A recap the timeline of Iran’s war on Israel. Let’s examine who really started this war.

🧵 October 7, 2023: Iran-backed Hamas launches unprecedented attack against Israel. Khamenei rejoices, promises payback if Israel responds.

¹ If you search YouTube today for “zionism”, the top result is this video by Turkish state-owned media. It is pure propaganda filled with deliberate lies and omissions.

It’s worth addressing its arguments, because they’re very common in anti-Zionist circles.

🧵 in 10 tweets ² I won’t link to it, but here’s the full transcript, with quotes highlighted for follow-up:

[BEGIN TRANSCRIPT]
What is Zionism? Zionism is a political and national movement aimed at creating and sustaining a Jewish state in the Middle East. Now, according to many traditional and Orthodox Jewish teachings, Jews are forbidden by God to have their own state until their messiah comes.³ But this hasn’t stopped Zionism from pushing towards that very goal.

So where did this all start? Let’s go back to 1897. A man named Theodor Herzl formed the World Zionist Organization. He advocated for the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine and is even mentioned in the Israeli Declaration of Independence. It was tough to be a Jew in Europe at that time, with antisemitic sentiments rising. Herzl felt the only way for his people to live in peace was for them to have their own country. Palestine was chosen, and a popular slogan started spreading around the world: “A land without a people for a people without a land.”⁴

The only problem was, Palestine wasn’t a land without a people. A large number of Muslims and Christians, along with a smaller number of Jews, had been living there together in peace for centuries.⁵ But for many Christian Zionists living in the West and Jewish Zionists living in Europe, that made little difference.

Following the fall of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I, and along with British support, Jewish immigration to the newly British-occupied Palestine was steady in the early 20th century. Then there was a turning point: World War II. Following the Holocaust, the flow of Jews to occupied Palestine boomed, and many Western countries began backing the idea of a Jewish state in Palestine. Although a U.N. resolution recommended both an independent Arab and Jewish state in the region, Israel went ahead and declared their independence in 1948⁶ and was recognized by U.S. President Harry Truman that very same day. The Zionist movement had achieved its main victory.

In the period after its establishment, Israel carried out an invasion of neighboring countries,⁷ and at the end of the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel extended its control in the region, displacing countless Christian and Muslim Palestinians. A year later, the 28th World Zionist Congress adopted the Jerusalem Program,⁸ a list of five goals which are the current makeup of modern Zionism: the unity of the Jewish people and the centrality of Israel in Jewish life⁸; the in-gathering of the Jewish people in its historic homeland; the strengthening of the State of Israel, which is based on the prophetic vision of justice and peace; the preservation of the identity of the Jewish people through the fostering of Jewish and Hebrew education; and the protection of Jewish rights everywhere.

In practice, their goals of justice and peace have been lost to many of the non-Jewish people living in the region.⁹ The Israeli military has been illegally controlling and occupying much of Palestine, and constant new illegal settlement building on Palestinian land by the Zionist state has been condemned by much of the international community.

So, what do you think about Zionism?¹⁰
[END TRANSCRIPT]

Guys, stop constantly accusing @ComicDaveSmith of guilt by association!

🧵 Quick non-sarcastic disclaimer:

There are degrees of guilt by association. This isn’t a cheap shot at Dave for casual proximity to people with abhorrent views. I hold him accountable for consistently defending them, never challenging their bigotry, downplaying it as hyperbole or dark humor, and continuing to engage with them on related topics in ways that lend them unearned credibility.

He can’t grow his public influence while pretending he bears no responsibility for the toxic discourse he fuels. If he secretly disagrees with their views, then he’s a coward for staying silent. If he doesn’t, it’s worse. Either way, he owns it. He’s playing with the big boys now.

Anyhow, on to the charges…

¹ On several occasions @ComicDaveSmith has misrepresented the history of Zionism, particularly during the British mandate. He conflates the Haganah (predecessor of the IDF) with militant groups and falsely asserts that Zionists are the ones who introduced terrorism to the region.

🧵 ² He appeared on antisemitic Holocaust-denying punching victim @jakeshieldsajj’s show, presenting the most demented and dishonest history of Zionism, accusing militant Zionists of collaborating with the Nazis (false) while neglecting the Palestinian connection to Hitler (true).

Let’s talk about @RedPillMediaX, an account that started in October, 2024 and has already amassed 54K followers, all while only following 150. It bills itself as a US-based “America First” but it doesn’t add up.

🧵 It is obsessed with Jews, Zionists, and Mustache Guy, which is a great way to gain support among dyed-in-the-wool woke right US-based white supremacists.

A thread of anti-Hamas protests taking place today in Gaza by local Palestinians. In case some "pro-Palestinian" are interested.

🧵

https://x.com/KhalilJeries/status/1904545805823873024

¹ After listening to Darryl Cooper’s @martyrmade episode “Enemy, Prologue: Enemies of All Mankind,” I wasn’t as shocked by the content as by how subtly he blurs the lines between empathy and excuse, between taboo-breaking and soft revisionism. ² Understanding German civilians is important. So is acknowledging what they suffered, like the bombing of Dresden or the postwar expulsions. But that’s not taboo. It’s part of the standard WWII narrative now. Darryl acts as if he’s unearthing something suppressed, when really he’s just repackaging it with a touch of gaslighting.

It's time for everyone's favorite quiz:

MEIN KAMPF OR ARAB LEADER?
Without googling, guess whether the following real quotes are from Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf, or said by a prominent Arab leader. Answer key below quiz. 1. "The personification of the devil as the symbol of all evil assumes the living shape of the Jew."

2. "Kill the Jews wherever you find them. This pleases God, history, and religion. This saves your honor. God is with you."

3. “If we searched the entire world for a person, more cowardly, despicable, weak and feeble in psyche, mind, ideology and religion, we would not find anyone like the Jew."

4. "The truth that we should clarify to the world is that European Jews are not Semites. They have nothing to do with Semitism."

5. "I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord."

6. “There are Jews everywhere. We must attack every Jew on planet Earth! We must slaughter and kill them."

7. “When imperialism felt that its end was near, it tried to perpetuate its hold… Then it presented a racialist idea which transformed religion into race and Judaism into Zionism."

8. "He killed or starved about thirty million people with positively fanatical savagery, in part amid inhuman tortures, in order to give a gang of Jewish journalists and stock exchange bandits domination over a great people."

9. “The Jews tried to kill the principals of all religions with the same mentality in which they betrayed Jesus Christ."

10. "While the Zionists try to make the rest of the world believe that the national consciousness of the Jew finds its satisfaction in the creation of a Palestinian state, the Jews again slyly dupe the dumb _Goyim_. It doesn’t even enter their heads to build up a Jewish state in Palestine for the purpose of living there; all they want is a central organization for their international world swindle, endowed with its own sovereign rights and removed from the intervention of other states: a haven for convicted scoundrels and a university for budding crooks."

Since @CNN decided to cast Israeli claims into doubt, I thought I'd apply the same standard to other stories. 🧵

https://twitter.com/bonchieredstate/status/1800131834858394069

1. Here’s a video claiming to show excessive police force.
2. Looks pretty damning.
3. But it doesn’t show why this man was pinned, leading one to wonder:
4. Why was this man pinned?
5. This needs more context.
6. I’ll show you the context.
🧵

https://twitter.com/probablyreadit/status/1791947777150173456

Here’s another angle of the video, showing the moments before. The first time I saw it I concluded that the police just jumped him and pinned him. Egregious police brutality.

That’s NOT what happened.

A thread of video clips of senior Hamas officials boasting, among other things, that Palestinians are ready to sacrifice themselves in resistance against Israel.

🧵 Ali Baraka, on Palestinians wanting to martyr themselves more than Israelis love life.

Date: October 10, 2023

The Strxwmxn Incomplete Guide to Completing an Endurance Event Without Looking Like a Complete Fool or Feeling Completely Wiped Out

TRIGGER WARNING: Ableism ahead. Next month I’m doing my second Ironman (2.4 mi 🏊‍♂️ 112 mi 🚴‍♂️ 26.2 mile 🏃‍♂️). In addition to triathlons, I’ve also done some half/full marathons and long rides. Here are some tips on completing any athletic endurance events quasi-comfortably, regardless of distance.

My 13-year-old daughter is part of a group of 8 girls she’s been tight with for years. Yesterday she found out that she and another girl are the only ones in the group who is straight. None of them has been in a romantic relationship.

But do tell me it’s not social contagion. I’m genuinely happy that we’ve advanced to the point where gender identity and sexual orientation are socially destigmatized. But kids and adolescents should not be pressured into accepting a single identity because it’s trendy.

No such thing as bad publicity.

My sincere congratulations to @StrangelEdweird for being recognized by one of the worst purveyors of racecraft in the modern era. I am thoroughly tickled by the idiotic strawman arguments that don’t actually engage with the substance of Angel’s piece. NHJ is — as she has been since Day One — running on rhetorical fumes.

I don’t normally do this…

The toll the recent flareup in Israel-Palestine has had on children is sickening and unimaginable. But there is something off about the details: they are mostly based on accounts by fathers and uncles — who manage to survive. nytimes.com/interactive/20… There are 12 stories about Israeli airstrikes killing children in Gaza.

9 are based on accounts by surviving fathers

2 are based on accounts by surviving uncles

1 is based on accounts by a surviving male cousin

IfNotNow is a modern incarnation of the German Vanguard. It expends all of its resources amplifying and exaggerating alleged Israeli atrocities while completely denying the surge in antisemitism and minimizing the menace it poses to Jews the world over.

https://twitter.com/IfNotNowOrg/status/1397926957367455744

No action that benefits or protects Jews goes uncriticized by this atrocious, supposedly Jewish, organization.

https://twitter.com/IfNotNowOrg/status/1397998433227710470?s=20

Judd has been putting a lot of work into exposing corporate political contributions, especially to candidates who behaved undemocratically. Thing is, it's the employees, not the corporations, that are making those donations.

https://twitter.com/JuddLegum/status/1382669978596425733

According to the Federal Election Commission, contributions to political candidates from corporations are prohibited. fec.gov/help-candidate…

An interactive visualization of killings by police over time, categorized by race and armed/unarmed status. Includes filters for race, year, state, armed status, and encounter type. Feedback welcome. #datavis public.tableau.com/views/PoliceKi… Source: mappingpoliceviolence.org

One of the most insidious forms of anti-racist race hustling in the modern era is the concept of “white tears”. And nothing embodies this racecraft like this article by @DamonYoungVSB, the same author of the recent gem, “Whiteness is a Pandemic”. verysmartbrothas.theroot.com/white-tears-ex… I first heard the term “white tears” when the moderator of a company-wide seminar in the wake of George Floyd’s death asked white female employees not to shed tears, even in empathy. My jaw dropped. (I realized later that this was taken from Robin DiAngelo’s “White Fragility”.)