The Middle East. Once Again.

[Dartz]

So on Saturday, Hamas raided out of Gaza, and attacked several small settlements and a music festival. The resulting massacre led to over a thousand civilian deaths, with hundreds more taken hostage.

The Isreali Defence forces had been caught completely napping - or paying more attention to the West Bank areas.

This has, of course, led to Isreali going absolutely Gomorrah on Gaza for the last three nights, with no real signs of stopping.

Biden has weighed in behind Isreal. So has Ukraine. So has basically the entire world on some level - with varying levels of 'restraint'.

The disinformation bots are in full swing.

It's an Iranian op to disrupt Saudi' normalisation of things with Israel
It's a Russian op to distract the West
Ukraine armed Hamas with Western weapons
Russians armed Hamas with captured Western weapons to blame the West
Russia and Iran are involved somehow.
The EU is suspending aid
The EU is NOT suspending aid to Palestine
The EU is specifically supplying aid to the Palestinian Authority - which is technically an enemy of Hamas
Countries are blocking the suspension of aid.... 
It was just one Hungarian minister who shot his mouth off.
Israel provoked this.
Israel didn't do enough to help Gaza
Israel did too much to help Gaza.
Citizens of $country are hostages too.

Egypt claims to have warned Netanyahu days before. This claim's been repeated in multiple places from other sources with timeframes ranging from the 10 days, to 3-days. Which is basically the end of Netanyahu's career if its true.

Otherwise it's all noise, with the only signal being the desperate sadness, the death tolls and the response and the vague sense that those who were truly responsible are unlikely to ever be punished.

[robkelk]

And here in Canada, the national news radio shows have been full of it since it happened.

Full of reports about the attacks, that is. The other interpretation of my statement is up to you to decide whether it aplies.

[nemonowan]

Egypt claims to have warned Netanyahu days before. This claim's been repeated in multiple places from other sources with timeframes ranging from the 10 days, to 3-days. Which is basically the end of Netanyahu's career if its true.

Given that Netanyahu is a corrupt* would-be autocrat** that is desperate to protect his power and freedom and was facing the worst civil protests seen in Israel before this war fell on his lap and shut up most dissent, the doubt of whether he knew this was coming and chose not to prevent it is very warranted.

*: undeniable, he is in the middle of many trials for corruption, and if he hadn't been able to form a government again, he might very well be in prison currently.
**: undeniable, he has been trying to pass bills that would give him effective control of the judiciary, forbidding the supreme court to strike down any laws and not incidentally stopping all prosecution against him. All that has been stopping him are the massive protests from the secular community, including army reservists that were refusing to return to duty because they didn't sign up to fight for a dictator. Of course there is nothing like a war to put a stop to all that.

[Labster]

I continue my long-time policy of having no comment regarding the Israel-Palestine conflict.

What I will say is that wow, people are overreacting here in the States. A CEO demands that Harvard release the lists of members of certain student clubs who support Palestine, for the express purpose of blacklisting them from employment. Another person lost a job offer because they blamed Israel for the violence.

I mean, can I get a national employment blacklist for everyone who said something supporting the January 6th coup attempt? Or a blacklist for everyone who says that Russia rightfully owns Ukraine? Of course not, because this is dumb, and something we should not do as a free society. This is dangerous authoritarianism.

[Dartz]

It's the new Freedom Fries.

Anyway.

Only thing to do is sit back, and then wipe the blood up when it's done. The State here will probably keep trying to support the Palestinian Authority (which is supposedly an enemy of Hamas or something). But yeah, we already have hundreds of Palestinian kids dead.

I suppose they could've grown up to become Hamas fighters.

[Dartz]

500 Palestinians should've made sure to go to the hospital they didn't take the injured Hamas fighter

Whoopsie Daisy

----

I mean fuck me.

I suppose the idea is to make Hamas pariahs by making death follow in their wake with absolute certainty, whether the fighter's even there or not. Bomb the apartment block anyway. Bomb 'em all until either all their friends and family are dead, and the survivors just figure it's best not to associate with them anymore since any form of association means certain fucking drone-delivered death. A few days, a week, a month from now. Make associating with Hamas a certain death sentance. Even if you didn't know.....

I'd half-planned a story for the CiTD Fenspace crossover a while back than involved some steel-eyed loon blathering on about Polygeneration Warfare and using these exact same fucking tactics - but being quiet obviously an absolute batshit moron who just wanted to murder people.

I mean technically, it'll probably work..... but yeah.

-----

Isreal's response seems to be "We're not a 100% that wasn't us...."

The whole point of PGM's is you know - generally, where the fucking things went.

[Isodecan]

500 Palestinians should've made sure to go to the hospital they didn't take the injured Hamas fighter

Whoopsie Daisy

----

I mean fuck me.

I suppose the idea is to make Hamas pariahs by making death follow in their wake with absolute certainty, whether the fighter's even there or not. Bomb the apartment block anyway. Bomb 'em all until either all their friends and family are dead, and the survivors just figure it's best not to associate with them anymore since any form of association means certain fucking drone-delivered death. A few days, a week, a month from now. Make associating with Hamas a certain death sentance. Even if you didn't know.....

I'd half-planned a story for the CiTD Fenspace crossover a while back than involved some steel-eyed loon blathering on about Polygeneration Warfare and using these exact same fucking tactics - but being quiet obviously an absolute batshit moron who just wanted to murder people.

I mean technically, it'll probably work.....  but yeah. 

-----

Isreal's response seems to be "We're not a 100% that wasn't us...."

The whole point of PGM's is you know - generally, where the fucking things went.

Israel's latest response is more along the lines of it wasn't a JDAM, there is some evidence (drawing from both Israeli and Palestinian Video sources) that this is the case (at least according to Beau of the 5th Column) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHuNmDGb5eU

[robkelk]

Well...

Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States all provide travel advisories to their citizens, and Wikivoyage trusts these advisories to the point where links to them are provided on countries' wiki pages there. (Other countries also provide advisories, but they aren't currently listed on Israel's Wikivoyage page.) Most of the services use a four-level system: the Canadian names are "Take normal security precautions" (because no country is 100% safe - Hong Kong doesn't list this level), "Exercise a high degree of caution", "Avoid non-essential travel", and "Avoid all travel".

All six services have been rating Israel at the "Avoid non-essential travel" level with local variations for the last half-year. On Saturday, Canada changed that to "Avoid all travel" for the entire country.

Related, Australia has issued an alert to "leave Lebanon immediately".

[aku]

Regarding the possible technology used in the last few days:
https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/2024/...-bad-idea/

[Dartz]

A battery bomb in an airliner pull of people will - change flying for the worse yet again.

[robkelk]

Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas, has been killed by Israeli military forces.

Only time will tell what happens next.

[Labster]

If you’ve been wondering why the US hasn’t just waved its wand and ended the war in Gaza, or what we’ve been doing over the past year, I offer this: The War that Would Not End

I have only two comments on this history: MBS has a surprisingly realpolitik point of view on Palestine, and I support the men and women of the United States diplomatic corps.

[robkelk]

AP: International Criminal Court issues arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Hamas officials

The decision turns Netanyahu and the others into internationally wanted suspects and is likely to further isolate them and complicate efforts to negotiate a cease-fire to end the 13-month conflict. But its practical implications could be limited since Israel and its major ally, the United States, are not members of the court and several of the Hamas officials have been subsequently killed in the conflict.

I doubt that arresting the leaders of both sides of an armed conflict will actually end the fighting, but, hey, the folks in Den Haag appear to think it's worth a try.

[hazard]

It's not about stopping the fighting.

If it was, the UN would've interceded by now with a peace enforcement mission.

This is about the ICC trying to push forward the notion that warcrimes are going to be prosecuted even if the nations you did them in/for cannot or will not do so.

[robkelk]

While Syria's allies are busy fighting in Lebanon or invading Ukraine, Syrian rebels take Aleppo

[Norgarth]

I'm out of the loop on Syria, are the rebels better, worse, or about the same as the current government?

[robkelk]

It's difficult to tell. The current government is a dictatorship that practices political-based censorship, so we don't have a complete picture of what's going on in the country. The rebels are Islamist, but I don't know which sort.

[hazard]

Ah, well, the problem as to 'which flavour of islamist' is that there's not a single rebel group... there's multiple, each with different flavours.

And we have seen relatively recently that a group of religious militants may not consider themselves bound by earlier promises.

Because the Taliban talked a fair bit about how they'd respect the rights of women, and... well....

Let's just say Afghanistan has not become any safer if you are a woman.

[robkelk]

At least two reports of Syria's president fleeing the country as rebels enter Damascus. Syria's Prime Minister is on record as saying the current government is willing to cooperate with a transitional government.

Russia, Syria's strongest ally, feels "sorry for the Syrian people" according to Foreign Affairs Minister Sergey Lavrov.

The US is pulling non-essential staff out of Syria.

His Orangeness doesn't want to send in troops.


It looks to me like, once the "rebels" figure out what they all want, it's all over but the international recognition.

[Labster]

It looks to me like, once the "rebels" figure out what they all want, it's all over but the international recognition.

The quotes really should go around "they" instead of rebels, since there are many factions.  Calling them Islamists kind of glosses over the very large differences -- recall how Ukrainian nationalists fought with the SS during WWII -- you fight with the guys fighting your enemy.  There are the good guys, the Kurds, who want to create a multiparty democracy with religious freedom.  Of course, the Kurds will not win, because they have no friends other than the mountains.  (It doesn't help that Kurds are so fun to genocide if you're Turkey, and so fun to double-cross if you are literally any other country.)

Also Israel is attacking, because Hezbollah rushed to help Syria after the ceasefire inside Lebanon, trying to bomb them before they retreat back home.  Also the US is launching missiles at the patches of hardscrabble desert still controlled by Daesh -- last chance for bombing funni.  Russia still has its port, with "assurances" that they won't get attacked, which will only help with the one group that gave assurances.  Turkey is backing some of the militias as well.  Iran lost its land corridor to resupply Hezbollah and Palestinian rebels -- if you look at the dominoes, Hamas attacking Israel and taking hostages ended up handing Iran a massive geopolitical loss.

At least the memes are looking on the bright side now.  Let's hope something like these happened: