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The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps gave the final go-ahead last Monday in Beirut
Iranian security officials helped plan Hamas’s Saturday surprise attack on Israel and gave the green light for the assault at a meeting in Beirut last Monday, according to senior members of Hamas and Hezbollah, another Iran-backed militant group.
Officers of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had worked with Hamas since August to devise the air, land and sea incursions—the most significant breach of Israel’s borders since the 1973 Yom Kippur War—those people said.
Details of the operation were refined during several meetings in Beirut attended by IRGC officers and representatives of four Iran-backed militant groups, including Hamas, which holds power in Gaza, and Hezbollah, a Shiite militant group and political faction in Lebanon, they said.
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I have nothing but a gut feeling to back this up, but isn’t this oh so convenient for russia? Now the very powerful USA Israel lobby will be asking for as much aid as possible.
I wouldn’t be surprised if russia was behind this and other escalations.
It might disrupt US focus a little, but Israel’s military really doesn’t need help on this. Israel is heavily militarized with a very advanced domestic defense industry. And as much as Russia has flopped, they’re still a former superpower while Hamas is DIYing half their equipment
Logic doesn’t compute for Putin.
He isn’t computin.
does not computin
It is. They also were very, very quick to point out that „the west“ is at fault for supporting Ukraine too much and therefore Israel not enough.
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This does not account for US domestic politics though. Now, Republicans who have been pro-Russia and anti-Ukraine aid will be screaming from the rooftops about how that money should have all gone to Israel instead. They started blaming Biden for this the day it happened, meanwhile not a peep about Netanyahu
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You are correct
I think I saw Russia’s name before, so it’s not just you wondering about that. It would be completely unsurprising to find out that Russia is giving a push to plans that had been mothballed for a while.
I actually think it’s better for russia to fracture the democrats over it. Stop the genocide b/w support Israel. That’s the spin they’re expecting, and have already started to see dividends from that in the press.
The curse of over-simplifying is the only winner in any of that messaging. Keep the discussions long, detailed and boring. Ignore the blaring “dems in disarray” messaging they’ve already got chambered for next week.
I think if they were involved it will backfire on them. The reality is it is now going to be a lot easier, and the military-industrial complex is extremely eager, to put aid for Israel as a joint package in aid with Ukraine. Net result may be that aid is enhanced for both nations.
Edit: that said they do want Iranian drones. I could see them supporting it from that perspective and also happy to run their misinformation campaigns for them to dry and drive a wedge.
It’s not like we really have a budget to hit, we can just fund both. If anything, Republicans in the House who are arguing that we need to spend the money here instead of on military aid will lose that talking point if they vote for Israeli aid. And the Senate who wants Ukrainian money can tie the two together to force more money to Ukraine.
Not that it can’t be Russian-encouraged, they probably do want the US preoccupied somewhere else, but Hamas has their own reasons for launching the attack, not everything has to be about the United States.
Israel’s been neutral in the Ukraine conflict. I doubt Russia would seriously risk turning Israel.
And even then, if Russia wanted to do something theyd do it through Syria, not Gaza.
At the very least this maybe could be a diversion to get eyes off Ukraine but I seriously doubt that. Hamas is probably just pissed off Saudi/Israeli relations have been improving and want to stop that.
Russia really isn’t some illuminati spymaster country.
It could have been a move to take Israel off the “Ukraine Playing Field” before they ever entered. Before, there was a risk of Israel lending support to Ukraine. Now, Israel will be using all of its military capabilities closer to their home.
Of course, that’s just a possibility. Personally, I don’t think Russia had much, if any, hand in this. At most, perhaps Iran told them what was going on so the Russian disinformation machines could spin up as much confusion and dissent as possible in the West.
Russia might also exploit this situation for their gain, but it doesn’t mean they planned it.
Well considering they’re Iran’s biggest ally and Iran wants nothing less than total destruction of State of Israel and slaughtering of all the Jews…
It’s not as simple as that.
Iran fucks with Israel, because Israel fucks with Iran. And they’ve both been at it since 1979.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-56724039
The religious aspect is just icing on the cake to the geopolitical tensions.
Not every attack is caused by the boogieman that people think Russia is
But at the same time, I don’t doubt that Russia will jump in to cause as much chaos as possible if they think it will help them. Just because they didn’t help plan this attack doesn’t mean they can’t push (through “certain people that they know”) for aid to go to Israel instead of Ukraine.
I don’t think this is gonna help Russia. Republicans are gonna look dumb for looking hypocritical when they demand aid be sent to Israel.
Democrats can conveniently package Israel-Ukraine aid to make Republicans, who while resistant to Ukraine aid, see it as the easiest option to satisfy their base.
It’s already happening too. Check the politics sub here.
Republicans are also using the attack for blatant political purposes. One of their newest lines is that Hamas are sending troops across the southern US border to join sleeper cells and attack our cities. And, of course, they claim that Biden is just letting these nonexistent Hamas in because Sleepy Joe/Open Borders/Liberals Evil or something.
I wouldn’t give it that much attention. It’s probably yogurt and greenfield or whatever those weirdos are named.
It starts with people like that (or random conspiracy theorists on X and Truth Social). Then, it spreads to people like Trump. Before you know it, FOX News is running special reports about how Hamas is absolutely crossing the southern border.
They’re likely testing this line out to see what kind of traction it gets and, if it’s successful enough, you’ll see more and more right wing talking heads parroting it.
Who are these senior members of Hamas and Hezbollah that said this? Sounds to me like the article is just war mongering for Israeli attacks on Iran with justifications based on he said she said bullshit with no actual evidence of it. Also article is paywalled.
Ghazi Hamad, a Hamas spokesman, meanwhile told the BBC that the group had direct backing for the attack from Iran.
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Yeah I’ve seen multiple commentators urging readers to take this article with some skepticism
And que World War 3 ladies and gentlemen. Buckle up, because this is gonna get messy.
As a millennial I’m excited to live through my like 5th WW3.
Seriously, every single local war is a fresh breeding ground for WW3 according to morons online
A guy bumped into me at the pub. I fear this could escalate to WW3.1+ PRO MAX
Sponsored by Pepsi.
As a GenX-er, I grew up with WW3 as a constant possibility. My third grade teacher showed us a TV movie about nuclear war that had me thinking every plane that flew overhead was a nuclear missile.
Maybe this is why GenX is the “whatever” generation. When you grow up thinking you’re going to die at any moment, you tend to shrug off a lot of stuff.
Doom-mongering. Climate change would still do more damage than WW3 unfortunately.
Let’s just wait for the Taiwan invasion.
It would be the perfect time for China to attack.
Tell me about it. Wars, financial collapses, housing crisis, mass inflation…
It hasn’t been great.
We’re sending a carrier strike group. This could be an enormous escalation.
They send those things everywhere. This isnt going to escalate much further, its just another regional skirmish that will die down in 1-2 news cycles
Fucking great. I hope cooler heads can prevail.
When both sides of a conflict make the claim that the same piece of dirt is sacred to their religion, it’s unlikely for cooler heads to get a word in edgeways.
Well, there’s also the fact that after WWII, while the Allies were dividing the world up like a giant birthday cake, they created most of these problems: North Korea, Iraq-Kuwait, and plunking a new Jewish country down in the middle of Arabia.
If the Allies had decided that Ohio is a new Jewish country, what would’ve been the fallout from that?
As much as we seem a step removed from this issue, we made the problem.
New Jewish country? It was a Jewish nation first and Jews have lived there FAR longer than Arabs.
This is more like if the US lost WWII and the axis decided to give the Native Americans back their territories.
Even according to the Bible/Torah it wasn’t a Jewish Nation first, it was a “Promised Land” which they conquered.
Also, the concept of a “nation” didn’t exist until the late 1700s. There were Jewish tribes in the Levant region, along with a ton of other tribes, many of which were just loose clans of family groups.
I thought Jews were Arabs.
It gets really into the weeds.
As an ethnic group, Arabs trace back to Abraham through his first son Ishmael from his concubine Hagar.
Jews trace back to Abraham through his son Isaac and grandson Jacob, who was renamed Israel.
Ethnic groups don’t trace back to single people, especially not ones from fairy tales.
Ah, religion…
May the coming nuclear war wipe all forms of religion from the face of the earth. 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻
So we can finally see peace on this planet 🙏🙏🙏🙏
As much as I agree, that religion makes people do stupid/dangerous/horrible things, both of the world wars were not started for religious reasons. So maybe, there are more things that make people hate each other than just religion.
Religion is seldom the initial cause of wars, but it is almost always used as a tool to motivate and drag the population along with the war effort.
But that doesn’t fit the 2008 new atheist narrative
It’s amazing to me that people think they aren’t being antisemitic to simply criticize Israel, but, then military actions are taken against them during the holiest days of Judaism. Yeah, tell me more about how you aren’t antisemitic.
There is one Jewish state in the whole world, and people are intent on destroying it.
You realize the people who attacked them are also semites right? Semite doesn’t equal Jewish. Israel doesn’t equal Judaism.
There are Jews in the US who are critical of the nation state of Israel. Curious how that fits in your framework. You think they are just ethnomasocists?
I see you didn’t address that they attack on holy days. Interesting omission.
I don’t see how it is relevant, but if that is very important to you then you should also know that the Israelis attack the Palestinians basically every Ramadan.
The same could be said on Israel for attacking Muslims on Eid at Al-Aqsa, the third holiest site in islam.
I think criticizing Israel is antisemitic
This is basically what you just said, but I really don’t understand how you think there’s any country in the world that’s beyond reproach? Thinking that you can’t criticize a country ever for anything or you’re an antisemite seems like blatant propaganda for that country
It’s absolutely awful what happened, and it is the responsibility of Hamas, and also Israeli policies toward Palestinians created the climate in which this sort of attack can be cultivated by bad actors. Unfortunately, when Israel kills a bunch Palestinian civilians, which happens often, it doesn’t typically make the front page
I didn’t say they couldn’t be criticized ever. In fact, I often am critical myslef. You’re the one that suggested they can’t be criticized ever. Also, this is much different than what you think should make the front page regularly.
It’s amazing to me that people think they aren’t being antisemitic to simply criticize Israel
You said this. What did you mean if not “criticizing Israel is antisemitic?”
I may have stated that poorly. It’s what people think. Which is fine. But then they don’t notice the fact that these attacks are coming on holidays. I don’t think these things are separate. To have a complete blind spot there seems to be a window for antisemitism. One that they aren’t even aware of themselves.
I’m Jewish and my take on the whole “criticizing Israel is antisemitic” thing is: Context Matters.
Are you criticizing the Israeli government/military for an action they took? You’re not being antisemitic.
Are you criticizing all Israelis for the actions of the Israeli government/military? You’re being antisemitic. (For an example here, would you blame all Americans for the actions of Trump even though over half of them voted against him?)
Are you criticizing all Jews, regardless of where they live, for the actions of the Israeli government/military? You’re definitely being antisemitic. I’m an American Jew and have about as much pull in Israeli affairs as a random citizen of the UK has in US affairs.
Time and empathy also matter. If you heard of the slaughter of 700 civilians and said “Israel is to blame for this” or “this is an appropriate response given what was done to the Palestinian people,” then - yes - I’d consider that antisemitic. Not because it’s not allowed to show support to the plight of the Palestinian people, but because responding in this way minimizes the suffering of one group (Israelis) because another group is suffering.
To give an example in this case, imagine if you broke your leg and your friend said “you expect sympathy from me? People are dying of cancer and you only have a broken leg!” You’d probably be insulted that they were minimizing your pain and suffering. You could acknowledge that the people dying of cancer definitely have it worse and also warrant empathy, but empathy shouldn’t be reserved only for the group that has it worst.
Neither should a group be denied empathy because their government/military takes actions that are repugnant. If this is the case, then the Palestinian people should be denied empathy because of this attack. (A statement which I don’t support, but am using to prove a point.)
In short, context always matters. Criticizing Israel, like so many things in life and especially like the quagmire in the middle east, isn’t a black and white affair.
That’s just tactics. The best time to attack is when everyone sleeps outside. It’s gruesome, but the holiday itself may not be relevant, just the celebration of it.
