History in the making, Part 2, V.2 - Israel/Palestine - NO RELIGION

In reply to Tom_Spangler (Forum Supporter) :

Having read reports on Khat from travelers that have tried it, Khat seems to be mild enough that people who are used to drinking coffee can't feel its effects.

Clearly a message:

USS Eisenhower enters the Persian Gulf.

The first carrier there since 2020, she moved from initially supporting the USS Ford off of Israel. Now positioned within striking distance of Iran and its proxies inside Iraq, she serves as a critical component of the deterrent against the war expanding out of Gaza.

Tom_Spangler (Forum Supporter) said:

Tale as old as time, isn't it? I remember reading "Black Hawk Down", and many of the Somali fighters were known to chew "khat", which is a plant with stimulant properties.

Pretty much all militaries have used something like this including the US military.

In reply to Opti :

Yep, there was a lot of ionamin handed out in Viet Nam.   I've heard that fighter pilots routinely take ritalin before flights.

Anyone who thinks the IDF is taking care to avoid civilian casualties needs to give this a read:

https://www.972mag.com/mass-assassination-factory-israel-calculated-bombing-gaza/

Kreb (Forum Supporter) said:

The latest news confirms what I've been saying for a while -

What latest news are you getting? Perhaps my bias is keeping out of my feeds.

AAZCD-Jon (Forum Supporter) said:

Kreb (Forum Supporter) said:

The latest news confirms what I've been saying for a while -

What latest news are you getting? Perhaps my bias is keeping out of my feeds.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/30/world/middleeast/israel-hamas-attack-intelligence.html

Tom_Spangler (Forum Supporter) said:

AAZCD-Jon (Forum Supporter) said:

Kreb (Forum Supporter) said:

The latest news confirms what I've been saying for a while -

What latest news are you getting? Perhaps my bias is keeping out of my feeds.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/30/world/middleeast/israel-hamas-attack-intelligence.html

No surprise, I read it a bit differently.

Part of the title: "Israeli officials dismissed it as aspirational and ignored specific warnings."

"But Israeli military and intelligence officials dismissed the plan as aspirational, considering it too difficult for Hamas to carry out."

Interesting way to word the statement: "...outlined, point by point, exactly the kind of devastating invasion ..."

"It is unclear whether Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or other top political leaders saw the document, as well."

Yup, nope. Not seeing a need to forfeit a life here. Maybe there's a version that's more of an opinion piece that justifies killing Israeli leadership. This seems like a re-write of what has been known for a while.

It smells more like an intelligence failure based on preconceptions and wishful thinking, rather than some sort of nefarious conspiracy. Regardless, even if a) Shin Bet knew what was in the works and believed it, and b) Hamas was allowed to carry it out as a pretext for clearing them out of Gaza (which really doesn't fit in with anything that Netanyahu's government was doing in the last couple of years), it's not crazy to let it play out. After all, if you try to shut it down quietly, you risk blowing your own sources and methods, and if you make a fuss and call attention to it, it's all 100% deniable in the absence of it actually being implemented, and you still have the potential of losing your access to intel.

A note on sources: I had never heard of 972 Magazine, but a quick check shows it to be a pretty consistently hard-left outlet, so their perspective is not exactly an objective one.

In reply to AAZCD-Jon (Forum Supporter) :

Tom_Spangler (Forum Supporter) said:

AAZCD-Jon (Forum Supporter) said:

Kreb (Forum Supporter) said:

The latest news confirms what I've been saying for a while -

What latest news are you getting? Perhaps my bias is keeping out of my feeds.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/30/world/middleeast/israel-hamas-attack-intelligence.html

No surprise, I read it a bit differently.

Part of the title: "Israeli officials dismissed it as aspirational and ignored specific warnings."

"But Israeli military and intelligence officials dismissed the plan as aspirational, considering it too difficult for Hamas to carry out."

Interesting way to word the statement: "...outlined, point by point, exactly the kind of devastating invasion ..."

"It is unclear whether Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or other top political leaders saw the document, as well."

Yup, nope. Not seeing a need to forfeit a life here. Maybe there's a version that's more of an opinion piece that justifies killing Israeli leadership. This seems like a re-write of what has been known for a while.

Yea, that is more than a bit of a reach. More sensationalist headlines with little to back them up. They lead you to believe that they had credible intel on the Oct. 7th attack on civilians. Read a bit farther, and all they had was that Hamas wanted to do something at some time, which really shouldn't surprise anyone. The reports were that they wanted to take over Israeli military positions and entire cities, which was a pie in sky goal that had zero chance of success. They were unprepared for the large scale attack on civilian targets, which looks much more like an intelligence failure than a conspiracy. 

As most I suspect are already aware:

Fighting resumed in the Gaza Strip after negotiations between Israel and Hamas broke down. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) reported one hour before the truce was set to end that it intercepted an aerial object fired from the Gaza Strip into Israel.[1] The IDF stated that Hamas violated the agreement and renewed military operations in the Gaza Strip.[2] Hamas stated that Israel is responsible for the reignition of hostilities and blamed Israel for rejecting multiple offers to amend the swap of hostages in the Gaza Strip for Israeli-held prisoners.

I found this additional information kind of revealing (edited down a bit, my bolds):

• The al Qassem Brigades—the militant wing of Hamas—claimed several attacks on Israeli forces....
• The al Quds Brigades—the militant wing of Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ)—claimed several attacks on Israeli forces...
• Other Palestinian militias also resumed attacks on Israeli forces. The National Resistance Brigades—the militant wing of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP)—sniped an Israeli soldier north of the Martyr’s junction in Gaza city and mortared groups of Israeli soldiers west of Gaza city.[15] The al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades—the self-proclaimed militant wing of Fatah—clashed with Israeli forces in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood.[16]

No word on whether the Judean Peoples Front, of the Peoples Front of Judea (I hear they are splitters) took part (that's a joke for anyone who has seen The Life Of Brian BTW)

But... you can obviously tell, the "political" situation, in the fighting units at least, is less the cohesive.  Not hard to believe they became bit less than coordinated during the cease fire.

----

The Israelis have started bombarding the central part of southern Gaze, and are clearly intending to advance there.  The have sent out flyers for civilians to flee areas in the south (and and area in the north).  You do wonder, if the followed these orders, that the entire civilian population of Gaza will be in one field somewhere in the south!  It really seems like Egypt needs to step up and at least provide some sort of temporary retreat area, at least for women and male children (Egypt seems very reluctant to potentially let any radicalized "fighters" into their country)

This is the map for southern Gaza.  The Egyptian boarder is to the left, with the Mediterranean at the top of the map (Israel is to the south).

Oh, and there is this:

Anonymous Israeli officials told the Wall Street Journal that Israel plans to target Hamas leaders abroad after the war ends.[41] The report claims Israel has already started the preparation for targeted killings abroad. Several members of Hamas’ leadership live in Lebanon, Qatar, and Turkey.[42]

This will sound familiar to anyone who remembers what happened after the Munich (Olympics) Massacre.

The Israeli mission later became known as Operation Wrath of God or Mivtza Za'am Ha'El.[32] Reeve quotes General Aharon Yariv—who, he writes, was the general overseer of the operation—as stating that after Munich the Israeli government felt it had no alternative but to exact justice.

We had no choice. We had to make them stop, and there was no other way ... we are not very proud about it. But it was a question of sheer necessity. We went back to the old biblical rule of an eye for an eye ... I approach these problems not from a moral point of view, but, hard as it may sound, from a cost-benefit point of view. If I'm very hard-headed, I can say, what is the political benefit in killing this person? Will it bring us nearer to peace? Will it bring us nearer to an understanding with the Palestinians or not? In most cases I don't think it will. But in the case of Black September we had no other choice and it worked. Is it morally acceptable? One can debate that question. Is it politically vital? It was.[32]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich_massacre

My statement that Netanyahu should die is a bit extreme, and I'm willing to walk it back a bit - he should be the subject of an extensive investigation. From the outset it was clear to me that there was no way that the Israeli intelligence service didn't know what was going to happen. Hamas had too big an operation, with too much money spent and too many moving pieces going into the attack for them not to. 

I find Yariv's statement about an eye for an eye interesting as well, because if you look at the body count over the last bunch of years, Israel is always about disproportionate response. It's more like a-head-for-an-eye.

I don't mean to focus all my criticism on Israel. Hamas, and by association, Palestine, brought this on themselves. But Israel's asymmetrical response does raise moral questions. 

In reply to Kreb (Forum Supporter) :

I don't think we have the slightest bit of a frame of reference for this. 
 

Not sure if it is accurate or not, but let's assume that your statement is correct... Israel has disproportionate responses. My next question would be why does that happen?

Picture if our country was the size of New Jersey, and was completely surrounded by countries that wanted to kill us. Lots of them.. the equivalent size of Mexico and Canada combined. 30x our population.  Then add to that that 10% of the population of our own little country also wanted us dead. And that that group (Palestinians) had additional population residing in every single country surrounding us.

Israel is a tiny little place surrounded by giants that want to kill them. I'm not excusing excessive retaliation, but I kind of understand it. I think they feel the need to make it clear that anyone who attacks them will feel similar impact, and that the response needs to be bigger against a larger enemy (to feel similar).

Why does Israel respond disproportionately?  Maybe because they feel bullied by giants. 

In reply to Kreb (Forum Supporter) :

I also question what proportionatly means.  Does it mean 1 to 1 results, or 1 to 1 effort? Or could it mean 1 to 1 intent? Hamas  attacked Israel with everything it had, killing everyone that they had the ability to kill. If they had more ability, they would have killed more people. Fighting a weaker enemy down to their level just sounds like a recipe for endless fighting. Long term, a resounding butt kicking may cost less lives. 
 

If someone breaks into my home and shoots me once, should I just return fire and shoot them once? Wait for them to shoot me again, then return the favor? Or do I keep shooting until I end the threat? 

In reply to Kreb (Forum Supporter) :

While I can see where you are coming from and Netanyahu is certainly a leader that tends towards aggression, and may even (likely?) think the extermination of the Palestinians is a reasonable option, I think that answer might be a bit to "easy" and maybe ignores some likely realities.

While the Israelis seemed to have know many of the details of the raid, it seems highly unlikely that that information was only known to intelligence and Netanyahu.  That is to say, I am sure many up the chain of command, specifically, commanders in the defense forces, knew this information.  If this was so obviously, and it took Netanyahu to to command lack of action, it really seems unlikely, commanders in a force specifically tasks at the job of defending Israelis, would agree to the concept of sacrificing many many clearly innocent civilians to a bigger goal.  I don't think there is any history of that sort of behavior by the Israelis in the past.  I would even tend to say it is the opposite, as demonstrated by there tendency to agree to very lopsided prisoner exchanges, which seems to imply great value being put on Israeli lives.

I am also a bit suspicious one of the important factors was that the Israelis may not have realized the Palestinians ability to defeat / penetrate the border, which is apparently heavily covered with electronic sensors to warn of any actions.  The Palestinians of course (likely with a lot of outside help) figured a way to disable most of those systems.  So, the parasails, for example, would seem absurd, because they would be spotted very easily, and they move rather slow, so they would be very easy to track and kill as they landed.

About the concept of "disproportionate response":  Again, I am not sure why this is such a discussion point.  I am pretty sure the Israelis have never used the term in this case, or implied that is what they are doing. It seems to be a creation of (western?) nations.

What Israel has said is that they are at war.  In wars, the concept of proportionate response is not really a thing.  The closest concept would likely be escalation but I am not sure you can apply that here. I mean, as a silly example, the US's goal in the Pacific WWII, was not to have a proportionate response to the attack on Pearl Harbor and the Philippines, it was to defeat Japan in general and whatever that takes.  That clearly seems to be a more analogous approach to this situation, at least from the Israeli perspective. Or, to put it another way, Israel really does not want to have to figure out the proportionate math after the next attack (that will certainly come) to figure how many they need to kill, they want the attacks to stop (how effective that will be of course is certainly a question)

Also relevant to this is that even a proportionate response by the Israelis is essential disproportionate and acts as encouragement because of the inherent differences in the societies.  Hamas has clearly stated, one of their goals and wishes in life is to be sacrificed in quest to destroy Israel.  There are even statements by Palestinians mothers who pledge that it is there goal in life to raise sons who will by martyred (killed) in the fight to destroy Israel.  Again, no idea what percentage of Palestinians that represents, but it's clearly not zero.  The two societies have very different views in the value and purpose of the lives of their citizenry.

It should be noted, that although direct attacks on civilian populations is clearly not unknown in war, and is generally considered ineffective, and likely counter productive, that is still, generally on the attacker (e.g. you cannot really blame the defenders).  But it also should be noted that the defense of the civilian population when it comes where military assets are located (e.g. locating an ammo dump in the middle of a populated city), that is very much on the defending army, not the attacker.

Another concept to consider her is the idea of defending a civilian population in a hopeless situation.  For example a city surrounded by the enemy, where you have no chance of actually winning (which is basically what Hamas situation is).  The normal reaction to this of course would be to simply surrender, because to fight, would simply invite massive civilian casualties.  The only exception I can to this is if the attacker can be assumed to want to kill everyone anyway.  I see zero reason to believe this from the Israelis actions (e.g. warning civilians, allowing escape etc), but there may be some concept of that withing the Palestinian population (ar maybe just a want to be martyred in the fight against the Jews).

I state the proportionality of the death count as a matter of fact not as a condemnation. It is in no way a "creation of Western Nations". Who am I to criticize Israel while sitting in my safe, comfortable house waiting for the game to come on? But if I had loved ones who were killed in Hamas' attack, and I found out that my leader had known of the preparations for that attack for around a year, it wouldn't just be Hamas' blood I was after.

Kreb (Forum Supporter) said:

I don't mean to focus all my criticism on Israel. Hamas, and by association, Palestine, brought this on themselves. But Israel's asymmetrical response does raise moral questions. 

No it doesn't. Assymetry of power or force in itself doesn't have bearing on morality. Being the underdog or the loser doesn't make you the good guy..

Israel continues to make progress in the north and has started to capture ground in the south.  I would guess they plan to push across to the med again and cutoff the center part as well.

It is being reported by several news outlets Israel has assembled a system of several water pumps that can be used to flood the Hamas terrorist network of tunnels in Gaza with seawater to drown Hamas terrorists. The photo from the IDF press service clearly shows sections of PVC hoses being assembled by IDF soldiers towards Gaza.

Some notes from an IDF combat medic:

• Tunnels are everywhere, in hospitals, schools, residential buildings. A huge anthill underfoot.

• For the purpose of intelligence, the terrorists use children who run to Israeli positions, then return back to the terrorists and tell them what they see.

• The enemy, in general, is cunning and skillfully hides behind crowds of civilians, mixing with them easily when necessary.

In reply to aircooled :

There are noises coming from the Israeli government laying the groundwork for the idea that the remaining hostages may be lost. Between pressure from the US (apparently the Israelis were talking about several more months of high-intensity operations, to which Blinken reportedly responded: "You don't have that much credit.") and the fact that they are starting to flood the tunnels, I think the calculation may have been made the getting the hostages back and weakening Hamas to the greatest extent possible in the time remaining (diplomatically speaking) are mutually exclusive, and that the latter is the more important outcome.

In reply to 02Pilot :

Yeah, if Israel is not able to sweep almost the entire Gaza area I am not sure they will have made any real progress. 

They (to me) seem to absolutely have to clean out all the weapons and tunnels from the area.  They of course will never be able to remove all the Hamas fighters unless they willingly sacrifice themselves.  If the fighters want to avoid getting killed, they just have to drop their weapons and play "civilian" (most fighters seem to be in civilian cloths already).  Even after sweeping the area, there will certainly be willing fighters left, but it then of course turns into more of an insurgency type situation and the fewer weapons they have at that point, clearly the better.

Here is a statement, talking to the Palestinians about Hamas.  It seems like a pretty accurate / reasonable statement to me (?):

To my Palestinian brothers and sisters, and to anyone who supports the Palestinian people, I implore you:

Please do not let Hamas brainwash you into thinking it has "achieved" anything on our behalf.

It hasn't.

Not in the Gaza Wars of 2021, 2014, 2012, or 2008.

Each one of these pointless conflicts has been a catastrophe, costing us dearly in lives and treasure.

Hamas is not a social justice movement, and it certainly does not care about the Palestinian people.

It is a criminal gang that only cares about increasing its own power.

Israel is not the main cause of your suffering.

Hamas is the main cause.

Israel is not your jailer.

Hamas is.

It was Hamas that led you into this most recent disaster.

They told you that the Israelis were evicting innocent Palestinians from their homes in the Sheik Jarrah area of East Jerusalem.

This is a lie.

The people living in those homes weren't tenants; they were squatters. They hadn't paid rent for decades.

They told you that the Israelis planned to destroy the Al Aqsa Mosque.

This, too, is a lie.

The mosque is still there. It will be there tomorrow. Say what you want about the Israelis, they are not stupid. They know that if they actually attempt to destroy Al Aqsa, it would lead to war with every Muslim country.

Yes, Hamas takes action and thus looks strong next to its rival, the corrupt Fatah party. But the only action it takes is to lead us into chaos.

Hamas has no ability—and, in fact, no desire—to govern.

The water isn't safe to drink; the power goes out for hours at a time; raw sewage washes up on your beaches. The Israelis are not responsible for these dismal failures—Hamas is. And everybody in Gaza knows it.

It is Hamas that steals the imported cement meant to build houses for you and uses it instead to build a massive network of tunnels from which it hopes to terrorize Israelis. It is Hamas that makes sure humanitarian aid meant for you is diverted to its favored elites who then sell it for a profit on the black market.

And it is Hamas that uses you as human shields, stationing rocket launchers and missile arsenals in your apartments, office buildings, schools, and even hospitals.

Israel uses rockets to defend its people. Hamas uses people to defend its rockets.

As for its war strategy, Hamas doesn't have one. It fires missiles at the most highly populated regions of Israel, with no specific target. Yet, I know from my sources in Gaza that as much as 25 percent of all rockets launched by Hamas in May 2021 crashed within Gaza. Fifty Gaza civilians were killed by these rockets, their deaths falsely blamed on Israel.

Are you aware of the fact that some of the Hamas missiles that Israeli Defense Forces failed to intercept ended up exploding in places like Jaffa, Abu Ghosh, and Lod—where Arab Israelis live? Palestinians living in Israel are as likely to be killed as Israelis themselves.

Hamas couldn't care less.

And what was gained?

Palestinians living in those four buildings in Sheikh Jarrah will still eventually be evicted, a fact that has been known to those families since they sold away the title to those buildings.

Think about the even greater number of Palestinians who are now homeless in Gaza because Hamas chose to hide weapons in residential buildings.

And when naïve American and European NGO's offer millions to "rebuild Gaza" who do you think will get that money? It won't be you—the people who really deserve it and need it—it will be the leaders of the Hamas gang and their friends who will add new rooms to their fancy villas rather than rebuild homes, purchase coronavirus vaccines, or provide social services for their people.

There apparently have been videos (from, now ex-Hamas's, goPro cameras) of Israelis flooding tunnels.

Israelis continue to push more into the south and north. 

IDF: Underground terror infrastructure and weapons located by IDF soldiers in the Al-Azhar University in Rimal

Within the university campus, IDF troops located terror infrastructure, including an underground tunnel that ran from the university's yard and continues to a school one kilometer away. Furthermore, numerous weapons, including explosive devices, rocket parts, launchers, explosive device detonation systems, and several technological assets were located and taken for an intelligence analysis and investigation.

Israel has been showing pictures of large numbers of captured Hamas fighters.  I am a bit confused that they don't appear to have followed the apparent goal of Hamas to marytr themselves.  Of note is that the stripping to the underwear is a very reasonable action when use of body worn suicide explosives is rather common.