Image is sourced from this article.

Those who were around in the early days of the news megathread may remember Pedro Castillo, the left-leaning leader of Peru who was deposed in December 2022. He was replaced by Dina Boluarte, the first woman to be President of Peru, who described herself as a progressive but afterwards routinely sided with Peruvian conservatives and American interests. To say she was unpopular is an understatement of titanic proportions - she descended to such lows that she was, at one point, the single most unpopular leader on the planet. As with most deeply unpopular leaders that side with the West, she kept power for a bafflingly long time.

However, on October 10th, after a period of protests against the government, she was impeached and removed by Peru’s Congress in a unanimous vote. José Jerí was sworn in as the new President, who was previously the President of the Congress and is a member of a centrist Peruvian party. The government is trying the classic strategy: keep doing the same thing as before, and sacrifice an unpopular figure - here, Boluarte - in the hopes that this appeases the crowd.

Is this strategy working? It doesn’t really seem to be - protests are not only continuing, but strengthening, as it is clear that neoliberalism will not reformed and the brutality by police will not stop (there was very recently a high-profile case in which a musician, Mauricio Ruiz, was murdered). Controversies surrounding Jerí, including allegations of SA, are already being reported. If Jerí is deposed, the next person in line to try their hand at ruling will be the former army general Roberto Chiabra, who would be the ninth President in less than a decade.

Last week’s thread is here.
The Imperialism Reading Group is here.

Please check out the RedAtlas!

The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.

The Zionist Entity's Genocide of Palestine

If you have evidence of Zionist crimes and atrocities that you wish to preserve, there is a thread here in which to do so.

Sources on the fighting in Palestine against the temporary Zionist entity. 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.

  • hellinkilla [they/them, they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
    1·
    4 hours ago

    Curious about the brief mention of plagerism.

    From WP Julia Sebutinde Plagiarism controversy, learned Finklstein et al are on the case and as typical, tearing apart line by line on any basis.

    MEE: ICJ president ‘plagiarised 32 percent of pro-Israel dissenting opinion’ (Feb 25)

    full text

    In fresh revelations, researcher finds nearly one third of Julia Sebutinde’s legal view on Israeli occupation was directly lifted from unattributed sources

    By Rayhan Uddin 3 Feb 2025

    Fresh allegations have emerged of Julia Sebutinde, acting president of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), appearing to plagiarise large sections of her dissenting opinion on Israel’s occupation of Palestine.

    Last month, Sebutinde, who arguably holds the most prestigious judicial position, was accused of directly lifting sentences almost word for word in her dissenting opinion written on 19 July.

    A study seen by Middle East Eye by a Palestinian researcher for an upcoming book by US scholar Norman Finkelstein has now alleged that “at least 32 percent of Sebutinde’s dissent was plagiarised”.

    The research will be presented as part of a chapter in Finkelstein’s upcoming book Gaza Gravediggers, which will be published in June.

    Last July, a 15-judge panel found that Israel’s decades-long occupation of the Palestinian territories was “unlawful” and that its “near-complete separation” of people in the occupied West Bank breached international laws concerning “racial segregation” and “apartheid”.

    While most judges agreed with the advisory opinion, Sebutinde rejected the findings.

    When contacted by MEE for a response, Sebutinde declined to comment on the plagiarism allegations.

    ‘Bizarre’

    Finkelstein told MEE that when he initially read the Ugandan judge’s dissenting opinion in July, he found it to be “bizarre”, and suspected that sentences may have been plagiarised.

    “So I posted on my Twitter account: ‘Would anyone care to volunteer to help me track down some plagiarism?’” the writer and scholar said.

    Following Finkestein’s call-out on X, formerly known as Twitter, a researcher who grew up in Gaza, responded with a thorough examination of the document. The researcher requested to remain anonymous.

    “He’s very precise. He finds 32.2 percent of her dissent was plagiarised," said Finkelstein.

    One of the sources the study found that Sebutinde repeatedly borrowed sentences from, word for word, is a video by conservative activist David Brog, entitled “Why isn’t there a Palestinian state?”.

    ICJ president’s plagiarism in Israel opinion ‘reflects poorly’, experts say Read More »

    Laying out the history of the Israel-Palestine conflict, Sebutinde wrote that during the 1937 Peel Commission, “The British Government offered the Palestinian Arabs 80 percent of Mandatory Palestine (Transjordan), and the Jews the remaining 20 per cent (Palestine) in a suggested split that was heavily in favour of the former.

    “Despite the tiny size of their proposed State, the Jews voted to accept this offer, but the Arabs rejected it and resumed their violent rebellion against the British mandate.”

    The equivalent sentence in Brog’s video stated: “The suggested split was heavily in favour of the Arabs. The British offered them 80 percent of the disputed territory; the Jews, the remaining 20 percent. Yet, despite the tiny size of their proposed state, the Jews voted to accept this offer. But the Arabs rejected it and resumed their violent rebellion.”

    Large parts of the text from Brog’s video appear in Sebutinde’s dissenting opinion - much of it word for word. The video is not mentioned in her citations.

    Brog is the former director of Christians United for Israel, and the current director of the Maccabee Task Force, which fights the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement on campuses in the US and Canada.

    The research also found sections lifted from a 2016 paper titled “Palestine, Uti Possidetis Juris and the Borders of Israel” by Abraham Bell and Eugene Kontorovich (2016).

    These sections were highlighted last week in a blog by Mihai Martoiu Ticu, a writer based in the Netherlands.

    Bell and Kontorovich were among three legal scholars who wrote to Israel’s political leadership in January of last year, asserting that Israel was not legally obligated to allow displaced Palestinians in northern Gaza to return to their homes.

    Several sentences by Sebutinde were also lifted verbatim from a column by former US official Douglas Feith, as MEE reported last week.

    Feith served as under secretary of defence for policy in US President George W Bush’s administration from July 2001 until August 2005, devising US strategy for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

    He also co-wrote a policy paper for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 1996, recommending that Israel consider removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq and militarily engaging Syria using proxy forces.

    Sentences lifted from Wikipedia and BBC

    Not all of the sources that Sebutinde took sentences from are pro-Israeli or conservative. The study finds that several sections are directly lifted from Wikipedia and BBC News.

    In a section laying out the background of the 1973 Middle East war, Sebutinde writes: “The Israelis recognised that, despite impressive operational and tactical achievements on the battlefield, there was no guarantee that they would always dominate the Arab States militarily, as they had done consistently throughout the First, Second and Third Arab-Israeli Wars; these changes paved the way for the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.”

    Aside from the occasional change of word, this was lifted from the “Yom Kippur War” Wikipedia entry, as of late July.

    ICJ president accused of plagiarism in dissenting opinion on Israeli occupation Read More »

    A number of sentences were lifted verbatim from a BBC explainer on the history of wars between Israelis and Palestinians in Gaza.

    There are also at least two sources quoted by Sebutinde, verbatim, from official submissions to the court for the July case. Neither of the sources are attributed by the judge.

    Sebutinde wrote: “In 2020, in the context of the Abraham Accords, normalisation agreements (equivalent to peace treaties) have been reached between Israel and a diverse list of Arab countries including the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan.

    “The Israeli presence in the West Bank pending the conclusion of a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians is consistent with the international and bilateral frameworks for the resolution of the conflict.”

    The sentence, among several others, was written by the International Association of Jewish Lawyers (IJL) in its written statement submitted to the ICJ as part of the July proceedings looking into Israel’s policies in the occupied territories.

    MEE consulted with legal experts on this matter, who stated that lifting sentences from statements that were submitted to the court by participants of the case is less problematic, and may not necessarily be considered plagiarism.

    One expert said that while it was not plagiarism, the source of the submission should still have been clarified, rather than Sebutinde making out it was her own view of the law.

    As well as IJL, Sebutinde quoted extensively from Fiji’s submission to the court.

    She wrote: “Most of the participants in these advisory proceedings have, regrettably, presented the Court with a one-sided narrative that fails to take account of the complexity of the conflict and that misrepresents its legal, cultural, historical, and political context.”

    Meanwhile, Fiji’s spokesperson told the court: “In Fiji’s view, this Court has unfortunately been presented in these proceedings with a distinctly onesided narrative. This fails to take account of the complexity of this dispute and misrepresents the legal, historical and political context.”

    There was no mention of Fiji in the footnotes.

    MEE reached out to the ICJ for comment, but there was no response by the time of publication.

    Finkelstein hailed the Palestinian researcher’s work, which he described as “brilliant” and “precise”.

    “It tells you something about all the human talent that was squandered and destroyed by Israel in Gaza,” the scholar said. “I’ve met so many really impressive people from Gaza.”