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Wed, 11/10/2023 - 10:30
When Israelis can catch their breath they are going to have to grapple with this reality They are still in the midst of their horrific trauma. But it won’t be long before they are going to be looking at how this massive failure happened. This from Gidi Weitz in Haaretz shines a light on one of the major reasons: How depressing and upsetting it is today to recall Benjamin Netanyahu’s arrogance under interrogation about Case 2000, one of the three corruption cases against the prime minister. “This is classified, don’t let it leak, okay?” he said, flattering the police investigators with the magic lure of security secrets. And then he explained his doctrine regarding Hamas and Hezbollah.
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Wed, 11/10/2023 - 09:00
Twitter/X is now a nightmare of disinformation Twitter/X is a terrible source right now and it’s really not worth looking at if you want information about the Israel Hamas situation. There is so much disinformation floating around and even some people you follow may be disseminating it without realizing it. At times like these, wityh emptions running so high, you really need social media to be well curated and have safety measures in place to ensure that disinformation and misinformation are restrained as much as possiblke. That isn’t happening at all on twitter even though they have very belatedly admitted the problem: The social media platform X, formerly Twitter, declared late Monday that it would limit the spread of misinformation regarding the Israel-Hamas conflict. “A cross-company leadership group has assessed this moment as a crisis requiring the highest level of response,” the Trust and Safety team’s statement read. But according to Wired, the team has no leader following the resignation of Ella Irwin in June.
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Wed, 11/10/2023 - 08:00

In the Jewish legend, the great warrior Samson ends up, as John Milton famously puts it, “eyeless in Gaza.” He is blinded by the Philistines and harnessed to a huge millstone, forced to drag himself around and around in circles, always moving but unable to go anywhere. Eventually, in the most spectacular of suicides, he gets […]

The post Eyeless in Gaza appeared first on The New York Review of Books.

Created
Wed, 11/10/2023 - 06:00
A noun, a verb, and the southern border With this, and Ronna Romney McDaniel declaring the attacks a “great opportunity”—and really everything since Benghazi—it could not be clearer that the GOP salivates for barbarism and human calamity when the president is a Democrat. Utterly ghoulish party. https://t.co/HS5MB1FtvZ — Brian Beutler (@brianbeutler) October 10, 2023 Note the flat affect when he’s talking about the carnage in Israel. It’s just a lead-in to his renditon of The Snake which he apparently thinks is a good metaphor for the Israel Hamas conflict when in the past it was a metaphor for the border. This is how his addled brain works: That imbecile is going to be the GOP nominee for president. For the third election in a row. Here’s more on his speech yesterday when everyone else was watching the horrific events in the Middle East: In a weekend filled with politicians offering criticisms and condemnations over the state of the world, Donald Trump on Monday had a few. For the Wall Street Journal editorial page (“globalists”), for windmills (“we see whales washing up on shore”); for Florida Gov.
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Wed, 11/10/2023 - 04:56
The International Criminal Court (ICC) faces a test of its credibility in how it monitors and deals with the conduct of Israel as it strikes back against the horrific attacks committed by Hamas. It must send a clear warning that while Israel has a right to defend itself, crimes against humanity and war crimes will Continue reading »
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Wed, 11/10/2023 - 04:55
“We are fighting human animals and are acting accordingly.” – Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant. On October 7, the special day being Simchat Torah, the vaunted security barriers protecting the State of Israel from those troublesome, sovereignty yearning Palestinians were spectacularly breached. From sea, air and land, Hamas executed a daring operation that saw, within Continue reading »
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Wed, 11/10/2023 - 04:54
On Saturday, 14 October, Australians will vote on a seemingly inoffensive change to their Constitution. Why is it meeting such opposition? The case of the destroyed site at Juukan Gorge offers a hint. Are Australian mining companies, with such a poor record of respecting the voice of aboriginal communities, the true source of opposition? In Continue reading »
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Wed, 11/10/2023 - 04:53
There’s a government review of health insurance. Here’s why you haven’t heard of it … and what needs to change. In the dying months of the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison era, a set of research projects was commissioned from the consultancy firms favoured so highly by that government. The full cost is unclear, but it’s in excess of Continue reading »
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Wed, 11/10/2023 - 04:52
What can we achieve together in this final week of the referendum campaign? Join me on Thursday for a special webinar with First Nations women Lynette Riley and Beverly Baker to learn first hand about the proposed Indigenous Voice to Parliament. A free Zoom webinar in this Voice Referendum Week: Thursday 12 October 3.30-4.30pm It’s Continue reading »
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Wed, 11/10/2023 - 04:51
Afghan war crimes whistleblower David McBride is facing a secret trial on November 13 that could result in him serving a life sentence for leaking classified information that formed the basis of ‘The Afghan Files’, a 2017 ABC exposé revealing allegations of misconduct by Australian special forces in Afghanistan. Although the allegations were substantiated by Continue reading »
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Wed, 11/10/2023 - 04:30
Marco Rubiio should not be allowed to spew this horrific eliminationist garbage on television. Jake Tapper: Is there a way for Israel to destroy Hamas without causing massive casualties against the iccocent people of the Gaza strip and roughly a million of them are children? Marco Rubio: I don’t think Israel can be expected to co-exist or find some diplomatic offramp with these savages. These are people, as you’ve been reporting that deliberately targeted teenage girls, women and children and the elderly, not just for rape and murder and then dumping thei bodies off in the streets of Gaza where the crowds can then defile their lifeless bodies. They’re just horrifying things. We don’t know the full extent of it yet. There’s more to come in the days and weeks ahead. You can’t co-exist with that. They have to be eradicated. I feel sick.