news

So we're in what, day 3 of a ground invasion? Though not "official official" it's official, the IDF is attempting to (thus far mostly failing) to invade Gaza. Is Hezbollah going to open up a second front? Has Iran's ominous "time is up" type shitposting fizzled to nothing? The second US carrier group is days away at this point. Seems like the window for anything crazy is rapidly closing, if not closed already. Maybe I'm just dooming, but it looks like nothing else is going to kick off.

U.S. Investigating Whether Adams Received Illegal Donations From Turkey (New York Times - paywall, sorry)

A raid at the home of Eric Adams’s chief fund-raiser was part of an inquiry into whether foreign money was funneled into his mayoral campaign, a search warrant shows.

lol. lmao.

HexbearGPT, we train an LLM on hexbear and then unleash it on reddit

Always projection: Settlers get skin cancer too much because their skin is mostly adapted for European climate, so they harvest skin and other organs from Palestinians.

https://nitter.cz/nadabedairr/status/1718747730783199494

Was made aware today that Israel has been working on a new Merkava model, the Merkava Mk.5 "Barak," which at a glance seems to best be described by an overconfidence & over-reliance on technology.

Article: https://www.edrmagazine.eu/israel-starts-delivering-the-5th-gen-merkava-barak-tank-to-its-armoured-units

A first major improvement came from sights; the commander got a new panoramic sight while the gunner’s sight is also brand new, Idan Tavor underlining that these are one or even more generation ahead of previous ones. Improvements came in electro-optic performances, which provide better imaging, “but the main step forward is that they have integrated AI into those sight that have now autonomous behaviours, and are capable to identify targets and objects by themselves.”

I seriously doubt that current AI technology is going to be better at identifying targets than a well trained crew working in conjunction with infantry support who can function as additional eyes for the tank (granted Israel's target acquisition only need be as sophisticated as to be able to determine whether someone is Palestinian or not). Best case scenario, it occasionally manages to pick out threats faster than the crew can, but I imagine the average experience using AI target acquisition is going to sifting though a lot of false positives.

The Fire Control System (FCS) has also been entirely upgraded. “The new version is faster and has better performances,” we were told, adding that the Merkava Barak is able to shoot on the move, day and night, with increased accuracy.

Being able to accurately fire on the move at both day & night has already been standard for most tanks made in the past few decades, so while it is probably an improvement over current FCS systems, I'm willing to bet it's not significant enough to really be notable.

Human-machine interface has also be completely reviews, adapting it to the young conscripts experience, multi-touchscreens with smartphone-like interface being now adopted. “We worked on it pretty hard for the last two years in order to make it very approachable for young soldiers who are used to their cell phones and playstations and now need to fight in a tank and we developed for them a very nice and new HMI.”

It's like a vibeo game!!!

But seriously, what's the obsession with making everything touch screens nowadays? Especially in a military context where you'd think it'd be useful to have tactile controls that can be operated on muscle memory during high stress situations.

There's probably more stuff to pick apart, but overall it just feels like they're trying to use technology to compensate for the fact that they're frequently having to use their tanks in situations that tanks really shouldn't be used in, namely that they're being operated by under-trained conscripts to fight in urban guerilla warfare.

A reporter's tweet...

Asked FETTERMAN what is his message specifically for people under bombardment in Gaza.

"I'm not really sure, specifically," he said, adding: "I grieve the loss of lives of Gazans or any innocent civilians [but] Israel does not specifically target civilians."

Nitter

i like how westoid media last than a year ago was like "ebil CCP tankie Li Keqiang 😠 "

and now the dude has died they've all changed their tunes instantly and are being "RIP ebic reformer Li, i cant believe pooh killed you with the heart attack gun 😢 "

guys, I did some research and found out that hummus has been native to the land of Palestine for at least 800 years

Kinda shocked tbh. Didn't expect him to dive so deep into federation lore, conclude that they won't escalate because "the hexagonal tankies are claiming for it", then shout-out beehaw

Zionist wankery is reaching new hitherto unknown levels of cringe. This is the UN "ambassador" of the zionist entity, at the UN security council who has declared he will wear a replica Jew star until the security council "condemns Hamas".

Imagine being such an unhinged piss baby that you feel it fitting to grope the victims of holocaust to extort undeserved pity for your shitty settler colonial state

Reminder to the western leftists that we’re not supposed to be backseat driving the revolution.

https://archive.ph/6XqpR

Shoot and cry bullshit about soldiers firing artillery day after day in Syria and getting fucked up from all the explosive blasts next to them

Instead, in case after case, the military treated the crews’ combat injuries as routine psychiatric disorders, if they treated them at all. Troops were told they had attention deficit disorder or depression. Many were given potent psychotropic drugs that made it hard to function and failed to provide much relief.

“I gave the Marine Corps everything,” he said. “And they spit me out with nothing. Damaged, damaged, very damaged.”

Damn dude, you mean the imperialist war machine doesn't value human life? You thought you were on the team hey? Sucks to be wrong. Eat shit.

Guilty: Sam Bankman-Fried convicted on all counts after monthlong trial (ArsTechnica)

Feels like the media and western governments are really honing in on the “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” chant over the last few days. In their view, that constitutes promoting the destruction of Israel and is thus terrorism and (ironically) promoting genocide.

I mean, yeah, we do want the destruction of the Israeli state. Settler colonial states don’t have a “right” to exist (USA, Canada, Australia et al included). The problem is, since most people are so woefully ignorant of the history of Palestine, they don’t understand that the destruction of Israel does not mean, like, killing everyone there. It means the destruction of the racist and apartheid system. Palestine will only be free when there is one binational secular state where the rights of all are protected, and the Palestinians who were forced out are allowed to return. So while I (and do think we, too) do not believe anyone currently in Israel proper should be forced out much less killed, the current fascist theocratic ethnostate of Israel must be eliminated.

IRL, I’ve tried to explain the “from the river to the sea” chant by comparing it to South Africa. It was only just that the apartheid system be smashed. South Africa under apartheid was effectively like Israel/Palestine now: bantustans were essentially occupied territory and had no real autonomy but Africans were also not allowed to have any real say in the overall system. When that system was dismantled, South Africa was no longer a racist white supremacist state that legally constrained the rights of the majority of the population. Obviously the work was not complete as there is still significant economic and political disparity, but South Africa was transformed from a racist white supremacist state that occupied and held down the black majority to a multinational state where there is ostensibly equal rights for all. And at no point (to my knowledge) was there any serious consideration to shipping off the white population back to the UK and Holland, much less serious advocacy for genociding them.

I think people have a much easier time wrapping their heads around the situation in South Africa. Just sucks that people are so ignorant that you have to go into such detail to explain it. Not that western governments care, this crackdown on speech is genuinely getting scary.

Lol, apparently Israeli media is trying to blackout tomorrow's speech, and requests people don't taln about it. Barbara Streisand effect is going to blow it up

feeling really jokerfied lately. like starting to get legit worried I'm going to burst out laughing at an inappropriate moment

Israel is officially more cringe than Ukraine

Lines within the bourgeoisie are being drawn: https://nitter.cz/FT/status/1719385543971328436

‘Hamas is more Vietcong than Isis.’

Faced with Israel’s technological and military superiority, Hamas’s military wing, the al-Qassam Brigade, has turned Gaza into a haven for guerrilla war.

I love saying "Israel" with quote marks, some people get really angry when you use them. Plus it's true, what the fuck is this "Israel" everyone is talking about? I don't recognize such thing, it's all Palestine after all.

Prediction: tomorrow Nasrallah walks out onto the stage, rips up the paper he wrote his speech on, and just laughs into the mic as the rocket barrage begins

Today's rally was huge and hugely encouraging, so naturally I had to ruin any positivity I may have felt by reading comments in the local newspaper.

Hussein Mortada: The "rescued" soldier was not captured on Oct 7, but was lost several days ago during an attempted ground incursion, separated from her unit under intense ATGM fire. She was later found, & the occupation took advantage of the incident to claim a false "rescue"

Too bad the baby-killer didn't stay lost, I hope she shit her pants hiding out in those fields

please help, my bird keeps saying "zionism must be destroyed" ????

They also bombed an ambulance convoy transporting criticality injured people (I think they were going to raffah crossing)

Palestinian Authority says half of homes in Gaza destroyed

The health ministry of the Palestinian Authority, which is based in the West Bank, has put out new figures on the impact of the the war in Gaza. It says:

• More than 50% of Gaza's housing units have been destroyed

• Nearly 70% of its population are displaced

• 16 out of 35 hospitals that can take in-patients have stopped functioning

• 42 UNRWA buildings have been damaged

• At least seven churches and 55 mosques are damaged

• As we reported earlier, Israel accuses Hamas of locating infrastructure in tunnels underneath civilian areas.

Israel says it has struck more than 11,000 "targets belonging to terrorist organisations" in Gaza and dropped more than 10,000 munitions on Gaza City alone since 7 October, when it began its campaign in retaliation for Hamas's deadly attacks.

- BBC

It's a steady stream of horrible news about Gaza. And the following comment is an unoriginal thought on my part but I can't believe that "Everything bad or awful in Gaza is directly due to Hamas" is an actual argument.

Drove through a tiny Californian town with a 2000 population today. Pro-Palestinian protest happening. Gave them a toot of the horn and a wave

throwback

Nazi who becomes anti-Holocaust because libs keep saying that opposing genocide is antisemitic

Gaza tunnels

Goddamn that's deep

I just finished Rashid Khalidi’s The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine. I started it after I saw Hakim recommend it on Twitter. I definitely recommend it. It’s a relatively quick read - you’ll just get an overview instead of a lot of details. But it’s great. There are several areas I wish he did go into more detail but he gives you enough info to be able to research topics on your own (the whole thing that went on in 1982 with Lebanon and Sabra and Shatil is something I plan on looking into more next).

One thing I appreciate is Khalidi makes one point clear: at no point in the last hundred years have the Palestinians ever been offered meaningful autonomy. Technically they had it briefly with the UN partition plan but Israel, Egypt and Jordan immediately took it away from them. Israel has never offered them anything resembling autonomy.

'Blowing Up Everything In Amazing,' Says Sociopathic Israeli Minister of Heritage

"North Gaza is more beautiful than ever. Blowing up everything is amazing. When finished, we will hand over the lands of Gaza to soldiers and settlers who lived in Gush Katif," he wrote

Telecommunications cut to Gaza once again about an hour ago; Gaza is currently experiencing the worst bombing it has ever experienced.

Here in Jerusalem, you often hear people say "now is not the time for politics". Israel is still grieving, hundreds of hostages remain trapped underground in Gaza, and the war is starting to escalate.

the war is starting to escalate.
starting to escalate.
starting

what are we at now, 8000 dead? 10000? the war is starting to escalate, now, after 3 weeks of death and bombs

re-reading bits of Finkelstein's book. replace Obama with Biden and he could be talking about 2023. every single one of these massacres has run through the exact same course, it's wild.

Ta-Nehisi Coates on his visit to Israel and Palestine - "There's a word that come up all the time and it's 'complexity' and it's closely related adjective 'complicated'... I assumed it would be hard to descern right from wrong to understand the morality at play [and the conflict]. But perhaps the most shocking thing was that I immediately understood."

video - https://video.twimg.com/amplify_video/1720062305562497024/vid/avc1/480x270/OZBnhaK-xzfYInO9.mp4?tag=16

"You can't behold evil and then return and not speak on it."

Ta-Nehisi Coates speaks about how an experience in Palestine illuminated the connections between the African American and Palestinian liberation struggles, and the moral responsibility to speak out.

Nitter

There are 3 tweets and each as a video.

The Commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps, General Eric M. Smith has been Hospitalized since last night, October 29th, due to a currently Unknown Medical Emergency; because of this Lieutenant General Karsten Heckl, the Deputy Commandant for Combat Development and Integration and the Commanding General for Marine Corps Combat Development Command is the now the Acting-Commandant of the Marine Corps and will remain so until General Smith can return to Active Duty and/or a New Commandant is chosen by U.S. President Biden.

HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

72 comments in a 72 trillion post but I'm here to make it 73 comments

I’m feeling a mixture of optimism and caution. This is the first time in my life, since the George Floyd protests and riots, that I’ve seen one of the “eternal” veils of propaganda stripped from so many people’s eyes. This is a good thing, but I feel incredibly cautious because this leads to wanton brutality upon the masses by the bourgeoise as they struggle to maintain control

Cowards block the fake news comm