Image is of Gazans breaking their fast with the Iftar meal during the ongoing Ramadan.
Due to a request by @miz@hexbear.net, this thread's COTW is Qatar.
The ceasefire deal broke down early last week after Israel unilaterally changed the terms of the agreement and then blamed Hamas for not meeting them. Violence against civilians has rapidly accelerated to pre-ceasefire levels, with many hundreds dead already, aid once again cut off, and Israeli soldiers once again entering and occupying the attritional labyrinth that is Gaza.
I'm not yet in a position to make any solid predictions or analysis, as the geopolitical situation in and around Israel has changed fairly substantially over the last 6 months; in some ways benefiting Israel, and in other ways not. We know for sure how Hamas and Ansarallah are reacting (thankfully, with open hostility to both Israel and the United States), but the state of Hezbollah has been a giant question mark for months now, and precisely what Iran plans to do (beyond the usual level of supplying weaponry and intelligence to all the allies it can) is unknown. Syria will be almost certainly be a big wildcard, and we'll have to see if the compradors in Damascus can weather the storm.
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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.
Let's talk Qatar.
I have been always fascinated by Qatar. Their weird contradictory political position, together with their ruthless ambition makes them a genuinely interesting country to observe. I spent a few weeks touring the Middle East before covid and getting married and settling down. Of all the Gulf states, Qatar was the country that gave me the biggest feeling of "living here wouldn't be bad you know". The UAE is of course the posterchild of Gulf states, but everything about it felt artificial, but Qatar is authentic in a way that I can't describe. The Friday sermon in the Doha mosque that I went to talked in detail about a Muslim's duty to defend other Muslims, while the UAE mosque talked about a Muslim's duty to honor his leaders. Qatar is in some way committed to what I can only describe as Islamic populism, which doesn't put the country as a natural enemy to Iran's Islamic republicanism.
Their projects are also more successful than expected. They were the only committed Arab nation to toppling Assad by 2024, and succeeded in that. They managed to stabilise Tripoli in Libya and their areas are way more successful and stable than the UAE-backed warlord government in Benghazi. They weathered the storm from Western media and hosted a successful FIFA World Cup. They built a good metro system that doesn't just serve the Disney Land style straight line developments like the Dubai Metro. They integrated the sons of immigrants to Qatar in a way that the UAE completely failed in doing, which is why the Qatari football team is now filled with Yemenis, Egyptians and Iraqis fighting for the team and winning cups while the UAE plays Brazilian boomers and gets embarrassed. They overcame the dumbass siege that the UAE and Saudi Arabia put on them in 2017 with an incredible resilience that strengthened their national identity. Their media investments has made Al Jazeera the undisputed number one news channel in the Arab World, BeIN Sports the number one sports network in the world, and almost every good Arab journalist has spent some time in Qatar. Their only big L is perhaps losing the battle with the UAE in Egypt when they failed to protect the MB against the military coup in 2013.
I have some strange admiration for them that is completely illogical and contradictory compared to my political beliefs. They're in tune with the Arab public in a way that the UAE and Saudi could never achieve. They've leveraged their relations with Hamas, Israel, the Taliban, Iran and Hezbollah into something that generated some kind of material benefit unlike the UAE's disgusting endless cucking for American Republican and Israeli interests. In the end, yeah, they're an American client state with a massive military base in Al Udaid, but their million sins can perhaps be slightly washed away by the fact that a random Sudanese civilian can wear a Sinwar hoodie on their way to a Friday sermon about the slaughter of civilians in Gaza, while watching Al Jazeera's coverage of Israel's bombing of South Lebanon.
I'm just rambling here, so I hope it's at least semi-coherent.
Over the past year and a half, Al-Jazeera’s coverage of the genocide has been invaluable to me to understand what is going on. Without them, as a westerner who only speaks English, I feel like it would be much harder to be aware of the situation, there’s such a media blackout here. I get the complaints about AJ and when it comes to news regarding Qatar specifically I take with a dose of skepticism. But on the balance they are an incredibly valuable news source.
you need to get on specific telegram channels