#global slaughter

[workersolidarity]

[ 📹 The moment an Israeli airstrike bombed a building in the city of Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip. Zionist airstrikes continue throughought Gaza today, with dozens killed throughout the day. ]

🇮🇱⚔️🇵🇸 🚀🏘️💥🚑 🚨

MORE PALESTINIAN CHILDREN ARE SLAUGHTERED IN CONTINUOUS ISRAELI AIRSTRIKES ON CIVILIAN HOMES

In yet another airstrike, Zionist warplanes bombed a residential home in the Al-Geneina neighborhood, east of Rafah, resulting in the death of a child named Eileen al-Athamna.

Meanwhile, in another atrocity, the Zionist airforces bombed a residential building housing displaced families, north of Rafah, killing 19 civilians, including 9 children.

Occupation forces also bombed civilians recovering bodies from under the debris of another destroyed home in the Nuseirat Refugee Camp, in the central Gaza Strip, killing two and wounding a number of others.

Zionist fighter jets also bombarded the city of Hope, west of the Nuseirat Camp, while

Occupation forces also continue with the constant bombing of the Al-Rimal neighborhood of Gaza City, most of it focused on the area around Al-Shifa Medical Complex, but bombing raids also targeted the city of Beit Hanoun and the Jabalia Refugee Camp.

Elsewhere, the bodies of 12 Palestinians were brought to the European Gaza Hospital in Khan Yunis after being recovered from under the rubble of homes in the Al-Mawasi area after intense bombing earlier today.

The current death toll in "Israel's" ongoing war of genocide in the Gaza Strip now exceeds 32'414 Palestinians martyred, over 25'000 of which being women and children according to the United States Pentagon, while another 74'787 others have been wounded since the start of the current round of Zionist aggression beginning on October 7th, 2023.

#source1

#source2

#videosource

@WorkerSolidarityNews

#gaza #gaza slaughter #gaza news #gaza war #gaza genocide #genocide in gaza #genocide of palestinians #israeli genocide #israeli war crimes #war crimes #crimes against humanity #israel #israeli occupation #israeli occupation forces #palestine #palestine news #palestinians #middle east #war #israel palestine conflict #politics #news #geopolitics #world news #global news #international news #breaking news #current events #war on gaza #free palestine

[hussyknee]

The worst fear of oppressors is experiencing their own inhumanity at the hands of the people they oppress.

#sincerely i hope every single zionist's house gets blown up and they get run out of their country with nowhere to go #if you have sympathy for genociders and child murderers you're also as broken as they are #people who encourage and defend the slaughter of thousands of families and expelling people from their homes #deserve nothing but the same treatment #the willingness of this site to witch hunt harry potter fans while still platforming zionists is an illustration #of the fact that their concept of ''never again'' always had a colour line #i hope your life is one day given the same value you've assigned to arabs and muslims #and the global south #from river to sea palestine will be free #free palestine #colonization #genocide

[dykestache]

hi anon i was intentionally not referring to capital H the Holocaust, but *a* holocaust. yes that is a real word that existed prior to the 1940s. my wondering was if israhell’s genocide in palestine would be in line with this specific definition, hence why i did not capitalize it, because it has a different meaning uncapitalized. you can check out the multiple definitions and historical origins of the word holocaust here

#idk i was taught that holocausts still occured globally before and after the Holocaust in like 8th grade #however i’ve also read a lot more about deconstructing Holocaust exceptionalism and how dangerous it can be to claim its inability to be #replicated. i’ve seen israelis calling for gaza to be made to look like auschwitz so it doesn’t quite sit right with me what you said either #‘4. any mass slaughter or reckless destruction of life.’ i quite think it fits the bill don’t you?

[chaiaurchaandni]

watch: Palestinian children who lost their limbs due to israeli terrorism speak about life and survival and hope

#theyre just kids!!! they want to play football and they want to run around!!! like any other child #why must they suffer for the greed of israel and america #the kid in the beginning who said she doesnt want prosthetics bec theyll remind her of what she lost and she doesnt want to remember ... #fuck israel fuck america fuck zionism fuck capitalism fuck the global north fuck uk and fuck eu #i hope the entire golabl north drowns in all the blood of innocents that it has shed in the global south #all iof pigs deserve to be executed and slaughtered #death to israel #free palestine #palestine #gaza #long live palestine #glory to the martyrs #from the river to the sea palestine will be free #long live the resistance #israeli terrorism

[putri900]

Even i was hoping trump was just going to be only slightly worse than biden but then lo and behold! Out of fucking nowhere, they want to persecute and put every "illegal" in CONCENTRATION CAMPS. And they want to invade mexico. They're still persecuting trans people via legislation. They still had that fucking batshit crazy plan to DISMANTLE the entire democratic process.

So remember that even when your Democrat is basically satan himself, Republicans still figure out how to be satan times 10. Always. They're always going to be worse.

On another, sadder note, i think satan times 10 will win. Because progressives have broadly given up on this new, increasingly shitty status quo, theyll let in something significantly worse. Its not that i even necessarily blame voters when the Democrats themselves make themselves irredeemable, but itd be nice to just hope... that things couldnt get significantly worse.

#and i don't think 2016 is comparable to this election either #just so we dont forget trump did also put many many immigrants in concentration camps during his time #but he also planted the people necessary to revoke roe v wade and other rights of minorities #the amount of anti trans bills are already staggering but at least some of them are losing #another thing i find so worrying is that people also seem to forget trump did jan 6th like... a insurrection he tried to get the VP killed #for not allowing him to become a dictator and overriding the vote #if he failed once why would you let him try it again and with a SIGNIFICANTLY larger amount of support for it #what frightens me is that America isnt like Germany was #its THE global military and cultural power. it has the power #just like israel is being allowed to slaughter with no repercussions America will be allowed to do what it will with barely a word from #other global powers because why would they step in? its the USA. #theyd terrorize Mexico and other third world nations first; thats certainly not a priority for the rest of the powers that be #politics

[disteal]

So I haven’t talked about this on main before, but the situation in South Gaza has gotten so horrifying that I’m p much throwing caution to the wind to desperately plead for eyes on this. I’m raising awareness about stories from activists in Gaza right now, including one of our own.

My lovely, wonderful friend Swin (aka tumblr user @combaticon) was deployed as a volunteer medic to a Gaza hospital on the 9th.

When the bloodshed started, she heard they needed extra hands in Gaza, she spoke Arabic and had the training, and she went.

I’ve been in contact with her throughout. She’s so incredibly brave it takes my breath away. My heart bleeds for these children she’s taking care of and how resilient they are is… astonishing.

Swin and these poor people have been under siege for so long, and they’re in desperate need of critical supplies. They have to filter water through their clothes, and it’s getting dangerously cold. Foods finally been getting through, but there’s not enough blankets and jackets to go around and there’s no fuel for the generators.

Their comrades in the West Bank have been completely pushed out by settler thugs. It’s incredibly unsafe to even be doing humanitarian work for Palestinians. Remember this the next time a Zionist tells you they’re doing this to ‘feel safe’. The IOF is arming lynch mobs.

On a personal note, this has been the most gut-wrenching week of my life. Every day when I wake up without a text from her I feel so much fear. I fight back the grief but I don’t know how to help or what to do. It’s terrifying.

Swin has asked for nothing, absolutely nothing other than something it can show the people around it to make them feel like they’re not going to be abandoned. To make sure they’re not forgotten in some pit praying Rafah opens before Israel decides to slaughter them all.

Today was a bad day. She’s alive but beyond worrying about her privacy now; she’s asked me to share this and to beg that we not lose steam and forget about them. Please share this, and please keep being fucking annoying and loud and digging your heels in with fury because we cannot let these people die silently.

[Times of Gaza] [QUD network] [Eye on Palestine]

[link to GCC registration website as the link in this picture is broken]

Please keep in mind that the Global Conscience Convoy is NOT soliciting donations, and registration is to sign up for attendance to the actual event in Cairo. There’s a list of other actions you can do to boost awareness for their protest at Rafah on the website.

#palestine #world news #gaza strip #israel #dis.txt #long post #psa #important #i just want her to come home man #i’m so so so so proud of her

[zvaigzdelasas]

[NewYorkTimes is Private US Media]

Over the past month, we’ve watched an astonishing, high-stakes global drama play out in The Hague. A group of countries from the poorer, less powerful bloc some call the global south, led by South Africa, dragged the government of Israel and, by extension, its rich, powerful allies into the top court of the Western rules-based order and accused Israel of prosecuting a brutal war in Gaza that is “genocidal in character.”

The responses to this presentation from the leading nations of that order were quick and blunt.

“Completely unjustified and wrong,” said a statement from Rishi Sunak, Britain’s prime minister.

“Meritless, counterproductive and completely without any basis in fact whatsoever,” said John Kirby, a spokesman for the United States National Security Council.

“The accusation has no basis in fact,” a German government spokesman said, adding that Germany opposed the “political instrumentalization” of the genocide statute.

But on Friday, that court had its say, issuing a sober and careful provisional ruling that doubled as a rebuke to those dismissals. In granting provisional measures, the court affirmed that some of South Africa’s allegations were plausible and called on Israel to take immediate steps to protect civilians, increase the amount of humanitarian aid and punish officials who engaged in violent and incendiary speech. The court stopped short of calling for a cease-fire, but it granted South Africa’s request for provisional measures to prevent further civilian death. For the most part, the court ruled in favor of the global south.[...]

The court was not asked to rule on whether Israel had in fact committed genocide, a matter that is likely to take years to adjudicate. Whatever the eventual outcome of the case, it sets up an epic battle over the meaning and values of the so-called rules-based order. If these rules don’t apply when powerful countries don’t want them to, are they rules at all?

“As long as those who make rules enforce them against others while believing that they and their allies are above those rules, the international governance system is in trouble,” Thuli Madonsela, one of South Africa’s leading legal minds and an architect of its post-apartheid Constitution, told me. “We say these rules are the rules when Russia invades Ukraine or when the Rohingya are being massacred by Myanmar, but if it’s now Israel butchering Palestinians, depriving them of food, displacing them en masse, then the rules don’t apply and whoever tries to apply the rules is antisemitic? It is really putting those rules in jeopardy.”[...]

The military campaign has “wreaked more destruction than the razing of Syria’s Aleppo between 2012 and 2016, Ukraine’s Mariupol or, proportionally, the Allied bombing of Germany in World War II,” the report quoted researchers as saying. The researchers, hardly some raving left-wing activists, are experts cited in one of the most respected news organizations in the world, The Associated Press.[...]

The International Court of Justice issued a nonbinding opinion in 2004 that the security barriers Israel was erecting in the West Bank violated international law, but that ruling has had no effect. The walls still stand.[...]

Indeed, what is a rules-based system if the rules apply only selectively and if seeking to apply them to certain countries is viewed as self-evidently prejudiced? To put it more simply, is there no venue in the international system to which the stateless people of Palestine and their allies and friends can go to seek redress amid the slaughter in Gaza? And if not, what are they to do?

For the cause of Palestinian statehood, every alternative to violence has been virtually snuffed out, in part because Israel’s allies have helped to discredit them. The most recent example is the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement that has, in many places, been successfully tarred as antisemitic or even banned altogether. Efforts to use the United Nations Security Council have drawn U.S. vetoes for decades. Is seeking redress at the appropriate venue for alleged violations of international law also antisemitic, as Israel’s defense minister said on Friday? Does no law apply to Israel? Are there no limits to what it may do to defend itself?[...]

The Biden administration has made the shoring up of the international rules-based order a centerpiece of its foreign policy but, unsurprisingly, has struggled to live up to that aspiration.[...]

Occasionally straying from your principles because circumstances require it is very different from being seen to have no principles at all, and that is precisely how much of the global south has come to regard the United States.

It seems especially shortsighted in these times that the Biden administration elected to wave away the carefully documented case prepared by South Africa. One of the biggest threats to the rules-based international order is the growing consensus in the poor world that the rich world will apply those rules selectively, at its discretion, when it suits the powerful nations that make up the global north, such as when Russia invaded Ukraine.[...]

As far as the rules-based order is concerned, when it comes to crimes like genocide and ethnic cleansing, it simply does not matter who started it. [...] The best way to shore up the rules-based order is to be seen, in word and deed, as committing to the institutions and moral commitments of that order.

28 Jan 24

[7amaspayrollmanager]

I should stop but u know what's really bothering me is that there are people online going "these protests are not helping you're not helping the people of gaza at all with your boycotts they're meaningless" and like linking the website to some peace group in tel Aviv like "these are REAL activists who are making change" and its like- the people of gaza the medics, the journalists, every day people that I follow asked us to protest. And have said that it warms their hearts when they see the protests on their phones with whatever little connection they have. To zionists, the people of Gaza genuinely are not even active voices in the struggle unless they can exploit them if they direct their frustrations towards Hamas as they're starving bc of Israel's siege. That's how awful they are

There is a page on instagram that should have more followers and its @gaza_coalition and its a group of gazans running the page and one of their latest posts is asking people around the world to protest on new years eve. This is late but I'm still going to post this because I am really sick of people just assuming that the hours and effort that palestinians and allies in cities around the world are putting into organizing protests and boycotts for the people of Gaza "don't actually care for Palestinians." As a palestinian get fucked this has been the greatest solidarity we have ever seen on a global stage and the people of gaza need boycotts, need the protests, need the direct action

ID/ Direct your efforts towards organizing demonstrations on New Years Eve, demonstrate in front of American embassies, key decision-making centres, and establishments of involved actors and entities to exert pressure on the United States, its allies, and all those complicit in the ongoing massacres in Gaza.

GLOBAL CALL FOR SOLIDARITY PROTESTING GENOCIDE ON NEW YEAR'S EVE CEASEFIRE NOW OPEN THE RAFAH CROSSING AND LIFT THE BRUTAL SIEGE IMPOSED ON GAZA

After an excruciating 82-day period marred by a genocidal war targeting the Palestinians in Gaza, the Security Council issued a hollow resolution, stripped of any substantive reference to an urgently needed ceasefire, succumbing to American pressure and veto. This cowardly act not only granted lsrael the audacity to persist in its slaughter of Gaza's populace, but it also exposed a reprehensible collusion within the Arab and international community.

Consequently, we vehemently refuse to accept the celebration of the New Year while cannons persist in obliterating families, maiming and killing innocent children. We call to mobilize our collective strength on this momentous occasion, transforming it into a global protest against the unrelenting massacres and their supporters. Since the initial moments of this aggression, the United States, along with its allies in Israel, has fiercely rejected any prospects of a ceasefire.

Many governments have conspired against reaching a ceasefire, perpetuating their historically hostile policies towards Palestinian rights. This culmination of tyranny was exemplified by the article by the Foreign Ministers of Germany and Britain, characterised by insufferable conceit and a gross distortion of facts. The cessation of aggression and the very notion of a ceasefire are derided as a "blow to peace," as if this imaginary concept can only be achieved at the expense of the lives and dignity of our martyred children.

For a brighter future, humanity must unite in the face of this rampant tyranny, a relentless affront to the sanctity of life and the principles of justice.

End ID

[xyriath]

but seriously if you are at all blogging about the i/p conflict you NEED to read that standing together article from that post i just reblogged. please. please please please please please. these are the people who are actually doing something about freeing palestine and have been for years. And here's the thing:

IF YOU WANT PEACE IN ISRAEL, IN PALESTINE, THESE ARE THE PEOPLE IT'S GOING TO COME FROM.

Because yeah. The way this site is spreading around uncritical posts is a huge issue (and a reason I haven't been around since October). Standing Together is doing a hell of a lot more than blogging about it. They're on the ground putting in the work. Nine days before the October 7 attack, they were in Tel Aviv publicly protesting about the systematic oppression of Arabs (not just Palestinians) in Israel.

"The global left has to be synced with what we need." Trust me, the right is. Boy HOWDY is the right synced. I have gotten more support about my Judaism from the far right than the left and it's??? kinda fucked up??? Someone who worked for Pat Robertson should not feel safer than someone dedicated to activism, but here we are. I can feel how easy it would be to be radicalized towards the right, and I'm actively fighting against it. Now imagine that multiplied by millions of people, plenty of whom don't have the same desire to do so, or feel like they don't have the luxury of safety to do so.

Seeing Hamas being portrayed as sympathetic and talked about like they had a right to commit all of the atrocities that they have is making me lose my MIND. They're a group run by corrupt billionaires who actively started this conflict with the intent of silencing the Palestinian people who have been protesting their tyranny. They have been siphoning money from Palestinians for years and this entire attack is them deliberately throwing Palestinians into the path of slaughter to distract from that fact, the same way that Netanyahu absolutely took advantage of the threat and tragedy to try and get himself off the hook for his own corruption.

Also check out the google doc linked in the article. It's not just a good way to learn how to communicate, but a very good resource for finding out if something you're sharing is worthwhile. In fact, it does a really god job of breaking down why I've felt so uncomfortable about a bunch of the posts on my dash. Some excerpts:

This got way longer than I had intended, but hopefully does its job. Go read the article and, yes, if you need to, reevaluate your activism. Because if it's not what people involved actually want or need, then it's just for you. And that's kinda fucked up.

#xyri yaps #antisemitism #Israel #Gaza #Palestine #I/P Conflict #Activism #Leftist Antisemitism #Standing Together #i've been sitting on a lot of this for a while and i guess it all came out now

[kelluinox]

Dear Free Palestine fans,

If you want to combat the inherent antisemitism in your ranks, don't say shit like "Israel wants jews to feel hated/unsafe". Israel didn't make you chant "Gas the jews" at Sydney hours after a bloody massacre of innocent civilians. Israel didn't make you celebrate and then deny the gruesome murders and mass rapes of men, women and children. Israel didn't make you carry Isis flags, or wear Hamas symbology and call Hamas freedom fighters. Israel didn't make you chant to globalize the intifada, to push 7 million jews and 2 million arabs into the sea, or one solution (how that last one did *not* remind you of Hitler's final solution I have no idea). Israel didn't make you excuse the slaughter and say that Hamas shouldn't be destroyed. Israel didn't make you rewrite Jewish history. Israel didn't make you attack and harass diaspora jews and bar them from using Cafe bathrooms (segregation much?). Israel didn't make you attack Jewish businesses. Israel didn't make you deny our right for self determination instead of advocating that both sides have a right to a state. Israel didn't make you call for a ceasefire WITHOUT the stipulation that Hamas stop shooting as well and release ALL the hostages, among which there is a 10 month old BABY and toddlers as young as 3 years old.

I could go on. Point is, Israel didn't make you do any of that. You did that. On your own. Take some fucking accountability and clean up your movement.

#do some fucking introspection #take a good hard look at yourself in the mirror #this is why I don't support you #leftist antisemitism #antisemitism

[hussyknee]

I woke up to the news about Refaat Alreer. I still feel cold. Imagine seeing someone talking on your TL every day, narrating what the genociders are doing, counting the dead and telling their stories, amplifying his colleagues in Palestinian activism and academia, advocating and pleading endlessly for a ceasefire, delivering blistering witticisms about Zionist propaganda and then...he and his whole family are dead.

Two of my favourite tweets by him, calling out the craven Western media for never naming Israel.

It feels like a funeral today. My whole TL full of his students and Palestinians mourning Refaat alongside writers and journalists and academics from all over the Global South. The only people who matter to us is us.

Meanwhile, Zionists are attacking us under our mourning tweets, circulating the tweet where he laughed at the monstrous lie of Hamas cooking a baby in an oven during Oct 7th, one of the lies that fuelled the slaughter that eventually killed him too.

This was his last tweet.

USAmerican disability activist Imani Barbarin's tweet today was partially motivated by Refaat's death.

I need to go offline for a while.

I leave you with Refaat's last poem that was his pinned tweet for over a month. When a storyteller dies, generations are robbed of universes. When a poet dies, the world loses a piece of its soul.

You can find Refaat's book "Gaza Writes Back" in my gdrive folder of Palestinian literature. I don't know where the royalties will go now, but please also try and find it in a bookstore or library.

#refaat alareer #palestinian poetry #palestinian literature #gaza genocide #palestinian genocide #genocide joe #fuck joe biden #free gaza #free palestine #gaza writes back #us politics #us government #vajra chandrasekera #imani barbarin #hebh jamal #western imperialism #western hypocrisy #knee of huss #gaza news

[littlestpersimmon]

If activism was seen as a duty and a necessity rather than what Americans love to see as a kindness or something you go out of your way for, we'd be so much better off.. bc living from the global south I am exhausted of having to truncate myself and censor my words for the respectability politics of the average white American who would pearlclutch at the smallest iota of radical change, of any infinitesimal notion of wanting the occupied world to be dismantled. Everyone knows what lying by omission is, why are people having knee-jerk reactions to strangers asking strangers what their opinion on ethnic cleansing is, what nuance could even bring a person to say "well, it depends." Or "there are logistics". This is unfathomable to me. That the sensibilities of people who owe their entire comfortable lives to the meat grinding imperial core, is more important than the living, breathing people just waiting to be slaughtered to feed the western world. Are you all not tired. Are you all not exhausted of running away

[ellecdc]

Come Back, Be Here (part 6)

p1 // p2 // p3 // p4 // p5 // p6 // p7 // p8

Sirius Black x fem!reader - First Wizarding War Order of the Phoenix - 5.1k

CW: mentions of past abuse/torture, amnesia, mention of Bellatrix's cursed knife (same injury Hermione received in canon), racism/bigotry, swearing x a million cuz it's Remus' POV, angst, hurt/comfort, use of Y/N

Synopsis: After sacrificing yourself to save your friend and Order partner James months before, you're found on the brink of death. How will Sirius react when he finally gets his love back, only to have you snatched out from under him again?

“Where the FUCK is she?”

The headmaster calmly placed his teacup back on its saucer as the two men came barging into his office.

“Ah, Mr. Black. Mr. Lupin. Please, take a seat.” 

So, Sirius did; he took the seat, and he threw it at the wall.

“I am not fucking around old man. Where. Is. She? Where is Y/N?” He barked.

“I’m afraid I don’t know.”

Sirius stopped in his pacing.

“You don’t know!?” Remus repeated incredulously.

Dumbledore nodded.

Sirius picked up a spinning orb from the headmaster’s desk and sent it careening to the window. The windows – the damned things – were charmed not to break, but the orb did. As pieces of crystal shattered and scattered onto the floor, many sleeping portraits of previous headmasters began waking. A few stayed behind to watch the spectacle, whilst many left to find other portraits to haunt for the time being. 

“That’s not good enough.” Sirius fumed.

With a casual flick of his wand, Dumbledore righted the chair Sirius had thrown. “Why don’t you have a seat, son?”

“I am not your fucking son!” He shouted back, kicking the seat over again.

“Mr. Lupin, why don’t you encourage your friend here to calm down?” The portrait of a previous headmistress asked condescendingly. 

“Get fucked, ma’am.” Was his muttered response.

With a huff, the headmistress decided to leave as well. 

“I am so sick of being played like some pawn in this gods-awful game of yours! We are children! You fucking groomed us as students and enlisted us right out of the gates, fattening us up like cattle for slaughter!”

“Now, Mr. Black-”

“I’M NOT DONE.” Sirius roared. 

Dumbledore shifted his eyes to Remus, who kept his gaze firmly on him.

“You – you’re supposed to be this powerful wizard with years of experience. You defeated that Grindel-fuck back in the sodding dark-ages or whenever, yet somehow, this is out of your wheelhouse!?”

“Mr. Black, everyone learned from the Global Wizarding World with Grindelwald; Tom Riddle how to cheat death, and myself to enlist the help of others.” Dumbledore said.

“But you didn’t get help! You got soldiers, and we’re the ones fighting this fucking war for you! You get to sit here in this bloody castle with powerful ancient wards protecting you, drinking your tea, wanking to the portraits of the other headmasters in your spare time, while the rest of us get their fucking heads blown off!

“We’re the ones being captured. We’re the ones being tortured. We’re the ones being killed. We’re the ones with blood on our hands fighting for our fucking lives, everyday! Bouncing from safe-house to safe-house whilst never being safe. And you know! You’ve known there was a spy, you’ve had contacts on the other side, but you give us nothing. You just send us off on these fucking missions, blind, and we all have to hope that that’s enough. That we’ll live to see another day. That we’ll make it home to our loved ones.”

Sirius paused to catch his breath. “You will not get away with using her like this, not anymore, not by me.”

Dumbledore’s crystal blue eyes bore into Sirius’ stormy grey ones. After a few moments, he offered him a subtle nod. 

“Where is she?” He repeated, quieter this time.

“Sirius, the truth is that I do not know.”

Sirius groaned. “How can you not know!? Fine, fine. Who is your contact? Apparently, someone who was in league with the Black’s for the stupid fucking house-elf to betray me like this. So, who is it? Narcissa? Finally tired of the bleach fumes from that husband of hers? It can’t be Bellatrix.” 

Dumbledore pursed his lips as he considered Sirius.

“It’s not Bellatrix, is it?” He asked in quiet disbelief. 

“No, son, it is not Bellatrix.”

“’Kay well, tell me who it is, then. Reg’s dead so you’re leaving me with dear old Cissy here.” 

Dumbledore leaned onto his forearms on his desk as he peered at Sirius over his half-moon spectacles. 

“A house-elf will always be the most loyal to the head of the house it serves.” 

Sirius scoffed. “Yeah, well my house-elf just up and fucked-off with the love of my life so I’d say his loyalty doesn’t exactly align with...me...” He trailed off as something seemed to dawn on him. 

“Unless I’m not the head of the house.” 

Remus’ neck snapped as he whipped his head to regard his friend. 

“The deed and the vault at Gringotts were all moved to you, Sirius, you’re the head of the house.” 

Sirius never pulled his gaze away from the headmaster. “Goblins can be tricked, and deeds can be forged.” He whispered. “But house-elf magic...” 

Dumbledore leaned back into his chair. 

“But Regulus is dead. He was pronounced dead – your mother offed herself because he was pronounced dead.” Remus argued. 

“He was assumed dead.” Dumbledore corrected.

“Holy fucking shit.” Sirius breathed. 

“Regulus has been in contact with me since this past spring. It appears that Miss. L/N was the turning point for him in this war.”

Sirius stared in bafflement. “What do you...” 

“You may, one day, need to discuss with your brother. However, what he explained to me,” Dumbledore started. “Is that he had discovered Riddle’s secret of the horcruxes after becoming increasingly disenchanted by his rhetoric. He was intent on defeating Riddle himself, but came to me when he found Y/N.” 

The colour drained from Remus’ face. “You knew? All this time.”

Dumbledore turned his gaze to the lycanthrope. 

“You knew!?” He repeated.

“You must understand, I could not remove her from Riddle’s ranks without rousing suspicion from the other Death Eaters who knew she was there. We were also becoming increasingly aware of a spy within our ranks and could not jeopardize the intel by alerting the Death Eaters of our own spy.” 

“I can’t��fucking believe this.” Sirius cried out. “You let her suffer there so you could keep the upper hand!”

“It was for the greater good.”

“Fuck that!” Sirius barked. “Fuck that and fuck you!”

“You do not understand how differently this could have all played out without her, Sirius.” 

Remus scoffed. “Oh the ‘could’s’, professor, really? We can sit here until our dying breath discussing all of the fucking could’s that could have taken place from the beginning of fucking time itself and it would mean nothing.” 

“I don’t care what could have happened.” Sirius interjected. “You should have protected her. Protected all of us.” 

Dumbledore looked between his two former students as he seemed to come to some kind of decision. 

“The five horcruxes that Y/N brought us have been destroyed. I do not want to give Riddle time to realize that they are gone. I have discussed with our allies what will need to happen next.” Dumbledore stated.

“And what will need to happen next, professor?” Sirius sneered. 

“It appears that Mr. Pettigrew told Riddle he would be the secret keeper by their next meeting.” Dumbledore said as Sirius swallowed bile rising in his throat. “I believe it would be best to lure Riddle out when he does not feel the need for an army.” 

Remus leaned forward in his chair. “How do we do that?”

Dumbledore pursed his lips. “It would be best if Riddle remained unaware of our knowledge of Peter.”

“I think he’s going to figure it out when he misses their next club meeting.” Sirius scoffed. 

“Unless he goes.” Remus murmured. 

“Over my dead body do we release that rat bastard.” Sirius growled. 

“I agree, Mr. Black, I do not believe we should entrust Peter. However, there may be another way.”

Sirius looked at Dumbledore blankly. “Tell me, headmaster, do you plan on breaking out some unforgiveables? Because short of imperio, I’m not sure-”

“Polyjuice.” Remus blurted.

Sirius whipped his head to his friend in shock, whilst a twinkle of pride appeared in Dumbledore’s eye. 

“We could keep up the ruse.” Remus explained. 

“I’ll go.” Sirius claimed.

Remus groaned. “Pads, do you really think you’re the best person for this job?”

Sirius looked at Remus with a look of ill-hidden betrayal. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Sirius, this is the most sensitive mission possibly anyone will ever have to take. You are passionate but you have a tendency to go in guns blazing and this is not the setting.” 

“I’ll be fine.” Sirius argued.

“You are going to hear and see things that will infuriate and you will not be able to react. You will have to put your morals aside.” 

“Rem, honestly, I grew up with the pureblood bullshit, I can handle it.” Sirius insisted.

“It nearly killed you, Pads. I was there when you showed up at the Potter’s.”

“Remus, I’m going.”

“Perhaps it should be me.” Remus stated as if Sirius hadn’t said anything at all.

“Are you insane?”

“Obviously the answer to that is yes but listen: no one would be able to use legillimency on me due to lunar magic, I stand a better chance at keeping a level head, and I’m perhaps just a touch less emotionally invested in this than you are.” Remus argued.

“Besides,” he continued, “I’ve spent my entire life pretending that I’m not a monster. I’m sure I can pretend to be one for a little bit.”

“You’re not a monster.” Sirius sighed.

Remus gave him a sad smile. “See? I’ve fooled you all.”

Dumbledore hummed. “I think Mr. Lupin may be right, Sirius. Perhaps you should trust him with this.”

“Of course I trust him, but-” Sirius started, turning to look at Remus. “I can’t lose you too.” He admitted quietly.

Though the sentiment caused a twinge of pain in Remus’ chest, he couldn’t waste an opportunity to razz his mate. “Awe, Pads. Don’t tell me you’re gonna miss me.” He cheeked as he pinched Sirius’ arm. 

“Oh, sod off you wanker.” Sirius muttered and crossed his arms. 

“I suppose it’s settled.” Dumbledore claimed. “Please await my correspondence with further instructions.”

October 29th

“I hate this, I hate this, I hate this, I hate this.” James could be heard muttering as he paced the family room of 12 Grimmauld Place. 

“Why isn’t Dumbledore doing this himself?” Lily muttered darkly. 

“I’m not leaving Y/N in his hands, not again.” Sirius murmured into his hand as he stared at the fire. “It should be me going. Remus, I should go.” 

With a sigh, Remus stood from the wingback chair. “No, Pads. It’s too late to change the plan now. It’s going to be fine.”

Sirius shook his head and looked at the ceiling. 

“She’s fucking strong, Sirius. And she’s got more people on her side this time. We’re gonna finish this.” Remus pressed.  

The grandfather clock in the hallway chimed and everyone took a steadying breath. 

“Be careful, Rem.” Lily tearfully murmured as she gave him a hug. 

“I hate this.” James repeated just as quietly as he too hugged the lycanthrope. 

Remus smiled at them both before he moved to Sirius, who had shifted his gaze back to the fire. 

“We’re close, Pads.” He whispered.

Sirius nodded, keeping his gaze on the fire. “Thank you, Moony. For going after her.”

“She’s pack.” Remus said simply causing Sirius to let out a shuddering breath.

“Be careful.”

Remus nodded in agreement and took a swig from his pocket flask. He grunted slightly as he felt his body shifting and changing, but it was nothing close to the pain he experienced every full moon. 

Sirius, Lily, and James all looked in various levels of disgust as Remus – now in the form of Peter Pettigrew – stood to his full height. “How do I look?”

The three friends looked at each other awkwardly before turning back to Remus...Peter?

“Fuck, this is weird.” James muttered.

“Yeah, honestly mate, I think you should go.” Sirius agreed.

Remus rolled his eyes. “You know I’m not actually him, right?”

Lily grimaced. “Yeah, yeah Judas. Get going.” 

Sirius and James looked at her inquisitively, but Remus snorted a laugh offering everyone a wave as he stepped into the street. He walked a short distance to a hidden alleyway where he could apparate to the location of the Death Eater meeting. Remus sent one silent prayer to any god who’d listen. 

Please let this go smoothly. 

 Lestrange Manor loomed dauntingly in front of Remus as he tried to muster the courage to walk up the brick path leading to the door. Purebloods and their gaudy houses he mused silently.

“Petty-Pettigrew!” A voice sing-songed behind him, causing him to turn. 

Barty Crouch Jr skipped towards him merrily as if he were an alt-punk Dorothy on his way to Oz. He paused in front of Remus and tapped his cheek twice, slightly too hard to be considered just condescending and bordering on aggressive. “How’s our favourite little rat?”

Remus grimaced but tried to play it off as a smile. “Er, I’m-”

“Oh, Salazar. No, I don’t actually care.” Barty chuckled, looking back at his entourage like can you believe this guy? His friendly façade fell as he turned back to Remus. “Better have something for the Dark Lord today, otherwise we’ll find other uses for our little lab rat.” He finished with a slimy wink as he continued up the path to the manor. 

Well, Remus thought, welcome to Hell, I suppose. 

He followed Barty The Deranged and company up the walkway, fighting the urge to hum: We’re off to see the wizard, the wonderful wizard of Oz as he went.

If Remus thought the outside of Lestrange Manor was counteracting the anti-depressants coursing through his system, the inside of it made him want to grab the closest silver fork and end it all. He walked along what had to be a fourty-foot table trying to find the best seat before he realized that this was the wrong approach – every seat was terrible.

“Don’t be absurd, Pettigrew.” Mulciber sneered at Remus. “A lowly like you stands at the back.”

Remus fought the urge to roll his eyes and nodded, moving to stand near the wall by the door. At least I’ll be close if I need a quick exit. He also fought the biting urge to lunge at the sight of Fenrir Greyback. You’re here for a reason, Lupin.

Rodolphus, Rabastan, and Bellatrix Lestrange entered the...Remus didn’t know what the hell purebloods wont to call rooms like this...a grand room? A dining room? A reception hall? Whatever it was called, it fucking sucked, and it sucked worse when those three walked in. The brothers mostly regarded themselves with proper decorum, but Bellatrix and her certain flare seemed to suck the air out of the room causing everyone to stand a little more at attention. 

Bellatrix Lestrange walked like she was the Queen of Hearts attending her own coronation. She smiled wickedly at those seated around the table, pausing briefly to share terse words with Lucius Malfoy, before then double-cheek-kissing his wife and her sister, Narcissa. 

There seemed to be some sort of disagreement about who should sit in one of the two seats at the head of the table next to the Dark Lord’s seat (throne for all intents and purposes), but a silent conversation that passed between Bellatrix and her brother-in-law resulted in the latter finding another chair.  

Voldemort walked into the room and those who had been sitting stood suddenly, falling deathly silent as Voldemort moved to stand at the head of the table. The sickening smell of dark magic accosted Remus who felt his eyes water; he swallowed hard against his gag reflex as a giant python type snake slithered its way into the room.

If there was ever any speculation that Nagini was the sixth horcrux before, Remus now felt confident that he could confirm it.

“My Lord.” Rodolphus said reverently as he bowed his head. Remus watched as the rest of the room did the same, and quickly followed suit – he wanted to throw up. 

Remus’ plan of attack here was to be as non-descript as possible. He was here for one reason – tell Voldemort he was the secret keeper and plan a course of ‘attack’ on the Potter home in Godric’s Hollow – otherwise, he was to be invisible. He could not be invisible if he was angry, and if he listened too closely, he’d get angry, so...

He almost missed it when Voldemort addressed him.

“Now, I trust that you were successful in your task?” Voldemort’s voice echoed through the room, sounding more like an actor in a Greek tragedy than a tyrannical fascist leader addressing his followers.

A throat cleared before something hit Remus on the shin. He looked up and realised everyone’s eyes were on him. 

“Oh erm, uh yes. My apologies...my Lord...” He tried to regain his footing. “Uhm, I was successful. I am officially the Potter’s secret keeper.”

Bellatrix barely waited until the end of the sentence to stand and begin cackling maniacally. “We’re going to kill the child! We’re going to kill the child!” She sang as she jumped and clapped her hands. 

Voldemort hardly spared Bellatrix a sideways gaze as he lifted one hand – she fell silent and returned to her seat, continuing to smile and wiggle as if it were difficult to keep her obvious joy at bay. 

“Though I appreciate your enthusiasm,” he began, “I’d like to eliminate this specific threat myself.” 

By the end of the sentence, he was offering Remus a chilling smile. Remus worked to keep his breathing even as he tried to reciprocate it. 

“Where is this hide away located?” Voldemort asked.

“Erm, Godric’s Hollow, m’Lord.”

“You will take me to them. You shall meet me in the town square at eight in the evening the day after tomorrow. We shall eliminate this threat to me once and for all.” 

“Any threat to you is a threat to all of us, my Lord.” Alecto Carrow said severely which was met with a muttering of agreement from around the table.

“You will all be rewarded greatly for your dedication and loyalty to me.” Voldemort declared, and Bellatrix began a round of applause. 

The meeting carried on and Remus ensured to take two more swigs of the Polyjuice potion to avoid turning back into himself prematurely. 

A black cat had materialized beside Remus at some point throughout the meeting and appeared to make itself at home beside his left foot. The feline seemed to watch as Remus would lift the flask to his mouth, and he became increasingly paranoid that this cat somehow knew he was an imposter. Was this cat a spy? Was this a spy cat who somehow knew Peter was caught for being a spy for the Death Eaters and that I, as a spy, came to this meeting as Peter as a spy for the Order pretending to be Peter who was acting as a spy for the Death Eaters.

Fuck, Remus was losing it.

Get a grip you stupid bastard. He scolded himself. 

The meeting appeared to conclude as Voldemort stood, and everyone followed suit. A few higher pointing Death Eaters seemed to congregate at the head of the table – Malfoy, the Lestranges, Mulciber, Snape, Nott, Goyle, and the Carrows encircled Voldemort. 

Remus began looking for the door when he felt the cat brush up against his leg. He looked down to the black cat who was peering back up at him – the eyes were light, nearly blue but not quite – and they looked disturbingly familiar. The cat seemed to be cocking an eyebrow at him, if cats could do such a thing, as Remus considered it.

“What?” Remus whispered.

“Make a habit o’ talkin’ to rodents, do ye Pettigrew?” The sickening sound of Greyback’s voice permeated Remus' hearing – as well as his other senses. Suddenly, Remus was four years old again, waking to the sound of screaming that turned out the be his own as a wolf locked its jaw upon his chest. He ignored the stinging in his eyes as he thought of his mothers screams and sobs, begging the healers to do something – anything – to help her boy, whilst everyone murmured it’d be kindest to just ‘put the boy out of his misery’. 

“I do, actually,” Remus said, lacing his words with venom. “I’ve found they often make better company than a mangey wolf.” 

Greyback seemed taken aback as he considered Remus. 

“Why you little-”

“Ah, there you are, Splash.” A posh accent commented from Remus’ other side. He turned to see the form of Narcissa Malfoy bending to pick up the black cat. 

“Good work, Pettigrew.” She commented as Splash weaseled its way back out of Narcissa’s arms and took a few paces to the door. “Don’t let us keep you.” 

Remus nodded at Narcissa, feeling off kilter at her cordial behaviour; he couldn’t imagine Peter ever making friends with the likes of her. He moved toward the door and as he walked, he realized that the cat had paused and was watching Remus before carrying on ahead. 

Remus felt like he could finally take a deep breath once he stepped beyond the gated entrance of the manor. His peace didn’t last long when he realized the cat had paused again and was once again watching him.

“Seriously, what the hell do you want?” He muttered quietly.

The cat looked as though it rolled its eyes at him as he walked a few more feet ahead, turning back to Remus.

“Are you expecting me to follow you? I’m not as dumb as I look.” He commented again, though realizing too late that he may actually be as dumb as he looks, seeing as he was currently talking to a cat. 

He heard a low growl emanate from the cat’s chest before it turned and walked away without turning back this time to confirm Remus was following it. 

“It seems as though curiosity may kill the wolf today.” Remus muttered to himself as he begrudgingly followed the cat against every one of his instincts which were screaming at him to just get the fuck out of there.  

The cat stopped in a densely wooded area and seemed to scan the are before turning back to Remus, who in turn stood and stared at the cat dumbly. 

“I don’t see a pentagram anywhere, is this not where you plan to sacrifice me to the devil?” He asked as he too scanned the woods for potential threats.

“Salazar, you Gryffindor’s are bloody exhausting.” A voice rang through the woods. Remus whipped his head back towards the sound, and where the cat once stood was none other than Regulus Black.

“Holy fucking shit. You’ve got to be kidding me.” 

Regulus rolled his eyes, “and so eloquent, as always.” He muttered.

“What the fuck are you doing here? You’re supposed to be dead.” Remus seethed.

“Disappointed, are you?”

Remus gritted his teeth. “Where’s Y/N?”

Regulus’ eyes softened considerably, though his posture remained stiff as he considered Remus.

“Safe. That is all you need to know.” 

“Fuck that, Black. Where is she?” 

Regulus sucked in a breath, appearing to attempt to steady himself at having to deal with the likes of Remus. 

“The Dark Lord’s followers became aware that she was not as dead as they had previously assumed. We could not risk them searching for her.” Regulus admitted.

“How could they have known she wasn’t dead? The only person who could have reported that to them is Peter and he’s a little tied up right now.” Remus said darkly.

“My cousin’s little art project on her arm was done with a cursed blade – the dark magic left a trace on her. When Yaxley tried to claim that she had died while trying to escape from his hold instead of admitting he let her get away, Bellatrix was quick to prove him wrong.”

“What?” Remus asked in shock.

Regulus rolled his eyes. “Good gods, which of you imbeciles did that old man send?” He asked before casting a quick finite over Remus. 

Remus felt the Polyjuice potion wash away from his form as he stretched out to his correct height. 

“Aren’t you wolves supposed to have superhuman hearing?” He asked condescendingly. 

“Fuck off.” Remus spat. 

“Now, now. There is no need for such language, Lupin; we are on the same side, after all.”

“Like fuck we are. You’re a marked Death Eater, and you abducted Y/N.” He spat. 

“I think it should be obvious by now that I have clearly defected here, Lupin.” Regulus responded.

“Why?”

This seemed to catch Regulus off guard. “Pardon?”

“Why defect?”

Remus watched as Regulus stared hard at him, when suddenly a filmy haze seemed to overtake Regulus’ grey eyes and his face grew hard. 

“I hardly think that is relevant.” 

The two men stared at each other sizing one another up. 

Remus felt conflicted. He knew Sirius hated his family, but Sirius never really could bring himself to hate Regulus – he was only a child, just like Sirius was. Regulus was a victim too. They were each dealt a shitty hand, but the way they played their cards were different. Regulus chose the path of least resistance by adapting and adhering to his parent’s wishes. Sirius rebelled, pushed back, and decided to fold, leaving the game altogether. 

Sirius wanted to hate Regulus; when he got his Dark Mark, and then again when he died. But he couldn’t bring himself to, because part of it felt like it was his fault; Regulus took the role that Sirius himself was born into – and in many ways, Sirius felt as though he forced his little brother into this. And in the end, it cost Regulus his life. 

But Remus, looking at Regulus now; having faked his own death, defected from not only his family’s legacy but also the reign of the 'Lord' that he had sworn himself to, all whilst helping the other side; how different were the two brothers, really? 

Twin Renegades. 

“Sirius is beside himself.” Remus admitted quietly. 

Regulus seemed pained by this admission.

“I wouldn’t have given her back yet if I knew it wasn’t safe.”

Remus’ heart stuttered. “Wait, you – you’re the one who brought her to Godric’s Hollow?”

He was responded with a single curt nod.

“But, but how? How did you know? The house is...”

“Y/N. She had described to me what she called ‘location seven’. I apparated her there.” 

Remus balked. Each Order team had several secret locations they would be able to travel to in case anything went sideways during a mission. Remus wasn’t as familiar, seeing as he was the only Order member who could attend his particular missions, but he had heard his friends discussing it before. Even Lily and Sirius didn’t know the areas of James and your secret locations; they were for your safety, and your safety only.

“Location seven was the cottage in Godric’s Hollow?”

“No, it was the wooded area behind it. I could feel the familiar sense of a fidelius charm nearby, so I brought her as close to it as I could before I ran, we...” Regulus heaved a sigh, “we had fought our way out, we’d barely made it.” 

“Where is she now?”

“She’s safe.”

“Regulus.”

“I’m sorry, Lupin. You may not believe me, but I am. I... I saved her because I could not watch the woman my brother loved die in front of me. I saved her for him, but the other’s discovered I had rescued her, and suddenly it became much bigger than him. I couldn’t just return her at the time.” Regulus admitted.

“The last time you saved her, she was hardly safe. How do we know she’s safe now?” Remus pleaded.

Regulus grimaced. “Again, the others had known I had rescued her last time. This time, they do not know she is here. They do not even know I am here.” 

“How is she safer with you than she is at home with Sirius? With us?”

“You moved five members of the Order plus an infant with a bounty on its head into one house. If they had gone searching for Y/N and found you, it would have been devastating for the cause.” He explained. “Listen; you will escort the Dark Lord to the Potter’s cottage in two days. He plans to attend with you as Peter Pettigrew, alone; he will show up unknowingly out numbered. He goes nowhere without Nagini, and we will be able to destroy the last horcrux before finally ending the Dark Lord’s reign of tyranny. She will be home to you soon.”

“What about you?” Remus asked.

Regulus’ eyebrows furrowed. “What about me?”

“When this is over, what about you?”

Regulus looked Remus up and down. “I hardly think it matters.”

“Of course it does; of course you matter.” 

Regulus’ eyes turned stormy. “Do not pretend to know anything about me, Lupin. I have never once mattered; not to my brother, hardly to my parents until I was the last one standing, never to Dumbledore, and rarely to the Dark Lord, lest my family’s money benefitted his cause.” 

“You matter to Sirius.”

“Enough!” Regulus shouted, seeming to forget himself. Remus was sure he’d never even heard of Regulus having ever raised his voice before. “Do not fuck this up, Lupin. We have one chance to end this.” 

And with a quick spin, Remus was left in the dense woods alone. He hadn’t noticed how late it was until now, the darkness seeping into his bones leaving him chilled in the late October evening. 

It didn’t exactly go well, but it sure could have gone a lot worse.

He walked towards where Regulus had been standing and noticed a small piece of parchment laying in the wet leaves. He picked it up and unfolded it. 

“Stay safe. 1, 2, 3. V.” 

It could have gone a lot worse.

October 30th

Regulus sighed – he felt exhausted from the meeting with Remus Lupin yesterday. He hated raising his temper, it made him feel like Sirius; it made him feel like a Gryffindor. 

Regulus’ cat form pushed past a vine covered gate and entered a grandiose stone outbuilding before shifting back to his human form.

“Can Kreacher get master a drink before Kreacher leaves?”

Regulus sighed. “You should not return until this is over, Kreacher. My brother is surely not happy with you.”

The house-elf scoffed. “Kreacher is not afraid of blood-traitors. Besides, Kreacher serves the Most Noble and Ancient House of Black; Kreacher belongs at Grimmauld Place.” 

“Underestimate my brother, Kreacher, and it will be your head on the wall.” Regulus muttered.

“Now cousin, do try to keep your patience.” Narcissa said as she opened the door to her hidden library located in a small building behind the gardens of Malfoy Manor. 

You sat on a Victorian style settee in Narcissa’s library with a babbling Draco on your knee as you cast colourful butterflies above him, causing the toddler to coo and clap. 

“We’re in.” Regulus announced, causing your head to snap forward and Draco to make grabby hands at him. “This ends tomorrow.”

Continue to part seven here.

#marauders era #marauders au #marauders fanfiction #sirius black #sirius black x reader #sirius black x you #sirius black fic #marauders x reader #first wizarding war #first wizarding war fanfic #reader insert #escapism #self insert #canon divergence #hurt/comfort #sirius black hurt/comfort #sirius black one shot #sirius black blurb #sirius black ficlet #werewolf mcswearwolf #remus lupin swears a lot it's canon #regulus black #regulus makes his appearance #sirius is not well #thoughts and prayers

[the-catboy-minyan]

when they say "sceasefire" they mean Israel should dismantle their military and sit silently while Hamas slaughters them. they mean stop trying to rescue the hostages because they're "treated well". they mean stop the violence on one side because they're "colonisers" and globalize the violence of the other side because "you don't get to choose how they resist". they mean "from the river to the sea, Palestine will be the home of only Palestinians, the (((white colonisers))) will be expelled and murdered for their (((crimes)))".

when we say "sceasefire", we mean Netanyahu should stop roleplaying as a dictator and get a proper sceasefire deal. we mean the circle of violence and bloodshed must come to an end. we mean that we want our hostages home safe. we mean we want to live in peace without fearing Hamas. we mean PEACE.

that's the difference. don't tokenize our words, we are not blind to the violence of either side, not like you are blind to the violence of Hamas.

#sceasefire now #bring them all home now #bring them home #bringthemallhomenow #bring them home now #bringthemhome #bringthemhomenow #i stand with israel #fuck netanyahu

[fromgoy2joy]

To all my fellow people converting- this is a Call-in post

We are going to be a part of this community, as dictated by Jewish law, once we enter the water of the Mikveh, it will be as if we were Jewish all our lives.

That doesn’t erase the fact that we come from different backgrounds. Most of us didn’t have our grandmother escape genocidal countries. We didn’t grow up around the dinner table hearing holocaust stories about family and friends. The legacy of our families was not split between two choices of what opened up first for amnesty- Israel or the United States.

Our love for Judaism originates from studying theology, culture, and warm moments in the community- not clinging onto it in a generational storm where at any moment you can be expected to run.

Israel has been there for the Jewish people demonstrably, in a world where a Jewish child is taken aside at a young age and told “one day, they could come after you”.

In response, Israel has said “and we will be there to catch you.” This has rung true for the Jewish exile out of Middle Eastern countries, the fleeing from the USSR, and yes- Ethiopia.

Mistakes were made along the way. Tribalism between Jewish religious and geographical sects came up. Refugee camps in the newly established country were a mess- with high rates of death from sickness occurred in the Mizrahi resettlement. Where Ethiopian Jewish women’s translation failed as they were told they were being out on temporary birth control as to not overcrowd struggling camps.

But you don’t get to shake this in their faces. Not when the descendants of those Jewish people know Israel to be what saved them. What gave them life. And what has been threatened everyday by rockets in the sky and terrorist organizations on every side that promises for the painful death of them and their families.

You are under no obligation to support the actions of the Israeli government. But you have to understand why the country was founded, and especially why it was set up in 1948 after the largest slaughter of Jewish people had just ended, where it wasn’t clear if this could happen again the very next year.

You have to see the connection to the land, where Hebrew coins get dug up from thousands of years ago on a daily basis. Even if that’s not apart of your personal practices, you must learn of the background to many of our stories. What Jewish people longed for as they were ostracized and humiliated globally.

This doesn’t come at the price of not sympathizing with the Palestinians. Just as you can hold Jewish pain close to your chest, so can you the pain of Palestinians. The good news is, life isn’t a sports game with your team and their team. The bad news is, that makes it a whole heck of a lot harder.

That being said, we do have the extra responsibility of accurately representing the people we will hopefully call our own one day, BH.

Edit-born Jewish people, if this post speaks to you on any level, feel free to reblog. Your family histories deserve to be represented in our community.

#jumblr #jewish convert #jewish conversion #jewish #jewblr #tw shoah #tw shoah mention #fromgoy2joy thoughts #tw antisemtism #antisemitism

[avelera]

thesis about the sea peoples you say? may i request an infodump about the sea peoples?

Heya!

So, basically in college (undergraduate) I got really obsessed with the questions around the Collapse of the Aegean Bronze Age, mostly because I wanted to set my big Magnum Opus historical fiction novel in that time, and the deeper I dug into the rabbit hole the more it appeared that no one, absolutely no one, actually knows why the civilizations around the Mediterranean all fell from a state of pretty sophisticated internationally-trading civilizations to literal Dark Ages (all except for Egypt which was substantially weakened and never really recovered), all at once around 1200-1100 BCE.

The Sea Peoples are the names of the only contemporary (Egyptian) account we have that names who might have been responsible if this collapse was due to an invasion. It's a popular theory because a viking-style invasion is a much sexier reason for a civilization to collapse so we all gather around it like moths to flame. But the thing is, there's a lot of contradictory evidence for and against and shading that hypothesis.

Suffice to say, literally no actually knows what happened and almost every answer comes up, "Some combination of these things, probably?"

But what makes the Collapse even more interesting from a modern perspective is that if there was a historical Trojan War (and I think there was) as fictionalized in the Iliad and the Odyssey (and Song of Achilles, for the Tumbrlistas), then it would have taken place within a generation of the entire civilization that launched the Trojan War crumbling to dust.

So like, if you're Telemachus, your dad Odysseus fights in the Trojan War, some even manage to get home, and then like... everything goes to shit. Catastrophically. And doesn't recover for 400 years.

Seriously, they lost the written word, like how to actually write things down and read them and it took 400 years to get it back. That's how fucked shit got during the Collapse of the Bronze Age.

So my thesis was asking: what if these two things were related? What if the Trojan War either led to the Collapse or it was part of the Collapse or it was a result of the Collapse? Because the timeline is so unknown and muddled that it really could be any of those and again, that's if the Trojan War isn't entirely fictional (which I don't think it is, but many academics disagree, it used to be a whole thing up until Schliemann dug it up, and many doubted it was ever a historical event even after that.)

Ok, so at the risk of writing 75 pages on this again, let me just say:

My conclusion (more of a hypothesis proposal ultimately since there are so many gaps in our knowledge) was that the Trojan War took place before the Collapse of the Bronze Age. But, it might have been launched in response to a wider breakdown in trades routes and resources, causing the Greeks to launch the campaign basically as a bid to replenish their own coffers because they were getting squeezed by what they didn't know was the first rumblings of a global domino effect.

Therefore, since taking out Troy didn't solve those larger trends and forces, they all went home and then got slammed by the REAL problem, which was all the people who had been displaced from further away by this rolling drought or invasion or whatever that was disrupting these delicate international trade routes.

But the Greeks might have been part of the Sea Peoples too! Our only record of the Sea Peoples is from the Egyptians in a highly propagandistic text which makes them sound like this big fearsome foe but that might have been because saying, "We slaughtered a bunch of desperate refugees at our border who were looking for shelter," didn't sound as cool. If the Greeks (or Achaeans or Ahhiyawa) got swept up in this slow-rolling collapse/displacement of people, then they absolutely could have been among those refugees who crashed against the shores of Egypt.

A lot of my evidence was based on looking at how Troy was sacked (it was stripped literally down the nails and there was a lot of evidence of a long-term siege, like what we read about in the Iliad) vs. how Mycenae (Agamemnon's city) or Pylos (King Nestor's city) was sacked, where they were burned and stuff was stolen but they weren't stripped, it looks more like a standard looting hit-and-run type thing. Which led me to believe that it was different turmoil that rocked Mycenae and Pylos than what led to the sacking of Troy, despite the fact these things happened within about 20 years of each other. (Helen being a made-up reason for a resource-driven war would only be the oldest trick in the book, as far as propaganda goes, after all.)

But really, the craziest detail I'll leave you with is: we just don't know! And then it gets weirder. Because the Hittites fell at the same time so the Hittites scholars say, "Nah, the Sea Peoples weren't Hittites, they were probably Greeks." And the GREEK scholars say, "It wasn't us, it was probably the Hittites or someone else. " and the EGYPTIAN scholars say, "Yeah it was someone north of Egypt, maybe the Hittites or the Greeks." and the LEVANT scholars say, "It wasn't from the Levant, we know what was going on there, it has to be from somewhere else."

Literally every single possible source of the Sea Peoples has the scholars who specialize in that location saying it's not them and it must be the guy next door.

It's maddening!

And then there's a big ol' gap around Bulgaria and the Black Sea because, oh yeah, the Soviet Union forbade archaeology in those areas to quash any local pride so those places that were behind the Iron Curtain are decades behind on scholarship that would allow them to say, "Oh hey, it was actually us! Yeah, the invaders came from Bulgaria and got pushed down by a famine." or something to that effect.

We also have some histories from the time saying that the Sons of Heracles returned not long after the Trojan War to lay Greece to waste! And it's really evocative and sounds like it fits what we've got of all these burned cities that happened right after Troy fell! Except that's in doubt now too!

The latest theory is that it was climate change that led to a massive drought. You can read about it in the latest and most popular book on the subject, 1177 BCE which I highly recommend because if it had existed when I wrote my thesis, I wouldn't have had to write it.

But I disagree with the conclusion! Or rather, I'm skeptical. Because very decade, the problems of the day have been hypothesized as being the cause of the Collapse. Like, in the 60s, there was a theory that maybe it was internal strife around a labor strike, like the French Revolution. And y'know when there's a world war, they think it's an invasion. And there was a theory that it was 'cuz of an earthquake (I think that one is nonsense, Mediterranean civilizations famously bounce back quickly from earthquakes.) And now that climate change is on our mind, I'm a little weary to see that it's the new theory because it feels way too much like we're just projecting our problems onto this giant question mark.

Was climate an aspect! I think so! I think it might have contributed to the break down in trade routes that made everyone in the Mediterranean really stressed out and hostile and warlike and led to a lot of displacement. I'm not sure if it's the only reason though and I think the book just kinda reiterates everyone else saying, "I think it was this but in the end, we just don't know, and it was probably a lot of things." which we've known for ages so it's just repeating all the same conclusions. *sigh*

... Like I said, I wrote my thesis on this so yeah, I could go on for a while lol.

#ancient history #bronze age #collapse of the bronze age #sea peoples #lots of generalizations here for brevity so don't jump down my throat if you are also familiar with this era plz