Israel - Iran and regional players | Please post respectfully and stay on topic

Yes indeed it was an amazing result given the time for the systems plural to be capable of reacting, detecting, tracking and shooting down.
Especially as it was not just one missile/drone type.

If Israel has any sense it will be busy trying to sell the Iron Dome system abroad.

For what it's worth, news reportings in the M/E and South Asia suggest that the "retaliation" by Egypt was two fold.

1. It had to be seen as doing something ala the embassy bombing, but not cause too much damage in terms of deaths/casualties. So in essence (in my words) they used missiles they knew would be countered easily. Giving notice also was to keep casualties down.

2. The bombing of an air base was to show this could have been worse and we have the technology/armoury to get through. So in essence a warning to say "could have been worse for you".

The general feeling has always been that Iran and Israel are "allies", not friends but they need each other. Iran being Shia and ME being Sunni mainly.

A war between these two has never been the main concern in ME and SA. More an alliance.

**This is just to show what feelings are in your Pakistan, Saudi etc amongst the populace. Based on some media reports etc. NOT a statement of fact.
 
This is spoken like someone who understands absolutely nothing about internal Iranian politics or wider Middle Eastern politics. The last thing Iran wants is a regional war that will have the whole world against it, when it's facing a crumbling economy and the lowest support from its own population since the revolution. This isn't the 80's where the country united around the mullahs to defend itself from Iraq, a war with Israel will severely endanger the regime.

Israel does want a conflict because it distracts from Gaza, as currently being demonstrated and where the country was more isolated internationally than ever in its existence, and prolongs the current government. Also they do have a supportive population willing to put aside their quite rational opposition to Netanyahu (see all the protests over the last two years, the unprecedented reserve fighter pilots strike, etc) in the face of adversity from Iran.

The Iranians had to respond to Damascus, which was a clear escalation. They chose to respond in a way that would make any further response from Israel a clear escalation in hostilities, unless you think they were caught by surprise at the fact Israel has an Iron Dome and the US, UK and France are their allies. It's a firework show, they know that 300 very sub-sonic drones flown over a thousand miles at relatively low altitude is likely to do the best part of feck all.

If Israel chooses to respond further and escalate the situation that will be purely because they want war. The dangerous part is that the current Israeli government are right-wing religious nutjobs, with Netanyahu facing serious charges of corruption. The combo makes them even more unpredictable. However, I imagine they'll come to their senses are remember that maintaining the current regime in Iran has always been in their best interests as it has allowed them to massively expand their economy since 1979 (same as Saudi and the Gulf States). The last thing they want is a revolution in Iran that sees a pro-Western government come to power as they'll have a huge competitor for American aid, not to mention the Iranian oil that will flood the market.

Sorry, but what you have said about Israel wanting a conflict making it more isolated internationally than ever in its existence makes no sense at all.
Israel existence relies on not being isolated internationally.

And the opposite is true regarding a supportive population. Do you not realise how unpopular Netanyahu is.
 
Sorry, but what you have said about Israel wanting a conflict making it more isolated internationally than ever in its existence makes no sense at all.
Israel existence relies on not being isolated internationally.
That's part of the reason its genocide in Gaza makes no sense. It is more isolated internationally than it ever has been. You'd have to go back quite a while to see it more isolated in general imagination of Western states.

Nothing about what it is doing makes sense. It's genocide: there is no sense in it.

Contrary to the idea that the world is a chessboard with players, actors, and roles, we also have the notion that states exist within a perpetual war economic footing in relation to each other and there is a lot of superstructural fetish (word) stuff which tries to make sense of it all within frames people can understand. And gets it all wrong.
 
Seriously! Two thirds of the total were drones! Completely ineffective. Are you also kidding not believing that Iran knows exactly the defensive capabilities of Israel’s and their supporting cast‘s? This has and will be a zero sum game. I wish ill on both regimes really. This is all a game and I hope Israel will surely not retaliate.

A drone sent from Lebanon hit a bulding in Israel a couple of hours ago, injuring over ten people, some seriously. So yes, even one going through can be most effective.

A lot of the relevant Israeli defense systems were never tested in real time until the war in Gaza, mostly because of the odd missile fired from Yemen. They were certainly never tested against anything that comes close to the amount of missiles fired from Iran.

Israel wouldn't have known for sure how effective its systems would be. How would Iran?
 
Retaliation from Hezbollah today after Israel killed a few of their commanders yesterday.
 
A drone sent from Lebanon hit a bulding in Israel a couple of hours ago, injuring over ten people, some seriously. So yes, even one going through can be most effective.

A lot of the relevant Israeli defense systems were never tested in real time until the war in Gaza, mostly because of the odd missile fired from Yemen. They were certainly never tested against anything that comes close to the amount of missiles fired from Iran.

Israel wouldn't have known for sure how effective its systems would be. How would Iran?
I’ve made this point several times but always get the same reply that Iran doesn’t want a war, it was just for show, while Israel is the one who wants war, while adding some genocide somewhere in the sentence.
 
The difference is clear, Iran called countries in the region and told them their plans before the attack. The US, Israel, and other forces were fully prepared. Most of the drones and the missiles were actually destroyed before they reached Israeli territories. They also somehow managed to hit the base from which they say Israel attacked the consulate, those were basically the only missiles that passed through according to Israel and the US.

So yes, it was mostly for show.
 
I find the posts of my evil twin @Raven very concerning, but that is not a surprise from a true leftie.

Now, I would give him the benefit of the doubt if he would actually be genuine and care about the human life. In his simplified world, Israel is the Goliath, Palestinians are the David, so you should always stick with David, no matter the circumstances. And you should hate Goliath, the all-powerful evil of Israel. He has 243 posts in Israel-Palestine thread, and 39 posts in this thread. A principled person.

From such a person, I would have expected to show a similar remorse for human life pretty much in all conflicts, especially in conflicts between the strong and the weak, especially in conflicts closer to home. And to my absolute shock (whom I am kidding, I obviously expected so), he has 0 posts in the Ukraine thread. Zero, null, nada, nilch.

Considering his absolute silence in this, him being ok with Iran and Hamas attacks, but not with Israel, and his absolute silence in Russia atrocities, I think we have found that Jeremy Corbyn posts in Caf. The only remaining question is why he is not yet advocating Russia's holy war against the evil capitalist West in Ukraine.

I'd suggest refraining from questioning others' "care about human life", with posts such as these in your history.

Statistically, it is extremely unlikely that your kid is gonna get murdered by a mass shooting. In 12 years, between 2009 and 2021, there were 1363 people killed in mass shootings in the US, for an average of 113 people per year. The chances of dying from mass shootings each year are 0.00003%, or 500 times lower than from flu.

Mass shootings (like terrorism) attacks are tragic events that hit people hard, and people rightly get very sad when they see kids dying for no reason at all. But they do not affect the everyday life, and statistically are insignificant when you are talking at the state level.

Sent from my iPhone.

Because of the overblown media proportion these events get. If Lisa dies from flu, it is not sexy to talk about that on TV. Just something of nature, probably preventable, but something you get used to it. If Lisa dies in a mass shooting, then she has a name and a face, and it is tragic. It is also completely preventable by applying gun measures, which the US for pretty much no rational reasons has decided to not apply.

But in the grand scheme of things, there are very few kids who die from mass shootings (and very few people in general). There were around 1300 people who dies in mass shootings from 2009 to 2021. That is less than how many died from covid in 8 hours during the peak of the pandemic. Yesterday there were more deaths by covid in the US, then the combined number of deaths from mass shootings during the last year.

It is tragic for people (and their families/friends) who die in mass shootings, and obviously, it should be prevented. But statistically, it is also completely insignificant.
 
I'd suggest refraining from questioning others' "care about human life", with posts such as these in your history.

What, do you think, were you hoping to achieve by digging through this persons post history for a chance to call him out? :wenger:
 
What, do you think, were you hoping to achieve by digging through this persons post history for a chance to call him out? :wenger:

No, it's one of the first things that pop up to my mind when I see that username. One of the most shocking posts that I've ever read on here.
 
What, do you think, were you hoping to achieve by digging through this persons post history for a chance to call him out? :wenger:

People need to know who to take seriously before wasting their time engaging with posters who have dodgy opinions. Same goes for glazed who spouted a load of shit in the ownership thread about Middle Eastern populations being barbaric civilisations.
 
People need to know who to take seriously before wasting their time engaging with posters who have dodgy opinions. Same goes for glazed who spouted a load of shit in the ownership thread about Middle Eastern populations being barbaric civilisations.

This feels incredibly petty though. It's not your responsibility to determine another posters provenance and credibility, it just feels like a cheap attack on a poster and proverbially stirring the pot.
 
A drone sent from Lebanon hit a bulding in Israel a couple of hours ago, injuring over ten people, some seriously. So yes, even one going through can be most effective.

A lot of the relevant Israeli defense systems were never tested in real time until the war in Gaza, mostly because of the odd missile fired from Yemen. They were certainly never tested against anything that comes close to the amount of missiles fired from Iran.

Israel wouldn't have known for sure how effective its systems would be. How would Iran?
Iran isn't crazy enough to launch an attack that would cause Israeli civilian casualties. It knows too well how it would end for them, with Israel and the West waiting for the slightest faux-pas to jump at their throat. It did just enough to not cross that treshold.

The targets were military and not directed at any civilian area. The Israeli defenses were tested with old stuff and ample warning as to when and where, and the US doing a good chunk of the heavy lifting before the missiles even reached Israel. Iran applied the recent Russian tactics which consist in sending first a swarm of cheap suicide drones and cruise missiles to saturate the anti-air defenses and clear a path for the ballistic missiles. The former were cannon fodder bound to be destroyed.

Even the ballistic missiles were expected to be intercepted, the most important question being how many. Five of them managed to hit the Nevatim airbase and you of all people know how important and well protected it is. Four others struck the (Ramon?) airbase. Both strikes caused minimum damage and zero casualties which tells you everything you need to know. I'm sure both parties gathered useful intelligence.

This announced attack was never intended to be effective, just to prove a point. It was an orchestrated firework show for domestic propaganda purposes, but also a test and a message to Israel. We do not want a war, but do not escalate. Should you do so, no matter how hard you hit we can still manage to hit you back.

One half-night cost Israel more than one billion dollars, and I personally don't want to see how repeated, massive launches without warning look like. Especially if Hezbollah also joins the party.

Iran got its so-called retaliation and Israel can claim having shot 99% of the missiles down. Just leave it at that, for everyone's sake.
 
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This feels incredibly petty though. It's not your responsibility to determine another posters provenance and credibility, it just feels like a cheap attack on a poster and proverbially stirring the pot.
I mean, he accused someone here of not caring for about human life. Seems fair he gets called out here as well.
 
I got a heavy infraction (rightly so), for that back then.

Fair enough, if you regret making those posts. I hope you understand that calling Raven out like that and questioning his care about human life, without any solid basis wasn't exactly the right thing to do (just like me using those posts against you and I apologize for digging out something from the past).
 
Fair enough, if you regret making those posts. I hope you understand that calling Raven out like that and questioning his care about human life, without any solid basis wasn't exactly the right thing to do (just like me using those posts against you and I apologize for digging out something from the past).
No worries.

Agree that ad-hominem attacks are not great, so apologies to @Raven.
 
7 of those people were IGRC, 2 of which high commanders there, 1 of which was decorated on Iran as the guy who architected and implemented the attack on October.

It was not just a consulate.

How did he architect the attacks when Iran did not know about it?
 
Iran isn't crazy enough to launch an attack that would cause Israeli civilian casualties. It knows too well how it would end for them, with Israel and the West waiting for the slightest faux-pas to jump at their throat. It did just enough to not cross that treshold.

The targets were military and not directed at any civilian area. The Israeli defenses were tested with old stuff and ample warning as to when and where, and the US doing a good chunk of the heavy lifting before the missiles even reached Israel. Iran applied the recent Russian tactics which consist in sending first a swarm of cheap suicide drones and some cruise missiles to saturate the anti-air defenses and open a path to the ballistic missiles. These were cannon fodder bound to be destroyed.

Even the ballistic missiles were expected to be intercepted, the most important question being how many. Five of them managed to hit the Nevatim airbase and you of all people know how important and well protected it is. Four others struck the (Ramon?) airbase. Both hits caused minimum damage and zero casualties which tells you everything you need to know. I'm sure both parties gathered useful data.

This announced attack was never intended to be effective, just to prove a point. It was an orchestrated firework show for domestic propaganda purposes, but also a test and a message to Israel. We do not want a war, but do not escalate. Should you do so, no matter how hard you hit we can still manage to hit you back.

One half-night cost Israel more than one billion dollars, and I personally don't want to see how repeated, massive launches without warning look like. Especially if Hezbollah also joins the party.

Iran got its so-called retaliation and Israel can claim having shot down 99% of the missiles. Just leave it at that, for everyone's sake.

I firmly agree with you on a lot of things. Iran's attack was clearly calculated and meant to prove a point rather than cause huge damage or actually start a war. BUT, when you throw so much firepower you can't exactly calcuate what will happen. One missile landing in the wrong place (or the right place... depending on how you view it) might be enough to cause enough carnage that will change everything. So I can't just look at it as meaningless theatre. The risk factor was there.

As for Israel's response, I do hope there is none. Time to end the war in Gaza, resolve things in the north and definitely not start anything new. Enough.
 
How did he architect the attacks when Iran did not know about it?
Dunno, probably need to ask Iran considering that they decorated him for being the architect and the implementer of October attacks.

It is incredibly unlikely that Iran did not know about the attacks. They probably didn’t expect them to be anywhere as successful as they were though.
 
No worries.

Agree that ad-hominem attacks are not great, so apologies to @Raven.
Water under the bridge lad, it's a divisive topic and tempers can get away from us. I know you're a genuine poster even if we have opposing views on a lot of things.
 
Water under the bridge lad, it's a divisive topic and tempers can get away from us. I know you're a genuine poster even if we have opposing views on a lot of things.
To be fair, as weird as may it sound we do not even have opposing views. I guess we both dislike Iran and think that Israel is doing evil in Gaza. Just that we put different weights in these things.
 
Yet, the entire history of Ukraine is this.

We have had some shameful moments in our history; a lot of people sided with the Nazi's when they came. We had figures like Bandera who basically conducted things exactly like Hamas do. And there's a reason we're shameful of them. No matter how much we were put down, its no justification to go down the route of barbarism.

Despite this, despite the current horrors right now they inflict on us, nobody is rampaging through Russia melting through the frontlines to slit the throats of civilians in their sleep.

It is absurd to even considering comparing the injustice the Palestanians have suffered and still suffering to the Ukrainian suffering.
 
It is absurd to even considering comparing the injustice the Palestanians have suffered and still suffering to the Ukrainian suffering.
It is not. Around 4-5 million Ukrainians died during Holodomor alone (so within a year), which was around 10% of their population.
 
I never realised they were this well known actually. It was always suspected in the same way other conspiracy theories were discussed but if you're saying it was well known at the time that's interesting.

Since the 1950s it has been widely accepted within the Iraqi Jewish community that migrated to Israel that at least some of the five bombings of 1950-51 were linked to the Zionist underground active in Iraq. The Iraqi government itself put on trial and hanged those they claimed to be responsible, while the Israeli government launched a couple of investigations into the matter in the 50s and 60s, determining that they bore no responsibility. Various historians throughout the years have concluded that Zionist involvement was likely involved some of the bombings (e.g. as early as 1970 in an essay titled "Minorities" the conservative Iraqi-Jewish historian Elie Kedourie determined that the Zionists were "certainly capable" of such actions).

Avi Shlaim claims to have found conclusive evidence confirming Zionist involvement in three of five bombings that took place during 1950-51. I have read his recent memoirs where he makes this claim, and although I'm not qualified to reliably judge on the credibility of the evidence he presents, I do find it compelling (it's based on testimony given to him by an elderly Israeli man who was involved in the Zionist underground in Iraq, and who, Shlaim claims, presented him with an Iraqi police report produced at the time confirming that the Zionists had compromised a member of the Baghdad police force and bribed him to help execute the most destructive bombing that killed four Jews at a Synagogue in January 1951).

However, I don't accept Shlaim's claim that the bombings were the primary cause of the flight of Iraqi Jews to Israel (and as Shlaim himself acknowledges, he is not an expert on Iraqi history). The first bombing took place in April 1950, just after the passing of a law allowing Jews to denationalize and move to Israel (low-scale but growing illegal emigration via Iran had been underway since 1948). Shlaim concludes that this particular bombing was the work of members of the Arab nationalist Istiqlal Party. Between that time and January 1951 when the second bombing at the synagogue happened, around 86,000 Jews - the vast majority of the community - had registered to leave, and were waiting in desperate conditions in Baghdad for their journey to Israel to be facilitated. Shlaim's own family left in the summer of 1950 (he was four years old). So by the time the bombings that can be credibly linked to the Zionists happened, the exodus of Iraqi Jews was already near completion. In any case, a few minor bombings simply cannot explain the decision of well over 100,000 people to pack up and flee the country they'd called home for generations.

The question then arises - what was the purpose of the bombings of 1951? It seems unlikely that their purpose was to drive the Jews out of Iraq since (a) that was already happening, and (b) the Israeli government was facing major problems at that very moment receiving, processing, and housing hundreds of thousands of other migrants from Eastern Europe (especially Romania and Poland). Shlaim acknowledges that there is no evidence to suggest that the Israeli government had a direct hand in the bombings. Other historians have speculated that the bombings were an attempt to draw the attention of the Israeli government to the plight of the Iraqi Jews then in limbo in Baghdad and hurry up their departure, as the Israelis had prioritized the incorporation of the aforementioned European migrants ahead of them. But until further evidence comes to light, it's impossible to say for sure.

Ultimately, the flight of Iraqi Jews was driven by a growth in fear and uncertainty about their future in Iraq that had developed among them over the course of the previous decade and a half...

The Corinthian said:
The discriminatory laws in the mid-30s - what were the drivers for this?

The broad context was the growth of Arab nationalism in Iraq and the brewing conflict with Zionism in Palestine. There were lingering resentments at the Iraqi Jews' pro-British stance during the mandate years (the Assyrians had paid for their own pro-British stance with a horrible massacre in 1933). And increasing suspicions that they were in bed with Zionism further fueled a general growth in hostility directed at them, with very little distinction made between Jew and Zionist by hostile nationalists (in fact, the Iraqi Jews had little interest in Zionism at all, at least until the Farhud, and were culturally embedded in the Islamo-Arab society of post-Ottoman Iraq). Measures directed against them in the mid-30s included the banning of the teaching of Jewish history and Hebrew in Jewish schools, while Iraqi nationalist media increasingly agitated against them, especially after the outbreak of the revolt in Palestine in 1936. There was some mob violence aimed at them, and occasional murders, although the level of violence depended on which particular government happened to be in charge.

The Farhud was the culmination of this general growth in hostility, but it didn't prompt the immediate flight of the community. However, it provided a convenient episode which Zionist emissaries could point to in order to try convince the Iraqi Jews that they had no future in Iraq, and from 1941 onwards there was a small growth in Zionist activism among young Iraqi Jews.

Things came to a head with the 1948 Palestine War, which the Iraqi government used as a pretext to directly target the Jews, having come to determine that the national interest would be served by the departure of a community increasingly understood as a potential fifth column, either due to the perceived threat posed by Zionism or by the disproportionate Jewish involvement in the Iraqi Communist Party (one of the biggest Communist Parties in the Arab world). Prime Minister Nuri al-Said even planned a population exchange of Iraqi Jews for Palestinian Arab refugees, and it was his measures to freeze and confiscate the assets of the departing Jews in 1951 which brought the saga to a close. By 1952 the Iraqi Jewish community had effectively ceased to exist.
 
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I firmly agree with you on a lot of things. Iran's attack was clearly calculated and meant to prove a point rather than cause huge damage or actually start a war. BUT, when you throw so much firepower you can't exactly calcuate what will happen. One missile landing in the wrong place (or the right place... depending on how you view it) might be enough to cause enough carnage that will change everything. So I can't just look at it as meaningless theatre. The risk factor was there.

As for Israel's response, I do hope there is none. Time to end the war in Gaza, resolve things in the north and definitely not start anything new. Enough.
Yeah, there was always a risk. I can't deny that.

Iran still had to hit something whilst trying to reduce that risk to the minimum. A dozen of missiles and drones would've never got past the combined Israeli anti-air systems plus the combined UK / US airforce, especially when the latter were warned. I'm personally happy that no one died, although an Arab-israeli girl was sadly seriously wounded by a missile debris.

It was theater, but not meaningless. It was about saving face and drawing a line without being destroyed in the process.

Amen to that.
 
Yeah, there was always a risk. I can't deny that.

Iran still had to hit something whilst trying to reduce that risk to the minimum. A dozen of missiles and drones would've never got past the combined Israeli anti-air systems plus the combined UK / US airforce, especially when the latter were warned. I'm personally happy that no one died, although an Arab-israeli girl was sadly seriously wounded by a missile debris.

It was theater, but not meaningless. It was about saving face and drawing a line without being destroyed in the process.

Amen to that.

I thought a kid died? Was later dismissed?
 
It is absurd to even considering comparing the injustice the Palestanians have suffered and still suffering to the Ukrainian suffering.
So true. The parallels need to stop being drawn. Palestinians have been under occupation for 75 years. They live in an apartheid state and subjected to settler attacks, stealing of their land and of course murder.
The Ukrainians side with Israel, the oppressor! Now wtf is that all about?
 
It is absurd to even considering comparing the injustice the Palestanians have suffered and still suffering to the Ukrainian suffering.

Im going to assume this is in good faith and is posted with emotion and ignorance as opposed to malice.

During the Russian empire, Ukraine suffered from mass depopulation and repopulation. Certain sub ethnic groups in Ukraine were seen as problematic so they were forcibly relocated to other parts of the Russian empire. People lived in filth and shit and everything anyone did was owned by someone else (see the state). It was literally slavery without the racism. Russian landowners could kill any Ukrainian peasant and there would be no consequence.

during the Soviet Union there was the holomodor which was a genocide of millions and millions of people. Families were forced to eat human bodies to survive, there were cases of corpses being sold on open markets as food.

then the war happened and Ukraine was used as fodder. Most of the population were forcibly recruited to the army and those that did not were gulaged.
After the war came the massive deindustralization and moving of assets away from Ukraine. People were confined to townships and they couldn’t even leave said location without papers which were nigh on impossible to get. Life expectancy was crushed and Ukraine had the second lowest life expectancy in Soviet Union. All resources were extracted away from Ukraine and the only two things Ukraine had was mass farming and mass weapons manufacturing for the soviet military. Starvation was constantly a problem and you couldn’t even complain about it because you would be locked up on political charges.
On multiple occasions the soviet military went into certain parts of Ukraine and killed people for organising any form of dissent.then you had Chernobyl

how is this incomparable to Gaza?
 
Im going to assume this is in good faith and is posted with emotion and ignorance as opposed to malice.

During the Russian empire, Ukraine suffered from mass depopulation and repopulation. Certain sub ethnic groups in Ukraine were seen as problematic so they were forcibly relocated to other parts of the Russian empire. People lived in filth and shit and everything anyone did was owned by someone else (see the state). It was literally slavery without the racism. Russian landowners could kill any Ukrainian peasant and there would be no consequence.

during the Soviet Union there was the holomodor which was a genocide of millions and millions of people. Families were forced to eat human bodies to survive, there were cases of corpses being sold on open markets as food.

then the war happened and Ukraine was used as fodder. Most of the population were forcibly recruited to the army and those that did not were gulaged.
After the war came the massive deindustralization and moving of assets away from Ukraine. People were confined to townships and they couldn’t even leave said location without papers which were nigh on impossible to get. Life expectancy was crushed and Ukraine had the second lowest life expectancy in Soviet Union. All resources were extracted away from Ukraine and the only two things Ukraine had was mass farming and mass weapons manufacturing for the soviet military. Starvation was constantly a problem and you couldn’t even complain about it because you would be locked up on political charges.
On multiple occasions the soviet military went into certain parts of Ukraine and killed people for organising any form of dissent.then you had Chernobyl

how is this incomparable to Gaza?
Holomodor by itself had an order of magnitudes more deaths than Palestinians in the last 75 years. And that happened within 1 year. It is right there with the biggest atrocities of the last century. It is likely the second biggest genocide in Europe during the last century, if not ever.
 
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It is absurd to even considering comparing the injustice the Palestanians have suffered and still suffering to the Ukrainian suffering.
Russia have killed millions of Ukrainians during the last century in multiple wars, man made famines and mass deportations. Saying it's not even comparabel to what the Palestinian people have suffered is an absurd and distasteful statement.