Recent @copernicusland.bsky.social Sentinel-2 imagery in False Colour now showing the degraged agricultural land in #Syria near Quneitra where Israel has been spraying herbicide. Images via @obretix.bsky.social

i forget who made it but it cracks me up lol

⏰ Reminder: the deadline to submit abstracts to workshops at #EWIS2026 is Wednesday, 11 February! 🔗 More details and the submission form can be found here: buff.ly/3rM0vZr

Excellent reporting here on Egypt's growing intervention in Sudan flying Turkish-made drones from a remote base at the Sudanese border. Since last November, Egyptian drone attacks have largely closed down the UAE-RSF supply route via Kufra in Libya.

The workshop explores emerging political imaginaries, focusing on questions such as: What domestic and regional visions of the future arise amid these (dis)continuities? Who formulates them, and who is excluded? How do visions advanced by different groups and elites interact, coexist, or clash?

Can anyone think of a single other time when a UN member state destroyed a UN agency headquarters?

Impressive and brutal reflexive piece on conflict studies by two leading voices in the field: @yguichaoua.bsky.social & @wlacher.bsky.social A short 🧵 dissentmagazine.org/article/the-...

Come discuss imaginaries of Middle Eastern futures with us in @europeanisa.bsky.social EWIS in Izmir! How are futures imagined and practiced on the national and regional level? Full call - eisa-net.org/wp-content/u... How to apply - eisa-net.org/ewis-2026/ab...

out of context us pol memy:

Consider CJIR for your special issue!👇 It has excellent and engaged editors, and a smooth and efficient workflow! 🤗

The Czech Journal of International Relations invites proposals for special issues to be considered for publication in upcoming volumes! Please send your proposal and a brief CV of the editor(s) to the CJIR editor-in-chief at [email protected] by February 28, 2026. cjir.iir.cz/index.php/cj...

Postdoc position focusing on the visions of political change in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) at Charles University, Prague We are looking for candidates who either hold PhD degree or are finishing their doctoral studies to join the project’s team, starting between spring and fall 2026

Post-doc positions: "Academic freedom is under pressure today. This requires rescue havens of free research. ... [we] invite early career researchers, whose work is restricted due to political pressure in the USA..." uni-freiburg.de/frias/call-f...

Continuing the thread from Serbia, last night I went to the launch of a platform documenting police violence/repression against Serbian citizens in protests, starting from the aleged use of sound canon on 15 March to the large-scale operation to suppress the protest in Novi Sad on 5 September 1/

Always remember that government spending is a political choice; there is no fixed amount of aid. You can support Ukraine *AND* increase humanitarian assistance or aid to Africa, but increasingly right-leaning governments in Europe are presenting dangerous binary choices for their global engagement

PhD opportunity at the University of Oxford. The Morelli scholarship funds a doctoral student to work with me on on democratic backsliding, strategies of democratic defense and regeneration, or the rise of illiberalism. Deadline Jan 9. More information at users.ox.ac.uk/~ssfc0073/

Post claims Hegseth ordered survivors of boat strikes - who would be hors de combat - to be killed & that the SOCOM commander followed this order on the basis that "they could theoretically call other traffickers to retrieve them and their cargo" www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec...

Israel just hit the largest Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon, Ain al Hilweh, with missiles. It’s a dense camp with the presence of many Palestinian factions but also many civilians.

“Israeli soldiers have described a free-for-all in Gaza and a breakdown in norms and legal constraints, with civilians killed at the whim of individual officers.” The stories will get worse over time as censorship erodes. But we knew and didn’t stop it. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/n...

Iniciativa za kritickou akademii adresuje Petru Papouškovi, předsedovi Federace židovských obcí, otevřený dopis, v němž odmítá křivé nařčení z antisemitismu. denikreferendum.cz/clanek/23816...

Following instructions to "write like crazy" on a range of topics, I broadened my authorial horizons and wrote this long piece on medieval, religious and Czech history. Hardly out of character, I know. The piece isn't primarily about language, though, so that's growth. dannybate.com/2025/11/05/s...

Rdg the new issue of @thefunambulist.bsky.social on “bulldozer politics,” on bulldozers as key weapons — of demolition and clearing-for-colonization — in Gaza and elsewhere. Glad to see an interview w/ Francesca Ammon, author of Bulldozer: Demolition + Clearance of the Postwar Landscape, here

After more than three years of war, civilian resistance in Ukraine remains high. Researcher Morten Bøås of NUPI details what it means to conduct RE-ENGAGE fieldwork in a city at #war. Read the full commentary: re-engaging.eu/news/why-ukr... #EuropeanUnion #EU #Ukraine #democracy #Russia #Kyiv

Zlom nejen v Kataru. Co uvedl do pohybu izraelský útok? Arabské státy jednají o větší spolupráci na obraně. Mluví se o vzniku „arabského“, případně „islámského“ NATO. O změnách v obranné politice se bavila @jolanah.bsky.social s Janem Danielem @horalistani.bsky.social www.voxpot.cz/zlom-nejen-v...

🗳️ #Moldova parliamentary election this weekend is a barometer of regional #democracy. Its outcome could reshape #EUenlargement, Europe’s security, and the balance of power with #Russia. Read the latest commentary: tinyurl.com/y8atxsuf #MoldovaElections #AlegeriMoldova

Speciální fórum o české zahraniční politice vůči Palestině a Izraeli z Czech Journal of International Relations vzbudilo ohlas i ve Francii. 📰 Francouzský Deník Le Monde se odkazuje na naše fórum a analyzuje českou podporu izraelské politice. www.iir.cz/cjir-special...

Již zítra! Čtyři debaty, čtyři zapojené instituce - oligarchie, dezinformace o změně klimatu, etika a konflikty a finálně česká politika vůči Izraeli! Uvidíme se zítra na Štvanici!

New Study Indicates High Levels of Self-Censorship and Perceived Restrictions for Scholars Specialized in the Middle East since October 7, 2023. Official @freieuniversitaet.bsky.social press release: www.fu-berlin.de/en/presse/in...

Welcome to a world where a crude mix of military regimes, Russia, Taliban & Israel are pushing the „decolonization“ agenda forward…

"The fact that Israeli violence in Gaza is supported by a government that champions morality, democracy, and human rights contributes to a general nihilism and the relativization... Outrage over the killing of Ukrainian civilians while turning a blind eye to dead Palestinians seems hypocritical."

IDF sniper from Chicago who says he killed Gazan teenager just for trying to retrieve his brother's corpse: “They’re thinking, ‘Oh I don’t think [I’ll get shot] because I’m wearing civilian clothes and I am not carrying a weapon' and all that, but they were wrong. That’s what you have snipers for.”

Už za da týdny budeme ve Vile Štvanice rozebírat širší kontext české politiky vůči Izraeli a Palestině. Přijďte a podívejte se i na zbytek programu!

Dnes to bylo 10 let od smrti Alana Kurdi.

The World’s Shame in Gaza Statement from the International Crisis Group www.crisisgroup.org/middle-east-...

The EU should draw up a policy to deal with Russian annexation actions in breakaway and occupied regions, and embed this in its evolving approach towards Russia, write Tefta Kelmendi and Sergi Kapanadzi. Read their latest policy brief here: https://bit.ly/4le7c8m

NEW: Famine has been officially confirmed in the Gaza City region and is projected to spread within weeks to two more population centers in the wider Gaza Strip, the global authority on hunger said Friday

Revealed: Israeli military’s own data indicates civilian death rate of 83% in Gaza war

Joseph Daher and The Policy Initiative's Sami Zoughaib and Sami Atallah on what "sovereignty" means, in the Lebanese context: www.thepolicyinitiative.org/article/deta...

In many respects, «artificial intelligence» is less a model of the human mind than a technical implementation of neoliberal market theory: a simulation of supposedly superhuman rationality optimized for efficient problem solving, which leads to mostly irrational and ultimately destructive results 1/

NEW PODCAST: The MERIP Roundtable "On Recognition" @jdryan08.bsky.social is joined by EdCommers @lisahajjar.bsky.social, @seanyom.bsky.social, and Jacob Mundy to discuss genocide recognition by Israeli figures and institutions, and UK/Canada recognition for a Palestinian state. buff.ly/IZuBpDI

Another summer, another procession of record-smashing heatwaves. After the heatwave of July 2022, I wrote this piece on dread, anger, and the duty to critique. Re-reading it for the page proofs, I was struck by some things I wrote that already seem out of date, but also some that seem timely. 🧵

Two broadly defined area studies academic #jobs at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University (Prague): "The ideal candidate will employ comparative methodologies and actively engage in disciplinary debates within area studies on critical current events from a comparative perspective" 1/3

Survivors of the pager attack are easily identifiable, with missing eyes, faces laced with scars, hands with missing fingers. The AP interviewed six of them — offering a rare glimpse into the human cost of the attack Powerful work by @bmroue.bsky.social @seldeeb.bsky.social @hassanammar.bsky.social

Down with Russian imperialism www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/7/...

The groypers running the White House's social media accounts have posted yet another piece of fascist Trump AI slopaganda which I won't reproduce here in full. However, the Gladiator-esque backdrop of US soldiers in desert camouflage holding back the pseudo-Roman crowd is quite fascinating 1/

NOW in English Satimages show that in just 2months, Israeli Army has almost entirely destroyed Khan Yunis Governorate, including Gaza Strip's 2nd-largest city and its environs, an area encompassing 90 square km and thousands of homes Planet Labs PBC www.haaretz.com/israel-news/...

‘We faced hunger before, but never like this’: skeletal children fill hospital wards as starvation grips Gaza

Doctors and health officials report wave of hunger deaths in Gaza https://on.ft.com/3IJ5jTB

It's the economy, stupid