AshenPumpkin

paramedic: hi, I'm Allan

me: you told me. and your colleague is Jim, and the man who found me is Peter. guess my short-term memory is okay

me: well my feet are still freezing but it's okay, I know you need to focus on getting my core temperature up first

Also, what prompted the Second Intifada (on paper), was that a Jewish politician went to visit the Temple Mount after the Jerusalem Islamic Waqf illegally excavated and dumped over 10 dump-trucks' worth of priceless artifacts within the Temple Mount.

And they slaughtered thousands of our civilians for it.

Fuck this article, but the headline spot on.

A Jewish man merely visiting the holiest place in the entire Jewish religion, that Jews aren't allowed to go near to "respect" the religion that built over it, and that alone prompted slaughtering thousands of our civilians.

And people try to, "Well... both sides" it.

"Wellllll, a Jewish politician visiting the Al-Aqsa Mosque made Muslims scared that they'd make changes to it, so you can understand why--"

a) Like when they "made changes" to our holiest site in the world by destroying and dumping tens of tonnes of our holiest artifacts??

b) A Jew visiting a Mosque shouldn't prompt slaughtering thousands of Jews.

I shouldn't have to say that.

And don't, "Well, apartheid--" me:

This was just after the Camp David Summit.

Just after the Israeli government agreed to all of Yassir Araf's demands for Palestinian statehood and then some: All of Gaza, 96% of the West Bank, East Jerusalem as the capitol, plus full monetary reparations for those displaced in 1948 War that they started.

And Arafat responded by not just rejecting statehood, but his Waqf by vandalizing and destroying ten dump-trucks worth of the holiest Jewish artifacts from the holiest Jewish place in the world.

And Jews were (and are) expected to be completely fine with it.

"They destroyed literally tonnes of our holiest artifacts, but we visited their mosque, so it's really all the same."

"They stabbed, shot, and blew up thousands of our civilians across a bloody summer, but one of our guys visited their mosque, so tit-for-tat."

Fuck that.

-

If you disagree with me about any of this, that's fine.

I don't care.

See, the Waqf's illegal excavation of the Temple Mount has a part two: The Temple Mount Sifting Project. We know where all the rubble was dumped, and this organization, with the help of hundreds of thousands of volunteers, has spent decades sifting through it for all the priceless archeological treasures.

But one of the most important elements of an archeological find, perhaps the most important element, is the context. Not only where it was found, but how deep. What was above it? What was it above?

And all of that context was permanently, irrevocably destroyed. If a 3000 year old shard is found, we have to ask: has it been there for three thousand years? Or could it have spent two thousand years elsewhere before being moved?

If the Temple Mount hadn't been desecrated, we'd find that shard in a layer of debris that would prove how long it had been there. But as is, we can't be totally certain. We can't prove it.

I've volunteered with the sifting project twice. The first time, I found a piece of Herodian tile--that is, the specific type of tile that he used in all his major building projects, which we also see at Masada.

I held in my hands corroboration of the contemporary account of Herod renovating the Temple and adding the retaining walls and plaza that are still standing today, the structure the Dome of the Rock was built on.

But that evidence, and every other piece of evidence the project finds, has, and always will have, an asterisk.

A bit of room for doubt that will always be there, because the religious authority descended from the conquerors of the land deliberately destroyed the evidence of the cultural history that predated their presence.

And yet, somehow, we are the real imperialist colonizers, and our presence is the real desecration.

But that's the thing. She doesn't exaggerate or grotesqueify or alter people's bodies to fit some standard. (Except insofar as she draws different species differently, and those are exquisitely practiced to ensure they have the same diversity of appearances that humans do.) She just presents people exactly as they are, complexities and oddities and all.

"Will Europe Save Hamas in Gaza? I recently met with a high-ranking European official from a country deeply involved in the Israel and Palestine file to discuss Gaza's future and immediate options for relieving civilians trapped under Hamas's grip. I presented a simple proposal: create safe zones across the "Yellow Line" into the Israel-controlled green zone and support new, organized, secure, Hamas-free communities where Gazans could finally begin rebuilding their lives. Whether the issue is humane living conditions, deradicalization, education, healthcare, or shielding citizens from both Hamas and Israeli strikes, the green zone is the only place where meaningful action is possible. Instead of engaging, the official launched into a long monologue about their country's contributions to the Palestinian Authority, UNRWA, and other institutions, all while insisting on their own "humility" as a faraway European nation.

Then came the truly amazing part: a casual normalization of Hamas. The official proudly described how easy it had been to work with Hamas before October 7, praising the group for providing "excellent security" and being "easier to work with than others." What they called pragmatism was, in reality, a twenty-year pattern of enabling a violent terrorist organization responsible for immense civilian suffering.

When I explained that any Hamas-free zones would require vetting at the Yellow Line to prevent weapons or operatives from entering, the official reacted with shock. "This vetting would violate international law," they repeated, insisting that their country could not fund projects with any checks on who enters. I noted the absurdity: I had undergone extensive vetting just to enter their country, and even this building, yet they believed Hamas fighters should be able to walk into new civilian safe zones unimpeded. Their only response was vague appeals to "international law," which, in their interpretation, seems to require allowing terrorists to hide among civilians.

The meeting ended on an even more surreal note. When the official asked what would happen to Hamas fighters left in the red zone, I said I didn't care; they could fight the Israeli military on their own all they wanted once they no longer held two million civilians hostage. The official lamented that "this isn't the old American West" and expressed concern for what would happen to Hamas without human shields. Disgust doesn't begin to describe my feelings and reactions.

I left convinced of something long suspected: Hamas's twenty-year rule was sustained not only by its own brutality but by an ecosystem of NGOs, donor nations, Western European governments, journalists, academics, activists, lawyers, and even self-styled human-rights defenders who normalized Hamas, treated it as a legitimate authority, or tolerated its abuses because their hostility toward Israel outweighed their concern for Gazans."

The United Nations and Hamas: A Toxic Relationship? A close friend of mine from Gaza City, tortured nearly to death by Hamas, a well‑known activist against the group, and someone I helped evacuate during the war, was featured in the UN Human Rights Council’s report documenting Palestinian civilians: executions, torture, beatings, the misuse of medical facilities, and the terrorizing of women and children.

When he met with the UN investigation team, one investigator was openly sympathetic to Hamas and the “resistance” narrative, signaling from the start that she doubted his testimony. He then spent five hours convincing the rest of the team that Hamas had, in fact, tortured him, despite extensive evidence of his injuries circulating on social media and a medical examination confirming blunt‑force trauma consistent with organized abuse, not random violence or Israeli bombardment. He even had to walk the investigators, including Ms. pro‑Hamas, through how his case fits into hundreds of others across Gaza, and how Hamas itself has filmed and publicly released its own executions, beatings, and torture to terrorize the population.

And then having to explain THAT to rocky. Like

yeah. The most common relgion has a prayer or something called Hail Mary.

Mary is a relgious figure btw.

The phrase hail Mary became an idiom that ment a super risky longshot in a desperate moment. Because of football.

Dont ask what football is. Thats. An entirely diffrent conversation.

Anyways thats why the project was called project hail mary, cuz it was a high risk long shot made in desperation. So. The other thing is. My name. Grace.

Apparently the prayer goes "hail mary full of grace..." and honestly I don't know the rest.

No, why would I know the whole prayer?

Its not MY religion!

I honestly didnt even know the word Grace was IN the prayer untill people started making a fuss about my name.

Try a single allium!