As the Daily Mail-ish headline suggests, the political and military situation in Israel and environs has become overly dynamic, in a bad way. We’ll try to be spare given that the members of the Axis of Resistance are almost certainly considering retaliatory measures against Israel, as well as how to deal with the US.
Haniyeh had been in Tehran for the inauguration of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, and was staying in a residence for veterans in the north of the city, state-affiliated news outlet Fars reported.
At around 2 a.m. local time, an “airborne guided projectile” targeted where Haniyeh was staying, according to Iranian state-run outlet IRNA which said his bodyguard was also killed.
IRNA said further investigations are underway to determine the details of the operation and the position from where the projectile was fired.
And a visual:
From the place of Ismail Haniyeh's assassination in Tehran this morning. pic.twitter.com/OLSKjwLsYm
— Mats Nilsson (@mazzenilsson) July 31, 2024
Even though Israel has not taken credit for the killing of Ismail Haniyeh, pretty much everyone with an operating brain cell thinks Israel was responsible. It’s not as if there are a lot of other candidates who have both the means and the motive, particularly since Israel has taken a victory lap for earlier attacks on Haniyeh’s family. Military Watch has not only fingered Israel as the perp but also identified an F-35 as the probable instrument in From Israeli Attack Kills Hamas Leader in Tehran: F-35 Precision Strike Suspected.
Even though it can’t yet be proven, the assassination attempts took place right after Netanyahu’s visit to the US, and also likely had US intelligence/targeting support. And even without the provocative timing, one would expect the US to have its hand in these actions.
Killing a top Hamas official in Iran is clearly intended to drag Iran into the conflict in an open manner, since as many experts have pointed out, Israel sees no way out of the mess it has gotten itself into absent the US coming to its rescue. Yet it seems highly unlikely that head of the Joint Chiefs Charles Brown was misleading Israel when he warned that the US really could not do much to help, particularly given that that sort of message would go over badly among the many bought and paid for AIPAC stooges in the Beltway.
As we stress in the headline, and oddly nearly all press accounts either omit completely or bury, Ismail Haniyeh was not just a top member of Hamas’ political wing, but a (the?) lead negotiator in the peace talks. From Qatar’s official statement on the killing from prime minister and minister of foreign affairs, Sheikh Mohammed bin Jassim Al Thani , courtesy Middle East Eye:
The approach of political assassinations and intentional escalation against civilians in Gaza at every stage of the negotiation prompts the question: How can negotiations take place in which one party kills its negotiator at the same time? Regional and international peace needs serious partners and an international stance against escalation and disregard for the lives of the peoples of the region.
In case you doubt Qatar’s claim, from a Reuters report last November:
Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas leader based in Qatar, has been the tough-talking face of the Palestinian group’s international diplomacy as war has raged back in Gaza where his family home was destroyed in an Israeli air strike in November.
Appointed to the militant group’s top job in 2017, he has moved between Turkey and Qatar’s capital Doha, escaping the travel restrictions of the blockaded Gaza Strip and enabling him to act as a negotiator in the latest ceasefire deal
The Israelis were very much out to punish Hamiyeh, confirming they successfully targeted his boys in April:
After 'Israel' killed 3 of his sons and several of his grandchildren in Gaza, today they assassinated Palestinian leader Ismail Haniyeh in Iran. pic.twitter.com/rjRSPH3HrT
— PALESTINE ONLINE 🇵🇸 (@OnlinePalEng) July 31, 2024
In addition to the statements at Middle East Eye from Iran, Qatar, Hezbollah, Jordan, Türkiye, Yemen, Malaysia, Afghanistan, and China condemning the assassination, an Anadolu Agency story adds the Lebanese government, Pakistan, and Russia. The Jakarta Post features a critical statement from Egypt (but none from Indonesia). The Times of India reports that Iraq depicted the killing as a “flagrant violation of international law” and quotes Syria “Syria condemns this blatant Zionist aggression…[a] despicable act”. So as far as I can tell, the only major Muslim countries holding their tongues are Indonesia and Egypt.
From Iran’s perspective, an attack within its national borders, and of a foreign guest, is in some ways worse than the Israel strike on Iran’s embassy grounds in Damascus that killed members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. Recall then that Iran agreed with the US to engage in a controlled retaliation. Iran identified its targets, which were exclusively military. This was the infamous 300 drone attack, which were designed to flush out information about Israeli (and supporting US and French air defenses) with cruise and ballistic missiles following. Not only did Iran penetrate the Israeli defenses and hit what were supposedly some of the best protected spots in Israel, but colleague with diplomatic contacts said that the airbase that Iran hit had two airstrips, and Iran landed missiles in the dead center of each to demonstrate their precision capabilities. And these were not Iran’s most advanced missiles.
To add insult to injury, the cost of the Israel-Western missiles expended in this defensive operation was over $2 billion, while the cost of the Iran attack was under $100 million.
So Israel appears to be hewing to the definition of insanity attributed to Einstein: doing the same thing again and expecting a different result.
There are many tweets, nearly all with no retweets, from early July along these lines:
The US military released photos of the Eisenhower aircraft carrier strike group together with the USS Wasp attack ship and the British Navy ship HMS Duncan in the waters of the Mediterranean, amid fears of an escalation between #Israel and #Hezbollah https://t.co/lOJl2u7EAE pic.twitter.com/8e9PQs74ib
— Breaking News (@TheNewsTrending) July 1, 2024
Scott Ritter, who has gone from being a friend of Israel to a very loud critic, particularly of its supposed military prowess, has repeatedly dismissed the US aircraft carrier threat display. He says they can transport 1200 Marines, but if they were to actually try to Do Anything, “They will all die.”. Ritter has not bothered unpacking why a mission would be a disaster, but he seems to think this is so obvious as to not be worth explaining (note that Ritter does often go into current and historical Middle East military nerdery). So this measure appears to be a combo plate of threat supply plus additional air support.
Yet we have Tony Blinken continuing with his intelligence-insulting prattle. Is he genuinely this stupid or is he relying on the Western media not bothering to mention that Haniyeh was a key negotiator? Oh, and that Israel killing him is yet more proof that Israel is committed to its Palestinian extermination/ethnic cleansing project? From the Times of India:
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday that a ceasefire in Gaza was “imperative” after the killing of Hamas’s political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Iran.
Blinken refused to comment directly on the killing of Haniyeh but said at a forum in Singapore that reaching a ceasefire in Gaza “is the enduring imperative”.
“We’ve been working from day one not only to try to get to a better place in Gaza but also to prevent the conflict from spreading, whether it’s the north with Lebanon and Hezbollah, whether it’s the Red Sea with the Houthis, whether it’s Iran, Syria, Iraq, you name it,” Blinken said.
“A big key to trying to make sure that that doesn’t happen, and that we can move to a better place, is getting the ceasefire.”
Now to the assassination attempt in Beirut of senior Hezbollah commander Faoud Shakr. Israel claimed it had killed him but it is not clear they succeeded:
Defiance in #Beirut's southern suburbs following #Israeli strike that targeted senior #Hezbollah official Fouad Shakr. Unconfirmed reports suggesting assassination failed. No reports yet of casualties. Ball now in #Hezbollah court pic.twitter.com/OGjAKxVioW
— Hashem Osseiran (هاشم) (@HashemOsseiran) July 30, 2024
And an image:
IDF strike in south Beirut appears to have been via drone, hitting an apartment building. Israeli media is saying this was an assassination attempt on a Hezbollah official. https://t.co/4xZjFY7Bg8 pic.twitter.com/WfADqWZbsX
— Séamus Malekafzali (@Seamus_Malek) July 30, 2024
More persuasively, USA Today reported:
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah responded to Tuesday’s airstrike in a statement on social media. “Your assassination attempt has failed,” Nasrallah said, adding in a separate message that “an official statement in response will be issued by the Islamic Resistance as soon as all facts are taken into account.”
The colleague with diplomatic contacts told me he had heard that Shakr had been injured but survived.
The Financial Times described how civilians died and many were injured:
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said the Israeli strike on Beirut on Tuesday, carried out with a drone that launched three rockets, had targeted the area around Hizbollah’s governing Shura Council in the densely populated Haret Hreik neighbourhood, a stronghold of the militant group.
A large explosion ripped through the area, with television footage showing several floors of a residential building badly damaged and large plumes of smoke. At least three people were killed — a woman and two children — and a further 74 people were injured, some critically, the Lebanese health ministry said.
Keep in mind that Israel’s justification is strained. Hezbollah took credit for attacking a military base in the Golan Heights, which by the way is disputed territory; Israel has occupied it since 1967. Israel claimed that Hezbollah hit a schoolyard, which killed 12 children, and that legitimates the strike into Beirut.
First, Hezbollah does not target civilians. They have better things to do with their rockets. Second, Hezbollah pointed out if it had targeted the schoolyard, there would be a crater, as opposed to shrapnel. And there was no crater.
So the far more likely explanation is that an Israeli air defense weapon hit one of the Hezbollah missiles and it was the fallout that struck the schoolyard.
Third, it was Syrian children that died. Since when does Israel harbor such concern for non-Jews?
One has to wonder what madness has overtaken Israel’s government and much of its society, to think that attacking Hezbollah and Iran are national-security advancing strategies. The IDF resistance and no doubt numerous and pointed private warnings don’t appear to have penetrated the Zionist sense of entitlement.
And speaking of madness, the Knesset has defended the right to ass rape prisoners. The IDF was set to try some soldiers who had abused a detainee to the point of inflicting severe internal injuries. Settlers stormed the IDF garrison to free the soldiers. This video not only summarizes that incident but reports that settlers went to another IDF military court to again try to stop any punishment of sadistic soldiers.
This. Is. Israel. #Rapists #Terrorists Knesset members argue that rape and torture are legitimate punishment for Palestinian detainees. https://t.co/H0LhrpY3tC
— hugo redwood (@DOHplusone) July 30, 2024
The row quickly wound up before the Knesset. Twitter has many clips of the sordid debate, with representatives overwhelmingly and loudly supporting torture. The unsurprising result:
Israeli military police canceled! the arrest warrants issued against the soldiers accused of gang-raping a Palestinian detainee at the notorious Sde Teiman prison and limited themselves to interrogating them,
The decision came after Knesset members and National Security… pic.twitter.com/5vpOWb4m7J
— Mats Nilsson (@mazzenilsson) July 31, 2024
Yesterday Moon of Alabama in Israel Might Well Fall Apart depicted this internal conflict as a potential civil war triggered by a power struggle between Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant and Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir. Ben-Gvir controls the police. I recall reading many many years ago (perhaps in the Economist?) of how the IDF would try to restrain the settlers in persecuting the Palestinians only to have the police back their conduct. So this conflict has deep roots.
However, the trajectory may not be to civil war. With the settlers and police now acting as brownshirts, Israel is on its way to becoming an open fascist state. With nukes. And the US will have enabled that outcome by refusing to impose even minor constraints on Israel’s ever more horrific behavior.
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Great post. Frankly the chaos in “Israeli” society is reaching terminal levels, amidst the earlier discussion of the economic catastrophe currently unfolding, and this mutiny over the right to rape prisoners (has there ever been such a deranged society? Even the nazi scum mostly hid their crimes in Eastern territories, and pretended to have a veneer of “civilization”). This is the only good news.
Haniyeh’ martyrdom, though a blow to Hamas, is by no means fatal; they have lost senior leaders time and time again, and always managed to become even stronger. But it is a terrible mark on Iran, which I entirely agree: this is much worse than the embassy attack (which was pretty bad already). To kill a guest during a presidential inauguration in the capital of a country is essentially just an open declaration of war, no ifs, ands, or buts. Iran will respond with prejudice, and I suspect that if the 300 drones earlier this year gave the “Israelis” and their Western cheerleaders so much trouble, an actual, forceful, gloves-off attack will be cataclysmic for the country. This, of course, without mentioning that Yemen still owes some payback, as well as Hezbollah.
“Israel’s” situation more and more recalls the desperate götterdämmerung of 44-45. I pray that this vile entity will end soon. God willing.
If the Iranians are thinking of targeting a particular place in Israel, I would nominate the Knesset building in Tel Aviv. It is a large complex that appears to be semi-isolated and it is not that old so it’s loss would be architecturally important. Losses would be limited at night to security guards and cleaners but as the Israelis do not give a rats how many people they kill, it would be only fair. Even it’s partial destruction would be an absolute humiliation for the government though most Israelis would be thinking that at least it was not us. Certainly even the Israelis could not hide this happening and would make international news though the Democrats might try to argue that it was not directly hit but was hit by bullet, errr, missile fragments. And is the US government really going to take the country to war over a 60 year-old building being hit?
As for Scott Ritter’s point about how those 1,200 US Marines would die, I think that he has a point. That is only a about a battalion’s worth. So where would they be deployed? Would they go fight in the streets and tunnels of Gaza? Would they try to help Israel invade Lebanon? Who is going to provide in either case their air support? What about the vehicular firepower to back them up? How will logistics keep them supplied on operations. Are they sure that the Israelis would not do a USS Liberty on them and try to make out that it was Hamas or Hezbollah or Iran or even the Russians that attacked them?
Somehow they would have to disperse out into very small groups, maybe integrate into the IDF (hoo boy) in order not to be a target, all positioned together and sleeping together, like when the Marine barracks were hit almost forty years ago. But this time the “terrorists” don’t need suicide truck bombs, they have precision missiles. They’d be an even easier target on that incoming ship. Even the Houtis would say, pfft, hold my beer.
Why not target air force basss and concentrations of tanks and troops? Degrade them militarily and cause destruction and death on a larger scale, avoiding civilians. Wouldn’t destroying f35 be a coup?
The appropriate weapon to eliminate aircraft on ground is a missile with hundreds of cluster munitions, like the US supplied to Kiev.
Those weapons are banned so Hizbolah and Iran probably do not havbe them.
Is Iran party to the ban? I thought the thing about cluster munition in Ukraine was that none of US, Russia, and Ukraine was a party to the ban.
Nope. Neither Israel or Iran is a party. Or Syria. Lebanon and ‘Sate of Palestine’ are.
I think I would start by getting rid of the “Samson Option” with a few Kinzhals, or whatever the Iranian equivalent of those might be. Once those nukes are inoperable it would be open season on Israel across the ME.
Don’t the Israelis have (US supplied) submarines with nuclear missile launchers? It’s hard to see how those could be taken out without a naval operation of some kind.
The major capability exhibited by Israel in the ongoing conflict is aerial bombing, so degrading their air force assets would seem to be the highest priority for the resistance if this goes up to the next rung on the escalatory ladder (before arriving at the nuclear war/end-of-civilization end state).
That is a good point. I looked ’em up and they appear to have come from Germany:
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/dolphin-class-israel-has-fleet-nuclear-missile-submarines-207907
IIRC, Germany is part of the non-proliferation treaty, so if they are enabling Israel to use nukes on subs they would be in conflict with their treaty obligations. The last I heard Israel had not disclosed its’ nuclear capabilities, but the first time a nuke comes out of those subs everyone will be pointing a finger at Germany.
I have to say, it is nice to see that for once we had nothing to do with something like that. The ships and land based missiles, however, look like they would make easy targets, especially now that Iran has a couple of spy satellites and the aid of Russia for targeting.
It’s Germany (I don’t think US has capability to build modern conventional subs–we haven’t built one since 1960 or so and technology has changed a great deal since then.). I believe Israel got them for free as part of Germany’s penance for the Holicaust.
They are Dolphin subs from Thyssen-HW and German taxpayer funds about 40% with soft loans for the rest.
As for Non-Proliferation Treaty you should note US B61-12 nuclear bombs handled by Germans at Büchel Luftwaffe base – US violated this treaty long ago unlike USSR
Israel has chosen the path of destruction and wants US to bathe in the same cleansing flames of eschatological glory much as Adolf wanted Germsny destroyed in 1945
Dolphin submarines only have torpedo tubes, so nuclear weapons on them would be launched from these, i.e. cruise missiles. As far as I know Israel has not bothered to develop cruise missiles, so presumably these cruise missiles are US submarine-launched cruise missiles (designed to fit into 21-inch torpedo tubes).
Therefore Israel’s submarine-launched nuclear deterrent is actually provided by the US, and while the US might be very sympathetic to Israel, I doubt that it would permit such missiles to be deployed without the US possessing some way of stopping them, such as a remotely-controlled killswitch.
Israel has a Popeye Turbo SLBM
Ritter is some how correct. Hizbolah is dug in in south Lebanon sort of like the Japanese on Iwo Jima. The casualty exchange would favor defense.
Iwo Jima was an island
Lebanon is connected to Turkey and via Syria and Iran to Pakistan and Iraq and Jordan…….and Afghanistan
It could get very busy
The Iranians will restrict themselves to military bases and outputs, as in April.
Attacks on civilian areas will invite hysterical media reports and draw the US further in.
Attacks on military bases will receive far less coverage, and be under much heavier censorship so as not to damage Israeli deterrence machismo.
Magnier is convinced that it will be a combined strike from Gaza, Iran, Lebanon, Iraq and possibly even from Syria. It will be on military targets already selected, both Israeli and US.
But first they identify all the victims and mourn.
I doubt this time they want to allow Israel to censor the results. That step on the ladder has been passed.
Hit energy (power plants, oil depots). See how long you can run a modern country without juice. Not long, ask the Mighty Z.
Israel is tiny. Imagine the chaos if Haifa port is taken out. That would leave Ashdod, given that Eilat is already down. I can see this vile crusader state not lasting much longer.
To quote a Babylonian poem, “In the name of all that is holy, let them be torn from our sight.”
Sadly, the Iranians still need to engage in the farcical theatre of negotiation with Americans concerning the Zionazis. Ideally, you kill the actual persons who planned and conducted the strike along with their shin bet or mossad master; this way all the other strike planners and their soldiers realize the conflict has lethal personal costs.. (although they can consider themselves martyrs amongst their themselves).. trading empty buildings or physical assets for the lives, dignity and sovereignty of their enemies is too good of a bargain for the Israelis…
If the Americans and Israelis do not comply, then an appropriate large military target (including the movable assets), is the next best, as you undermine Israel’s ability to fight and cause this wickedness.
I agree with another post, stay away from civilian targets, it will enact a hysterical reaction in the US and Israel; (holocaust narrative is too well emotionally entrenched; indeed it is this narrative that blinds the majority of Israel to see what they have done to the Palestinians of the last 100 years). Hysterical reaction from a Nuclear power is bad for Iran and bad for all of humanity if Israel goes Nuclear; even if Iran state can survive the onslaught (unlikely if they have even 10 good size nukes) and destroy the livability of the state of Israel (which Iran could certainly do, even without nukes)
Need to be corrected but the Kneset building is in Jerusalem NOT Tel Aviv.
The settlements on the Occupied Territories have effectively become fortresses occupied by armed and very active militias who have lost the status of civilians. The same is obviously true of the areas of Gaza occupied by the IDF. The obvious solution, which would be acceptable to international opinion if not to the Western élites, is for Hezbollah and Iran to use the missiles at their disposal to concentrate on pushing back the settlements and attacking the IDF in Gaza. This may result in a degree of collateral damage, but it will be very difficult to argue that this is the result of a deliberate attack on the territory belonging to the State of Israel when it is merely a demonstrative retaliation in defence of the Palestinian people not an attack on the State of Israel. Legal comments?
I thought that IDF soldiers have all kinds of rights, and that raping prisoners is one of them, so I was surprised that they were suddenly taken into custody. After all, in the religious philosophy of the Israelis, bombing children is acceptable, but sodomy is still a vice?
I failed to excerpt the explanation at Moon of Alabama (I didn’t copy over the links to the underlying stories but he has them):
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2024/07/israel-might-well-fall-apart.html#more
I don’t think Israel is taking the possibility of an international investigation seriously. It should be able to reject or ignore it, as it did the arrest warrant against Netanyahu.
The ICC verdict on Israel and potential arrest warrants depends on the doctrine of “complimentarity” meaning that if Israel has the judicial processes and practices in place to put its people in front of a court that renders a just verdict based on law then the ICC cannot intervene. So the “detainment” of these 9 IDF soldiers for raping a Palestinians detainee is an effort on Israel’s part to pretend they actually have a functioning justice system as a democracy is supposed to have. They are obviously unused to the process as it resulted in Knesset members trying to break the prisoners out. (the raping by the way as reported by other released Palestinian prisoners is done with a stick with nails or other sharp objects sticking out of it. Israel is such a civilized country!)
The Grayzone reported this back in Feb. but it just gets worse.
https://thegrayzone.com/2024/02/23/state-dept-israeli-soldiers-sexually-abusing-slaughtering-palestinian-women/
Not the most felicitous phrasing…
My understanding was that this case was triggered by the Doctor that treated the torture victim. He used the standard response when signs of sexual abuse are present.
https://www.trtworld.com/middle-east/rape-of-palestinian-prisoner-by-israeli-troops-shocks-sde-teiman-doctor-18189684
Said doctor seems very appropriately angry:
“”If the state and Knesset members think there’s no limit to how much you can abuse prisoners, they should kill them themselves, like the Nazis did, or close the hospitals,” says Dr Yoel Donchin, who saw the prisoner abducted from Gaza by Israelis.”
Israel won’t fall apart as long as the Muslims of various countries are divided and their leaders/elite have large financial interests (personal ones) in the West. If Israel gets away with this ethnic cleansing, don’t talk to me about how “isolated” Israel is.
An awakening about the West on the level that Putin is having would be needed.
I think you underestimate “Israel’s” capacities to destroy itself. Of course, it would be faster if the Arab world were united, but by this point this “country” is barely hanging together on its own terms (remember, before Oct. 7th it was already in a terrible crisis).
The Western elite, despite all trials and tribulations, have unity – Israel is a part of that.
They see a world of people they consider inferior. And that world view is stronger than their arguments and fights over the spoils of conquests.
Huh? Have you not been paying attention to UN Security Council votes? The only supporter of Israel is the US. On May 10, in a full Assembly vote, only 9 members opposed Palestine becoming a full member. Yes, that vote was symbolic, but it tells you where sentiment lies, and it is NOT with the genocidal Zionist state.
I remember the articles about that.
And then I see reports of the war expanding and body count increasing.
Yes, that is due to US sponsorship. NATO is not part of this gig.
All major NATO countries (France, Germany, Italy, Canada) are on board the USS Genocide, as is Japan. I’m afraid that the modest squeaks of dissent we hear from places like Ireland and Portugal are mostly made by parties courting domestic votes and have little or nothing to do with reality.
If you keep offering unsubtantiated assertions, particularly after I have gone to the trouble of mustering evidence, your comments will not be approved. You are already in moderation for past offenses. I cited polls and UN votes, which represent OFFICIAL government positions. \
I think I saw a report that Turkey as a member of NATO (is it?) has refused to fall into line with any NATO move to openly support Israel, a bit like the Americans sticking their fingers in the eye of the UN General Assembly that also has to have unanimous agreement.
And maybe the war expanding is a demonstration of acts of unity against Israel. At the same time, it’s what some want to avoid. However, the hits just keep coming.
I guess if there’s such a thing as peak isolation, it may soon be seen. The reports of what is happening to people are just so outrageous.
The only thing allowing Israel to have any support in the slave west is their massive amount of Kompromat. They can only play that card for so long.
If it’s that simple, why is the entire US oligarchy (corporations, financial institutions, and individual oligarchs including Musk) all in lock-step support for Israel? Most of the corporations on the BDS lists are American. I think it’s much more than “kompromat”. Cui bono?
Genocidal and seemingly *suicidal* at this point.
Bibi is willing to sacrifice everything just to stay in power.
And remember when the MSM told us Trump would cause WW3? None of this would be happening without “Joe Biden’s” tacit approval and indeed active support.
Israel has performed regulatory capture on the entire US government.
First of all, in the real world, the Security Council in particular and the UN in general no longer has the swag or influence it once had–it is mainly, but not completely, irrelevant. Second, Britain and France cannot insult their populations because they have large numbers of Muslims in their midst and support the US in its slavish attachment to Zionism–they, in fact, totally support (as do other countries in the SC) US policy in West Asia and know there is no need to vote with the US because only one veto is required.
Most of the Western world supports Israel because Zionism is much more powerful than most people realize because Zionist Jews (and some Christians) have a nearly dominant positioin in the ownership of the Western world. Israelis could each take turns making videos of them raping and eating Palestinian children and the still would be supported by Zionists because, to them, Arabs have the status of vermin. Have you ever had conversations with Israeli Zionists and their sympathizers in the US? I have read numerous writings defending Nazis and Stalinists and Israeli public (and intellectual) opinion is very similar. ,
This is serious Making Shit Up. First, what matters in terms of “support” is where the government, and not public opinion, is. Otherwise the rich would be taxed heavily, FFS.
Second, US mass opinion is against the Israel government as of May. This is now August. It is sure to be more negative as more horrors are reported out Gaza, like starvation and polio, and the mainstream media is cutting back on the censorship, witness the recent long story in Politico from two doctors who recently served in Gaza, with details like having to remove clumps of maggots from the buttocks of an injured girl and the accuracy of sniper shots at kids (ie, clearly deliberate). See https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/05/30/how-americans-and-israelis-view-one-another-and-the-us-role-in-the-israel-hamas-war/.
In Europe, see this from April. Again a fresh poll is likely to be more negative:
https://www.thepipd.com/resources/polling-2024/
What’s going on with Germany? The last I heard, two or three months ago I think, and iirc, they were selling weapons to Israel and actively suppressing pro-Palestinian speech and critiques of Israel.
There were things going on in Germany just days before, or so I thought, and UK had been trying hard to “persuade” ICC to not charge Israeli leaders with genocide charges, in spite of massive public opinion against Israel. IDK about the entire West being united behind Israel, but there are more than just US.
I’ll push back, just a little. Agree with the “unity”, up to a point. I’d wager the “elite” you refer to will eventually act like rats they are and abandon a sinking ship. About that “awakening” (a good point), isn’t it taking place?
IMO, the only reason Israel still exists is nuclear deterrent.
I’ll add that I’m seeing the “conflicts”, in Ukraine and Gaza as being attached at the hip. One’s momentum is another’s. I know other readers here will disagree, but I believe Türkiye to play the catalyst. Look at the map. Imagine Türkiye armed with contemporary Russian arms and some “advisors” and you will see who gets to enforce security in greater Europe after the west capitulates. If this thesis (admittedly found in the bottom of my coffee cup) were to begin to crystallize we will probably see (un)limited nuclear strikes.
Good times.
Oddly enough, Tarik Cyril Amar agrees, to an extent. The difference being he thinks it’s not Turkiye machinations, but the hegemon sending a “strong message” of what it’s willing to do when threatened.
Thanks. I’m not so much with machinations as I’m with Erdoğan being faced with a choice of one. In my mind, him flipping soundly to the multi-polar (Russian) side seems well within his character.
Turkey leave NATO? That would be yooge! I wouldn’t bet on that anytime soon, but who knows?
I wouldn’t be surprised if the were some western politicians already wondering how do you kick those uppity national-realists (Slovakia, Hungary, Turkiye) out of NATO.
Not sure about that, the US/UK need Turkey as a key member of NATO; as a buffer to Russia. This has been the case since the 19th c., and earlier, with British foreign policy.
Turkiye is indispensable geographically and also has the biggest and best NATO army. Turkiye leaving would be the beginning of the end of NATO.
Oh, and they ALSO unlike all other NATO members retain control of the Incirlik airbase which is essential for the US to run Middle East operation. The US has no remotely adequate substitute.
If Turkiye wanted to kick the US in the nuts now, it could say no use of Incirlik until the US stops sending arms to Israel.
Oh, you know that, I know that, Yves knows that. But lately I’ve come to suspect many politicians really don’t get things that way anymore.
For example, Ukraine just decided to cut Russian oil from two countries that provide most of Ukraine’s electricity and diesel. And EU yahoos seem to think it’s the correct thing to do…
All this talk of Turkiye leaving Nato seems to me unlikely. Most if not all of their aircraft and many other weapons systems are supplied by Nato members and depend on them for parts and ammunition. Surely such dependence would leave Turkiye largely defenceless?
Who exactly will they be defenseless from? Who will come to their aid? Will there be an agreement with Russia? Might there not be one already? It’s a scenario not that hard to imagine. Except for nukes. That would be why it doesn’t happen. Unless there’s a play in that sphere.
yes, not only that, Erodgan will lose his ability to play both sides
There will only be one side to play, no?
I would like to see the numbers for emigration in the past seven months. I have read that the economy is falling apart, with the citizen army occupying most employees lives, and many businesses basically bankrupt. The tech start up economy has fled.
Larry Johnson on Israel being forced to it’s knees from devastating attacks:
https://www.youtube.com/live/1rfL95dbCqw
https://www.youtube.com/live/1rfL95dbCqw
Your last sentence is noteworthy.
I hope someday things calm down enough that a good english-language history or biography of Putin can be written without the author being blackballed or sentenced to death or whatever.
I think he is one of the more remarkable politicians around, not only guiding his own country through an amazing transitional period, but also reacting to other things in the world in a way that is quite striking and impressive. In particular, as you say, he has gone from being a rather pro-west leader of his country, to someone who has reluctantly faced up to the corruption of Western powers and realizing he needs to radically alter his own country’s goals and perspectives.
The number of national leaders who have accomplished changes of this magnitude, while still retaining 70% or 80% approval rating of the population, must be quite small.
I’m guessing future historians will rank him as a very important figure. It’s a tragedy and a huge lost opportunity that the US is working relentlessly against him. At this point in human history, we need all hands on deck.
I’vr long been saying that when the history of our times comes to be written, he will be recorded aa Vladimir the Great.
I’ve long believed that when the history of our times comes to be written, Pres. Putin will be recorded as Vladimir the Great.
I have not seen a shred of reporting about these incidents in the MSM.
Exactly.
The Guardian has carried the stories
“Yet we have Tony Blinken continuing with his intelligence-insulting prattle. Is he genuinely this stupid or is he relying on the Western media not bothering to mention that Haniyeh was a key negotiator?”
Its a toss-up.
First, the Druze are loyal Israeli citizens and serve in the IDF because the Druze are loyal citizens to every state in which they live. But particularly extra-loyal to Israel because Sunna Arabs of the area are historically a tad xenophobic and at odds with modernity, of late. Which is why Hezbollah wants to disrupt the Druze relationship with Israel. [Side bar: naive Pro-Palestinian protesters wandered into a Manhattan Druze restaurant because its menu was in Arabic. When the protesters saw the Israeli flag on the wall, they started breaking dishes. Complexity and tolerance not the Hamas-supporters’ forte.]
“Assassination of Ismail Haniyeh” is probably the most unsurprising thing to ever happen. The only unusual element is that it took this long. Haniyeh just had to be intercepted in the most secure place possible to make it extra spooky, in a one-two combo to maximize disruption between master and servant. Not that anyone has a clue to what actually happened. Guided missile? From an F-35? From a team on the ground? From a remote turret? From in-country or a neighbor? Was there a betrayal of the intransigent, perhaps in the interest of self-preservation or humanitarian grounds?
Note the shift in Israel’s posture back to favor decapitation of leadership. The assumption being that Israel saw Haniyeh’s and Sinwar’s leadership as the self-destructive millenarianism the Palestinian’s now deserve, so as to let the pair Wiley E. Coyote their dawa death bus off a cliff. Now expect less negotiated ceasefire and more negotiated surrender.
You can take your intelligence insulting hasbara elsewhere.
The Golan Heights are illegally occupied Syrian territory. It is utterly false to say the Druze are Israels, much the less loyal. They were offered citizenship after the occupation but most refused and see themselves as Syrians. Your patter reminds me of school textbooks in the South in the 1950s (I have one) which claimed that the Yankees ruined the fine fellow feeling between the slaveowners and their “darkies”.
And your discussion of Hamiyeh cutely acts as if Israel was justified in killing the chief negotiator from the Hamas political side (which BTW is more moderate than the military wing), when the US was pushing for a ceasefire. This is an insult to the US, and not just the Muslim world.
You further misdirect in your discussion of the decapitation strikes as sound. No, they are terrorist acts and an admission of weakness, of the inability to win against Hamas or Hezbollah by conventional means. Of course, Israel has been a terrorist state from its inception. But unlike the Brits, the Muslims in the region have the right to be here and will not fold. Israel should have learned that lesson with its disastrous war against Lebanon in 2006 but didnt’.
And in case you missed it, it is Israel’s economy and society that are coming apart.
Han Solo in the Death Star: “I have a bad feeling about this,” trapped in a room with shrinking walls – a fit policy metaphor.
Israel clearly got the green light it felt it needed from Netanyahu’s imperial visit to the US (complete with US politico kow-towing) to start a war with Iran (and Hezbollah), and its hard to see anything (save an EMP over Israel) that stops the train (heading for the cliff).
Meanwhile, a drone took off from Finland and destroyed a Russian Strategic bomber (per MacGregor, on Redacted). I suppose a drone could take off from Khmeimim and heavily damage a US ship in the Med.
I would agree that probability of civil war or internal conflict in Israel is close to zero. Population at large as well as IDF rank and file largely support the brutal treatment of Palestinians and it’s indicative that the concerns voiced by the military leaders were not related to well-being of Palestinians but to criminal prosecution in international courts.
Israelis who had concerns about the conduct of the war and direction of the country have largely voted with their feet instead, making the country more extreme and less divided.
This seems about right. Would be interesting to know how many have departed. I recall reading 500,000 somewhere. Per wikipedia there are about 10 million living in Isreal with 21% arab. Thus about 8million. 500 thousand is around 1/8th of the entire non-arab population which seems fairly significant. And I heard that a month or two ago. I suspect the departures have continued.
It’s even more important than it seems because it is the wealthier Israelis who are going to be leaving. If they do not feel safe in Israel or they do not want to join the military, they may not return.
Post war, Israel is going to need a lot of investment to rebuild its economy. As a global pariah, they will find it harder to do so outside of the declining Western world.
I’m fairly certain that a large majority of Israelis support all aspects of Israel’ ethnic cleansing campaign, including the mass slaughter and torture of Palestinian civilians.
But drafting the ultra orthodox might cause splits in Israeli society.
Seems Israeli society is one of rabid killers.
The big unknown is the situation with the ultra orthodox. Israel is built on a rickety alliance of a variety of secular viewpoints (once upon a time, quite left wing, but no longer), orthodox sects of various degrees of weirdness (including very anti-zionist) and a whole bunch of immigrants bringing whatever hang up made them leave their own country. A always remember a casual comment I heard from an Israeli woman I knew who considered herself a ‘real’ Israeli (proud of being there several generations back) complaining about how her Tel Aviv neighbourhood had changed, which was along the lines of ‘I really hate those new Russian Jews, I much preferred my nice Arab neighbours.’
I would guess that all those groups will hang together for fear of the consequences of not hanging together, but arbitrarily cobbled together societies like Israel have a habit of looking quite stable right up to the moment of collapse.
Yet another Revisionist Zionist war crime perpetrated with American weaponry — in this case a stand-off F-35 jet. But none of these war crimes could be perpetrated without the foreknowledge and support of the U.S. government — and in particular the current Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
Blinken is not stupid. He is an arrogant, condescending, a**hole. He is the silver-spoon son of Don Blinken, co-founder of Warburg Pincus. He was raised by his mother in Paris and attended an exclusive private lycée. Daddy Don brought him back as an undergrad and bought him Democrat foreign policy sinecures before he had even graduated Harvard.
I remain convinced that Blinken’s world-view was formed by being punked daily for his lunch money by the jeunes arabes of the cités. His entire career appears to be based on cooking-up schemes to kill arabs — particularly in Libya, Syria, and Palestine. Like Himmler, Blinken seduces with his milquetoast appearance, but he is truly and murderously evil.
The U.S. has its fingerprints all over this outrageous war crime. It will not surprise me if the Islamic Republic exacts its revenge against an American target rather than risk provoking the Sicarii of Masada into slinging their nukes in an act of self-immolation. Then we will be all be mocked by the American expressions of shock.
I think attacking Israel amounts to attacking an American target. Also, remember attorney Yoo, who gave the green light to all things ‘enhanced’ regarding ‘interrogation.’ Anything goes. Blinken, Yoo, these good men.
John Yoo is Emanuel S. Heller Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a highly respected law professor and scholar. It pays to be a court sycophant
Would it be impertinent to mention Blinken’s ethnic background and wonder where his true loyalties lie?
People certainly did during the Bush years. I remember neocon murderer Richard Perle being asked whether his loyalty was with the US or Israel, and he replied something to the effect that of course his loyalty was with the US above all others, but it also just so happened that Israeli interests were US interests, so there was no conflict at all!
I disagree. Blinken is stupid. I’ve run into highly polished trained moneys like him before.
He can fake intelligence when operating within comfortable parameters where he knows what to expect. Take him much outside that cocoon, and he goes into deer in the headlights mode.
I always like retired US diplomat Chas Freeman Jr noting that Antony Blinken has a diplomatic black thumb. Youch.
I remain convinced that Blinken’s world-view was formed by being punked daily for his lunch money by the jeunes arabes of the cités.
On this very point I believe you are completely wrong.
In his childhood, Blinken lived in the “beaux quartiers” of Paris. He was also educated in a private school there, and did not attend the State schools where he would have faced those frightening youngsters of North African or Subsaharian origin.
I freely admit to speculating about why Blinken evidently has come to possess a pathological drive to murder arabs. Maybe I’m wrong about the genesis.
Blinken’s school between 1971 and 1980, l’École Jeannine Manuel, was located near the Parc Monceau. His stepfather Samuel Pisar was a highly respectable human rights lawyer and Shoah survivor — I’m imagining that he had little Tony ride the Métro to school every day rather than arrange for a car and driver. I recall that the Paris Métro could be a pretty seedy place back in the seventies.
All that we know for sure is that Tony lit out of Paris the first chance he got. Acting as Biden’s whip for Democrat approval of the invasion of Iraq was one his first projects out of Columbia Law, followed during stints as Biden’s and Obama’s National Security Advisor by widely-reported leadership of the Libya disaster, the catastrophic near-invasion of Syria, and the cold-blooded murder of Bin-Laden.
This sort of monomania requires a pathology that is something more twisted than merely being “stupid,” a topic that I consider myself an expert on after spending several decades as a criminal prosecutor in a top-20 jurisdiction…
When questioned by a reporter about rape of prisoners being criminal, State Department spokesman Patel said he wasn’t a legal expert.
Or human, apparently.
The slime on that guy is thicker than the thickest ice sheet in Antarctica… He is the slimer of the present lot engaged in press conferences, I think there are three guys and a gal…
> With the settlers and police now acting as brownshirts, Israel is on its way to becoming an open fascist state. With nukes. And the US will have enabled that outcome by refusing to impose even minor constraints on Israel’s ever more horrific behavior.
Not to mention US Congressional representatives and senators giving a world record performance of standing Os just a few days ago to the prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu.
And in a few months time, millions will go to the polls and vote for these same people, they will also elect a genocidal abuser for the next pres.
Or not. Once you see that neither Party will stop Israel, there is no way to vote for either of them, period.
What if they gave an election and no one showed up?
I wonder what the Carter Center would say to that.
“The US is an oligarchy with unlimited political bribery” (Jimmy Carter, 2015)
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/jimmy-carter-u-s-is-an-oligarchy-with-unlimited-political-bribery-63262/
Very nice quote. I agree!
The unvarnished ugly truth: rape, torture, murdering children, decomposing bodies and body parts of women and children, murdering medical doctors, bombing hospitals, schools, targeting journalists (I lost count, but well over 100 journalists have been murdered by Israel in Gaza in the last 8 months or so). These atrocities must rank among the most horrific in history, and they are happening right now – subsidized by the US gov. No money for health care crisis, infrastructure crisis, housing crisis, etc. but plenty of US public resources for torture, rape and genocide. Land of the…home of the….
The Golan Heights is Syrian territory, occupied by Israel, this is not disputed; The DT regime recognized it as Israeli and the JB regime continues that policy. The rest of the world, as far as I know, recognizes Golan as Syrian. But international law is irrelevant at the moment when we have state-sanctioned torture, rape, ethnic cleansing and genocide all approved, funded and enabled by imperial officials in Warshiton. The rule of law, human rights and any sense of human decency are pissed on every day in full view of the world. We see in full view, every day, that only brute violence and death rules.
The US has directly destroyed entire countries, resulting in the deaths of many 100s of thousands, even millions, of innocent people (Iraq, Libya, Syria etc.) Before that The US carpet bombed Korea then later carpet bombed SE Asia (dropping more bombs than in all of WWII, more than double).
No one has been held to account for the pack of lies that led up to the Iraq war (Scott Ritter exposed the truth about the non-existent WMD). In this latest atrocity, the US gov can hide behind Israel and claim it was not their doing but at the end of the day, no one will be held to account by the US and vassals (the so-called West).
So, when we hear our “elected leaders”, talk about human rights, law, democracy we can respond accordingly with some choice words and gestures.
If humans survive, the history books of the future will not be kind: why did “good Americans” continue to “vote” for such evil, genocidal leaders? Were Americans inherently murderous and sadistic?
“why did “good Americans” continue to “vote” for such evil, genocidal leaders? Were Americans inherently murderous and sadistic?”
‘Americans’ – i.e. citizens of the USA, are products of their society, like all of us. Unfortunately, their society has for 250 years been dominated by a creed of aristocracy, the cult of the individual and later, rabid capitalism. US society has been even more pronounced in these respects since the regime of H. Truman.
As for why ‘Americans’ voted for this, they are no different from the citizens of any other country. People are resistant to change, except when they are not! It’s probably a question for a sociologist, or maybe even a psychiatrist. If you find the answer, and how to change it, let me know, as I might then have a revolution to start.
The questions were hypothetical and rhetorical, of course. What makes it even worse: Democracy Inc. offers no significant choice, and we have no functioning democracy in the first place, bribery is legal and all that.
George Carlin seemed to have had this figured out many years ago, and he was a comedian. And we know his response would be an unambiguous “f@#k ’em!” My sentiments as well, it may not make a difference but a string of four letter Plain English words of Anglo-Saxon and Old Norse origin (c*@t, f@*k, $#it, etc) yelled out at high volume helps.
It’s impossible to vote against war in the USA. That topic is not open to voter input.
If people opposed war so much, I would think people would stop voting for those who enable and support it, which is most of Congress.
One way or another, nine figures of us have.
Egypt has criticized the assassination of Haniyeh.
Nothing as of yet from Indonesia.
Indonesian president is currently visiting Moscow. Maybe he’s waiting for the presser with Putin?
No. Widodo is still president. It was Subianto who visited Moscow and he doesn’t officially become president until Oct 2024.
This is true. That’s what happens typing in haste and not really engaging. Thanks!
“Indonesian president elect is currently visiting Moscow…”
This is very consequential. Egypt and Iran are BRICS members. Iran, Egypt and Indonesia are very close to China and Russia now, and China has already been very critical of the Israeli attack in Iran.
Indonesia, by the way, is the 7th largest country by GDP.
Thanks for the update.
Sadly, Egypt is a vassal of the US, and will do nothing but offer lip service for their domestic populations, as so many others.
True up to the point where there’s a better deal on the table.
This in the X several hours ago, by Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Indonesia:
Zionism? It looks like even god can’t take it any more. I mean, when you’ve lost god….
Presuming this attack was an airstrike, is there any possibility the aircraft took off from Kuwait?
I am thinking something like this: Israeli F-35 departs Israel, overflies Jordan and Saudia Arabia (perhaps under US escort), lands in Kuwait. Refuels, arms (if it is not already armed), carries out the mission. The “we had nothing to do with this” statement by the US still holds as it was not directly involved in the kinetic aspect of the operation and “this” is sufficiently vague, as in “we had nothing to do with the launching of the actual missile”.
A wilder thought: could the Brits have been acting as a proxy? They have form in sabotaging negotiations. That is perhaps a far-fetched theory, and there is no evidence supporting it, but they are the only party I can think of that might otherwise be involved. Then again, how do they benefit? Netanyahu’s eternal gratitude? Israel would benefit by not being the direct perpetrator and thus getting to play the victim card once the (presumably inevitable) retaliation occurs. But who would believe them claiming they didn’t do it?
On a side-note, to my knowledge Ansar Allah has not yet responded to the Israeli strike on the port of Hodeidah, and they seem to have been awfully quiet of late in general. This makes me wonder if they haven’t been operationally degraded to some extent?
As I said in another reply, the UK has not supported Israel in any UN Security Council votes for quite a while. The US has been alone.
And Starmer has declared that UK will stop future deliveries of weapons to Israel…with some delays for thorough review:
https://www.timesofisrael.com/uk-decision-on-limiting-arms-exports-to-israel-to-be-delayed-amid-review-report/
I think this is heading toward an Israeli nuclear attack on Iran. This would result ultimately, if not immediately, in a nuclear counter-strike, which would be the end of Israel. The self-destructive character of Israeli society will likely lead to a sad repetition of the historic debacle at the time of the Maccabees. A pathologically combative and fractious state cannot survive in the modern world.
Modern world? Nine centuries ago the other Crusader States survived on average 150 years. The odds are Israel will be around for another 76 years maiming, torturing, killing and claiming heavenly purity while at it. But not much longer.
Things happen more quickly these days. We are probably on some kind of exponential curve. The Roman Empire lasted for 500 odd years and the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire for 1,000 or so, the British 300 ish and the US 70 or so years. Zionist rule is on the way out.
Also, see:
https://www.resilience.org/stories/2012-11-21/in-the-twilight-of-empires/
Further to the above – 1st civilisation of Uruk – 1,500 years!!! (starting 4,000 BCE). Time scales definitely getting shorter.
I doubt it will last 30. In any case, I’m not sure why the state of the world and how long nations survived almost 1,000 years ago is relevant.
As the US declines, Israel will as well.
Only much faster.
From who? RF?
That sounds right, RF warhead on Iranian missiles perhaps.
Pakistan could provide a nuke (the Muslim bomb) for the exchange if Saudis (Sunni) asked.
Less likely bc the Sunni/Shi’a split.
Here there is a trap for Iran. The obvious alternative candidate is the US or UK, and the delay in claiming responsibility invites Iran to make a “mistake” by targeting the “wrong” candidate, giving the “Axis of the Eschatological” their casus belli or at least enough to cover the media headlines for the first 12-36 hours.
The Iranians I think have sensed the trap and the 3 day mourning period is aimed at drawing out an admission. We’ll see how tight security is in Washington.
Not buying it. For the US to DIRECTLY take out the Hamas chief negotiator is as bad as the NordStream pipeline attack, particularly with the world united against Israel and wanting a ceasefire. But unlike NordsStream, the perfidy would not be forgiven.
The UK has not been supporting Israel in any recent UN Security Council votes. It has been the US alone. And it was France, not the UK, that assisted Israel and the US in the recent response to the pre-planned Iran retaliation.
On the other hand, the UK has allegedly been making its military bases in Cyprus available to help transport weaponry and US special forces to Israel.
Perhaps the UK government does not want to appear too obviously pro-génocidaires while it quietly “let things happen” in the background that help Israel.
So, the US does not want to murder (I think the euphemism “take out” should be avoided) the man with whom it is pretending to negotiate; instead, it encourages the state which it controls to commit the murder using weapons, targeting information and probably other support systems which the US provided.
I’m sure that after he became Capo, Don Corleone never murdered anybody, not with his own hands, at least.
You are straw manning me and I take great offense.
I never said the US encouraged or was behind this killing. Another reader did.
Given it appears Israel is desperate for more war, what Iran should do is raise a holy stink at the UN. To the point of a walkout by a lot of the members. Then start talking a BRICS version of the UN. As the US is in political meltdown, it would be a big monkey wrench in all ways.
Yes, much better option than a nuclear war!
I think this is necessary for world peace, regardless, even if Israel hadn’t done this.
We need a new UN and headquartered elsewhere than the US or Europe.
Perhaps put it in Mariupol? It would be a good location to show what peacemakers can do, with the current rebuilding, and a nice slap in the face to those who backed the Banderites.
BRICS will have to build up to it. Starting a new UN now is like starting a new “Twitter”. If you can’t get everyone to move over you’ll end up talking to yourself, and there’s plenty of that already. And if it splits into West vs East, it’s useless for resolving conflicts.
UN is the place for now where the world can try to browbeat the US, to the extent the US still thinks the UN is useful for browbeating anyone else in the future.
Per the militarywatch article, the F-35 could not have reached Iranian airspace without refueling in the air; the site reports speculation that Israelis have developed some mysterious method of carrying and dropping extra fuel tanks, instead of the more obviously plausible use of aerial refueling, such as with an American KC-135. A quick search tells me that Israel does have a fleet of 60-something year old Boeing 707s fitted for aerial refueling, as well as having ordered newer models from the US in recent years; I do not know enough to be able to competently speculate further; it merely seems suspicious that the article would miss the obvious (to this uninformed layman) means of extending the F-35s range.
In any case, more utter depravity from a society which has committed moral suicide. The slaughter being carried out by the Israelis is medieval in character, and is spitting in the face of our species pretensions to ‘civilization’ like, well, an Israeli ultra spitting on a Christian in the Holy Land.
Israel delenda est.
You took the words right out… this is getting “medieval”. The Myth of Human Progress…
a society that has committed moral suicide… I would include a large part of the US population in that statement as well, including millions of so-called Christian evangelicals
F-16 (6000 pound fuel load, vice 16000 for F-35) could have done the mission.
The routes to Tehran cross Jordan and Iraq, neither of which would have anyone operating surveillance/en route radars that would warn Iran! Most fighters do not sqwalk ADS-B!
The refueling could have been done over NE Iraq! USAF refuelers from Qatar could do the deed easily.
I wonder if the bomb were terminally guided local to the target?
Thank you for the detail! What I am wondering is if it is likely that the US, while claiming, Colonel Klink-like, to know nothing, provided refueling, or if the Israelis could have done it themselves (if it were an F-35 and not a 16).
(I have no knowledge of IAF refuelers) The IAF most likely have “boom” based mid air refueling on their B707 they would refuel both F-35 and F-16 USAF version of F-35 as well as F-16 use booms. On both F-35A and F-16 the refueling receptacle is behind the cockpit such that the operator in the tanker flies the boom!
USAF KC 135 all have booms also do that job!
Scott Ritter has mentioned several times now that Israel has been building up a tanker fleet for years, and that they used it when they bombed the Hodeidah port in Yemen. So, while they are clearly using weapons provided by the US, they have no need for the US to get directly involved in flight refueling efforts. Targeting information, on the other hand, is quite likely.
IF-35 with internal only load(for stealth) of 2 AIM-120 + 2 SPICE 250 glide bombs(50-60 mile range) has a strike radius of 850 miles. 900 miles as the Jew flies from Tehran to Israel puts the start point at just over the border in Jordan. They could just use an external tank and then dump it 10 mins after take off or whatever.
“as the Jew flies,” is pretty funny.
The slaughter is Biblical in character, not medieval. Israelis returning to their roots…
It seems that the “humanist” aspects of Judaism, aquired in the 2,000 years of wanderings, were just apendages to molify a suspicious world, the puppy with big warm eyes… But then the mouth opens with the rows of sharp teeth…
I do not want here to insult the oh so many Jewish individuals that have taken those humanist teachings to their hearts and held onto them, at great personal sacrifice, i.e. Norman Finkelstein… But Zionist Israelis have turned into a murderous mob…
Could an Israeli (or even US) tanker have refueled the F35 over Iraq or Saudi Arabia discreetly? Tankers are not very easily hidden, or so I would have thought.
Speaking of fuel.
I found this at a priceofoil.org
Data Analysis (PDF)
Investigating the countries and companies
behind Israeli crude oil and fuel supply chains
The primary aim of the analysis was to determine:
• Which are the main countries supplying fuel to
Israel?
• What are the major international oil and gas
companies supplying fuel to Israel and the Israeli
military?
The data was last updated March 8, 2024.
~ Eye opener
Israeli Military Fuel Supply Chain
In-depth online information, with maps of trade routes:
https://docs.datadesk.eco/public/
976ce7dcf00743dc/
(if the PDF link in my previous post does not work, this the source for that Data Analysis)
The issue with aerial refueling is that air tankers are very big and obvious on civilian radars, so it would be almost impossible to do it outside Israeli airspace without being seen.
Tehran is well within range of an F-35 if they use a light bomb load and drop tanks. The problem with drop tanks is that they are not particularly stealthy. The speculation is that the Israelis may have developed stealth tanks – this isn’t unlikely, as the USAF is bringing in a what are claimed to be fully stealth disposable tanks.
BTW, whatever happened to Ritter’s much repeated claims of Iran’s superior air defense systems? How exactly did this F35 enter Iranian airspace and accomplish the murder?
The head of Joint Chiefs is named Charlie Brown.
F-16 pilot!
There are plenty of Charlie Browns. Some played football and actually caught or kicked it. One plays pro bowling, and scored a 300 game. There were two Medal of Honor winners with that name, and three flag officers, two, including the current one, with four stars.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Charles_Brown&diffonly=true
(And the bowler isn’t notable enough to be included…)
Col. Lawrence Wilkerson has been stating for some time now that he did not think the state of Israel would exist in twenty years. When I first heard him say this (it was a while ago, I cannot remember exactly when) – I was shocked, but I think we’re starting to see his prediction come true.
Here is Col. Wilkerson discussing this yesterday:
Col. Lawrence Wilkerson: Israel On the Brink
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUb65oqGOCI
And I don’t think America is going to be able to bail Israel out by further deployments in the Middle East. The Middle East has been preparing for just this event ever since W’s most excellent adventure in Iraq over twenty years ago.
Excellent post, And thanks for the anger. Bombing Iran AGAIN??? only Israel and the USA can get away with this illegal over reach. The american people should realize our gov’t is illegitimate and organize accordingly.
That reminds of me of John McCain singing bomb, bomb bomb, Iran to the tune of the old Beach Boy’s hit. He knew how that worked, having dropped bombs on civilians in Vietnam. The US got away with all sorts in SE Asia. The Law of the Jungle is at work, not the rule of law.
The Rule of Law somehow doesn’t apply to those who can enforce it. Admittedly, this is the American version.
I believe it’s universal
Illegal? They “don’t need no stinkin’ badges” because there is no such thing as international law other than a convenient fiction at least not as far as Israel, the US, and the rest of the Western Empire are concerned.
Sigh. Time to go to the store and buy extra cans of beans and water jugs.
All the while the forests of the world burn.
I’m bearish on this animal Homo sapiens
me too, and I don’t like it at all.
“Hezbollah took credit for attacking a military base in the Golan Heights, which by the way is disputed territory; Israel has occupied it since .”
In the event that no one else has mentioned this yet, the Golan Heights were occupied in 1967.
Thanks for the update!
Oopsie, needed to look that up and failed to, will fill in now!
Thanks!
I mentioned that in my post above, cheers!
This will backfire on Israel. Hamas, as the IDF has noted, is an idea. There is this fantasy that Islamic organizations are like a Western gang and the leader is some irreplaceable and critical person. In reality, well-functioning organizations are always going to have competent lieutenants and are always internally training new talent.
It isn’t going to go away because of a key person being assassinated. How many times did the US take out a key figure in the Taliban or Al Queda in Afghanistan? The result didn’t change when the US final was defeated in 2021 and was forced to make a humiliating retreat. Actually often what happens is when the more moderate leaders are taken out, the more aggressive subordinates rise to the top.
Another consideration is that the Israeli government hasn’t come to terms with the fact that they are going to be a pariah after this and this could easily be used to legitimize retaliation in the form of taking out senior Israeli politicians by their opponents. That’s particularly important because they are facing nations like Iran that do have long range strike capabilities.
In regards to the 1,200 Marines, keep in mind that the US only has limited means to effectively keep them supplied under enemy fire, the Marines themselves are not experienced at the kind of tunnel warfare that would be needed, and there are extensive anti-ship missiles in Hezbollah’s possession. Ritter is right that the US is very limited in what it can do with those troops and they would take heavy causalities, if they were actually sent to the front lines. If they are sent to join the IDF, they will be legitimate war targets.
As for Tony Blinken, I don’t think that he has the competence to understand the damage his failures at diplomacy are going to do to the US. It rivals the ignorance the Bush administration showed around 2003. Keep in mind that the US is a declining power that will need the goodwill of the world in the coming decades more than it ever has.
“In reality, well-functioning organizations are always going to have competent lieutenants and are always internally training new talent.”
I agree with your summation. One only wishes the U.S. political parties could illustrate the principle.
The US government is not a well functioning organization.
We can see this with the succession and removal of Joe Biden. Kamala Harris is not a competent successor.
Nobody apart from the most partisan of Democrats would argue that Harris has any leadership abilities nor the ability to inspire others around the US or the world.
hmm…dont know if we can compare Kamala and Biden with trench warriors like Blinken and Nuland. There are those who can win elections and those who flit under the radar and make things happen. I would like to posit that Capital knows the levers of Government in minute detail and uses the ‘horses for courses’ strategy when it comes to filling positions in the Executive and Legislative and Administrative armies. Nevertheless they had a temporary surprise loss with the Clinton debacle in 2016 and were sort of catching their balance and breath when 2020 suddenly only threw up Biden. They went with Biden because the alternative was Bernie Sanders and so they swallowed hard and handed the baton to JRB and got Lina Khan in the bargain. I am pretty sure all the money bags knew about JRB’s and Ron Klain’s strong antitrust sympathies but there was no alternative. We must salute JRB for marshaling his forces and using the wind in his sails to clinch the 2020 nomination (including the Primary shenanigans of course). However what they lost on antitrust they salvaged in other areas. My best theory is that the 0.1% have their Think Tanks in order to attract, train and deploy very able Sociopaths whose main aim is to keep creating trouble in foreign lands in the hope that this will create opportunities for plunder in said foreign lands. Corporations are the face of the 0.1%. I am yet to see a single well researched book that ties Corporate profits to US foreign policy even if the evidence is just circumstantial. The few that exist are only from the Dulles and United Fruit era.
Blinken is no different than other foreign policy officials–he’s just a bit slow witted. Policies have been exactly the same towards Israel since Johnson and will remain the same no matter who wins in November.
And we should all remember what happened to the last foray of US Marines in Lebanon.
IMO, this was not about decapitating Hamas, but more about sending messages and goading Iran into making a mistake, dragging the US into war.
The messages Israel is sending could include:
– “Look what we can do!” (and “ha ha, you can’t stop us!”)
– “Screw negotiations [with Hamas or anybody].”
– “Mossad can pinpoint the location of anybody we don’t like, so watch your back.”
Hmmm, there’s an even more sinister possibility: this attack could be step #1 of a False Flag attack on US units in the region. The Teddy Roosevelt (CVN-71) steamed into the Persian Gulf a week ago; if it gets sunk, US MSM will make sure that Americans demand [massive] retaliation against Iran (without waiting for accurate analysis of the sinking). The attack will be explained as “obviously” the result of Iranian retaliation for the attack in Teheran. With elections approaching, Republicans will be gleefully shouting for [Iranian] blood, and Democrats won’t dare to advocate caution. Like HRC, Harris will have to lead the charge, to prove that a woman can be “strong” enough to be President…
Possible but dangerous. Public opinion in the US has already moved significantly against Israel; if word of something like this were to get out, it would turbo-charge that. In the conspiracy-rich environment of US politics right now, it wouldn’t even have to be true, just plausible.
Normally most people would shy away from suspecting an ally of doing something like that, but Israel has been consistently doubling down for a while now, and it’s becoming increasingly difficult to imagine any sort of line that they wouldn’t cross.
It’s very difficult to cover something like this up completely, and even if you succeed, the silence can be almost as eloquent. Think of Germany, Sweden and Denmark all refusing to release the outcome of their Nord Stream investigations.
I wouldn’t be so sure about American public opinion.
Of course it’s just a poll.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/646955/disapproval-israeli-action-gaza-eases-slightly.aspx
I appear to be the only one who has considered that ‘Zionism’ is also an idea that will persist, with or without defined borders.
About Gen Brown CJCS statement last month about ability to help US help for IDF against Hizbolah.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/us-air-force-general-us-will-not-assist-israel-in-war-with-hezbollah-as-it-had-with-iran/ar-BB1oLWNO#:~:text=Joint%20Chiefs%20of%20Staff%20head%20Charles%20Q.%20Brown,in%20during%20the%20Iran%20drone%20attack%20in%20April.
USAF/RAF/USMC had a lot of TACAIR in Jordan the night Iran shot at Israel. These accounted for a lot of the cruise missiles and drones that PM.
It may be these units are not supplied with heavy bombs and guidance kits to engage hard targets in S Lebanon, or it may be recognition that US could not stop Houthi how can you expect to stop Hizbolah.
Maybe he is covering for Jordan?
Hezbollah has now confirmed the death of Fuad Shukr, the commander targeted in the Beirut strike:
Hezbollah confirms death of commander targeted by Israel in Beirut
Thanks. Either my contact was wrong or he died from injuries.
That had just been posted on Al Jazeera about half an hour before I relayed it, so my suspicion is that he died after the fact from wounds as you suggest.
I have seen a tweet with him on a stretcher, still alive, yesterday.
From Yves’ reply above:
“…If Turkiye wanted to kick the US in the nuts now, it could say no use of Incirlik until the US stops sending arms to Israel…”
Yes! That would send shock waves throughout NATOstan. Most of us wished that Erdogan would have done something like that many months ago. He did provide the required lip service for domestic and Muslim populations in the region, but little else.
As things stand to day there is no way Turkiye does anything unless it would be guaranteed support from the Gulf States, Iran, Pakistan (very, very doubtful) as well as security guarantees from Russia and China. Erdogan might want to be Sultan but he lacks the balls to go against the US which has spooks all over Tukiye ready to overthrow him (as they once attempted to do)–so he has to be guaranteed his survival. Eventually, and this is why the resistance axis is moving so slowly, these arrangements can be made the timing is not right yet.
Huh? Pakistan said it would send it nukes to Turkiye if Turkiye was threatened.
Whatever one’s opinion of Israel, this was a brilliantly executed operation. It’s about 2000 km from Tel Aviv to Tehran (roughly the same as from Manhattan to Kansas City), and nevertheless the Israelis hit their target precisely and (presumably) returned home safely. That’s quite a performance, and it shows excellent intelligence being passed quickly to their military side. It might eventually turn out to be an own-goal strategically, but tactically it was really quite brilliant.
This killing presents the new Iranian leader with an awful situation. He has no good choices at hand. And beyond the question of how to retaliate, he urgently needs to revamp his country’s air defence system. This was a major fail, especially as it happened to a valued foreign visitor.
The assassination was aided by the US which can through its satellites read your face from space–or so an ex-CIA guy who rant their satellite program told me. The equipment and, possibly, the pilots are all US. We have to remember than when we say “Israel” we are saying USA at the same time. This should be obvious. The resistance to the genocide will take time to bring together so Iran will do nothing for now ’till the Islamic world decides to form some kind of bloc.
A repeat of the previous Iranian exercise would be even more successful than the first. The Iranians now have good info on Israeli air defences, and NATO and Israeli missiles are depleted by the massive usage from the initial attack. Iran presumably also has precise info from Hezbollah drone cameras. They should just do it all again, only with more effect this time. It might have a salutary effect on the crazies.
And the security system. They need to talk with the Chinese, to find out how CIA was uprooted from the country more than a decade ago…
Humans are quiet a weird species. All this great technology for killing people. Not a ounce available to help fellow humans lead a marginally better life. I am sure Nature is quietly cooking up a response to this madness.
Over thirty years ago I read a shocking article in the New York Review of Books (NYRB) a long essay by an ex-IDF serviceman who was guarding a prison where Palestinians were held. Every night he heard screams of pain from the building and I realized what sort of State Israel really is. Speaking to the occasional Israeli I found out what they seem to think of Arabs and I found many American Zionists share the same ideas, i.e., Arabs and, in fact, all Muslims, are barbarians and less than human savages sometimes referred to as vermin. Exactly the same was true of the Nazis–I had a friend who researched Nazi publications and showed me how Jews were presented as vermin in thought and in illustrations.
The reality is that most Israelis are virtual Nazis. Many in leadership positions want to depopulate WB and Gaza and resent having to take their time to ease the conscience of the American and Euro publics. Frankly, this is less and less necessary so they an go ahead and kill or deport all Palestinians and probably will either in the process of a general war in the region probably after the US elections. Israel may survive such a war but Palestinians won’t other than recipients of torture (for fun) and anal rapes of both males and females and, I believe, children.
In the Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/jul/31/israel-hamas-iran-ismail-haniyeh-gaza-middle-east. The headline (the article is by the quasi-neocon Simon Tisdall) reads “Israel has all but declared war in the Middle East – a conflict it cannot hope to win”.
Of course, Israel knows full well it cannot win on its own, but it has no intention of doing so, it seems to me. Instead, what it wants to do is to provoke a retaliatory strike which will finally force the US and its allies into a general war against Iran and its allies. This will be a war where the US will, supposedly, carry Israel to ‘victory’ in defence of ‘civilisation’. It seems that the recent visit to Washington DC was intended to soften up official opinion in the US to that end. And I suspect that we all now know what ‘civilisation’ really is, as we have been given ample demonstration of its meaning over the last 10 months. A weak and feckless Biden Administration may succumb to such a prospectus.
I have an awful premonition that we are approaching a July/August 1914 moment, in which Israel functions as Serbia, the Sino-Russian bloc (and its adjuncts, including Iran) ends up acting as the Central Powers, and the ‘West’ as the Entente – only without any assurance of victory for the new Entente since the resources that the new Central Powers command are far greater than those of the Hohenzollerns, Habsburgs and Ottomans. India may have the status of Italy in 1914-15. Of course, Israel is of very little strategic value in itself, so the fight will be for the defence of multipolarity (in the case of the Sino-Russian bloc) and of hegemony (in the case of the West). I hope that my fears are totally misplaced.
Tisdall is a typical sycophant-stenograper – an apologist for oligarchy and cowardly warmonger, but he has to maintain a bit if credibility with the so-called left/center readership of the Guardian. Craig Murray suggested years ago, when they threw Snowden and Assange under the bus, that the Guardian was taking direction from MI6.
Bringing the US into a war with Iran has been Israel’s plan for some time. Plans to “bomb Iran” have been discussed in the US for decades as well. Recall that the DT regime had Gen. Qasem Soleimani publicly assassinated to provoke Iran. The Israelis, with US assistance, have been sabotaging and attacking Iran and Iranian interests for years. So far, Iran has responded in a very cool and calculated way, it is not in their interests to go to war against both the US and Israel at the same time.
Israel is not worth starting a full-scale nuclear war to be sure, but in light of the rising power of BRICS+, Israel is indeed a strategic partner (for imperialists) and occupies a geo-strategic location (as Palestine has done for millennia).
The situation appears to become more dangerous by the day, I hope your (and our) fears are misplaced as well.
Many thanks. Indeed, and I agree wholeheartedly about Mr Tisdall. The Guardian seems to want to play both sides, variously parroting the official line and pandering to their increasingly enraged audience. They have got away with the parroting over Ukraine, but not over Gaza, hence their recent decision to permit use of the G-word – but note how they seldom allow comments on anything to do with Gaza, and shut off access BTL after very short periods of time.
However, having just tried what appears to be a false flag operation in the Golan, which drew no response, Israel has deliberately set out to humiliate Tehran in order to lure Iran into a response. I agree that Iran has been very prudent, but I also note that the US has also refused to take the bait. Yet it remains to be seen whether this will be the case: the Administration is perhaps rudderless but, if Sy Hersh is correct, Obama is alleged to have led the ouster of Biden on behalf of Harris. Perhaps there is still enough passion left in Biden to do something to wreck the Harris campaign by way of revenge, just as LBJ was unhelpful to Humphrey. Biden has been known to be very petty and vengeful at times.
Wow, when Tisdall criticises Israel, that’s quite something. But he’ll change sides once the shooting starts. They all will.
TASS is now reporting that, according to the NYT (sorry for the indirect attribution), Iran’s Supreme Leader Khamenei has ordered a strike on Israel.
Khamenei orders direct strike on Israel, NYT says
I wonder if they give the gentlemanly heads-up this time, though. They also promised last time that the next one will be 1000 times bigger, which I doubt. Though the logic of escalation requires a much bigger mass of missiles this time.
Not to forget that the Axis of Resistance knows now where the radars and missile launchers are. And if the exact time is not announced, all those US, British, French and Jordanian fighters can’t help much this round.
For what it’s worth, the shelters in Tel Aviv and Haifa have been opened for people. The mayor of Haifa has instructed people stay close to shelter or underground garages. Residents of Tel Aviv are storing food for several days.
American, United Airlines and British Airways are said to be canceling flights to Israel.
Iran seems to have a tendency of waiting until the customary three day mourning period has lapsed before retaliating (Soleimani, and I believe following the Damascus consulate bombing). That period would give them time to observe adjustments made by Israel in anticipation of a response, and potentially coordinate with Hezbollah and Ansar Allah. Perhaps they should break with tradition once and catch Israel with its pants down, but they may be reserving a more immediate response for something more serious/direct.
I briefly watched coverage of today’s UNSC meeting regarding the recent escalations, but didn’t expect to get much out of it so I bailed. I’m sure a recap will be published somewhere showing that the meeting was in essence pointless.
I wonder how much of the $5 billion US missile defense resupply is usable yet?
What do get with $5 billion? Six missiles and tickets for the kids to a Taylor Swift concert?
There’s little Iran can do that doesn’t benefit Netanyahu by escalating the conflict. Currently the best way to damage Israel and West is economically and anything that can push the price of oil and hence inflation higher. Houthis are already doing a good job at this. Maybe Iran will return the favour and take out Israel’s oil storage? This would make things very difficult for Netanyahu.
Real question is how ordinary Egyptians are feeling about this given it was a Hamas leader. Taking out a Shia Hezobollah leader has little regional impact but a Sunni Hamas leader does.
One thing that I wondered about: what happens if Netanyahu is killed in a missile strike? That would open up a mess in Israeli politics, it seems to me.
Netanyahu is an ‘asset’ to Iran like Zelensky is to Russia. Their self-interested behaviour is to their adversaries’ benefit in the long term.
Several disturbing “what-ifs” that ought to be keeping idiots like Antony Blinken up at night:
What if the Houthis/Iran send an expeditionary force to Cuba or Venezuela, perhaps escorted by a Russian naval convoy? Think about the economic damage of missile attacks on ships in the Caribbean, or better yet the Panama Canal where container ships are sitting ducks. How easy would it be to set up a base in the jungle of the Darian Gap? A battalion of Houthis could certainly do the job.
Or send terrorist cells across the soft US southern border. They are likely already there, waiting for instructions.
Interesting discussion about the possible effects the assassination will have on China’s diplomatic efforts in Palestine:
China condemns killing of Hamas leader Haniyeh, ‘deeply concerned’ about further turmoil:
Who benefits the most from knocking out Hamas`s chief negotiator? Trump. No October surprise.
The Guardian says*:
This quote, if true, lays bare the extent of U.S. humiliation. Israel kills the chief negotiator, possibly with U.S. made jets and missiles, with no prior discussion with the U.S. despite the “vital” importance of a deal to the U.S. Clearly the negotiations for such a deal are now dead for now, i.e. Israel has just sent a message to the U.S., along the lines of f**k you.
As other commenters here have stated, if this attack was done with a U.S. made delivery system (e.g. F-35), Iran will be fully justified to attack U.S. targets. Putin has said the same thing about F-16s being used to attack deep into Russia. So Israel has unilaterally, without prior consultation, exposed the U.S. to attack.
Zelinsky may take note. If Israel can attack deep into Iran with F-35s with no prior consultation and no repercussions, why not do likewise to Russia? If we can’t control our proxies, they put the American people at risk. This is the sort of thing that will cause voters to re-think security guarantees for other countries.
Can Biden–or Kamala Harris–muster a wee bit of public outrage?
*Link for the quote above: https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jul/31/israel-iran-hamas-hezbollah-lebanon-assassinations-middle-east
Problem for Harris is that the uptick in support vs Biden is coming from youth vote which is heavily skewed to pro-Palestine. If US goes in ‘boots on the the ground’ to support Israel now, Harris’ favourability will drop like a lead balloon. Maybe that’s Netanyahu’s plan?
Harris can remain silent, dodge questions, and later blame it all on Joe.
Hitler, Saddaam Hussein Joe Biden etc all had lookalikes.
Likely targets of “Israel” precision weapons should take heed? They need not even be perfect. Doctored photos, fake appointments etc should all confuse their enemies.
But is Iran actually free of USA/French influence? We know where ‘the Mullahs’ were given refuge while the Shah was on the throne.
Egypt and Indonesia are heavily constrained, for the moment. Those who resent, may strike to remove those currently in power.
The displays of weakness by UKUSA seem absurd, except for the nuclear abilities and the sheer insanity of those who control them. This is a very strange play, Mrs Lincoln …
HOLY S#!T!!! – the level of commentary to this post not only encourages but reaffirms my gut fear that holy hell is about to be unleashed – one commenter mentioned George Carlin’s take and i would add that Carlin’s point that humanity is a mere cul-de-sac on the evolutionary tree is supported by the insanity that has led the zionists to actually bomb Tehran in Iran when they were about to have the celebration to install the new president after the suspect destruction of the helicopter carrying the president of Iran at the time – biblical? medieval? – this is on par with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and could well be the beginning of a conflagration we suspect could happen, hoped wouldn’t and very well may have started – the skid is greased and quite honestly i’m terrified –
Israel will not do it this way on its own Israel is not stupid so it will not risk with Iran without reliable guarantees This is a big step with bigger results that may be final It was Qatar much easier than Iran so this story is incomprehensible The appropriate part of the narrative was shown only The rest was deliberately withheld This may be for Israel’s benefit or vice versa The real story is hidden for an unknown reason It could be ending the war or otherwise
Israel was already stupid enough to attack Lebanon in 2006 and suffer an embarrassing loss, and then state impossible aims for its attack on Gaza, that of eliminating Hamas. IDF officials are now admitting that Hamas cannot be defeated because it is an idea, as in more can be recruited to the cause.
As for the assassination of Hamiyeh, the chief negotiator for the ceasefire that Biden has repeatedly pushed for, Axios reported that Biden made a very angry call to Netanyahu, since Netanyahu had not informed the White House, or presumably anyone in the Department of Defense, of the plan to kill Hamiyeh. Many commentators treat the Axios story as true because it is embarrassing for the Administration to admit that Netanyahu has no respect for Biden, and that the Administration has no plan to punish Israel for taking action without getting US approval and then expect the US to clean up the mess.