Hamas starts a war. Will they survive?

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[Charlemagne]

What the fuck even IS that? Can't make out any recognizable features, it's so badly burned.

 

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What the fuck even IS that? Can't make out any recognizable features, it's so badly burned.

It's a baby.

 

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Iran’s plan to destroy Israel is hiding in plain sight​

Jerusalem and its allies should be considering how Iran and its surrogates will respond to Israeli retaliation against Hamas in Gaza. Alongside Hezbollah, the major unknown currently is whether possibly Syria or even Iran itself will intervene in a much bigger way.

Over the years, Russia and Iran have supplied Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas with missiles and drones. Hezbollah’s arsenal is enormously larger than that of Hamas, amounting to tens of thousands, perhaps 150,000 missiles, compared with Hamas’s arsenal in the single-digit thousands. Moreover, long experience in cross-border terrorism and military conflict against Israel and other foes of Iran makes Hezbollah particularly dangerous.

Simultaneously, growing criticism of the Jewish state will increase among its fair-weather friends. Iran and some or all of its puppets will use asymmetric warfare against the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), including sophisticated and extensive propaganda and influence operations in the West, accompanied by “lawfare”, a systematic effort purportedly based on international law intended to delegitimise Jerusalem’s campaign against Hamas and other adversaries.

How Iran, Syria and Hezbollah act militarily depends on whether the Hamas attack was a one-off, or if a deeper strategy is in play. Perhaps it was just conducting a reconnaissance-in-force, probing Israel’s defences. Or perhaps Hamas aimed to tie down significant IDF forces in Gaza so that Hezbollah could attack with far greater force from Lebanon and Syria.

Hamas, Hezbollah, and Syria are key elements of Iran’s “ring of fire” strategy to isolate and pressure Israel and its Arab friends, as are Yemen’s Houthi rebels and the Shia militia groups which Iran is even now forging into an Iraqi version of Hezbollah. The Biden administration shows no sign that it knows how Iran intends to implement this strategy, or over what period.

Unfortunately for Israel, Iran and its terrorist satellites can launch concerted military campaigns at times of their choosing. Or they could follow a salami-slicing programme of terrorist pressure on Israel for an extended period. Iran may be seeking thereby to strain Israel’s already divisive domestic politics, and hope Jerusalem’s international support erodes due to short attention spans and the press of other affairs, including the Ukraine war.

Critical to Iran’s global strategy of wearying Israel’s Western support is to heighten criticism of Israel for exercising its right to self-defence. Widespread demonstrations last Friday at the behest of Hamas showed that anti-Israel propaganda was already pre-positioned.

Meanwhile, within three days of the Hamas assault, the lawfare barrage began, unsurprisingly launched by the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor, asserting that conflict in Gaza falls under ICC jurisdiction. This shows how farcical and illegitimate the ICC itself is, recognising as it does an imaginary “state” of Palestine that even the feckless UN doesn’t include as a member, despite decades of Palestinian efforts to gain entry.

Simultaneously, Josep Borrell, the EU representative of foreign affairs, claimed Israel’s blockade of Gaza violated international law, as though combatants had an obligation to care for civilians in enemy-controlled territory. This is roughly equivalent to saying that, in the Second World War, Britain and America had an obligation to allow food and other supplies to reach Germany.

Anti-Israeli criticism and second-guessing will surely intensify as Israel pushes into Gaza. And just in case anyone forgot, Hamas alone has ruled Gaza since 2007, when Israel withdrew. If Gaza has been misruled and neglected, Israel is hardly to blame. Ask Gaza’s Arab neighbours.

Tellingly, just days later, Russia’s foreign ministry criticised Israeli air strikes on Syrian airports as violations of its sovereignty and international law. Such an official statement marks a dramatic reversal of longstanding Russian practice of ignoring Israeli bombing raids against Iranian convoys delivering missiles and other military supplies to Hezbollah or Syrian forces.

Previously, Moscow insisted only that Jerusalem take steps to deconflict from Russia’s Syria-based air and ground forces, to avoid casualties and potential hostilities between the two of them. Suddenly to express concern about Syrian “sovereignty”, which barely exists in much of the country without Iranian or Russian support, suggests that Damascus and perhaps Moscow are preparing to enter any conflict directly against Jerusalem.

We do not know with certainty what is coming next, but we do know already that the Hamas invasion was well-planned and probably long in preparation with Iran, Hezbollah and others. On Saturday, Iran’s foreign minister threatened Israel directly, saying Hezbollah was preparing “a huge earthquake” against Israel if it attacked Gaza. Israel has already accused Iran of directing recent Hezbollah attacks from Lebanon. All the pieces are there: Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria and possibly Russia.

Does anyone still say Iran is not directly involved? Israel’s allies must prepare for a potentially extended military and propaganda effort to divide the Jewish state internally and isolate it from even its strongest allies. The time is now.

John Bolton is a former US national security adviser

 

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Wow, who knew Al Jazeera was so biased /sarcasm

Iran warns of ‘preemptive’ action against Israel amid Gaza war​

Iran has warned of a possible “preemptive” action against Israel “in the coming hours”, as Israel prepares for a ground offensive on the Gaza Strip.

The Iran-backed, Lebanese group Hezbollah and Israel have been exchanging fire across the Lebanese-Israeli frontier for days, further raising tensions as Israel bombards the Gaza Strip to the south following an unprecedented attack by the Palestinian armed group Hamas inside Israel last week.

“All possible options and scenarios are there for Hezbollah … Naturally, resistance leaders will not allow the Zionist regime to take any action in Gaza, and when it feels reassured about Gaza, move on to other resistance areas in the region,” Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian said in a live broadcast to state TV late on Monday, as he referred to his meeting with Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah the previous day.

“Therefore, any preemptive measure is imaginable in the coming hours.”

Amirabdollahian also said “the resistance leaders” will not allow Israel “to do whatever it wants in Gaza”.

“If we don’t defend Gaza today, tomorrow we have to defend against these [phosphorus] bombs in the children’s hospital of our own country,” he added, referring to allegations by human rights groups that Israel has been using phosphorus bombs in its aerial bombardment of Gaza. Israel has denied the allegation.

Reporting from southern Lebanon, Al Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr said Amirabdollahian was seen “as the strongest yet”.

“Hezbollah has been engaged with Israel along the border for more than a week now. But that cross-border exchange of fire has been largely limited in scope and confined to the border areas and military targets,” she said, adding, however, that tensions were rising.

“People are worrying and bracing for the possibility of this conflict, which is now confined to the south of the country, to spread elsewhere.”

Speaking to Al Jazeera on Sunday, Amirabdollahian had also warned Israel of regional escalation if its forces entered Gaza for a ground offensive.

“If the measures aimed at immediately stopping the Israeli attacks that are killing children in the Gaza Strip end in a deadlock, it is highly probable that many other fronts will be opened. This option is not ruled out and this is becoming increasingly more probable,” Amir-Abdollahian said.

Israel declared war on Hamas, the group running the Gaza Strip, after waves of its fighters broke through Gaza’s heavily militarised border with Israel on October 7 and killed more than 1,400 people, most of them civilians, according to Israeli authorities.

Israel has responded by pummelling the Gaza Strip with non-stop air and artillery attacks that have flattened neighbourhoods and killed at least 2,750 people in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to Palestinian officials.

Iran celebrated the Hamas assault but insisted it was not involved.

Monday’s remarks come as Israel prepares for a ground invasion into the Gaza Strip, where fears for Palestinians trapped in the heavily bombarded enclave have grown since Israel launched its aerial campaign.

 

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Media has egg on its face for allowing Hamas to set initial tone of Gaza hospital coverage without skepticism​

Much of the legacy media has egg on its face for allowing the Hamas-backed Gaza Health Ministry to set the initial framing when covering an explosion that occurred at a Gaza hospital earlier this week. Many news organizations that were quick to repeat Hamas’ claim that Israel was at fault have since walked it back, but watchdogs believe it was a "terrible mistake" with lasting consequences.

The Israel Defense Force determined the blast was caused by a rocket misfire launched by Islamic Jihad, another terrorist organization active in Gaza. President Biden, based on evidence from the IDF and U.S. intelligence, has publicly said Israel was not to blame. But that hasn’t stopped protests around the world from people who still believe Hamas talking points that were published by major media outlets.

Fox News chief political analyst Brit Hume called it a "media fiasco" and scolded news organizations that echoed Hamas propaganda without skepticism.

"Look, any story on this would properly report what the Palestinians were saying. But they would also be informed, I would think, of the fact that the Palestinian health authority or whatever the organization is called that put out this original claim that Israel was responsible, is governed by Hamas," Hume said Wednesday on "Special Report."

"So, this is what the terrorists are saying about an alleged terror attack from Israel. So… you treat it with great skepticism. That, alas, is not what happened in far too many corners of the media and western media in general. There were huge headlines, yes, they all said this is what the Palestinians were saying. But that gave you the impression that this is what some innocent Palestinians caught up in all of this were saying. That’s not the case," Hume continued.

Hume pointed out that Hamas committed "one of the most hideous atrocities that we have seen in a very long time" on Oct. 7.

"The idea that you would parrot propaganda from that source, as if it were legitimate… without great skepticism, seems to me is a terrible mistake," he said.

The New York Post published a scathing opinion piece by Isaac Schorr headlined, "Media parrots Hamas’ lie without question — and Jews suffer for it," which further condemned the press’ actions.

"It is no exaggeration to say the media breathlessly amplified a terrorist organization’s blood libel against the Jewish people Tuesday, less than a week and a half after that same terrorist organization carried out the largest single-day slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust," Schorr wrote.

"Everyone, especially the reporters responsible for Tuesday’s deluge of misinformation, knows there’s no independent health ministry operating in Gaza; every piece of information coming from official channels in Gaza is curated or fabricated by Hamas," he continued.

The Post opinion piece explained that "the media should obviously not be amplifying the claims of terrorists" and "if the press insists on using these sources, it must not conceal them from the public."

"Laundering Hamas’ lies with weasel words like ‘government in Gaza’ or by referring to innocuous-sounding ‘health authorities’ isn’t exonerating — it’s an even more damning indictment of those who engaged in this thinly veiled propaganda campaign," Schorr wrote, adding, "This constitutes one of the most flagrant and consequential failures of the American press in decades, and the full measure of its repercussions will likely not be known for years to come."

Former CNN media correspondent Brian Stelter said prominent newsrooms made an "atrocious series of mistakes" when covering the explosion.

Free Beacon media reporter Drew Holden posted a comprehensive list of "outlets who carried water for a terrorist group to smear Israel" by rushing to parrot claims of the Hamas-backed health ministry before facts came out. The Associated Press, Reuters, The New York Times, the Washington Post, MSNBC, CNN, BBC, PBS and The Daily Beast were among the outlets called out by Holden.

"Remember, the outlets who pushed this Hamas lie are the same ones who have spent years shouting that the greatest threat society faces is disinformation," Holden wrote.

 

[Charlemagne]

Ya know... this war is ultimately Russia's fault. See, back in the late 1800's/early 1900's, Tsar Nicholas II ramped up the Anti-Semitic pogroms that had been going on in Russia for centuries by that point to new levels. So, many Russian Jews decided that the best place to flee from persecution would be Jerusalem, which was then under the control of the Ottoman Empire, seeing as Jerusalem technically was their ancestral home city. Only problem is, after they arrived, many of the wealthy Turkish and Arab landowners decided that influx of Russian Jews would drive the property value down, so started spewing Anti-Semitic shit in order to get the locals to drive them out. In response, the Russian Jewish refugees start founding the ideology of Zionism, saying that they had an ancestral right to Jerusalem.... and you can see where things escalated from there.

So yeah, this is ultimately Russia's fault, though they had help from what was essentially a Middle-Eastern Homeowners' Association. "Tsar Nicholas and the Karens of Arabia", basically.

So that's why Putin is backing Hamas. He wants to finish what Tsar Nicholas started.

 

[Charlemagne]

Also, between this conflict and the Russo-Ukrainian War... it's kind of fitting what I'd predicted World War III would be - a series of numerous conflicts with different root causes that just happen to be linked by the fact that many of the same countries are involved in each of them in some capacity.

 

[Lanzman]

If you think the conflict between Jews and Arabs only goes back to Tsar Nicholas, you're really not paying attention.

 

[Charlemagne]

Oh, I know it goes back further. It's just that this particular stage of it - the Israeli-Palestinian conflict - has many of its roots with him.

 

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If you think the conflict between Jews and Arabs only goes back to Tsar Nicholas, you're really not paying attention.

It actually goes back to David and Goliath.

"Twas ever thus.

If you all have a few minutes, give an ear to Bernie's speech he did yesterday. First lucidity from congress since the massacre last week.

I'll find it and post it a little later.