Sophia Babai

Nabatiyeh is being completely razed to the ground by the Israelis. It was one of the largest cities in South Lebanon, around 100,000 people. Now around 150 families left there.

Video: www.instagram.com/p/DV0q4AbCBLB/

Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees

el-Sayed: "Imagine there was no war in Iran. Imagine if there were no air strikes in Lebanon. Imagine if his family had never died. Imagine there was never an attack on Temple Israel. That's the world that we want to live in. That's the world we need to build for. Violence always begets violence."

"n the coming weeks, a narrative is going to take hold. It'll be shaped in part by the very people who launched that war that led to those air strikes that killed those children that drove crazed attacker to violence against innocent people at a synagogue in Michigan".

" They'll tell us that some people are inherently evil. They'll tell us that the system of immigration that allowed him to come here should be dismantled. And they'll use it all to justify the war that created this in the first place."

"When the powerful pit us against each other, we all lose. When the powerful start wars, we can't know what the consequences will be. when we failed to ask why we miss the
opportunity to address the cycle of violence in the first place."

"We can and must condemn the attack on Temple Israel. And we can and must condemn the violence 6,000 miles away. And we can and must condemn the broken politics that allows leaders to make war that they pretend has no consequences."

It is somewhere between deeply amusing and blackly terrifying that Iran's shocking hardline ceasefire conditions which have everyone spinning into a "WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE" frenzy are just like, "fuck off and obey the law."

Like:
- give Netanyahu to the ICC
- leave Lebanon, Syria, Yemen
- withdraw to October 7 borders (not 1967, not 1948, just...October 7)
- lift sanctions, return frozen funds (aka IRAN'S MONEY)
- recognize Iran's EXISTING LEGAL RIGHTS to develop nuclear energy
- publicly apologize for Khameini

The only demands that are not simply "obey the law" are compensating Iran for sanctions (arguably also "obey the law," since the sanctions were rife with human rights abuses e.g. collective punishment and blocking medical supplies) and removing US military bases from Arab soil (admittedly a big one)

Also that the US and Israel promise not to attack again, which is... just... what a ceasefire agreement is.

There's this weird dissonance where, yeah, this are SHOCKING demands to make of the US and Israel! Usually "demands" to US and Israel devolve into constantly shrinking pleas to please just take a little less! It MASSIVELY speaks to what a tactical fuckup this war was that Iran's willing to say this!

And also they're demanding...nothing. They're not asking for land or resources or any money that isn't theirs. They're saying "go away, leave us alone" (and making a pretty grand statement re: the scope of "us") "and hey give the wanted war criminal to your own criminal court while you're at it"

Y'all keep making the Islamic Republic (who, let me once again emphasize because people love twisting this, *I do not like or support and indeed cannot visit my own country on account of*) look like the only adult in the room and it's so incredibly embarrassing.

Editing too! The number of hours I've spent *this week alone* hunting down payments that are anywhere from two to six years overdue...

I'm so hype for this!!! My friends and I are watching tomorrow.

Not that I want to compare the wholesale slaughter and displacement of Palestinians to the attacks on Iran, because both are horrific but the former is of course far worse, but the colonizer logic sure is similar.

Reminds me of how Zionists hoped more Palestinians would rise up against the '48 borders so they'd have an excuse to kill more people / take more land, and how they were particularly violent against villages that didn't rise up because they were angry not to have an excuse

I'm sorry you had to find out this way. Thoughts and prayers. 😔

Yeah I'm not clear what's horrifying or discombobulating if one looks at the actual foreign policy of the nations involved. The least reasonable thing Iran did was repeatedly attempt good-faith negotiations even after the US had repeatedly proven its complete unwillingness to honor them.

Y'all keep making the Islamic Republic (who, let me once again emphasize because people love twisting this, *I do not like or support and indeed cannot visit my own country on account of*) look like the only adult in the room and it's so incredibly embarrassing.

And also they're demanding...nothing. They're not asking for land or resources or any money that isn't theirs. They're saying "go away, leave us alone" (and making a pretty grand statement re: the scope of "us") "and hey give the wanted war criminal to your own criminal court while you're at it"

There's this weird dissonance where, yeah, this are SHOCKING demands to make of the US and Israel! Usually "demands" to US and Israel devolve into constantly shrinking pleas to please just take a little less! It MASSIVELY speaks to what a tactical fuckup this war was that Iran's willing to say this!

Also that the US and Israel promise not to attack again, which is... just... what a ceasefire agreement is.

The only demands that are not simply "obey the law" are compensating Iran for sanctions (arguably also "obey the law," since the sanctions were rife with human rights abuses e.g. collective punishment and blocking medical supplies) and removing US military bases from Arab soil (admittedly a big one)

Like:
- give Netanyahu to the ICC
- leave Lebanon, Syria, Yemen
- withdraw to October 7 borders (not 1967, not 1948, just...October 7)
- lift sanctions, return frozen funds (aka IRAN'S MONEY)
- recognize Iran's EXISTING LEGAL RIGHTS to develop nuclear energy
- publicly apologize for Khameini

It is somewhere between deeply amusing and blackly terrifying that Iran's shocking hardline ceasefire conditions which have everyone spinning into a "WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE" frenzy are just like, "fuck off and obey the law."

Wait but now I'm genuinely curious (not in an angry way; I just think of him as relatively well-documented)

Heartwrenching. Thank you for sharing.

\o/