The expanding Israel-Hamas war

[KaraBulut]

Meanwhile, it the efforts to destroy Hamas in Gaza, Israel is doing more land grabs of Palestinian property in the West Bank. And they cited the Torah/Bible as their justification for doing it.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/03/22/israel-largest-west-bank-settlement-blinken-visit/

Israel’s far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, announced the seizure of 10 square kilometers (3.8 square miles) of Palestinian territory in the West Bank on Friday. The move marks the single largest land seizure by the Israeli government since the 1993 Oslo accords, according to Peace Now, a settlement watchdog group.

“While there are those in Israel and the world who seek to undermine our right over the Judea and Samaria area and the country in general,” Smotrich said Friday, referring to the territory by its biblical name, “we are promoting settlement through hard work and in a strategic manner all over the country.”

 

[rareboy]

They will start the same process to steal land in Gaza.

 

[NotHardUp1]

Killing World Central Kitchen volunteers who distribute food.

The horrors of war. I just donated to them last week. I hope Andres whips the hell out of the US and Israel in media for enabling this attack.

We are accomplices, to our great shame, no matter what Biden sputters verbally. Our actions condemn us.

 

[KaraBulut]

The dystopian war that science fiction writers have been warning about. "10% error rate"? WTF?

https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/03/middleeast/israel-gaza-artificial-intelligence-bombing-intl/index.html

The Israeli military has been using artificial intelligence to help identify bombing targets in Gaza, according to an investigation by +972 Magazine and Local Call, citing six Israeli intelligence officials involved in the alleged program – who also allege that human review of the suggested targets was cursory at best.

The officials, quoted in an extensive investigation by the online publication jointly run by Palestinians and Israelis, said that the AI-based tool was called “Lavender” and was known to have a 10% error rate.

 

[NotHardUp1]

 

[rareboy]

Netanyahu disn't seem particularly upset about the killing of the WCK workers.

Israel has utterly lost any moral ascendancy and apparently its soul.

I beleive with this war, it may finally have sown the seeds of its own future fall.

 

[rareboy]

With Iran apparently poised to launch a strike into Israel, there are calls for restraint. and Iran itself seems to be avoiding talking it up at home.

I can't see that rZZia wants Iran to get into an open conflict with the US or NATO.

I am hoping that Biden announcing Iran's intentions and delivering a warning to not become involved will work.

And as the piece points out, Iran attacking civilians in Israel will tilt world sympathies back to the Israelis.

Iran’s silence over possible reprisals against Israel poses domestic risks

Analysts suggest regime may be downplaying situation for fear conflict could spiral out of control

www.theguardian.com

 

[Norri]

Iran is in a tough spot, it’s time to put up or shut up and they prefer to do neither. I do wonder if they are communicating with their proxies or if they are too afraid to do even that. They are afraid of their population and of what their proxies may think if they don’t respond in kind (meaning hitting an Israeli diplomatic mission somewhere) they will need to explain to men who have taken risks for them. Pass the popcorn.

 

[NotHardUp1]

They have put up. Israel, and in particular, Jerusalem, is under heavy bombardment.

It appears we may have assisted Israel in intercepting the missiles from Iran.

The U.S. is on the brink of war with Iran. It won't take but one battleship or US installation to be attacked by Iran directly, and we'll be at war.

Putin has his distraction in full bloom. It won't be an Arab Spring.

 

[rareboy]

Iran, probably encouraged by the Kremlin, has likely badly miscalculated in the timing of their attack.

I have no doubt that Putin would see the whole world burn in order to take the resource rich areas of Ukraine.

So this is the expansion anticipated. Jordan is also now fully involved because of Iran's attack...it is only a matter of days before this spills over everywhere.

 

[NotHardUp1]

In a perverse twist, I suspect this will finally push the Speaker of the House to have to allow the vote on the Ukrainian aid.

No way is the Israel aid going through and leave Ukraine in the dirt. For all their ineptitude, the Democrats will at least demand that before voting to support Israel. If they're smart enough, they won't even allow a resolution of support for Israel, non-aid, to pass, without some concessions.

Like all catastrophic miscalculations, Putin's gambit to start a war in the Mideast, to blame Biden, restore Trump, and take Ukraine, will likely blow up in Russia's face, while bringing on WWI-like cataclysm.

 

[NotHardUp1]

The dystopian war that science fiction writers have been warning about.

The main artificial intelligence is Netanyahu.

 

[KaraBulut]

Iran, probably encouraged by the Kremlin, has likely badly miscalculated in the timing of their attack.

I have no doubt that Putin would see the whole world burn in order to take the resource rich areas of Ukraine.

So this is the expansion anticipated. Jordan is also now fully involved because of Iran's attack...it is only a matter of days before this spills over everywhere.

It's interesting how the media portrays actions by Israel vs actions by Iran. When Israel does something its barely mentioned. When Iran does something, it's an "act of war".

When Israel bombed the Iranian embassy in Damascus two weeks ago, the media barely mentioned it. If any other country had bombed another country's embassy, it would have been an "act of war".

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-bombs-iran-embassy-syria-iranian-commanders-among-dead-2024-04-01/

Israel has been bombing Iranian targets under the guise of "getting Hamas". Because everything in the middle east is about "appearing strong" and "getting revenge", both sides are now locked into a cycle of escalations. No one in the surrounding countries likes Israel or Iran and they would be happy to see them keep firing missiles at each other instead of picking fights with other countries.

The problem will accelerate if the US and Russia get involved or, more accurately, get dragged further into these pissing matches.

 

[rareboy]

I think we need to bear in mind that Hamas and Hezbollah are simply proxies for the Ayatollahs' real aims in the region and that much of this recent war was started by the attack orchestrated by the Kremlin and Iran. Certainly Iran has been the brains behind the initial attack and the supply of Hezbollah through the last 6 months with weapons and military support.

I was neither surprised or much fussed about the attack on Iran's embassy which has been functioning as a war command centre...it definitely is an act of warfare and demanded some kind of response...but I don't recall Iran attacking the US with a barrage of drones and missiles after it assassinated their military commander.

That is why I am somewhat puzzled by this attack. What is the real puropose? They must know that the Iron Dome defense system would take out most of the airborne missiles and drones.
Perhaps they didn't expect Jordan to take most of them out before they reached Israel? Or was it a show of empty force for domestic consumption only?

It will now further diplomatically isolate Iran from the west.

This whole thing seems clumsy...like the original Hamas attack and hostage taking.

 

[KaraBulut]

...That is why I am somewhat puzzled by this attack. What is the real puropose? They must know that the Iron Dome defense system would take out most of the airborne missiles and drones.

The same behaviors can be observed from spending time on any elementary school playground or any dog park. It's all about appearing strong to your friends and to your enemies.

Living in the area gives Westerners a different perspective on the history and the psychology of the Middle East. They view themselves as the tenured workers and they view the US as the new employee hired fresh out of college who is convinced that he's smarter than everyone else. These tenured workers have been having territorial battles long before the new hire was even born and the tenured workers have learned to accept that they will have periods of strife and periods of relative peace. They both admire and resent the new employee for his ideas and his attempts to get them to change the way they have done business. The tenured workers also spend a lot of effort sabotaging the new employee and trying to triangulate, so that the new employee doesn't get too much power at the office.

Oh, and all the employees - new or old - have nuclear weapons.

Trump really fucked up the tense equilibrium of the area by doing things like moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, calling Jerusalem the capitol of Israel, turning a blind eye to the Jewish settlements on the West Bank and reneging on the Iran nuclear arms agreements. Now, we're seeing some of the fallout from those 2017-2020 actions.

Israel stepped over a line with the embassy attack. Iran had to send out the message to the neighborhood (and to the Iranian public) saying, "You want to fuck with us? This is what we can do to anyone who fucks with us.". Both Iran and Israel just blew up millions of dollars in military hardware in a show of force to its own citizens and to any nearby countries watching.

The scary thing about yesterday is not the drones and the interceptor missiles. The scary thing is that yesterday broke another precedent: that these countries don't directly attack the other country's territory (that's what terrorists and proxies are for). Yesterday gives Israel an excuse to say, "They did it first! We're just retaliating.".

 

[rareboy]

That is what I see coming.

Israel has attacked sites in Iran before without this kind of direct retaliation by Iran, though, so they won't likely hesitate to target military centres inside Iran again.

The drone plants and launch sites are probably already in the sights of the IAF.

Unfortunately, rrrZZia now has a plant churning out Shahed drones, so we won't be rid of them for a long time yet.

 

[Norri]

They have put up. Israel, and in particular, Jerusalem, is under heavy bombardment.

It appears we may have assisted Israel in intercepting the missiles from Iran.

The U.S. is on the brink of war with Iran. It won't take but one battleship or US installation to be attacked by Iran directly, and we'll be at war.

A borderline hysterical press aside we are not on the brink of war with Iran, if Iran wanted war their response to an Israeli attack on their embassy would not have so pathetic. It was an attack clearly calibrated to avoid an Israeli response as they have better weapons than they used here.
This attack is for the benefit of their proxies to show them that the Iranians are not pussies but they are. I doubt the Israelis will respond by attacking Iran directly, instead I believe they continue to target Iranian assets illustrating to those proxies that Iran uses them as fodder and cannot project power on its own. Sowing dissension in the ranks is a time tested strategy.

 

[Norri]

Iran, probably encouraged by the Kremlin, has likely badly miscalculated in the timing of their attack.

Iran is supplying Russia in its war with Ukraine, Putin doesn’t want Iran to need those weapons for a different purpose so I doubt he had a hand in this.

 

[NotHardUp1]

A borderline hysterical press aside we are not on the brink of war with Iran, if Iran wanted war their response to an Israeli attack on their embassy would not have so pathetic. It was an attack clearly calibrated to avoid an Israeli response as they have better weapons than they used here.
This attack is for the benefit of their proxies to show them that the Iranians are not pussies but they are. I doubt the Israelis will respond by attacking Iran directly, instead I believe they continue to target Iranian assets illustrating to those proxies that Iran uses them as fodder and cannot project power on its own. Sowing dissension in the ranks is a time tested strategy.

I agree the press hypes any possible developing disaster, and many, many not developing.

But, Israel has more ego at stake than Iran. And the hawks will indeed expect a direct attack of some sort, no matter what the US is telling Israel not to do. It's just a matter of time. We'll see how much time. Israel doesn't let attacks go unanswered.

If Israel wanted to create the most bitter revenge, she would blow up drones being sold to Russia before they can be shipped to them. A double slap. Even Israel knows Putin was behind the timing of Hamas' war.

The Harkonnens are not the only ones with plans within plans.

 

[Norri]

When you read how war with Iran is a real possibility you should ask yourself what would it look like. Neither the US nor Israel are going to be sending any troops into Iran and Iran will never send their army past the protection of their mountains so what do we have then an air war Iran can neither win nor loose, though with all that ruble about it might look like a loss.
War for Iran means firing those hezbollah missiles at Israel but they will never do that first because those missiles spell security for Iran.

NotHardUp1 is right that Israel is the wild card here as I’m sure some there are itchin for a fight and the US had better make clear that if they go there they are on their own, no help and no more military assistance.