Hamas attacks Israel

[Renauda]

Stop being obtuse. And stay on topic, once again you fall back to your preferred tactic of throwing out distractors when your argument is under question.

Of course there’s weapons corruption in Ukraine, no one suggests otherwise.

[Jolly]

I'm not being obtuse. I've been quite plain.

And I can walk and chew bubblegum at the same time.

[Renauda]

I sometimes wonder.

[Renauda]

Lawrence Freedman’s analysis of the current situation. A long read but worth the time and effort:

https://open.substack.com/pub/samf/p/hamas-attacks-israel?r=17wfy3&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

[LuFins Dad]

@jon-nyc said in Hamas attacks Israel:

Watch the whole thing.

No, I don’t think i will.

[George K]

@jon-nyc said in Hamas attacks Israel:

@George-K

And even that guy uses only future tense verbs. The fungibility argument is reasonable, just not yet.

Putting aside the $6B for a moment, there's this, from a while ago:

https://freebeacon.com/biden-administration/biden-admin-raised-concerns-palestinian-aid-would-boost-hamas-it-went-ahead-with-aid-anyway/

State Department officials in 2021 outlined the concerns in private communications, asking the Treasury Department to exempt them from laws that bar the U.S. government from injecting taxpayer aid into territories controlled by Palestinian terror groups. The Biden administration needed this authorization in order to move forward with its plans to unfreeze more than $360 million in U.S. funds for the Palestinian Authority that were cut off during the Trump administration due to the authority's support for terrorists.

"We assess there is a high risk Hamas could potentially derive indirect, unintentional benefit from U.S. assistance to Gaza. There is less but still some risk U.S. assistance would benefit other designated groups," the State Department wrote in a draft sanctions exemption request circulated internally in March 2021, shortly after Biden took office. "Notwithstanding this risk, State believes it is in our national security interest to provide assistance in the West Bank and Gaza to support the foreign policy objectives."

The documents—obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the watchdog group Protect the Public’s Trust—show the Biden administration was privately worried its efforts to restart Palestinian aid could benefit Hamas and other terror factions operating in the Gaza Strip. As officials publicly provided assurances to Congress and the press that this aid would be doled out "consistent with U.S. law," the State Department was scrambling to secure a sanctions exemption that would let it skirt anti-terrorism laws.

[jon-nyc]

[jon-nyc]

[George K]

"The civilian evacuation "will be completed today," and then we'll turn it into a parking lot.

[George K]

"After making that statement on Fox and Friends, the ambassador received clarification on the number of Americans, and now says it is less than one dozen.

I’m not sure how the number changes the dynamic but I want to make sure I share accurate information"

[jon-nyc]

@George-K said in Hamas attacks Israel:

"The civilian evacuation "will be completed today," and then we'll turn it into a parking lot.

To be clear they’re evacuating Israeli citizens from those towns. Presumably they’ll leave the towns alone but want to make sure there aren’t civilians that close to the fighting.

[jon-nyc]

@George-K

I wonder if they’re all dual citizens that reside there, or if there were some unlucky vacationers caught up in it.

[Horace]

It will be interesting to see how this affects their culture war. Well, I don't suppose I'll know, because all culture war news is filtered by whomever is telling it. On this morning's shellshocked Bari Weiss podcast, her Israeli guest predicted the Bibi government "won't survive this". But it can't be lost on many that their left, anti-Bibi side was recently bragging about the members of the military who said they would refuse to show up for Bibi. I wonder what those members of the military are publicly saying now that shit got real.

[jon-nyc]

I think for now it’s all hands on deck, only later will the recriminations start.

[Jolly]

@Horace said in Hamas attacks Israel:

It will be interesting to see how this affects their culture war. Well, I don't suppose I'll know, because all culture war news is filtered by whomever is telling it. On this morning's shellshocked Bari Weiss podcast, her Israeli guest predicted the Bibi government "won't survive this". But it can't be lost on many that their left, anti-Bibi side was recently bragging about the members of the military who said they would refuse to show up for Bibi. I wonder what those members of the military are publicly saying now that shit got real.

I suspect it's either show up or the consequences will be very severe.

Do not let they alligator mouth overload they hummingbird ass. So to speak.

[George K]

[George K]

[taiwan_girl]

The USS Gerald R. Ford the Navy’s newest and most advanced aircraft carrier, and its approximately 5,000 sailors and deck of warplanes will be accompanied by cruisers and destroyers in a show of force that is meant to be ready to respond to anything, from possibly interdicting additional weapons from reaching Hamas and conducting surveillance.
The large deployment, which also includes a host of ships and warplanes, underscores the concern that the United States has in trying to deter the conflict from growing. The Israeli government formally declared war Sunday and gave the green light for “significant military steps” to retaliate against Hamas.

https://www.defensenews.com/news/pentagon-congress/2023/10/08/us-military-to-move-a-carrier-strike-group-in-support-of-israel/

[taiwan_girl]

@jon-nyc said in Hamas attacks Israel:

My bad those dimensions are Gaza city not the whole strip. The strip is 4 Napervilles.

Still it’s narrow, between 6-12 km. With only 20k soldiers you could literally stand shoulder to shoulder across the strip at it’s widest point.

Yes, I was surprised at how small the land dimensions are of Gaza strip.

[jon-nyc]