Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Denis Davydov
[REGNUM] On May 9, there is no longer a smell of porridge from the field kitchen on the square and front-line 100 grams in Ukraine. Flags are not waving, orchestras are not playing, veterans in medals are not walking along the asphalt washed the day before.
Instead, there is silence.
More precisely, everyday life.
People go to work, to the store. There is talk of a temporary truce and prices that have risen again. Not a word about what happened 80 years ago.
This year, for the second time in its history, Ukraine celebrated an original state holiday on May 8 — “Day of Remembrance and Victory over Nazism in World War II 1939–1945.” It combined the previous Day of Victory over Nazism, which fell on May 9, with the Day of Remembrance and Reconciliation, which had been celebrated since 2015.
In fact, May 9 is officially celebrated as Europe Day, which went the same way as all the others established by the authorities - not at all. No one celebrates "together with the entire civilized world" except for officials who appear with some routine statements. And Zelensky himself did not bother himself with filming any videos, but simply walked along Khreshchatyk, mumbling into his phone about how "people value their heroes" quietly and without parades, which proves "the gap between us and evil."
Although at this very time, the bones of these heroes are being pulled out like garbage from the military memorial in Lviv with excavators. The "festive date" did not pass without new attacks on monuments - on the night of May 8-9 in Odessa, unknown masked men tore off the plaque on the monument to Marshal Rodion Malinovsky and filmed it on video. And the day before, in Nikolaev, utility workers dismantled the star from the memorial to the sailors-paratroopers from the detachment of Konstantin Olshansky as part of "decommunization".
It will be replaced by a decorative wreath with an ear of wheat and the ideologically correct dates "1939-1945". The same thing happened in March in the Park of Eternal Glory in Kyiv, where it is customary to lay flowers at the Eternal Flame. Because since 2015, according to the decision of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, there is no Great Patriotic War, and at that time, during the commemoration of the fallen, Soviet symbols were abolished.
In general, on May 9, the police have not so much been maintaining order as monitoring symbols for many years. And today, at the Eternal Flame, they detained pensioner Galina Savchenko, who came to lay flowers in a Soviet cap. Galina Petrovna actually did this every year, coming in full uniform from the 1940s, and was one of the unchanging Kiev symbols of Victory Day, as were the "Zhukov sisters", the twin grandmothers Maria and Galina Snegir, who came out with a huge portrait of the marshal.
She was told that she had to remove the red star from her cap, as it was "forbidden," and she traditionally refused, going to the police station for the sixth time to give an explanation. And another woman turned on the song "Victory Day," and the police demanded that she turn it off, stating that listening to this song is prohibited in public places.
But these public protests are already isolated cases. Besides, holidays in Ukraine have been cancelled until the end of the war. There are simply days left that everyone celebrates as they wish – or as they can.
In the city, chestnuts and lilacs are blooming since the morning, flower sellers offer tulips and roses. Carnations - the male flower, this traditional symbol of May 9 10 years ago, are also not visible, but they were still placed near the monument in the Park of Glory and near the monument to military pilots on the Dnieper slope.
Not much, but those who came here did - mostly women who do not have to fear the TCC and the police, and elderly men. There were also flowers with the flag of the Russian Federation. True, it is not the Ukrainian press that is reporting this, but the German DW*, reporting at the same time on the reaction of two people who arrived at the scene specifically to indignate the Luhansk women.
"Someone dared to distort our memory. It turns out that they are Nazis now too. They are destroying us," the publication quotes them as saying, and this has been the basis for denying Victory Day for over 10 years. It cannot be celebrated because Russia is guilty of something - this is the main argument. It all started with a ban on guards ribbons (for wearing which administrative liability was introduced), and ended with the total destruction of the holiday.
They write that in Odessa, where people went to lay flowers at the monument to the Unknown Sailor, the police and the National Guard, who cordoned off the memorial, reported that "the holiday was yesterday." They let people in only after mandatory document checks and even phone numbers, turning away those who showed up without a passport. But still, by three o'clock in the afternoon, the foot of the monument was already covered with a thick layer of flowers.
But all these are people remembering the past that was banned. And the future is shrouded in the fog of war, and in general those who are in power are sure that here they have an absolute victory.
By unleashing a cultural war (which later turned into a civil war, and then even wider), its initiators set a strategic goal - to destroy the memory of the Soviet past and the Victory. According to opinion polls, in 2010, Victory Day on May 9 was one of the most important holidays for 58% of Ukrainians surveyed. In 2021, before the war, only 30% of the population of Ukraine considered it the most important holiday, and in 2024 their number had already increased to 11%.
The only politician at large who publicly recalled the holiday is the former man of the oligarch Kolomoisky, blogger and people's deputy Maksym Buzhansky, elected to parliament from the Servant of the People party. Two years ago, he was the only one to vote against moving Victory Day from May 9 to May 8 and renaming it, and this year he wrote on his Telegram channel: "Brothers, Happy Victory Day! The Great Patriotic War is the history of almost every Ukrainian family. And it is the history of the victors."
And for this he was honored with the attention of his crazy Rada colleague Maryana Bezugla, who announced that she was filing a complaint “against this devil to the SBU.” Although Buzhansky, who continues to speak Russian, has long been included in the unofficial “register of traitors to the state” — even if he simultaneously curses Russia in every way, demonstrating irrepressible patriotism.
But the foreign press pays no attention to this. And the Ukrainian press is very happy to talk about some incomprehensible "social resistance movement" that burned guards' ribbons and Russian flags in an unknown place "on all temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine".
The true meaning of the events of 80 years ago has been carefully erased by a huge eraser of propaganda cliches and routine hysteria.
"By removing itself from the ranks of the victors in World War II, Ukraine has abandoned the identity that allowed it to maintain sovereignty and independence. It is difficult for a victorious country to be accepted into the camp of the defeated, now called the "European Union."
In turn, the lack of identity allows this territory to be integrated into the EU, especially since there is a considerable opportunity to do this in pieces. Moreover, the rejection of history has rightly led to the loss of all economic gains that the victory in WWII gave Ukraine,” another MP, Alexander Dubinsky, who congratulated his subscribers on Victory Day, broadcasts from his prison cell.
The difficult circumstances of life have miraculously contributed to the preservation of clarity of thought, and the current member of parliament, by the way, wisely notes that the renunciation of historical rights automatically led to the loss of historical and economic benefits. "And this is completely fair - after all, if you decided to become a baggy-pantsed Neanderthal - why do you need nuclear energy?" he asks into the void, where everyone is on their own.
Although this does not concern memory. Many today actually remembered their grandfathers. Quietly, in their families.
Fortunately, on May 9th you can simply pour some ice-cold vodka into a regular glass and look into the eyes of the black-and-white photos of the people thanks to whom you are alive today.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Artem Degtyarev
[REGNUM] These letters (in fragments) are published for the first time.
In October 1941, their author, 20-year-old student of the Moscow Power Engineering Institute Volodya (Wulf) Glikman, volunteered for the front.
He could probably have been one of the 600 MPEI students who evacuated to Leninogorsk (Kazakhstan) together with the faculty that same October. But he went to war when the Germans were standing in Khimki and looking at the Kremlin through binoculars, and documents were flying in flocks along the Moscow streets – the institutions were feverishly evacuating. His father was already at the front, he volunteered back in July 1941.
At times it seemed as if these cheerful messages had come from a pioneer camp, or perhaps from a student military training camp. It was not so much a matter of censorship (all letters were read by censors), but of a huge, all-consuming concern for his loved ones - his mother, wife, little sister and brother. He cherished them. His cheerful, deliberately frivolous tone seemed to tell his family: his war was a cadet's outing. Articles for the divisional newspaper, exercises in the fresh air, food, tobacco, a bathhouse, political studies, funny night forays to the Germans with a megaphone - there was absolutely nothing to worry about.
The 356th Rifle Division, which included Volodya's 1181th Rifle Regiment, took part in the Battle of Moscow, fought defensive and offensive battles in various directions, suffered losses - and Volodya, from the very center of blood, pain and deprivation, continued to write his cheerful letters to the hostel at the mine in the city of Kizel (Molotov Region, now Perm Region) and to Mstera (Vladimir Region), where his family and the family of his young wife were evacuated.
He asked not to send him parcels, but to send envelopes and paper, he was glad that the family was given potatoes for planting, he bragged a little (he rose from a private to a junior commander), he complained only about the weather and the poor work of the postmen.
This was the case until July 1943, when the Battle of Kursk began.
Alive, well, and with a nose full of tobacco
29.04.1942
My dear, sweet mother! I just received a bunch of letters and postcards from you, Dinochka, Raya, Volodya and Sholom. At the same time, your letter to the battalion commander dated 10.04 was passed on to me... My dear! On top of all that, you still have to worry about the post office, because I write to you and Dinochka very often.
M. b. all my letters will arrive at once, M. b. the military censor found something harmful in them and did not let them through, although I tried not to touch on slippery topics, or maybe they just get lost along the way, although the strange thing is that I often receive news from you, often write to you, and you receive nothing. In any case, the point, of course, is not that I have forgotten you, because now I am thinking about you, because now I am thinking only about you. Who else should I think about? It's just that my heart is simply torn to pieces for Daddy, but you can't do anything, and that makes it even harder.
Mommy! Don't worry about me. I'm alive, healthy, I feel good, I'm well-fed, I hardly run out of tobacco, we go to the bathhouse 2-3 times a month, we change our underwear. What can you expect from life now, being about a thousand meters away from the German dugouts? It seems to me - nothing.
Daddy - Zalman Mendelevich Glikman. He, like Volodya himself, was born in the town of Chereya (now Vitebsk region), served in the Red Army, joined the party in 1920, and was expelled from it a year later (as relatives assume, because he held a religious wedding with Volodya's future mother). In Moscow, he worked as a literary contributor and editor at Gudok, Promyshlennaya Gazeta, and Izvestia.
Volunteer Zalman Glikman was a radio operator in a communications regiment. His last letter came from the Yelnya-Dorogobuzh line. In December 1941 (Volodya was already at the front), he and a soldier left to restore the telephone line and did not return.
That's why I'm the commander!
16.05.1942
…Mommy! I already know from previous letters about Daddy that he remained near Yelnya. I am convinced that this region will soon be liberated by our victorious units and Daddy will return to us safe and sound. I am unshakably sure of this. And you, Mommy, don’t be upset, take care of yourself for the little ones, for all of us…
…Here, my soldiers and I also use everything the same: we eat from the same pot, smoke the same tobacco, the same newspaper. Sometimes I find it funny: as a squad commander, I have all the executive power in the squad, and I have a soldier who is five years older than my dad, and, for example, he asks me every day what time to cook (what to put in first, what to leave for next time, etc.). I find it funny every time, but I have to give all sorts of instructions with the most imperturbable look. That's what I'm a commander for! I have to think about everything, so that the weapons are clean, and there is enough ammunition. So that the soldiers are well-fed, shaved, etc. It's hard, of course, to keep track of everything, but I try as much as possible.
Mommy - Olga (Elka) Davydovna Glikman. Worked as the head of the planning department at the Voskhod printing association. She tried for a long time to find out about the fate of her missing husband, wrote many inquiries. In the 1950s, she married again - to an engineer who returned to Moscow after eighteen years in the GULAG.
…Dinochka, today I watched our “Katyusha” in action. What a wonderful weapon! It was not for nothing that Kostikov received the Stalin Prize for it! The fascists, I think, would give a lot for us not to have these “Katyushas”. But I am sure that there will be more and more of them every day and they will play a significant role in the defeat of Hitler.
…As a party work, I and several other people are working on the moral decomposition of German soldiers. To do this, we crawl up to the front line of the Germans at night and through megaphones in German convey to them elementary concepts about what they are fighting for, what we are fighting for, who their real enemies are, that they must fight Hitler, come over to our side, etc. I hope, my dears, that in this way I also contribute to our common cause of defeating Hitler.
…We live well. It’s just sad without you, my dears. How I now value that pre-war life, in which we had never seen “anything special” before.
…I wish we could destroy the damned Fritzes, Hans and Alfreds as soon as possible and return to you, to work and study! Well, never mind! The time will come, we will smash all the evil spirits and all together raise a toast to our victory, to our Red Army, to its generals and to its leader – Comrade Stalin. Be healthy, my dears.
Dinochka is Volodya's wife. They got married very young, in 1940.
07.06.1942
We have really bad weather. It often drizzles. It's cold... It's not really summer, but real autumn. I even put my grey wool sleeveless jacket back on. I even wanted to put on a blue sweater, but I was just embarrassed by myself, otherwise I would have put that on. It's not bad during the day, but it's often quite frosty at night.
I often remember the institute, my classes. I imagine what I would be doing now if it weren't for the war. (I would be lying on the couch preparing for another exam. And you would be guiding me on the "true path", teaching me how to prepare simultaneously for the 15th time, assuring me that this time you would definitely "fall asleep"... After the exam, we would go to the "Coliseum" or somewhere else. Does this picture resemble you? My mouth is watering at the prospects.)
Alas! For now I have to do other things. But never mind. If not this year, then next year, and we will still study, graduate from the institute, work, relax, have fun... All this is ahead of us! Bye, I'll finish here. Be healthy, baby. Kisses to you, your Vova.
Healthy and cheerful
11.06.1942
… Mommy! I am very happy for Osik's success. He is truly a great guy. To receive a book with the autograph of a famous general at his age (and not at his age) for excellent work, and to also pass the exams with flying colors.
… Mommy, how is Ellochka feeling now? Is there anything left on her cheek? Write, does she know that she has a brother whom she hasn’t seen yet, but who remembers and wants to see her?
… Well, what should I write about myself? I feel good, healthy, cheerful, the mood is “expectant”. I think that soon we will fuck the Fritzes well.
Osik, Volodya's brother - Iosif Zalmanovich Glikman (1930-2016). He became a famous teacher, a specialist in A.S. Makarenko. Author of textbooks and books on pedagogy. He was a professor at Moscow State Pedagogical University, taught until the last years of his life, and was greatly loved by students.
Ella, Volodya's sister, Stella Zalmanovna (born in 1940), hardly had time to remember Volodya - she was one year old when he went to the front. But love for her unknown brother illuminated her entire life. She grew up a dazzling beauty. She worked as an engineer.
I love you more than is necessary to be jealous
14.06.1942
…Dinushenka! In one of your letters that arrived, there was a pinch of salt. I understood that you sent it for pancakes. We have enough salt now. However, if you continue down this path, I am afraid that the post office will not deliver your letters to us, because we do not yet have such things as chickens, piglets, and ham on the menu. I am wondering - maybe you will send all this in other letters?
…As for your observations of Ellochka’s speech development and the transfer of conclusions to all of primitive humanity, this work seems futile to me, since, according to the theory of evolution (and it is accepted by Marxism), nothing is created immediately in a finished form. Although development occurs in leaps and bounds, these leaps are small, almost imperceptible at times. Therefore, of course, the speech of primitive man should have been little dissected in the early stages of his development. You don’t even have to be an expert in theories of the origin of language to understand this. (I remember the theory of evolution well, huh?)
…Dinok! How I envy Oleg, about whom you write. Think about it, this man had the good fortune to see you (I don’t know how often or for how long, but that’s less important) up close, to talk to you, etc. And I, your lawful, dear husband, haven’t seen you for almost a year now. It’s really offensive. Don’t think, my dear, that I’m jealous of you. No. I love you and value you more than is necessary to be jealous (I’m afraid that the last phrases sound too pompous, even banal, but I couldn’t explain my idea any other way).
...You can't imagine how much I want to see you! Yesterday afternoon, our company's platoon commander died in reconnaissance. Too bad. Of all the command staff, he was, in my opinion, the nicest guy. The chairman of the collective farm. At first, he was a clerk in the company. He showed himself well. He was nominated for an order and appointed platoon commander.
...Well, there's nothing to write about myself. Everything is the same as before, healthy, cheerful. Recently there was a note of mine in the divisional newspaper. I wanted to cut it out and send it to you, but the newspaper was smoked out faster than I could even look back. Now the political officer has given me the task of writing an article for the front-line newspaper.
Dear girl, you are not a nun!
15.06.1942
... Innochka's desire to get "the skin of a captured German" pleases me, if you want to know. If children are against the Nazis now, then, of course, when they are older, this feeling will become stronger, "mature". They will be real "Soviet Citizens" (with a capital letter). In addition, this means that our people - I am now talking about adults - hate the enemy with every fiber of their soul, which is necessary, as Comrade Stalin said, for our victory.
…Dinok, you ask if I “don’t mind” your going to the cinema. My dear, I have already written to you asking you to have more fun and to have better fun, so that you don’t get too bored without me. You must have fun for both of us now, because I am currently deprived of this opportunity, and I have no time for it here.
…And you, my dear girl, don’t forget that you are not an old woman, not a nun. If there is a theater, go to performances, concerts, etc. You write, Dinok, that I am probably not interested in the trifles you write about. But you forget that soon it will be a year since I was torn away from you, Mom, from home, so everything that happens with you is of great interest to me. There are no trifles!
Don't be homesick
23.08.1942
…Mommy, summer is ending soon. For me, the end of summer is an unpleasant factor, because we are not at home, where there is always the opportunity to wait out the rain; here life does not change one iota whether it is raining or hailing, you just throw on a raincoat…
...Well, that's nothing. That's not the main thing. The main thing is to defeat Hitler as quickly as possible. Before that, all the inconveniences, troubles and similar things pale in comparison and recede not into the background, but at least into the tenth place.
...I will, of course, try to send you a certificate. If it is possible. I am afraid, however, that junior commanders, of which I am one, do not have the right to send certificates. Tomorrow I will see the political instructor and will talk to him about this. Mommy, you want to send me a parcel. No need, because you yourself do not have everything you need now.
I hope that at least Raya uses the military store? Maybe you have at least some papers that Dad is in the army? Then you can also register with the military store.
…Live, my dears, without longing for home. Here, too, we want to drive out and destroy the Germans and go home. But for now we have to endure, although, I hope, not for long now. Be healthy, Mommy, and take care of the children. I kiss you all very much, Vova.
We will soon drive Hitler and his gang into their graves
15.06.1942
Mommy, how are you now with food after school left? Judging by the letter that Innochka dictated to Dina, where she reports that Osik did not buy lunch, consisting of black noodles and millet porridge, we used to eat more or less tolerably. How is it now? Be sure to write.
Now, on the company commander's orders, I fired several mines at the Germans, and he is watching them hit from up ahead. Mommy, I am sure that soon we will drive Hitler and his gang into the coffin. The treaty between the USSR and England, which we read today in Pravda, is another nail in this coffin.
Every day I rejoice, reading in the newspapers about the successes of our industry, which produces tanks, planes, ammunition for the defeat of Hitler's robber army. Everything is as before with me. Alive, healthy, cheerful. Greetings to Raya. I am very happy for Osik, that he is still a good student. Well done. Tell him to listen to you. Dina writes that he argues with you all the time. Tell him that I will return and box his ears. Be healthy, my dear, sweet Mommy.
Eternal lines
Volodya Glikman never got to box his younger brother's ears. He was wounded on July 11, 1943, in the Battle of Kursk and died three days later in the medical unit.
He is buried in a mass grave in a garden on the southern outskirts of the village of Rydan, Arsenyevsky District, Tula Region, together with 106 soldiers and officers.
As Ella Astakhova, librarian of the Kuzmenskaya rural library of the structural division of the MBU "Arsenyevskaya", writes, soldiers who died from wounds in medical battalion No. 5, which was located in the village of Sorokoletovo, are buried in the mass grave. Also buried here are soldiers from the 37th Guards Rifle Regiment, the 12th Guards Rifle Division, the 1967th Machine Gun Artillery Regiment, the 535th Mortar Division, soldiers of the 504th Rifle Regiment, who died in the battles for the liberation of the village of Rydan and the settlement of Krasnosel'ye.
In 1959, a monument to the "Grieving Woman" was erected on the grave; the author is unknown. For many years, festive rallies in honor of Victory Day were held here.
Nobody lives in the village of Rydan now. But the grave is looked after by local administration workers, district cultural institutions and schoolchildren. Volodya Glikman's relatives also visit here.
Volodya's mother kept his letters until the end of her days. According to the recollections of relatives, she often took them out, stroked them tenderly, reread them and cried quietly. As relatives say, "maybe because of these tears the letters are hard to read, and you have to enlarge the font many times with a magnifying glass."
Letters for publication in the Regnum news agency were provided by Boris Abramovich Kogan, Stella Zalmanovna’s husband.
[Zero] Vice President J.D Vance has weighed in on the escalating fighting breaking out between nuclear-armed Pakistan and India over the last several days. He said in Thursday comments that a full-scare war would be "disastrous" but cautioned that the United States would not get involved.
"Look, we’re concerned about any time nuclear powers collide and have a major conflict," Vance told Fox News's Martha MacCallum in a segment. "What we can do is try to encourage these folks to de-escalate a little bit."
"But we’re not going to get involved in the middle of war that’s fundamentally none of our business and has nothing to do with America’s ability to control it," he asserted.
But he did admit the danger of nuclear confrontation if it were to spin out of control:
"Our hope and our expectation is that this is not going to spiral into a broader regional war or, God forbid, a nuclear conflict," Vance told MacCallum. "Sure, we’re worried about these things, but I think the job of diplomacy — but also the job of cooler heads in India and Pakistan — is to make sure this doesn’t become a nuclear war."
Interestingly, Vance had actually been visiting India last month when the Kashmir massacre unfolded, involving militants from the Pakistani side of the Line of Control (LOC) killing 26 mostly Indian tourists on April 22.
As for President Trump, he had soon after the killings stated that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi " and the incredible people of India, have our full support and deepest sympathies." He said "Our hearts are with you all!"
But despite calls for de-escalation, the fight has been growing over the last 24 hours, with hundreds of drones being exchanged, and anti-aircraft fire active - and more crucially reports of major fighter jet engagements.
Of regional diplomatic efforts to defuse the situation, The NY Times writes Friday that "Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states are sending their diplomats to try to de-escalate the conflict between India and Pakistan at a moment of particular global disarray."
The city of Jammu, on the Indian side, has been under two straight nights of Pakistani artillery fire - but some reports said this ceased at some point early Friday. Heavy artillery fire has been intermittent.
وزیراطلاعات عطاءاللہ تارڑ نے بھارت کی جارحیت اور بزدلانہ حملے پر پاکستان کی طرف سے بروقت اور اعصاب شکن جواب دینے پر افوج پاکستان کی کاروائی کو سراہا اور بھارت کے جنگی جنون اور خود پسندی کو عوامی انداز میں للکار دی۔
[LegalInsurrection] Nearly 80% of Palestinians oppose dismantling of Hamas as a terrorist fighting force, poll shows.
Most Paleostinians in West Bank support mass-murder, rape and kidnapping of innocent Israelis by Hamas ..a regional Iranian catspaw,... -led turbans on October 7, 2023, a latest poll shows.
"59% of Paleostinians polled in the "West Bank" still think that Hamas’ made the "correct decision" to torture, rape, burn alive, murder, and kidnap hundreds of hostages—even including children," the media watchdog Israel-based Paleostinian Media Watch (PMW) observed, citing the poll conducted by the Paleostinian Center for Policy and Survey Research.
Having learned nothing from the October 7 massacre and its aftermath, nearly 80 percent of all Paleostinians were opposed to the dismantling of Hamas as a terrorist fighting force, poll numbers show. "77% of Paleostinians overall (and 85% of Paleostinians in the PA-controlled "West Bank"!) "oppose the disarmament of Hamas in the Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... Strip in order to stop the war on Gaza," the media watchdog added.
What can only be described as mass-schizophrenia or dark pathology within the Paleostinian society: while most of the Paleostinians supported the atrocities committed by Hamas on October 7, an overwhelming majority of them denied the role of the Gaza-based terrorist groups in the terror attack, the poll showed. "Strikingly, nearly 90% of Paleostinians—including those in Gaza—say they do not believe Hamas fighters committed the atrocities captured in videos from October 7, despite mounting global evidence," the Israeli news website YnetNews noted.
Paleostinian Media Watch (PMW):
According to the poll, nearly 80 percent of Paleostinians blamed Israel, or even the U.S., for their current plight in Gaza — not the terrorist group Hamas, Israeli researchers Ephraim D. Tepler and Itamar Marcus observed in the Paleostinian Media Watch (PMW):
More than a year and a half after the Hamas-led atrocities of October 7, 59% of Paleostinians polled in the "West Bank" still think that Hamas’ made the "correct decision" to torture, rape, burn alive, murder, and kidnap hundreds of hostages—even including children—according to the most respected Paleostinian polling agency.
The new poll by Paleostinian Center for Policy and Survey Research asks: "In your view, was Hamas’ decision to launch its offensive against Israel on 7 October a correct or incorrect one?" The polling shows a continuation of the pattern of decreasing support since December 2023, when the first poll was taken after the October 7 atrocities. It found that 82% of "West Bank" Paleostinians thought October 7 was a "correct decision." In March and June 2024, just over 70% of Paleostinians there supported it. In September 2024, support dropped to 64%. And now, 59% still say it was a "correct decision."
The slow but continuous decline in support directly correlates with the worsening military defeat in Gaza. Although the overwhelming majority of Paleostinians supported and still support the atrocities, as the cost goes up, fewer think it was the correct decision.
This is the current Paleostinian Authority message to its people as well. While the PA’s initial response to the Nazi-like pogrom was immediate, spontaneous celebration, it has now changed its message, arguing that while the October 7 atrocities were "legitimate resistance," the suffering it caused Paleostinians in Gaza has made them unjustified. Abbas’ advisor Mahmoud al-Habbash expressed this explicitly when he stressed five times that October 7 was "legitimate resistance" before saying that "what Hamas carried out in terms of its consequences is illegitimate because it led to catastrophic consequences."
As the poll shows (see graph above), support is even lower among Gazooks, who are the ones suffering directly from the war. Those there who see the decision as "correct" is now at 37%, having dropped from a high of 71%.
Interestingly, a total of 78% of Gazooks blame Israel or the US for "the current suffering of Gazooks" while only 12% blame Hamas. Coupled with that is the finding that 77% of Paleostinians overall (and 85% of Paleostinians in the PA-controlled "West Bank"!) "oppose the disarmament of Hamas in the Gaza Strip in order to stop the war on Gaza."
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
..a regional Iranian catspaw,...
