Israel and West Bank Settlements

[MDlaxfan76]

A number of colleges are being roiled with anti-zionist protests, pro-Palestinian or Pro-Israeli demonstrations. Harvard's taking heat, Penn is a cluster-f.

Glad to see my alma mater and its new President handling the complexities well.

We received this communication a few days ago: https://president.dartmouth.edu/news/20 ... l-gaza-war

Community conversation led by Jewish and Middle Eastern scholars, together.

https://www.vnews.com/Dartmouth-Holds-C ... %20attacks.”

Here's President Beilock's remarks at the vigil: https://president.dartmouth.edu/news/20 ... gil-israel

Note, she happens to be Jewish. She's also a quite impressive person.

https://home.dartmouth.edu/news/2023/10/vigil

Of course, not all students agree 100%, both Arab and Jewish. This statement attracted all sorts of student org support that is "pro-Palestinian" seeing this as "bitter fruit" of "apartheid" etc.

https://www.thedartmouth.com/article/20 ... ar-in-gaza

Last spring, one of my classmates, Bruce Duthu, was at the center of campus controversy because of his prior partial support of the BDS movement; Bruce is a good guy: https://www.insidehighered.com/views/20 ... ides-essay

fraught topic!

But Dartmouth appears to be striking the right tone as an institution under Beilock's leadership and with the support of excellent faculty heads who are taking a collaborative, educational approach.

[PizzaSnake]

A number of colleges are being roiled with anti-zionist protests, pro-Palestinian or Pro-Israeli demonstrations. Harvard's taking heat, Penn is a cluster-f.

Glad to see my alma mater and its new President handling the complexities well.

We received this communication a few days ago: https://president.dartmouth.edu/news/20 ... l-gaza-war

Community conversation led by Jewish and Middle Eastern scholars, together.

https://www.vnews.com/Dartmouth-Holds-C ... %20attacks.”

Here's President Beilock's remarks at the vigil: https://president.dartmouth.edu/news/20 ... gil-israel

Note, she happens to be Jewish. She's also a quite impressive person.

https://home.dartmouth.edu/news/2023/10/vigil

Of course, not all students agree 100%, both Arab and Jewish. This statement attracted all sorts of student org support that is "pro-Palestinian" seeing this as "bitter fruit" of "apartheid" etc.

https://www.thedartmouth.com/article/20 ... ar-in-gaza

Last spring, one of my classmates, Bruce Duthu, was at the center of campus controversy because of his prior partial support of the BDS movement; Bruce is a good guy: https://www.insidehighered.com/views/20 ... ides-essay

fraught topic!

But Dartmouth appears to be striking the right tone as an institution under Beilock's leadership and with the support of excellent faculty heads who are taking a collaborative, educational approach.

Penn, well, what can one say…

Brings back the fracas over the “water-buffalo” remark by a professor re certain students.

My personal favorite was certain intemperate use of the Socratic method by a law school professor teaching a legal studies survey course. The professor was a little out of bounds re his quizzing of certain students re the 13, 14th, and 15th amendments.

OK, he was a dcikhead. I couldn't believe what he said, how he said it, and who he said it to. Oh, and I was present for the event, do this is NOT hearsay…

[OCanada]

No Israel? I have REPEATEDLY stated that I want a one state solution.

Please read my posts again.

Oh, I read them. What happened 60 years ago-----your words, not mine? 'member the war?

Or more to the point: how many jewish people live in your "0ne State Solutions" in neighboring Egypt or Syria?

Can't answer for either one. Do they claim to be democratic or are they self proclaimed Islamic states?

Next to zero for both.

As for claims of "Democracy.....etc." Irrelevant. The point is, the Jewish people are not welcome in those countries. You are pretending like the Muslims would play nicey-nice if the were allowed power in Israel.

I'm not any happier about this mess than you are. But if the Jewish people in the region laid down their arms? You are hopefully not so far gone to understand that it would take maybe a week or two before they'd be wiped out.

The Iranians, Syrians, and Egyptians have no such worries.

Your "one State solution" would wipe out the last remaining Jewish people in the region, Brooks. You're not being realistic, and you know it.

Israel has always wanted a one state solution. In the last decade or so they have been trying normalizing w several middle eastern states. That is one reason for the attack. They were alerted by Egypt. If they believe it can be done as it appears it can w Egypt and Jordan and developing w the Saudis then i think we can.

Israel has been a nuclear power since at least the 50. Militarily it is difficult to see how they could lose. Asymetric warfare produces strange outputs sometimes. Vietnam comes to mind. We lost

Apartheid produces civilian unrest. So does great disparities in wealth. Both are present there.

Well, clearly Apartheid does not always produce civilian unrest. If it did, Egypt would be in flames, as there are zero Jewish people there.

Same for Syria and Lebanon. They are not welcome in those countries, and do not have equal rights. No one talks about this simply because it's so obvious that it's never brought up.

Point is, if the folks in the surrounding countries want the Israelis to treat the non-jewish population as equals: you go first.

This is complicated. Israeli leaders could have spent the last 20 years building Gaza into a modern city with gleaming infrastructure, to show good faith. Sadly, they did the opposite. It's a mess everywhere you look, with a small percentage of people on both sides ruining everything for the vast majority who just want to live simple, peaceful lives.

Part of the compecity is there bcs Israel had conditions/understandings for achieving statehood. It violated them. They have a judicial system to protect justice. Bengie wants to reform it to insulate himself. That resulted in the biggest public protests Israel has seen in decades. The Supreme Court has a long history of taking a walk on Palestinian issues. Since becoming a state Israel has claimed to be a democracy and a beacon of light in the middle east. That has never really bern true but it has served to make US support more solid. It has also denied being a nuclear power. Also not true. They have claimed Palestinisnd have equsl rights. They do not.

Syria, Lebanon, Eqypt are all bot messes rife with among other things civil unrest. None offer the promise of humsn rights as Israel did in theory since inception

When independence was achieved Palestinians held about 60% of all the land. It is now much smaller and not bcs of a strong real estate market. The zionists began pushing Palestinians off their land before statehood and broke understandings almost immediately after statehood. <2 years.

In i believe 2018 Israel passed the Nation State Law. The effect was to further institutionalize apartheid. That in various laws had bern creeping into reality anyway. There was significant domestic upset with it. A significant portion of the population opposed the recent government actions believing they violate basic human rights and in the long run result in needless deaths, costs and prove counter productive.

Israel in its current iteration is a military state. Most of the press serves the government. The US press provides a very dlsnted view of events there.

The sabra generation as they are known is worth reading. You might consider reading Fortress Israel. The political language used now is very different than it was 30 years ago.

In May 2018 the US moved its embassy to Jerusalem. There was a huge celebration. On the sane day ISF snipers fired on young demonstrators at location where demonstrations were held weekly for about 2 months. 54 dead snd over 1,000 wounded. Any stories here about it? Snipers. From a distance.

The point is there is very unbalanced coverage. People’s opinions are shaped by what they know or think they know. The US is experiencing a taste of this now. It is not that there Arab States have clean hands ncs they do not. They share responsibility for the situation we are in. Rather it is the current strategies being employed are irreconcilable.

Bengie is probably finished as a viable pol. He is one of a long line of leaders datimg back at least as far as Mussolini as a personality type. He overseen the biggest Jewish defeat in decades. He is corrupt and under indictment. This is a huge moment for Israel and many feel he is not up to meeting it.

There is a popular saying: wherever you find two Jews you will find three opinions. Way to lengthy, i apologize for it but way to short to properly convey the reality

[OCanada]

OS strikes agaim. He is do squeezable soft.

Benjamin Netanyahu’s political career os almost certainly over. be over. He has ruled over the worst military calamity in Israel’s recent history and cone what he could to redirect Israel from its core priorities.

Israel and the USA mishandled the intelligence the Egyptian government provided which was correct. A neighbor working for an alphabet agency, in response to a question, said both countries should have at least dome a cursory look into it.

Bengies’ strategy is flat out bad and has the potential to screw the globe.

Bengie may go to jail yet

None of which has anything to do with Israel's intelligence failure, unless you have evidence that Bibi ignored specific intel warnings of the impending attack or disregarded the scope of the Hamas capability & tactics.

The political ghouls here in the safety of their cheap suits can't wait to make Bibi a scapegoat.

Give us more info on the Egyptian intel. The Newsweek article posted in this thread said it was non specific.

It's ridiculous to assert that both US & Israeli intel would ignore credible, specific Egyptian intel.

You don’t read much do you?
You can start here:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/ ... fairs-gaza Thete are dozens more. Not redicullus at all. Your right wing knee jerk reaction to dverything is the ridiculous here. Bengie has no future in politics as things stand now.

The political ghouls? Really? The realists here are inline with more than half of the Israeli population. White nationalists favor Israel over Ukraine and both over Arabs. The unbiased observer is not you old timer.

Let me help you out here: I dated a sabra for a year who lives in a kibbutz outside Tel Aviv. My first wife was Jewish and her parents were sabra. My longest dated friend married a sabra w three kids whose husband was KIA. Her brother was at one time head of Security for El Al among other interesting jobs. I believe it is fair to say you are the old guy sitting on his white butt at zero risk to his flapping lips. I have many people i am actively worried about. One girl i dated as an undergrad for three years parents were jewish. Well known Baltimore family. One from Russia and one from Germany. 90% of their families were wiped out in the Holocodt, Too late for you to grow up. No loss

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/202 ... cf1ae10000

[PizzaSnake]

Interesting anecdotal data point here: co-worker, Vietnamese immigrant when he was a teen, of French and Vietnamese heritage was relaxing in the sauna post-swimming workout this weekend when an older, white male entered the sauna. There were two other gentlemen present. The older white male arrival asked them, "do you speak Arabic?" When they indicated they did, the older white male went off on an unhinged rant about they were evil Arabs. Interestingly he keyed on their language abilities, not their religion.

Fortunately for him, those two gentlemen exercised some restraint and self-control and refrained from kicking his asz. I wish I had been there so I could have corrected his behavior.

Just a little sampling of how hot and intemperate speech is everywhere, threatening to inflame already heightened divisions in our society.

PS, my co-worker was flabbergasted at the exchange.

[Typical Lax Dad]

https://abc7ny.com/amp/queens-sikh-man- ... /13922842/

One of my buddies had to leave Nebraska after the WTC attack…..people thought he was Muslim and he feared for his life. He had to move to NJ where there was more of a community. From “Bombay”…

[Farfromgeneva]

https://abc7ny.com/amp/queens-sikh-man- ... /13922842/

One of my buddies had to leave Nebraska after the WTC attack…..people thought he was Muslim and he feared for his life. He had to move to NJ where there was more of a community. From “Bombay”…

Sort of the opposite of Phife Dog eh?

I like em brown, yellow, puerto rican or Haitian.

[old salt]

OS strikes agaim. He is do squeezable soft.

Benjamin Netanyahu’s political career os almost certainly over. be over. He has ruled over the worst military calamity in Israel’s recent history and cone what he could to redirect Israel from its core priorities.

Israel and the USA mishandled the intelligence the Egyptian government provided which was correct. A neighbor working for an alphabet agency, in response to a question, said both countries should have at least dome a cursory look into it.

Bengies’ strategy is flat out bad and has the potential to screw the globe.

Bengie may go to jail yet

None of which has anything to do with Israel's intelligence failure, unless you have evidence that Bibi ignored specific intel warnings of the impending attack or disregarded the scope of the Hamas capability & tactics.

The political ghouls here in the safety of their cheap suits can't wait to make Bibi a scapegoat.

Give us more info on the Egyptian intel. The Newsweek article posted in this thread said it was non specific.

It's ridiculous to assert that both US & Israeli intel would ignore credible, specific Egyptian intel.

You don’t read much do you?
You can start here:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/ ... fairs-gaza Thete are dozens more. Not redicullus at all. Your right wing knee jerk reaction to dverything is the ridiculous here. Bengie has no future in politics as things stand now.

The political ghouls? Really? The realists here are inline with more than half of the Israeli population. White nationalists favor Israel over Ukraine and both over Arabs. The unbiased observer is not you old timer.

Let me help you out here: I dated a sabra for a year who lives in a kibbutz outside Tel Aviv. My first wife was Jewish and her parents were sabra. My longest dated friend married a sabra w three kids whose husband was KIA. Her brother was at one time head of Security for El Al among other interesting jobs. I believe it is fair to say you are the old guy sitting on his white butt at zero risk to his flapping lips. I have many people i am actively worried about. One girl i dated as an undergrad for three years parents were jewish. Well known Baltimore family. One from Russia and one from Germany. 90% of their families were wiped out in the Holocodt, Too late for you to grow up. No loss

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/202 ... cf1ae10000

Your track record is impressive. You & ffg should compare notes. What does that have to do with Israel's intel failure ?

I say again -- I never asserted or implied that this was anything less than a massive intel failure.

From your Guardian link => but it is unclear ‘at what level’, supporting claims reported from Egyptian sources

If every "warning" I read in intel reports was credible, we'd have been in perpetual DEF CON 1.
Like 9-11 or Jan 6th, there's always some spook somewhere ready to say I told you so.
Nobody keeps a tally of their false alaems.

[old salt]

You now seem to agree there was a "massive intel failure".

NOW ??? I never asserted or implied that it was anything less than a massive intel failure. That is obvious, based on events.

You're making a big deal about my use of the word "trust". I don't think Bibi trusted Hamas to be an honest broker.
He accepted the results of the one & only election & did not launch an all out war to topple Hamas. He never had sufficient intl support for that.
Instead, he "mowed the grass" when forced to do so. He never had an honest broker to work with & neither has any other Israeli leader.

[PizzaSnake]

You now seem to agree there was a "massive intel failure".

NOW ??? I never asserted or implied that it was anything less than a massive intel failure. That is obvious, based on events.

You're making a big deal about my use of the word "trust". I don't think Bibi trusted Hamas to be an honest broker.
He accepted the results of the one & only election & did not launch an all out war to topple Hamas. He never had sufficient intl support for that.
Instead, he "mowed the grass" when forced to do so. He never had an honest broker to work with & neither has any other Israeli leader.

I think a better metaphor than “mowing the grass” would be limited antibiotic dosage: eliminated the “weak” or moderate Palestinians leaving a much deadlier pathogen to thrive.

[old salt]

You now seem to agree there was a "massive intel failure".

NOW ??? I never asserted or implied that it was anything less than a massive intel failure. That is obvious, based on events.

You're making a big deal about my use of the word "trust". I don't think Bibi trusted Hamas to be an honest broker.
He accepted the results of the one & only election & did not launch an all out war to topple Hamas. He never had sufficient intl support for that.
Instead, he "mowed the grass" when forced to do so. He never had an honest broker to work with & neither has any other Israeli leader.

I think a better metaphor than “mowing the grass” would be limited antibiotic dosage: eliminated the “weak” or moderate Palestinians leaving a much deadlier pathogen to thrive.

No other Arab nation wants Palestinian refugees. Maybe Iran will welcome them.

[old salt]

What's taking place in Israel reinforces a concern I've had for Ukraine -- the ability of our enemies to exhaust our allies' arsenal of air defense munitions & outstrip our production capacity to resupply them. Our "smart" guided air defense munitions, like the interceptors for Patriots, NASAMS, & Iron Dome, are more expensive than the dumb rockets, mortar rounds, artillery rounds & unsophisticated drones our enemies are using, If Hamas + Hezbollah really have the number of Iranian rockets they've been provided, they may be able to overwhelm Israel's Iron Dome. Hope the Iron Beam works.

https://www.baldwin.senate.gov/news/pre ... -to-israel
https://www.newsnationnow.com/world/war ... em-report/

[Seacoaster(1)]

I cannot reproduce the photos and video, some of which is, predictably, grim:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/20 ... ck-israel/

"TEL AVIV — On the morning of Oct. 7, hundreds of Hamas militants switched on their GoPros and cellphones and began live-streaming the deadliest attack in Israel’s history, massacring at least 1,400 people and abducting nearly 200, according to Israeli authorities.

Are you on Telegram? Subscribe to our channel for the latest updates on Russia’s war in Ukraine.
What began as a highly organized stealth attack, using drone technology to overtake Israeli military observation points, soon devolved into a bloody and chaotic rampage. It underscored Hamas’s capacity for sophisticated planning and indiscriminate killing; the ability of the group to conceal details of a massive offensive operation and its struggle to manage fighters once they had bulldozed their way through Israel’s border fence.

It was, by both Palestinian and Israeli accounts, a staggering and unexpected Hamas victory and an indictment of Israel’s vaunted military and intelligence services.

Hamas’s political leadership in exile said it was shocked at the lack of resistance: “We were expecting to get a smaller number of hostages and return, but the army collapsed in front of us, what were we to do?” Ali Barakeh, a Beirut-based Hamas representative, said in an interview with The Washington Post on Monday.

“The Israeli army has become a paper tiger,” Barakeh continued, “and that’s why the number of hostages was so big, and the number of Israeli casualties was so big.”

Miri Eisin, a former senior intelligence officer in the Israel Defense Forces, said the operation was the result of at least two years of planning, a period that included two conflicts between the IDF and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a smaller militant group in Gaza. At the time, Hamas was criticized for standing on the sidelines as PIJ leaders were eliminated by Israeli strikes.

It was part of a vast con, said Eisin, “to lull Israel into complacency,” while Hamas gathered intelligence and quietly built up its capabilities. The fighters’ apparent knowledge of Israeli border towns could have been gleaned in part from the thousands of Gazans who crossed the Israeli border on a daily basis, Eisin said, earning wages in the same communities that were overrun.

“Those who attacked Israel are not terrorist squads, but a commando brigade belonging to a large army, numbering in the tens of thousands, built over time with funds intended for humanitarian causes,” said Meir Ben Shabbat, a former Israeli national security adviser, adding that some of the militants carried “data files on the territories and settlements they raided.”

In a rare all-staff memo made public on Monday, Ronen Bar, the director of Israel’s Shin Bet intelligence agency, took responsibility for the failure to foresee the attack: “The responsibility is mine,” Bar wrote. “Despite a series of actions we carried out, unfortunately … we were unable to establish sufficient deterrence so as to thwart the attack.”

By posting footage of the assault on its Telegram page, Hamas magnified the psychological warfare against Israelis and glorified the killing rampage for its online audience of supporters.

“Time for photographs,” said one militant, pointing his phone at a body, blood running down the sidewalk. Another man in a flak jacket shot a rifle into the air.

The gunmen held hundreds of families hostage in their homes, forcing some to feed them, or to watch as they killed relatives, witnesses have said.

The militants burned corpses, beheaded a wounded man with a garden hoe and fatally shot drivers as they entered residential towns, according to hours of videos gathered by the Israeli military, some of which were shared with journalists on Monday. The images could not be independently verified by The Post.

The bodies are still being found in this battle-scarred Israeli kibbutz

The Israeli military is holding a number of gunmen from Gaza that it captured in the course of the attacks, officials said, and the captives have provided material and information that remains classified.

The militants had equipped themselves for a prolonged incursion, the IDF said Monday.

“They came with a lot of food, ammunition, medical aid,” said IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari. “They were not just planning to be there for a couple of hours.”

But the footage that has flooded social media also shows Hamas struggling in real time to deal with its horrifying success.

Blood is seen in a house that was attacked by Hamas in the village of Kfar Azza, Israel. (Lorenzo Tugnoli for The Washington Post)
As the killing expanded to more than 20 Israeli towns and kibbutzim, one video shows militants trying to cram a large group of wounded hostages, two bodies deep, into the back of pickup truck. Militants who streamed in on motorcycles scrambled to find vehicles to carry their hostages back to Gaza. In Kfar Azza, militants went down the lines of parked cars, breaking windows and looking for one to steal. Yaffa Adar, an 85-year-old grandmother from the community of Nir Oz, was ferried over the border on a golf cart.

In 2011, Israel traded more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners for a single Israeli soldier. Palestinian militants now hold 199 hostages, Israeli officials confirmed Monday.

“This was a unique mixture of state-of-the-art, disciplined planning, combined with … barbarism and brutality,” said Shimrit Meir, a former senior adviser in the previous Israeli government.

Barakeh, the Hamas representative, said the aim of attack was “to free Palestinian prisoners, stop Israeli aggression on al-Aqsa Mosque, and to break the siege on Gaza,” Instead, the assault has led to unprecedented Israeli airstrikes on Gaza, killing more than 2,700 people, and has rallied much of the world behind Israel as it prepares for a large-scale land invasion.

“We have prepared ourselves for the ground assault, we’re not afraid of it,” Barakeh said.

“Hamas thinks they carried out this operation, this thing that they called an attack for their freedom, and through their framing, they believe that they will win the coming war against Israel,” said Eisin, the former IDF intelligence officer. “But just as Hamas removed all red lines in targeting civilians, so too will Israel retaliate,” she said, predicting “a war for which we don’t yet have the words to describe.”

The Hamas attack was, above all, an opportunistic one, experts said, a response to Israeli and Palestinian political dysfunction.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his far-right government had spent months pushing through a plan to weaken his country’s judicial system, setting off nationwide protests, including among military reservists.

In the West Bank, the Palestinian Authority — Hamas’s longtime rival — was teetering on collapse, seen by many as complicit in Israeli raids that have made 2023 the deadliest year for Palestinians in the occupied territory in two decades. The authority, and its aging leader Mahmoud Abbas, stood to gain from a U.S. diplomatic push to normalize relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, efforts that may have been permanently derailed by the attack.

Hamas sought to “make themselves relevant, and to this end, its tactics were atrocities,” said Anat Kurz, a senior fellow at Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies. As fighters temporarily seized hundreds of kilometers of Israeli territory, many Palestinians rejoiced.

“We finally realized that Israel can be broken,” said Ghassan Khatib, a former Palestinian politician in the West Bank. He believes Hamas would sweep Palestinian national elections if they were held tomorrow."

[Farfromgeneva]

OS strikes agaim. He is do squeezable soft.

Benjamin Netanyahu’s political career os almost certainly over. be over. He has ruled over the worst military calamity in Israel’s recent history and cone what he could to redirect Israel from its core priorities.

Israel and the USA mishandled the intelligence the Egyptian government provided which was correct. A neighbor working for an alphabet agency, in response to a question, said both countries should have at least dome a cursory look into it.

Bengies’ strategy is flat out bad and has the potential to screw the globe.

Bengie may go to jail yet

None of which has anything to do with Israel's intelligence failure, unless you have evidence that Bibi ignored specific intel warnings of the impending attack or disregarded the scope of the Hamas capability & tactics.

The political ghouls here in the safety of their cheap suits can't wait to make Bibi a scapegoat.

Give us more info on the Egyptian intel. The Newsweek article posted in this thread said it was non specific.

It's ridiculous to assert that both US & Israeli intel would ignore credible, specific Egyptian intel.

You don’t read much do you?
You can start here:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/ ... fairs-gaza Thete are dozens more. Not redicullus at all. Your right wing knee jerk reaction to dverything is the ridiculous here. Bengie has no future in politics as things stand now.

The political ghouls? Really? The realists here are inline with more than half of the Israeli population. White nationalists favor Israel over Ukraine and both over Arabs. The unbiased observer is not you old timer.

Let me help you out here: I dated a sabra for a year who lives in a kibbutz outside Tel Aviv. My first wife was Jewish and her parents were sabra. My longest dated friend married a sabra w three kids whose husband was KIA. Her brother was at one time head of Security for El Al among other interesting jobs. I believe it is fair to say you are the old guy sitting on his white butt at zero risk to his flapping lips. I have many people i am actively worried about. One girl i dated as an undergrad for three years parents were jewish. Well known Baltimore family. One from Russia and one from Germany. 90% of their families were wiped out in the Holocodt, Too late for you to grow up. No loss

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/202 ... cf1ae10000

Your track record is impressive. You & ffg should compare notes. What does that have to do with Israel's intel failure ?

I say again -- I never asserted or implied that this was anything less than a massive intel failure.

From your Guardian link => but it is unclear ‘at what level’, supporting claims reported from Egyptian sources

If every "warning" I read in intel reports was credible, we'd have been in perpetual DEF CON 1.
Like 9-11 or Jan 6th, there's always some spook somewhere ready to say I told you so.
Nobody keeps a tally of their false alaems.

Here’s an emoji As the pathetic octogenarian likes to overuse inappropriately to hide his own anxieties and insecurities in the world today that’s passed him by.

Zero credibility out of OS on any topic even the ones with deep prior experience because he’s betrayed his country and his own oaths so many times just here alone.

That’s what my notes say. Ocanada may have his own notes. I suspect they reflect reality and come from appropriately applied intellect combined with experience.

[old salt]

Here’s an emoji As the pathetic octogenarian likes to overuse inappropriately to hide his own anxieties and insecurities in the world today that’s passed him by.

Zero credibility out of OS on any topic even the ones with deep prior experience because he’s betrayed his country and his own oaths so many times just here alone.

Math isn't your strong suit. I just turned 75, & I didn't lose any years burning out my mind with drugs or booze. Can you say the same thing ?
You'd have been bounced from the military as fast as Hunter was. A tough childhood is not an excuse for being a misanthrope. You should demand a refund from your therapist.

[MDlaxfan76]

You now seem to agree there was a "massive intel failure".

NOW ??? I never asserted or implied that it was anything less than a massive intel failure. That is obvious, based on events.

You're making a big deal about my use of the word "trust". I don't think Bibi trusted Hamas to be an honest broker.
He accepted the results of the one & only election & did not launch an all out war to topple Hamas. He never had sufficient intl support for that.
Instead, he "mowed the grass" when forced to do so. He never had an honest broker to work with & neither has any other Israeli leader.

I don't recall ever focusing specifically on the word "trust", though that's a component.

The first exchange we had was about this statement you made:

"Bibi & Israel's other leaders wanted peace so badly, they were tricked into thinking they could trust Hamas.
They were fooled by a very sophisticated disinfo op (see the NYT analyis posted earlier)."

I focused on the "wanted peace so badly" part. That's nonsense. The right wing policies under him pushed settlements displacing Palestinians, with violent support from the IDF as necessary. That ain't "wanted peace so badly".

As we subsequently discussed, the government's policy under Bibi has focused on suppression and subjugation, displacement, ghettoization, and more subjugation. That ain't "wanted peace so badly".

The "tricked" part I think has a component of truth, but not remotely what you imply. No one who is as "professional" as you and I think the Israeli intel services were going to be fooled into thinking that Hamas wanted peace. However, they may have been "tricked" into thinking that Hamas was weaker, less prepared, and less organized than what was just demonstrated. Possible. But not peaceful.

We agree that there have been no, "honest brokers" from Hamas, arguably few or none from the strongest other organized Palestinian groups. And few if any from their neighbors.

So, sure a mess.

But the Netanyahu policies removed any hope at all for any future for Palestinian self-determination and prosperity. None. Land being increasingly gobbled up by Israeli right wing encroachment. Violently.

We discussed/argued about why the intel services so massively missed what was brewing in Gaza (given the obviousness of Palestinian despair!) and the security forces lack of operational preparedness.

You spat upon one explanation I called at least "reasonable", that the intel and security forces were deployed elsewhere, distracted elsewhere...specifically to those West Bank settlements. And yeah, by a guy who knows a heck of a lot more about that region than you or I do...you pooh poohed his talking to "friends" and his "bias". I called it a "reasonable" explanation, among a few such...others, like Netanyahu inviting Hamas to attack so that he could respond overwhelmingly, particularly in light of his domestic politics problems, I found too much conspiracy. And yet, not beyond the realm of all possibility...but I very much doubt it.

Again, your explanation was that "Bibi & Israel's other leaders wanted peace so badly, they were tricked into thinking they could trust Hamas. "

Nonsense.

[Farfromgeneva]

Here’s an emoji As the pathetic octogenarian likes to overuse inappropriately to hide his own anxieties and insecurities in the world today that’s passed him by.

Zero credibility out of OS on any topic even the ones with deep prior experience because he’s betrayed his country and his own oaths so many times just here alone.

Math isn't your strong suit. I just turned 75, & I didn't lose any years burning out my mind with drugs or booze. Can you say the same thing ?
You'd have been bounced from the military as fast as Hunter was. A tough childhood is not an excuse for being a misanthrope. You should demand a refund from your therapist.

75, 80. You seem to think there's a difference. Math my strong suit? I think I'd run circles around you there...even before you lost your moral compass where details and facts dont matter and you started looking for problems to fit your solutions in life. You burned your entire history on what you've become but want to be defined by only your best self and not all of this. Should spend more time on Facebook like you're Fox news cohort who thinks it's post modern social media...

Misnathrope is typical of your inability to evaluate anything by burying your head in the sand. Sorry you spent the time looking up what you thought was the perfect term only to apply something that betrays your pettiness and ignorance. Can't solve problems without being honest and transparent, neither of which fit your track record here.

I got much value for what I've invested in myself for. And I haven't spent my life looking for risk transference and capturing upside on other folks backs. Can you say the same?

A background doesn't matter when you waste the out years like you have. Ask Kerouac. Or your hero Mike Flynn. And it seems evident I had a lot more brain cells to burn because I exercised mine a whole heck of a lot.

[a fan]

What's taking place in Israel reinforces a concern I've had for Ukraine -- the ability of our enemies to exhaust our allies' arsenal of air defense munitions & outstrip our production capacity to resupply them. Our "smart" guided air defense munitions, like the interceptors for Patriots, NASAMS, & Iron Dome, are more expensive than the dumb rockets, mortar rounds, artillery rounds & unsophisticated drones our enemies are using, If Hamas + Hezbollah really have the number of Iranian rockets they've been provided, they may be able to overwhelm Israel's Iron Dome. Hope the Iron Beam works.

https://www.baldwin.senate.gov/news/pre ... -to-israel
https://www.newsnationnow.com/world/war ... em-report/

Which is why, in part, they want to hammer the places that are shooting the missiles, and launching attacks.

Which is why, I'd imagine, US forces are moving in.

I hate all this with every fibre of my being.

[old salt]

You now seem to agree there was a "massive intel failure".

NOW ??? I never asserted or implied that it was anything less than a massive intel failure. That is obvious, based on events.

You're making a big deal about my use of the word "trust". I don't think Bibi trusted Hamas to be an honest broker.
He accepted the results of the one & only election & did not launch an all out war to topple Hamas. He never had sufficient intl support for that.
Instead, he "mowed the grass" when forced to do so. He never had an honest broker to work with & neither has any other Israeli leader.

The first exchange we had was about this statement you made:

"Bibi & Israel's other leaders wanted peace so badly, they were tricked into thinking they could trust Hamas.
They were fooled by a very sophisticated disinfo op (see the NYT analyis posted earlier)."

I focused on the "wanted peace so badly" part. That's nonsense. The right wing policies under him pushed settlements displacing Palestinians, with violent support from the IDF as necessary. That ain't "wanted peace so badly".

As we subsequently discussed, the government's policy under Bibi has focused on suppression and subjugation, displacement, ghettoization, and more subjugation. That ain't "wanted peace so badly".

But the Netanyahu policies removed any hope at all for any future for Palestinian self-determination and prosperity. None. Land being increasingly gobbled up by Israeli right wing encroachment. Violently.

Again, your explanation was that "Bibi & Israel's other leaders wanted peace so badly, they were tricked into thinking they could trust Hamas. "

Nonsense.

As usual, you ignored my wider point, & joined your fellow political hacks to launch into a screed aimed at Bibi.
Bibi is hardly the only Israeli leader since Hamas came to power in 2006 who attempted to co-exist with Hamas rather than try to destroy them via military force. ...as if a peaceful resolution with the PLO, Hamas or the PLA was ever a rational prospect.

[old salt]

Which is why, in part, they want to hammer the places that are shooting the missiles, and launching attacks.

Which is why, I'd imagine, US forces are moving in.

So far, I think it's primarily for BMD (Ballistic Missile Defense) to help knock out the long range, heavy payload, ballistic missiles launched by Hezbollah in Lebanon or directly from Iran, using interceptor missiles launched from the vertical launch tubes of all the USN destroyers & cruisers now there or headed that way, as part of the carrier strike groups.