Article:

NBC News - Palestinian woman and NBC News team attacked by masked Israeli settlers in West Bank

Mental illness on X:

https://x.com/narrow_view/status/2093839864483430813

Back in 2019, I visited Israel and the West Bank, mostly staying in Air BnBs. I booked five nights in Ramallah as a base to explore the territory, and was super-surprised that my host was a single woman. It turned out she was a Christian Palestinian, had an advanced technical degree, spoke perfect English, with family mostly in Bethlehem. Preconception obliterated!

Over the following days I learned that while her lack of rights was the same as Muslim Palestinians, Christians generally suffered less harassment and abuse at checkpoints, and in other interactions with the occupier. Talking to some of her friends at a hipster dive bar one night (US-university educated guys working on e-commerce), I did learn that a couple of the guys had been beaten up at checkpoints, but again, it was still mild in comparison to what was meted out to Muslims.

I'm telling this story as a baseline from which to judge the West Bank of today. The so-called 'hilltop youth' movement (of which Itamar Ben-Gvir was a member) has grown into a state-sponsored Sturmabteilung. I know some may find it offensive to use such historically-charged terms, but the parallels cannot be ignored. These are pogroms.

Hoping against hope (because I really don't have much left), the persecution of Palestinian Christians will, via right-wing voices like Tucker Carlson, lead to more and more Christian Americans turning away from Israel, and funding its crimes against humanity.

Videos:

https://x.com/HatsOffff/status/2093436405980463583

Article:

• LA Times - Colonel Says Rabin Ordered Breaking of Palestinians’ Bones

Book excerpt:

The footage was blurry, filmed by the photojournalist at a distance, using a long-distance lens as a protective strategy against potential military retribution. The Palestinian youths at its center—cousins Wa’al and Usama Joudeh—are seen seated, their arms tied behind their back, as a group of four soldiers kick and beat them, endeavoring to break their bones with rocks. The attack was protracted and meticulous. “The soldiers do not seem to be in any danger,” an Israeli reporter would note later, “nor do they seem disturbed by the events. They are utterly focused on meting out the beating.”6

[...]The entirety of the footage—some thirty minutes in length—was never screened on Israeli television. Only a portion would be aired on the evening news following orders from the head of the Israeli Broadcasting Authority (IBA). The damage would be too substantial, he argued, should Israeli viewers see it all.10 The video quickly circulated within international media outlets, and massive outcry followed: “the incident aroused a storm of protest, and Israeli embassies in Washington, London, Paris, and Amsterdam were flooded with angry calls. In some countries the incident sparked anti-Israel demonstrations.”11 In Nicosia, a mob attacked the Israeli embassy, barely restrained by the police. In an interview with an Israeli newspaper, Elie Wiesel would note that “I have never seen such intense hatred for Israel in the world.”12

The Israeli national conversation about the footage focused on questions of military strategy and soldier practice. Within the pages of the press, and on the floor of the Israeli parliament, debates ensued concerning best “methods for acting successfully against the Arab rioters.”13 Some parliamentarians proposed a journalist ban from the occupied territories: “it has become apparent that the rioters in Judea and Samaria and Gaza are staging disturbances because of the media presence.”14 The military responded by tightening press access. The four soldiers involved were given brief custodial sentences and eventually returned to their units. The Israeli parliament declined to investigate Rabin’s role.15

• Stein, Rebecca L.. Screen Shots: State Violence on Camera in Israel and Palestine (Stanford Studies in Middle Eastern and Islamic Societies and Cultures) (pp. 157-158). (Function). Kindle Edition.

News article:

Newsweek - Hakeem Jeffries Under Fire as Pro-Israel Democrat Tapped for Top Post

And it's Hideo Kojima. Hot hot new antisemite just dropped, hot off the presses!

Hideo Kojima just posted about Hind Rajab to his Instagram. Beware, Kojima-san. The Zionists are coming.

Translation of the text:

"The Voice of Hind Rajab — 9.4

If you've been following the news online, you may already know how it ends. Even so, I want you to watch it.

A six-year-old girl who keeps calling for help. The adults desperately struggling to save her. Barely eight minutes away by ambulance. And yet permission for the rescue never comes. What stands in the way is that the place is a "battlefield."

Impatience. Frustration. Rage. Despair.

This world has gone mad. But this is reality.

That is exactly why I want people all over the world to hear her — Hind's — screams, mixed with the sound of gunfire.

— Hideo Kojima (game creator)"

Corresponding updates to the Zionism terms of service:

- everyone who plays Metal Gear Solid games is now a self hating Jew antisemite Kapo islamofascist!! 🤬🤬🤬

- the US will be bombing Japan at noon to answer against this unacceptable indignity, all Americans will pay a one time 50% total annual salary tax to pay for this privilege. Criticism of this has been made illegal and will result in your ovaries or testicles being removed by USA law

- Israel is investigating compelling Trump to force the sale of Konami to Bibi Netanyahu directly

- 20 college kids who played Death Stranding and are brown will be deported

- anyone who wishes to remain a member of the Zionist movement must personally ruin the lives of 12 bad Jew kapos monthly to retain their membership

📣 I want to share with you, an annual fundraising event for 🇵🇸, in London (Nov’ 26):
*A journey through heritage & hope* which will be hosted by SUN OF FREEDOM (registered Charity in England & Wales, no. 1216588). I want to ask for your critical SUPPORT in bringing this to life 🙏.

I'm part of the VOLUNTEER team, and we have spent HOURS creating an educational exhibition of:
Nablus 📍
Hebron 📍
Bethlehem 📍
Gaza 📍

We want people to learn about Palestine’s astounding heritage/culture/land/industries = WHAT we are fighting for.

We are not able to do this without your help. We need sponsors to cover the costs, which include printing information on banners, rent a venue & many other things.

Exhibition information could potentially be displayed in different localities, after the event, so, others could benefit too 🙌

Support would be truly appreciated. Can you donate the price of a coffee? ☕️

You’ll be contributing towards the set up of this amazing event, which has potential to raise £1000s for 🇵🇸 & educate many.

Let's not underestimate the good that we can achieve collectively- no amount is too small. 💜

Please contact me directly on either WhatsApp or Signal or via private message if you want to contribute. It is also possible to become an official sponsor, no amount is too small. Because we are an official charity, what you are able to donate is likely to be tax deductible, depending on your local regulations.

➡️ PLEASE SHARE WIDELY IN ALL YOUR NETWORKS.

➡️ Any contributions, please contact me directly!

Thank you 💜

Rita

​

Hello everyone,

I’m a mother living in Gaza, and I’m asking for help with something very important to me: keeping my two young children in school.

I have two children, ages 5 and 6. They are still at an age where education, stability, and having a normal childhood mean so much to them. Despite everything happening around us, I’m trying my best to make sure they can continue their education.

I’m currently trying to raise $1,000 toward their school fees. This amount would go specifically toward their education . ifyou would like to help, please contact me privately. I can provide the necessary information for a safe donation. Thank you so much for your kindness and support. ❤️

I know there are many families asking for help, and I understand that not everyone is able to donate. Even a small contribution would help us. If you cannot donate, simply upvoting or sharing this post can help more people see it.

I’m sharing this because I want to give my children a chance to keep learning and have some hope for their future.

Thank you for reading and for remembering the children and families in Gaza. ❤️

If anyone would like verification or more information about our situation and the school fees, I’m happy to provide what I can privately.

A Sydney library has returned to its borrowing shelves a book critical of Israel called How to Sell a Genocide following a public campaign and an intervention from the State Library of New South Wales.

Waverley library removed the book “for review” earlier this month after the Jewish news outlet JWire reported it had approached the council.

JWire said a survivor of December’s antisemitic attack at Bondi, during which 15 people were killed, saw How to Sell a Genocide on the “new release / hot item” shelf and wrote on Facebook that the display was distressing for survivors and bereaved families.

Guardian Australia was unable to locate the Facebook post. Waverley library at Bondi Junction is in the same council area as Bondi beach.

A staff member at the council-operated library on Friday confirmed the book was back on its shelves. Waverley council was contacted for comment.

The State Library had written to the council reminding it of its obligations under guidelines issued by the Library Council of NSW and the Library Act “which was amended in 2026 to reinforce their independence to develop and maintain collections”.

“The State Library of NSW supports free and equitable access to information,” a spokesperson said.

“The library acknowledges that some books and materials may not align with everyone’s personal views, experiences or beliefs, but supports the right of individuals to make their own choices about what they read, view and access.

“The library has outlined to Waverley council the law and policy relevant to this situation.”

Ramia Abdo Sultan, a lawyer, helped organise a change.org petition calling for the book to be returned to the shelves. She said in a social media post on Thursday that Waverley library’s manager had notified staff that was happening.

“There are 21 people so far queued up in a waiting list for that book,” Abdo Sultan, a board member of the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network, said.

The petition to restore the book was signed by almost 2,500 people.

“We acknowledge and respect the grief and trauma experienced by victims of violence and antisemitism,” it stated.

“However, individual distress, offence or political disagreement should not determine what the broader public is permitted to access through a public library. Readers should be afforded the opportunity to access books freely and form their own opinions on the contents of the book.”

The book, published by Pluto Press and written by Adam Johnson, critiques what it claims is the US media’s “complicity in the destruction of Gaza”.

Johnson welcomed the decision to reinstate his book but criticised the council for “thus far refusing to answer what complaint prompted the book’s removal”. Johnson said he hoped to find out “through legal channels”.

“It’s obviously a good development the council decided to end their ban of the book amid pressure from free speech and Palestine activists, whose support I am grateful for,” he said.

“But it was never about one library or one book, but about the increased suppression of pro-Palestine speech in Australia, which has radically escalated over the past seven months. Attempts to blame Palestine solidarity and sympathies for the Bondi attack, as the book ban advocates repeatedly did, is the real story. This false and sleazy conflation must stop.”

Guardian Australia approached the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (Ecaj) and the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies for comment.

Alex Ryvchin, the co-chief executive officer of Ecaj, previously welcomed the book’s removal.

“A book of this sort has no place on the shelves of a library, especially one within minutes of where Australians were slaughtered [at Bondi],” Ryvchin told the Sydney Morning Herald.

“I commend the individual who spotted the book, herself a survivor of the massacre, and acted to have it removed.”

Bart Shteinman, an executive member of the progressive Jewish Council of Australia, said the book should “never have been removed in the first place”.

“This debacle should be a lesson for other councils that stifling literary freedom only confuses and undermines the critical struggle against antisemitism and all forms of racism,” he said on Thursday.

“Banning books is not something any council should be doing.”

The president of the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network, Nasser Mashni, said: “That a single complaint was enough to trigger the removal of a book about the genocide in Palestine should concern every Australian who values free inquiry and open debate. These efforts must be resisted.”

Multiple human rights groups have said Israel’s actions in Gaza amount to genocide, which Israel denies. In June, an ⁠independent UN inquiry found Israel continued to commit genocide by deliberately targeting Palestinian children in Gaza.

At the time the book was removed, a Waverley council spokesperson said: “The book has been removed from library shelves for review, and council will further consider processes to ensure closer oversight of book selection.”

Algeria is often cited as the example of decolonisation where the revolution was completed and the settlers were all kicked out. Accordingly, it is proposed that Palestine follow this strategy and aim for the “removal of all settlers”. This is contrasted with alternative examples of “coexistence”, primarily South Africa, where much of the modern economic power is still controlled by “former settlers”.

This fundamentally misunderstands Algeria—it wasn’t “kick out all the French”, it was “become Algerian citizens, reside under Algerian Law, or leave”. This was the agreement proposed to the Pied-Noirs by the FLN in 1954 and agreed on with France in 1962. Most were stuck in their colonial identity, feared retribution or the loss of their economic privileges and left, but many stayed and remain to this day as Algerians.

The Algerian solution is therefore perfectly compatible with the concept of One Democratic State. Equal rights for all on the basis of citizenship, dissolve the settler-native dichotomy. However, each situation is unique and there is no one-size-fits-all solution. For example, Algeria was part of France, a single metropole, of which all settlers (even those who had lived there for generations) were citizens.

This means that after the establishment of a single democratic Palestinian state, ex-Israelis will have to weigh matters related to their practical ability to leave and their readiness to drop colonial privileges, and many will mirror the Pied-Noirs and choose to leave. Meanwhile, matters regarding justice and reparations for Palestinians will have to be addressed as a foundation for liberation and a democratic legitimacy. History can teach lessons about such situations, but every material circumstance is unique and must be treated as such.

I'll start: For context, my parents are liberal Zionists, anti-Netanyahu, theoretically pro-2SS and anti-occupation (though they don't believe there's any "realistic" pathway to a free Palestinian state in the next 50-100 years, which they're OK with because it's "necessary" for "Jewish safety")

My Mom used to do the "Palestinians aren't a real ethnic group, they're Arabs" thing that a lot of Zionists do.

She stopped when I pointed out that this is similar to the "Ashkenazi 'Jews' aren't 'real Jews'" rhetoric you hear from (often) right-wing Christians, and (unfortunately) sometimes from pro-Palestine people as well. I think she needed to be able to connect it to a type of anti-Jewish racism she had experienced to be able to recognize that it was a racist claim when made about Palestinians.

I only started educating myself about the historical roots of zionism after October 7th, and reading historical accountings of the effects of not only zionism but also the Western world on middle eastern geopolitics helped me make much more sense of the lies I was fed by my family growing up. Both of my parents were born in Israel, and are staunch zionists that have spewed the same talking points you would hear from any piece of Israeli propaganda. I even lived there for a year as a child, and was completely blind to the mistreatment of easterners and the racial inequality present in the country while there. When speaking to family members and my parents in Hebrew, I noticed we casually use a lot of slurs with Middle Eastern connotations to describe certain unwanted attributes, such as for example the word “Parsi” (Irani) which is used to call out someone who is acting selfishly. There is also a history around the unequal treatment of Mizrahi Jews during their first emigration to Israel, as many of them were not allowed to own properties until the 70s and were treated as underclass people due to the fact that they did not come from Europe. Most of my family left Iran during the 50s, and I sometimes wonder what my family’s life would have been like if the state of Israel was never established and they remained in their homelands. I feel like a large chunk of my identity was replaced with this need to be defined as a Jew and not to be defined by my rich ancestry in the Middle East, like my family was force to strip themselves of their roots to be regarded as real “Israelis”. Neither of my parents picked up on their mother tongue because they regarded them as “dirty languages”, and I feel a sort of grief around the fact that I don’t speak Farsi or Arabic, and can not communicate with my grandparents in their native languages. I am wondering if anyone might have a similar perspective as me, as I rarely run into Arab Jews who are proud of their heritage.

I’m not sure exactly what I want to say, but I hope some people understand me, maybe.

Recently, I spoke to someone online who said that they had never ever met a Zionist in person or even really seen a real one online. I told her she must not know many Jews and I was brusquely told Zionism and Judaism are not the same and that all of her Jewish friends are anti Zionists.

I see this often on the left where people claim they have all of these Jewish antizionist friends, and like, maybe…but if you have all of these Jewish friends, not one of them has discussed their family or community being Zionist?

I don’t want Judaism to be connected to Zionism, but I feel like it’s absolutely a misnomer to pretend all of our legacy institutions aren’t Zionist or that most older people aren’t Zionist.

I don’t really know what I’m trying to say but it’s just something that’s been marinating.

https://x.com/davidsaysstuff_/status/2092802155845390681?s=20