So....Israel.

[Lefty Specialist]

Hamas has done some incredibly despicable things, and more will come to light. This is Israel's 9/11. How they were caught completely unawares will be the subject of a LOT of self-examination.

In the meantine, Israel is going to flatten Gaza and plenty more innocent people are going to die. Hamas did this to provoke a massive reaction, and they're going to get it. Gaza is roughly twice the size of Washington DC and has 2.3 million people crammed into it. No matter how careful Israel is, lots of people are going to be collateral damage, and Hamas doesn't really care. They're rooting for the pictures of bloody corpses.

Israel has Gaza fenced in, but Egypt fences them in as well. Nobody wants these people; it's been described as the world's largest open-air prison. There's no way I can see that this ends even remotely well for anybody. Israel can flatten every building, but then what?

[MFS62]

Hamas has done some incredibly despicable things, and more will come to light. This is Israel's 9/11. How they were caught completely unawares will be the subject of a LOT of self-examination.

How could Hamas have breached security? Part of the reason may be our old pal Donny.
Trump my have leaked the weakness in Israel's defenses that Hamas exploited.

Donald Trump's sharing of alleged classified intelligence to Russian officials in the White House has come under scrutiny amid a large-scale attack by the Hamas Islamist military group against Israel.

In May 2017, the former president defended his actions after he was found to have discussed sensitive details about an alleged Islamic State (ISIS) plot with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in the Oval Office. Trump said he had an absolute right to do so. The intel was said to have been provided to the U.S. from Israel.

https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-i ... ck-1833094

Later

[DocTee]

I had a work-related trip to Israel in three weeks time. I'm guessing that gets postponed.

The images are horrifying. May peace and mercy prevail.

[Frayed Knot]

Israel can flatten every building [in Gaza], but then what?

Depends on to what extent they want to retaliate against Iran who are, of course, behind the curtain on this pulling the levers.

[TransMonk]

Yeah, this seems like it could spiderweb pretty quickly out of Israel. Lots of players with both regional and global allies...as well as enemies.

[MFS62]

My daughter's boyfriend has three generations of relatives in Israel. They still haven't heard any news from them.

I don't think here will be an obvious direct armed (air)attack on Iran. That could turn any allies they have in the area into enemies (except for maybe Saudi Arabia who would remain neutral).

I would do something more stealth, like causing an "accident" at the plant that is building the nuclear weapons Iran tells the world they don't have. Software hackers could pull the rods on the reactors and disable the alarms. It would be contained underground yet damaging to the Iranian psyche, a basic "I told you not to fuck with us" message.
BTW- That is something I've been thinking about since Israel's airstrikes on the nuclear facility several years ago met with limited success.

Later

[Lefty Specialist]

Friends of ours have a son who moved to Israel, served two years in the Army and has just been called back up. They are nervous, to put it mildly.

Most of the world (even those who don't want to admit it) are on Israel's side here for now. How they respond will determine if things stay that way. Attacking Iran directly would be stupid and destabilizing, and then it's Katy bar the door. I imagine Israel's been stealthily screwing with Iran for years (and Iran's been stealthily screwing them back).

[Edgy MD]

If they have demonstrable evidence that Iran is behind this, they will attack Iran. I don't know that Iran has that many friends left, and Israel has struck them before. Part of me is rooting for them to attack Iran, because Gaza civilians are so defenseless.

Beyond the massive suffering from this attack and exchange, Israel vs. Iran raises the possibility of a clash between two assumed nuclear-armed states.

Both of them theocracies, for that matter.

[metirish]

Heartbreaking to see what has happened, a doc I work with just told me her 3rd cousin was killed at the music festival massacre, grandma, survived the holocaust and is still alive ,I can't imagine the pain.

There are obviously no easy answers here , my heart breaks for all that has happened, and for all that is coming.

[Centerfield]

Heartbreaking.

It's mind-blowing to see people here celebrating this horror. I know this goes back much farther than I can comprehend, but I just can't imagine anyone seeing these horrific images, innocent people being slaughtered, and find that as a cause for celebration.

[Chad ochoseis]

Both of them theocracies, for that matter.

I wouldn't call Israel a theocracy. Religiously, it's about as Jewish as the US is Christian. Ethnic Jews who haven't outright renounced their religion have a protected right to emigrate there, but there's no expectation that they follow any particular religious laws.

[Edgy MD]

Yeah, I'm working from a softer definition. Israel has some elements of a theocracy, and that loosens and tightens depending on who is in charge. But Prime Minister Netanyahu making Itamar Ben-Gvir his minister of national security has definitely been a tightening.

[whippoorwill]

This has got to stop.

[whippoorwill]

So….now what?

The attacked has become the bullies.

[batmagadanleadoff]

I thought this was all fixed. Didn't Israel and the Palestinians make friends forever all thanks to Jared reading 25 books and butting into the mideast? Maybe Jared shoulda read 26 or 27 books, instead.

[Lefty Specialist]

I thought this was all fixed. Didn't Israel and the Palestinians make friends forever all thanks to Jared reading 25 books and butting into the mideast? Maybe Jared shoulda read 26 or 27 books, instead.

Well, no. The Abraham Accords specifically omitted the Palestinians. They weren't even at the table. This was about Jared getting a cool $2 billion from the Saudis. As they say, mission accomplished.

And of course, every day Israel spends bombing the shit out of Gaza turns more and more of the world against them. There's apparently no end game here. We're in the 'now what?' phase of the war, as hospitals turn into graveyards and a miserable people get even more miserable. And no sign of the hostages, who I'm pretty sure will be collateral damage somewhere down the road.

[batmagadanleadoff]

And no sign of the hostages, who I'm pretty sure will be collateral damage somewhere down the road.

I thought the same thing early on based on the totality of Israel's public comments made before it retaliated. I think that Israel obviously cares about the fate of the hostages but it's not as much of a priority to Israel as it'd like for the rest of the world to believe.

[Edgy MD]

Credit to the US State Department and the administration. The US diplomatic approach here was criticized from both ends of the political spectrum (and I certainly had my own doubts), but the fruits speak for themselves.

[Edgy MD]

Israeli agents disguised as doctors, patients kill 3 at West Bank hospital

Good God.

[MFS62]

Israeli agents disguised as doctors, patients kill 3 at West Bank hospital

Source?

What about (from NBC News):
U.N. workers played a direct role in Oct. 7 Hamas attack, Israeli intelligence says

At least 12 employees of the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees participated in or aided the Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel, according to Israeli intelligence dossiers obtained by NBC News, which accuse the workers of actions ranging from kidnapping Israelis to supplying logistical support.

The 12 include seven teachers, two school administrators and a social worker employed by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, or UNRWA, which provides education, food and health care to a large percentage of the roughly 2 million people living in Gaza.

Bad folks on both sides.
Later

[Edgy MD]

Israeli agents disguised as doctors, patients kill 3 at West Bank hospital

Source?

It's pretty much in a lot of places, but I first read it in The Washington Post.

It's not disputed by the IDF, but their position is that the raid targeted militants hiding out in the hospital.

[MFS62]

The Post article was behind a paywall.
I respect them as a source for that unfortunate incident.
Was there any indication the patients were being used a human shields by actual terrorists?
Have the IDF men been punished?

OE: The fact that they were "patients" is incidental to who they were.

One of those killed was claimed by Hamas as a member; the other two were claimed by Islamic Jihad, another militant group. Hamas said all three were also Jenin Brigade fighters, an umbrella group of armed Palestinian factions in the West Bank city.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/30/middleea ... index.html

Later

[Edgy MD]

Stunning to see Netanyahu changing directions on protection for civilians and aid workers after a call from Washington and international publicity suggesting the US was weighing changing their policy toward Israel.

[whippoorwill]

This has really gotten disgusting

[ashie62]

Very real 9/11 vibe around the world now