#third coalition war

[josefavomjaaga]

Soult’s plundering (part 1 of ?)

As so far I have been posting all the nice and kind things about marshal Soult … uh, yes. Those were the nice and kind things! … it’s about time we address the elephant in the room: the fact that Soult was considered one of the great plunderers among the marshals, together with Masséna.

Not even Nicole Gotteri in her biography denies that Soult was constantly trying to make money for himself, though she, and I think rightfully, points out that this was true for almost all of the marshals. It just does not get adressed in most other cases. As to Soult’s methods, I have the impression that he went about it in a very different – and more prudent - manner compared to people like Masséna, Ney or Mortier, who usually just demanded contributions from occupied towns and kept some of the extorted money for themselves. Only to be severely rebuked and punished whenever Napoleon felt like playing the generous ruler and defending the oppressed.

From what I have read so far, Soult did not overtly abuse the inhabitants of conquered countries. He abused the French army administration instead.

Already in Vienna in 1805, after the battle of Austerlitz, Austrian texts repeat that the French soldiers called marshal Soult greedy and the greatest plunderer. 

To be noted: The French called him that.

Artillery officer Pion des Loches relates an incident that might explain how this worked. It involves a certain general Salligny (or Saligny), who during this campaign held the position of Soult’s chief-of-staff.

Setting out alone with colonel Demarçay on 28 Brumaire (19 November) for Unterwesternitz, I witnessed one of General Salligny's masterstrokes. [...] Towards midday, we arrived in a village where there was a castle of fairly good appearance and from which we saw carriages of wine being taken out by an officer to 5th Corps.

That would be Lannes’. Uh-hum. More reason for discord.

We entered and the intendant served us dinner.  No sooner had we sat down to dinner when General Salligny entered with his entire staff; he reproaches in very harsh terms the colonel for having strayed from the army corps and asks the intendant what are these carriages of wine that he has met in the village; he has them detained under the pretext that Marshal Lannes cannot requisition provisions so close to the passage of Marshal Soult's army corps; he confiscates them for us, then sells them to the intendant, and we could distinctly hear the sound of coins being counted in the next room by one of the general's aides-de-camp.

During the five days that our march from Znaïm to Austerlitz lasted, General Salligny, at the head of his staff, requisitioned victuals from all the villages near which we passed, then sold them to the authorities who had supplied them, and one day the Vandamme division ran out of bread. I heard him accuse Salligny at the head of his division and even pass the blame on to Marshal Soult.

So, I guess the procedure is clear: requisition victuals for the soldiers, then sell those goods back and pocket the money.

To be fair, I am completely at a loss as to how the distribution of victuals in the French army worked (or rather: was supposed to work, as for the most time it seems to have not worked). The army was often spread out over huge distances. What happened if one unit managed to requisition large amounts of bread, or shoes, or alcohol? They could not share their booty with their comrades easily, even if they wanted to. Would the surplus then be sold to French army suppliers by one corps, in order to be sold to other corps by those? - In all seriousness, I do not know in how far selling (some of the) requisitioned goods may even have been part of standard procedure.

Selling them to the very people you had taken them from, however, and letting the soldiers starve, clearly was not. (It should also be added that, from what I have read, Soult usually was not known to be that careless towards the soldiers under his command.)

The incident of Vandamme – who, by the way, seems to have a long history of financial misappropriations himself, so he probably knew all the tricks - publicly accusing Saligny is well-documented, too. Gotteri cites some of the letter Soult wrote to Vandamme on that occasion in her book (I can try to find it and quote it if somebody’s interested).

Needless to say that general Saligny, for the campaign of 1805, is a key figure when it comes to financial shenanigans. He also seems to have been notoriously disliked by Soult’s aides, according to Petiet. After 1805, he will leave Soult’s service and enter that of … wait for it ... Joseph Bonaparte 😁. Who clearly appreciated guys with a knack for making money at least as much as Soult did. Saligny even received a title of nobility from Joseph and would later accompany him to Spain.

---

(Continued in Part 2)

[josefavomjaaga]

"this guy failed so utterly i have trouble understanding what he was thinking"

This may be very much correct. I've read a German research paper on Karl Mack von Leiberich that was later turned into a biography (E.R. Gramm, "Karl Mack von Leiberich"). Apparently there are plenty of hints that Mack may have suffered a nervous breakdown during the 1805 campaign. So, he literally may have not been thinking straight. His own officers at one point came close to mutiny because Mack's actions and decisions had become utterly erratic. But by that time, it was all too late.

One thing I distinctly remember was how, during the negotiations at Ulm (with Berthier, I think?) he kept talking about his evasion from French captivity some years earlier, after having given his word of honour not to flee. This apparently weighed heavily on his conscience and was all he could think about.

imagine being general Mack. Failing so comprehensively at generalling that your name becomes a verb meaning "to fail epically" in Russian. Imagine that writers for centuries after will consistently refer to you as "the Unfortunate General Mack"; you suck so hard that they came up for a title for you like you were a king. Imagine history podcasters going "this guy failed so utterly i have trouble understanding what he was thinking"

frankly the man deserves an award for managing to survive for over 2 decades after the Ulm campaign without killing himself

[isthenapoleoncute]

My favourite thing about napoleons is that sometimes they pick a fight with every country in the world and so then I have to get up at 3 am and grab them from the pound before they are catapulted to a Saint Helena

[supercomputer-lizard]

I’m just wondering about history recently and I do polls, so have this

[empirearchives]

“I regret to think that I will lose many of these brave men. I feel bad, it makes me feel that they are truly my children, and, in truth, I reproach myself sometimes for this feeling since I fear that it will end up making me incapable of war.”

— Napoleon wrote on the eve of the Battle of Austerlitz (source)

[porciaenjoyer]

NELSON IS BACK?

[creature-wizard]

Reminder:

Yes, in a perfect world we could vote for and elect a third-party candidate with a stronger pro-Palestine position than Harris. But without federal ranked choice voting, getting a third party candidate elected president is essentially impossible. Also, getting rid of the electoral college is a must. The Republican Party, meanwhile, will never let these things happen if they have their way. So let's do our best to keep the Republicans out of office this election, and stick these things on our future to-do list so that down the road so we can elect a third-party candidate.

[trumpwillkillyourfuture]

People have been comparing Israel's atrocities in Gaza to slavery to explain why they're not voting for Kamala Harris ("her position on Gaza is so unacceptable that I can't vote for her even though her opponent is worse on nearly every other issue I care about"), so here's a relevant history lesson.

The 1844 presidential election was between Henry Clay and James Polk. Clay had what we would now consider an unacceptably moderate position on slavery: He thought that it should be allowed to continue where it was already legal but that it shouldn't be expanded to other parts of the country. Meanwhile, Polk wanted to see slavery both preserved and expanded.

To some abolitionists, Clay's position was effectively no better than Polk's, as the Missouri Compromise had set a policy on slavery west of the Mississippi River that prohibited it north of 36°30′ north latitude (with the exception of Missouri itself), and slavery was already legal in every state south of 36°30′. Many voters, unwilling to vote for either Clay or Polk, found someone to support in a third-party nominee: James Birney, representing the Liberty Party, who wanted slavery abolished entirely.

At the time, this position was outside of mainstream politics, and Birney was seen as a fringe candidate with no chance of victory. Sure enough, Birney came nowhere close to winning any state, but he did get 15,812 votes in his home state of New York. Incidentally, the entire election came down to New York, where Polk defeated Clay by just 5,106 votes. Had Birney's voters voted for Clay instead, he would have been elected the 11th president of the United States.

Instead, Polk went on to be the most pro-slavery president in American history, starting a war with Mexico to gain new land that would be open to slavery. A situation that Birney voters thought couldn't get any worse, Polk had found a way to make worse.

Now, 180 years later, people driven by fury at Harris's support for Israel and a belief that Donald Trump can't make things any worse for Palestinians are at risk of making the same mistake. Trump absolutely can make things worse, most clearly in the West Bank, which multiple members of the Israeli governing coalition would love nothing more than to annex completely, something Trump's biggest donor reportedly wants him to allow. Given Trump's transactional nature, it's likely that he would give Israel the go-ahead to fully annex the West Bank, which would destroy hopes of Palestinian statehood for the foreseeable future. Surely those who support the Palestinian cause can't countenance that happening by refusing to vote for Harris, the only candidate with a chance to defeat Trump?

As infuriating as it is that both major candidates are so unconditionally supportive of Israel's actions in Gaza, the fact is that either Kamala Harris or Donald Trump will be elected president in November. Benjamin Netanyahu and his extremist governing partners very much want Trump to win. It seems safe to say that the vast majority of Palestinians who happen to be paying attention to US politics want the opposite: a Harris victory. Please don't let them down.

[heritageposts]

In his seminal The Wretched of the Earth, Frantz Fanon could be writing about Gaza when he said: “In all armed struggles, there exists what we might call the point of no return. Almost always it is marked off by a huge and all-inclusive repression which engulfs all sectors of the colonial people.” In Israel, Gaza and the West Bank, that point has arrived. From Gaza to the Red Sea, on all fronts the West is now unmasked as a lawless killing machine in terror of losing control. Genocide, starvation and war, defended with Olympic-level diplomatic double-speak, are its only answers to the fact that the Global South, and the nations of the Middle East (if not their leaders) no longer wish to live under US hegemony. Jean-Paul Sartre, in his preface to Fanon's work, wrote of western colonialism: “Our Machiavellianism has little purchase on this wide-awake world that has run our falsehoods to earth one after the other. The settler has only recourse to one thing: brute force… the native has only one choice, between servitude and supremacy.” Fanon was a revolutionary thinker and a practising psychiatrist of colonial racism and its psychic impact on the colonised, and the coloniser. He and Sartre were writing about France’s imminent defeat in Algeria after seven years of brutal war. [...] Western powers are involved in conflicts thousands of miles from home, as they were in Fanon's time in Algeria, Congo and Indochina. Today the western political class has united behind Ukraine and Israel, but for millions of people it is no longer clear that the wars are worth fighting.  As Yemen’s spokesman, Mohammed al-Bukhaiti, put it: “The war today is between Yemen which is struggling to stop the crimes of genocide, and the American and British coalition [who] support its perpetrators. Every party or individual in this world has two choices that have no thirds… who do you stand with as you watch these crimes?” Fanon, writing 63 years ago, agrees: “The colonial world is a Manichaean world… at times this Manichaeism goes to its logical conclusion and dehumanises the native, or to speak plainly, it turns him into an animal. The native is declared insensible to ethics; he represents not only the absence of values, but the negation of values… he is the enemy of values, and in this sense he is the absolute evil. “The native knows all this, and laughs to himself every time he spots an allusion to the animal world in the other’s words. For he knows he is not an animal, and it is precisely at the moment he realises his humanity that he begins to sharpen the weapons with which he will secure victory.”

. . . full article on MEE (1 Feb 2024)

You can also find a free copy of Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth on the Internet Archive (available as a PDF, EPUB etc.)

[opencommunion]

"The Congo’s strategic location in the middle of Africa and its fabulous natural endowment of minerals and other resources have since 1884 ensured that it would serve as a theatre for the playing out of the economic and strategic interests of outsiders: the colonial powers during the scramble for Africa; the superpowers during the Cold War; and neighbouring African states in the post-Cold War era. To prevent a direct confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union, the Security Council deployed from 1960 to 1964 what was then the largest and most ambitious operation ever undertaken by the UN, with nearly 20,000 troops at its peak strength plus a large contingent of civilian personnel for nation-building tasks.

This latter aspect of the Opération des Nations unies au Congo (ONUC) was a function of the fragile political revolution ... The Congo won its independence from Belgium on 30 June 1960. Patrice Lumumba’s MNC-L and its coalition of radical nationalist parties had captured a majority of seats in the lower house of parliament in the pre-independence elections in May. Lumumba became prime minister and head of government, while the Abako leader Joseph Kasa-Vubu became the ceremonial head of state. The victory of a militantly nationalist leader with a strong national constituency was viewed as a major impediment to the Belgian neocolonialist strategy and a threat to the global interests of the Western alliance.

Within two weeks of the proclamation of independence, Prime Minister Lumumba was faced with both a nationwide mutiny by the army and a secessionist movement in the province of Katanga bankrolled by Western mining interests. Both revolts were instigated by the Belgians, who also intervened militarily on 10 July, a day before the Katanga secession was announced. In the hopes of obtaining the evacuation of Belgian troops and white mercenaries, and thus ending the Katanga secession, Lumumba made a successful appeal to the UN Security Council to send a UN peacekeeping force to the Congo. However, the UN secretary-general, Dag Hammarskjöld, interpreted the UN mandate in accordance with Western neocolonialist interests and the US Cold War imperative of preventing Soviet expansion in the Third World. This led to a bitter dispute between Lumumba and Hammarskjöld, which resulted in the US- and Belgian-led initiative to assassinate the first and democratically elected prime minister of the Congo.

... Brussels’ failure to prevent a radical nationalist such as Lumumba from becoming prime minister created a crisis for the imperialist countries, which were determined to have a decolonization favourable to their economic and strategic interests with the help of more conservative African leaders. With Belgium’s failure to transfer power in an orderly fashion to a well-groomed moderate leadership group that could be expected to advance Western interests in Central and Southern Africa, the crisis of decolonization in the Congo required US and UN interventions. Working hand in hand, Washington, New York and Brussels succeeded in eliminating Lumumba and his radical followers from the political scene."

Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja, The Congo from Leopold to Kabila: A People's History, 2002

[josefavomjaaga]

Brun joins Soult’s staff

Continuing with the private memoirs of Brun de Villeret (his “Cahiers”). After being bored out of his skull for a couple of months in Toulon, in November 1805 Brun finally received the long-awaited commission as Soult’s aide-de-camp.

Everything was going according to my wishes, but I was in Toulon, and the Marshal at that time was on his way to Austria.

And as due to the war travelling through Italy seemed out of the question, Brun had to make a detour through Strasbourg, which cost him so much time that he only was able to join the marshal eight days after the battle of Austerlitz.

The marshal was pleased to see me again, but he observed, with his usual gruffness, that I had missed a good opportunity, and he did not relent until I had told him of the difficulties I had encountered on my journey.

This slight inconvenience was not the only one I experienced. I entered a staff composed of young men who were indulging in the most unrestrained libertinism.

This sentence somehow conjures up a vision of Brun arriving in Vienna, opening the door to the antechamber of Soult's appartments and bursting right into some party of the ADCs, with Saint-Chamans dancing on the table in his underwear...

I was not very willing to partake of their pleasures; and there was some difficulty in establishing a close relationship. I realised that my new position might not be a rose without thorns. I judged that the wisest course was to focus on carrying out my duties and to see what would happen. [...]

And this proved to be a good decision, because things arranged themselves over the next couple of weeks.

I read a lot, I studied German and the habit of living together gradually made the prejudices that my colleagues might have had against me fade away.

The marshal took advantage of every opportunity to learn, and by a rather shrewd tactic, he skilfully sought at the table to put the conversation on the subjects of history, science or literature, which he wanted to study or clarify. He thus made up for the defects of a more than incomplete education [...].

Yeah, I guess that’s the kind of education that you will receive as an apprentice of some village notary – especially as an apprentice who one morning jumped out of the window in order to join the military. Somewhat imcomplete indeed.

[...] and there, finding myself on my own ground, I often regained the upper hand that other aides-de-camp enjoyed because of their great names, considerable income, and brilliant bearing, which my financial means did not allow me to attain.

Come to think of it: Brun really is the only one to realize just how bad Soult’s education was. All the other aides, despite the fact they came from good families and must have enjoyed a much better education, are dead impressed by Soult’s knowledge and work ethics. It’s also interesting to note that, while Pétiet keeps complaining about money issues, and while he relates a similar, if joking complaint by Alfred de Lameth, the one guy who really could not count on any financial help from his family but who had wife and children of his own to take care of, Brun de Villeret, was very happy with his position, and says that he managed to save a sum of 40,000 Franc during the years in Spain, because Soult invested some money for his aides into a corsaire, an investment that paid off, and because these aides were lodged and fed at the expense of their marshal.

[niqhtlord01]

Humans are weird: Human cameramen are crazy

( Please come see me on my new patreon and support me for early access to stories and personal story requests :D https://www.patreon.com/NiqhtLord Every bit helps)

The greatest decision Intergalactic Wave 6 ever made was hiring Reggie Bradford.

At the time of Finch’s hiring IW6 was a relatively small news organization based in the outer worlds. Barely reaching four systems on a good day compared to the top contenders like Celestial Times which was broadcasted in inner core systems and pulled in an average of twenty to thirty systems each broadcast. The anchors for IW6 were locals, a Temrelien that needed a third grade translator unit just to be barely understood and a Myporie which couldn’t see the color green.

As the underdog’s underdog, IW6 more often fed off larger stories reported by other stations or small local stories relevant to a handful of worlds.  Nothing interesting happened in their corner of the universe so as long as they broke even they were fine to never reach further than the length of their arm.

Reggie Bradford was a hired on as a cameraman to work for one of the planetary studios on Orbin VIII. You’d find him either working in the back making sure the camera bots were functioning or, more often, when they weren’t he’d be manning the forty pound cameras himself. The studio crews were always amazed how this seemingly out of shape man could heft the heavy outdated camera unit like it was as light as a pen.

They wondered what a lone human was doing so far out in the boonies as he would say, but he would always shrug and say that he felt like this is where he belonged; a notion IW6 would be most grateful for in the coming days.

When the Intherax/Coalition war broke out it was the biggest news story to hit the plasma streams since the death of Empress Karen III when she was eaten by her own corganai.

The Intherax were a militaristic society, trained from birth to kill before anything else, and spanned some fifty star systems not including client kingdoms and vassals. General galactic dealings with them often boiled down to standing aside from whatever they wanted and hoping it wasn’t you or your world, lest the invasion armadas would descend and obliterate what little civilization your people had been able to achieve and then be sold into slavery.

This time however when the Intherax made a proclamation to annex the colony worlds of Jense, Shatu’a, and New Hamburg the current occupants politely told them to bugger off and formed a Coalition for mutual defense. From there dozens of governing powers flocked to the coalition and added their strength to it in what they saw as the best chance of finally checking Intherax aggression once and for all.

Ever one for a challenge, the Interax declared war on this new found coalition and opened the conflict by orbital bombarding Jense until it was little more than a cold husk of rock trapped in the decaying orbit of its system’s sun.

What followed was best described as two sides of no holds bar warfare as the Coalition retaliated with the first ever invasion of Intherax territory against the world called Kai’de.

Naturally every news organization wanted to be seen covering the war, including IW6. Sadly they did not have anyone either brave enough to send so they settled on sending someone they believed was stupid enough and sent Reggie.

They expected to get some b-roll of soldiers marching or shots of fleet warships in formation. They never expected nor asked him to go into active combat. So when the first feed came back during their late night broadcast they were surprised to see that Reggie was onboard an assault ship breaking through atmosphere.

“Reggie,” the Temrelien spoke with every other word shifting tone from the broken translator, “where are you?”

“I’m currently with brave members of the 27th Dragoons as they head to take the fight to the surface of Kai’de.”

Reggie waved a hand at the soldiers who in turn gave a rousing cheer and slammed their feet against the metal decking.

“Orders came in late last night for a massed landing to take the enemy by surprise. From what I understand the Intherax military had not expected coalition forces to invade their territory and have not had time to establish proper defenses.”

Both news anchors looked at each other in confusion.

“If that’s the case isn’t this broadcast putting the entire attack at risk?”

To their surprise Reggie laughed as the camera shook.

“The plan was to get them by surprise, but judging from the amount of anti-air fire,” he said as the assault ship rocked back and forth, “I don’t think they were fooled.”

The camera panned right suddenly as one of the armored dragoons grabbed it and spoke directly into it.

“We want them to know we’re coming! Because we’re going to kill them all!! AHAHAHAH!!”

Another chorus of cheers and whoops came from the soldiers as the soldier let go of the camera and Reggie readjusted it. The anchors wanted to continue their questions when the leader of the dragoons shouted out and interrupted them.

“60 seconds!”

With the order given the soldiers stopped their foolery and began hefting their weapons. Reggie panned the camera over them as they slapped in fresh clips or attached power cables from their backpack generators to their more heavy weaponry.

In awestruck silence the anchors and their viewers watched as the assault shuttle slammed hard into the surface and the boarding ramp flew open.

“GO GO GO GO!!!!” the dragoon leader shouted as the soldiers poured out screaming their battle cries. Reggie waited and filmed them as they disembarked but did not join the first out the ramp. A inclination that saved him as enemy gun fire began raking the ramp striking several soldiers down in clouds of viscera and gore.

The censors barely had time to cut the feed while the horrified anchors composed themselves to resume the broadcast.

In the hours that followed IW6 confirmed that Reggie had survived the battle and had been with the unit of dragoons for the entire duration. During those hours he had recorded the entire engagement from ramp down, to storming city streets as the Intherax deployed building sized walkers, to the hoisting of the coalition flag over the central governing building at the heart of the city.

With this footage viewership numbers for IW6 skyrocketed overnight as none of the other networks had been able to capture such stunning footage. In fact, by the intake of broadcasts none of them had been able to attach an anchor or cameramen to the initial assault save for Reggie. When asked how he had been able to get approved for such a deployment he did not say which only further added to the mystery. Yet for the moment IW6 was far from ready to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Reggie’s footage was shown over and over on IW6 and was soon sublicensed to other networks and shown there. Exploits of the dragoons became known galaxy wide as Reggie followed them through battle after battle; never afraid to risk his life to capture the perfect moment.

When the Intherax fleet arrived in orbit and began to bombard the planet while also fighting the coalition fleet Reggie had forgone sheltering in nearby bunker complexes to film the orbital strikes as they hurtled down all around them.

Thick columns of pure energy shattered buildings and mountains alike as the ground quaked and there stood a lone Reggie filming it all. Even when the anchors begged him to find shelter he simply panned the camera over the city to show entire skyscrapers be reduced to molten mounds the oozed and sludged through the city streets.

By the time the battle had finally ended thanks to Reggie’s footage IW6 climbed the viewership charts to be the third most watched network galaxy wide. Much to the dismay of IW6 it also drew the attention of Reggie the cameraman to the other outlets who began showering him with ever more lavish offers for employment.

Too their surprise he denied them all and said that he was right where he belonged.

[fairuzfan]

June was working at the Goldie restaurant in Philadelphia on Sunday night when protesters started assembling outside the Israeli-American-owned eatery waving Palestinian flags.

"Goldie, Goldie, you can't hide, we charge you with genocide," they chanted.

The 24-year-old June, who asked to be identified by his first name only, told Middle East Eye that they watched the rally through the window of the restaurant which sells falafel, hummus and other Middle Eastern cuisine. June was shift-leading at the time.

"I remember thinking it was a big crowd, given it had been raining," June said.

"No one inside was bothered. I didn't feel unsafe. There were orthodox Jews taking part in the protest. We even had a customer come into the business," June, who is also Jewish, added.

After a few minutes, the protesters left.

When June went home after the shift, they found social media alight with accusations that the crowd had targeted the restaurant because it was a Jewish establishment.

But June says they knew that this wasn't a case of antisemitism.

"The protesters had assembled outside Goldie because the restaurant owner had sent money to an aid organisation that supported the Israeli military. They had come because two employees at Goldie were fired for expressing support for Palestine," June told MEE.

Outraged by the feverish pace with which the false narrative of a marauding mob intimidating a business on account of their Jewishness was being amplified on the internet and the news media, June posted on social media in support of the protesters.

"If you don't want to be directly funding genocide, stay away from Goldie, Kfar, Federal Donuts, Laser Wolf or Zahav. Goldie's parent company CookNSolo held a fundraiser where sales from all their restaurants went to an org [sic] that gives supplies to the IDF [Israeli military]," June wrote.

On the way to work the next morning, June received a call from the restaurant. They were told that they were no longer needed and they was fired with immediate effect.

That made June the third person at Goldie to be fired on account of their pro-Palestinian advocacy since 7 October when Israel's war on Palestine began.

Since late Sunday, the US media, prominent Jewish Americans, Philadelphia's mayor, several lawmakers, and even the White House have issued statements condemning the protests outside the restaurant.

"This is idiotic and dangerous. Protest outside the Israeli consulate or the offices of your member of Congress, not Jewish or Israeli-owned restaurants," prominent Jewish-American writer Peter Beinart wrote.

Likewise, Andrew Bates, a White House spokesperson, described the incident as "antisemitic and completely unjustifiable to target restaurants that serve Israeli food over disagreements with Israeli policy".

On Tuesday, US Vice President Kamala Harris' husband, Doug Emhoff, called Michael Solomonov, the owner of the restaurant group, to express support for his business.

But former employees at Goldie as well as pro-Palestine advocates who either organised or participated in the protest say the outrage was manufactured to distract from both the crimes of the Israeli state and those who have chosen to support it.

"While Goldie was not the goal of our protest, we briefly paused and led chants [outside the restaurant] because the owner, Michael Solomonov, has used proceeds from the restaurant to fund an organisation that works directly with the Israeli Occupational forces," Natalie Abulhawa, a spokesperson from the Philly Palestine Coalition, said.

Abulhalwa said that the group spent only a few minutes outside the restaurant and moved on to other stops before continuing the rally.

"We also stopped at Starbucks for the same reason and then continued to march. Our march was roughly three hours long and we stopped at Goldie's for four minutes, at most," Abulhalwa added.

June, who was at the business at the time, confirmed to MEE that the protesters were only around for a few minutes.

Sophie Hamilton, who worked at Goldie for more than two years, including as a store manager, confirmed to MEE that Solomonov had held a fundraiser in mid-October, where $100,000 was raised for United Hatzalah, an Israeli emergency aid organisation based in Jerusalem.

She said Goldie, part of the CooknSolo company, was not some small-time "mom-and-pop" business, but a sprawling company whose owner was appointed by the Israeli tourism ministry as its culinary ambassador for Israel in 2017. Solomonov is an Israeli chef who owns four restaurants in the Philadelphia area under the CookNSolo banner.

According to a statement released by the Israeli authorities at the time, the role was designed "to champion Israel’s extraordinarily diverse and vibrant culinary landscape".

Hamilton said the company had mischaracterised United Hatzalah to staff as "non-partisan, non-military aligned, like the Red Cross", when a cursory internet search showed that not only did the charity openly collaborate with the Israeli military, they also spoke like an arm of the Israeli state.

"The influx of terrorists infiltrating Israeli territory and the resulting high number of injured individuals also prompted United Hatzalah to provide additional medical supplies and protective equipment to IDF teams on the ground," a statement issued in late October by United Hatzalah, reads.

"Since the beginning of the war, United Hatzalah medical teams have treated over 3,000 soldiers and civilians and provided more than 900 soldiers, civilians, and volunteers with psychological first aid. The organization also delivered over 30 tons of medical supplies and humanitarian aid to the IDF and residents of southern Israel," the statement added.

Hamilton said when she had discovered the information, she refused to take part in the fundraiser because she didn't want to be complicit in the genocide of Palestinians.

However, when she returned to work after the fundraiser, she said she still wanted to show solidarity with Palestinians and decided to wear a pin bearing the Palestinian flag on her shirt.

A few days later, the company came out with a new policy that banned any pin or patch unrelated to the store on their uniforms.

"I wore the pin anyway in defiance of the policy and I was sent home that day," Hamilton says.

When she returned to work, she decided she needed the job and abided by the policy. But when one of her colleagues, Noah Wood, refused to take off his pin, and she wouldn't discipline him as his manager, she was fired. And so was he.

"I would never, as a manager censor someone I work with for showing their heartfelt belief in human rights," Hamilton said.

Wood, who had already resigned from his job on account of the suppression of Palestinian advocacy at the restaurant, was serving his notice period at the time when he was told to stay home.

He told MEE that it appears a customer complaint may have led to his dismissal.

"We've had LGBTQ flags up in the store. They might still be up. And one of the other locations had Black Lives Matter signage, so it wasn't as if it was an entirely politically neutral work environment," Wood said.

"You must remember Sophie and I didn't say anything. We didn't argue with customers. We weren't posting online. We were just wearing Palestine patches and pins and this seemed to make a customer uncomfortable, and this was enough for termination," he added.

Goldie and its parent company, CookNSolo, did not immediately reply to MEE's request for comment.

Activists say they remain appalled by the smear campaigns pitted against Palestinians on a daily basis. The rush to defend a business working with the Israeli army under the mask of an antisemitic attack was in line with the higher echelons of the American state to equate criticism of Israel with antisemitism, they say.

With the devastation in Gaza spiralling and the death toll ever increasing - now upwards of 16,000 Palestinians - organisers say the rapid resort to smear those who dare to raise the plight of Palestinians was the surest sign that officials had run out of excuses to justify the support of Israel.

Activists say the flurry of support for the Israeli-owned business also showed the close ties between the US political establishment and Israel-aligned businesses.

"The hypocrisy of our elected officials is despicable. Within a couple hours of our protest, Pennsylvania's Governor Josh Shapiro and others ran to Twitter to accuse us of antisemitism with absolutely no context and no facts," Abulhalwa, with the Philly Palestine Coalition, said.

"No one from their offices reached out to us to 'investigate'," Abulhalwa added.

Organisers said US politicians were constantly attempting to portray pro-Palestinian protesters as unhinged or violent when it was the US state that was supporting genocide in Gaza and it was Palestinians in the US who have either been killed or physically attacked.

In its report about the call made by Emhoff, the US vice president's husband, to Solomonov, the owner of Goldie, NBC News reported that the duo spoke about "how food was actually supposed to bring people together rather than be a source of division"

Likewise, Pennsylvania's Governor Shapiro, who was among the first to condemn the protests outside Goldie, baked bread with its owner, Solomonov, as recently as September.

"Being an Israeli ambassador is a big part of Solomonov's brand," Leila, a Jewish-American who took part in the protest outside Goldie on Sunday, said.

Leila, who offered only her first name to MEE, said the suggestion that any part of the action outside the restaurant may have been construed as antisemitic was simply absurd.

June, the former employee at Goldie, who had watched the protest from inside the store itself, said the charge of antisemitism was divorced from reality.

"They didn't come to the restaurant simply because it was Jewish-owned. If that was the case, they would've gone to hundreds of restaurants across the city," June said.

Likewise, Abuhalwa said the smears against Palestinians were once more exposing a double standard toward Palestinian life.

"Palestinian protesters being held at gunpoint by a racist, Islamophobe is a hate crime. Palestinians being shot for wearing keffiyehs is a hate crime. A grown man stabbing a little boy for being Muslim is a hate crime. Using your First Amendment rights and peacefully protesting is not a hate crime.

"They accused us of targeting Goldie because it's Jewish-owned, which is far from the truth. Solomonov is not being targeted due to his religious beliefs, but rather his ties to a violent apartheid state that is currently enacting a genocide," Abuhalwa added.

Meanwhile, June, the 24-year-old who lost his job at Goldie for supporting the protesters, says he has no regrets.

"If I could educate more people on how this company feels about Palestinians being killed, I'd gladly do it in a heartbeat," June said.

"I will always advocate and support anyone who advocates for a ceasefire and an end to the occupation of Palestine," they added.

[sayruq]

Biden's visit has concluded. Israel has spent his entire visit trying to muddy the waters of what happened to Al Ahli Hospital and despite their cartoonish efforts, it hasn't worked

The Global South and especially West Asia know who is responsible for the bombing and no amount of AI voice recordings of 'Hamas operatives' can change that.

Israel war crimes continues to backfire on them even in America

Biden backing Israel has had an impact on America's image. Here's a Wall Street Journal article warning that America's continued support is turning countries towards Russia and China which is code for turning countries against America

An EU official said that the EU will pay a heavy price in the Global South for its continued, unabashed support for Israel

There's also speculation that the Biden administration knew about the bombing before it happened.

Countries that were/are allied with Israel continue to distance themselves from Israel like Russia. The reason I keep highlighting Russia is because the West has been running out of ammunition due to the Russia-Ukraine war and that includes Israel which is rumoured to have sent 80-90% of its ammunition to Ukraine. If this conflict lasts a long time, Israel will need to buy weapons and ammunition and Russia would be one of the countries they would turn to (same with China)

So, where are we in terms of the conflict? After days of waffling over a ground operation in Gaza, Israel postponed it until some time after Biden's visit and now we're back here again

Now I'm no military expert but constantly going back and forth on whether or not you'll invade Gaza is bound to do damage to your troops' morale. No wonder they're dealing with mass desertions while their citizens demonstrate on the streets. The Israeli leadership has no plan besides bombing Gaza.

I've seen people on twitter say that the hospital bombing was done deliberately to normalise IDF soldiers to mass civilian deaths in places like hospitals, schools, places of worship, etc. I don't know if I believe that - I think they wanted to push Iran and Hezbollah's buttons before hiding behind Biden. I don't think these people are thinking strategically.

As far as the possibility of regional war is concerned, all indicators show that the West preparing for the war to escalate

Seems to me the Israel has seen what Ukraine has received in just a year and a half of war. They're done receiving a paltry 3.8 billion every year and now prepared to drag out the conflict and I can't say I blame with Biden proposing a 100 billion package for both Ukraine and Israel. This will stretch America too thin as far as funding in concerned. Cracks are already showing

There are parts of the US government that is unhappy that the Ukraine war is losing attention. During the Ukraine war, you had parts of the government that wanted focus to shift from Russia to China. Because of that, the US government has spent the past year alternating between hostility to Russia and threatening to go to war with China over Taiwan. When Niger expelled France from within its borders, America was preparing to join that conflict until Mali and Burkina Faso declared they would fight with Niger. Now they're entering a third front in West Asia. In short, the mighty empire is expending a lot of resources right now and it is not the threat it was when it invaded Iraq and Afghanistan in the early 2000s.

At any rate, the ground invasion of Gaza won't go the way Israel and America hopes it will

The coalition of Palestinian resistance fighters are still patiently waiting for the IDF to come meet them. Their allies aren't backing down either

The reason I keep making these posts is to remind people that, while the genocide of the people of Gaza is horrifying, the war for the liberation of Palestine has not yet been lost.

Do not lose hope. From the river to sea, Palestine WILL be free

[ripstefano]

“Poor Blucher went mad for some time. He had shown off before some of our ladies, and got a fall from his horse and a blow on his head. This gave him all sorts of strange fancies. When I went to take leave of him, he positively told me he was pregnant! And what do you think he said he was pregnant of? – An elephant! And who do you think he said had produced it? – A French soldier!…”

- Recounted by Wellington to Stanhope, unknowingly exemplifying the dangers of directly translating your language to English without any context.

There’s a bit of a comedic story involving a Prussian diplomat during the War of the Third Coalition, Prussia being one of the main boss enemies during the early revolution was dragging its feet to declare war this time. Finally about to do it, the diplomat arrives just in time to hear the result of the battle of Austerlitz, and instead congratulates the French.

Queen Louise being one of Napoleon’s biggest haters on the continent is another funny little quirk about the Prussians.

As for their uniforms? The reference book really only covered the later army, but you can get a feel of the military practicality present. Overcoats, blankets, blues and grays, the Russo-German legion was dripped out a bit. The cavalry wasn’t too bad either.

From Blucher’s Army, 1813-15.

[zvaigzdelasas]

The Israeli military campaign in Gaza, experts say, now sits among the deadliest and most destructive in recent history. In just over two months, the offensive has wreaked more destruction than the razing of Syria’s Aleppo between 2012 and 2016, Ukraine’s Mariupol or, proportionally, the Allied bombing of Germany in World War II. It has killed more civilians than the U.S.-led coalition did in its three-year campaign against the Islamic State group. The Israeli military has said little about what kinds of bombs and artillery it is using in Gaza. But from blast fragments found on-site and analyses of strike footage, experts are confident that the vast majority of bombs dropped on the besieged enclave are U.S.-made. They say the weapons include 2,000-pound (900-kilogram) “bunker-busters” that have killed hundreds in densely populated areas.

With the Palestinian death toll in Gaza surpassing 20,000, the international community is calling for a cease-fire. Israel vows to press ahead[...]

The Biden administration has quietly continued to supply arms to Israel. Last week, however, President Joe Biden publicly acknowledged that Israel was losing international legitimacy for what he called its “indiscriminate bombing.”[...]

Israel’s offensive has destroyed over two-thirds of all structures in northern Gaza and a quarter of buildings in the southern area of Khan Younis,[...]

The percentage of damaged buildings in the Khan Younis area nearly doubled in just the first two weeks of Israel’s southern offensive, they said. That includes tens of thousands of homes as well as schools, hospitals, mosques and stores. U.N. monitors have said that about 70% of school buildings across Gaza have been damaged. At least 56 damaged schools served as shelters for displaced civilians. Israeli strikes damaged 110 mosques and three churches, the monitors said. Israel holds Hamas responsible for civilian deaths by embedding militants in civilian infrastructure. Those sites also shelter multitudes of Palestinians who have fled under Israeli evacuation orders. “Gaza is now a different color from space. It’s a different texture,” said Scher, who has worked with Van Den Hoek to map destruction across several war zones, from Aleppo to Mariupol.[...]

By some measures, destruction in Gaza has outpaced Allied bombings of Germany during World War II.[...]

“Gaza is one of the most intense civilian punishment campaigns in history,” said Pape. “It now sits comfortably in the top quartile of the most devastating bombing campaigns ever.”[...]

So far, fragments of American-made Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAM) bombs and smaller diameter bombs have been found in Gaza, according to Brian Castner, a weapons investigator with Amnesty International.[...] In an Oct. 31 strike on the urban refugee camp of Jabaliya, experts say a 2,000-pound bomb killed over 100 civilians. Experts have also identified fragments of SPICE (Smart, Precise Impact, Cost-Effective) 2000-pound bombs, which are fitted with a GPS guidance system to make targeting more precise. Castner said the bombs are produced by the Israeli defense giant Rafael, but a recent State Department release first obtained by The New York Times showed some of the technology had been produced in the United States.

22 Dec 23