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theculturedmarxist · 1 year

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Yves Smith asks:

What if Russia Won the Ukraine War but the Western Press Didn’t Notice?

She points to several headlines which, despite decisive Russian victories like its taking of Soledar, present the Ukraine as winning the war:

Nevertheless, Soledar has fallen and the loss of Bakhmut looks baked in, absent horrific Russian errors. The so-called Zelensky line is breaking even before Russia has put its recently-mobilized forces to work in a serious way. Regular commentators are waiting for the Russian hammer to fall, although Russia may simply grind more forcefully by pressing harder at more points along the very long line of contact. Remember one concern on the Russian side is avoiding “winning” in a way that leads to NATO panic and desperate action ... not that the Collective West’s fragile emotional state can be readily managed.

With that context, you’d expect some members of the press to have worked out that things are not going very well for Ukraine and the classic cowboy movie rescue of the calvary riding over the hill (here in the form of tanks and artillery) will be too little, too late.

Instead, the media seems to be trying to integrate snippets of facts on the ground with the heroic tale of inevitable Ukraine victory.

That is certainly correct for the wide majority of the stories, which claim that Soledar and Bahkmut, are irrelevant towns, but some pieces are creeping up that differ. A few days ago the Washington Post headlined:

Bloody Bakhmut siege poses risks for Ukraine

Ukraine faces difficult choices about how much deeper its military should get drawn into a protracted fight over the besieged city of Bakhmut, as Kyiv prepares for a new counteroffensive elsewhere on the front that requires conserving weapons, ammunition and experienced fighters.

Russia has escalated its assault in the area in recent days, unleashing savage fighting that has underscored the high cost of the battle. Russian mercenaries and released convicts from the Wagner group pushed into the neighboring salt-mining town of Soledar and inched closer to Bakhmut, the capture of which has eluded them for months despite an advantage in firepower and the willingness to sacrifice troops.

The piece quotes several Ukrainian soldiers which speak of huge losses on their side. But the U.S. is still egging them on:

The senior U.S. official cautioned against completely dismissing Bakhmut or neighboring Soledar as nonstrategic places that Kyiv can simply relinquish, noting that the salt and gypsum mines give the area economic significance. Theoretically, the Russians could use the deep salt mines and tunnels to protect equipment and ammunition from Ukrainian missile strikes. Moscow has also endowed the city with import.

“To some degree, Bakhmut matters to [Ukraine] because it matters so much to the Russians,” the senior U.S. official said, noting that control of Bakhmut is not going to have a huge impact on the conflict or imperil Ukraine’s defensive or offensive options in the country’s eastern Donbas region.

The official added, “Bakhmut is not going to change the war.”

I believe the senior U.S. official to be very wrong. Soledar and Bakhmut are bleeding the Ukrainian army dry. That is of relevance. Look at the insane number of Ukrainian units deployed on that only 50 kilometer (30mi) long sector of the front.

I count the equivalent of some 27 brigade size formations in that area. The usual size of a brigade is some 3,000 to 4,000 men with hundreds of all kinds of vehicles. If all brigades had their full strength that force would count as 97,500 men. In a recent interview the Ukrainian military commander Zaluzhny said that his army has 200,000 men trained to fight with 500,000 more having other functions or currently being trained. The forces which are currently getting mauled in the Bakhmut area constitute 50% of Ukraine's battle ready forces.

Zaluzhny has pulled units from other fronts like the Kreminna and Svatove sector further north in Luhansk province to feed them into Bakhmut. That has minimized any chance that the Ukrainian forces in those sectors will be able to make any progress.

What nearly all reports from Ukraine seem to miss is the huge damage that Russia artillery is causing on a daily base. Ukraine has little artillery left to respond to that and whatever it still has is getting less by the day.

A few weeks ago the Russian military started a systematic counter artillery campaign which has since made great progress. The typical western way of detecting enemy artillery units is by radar. The flight path of the projectile is measured and the coordinates of its source are calculated enabling ones own artillery to respond. But counter-artillery radar itself depends on radiating. It is thereby easily detectable and vulnerable to fire. Over the last months Russia deployed a very different counter-artillery detection systems with the rather ironic name of Penicillin:

Penicillin or 1B75 Penicillin is an acoustic-thermal artillery-reconnaissance system developed by Ruselectronics for the Russian Armed Forces. The system aims to detect and locate enemy artillery, mortars, MLRs, anti-aircraft or tactical-missile firing positions with seismic and acoustic sensors, without emitting any radio waves. It locates enemy fire within 5 seconds at a range of 25 km (16 mi; 13 nmi). Penicillin completed state trials in December 2018 and entered combat duty in 2020.

The Penicillin is mounted on the 8x8 Kamaz-6350 chassis and consists of a 1B75 sensor suite placed on a telescopic boom for the infrared and visible spectrum as well as of several ground-installed seismic and acoustic receivers as a part of the 1B76 sensor suite. It has an effective range for communication with other military assets up to 40 kilometres (25 mi) and is capable to operate even in a fully automatic mode, without any crew. One system can reportedly cover an entire division against an enemy fire. Besides that, it co-ordinates and corrects a friendly artillery fire.

The Penicillin system can hide in the woods and stick up its telescopic boom to look at and listen to the battlefield. As it does not radiate itself there is no good way for an enemy to detect it.

The system pinpoints Ukrainian guns as they fire. They are then eliminated by immediate precise counter-fire. As the artillery relevant part of today's 'clobber' list provided by the Russian Ministry of Defense claims:

Operational-Tactical Aviation, Missile Troops and Artillery of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation have neutralised an artillery ordnance depot of 114th Territorial Defence Brigade near Veliky Burluk (Kharkov region), as well as 82 artillery units at their firing positions, manpower and hardware at 98 areas.

Counterbattery warfare operations have resulted in destruction of:

one Polish-manufactured Krab howitzer near Peschanoye (Kharkov region);

one U.S.-manufactured M109 Paladin howitzer, and one fighting vehicle equipped with Grad multiple-launch rocket system (MLRS) near Lozovaya (Kharkov region);

one D-20 howitzer near Terny (Donetsk People's Republic);

two Giatsint-B howitzers near Maryinka and Orlovka (Donetsk People's Republic);

two Akatsiya self-propelled howitzers near Nevskoye (Lugansk People's Republic), and Preobrazhenka (Zaporozhye region);

five D-30 howitzers near Zmiyevka, Novokairy (Kherson region), Sofiyevka (Donetsk People's Republic), and Orekhov (Zaporozhye region).

Four U.S.-manufactured counterbattery warfare radars have been destroyed:

two AN/TPQ-50 stations near Mylovoye and Dudchany (Kherson region),

one AN/TPQ-36 counterbattery warfare radar near Ugledar (Donetsk People's Republic),

one U.S.-manufactured AN/TPQ-48 counterbattery warfare radar near Senkovo (Kharkov region).

Air defence facilities have shot down six Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles near Kremennaya (Lugansk People's Republic), Nikolskoye, and Petrovskoye (Donetsk People's Republic).

14 rocket-propelled projectiles launched by HIMARS and Olkha MLRS have been intercepted near Udy (Kharkov region), Smolyaninovo (Lugansk People's Republic), Donetsk, and Khartsyzsk (Donetsk People's Republic).

One U.S.-manufactured anti-radiation missile has been shot down near Radensk (Kherson region).

One Ukrainian Tochka-U ballistic missile has been shot down near Berdyansk (Zaporozhye region).

The above is the equivalent of two artillery companies (batteries with six guns each) eliminated in just one day. Ukrainian counter-battery fire against Russian artillery is no longer possible as the necessary detection equipment gets eliminated and as Ukrainian counter-fire is shot down by Russian air defenses.

This Russian counter-artillery campaign has been going on for several weeks. It has disabled large parts of what was left of Ukrainian longer range capabilities. Meanwhile the Russian artillery keeps on knocking down Ukranian troops that hold the frontline. Only when all parts of the Ukrainian trenches have been hit by intense fire will the Russian infantry move in to clean up whatever is left behind.

This form of battle is causing huge losses on the Ukrainian side while the Russian forces incur just a minimum of casualties.

In his recent talks Col (ret.) Douglas Macgregor put the deaths in Ukraine forces at 150,000 and casualties at 450,000. I, like Yves Smith, doubt that number of wounded is that high. As the system of Ukrainian battlefield extradition and hospitalization is in a bad state there will be less wounded and likely more dead.

In a huge contrast to U.S. waged wars, the civilian death count on the Ukrainian side is remarkably low:

Andriy Yermak, head of the Ukrainian presidential staff, said at the World Economic Forum in the Swiss resort of Davos, “We have registered 80,000 crimes committed by Russian invaders and over 9,000 civilians have been killed, including 453 children.”

Feeding more troops into the battle in the Bakhmut sector, as the Ukrainian side has been doing, is not a good use of resources.

We can state that Ukraine has by now lost the nominal equipment of two larger armies.

At the beginning of the war the Ukrainian army was said to have some 2,500 tanks, 12,500 armored vehicles and 3,500 large artillery systems. It is doubtful that more than half of those were in a usable state but they may have received enough repair to be workable.

The Russia military claims that most of those have been eliminated:

7,549 tanks and other armoured fighting vehicles, 984 fighting vehicles equipped with MLRS, 3,853 field artillery cannons and mortars, as well as 8,081 units of special military equipment have been destroyed during the special military operation.

If one doubts those numbers one has to ask why the Ukraine has needed to import so many more weapons and is still short of them:

410 Soviet-era tanks delivered by NATO members in former communist bloc, including Poland, Czech Republic and Slovenia.

300 [Armored/Infantry Fighting Vehicles], including 250 Soviet-designed IFVs from former communist states.

1,100 [Armored Personnel Carriers], including 300 M113 troop carriers and 250 M117s.

300 towed howitzers. 400+ pieces of self-propelled artillery, of which 180 is on order.

95 [Multiple Rocket Launchers]

There were also a number of fighter airplanes, helicopter and air-defense systems. The above was the second army, after Ukraine's original one was mostly gone, that has by now been nearly eliminated.

The Russian clobber list now regularly reports of combat with Ukraine forces that kills, for example, one tank, three armored vehicles and a number of pick-ups and motor vehicles:

One Ukrainian sabotage and reconnaissance group has been eliminated near Liman Pervy (Kharkov region). The enemy has lost over 50 Ukrainian personnel, one tank, two infantry fighting vehicles, and two pickups. … [In Donetsk direction] over 60 Ukrainian personnel, one tank, three armoured fighting vehicles, and six motor vehicles have been eliminated. … Two AFU sabotage and reconnaissance groups have been eliminated in the area to the north of Levadnoye and Vladimirovka (Donetsk People's Republic). The enemy has lost up to 40 Ukrainian personnel, two armoured fighting vehicles, and three motor vehicles.

Pick-ups and unarmored motor vehicles should avoid the frontline and certainly not be part of force attacking the immediate frontline. If these reports reflect the current structure of Ukrainian forces, as I believe they do, than its state is indeed dire.

In his Economist interview General Zeluzhny has requested a third army to be delivered to him immediately:

“I know that I can beat this enemy,” he says. “But I need resources. I need 300 tanks, 600-700 IFVs [infantry fighting vehicles], 500 Howitzers.”

As the Economist writer dryly noted:

The incremental arsenal he is seeking is bigger than the total armoured forces of most European armies.

The stocks of two complete armies have by now been destroyed in Ukraine. The resources for a smaller third one will be delivered in the next rounds of 'western' equipment deliveries during the next months. Russia will dully destroy Ukraine's third army just as it has destroyed the first and second one. It is doubtful that the 'West' has enough material left to provide Ukraine with a fourth one.

That then leaves only two options. Send in 'western' armies with the equipment they still have or declare victory and go home.

The neo-conservatives as ever favor the first option. President Joe Biden may still be against sending U.S. soldiers but this could change if he indeed gets blackmailed into doing it:

[A]s the ‘classified documents’ scandal gains momentum, the malleable president will likely fall-in-line and do whatever the hawkish foreign policy establishment demands of him. In short, the documents flap is being used by behind-the-scenes powerbrokers who are blackmailing the president to pursue their own narrow interests. They have Brandon over-a-barrel.

There is no evidence that this is happening but the signs are there.

The second option is to declare a non-existent victory and to forget about the whole issues.

But will the 'western' media, as Yves asks, notice any of this?

As commentator David correctly remarks at Yves' site:

I’ve said for a long time now that the West will be able to claim “victory”, or at least not defeat, by establishing fantastical victory conditions that the Russians never had and never wanted, and then claiming credit for frustrating them. With luck, this will just about enable western elites to hang onto power, at least temporarily.

"Putin tried to conquer Europe but we stopped him after he took only half of Ukraine," will sound like victory. But it is of course extremely far from the truth. Anyway, the media may well buy it:

But in the wider sense, we’re seeing the latest and most degenerate stage of the stupidity and ignorance which has afflicted the western media and pundit class over the last year. They didn’t know about the war in the Donbas, nobody told them Russia had the strongest army in Europe, nobody knew about the defensive lines in Donbas, nobody understood the seriousness of the Russian threats, nobody realised the Russians hoped for a short, sharp war to bring the Ukrainians to their senses, nobody understood why Russia went over to Plan B while it mobilised, nobody realised the Russians had been stockpiling weapons and ammunition for years; nobody knew what attrition warfare was …. In other words, the most disgraceful example of ignorance and stupidity of any ruling class in modern times. It will go on to the end, and “victory” will be proclaimed.

The war the U.S. provoked in Ukraine has been won by Russia even when no one wants to note it.

#ukraine conflict #us imperialism #joe biden #joe biden classified documents #russia #ukraine #nato propaganda #propaganda #propaganda debunking #moon of alabama

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deputy-videogamer · 2 months

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Have you seen this tweet/picture providing evidence that UNRA is working with Hamas?

This evidence was created by Dr. Eli David on Twitter proving that Hamas is working with the UNRA on Jan 27 a day after the UNRA announced that nine countries has suspended their funding after accusation of Hamas working for UNRA

Source

When I first saw this post I found this really suspicious as the UNRA had just announced their situation and the allegations against them. So with the help of Reverse Google Images I manage to find out that the so-called "Hamas militants" are actually the Rafah police.

The picture was from the Rafah Police Facebook account with the captions translating saying they are sending aid into Gaza back in Jan 10 on a Facebook post.

Source

As of right now the post has gain over 1 MILLION views, 12.2K reposts, and 381 requotes with NO COMMUNITY NOTES debunking this post.

#palestine #free palestine #from the river to the sea palestine will be free #gaza #free gaza #freepalastine🇵🇸#gaza genocide #palestine genocide #misinformation #debunking #israel propaganda #israeli apartheid #israeli lies #boycott israel #free west bank #eyes on rafah #eyes on palestine

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gaylenin · 8 months

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general dprk discourse is genuinely insane when you've stepped out of the whole western brain rot that views the country as fucking mordor. its genuinely depressing too because the dprk's history isn't hard to learn or understand, i learned about how millions of civilians were bombed and killed in my conservative history class age 15

but its still so easy to find videos or tiktoks with millions of views saying how the dprk has this scheme to lure people into the country for vaguely nefarious means, or whatever insane diatribe yeonmi park went on in a conservative podcast - that's not just cycled round by people who are just not political, but leftists who are fully educated in all of this but still refuse to re-evaluate their understanding of a foreign country

its such a terrifying and annoying testament to capitalist brainwashing that a lot of conceptions of north korea that can easily be explained by logical facts of its readily available history (sanctions, after effects of the korean war, foreign relations) are ignored for instead the most fantastical explanation like kim jong un's the grinch or something

#it just bugs me. so so much. had to rant about it #catalyst was a tiktok 'debunking north korean propaganda accounts'#u are fuckin delusion if u think the dprk's government is advertising to kids on TIKTOK #my post

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callimara · 6 months

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I don't know what to do.

When I tried talking to a close relative of mine about Palestine, they went on a spiel. They insisted that it wasn't genocide, that Isr*el had given them their land, that Palestine was warned about the Hamas and still voted for them, that Palestine struck first, that Isr*el warned them and gave them time to move south before Isr*el attacked. They insisted the support for Palestine is spurred on by propaganda!

When I asked my relative for proof, they dodged the question, claimed they've known about the whole thing about Isr*el and Palestine for a very long time, and said something about something being in the quran.

Now I'm torn and I'm not sure what's true anymore!

I have so many asks to go through, but I think this one is very important to answer.

To start, I think you are very brave for asking questions and trying to find the truth amidst all the propaganda, so here's what I know.

For some context, I am an Indonesian, and Indonesia and Palestine have very close diplomatic relations and share many similarities in history. We were both colonized and had to resist occupation in a white supremacist world where you are seen as lesser if your skin isn't white and savages/terrorists if you resist or if you want your land back.

Palestine was also the first to recognize Indonesia's independence in 1945, and Indonesia has built a hospital in Gaza that is one of the last ones currently standing due to relentless Israeli bombardments.

People who have gone through oppression recognize oppression. And so far the only people I have seen supporting Israel have been people who had been indoctrinated with Zionist views from childhood, people who are NOT educated on the history of Israel (and why they were there in Palestine to begin with and it is NOT because of the holocaust, which I will explain further down), and Evangelical Christians who want to bring on the rapture. Even then, what they are so angry and appalled by are people calling to send aid, and their only argument for not allowing aid into Gaza because they will be used to create weapons and rockets.

They genuinely believe that Palestinians have a magical ability to turn things like food, water, and medicine into rockets.

So, I will go through your relatives' points one by one.

Firstly, it is not a religious issue. And it never had been. This is colonization and apartheid. Do not let the media or uninformed people tell you otherwise, because that is how they justify and defend its existence.

Israel gave them their land back

Lots of Israelis say that Israeli forces completely pulled out of Gaza in 2005. That isn't 'giving land back' that is 'withdrawing from taking more land.' The entirety of what is now Israel WAS Palestine, and Palestinians aren't even asking for ALL of it back, just the borders that they had in 1967.

Also, if you're wondering why they pulled back, it's because you cannot bombard your own occupied territory, which we see them doing freely now.

Palestine was warned about Hamas

Really? That's so funny because Hamas is backed and funded by Benjamin Netanyahu (his own words at a press conference with an Israeli news cite, not mine) and his US minions to try and oppose the PLO (Palestine Liberation Movement), who were seen as a more legitimate governing body that would make Israel and the US look bad for trying to eradicate them. So, they chose a more extremist group that they'd have an easier time selling as "barbaric terrorists" as a justification to bombard Gaza with impunity. If this sounds familiar, that's because it should. It's all part of their playbook.

Palestine struck first

This did not begin on October 7th. This has been going on since the Nakba in 1948. What happened on October 7th was tragic, but it was IDF bullets that killed those hostages. It took them 6 hours to respond (a survivor said that Hamas had to ASK them to call the IDF, because they were not coming), and when they came, they killed their own civilians and hostages in the crossfire. Watch this video for the full evidence.

Hamas took hostages for a hostage swap. For the thousands of Palestinian civilians that had been kidnapped and wrongfully detained (some of them WITHOUT CHARGES) in Israeli prisons, which included KIDS. And as of now, Israel has rejected the Israeli hostages 3 times even though they are killing them in the bombardment.

Israel has something called the Hannibal Directive. Go look it up.

Because no one in their right mind would agree that just because there is a school shooter hiding inside a school with hostages while using the students as human shields, the only course of action is to then bomb the entire school.

And ask yourself, if this is truly a war on Hamas and Israel valued Palestinian civilian lives as much as they do Israeli lives, then if Hamas was hiding in Israel, would the IDF be using the same approach as they are currently using for Gaza? And if not, then why.

Israel warned them and gave them time to move south

They gave 1 million people 24 hours to complete a trek that would have taken 72 hours. 1 million people who had mostly been women, children, and the handicapped. And during the evacuation, they were bombing convoys, ambulances, and safe routes. Then when they finally got to the south of Gaza, they were bombed there too. In the place where they were supposed to be safe.

Also, if Russia had warned Ukraine that they were going to bomb them and gave them time to evacuate, does that then make it ok for Russia to bomb Ukraine? Of course not, that's a silly argument.

The support for Palestine is spurred on by propaganda

Well, which one between Palestine and Israel literally has the entire western media in their pocket? Which one has been PAYING influencers to voice their support for their country? Which one has been proven to spread LIES unquestioned? (Like 40 beheaded babies, for instance? Or using AI generated images for proof?) Which one has been posting tweets proudly declaring that they have committed war crimes, deleting the tweets, and backtracking?

Which one has fucking social media accounts that are beefing with models and celebrities who are against them, and are using influencer's images without their permission to make it seem like they're on THEIR side?

So now, let's talk about Israel and Holocaust Survivors.

First of all, the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine began in 1917 when Britain signed the Balfour Declaration, which states that they are giving away their occupied colony of Palestine to a group of Zionists immigrating to Palestine from Eastern Europe and Yemen. First thing to note here, there were already Palestinians living on the land, it was not a barren empty land, and it was colonized by the British. So the British gave away stolen land that they had no right to give away in the first place.

The holocaust survivors didn't arrive in Israel until the end of WW2 in the 1940s where they were then scorned and laughed at by the Zionist settlers in Palestine for being 'weak victims.' The holocaust victims continued to be discriminated against and left to live in poverty by the Israeli gov't.

However, their arrival gave the west a reason to arm the settlers so that they can 'defend themselves' from all the 'vicious, evil, uncivilized Arabs' they were surrounded by. And they used this excuse and dehumanization to displace 750,000 Palestinians from their land. The Nakba.

And they continue to use the holocaust survivors (that they are also treating badly) as a shield from international criticism to expand until we have the borders we have today.

#free palestine #palestinian genocide #israeli occupation #israeli apartheid #debunking propaganda

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snarkleharkle · 5 months

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#debunking hamas propaganda #debunking anti israel propaganda

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beardedmrbean · 1 month

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#doge #le debunking propaganda has arrived

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mithwitch · 5 months

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look at this absolutely unhinged zionism on tumblr rn. “there is no genocide in palestine” type psyop

[Image description: a screen shot of a tumblr reply chain that begins in the middle of a longer post. user spacelazarwolf writes “thank you for the context! this actually makes a lot more sense now.” user mithwitch writes “this is a new low for “nonzionist” tumblr. Suggesting there isn’t a genocide of palestinians is too wretched.” user the-library-alcove writes “And thank you for proving my initial point and all of the subsequent points on how you're viewing this solely as an ideological belief, and not one based on evidence. It's "wretched", not something substantiated.” athingofvikings writes “And another one who decided to block my original post... but obviously didn't read the whole thing because they're emotionally engaged with this. And I can say that because they missed that the-library-alcove is my main blog AND DIDN'T BLOCK IT.” Screenshot ends with more replies extending past, the post goes on.” End image description.]

So now genocide can only be recognized genocide AFTER THE FACT when it can be “substantiated”………..WTF (enjoy this free blocklist)

feel free to read the post here where they think it’s somehow good to phrase it as “hey guys stop calling it a genocide!! It hasn’t happened yet!! :)” unhinged.

#anshelsgendercrisis #spacelazarwolf #athingofvikings #the-library-alcove #blocklist #palestinian genocide denial #anti propaganda #propaganda debunk #nativenews

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autismserenity · 2 months

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Me, looking through books on Palestine: "Ilan Pappé wrote one called 'The Biggest Prison On Earth?!' People in Gaza hate it being called a prison. There's an entire hashtag for it. There's been an account dedicated to collecting pics and videos of #TheGazaYouDontSee for 6 years.

"Is Pappé even Palestinian? oh god wait I can tell already. this is gonna be an 'Israeli apologist' isn't it." Internet: "Yeah, Pappé's Israeli."

Me: "For fuck's--- so people will believe Israelis unquestioningly if they're shit-talking Israel, but in all other situations, Israelis are all liars?"

Internet: "Pretty much. Also, at best, Ilan Pappé must be one of the world’s sloppiest historians."

Me, admittedly in full schadenfreude now: "What?!?!"

Internet: "Benny Morris. That historian who's extremely hard-core about primary source documentation, who wrote that detailed book about how and why each group of Palestinian refugees left in 1947-9. He reviewed three books about Palestine."

Me: "Holy shit. And the book by Pappé is about the Husaynis. The family that Nazi war criminal Amin al-Husseini came from, the guy who fucked absolutely everything up for both Israel and Palestine."

Internet: "That's the one. Morris wrote, 'At best, Ilan Pappe must be one of the world’s sloppiest historians; at worst, one of the most dishonest. In truth, he probably merits a place somewhere between the two.'"

Me: "Why??"

Internet: "He says, 'Here is a clear and typical example—in detail, which is where the devil resides—of Pappe’s handiwork. I take this example from The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine'....

"Blah blah blah, basically in 1947 the UN voted to partition the land into Palestine and Israel, and extremist militias started shooting at Jewish towns and people. David Ben-Gurion was the leader of the Jewish community there, and his journal describes a visit from a scientist named Aharon Katzir, telling him about an experiment codenamed "Shimshon." Morris gives us the journal entry:

...An experiment was conducted on animals. The researchers were clothed in gas masks and suit. The suit costs 20 grush, the mask about 20 grush (all must be bought immediately). The operation [or experiment] went well. No animal died, the [animals] remained dazzled [as when a car’s headlights dazzle an oncoming driver] for 24 hours. There are some 50 kilos [of the gas]. [They] were moved to Tel Aviv. The [production] equipment is being moved here. On the laboratory level, some 20 kilos can be produced per day.

"Morris says, 'This is the only accessible source that exists, to the best of my knowledge, about the meeting and the gas experiment, and it is the sole source cited by Pappe for his description of the meeting and the "Shimshon" project. But this is how Pappe gives the passage in English:

Katzir reported to Ben-Gurion: 'We are experimenting with animals. Our researchers were wearing gas masks and adequate outfit. Good results. The animals did not die (they were just blinded). We can produce 20 kilos a day of this stuff.'

"'The translation is flecked with inaccuracies, but the outrage is in Pappe’s perversion of "dazzled," or sunveru, to "blinded"—in Hebrew "blinded" would be uvru, the verb not used by Ben-Gurion—coupled with the willful omission of the qualifier '"for 24 hours."'

"'Pappe’s version of this text is driven by something other than linguistic and historiographical accuracy. Published in English for the English-speaking world, where animal-lovers are legion and deliberately blinding animals would be regarded as a barbaric act, the passage, as published by Pappe, cannot fail to provoke a strong aversion to Ben-Gurion and to Israel.

"'Such distortions, large and small, characterize almost every page of The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine. So I should add, to make the historical context perfectly clear, that no gas was ever used in the war of 1948 by any of the participants. [Or, he later notes, by either Israel or Palestine ever.] Pappe never tells the reader this.

"'Raising the subject of gas is historical irrelevance. But the paragraph will dangle in the reader’s imagination as a dark possibility, or worse, a dark reality: the Jews, gassed by the Nazis three years before, were about to gas, or were gassing, Arabs.'"

Me: "Uuuuggghhhhhhhhh. Yeah, it will."

Internet: "He does say, 'Palestinian Dynasty was a good idea.' Then he does some really detailed historian-dragging about the lack of primary sources and reliance on people's interpretations of what they say instead.

"'Almost all of Pappe’s references direct the reader to books and articles in English, Hebrew, and Arabic by other scholars, or to the memoirs of various Arab politicians, which are not the most reliable of sources. Occasionally there is a reference to an Arab or Western travelogue or genealogy, or to a diplomat’s memoir; but there is barely an allusion to documents in the relevant British, American, and Zionist/Israeli archives.

"'When referring to the content of American consular reports about Arab riots in the 1920s, for example, Pappe invariably directs the reader to an article in Hebrew by Gideon Biger—“The American Consulate in Jerusalem and the Events of 1920-1921,” in Cathedra, September 1988—and not to the documents themselves, which are easily accessible in the United States National Archive.

"'Those who falsify history routinely take the path of omission. They ignore crucial facts and important pieces of evidence while cherry-picking from the documentation to prove a case.

"'But Pappe is more brazen. He, too, often omits and ignores significant evidence, and he, too, alleges that a source tells us the opposite of what it in fact says, but he will also simply and straightforwardly falsify evidence.

"'Consider his handling of the Arab anti-Jewish riots of the 1920s.

"'Pappe writes of the “Nabi Musa” riots in April 1920: “The [British] Palin Commission... reported that the Jewish presence in the country was provoking the Arab population and was the cause of the riots.” He also quotes at length Musa Kazim al-Husayni, the clan’s leading notable at the time, to the effect that “it was not the [Arab] Hebronites who had started the riots but the Jews.”

"'But the (never published) [Palin Commission Report], while forthrightly anti-Zionist, thereby accurately reflecting the prevailing views in the British military government that ruled Palestine until mid-1920, flatly and strikingly charged the Arabs with responsibility for the bloodshed.

"'The team chaired by Major-General P.C. Palin wrote that “it is perfectly clear that with... few exceptions the Jews were the sufferers, and were, moreover, the victims of a peculiarly brutal and cowardly attack, the majority of the casualties being old men, women and children.” The inquiry pointed out that whereas 216 Jews were killed or injured, the British security forces and the Jews, in defending themselves or in retaliatory attacks, caused only twenty-five Arab casualties.'"

Me: "Yeah. I'm looking at that report right now and it says there had been an explosion, and then people were looting Jewish stores and beating Jews with stones, and in one case stabbing someone. Some people said that some Jews got up on the roof of a hotel and retaliated by throwing stones themselves.

"And then it literally says, 'The point as to the retaliation by Jews is of importance because it seems to have impressed the Military and led them to imagine that the Jews were to some extent responsible for provoking the rising.' That's the only thing it really says about anyone blaming the Jews.

"Except.... the very beginning gives some historical context. And it does say that when the Balfour Declaration came out, Muslims and Christians 'considered that they were to be handed over to an oppression which they hated far more than the Turk's and were aghast at the thought of this domination....

"'If this intensity of feeling proceeded merely from wounded pride of race and disappointment in political aspirations, it would be easier to criticise and rebuke: but it must be borne in mind that at the bottom of all is a deepseated fear of the Jew, both as a possible ruler and as an economic competitor. Rightly or wrongly they fear the Jew as a ruler, regarding his race as one of the most intolerant known to history....

"'The prospect of extensive Jewish immigration fills him with a panic fear, which may be exaggerated, but is none the less genuine. He sees the ablest race intellectually in the world, past-masters in all the arts of ousting competitors whether on the market, in the farm or the bureaucratic offices, backed by apparently inexhaustible funds given by their compatriots in all lands and possessed of powerful influence in the councils of the nations, prepared to enter the lists against him in every one of his normal occupations, backed by the one thing wanted to make them irresistible, the physical force of a great Imperial Power, and he feels himself overmastered and defeated before the contest is begun.'

"Wow! What a great fucking example of how 'positive' stereotypes are actually used to fuck people over! We're not antisemitic, we actually think Jews are the smartest, most powerful, richest group with tremendous global power! So positive!! Not at all being used here to justify antisemitic violence!

"Also, immigration from all over the world actually meant that different agricultural and manufacturing techniques were brought into the region, and yes, financial investments to start businesses sometimes, which meant that Arab Palestinians there had the highest per capita income in the Middle East, the highest daily wages, and started a lot of businesses of their own. But go off, I guess."

"Anyfuckingway.... it basically says that the Muslims and Christians were angry and scared, the Jews were too quick to set up the functioning government that the Brits were supposed to be there to help both sides create -- and which the Arab leaders completely refused to create for Palestine, because (1) fascists and (2) didn't want Jews nearby -- and that they were "ready prey for any form of agitation hostile to the British Government and the Jews." Then it says the movement for a United Syria was agitating them real hard, and so were the Sherifians.

"Is that what Ilan Passe, I mean Pappe, meant by the Palin Report blaming the Jews?! That when it says it's understandable the Arabs were freaking out, because antisemitism, Pappe thinks it's saying the Jews were provoking them?!"

Internet: "I don't know. I kinda tuned out after the first hour you were talking."

Me: "OGH MY GOD"

Internet: "So anyway, then Morris ALSO says, 'About the 1929 “Temple Mount” riots, which included two large-scale massacres of Jews, in Hebron and in Safed, Pappe writes: “The opposite camp, Zionist and British, was no less ruthless [than the Arabs]. In Jaffa a Jewish mob murdered seven Palestinians.”

Me: "What the ENTIRE FUCK? There was no united 'Zionist and British' camp! The Brits would barely let any Holocaust refugees in, ffs!"

Internet: "Morris says, 'Actually, there were no massacres of Arabs by Jews, though a number of Arabs were killed when Jews defended themselves or retaliated after Arab violence.

"'Pappe adds that the British “Shaw Commission,” so-called because it was chaired by Sir Walter Shaw (a former chief justice of the Straits Settlements), which investigated the riots, “upheld the basic Arab claim that Jewish provocations had caused the violent outbreak. ‘The principal cause... was twelve years of pro-Zionist [British] policy.’”

"'It is unclear what Pappe is quoting from. I did not find this sentence in the commission’s report. Pappe’s bibliography refers, under “Primary Sources,” simply to “The Shaw Commission.” The report? The deliberations? Memoranda by or about? Who can tell?

"'The footnote attached to the quote, presumably to give its source, says, simply, “Ibid.”

"'The one before it says, “Ibid., p. 103.”

"'The one before that says, “The Shaw Commission, session 46, p. 92.”

"'But the quoted passage does not appear on page 103 of the report.

"In the text of Palestinian Dynasty, Pappe states that “Shaw wrote [this] after leaving the country [Palestine].” But if it is not in the report, where did Shaw “write” it?'"

Me: "I'M ON IT. [rapid-fire googling] OMG. This is.... Not the first time. In 'The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine,' he reported that in a 1937 letter to his son, David Ben-Gurion declared: 'The Arabs will have to go, but one needs an opportune moment for making it happen, such as war.'

"It's not in the source he gave. It's not in any of the three different sources he's given for it.

"He apparently has never responded to any requests for an explanation, either from the journal he published in, or from other historians. But it says he did "obliquely [acknowledge] the controversy in an article in Electronic Intifada, in which he portrayed himself as the victim of intimidation at the hands of “Zionist hooligans.”'

"This is absolutely fucking wild. THEN it says the chair of the Ethics Committee where he was teaching eventually said that the second part of the quote ('but one needs,' etc) was a (combined?) paraphrase of a diary entry and a speech Ben-Gurion gave, and that the first half is 'based on' a letter to his son.

"And it's so convincing! The chair says, 'Shabtai Teveth[,] Ben Gurion’s biographer, Benny Morris and the historian Nur Maslaha have all quoted this letter. In fact their translation was stronger than the quotation from Professor Pappé: ‘We must expel the Arabs and take their place.’ Professor Pappé has documentary evidence of these quotations and the source will ensure that this is correctly cited in any future editions of the publication or related studies.'

"And IT'S NOT EVEN TRUE?!

"Ben-Gurion's actual diary entry (not a letter) says the opposite.

“'We do not want and do not need to expel Arabs and take their places.... All our aspiration is built on the assumption – proven throughout all our activity – that there is enough room in the country for ourselves and the Arabs.'

"Benny Morris misquoted it as "We must expel the Arabs and take their places" in the English version of his 1987 book The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, although it was correct in the Hebrew version. He corrected himself in the 2001 book Righteous Victims.

"Teveth also misquoted it in the English version of his 1985 book Ben-Gurion and the Palestinian Arabs, but again, had it correct in the Hebrew edition.

"And both Morris and Teveth explicitly point out the rest of the entry. The part about all their aspiration being built on the assumption and experience that there was enough room in the country for everyone.

"Historian Efraim Karsh’s 1997 book Fabricating Israeli History pointed out and corrected their mistakes.

"This is apparently a very well-known issue among historians of Israel and Palestine. It was a big deal in 2003, when an evangelist Christian publisher put out a book FULL of disinformation, which not only used the same quote as Pappe does, but also could not give a real source for it.

"But Pappe STILL USED THE MISQUOTE AND DOUBLED DOWN ON IT EVERY SINGLE TIME."

Internet: "Are you done? I know all this already."

Me: "Also, there are literally only two places where the phrase 'twelve years of pro-Zionist policy' shows up online, and they're both about Pappe making quotes up.

"NOW I'm done."

Benny Morris wasn't, though. The review continues at the link below. And the next part starts, "To the deliberate slanting of history Pappe adds a profound ignorance of basic facts. Together these sins and deficiencies render his “histories” worthless as representations of the past, though they are important as documents in the current political and historiographic disputations about the Arab-Israeli conflict. Pappe’s grasp of the facts of World War I, for example, is weak in the extreme."

#i hate people misrepresenting history in general #i extra hate it when people do it with malice aforethought #ilan pappe #is a lying liar and people need to stop recommending his bullshit when it's been so thoroughly debunked #this is a good example of anti-Zionism being antisemitism tbh. I have yet to see anti-Zionist accounts of history that are accurate #like if you have to victim-blame people who were baked in ovens during an anti-Jewish riot you are PROBABLY in the wrong #I was looking for a piece explaining the 1920 and 1929 anti-Jewish riots that I could link here that wasn't from an explicitly Jewish sourc #because I don't trust people to take an article from the Jewish Virtual Library or whatever without being like “this is Zionist propaganda!#even if it's about an extremely violent massacre of Jews #so I clicked specifically on the Encyclopedia of the Palestine Question and similar sources #and what all of them did was gloss right over the massacres and violence and just vaguely mention “the demonstrations in 1920”#or not mention them at all of course #I guess that makes sense but wow. now I understand more of how ignorant people are about the entire history here #not only has it all been presented to you as “this started in 1947 or 48! the Jews stole all the land! it's been genocide ever since!”#so that people literally tell me “they invaded in 1947 and kicked out the Palestinians and took their land”#but also you have to fill in anything before that yourself #and the only propaganda you have access to usually is this myth that everyone was perfectly happy together until Israel... killed everyone?#it's really super weird to see people say that Jews and Muslims and Christians all lived happily together before this #like what do you think happened? everyone was happy and suddenly the jews were like “fuck you we're taking over and killing everyone?”#that probably is what people think happened tbh #they don't need for there to be any motivation or for that to make sense because they've bought the idea that it's just pure evil ig #for some reason people have to reverse-engineer hamas's massacre and imagine that israel did even worse to justify it #a terrorist group doesn't come out of nowhere! i don't think you know what terrorism is tbh #but they're happy to assume that whatever they think israel did came out of nowhere #god i'm fucking tired #anyway fuck ilan pappe #there are WAY BETTER HISTORIES OF PALESTINE #i've heard good things about Gaza: A History but of course that's not all of palestine #long post #such a long post

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dayinadream · 4 months

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Debunking israeli lies

#palestine #free palestine #gaza #israel #israeli lies #debunk #propaganda #human rights #social justice #signal boost

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karenvideoeditor-blog · 2 months

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Where we are with AI, in March of 2024

We’ve seen the development of photo and video manipulation, from the earliest days of Photoshop up to now. This year, though, things are reaching the level we’ve all been concerned about – we can’t tell if important things we see are real. Soon, not even the experts will be able to tell, and anyone will easily be able to make any fake video they want.

Look at this image. Does it look real? Give the article a read.

When I first glanced at it, I didn’t even notice he had shirt sleeves and no shirt! Because I was focusing on his face and the smoke. That article explains some of the best ways to tell a photo is AI. But most notably, it says, “There are so many obvious signs this is AI, but most would miss them because they’re not part of the focus of the image, and since this is not a case where you think someone would be tricking you, you have no reason to analyze it that closely.”

A colleague who works on visual effects for movies shared this video created by OpenAI Sora.

youtube

He explained, “I work in visual effects. It is my job to make the audience fooled by what they are seeing. Those of us in the industry tend to see a lot of flaws that most people miss. We will soon be at a point where I won't be able to see the flaws.”

Puppies playing in snow is fun, and I’m sure many people look forward to infinite adorable animal videos! But of course, that’s not why you’re reading this. This is about AI videos of any person, place, or thing that your average grade-schooler will potentially be able to create. Month by month the software will get better and easier and cheaper, and AI photos have already started appearing ahead of the election, and supporters on both sides of any politician will be using them.

Could you tell that the two photos are fake? As a video editor, I could. But the first one was harder; I had to look for clues like the McDonalds smoking man photo. The worst part of these photos is what the person who created them said in defense:

“I’m not claiming it is accurate. I’m not saying, ‘Hey, look, Donald Trump was at this party with all of these African American voters. Look how much they love him!’ If anybody’s voting one way or another because of one photo they see on a Facebook page, that’s a problem with that person, not with the post itself.”

It’s bad enough that they didn’t care people were sharing those photos under the impression they were real. It will be worse when people are using this software to purposefully manipulate people’s beliefs and feelings to sway their vote, or worse, to fuel outrage and despair.

So, you know how you’ll go online on April Fool’s Day and your brain will be on ‘suspicious’ mode? Have you heard stories of real things that people didn’t believe because they happened on April 1st? From now on, that is how you need to calibrate your brain for important images and videos.

If a familiar face says something notable, out of character, or outrageous, if you didn’t learn about it from a reliable news source and you plan to tuck it away in your brain’s section of “things I believe,” you will first need to verify it. Viral photos and videos on Twitter and YouTube aren’t reliable, and you’re better off only getting your news directly from trustworthy sources like news channels. If you find something and want to verify it, use your search engine and key words, especially for strange, suspicious, or implausible quotes, and find a news website you can rely on. If it’s gone viral and it’s AI, it’s likely that the top results will be news websites debunking it.

Starting now, remember: Suspicious and outrageous things are false until proven true.

To sum up, here’s the News Literacy Project’s guide for vetting news sources:

Do a quick search: Conducting a simple search for information about a news source is a key first step in evaluating its credibility.

Look for standards: Reputable news organizations aspire to ethical guidelines and standards, including fairness, accuracy, and independence.

Check for transparency: Quality news sources should be transparent, not only about their reporting practices, but also about their ownership and funding.

Examine how errors are handled: Credible news sources are accountable for mistakes and correct them. Do you see evidence that this source corrects or clarifies errors?

Assess news coverage: An important step in vetting sources is taking time to read and assess several news articles from them, not just the one you clicked on.

Also, look for clues that you should avoid a website. They include:

False or untrue content

Clickbait tactics (melodramatic headlines)

Lack of balance (feels like it was written by a person who took a side)

Manipulated images or videos

State-run or state-sponsored propaganda

Dangerous, offensive, and malicious content

Stay aware and attentive, good luck, and let’s hope we can at least keep this dumpster fire in the dumpster.

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moongothic · 3 months

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There's like a part of me that realizes that I've written so much Crocodad Meta that at this point I should probably just compile and condence it all into like a giant Propaganda Post

'Cause like. Sure it's all still on my blog, but few people are going to go digging through all the crap I've posted in the past few months for all the Crocodad Evidence, so just showing it all into a single post would make for like. IDK something I could use to make a compelling argument for why Crocodad could be real

(Also it would be more like, Crocodad evidence you might find on a more meta/narrative level, like on-going themes and Oda's story telling tropes/habits etc. Other people have already made posts that breakdown and analyze Marineford and compile all the subtle details+easter eggs etc so I wouldn't even go into any of that. I mean SURE I could regurgitate all that info too but it'd be easier to just link to someone else's post instead and save myself some time lol)

But also.

Do I really want to spend an obscene amount of time making that post. Do I really want to do that.

#Moon posting #OP Meta #Like the reason I've been so against making a giant propaganda post is that BECAUSE I've already written about these things #It'd feel like I'd be beating a dead horse. Also I'd have to condence a lot of it 'cause the post would get long as hell otherwise #(I mean the good news is that even if I had to condence some subjects I could link to my longer breakdowns for extra detail I guess lmao)#But also it would bring me great joy if I was able to convince people that Crocodad was Real based on narrative evidence #And that would be way easier if I had a single propaganda post as proof instead of my whole ass blog lmao #Also we are getting closer and closer to Egghead wrapping up which means we might get to see Cross Guild soon #And I mean I don't think we're gonna get into Croc's backstory immidiately when we do but like I'm just saying #The clock's ticking and there's only so much time left for me to make an argument for Crocodad being Real before it gets proven OR debunked #Shoutout to the three people who have gone through my entire OP Meta tag and liked every single post I've written in the past few days

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callimara · 6 months

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Important PSA

Criticizing Israel is NOT antisemetism or an attack on Jewish people because

ISRAEL =/= ALL JEWS

And while I am not saying that there is no antisemitism because there is plenty of that too, this is not a case of that. But grouping all Jews together as Israeli and presenting them as a monolith erases their individuality and identity. It's like calling all Asian people Chinese, and that if you criticize China, then you hate all Asian people. It doesn't make sense.

I am so frustrated seeing people who are trying to raise awareness about Palestine be called antisemetic and disgusting by people who cannot perceive Jews and Muslims as anything but a monolith. That's the reason why so many people are having trouble distinguishing between Hamas and Palestinian civilians, because to them, they're all the same.

And that's why they don't see an issue with collective punishment.

And you know what? Palestine is NOT just the Jewish holy land. It is also the Christian holy land, and the Muslim holy land. Palestine wasn't even the first choice for a Jewish homeland because it was heavily contested by Jewish rabbis at the time.

Turning Palestine (I say Palestine because the entirety of what is now Israel used to be Palestine) as an exclusively Jewish ethno-state means that people of Christian and Muslim faith all over the world are stripped of their holy land. The oldest church in the world, dating back to the times of Christ is located in Gaza, and who are the ones protecting it? Palestinians.

And you know who bombed it? Even though it had 500 refugees of both Muslim and Christian faith inside? Israel.

Even the slogan used for the founding of Israel itself, "A land without people for a people without a land." Is blatantly revisionist and erases the existence of Palestinians already living there. It erases all the historic religious sites that stand there and are frequented regularly by their respective devotees. Or worse, does not consider the Palestinians as 'people.'

Some people tend to forget that religious belief is NOT the same as race, and so you CANNOT claim indigeneity just because you are a certain religion. I am an Indonesian Muslim. Born Muslim, raised Muslim, and every generation of my family have been Muslim. That doesn't mean I can say I'm indigenous to Saudi Arabia. Let alone that Saudi Arabian land is my birthright.

If a white American woman born and raised in Seattle decides to convert to Hinduism, can she then say she is now indigenous to India? Or if she has a child, and that child had a child, and they were all raised as a Hindu, but have always lived in the US all their lives, can they claim that they are indigenous to India?

No.

And the fact is, the first Jewish settlers during The First Aliyah (great Jewish migration to Palestine) came from Eastern Europe and are genetically closer to Russians and other Slavs than they are to the Jews who remained in the Middle Eastern region after their exile (and I guess some people forget that you can convert into Judaism even if you didn't come from "The Promised Land." Like for marriages and stuff.) That's why they feel the need to distinguish themselves from the word "Arab."

Granted, there were also Yemeni Jews that migrated with them (whom I would say have stronger claims to indigeneity), but even in the transition camps, there was a clear divide between the European Ashkenazi Jews and the Yemeni Jews, who literally had their kids taken from them to give to the Ashkenazi Jews.

And let's not forget that when Jewish migrants from Ethiopia came, they were given contraceptives without consent to make sure they didn't impact the "desired" population.

Wake up. This isn't a religious war. This is European colonization.

#free palestine #gaza genocide #history of israel #debunking propaganda #psa

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