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

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.

I'm finding the kind of blase way US ILXors and others say foreign policy doesn't matter in US elections a bit unnerving.

not sure when the history books are written nasrallah will be missed by many tbh

like most politicians esp those who started as warlords seemed like a bad dude

Has his plusses and minusses.

From The Guardian:

"Explosions can be heard above Tel Aviv and the sound of warning sirens wailing across the city, Israel’s largest urban and economic metropolis.

In Jerusalem, explosions are also being heard, witnesses have told Reuters.

Israeli media is reporting that Iran has launched more than 100 missiles at Israel. It’s unclear whether missiles are hitting home or being intercepted in the sky above the cities. This is a rapidly unfolding, ongoing situation.

The Israeli military is now reporting that sirens are sounding across the country."

⚡️🚨 Footage from impacts on Tel Aviv

3000 years old native settler is panicking in the video in his native language pic.twitter.com/5wyJJTprnC

— Middle East Observer (@ME_Observer_) October 1, 2024

Crowds in Gaza break out in ecstatic cheers watching Iranian missiles land on Israel. pic.twitter.com/uUkDxTOMBb

— red. (@redstreamnet) October 1, 2024

Is this how WWIII begins, or just more of the same?

Do I still have to pay rent today though?

Weve been in wwiii for the last two years

Paid it yesterday :-( xp

Does Israel now come clean about its nukes? And does Germany now come clean about its submarines that will fire them?

— Elvis Buñuelo (@Mr_Considerate) October 1, 2024

here's hoping this is a largely performative volley by Iran to avenge Nasrallah's death, as they said they would do

That is what I think is likely. And yet history is full of brutally destructive wars that nobody wanted and yet somehow happened.

Breaking: CNN’s @jimsciutto confirms Israel is using human shields, strategically positioning its command and control center in densely populated civilian areas pic.twitter.com/ApaA1KArau

— Adam Johnson (@adamjohnsonCHI) October 1, 2024

I'll bet they have tunnels as well

To answer the question on everyone’s minds: No, Joe Biden does not have a doctorate in foreign affairs.

He’s just that fucking good.

— Andrew Bates (@AndrewJBates46) July 12, 2024

How does he do it folks?

Ok so we are having escalation...can we de-escalate?

There was also a shooting.

"Now back to that shooting incident in the Tel Aviv area that was still unfolding as Iranian missiles began raining down on Israel less than 90 minutes ago.

Four people were killed and seven wounded in the shooting attack in the Jaffa neighborhood of Tel Aviv on Tuesday, Israeli police said in a statement, Reuters reports.

The police said there were two shooters and they had both been “neutralised”.

Law enforcement added that the situation was “under control”. The authorities previously called it a “suspected terror” shooting targeting Jewish residents."

I'm finding the kind of blase way US ILXors and others say foreign policy doesn't matter in US elections a bit unnerving.

“Foreign policy doesn’t matter” to a domestic American audience because for most people, this shit almost never gets covered in any accurate way and holds little to no salience. Its important as hell, but rarely addressed in ways that aren’t cheerleading for either an American effort or American proxy. Hell, Americans are in the Imperial Core, most of us here don’t know a goddamn thing and if my coworkers are any indication, just view the stuff as remote distraction that shows up in a newsfeed.

I think this idea was forged as CW in 1992 when George H.W. Bush got 37% of the vote in spite of having waged what was seen as the best war ever.

also if you only listen to sports talk radio 89.5 THE SPREAD, you maybe are not really hearing much foreign policy news

not hearing much on this thread either

Early signs are all military targets.

The next 24 hours will see journalists and politicians pretending Iran carried our indiscriminate attacks on civilian areas.

— Philip Proudfoot 🇱🇧🇵🇸 (@PhilipProudfoot) October 1, 2024

Heck, as a resident of Arlington Virginia I am a human shield for the US Military.

Oh yeah, you'll get it first

Multiple IRGC-affiliated Iranian outlets & Telegram channels report, "Iran has warned the US: if you target our refineries, we will set fire to the refineries and oil fields across the entire region, including those in Saudi Arabia, Azerbaijan, Kuwait, the UAE, and Bahrain."

— Sina Toossi (@SinaToossi) October 1, 2024

I guess the U.S. has already started helping intercept Iranian rockets

Israel writing checks that its butt can't cash, expecting we'll come in to help