Nobu

Not only do the people of the region on all sides seem to not favor peace and reconciliation with anyone, they have a tendency to assassinate their own politicians who advocate it, and might not know what to do with it if they had it. An Arab Gandhi reincarnate, born in Gaza, would probably be killed by his own people for it.

200 years after Decatur at Tripoli, the debate between tribute and war continues.

There is a potential and interesting flipside to this coin, which would involve what Israel was created by, and whether in the reciprocal neocolonialist inverse, anything is the West's fault.

The first IDF spokesperson ordered down into it might not have said anything about the probability of a HAMAS command-detonated blast on the scale of the Marine barracks in Beirut, but he probably was thinking about it. HAMAS certainly had the time to do it.

I was expecting it to be as wired for demolition as Nijmegen Bridge.

Sniper fire toward the end as well.

7.62mm lead injections. The question of whether HAMAS used hospitals as cover is not a 50/50 proposition. The likelihood is yes, because in their asymmetrical guerilla/people's war playbook, they would be stupid not to. Edited to add: If in fact RMS LUSITANIA was carrying munitions of war on May 7, 1915, what exactly would be the downside of this for Britain?

A fully mobilized IDF itching for war makes what HEZBOLLAH wants, secondary to what Israel and Israelis want. A casus belli can be found if HEZBOLLAH is not goaded/stupid enough to provide one. For better or worse, I think Israel and Israelis do as well at the moment.

I would much prefer to fight fully mobilized for war, against a HEZBOLLAH stripped of the benefit of surprise that it almost certainly would have had otherwise. The IDF may be thinking the same.

Head for home lol. The Luftwaffe has had its great moment.

The October 7 death total being overcounted by a few hundred as reported by Yama actually computes if you include the hostages in the toll. As far as the Israeli government is concerned, they may have been written off right from the start.

The Palestinians may be losers, but Israel and Israelis do not start implicitly threatening the mainstream press and freelance journos if they feel like they are winning the global hearts and minds battle. After October 7, I didn't think it would be possible for them to be losing that one, but here we are. --- Edited to add: They aren't going to start killing embedded journos. They want to change the global narrative, not destroy it.

Somewhat impressed that HAMAS suffered a few hundred KIA despite total surprise. Hassan may have been cozy with HAMAS, but to an AP photo editor, "does he gets the shot?" and "do we care if he gets killed" are inducements to keeping his e-mail around. WTF is the "Abu Ali Express?" lol The limited response--essentially nothing--speaks volumes. I don't know if the peace deal with Cairo was on Rabin's watch, but I do know his leadership also got himself murdered by his own people.

The last one of their politicians who tried to lead Israel and Israelis in what he thought was that direction, was assassinated for his trouble. I think they got the point.

FIFY (Japanese intelligence might actually figure out how to report carriers in port this time.)