Middle East Politics

berbatrick said:
nobody could have seen this coming, absolutely out of the blue

The government unanimously approved Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's plan to encourage demographic growth in the Golan Heights and Katzrin communities, totaling over 40 million NIS.Prime Minister Netanyahu:"Strengthening the Golan is strengthening the State of Israel, and it is especially important at this time. We will continue to hold onto it, make it flourish, and settle it."




the first three hebrew replies:
"why are you settling there and not resettling the lebanon settlements?"
"why only 40 million"
"only because of oct 7 you finally are focusing on us and not your family"
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As if we were even debating whether Israel is an expansionist country the other day. Oh look, real-time expansion.
 
Spark said:
As if we were even debating whether Israel is an expansionist country the other day. Oh look, real-time expansion.
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And it has literally been a continuing process in Palestine for at least the last 60 years.

They are nothing like the Russians though, those are bad bad and no one can be mentioned as being bad as them.
 
The documents reveal a deep reliance on Russian oversight, with Moscow playing an active role in moderating tensions between the two sides. Israel avoided targeting key Syrian military sites as long as Damascus adhered to the rules of the game. In return, Russia maintained its leverage over both parties, ensuring Assad’s regime survived.
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The mechanism’s primary aim was ostensibly to limit Iran and Hezbollah’s operations, especially the transfer of advanced weaponry to Hezbollah in Lebanon. For example, a message from June 8, 2023, details Israeli intelligence tracking Iranian shipments: “Over the last two weeks, we observed the landing of eight planes in Hmeimim air base arriving from Iran. … Weapons were transferred on these planes. … If you continue to allow the transfer of weapons for Hezbollah and Iran, we will not stand idly by.”
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berbatrick said:
nobody could have seen this coming, absolutely out of the blue

The government unanimously approved Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's plan to encourage demographic growth in the Golan Heights and Katzrin communities, totaling over 40 million NIS.Prime Minister Netanyahu:"Strengthening the Golan is strengthening the State of Israel, and it is especially important at this time. We will continue to hold onto it, make it flourish, and settle it."




the first three hebrew replies:
"why are you settling there and not resettling the lebanon settlements?"
"why only 40 million"
"only because of oct 7 you finally are focusing on us and not your family"
Click to expand...


The reality of the matter is that it's just reaffirming a plan that already approved by a previous government.

As for hebrew replies, maybe it's the algorithm, but I got loads of very different comments like people accusing the government on corruption and wondering why they aren't spending this money on the northern cities which suffered damage from the Hezbollah attacks.
 
Spark said:
As if we were even debating whether Israel is an expansionist country the other day. Oh look, real-time expansion.
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Israel has held the Golan Heights for decades and is never going to return it. That's clear. I'm not sure populating it more would be considered 'an expansion'.
 
Amir said:
Israel has held the Golan Heights for decades and is never going to return it. That's clear. I'm not sure populating it more would be considered 'an expansion'.
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So securing an expansion to be certain that they have as many excuses to never return it is not expansionist. in 30 years, the territory that now you stole (you as part of your country) to syiria will not be expansionism if it is being settled because is clear that is never going to return. And chunk by chunk, bit by bit is never expansionism, like settlements in WB and keep going never stopping. Not expansion because I guess it was always Israel to begin with
 
Amir said:
Israel has held the Golan Heights for decades and is never going to return it. That's clear. I'm not sure populating it more would be considered 'an expansion'.
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Obviously Israel will try to secure the entire Mount Hermon also, like a vulture in the aftermath of a skirmish.
 
4bars said:
So securing an expansion to be certain that they have as many excuses to never return it is not expansionist. in 30 years, the territory that now you stole (you as part of your country) to syiria will not be expansionism if it is being settled because is clear that is never going to return. And chunk by chunk, bit by bit is never expansionism, like settlements in WB and keep going never stopping. Not expansion because I guess it was always Israel to begin with
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Populating is clearly an excuse in the WB.

I doubt Israel needs it nearly as much with the parts of the Golan Heights it has already controlled for decades as it's far less talked about internationally regarding territories that Israel may and should be returned.

As for the future, who knows. I doubt the government has any idea what will happen with the territories it has taken over in the last few days.
 
Amir said:
Israel has held the Golan Heights for decades and is never going to return it. That's clear. I'm not sure populating it more would be considered 'an expansion'.
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Well they have been a good buffer from the "actual borders" of Israel, but now it seems that they need a buffer too. I guess the fear, backed by the fact that the IDF is clearing out villages in the conquered area, is that this new buffer will be settled, like the previous one, and will at some point maybe need a newer buffer, etc.
 
Amir said:
Populating is clearly an excuse in the WB.

I doubt Israel needs it nearly as much with the parts of the Golan Heights it has already controlled for decades as it's far less talked about internationally regarding territories that Israel may and should be returned.

As for the future, who knows. I doubt the government has any idea what will happen with the territories it has taken over in the last few days.
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Is already controlled, but the more people the more excuses that it remains israel because israel people lives there and also the more you need to protect them the more excuse for a buffer as Israel has the right to defend themselves. Even if the territory is ocuppied
 
berbatrick said:
Well they have been a good buffer from the "actual borders" of Israel, but now it seems that they need a buffer too. I guess the fear, backed by the fact that the IDF is clearing out villages in the conquered area, is that this new buffer will be settled, like the previous one, and will at some point maybe need a newer buffer, etc.
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Obviously, Israel hasn't been treating the Golan Heights as 'buffer'. It's simply a part of Israel as far as it's concerned.

While I don't know the future of the 'new buffer', I don't see Israel settling it at all. We've got enough trouble in the territories we already have.
 
4bars said:
Is already controlled, but the more people the more excuses that it remains israel because israel people lives there and also the more you need to protect them the more excuse for a buffer as Israel has the right to defend themselves. Even if the territory is ocuppied
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Israel doesn't feel like it needs to excuse remaining in the Golan Heights. And plans to populate it better have been around for years - this plan isn't actually new at all.

This really isn't about what Israel's been doing in Syria in the last few days. It's just politics.
 
Raoul said:
Looks like Al-Sharaa is going mainstream. Suspect he will be removed from the terrorism list once these guys report back to Starmer, with the US following soon after once Sharaa compliments Trump’s inauguration crowd size.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz7qenxy8r2o.amp

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If this a real shift in his politics. I genuinely worry someone will assassinate him. There are so many radical/fanatics with these factions that watching the "normalisation" of syrian politics just feels too good to be true.
 
I hope remember that, while Assad was a maniac tyrant, Syria was a very liberal country during his reign. It's almost as if people have forgotten that and, due to rise of ISIS in that region, thought it was an Islamic extremist region. It is annoying that part of the media coverage is around how the new leader will make Syria 'liberal' without acknowledging it already was before the civil war, makes it seem it was an extremist place before being liberated, which conveniently fits into the narrative they like to set for middle eastern countries.
 


-Armed groups will gradually dissolve themselves. Under no circumstances will we accept any group being armed, whether in areas under our control or in those controlled by the YPG/PKK. We aim to take full control of all weapons across the country.
 

IDF says it opened fire on Syria protest after identifying ‘threat’​


The IDF confirms opening fire toward “a threat” during a protest by Syrians against the military’s presence in southern Syria earlier today. According to the IDF, during the protest in the village of Ma’ariya, soldiers who were calling on suspects to move back “identified a threat that required action to remove.” The military says the soldiers acted according to the open-fire procedures, and shot one of the protesters in the leg.


https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveb...re-on-syria-protest-after-identifying-threat/
 
The situation in the northeast is an absolute mess. Turkish and American proxies facing off, the SNA allegedly running amok in Manbij and the SDF increasingly desperate to come to an arrangement with Damascus. Hard to see how anything resembling Kurdish autonomy emerges from this once Erdoğa gets his free hand to act in January (assuming he does).
 
hasanejaz88 said:
I hope remember that, while Assad was a maniac tyrant, Syria was a very liberal country during his reign. It's almost as if people have forgotten that and, due to rise of ISIS in that region, thought it was an Islamic extremist region. It is annoying that part of the media coverage is around how the new leader will make Syria 'liberal' without acknowledging it already was before the civil war, makes it seem it was an extremist place before being liberated, which conveniently fits into the narrative they like to set for middle eastern countries.
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And no one talking how all ISIS terrorists have also been freed from Syrian prisons. Suddenly all prisoners freed were innocent people.
 
Syria’s Alawite Minority, Favored by the Assads, Looks Nervously to the Future
Officials with the new interim government say it is too early for the Alawite community to be dictating any terms, accusing them of being a direct party to the Assad regime’s crimes against fellow Syrians.

“They need to stay silent for at least a year and not make any demands,” said Ahmad Hilal, a lawyer who now heads the Palace of Justice, a court in the northwestern city of Aleppo. “They killed the prisoners in the prisons. They showed us no mercy. Now they are talking about nationalism and being part of a nation? Why didn’t they speak up before this?”
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https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/27/world/middleeast/syria-alawites-assad.html
 
I was wondering why Egypt seems so weak. A 112M population, good tourist spots, ancient history and sites. Yet it seems the country seems perpetually in political and economic crisis.

We talk a lot about big players in the ME like Iran, Saudi Arabia and Israel. But you'd think Egypt would also be a big player.
 
VorZakone said:
I was wondering why Egypt seems so weak. A 112M population, good tourist spots, ancient history and sites. Yet it seems the country seems perpetually in political and economic crisis.

We talk a lot about big players in the ME like Iran, Saudi Arabia and Israel. But you'd think Egypt would also be a big player.
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Iran and Saudi have oil, Egypt doesn't. Israel is unique, due to their allies and to be fair, to themselves.
 
VorZakone said:
I was wondering why Egypt seems so weak. A 112M population, good tourist spots, ancient history and sites. Yet it seems the country seems perpetually in political and economic crisis.

We talk a lot about big players in the ME like Iran, Saudi Arabia and Israel. But you'd think Egypt would also be a big player.
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Egypt’s high population is a burden rather than an asset given the country’s meager resources, and how it is narrowly confined to the Nile Valley and Delta which seems to encourage highly centralized, authoritarian rule. Hence modern Egypt has been dependent to a large extent on foreign aid and remittances, and the problems that go with these sources of revenue.

From the mid-50s to mid-70s, when the Soviet Union was the major source of foreign aid, Egypt was very much spoken of in those terms. Under Nasser, Cairo was the major driving force behind Arab nationalist politics across the region, and the confrontation with Israel.

However, this status carried certain burdens that Cairo found it could not bear, especially after the 1967 war. By the early 70s the ruling military class came to the conclusion that Soviet support was not sufficient to help feed the population and regain the Sinai from Israel, and so flipped to the Americans and signed a separate peace with Jerusalem. As a consequence, Egypt was kicked out of the Arab League and boycotted for a decade.

While the general dysfunction of the Arab state system by the late 80s and the post-Cold War context facilitated a gradual re-entry on to the regional political scene, by the 90s the country was struggling too much with internal problems of over-population, authoritarian corruption, Islamist militancy, etc. to have any hope of weaning itself off American aid, and this was ultimately exacerbated by the fallout of the Arab Spring.
 
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