Amazing news!

NEW: Ten years after the Islamic State group executed Khaled al-Asaad, the “father of Palmyra,” his family recalls the man who gave his life to protect Syria’s greatest archaeological treasure. Cian Ward reports for @newlinesmag.bsky.social. newlinesmag.com/spotlight/sy...

Despite New Western Recognition of Palestine, the Israeli Gov’t is Coming for the West Bank

i do not often use the phrase "comically inept" but if you are the envoy to an arab-majority country you should probably be aware of a little word called "islam"

The arguments minimizing death counts and civilian casualties in Israel’s war on Gaza were obvious bullshit at the time. The arguments got more ghoulish and divorced from reality as the war progressed. I don’t think anyone ever believed them, they just went with whatever was useful at the time.

This photo is everything!! (Alaa with his remarkable mother Dr. Laila Soueif, who spent nearly 300 days on hunger strike to secure her son's release)

This photo of Alaa Abdel Fattah's smile by Mohamed El Raai is the most beautiful thing you could wake up to.

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Israel is a Jewish state in a constitutional sense, embodied in a specific and concrete regime. It's not abstract, it's not whatever-you-wish-it-meant. In theory, a state could be Jewish in many ways. In Israel it means a regime of domination, discrimination and violence against non-Jews.

Goddammit. I've missed the rapture again. & they need me for it! I know the location of all the closest public loos to all the various end times final battle locations.

A rare piece of wonderful news. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/s...

Incoming 18 year old undergraduates have never known Pluto as a planet (ousted in 2006!) and that makes me sad all over again for Pluto - and the students with an impoverished solar system - and me as I’m so old.

It is not the job nor responsibility of Palestinians, Arabs to accommodate the West’s mea culpa’s on Israel. It’s 77 years since 1948. This war, apartheid, genocide has been ongoing for 77 years. The region’s heart lies in Jerusalem - all that encompasses, including the insecurity - it always has.

“You can do it out of spite”

It doesn't mean nowt unless the nations recognizing Palestine, completely block all trade with & military support of Israel to force them to the negotiating table. It's all empty words otherwise.

Over 160 settlers storm Al-Aqsa Mosque compound - https://www.middleeasteye.net/live-blog/live-blog-update/over-160-settlers-storm-al-aqsa-mosque-compound

Ok, Kate Folk's debut novel is the most dead-pan funny book I've read for ages. For a moment I thought she wasn't going to stick the landing (no pun intended) but she came through with the goods. High recommend if you have a slightly odd sense of humour. ⬇️

Just comparing estimated deaths in the Siege of Aleppo with Gaza. Gaza has resulted in nearly twice as many deaths in less than three years for a comparable population. The photo on the left is from Aleppo; that on the right is from Gaza.

Loved Bulla Regia. Tunisia has so many great Roman ruins & only a smidge of the tourists most classical era sites get.

Erdogan loves face-to-face meeting and believes he knows how to handle Trump. Trump, for his part, is unusually favorable towards Erdo. Still, one wonders whether Erdogan's team has fully gamed in the possibility that Trump will throw their boss under the bus... just because he can.

Squinting in Middle East Studies

Sally Rooney won the Sky Arts award for literature for Intermezzo. Her editor collected it for her as she couldn't travel in case of arrest for her support for Palestine Action. "to reiterate... and my solidarity with the people of Palestine." We are proud of her always. #BDS #SolidarityIsAVerb

Mother cat1 to mother cat2: yeah, so the childless foreign woman's house is here. Just drop the little fuckers in her yard so we can go get wasted in the Valley.

Wow, UK govt better tone down the Qatar-praise or their mate Israel might decide to bomb Qatar again. In less sarcastic news, I'm really glad the Reynolds are free & it couldn't have been done without Qatar. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/s...

The world's still falling apart, and also an editor just spent a lot of time, turning around the order of clauses in my sentences & then writing a lot of notes, saying these sentences now don't work & I'm just sitting here staring at the notes thinking, ummm, yes because you made it not work.

Babe, new candidate for "most unfathomable spatial comparison" just dropped.

Look at the fucking size of it.

What a legacy. Hopefully whoever takes over continues with the occasional gentle hurrying up of the academics when they start tangenting because that always cracks me up.

🧵Gaza is on the cusp of being completely destroyed. Absent immediate action by the outside world, Gaza could soon be physically erased, its surviving people herded into camps or expelled entirely. Such an outcome would stain a generation of world leaders. 1/12 www.crisisgroup.org/middle-east-...

The ruling class really is the same no matter where you are.

🚨BREAKING - Israel has started it's ground operation in Gaza City - ABC News

I have workmen at my house today & one of them is a treasure-hunter and just told me some crazy story about Byzantine stuff he's found (though from the description I actually think it was Greek-Ottoman) & when I told him to ring the museum, everyone cracked up laughing. 🤷

Kitten realised he can jump up onto the kitchen window ledge so I guess there goes my quiet evenings.

Sorry, but wtaf? This does absolutely nothing but ensure that even more people, including children, have to use irregular crossings, and blocks people who even this government have recognised are refugees from being with their families. This is utterly sickening from Labour. 1/

The Archbishop is right & DNA evidence proves his point: the Palestinian Christians have the closest DNA match to Bronze Age skeletons from the region of any major contemporary group (only the tiny Samarian community has a closer alignment.) share.google/lEOJEExpZpVX...

Egypt is bolstering its military presence in the Sinai Peninsula as Israel pushes ahead with a new military operation to conquer Gaza City, which Cairo fears will displace even more Palestinians in the devastated and immiserated coastal enclave

Cracking up at this headline insinuating that @ronanhession.bsky.social 's wonderful Leonard & Hungry Paul wasn't already well-known among people who - you know - actually like reading & it is only now that Julia Roberts is involved in the adaptation that it's going to be successful.

Speaking on Novara Media, Scottish historian William Dalrymple explained that the name Palestine is rooted deep in history Source: Middle East Eye

The national ID card debate in the UK beginning to turn, not due to being an incredibly useful tool for easing access to public services & general life logistics, but because a bunch of Brits are incredibly racist cunts is ummm...quite the look.

Totally unimportant but super cute.

LOL. Watching Alien Earth. The first shot of the skyscrapers (before they sweep down to the river & you realise it's supposed to be future Bangkok) I was like - oh look, the future is just going to be today's Dubai-ugly all the way.

A thread: More than a million Sudanese are involved in artisinal mining in large open-air mining zones across 12 of Sudan’s 18 states working under extremely dangerous conditions. For the UAE, the profit margins from this gold have risen exponentially since the war began. (1/3)

This ⬇️ & in the same vein: travel does not automatically broaden your mind.

Want⬇️

Loved this article ⬇️ Gotta say, I never found Lebanon's bus/micro system as confusing as people made out when I lived there (but then again, I'd already lived in the MidEast for a few years by that point). & I thought the smoking on the bus was hilarious BUT...A NEW BUS NETWORK. This is awesome!

Amid high-stakes disarmament talks today, US Envoy Tom Barrack made a set of comments to Lebanese journalists at a press conference that, whether intentional or not, play into harmful tropes and are counterproductive to his mission. He should apologize. (1)

Apparently we learned nothing from the frenzy around driverless cars ~10 years ago, so here’s another opportunity to wise up!

‘Israel cannot hide the truth of the genocide it is waging in Gaza, so it is killing as many of those who record each strike as it can.’

Surprisingly good & indepth obit for Sonallah Ibrahim in the NYT, including mention of THAT 2013 MadaMasr interview. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/21/w...