Israel trying to pass the hospital bombing off as Palestine doing it is utterly disgusting and guarantees Netanyahu a spot in the deepest pit of Hell for all eternity, obviously, but do not forget that
a) the only reason why Westerners will believe it is because they want to believe it - they are not being brainwashed and this is not some masterful propaganda being weaved around us to turn kind-hearted people into monsters,
b) no Westerner opinions matter at all. In most Western countries there is no real anti-Israel option to vote for even if they did realize that Israel was a giant factory for crimes against humanity, and Westerners protesting against things in general almost never achieves anything (tens of millions protested for BLM in 2020 and not only did the situation not change, it got worse), and
c) the people whose opinions do matter (both the people in the region, and the leaders who aren't already Zionist compradors) already know that Israel is full of shit and that they just murdered nearly a thousand civilians in a single bomb attack.
It is despair-inducing to think that the genocidal Zionist entity is so brazenly, so smugly getting away with bullshitting this away into a cloud of confusion, as they release their metaphorical squid ink just like they did with the stupid babies story, but the propaganda and the media narrative that they are creating isn't what matters. It cannot address the fundamental contradictions ripping the country, the region, and the world apart any more than masterfully-applied makeup can fix a stab wound. It can merely obfuscate.
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA daily-ish 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 (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 still Palestine! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants.
Here is the map of the Ukraine conflict, courtesy of Wikipedia.
The weekly update isn't coming because I'm sick and too focussed on the collapse of the Zionist entity.
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.
Yet another Merkava hit by an ATGM with no trophy system firing. At this point I genuinely don't believe the trophy system exists.
https://streamable.com/080qqa
I've been saying it since the start of the Ukraine war, a tank is just a tank, no matter the country it comes from. If it's from the same generation as other tanks, they'll generally have the same strengths and weaknesses, as any other tank. All this western wunderwaffen nonsense about western tanks that got kicked into overdrive after the gulf war 1991 tank battle is just that, wunderwaffen nonsense.
~~wunderwaffe~~ vaporwaffe
Yeah. Where the fuck is it? I haven't seen it a single time in real combat.
Unlike the explosive bricks, which I have seen and those do work.
Idk what the exact layout of the Trophy APS system is on Merkavas, but the turret looked like it was pointed away from where the missile came from, so I'm guessing the APS would've also been pointed away (assuming it was installled/working in the first place).
Honestly, I'm more curious as to what the hell even happened for the tank to get into that position in the first place. It seems like an incredibly exposed position, but at the start of the video its turret is at least pointing down the hill. Then when the video cuts to where the missile is fired, the turret is basically pointed in the opposite direction. The lack of any obvious engine exhaust fumes at the end also makes it seem like the tank had already been abandoned by the time the missile hit.
It's supposed to have 360 coverage.
Yeah, I see that now. I was looking at pictures of Merkavas on the wiki page for Trophy and got confused as to which part was the radar and which was the launcher (also doesn't help that they only have one photo where you can see the radar on the rear of the turret).
I did see on the War Thunder forums that the Trophy system installed on the Merkava MK.3s only have one charge on each side of the turret, whereas Trophy on Merkava MK.4s have 3 charges per side. I can't tell which model of Merkava is in the video, but if it's a MK.3, maybe the video cut out a prior missile ~~hit~~ attack that depleted the Trophy system on the right side of the turret, which then caused the crew to panic and abandon the tank.
Hmmm I don't think they're abandoned. There's no signs of smoke from a previous hit, no fire, etc. If the tank were hit already I'd expect it to start moving and rotate turret towards the incoming direction of fire too. I do think these are the first hits.
I wonder if we'll see a future where a sniper tries to knock-out the radar just before the missile is launcher, or while the missile is in flight.
What is the trophy system supposed to be? I keep seeing y'all mention it .
Trophy is an israeli APS (Active Protection System), it is designed to detect and destroy incoming ATGMs, HEAT projectiles or rocket-propelled grenades before they can reach the vehicle by using explosive projectiles of it's own. It is mostly employed on Merkava Mk3 and Mk4 MBTs, but they are also used on Namer APCs and other vehicles. There's an improved Trophy APS issued to the very limited number of Merkava Mk5 that entered service mere months ago, apparently one of these was hit by Hamas during the initial day of the renewed armed conflict.
The system is unable to do anything against kinetic energy penetrators, for example APFSDS rounds (Armor Piercing Fin-Stabilized Discarding Sabot). So any Israeli MBT facing off another MBT firing APFSDS will have to rely on other methods to survive.
It's an "active protection system" (APS) that's meant to shoot down incoming projectiles just before they'd actually hit the vehicle. Trophy is effective against projectiles moving at less than 1000 m/s, which means it can destroy rocket/missile based anti-tank weapons like the RPG-7, RPG-29, and Kornet ATGM, but it's completely useless against the kinetic anti-armor rounds fired from other tanks, since those rounds usually have velocities in the 1400-1800 m/s range.
Think of a big radar guided shotgun that can, hypothetically, swivel around and shoot an incoming missile so the missile explodes at a safe distance from the tank.
Maybe it's just the I'm watching it on my phone or the angle the video was recorded from, but would a trophy system even be able to deploy in time from a close range attack as the first rocket seemed to be?
They're supposed to fire when a rocket is within only a few meters. They supposedly recognise, seek, target and aim at the incoming missile all within an instant, blasting it just prior to impactand detonating it at a distance from the vehicle.
That's what the propaganda says anyway. In practice I have not seen a single video of the trophy system actually functioning in real combat.
Judging from the video the explosion could have been trophy hitting the missile. Without seeing the next minute or two I couldn't even guess what the result of that shot was.
I wonder if we'll get to the point where the ATGM is preceded by a salvo of some other kind of rockets to wear down the trophy system.
This exists, a Hezbollah weapon system called Tharallah.
There's video of it in use against the IDF a few days ago here: https://streamable.com/7h6i3g
It's very clear that 2 missiles are fired and 2 hits occur.
It can fire up to 4 missiles simultaneously.
It looked like it got hit with an ATGM (which are best used at long range), so I think the missile came from across the valley, likely from somewhere further down the same hill that the video was shot from.
I agree, from my completely non-scientific analysis that looks like a Kornet or similar, not an RPG. You don't carry one of those around for close-range ambushes.
Participation Trophy
Atrophied System
I can't really say what happened. WIthout seeing the next few minutes there's no way to tell if the missile connected, splashed off the armor, penetrated.