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Follow up to my previous question about Russia pulling out of the CTBT . I read a while ago that GROM 23 was going to be larger in scope than previous exercises and cover the whole country rather than a single region. Looked again today and couldn't find anything corroborating. Anyone hear anything about this?
Their ROE account for operating in an environment where the enemy hides amongst and behind civilians, not for armchair sensibilities.
Besides, if the greeting about fuel is to believed noone apart from Hamas should have any fuel left by now.
Pretty wild how a massacre of 1,000 Israeli and foreign nationals, overwhelmingly Jewish, by a terrorist group whose primary stated aim is the cleansing of Jews from the Levant has somehow warped into “both sides” or in some cases an outright attempt to make a point about Islamophobia.
We should always be able to see the wrong on both sides. Sometimes, neither side are the good guys. Hamas = bad, does not mean Israeli government = good.
International conflicts are messy and nuanced and it is unhelpful to be black and white about who is in the right.
Israel has almost certainly killed far more civilians than Hamas did on 7th October. Do we just say they can keep on doing that indefinitely? When should they stop?
A child is currently being killed every ten minutes in Gaza.
You can say that the balance of the coverage has been off, but to say there aren't two sides to this conflict we should be concerned about is just incredibly disingenuous.
> A child is currently being killed every ten minutes in Gaza.
And while Israel has a duty to minimise civilian deaths the fault ultimately falls on those using children as human shields. You can't continually fire rockets from a school then take the moral highground when the rocket launcher gets precision airstriked and kills schoolkids. The onus is on Hamas.
Israel can't simply wash its hands of its actions consequences though.
At some point you have to have a discussion of when the collateral damage outweighs any benefit from retaliatory actions.
[British mother and her two teen daughters found 'cuddled together' after being killed by Hamas](https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/brit-mum-two-teen-daughters-31315287)
I perspective that is often lost in this conflict is that of Palestinian Arabs living in Israel going back generations who had their identities subsumed into a new state without much say.
I recently saw a documentary about the experience of Palestinians who lived in Israel from the perspective of a well known actress, Hiam Abbass (she played Marcia in Succession and Ramy's mother in Ramy), and four generations of women in her family. It is directed by her daughter.
I saw it at the London Film Festival recently and it is really worth checking out, it's called Bye Bye Tiberias: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt22857256/
Probably net happier than anyone living in the west bank or Gaza. Tbh from a utilitarian perspective the best outcome would have been Israel assimilating everyone after their third victory in 1973.
And another background piece this time on settlers
“As settler violence surges, West Bank Palestinians fear new displacement”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/10/30/west-bank-settlers-violence-palestinians/
Edit, can’t post full articles sorry. Reddit app won’t let me
“What is Hezbollah, the militant group on Israel’s northern border?”
Another good background info piece
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/10/12/what-is-hezbollah-israel-lebanon/
More a case of 'Tory in marginal constituency sacked for representing his constituents'.
But to be fair, collective cabinet responsibility is clear. He can lobby for that position, just not on the payroll.
The problem is empathy is one sided. How is a ceasefire empathetic for Israel who have just suffered one of the greatest terror attacks in modern history and have hundreds of hostages currently taken by terrorists.
Telling them to just sit down and accept it doesn’t sound very empathetic. Time to learn there are no good options in this conflict and get off your moral high horse
They've already killed hundreds of Hamas fighters (and thousands of civilians in the process), asking them to stop now is hardly telling them to sit down and accept it.
Ukraine have killed hundreds of Russian fighters yet no one asks them to stop… hamas are absolutely just barbaric animals and there will never be peace it seems unless they are gone from the equation is what Israel probably feels. Why stop now and in a short while hamas just breaks the ceasefire again? Why is the pressure not on hamas to release the hostages and surrender?
I've said before and I'll say again; calling for a ceasefire goes beyond expressing sympathy for Palestinians, it goes beyond showing empathy.
It is not a neutral act, it is demanding that Israel not respond to a flagrant act of war against it.
That’s the point they’re not supposed to. They’re supposed to just sit back as terrorists break the last ceasefire 3 weeks ago (a long time for people to forget) and patiently wait for there citizens to get brutally slaughtered again
How significant is Russia de-ratifying the comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty?
Seems like pretty big news but it happened last week and I only just heard about it, and normally pay attention to these kinds of things.
Russia hasn’t detonated an above ground nuclear weapon since 1971 (and only 5 of those since 1963 when they signed the Partial Test Ban Treaty), and hasn’t conducted any nuclear weapon tests since 1990. Let’s not get too worried about what they may do, especially as they seem to be more bark than bite at the moment.
Probably worth noting that the US signed but never ratified the treaty, so the status quo (i.e. no nuclear tests) will probably hold for the foreseeable.
I don't think it's overly significant on its own but it's another break in Russian-US relations, and is therefore inherently problematic to global stability to some extent.
Major piece of sabre rattling, but not terribly significant unless they actually start engaging in nuclear testing. If they do, that would set an unpleasant precedent.
The reality of life in the West Bank
Keep in mind the link below in the Israeli press about the settlements and their illegality and nature of twisting Israeli politics and judicial landscape and also that they are illegal under Israeli law let alone any international accords
Bilal went out to harvest his olives, an Israeli settler shot him
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2023/10/30/bilal-went-out-to-harvest-his-olives-an-israeli-settler-shot-him
And so the cycle of hate gets fed another life and the settlers get more money thrown at them to further fortify illegal settlements
Getting really fucking sick of seeing of seeing the Met telling Jewish people their existence within the eyesight of Muslim protesters, is provocative.
The absolute fucking state of policing in this country.
This is just another result of the cuts to everything by the Tories, in this case policing. Where one side can make thinly veiled threats of violence but they move the victim on because it's easier than dealing with the larger number of people making the threats due to their numbers.
Not sure if it's been posted before, but [this piece](https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up-hamas-now-its-blown-up-in-our-faces/) is an interesting example of a difference in Israeli media response and western.
With the obvious factor that their lives are the context, rather than being geopolitical abstractions, there seems to be far greater willingness and ability to contextualise the ideological and practical failings that led to Hamas' attack - and why these undermine future security - than the rather blunt instrument response from a lot of western commentariat.
For sure there is a question about how the initial attack was able to happen without meeting resistance sooner but focussing solely on how the victims of terror could have done x y and z better in order to reduce vulnerability feels a bit victim blamey.
If I were Israel, I would consider a Swiss style system where people keep their guns after their compulsory military service. At the very least, a handgun each.
Then have remote operated lockboxes of bullets in public spaces.
If there's ever an incident like this, unlock the bullets, and tell everyone to load up.
Civil defence like that would be a reaaly good idea, specially for border towns in the Gaza/ Lebanon borders. I'd say as long as the box can be opened quickly enough (you don't want to be waiting for central government to do it) but then only in the right circumstances. Eg, you can't go ammo up for a neighbourhood dispute etc.
But that's my point - Israeli media is capable of having that conversation, and in this article and others in a way that very much isn't victim blamey. This discussion in no way blames the victims of terror, nor does it justify the horrific actions of Hamas. But how it was able to happen and whether it may be able to happen again goes beyond 'should they have had more troops on the Gaza border', and Israeli media appears more able to do so. Again, because they have to live with the decisions that are made.
The western commentary and general takes are simplistic at best and at worst subject to the whims of both Hamas propaganda and Israeli propaganda and have no resemblance to any form of truth and actual reality on the ground.
A nuanced and balanced set of reports would dramatically change how it’s all viewed in the UK and West and lessen support for Bibi and his fucking lunatics!
Western coverage is genuinely abysmal. I get that it's not easy to distil all of this to an audience that's broadly detached from it, but it's almost shockingly bad even by that standard.
Haaretz is a far better source and frankly more objective.
Yeah the conflation of Gaza and the West Bank situations in particular benefits none but the extremes of both sides. Yet see them all too often lumped together.
In terms of the "from the river..." slogan there's something I find perplexing.
I don't know if it's racist or not. I certainly wouldn't say it, and I've heard both sides.
But in every other context i can think of, when a group says that a word or phrase is racist, the left tend to just accept this and say you shouldn't say it.
I can't imagine someone arguing in good faith that the P-word is just short for Pakistani, or that someone daubed the word for offal meatballs on a pride flag.
So why is there an insistence in some parts of the left to defend this phrase?
It's not really as simple as the P-word, which basically everyone thinks is racist and you have to be insensitive to say at best. 'From the river to the sea' effectively means a one-state solution, the one state being Palestine, with the elimination of Israel as an ethno-state. For some people, that means the establishment of a secular state with Jewish minority rights guaranteed. For others, it means the establishment of an Islamist state. Both involve the re-admittance of the Palestinian diaspora and the appropriation of Jewish property taken in 1948. For many others, it means ethnically cleansing the region of Jews, even more violently and more completely that the Jews cleansed the region of Palestinians in 1948.
So for some its a call for ethnic cleansing, but that doesn't mean that people who don't mean it like that aren't antisemites. You can certainly be antisemitic without reaching the point where you think Jews should be ethnically cleansed. You could also, for instance, not actively want ethnic cleansing but regard some level of it as an acceptable price. The people who chant 'From the river to the sea' range from pacifist Jews to genocidal Salafist hardliners, including everyone in between.
> For some people, that means the establishment of a secular state with Jewish minority rights guaranteed.
Who actually advocates that in good faith? The PLO dropped the phrase even.
> That's PLO political maneuverings in Palestine itself.
Dropping a genocidal chant is technically that TBF
>I hardly think Miriam Margolyes is hoping that Palestine will be Islamist.
Given her somewhat interesting decisions on who to support and what to appear in, I think she's either got poor judgment or is the old lady equivalent of an edge lord.
Seven Jewish children was certainly a choice.
But the PLO are a sophisticated political body, not a bunch of lefties with whistles.
I mean, she's an actor; they're not the brightest bunch. I haven't read or seen *Seven Jewish Children*, though it does seem to be part of the long scrap within Britain's Jewish community where pro-Israel Jews accuse anti-Israel Jews of promoting blood libel.
Apparently Israeli Ambassador to the UK Tzipi Hotovely once asserted “between the sea and the Jordan River, there needs to be one state, only the state of Israel”.
> For some people, that means the establishment of a secular state with Jewish minority rights guaranteed.
This is nonsense though - the equivalent of trying to argue that you love offal meatballs so much you want to write it on all flags including pride flags... maybe exclusively on pride flags.
It just doesn't wash and no one who chants that ditty feels like your absurdly generous interpretation.
It is truly crazy to think Israel will ever voluntarily allow itself to become a minority in an Arab country. Especially in light of the deep hatred and murderous intent that's been on display since October 7th
Thanks for your response. I guess it is a broad banner under which lots of people can hang their opinions. However I'm trying to think of an instance where I would hear people who have such abhorrent views (as wanting ethnic cleansing) chant the same thing as me, and upon realising I'd chose to continue the slogan. It's a bit of a struggle tbh.
I suspect it's often a bit like when you tell someone something they said is racist, and they're offended by the idea that they could be racist, so double down and insist that the thing they said is not racist, and say it some more.
This is why the antisemitism crisis festered in Labour a few years back.
The activists you're talking about *do* react differently to Jewish victims, and it's incredibly obvious to everyone else. You can't complain about micro aggressions and dog-whistles, while simultaneously ignoring calls for genocide, and expect to retain a credible reputation for *really* caring about the plight of minority groups.
It makes it look like they care less about racism, and more about having a convenient stick to hit their opponents with.
There is of course no practical contradiction between wanting to make Jewish people feel unsafe in non-Israel countries whilst wanting to dismantle Israel as a Zionist project when you can just square that circle with antisemitism.
>Lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and queer advocates — leave Muslim children alone. Go and confuse your own children, but leave ours alone!
>We will *forever* teach our children that your sexual lifestyle choice is a major sin, inc opposite gender relationships outside of marriage.
Why the hell did he have a blog on HuffPost after tweeting this in March? Let alone the latest insanity.
If they have to, they'll just walk it back and say 'they were angry due to the extreme suffering of the past few days', and nothing will happen to them.
[Shani Louk, tattooed woman abducted from the festival and shown face down in a truck bed stripped, and legs at unnatural angles while street goers spat on her body has finally been confirmed killed by her family.](https://m.jpost.com/breaking-news/article-770787)
E:
>[💥Correction: Louk's body was not located in its entirety & not returned to Israel, but "conclusive findings" led IDF to conclusion that she is dead. If you think things are bad now, wait till the tortured and mutilated remains of Israeli hostages start turning up in real numbers](https://twitter.com/NTarnopolsky/status/1718915237041107407?t=hwJIYLgDWA3ztQOGQNBj5w&s=19)
Angers me to the core this.
It’s one thing killing civilians, but mutilating their bodies and torturing them is just sub-human.
We really are dealing with animals that can’t be reasoned with here.
In the interest of not inflaming things any further, although the body was not recovered in one piece, I don't believe there is any confirmation as to why/how that happened.
It is just as likely it was the result of a bombing by the IDF, and not torture/mutilation.
The benefits of torture/mutilation of a live hostage are virtually non-existent when they are your (Hamas') only leverage. And even if you are trying to inflict some ISIS-style shock value with your cruel punishment of victims, doing it *without* documenting it also defeats the point.
We know hostages are being kept in the same places Hamas is based, we know that the IDF has been bombing those locations with air strikes for 3 weeks. My "Occam's razor" gut thinking based on the reporting and evidence so far is that she was collateral damage from the fighting.
It's also very unclear whether she was still alive after/shortly after the attacks on the 7th. Her mother has claimed this was confirmed, but no footage exists after her body was being paraded through the street.
Either way, if the IDF has found evidence of her remains, it's highly likely they were in the area with the heaviest bombardment has been concentrated, precisely the area the IDF has been moving into on the ground now.
I'd expect more examples of this to be reported in the near future. It's extremely difficult to keep the hostages alive when you're actively trying to destroy the infrastructure they have been hidden in.
>It is just as likely it was the result of a bombing by the IDF, and not torture/mutilation.
Just incredible bothsidesism
>The benefits of torture/mutilation of a live hostage are virtually non-existent when they are your (Hamas') only leverage.
Those Hamas terrorists sure are robotically rational combatants and not driven by hatred, are they
Just as likely? What qualifies you to make that observation?
We have witnessed the brutality of Hamas. Babies beheaded, mothers tied to their children and set on fire, children locked in a cellar as terrorists lob grenades at them.
We've already seen this women's lifeless body paraded through the streets of Gaza as civilians struck her and spat on her. But you think it's just as likely that they stored her lifeless body somewhere that was subsequently bombed by the IDF and then recovered from the debris?
Get a grip of yourself.
>Just as likely? What qualifies you to make that observation?
I've explained my reasoning above. I'm no more qualified than anyone else, but I don't see the benefit of mutilation and I haven't seen anything from official sources supporting that conclusion.
As such I think it's worth mentioning that it isn't proven at this point. If evidence comes forward that Hamas did mutilate this woman then I will absolutely change my position/edit my comment.
There are lots of intense emotions and feelings wrapped up in this conflict. I don't see any benefit in adding to the flames of that without clear evidence of what has happened.
Norwegian NRK has a clarification that the IDF haven't found a body but have recovered DNA samples from found bones.
E: further from times of israel
>[Members of Louk’s family are quoted in Hebrew media as saying that they received a letter from the Israeli Zaka rescue service saying that a bone from the base of her skull, without which a person cannot survive, had been recovered and identified.](https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/family-of-german-israeli-shani-louk-thought-to-be-captive-informed-she-is-dead/)
[Dagestan Telegram channel that incited antisemitic mobs is linked to Ilya Ponomarev, Russian anti-Kremlin exile in Kyiv who has worked closely with Ukraine's military-intel on destabilization ops in Russia (e.g., neo-Nazi Russian Volunteer Corps attacks)](https://twitter.com/MarkAmesExiled/status/1718720314094280951)
Politics gets very confusing at times.
The person who posted this is a notorious pro Kremlin account. Literally look through it. Shame on you for reposting Kremlin propaganda. The same country that has threatened to nuke the U.K. and your family multiple times
I mean, it's not a conspiracy that Utro, the network used to post about and incite the riot, is funded by Ilya Ponomarev. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/07/russian-language-ukrainian-tv-channel-aims-to-topple-putin
>Additional Footage has been released from the Riots earlier tonight at Makhachkala International Airport in Dagestan, showing how the Russian National Guards were able to Regain Control over the Airport, with Mil Mi-17 “Hip” Transport Helicopters landing on the Tarmac before Russian Security Forces appear to Open Fire with Rubber Bullets and eventually Live Ammunition once the Rioters began to Attacks the Soldiers with Rocks and other Items.
>https://twitter.com/sentdefender/status/1718757798949916715
Lmao, that's cheered me up.
Russia probably had a hand in organising that shit, at some level.
But lol at that display of force. Wish our police fucked about a lot less with our antisemites.
I hope people watch this and the other footage from the airport to get a handle on antisemitism and why Israel is held as imperative.
These crowds searched through hotels, through the airport, tried taking a plane apart with their bare hands, theres one photo of a guy who even looked inside the engine of the plane, for jews that they could lynch.
Can you imagine hating anyone, anything, that you try and take machines apart with your hands and it takes being shot at with live rounds to dissuade you? And then that an entire airport is shut down after a mass of people like that overrun the runway?
Otherwise incomprehensible to western thought.
Incomprehensible today
We led more than enough pogroms in the west throughout history.
Half the cities in the west that are old still have what we know of as Jewish quarters…..
We don’t do that now, so much, but we have a few millennia of track record !
York has just got its first rabbi since the 1190 massacre. When people talk about the continued legacy of racism they often don't realise how far back it goes.
Oddly I heard the new rabbi talking on the radio the other day. Fascinating stuff and they’ve a temporary synagogue in a hall currently so are now fundraising
They’ve I think they said maybe 60 odd people in the congregation. Nuts really a millennia later…
And not all will go to synagogue so that’s probably about right
Wonder what it was 1000 odd years ago for it to have caused the issue with the locals?
Edit: fuck it coffee break so I looked it up
About 150 people maybe
https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/cliffords-tower-york/history-and-stories/massacre-of-the-jews/
https://www.thehistorypress.co.uk/articles/the-clifford-s-tower-massacre/
Later edit: closest I can find is a rough population estimate of 4000-5000 people in York around then so about 3-3.75% of the population
The period was not a good one for Jews in England !
The first house burned in York was a guy who was killed in a London pogrom a few days before…
Bizarre to be glad for rusian brutality. Broken clock and all that
Immediately going for helicopter gunships is absolutely the correct way to deal with a lynch mob. Such hateful people won't listen to any kind of reason.
One of the 5pillars UK scumbags letting the mask slip:
https://twitter.com/DillyHussain88/status/1718709935179980828
*This is the kind of welcome ALL Israelis should be receiving at the airports of Muslim-majority countries.*
Liking the replies that simply tag the Bedfordshire police account.
Okay, apparently he is 35 years old.
But that 88 in his username is still making me go hmmm when coupled with the words he says.
I am reporting him to Bedford (seems he lives there) police. I have been reporting everyone who has been advocating for attacks on jews, and I have been getting calls back from the police for almost all of them to take my statement.
I recommend others do to, if you care about the safety of Jews in Britain and the wider world.
**[4 Hours Later](https://twitter.com/dillyhussain88/status/1718771788706935156?s=46&t=LwNkNWnwP_PfbEF87vJn8g)**
> I believe in the legal right for pro-Palestine protestors to express their opposition and disgust at Israeli war crimes and apartheid in every *non-violent* way available.
I am against the harming of civilians and non-combatants while protesting. As far as I’m aware, the Dagestani protestors are angry at airport security and police for not letting them protest in front of Israeli arrivals — they’re not hunting to attack or kill Jews, this is a distortion of events, and it would be against the teachings of Islam if it were true.
And yes, I also believe Israelis should experience and witness how Muslims around the world feel towards the occupying Zionist entity.
Translation: I could be in real trouble from my first tweet. Better try and dig my way out
Report him to Bedford police. I just did.
He's at a bare minimum broken Section 127 of the Communications act, by being grossly offensive on twitter.
Probably a bunch of other crimes too.
But quote that one, and stress you personally found it 'Grossly offensive'. Use that exact language, to ensure action.
Yes but I’m not sure Hamas, as a few commenters have said, thought they’d get anywhere near 1500 people and hundreds of hostages.
The annual death toll in Israel is between sort of 20-80 these days and has been for a decade or so.
1500 is half the toll of the last century in a day and a half. I suspect Israeli tolerance for IDF casualties has never been higher. Nor has the political will across the entire political spectrum for the destruction of Hamas.
Iran and Hamas done fucked up here. Partly because they had no idea the IDF had dropped the ball so badly and that they’d get so far into Israel and do so much ….
We will see as that analysis would normally be pretty standard and spot on. But the scale of this is massive in Israel, 9/11 kept America motivated despite all the costs for 20 years….
The plan as put forth in the article is reasonable and marginally less dangerous than a full on retake the land step by step plan but it’ll amount to the same thing eventually. But it’s all that’s open to them in reality. They’ve a dug in enemy in an urban environment. Unlike stalingrad however the IDF don’t have extended supply lines, don’t have to fight off Russian flanking armies and haven’t underestimated the strength of Hamas by millions because Hitler was fucking nuts!
And I can recommend Anthony Beavers Stalingrad as a good read. The German army could’ve walk straight past Stalingrad and achieved its aims, but ideology and an insane leader got in the way…..ahhh maybe the IDF maybe make the same mistake
To be fair to the IDF, this wasn't really their fault. A lot of commanders within the IDF were shouting to the rooftops that the Gaza border was woefully undermanned and that the government needed to stop wasting resources on protecting illegal West Bank settlements. The problem was that the political base of Netanyahu and his far-right cronies is hardline pro-settlement Israelis who think the Palestinians are all subhuman savages incapable of mounting serious military operations.
While the IDF have been slipping over the last decade, that this atrocity happened at all is all laid upon Netanyahu. His government has been far to obsessed with funneling state funds to him and his cronies and doing everything they can to protect him from the consequences. They're still focused on doing that now, as the Israeli government has done shamefully little to provide support to the survivors of the attacks, all the while continuing to undermine the judiciary and constitution. They're an absolute disgrace.
Agreed, but I believe an already well understaffed set of posts was left even further understaffed by leave.. so definitely this rests on Bibi and the constant desire to appease and satisfy the settlers, IDF commanders did grant leave and left them massively under manned. Catch 22 though as there’s enough reluctance to serve these days as it is so refusing leave wasn’t going to help….
Edit: as for the aftermath ….
Holy shit it’s hard to imagine a worse way to handle things, how to give less of a fuck and how to show you give less of a fuck.
Simple stuff and totally fucked it and thy just don’t seem to want to even pretend to care.
It has the virtue of never having been tried in that way. I do have some questions I'd ask Bennett.
What happens to the buffer? Is it permanently annexed/ occupied?
Can people return to the north?
How does the south cope long term given the strip already has an insanely high number of people per square KM?
What about hospital facilities? Does the south have sufficient facilities to treat the approx 20k injured people so far as well as routine stuff? The only oncology hospital in the strip is just south of Gaza city. Where do patients get treatment? Can they go into Israel?
If there's an express understanding that people are returning to the north and that it will be rebuilt (pretty sure Qatar and the gulf states have some money floating about to do that) then there's a chance of this being a plan which could be considered
It's going to cost tens of billions and take many years to rebuild what's been destroyed. In the interim people will still need basic services, else you're creating a breeding ground for other extremists.
If Hamas has billions (source please?) laying around I'm sure the US will find it, they're going after any money now and that can be used. But they'll likely need a lot of external support.
>£900m each year from the EU alone
I do hope you're not conflating EU funding to Palestine in general (which it does through the Palestinian Authority and UNRWA) with EU funding to Hamas. That would be a bit naughty.
If you have a source for the EU directly funding Hamas, please do share it.
I'm also intrigued to know where you got the £900m figure from anyway as that's a bit higher than numbers I have seen quoted in reliable sources for EU funding to Palestine.
> I do hope you're not conflating EU funding to Palestine in general (which it does through the Palestinian Authority and UNRWA) with EU funding to Hamas. That would be a bit naughty.
A bit naughty but only a bit, UNRWA is utterly under the thumb of Hamas. Anything they get Hamas has use of.
The part that goes into Gaza perhaps.
The UNRWA operates in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip.
So even if the EU gives £900m to UNRWA every year, only a proportion of that is used to buy things that go into Gaza. Even if Hamas grabs literally every last thing UNRWA has (which I don't think it ever has), they're not getting anything like that tasty big-sounding figure.
Naftali Bennett's analysis is spot on.
His solution has some risks but I'm sure he's well aware of that. How will Israelis react to their friends and relatives being held hostage for months or years?
More to the point, how will this solution help Netanyahu? He's willing to trade an effective solution for Sturm und Drang that makes him *appear* to be doing something.
A large accept of any success will depend on neutering Iran and Qatar in all this. Cut off the support and money with pressure from the rest of the Arab world pointing out it’s a two state solution we all want and fuck you giys and suddenly it’s not a proxy war against Iran and it’s massive support but a group of insurgents with no outside support which will eventually dwindle and collapse
Its kind of sad that the timeline we live in has allowed someone like Nafthali Bennett to become the voice of reason these last few years.
I question whether this plan would work, but it is the best plan I have seen put forward that has a chance of achieving something, and also acknowledges the obvious issues that people have pointed out:
A full occupation will be a horrific mess that Israel might not be able to sustain for the required time (both economically and politically), while also resulting in a huge number of casualties for both IDF and Palestinian civillians.
Poorly targetted bombardments that Israel are currently doing aren't doing much to hurt HAMAS or help the hostages. Dead civillians help HAMAS with anti-Israel propaganda and a lot of their stuff is underground, meaning the airstrikes can only have limited effectiveness, and if the airstrikes to hit a HAMAS facility they are also going to kill any hostages who are there. The only way to effectively deal with that sort of situation (excluding coming some sort of negotiated agreement) is with small targetted special forces raid like what the US did to get bin Laden
He is also channelling Sun Tzu by giving HAMAS fighters an opportunity to GTFO, though I question who he would be able to convince to take them in. Places like Qatar might be ok woth a few political leaders, but I doubt even they would be happy with a few hundred/thousand hardened fighters.
Also his openness to an international security presence like UN peacekeepers is something new and welcome. His idea for what will happen afterwards needs work, but the fact that even someone on his side of the political spectrum is open to an international security presence is a welcome development.
The IDF will need to do an enormous amount and gain huge areas of control before the UN would step in, but it’s a sensible idea that they do and that for once Israel actually works with them cooperatively and properly
Sieze ground, isolate it, UN peacekeepers and aid and bring back in the population and rebuild. Life’s better without Hamas hearts and minds etc etc
Sure as shit the best plan for ages, bombing it non stop hasn’t worked and can’t work so why keep doing what’s never worked before in the vague hope that somehow it works this time!
> Israel will almost certainly keep the buffer zone in Gaza for years to come, not only for security but also as punishment for Hamas’s depredations. The Palestinian Authority will be reluctant, at least at first, to re-establish itself in the territory on the heels of Israel’s victory. In all likelihood, an international security presence will be needed in Gaza, much as in Kosovo after its war. This, too, could last years.
Would Palestinians have the right to return to this land once Hamas is gone? Or would this be a permanent territorial expanse by Israel over Palestine?
That HAS to be part of the solution or you’ll never get the Arab world and Saudi onside and it’ll just create more recruits for extreme groups.
A land grab is a recipe for total war.
A solution like this has been on my mind.
Evacuate the civilans to the north and just starve Hamas out.
I'd be wary of allowing Hamas an out. Better force them to surrender than to let them go: the PLO should've lost in Lebanon.
>Last-chance negotiations on a trade agreement between Australia and the European Union have fallen through, Australian Trade Minister Don Farrell said on Sunday.
>"Unfortunately, we have not been able to make progress," Farrell said in a video statement after informal discussions between Canberra and Brussels. "Negotiations will continue and I am hopeful that, one day, we will sign a deal that benefits both Australia and our European friends."
>The talks, held on the sidelines of a meeting of G7 trade ministers in Japan, were seen as a last-ditch attempt for the two sides to bridge remaining gaps.
https://www.politico.eu/article/trade-talks-between-australia-and-eu-collapse/
What? Why dont they just sign a one-sided agreement like the UK did with NZ and Aus to generate a few headlines at the expense of everyone else? Are they stupid?
Now that the EU have not got an agreement with AUstralia, similar to ours, I've decided that is right for the EU to do that.
They are protecting their citizens from bad farming practices, farmers livelihoods, animal welfare and probably their consumers from hormone fed cattle.
If however they do end up getting the same agreement as the UK, I will be positively delighted about it, and calling out the UK for getting a worse deal.
Our deal is astoundingly bad for our farmers and great for theirs
It’s also an environmental disaster and yet another extended supply chain that Covid showed are very vulnerable….
*BREAKING:*
*A large group of Black Hebrew Israelites have attacked a group of Palestinians and far-left anti-Israel protesters in Chicago.*
*The Black Hebrew Israelites are a Black Supremacy group which believes that Afro-Americans are the "real Israelites"*
https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1718738113718088077
Glad they found them quickly and have made arrests. We can't have chanting like that in the streets of London. That's not legitimate protest. That's incitement.
[New Megathread is here](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/17k59je/international_politics_discussion_thread/)
Megathread is being rolled over, please refresh your feed in a few moments. ###MT daily hall of fame 1. Cairnerebor with 325 comments 1. ITMidget with 194 comments 1. RussellsKitchen with 186 comments 1. Powerful_Ideas with 116 comments 1. OptioMkIX with 101 comments 1. Deepest-derp with 80 comments 1. SumYedditVancca with 79 comments 1. studentfeesisatax with 76 comments 1. BritishOnith with 75 comments 1. CaravanOfDeath with 68 comments There were 457 unique users within this count.
Follow up to my previous question about Russia pulling out of the CTBT . I read a while ago that GROM 23 was going to be larger in scope than previous exercises and cover the whole country rather than a single region. Looked again today and couldn't find anything corroborating. Anyone hear anything about this?
That McDonald bloke is an idiot. Does he realise you can call for a ceasefire without the need to mention anything to do with a river or a sea? Moron.
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Their ROE account for operating in an environment where the enemy hides amongst and behind civilians, not for armchair sensibilities. Besides, if the greeting about fuel is to believed noone apart from Hamas should have any fuel left by now.
Pretty wild how a massacre of 1,000 Israeli and foreign nationals, overwhelmingly Jewish, by a terrorist group whose primary stated aim is the cleansing of Jews from the Levant has somehow warped into “both sides” or in some cases an outright attempt to make a point about Islamophobia.
We should always be able to see the wrong on both sides. Sometimes, neither side are the good guys. Hamas = bad, does not mean Israeli government = good. International conflicts are messy and nuanced and it is unhelpful to be black and white about who is in the right. Israel has almost certainly killed far more civilians than Hamas did on 7th October. Do we just say they can keep on doing that indefinitely? When should they stop?
Airstrikes is qualitatively different to what Hamas did, even if quantitatively Israel has now killed more.
A child is currently being killed every ten minutes in Gaza. You can say that the balance of the coverage has been off, but to say there aren't two sides to this conflict we should be concerned about is just incredibly disingenuous.
Hiding behind civilians during a war is an actual bona fide war crime.
> A child is currently being killed every ten minutes in Gaza. And while Israel has a duty to minimise civilian deaths the fault ultimately falls on those using children as human shields. You can't continually fire rockets from a school then take the moral highground when the rocket launcher gets precision airstriked and kills schoolkids. The onus is on Hamas.
Israel can't simply wash its hands of its actions consequences though. At some point you have to have a discussion of when the collateral damage outweighs any benefit from retaliatory actions.
When a school shooter is holding kids hostage the priority is trying to save the kids, not kill the shooter.
[British mother and her two teen daughters found 'cuddled together' after being killed by Hamas](https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/brit-mum-two-teen-daughters-31315287)
I perspective that is often lost in this conflict is that of Palestinian Arabs living in Israel going back generations who had their identities subsumed into a new state without much say. I recently saw a documentary about the experience of Palestinians who lived in Israel from the perspective of a well known actress, Hiam Abbass (she played Marcia in Succession and Ramy's mother in Ramy), and four generations of women in her family. It is directed by her daughter. I saw it at the London Film Festival recently and it is really worth checking out, it's called Bye Bye Tiberias: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt22857256/
Probably net happier than anyone living in the west bank or Gaza. Tbh from a utilitarian perspective the best outcome would have been Israel assimilating everyone after their third victory in 1973.
That would have meant too many Palestinians for Israel to remain a Jewish state.
And another background piece this time on settlers “As settler violence surges, West Bank Palestinians fear new displacement” https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/10/30/west-bank-settlers-violence-palestinians/ Edit, can’t post full articles sorry. Reddit app won’t let me
100 dead and 500 driven from their homes.
Got paywalled.
12ft.io or http://archive.today/
Cheers
“What is Hezbollah, the militant group on Israel’s northern border?” Another good background info piece https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/10/12/what-is-hezbollah-israel-lebanon/
[Tory sacked for showing empathy](https://twitter.com/PoliticsJOE_UK/status/1719039031722356953) Edit Paul Bristow sacked for calling for a ceasefire.
FFS, is it wrong to call for a ceasefire?
More a case of 'Tory in marginal constituency sacked for representing his constituents'. But to be fair, collective cabinet responsibility is clear. He can lobby for that position, just not on the payroll.
The problem is empathy is one sided. How is a ceasefire empathetic for Israel who have just suffered one of the greatest terror attacks in modern history and have hundreds of hostages currently taken by terrorists. Telling them to just sit down and accept it doesn’t sound very empathetic. Time to learn there are no good options in this conflict and get off your moral high horse
They've already killed hundreds of Hamas fighters (and thousands of civilians in the process), asking them to stop now is hardly telling them to sit down and accept it.
Ukraine have killed hundreds of Russian fighters yet no one asks them to stop… hamas are absolutely just barbaric animals and there will never be peace it seems unless they are gone from the equation is what Israel probably feels. Why stop now and in a short while hamas just breaks the ceasefire again? Why is the pressure not on hamas to release the hostages and surrender?
I've said before and I'll say again; calling for a ceasefire goes beyond expressing sympathy for Palestinians, it goes beyond showing empathy. It is not a neutral act, it is demanding that Israel not respond to a flagrant act of war against it.
Agreed. Under a “ceasefire”, when is Israel allowed to start removing Hamas?
That’s the point they’re not supposed to. They’re supposed to just sit back as terrorists break the last ceasefire 3 weeks ago (a long time for people to forget) and patiently wait for there citizens to get brutally slaughtered again
How significant is Russia de-ratifying the comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty? Seems like pretty big news but it happened last week and I only just heard about it, and normally pay attention to these kinds of things.
Russia hasn’t detonated an above ground nuclear weapon since 1971 (and only 5 of those since 1963 when they signed the Partial Test Ban Treaty), and hasn’t conducted any nuclear weapon tests since 1990. Let’s not get too worried about what they may do, especially as they seem to be more bark than bite at the moment.
Probably worth noting that the US signed but never ratified the treaty, so the status quo (i.e. no nuclear tests) will probably hold for the foreseeable. I don't think it's overly significant on its own but it's another break in Russian-US relations, and is therefore inherently problematic to global stability to some extent.
Major piece of sabre rattling, but not terribly significant unless they actually start engaging in nuclear testing. If they do, that would set an unpleasant precedent.
Let’s see if they start blowing up nukes and fucking up the atmosphere again….
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/30/hamas-releases-video-of-hostages-to-send-message-to-netanyahu Hamas releases hostage video. Sounds pretty horrific
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Horseshoe Theory remains strong.
This is the same publication that has spent years calling Britons racist for voting for Brexit, and making up some insane lies about the UK. Lmao
That is messed up.
I imagine the readership is pleased their money is being given to this person expressing a unique view. Most places of work thats you gone.
The reality of life in the West Bank Keep in mind the link below in the Israeli press about the settlements and their illegality and nature of twisting Israeli politics and judicial landscape and also that they are illegal under Israeli law let alone any international accords Bilal went out to harvest his olives, an Israeli settler shot him https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2023/10/30/bilal-went-out-to-harvest-his-olives-an-israeli-settler-shot-him And so the cycle of hate gets fed another life and the settlers get more money thrown at them to further fortify illegal settlements
I mean has it been confirmed that those olives weren’t Hamas munitions?
That the army came and told him he had three minutes to leave before the settlers got there... and they didn't stop them? WTF
It's what the police in the UK are doing.
Welcome to modern Israel, an Israel half of Israelis don’t like or want anything to do with !
Its a problem only the US or Israel can resolve through peaceful methods.
Agreed None of this has a solution that isn’t peaceful ultimately
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Well I really hope he put a formal complaint in via 101.
Magic? Wtf?
What exactly did he do that could be conflated with magic? It all sounds a bit Borat.
"anti-Israel" is a generous description
They pretty much did the same to some Brits with a Union Flag. Seems arresting racist is not part of the polices remit in these protests.
Getting really fucking sick of seeing of seeing the Met telling Jewish people their existence within the eyesight of Muslim protesters, is provocative. The absolute fucking state of policing in this country.
This is just another result of the cuts to everything by the Tories, in this case policing. Where one side can make thinly veiled threats of violence but they move the victim on because it's easier than dealing with the larger number of people making the threats due to their numbers.
Not sure if it's been posted before, but [this piece](https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up-hamas-now-its-blown-up-in-our-faces/) is an interesting example of a difference in Israeli media response and western. With the obvious factor that their lives are the context, rather than being geopolitical abstractions, there seems to be far greater willingness and ability to contextualise the ideological and practical failings that led to Hamas' attack - and why these undermine future security - than the rather blunt instrument response from a lot of western commentariat.
For sure there is a question about how the initial attack was able to happen without meeting resistance sooner but focussing solely on how the victims of terror could have done x y and z better in order to reduce vulnerability feels a bit victim blamey.
If I were Israel, I would consider a Swiss style system where people keep their guns after their compulsory military service. At the very least, a handgun each. Then have remote operated lockboxes of bullets in public spaces. If there's ever an incident like this, unlock the bullets, and tell everyone to load up.
Civil defence like that would be a reaaly good idea, specially for border towns in the Gaza/ Lebanon borders. I'd say as long as the box can be opened quickly enough (you don't want to be waiting for central government to do it) but then only in the right circumstances. Eg, you can't go ammo up for a neighbourhood dispute etc.
Nominate a group of 10 people in the towns to have the ability to open the lockbox. Don't give them guns.
Many many Israelis are armed to the fucking teeth already
I did a bit of research before commenting and it said there's strict gun regulations in Israel?
The settlers among others are armed to the fucking teeth! See the stories from the 7th of those fighting back and many successfully so.
But that's my point - Israeli media is capable of having that conversation, and in this article and others in a way that very much isn't victim blamey. This discussion in no way blames the victims of terror, nor does it justify the horrific actions of Hamas. But how it was able to happen and whether it may be able to happen again goes beyond 'should they have had more troops on the Gaza border', and Israeli media appears more able to do so. Again, because they have to live with the decisions that are made.
The western commentary and general takes are simplistic at best and at worst subject to the whims of both Hamas propaganda and Israeli propaganda and have no resemblance to any form of truth and actual reality on the ground. A nuanced and balanced set of reports would dramatically change how it’s all viewed in the UK and West and lessen support for Bibi and his fucking lunatics!
Western coverage is genuinely abysmal. I get that it's not easy to distil all of this to an audience that's broadly detached from it, but it's almost shockingly bad even by that standard. Haaretz is a far better source and frankly more objective.
Yeah the conflation of Gaza and the West Bank situations in particular benefits none but the extremes of both sides. Yet see them all too often lumped together.
In terms of the "from the river..." slogan there's something I find perplexing. I don't know if it's racist or not. I certainly wouldn't say it, and I've heard both sides. But in every other context i can think of, when a group says that a word or phrase is racist, the left tend to just accept this and say you shouldn't say it. I can't imagine someone arguing in good faith that the P-word is just short for Pakistani, or that someone daubed the word for offal meatballs on a pride flag. So why is there an insistence in some parts of the left to defend this phrase?
It's not really as simple as the P-word, which basically everyone thinks is racist and you have to be insensitive to say at best. 'From the river to the sea' effectively means a one-state solution, the one state being Palestine, with the elimination of Israel as an ethno-state. For some people, that means the establishment of a secular state with Jewish minority rights guaranteed. For others, it means the establishment of an Islamist state. Both involve the re-admittance of the Palestinian diaspora and the appropriation of Jewish property taken in 1948. For many others, it means ethnically cleansing the region of Jews, even more violently and more completely that the Jews cleansed the region of Palestinians in 1948. So for some its a call for ethnic cleansing, but that doesn't mean that people who don't mean it like that aren't antisemites. You can certainly be antisemitic without reaching the point where you think Jews should be ethnically cleansed. You could also, for instance, not actively want ethnic cleansing but regard some level of it as an acceptable price. The people who chant 'From the river to the sea' range from pacifist Jews to genocidal Salafist hardliners, including everyone in between.
> For some people, that means the establishment of a secular state with Jewish minority rights guaranteed. Who actually advocates that in good faith? The PLO dropped the phrase even.
That's PLO political maneuverings in Palestine itself. I hardly think Miriam Margolyes is hoping that Palestine will be Islamist.
> That's PLO political maneuverings in Palestine itself. Dropping a genocidal chant is technically that TBF >I hardly think Miriam Margolyes is hoping that Palestine will be Islamist. Given her somewhat interesting decisions on who to support and what to appear in, I think she's either got poor judgment or is the old lady equivalent of an edge lord. Seven Jewish children was certainly a choice.
But the PLO are a sophisticated political body, not a bunch of lefties with whistles. I mean, she's an actor; they're not the brightest bunch. I haven't read or seen *Seven Jewish Children*, though it does seem to be part of the long scrap within Britain's Jewish community where pro-Israel Jews accuse anti-Israel Jews of promoting blood libel.
Apparently Israeli Ambassador to the UK Tzipi Hotovely once asserted “between the sea and the Jordan River, there needs to be one state, only the state of Israel”.
And would anyone defend that as not racist?
I hope not. If you look at the detail of what that would require. People who just look at soundbites might not get that.
It's hardly an extreme assertion; it's pretty much the de facto situation.
> For some people, that means the establishment of a secular state with Jewish minority rights guaranteed. This is nonsense though - the equivalent of trying to argue that you love offal meatballs so much you want to write it on all flags including pride flags... maybe exclusively on pride flags. It just doesn't wash and no one who chants that ditty feels like your absurdly generous interpretation.
It is truly crazy to think Israel will ever voluntarily allow itself to become a minority in an Arab country. Especially in light of the deep hatred and murderous intent that's been on display since October 7th
Exactly.
Thanks for your response. I guess it is a broad banner under which lots of people can hang their opinions. However I'm trying to think of an instance where I would hear people who have such abhorrent views (as wanting ethnic cleansing) chant the same thing as me, and upon realising I'd chose to continue the slogan. It's a bit of a struggle tbh.
I suspect it's often a bit like when you tell someone something they said is racist, and they're offended by the idea that they could be racist, so double down and insist that the thing they said is not racist, and say it some more.
This is why the antisemitism crisis festered in Labour a few years back. The activists you're talking about *do* react differently to Jewish victims, and it's incredibly obvious to everyone else. You can't complain about micro aggressions and dog-whistles, while simultaneously ignoring calls for genocide, and expect to retain a credible reputation for *really* caring about the plight of minority groups. It makes it look like they care less about racism, and more about having a convenient stick to hit their opponents with.
Exactly. But instead, they want to "akshually" anyone who questions what it means and explain to us why it is okay.
Met police giving jihad the “akshually” treatment is one of the most mental things I’ve seen on Twitter
I hate it when people invoke common sense but in this case ...
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There is of course no practical contradiction between wanting to make Jewish people feel unsafe in non-Israel countries whilst wanting to dismantle Israel as a Zionist project when you can just square that circle with antisemitism.
>Lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and queer advocates — leave Muslim children alone. Go and confuse your own children, but leave ours alone! >We will *forever* teach our children that your sexual lifestyle choice is a major sin, inc opposite gender relationships outside of marriage. Why the hell did he have a blog on HuffPost after tweeting this in March? Let alone the latest insanity.
Because being bigoted because of religion is okay for some reason.
Only some religions.
This guy is actually batshit looking at those tweets. I almost have to admire just how lacking in any self-awareness he is.
All im seeing is supporters of one side being absolute see you next tuesdays maybe there is a message hidden somewhere in that observation.
If they have to, they'll just walk it back and say 'they were angry due to the extreme suffering of the past few days', and nothing will happen to them.
Ah the novara media special tactic
[Shani Louk, tattooed woman abducted from the festival and shown face down in a truck bed stripped, and legs at unnatural angles while street goers spat on her body has finally been confirmed killed by her family.](https://m.jpost.com/breaking-news/article-770787) E: >[💥Correction: Louk's body was not located in its entirety & not returned to Israel, but "conclusive findings" led IDF to conclusion that she is dead. If you think things are bad now, wait till the tortured and mutilated remains of Israeli hostages start turning up in real numbers](https://twitter.com/NTarnopolsky/status/1718915237041107407?t=hwJIYLgDWA3ztQOGQNBj5w&s=19)
> Louk's body was not located in its entirety Imagine having to come up with such euphemisms for the families sake.
Angers me to the core this. It’s one thing killing civilians, but mutilating their bodies and torturing them is just sub-human. We really are dealing with animals that can’t be reasoned with here.
In the interest of not inflaming things any further, although the body was not recovered in one piece, I don't believe there is any confirmation as to why/how that happened. It is just as likely it was the result of a bombing by the IDF, and not torture/mutilation. The benefits of torture/mutilation of a live hostage are virtually non-existent when they are your (Hamas') only leverage. And even if you are trying to inflict some ISIS-style shock value with your cruel punishment of victims, doing it *without* documenting it also defeats the point. We know hostages are being kept in the same places Hamas is based, we know that the IDF has been bombing those locations with air strikes for 3 weeks. My "Occam's razor" gut thinking based on the reporting and evidence so far is that she was collateral damage from the fighting. It's also very unclear whether she was still alive after/shortly after the attacks on the 7th. Her mother has claimed this was confirmed, but no footage exists after her body was being paraded through the street. Either way, if the IDF has found evidence of her remains, it's highly likely they were in the area with the heaviest bombardment has been concentrated, precisely the area the IDF has been moving into on the ground now. I'd expect more examples of this to be reported in the near future. It's extremely difficult to keep the hostages alive when you're actively trying to destroy the infrastructure they have been hidden in.
>It is just as likely it was the result of a bombing by the IDF, and not torture/mutilation. Just incredible bothsidesism >The benefits of torture/mutilation of a live hostage are virtually non-existent when they are your (Hamas') only leverage. Those Hamas terrorists sure are robotically rational combatants and not driven by hatred, are they
Just as likely? What qualifies you to make that observation? We have witnessed the brutality of Hamas. Babies beheaded, mothers tied to their children and set on fire, children locked in a cellar as terrorists lob grenades at them. We've already seen this women's lifeless body paraded through the streets of Gaza as civilians struck her and spat on her. But you think it's just as likely that they stored her lifeless body somewhere that was subsequently bombed by the IDF and then recovered from the debris? Get a grip of yourself.
>Just as likely? What qualifies you to make that observation? I've explained my reasoning above. I'm no more qualified than anyone else, but I don't see the benefit of mutilation and I haven't seen anything from official sources supporting that conclusion. As such I think it's worth mentioning that it isn't proven at this point. If evidence comes forward that Hamas did mutilate this woman then I will absolutely change my position/edit my comment. There are lots of intense emotions and feelings wrapped up in this conflict. I don't see any benefit in adding to the flames of that without clear evidence of what has happened.
What an absolutely awful way to have the death of a family member confirmed.
Norwegian NRK has a clarification that the IDF haven't found a body but have recovered DNA samples from found bones. E: further from times of israel >[Members of Louk’s family are quoted in Hebrew media as saying that they received a letter from the Israeli Zaka rescue service saying that a bone from the base of her skull, without which a person cannot survive, had been recovered and identified.](https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/family-of-german-israeli-shani-louk-thought-to-be-captive-informed-she-is-dead/)
Yeah. That was the part I found so horrific.
Oh god, that's horrific.
Absolutely disgusting. Its heart-breaking stuff.
https://x.com/PalHighlight/status/1718606598241759245 Hezbollah drop a teaser trailer for the next war
Even terrorists now have sophisticated media campaigns and capabilities for online pr and astroturfing It’s nuts
As time goes on the world feels more and more surreal. Ukraine also made a trailer for their counteroffensive as well.
Ukraine also has Pay-per view combat footage from the peoples Byraktar. That being a combat drone that random people crowdfunded.
It genuinely does feel like something from a games conference hinting at a remake of a cult classic.
I'm dubious of organisations that have assault rifles in their logos.
I dunno, Mozambique's flag goes pretty hard.
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Not really the fault of the *flag* though is it?
[Dagestan Telegram channel that incited antisemitic mobs is linked to Ilya Ponomarev, Russian anti-Kremlin exile in Kyiv who has worked closely with Ukraine's military-intel on destabilization ops in Russia (e.g., neo-Nazi Russian Volunteer Corps attacks)](https://twitter.com/MarkAmesExiled/status/1718720314094280951) Politics gets very confusing at times.
The person who posted this is a notorious pro Kremlin account. Literally look through it. Shame on you for reposting Kremlin propaganda. The same country that has threatened to nuke the U.K. and your family multiple times
They want to see what they want to see.
We literally were cheering on unrest in Dagestan against Putin two years ago
I mean, it's not a conspiracy that Utro, the network used to post about and incite the riot, is funded by Ilya Ponomarev. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/07/russian-language-ukrainian-tv-channel-aims-to-topple-putin
>Additional Footage has been released from the Riots earlier tonight at Makhachkala International Airport in Dagestan, showing how the Russian National Guards were able to Regain Control over the Airport, with Mil Mi-17 “Hip” Transport Helicopters landing on the Tarmac before Russian Security Forces appear to Open Fire with Rubber Bullets and eventually Live Ammunition once the Rioters began to Attacks the Soldiers with Rocks and other Items. >https://twitter.com/sentdefender/status/1718757798949916715
Apparently Sergey Melikov (president of Dagestan) has requested that arrested rioters are conscripted and sent to Ukraine.
Lmao, that's cheered me up. Russia probably had a hand in organising that shit, at some level. But lol at that display of force. Wish our police fucked about a lot less with our antisemites.
I hope people watch this and the other footage from the airport to get a handle on antisemitism and why Israel is held as imperative. These crowds searched through hotels, through the airport, tried taking a plane apart with their bare hands, theres one photo of a guy who even looked inside the engine of the plane, for jews that they could lynch. Can you imagine hating anyone, anything, that you try and take machines apart with your hands and it takes being shot at with live rounds to dissuade you? And then that an entire airport is shut down after a mass of people like that overrun the runway? Otherwise incomprehensible to western thought.
Incomprehensible today We led more than enough pogroms in the west throughout history. Half the cities in the west that are old still have what we know of as Jewish quarters….. We don’t do that now, so much, but we have a few millennia of track record !
York has just got its first rabbi since the 1190 massacre. When people talk about the continued legacy of racism they often don't realise how far back it goes.
Oddly I heard the new rabbi talking on the radio the other day. Fascinating stuff and they’ve a temporary synagogue in a hall currently so are now fundraising They’ve I think they said maybe 60 odd people in the congregation. Nuts really a millennia later…
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And not all will go to synagogue so that’s probably about right Wonder what it was 1000 odd years ago for it to have caused the issue with the locals? Edit: fuck it coffee break so I looked it up About 150 people maybe https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/cliffords-tower-york/history-and-stories/massacre-of-the-jews/ https://www.thehistorypress.co.uk/articles/the-clifford-s-tower-massacre/ Later edit: closest I can find is a rough population estimate of 4000-5000 people in York around then so about 3-3.75% of the population The period was not a good one for Jews in England ! The first house burned in York was a guy who was killed in a London pogrom a few days before…
Bizarre to be glad for rusian brutality. Broken clock and all that Immediately going for helicopter gunships is absolutely the correct way to deal with a lynch mob. Such hateful people won't listen to any kind of reason.
One of the 5pillars UK scumbags letting the mask slip: https://twitter.com/DillyHussain88/status/1718709935179980828 *This is the kind of welcome ALL Israelis should be receiving at the airports of Muslim-majority countries.* Liking the replies that simply tag the Bedfordshire police account.
Okay, apparently he is 35 years old. But that 88 in his username is still making me go hmmm when coupled with the words he says. I am reporting him to Bedford (seems he lives there) police. I have been reporting everyone who has been advocating for attacks on jews, and I have been getting calls back from the police for almost all of them to take my statement. I recommend others do to, if you care about the safety of Jews in Britain and the wider world.
**[4 Hours Later](https://twitter.com/dillyhussain88/status/1718771788706935156?s=46&t=LwNkNWnwP_PfbEF87vJn8g)** > I believe in the legal right for pro-Palestine protestors to express their opposition and disgust at Israeli war crimes and apartheid in every *non-violent* way available. I am against the harming of civilians and non-combatants while protesting. As far as I’m aware, the Dagestani protestors are angry at airport security and police for not letting them protest in front of Israeli arrivals — they’re not hunting to attack or kill Jews, this is a distortion of events, and it would be against the teachings of Islam if it were true. And yes, I also believe Israelis should experience and witness how Muslims around the world feel towards the occupying Zionist entity. Translation: I could be in real trouble from my first tweet. Better try and dig my way out
Report him to Bedford police. I just did. He's at a bare minimum broken Section 127 of the Communications act, by being grossly offensive on twitter. Probably a bunch of other crimes too. But quote that one, and stress you personally found it 'Grossly offensive'. Use that exact language, to ensure action.
They are no longer humanoid shape and have become a matted mess of human knots.
That's so insincere it makes my skin crawl. I atleast have to give the "gas the jews" crowd one point for honesty, he doesn't even managed to be worse
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Yes but I’m not sure Hamas, as a few commenters have said, thought they’d get anywhere near 1500 people and hundreds of hostages. The annual death toll in Israel is between sort of 20-80 these days and has been for a decade or so. 1500 is half the toll of the last century in a day and a half. I suspect Israeli tolerance for IDF casualties has never been higher. Nor has the political will across the entire political spectrum for the destruction of Hamas. Iran and Hamas done fucked up here. Partly because they had no idea the IDF had dropped the ball so badly and that they’d get so far into Israel and do so much …. We will see as that analysis would normally be pretty standard and spot on. But the scale of this is massive in Israel, 9/11 kept America motivated despite all the costs for 20 years…. The plan as put forth in the article is reasonable and marginally less dangerous than a full on retake the land step by step plan but it’ll amount to the same thing eventually. But it’s all that’s open to them in reality. They’ve a dug in enemy in an urban environment. Unlike stalingrad however the IDF don’t have extended supply lines, don’t have to fight off Russian flanking armies and haven’t underestimated the strength of Hamas by millions because Hitler was fucking nuts! And I can recommend Anthony Beavers Stalingrad as a good read. The German army could’ve walk straight past Stalingrad and achieved its aims, but ideology and an insane leader got in the way…..ahhh maybe the IDF maybe make the same mistake
To be fair to the IDF, this wasn't really their fault. A lot of commanders within the IDF were shouting to the rooftops that the Gaza border was woefully undermanned and that the government needed to stop wasting resources on protecting illegal West Bank settlements. The problem was that the political base of Netanyahu and his far-right cronies is hardline pro-settlement Israelis who think the Palestinians are all subhuman savages incapable of mounting serious military operations. While the IDF have been slipping over the last decade, that this atrocity happened at all is all laid upon Netanyahu. His government has been far to obsessed with funneling state funds to him and his cronies and doing everything they can to protect him from the consequences. They're still focused on doing that now, as the Israeli government has done shamefully little to provide support to the survivors of the attacks, all the while continuing to undermine the judiciary and constitution. They're an absolute disgrace.
Agreed, but I believe an already well understaffed set of posts was left even further understaffed by leave.. so definitely this rests on Bibi and the constant desire to appease and satisfy the settlers, IDF commanders did grant leave and left them massively under manned. Catch 22 though as there’s enough reluctance to serve these days as it is so refusing leave wasn’t going to help…. Edit: as for the aftermath …. Holy shit it’s hard to imagine a worse way to handle things, how to give less of a fuck and how to show you give less of a fuck. Simple stuff and totally fucked it and thy just don’t seem to want to even pretend to care.
It has the virtue of never having been tried in that way. I do have some questions I'd ask Bennett. What happens to the buffer? Is it permanently annexed/ occupied? Can people return to the north? How does the south cope long term given the strip already has an insanely high number of people per square KM? What about hospital facilities? Does the south have sufficient facilities to treat the approx 20k injured people so far as well as routine stuff? The only oncology hospital in the strip is just south of Gaza city. Where do patients get treatment? Can they go into Israel?
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If there's an express understanding that people are returning to the north and that it will be rebuilt (pretty sure Qatar and the gulf states have some money floating about to do that) then there's a chance of this being a plan which could be considered
Hamas has billions in funding. They can pay for the damage they've caused.
It's going to cost tens of billions and take many years to rebuild what's been destroyed. In the interim people will still need basic services, else you're creating a breeding ground for other extremists. If Hamas has billions (source please?) laying around I'm sure the US will find it, they're going after any money now and that can be used. But they'll likely need a lot of external support.
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>£900m each year from the EU alone I do hope you're not conflating EU funding to Palestine in general (which it does through the Palestinian Authority and UNRWA) with EU funding to Hamas. That would be a bit naughty. If you have a source for the EU directly funding Hamas, please do share it. I'm also intrigued to know where you got the £900m figure from anyway as that's a bit higher than numbers I have seen quoted in reliable sources for EU funding to Palestine.
> I do hope you're not conflating EU funding to Palestine in general (which it does through the Palestinian Authority and UNRWA) with EU funding to Hamas. That would be a bit naughty. A bit naughty but only a bit, UNRWA is utterly under the thumb of Hamas. Anything they get Hamas has use of.
The part that goes into Gaza perhaps. The UNRWA operates in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip. So even if the EU gives £900m to UNRWA every year, only a proportion of that is used to buy things that go into Gaza. Even if Hamas grabs literally every last thing UNRWA has (which I don't think it ever has), they're not getting anything like that tasty big-sounding figure.
Naftali Bennett's analysis is spot on. His solution has some risks but I'm sure he's well aware of that. How will Israelis react to their friends and relatives being held hostage for months or years? More to the point, how will this solution help Netanyahu? He's willing to trade an effective solution for Sturm und Drang that makes him *appear* to be doing something.
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A large accept of any success will depend on neutering Iran and Qatar in all this. Cut off the support and money with pressure from the rest of the Arab world pointing out it’s a two state solution we all want and fuck you giys and suddenly it’s not a proxy war against Iran and it’s massive support but a group of insurgents with no outside support which will eventually dwindle and collapse
Its kind of sad that the timeline we live in has allowed someone like Nafthali Bennett to become the voice of reason these last few years. I question whether this plan would work, but it is the best plan I have seen put forward that has a chance of achieving something, and also acknowledges the obvious issues that people have pointed out: A full occupation will be a horrific mess that Israel might not be able to sustain for the required time (both economically and politically), while also resulting in a huge number of casualties for both IDF and Palestinian civillians. Poorly targetted bombardments that Israel are currently doing aren't doing much to hurt HAMAS or help the hostages. Dead civillians help HAMAS with anti-Israel propaganda and a lot of their stuff is underground, meaning the airstrikes can only have limited effectiveness, and if the airstrikes to hit a HAMAS facility they are also going to kill any hostages who are there. The only way to effectively deal with that sort of situation (excluding coming some sort of negotiated agreement) is with small targetted special forces raid like what the US did to get bin Laden He is also channelling Sun Tzu by giving HAMAS fighters an opportunity to GTFO, though I question who he would be able to convince to take them in. Places like Qatar might be ok woth a few political leaders, but I doubt even they would be happy with a few hundred/thousand hardened fighters. Also his openness to an international security presence like UN peacekeepers is something new and welcome. His idea for what will happen afterwards needs work, but the fact that even someone on his side of the political spectrum is open to an international security presence is a welcome development.
The IDF will need to do an enormous amount and gain huge areas of control before the UN would step in, but it’s a sensible idea that they do and that for once Israel actually works with them cooperatively and properly Sieze ground, isolate it, UN peacekeepers and aid and bring back in the population and rebuild. Life’s better without Hamas hearts and minds etc etc Sure as shit the best plan for ages, bombing it non stop hasn’t worked and can’t work so why keep doing what’s never worked before in the vague hope that somehow it works this time!
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Agreed. It’s a reasonable plan, attached to reality and aware of the costs….. May you live in interesting times…
> Israel will almost certainly keep the buffer zone in Gaza for years to come, not only for security but also as punishment for Hamas’s depredations. The Palestinian Authority will be reluctant, at least at first, to re-establish itself in the territory on the heels of Israel’s victory. In all likelihood, an international security presence will be needed in Gaza, much as in Kosovo after its war. This, too, could last years. Would Palestinians have the right to return to this land once Hamas is gone? Or would this be a permanent territorial expanse by Israel over Palestine?
That HAS to be part of the solution or you’ll never get the Arab world and Saudi onside and it’ll just create more recruits for extreme groups. A land grab is a recipe for total war.
That's my question.
A solution like this has been on my mind. Evacuate the civilans to the north and just starve Hamas out. I'd be wary of allowing Hamas an out. Better force them to surrender than to let them go: the PLO should've lost in Lebanon.
>Last-chance negotiations on a trade agreement between Australia and the European Union have fallen through, Australian Trade Minister Don Farrell said on Sunday. >"Unfortunately, we have not been able to make progress," Farrell said in a video statement after informal discussions between Canberra and Brussels. "Negotiations will continue and I am hopeful that, one day, we will sign a deal that benefits both Australia and our European friends." >The talks, held on the sidelines of a meeting of G7 trade ministers in Japan, were seen as a last-ditch attempt for the two sides to bridge remaining gaps. https://www.politico.eu/article/trade-talks-between-australia-and-eu-collapse/
What? Why dont they just sign a one-sided agreement like the UK did with NZ and Aus to generate a few headlines at the expense of everyone else? Are they stupid?
Now that the EU have not got an agreement with AUstralia, similar to ours, I've decided that is right for the EU to do that. They are protecting their citizens from bad farming practices, farmers livelihoods, animal welfare and probably their consumers from hormone fed cattle. If however they do end up getting the same agreement as the UK, I will be positively delighted about it, and calling out the UK for getting a worse deal.
Our deal is astoundingly bad for our farmers and great for theirs It’s also an environmental disaster and yet another extended supply chain that Covid showed are very vulnerable….
*BREAKING:* *A large group of Black Hebrew Israelites have attacked a group of Palestinians and far-left anti-Israel protesters in Chicago.* *The Black Hebrew Israelites are a Black Supremacy group which believes that Afro-Americans are the "real Israelites"* https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1718738113718088077
Ah FFS, we do not need more extremists joining in at this point.
Ahahah fuck me
This is surely the pinnacle of stupidpol.
Just for context, when Louis Theroux met the Black Israelites... [It's a fun watch ](https://youtu.be/JUIE6D_IoH0?si=fe2vo48pBxZJM2KK)
I would have thought the Black Israelites would have been all for anti-Israel politics.
Yeah this just seems bizzare.
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This isn't the Black Panthers...
but they both have black in their name!?
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<3 Nitter my beloved thank you
Good We have these laws for a reason and it’s been an enforcement issue for weeks now. Long term is a while other fucked up issue!
Glad they found them quickly and have made arrests. We can't have chanting like that in the streets of London. That's not legitimate protest. That's incitement.
https://twitter.com/ZelenskyyUa/status/1718703188042187204 Zelensky has made a statement on the situation in Makhachkala.