New preamble:
Palestinian resistance groups have launched an operation in and around Gaza to fight the genocidal settler state oppressing them. Thousands of rockets have been launched towards the so-called state of Israel, overwhelming the Iron Dome. Settlers and the troops protecting them are being killed in the settlements surrounding Gaza, with many caught by surprise in the first few hours of the operation.
Palestinians are taking many Israeli settlers and soldiers hostage and bringing them back to Gaza. An Israeli general, Nimrod Aloni, has been confirmed captured. Palestinians are also taking military and civilian equipment back. Drones and MANPADS appear to be in use, and a number of Merkava tanks have been destroyed/disabled and their occupants removed and taken hostage. Palestinian forces appear to be heading in two main directions so far: southeast in the direction of Be'er Sheva, and along the coast in the direction of Ashkelon, but settlements all around Gaza have been assaulted and taken. It is obviously unknown how far they intend to go, or what their intermediate goals are.
Israel is bombing the Gaza Strip with aircraft, destroying buildings. It appears that their intelligence on the location of Palestinian forces outside of Gaza is very poor, and haven't been able to meaningfully strike them. Netanyahu has given a statement declaring that Israel is in a state of war. Iran has issued statements in support of the uprising, and Israel has responded with hostility to those comments. In all, the IDF appears to still be in a shockingly bad state hours after the assault began.
Old preamble on Antarctica:
expand
Much of the information for this news post, including both the images in the preamble, came from this article at the National Snow and Ice Data Center, which has been circulating in the media lately.
Image has been taken from this article.
Antarctica has had a uniquely bad year.
While the sea ice extent in the last 50 years or so has been very gradually declining, it has done so very slowly on average - by 0.1% per decade. This began to change in 2016:
Even so, this year is different, showing a remarkable decrease in the maximum sea ice extent. It is unconfirmed (I think) but this year may be the first in which the maximum extent fails to reach 17 million square kilometers - and is more than one million square kilometers lower than the previous record low maximum in 1986.
The fall in sea ice has been linked by some researchers to warming in the uppermost ocean layer caused by lateral and upward mixing of warmer water. The ocean is a gigantic heat sink, and has been absorbing much of the excess heat that humanity has generated via the greenhouse effect. But put enough heat into a heat sink and it will eventually fill up.
These changes in sea ice extent is no mere abstract climate worry or scientific curiosity. It is having a direct, catastrophic impact on the Antarctic's ecosystem. Emperor penguin colonies have had trouble breeding, so much so that:
...there is high probability that no chicks had survived last year in four of the five known emperor penguin colonies in the central and eastern Bellingshausen Sea. This was because the sea ice had melted well before chicks would have developed waterproof feathers. ... Today's report says about one-third of the 62 known emperor penguin colonies in Antarctica were affected by partial or total sea ice loss between 2018 and 2022.
And, last year, scientists conducted a study on the two plants that are able to grow near Antarctica, looking at a single Antarctic island for simplicity, and found that the populations of these plants had exploded in the last decade - growing as much in the last decade as they had in the last 50 years - due to rising air temperatures. It was warm enough for the scientists to wear shorts and remove their shirts.
The Country of the Week is Syria! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
Here is the map of the Ukraine conflict, courtesy of Wikipedia.
The weekly update is here!
Links and Stuff
The bulletins site is down.
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Add to the above list if you can.
Resources For Understanding The War
Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don't want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it's just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists' side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Telegram Channels
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
Pro-Russian
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR's former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR's forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster's telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a 'propaganda tax', if you don't believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
Last week's discussion post.
I hate my fellow westerners we’re so fucking arrogant even some people who support palestine are pearl clutching and dooming that they’re gonna lose and give Israel an excuse to genocide even harder like have these people never read about the absolutely insane stories of the liberation of Cuba and China, like come the fuck on man these resistance fighters obviously planned this out stop pretending we know better than them about the situation on the ground
deleted by creator
Unfortunately im not sure how much israel cares they’ve already bombed gaza a few times now
You would think so, but...
deleted by creator
deleted by creator
something about money and jews comes to mind ya know? if that's an external emote that isn't escaping for federated users y'all might want to change the name
deleted by creator
In this scene he goes: “jesse, what the fuck are you talking about”
deleted by creator
Israel has previously had a stated policy that they will deliberately target and kill IDF soldiers taken hostage rather than engage in any kind of negotiations. idk if it's still in effect or if they've ever actually done it. The policy has a name but I can't reme3mber what it is.
deleted by creator
The Hannibal protocol was introduced in the late 80s, i don't think Israeli media blackout is still that effective with the accessibility of media via social media (you can still make the argument that social media is useless because it's just a medium to solidify preconceived opinions)
deleted by creator
It's absolutely true that as westerners it would be supremely arrogant to think we know better than the Palestinians about what's going on. Still, I think it's fair and justified to be worried about the well-being of the Palestinian people as this continues to develop and the extreme reaction and terror that Isn'treal is capable of. Regardless: Full and uncritical support to Palestine and their resistance to the genocidal ethnostate.
It’s ok to be worried: if they do lose, yes it will be catastrophic for them, I’m worried myself, just complaining about the arrogance like I said
I think I understand better what you meant now that I've read the other thread. Yeah, I'm in full agreement with you. My support is with whatever the Palestinian freedom fighters and the Palestinian people support. Those (here of all places) who are saying that cheering for what's happening is "cheering for blood" need to get the fuck over themselves. Can't help but wonder what other revolutionary action they'd concern-troll. (Not that any of what we cheer or what others pearl-clutch about makes any material difference in the liberation efforts happening right now).
All good comrade, wasn’t mad at all I knew your comment was in good faith <3
Yeah OP in the other thread is being completely craven and cowardly and turning this into a personal vendetta against the “uncivil” hexbear users
Seriously, it's not like they have better options
I'll believe in the Palestinian resistance even if the odds are against them
Many westerners prefer an unjust peace to any sort of conflict that might lead to resolution.
Dr. King called them out decades ago in his letter from Birmingham Jail.
Im not really talking about the white moderate exactly, they’re saying they would support this if they thought it would work, but obviously these dumb palestinians are launching an all out attack without thinking about whether or not they have a shot at winning, and even if the restiance did they, a genius westerner, know better than them!!!
A white moderate would just hem and haw at the use of any violence
And it's not like the Likudnik and Kahanist governing coalition are going to wait around for excuses to do genocide. I don't think most people have any idea how bad and how shamelessly fascist the current Knesset is.
Yeah…
I definitely feel scared for the Palestinians; Israel has shown over and over again how cruel they can be. But the resistance clearly have spent months planning this (just stockpiling that many rockets must take time) and the fact that they really do seem to have caught the IOF off guard is also incredibly impressive. I don’t know what the effects of this attack will be, and it’s hard to be optimistic given the world we live in but they knew what the risks were and I’m not gonna criticize them for their tactics as I sit safe and comfortable on the other side of the world
what years did those happen in? what year is it now? might that have some impact on the material conditions?
The point isnt that cuba and china’s situations are like the palestinian’s wtf? Of course the material conditions arent the same, wtf are you bringing that up for??? The point is if you asked a comfy westerner their thoughts on it at the time, they’d do the same pearl clutching and doubting that people are doing rn. To further expand, seemingly miraculous victories have happened in the past and people who arent actually there on the ground to judge the situation shouldnt pretend like the resistance fighters are totally doomed and have no chance
Cool, now let's do Vietnam vs the US.
I'm pretty sure people in Gaza already did their calculation on their move. The strip ran out of drinking water last year IIRC. The escalation of the colonization in the West Bank and their fact that the Palestinian Authority of the West Bank collaborating with the Israeli showed that there is no peaceful resolution in this two states solution (as Edward Said said before)