Bibi must be careful not to have to many bad news. Yes he can many things hide ( some hundreds soldiers is no problem but if there will be thousands...) . Also 1 time hit at airports can be hide, but if Iran will do bigger attack and with more modern and the destruction will be too big also to hide, then popular can go down quickly.
It is quite a frightening situation. Bibi plays to win and hates to lose. We have a tight US election, Biden is limited in what he can do without causing political blowback.This is high stakes poker.
It's amazing to see how much modern aircraft, precision weapons, artillery and intelligence equipment Israel has and how ineffectively they use it. It is also interesting why Israel does not use FPV drones, which, in combination with ground reconnaissance and aerial reconnaissance, would significantly reduce personnel losses. Probably the General Staff of Israel is as arrogant and rigid as those generals raised by the Soviet Union in the Ukrainian General Staff.
Bureaucratic inertia. There's stories about Israeli private citizens trying to setup FPV drones manufacturing but they're blocked because.... IAI/IWI and Elbit and Rafael aren't making them so they might as well not exist. Besides they have the Spike ATGM and the harop suicide drone, what else do you need (that's the thinking)
They are using little drones for reconnaissance and dropping grenades in Gaza but it's like early to mid 2022 on Ukraine, the learning phase.
Similar to Hezzbollah actually, they're.... Not really using FPV drones either.
For these FPV drones to be effective as a whole, they also need to be relatively cheap and easy to produce. And that isn't the strength of the Israeli defence sector at the moment. They produce rather expensive and complicated stuff.
«For these FPV drones to be effective as a whole, they also need to be relatively cheap and easy to produce» – They are relatively cheap and easy to manufacture. That is why Ukraine uses them. In addition, they can always be improved and modified for each task.
«They produce rather expensive and complicated stuff» – And what prevents mass production of relatively cheap and efficient things and at the same time quite complex and expensive? Ah, well... you can't make money on cheap stuff.
The defense establishment across the West is determined to learn no lessons. It's like when the Cassandra project a few years back showed that many conflicts can be predicted - politicians didn't fund a continuation because they won't want to be held accountable when things fall apart.
That was my thoughts too. And the IDF apparently did all manner of assessments after 2008 which revealed all manner of issues in command and control structure. Seems they implemented no fixes.
Owing to such triumphs I wonder whether they will get "Western" SF to be the tip of their spearheads in Lebanon, thus making us complicit in yet more war crimes diametrically against the will of the general public.
As Declassified UK has reported, all throughout the Gaza op there have been more RAF A400s flying via Cyprus than would be needed for extra-large supplies of bandages (the official story.) Meanwhile recent public opinion polling from YouGov has shown 64/19% favourable/unfavourable towards Israel.
Particularly poignant sarcasm this time in the service of reality. Great job! Takes a bit of the edge off the goat rope that is the current mini war along the Israel-Lebanese border. Thanks . . . I think. **LOL**
I sat down and wrote up my own post-strike assessment yesterday precisely because the US media is acting like russia's right now with the "no hits, everything intercepted, we're magic!" act. 100% confirmed my standing theory that US leaders are never going to actually fight China. They know full well they can't stop massive missile barrages that, even if not physically that damaging, penetrate the veil of invincibility that lets American leaders wage war only against people who can barely fight back.
Posturing is the foundation of diplomacy: "If you do this, we nuke you." The China blah-blah is posturing. But the West doesn't have to fight.
In the Ukraine war, for example:
1) Cost to Russia is now 25-40% of government budget. The West forced that, without any fighting. Expensive, yes, but affordable. For the US, less than 6% of defense budget.
2) Chinese banks have backed away from the tiny yuan-ruble money markets. The West forced that with no cost to themselves.
These facts would give China something to think about. Especially point #2.
Who is it you would rather have America wage war with? America has waged war with Russia and China through their proxies in both Vietnam and Korea. So there has been no “waging war against only those who can’t fight back” Direct conflict that threatened either the Russian or Chinese dictator states is not something anybody but middle eastern crazies would want to see. I fully believe that without Israel as the focus of their hatred the Islamists would just do what they have always done and seek jihad elsewhere. Religious motivation can’t be reasoned with no matter the religion.
Religious motivation cant be reasoned with no matter which religion… well this certainly makes it difficult when having both Islam an Judaism there. Bit maybe we should leave them to their own, if we cant reason with any of them.
When left to their own they sought to conquer all of Europe and Africa. Islamic State or whatever they are calling themselves today seeks to try again. War give me war!
From a cultural standpoint I think it’s erroneous to say the West has interfered with Islamic countries. We’re fine letting them treat women as property, hack off limbs for shoplifting and all the rest if they would just keep it in their back yard. Problem is they won’t. I’ve had shopkeepers in New York’s Times Square tell me we need Sharia law in America. Doesn’t seem like much buy in to the constitution. At least with Christian’s they are not generally advocating stoning adulterers.
Maybe as some say in the comments, Western fiddling in the Middle East is just a continuation of the crusades. If so, I certainly know my place. But really the West mostly wouldn’t know Christianity if a stack of bibles fell on them and certainly they know Islam even less.
”50,000 massacred Palestinian civilians – over 70% of them women and children – plus 1 million displaced and over 1,500 killed Lebanese civilians..”
Trotting out highly doubtful if not debunked Hamas’ figures and including pagerbombed Hezbies with 1,500 Lebanese civs doesn’t seem very astute in an otherwise entertaining post. Let’s not forget that Hamas started this shitshow as ordered by Iran as requested by the Moscow goblin, and Hezb were only too happy to oblige by firing 8000 plus missiles at Israel for the past year.
I will not bother to discuss when the war started. I guess we disagree on that. But you say that the figure of 50 thousand people killed in Gaza is highly doubtful not to say debunked. So I wonder. Where is the better figures and what are they? And who did the debunking? (2/3 woman and children is probably what you could expect given the composition of the population.)
Hamas, or rather the Palestinian ministry of health, have consistently presented numbers that are pulled from thin air and presented that as truth to the gullible. Int’l media and other not-so-trustworthy middlemen have given these figures near sacred status by dint of ceaseless repetition. Several fact-finding agencies have debunked the numbers, one such below, but because a lie told loudly and often tend to drown out the truth, here we are, arguing again whether to believe a bona fide islamic terrorist organization with genocide as its stated objective, or not?
I am well aware that the numbers are from Hamas/ Palestine authorities of Health. I am aware they are repeated. I am also aware that a trusthworty strategy for Israeli defenders are to claim these figures to be debunked. I will take a look of your debunking. I will however point out that I Asker for an alternative and Korea authoritative source. If the best you can do is to claim that these figures are debunked, well I expect there to be some better figures in your debunking. Which you could have mentioned earlier. Otherwise I cannot trus that debunking. So, yes, until you provide alternative better figures, here we are.
Jesus. Or should I say Abraham? This was poor. The source is obviously not neutral. This is just another version of «The arab are always lying». And no better estimate «This is a Lie; because of statistics..». And we will never know, but of course this is a lie. Please get some better arguments. No credibility.
There’s more to find than the one source I presented. I’m however not here to provide facts for you, Tom or anyone else that you might as well go look for yourself. If you want irrefutable research, go ahead and do the legwork. A few simple searches on Google will yield a rich crop as to whether Hamas figures can be trusted or not. All I know is that I won’t be taking their word for truth, and that anyone who does, or amplifies them, is a certified fool.
You either stand with the single democracy in the whole of MENA, warts and all, or you side with those who yearn to eradicate it, because they’re jews. It is a binary option, for there’s no middle ground between peace and genocide.
It's a bit rich defending Israel by claiming the deaths might be slightly less than the figures quoted by Tom. We've all seen what Israel has been doing to Palestinian civilians every day for the last year. Even if your vague assertions about the figures are correct (which I doubt) it's no less disgusting.
I suppose Israel will now need to conduct themselves more in the Russian manner to gain ground in Lebanon. So I would expect a significant effort to raise all buildings through bombardment before ground forces assault.
As far as the Gaza tunnels go I guess it shows great restraint that they are not all destroyed yet in order to prevent further civilian infrastructure damage. The implication that it may be incompetence or too much concentration on just plain killing civilians is not credible.
No, Israel doesn't "need to conduct itself" in any way at all that kills more people. It has done too much killing already. It "needs to conduct itself" in a diplomatic way to bring peace, by being much more generous to the Palestinians than it has in all previous "negotiations".
First of all, I think Netanyahu is a (war) criminal and deserves nothing short of a death penalty. However, while I highly appreciate the way you criticize both Russia and Ukraine in your reports about that war, I can't help but notice the absence of criticism towards Hamas or Hezbollah (or did I miss it?). Of course Israel is just bombing everything to dust without any sort of remote regard for any collateral casualties (if they are in fact collateral) and that's disgusting. Of course the war didn't start a year ago but decades ago as you very nicely and extensively explained... But again, I can't help but think that nobody currently fighting was born in 1948 (yeah yeah I know I could have picked a much earlier year). Wouldn't you say Hamas is just a little bit at fault here? Aren't they essentially an external entity that fed on the chaos and hatred to grow like a tumor inside fertile (context) Palestine? Sure we have never seen that one before... Yes the West largely participated in such terrorist groups' birth but then... That's done, we can't go back in time, can we. Back to my point, hasn't Hamas endoctrinated Palestinians to hate israelis, and that for a couple decades, starting in middle school? What have they done with the money that was supposed to go into developing Palestine? Oh right, AK47 and RPG's. Overly simplified, I know but still, one just can't deny Hamas huge share of responsability for the massacre. October 7th played right into Netanyahu's hand... But wait, it played right into his hand so why the fuck did Hamas attack and give him the pretext he needed to save himself by dragging the whole region in a mindless and horrific war of extermination??? Please don't say you too believe it was "IAF Apaches"...I also just want to put out there that although I am sure civilian casualties are catastrophic, I can't bring myself to just accept Hamas numbers for absolute truth and I am very amazed to see that you seem to. 70% children? How is that even possible? Maybe it is, maybe I am wrong! What's certain is that even one child is too many! But you rightfully question ukrainian, russian, israeli, american, hell every figure ever provided by anyone but you just copy-paste Hamas'? No no no I am not calling you antisemite or whatever, I am not even trying to criticize you per say... I agree with 95% of what you say and I am thankful for all of your reports, truly.
Can we just stop pretending Isreal+West= bad guys, Islamic groups = poor little victims and acknowledge that this war was made by evil on all sides involved? Why must we pick a side? Yeah the West is disgusting in more ways I could ever list here but who else is actually trying to help? And no I don't mean the USA. Glorious Iran&co, Syria? Oh and by the way, is it that crazy to think that Hezbollah being Iran's pond, it can't possibly mean Iran has some measure (to put it mildly) of control over Lebanon?? No I am not pro Israel, I am not pro anyone in that conflict. Israel is taking the blame because it has the bigger stick. It's the fight of the red ant and the black ant. What would happen to Israeli children were the Hamas given the big guns? Whould we keep saying "ah they had it coming"? Because.... Israelis born 20 years ago had it coming right? I mean that's what everyone keeps saying...
I have a great idea that you will share (you coined it actually): let's reroute the ammo to Ukraine, please! Or maybe is that what you've always been saying and I just got carried away here...
Lots of questions here. I cannot answer all of them. But the question as to why they are continuing to fight, its been a long time since 1948… well whatever you feel about the rightousness of one group or the other the figth has never stop. Attack, retaliate, attack, retaliate… the circle hasnt really stopped. So both sides are locked into it and leaders feed it on both sides. Regarding indoctrinstion of hate, my guess is that you will find that on both sides. And very different history books.
Thank you for the report. I am deeply impressed. I have a question you may have answered already, please point to that section if so. But the question is: How did the various non-Israeli actors actually support Israel in shooting down the missiles that were stopped? As far as I understand USA, Jordan and France, maybe UK actively supported. I wonder how they did it and if possible how (much) it helped?
There are too few details to gauge seriously. What is known are examples like these:
- US Navy deployed two Alreigh Burke-class guided missile destroyers off the coast of Israel (have mentioned them in my reports). These have fired ('quote' from a related Pentagon report) 'about a dozen' SM-6 interceptors. No clue how many incoming Iranian missiles they have shot down that way.
- Jordanians have deployed their PAC-2/3 SAMs and shot down a few incoming missiles, too.
The US Army deployed one of its THAAD ABM systems in Israel, the last year. No precise idea if this is still there, but I'm almost ready to take bets it is (and if not in Israel, then in Jordan, because Jordan replaced Incirlik/Turkey, and different other US-bases in the Middle East).
As for 'how are they doing that'... Both SM-6 and THAAD are far longer-ranged and far more advanced than the PAC-2/3 ('Patriot'): they can intercept incoming ballistic missiles at a far higher altitude (and thus also before these start distributing their MIRVs, for example).
It should not go unmentioned that Hamas is also partly to blame for the 50,000 civilian casualties in Gaza. Hamas had set up its military facilities in schools, hospitals, homes and public buildings. Hamas prevented many Palestinians from fleeing.
Hamas used civilians as human shields. This is just as much a war crime as Israel committed.
Along the same, they're using disproportionate force at every opportunity, with intention of causing as great damage and destruction as possible. For the IDF, there are no 'civilian facilities': everything is a military base.
Unsurprisingly, it's the IDF that is regularly using Palestinian civilians as human shields:
Ever since, nobody in the IDF even cares about this issue any more. They simply do that, and then blame Hamas for doing it. Here, a UN report from 2013:
Overall, this with 'Hamas/PIJ/Hezbollah/IRGC is using civilians as human shields' is little else but de-humanisation of the 'opponent': a very lame excuse for what are the Israelis doing to the Palestinians every single day. Little else but slander and whitewashing IDF's daily practice of committing and ignoring own war crimes. Arguably, it's a very prevalent slander, but also one having no basis in reality, exactly like about 99% of usual pro-Zionist nonsense.
I did not deny that the IDF deliberately attacks the civilian population. Nevertheless, one should not forget that Hamas also endangers civilians, which is even stated in one of the articles you linked to. Hamas has no protective measures or buffer zones in the area of its launch pads and ammunition depots. These were built in densely populated residential areas, although Hamas should have known that Israel was targeting these areas. And then, unfortunately, civilians die. And no one can tell me that the camps were built in residential areas by mistake... Planning error or what...?
I don't understand why you defend the terrorist organization Hamas so much. It seems to me that you ignore all the atrocities committed by Hamas in the past in order to blame Israel alone for the escalation.
The Hamas leaders do not have a halo.
I agree with them 100% about Israel's war crimes. I also think that the current actions in Lebanon are completely excessive and unjustified. But I also see a second side that has fueled the provocation.
Sorry for saying that... But it seems to me that you are defending the actions of Hezbollah and Hamas because they are fighting against Israel. You could ask the surviving foreign victims of last year's massacre what they think about it.
Just because Hamas built schools in Gaza and looked after social institutions does not make them benefactors...
Vielen Dank, Tom, für deine Arbeit. Ich freue mich immer auf Ihre Analysen. Und deine Gefühle sind auch wunderschön. Aber... Sie kennen das arabische Sprichwort: „Die Karawane zieht, die Hunde bellen.“ Wenn ich mich nicht irre, scheint es so. Passen Sie auf Ihre Nerven auf und denken Sie nicht über israelische Propaganda und Lügen nach. Wir benötigen Ihre professionelle und ruhige Analyse des Geschehens. Gesundheit und viel Glück.
This is bound to do wonders to Bibi's already spiking popularity.
I've also read the Lebanese army has pulled back from the area. They apparently agree with Hezbollah that it's none of their concern.
Bibi must be careful not to have to many bad news. Yes he can many things hide ( some hundreds soldiers is no problem but if there will be thousands...) . Also 1 time hit at airports can be hide, but if Iran will do bigger attack and with more modern and the destruction will be too big also to hide, then popular can go down quickly.
To boost Bibi's popularity, stories are published about Israeli girls in a Merkava tank in Gaza killing hundreds of Hamas militants.
To boost Bibi's popularity, stories are published about Israeli girls in a Merkava tank in Gaza killing hundreds of Hamas militants.
Thanks Tom, as usual.
What happens with the "Inmediatez counterstrike" of the IASF that had all their F-35 flying (to avoid being destroyed grounded?)
No idea.
Yesterday, official Israel said they have to consult the Biden Admin.
They always do so only when not sure they can actually make it on their own - or protect themselves from the IRGC's retaliation strike.
It is quite a frightening situation. Bibi plays to win and hates to lose. We have a tight US election, Biden is limited in what he can do without causing political blowback.This is high stakes poker.
It's amazing to see how much modern aircraft, precision weapons, artillery and intelligence equipment Israel has and how ineffectively they use it. It is also interesting why Israel does not use FPV drones, which, in combination with ground reconnaissance and aerial reconnaissance, would significantly reduce personnel losses. Probably the General Staff of Israel is as arrogant and rigid as those generals raised by the Soviet Union in the Ukrainian General Staff.
Bureaucratic inertia. There's stories about Israeli private citizens trying to setup FPV drones manufacturing but they're blocked because.... IAI/IWI and Elbit and Rafael aren't making them so they might as well not exist. Besides they have the Spike ATGM and the harop suicide drone, what else do you need (that's the thinking)
They are using little drones for reconnaissance and dropping grenades in Gaza but it's like early to mid 2022 on Ukraine, the learning phase.
Similar to Hezzbollah actually, they're.... Not really using FPV drones either.
For these FPV drones to be effective as a whole, they also need to be relatively cheap and easy to produce. And that isn't the strength of the Israeli defence sector at the moment. They produce rather expensive and complicated stuff.
«For these FPV drones to be effective as a whole, they also need to be relatively cheap and easy to produce» – They are relatively cheap and easy to manufacture. That is why Ukraine uses them. In addition, they can always be improved and modified for each task.
«They produce rather expensive and complicated stuff» – And what prevents mass production of relatively cheap and efficient things and at the same time quite complex and expensive? Ah, well... you can't make money on cheap stuff.
Maybe the FPV are in fact not the wunderwaffe as depicted in Ukraine.
Russians have started to use them in Syria as well. So far the result is rather poor : lots of miss per use.
The defense establishment across the West is determined to learn no lessons. It's like when the Cassandra project a few years back showed that many conflicts can be predicted - politicians didn't fund a continuation because they won't want to be held accountable when things fall apart.
https://en.defence-ua.com/analysis/us_military_analysts_do_little_to_no_study_of_ukraine_war_and_they_have_reasons-12053.html
As far as I understand, you are talking about this project?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Cassandra
Nope, different thing. Since everyone insists on re-using Greek names. I’d have called it Project Mimr.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Cassandra_(literature)
If that was the finding if the Cassandra project then the project was aptly named!
Seems like the IDF did not learn too much from the 2008 experience ?
That was my thoughts too. And the IDF apparently did all manner of assessments after 2008 which revealed all manner of issues in command and control structure. Seems they implemented no fixes.
What happened to the mighty IDF?
Owing to such triumphs I wonder whether they will get "Western" SF to be the tip of their spearheads in Lebanon, thus making us complicit in yet more war crimes diametrically against the will of the general public.
As Declassified UK has reported, all throughout the Gaza op there have been more RAF A400s flying via Cyprus than would be needed for extra-large supplies of bandages (the official story.) Meanwhile recent public opinion polling from YouGov has shown 64/19% favourable/unfavourable towards Israel.
Surely that's unfavourable to favourable?
Thank you. There is almost total news blackout on the missile attack here.
Particularly poignant sarcasm this time in the service of reality. Great job! Takes a bit of the edge off the goat rope that is the current mini war along the Israel-Lebanese border. Thanks . . . I think. **LOL**
I sat down and wrote up my own post-strike assessment yesterday precisely because the US media is acting like russia's right now with the "no hits, everything intercepted, we're magic!" act. 100% confirmed my standing theory that US leaders are never going to actually fight China. They know full well they can't stop massive missile barrages that, even if not physically that damaging, penetrate the veil of invincibility that lets American leaders wage war only against people who can barely fight back.
Posturing is the foundation of diplomacy: "If you do this, we nuke you." The China blah-blah is posturing. But the West doesn't have to fight.
In the Ukraine war, for example:
1) Cost to Russia is now 25-40% of government budget. The West forced that, without any fighting. Expensive, yes, but affordable. For the US, less than 6% of defense budget.
2) Chinese banks have backed away from the tiny yuan-ruble money markets. The West forced that with no cost to themselves.
These facts would give China something to think about. Especially point #2.
Who is it you would rather have America wage war with? America has waged war with Russia and China through their proxies in both Vietnam and Korea. So there has been no “waging war against only those who can’t fight back” Direct conflict that threatened either the Russian or Chinese dictator states is not something anybody but middle eastern crazies would want to see. I fully believe that without Israel as the focus of their hatred the Islamists would just do what they have always done and seek jihad elsewhere. Religious motivation can’t be reasoned with no matter the religion.
Religious motivation cant be reasoned with no matter which religion… well this certainly makes it difficult when having both Islam an Judaism there. Bit maybe we should leave them to their own, if we cant reason with any of them.
When left to their own they sought to conquer all of Europe and Africa. Islamic State or whatever they are calling themselves today seeks to try again. War give me war!
From a cultural standpoint I think it’s erroneous to say the West has interfered with Islamic countries. We’re fine letting them treat women as property, hack off limbs for shoplifting and all the rest if they would just keep it in their back yard. Problem is they won’t. I’ve had shopkeepers in New York’s Times Square tell me we need Sharia law in America. Doesn’t seem like much buy in to the constitution. At least with Christian’s they are not generally advocating stoning adulterers.
Maybe as some say in the comments, Western fiddling in the Middle East is just a continuation of the crusades. If so, I certainly know my place. But really the West mostly wouldn’t know Christianity if a stack of bibles fell on them and certainly they know Islam even less.
Exactly. The West is a religion that presumes all not of itself to be evil and deserving of extermination.
The West is an ongoing Christian Crusade, the mirror image of radical Islam. Just marginally more successful.
America is and has always been at war with itself. That’s oligarchy.
Not marginally I would say.
”50,000 massacred Palestinian civilians – over 70% of them women and children – plus 1 million displaced and over 1,500 killed Lebanese civilians..”
Trotting out highly doubtful if not debunked Hamas’ figures and including pagerbombed Hezbies with 1,500 Lebanese civs doesn’t seem very astute in an otherwise entertaining post. Let’s not forget that Hamas started this shitshow as ordered by Iran as requested by the Moscow goblin, and Hezb were only too happy to oblige by firing 8000 plus missiles at Israel for the past year.
I will not bother to discuss when the war started. I guess we disagree on that. But you say that the figure of 50 thousand people killed in Gaza is highly doubtful not to say debunked. So I wonder. Where is the better figures and what are they? And who did the debunking? (2/3 woman and children is probably what you could expect given the composition of the population.)
Hamas, or rather the Palestinian ministry of health, have consistently presented numbers that are pulled from thin air and presented that as truth to the gullible. Int’l media and other not-so-trustworthy middlemen have given these figures near sacred status by dint of ceaseless repetition. Several fact-finding agencies have debunked the numbers, one such below, but because a lie told loudly and often tend to drown out the truth, here we are, arguing again whether to believe a bona fide islamic terrorist organization with genocide as its stated objective, or not?
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/how-gaza-health-ministry-fakes-casualty-numbers
I am well aware that the numbers are from Hamas/ Palestine authorities of Health. I am aware they are repeated. I am also aware that a trusthworty strategy for Israeli defenders are to claim these figures to be debunked. I will take a look of your debunking. I will however point out that I Asker for an alternative and Korea authoritative source. If the best you can do is to claim that these figures are debunked, well I expect there to be some better figures in your debunking. Which you could have mentioned earlier. Otherwise I cannot trus that debunking. So, yes, until you provide alternative better figures, here we are.
Jesus. Or should I say Abraham? This was poor. The source is obviously not neutral. This is just another version of «The arab are always lying». And no better estimate «This is a Lie; because of statistics..». And we will never know, but of course this is a lie. Please get some better arguments. No credibility.
There’s more to find than the one source I presented. I’m however not here to provide facts for you, Tom or anyone else that you might as well go look for yourself. If you want irrefutable research, go ahead and do the legwork. A few simple searches on Google will yield a rich crop as to whether Hamas figures can be trusted or not. All I know is that I won’t be taking their word for truth, and that anyone who does, or amplifies them, is a certified fool.
You either stand with the single democracy in the whole of MENA, warts and all, or you side with those who yearn to eradicate it, because they’re jews. It is a binary option, for there’s no middle ground between peace and genocide.
The lies told loudly come from Israelis. They go on the BBC every day and literally shout at the interviewer.
It's a bit rich defending Israel by claiming the deaths might be slightly less than the figures quoted by Tom. We've all seen what Israel has been doing to Palestinian civilians every day for the last year. Even if your vague assertions about the figures are correct (which I doubt) it's no less disgusting.
I suppose Israel will now need to conduct themselves more in the Russian manner to gain ground in Lebanon. So I would expect a significant effort to raise all buildings through bombardment before ground forces assault.
As far as the Gaza tunnels go I guess it shows great restraint that they are not all destroyed yet in order to prevent further civilian infrastructure damage. The implication that it may be incompetence or too much concentration on just plain killing civilians is not credible.
No, Israel doesn't "need to conduct itself" in any way at all that kills more people. It has done too much killing already. It "needs to conduct itself" in a diplomatic way to bring peace, by being much more generous to the Palestinians than it has in all previous "negotiations".
First of all, I think Netanyahu is a (war) criminal and deserves nothing short of a death penalty. However, while I highly appreciate the way you criticize both Russia and Ukraine in your reports about that war, I can't help but notice the absence of criticism towards Hamas or Hezbollah (or did I miss it?). Of course Israel is just bombing everything to dust without any sort of remote regard for any collateral casualties (if they are in fact collateral) and that's disgusting. Of course the war didn't start a year ago but decades ago as you very nicely and extensively explained... But again, I can't help but think that nobody currently fighting was born in 1948 (yeah yeah I know I could have picked a much earlier year). Wouldn't you say Hamas is just a little bit at fault here? Aren't they essentially an external entity that fed on the chaos and hatred to grow like a tumor inside fertile (context) Palestine? Sure we have never seen that one before... Yes the West largely participated in such terrorist groups' birth but then... That's done, we can't go back in time, can we. Back to my point, hasn't Hamas endoctrinated Palestinians to hate israelis, and that for a couple decades, starting in middle school? What have they done with the money that was supposed to go into developing Palestine? Oh right, AK47 and RPG's. Overly simplified, I know but still, one just can't deny Hamas huge share of responsability for the massacre. October 7th played right into Netanyahu's hand... But wait, it played right into his hand so why the fuck did Hamas attack and give him the pretext he needed to save himself by dragging the whole region in a mindless and horrific war of extermination??? Please don't say you too believe it was "IAF Apaches"...I also just want to put out there that although I am sure civilian casualties are catastrophic, I can't bring myself to just accept Hamas numbers for absolute truth and I am very amazed to see that you seem to. 70% children? How is that even possible? Maybe it is, maybe I am wrong! What's certain is that even one child is too many! But you rightfully question ukrainian, russian, israeli, american, hell every figure ever provided by anyone but you just copy-paste Hamas'? No no no I am not calling you antisemite or whatever, I am not even trying to criticize you per say... I agree with 95% of what you say and I am thankful for all of your reports, truly.
Can we just stop pretending Isreal+West= bad guys, Islamic groups = poor little victims and acknowledge that this war was made by evil on all sides involved? Why must we pick a side? Yeah the West is disgusting in more ways I could ever list here but who else is actually trying to help? And no I don't mean the USA. Glorious Iran&co, Syria? Oh and by the way, is it that crazy to think that Hezbollah being Iran's pond, it can't possibly mean Iran has some measure (to put it mildly) of control over Lebanon?? No I am not pro Israel, I am not pro anyone in that conflict. Israel is taking the blame because it has the bigger stick. It's the fight of the red ant and the black ant. What would happen to Israeli children were the Hamas given the big guns? Whould we keep saying "ah they had it coming"? Because.... Israelis born 20 years ago had it coming right? I mean that's what everyone keeps saying...
I have a great idea that you will share (you coined it actually): let's reroute the ammo to Ukraine, please! Or maybe is that what you've always been saying and I just got carried away here...
Lots of questions here. I cannot answer all of them. But the question as to why they are continuing to fight, its been a long time since 1948… well whatever you feel about the rightousness of one group or the other the figth has never stop. Attack, retaliate, attack, retaliate… the circle hasnt really stopped. So both sides are locked into it and leaders feed it on both sides. Regarding indoctrinstion of hate, my guess is that you will find that on both sides. And very different history books.
Thank you for the report. I am deeply impressed. I have a question you may have answered already, please point to that section if so. But the question is: How did the various non-Israeli actors actually support Israel in shooting down the missiles that were stopped? As far as I understand USA, Jordan and France, maybe UK actively supported. I wonder how they did it and if possible how (much) it helped?
There are too few details to gauge seriously. What is known are examples like these:
- US Navy deployed two Alreigh Burke-class guided missile destroyers off the coast of Israel (have mentioned them in my reports). These have fired ('quote' from a related Pentagon report) 'about a dozen' SM-6 interceptors. No clue how many incoming Iranian missiles they have shot down that way.
- Jordanians have deployed their PAC-2/3 SAMs and shot down a few incoming missiles, too.
The US Army deployed one of its THAAD ABM systems in Israel, the last year. No precise idea if this is still there, but I'm almost ready to take bets it is (and if not in Israel, then in Jordan, because Jordan replaced Incirlik/Turkey, and different other US-bases in the Middle East).
As for 'how are they doing that'... Both SM-6 and THAAD are far longer-ranged and far more advanced than the PAC-2/3 ('Patriot'): they can intercept incoming ballistic missiles at a far higher altitude (and thus also before these start distributing their MIRVs, for example).
It should not go unmentioned that Hamas is also partly to blame for the 50,000 civilian casualties in Gaza. Hamas had set up its military facilities in schools, hospitals, homes and public buildings. Hamas prevented many Palestinians from fleeing.
Hamas used civilians as human shields. This is just as much a war crime as Israel committed.
Sorry, but that with 'Hamas using civilians as human shields' is the usual Zionist PRBS.
There is no trace of evidence Hamas (or PIJ or any other militant Palestinian group) has ever used any civilians as human shields.
Over the years, many have sought for such evidence, nobody found it.
- Jeremy Bowen: https://www.newstatesman.com/world/2014/07/jeremy-bowens-gaza-notebook-i-saw-no-evidence-hamas-using-palestinians-human
- Kim Sengupta: https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/world-news/israel-gaza-conflict-myth-of-hamass-human-shield-gazans-deny-being-put-in-line-of-fire/30448511.html
Obviously, a single journalist can't see everything., So, lets check the Amnesty International:
https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/mde21/1178/2015/en/
Human Rights Watch? Here it is: https://www.hrw.org/reports/2006/lebanon0806/2.htm
On the contrary, the IDF has the so-called Dahiya Doctrine: https://www.routledge.com/Israels-Military-Operations-in-Gaza-Telegenic-Lawfare-and-Warfare/Jr/p/book/9780367876418
Along the same, they're using disproportionate force at every opportunity, with intention of causing as great damage and destruction as possible. For the IDF, there are no 'civilian facilities': everything is a military base.
Unsurprisingly, it's the IDF that is regularly using Palestinian civilians as human shields:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/mar/23/israel-gaza-war-crimes-guardian
....and that so much so, already back in 2005 the Israeli High Court attempted to ban the use of Palestinians as human shields:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/oct/07/israel
The IDF's reaction was to appeal the 'human shield ban':
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4333982.stm
Ever since, nobody in the IDF even cares about this issue any more. They simply do that, and then blame Hamas for doing it. Here, a UN report from 2013:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-palestinian-israel-children-idUSBRE95J0FR20130620/
....and that again, again, and again: https://www.btselem.org/human_shields
Overall, this with 'Hamas/PIJ/Hezbollah/IRGC is using civilians as human shields' is little else but de-humanisation of the 'opponent': a very lame excuse for what are the Israelis doing to the Palestinians every single day. Little else but slander and whitewashing IDF's daily practice of committing and ignoring own war crimes. Arguably, it's a very prevalent slander, but also one having no basis in reality, exactly like about 99% of usual pro-Zionist nonsense.
I did not deny that the IDF deliberately attacks the civilian population. Nevertheless, one should not forget that Hamas also endangers civilians, which is even stated in one of the articles you linked to. Hamas has no protective measures or buffer zones in the area of its launch pads and ammunition depots. These were built in densely populated residential areas, although Hamas should have known that Israel was targeting these areas. And then, unfortunately, civilians die. And no one can tell me that the camps were built in residential areas by mistake... Planning error or what...?
I don't understand why you defend the terrorist organization Hamas so much. It seems to me that you ignore all the atrocities committed by Hamas in the past in order to blame Israel alone for the escalation.
The Hamas leaders do not have a halo.
I agree with them 100% about Israel's war crimes. I also think that the current actions in Lebanon are completely excessive and unjustified. But I also see a second side that has fueled the provocation.
Sorry for saying that... But it seems to me that you are defending the actions of Hezbollah and Hamas because they are fighting against Israel. You could ask the surviving foreign victims of last year's massacre what they think about it.
Just because Hamas built schools in Gaza and looked after social institutions does not make them benefactors...
Vielen Dank, Tom, für deine Arbeit. Ich freue mich immer auf Ihre Analysen. Und deine Gefühle sind auch wunderschön. Aber... Sie kennen das arabische Sprichwort: „Die Karawane zieht, die Hunde bellen.“ Wenn ich mich nicht irre, scheint es so. Passen Sie auf Ihre Nerven auf und denken Sie nicht über israelische Propaganda und Lügen nach. Wir benötigen Ihre professionelle und ruhige Analyse des Geschehens. Gesundheit und viel Glück.
Damn, I missed episode 518-521 ;-).
Thanks Tom!