I’m back to say I will no longer post on X. I will keep my account, at least for now. I’m not sure I will read my DMs. I haven’t been checking them for a long time, and my apologies for those who wrote to me.
1/ X is now the most effective platform for neo-nazi mobilisation in history, and that alone makes for a sufficient reason to leave. The platform literally rewards fake news, racist and toxic tweets, and does its best to make them viral.
2/

Sociologist Yagil Levy, Haaretz:
"Israel embarked on a campaign of vengeance devoid of either military or diplomatic logic.
This campaign of vengeance is fueled as much by anger at ourselves over our failure as it is by anger at the Palestinian residents of the Gaza Strip."
1/ "Even more than Israelis want revenge, they want repair. But they want it through renewed proof of Israel's military capabilities, not through diplomatic reconciliation."
2/

On the ICJ ruling beyond the war:
----------
For the Kahanists, 7th Oct provided the pretext for their much-hoped for armageddon: Smotrich's "Decisive Plan", to get rid of Palestinians from the river and the sea, by any means necessary.
1/ They're still trying to make it happen, by engineering an economic crisis in the West Bank that would lead to a new Intifada there (through banning work in Israel and stopping taxes transfers to PA; by creating militias within Israel to attack Palestinian citizens.
2/

2023 and 1948: when does forced displacement become ethnic cleansing?
Thread.

The current displacement of 1.5 million people in Gaza invokes memories of the 1948 Nakba, in which 750,000 Palestinians were permanently displaced. Much of the historical debate on 1948 is whether that displacement was a "product of war" or "planned expulsion".
2/

People think that acknowledging Zionism's settler colonial dimension leads inevitably to a one state solution or even Hamas-style "decolonisation".
In fact, the settler-colonial impulse is what, more than anything, killed the two state solution.
1/ You want partition? Two state solution? Then you must address head on the fact that "Jewish settlement" (and its inevitable corollaries: territorial expansion, Palestinian dispossession) is the primary logic of Israeli state machinery, as reflected in the Nation State Law.
2/

Israel's military operations in Gaza - and the refugee crisis already in progress.
A thread. IDF plan is to effectively occupy the entire northern part of the strip - empty it from civilian population as much as possible, with hundreds of thousands already effectively expelled - and engage Hamas there.
1/

When you call the situation in Palestine/Israel Apartheid, you are saying that the problem is a system of legalized racial segregation in which one racial group is deprived of political and civil rights.
The problem is with the system, not with members of the dominant group. 1/ Their very presence in the land is as legitimate as that of the oppressed (yes, even if they came as settlers); their rights are just as sacred as those of the dominated.
If you cannot say this about Israeli Jews, then you are using Apartheid as an empty word.
2/

Netanyahu's decision to escalate the bombing of Gaza despite the presence of Israeli hostages and prisoners there sends a devastating message to Israelis. Far more dangerous to Israeli cohesion and sense of security than Hamas's atrocious attack.
1/ Not only these people were left to fend off Hamas by themselves, abandoned by the IDF, they are now bombed by the air force. This is a trauma that will haunt Israeli society. And for what military purpose exactly, other than retaliation?
2/

This is for the Jewish/Israeli anti-Apartheid left.
If it's not you - scroll on. I also (for the first time ever) locked for replies.

On our priorities now, a thread.
--------------------------------- Most of us are devastated by the failure of so many people - progressives, people we know and appreciate - to say anything about the Hamas's 7 Oct atrocity, to acknowledge it for what it was - even with a word. Worse are those who endorse the attack, or even celebrate it.
2/

There are obvious parallels between the current attack and the 1973 war. In both cases, Arab leaders had reached out to Israeli leadership, and were rebuffed. Sadat to Golda's government, and Sinwar to Netanyahu (he even sent him a note in Hebrew)
1/ In both cases, careful Arab military preparation was able to completely surprise an over-confident Israeli government and military.
But that's where the similarities end. 1973 was a war between militaries, and this time civilians will pay the highest price.
2/

Let me spell it out for those who genuinely don't understand and genuinely want to learn.
In a very short statement on the war in Ukraine, there is no good reason whatsoever to have a sentence on "Zelensky" and "Israel".
1/

https://twitter.com/ankahajkova/status/1662791570536398849

Israel (and whatever Zelensky thinks about it) is completely irrelevant here. It's a Russian aggression war driven by explicit genocidal aims.
The only reason to include this sentence is to point out that Zelensky is a Jew, and to suggest Israel is somehow implicated.
2/

It is baffling to see claims that the IHRA working definition on antisemitism is the “consensus” among scholars. Since its publication only 7 years ago the IHRA was and remains deeply controversial - as multiple examples below show. THREAD
--- The IHRA text was originally written in 2005 and reformulated in 2016. Very few scholars were involved in these discussions - there is no basis to claim it represented a scholarly consensus then or now.
2/

It's not surprising that Zionists pushed for a Jewish state in the 1940s. It's not surprising that Arabs opposed partition and a Jewish state. But it takes a huge leap to argue that necessarily meant "pushing the Jews to the sea."
1/

https://twitter.com/YairWallach/status/1653710350477320192

So many people are attached to the "they wanted to throw us into the sea" myth based on extremely flimsy evidence - a couple of dubious quotes. If this was indeed a "genocidal war" against Jews, you'd expect such rhetoric to be easy to find. It isn't.
2/

What would have happened had the Arabs won the 1948 war? We can speculate, but we can also look at the assessment of Zionist intelligence .
1/ In April 1948, Josh Palmon, head of the Arab section in the Jewish Agency, met with Fauzi Qauqji, commander of the Arab Liberation Army. Both sides wanted to check each other out and see where the other was going.
2/

The Bristol QC report claimed there was nothing antisemitic about David Miller’s conduct. What does it say about the IHRA, JDA, and definitions in general?
THREAD The Bristol QC report on Miller is an astonishing and depressing read. The QC stares directly into Miller’s antisemitism - and cannot see any of it. TLDR: It’s not because they’re using the wrong definition; it’s because the QC can’t see antisemitism. 2/
electronicintifada.net/blogs/asa-wins…

"Jerusalem had a Jewish majority already in the 19th century". This not-uncommon argument to prove Jewish national rights has a few problems:
1. It suggests that the 20+ Jewish congregations in Jerusalem saw themselves as a single political community, which isn't really the case 2. It suggests that Jews in Jerusalem imagined themselves as a Jewish *national* community with national-territorial claim for sovereignty over the city - which is even further than the truth.

1/ And then, there is the story of Yehoshua Elitsur, who was born a Catholic German, converted to Judaism, became a West Bank settler in Itamar, and murdered the Palestinian Sael Jabara al-Shatiya "for no reason" in the words of the Israeli judges.

https://twitter.com/ztsamudzi/status/1443574539334475779

2/ Johannes Wimmer, who became Yehoshua Elitzur, believed "the land of Israel belongs only to Jews. The Palestinian people do not exist". One night he stopped a Palestinian car and shot the driver. Shatiya, father of eight, had worked in Israel for 20 years.

Deeply moved to see a dear colleague - one of the brightest and most original historians of the Middle East I know - detained in a military jeep, his eyes covered, for the crime of delivering water to Palestinians in the south Hebron hills. He writes: "Why did we try to deliver water? Because Palestinians in Area C suffer deep discrimination in access to water. They can get water in trucks, on certain days of the week, for very high prices, while the nearby settlements are connected to the Israeli water grid...

Watching HBO's Oslo to see if it's as terrible as the accords My god the sepia. As if they're walking in a David Roberts painting

It's a beautiful and thought provoking piece from @ArielleLAngel on the meaning and limits of Jewish solidarity. I have actually much to say here. Probably too much. Two comments, on history, and on Palestine
jewishcurrents.org/on-loving-jews/ 2/ History: we can trace "Jewish peoplehood" as *global* *political* mobilisation to 18th century efforts to support Jewish communities in Palestine (as M. Lehmann does). Yes, if Jewish peoplehood means something politically, good chance it has something to do with Palestine

1/ Recognising that Israel is a settler state is crucial because in 2021 Israel is still committed to an active project of expansionary Jewish settlement and Palestinian dispossession - as we see in Sheikh Jarrah, Silwan, Beita, and Araqib. 2/ And that project is written deep into policy, budgets, and law.
Basic Law of Israel as a Nation State of the Jewish People:
7A "The state views the development of Jewish settlement as a national value and will act to encourage and promote its establishment and consolidation"