Image is of Ansarallah military spokesman Yahya Saree delivering a statement/speech.
The ceasefire appears to be at least temporarily over, with an exchange of fire between (what appears to be) predominantly Iran and the entity, though as always I expect we'll find increasing evidence of direct US involvement.
The chain of events was as follows, in spoilers below for those who haven't been keeping up:
chain of events summary
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A while ago, Iran warned the occupation entity that if they strike Beirut (with particular emphasis on its southern suburbs, which is an area where Hezbollah officials/structures are concentrated as I understand it) then they will directly strike the north of Occupied Palestine, turning the area into a military zone, and encouraged settlers to leave to avoid civilian casualties.
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This warning was grudging accepted by the entity, who ordinarily has a policy called the Daniyeh Doctrine, in which they murder civilians en masse by bombing apartment buildings and houses in enemy cities in order to pressure the military forces they are battling to give into conditions they ordinarily would not be obliged to accept, because the Zionist ground campaigns are usually fairly ineffective at achieving goals on medium to long timescales. While removing their ability to bomb Beirut didn't halt the Daniyeh Doctrine entirely (they could and did hit other places), their distinct inability to strike the capital when they ordinarily could do that freely was a big source of discontentment in both the civilian population and the military.
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As Hezbollah increasingly attrited the Zionist offensive forces, the attractiveness of bombing Beirut in retaliation increased regardless of the consequences, and of course the Zionists do still want to do anything they can to attack and weaken Iran directly and are much worse at hiding this than even the US. This resentment culminated on June 7th, where the Zionists conducted an airstrike on Beirut on a Hezbollah HQ.
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Iran immediately said that this constituted a break in the ceasefire, and Khamenei put Iran back on a full war footing. Within 6 hours of the strike on Beirut, Iranian missiles were flying towards the northern occupied territories, in what they regarded as merely a warning shot. Western media was obviously fairly dismissive of this; 182% interception rates and all that jazz, but we have several videos of missiles hitting targets.
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Trump publicly warned the Zionists to not respond, which many sensible people immediately diagnosed as kayfabe, and Iran obviously remained on guard against a counterattack. This came a few hours later from Zionist drones and stand-off strikes from aircraft likely in Iraqi airspace, just like in the initial phase of the war months ago. These hit sites in western and central Iran, including a petrochemical facility, but also with some interceptions.
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Iran then responded to this counterattack with a yet bigger warning shot into the occupied territories. Ansarallah also joined in with strikes on the Zionists, and they additionally announced that the Red Sea is now closed to all vessels linked directly to the entity. Certain accounts have said that the Bab el Mandab is now actually under full blockade, but this is not clearly substantiated as of me writing this at about 2pm BST, June 8th. There's been a lot of "considering closing" and "threatening to close" and "moving to close" the Red Sea over the ceasefire period that hasn't materialized, so I don't want to get out over my skis.
Worth noting that according to Yves over at Naked Capitalism (a fairly reliable and left-leaning, but not communist, website), we're now about a month or so away from reaching "tank bottom". This is largely because commercial demand destruction has not sufficiently occurred due to oil price market manipulations keeping it low, and also because there have been basically no government policies in the US like widespread work-from-home orders. So, soon the shortages will be of the literal oil molecules not being available and not just the price signal. So there's an increasing anxiety in the US to get this conflict over before the economy really starts to crash in the latter half of the year, one way or another. As a deal seems only increasingly unlikely given US stubborness and inability to accept battlefield realities, a return to military strikes as we've seen appears the only way forward, despite almost catastrophic munitions shortages.
Last week's thread is here.
The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
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The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.
The Zionist Entity's Genocide of Palestine
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against the temporary Zionist entity. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA reports on the Zionists' destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news.
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
Mirrors of Telegram channels that have been erased by Zionist censorship.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don't want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it's just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists' side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR's former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR's forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster's telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a 'propaganda tax', if you don't believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
They had and have maintained an Islamic revolution that wasn't communist and it was the successful route of their liberation from monarchy and colonial influence. What else was their success in these endeavors reliant on? Why is it insulting to look at the material conditions of the people and see the correlation? A bunch of proud and devout religious people overcame adversity through their faith.
A large part of the Black liberation movement came out of Christianity that was forced on Black people via their subjugation by Europeans, should they be embarrassed of that or is it just the circumstances they found themselves in while still attempting to better their circumstances?
I don't understand why a communist should be embarrassed of having a clear and accurate analysis of any given situation. Islam is obviously an intrinsic part of Iran, which is why the leadership hasn't become like most of the nations around them and succumbed to Israel and US influence.
Syria is run by self proclaimed Muslims but they obviously don't actually prioritize their religion because they are actually pawns of Israel and the US. Saudia Arabia is run by self proclaimed Muslims but they worship money, not Allah, so they are not beholden to the demands of Islam. If Iranian leadership acted like this, there would be a second Islamic revolution in Iran that would put devour Muslims in charge again, because that is the priority of the masses as devout Muslims themselves.
They didn't overcome anything through faith, they made actual efforts and sacrifices against imperialism. The success of a revolution does not require belief in religion.
Christianity has been a consistently reactionary force in America for its entire history. Nearly all the racists and homophobes in the US call themselves Christian. Some civil rights leaders being Christian does not mean Christianity was a positive force in black liberation.
What is this nonsense? American allies don't count as Muslim but Iran does? Iranians would overthrow an unjust Islamic government but Saudis and Syrians apparently cannot? Does religion just not exist when it isn't anti-imperialist?
Religion is subject to dialectics, right? So, the religious superstructure is produced from the material base even as the religious superstructure reproduces the material base. In Iran the religious superstructure is formed from sovereignty, whereas the religious superstructure in US allies is formed from imperialism: revolutionary nationalist Islam vs compradore Islam.
The religion, itself, did not make Iranians resistant to imperialism. Resistance to imperialism made religion in Iran anti-imperialist.
Christianity can have a similar superstructure in the right material circumstances. See: liberation theology, Black churches.
It was an Islamic revolution, of course that was a primary factor in motivating Muslims to participate. Why are you so intent on trying to subtract the core motivating principles of people from their decisions? If it was an atheist, socialist revolution it wouldn't have worked because the Muslim masses would have rejected it.
I'm not arguing that it was a positive force in Black liberation, I am arguing that it was present and highly influential and can't be subtracted from reality because it existed without regard for your own opinions on it. Understanding that it did indeed play a significant role because of the historical and cultural context that Black liberation happened in is just part of having a meaningful analysis. We can not pretend that the philosophical and ideological conviction of the masses doesn't play an important part in their mass movement. Islam is obviously a part of the Iranian historical and cultural context and cannot be removed from an analysis just because you are an atheist.
This is why you should probably study Islamic history even from a secular lens before speaking about things you don't know about. People claiming to be Muslims but actively and openly defying the Quran are not the same as people who claim to be Muslims and are clearly trying to abide by the principles of their religion. Wahhabism is a deviation of Islam which is not Islamic and exists purely as mechanism of power and not as an attempt to surrender to the will of Allah. I'm pointing out the material differences in how the historical and cultural conditions play out and how Iran (and Yemen and other Shia groups) are qualitatively and materially different than other self proclaimed Muslims who are fundamentally rejecting the principles of their religion despite maintaining the cultural aesthetics of Islam.
Catholics in Latin America used a Catholic lens to overthrow their oppressors who were also Catholic. Catholic Irish and Italians and French people didn't do that, even though some of them were proposing that, they couldn't convince the masses to do so because of the difference conditions the European Catholics were in versus the colonized Catholics.
To have an accurate material analysis means studying and investigating these differences and trying to understand what makes them different. Instead of hand waiving all Muslims into a monolith and being surprised when someone points out there are very different circumstances within Islam, you could investigate what you are talking about before trying to speak on it.
I don't agree with this. Plenty of religious countries have had successful secular revolutions and active communist parties.
It is extremely ironic to claim that I'm treating Islam as a monolith while claiming that Islam in (insert American aligned country) isn't really Islam, despite them describing themselves as such, and that the "true" Muslims are indeed one big anti-imperialist bloc. Religion is very obviously clouding your view of material reality and I don't care to keep arguing past that.
Yemen has communists in government right now. I'm not claiming that a religious nation can't have a secular revolutionary movement, I'm saying the conditions of the Islamic revolution in Iran were different and that's why it was a religious movement. US backed repression of secular and Muslim leftists in the region has forced Islam to be the only choice for mass organizing. It is still a religious movement and the religion plays a large part. If Iran was majority Sunni instead of Shia, or majority Jewish instead of Muslim, or majority Zoroastrian even, the conditions would have been different and things would have gone differently. Their response to the monarchy and colonial forces would have been different, and perhaps not revolutionary at all but instead collaborative with their oppressors.
The Shia resistance movement exists, and why? What makes it materially different than the other things around it? Why is it that Shia martyrs are the largest group dying to fight imperialism in the region? There are so many ethnic groups and religions in the region, but somehow all these otherwise unrelated people who share the same religious philosophy all decide to resist imperialists at all costs. Most of not all of them could have chosen a path of servitude to imperialism and said they would rather die.
Are there not material differences between Mormons, Catholics and Protestants, despite all claiming to be Christian? Couldn't we compare the demands of their philosophies to the actions of their followers and have an analysis of which groups are most accurately following the tenets of their religions? I have religious Jewish comrades who would say that most Zionist Jews are not practicing the religion correctly and are in fact going against it.
There are obviously material factors at play, which of course includes ideological and philosophical influences, but you clearly aren't interested in understanding them. Still, they exist in reality and if you don't attempt to understand them you don't really have any knowledge on the subject to begin speaking from.
Your atheism is obviously clouding your view of material reality and forcing you to lose access to the basic understanding that hundreds of millions of people believing the same thing and organizing around it's philosophical and theoretical principles allows them to do more to defy capitalism than you are without ever calling themselves socialists in the first place.
A bunch of Muslims who don't give a shit about communism are still out organizing everyone here when it comes to the fight against capitalism and imperialism, and instead of trying to have an accurate understanding of the complexities of this reality (the Sunni/Shia split being one of hundreds of different variables one would need to look at to start forming an analysis) you are hand waiving it all away and flat out refusing to contend with it because you are more committed to atheism than you are to dialectical materialism.