Things Aren’t Peaceful in Palestine - Page 268

On April 16 2024 23:11 WombaT wrote:
Man I wish anything I’d ever posted had got such a rapturous reception

On April 18 2024 21:27 pmp10 wrote:
Rumors are that US approved attack on Rafah in exchange for letting Iran off without retaliation.
Sounds plausible enough.
If true we will soon see major strikes resume in Gaza.

On April 15 2024 08:15 Bathycles wrote:

It is actually less likely that the Rafah assault now happens. Netanyahu doesn't want to 'eliminate Hamas'. Netanyahu wants to stay in power because if he is forced to resign, he is going to jail. The guy has been in power as long as Putin or Erdogran. That makes it psychologically extremely hard to even give up that power. And impossible if losing power means you lose your freedom as well.

Israel isn't going to be able to 'eliminate Hamas'. Even if they create another massacre in Rafah. They also have no endgame for Gaza or desire to govern Gaza. They want to annex most of the west Bank and make a viable Palestinian state impossible.

But Netanyahu needs a way to climb down from the 'eliminate Hamas' position, without losing face. So saying "We fight Hezbollah and Iran now, Hamas is no longer important', is a great way out for him.

And as bad as Hamas is, there's actually raving lunatics in his cabinet. If they ever pull their support for Netanyahu, his government falls and he goes to jail. This is Smotrich and Ben Gvir. One of which is an actually convicted terrorist who has a criminal record that wouldn't allow him to serve in the IDF.

On the other side, there's Gallant, who is in the opposition but added to the war cabinet. Gallant has been doing solo missions to the US and has also been undermining Netanyahu's authority. And while Netanyahu was briefly a special forces soldier, Gallant was an actual IDF general.

Netanyahu knows that he can push over Biden over and over. They hate each other, but Biden is a coward who will never draw a red line for Israel and withdraw support. Not participating in a possible Israeli attack on Iran is not withdrawing support. If Israel strikes Iran, then Biden will give Israel whatever they need.

So Netanyhu doesn't need to consider what Biden says or want. Netanyahu's game is balancing Gallant on the one side, and the two literal fascist lunatics on the other side. Netanyahu has already lost support from the general public for him personally. So he doesn't need to win that back either. What he needs is a situation where everyone agrees, this is not the time for a huge internal fight and total political chaos.

BTW, this video shows several missiles hitting the ground one after the other, suggesting a 0% intercept rate at least for that bunch of missiles. And it is verified by official media. There's also other videos of the same event which excludes the possibility of AI generated footage. And since there's basically no other video footage ever of ballistic missiles in the dark deploying penetration aids, it is also not footage from another event.

Top video at 0:33 seconds:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2024/apr/13/iran-launches-drone-attack-against-israel

And alternative more complete footage from another angle:

There are other angles apparently showing the same footage.

Yes, there is a big problem that when I try to find these video's I get lunatics like Jackson Hinckle post them.
But that doesn't mean these video's are doctored or from some other event. Maybe we should think about why all media just repeat the 99% claim, and only conspiracy lunatics actually still doubt this.

There's also footage of exo-atmospherics explosions, so a SM-3 was used to intercept the ballistic missile. But not a lot of them. I think only 1 or two videos that show this. And of course they could still have missed. There is a small window where intercepting one is realistic. And it isn't just before impact. The upside to intercepting a ballistic missile is that the trajectory is completely known: ballistic. The downside is that it is moving extremely fast.


Look, this is really simple. This attack wasn't meant to be deadly. It was telegraphed and Iran told several countries, including Turkey and the US, that it was coming. It was to show Iran's capabilities and be a deterrence and deescalate in Iran's favour. I have seen several US generals express their surprise on CNN that Iran launched this big of an attack. Which means that the missile stock of Israel is likely quite depleted. There was also at least 4 air forces involved in downing drones: US, Israel, UK and Saudi Arabia. They can't do this twice a week. The Shahaad drones are cheap. We don't know how many Iran has. This event may have cost Israel & allies 1 billion US worth of missiles. How often can they be replaced?

If Israel indeed has no problem shooting down 99% of this stuff and keeping their missile stocks high, then Israel has no problem doing a counter-attack. Because then Israel can simply shoot down 99% of Iran's newest attack and do a public victory lap once more. And we should see an Israeli attack soon. As despicable as the Iranian regime is, they are one of the most rational actors in modern geopolitics. For sure they have the missile and drone stocks to do a second attack if Israel attacks them once more. And that one will be bigger, without warning, and intended to be deadly. So in that case, they will try again and it will fail again and you will know I was wrong.

I can't predict the future, but it seems quite clear that Israel is looking for something to do in 'retaliation' that doesn't warrant a second Iranian missile & drone attack. Israel has the same capabilities to launch missiles that Iran has. And Iran also can't stop those. That's just the physics and engineering of these weapon systems. But it is not always easy to hit military targets. If this really escalates badly, which it likely will not, it can result in both countries lobbing missiles at soft targets with civilians dying. Both Israel and Iran have their air planes and munition supplies underground or under concrete. These are small targets hard to damage with even somewhat large warheads. You need concrete piercing specialized munitions to actually take out these targets. And it is not clear at all how accurate Iranian missiles are. The Israeli/Western ones are more accurate. But electronic warfare jamming is also a thing. It is not all this simple.

Fact is, these missile defense systems will get penetrated. And that's what we saw yesterday.

On April 18 2024 22:21 JimmiC wrote:

Holy Crap!!!! Your burden of proof is wildly different. For Hamas negotiating which has been confirmed by a huge number of sources including Qatari, Egyptian, American and Israeli, it not a 100% so we shouldn't believe it. But a 1 paragraph statement from a unnamed official that also includes the below quote is "plausible enough" for you?