Has The Israeli Goverment BecomeThe Monster?

[Innula Zenovka]

October 7th and the internet

Vampire Valley will not save us.

www.nefariousrussians.com

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

Israel and Hamas have agreed to the first phase of the US peace plan, which will allow the release of all hostages.

Trump says the hostages will be most likely released on Monday.

https://edition.cnn.com/world/live-news/israel-hamas-gaza-ceasefire-agreement-10-09-25

 

[Innula Zenovka]

The Israeli media bubble (Ha'aretz)

"Everyone I've spoken to outside Israel over the past two years looks at what's been happening and can't understand how their Israeli friends – people they could always talk to, even when they disagreed – now sound as if they're living in another reality," she says. "People from the outside feel as if we Israelis have gone off on a spaceship and lost touch. This is a dangerous situation that could cost us dearly. It will be hard to turn back the wheel."

According to the study, the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza has been almost completely absent from Israeli media coverage. Only 3 percent of war-related items addressed the civilian situation in Gaza. Of hundreds of items sampled, only four mentioned Palestinian casualties in Gaza who were not involved in terrorism. The study supported Paneivsky's impression that the discrepancy between Israeli and international coverage is evident in the visual realm: videos and images from Gaza that appeared on Israeli newscasts focused on combat, soldiers or destroyed buildings and deserted cities – rather than human suffering or the cost of war.

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

And there goes Trump's peace nobel price down the hill already: a Hamas official told AFP that the disarmament of Hamas is non negotiable and out of question. Hamas would only consider this when a self-sovereign Palestine state capable of defending itself has been established.

The disarmament is a vital piece of Trumps' phase 2.

Hamas Rejects Disarmament Under Trump’s Gaza Peace Plan as Ceasefire Takes Hold

"We are not going to be disarmed... (until) we have an independent self-sovereign state which can defend itself," Hamas political bureau member Bassem Naim told Sky News

www.kurdistan24.net

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

All Israeli hostages held by Hamas are free now under the peace deal.

https://www.axios.com/2025/10/13/israel-gaza-peace-deal-hostages-freed-hamas

 

[Free]

That didn't take long at all.

Trump-Gaza latest: Seven killed after Israel opens fire over ‘violation’ of ceasefire

Health authorities said that the fatalities had occurred across two separate incidents including a drone strike

www.independent.co.uk

 

[Innula Zenovka]

A Plan to Rebuild Gaza Lists Nearly 30 Companies. Many Say They’re Not Involved

A presentation that has been shared with the Trump administration references Tesla, Ikea, TSMC, and more in its plan to rebuild Gaza. Some of these companies say they had no idea they were mentioned.

www.wired.com

 

[Mona Eberhardt]

The Only Democracy in The Middle East®
The Most Moral Army in The Observable Universe®
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/palestinian-bodies-released-israel-show-signs-torture

SorryNotSorry for using a source that is not owned by a "mainstream" oligarch or fascist techbro.

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

The agreement is fragile right now: 28 hostages are dead, however Hamas only handed over 9 corpses to Israel. Hamas is arguing that they will hand them over, but it needs special equipment and experts to get a hold of them. They suggest a multinational task force for that job. Turkey already sent experts.

Israel has limited the flow of aid supplies to Gaza due to that, and warns that the process might come to a total stop until this part is fulfilled.

Israel shared intel on location of hostages’ bodies with mediators, official says

Turkey sends experts to Gaza in emerging multinational endeavor to locate hostages' remains; US role in task force still unclear, stifling recovery efforts, says European diplomat

www.timesofisrael.com

 

[Innula Zenovka]

‘One of the oldest urban centres on the planet’: Gaza’s rich history in ruins

As a ceasefire brings a measure of peace to the Dresden-like hellscape that Gaza has become, it is time to take stock of all that has been lost. The human cost of what the UN commission of inquiry recognises as a genocide is of course incalculable, but fewer are aware of how much rich history and archaeology has also been destroyed in these horrific months. This is bolstered by the widespread assumption that Gaza was little more than a huge refugee camp built on a recently settled portion of desert. That is quite wrong. In reality Gaza it is one of the oldest urban centres on the planet.

 

[Ellie]

What ceasefire, which ceasefire?

Most recently reported murders of 11 Palestinians, including 7 children.

“They had crossed the so-called ‘yellow line’, an imaginary boundary mentioned by the Israeli army,” said Mahmoud Basal, the spokesperson for the Gaza civil defence. “I am certain the family couldn’t distinguish between the yellow and red lines because there are no actual physical markers on the ground.

Israel has repeatedly bombed Lebanon despite a November ceasefire that brought to an end more than a year of hostilities with the militant group Hezbollah that culminated in two months of open war."

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/oct/18/israel-has-violated-ceasefire-47-times-and-killed-38-palestinians-says-gaza-media-office

The ceasefire is not "fragile", as we keep being told. It is non-existent, as evidenced by Israel’s continual violations - from its soldiers continuing to shoot dead Palestinian civilians to it blocking promised aid.

https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/it-was-never-gaza-war-ceasefire-lie-cut-same-clot

Hamas faces a Catch 22: it needs excavators to plow through the rubble and locate bodies. But Israel refuses to permit such equipment, claiming it could be used for military purposes. As a result, the Palestinians cannot fulfill the terms of the agreement which, in turn, offers Netanyahu an excuse to resume the war.

https://www.richardsilverstein.com/2025/10/16/peace-plan-totters-on-the-brink-over-israeli-violations/

Before and after photos of Gaza, and more taken inside Palestinian homes by IDF members, show some had enjoyed a higher standard of living than many of the world's citizens, reminding me of the words of those responsible for emptying the Palestinian seaside town of Tantura in May 1948, who said in the Tantura doc they had coveted those beautiful homes in such a stunning setting.

Prior to the mass murders and destruction after the Hamas attack on 7 October 2023, the Palestinian overall literacy rate was 97.7%, 95% among women.

One could say that, despite the continuing occupation with its blockades. detentions, murders, and thefts of land, the Palestinians were making progress, which I'm sure angered the Israeli govt.

(Still looking for an accurate definition of the term Zionism; like many such terms, it has been warped and hijacked many times)

 

[Ellie]

richardsilverstein.com, the Tukun Olam blog, I recently rediscovered, has much to say about Jews, Judaism, and Zionism.

https://www.richardsilverstein.com/2025/01/25/zionism-is-dead-a-jewish-journey-to-anti-zionism/

I'm going in.

 

[Casey Pelous]

Gosh. Who could have possibly anticipated that Trump's Great Peace Thing wouldn't work just because neither of the parties signed off on it?

Maybe instead of the Peace prize, the orange buffoon can get a special Nobel Modest Hostage Exchange Prize. Comes with a Little Lebowski Urban Achievers t-shirt. and a gold star for participation.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

I Protested Far-right Agitator Tommy Robinson in Tel Aviv. Then I Was Punched and Called a Kapo - Opinion - Haaretz.com (Evernote link)

After 1945, democracies built a firewall around the far right for a reason. Israel once helped hold that line. When Jörg Haider entered Austria's government in 2000, Israel downgraded ties. Two years later, when Jean-Marie Le Pen surged in France, Israeli leaders treated him as a pariah. The firewall – supported and bolstered by the Jewish state – was Europe's greatest democratic innovation. It kept the hatreds that destroyed a continent from returning to power.

Now Israel is the one punching holes in it. What began as quiet outreach under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has become open alignment: photo ops with populists, party-to-party ties with Europe's ethno-nationalists and the claim that "pro-Israel" rhetoric cleanses decades of antisemitism and Holocaust minimization.

By embracing them, Israel becomes their fig leaf. It tells racists like Robinson that their antisemitism has been forgiven, that their violent history has been washed clean in the blue and white of the Israeli flag. It hands them legitimacy, and in doing so, it erodes ours.

 

[GoblinCampFollower]

Gosh. Who could have possibly anticipated that Trump's Great Peace Thing wouldn't work just because neither of the parties signed off on it?

Maybe instead of the Peace prize, the orange buffoon can get a special Nobel Modest Hostage Exchange Prize. Comes with a Little Lebowski Urban Achievers t-shirt. and a gold star for participation.

they celebrated it so hard too.... on the right, it got wall to wall coverage that Trump's deal was a fabulous success.

 

[Mona Eberhardt]

I Protested Far-right Agitator Tommy Robinson in Tel Aviv. Then I Was Punched and Called a Kapo - Opinion - Haaretz.com (Evernote link)

Excuse me? When was there a "firewall against the far right?" Need I remind anyone that "centrists" and "moderate" right-wingers alike have always done the worst to sabotage and topple left-wing governments everywhere, including within the EU? Need I remind you all that the "moderate" EPP has been turning a blind eye to all of Orbán's shenanigans? Need I remind anyone that the "centrists" and "moderate" right-wingers have been adopting for decades every single piece of the far right's agenda, from labour rights to immigration, from youth-related issues to women's rights? Need I remind anyone that the likes of Emmanuel Macron have always refused to cooperate with the Left to form a government, but were eager to consult with the fascists they warned about (see Macron's appointment of a PM acceptable by Le Pen, in order to avoid having to appoint a left-wing PM)? Need I remind you that mainstream media (like Greece's "Kathimerini") have been slandering students as "lazy entitled kids who do nothing but protest all the time and obstruct professors' precious research work", adopting - again - the rhetoric of the far right? Need I remind you that no terrorist attack by far-right groups has ever been called "terrorist", in contrast to even the most benign (such as lawsuits before the European Court of Justice) action of the Left? If there's ever been a firewall, it's against the Left.

Also, I've got news for you all: when you support, promote, and enshrine into law ideas that are aligned with the definition and the notion of Apartheid and Jim Crow (racial, ethnic, religious segregation and discrimination), there's nothing that can redeem you as a "left-wing" politician or thinker. Apartheid is Nazism; so is its adoption, support, promotion, and enabling. Deal with it.-

 

[Ellie]

Scorching evaluation of the position Bibi finds himself in.

“Netanyahu is walking a fine line with Trump. If he continues like this, he will fuck up the ceasefire. If he fucks up the ceasefire, Trump will fuck him.”

So he signed an agreement whose vague terms he judged were easy manipulate in his favor. But Trump put a crimp in his plans. Netanyahu may be an expert conniver who tells his interlocutor what he wants to hear, then promptly ignores whatever he agreed to. But he is a piker compared to the US president, who’s made a career out of grifting, deceit, lying and conniving. Israel’s leader has more than met his match.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Globalising racial hatred: Israel and the international far right

Slouching to Jerusalem

nickcohen.substack.com

Evernote Link

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Need I remind you that no terrorist attack by far-right groups has ever been called "terrorist", in contrast to even the most benign (such as lawsuits before the European Court of Justice) action of the Left? If there's ever been a firewall, it's against the Left.

Fortunately successful terrorist attacks in the UK by members of the far right are comparatively rare. The most recent examples would be

Dover attack on migrant centre driven by hate, say terror police

Andrew Leak carried out a "despicable" firebomb attack at a migrant centre before he was found dead.

www.bbc.co.uk

Finsbury Park terror attack: Threat still very real, mayor says

Makram Ali died on 19 June 2017 when Darren Osborne drove a van into the Muslim Welfare House

www.bbc.co.uk

and

Labour MP Jo Cox 'murdered for political cause'

A man shouted "This is for Britain" as he stabbed and shot dead MP Jo Cox, a court is told.

www.bbc.co.uk

This is probably because our police security services have successfully frustrated many such attacks before they had chance to materialise

• as at 30 September 2024, there were 254 persons in custody for terrorism and terrorism-connected offences in Great Britain, the highest number since comparable records began (30 September 2020)
• of those in custody, the majority (62%) were categorised as holding Islamist-extremist views; a further 30% were categorised as holding Extreme Right-Wing ideologies and 8% were categorised as holding Other ideologies
• of the latest data available (year ending 30 June 2024) a total of 58 prisoners held for terrorism and terrorism-connected offences were released from custody in Great Britain

Operation of police powers under the Terrorism Act 2000 and subsequent legislation: Arrests, outcomes, and stop and search, Great Britain, quarterly update to September 2024

www.gov.uk