Attendees float outside their environment and consciousness, smoking opium and building a Xanadu pleasure-dome near the desert stream of Wadi Nahabir. Suddenly: a massive boom. Sirens. Cracks. Pops. Hisses. And screeches. A universe is broken and remade by the warfare that nurtured it into being.
Absolutely fantastic, heartbreaking, infuriating writing on the legacy of Israeli genocides, Palestinian resistance, raves, and EDM.
Music scenes often develop through the same dynamics of resource enclosure and commercial exchange that those who live through them typically ignore. For instance, it would be dishonest to speak of Chicago house music without some understanding of land theft, racial segregation, environmental neglect, and wealth inequality in the North American Great Plains. The same is true of Israeli rave and EDM. Culture never develops in isolation, and electronic music is a reflection of the political systems—in this case, colonization—that allows it to thrive. It is through that system, especially its security and policing guarantees, that land is stolen, reallocated, remade, and finally positioned to force permanent exile on its refugees living nearby.
I don't even know what more to say. If you're interested in the modern rave scene I think this has to be required reading.
Israeli electronica launders the reality of mass killing, managing the psyches of those whose lives are built through the violence of a racist system. It will be remembered for its fascistic utility like Wagnerian opera and Beethoven symphonies in Nazi Germany, and those who resist it will be remembered for their bravery and steadfast opposition to injustice. When the guns fall silent, and Zionist leaders like Netanyahu and Ben-Gvir are brought before a new version of the Nuremberg Trials, there must be a parallel discussion about Israeli raving and the roles it has played in the bloodshed.
With a bipartisan acceptance of innocent death as the cost of doing business in the Muslim and Arab world, it is not a surprise that a kind of casual contempt for its leaders and peoples oozes from the orifices of both Republican and Democratic administrations.
Excellent piece by Ta-Nehisi Coates about Kamala Harris' awful record on Gaza and her unceasing support of Israel. Naturally, it is the opinion of this author that Harris' stance on Gaza absolutely tanked her popularity among her own base, something that a functioning political party would probably take into account.
Isaac Chotiner interviews Shimon Riklin, an anchor on Israel’s right-leaning Channel 14, and a Benjamin Netanyahu ally, who feels stabbed in the back by Trump’s Iran deal.
🚨🚨🚨NEW CHOTINER ALERT🚨🚨🚨
Against the madness, Israelis reach for equanimity through their bodies. They control their breathing to control their persons; the body is the first site of control. The colonizer understands this better than most.
Beautiful, venomous writing about the modern fascist ideology of Israel.
A doctor knows better than to blame a diabetic for their poorly controlled blood sugar or a soldier who looks down the barrel of their gun, locks in on a woman older than the Zionist state, pulls the trigger, then, months later, wets his bed or abuses his partner.