Iran has struck Israel.
previous preamble
The continuing fall of the remains of the British Empire is pretty entertaining from the outside: an archaic royal family that is seemingly being smote with disease by God itself for their past crimes; a navy that virtually no longer functions, ramming into foreign ports and under constant repair; and an economy that cannot seem to stop sputtering, fucked whether they're in the EU or outside it. Watching the impacts on people from the inside is a little more worrying, though.
A fifth of the population is in poverty, including nearly a third of all children. These figures have barely shifted since the Labour government in the early 2000s, aside from a decreasing poverty rate for pensioners. Actually, poverty hasn't substantially shifted since Margaret Thatcher. Before her, the poverty rate was around 14%, but her catastrophic policies caused a major increase, and poverty levels since then are still 50% higher than over 50 years ago, because neoliberal economic policy since then has not fundamentally changed. Parties and corporations have impoverished the usual vulnerable groups, such as large families, minority ethnic groups (including half of Pakistani and Bangladeshi households!) and disabled people. These differences are also regional, with the North more impoverished than the richer Southeast (but some of the poorest boroughs are in London, so it's a complex pattern).
With Corbyn's defeat in 2019 mere months before the pandemic began, the Labour Party shifted back towards the right, with left-wingers purged from the party if they did not kowtow to Keir Starmer. This leaves us with a situation where the only substantial difference between the two parties would be on social policy, but it goes without saying that economic policy is the overwhelming factor that determines if minorities can have a decent life. Worker-oriented movements since then have been largely not under the umbrella of major party leaderships, such as the Don't Pay movement in late 2022 that arose in the wake of dramatically rising energy prices where 3 million people vowed to not pay them (which did lead to results).
Most notably recently is the major upset in the constituency of Rochdale - the victory of George Galloway - who is the leader of the Workers Party of Britain, which describes itself as both socialist and socially conservative. This took place both in the context of aforementioned economic troubles, as well as anger over Israel's genocide of Gaza in the British population, especially in British Muslims. It remains to be seen how much of this is an isolated event, especially as Corbyn has, understandably, refused to collaborate with Galloway due to his socially conservative stances. The UK general election will be held at some point within the next 9 months or so, and might well be a shitshow depending on what happens domestically and geopolitically before then; parallels to the current American electoral shitshow with increasing anger over Biden are pretty apparent. The Conservatives are quite likely to lose given 14 years of uninspired rule if current polling is correct, but it truly is a race to the bottom.
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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 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. - 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.
Various sources that are covering the Ukraine conflict are also covering the one in Palestine, like Rybar.
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.
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.
US Sees Missile Strike on Israel By Iran, Proxies as Imminent
Is this it?
Article without paywall and trackers
Interesting that Iran (according to US intelligence) plans to target both military and government facilities, and not just military facilities. Makes sense since a diplomatic facility in Syria was targeted. An eye for an eye.
So Israel plan to use the Iranian attack to justify a ground invasion of Rafah. So I guess that's the propaganda angle Israel will use to sell this to it's western allies. Hopefully the public will not fall for such manipulation. Though I unfortunately think this propaganda trick will work on the western public.
Well yeah Iran have ballistic missiles with a long enough range to hit Israel from within their own borders, they do not need to use Lebanon and Hezbollah as a staging ground. With the mention of "Iranian proxies" here, it's important to note that the Houthis have attempted to strike Israeli ports with ballistic missiles launched from within Yemen, but the missiles were intercepted in space.
Oh give me a fucking break. Anyway....
Not here in the UK.
There isn't a single supporter of Palestine that currently exists that will change their position to one of support or acceptance of any Israel action against Rafah.
Anyone that accepts that wasn't a supporter of Palestine to begin with.
I'm fearful that during the possible attack that something happens that can fully justify the Great Satan getting involved like the US embassy getting hit. The Little Satan might also do something as a false flag once they see missiles in the air.
Get ready for 4000 beheaded babies this time around
I don't think it matters whether they hit US assets or not - there's no scenario where Iran attacks Israel and the US doesn't get involved.
My concern is more a matter of the scale of involvement and how quickly the Burgerreich is allowed and able to escalate. If there's something "reasonable" to use as atrocity propaganda we could have a day where a decade happens.
hm, honestly it might not be a bad idea for Iran to just wait and let the zionists sit in fear waiting for the other shoe to drop. They've taken a bunch of disruptive measures like GPS jamming their own major cities, effectively neutering civilian travel especially air and sea. Surely they won't be able to do that long term and then they can hit them hard when they eventually let their guard down again. And if they really do want to use an iranian attack to justify a rafah invasion, well they are delaying such an invasion by waiting as well, which is going to piss off the IDF and hardliners.
Of course Iran has domestic pressure to retaliate soon as well, so waiting too long may just make them look weak. Still, the fear they are cultivating in the enemy is something they could take advantage of.
"They’ve also publicly threatened Iran that if it hits Israeli soil, Israel will hit Iranian soil again"
fixed
fuck, I want Iran to obliterate Tel Aviv but also I have family in Iran
Sticking to my script since 2022, doubt it (Iran directly attacking Israel) happens
I mean the Houthis have already attempted to strike ports in Israel with ballistic missiles launched from Yemen last year. It's just that those attempts failed due to the missiles being intercepted in space. So a member of the resistance has already attempted to directly attack Israel. It already has happened in a way, it was just a failed attack.
True, I’ll clarify that I mean I strongly doubt that Iran specifically acts. Proxies, sure, but the week/decade of iran vs Israel is probably not going to be this week
Looks like a week where a decade happens is incoming. Writing's been on the wall for a while, we'll see if this is the Thing that explodes into the widespread regional war we've all been predicting.
theres a NOTAM or not NOTAM going on above Tehran
Deboonked?
The NOTAM is real but the rumor about all flights being grounded is false
Gotcha my mistake
going to bed , you tell me if something happens..
This?
Edit: for geographical context
Iran needs the bomb like, yesterday. I genuinely worry that if we get into a tit-for-tat, “israel” will massively escalate with a nuke dropped on Tehran. The only thing that will stop “israel” will be if Iran has an ability to respond in kind (because it sure as hell won’t be the nonexistent Zionist concern for the lives of anyone who isn’t a Zionist).
Putin just needs to announce Russia's MAD umbrella applies to Iran, and that if they are nuked, Russia will respond