Scrutable

It can only be seen as coordinated terrorist attacks. Any pretence at legitimacy from attacks on military targets is swamped by the atrocities against civilians.

God knows how this plays out.

Some initial observations

- photos of grandmothers being kidnapped ends any possibility of Hamas succeeding
- the Corbyn types are as vile as ever
- Russian apologists are already trying to blame Ukraine, in a reversal of reality
- the broken US politics prevents calls for restraint

Corbyn himself has tweeted. Hasn't managed to condemn Hamas. Has described the events as "deeply alarming".

https://twitter.com/jeremycorbyn/status ... 0950489167

Starmer on the other hand has managed to use the c word - "condemn"

https://twitter.com/Keir_Starmer/status ... 9415757310

I don't know about how to do it in an app, but for browser, to disable autoplay on videos, go to one's profile, then "settings and support", then "settings and privacy" then "accessibility, display and languages" and finally "accessibility" and set autoplay to "never".

If you are going to follow this subject on twitter, you'll want to do this. Trust me on this. Hamas are very proud of their atrocities, and have uploaded a lot of footage of the murder of civilians, mistreatment of corpses etc.


On the one hand I want to blame Netanyahu for f.cking up so hard, and for eroding Israel's institutions to the point this was possible. For leaving the bulk of the IDF in the north and east in part to protect settlers who hate them even as hilltop youth scum engage in violence and stir up trouble. But it's also too easy to get too far down this line. This isn't a failure to maintain flood defences. Hamas aren't a force of nature. They chose to do what they did, and it is likely Iran backed them in that choice, and it is likely that Iran backed them in that choice in part at least because it makes peace and normalisation between Arab nations - and ultimately the Palestinian territories - and Israel that much harder.

Nothing good will come of this. It's war, and it's not "Israel starts war in response to...", Hamas engaged in acts of warfare against military and civilian targets, in the latter case committing numerous atrocities. Since Israel left Gaza in 2005, the takeover by and subsequent behaviour of Hamas has been one of the strongest arguments for Israel to maintain a presence in the West Bank. It's hard to see that argument being overcome now.

Everything's looking very bleak. A lot of people have been hurt or killed, and it's hard to see this ending without many more people also suffering. As for those who cheer on or justify the deliberate targetting of civilians, treat them with the contempt they deserve.

The only thing to try for now is preventing this spreading to Iran vs Saudi.

Everything else will follow the normal course and civilians in both sides will die.

I'm seeing reports that more than two hundred civilians were killed by Hamas's attack. Not got the time to fully dig into claims at the moment, or rather not got the energy or health, so take it as you will.

On the "how was this not prevented" front, it seems that much of the force that was meant to have been doing so was in Judea and Samaria to protect settlers to humour arch-shitstain Ben Gvir instead of guarding the border as it should have been. It is possible that this attack, though clearly consisting of pre-planned elements, may have been an opportunistic exploitation of that fact.

lpm wrote: ↑

Sat Oct 07, 2023 4:26 pm

The only thing to try for now is preventing this spreading to Iran vs Saudi.

Iran's government are one of the entities most deserving of a violent response right now, frankly. Not talking about what's sensible here, just about what they morally deserve.

They've deserved it for 25 years. Nobody should give it to them though.

Fertile ground for IDF astroturfers.

I’m in no way saying Netanyahu had a deliberate hand in causing this, but he’s certainly going to try to exploit it for gain and suppress the political opposition to him in Israel. Call an emergency and try to give himself dictactorial powers or similar.

bjn wrote: ↑

Sun Oct 08, 2023 7:01 am

I’m in no way saying Netanyahu had a deliberate hand in causing this, but he’s certainly going to try to exploit it for gain and suppress the political opposition to him in Israel. Call an emergency and try to give himself dictactorial powers or similar.

It is an emergency - what else do you suggest he calls it?

Bertie wrote: ↑

Sat Oct 07, 2023 10:39 pm

Fertile ground for IDF astroturfers.

Care to explain what you mean?

bjn wrote: ↑

Sun Oct 08, 2023 7:01 am

I’m in no way saying Netanyahu had a deliberate hand in causing this, but he’s certainly going to try to exploit it for gain and suppress the political opposition to him in Israel. Call an emergency and try to give himself dictactorial powers or similar.

Golda Meir was arguably a lot less culpable for the failures in 73, but paid the price with her political career.

Netanyahu was already very unpopular with a serious of utterly enormous protests against him - we're talking the highest participation rate in protests for any non-city-state nation in decades - and one of the things he was unpopular for was the idea that he'd put his own political power ahead of the national interest, explicitly including defence, including his firing/unfiring-in-response-to-mass-protest of the defence minister.

Netanyahu will try to cling on - it's what he does and it's quite likely he goes to jail if he isn't in power - but it's hard to see any way this catastrophe could benefit him politically.

bob sterman wrote: ↑

Sun Oct 08, 2023 7:11 am

bjn wrote: ↑

Sun Oct 08, 2023 7:01 am

I’m in no way saying Netanyahu had a deliberate hand in causing this, but he’s certainly going to try to exploit it for gain and suppress the political opposition to him in Israel. Call an emergency and try to give himself dictactorial powers or similar.

It is an emergency - what else do you suggest he calls it?

It’s him using the emergency as a pretext to squash legitimate internal dissent to his rule.

EACLucifer wrote: ↑

Sun Oct 08, 2023 7:24 am

bjn wrote: ↑

Sun Oct 08, 2023 7:01 am

I’m in no way saying Netanyahu had a deliberate hand in causing this, but he’s certainly going to try to exploit it for gain and suppress the political opposition to him in Israel. Call an emergency and try to give himself dictactorial powers or similar.

Golda Meir was arguably a lot less culpable for the failures in 73, but paid the price with her political career.

Netanyahu was already very unpopular with a serious of utterly enormous protests against him - we're talking the highest participation rate in protests for any non-city-state nation in decades - and one of the things he was unpopular for was the idea that he'd put his own political power ahead of the national interest, explicitly including defence, including his firing/unfiring-in-response-to-mass-protest of the defence minister.

Netanyahu will try to cling on - it's what he does and it's quite likely he goes to jail if he isn't in power - but it's hard to see any way this catastrophe could benefit him politically.

I think he’ll try to do a Putin, not that he’d necessarily succeed. One big counter is that I gather most of the senior people in the security services hate his guts.

Re: Hezbollah involvement, the area they hit with mortars was Shebaa Farms, making it a pretty much purely symbolic act, and basically the minimum they could do to indicate support for Hamas without risking getting actually involved for the moment.

EACLucifer wrote: ↑

Sat Oct 07, 2023 5:53 pm

I'm seeing reports that more than two hundred civilians were killed by Hamas's attack. Not got the time to fully dig into claims at the moment, or rather not got the energy or health, so take it as you will.

Unfortunately the civilian death toll appears to be at least several times this number.

Israel is a nation of ten million. The latest estimate I saw was six hundred. That's the equivalent of a country the size of the UK losing four thousand people. A country the size of the USA losing over twenty thousand.

And I've seen a real disconnect between people who've followed this on the news and people who've followed it more directly via social media. Hardly surprising - the BBC's website ran with "Israel launches airstrikes on Gaza Strip and calls up reservists after Palestinian gunmen infiltrate its territory" during a period of at least a few hours where they only listed a death from rocket fire and numerous hospitalisations but didn't report on the footage of civilians gunned down on the streets. It's still very difficult to fathom the sheer horror of it, including the extensive sexual violence, and the parading of victims naked bodies to be abused and degraded. Harder still to come to terms with the amount of people supporting or applauding Hamas's actions - I know many people have deluded themselves into pretending the atrocities didn't happen, or somehow contorted what's left of their worm-riddled brains into acting as if such atrocities are in some way excusable, but it's still f.cking shocking to see. I'm also reminded of all the people who whined so much when Israel shot those trying to cut through that same border in 2018, and how they dismissed what Hamas would do if they got through - something Hamas's own rhetoric made very clear.

More than two hundred bodies found at the site of the electronic music party. Because of course the hardline religious-zionist settlers can be found dancing at an electronic music party in pre-67 borders Israel on Shabat.

It's claimed that this tail fin adaptor is the same as one used by the Russians. It doesn't necessarily mean much as it will likely be 3D printed, so even if it is support from Russia (which would inevitably be via Iran), it's likely just a .stl file.



The other notable thing about this image is that the drone-dropped-munition is being dropped on an ambulance.

lpm wrote: ↑

Sat Oct 07, 2023 3:19 pm

- photos of grandmothers being kidnapped ends any possibility of Hamas succeeding

Every time has been a major outbreak of violence, the Palestinians end up with less, be it territory or freedom. Every time, all the way back to when the Palestinians turned down the 1947 UN partition plan, and ended up with less after a fight.

So given the consistent record there, I did wonder how they think this fight is going to work to their advantage. Historically, this kind of thing always ends badly.

And it occurred to me that maybe getting a lot of hostages is what it is about. In general, when there have been Israeli hostages in the past, they have been redeemed for a lot. When there have been exchanges with Palestinian prisoners, for example, they have got a ratio of over 100:1 for example. Maybe, from the perspective of Gaza, they think relations with Israel can hardly be worse. So maybe they think this is how they can get some leverage.

I suppose it can also be about in-fighting within Palestinian factions. Maybe, like Putin, they think they need to ramp up conflict to maintain internal control. Like any other dictatorship, the recent Palestinian leadership has a record of being more interested in maintaining their own control than the welfare of their population.

Presumably there will be an American citizen held hostage, going by averages.

These terrorists have a death wish.

lpm wrote: ↑

Mon Oct 09, 2023 8:33 am

Presumably there will be an American citizen held hostage, going by averages.

These terrorists have a death wish.

Multiple, per reporting, as well as several killed.

IvanV wrote: ↑

Mon Oct 09, 2023 8:24 am

lpm wrote: ↑

Sat Oct 07, 2023 3:19 pm

- photos of grandmothers being kidnapped ends any possibility of Hamas succeeding

So given the consistent record there, I did wonder how they think this fight is going to work to their advantage. Historically, this kind of thing always ends badly.

It seems to be an act of desperation. Conditions in Gaza are desperate and have been getting worse. Hamas has seen several Arab states that used to be staunch supporters of the Palastinian cause make rapprochements with Israel (the United Arab Emirates, Sudan, Morocco, and Bahrain). There have been many reports that Saudi Arabia would soon make a deal to recognize Israel. The Palestinians in general were being sidelined by many of the states that had been their most staunch supporters. The formal recognition followed a process that has been ongoing for many years.

The horrific war crimes appear to be an attempt to escalate the conflict, its a demand to be noticed. Renewed fighting will make it harder for leaders of Arab states to side with Israel. Regional escalation also has the potential to be another throw of the dice, to set in motion a different chain of events.

It seems very likely that Israel will send ground troops into Gaza, and that will lead to a bl..dy battles which will involve very many deaths among Palestinians. This is what Hamas wants. I assume that the dilemma for the Israeli government is that they know that Gaza is supposed to be a trap, but no government would be able to stand back and not try to get those responsible.

Another example, this nugget is remarkable "Ghazi Hamad, a Hamas spokesman, meanwhile told the BBC that the group had direct backing for the attack from Iran" (source). It may well be true but the only reason to state that openly at this point is to encourage an attack by Israel against Iran.

Hamas is also trying to encourage other attacks against Israel by Hezbollah etc

The strategy is similar to IS in 2014 or Al Qaeda in 2001. They want a war and slaughtering and torturing civilians is the way to get one. The problem for the rest of the world is that there isn't an obvious way out.

With the terrorists driven out, the full horror of what they have done starts to become apparent. There's reports circulating of them having decapitated babies.

EACLucifer wrote: ↑

Tue Oct 10, 2023 12:57 pm

With the terrorists driven out, the full horror of what they have done starts to become apparent. There's reports circulating of them having decapitated babies.

In the Gulf War there were reports of Iraqi troops throwing Kuwaiti babies out of incubators, but that turned out to be untrue.

It's all horrible, whatever's been done