The Israeli army has raided Aljazeera’s offices in Ramallah and ordered it closed. Soldiers confiscated the last microphone and camera off the street outside as bureau chief Walid Omari, who was forced to leave the office, was live on air reporting on the raid.
Not content with banishing AJ from Israel and destroying their offices in Gaza (along with murdering scores of their journalists and journalists' families), they have invaded their offices in the West Bank as well.
I get the feeling their artillery is dividing up the West Bank into grid squares and shit's about to get even more real.
No matter where you go...there you are. ~ Buckaroo Banzai
I'm sure we'll soon see 'de-escalation through occupation' followed by whatever excuse they'll come up with regarding Jordan to fill out their dream map.
The Israeli army has raided Aljazeera’s offices in Ramallah and ordered it closed. Soldiers confiscated the last microphone and camera off the street outside as bureau chief Walid Omari, who was forced to leave the office, was live on air reporting on the raid.
Not content with banishing AJ from Israel and destroying their offices in Gaza (along with murdering scores of their journalists and journalists' families), they have invaded their offices in the West Bank as well.
I get the feeling their artillery is dividing up the West Bank into grid squares and shit's about to get even more real.
They have been ordered to shut downifor 45 days, which would mean they can resume journalistic activities on November 5th.
There are too many things for me to post here sourcing it at the moment but the summary of today’s fuckery is thus: Israel is preparing for a war on Lebanon where the end goal appears to be the annexation of a significant southern chunk of the country as a “buffer zone,” complete with a cabinet minister justifying this by saying Lebanon isn’t a real state because of Hezbollah existing and IDF Rear Admiral Hagari claiming that Hezbollah is hiding rockets in civilian buildings
Oh and we’re deploying more troops to the region, but we’re totally asking Israel not to escalate! Totally asking for no escalation!
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. is sending a small number of additional troops to the Middle East in response to a sharp spike in violence between Israel and Hezbollah forces in Lebanon that has raised the risk of a greater regional war, the Pentagon said Monday.
Pentagon press secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder would provide no details on how many additional forces or what they would be tasked to do. The U.S. currently has about 40,000 troops in the region.
MARJAYOUN, Lebanon (AP) — Israeli strikes on Lebanon Monday killed more than 490 people, including more than 90 women and children, Lebanese authorities said, in the deadliest barrage since the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war. The Israeli military warned residents in southern and eastern Lebanon to evacuate ahead of its widening air campaign against Hezbollah.
Thousands of Lebanese fled the south, and the main highway out of the southern port city of Sidon was jammed with cars heading toward Beirut in the biggest exodus since 2006.
Lebanon’s health ministry said the strikes killed 492 people, including 35 children and 58 women, and wounded 1,645 people — a staggering one-day toll for a country still reeling from a deadly attack on communication devices last week.
It’s long, you should go read it, here’s a few choice quotes from it:
This time, he lays forth the case that the Israeli occupation is a moral crime, one that has been all but covered up by the West. He writes, “I don’t think I ever, in my life, felt the glare of racism burn stranger and more intense than in Israel.”
He had also been told that the conflict was “complicated,” its history tortuous and contested, and, as he writes, “that a body of knowledge akin to computational mathematics was needed to comprehend it.” He was astonished by the plain truth of what he saw: the walls, checkpoints, and guns that everywhere hemmed in the lives of Palestinians; the clear tiers of citizenship between the first-class Jews and the second-class Palestinians; and the undisguised contempt with which the Israeli state treated the subjugated other. For Coates, the parallels with the Jim Crow South were obvious and immediate: Here, he writes, was a “world where separate and unequal was alive and well, where rule by the ballot for some and the bullet for others was policy.” And this world was made possible by his own country: “The pushing of Palestinians out of their homes had the specific imprimatur of the United States of America. Which means that it had my imprimatur.”
That it was complicated, he now understood, was “horseshit.” “Complicated” was how people had described slavery and then segregation. “It’s complicated,” he said, “when you want to take something from somebody.”
There is, too, the problem of reporting on a subject on which American officials have remained almost entirely uniform, steadfastly supporting Israel. And American mainstream journalism, Coates says, defers to American authority. “It’s very similar,” he told me, “to how American journalism has been deferential to the cops. We privilege the cops, we privilege the military, we privilege the politicians. The default setting is toward power.”
“It’s not like Arthur Sulzberger is rubbing his hands together” and dictating pro-Israeli coverage, Coates continued, noting that the Times had recently published a mammoth investigation into how Jewish extremists had taken over the Israeli state. It’s that in the total coverage, in all of the talk of experts and the sound bites of politicians and the dispatches of credentialed reporters, a sense of ambiguity is allowed to prevail. “The fact of the matter is,” he said, “that kid up at Columbia, whatever dumb shit they’re saying, whatever slogan I would not say that they would use, they are more morally correct than some motherfuckers that have won Pulitzer Prizes and National Magazine Awards and are the most decorated and powerful journalists.”
“What I suspect,” he told me, “is that American media in general thinks of itself as separate from the ends and goals of American power. And I don’t think that’s true.” Indeed, it sometimes seems like the unstated project of The Message is to recalibrate Coates’s position toward power and the people who wield it — people who, at one time, were ready to welcome him as one of their own.
There are, of course, many who believe that the moral dimensions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are indeed complicated. The most famous of Israel’s foundational claims — that it was a necessary sanctuary for one of the world’s most oppressed peoples, who may not have survived without a state of their own — is at the root of this complication and undergirds the prevailing viewpoint of the political-media-entertainment nexus. It is Israel’s unique logic of existence that has provided a quantum of justice to the Israeli project in the eyes of Americans and others around the world, and it’s what separates Jewish Israelis from the white supremacists of the Jim Crow South, who had no justice on their side at all. But for Coates, one wrong cannot justify another. “All states at their core have a reason for existing — a moral story to tell,” he told me. “We certainly do. Does industrialized genocide entitle one to a state? No.” Especially, he said, at the expense of people who had no hand in the genocide.
What matters to Coates is not what will happen to his career now — to the script sales, invitations from the White House, his relationships with his former colleagues at The Atlantic and elsewhere. “I’m not worried,” he told me, shrugging his shoulders. “I have to do what I have to do. I’m sad, but I was so enraged. If I went over there and saw what I saw and didn’t write it, I am fucking worthless.”
In his dispatch for Vanity Fair, Coates drew attention to this failing, referring for the first time in writing to the current military assault in Gaza as a “genocide.” Among the hundreds of journalists in attendance, he was virtually alone in urging people to remember that there was a war going on, and for a moment his words changed the tenor of what had been a raucous party. (“He has a habit of doing that,” Stossel said.) But it was not enough for the Democratic Party to agree to bring a Palestinian American onstage. For Coates, the issue was not just where a Harris administration would stand on Palestinian rights. It was what a President Harris, who would be the first graduate of Howard to occupy the Oval Office, would mean for people like Coates, who were raised to believe that their struggle for freedom lies on the side of the powerless.
“I have a deep-seated fear,” he told me, “that the Black struggle will ultimately, at its root, really just be about narrow Black interest. And I don’t think that is in the tradition of what our most celebrated thinkers have told the world. I don’t think that’s how Martin Luther King thought about the Black struggle. I know that’s not how Du Bois thought about the Black struggle. I know that’s not how Baldwin thought about the Black struggle. Should it turn out that we have our first Black woman president, and our first South Asian president, and we continue to export 2,000-pound bombs to perpetrate a genocide, in defense of a state that is practicing apartheid, I won’t be able to just sit here and shake my head and say, ‘Well, that is unfortunate.’ I’m going to do what I can in the time that remains, and the writing that I have, to not allow that to be, because that is existential death for the Black struggle, and for Black people, as far as I’m concerned.”
In retrospect, one can see this fear laced throughout all of Coates’s work about the first Black president. And in his hands, the story of Israel is a cautionary tale of the corrupting influence of power, a warning to the oppressed who might dream of one day exerting their will over an otherwise unkind world. As he explains in The Message, his name, “Ta-Nehisi,” can be translated as “Land of the Blacks,” in reference to an ancient Nubian kingdom that Black nationalists of his parents’ generation spoke of with longing. “We were born not to be slaves but to be royalty,” he writes. “That explains our veneration of Black pharaohs and African kingdoms. The point was to craft a different story than the one imposed on us — an understandable response, but one that I’ve never made peace with.”
Yeah, anyone going to read that should know that while Coates is incredible and well worth considering (as usual), the authorial voice in the article injects a lot of editorialism that tries to insist that it is "a complicated issue" actually (in direct opposition to Coates' statements), and misrepresenting Coates views on Gaza as less widespread than they actually are, such as describing him as "virtually alone" among the "hundreds of journalists in attendence" who stood with the Uncommitted delegates at the DNC.
Yeah, anyone going to read that should know that while Coates is incredible and well worth considering (as usual), the authorial voice in the article injects a lot of editorialism that tries to insist that it is "a complicated issue" actually (in direct opposition to Coates' statements), and misrepresenting Coates views on Gaza as less widespread than they actually are, such as describing him as "virtually alone" among the "hundreds of journalists in attendence" who stood with the Uncommitted delegates at the DNC.
Israel Deliberately Blocked Humanitarian Aid to Gaza, Two Government Bodies Concluded. Antony Blinken Disagreed.
The U.S. government’s two foremost authorities on humanitarian assistance concluded this spring that Israel had deliberately blocked deliveries of food and medicine into Gaza.
The U.S. Agency for International Development delivered its assessment to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the State Department’s refugees bureau made its stance known to top diplomats in late April. Their conclusion was explosive because U.S. law requires the government to cut off weapons shipments to countries that prevent the delivery of U.S.-backed humanitarian aid. Israel has been largely dependent on American bombs and other weapons in Gaza since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks.
But Blinken and the administration of President Joe Biden did not accept either finding. Days later, on May 10, Blinken delivered a carefully worded statement to Congress that said, “We do not currently assess that the Israeli government is prohibiting or otherwise restricting the transport or delivery of U.S. humanitarian assistance."
More in the link, mostly stuff I think we knew. Also there are a couple pictures in the article that are a bit tough to look at, so know that going in.
Israel Deliberately Blocked Humanitarian Aid to Gaza, Two Government Bodies Concluded. Antony Blinken Disagreed.
The U.S. government’s two foremost authorities on humanitarian assistance concluded this spring that Israel had deliberately blocked deliveries of food and medicine into Gaza.
The U.S. Agency for International Development delivered its assessment to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the State Department’s refugees bureau made its stance known to top diplomats in late April. Their conclusion was explosive because U.S. law requires the government to cut off weapons shipments to countries that prevent the delivery of U.S.-backed humanitarian aid. Israel has been largely dependent on American bombs and other weapons in Gaza since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks.
But Blinken and the administration of President Joe Biden did not accept either finding. Days later, on May 10, Blinken delivered a carefully worded statement to Congress that said, “We do not currently assess that the Israeli government is prohibiting or otherwise restricting the transport or delivery of U.S. humanitarian assistance."
More in the link, mostly stuff I think we knew. Also there are a couple pictures in the article that are a bit tough to look at, so know that going in.
There were definitely details that had come out, but I don't recall reading anything that as comprehensively ties knowledge within the administration being blatantly ignored.
There's no appetite for it there, but if Blinken was lying about the facts on the ground to Congress in order to keep weapon sales flowing that's a pretty bad look.
I’m sorry, I was getting caught up in this thread but was Israel’s excuse for why they flattened Rafah into a charred husk was to get at the tunnels under the city?
That they bombed the surface to hit the stuff underground?
I’m sorry, I was getting caught up in this thread but was Israel’s excuse for why they flattened Rafah into a charred husk was to get at the tunnels under the city?
That they bombed the surface to hit the stuff underground?
Of which is still there?
I can tell you what you would be told if you asked this at a White House press briefing:
"So, we cannot comment on ongoing military operations, but we know it's a complicated situation on the ground right now because Hamas loves to embed itself among the civilian population. You should direct your questions to Israeli officials, who have assured us they are conducting their self-defensive actions in full compliance with international law."
The most important thing to remember though is that they've not engaged in a ground invasion of it, since that's Biden's red line and they'll cut off support it they do that...
Gaza’s Ministry of Health has refused to receive a container carrying the bodies of 88 Palestinians sent from Israel without prior coordination or information about their identities.
The procedures for receiving the container were suspended until Israel provides full data with the victims’ names, time of death and the location they were taken from, the ministry said in a statement on the Telegram messaging app on Wednesday.
This is “the minimum rights of these people and their families”, it said.
Gaza’s Government Media Office called the shipment of unidentifiable bodies an “inhumane and criminal move”, in a separate statement.
Reporting from central Gaza’s Deir el-Balah, Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum said “the bodies are unidentifiable because they are mostly decomposed”.
“The Palestinian Health Ministry said that the Israeli military has deliberately concealed the identity of those Palestinian people. There is no information about their names, genders and the location they have been kidnapped from. The circumstances of their abduction from the Gaza Strip are also unclear,” he added.
Of course, this sort of behavior from Israel is in violation of international law, but why would they bother with respecting the laws regarding the dead when they manifestly don't give a shit about the rights of those still living?
Today, with colleagues, I introduced legislation to block arms sales to Israel.
Sending more weapons to Netanyahu's extremist government is immoral & illegal: U.S. weapons are responsible for far too many civilian casualties in Gaza.
We must end our complicity in this atrocity.
It took nearly 11 months of genocide, the precursor to a ground invasion of Lebanon involving a massive civilian targeted terrorist attack and multiple days of heavy bombing, and leaked federal documents regarding Blinken and Biden deliberately ignoring federal experts reporting Israel had violated international humanitarian law under which arms flow must legally be stopped, but I guess we finally have someone in the senate calling for an end to the arms flow.
Fucking hellworld-ass ass-dragging to do what should have started months ago.
Israel has "conducted a precise strike" in the southern suburbs of Beiruit.
AJ's description from on-scene:
The attack in Beirut’s Haret Hreik suburb has erased a complete block, around six to nine buildings were either completely or partially destroyed. We are talking about a residential block close to the International airport of Beirut.
For now, we don’t know how many people were killed. But when an attack with such huge explosives, huge rockets is launched towards a residential area, we will expect to see a large number of people killed.
Complete carnage. At least 6 entire apartment buildings flattened in south Beirut from Israeli strikes. God knows how many are dead.
Again, from AJ:
The feeling here is Israel isn’t just fighting Hezbollah, it’s fighting the Lebanese population.
Dahiyeh, home to about 700,000 people, has been heavily affected. Many believe these so-called “targeted strikes” are not precise.
People we spoke to in Dahiyeh on Thursday said Israel clearly shows no regard for civilian life in its efforts to “eliminate” Hezbollah members, despite the rising casualty figures.
People here are very angry at the actions of the Israeli army and government. They say this is now a full-scale war with tens of thousands of displaced people having lost their livelihoods. People don’t understand why this is happening or what the real purpose is.
Israel has "conducted a precise strike" in the southern suburbs of Beiruit.
AJ's description from on-scene:
The attack in Beirut’s Haret Hreik suburb has erased a complete block, around six to nine buildings were either completely or partially destroyed. We are talking about a residential block close to the International airport of Beirut.
For now, we don’t know how many people were killed. But when an attack with such huge explosives, huge rockets is launched towards a residential area, we will expect to see a large number of people killed.
Complete carnage. At least 6 entire apartment buildings flattened in south Beirut from Israeli strikes. God knows how many are dead.
Again, from AJ:
The feeling here is Israel isn’t just fighting Hezbollah, it’s fighting the Lebanese population.
Dahiyeh, home to about 700,000 people, has been heavily affected. Many believe these so-called “targeted strikes” are not precise.
People we spoke to in Dahiyeh on Thursday said Israel clearly shows no regard for civilian life in its efforts to “eliminate” Hezbollah members, despite the rising casualty figures.
People here are very angry at the actions of the Israeli army and government. They say this is now a full-scale war with tens of thousands of displaced people having lost their livelihoods. People don’t understand why this is happening or what the real purpose is.
A large number of diplomats left the GA Hall once #Netanyahu came to the podium. The people you hear cheering the PM during the speech are in the gallery who he brought for that purpose. #UNGA79 #Walkout
Ali Dabaja says Lebanese Americans have been struggling for the past 12 months with “work-life-genocide” balance as tens of thousands of Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip.
But now, with the Israeli military unleashing its firepower on Lebanon over the past week, the community is at a “boiling point”.
Israel’s large-scale bombing campaign in Lebanon has hit close to home for Dabaja, a Detroit-area physician. His cousin, Batoul Dabaja-Saad, was killed along with her husband and three children in an Israeli air strike on their home in the southern Lebanese town of Bint Jbeil.
“There is disbelief. There is anger, and there is the feeling of loss – tremendous loss,” Dabaja told Al Jazeera.
"We’ve been yelling and screaming at the top of our lungs. We’ve been engaging politicians. We’ve been engaging our country, engaging people who are running for president. And all of that has kind of fallen on deaf ears. And at this point, it becomes very personal for us.”
""Work-life-genocide" balance" is such a profound and sobering turn of phrase.
Many Lebanese Americans woke up on Monday to messages and calls from family members looking for refuge from Israel’s bombardment.
Suehaila Amen, a community advocate in Michigan who is hosting a Lebanese foreign exchange student, said she received a call from the student’s mother, who was fleeing her village near the southern city of Tyre.
“She was like, ‘My daughter is with you, if something happens to us, please take care of her.’ That’s what I woke up to. I couldn’t understand what was going on,” Amen told Al Jazeera.
She described feeling deep sadness over the killings and widespread destruction, as well as worry for her friends and relatives in Lebanon who have been forced to leave their homes.
"It’s like being in a nightmare and watching these killers continue to have free reign at slaughtering innocent people without any reprimand or care,” Amen said.
While Israel has focused most of its air raids on southern and eastern areas of Lebanon, it has been expanding its bombardment to other areas, including places without any Hezbollah political or military presence.
Sanaa said she fears that soon nowhere will be safe and her family will face even greater dangers.
“The bombing is going [on] everywhere. And eventually, they’re going to run out of places to go – the same way it happened in Gaza,” she told Al Jazeera.
Just yesterday, Netanyahu delivered a speech at the UN where he claimed these attacks on Lebanon are justified because of the Israeli citizens displaced from northern Israel by Hezbollah rocket attacks. Apparently, it's fine to displace civilians if they're brown and Muslim.
Many Lebanese Americans see Biden and his aides – including Vice President Kamala Harris, who is the Democratic candidate in November’s presidential election – as directly responsible for the carnage in their homeland.
“I am hoping to God that people remember that on Election Day – because all this is happening under the Biden administration, and Harris is part of it,” said [Samia] Hamid.
Amen, the activist, said the war in Lebanon will further alienate Arab and Muslim voters from the Harris campaign and hurt the Democratic Party’s election chances, particularly in the swing state of Michigan.
According to US Census figures, the US is home to around 700,000 Lebanese Americans, 82,000 of whom live in Michigan.
But community advocates say that the data significantly undercounts Arab Americans because of the absence of a specific “Arab” or “Middle East and North Africa” identifier on the census form.
Amen said Harris will have to deal with the anger of the Lebanese and broader Arab community in Michigan come November.
“Kamala Harris has no soul. She is evil, and she is no better than those she’s protecting and enabling,” Amen said, referring to the Israeli government.
Harris is going to lose Michigan unless she breaks from Biden on unconditionally arming Israel as it commits war crimes.
Netanyahu gave the order to bomb that residential block in Beirut from his hotel room in New York City, after giving a speech where he swore he would continue to fight Hamas and Hezbollah, and would not agree to any deal that left Hamas in power.
The bombing has killed at least 300 people, by Israel's own estimation.
If the Biden administration was serious about a ceasefire deal, they would actually apply pressure to Netanyahu, because he's the one who is refusing to come to an agreement, and is stoking the flames for a larger regional conflict.
...But the Biden administration isn't actually a ceasefire deal. They only say they are, the better to provide a diplomatic smokescreen and run interference for Israel while they continue to provide them the means to slaughter Palestinians, Syrians, Lebanese, and anyone else they feel like targeting. They don't care about any harm to civilians, even if they are American citizens.
it's really interesting and wild that the most powerful nation on the planet is completely incapable of stopping an ally that is wholly dependent on them for military support from committing atrocity after atrocity
just really interesting how such a thing is definitely true and real
It seems pretty obvious at this point that Netanyahu is trying to provoke a diversionary war with Iran and its allies to try to keep himself in power, with a lot of nazi style genocide and theft of territory as a bonus. And it also feels like it's not a coincidence that he is timing it right before the US elections, but I'm not sure to what end. Does the election here make it a better moment for him to begin his war in some way? Does it influence the outcome in some way when both candidates are already seemingly backing him come hell or high water?
I guess neither party wants to be the first to back down and say that maybe possibly there's times when Israel isn't totally in the right when it might cost them the election. Absurdly optimistic thinking to assume Harris would be any less enthusiastically genocidal if there wasn't an election at stake, but pushing as hard as they can with their bullshit while there's least likely to be questioned does make some sense.
+1
StraightziHere we may reign secure, and in my choice,To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered Userregular
There's a conspiracy minded thought that he might be deliberately trying to push the limits of Democrat support because he knows that it divides the base, and a Republican presidency would be even more in favor of turning the Middle East into glass
The Torah verses convey profound messages that we can insightfully extract for our daily lives. Rabbi Shay Tahan, the Rosh Kollel of Shaarei Ezra in Brooklyn, NY, graciously opens the gates to understand them.
The recent conflict in Lebanon raises the age-old question regarding the northern borders of biblical Eretz Yisrael. Where exactly did Hashem define the boundaries, and are we obligated to conquer those areas? Do the mitzvot of terumah and ma’aser apply to those lands as part of Eretz Yisrael, or are they considered outside the borders?
The Torah provides clear guidelines regarding the areas we were commanded to conquer when taking possession of the land. In the last generation, the term "Greater Israel" has come to the forefront. It is sometimes used in political or religious discussions about the ideal or future borders of Israel, often in the context of messianic or Zionist aspirations. Some interpret it as a call for the re-establishment of Israel’s biblical borders. However, the concept varies in meaning, ranging from symbolic or spiritual interpretations to literal geographical claims.
This term refers to the concept of the biblical boundaries of the Land of Israel as promised to the Jewish people in various parts of the Torah. It is often associated with the land described in the Covenant with Avraham (Brit Bein HaBetarim), which stretches from the "River of Egypt" (interpreted by some as the Nile or a smaller river in Sinai) to the Perat River. This expansive region includes parts of modern-day Israel, the West Bank, Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Iraq.
When Hashem promised Avraham Avinu the Land of Israel at the Brit Bein HaBetarim, the pasuk says (בראשית טז): "On that day, Hashem made a covenant with Avram, saying: To your descendants, I have given this land—from the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates."
At the blessing at the end of Parshat Ekev, Hashem tells us that we are granted every land we will conquer within the borders mentioned. In the north, the Torah states: "Every place where the sole of your foot will tread shall be yours—from the wilderness and the Lebanon, from the river—the Euphrates River—until the western sea shall be your boundary." This promise from the Creator clearly places the land of Lebanon within the Promised Land of Israel, or what some refer to as "the Complete Land of Israel", or “The greater Israel”.
The Ramban wrote that Lebanon is within the borders of Israel and adds that we were obligated and commanded to conquer it.
Sefer Yehoshua begins with Hashem speaking to Yehoshua and repeating the above command: "Every place your foot will step has been given to you, as I spoke to Moshe—from the desert and Lebanon until the great river, the Euphrates."
The Tribe of Asher is mainly associated with regions that include parts of Lebanon. Following the conquest of the land under Yehoshua, the tribes established their territories, with Asher extending into areas adjacent to Lebanon. The text describes the border of the Tribe of Asher, detailing sections of borders and lists of cities, some of which are border cities that mark the tribe's boundary. Within the inheritance of the Tribe of Asher lies the Valley of Acco, north of Mount Carmel, with its northernmost point in the city of Sidon.
The extension of the Land of Israel to include additional territories, such as in the concept of "Greater Israel," has several potential halachic implications. These mainly revolve around commandments that are tied specifically to the land, known as mitzvot hateluyot ba'aretz- (mitzvot dependent on the land). Some key halachic implications include:
1. Mitzvot Dependent on the Land: Certain agricultural commandments apply only in the Land of Israel. These include:
- Shmitta (the sabbatical year where the land must rest every seven years).
- Terumot and Ma’aserot (tithes given to the Kohanim, Levites, and the poor).
- Orlah (the prohibition of eating fruits from trees during the first three years of their growth).
Expanding Israel’s borders would mean extending the requirement to observe these mitzvot in the newly included territories.
2. Two days of Yomtov: There is a difference between those who live within the borders of Israel, who observe one day of Yom Tov, and those living outside, who keep two days. Accordingly, if the land were to extend to the greater borders of Israel, this distinction would apply. (According to halacha that follows the Ritva ריטב"א ר"ה יח, א; סוכה מג, א arguing on the Rambam רמב"ם הל' קדוש החודש ה, ט-יב)
3. Inhabitants and Settlement: According to some opinions, living in the biblical boundaries of Eretz Yisrael may be considered a mitzvah. Expanding Israel’s borders could extend the obligation for Jews to settle and inhabit those areas.
4. Traveling Outside the land: One may not leave the boundaries of Eretz Yisrael if they dwell there, except for learning Torah, getting married, or for their livelihood. Therefore, they can travel to those extra territories if they are conquered.
5. War and Conquest: The concept of milchemet mitzvah (a commanded war) includes conquering certain territories that were promised in the Torah. If new land is identified as part of the biblical borders, there may be halachic discussions about the obligation to conquer and settle it.
The River Perat, commonly identified with the Euphrates River, is situated in the Middle East. It flows through several countries, including Turkey, Syria, and Iraq, before emptying into the Persian Gulf. In biblical contexts, the Euphrates River is often mentioned as a significant boundary in the promises made to the Jewish people regarding the Land of Israel.
If one looks at a map, they will be astounded by how far north this river extends and how vast the Land of Israel truly is. While we may not be able to reclaim all of it in our time, Hashem will surely return it to us soon.
Oh hey look at what the Jerusalem Post decided to publish this week as Israel rained hell down on Lebanon.
Absolutely utterly fucking irresponsible, to make a generous read on this timing. Shockingly abhorrent if this is meant to help provide societal support for the annexation that government figures are already pushing for under the guise of a “buffer” zone.
NBC, quoting an Israeli official: "We have decided to kill Nasrallah after concluding that he will not agree to any solution that isn't tied to ending the war in Gaza."
The US was reportedly informed of this mass Israeli attack on Beirut in Lebanon shortly beforehand.
Comes just one day after US released $8.7 billion more in aid to Israel & hours after Netanyahu told the UN “Israel seeks peace. Israel yearns for peace.”
Our country is funding this bloodbath. Sending more of our troops and bombs to the region is not advancing peace. The U.S. government are conspirators to the war criminal Netanyahu's genocidal plan.
In the year since October 7, the Biden administration has managed to prevent escalation of a regional war in the Middle East, @FranklinFoer reports—but it's failed to secure the release of Israeli hostages or end the fighting in Gaza:
NBC, quoting an Israeli official: "We have decided to kill Nasrallah after concluding that he will not agree to any solution that isn't tied to ending the war in Gaza."
Hezbollah had agreed to the longstanding Israeli demand to pull back to the Litani River, but on the condition of Israel accepting a ceasefire in Gaza. That was too much for Israel, and it opted instead for war because it knew Biden would once again line up behind Netanyahu.
Posts
I get the feeling their artillery is dividing up the West Bank into grid squares and shit's about to get even more real.
~ Buckaroo Banzai
They have been ordered to shut downifor 45 days, which would mean they can resume journalistic activities on November 5th.
Probably a coincidence, that.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Oh and we’re deploying more troops to the region, but we’re totally asking Israel not to escalate! Totally asking for no escalation!
Just what do you even say to this shit by now
Love to de-escalate through escalation.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
These fucking guys.
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197970666737/
twitch.tv/Taramoor
@TaramoorPlays
Taramoor on Youtube
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/ta-nehisi-coates-new-book-message-israel-palestine-complicated.html?utm_campaign=nym&utm_medium=s1&utm_source=tw
It’s long, you should go read it, here’s a few choice quotes from it:
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Related:
More in the link, mostly stuff I think we knew. Also there are a couple pictures in the article that are a bit tough to look at, so know that going in.
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197970666737/
There were definitely details that had come out, but I don't recall reading anything that as comprehensively ties knowledge within the administration being blatantly ignored.
There's no appetite for it there, but if Blinken was lying about the facts on the ground to Congress in order to keep weapon sales flowing that's a pretty bad look.
That they bombed the surface to hit the stuff underground?
Of which is still there?
I can tell you what you would be told if you asked this at a White House press briefing:
"So, we cannot comment on ongoing military operations, but we know it's a complicated situation on the ground right now because Hamas loves to embed itself among the civilian population. You should direct your questions to Israeli officials, who have assured us they are conducting their self-defensive actions in full compliance with international law."
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Of course, this sort of behavior from Israel is in violation of international law, but why would they bother with respecting the laws regarding the dead when they manifestly don't give a shit about the rights of those still living?
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
It took nearly 11 months of genocide, the precursor to a ground invasion of Lebanon involving a massive civilian targeted terrorist attack and multiple days of heavy bombing, and leaked federal documents regarding Blinken and Biden deliberately ignoring federal experts reporting Israel had violated international humanitarian law under which arms flow must legally be stopped, but I guess we finally have someone in the senate calling for an end to the arms flow.
Fucking hellworld-ass ass-dragging to do what should have started months ago.
https://newlinesmag.com/spotlight/doctors-describe-the-horror-of-israels-pager-attack-in-lebanon/
Content warning for the descriptions of pager-bomb victims
AJ's description from on-scene:
This is what a "precise strike" by Israel looks like, from journalist Seamus Malekfzali who is on location in Beirut:
https://x.com/Seamus_Malek/status/1839697205906850066
Again, from AJ:
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Bunker busters. On civilians.
Jesus.
Content warning for mass urban destruction
""Work-life-genocide" balance" is such a profound and sobering turn of phrase.
Just yesterday, Netanyahu delivered a speech at the UN where he claimed these attacks on Lebanon are justified because of the Israeli citizens displaced from northern Israel by Hezbollah rocket attacks. Apparently, it's fine to displace civilians if they're brown and Muslim.
Harris is going to lose Michigan unless she breaks from Biden on unconditionally arming Israel as it commits war crimes.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
The bombing has killed at least 300 people, by Israel's own estimation.
If the Biden administration was serious about a ceasefire deal, they would actually apply pressure to Netanyahu, because he's the one who is refusing to come to an agreement, and is stoking the flames for a larger regional conflict.
...But the Biden administration isn't actually a ceasefire deal. They only say they are, the better to provide a diplomatic smokescreen and run interference for Israel while they continue to provide them the means to slaughter Palestinians, Syrians, Lebanese, and anyone else they feel like targeting. They don't care about any harm to civilians, even if they are American citizens.
Case in point:
https://x.com/usembassybeirut/status/1839648548310204785
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
just really interesting how such a thing is definitely true and real
http://www.audioentropy.com/
Fuck this Administration and every bastard in it
Oh hey look at what the Jerusalem Post decided to publish this week as Israel rained hell down on Lebanon.
Absolutely utterly fucking irresponsible, to make a generous read on this timing. Shockingly abhorrent if this is meant to help provide societal support for the annexation that government figures are already pushing for under the guise of a “buffer” zone.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar