This is going to use politicized terms - especially with antisemitism lately - so, again, you've got to exercise a basic, basic skill of disinformation: holding an idea in your head without believing it
What you're seeing here is a sus #nafofella profile tying us to al-Qassam🧵
What just happened was a parliamentary shake-up - I'm not going to pretend to understand the details - that resulted in a very, very far-right government in Israel.
So it shouldn't be a surprise how Ben-Gvir feels about HAMAS or for that matter al-Qassam. m.facebook.com/ibengvir/photo…
Understanding the strategy he's using requires, again, suspending some level of whether or not you agree with Ben-Gvir or the US & Israel's treatment of HAMAS.
A direct juxtaposition makes it somewhat clearer.
The upshot here is that for some reason NAFO is becoming somewhat of a football - for at least one rather sus account - in Israeli right-wing politics' strategies of enemy-creation and "other"-ing.
By way of context here, Ben-Gvir saying Ha'aretz is a HAMAS rag is roughly equivalent to....
I don't know, Farage maybe?
...saying The Guardian is, like, a pinko commie rag
One, what this says about right-wing politics in general and Israeli right-wing politics,
Two, what this suggests about how the Israeli right feels about NAFO and, by extension, NATO and supporting Ukraine in Russia's war against it
Three, the way that NAFO is becoming - as other #nafoFellas have noted - like antifa or BlackLivesMatter, kind of a catch-all term for any digital grassroots anti-propaganda you don't like.
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This is a key piece of what’s going on that I think more people should put together into summaries and pictures of the world
What you're looking at here is so big as to be indistinguishable from a concerted information war effort by something/someone efficacious and powerful
🧵
To the extent that a meme can comprise a threat signal, this is a big one.
Consider what happened to Clinton in '16 or Fauci in '20: you cannot mention their names today with some people, without hearing (successful) disinformation campaigns that have taken root in their beliefs
Mention Clinton, and chances are, the person you're talking to will think Clinton is corrupt without knowing how, or too personally unpopular to get elected without saying why they know (neither are true - Clinton was never charged with a crime and she won the popular vote).
Zelensky is actually the highest-profile world leader who has ever stood up to Trump.
Drop the frame of evaluating the damage to our country, or analyzing how bad Trump's actions are, for just a moment, and sort of step back and see it from Zelensky's position.
Zelensky is the leader of a country at war which is highly dependent upon foreign aid for its survival.
His popularity indexes with how much aid Ukraine gets, which controls Ukraine's military viability.
That is the biggest risk to Ukraine that he can control personally.
The amount of U.S. military aid he gets, I think we've all seen, he doesn't control, not with this President in office willing to impound Congressionally authorized funds.
"Trump-Russia", by which people mean a variety of different ideas and explanatory theories ranging from "omg Agent Krasnov!" to "senior citizen being steamrolled by Putin", has never been about any kind of secret or non-public information.
It's because of what he's done. (🧵)
In 2016, the only substantive change that the Trump campaign wanted made to the Republican Party platform was support for lethal aid to Ukraine.
In 2017, once elected, Trump met Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak alone in the Oval Office a day after firing James Comey because he wouldn't offer Trump public assurances that he wasn't involved with Russia. npr.org/sections/thetw…
First, we know that there’s something wrong with Trump’s relationship with Russia. Some of us may not admit it, but almost all of us know it.
I believe there’s a high risk that Russia has been controlling Trump to some extent since 2016. Many Americans also believe this. Some of us even believe that Russia has “kompromat” on Trump. Since we may never know for sure, we consider it a risk.
Слухайте, якщо ми зараз будемо абсолютно чесними з українцями, тому що Трамп їх накручує, я хочу сказати дві речі.
(🧵)
По-перше, ми знаємо, що у відносинах Трампа з Росією щось не так. Деякі з нас, можливо, не визнають цього, але ми майже всі це знаємо.
Я вважаю, що існує високий ризик того, що Росія певною мірою контролює Трампа з 2016 року. Багато американців також вірять у це. Деякі з нас навіть вважають, що Росія має «компромат» на Трампа. Оскільки ми можемо ніколи не знати напевно, ми вважаємо це ризиком.
Trump's otherwise-inexplicable comments regarding Zelensky's popularity make sense in this context. It is a lie so easily disproved as to be laughable.
Zelensky is actually substantially more popular than Trump, who has never had an approval rating higher than 50%.
According to my theory, the reason why Trump is talking about Zelensky's approval rating doesn't have a whole lot to do with the actual situation as far as elections, either.
It is especially jarring considering the Napoleonic rhetoric Trump uses himself.