Matthew Teller
@matthewteller
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Writer • Author NINE QUARTERS OF JERUSALEM • QUITE ALONE • Antarctica • Rep: @ampersandagency • He/him
UK • Bluesky/Threads/Insta
Joined April 2009
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Pinned Tweet
It’s my honour to announce DAYBREAK IN GAZA, out in October
@SaqiBooks
: Gazan voices telling Gazan stories of life, love, loss & survival—people, places, testimonies, history, memoir, poetry & art, showcasing a heritage that can never be destroyed.
Order:
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It's a big day today in our humble English bathroom, folks
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“Mistakenly” is wrong and misleading. Israeli forces deliberately shot them. Later on they realised that the people they’d shot weren’t who they thought they were, but the soldier didn’t pull the trigger by mistake
IDF says Israeli hostages in Gaza were holding white cloth on stick when Israeli forces mistakenly shot them
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Exactly 54 years ago, 3 Aug 1968, Portugal's authoritarian prime minister, António de Oliveira Salazar, 79, slipped over in the bath & hit his head.
He seemed to be ok, but then complained of feeling ill.
In hospital he lapsed into a coma. It looked like he was about to die 1/4
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We do realise, don’t we, that the Queue has been deliberately designed this way? That it is eminently possible to handle large crowds in a way that doesn’t involve people standing in the street for 22hrs? That this performative theatre of suffering and mourning is the point? Mmm
People at the back of the line — now famously known as the Queue — to pay their respects to the queen will likely be waiting 24 hours, British authorities said Friday. Among those in line was soccer star David Beckham, who said he waited about 12 hours.
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It's gone, folks. That's it. BBC, CNN, Sky... Gaza has dropped off the World News headlines. Now it's just Al Jazeera, along with socials and specialist channels. Must admit that's quicker than even I thought.
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The possibilities are endless.
Source:
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The charade carried on for two years. The dictator had no idea he was being duped.
Eventually, on 27 July 1970, Salazar died.
Less than four years later, the authoritarian state he had built collapsed.
The following year, Portugal held its first free, democratic elections. 4/4
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Standing in the rain in a small town in the middle of England as traffic passes and people do their shopping, slowly reading out the names of dead children
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Ex-ministers held "policy" meetings with Salazar. Every night, the editor of Salazar's favourite newspaper printed a fake edition that removed mention of the new govt & substituted bogus stories as if Salazar was still PM.
The dictator read the fictional newspaper unawares. 3/4
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Nobody has bandwidth for this I know, but there is an emergency situation in the Old City of Jerusalem this morning. Extremist Israeli settlers, backed by armed police, are seizing property of the Armenian church, as part of an ongoing campaign of dispossession and Judaization
THE SETTLERS HAVE ARRIVED AT THE SITE. THE POLICE HAVE TOLD THE ARMENIAN COMMUNITY THAT THEY ARE THERE TO SECURE THE TAKEOVER OF THE PROPERTY BY THE SETTLERS, AND NOT TO MAINTAIN THE STATUS QUO.
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Portugal's president appointed a new prime minister to replace Salazar, who had been in office since 1932
But Salazar woke up.
Rather than break the news to the dictator that he had been dismissed, his aides set up an elaborate scheme to fool him that he was still in charge 2/4
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Be ready for your jaw to hit the floor.
There is something very odd happening in Germany around Gaza and Israel, in the sense that large sections of the German political and media establishment appear to have entirely lost their minds. We are steps away from pencils up the nose.
Naturally, this question came from a German journalist working for a major Berlin newspaper. Watch
@FranceskAlb
's response.
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This is extraordinary. What on earth is going on inside the BBC?
A released Palestinian prisoner says in Arabic that Israel held them in the cold w/o electricity, "sprayed us w/ pepper spray" & "left us to die."
She never mentioned Hamas or a word like it. Yet
@BBC
translated to: "No one helped us. Only Hamas cared...We love them very much."
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I'm inside the Old City of Jerusalem, 600m from the church where the funeral is happening, listening to the sound of Israeli helicopters hovering overhead, watching video of Israeli riot police attacking pallbearers holding an actual coffin, jfc
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Tokyo is a city of roughly 40 million people, but this one stretch of 100 metres - known as “Islamic Street” - is uniquely exotic, selling halal food and African & South Asian spices & sweets that are difficult or impossible to find elsewhere
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Truly extraordinary story about Heba Iskandarani, a stateless Palestinian-Lebanese-UAE-British woman whose forebears were Jews expelled from Spain in 1492 *and* Muslims expelled from Palestine in 1947. She researched it all and now has a Spanish passport
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Deplatforming fascists is legal, moral, ethical - and effective
Milo Yiannopoulos has reportedly sold his website after saying he’s struggling to put food on the table
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I’m not interested in the interviewer or his opinions, but the way this encounter proceeds is quite something. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a government spokesperson simply stop responding and stare at the camera in silence waiting for—what? a thunderbolt?
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Journalists don’t like being told what to do.
Then again, if you’re reporting on Kushner without at the very least alluding to what
@sarahkendzior
mentions here 👇 is what you’re doing journalism? Or something else?
Do not report on Kushner in the Middle East without mentioning his family's West Bank settlement investments, his family's long-time ties to Netanyahu, and his many infractions as an amorphous "advisor", ranging from lying on security forms to the probable sale of state secrets
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May I suggest the Washington Post subeditor who wrote this headline, and the editor who approved it, and the publisher who published it, take immediate extended leave, perhaps in a cave in the desert, to read, re-read and reflect on their work
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Jerusalem is full of stories. Here's one that was unknown when I first visited, but is now everywhere
If you look up at the facade of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre—the place (probably!) where Jesus Christ was crucified, aka Church of the Resurrection—you'll see a ladder 1/20
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@MairavZ
Hello Mairav. I’m interested to hear you say that. My understanding is that occupied people - and specifically Palestinians - explicitly have the right under international law to resist occupation by any & all means, including armed violence. Is that right? Not trolling, honest q
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Foreground. Background. Foreground. Background. Can't decide which is more astonishing.
#IceStation
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Decently, quietly, off-air, Trevor Noah skewers “show some respect”
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After you’ve bombed the city flat, killed the inhabitants, forced the survivors out & then planted your flag in the rubble, vandalising a tiny gift shop says who you are—but being proud of it & knowing you can post it consequence-free says who you’re with
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I’m not interested in a concession speech, I don’t care whether he engages with transition or not, it’s irrelevant whether he attends the inauguration or not - he was, is and will always be an irrelevance. If I never see his face or hear his voice again, I would be delighted.
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"Why are refugees not claiming asylum in France, Italy, Spain or Greece? Why do they need to come to the UK?"
It takes
@ZoeJardiniere
75 seconds to explain why. Is the Home Secretary listening? *
* No, and neither is the rest of the Conservative party
Our Policy Manager
@ZoeJardiniere
broke this down for your colleague a couple of weeks ago.
Time to scrap the
#AntiRefugeeBill
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Viral bathroom tweet right here ⬇️ I’ve been laughed at all across the Arab world for celebrating something so ordinary, and welcomed into civilisation at last 😂😂😂
It's a big day today in our humble English bathroom, folks
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Do you know how many posh, well-educated, white English-speaking men have written books about Jerusalem?
Hundreds. Thousands. A few are even worth reading.
So why have I—a (relatively) posh, well-educated, white English-speaking man—written another one?
Here's why.
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"This [violence] is what it means to live under occupation - they want to control your happiness, and they want to control your mourning."
@dianabuttu
eloquent as ever just now on AJE
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Today marks a year since I FINALLY went to see the doctor and managed to hold back the tears as I said, “I think I might be depressed.”
It changed everything. Everything. Every day I thank pharmaceutical science, the NHS & the love & support in my life.
Go ask for help
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A short thread about colonialism, and how reality can never match up to idealised fantasy.
150 years ago there was a revolution in time-keeping—in the 'East' as in the railway-dense 'West'. Civil authorities began wresting control of public time out of clerical hands.
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Insane that this stuff is still being written, let alone published (by the LRB, in this case)
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Our ridiculously talented Syrian & Jordanian neighbours want to set up a supper club/restaurant business. We booked them to make us a celebration dinner yesterday and bring it round. Holy cow, was it good. Not shown: most of it
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Excited to announce 'Nine Quarters of Jerusalem' is out in March with
@ProfileBooks
. It's about an extraordinary place - but it's about the extraordinary people who live in that place. I'm an outsider. I listened to what people told me. They deserve better. This is about them.
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Another example of how the Israeli state uses ‘national park’ status to conceal land expropriation and cultural erasure. It has done so since the state was created and continues to do so today in occupied Jerusalem
A
@TimesofIsrael
exclusive //
Israel is preparing to advance an unprecedented project to expand a national park onto church-owned lands and holy sites in East Jerusalem, sparking fierce opposition from local Christian leaders. (1/8)
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Antarctica helps you remember human frailty. This turquoise - is it beauty? Or death?
#icestation
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@lisang
But also really interesting. Precisely calibrated top-down nation-building in real time, honed after literally years of prep, and producing exactly the desired result. Magnificent, really. And Monday will be the cherry on the cake
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Palestine Railways (1920)
Mon-Sat timetable:
Haifa 0515
Jerusalem 0600*
Jaffa 0740*
Gaza 1104
Rafah 1218
Cairo 2250
Cairo 1815
Rafah 0602 or 0955
Gaza 0714 or 1109
Jaffa 1032* or 1437*
Jerusalem 1247* or 1707*
Haifa 1255 or 1705
*change at Ludd
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Very proud to say my article on the incredible 18thC Syrian storyteller Hanna Diyab is now out. Never heard of Hanna Diyab? HE CREATED ALADDIN. Or probably did. In fact he WAS Aladdin. Even though a French guy stole the idea & claimed it as his own. More:
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Carbonbon emissions
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Sorry, can't really tweet at the moment. Too upset by Gaza. Nothing useful to add. Got to stand up in few days and swallow imposter syndrome long enough to say something useful about peace & justice to a hall full of people who lived through horrific sectarian violence. Might cry
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There's spectacular - then there's sailing away from Cape Town on a sunny afternoon bound for Antarctica
#IceStation
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Such a pity this AJE reporter keeps repeating that displaying the Palestinian flag in Israel is illegal, to explain why the Israeli police attack people & property to confiscate flags. It is NOT illegal to display the Palestinian flag in Israel. The police are acting unlawfully.
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Singing from the Kotel for the start of Shabbat, then church bells at 6pm for evening service (or whatever the equivalent is), then it’s time for Maghrib. God
#Jerusalem
tsk just get over yourself 🙄
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What did you do at work today? Farai Beghede started clearing a 35-year-old minefield, on his hands & knees. A genuine Falklands hero
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I don’t know who to credit for these, but they’re amazing 1/2
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It’s been a day of brilliant replies from all over the Global South 🙏🏻💐😅🎉
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"Women & children" is a reflexive linguistic tic. Let's drop it. It infantilises women & denies them agency; it implies men are dangerous, guilty, combatants deserving of violence; it asserts patriarchy; it codifies misogyny.
@mayamikdashi
explains much better in this 2014 piece
How the phrase "innocent women and children" helps justify killing:
"Men are always already suspicious, the possibility for violence encased in human flesh. ...
Boys and men are presumed guilty of what they might do if allowed to live their lives."
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So many folk playing catch-up after falling for the “it’s complicated” line on Gaza. The morality of Palestine is not complicated. It rings clear and true like a bell, and if you don’t listen because you think “it’s complicated” that’s 100% on you. As the kids say, do better
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Extraordinary public art created today at Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem using the spent ammunition from the Israeli attack. At the top is “No pasarán” (“They shall not pass”) in Arabic
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I got post
To say I’ve been trying to make this happen all my life wouldn’t be an understatement.
Thank you MORE THAN I CAN SAY to
@MarkEllingham
, editor, supporter & believer, & all at
@ProfileBooks
for making it happen. And family, friends, the NHS & everyone who knows me 🥰
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So there it is, folks. The book is with the editor. 120,000 words about Jerusalem. Or really, 120,000 words about the people who live - and have lived - inside the walls of Jerusalem. It’s all people. Lots & lots of stories. And it’s VERY unbalanced. I’ll do some threads soon.
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2 million people are trapped in the Gaza Strip. They cannot leave, ever. It is very small. Here's how small.
The Gaza Strip compared with Cornwall / Cape Cod / Lake Geneva / Dubai:
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Writers! Don’t start your book this way! Make sure this is not your Chapter 1! Good night and good luck
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I *loved* writing this about what must be the world’s oldest continuously operating soup kitchen, the incredible Khaski Sultan in the heart of Jerusalem’s Old City - it’s an amazing story of community. What a privilege. Photographed by
@mostafalkharouf
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‘Unfolded’ indeed. NYT takes us for idiots
Gunfire by British soldiers unfolded in Northern Ireland 50 years ago, taking over a dozen lives and later becoming known as Bloody Sunday. As Northern Ireland reflects on the grisly day, symbols of division and hostility still hold their power.
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Slept out last night
#Antarctica
Like a log. About -15C but toasty & cosy, thx to amazing
#IceStation
field guides.
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Ali Ahmed Salameh's shop "Bicycles of Peace", Gaza City, 1971
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These loathsome, depraved, pig-ignorant desecrators shame me personally, shame my family and shame my ancestors’ memory. I am outraged and have rarely felt so insulted. What a profoundly disgusting, inhuman, reprehensible thing to do. Gah. Fuck them all to hell these destroyers
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Legislators in Idaho confirm details of a law they passed that says perpetrators of rape or incest cannot sue their victims for having an abortion, but relatives of the perpetrator can
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After today I don't want to see UKIP, hear UKIP, think about UKIP, wonder why someone from UKIP is on again - nothing. Gone. Dead. Stop it.
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It’s so disappointing (and desperately misleading) to hear the BBC World Service’s main news report yesterday’s violence in Jerusalem in two sentences down-bulletin: ‘Hamas warns Netanyahu’ and ‘Hamas politburo issues statement on Sheikh Jarrah.’
That is not the story, people.
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Sure, sex is good, but have you had a review of your book like this one in the Jewish Chronicle? SO much to enjoy.
If you want to know why the reviewer hated it so much, buy here:
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That building has stood there more than 1300 years. There is no equivalent, but it’s as if Russian armed police started firing heavy weaponry at people around Chartres Cathedral, or St Peter’s in Rome. Shocking. Horrifying. Inconceivably reckless. Immediate universal condemnation
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This, displayed today during an anti-mask/antivax/Qanon rally in London, is the flag of the pre-WW2 British Union of Fascists
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I wonder how the Italian govt might have responded to 7 Somalis requesting visa extensions because they fear conditions back home
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How do you combat the effect of 100+ days of complete darkness in the Antarctic winter?
#IceStation
With SAD glasses
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They aren’t “clashes”
They didn’t “erupt”
It’s not “contested”
I’m not even sure about “site”
But yes, it’s in Jerusalem. Well done.
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You've seen the cartoons of Hitler that went around in the German & British press in the 20s & 30s, right? They look desperately sad and trivial, knowing what we know. Nonetheless, I endorse this blimp. CC
@lisang
@krmaher
👇
the crowdfunder to make this fly over central London during Trump's visit has, I am not entirely surprised to report, smashed its target
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A phenomenal struggle by
@PalFest
to stage this hugely important London event, with TWO large, prestigious venues pulling out at the last minute. It *will* go ahead, for an in-person audience well above 500, and I’m honoured to be one of the speakers. Join online—details below ⬇️
Ticket-holders to the physical event tomorrow please note there is a THIRD VENUE. You have been emailed details.
Voices and events in solidarity with Palestine are being critically suppressed around the world and it has been a challenge to ensure that this event goes ahead.
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Just to say,
@PetrocTrelawny
is a master broadcaster and classical music is good for you. Well, me
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This referendum is the worst thing that's happened to this country I can remember. Appalling decision to call it, disgusting spectacle since
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A very memorable place to visit, but far out in the desert and difficult to reach. I visited 20 years ago. Would gladly go again
Over 1400 years ago Prophet Muhammad ﷺ and a Christian Monk named Bahira, met under the shade of a tree. That same tree was believed discovered still alive in the northern deserts of Jordan. The only tree alive in hundreds of miles of emptiness.
A thread on the Blessed Tree…
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I put together a bunch of my published stories from around the Middle East, dating back to 2008 -stories not of war or geopolitics, but of people. Whatever I did, I tried to listen to people. This is travel writing, for sure, but I hope it's more than that
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Another view of this incredible iceberg
#Icestation
Top of arch is, by my estimate, 30-40m above sea. Big old berg.
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Hello, friends. I'm afraid I'm going to be tweeting the heck out of this. The first GoFundMe I've ever set up, for someone I know. There's lots wrong with it, I know, but it doesn't feel like the wrong thing to do. So, you know - dig deep, if you can...
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This image & headline from BBC News just now is horribly predictable, desperately disappointing and - let's be clear - fundamentally misleading. As usual, the ones left out are the Palestinian people. Responsible media should not be supporting the games of the powerful like this
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29/ And that's quite enough for now! This thread is already far too long. I'll finish the tale another day.
My book NINE QUARTERS OF JERUSALEM is crammed full of stuff like this. Due out March 17th
@ProfileBooks
Preorder here:
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Like any tourist city, Jerusalem is full of misinformation. Stories about people and places pass through so many hands, and are filtered through so many minds or adapted for so many audiences, the truth of them can get lost.
Here's a story about a place.
1/16
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Wait, they're building this floating pier SEVEN MILES OFFSHORE? From which they're going to construct a causeway to dry land, along which lorries will drive?
What could possibly go wrong?
FFS just open Ashdod and Erez you bloodless over-educated ghouls
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Utterly wonderful DOUBLE tweet thread. Read it all, it's fantastic.
Alright, don't get alarmed but my dad has just said he's never heard of rock, paper, scissors. Never. Heard. Of. It.
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