Image is of the King of Morocco meeting with John Kerry (a species of demon that plagued Hexbear in the misty past).
This preamble comes courtesy of @LargePenis@hexbear.net:
Morocco (Al Maghrib), or more officially the Kingdom of Morocco (Al Mamlaka al Maghribiya), is a country located in the northwestern edge of the African continent. The name Morocco comes from the Spanish name Marruecos, which itself comes from the name of the city of Marrakesh. In Turkish for example, Morocco is known as Fas, mainly because Turks knew the land of Morocco through the city of Fes. Morocco is regarded as part of the Arab World and Arabic is the main language amongst the population, with French and Berber languages also widely spoken in the country.
Morocco was the home of mostly Berber tribes until the Muslim conquest and the subsequent Arab migrations in the 700s under the Umayyads drastically changed the character of the country. A Berber commander, Tariq ibn Ziyad, would later cross the Strait of Gibraltar (Jabal Tariq) from the northern shores of now-Morocco and conquer Andalusia, which remained under Muslim rule for nearly 800 years. The country emerged as a significant regional power during the Almoravid and Almohad dynasties in the medieval period, known for their contributions to architecture, philosophy, and trade across North Africa and southern Europe. The current ruling dynasty of Morocco, the Alaouite dynasty, came to power in the late 1600s. The Alaouites claim descent from the Prophet Muhammad through his grandson Hasan ibn Ali, giving them religious legitimacy and political authority in the region. Despite the Shia-coded claim to legitimacy, the Moroccan royal family and the population mostly follow the Maliki school of Sunni Islam.
In the early 20th century, the Treaty of Fez (1912) created the French Protectorate of Morocco, negotiated largely without input from the Moroccan people. Moroccan lands were completely divided under French and Spanish zones, with thousands of colonists pouring into the country. The royal family frequently collaborated with colonial powers, suppressing local resistance movements and prioritizing European interests. Prominent anti-colonial uprisings, like the Rif War (1921–1926), were met with brutal crackdowns, enabled by Western-backed forces. Post-independence in 1956, Morocco maintained close ties with its former colonizers, fostering economic dependence on France and Spain. The monarchy’s alignment with Western geopolitical interests often undermined Pan-African and Arab unity movements.
During the Cold War, Morocco positioned itself as a staunch ally of the West, marginalizing leftist and nationalist factions within the country. The Green March of 1975 was a Moroccan state-organized movement to assert control over Western Sahara, a territory decolonized from Spanish rule but still awaiting self-determination. This march, supported by Western powers, particularly the United States, is often criticized as a colonial expansion disguised as a popular movement. By settling Moroccans in the disputed territory, the march disregarded the Sahrawi people’s right to sovereignty. U.N. resolutions on Western Sahara have seen limited enforcement, largely due to Morocco’s Western alliances shielding it from accountability. Western-backed security and intelligence partnerships continue to be the cornerstone of Morocco’s repressive nature towards any anti-colonial and leftist movements. In 2021, Algeria again severed diplomatic ties with Morocco, citing hostile actions and concerns over Morocco’s ties with Israel, which Algeria views as a betrayal of pro-Palestinian solidarity. The two countries have mostly clashed over the issue of Western Sahara other than a short war in the 60s over a border dispute, with Algeria continuing to support the Sahrawi independence movement.
Morocco’s relations with Israel have historically been discreet but significant, rooted in the presence of a large Moroccan Jewish diaspora in Israel. Former King Hassan II played a significant behind-the-scenes role in fostering covert ties between Morocco and Israel during his reign. King Hassan II is reported to have allowed Israeli intelligence access to critical information from a meeting of Arab leaders in Casablanca in 1965, which may have helped Israel prepare for the Six-Day War in 1967. His government provided a platform for discreet diplomatic exchanges and intelligence-sharing, including Morocco’s facilitation of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat’s visit to Israel in the 1970s. In 2020, Morocco formally normalized ties with Israel through the Abraham Accords, brokered by the United States, in exchange for U.S. and Israeli recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara. Diplomatic and trade relations have since deepened, with agreements in fields like defence, agriculture, and technology. Despite official ties, Moroccan public opinion remains largely sympathetic to Palestinians, but such opinions are rarely considered by the royal family.
Morocco’s future is split between ambitious global aspirations and permanent domestic issues. The country’s co-hosting of the 2030 FIFA World Cup with Spain and Portugal is seen as a significant opportunity to showcase its shiny infrastructure and global presence. However, these achievements are often overshadowed by criticisms of its political culture, including the monarchy’s ceremonial practices, such as the humiliating tradition of publicly kissing the crown prince’s hand. Allegations surrounding King Mohammed VI’s personal behavior, including incidents of public drunkenness and alleged homosexuality continue to be a hot topic within opposition circles.
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Israel-Palestine Conflict
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA reports on Israel’s destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news.
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
Defense Politics Asia’s youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don’t want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it’s just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists’ side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR’s former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR’s forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster’s telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a ‘propaganda tax’, if you don’t believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
Unless Israel has suddenly decided that it’s going to make good on promises vis a vis Gaza that it has rejected for a year, I struggle to see how this isn’t a temporary ceasefire dressed up as a permanent one. And I see a less than 0% chance that Israel will seriously consider Palestinian statehood - they aren’t even off the position of “There should no longer be Palestinians at all, kill every one of them.”
Is the Israeli government actually going to decide to withdraw fully from Gaza, let aid in unrestricted, provide resources to rebuild the place, etc? What happens when Trump assumes office, and/or if Israel starts going after the West Bank? e.g. are there any guarantees that the Resistance has extracted from Israel to prevent them from saying “actually, nah” when asked to start rebuilding Gaza, or are we purely going off their word? It’s the problem with making the issue about “merely” ending the genocide and withdrawing troops from Gaza and rebuilding it - if Israel then does that, does Hamas go “Alright, sweet! Time to prep for our next Oct7 in 15 years time against a triple-strengthened Gaza envelope with quantum computer algorithms alerting 50,000 soldiers the second that a drone hits a camera! Who’s buying the paragliders?”
I sure hope the Resistance is getting a better deal out of it than “Congratulations! We’re returning to the pre-Oct7 status quo, but with hundreds of thousands of our own people dead, most of Gaza a crumbling ruin, significant amounts of Lebanon bombed to pieces, a Lebanese refugee crisis to unravel, and several dead officials to replace!” or in the grand scheme of things, I would have to say the last year has been an Israeli W. Not a big W - Israel and Zionism have been substantially damaged both socially, economically, and militarily, and the end of the settler-colonial project has been accelerated - but when I tally everything up, Gaza and Lebanon are probably coming out of this worse than Israel is if it’s a return to the status quo and the war+genocide ends here. It’s obviously not my place to judge their decisions, they’re actually in the goddamn war and have been committed to Israel’s destruction for generations, but until we see the full terms of the deal, I am skeptical.
It won’t hold, I have 0% faith in that. Israel is a rabid dog that can’t been be controlled at this point, but at the same time I think that we won’t see any ground invasion anymore due to how catastrophic it has been for Israel. I also don’t believe in that point about Gaza, the Israelis won’t be satisfied until every single civilian is dead and they can do their settlement dreams there.
Regarding that last point, yeah when looking at it without cope from my side, yeah we lost. We lost our leadership, we lost our homes and in the end Israel will come out with a win. Iran didn’t do enough, Hamas didn’t have a coherent plan for the day after Oct 7, and Hezbollah let the entire leadership get killed through dumb lack of security preparation. That’s the truth, even if it’s painful. I’m especially disappointed about Iran, they’ve been waiting for this for 40 years and in the end they barely did anything.
I don’t think that’s true necessarily, it’s true that Israel failed to achieve their goals, it’s just that (depending on the terms of the agreement, whether the ceasefire holds, etc etc) the Resistance might have also failed to achieve their goals, so we’re now in an uncomfortable no-man’s-land where we don’t really know who will be doing better in 5, 10, 20 years time. “Existence is resistance” is like lesser-evilism: it’s only a decent slogan/strategy when used to withstand a single discrete event - it doesn’t get you anywhere in the long term. You still exist after every conflict, sure, but you’re stuck in a time loop of genocide and flawed recovery. Adherence to a strategy of “Let’s bloody the nose of Israel to try and shock them into achieving our statehood, an-- fuck, every building just got levelled again and another hundred thousand of our people are dead. Well, let’s strike a deal to get them off our land and end the war and return to the status quo, I guess” will lead to a 9th Intifada in 2076, with a few hundred Palestinians wandering the moon-cratered surface of the fenced-in Gaza Desert guarded by a hundred thousand Boston Dynamics murderbots.
Hezbollah fought to stalemate, but i’m still baffled about their timidity with rocket strikes, feel like they’ve waited too long until pisrael could pay attention to them. Also, my star of the show are yemenese people
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iran is whatevs
I think it’s fair to say that the Israeli decapitation strikes (in the terrorist pager operation and leadership assassinations) hindered Hezbollah’s strategic forces. First FPV drone attack was yesterday, first cruise missile attack a few days ago. These should have been operational from day 1 of the Israeli invasion.
I think a lot of that is the escalation ladder. Perhaps they should have been more aggressive from day one, but then how many more civilians would have died? Nashrallah regretted 2006, even though they “won”. I’m sure that experience was driving a lot of the caution this time.
It’s not necessarily about being more aggressive, but using the different strategic weapons systems. We’ve seen how useful FPV drones have been in Ukraine, for example. I’m guessing that a lot of senior members being killed by Israel prevented the deployment of these systems to the battlefield.
Unironically Hezbollah should send some folks to link up with the DPRK forces in Russia to learn. That’s a good point about the deployment of drones, I think you’re probably right.
They should have struck generation and oil storage as soon as they can, but should have would have, whatever, not my place. Best people around that cursed usa puppet region
I mean even before direct invasion, it was 10 months of sporadic engagements on the border. In that time pisrael managed to manufacture those damn pagers.
The good news out of all of this is slowly being allowed to say that Iran and its ideology is shortsighted. Only Arab socialism could have saved the region, at the end of the day sunni compradors will always choose capital over a despised minority.
Doesn’t Iran have True Promise 3 in the works still?
On the other hand, people are exhausted, and Lebanon can’t take any more destruction. If this ceasefire makes us avoid total Gaza-style destruction of the South, then it would be stupid to not take it. The internal situation politically is close to exploding, the Nazi class of Maronites are ready to collaborate with the Israelis and they are fully backed by the Americans and the Saudis. Iran is losing grip over Lebanon, Syria and Iraq. That’s the big result of this, Israeli/American hegemony is stronger than Iranian hegemony, and it has achieved a major victory by crippling Gaza and Lebanon. This ceasefire simply gives us a chance to avoid Gaza’s fate. Hamas gambled that the world wouldn’t let Israel completely destroy life in Gaza, and their gamble didn’t pay off. We know now that Israel could give us the Gaza treatment without any consequences, Hezbollah might have prevented this scenario by defeating Israel militarily and giving us an opportunity to come out without complete destruction.
Yeah it’s too early to state if it’s a victory, defeat or stalemate yet, the details are not public.
I still think the difference between the boers and the Israelis is religious apocalypticism . Jewish conservatives and libs in Europe will definitely move to Israel once France and Britain go to shit.