Spencer Joseph Profile picture
History, Geopolitics, Health. Second Breakfast ™ Pioneer. Siesta Expert. Any fool can turn color & shade into black & white.
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Sep 11 9 tweets 2 min read
Modern Terrorism & the Far Left-Islamist Alliance 🧵

1. Airport security, as we know it, began in the early 1970s and was driven by a surge in aircraft hijackings and terrorist threats. The first significant measures were introduced in the US around 1971, following a wave of hijackings (particularly to Cuba) in the late 1960s.

The rise of far left-wing political movements contributed to the increase in politically motivated hijackings. 2. The PLO, supported by the KGB, was founded in 1964. Black September, a breakaway militant faction of the Palestinian organization Fatah, was founded in 1971 to seek retribution on Jordan’s military and to assassinate Jordan’s King Hussein after they forcefully confronted the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) during an attempted coup in 1970.
Sep 5 11 tweets 3 min read
Getting to know Al Jazeera 🧵

1. Al Jazeera was established and is primarily funded by the Qatari government, but the outlet has consistently claimed that it has editorial independence. Al Jazeera Media Network is owned by QMC, the official state broadcaster of the Qatari government. 2. The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) ordered Al Jazeera's U.S. based social media division, AJ+, to register as a foreign agent under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) in September 2020, due to its engagement in 'political activities' on behalf of the Qatari government.

However, AJ+ has not complied with this order and has not registered as a foreign agent. The DOJ has faced criticism from lawmakers and watchdog groups for not enforcing this mandate.
Aug 30 8 tweets 4 min read
Dark money & influence on US policy 🧵

1. The Tides Network.

Since 1976, Tides has 'scaled more than 1400 social ventures, fueled social change in 120+ countries, and mobilized over $3 billion for impact.'

In 2023 alone, the Tides Network’s total revenue was $627.3 million with total expenses of $1 billion. Several of their 'social ventures' (ie Palestine Legal) are explicitly anti-Israel, promote antisemitic rhetoric and support BDS campaigns in US colleges and elsewhere. 2. Arabella Advisers.

Since 2006, the Arabella hub has overseen a network of nonprofits that have collected $ billions. These nonprofits manage a range of pop-up activist groups that influence US policy. They don’t file IRS disclosures or report their budgets, boards or staff. In many cases, their connection to Arabella goes unreported.

Arabella's nonprofits have given a total of approx $11 billion to anti-Israel protest since 2018. Those nonprofits have supported radical Palestinian activist groups that have been linked to terrorism and agitated against US support for Israel following Oct. 7th.
Aug 22 16 tweets 5 min read
Ok, let's do this again.

Qatar For Dummies 🧵

1. Qatar is a tiny country with enormous wealth from oil and gas fields. Its 330,000 citizens make up only approx 10 - 15% of the total population, with the vast majority of residents effectively working as slaves ('migrant workers'). 2. While residents can apply for citizenship after 25 years in the country, the process is rarely granted and citizenship is primarily inherited from a Qatari father.
Aug 17 4 tweets 2 min read
Most of the major conflicts across the Middle East and North Africa have Russian involvement.

Across these conflicts, Russia employs a mix of direct military intervention (Syria), proxy forces like Wagner (Sudan, DRC), and diplomatic intervention (Yemen).

Russia’s regional goals include:

Geopolitical Leverage: Countering U.S. and Western influence by aligning with local actors or filling power vacuums.

Economic Gains: Securing resources like gold (Sudan, DRC) or oil and gas (Syria, Iran) to bolster its economy, especially under Western sanctions.

Strategic Positioning: Establishing military bases (Syria, Sudan) to project power in key regions like the Mediterranean and Red Sea.

Hybrid Warfare: Using disinformation/propaganda, arms supplies, and mercenaries to influence conflicts with minimal direct accountability.

Russia’s actions often prolong conflicts by arming multiple sides (Sudan) or supporting entrenched regimes (Syria), contributing to humanitarian crises. Its use of Wagner also provides deniability. The Russia-Iran alliance has deepened significantly over recent years with strategic alignment against Western influence, military cooperation (especially in Ukraine and Syria), and economic coordination to counter sanctions. The 2025 Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Treaty shows clear intent.
Aug 16 11 tweets 3 min read
It's difficult to create a new State 🧵

1. That's why The Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States (1933) establishes four legal criteria for statehood: (1) a permanent population, (2) a defined territory, (3) a government, and (4) the capacity to enter into relations with other states. 2. The borders between Israel and Palestinian Territories remain undefined. The 1967 borders of Israel are not formally defined as permanent international borders. From 1948 - 67, Jordan illegally annexed Israeli territory. Following the Six-Day War in 1967, Israel gained territory from Jordan and Egypt in Judea & Samaria (the West Bank), Gaza, the Golan Heights and the Sinai Peninsula. While the 1949 Armistice Agreements established Green Line boundaries, these were also explicitly stated to not be final borders.
Aug 9 7 tweets 3 min read
At the end of 1947, less than 3 years after the end of the Holocaust, the leaders of the Western world left Israel for dead.

U.S. President Harry S. Truman, UK PM Clement Attlee and French PM Robert Schuman all placed arms embargoes on Israel as 5 Arab armies prepared to invade. The expectation was that Israel would be destroyed.

In the meantime, The Arab Legion (which formed the core of the Jordanian army) had British commanding officers with Britain providing ongoing training and financial assistance to the Jordanian military. And remember, this occurred after the Western world had already rejected Jewish refugees and the British had introduced strict limits on Jewish immigration to Mandate Palestine.
Aug 1 10 tweets 2 min read
Many people don’t realise how many times formal agreements or proposals were changed re. Mandate Palestine. But some of the facts are surprising 🧵

1. In 1947, Arab-Palestinians refused a UN backed 2 State division of land on the basis that it violated the principles of national self-determination, even though no previous State of Palestine existed. 2. Land "ownership" was complicated under the Ottoman empire with several different categories of land including tenant farmers, people living on land with informal ownership, and the vast majority of land being owned by the State (ie Ottoman Land).

This means that “official” private land ownership figures in Mandate Palestine should be viewed with skepticism as the vast majority would have been State owned.
Jul 17 9 tweets 3 min read
Approx 30 million Kurds had expected their own State in the 1920s until territory they inhabited was divided between Turkey, Iraq, Iran & Syria as part of the Sykes Picot agreement.

Clans in the region did not just disappear, nor did conflicts and tensions between them. There are still populations of Kurds, Druze, Bedouins, Alawites, Assyrians, Syriacs and Armenians, along with Arabs - and that’s just in Syria. The whole region is highly unstable.

Don’t believe anyone who claims to know how this is all going to unfold.
Jun 27 6 tweets 2 min read
Qatar has one of the highest numbers of slaves by percentage of population in the world.

It has a total population of only approx. 2.5 million and a leadership with astronomical wealth from oil.

It is a tiny country run by slave-owning maniacs who support terrorism and fundamentalist ideology across the globe. The Qataris support the extremist Muslim Brotherhood and have a long-term plan to impose Sharia law in the West.

They action this plan by investing enormous ($billion) sums of money in Western academic and government institutions, gradually shifting policy and spreading violent propaganda.
May 29 11 tweets 2 min read
🧵Hypocrisy and silence - where are the ongoing protests ?

1. Claims of ongoing genocidal acts, based on evidence and international attention, include Sudan (Darfur), China (Xinjiang), Myanmar (Rohingya), Ethiopia (Tigray), Iraq (Kurds and Yazidis), Syria (Alawites), Nigeria (Christians) and Congo (Tutsis). 2. Turkey, a NATO member, has been supplying weapons to Sudan, primarily to the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), fueling the ongoing civil war against the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

According to multiple sources, Turkey’s defense firm Baykar has covertly supplied $120 million worth of drones and warheads to the SAF since late 2023.

Further, between October 2019 and January 2024, more than 100 attacks by Turkish air forces reportedly took place on oil fields, gas facilities and power stations in the Kurdish-held Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES).

This left more than 1 million people in Syria without water.
May 23 19 tweets 6 min read
🧵

If you don't know these facts you are clueless about the history of Israel-Palestine and the Middle East :

1. Israel has a population of mostly Middle Eastern origin. To attack Israel because you only connect it to European colonialism is a projection of your unresolved guilt, failure to grasp Jewish indigeneity (Israel and Judea - the clue's in the name) or ignorance of well documented legal Jewish land acquisition in Mandate Palestine. 2. The history of Arab-Islam includes violent colonialism across the Middle East and North Africa, the establishment of 2nd class ('dhimmi') status for Jews and Christians, and a horrific slave trade across Africa and Europe.
May 13 6 tweets 2 min read
Wait.

You don’t know that since 2011 Egyptian forces have killed an estimated 7,000–10,000 alleged militants and 500–2,000 civilians in Northern Sinai ?

You don’t know that they also demolished approximately 12,500 buildings (mostly homes), razed 6000 hectares of farmland and displaced over 100,000 residents ?

Of course you don’t. That’s Egypt fighting extremists on the border with Gaza - not Israel.Image Further, Egypt has constructed a border wall with Gaza that is approx 10–11 km long, made of concrete and steel, that extends 20 feet above ground and reaches 60 feet below the surface to deter tunneling. It is reinforced with barbed wire and, in some sections, topped with coiled razor wire for added security.

Egypt has also established a buffer zone along the border, ranging from 1.5 to over 2 miles wide in some areas. This zone was cleared of all structures and vegetation to create a barren, easily monitored area.

In addition, Egypt deploys guards and military patrols along the border supported by naval and aerial units, including helicopters and coastal patrol ships, to monitor and secure the area.
May 2 13 tweets 4 min read
🧵

1. After the 1948 war many Arabs were displaced to the West Bank & Gaza - both areas still within the borders of the former British mandate for Palestine.

But who were the approx 150,000 non-Jews who remained in Israel after the 1948 war and became Israeli citizens ? 2. Muslim Arabs

The majority of the Arabs who stayed in Israel were Muslims, primarily Sunni. They resided in various regions, including the Galilee, the "Little Triangle" (a group of Arab villages along the border with Jordan), and the Negev. Many of these communities were rural, living in villages, though some were in urban areas like Haifa, Jaffa, and Acre.
Apr 20 6 tweets 2 min read
Many people on X aren’t big fans of well researched, factual history.

So those people probably wouldn’t want to know that in 1892, the Ottoman government prohibited the sale of land in Palestine to Jews, regardless of their citizenship. This was part of a broader policy aimed at limiting Jewish settlement and immigration to the region (By the end of the 16th century, the Jewish population in the Ottoman Empire was already estimated to be around 150,000 - the largest Jewish population in the world at that time).

In fact, until their defeat in 1918, the Ottomans continuously restricted Jewish immigration and land purchases in Palestine.

Then, following violence and pressure from Arab nationalists, this restriction was further enforced by the British Mandate authorities in 1939 through the White Paper, limiting Jewish land purchases to only a small percentage of the total land available. Why should Jews, with a continual presence in the region for 3000 years, have been denied the same rights of legal citizenship and land ownership as anyone else ?
Apr 12 5 tweets 2 min read
Here are 7 obvious errors made by Dave Smith in his debate with Douglas Murray :

1. Completely misrepresented the laws & ethics of warfare with a false analogy about domestic vigilantism.

2. Confused Ben Gurion and Chaim Weizmann.

3. Falsely equated the Haganah with terrorism (it was established as a Jewish defense force following the Arab riots against Jews of 1920).

4. Showed no knowledge of the massive death toll in Syria, Yemen and other MENA countries over recent years.

5. Failed to demonstrate any grasp of the specific details of a concentration camp.

6. Showed no recognition of the stated genocidal intention of fundamentalist Islamic groups, including Hamas.

7. Failed to acknowledge even the most basic features of Churchill’s role in defeating the Nazis. Further, no sane person thinks that war is anything other than brutal and horrific.

Some of the clear and obvious questions are whether the consequences of not pursuing a war will be (far) worse than pursuing it, and therefore how a war might be fought within a legal framework.

Further, the point about debate is that if it does not involve people who can be independently & reasonably verified as having done a substantial amount of relevant / legitimate work in the field then it can obviously just descend into personal bias and bigotry without fact-checking or push back.
Mar 16 4 tweets 1 min read
Patterns build a clearer picture of history.

Yasser Arafat, the Egyptian leader of the PLO, started wars in Jordan & Lebanon, fomented West Bank terrorism, launched the 2nd intifada & accrued personal wealth of $billions.

Abbas, current PA leader, has net worth of $100 million. Abbas was elected on 9 January 2005 to serve as President of the Palestinian National Authority and has not held elections since.

The Hamas leadership all became billionaires.

The Palestinians have effectively been governed by kleptocratic dictatorship for over 50 years.
Mar 9 4 tweets 1 min read
1. Incitement is not free speech.

2. Arab-Islamic regimes have murdered millions in the last decade alone.

3. Palestinian leaders have rejected viable 2 State peace offers with Israel on at least 5 occasions.

4. Christians are being displaced from every Arab region. 5. No Arab country has accepted any refugees from Gaza.

6. Since 2017 Qatar has been subject to a boycott by Saudi , the UAE, Bahrain & Egypt over its support for Islamist terror groups.

7. The Druze are long term allies of Israel.

8. The Syrian Alawites supported Hezbollah.
Feb 25 5 tweets 2 min read
It is now beyond doubt that the Arab-Palestinian leadership refused to accept a viable 2 State solution in 2000 & 2008.

1. Clinton was certain that Arafat had agreed to Barak's plan.
2. Chief Palestinian negotiator Erekat admitted the rejection of Olmert's plan in 2008.
Feb 8 9 tweets 2 min read
Short 🧵

1. How do you change a society that has supported extremist and violent ideology ?

One of the best and most recent examples is the denazification of Germany after WWII. 2. Firstly, the ruling entity has to be effectively defeated. Then there must be new laws.

In 1945/46, legal proceedings such as the Nuremberg Trials prosecuted major war criminals and specific crimes.
Dec 27, 2024 8 tweets 2 min read
Lots of people talk about genocide.

What do you think was the intention in 1948 when 5 Arab armies (supported by Nazis) attacked the State of Israel and its population of Jewish refugees (within 3 years of the Holocaust) ? On October 11, 1947, the Egyptian newspaper Akhbar al-Yom quoted Abdul Rahman Azzam, the Arab League’s first secretary-general, on the war against Israel :

“a war of extermination and momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacre and the Crusades.”