ilan pappé is so surgically precise in his criticism of zionist liberals and leftists and he has really highlighted what frustrates me the most about their allyship (which largely revolves around the sanctimonious stance of not wanting palestinians dead, otherwise known as the bare fucking minimum)
What is most illuminating – in the dialogue the liberal Zionists have with themselves on the pages of Haaretz – is their vicious attack on any one associating colonialism with Israel. [...] The Global Left is guilty of two ‘sins’, in the eyes of the liberal Zionists: one, it refers to Israel as a settler-colonial state and two, it provides a context for the Hamas attack on October 7.
There is no middle ground anymore. There is no way of supporting the liberal occupier, the progressive ethnic cleanser and the leftist genocider. The attempt to frame the stance I am calling for as racist or antisemitic will not hold water. It is a matter of where you would see yourself at this critical juncture in history, and how you value your own sense of self respect.
many of them are willing to criticize everything about israel but fall just short of admitting their role as settler colonizers or its existence as a settler colonialist state. its a very telling stance, because it keeps them defensive instead of apologetic. and i do believe the first step to any progress is real acknowledgement of what zionism has taken from palestinians and how to repair this. it's not tangential, it's central.
i also think without acknowledging or understanding the settler colonialism paradigm, any and all solidarity with palestinians is inherently frightening to them because they don't understand that all previously and currently colonized peoples see themselves in the palestinian struggle. instead they see solidarity with palestinians as anti-semitism (solidarity against israel instead of solidarity with palestine) because they misunderstand the palestinian cause and their role within it.
its an intellectual weakness that comes from either willful ignorance, brainwashing or a lack of real empathy. their allyship and their role will always be conditional until they fully understand this. until they do both palestinian resistance and solidarity will continue to feel more threatening to them than the violent apparatus of the israeli military state that is literally keeping them in a perpetual state of war. all their attempts to seek peace without confronting this are either naïve and ineffectual or serve to obfuscate their own brutal military regime even as it perpetuates horror in their name.
Wait, which animals raise livestock?
Several species of ants will 'herd' aphids around (a type of plant lice)- even picking them up and putting them back with the group if they wander off. The ants will attack anything that approaches their aphid herds, defending them. The aphids produce a sugary excretion called honeydew, which the ants harvest and eat.
Some ants will even 'milk' the aphids, stroking the aphids with their antennae, to stimulate them to release honeydew. Some aphids have become 'domesticated' by the ants, and depend entirely on their caretaker ants to milk them.
When the host plant is depleted of resources and dies, the ants will pick up their herd of aphids and carry them to a new plant to feed on - a new 'pasture' if you will.
Some ants continue to care for aphids overwinter, when otherwise they'd die. The ants carry aphid eggs into their own nests, and will even go out of their way to destroy the eggs of aphid-predators, like ladybugs.
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Microhylids – or narrow-mouthed frogs - have an interesting symbiosis with Tarantulas.
While the spiders could very easily kill and eat the much-tinier frogs, and DO normally prey on small frogs, young spiders instead will use their mouthparts to pick up the microhylid frogs, bring them back to their burrow, and release them unharmed.
The frog benefits from hanging out in/around the burrow of the tarantula, because the tarantula can scare away or eat predators that normally prey on tiny frogs, like snakes, geckos, and mantids. The tarantula gets a babysitter.
Microhylid frogs specialize in eating ants, and ants are one of the major predators of spider eggs. By eating ants, the frogs protect the spider's eggs. The frogs can also lay their eggs in the burrow, and won't be eaten by the spider.
So it's less 'livestock' and more like a housepet - a dog or a cat. You stop coyotes/eagles from hurting your little dog/cat, and in return the dog/cat keeps rats away from your baby.
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Damselfish grow algae on rocks and corals. They defend these gardens ferociously, and will attack anything that comes too close - even humans. They spend much of their time weeding the gardens, removing unwanted algaes that might overtake their crop.
The species of algae that they cultivate is weak and and sensitive to growing conditions, and can easily be overgrazed by other herbivores. That particular algae tends to grow poorly in areas where damselfish aren't around to protect and farm it.
Damselfish will ALSO actively protect Mysidium integrum (little shrimp-like crustacians) in their reef farms, despite eating other similarly sized invertebrates. The mysids are filter feeders, who feed on zooplankton and free-floating algae, and their waste fertilizes the algae farms. Many types of zooplankton can feed on the algae crop, and the mysids prevent that.
While Mysids can be found around the world, the only place you'll find swarms of Musidium integrum is on the algae farms that Damselfish cultivate.
Damselfish treat the little mysids like some homesteaders treat ducks. Ducks eat snails and other insect pests on our crops, and their poop fertilizes the land. The ducks can be eaten, but aren't often, since they're more useful for their services than their meat.
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There are SEVERAL species of insect and animal which actively farm. They perform fungiculture and horticulture: deliberately growing and harvesting fungus and plants at a large-scale to feed their population.
Leaf-cutter ants and Termites both chew up plant material and then seed it with a specific type of fungus. The fungus grows, and the termites/ants harvest the mushroom as a food source.
Ambrosia beetles burrow into decaying trees, hollow out little farming rooms, and introduce a specific fungii (the ambrosia fungi), which both adults and larval beetles feed on.
Marsh Periwinkles (a type of snail) cultivates fungus on cordgrass. They wound the plant with their scraping tongue, then defecate into the wound so their preferred fungus will infect it and grow there. They let the fungus grow in the wound a bit, and come back later to eat.
Abandoned Marxer Laboratory, by Alberto Galardi (1964).
Loranzè, Italy.
© Roberto Conte (2015-2021)
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April 28, 2024 - An unintentionally funny video by a zionist propagandist shows off some good organisation and discipline at the UCLA encampment for Palestine.
honestly big shout out to snoopy to be honest
Coleman Library, Tougaloo College. Jackson, Mississippi. Gunnar Birkerts.
Rick Owens's Paris Townhouse (2006) Photography: Assaf Shoshan
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