AMERICAN CIPHER @penguinpress. Stories for @thefp @rollingstone @newyorker @harpers and other zines. Esto perpetua.
Joined March 2009
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Michael Ames retweeted
Exactly as many of us have been saying for a long time
Former BBC Panorama producer @philcraig says the Beeb has been taken over by a “radical generation” and that “all the mistakes” in its Gaza coverage “seem to be in the same direction.”
He points to the al-Ahli hospital blast, when the BBC rushed to blame Israel for what turned out to be a misfired Hamas rocket, and warns this kind of poor journalism has helped fan fires around the world — including literal fires at synagogues.
Gerald and I are proud to call Phil a friend and colleague. Thank you for the clarity and courage in calling out your former employer.
thejc.com/news/uk/bbc-is-bia…
Michael Ames retweeted
#Switzerland has frozen $1.5 million intended for Doctors Without Borders or Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) after the "humanitarian" NGO covered up the "widespread" rape of Sudanese refugees, many of them children, in Chad by its staff. swissinfo.ch/eng/internation…
Michael Ames retweeted
The exit polls have a number everyone is missing. Eisenkot's bloc plus Ra'am gets to 59 or 60. Not 61.
Ra'am is the Islamist Arab party led by Mansour Abbas. In 2021 it became the first Arab party ever to join an Israeli coalition, under Bennett, which is why people assume it could do the same for Eisenkot. Even if it did, the math still comes up short.
That is the whole story of the next few weeks. Not Bennett against Likud, and not Likud against Lieberman. The question is what Eisenkot has to give up to pull one more partner across the line, because a minority government that lives on Arab party votes does not hold, and if the final count confirms there is no 61, trying it anyway would cost him the legitimacy he needs to govern at all. It would be close to political suicide.
So either someone pays a very high price for a majority, or Israel votes again.
Michael Ames retweeted
Slam Israel all day long but never lose sight of the irony of a guy funded by Qatar criticising the quality of their elections.
"The Most Racist Election in Israel’s History"
If Netanyahu stays, Israel will become a pariah state – so the Israeli establishment is doing everything it can to ensure that he loses. But a Gadi Eisenkot victory won’t help Palestinians either, writes @OborneTweets for Zeteo UK:
zeteo.uk/p/the-most-racist-e…
Michael Ames retweeted
All the exit polls suggest Arab parties are headed toward a record bloc in the Israeli elections.
Meanwhile, Palestinian leadership won’t have election, would never allow any Jews to vote in them, and criminally punish anyone for selling land to Jews in the areas they control.
Michael Ames retweeted
This "journalist" is telling Brad Bradford, the runner-up for Toronto mayor, to end his life.
She writes for several publications, including @nytimes and @globeandmail.
Remember when major outlets would cut ties with journos over vile slop like this? Now they hire them.
Michael Ames retweeted
Israel’s Arab citizens, men and women, are turning out in historic numbers to vote. They can vote, run for office, and serve in the Knesset, rights denied to many Arabs and women across much of the Middle East.
Our critical ally in the fight against terror, Israel, is the only democracy in the region, and today shows it.
Michael Ames retweeted
Missing some context here.
There was, in fact, a political party in Israel that long embraced the possibility of a Palestinian state. That was the Labor Party. But then the second intifada happened, the Palestinian Authority abandoned any pretense of democracy, and Hamas was elected in Gaza, killed off the opposition — and then, well, attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, murdering more than 1,200.
Had the Palestinians, at any step along the way, accepted the Jewish state, and embraced self-rule, they would, no doubt, be in a very different place today. They might even have a state.
But because Palestinians can’t push past their hatred of Israel, because so many of their “supporters” insist on viewing them as toddlers and encourage that hatred (financially and otherwise), they remain confined to a quasi-permanent liminality. Which is awful for Palestinians but very useful for those who wish to use them as a cudgel with which to bludgeon Israel.
Michael Ames retweeted
Just delightful videos of Bedouin Israeli voters riding camels to the polls, mostly to vote for Ra'am, an Islamist party with a Jewish #2 that could be the kingmaker in the election's outcome.
Michael Ames retweeted
The New York Times, 24 years ago:
"A blunt new report by Arab intellectuals commissioned by the United Nations warns that Arab societies are being crippled by a lack of political freedom, the repression of women and an isolation from the world of ideas that stifles creativity.”
"The report notes that while oil income has transformed the landscapes of some Arab countries, the region remains 'richer than it is developed.' Per capita income growth has shrunk in the last 20 years to a level just above that of sub-Saharan Africa. Productivity is declining. Research and development are weak or nonexistent. Science and technology are dormant."
"Intellectuals flee a stultifying -- if not repressive -- political and social environment, it says.”
The study also reported that the Arab world translated only 330 books into Arabic annually — one-fifth the number of books translated in Greek. "In the 1,000 years since the reign of the Caliph Mamoun, it concludes, the Arabs have translated as many books as Spain translates in just one year.”
👉 nytimes.com/2002/07/02/world…
NEW: RFK Jr. falsely claimed that Arabs did not win global awards for science and “don’t produce literature" while stumping for Mike Rogers in Michigan.
Comes as Trump and his allies step up anti-Muslim messaging in closing pitch--
nytimes.com/2026/10/27/us/rf…
Michael Ames retweeted
Here's a video from Israel's first election campaign in 1949 as a reminder that:
1. It's the 10th oldest continuous democracy with full universal suffrage from its first day, including Arab citizens it just fought in war.
2. There have been no military coups, civil wars, emergency governments, suspensions of political or civil liberties, or canceling of elections, surviving even the assassination of a prime minister.
3. It's the only independent democratic state created after WWII to never fall, even temporarily, into some kind of authoritarianism.
4. When you were referring to people living in Palestine pre-1948 you were referring to Jews who were working to reconstitute their state from 2,000 years prior, and succeeded. Big time.
Michael Ames retweeted
It’s complicated, messy, imperfect, and open to criticism; there is both subtle and overt racism, and no shortage of flaws to scrutinize. Yet none of that changes a fundamental reality: within its internationally recognized borders, Israeli democracy remains vibrant and inclusive of citizens from diverse ethnic and religious backgrounds. The idea of a Jewish and democratic Israel is both legitimate and credible, and has been successfully practiced in tandem.
Michael Ames retweeted
The final campaign ad from Israel’s Yashar! party, led by former military chief Gadi Eisenkot, who is seeking to replace Benjamin Netanyahu as prime minister.
Michael Ames retweeted
Mahmoud Abu Namous continues to try all the hamburger joints in Gaza City. Last week he was at Snounu Restaurant.
TikTok timestamp: 4 days ago (Oct '26)
#TheGazaYouDontSee
Link in 1st response
Mahmoud Abu Namous continues hus quest to try out hamburger joints in Gaza. This time he's at the well-known pizzeria Taboon, which currently has two Gaza City branches - on Nasser Street and on the Communications Intersection.
Timestamp: 5 days ago (Oct '26)
#TheGazaYouDontSee
Link in 1st response
Michael Ames retweeted
FACT: The annual funding Israel receives from the US amounts to less than one-tenth of 1% of the federal budget. Less than 1/10th of 1%.
FACT: That annual funding would cover only a few hours of federal health care spending. A few hours.
Yet politicians who specialize in scapegoating would have you believe that Israel is responsible for America’s affordability crisis.
Like every form of scapegoating before it, it is a dangerous lie.
Michael Ames retweeted
Below are two charts, one showing all the major conflicts going on in the world and the deaths accumulated by them in the month of September 2026.
The second chart lists the media coverage/headlines and attention those deaths received.
We now have real data to back up what many of us have been saying for months on this app.
Look at Gaza/Palestine with 120 the “least amount of deaths” where supposedly a genocide is happening but with “the most coverage.”
Nigeria had 451 deaths nearly 4 times that of Gaza but received ZERO HEADLINES and they receive $730 MILLION in American taxpayer dollars FY2025.
Somalia had 194 deaths, 74 murders than Gaza and receives ZERO HEADLINES and they received $498 MILLION in American taxpayer dollars FY2025.
Gaza receives way more headlines, coverage, and attention than Ukraine and they had 6202 deaths in September alone and it’s not considered a GENOCIDE. Nobody’s marching in the streets, protesting, and rioting around the world for Ukrainians.
Ethiopia had the 4th largest deaths at 609 and coverage is AGAIN surpassed by Gaza and they received $920 MILLION in American taxpayer dollars in FY2025. None of people talking about Gaza care that the tax dollars are getting to extremists and funding their atrocities.
And you wanna know why?
Yes it’s antisemitism because it’s a conflict with Jewish people.
But ALSO in the other countries it’s the Islamists who are doing the killings mainly, but in Gaza they’re being killed and are pissed about it and the world has to know and pay, as they cry victim.
