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So Long, Safieddine
The world knew Hashem Safieddine's name for exactly a week before the IDF buried him under the suburbs of Beirut.
I should clarify. If you were possessed of anything beyond a glancing familiarity with Hezbollah prior to recent events, you knew Safieddine as Hassan Nasrallah's cousin and likely heir. He was a prominent, bellicose figure who, like his cousin, traced a decades-old relationship with Iran which was both close and personal.
So, although the world at large was only aware of Safieddin
So, who or what is next?
I don’t know. What I do know is that everyone — myself included — grossly underestimated Israel’s willingness to kill anybody and everybody from, on one end of the innocent-guilty spectrum, women and children to, on the other, the hardest-to-find commanders, the most elusive military figures, uniformed IRGC officials and Hezbollah’s entire leadership pyramid from the top on down.
Everybody’s dead. Or will be soon. The civilians are dead, the fighters are dead, the commanders are dead, the leaders are dead, the buildings are rubble, and what’s not rubble is on fire. It’s astounding.
If I were in Tehran, I’d be very worried. To reiterate: This whole damn thing — the “Axis” — was a giant bluff. Netanyahu called it, and he’s still killing people. Every, single hour dozens of people in Gaza and Lebanon die. And he’s going to keep killing people until that regime in Tehran is either no more or comes begging and pleading for him to stop.
As every regular reader surely knows by now, I’m adamantly opposed to the way Netanyahu is conducting himself and I think that in many respects, we’re witnessing the end of a democratic Israeli state. No one will ever look at Israel the same again. But I gotta hand it to Netanyahu: This is the ultimate manifestation of “F–k around and find out.”
What has happened to all of the businesses (arms, ammunition, oil, other commodities, illegal drugs) that were operated by Hamas, Hezbollah and the IRGC?
It is hard to believe that without those who are no longer alive- those businesses, which fund IRGC, Hezbollah and Hamas, are still functional.
This situation is trending towards despotism. The only ways despots become last years news is overreaching in foreign wars. That there is success in Lebanon is therefore foretelling more bloodshed. Can Netenyahu quit while he is ahead? The lessons from history do not predict a kind future for Netenyahu.
We disagree on whether Israel had any better options than the ones they’ve chosen. I’m not commenting to convince anyone here to change their opinion. I’m compelled to remind readers, that for the past 30 years (I’m mid 50s, so that’s as long as I’ve followed middle east geopolitics), Israel begged the international community to help stop the constant attacks from multiple borders, only to be ignored as hamas and hezbollah grew. They’ve shown proof of hamas and hezbollah storing arms in hospitals and schools. They’ve showed proof of terrorists positioning themselves behind women and children, so that when Israel ever retaliated, those innocents would be killed, their bodies used for propaganda. Arab nations committed pogrom after pogrom, chasing Jews off their land, giving them nowhere to go, nowhere to live. Jews were in Israel long before palestinians were displaced from their land, so I don’t see any valid argument that they should have to forfeit territory. (and let’s speak factually, the land was never stolen, it was bought and paid for. if you argue it was stolen, then it was stolen from the jews at some earlier time, as they were there first. much of it was barren and uninhabited as well, but once Israelis showed it was farmable/useable, people who never lived there laid claim to it) Decades of attacks, nowhere to go because they’ve been chased out of/murdered in all other middle eastern nations, and they finally retaliate like a group of people fighting for survival, which is exactly what they are. Any innocent people being killed is the fault of hamas, hezbollah, and quite frankly an international community who ignored Isreal’s repeated requests for help to fight these terrorists. These groups are a scourge on the planet, attacking any representation of freedom, not to mention terrorizing the very people they claim to defend/represent. They’ve been allowed to grow and fester like a cancer. Netanyahu has no choice, Israel won’t exist if he doesn’t attempt to extinguish these terrorists.
“Any innocent people being killed is the fault of hamas, hezbollah…”
Any innocent people? Israel’s not responsible for any civilian casualties? I’m sorry, but that’s simply not true. In fact, it’s a wholly ridiculous thing to say. Completely and utterly ridiculous.
If you’re a “bad guy” and you’re holding an innocent person in front of you, and me, a “good guy,” shoots that innocent person to get to you, that person’s death is at least partially my fault because, after all, I shot them. And Israel’s doing a lot more than that. When you drop a 2,000-pound bomb on a crowded city block, you’re a murderer. Period. Maybe it’s justifiable homicide, but it’s still homicide.
And the whole “human shields” thing is a little asinine at this point. These are small countries/places. Of course there are going to military and intelligence operations near civilians. Do Hamas and Hezbollah push the envelope on that (e.g., building bunkers and tunnels below residential structures)? Sure. Obviously. But this talking point is a bit tired by now.
And, look, your comment reads like a press release from the IDF. It’s propaganda. That’s not to say it isn’t partially (or even mostly) true. A lot of what you say here is absolutely true. But it’s still propaganda.
I don’t think anyone reading, or writing these posts, or living on the planet, KNOWS who was on what land first or whether they bought it, squatted on it, took it, stole it, were gifted it, etc… As such, it is all becomes revisionist and largely influenced by religious beliefs. I remember my grandmother saying many years ago that all wars are religious wars (to some, money is their god). So it doesn’t matter- still humans being human. Nothing new under the sun and no way to sort truth from propaganda. One clings to “their truths”, and hopes for no change, and another uses propaganda to urge actions to meet “their truths”. We’ll never learn, which sucks.