this is a take from one of my go to sources for info on the middle east. i ran across juan cole in the run-up to the invasion of iraq and he offered several cogent answers to the rhetorical question of the day: “would colin powell lie?” mutliple variations on “yes and here’s why.” most of which were amply proved by the reality of the occupation as it unfolded. to put it another way, i trust his knowledge and experience.
If you guys have not read them, I highly recommend both of Joe Sacco’s graphic novels about Palestine…
Footnotes in Gaza is especially wrenching…
His graphic novels on the wars in the Balkans are great, too.
Thank you.
I can’t find a crying gif that’s right for that.
Me either. I don’t think there are any for what’s going on right now.
That is truly heartbreaking. 
Among Finland’s main parties, only Simo Grönroos of the Finns Party and Asmo Maanselkä of the Christian Democrats reported that the issues of hate speech and online debate had no effect on their acquisition of candidates.
Why aren’t populist right-wingers not targeted by antifa? Can this mystery ever be solved?
China is investing very heavily in Africa. Given the land-grabby tendencies of the government, I would be worried.
I ended up overhearing some NPR show (I hate NPR) and some expert was being interviewed, blathering the usual Western mainstream media blather. "So what can be done to calm all this down? " “Calm it down? Well, Hamas has to stop launching rockets into Israel. If that can be enforced this time, if their rockets can be taken away, things will calm down again (aural shrug).”
Did I mention that I hate NPR?
Y’know it’s hard to remember this kicked off when a far right leader was missing his deadline to reform a government and sent some thugs in with flash bombs into a mosque…
Because nobody is remembering the hard right criminal isn’t democratically elected in “The Only Democracy in The Middle East ™” right now.
I would say “this episode kicked off” but yes.
To be fair, they had on Ambassador Areikat this weekend:
And they’ve had on Palestinian activists this past week or so:
Gosh, I wonder if those two facts are in anyway related! Must not be! All in our minds, of course! /s
I don’t really think I was being unfair. National Propaganda Radio consistently toes the general US imperial line, even if they do make an effort to seem fair once in awhile.
You can not show support for Palestinians by building more illegal settlements and displacing more people. Erdoğan is as bad as Netanyahu.
Agreed…
Also…
Performative cruelty.
