Hamas Attack on Israel - 7th Oct 2023

[GlasgowJock]

As per the title, thought I'd back track this to the relevant date and why the whole thing's kicked off/ looking like it's going to escalate in that region.

I'll drop a BBC link even though they are ridiculously partisan for Palestine:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-67039975

So as folk are no doubt aware by now, as per their charter (annihilation of the Jews) Hamas - backed/ supported by external agents, most likely the Iranian government/ Hezbollah - to attempt to scupper normalisation of Israeli/ Saudi relations launched an attack on the south of Israel to to commit untold atrocities on thousands of civilians, despite alleged forewarning from Egyptian intelligence agencies and the Israelis themselves seemingly distracted with their own internal civil politics.

Israelis understandably launch airstrikes on Gaza while they amass hundreds of thousands of troops for a ground offensive.

Hezbollah in the South Lebanon agitating on Israeli northern border to suggest a ground offensive will cause a second front to open.

Egypt closing off/ walling up the Rafah crossing/ Sinai Peninsula to prevent Gazan refugees heading west. Fellow Muslim countries reluctant to accept Gazan refugees (lol).

Tensions understandably rising in the West Bank.

The US moves a carrier group to the East Med to let Iran etc know in no uncertain terms not to get involved/ escalate.

Every useful idiot/ Western fifth columnist giving it big time on social media etc with the #freepalestine #Israeliapartheid and swiftly forgetting why Gaza is getting flattened.

Thoughts? Do folk think the Near/ Middle East will blow up this year?

As folk may have gathered I'm somewhat sympathetic towards Israel; Ben Shapiro on the Piers Morgan show was very articulate summing up a few days back his thoughts on the matter.

[DCR]

The longer this past week went on, the more I considered opening a thread on this and just saying, “Nobody wants to touch this?”

[ChasingCurls69]

I for one am enjoying the resurgence in McCarthyism that does not help any of the people actually suffering.

[dw]

I for one am enjoying the resurgence in McCarthyism that does not help any of the people actually suffering.

I think anti-colonialism in US colleges and derivatively the "activism" it spawns is an important factor in US opinion about the conflict, especially among the young.

So in that sense I think striking back at it is a sensible response from people who are pro-Israel.

[cgeorg]

There have been human rights violations (killings of innocent civilians) by both sides for a long time, there was just a really big one by Hamas and some big retaliatory ones by Israel, and there will be more big ones by both sides before it's done. The overall rhetoric in the US seems to (rightly) demonize the Hamas ones and kind of hand-wave the Israeli ones.

[ChasingCurls69]

I for one am enjoying the resurgence in McCarthyism that does not help any of the people actually suffering.

I think anti-colonialism in US colleges and derivatively the "activism" it spawns is an important factor in US opinion about the conflict, especially among the young.

So in that sense I think striking back at it is a sensible response from people who are pro-Israel.

I think it's definitely a factor, but also likely vastly out-numbered by the mainstream pro-israel stance, and there's not much actual support from even most "left-leaning" politicians. I've definitely seen unprincipled, shitty opinions from the activist side, but people are getting McCarthy'd for anything that's not basically a redux of post-9/11 propaganda for Israel at this point.

At least Biden convinced Israel to turn the water back on after sending Israel all of those weapons though, that was nice of him.

[hector]

I for one am enjoying the resurgence in McCarthyism that does not help any of the people actually suffering.

I think anti-colonialism in US colleges and derivatively the "activism" it spawns is an important factor in US opinion about the conflict, especially among the young.

So in that sense I think striking back at it is a sensible response from people who are pro-Israel.

If you’re strictly limited to this superficial oppressor/oppressed analysis where the oppressed have no limits on justifiable violence against the oppressors, and you lack knowledge about the historical conflict, then you’ll arrive at the student’s position.

Bizarre to imagine that students could so casually go from calling those they disagree with “Nazis” one day to cheering the murder of Jews the next.

That said, there’s idiocy and extremism on the other side where residents of Gaza are conflated with Hamas and innocent’s lives and deaths are subsequently undervalued.

Othering, and murdering innocent people, are features of every war. Always disturbing.

[mbasic]

Egypt closing off/ walling up the Rafah crossing/ Sinai Peninsula to prevent Gazan refugees heading west. Fellow Muslim countries reluctant to accept Gazan refugees (lol).

I read this on the interwebs recently:

"....but the only countries in the world to which Palestinians have ever fled in considerable numbers and the hosts didn't regret taking them in are a few predominantly-Christian nations in the Western Hemisphere (e.g., Chile, US, Guatemala).

They've wreaked havoc in Jordan, Lebanon, Kuwait, and, less frequently, in other Muslim nations, and, more mildly and sporadically, in Europe.

People recommending that Egypt open its borders to Gazans are nuts. Egypt will do anything it can to avoid the deposit of more Palestinians into its territory.
........
It's worth mentioning that most of the Palestinian Christian diaspora chose North and South America, rather than the Middle East or Europe."

[GlasgowJock]

Keep those shares in Raytheon, Boeing etc ticking over nicely from the initial Ukraine/ Russia investment:

[aurelius]

Multiple Issues: Why should the US care? The Middle East really isn't that important to US long-term interests anymore. As opposed to the war in Ukraine and the neutering of Russia.

Israel invaded with the help of Western support and conquered the Palestinians in 1948. Israelis have had 75 years to find a peaceful way to live with Palestinians but instead choose oppression and violence including routinely backing out of agreements to continue setting up settlements in Palestinian territory. I don't know if the US should offer Israel material support to continue oppressing the Palestinians. Morally questionable at best but I think applying personal morales to the game of global geo-politics is a foolish exercise. Game theory: What does it get the US strategically? I'm drawing blanks.

The Palestinians on their part engage in terror tactics and don't recognize Israel's right to exist. Makes compromise almost impossible. Hamas are fools. Their use of terror tactics with the targeting of civilians eliminates broad support while justifying Israel's extreme response. The US obviously can't be sympathetic to terrorists. It would play poorly at home and as someone else stated, being oppressed does not justify any means. Add to that terrorism has a terrible historical success rate.

Hamas chose for this to be decided through force. It isn't on the Israelis to show restraint. A proportional response, as has been done in the past, would just maintain the status quo. The status quo is not working and history only offers very hard solutions to these situations. If I am Israel, I finish this here and now. Israel should not engage in the urban warfare Hamas is prepared for and seeking. Hamas wants to draw Israel in and make it a blood bath. Spark some kind of Jihad to finally defeat Israel (pure fantasy). Israel should methodically raze Gaza to the ground block by block, inch by inch while Hamas is burdened with the plight of its own people. When they are done, Israel should seek a peaceful and lasting solution with the West Bank.

Every useful idiot/ Western fifth columnist giving it big time on social media etc with the #freepalestine #Israeliapartheid and swiftly forgetting why Gaza is getting flattened.

The media in the US is overwhelmingly in support of Israel. I have not seen/heard a Federal level politician make a statement in support of Hamas. This could just be my bubble. What are other's experience?

Thoughts? Do folk think the Near/ Middle East will blow up this year?

I don't believe anyone in the Middle East wants a piece of Israel right now. One thing if it was limited to a proportional response. Israel would unleash total war.

At least Biden convinced Israel to turn the water back on after sending Israel all of those weapons though, that was nice of him.

From a military standpoint, burdening Hamas with the management of their civilian population is smart. Dead people don't require resources.

[5hout]

On one hand Israel has a Haredi/Ultra-Orthodox issue that prevents any meaningful end-state solution. One the other hand, there is no need to have an end-state solution so long as multiple major players in the region espouse "Palestine from the river to the sea"/No Israel. So, in practice, I think the plan was to simply wait and see what happens in 20+ years (while tolerating small scale wildcat settling) and working hard on better relations with Saudi Arabia/UAE and other local stores more interested in long term viability/counter-balancing Iran.

My working model of this attack is that Hamas (the bunch of scumbag terrs they are), recognized that Saudi Arabia (going to the Israel column) and UAE (going to the neutral column) was probably going to lead step-by-step to Hamas being strangled out in favor of more moderate parties (leading to either forced elections or wholesale replacement of Hamas by the Palestinian Authority or some similar group working towards a 2-state solution). With this slow contraction of options Hamas decided to attack in such a way as to virtually guarantee an Israeli response that would delay, if not stop, the ever closer ties with Saudi Arabia/UAE.

Israel now is in a position of needing to obtain sufficient revenge/damage to Hamas to please their populace, and to strike appropriate fear in local actors that are viewing Hamas's actions as successful, while not ending the SA/UAE relationship or excessively damaging other international relations. I think you do this by gearing up for a massive action, then allowing yourself to be talked down part way into it (and going back to old-school Mossad maximum assassination levels against all public Hamas figures). So far this seems to be the road Israel is going down. I'd also note that there is a key testable element to this model: In the past ~20 years Israel has been persuaded to not endlessly assassinate Hamas members/leaders, as "counter-productive". I think this is necessarily going to change and Israel will simply respond to neutral/Israel leaning states that criticize the policy with "we called off most of the mega-response, but we're not tolerating the existence of living Hamas leadership that ordered the intentional murder of children".

[GlasgowJock]

Every useful idiot/ Western fifth columnist giving it big time on social media etc with the #freepalestine #Israeliapartheid and swiftly forgetting why Gaza is getting flattened.

The media in the US is overwhelmingly in support of Israel. I have not seen/heard a Federal level politician make a statement in support of Hamas. This could just be my bubble. What are other's experience?

The BBC in the UK (not to be confused with BBC World Service which is seemingly more objective) has been blatantly partisan in favour of Palestine (specifically Gaza) and refusing to refer to Hamas as 'terrorists' though rather 'militants' (despite being content to previously refer to Al Qaeda, ISIS etc actions as terrorism/ terrorists), despite Hamas being a proscribed terrorist organisation by the UK Government.

The BBC are currently investigating BBC-employed middle eastern correspondents for liking pro-Hamas social media content and being pro-Pogrom of the events of 7th Oct. I'll add a link to this once I find it again in the interests of #source?

ETA: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/ ... rael-bias/

Our security services have also been reluctant to crack down on pro-Hamas/ anti-Israel protests masquerading as pro-Palestine demonstrations unlike other European countries, namely France and Germany, as we have an increasingly large Muslim diaspora.

[DCR]

There have been expressions of support for the Palestinians from the usual Democratic members of the House, although in my view they’ve been quite measured and nothing that I’d call supporting Hamas per se.

[aurelius]

There have been expressions of support for the Palestinians from the usual Democratic members of the House, although in my view they’ve been quite measured and nothing that I’d call supporting Hamas per se.

I mean, I support Palestinian civilians the same way I support the Israeli civilians that Hamas killed. It is sad what is happening to them and that in 75 years this is the best their leaderships could do.

I'm always intrigued by the Western world's view of civilians as these nebulous, independent entities or so called innocents. Civilians are not separate, independent entities from the political systems they live under. And are de facto party to that political system and the decisions it makes. Especially in democracies. I think Westerners take this view to somehow distance themselves from the actions their government takes (and they benefit from). Example: It's easy to speak out against the US's wars in the Middle East for the feel goods while driving an SUV that gets 10 mpg.

*I don't believe civilians should be targeted like the attack Hamas carried out. Or as we have seen in the atrocities Russia has committed on Ukraine. Based on pure pragmatism is just doesn't work and actually increases your opponent's resolve. The US carpet bombed German and Japanese cities in WW2 with the express purpose of 'lowering enemy morale'. This strategy was taken to an extreme with the fire bombings of Tokyo and using 2 nuclear weapons.
Civilians can and have been a legitimate target in wars.

[aurelius]

On one hand Israel has a Haredi/Ultra-Orthodox issue that prevents any meaningful end-state solution. One the other hand, there is no need to have an end-state solution so long as multiple major players in the region espouse "Palestine from the river to the sea"/No Israel. So, in practice, I think the plan was to simply wait and see what happens in 20+ years (while tolerating small scale wildcat settling) and working hard on better relations with Saudi Arabia/UAE and other local stores more interested in long term viability/counter-balancing Iran.

My working model of this attack is that Hamas (the bunch of scumbag terrs they are), recognized that Saudi Arabia (going to the Israel column) and UAE (going to the neutral column) was probably going to lead step-by-step to Hamas being strangled out in favor of more moderate parties (leading to either forced elections or wholesale replacement of Hamas by the Palestinian Authority or some similar group working towards a 2-state solution). With this slow contraction of options Hamas decided to attack in such a way as to virtually guarantee an Israeli response that would delay, if not stop, the ever closer ties with Saudi Arabia/UAE.

Israel now is in a position of needing to obtain sufficient revenge/damage to Hamas to please their populace, and to strike appropriate fear in local actors that are viewing Hamas's actions as successful, while not ending the SA/UAE relationship or excessively damaging other international relations. I think you do this by gearing up for a massive action, then allowing yourself to be talked down part way into it (and going back to old-school Mossad maximum assassination levels against all public Hamas figures). So far this seems to be the road Israel is going down. I'd also note that there is a key testable element to this model: In the past ~20 years Israel has been persuaded to not endlessly assassinate Hamas members/leaders, as "counter-productive". I think this is necessarily going to change and Israel will simply respond to neutral/Israel leaning states that criticize the policy with "we called off most of the mega-response, but we're not tolerating the existence of living Hamas leadership that ordered the intentional murder of children".

I like your take.

I have these thoughts:
SA, who already rules without popular support, needs Israel to counter Iran just as much as Israel needs SA.
Hamas underestimated how much this attack would diminish support for them.
Hamas are fanatics. And fanatics believe in fantasy. Like starting an Arab state Jihad to drive Israel into the sea.

[GlasgowJock]

US to deploy 2,000 troops to Middle East - 17 Oct 23

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/10/16/poli ... index.html

As reported by multiple outlets.

Despite saying that there are no plans for them to do any fighting it's difficult to see how they won't end up being an very attractive target for all the usual suspects. I also wonder how this will play in next year's election although I assume that this must form part of any calculation to deploy them.

Given how well previous US deployments to the region have gone, it makes me wonder if we're seeing the start of another Lebanon, Iraq or Afghanistan?

[mouse]

Bizarre to imagine that students could so casually go from calling those they disagree with “Nazis” one day to cheering the murder of Jews the next.

This is not bizarre at all and I'd argue should be expected.

[hector]

Bizarre to imagine that students could so casually go from calling those they disagree with “Nazis” one day to cheering the murder of Jews the next.

This is not bizarre at all and I'd argue should be expected.

You could be right, especially if you understand college students better than me. Which I’m guessing you do.

For me, the anti-Nazi position and the dont-slaughter-Jews position go hand in hand.

[mikeylikey]

Bizarre to imagine that students could so casually go from calling those they disagree with “Nazis” one day to cheering the murder of Jews the next.

This is not bizarre at all and I'd argue should be expected.

You could be right, especially if you understand college students better than me. Which I’m guessing you do.

For me, the anti-Nazi position and the dont-slaughter-Jews position go hand in hand.

I'm not saying it didn't happen, but can you guys be more specific on where you are seeing Americans "cheering the murder of Jews" you are referring to? You guys seem to be implying that it is fairly widespread, which differs from my perception.

[aurelius]

For me, the anti-Nazi position and the dont-slaughter-Jews position go hand in hand.

I think you are missing the extremism of the oppressor/oppressed narrative. The narrative is essentially Israel are Nazis running an apartheid state which justifies any and all of Palestinian actions against it. The reality is much more complex with entrenched, powerful groups on both sides that don't recognize the right of the other to exist. There are no good guys in this fight.

Both the Israelis and Gazans* elected their extremist governments (Israel's ultra-conservative government and Hamas). What we are witnessing is a feature of Israelis' and Gazans' political choices. Everyone is getting what they voted for. But everyone is reacting like this:



Should have thought about the children when you voted goons into power.

I'm not saying it didn't happen, but can you guys be more specific on where you are seeing Americans "cheering the murder of Jews" you are referring to? You guys seem to be implying that it is fairly widespread, which differs from my perception.

My guess is a few far-right media groups are amplifying a very small minority of voices to 'own the libs'.

*Incorrect about Hamas being elected. They took power in a brief civil war in 2007.