I’m not gonna lie to you - I thought Israel would have started shit with Hezbollah by now which would have derailed whatever megathread theme I had planned, so I didn’t bother planning one.
If you want a decent couple pieces going over what Hezbollah has done to Israel, then have a look at How ‘Israel’ Has Lost The North and Hezbollah’s Quarterly Report. It’s not exactly the most professional analysis, as you’ll see if you read it, but it gets the point across and relies on evidence. In essence, Hezbollah has pushed the Israelis back tens of kilometers and decimated their border infrastructure, all while unveiling anti-aircraft missiles that have forced Israel to reconsider bombing runs. They still probably have the ability to turn various towns and cities in Lebanon to rubble, but Hezbollah can do massive damage back to Israel in turn. This has gone on so long with so little meaningful opposition by Israel that border settlements are going a little haywire and tentatively declaring independence from Israel and saying they don’t want IDF troops there anymore. I don’t take these terribly seriously from a military standpoint but it is indicative of the Zionist settler mindset crumbling over the last 9 months.
We’re now at the point where Israel kinda has to go to war against Hezbollah or the entire Zionist ideology of military deterrence and expansion via illegal settlements simply no longer functions, but that war will also lead to massive destruction for military and civilian facilities (ports, power stations, war factories, etc) which is a massive problem for Israel’s continued existence. Hamas continues to function inside Gaza despite the surface occupation of significant areas, including the Gaza-Egypt border, and attrition there is leading to big materiel and psychological losses for Israel too. And Yemen has, for all intents and purposes, prevailed against America’s failed attempt to thwart their blockade - with some in the army claiming it’s the most intense naval battle America has faced since WW2 - and missile strikes are tentatively beginning to hit or at least threaten ships in the Mediterranean Sea.
Nukes are still lurking quietly in the background, of course, but the Resistance is perfectly aware of that and still seems confident to go ahead with operations, so I can’t really do anything but shrug and say that I trust them to do what’s right.
The COTW (Country of the Week) label is designed to spur discussion and debate about a specific country every week in order to help the community gain greater understanding of the domestic situation of often-understudied nations. If you’ve wanted to talk about the country or share your experiences, but have never found a relevant place to do so, now is your chance! However, don’t worry - this is still a general news megathread where you can post about ongoing events from any country.
The Country of the Week is Lebanon! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
Please check out the HexAtlas!
The bulletins site is here!
The RSS feed is here.
Last week’s thread is here.
Israel-Palestine Conflict
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA daily-ish reports on Israel’s 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 (and has automated posting when the person running it goes to sleep).
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.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
Various sources that are covering the Ukraine conflict are also covering the one in Palestine, like Rybar.
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.
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.
Does Biden withdrawing even matter at this point? It’ll just make the Dems look even more pathetic for waiting so long to acknowledge reality, so it won’t matter who they replace him with. Trump wins. It’s joever.
I don’t think it matters very much for us in terms of outcomes, but this is the third presidential election in a row with Trump as a candidate. We have been through eight years of the liberals screaming that we must vote blue no matter who to “save democracy.” And the fact that they have effectively strangled their opposition, litigated third party candidates off the ballot, run an uncontested primary to re-nominate a historically unpopular president followed by the prospect of them flushing the ‘popular mandate’ yielded by that primary election down the toilet at the convention is the type of dumpster fire you simply cannot ignore.
The discourse happening right now is WILD. Liberals are saying they don’t give a fuck about Biden, we need to Weekend at Bernie’s his ass in order to re-elect his administration (the bunch of un-elected think-tank warmonger demons) to Preserve Democracy. The plot is completely unraveling. A noteworthy historical shift is taking place, even if we have been completely marginalized from this arena of politics.
It really is wild. This has to be the last election.
perhaps, if things get bad enough quickly enough, but in all likelihood I think we’ll just have elections that are increasingly shambolic. the shadows on the cave wall have always been more important than the real thing.
their insistence in the sanctity and preciousness and power of Western democracy is directly correlated to the degree to which they are disempowered and made more obviously false. the last election until the generals take over will be regarded as the most righteous and free of all of them, and will consist of a single set of voting booths per state, surrounded by police and dogs and tanks, with the insides surveilled by the best AI face technology yet conceived.
Nah. The electoral theatre and ritual has too much ideological value for the yanks to do away with it as it gives the people a feeling of having a stake in the regime and diffuses discontent into harmless cheering for either the red or the blue faction of the state party. America might very well take the mask off even further and crush all dissent but they would still keep having elections.
The machine has so much inertia. Idk if this can kill it.
Yeah like what’s 2028 gonna be, Newsom v DeSantis? Kill me now.
Echoes of the electoral logic of the Weimar Republic.
Trump is unpopular and a bad politician and it should be easy to beat him. If Biden withdrew tomorrow it would be great for democrats.
They need to do it soon. Every hour they wait is an hour they could be running propaganda about "Biden did his job blah blah honor his legacy new generation of leaders blah blah blah vote newsom or whitmer or whatever. They need to move. Shiv the old fuck if they have to.
His aides could just startle him every chance they get, he wouldn’t last a week
They could do it just by walking around corners without wearing their bell collars.
Kinky
Yeah like who is next? It’s Her or Kamala.
George Clooney is their best shot.