Communist Walter White:

I went for a run thinking "wouldn't it be just the thing for something insane to happen right as the site is down." I shouldn't have these intrusive thoughts.

Turkish goods shipped to Israel via Greece despite official ban

Statistics indicate Turkish companies use Greek ports to re-export goods to Israel following Ankara’s decision to halt trade

...

TIM data indicate that Turkey’s exports to Greece surged to $375m in May, up 71 percent from $219m in the same month last year.

A second Turkish businessman explained that Turkish exports, although passing through Greece, are still recorded as imports from Turkey in Israeli statistics because they remain Turkish products.

I am Jack's complete lack of surprise. But there seem to still be impacts on Israel because they are looking for alternative suppliers in Egypt, Spain, and Italy:

“This parallel trade might continue for a few more months, but Israeli companies are quickly aligning themselves with alternative suppliers in other countries like Egypt, Spain, and Italy,” the second businessman said.

Not to mention the exports surge to Greece doesn't come close to matching the total figure of exports to Israel: ~$4.788 billion:

The trade volume between the two countries was $6.3bn in 2023, with 76 percent being Turkish exports, according to the Turkish Statistical Institute. Turkey had been a key supplier of affordable products to Israel.

And there are of course porkies whining about muh free trade and all that

“Instead, we punished all the businesses trading with Israel without even a grace period. Some goods are stuck at customs, resulting in hundreds of thousands in losses for the companies.”

So am I crazy to think that the Turkish embargo is working as expected despite this seemingly bad news? I would go as far to say it's good news that there are attempts to circumvent the embargo because if there wasn't then it would be a sign that it isn't a very effective embargo. It could obviously be more effective if these companies were punished by Erdogan, or if other countries joined the embargo, but leaking $155 million out of $4.788 billion ain't so bad.

https://www.mintpressnews.com/gaza-aid-leader-melanie-ward-labour-party/287603/#

A CEO of a pro-Palestine charity Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) is running for an election under the anti-Palestinian Labour party. This will leave the charity without leadership and volunteers are upset and are asking her to resign.

Melanie Ward, CEO of the Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) charity, faces major backlash from volunteers and workers after deciding to run as a Labour Party candidate in Scotland. Some 2,250 healthcare workers, medical volunteers, supporters, and donors signed a letter expressing concern.

On June 5, a protest letter was filed by workers and volunteers at MAP, expressing their dismay to the board over Ward’s candidacy with the UK Labour Party. To run for the position of MP in Scotland’s Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath constituency, Ward has taken a leave of absence but has not stepped down from her position.

And you bet she hates

Ward also supported the anti-Semitism “witch hunt” during Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, which purged much of Labour’s pro-Palestinian base, including many Jewish anti-Zionists. She tweeted, “Farewell to Jeremy Corbyn, who really was a truly terrible Labour Party Leader. He will be missed not one little bit by those of us who want to see Labour in government again.”

In 2016, she signed a letter calling for Corbyn’s resignation, shared an article urging the public not to vote for him and tweeted the former Labour leader in 2015, “Corbyn unable to think of situation where he’d commit Forces to military action. Should think a bit harder if he wants to be PM,” in response to his anti-war stance.

I've always been worried about the leadership behind some of these charities since they take in a ton of money these days and they seem to be based in Western countries. Now my worries have been justified.

Edit: read more here: https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/uk-elections-2024-palestinian-charity-ceo-standing-labour-candidate-faces-calls-resign

There's no point in covering your true intentions when you believe you will never face the consequences of your actions.

US will be taking it's broken pier back for repairs.

It was totally still working after a big chunk of it floated off, that's just classic pier-teething problems, dummy. But we have to take the pier back now because it's slightly damaged and the starving Palestinians can probably wait longer it's fine.

EDIT: also AP: "after damage from rough seas" - pretty sure it just regular waves bud.

(Al Jazeera) United Nations General Assembly backs Palestinian bid for membership

Resolution does not give Palestine full UN membership, but recognises them as qualified to join and extends rights.

143 yes, 9 no, 25 abstained.

And here is the list of countries exact votes. US, Israel, and US puppet regimes are predictably the no votes: https://twitter.com/Raminho/status/1788956393438859580

He said sike on this before already, why would trying this again work?

"I'm sorry, but this factional dispute will stop."

"Yes sir."

His ballsack exploded

Max Blumenthal brings up an important point: Aaron Bushnell - possibly among other Air Force members - were enlisted against their will to participate in the Palestinian Genocide:

US Airman Aaron Bushnell did not kill himself to protest some other country's war

The US Department of Defense has compelled the participation of Air Force members like Bushnell in Israel's Gaza genocide

Their orders to deploy to Israel read "mandatory"

https://twitter.com/MaxBlumenthal/status/1762196403969728851

THE SEALS AND THE DHOW - Seymour Hersh

In which we recall the 2 dead and 1 severely injured Navy Seals from that anti-smuggling operation that was kept under wraps but we all were distracted by the horrors of what's going on in Gaza:

The Somali dhow offered the White House a chance to justify its new offensive. It had been tracked by American intelligence since leaving Somalia because it was believed to be carrying ballistic missile parts needed by the Houthis in their ongoing campaign against Western shipping; The basis for that intelligence, which proved to be wrong, has not been made known.

American intelligence? Wrong? Damn audio is playin on loop

Back to the Lewis B. Puller. The more than a dozen senior officers from all services assigned to the ship’s command center were gung-ho to send the hot-shot SEAL team to intercept the dhow, compel the boat to stand to, and board it to find ballistic missiles or parts of weapons that were coming to the Houthis from Iran, known to American intelligence as a longtime supporter and supplier of weaponry to Yemen. But there was a serious problem. The issue is what is known in the Navy as the Sea State Code, which is based on terminology used in oceanography to describe the general conditions of the ocean’s surface, as determined by three key factors: wind, waves, and swell.

There are ten categories of sea state, and SEALs can operate with ease and safety up to sea state 3. One experienced retired senior American Navy officer told me that even four- and five-foot waves can sometimes create difficulties for a Navy tanker attempting to refuel an aircraft carrier, but it can be done with skilled maneuvering. No ship loaded with high-octane fighter fuel wants to crash into the side of a carrier.

When the seas get higher, to level 4 or 5, the waves and stronger current make boarding a targeted vessel, even a wooden dhow, an extremely dangerous prospect, in part because of the difficulty in handling steel ladders, known as caving ladders, that are standard SEAL boarding gear. The steps are lightweight aluminum tubes linked by equally lightweight steel cables.

What is hard to do at sea state 3 is deadly dangerous at sea state 4 or 5, a retired Navy officer, with years of experience in special operations, told me. “The waves are going up and down eight feet and more and you do not board a ship in heavy sea,” he said. He added that Navy captains of combat ships finishing a long deployment understand that crews due for shore leave are not permitted to leave the ship in such churning waters.

RuZZian propaganda against our Navy SEAL high level operators. They can handle it. Send them in!

The SEAL team leader said no. But he was ordered to carry out the mission, despite the obvious weather issues, and he did so.

The questions that were not asked, the retired officer said, were these: “Do we know if the dhow is carrying a ballistic missile or a box full of missile parts?” No. “Can you get a key to a launch site?” No. “Or a map of all the Houthi launch sites?” No. “Do Somali smugglers know the difference between a case of Johnny Walker Red and one of Johnny Walter Black?” Yes.

A RuZZian within our own ranks, it can't be!

The decision to ignore the concerns of the SEAL commander has been seen by the angered SEAL community in America as “beyond rational planning” and “a disaster waiting to happen.” I learned that one high-ranking member of the community, now retired, wrote a private letter to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, asking that the officer who overruled the SEAL commander be court-martialed for dereliction of duty as the buck-stops-here boss of the operation. “It will never happen,” the former officer told me. “Dead SEALs will go down in Navy annals as heroes, not victims.” His point was that the Navy would never acknowledge that the SEAL team had no business being sent on a search-and-destroy mission in such weather.

What the SEALS should do from my experience of watching other wars unfold is drive up to the capital in a caravan of military vehicles, then turn around halfway, then have your leader go on a lot of private jet rides . I'm just speaking from experience here.