Monica Marks
@MonicaLMarks
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Prof of Middle East Politics @NYUAbuDhabi . Tunisia, Turkey, Gulf. PhD @StAntsCollege Oxford. Fulbright, Rhodes, @HarvardWCFIA . 13 yrs writing on Tunisia.
Dubai - Tunis - Istanbul
Joined May 2011
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It’s been an awful day for
#Tunisia
. My friends’ children deserve the better world so many of them were struggling to build.
I wrote this in the spirit of a requiem, an obituary, w the prayer that history—rarely linear—will smile broadly on Tunisia again.
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The backlash to director Jonathan Glazer’s acceptance speech at the Oscar’s—where his film The Zone of Interest won “Best International Feature Film”—is really beyond the pale.
Let’s take a minute to watch his speech & examine what he said in context: 🧵
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A must-read by Oxford’s Avi Shlaim, who pulls precisely zero punches.
“The Palestinian people,” he writes, “are the only people living under military occupation who are expected to ensure the security of their occupier.”
“What is happening in Gaza is… Israeli state terrorism.”
Avi Shlaim is one of the most high integrity Jewish intellectuals of his generation. This piece is a required read by all of us so torn by the events since October 7th
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John Ossoff, the 36 yr-old Jewish senator from Georgia, articulated a clear-eyed case for why 🇺🇸 should insist 🇮🇱 protect civilians in Gaza.
An unmitigated humanitarian disaster in Gaza, he said, is a moral failure & undermines American national security.
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“Doctors in Gaza said that children, weakened by lack of food, had died from hypothermia and that several newborn babies with mothers who were undernourished had not survived for more than a few days.”
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For months, this account has worked to memorialise a sliver of the 28,000+ Palestinians killed in Gaza since Oct. 7.
It offers Humans of NY-style snapshots of the lives lost: kids, college grads, new fathers, grandparents.
Yesterday, the account posted their own daughter, Noor.
Noor, my daughter, was the only one who held my heart in this world. Her story was different from other girls.
Noor Al-Fara, 13 years old.
She had dreams for the future and was planning to achieve things beyond her age. She lived in her own world, with thoughts and interests…
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Rashid Khalidi is the Edward Said Professor at Columbia Uni & an unparalleled authority on Palestine.
This entire interview is a must-read. I was esp impressed by Khalidi’s advice for pro-Palestine activists, whom he argues must persuade the metropoles:
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It took me not 1 but 3 separate trips to the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg, South Africa 🇿🇦 to finally visit the gift shop.
When I did, I was surprised to see that this was their top item for sale...
Fortunately the Auschwitz Museum isn't selling "Arbeit Macht Frei" hoodies!
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Excellent statement from Norway’s Minister of Foreign Affairs re: UNRWA.
Here’s part of it:
While I share the concern over the very serious allegations against some
@UNRWA
staff, Norway has decided to continue its funding.
UNRWA is a lifeline for millions of people in deep distress in Gaza as well as in the wider region. My statement:
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Hamas killed 12 Thai workers on Saturday. They worked alongside Israelis. One was beheaded with a garden hoe in an absolutely gruesome video that many people—especially in Israel—have watched.
Another reason why the “all forms of resistance are valid” narrative needs revision.
All of the academics defending Hamas's actions as a freedom fight against an oppressing force have not addressed how that justifies Hamas killing and abducting Thai and Filipino workers who are definitely not oppressing anybody.
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One Israeli hostage is a 74 yr-old peace activist.
“I spent much time in Gaza until the 2nd intifada,” she wrote. “It infuriates me when ppl claim: We have no partner on the other side! I know so many Palestinians who yearn for peace no less than we do.”
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Excellent visual illustrating the absurdity of
#France
’s 🇫🇷 new abaya ban by
@PeterHogness
.
Bc no clear legal criteria exist for defining “abaya,” enforcement of this ban—which is seeing girls expelled from public schools every day—will necessarily pivot on racism.
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Standing Together—a collective of Jewish & Arab/Palestinian Israelis—organised their own aid convoy from w/in Israel to try & break their government’s cruel & illogical stranglehold on food aid to Gaza’s starving ppl.
The army is stopping them. This should be international news.
The army has blocked us on the way to Gaza with an aid convoy. There is no justification for collective punishment and mass starvation. Ever.
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Only 1/3 of ppl in Gaza trace their origins to Gaza Strip.
The rest are mostly refugees from 1948 Nakba, the ethnic cleansing of greater 🇵🇸 that was part of 🇮🇱’s creation. See this map of their hometowns ⬇️
“Palestinians in Gaza” is the less concise, but more nuanced, phrasing.
Please consider using the term "Palestinians in Gaza" and not "Gazans." First, many people in Gaza are from elsewhere - refugees multifold, and this erases that history. Second, it entrenches a purposeful fragmentation and reproduces political and social isolation. 1/2
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The key point here—which I think anyone w/ a brain who’s watching this fairly should grasp—is that Glazer & his team don’t want the Holocaust or their Jewishness, which they clearly care about deeply (hence their making of this very film) used & abused to justify abusing others.
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I just contacted two well-connected friends in Tunisia’s small Jewish community to inquire whether this tweet, about a synagogue attack there last night, was true.
Sadly, they said, it is.
The fire was set in protest against Israel last night at El Hamma synagogue near Gabes.
En Tunisie, la synagogue d'El Hamma a été détruite et incendiée hier soir par des centaines d'émeutiers, sans la moindre intervention policière. De nombreuses vidéos sur TikTok et Facebook. Et pas la moindre mention dans les médias nationaux
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Possibly the most bizarrely disconcerting video I’ve seen from a conflict.
IDF social media posts have shown them nicking Gazans’ jewelry, fondling their lingerie & dressing up as dinosaurs to bomb them.
Any disciplined army would’ve restricted soldiers’ phone use months ago.
A video circulating on social media shows an Israeli soldier dressed up in a dinosaur costume carrying bombs and launching them into the Gaza strip. He then does a celebratory dance on top of a tank
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Profoundly wise piece by
@gershonbaskin
, who has negotiated w/ Hamas since 2006.
“We Israelis must begin to confront the delusion that we have been living for decades. You cannot lock more than 2 million people into a human cage & expect quiet.”
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Head of UNRWA in Gaza: “This is the darkest hour in the agency’s 75-year history… Our staff take their children to work so they know they are safe or can die together.”
In my 35 years of work in complex emergencies, I never have expected to write such a letter, predicting the killing of my staff & the collapse of the mandate I am expected to fulfill
#Gaza
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Today in anti-Semitic madness:
Tunisia's president, Kais Saied, claims that Storm Daniel (which destroyed Derna, Libya) is evidence of Zionist infiltration & a Zionist "attack on the mind & thought" bc it's named Daniel, after a "Hebrew prophet." 🤦🏻♀️🧵⬇️
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Glazer’s speech is short, just over 1 minute.
The point he emphasises first, & that he & his team find pivotal, is this: that the film & its ethos are not just about denouncing past injustices—they’re about confronting us w/ the past *so that we can better confront the present.*
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Immediately after uttering the controversial line, Glazer says this:
“Whether the victims of October 7 in Israel or the ongoing attack in Gaza- all the victims of this dehumanisation. How do we resist?”
He’s opposing dehumanisation *of everyone* and asking how we resist it.
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BDS has called to boycott Standing Together (
@omdimbeyachad
), an org I proudly support.
BDS describes it as a "Israeli normalization org" that “whitewash[es] Israel’s ongoing genocide."
This is counter-productive, circular firing squad purism. 🧵
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“Gil Hoffman, executive director of HonestReporting, admitted Thursday the group had no evidence to back up” its suggestion that Gaza journalists had foreknowledge of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, the AP’s
@dbauder
reports:
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He then utters the speech’s most controversial line:
“We stand here,” he says, as men who refute their Jewishness & the Holocaust being used by an occupation which has led to conflict for so many innocent people.”
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@jh_swanson
Yeah, I mean he looked slightly nose-ier in profile but not THAT nose-y…
Also I hadn’t realised but Leonard Bernstein was *fine*
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“All our choices [on this film] were made to reflect & confront us in the present,” Glazer says.
“Not to say 'look what they did then,' rather 'look what we do now.'”
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Instead of cowering after backlash to his Oscars acceptance speech, “Zone of Interest” director Jonathan Glazer is donated signed posters to the Cinema for Gaza auction, which is raising money for Medical Aid for Palestinians.
Good for him.
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A few days ago, I tweeted about Chaim Katzman, one of ~1000 Israeli civilians Hamas killed on Saturday.
Chaim was an activist for 🇮🇱-🇵🇸 peace.
Today, his brother told CNN that he rejects Israel’s gov using Chaim’s killing to justify killing innocent Palestinians.
Clip below 🧵
Chaim Katzman was PhD student of
@returnstosender
’s spouse
@UWJSIS
& anti-occupation activist.
I’ve seen fellow academics suggest all resistance, inc killing civilians, is valid & Israelis are all legit targets.
Please think abt Chaim. He could’ve been your student, your ally.
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“The first thing he saw was a woman’s arm hurled across the street to the door of a mosque. It was his mother’s.
In a bag were parts of his brother & family. He recognised pieces of his niece Suzan from a bracelet, one she used to fight over w her sister”
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“Hamas Is Not ISIS. Here’s Why That Matters”
For
@TIME
, I explained why the “Hamas=ISIS” conflation is dangerous for the security of both Israelis & Palestinians.
Thanks to
@gershonbaskin
&
@azelin
, who are quoted in the piece.
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#Tunisia
’s sailors & fishermen are routinely finding—& accidentally “catching”—human corpses, including bodies of babies.
“Step by step I got used to it,” said Oussama, a fisherman. “After awhile getting a dead body out of my net is like getting a fish."
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18 hours later, the Israeli Prime Minister’s official “spokesperson to the Arab world” has not removed this tweet.
The tweet is obvious disinformation that’s been rightly outed by community notes. It uses footage from a Lebanese film to claim that Palestinians are crisis actors.
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But unfair it is. Today, bad faith critics are having a feeding frenzy, painting Glazer & his team as self-hating Jews moronically gifting support to Hamas & Oct. 7 supporters.
But I don’t see how anyone who actually watches this speech & thinks about their film could buy that.
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Statements like this from Columbia SJP reflect a very real confusion on the left about the morality & legality of Oct. 7.
International humanitarian law prohibits attacks that target civilians, regardless of the cause or whether the actor doing the attacking is occupied.
I'm disappointed & frustrated with the statement by Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine (who blocked me despite having never interacted with them). In it, they reaffirm the right of armed resistance, an explicit endorsement of Hamas and October 7 & the “all means…
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“A Hamas terrorist was taken out of the debris, carried in his father’s arms. Covered w/ dust, his body jerking like a sack, his stare blank. It’s not clear if he’s alive. He is a toddler.”
Searing critique of Israel’s Jabaliya camp attack by
@gideonle
:
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UNHCR "appalled" by reported violations of Palestinan women & girls, inc rape.
I encourage everyone who, like me, was rightly disgusted by reports of Oct. 7 sexual violence against Israeli women to spotlight this, too.
Consistency re: all victims is key.
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Suffering isn’t a zero-sum game. Neither is truth.
I refuse the supposition, so widespread & instinctual, that recognising Oct. 7 horrors detracts from recognition of the horrors Palestinians face, or vice versa.
May all victims rest in peace, with their truths told.
The New York Times has published a lengthy investigation into the sexual violence and brutality faced by women in Israel on October 7 by Hamas terrorists.
Their two-month long investigation was based on:
- Interviews with 150 people including witnesses, medical personnel,…
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So if you’re making tweets like this—either bc you didn’t watch Glazer’s full & forgot about its context, or bc you’re desperately trying to deflect criticism of Israel in bad faith—please stop.
Retract a tweet like this, or quietly revise your opinion if you’re less public.
I simply cannot fathom the moral rot in someone's soul that leads them to win an award for a movie about the Holocaust and with the platform given to them, to accept that award by saying, "We stand here as men who refute their Jewishness."
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I want to introduce you to some of the kind, dignified ppl—most of them card-carrying UNHCR-certified refugees—surviving in utterly inhumane conditions in one of
#Tunisia
’s 🇹🇳 very poshest neighbourhoods.
This is what President Saied’s “Great Replacement” speech has wrought:🧵⬇️
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In Midtown Manhattan, tucked into Trump Tower, is 45–the 45th president’s official bar.
It plays kitschy 70s hits (“Do the Hustle”) & is covered in gilt-framed photos from Trump’s presidency.
It serves…hummus.
And it displays this insane 2019 letter Trump penned to Erdogan ⬇️
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First, let’s recall the plot of the film that Glazer wrote & directed, for which he & his team won Oscars.
It’s about the Holocaust, & how a German couple whose home is next to the Auschwitz concentration carry on their lives w/ genocide in the backyard.
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This. The inhumanity in corners of the pro-Palestine left today has been chilling. I’ve seen multiple ppl claim any form of resistance is justified—even killing civilians, inc elderly & children. I’ve seen even more say they feel zero civilians exist in Israel, implying as much.
There is never any justification for the murder of civilians, for the slaughter of entire families, for the kidnapping of children and old people.
Ever.
Also, keeping millions of people under brutal occupation, with no end in sight - results in unjustifiable acts.
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Today’s case study in politicised use of the passive voice:
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As a woman, I never walked a man home for his safety—let alone 3 strong, young adult men.
But I did that in Tunis tonight.
I did it bc these 3 smart, sensitive men are Black Sudanese refugees living in
#Tunisia
, where racist pogroms have made them terrified to leave their home.
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And let’s watch The Zone of Interest—for which Glazer & his team won Oscars yesterday—reflecting on how we, like the German family he portrays, might be witness to gross violations of human rights or apologias for them in our own backyards, wherever those backyards may be.
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In 2018 I dated a brilliant Turkish seismologist who worked at 🇹🇷’s top earthquake research institute, Bogazici University’s Kandilli Observatory.
We naturally discussed earthquake preparedness a lot.
He was fond of saying that earthquakes don’t kill ppl; buildings do.
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Which really is, in my view, the key Q post-Oct. 7. I’ve been appalled by “by any means necessary” rhetoric that treats all Israelis as fair targets & terrorism as legitimate resistance.
But I am appalled every single day by Israel’s eliminationism & plausible genocide in Gaza.
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This is the single best piece I've read on Hamas since Oct. 7.
It explains why Hamas is unpopular in Gaza (vs W Bank) & lays out reasons why Israel's massive destruction approach is actually strengthening violent actors.
The author is from Gaza. His family still lives there.
Hamas is deeply unpopular in Gaza. The way Israel is waging war will ensure their survival ()
My latest opinion piece with the The Forward, I lay out numerous examples for how/why Hamas is unpopular in Gaza and how it has disregarded its peoples' wellbeing…
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Italy’s PM Meloni coauthored a 2019 book on Nigerian mafia. Journalists read it ⬇️🧵
Its racism is shocking.
It purveys Great Replacement Theory & racist rumours. The Yoruba "practice cannibalism & you can buy human flesh in their markets" it says. "White corpses are welcome."
Bella l'indignazione per Vannacci. Ma la Presidente
@GiorgiaMeloni
nel 2019 ha pubblicato un libro al cui confronto quello di Vannacci è il libro Cuore.
🧵 Mi sono inflitto la lettura di "Mafia Nigeriana - Origini, rituali, crimini". Lo riassumo nel thread 👇🏼
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Mairav gets to the heart of it more succinctly than I did in my 🧵 with her response to Abraham Foxman, director emeritus of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), here.
He did not refute his Jewishness, he refuted its weaponization.
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Please listen to this 5-min video of Hisham Awartani—the Palestinian-American college student shot & paralysed in Vermont wearing a kuffiyeh—speaking out for the 1st time.
He, his friend & his mom are, movingly, grateful for their luck vis-a-vis Gazans.
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600,000 demonstrating is an extraordinary figure. It means approx 6.5% of
#Israel
's population is out protesting tonight, many having literally woken up from their beds when they heard Bibi fired Gallant.
When was the last time 6+% of any country protested? Genuine question.
Jerusalem, Near the Israeli Parliament, the Knesset. It is now 45 minutes past midnight. According to TV channels, there are around 600K ppl out on main roads all over the country.
A popular chant in TA is "we are blocking Ayalon, you are messing with the wrong generation"
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This, shockingly, is the State of Israel’s official Arabic account.
Instead of communicating concern for Palestinian civilians, it implies that videos of Gaza medics triaging patients are crisis actors.
I cannot imagine a worse communications policy by Israel to the Arab world.
معجزات ام مسرحيات
مسرحيات #حماس لاستدرار المشاعر
🔴 انعاش قلب المريض يتم في الجهة اليسرى لكن في الصورة؟؟؟؟
🔴 هل لاحظت المزيد من الامور الغريبة في الشريط؟
@SufianSamarrai
#حماس_الإرهابية
#حماس_اداة_فارسية_مجوسية
#حماس_هي_داعش
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@_ZachFoster
Reading this reminds me of visiting Sarajevo & learning abt the Bosniak library bombing. Many irreplaceable items that formed a repository of Bosnian Muslims' heritage were lost. Your website can be a great resource for scholars & survivors. Keeping Saleem in my thoughts.
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IDF claimed Hamza Dahdouh was riding in a car w/ someone operating a terrorism drone.
But when asked for evidence, its spokesman punted:
“We understand they were using a drone. And using a drone in a war zone, it’s a problem. It looks like terrorists.”
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Sent to me today from a friend in London. The most basic of moral truths, but a message that’s been lost on many.
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“Palestinians in Gaza did not need this additional collective punishment.”
Exactly.
12 of UNRWA’s 13,000+ Gaza employees stand accused of involvement in Oct 7.
UNRWA fired them. Call for reform & accountability, sure. But no to collective punishment of an already starving ppl.
UNRWA lifesaving assistance is about to end following countries decisions to cut their funding to the Agency.
Our humanitarian operation, on which 2 million people depend as a lifeline in Gaza, is collapsing. I am shocked such decisions are taken based on alleged behavior of a…
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Israeli audiences can find soldiers’ discovery of lingerie in Gazan women’s homes salaciously exhilarating bc many ppl have bought into flattened stereotypes abt Palestine divorced from its societies’ reality.
Fauda, for instance, showed no uncovered (hijab-free) women in Gaza.
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Hamas is not ISIS.
Though framing its struggle in religious terms & using brutal ends, it's a (violent) nationalist liberation movement whose context & drivers are more like Algeria's early FLN.
Take, for example, the fact that Gaza- ruled by Hamas since 2007- has churches: ⛪️
Churches in Gaza open their doors to be shelters! Church of Saint Porphyrius was first built as early as 425 CE, the current building goes to crusaders era with other later additions. The church has opened its doors to Muslims and Christians during airstrikes.
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"The depraved tactics of Hamas," Senator
@ossoff
said from the floor yesterday, "do not relieve Israeli leaders of their obligations to protect innocent life."
"Nor should they harden our hearts against the innocent people who live under their rule."
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But wait! There's more!
At the Apartheid Museum gift shop you can ALSO buy the 1949 Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act on a T-shirt!
🤯🤯🤯🇿🇦
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This is appalling. The IDF is dropping warning leaflets on Gaza that literally tell people that Hamas members & their families are in safe places, but that “you (civilians) will die” in its airstrikes.
The Arabic is plain as day in the middle of the page here.
IDF admit to war crimes. Photo of IDF leaflet shared by Motaz Azaiza. It says "Hamas & their families are in safe places while you (civilian) will die for nothing". Isn't this admitting to war crimes by saying that they will kill civilians but Hamas are safe?
#Gazabombing
#Gaza
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“No to racism, no to populism,
#Tunisia
is an African country.”
Now at the Jabhat Khlas (Nat Salvation Front) protest in Tunis. Calling repeatedly for “fall of the coup” & demanding immediate release of everyone arrested.
Photos of political prisoners & Tunisian flag held high.
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That’s bc their critique—as Jewish leaders in film accepting an award for a movie about the Holocaust—is powerful. It was entirely predictable that this would be a magnet for hasbarists to delegitimise their critiques re: Gaza.
The unfair sound bite here was way too easy to clip
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Now, if they’d presented me with this draft speech & I’d read the following line—i.e. “We stand here as men who refute their Jewishness & the Holocaust being used by an occupation which has led to conflict for so many innocent people”—I’d have immediately warned them to rephrase.
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Sick to hear that Emine Özsoy, the wife of Ferdi Özsoy (a friend & prominent fact checker) was paralysed in a brutal, random attack on the NYC subway.
Emine is a talented, successful artist. She & her dear husband are known to many who follow Turkey (1/3)
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@Istanbultelaviv
The graphic photos of dead Israeli civilians laying in pools of blood—plus the large scale of this attack—will be angering, terrifying & further radicalising for Israelis.
More Palestinians will be killed in reprisal. The cycle of violence continues.
No one should applaud this.
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Amira Hass is one of Haaretz’s most fiercely critical columnists against Israel’s abuses of Palestinians. She joined the Freedom Flotilla & went to Gaza multiple times.
Her report on Gazans’ anger at Hamas, its repression & Arab media’s hesitancy to cover that is worth reading:
I didn't know Basel before we started talking. He wanted to express his fury at what he calls "Hamas' takeover of our narrative."
He's angry that Palestinians outside Gaza and their supporters expect Gazans to shut up and not criticize Hamas / Amira Hass
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Vivian Silver lived on a kibbutz in the extreme south of Israel, near Gaza (part of recognised Israel, not a settlement). She was abducted into Gaza by Hamas yesterday.
Her words, on the Women Waging Peace website, show she opposes war & cares deeply about Palestinians’ rights.
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Denying people the basic necessities they need to survive is a violation of international humanitarian law. This is a declaration of war crimes.
IHL prohibits killing noncombatants. It also prohibits this. In such moments when the gyre widens, fairly defending IHL is essential.
Israel's defense minister: "I ordered a full siege on the Gaza Strip. No power, no food, no gas, everything is closed."
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It's definitely their
#1
item. They've got it on everything, even hoodies!
But I can't help feeling like it's a covert test:
If you buy a segregation shirt, maybe you've failed the Apartheid Museum & the gift shop cashier sends you back to square 1 for a remedial tour 😂😂😂
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Israel’s order is not only illegal under int law. It’s not practically feasible.
Pushing 1.1 million south in >24 hrs on tightly congested Strip w/o electricity, etc is patently absurd.
“Calamitous” acc to UN. "Ethnic cleansing at lightning speed or stay & die" is not a choice.
The IDF notified the United Nations at midnight on Friday that the entire Palestinian population north of Wadi Gaza should relocate to southern Gaza within 24 hours, a UN spokesperson says. (1/5)
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Tunisia imports 50-60% of its wheat from Ukraine. It was struggling to pay for wheat shipments, facing protests from desperate bakeries & even rationing wheat-based products (on which Tunisian diet chiefly depends) *before* the Ukraine invasion.
Extremely precarious situation.
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Chaim Katzman was PhD student of
@returnstosender
’s spouse
@UWJSIS
& anti-occupation activist.
I’ve seen fellow academics suggest all resistance, inc killing civilians, is valid & Israelis are all legit targets.
Please think abt Chaim. He could’ve been your student, your ally.
Chaim Katzman, workers rights activist, who worked to expand access to education, and anti occupation activist murdered yesterday. 💔
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I don't think pairing it w/ the Madiba Gilligan hat improves this look, tbh 😂😬
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An American professor, Jodi Dean, calls Oct 7 "exhilarating," claims Hamas is supported by "the entirety of the Palestinian left" & applies Leila Khaled's defense of "the justness of hijacking."
I don't imagine any Verso editors will resign à la Guernica.
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🇮🇱’s Education Ministry won’t fund an event bc its host, Lucy Aharish, is an Israeli-Palestinian in a mixed marriage (she’s wed to a Jewish Israeli film star from Fauda).
“A woman who represents a mixed marriage cannot represent Jewish culture” said an Education Ministry letter.
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Egypt has threatened to suspend the 1978 Camp David Accords—its landmark peace treaty w/ Israel—if Israel invades Rafah, the town on Gaza’s Egypt border where 1 million+ Palestinian refugees are huddled.
Extraordinary indication of how threatened Egypt feels by this prospect.
Egypt threatens to suspend key peace treaty if Israel pushes into Gaza border town, officials say (from
@AP
)
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A huge loss to Israel’s beleaguered peace-building community, amidst a time of so many unfathomable losses.
This photo from Vivian Silver’s memorial service. 💔
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This tweet, from a prominent Emirati analyst, reflects where much Arab public opinion lays despite the Abraham Accords.
He calls Hamas's attack a "legitimate right" of the Palestinian ppl resisting settler occupation & says "we pray for victory, oh heroes of the resistance."
مقاومة الاحتلال الإسرائيلي الاستيطاني الغاصب حق مشروع يستحق دعم الشرفاء في العالم. دعاؤنا لكم بالنصر يا ابطال المقاومة.
#طوفان_الأقصى
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Two BBC headlines, just 4 days apart. Same news agency & similar tragedies. Yet a tremendous difference in the use of active vs. passive voice in reporting:
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Terrible night that bodes ill for the people of MENA.
Israelis huddle in bunkers as Iranian drones & missiles enter over dense neighbourhoods.
Iranians huddle at gas stations, panicked & buying supplies.
Palestinians continue to suffer terribly.
This spells good for no one.
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In process of trying to evacuate family members from Kharkiv today (fingers still crossed on that!) I’ve heard from journalists & combat veterans who’ve shared advice on fleeing a war zone, specifically Ukraine.
In case this helps anyone else:
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Is this clarity? If terrorists hid under a Tel Aviv hospital or New York high-rise, we wouldn’t cavalierly bomb those buildings—killing & maiming hundreds of civilians—to eliminate them.
We’d try to be more surgical. Why? Bc innocents’ lives matter.
Same should hold in Gaza.
Some clarity in Jebaliya.
The point here isn’t that this specific attack wasn’t the war crime so many pretend it was.
The point is that this will happen again and again and again. Hiding behind civilians is Hamas’ basic strategy, and one more excellent reason to destroy it.
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Any journalist who cares about future of democracy & dictatorship in the Arab & Muslim worlds should endeavour to rigorously cover
#Tunisia
’s July 25 referendum. The 1st genuine & organic—albeit fragile—Arab democracy will likely breathe its final gasps in 2 weeks. That matters.
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Powerful. CNN covered its entire studio in images representing each of the 12,800 children who’ve been killed in Gaza since Oct. 7.
Thanks to
@brikeilarcnn
for this, & to CNN journalists for doing a # of the clearest & most critically informative l reports I’ve seen recently.
It’s hard to comprehend the deaths of 12,800 children. We put up figures of children on our studio walls - one for each child killed in Gaza during the war.
They’re dying from airstrikes and now malnutrition and dehydration.
These are some of their stories.
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Baskin also lays bare the fact that Hamas is, to some extent, the Frankenstein's monster of Netanyahu.
This is not a fringe opinion, but an increasingly well-established fact amongst experts.
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India’s surging Hindu nationalism remains a fascinating case study in the uses & abuses of indigeneity—an ostensibly left-wing concept that can manifest as right-wing blood & soil nationalism.
Hindutva is when an indigenous population rebuilds a temple above a mosque that Muslim invaders built above an indigenous temple that they destroyed, and this is bad for India's cohesion and development, or some stupid shit.
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But fortunately they've got some Mandela fridge magnets w/ some very good quotes tucked away in a corner, at least!
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Today marks 1 month since the Israel-Hamas war began.
On this day, I’m thinking about a crucial but under-examined topic: the role of graphically violent images & videos, which have spread w/ breadth & ferocity I haven’t witnessed in any other conflict—not even Syria or Ukraine.
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Interesting sign of the times in MENA?
In Saudi Arabia, the Barbie movie opens in cinemas today.
Meanwhile in breezy Mediterranean Lebanon—typically *far* more culturally progressive than Saudi—it will likely be banned because of the Hezbollah-backed Culture Minister.
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For anyone who doesn’t realise The Grayzone’s past dissembling on Syria should disqualify Mate & Blumenthal as reliable sources, a 🧵:
There are 334 alleged instances of Assad using chemical weapons against Syrian people. Advocating for Palestine never legitimates denying that.
Here's the problem with b.s. like this. Even if you buy the claims of Assad apologists that a few of the alleged attacks were false flags, you're still left with literally hundreds of documented chemical attacks which none of these people have ever so much as questioned. 🧵
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I feel nauseous. We’re poised on the edge of a dark precipice. The coming carnage may dwarf 2014’s horrors.
Any politics that doesn’t equally oppose killing civilians on both sides is a failure.
This violence is cyclical. And many more mothers are about to be crying.
UPDATE:
#Israel
Amasses 100,000 troops on Gaza border
• Ground Offensive Imminent
• Goal to 'end' Hamas threat + its control of Gaza
• Israel confirms large number of hostages taken
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Diplomatic cables from US embassies in Oman & Egypt warn Biden administration that its stance on Israel risks “losing Arab publics for a generation.”
Reporting by
@priscialva
&
@MarquardtA
for CNN:
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Some noteworthy findings in a poll released last week by
@IDIisrael
🧵
Approximately 70% of Israelis--and 83% of Jewish Israelis--do not think Palestinian civilians' suffering should be considered "much" or "at all" when planning the fight.
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“The most important thing for me & also for my brother, is that his death will not be used as a justification for killing innocent people.”
What an incredible statement.
@mominisrael
, you raised two amazing boys. May Chaim’s memory forever be a blessing.
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Hamas told BBC it doesn't know which Israeli hostages are alive or where they are. It was a stunning, shambolic assertion.
Producing a list of Israeli hostages is widely understood to be an urgent prerequisite for current negotiations re: a temporary ceasefire.
@OisinDubai
@marcowenjones
Hamas flat out told BBC Newshour this morning that they don’t know which hostages are alive, who’s holding them, or where they are. It was a gobsmacking interview. Listen from around the 7 minute mark.
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In Israel, hostages’ families have played a central, formidable role in calls for a ceasefire & ending the war.
In Western capitals, though, their plight has typically been repurposed as reason to continue the war by pro-Israel groups & ignored entirely by pro-Palestine groups.
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Again & again, the cost of “canceling” people hits the canceller hardest.
There was no reason to nix this gifted young woman’s valedictorian speech, as far as I can see. And for those afraid it *might* have criticised Israel: now she’s on CNN & 100s of thousands know her name.
USC valedictorian Asna Tabassum joined me on NewsNight tonight after her school cancelled her graduation speech citing “threats.” What she planned to say and what she thinks really happened:
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There are things you read that reduce your head & heart to one incoherent scream of pain. Damn this brutality.
Khalil deplored Oct 7 cruelty, empathised w/ Israeli victims & responded to his father's death w/ a vow to reject revenge. Now this.
May we work to end this suffering.
With a heavy heart I announce that my 18-year-old younger sister, Lara Sayegh, was killed today on her way from Gaza City to the south. She and my mother were reaching Egypt for safety. My angel collapsed as she was walking on the “safe route” past the Israeli checkpoint, in an…
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