Realism in Fantasy

Trunk space is going to be really important for me for the next hundred years.

[Aizenberg @Aizenberg55]

https://t.co/7X2HIgnTZA

[Aizenberg @Aizenberg55]

The Hamas Ministry of Health reports ~73,000 fatalities in Gaza, which includes combatants, natural deaths & those killed by Hamas. Which means various @TheLancet "studies" and other claims, still made, of 100,000+ deaths were false. Will those "experts" admit they were wrong?

[Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib @afalkhatib]

Imagine [hopefully] reading a piece that calls for Gaza to become the pride and joy of the Palestinian people and a hub of compelling Palestinian national identity by rejuvenating the territory, embracing peace, and rejecting a terror organization that admitted to refusing Gaza development offers worth billions, including an airport and seaport, only to proclaim that the op-ed is "pro-genocide." And how was this brilliant conclusion reached? Because the article I published in The New York Times didn't do the ubiquitous "everything has to be Israel's fault" that seems to be the only line of thinking within the supposed "pro-Palestine" camp.

Speak to Palestinians in Gaza who aren’t Hamas or making content for the “pro-Palestine” community abroad, and you hear the same thing again and again. They describe, plainly and without theatrics, how Hamas halted Gaza’s development and crippled the broader Palestinian national project since its founding in 1987. They do not need to mention Israel in every sentence to sound authentic to outsiders, including other Palestinians or non-Palestinians alike. They simply recount their lived reality. For Gazans, Hamas is the central problem. There were no Israeli soldiers inside Gaza before October 7. The blockade that everyone loves to speak about was imposed after Hamas’s cross‑border abduction of an Israeli soldier in June 2006 and tightened after the group’s violent takeover of the territory on June 14, 2007. From that point forward, Hamas massively built tunnels, fired rockets, smuggled weapons, waged repeated rounds of conflict, and declared its intent to “destroy” Israel, while turning Gaza into a fortress of armed “resistance” that got Gaza destroyed, tens of thousands killed, millions displaced, and wasted billions of dollars. Hamas imposed punishing taxes on Gazans to fund its terror; stole diesel from Gaza’s only power plant and caused chronic power outages; suppressed women’s freedoms; blocked travel for anyone it disliked; and routinely killed, tortured, jailed, beat, and humiliated countless Gazans.

Research the political and cultural divides between Gaza and the West Bank, and you quickly see how many Gazans resent West Bankers for cheering Hamas and October 7. These dynamics are complex, real, and central to understanding Palestinian politics, yet they are brushed aside or overlooked to satisfy low‑information audiences who consume the toxic narratives produced by the "pro-Palestine" industrial complex. Some people are simply uninformed. Some are unsophisticated. And then there are those who know exactly what they are doing and deliberately twist, manipulate, and distort reality to manufacture ignorance and maintain obedience and Orwellian-grade compliance among the crowds.

[Mark Zlochin - מארק זלוצ'ין༝ @MarkZlochin]

Notably, once it became increasingly clear that all these apocalyptic predictions by "the world's leading famine expert" had repeatedly failed to materialize, instead of honestly acknowledging that failure, he started calling for a change in the definition of the famine mortality threshold.

[Aizenberg @Aizenberg55]

ONE HUNDRED Gaza "medical workers" killed in Gaza—doctors, nurses, administrative staff—are confirmed Hamas and Islamic Jihad combatants, mostly commanders, each one profiled below. Gaza's hospitals were military bases. The "Israel targeted healthcare" is now a proven lie.

[Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib @afalkhatib]

The Nazification of the so‑called “pro-Palestine” movement is no exaggeration. Large segments of this conglomerate have turned what should be a moral cause into an exceptionally hateful, racist, antisemitic, homophobic, and toxic ecosystem of low‑information activists, journalists, academics, and online personalities. Since my New York Times opinion piece, “To Save Gaza, Resist Hamas,” I have been targeted by a global smear campaign driven by Hamas, “pro-Palestine” fascists, antisemites, racists, and deeply disturbed individuals with hundreds of thousands of followers.

They have circulated AI‑generated images and fabricated posts claiming I am Jewish, an Epstein‑connected agent blackmailed by Mossad, a closeted gay man, and a paid influencer funded by Israel (I am none of those things, in case you are curious). This is happening at the same moment other corners of the “pro-Palestine” industrial complex are calling a Black member of Congress a “monkey” and a “boy.” Add to that the meltdown among supposed journalists, academics, and influencers who clearly did not read the op‑ed and reacted only to the title, furious that I criticized Hamas, their favorite “resistance” Islamist fascist group in Gaza, or that I refused to place all blame for the coastal enclave’s problems on Israel.

The backlash actually proves my central argument in this piece. Many in the “pro-Palestine” industrial complex refuse to engage with complexity around Gaza, Hamas, and Palestinian agency and responsibility, even within the reality of Israel’s overwhelming power advantage. By personalizing their reactions and resorting to insults instead of substance, including my explicit critique of Israeli policies, they are doing exactly what I argue must change. Palestinians and their allies can criticize Israel as much as they want, but fantasies about Israel’s destruction are neither moral nor pragmatic. Most critically, no one holds a monopoly on what counts as a legitimate Palestinian viewpoint. Palestinians are diverse, their opinions are deeply fragmented, and many in Gaza are furious with Hamas’s narratives and actions, a reality ignored by externally based Palestinians and non-Palestinians in the “pro-Palestine” industrial complex.

It is time to delegitimize, call out, resist, and dismantle the current “pro-Palestine” movement and build an entirely new apparatus that rejects the hateful, bigoted, racist, homophobic, Jihadi, violent, and antisemitic voices that have become mainstream within this failed environment.

[Max 📟 @MaxNordau]

In April 2024, Harvard gave "the world's leading famine expert" a webinar to declare that Gaza was now the most intense famine since records began, already worse than a famine that killed a quarter of a million people, and about to get much, much worse.

Alex de Waal wrote the standard textbook on famine, runs the World Peace Foundation, and helped write starvation crimes into international law. In January 2024, he told Owen Jones that famine would probably arrive by early February. February came and went. In March, he told CBS that famine was expected between then and May. On April 30, 2024, with May a day away and still no famine, he doubled down AGAIN.

0:00 Explains the IPC Phase 5 famine threshold: excess deaths of 2 per 10,000 per day, "deep, deep, deep into a crisis"
0:28 "Gaza is a famine... the most intense famine that we have seen since records began"
0:48 The IPC estimate: 96 percent of Gaza's population, 2.2 million people, in Phase 3, the great majority in Phases 4 or 5
1:28 "We're already worse in absolute numbers than Somalia," a famine that killed 250,000 people, "the worst famine up to now recorded for this century." And the figures are "going to get much, much worse"
2:17 "That responsibility falls on the government of Israel"
2:39 The harm will be "lifelong and actually intergenerational"
2:56 "I call this famine. If this is not famine, then the word really has no meaning"

—

What actually happened:

The famine never arrived. Five weeks after this webinar, the IPC's own Famine Review Committee reviewed the famine claims: "not plausible," and "the available evidence does not indicate that Famine is currently occurring."
https://t.co/f85dKsV6gV

He explained the threshold himself: 2 excess deaths per 10,000 per day, which for Gaza would be over 400 hunger deaths a day. Gaza's recorded malnutrition death rate in 2025 (74 deaths through late July, per the WHO) works out to roughly the same per-capita rate as the United States, where the CDC counted over 20,000 malnutrition deaths in 2022.
https://t.co/M3EWIFPC25

After the October 2025 ceasefire, a UNICEF-led survey found 0.5 percent acute child malnutrition in Gaza, one of the lowest rates in the region.
https://t.co/ysQqoYE9L1

Full webinar, April 30, 2024: https://t.co/I9W5AnjzgR

—

Alex de Waal said that if Gaza is not famine, then the word really has no meaning.

Five weeks later, his own review committee could not find his famine.

[HonestReporting @HonestReporting]

Hamas became the third Palestinian terrorist organization to confirm that it had used child soldiers in the October 7 war on Tuesday, with the announcement that 16-year-old Hazem Shadi Al-Arini was an operative.

Not only has Western media completely ignored the phenomenon, in mid-August Arabic language media workers expressed support for another alleged Al-Qassam child solider.

Hamas feels comfortable admitting the crime because of the lack of scrutiny it and other terrorist groups have faced -- Why aren't news outlets covering this issue?

https://t.co/fkjrKQr1YH

[Aizenberg @Aizenberg55]

Important piece on the Gaza "genocide" lie, if you follow this topic worth a read.

[Wolfgang Tietze @WolfgangTietze3]

Dear followers, dear readers, I would like to thank everyone once again for your wonderful support. Today I am publishing a slightly revised version of my first article. For all international readers, I am providing 4 translation versions. Please share my articles; they need more attention. It would be desirable if significantly more than 5,095 followers supported this work. The Al-Shifa dossier, polished: I have thoroughly revised and refined my investigation into the October 7 events – now available in 4 international language versions (EN, FR, IT, ES). 📌 Upcoming: This lays the groundwork for the forthcoming sequel: “Witnesses to a War Crime: 12 Palestinian 'Journalists' Stayed Silent for Hamas”. Please share this post – these facts need maximum reach! 2/x
@nytimes @washingtonpost @WSJ @BBC @guardian
🔗 https://t.co/K7XPaACZUb

[Aizenberg @Aizenberg55]

Media outlets that obsessively covered the Gaza war like @nytimes @haaretz @cnn have still not reported on the fake Gaza "journalists" evidence because it would change the entire narrative of the war they pushed for 3 years. It also means every report out of Gaza was unreliable.

[HonestReporting @HonestReporting]

The Committee to Protect Journalists and International Federation of Journalists named Ahmed Abu Mhadi as a journalist for the Hamas-affiliated Al-Aqsa TV. He was featured in a Guardian article about Gazan journalists killed in the war.

Today, Hamas announced that Abu Mhadi was a fighter in its Northern Brigade's Martyr Fawzi Abu al-Qara' Battalion. Video shows him in uniform, practicing preparing IEDs and drilling with firearms.

Since we published our audit of CPJ's database, another four terrorist martyr notices have been issued for supposed "journalists." Where is the accountability?

[Mark Zlochin - מארק זלוצ'ין༝ @MarkZlochin]

As a sidenote, a few days ago the UN quietly removed from its dashboard the panel showing how much aid was intercepted “either peacefully by hungry people or forcefully by armed actors, during transit in Gaza.”

Must be just a coincidence that this happened exactly as new evidence further undermining last year’s “famine” designation started getting more and more public attention.

[Emily Schrader - אמילי שריידר امیلی شریدر @emilykschrader]

If Turkey has been kicked out of the F-35 program for refusing to give up a Russian missile system, refuses to sanction Russia, occupies northern Cyprus, jails journalists, and hosts Hamas… Why is it still in NATO?

[Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib @afalkhatib]

Disarming Gaza’s Clans / Khamulas (חמולה): Clan violence in Gaza has surged in recent weeks after several killings involving members of powerful families. Some accuse Hamas of playing a role, while others point to the flood of weapons controlled by these clans as the main driver of the breakdown in order. Another view is that Hamas may be trying to manufacture a degree of social chaos after agreeing to the disarmament proposal, hoping to create desperation among civilians and push them to demand Hamas’s return to governance and future security structures.

Hamas once built its reputation on suppressing clan violence and curbing the lawless displays of firepower that these families routinely engaged in. Today, it may be trying to remind Gazans that only Hamas can impose that deterrence, especially since the Palestinian Authority failed to do so when it governed the Strip.

The West Bank has also seen clan clashes, including a major confrontation in Hebron last month that involved heavy weapons and required Israeli military intervention. In one case, Israeli forces even acted as mediators between two families. This raises a serious question about the large stockpile of weapons in the West Bank if the Palestinian Authority collapses, including among security personnel who may lose their salaries once the Authority’s finances run out.

One point must be unmistakable: every clan in Gaza must be disarmed and treated with the same suspicion as Hamas and other armed groups. If these unaccountable and violent families keep their arsenals, new jihadist or terror cells could emerge and challenge any future authority in Gaza or provoke clashes along the Israeli border. Gaza cannot achieve stability without the full removal of clan weapons, which pose a direct threat to Palestinians and Israelis alike. Most Israelis killed on October 7 were murdered with light and medium weapons, not advanced systems, which underscores the danger of leaving these arsenals inside Gaza or excluding them from disarmament plans.

[Eylon Levy @EylonALevy]

This is untrue. It is completely made up.

But here’s a Turkish government influence operation amplifying total disinformation from a former Kremlin media employee.

It is poisoning minds and fueling violence.

[HonestReporting @HonestReporting]

A leaked @CBC memo told journalists not to call 9/11 a “terrorist attack.” After Oct. 7, CBC gave similar instructions on Hamas, even treating “terrorist” as “opinion, not fact.”

Canada’s publicly funded broadcaster isn’t avoiding loaded language. It’s obscuring what happened.

[Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib @afalkhatib]

The insufferable Hasan Piker, who has campaigned with NYC mayor Mamdani, Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El‑Sayed, and several other Democratic candidates, claims that Jewish Americans who feel any affinity for Israel or support the Jewish state somehow invite violence onto themselves. He presents this as normal and even sensible. Many immediately condemned the remark as incitement and as an ignorant portrayal of Jews as responsible for the violence directed at them at a time when hate crimes are at historic highs. Others rushed to defend him, insisting he was not antisemitic and was merely criticizing “the Zionists,” even though the framing clearly targeted Jewish Americans as an entire group.

What stands out is the double standard applied only to Jews. Do Palestinian Americans or Muslim Americans who support Hamas, a Jihadist and fascist organization, invite violence upon themselves? Do Muslims who advocate for Sharia Law, including interpretations used to justify beheadings, mass rape, and other crimes against humanity, invite violence upon themselves? Do Chinese Americans who do not speak out against Beijing’s treatment of Uyghurs or Tibetans invite violence upon themselves? Do leftists or Iranians who support the Islamic Republic, the Cuban regime, or Maduro’s Venezuela invite violence upon themselves? Do Lebanese Americans in Dearborn, Michigan, who support Hezbollah invite violence upon themselves? Do Yemeni Americans who support the Houthis and their brutal, regressive ideology invite violence upon themselves?

The list can continue, yet one truth is unmistakable. There is a fixation on treating diaspora and American Jews as uniquely deserving of violence or hate crimes because of their perceived or actual views on a foreign policy issue. No other community is subjected to this logic. Never allow anyone to convince you that this has anything to do with the Palestinian people, their cause, or genuine pro‑Palestine advocacy.

[UN Watch @UNWatch]

🇸🇩 Sudan suffering:
150,000 killed
15,000,000 displaced
25,000,000 hungry

🇺🇳 U.N. General Assembly reaction:
0 resolutions
0 referrals to ICJ
0 emergency sessions

[Aizenberg @Aizenberg55]

🧵Another FAKE Gaza journalist exposed: According to the @pressfreedom (Committee to Protect Journalists) Assem Al-Barsh was an innocent journalist killed by an IDF sniper while simply going home. According to Hamas he was a commander in the Northern Brigade killed in action. 1/