Image is of the King of Morocco meeting with John Kerry (a species of demon that plagued Hexbear in the misty past).
This preamble comes courtesy of @[email protected]:
Morocco (Al Maghrib), or more officially the Kingdom of Morocco (Al Mamlaka al Maghribiya), is a country located in the northwestern edge of the African continent. The name Morocco comes from the Spanish name Marruecos, which itself comes from the name of the city of Marrakesh. In Turkish for example, Morocco is known as Fas, mainly because Turks knew the land of Morocco through the city of Fes. Morocco is regarded as part of the Arab World and Arabic is the main language amongst the population, with French and Berber languages also widely spoken in the country.
Morocco was the home of mostly Berber tribes until the Muslim conquest and the subsequent Arab migrations in the 700s under the Umayyads drastically changed the character of the country. A Berber commander, Tariq ibn Ziyad, would later cross the Strait of Gibraltar (Jabal Tariq) from the northern shores of now-Morocco and conquer Andalusia, which remained under Muslim rule for nearly 800 years. The country emerged as a significant regional power during the Almoravid and Almohad dynasties in the medieval period, known for their contributions to architecture, philosophy, and trade across North Africa and southern Europe. The current ruling dynasty of Morocco, the Alaouite dynasty, came to power in the late 1600s. The Alaouites claim descent from the Prophet Muhammad through his grandson Hasan ibn Ali, giving them religious legitimacy and political authority in the region. Despite the Shia-coded claim to legitimacy, the Moroccan royal family and the population mostly follow the Maliki school of Sunni Islam.
In the early 20th century, the Treaty of Fez (1912) created the French Protectorate of Morocco, negotiated largely without input from the Moroccan people. Moroccan lands were completely divided under French and Spanish zones, with thousands of colonists pouring into the country. The royal family frequently collaborated with colonial powers, suppressing local resistance movements and prioritizing European interests. Prominent anti-colonial uprisings, like the Rif War (1921–1926), were met with brutal crackdowns, enabled by Western-backed forces. Post-independence in 1956, Morocco maintained close ties with its former colonizers, fostering economic dependence on France and Spain. The monarchy’s alignment with Western geopolitical interests often undermined Pan-African and Arab unity movements.
During the Cold War, Morocco positioned itself as a staunch ally of the West, marginalizing leftist and nationalist factions within the country. The Green March of 1975 was a Moroccan state-organized movement to assert control over Western Sahara, a territory decolonized from Spanish rule but still awaiting self-determination. This march, supported by Western powers, particularly the United States, is often criticized as a colonial expansion disguised as a popular movement. By settling Moroccans in the disputed territory, the march disregarded the Sahrawi people’s right to sovereignty. U.N. resolutions on Western Sahara have seen limited enforcement, largely due to Morocco’s Western alliances shielding it from accountability. Western-backed security and intelligence partnerships continue to be the cornerstone of Morocco’s repressive nature towards any anti-colonial and leftist movements. In 2021, Algeria again severed diplomatic ties with Morocco, citing hostile actions and concerns over Morocco’s ties with Israel, which Algeria views as a betrayal of pro-Palestinian solidarity. The two countries have mostly clashed over the issue of Western Sahara other than a short war in the 60s over a border dispute, with Algeria continuing to support the Sahrawi independence movement.
Morocco’s relations with Israel have historically been discreet but significant, rooted in the presence of a large Moroccan Jewish diaspora in Israel. Former King Hassan II played a significant behind-the-scenes role in fostering covert ties between Morocco and Israel during his reign. King Hassan II is reported to have allowed Israeli intelligence access to critical information from a meeting of Arab leaders in Casablanca in 1965, which may have helped Israel prepare for the Six-Day War in 1967. His government provided a platform for discreet diplomatic exchanges and intelligence-sharing, including Morocco’s facilitation of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat’s visit to Israel in the 1970s. In 2020, Morocco formally normalized ties with Israel through the Abraham Accords, brokered by the United States, in exchange for U.S. and Israeli recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara. Diplomatic and trade relations have since deepened, with agreements in fields like defence, agriculture, and technology. Despite official ties, Moroccan public opinion remains largely sympathetic to Palestinians, but such opinions are rarely considered by the royal family.
Morocco’s future is split between ambitious global aspirations and permanent domestic issues. The country’s co-hosting of the 2030 FIFA World Cup with Spain and Portugal is seen as a significant opportunity to showcase its shiny infrastructure and global presence. However, these achievements are often overshadowed by criticisms of its political culture, including the monarchy’s ceremonial practices, such as the humiliating tradition of publicly kissing the crown prince’s hand. Allegations surrounding King Mohammed VI’s personal behavior, including incidents of public drunkenness and alleged homosexuality continue to be a hot topic within opposition circles.
Please check out the HexAtlas!
The bulletins site is here!
The RSS feed is here.
Last week’s thread is here.
Israel-Palestine Conflict
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA reports on Israel’s destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news.
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
Defense Politics Asia’s youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don’t want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it’s just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists’ side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR’s former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR’s forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster’s telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a ‘propaganda tax’, if you don’t believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
So the US plan is to just escalate violence all over the world until somebody punches back and we start another world war? Am I reading the situation right?
To add more chaos to this already nightmarish situation in Syria, one of my cousins there has just found out she is pregnant. Most of my cousins there are young, toddlers included and now a baby on the way. What kind of country will that child be born into? What kind of country will my little cousins grow up in? I have nothing but pure hatred for the west and all their allies I’m fucking sick to my stomach, this was my worst fear and it’s all coming true, I’ll never be able to visit ever again and I just hope they survive. Gaza, Lebanon and now Syria, where the fuck is Iran? It’s not bad enough they let Hanyeh be killed in Tehran and let their lack of response play a part in Nasrallah’s death, Russia is too busy in Ukraine, this situation is catastrophic and it gets worse by the minute. Aleppo has fallen please God let some fucking miracle happen for the SAA to get their shit together. I don’t even know what to say or think anymore I’m gonna be sick.
This seems like it’s going to be an incredibly difficult winter. All the news has been bad recently and it looks like it’s only going to get worse.
How is everyone feeling about the short term future? Because it seems like bad things are coming everywhere
Exit polls for the Irish election suggest a three way tie between Sinn Féin, Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, the three biggest parties, all at around 20%. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have been in a coalition for the past five years because they’re basically identical even though they pretend to hate each other, and will likely form a other government. Greens or Labour will have to make up the rest of the government to get them up to 50% of seats.
FF and FG are the neoliberal parties that have been actively robbing Ireland for the past 100 years. They’re extremely and openly corrupt. And they’re gonna win again, because no one in this country wants change or cares about other people. Fucking hell I hate it here. Nobody actually gives a shit about anything getting better, they just want more money for themselves.
Aleppo city of 2 million taken by 2500 insurgents
Syria has fallen because Aleppo
Assad is finished just do the right thing and step down
Russia is incompetent and also bogged down in Ukraine they can’t help you
Iran will take weeks to get troops there you should just surrender
Syrian comms are blowing up in peoples pockets just toss your comms before they go off
Syrian military abandoning armored vehicles when faced with small arms fire.
Maybe it’s all true but I’m getting this in real time when it usually takes weeks to get accurate info from Aleppo and it feels one sided.
bibi posts about syria
turkey gets f35
ceasefire in lebanon
mysteriously completely unaffiliated groups start attacking in syria
Can anyone point me towards discussion, or provide input, on what appears to be a turnabout by France on the ICC warrant? At first glance tome this appears to be a huge stab in the back against Lebanon.
However I’m also considering the possibility that nothing has changed and that this is the result of the ambiguity of bureaucracy and contrived judicial systems, and/or that it is a psyop to exaggerate a fringe possibility in order to drive a wedge in relations. I expect the truth is not so positive because France is France but the development does feel very strange to me.
Relevant link: https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20241127-france-says-netanyahu-has-immunity-from-icc-warrants
Also feel free to drop any commentary on the sequence of events immediately leading to the escalation in Syria.
How can modern forces resist the ISIS/taliban style blitzkrieg that take down states in a week? I assume developed or bigger nations are less vulnerable to this tactic
Context from 2018: Syria’s Idlib spared attack, Turkey to send in more troops
Turkey will send more troops into Syria’s Idlib province after striking a deal with Russia that has averted a government offensive and delighted rebels who said it kept the area out of President Bashar al-Assad’s hands.
Putin got fucked over again by a NATO-backed “peace deal”
In case anyone need clarification re: who the “rebels” are fighting for
EDIT: this could be the flag for the Syrian Baathist party, they have the same color scheme
https://t.me/PalestineResistX/187
It’s over in Aleppo, local facebook groups are full of reports of SAA units withdrawing beyond the airport and rebel gains are fully consolidated in the western parts. What an unimaginable disaster, I literally can’t even process that this happened. We’re now at Mosul level disaster, a few more days of this and we’re looking at an Afghanistan level disaster. Just pure insanity, this scenario couldn’t be imagined by the biggest jihadi optimist in the world.
Updated situation on Aleppo. Since my last post created 2½ hours ago, and updated an hour ago, the situation has deteriorated rapidly. A large group of HTS fighters have taken a photo at the Citadel, raising the FSA flag. The frontlines must’ve weakened sustainability to let so many fighters through.
photo
I’ve reverse image searched the photo myself and got no matches, it’s recent. Aleppo has fallen.
I so hope he dies soon - https://x.com/W7VOA/status/1862608606392193222
President Biden and family exited Nantucket Bookworks this afternoon with the president carrying the book, “The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine” by Rashid Khalidi, according to pool reporters.
I remember I used to follow the Battle of Aleppo very closely back when the SAA reorganized and began to retake the city, block by block and street by street. It was a painful process and while sucessful, the Syrians lost a fuckton of men. Now all that effort has gone to waste as the SAA completely folds over the HTS offensive. I’m having flashbacks of ISIS quick operations in Mosul when they first appeared, completely running over the Iraqi Army, sending the entire region into a spiral of never seen before violence.
Eternal solidarity with the Syrian people who have to go through this shit again… They deserve peace after more than a decade of civil war.
Death to “israel”, I have zero doubts they’re connected to this.
Bit idea: brace should try and getting a talking spot on the TV to comment on the situation in Syria, by selling himself as an expert for having fought against ISIS in Syria
