The Middle East War

[Mighty_Zuk]

10 hours ago, Colin said:

Oh Jordon is very much an exception and having a stable Jordan with a reliable government is worth a lot to them. They are likley not to make a big issue of supporting him, but you can bet they will. Jordan and Israel have a fair amount of economic ties and agreements in place already.

That is correct. If Jordan falls to Palestinian hands, it would very likely just become another terrorist base. 

[Mike1158]

More likely another Gazan landscape.

[Yama]

On 12/21/2024 at 9:04 PM, Mighty_Zuk said:

The number 3 million, if you dig a bit deeper, you'll see it refers to those registered as UNRWA-type refugees, and they admit they do not have official data. Jordan is interested in that, to locally delegitimize Palestinian nationalism.

UNRWA itself has the exclusive right to determine a person's refuginess, so at any country's request, they can alter the number of available refugees.

The Jordanian government rightfully fears its local Palestinian population because they know how destructive they are - leaving every host country in ruins.

I thought there are no 'Palestinians'?

[Mighty_Zuk]

58 minutes ago, Yama said:

I thought there are no 'Palestinians'?

Uh. Okay.

[Stefan Kotsch]

Well, there are people who live outside the borders of Israel and outside Israel's national borders as confirmed by international law. And their land is becoming smaller and smaller because Israel is expanding more and more. Eretz Israel.

The other side of the coin is that these people still do not want to accept Israel's right to exist and are therefore waging war against Israel.

Nevertheless, Israel's expansion at the expense of expelled non-Israeli citizens is an injustice.

A common state is also not accepted. Then Israel would no longer be the state of the Jews. And I also understand that peaceful coexistence with the Islamic fundamentalist Palestinians is unlikely.

The Gordian knot...

[Mighty_Zuk]

59 minutes ago, Stefan Kotsch said:

Nevertheless, Israel's expansion at the expense of expelled non-Israeli citizens is an injustice.

Israel's territory does not expand. That's a myth. Israel used land for peace deals to secure some of its borders, including giving up the Sinai which is larger than current day Israel, and offered J&S to Jordan and Golan to Syria (both refused). 

If anything looks like an expansion, there's probably more to it than that. But none is really entitled to land. Nor statehood. Rewards come to those who work hard.

I know it's a common talking point for anti-Israelis to talk about land and statehood, but anyone who understands Palestinian culture and nationalism deeper than the surface level - knows that they are entirely disinterested in either land or statehood.

Edited December 23, 2024 by Mighty_Zuk

[Ssnake]

1 hour ago, Mighty_Zuk said:

Palestinian culture and nationalism ... are entirely disinterested in either land or statehood.

That is my impression, too. But this may eventually change, as it is basically a decision about values and priorities of this group. At the same time it's pretty much bloody obvious that the settler movement in Israel seeks to prepare annexation by creating facts on the ground. While there isn't yet a move from the Israeli government to legitimize these settlements, they are being protected by the state with men, arms, and infrastructure. All this makes it less and less likely, as is the explicit goal of the settler movement, that there will ever be the required political capital expense to revert these facts, and create borders in any form of future peace deal where these settlements would be left alone, or be evacuated by force.

So, the claim that "there's nothing to be seen here" is disingenious. It's a de-facto annexation, just not de-iure.

[Mighty_Zuk]

1 hour ago, Ssnake said:

That is my impression, too. But this may eventually change, as it is basically a decision about values and priorities of this group. At the same time it's pretty much bloody obvious that the settler movement in Israel seeks to prepare annexation by creating facts on the ground. While there isn't yet a move from the Israeli government to legitimize these settlements, they are being protected by the state with men, arms, and infrastructure. All this makes it less and less likely, as is the explicit goal of the settler movement, that there will ever be the required political capital expense to revert these facts, and create borders in any form of future peace deal where these settlements would be left alone, or be evacuated by force.

So, the claim that "there's nothing to be seen here" is disingenious. It's a de-facto annexation, just not de-iure.

Israel cleared out settlers from Gaza in 2005. What happened immediately after, had several orders of magnitude more effect on the question of land than anything occurring in J&S.

 

Edited December 23, 2024 by Mighty_Zuk

[Mighty_Zuk]

There are some reports with unverifiable footage (in replies to this Tweet) about a renewed offensive against the Houthis. 

A recap of what happened that could contribute to this development:

• Yemen launched BMs at Israel. One fell in Tel Aviv yesterday.
• Israel retaliated by destroying Yemen's already fragile infrastructure on which its economy relied heavily.
• Israel already destroyed a lot of oil infrastructure in Hodeidah in July, from which Yemen didn't recover.
• Houthis indirectly caused a USN F-18 to be shot down, thus escalating the conflict with the US.
• Israel recently signaled it could shift its focus to the Houthi leadership. 

Saudis and Emiratis must be smelling blood. As Houthis are cut off from supplies for several months, they must be significantly weakened.

[ex2cav]

https://www.reuters.com/world/russian-cargo-ship-sank-mediterranean-sea-with-two-crew-missing-russian-foreign-2024-12-24/#:~:text=MOSCOW%2C Dec 24 (Reuters),Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday.

[JWB]

One of the ships involved in Russia’s evacuation from Syria, the cargo vessel Ursa Major, reportedly suffered a major engine room explosion in the Mediterranean and sank earlier today. 

Spanish press reports that 14 crew have been rescued, 2 are missing.

Sinking location (36.463889, -0.895555)

https://x.com/Osinttechnical/status/1871400348432085047

[urbanoid]

*world's smallest violin*

[JWB]

The New Syrian Government is reportedly preparing to submit a Memorandum to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), seeking roughly $300 Billion from Iran, for their support of the Assad Regime and Crimes against the Syrian People and State.
https://x.com/sentdefender/status/1871678958531641846

[Roman Alymov]

On 12/24/2024 at 7:40 PM, JWB said:

One of the ships involved in Russia’s evacuation from Syria, the cargo vessel Ursa Major, reportedly suffered a major engine room explosion in the Mediterranean and sank earlier today. 

Spanish press reports that 14 crew have been rescued, 2 are missing.

Sinking location (36.463889, -0.895555)

https://x.com/Osinttechnical/status/1871400348432085047

It was not involved in "Russia’s evacuation from Syria" - as it was on the way from StPete tp Vladivostok with cargo of two mobile cranes for Vladivostok port and 45-tonn hatched fro new nuclear icebreaker under construction, so no space left on it for other cargo even if somebody would want to divert it to Syria

It seems like the ship was actually hit by three explosions on December 22 (not Dec 23 as owners now claim) and at least one of them left 50x5o cm hole above waterline with edges indicating outside exploision/pennetration. Seems like Russian officials were trying to cover up the story, as it is obviously attack on Russian ship in the area totally controlled by NATO.....

[Yama]

On 12/23/2024 at 3:59 PM, Mighty_Zuk said:

Uh. Okay.

Well, I don't your personal position on it, but what I hear all the time (especially from Evangelist pro-Israel types) is that "'Palestinans' are a made-up people" and that somehow means they don't have the right to live where they do.

Which, to me, sounds same as would "Austrians are made-up people"...

 

On 12/23/2024 at 4:09 PM, Stefan Kotsch said:

The other side of the coin is that these people still do not want to accept Israel's right to exist and are therefore waging war against Israel.
 

Though, should we hold it against the Taiwanese that they don't accept PRC's right to exist?

 

[Mighty_Zuk]

34 minutes ago, Yama said:

Well, I don't your personal position on it, but what I hear all the time (especially from Evangelist pro-Israel types) is that "'Palestinans' are a made-up people" and that somehow means they don't have the right to live where they do.

Which, to me, sounds same as would "Austrians are made-up people"...

Israelis generally don't believe Palestinians are a made up people. That's something more common for non-Israelis. Israelis frequently refer to them as Arabs though because Palestinians are a new Arab national group that formed during still many Israelis's lifetime.

So we're fine with the fluidity of nationalism and ethnicity. The "kill every Jew" part - not so much

34 minutes ago, Yama said:

Though, should we hold it against the Taiwanese that they don't accept PRC's right to exist

Are they waging a war of aggression to eliminate every living Chinese?

Edited December 26, 2024 by Mighty_Zuk

[crazyinsane105]

Dilemma of Iran’s struggle to upgrade its Air Force continues. Seems like the Iranians are once again considering the JF-17 Block 3 version.

https://bulgarianmilitary.com/amp/2025/01/02/is-the-su-35-failing-allies-pivot-to-chinas-jf-17-fighter/

How successful they’ll be is questionable, but considering that Pakistan is facing a massive energy crunch and the only thing of value Iran can give is in fact, oil and gas, it may actually happen

[TrustMe]

4 hours ago, crazyinsane105 said:

Dilemma of Iran’s struggle to upgrade its Air Force continues. Seems like the Iranians are once again considering the JF-17 Block 3 version.

https://bulgarianmilitary.com/amp/2025/01/02/is-the-su-35-failing-allies-pivot-to-chinas-jf-17-fighter/

How successful they’ll be is questionable, but considering that Pakistan is facing a massive energy crunch and the only thing of value Iran can give is in fact, oil and gas, it may actually happen

I've read that after the Iran-Iraq war the Iranian AF was seen as unislamic by the authorities and was thus underfunded compaired to the Revolutionary Guards corps. That's why the Iranians built so many ballistic missiles to compensate.

[RETAC21]

Israel unveiled today Operation Many Roads, movie material there:

 

[ink]

Back when I was at university, one of my international relations professors said "you can tell a lot about the world just by keeping track of who meets who".

https://www.reuters.com/world/germanys-foreign-minister-heads-damascus-one-day-trip-2025-01-03/

 

[glenn239]

1 hour ago, ink said:

Back when I was at university, one of my international relations professors said "you can tell a lot about the world just by keeping track of who meets who".

https://www.reuters.com/world/germanys-foreign-minister-heads-damascus-one-day-trip-2025-01-03/

 

There's online speculation recently that with the Ukrainian gas pipelines shut down, Erdogan has more leverage in Europe, and Syria is Erdogan's pet project.

[crazyinsane105]

7 hours ago, TrustMe said:

I've read that after the Iran-Iraq war the Iranian AF was seen as unislamic by the authorities and was thus underfunded compaired to the Revolutionary Guards corps. That's why the Iranians built so many ballistic missiles to compensate.

Well, main issue is that Iran can’t build their own domestic fighter aircraft. Ballistic missiles still offer some type of offensive capabilities, hence it made sense for the Iranians to focus more time and attention on that

[17thfabn]

6 hours ago, RETAC21 said:

Israel unveiled today Operation Many Roads, movie material there:

That story makes ZERO sense. Why would Iran have a production facility in Syria for manufacturing missiles? 

Israel & the U.S. have treated Syria as a shooting gallery for years. Why would Iran put a production facility in Syria that could easily be targeted by the U.S. or Israel?

[Mighty_Zuk]

47 minutes ago, 17thfabn said:

That story makes ZERO sense. Why would Iran have a production facility in Syria for manufacturing missiles? 

Israel & the U.S. have treated Syria as a shooting gallery for years. Why would Iran put a production facility in Syria that could easily be targeted by the U.S. or Israel?

Syria is one of the more independent Axis members. SSRC was Syria's version of Israel's Rafael, and they're responsible for the development of Syria's overall military capabilities, including long CRBMs and SRBMs which were relevant vs Israel.

Along with development, SSRC also did manufacturing.

In the connection to Iran's BM production and deployment scheme, Iran sought to spread out production to circumvent the interception of deliveries through the Iran-Lebanon corridor.

Among Iran's tactics:

1. Delivery shifted from products to ever smaller components.

2. Assembly at destination.

3. Delivery through commercial flights (human shields) and shipping.

4. General dispersal.

5. Site fortification (building underground).

 

[RETAC21]

15 minutes ago, 17thfabn said:

That story makes ZERO sense. Why would Iran have a production facility in Syria for manufacturing missiles? 

Israel & the U.S. have treated Syria as a shooting gallery for years. Why would Iran put a production facility in Syria that could easily be targeted by the U.S. or Israel?

Easier to ship components that whole missiles, and Iranian missiles have proven ineffective in penetrating Israeli defenses and causing damage, so it makes sense to build them close to the user, Hizballah, as transporting complete missiles is a non starter precisely because Israel has been bombing Syria at will - which leads to a hardened, underground factory.