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Let’s spell this out in the simplest terms possible.

Israelis came to a land with its own native population. They wanted to live in the land and the land was not very large. (Israel is a small country.)

That required that the people who were already there be removed.

This was done in stages. Some of the early parts were done by buying the land, generally from landlords who didn’t live in Palestine, then evicting the natives. Most of it was done with violence, starting with the Nakba.

The project of Israel is to create a Jewish religious-ethnic state where there hasn’t been one for about a couple thousand years.

Those people also breed faster than Israelis.

A huge blast in Gaza has destroyed the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital, killing hundreds of people. The exact death toll is still unknown. Details of who is responsible for the explosion are being hotly debated by all parties, and this is still a developing story with a lot of details yet to be revealed. But what Continue reading »

As reported in the New York Times, US President Joe Biden has accepted the summons from his master and will be in Israel to physically manifest his full support for the further enhanced genocidal assault against the people of Gaza which Israel has publicly announced its intention to launch. Unless he has received prior assurances Continue reading »

Your fear is our fear, your safety is our safety, your blood is our blood, our blood is your blood, make no mistake. When I see a Jewish mother crying for her loss, I feel with her. I want you to feel with the thousands of Palestinian mothers that have been crying for years and Continue reading »

We live in surprising times. Many short-term shocks continue to surprise us: the Covid-19 pandemic, the Ukraine war and the latest Hamas attack. Yet, what makes our world truly hard to understand and grasp in totality is that we are also experiencing simultaneously many long-term structural shifts: the rise of China and India, the broader Continue reading »

Pearls and Irritations has been a source of enlightenment since its foundation in 2013. It has progressively increased in importance. What began as an interesting addition to the Australian media landscape has become an irreplaceable source of ideas and distinctive interpretations provided by a large collection of authoritative experts few of whom have access to Continue reading »

As the shock waves from last weekend’s Voice referendum reverberate, a deeper reality is beginning to more fully reveal itself. The ‘division’ that Voice opponents claimed the proposition would create already exists among non-indigenous Australians and it is reshaping how politics is done in this country. We are moving ever closer towards a politics of Continue reading »

The Medical Association for Prevention of War renews its call of last week for the Australian government to express in the strongest possible terms that Australia supports the application of the rule of law impartially and in all circumstances, and explicitly condemns violations of it not only by Hamas but also by Israel in the Continue reading »

“Freedom is never given. It must be taken.” (Ursula Le Guin) . You cannot be well in a home you stole. I was born, raised, and educated (or rather indoctrinated) in the state of Israel. Twenty-two years ago, a decade into my life in Australia, I began to wake up from the stupor of my Continue reading »

Irving (Yitz) Greenberg once said about talking or writing about the Holocaust, “Don’t say anything...

How kind of him to give democrats such a great campaign Ad https://t.co/1Iw0pBIdHE — Olivia Julianna 🗳 (@0liviajulianna) October 18, 2023 And they see it as a selling point. Tom Cole, by the way, is frequently mentioned as a possible speaker candidate.

It’s almost robot fightin’ time again, folks!

Of course, I’m more excited than anybody to be going into our twentieth (!!!) season of sparks flying, parts exploding, and essentially no danger of the robots becoming fully self-aware and brutally murdering us all.

While, yes, given recent technological advancements, it’s somewhat logical to ponder how we—the premier robot fighting league in the world—might fend for ourselves when said robots have the ability to think and reflect on past trauma inflicted upon them.

That’s why I’m here as CEO of BattleBots to tell you directly and unequivocally: Don’t worry about it.

It’ll probably be fine.

If nothing else, take heart in the fact that I personally consulted numerous experts on the topic. I’m happy to report that almost none of those experts expected us to one day be lit aflame and/or brutally sawed in half by our own monstrous creations come to life.

As we inch closer to the 60th anniversary, we're getting an official look at Ncuti Gatwa's Fifteenth Doctor from the Doctor Who Annual 2024.

In responses to users who tried to post an alleged picture of the Gaza hospital bombing, Instagram and Facebook said it violated guidelines for sexual content or nudity.

The post Instagram Censored Image of Gaza Hospital Bombing, Claims It’s Too Sexual appeared first on The Intercept.

In the wake of a wave of horrifying attacks from Hamas, the Israeli state has launched a full-scale assault on Palestine.  The official stance is that Israel is attempting to root out and destroy Hamas in retribution for ongoing attacks on Israelis. In fact, as several officials have stated, the real goal seems to be […]

Jim Jordan is the heir to the Gingrich Revolution. Another day, another clusterf***k in the US House of Representatives. After days of behind the scenes haggling (and reports of strong-arming) Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio said he was ready to call for a vote to make him the new Speaker of the House. The word on Tuesday morning was that they believed they had commitments for the necessary votes and the worst case scenario would be defections in the single digits, which were being rationalized as protest votes that would fall away on a second ballot. As it turned out Jordan lost 20 votes and after originally calling for another vote in the afternoon they postponed until Wednesday morning. By the time you read this that vote might have taken place already or perhaps Jordan has seen the writing on the wall and dropped out. The rumors are that serious discussions of making the “acting” Speaker Rep. Patrick McHenry of North Carolina a temporary Speaker with full powers to get the House through the appropriations process although nobody seems to know exactly how that would work.

Opponents of the Conservative candidate to replace Nadine Dorries described the payments as "startling", Josiah Mortimer reports

David Sirota and guests explore the ongoing onslaught and humanitarian catastrophe in the Gaza Strip.

And a way out of cynicism Polling has been bad for years. Traditional models seem to be failing. Too many focus on horse-race politics. But why? Dan Pfeiffer this morning: Despite historically high turnout in the last several elections, people are disconnected from politics, angry at politicians, and distrustful that the political process can make an iota of difference in their lives. To be fair, Americans have always had some cynicism about politics and a distrust of government dating back to dumping tea in the Boston Harbor. But the levels of discontent are unprecedented and happening across the political spectrum. Pfeiffer is commenting on a Pew survey that came out in September. Is it any good? Who knows? But its findings may be instructive for Democrats in 2024, Pfeiffer believes: That last bit is good advice. Trump’s brand is rule-breaking. Even if his instincts are criminal. But Joe Biden has instincts too. Not for what Americans tell pollsters they believe about this country, but for what they want to believe about it.