I lived the last 7 years of my life away from my family, friends so I could work and get a small sum of money that would help me get married and help my family in life. I was working as a sales representative in a company outside my country.

In fact, I was about to be married to my life partner and lover, Aya, who is 20 years old. [W]e were preparing for our beautiful marriage before the war broke out, exploding our hearts and dreams and ending my professional career.

The […] occupation prevented us from completing our ceremony, which we had dreamed of. We had drawn, planned, and dreamed, but all of this was soon destroyed, and our thoughts and plans instead became: how can we survive this nightmare that has befallen us?

[…]

You will help us flee to a safe place with your help (even by donating $5, $10, ...)

Thank for Leslie Marie. She will help us receive donations through her bank account in America, and then she will transfer them to us through my brother’s bank account.

Finally, thank you so much for contributing to saving the life of me and my family. You will help us escape death, starting with a new temporary hope in Egypt and bringing safety. Please, do kindly share this with your network on social media and those you know. I would be thankful.

(Emphasis original.)

cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/6028275

After being extremely annoyed with how Microsoft was trying to force me to use their worthless Outlook programme, and learning that Windows 11 (which they've also been pressuring to try) is polluted with advertising, I decided that it was time to migrate to another operating system. Somebody recommended EndeavourOS to me, and after backing up my valuables and following these instructions, I am finally trying a better operating system.

If I'm being honest, my first impressions are... not good.

One of the first things that I notice is that I can't easily modify the /usr/ directory. I tried to install Java there but the OS would not let me because I lack the permission. How do I get the permission? I don't know. I am guessing that it has something to do with Terminal Emulator, and the fact that I have to use this program so much immediately tells me that this OS was made for programmers in mind, not ordinary users. On Windows, I could click an executable, click a few more buttons and be done with it, but here the OS wants me to mess with a ~~DOS prompt~~ terminal.

Then there is the scaling. I managed to adjust the scaling while keeping the resolution so that everything on my screen didn't look microscopic. The problem is that when I open certain tabs or windows, they stretch out so far that the monitor can only show part of them. Here's a screenshot so that you can see what I mean:

This is just lousy design. I can shrink the window, but not by much.

I want to uninstall a font. How do I do that? Well, I read on the EndeavourOS forum that I need to run 'pacman' (meaning the terminal) to uninstall a font. Nobody elaborated on that. So after entering the terminal, typing 'su', then my password (another annoyance), then entering "pacman -R /usr/share/fonts/noto/NotoColorEmoji.ttf", the terminal spits out "error: target not found: /usr/share/fonts/noto/NotoColorEmoji.ttf", even though I am 100% certain that it is there. I would just remove it by simply clicking it and deleting it, except that the OS refuses and tells me "Error removing file: Permission denied".

Speaking of which, I actually find this more annoying than Windows' worthless 'administrator' function. At least I could simply click the administrator function and be done with it. The process here looks much less straightforward.

I want a calendar with scheduling, which is part of the reason that I am quitting Windows. I downloaded the Orage application hence, then I clicked on 'orage-4.18.0.tar.bz2' in my downloads folder. My cursor spins like something is loading, and... nothing happens. I don't even get an error message.

There are some other things that I could mention (where's the color filter?), but these are the worst offenders. I'm not calling it quits on EndeavourOS, and I am sure that eventually I'll get the hang of things, but so far this has been unenjoyable.

The Armenian population of Palestine on the eve of World War I numbered between two and three thousand persons. The majority lived in Jerusalem, with smaller communities in Haifa, Jaffa, Ramla, and Bethlehem. As noted earlier, Palestine’s indigenous Armenian population had been overwhelmed during the war by huge waves of Armenians from Cilicia, the ancient Armenian kingdom in what is now southwestern Turkey.²⁵

Cilicia, in addition to having one of the largest Armenian concentrations in the empire, was also the seat of the Cilician Catholicos, the theological head of the Western half of the Gregorian church.²⁶ Indeed, the first wave of refugees to Palestine, which arrived in Jerusalem in early November 1915, consisted of the Cilician Catholicos himself, Sahag, accompanied by archbishops and priests.²⁷

A few days later, fifteen to twenty Armenian families were sent to Jerusalem from Adana by the Damascus-based commander of the Ottoman Fourth Army, Jamal Pasha.²⁸ Soon the number of the Armenian refugees in Palestine grew to six hundred families. Jamal Pasha, who was on good terms with the Armenian Catholicos, played an important role in saving hundreds of Armenians by sending them to Palestine. In 1916 he even made a visit in person to the Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem.

In a report addressed to the Armenian Patriarch of Istanbul, Catholicos Sahag described what he saw on his journey from Cilicia to Jerusalem:

The road from Aleppo to Damascus was lined with thousands of Armenian refugees. Some were living in tents and others in the open air, begging for bread and water and asking for news about their friends. We went through places where one tenekeh [tin can] of water cost six to seven piastres, but still there was no one to give it.

Many refugees—no one knows the exact number—are in the area of Kerek, and in the district of Salt there are about 400 households. Every village has 100 households of refugees and in the sanjak of Serai there are approximately 500 households. These people come to the Monastery [in Jerusalem], where they receive 30 to 40 loaves of bread a day, which [they] eat in the kitchen. About 80 refugees from Adana—with the special favor of Jemal Pasha—have arrived in Jerusalem and are living in the monastery compound.²⁹

By 1920, some two thousand Armenian refugees had arrived in Jerusalem. The military governor of Jerusalem, Sir Ronald Storrs, described the situation in his memoirs as follows:

As if these things were not enough, there were added to our troubles thousands of refugees. Over two thousand desperate Armenians besieged the saintly but incompetent locum tenens of the Armenian Patriarchate.There were the Christian refugees from Salt, a city older than Genesis [...] and OETA [Occupied Enemy Territory Administration] had to face feeding and housing of Saltis³⁰ as well as Armenians. Later I find [...] 7000 refugees—Armenian, Syrian, Latin Orthodox, Protestant and Moslem suddenly flung on my hands this week: a good deal of typhus, but malaria not expected till autumn. No easy matter feeding and looking after them and I have had to detail three members of my staff for the purpose.³¹

Most of the refugees arriving in Jerusalem and elsewhere in Palestine viewed their situation as temporary and were waiting to return to their hometowns in Cilicia. But in 1922, Mustafa Kemal Pasha (later Ataturk) launched an offensive in Cilicia, and several shiploads of Armenian refugees arrived in Haifa. By 1925, there were about 15,000 Armenians in Palestine, mainly in Jerusalem, with smaller numbers in Haifa and Jaffa.³²

[...]

Inevitably, the almost-overnight demographic transformation of the community in the early 1920s caused strains. [...] Eventually, however, they were won over by the locals’ kindness and generosity, and a gradual process of integration began.⁴⁰

Only when the Herzlians ethnically cleansed most of Palestine did the Armenian population shrink:

The 1948 war brought to an end an important period of Armenian history in Palestine. Major dislocations followed: The Armenian communities of Jaffa and Haifa and other areas that became Israel were reduced to insignificance.

West Jerusalem—including the wealthy Arab neighborhoods of the New City where several hundred Armenian families had lived—was occupied by [settler] forces and almost the entire non-Jewish population was expelled; losing their homes and businesses, the Armenian residents left the country entirely.⁷⁹

Jerusalem’s Old City, with its Armenian Quarter that for many centuries had been the heart of Palestine’s Armenian community and a vital part of the city, remained in Arab (Jordanian) hands until 1967. But the community had already been dealt a mortal blow, and its dramatic decline was already underway.

(Emphasis added in all cases.)

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.

This qualitative operation comes to direct a new security and military blow to the zionist enemy at the height of its arrogance and security alert and proves that the resistance still has the final say in the field despite the scale of the aggression and the great sacrifices.

We praise the jihad and sacrifices of the Islamic Resistance in Lebanon, who are directing qualitative and painful blows to the zionist enemy in the field and deep within the usurping entity.

The fascist zionist enemy must await more of the might of our fighters in Palestine and Lebanon, and the usurping entity must realize that it is in an open war with the nation and that the continuation of its aggression against our people and our nation will inflict more losses, defeats, disappointment and failure on it.

We call for intensifying the qualitative and painful operations deep inside the criminal zionist entity, as the corrupt enemy only understands the language of force and spears and will not be deterred except by more blows to its head.

I extend my warmest greetings to you, those born later, who, despite slander and numerous falsifications of history, which can also be found in school books, are interested in the German Democratic Republic and its policies. You are confronted in this society with a lot of untruths about our state, a state that no longer exists. But I can assure you: We who were committed to the cause wanted to change the world and create a better Germany. So that never again will a mother weep for her son. Unfortunately, for many reasons, including our own fault, we have not yet succeeded. Much remains to be done.

And yet I think: We laid the groundw[ork and] we sowed the seeds. We will certainly not live to see the harvest. But I hope that you and your peers, your children and your children’s children will not forget that for 40 years there was an anti-fascist state in the east of Germany that had learned the lessons of two world wars and was a real alternative to capitalism and war.

[…]

Dear attendees, there are many reasons to like the GDR. And also many reasons to sharply criticize its shortcomings. But above all stands the word peace. The GDR never waged war. It was the German state of peace. In this context, I would like to recall the state telegram from Moscow to President Wilhelm Pieck and Prime Minister Otto Grotewohl regarding the founding of the GDR. I quote it, because it succinctly expresses the historical mission of the GDR:

“The formation of the German Democratic Peace-loving Republic is a turning point in the history of Europe.” And further: “There is no doubt that the existence of a peace-loving democratic Germany alongside the peace-loving Soviet Union precludes the possibility of new wars in Europe.” How true, how clear, how relevant!

[…]

Within a historically short period of time, West German governments destroyed what had been built up in the Soviet occupation zone and later in the GDR in terms of trust between the Germans and the peoples of the Soviet Union. Now, German politicians and the German media are stirring up hatred of Russians, hatred that I last experienced as an eight-year-old during the final phase of World War II. The old enemy stereotype — the “Russian” is to blame for everything — and the myth of the dangerous Russia is being revived. It is raising fears of Russia as if its troops were lurking around the corner.

[…]

In retrospect, we know that since the GDR ceased to function as a social corrective, social alienation has increased. The already existing gap between rich and poor is growing ever wider, and the chasm is now downright obscene. Patronage-based political parties embezzle funds intended for the common good. But resistance is growing.

Social interest from almost all segments of society is forcing the bourgeois parties to discuss the worst excesses. If only they were led to discuss this as energetically as they did when methodically disparaging East German personal histories and engaging in a blanket witch hunt of former employees of the GDR’s security forces, all in an effort to divert attention from their own country’s problems! The GDR will not serve as the Cinderella of German history.

What the GDR was, why it was founded, what historical achievements it had, what position it occupied internationally, how both German states were always on the brink of a possible nuclear war in a cold civil war, what the reasons for the defeat of the GDR were and what will remain of it — these are fundamental questions of German post-war history, indeed of European and world history — and much, much more than a “footnote of history” and also far more than the “green arrow.”

Judging objectively

I can be accused of idealizing the GDR. That may be. But in reality, I am merely advocating something that should be self-evident, namely that academics, politicians and media professionals, who were mostly socialized in the Federal Republic, should finally strive for an objective and historically fair evaluation of the GDR.

We, the contemporary witnesses, are still alive. And when we are no longer here, our experiences and memories will remain in the memory of our children, who were born in the GDR. And there were plenty of them, because the GDR was also a child-friendly country. But I cannot and I refuse to give up the belief that this world of war and exploitation will change from what it is today and that “the sun will shine more brightly than ever over Germany,” as the GDR anthem says.

(Emphasis original.)

Mattan here. I am the executive director of RSN and in 2017 I spent 110 days in prison because I refused to serve the […] occupation. A few weeks ago, Refuser Solidarity Network warned that hundreds of […] soldiers were on the brink of joining the growing refusers movement amid Israel's forever war in Gaza. Now, 130 soldiers have published an open letter and are threatening to refuse to serve unless a hostage release deal is signed immediately, and in effect, a ceasefire deal that could put a stop to Israel's assault. Many of the signatories have already declared their refusal.

For over 20 years Refuser Solidarity Network has provided crucial legal and strategic support to all Israeli refusers. As an organization that supports all war refusers, we must answer the call once again. That is why we are urgently requesting our supporters consider donating to bolster our movement.

130 Israeli soldiers and reservists signed onto the open letter that came out just this week. Addressing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, they are boldly conditioning their continued service on the signing of a deal for the release of hostages and an end to the war, the first mass wave of Israeli soldiers refusing service in protest of war and occupation seen in recent years.

We, reserve and regular servicemen and servicewomen, officers and soldiers, hereby declare that we cannot continue under these circumstances. The war in Gaza is sentencing our kidnapped brothers and sisters to death.

On that cursed day, October 7th, we awoke to a terrible and indiscriminate massacre, in which more than a thousand were killed and hundreds were kidnapped. We immediately enlisted to fight in our country's defense and to rescue the hostages held in Gaza.

It is now clear that the continuation of the war in Gaza not only delays the return of the hostages but also endangers their lives: many hostages have been killed by IDF bombings, many more than those who have been rescued in military operations.

We, who have served and continue to serve with dedication, risking our lives, hereby announce that if the government does not change course immediately and work towards securing a deal to bring the hostages home, we will not be able to continue serving.

For some of us, the red line has already been crossed, and for others, it is rapidly approaching: the day when, with broken hearts, we will stop reporting for service.

We call on the government: Sign a deal now to save the living hostages!

The letter makes the choice faced by [our] society very clear: it's either the hostages or the war, a recognition of the value of life or an insatiable hunger for more destruction. Faced with such a clear choice, this new refuser wave will only serve to mobilize more people to refuse in order to bring a stop to the mass slaughter in Gaza. It is important to remember that this letter is directed at the Israeli public, using language that resonates within contemporary Israeli discourse with the power to end the war now and force a ceasefire deal.

The letter poses fundamental questions for Israelis: Who are we dying for? Are war and death more valuable than our own lives? Is any of this in our interest? How much longer are we willing to sacrifice our own lives and those of our children on the altar of Jewish supremacy? We cannot pretend that the price of war, occupation and the ongoing Nakba borne by Palestinians and Israelis is symmetrical, quite the opposite. But we also know that overcoming the régime of ethnic supremacy in Israel/Palestine requires that Israelis also grapple with the price paid by a society which exists at the expense of another.

This new refuser wave is now pushing the most plausible challenge to the war from within Israel, more than even the mass Israeli protest movement pushing for a hostage deal. Unlike protest movements, there is a much longer history of the Israeli government bending to the demands of refuser movements. With your support, we can end this war now. Join us in supporting the refusers by making a donation.

In solidarity,

Mattan Helman
Executive Director
Refuser Solidarity Network

(Taken from an email sent to me by the Refuser Solidarity Network. Emphasis original.)

As we mark one year since the Al-Aqsa Flood Battle, we in the Islamic Resistance Movement — Hamas offer our prayers for the souls of our people’s martyrs, who ascended in our long struggle against the zionist enemy.

We also pray for the martyr leaders who sacrificed their lives in this heroic battle: our brother, the martyr leader Ismail Haniyeh, our brother, the martyr leader Saleh Al-Arouri, and the caravans of the martyrs from our nation, especially from the support and defense fronts, led by the martyr, His Eminence Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, and the martyr leaders of the Islamic Resistance in Lebanon, whose blood mixed with the blood of our people on the path to liberating Al-Quds and the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque.

[…]

In conclusion, we affirm to the entire world that there can be no compromise on our people’s legitimate right to resist the occupation by all means necessary, to establish our free and independent Palestinian state with Al-Quds as its capital and to live a life of dignity, free from siege, bombing, threats or foreign control — like all other peoples of the world.

Our great people and valiant resistance will continue their legendary epic in the Al-Aqsa Flood Battle, standing firm against aggression and thwarting its hostile plans. Mercy, glory and eternity to the martyrs of our people and our nation, swift recovery to the wounded and the sick and freedom to the prisoners and detainees in the enemy’s prisons. It is indeed a jihad of victory or martyrdom.

The Front stressed its full solidarity with Hezbollah and the brotherly Lebanese people, and its confidence in the will of the leadership and men of the resistance and their ability to make the criminal terrorist enemy pay for these heinous crimes against the brotherly Lebanese people.

The Front stressed that this major and widespread crime will bring the resistance’s response to a new phase that is broader and deeper, and at the level of this major crime.

The Front denounced the shameful international complicity with the genocidal war waged by the occupation, stressing that the genocidal criminal [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu directed this crime from inside the U.N. headquarters, and that this crime would not have happened without the full U.S. partnership and support for the occupation and its crimes.

The Front considered that the occupation’s claim of targeting resistance leaders is nothing but a search for pretexts to carry out its brutal crimes against civilian residential blocks, and that there is no reason that allows any party to commit such brutal genocidal crimes.