“It is not every day that snuff films of Jews are shown at an IDF screening hall.”

“At a military base north of Tel Aviv, the Israel Defense Forces held a grisly matinee screening of 43 minutes of raw footage from Hamas’s October 7 attack. Members of the press were invited, but cameras were not allowed. Hamas had the opposite policy on cameras during the attack, which it documented gleefully with its fighters’ body cams and mobile phones. Some of the clips had been circulating already on social media in truncated or expurgated form, with the footage decorously stopped just before beheadings and moments of death. After having seen them both in raw and trimmed forms, I can endorse the decision to trim those clips. I certainly hope I never see any of the extra footage again.”—Graeme Wood

  

“What’s already happened has been horrible beyond belief, and what’s coming next will probably be worse.”

“Predestined?”

__________

 

As bad as the passing week has been,

things appear to be about to get much worse.

  

 

Below: This bit of mindless savagery happened right at the outset.

 

Humanity is going increasingly insane.

 

ISRAEL BECAME A NATION WHEN I WAS A YEAR OLD

1947: Thousands of European Jewish emigrants, many of them Holocaust survivors, board a ship – which came to be called Exodus 1947 – bound for then British-controlled Palestine. Heading for the “promised land”, they are intercepted by British naval ships and sent back to Europe. Widely covered by the media, the incident sparks international outrage and plays a critical role in convincing the UK that a UN-brokered solution is necessary to solve the Palestine crisis.

A UN special committee proposes a partition plan giving 56.47 percent of Palestine for a Jewish state and 44.53 percent for an Arab state. Palestinian representatives reject the plan, but their Jewish counterparts accept it.

On November 29, the UN General Assembly approves the plan, with 33 countries voting for partition, 13 voting against it and 10 abstentions.

1948-49: On May 14, David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, publicly reads the Proclamation of Independence. The declaration, which would go into effect the next day, comes a day ahead of the expiration of the British Mandate on Palestine. The Jewish state takes control of 77 percent of the territory of Mandate Palestine, according to the UN.

For Palestinians, this date marks the “Nakba”, the catastrophe that heralds their subsequent displacement and dispossession.

As hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, hearing word of massacres in villages such as Dir Yassin, flee towards Egypt, Lebanon, and Jordanian territory, the armies of Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq attack Israel, launching the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.

The Arab armies are repelled, a ceasefire is declared and new borders – more favorable to Israel – are drawn. Jordan takes control of the West Bank and East Jerusalem while Egypt controls the Gaza Strip.

1956: The Second Arab-Israeli War, or the Suez Crisis, takes place after Egypt nationalizes the Suez Canal. In response Israel, the United Kingdom and France form an alliance and Israel occupies the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula. The Israeli army eventually withdraws its troops, under pressure from the US and the USSR.
1959: Yasser Arafat sets up the Palestinian organization Fatah in Gaza and Kuwait. It later becomes the main component of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO).

1964: The PLO is created.

1967: The Third Arab-Israeli War, or the Six-Day War, between Israel and its Arab neighbors, results in a dramatic redrawing of the Middle East map. Israel seizes the West Bank and East Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip, the Sinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights.

1973: On October 6, during the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur, Egyptian and Syrian armies launch offensives against Israel, marking the start of a new regional war. The Yom Kippur War, which ends 19 days later with Israel repelling the Arab armies, results in heavy casualties on all sides – at least several thousand deaths.

1979: An Israeli-Egyptian peace agreement is sealed in Washington following the Camp David Accords signed in 1978 by Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin. According to the terms of this agreement, Egypt regains the Sinai Peninsula, which it had lost after the Six-Day War. Sadat becomes the first Arab leader to recognise the State of Israel.

1982: Under Defense Minister Ariel Sharon, Israeli troops storm into neighbouring Lebanon in a controversial military mission called “Operation Peace of Galilee”. The aim of the operation is to wipe out Palestinian guerrilla bases in southern Lebanon. But Israeli troops push all the way to the Lebanese capital of Beirut.

The subsequent routing of the PLO under Arafat leaves the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon essentially defenceless. From September 16 to 18, Lebanese Christian Phalangist militiamen – with ties to Israel – enter the camps of Sabra and Shatilla in Beirut, unleashing a brutal massacre that shocks the international community. The massacres, the subject of an Israeli inquiry popularly called the Kahane Commission, would subsequently cost Sharon his job as defence minister.

1987: Uprisings in Palestinian refugee camps in Gaza spread to the West Bank marking the start of the First Palestinian Intifada ("uprising" in Arabic). Nicknamed the "war of stones", the First Intifada lasts until 1993, costing more than 1,000 Palestinian lives. The image of the stone-throwing Palestinian demonstrators pitched against Israel’s military might comes to symbolise the Palestinian struggle.

It was also during this uprising that Hamas, influenced by the ideology of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, was born. From the outset, the Islamist movement favours armed struggle and rejects outright any legitimacy of an Israeli state.

1993: After months of frenetic secret negotiations, Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin sign the Oslo Accords. The accords see the creation of the Palestinian Authority, which gets administrative control of the West Bank and Gaza. On September 13 on the White House lawn, Arafat and Rabin exchange a historic handshake in the presence of US President Bill Clinton. The event is watched by over 400 million TV viewers across the world.

1995: On November 4, Rabin is assassinated by a Jewish right-wing extremist at a peace rally in Tel Aviv.

1996: Benjamin Netanyahu is elected prime minister for the first time.

2000: On September 28, Sharon provokes Palestinians by making a tour of Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa/Temple Mount site as leader of the right-wing Likud party, sparking the Second Intifada, also known as the Al-Aqsa Intifada. It lasted until 2005, with 3,000 Palestinians and 1,000 Israelis killed over five years.

2001: Sharon is elected prime minister of Israel and breaks off contact with Arafat, who is subsequently confined to his compound in Ramallah.

2002: The Israeli government begins Operation Defensive Shield – the construction of a wall to separate Israel from the West Bank. The UN Security Council speaks for the first time of a coexistence between the two states of Israel and Palestine. The Israeli army lifts the siege on Ramallah.

2004: On March 22, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the paraplegic co-founder and spiritual leader of Hamas, is killed in an Israeli helicopter strike. Eight months later, on November 11, PLO chairman Arafat dies at a Paris hospital following a prolonged illness. Arafat's death has been the subject of controversy. Some experts believe he died of natural causes, while others are open to the possibility he was poisoned using polonium 210.

2005: Mahmoud Abbas is elected president of the Palestinian Authority. After a 38-year occupation, Israel pulls out of Gaza.

2006: On January 4, Prime Minister Sharon suffers a stroke and falls into a coma that he stays in until his death in 2014. Ehud Olmert takes over as prime minister and head of Sharon’s newly founded centrist party, Kadima.

Hamas sweeps the legislative elections in the Palestinian Territories, causing the US and EU to freeze direct aid to the Palestinian government.

Lebanese Islamic fundamentalist group Hezbollah launches rocket attacks on Israel and takes two Israeli soldiers captive. Israel retaliates with force and many civilians, mainly Lebanese, are killed. The war, widely viewed as a failure in Israel, led to mounting calls for Olmert to resign.

2007: Following months of internecine military fighting between Hamas and Fatah forces, Hamas seizes control of Gaza.

2008: On December 27, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) launch a surprise offensive on Gaza, killing more than 200 people in one day. Shortly after, the IDF follows up with a two-week-long ground invasion of Gaza. A UN report concluded that both Israel and Hamas committed war crimes during the conflict.

2009: On January 18, Israel and Hamas declare unilateral ceasefires, ending the 22-day battle which killed more than 1,300 Palestinians as well as 13 Israelis.

2011: On March 27, Israel deploys an anti-rocket missile defense system called Iron Dome, which allows the country to intercept short-range rockets regularly fired from Gaza.

2012: Israeli forces kill top Hamas commander Ahmed al-Jaabari in an air strike on November 14 and follow with more strikes over an eight-day campaign during which Hamas retaliates by firing rockets at Jerusalem for the first time. More than 130 Palestinians as well as five Israelis are killed.

2014: In June, three Israeli teenagers are abducted and murdered near the West Bank city of Hebron. Israeli authorities blame Hamas for the incident and on July 8, launch multiple air strikes on Gaza, prompting an exchange of rocket fire with Hamas over a seven-week period. The Israeli missile strikes result in the deaths of more than 2,200 Palestinians in Gaza.

2018: On March 30, tens of thousands of Palestinians rally near the Israeli border in the Gaza Strip to protest Israel’s blockade of the enclave. Demonstrations continue for several months. At least 189 Palestinians were killed and more than 6,000 injured during these protests between the end of March and the end of December 2018, according to the Independent International Commission of Inquiry mandated by the UN Human Rights Council.

2021: Palestinian worshippers clash with Israeli police in May at Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa Mosque compound following weeks of mounting tension. Hamas unleashes a barrage of rockets into Israel after demanding Israeli forces withdraw from the compound. Israel responds with air strikes on Gaza, setting off an 11-day conflict resulting in the deaths of more than 200 people.

2022: Israel pounds Gaza with air strikes on August 5, killing a senior militant of the Islamic Jihad group and triggering retaliatory rocket fire from the Palestinian enclave. At least 40 Palestinians are killed in the three days of fighting that follow.

2023: Israeli forces kill nine Palestinian Islamic Jihad gunmen and civilians on January 26 in a raid on a flashpoint town in the occupied West Bank. Palestinian militants hit back by firing two rockets, triggering retaliation from Israel. No further casualties are reported.

On October 7, Hamas mounts an unprecedented, multipronged surprise attack on Israel with fighters infiltrating the heavily fortified Gaza border in several locations by air, land and sea. Israeli forces respond with air strikes on Gaza and military reinforcements to the border.

And, yeah, I know the historical / cultural roots of Arab-Israeli-Persian conflicts way predate 1947.

 

UPDATE

[HuffPo] As Israel escalates its attacks on Gaza, the State Department is discouraging diplomats working on Middle East issues from making public statements suggesting the U.S. wants to see less violence, according to internal emails viewed by HuffPost.

In messages circulated on Friday, State Department staff wrote that high-level officials do not want press materials to include three specific phrases: “de-escalation/ceasefire,” “end to violence/bloodshed” and “restoring calm.”

The revelation provides a stunning signal about the Biden administration’s reluctance to push for Israeli restraint as the close U.S. partner expands the offensive it launched after Hamas ―which rules Gaza ― attacked Israeli communities on Oct. 7.

Bad portent. Update below:

Israeli President Says There Are No Innocent Civilians In Gaza
“It is an entire nation out there that is responsible,” Isaac Herzog said as Israel ordered 1.1 million Palestinians to evacuate their homes.

...When a reporter asked Herzog to clarify whether he meant to say that since Gazans did not remove Hamas from power “that makes them, by implication, legitimate targets,” the Israeli president claimed, “No, I didn’t say that.”

Wink, wink. Equally bad, if not worse.

 

 

MORE...

Rumors of a ‘Global Day of Jihad’ Have Unleashed a Dangerous Wave of Disinformation
The rapid spread of violent videos and photos, combined with a toxic stew of mis- and disinformation, now threatens to spill over into real-world violence.

FAR-RIGHT FIGURES IN the United States are making violent threats against Muslims in response to what they believe is a planned “global day of jihad” today.

The violent rhetoric comes in response to comments made in a statement by Khaled Meshaal, the founder and former leader of Hamas, to Reuters on Wednesday. Meshaal called for protests on October 13 across the Arab world in support of the Palestinians before adding: “To all scholars who teach jihad ... to all who teach and learn, this is a moment for the application [of theories].”

While Meshaal very specifically made the calls for protests in “the Arab and Islamic worlds,” his comments were quickly mistranslated online to become a “global day of jihad,” a phrase he did not use.

In the toxic stew of misinformation and disinformation that has circulated online in the days since Hamas’ attack on Israel, those misinterpreted comments have been weaponized by right-wing lawmakers and influencers to suggest that Hamas is planning attacks on non-Muslims. This latest round of online disinformation now threatens to spill over into real-world violence.

Users of pro-Trump message boards and extremist channels on Telegram, as well as mainstream platforms like X, formerly Twitter, repeatedly claimed that they would be carrying firearms today; some claimed they would be prepared to use those weapons if or when they encountered Muslims. In many cases, people referred to Muslims using racial slurs.

In response, some police authorities in US cities, including New York and Los Angeles, announced that they plan to boost officer numbers to counter any potential violence. Some schools in the US and in the UK have closed due to concerns about “an international day of rage ” or “out of an abundance of caution.”…

#LIKEWAR

 

UPDATE

[via NBC News] Hamas created detailed plans to target elementary schools and a youth center in the Israeli kibbutz of Kfar Sa'ad, to "kill as many people as possible," seize hostages and quickly move them into the Gaza Strip.

The attack plans, which are labeled "top secret" in Arabic, appear to be orders for two highly trained Hamas units to surround and infiltrate villages and target places where civilians, including children, gather. Israeli authorities are still determining the death toll in Kfar Sa'ad.

The documents were found on the bodies of Hamas terrorists by Israeli first responders and shared with NBC News. They include detailed maps and show that Hamas intended to kill or take hostage civilians and school children…

OFF-TOPIC ERRATUM

 

apropos of some of my prior posts.

 

__________

X-rated, LikeWar

X’s Trust and Safety team says it’s working to remove false information related to the Israel-Hamas war. Meanwhile, Elon Musk is sharing conspiracies and chatting with QAnon promoters.

[via WIRED] ...WHAT’S left of the Trust and Safety team at X (formerly Twitter) announced the measures it was taking to try and curb the virulent spread of disinformation around the Israel-Hamas war on its platform.

The statement, issued three days after the conflict began, reads: “As the events continue to unfold rapidly, a cross-company leadership group has assessed this moment as a crisis requiring the highest level of response.”

One person who does not appear to be part of this crisis team is X owner Elon Musk.

Instead of tackling the dangerous disinformation problem on his platform, Musk instead spent yeterday night into this morning continuing to spread disinformation about the conflict, conversing with a known QAnon promoter, boosting anti-Muslim conspiracy theories, and laughing at a video detailing how transphobic content on X can get you new followers.

Musk also promoted a new feature that allows X Premium subscribers to see only replies from other people willing to pay $8 a month, which Musk said would “help a lot with spam bots” on the platform—an issue Musk previously claimed he had already all but eradicated.

“ If successful, X will evolve to be the collective consciousness of humanity or, more accurately, the human-machine collective,” Musk posted in reply to a follower who said he was doing a great job running the company.

Meanwhile, disinformation about the conflict in the Middle East continues to rage on the platform, driven primarily by verified accounts.

Yesterday evening, X’s Trust and Safety team, which is currently leaderless after Ella Irwin resigned in June, wrote on X that it had “removed newly created Hamas-affiliated accounts” and was working with the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT), an industry body that helps coordinate content moderation across social media platforms, to “try and prevent terrorist content from being distributed online.”

The Safety team’s statement also lauded the user-generated Community Notes system and said new accounts were being enrolled to address the flood of disinformation on the platform. The Safety team also revealed that it had removed “several hundreds accounts for attempting to manipulate trending topics.”

Since Musk took control of the platform just under a year ago, he has restructured it to encourage engagement over everything else. As a result, accounts that subscribe to X Premium now have a monetary incentive to post content that is engaging regardless of how truthful it is. This was highlighted clearly on yesterday night when, at the same time as the Safety team posted its update, a new viral piece of disinformation was spreading unchecked on X.

Sulaiman Ahmed, a self-described investigative journalist, posted the false claim that the Church of Saint Porphyrius in Gaza City, one of the oldest churches in the world, was destroyed by an Israeli bomb. The post received over 1 million views in the span of three hours.

Ahmed is a subscriber to X Premium, which means his posts are given priority in search results and newsfeeds over other users, and he also allows followers to subscribe to his content directly through X, allowing him to profit from increased engagement with his content…

Click here.

 

UPDATE

...We end by considering the far-reaching implications of a world in which every digital skirmish is a “war” and every observer a potential combatant. These implications inform a series of actions that governments, companies, and all of us as individuals can undertake in response.

Our research took us around the world and into the infinite reaches of the internet. Yet we continually found ourselves circling back to five core principles, which form the foundations of this book.

First, the internet has left adolescence. Over decades of growth, the internet has become the preeminent medium of global communication, commerce, and politics. It has empowered not just new leaders and groups, but a new corporate order that works constantly to expand it. This pattern resembles the trajectory of the telegraph, telephone, radio, and television before it. But the rise of social media has allowed the internet to surpass those revolutions. It is now truly global and instantaneous—the ultimate combination of individual connection and mass transmission. Yet tumultuous as the past few years have been, social media—and the revolution it represents—is only now starting to flex its muscles. Half the world has yet to come online and join the fray.

Second, the internet has become a battlefield. As integral as the internet has become to business and social life, it is now equally indispensable to militaries and governments, authoritarians and activists, and spies and soldiers. They all use it to wage wars that observe no clear borders. The result is that every battle seems personal, but every conflict is global.

Third, this battlefield changes how conflicts are fought. Social media has rendered secrets of any consequence essentially impossible to keep. Yet because virality can overwhelm truth, what is known can be reshaped. “Power” on this battlefield is thus measured not by physical strength or high-tech hardware, but by the command of attention. The result is a contest of psychological and algorithmic manipulation, fought through an endless churn of competing viral events.

Fourth, this battle changes what “war” means. Winning these online battles doesn’t just win the web, but wins the world. Each ephemeral victory drives events in the physical realm, from seemingly inconsequential celebrity feuds to history-changing elections. These outcomes become the basis of the next inevitable battle for online truth, further blurring the distinction between actions in the physical and digital realms. The result is that on the internet, “war” and “politics” have begun to fuse, obeying the same rules and inhabiting the same spectrum; their tactics and even players are increasingly indistinguishable. Yet it is not the politicians, generals, lawyers, or diplomats who are defining the laws of this new fight. Rather, it’s a handful of Silicon Valley engineers.

Fifth, and finally, we’re all part of this war. If you are online, your attention is like a piece of contested territory, being fought over in conflicts that you may or may not realize are unfolding around you. Everything you watch, like, or share represents a tiny ripple on the information battlefield, privileging one side at the expense of others. Your online attention and actions are thus both targets and ammunition in an unending series of skirmishes. Whether you have an interest in the conflicts of LikeWar or not, they have an interest in you.

The modern internet is not just a network, but an ecosystem of nearly 4 billion souls, each with their own thoughts and aspirations, each capable of imprinting a tiny piece of themselves on the vast digital commons. They are the targets not of a single information war but of thousands and potentially millions of them. Those who can manipulate this swirling tide, to steer its direction and flow, can accomplish incredible good. They can free people, expose crimes, save lives, and seed far-reaching reforms. But they can also accomplish astonishing evil. They can foment violence, stoke hate, sow falsehoods, incite wars, and even erode the pillars of democracy itself.

Which side succeeds depends, in large part, on how much the rest of us learn to recognize this new warfare for what it is. Our goal in LikeWar is to explain exactly what’s going on and to prepare us all for what comes next.

Singer, P. W.; Brooking, Emerson T. (2018-10-01). Likewar. Loc 430-455, HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

Interesting. Just now diving in. Below, a couple of relevant resources cited in prior posts. Here, and here.

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