Israel bombed the Iranian consulate in Damascus on the 1st. Since when Iran have been pushing the US for a condemnation of that attack. This appears to be the Iranian reaction.
So it seems. Is this Armageddon?
Maybe not. This is from the Iranian mission to the U.N.
Conducted on the strength of Article 51 of the UN Charter pertaining to legitimate defense, Iran’s military action was in response to the Zionist regime’s aggression against our diplomatic premises in Damascus. The matter can be deemed concluded. However, should the Israeli regime make another mistake, Iran’s response will be considerably more severe. It is a conflict between Iran and the rogue Israeli regime, from which the U.S. MUST STAY AWAY!
Iran seems to be indicating that it considers this tit-for-tat exchange of high explosives to be the end of the matter unless Israel decides to escalate. Blowing up another country's consulate in order to assassinate one of its military officers is the kind of thing that requires some kind of response by the targeted nation. The reported extent of Iranian target (Israeli military installations in Golan and the Negev, not civilian targets) seems like it's carefully calibrated to be a response but not necessarily an escalation. We'll see how the Israelis respond. One of the difficulties of "sending a message" like this is that it's impossible to control how the recipient perceives it.
'In a statement released a short while ago - just before Israel's war cabinet convened - Gantz [war cabinet minister] says: "We will build a regional coalition and exact the price from Iran in the fashion and timing that is right for us.
"And most importantly, faced with the desire of our enemies to harm us, we will continue to unite and become stronger."
As does Ukraine, and a Ukrainian on social media was commenting that the US and friends seemed very quick to come to Israel's rescue when they were getting air strikes last night, by comparison with what was happening with Russian attacks.
As does Ukraine, and a Ukrainian on social media was commenting that the US and friends seemed very quick to come to Israel's rescue when they were getting air strikes last night, by comparison with what was happening with Russian attacks.
Yes, although a report in the Guardian says that Netanyahu is resolved to carry on with the old war in Gaza notwithstanding the new war with Iran. ISTM that he has some sort of death wish, which is all very well, except that other people are involved, and more likely than him to actually die.
We in the UK, of course, are on his side, and no doubt raking in loads of £££ by selling arms.
Were there any of the customary pro-Gaza demonstrations yesterday?
Events are moving swiftly...it's a job to keep up...
Yes. Across the country - they don't now usually do them in London as it's got too huge, but they did have one yesterday in support of Palestine which was also to protest about arms dealing. The London one was particularly large with up to 100K people. It met a counter-demonstration at one point but other than chanting slogans at each other it seems to have passed off without violence.
There is usually a pro-Israel demo in London on Sundays. It's much smaller and they don't reveal the location until pretty much the last minute.
Demonstrations were not limited to the UK yesterday either.
There's been a proxy-war between Israel and Iran for years. There have been some suggestions that Israel struck the Iranian embassy in Syria to provoke a response and get Iran to show its hand directly knowing that it could rely on support from the US and UK.
Many Israelis and pro-Israelis believe that Iran wants to destroy Israel and eliminate all the Jews in the Middle-East.
Whether that is the case or not, it's certainly one of the stated aims of Hamas.
Netanyahu will have pulled off the strike in Syria to get Biden off his back knowing that the US will support Israel come what may.
A direct attack by Iran is unprecedented of course but the swift deployment of British Tornados and US fighter jets in support of Israel's 'Iron Dome' makes me wonder whether it was anticipated.
Thing is, Iran may now go for proxy targets elsewhere if Netanyahu strikes back.
Even if this doesn't escalate into an all-out regional war there's going to be some heavy shit happening as a result of this.
Agh! Sorry folks, I was forgetting that Iran had issued a warning that it was going to attack Israel thereby giving notice for US, British and aircraft from other Israeli allies to support 'Iron Dome.'
They may not issue a warning nor concentrate on military targets next time if Netanyahu acts true to type and slugs out at any Iranian target irrespective of who gets in the firing line.
As does Ukraine, and a Ukrainian on social media was commenting that the US and friends seemed very quick to come to Israel's rescue when they were getting air strikes last night, by comparison with what was happening with Russian attacks.
The prospect of getting embroiled in a military confrontation with Iran are rather different from getting embroiled in one with Russia. Whilst I'll agree that the US is more inclined to favor Israel than Ukraine (or any other random country), I think the opponent has to be a factor as well.
It is interesting to see the rhetoric put out about the Iran attacks by the British gov (and I assume others but I haven't looked specifically).
They're using words like reckless and that the attack failed, but it seems to me that this depends on the context.
What I mean is this: the attack seems like a failure if the objective was to kill civilians, but the evidence appears to be that this wasn't the case.
More interesting is the thought that the attacks had another purpose. For example if the Iranians wanted to understand more about the effectiveness of the Israeli military defenses then this has actually been quite successful.
For the record, I believe that both the Israelis and Iranians are reflections of each other and are engaged in a regional power struggle where they take military wins that stop short of all-out war.
They're playing chicken and hoping that the other side will understand the imperative of not overreacting.
Yes. Drones that take 6 hours to arrive and can easily be intercepted before they reach their destination is more of a gesture, as was Iran saying "that's it, we're done" and Israel saying "we'll respond in our own time and our own way." It's brinkmanship.
Yes. Drones that take 6 hours to arrive and can easily be intercepted before they reach their destination is more of a gesture, as was Iran saying "that's it, we're done" and Israel saying "we'll respond in our own time and our own way." It's brinkmanship.
This.
Of course, we're now all on the brink...a major escalation will affect us all in one way or another, especially if somebody starts throwing nukes around.
Of course there is a perverse standard in play now. If it is reasonable to flatten Gaza due to the attack on Israeli civilians, by the same logic it is reasonable for Iran to flatten Israel for the attack on the Iranian diplomatic centre (not sure if it was a consulate rather than an embassy or whether that makes any difference under international law).
The logic of the USA and UK's position is that it is perfectly right for Israel to react in self-defence but wouldn't be right for anyone else to.
For avoidance of doubt, I do not support any side or use of violence in the ME. Responding and escalating the violence tit-for-tat seems like a disastrous military policy by all sides.
Of course there is a perverse standard in play now. If it is reasonable to flatten Gaza due to the attack on Israeli civilians, by the same logic it is reasonable for Iran to flatten Israel for the attack on the Iranian diplomatic centre (not sure if it was a consulate rather than an embassy or whether that makes any difference under international law).
And of course. presumably the logic of Iran's position is that they themselves would welcome being flattened for the in-no-way-state-sponsored-no-not-at-all-nothing-to-see-here-guv sacking and looting of the British Embassy in Tehran in 2011...?
Thought not. Countries without double standards are thin on the ground at the best of times, and definitely in this arena.
Of course there is a perverse standard in play now. If it is reasonable to flatten Gaza due to the attack on Israeli civilians, by the same logic it is reasonable for Iran to flatten Israel for the attack on the Iranian diplomatic centre (not sure if it was a consulate rather than an embassy or whether that makes any difference under international law).
And of course. presumably the logic of Iran's position is that they themselves would welcome being flattened for the in-no-way-state-sponsored-no-not-at-all-nothing-to-see-here-guv sacking and looting of the British Embassy in Tehran in 2011...?
Thought not. Countries without double standards are thin on the ground at the best of times, and definitely in this arena.
Sure but the way to fix this isn't to say "it is good because we want to do it" (even Ahmadinejad Office issued some mealy mouthed condemnation at the time, but even this is a step too far for the British/US governments).
Propublica have an article about a human rights panel in the US DoD recommending sanctions against Israeli military units and Blinken apparently ignoring these recommendations for months:
A little personal anecdote. I met a nice guy in Jerusalem one time who was Egyptian. For reasons I won't go into here, he was working as a stronger/fixer for a western aid charity in Gaza. At the time travel to Gaza via Israel was possible, but difficult. Anyway, maybe you can imagine what travel to and from was like.
He wrote a blog talking about his experiences in Gaza in English and Arabic.
Next time he was in Egypt, he was arrested and put into an unidentified jail. It took a reasonable amount of effort by Amnesty International and appeals to western governments to get his release - I don't want to exaggerate, I think it was a few weeks altogether but for a while it was quite scary thinking about what might have happened to him.
He's not spoken about it as far as I know, but it appears that a condition of release was that he shouldn't visit or write publicly about Gaza again.
In my experience Egypt is a hard place to find follow-up stories as to what happened next. The best scenario is that they got released after a few weeks detention. The worst, I don't really want to think about.
And it is worth remembering that the US and allies backed a coup against the elected Egyptian government (who were pretty awful themselves, to be sure) in no small part to ensure a pro-Israel regime in Cairo.
Meanwhile the US has vetoed the Palestinians application for full membership of the UN (there were reports that there was a lot of behind the scenes manoeuvres to try and ensure the Palestinians wouldn't hit the required 12 votes that would necessitate a veto).
Meanwhile the US has vetoed the Palestinians application for full membership of the UN (there were reports that there was a lot of behind the scenes manoeuvres to try and ensure the Palestinians wouldn't hit the required 12 votes that would necessitate a veto).
If that report is true, then the IDF has descended to a very evil new low.
BBC reports a confusing situation in Iran. US officials apparently say Israel has launched a missile, Iranians say no, it was a drone and we took it out.
It would be an interesting situation if Iran was to downplay a missile attack, I'm not sure why the US officials would release this information even if it is true.
Brinkmanship, points of honour and all that. They all know the consequences if it does escalate.
They could all call a halt to all this today if they wanted to, but once you've demonized the enemy it's a hard position to retreat from. But not impossible.
Encampments of mostly students have sprung up across colleges in the United States calling for the end of the war in Gaza. Looks like some colleges will have to forego commencement activities because of the protests. I find it interesting Speaker Johnson is calling on Biden to send out the National Guard to quell the protests.
Looks like some colleges will have to forego commencement activities because of the protests.
That's the tissue-thin excuse, at least. I'll note that a lot of the same campuses were willing to spend a ridiculous amount of money on security for speaking events featuring the likes of Milo Yiannopoulos or Condoleeza Rice, but apparently their own commencements will have to be cancelled in the face of what, so far, have been mostly non-violent protests.
I'll also note that most of the students who have had their college commencements cancelled this year also had their high school commencements cancelled four years ago because of COVID-19.
I don't think Jewish Americans are as overwhelmingly pro-Israel as their British counterparts, so I'm not sure that's it. I think partly it is that Biden is an old fashioned white American: Israel looks like the American frontier myth, and the likes of Biden were long ago seduced by the myth of Israel to the extent that they can't see the reality.
I think Jewish-Americans do tend pretty strongly pro Israel because multiple of my Jewish friends have basically said versions of "not all Jews." You wouldn't say that if people didn't assume all Jews did indeed support Israel.
Many of the protesters are Jewish themselves. I know the small Jewish community in my neck of the woods has decried the war in Gaza for the loss of civilian life. Not all Jews support the Netanyahu regime.
but apparently their own commencements will have to be cancelled in the face of what, so far, have been mostly non-violent protests.
Non-violent protests are, for the most part, entirely legal. Violence is a problem, and causing an obstruction might be a problem, but a group of protesters visibly protesting is not, in itself, a problem. And if the university is a public institution, then actions to curtail peaceful protest would seem to run headlong in to the first amendment.
It might be embarrassing for a university to try and make itself look shiny and impressive for a commencement with a collection of protesters shouting and waving placards about divestment and not supporting the Israeli government, but that's the way it goes.
University of Southern California is private so not bound by the first amendment. The students should have the protection of California's "Leonard's Law" which extends first amendment speech rights to private non-religious universities.
University of Southern California is private so not bound by the first amendment. The students should have the protection of California's "Leonard's Law" which extends first amendment speech rights to private non-religious universities.
I think a clearer way of stating this is that private schools like USC are bound by the First Amendment because of California's Leonard Law, something which is not true of private schools in other states.
I think partly it is that Biden is an old fashioned white American: Israel looks like the American frontier myth, and the likes of Biden were long ago seduced by the myth of Israel to the extent that they can't see the reality.
I'm reminded of the closing part of Isaac Chotiner's interview with David Miller:
"Oh, if you’re asking me: Do I think that Joe Biden has the same depth of feeling and empathy for the Palestinians of Gaza as he does for the Israelis? No, he doesn’t, nor does he convey it. I don’t think there’s any doubt about that."
Many of the protesters are Jewish themselves. I know the small Jewish community in my neck of the woods has decried the war in Gaza for the loss of civilian life. Not all Jews support the Netanyahu regime.
Heck, I think even a lot of Zionists are disappointed in him, though perhaps from different motivations.
Yesterday Hamas leaders told the go-betweens from (I think) Qatar and Egypt that they were ready to negotiate. They apparently offered to release some surviving women, elderly and underage hostages in return for a ceasefire. I think probably temporary, I'm not sure.
Anyway, Gazans celebrated.
Today, the Israeli government says that this doesn't meet their objectives. There are reports of aerial bombardment of Rafah, closure and then Israeli takeover of the crossing and Hezbollah getting more involved in the North.
--
My opinion fwiw is that the IDF is not going to stop until all Hamas divisions are gone. They want all hostages back and the complete destruction of capability of Gazans to fight back.
It seems like the hardliners inside the fragile Israeli ruling coalition are pushing for an uptick in military action rather than a ceasefire.
I'd be interested to hear how others perceive what is happening and any recent pieces from the region which might give more insight than from western media.
Yesterday Hamas leaders told the go-betweens from (I think) Qatar and Egypt that they were ready to negotiate. They apparently offered to release some surviving women, elderly and underage hostages in return for a ceasefire. I think probably temporary, I'm not sure.
The content of the text is available online and contained proposals for the phased release of all hostages (including soldiers):
Meanwhile a group of Republican senators have sent a letter to the ICC chief prosecutor threatening reprisals against him, his family and his staff should the ICC make their rumoured move to charge Netanyahu with warcrimes:
It sounds like the POTUS has finally drawn a line and said that he's not going to allow US bombs to kill people in Rafah.
Which doesn't appear to be affecting much the Israeli military plans.
In other depressing news, it seems that the trickle of aid which had been entering Gaza has now been stopped once again by border closures and protests inside Israel.
Comments
Maybe not. This is from the Iranian mission to the U.N.
Iran seems to be indicating that it considers this tit-for-tat exchange of high explosives to be the end of the matter unless Israel decides to escalate. Blowing up another country's consulate in order to assassinate one of its military officers is the kind of thing that requires some kind of response by the targeted nation. The reported extent of Iranian target (Israeli military installations in Golan and the Negev, not civilian targets) seems like it's carefully calibrated to be a response but not necessarily an escalation. We'll see how the Israelis respond. One of the difficulties of "sending a message" like this is that it's impossible to control how the recipient perceives it.
"And most importantly, faced with the desire of our enemies to harm us, we will continue to unite and become stronger."
(From the BBC, but it is a direct quote)
That is my fear, but we shall see. The next few hours/days will decide one way or the other.
Gaza and its suffering seem to have slipped under the radar for the moment, but perhaps that's not surprising.
Yes, although a report in the Guardian says that Netanyahu is resolved to carry on with the old war in Gaza notwithstanding the new war with Iran. ISTM that he has some sort of death wish, which is all very well, except that other people are involved, and more likely than him to actually die.
We in the UK, of course, are on his side, and no doubt raking in loads of £££ by selling arms.
There was a protest in London on Saturday about that I was half minded to go on. Also local ones across the country.
Anyway, that might be tangential to this thread so I won't say any more.
Events are moving swiftly...it's a job to keep up...
Yes. Across the country - they don't now usually do them in London as it's got too huge, but they did have one yesterday in support of Palestine which was also to protest about arms dealing. The London one was particularly large with up to 100K people. It met a counter-demonstration at one point but other than chanting slogans at each other it seems to have passed off without violence.
There is usually a pro-Israel demo in London on Sundays. It's much smaller and they don't reveal the location until pretty much the last minute.
Demonstrations were not limited to the UK yesterday either.
Many Israelis and pro-Israelis believe that Iran wants to destroy Israel and eliminate all the Jews in the Middle-East.
Whether that is the case or not, it's certainly one of the stated aims of Hamas.
Netanyahu will have pulled off the strike in Syria to get Biden off his back knowing that the US will support Israel come what may.
A direct attack by Iran is unprecedented of course but the swift deployment of British Tornados and US fighter jets in support of Israel's 'Iron Dome' makes me wonder whether it was anticipated.
Thing is, Iran may now go for proxy targets elsewhere if Netanyahu strikes back.
Even if this doesn't escalate into an all-out regional war there's going to be some heavy shit happening as a result of this.
They may not issue a warning nor concentrate on military targets next time if Netanyahu acts true to type and slugs out at any Iranian target irrespective of who gets in the firing line.
This is serious folks. It was already bad enough.
The prospect of getting embroiled in a military confrontation with Iran are rather different from getting embroiled in one with Russia. Whilst I'll agree that the US is more inclined to favor Israel than Ukraine (or any other random country), I think the opponent has to be a factor as well.
They're using words like reckless and that the attack failed, but it seems to me that this depends on the context.
What I mean is this: the attack seems like a failure if the objective was to kill civilians, but the evidence appears to be that this wasn't the case.
More interesting is the thought that the attacks had another purpose. For example if the Iranians wanted to understand more about the effectiveness of the Israeli military defenses then this has actually been quite successful.
For the record, I believe that both the Israelis and Iranians are reflections of each other and are engaged in a regional power struggle where they take military wins that stop short of all-out war.
They're playing chicken and hoping that the other side will understand the imperative of not overreacting.
This.
Of course, we're now all on the brink...a major escalation will affect us all in one way or another, especially if somebody starts throwing nukes around.
The logic of the USA and UK's position is that it is perfectly right for Israel to react in self-defence but wouldn't be right for anyone else to.
For avoidance of doubt, I do not support any side or use of violence in the ME. Responding and escalating the violence tit-for-tat seems like a disastrous military policy by all sides.
And of course. presumably the logic of Iran's position is that they themselves would welcome being flattened for the in-no-way-state-sponsored-no-not-at-all-nothing-to-see-here-guv sacking and looting of the British Embassy in Tehran in 2011...?
Thought not. Countries without double standards are thin on the ground at the best of times, and definitely in this arena.
Sure but the way to fix this isn't to say "it is good because we want to do it" (even Ahmadinejad Office issued some mealy mouthed condemnation at the time, but even this is a step too far for the British/US governments).
https://www.propublica.org/article/israel-gaza-blinken-leahy-sanctions-human-rights-violations
A little personal anecdote. I met a nice guy in Jerusalem one time who was Egyptian. For reasons I won't go into here, he was working as a stronger/fixer for a western aid charity in Gaza. At the time travel to Gaza via Israel was possible, but difficult. Anyway, maybe you can imagine what travel to and from was like.
He wrote a blog talking about his experiences in Gaza in English and Arabic.
Next time he was in Egypt, he was arrested and put into an unidentified jail. It took a reasonable amount of effort by Amnesty International and appeals to western governments to get his release - I don't want to exaggerate, I think it was a few weeks altogether but for a while it was quite scary thinking about what might have happened to him.
He's not spoken about it as far as I know, but it appears that a condition of release was that he shouldn't visit or write publicly about Gaza again.
Egypt is a scary place.
In my experience Egypt is a hard place to find follow-up stories as to what happened next. The best scenario is that they got released after a few weeks detention. The worst, I don't really want to think about.
A: When the oil runs out.
(Yes, I know where the main oilfields are, but...)
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/us-agreed-to-israels-plan-for-rafah-in-return-for-not-carrying-out-large-iran-strike-report/
Here's today's Guardian on the subject:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/17/israel-reportedly-deploys-extra-weapons-for-assumed-rafah-offensive
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/reports-israeli-drones-luring-people-093920198.html
Meanwhile the US has vetoed the Palestinians application for full membership of the UN (there were reports that there was a lot of behind the scenes manoeuvres to try and ensure the Palestinians wouldn't hit the required 12 votes that would necessitate a veto).
If that report is true, then the IDF has descended to a very evil new low.
It would be an interesting situation if Iran was to downplay a missile attack, I'm not sure why the US officials would release this information even if it is true.
Hopefully this isn't going to spiral..
They could all call a halt to all this today if they wanted to, but once you've demonized the enemy it's a hard position to retreat from. But not impossible.
https://www.thenation.com/article/world/the-bulldozer-kept-coming-a-girl-stares-down-death-in-gaza/
I would advise Biden to avoid that. If a governor wants to call out the Guard, that is their prerogative, but instances of the National Guard on college campuses doesn't end well.
Biden needs the youth vote for re-election. Why won't he listen to them?
That's the tissue-thin excuse, at least. I'll note that a lot of the same campuses were willing to spend a ridiculous amount of money on security for speaking events featuring the likes of Milo Yiannopoulos or Condoleeza Rice, but apparently their own commencements will have to be cancelled in the face of what, so far, have been mostly non-violent protests.
I'll also note that most of the students who have had their college commencements cancelled this year also had their high school commencements cancelled four years ago because of COVID-19.
I don't think Jewish Americans are as overwhelmingly pro-Israel as their British counterparts, so I'm not sure that's it. I think partly it is that Biden is an old fashioned white American: Israel looks like the American frontier myth, and the likes of Biden were long ago seduced by the myth of Israel to the extent that they can't see the reality.
Non-violent protests are, for the most part, entirely legal. Violence is a problem, and causing an obstruction might be a problem, but a group of protesters visibly protesting is not, in itself, a problem. And if the university is a public institution, then actions to curtail peaceful protest would seem to run headlong in to the first amendment.
It might be embarrassing for a university to try and make itself look shiny and impressive for a commencement with a collection of protesters shouting and waving placards about divestment and not supporting the Israeli government, but that's the way it goes.
I think a clearer way of stating this is that private schools like USC are bound by the First Amendment because of California's Leonard Law, something which is not true of private schools in other states.
I'm reminded of the closing part of Isaac Chotiner's interview with David Miller:
Heck, I think even a lot of Zionists are disappointed in him, though perhaps from different motivations.
Anyway, Gazans celebrated.
Today, the Israeli government says that this doesn't meet their objectives. There are reports of aerial bombardment of Rafah, closure and then Israeli takeover of the crossing and Hezbollah getting more involved in the North.
--
My opinion fwiw is that the IDF is not going to stop until all Hamas divisions are gone. They want all hostages back and the complete destruction of capability of Gazans to fight back.
It seems like the hardliners inside the fragile Israeli ruling coalition are pushing for an uptick in military action rather than a ceasefire.
I'd be interested to hear how others perceive what is happening and any recent pieces from the region which might give more insight than from western media.
The content of the text is available online and contained proposals for the phased release of all hostages (including soldiers):
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/5/6/text-of-the-ceasefire-proposal-approved-by-hamas
Reading between the lines, it's hard not to come to the conclusion that Israel disengaged once they felt Hamas were likely to agree to a deal:
https://www.axios.com/2024/05/07/us-israel-hamas-hostage-ceasefire-talks
Meanwhile a group of Republican senators have sent a letter to the ICC chief prosecutor threatening reprisals against him, his family and his staff should the ICC make their rumoured move to charge Netanyahu with warcrimes:
https://zeteo.com/p/exclusive-you-have-been-warned-republican
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/05/07/israel-gaza-state-report-00156619
That's pretty much equivalent to an admission, isn't it?
Which doesn't appear to be affecting much the Israeli military plans.
In other depressing news, it seems that the trickle of aid which had been entering Gaza has now been stopped once again by border closures and protests inside Israel.