Kicking off in Israel

[ASMO]

They'll be popping the Champagne corks tonight in Ukraine !

If the Israelis bomb the Iranian Caspian port infrastructure it would be ace, but they're unlikely to do so cos they are scared of pissing off the Russians. This Iranian missile attack also seems a bit performative, with it being telegraphed in advance and taking place at night. The Israeli response might be somewhat tempered

I was thinking more of an Operation Crossbow Mk II.

Target the missile & drone manufacturing facilities, & destroy them & the technicians & engineers around them.

LOL Israel and Tempered Response do not belong in the same sentence

[Sandstorm]

LOL Israel and Tempered Response do not belong in the same sentence

TBF they haven't gone nuclear yet.

[tabascoboy]

Israel likely struck the Russian Khmeimim airbase in Syria to destroy weapons intended for Hezbollah, according to BILD. A series of explosions occurred near the base, which reportedly targeted an Iranian arms shipment. This is part of Israel's ongoing efforts to disrupt Hezbollah's weapon supplies through Syria, though it's the first time the Russian base has been hit. The attack happened shortly after the arrival of an Iranian plane. The airstrike was confirmed by Syrian journalists and Hezbollah members.

[Openside]

You know what would be better?

It would be better if Israel stopped killing it's neighbours while screaming

'it's self defense, they said bad things'.

That would be better.

FFS

[C69]

Israel likely struck the Russian Khmeimim airbase in Syria to destroy weapons intended for Hezbollah, according to BILD. A series of explosions occurred near the base, which reportedly targeted an Iranian arms shipment. This is part of Israel's ongoing efforts to disrupt Hezbollah's weapon supplies through Syria, though it's the first time the Russian base has been hit. The attack happened shortly after the arrival of an Iranian plane. The airstrike was confirmed by Syrian journalists and Hezbollah members.

Oh well they can hardly complain if Russia bomb the shit out of them and clam the have the right to defend themselves.

[tabascoboy]

They, Iranians, will have a few things that are are not civilian that will got boom when the Israelis decide when to do it

Bibi is mad enough to attack nuclear facilities again. This time setting off a chain reaction of violence across the region and proably further afield.

Probably and also Kharg Island where 95% of their oil gets exported from. The last time it was hit was by Iraq it took 15 years to repair

[Uncle fester]

Israel hitting oil facilities putting prices up in a US election year. Can see a few problems with that.

[Calculon]

https://en.majalla.com/node/322513/poli ... incibility

[Uncle fester]

https://en.majalla.com/node/322513/poli ... incibility

It's a major intelligence coup by Israel but can it be repeated?
Can't help feeling that this is short term thinking on their part and their sources will be blown now plus all the dead civilians will ensure a steady supply of new recruits.

[JM2K6]

Calculon, re: assassinating the supreme leader of Iran, were you saying this was something you wanted them to do, something you thought would be a good idea, or that ultimately you just want to see him dead? Struggling to understand what you were getting at exactly.

[Calculon]

https://en.majalla.com/node/322513/poli ... incibility

It's a major intelligence coup by Israel but can it be repeated?
Can't help feeling that this is short term thinking on their part and their sources will be blown now plus all the dead civilians will ensure a steady supply of new recruits.

I suspect the mere existence of Israel will ensure a steady supply of new recruits. Not that better relations with its neighbours aren’t a benefit to Israel and the region as a whole

This is a long read but quite interesting background on the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon

https://substack.com/inbox/post/1494293 ... irect=true

[Calculon]

Calculon, re: assassinating the supreme leader of Iran, were you saying this was something you wanted them to do, something you thought would be a good idea, or that ultimately you just want to see him dead? Struggling to understand what you were getting at exactly.

I can’t remember what I wrote but obviously it would be better if the Iranians themselves execute him and overthrow the regime.

The Israelis assassinating him might be full of risks and unforeseen consequences. I’m not a geopolitical analysis so I don’t know more than that

[JM2K6]

Calculon, re: assassinating the supreme leader of Iran, were you saying this was something you wanted them to do, something you thought would be a good idea, or that ultimately you just want to see him dead? Struggling to understand what you were getting at exactly.

I can’t remember what I wrote but obviously it would be better if the Iranians themselves execute him and overthrow the regime.

The Israelis assassinating him might be full of risks and unforeseen consequences. I’m not a geopolitical analysis so I don’t know more than that

"What would be even better is if the Israelis could assassinate the mas murdering fuck who is the Supreme Leader of Iran. "

I think it's fair to say that a horrible piece of shit being dead would be great, but the Israelis assassinating him would be an absolute hand grenade to the chances of not having a giant conflagration

[Rhubarb & Custard]

I wonder how long stability can be maintained in Egypt. They're taking a pasting around the Suez Canal, which makes the Tamar gas field and supplies into Egypt still more crucial, or maybe the USA and others are willing to pump billions into Egypt just in case they need to order in

Israel and others are taking a hit economically too, Bibi is looking less economically astute than Trump these days, but they're in the actual conflict and by quite some design. Egypt is just getting whipped along in the slipstream and things could spill over any which way. Luckily there are no bad actors in China, India, Russia, Saudi, USA ISIS or even Egypt looking to exploit the significant instability in the region

[Guy Smiley]

I suspect the mere existence of Israel will ensure a steady supply of new recruits.

Of course. Israel is the victim here, let's not forget that.

[epwc]

Is anyone keeping track of how many Palestinians have died? I guess probably not worth the bother, how do you count all the fuckers? And all the ones dying through disease and lack of health care? Can’t blame anyone but themselves can they.

Like I said not worth counting, hardly anything about Lebanese or Yemeni casualties either….

[Calculon]

I suspect the mere existence of Israel will ensure a steady supply of new recruits.

Of course. Israel is the victim here, let's not forget that.

plenty of victims to go around, and plenty of cunts too

[Slick]

Is anyone keeping track of how many Palestinians have died? I guess probably not worth the bother, how do you count all the fuckers? And all the ones dying through disease and lack of health care? Can’t blame anyone but themselves can they.

Like I said not worth counting, hardly anything about Lebanese or Yemeni casualties either….

Lebanese are up to 2,000 I believe, but plenty of time to get that number up particularly as 14 dead civilians for 1 dead Hezbollah member seems to be the generous going rate.

[Sandstorm]

Is anyone keeping track of how many Palestinians have died?

BBC on Saturday said 44000 dead Palestinians if I remember correctly.

[JM2K6]

https://en.majalla.com/node/322513/poli ... incibility

It's a major intelligence coup by Israel but can it be repeated?
Can't help feeling that this is short term thinking on their part and their sources will be blown now plus all the dead civilians will ensure a steady supply of new recruits.

I suspect the mere existence of Israel will ensure a steady supply of new recruits. Not that better relations with its neighbours aren’t a benefit to Israel and the region as a whole

This is a long read but quite interesting background on the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon

https://substack.com/inbox/post/1494293 ... irect=true

This guy's twitter feed is a riot. Retweeting loads of dumb Tory shit about the Chagos islands, retweeting Mossad and the IDF, and generally acting more like a bot than a human being.

[Calculon]

It's a major intelligence coup by Israel but can it be repeated?
Can't help feeling that this is short term thinking on their part and their sources will be blown now plus all the dead civilians will ensure a steady supply of new recruits.

I suspect the mere existence of Israel will ensure a steady supply of new recruits. Not that better relations with its neighbours aren’t a benefit to Israel and the region as a whole

This is a long read but quite interesting background on the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon

https://substack.com/inbox/post/1494293 ... irect=true

This guy's twitter feed is a riot. Retweeting loads of dumb Tory shit about the Chagos islands, retweeting Mossad and the IDF, and generally acting more like a bot than a human being.

I have no intention of checking out his twitter feed thanks. the piece he wrote is sympathetic to the Israeli pov, it still gives some good background info that most people have little knowledge of

[Calculon]

Calculon, re: assassinating the supreme leader of Iran, were you saying this was something you wanted them to do, something you thought would be a good idea, or that ultimately you just want to see him dead? Struggling to understand what you were getting at exactly.

I can’t remember what I wrote but obviously it would be better if the Iranians themselves execute him and overthrow the regime.

The Israelis assassinating him might be full of risks and unforeseen consequences. I’m not a geopolitical analysis so I don’t know more than that

"What would be even better is if the Israelis could assassinate the mas murdering fuck who is the Supreme Leader of Iran. "

I think it's fair to say that a horrible piece of shit being dead would be great, but the Israelis assassinating him would be an absolute hand grenade to the chances of not having a giant conflagration

It's a risk, same as attacking the oil terminals or Iran's nucleur facilities. I believe the americans are trying to restrain the israelis from bombing these, at least until after the elections

[JM2K6]

I can’t remember what I wrote but obviously it would be better if the Iranians themselves execute him and overthrow the regime.

The Israelis assassinating him might be full of risks and unforeseen consequences. I’m not a geopolitical analysis so I don’t know more than that

"What would be even better is if the Israelis could assassinate the mas murdering fuck who is the Supreme Leader of Iran. "

I think it's fair to say that a horrible piece of shit being dead would be great, but the Israelis assassinating him would be an absolute hand grenade to the chances of not having a giant conflagration

It's a risk, same as attacking the oil terminals or Iran's nucleur facilities. I believe the americans are trying to restrain the israelis from bombing these, at least until after the elections

Murdering heads of state is a much much bigger risk than attacking infrastructure.

[Calculon]

"What would be even better is if the Israelis could assassinate the mas murdering fuck who is the Supreme Leader of Iran. "

I think it's fair to say that a horrible piece of shit being dead would be great, but the Israelis assassinating him would be an absolute hand grenade to the chances of not having a giant conflagration

It's a risk, same as attacking the oil terminals or Iran's nucleur facilities. I believe the americans are trying to restrain the israelis from bombing these, at least until after the elections

Murdering heads of state is a much much bigger risk than attacking infrastructure.

Maybe, but it seems the least likely option anyway. if israel criples the iranian oil terminals more than 90% of Iran's oil exports will stop and then there's a chance that the Iranians will mine the straits of hormuz, which will be interessting to say the least. this sets out the options for Israel

https://www.nbcnews.com/investigations/ ... rcna173865

this was interresting, particulalry on Netanyahu’s thinking on what to do next. it's a week old so some of it is already out of date. also, no idea what the guy's twitter feed is like

https://theleaduk.substack.com/p/lebano ... -is-an-era

[Uncle fester]

It's a major intelligence coup by Israel but can it be repeated?
Can't help feeling that this is short term thinking on their part and their sources will be blown now plus all the dead civilians will ensure a steady supply of new recruits.

I suspect the mere existence of Israel will ensure a steady supply of new recruits. Not that better relations with its neighbours aren’t a benefit to Israel and the region as a whole

This is a long read but quite interesting background on the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon

https://substack.com/inbox/post/1494293 ... irect=true

This guy's twitter feed is a riot. Retweeting loads of dumb Tory shit about the Chagos islands, retweeting Mossad and the IDF, and generally acting more like a bot than a human being.

And completely glosses over why the PLO were in Jordan in the first place.

Essentially the Israeli solution is to make Palestinians "go away" and turn a blind eye to how that is achieved. Bitterly ironic considering their history.

[Uncle fester]

Some of the guys at work have alluded to this.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/ ... -departure

[Uncle fester]

So after using UNFIL as human shields, they are now firing upon them.

Kind of puts the "we weren't threatening you, we just politely asked you to leave" statements in context.

[epwc]

So who’s the bad guy here, I mean they could have just left couldn’t they? What more could Israel do,, the most humane response is of course shelling and airstrikes.

[Uncle fester]

They are of course attacking UNFIL in self defense.

[epwc]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... israel-idf

[epwc]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1e82yy0wxno

[Uncle fester]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1e82yy0wxno

What's proposed is a straight up war crime.
It wouldn't have been acceptable in 1945 Berlin. It shouldn't be acceptable now.

[epwc]

It certainly looks that way

[Slick]

It certainly looks that way

Just feel so utterly powerless about all this. I know the reality is we are powerless, but something about this is worse. They are meant to be a modern civilised country, but they are just barbaric savages and our governments may as well be turning a blind eye for all their lobbying seems to be achieving.

How do we punish them, now and when all this shit is over. I’m feeling not buying a new soda stream canister isn’t cutting it

[Uncle fester]

It certainly looks that way

Just feel so utterly powerless about all this. I know the reality is we are powerless, but something about this is worse. They are meant to be a modern civilised country, but they are just barbaric savages and our governments may as well be turning a blind eye for all their lobbying seems to be achieving.

How do we punish them, now and when all this shit is over. I’m feeling not buying a new soda stream canister isn’t cutting it

Boycott and shame governments into stopping arming them.

[_Os_]

Discounting the morals/politics/law/history, how is this looking for Israel 1 year on purely from a military point of view?

Gaza

One year of bombing and ground invasion of a tiny area (360km2, about a quarter the size of London). Around two thirds of the structures in the Gaza Strip are demolished, 95%+ of the population is internally displaced/homeless. Objectives were eliminate Hamas and free the hostages. Hamas still exists, Israel claims it has broken all Hamas battalions, yet it's still fighting Hamas on the ground and Hamas is even able to fire a limited amount of rockets into Israel and continues to conduct terror attacks inside Israel. Unknown how degraded Hamas are, but they're likely heavily degraded. All the hostages are not freed, which means the remaining ones are either dead, or Israel doesn't know where they are, or Israel knows where they are but cannot defeat Hamas. I've seen credible analysis that the IDF has been reluctant to conduct foot patrols, and instead stays buttoned up in their vehicles, making it difficult to clear anything. There are fully documented cases of the IDF capturing an area then again fighting to retake it months later. Israel is now talking about using starvation as a weapon of war, which underlines the failure of IDF ground forces to gain control. Speculation Israel wants to turn Gaza into another West Bank, where Palestinians are herded into smaller geographic pockets, movement is controlled whilst they're permanently watched by Israeli security forces, and settlers will be allowed in. In the Gaza invasion so far Israel has lost 353 soldiers killed and 2,282 wounded.

West Bank

A lot of Israeli violence, including the use of Israeli airstrikes which were uncommon there previously. Objective seems to be take more land, and no one is stopping Israel short of a new Intifada. Got to wonder how close that is, there have been a number of incidents where lone wolf West Bank Palestinians unaffiliated to any terrorist group have attempted to kill as many Israelis as they can (using guns/knives/vehicles).

Lebanon

Israel using airstrikes throughout Lebanon, basically all of Hezbollah's top leadership has been killed by this, but not clear how much this has degraded its military capability otherwise. Israel has shown how deeply their intelligence services have penetrated Lebanon/Hezbollah (pager attacks, walkie talkie attacks). Hard to know how long it took them to build all that intelligence and if it's now burned up, in other words when Hezbollah's leadership is renewed will Israel know what is going on.

Hezbollah are orders of magnitude stronger and more entrenched than Hamas, they'll be dangerous even without top leaders. Credible analysts have said for years that Hezbollah has some of the best light infantry in the ME, they're well trained and armed and fought in Syria. It's best to think of Southern Lebanon as something a bit like the frontlines in Eastern Ukraine, layers of prepared honeycombed defences (tunnels, prepared concealed shooting positions, buildings designed to be detonated when raided, ammo and fuel dumps). South Lebanon is about 6 times the size of Gaza, has about half the population, and is not flat like Gaza. Again unlike Gaza it's likely IDF ground forces will be outnumbered by their opponents (the lower estimates for Hezbollah fighters are 40k the same as the higher estimates for Hamas, the higher estimates for Hezbollah are around 100k). There's also a land connection to Iran through the failed states of Syria and Iraq. Israel claims it has lost 12 soldiers killed and 63 wounded so far. Some of these were special forces that seemed to have died in a single incident. Hezbollah also claims a number of Merkava MBTs have been destroyed, which is possible given the ATGMs they have. The IDF's ground invasion isn't a month old, given its limited nature so far the amount and type of losses look ominous. Israeli objectives are eliminate Hezbollah and stop rocket attacks on northern Israel, neither have been achieved. Israel has now attacked UN outposts and told UN forces to leave.

Syria/Yemen/Iraq

Hard to tell what the Israeli objectives are in these places or what they've achieved. Yemen still has the Iran backed Houthis, just like Iraq still has Iran backed militias, and Syria has an Iran backed government. The Houthis are still using missiles and drones against shipping in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean. Most significant events are: Ongoing Western intervention against the Houthis, Israeli strike on the Russian airbase in Syria which Iran was using to supply Hezbollah, an Iraqi militia drone attack killing 2 Israeli soldiers and wounding 24 in the Golan Heights (similar to a previous Iraqi militia drone attack on a US base in Jordan, which killed 3 US soldiers and wounded 47).

Iran

Again hard to tell what Israel's objective is, making it hard to measure their success. Stop Iran backing Hamas/Hezbollah/Houthis/Syria/Iraqi militias? Take down the Iranian regime? End their nuclear programme? Drag the West into a war with Iran? None of that has happened. Iran has shown it can penetrate all layers of Israel's missile shield, it fired about 200 missiles for about 33 visually confirmed hits. Iran's missile stockpile is speculated to be a few thousand with around 200 launchers.

Iran is a serious proposition to take on: mountainous, Caspian Sea connection to Russia (and potentially China and North Korea too) which neither Israel or the West controls, there's also non-Russian land routes to China and NK, an industrial base much stronger than recent Western military opponents (Iraq/Afghanistan/Libya), population of 89 million just wrong to think the regime support isn't many millions strong in a population that large. Iran also has a sense of itself in deep history as Persian (more like how Russia and China see themselves, than places like Iraq/Afghanistan), it makes them more likely to fight. Iran is strong enough that it supports Russia's military and is demonstrably superior to Russia in drone technology. As seen in Ukraine just having a lot of men counts for something, Iran's active duty military and trained reserve is estimated at 1m men.

Conclusion

Could make a case Israel is winning the war in Gaza, but Hamas is also their weakest opponent. Cannot see how Israel wins a ground war against Hezbollah given their dire performance on the ground in Gaza. Iran doesn't look feasible without the West doing the heavy lifting and going back into the ME in a massive way (against public opinion, any US or UK government that went on another ME adventure would immediately be sunk), outside of that whatever Israel does to Iran in the end Iran still exists and still supplies all Israel's enemies. It's now a 7 front war covering basically the entire ME, Israel wins this through military means how exactly?

[epwc]

Seems a fair summary, I’ve said all along that I have no idea what victory even looks like in this conflict.

[Guy Smiley]

Yup... like a snake eating it's own tail.

[Rhubarb & Custard]

All the hostages are not freed

Not exactly a priority. Some of the family members of the hostages have been attacked by police at some demonstrations, essentially for arguing against Bibi, and some ardent supporters of Israel's (mis)adventures have spat on family members of hostages protesting not enough is being done to return their loved ones, because a push for peace or even a ceasefire is taken to be the act of a traitor by some citizens.

Once upon a time family members of hostages would have been (all but) sacred cows in Israel. But these days it's not a given, far from

[Calculon]

Discounting the morals/politics/law/history, how is this looking for Israel 1 year on purely from a military point of view?



Iran

Again hard to tell what Israel's objective is, making it hard to measure their success. Stop Iran backing Hamas/Hezbollah/Houthis/Syria/Iraqi militias? Take down the Iranian regime? End their nuclear programme? Drag the West into a war with Iran? None of that has happened. Iran has shown it can penetrate all layers of Israel's missile shield, it fired about 200 missiles for about 33 visually confirmed hits. Iran's missile stockpile is speculated to be a few thousand with around 200 launchers.

Iran is a serious proposition to take on: mountainous, Caspian Sea connection to Russia (and potentially China and North Korea too) which neither Israel or the West controls, there's also non-Russian land routes to China and NK, an industrial base much stronger than recent Western military opponents (Iraq/Afghanistan/Libya), population of 89 million just wrong to think the regime support isn't many millions strong in a population that large. Iran also has a sense of itself in deep history as Persian (more like how Russia and China see themselves, than places like Iraq/Afghanistan), it makes them more likely to fight. Iran is strong enough that it supports Russia's military and is demonstrably superior to Russia in drone technology. As seen in Ukraine just having a lot of men counts for something, Iran's active duty military and trained reserve is estimated at 1m men.

I think you might be overestimating Iran’s military capability to directly strike Israel and cause major damage. From what I read this was 200 of Iran’s most advance ballistic missiles (unlike the last time when a lot of older/ less advance drones and cruise and ballistic missiles were used), fired at very short notice and yet they caused minimal damage. What might have happened is that Israels air defense stocks are running low, hence the US deploying THAAD there. It seems Iran’s best deterrent/threat against Israel is still its allies/proxies in Hamas and Hezbollah, both of which have been significantly degraded.

Also maybe worth bearing in mind that for nearly thirty years prior to the Iranian revolution Iran had friendly relations with Israel. Many Iranians, not surprisingly those that also oppose the current regime, are actually quite pro-Israel and anti-Arab. Unfortunately, despite its domestic unpopularity, this regime does not appear to be under immediate threat