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Gershom Gorenberg 🟣 Profile picture
Gershom Gorenberg 🟣
@GershomG
Author, War of Shadows: Codebreakers, Spies and the Secret Struggle to Drive the Nazis from the Middle East Lecture contact info at https://t.co/udcMLZaYE5
Aug 15 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Israeli legal officials tell Netanyahu: an independent state commission of inquiry into the war is the only way to avoid arrest warrants from the International Criminal Court. (Because the ICC’s jurisdiction applies only when national judicial systems fail to act.) Legal officials told Netanyahu in meeting today that he needs to establish a state commission of inquiry.
News item says Netanyahu didn't decide.
What item left unsaid: Netanyahu desperately wants to avoid independent commission of inquiry with full judicial powers.
Aug 4 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
I understand Joe Biden's frustration, but asking Netanyahu to stop bullshitting is like asking the sun to rise in the west. "A person who lies is... responding to the truth, and he is to that extent respectful of it...The bullshitter...does not reject the authority of the truth... He pays no attention to it at all. By virtue of this, bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are."
Feb 23 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
US Sect of State Blinken saying that Israeli settlements in West Bank are "inconsistent with international law" is indeed important symbolically.
However, news items on this are mixing up the history of US policy on settlement illegality.

@BarakRavidreuters.com/world/middle-e… The Carter administration wasn't the first to label settlements illegal. That was US policy from 1967 onward. As seen in this cable of 8 April 1968 from the State Dept to the US embassy in Israel: Image
Nov 12, 2023 • 9 tweets • 4 min read
This @washingtonpost deep dive, like others, confirms Hamas deliberately provoked the invasion of Gaza, knowing that it was sacrificing countless Palestinian lives.
Image @washingtonpost The deaths of thousands in Gaza are as much part of Hamas's plan as the deaths of Israeli civilians on October 7.
The goal was to set off greater conflict, in the name of achieving Hamas's goal - both cruel and utterly without a chance of success - of destroying Israel. Image
Aug 24, 2021 • 10 tweets • 4 min read
#OnThisDay 24 Aug. 1941, in a radio speech, Winston Churchill says that the Germans are carrying out mass executions on Russian soil.
"We are in the presence of a crime without a name," Churchill says.
ibiblio.org/pha/policy/194…
@waitmanb @EquusontheBuses @YehudahMirsky (1) Churchill's knowledge of Nazi mass murder in occupied Soviet territory came from Bletchley Park, where master codebreaker John Tiltman's team had cracked the cipher used by special German police units to report how many people they'd shot. (2)
@calder_walton @spyhistory
Jun 25, 2021 • 7 tweets • 10 min read
#OnThisDay: 25 June, 1942: The hidden turning point in the war for North Africa and the Middle East in WWII---

@calderwalton @spyhistory @IntlSpyMuseum @DrJamesRogers @dahliasc @waitmanb @CamIntelligence @spyhistory @IntlSpyMuseum @DrJamesRogers @dahliasc @waitmanb @CamIntelligence …As of 25 June 1942, Bletchley Park's codebreakers had silenced the Axis "Good Source" in Cairo - its best source in the war - who had been providing Rommel with British Army's most valuable secrets from Cairo…
Dec 24, 2020 • 4 tweets • 3 min read
אז @OferShelah אומר שלמפלגה חייבת להיות דרך. כלומר, מדיניות, תוכניות. אזי אני שואל, מה תוכניתו בעניין:
⦿ חידוש חתירה להסכם שתי מדינות
⦿ הפסקת מימון להתנחלויות והרחבתן
⦿ העלאת מסים על העשירים, כדי לממן -
⦿ כיתות קטנות, שכר נדיב למורים...
@dahliasc @AnshelPfeffer @chaimlevinson עוד שאלות ל- @OferShelah - מה אתה מציע על מנת
⦿ לרפא את מערכת הבריאות המורעבת
⦿ לאפשר לצעירים להשיג דיור
⦿ להחזיר מקומות עבודה בעקבות משבר הקורונה
⦿ להוזיל ולהרחיב תחבורה ציבורית במקום תלות ברכב פרטי...
Dec 24, 2020 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
So @OferShelah says a party actually needs a program. Totally true. Therefore asking for his program on:
⦿ Achieving 2-state outcome
⦿ Settlements, & defunding them
⦿ Raising taxes on wealthy, to pay for -
⦿ Smaller classes, better-paid teachers...

@dahliasc @AnshelPfeffer More questions to @OferShelah - what do you propose to
⦿ Heal underfunded health system
⦿ Make it possible for young people to afford apartments
⦿ Restore jobs lost to pandemic
⦿ Make public transport affordable, efficient, replace cars...
Dec 24, 2020 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
Israel running at highest per capita vaccination rate, as of end of Tuesday:
ourworldindata.org/grapher/covid-… Vaccination accelerated yesterday in Israel, so we are certainly above 1% now.
Health Ministry says that hospitals will join HMOs to give jabs next week. Organizational details not clear.
Dec 22, 2020 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Hey @DHLexpress - what is with your Israel branch?
It was supposed to deliver a package from @AmazonUK to my door 9 days ago.
Delivery person didn't bother coming to door, falsely said no one home…. I got a notice from @DHLexpress Israel saying I had to pick up package at station across Jerusalem. Not what I paid for…
Dec 9, 2020 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Everyone who writes politics in Israel is writing about how Gideon Saar will or will not affect Netanyahu & the whole political scene.
Pro tip: No one has a clue. Nothing that happens here is expected.
This country exists to make fools of would-be prophets....
@kampeas @lrozen Go back to the days after the first election in 2019. Find me a pundit who expected that at the last minute Netanyahu would fail to form a coalition & we'd have not 1 but 2 more elections.
Total shocker...
Dec 8, 2020 • 10 tweets • 3 min read
#OnThisDay Nazis began using mobile gas chambers at Chelmno.
SS officer Walter Rauff was in charge of producing the gas trucks, in which half a million or more Jews were murdered... Walter Rauff, SS technical officer who produced the mobile gas chambers, was later put in command of the Einsatzkommando assigned to Erwin Rommel's army. Rauff was to carry out murder of Jews of Egypt & Middle East...
Sep 26, 2020 • 8 tweets • 4 min read
A pre-Yom Kippur note re Yitzhak Rabin & @AOC -
Every chapter of a book changes the meaning of all the chapters before.
Every day each of us writes a new chapter of our book.
Rabin's bio includes harsh chapters.
In the final chapter…

@Yair_Rosenberg @AllisonKSommer @lrozen In the final chapter of his life, Rabin broke the mainstream Israeli taboo, recognized Palestinian nationalism, and determinedly pursued peace with the Palestinians…
Sep 21, 2020 • 12 tweets • 5 min read
#OnThisDay (yesterday, actually, but I don't tweet on Rosh Hashanah): Sept. 20, 1940: Genevieve Grotjan, mathematician in US Army's Signal Intelligence Service, makes crucial break in Japan's Purple diplomatic cipher:
#War_of_Shadows
@sheeraf @SpitfireFilly @ShiraOvide Image Gene Grotjan was 26. She'd entered civil service b/c she hadn't been able to get a college teaching job, apparently b/c colleges wouldn't hire women.
Sep 17, 2020 • 10 tweets • 3 min read
#OnThisDay Sept. 17, 1939: Soviet Union invades Poland, in accordance with the secret provisions of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact…. Polish mathematician Marian Rejewski, the man who broke the Nazis' "unbreakable" Enigma cipher, had fled Warsaw & found refuge in Eastern Poland. When the Soviets invade, he & 2 young colleages flee again, this time to Romania…
@OrenNahari @MilHistNow
#War_Of_Shadows
Sep 16, 2020 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
UAE-Israel accord named after Biblical Abraham
What would Abraham, who walked before God and was pure, think of the sham of a "peace agreement" b/w countries that weren't at war? Image Normalizing relations b/w Israel & other countries is a good thing. The benefits, however, are overshadowed by the tremendous hyping, aided by uncritical reporting.
Sep 15, 2020 • 5 tweets • 3 min read
#OTD 15 September 1939: Charles Lindbergh, famous aviator & leading isolationist, gives national radio speech against American involvement in two-week-old war in Europe.
@AdamSerwer @AddieStan @KevinMKruse @MilHistNow @danephron @sarahposner @SarahAWildman
#War_of_Shadows President Roosevelt is about to ask Congress to repeal Neutrality Act, which blocks U.S. from selling arms to Britain and France.
Lindbergh's speech is preemptive bid to prevent repeal.
Sep 10, 2020 • 8 tweets • 4 min read
Yesterday, Sept. 9, was the anniversary of the worst Italian bombing raid of WWII against British-ruled Palestine: attack on Tel Aviv in which 117 Jews, 7 Arabs & 1 Australian soldier were killed.
#War_of_Shadows
@OrenNahari @SpitfireFilly @Ibishblog Hajj Amin al-Husseini, the ex-mufti of Jerusalem, sent congratulations from his exile in Baghdad to Mussolini for bombing the Jewish city.
But here the story gets more complicated.
Sep 10, 2020 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Before you see Dune or reread the book, I totally recommend reading explorer John Bagnold's 1935 book, "Libyan Sands: Travels in a Dead World." He was the true dune-whisperer. There is piece of Mars named the Bagnold Dunes. Perhaps there one might find the fabled springs of Zerzura.
#War_of_Shadows
Sep 9, 2020 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
#OTD 9 Sept. 1940: Italian commander in Libya orders his army to invade Egypt. The "Western Front" of WWII becomes the Middle East.

@SherifaZuhur @MohamedSabry079 @Mustafa_salimb @ahm3dmadi @LibyaLiberty
#War_of_Shadows Gen. Rudolfo Graziani didn't believe his army was ready to invade Egypt. Described invasion as"crime of historic proportions" - against his army, not Egypt. But said, "I, before God and my soldiers, am not not responsible" because he was only following orders from Mussolini.
Sep 9, 2020 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Particularly love the picture here of the Free French colonial soldiers at Bir Hakeim. They defended that spot in the Libyan desert against Rommel as if it was the last redoubt on earth.
#War_of_Shadows When the Germans finally took Bir Hakeim, 44 nations were represented among the prisoners - incl. soldiers from Senegal & Cameroon, Tahiti & Madagascar, Czechs, Poles, Spanish Republicans who never gave up. The "French" force was an international legion.