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Microblogging like a boss. Posting about: #politics #ir #culture #philosophy #history #tech
Now, does that mean we should stay silent when blatant Jew-hatred or open calls for violence show up? Of course not.
We should absolutely call it out.
Take the band Kneecap, for instance: one of their members posed with a Hezbollah flag. That’s a clear endorsement of a designated terrorist group, and the backlash was warranted.
But when the situation is murkier, people deserve the benefit of the doubt.
In Bob Vylan’s case, the duo hasn’t explicitly backed any militant group (at least at the time of writing, to the best of my knowledge). They arguably called for the death of an institution—not a people—which could still be considered incitement against IDF soldiers. But labeling it "antisemitism" feels like a stretch, maybe even a cynical one.
Besides, let’s not pretend the IDF is some fragile minority group in need of protection. It’s a military force, arguably the most powerful and well armed in the region (short of the U.S.). It doesn’t need any shielding from some UK punk-rock fans. It can take care of itself just fine.
#music #israel #palesitne #gazawar #gaza #idf #uk
Rock, Punk, and to a certain extent even Hip Hop have always been rebellious at their core. A perfect example? Look no further than this 2009 clip: when the BBC invited Rage Against the Machine(RATM) to perform Killing in the Name live, and politely asked them not to swear.
Spoiler alert: It went exactly how you'd expect from a band best known for the line "Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me".
RATM's frontman, Zack de la Rocha screamed the uncensored chorus, the BBC panicked and cut the feed, and the moment instantly became a legendary act of musical defiance on live radio.
#music #history #uk #usa #bbc #ratm
NYT's word of the day (27.06.2025):
tchotchke
My parents actually use it multiple times. But usually they pronounce it "tzatzke" or in plural "tzatzkes".
Seems like amalgamation of Yiddish with Belarusian pronunciation, or maybe it's just some local Yiddish dialect for that area of Eastern Europe.
New York Times | #wordoftheday #TIL #usa #yiddish
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The European Union's own Brangelina. 🫡
CNN | #eu #france #germany #macron #merz #jk
🤣
📱 sygma.politics | #iran #israel #iranisraelwar #meme
The sentiment Al-Atrash expresses, about how relatively peaceful times allow artists to flourish, reminds me of this segment from the Beatles '64 documentary.
Lennon reflects on how the rise of the Beatles and other British Invasion bands was, in part, due to the vacuum left by the cancellation of conscription in the UK.
Of course, it's never that simple. War, and especially the resistance to it, can also inspire great art.
Just look at American music, literature and cinema in the 1960s and 70s, much of which was shaped by opposition to the Vietnam War. Even Lennon himself, though British, became deeply involved in that movement.
But still, Al-Atrash wasn’t claiming that art can’t be created during war. He seemed to suggest something subtler: that art born in peace might reach greater heights—and more importantly, that in wartime, we’ll never know how many great artists, musicians, or voices are lost to the machinery of conflict.
And in that sense, what Lennon said aligns perfectly: had conscription still been in place in the UK, groups like the Beatles might never have existed at all.
#history #music #uk #usa #egypt #syria #lebanon #lennon
Btw, 📱Farid al-Atrash was a Druze.
Al-Atrash was born in 1910, in Al-Qurayya, in southern Syria to the Druze princely al-Atrash family who fought the French colonial army.
His father was Syrian and his mother was Lebanese.
📱 @englishabuali:
Senior Iranian official sparks a "nuclear storm"
Mohsen Rezaee, Secretary of the Iranian regime’s Expediency Council, aged 70 (the one who suddenly decided👆 to wear a uniform), caused a stir when he said live on air: "Pakistan told us that if Israel drops an atomic bomb on Tehran, then Pakistan will use nuclear weapons against Israel."
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The Pakistanis were alarmed, and the Pakistani Defense Minister quickly issued a strong denial, clarifying that Pakistan is committed to all international nuclear treaties and that its nuclear capabilities are used solely for the benefit of the Pakistani people.
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From this you can certainly understand the immense distress among the Iranian regime members. Now is the time to step up the pace...
⚡️
🇮🇱🇮🇷 In a rare move, the Mossad has released footage showing its operational unit deploying strike systems intended to destroy Iranian air defence installations.
The videos show part of the covert operation that preceded Israel’s wider assault on Iranian military infrastructure.
#eu #hungary #russia #ukrainewar #meme #orban
📱@wfwitness:
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said Europe must negotiate with Russia from a position of strength, but warned that the EU is currently too weak and reliant on the United States. He stressed that only a strong Europe can reach a strategic agreement with Moscow.
⚡️🇮🇱🇵🇸The Israeli Foreign Ministry said on the X account that the activists aboard the Madleen will be returned to their home countries.
📱 Find the differences:
The progressive "Democracy Now!" vs. the conservative Sky News Australia posting their takes about Greta Thunberg.
#gretathunberg #israel #palestine #sweden #gaza #gazawar #gazaaid #democracynow #skynewsau #ppprotesters
My professor posted this two days ago on 📱.
While that's good for him making a stance... I must say that the choice to quote MLK Jr. is cringe.
The hostages are not "oppressed" by Netanyahu and his gov't, even if they're share the blame for not reaching the hostage deal.
The only ones who are oppressing the hostages are Hamas, who shouldn't have taken those hostages from the first place - an action that amounts to a war crime.
#hamaswarcrimes #israel #netanyahu #mlk #gazawar #hostages
Since the start of that invasion in February 2022, Russia has made more than three times as much money by exporting hydrocarbons than Ukraine has received in aid allocated by its allies.
Data analysed by the BBC show that Ukraine's Western allies have paid Russia more for its hydrocarbons than they have given Ukraine in aid.
🇺🇸🇷🇺
The Kremlin claimed Donald Trump was showing signs of "emotional overload" after he called Vladimir Putin "absolutely crazy" following Moscow's largest aerial assault on Ukraine.
The US president said on Truth Social on Sunday that "something has happened" to Putin, after Russia killed 13 in Ukraine with 367 drones and missiles. "He has gone absolutely crazy," Trump said. "Needlessly killing a lot of people."
Fast-forward to 2025, and the old F-bomb doesn't seem to shake the BBC anymore. Consider these lyrics Bob Vylan shouted on air:
I heard you want your country back
Shut the fuck up
I heard you want your country back
Uh-uh, you can't have that
I heard you want your country back
Shut the fuck up
My take on the whole Bob Vylan controversy
First of all, look at the pushback-
Glastonbury organizers:
We are appalled by the statements made from the West Holts stage by Bob Vylan yesterday. Their chants very much crossed a line and we are urgently reminding everyone involved in the production of the festival that there is no place at Glastonbury for antisemitism, hate speech or incitement to violence.
There is no excuse for this kind of appalling hate speech. I said that Kneecap should not be given a platform and that goes for any other performers making threats or inciting violence. The BBC needs to explain how these scenes came to be broadcast.
I thought it’s appalling, to be honest, and I think the BBC and Glastonbury have got questions to answer about how we saw such a spectacle on our screens.
I think it [the BBC] made a mistake here. It’s not good enough simply to say on screen that, you know, this is dodgy language. It was far beyond that and it shouldn’t have been broadcast live. And I think it would have been possible for the BBC to stop that.
Members of the British rap punk duo Bob Vylan had their visas revoked by the United States and are under investigation by local police after leading a crowd to chant “death” to Israel’s military at a UK music festival this past weekend.
Police have formally opened a criminal investigation into comments made by Bob Vylan and Kneecap at Glastonbury after reviewing video and audio footage of the performances.
I wanted to say "ok Google, turn off the light", but then realized that the light comes from the sun, and not from my smart lamp 🥲☀️
#tech
Some say that's how it really went
📱 officialeddiep/post/DLQ3vMExEwX?xmt=AQF0Ul_jNjEmxLL4YIWkkxWAw76NWFScGPOHQ-ToDf5RuA">officialeddiep | #israel #iran #usa #israeliranwar #ceasefire #meme #12daywar
Oh no, your Bibi is back 😳
#bibi #trump #netanyahu #israel #usa #jk
And here's a little bit more culture.
The great Farid Al-Atrash.
📱 believe.just.believe | #history #music #egypt #syria #peace
The Israeli breach inside Iran is something that will be studied for years to come. It’s clear they’ve been preparing and training for this operation for a long time testing Iran’s detection, analysis, and counterintelligence capabilities through previous incidents that were actually probes and dry runs.
Mossad operatives inside Iran aren’t just spies they function like a real military unit. Trained teams with Spike anti-tank missiles, loitering munitions, and precision-guided rocket systems.
The first wave of strikes came from sleeper cells targeting dozens of air defense sites in western Iran and near Tehran. These attacks completely wiped out radar arrays, allowing missiles to be launched from nearby without resistance.
Many have asked: what about S-300, Tor, or even the S-400 systems? The answer is simple none of them would’ve made a difference. This wasn’t a traditional airstrike. These were laser-guided ATGMs and miniature drones flying just meters above ground, possibly controlled via fiber optics to avoid jamming. Such systems are invisible to conventional air defense.
Iranian air defenses were helpless against small drones or man-launched guided missiles striking from close range.
Mossad teams also succeeded in destroying several surface-to-surface missile platforms before they could be launched. Israel appears to have a complete target bank for every Iranian missile base no room for error.
Once air defenses were neutralized, Israeli fighter jets entered uncontested skies. Not a single air defense missile was fired. Years of Iranian preparations missile factories, drone assembly plants, underground cities, and tunnels proved insufficient.
These events highlight once again how powerful inflitration and modern, short-range guided munitions can be.
The best response to this strike on YouTube so far
#iran #israel #usa #trump #israeliranwar
I'm actually pleasently surprised by our Israeli FM, that they didn't f-d it up in any way.
It least that's what it seems so far.
It's almost like a hobby of the Israeli foreign ministry to create a new diplomatic crisis or to make some other really bad foreign policy decision these days.
A hilarious thread in the comments under 📱@wfwitness’s post about the IDF retrieving Mohammad Sinwar’s body.
Some top-tier suggestions, plus one “🇮🇪🇵🇸 solidarity” activist coping really hard with the death of this mass murderer.
#fafo #sinwar #gazawar #sinwarbros #hamas #israel #idf #ireland #palestine #gaza
After President Trump's declaration 👆 that Iran will not be able to enrich uranium, this morning comes the clear Iranian public position, from the Supreme Leader of Iran himself:
We will not give up uranium enrichment.
We said to the American side: What is your connection to the Iranian nuclear program? The Iranian people will decide on this matter!
The fact that Ukraine was able to damage or destroy such a large number of Russia’s most advanced aircraft deep inside the country reflects the development of its deep-strike programme, as well as the remarkable extent to which Ukraine’s undercover operatives are now able to work inside Russia.
Today’s operation is likely to be ranked among the most important raiding actions in modern warfare.
BASED Olmert 🫡
From an interview by former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert with the Qatari Al Jazeera network tonight:
Gaza is Palestinian land and the Israeli army must leave it.
Expanding military activity in Gaza will not achieve any goal other than the potential for the loss of hostages and the killing of innocent Palestinians.
There is no compelling reason to continue the war.
The two-state solution, within the framework of which a Palestinian state will be established with East Jerusalem as its capital, is the only path to peace in the Middle East.
Smotrich and Ben Gvir are terrorists, they are the real enemies of Israel and I hope they are removed from the government soon.
Hamas, release the hostages. Stop the war. Israel, be released from Benjamin Netanyahu and far-right fundamentalists that twist your sacred texts.