Is Raf OK? -- Installment #132

2024-07-31 -- Tel Aviv

Jul 31, 2024

First Time Here? Readers suggest starting with #120.

Tags: 3 Min Read; Short Videos; Lots of Relief

Update: The footnote in #131 was expanded post release.

Those around me have heard me talk about how today’s oligarchs (as those of 120 years ago?) have power equivalent to states. One way we see this is that they do things only states have done: Launch rockets into space; Build networks of communication satellites; Fly around the world with impunity in enormous private jets; Manage and mediate the communications of hundreds of millions (even billions) of people; Decide who gets heard and who gets silenced; Single handedly nominate Vice Presidents.

Today, I saw this acknowledged in someone else's writing: "Elon Musk, 'President of the State of Twitter.'

You heard it here first.... (If you’ve hung out with me in person over the past years….)

Mail

If You Aren't On Social Media, Where Do The Memes Come From?

Some comes from friends. Some comes from Whatsapp groups I'm in. I troll a few subreddits and Telegram groups. That's it.

Many sources that were great for the first few months of the war have dried up. (Fair. There is nothing funny about it.)

When Talking About Gaza in #131, You Forgot Overcounting "Refugees"

You are right. That is part of the UNRWA fiasco of the 20th century (discussed in #73, #75, #76, #81 and many others).

Ismail Haniyeh -- Assassinated in Tehran

You may remember the video below from #56. Ismail Haniyeh is the third man introduced in the first seconds of the video (the guy on the far right of the couch).

The clip references Mia Khalifa: A porn star of Lebanese descent who has been at the center of some social media noise. The clip above refers to her one way. The clip in #128 refers to her another way due to her simplistic hostility to Jews and Israel.

Postmark

Iran

Unexpected (?) Celebration

Meanwhile, on a street corner in Tehran, a "quiet celebration" with mini sweets on the occasion of the "killing of the terrorist Ismail Haniyeh."
[The Iranian opposition does not glorify "resistance" outside Iran as the Ayotollas do.]

University of Tehran

The regime managed to gather some people at the entrance to the University of Tehran to carry Palestinian flags and chant with noticeable fatigue:
Death to America
Death to Israel

(Like at Columbia University?)

Announces...

Iran announces three days of mourning in the country following the assassination of Haniyeh.

Tehran: Palestine Square

Where posters in Hebrew are displayed for the Israeli viewing public:

"Wait for severe punishment"

Khan Yunis

The IDF Gaza “workflow” appears to include: Enter an area. Find what can be found. Capture lots of “candidate” Hamas members. Leave area.

Interrogate the captured. Release many back to Gaza who aren’t Hamas or don’t have information or standing in Hamas. Go back (months later) into the area with the intelligence from the interrogations. Find more tunnels/weapons/Hamas operations centers.

Tunnels

Above: Another week, another couple of kilometers of tunnel destroyed.

Below: In this case, a tunnel leading to storage of long range rockets is destroyed:

Relief Area

Alef

Bet: Iranian Opposition Posts...

Iranian opposition channels mock Esmail Kaani, commander of the Quds force in the Iranian Revolutionary Guards: Kaani after hearing about the assassination in Tehran...
[Because the assassination occurred in a compound that Kaani is in charge of.]