vimothy

yurp
same story with america post 9/11. it's a strategic failure, both from their POV, and from the POV of the international system as a whole. we're all losing as a result of this.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
right, but october 7th could have reset the dial to a huge extent. instead of taking advantage israel has reverted to what everyone thought was their type. they blundered and gave away pieces for no material gain.
Sure, but I think it's clear by now that Israel doesn't give a rat's ass about international public opinion. They don't even care what Americans think of them as long as the military aid keeps coming, and that looks like it's not going to dry up any time soon. Quite the opposite, in fact.
 

vimothy

yurp
Sure, but I think it's clear by now that Israel doesn't give a rat's ass about international public opinion. They don't even care what Americans think of them as long as the military aid keeps coming, and that looks like it's not going to dry up any time soon. Quite the opposite, in fact.
I dont think that's quite true, actually. it seems that america has managed to moderate the response--holding off a ground invasion until humanitarian aid can be brought to bear on Gaza--and piss off Israeli public opinion, which wonders why its leaders are allowing america to shape its actions at a time of crisis.
 

hmg

Victory lap
lol. Would you like to invest in my crypto scheme? No risk, 1000% profit guaranteed.
Funnily enough, I opened a leveraged long position around the time you posted that, a little below where those dotted lines meet, and now I'm up 537%!

Screenshot 2023-10-25 at 20.47.35.png
Don't worry, I already took profit that more than covers the original collateral, so it's gains from now on.
 

vimothy

yurp
what, after all, is preventing he total ethnic cleansing of the gaza strip? it's a combination of international public opinion and the interjections of the "international community" (of states whose opinion israel think matters)
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
I suppose, but with four times as many Palestinian civilians dead (so far) as Hamas managed to kill a couple of weeks ago, and hospitals closing for lack of power due to a fuel blockade, it's pretty fucked up that this is the "moderated" response.
 

vimothy

yurp
I suppose, but with four times as many Palestinian civilians dead (so far) as Hamas managed to kill a couple of weeks ago, and hospitals closing for lack of power due to a fuel blockade, it's pretty fucked up that this is the "moderated" response.
would you prefer that there were no hope of humanitarian assistance? of course not. but that's the situ that would prevail absent international involvement.
 

hmg

Victory lap
what, after all, is preventing he total ethnic cleansing of the gaza strip? it's a combination of international public opinion and the interjections of the "international community" (of states whose opinion israel think matters)

Israel is fucked long term, their only card is nuclear weapons, because demographically it's over. All their allies have sizeable, young, restive Muslim populations that would gladly trash their adopted countries if those countries paid anything more than lip service to Israel’s right to exist. Europe is pebbled-dashed with Gazas.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
would you prefer that there were no hope of humanitarian assistance? of course not. but that's the situ that would prevail absent international involvement.
Except 'international involvement' includes billions of US$ in military aid every year since forever, doesn't it? I mean Israel wouldn't exist in the first place if not for 'international involvement'. So it cuts both ways.
 

hmg

Victory lap
Israel's nuclear weapons certainly make the situation more ... "interesting"
10s of millions of poorly-integrated Muslims in Europe also make it *interesting*. The authorities seem incapable of containing them. It's not the 1950s where they can be bulldozed into the Seine off camera.
 

hmg

Victory lap
But back to nukes, what would the Samson option look like in practice? Would they lob a dozen into Germany for paypack?
 

vimothy

yurp
Except 'international involvement' includes billions of US$ in military aid every year since forever, doesn't it? I mean Israel wouldn't exist in the first place if not for 'international involvement'. So it cuts both ways.
states dont just disappear on their basis of having or not having aid from the us. yes, international involvement was key to he birth of israel, but its not going to just neatly roll itself up and go away if its us aid is cut
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
states dont just disappear on their basis of having or not having aid from the us. yes, international involvement was key to he birth of israel, but its not going to just neatly roll itself up and go away if its us aid is cut
No, but it might behave differently if it knew there was a serious possibility of that aid being reduced, or cut off altogether. It may not be acting in the way that the most hard-line members of either the government, the military or the general public would like - which is to say, to give every square metre of Gaza the Tokyo '45 treatment - so yes, in that extremely bare sense, the response has been 'moderated'. But I think it's fair to say Israel has only been able to behave in the way that it has because it's benefited from the USA's apparently unconditional support since the country's inception.
 

vimothy

yurp
But back to nukes, what would the Samson option look like in practice? Would they lob a dozen into Germany for paypack?
I think the problem is a bit more prosaic. israel has nukes - what will it take for them to use them? war with iran, where it considers itself to be threatened existential? who is actually in charge of the nukes? Israel is obvs at a point of high pressure in which it's easy to imagine mistakes being made. mistakes are being made, in fact, right now. perhaps this is one explanation for the presence of all of these us air craft carriers in the media - to prevent *israeli* nuclear escalation.
 

hmg

Victory lap
Oh good, that is reassuring at least. If you were Iran, you might think they were on your doorstep, not Israels’s.

Maybe we'll get a USS Liberty rerun, history has that nasty habit.
 
Top