Israel has gone all in on its bet that its patron, the US, would be always and ever loyal to its interests. That in finance is called an undiversified bet and is considered to be particularly hazardous. Israel has further engaged in the finance equivalent of leveraging that wager by piling on: engaging in in-your-face genocide in Gaza, intensified ethnic cleansing in the West Bank, attacking civilians relentlessly in Lebanon (notably but far from exclusively Beirut), and overextending itself in Syria. Most YouTube geopolitical regulars depict US Middle East policy as totally captured by Israel; Larry Wilkerson has been a lone opponent, contending that the Israel’s conduct, no matter how appalling, serves and is driven by US interests.
If this new story in the Times of Israel is any guide, Israel assumptions that the Zionist state and US interests are joined at the hip just took a big hit, in the form of Trump negotiating with and concluding a deal with Ansar Allah of Yemen, aka the Houthis.
Not only was Israel not a party to the talks, but the (only vaguely described) pact covers only the US and Yemen. Yemen is to stop attacking US ships and the US will stop shelling Yemen. So Yemen is free to and no doubt will continue to attack any Israel-bound vessels. There remains the interesting question of whether the US will try to provoke Yemen by getting a US carrier to go to Israel.
But even more distressing to Israelis is that this pact was agreed after the successful Houthi attack on Ben Gurion Airport. This is a serious psychological as well as practical blow. Apparently, a single missile got though Israel’s much-touted air defenses, including recently-supplied THAAD systems.1 So unlike the staged Iran retaliation in April, where Iran got through not just Israel and US but also supplementary French and UK air defenses via among other things a drone swarm which overwhelmed the air defenses, this attack demonstrated conclusively how vulnerable Israel proper is to the stereotyped sandal-wearing Houthis. Even if the damage can be repaired quickly, the airport was out of service and foreign carrier cancelled flights. It’s not clear how quickly they can be persuaded to restore full schedules.
Despite the spectacle of Gaza violence and now starvation having the effect of making distress in Israel look like whinging by pampered sadists, there is more and more evidence that the country is coming apart. Alastair Crooke pointed out right after October 7 that it did profound damage to core premise of the state of Israel, that it was a safe haven for Jews. The justification for the savage and disproportionate violence against Palestinians over decades was to maintain that status. The brutal lashing out after October 7 looks like a further manifestation of displacement activity, even before getting to the fact that eschatological crazies now dominate the government.
Despite Netanyahu’s deeply offensive braying, Israel has not fared well since October 7. Hamas has not been defeated and the hostages have not been returned. Israel has launched yet another reservist-call up, when no-show levels have already been high. Larry Wilkerson claims that the losses to the IDF are much larger than reported. Not only is the death count high, but the level of severely (including permanently) injured is unsustainable for a small country. Wilkerson points out that the number of wounded is the key figure to watch, since in theaters like Lebanon and Gaza, the injured can be transported quickly to first-class hospitals, improving survival rates.
And in addition to the practically and psychologically destabilizing failure to subdue Gaza quickly, Israel’s other warmaking has produced other Pyrrhic victories. Israel barely was able to enter Lebanon and suffered horrific losses, hence it resorting to pummeling Beirut to bring Hezbollah to heel.3 And that mission still failed. The objective was to enable the Israel settlers in the North to return to their homes. Many have still not done so, believing the border area to be unsafe.
The spectacular pushing-over of an unexpectedly weak Assad regime has made Israel the dog that caught the car. It’s overextended and the much much better armed and resourced Turkiye is starting to take action against Israel adventurism. And the Houthis didn’t just keep shelling but also seemed to be getting better over time.
Many of its best and brightest have left, some contend as many as a million. Even if the number it much smaller, Israel depends on a small number of highly educated and/or trained professionals. A serious hollowing out of that cadre leads to administrative malfunction and seize-ups. Tourism has collapsed. Israel society is more and more divided, to the degree that the mainstream press is reporting more and more signs of an impending civil was (see here and here as examples). So the last thing that Israel can absorb well now is further destabilization via a US reduction in support.
Now, in Trumpland, it is never clear how long any arrangement will hold. Trump may have decided to cut his losses after his much ballyhooed bombing campaign in Yemen did not cow them, and even worse, the US suffered the embarrassments and costs of losing not just so-called Reaper drones but then two fighter jets.2 But if the US thought that the Yemenis leaving US ships alone would restore normalcy in the Red Sea, they are set to learn otherwise soon. It seems highly unlikely that insurers will resume giving coverage while Yemen still has open season on Israel-bound or connected ships. So even if the Houthis hew to the deal’s terms, will the Don declare them in breach because US commercial carriers are still not traversing the Red Sea?4
One other point regarding the Times of Israel story, to which we turn now. It claims that the Houthis agree to the Trump demand to end attacks on US ships as a result of Iran pressure. We have said that Trump’s real desire out of the Iran talks was not just to score some sort of colorable win on the nuclear enrichment front, but more important, to deliver a victory of some sort with respect to Yemen.
Note also, contrary to my assumptions about the timeline, that Israel made its devastating attack on Yemen’s Saana airport before Trump made his surprise announcement. Clearly that attack had US intelligence support even though we apparently did not provide new/additional materiel. I had mistakenly assumed this was an Israel show of force, not just retaliation for the Ben Gurion attack, but also to demonstrate that Israel could pound Yemen all on its own, thank you very much.
From the Times of Israel in Trump ditched Israel with surprise Houthi truce. That doesn’t bode well on Iran:
The Israeli Air Force…flattened the airport in Sanaa, a day after Israeli jets pounded the port city of Hodeida.
Then, US President Donald Trump dropped his own bombshell.
Without coordinating with Israel or other allies, he announced during a White House meeting that the Houthis had agreed to stop attacking shipping lanes in the Red Sea, and said that the US would halt its attacks on the Iran-backed group.
The Houthis, meanwhile, declared they would keep hitting Israel. As if to emphasize the point, a drone believed to have been launched from Yemen flew toward Israel early Wednesday before being intercepted by the IAF.
If the agreement holds — and that is an extremely uncertain proposition — Israel, it seems, is on its own in the fight against the Houthis….
Worryingly, Trump didn’t even mention the Houthis’ attacks on Israel…
It is unclear what exactly was achieved by Trump’s two-month bombing campaign, which cost over $1 billion….
If the Houthis do continue firing at Israeli-linked civilian ships and at the country itself, Israel is unlikely to be capable of forcing them to stop through airstrikes.
It’s not even clear that hundreds of US strikes are what caused the Houthis to agree to a ceasefire with Washington.
Two Iranian officials told The New York Times that it was Iran that persuaded the Houthis to stop their attacks on US assets, as Tehran engages in nuclear talks with the US.
And the punch line:
It appears Israel may run out of meaningful targets before the Houthis run out of missiles…
Still, the most important element in the conflict with the Houthis is the implications for Israel’s confrontation with Iran….
With Israel on the sidelines, the president could suddenly announce a deal with Iran that leaves its nuclear program intact. Israel would find itself isolated, and unlike in the Houthi case, it would be inconceivable that it would attack Iran after an agreement with Trump.
My guess is this surprise development is a very rare case of Trump’s personal pathology having an upside. Trump cannot stand to be dominated. Yet that has not been Netanyahu’s posture versus the US but openly that of many Israeli officials. Larry Wilkerson and others have reported their shock and anger at how Israel intelligence officials and IDF members waltz into high-level meetings, not even having been made to go through normal security checks, much the less get clearances. Trump would find the persistent muscling and presumption to be intolerable and would feel compelled to restore the US status as firmly in charge of matters Israel.
Now having said all of that, notice this key sentence in the Times of Israel account: “…it would be inconceivable that it would attack Iran after an agreement with Trump.”
If Netanyahu and his clique believe that an attack on Iran would force America to saddle up, that means Israel would need to do so before Iran negotiations are completed, since the risk to Israel of an agreement are real.
And a strike does not need to be successful to have the desired effect. The loss of Israel aircraft would do, particularly if then followed by a false flag attack within Israel. Mind you, that would not be credible to anyone with an operating brain cell who has observed Iran’s considerable restraint in the fact of Israel’s provocations, but that isn’t the target audience for this sort of stunt.
So while the Trump action looks like a remarkably positive development, it’s still way too early to declare a win for peace. Israel hardliners and Netanyahu must be besides themselves, and Israel has already amply demonstrated its capacity to operate well outside any notion of norms and decency.
____
1 Larry Wilkerson said that what made the THAAD impressive was not its missiles but its super duper radar.
2 Only one is arguably directly due to Houthi shelling targeting aircraft carriers, as in a fast evasive action dumping a plane in the drink. The second, an attachment failure (landing jet presumably not grabbing those rubber bandy thingies that bring it to a fast stop) has not, as far as I can tell, been further explained. A maintenance lapse? Stressed staff screwup? Or one of our new pet issues, a (Covid cognitive impact induced) checklist failure?
3 I am in no position to adjudicate the debate over whether the Israel decapitation efforts were successful. My impression is there is a strong case that Hezbollah remained very well armed and had enough organizational depth in the form of a younger generation of seasoned figures, to carry on. But as part of the government of Lebanon, the societal costs of the continued bombing of Beirut, particularly given the already-desperate conditions in the country in the wake of the massive fertilizer cargo explosion, were too high to justify.
4 There is reason to think that Trump won’t go there unless he needs cover for yielding to Israel Lobby pressure. Most experts depict the cost of the longer transit around the Cape of Good Hope as manageable.
The view of “The Deal” from the other side
Seems more like unilateral withdrawal which was presented by our illustrious leader as a deal.
Unilateral withdrawal … sounds like “surrender” or more charitably, “retreat.”
Houthi keep on Houthi’ing.
USS Truman needs to come into port for a lengthy refit! It has been “deployed” longed than the systems are designed to be used. The other carrier in the Arabian Sea is just in from cruising around the west Pac, it does not have that much time on station left in its design and magazine. The missile defense destroyers are low magazine need rearming and home port refit.
Short the US Navy is over extended while not deployed to defend Taipei.
Carriers do not generate that many sorties, a lot of bombing is flown out of Djibouti where US Navy runs a forward operating base from the airport runway. There is likely a refueling and air cargo force there as well. Keeping US Mil Spec fuel and bombs/guidance kits in the region is a big logistics tail!
While the “buck for the bang” on Yemen is tiny! Thumping rubble is not winning.
Distances are much longer over Iran, the “good stuff” is buried deeper and well masked. There exist air and missile defenses. Thumping rubble while exposing your attack assets to hazards is not profitable.
Israel might get Iran to use some of its offensive capacity.
A comment on US Army’s THAAD (been around a while, not that many produced, but continually upgraded), it is a longer range radar set. The recent additional “system” came from Korea (if I recall) likely was face down the Red Sea. Not reassuring! Israel is more important than US Forces Korea.
And I think that right there is why Trump called it quits and I have been waiting for it. That naval force was being pushed to the edge and was running out of missiles and needed heavy-duty maintenance so the whole thing was a gamble on Trump’s part that Yemen would break and ask for peace – only they didn’t. They haven’t for the past decade or more so why would they now? Probably find that it was the admirals that demanded that that force be pulled out before there was a hit on one of their ships and told Trump that it would make him look bad on Fox News if that happened.
These ships being pulled out, getting Re supplied, good thing we’re not in an all out war.
Of course those ships would be auditioning for starring roles as coral reefs by now if we were in one.
So what’s the plan when taking on China?
Sarc.
By the invasion of the Philippines in late 1944 the U.S. Navy had two huge aircraft carrier task forces, who rotated active operations.
While one task force was operating the other was refitting at an atoll in the rear. Halsey ran one task force Spruance the other. Each task force had 4 divisions of 4 carriers each with support screenings combatant tankers and logistics ships. Divisions could operate together or independently.
By mid 1945 carrier divisions were raiding Japanese main islands.
Combat requires a lot of stuff.
Who knows how the Navy could operate with a big enemy?
“USS Truman needs to come into port for a lengthy refit! It has been “deployed” longed than the systems are designed to be used. The other carrier in the Arabian Sea is just in from cruising around the west Pac, it does not have that much time on station left in its design and magazine.”
Sorry, can’t agree. 9 month CVN deployments aren’t that unusual.
Optimistic take: Looking like even pro-Zion Trump can only tolerate so much genocide-ing…
Pessimistic take: this is the flip side of the “pivot to Asia”…. China hawks are telling Trump that Israel and the Sandbox are distracting the US from its Thucydides-momen (trap) with China
both could be right
It could be similar to Biden’s exit from Afghanistan, which I found encouraging, only to amp up the Ukrainian conflict.
Great military strategists/chicken hawks like Biden/Trump may follow a similar playbook as they cater to the MIC.
Trump, the capricious, egoistic, backstabbing agent of chaos is IMO the only person in Washington capable of cutting Zionists down to size. Fingers crossed that Bibi triggers him.
The Christian Zionists will try their hardest to get Trump back in line supporting Greatest Israel to advance their own Christian Zionist Armageddon/End of Days agenda. Maybe if the Netanyahoodlums trigger Trump too deeply, the Christian Zionists for Armageddon may put themselves in the penalty box for not getting Trump’s change of mood.
William Schryver (@imetatronink) on the latest carrier fighter loss:
https://nitter.poast.org/imetatronink/status/1919930543124201856#m
He finds the mooted failure of the arrestors unlikely (apparently quadruple redundancy) and the failure of the pilot in that event to use unarrested roll speed and extreme TOGA power to take off again inexplicable.
Human error and/or the consequences of evasive manoeuvres would explain it though.
for being such an erudite, Mr Schry has a tendancy of skewing to the more convoluted chain of events when the evidence is in the gray zone.
YMMV. i still enjoy reading his thoughts, and agree with him mkre often than ntot
Carrier pilots are well aware that during each shipboard landing the plane’s tail hook could miss all of the arresting cables and need to fly around for another pass. It isn’t a rare event by any means.
They are supposed to be ready to go full throttle once the pilot realizes the miss.
reasonable peopl can disagree given the gray zone of info….
but given the degeneracy of military fitness standards (of all ranks…say what you will of Petraeus’ politics, but he could outrun soldiers 20 years younger), i would not be shocked if pilot standards have eroded as well.
ymmv
Bolters happen. Every trap is designed so the aircraft hits power until it starts slowing. They aim for no 3 wire. Each landing is videoed and evaluated and pilot is graded. There is a pilot stationed on the deck edge (LSO) who monitors the final approach and can “wave-off” an unstabilized approach see this vid for an example LSO duties
“Call the ball”…
“Roger ball”
That said I recall cases where the wire (pennant) was “hooked” but the hydraulic gear (responsibility of the Air V-3 division) didn’t work correctly or cable failed. pennant failure vid
All depends on if there are 3 or 4 trap wires. Large steel cables. If 3 they aim for #2. If 4 they aim for #3.
Once they hit the deck, they go to full throttle. Missing the cable or bolting isn’t unusual. If at full power they will have enough speed to take off safely
The arresting cables are big steel cables attached to devices that are calibrated and adjusted to the weight of each individual aircraft.
I have no idea what caused the loss of the aircraft. But it is unusual to have any kind of failure to actually lose the aircraft.
I would like to point out that the naval forces of the USA had already lost another F-18 airplane in December to friendly fire (officially).
Regarding the losses amongst Israelis: if the standard expression used in the Israeli armed forces is to be believed, then there were already at least 5942 fatalities registered in February 2025 — much more than the (then) official 844 dead. A similar discrepancy is observed regarding wounded personnel, and it dates back all the way to the early phases of the genocide that took place in 2023 (October to December), when 1593 wounded were officially announced by the chief of staff, whereas the Israeli health ministry had already registered 10548. I have seen so many videos of Hamas fighters blowing up Israelis tanks and ambushing foot patrols that I can believe the Israeli casualties are much higher than admitted.
Gaza is Israel’s Vietnam. It will never recover its reputation after what it has done to Gaza. The reason the zealots are pressing on with the genocide is that they know there is no way back to respectability, so they are gambling on a successful ethnic cleansing of Gaza. They are willing for Israel to become a pariah state as long as it is tribally pure. This will not end well.
So God, in this case, the Donald, has left them in the lurch again. History tends to repeat itself, when we don’t learn the lessons the first time around.
The problem with monotheism is that ideals are not absolutes. Truth, beauty, platonic forms are ideals. The core codes, creeds, heroes, narratives at the center of every society are ideals.
The universal, on the other hand, is the elemental. So a spiritual absolute would be the essence of sentience, from which we rise, not an ideal of wisdom and judgement, from which we fell.
The light shining through the film, than the stories playing out on it.
I would also like to point out that I’ve been blocked from further posting or commenting on Substack, since making that argument.
Google Substack, God’s Problems, by John Merryman and there is no further posting by me from two days after.
When I took it up with the help desk, they ran me through the usuals, cleaning cache, etc, but when I sent them a screenshot, with the address down in the corner as, run script void 0, with the curser on the share button and no reply button under the comment box, all communication ceased.
You could try speaking in English?
If they didn’t understand my point, why would they bother cancelling me?
It wasn’t my first essay and I do subscribe to other writers.
It is difficult to see how the could object to your point or language. Since you have other posts, you’re certain it’s this one? Maybe there was a complaint or problem with another post that took a while to percolate up, and the temporal connection to the above post is coincidental.
I note it’s still down.
Thank you, Yves.
My only surprise is that it has come so quickly.
I have long wondered who Israel would seek for protection once it became clear that the US was in relative decline and a multipolar world emerged.
Some years ago, Israel put out feelers towards China, using technology as something in common. I thought and still do think that Russia would be the more likely patron and perhaps the EU.
The chuckleheads of Brussels are most likely partners to share in Israel’s collapse. The genocide fits into the longstanding tradition established by Simon de Montfort against the Cathhars and maintained by Eurpean colonists until the present day.
I suspect that Putin no longer sees the Israelis as Jews, and whatever feeling he has for Russian Jews no longer extends to the Zionists. And Xi knows a losing cause when he sees it and both China and Russia have a respect for international law which is unfamiliar to the Collective West, and they will probably take the lead in re-building a Palestine for Palestinians while the Zionists are waiting to face war crimes tribunals – god knows they have left enough evidence of their crimes, individually and colectively, all over the internet.
My guess is that an efficient tribunal could get through a couple of hundred death sentences per day, and a body of twenty tribunals could sort out the Zionists in 12 months or so.
The Archdruid has been saying for a while that Europe will become a Muslim dominated region as they keep creating refugees in Muslim regions and then letting them immigrate. The situation could quickly become overly dynamic if Europe became the main public sponsor of middle eastern wars, without the ability to use US leadership as cover.
That would be lovely and it would be even better if that can extend one day to politicos, talking heads, and tech moguls in the West.
I admit that I never understood the argument of Russia or China favoring an unstable genocidal settler colony of 7 million Jews over 1.9 billion Muslims, especially for countries whose hinterlands are primarily Muslim. Even if there was a strong cultural affinity that I’m in no way convinced actually ever existed, surely seeing 19 months of open genocide and lawlessness kills off any good feelings.
What will Mrs Adelson be saying to Trump now? Will there be threats to call in any debts owed by Trump (if any)?
And if she and her colleagues aren’t saying it to Trump directly, will they be saying it to the ring of neocons who surround him, so that they exercise ‘suasion’ over him?
The Gaza situation has reached such heights of pure and unalloyed evil that the whole West deserves to go down over it. In the UK silence remains supreme, although the recent cautious volte-face of the FT and a few MPs (some of them even Tories) suggests the possibility of the worm turning. However, in terms of silences I have much the greatest contempt for the so-called centre and centre-left media, politicians and, above all, the churches who have been like blind and deaf mutes over the last 19 months. For the most part, the clergy of the Church of England have been especially cretinous (even by their dismal standards) and as prone to hasbara as anyone.
I think that’s where the billion dollars spent bombing Yemen fits. I figure that Trump has repaid what he thinks he owed, but not one cent more.
“how Israel intelligence officials and IDF members waltz into high-level meetings”
Well, at least they ain’t Waltzing no more, at least for now. ;)
The game only continues to work if the figurehead can project strength. Still have the mid terms in 2026.
I don’t see any cuts in arms and aid to Israel mentioned.
And I keep thinking of Europe’s fretting over abandonment that is also thought of as a “division of labor” by others.
Not gonna be cuts in arms, imo at least half is profit/donations etc.
Carrier is huge risk even vs Houthis, imagine Iran. Imo us will not seriously attack iran even if israel does and loses planes. Maybe token. Dunno if israel proper was in trouble, but at that point I assume israel would try nukes.
Iran needs end to sanctions. GA sold experimentsl reactors to foreign entities (including one to Iran that was never delivered because shah toppled) that could be used to make med isotopes, allowing permits for fuel under 20% enrichment. Trump wants win, will he allow that, say with Russia controlling/supplying fuel?
As Yves says, things are always uncertain and unpredictable in Trumpland. But the firing of Mike Waltz for, reportedly, being too much of a Netanyahu mouthpiece does fit with this scenario.
It seems we have given Israel over $300 billion (infl. adjusted) over the years since 1948.
And what has it achieved? A genocide live-streaming, a fanatical regime, led by a psychopath, and the U.S. constantly involved in endless Mid-East wars. I think its time to bid them adieu, and let’s see how far they can manage with the spigot turned off.
And would that the NY Times spend less time fretting over Israel, and more time focusing on the American-financed genocide in Gaza. This atrocity will rank as one of the great stains on the American legacy, yet it seems to continue without so much as a whimper from our spineless media, not to mention the brave warriors in Congress.
Zero Hedge posted a story dated May 6 from the Middle East Eye, written by Sean Mathews, headlined “Exclusive: Saudi Arabia pressed Trump to stop attacks on Yemen ahead of visit”. Here are the first two paragraphs:
Saudi Arabia has been lobbying the US to stop all US attacks on Yemen ahead of President Donald Trump’s visit to the kingdom, warning that it would create an “embarrassing situation” for Riyadh and the US, Middle East Eye can reveal.
Saudi Arabia has resisted the US bombing campaign in Yemen since the Biden administration began strikes in 2024, but their insistence that attacks stop picked up last week as they became more concerned about the scope of the strikes, two US officials told MEE on the condition of anonymity. “Trump appears to be meeting a Saudi ‘ask’ to stop strikes ahead of his visit,” one of the US officials told MEE.
Yves, I don’t disagree with your post, just thought this is relevant.
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/exclusive-saudi-arabia-pressed-trump-stop-attacks-yemen-ahead-visit
“Larry Wilkerson has been a lone opponent, contending that the Israel’s conduct, no matter how appalling, serves and is driven by US interests.”
Another oponent is dead now:
Hizbullah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah said in an April 8, 2024 speech that was aired on Spot Shot Online (Lebanon) that the United States controls Israel, and not the other way around. He said that the Jewish or Zionist lobby in America is a “joke” invented by Arabs in order to provide an excuse for their financial ties with America. Nasrallah also said that these Arabs claim that they are creating an “Arab lobby” to compete with the Zionist lobby, but in fact, all they are doing is increasing the money in the American coffers.
https://www.memri.org/tv/hizbullah-sec-gen-hassan-nasrallah-america-conrols-israel-no-jewish-zionist-lobby
Laith Maruff and a lot of more lefty anti-imperialists always firmly state that Israel is the tail and the US is the dog. I think the truth is a little more complicated and has to do with how a faction of the US elite made common cause with Israel to hijack the US policy on West Asia.
Aaron Good has been doing very good work on tracing the origins of the “Israel lobby” lately through his Gray Alliance series and article about Israeli involvement in the “Cuban Business”. There was a strong, perhaps overwhelming, organized crime component in the Zionist project from the very start.
Please read more carefully. The post said he is a lone opponent among YouTube geopolitical commentators, and not the world at large.
I am thinking of YouTube channels with a significant geopolitical coverage such as Breakthrough News, Electronic Intifada, Geopolitical Economy Report, and Maruff’s Free Palestine TV channel. Maruff is a regular on Dialog Works.
It has been noted long ago on NC that Pat Robinson [no less] was an early Zionist operative and even Raygun would not have a bar of it. After that they got a foot in the door and its expanded since then.
This then gets complicated by how the Jewry over the time were sold the notion of the romantic idea of Israel as a home base – was surrounded by unfriendly types e.g. PR/Marketing permanent victim status. Not to mention the whole ME wars, starting with Iraq, after supporting it as a proxy against Iran – Oil companies/ BSD investors took a dim view on getting kicked to the curb. All of which ended in an anti Muslim PR campaign in the US during the Bush Sr and more so Bush Jr years. Cripes has everyone forgotten that era, was a full court press to Christendom-fy America via purity schools and legal agendas.
Not to mention I pointed out yonks ago about a conference in the US of high level officials from every major Judaic/Christian denomination and the results was regardless of what they disagreed on the one thing they all needed too – come together on – is how many Americans were leaving the faith of the creator.
St Augustine quotes about persecution and torture in order to save souls thingy …
So in an Israeli Civil War will they Samson themselves? I know it makes me a bad person, but the thought puts a smile on my face.
A deal with Iran would put Trump on the hardliners’ s***list. Trump has now offended so many people, it won’t be long before an ex Mossad agent with a sniper rifle would be called into service, paid for by a couple of American billionaires. #ChangeYouCanBelieveIn
I have to assume that the US intel agencies keep close track of Mossad’s doings. The only way an ex-Mossad agent ( and his whole shooter team) could do that is if the US Intel Agencies want it done for their own reasons.
If that happens, such an ex-Mossad agent and his/her shooter team would be hung out to dry as a disposable Oswald. ” It was a lone shooter-team gun nut. Or a lone ex-Mossad shooter team” . Or whatever.
I disagree. I have a contact here who has extensive contacts among current and former Global South diplomats.
Mossad does a ton of US wetwork. That requires it to have operational autonomy.
Yves, that carrier rubber band thingy is called a ‘snag line’ and it arrests the deck travel of the landing fighter jet by catching its ‘tailhook’. Sometimes it fails.
Interesting thoughts on the future of Israel. Parsing the machinations (impulses) of Trump is nigh impossible.
Some other things to consider, the Navy most likely is running out of bombs and spare parts for the aircraft. Carrier landing are really hard on aircraft. Most modern US fighter aircraft require a lot of maintenance. Most are designed for short term engagements.
I agree strongly with this and I think the “Israel break” angle is highly overstated.
The US Navy is now in very serious trouble. The Battle of Bab-el-Mandeb has turned into their Battle of Tsushima. The air carrier fleets have been exposed as badly outdated, and the Houthis have shown the entire world that reliable airdefense and naval control is now within the reach of any country, not just western states. US and western air power is also in the same boat (no pun intended).
If the pressure to back off has come from the military, rather than Trump or his Israel-cool circles, then we will see more pressure for a pullback on Iran and foreign expansionism in general. Western col-war oriented armies are not in a position to deal to the proliferation of cheap drone and missile tech. They now have to walk quickly and carry an umbrella.
Iran has air defenses but Yemen has zero air defenses beyond some ability to hit fairly slow moving drones. It’s just that they have the ability to withstand punishment and fight back.
[This was supposed to be a reply to Froghole above but the page refreshed and the comment box shifted focus…]
I accidentally attended VE Day Evensong in the cathedral yesterday – a last minute decision to watch #2 son in the choir for the first time in months because parent #1 was away – and to my horror arrived at the West Door at the same time as a huge procession of three counties’ Freemasons with banners and full regalia because it was a double-bill, a celebration of funny handshakes over funny walks.
The Dean’s address on the European campaign of WW2 was actually very good. Robed to the nines, he opened with a joke at the Masons – it is not often that we officiants feel under-dressed compared to the congregation – and I learnt something I never knew: the Nazi’s hated Freemasons and sent them to the camps with Jews and homosexuals and had a special SS unit devoted to identifying because Hitler considered them the most implacable of all opponents of the Third Reich. He read from Richard Dimbleby’s dispatch from Bergen-Belsen on the horrors of the camps, the dead and dying left on the verges, the starving stacked too weak to move in bunks in the hut.
However, he then started talking about how peace is fraying 80 years later. He held up the Ukraine and his only mention of Russia was to condemn her invasion and praise the Ukraine: shocking, given he had just grieved the 350k UK war dead yet made no mention of nearly 100x as many Soviet dead nor called out the Galicians as Nazis, then and now.
Then he simply said “and the hostilities in Palestine and the Middle East”. That was it. No mention of Israel as perpetrator of an open-air concentration camp and forced starvation of a civilian population, no mention of a bombing campaign in Gaza more intense than Dresden, Cologne and London combined.
It was unbelievable. An entire cathedral filled with the great and good, draped in their finery, from the Lord Lieutenant down, sermonising about just war and peace and shroud-waving Nazism and the Holocaust and nothing was said about fascism in Ukraine let alone genocide by Israel.
There is a disgusting moral cravenness by the Church of England. Even Tory MP’s are now more moral.
The service ended with the national anthem. I feel ambivalent about it at the best of times but I have have sung it before for QEII. I did not sing it for Charles III: he is head of a church that chooses to hear no evil, see no evil and speak no evil and he can make his own case before his God without my interventions.
I would like to think this is all dying out, this pompous pageantry, but the people in that nave hold real power locally, at the roots of civil society. They administer businesses and councils and charities and schools etc. And meet in backrooms in secret societies.
I suddenly felt, standing self-consciously mute, what it must be like to live in Northern Ireland as a non-Unionist, with flags and banners and lodges marching all over the place and singing about the Crown and its victories and meeting behind closed doors to run local affairs. And I did not like the feeling.
In his day, my father would have been there (Master of *two* lodges, very unusual) but I suddenly felt like an outsider and, bluntly, that my views now put me at the wrong end of all those ceremonial lances. What courage it would take to stand up and heckle the Dean in his address! Yet people did stand up in the past, from the Suffragettes onwards. I wonder if any of us possess it now….
I had a similar feeling, perhaps not as extreme because I wasn’t brought up with religion, but after 9/11 I decided to break down and go to the Unitarian Church around the corner for their Sunday sermon.
The church was packed and I wound up way in the front on the floor, so I could not leave. I would have.
After expressing obligatory condolences for any who knew the victims, the pastor proceeded to make a warmongering speech….of course wrapped in religious tropes. I was appalled.
It prefigured what happened at the National Cathedral, IIRC mid the following week.
That’s strangely reassuring to hear.
Parent #1 is back from their trip and confirms that there has been no condemnation or even mention of Israel for months, only Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine and that taking this up with the Cantor has only produced the addition of the Sudan to prayers for the day. :-(