Tom Seligman

[Tom Seligman @tom_seligman]

Very excited to get my chance — just in time — to vote for @andrewfeinstein. 🥳 Berlin, Camden and the world for FEINSTEIN!

[Aaron Maté @aaronjmate]

From Graham's mouth to God's ears:

[Simon Seligman @oybat]

The magic released from silicon valley’s grip.

[Nina Turner @ninaturner]

“Dissent must never lead to disorder” - President Biden.

From Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter From Birmingham Jail,” written in 1963:

“I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can't agree with your methods of direct action;" who paternalistically feels he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a "more convenient season."

[Alon Mizrahi @alon_mizrahi]

Bear in mind: this is happening in the most liberal states in America - New York, California, and Mesechusets, under a Democrat president and with a Democrat majority in the Senate.

You can talk all day long about the failings of the two-party system, but it should be exceedingly clear to anyone that the Democratic party is not a power for progress in the US, but a party for oppression and severe political regression. It is the main instrument of kleptocracy and Zionocracy.

People who have the slightest bit of morality and dignity in them should sever all ties to the Democratic party. They should consider existing 3rd options, organize to create new ones, or take time out from formal political activity.

If you want freedom and equality, the democratic party is your enemy. Be courageous enough to admit it.

There are many millions of young voters in the US who would naturally vote Democrat. They mustn't do that now. It is in their best interest (and indeed humanity's), to make sure Democrats lose power in a big, bad, and major way.

Let the coming second Trump era galvanize a new wave of political opposition and awareness in the US. An authentic one, not a fake and monstrous Fetterman and Schumer one.

The Democrats are the main obstacle to that right now, because they just suck the life out of the opposition, and use this harvested energy to provide the system with the stability it needs to carry on the obnoxious charade.
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Go on and create an encampment outside of the current political game. The Democratic party is killing you as much as it is killing Gaza's children.

Let Trump rule, take over the counter-movement, and rip the political and cultural rewards from a position of power. This is the only way forward.

They use Trump to silence, imprison, and deter you. Reclaim Trump as an asset for the cause.
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Take the blame for Trump's second presidency with pride. When they wave fingers at you with this accusation, answer with all the quest assurance of a nuclear fusion:

'You should not have supported the mass murder of Gaza's children, and you should not have sent the police to brutalize me and my friend on our campuses, and you should not have vetoed any chance of a ceasefire. Now shut up'.

[Barnett R. Rubin @BRRubin]

Students feel very unsafe at this university. https://t.co/KXsol2Wrct

[Ryan Grim @ryangrim]

Also @Hind_Gaza confirmed this is happening: the IDF has quadcopters luring people to them with recordings of the sound of women and children screaming, then firing on them

[Tom Seligman @tom_seligman]

The road to WW3 (and other entirely unnecessary evils) is paved with drivel like this. (Note the sub-heading too.)

[Samah Sabawi @gazaheart]

BREAKING: a truck full of "grave concerns" was intercepted at the Rafah crossing. Eye witnesses say the Egyptian officers stopped the truck when they noticed it stunk. Upon opening it, they found the grave concerns had expired months ago. Were these "grave concerns" yours @AlboMP or were they sent by your friend @JustinTrudeau? In either case, maybe next time, don't send the people of Gaza expired sentiments. They've been through enough already. #Gaza_Genocide

[Jonathan Cook @Jonathan_K_Cook]

UNRWA is separate from the UN’s main refugee agency, the UNHCR, and deals only with Palestinian refugees.

Although Israel does not want you to know it, the reason for there being two UN refugee agencies is because Israel and its western backers insisted on the division back in 1948.

Why? Because Israel was afraid of the Palestinians falling under the responsibility of the UNHCR’s forerunner, the International Refugee Organisation. The IRO was established in the immediate wake of the Second World War in large part to cope with the millions of European Jews fleeing Nazi atrocities.

Israel did not want the two cases treated as comparable, because it was pushing hard for Jewish refugees to be settled on lands from which it had just expelled Palestinians. Part of the IRO’s mission was to seek the repatriation of European Jews. Israel was worried that very principle might be used both to deny it the Jews it wanted to colonise Palestinian land and to force it to allow the Palestinian refugees to return to their former homes.

So in a real sense, UNRWA is Israel’s creature: it was set up to keep the Palestinians a case apart, an anomaly...

Israel’s efforts to get rid of UNRWA are not new. They date back many years. For a number of reasons, the UN refugee agency is a thorn in Israel’s side – and all the more so in Gaza.

Not least, it has provided a lifeline to Palestinians there, keeping them fed and cared for, and providing jobs to many thousands of local people in a place where unemployment rates are among the highest in the world.

It has invested in infrastructure like hospitals and schools that make life in Gaza more bearable, when Israel’s goal has long been to make the enclave uninhabitable.

UNRWA’s well-run schools, staffed by local Palestinians, teach the children their own history, about where their grandparents once lived, and of Israel’s campaign of dispossession and ethnic cleansing against them. That runs directly counter to the infamous Zionist slogan about the Palestinians’ identity-less future: “The old will die and the young forget.”

But UNRWA’s role is bigger than that. Uniquely, it is the sole agency unifying Palestinians wherever they live, even when they are separated by national borders and Israel’s fragmentation of the territory it controls.

UNRWA brings Palestinians together even when their own political leaders have been manipulated into endless factionalism by Israel’s divide and rule policies: Hamas is nominally in charge in Gaza, while Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah pretends to run the West Bank.

In addition, UNRWA keeps alive the moral case for a Palestinian right of return – a principle recognised in international law but long ago abandoned by western states.

Even before October 7, UNRWA had become an obstable that needed removing if Israel was ever to ethnically cleanse Gaza. That is why Israel has repeatedly lobbied to stop the biggest donors, especially the US, funding UNRWA.

Back in 2018, for example, the refugee agency was plunged into an existential crisis when President Donald Trump acquiesced to Israeli pressure and cut all its funding. Even after the decision was reversed, the agency has been limping along financially.

You can read more from my latest article In waging war on the UN refugee agency, the West is openly siding with Israeli genocide here:
https://t.co/31iUb2ZLUd

[Edwin Hayward @edwinhayward]

Wow. Just wow. An entire section dedicated to the war we're not in.

The Telegraph: New lows plumbed daily.

[Oukham @OPteemyst]

@elonmusk do be do be do

[Tom Seligman @tom_seligman]

Two wonderful family concerts with the superb Konzerthausorchester Berlin before Christmas @KonzerthausBer1 were an absolute highlight of my musical year. Masquerading thanks to @annaclyne; mamboing thanks to @danyaldhondy; and a magical time with Prokofiev #Cinderella.

[Tom Seligman @tom_seligman]

Danke, liebes @KonzerthausBer1 Orchester. Unsere zwei #Familienkonzerte vor Weihnachten waren für mich das i-tupfelchen des musikalischen Jahres. Ich glaube, auch für die vielen Menschen jeden Alters, die da waren! Ein #Mambo mit #Achenputtel — nie zu vergessen.

[Hussain Abdul-Hussain @hahussain]

Sara is a friend and a fellow Iraqi-Lebanese. Thanks for your comment, Sara. My response:
1- No amount of injustice that has befallen Palestinians and the Arabs, whether since 1948, 1936, or 1882, can ever justify killing 1,400 Israelis in cold blood or keeping 244 of them hostages (both acts are war crimes).
2- If we're discussing history, why stop at 1948? Jewish migration and establishment of communities started in 1882 to Turkish provinces in the south Levant. Until today, there is real estate owned by the Jewish agency in Lebanese Kfarkila (and other Lebanese territory) on the border with Israel. Before the British took a few Turkish provinces and created Palestine, Arabs in that land were engaged in a debate with the Zionists (correspondence and such), urging them not to migrate. One of the Khalidis wondered in his book why European Jews would migrate to an arid and God forsaken.
What did the Zionists think? They thought if they gave those Arabs a modern economy (infrastructure, capital, colleges), the Arabs will like them and live with them in the same country. What did the Arabs do? They refused Jewish migration, and in 1936 started their first wave of violence against them (notice, they called it the Great Arab, not Palestinian, Revolt -- you'd have to wait until 1964 for these Arabs to call themselves Palestinian). When Arabs and Jews went to 1939 London Conference (Arabs refused to talk to Zionists face-to-face), the Zionists said let's share a binational state with some Jewish self governance or autonomy. The Arabs said no, Palestine will be Arab ONLY, and you Jews will be treated nicely like the Jewish minority in Iraq. (i.e. no equal rights). The Jews refused, and when the mandate ended in 1948, they declared Israel. The UN said share the land. What did the Arabs do? Share? No. Violence.
I can go on discussing "the context," but will conclude by saying that, in the Mideast, there are 400 million Arabs (majority Muslims) and only 7 million Jews. We have 21 states, they have 1. Our language, heritage, religion are all practiced and passed on to our off springs. Without a Jewish state, their culture and language will shrink to pre-Zionist levels, near extinction.
Also, notice that as Arabs, we never demonstrated the will or ability to treat non-Arabs or non-Muslims as equals in our states. Look at the Kurds in Iraq and Syria. Look at the Copts in Egypt. The Druze and Alawites of Lebanon and Syria hide their faith and pretend to be Muslim. The Druze and Alawites of Israel are more open about their beliefs. Bahaiis are persecuted in Iran and thrive in Israel.
Until we can present states built on liberty, equality and freedom for Muslims and non-Muslims alike, we MUST let non-Muslims and non-Arabs have their own states in which they practice their own culture, pass it on to their children. Real estate? Who cares about those arid hills of the West Bank? I know I don't. Give me knowledge, give me opportunity, my heritage is not under threat, so why fight for one more sovereign (most likely failing) state?
All my best.

[Hussain Abdul-Hussain @hahussain]

Many many years ago, I learnt Hebrew out of curiosity, and in a bid to penetrate into a world that I once thought was evil and conspiring against Arabs and Muslims. Once in, I was surprised how wrong I was, how wrong almost every Arab and Muslim around me was.
These days, I watch Hebrew networks (and Arabic ones). There is a lot of Israeli pain over those who were killed on 10/7, agony of those who survived, and anxiety over those who are held hostage by Hamas. A lot of tears, now mixing with tears over fallen soldiers fighting in Gaza.
The thing about all this Israeli pain is that it is almost exclusively in Hebrew. The world does not see Israelis hurt, does not hear them cry. The world sees Israel as fighter jets raining death to punish those who killed them from 15000 feet above ground. The world only sees and hears pain coming from Gaza, and the world always takes the side of the underdog, even when the underdog is guilty. One billion Muslims certainly have a much louder voice than 20 million Jews, and the world will always blame Israel, even when Palestinians started the carnage.
And that's exactly why Israelis are fighting the fight of their lives. They understand that the world is an unfair place, and that they cannot rely on non-existent international justice or biased global opinion.
I wish I had a magic wand to make fellow Arabs, and the rest of the world, see what I see. There will never be peace without justice, and using our numbers (Muslims) to impose our narrative is one way to try to beat Israel, but not the way to peace. My voice will dissent. I want peace, and peace is incumbent on winning the trust of those we want to live in peace with, not keeping on instigating the world against them.

[Tom Seligman @tom_seligman]

@RussInCheshire He certainly didn’t write it, and probably barely read it.

[Amir @amireloush]

@georgegalloway Create plausible deniability to delay and dilute outrage. Then later admit it was “likely” them, in some obscure column, once it’s blown over.
Straight from the playbook.
This particular lie was used - almost verbatim - back in 2022. Policy? ⬇️

[Tom Seligman @tom_seligman]

‘After a lengthy investigation which lasted 37 minutes, the Israel Defence Forces have established the Al-Ahli Arabi Baptist hospital was blown up by a wayward meteorite…’ https://t.co/aR7kIDjZfG

[Saul Staniforth @SaulStaniforth]

"I think its a kind of brutish harassment... as if my wife did not have enough to worry about"

British surgeon @GhassanAbuSitt1, who is treating patients in the Gaza strip, explains the police went round to his house in the UK yesterday and harassed his family.