Israel, Palestine & the Levant rolling events: Oct 23 on

why would they? the administration piles approbation on every atrocity they commit

i mean we knew assassination and torture are okay; they have been for awhile; now it’s okay to “assassinate” someone by bombing six apartment buildings at the same time

the story just below that one was "Bomb used by Israelis in Beirut likely came from the US"

meanwhile: https://apnews.com/article/syria-militants-killed-airstrike-us-central-command-8921f045b25d621143778730d78bd4e4

BEIRUT (AP) — In Syria, 37 militants affiliated to the extremist Islamic State group and an al-Qaeda-linked group were killed in two strikes, the United States military said Sunday.

Two of the dead were senior militants, it said.

U.S. Central Command said it struck northwestern Syria on Tuesday, targeting a senior militant from the al-Qaeda-linked Hurras al-Deen group and eight others. They say he was responsible for overseeing military operations.

They also announced a strike from earlier this month on Sept. 16, where they conducted a “large-scale airstrike” on an IS training camp in a remote undisclosed location in central Syria. That attack killed 28 militants, including “at least four Syrian leaders.”

This will definitely work

Just kill all the bad guys, then things will settle down

Serious question from someone who doesn’t follow this stuff super closely: What is Israel actually trying to accomplish?

the story just below that one was "Bomb used by Israelis in Beirut likely came from the US"

― rob, Sunday, 29 September 2024 bookmarkflaglink

Many bombs.

Nasrallah was killed not by better and more precise intelligence, but simply more bombs. Specifically eighty bombs for one person. pic.twitter.com/OU52sz1qdB

— Mahdi (@mahdizda) September 29, 2024

yeah I didn't bother posting the story because it was speculative — the main point of it was that they used a "bunker-buster" 2000-lb bomb, which aren't normally used in urban areas.

notably, that same ABC News site has this as its sub-headline: "The U.S. and Israel have eliminated around 30 Hezbollah leaders in past weeks."

Serious question from someone who doesn’t follow this stuff super closely: What is Israel actually trying to accomplish?

― Marten Broadcloak, mild-mannered GOP congressman (Raymond Cummings), Sunday, 29 September 2024 bookmarkflaglink

Some of the strategy is driven by Netanyahu being propped up in power by eliminationist cabinet members, who have threatened to walk out of the coalition should a deal ever be reached.

Ultimately, this is on the US, who supply the bombs. And its hard not to see Israel as being also used by them to prosecute a war in the middle east to bring Iran to its knees.

Thanks

yeah fwiw here is what Netanyahu is saying:

'Work is not yet complete,' Netanyahu says

Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah "settled accounts" for those who had a hand in killing.

"The elimination of Nasrallah is a necessary condition for achieving the goals we have set: Returning the residents of the north safely to their homes, and changing the balance of power in the region over the years, because as long as Nasrallah lives, he would quickly restore the capabilities we took away from Hezbollah," Netanyahu said in a video message Saturday.

Netanyahu said he came to the decision that what Israel had done to Hezbollah was "not enough" earlier this week when he gave the order to assassinate Nasrallah. But, he warned that Israel's work is "not complete."

"The work is not yet complete. In the coming days we will face significant challenges ... There is no place in Iran or the Middle East that the long arm of Israel will not reach, and today you already know how true this is," Netanyahu said.

"We are determined to continue to strike at our enemies, return our residents to their homes, and return all our abductees," Netanyahu said.

All of this benefits another one of the US's big allies, Saudi Arabia.

xp re: who made the weapons, the washington post reported that it was "U.S.-made BLU-109s and JDAM guidance kits", and then conspicuously neglected to mention the U.S. companies which make them (General Dynamics and Boeing). General Dynamics' HQ is in Reston, VA, so in the Washington Post local area.

i left a comment on the article pointing this out but was owned by the guy who asked me to think about all the terrorists that were killed

I didn’t anticipate such aggressive action by Israel toward Lebanon, and was puzzling over its strategic benefits for the past few days— a possible explanation that occurred to me is one of misdirection. Considering there’s all eyes on Gaza/West Bank, escalating conflict with Lebanon and Yemen might allow for the bulldozing of towns like Jenin to continue without as much global scrutiny

was puzzling over its strategic benefits for the past few days

I think Netanyahu's strategy is just what he's been saying out loud. It's the pure hubris of thinking he can eliminate Hamas and Hezbollah, raze Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon and kill so many Palestinians and Lebanese that it breaks their ability and their will to resist total Israeli domination. He's stupidly wrong to think this strategy will end Palestinian resistance or even benefit Israel. It's blind stupidity raised to the level of pure evil.

The Yemenis have launched a hypersonic missile against Tel Aviv three times since the last Israeli strike on Yemen. The last one yesterday, targeting Ben-Gurion Airport in an explicit attempt to hit it while Netanyahu was returning from New York, likely pushed the IDF to hit now.

— Séamus Malekafzali (@Seamus_Malek) September 29, 2024

Boeing’s HQ is in Arlington, Virginia. Literally across from the Pentagon. I joke that there’s a tunnel with a revolving door between them.

Xxp to Goon: Killing the press in Gaza and the West Bank has also been effective in suppressing news from there.

Told WSJ: The mood in Tehran all along has been not to take the bait. They know that Israel wants war now, because it has the intelligence and military advantage, because there is a political vacuum in the United States and because the US Navy is sitting in the Mediterranean,…

— Vali Nasr (@vali_nasr) September 29, 2024

Here is the piece:

https://archive.ph/nVvHv

Trade unionist murdered by @UniteTheUnion and @GMB_Union built weapons pic.twitter.com/JslSud0ju0

— jewdⒶs // ייִדהודה (@jewdas) September 30, 2024

Gong through this long read on Hezbollah:

https://www.hauntologies.net/p/hezbollah-10-things-you-need-to-know

The PFLP announces that its leaders Mohammed Abdel Aal, Imad Awda, and Abdul Rahman Abdel Aal, have been targeted and killed in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut. https://t.co/mlbZs1qP9P

— Al Mayadeen English (@MayadeenEnglish) September 30, 2024

I think Netanyahu's strategy is just what he's been saying out loud. It's the pure hubris of thinking he can eliminate Hamas and Hezbollah, raze Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon and kill so many Palestinians and Lebanese that it breaks their ability and their will to resist total Israeli domination. He's stupidly wrong to think this strategy will end Palestinian resistance or even benefit Israel. It's blind stupidity raised to the level of pure evil.

Does Israel want to seize Lebanon? Is this a lebensraum move we're seeing?

Part of it, I would assume. They've done it before and a fat lot of good it did them or anyone else.

xp No, that's not on the table. I also don't think a re-occupation of Gaza is realistically on the table, though unlike in the case of Lebanon, there are some actors in the government who would like to see Gaza reoccupied, and the whole problem here is that Netanyahu for his own self-interested reasons has decided to give those people legitimacy and even influence when before they were excluded from government. Israeli expansionism is focused on the West Bank.

As for what Israel's strategy is, I don't think "Israel" speaks with one voice. Netanyahu's strategy is to stay prime minister and for that he has to keep the fighting going. But an actual regional war involving Iran would be a disaster for Israel far beyond anything experienced in most living peoples' memory and there's no constituency for it.

A partial occupation of Lebanon to create a "buffer" zone at the border seems fully on the cards -- why else send in troops? I was under the impression that they've already starting building the infrastructure for something similar in northern Gaza. WB expansion obvs ongoing yes

Any ideas about Iran would likely depend on what the US promises/agrees to, I would think.

afaict Israel has been wanting to provoke a war between the US and Iran for decades, so that Iran is neutralized before they can get a nuclear weapon.

I don't know if there is a coherent strategy - or if there is I've not been able to parse it - beyond keeping Netanyahu in power and out of jail.

I also think these things can be speculative and opportunistic rather than planned out, and things can take on a life of their own. As to what the US agrees to, that doesn't seem as relevant as it might have done in the past

A partial occupation of Lebanon to create a "buffer" zone at the border seems fully on the cards -- why else send in troops? I was under the impression that they've already starting building the infrastructure for something similar in northern Gaza. WB expansion obvs ongoing yes

How is this any different from Putin/Ukraine?

"A partial occupation of Lebanon to create a "buffer" zone at the border seems fully on the cards -- why else send in troops?"

Its so that displaced Israelis at the border can return to their occupied homes.

yes exactly. idk who this Novik guy is, but he explains the gist of it here: https://www.npr.org/2024/09/29/nx-s1-5132086/understanding-israels-strategy-in-lebanon-as-it-amasses-troops-along-the-border

And given that the primary objective of the entire engagement with Hezbollah is to stop their firing at Israel for 11 months and allow our northern population to come back safely to their homes, it may well be that the limited ground operation clearing up an area of something like 10, 15 miles north of the border cannot be avoided.

"clearing up an area" = ominously vague, of course

Here is a thread from Amal on Hezbollah's loss of leadership.

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1840773042990928172.html

Lebanese villages on the border with Israel have been under constant, intense bombardment by airstrikes, artillery, tank fire, and reportedly even white phosphorus for hours now. Fears of an Israeli invasion of southern Lebanon feel extraordinarily imminent.

— Séamus Malekafzali (@Seamus_Malek) September 30, 2024

https://apnews.com/article/us-troops-middle-east-israel-hezbollah-e37e2dbef573e33c0f8fb6a8103f27f1

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. is sending a “few thousand” troops to the Middle East to bolster security and to defend Israel if necessary, the Pentagon said Monday. The announcement follows word that Israel has already launched limited raids across the border into Lebanon.

The additional forces would raise the total number of troops in the region to as many as 43,000.

The increased presence will involve multiple fighter jet and attack aircraft squadrons, Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh told reporters. U.S. officials said the total includes small numbers of other troops to augment the presence as well.

Asked a well-placed US official about the Biden administration's framing of the imminent Israeli ground operation in Lebanon as "limited."

Response: "It will be big. Everyone who says it’s going to be 'limited' is a white man who thinks a million dead brown people is 'limited.'" https://t.co/baJnPJb5pR

— Akbar Shahid Ahmed (@AkbarSAhmed) September 30, 2024

Last night Israel bombed two of the Palestinian refugee camps in South Lebanon. Ein El-Hilweh in Sidon and Al-Bas south of Tyre. Israel's genocidal intensions towards the Palestinian people extends beyond the borders of Palestine.

— Ghassan Abu Sitta (@GhassanAbuSitt1) October 1, 2024

For those that dont understand Swahili, these women are saying their bosses fled and left them behind and even refused to give them their passports so they cant evacuate & some were left/locked in the houses. Some were killed. This is the situation of African workers in Lebanon https://t.co/A2SdgHbsq0

— inqilāb (@tastefullysaucy) September 30, 2024

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/09/30/us-israel-military-hezbollah-00181797

US officials quietly backed Israel’s military push against Hezbollah

The officials urged caution and stressed the need for diplomacy. But the timing was right for such a military shift, they concluded.

Presidential adviser Amos Hochstein and Brett McGurk, the White House coordinator for the Middle East, told top Israeli officials in recent weeks that the U.S. agreed with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s broad strategy to shift Israel’s military focus to the north against Hezbollah in order to convince the group to engage in diplomatic talks to end the conflict, the officials told POLITICO.

Incredible this could be reported with a straight face.

Israel has apparently been crossing the border and raiding Hezbollah sites for months already

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-forces-have-carried-out-raids-lebanon-months-military-says-2024-10-01/

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/10/01/world/israel-lebanon-hezbollah?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=c-cb

iran planning imminent ballistic attack

More than 15 years ago I was giving a talk on the Arab-Israeli conflict at the University of Texas’ Law School. I recognized in the audience Admiral Bobby Inman (former deputy director of the C.I.A). During the Q and A, somebody asked me about Hezbollah and Nasrallah and whether Israel would take the decision to assassinate him.

I answered the question as best I could. Afterwards, Inman came up to me, introduced himself, and took me aside. He talked about that particular question, about the potential Israeli assassination of Nasrallah and said in blunt terms: Israel would not dare take Nasrallah out.

I said: why not?

He said: simple. Because the U.S. government told the Israelis categorically and repeatedly that they would not kill Nasrallah because of the repercussions for the region and U.S. interests.

Knowing that Biden has put no red lines on Israel since Oct. 7, he would be the one U.S. president who would also lift that one red line.

Nasrallah, unlike Nasser, leaves behind a doctrine and a strong organization that is likely to survive Israel’s unrelenting campaign of assassinations and slaughter. Hezbollah suffered a very severe blow, the worst since its formation, but it is likely to emerge again as a different organization under new leadership.

It is possible that U.S. opposed the assassination because it knew that no one but Nasrallah could control such a dangerous (from the U.S. point of view) organization.

After Nasrallah, the organization could become less disciplined and perhaps more dangerous to U.S. interests.

https://consortiumnews.com/2024/09/30/asad-abukhalil-the-middle-east-after-nasrallah/

Amazing to be doing this so close to an election. If US personnel are lost it could impact the election? Its just crazy.

xpost

I'm guessing what's changed in the past 15 years is that the US no longer fears endangering its relationship with Saudi Arabia and other states when Israel assassinates Nasrallah.

I'm assuming Saudi Arabia were happy to see Nasrallah dead.