AnarchoBolshevik

Colonel Ehsan Daqsa, 41, was killed after his tank and another tank were hit by explosive devices during military operations in Jabalia refugee camp.

Another Israeli soldier was seriously wounded during the same incident.

Daqsa has been described in Israeli media as one of the most senior officers to have been killed since the war on Gaza began over a year ago.

He became commander of the 401st brigade in June.

The 41-year-old is from Daliyat al-Karmel, a Druze town in Israel's Haifa district. He enlisted in Israel's armoured corps in 2001.

Haaretz reported that he was considered to be a prominent and respected field comamnder within the […] army.

In the 2006 Lebanon War, Daqsa commanded an independent armoured force under the Paratroopers Brigade.

The Israeli military has published the names of over 750 troops killed since the war began in October last year, including more than 350 who were killed during ground operations in Gaza.

At least 43 Israeli troops have been killed in attacks and ground operations on the northern front of the war along the Lebanese border.

No comment.

Prepare to be unimpressed.

(Mirror.)

Flug, the former Bank of Israel governor and now vice-president of research at the Israel Democracy Institute, says there is a risk the […] government cuts investment to free up resources for defense. “That will reduce the potential growth (of the economy) going forward,” she said.

Researchers at the Institute for National Security Studies are similarly downbeat.

Even a withdrawal from Gaza and calm on the border with Lebanon would leave Israel’s economy in a weaker position than before the war, they said in a report in August. “Israel is expected to suffer long-term economic damage regardless of the outcome,” they wrote.

“The anticipated decline in growth rates in all scenarios compared to pre-war economic forecasts and the increase in defense expenditures could exacerbate the risk of a recession reminiscent of the lost decade following the Yom Kippur War.”

Related: Occupation’s GDP growth revised down to 0.3% as war on Palestinians takes economic toll:

Israel’s economy grew slower in the second quarter than previously thought, data showed on Tuesday, as [the] war in Gaza […] continued to weigh on growth.

Gross domestic product (ILGDP=ECI), opens new tab rose by an annualised 0.3 in the April–June period, the Central Bureau of Statistics said in its third estimate, down from 0.7% reported a month ago and from an initial 1.2% published in August.

The economy was supported by gains in consumer and state spending and in investment in fixed assets, while exports fell.

Last week, the Bank of Israel trimmed its […] economic growth estimate in 2024 to 0.5% from a prior estimate of 1.5%.

Along with a weakening economy, inflation has spiked and central bank officials have warned of possible interest rate increases. It held rates steady last week for a sixth straight policy meeting.

First-quarter GDP growth was unrevised at 17.2%, as the economy bounced back from a steep contraction in the fourth quarter of 2023 when the war began.

Oh no.

We affirm that these sacrifices will continue to illuminate our path and drive us to more resilience and steadfastness. Hamas remains committed to the promise of its founding leaders and martyrs until the aspirations of our people are fully realized: the complete liberation and return, and the establishment of the Palestinian state on the entire national soil with Al-Quds as its capital, by Allah’s will. This will become a curse upon the invading occupiers who are strangers to this land.

Our great people, our Arab and Islamic nations and the free people of the world: The martyrdom of Brother Leader Yahya Al-Sinwar, along with all the leaders and icons of the movement who preceded him on the path of honor, martyrdom and the project of liberation and return, will only strengthen Hamas and our resistance, making us more determined and steadfast in following their path, honoring their blood and sacrifices. A movement that offers its leaders and members as martyrs in defense of the rights of its people is a noble, genuine movement deeply rooted in its people.

To those lamenting the captured occupiers held by the resistance, we say: They will not return except with the cessation of aggression on Gaza, its withdrawal and the release of our heroic prisoners from the occupation’s jails. We continue in the path of Hamas, and the spirit of Al-Aqsa Flood will remain a living flame in the hearts of our people. We remain faithful to your pledge, Abu Ibrahim, and your banner will never fall but will remain high and proudly raised.

Peace be upon you, Abu Ibrahim, the humble, devout and pious man. Peace be upon you, the prisoner. Peace be upon you, the fighter. Peace be upon you, the martyr. Peace be upon you, for history will record that you wrote the first line in the war of liberation and the end of the occupation. May Allah have mercy on you and grant you the highest place in paradise with the prophets, the truthful ones, the martyrs and the righteous, and what excellent companions they are. And it is a jihad of victory or martyrdom.

Following the reading of these demands and the statement that preceded them, the community heard from three more speakers. The first speaker represented SUNY Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions and she connected her experience as a student activist in the 1980s pushing for divestment from South African apartheid to the current struggle to push for divestment from Israel.

The second speaker represented the No CAS Cuts movement (budget cuts to the College of Arts and Sciences) and connected the crackdown on the humanities — including the firing of staff and cancellation of classes — to the current crisis of end-stage capitalism.

The final speaker represented the Buffalo branch of Workers World Party and spoke about his time as a member of YAWF (Youth Against War and Fascism) fighting against Vietnam war recruitment activities on campus. He closed his speech by pointing out a connection between the U.S. military and how college campuses are complicit in [neo]imperialism.

China does not want war. China wants peace. It wants to continue its development in peace. It wants to help the world develop in peace, especially the people of the Global South who have been the big victims of imperialism and colonialism. It wants to help them, but [neo]imperialism does not want peace. It doesn’t want China to develop in peace. It doesn’t want the world that it does not control to develop, and this is the problem.

And what this murder in Beirut tells us — and there have been almost 1,000 people who have been murdered in Lebanon over the past couple of weeks — and the genocide in Gaza, what it tells us is that [neo]imperialism is willing to go to almost any length, unimaginable lengths of violence and terror to maintain its empire, which is crumbling.

They are willing to flirt with World War Three, which could mean the end of all life on the planet Earth. And you know, when an empire is crumbling, that’s when it’s most desperate and dangerous. That’s when it’s most likely to resort to violence. And this is what we are witnessing, comrades.

There are some in the ruling class here who are afraid of war, a wider war, a world war. They don’t think the U.S. will win. As a matter of fact they think it would hasten the demise of [neo]imperialism. And we think that they are right about that, and they’d like to maintain U.S. hegemony by other means. But whatever that is for the ruling class, they are losing. They’re not in the driver’s seat.

It’s the warmongers who are in the driver’s seat. So we see the people rising up all over the world against the empire. We see the people demonstrating in the streets over the murder of the leader of Hezbollah. Actually, as I was leaving home, I saw on social media that there was a demonstration of thousands of people in Baghdad. They had entered the Green Zone and were trying to get into the U.S. Embassy.

There are people demonstrating everywhere, around the world and particularly in West Asia. It shows you that — this is a hunch — they’re not going to take it by lying down. As a matter of fact, it’s going to wave off the mere resistance and, of course, the countries that are under attack, in particular China, that are in the crosshairs of [neo]imperialism, are going to fight back to defend themselves. They can defend themselves.

But we have to ask ourselves this. Are we going to just leave it up to people in other places, to China, they’re willing to do it, they’ll do what they have to do, but are we just going to leave it up to them? Especially those of us who happen to be at the center of world imperialism, particularly here in the U.S. which they used to call the belly of the beast. We can’t do that. That’s not right.

We have to seriously consider what our responsibilities as anti-imperialist revolutionaries are, and we have to show them those responsibilities, and then […] we gotta do whatever it takes. You see, the people of the world, they’re demanding this of us. History is demanding us. Save this planet if it could talk, is demanding this of us, that we do whatever is necessary, however we need to do it. However long it takes, and it doesn’t have to take too long for the anti-war and anti-imperialist forces to get so big and so strong that we can shut the world down to stop war. What real choice do we have?

We’ve got to get away from complacency if that’s an issue. I know that there are those of us who do whatever we are doing on a day-to-day basis, whenever we can. We’ve got to get away from our routine — what they call routinism. It’s almost like a semi-conscious feeling that, yes, that needs to be done, but somebody else can do it.

Sometimes, I think we have a partial kind of disconnect, a partial, you know, denial of what’s happening. Perhaps we can feel somewhat powerless, but all things we’ve got to push aside now, we got to push them aside, and we got to figure out what we are going to do.

I think, I’m not sure, that comrade Maduro in Venezuela, a couple of months ago, called for an international united front against [neo]imperialism. Not sure if it’s just something that he floated, or whether it’s real and how he’s following up on that. But I’ll tell you comrades, if there was ever a time for that, and I’m not talking about just a name — he seems to have a name — I’m talking about something flesh and blood and strength and power that’s real. If there was ever a time for that, it’s now.

I’m thinking about our own plan. The BRICS countries are meeting in Russia in the last week of October. And that’s good. People have talked about … and we can talk about that. But again we can’t just leave it up to the BRICS to push [neo]imperialism back, to marginalize it, to diminish its hegemony. We’ve got to do something! The masses have to do something. The working class has to do something decisive. And a lot of us are convinced that they can. And those who are not convinced, better get with it.

For the first time, the criminal U.S. government is deploying a THAAD air defense system to the zionist entity to assist in defense “against an Iranian attack.” Along with the THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) battery, dozens of U.S. soldiers will be deployed to install and operate it.

Despite unlimited U.S. support, the deployment of such a system reveals a weakness in the zionist entity; its existing and extensive air defense systems deployed throughout occupied Palestine are not enough to counter seemingly limitless missiles and drones that rain down on all fronts.

It is evidence that the Iranian operation was effective and precise and had that not been the case, the system would not have been delivered, as “israel” is incapable of repelling a larger attack.

Lea Kayali, a Palestinian Youth Movement organizer said: “I come to you all in a state of mourning, but not in a state of despair. Because to be Indigenous is to embody the word ‘sumud,’ a word in Arabic that means steadfastness. To be sumud is to insist with our bodies and our spirits that we will resist colonialism with every moment of our lives. […] It is the strength of this movement of five centuries of anticolonial struggle that is a promise of liberation. […] From Turtle Island to Palestine, we demand Land Back and nothing less!”

To close the rally, demonstrators joined hands to participate in a traditional round dance to commemorate Indigenous Peoples Day and give expression to the ongoing resistance and resilience of Indigenous peoples around the world.

Jean-Luc Pierrite said, in his closing remarks on the strike line: “We are here for all our [Indigenous] relations. We are here for our workers. We are here! Make them pay! Land back!”

The school’s founder, psychologist Matthew Israel, patented a remote-controlled device called the Graduated Electronic Decelerator (GED). The FDA banned the use of the device, but JRC successfully overturned the ban in court. After Congress empowered the FDA to ban such shocks as behavioral therapy, the agency is working towards a new ban.

FDA ban proposal

The FDA wrote in its ban proposal, “These devices present a number of psychological risks including, depression, anxiety, worsening of underlying symptoms, development of post-traumatic stress disorder and physical risks such as pain, burns and tissue damage.”

JRC students with intellectual disabilities are particularly vulnerable, the FDA notes, because it may be difficult for them to communicate about pain or other harms they experience from the shocks.

School staff members administer electric shocks through electrodes attached to a student’s arm, leg or torso to cause a change in their behavior. According to their website (judgerc.org), “A highly trained and experienced staff member skillfully opens a plastic box and presses a button causing two seconds of safe electrical current.” Students wear up to five of the electrodes, even while sleeping,

JRC is the only program in the U.S. that uses electric shocks to control behavior. The center compares the shock to a bee sting, but survivors of JRC have testified that it causes severe, lingering muscle cramps. According to its website, JRC is “licensed to serve ages five through adult.” It has used the device on minors, but states that it now delays shocks until age 18. Each student’s shock program is approved by psychologists and by the Bristol County Probate Court.

In 2010, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, Manfred Nowak, referred to the use of electrical shock devices for this kind of therapy as torture and sent an urgent appeal to the U.S. government to investigate.

Israel claimed that there are no negative side effects from skin shock. Professor Nancy Weiss, co-author of a book on the Rotenberg Center, responded that people who have experienced the shock at JRC describe it as the worst pain they have ever felt, and years later still have debilitating PTSD. “Electric shocks are not a professionally accepted approach to behavior management. […] You’re not allowed to use electric shock on prisoners, or prisoners of war or convicted terrorists.”

The JRC responds that using electric shock is “a treatment of last resort” for residents who harm themselves, but their court-approved programs allowed harmless behaviors to be shocked, including hand-flapping, standing up without permission, taking their eyes off of their work, nagging, disobeying orders or making noises.

(Emphasis original.)

The school district says that it has a $100 million deficit. Parents reply that there has been little communication about how the district plans to do this. Seattle certainly has enough billionaires and corporate wealth that it’s absurd that there’s not enough money for schools.

All Together for Seattle Schools, a community opposition organization, has pointed out that the state has $1.2 billion in excess tax revenues that could also solve Seattle Public Schools’ budget crisis. All Together has held two big protest rallies of parents, students and teachers outside John Stanford school district headquarters.

Faced with the opposition, the district has now reduced its threat to close five schools instead of 20, but parents argue this could be the first of many closures and cuts that are still planned.

One of the schools facing the threat is the Licton Springs K-8 school (kindergarten to 8th grade), which houses the program set up for Indigenous students, who have spoken out at school board meetings in opposition.

One of the organizers, Jonas, speaking to the demonstrators and the media, explained that the administration had refused one of the meetings they had promised last spring. In another broken promise, it refused to release information about new investments. The administration held only one of the three meetings they promised. And it maintained university punishments of some of the students, including Jonas.

The students demanded that the administration hold to the agreement it made with them last spring. This included providing details about all new investments so students could screen them.

Now the students demand FIT set up a screen for further investments so they invest no new money in military corporations supplying arms to Israel; all charges against students dropped, no suspensions or arrests; a referendum on divestment from companies engaged with […] apartheid; and divestment from companies that used forced prison labor at “slave” wages. Students demand that FIT President Joyce Brown make a statement condemning the genocide […] in Gaza.

Showing the development of students’ politics, chants were not only to “stop the genocide!” but “long live the Intifada!” and “liberation for Palestine!”

If FIT students give a fair measure of the mood on campuses in general, student solidarity with Palestine is refusing to diminish and attitudes are sharpening while the U.S.-funded genocidal war expands in West Asia.

Boeing is up to its neck in problems, facing three things: a powerful strike, a mounting pile of production and financial troubles and anger over Boeing’s rôle as a producer of weapons used against Palestine and the Arab World. There is a growing outcry against the company for its anti-labor attacks and its genocidal role in the war on the people of Palestine. People are protesting Boeing worldwide.

District 751 Local I President Bruce McFarland said: “What do the Boeing Machinists want? It’s simple. We want what was taken from us 10 years ago when we were pressured into a contract that took away our pension, forced us into a stagnating wage package and raised our medical bills.” (Seattle Times, Oct. 11)

The previous contract, when the union made concessions, has meant that entry level workers are barely making $21 an hour. McFarland described an avalanche of Boeing and state government maneuvers and threats which essentially forced a regressive contract down the workers’ throats. This included a wholesale moving of much of Boeing airplane production from Seattle to a non-union plant in South Carolina.

This was a stinging defeat for the Machinists, but now they are back on their feet to fight again — like so many other workers.

With negotiations at an impasse, Boeing has announced job cuts affecting 10% of its workforce. These cuts are company-wide and involve supervisory as well as hourly workers.