One year on. Hundreds of thousands are dying or dead, millions are displaced, the Middle East is undergoing its greatest changes in a generation, Iran has directly attacked Israel twice in one year, and Yemen has proven that the US Navy ain't worth shit. We are the closest we have been to nuclear war (discounting accidents) in decades, but also the fall of Israel.
Because one day, the prisoners of a concentration camp paraglided over a wall.
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Israel-Palestine Conflict
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.
I've seen a lot of articles and youtube videos about how this war triggered Israel's death throes, and the parallels between Israel and apartheid South Africa & Rhodesia, but those media which highlighted the internal contradictions of Israel, its collapsing economy and international standing, often overlook how desperate the US is to have a satellite state in the West Asia enough to brazenly establish its support for Israel.
All this, despite the damage to US prestige and diplomatic credibility (notwithstanding that the US state does not nor needs to care about internal dissident or crisis) because the US can brute force its support and suffer little to no economic or political repercussions.
Israel is a nuclear powered state with very powerful supporters in the US and Europe, as part of a symbiotic relationship these powers have with each other, to ensure the economic and political dominance of the larger political community known as the "West".
My larger concern is what Norman Finkelstein has been saying recently: Israel has defeated Hamas in Gaza by destroying Gaza itself. Therefore, the probability that Israel has the power and support needed to enact its depraved agenda of ethnic cleansing and genocide, and survive its repercussions on the world stage for a decade before it goes back to the status quo of pre October 7th, is a very plausible future.
Israel has managed to pursue this for over a year now.
Unlike Ukraine it's difficult to see an exit ramp for Israel. They've escalated things so far and seem so ideologically committed to the destruction of west asia that it's hard to see them in any state but perpetual war until there's a decisive victor one way or the other. I'm sure the US will continue to support them until whatever outcome but the US is not omnipotent and a future with China as the hegemon (for lack of a better word) seems baked in at this point. I agree that Israel's war will continue for a lot longer than any of us expect but I don't think there's going to be any return to the status quo. In fact I don't think there's going to be any return to the status quo for a lot of things. The balance is shifting geopolitically and ecologically.
There will never be a return to the status quo. Look at 2014, to 2016, to 2020, to 2024. It's only escalation of crises. Nowhere is it returning to "normal" and it won't. The imperialist engine cannot stop until it consumes everything or is defeated.