https://x.com/tadhghickey/status/175...dxJXScFNwz8V4A
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https://x.com/tadhghickey/status/175...dxJXScFNwz8V4A
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Biden outlining a new proposed ceasefire, which has been approved by Israel.
On the face of it, seems like a good deal (albeit what homes the Palestinian people return to is, well, pointless)
Over to hamas.
Would be nice if the west bank settler violence and constant breaches of international law were also addressed but one step at a time I suppose.
More dead women and children as Israel bombs a UN school housing displaced people - under the usual excuse of it's a Hamas command post.
How's that red line of yours, Sleepy Joe?
Gantz resigns. Calls for an election.
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Bild in Germany and Politico in the US are reporting Israel will send an ultimatum to hezbollah in the next few days and are ready to invade at the end of July. They feel the Gaza operation/genocide has finished and are ready to move on to Lebanon, more death
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/06/27/us-intelligence-israel-hezbollah-war-00165338
Meanwhile, the Israeli genocide goes on.
Safe zones eh...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cyx0qdkn45eo
Top UN court rules that Israeli occupation of Palestinian land is illegal.
Another thing that will, of course, be completely ignored.
Starmer apparently called Netanyahu for a ceasefire and said UK believes in a two state solution, not that he will care in any way what we say
Less performative he has reversed the last governments ban on aid to UNRWA
Israel hits back at the Houthis in Yemen https://x.com/visegrad24/status/1814708574888628662
UK has dropped its challenge to the ICC arrest warrants for Israeli leaders, Starmer calls for a ceasefire and a two state solution. Netanyahu won't care a jot though as he seems to have had a lovely time in Washington and they and Germany send 99% of their import weapons, they also have a massive arms industry themselves. I've no idea what stops this, the US probably has the best chance but even then I'm dubious that they can or want to
How so. Trump won't. I watched a BBC storyvile on evangelical Christians in the US. Showed how a section of the Republicans are embedded in evangelical Christianity. They think Israel has a right to the whole of Israel and Jerusalem. Showed Trump taking part in prayer breakfasts with these nutters https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001z96s
Israel kills Ismael Haniyah while he was in Tehran. Added to the attempted hit in Beirut on Hezbollah, they appear determined to bring all out war, no matter how many innocent civilians are killed along the way.
https://x.com/scotnational/status/18...dxJXScFNwz8V4A
Unlikely to be many protests at St. Andrews.
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'Stella Maris said Palestinians suffer 'apartheid' - but a report said her statement caused 'anxiety and fear' for some Jewish students.'.
Really?
Palestinians are suffering the actual apartheid, but the feelings of some unnamed 'Jewish Students' is what really matters
:rolleyes:
Not content with their genocide in Gaza, the Israeli killing machine has now set upon the West Bank.
"Since Israel launched its war on Gaza, Israeli army raids have become a nightly occurrence in towns and villages in the West Bank, with Israeli soldiers and settlers killing at least 646 Palestinians, including 148 children, and injuring more than 5,400, Palestinian health officials have said."
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/...ince-october-7
"State-backed settler violence increased. In the Negev/Naqab in southern Israel, Israeli forces continued to demolish Bedouin homes and whole villages, including one village for the 222nd time. In the West Bank, Israeli policing operations were the most lethal since 2005, with 110 Palestinian children among those killed. Detentions of Palestinians without charge or trial reached record levels."
https://www.amnesty.org/en/location/...ian-territory/
Israeli Trade Unions and workers staging a general strike to get the deal over the line, get the hostages back and end the killing.
Good on the Unions. ✊🏻
J
Mass amount of injuries as Israel infiltrate and detonate explosives inserted into pagers used by Hezbollah.
That's one of the craziest stories I've ever seen, I'd think it was unrealistic if it was in Hollywood
Iranian Ambassador to Lebanon also wounded, Mmm wonder why he had a Hezbollah Pager :rolleyes:
From the cctv videos I've seen of 3 attacks no one standing right next to the people were hurt, just bad groin injuries to the person with the pager on his belt.
Lebanese saying 3300 hezbollah injured with 600 critical. Must be up there with the most successful intelligence agency op ever, still can barely believe it. They must have infiltrated the factory or something
Sky Arabia and Al Jazeera saying 20 gram of explosive was placed on the battery of each pager
Has to be quite sophisticated. Whatever triggered the explosion did it simultaneously. Either they were all programmed to explode at the same time or they were detonated remotely, either way it's evil genius and the planning to pull something like this off is incredible.
i don't know a lot about pagers but there's probably some command to action a specific pin the would be attached to the explosive. If you have an explosive that's volatile enough but sufficiently isolated from the rest of the electronics, it should be fairly robust.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cwyl9048gx8t
Yet more atrocities by Israel!!
The video the BBC showed of the explosion in the fruit shop with young children nearby, children who were evidently terrified and screaming, was heartbreaking stuff.
All the killing in this war, indeed any war, is wrong. The issue here is that indiscriminate killing and maiming on one side is decried as terrorism whilst on the other it's condoned by western leaders (and it appears much of the population) and the collateral damage of thousands of Palestinians and now Lebanese is a price worth paying.
Hezbollah announce the death of another 7 members. They say 3 civilians killed and 34 of the 37 dead so far were Hezbollah. Another another around 400 people with critical injuries.
Hezbollahs leader Hassan Nasrallah talking just now says the resistance received heavy blow, but this is the nature of war. says Hezbollah's attacks against northern #Israel have forced Israel to divert ressources away from Gaza and the West Bank.
Israeli strikes reported in Lebanon
Nasrallah speaking about the possibility that Israeli troops will enter the country to create a buffer zone: says he doesn't believe Israeli will make an invasion as they regularly make the same threat
"We wish that they enter Lebanon, What you consider a threat, we consider an opportunity"
Israel all set to flatten Lebanon now. And yet, they will be armed to the hilt by Western allies.
I have a different opinion on military action v Hezbollah as the people of Gaza.
Isreal controls Gaza but Lebanon is responsible for dealing with Hezbollah. **** for the ordinary people of Lebanon.
I think eventually there will be a war between Iran and the West. It’s the only way this will ever be dealt with.
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No one is invading it I think the stupidity of Russia thinking it's 1940 the last few years has put paid to that, although even Russia thought they would win in a week. 200 NATO f35s and HIMARS would stop anything Iran did. Although I'm sure they won't they aren't stupid, they basically armed Hamas and Hezbollah and then through them under the bus when they asked Iran to get involved. More likely oil deals with Iran than full blown war
Lots of reports of hezbollah fighters being attacked by Sunni and Druze people when fleeing north. You forget how much of a separated country it is and how incompetent Britain was when dividing up countries on maps without a care for sectarianism
Lots of reports the head of Hezbollah has been killed. Let’s hope so.[emoji1696]
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Wasn’t just the head. Sounds like it was their whole leadership who had convened a meeting that the Israelis knew about.
Will be interesting to see what the Iranians do. They desperately don’t want a war with Isreal but can’t be seen to turn their back on this again.
There will be people in Lebanon happy with this as well. They don’t serve the whole population.
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While I love sticking the boot into Britain, is it not the case that France inherited Lebanon from the Ottoman Empire at the end of WWI? Additionally, when it comes to the Levant in general, due to different ethnicities living in close proximity over centuries, I don't think it would have ever been as easy as putting lines in the appropriate places.
I guess it’s completely situational. Killing Putin for example would quite likely be a catalyst for peace or Russian civil war.
Between the pager explosions (which I’m still in absolute awe at) and taking out not only the Hezbollah leader, but potentially a whole lot of their top brass in one move, the Israelis have played an absolute blinder IMO. They have effectively crippled their enemy without a ground invasion. The Iranians should really be taking note and adapting fast because any restraint that Isreal might be showing with Lebanon up until now, won’t be afforded to Iran if all out war the decision.
it's so, so, so insanely problematic using this language. did Hamas not play a blinder in October too? they got the world's attention back on Gaza. But saying they played a 'blinder' would not go down well here, i imagine, and sort of rightly so, because describing any kind of murder like that is just warped.
one might ignore the fact that Mossad managed to take out a fare few kids in Lebanon with the pagers, but even so, the attack is an absolutely colossal breach of all kinds of international laws. it's a war crime, and it is absolutely terrorism. marvelling at the execution of the plot is nothing more that military fetishism.
I don't agree with the pagers as although it was only hezbollah top brass that had a pager some could have had their kids in their arms. It can't be denied that it's very targeted though.
The point of war is to kill the enemy with as minimal civilian deaths as possible, although obviously there will always be civilian casualties and that can't be helped. I've no problem with bombs like yesterday being gps targeted to take out hezbollah leadership, even if there is some unintended casualties. I am obviously against the carpet bombing and untargeted flattening of Gaza.
To compare the pager attack to october 7th is ridiculous though. Hezbollah themselves said something like 50 hezbollah deaths and 3 civilians as well as around 500 hezbollah operatives severely injured. I don't agree with it but it was totally targeted. October the 7th was targeted at civilians. A few soldiers died but thousands of civilians murdered most from point blank range. Kids dancing at a festival, people waiting for the bus, people hiding in rooms. If on october 7th the crossed the border and all went to kill military personnel or targeted barracks I'd say it was fair
Yeah I was in shock at how they pulled it off, setting up companies years in advanced. Probably the most successful spy operation ever. Horrible army's like the Nazis or the UK in India can have amazing military operations, doesn't make them not horrendous.
Operation Greif by the Nazis was amazing. Soldiers dressed in US uniforms flew in behind enemy lines and caused havoc. They started directing tanks convoys down wrong roads, destroyed ammunition dumps, switched road signs and cut electric and phone lines. When it was uncovered the US had to use a lot of men to set up road blocks all over. The more famous operation mincemeat was cool too
Not expressing any view on the rights or wrongs of the situation but Iran and Hezbollah would be mental to try and start something.
Israel wiped out the whole command of Hezbollah in a few days.
Iran attacked Israel a few months ago with missiles and drones. A high percentage were destroyed in flight and the couple that got through, the Israeli’s allowed through because they were missing their target.
A ceasefire is everyone’s interests
I don’t think Isreal is interested in anything other than the destruction of Hezbollah. If the Iranians get involved then so be it but they want them gone from Lebanon. That would be good for both countries.
Iran will feel they need to respond but they know they face a wipeout if they go too far. I suspect they will send some slow flying drones that are easily taken care of and Isreal will go all out to rid Lebanon of Hezbollah. Iranians really don’t want this fight.
I don’t think a ceasefire is in Israel’s interest. One in Gaza is now but it takes two to tango there.
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Really quite a devastating couple of weeks for Hezbollah.
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good Nasrallah taken out, no more threatening Lebanon's Christians from him
https://x.com/simonmontefiore/status...dxJXScFNwz8V4A
Good article from Mathew Syed as usual. Doesn’t appear to be behind the paywall.
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https://x.com/simonmontefiore/status...dxJXScFNwz8V4A
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I mean, if you want to take your moral guidance from the Murdoch press then fine - but this kind of approach relies on deciding which facts matter and which don't, then basically obscuring the ones the 'don't matter' with reasons. Another term for this is 'moral splitting'. When you decide that a whole bunch of facts don't matter, they and their emergent properties creep up on you. The most obvious example of this is the climate crisis, but our history in foreign affairs is littered with this kind of self regarding thought. It's why throwing around words like 'evil' is just utterly meaningless - it comes from a place of self regarding denial.
it's an absolutely idiotic article.
basically, it says 'there's no room for shades of grey, you've got to swallow them and pick a side'.
with Russia, I get it - if they're not stopped, where will they stop?
...but where would Israel stop? There are a LOT of elements in the country that would like to see it expand. It has certainly tried to before. They are a self-described settler-colonial power, and they actually think (correctly) that it's hypocritical of the west to criticise them for this. They are right next to the single most important shipping lane on the planet...if Putin can't be trusten not to wade further into Europe, why isn't Netanyahu going to try to grab Sinai, not to mention the Golan Heights - he's stood in front of maps that included bits of Jordan in Israel as well, IIRC.
There is one reason they have all these weapons pointed at them, and it's f****ng US. Israel is a problem created by the west, for the west. I'm sure you'll have seen what Biden had to say on the matter in the 80s, words to the effect of "if we didn't have an Israel in the Middle East we'd need to make one to defend our interests in the region', before going on to describe it as 'the best investment in foreign affairs the US ever made' (I think it was regarding the military aid being given to Israel support or something).
Israel was designed to be 'a little Ulster' - the Black and Tans were literally enlisted to help set it up.
A lot of Jewish people I know feel it could have been very different, if less land had been taken from the Palestinians in the first place. The whole project morphed from giving the Jewish people a place to be safe from turning an incredibly traumatized people into attack dogs for colonial powers. Furthermore, it naturally turned the surrounding countries against Jewish people native to Iraq, Syria, Iran etc., who were all forced to leave to Israel for their own safety, when previously they had been living pretty peacefully.
The fact is, regardless of how 'cool' the pagers were, it's a war crime, and a pretty terrifying precedent. There's a word for that kind of act...oh yeah, terrorism. But it's cool terrorism, perpetrated by white people who espouse liberal values towards other white people, and it's surgical, so we'll put the genocide in Gaza to one side for a sec and applaud them for doing this whilst minimising civilian casualties...like they actually give a toss about that.
If you honestly can't see that the 'moral steel' that you are fostering is in defence of the thing that has created this problem (colonial liberal capitalism) then...I don't bloody know. :dunno:
The question of 'pick a side' between Hezbollah and Netenyahu is absolutely ridiculous. The only solution, albeit a difficult one, is for the west to stop arming Israel until it completely stops every illegal activity towards Palestinians, changes its government, and starts a genuine peace and reconciliation process. It's what we're going to expect of Russia.
I know you can, but it's incredibly reductive and really isn't part of the solution - Israel needs to back the absolute **** down before it and the west see their chickens come home to roost, which would be a humanitarian disaster on a scale that doesn't bare thinking about (the victims of which would be, in the vast majority, completely innocent, well meaning and peace seeking Israelis and Arabs). Europe and America created this problem, and the last thing the situation needs is cheerleaders in the west. It needs measured de-escalation. Arming Israel to fight Iran without very, very strict conditions would potentially be just as catastrophic. If the west is some kind of moral authority (which it isn't), then it's time to step up and stop enabling genocidal fascists. Anything else is a disaster.
The people who blame everything on Iran are as daft as the people who blame everything on the West. It's no a football game or good guys and bad guys. Multiple groups are wanting and pushing violence. In saying that Iran doesn't want a war its just seen two of its proxies decimated. I can't see any wider war it's more likely deals will be done and capitalism will keep on turning. Just as Russia will be welcomed back in as soon as a deal is brokered.
Iran 'imminently' to launch a direct ballistic missile attack on Israel, according to the US.
Seems a bit bizarre they would have this much warning. Plenty time to get army staff safe and the f35s in the sky to take the missles out. Isn't the point of ballistic missles that they have great speed so you can surprise defences and you don't knowthe target.
@visegrad24
·
12m
BREAKING:
The New York Times reports that Israeli officials believe the Islamic Regime in Iran will launch an attack against 3 Israeli military bases and an intelligence headquarters north of Tel Aviv.
They believe the attack is coming within the next 12 hours
Perhaps this is just a case of Iran showing it has the ability to strike Israel, and that if it escalates further Iran will launch one without forewarning?
Or it could be the US showing it has intelligence assets at a high level within the Iranian military command structure and that this strike won't accomplish anything for Iran as Israel will just remove anything valuable from those sites
Pretty much that, Iran doesn't want direct conflict with the west, that's why they do it through Hamas, Hezbollah and the Huthis indirectly, they have to be seen to be doing something to not look weak, so firing off missiles that everyone knows about allows them to save face
Could still all really kick off at any point though
You could be right actually i could see it being the second one as in publicly saying we know what your planning. It could also be Iran making it obvious so Israel deals with it but they keep face with the public.
I don't think it's the first as only a few months ago Iran sent a huge barrage of ballistic missles and drones and they all got shot down.
Iran are between a rock and a hard place.
On one hand they need to be big and mighty and retaliate but at the same time doing so, could be embarrassing if their best weapons get shot down again.
Personally I don’t think they will fire anything. Better to be thought of as being a restrained ‘super power’ rather than a faltering regime.
What a world we live in.
Not related but I'd read in 30 years violent attacks are down 83% and burglaries 86% in the uk, maybe one for the beer at football thread ha. Early 90s must have been radge but I'd think some people think it's worse now, due to every crime being reported whether that is on the news or locally through social media