Yves here. The latest escalation by Israel in its war with Lebanon is serious bad news. I had started drafting this post when mainstream media sources were denying Israel’s claims that it has killed Hezbollah leader Hassam Nasrallah. BBC is now reporting that Hezbollah has confirmed that he is dead. Alastair Crooke has maintained that every Hezbollah senior officer, including Nasrallah, has trained a successor, although Nasrallah’s was not known. On the Judge Napolitano show on Friday, I believe it was Ray McGovern (who then had informed reports that suggested that Nasrallah had survived) who maintained that any successor would be more hard-line.
Until its terrorism via exploding pagers and walkie-talkies, followed by an intense wave of air strikes in Southern Lebanon and attacks on Beirut, Israel and Hezbollah had been engaged in tit for tat, with Hezbollah and Israel confining their blows to particular areas of each country. Hezbollah has attempted to observe a variant of the old normal by extending its target range into Israel to Haifa and environs, still hitting only military targets.
Israel has crossed every conceivable boundary. It keeps blowing up residential buildings, with the pretext that it is out to assassinate Hezbollah leadership. Israel has admittedly had some successes with these attacks, such as the killing of Fuad Shukur, Ismail Haniyeh, and Ibraim Aqil. However, Israel claimed its latest barrage on Beirut, which blew up an entire neighborhood, destroyed Hezbollah headquarters and killed Hezbollah leader Hassim Nasrallah. Whether it did damage or destroy the Hezbollah center remains to be seen. Israel initially claimed it had killed Nasrallah but he is alive. [Update: death now confirmed]
This attack matters for two reasons. First, heretofore, Israel assassination attempts targeted officials who were above ground. By saying it is now seeking to kill Hezbollah officials in underground facilities, it is trying to justify the use of massive bunker-busting bombs in Beirut. We know how well that strategy worked with the Hamas tunnel network. By all accounts, the Hezbollah tunnel system is vastly more extensive and better fortified.
So Israel has now embarked on a campaign to turn Lebanon into Gaza:
After Netanyahu’s speech saying there are no civilian spaces in Lebanon and calling hospitals, schools and every home a legitimate target, Israel attacked Beirut.
He stood at the UN, declared his war crimes and carried them out. This is what total impunity looks like. https://t.co/WiTZj2B85H
— Assal Rad (@AssalRad) September 27, 2024
Israel used at least ten 5,000 pound bombs to kill Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in a densely populated civilian neighborhood. That's more than three times Hiroshima.
— Lama Al-Arian (@lalarian) September 28, 2024
I have not found a suitable clip of Netanyahu’s speech on Twitter. However, the bits I saw so exuded preening self regard, wallowed in self-created victimhood, as to be so rancid that the English language lacks sufficiently strong words to vilify them.
Second is that by killing Nasrallah, Israel has violated another tacit understanding, that top leadership would not be targeted. Now, if in matching this escalation, Hezbollah were to succeed in killing a top Israel general or minister, or even Netanyahu himself, Isreal would use that to demand that the US commit forces to defend Israel.
Israel’s apparent attempt to assassinate Hezbollah’s leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah in a massive strike on an underground headquarters in Beirut’s southern suburbs marks the most alarming escalation in almost a year of war between the Shia militant organisation and Israel.
Immediately after a highly bellicose speech by Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the UN general assembly – where he appeared to directly threaten Iran as well as promise to continue “degrading” Hezbollah – the first reports of a massive strike began to emerge.
Within less than an hour, Israeli journalists with connections to the country’s defence and security establishment were suggesting that Nasrallah was the target and that he had been in the area of the headquarters at the time of the strike.
That the strike was regarded as highly significant was quickly confirmed by a series of statements from Israel – including an image showing Netanyahu ordering the attack on the phone from his New York hotel room….
For much of the early months of the conflict with Hezbollah, which began on 8 October– a day after Hamas’s attack from Gaza – it was understood that Israel would not assassinate the militant group’s most senior members. But in recent months those “red lines” have increasingly been rubbed away.
By Jessica Corbett, staff writer at Common Dreams. Originally published at Common Dreams
Israel’s dropping of massive bombs in Beirut on Friday sparked a fresh wave of global condemnation against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with critics accusing him of trying to drag the Middle East into an even bloodier conflict that could engulf the entire region.
The Israeli attack supposedly targeted Hassan Nasrallah, head of the political and paramilitary group Hezbollah. Multiple media outlets reported that the leader survived, though hundreds of others are feared dead in the “complete carnage” from the bombing that leveled several buildings. While the death toll from Friday is not yet clear, over 700 people have been killed in Israel’s strikes in Lebanon since Monday.
As The New York Times reported:
Lebanon’s health minister, Firass Abiad, said that there had been a “complete decimation” of four to six residential buildings as a result of the Israeli strikes. He said that the number of casualties in hospitals was low so far because people were still trapped under the rubble. “They are residential buildings. They were filled with people,” Mr. Abiad said. “Whoever is in those buildings is now under the rubble.”
Social media and news sites quickly filled with photos and videos of massive plumes of smoke and smoldering rubble.
While attention fixates on the fate of #Hezbollah leader Hassan #Nasrallah, bear in mind that flattening 6+ high-rise apartment buildings, without prior notice/evacuation, means 100s of casualties.
This is a mass casualty event, whatever #Hezbollah losses. pic.twitter.com/s4Plc8Sfka
— Charles Lister (@Charles_Lister) September 27, 2024
Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, the United Nations special coordinator for Lebanon, said Friday that she was “deeply alarmed and profoundly worried about the potential civilian impact of tonight’s massive strikes on Beirut’s densely populated southern suburbs. The city is still shaking with fear and panic widespread. All must urgently cease fire.”
However, the bombing is widely expected to worsen this week’s escalation, which came after nearly a year of the IsraelDefense Forces (IDF) trading strikes with Hezbollah over the Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip, which has killed over 41,000 Palestinians.
“For Israel, it may not matter if Nasrallah was killed. Either way, it believes it’ll get the regional war it has sought,” Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, said of the Friday attack.
Citing an unnamed Israeli official, NBC Newsreported that “Israel expects Hezbollah will attempt to mount a major retaliatory attack” in response to Friday’s bombing of the group’s command center.
As Reuters detailed:
Israel has struck the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs of Beirut, known as Dahiyeh, four times over the last week, killing at least three senior Hezbollah military commanders.
But Friday’s attack was far more powerful, with multiple blasts shaking windows across the city, recalling Israeli airstrikes during the war it fought with Hezbollah in 2006.
In a video posted on social media, IDF Spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari described the Friday attack as “a precise strike” on what “served as the epicenter of Hezbollah’s terror,” adding that the group’s headquarters “was intentionally built under residential buildings.”
During Netanyahu’s United Nations General Assembly speech on Friday—which was met with a walkout from several diplomats and other officials—the prime minister said that Hezbollah has stored rockets “in schools, in hospitals, in apartment buildings, and in the private homes of the citizens of Lebanon. They endanger their own people. They put a missile in every kitchen, a rocket in every garage.”
In response, Middle East expert Assal Rad said, “So he’s claiming there’s no civilian spaces in Lebanon and Israel has a right to destroy all of it.”
Jason Hickel, who has positions at multiple European universities, also sounded the alarm over those lines from the Israeli leader’s speech.
Netanyahu is “effectively arguing all homes are a military target,” he said. “This is 100% genocidal and this maniac must be stopped.”
The US was reportedly informed of this mass Israeli attack on Beirut in Lebanon shortly beforehand.
Comes just one day after US released $8.7 billion more in aid to Israel & hours after Netanyahu told the UN “Israel seeks peace. Israel yearns for peace.”pic.twitter.com/LW2ST4DixB— Prem Thakker (@prem_thakker) September 27, 2024
Hours before the attack in suburban Beirut, the Democracy in Europe Movement 2025 (DiEM25) strongly condemned“Israel’s brutal bombardment of Lebanon, another reckless escalation in the Middle East on behalf of the Benjamin Netanyahu regime that risks further destabilization in an already fragile region.”
“The Israeli bombardment of Lebanon is the latest dark chapter in a series of disproportionate displays of force. Its ongoing genocide in Palestine over the last year has proven beyond any doubt that its willingness to commit horrific acts knows no bounds,” DiEM25 said. “Rather than seeking a peaceful and just resolution, Israel’s government has consistently chosen the path of militarism, often with international support from the European Union and the United States.”
“The international community, including the E.U., has a critical role to play in promoting peace rather than enabling violence,” the group added. “Peace and security in the Middle East will not come through bombs and military strength. It will come through diplomacy. We remain committed to working towards that aim and stand in solidarity with the Lebanese people, as well as all others suffering from this violent escalation.”
Exhaustingly disheartening.
The Israeli and Western cheering may be very premature. I would not necessarily say this is disheartening.
In this video, Matt Hoh, who fought in Afghanistan made a very important observation. After the US killed Bin Laden, the US began to lose very badly in Afghanistan.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahPwtuieOA4
The answer is that removing Bin Laden may very well have set the stage for more aggressive and competent subordinates. Certainly the same is true of Nasrallah – he was a moderate and was criticized for being a coward.
Larry Wilkerson has made similar observations on the War on Terror and why the US lost – often the drone campaigns were counterproductive because the successors to the leaders taken out were more aggressive and competent.
Israel and the US may have sealed its own fate with its aggressive move.
Altandmain – could you, by any chance, tell us where in that video Matt Hoh makes that point? The video is over 1 hour long.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah killed by Israel in major escalation of conflict
‘During Netanyahu’s United Nations General Assembly speech on Friday—which was met with a walkout from several diplomats and other officials’
It was more than ‘several.’ It was scores and while Netanyahu was talking you could see empty seats everywhere when the cameras panned across his audience. Everybody knows that he is trying to start a region wide war in the Middle East and he is committing one massacre after another. It was the same half-baked lies in his speech and yet again he brought along some cartoons, this time in the form of two maps showing the ‘blessing’ and the ‘curse.’ The ‘blessing’ map shows Saudi Arabia joined up with Israel in that ropey trade route between India and the Mediterranean talked about some time ago. Of course Saudi Arabia would have to join the Abraham Accords but then Israel would let them pay for all the roads, railways, infrastructure that Netanyahu said would be built. The ‘curse’ showed countries like Iran, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen as a black blight on the Middle east and Netanyahu had the hide to demand that the UN take action against Iran in an upcoming meeting. At this stage of the game, I think that nearly every country in the world is tired of his *** and don’t want to listen to his crap anymore-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MQoCSeKwU4 (3:25 mins)
There was a walkout, but what’s also under-reported is that Netenyahu brought along the same seal troope to hoot and cheer from the gallery as he did in his speech to congress. Order had to be called in the chamber when he entered and the clapping went on throughout much as it had in congress (though in that case, the representatives on the floor were joining in).
That must have been Bibi’s lawyer, Tony Blinken hooting and cheering from the peanut gallery.
The term “consigliere” also comes to mind when referring to the relationship between Blinken and Bibi.
Reuters has this as of 8:30 EST,
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/lebanons-hezbollah-confirms-leader-nasrallah-killed-2024-09-28/
Yes, also Al Mayadeen, Middle East Eye, Middle East Monitor have the story. Not just invention of western press.
Yes, it came over the news ticker on Hezbollah’s English website:
https://english.almanar.com.lb/
“15:43 Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah Martyred All the Way to Al-Quds
14:46 Hezbollah mourns Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah: His Eminence passed away as a great martyr and brave hero
14:41 Hezbollah announces martyrdom of Secretary General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah”
(Time zone = Beirut / Al Quds–Jerusalem time)
There’s only one solution to a rabid dog that bites every child in the neighborhood.
Even if the dog’s owner is the 400 pound drunk with an arsenal of weapons.
That dog owns the drunk.
Odd to me that the Haifa refinery hasn’t been targeted, or the oil pipe that crosses turkey, given that Israeli warplanes need fuel to deliver bombs. Red Sea access is already blocked, and tankers thru the med still have to dock to deliver their cargo.
Before yesterday the unofficial rules were tit for tat escalation with Israel being the ratcheting up side. Hezbollah would not target oil infrastructure without Israel doing it first.
Going forward, I’m fairly certain the unofficial rules have now changed, its anyones guess.
Does Lebanon still has oil infrastructure standing?
I’m starting to wonder how much sense it makes to speak of the dog and the drunk as separate beings anymore. The US is so complicit in all of this that it almost seems meaningless to separate what Israel is doing from what Biden and Kamala/Trump will do. Same as it ever was, only somehow even worse.
The real rabid dogs control Washington D.C.
Netanyahu is the symptom.
The collapse of the USA is the only thing that will stop the horrors. We are not allowed to vote for change, we can only vote for more of the same.
Imagine a psychotic killer holding 1000 innocent hostages among 10 escaped homicidal convicts in a small town.
The killer methodically kills 100 innocents along with each convict. The local police chief asks him to stop whilst giving him more guns and ammunition.
As the rest of the town watches in horror.
The great Arnaud Betrand (RnaudBetrand) on Twitter reported on Dominiquede Villepin’s recent warning:
Bertrand links to the speech the actual speech of 28 September 2024 on Youtube.
So Lebanon is becoming the second example of Isreali genocide. A casual obverer might well conclude that the lack of military response – not even economic sanctions – from Hezbollah or the Global Majority – is a bright green light to Israel to proceed as she wishes.
Pretty much. People keep saying Israel underestimates the resistance but I think everyone is underestimating Israel. They have full western backing, tacit Gulf Arab backing. Even Russia and China have only made strong statements and nothing further.
Israel will keep this going long term as neither Iran nor Hezbollah (who I’m starting to think exaggerates its capabilities) have the appetite, ability, or support to wage a large scale war.
Perhaps.
Or maybe saner leaders realize this may develop into WWIII and are loathe to respond in kind.
Of course the US could stop this with one simple signature…
It’s not reported on very much in western media, but Hezbollah has been striking the whole of northern Israel with rockets and 100,000s of people have been displaced. They have recently been using new types of missiles with ever longer range, displacing even more people.
This isn’t a fact Israel is comfortable with advertising very much, particularly the less than 100% effectiveness of the Iron Dome and especially the IDFs inability to use air power to stop the missile launches.
There will absolutely be a military response and escalation in response to the Beirut bombing and Nasrallah’s assassination. I guarantee Netenyahu has counted on such an escalation and will be pushing for more escalation and commitment in response from the US. The only unknown factor in all this is the willingness and ability of the IDF to launch a full ground invasion into Lebanon.
Anyone expecting things to calm down after the Hezbollah HQ strike is deluding themselves.
Nasrallah is reported to be dead.
Israel is literally carrying out the Dahiya doctrine or in other words, carpet bombing civilians. It is what they do best.
So far Hezbollah appears to be massively overrated as a military force. I initially bought into this idea that they were restraining themselves, but if they don’t respond to this in a very big way, their ability to deter anything is non- existent. I would guess we will find out very soon.
But it’s self-defense, isn’t it? yes. If Israel does it, it is self-defense. For anyone else it is aggression and if that aggression is against Israel, it is also anti-semitism. He who sows the wind may well reap the whirlwind.
Nasrallah is dead, per Reuters citing Hez spox. https://www.reuters.com/
Killed, of course, by US bombs delivered (same banal verb used to describe pizza and groceries) by US-provided aircraft, likely F-15 or -35. Likely several of the “bunker buster” GBU-28 or -37 bombs, part of the Empire’s profit-center manufactory grimly “provided” to the Likudniks.
Amazing how blasé most imperium dwellers are about such news. Now we who are paying any attention sit in a sort of status epilepticus, waiting to see if this act by the neocon’s boss dog will trigger the true endgame of all against all.
I personally cower like a rabbit in the weeds, having just been fortuitously spared by the random walk of the howling madness of Hurricane Helene, knowing Tampa Bay is likely on Mother Nature’s target list as the great storms ramp up frequency and vigor. And knowing that the idea of moving to some place that “the models” designate as a holdout against natural violence is a phantasm, given the “surprising reach” of the new generation of heat-enhanced maelstroms.
Have to wonder if terminal madness has truly overtaken the entire grasping power structures of the species. No sense that there’s any mechanisms to restrain the beast.
“Help us, Obi Wana Putin — you’re our only hope!”
I saw this separately and have updated the post. REFRESH YOUR BROWSERS.
“as the great storms ramp up frequency and vigor.” Off-topic but FWIW climate models predict that tropical storms will become more powerful but also fewer in numbers.
Sorry folks, at this point of the carnage, having the majority of the world’s delegates walk out at the UN is just not going to cut it. Nice theatrics – but I am not sure when our elite is going to learn that theatrics are no longer going to be enough. We have become too accustomed to the way things used to be. Things are going to have to get very uncomfortable – and I am just not sure the world, especially the West is up to it.
I have a Christian Lebanese family in my practice. I had to deal with the elder matriarch yesterday – whose elderly family members in Beirut are feeling the bombs like earthquakes. And they all know that every time that happens all kinds of brothers and sisters are getting killed.
And again, I see our politicians here in the USA actually signing bombs – albeit for another conflict – and I just do not know what to say. It is obvious that these elites care absolutely nothing about innocents – we should have picked up on that when Obama, the Nobel Peace Prize winner, was droning wedding crowds. But now we are dealing with mass slaughter – I just do not know what to tell my kids – other than to hug them ever more tightly.
Well, maybe someday Netanyahoo, Blinken, Biden,Nuland, etc., (the list is a disgustingly long one), will all have a sit down with the likes of Madeleine Albright and compare notes on their actions, and maybe have to explain themselves to all the innocents. I’m sure there is a special room for them to gather, if Satan even dares to let them in.
So, if anyone in the US wants to understand how the Nazi’s came to control Germany then, just look at Congress, the White House, and the MIC, now.
Voting for any of them is futile!
“Many of us like to ask ourselves, ‘What would I do if I was alive during slavery? Or the Jim Crow South? Or apartheid? What would I do if my country was committing genocide?’ The answer is, you’re doing it. Right now.”
-Aaron Bushnell
That is a serious truth.
I am watching this mass hysteria event( you know where americans are watching their leaders of the “uniparty”… both from the democrat seats and the republican seats and cheering… or kinda being against it in some way… but not enough to NOT vote for these a-holes again. ….under ANY circumstances!)
I see them embracing THEIR lives. Enjoying THEIR comforts…..
It is like watching hitler’s home movies. You see him with children smiling, playing with dogs, in a beautiful place…..All the while….
And these are people who would consider themselves “caring”…..and intelligent
But I’m the “crazy one”…. who must be a duped by the russians… into being a lackey for putin…. I mean WTF!
No one wants to even be in the same room with me anymore.. for god forbid… I might “mention” something uncomfortable… WTF?
WTF!
And I’m to the point…. I can’t stand being around them either…. they should know better… and they don’t.
It IS their fault… It isn’t like anyone couldn’t see this coming for twenty years already.
Hell yeah, that’s what I’m talking bout! Thanks for bringing up an extremely important issue. On the one hand, the majority of US folk don’t want their resources being used for genocide, however, 10s of millions will go to the polls and “vote” for D brand genocide, or R brand genocide. Election Derangement Syndrome and Collective Stockholm Syndrome have a powerful hold on the zobified US public. Even very informed, extremely intelligent people get caught up in the Derangement.
Hezbollah should release their entire rocket arsenal now. Like what are they waiting for? No one will be sending them Christmas presents should they decide to be “rational” (whatever that means) with their response. You say they care about the opinions of the Global South? Screw the later, they are all sucking at the t**s of the evil capitalist system. At the end of the day, what’s the use of stockpiling hundreds of thousands of rockets if you are not going to use them?
At this point I think Hezbollah’s competence was vastly overrated. Just the fact that Nasrallah was killed a few days into the war shows that Israel or the U.S. knew where he was and also, how were they not prepared to put their leaders into a bunker deep enough to survive 2000 lb bombs? They have had years to prepare for this war and when it happens it turns out their leaders are easier to kill than Hamas’s. Sinwar might be dead according to Seymour Hersh, but if so, he survived for months.
The article states that Israel used the equivalent of a Hiroshima bomb using conventional means, ten 5000 pound bombs. Not just a few measly 2000 pound explosive devices.
This strike destroyed an entire neighbourhood. Now, if you come back and suggest that those civilians were “collateral damage” from a targeted military strike, then don’t be upset when half of Tel Aviv goes up in flames after a “targeted strike” against IDF facilities near there.
This war has now entered the “Kill them all” stage. No civilians on either side are safe now.
Israels days as a functioning State are numbered.
I am not praising Israel. They are genocidal killers. The society is insane. And when people say they are a democracy ( an apartheid democracy) that just makes it worse.
But whatever the size of the bombs and the reports I saw said 2000 lbs, Hezbollah has been planning for many many years for exactly this situation and their leadership was destroyed almost immediately.
We will see what sort of response they can still mount. I am not wishing for mass death on the other side, but I do think they have to hit military installations hard or there is no deterrent. And I think Israel’s Western supporters are giddy about all this— Biden’s people might be worried about a war with Iran just before an election, but if Hezbollah is humiliated and it stops there they will be secretly or not so secretly thrilled, after making a few boilerplate insincere comments about the sadness they feel for civilians
Good point about Hezbollah having to reply to this. “Face” comes into play here. Now, will the extant Hezbollah leadership play it ‘safe’ and target military installations exclusively? Time will tell.
Ten 5000 lb bombs is 25 tons of explosives. A kiloton is 1000 tons of explosives. Hiroshima was approximately16 kilotons or 16,000 tons of explosive power, Nagasaki 21 kilotons. So the Beirut bombing is not even close.
Having said that, Reuters reported in June the US had sent 14,000 2000 lb bombs. That is 14 kiloton dropped on Gaza, so that approaches the atomic bombings in terms of explosives and doesn’t include smaller bombs.
Genocides R US.
Mea culpa, I made a mistake in my maths there. Or perhaps I reacted too quickly and did not do my due diligence. Anyway, I certainly would not want to be anywhere near those bombs when they go off.
Perhaps one lesson here is that it doesn’t take all that much in the way of ordinance to slaughter a lot of people. Just pack them into a small space and apply extreme energy.
In terms of destruction there might be a difference between One bomb of 1000kg and Ten bombs of 100kg: Only the big One can burst a fortified bunker, but the Ten can kill more people, destroy more (normal) buildings.
Difficult questions, that can only be decided by the Big BodyCounter in Heaven.
My 2 ct: be carefull to avoid confusion between the power of the bombs (expressed in Teq of TNT) depending on the explosive used and the bomb’ shell weight (see for instance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_84_bomb rated 2000 pound bomb for a filling of 946 lb of explosive).
I’m sorry, but I can’t let this go past. In Beirut, Israel used six, or ten, 5,000 pound bombs. Let’s be generous and say it was ten. That’s 50,000 pounds of explosives (actually around 30,000, but we’re being generous). From Wikipedia, “[Little Boy] exploded with an energy of approximately 15 kilotons of TNT (63 TJ) and had an explosion radius of approximately 1.3 kilometers which caused widespread death across the city.” A kiloton is 1,000 tons. I think this confusion of pounds and tons is why neocons are pushing so hard to start a nuclear war. They don’t remember how strong kilotons are, much less megatons. If we have a nuclear war we’re ALL gonna die, and the ones who die from the bombs will be the lucky ones.
The present leader of Hamas, when he got to be in charge of the military side of things in Gaza, started things by hunting down any Israeli informer and killed them. Through mostly blackmail and bribes, Israeli has a large network of informants in the area (monitoring all communications etc). But Hamas managed to break that network in Gaza. It seems that Hezbollah did not take that bloody but necessary approach to clean house. Nor Iran. The Chinese and the Russians managed to purge all the CIA assets from their countries.
However, nobody is replaceble: The King is Dead, Long Live the King.
That being said, Israel’s combine option has been laid out to our eyes:
“These plunderers of the world [the Romans], after exhausting the land by their devastations, are rifling the ocean: stimulated by avarice, if their enemy be rich; by ambition, if poor; unsatiated by the East and by the West: the only people who behold wealth and indigence with equal avidity. To ravage, to slaughter, to usurp under false titles, they call empire; and where they make
a desert, they call it peace.”
Perhaps Hezbollah invests only little in the safety of their leaders and much more in the availability of lots of (trained) successors: No one is above (potential) martyrdom.
Of course, they may be overrated militarily, better had some Huthi advisors…
Every mass murder by Israel radicalizes hundreds of citizens in the region. Israel is it’s death sprial–and that spiral will quicken if they get the wider war they want. I’m afraid things may go from tense to God-awful very quickly. It seems likely that Iran (and the Russians too I’m sure) would rather see Israel bleed out, as they slowly are. But what is the end-game for Israel? Do they really think this lunacy will work out, and that somehow their monstrous crimes will be overlooked in the future?
They’re fighting a war of attrition. Emotional catharsis is for losers (See “Kursk 2024”).
I believed that until a few days ago. Having your leadership decapitated makes it seem less plausible.
Anyway, one way or another we will find out if my current opinions are correct.
Hezbollah announced the death of Nasrallah only after a new secretary general had already been elected/selected/annointed. That’s how Nasrallah got the job, and that how his predecessor got his job. Hezbollah has been in this game long enough to make it impossible for Israel to decapitate it.
I don’t know the region at all, but I guess Hezbollah is waiting for a) the majority of Lebanese to accept that they are in war with Israel and b) Israel’s ground attack. They are still a political force in a state build on tribal alliances, and they can’t deal with Israel and a civil war at the same.
The ‘kill the headman’ trope is a standard bit of the colonial counterinsurgency toolkit. It seems to deliver mostly headlines with groups that have adapted, or are badly cornered. “Al Quaeda 2nd in command killed”. That was like a monthly headline for a while.
I think it may be a form of projection, as decapitating their own hierarchy would utterly paralyse the organization (or so, the targets of would be decapitation choose to believe). Like the sanctions war, they know since western oligarchs will pull the plug on officials who displease them, they believe sanctioning foreign oligarchs will cause capitulation.
What I do wonder is what it would be like if and when Netanyahu is taken out. I maintain that he is the lynchpin that holds Israeli politics today together, one way or another. Without him, there’s no one in Israeli politics who can keep things held together for long, I think.
I suspect that we’ll be wondering the same about Israrl before the year is out. I don’t think Netanyahu and his cabinet will live to see 2025.
Both Iran and Hizb’ullah have the means to strike at key political targets in Israel, although their own leadership seem rather poorly protected–the death of the prev Iranian president was a reminder. Far less reason not to use then now.
Yeah, Israel is fighting a war of attrition and so far it seems to be succeeding.
The resistance has barely made a dent.
Taking your point at face value, what we have here is an example of winning the war but losing the peace.
Putting it another way; the Zionist program may well succeed. While that is happening, they may well be reanimating the corpse of international anti-Semitism. All Jews the world over are going to suffer the fallout from what the Ultra radical Zionists are doing.
Tribalism is alive and well.
How would you know? There’s a blackout on news from the north.
Israel’s “winning” the way we were winning in Vietnam. How do you suppose Israel’s ability to persist now compares with ours then?
A few minutes ago there was a real blackout in a Jerusalem suburb, when a Hezbollah missile hit quite precisely a power station.
That means that Hezbollah can provably hit any target in Israel north of Gaza.
I was thinking early this morning about martyrs and the ethos of martyrdom. As a child, raised in the mid-century Catholic Church, the tales of the martyrs (the more gory, the better) emphasized the importance of endurance and suffering in ensuring the triumph of Christianity over the military might of the Roman Empire.
Foxe’s Book of Martyrs did the same for the Protestants in the 16th century England. Being burned at the stake by the powerful Catholic establishment didn’t work immediately to change hearts and minds. Until it did. Foxe cleverly tied in the persecution of the early Roman Christian martyrs with the current crop of religious dissidents being persecuted by Queen Mary.
The endurance of martyrdom, while having the appearance of not ‘striking back,’ can actually be the strongest form of resistance. The Roman Empire and the 15th century Catholic establishments used swords, arrows, axes and fire as they attempted to eradicate the new ways of thought that threatened their power. Israel, with its helper engine the US/UK/Western Imperium, has much more powerful weapons. But for how long will these WMD’s prevail against the anti-colonial, anti-occupier narrative that is becoming ascendent?
There are also the more instant optics of the Hezbollah leadership leading from the font lines (and at greater personal risk than the file and rank fighters) while Bibi is giving orders from New York while the kibbutzes in northern Israel continue burning.
Yes, very brave of Bibi to escalate the war while he is not in theater.
Alastair Crooke, who has decades of experience living in, and talking with, peoples of the Middle East has a few interesting reflections on attitudes towards sacrifice and martyrdom:
https://youtu.be/q3Vrf5c-umY
Some car guy’s quote from ~ 100 years ago about “… taking a closer look at the American Indian.”
This has all been allowed and supported by the US.
Whether or not Biden/Harris approved this exact thing, the fact is they have refused to rein in and stop Israel.
And as there is not a major press conference this am from Biden/Harris that says something to the effect, all weapons transfers are stopped, sanctions are being implemented, oil shipments are stopped etc, says it all.
I suspect like others that it’s now too late. A major escalation is about to take place.
And please remember Biden/Harris and their push in Russia.
Biden/Harris, war criminals
Biden has already been decapitated. Harris has an empty head to begin with… so it must be the Deep State that needs exorsizing’
Whetber that’s true or not, that’s exactly Netanyahu wanted to show the world. Now, it’s up tp Harris to react. I expect that she will say she hasnothing to do woth this b/c she’s not Joe Biden.
I expect Harris to say considerably less than that.
One can expect a Harris word salad with Bernay’s sauce.
The US is now a hollow shell with no government. It’s rather a patchwork quilt of warring cabals and cosy, secret collusions of military and spooks and oligarchs wielding power via bribery, blackmail and religious brainwashing.
They conspire to put hollow shells in the White House. Biden. Harris. Bought and sold people who do not have the intelligence or spine to get in the way. Trump might be an idiot but he isnt a cowering shell of a human being. That makes him unacceptable.
The “war” would stop tomorrow if the US stopped sending over bombs and guns. But the hollowed out husks of the US “government”, bribed as they are, fearful as they are, have no power to do that. ” Shape without form, shade without colour, Paralysed force, gesture without motion”
Do the cabals want a full on nuclear war in the middle east? Terra nullius for dreams of free oil in free oil pipelines? Maybe the Israelis have a role in the drama but they just don’t know it yet. Sacrificial lambs.
> Biden/Harris, war criminals
Yep. They each put out a statement on it. Here is Harris’ (via whitehouse.gov). The tone deafness, and continued impunity that the Israeli government enjoys in support from the US government is horrifying.
Don’t forget that Nasrallah was instrumental in helping to defeat the anti-Assad “rebels” (air quotes, because they were curated and astroturfed by the CIA.)
He helped steal the neocons’ victory in deposing Assad, and humiliated HRC, Obama, and McCain.
Assad must stay!
> Assad must stay!
The Assad curse lives! LOL (via Esha on X)
I grew up in the 1940’s, in Lawrence, Massachusetts, eating ‘Syrian bread,’ (now called ‘pita’) made fresh daily at the local bakery. One of the few ‘take-out’ dishes available was from the ‘Syrian restaurant,’ which cooked up delicious and exotically grilled ‘lamb-on-a-stick’ with ‘Syrian salad’, made with, get this …. fresh lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes, black olives and tons of mint, and dressed with olive oil and vinegar (not mayonnaise!) And, bits of crispy lamb and salad could be stuffed into the ‘pocket bread’.) All very different from my family’s Irish/Baltic fare of mashed potatoes, fried meat, and watery, overcooked veg.
‘Syrian’ was what the mostly Christian immigrants from the lands now labelled Lebanon, Syria and Palestine/Israel, called themselves. By 1910, there were 3,000 ‘Syrian’ residents in Lawrence, working (slaving?) in the enormous woolen and cotton mills that lined (and polluted) the Merrimack River. There was a Syrian church and Syrian social clubs and a Syrian section of the city.
The more recent Palestinian (and Muslim) immigrants concentrated in Michigan are upset with Israel’s relentless bombing-of-everything in Gaza, (and land-grabs in the West Bank) and with the US government’s ‘ironclad’ support of this ethnic cleansing operation. I wonder if the descendants of the earlier Lebanese/Syrian diaspora will finally be angered at Israel’s wanton destruction of entire neighborhoods in Beirut.
I’m confused. What do you mean “lands now labelled Lebanon”? The area was known to the ancient Egyptians and Assyrians as Lebanon, is repeatedly referenced in the Old Testament as Lebanon, Strabo and Pliny the Elder referenced it by its name, the mountain is named Mt Lebanon….
Sorry to confuse you, Es s Ce Tera. I was simply trying to explain that 19th and early 20th century immigrants from Beirut, for example, were called ‘Syrians’ in that time and place. Probably partly due to the total ignorance of the ‘authorities’ and the locals about the geography of that area. (As my Lithuanian immigrant ancestors, were listed as coming from ‘Russia,’ for example.) It was not a comment about the authenticity of the current sovereign state of Lebanon.
The small ‘Syrian’ bakery my family frequented in Lawrence, has now become a good-sized business. We found their pita bread (now called ‘Middle Eastern’ ) in a Wyoming market a couple of years ago. Slightly stale, filled with preservatives, and nowhere near as delicious as my memories. But what is?
In the Ottoman Empire, the entire region was the province/governorate of Syria. Even among the Arab populations, there was much uncertainty over what object of their nationalism should be: the Arab nation writ large? Syria, writ large? Lebanon, Palestine, etc? Or their tribal heartlands, eg Mt Lebanon for the Maronites, the area around Latakia for Alawites, etc.
Much of these sentiments were consolidated in course of 20th century through various events.
Wikipedia article on the caliphate province Bilad al-Sham perhaps this is the place.
Close, although not exactly the same bpundaries.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman_Syria
Thanks, hk. For most Americans, the history of the ‘Middle East’ begins on 9/11/2001. The Ottoman Empire? What was that, like the Arabian Nights? Sultans in pajamas lounging about with harem girls? Remember the TV show “I Dream of Jeannie?”
during cancer time, i hung out a lot at the mostly Lebanese eatin joints around the medical center in san antonio.
some iraqi, pakistani, indian and somali places around there, too.
that giant flatbread/tortilla thing,lol.
love that stuff.
talked up several owner types about where they get lamb…thy have their own abattoir, with an Imam in charge to ensure Halal.
after mom goes, and i can be totally grass fed, thats where ima try to take my sheeps.
better price, and i find those folks pretty cool.
not at all like what we’re told.
Speaking of cancer, I was taking care of a friend during treatment which went well. But whenever right after she had received the drugs which would eventually save her life she was literally high and was spending loads of cash on anything she could get her hands on when we were wandering the city right after treatment. This included eateries of the Lebanese kind cause the hospital was located near the “Turkish quarter”. Never did I eat that much of their fast food kitchen before and since.
(By now I have gotten too old for that sort of food.)
Eclair
Do you have any recollection of particular stories concerning the 1912 strike?
(Which frankly is the only thing I know about Lawrence.)
Ken Loach named his 2000 movie “Bread and Roses” after that strike I believe.
And since I am such an avid Jacobin reader whilst hating it:
p.s.
This actually from early this very year:
The Bread and Roses Strike Was an Epic Labor Action for Workers’ Dignity
By Liza Featherstone
The Bread and Roses Strike began on this day in 1912, when women mill workers in Lawrence, Massachusetts, walked out. The strike ended in a landmark victory and popularized an enduring slogan: “The worker must have bread, but she must have roses, too.
https://jacobin.com/2024/01/bread-and-roses-strike-lawrence-massachusetts-1912
AG, even though my mother’s and father’s parents and many of their siblings, especially the women, worked in the Lawrence mills, I had never heard about the 1912 strike until I was in my 30’s and became friends with a Marxist sociologist, who knew all about the history of the strike. And was horrified that I had never even heard of it.
I did some digging about on the internet and one of the interesting things I discovered was that the Irish mill workers, partly because of the length of time they had been in the city (Irish immigration due to the Famine was heavy in the 1850’s and ’60’s) and working at the mills, and partly because they were English speakers (well, the English, like colonialist occupiers everywhere, had banned the Gaelic,) were often the supervisors and bosses, and so identified with the mill owner rather than the strikers, who tended to be more recent, non-English-speaking immigrants from Italy, Germany, “Syria,” Poland, Russia, Lithuania, Armenia. (The ‘bosses’ are still using the tactics of getting the workers to fight amongst themselves, based on race and ethnicity. See Springfield, Ohio.)
I learned a raft of racist ethnic slurs from my 1st generation Irish/American grandfather, who had avoided the mills and worked a union job as blacksmith for the Boston and Maine railroad. And, my maternal grandmother’s brothers were all staunch member of craft and trade unions, so maybe they considered themselves a cut above the mill workers.
My paternal grandfather worked as a weaver in the woolen mill and would have been one of the more recent, non-English speaking workers. But he died young, before I was born, and my Lithuanian grandmother spoke almost no English, and died when I was ten.
Another important event that my grandmother never spoke of was the 1918 Spanish flu. I know it hit Lawrence hard and have seen photos of the outdoor hospital set up by volunteers. My parents would have been a young children at the time, but none of my grandparents mentioned it. Maybe WW I overshadowed the flu; my grandmother talked about her brother’s experiences in France, for example.
And, the Bread and Roses song is great! Apologies for going on so long.
Harvard students were recruited as strikebreakers during that strike, a common occurrence in the era.
Ralph Fasanella’s famous painting of the strike – he moved to Lawrence for a time, interviewing surviving strikers, and his series on Lawrence is moving and historically accurate – shows these “educated fools from uneducated schools” marching through town, and three little boys holding signs saying “Go To School.”
They aren’t by any means all Muslims here in MI, even among relatively recent arrivals. Chaldeans and Maronites, both Catholic, Assyrians and even Mandaeans, believe it or not, an ancient Iraqi gnostic sect.
There is a Chaldean Eparchy (basically, a diocese, but Eastern Catholics have a different terminology) in Detroit, but not other groups (which I found surprising.). Incidentally, Chaldeans, unlike Palestinians and most Lebanese and Syrian Christians, generally do not identify as Arabs. (Lebanese and Syrians are mixed: some Christians from these regions identify as Phoenicians rather than Arab–I think they tend to be Oriental Orthodox rather than Catholic or Eastern Orthodox). Fun fact: there are at least half a dozen Catholic churches in the Middle East: Maronites (complicated history), Melkites (Arab “Greek Catholics”) and Syriacs (Arab “Syriac Catholics”), plus the the Latins (whom we call “Roman Catholics”) just in the Levant, plus the Armenian Catholics are mostly Middle Eastern (their mother church is in Beirut). Funnily, the cardinals who head the Maronites, Melkites, and the Syriacs are all called Patriarchs of Antioch even though none of them is headquartered in the city of Antioch (now Antakya in Turkiye). Plus, there are two more (mostly) Arabic speaking Catholic Churches in the Middle East (the “Coptic Catholics” from Egypt and the Chaldeans (the “Assyrian Catholics”) mostly from Iraq–most of these groups do not identify as Arabs, though.)
I didn’t know the Mandaeans were still around! Glad to hear it.
Just a technical correction for credibility
This is a bit over 20,000kg or 20 tons
Hiroshima was 15 kilotons or almost 1000 times larger
So yes massive bombs, but nowhere close to atomic
A later report is the IDF claimed 85 one ton bombs, so >3x the earlier blast force: https://x.com/alex_callinicos/status/1839985932868481365
85? All on the one target?
Like Putin, Nasrallah was (relatively speaking) a cautious, (lower-case-c) conservative, pragmatic leader and held back the calls of rapid escalation.
His death, imo, has pretty much sealed the fate of Israel…in that Hezbollah will not stop until defacto unconditional victory
They can do that by keeping Israel in a pressure cooker. At the moment Israel has had to abandon the north of the country and most of the settlers are living in the south but are demanding to be returned home. But that can’t happen until there is no Hezbollah and to do that the IDF would have to go in and dig them out in land battles which they know that they can’t win. So all Hezbollah has to do is keep on firing rockets and drones into northern Israel to keep it a DMZ and let internal pressures in Israel go to work.
Is there any non-speculative reason to believe that his replacement is any different? For all the talk I’ve seen of young lions succeeding old foxes, he sounds like another old fox. I’m also not sure that Hezbollah will ever be in position to claim a total victory, any more than Israel is. It can deal out a lot of pain, but I don’t think a total victory is possible without an invasion. But I guess we’ll see.
I unfortunately believe that we are going to see asymmetric responses to Gaza and this (ie, American or European airliners falling out of the sky over the Atlantic). Horrifying what the world has come to.
My other thought it its interesting how Hezbollah can be dismantled in a few days, but yet ISIS cannot be wiped out.
ISIS is Islamic Gladio. It is too useful a tool for the CIA to “wipe out.” It has been a psyop since its inception in Western media.
I am aware of that and my comment was meant to be ironic.. I should have used a sarcasm tag.
Indeed. The prima facie evidence is the fact that there is no message from ISIS or material show of support to the plight of fellow Arab co-religionares in Lebanon, Gaza and West Bank. Especially Gaza and West Bank, which are Suni.
But hey, they go and commit terrorist attacks in Moscow!
No. It’s pretty clear in hindsight that Islamism terrorism in the West waa a byproduct/blowback of western-Israeli intelligence services meddling in the sandbox (BinLaden, ISIS).
I think Manchester Arena bombing proved that conclusively even if the Hamburg 9/11 cell of Saudis is doubted as prima facie
ISIS would be wiped out when Israel is.
I personally think that it’s more likely when:
-Saudis and similar are wiped out, bankrupted, or secularize.
-Western nations quit funneling funds or aid to them, decide to finally go after them, or prefer funding to actual secular opposition groups like the Kurds.
-Russia, Iran, Syria, the Sahel states, and others get to focus on wiping them out.
I doubt Hezbollah has been “wiped out” by killing a few leaders.
“Netanyahu Condemned Over Massive Beirut Bombing.” Ah. Good. More strong words. That should do it this time.
There’s a quote from Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations which I think is good advice, “take care that you don’t treat [feel for] inhumanity as it treats human beings.” I’ve never had that so challenged in myself as now, seeing the news from Gaza and now Lebanon.
Lebanon only has a population <5.5 million (essentially NYC proper minus Manhattan).
multiply each civilian death by 60 to get a per capita equivalent to the USA.
I could have this wrong, but I do remember Nastallah as being a moderating influence some time back (so I can’t place it) when his followers were ready to go on a rampage and he counseled restraint. He was charismatic but seemingly more sensible than some of the old.
for some reason this news is shocking and it feels like Israel’s savagery has crossed a new line.
dare I say RIP or do we wish our enemies to burn in hell for eternity?
Brian Berletic has a short post up on YT imploring folks to not fall prey to the ‘shock and awe’ tactics once again being employed by the usual western suspects. With Bibi acting like a super-villain from the Batman universe he and the Zionists are deliberately trying to stoke rage and bloodlust in us ‘goyim’ (non-Jews). Eye for an eye and all that. Brian particularly called on the ‘alt-media’ universe to exercise restraint – at least until the fog of war has lifted somewhat so as not to be unwitting puppets of the perpetrators. (His post was in advance of the confirmation of Nasrallah’s martyrdom). As an aging longhair I’m all for Peace, Love and Understanding but this really ‘shivers me timbers’. The End Times in our lifetime- why am I not surprised? Try to keep cool y’all!
Thank you very much for pointing me to Brian’s commentary. He is such a thoughtful, ethical man. His commentary was very informative. For anyone wanting to listen, here is the link. https://rumble.com/v5gnup1-israeli-shock-and-awe-in-lebanon-aims-to-create-anger-fear-panic-division.html?e9s=src_v1_ucp
Nasrallah succeeded his predecessor – killed in Israeli airstrike in 1992 – and it appears an IRG general was killed too. At least Israel has now declared open season on political leaders and negotiators worldwide – part of its plan to overthrow all international restrictions on war – ironically initiated by Tsar Nicholas II of Russia in Hague Conventions
What ye sow shall ye reap
Ah, even more Russian conspiracies! Now, i get it! /s
Yes a Russian conspiracy as you say. That a Russian Tsar wanted rules of war and to introduce Hague Convention 1899 to protect humanity in war at the same as US was drawing up war plans against British Navy or itching for war against Spain must irritate you immensely
There’s a tendency in the West to be very naive about how things work in this part of the world.
We’re dealing with an area where first loyalties are to tribe and clan, crossed with religion, and where over a thousand years of Arab and then Ottoman colonisation solidified and perpetuated these differences, whilst coming down brutally on anyone who tried to exploit them to challenge the status quo. The brief Mandate period saw the Europeanisation of a thin middle-class crust, but not enough to develop political and class identities to replace clan and religious ones.
Societies like this run on force. My foot on your face or your foot on my face. Strength is all that really counts, and armed conflicts are by definition between entire communities, not professional militaries. And the oldest trick in the book is to find an external protector who will fight your wars for you. What Israel is doing is simply an extension of that: it happened in the Balkans over the last two hundred years. And external protectors are there to be publicly appeased and privately exploited: Netanyahu is clearly not at all concerned that he’s in the process of trashing twenty years of US policy in the region, or for that matter the region itself. Peace treaties are purely tactical instruments, and nobody takes them seriously, as the West found to its surprise in the Former Yugoslavia–another Ottoman legacy. All that matters is force.
What Netanyahu is trying to do is to destroy Hezbollah and intimidate the remnants into stopping their attacks, and to intimidate Lebanon into somehow disowning the organisation. He seems to be doing quite well so far. There is no “peaceful solution”: all that would stop the war would be to destroy Israel’s military capability, which is trivially easy to do, but which will obviously not be done.
I know Lebanon well, and it breaks my heart to see what’s going on. But ironically, the West has devoted massive efforts over the last 15-20 years to trying to bring the communities together, conscious always that the militias still have their weapons and war could start again. I don’t think most people saw destruction coming from outside, once more. This time, it may be terminal.
This logic that these brutes there know only force seems kinda stereotypical and the West has habit of throwing this wisdom at anyone they want to bomb. Also the Zionist are recent emigrants from the West, so according to this logic they should have better manners, but they seem to fit in really well.
Recent emigres? This Israeli TV show went to the beach and began interviewing the sunbathers there for a cash incentive. They asked them if Israel was a colonial nation and all of those people said no. But when they asked them where they were born, not one of them was actually born in Israel.
Rev, your comment raised a question that I had never considered: what is the difference between ‘a colonial nation’ and ‘a nation of immigrants?’ The latter is a proud boast, usually dusted off by political candidates at election time.
Think about this too hard, and one begins to catch a glimmer of why the US is backing Israel (or, ‘the Zionist Entity’) to the hilt. For the US power structure and dominant narrative, it is an existential conflict.
To admit that the Zionists (mostly Westernized after centuries of living in the West and intermarrying with Europeans) are an illegal, occupying power, that have stomped into a land that does not ‘belong’ to them, expelled (and are expelling) tens of thousands of inhabitants with fire and sword, is to admit that the US is an illegal, occupying power that stomped into a land that does not ‘belong’ to them, etc….. Gee, we might have to implement a two-state solution here, sharing the natural resources with, god help us, the Natives!
Same goes for Australia and New Zealand.
Indeed, I don’t see any of my neighbors approaching the descendants of the Eno and Occoneechee and offering them the deeds to their property.
In Canada, every official work meeting has to start with acknoledging that ones speaks from the unceded territory of such and such and how grateful one is for the fact that said natives have had a good stewardship so that one can work and play now there.
So, “I stole your land where now I frolick and work, thank you very much and have a good day!” The hypocrisy is breathless and nobody seems to notice. Especially the constant declaration of theft and that all are in breach of the accepted points of UN declaration of indigenous rights (or what it is called).
Oddly, in forty years as a European “colonizer” in Canada, I have yet to see any First Nations opposition to immigration.
Maybe they – with good reason – just don’t like white Canadians and are happy to see them displaced?
The hypocrisy is over the top, it’s true, but what really gives me agita is the insipid, piety-infused tone with which it’s always laid on.
I live on Occoneechee land.
And you are right. These are the spoils from a few hundred years ago…
Now all they get is a “pow-wow”… and a symbolic gesture…. along with all the others… that have gone before. They don’t even get the proceeds from a casino. in the west, it has only been @150 years
MAN… is truly the WORST invasive species.
Now we watch israel… follow in the footsteps of those who did this before. And no, we can’t claim virtue…. we never had it.
But we should remember, that in fact… this IS true….This is how we got here. We just had different weapons.
“MAN… is truly the WORST invasive species.”
our species is a pathogen and there is no antibiotic to control it –
buckle up – we seemed to have reached the top of the roller coaster ride –
now on the proverbial express elevator to Hell –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCzD3ONQsmM&t=1s
where is Major Kong?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3edi2Wkr5YI&t=45s
yep – look who’s in charge –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlgL2qz7vOE
And South Africa, incidentally.
Our timing is a bit off. Hitler emulated much of US whether sterilisation of social undesirables or segregation and even freeways. He saw the Slavs as in need of reservations as Colonists had implemented after ignoring King George Edict 1763 on secure boundaries for White Settlement to respect Indian lands
The population replacement that took place in Poland and the plan to drive Slavs into Siberia and starve them and to make Leningrad a giant artificial lake. Then again a 3 year siege of Leningrad is ignored in the West
Those who carved out a Jewish fortress were funded by US Jewish Mafiosi who armed them Meyer Lansky et al. before Truman was bought
It is a US project modelled on US Expansionism and Imperialism and promoted just 2 years after condemning Germany for same policies
That’s what proud Mericans just can not get trough their thick patriotic skulls. Mustache man wanted to create United States of Europe by taking over the Wild East from Savages. It turned out Savages had more horses than him, also tanks.
Ask anyone from the region and they will tell you the same. It’s the same in many other areas of the world, including Bosnia, for example, where the inhabitants were white last time I was there. It’s true in parts of Europe. The problem is that westerners come in with exactly the kind of mentality you display (“these people are just like us really”) and are disappointed again and again and again. The fact that many Israelis are recent immigrants doesn’t really change anything: they have rapidly absorbed the norms of the area and the culture. No doubt there’s a sort of “colonial” dimension to this but only in the sense that groups in the region have been battling each other for supremacy since the dawn of time. The Phoenicians themselves were invaders and colonists as I recall. This crisis will end with the defeat of the weaker as these crises always do. To think otherwise is naive, and there are far too many well-intentioned actors, ignorant of the history and culture of the region, scared of seeming “white” and making a priori judgements on the basis of what they would like to be the case.
I don’t think I’m stuck in some sort of Western world view when it appears that this “crush them” mentality seems best at creating deep, long-lasting hostilities from the people being stomped on. How can this possibly work without either genocide or massive ethnic cleansing? I suppose if you’re an old-style empire this was sometimes addressed by forced migration to split up populations or move them someplace where they can’t get up to mischief (a popular technique at various periods in imperial Chinese history).
So, genocide or ethnic cleansing. What neighbors of Israel are going to take in all the displaced? Are European countries going to absorb even more people from blasted out regions with no governments to speak of? What government is going to destabilize itself for Israel’s ambitions?
The history of Europe, even limited to the 20th century, shows that Europe is no different from other regions of the globe when it comes to societies relying predominantly on violence. Did you miss the endless colonization and then decolonization wars, the numerous wars of independence and civil wars (with obvious social, ethnic, and religous background) as well as two world wars launched for the utter subjugation of enemies?
If Europeans appear meek, conciliatory, and pacific, it is only because they no longer have the resources and will to wage wars. Just like the catholic church no longer has the power and influence to undertake crusades against heretics.
The Catholic Church might not be foing it, but there are crusades taking place where they took place 600-1000 years ago again: the Levant, the Baltics, the Ukraine…
Well, it isn’t so hard to predict that this thing will end only with the defeat of the weaker, because that’s what one side says and seeks quite openly. What’s bizarre about this argument is that here it’s the West/Israel who are almost perfect caricature of the primitive tribesmen that understand nothing but violence and Nasrallah is dead because he was trying to be the well-intentioned actor who doesn’t mindlessly escalate just to protect his tribe imagined pride and honor.
So yeah, “they” are not like “us”, we just disagree on which side is ruled by the stereotypical primitives from jungle.
Exactly. And in general, I don’t think that the West practices what it preaches regarding diplomacy when it is dealing with countries it thinks it can push around. Might very clearly makes right if we think we are the stronger.
And Israel and the Zionist organizations that led to it always had this mentality. It wasn’t something they picked up from moving to the Middle East. It was there from the beginning.
I’m pretty sure that the British used force to subdue and eliminate the original inhabitants of Australia from about 1788 when they arrived.
Once the original inhabitants cottoned onto the idea that these new people were not interested in sharing, they started to fight back in guerilla warfare. But guns vs spears and horses vs on foot made for a bit of an uneven contest. And the smallbox pus covered blankets the new settlers brought on the boats with them sealed the deal. I don’t think the Brits came in with any misguided views of brotherhood..
And then there is the small case of India. From richest nation to poorest nation after the arrival of the Brits.
I see the Brits, and their great great great great grandchildren as the most tribal and warlike people in the world. By a country mile. The tribe and their descendants colonised many nations and their populations exploded. ‘5 Eyes’ is a tribal name too.
What a dim view of humanity you have. There are plenty of counter-examples to ignore – you could look at recent Iranian foreign policy, or Chinese diplomatic efforts, or the Belt and Road – to argue that perhaps some have outgrown human history (especially European) record of spilling rivers of blood.
How many tens and tens and tens of millions had the US killed, murdered, destroyed, and genocided, to establish and maintain hegemony in recent decades? Or the so-called enlightened Europeans (Congo, Belgium? Algeria, France?. But the Arabs only understand force. Only the Arabs. Hmmm.
Sadly, NATO seems unable to understand anything but force, too. Sadly, even the vultures will not feed on the killing fields when NATO, unable to understand anything but force, pushes Russia to vaporize hundreds of millions of non-Arab westerners into nuclear ash.
I’m sorry, I DO know people from the region, including one from a prominent and powerful business family in Lebanon (owed the biggest refinery operations and also a major real estate developer/investor. On a first name basis with people like Assad the Senior, Hafed al-Assad). He regards your remarks as rank bigotry. So please do not try argument from authority on this topic here.
It was Europeans who marched across the continent to prosecute eight Crusades….but it’s the natives of the Middle East who are consumed with religious/ethnic hatred? As far as I can tell, Jews suffered more pogroms in Europe than the Middle East. There were 1,100 pogroms in Ukraine alone between 1918 and 1921, killing over 100,000.
The man has his limits. As I said before, you cen get the Englishman out of England, but cannot take England out of the Englishman…
Aurelian actually describes inherent limits to his understanding: Lebanese society is indeed deeply fragmented, and many of the subgroups are quite secretive. Even if one’s Lebanese contacts span the spectrum and choose to be forthcoming they are likely not merely biased but genuinely blinkered in their views.
In any case Hezbollah appears to represent a plurality of the population acting with a high degree of solidarity, and looks to have acheived a near-monopoly on the use of force in internal Lebanese affairs. I think it’s pretty clear this could render Aurelian’s observations moot if not obsolete.
How white of you.
I think US has had one objective in Lebanon ie to keep the state weak and deny it proper air defences or an effective army. Quite what France has been doing remains to be seen
Interesting comments. Especially when you leave out the part that the ottoman empire was destroyed by religious fanatics of the west that started at the perfidious battle of Navarino in 1830s with creation of greece and all other statelets that followed, based on their own rules of influence. The ottoman empire was the only place where multiethnic and multireligious peoples were able to live together without cutting each others throats. It was the place where Jews found refuge after the continuous pogroms of the west. All those countries are creation of the colonial powers and if you look at the borders you would see that they were drawn not on basis of ethnicity but commercial interests. It also suited the west to have different groups in the same nation as a way to control and dominate by setting them against each other wherever they didnt agree with their government policy.
As for societies run on force, that is the the driving engine everywhere.
Do you really think ours is not run on force?
Bob Dylan, “Union Sundown”
Verse 5
Democracy don’t rule the world
You’d better get that in your head
This world is ruled by violence
But I guess that’s better left unsaid
From Broadway to the Milky Way
That’s a lot of territory indeed
And a man’s going to do what he has to do
When he’s got a hungry mouth to feed
What kept the communities from cutting each others’ throats was fierce repression, and the fact that there was no political power to dispute between them because it was all centralised. Attempt to create states and make political power something to compete for has got us where we are. The ego-obsessed West cannot, of course, think past its own role in all this, which was not a lot more than the scum on the surface of the problem. National borders are not the issue here, although it’s a good rallying cry: it’s control of territory that matters. Happy to be corrected by those with greater experience on the ground.
Former Yugoslavia can be considered an Ottoman legacy only in a roundabout way. A good chunk of it was never ruled by Ottomans.
I suppose we could say it’s a combination of Ottoman and Austria-Hungary legacies.
Ukraine was, to a significant degree, a product of the Habsburgs, just sayin,’.
Of course, Habsburg (and Ottoman) policy was to encourage limited nationalism, to keep subject tribes at odds with each other (eg Ukrainians against Poles, etc.) but eventually, they lost control and the whole thing blew up. Since EU is, in many ways, a modern reincarnation of the Habsburg Empire, we see many of the same things in play…
Terminal? For which side?
I feel far too many are confusing extreme caution for other root causes. This conflict literally has the possibility of spiraling into a nuclear conflict.
And again, this could all be stopped by the US.
“Peace treaties are purely tactical instruments, and nobody takes them seriously, as the West found to its surprise in the Former Yugoslavia–another Ottoman legacy. All that matters is force.”
I think this applies to the US as well. Not for nothing the Russians called then “not agreement capable”.
It applies only to the US (and its “allies”). Blaming others for what it is doing, is the modus operandi of The West. The level of gaslighting in that post is fascinating, considering the general intelectual level of this site (and is not the first time I’ve seen the author doing it).
“Netanyahu is clearly not at all concerned that he’s in the process of trashing twenty years of US policy in the region, or for that matter the region itself.”
Wait. Take a look at “20 years of US policy” re Gaza, re “the region.” What do you find? Mowing the lawn. Now, 20 years in from this brutal policy, Israel has said exactly what they intend to do here – turn Lebanon/Beirut into Gaza. Why is no one listening?
US policy in the region has essentially turned Israel into OUR WEAPON. Now we sit back and watch as governments in the region who certainly are troubled at what is ongoing in Gaza and the West Bank have to weigh if they can withstand the brute force that will be unleashed upon them by the regional weapon state organized by the US. Israel has all but full out stated it will use tactical nukes if they deem it necessary. Governments in the region have to weigh the odds of being destroyed if they act against Israel, our pet. $8.7 Billion equals a loud “Good Boy!” in my view.
I’m not sure if Israel is “our” weapon.
The Israeli policy, especially of the (former) Likudniks, has been to defeat the United States, even while receiving US aid/support. Alistair Crooke (I think) had an account of a frank conversation he had with Ariel Sharon to this extent (I think it was on Judge Napolitano’s podcast that this came up), that Sharon really regarded US as a potential adversary to Israeli as he saw that US’s long term interests (for the good of US, at least) are at odds with Israel’s. If so, Israel is interested in subverting US interests in the Middle East independent of Israel to the degree that US has no choice but to cooperate with Israel for the lack of alternatives. With the cooperation of the treasonous cretins in Washingont, I think they have ultimately succeeded at that. The process began at least 20 years ago (IIRC, Crooke had that conversation with Sharon in early 2000s). If we were to look at US Foreign policy in 1982 (Reagan) or even 1993 (Bush I), then US defeatly had a policy that were, at minimum, rightly incompatible with Israel’s (at least as seen by LIkudniks). It’s not clear to me that, post Oslo, US foreign policy in the ME, at least in in deeds, if not in slogans, was at all contrary to the Israelis’. All this time, Israel (especially Netanyahu specifically, who has been the lynchpin that held Israeli politics together, whether as PM or as the leader of the opposition–to the extent that one can be identified in Israel the entire period) has sought to undermine US goals by inducing self-destructive US policy. So, in short, US Middle East policy has already been mostly unraveled in the past 20 years–there’s very little if any left to salvage now.
So Israel, initially a British project whose baseline settler colonialist policies were installed and then promulgated by many decades by Ashkenazi, i.e. European (central and eastern) Jews, is actually a “society where loyalties are to tribe and clan”, and “the product of the Ottoman rule”…
Yeah. I am just going to count to ten and not respond to this.
Yugoslavia is also a terrible example in this sense, because a) the Ottomans did not rule a sizable chunk of it for a long time (gee, I guess the Austro-Hungarian slash Holy Roman Empire was just like the Ottomans…), and b) in the 1990s, the country was deliberately torn apart by Western countries, which had been facilitated by c) post-Tito leadership constructing several non-contiguous economies and political subsystems instead of unifying the country, which made it so much easier to tear them all apart when the time came. But no, it must have been “clan loyalties” and a non-European, I mean Ottoman, mentality or some such.
You might as well have used the example of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, you know, must have been all those “asiatic” clan loyalties and such. In reality, of course, the process was done quite deliberately by the elites in Moscow – easier to destroy the socialist state if you can rip it apart first – but don’t let that get in the way of a good story. And hey, did you know that the Ottomans used to control places like Crimea? It must be those pesky Ottomans again!
I will cede the point that the Arab world in general is rather more complicated, and perennially torn between the opposite poles of tribalism and nation-building, or at least it had been for most of the 20th century and beyond. But to try and explain Israeli actions in these terms? Especially when far, far simpler explanations exist? Please.
“I know Lebanon well, and it breaks my heart to see what’s going on. But ironically, the West has devoted massive efforts over the last 15-20 years to trying to bring the communities together…”
You cannot mean this to be a serious statement. It would be hard to come up with a collection of words that were so obviously 180 degrees wrong, *especially* over the last 20 years. I can’t even comprehend what you are referring to here – unless it is Western diplomatic *rhetoric* about our various “civilizing” intentions behind our interventions (there is a lot of this rhetoric in your statement, and a lot of familiar rationalizations for why we have “failed”). The historical realities, of course, give the lie to the rhetoric – Iraq, Syria, Palestine, and yes, Lebanon, among many other places in the world. We have not tried to “bring communities together.” We have, rather, backed one faction, or even multiple factions, sometimes it’s the Westernized “middle-class crust,” but more recently it has been the most sectarian and extremist groups in an obvious destabilizing, divide-and-rule strategy. Yes, there is a long history of complex ethnic conflict in the region. But far from trying to end this in our naivety as Western do-gooders, we have exploited this conflict over and over again for our own interests.
“Societies like this run on force. My foot on your face or your foot on my face.”
And the US of Interventions and Occupations and Europe of centuries of war don’t?
Please…
What about the genocides by Germans , the old original people of the North, during the 39-45 period. Tells me a thing or two about the mentality of the people of the North.
I’m sorry, but what’s happening is the logical conclusion of the belief that “we are the chosen people and everyone else is scum”. Until that belief is expunged from the Israeli population, I see no reason why they will not continue to behave barbarically, espousing beliefs our grandparents fought to eliminate from this world. Their leader has now threatened all schools, hospitals and houses in Lebanon with destruction — yet another war crime, and you are defending him???
Russia talks about denazifying Ukraine: expunging the idea that “Moscovites” should be killed, and “Ukrainians” are special. It seems to me that they are not the only ones in dire need of learning how to be decent members of the human species.
So no, you’d need to provide a lot more evidence to convince me that it’s the fault of the indigenous people in the Middle East, who historically actually got along quite well with their Jewish minorities… certainly better than we Europeans did. The actual cause of this conflict was the establishment of the state of Israel (through terrorism) in the British Mandate of Palestine. Let me remind you that the King allowed Jews to settle Palestine on the condition that they caused no harm to the native Palestinian population. They have clearly violated that agreement.
I don’t agree with your assertion that all that matters is force in this region. First loyalties are to family and tribe everywhere in the world. And we’re talking about a region that has given rise to so many religions and belief systems emphasizing peaceful coexistence, this area is as far as I know the origin of the concept of do unto others as you would have others do unto you.
For example, Zoroastrianism, Sufism, Kabbalah, Judaism (which is NOT Zionism), Bahai, Christianity, Islam, all of which emphasized peaceful coexistence, in some cases the oneness of humanity (Sufism, Kabbalah), interconnectedness (Bahai, Kabbalah), ending the cycle of violence (Christianity), importance of love and compassion for others despite differences (all of the above). Think Rumi, Hafiz, Ibn Arabi and Al Ghazali. Think Kalil Gibran (who was Lebanese, if I recall). Think Epic of Gilgamesh, the first written word in cuneiform, which happens to be a woke story about friendship and understanding despite fundamental cultural differences. Look at Sharia, which emphasizes promotion of coexistence among diverse religious and ethnic groups, not to mention the various law codes such as Code of Hammurabi which all Western law is derived, including our very concept of justice and equity.
No, I tend to think this kind of violence and conflict is not natural to this area, is mainly from without.
All the things you cite are true, but I am sorry to say that your conclusion is not supported by the basic facts of Middle Eastern history. Yes, it has suffered quite a few invasions from the outside, but Middle Easterners have been fighting each other long before that, and with as much violence as possible. Where does the Neo-Assyrian Empire with its self-advertised atrocities fit into your view of things? The sectarian massacres of the Middle Ages? The Assassins are notorious, but they were backed into their “terrorism” as a matter of self-defence against their fellow Muslims of other sects. The Ottoman-Safavid wars? What happened in Libya and Iraq when their strong central governments were taken out – largely through the actions of malicious outsiders, yes, but the aftermath reflects at least as much their alien malice as the complex nature of societies in question.
I have no sympathy at all for the West and its prejudices, but pretending that people elsewhere, whether in the Middle East or here in Russia, are somehow intrinsically morally superior to you is a disservice to us all.
As someone from Former Yugoslavia, I have to say F you dear Sir! The all naive and good-doing West was completly surprised with what it intentionally created. Makes sense. Blaming the victims is what you colonizers have been doing since forever. You are Genltemen, and we are Savages, right?
Forget it, Jake… it’s Aurelien.
“the West has devoted massive efforts over the last 15-20 years to trying to bring the communities together, conscious always that the militias still have their weapons and war could start again.”
How much of those “efforts” are encapsulated by the mountain of western sanctions Lebanon is under?
i think the topic of clans is an important one when discussing global affairs. and that westerners (especially americans) don’t really understand clans because america is by definition a very individualist (as opposed to collectivist) nation. however, this in no way means americans don’t have clans. they just show up differently and are interspersed with a high degree of nomadism. it’s annoying when non-westerners are anthropologicized but we don’t level the same language at ourselves. colonization and christianity were also based on loyalties to tribe and clan crossed with religion.
Your point about armed conflicts being run between entire communities is good. but I think it kinda disproves your other point about force. Power doesn’t come from just stepping on people, it requires a lot of people working together, the supply chain, families creating the labor force, farmers, machinists, etc. There’s that Napolean quote, “God favors the side with the best artillery.” And like, in order to have the best artillery, you gotta have all the infrastructure that allows for the production of such advanced technology. In order to have strength, you have to have collaboration. Focusing only on the number of weapons occludes the true strength of societies.
Aurelian: The Law of the Jungle applies equally. You are extremely naive if you believe it is only in that “part of the world”. You appear to be making excuses and acting as an apologist. Your last paragraph is ridiculous,: please do provide some evidence
Israel’s only strategy is to use terror on civilians to break the will of its enemies. Their military has nowhere near the size and strength to actually win a war of attrition. One could say that they are in reality all tactics (terror) and no strategy from a conventional standpoint. So far the resistance appears the opposite. too much strategy and way too little tactics. Their tactics have been scary but take too small of a toll on Israel. At some point, the resistance will have to heed the words of our legendary general, George Patton: “Good tactics can save even the worst strategy. Bad tactics will destroy even the best strategy.”
The one eye man is a king in the land of the blind. Imagine if Russia were to truly arm the Syrians and Iranians with AD systems and fighter jets and bombers?
I guess until all Arabs say in one voice, very loud and very clear such that will drown Western MSM that they are not against Israel’s existence per se but against Israel’s Apartheid, there will be no shift in the West.
AD systems? Are you talking S-300, 400 and up? If so, that’s one of my leading unanswered questions for some time now. Why haven’t they? Offensive systems are one thing, but defensive systems another, not?
…..I have a muddle of incomprehensibility contorted by disbelief at all the bits and pieces on that subject I retain; to wit; Assad was finally allowed to have the S-300 but couldn’t use it because…?
…..Russia was selling, or considering selling the latest S-400 to Turkey and then India.
My memory is that they did. Weapons sales income right?
…..There was a really dicey moment in the war against Syria, (that awful man who gassed his own people, right?), whose airspace being so outrageously aggressed by Israeli bombers, that Putin came to their rescue, which helped considerably, but that didn’t stop the incursions, until it seemed they finally might be allowed to use it, their fancy new AD, right?, only Netanyahu made a special plea to Putin, and he complied.
…..I guess I should revisit the difference between tactics and strategy. I never seem to remember how to keep them straight.
The logistics of providing Hezbollah with S-300 and allow them to keep them, without Israel knowledge, finding, etc. would be great. There would be blowback. And Hezbollah doesn’t have the required billions.
Russia is also invested in Israel’s security, but Israel has overstepped there soo much that Russia has little excuses now, especially since they are not under Jewish lobby.
Syria will not intervene, since they have their own problems, and are too open to similar attacks. They likely have less missiles for S-300 than Israel has airplanes.
However, my mind keeps going back to this:
They’re right next door to what is happening to Palestinians. Who in Hezbollah or with influence over them, thought they had an “understanding” with Israel?
That’s a tactic other than terrorism.
Israel’s “center of gravity”, or “strategic decisive point” (if like Jomini more than Clausewitz) is to provide safe state for Jews. If the Resistance can prevent that, Israel will have no reason to exists. Having to constantly assert news blackouts even before the real war has even begun is indicating that strategically Israel is losing.
The Resistance’s center of gravity is unity. Only together can they keep the continuous pressure on Israel’s economy and self-image. Israel can’t fight all of them at the same time, so it’s mandatory to get US involved, while Israel is hitting each opponent separately trying to both cause friction among the Resistance and hopefully mess operational planning (while waiting for US entry).
Yasha Levine has a different take. He thinks that zionism is baked into the jewish religion.
Because the jews were promised by their god a return to their homeland and there is only one homeland. And that is where Israel, Lebanon and Syria now are.
So from this reasoning it is not because they want to feel safe, but that they want to return to the Middle East homeland which they claim as rightfully theirs under their god.
His other interesting point is about the difference between the rabid zionists and the more liberal jews. He says that both assume that one day they will have dominion over the land in the middle east.
Netanyahu’s zionist crowd think this is a DIY project.
Liberal jews are waiting for god to arrange it and then give them the ok to come on over and bring their stuff.
Very few of the Reform Jews I know would agree with Yasha, and since I worked for Jewish firms in NYC and dated more Jews than WASPs, and had Jewish roommates in college, I have a not-trivial sample.
I even know Jews who for decades have been involved in programs to try to improve relations with Palestinians.
It should also be noted, however, that even before the Mizrahi became dominant in the Knesset that Reform Jews were a small minority in Israel.
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2016/03/15/unlike-u-s-few-jews-in-israel-identify-as-reform-or-conservative/
A friend who adopted a boy from Thailand and raised him as Jewish and is Reform even before the adoption noted with some bitterness that when she visited Israel (where she has 30 cousins) she was often treated badly as a presumed non-Jew.
One time, when she was leaving Israel, the border guard gave her a hard time about her Thai sone. She verbally ripped him a new asshole, took his name, said she had relatives in the Knesset, and by the time she was done with him he would not longer have a job.
He did back down.
I doubt this exchange would go anything like that now.
The same friend also said that Turkiye had offered land for the creation of a Jewish state, and with the benefit of hindsight, it would have been much better to go where they were wanted rather than seek to displace people who’d been living there for centuries, and on top of that in places important to Muslims and Christians. In other words, the priority should have been safety and security.
On the other end of the spectrum, Torah Judaism repudiates the very idea of Israel. They regularly stomp on the Israel flag and join in pro-Palestinian protests. See on their Twitter feed: “Jews United Against Zionism. This account shares posts about Anti-Zionist Jews.” https://x.com/TorahJudaism. See for instance:
a la Marshall McCluhan (in Annie Hall), I’ll pop in here to validate Yves’ point –
rings true to me as a dyed-in-the-wool NY Jew (not observant but raised in a de facto jewish ghetto, conservative temple, similar milieu to yves, etc…) who is for a free palestine
i get yasha’s newsletter and was surprised at his take here —
I grew up Unitarian. We used to joke that “The Unitarian-Universalist Church is the liberal branch of Reform Judaism.” I think at least half of my Sunday school teachers were Jewish. When I was 21 I would have described myself as a gentile Zionist.
Levine calls the Judaism of the Torah “Ancient Zionism”. I think this is an accurate description, in fact I don’t know how one could argue against it.
“Anti-Zionist” Orthodox Jews are waiting for Messiah. Fair enough, but it would be fair to call them “Not Yet” Zionists.
Secular and liberal religious Jews tend to deal with the uncomfortable parts of Torah by ignoring them. This is also how they’ve tended to deal with uncomfortable truths about Israel. Meanwhile Israeli schools teach the Book of Joshua as history. I applaud Levine’s seizing the Red Heifer by the horns as he has.
How is leveling an entire residential neighborhood different from the destruction of the twin towers?
That said, Israel (and USA) will do as they please in the middle east.
Its a killing testing ground.
And there wont be an outcry in western countries as muslims are looked on as not worthy generally.
People who think there will be some response from Lebanon or Iran are deluding themselves.
The are reduced to uttering King Lear’s words after each event: I will do such things I know not yet what they are but they shall be the terror of the world.
Folks, the technological gap is IMMENSE as I have said here before and predicted that Israel will go after Hesbolla’s leadership and get rid of them. Next in line will be Iran’s leadership and they will succeed there too.
I even wonder to what degree this is a US operation sending a message to other leaders in the world. No matter where you hide, we know where you are.
This seems to inaugurate a new area of rules of engagement in future wars, start by killing the top leadership. I like it. That might make them think twice before bringing the humanity on the brink of destruction and send joe six-pack die needlessly in the trenches.
It’s not all that different, indeed. The twin towers attack was considered terrorism pretty broadly, wasn’t it?
That was possibly a US/Israeli operation, too. The leadership class certainly benefitted from it, and does to this day. Cui bono?
Just like Ukraine and NGO “regime changes” and long term “containment, overthrow and dissection” of the rest of the world are Imperial operations, so too, of course, the extinction of Palestine and those other little polities “over there.”
But who will ever be in a position to “influence policy” by getting in position to kill the leaders of the Combined West, including the military-industrialists and legislators and spooks, who work day and night to increase their immunity and impunity, and exponentially augment the asymmetry of force?
“…the technological gap is IMMENSE…”
I have my doubts. Iran cranks out a lot of STEM graduates every year (number 5 worldwide last time I checked, after China India USA Russia), and has a far larger population than Israel.
The IDF has some slick tech, but at the end of the day all 20-year-olds with a Kalashnikov are functionally equivalent….. and if the IDF intends to invade Lebanon a la 2006, that’s what they’ll ultimately be dealing with. Air superiority and cool tech have their limitations.
The real gap is the not the technological gap but the ruthlessness gap: Hezbollah et al are playing by one set of purported rules, and the IDF is playing by another. Tactical advantage, IDF: well played, lads! But in the long run, your enemy learns. And demography matters. As Stalin allegedly said, “Quantity has a quality of its own.”
In the very long run, Israel is doomed.
Well said. When Israel sends in the ground troops, they will lose the ability to wield airpower in such a wanton way if Hezbollah soldiers practice the ‘hug the enemy’ tactics that Vassily Zhiukov found so useful against his Nazi adversaries at Stalingrad.
Well said Maxwell. When Israel sends in the ground troops, they will lose the ability to wield airpower in such a wanton way if Hezbollah soldiers practice the ‘hug the enemy’ tactics that Vassily Zhiukov found so useful against his Nazi adversaries at Stalingrad.
Oops. Please excuse the repeated post. I thought the first post vanished.
IDF wont go in this time.
They will keep bombing them to stone age and they can keep doing this for a very long time with the help of the US taxpayer.
Israel will be doomed the day it loses US support and money, not otherwise.
You may very well be right, but I respectfully disagree. Much like the Russians must ultimately close with and destroy the Ukrainians, so must the IDF close with and destroy their enemies in Lebanon. Otherwise, it’s all for naught. Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t think air power and cool tech is enough. One must deploy boots on the ground, and this implies dreadful casualties and ugliness and atrocities.
“War is hell.” — William T. Sherman
There hasn’t yet been a war won via an aerial bombing campaign alone. This one is very unlikely to be the first. Thus, Israel must invade Lebanon if it wishes to defeat Hezbollah. And that invasion is what Hezbollah has been praying for.
Additionally, anyone who thinks assassinating Hezbollah’s leadership means Israel has won or has defeated Hezbollah is delusional. All it means for Hezbollah is “next man up.”
Iran also has the fourth highest average IQ, the highest for any country outside Asia. https://x.com/IranObserver0/status/1824842718234771490
I didn’t quite get this. Isn’t Iran in …. Asia?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran. Iran is a country in West Asia. Perhaps you mean, outside of East Asia?
Oh, fair point.. I mentally exclude the Middle East and ‘Stans from Asia. I don’t think of Israel as being in Africa.
The quick dismantling of Hezbollah‘s leadership should finally force Iran to quickly build a nuclear weapon.
That…seems like it must have a decent probability of being at least part of the response.
I suspect that that may actually be why there hasn’t been a response yet. If Israel attempts to nuke Iran in a month or two, they may well respond in kind.
The Soviet Union churned out what is now called STEM educated people. It was chock full of them and nukes – and still broke up.
It could have broken up, sure, but it did not. Yeltsin intentionally dissolved it basically against the will of most of the citizens.
Russian SFSR was subsidizing all the other Socialist Republics, most of Eastern Europe and also Cuba, Vietnam and Angola. The new ruling class wanted all that wealth for themselves, not to spread it around “for the cause”.
Broken up or dissolved. Poof…
Probably a bit of difference: one of my acquaintances (a Leningrader, although, ironically, with a Ukrainian last name) talked of Yeltsin practically as a traitor for exactly this reason. I imagine that this is probably a common view among not only Russians but also among other former Soviets and that, in tutn, probably shapes their views towards both the West and (cooperative) relationship with Russia.
There will be lines drawn in the sand here. I.e. Russia has been sending detection equipment to Iran and probably some AD systems as well.
However Iran has to do what Hamas did, and uproot all Israeli spies and infiltrators, etc. Yes, it is harder to do that in a 80+ million, ethnically diverse nation, but not impossible.
Plus, Iran really can retaliate and Israel cannot carry nightly attacks on Iran as it does on Lebanon, not even with the support of the US.
Maybe not the way you think. Iran has hypersonic missiles. The US and Israel don’t.
The Isrealis if nothing else, are seemingly able to infiltrate any government anywhere and murder anybody. I wonder how they do this?
I’m convinced the ‘pager’ thing was done remotely by locking in on the carrier frequency and overloading it somehow. It beggars credulity that they somehow managed to get pagers containing micro bombs to just Hizbollah’s Civil Defense cadre.
Israel has only one rule: Rise and Kill First.
One small point. You say, ‘The Israelis if nothing else…’. It is more correct, imo, to say ‘Israeli Jews’ because there are other Israelis in the Zionist entity who certainly are not jews, and who certainly are in no position to ‘infiltrate’ and ‘murder’ in a manner you suggest, and which, btw, I agree. The rulers of the Zionist entity have declared that their state is a Jewish state. I don’t think it’s provocative to address the entity by the identity they proclaim themselves as being. Why that would be a sense of pride now, at this point in time, is another matter.
Half a dozen apartment blocks filled with children, women, and old people flattened in order to assure that there can be no negotiation because there is no leadership left to negotiate with.
Who to blame? The Nuts ‘n Yahoos in Israel?
Those were American 5,000 lb bunker-busters (as discussed, likely GBU-28 and/or GBU-37’s) illegally gifted by Biden, launched from American-built Aircraft financed by the U.S. Congress, and guided to their targets by signals from enhanced GPS accessible only with the full cooperation of the American military.
As Spielberg eloquently elucidated in Munich, America has again made itself a legitimate target for revenge attacks. We are led by fools.
Still, it’s orders of magnitude smaller than the Hiroshima bomb. Remember what that bomb did.
What’s your point? Both were US actions (latter at second hand) that broke through some prior taboos. US is the only monstrously aggressive nation to actually have used nuclear weapons to burn cities. And fire bomb German and Japanese and Korean and Vietnamese and Laos and Cambodian and Yugoslavian populations.
This is unnecessary and counterproductive hyperbole. That’s my point.
Since people are getting into bomb sizes, the area destroyed by a blast goes up with the two thirds power of the yield.
So a one ton conventional bomb contains about a half ton of explosive iirc. The Hiroshima bomb was 14 kilotons or about 28,000 times bigger. 28,000 to the two thirds power is about 900. So the Hiroshima bomb did the blast damage of 900 bombs containing a half ton of explosives ( assuming the smaller bombs are spaced out to destroy as many buildings as possible.)
( The thermal effects scale differently.)
Wondering whether Iran and Turkey are going to have the conversation with the Brutus moment where they say we go tomorrow.
What is the incentive for either to not go on the offense and attack Israel proper?
Netanyahu has demonstrated that he is on the warpath, he will continue to go full Kings’ Landing. He intends to succeed where George W. Bush failed. He will smite his enemies. His warfare is tribal warfare.
It’s exceedingly unlikely the Turks will do anything other than make the usual strongly worded but worthless statement.
Erdoğan’s AKP is, historically, a very pro-American political force, even though it tries to exploit opportunities opened up by minor disloyal behavior. Their version of Islamism is also very Sunni, and deeply suspicious of Iran and all Shiites. I see a fair bit of anti-Iranian sentiment in the pro-government Islamist press in Turkey. They’re not great fans of Hizbollah either.
All plausible opposition to Erdoğan, particularly the secularists and the dominant chunk of the Turkish PMC, are even more Atlanticist. They don’t have a unified position—chats between my very-PMC friends in Istanbul include a minority cheerleading for Israel as well as sentiments that would be more at home in the NC comments—but I see no appetite at all for Turkey to get involved.
Thanks for the info. Where AKP stood in the greater scheme of things always seemed a bit weird to me and this places a lot of things in context. I do figure that AKP’s “pro-Americanism” is quite different from the Atlanticists’, though. Could you elaborate?
Israel is fully supported, supplied, and encouraged in their brutality by the Washington regime at every level. When you hear about genocide in Gaza and now Lebanon that is genocide committed by the Washington regime and not just Israel–that’s reality. In the past Washington put the brakes on Israel’s ambitions now it barely taps them.
Israel recognizes that the old post WW II regime of “international law” has been replaced by the “rules-based order” which means whatever diktats come out of Washington are the “rules” which remain. International law is dead as a door-nail (cue the Parrot Sketch). I can sympathize with Israel in a way they want “a place in the sun” as Mussolini used to say and view all enemies as “terrorists” because it’s great marketing because, psychologically, we believe “terrorists” can be killed on sight without feeling guilt. The untermensch, as many Israelis I’ve talked to have claimed, only understand the language of violence. And so it goes.
What doesn’t make sense to me is the hand-wringing BS uttered by the “international community” which is always shocked/shocked/shocked about Israel’s actions and contempt for any sort of treaties, agreements, international norms and laws. Now Washington has become the poster girl/boy of corruption, it has become very easy for Israeli agents to control both the legislative and executive branch of government–not that US policy makers really care, they just go ahead and copy Israel’s tactics in their (our) wars.
I think the “resistance axis” is waiting for the “international community” of hand-wringing to “do something” well nobody will do anything in that community because, again, the deep corruption of the USA and its numerous vassals. I have no idea what will happen but I do know that Netanyahu is supremely confident and forceful unlike other world leaders. I wouldn’t underestimate him or the brutality of the Israeli state and citizenry.
I’m reading “Nuclear War: A Scenario” by Annie Jacobson, recommended by Mearsheimer, Sachs, and Ritter.
Are we there yet?
I think the lack of responses by those being bombed by Israel could be they really fear having a nuclear bomb dropped on them.
I think it’s actually possible for Israel to use nuclear weapons against Iran and Lebanon.
It would seem that Israel has the green light by Biden/Harris and Congress to do whatever they want.
So scary.
Or maybe they fear something worse.
I doubt Russia will just stand by if that were to happen.
Russia would be unlikely to do anything immediately. Putin like slow but sure moves–Chin a and Iran are the same. They all would do little things like more arms to Houthis but their main focus would stay the same, try to build alliances around the world to gradually isolate Israel and the Empire that funds and supports it. Just as the Empire uses fear, intimidation, bribery and military action the China/Russia/Iran group uses, by necessity positive techniques. We, in the West, will gradually become the “bad guys” for the world–we aren’t there yet but it’s coming. Washington where I lived most of my adult life is about as close to being evil as any major world capitol as been since the Nazis and Stalinists of the 30s. We are gradually becoming like those two regimes–but it will take years before that becomes an absolute certainty for most of the world population.
“something worse”
Bioweapons? What if israel starts sudden mass-vaccination against an illness, whose name and history seem a bit dodgy…
As far as I am informed, mass-vaccination against Corona was perceived by many Israelis as a dummy run for defense¹ against a biological agent, perhaps the famed Islamic Virus², a hypothetical virus that spreads easily, but for 99% of people only becomes deadly, if the liver is exposed to a large amount of alcohol – Instant punishment for sin against Allah.
¹Defense, Defense and nothing as defense, so help me Zion
²I don’t believe in this one, but there might be surprises. Look at all the Science Fiction (The Triffids, Snowpiercer…), that casually mentions strange illnesses appearing after a (nuclear, global) catastrophe or the SF (13 Monkeys, 28 days/weeks), where biological agents are the main culprit from the beginning
I wonder if Iran will announce now that is has achieved a nuclear bomb. Blinken said last July Iran was two weeks removed from having created enough material.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/19/politics/blinken-nuclear-weapon-breakout-time/index.html
Of course, Blinken is a certified idiot, and has motives to say something like that, but other US officials have said similar over the past year, if I recall. Then we would have Trump to thank for a credible deterrent to Israel’s nukes?
I don’t know if I’d call Blinken an idiot, though he reminds me of Alfred E. Newman sometimes. As far as I can tell, he’s a fanatical Zionist and neoconservative–he sees his mission in life in that direction and acts accordingly. Neocons are as bad as the Stalinist commies in their self-deception and fanaticism to the cause.
“I think it’s actually possible for Israel to use nuclear weapons against Iran and Lebanon.”
I think you’re right. Plus – what a huge decision to make for all of your citizens – a decision that will turn swaths of land/buildings into rubble, cause many, many deaths, and all potentially to the world’s silence, inaction. Very difficult. And yes, green light by the US – corruption at work.
That’s why I recommended earlier that Hezbollah should just launch all 100K of their rockets right away. If they were to fire those rockets piecemeal, Israel is going to drop a nuke/a couple of nukes on them and then Hezbollah will surely retaliate by launching the rest of their arsenal anyway. If Hezbollah gets unlucky, the nukes will debilitate their ability to respond, and then it’s going to be Israel’s victory.
I agree. Israel/US has escalated and will keep escalating regardless of whether or not Hezbollah shows restraint.
Moreover the sad truth is that their restraint so far has gained them nothing, either from Israel/US or the rest of the international community. It shouldn’t be the case, but it is. No one cares that they have so far saved us all from WW3. No one is supporting them except Yemen.
Don’t forget to watch “Threads” after finishing it (reading this book too right now – first time I learned about the OPLAN, née SIOP).
As Nazi Gerrmany, Israel directly attacks on all fronts, with utmost force. Some say Israel will soon attack Iran the same way. As we saw during WWII, initial apparent successes do not guarrantee final success, on the contrary.
In wartime, good leadership is very important. Older people that cling to their posts are not the best assets. Nasrallah was due to retire, but not necessarily willing to do so. Thanks to Israel, this problem is solved. Will Hezbollah find a 45 years old leader that could be the equivalent of Sherman during the American Civil War? That remains to be seen. But at least, the way has been cleared.
But all in all, Israel is quite a crazy state, as a connoisseur like Noman Finkelstein rightly says.
I am quite skeptical that Israel will attack Iran. Israel cannot sustain the scale of attacks it does on Lebanon with respect to Iran. Even with US support. And apparently the US doesn’t want to take such a road, which will be a road to perdition and that can force the US/Israel to use nuclear bombs on Iran. Which will still not stop Iran to reach all strategic points in Israel and US bases in the Gulf and Western Asia. And stop the flow of oil.
Well, if the Arabs in general do want to escalate, there is always an oil embargo, for those of us who remember the 70’s and what that kicked off. With the everything bubble starting to look tired, it would have consequences.
October is almost here.
Well…..let us hope that our “Z” does not see this as a suggestion for his Putin/Russia problem. I know, I know…….. , fevered brain……..but still…..
It’s in the back of everyone’s minds.
Except, in such scenarios, I don’t think Z escapes either.
One thing that the Russians have shown us in Ukraine is that the combination of modern society and accurate long-range missiles has changed the face of warfare. In particular, it’s extremely easy to bring a country to its knees with a relatively small attack on targeted infrastructure points. The Houthis have also been giving similar lessons, defeating even the Earth’s largest superpower with very few deaths.
I believe the entire country of Israel relies on three desalinization plants for its water. I assume it’s electrical grid is no better than Ukraine’s and perhaps worse. The country has two significant seaports if I’m not mistaken. I don’t know about the military airport arrangement. These things are all just sitting there, wide open to the sky.
It’s no longer necessary to kill a lot of people to reduce or eliminate a country’s ability to fight, or even to exist. All you need is 100,000 missiles.
I think you have a good point. But don’t underestimate the fanatical nature of Zionism in Israel and the USA. Israel’s main strength is it covert/intelligence networks that works hand in glove with the US, UK networks. Even if Israel is crippled or destroyed Israel/US/UK can wreak havoc on enemies or even end world-civilization or threaten it.
Don‘t overestimate U.K. capacity to do anything. It is desperate to renew the Mutual Assistance Agreement which expires on 31 Dec. Trump might not and Biden did not when Starmer appeared in DC.
U.K. is in parlous state with a regime loathed and with lots of MPs with razor thin majorities. I see turmoil ahead in U.K. and real instability as the next Depression hits a country still reeling from 2008 after Osborne‘s insanity
U.K. has been far too aggressive believing it can leverage US to increase its influence and the population is completely disconnected from the Comprador Class
Do not forget US funds RUSI and GCHQ and leases the Trident rockets on the SSBNs which collect them from King‘s Bay, GA – it provides USMC F-35s on British flattops which are suited to no other aircraft – it currently runs SSN sentry duty for British SSBNs
U.K. cannot crew its submarines or ships and cannot afford to equip its army. It is all pitiful
What Biden, the Mouth of Sauron, had to say:
Joe knows all about Justice. As a nearer-my-God-to-Thee old man, he fears nothing.
… a measure of justice for thousands of American civilians. So, Joe, what about the civilians in Lebanon? Collateral damage?
Senility has consumed this Bozo.
(Is anyone else tired of this charade of democratic leadership? The US is now a Banana Republic with the most gunpowder.)
Who’s the fever brained Zionist who wrote that for Joe? Crazy.
Anybody else feel like this?
“I mean, I wanna—I wanna kill. Kill. I wan—I wanna see, I wanna see blood and gore and guts and veins in my teeth. Eat dead burnt bodies. I mean kill. Kill. KILL! KILL!”
You’re our boy!
“For much of the early months of the conflict with Hezbollah, which began on 8 October– a day after Hamas’s attack from Gaza – it was understood that Israel would not assassinate the militant group’s most senior members.”
It’s been my understanding that they have been behind or participated in the assassinations of these kinds for decades. Who had the “understanding” that this time was going to be different?
That’s been my impression as well.
Of course, if Hezbollah were to now target and kill Netanyahu, destroying his entire office building and staff, they could say “we continue with tit for tat. Nothing has changed.”
Martyanov yesterday spoke about RU possibly arming Houthis with Oniks 500 mile range anti-ship missiles – not Hizbollah. But I see no reason why that too wouldn´t be possible. (or other advanced systems).
see here TC 22:26
https://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/2024/09/after-i-defeated.html
Israel might only stop if US forces shy away from giving them usually granted military backing due to too high risks. Of course some action including minor military losses that allow rallying around the flag before the election might on the other hand help Harris as part of the incumbent party.
(Even Trump would be powerless when forced to argue against “our forces”.)
I doubt the extreme nature of my own idea but this might as well turn out a very long october.
Our ruling elites apparently like this time of the year to create big trouble. (end of WWI, start of WWII, October Rev. and RU Civil War, Cuban Missile Crisis, Hungary Uprising, Suez Crisis, War on Terror)
Trump can elaborate on the argument that “our forces” have been deliberately placed in danger unnecessarily by vote hungry Democrats because Israel was clearly warned beforehand that the US would not supply “our forces” to fight any old war of choice started by Israel.
Remember, independents will be amongst the last to vote in this extended vote gathering process and an unnecessary war against the Rest is one of the things they will take into account when they cast their ballot.
Lets hope you´re right and that the Harris campaign is reading this blog.
One advantage might truly be that MSM do not reach major segments any more.
So them being DEMS allies offers little advantage by now.
Who would have thought, legacy media don´t matter any more 🙃
Export version is Yakhont with 300km range as supplied to Syria……….the 600-800km P800 Oniks is for Russian use only
I watched the video of the bombing that has been widely circulated. Even without any context, it’s horrific. The explosion is massive, with flaming pieces of debris thrown high into the air (and descending very slowly, which gives an indication of scale). There’s a huge fireball burning several blocks away from the main blast zone, for some reason. All of this is taking place in what is clearly a pretty typical, high density urban residential area. It was like watching the earliest footage of the 9/11 attack.
The Israelis may have made a calculated assumption that Iran will be unwilling to go to war before the BRICS Summit begins on the 22 October, and the US might be crazy enough to feel forced to support Israel’s vicious attack on Lebanon’s civilians in a really dumb pre-election vote gathering manoeuvre. Zionists seem to have a real predisposition to slaughter and cripple Arab women and children and they feel that, at the moment, they have a free hand to do whatever they like and the US will be forced to join them. But, then again, it may just be that it is all a matter of Bibi’s sense of whimsy and lack of impulse control
The obvious problem is that China, Iran, Russia and South Africa have dogs which may well feel absolutely compelled to join the fight when they smell blood, and in that is the case the current US empty suit administration will be forced to fight on four fronts at a time when it is less than capable of dealing with the Houthis (oh, those men clad in their death dealing sandals). And it may be that the Pentagon means what it says and that the US will not support Israel now that it has chosen to go to war against the men, women and children of Lebanon.
Civilisations tend to decline slowly, superficially taking on different forms over time because they have many opportunities to renew themselves, but Western Empires have demonstrated a tendency to collapse rapidly since the Great War. It may be that if the West engages with the key military representatives of the Rest, we will have reached that well-deserved moment of Imperial collapse.
“BRICS Summit begins on the 22 October”
Right.
I forgot about that calculation.
“The Israelis may have made a calculated assumption that Iran will be unwilling to go to war before the BRICS Summit begins on the 22 October…”
I’ve been thinking the same.
But, after all of this, I don’t see imperialism necessarily collapsing. It could be just rebranded.
Forgive my cynicism……the last time the US ‘declared war’ was 1943……against Hungary
Iran has been ‘at war’ with USA since 1978…….it is in constant warfare with US and its vassals……..its operatives die and are murdered by US and its vassals – its people are denied medicines……it is the US that is in a state of Trotskyist Permanent War across the globe ……..it is a Predator
When I was in Australia (which remember is part of the Five Eyes) in 2002-2004, one of its broadcast networks ran a documentary on the, as of then, 143 undeclared wars the US had conducted. It interviewed every post WWII director of the CIA save Bush the Senior. They were very open about what the US was up to.
A headline that says it all:
From Al Jazeera
“Israeli society ‘giddy’ over killing of Hezbollah leader
Ori Goldberg, a political analyst based in Israel, says that “the broad consensus in Israeli society that supports war is giddy with excitement at the assassination of Hassan Nasrallah”.
“For most Israelis, there is support for this government’s policy. It is probably the greatest support this government has seen since the war on Gaza began,” Goldberg told Al Jazeera.
He said that many Israelis are excited about “the new beginning in the Middle East … of the Lebanese rising in revolt against Hezbollah, of Israel freeing the Iraqis, Iranians, the Yemenis from their tyrannical terrorist rulers”.
Goldberg added that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s moves in Lebanon are political and not about “security”.
“The truth is, he has very few options. Israel does not want to commit to a ground invasion of Lebanon. What we’re more likely to see is … a few more days of concentrated Israeli bombing that allows Israel to have its ‘mission accomplished’ moment.”
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/9/28/israel-attacks-lebanon-deaths-mount-as-beirut-buildings-bombed-to?update=3208924
So when the IOF invades Lebanon, they will be welcomed with hugs and flowers, kinda like when the US military went into Iraq… is that the brand that’s still being peddled?
Like how the Germans were welcomed in the Warsaw Ghetto in 1943, I imagine….
Don‘t overrate that event – it was not the Warsaw Rising of 1944 but a 29-day resistance to SD and Waffen-SS which resulted in obliteration
It simply cost 110 German/Affiliate lives but changed nothing at all
I’m not overrating the event: that is exactly what would happen if a bunch of half starved inmates without weapons tried to fight. I am, rather, trying to point to the absurdity of the claim, that oppressed peoples would willingly welcome their oppressors and let them do as they would if it weren’t for some troublemakers.
Dear Trump Campaign – come out against this strongly (or say “it has to stop now” or something like that), and call for an end to supplying Israel with anything until this ends, and you can win Michigan. Lock it in, my dudes.
His donors would abandon him immediately. Plus he’d probably get whacked.
You seem not to ‘know’ Trump. Do you know just how close his son-in-law is to Netanyahu ?
Do you think Trump is out to displease Miriam Adelman ?
You do know that Trump as a child was literally a “Shabbat Goy” ?
Not sure why you see Trump as a solution unless you think he never installed Vindman, Hailey, Bolton, Pompeo, Barr – or blessed Morocco over West Sahara in return for supplication to Israel – thus destabilising Algeria-Morocco-Spain……..or overthrew UN on Jerusalem and Golan Heights……….
I know he’s not a big fan of war, and this Muslim mayor in Michigan likes what Trump has to say.
I will give myself some solace by believing it is possible Nasrallah is alive and well, as the first reports suggested, and he is, wisely, playing possum to be removed as a target.
I recommend the latest Katie Halper clip on YT where he calls out the USA, not Israel, as the head of the snake.
I thought about that. It’s pretty crazy and improbable, though, I imagine, but it’s the Middle East and crazier things have happened there before. If it happened to Issa ibn Maryam…
It’s our greatest wish as well. Nasrallah understood how the US must maintain control over the Middle Eastern OIL. And how they use Israel as “a landing base” to guarantee that stranglehold.Of course, the hyper-radical Israelis are all for it. We’ll try to find the exact quote Nasrallah used and send it your way.
Our mandarins in the US are more than “complicit” in the slaughter and starvation of the natives in the neighborhood of occupied Palestine. They are actively engaged.
…and later lie that you never said such a thing.
NBC, quoting an Israeli official: “We have decided to kill Nasrallah after concluding that he will not agree to any solution that isn’t tied to ending the war in Gaza.”
Sources: this, and this.
That “isn’t” tied? That seems a bit strange thing to say, although I suppose it makes sense from their perspective: what “we” do to the subhumans in Gaza is none of other subhumans’ business?
CITATION? Because I’ve not been able to find that alleged quote from any authoritative source. Appears to be libel.
Good to see lots of kickback against ‘Aurelian’s western biased views. “Argument from authority” is often blinkered by too many years of being steeped in a (political in this case) goldfish bowl.
Indeed.
Aurelien is full of surprises lately. I was flabbergasted to see this in his latest Substack essay (‘No End Of A Lesson. If we can only learn it.’)
> It’s clear the Russians have no interest in a general military conflict with NATO, and indeed no need
> for one to achieve their strategic objective of military dominance of Europe [emphasis added].
Gee, those old Cold War mindgames were so much fun, let’s play them again!
A number of commentators are arguing that regardless of the fact that literally every single Hizbollah senior commander has now been killed ‘doesn’t matter’. Apart from the fact that this is obviously false, please think about what this ‘hit’ indicates: either Hizbollah’s internal electronic communication system is totally compromised or (worse) Hizbollah is riddled with spies and informants, up to the highest level*. If the latter, then the organisation is basically finished: no one will be able to communicate with anyone else, any attacks on Israel will be easily intercepted, and the whole organisation will be frozen with fear and distrust.
If all the commanders are replaced, so what? Israel will simply be able to kill their replacements too. Eventually the whole organisation may well disintegrate. It’s noticeable that despite this appalling blow, Hizbollah seems to be incapable of the brutal revenge strike back against Israel that one might expect.
*could be both.
If even a non-expert such as I can think of several other ways that Israel could have organized this hit, then there are certainly more possibilities than this reductive speculation would indicate.
The reasons for holding off on a knee-jerky “revenge strike” and choosing the time and place should be obvious from the article and comments here.
We’ll have to wait to find out.
There are indeed many ways that Israel could have found out where Nasrallah and the others were, but all of them indicate that (by definition) Israel has intelligence gathering capabilities that either Hizbollah does not know about or else that it is unable to thwart.
Therefore Hezbollah has no responses Israel is unaware of or is unable to thwart?
You seem to be inflating Israeli intelligence successes into omniscience, and omniscience into omnipotence.
Their fiber optic communication system was probably compromised. Possibly they bought compromised equipment or the lines were tapped
The “churn” in the senior command of the Hezbollah is not as paralyzing as you might think. Such ‘events’ happen regularly in Western business as well. On those scales, there is always a second level “permanent bureaucracy” humming along to carry out the day-to-day tasks involved in the “business” at hand. Hezbollah has had decades of Israeli “meddling” to learn work around strategies for such ‘disruptions.’
Lastly, the Hezbollah ‘strategy’ seems to have been worked out long ago. Competent militaries play out various strategies and their probable outcomes as a matter of course. That is what ‘War Colleges’ and ‘Planning Staffs’ are for.
Finally, do not expect Hezbollah to act like comparable western organizations. This is the Middle East. ‘They’ have their own rules.
The turnover in the leadership may not be so paralyzing, I agree, given how they are organized, but the current series of strikes do indicate that Israel does know some things that I wouldn’t have expected. There’s clearly something rotten in the insides of Hizb’ullah via which Israel can smell stuff. It’d be a good idea, no matter what happens, for the Hizb’ullah and their allies to sort things out soon.
You surprise me. Hezbollah is a large political organisation
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_members_of_the_2022–2026_Lebanese_Parliament"
It is impossible to operate in complete secrecy when satellites overhead monitor and agents on the ground report. That is ignoring the $7m + reward from US for deaths of some of these people.
The truth is to prevent Iran demolishing Israel US made pledges to agitate for a cease-fire in Gaza and if you listen to Nasrallah’s last speech he stated categorically Hezbollah would not sell out Palestinians in Gaza………..then coupled with Israeli “leak” on X that Nasrallah had to be killed because he would not de-couple from Gaza suggests Amos Hochstein tried to divide Hezbollah from Gaza to isolate Iran.
The aim of Netanyahu is to set the world of fire such that it cannot be extinguished in his lifetime – thus avoiding jail. Maybe Blinken-Biden have the same plan ?
Quite why the masses in so-called democracies permit these Fanatics to destroy their future eludes me
Answering your own question, aren’t you? The so-called masses in so-called democracies are in no position to refuse permission. Of course, many of them also don’t want to, but that is because they are themselves fanatics when Israel is involved.
It’s time to listen to Alastair Crooke’s account in terms of what happened in the blood-coated murder of Nasrallah.
The former British Diplomat Crooke has been in Lebanon for several decades. He has a for more objective understanding of the situation there than what was given in this present article.
Crooke is Northern Irish educated in Switzerland and Foreign Office – MI6 is never acknowledged just as the British Ambassador in Washington is MI6 under Foreign Office cover.
He wrapped up his career as a hostage negotiator which means he knows the details whereas politicians know outlines. He speaks carefully and thoughtfully which is his virtue and he knows and is not offering opinions as such.
It is good to hear rationality nowadays.
As for the criminal gang rampaging as arsonists it may be time to consider them Pagans – we may be living in a time where the devout and religious are being parodied by their Total Opposites
According to this article (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/sep/30/deep-intelligence-penetration-enabled-israel-to-kill-hassan-nasrallah`) the spy who gave away Nasrallah’s location was Iranian. So it’s worse than I thought: not only is Hezbollah riddled with Western agents, but so is Iran. Obviously the resistance will now take action against Western infiltration, but, coupled with the Iranian President’s confession that the Iranians were fooled by obvious Western lies about ceasefires in exchange for non-retaliation, this whole thing indicates that even after more than 75 years, the Arabs/Iranians are all still desperately naive about what the West is, and how Westerners will (and will continue) to behave.
Unattributed sources in French newspapers relayed to gullible by MI6 newspaper Grauniad is perfect for Israeli propaganda
I find you can always rely on Israeli sources especially when NYT or WaPo or CNN or Guardian relay them to tell you how gullible you might really be.
It is like a distorting mirror
Naive or preferring to be seen as naive instead of admitting that they didn’t want to risk an escalation at this point?
Here is a recent longform talk between Alistair Crooke and Larry Johnson on this topic. Right near the end of the video Larry gives a big complimentary shout-out to Yves Smith and NakedCap on her recent postings. This talk is from (Sonar 21) Larry Johnson’s longform program called Countercurrents:
https://api.bitchute.com/embed/q3Vrf5c-umY/
The Middle East is unbelievably complicated but Crooke is a very good teacher on this and goes into a lot of good detail.