news

Al Jazeera: Apartheid South Africa reached a tipping point, Israel will, too

The number of children killed in Gaza has surpassed the annual number of children killed in conflict globally; the number of civilians killed in Gaza has now exceeded the total death toll in Ukraine since February 2022. These numbers are climbing every day, as the Israeli military continues to indiscriminately bomb civilian buildings, including hospitals and schools.

As a Black South African, watching these horrific events unfold, I cannot but reflect on my country’s own violent past. I recall the relentless planning and violence that accompanied the last decades of white South Africa’s attempts to make apartheid work. I remember the fears that grew among white South Africans as they put their trust in a sophisticated military capability, a conscription army, a nuclear weapons capacity and steadfast friends in the West, particularly the United States, Britain and France.

It was the height of the Cold War and South Africa claimed to be the only democracy in Southern Africa, protecting “civilisation” from the encroaching threats surrounding it. Its military might and expansive police force were accompanied by a series of policies designed to maintain white minority rule. Each attempt to impose new such policies failed in the face of mass resistance. The more they failed, the more brutal the violence meted out by the military and the police with the encouragement of white politicians and a terrified white electorate.

The “terrorists”, as the national liberation movements were referred to, could not be crushed by the mightiest army in Southern Africa. By mid-1985 a significant section of the white electorate and some in the ruling party realised that the problem of Black resistance was not going to go away. Something more drastic was going to be required.

The then State President, the hawkish P W Botha, himself a former defence minister, was encouraged by a faction of his party to open parliament that year with a conciliatory speech, to make a grand policy statement that would offer the Black majority a hopeful sign that they would become part of the whites-only democracy that was South Africa. It was called the “crossing of the Rubicon speech”. Botha played along but at the last minute baulked and defiantly went in the opposite direction, instead giving a speech in which he vowed to intensify the fight against “terrorism”, refusing to negotiate with “terrorists” in prison, like Nelson Mandela. What followed was the extension of the state of emergency in South Africa and the killing of thousands of people resisting apartheid rule, as Botha and his faction turned to more and more violence and repression.

Eventually, his own party leaders staged a palace coup and installed F W de Klerk in power. The new president and the faction he represented had realised that the end was nigh, that the decades of repression were not succeeding in making a political and economic system work that excluded the majority and only benefitted the white minority. De Klerk and his faction realised that whites were not going to win the war, even if they had more guns, bombs, tanks and artillery and could probably continue to rule for a long time through sheer force. It was not sustainable because the more repression they deployed, the more resistance they faced and the more white South Africans lived in fear.

The more the violence was flashed across the world’s television screens, the harder it became for white South Africa’s friends in the West to steadfastly support it. It was a tipping point that led to political negotiations, to talking to “the terrorists” who they saw as their existential enemy. It was a tipping point that created the pathway to a single state with equal citizenship for all, based on residency, not origins, race, religion or ethnicity.

...

Ordinary Israelis may begin to realise that no matter how sophisticated or strong the Israeli army, Mossad, or the apartheid regime appear, the “Palestinian problem” is not going to go away as long as the Palestinians are alive. Just as with white South Africans, fear grows exponentially. And Israel is responding to that fear with a colossal bombing campaign of annihilation. But as white South Africans learned, violence cannot eradicate the “problem”, nor create the life of peace they might long for. [...] Whatever may be left in the ruins and rubble that awaits us after this war on Gaza, Israel’s “Palestinian problem” will not have gone away. Ordinary Israelis will surely never sleep again with the confidence that their state can fully protect them. They will do well to learn from white South Africans who, after 300 years of minority rule, realised it was an impossible political project to continue to defend so violently, and still maintain any semblance of a moral high ground.

There is a tipping point when even for the defenders of such a project, the faint question rings louder and louder in the collective conscience: how far is too far? There can be no going back to the promises of security based on what was before. There can be no going forward in peace if it means more and more blood of children and civilians haunting successive generations who will have to take responsibility for the actions unfolding before our eyes today. As a South African who has lived to cross the Rubicon, I hope this catastrophe will force Israelis to see that only a just and inclusive political solution based on equal citizenship for all is going to bring them freedom from fear.

Norm Finkelstein reports...

Regarding the hostage deal between Israel and Hamas, the Times reports that "Hostages likely won't be released until Thursday at the earliest, to allow time for Israeli judges to review potential legal challenges to the prisoner release, according to Israeli officials."

It is reported that famed attorney Alan Dershowitz will petition the Israel High Court demanding that, as part of the deal, his pool privileges be restored at Martha's Vineyard.

Nitter

What I'm Reading: Pushing back on pandemic revisionism.

Pandemic revisionism has been on my mind lately. It seems that many people incorrectly believe we didn’t achieve much, despite our efforts. How quickly we forget. The horrors of New York City in the early days of Covid-19 reflected a virus spreading without mitigation. Virtually everywhere other than New York City experienced Covid-19 dramatically differently—that is, other US cities encountered the novel coronavirus in the context of serious efforts to contain it. That’s why truckloads of dead bodies didn’t become a fixture anywhere outside of New York City’s early outbreak.

I’m not alone in worrying that people have forgotten all of this. Lately, New York Times writer David Wallace Wells has been using his column to interview some pandemic experts around this topic. His interviews with two colleagues with whom I have collaborated, Dr. Katelyn Jetelina and Dr. Michael Mina, are highly recommended reading for anyone interested in what lessons from the pandemic we should have learned—and these go beyond the usual platitudes.

So for this installment of “What I’m Reading,” I’m sharing another Wallace Wells interview. In this interview, Wallace Wells interviews the authors of a new book entitled “The Big Fail: What the Pandemic Revealed About Who America Protects and Who It Leaves Behind.”

This is no ordinary interview. Wallace Wells clearly read this book and identified within it a key—and devastating—contradiction in its reasoning. Here is an early excerpt from the interview:

In the beginning of the book you write, in what almost feels like a thesis statement for the book: “A central tenet of this book is that we could not have done better, and pretending differently is a dangerous fiction, one that prevents us from taking a much needed look in the mirror.”

This claim, that the U.S. could not have done any better, runs against your other claim, that what we observed was an American failure. It is also a pretty extreme claim, I think, and I wanted to press you on it in part because it is, in my view, undermined by quite a lot of the work you do in the book itself.

Would the U.S. not have done better if it had recognized earlier that the disease spread through the air rather than in droplets? Would it not have done better if it hadn’t bungled the rollout of a Covid test in the early months? You write at length about PPE shortages and the problems of coordinating care between hospitals in the early months — would the country not have done better if it had addressed those problems quickly, or not suffered from them to begin with? Disparities in health care access — is it a dangerous fiction to think we might address that? You guys are big champions of Operation Warp Speed — would it not have been better if those vaccines had been rolled out to the public in nine months, rather than 12, getting shots into the arms of the vulnerable elderly before the first big winter surge? —David Wallace Wells, The New York Times.

Indeed, how can someone say we failed and also say that we could not have done any better?

[...] Wallace Wells surgically dissects a bizarre but increasingly popular viewpoint espoused in the book; that we did too much and that the benefits were nowhere near sufficient to justify them.

Dublin Riots seem similar to those Ukraine-backed airport mobs in Dagestan. A hard right telegram/whatsapp group gets whipped into a frenzy and sicked on the streets. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if intelligence agencies were at least supporting this kind of thing.

9m ago (18:10 GMT)

US may redesignate Houthis as ‘terrorist’ organisation after ship hijacking

White House National Security Council spokesman Kirby says the Biden administration is considering the redesignation, citing “recent targeting of civilians by the Houthis” and “piracy of a ship in international waters”.

The Biden administration formally delisted the group as a “foreign terrorist organization” and “Specially Designated Global Terrorists” in 2021, undoing a last-minute move by former US President Donald Trump. The UN and aid groups had criticised the designations, saying the restrictions they created complicated aid delivery in the war-torn country.

The Yemen-based Houthis yesterday claimed the hijacking of a cargo ship in the Red Sea with 25 crew aboard. It said the ship was linked to Israel, although Israel said none of the crew were Israeli. They continue to be held by the Houthis.

Speaking to reporters, Kirby also said US officials did not want to comment on a possible captive release deal between Hamas and Israel: “We won’t say and do not want to say anything in these delicate hours that could put a deal at greater risk.”

- Al Jazeera

Huge victory in the Sahel. Mali and Wagner PMC liberated a northern city Kidal from NATO terrorists.

https://orinocotribune.com/mali-celebrates-liberation-of-kidal-from-separatist-groups/

Guess who this is

https://en.mdn.tv/7TcJ

DPRK withdraws from Inter-Korean military agreement

Summary of the economic impact of the war on Israel: https://nitter.cz/meowsandry/status/1728029686091956732

This thread succinctly explains the effect on “Israel’s” economy inflicted by the resistance. Highly suggest you all read the articles. I’ll just summarize a few points:

— ‘Israel’ borrowed $6B in loans just to finance this war, which is plummeting them into debt & making many investors reluctant to invest due to high ESG (environmental, social and governance) risk

— Amid an immediate effort to quell up-coming inflation, the Central Bank of ‘Israel’ has already sold $30B in foreign exchange to reserve the shekel from collapse. This coupled with the loans will inevitably drive up interest-rates, which is already starting to happen

— S&P Global Ratings lowered Israel’s credit outlook from stable to negative

— IMF chief says this could lead to a grave economic weakness, as global oil supply may face disruptions

— Companies that are supporting ‘Israel’ (ex. McDonald’s) are starting to feel the effects of the boycotts, especially in ME.

— “Israel” postponed nearly 3M shekels of loan repayments in October. A total of 117,000 loans were deferred.

— The Washington Post publishes an article stating that if the ground war invasion continues for three months, the economy would be gravely affected, and the 300,000 reservists would need to return to work, they’ve already considered reducing the mobilization of reserve soldiers (from 360,000 to 200,000)

— There are practically no flights to “Israel”

(Keep in mind, these effects all worsen as this continues, and it doesn’t include the millions ‘Israel’ has lost bc of the resistance destroying their military vehicles)

https://nitter.cz/squatsons/status/1727000719096697131#m

Russian Tu-95 bombers are reportedly preparing to launch a cruise missile attack after a long hiatus. Considering the time of year, it's probably time for more infrastructure strikes.

fuck landlords
fuck cars

Egypt and Yemen should just Just close the strait to any ships going to Israel.

My chud father tired to the situation in Israel "every group has terroists...." and went on the conflate Pakistan with Palestine.

Commander of the Yemeni Navy to the crew of Israeli-owned cargo ship Galaxy Leader:

"We consider all of the crew as Yemeni people. Anything you want, we will bring it. You can consider Yemen as your own country."

https://twitter.com/Aldanmarki/status/1727327179028025744?t=i9jCKheKU9gCFRyDLWiCJQ&s=19

Twitter thread on Israel using the bodies of dead Palestinian children to film atrocity propaganda: https://nitter.cz/bidetmarxman/status/1728163260954775685 (CW: dead Palestinian children)

Israeli snipers shot a man and left him to bleed and they opened fire at anyone that tried to go help him. CW gunfire

Your Thursday Briefing:

Putin has said during the G20 online summit:

“The injection of trillions of dollars and euros into the economy, into the banking system, ultimately provoked a surge in global inflation, a rapid increase in food and energy prices. This is precisely what lies at the heart of the events that I mentioned [turbulence in the global economy], not our actions and our attempts to achieve justice in Ukraine, no,”

Erdogan continues to do a little trolling by not ratifying Sweden's accession to NATO in time for a meeting of NATO foreign ministers next week. Meanwhile, an intern at Baykar, producer of the eponymous and rather lackluster drones, was caught stealing four hard disks in Istanbul - possibly to sell them.

The EU is overhauling its environmental laws covering crimes, criminalizing illegal logging, the introduction of invasive species, and illegal water withdrawals. Individuals can face at least ten years in prison, while companies might get a minimum of 5% of their total reveneues fined.

The fascist PVV party in the Netherlands achieved a plurality of votes, with 37 out of 150 seats in parliament, thus needing a coalition with parties worth a further 39 seats to achieve a majority. The Labor-Green bloc won 25 seats and outgoing PM Mark Rutte's party won 24 seats. The party wants to halt all immigration and is generally anti-EU.

Finland has closed all but one of its border crossings with Russia in an attempt to stem the flow of hundreds of Middle Eastern asylum seekers sent nefariously by the scheming Kremlin to destabilise Finland. Finland will not fall for Putin's evil ruse, and will valiantly let them die in the winter cold instead of give in to terrorist regimes.

Disinformation experts in Slovakia's new government have been leaving their posts after it has been posting pro-Russian propaganda, such as that Ukrainians are fascists and that the US is to blame for the war.

The DPRK has suspended its 2018 military accord, which was signed to de-escalate tensions along the border, with its US-occupied lower half. This comes after the DPRK launched its military reconnaissance satellite. Kim Jong Un has already viewed photographs of US military facilities.

Russia and China have been angling for the best position on the Akkas gas field in Anbar province, Iraq, as the country remains very geopolitically important due to its position and resources. The gas field contains 5.6 trillion cubic feet of proven reserves.

Iran has been de-designating (that is, telling to fuck off, as is their legal right) several highly-knowledgable IAEA nuclear inspectors, with has prompted concerns by Rafael Grossi, suspecting Iran of getting up to some sussy stuff. Given the constant fearmongering over the years about how Iran is a mere 9 nanoseconds from possessing nukes, if it ever does happen it'll be a "boy who cried wolf" incident.

40% of African financial institutions want a single African currency akin to the euro, and a similar number want a more open pan-African banking system. Business leaders are generally upbeat on African economic prospects but wary of inflation and debt.

The French foreign minister has said: "Contrary to what some media outlets, and social networks in particular, are saying, France is absolutely not being driven out of Africa, and we're not in decline at all."

The UN stabilisation mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has agreed to withdraw its 15,000 peacekeepers (though without a firm timeline) after President Tshisekedi called for them to accelerate the withdrawal in September, due to a lack of real protection against rebel groups.

Conflict in Sudan continues, with refugees streaming out of the region. Chad, a country of 17 million people that was already struggling, has had to take in over one million refugees, with malnutrition affecting many. The World Food Programme is aiding all they can. Meanwhile, the Rapid Support Forces in opposition to the Sudanese government have made advances in Darfur, a region in western Sudan, with four out of Darfur's five states now in RSF hands. Former rebel groups that previously opposed the government are now stepping out of neutrality and deciding to fight alongside the government. The RSF is accused of having supply lines from Chad, Libya, and CAR, which all border Darfur.

After in an extended drought season marked by five failed rains which caused 15 million people in East Africa to descend into food insecurity, flooding in Somalia, Kenya, and Ethiopia is happening on a wide scale, with 1.5 million hectares submerged in Somalia, or over 2% of the country. This has impacted 1.7 million in Somalia (10% of the population), and overall 3.1 million across the region. Food sources like livestock are under threat due to diseases.

Gay furry hackers have hacked the Idaho National Laboratory, with employee addresses, social security numbers, bank account information, and other data posted online. The hackers said that if the INL researched creating catgirls irl, they would take down the leak.

In the Dominican Republic, 27 people have died and over 7000 homes affected in torrential rains that broke records, with 431 millimeters in recent days.

President Lula said on Tuesday that “Brazil had to play a very strong role to not allow Africa to continue being held hostage by colonizers or by very strong interventions from China, which was seeking to buy the food they needed so much,” in a public critique of Chinese policy.

Milei's office mistakenly identified the UK foreign secretary, David Cameron, as instead James Cameron, the Chapo-endorsed film director.

Israeli Anti-Furniture Brigades performing their mission effectively and efficiently.

Receiving reports that the Hamas front known as "IKEA" - that is, the Islamic Khamas Evil Army - might be the next target for Israeli bombing raids.

Israel is not okay. Jpost is completely unhinged already, but this is a minister oped

https://nitter.cz/Shack_Rat/status/1728511374144201161

https://twitter.com/Shack_Rat/status/1728511374144201161

Thai hostage sister statement

Love the 20-40% of comments on MoA's latest piece on 'sub-imperial power' trying to make it about jews instead of capitalist elites.

https://archive.is/3Ea6D

KKKanadian super-pigs are about to invade the U.S.

Also did you know that the USDA has drones and airplanes dedicated to hunt pigs on the border? Is there seriously not a single agency that doesn't have an armed wing?

Hordes of "super pigs" are running amok in Canada, and may soon spill across the border into the northern U.S.

These wild feral pigs, which roam Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba in Canada, are predicted to be moving southwards into Minnesota, North Dakota and Montana.

What makes these pigs such a threat is that they are a result of crossbreeding between wild Eurasian boars and domestic swine. The animals combine the boar's environmental resistance and the pig's size and fertility to create a rapidly reproducing population that is very hard to eradicate.

The U.S. has already started to be invaded by these feral pigs, with around 6 million of the swine having entered at least 35 states, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Now, however, the Canadian populations may descend from the north.

"Hybrid populations of wild pigs are not a new issue in the U.S. Generally resulting from the interbreeding of domestic swine and introduced Eurasian wild boar for hunting purposes, hybrid wild-pig populations in the States have the larger size and reproductive rates of domestic swine and the hardiness of wild boar," Elizabeth A. Bradley told Newsweek. She is a researcher at Auburn University's College of Forestry, Wildlife, and Environment in Alabama.

"This is part of what facilitates the negative impacts of this invasive species on natural ecosystems and agricultural production," Bradley said.

These pigs are considered an invasive species due to the level of damage they can cause: they tear up farmland, rooting for bugs and eating plants, destroying crops and disrupting local wildlife. In southern U.S. states including Texas, these wild pigs already cause billions of dollars in damage to croplands every year. They can also spread diseases to domestic pigs at farms, including African swine fever, and have even been known to attack humans, though this is infrequent.

"The impact of wildlife on our populations is a fact in general. In the last few years, the numbers of feral pigs and wild boar increase more and more," Domenico Fulgione, a professor of population ecology at University of Naples Federico II in Italy, told Newsweek.

"The United States of America has spent more than $1.5 billion every year because of the damage caused by feral hogs, the hybrid form that lives in their territories. The most-important issues are down to the depression of biodiversity; wild pigs destroy the undergrowth of many forests, alter the soils, and prey on many species of ground-nesting birds, as well as reptiles, amphibians and plants of various species, even rare ones.

"Damage is also caused to farms because of rooting. They crash into our cars, and also epidemics are a consequence of their big populations," Fulgione added.

These pig hybrids also reproduce very quickly, having up to six piglets in a litter, of which they can have two in a single year. The population of swine is so fecund that, even if 65 percent of the pigs were killed every year, the total number would still rise.

The presence of these pigs could significantly disrupt native ecosystems, and have knock-on effects all across the food chain.

"In Europe, for example, due to a considerable increase in wild boars, we have observed a significant increase of its predators, the wolves, but an increase also in some types of scavengers such as jackals. Even predators, if in large numbers, are difficult to manage and make compatible with agriculture and animal husbandry," Fulgione said.

"Furthermore, an effect on the populations of human hunters should not be overlooked, which will inevitably increase the food consumption of meat that is not always carefully and meticulously analyzed by health professionals. The transmission of diseases by parasites that also infest humans is sometimes directly proportional to the increase of these host animals and their reckless consumption," Fulgione added.

The USDA is attempting to keep the Canadian pigs out of the U.S., using aircraft and drones to patrol the border. Experts are considering ways to wipe out the pigs, as hunting is unsuccessful. It often results in no more than 2 or 3 percent of the animals being culled, and makes them more wary and nocturnal, and therefore harder to track down.

Some suggestions for controlling the population include large ground traps, net guns fired from helicopters, or even poison, but this risks harming other native wildlife.

"We can't forget that they are complex animals. Looking at their habits, we understood that they are skilled in pre-adapting to the environments they are going to invade," Fulgione said.

"Hogs must be studied before defining a common strategy that must be shared between states. Killing? Traps? It depends both on environmental and social variables. The interaction with our species is very close, and management has to deal with this element."

new footage from the Hamas Tunnels

PFLP Founder George Habash "Al-Hakim" when asked about relations with the Islamic forces in the Arab countries (1997):

"This is one of the greatest dilemmas facing the Arab national liberation movement, at the pan-Arab level and within each country. To begin with, one cannot take an arbitrary decision concerning whether or not to cooperate with the forces of Islam, putting them all in the same basket, as it were. Second, one feels an obligation to deal with them because these forces are indigenous to their societies, except for some movements or groups with dubious connections. This means that we and the forces of political Islam should find a common denominator that would permit us to work together under the current and foreseeable circumstances.

However, we need to differentiate between the Islamic forces that are truly engaged in the struggle on the basis of their perspectives on society and their ideology (as is the case with Hizballah in Lebanon, Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Palestine, and the Jama'a Islamiyya in Jordan) and those forces and groups whose acts are no longer either comprehensible or justifiable on the human, ethical, or Islamic dimensions (as is the case now in Algeria and Egypt).

We believe that our relations with Islamic forces of the first type should be characterized by a deep alliance in the struggle with the enemy of our nation to bring about a showdown. The condition for such an alliance should be that joint action should be undertaken on a democratic basis."

(From Twitter)

Broke: The UN is Hamas.

Woke: The IDF is Hamas: https://nitter.cz/MayadeenEnglish/status/1726773772110151768

https://twitter.com/Dima_Khatib/status/1728542969911750970

https://nitter.net/Dima_Khatib/status/1728542969911750970

Families of Palestinian women/ children set to be liberated tonight, received calls from Israeli intelligence warning them against any celebration. One male member of each family in Jerusalem was asked this morning to go to the police for interrogation and is still detained there

So Israel is just going to kidnap a relative of every hostage they release?

Ukraine is proudly enlisting grandparents and children in their war to own the Russians

Ukrainian grandma says she's too old to fight Russians in the infantry so learned to pilot drones instead