Image is of destruction and damage inside Israel, sourced from this article.

Iran and Israel have struck each other many times over the last few days. There has been a general focus on military facilities and headquarters by both sides, though Israel has also struck oil facilities, civilian structures and hospitals, and in return for this, Iran has struck major scientific centers and the Haifa oil facilities.

Israel appears to have three main aims. First, to collapse the Iranian state, either through shock and breakdown by killing enough senior officials, or via some sort of internal military coup. Second, to try and destroy Iranian nuclear sites and underground missile cities, or at least to paralyze them long enough to achieve the first and third goals. And third, to bring the US into a direct conflict with Iran. This is because the US better equipped to fight them than Israel is (though victory would still not be guaranteed depending on what Iran chooses to do).

Iranian nuclear facilities are hidden deep underground (800 meters), far beyond the depth range of even the most powerful bunker busters (~70 meters or so), and built such that the visible ground entrances are horizontally far away in an unknown direction from the actual underground chambers. Only an extremely competent full-scale American bombing force all simultaneously using multiple of the most powerful conventional (perhaps even nuclear) bunker busters could even hypothetically hope to breach them (and we have seen how, in practice, American bunker busters have largely failed to impair or deter Ansarallah). There are several analysts on both sides who have concluded that it is entirely impossible to physically prevent Iran from building nukes.

I fully expect the US to join the war. I believe the current ambiguity is a deliberate invention of the US while they work to move their military assets into position, and as soon as they are ready, the US will start bombing Iran. After that, Iran’s leadership must - if they haven’t already - harden their hearts, and strike back with no fear, or risk following the path of Libya, Syria, and Iraq, either into either surrender, occupation, or annihilation. Every day where they do not possess a nuke is a day where lives are being lost and cities are being bombed.

Last week’s thread is here.
The Imperialism Reading Group is here.

Please check out the RedAtlas!

The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.

Israel-Palestine Conflict

If you have evidence of Israeli crimes and atrocities that you wish to preserve, there is a thread here in which to do so.

Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:

UNRWA reports on Israel’s destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.

English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news.
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.

English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.

Russia-Ukraine Conflict

Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict

Sources:

Defense Politics Asia’s youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don’t want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it’s just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists’ side.

Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.

Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:

Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.

https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR’s former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR’s forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster’s telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a ‘propaganda tax’, if you don’t believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.

Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:

Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.

            • departee [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
              2·
              11 hours ago

              Thanks!

              This had me kinda jesse-wtf especially since I literally couldn’t find any english source other than the tweet. I did manage to find a clip though (you can find longer clips if you search “Лукашенко гея” on youtube)

              There’s no captions but with google translate it’s pretty clear he’s saying there’s nothing wrong with gays, but LGBT propaganda should never be accepted. This is of course more in line with previous statements of his and what Putin has said on the issue.

              There’s a lot to be optimistic about in Belarus and Russia but they didn’t suddenly reverse course on gay rights, and I feel like thats not likely to change in years or even decades. If something is too strange to be true it probably isn’t! I still enjoyed the clip though haha

              • vovchik_ilich [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
                1·
                11 hours ago

                especially since I literally couldn’t find any english source other than the tweet

                The same thing happened to me, I had to look through my comment history to find the post because 4 google searches didn’t give any results.

                I agree, I don’t expect a woke and gay Lukashenko, it was just a funny moment.

                There’s a lot to be optimistic about in Belarus and Russia

                What do you mean exactly by this? I’m afraid I don’t see it that way and I would love to get some positive stuff

                • departee [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
                  1·
                  9 hours ago

                  The fact that they’re serious about multipolarity and breaking away from western hegemony. Okay maybe it’s just this one thing and I shouldn’t have said a lot haha. But the fact that the largest country on earth, together with China, forms a separate economic base can’t be overstated. Even if their position has been kind of forced upon them by realpolitik.

                  Could Iran ever have come this far without Russia and China? Of course their outlook is bleak right now, but regardless of the outcome of the war, countries in the Sahel will still need trading partners, countries in Latin America will still need them, as will any country which undergoes a socialist or anti imperialist revolution.

                  Imperialism is the primary contradiction. In terms of social policy, I feel like the reactionary trends in much of the global south can be explained by the cold war dynamics of the combination of progressive forces being defeated, and pink imperialism, leading to anti-imperialist movements drawing from local conservative currents. If those external forces fade away there’s much less stopping local activism from achieving reform. Sure communism would still require a revolution, but even that would be more possible if western hegemony is weakened.

                  • vovchik_ilich [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
                    1·
                    6 hours ago

                    Yeah no, of course I’m happy about multipolarity and the support of Russia and China for development in the global south, I completely share your analysis. I guess that’s as far as it goes with my hopes towards Russia. Maybe when the west goes fascist they’ll go woke out of spite? Hahaha

                    For China I have greater hopes. I really want to see the day when China, as the strongest hegemon in the world, starts to support communist movements all over. If I get to see that during my lifetime I will forgive everything China has done in terms of “allying” with western empires.