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Israel’s Pissed
I wrote to an old friend in Ra'anana on Sunday.
He has a family and a business with hundreds of employees, a few of whom I know vaguely. I thought of reaching out to them too, but it occurred to me that without insight into their circumstances -- e.g., if they have children fighting in Gaza or if they lost family or friends on October 7 -- I risked inadvertently compelling quasi-strangers to recount painful stories.
My friend's fine, as far as I could tell. I asked about the security situation
A quick read on events leading up to the current situation paints Isreal in a bad light. The Bad Boy have you in this exchange. They goaded Iran by attacking Iranian citizens. They goaded Hezbollah by using a one time use weapon of exploding cell phones. They have bombed in Lebanon, message is ‘we will kill anytime anywhere, you just stop us’.
We in the USA are not only powerless to stop this but are being taken for fools who can be manipulated at will by Isreali propaganda, so well illustrated by Isreal President who stated, ‘we do not want this war’. The war Isreal goaded and expended precious resources to instigate.
Guilty parties in the span of territory from Riyad, Beirut to Cairo are easy find as easy as looking in a history book. Isreal has taken a strong lead recently by instigating. Some even can point out that Isreal pulled troops out of protecting positions prior to October 7th and AFTER warnings from Cairo and USA.
A morass, a debacle, a travesty. However words are insufficient to consol the real losers, these losers are dead. Netenyahu and his merry band of murderers and warmongers thrive basking in the glory of a Hell they created. How will this chapter end, can this chapter end, who gets to write the book? When is enough enough?
The reality is that Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah are dedicated to erasing Israel from the map of the Middle East. Simple as that — and given that reality, Israel doesn’t has too many options here.
have
A morass into which they are playing us.
YHWH Is a mean drunk.
Always and only in my 80 years of experience. He seems to love war above all things, especially mankind.
If October 7 was the most embarrassing failure ever for Israeli intelligence and the Mossad, they have since mightily redeemed themselves. From targeted strikes taking out their enemies’ leadership throughout the middle east, to bombs planted deep in Iran, to the absolutely gob smacking complexity that must have been involved with the pager & radio attack… it’s honestly pretty mind blowing.
So true. Makes me wonder- could they really have failed that badly leading to 10/7?
How could the CIA fail to see 9/11 coming?
Both of these responses to my original comment kinda make me want to throw up, so for the sake of my own mental health, I’m just going to go ahead and assume you were speaking ironically.
Yes. To be clear, I was mocking/pushing back on loginTTH implied accusation that Mossad/the Israeli leadership sacrificed 10/7 victims to get a casus belli. I’m no expert but intelligence is messy so sometimes stuff happens.
In the book Nine Lives, the MI6 informant was burned b/c the UK decided to share some info with the US but not everything and the US reacted with a scorched earth approach to an op, guaranteeing Al Qaeda would figure out they had a mole…
If the ME is in an existential war- Israel fighting for existence/geography and Iran fighting to make Israel non-existent, could the situation get escalated to using various forms of WMD (biological, chemical and nuclear)?
If that happens, Israel is making the calculated bet that if other countries join in to support Iran, the US won’t be able to not support Israel- even if Israel is not currently respecting the recommendations of the US.
Hopefully, this can deescalate. However, it seems likely that the situation will worsen before that is even a possibility.
Iran is not in an existential war and probably doesn’t want to be in one, no matter what happens to its proxies – who are also for the most part not in an existential war, Hamas excepted.
IMHO, Iran is finding out they pushed Israel too far and that they are not actually equipped to deal with an Israel that’s really pissed off.
The best they can get out of the situation, again IMHO, is let their proxies burn/survive as they might and concentrate on regime survival. On that subject, despite some protests, with some Iranian women refusing to cover their hair and some citizens claiming they’re Persians and Islam is an occupying force, I think the regime’s odds are very good. But no point in jeopardizing that with pointless fights with Israel for no practical reasons/purpose (except religious nonsense).
A couple of things. First, Iran never thought they were “equipped” for that.
Second, and while reiterating that I generally don’t agree with what I think it’s fair to call your biased views on this particular issue, I do agree with you that the best course here for Iran is to back it off and dial it back. Nothing good’s going to come for Tehran of pushing this much further.
That said, it’s important, I think, to note that Tehran can’t (and won’t) just abandon the proxy project. Indeed, the whole point of backing off is to preserve the proxies.
Saying Iran should “let their proxies burn/survive as they might” is almost nonsensical. The regime can’t stop picking up the phone for Hezbollah, nor for IRGC-loyal parts of the PMF. That’s almost like saying, “My thumb’s infected, it looks like it might be pretty bad, I’m just going to chop off my hand now.” Yes, it might ultimately be necessary to chop off that hand depending on how bad the thumb infection gets and whether you have access to modern medicine, but generally speaking, you’re not going to saw it off at the wrist unless the alternative is literally death.
I mean, they can keep providing moral support and make compassionate noises as top commanders and militants meet their untimely ends but, if they do not disengage, why should Israel stop?
You call my views biased and, sure, I’m on the side of Israel, fwiw (i.e., nothing) but I would like to repeat that this wasn’t always the case. My views evolved as the generally secular PLO got replaced by Hamas and the Hezbollah. It’s not that the PLO was great by any means but they had officially abandoned the objective of wiping out Israel and killing all the Jews. Here, we got Hezbollah guys saying conquering Lebanon was but a first step, Israel is next and, after that, the’ll come for the rest of the world.
I just don’t see why we should treat these people better than the Germans or the Japanese during WWII and indeed what is to be gained by doing so. We’ve already tried accommodation. With the money from the EU etc. Hamas could have tried to turn Gaza into a nice little functioning state on the Mediterranean. They chose to use water pipes to make missiles…
Fred, I don’t know where some of this comes from. I’ve never been convinced that your background knowledge of this conflict is sufficiently robust to have a discussion with me about it, and this comment (plus the one below) only underscores that assessment. I shouldn’t have responded in the first place. Carry on.
Darn. Missed addressing your central point.
If Iran didn’t think they could win, why did they decide to play?
Your privilege but feel free to share a deep(er) take on the conflict, its roots and how you see the players and their evolution. I’m always happy to learn and ultimately if I’m willing to be a subscriber, it’s because I like hearing your takes on things… 🙂
Hezbollah can’t protect those people but then again they never meant to. Just like Hamas, they’re actually using those people as shields when they can.
And I’m sure you’ve seen Druzes getting pissed off at Hezbollah trying to pass through. And Christian areas are refusing to let Hezbollah in. The truth is that Palestinians armed refugees significantly contributed to the destruction of Lebanon.
My sense is that Hezbollah is tolerated by non Shiite Lebanese. They may not always feel powerless.
Out-gunned fighters adapt as they can, much to the chagrin of their better equipped enemies. Such as when those ungrateful English colonists refused to politely line up and exchange musket volleys with the king’s soldiers. Instead, they hid behind buildings and trees and resorted to sniper fire.