[Malankazooie]

So, what are your guys' take on the latest with Iran? What happens next?

[Tsundoku]

Sorry, must have missed that. What in particular are you referring to?

[Malankazooie]

Assassination of one of their top nuclear scientists. There seems to be some obvious finger prints on it. Which probably means Iran will respond in a commensurate way.

[Malankazooie]

Iran is pissed.

The latest details on this is right out of spy novel or something. He was assassinated by a machine gun remote controlled from another car.

Was listening to some analysis on the intention behind this and it's pretty damning commentary on Israel and Trump, with the ultimate purpose of hindering Biden's administration from entering back into the Nuclear agreement that Trump quit out of.

[Maark Abbott]

Malankazooie, on 01 December 2020 - 05:02 AM, said:

Iran is pissed.

The latest details on this is right out of spy novel or something. He was assassinated by a machine gun remote controlled from another car.

Was listening to some analysis on the intention behind this and it's pretty damning commentary on Israel and Trump, with the ultimate purpose of hindering Biden's administration from entering back into the Nuclear agreement that Trump quit out of.

This should surprise no one.

[Malankazooie]

Analysis? Or your take on what is going on?*

*let's at least make an attempt to keep it within the confines of the Discussion thread rules.

[D'rek]

Malankazooie, on 15 May 2021 - 12:45 AM, said:

Analysis? Or your take on what is going on?*

*let's at least make an attempt to keep it within the confines of the Discussion thread rules.

About what? Try adding some context to the discussion you're trying to prompt? Or you just want people to give their take on the middle east in general right now for no particular reason?

[Macros]

I think the middle East is very hot right now.
Probably 35/40°C

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

'an Israeli air raid bombed the offices of Al Jazeera and The Associated Press in Gaza City'

https://www.aljazeer...ounts-live-news




Hard not to see the Israelis as the aggressors, starting with the settlers (enabled by Israeli law) forcibly evicting Palestinians and seizing their homes, then settlers ramming protestors with their cars (and afterwards getting dragged out of their cars and beaten), and the Israeli police stepping in to beat and murder people. There's more though:

'The chain of events that led to the current spiral of Israeli-Palestinian violence is specific—starting with cellphone videos of Palestinian youth assaulting ultra-Orthodox Jews, then a provocative march through the streets of Jerusalem by far-right Jewish extremists accompanied by attacks against Palestinians, then growing demonstrations in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem against the attempt by Jewish settlers (backed by a discriminatory Israeli law) to evict local Palestinian families from their homes, then the heavy-handed and violent response of Israeli security forces to Palestinian protests, and especially their forced entry into the sacred Al-Aqsa Mosque compound.

While the specifics may differ from the previous intifadas, the collective grievances that propelled the first and second intifadas are, sadly, still very salient today. Then and now, Palestinians have been protesting and challenging their forced displacement and dispossession, political disenfranchisement, economic deprivation, and the administrative and legal discrimination they face under Israeli occupation, which has now continued for more than five decades[...]


[...] A third intifada is highly unlikely simply because the Palestinian leadership will not allow it or support it. Although both previous intifadas began spontaneously, they continued because they had the support of the Palestinian leadership at the time. The PLO played an essential role in supporting and sustaining the first uprising, and the PA [...] actively supported the second.

[...] Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas opposes violence against Israel because, unlike his predecessor, he firmly believes that it doesn't serve Palestinian interests (Abbas viewed the second intifada as a disaster for Palestinians). [...] The PA not only tries to stop Palestinians in the West Bank from engaging in violence against Israel, it also works to counter popular nonviolent resistance against Israel because Abbas and his associates are very wary of any mass mobilization by Palestinians in the West Bank. They fear, with good reason, that the PA itself could become the target of any mass protests. A popular Palestinian uprising[...] is the last thing they want considering how authoritarian and unpopular the PA has become in recent years.

The Hamas regime in Gaza, on the other hand, is only too happy to encourage Palestinians in the West Bank to rebel against Israel and the PA. If it could initiate and support a popular uprising there, it surely would, but its ability to do so is limited. [...]

A prolonged violent confrontation with Israel is not in Hamas' interests because it could ultimately jeopardize Hamas rule in Gaza. This calculus will only change if the Israeli army reoccupies Gaza and overthrows Hamas' regime, which is improbable because Israel has no desire to directly rule over the densely populated territory and its impoverished inhabitants.'

https://slate.com/ne...d-intifada.html

'Hamas leaders see anger against Israel building among ordinary Palestinians, and they see an opportunity to weaponize it. They send rockets across the border and invite destruction because they wish to project relevance and rally domestic support after years of diminished popularity. Hamas is not a bunch of crazed lunatics. Selfish, self-serving, and cavalier toward Palestinian life, its leaders are acting according to a traditional rational-actor model. Whether or not we like it, they believe they will benefit from the crisis—and they may, in reality, find themselves in a stronger position when this is over.

[...] Tensions had, in fact, been building for months, with the threatened eviction of Palestinian families from the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem. Smaller protests in the area, taking place at a steady clip for some time, grew larger. [...] "The expansion of Jewish settlements in Sheikh Jarrah, which is on land that helps form the final link in a settlement circle surrounding east Jerusalem—an area that Palestinians hope will be the capital of a future state."'

https://www.theatlan...history/618896/

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 15 May 2021 - 03:31 PM

[amphibian]

The big cause of this is absolutely Israeli settlers and the apartheid state they impose on the Palestinians. That's driven by far right extremists and the various Israeli governments have not controlled that to any significant degree for decades.

[Maark Abbott]

amphibian, on 15 May 2021 - 03:48 PM, said:

The big cause of this is absolutely Israeli settlers and the apartheid state they impose on the Palestinians. That's driven by far right extremists and the various Israeli governments have not controlled that to any significant degree for decades.

It's then compounded further by the way that the noted far right elements twist narratives and organisational viewpoints so that the act of criticising the state of Israel is deemed anti-Semitic or otherwise racist.

Given the origins of Israel as a state and what preceded that, I would have expected them to know better, and I would have expected the world to show a far lesser tolerance towards what is going on.

[Aptorian]

Nobody likes to be called a nazi (Not even modern Nazis) and everyone who criticizes Israel is called an anti-semite which is equated to nazis.

Recently there was a circumcision debate in Denmark, where there was relatively broad public support for banning circumcision for non-health related reasons. If you wanted your kid to be circumcised for religious reasons you'd have to wait until the boy was 18. But it couldn't get political support, despite our politicians loving an easy way to dunk on Muslims - Reason being the Jewish community felt it was an attack on their way of life and that Jews would have to leave Denmark. Which of course made our prime minister declare that we can never repeat what was done to the Jews in the 1930s. So to protect the jews, we continue to cut off little chunks of babies.

Mind you, this was a decision made by a woman who named herself The Children's Prime Minister. Same party that is refusing to bring children of people who joined Islamic State home from refugee camps.

I hate politics.

This post has been edited by Aptorian: 17 May 2021 - 08:26 AM

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Looks like Israeli intelligence tried to bully the Biden administration into backing their pretext for destroying the Associated Press and Al Jazeera offices, but Biden's Secretary of State is refusing to play along.

US and international community called for ceasefire but Netanyahu announced he's going to continue with the most intense bombardment in history. Mobs of his far-right supporters chanting 'Death to Arabs' are attacking Palestinians and Palestinian stores. Many of them are literal Jewish 'Supremacists'. (Granted, angry mobs of Palestinians have also been attacking Jewish people.)
Netanyahu agreed to stop settlement in Gaza as part of Jared Kushner's peace deal, but Netanyahu's administration has been brazenly violating the agreement and aggressively expanding settlement.

The US is funding Israel's military with $4 billion per year.

The international community should begin sanctions and embargoes against Netanyahu's administration and the Israeli far right. Targeted sanctions would be ideal, since many Israelis oppose Netanyahu. Perhaps they'd help Netanyahu finally get voted out of office? Once out of office prosecutors should be able to finally put him in prison for his crimes (the ones that are against current Israeli law, that is...).

'Far right pundits[in the United States, not clear about those in Israel] cheered the Israeli airstrike that leveled a building [...] housing several international news outlets, including The Associated Press, Al Jazeera and the BBC.

[...] called those who carried out the bombing "heroes," while seemingly finding pleasure in the attack. "Let's stop pretending that the media is not a participant and that it is somehow entitled to not be treated like every other active enemy," [...]

"Just warms your heart to see," a contributing editor for right-wing commentator Ben Shapiro's Daily Wire[...] "Probably watched this a dozen times already, what a great start to the weekend"'

https://www.alternet...aza-2653011635/

'Israeli officials insisted [...] the U.S. government had seen—and accepted—evidence showing that Hamas had a presence inside the Gaza media building destroyed in an Israeli airstrike last week. But that claim is now in doubt after U.S. Secretary of State [...] Blinken said he had seen no such evidence. Israel has justified the strike, which obliterated the Gaza offices of the Associated Press and Al Jazeera, by saying that the tower block was being also used as a base by Hamas intelligence officers.'

https://www.thedaily...ilding?ref=home

'Sheikh Jarrah today smells of dirty socks and rotting flesh. Israeli police vehicles, known as "skunk trucks", have been spraying Palestinian homes, shops, restaurants, public spaces and cultural institutions with putrid water at high pressure. The water causes vomiting, stomach pain and skin irritation, and was originally developed by an Israeli company to repel protesters. The stench lasts for days on clothes, skin and homes, leading Palestinians to joke that Jerusalem all smells like shit. Protesters are also targeted in other ways. They are brutally beaten, arrested by the police, some on mounted horses, attacked by settlers and sprayed with rubber bullets.'

https://www.theguard...m-city-identity


'The plan, in what has become known as Jared Kushner's Vision for Peace [...] spelled out in a detailed map for Israel to halt expansion of any new settlement activity on a large swath of the West Bank without American consent, which Kushner affirmed would not be given "for some time." (However, the plan did allow Israel to annex its existing West Bank settlements -- in violation of international law.)

[...] Kushner and the State Department [...] claimed that "Israel has agreed to comport its policies to this Vision for at least four years, including freezing all settlement activity in the West Bank in areas that this Vision designates for the future State of Palestine."

Sadly, Netanyahu, who is now facing prospects for a fifth election in two years after failing to form a government, has respected little of this. Settlement creep has continued. A joint statement earlier this month from five European countries (France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Britain) urged a halt to the expansion of 540 new homes in the West Bank, and asked Israel "to cease its policy of settlement expansion across the Occupied Palestinian Territories."'

https://amp.cnn.com/...lman/index.html

'Netanyahu said the deadly bombing of the Gaza Strip would continue despite an international outcry and efforts to broker a ceasefire. [...] Netanyahu said the Israeli air raids were continuing at "full-force" and would "take time", adding that his country "wants to levy a heavy price"'

https://www.aljazeer...e-in-full-force



'The right-wing Netanyahu government, despite its rhetoric about fighting terrorism, has built an alliance with the repressive regime in Saudi Arabia, which also views Iran as an enemy. Saudi Arabia, a country that produced 15 of the 19 hijackers in the September 11 attacks, is reputed to be the most prolific sponsor of international Islamist terrorism, allegedly supporting Salafist jihadism, the basis of al-Qaeda, and groups such as the Afghanistan Taliban[...]

Saudi Arabia and Israel worked closely together to back the 2013 military coup in Egypt, led by General Adbul Fattah el Sisi. Sisi overthrew a democratically elected government. He has imprisoned tens of thousands of government critics, including journalists and human rights defender[...] The Sisi regime collaborates with Israel by keeping its common border with Gaza closed to Palestinians, trapping them in the Gaza strip, one of the most densely populated places on earth. [...]

The Israel lobby has shamelessly used its immense political clout to demand that Americans take de facto loyalty oaths to Israel. The passage by 35 state legislatures of Israel lobby-backed legislation requiring their workers and contractors, under threat of dismissal, to sign a pro-Israel oath and promise not to support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement is a mockery of our Constitutional right of free speech. Israel has lobbied the U.S. State Department to redefine anti-Semitism under a three-point test known as the Three Ds: the making of statements that "demonize" Israel; statements that apply "double standards" for Israel; statements that "delegitimize" the state of Israel. This definition of anti-Semitism is being pushed by the Israel lobby in state legislatures and on college campuses. The Israel lobby spies in the United States, often at the direction of Israel's Ministry of Strategic Affairs, on those who speak up for the rights of Palestinians. It wages public smear campaigns and blacklists defenders of Palestinian rights–including the Jewish historian Norman Finkelstein; U.N. Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Territories, Richard Falk, also Jewish; and university students, many of them Jewish, in organizations such as Students for Justice in Palestine.

The Israel lobby has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to manipulate U.S. elections, far beyond anything alleged to have been carried out by Russia, China or any other country. The heavy-handed interference by Israel in the American political system, which includes operatives and donors bundling together hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions in every U.S. congressional district to bankroll compliant candidates[...] leaders of the Israel lobby are repeatedly captured on a reporter's hidden camera explaining how they, backed by the intelligence services within Israel, attack and silence American critics and use massive cash donations to buy politicians. [...]

The investment by Israel and its backers is worth it, especially when you consider that the U.S. has also spent over $ 6 trillion during the last 20 years fighting futile wars that Israel and its lobby pushed for in the Middle East.

[...]

The radical jihadists need Israel to justify their violence, just as Israel needs the radical jihadists to justify its violence. These extremists are ideological twins.

This polarization fosters a fearful, militarized society. It permits the ruling elites in Israel, as in the United States, to dismantle civil liberties in the name of national security. [...] human rights campaigners, intellectuals and journalists—Israeli and Palestinian—endure constant government surveillance, arbitrary arrests and vicious government-run smear campaigns. Mobs and vigilantes, including thugs from right-wing youth groups such as Im Tirtzu, physically assault dissidents, Palestinians, Israeli Arabs and African immigrants in the slums of Tel Aviv. These Jewish extremists have targeted Palestinians in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, demanding their expulsion. [...] Mobs of these Jewish fanatics parade through Palestinian neighborhoods, [...] protected by Israeli police, shouting to the Palestinians who live there "Death to the Arabs," which is also a popular chant at Israeli soccer matches.'

https://www.salon.co...tted-by-the-us/

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 17 May 2021 - 03:18 PM

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

https://twitter.com/...849460344573952

(Granted that's from 2018... but that is Netanyahu's official Twitter account as Prime Minister.)