I'm frightened.
There's a new "peace initiative", from arguably the most savvy, down-to-Earth US administration since eons.

The proposal is great. On paper.

It goes that way: replace the Shi'ite strangling ring surrounding Israeli with a "moderate Sunni Crescent" including Syria and Lebanon
Syria and Lebanon will join regional agreements in exchange for billions in reconstruction aid from Saudi Arabia.
Russia will stay, but "less".
In Jordan, the US will hold a huge military base
The US also promises Egypt a nuclear reactor "for civilian energy purposes", and ...
Gaza: American and Saudi companies will turn it into a key trade and export hub providing a fast Mediterranean outlet for Gulf oil exports and Western imports.

Me, so much adorable Occidental naivety, I get flashbacks from the Obama "Arab Spring".

Let's take it one tenet at a time:

1-Syria
Syria just got under the boot of Julani's Tahrir al-Sham’s pan-Islamist militia. Their avowed goal is as Sharia realm from Egypt to Syria, including Iraq (and "Palestine" , of course.)
For the plan to succeed, they need to be booted out. I don't see many candidates to do the booting, since... they're ALSO Sunni. And they behead, torture and rape like Mohammad told them to only yesterday.

2- Lebanon
Lebanon is proposed to join the alliance for reconstruction aid, shifting from the Shiite Crescent (Hezbollah) to a Sunni framework. Ermmm, how?
IF anything, the only peaceful foreseeable Lebanon would be Christian, and WHO would make this happen exactly?

Hezbollah, thanks to the @UN and @amoshochstein' brokered ceasefire, is already rebuilding itself thanks to Iran and China support for Hezbollah, Lebanon’s political fragmentation (Iranian, Syrian, and Saudi influences)

3- Russia
By the way, for all those who don't understand Putin's Ukraine policy: he's just trying to pry Russia from the clutches of China. Because he sees the Great Clash coming, and geopolitically Russia, separating China from Europe, is much easier to have with us than against us.
I'm not saying Putin isn't a criminal. I'm saying against China we need literally all the forces we can get (and don't get me started over what's happening in Africa)

4-Jordan
Iranian influence, and historical ties Jordan (as southern Syria) with all the "Palestinian" population- they've always been one and the same, make integration unstable and risky.
The billions that a US military base in Jordan would cost would be better spent (if at all) resettling the JudeaSamaria Arabs there.

Jordan’s Palestinian majority (3 million, many refugees) and historical roots as part of southern Syria create domestic tension, especially with Gaza’s management returnign to Hamas.
King Abdullah’s monarchy is a sham. It\s time to go back to the San Remo agreement- OK, the Arabs get 78% of the mandatory Palestine, and they stay there, either as one or two countries, not our business anymore.

5- Egypt
Weirdest of the weird. Egypt’s risk of reverting to Muslim Brotherhood control—given its history during the Arab Spring and ongoing Islamist undercurrents—
within a decade is about 80%.
You REALLY want to give the Muslim Brotherhood an A-bomb?

6- Gaza
I mean, you're kidding?
You really believe the sick, sick society that's grown there, which WILL sprout hate movements whether they're called Hamas, or Djihad, or Lions of the Desert (the cuties who strangled the Bibas kids) or or.. will let Saudis and Americans do business?
As long as the current population stays in Gaza instead of going back to Egypt, it's Afghanistan you'll get.
The Saudis know it. And the Qatari will not let go so easily of their pet monster...

But let's admit all of this happens. Just for the sake of it.

The success of the whole scheme is predicated on the idea that Sunni Islam is moderate and preferable to Sunni.

Tahrir al-Sham is Sunni.
Al-Qaeda is Sunni.
ISIS is Sunni.
Saudi Arabia, the "moderate" Sunni power, still doesn't let women vote, or strangers drink alcohol or open churches. The current ruler is less extremist than the last. Nobody knows who will be the next.
They "sponsor" anti-Western programs in US universities to the tune of 1.5 BILLIONS (btw, the famined Fakestinians? They ALSO give money to US universities. Out of the goodness of their hearts, certainly).

And to THEM you want to give the keys of the key region in the world?

Frankly.... It's not only me who should be frightened.

"The success of the whole scheme is predicated on the idea that Sunni Islam is moderate and preferable to Shi'i Islam." Shi'i, of course, not Sunni again.

Why I'm not jumping with joy at the news from Syria.

I never liked Assad, but who is Syria's apparent new leader?

In one sentence: a psychopathic, power-hungry Pan-Islamist (meaning he believes the whole world should be ruled by Sharia) who zigzags between AlQaeda and ISIS/Daesh according to who supports him more in killing kuffars and amassing power. And has, like the Taliban, understood the worth of Taqyiah.

That's the executive summary. You can jump to the final paragraph for the kick.

Now, more in depth if you want your nightmares to have an actual factual basis.

The optimists say it's the united Syrian Military Operations Command, a coalition of different rebel militia, who's being installed in power instead of Assad right now.

But the redoubtable Tahrir-a-Sham is the dominant faction there.
It has a bloody history of sending its opponents to Hell in a particularly bloody way. And who's heading Tahrir-a-Sham?

Mohammed A-Sharaa, who took the name Al-G'ulani (from the Golan) was NOT born in the Golan, but in... Saudi Arabia, to a Syrian father (NOT from the Golan either), an atheist pan-Arabist who co-operated with the terrorist Fedayeen of the Palestine Liberation Organization and wrote how Pan-Arabia could use oil to dominate the world.

The son took it a step further, turned to religion, and adopted the name to symbolize the war he wants to wage on Israel, as a beginning to the whole Middle East, and from there Europe.

His Islamist militia is called Tahrir-A-Sham, "freedom of the Sham".
Sham, the "Greater Syria region", is the panarabic entity covering Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, part of Egypt Cyprus, and Turkey's Hatay Province.

That's what he wants. An Afghanistan-like Islamic entity on all the Mediterranean crescent, as a base to attack Europe.

He spent years oscillating between AlQaeda and Daesh/Isis according to who would support him the most, and doesn't hide his profound contempt for the West.

Among others, he was the head of the terrorist Jhabet-Al-Nusra in 2014, when they attacked the UNDOF peacekeepers (see post in comments) whose ass was finally saved by... the @IDF.

In 2016, Jabhat al-Nusra rebranded itself as Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, claiming to distance itself from al-Qaeda. The following year, it merged with other groups to form Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham.

They're so bad, that even Islamic-loving United States and the United Nations classify HTS as a terrorist organization, still today, in spite of his effort to give out more moderate declarations such as "we'll have a moderate Islam", on the side of killing his opponents.

He recognized a chance to grab power in the current Russia-USA-Turkey-China-Iran constellation, and he's grabbing it.

At least for the next hours, apparently, and with all due caveats, he's Syria's leader.
He's probably got a deal with Turkey's Erdogan who's eager to replace Russia as a regional patron, and he's going to use Daesh-style terror to establish his power.

Bleak.

Until then, I spoke only facts.

Now the frightening geopolitical conjecture, which is also part of my day job so I have at least SOME basis to say it:

With his history of zigzagging for power, I can totally see him making nice with Iran again some months down the road, as well as with Turkey, and beginning to threaten the West again.

There are MILLIONS of Syrian "refugees" in Europe, and a huge reserve ll in Turkey. A totally disproportionate part of them are fighting-age men.

Probably most of them are just refugees. That's what the Governments say, and they should know.
But if even 5% of them are Djihadis waiting for their hour to act, and now they have a state-size base....

Hopefully I'm wrong.

A-Sham.



The US are also not closing their eyes in bliss.

https://x.com/Jerusalem_Post/status/1865688124912718320

Correct me if I'm wrong. In the last week:
1- @POTUS pardoned his own son for grave offences, in clear contradiction to the WH's statements until now.

2- The same @POTUS (shopping with not yet pardoned Hunter two days ago) appears in public with a book denying Israel's right to exist (compare with his traditional stance in the video), in clear contradiction to the USA's policy AND interests- watch how the USA can count on the "Fakestinians" to help them.

3- @POTUS cannot remember his name. OK, that's what the USA has a @VP for.
Las, the @VP, unrecognizable, just issued a drunk dialing video which would embarrass a reality dropout.

This happens at the time when

4- All chaos has erupted in Syria, but apparently NOBODY (but the poor Syrians) care about displaced persons, killed civilians, torture and exactions, in brief all that Israel has been WRONGLY accused of doing, but if it's Arabs doing it - for real- to other Arabs it's OK and the civilians can horribly die without anyone in Western campuses needing to put out encampments.
Dictator Erdogan is apparently making a bid for a chunk of Syria, as is Dictator Kameini.

@ICC's @KarimKhanQC DOES NOT CARE.
Because apparently, for Karim the (alleged. alleged) sex offender under the cover of Islam the international instances of us kuffars are not allowed to judge Muslims.

5- ONE MILLION KURDS still have no water and no electricity, and the same #ErdoganDictator is trying to genocide them.
Same remarks as to the Syrians in Syria.

Make it make sense.

There's a limit on the videos/pictures, so I've put the nicer ones in comments. It's a thread, guys, and do feel free to add your own understanding, or questions, about the world we live in at least until January 21, apparently. OK, so @POTUS is out.
But what about the other one?

Knowing what you know about those people who called themselves Palestinians today.

How come you never heard of their wars during History?
If the "Palestinians" had EXISTED at all, you bet they'd have gone to war, or defended themselves from invaders (as the Arabs in ISrael now pretend to do from the Jews).

But they never did... because they never existed. Hey. Until 1964 the Arabs didn't know about the Palestinians, either.

First comment argues this in longer form. You all know the name of Arafat.
You all know Hanyeh, and Sinwar, and Abu Obeida and Meshaal and Abbas.

But NONE OF YOU knows about a known "Palestinian" warrior from anytime before 1922.

Who was their Ali, their Suleiman, their Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi, a Spanish Umayyad general born in Yemen who fought Charles Martel twice in France....

Howcome you never hear about the Palestinian (hem) warlord who opposed the Crusaders come to retake Jerusalem? (From there, we also learn btw that the Christians NEVER thought the Arabs were the just rulers of Jerusalem. It was well-known it used to be the Jews, whom the Christians presumed to replace. But the Christians have learned).

Who fought the Ottomans when they came? the Syrians, a little. Some Egyptians.

Who fought the British? The Ottomans.

There NEVER was a Palestinian warlord who fought to defend a Palestinian nation, or country.... because there never was a Palestinian national entity of any kind, ever.

Until the Jews came, and called themselves Palestinian Jews, and the Arabs caught on it.

A thread on some of the Israeli delegation to #paris2024olympics. It's also a thread on Israeli society.

Let me begin by saying to all of those who will use the incredible diversity of the team to pretend we're not "indigenous": you're WRONG.
Jews, as we celebrate today with the 17 Tammuz fast, have been exiled and dispersed all over the world, that's true. Now they're BACK, each with what they picked during their travels.

It would have been easier, and many did it, to just forget about our roots and assimilate.

That's why each and every Israeli Jew you see here is the scion of a family Jewish enough, and attached enough to its ancestral Land of Israel, to bear 1950 years of exile and humiliation, in the inextinguishable, stubborn waiting to go back home.

We came back from places as diverse as Ghana and Ukraine, USA and China. We're coming home.


Adam Maraana. Jewish Mum Muslim Dad, which means he has a claim to both religions.
100% Israeli

https://x.com/mihaschw/status/1815502653134123096

#Hollywood #Cesars2024
Following my post this morning (written while waiting for my bus so not exactly professorial), many have DM'd me questions about the "little red hand" symbol.

So, here's a true tale about boundless cruelty, blood, #IsraeliHostages deals, and the immense stupidity of #woke Hollywood. And media connivance. What, did you think 2024 had invented something?

The days are those of the second #Intifada, these waves of #terror attacks against #Israel after we gave the #Arabs guns following the 1994 #OsloAccords (the ones supposed to bring us peace for land). Archterrorist Arafat had gotten his army, and anti-Israel terror attacks dictated the rhythm of our lives.

On October 12, 2000, Vadim Nurzhitz,33, a truckdriver, and Yosef "Yossi" Avrahami, 38, a toys salesman, accidentally entered the Palestinian Authority-controlled city of Ramallah in Samaria on their way to their reserve army service.

They were arrested by the Ramallah #PLO police, but soon a mob, led by some officers in the #Tanzim, the violent #PLO militia led by #ArchterroristMarwatBarghouti (yes, the same one @POTUS is currently pushing for PA president), barged in.
The two Israelis, were beaten and stabbed to death.
One died quite quickly and his body was thrown to the crowd which LITERALLY tore it to pieces with their bare hands, while one of them took several hours to die.

The beautiful little red hand symbol was born then:
Aziz Salha leaned out of the window, displaying his blood-soaked hands to the crowd, which erupted into cheers. By the way, he was later sentenced to prison and liberated.... in the #Giladshalit deal, together with #YahiaSinwar.
The crowd dragged the two mutilated bodies to Al-Manara Square in the city center and began an impromptu victory celebration.[

The mob AND THE PALESTINIAN POLICE violently prevented the international press on site to film. But they "didn't succeed" to stop the lynching.
The man who could have done it with two words, feared Jamal Tirawi, the Palestinian Intelligence chief at the Mukata'a nearby, only crossed the square hours later, after the second soldier lay dying.... He probably had more urgent matters to see to.
Wiki: "British photographer Mark Seager attempted to photograph the event but the mob physically assaulted him and destroyed his camera. After the event, he stated, "It [the lynching] was the most horrible thing that I have ever seen and I have reported from Congo, Kosovo, many bad places.... I know they [Palestinians] are not all like this and I'm a very forgiving person but I'll never forget this. It was murder of the most barbaric kind. When I think about it, I see that man's head, all smashed. I know that I'll have nightmares for the rest of my life."

(I've tried to find his reaction to #October7massacre ... all I found was his full account. In the first comment, together with the identities of the lynch leaders. Interestingly, they were all either #Hamas or #PLO "police" terrorists.)

But the media?

On October 16, 2000, Riccardo Cristiano, the deputy head of the Jerusalem bureau of Italy's state television channel RAI, published a letter (see text) in Al-Hayat al-Jadida, the official daily newspaper of the Palestinian Authority (PA). In the letter (entitled "Special Clarification by the Italian Representative of RAI, the Official Italian Television Station"), Cristiano denies that RAI had any involvement with the filming of the incident and that one of the station's Italian competitors was responsible for the footage. He wrote, "We [RAI] emphasize to all of you that the events did not happen this way, because we always respect (will continue to respect) the journalistic procedures with the Palestinian Authority for (journalistic) work in Palestine and we are credible in our precise work." The Italian correspondent also praised the PA, declaring, "We congratulate you [the PA]
For years afterwards, the little red hand at pro-Palestinian protests was the graphic equivalent of "Haybar Haybar ya Yahood" - we'll kill you #Jews.
So, #hollywood, congrats. You all felt so virtuous at the #Cesar2024, with a little pill button celebrating the barbaric lynch of #jews.

If you can stomach it, the third pic. is the crowd squeezing the murdered men's organs over their heads to express the blood.

I wonder if @ZoneOfInterest's Glazer is so proud of himself, today.

Sources:

Wikipedia

Times of Israel
Personal archiverotter.net

'I'll have nightmares for the rest of my life'
By Mark Seager
MARK SEAGER, 29, a British photographer, was working on a pictorial study of Palestinian refugees when he found himself caught up in the horrific lynching of two Israeli army reservists in Ramallah. The only journalist to witness the beating, as he tried to take the photograph that would have made his fortune, the crowd turned on him with such hatred, destroying his camera, that he feared for his own life.

This is his exclusive, eyewitness account:
"I had arrived in Ramallah at about 10.30 in the morning and was getting into a taxi on the main road to go to Nablus, where there was to be a funeral that I wanted to film, when all of a sudden there came a big crowd of Palestinians shouting and running down the hill from the police station.

I got out of the car to see what was happening and saw that they were dragging something behind them. Within moments they were in front of me and, to my horror, I saw that it was a body, a man they were dragging by the feet. The lower part of his body was on fire and the upper part had been shot at, and the head beaten so badly that it was a pulp, like red jelly.

I thought he was a soldier because I could see the remains of khaki trousers and boots. My God, I thought, they've killed this guy. He was dead, he must have been dead, but they were still beating him, madly, kicking his head. They were like animals.

They were just a few feet in front of me and I could see everything. Instinctively, I reached for my camera. I was composing the picture when I was punched in the face by a Palestinian. Another Palestinian pointed right at me shouting "no picture, no picture!", while another guy hit me in the face and said "give me your film!".

I tried to get the film out but they were all grabbing me and one guy just pulled the camera off me and smashed it to the floor. I knew I had lost the chance to take the photograph that would have made me famous and I had lost my favourite lens that I'd used all over the world, but I didn't care. I was scared for my life.

At the same time, the guy that looked like a soldier was being beaten and the crowd was getting angrier and angrier, shouting "Allah akbar" - God is great. They were dragging the dead man around the street like a cat toying with a mouse. It was the most horrible thing that I have ever seen and I have reported from Congo, Kosovo, many bad places. In Kosovo, I saw Serbs beating an Albanian but it wasn't like this. There was such hatred, such unbelievable hatred and anger distorting their faces.

The worst thing was that I realised the anger that they were directing at me was the same as that which they'd had toward the soldier before dragging him from the police station and killing him. Somehow I escaped and ran and ran not knowing where I was going. I never saw the other guy they killed, the one they threw out of the window.

I thought that I'd got to know the Palestinians well. I've made six trips this year and had been going to Ramallah every day for the past 16 days. I thought they were kind, hospitable people. I know they are not all like this and I'm a very forgiving person but I'll never forget this. It was murder of the most barbaric kind. When I think about it, I see that man's head, all smashed. I know that I'll have nightmares for the rest of my life.

That night when I got back to Jerusalem, I found out that I was the only photographer there and people kept asking me if I'd got the picture, then telling me I would have made my name.

I was so shocked that for the first time I didn't call my girlfriend who is back home in west London, five months pregnant with our first child. Of course, she was really worried because she'd seen on television what had happened and she knew that I was in Ramallah and then I hadn't called.

She was horrified and, when I did speak to her the next day, she asked: "Did you see?" I just said yes, but I couldn't really talk about it. Afterwards, I heard even worse details like that the policeman's wife was phoning his mobile to see if he was all right and them telling her that they were killing him. From what I saw, I can believe that.

I love this country, I'd love nothing more than to see Israelis and Palestinians sharing an argalah or waterpipe but, after the hatred that I've seen in the past few days, I don't think that will happen in my lifetime. Look how many years that they've been talking peace - since 1993. Then, within just a couple of weeks, they are at each other's throats. It seems that it's easier to hate than to forgive.

I didn't get the picture that would have made me famous but at least I am alive to see the birth of my child."

@VerminusM @ToyChava A #gaza story about simple people: On a quiet WE morning of October, a sleepy guard at the #JohnDeere Israeli service center noticed that many of their tractors from #Israel South region were moving towards #Gaza. 1/
geektime.co.il/john-deere-tra… @VerminusM @ToyChava Weird, since on a #sukkot WE tractors don't usually work. On the other hand, the keys had been put in the ignition, the right #AntiTheft codes entered... Clearly the usual users had activated the tractors... but it smelled fishy. 2/
tvpworld.com/73463125/foota…