Ralph Sommerer @ralphsom.bsky.social

Computer scientist -- amateur music producer -- left-leaning pundit

auch @[email protected]

[Ralph Sommerer @ralphsom.bsky.social @ralphsom]

@Math_files Are you a doctor?
Yes. Take two Aspirin and call again tomorrow.
I thought your doctorate is in computer science...
Ah.. sure, sorry! Press the ESC key twice and call again tomorrow.

[Ralph Sommerer @ralphsom.bsky.social @ralphsom]

@RnaudBertrand In Switzerland, RT isn't blocked nor is sharing RT-based content prohibited. Adults in the room and in the country at large...

[Shaiel Ben-Ephraim @academic_la]

Israel has already made sure that there will be one state. That debate is over. We need to make sure Palestinians have equal rights in it.

[Ori Goldberg @ori_goldberg]

I second

[Shaiel Ben-Ephraim @academic_la]

Hezbollah is an armed force that was created to counter the Israeli invasion of 1982. It has since been fed by repeated Israeli invasions, incursions and meddling. The best thing Israel can do to weaken Hezbollah is leave Lebanon alone and make it irrelevant. Everyone in Israel know that. But their goal is not to weaken Hezbollah. Its to dominate Lebanon. Hezbollah is useful for that as a tool in a divide and conquer strategy. Just as Hamas is used against the Palestinians.

[Shaiel Ben-Ephraim @academic_la]

We know Israel committed genocide. Jews are many things, but stupid is not one of them.

[Tom London @TomLondon6]

I'm Jewish, British & 64

All my life, I wondered how the Holocaust could have happened. I understood that Hitler & others were EVIL, but how did millions of ordinary people go along with it?

NOW, seeing how so many in the West rationalise & defend the Gaza Genocide, I feel I have an answer and it is profoundly disturbing

[Ralph Sommerer @ralphsom.bsky.social @ralphsom]

Solche "Double-Tap" Angriffe auf Hilfskräfte verübt Israel seit Jahren, aber natürlich ist das keine Schlagzeile wert, wohl weil braune Opfer nicht zählen. Der kleine Alltags-Rassismus. #israel #genozid @tagesanzeiger
https://t.co/PJPFd7G6Sl

[B'Tselem בצלם بتسيلم @btselem]

Israel is running a network of torture camps for Palestinians. Our reports, Welcome to Hell and Living Hell, extensively documented a reality of extreme violence, starvation, and torture.

Palestinian prisoners are subjected to severe violence, deliberate humiliation, starvation, sleep deprivation, denial of medical care, and abuse in every facility where they are held. 

These abusive practices are fully backed by the political leadership, which openly boasts about the harsh prison conditions. Some inmates are subjected to severe sexual assaults. 

At least 89 Palestinians have died in Israeli detention facilities since October 2023 as a result of inhumane conditions, violence, starvation, and the denial of medical treatment. 

Despite the extensive evidence, media investigations, and reports issued by Israeli and international organizations documenting torture in Israeli prisons, the international community continues to stand by and allow Israel to commit crimes against the Palestinian people. 

Link to the full report >>
Welcome to Hell: https://t.co/41rgbvFjCx

Living Hell: https://t.co/vHSdH4GFsG

[Ryan Grim @ryangrim]

Israel has killed more Palestinians since agreeing to a “ceasefire” than Israeli civilians who were killed on 10/7

[Ralph Sommerer @ralphsom.bsky.social @ralphsom]

@Osiwahn @ItakGol Das war Sarkasmus.

[Reuters @Reuters]

WARNING: DISTRESSING CONTENT
Israeli authorities are directly involved in settler attacks that have killed, injured and displaced Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, while Israeli security forces provide protection to settlers, a UN inquiry said https://t.co/mtUK0nycep

[Shaiel Ben-Ephraim @academic_la]

A B'Tselem video shows the moment before an IDF soldier shot Sam Abu Haikal, a 7-month-old, in his family's car in Hebron. The car slows and stops. Two soldiers stand meters away. After firing, they leave. Footage shows the family pulling out the bleeding infant. No soldier renders aid.

The IDF claimed the car was "accelerating toward" troops. The father, a Bethlehem University lecturer, says he stopped fully and raised his hands. One bullet went through his hand, the baby's face, and his wife's cheek, in daylight, at 7:30pm. Sam died. His mother is in intensive care, shrapnel near her heart, not yet told her son is dead.

Military Police have opened a criminal investigation. The defense establishment's own internal word for it: "very bad."

A source I talked to in the IDF told me that "this is an absolutely shocking event." But they believed that in the current environment "the investigation will go nowhere."

[Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand]

This is extraordinarily rare.

In fact, according to a key figure in the German business community (who is a dear friend of mine), it's unprecedented.

An op-ed, two pages, centerpiece, in Germany’s most important economic newspaper (the Handelsblatt) that begs the German establishment to stop looking at China via the prism of propaganda. And it's by their Shanghai bureau chief - not some outside contributor.

The title is "The China debate cannot continue like this!" and the article makes the case that it's suicidal, from a German and European standpoint, to keep reducing China to false caricatures rather than facts.

In effect it's rubbish in, rubbish out: if you tell people lies about China - whichever direction they go (anti or pro) - then obviously the policies that come out will be rubbish, designed for a mirage of a country that exists only in people's imagination.

Needless to say, this is absolutely music to my ears because it's literally the main point I've been making in my advocacy around China for now almost 10 years. Some are finally seeing the light...

I also believe, as I argued in my article "Are Western media turning China-friendly?" last year (https://t.co/Xg1hoSRtNy) that this type of coverage was bound to happen, and there will be more and more of it.

Why? For a very simple structural reason: China is now too powerful to coerce. The West, and Europe in particular, just don't have the leverage anymore. Which means that if you tell China to do something and they don't want to, they just won't do it. Period.

In this situation, incapable of coercing, your only remaining choice is... convincing. And what do you need if you want to convince someone? Well, you need to understand them: understand how they think, how they behave, what drives them, what they actually want.

In other words: the moment coercion stops being an option, not only does propaganda stop being useful, it begins to be actively harmful as genuine understand becomes a strategic necessity. Reality is finally becoming profitable again.

Which means, if you're a journalist reading this and you're peddling some of your usual lies, describing China as some sort of cartoonish dictatorial dystopia that's simultaneously on the verge of collapse yet a "threat" to the whole world (in short, if you write on China for The Economist or the FT), be on notice: the real threat to your country isn't China. It's you.

[Shaiel Ben-Ephraim @academic_la]

Israel was asked by Trump not to bomb Beirut. So what does it do instead? Order the evacuation of all of Tyre, the fourth biggest city in Lebanon, 12 kilometers from the border. This will be in addition to the 1.7 million or so displaced there so far.

[Double Down News @DoubleDownNews]

"What's happening in Gaza is a Holocaust and what's being designed by the Israeli government is the final solution to the Palestinian problem. As a Holocaust survivor my reaction is not in my name."

Holocaust survivor Stephen Kapos

[Shaiel Ben-Ephraim @academic_la]

The baby has been pronounced dead. Another day, another baby murdered by genocidal Israel.

[Shaiel Ben-Ephraim @academic_la]

While the international community talks about a two-state solution, Israel is doing this. Stop pretending and fight this evil.

[Ralph Sommerer @ralphsom.bsky.social @ralphsom]

If your quality control sucks, sue competitors! #Fender #FenderControversy
https://t.co/K9GHOYXCSm

[Haaretz.com @haaretzcom]

The Israeli occupation's appetite for more knows no bounds | Opinion https://t.co/YPXPyU67J0