Kicking off in Israel

[Calculon]

This propaganda piece was brought to you by persons affiliated with the IDF.

For starters
Israel wanted Assad to remain in power. Case of better the devil you know.

they did but now according to top analyst Ox Israel support HTS, alongside Turkey who designated them as a terrorist organissation. If by some small miracle a democratic and tolerant Syria emerges it will present an interesting challange and opportunity for Israel

[Calculon]

PS: Mayor of Amsterdam said she was wrong to call it a pogrom like something out of the holocaust and all the rest of the nonsense. She now says it's offensive to say that. As I said, in the end she would have to answer to her own electorate, and that isn't people in the Middle East.

not sure why you keep bringing up this strawman. i never said it was, or though it was a pogrom

[_Os_]

This propaganda piece was brought to you by persons affiliated with the IDF.

For starters
Israel wanted Assad to remain in power. Case of better the devil you know.

they did but now according to top analyst Ox Israel support HTS, alongside Turkey who designated them as a terrorist organissation. If by some small miracle a democratic and tolerant Syria emerges it will present an interesting challange and opportunity for Israel

Of course Israel and Turkey along with the Gulf dictatorships support them. How on earth do you think a land locked small area which only had borders with Turkey and Syria survived so long? How do you think all their ethnic Turkic foreign fighters from central Asia got there? Who supplies and arms them? Where does their intelligence come from? I even provided an Israeli media source.

Turkey/West back the FSA. Turkey/Israel/Gulf dictatorships back Al Qaeda/Al Nusra/HTS. West/Israel back the Kurds. And they all backed ISIS before they started winning at which point they all went "oh shit!".

Who designates who a terrorist organisation doesn't matter. The US rebranded the Kurdish groups it backs the SDF and pretended they weren't the YPG/PKK, the PKK is designated a terror group by the US. Wikileaks is always fun too, here's Sullivan telling Clinton back in 2012 that "AQ is on our side in Syria". Al Qaeda in Syria went through a few rebrands too, I expect they're still head choppers who believe all the same stuff.
https://wikileaks.org/clinton-emails/emailid/23225

The Israeli/Western plan isn't to turn Syria into a "democratic and tolerant Syria", very naive of you Calculator, it's to fundamentally break it turning it into a crazy shithole which can never challenge Israel.

[_Os_]

PS: Mayor of Amsterdam said she was wrong to call it a pogrom like something out of the holocaust and all the rest of the nonsense. She now says it's offensive to say that. As I said, in the end she would have to answer to her own electorate, and that isn't people in the Middle East.

not sure why you keep bringing up this strawman. i never said it was, or though it was a pogrom

The entire thing was multiple politicians saying "this is a pogrom just like the holocaust!", you saying "jeez I agree with these politicians and the main stream media repeating everything they say without any actual reporting of events!", whilst I said "hmm, looks like violent soccer hooligans got some retaliation".

You even used the mayor's comments, which I said she would regret because she was accountable to the actual residents of the city and couldn't bullshit them. She has now taken back what she said.

[Uncle fester]

This propaganda piece was brought to you by persons affiliated with the IDF.

For starters
Israel wanted Assad to remain in power. Case of better the devil you know.

they did but now according to top analyst Ox Israel support HTS, alongside Turkey who designated them as a terrorist organissation. If by some small miracle a democratic and tolerant Syria emerges it will present an interesting challange and opportunity for Israel

The game ends and the screen says "You Win".
That's the TLDR of what you posted.

[Calculon]

PS: Mayor of Amsterdam said she was wrong to call it a pogrom like something out of the holocaust and all the rest of the nonsense. She now says it's offensive to say that. As I said, in the end she would have to answer to her own electorate, and that isn't people in the Middle East.

not sure why you keep bringing up this strawman. i never said it was, or though it was a pogrom

The entire thing was multiple politicians saying "this is a pogrom just like the holocaust!", you saying "jeez I agree with these politicians and the main stream media repeating everything they say without any actual reporting of events!", whilst I said "hmm, looks like violent soccer hooligans got some retaliation".

You even used the mayor's comments, which I said she would regret because she was accountable to the actual residents of the city and couldn't bullshit them. She has now taken back what she said.

I agreed it was anti-semitic in nature, which it was. You only need to look at the language used by those who took part in it. We are organising a “jew hunt”. The only people denying it are few weirdos, some of whom you linked to

[Calculon]

This propaganda piece was brought to you by persons affiliated with the IDF.

For starters
Israel wanted Assad to remain in power. Case of better the devil you know.

they did but now according to top analyst Ox Israel support HTS, alongside Turkey who designated them as a terrorist organissation. If by some small miracle a democratic and tolerant Syria emerges it will present an interesting challange and opportunity for Israel

Of course Israel and Turkey along with the Gulf dictatorships support them. How on earth do you think a land locked small area which only had borders with Turkey and Syria survived so long? How do you think all their ethnic Turkic foreign fighters from central Asia got there? Who supplies and arms them? Where does their intelligence come from? I even provided an Israeli media source.

Turkey/West back the FSA. Turkey/Israel/Gulf dictatorships back Al Qaeda/Al Nusra/HTS. West/Israel back the Kurds. And they all backed ISIS before they started winning at which point they all went "oh shit!".

Who designates who a terrorist organisation doesn't matter. The US rebranded the Kurdish groups it backs the SDF and pretended they weren't the YPG/PKK, the PKK is designated a terror group by the US. Wikileaks is always fun too, here's Sullivan telling Clinton back in 2012 that "AQ is on our side in Syria". Al Qaeda in Syria went through a few rebrands too, I expect they're still head choppers who believe all the same stuff.
https://wikileaks.org/clinton-emails/emailid/23225

The Israeli/Western plan isn't to turn Syria into a "democratic and tolerant Syria", very naive of you Calculator, it's to fundamentally break it turning it into a crazy shithole which can never challenge Israel.

IDK who supplies weapons to HTS? Turkey?

The Israeli/Western plan isn't to turn Syria into a "democratic and tolerant Syria",

where did i say this? hopefully the Syrian people themselves have some agency in this or is it all controlled by the evil Israelis and "the West'

[_Os_]

I agreed it was anti-semitic in nature, which it was. You only need to look at the language used by those who took part in it. We are organising a “jew hunt”.

This is what you posted about the mayor:

I mean, Amsterdam's liberal left Mayor described the violence as “an eruption of antisemitism that we had hoped never again to see in Amsterdam" but what would she know.

i think i'de put more credance on the version from the MSM, the mayor of amsterdam

This is what I posted about the mayor:

Israeli hooligans rocked up in a foreign city and behaved like they were at home in the days before the match. According to the Dutch woman bystander who Sky News interviewed there was organised provocation by Israeli hooligans, there's video of this too, it's all a bit moot. The mayor will have to account to the citizens of the city.

The latest from Amsterdam politics, from some oke that looks like Jan van Riebeeck. Smart move to describe what actually happened, foreigners in Israel cannot vote for him. But what would he know.

This is what the mayor is now saying, suddenly it is not a pogrom. Just throw around words like pogrom and holocaust and then say it wasn't that at all:

The only people denying it are few weirdos, some of whom you linked to

That's not what I posted. I posted violent racist soccer hooligans rocked up from the Middle East in a European city, spent days being soccer hooligans then got a reaction after the match. That it wasn't a group of innocent tourists who were attacked for being Jews. I provided the comments of a local politician after you said the mayor knew what she was talking about. The statement of a local Jewish organisation, which you dismissed. The comments of the police, which you ignored. A Sky News broadcast which was edited 3 times to remove facts which didn't fit their editorial line. Video footage and testimony from people in the city. You then focused intensely on which accounts were posting the videos, obviously people who hated Israel, as if suddenly the videos themselves were fake or discredited.

This incident matters if you want to know who can work what is true. Basically can you find information on a breaking event, deduce what is likely true from what is likely untrue, then build an accurate analysis from that. Or do you just believe whatever you're told by people with political power making political statements (and in the case of the mayor later backtracking)?

Not hard to find more testimony that the Israelis were hooligans in the days before, throwing beer bottles at people and spitting on them. In the Israel v France match played shortly afterwards, which was so heavily boycotted it was played in an almost empty Stade de France, the Israeli hooligans were fighting in the stands this too was largely ignored.

[_Os_]

IDK who supplies weapons to HTS? Turkey?

You decided to call me out and say I didn't know what I was talking about, now you're asking me?

The Israeli/Western plan isn't to turn Syria into a "democratic and tolerant Syria",

where did i say this? hopefully the Syrian people themselves have some agency in this or is it all controlled by the evil Israelis and "the West'

After you've been bombed back to the stone age, had tens of thousands of head choppers trafficked into your country (including from Western countries with the help of Western intelligence agencies), had your country divided up into warring ethnic enclaves, and had the combined air forces of different Western nations and Israel bombing whatever central government military capability still exists. Then you can desire a great many things, reality is going to have other ideas.

As I've posted before. Many ordinary people in the region hate Israel with good reason, this means there's potential for democracy to be difficult for Israel, which is why Israel tries hardest with the Gulf dictatorships where ordinary people have the least input (which are all worse than Iran in terms of democracy, women's rights, and all the rest of it). They don't want a democracy in Syria, as there's a high likelihood they adopt a position somewhere in the ballpark of Assad towards Israel, which for the West and Israel makes the whole adventure pointless. Which is where the head choppers come in.

[_Os_]

… Israel knows its attempt to escalate against Iran is failing. It’s upping airstrikes on Syria (including bombing upmarket areas of Damascus) over 150 airstrikes now and the IDF is increasing ground defences in Golan. Israel seems to want to fight Syria too.

Posted this in October. You had to be following it closely to pick that up. Very obvious Israel knew something.

The IDF is now reported to be pushing into Syria to establish a buffer around the Golan heights. Their buffer zone now requires a buffer zone, apparently.

The logic of a country that refuses to say where its borders are, is that any weakness means its borders move forward. Which is why organisations like Hezbollah came into existence.

[Sandstorm]

… Israel knows its attempt to escalate against Iran is failing. It’s upping airstrikes on Syria (including bombing upmarket areas of Damascus) over 150 airstrikes now and the IDF is increasing ground defences in Golan. Israel seems to want to fight Syria too.

Posted this in October. You had to be following it closely to pick that up. Very obvious Israel knew something.

The IDF is now reported to be pushing into Syria to establish a buffer around the Golan heights. Their buffer zone now requires a buffer zone, apparently.

The logic of a country that refuses to say where its borders are, is that any weakness means its borders move forward. Which is why organisations like Hezbollah came into existence.

Genuinely think that Israeli brains have melted in recent times. They just can't find a way not to make the wrong decision time and again.

[Calculon]

I agreed it was anti-semitic in nature, which it was. You only need to look at the language used by those who took part in it. We are organising a “jew hunt”.

This is what you posted about the mayor:

I mean, Amsterdam's liberal left Mayor described the violence as “an eruption of antisemitism that we had hoped never again to see in Amsterdam" but what would she know.

i think i'de put more credance on the version from the MSM, the mayor of amsterdam

This is what I posted about the mayor:

Israeli hooligans rocked up in a foreign city and behaved like they were at home in the days before the match. According to the Dutch woman bystander who Sky News interviewed there was organised provocation by Israeli hooligans, there's video of this too, it's all a bit moot. The mayor will have to account to the citizens of the city.

The latest from Amsterdam politics, from some oke that looks like Jan van Riebeeck. Smart move to describe what actually happened, foreigners in Israel cannot vote for him. But what would he know.

This is what the mayor is now saying, suddenly it is not a pogrom. Just throw around words like pogrom and holocaust and then say it wasn't that at all:

The only people denying it are few weirdos, some of whom you linked to

That's not what I posted. I posted violent racist soccer hooligans rocked up from the Middle East in a European city, spent days being soccer hooligans then got a reaction after the match. That it wasn't a group of innocent tourists who were attacked for being Jews. I provided the comments of a local politician after you said the mayor knew what she was talking about. The statement of a local Jewish organisation, which you dismissed. The comments of the police, which you ignored. A Sky News broadcast which was edited 3 times to remove facts which didn't fit their editorial line. Video footage and testimony from people in the city. You then focused intensely on which accounts were posting the videos, obviously people who hated Israel, as if suddenly the videos themselves were fake or discredited.

This incident matters if you want to know who can work what is true. Basically can you find information on a breaking event, deduce what is likely true from what is likely untrue, then build an accurate analysis from that. Or do you just believe whatever you're told by people with political power making political statements (and in the case of the mayor later backtracking)?

Not hard to find more testimony that the Israelis were hooligans in the days before, throwing beer bottles at people and spitting on them. In the Israel v France match played shortly afterwards, which was so heavily boycotted it was played in an almost empty Stade de France, the Israeli hooligans were fighting in the stands this too was largely ignored.

Lol, I'm not reading all that. Did the "jew hunt" have an antisemitic element? yes or no

[Calculon]

IDK who supplies weapons to HTS? Turkey?

You decided to call me out and say I didn't know what I was talking about, now you're asking me?
[

I said you were a top analyst ffs, you asked me the question and I said I don't know. So where do HTS get their weapons from or do you also not know?

[Calculon]

IDK who supplies weapons to HTS? Turkey?

where did i say this? hopefully the Syrian people themselves have some agency in this or is it all controlled by the evil Israelis and "the West'

After you've been bombed back to the stone age, had tens of thousands of head choppers trafficked into your country (including from Western countries with the help of Western intelligence agencies), had your country divided up into warring ethnic enclaves, and had the combined air forces of different Western nations and Israel bombing whatever central government military capability still exists. Then you can desire a great many things, reality is going to have other ideas.

So it's all the fault of the West and Israel, gotya

[_Os_]

Lol, I'm not reading all that. Did the "jew hunt" have an antisemitic element? yes or no

Of course. What do you think happens if you rock up in a city where you behave like violent hooligans, singing about killing Arab children? You think any violent racist elements say nice things in response? No, they kick your head.

[_Os_]

I said you were a top analyst ffs, you asked me the question and I said I don't know. So where do HTS get their weapons from or do you also not know?

I presumed you were being sarcastic, because you were. As I've already posted, they were at one time backed by Israel which took care of some of their casevac, there's some Gulf funding, but Turkey is doing most of the heavy lifting. Turkey likely wanted to incorporate them into the SNA (formerly the FSA), but they refused, so all they could do was keep rebranding them.

[_Os_]

IDK who supplies weapons to HTS? Turkey?

where did i say this? hopefully the Syrian people themselves have some agency in this or is it all controlled by the evil Israelis and "the West'

After you've been bombed back to the stone age, had tens of thousands of head choppers trafficked into your country (including from Western countries with the help of Western intelligence agencies), had your country divided up into warring ethnic enclaves, and had the combined air forces of different Western nations and Israel bombing whatever central government military capability still exists. Then you can desire a great many things, reality is going to have other ideas.

So it's all the fault of the West and Israel, gotya

The West is of course, always on team good guys. Never backed the Taliban, Gaddafi, Saddam, Al Qaeda, Gulf dictatorships, and on and on. Definitely not.

[_Os_]

… Israel knows its attempt to escalate against Iran is failing. It’s upping airstrikes on Syria (including bombing upmarket areas of Damascus) over 150 airstrikes now and the IDF is increasing ground defences in Golan. Israel seems to want to fight Syria too.

Posted this in October. You had to be following it closely to pick that up. Very obvious Israel knew something.

The IDF is now reported to be pushing into Syria to establish a buffer around the Golan heights. Their buffer zone now requires a buffer zone, apparently.

The logic of a country that refuses to say where its borders are, is that any weakness means its borders move forward. Which is why organisations like Hezbollah came into existence.

Genuinely think that Israeli brains have melted in recent times. They just can't find a way not to make the wrong decision time and again.

The Syria situation could work out well for Israel if Hezbollah are cut off, which at the moment looks likely. There's even a possibility they invade Lebanon through Syria, and see if they have more luck from that direction.

The situation with the Russian bases is odd though, they are located in the majority Alawite area (Assad's group, which are a Shia splinter/sect, Iran will be keen to protect them). There's a possibility Russia/Iran/Assad have done a deal with Turkey and by extension the forces they back. Turkey's/Erdogan's goals are killing Kurds, some neo-Ottoman empire stuff, and a buffer zone (the dictator types always want a buffer zone). They may not care too much about Russian bases and what they're used for. Turkey and Russia were on opposite sides in Libya too, Turkey even transferred some of their Syrian and foreign ethnic Turkic fighters to Libya from Syria, Russia ended up with bases there.

But the general lesson is a moustachioed Arab brutal dictator type guy, is far easier to deal with than whatever comes after. People unhappy with the moustachioed guy always want him gone though.

[Calculon]

I said you were a top analyst ffs, you asked me the question and I said I don't know. So where do HTS get their weapons from or do you also not know?

I presumed you were being sarcastic, because you were. As I've already posted, they were at one time backed by Israel which took care of some of their casevac, there's some Gulf funding, but Turkey is doing most of the heavy lifting. Turkey likely wanted to incorporate them into the SNA (formerly the FSA), but they refused, so all they could do was keep rebranding them.

It was a geniune question, the bit about being a top analyst obvioulsy not, because your analyst sounds like something Corbyn would come out with. anyway, thanks for eventualy answering the question

[Calculon]

After you've been bombed back to the stone age, had tens of thousands of head choppers trafficked into your country (including from Western countries with the help of Western intelligence agencies), had your country divided up into warring ethnic enclaves, and had the combined air forces of different Western nations and Israel bombing whatever central government military capability still exists. Then you can desire a great many things, reality is going to have other ideas.

So it's all the fault of the West and Israel, gotya

The West is of course, always on team good guys. Never backed the Taliban, Gaddafi, Saddam, Al Qaeda, Gulf dictatorships, and on and on. Definitely not.

a simple yes would suffice

[Calculon]

Lol, I'm not reading all that. Did the "jew hunt" have an antisemitic element? yes or no

Of course. What do you think happens if you rock up in a city where you behave like violent hooligans, singing about killing Arab children? You think any violent racist elements say nice things in response? No, they kick your head.

a jew hunt by antisemitic muslims, although the jew hunt was organized even before the Jews arrived for the football match

[laurent]

And now they annex more territory...

https://www.lemonde.fr/international/li ... _3210.html

Cunt / Cunts

[Calculon]

And now they annex more territory...

https://www.lemonde.fr/international/li ... _3210.html

Cunt / Cunts

Maybe they’re trying to assist Syrian nation-building by getting the rebel factions to unite around a common enemy

[JM2K6]

Os, you might be the world's biggest pain in the arse* on rugby matters, but I genuinely appreciate the detail you're willing to bring to these threads, regardless of the facile one liners you're getting in response. It can be so easy to just pick a side and start making the truth entirely secondary to being "right", and while you don't hide your own biases and political leanings, it's good to see some people are able to look more dispassionately at events and try and capture some of the nuance that makes these places so fucking complicated.





* Not really, but it's an amusing difference anyway. It's like you need to get all the shitfighting tactics out of the way do you can avoid those on political threads

[Sandstorm]

Os, you might be the world's biggest pain in the arse* on rugby matters, but I genuinely appreciate the detail you're willing to bring to these threads, regardless of the facile one liners you're getting in response. It can be so easy to just pick a side and start making the truth entirely secondary to being "right", and while you don't hide your own biases and political leanings, it's good to see some people are able to look more dispassionately at events and try and capture some of the nuance that makes these places so fucking complicated.

+1000

[epwc]

Os, you might be the world's biggest pain in the arse* on rugby matters, but I genuinely appreciate the detail you're willing to bring to these threads, regardless of the facile one liners you're getting in response. It can be so easy to just pick a side and start making the truth entirely secondary to being "right", and while you don't hide your own biases and political leanings, it's good to see some people are able to look more dispassionately at events and try and capture some of the nuance that makes these places so fucking complicated.

+1000

yep

[Uncle fester]

Posted this in October. You had to be following it closely to pick that up. Very obvious Israel knew something.

The IDF is now reported to be pushing into Syria to establish a buffer around the Golan heights. Their buffer zone now requires a buffer zone, apparently.

The logic of a country that refuses to say where its borders are, is that any weakness means its borders move forward. Which is why organisations like Hezbollah came into existence.

Genuinely think that Israeli brains have melted in recent times. They just can't find a way not to make the wrong decision time and again.

The Syria situation could work out well for Israel if Hezbollah are cut off, which at the moment looks likely. There's even a possibility they invade Lebanon through Syria, and see if they have more luck from that direction.

The situation with the Russian bases is odd though, they are located in the majority Alawite area (Assad's group, which are a Shia splinter/sect, Iran will be keen to protect them). There's a possibility Russia/Iran/Assad have done a deal with Turkey and by extension the forces they back. Turkey's/Erdogan's goals are killing Kurds, some neo-Ottoman empire stuff, and a buffer zone (the dictator types always want a buffer zone). They may not care too much about Russian bases and what they're used for. Turkey and Russia were on opposite sides in Libya too, Turkey even transferred some of their Syrian and foreign ethnic Turkic fighters to Libya from Syria, Russia ended up with bases there.

But the general lesson is a moustachioed Arab brutal dictator type guy, is far easier to deal with than whatever comes after. People unhappy with the moustachioed guy always want him gone though.

Worth bearing in mind that Israeli realpolitik originally considered Hezbollah as useful tool to prevent Syrian domination of Lebanon.

If Hezbollah are "gone" and "cut off", they will be replaced with something else. Historically, that's not good news.

[Uncle fester]

… Israel knows its attempt to escalate against Iran is failing. It’s upping airstrikes on Syria (including bombing upmarket areas of Damascus) over 150 airstrikes now and the IDF is increasing ground defences in Golan. Israel seems to want to fight Syria too.

Posted this in October. You had to be following it closely to pick that up. Very obvious Israel knew something.

The IDF is now reported to be pushing into Syria to establish a buffer around the Golan heights. Their buffer zone now requires a buffer zone, apparently.

The logic of a country that refuses to say where its borders are, is that any weakness means its borders move forward. Which is why organisations like Hezbollah came into existence.

Genuinely think that Israeli brains have melted in recent times. They just can't find a way not to make the wrong decision time and again.

Said it before but there are a lot of similarities between Israel and Russia. They both annex other people's land claiming security concerns, which they then need to expand further because the new frontier is also "unpeaceful".

[Uncle fester]

One source here suggests that they've advanced as far as Qatana. That's just outside Damascus.

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-ea ... 024-12-10/

[Calculon]

1. Gaza is an utter disaster for Israel. Anyone that casually lists "Gaza is in ruins" like that's an achievement, probably shouldn't be taken seriously. A super majority of people in the West are not okay with mass war crimes on top of the already existing apartheid.

the achievent is the degradation of Hamas as you well know

2. Hezbollah still has effective command and control, they couldn't have been doing what they were otherwise. Israel look to have knocked out the political leadership in Beirut inside the first two weeks. After that their target bank for airstrikes became churches, banks, residential blocks, hospitals, and pression drone strikes on ambulances. In other words as in Gaza, lots of propaganda about how good their precision capability is, then just turning everything to rubble and targeting civilians. Meanwhile on the ground as in Gaza they didn't seem to do much. Quite a lot of talk that their WIA from the border of Southern Lebanon is heavily under reported.

Well we've just seen how strong Hezbollah and Iran are when they couldn't do do aything to help their BBF Bashar al-Assad, for whom hezbollah were critical in keeping him in power since 2011


Hezbollah only exists because of the Israeli desire to invade Lebanon to steal land and inflict apartheid on yet another group of people. It is a beast of their own making.


"only" - it also exist because Iran set up up, funds and controls it. Israel doesn't claim and didnt occupy any of Lebanon before the recent operation. there's no reason for Hezbollah to exist other than as a proxy force for Iran



4. There's very little evidence Israel's strike on Iran did anything. Almost no satellite imagery. A lot of the claims about it look straight made up. The determination to attack Iran is just crazy.

you mean apart from all the satelite images showing the damage sustained, but then you will always believe Iran over Western media and intelligence. crazy because trust me bro? Iran didn't even retaliate after a direct israeli airsrike on it

As usual all Israel's problems are political. Killing a load of people will not change much because it's not a military problem, their problem is they refuse to treat Palestinians as fully human and refuse to decide where their borders are. Totally crazy the leaders of many European countries support all this (against all polling), they must really want more refugee waves.

Better political compared to existential militiary threats like they faced in the past. blaming Israel for the Syrian refugee crisis is a strech even for you

[Slick]

Posted this in October. You had to be following it closely to pick that up. Very obvious Israel knew something.

The IDF is now reported to be pushing into Syria to establish a buffer around the Golan heights. Their buffer zone now requires a buffer zone, apparently.

The logic of a country that refuses to say where its borders are, is that any weakness means its borders move forward. Which is why organisations like Hezbollah came into existence.

Genuinely think that Israeli brains have melted in recent times. They just can't find a way not to make the wrong decision time and again.

Said it before but there are a lot of similarities between Israel and Russia. They both annex other people's land claiming security concerns, which they then need to expand further because the new frontier is also "unpeaceful".

You have to say, it's all worked out rather well for Israel.

[epwc]

You have to say, it's all worked out rather well for Israel.

Seems so

[Sandstorm]

You have to say, it's all worked out rather well for Israel.

Seems so

Short term yes. Long-term they'll just make themselves even more unpopular in the region and will have Arab nations funding new terrorist originations on every border. It's not a healthy way to live.

[Uncle fester]

You have to say, it's all worked out rather well for Israel.

Seems so

Short term yes. Long-term they'll just make themselves even more unpopular in the region and will have Arab nations funding new terrorist originations on every border. It's not a healthy way to live.

And pariah status with everybody else.

A consumer boycott in the west would cripple them.

Not to mention the haredi time bomb.

[_Os_]

Lol, I'm not reading all that. Did the "jew hunt" have an antisemitic element? yes or no

Of course. What do you think happens if you rock up in a city where you behave like violent hooligans, singing about killing Arab children? You think any violent racist elements say nice things in response? No, they kick your head.

a jew hunt by antisemitic muslims, although the jew hunt was organized even before the Jews arrived for the football match

A group of racist violent Israelis rocked up in Amsterdam and behaved like they were back home in the Middle East. They then got their heads kicked in by those who were up for the fight, who of course likely weren't terribly nice people themselves. Soccer hooligan associated violence. Not something which should've ever been international news and compared to a pogrom and the holocaust ffs.

It's an incident worth going over, because it shows how differently Israel is treated in Western media. In this incident the Israelis behaved like utter cunts, yet were portrayed as the victims which they weren't. "Antisemitism" isn't a magic word which makes anything permissible. Israeli teams have played in Amsterdam before btw, but they didn't try to flex on ordinary Amsterdam residents (Muslim and non-Muslim) for having Palestine flags.

It's also worth going over because you called me out (it's why I'm back on the thread). You claimed my immediate take was wrong, quoted the mayor and all the rest of it. The mayor is having a rethink, Calculator. Now I wouldn't be posting all this, but you've called me out, so now I have to rub your face in it.

[_Os_]

1. Gaza is an utter disaster for Israel. Anyone that casually lists "Gaza is in ruins" like that's an achievement, probably shouldn't be taken seriously. A super majority of people in the West are not okay with mass war crimes on top of the already existing apartheid.

the achievent is the degradation of Hamas as you well know

?

Their goal was to destroy Hamas and rescue the hostages. Success can only be measured against objectives.

They started out trumpeting their use of precision strikes. Remember all the analysis over who hit a hospital in what was clearly an accident which caused minimal damage, whoever hit it. They ended up carpet bombing the place and killing who knows how many, we're now supposed to think that's an achievement? What were the objectives again? Hamas still exists, the hostages only look like being released through negotiating with Hamas.

2. Hezbollah still has effective command and control, they couldn't have been doing what they were otherwise. Israel look to have knocked out the political leadership in Beirut inside the first two weeks. After that their target bank for airstrikes became churches, banks, residential blocks, hospitals, and pression drone strikes on ambulances. In other words as in Gaza, lots of propaganda about how good their precision capability is, then just turning everything to rubble and targeting civilians. Meanwhile on the ground as in Gaza they didn't seem to do much. Quite a lot of talk that their WIA from the border of Southern Lebanon is heavily under reported.

Well we've just seen how strong Hezbollah and Iran are when they couldn't do do aything to help their BBF Bashar al-Assad, for whom hezbollah were critical in keeping him in power since 2011

How far did Israel penetrate into Lebanon? Again, what were the objectives. The objectives Israel set out on Lebanon were a moving target, but among them we have: Push Hezbollah north of the Litani through ground invasion, end Hezbollah rocket attacks, entirely destroy Hezbollah and bring democracy to Lebanon or something (it's already a democracy). Again, Hezbollah still exists.

The Syrian military collapsed, some discussion as to why, but it did. Is the smart move by Hezbollah recognising that's happening and avoiding being inside the collapse, or committing everything to a partner that cannot or will not continue? As I've posted before on this thread regarding Israel's actions, trying to do impossible things isn't wise and risks terrible outcomes.

Should go without saying it's not possible to land the punches you can in one theatre forcing a stronger opponent off their stated objectives, whilst pulling all your punches in another theatre because you know it's pointless, if you have no command and control and are basically a headless chicken. But given you posted that analysis, it should probably be pointed out.

As for Iran, their entire strategy is not to commit their own forces and to force any wars away from their border. This comes from when Iraq was used as a proxy against them on their border (back when Saddam was the West's BBF using your terminology, what happens to Western BBFs nice apartment in London or New York? Now imagine you are the new ruler of Syria ...). Who knows how strong they really are, probably quite strong.

Hezbollah only exists because of the Israeli desire to invade Lebanon to steal land and inflict apartheid on yet another group of people. It is a beast of their own making.


"only" - it also exist because Iran set up up, funds and controls it. Israel doesn't claim and didnt occupy any of Lebanon before the recent operation. there's no reason for Hezbollah to exist other than as a proxy force for Iran

Israel "didnt occupy any of Lebanon before the recent operation"? No one walking around Southern Lebanon who remembers Israeli occupation in their own life time? Are you sure? There were Israeli settlers talking about settling Southern Lebanon before their latest failed invasion of Lebanon.

Shia in Southern Lebanon aren't backing Hezbollah so they can be used as pawns by Iran. Probably no one is backing Hezbollah for the benefit of Iran. They're backing Hezbollah because in their view there's a legitimate threat of Israel turning them into another group of dispossessed Arabs, just like the Palestinians. They, unlike your good self, think it's entirely possible Israel will steal everything from them. Myopic to think it only exists because Iran wills it.

The co-religionist element is also underappreciated. If Israel and the West weren't a factor at all, it's likely Iran would still back Shia against whoever they wanted help against.

4. There's very little evidence Israel's strike on Iran did anything. Almost no satellite imagery. A lot of the claims about it look straight made up. The determination to attack Iran is just crazy.

you mean apart from all the satelite images showing the damage sustained, but then you will always believe Iran over Western media and intelligence. crazy because trust me bro? Iran didn't even retaliate after a direct israeli airsrike on it

Post them. There's some images of buildings and its hard to tell how damaged about half are (EDIT: I've rechecked for any new images this morning, we're up to a collection of <10 buildings over a month later). Israel claims to have destroyed Iran's entire air defence network.

For guidance we live in an era when Youtubers purchase HD satellite imagery of Russian military bases so they can count Russian armoured vehicles. It's not a question of "trust", it's a question of huge claims with nothing at all backing it up. If Iran has no air defences (all radars and launchers gone) then why aren't there Israeli jets over Iran like they're currently over Syria? Why does Iran still have a military? Why was the raid Israel did conduct cut short based on the IDF's own briefing of how long it would last when it started?

As I posted at the time, any air defence network can be breached. If enough missiles are fired some get through. That doesn't mean we're looking at the air defence network being destroyed, it doesn't even mean we're looking at bases being destroyed when we're looking at individual buildings within large bases.

As usual all Israel's problems are political. Killing a load of people will not change much because it's not a military problem, their problem is they refuse to treat Palestinians as fully human and refuse to decide where their borders are. Totally crazy the leaders of many European countries support all this (against all polling), they must really want more refugee waves.

Better political compared to existential militiary threats like they faced in the past. blaming Israel for the Syrian refugee crisis is a strech even for you

Wars create refugees. Middle East refugees end up in Europe. Netanyahu backed regime change in Iraq and Syria, because in his view they were a existential threat to Israel. The outcome in Iraq was a strategic victory for Iran and made the security situation for Israel worse (Hezbollah being connected to Iran over land is a new thing, which didn't exist under Saddam and then US occupation).

If they don't come to a political settlement with the Palestinians the Israelis have to fight someone in their region forever. Eventually given enough time they lose.

[_Os_]

Os, you might be the world's biggest pain in the arse* on rugby matters, but I genuinely appreciate the detail you're willing to bring to these threads, regardless of the facile one liners you're getting in response. It can be so easy to just pick a side and start making the truth entirely secondary to being "right", and while you don't hide your own biases and political leanings, it's good to see some people are able to look more dispassionately at events and try and capture some of the nuance that makes these places so fucking complicated.

* Not really, but it's an amusing difference anyway. It's like you need to get all the shitfighting tactics out of the way do you can avoid those on political threads

It's something the Stomps have said for years. Handyman refuses to read my Sharks posts (apparently), and has said similar to you regarding the replies I receive. Slider used to protest my rugby posts too, about 10 years back I said there was no real difference between a starting player and a bench player and the discussions around the Boks going with a 4/3 or 5/2 bench (as it was then) prove that, he said my rugby posts had become totally unreasonable and must be ignored.
I happen to think my rugby posts are very good and well balanced. But I haven't attempted to reach the heights of our GOAT posters, Os du Randt and Grubber.

Calculator (ironically given his background) just needs to apply the scientific method more. A country invading another country with a list of objectives it wishes to achieve, can be measured against the results. Not the case if the evidence doesn't line up with the claim it's all good anyway.

[Slick]

Os, you might be the world's biggest pain in the arse* on rugby matters, but I genuinely appreciate the detail you're willing to bring to these threads, regardless of the facile one liners you're getting in response. It can be so easy to just pick a side and start making the truth entirely secondary to being "right", and while you don't hide your own biases and political leanings, it's good to see some people are able to look more dispassionately at events and try and capture some of the nuance that makes these places so fucking complicated.

* Not really, but it's an amusing difference anyway. It's like you need to get all the shitfighting tactics out of the way do you can avoid those on political threads

It's something the Stomps have said for years. Handyman refuses to read my Sharks posts (apparently), and has said similar to you regarding the replies I receive. Slider used to protest my rugby posts too, about 10 years back I said there was no real difference between a starting player and a bench player and the discussions around the Boks going with a 4/3 or 5/2 bench (as it was then) prove that, he said my rugby posts had become totally unreasonable and must be ignored.
I happen to think my rugby posts are very good and well balanced. But I haven't attempted to reach the heights of our GOAT posters, Os du Randt and Grubber.

Calculator (ironically given his background) just needs to apply the scientific method more. A country invading another country with a list of objectives it wishes to achieve, can be measured against the results. Not the case if the evidence doesn't line up with the claim it's all good anyway.

Nah, your rugby posts are shite

[Guy Smiley]

Nah, your rugby posts are shite

That's just a nationality thing.


(great work here, Os... as JM2K6 said so well)

[_Os_]

Seems so

Short term yes. Long-term they'll just make themselves even more unpopular in the region and will have Arab nations funding new terrorist originations on every border. It's not a healthy way to live.

And pariah status with everybody else.

A consumer boycott in the west would cripple them.

Not to mention the haredi time bomb.

Even on Syria a lot of people on all sides are counting chickens before they hatch. All that's certain is Al Qaeda in Syria is the winning internal faction and Turkey is the winning external faction.

Israel has now bombed 300 targets inside Syria since the fall of Assad. This is on the back of an uptick in their bombing of Syria back in October which had reached around 150 targets (as I posted back then). We're looking at 500+ targets inside Syria bombed by Israel over the last three months, overwhelmingly the Syrian government being the target. It's not that convincing anything being bombed is much of a threat to Israel, but it is the only means for the central government to assert any control over such a broken country. If the state doesn't hold the monopoly on the use of violence, then a Lebanon outcome becomes the best case and a Libya or Iraq the worst case. I suspect what Israel wants is a chaotic broken shithole.

Erdogan isn't going to let his victory slip easily though. He wants Syria to become a Turkish vassal. Fighting is still happening in Syria, the Turks are attempting to eliminate the US/Western backed Kurdish resistance groups. Erdogan also directly threatened Israel today, that if the IDF doesn't cease operations inside Syria they'll be at war with Turkey, bluster for his electorate which doesn't have any time for Israel. But it does raise an interesting prospect, Turkey has the strongest conventional military in the region and Syria has no military thanks to Israel, the two strongest Syrian rebel factions are Turkish backed. Turkey could invade the entire country and force the creation of a new Syrian state if it does look like turning into a chaotic shithole on Turkey's border.

Worth getting into some of the background on Erdogan ...

Basically the line that runs through his career is Islamism. He was jailed for it. Politically he fought and defeated Turkey's secular elite and their deep state (the original use of the term, and unlike in the West, one which actually existed and would kill opponents). To get that victory Erdogan used the Gulen Movement, an Islamist fraternal organisation, externally it presents a moderate face but internally there's claims from former members its not moderate at all. 1000s of Gulen members were parachuted into government jobs by Erdogan. His links to secretive Islamist organisations go further, he always backed Morsi (Egypt's deposed president and Muslim Brotherhood leader). Turkey has taken in tens of thousands of Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood members, they're given new identities/Turkish citizenship and often government jobs. Probably most Egyptians in Turkey are Muslim Brotherhood connected. Turkey has also taken in a lot of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood.

Which takes us back to Assad. Why did the Arab League very recently readmit him? At least partly its because Assad was refusing Muslim Brotherhood advances, which put him on the same side as a lot of Arab League leaders who correctly view the Muslim Brotherhood as terrorists trying to overthrow their dictatorships. Al Qaeda in Syria/HTS meanwhile was being backed by Turkey and Qatar (its an open secret Qatar is a Muslim Brotherhood supporting state). Why does Hamas have a home in Qatar? Because Hamas is a Muslim Brotherhood organisation just like Qatar.

... There's a way of counting the chickens which explains why Israel is frantically bombing Syria. A Muslim Brotherhood ruled Syria backed up by a strong regional power which also supports the Muslim Brotherhood, would be "interesting". Big border with Jordan which is in reality ruled by a not particularly legitimate monarchy, the sort of thing which annoys the Muslim Brotherhood.