news

French senators propose bill to make Zionism criticism a criminal offence

A group consisting of 16 French senators, most of them associated with the political party The Republicans (LR), introduced a bill, led by Senator Stéphane Le Rudulier, aimed at making anti-Zionism a criminal offense. Senator Le Rudulier argues that the rise in anti-Semitism is linked to hatred of Israel.

The proposed bill, which was submitted for a first reading in the Senate, includes penalties for various offenses related to anti-Zionism. It seeks to punish those who deny the existence of the State of Israel with one year of imprisonment and a fine of EUR 45,000. Those who insult the State of Israel would face two years imprisonment and a fine of EUR 75,000, and those who directly provoke hatred or violence against the State of Israel with five years of imprisonment and a fine of EUR 100,000.

“With 16 senators we demand the criminalization of anti-Zionism. The explosion of anti-Semitism is fueled by hatred of Israel, the false nose of hatred of Jews Anti-Zionism could expose its perpetrators to up to 5 years in prison and a fine of 75,000 euros,” Le Rudulier stated on X. Senator Le Rudulier has also called for the dissolution of La France Insoumise, as well as parties that have advocated terrorism and Hamas, which he says call for the destruction of Israel and the extermination of Jews. In a letter addressed to Élisabeth Borne, the senator denounces the presence of what he calls a “fifth column of Palestinian terrorism in France” and calls for the dissolution of several political groups accused of advocating terrorism.

Some political commentators have said there has been an increase in the conflation of anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. Richard Wagman, the honorary president of the French Jewish Union for Peace (UJFP), has criticized the conflation, emphasizing that anti-Semitism is a form of racial discrimination and hatred, while Zionism and anti-Zionism are political ideas.

Prediction: tomorrow Nasrallah walks out onto the stage, rips up the paper he wrote his speech on, and just laughs into the mic as the rocket barrage begins

Slammer on bskkky

Student protesters walk out of Hillary Clinton’s class at Columbia.

Nearly 300 students were seated at Columbia University on Wednesday afternoon for a two-hour lecture on women’s involvement in peace processes delivered by Hillary Clinton and Keren Yarhi-Milo, the dean of Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs.

Not even halfway through the class, about 30 students stood up and gathered their computers and backpacks, as part of a planned student walkout. They joined several dozen other protesters congregating near the lobby of the building.

The demonstrators, who sat quietly in a common area in the International Affairs Building — many of them in face masks — were protesting what they perceived as the school’s role in publicly shaming students whose photographs appeared last week on the video screen panels on a truck seen near campus. The screens showed the faces of students beneath the words “Columbia’s Leading Antisemites.” The students said the photographs were taken from a “private and secure” online platform for students at the School of International and Public Affairs.

They demanded “immediate legal support for affected students” and “a commitment to student safety, well being and privacy.”

The students whose images appeared on the video panels were members of groups that had signed a statement about the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas on Israel that said, in part, “The weight of responsibility for the war and casualties undeniably lies with the Israeli extremist government.”

As Ms. Yarhi-Milo and Mrs. Clinton’s class was finishing around 4 p.m., the demonstrators shushed themselves into silence, anticipating that the dean and the former secretary of state would soon walk past the gathered students. That time never came. Word spread that Ms. Yarhi-Milo and Mrs. Clinton had left the building through a side door.

A spokeswoman for Columbia said the university had no comment. The protest came the day after the school announced a new task force on doxxing and student safety.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/01/world/middleeast/columbia-protest-hillary-clinton-class.html?smid=url-share

Decolonization in action: An Israeli family who survived the Hamas attack on October 7 are leaving Israel for good for the US, without a return ticket

So we're in what, day 3 of a ground invasion? Though not "official official" it's official, the IDF is attempting to (thus far mostly failing) to invade Gaza. Is Hezbollah going to open up a second front? Has Iran's ominous "time is up" type shitposting fizzled to nothing? The second US carrier group is days away at this point. Seems like the window for anything crazy is rapidly closing, if not closed already. Maybe I'm just dooming, but it looks like nothing else is going to kick off.

HexbearGPT, we train an LLM on hexbear and then unleash it on reddit

WATCH: Residents near Nablus evacuated as Israel threatens to demolish their homes

A video posted by Al Jazeera Arabic on the social media platform X showed heavily armed Israeli forces escorting a group of Palestinian women, who were carrying their infants, as they left their homes in the occupied West Bank before dawn on Friday.

According to the post, residents of a residential building near the city of Nablus, were “forcefully” removed from their homes, as Israeli forces threated to demolish their building.

Al Jazeera also received reports that Israeli forces also surrounded a house in the Jabriyat neighbourhood near the Jenin refugee camp, demanding its evacuation and threatening to blow up the building.

Israeli forces carried out anew on Friday a new raid across the occupied West Bank – an operation that has become a nightly occurrence shortly after the Hamas attack in Israel on October 7.

it's because of Hamas bro, they have to do this because of Hamas

'Blowing Up Everything In Amazing,' Says Sociopathic Israeli Minister of Heritage

"North Gaza is more beautiful than ever. Blowing up everything is amazing. When finished, we will hand over the lands of Gaza to soldiers and settlers who lived in Gush Katif," he wrote

An Israeli air strike blasted the area just outside the Latin Church in Gaza while the Christian community was praying: “Holy Mary, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.”

More displays of true faith to send to any western bible-thumping relatives comrades here may have

throwback

U.S. Investigating Whether Adams Received Illegal Donations From Turkey (New York Times - paywall, sorry)

A raid at the home of Eric Adams’s chief fund-raiser was part of an inquiry into whether foreign money was funneled into his mayoral campaign, a search warrant shows.

lol. lmao.

Hussein Mortada: The "rescued" soldier was not captured on Oct 7, but was lost several days ago during an attempted ground incursion, separated from her unit under intense ATGM fire. She was later found, & the occupation took advantage of the incident to claim a false "rescue"

Too bad the baby-killer didn't stay lost, I hope she shit her pants hiding out in those fields

Here in Jerusalem, you often hear people say "now is not the time for politics". Israel is still grieving, hundreds of hostages remain trapped underground in Gaza, and the war is starting to escalate.

the war is starting to escalate.
starting to escalate.
starting

what are we at now, 8000 dead? 10000? the war is starting to escalate, now, after 3 weeks of death and bombs

From Twitter:

A new shadowy group has apparently emerged, calling itself the "Sons of Abu Jandal".

In the statement below released an hour ago, they claim to be members of the PA security apparatus in the West Bank, and have given Mahmoud Abbas an ultimatum of 24 hours to declare an "open confrontation" with the Israeli occupation, or else they will commit a mutiny https://x.com/aldanmarki/status/1721185432312930649?s=46

Protests still going on against Netanyahu in Israel: https://twitter.com/EyesOnSouth1/status/1720861572929655044

i like how westoid media last than a year ago was like "ebil CCP tankie Li Keqiang 😠 "

and now the dude has died they've all changed their tunes instantly and are being "RIP ebic reformer Li, i cant believe pooh killed you with the heart attack gun 😢 "

The British security state has been issuing D-notices (gag orders on reporting) on SAS involvement in Israel's assault on Palestine. The Socialist Worker refused to abide by it and revealed it publicly, but here's a longer article on it from WSWS

Cowards block the fake news comm

please help, my bird keeps saying "zionism must be destroyed" ????

A reporter's tweet...

Asked FETTERMAN what is his message specifically for people under bombardment in Gaza.

"I'm not really sure, specifically," he said, adding: "I grieve the loss of lives of Gazans or any innocent civilians [but] Israel does not specifically target civilians."

Nitter

incredible

guys, I did some research and found out that hummus has been native to the land of Palestine for at least 800 years

They also bombed an ambulance convoy transporting criticality injured people (I think they were going to raffah crossing)

I just finished Rashid Khalidi’s The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine. I started it after I saw Hakim recommend it on Twitter. I definitely recommend it. It’s a relatively quick read - you’ll just get an overview instead of a lot of details. But it’s great. There are several areas I wish he did go into more detail but he gives you enough info to be able to research topics on your own (the whole thing that went on in 1982 with Lebanon and Sabra and Shatil is something I plan on looking into more next).

One thing I appreciate is Khalidi makes one point clear: at no point in the last hundred years have the Palestinians ever been offered meaningful autonomy. Technically they had it briefly with the UN partition plan but Israel, Egypt and Jordan immediately took it away from them. Israel has never offered them anything resembling autonomy.

Drove through a tiny Californian town with a 2000 population today. Pro-Palestinian protest happening. Gave them a toot of the horn and a wave

I love saying "Israel" with quote marks, some people get really angry when you use them. Plus it's true, what the fuck is this "Israel" everyone is talking about? I don't recognize such thing, it's all Palestine after all.

Palestinian Authority says half of homes in Gaza destroyed

The health ministry of the Palestinian Authority, which is based in the West Bank, has put out new figures on the impact of the the war in Gaza. It says:

• More than 50% of Gaza's housing units have been destroyed

• Nearly 70% of its population are displaced

• 16 out of 35 hospitals that can take in-patients have stopped functioning

• 42 UNRWA buildings have been damaged

• At least seven churches and 55 mosques are damaged

• As we reported earlier, Israel accuses Hamas of locating infrastructure in tunnels underneath civilian areas.

Israel says it has struck more than 11,000 "targets belonging to terrorist organisations" in Gaza and dropped more than 10,000 munitions on Gaza City alone since 7 October, when it began its campaign in retaliation for Hamas's deadly attacks.

- BBC

It's a steady stream of horrible news about Gaza. And the following comment is an unoriginal thought on my part but I can't believe that "Everything bad or awful in Gaza is directly due to Hamas" is an actual argument.

Tunnel ambushes

https://streamable.com/vwo2x5

Lol, apparently Israeli media is trying to blackout tomorrow's speech, and requests people don't taln about it. Barbara Streisand effect is going to blow it up

Zionist wankery is reaching new hitherto unknown levels of cringe. This is the UN "ambassador" of the zionist entity, at the UN security council who has declared he will wear a replica Jew star until the security council "condemns Hamas".

Imagine being such an unhinged piss baby that you feel it fitting to grope the victims of holocaust to extort undeserved pity for your shitty settler colonial state

Always projection: Settlers get skin cancer too much because their skin is mostly adapted for European climate, so they harvest skin and other organs from Palestinians.

https://nitter.cz/nadabedairr/status/1718747730783199494

Was made aware today that Israel has been working on a new Merkava model, the Merkava Mk.5 "Barak," which at a glance seems to best be described by an overconfidence & over-reliance on technology.

Article: https://www.edrmagazine.eu/israel-starts-delivering-the-5th-gen-merkava-barak-tank-to-its-armoured-units

A first major improvement came from sights; the commander got a new panoramic sight while the gunner’s sight is also brand new, Idan Tavor underlining that these are one or even more generation ahead of previous ones. Improvements came in electro-optic performances, which provide better imaging, “but the main step forward is that they have integrated AI into those sight that have now autonomous behaviours, and are capable to identify targets and objects by themselves.”

I seriously doubt that current AI technology is going to be better at identifying targets than a well trained crew working in conjunction with infantry support who can function as additional eyes for the tank (granted Israel's target acquisition only need be as sophisticated as to be able to determine whether someone is Palestinian or not). Best case scenario, it occasionally manages to pick out threats faster than the crew can, but I imagine the average experience using AI target acquisition is going to sifting though a lot of false positives.

The Fire Control System (FCS) has also been entirely upgraded. “The new version is faster and has better performances,” we were told, adding that the Merkava Barak is able to shoot on the move, day and night, with increased accuracy.

Being able to accurately fire on the move at both day & night has already been standard for most tanks made in the past few decades, so while it is probably an improvement over current FCS systems, I'm willing to bet it's not significant enough to really be notable.

Human-machine interface has also be completely reviews, adapting it to the young conscripts experience, multi-touchscreens with smartphone-like interface being now adopted. “We worked on it pretty hard for the last two years in order to make it very approachable for young soldiers who are used to their cell phones and playstations and now need to fight in a tank and we developed for them a very nice and new HMI.”

It's like a vibeo game!!!

But seriously, what's the obsession with making everything touch screens nowadays? Especially in a military context where you'd think it'd be useful to have tactile controls that can be operated on muscle memory during high stress situations.

There's probably more stuff to pick apart, but overall it just feels like they're trying to use technology to compensate for the fact that they're frequently having to use their tanks in situations that tanks really shouldn't be used in, namely that they're being operated by under-trained conscripts to fight in urban guerilla warfare.

Guilty: Sam Bankman-Fried convicted on all counts after monthlong trial (ArsTechnica)

Nazi who becomes anti-Holocaust because libs keep saying that opposing genocide is antisemitic

I had the idea to make a meme with a bunch of IDF dorks and a Merkava lost in Blackreach with the caption being like "The IDF proves incapable of conducting tunnel warfare" and one of the soldiers is saying something like "how the fuck did we end up in black-reach again?" but I don't have the focus to actually make it right now so y'all are just going to have to imagine.