends up a doctor like his parents, just not the type of doctor they were expecting.

Danny becomes an archeologist.

He couldn't help it! Most of his friends were dead people, some from as far back as ancient Mesopotamia! He automatically knew every dead language by virtue of being a ghost! The way his friends talked, he wanted to know more about their lives. So he goes looking and makes a name for himself.

He becomes a well known archeologist. As a grad student, he works for the Drakes, even babysitting their son, Tim. He goes to Janet's, and later Jack's, funeral, offering to take Tim in, which the boy is grateful for but declines in favor of a bio-uncle. Eventually, Danny discovers the remains of an ancient cult in the Middle East.

Ra's learns that the remains of the original League of Shadows has been uncovered by a group of archeologists. Originally visiting the dig site to ensure the group doesn't discover any traces of the modern-day League, he finds himself intrigued by the young Dr. Fenton leading the dig. He's smart and bright and the first person in 400 years that can speak Ra's birth language. He becomes fond of the good doctor, even more so when he discovers that Danny's a conservationist and is skilled with a Xiphos (all Pandora's doing). How strange that their spars often end up with them retreating to Danny's tent to be alone...

And then Danny invites Tim Drake to visit, worried about the boy being a teen CEO with no breaks. Tim agrees.

[infiniteglitterfall]

Someone on Reddit made the mistake of saying, "Teach me how this conflict came about" where I could see it.

Let me teach you too.

The common perception is that Jews came out of nowhere, stole Palestinian homes and kicked Palestinians out of them, and then bombed them for 75 years, until they finally rebelled in the form of Hamas invading Israel and massacring 22 towns in one day.

The historical reality is that Jews have lived there continuously for at least 3500 years.

There are areas, like Meggido iirc, with archeological evidence of continuous habitation for 7,000 years, but Jewish culture as we recognize it today didn't develop until probably halfway through that.

Ethnic Jews are the indigenous people of this area.

Indigeneity means a group was originally there, before any colonization happened, and that it has retained a cultural connection to the land. History plus culture.

That's what Jews have: even when the diaspora became larger than the number of Jews in Israel, the yearning to return to that homeland was a daily part of Jewish prayer and ritual.

The Jewish community in Israel was crushed pretty violently by the Roman Empire in 135 CE, but it was still substantial, sometimes even the majority population there, for almost a thousand years.

The 600s CE brought the advent of Islam and the Arab Empire, expanding out from Saudi Arabia into Israel and beyond. It was largely a region where Jews were second-class citizens. But it was still WAY better than the way Christian Europe treated Jews.

From the 700s-900s, the area saw repeated civil wars, plagues, and earthquakes.

Then the Crusades came, with waves of Christians making "pilgrimages to the Holy Land" and trying to conquer it from Muslims and Jews, who they slaughtered and enslaved.

Israel became pretty well depopulated after all that. It was a very rough time to live there. (And for the curious, I'm calling it Israel because that's what it had been for centuries, until the Romans erased the name and the country.)

By the 1800s, the TOTAL population of what's now Israel and Palestine had varied from 150,000 - 275,000 for centuries. It was very rural, very sparsely populated, on top of being mostly desert.

In the 1880s, Jews started buying land and moving back to their indigenous homeland. As tends to happen, immigration brought new projects and opportunities, which led to more immigration - not only from Jews, but from the Arab world as well.

Unfortunately, there was an antisemitic minority spearheaded by Amin al-Husseini. Who was very well-connected, rich, and from a politically powerful family.

Al-Husseini had enthusiastically participated in the Armenian Genocide under the Ottoman Empire. Then the Empire fell in World War One, and the League of Nations had to figure out what to do with its land.

Mostly, if an area was essentially operating as a country (e.g. Turkey), the League of Nations let it be one. In areas that weren't ready for self-rule, it appointed France or Britain to help them get there.

In recognition of the increased Jewish population in their traditional, indigenous homeland, it declared that that homeland would again become Israel.

As in, the region was casually called Palestine because that was the lay term for "the Holy Land." It had not been a country since Israel was stamped out; only a region of a series of different empires. And the Mandate For Palestine said it was establishing "a national home of the Jewish people" there, in recognition of "the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country."

Britain was appointed to help the Arab and Jewish communities there develop systems of self-government, and then to work together to govern the region overall.

At least, that was the plan.

Al-Husseini, who was deeply antisemitic, did not like this plan.

And, extra-unfortunately, the British response to al-Husseini inciting violent anti-Jewish riots was to put him in a leadership role over Arab Palestine.

They thought it would calm him down and perhaps satisfy him.

They were very wrong.

He went on to become a huge Hitler fanboy, and then a Nazi war criminal. He co-created the Muslim Brotherhood - which Hamas is part of - with fellow fascist fanboy Hassan al-Banna.

He got Nazi Party funding for armed Muslim Brotherhood militias to attack Jews and the Brits in the late 30s, convincing Britain to agree to limit Jewish immigration at the time when it was most desperately needed.

He started using the militias again in 1947, when the United Nations voted to divide the mandated land into a Jewish homeland and a Palestinian one.

Al-Husseini wouldn't stand for a two-state solution. He was determined to tolerate no more than the subdued, small Jewish minority of second-class citizens that he remembered from his childhood.

As armed militias increasingly ran riot, the Arab middle and upper classes increasingly left. About 100,000 left the country before May 1948, when Britain was to pull out, leaving Israel and Palestine to declare their independence.

The surrounding nations didn't want war. They largely accepted the two-state solution.

But al-Husseini lobbied HARD. And by mobilizing the Muslim Brotherhood to provide "destabilizing mass demonstrations and a murderous campaign of intimidation," he got the Arab League nations to agree to invade, en masse, as soon as Britain left.

About 600,000 Arabs fled to those countries during the ensuing war.

Jews couldn't seek refuge there; in fact, most of those countries either exiled their Jews directly, confiscating their property first, or else made Jewish life unlivable and exploited them for underpaid or slave labor for years first.

By the time the smoke cleared and a peace treaty was signed, most of the Arab Palestinian community had fled; there was no Arab Palestinian leadership; many of the refugees' homes and businesses had left had been destroyed in the war; and Israel had been flooded with nearly a million refugees from the Arab League countries and the Holocaust - even more people than had fled the war.

That was the Nakba. The one that gets portrayed as "750,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled!" in the hope that you'll assume they were expelled en masse, their beautiful intact homes all stolen.

Egypt had taken what's now the Gaza Strip in that war, and Jordan took what's now the West Bank - expelling or killing all the Jews in it first.

(Ironically, Jordan was originally supposed to be part of Israel. Britain, inexplicably, cut off what would have been 75% of its land to create Jordan.

Even more inexplicably, nobody ever talks about it. I've never seen anyone complain that Jordan was stolen from Palestinians. Possibly because Jordan is also the only country that gave Palestinian refugees full citizenship, and it's about half Palestinian now.

Israel is nearly 25% Arab Palestinians with full citizenship and equal rights, so it's not all that different -- but the fundamental difference of living in a country where the majority is Jewish, not Muslim, probably runs pretty deep.)

Anyway: that's why Palestine is Gaza and the West Bank, rather than being some contiguous chunk of land. Or being the land set aside by the U.N. in 1947.

Because Arab countries took that land in 1948, and treated them as essentially separate for 20 years.

Israel got them back, along with the Golan Heights and the Sinai Peninsula, in the next war: 1967, when Egypt committed an act of war by taking control of the waterways and barring Israel from them. It gave the Sinai back to Egypt as part of the 1979 peace accords between Egypt and Israel.

Israel tried to give back the Gaza Strip at the same time. Egypt refused.

Palestine finally declared independence in 1988.

But Hamas formed at about the same time. Probably in response, in fact. Hamas is fundamentally opposed to peace negotiations with Israel.

Again: Hamas is part of a group founded by Nazis.

Hamas has its own charter. It explains that Jews are "the enemy," because they control the drug trade, have been behind every major war, control the media, control the United Nations, etc. Basic Nazi rhetoric.

It has gotten adept at masking that rhetoric for the West. But to friendlier audiences, its leaders have consistently said things like, "People of Jerusalem, we want you to cut off the heads of the Jews with knives. With your hand, cut their artery from here. A knife costs five shekels.  Buy a knife, sharpen it, put it there, and just cut off [their heads]. It costs just five shekels."

(Palestinians were outraged by this speech. Palestinians, by and large, absolutely loathe Hamas.

It's just that it's not the same to say that to locals, as it is to say it where major global powers who oppose this crap can hear you.)

Hamas has stated from the beginning that its mission is to violently destroy Israel and take over the land.

It has received $100M in military funding annually, from Iran, for several years. Because Iran has been building a network of fascist, antisemitic groups across the Middle East, in a blatant attempt to control more and more of it: Hezbollah in Lebanon. The Houthis in Yemen.

Iran has been run by a very far-right, deeply antisemitic dictatorship for decades now, which pretty openly wants to take down both Israel and the U.S.

Last year, Iran increased Hamas's funding to $350M.

The "proof of concept" invasion of Israel that Hamas pulled off on October 7th more than justifies a much bigger investment.

Hamas has publicly stated its intention to attack "again and again and again," until Israel has been violently destroyed.

That is how this conflict came about.

A Nazi group seized power in Gaza in 2007 by violently kicking the Palestinian government out, and began running it as a dictatorship, using it to build money and power in preparations for exactly this.

And people find it shockingly easy to believe its own hype about being "the Palestinian resistance."

As well as its propaganda that Israel is not actually targeting Hamas: it's just using a literal Nazi invasion and massacre as an excuse to randomly commit genocide of the fraction of Palestine it physically left 20 years ago.

Despite the fact that Palestinians in Gaza have been protesting HAMAS throughout the war.

[heritageposts]

A Jewish prayer shawl worn by Levi Simon, a British man fighting for the Israeli army in Gaza who filmed himself rummaging through women’s underwear in an abandoned Palestinian home, belonged to a celebrated Holocaust survivor who warned of the dangers of hatred and racism. Social media footage posted in November shows Simon wearing the shawl, known as a tallit, in a building in Gaza. “This tallit I am wearing belonged to a Holocaust survivor by the name of Zigi. I am right now inside of Gaza writing ‘Am Yisrael Chai’ to make sure nothing like this will ever happen again,” Simon says in the clip, drawing a Star of David and writing the Hebrew phrase meaning “the people of Israel live” on the wall. According to the accompanying text, the tallit was donated by the family of Zigi Shipper, a survivor of Auschwitz-Birkenau and other Nazi camps from Lodz, Poland, who moved to the UK after the Second World War and died last January aged 93. But a close friend and fellow survivor told Middle East Eye he believed Shipper would have been "astounded and upset" to learn of the way in which his tallit had been used in Gaza. “He would have been as heartbroken as I am because neither of us imagined anything like that would be witnessed by us,” Manfred Goldberg, who met Shipper in 1944 when both were working as slave labourers at a camp in modern-day Poland, told MEE. Asked whether he would have been concerned by the conduct of Israeli forces, Goldberg added: “How can you ask such a question? Who is not upset? Zigi was a very outspoken person. He made a lot more noise than I did. He would have been beside himself.” [...] “Zigi and I had an unbreakable bond because of our experience in the camps. I know him better than I know more or less any person on earth,” said Goldberg. In his later life, Shipper was renowned for his decades of work promoting awareness of the Holocaust in countless talks to schoolchildren and through media interviews. In 2017, he was among 112 Holocaust survivors whose testimonies were recorded as part of a United Kingdom Holocaust Memorial project. “I want young people to know, especially young people, what happened because of racism and most importantly, hatred,” Shipper has been quoted as saying by the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust.

and, more on what simon has been posting . . .

In one clip, Simon waves an Israeli flag in a school where, he says, “they teach terrorism”, adding: “We’re here, we’re here to stay, we’re not going to take your terror, and they’re going to start teaching Hebrew in this school soon." In another clip, he says he is going through “terrorist houses” looking for guns and explosives and then opens a drawer and starts pulling out and displaying women’s underwear, which he describes as "exotic lingerie".

. . . full article on MEE (26 Jan 2024)

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Writing Reference: Roses

Reigning over the flower garden, roses are coveted for their exquisite blooms, tantalizing perfume, and long flowering season.

TYPES OF ROSES

Climbing roses - the thick rigid canes of climbing roses allow for a beautiful show of blossoms on a wall, trellis, or arbor; may be trained on wires fixed to a pergola or series of arches to provide a tunnel of flowers, foliage, and scent in a traditional garden design

Groundcover roses - sometimes called landscape roses, these were developed to be easy to care for and useful for planting in mass

Modern roses - this group, developed after 1867, includes the hybrid tea, floribunda, grandiflora, miniature, and English roses

Old garden roses - sometimes called heritage roses, this group includes gallica, damask, alba, centifolia, and bourbon

Patio and miniature roses - averaging 12in (30cm) tall, miniature roses are ideal for the front of the flower bed or as a container plant

Rambling roses - an annual display of thick clusters of small flowers on long, slender, and flexible canes make this rose a favorite to many

Shrub roses - many shrub roses result from crossing old and modern roses to develop more hardy and disease-resistant selections; can be trained as standards; you can use them in pots to flank a doorway or as a centerpiece in formal designs

Species roses - can be divided into 4 groups by their place of origin, either Europe, America, the Middle east, or Asia; make excellent hedges with their tough, disease-resistant foliage and early-summer flowers, followed by decorative hips; their thorns also help to deter intruders

NOTES

Roses have been grown for thousands of years and are celebrated for their beautiful, scented blooms and diverse habits.

They suffer from a number of diseases, most notably black spot, which causes the foliage to discolor and drop off.

Source ⚜ More: Writing Notes & References

[glass--beach]

i’ve held off on saying too much about this because i would rather defer to experts & boost campaigns and all that and the band has made official statements through other channels anyway. but to make it abundantly clear what i believe

- israel is a modern settler colony that is necessarily upheld through brutal violence and has no right to exist

- it functions as a tool of the global north to further exploit the middle east and so it will always be within the self interest of the US, UK & rest of the global north to support it regardless of the beliefs of any individuals in the governments or populations of those countries

- the zionist project has been an intentional genocide from the beginning

- the zionist project has been supported by antisemites from the beginning as a more acceptable way to remove jews from their countries

- no race, ethnicity, or religion deserves its own state as that will necessarily require the subjugation of other races, ethnicities, and religions within or outside of its territory

- the entire territory of israel belongs to the palestinian people and it in fact did belong to them within living memory

- the palestinian people have every right to violent retaliation and it has always been an inevitable consequence of the zionist project that should come as no surprise

- hamas was supported by the global north to suppress left-wing palestinian resistance & paint all palestinians as radical islamic terrorists who cannot be negotiated with. this is a common tactic used to exploit the global south

- the character of any individuals on either side is irrelevant as the issue is with the system of exploitation the zionist project has created & maintained

- israel must be dismantled & decolonized immediately

- to say any of this is antisemitic is incorrect & extremely disrespectful to the many jews who do not support this genocide

my heart is with the palestinian people 🇵🇸 i hope i live to see a free palestine

[notaplaceofhonour]

Gentile leftists, this is a PSA, and I am begging you to listen. Sharing claims that Jews aren’t indigenous to the land of Israel, that Jews don’t come from the Middle East, and/or that the Zionist movement wasn’t created in response to centuries of antisemitism & genocide is fringe revisionist history with a long antisemitic history. These aren’t anti-imperialist or anti-colonial stances. They are just antisemitic conspiracy theories.

And on the flip side, acknowledging the simple fact that Jews are indigenous to the region currently occupied by Israel & Palestine does not imply any opinion about the modern states of Israel & Palestine, their governments, or the conflict in the region. This post is not voicing support for Zionism or the state of Israel. This is literally just historical fact: both Jews and Palestinians are indigenous to the region where modern day Israel & Palestine are.

If you make this about the politics or conflicts of the modern states of Israel or Palestine—if you comment or send me asks to that effect—you will be blocked.

[peoplefromheaven]

Books I read in November:

-How do you live by Genzaburo Yoshino

-the little book of Chanel by Emma Baxter-wright

-the making of the modern Middle East by Jeremy Bowen

-the v1rgin su1c1des by Jeffrey Eugenides

-animal farm by George Orwell

[where-does-the-heart-lie]

This is my modern/roommate au for them 💁‍♀️ I had a lot of fun coming up with the paragraph part :)

East Blue Crew Modern Au

Grand Line Crew Modern Au

Friends We Made Along The Way

Friends We Made Along The Way Part 2

Please excuse any typo’s my drawing program’s spelling check isn't the best 🙃

Some additional head-canons:

Even though they have an apartment they live and pay rent in, none of them are ever home, much. Luffy’s sleeping over his friends’ houses after hanging out with them, Ace is pretending he’s homeless, and Sabo sleeps at the hospital most of the time. sometimes two of them will be home at the same time, but its almost never all at once on any given day.

Even though they are never home, one day of the week is sacred. The day that no matter what they come home and spend the day together. Thursday. Laundry day

Luffy odd odd jobs done in the past include: possum wrangling, “get my friend out of that tree please, he’s drunk and i don’t want to call the cops”, PC setup (he didnt know anything about it, but somehow he got it all right. Somehow.), performing at a party, assisting in a lab, impromptu chore-boy, and many more.

Nami takes care of Luffy’s Odd job finances and makes sure he gets paid the proper amount. He lets her take a cut, and even though she does indeed want that money, she unfortunately knows Luffy needs that money more than she, so she doesn’t take it. The amount of self restraint she exhibits astounds even she. She is truly a saint (according to her).

The only laws that Luffy knows are 1) his friend (self proclaimed) Law and 2) the Miranda rights, as he heard them while Sabo was getting arrested that one time.

Luffy thought the Law lecture he went to was supposed to be talking about his friend (self proclaimed) Law. He wanted to support his buddy (self proclaimed), not learn about federal law!

No one has kept track of how many times Sabo has went to jail. whenever he’s asked, he changes the number every time.

Sabo had the absolute worst time getting that big ol’ tattoo across his arm. He cried a couple times through it, although he would never admit it. It was an investment that he was willing to make, however, and he thinks it turned out sick as hell. So does everyone else. Because the tattoo is sick as hell.

Ace watch shenanigans:

“hey ace, what time is it” “One sec,” he checks his watch “uhhhh 10 at night” (Its clearly the middle of the day) “Thanks, man”

Dadan calls to check in on them every Thursday night. She pretends she doesn't care about them, but the reality is not looking good for her.

Sabo has been a childhood friend to Luffy and Ace and has slept over the house they lived in with Dadan many times, but he didnt actually come to officially live with them until he was finally kicked out of his parent’s house when he was 16. Dadan has always been more of a mother to him than his biological one ever was and he treasures her even though he says he doesn’t. Actions often speak louder than words, as the two are literal besties despite both verbally expressing their disdain for the other more than praise. Sabo is clearly her favorite of the three brothers and she's the most lenient with him (which is something they all exploit).

Luffy and Ace come to live with Dadan in the au the same way they live there in canon, their fathers are not present in their lives and Garp dropped them both off at her doorstep and expected to take them in.

That’s all I got for now. These guys are fun and I love them very much :)

[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.

[mariacallous]

Honey cake is a hallmark of Rosh Hashanah and the fall Jewish holidays  — Ashkenazi honey cake, that is. But did you know there’s a Sephardi cake traditionally served for Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur break fast and during Sukkot? Like its Eastern European counterpart, tishpishti symbolizes wishes for a sweet new year and the fullness of life. The cake is also popular for Purim and adapted for Passover.

Semolina pastries and puddings have been made for centuries throughout the Mediterranean, North Africa and the Middle East. Tishpishti is traditionally made with fine semolina and soaked in a sweet syrup of sugar, honey or a mixture, but beyond these common elements, there are many variations in both the way tishpishti is made — such as nuts or no nuts, eggs or no eggs, flavored with lemon, orange or rose water — and even what it’s called according to different geographic and cultural roots. For example, in Egypt, it’s basboosah or baboussa, namora or namoura in Syria and shamali in Crete.

Tishpishti is perhaps the name most used and, as we know it today, the cake originated in Turkey. In the “Encyclopedia of Jewish Food,” Gil Marks explains that in Israel and for Jews from once-Ottoman Turkey, Greece and the Balkans, the name is probably a nonsense name from the Turkish “tez” (fast/quick) and “pişti” (plane/slope). Put together, it means “quickly done.” In Ladino it might also be called pispiti, tupishti and revani, which Joyce Goldstein in “Sephardic Flavors: Jewish Cooking of the Mediterranean” notes is named after a 16th century Turkish poet “who wrote about the delights of food.” 

Many tishpishti recipes use eggs, including ones that instruct you to whip the whites separate from the yolks, a Sephardi contribution to tishpishti. This recipe, however, is based on a very old traditional way of making cakes from a thick dough without eggs. My concession to modernity is adding baking powder and soda, both 19th century products, to lessen the density of the cake. Using ground almonds instead of walnuts will result in a lighter colored cake, which is traditional at Rosh Hashanah to symbolize a bright new year. Tishpishti is delicious on its own or served with a spoonful of yogurt, labneh or whipped cream and a cup of mint tea or strong Turkish coffee.

Notes:

It is best to make the syrup ahead of time so it has time to cool, although you can choose to make it while the cake bakes, then refrigerate it to cool more quickly. 

Tishpishti is best when left at room temperature for several hours or overnight so the syrup penetrates the cake. 

Store wrapped at room temperature for two days or a week in the refrigerator. The cake can be well-wrapped and frozen for two months. Defrost and then refresh with some drizzles of warm syrup. 

[honesty-my-policy]

i'm so infuriated

I'm not Jewish and I'm so infuriated at the world.

I can't imagine how it must feel to be Jewish. Especially as this entire ordeal has made me dive more into educating myself about Jewish history and how the world truly has always blamed everything on the Jews.

How is everything their fault?

Even the crucifixion of Christ has been blamed on the Jews when it was a Roman tradition?

Martin Luther who is known as one of the original reformers in Christianity's history wrote a book called "On the Jews and Their Lies". In which he advocated for burning down synagogues, Jewish homes and if that didn't work, Jewish people!

Apparently, somehow, Jews caused the Black Death despite the fact that the most predominant modern theory is that due to climate change in Asia, rodents began to flee the dried out grasslands to more populated areas which ended up spreading the infected fleas they carried, thus spreading the disease. The fleas infected not just rats but ground rodents in general, so once the rats migrated the fleas could jump to any ground rodent and the infection spread.

Some of the craziest modern stuff though has come mostly from the Middle East (i wonder why)...

Apparently, Israel has remote control sharks that can attack Egyptian civilians and tourists, at least that's what a Governor of Egypt things. source

According to a fundamentalist group of Muslims called the Wahhabis, the Jews have a secret ally they've been conspiring with... the Gharqad tree. A tree, they call it the Jew tree. source Which is identified as either nitre bushes or Lycium which is part of the nightshade family, it's such a thing that the TREE WIKI PAGE TALKS MORE ABOUT THAT THAN THE TREE ITSELF source

Palestine once said that Israel was breeding super rats that could grow twice the size of a normal rat - just to chase Arabs out of Jerusalem, note this was in like 2008, where are these super rats NOW? source

The Nation of Islam (an organization) accused Jews of tricking people into thinking slavery exists??????? Sorry, "still" exists. This was originally in 1996, the gall this motherfucker had in 1996 to say "Where is the proof?" - oh, his name is Louis Farrakhan btw and there is an entire section dedicated to him on the anti-slavery website iabolish.org - his page

Also, Pokémon is a Zionist conspiracy plot to overthrow Saddam Hussein, at least, in 2001 that was what some Iraqi security personal reported. source

listen... I won't lie. I love a good conspiracy theory because to be honest, the amount I trust my government or anyone in authority is so small that just about anything could come out as true and I'd be so un-phased.

but blaming the Jews for everything when they make up an estimated 0.2% of the population versus say the 23% that is Muslim? Which there are approximately 50 Muslim-Majority countries in the world, though depending on sources the exact number differs.

If anything Christianity (32%) and the unaffiliated (16.3%) should be eyed at. Also, how come no one ever gives the folk religion people a hard time? Not that anyone deserves to be given a hard time as long as they aren't hurting anyone, it just boggles my mind to be honest.

sources for numbers cited came from this website: https://worldpopulationreview.com/

anyway, woke up this morning and just wanted to say this cause I'm mad and I want to show my support but also call out stupid people. I'm here to fight for Israel and the Jews, fuck off pro-palestine simps.

[codmw2019-2022]

Modern Warfare Character Ages [2019 + 22]

Preface: Just wanted to add before getting into this that this is my interpretation of the character ages based on information from the games, confirmed information, research into the military/CIA and collage/university course information. This is by no means meant to be a definite statement about character ages, I'm happy to discuss or change any of the information here within reason.

I would also like to credit @sleepyconfusedpotato and @oleworldblues posts with their own opinions on the character ages. Which helped base my own thoughts and provided some good information that they had found. You can find Sleepy's post here and Blue's here they are really good posts and they both explain their own reasons for how they perceive the main cast of modern warfare's ages.

Farah & Hadir Karim : 30 & 32 [2022]

Both Farah and Hadir's ages have been confirmed by Taylor Kurosaki who is one of the writers from Modern Warfare 2019. This was confirmed when a fan ask him via twitter/X about how old Farah was during the Barkov invasion.

This means in 1999 when Barkov invaded Farah was 7 and Hadir was 9. In 2009 when they escaped they are 17 and 19 respectively and in 2019 they are 27 and 29. Hadir dies in December of 2022 as discovered in the Atomgrad raids at the age of 32.

John Price : 37 [2022]

Using the information provided from his original operator bio we find that "John Price joined the infantry at the age of sixteen and has served the British Army for 18 years." and that "he was ‘Badged’ a member of SAS in 2005, spending the next ten years in the Middle East, the horn of Africa.".

With this Price's age works out to be about 34 years old, but since it only mentions serving the British army. I added 4 years for him to be able to complete basic training which is roughly 18 weeks basic training.* Followed by Special Air Service (SAS) training with is roughly a couple months, but you must serve at least 18 months in the military to be selected**, and finally his training at the Royal Military Academy to become a Lieutenant and then Captain which is 44 weeks with 2-3 weeks of leave.***

So Price would join the British army at 16 in 2001, be badged a member of SAS at 20 in 2005, become Captain at 25 in 2010. In 2019 he would be 34 and finally 37 in 2022, which to me makes the most sense based on other character's ages.

*[army.mod.uk solider training] **[eliteukforces.info SAS] [eliteukforces.info SBS&SAS] ***[army.mod.uk officer training]

Kyle 'Gaz' Garrick : 32 [2022]

We can do the same process as we did with Price for Gaz, his operator bio says "Kyle ‘Gaz’ Garrick, enlisted in the British Army in 2008. Within four years, he passed selection for Her Majesty’s elite Special Air Service where he is currently rounding out a decade of service."

Since his bio never mentions what age he joins like with Price and Soap I'm going to assume he finished school and joined the military at 18. So Gaz is 18 in 2008, 29 in 2019 when he meets Price for the first time and 32 in 2022. I am not taking into consideration the archived Activision blog posts, which say he joined in 2014 because of them being archived. I do use it for some other characters but for Gaz it changed the date he joined not just giving extra information.

Johnny 'Soap' MacTavish : 26 [2022]

You can blame Activision for why Soap is so young compared to the others. So according to his updated operator bio, "Soap has spent the last seven years carrying out both covert and overt operations around the world." this with the contents of his old operator bio before MW3 "At 16, too young to sign up, but lying about his age, MacTavish enrolled in the Special Air Service…"

Means that Soap would be 23 in 2022, which doesn't make the most sense especially considering he is a Sergeant in 2019 meaning he would be 20 in the MW3 flashback. So I gave him the same treatment as Price and added 3 years, to make up for basic and SAS training. So he would be 16 in 2012 joining the British Army have to wait 18 months to apply for SAS, be roughly 18 when he starts SAS training and finish it at 19 in 2015.*

So making him now 23 in 2019, 26 in 2022 but since he lied about his age TF 141 would think he's 28 during MW2 or 25 during 2019.

*[jobs.army.mod.uk SAS reserve]

Alex Keller : 35 [2022]

Alex is one of the last characters who have dates or years of service in their information. From his Campaign Biography it says he was a part of, "CIA's Special Activities Division," and also has surrendered "his former rank and history of special ops military service with Army Delta, Alex sacrificed traditional contact and association with family to join the SAD. He has spent the last six years living a series of assumed identities to achieve “sensitive” objectives wherever he is needed."

There's also, "Through 2017, Alex’s units played a key role in ensuring definitive victories against emerging terrorist networks." So we know Alex has been working in the military before 2017, now most SAD members are former Delta operators. There's also some reports of SAD members having Master's and law degrees.* So with that we can add roughly 6 years to his age to complete a master's degree in law.**

Now Delta force has some requirements like being over 21 to join and having two and a half years of service remaining, so if Alex joined the US military at 18 after finishing High School and getting his diploma.*** In a couple years he could join Delta Force, so by 26 he would be able to be apart of CIA's SAD. (If studying part time while in Delta Force) Then adding the another six years which is when he is apart of SAD, which is mention in his biography as the last six years. The bio is published late 2019 so Alex would be 32 years old.

So Alex would join the Military at 18 in 2005, would be 32 in 2019 when he loses the lower half of one of his legs and 35 in 2022.

*[CIA SAD] **[coursera.org law school] ***[Delta Force] [US Military Requirements]

Now for the Characters with little infomation

Alejandro & Rodolfo : both 37

We find out they've known each other for 20 years and signed up together. So they are both younger than 38 but older than 30 since Alejandro is a Colonel. Looking at Wikipedia you can/have to join 18 the Mexican military for at least 3 years, this gives them about maybe two years to get to know each other before joining together.

Ghost : 35 [2022]

Honestly just pick an age between Price and Gaz, I personally like the idea of him being the same age as Alex and having them know each other previously. Maybe even before Ghost starts wearing the skull mask.

Laswell & Nikolai : 52 & 45 [2022]

No older that 52 and 45 if we go based on their actors ages, which personally makes the most sense to me. Laswell's Campaign biography mentions her supervising a SAD program in 2008, and her having studied a Master's degree in strategic intelligence analysis and having a BA in International Affairs. This doesn't help much though with figuring out her age.

AN: Hopefully this very long post is some what helpful or at least has some good resources that people can check out, especially fanfic writers or people making their own OCs.

I'm also going to repeat what I put at the top the end here. But what I've written down is not a definitive answer for their ages (minus Farah & Hadir) it's just what I personally think makes the most sense.

Don't let my own opinions/conclusions about their ages get in the way of you having fun with how you view/interpret these characters.