Author | Lightnews

Dr. Jolani Peterson @boundedrationality.bsky.social · 6h

Wrote a longer explanation of the context and included the excerpt plus translation in the alt text.

Oleksandr Polianichev was one of many historians & activists criticizing Zaid Jilani. This post was an unusual instance of him admitting defeat so badly he actually deleted it. Jilani was defending Russia having a “sphere of influence” in Ukraine and the Baltics using the same tired “it’s their backyard” realist rhetoric.

Oleksandr tweeted the following using the same language as Jilani swapping “Ukraine” for Persia:

The invasion of Persia by Russia is illegal and unjustified, it's also their sphere of influence and there's not going to be any resolution of it without figuring out a way to satisfy that interest.

Then cited an excerpt from a manuscript in Tsarist Russian script, highlighting the phrase “sphere of influence”:

Затімь еще Россія можеть оказать сильное давленіе на Персію сь западныхь береговь Каспійского моря: Азарбейджань, богатая про-винція шаха и Тавризь лежать вполив вь сферь нашего вліянія и
намь стоить только протянуть руку, чтобы захватить ихъ. Мы думаемь,
что одной угрозы будеть вполиь достаточно, чтобы заставить Персію согласиться на всь наши требованія. Что же касается до обезпеченія

Translation:

Further, Russia can still exert strong pressure on Persia from the western shores of the Caspian Sea: Azerbaijan, a rich province of the Shah, and Tabriz lie almost within the sphere of our influence, and it would take only an outstretched hand for us to seize them. We believe that a mere threat would be quite sufficient to compel Persia to agree to all our demands.

Dr. Jolani Peterson @boundedrationality.bsky.social · 6h

He once spent over a day arguing that spheres of influences aren’t imperialist in a weird defense of Russia. Only deleted it when @opolianichev.bsky.social pulled out a 19th century letter of a Tsarist general referring to the area the Jilani surname originates as Russia’s “sphere of influence.”

rev. howard arson @theophite.bsky.social · 7h

he got kicked off of a secret gamefaqs politics forum for antisemitism. do you know how antisemitic you have to be to get kicked off of a politics forum for gamers

☀️ Starshine @starshine.bsky.social · 9h

guy got fired from center for american progress for antisemitism then got a sinecure from the ebay guy

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Dr. Jolani Peterson @boundedrationality.bsky.social · 7h

An endless sea of consultants and not a single one has suggested running a single Mainer who played in Outbreak? Maybe someone from Cruel Hand? Pinkerton Thugs?

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Dr. Jolani Peterson @boundedrationality.bsky.social · 7h

דמה לא ישפך לריק; יהוה יקום לנקמתה!

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Dr. Jolani Peterson @boundedrationality.bsky.social · 7h

You won’t be laughing when Abu Hendl The Golem of Idlib is apprehended by Sharaa’s forces at Al-Fardan camp any minute now.

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Dr. Jolani Peterson @boundedrationality.bsky.social · 7h

The idea of Belzer Hasidim overseeing any kind of militarized checkpoint has got me tearing up from laughing. Like Druze running a carnitas taco and michelada stands outside the tomb of Jethro.

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Dr. Jolani Peterson @boundedrationality.bsky.social · 9h

Maybe people who run for a position in the US Senate without holding any previous public office should be held to a higher standard and vetted more thoroughly? This is the best Maine could find? A guy too dense to get ahead of any of this shit before announcing?

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Dr. Jolani Peterson @boundedrationality.bsky.social · 12h

I think if you refer to us as 🧃you are at best, a low info bigot who is helping mainstream far-right ideas while believing yourself to be a progressive. What Lenin called a “useful idiot.”

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Dr. Jolani Peterson @boundedrationality.bsky.social · 12h

Tonight a rocket landed inside the synagogue of Kherson crashing through the roof while some community members were inside. Miraculously, it did not detonate.

Impact of the rocket in the synagogue of Kherson. Unsure of the exact model, looks like a 122 mm variant.

Ukrainian security services holding part of the rocket inside the synagogue with debris scattered on the floor.

Hole in the top of the synagogue which the unexploded rocket made.

Debris and impact crater in the floor of the synagogue of Kherson, Ukraine.

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Dr. Jolani Peterson @boundedrationality.bsky.social · 13h

and their true spiritual successors: the astrology girlies

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Dr. Jolani Peterson @boundedrationality.bsky.social · 13h

Trump appointed a Chaldean as Special Envoy to Iraq as a reward for helping him deliver votes in Michigan. His personal lawyer turned overlord of New Jersey is also Chaldean. Do I have no choice but to excuse calling every Assyrian a Nazi collaborator?

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Dr. Jolani Peterson @boundedrationality.bsky.social · 13h

57 countries are members of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation of which 22 countries are also members of the Arab League. Should I talk about all Arabs or Muslims a certain because of the actions of these states? It’s absurd.

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Reposted by Dr. Jolani Peterson

Dmitry Grozoubinski @explaintrade.com · 22h

Half the major parties in the United Kingdom appear to be in a desperate arms race to see who can be performatively cruel enough to foreigners to earn a "based" quote tweet from Elon Musk.

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Reposted by Dr. Jolani Peterson

Sam (ABeardedPanda) @abeardedpanda.bsky.social · 1d

I genuinely think most of the people trying to analyze this on a left/right or radical/normie axis are making a mistake because it's pretty clearly breaking down on a cosmopolitan/herrenvolk one

ike the overwhelming majority of people coming to his defense (and the wider defense of nazi tattoos) are doing so under the implicit argument that the "soul of America" emanates from white men

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Dr. Jolani Peterson @boundedrationality.bsky.social · 1d

For those who aren’t checking the quotes. Jared is okay and posted the following video with his neighbor Paul Niland, founder of LifeLine Ukraine, the first national suicide prevention hotline in the country. He also wrote about the attack for the Kyiv Independent.

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Dr. Jolani Peterson @boundedrationality.bsky.social · 1d

Update from reporter @jaredgoyette.bsky.social interviewing his neighbor Paul Niland outside the Great Choral Synagogue after the attack. Paul founded LifeLine Ukraine 5 years ago. A national suicide prevention hotline more important than ever. Thank G-d he is safe! lifelineukraine.com/en/key-people

Dr. Jolani Peterson @boundedrationality.bsky.social · 1d

From journalist @jaredgoyette.bsky.social who lives by the synagogue in Podil. Hope he is okay.

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Dr. Jolani Peterson @boundedrationality.bsky.social · 1d

Same goes for those who claim to be solely diasporists who want nothing to do with Israel. Where are you? Are we not part of the diaspora? Are we less important than Western Europe? Is it just inconvenient when drones, missiles, power cuts, occupation, & torture happen in Ukraine?

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Dr. Jolani Peterson @boundedrationality.bsky.social · 1d

Love how so many of the “no Jews no news” posters fail to amplify the terror our community in Ukraine has to live under. Never highlighting what life is like to be a Jew in frontline cities like Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, or Kherson. Just keep arguing about football & Mamdani.

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Dr. Jolani Peterson @boundedrationality.bsky.social · 1d

Well none of these involve football matches in the UK or the Netherlands so all of this isn’t nearly as newsworthy.

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Dr. Jolani Peterson @boundedrationality.bsky.social · 1d

Less than 3 months since the Shahed strike on the Nachlas Eliezer Synagogue in Odesa caused the roof to catch fire. In July, the Chief Rabbi of Dnipro’s apartment was hit while his family was inside. A week before that the Chief Rabbi of Kherson’s car with his whole family was targeted by FPV drones

AUGUST 7, 2025

JTA - Jewish Telegraph Agency
GLOBAL
Historic Ukrainian synagogue significantly damaged by Russian drone strike
The synagogue strike comes weeks after one Chabad rabbi's apartment was hit and another was targeted in his car.
A Russian drone strike on the Nachlas Eliezer Synagogue in the Peresyp district of Odessa caused significant damage to the building. (Rabbi Pinchas
Goldschmidt/X) - note that he isn’t the the Chief Rabbi of Odesa but former Chief Rabbi of Moscow who left Instead of endorsing the 2022 invasion. He is part of the European Jewish Congress.

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Dr. Jolani Peterson @boundedrationality.bsky.social · 1d

The Great Choral Synagogue in the Podil neighborhood of Kyiv has been hit by a Shahed drone.

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Reposted by Dr. Jolani Peterson

Drew Harwell @drewharwell.com · 1d

Here's who @scottnover.bsky.social and I have confirmed so far.

All right-wing bloggers and influencers who
* agreed to the press restrictions refused by established reporters
* are known for soft-touch treatment of the Trump administration
* will now get special access to the "Department of War"

Gateway Pundit
Human Events (Jack Posobiec)
Just the News
LindellTV (MyPillow's Mike Lindell)
National Pulse
The Post Millennial
Real America’s Voice
RedState
Timcast (Tim Pool)
Turning Point USA’s Frontlines
Washington Reporter

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Reposted by Dr. Jolani Peterson

Mike Rothschild @rothschildmd.bsky.social · 1d

The optics of Trump building a ballroom that 99.9% of Americans will never set foot in while millions line up for food banks are worth more than any policy paper or economic proposal. This image is a visceral punch in the mouth that needs no words. It should haunt the GOP for a generation.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 1d

a live look at the demolition of the White House's East Wing for Trump's ballroom

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Reposted by Dr. Jolani Peterson

Charlotte Lydia Riley @lottelydia.bsky.social · 2d

I sat in the British Library reading League of Empire Loyalists, BNP & National Front literature for my book and even they claimed to promote *voluntary* repatriation. Forcible deportation was always the ghost behind those ideas, but it’s amazing that UK politicians don’t even bother to hide it.

Tarik Abou-Chadi @tabouchadi.bsky.social · 2d

To be clear: deportations to increase cultural homogeneity is the text book definition of ethnic cleansing. Demands that come even close to this are so far outside any democratic norm and the rule of law. What has happened to a country when this is not condemned in the strongest possible terms?

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