The War in Israel may be at it's end.

[mikbone]

Buckle up.

 

[NeuroTypical]

Doesn't Iran have a history of having it's nuclear program bombed back to the bronze age by Israel when they get ticked off enough?

[Carborendum]

39 minutes ago, NeuroTypical said:

Doesn't Iran have a history of having it's nuclear program bombed back to the bronze age by Israel when they get ticked off enough?

This goes against my conservative, pro-Israel chops to admit this. But...

First read about Stuxnet.

The untold story (I only heard it as a rumor) is that Iran kept getting closer and closer to fixing the mechanical problems.  Israel got spooked.  So, they used the worm somehow to create a catastrophic failure.

Because of this failure, the Iranians were able to figure out that this was a direct cyber-attack, not just a bunch of mechanical failures.  So, the cat was out of the bag.

The US thought that Israel killed the goose that laid the golden egg.  We wanted to milk this thing for all it was worth by wasting Iranian funds and manpower.

But we put up a good front, congratulating Israel and mocking Iran.

[mikbone]

 

I wonder why we need Thunderbolts in the middle east?…

[JohnsonJones]

Well, the good news from Israel is that supposedly they had no deaths or severe injuries from this.

It is yet to be seen how Israel will respond. 

[Carborendum]

6 Israelis were killed in Tel Aviv.

[JohnsonJones]

15 minutes ago, Carborendum said:

6 Israelis were killed in Tel Aviv.

Thanks for the update.  They had said something different on the news last night, so I had old and wrong news. 

It's sad to hear and I can only imagine this will heighten how strong a response Israel will give when they react to the attack.

[mikbone]

The deaths in Tel Aviv were from two Palestine terrorist gunman from the West Bank.  

8 Israel soldiers were killed in Lebanon.  We have no idea how many Hezbollah were killed in the ground attack.

Hezbollah is calling it a huge victory that they repelled Israel within their land.

Apparently they don’t even know that Israel is taking the next few days off as it is Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new Year 5785.

They blow horns, eat round Challah, and fruit with honey. 

I’ll be celebrating with them.  We will likely see fireworks during General Conference after Rosh Hashanah has concluded.

Edited October 3, 2024 by mikbone

[NeuroTypical]

Dennis fang is one of my favorite opiner about geopolitics and wine nations do things.

 

[mikbone]

https://m.jpost.com/breaking-news/article-825018

They are currently showing images on i24 of Yahya Sinwar’s corpse.

I hope Israel can get some hostages back.

Graphic Warning link below

https://x.com/doranimated/status/1846895121121288397?s=46

 

Edited October 17, 2024 by mikbone

[NeuroTypical]

2 hours ago, mikbone said:

Yahya Sinwar’s corpse.

One of the valid concerns I keep hearing from the pro-Palestinian side of things, is all Israel is doing is raising the next generation of terrorist killers, who end up that way because of the trauma going on around them as Israel and Hamas wage war.   Reading up on Sinwar's life, dude is sort of the dictionary definition of that concern.  Born and raised in refugee camps, being deeply impacted by the communal living conditions and dependent on food distribution run by people he thought of as the enemy.  Radicalized by Hamas and in prison by 20.  Getting his fellow Palestinians killed when he thought they were Israeli collaborators by 22.   Blood on his own hands probably about that time.  

I hope Israel is successful in eliminating Hamas, so there's nobody left to radicalize the kids being traumatized today.  But of course, the Palestinians have to eventually be sick enough of their rulers that they finally refuse to stop being Hamas pawns and human shields.  I hope the people left standing can figure out a way to help bring that about.  I hope they can accomplish something like what happened in Germany.  Where Germans were split into Germans, who were able to rebuild and live life with honor, and nazis, who were hunted down, tried, imprisoned, and often executed.   I doubt they'll never accomplish anything like Imperial Japan after WWII.  Japan's emperor surrendered, not only surrendered to allied forces, but also surrendered his status of deity to the Japanese people.  I don't see anyone in Hamas left who can do that.

 

Edited October 17, 2024 by NeuroTypical

[mikbone]

9 minutes ago, NeuroTypical said:

One of the valid concerns I keep hearing from the pro-Palestinian side of things, is all Israel is doing is raising the next generation of terrorist killers, who end up that way because of the trauma going on around them as Israel and Hamas wage war. 

It’s s a bit more complicated than that.

If the palestinian argument was correct then Israel would still be in a fierce battle with Germany after the Holocaust, right?

Obviously not.

It is the ideology of the Islamic extremism that is the underlying problem.

Hamas’ motto is victory or martyrdom.  Not a-lot of leeway.

https://yivo.org/cimages/meir_litvak__martyrdom_is_life_jihad_and_martyrdom_in_the_ideology_of_hamas.pdf

[Phoenix_person]

4 hours ago, mikbone said:

It’s s a bit more complicated than that.

If the palestinian argument was correct then Israel would still be in a fierce battle with Germany after the Holocaust, right?

Obviously not.

Given that post-war Germany was occupied by Allied forces until 40 years after Israel was established, yes, it makes sense that there was no retaliation against Germany. And now there's no need for it. Israeli Germans are free to return without fear of persecution. I have a pen pal in Berlin who's the granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor and an IDF veteran. 

4 hours ago, mikbone said:

It is the ideology of the Islamic extremism that is the underlying problem.

And where do these extremists keep coming from, I wonder? Extremism rarely exists in a vacuum. Hamas is fighting the same war that was started 76 years ago, a war that has left nearly 6 million Palestinians displaced from their homeland the way European Jews were in the 1940s. The difference is that post-war Israel has always had the military support of the Western world, though it's worth debating how pure the intentions of Western interventionalists have been over the past 100+ years that they've been intervening in the geopolitical affairs of the Middle East.

[NeuroTypical]

25 minutes ago, Phoenix_person said:

The difference is that post-war Israel has always had the military support of the Western world, though it's worth debating how pure the intentions of Western interventionalists have been over the past 100+ years that they've been intervening in the geopolitical affairs of the Middle East.

Are there not two sides to that equation?   What of post-war Palestine, and how they've been handled/treated/manipulated/used by places like Iran, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia?  In the record of human history there are recurring themes about what happens with defeated peoples, but an awful lot of that didn't happen with Palestinians.  It seems to me they've been far too useful as a permanent pawn to be used by nations that don't like Israel or the Western world.  Give 'em missiles and guns and bombs and training to fight Israel, but only as a deadly nuisance.   If we're looking at other powers intervening in that area for 100+ years, it seems a bit myopic to only look at half the powers. 

They tell me enough money has poured into the occupied territories to have turned it into another Dubai.  It could have been a beautiful paradise with human advancement and universities and art.  And yet it's a place of permanent refugee camps.  Really can't lay all that on the western world.  Can we?

Well, no matter the history, Israel is out to make permanent change.  Bring October 7 to a nation where "never again" is part of their shared multicultural DNA, and get what you get.  I'm interested to see if Israel has enough ability and national will to bring some sort of permanent change to Iran.  

Edited October 17, 2024 by NeuroTypical

[Phoenix_person]

6 hours ago, NeuroTypical said:

Are there not two sides to that equation?   What of post-war Palestine, and how they've been handled/treated/manipulated/used by places like Iran, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia?  In the record of human history there are recurring themes about what happens with defeated peoples, but an awful lot of that didn't happen with Palestinians.  It seems to me they've been far too useful as a permanent pawn to be used by nations that don't like Israel or the Western world.  Give 'em missiles and guns and bombs and training to fight Israel, but only as a deadly nuisance.   If we're looking at other powers intervening in that area for 100+ years, it seems a bit myopic to only look at half the powers. 

Yes. Palestine is a political pawn of Iran the way that Israel is a political pawn of the US (and historically, the UK). The Balfour Declaration came at a time when Britain wanted a non-Arab ally to help them secure the Suez Canal, and oil was discovered in the Middle East 9 years later. And then there's stuff like this.

You know all that turmoil south of us that's causing a migrant crisis as asylum seekers flock to our border? Yeah. 

This is why leftists feel it's important to emphasize that anti-Zionism =/= antisemitism. Zionism is the Nationalist arm of Judaism, and their version of nationalism looks a lot like ours did in the 18th and early 19th centuries, and Britain's in the 19th and early 20th Centuries. But Israel has far deadlier weapons than we did or the British did, and they got them from us. The US has spent decades sponsoring Zionist imperialism and calling it antisemitism to speak out against it. 

Of course, none of this erases or excuses the fact that Islamic nations have used Palestinian suffering to advance their own nefarious agendas in the region. The old empires of the East and West are fighting wars started over 100 years ago, and innocent civilians are dying for it in both Israel and Palestine. Mostly Palestine, though. We never built them an iron dome, and neither did Iran.

6 hours ago, NeuroTypical said:

They tell me enough money has poured into the occupied territories to have turned it into another Dubai.  It could have been a beautiful paradise with human advancement and universities and art.  And yet it's a place of permanent refugee camps.  Really can't lay all that on the western world.  Can we?

No, but I try my best to speak to what the people who represent me can control. You're absolutely right that Iran and other Islamic nations are complicit in the suffering of innocent Palestinians. I didn't vote for their president, though.

Edited October 18, 2024 by Phoenix_person

[LDSGator]

8 minutes ago, Phoenix_person said:

You're absolutely right that Iran and other Islamic nations are complicit in the suffering of innocent Palestinians

100% agree with you both. I think Palestinians are also much angrier about it than we are.   

[mikbone]

The tank crew that got Sinwar found him with a quadcopter drone.  They didn’t know who he was, only that he was a terrorist and he tried to disable the drone.

Last image of Sinwar alive.

Israel, Israel, God is calling.

[mikbone]

Israel just retaliated.  Looks like a limited response so far.

[NeuroTypical]

They're still busy with Hamas, and just starting with Hezbollah.  Going all out with Iran isn't in the playbook at this stage.

[NeuroTypical]

Tentative ceasefire agreement with Hezbollah.   Fingers crossed.

 

Quote

The deal calls for a two-month period to allow the Israeli military to withdraw from southern Lebanon and for Lebanese security forces to deploy in the area. It also calls for international monitoring of the cease-fire, including by the U.S. and France. And the agreement calls for Hezbollah to remove its military forces from areas near the Israeli border in keeping with a previous United Nations resolution that ended a previous war in 2006, according to Lebanese officials.

https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/israel-hezbollah-lebanon-ceasefire-approved-8a236ef3?mod=hp_lead_pos1

[Carborendum]

Finally, Hamas has agreed to a phased return of hostages in exchange for returning Palestinian prisoners which include known terrorists.

The numbers are completely lop-sided.  First phase: 33 Israelis for hundreds of Palestinians.

And, yes, it is pretty clear that Trump's threats to Hamas were instrumental in Palestinians dealing with Israel.

Again, he's not even President yet and is getting things done.

[NeuroTypical]

I suppose I should be happy that the killing and destruction will end.  But that's certainly tempered with the fact that murderous and evil Hamas remains an intact organization, with a fresh infusion of released prisoners.  Nothing being said about Hamas budging on it's ideological purpose of destroying Israel.

So, I guess, rebuild for 20 years, then execute another October 7?  

Well, at least the killing and destruction might end.  We'll see what happens with Iran over the next decade.

[Carborendum]

2 minutes ago, NeuroTypical said:

So, I guess, rebuild for 20 years, then execute another October 7?  

Yup

2 minutes ago, NeuroTypical said:

Well, at least the killing and destruction might end.  We'll see what happens with Iran over the next decade.

Truth.

There are a lot of moving parts.  It is difficult to predict.