There were two “Reigns of Terror,” if we would but remember it and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon ten thousand persons, the other upon a hundred millions; but our shudders are all for the “horrors” of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe, compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heart-break? What is swift death by lightning compared with death by slow fire at the stake? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief Terror which we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror—that unspeakably bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves.
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account.
English-language twitter account that collates news (and has automated posting when the person running it goes to sleep).
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
Various sources that are covering the Ukraine conflict are also covering the one in Palestine, like Rybar.
The Country of the Week is Palestine! 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.
tell her that Israel requires anti-semtitism to exist in the West in order to validate its claimed position as a safe haven for Jews, and therefore endangers Jews more than it could ever protect them
Death to America
Think of all the Palestinian children crying, or who can no longer cry because of what Israel is. That should give you strength or perspective whenever you feel like faltering. It sucks to make someone you love cry and honestly it is probably best to just avoid the topic. However Finkelstein sticks out to me
I can't find the clip but there is one interview Norm gives in which he very heartbrokenly says "I cannot imagine the kind of person who could live with themselves, inflicting all this cruelty upon children, making sure they don't even get to have a childhood ."
You basically have to start with whether or not they believe Palestine is a nation and whether or not they have a right to self-defense.
Assuming they say yes to both, you have to ask them how they would act if someone showed up at their house and tried to kick them out and shoot them if they resisted? Would they fight back? Do Palestinians have a right to fight back against such a thing?
Assuming they say yes to that, I would explain the difference to them between Fatah and Hamas, that Fatah runs the West Bank, acknowledges Israel's right to exist, and works with the Israeli government instead of fighting them. I would then show them a map of the extent to which Israel has illegally settled and annexed the West Bank, in contravention of all international law (you should ask them if they believe international laws should apply to Israel or if the believe ~~Jews~~ Israelis are above the law). I would ask them if it looks like Israel has rewarded Fatah for these positions and is willing to work with them, or if Israel has made Fatah to look like fools. Compare that with the land that Hamas has lost in Gaza, and ask them, based on the maps, which strategy seems to be more effective for Palestine: fighting Israel or working with them. I would also explain to them that Israel continually embarrassing and ignoring Fatah is the reason for Hamas's significant popularity among Palestinians.
From there, I would show them the March of Return coverage and results, and how a peaceful protests worked out for Palestinians, and the lack if punishment that Israel received for shooting children. Show them photos of the children of possible. Show them the laws against being pro-BDS in US states, which is another peaceful protesting action. The goal here is to show them that peaceful protests has failed. Israel has 18 years of peace and largely peaceful protests since the last Intifada. You then need to stick to that peaceful protests as failed for Palestinians and demand of them if they beleive that Palestinians should roll over and die.
There's other stuff you could get into as well, like Israel's Nation-State Law, which says that only Jews have a right to self-determination in Israel. I would flat out ask how they would feel about it if the US had a law that said only Christians or White people have right to self-determination in the US.
I strongly disagree with doing this. A strong distinction needs to be made between Zionism and Judaism. Zionists are not engaging in settler colonialism because they are Jewish, or because Judaism has any inherent relation to settler colonialism or Fascism. Conflating Zionists with all Jewish people strengthens the Zionist position and accuses all Jewish people of complicity in Zionist violence. To ask them if Israelis should be above the law would be acceptable, as Israeli citizenship is distinct from Jewishness.
To compliment discussions of the Nation State law, I would suggest also discussing Israel's methods of decreeing who is and who is not Jewish. The methods by which the state decides who it will and will not recognize are contentious and are at odds with some sects of Judaism. This further emphasizes the distinction between Zionism and the Israeli state, and the diversity of Jewish people around the world.
Here's a Harretz article that briefly touches on some of the convolutions of the matter
Here's a Pew article that touches on the complicated nature of Jewish identity as it affects religious self-identification in America and in Israel
Fair, good point. Typing that out, my intention was in thinking about sussing out if they hold ethnoreligious supremacist values.
This is a good point, because OP wouldn't have been able to marry his wife in Israel because inter-faith marriages performed in Israel are not legally recognized by the state.
https://www.haaretz.com/jewish/2014-06-02/ty-article/.premium/why-interfaith-marriage-is-on-the-rise/0000017f-e651-d97e-a37f-f77552cc0000
Thanks for this comment. There’s a lot I don’t know and this filled in some gaps.
If it is irreconcilable then might as well avoid talking about it with each other.
I would prescribe "fake it till you make it".
Does she know about how Israel suppresses those anti-zionist Jews Jerusalem? What does she think about Finestein and/or Peled?
this may be bad advice depending on context- but with those members of my family I take the "I too LOVE spilling blood"; basically taking their couched words and speaking plainly. "Oh yes absolutely, because the prisoners escaped the prison and caused chaos- I totally agree we should murder their entire families" "I think Israel should strangle their babies! on live tv! just rip them from their mothers' arms!" because that's the reality of what Americans are giving Israel cart blanche to do.
"I don't care if they have to sink another US warship to do it- in order to put their lessors back in place" take their freakish positions and make them feel uncomfortable
Do they know about Rabin’s assasination?
Bringing up all the internal violence, suppression of dissent, and outright terrorism is a good way to shake up people's view of Israel as a unified, monolithic, and Jewish state. The history of Zionism and Zionists in Palestine is very messy and violent, but much of this history is only known to people who specifically study Zionism.
Here’s a perspective from an anti-Zionist Israeli, fwiw. Random internet person, but it feels real. https://reddit.com/r/BlackWolfFeed/s/sevmv0LfmJ
When it’s your wife that’s tough, but there’s def certain people I’m actively avoiding right now