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Erica Verrillo retweeted
After several days during which private-sector merchants suspended truck coordination activities in protest against Hamas's taxation mechanism and threats, the merchants informed COGAT that Hamas had reportedly withdrawn its demands for payments of approximately NIS 10,000 per truck and for goods to be sold in cash. Following this development, the merchants submitted requests to resume coordination of the entry of goods into the Gaza Strip.
The merchants' reports do not, in themselves, constitute verification that Hamas has ceased imposing taxes. Coordination will resume gradually, with an emphasis on the entry of essential supplies ahead of the winter season, while strengthening oversight of merchants' compliance with their obligation to make and receive payments exclusively through bank transfers, including the documentation of transactions. These measures are intended to ensure that Hamas does not exploit the mechanism for its economic and military buildup.
Any merchant found to have made payments to Hamas will have their authorization to operate under the mechanism for bringing goods into the Gaza Strip revoked.
The resumption of coordination is being carried out in accordance with Israel's commitment to the humanitarian provisions of the ceasefire agreement.
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Erica Verrillo retweeted
Cher Monsieur,
Ce n’est pas la société d’abondance qui pousse ces jeunes à voler. Cela porte un nom : les ghazawat (la sourate 8, Al-Anfal), c’est-à-dire les razzias.
Dans la tradition islamique, le butin pris lors des expéditions militaires du Prophète Mahomet était considéré comme licite. Dès lors que l’intifada a été décrétée en Europe, la razzia devient, dans cette logique, une pratique « normale ».
Vous avez affaire à une autre vision du monde et à un autre modèle de société, qui vont à l’encontre de vos valeurs républicaines.
@Enthoven_R
« J'appelle "société de provocation", toute société d'abondance et en expansion économique qui se livre à l'exhibitionnisme constant de ses richesses et pousse à la consommation et à la possession par la publicité, les vitrines de luxe, les étalages alléchants, tout en laissant en marge une fraction importante de la population qu'elle provoque à l'assouvissement de ses besoins réels ou artificiellement créés, en même temps qu'elle lui refuse les moyens de satisfaire cet appétit.
Comment peut-on s'étonner, lorsqu'un jeune Noir du ghetto, cerné de Cadillac et de magasins de luxe, bombardé à la radio et à la télévision par une publicité frénétique, comment s'étonner, dites-le-moi, si ce jeune finit par se ruer à la première occasion sur les étalages béants derrière les vitrines brisées ? »
Romain Gary, Chien Blanc (1969)
Erica Verrillo retweeted
His mother was born in the land of Israel. Ashkenazi DNA is 60% Levantine (meaning from the land of Israel). We were conquered by the Romans colonisers who drove us out of our land, and renamed it from Judea to Palestine.
The most common last name in the Palestinian authority is Al Masri - which mean Egyptian. Also common last names there - halabi - from Aleppo Syria , Hijazi (area in Saudi Arabia ) and so on. Mark Twain visited the holy land in the middle of the 19 century and described a completely empty land. Most of the “Palestinians” came as labour immigrants from the neighbouring lands during the late ottoman time and British Mandate. Palestinians can’t event pronounce “Palestine” because there’s no P in Arabic. The only people who called themselves “Palestinian” before 1948 were Jews - “Palestine post” and “Palestine airways” were Jewish Zionist owned during the British mandate . The Arabs of the land simply called themselves Arabs , and referred to that region as southern Syria. The British named that land Palestine after they took it from the ottomans , because that was the roman colonial name of the land. Before the PLO was invented by the Soviets in 1964 (when Gaza and Judea & Samaria were in Arab hands ) there was no Arab / Islamic association to that name.
We are called Jews because we are from Judea , and Arabs are allied that way because they are from Arabia.
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Erica Verrillo retweeted
Where are you, President @EmmanuelMacron?
Today in France, partial list:
Paris: shops looted, cars set on fire, heavy clashes with tear gas and water cannon around Place de la République, streets “methodically ravaged.”
Marseille: 7,000 rioters, town hall stormed, mass looting of stores, police vans violently attacked
Lyon: tourist office set on fire
Toulouse: shops vandalized and looted
Nice: shops attacked by masked groups
Nantes: shops targeted and looted
Montpellier: shops vandalized
Strasbourg: shops looted.
Bordeaux: prefect’s official residence sacked, shops looted including Louis Vuitton, Decathlon, Intersport, Apple Store
Lille: town hall invaded and interiors damaged; McDonald’s set on fire; looters smash and steal from Apple Store, Sephora, Optic 2000
Rennes: shops targeted and vandalized
Grenoble: city center shops looted and urban furniture destroyed; commercial building set on fire after being pillaged; vehicles and barricades burned.
Limoges: historic Hôtel de Ville (1883, historic monument) set on fire after windows broken and entry forced; roof and campanile largely collapsed, building “largely lost”; police vehicles burned.
Avignon: courtyard of the Vaucluse prefecture entered; shops looted; violent clashes with police near prefecture.
Erica Verrillo retweeted
TWENTY BILLION DOLLARS IN RUSSIAN OIL ASSETS AND GUESS WHOSE FRIENDS ARE FIRST IN LINE
Lukoil is selling off its international empire. Oil fields. Refineries. Gas stations spanning the globe. Valued at twenty billion dollars
Who's bidding. A guy named Todd Boehly who personally handed Trump's political operation two million dollars
Standing next to him. Investors out of Abu Dhabi controlled by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed
The same sheikh who just bought a massive stake in Steve Witkoff's company. Witkoff. Trump's handpicked envoy supposedly negotiating peace, not profit
Then there's Kushner and Ivanka Trump. Business partners with the Qatari al-Khayyat brothers. The same brothers circling this exact deal
Donald Trump waives sanctions on Russia days before they take effect. No explanation given to the public. None
And the people positioned to cash in on that exact decision are his son-in-law's business partners, his envoy's new investor, and a two-million-dollar donor
Ukraine loses territory and leverage. Americans lose a law their own Congress passed to choke Putin's war machine
Mitch McConnell objects. Susan Collins objects. Republicans objects. Doesn't matter. Trump signs it anyway
Putin's own envoy is on Telegram calling this a historic moment. He's not wrong. Historic for who gets rich
Frozen Russian reserves. Pipeline access. Investment projects. All of it opening up right as Trump's inner circle lines up at the door
This isn't foreign policy. This is a liquidation sale with Trump's family and friends holding the only invitations
And every ordinary American paying more at the pump gets to watch Trump's in-laws get richer off the deal that caused it
Remember this the next time they tell you sanctions relief is about diesel prices
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Erica Verrillo retweeted
Obama also criticized Hamas: "What they did on October 7, you could not have designed something that was less likely to produce meaningful change."
This is a strange way to talk about the massacre, rape, and kidnapping of innocents.
October 7th was not a failed strategy to produce peace. It accomplished Hamas's goal: murdering Jews.
I am liberal. That is what makes it so disturbing to see leaders from the Democratic Party spread false narratives that harm Jews.
Erica Verrillo retweeted
On this day—October 15, 1944
The pro-Nazi Arrow Cross Party seized power in Hungary with German tanks. Within hours, Budapest’s surviving Jews that narrowly escaped the summer deportations to Auschwitz were hunted in the streets.
Arrow Cross militias shot Jews on the spot, forced tens of thousands on death marches toward Austria in the winter cold, and later drove thousands more to the Danube where they were tied in groups and executed so their bodies fell into the river.
This memorial was built in 2005 to remember the Jews who were forced to remove their shoes before being shot. Their bodies filled the Danube, but their shoes remained on shore.
The terror against Budapest’s Jews continued until the Red Army took the city in February 1945.
Erica Verrillo retweeted
Contrary to recent reports echoed by Hamas, Israel did not initiate the suspension of private-sector operations for the entry of goods into the Gaza Strip.
As previously communicated by COGAT, in recent days, private-sector merchants informed COGAT that, due to Hamas’s forced taxation mechanism and threats against merchants who refuse to comply with its demands, they had decided to suspend the coordination of trucks carrying goods into the Gaza Strip until further notice, out of genuine fear for their lives and safety.
According to reports received from the merchants, Hamas demands approximately 10,000 NIS for every truck carrying goods into Gaza and requires merchants to sell approximately 30% of their goods in cash, in an effort to gain control over the proceeds. It was also reported that Hamas security personnel arrested the son of one of the merchants and transferred him to Abbas Prison after his father refused to comply with the organization’s taxation demands. This incident, along with the threats and pressure exerted on the merchants, led them to suspend coordination activities out of fear for their lives.
It should be emphasized that humanitarian aid continues to enter the Gaza Strip through the UN, international organizations, and donor countries. According to COGAT’s assessments, based on UN reports and evaluations by experts from the international community, the volume of aid entering through these channels is sufficient to adequately meet the needs of the population in Gaza, even without private-sector operations.
Erica Verrillo retweeted
I've spent over 20 years debunking anti-Israel lies. But I've come to realize why fact-checking alone accomplishes so little.
The problem isn't just misinformation. It's the worldview that makes misinformation believable.
When people divide the world into rigid categories of oppressor and oppressed, they assume that everyone in those categories must behave accordingly. Israel is powerful, so it must be cruel. Palestinians are powerless, so their actions must be justified. Even evidence contradicting these assumptions gets reinterpreted to reinforce them.
These assumptions are so deeply embedded in contemporary academic thought that many people don't even recognize them as assumptions.
A theory that explains everything, including contradictory actions, explains nothing.
We need to teach genuine critical thinking: how to question our own assumptions, recognize unfalsifiable theories, and apply consistent standards to everyone.
The battle against misinformation cannot be won one disputed fact at a time. We need to challenge the assumptions that make lies believable in the first place.
Link in next post.
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Erica Verrillo retweeted
Several people have asked why our posts no longer have clickable links. X's API raised the price of clickable links from 1 cent each to 20 cents each. We are looking into options, but in the meantime, please visit us on bsky, where no such restrictions are in place.
Erica Verrillo retweeted
Elon Musk’s Starlink has been partially taken away from Ukraine, leaving them vulnerable to Russian strikes. Musk had been threatening this here on X.
Between this, his $360 million of donations this cycle alone, his ownership of this platform, and more, is way too much power for one man who is erratic and prone to conspiracy theories.
I gifted this article so you can read it.
nytimes.com/2026/10/14/world…
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