🧵A word or two about Assad, as he slithers his way out of history.
1.Assad is one of the 21st century original monsters. He gave anti-imperialism as bad, or worse, a name as Bush Jr has given democracy, and, like Bush, accomplished fuck all else for the cause he lay claim to. (In fact, not only did he contribute fuck-all to counterbalancing western hegemony, he made his own country a blood-soaked playground of a narcostate for a regional power and a foreign empire - like some parody of a Central American statelet in the 1980s.)

Her resignation is going to be completely subsumed by news on assisted dying, but: @LouHaigh should *not* have quit, and whoever made that call is deeply misreading both public sentiment and the demands of the moment. It also sends a dreadful message about UK criminal justice.. and esp about the Labour leadership. The message many, many people will be getting is that no one who's had the tiniest, technical brush w the UK's tired, vindictive and sclerotic justice system deserves the public's trust ever again—esp under Sir Starmer, Prosecutor for Life.

Ok. Here goes—my 🧵on what Trump 2.0 means for Israel-Palestine (& UK) and, ofc, domestically. TLDR: It's not the end of the world yet; worst immediate impact will be at home, not abroad; there are (razor-thin) silver linings; +learnable lessons to stall further rightward lurch. First, the bad news. The next four years are going to be a brutal, lethal time to be a woman in America, or an LGBTQ person, or a migrant. Women are already dying because of local abortion bans; expect these deaths to surge, esp as attacks on abortion will likely be coupled with

I thought I'd be writing a big analytical piece on the anniversary of October 7. Where we've been, where we're going. What I got wrong, who got what right. And maybe I'll write some of this yet. But in truth, it doesn't feel like the day for it. Not only because.. ..I don't want to add to the cloud of analysis on a day so many people, from every side, are coming up here to share their own personal pain. But mainly because it doesn't feel like an anniversary. Anniversaries imply revisiting an event defined in time: a death, a marriage

🧵Israel's media mag, @the7i, went on a v timely archive dive of headlines on the day Israel assassinated Nasrallah's predecessor in 1992, and the forecasts of how that would play out. New era, IDF unshackled, new rules to the game, highly effective - sound familiar? "With the missiles launched toward Abbas Mossawi's convoy, IDF has begun a new era of its fight against Hezbollah. No longer restrained by itself or by its friends; the age of tussling with Hezbollah on its home turf, the Buffer Zone, is over"

https://x.com/the7i/status/1839968105511936004?t=eYYhnsxHbxDZ3PVCu-ZkXg&s=08

🧵So here we are, in the two-front war that allegedly nobody wanted, and yet someone was determined to stir up. A quick note on what Israel thinks its doing, why it's starting a new war despite clear ceasefire paths on both fronts, and on something I'd call the Friedman factor. [Caveat - me explaining what I think Israel is thinking does not equal endorsement. I don't think they're right; and I sincerely hope Netanyahu and his crew are overthrown as soon as possible and that we live to see them in the Hague; end caveat.]

🧵This clip is circulated as example of how low Israeli discourse sunk during the war, but imo its other way round: "Radio Rwanda" has been our background noise for decades. It's a cause, not consequence, of Israeli wanton cruelty in Gaza.
Here's my journal entry from Nov 2007..

https://twitter.com/SMohyeddin/status/1830951276915630183

when I was a cub journo on night shift in the @Jerusalem_Post newsroom:
"It's late at night. The radio is open on two channels, Army Radio and Israel Radio. On both are late-night agony aunt programs, less political or hateful than midday call-in shows. But even here...

🚨🚨🚨🚨 IT'S OFFICIAL: ISRAEL GOES ON GENERAL STRIKE FOR A HOSTAGE DEAL, FROM TOMORROW.
I was holding back despite the unprecedented sequence of events in the last 48 hours, but this, I think, is it. Either there's a ceasefire by week's end or the government falls, or both. *might be it. Never underestimate Netanyahu's ability to divide and mislead the opposition.

🧵Just before he died, Mike Lynch and @DavidDavisMP began work on a UK version of @Innocence Project—something desperately needed here. He was reportedly esp interested in the Lucy Letby case, and there are likely hundreds of other cases in need of reviewing. However... There have, actually, been previous attempts at UK @innocence, and almost all of them petered out - not for lack of miscarriages of justice, but because the UK justice system is remarkably resilient to correction. @HeidilBlake explains it best in her recent New Yorker piece:

Unsurprised by Uncommitted endorsing Harris despite not getting anything at all at the DNC. What else they gonna do - endorse Trump? (endorsing Stein would be the same as endorsing Trump, irl.) In some ways, it's the reality lack of real leverage, especially... with the momentum of what Harris's election would mean in the context of US race relations putting a serious dent in the BLM/Arab-American solidarity. Unlike Biden, Harris seems to have chance of carrying states where this alliance would have been pivotal. But what's frustrating

So. Having excavated my jaw from a crater in the floor, here's my take on Haniyeh assassination. Three ways to read Netanyahu's thinking:
a. He WANTS a regional war
b. He calculated this WON'T spark a regional war
c. The semi-official Israeli narrative, which is bullshit. Reading A: Netanyahu wants regional war. Pro: It's not going great for him rn. Britain dropped objection to his arrest warrant & is about to impose at least a partial arms embargo, Kamala is signaling she'd be tougher on him than Biden, Trump is on the backfoot; IDF is cracking.

Perspective: Israel only emerged as a cohesive state, eschewing an intra-Jewish civil war, only because in '48 one faction moved very quickly, and pretty brutally, to concentrate weapons in its own hands and monopolize "legitimate violence"... defeating/coopting other militias and instituting some of the world's toughest gun laws (even police trade unions are banned bc they would amount to armed orgs independent of the state!) Nine months into the war, this equilibrium is out of the window, owing to three factors - -

Well, fuck. Civilian protesters have now broken into the compound and are currently surrounding the building where Gazan detainees are held. Per Haaretz, police are "standing aside". We could be on the verge of something exceptionally brutal - and game-changing.

https://twitter.com/reider/status/1817878810986950940

Soldier to Haaretz: "Some military police are trying to keep people apart. That's it. No organic forces. Soldiers are just looking on. No officer is in command of the incident. They've lost control." Police are staying outside the base.

There's currently a "confrontation" going on between Sde Teiman soldiers / camp guards and the military police who've come in to arrest one for them for torture. I don't recall last time there was an actual physical tussle between two groups of Israeli soldiers - do you?

https://twitter.com/MairavZ/status/1817873796725973311

The suspected torturers have barricaded themselves at the base, and attacked police with pepper spray. They're apparently uploading footage on social media calling for Israelis to come out to the streets in their support 🍿

🚨🧵The official IDF investigation is out, and and the crux pretty much confirms the leak to Haaretz on Tuesday: Forces “identified” a gunman on an unrelated truck, and then, although they never got another visual, ASSUMED that hypothetical gunman was on one of the WCK vehicles.

https://twitter.com/mrconfino/status/1776195623336775775

The new info:
1. “The forces did not identify the vehicles in question as being associated with WCK.” Even if we assume they didn’t use high-res surveillance cameras to hit the first car right in the WCK logo...

🚨Absolutely stunning new investigation by @yuval_abraham of @972mag. TLDR: In Oct, IDF expanded kill lists from "top commanders" to "everyone Hamas"—37k ppl.
Via a slap-up AI bot.
And it increased quota of permitted collateral damage from "zero" to "20" civilians per target. Soldiers and officers were told to treat the AI bot decision's as direct orders and not to double-check its decisions despite the only check ever run on it via a random sample showed only 9 in 10 names it picked out had even tangential connections to Hamas.

The IDF's early explanation re the killing of the World Central Kitchen team is in - per "security sources" speaking to Haaretz. Before we get to the putative pretext for the attack, they also disclose a harrowing detail - the drone bombed the convoy THREE TIMES in succession.. because team survived one hit and tried taking cover in another vehicle, and then survivors moved to a third - and were finished off there. Deliberate, repeated targeting of convoy, making sure no one was left alive.
And this actually doesn't stack up w the alleged pretext:

Jonathan Shimriz, brother of Alon Shimriz - one of the three Israeli hostages shot by IDF - got a condolence call from Defense Minister Galant. Here is how he replied:
"I told him I'll haunt him to his grave," "And I told him I won't rest and I'll show up in his nightmares,"

🧵 Really interesting piece from Israeli TV on the question of where were Israel's fabled combat helicopters on October 7th. TLDR: 1. Israel has been cutting back on combat helicopters for years...
Cobras were quietly phased out a decade ago and weren’t replaced. Currently, Israel only has two operational squadrons and one of them was due to be phased out this year (!) The reason appears to be cost and benefit, specifically in favour of drones*, which are...

🧵 @lizarozovsky and @nirhasson from @Haaretz have a definitive piece debunking or qualifying many of the worst atrocity stories from Oct 7th. It's paywalled & in Hebrew so posting key points here as a counter-disinfo resource. Be advised: GRAPHIC THREAD. haaretz.co.il/news/politics/… First, a caveat that they make and I join: There is zero doubt and plenty evidence Hamas carried out war crimes and crimes against humanity on October 7th. These include the massacre of 1,200 people, mostly unarmed civilians; rapes, mutilations, torture, sexual assault...

So here's a story of our time.
1. In 2016, an Israeli soldier called Elor Azaria executes a wounded Palestinian militant. Point blank. On camera.
2. He becomes a hero to the far-right and the execution of wounded suspects briefly became a wedge issue in Israeli society. 3. Briefly, bc it's long been accepted - at least since 2nd intifada - than even if someone used a butter knife to attack soldiers they might ALSO have a suicide vest and therefore need to be finished off, in case.
4. Which makes no sense to me and idk if ever happened, but ok.