From the Al-Jazeera live feed:

Biden says ‘time to finalise’ Gaza deal and ‘end this war’

US President Joe Biden has urged Israel and Hamas to finalise a months-old ceasefire proposal, telling the United Nations he was committed to ending the war on Gaza.

“Now is the time for the parties to finalise its terms,” he said of the deal brokered by the United States, Qatar and Egypt.

The deal will “bring the hostages home and secure security for Israel and Gaza free from Hamas’s grip, ease the suffering in Gaza and end this war,” Biden told the UN General Assembly.

I don’t recall Biden ever being more clear that what he wants isn’t a cease fire, it’s for Hamas to surrender. When he says “Gaza free from Hamas’ grip”, he’s saying he wants a Palestinian Authority situation - which is precisely what Israel wants. Literally everything he said there is just what Israel wants: return the hostages, keep Israel “secure”, and for Hamas to self-immolate and hand over Gaza to either to Zionist lapdogs or an international coalition of American lapdogs. The idea that this man is putting any pressure on Netanyahu is obviously ridiculous.

Chud’s are gonna go on about this for a while, searches in conjunction with the assassination attempt by that nafo dude led to cops finding his son had hundreds of child porn images.

Pezeshkian just did an interview with CNN and said: Hezbullah can’t stand against Israel on its own.

It even became headline in Iranian media let alone Zionist, see it for yourself. The problem is the message that it sends to poor Lebanese. 😑

Anyone know what to expect with the possible International Longshoremen’s Association strike?

Some articles:

Reuters: US Labor department reaches out to employer group amid possible port strike

NYT: A Looming East Coast Port Strike Could Shake the Economy

In a rerun of their fearmongering over the railroad strike two years ago, the NYT is emphasizing that this could ruin Christmas:

Chris Butler, the chief executive of the National Tree Company, which sells artificial Christmas trees and other decorations, said his company had brought in goods early and made greater use of West Coast ports. But he estimated that 15 percent of his goods would still be stranded by a port strike.

Jacobin: East Coast Longshore Workers May Soon Strike

Benny Gantz: “If Nasrallah does not stop the fire, we will also have to enter [Lebanese] territory to allow the return of our residents”

Part one effortpost here, I chose number two. Sorry for any grammatical fuckups in advance, it was too long to proof read.

The Rise of the Collective Shia Identity: Part One

The year is 1978. Ayatollah Khomeini, the main voice of Shia Islamism has just been expelled from Najaf by Saddam Hussein. Najaf, the capital of Shia Islam and where the biggest Hawzas (Shia Islamic schools) are located, is a hotspot of political repression, executions, and arrests. The main Marja (basically Shia pope), Sayyid Abu Al Qasim Al Khoei is reduced to a strictly religious role, giving rulings about useless things like marriages and inheritance. His predecessor, Sayyid Muhsin Al Hakim, pushed the political buttons too hard with a ruling that deemed communists and Baathists as disbelievers, which made the Iraqi state go crazy and start a huge campaign of repression of anything political from the Shia elite. Khomeini’s development of the concept of Wilayat Al Faqih was very worrying for Baathist Iraq, so he was expelled from Najaf.

Shias in Iraq never got a place post-Sykes-Picot, with the Kingdom of Iraq being dominated by the Sunni Baghdadi elite. The period between 1958-1968 after the revolution was too chaotic and disjointed to produce an elite, with daily conflicts and coup attempts by adventurers with different ideologies. The Baathist period produced a new elite strictly dominated by Sunnis from Salahaddin Province, so the Shias just never got a seat at the table. Two ideologies penetrated the Shia mind, Islamism and Communism. Islamists were concentrated in Karbala and Najaf, two holy cities for Shia Islam. Communists where concentrated in Nasiriyah, Amarah and Basra, cities where poverty was rampant. Islamists were finally organised in the form of the Dawa Party, led by Musa Al Sadr’s cousin Muhammed Baqir Al Sadr. Musa Al Sadr would later rise as the spiritual leader of the Lebanese Shia community. Muhammed Baqir Al Sadr’s works and political activities really annoyed the Iraqi state, so he and his sister were executed by the state in 1980. Most of their followers were executed or exiled. Many of the influential families in Najaf and Karbala had some Persian ancestry, nearly all those families suffered from mass deportations as Saddam’s anti-Persian paranoia grew. The communists suffered from the same fate, with most communists either executed or exiled by the state due to their political activities.

Now we’re done with Iraq, let’s go to Iran. Shia Islamism is dead here too, the Shah’s security services arrests anyone with any political activity. Khomeini was successfully chased out 20 years ago, and there’s no organised political force that can even talk loudly without getting executed. The Shah is at least Shia Muslim on paper, he prays in public once every 10 years, visits the shrines in Qom and Mashhad occasionally, but to everyone with a functioning brain, this man is a disbeliever. There’s something brewing, but let’s wait with that story.

Let’s go to Lebanon. Shias in Lebanon are around half of the Muslim population. It’s hard to get exact numbers, but Shias are around 25% of the total population of the country. The Shia community here also never got a real seat at the table. The president holds most of the power and is always a Maronite. The prime minister gets fired every few weeks, but he’s always a Sunni and does nothing while the Maronite elite is pretending to be French and robbing the country. The speaker of the parliament is Shia, but toilet paper is more useful than that position. Feudalism didn’t really end in the Shia parts of Lebanon, most Shias were farmers who were getting fucked so hard on a daily basis that they didn’t have time to even think about politics. Remember we’re in 1978, where are the Shias in the middle of civil war? The answer is nowhere. The main sides are Maronites vs Sunni Muslims, communists and Palestinians. Shias were not a major factor here. The only notable Shia organization is the Amal Movement, led by Musa Al Sadr. Musa was a charismatic leader who would set the foundations of the modern Shia Lebanese identity, he was respected by all sectors of the cursed Lebanese society and his connections to Iran and Iraq were slowly starting to be important in a regional context. But nothing good lasts, as he was inexplicably disappeared and presumably killed by Gaddafi during a routine visit to Libya in August 1978.

Let’s go to Yemen and the Gulf. In Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, Shias were an afterthought, they are 0% of the ruling families and have zero political representation. They’re allowed to do some rituals at home when no one sees, but if you open your mouth in public and say anything Shia Islamist, you’re getting disappeared and your whole family will probably be deported to Iran or something. Shias in Bahrain are the absolute majority and they’re significant minorities in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. In Yemen, the Shias are not the same kind of Shia as in Iraq, Iran and Lebanon. The main group of Shia Muslims are either called Jaafari after the theological works of the sixth Shia Imam Jaafar Al Sadiq, or Ithna Ashari (Twelvers) due to their belief in twelve Imams after the Prophet Muhammed, starting with Imam Ali ibn Abi Talib and ending with Imam Muhammed Al Mahdi, also known as the Hidden Imam who according to Shia beliefs will reappear one day and basically set in motion the end of the physical world. The Shia of Yemen are known as Zaydis, after Zayd ibn Jaafar Al Sadiq, who the Zaidis recognized as 7th Imam, while the Twelvers recognized Musa ibn Jaafar Al Sadiq. The Zaidi Imamate in Northern Yemen continued for nearly a thousand years, but it could not withstand the post-WW2 chaos in the region and ended in nearly comic fashion after a coup led by local rivals and involvement from an exiled Iraqi officer. The Zaydi community here in 1978 is in disarray, with many converting to Sunni Islam out of convenience in a new world. There’s no organized Zaydi force or political party, they just farm in the highlands of Northern Yemen and chill out there. It is a fading group, but wait, something just happened in Yemen. Ali Abdullah Saleh, a Zaydi military officer from Sanaa, and one of the great adventurers of the 1900s in the Middle East, just did a military coup and took power in the failing state of North Yemen in July 1978.

How did this defeated religious group go from edges of the region to the dominant group in five countries and a political force that annoys America and Israel? We’ll find out in the next episode as we cover the Islamic Revolution in Iran and the formative value of the Iraq-Iran War, the failed Shaaban Revolution in Iraq, the rise of Hezbollah in the south of Lebanon, and the rise of the Houthi (Ansarallah) movement in Yemen.

A discussion of what seem to be Zelensky’s future diplomatic plans. The author, Mr. Bhadrakumar, is a professional diplomat who writes about foreign affairs, but he is not a Marxist. He talks about Zelensky’s continued purge and the three point plan he intends to present to Biden. To the second half of the article, some milbloggers think Zelensky’s plan is an intentional over-ask. Zelensky will get his ‘betarayal’ from the West, and pivot to negotiations and conceding the status quo, at least. With that possibility in mind, the first part of the article suggests that perhaps Zelensky is legitimately trying to break with the CIA. They’re certainly not the only people in Ukraine credibly threatening Zelensky’s life. https://www.indianpunchline.com/zelenskys-victory-plan-is-his-survival-kit/

An exclusive report on electronic warfare measures affecting commercial flights. GPS spoofing is affecting airlines around the world (but only people in the West could be reached for comment). Companies, regulators, and pilots are split on what to do. It’s worth noting that as flying gets more stressful or dangerous, there are already major pilot shortages in USamerica from Covid, expensive training, and mandatory retirement at 65. The Wall Street Journal does produce original journalism. Their ideology is known. Functional air travel is in the interests of everyone, especially journalists. i did not read the comments and i don’t think people should. https://archive.md/RztnK

A very good analysis of Mexico-USA-China relations. It is quite long. It goes over AMLO’s judicial reform and the USA attempts to stifle it. The DEA are doing what, in another country, one might call “election interference”. In response, AMLO has been talking more with China. On the liberal/ diplomatic side of things, there are a lot of statements from diplomats, which are nice to read because sometimes i forget what real diplomacy sounds like. On the material side of things, it’s worth noting most Mexican imports from China are to be either assembled and then shipped to the USA or to be shipped to the USA to dodge tariffs. Mexico and China are the two largest exporters to the USA, and are competing to sell products. On the other hand, the USA has no answer or equivalent to the Belt and Road Initiative. A transoceanic railway link from the Gulf to the Pacific could compete with the Panama Canal, and all of the investment in it is Chinese. Chinese cars and electronics are gaining market share, and BYD is promising a dealership in every state and one factory, somewhere. The article concludes with a quote from Forbes Mexico, which really shows how outrageous recent USamerican actions have been. It is a further example of USamerican arrogance in the face of a changing world. When confronted with things not going as they plan or desire, they can never adjust the plan or cooperate. The ruling class of these times can only reach to violence, tariffs, and threats. https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2024/09/beijing-and-mexico-focus-on-deepening-cooperation-as-bilateral-trade-surges-to-record-levels.html

Thank fucking god that Syria isn’t a nation led by a comprador shithead and is allowing Lebanese refugees in via border crossings. Incredibly difficult situation for Assad given the state that Syria was already in, massive respect for not hesitating. Hoping that Iran and friends can get enough food in to the refugees to prevent the famine we’re seeing in Gaza, as the numbers of displaced might reach the hundreds of thousands by the end of this war. Now would be a good time for Russia to help things out with its big agricultural sector, for example.

Iran Observer: Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei to speak live on television tomorrow at 10.15 Tehran time

Feels so good iOS has RCS now.

No tinge of anxiety when I’m sending a text to an Android user and not seeing a ‘delivered’ notification, assured that my messages are not going into the void

Edit: and btw the read receipt is auto on for you mfs bwahahahahah i can see when you’re ignoring me

Keir Starmer demands the return of the sausages from Gaza

https://tankie.tube/w/iT4P99uQxw7JEvzB1dnkB8

I’m doing ONE effortpost this week to explain some Lebanese/Arab intricacies while scrolling the news. What do the good people of the news mega want to read about?

1. A breakdown of the Lebanese Civil War and how it permanently fucked the country.

2. An explanation of how the modern Shia identity emerged post-1979 and how a small marginalized community basically became the face of anti-Israel jihad.

3. How Arab and Muslim attitudes towards Hezbollah changed between 2006 and 2024 due to their intervention in Syria.

Vote! But I’ll probably just ignore the results and do the one I want

Very scary video of missile impacts in an unknown location of Israel

https://tankie.tube/w/jpLWisaApsoui6mo1AvQyX

Press Release PFLP

🔴 The Popular Front: The enemy is spreading illusions and lies, and the resistance is based on solid ground and strong will

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine confirmed that what the enemy and its terrorist army are doing is committing massacres against civilians and destroying civilian infrastructure, and there is no truth to the lies and illusions it is spreading about undermining the capabilities of the resistance, whether in Palestine or Lebanon.

The Front explained that the resistance’s responses and operations in all fields prove that they are based on solid ground and a strong, unyielding will, and a sincere, steadfast incubator that time rarely produces in terms of loyalty, sincerity, sacrifice and redemption.

The Front stressed that the enemy is trying to sell illusions that no one else will buy, similar to its talk about destroying most of the resistance’s missile capabilities or its talk about the end of the Gaza resistance, which was confirmed by the resistance operations in recent days despite the horror of the crimes committed by the occupation against our people and our people.

The Front saluted the heroes of the resistance in all arenas, especially the brothers, comrades in blood and field, in Hezbollah, who stood firm in the face of our enemy’s criminal attack, and responded to the aggression with determination and strength.

The Front stressed that what is required today from the masses of our nation and our peoples, and the free and struggling people around the world, is to escalate the struggle against the forces of aggression and the parties supporting our criminal enemy, and to strengthen support for the resistance, its incubators, and our steadfast people rooted in their land.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine

Central Media Department

September 24 2024

Damage in Kfar Manda

https://tankie.tube/w/2Bmdt5YhknxbxYv9MRgfWP