Image is of many Hamas soldiers supervising the handing over of Israeli hostages to cars heading out of the Gaza Strip.

After 15 months of genocide - and resistance to it - the Israeli regime realized that they could not win a military victory against Hamas, and were forced to sign a humiliating ceasefire in order to get their hostages returned.

With much of Syria under the control of Al-Qaeda, and an increasing level of covert infiltration into Lebanon, the crisis in the Middle East is not over, and we may still be in its beginning stages, as the center of hegemony continues its gradual shift away from the United States. Their navy, once considered the best in the world, is likely also not very happy about their ships and aircraft carriers being forced to retreat by Yemen, one of the poorest countries; and all eyes are on Iran, who has, over the last year and a half, demonstrated a newfound confidence and strength to directly strike Israel.

The recovery for Gaza will take, at a minimum, decades; it could indeed never fully recovery to even how it was before, considering it is not in Israel’s interests to see their concentration camps recover. But Hamas has proven to be steadfast and the tunnel network has proven its resilience, despite facing some of the most powerful conventional bombing in history. This shows that Palestine’s liberation is a when, not an if; and hopefully a much sooner “when” than expected before October 7th.


Last week’s thread is here. The Imperialism Reading Group is here.

Please check out the HexAtlas!

The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.

Israel-Palestine Conflict

If you have evidence of Israeli crimes and atrocities that you wish to preserve, there is a thread here in which to do so.

Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:

UNRWA reports on Israel’s destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.

English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news.
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.

English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.

Russia-Ukraine Conflict

Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict

Sources:

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.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
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.

Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:

Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.

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 Telegram Channels:

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.


  • Redcuban1959 [any]@hexbear.net
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    1 day ago

    Direction – Social Democracy (Slovak: Smer – sociálna demokracia, Smer–SD), also commonly referred to as Smer, is a left-wing nationalist and left-wing populist political party in Slovakia led by the incumbent prime minister Robert Fico. The party identifies as social-democratic, and was described as a combination of “leftist economics and nationalist appeal”.

    Fico has promised to cut all aid to Ukraine as a result of the Russian Invasion of Ukraine, and has promised to block Ukrainian accession to NATO should the subject be broached under his tenure. Fico has also stated that the Ukrainian government is run by neo-Nazis.

    In the 2000s, the party opposed the Iraq War and the War in Afghanistan, and organized the withdrawal of 110 Slovak soldiers that were deployed in Iraq. In its foreign policy manifesto, Smer calls for understanding with countries “with a form of government other than parliamentary democracy”, referring to China and Vietnam. In 2007, Fico made an official state visit to the then leader of Libya, Muammar Gaddafi, “discussing the fight against world imperialism”

    In October 2023, Smer was suspended from the Party of European Socialists (PES) and the affiliated Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D) European Parliament group., following its formation of a coalition government with the Slovak National Party. Smer subsequently declined to join the Fidesz-led Patriots for Europe group, stating that it would not join a non-leftist group. In September 2024, Smer began negotiations with two other parties in the Non-Inscrits, the German Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht and the Czech Stačilo!, on establishing cooperation between left-wing conservative parties.

    So, they are just a social democrat party that is a bit critical of the US and EU, and at the same time they get to hang out with cool people?

    • qcop [they/them]@hexbear.net
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      22 hours ago

      From what I remember they are also anti immigration and anti-LGBT and are in a coalition with SNS which is I think a far right party.

      They sound to me like socdem with reactionary politics on social issues.

    • coolusername@lemmy.ml
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      24 hours ago

      Fico is a ballsy guy. He survived a CIA assassination and he’s still fighting back. Mas as well.

    • starkillerfish [she/her]@hexbear.net
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      i think they just accidentally stumbled into being correct on anti imperialism. they still pay their nato dues and provide arms iirc, so im afraid the stance is also mostly retoric. and in terms of socdem they are just the only major party that doesnt want to cut pensions.

    • grandepequeno [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      Czech Stačilo

      Btw this is the 3-party coalition where the Czech communist party is running. They lost parliamentary representation in the 2021 (I think) elections because of the 5% treshold, there were a couple of glib “communists FINALLY KICKED OUT of czech parliament” news articles back then. Well in the 2024 european parliament elections this coalition (which they seem to be the most prominent member of) got 9%, so they might back it back in later this year.

      The other 2 parties in the coalition seem a bit sus but it’s not a bad idea to run communist parties in a front-group (provided there are any actual chances of electing them, which is only the case in a handful of european countries)