The Middle East. Once Again.

[Dartz]

So on Saturday, Hamas raided out of Gaza, and attacked several small settlements and a music festival. The resulting massacre led to over a thousand civilian deaths, with hundreds more taken hostage.

The Isreali Defence forces had been caught completely napping - or paying more attention to the West Bank areas.

This has, of course, led to Isreali going absolutely Gomorrah on Gaza for the last three nights, with no real signs of stopping.

Biden has weighed in behind Isreal. So has Ukraine. So has basically the entire world on some level - with varying levels of 'restraint'.

The disinformation bots are in full swing.

It's an Iranian op to disrupt Saudi' normalisation of things with Israel
It's a Russian op to distract the West
Ukraine armed Hamas with Western weapons
Russians armed Hamas with captured Western weapons to blame the West
Russia and Iran are involved somehow.
The EU is suspending aid
The EU is NOT suspending aid to Palestine
The EU is specifically supplying aid to the Palestinian Authority - which is technically an enemy of Hamas
Countries are blocking the suspension of aid.... 
It was just one Hungarian minister who shot his mouth off.
Israel provoked this.
Israel didn't do enough to help Gaza
Israel did too much to help Gaza.
Citizens of $country are hostages too.

Egypt claims to have warned Netanyahu days before. This claim's been repeated in multiple places from other sources with timeframes ranging from the 10 days, to 3-days. Which is basically the end of Netanyahu's career if its true.

Otherwise it's all noise, with the only signal being the desperate sadness, the death tolls and the response and the vague sense that those who were truly responsible are unlikely to ever be punished.

[robkelk]

And here in Canada, the national news radio shows have been full of it since it happened.

Full of reports about the attacks, that is. The other interpretation of my statement is up to you to decide whether it aplies.

[nemonowan]

Egypt claims to have warned Netanyahu days before. This claim's been repeated in multiple places from other sources with timeframes ranging from the 10 days, to 3-days. Which is basically the end of Netanyahu's career if its true.

Given that Netanyahu is a corrupt* would-be autocrat** that is desperate to protect his power and freedom and was facing the worst civil protests seen in Israel before this war fell on his lap and shut up most dissent, the doubt of whether he knew this was coming and chose not to prevent it is very warranted.

*: undeniable, he is in the middle of many trials for corruption, and if he hadn't been able to form a government again, he might very well be in prison currently.
**: undeniable, he has been trying to pass bills that would give him effective control of the judiciary, forbidding the supreme court to strike down any laws and not incidentally stopping all prosecution against him. All that has been stopping him are the massive protests from the secular community, including army reservists that were refusing to return to duty because they didn't sign up to fight for a dictator. Of course there is nothing like a war to put a stop to all that.

[Labster]

I continue my long-time policy of having no comment regarding the Israel-Palestine conflict.

What I will say is that wow, people are overreacting here in the States. A CEO demands that Harvard release the lists of members of certain student clubs who support Palestine, for the express purpose of blacklisting them from employment. Another person lost a job offer because they blamed Israel for the violence.

I mean, can I get a national employment blacklist for everyone who said something supporting the January 6th coup attempt? Or a blacklist for everyone who says that Russia rightfully owns Ukraine? Of course not, because this is dumb, and something we should not do as a free society. This is dangerous authoritarianism.

[Dartz]

It's the new Freedom Fries.

Anyway.

Only thing to do is sit back, and then wipe the blood up when it's done. The State here will probably keep trying to support the Palestinian Authority (which is supposedly an enemy of Hamas or something). But yeah, we already have hundreds of Palestinian kids dead.

I suppose they could've grown up to become Hamas fighters.

[Dartz]

500 Palestinians should've made sure to go to the hospital they didn't take the injured Hamas fighter

Whoopsie Daisy

----

I mean fuck me.

I suppose the idea is to make Hamas pariahs by making death follow in their wake with absolute certainty, whether the fighter's even there or not. Bomb the apartment block anyway. Bomb 'em all until either all their friends and family are dead, and the survivors just figure it's best not to associate with them anymore since any form of association means certain fucking drone-delivered death. A few days, a week, a month from now. Make associating with Hamas a certain death sentance. Even if you didn't know.....

I'd half-planned a story for the CiTD Fenspace crossover a while back than involved some steel-eyed loon blathering on about Polygeneration Warfare and using these exact same fucking tactics - but being quiet obviously an absolute batshit moron who just wanted to murder people.

I mean technically, it'll probably work..... but yeah.

-----

Isreal's response seems to be "We're not a 100% that wasn't us...."

The whole point of PGM's is you know - generally, where the fucking things went.

[Isodecan]

500 Palestinians should've made sure to go to the hospital they didn't take the injured Hamas fighter

Whoopsie Daisy

----

I mean fuck me.

I suppose the idea is to make Hamas pariahs by making death follow in their wake with absolute certainty, whether the fighter's even there or not. Bomb the apartment block anyway. Bomb 'em all until either all their friends and family are dead, and the survivors just figure it's best not to associate with them anymore since any form of association means certain fucking drone-delivered death. A few days, a week, a month from now. Make associating with Hamas a certain death sentance. Even if you didn't know.....

I'd half-planned a story for the CiTD Fenspace crossover a while back than involved some steel-eyed loon blathering on about Polygeneration Warfare and using these exact same fucking tactics - but being quiet obviously an absolute batshit moron who just wanted to murder people.

I mean technically, it'll probably work.....  but yeah. 

-----

Isreal's response seems to be "We're not a 100% that wasn't us...."

The whole point of PGM's is you know - generally, where the fucking things went.

Israel's latest response is more along the lines of it wasn't a JDAM, there is some evidence (drawing from both Israeli and Palestinian Video sources) that this is the case (at least according to Beau of the 5th Column) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHuNmDGb5eU