Temperature Rises As IRGC’s Mousavi Assassinated, US Hits Kataib Hezbollah

15 thoughts on “Temperature Rises As IRGC’s Mousavi Assassinated, US Hits Kataib Hezbollah”

1. Not just Israel, but the US is also very good at creating new enemies thanks to its dual standards when it comes to protecting innocent civilians (Ukraine VS Gaza). Not that US foreign policy suddenly changed for the worse. It was always like this, but it becomes clearer during such situations. I honestly don’t understand whether Biden is aiding the death of countless civilians merely since this seems the right decision for him from a political/career point of view, or if something else is going on. I find it hard to believe that someone would allow this to go on, if he had the power to end it, unless he was somehow forced to do so.

2. Hamas rejected the Egyptian peace plan, because it calls for Hamas to give up control of Gaza. Israel will reject the plan, because it calls for Israel to leave Gaza while Hamas is still armed and effective, and for Gaza to be run by a group of Palestinian “experts” to be chosen by Egypt, Qatar, and Palestinian groups including Hamas.

   As for shipping, I wonder if the US is preparing to strike directly at Iran rather than waste months soaking up $10,000 Houthi drones with $3MM missiles and even more expensive destroyer hulls, then more months destroying schools, hospitals, markets, mosques in Houthi-controlled Yemen. The Houthis will naturally locate their drone and missile operations amidst civilians, elicit as many civilian casualties as possible, then report double that number.

   1. John are you willing to at least concede (particularly in light of the fact that officials in the current Israeli government openly referred to Hamas as “an asset” — in one famous case, on television, in 2015 — and the fact that the Israeli right permitted the flow of Qatari money to Hamas in order to ensure they retained enough popular support to stay in control such that the Palestinian resistance remained splintered and thereby gave Israel a convenient rationale not to engage seriously in statehood talks) that Israel knows full well that defeating Hamas isn’t possible and that they’re just keeping that as a goal so they have an excuse to kill as many Gazans as they can? I mean, given how intelligent you are, I can’t possibly believe you don’t understand that Hamas isn’t something that can be defeated. The political leadership doesn’t even live in Gaza. One of their top political leaders has only been to Gaza once in his entire life. Sure, Sinwar may be there, but Hamas has ideologues and political functionaries in Doha, Beirut, Tehran and god only knows where else. This isn’t al-Qaeda or ISIS. Israel could kill every, single adult male in Gaza and that wouldn’t be the end of Hamas. It’s not so much that they’re chasing ghosts, it’s that they (Israel) are knowingly and wittingly chasing the elusive target. They know damn well their stated goals aren’t achievable. I mean, it really (really) just seems like you’re reading wire stories and repeating them, verbatim, without doing the kind of critical thinking that defines all your other comments on topics not related to Gaza. Even your remark above (that the Houthis would absolutely report “double” the number of civilian casualties) sounds like you’re just reading directly from a State Department list of talking points on Yemen. Mohamed Bin Salman (and US weapons) were responsible for an untold number of civilian casualties in Yemen and in a lot of cases, those casualties had nothing whatsoever to do with “human shields.” Some of your remarks on civilian casualties in Gaza early on in the war were right off an IDF handout (not literally, but they may as well have been). It’s like you just can’t bring yourself around to the realities of this particular conflict for some reason. Here’s the bottom line: Palestinians need to be granted the right to return to their ancestral homeland, and Israel needs to be open to a pluralistic state where Jews might not be the majority. Because that’s the only thing that’s ever going to end this. I don’t know why people are too shy to say that. I mean, you’ve got millions of people who were forcibly displaced and their ancestors want to go back. They’re going to keep wanting to go back. Continuing to kill them is only going to keep the desire alive because new generations are going to keep asking “Well, why did my parents die in an airstrike? What was that about?” Then they’ll get the entire backstory going back to 1948.

      1. Two questions: 1) Do you believe a two-state solution would have been possible prior to Israel’s serious ramping up of West Bank settlements? 2) Do you believe a Bosnia type solution would be feasible–two entities mostly independent of each other within one state? I think this would allow for at least some right of return for Palestinians and a clearing out of many of the West Bank settlements.

         1. 2), Why not? The US is now a nation of various minorities who collectively hate each other and will take no action in support of people in many of the groups. Congressmen openly stand on the floors of the House and Senate and call for the deaths of one or more of their colleagues. The leading GOP presidential candidate went on a hideous rant on Christmas day calling for the blood of his personal and political “enemies.” Have no doubt, this man has no friends and none of those who vote for him can expect to become one.

      2. Yes, Netanyahu bought his political survival and evaded criminal prosecution by aligning with the extreme right wing and their goal to effectively annex the West Bank via illegal settlements and driving West Bank Palestinians out of settled areas by force and extra-judicial killing. To keep the Palestinians divided, Netanyahu weakened the PA in the West Bank and built up Hamas in Gaza, turning a blind eye to their financial flows and even their growing military capability – there is, I suspect, ample evidence of this that career Mossad and IDF officers will be happy to provide to the inquest that will bring Netanyahu down – and, I suspect, has also turned a blind eye to Hezbollah in the north as well. And yes, by this and other actions, Israel contributed to its own agony on October 7. No, Hamas cannot be permanently eliminated. It can be temporarily dismantled as an effective fighting force, but that will only last so long. If every Hamas-affiliated person were killed today, the next generation of Palestinians would in time resurrect it, because Hamas stands for destroying Israel and, for obvious reasons, that sentiment isn’t going away. And, yes, the IDF is conducting this war in the manner that maximizes speed and minimizes Israeli casualties, the direct tradeoff being great destruction to places and people.

         At the same time, Hamas benefits from Palestinian casualties at Israeli hands – the more the better – and reported casualties are as good as real ones. Hamas also controls Gaza intimately – the senior staff of schools, hospitals, Ministry of Health, other institutions, including UNWRA answer to, and in many cases hold positions in, Hamas. So Hamas controls casualty reporting, which should be considered in one’s critical thinking. Does it make sense that civilian casualties in Gaza are overwhelmingly women and children, as if Israel’s bombs somehow avoid adult male civilians? Remember the 500+ Gazans killed by the night-time Israeli missile strike on the Baptist Hospital? The missile that left a “crater” in the little parking lot that was not bigger than the larger sort of NYC pothole, that left almost all of the surrounding cars and vans burned out but otherwise intact, and left the adjacent hospital only meters away intact down to the windows and interior, and just hours later, the very next morning, had left no trace of the horrific piles, shreds, pools, splatters that would cover a confined space where a missile had just blasted 500+ humans to pieces? A space where, in fact, 500 persons could not have physically fit among the parked cans and vans, unless they were standing up shoulder to shoulder all night? Very early in the war, that episode and the reporting on it made it quite evident that . . .

         . . . both sides are lying and the media is unwilling or unable to report critically on much of what is happening.

         Hamas is lying through its teeth, in the blatant way that one does when the covering media and the intended audience are utterly uncritical (Trump isn’t the only one who does this). Israel is lying in the more measured, obfuscated, institutional way that one does when one is under the media and political microscope and aware that future inquests and/or prosecution are not impossible (the US military isn’t the only one who does this).

         I am aware of that, and perhaps more beside, having watched the Middle East for a long time. I was a kid during the 1967 war, which my father explained carefully to me from his Communist and anti-US/Israel viewpoint, and that I read other views on in the newspapers in France where we lived. I started college not long after the Yom Kippur war, and if we weren’t sitting in Berkeley buildings to oppose apartheid we were demonstrating in support of the PLO. I was a hopeful adult during the Olso process, thinking there would finally be peace in Israel and in Palestine.

         To all that I now say, tiredly, SO WHAT?

         We’re not here to moralize over who is right or wrong, what everyone should do, and how badly we feel about it – at least I’m not, because 1) what we think has no more effect on events than sparrows’ tears, and 2) all groups in this conflict are in part right and in part wrong, and have been for time immemorial, considering this area has been fought over with populations displacing each other since before Christ. It is futile.

         Figuring out the economic, political, and financial results is useful, at least if that is one’s job. I’m interested in the weapons aspect, for similar reasons. And it seem pretty clear that the faster the “acute” phase of the war is finished, the less people will actually die, and that it won’t finish until i) Israel has effectively though only temporarily dismantled Hamas in Gaza – or ii) Hamas has driven the IDF off of Gazan soil and the IAF out of the Gazan sky – which of i) and ii) is more probable is not debatable in my opinion.

         1. Yeah, I mean John, you know how I feel about “our job” or “one’s job” as you put it here. The truth (and this is another “whether you want to concede the point or not” moment) is that you show me a 19-year-old with an average IQ and some discipline, and I’ll show you a 19-year-old that can outperform 95% of professional money managers over the long haul armed with nothing but two Jack Bogle books and a suite of Vanguard index funds.

            So, yeah, it is futile, as you put it. The difference between you and me is that I understand the “it” means all of it. The investing. The analysis. The politics. The economics. The breathing. All of it.

            1. And yes, I intend to make it impossible to debate me in 2024, which may mean veering off into tangents and taking positions that are impossible to assail. It’ll be a lot of fun. For me.

            2. There’s futility, and there’s futility that is interesting and pays the bills . . .

            3. It pays the bills, I’ll grant you that.

            4. … “I intend to make it impossible to debate me in 2024, which may mean veering off into tangents and taking positions that are impossible to assail.”

               … 2024 is the Year of the Dragon.

               …then hoping we can compare and contrast in 2036, the next Year of the Dragon…

3. I wouldn’t worry too much about young Palestinians being radicalized. From the time they’re born, many of them are raised on one thing and that is to hate Jews, all Jews, whether Israeli or living in Europe, or America or anywhere. Until, the Western world puts lots of pressure on Muslim countries in general to change their educational systems, nothing will happen. If they change right now, then, maybe in 3-4 generations, the hate will be gone and the world can start anew. I’m not too hopeful since the hate has been going on since the birth of Islam.

   1. This is a gross overgeneralization and it borders on something I should remove. But it doesn’t quite cross the line, so I’ll let it stand. For now.

   2. Yes it is all the fault of these hateful Muslim extremists who are born to hate the Jew.

      Or maybe this is a very natural reaction of any human being when they are subjected to what Palestinians have and continue to suffer?

4. I am curious about the comment,
   If every Hamas-affiliated person were killed today, the next generation of Palestinians would in time resurrect it, because Hamas stands for destroying Israel and, for obvious reasons, that sentiment isn’t going away.

   If these peoples coexisted for much of history is it not possible that removing the conditions imposed in 1948 and creating a situation where both peoples can live in self determination might ease some of the hatred?
   Seriously I wonder. I like to think the rage for revenge or redress eases when the immediate provocations cease.