Re: Israel vs Palestine/Lebanon/Iran/Yemen/Syria: a New Middle East War
An analysis on the USA's unconditional support of Israel.
Phil Giraldi: US a Rogue Power.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=yC4Eie1Inug
Re: Israel vs Palestine/Lebanon/Iran/Yemen/Syria: a New Middle East War
Ooof. Utterly damning, and revealing. A killer article. I've done a sub-editorial truncation job on some of this as it's very long. Journalism at its very finest here....
‘Lavender’: The AI machine directing Israel’s bombing spree in Gaza
Source: +972 Magazine
Author: Yuval Abraham
Published: April 3rd, 2024
The Israeli army has marked tens of thousands of Gazans as suspects for assassination, using an AI targeting system with little human oversight and a permissive policy for casualties, +972 and Local Call reveal
In 2021, a book titled “The Human-Machine Team: How to Create Synergy Between Human and Artificial Intelligence That Will Revolutionize Our World” was released in English under the pen name “Brigadier General Y.S.” In it, the author — a man who we confirmed to be the current commander of the elite Israeli intelligence unit 8200 — makes the case for designing a special machine that could rapidly process massive amounts of data to generate thousands of potential “targets” for military strikes in the heat of a war. Such technology, he writes, would resolve what he described as a “human bottleneck for both locating the new targets and decision-making to approve the targets.”
Such a machine, it turns out, actually exists. A new investigation by +972 Magazine and Local Call reveals that the Israeli army has developed an artificial intelligence-based program known as “Lavender,” unveiled here for the first time. According to six Israeli intelligence officers, who have all served in the army during the current war on the Gaza Strip and had first-hand involvement with the use of AI to generate targets for assassination, Lavender has played a central role in the unprecedented bombing of Palestinians, especially during the early stages of the war. In fact, according to the sources, its influence on the military’s operations was such that they essentially treated the outputs of the AI machine “as if it were a human decision.”
Formally, the Lavender system is designed to mark all suspected operatives in the military wings of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), including low-ranking ones, as potential bombing targets. The sources told +972 and Local Call that, during the first weeks of the war, the army almost completely relied on Lavender, which clocked as many as 37,000 Palestinians as suspected militants — and their homes — for possible air strikes.
During the early stages of the war, the army gave sweeping approval for officers to adopt Lavender’s kill lists, with no requirement to thoroughly check why the machine made those choices or to examine the raw intelligence data on which they were based. One source stated that human personnel often served only as a “rubber stamp” for the machine’s decisions, adding that, normally, they would personally devote only about “20 seconds” to each target before authorizing a bombing — just to make sure the Lavender-marked target is male. This was despite knowing that the system makes what are regarded as “errors” in approximately 10 percent of cases, and is known to occasionally mark individuals who have merely a loose connection to militant groups, or no connection at all.
Moreover, the Israeli army systematically attacked the targeted individuals while they were in their homes — usually at night while their whole families were present — rather than during the course of military activity. According to the sources, this was because, from what they regarded as an intelligence standpoint, it was easier to locate the individuals in their private houses. Additional automated systems, including one called “Where’s Daddy?” also revealed here for the first time, were used specifically to track the targeted individuals and carry out bombings when they had entered their family’s residences.
he result, as the sources testified, is that thousands of Palestinians — most of them women and children or people who were not involved in the fighting — were wiped out by Israeli airstrikes, especially during the first weeks of the war, because of the AI program’s decisions.
“We were not interested in killing [Hamas] operatives only when they were in a military building or engaged in a military activity,” A., an intelligence officer, told +972 and Local Call. “On the contrary, the IDF bombed them in homes without hesitation, as a first option. It’s much easier to bomb a family’s home. The system is built to look for them in these situations.”
The Lavender machine joins another AI system, “The Gospel,” about which information was revealed in a previous investigation by +972 and Local Call in November 2023, as well as in the Israeli military’s own publications. A fundamental difference between the two systems is in the definition of the target: whereas The Gospel marks buildings and structures that the army claims militants operate from, Lavender marks people — and puts them on a kill list.
In addition, according to the sources, when it came to targeting alleged junior militants marked by Lavender, the army preferred to only use unguided missiles, commonly known as “dumb” bombs (in contrast to “smart” precision bombs), which can destroy entire buildings on top of their occupants and cause significant casualties. “You don’t want to waste expensive bombs on unimportant people — it’s very expensive for the country and there’s a shortage [of those bombs],” said C., one of the intelligence officers. Another source said that they had personally authorized the bombing of “hundreds” of private homes of alleged junior operatives marked by Lavender, with many of these attacks killing civilians and entire families as “collateral damage.”
In an unprecedented move, according to two of the sources, the army also decided during the first weeks of the war that, for every junior Hamas operative that Lavender marked, it was permissible to kill up to 15 or 20 civilians; in the past, the military did not authorize any “collateral damage” during assassinations of low-ranking militants. The sources added that, in the event that the target was a senior Hamas official with the rank of battalion or brigade commander, the army on several occasions authorized the killing of more than 100 civilians in the assassination of a single commander.
The following investigation is organized according to the six chronological stages of the Israeli army’s highly automated target production in the early weeks of the Gaza war. First, we explain the Lavender machine itself, which marked tens of thousands of Palestinians using AI. Second, we reveal the “Where’s Daddy?” system, which tracked these targets and signaled to the army when they entered their family homes. Third, we describe how “dumb” bombs were chosen to strike these homes.
Fourth, we explain how the army loosened the permitted number of civilians who could be killed during the bombing of a target. Fifth, we note how automated software inaccurately calculated the amount of non-combatants in each household. And sixth, we show how on several occasions, when a home was struck, usually at night, the individual target was sometimes not inside at all, because military officers did not verify the information in real time.
..
However, once the list was expanded to include tens of thousands of lower-ranking operatives, the Israeli army figured it had to rely on automated software and artificial intelligence. The result, the sources testify, was that the role of human personnel in incriminating Palestinians as military operatives was pushed aside, and AI did most of the work instead. According to four of the sources who spoke to +972 and Local Call, Lavender — which was developed to create human targets in the current war — has marked some 37,000 Palestinians as suspected “Hamas militants,” most of them junior, for assassination (the IDF Spokesperson denied the existence of such a kill list in a statement to +972 and Local Call).
“We didn’t know who the junior operatives were, because Israel didn’t track them routinely [before the war],” explained senior officer B. to +972 and Local Call, illuminating the reason behind the development of this particular target machine for the current war. “They wanted to allow us to attack [the junior operatives] automatically. That’s the Holy Grail. Once you go automatic, target generation goes crazy.”
The sources said that the approval to automatically adopt Lavender’s kill lists, which had previously been used only as an auxiliary tool, was granted about two weeks into the war, after intelligence personnel “manually” checked the accuracy of a random sample of several hundred targets selected by the AI system. When that sample found that Lavender’s results had reached 90 percent accuracy in identifying an individual’s affiliation with Hamas, the army authorized the sweeping use of the system. From that moment, sources said that if Lavender decided an individual was a militant in Hamas, they were essentially asked to treat that as an order, with no requirement to independently check why the machine made that choice or to examine the raw intelligence data on which it is based.
“At 5 a.m., [the air force] would come and bomb all the houses that we had marked,” B. said. “We took out thousands of people. We didn’t go through them one by one — we put everything into automated systems, and as soon as one of [the marked individuals] was at home, he immediately became a target. We bombed him and his house.”
“It was very surprising for me that we were asked to bomb a house to kill a ground soldier, whose importance in the fighting was so low,” said one source about the use of AI to mark alleged low-ranking militants. “I nicknamed those targets ‘garbage targets.’ Still, I found them more ethical than the targets that we bombed just for ‘deterrence’ — highrises that are evacuated and toppled just to cause destruction.”
The deadly results of this loosening of restrictions in the early stage of the war were staggering. According to data from the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza, on which the Israeli army has relied almost exclusively since the beginning of the war, Israel killed some 15,000 Palestinians — almost half of the death toll so far — in the first six weeks of the war, up until a week-long ceasefire was agreed on Nov. 24.
...
‘The more information and variety, the better’
The Lavender software analyzes information collected on most of the 2.3 million residents of the Gaza Strip through a system of mass surveillance, then assesses and ranks the likelihood that each particular person is active in the military wing of Hamas or PIJ. According to sources, the machine gives almost every single person in Gaza a rating from 1 to 100, expressing how likely it is that they are a militant.
Lavender learns to identify characteristics of known Hamas and PIJ operatives, whose information was fed to the machine as training data, and then to locate these same characteristics — also called “features” — among the general population, the sources explained. An individual found to have several different incriminating features will reach a high rating, and thus automatically becomes a potential target for assassination.
In “The Human-Machine Team,” the book referenced at the beginning of this article, the current commander of Unit 8200 advocates for such a system without referencing Lavender by name. (The commander himself also isn’t named, but five sources in 8200 confirmed that the commander is the author, as reported also by Haaretz.) Describing human personnel as a “bottleneck” that limits the army’s capacity during a military operation, the commander laments: “We [humans] cannot process so much information. It doesn’t matter how many people you have tasked to produce targets during the war — you still cannot produce enough targets per day.”
The solution to this problem, he says, is artificial intelligence. The book offers a short guide to building a “target machine,” similar in description to Lavender, based on AI and machine-learning algorithms. Included in this guide are several examples of the “hundreds and thousands” of features that can increase an individual’s rating, such as being in a Whatsapp group with a known militant, changing cell phone every few months, and changing addresses frequently.
“The more information, and the more variety, the better,” the commander writes. “Visual information, cellular information, social media connections, battlefield information, phone contacts, photos.” While humans select these features at first, the commander continues, over time the machine will come to identify features on its own. This, he says, can enable militaries to create “tens of thousands of targets,” while the actual decision as to whether or not to attack them will remain a human one.
The book isn’t the only time a senior Israeli commander hinted at the existence of human target machines like Lavender. +972 and Local Call have obtained footage of a private lecture given by the commander of Unit 8200’s secretive Data Science and AI center, “Col. Yoav,” at Tel Aviv University’s AI week in 2023, which was reported on at the time in the Israeli media.
In the lecture, the commander speaks about a new, sophisticated target machine used by the Israeli army that detects “dangerous people” based on their likeness to existing lists of known militants on which it was trained. “Using the system, we managed to identify Hamas missile squad commanders,” “Col. Yoav” said in the lecture, referring to Israel’s May 2021 military operation in Gaza, when the machine was used for the first time.
...
The lecture presentation slides, also obtained by +972 and Local Call, contain illustrations of how the machine works: it is fed data about existing Hamas operatives, it learns to notice their features, and then it rates other Palestinians based on how similar they are to the militants.
“We rank the results and determine the threshold [at which to attack a target],” “Col. Yoav” said in the lecture, emphasizing that “eventually, people of flesh and blood take the decisions. In the defense realm, ethically speaking, we put a lot of emphasis on this. These tools are meant to help [intelligence officers] break their barriers.”
In practice, however, sources who have used Lavender in recent months say human agency and precision were substituted for mass target creation and lethality.
(the article with many images and links continues here...)
Re: Israel vs Palestine/Lebanon/Iran/Yemen/Syria: a New Middle East War
Another moment that will, likely as not, miraculously escape the editorial desks in the mainstream media newsrooms...
Source: https://twitter.com/ecomarxi/status/1775557918517084237
BREAKING: demonstrators stormed the Knesset live on air to demand the overthrow of the Israeli government
Re: Israel vs Palestine/Lebanon/Iran/Yemen/Syria: a New Middle East War
Anya Parampil
"Israel today has nothing to do with biblical Israel. The people who run it have zero line to the biblical Israelites. They are secular Europeans abusing scripture in order to justify their depravity & shield themselves from criticism as they march us towards nuclear holocaust. Wake up."
2:12 PM · Apr 3, 2024
Re: Israel vs Palestine/Lebanon/Iran/Yemen/Syria: a New Middle East War
Re: Israel vs Palestine/Lebanon/Iran/Yemen/Syria: a New Middle East War
¤=[Post Update]=¤
Text:
🇮🇱🇪🇬⚔️🇵🇸🇪🇬The normalizing Egyptian security services carried out a series of arrests and summons against several Egyptian protestors chanting for Palestine yesterday in front of the Journalists Syndicate, including those calling Ibrahim Al-Arjani a zionist agent and that "any president" must fall.
Yesterday's protests were marked by rising anger and dissatisfaction among Egyptians of the role of El-Sisi in handling the Gaza genocide. This comes just day's after El-Sisi, who protestors in Iraq and New York have called "the enemy of Allah," inaugurated himself as President as he enters his 10th consecutive year in the position.
Discontent continues to grow with Sisi's regime, which is a direct partner and profiteer of the genocide taking place in Gaza. Arrests of pro-Palestine protests by the normalizing Jordanian regime have also not slowed.
PraxisRedacted
https://x.com/dana916/status/1775943154929127666
¤=[Post Update]=¤
Text:
🇮🇷⚰️Ayatollah Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, offers prayers over the deceased bodies of the seven Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) officers killed by Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in Damascus
According to Iranian State Media, "in this ceremony, where the families of the martyrs Major General Mohammad Reza Zahedi, Brigadier General Mohammad Hadi Haji Rahimi, Hossein Amanollahi, Seyed Mehdi Jaladati, Mohsen Sadaqat, Ali Agha Babaei and Seyed Ali Salehi Rozbahani were present, the leader of the revolution prayed for these martyrs, with the families of these martyrs"
BellumActaNews
https://x.com/dana916/status/1775943647378161999
¤=[Post Update]=¤
https://x.com/dana916/status/1775941950488691078
¤=[Post Update]=¤
Text:
🇮🇱🇪🇬⚔️🇵🇸🇪🇬The normalizing Egyptian security services carried out a series of arrests and summons against several Egyptian protestors chanting for Palestine yesterday in front of the Journalists Syndicate, including those calling Ibrahim Al-Arjani a zionist agent and that "any president" must fall.
Yesterday's protests were marked by rising anger and dissatisfaction among Egyptians of the role of El-Sisi in handling the Gaza genocide. This comes just day's after El-Sisi, who protestors in Iraq and New York have called "the enemy of Allah," inaugurated himself as President as he enters his 10th consecutive year in the position.
Discontent continues to grow with Sisi's regime, which is a direct partner and profiteer of the genocide taking place in Gaza. Arrests of pro-Palestine protests by the normalizing Jordanian regime have also not slowed.
PraxisRedacted
https://x.com/dana916/status/1775943154929127666
Re: Israel vs Palestine/Lebanon/Iran/Yemen/Syria: a New Middle East War
🇮🇱⚔️🇮🇷Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu said that if Iran attacks the Jewish state, he will give them hell.
“For years, Iran has been working against us both directly and through its emissaries, and so Israel has worked against Iran and its emissaries, both defensively and offensively.
We know how to protect ourselves, and we will act on a simple principle: whoever harms us or plans to harm us, we will harm him."
srochnow
https://x.com/dana916/status/1775956969586610390
¤=[Post Update]=¤
Text:
🇵🇸🇮🇷🕌⚔️🇮🇱On the occasion of Quds Day, a special edition of the English-language newspaper Tehran Times was published with the text on the front page:
“We will pray in Quds soon. STORM IS COMING. The zionist regime will grow weaker day by day, moving closer to its decline and extinction”.
https://x.com/dana916/status/1775958676244779231
¤=[Post Update]=¤
Text:
Hamas Spox: "Our great Palestinian people have proven over the past half year that they are a mountain of tolerance and that they recall in their struggle all of the elements of strength and will and steadfastness. And on these rocks, all of the aggressive plans will be crushed.
All the plans which are being put together by our enemy and those who support it on the Gaza Strip will be crushed as a result of the steadfastness and resistance of the Palestinian people. All of these plans will be crushed."
https://x.com/upholdreality/status/1775899768767775164
¤=[Post Update]=¤
https://x.com/MiddleEastEye/status/1775959919339946011
¤=[Post Update]=¤
Text:
video showing the Israeli army shooting a Palestinian civilian several times after he managed to get an aid package thrown from the air . The Israeli army continued shooting him after he was injured while he was trying to crawl away. Then he was left to bleed to death and his body was left to the dogs.
https://x.com/MustafaBarghou1/status...52936436158879
Re: Israel vs Palestine/Lebanon/Iran/Yemen/Syria: a New Middle East War
Text:
❝There's soldiers shooting people trying to get aid❞
❝By continuing to trade weapons with Israel and sending Israel weapons, Israel's become a Germany is complicit in these crimes❞
Neve Gordon, International Law & Human Rights Professor, speaks to Anadolu about Israeli-Palestinian conflict and West's policies on issue
https://x.com/anadoluagency/status/1775894869246173298
¤=[Post Update]=¤
https://x.com/anadoluagency/status/1775954002020114770
¤=[Post Update]=¤
https://x.com/MayadeenEnglish/status...53084495114550
¤=[Post Update]=¤
https://x.com/MayadeenEnglish/status...48882767220839
Re: Israel vs Palestine/Lebanon/Iran/Yemen/Syria: a New Middle East War
Video: A numeration proof of Israel’s genocide in Gaza
Text:
These staggering numbers only scratch the surface of the sufferings endured by the people of #Gaza under the Israeli occupation.
Each figure reveals the true extent of Israeli brutality, as Palestinians continue to bear the brunt of "Israel's" relentless attacks in Gaza.
Adding to this devastation is the catastrophic humanitarian situation that the people of Gaza are forced to endure. "Israel" is starving the people of Gaza and depriving them of proper medical attention due to hospitals being either completely or partially inoperable. Moreover, hospitals lack essential medicines and equipment.
https://x.com/MayadeenEnglish/status...40010019095034
Re: Israel vs Palestine/Lebanon/Iran/Yemen/Syria: a New Middle East War
¤=[Post Update]=¤
https://x.com/QudsNen/status/1775916270593941554
¤=[Post Update]=¤
https://x.com/QudsNen/status/1775899909235028455
Re: Israel vs Palestine/Lebanon/Iran/Yemen/Syria: a New Middle East War
- U.K. Official Accuses Israel Of War Crimes In Leaked Audio!:
Re: Israel vs Palestine/Lebanon/Iran/Yemen/Syria: a New Middle East War
The strategic and tactical planning of the extermination operation waged by the Zionist warlords against the Palestinians by A.I. was something I suspected from the beginning. The IDF servicemen are the human robots used by the cybernetic general to carry it out.
When one thinks the whole operation through from the beginning, it may strike one as highly probable that also the so-called “Hamas atrocities” of the 7th of October were the tactical realisation of an A.I. strategy corresponding to a political plan.
All further discussion of the whole “conflict” (i.e. the Nazi-type extermination campaign waged by the Zionist warlords against what the IDF soldiery and the Zionist populace call “the Palestinian natsees”) is fundamentally flawed – and can never reach the level of truth – until “the possibility of this probability” is understood and accepted.
(The “conflict” in Russia/Ukraine is not of the same nature.)
Re: Israel vs Palestine/Lebanon/Iran/Yemen/Syria: a New Middle East War
Might have to start another thread soon!
Quote:
CIA 'warns Iran will attack Israel within 48 hours' as revenge for consulate strike
The CIA has warned Israel that Iran will attack the country in the next 48 hours, it has been reported.
Israel killed two Iranian military commanders with a strike on Tehran's consulate in the Syrian capital Damascus this week.
Iran vowed that it would take revenge for the attack, and now foreign media is reporting that US intelligence is fearful of an attack on Israel.
Tehran is said to be planning a combined attack with a "rain" of drones and missiles fired from its bases at strategic locations inside Israel, according to Al Mayadeen.
Source
Re: Israel vs Palestine/Lebanon/Iran/Yemen/Syria: a New Middle East War
Must watch this 18 minutes interview with George Galloway and Pepe Escobar:
'All of the latest attacks by Israel are aimed at stopping the BRICS.'
Israel’s is conducting a flurry of attacks nearly all at once, designed to detract public attention:
- Massacre at Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza killed 400 Palestinians including medical staff
- The attack that killed 7 aid World Kitchen workers in Gaza
- Bombing of the Iranian consulate in Syria
In less than 48 hours Israel destroyed everything about the ‘rule based order’, and shows there are no longer any international rules. Israel still thinks it can get away with it all. Nobody is able to stop them.
About NATO: still stuck in the same ruts about arming Ukraine, despite its collapsing front. NATO is simply relaying the orders from the hegemonic powers. Russia will continue to military stop NATO attempted establishment in Ukraine.
“Will Iran respond directly to the embassy slaughter in Damascus? A direct response can be made indirectly, points out analyst Pepe Escobar”
INTERVIEW: Slowly, slowly catchee monkey
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Hj-qlJVuOK0
Re: Israel vs Palestine/Lebanon/Iran/Yemen/Syria: a New Middle East War
Quote:
Posted by
Ravenlocke
The normalizing Egyptian security services carried out a series of arrests and summons against several Egyptian protestors chanting for Palestine yesterday in front of the Journalists Syndicate, including those calling Ibrahim Al-Arjani a zionist agent and that "any president" must fall.
Discontent continues to grow with Sisi's regime, which is a direct partner and profiteer of the genocide taking place in Gaza. Arrests of pro-Palestine protests by the normalizing Jordanian regime have also not slowed.
Egypt and the Hashemites are reflecting that pan-Arab weakness called Muslim Brotherhood. It is also influential in Lebanon and Turkey. I believe it has been purged from Syria.
It is a kind of toothless tiger like the PLO.
Assessment from a guy who has to deal with it:
Quote:
Israeli occupation military announced on Thursday it has cancelled home leave for all combat troops.
“The IDF is at war and the issue of the deployment of forces is constantly reviewed as needed,” the occupation army said, referring to Israeli occupation forces.
Last night the occupation military also announced it was bolstering air defenses and calling up reservists, following an assessment.
“Not Certain that Worst is Behind Us”
For his part, the chief of the Israeli Military Intelligence Directorate told subordinate officers that ‘Israel’ is to face “complex days.”
“I have told you more than once that it is not certain that the worst is behind us, and we have complex days ahead of us,” The Times of Israeli quoted Maj. Gen. Aharon Haliva as saying, citing a release by the occupation army.
Haliva’s comments are made during a talk with commanders in the directorate’s Research Department, the Israeli media outlet added.
Widespread GPS Disruptions
On the other hand, Israelis in the Zionist entity’s center reported widespread disruptions to navigation apps like Google Maps, Waze and other systems that use GPS with many Tel Aviv motorists being shown that they were in Beirut.
The GPS disruptions have previously been widely reported in the Zionist entity’s north or areas close to Gaza, but have been less common in the central region. They have been blamed on the Israeli occupation military blocking some global positioning system (GPS) signals amid the ongoing war with the Palestinian and Lebanese resistance groups.
And from the dealer:
Quote:
In an address to officials of the Iranian administration and other branches of government on Wednesday, the Leader stressed that the attack which killed top Iranian generals the premises of the Iranian embassy in Syria’s capital earlier this week would fail to save ‘Israel’ from its defeat in Gaza where it has been engaged in nearly six months of aggression against the Palestinians.
“The cowardly efforts by the Zionist regime like the one they carried out in Syria will not save them from defeat. They will of course receive a slap in the face for this move,” his eminence said, as quoted by Iranian media.
“The Zionist regime’s defeat in Gaza will continue and this regime will approach demise and collapse,” said the Leader.
He described the crimes committed by the Israeli regime in Gaza as “unprecedented in history” and said the scale of crimes even caused uproar among people who have been brought up in the Western culture.
“This year’s Quds Day will be an international revolt against the usurper Zionist regime,” he stated.
Re: Israel vs Palestine/Lebanon/Iran/Yemen/Syria: a New Middle East War
Today, this is Julian MacFarlane on Mindlessness:
Zionist desperation
Israel is getting desperate.
What the Russians call the “World Majority” now see the “Zionist Entity” as a rogue state – and a threat.
Although the US continues to spend taxpayer dollars giving Israel financial aid and bombs and ammunition to kill children, the upcoming election has forced the Biden Neo-Zionist regime to abstain on Security Council resolutions against Israel in an effort to look vaguely human.
But since its founding, Israel has rejected international norms – counting on knee-jerk US support – which, at least up until now, it always got – even when it sunk the USS Liberty.
But the war against Hamas is not going well.
Hezbollah is keeping the pressure on.
Israel has evacuated about 80,000 people from northern settlements and deployed 100,000 soldiers to the border. Hezbollah is progressing —and manufactures many of its own weapons, drawing on Iranian expertise and advice. In addition, it has been searching for and finding workarounds to penetrate Israel’s Iron Dome system.
Hezbollah benefits from Qds Force expertise, as do the Houthis who have successfully crippled sea traffic to Israel – although the Israelis have created a land bridge between Saudi Arabia and Israel via Jordan. It can’t really compensate logistically using trucks – of course, and it also opens up new opportunities for the Axis Of Resistance.
The Islamic Resistance in Iraq has prepared its equipment to equip the brothers, the Mujahideen of the Islamic Resistance in Jordan, to meet the needs of 12,000 fighters with light and medium weapons, anti-armor launchers, tactical missiles, millions of ammunition, and tons of explosives. Security official of the Iraqi #Hezbollah Brigades, Hajj Abu Ali Al-Askari.
The Israeli economy is sinking fast along with ships in the Red Sea.
That has led to changes….
Everyday welfare spending (long generous in Israel, owing to its socialist foundations) will be slashed in order to fund the country’s armed forces. The military budget will almost double from 2023 to 2024. Israel’s unwritten social contract, which has for 70-odd years promised both a generous welfare state and a fearsome military, is under threat.
This, in one of the world’s most unequal economies!
One thing is clear: Israel’s much vaunted “legitimacy” depends upon Americans being willing to pay for its support. But it is time to circle the wagons. Maybe the cavalry isn’t coming.
To the North, Syria. To the West, Lebanon. To the South, Palestine—and an increasingly unstable Egypt. To the East., Jordan –also unstable.
Gotcha surrounded.
Looks like the Zionist dream of the greater Zion, encompassing half the Middle East, may have to wait.
Stupid and stupider
The US is not evil— it is stupid.
Israel is not evil either – just me-too stupid.
Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice. One
may protest against evil; it can be exposed and, if need be, prevented
by use of force. Evil always carries within itself the germ of its own
subversion in that it leaves behind in human beings at least a sense of
unease. Against stupidity we are defenseless. Neither protests nor the
use of force accomplish anything here; reasons fall on deaf ears; facts
that contradict one’s prejudgment simply need not be believed—in
such moments the stupid person even becomes critical—and when
facts are irrefutable they are just pushed aside as inconsequential, as
incidental. In all this the stupid person, in contrast to the malicious
one, is utterly self-satisfied and, being easily irritated, becomes
dangerous by going on the attack. For that reason, greater caution is
called for when dealing with a stupid person than with a malicious
one. Never again will we try to persuade the stupid person with
reasons, for it is senseless and dangerous.
-Dietrich Boenhoffer
US support for Israel is idiotic. And, in its way, worse than evil.
Israeli genocide on the Palestinians and its attacks on Lebanon and Syria and Iran are both evil and stupid.
With both the US and Israel, generations of mistakes are having consequences. If these countries disappear from the maps— hoorah!
https://s2.cdnstatic.space/wp-conten.../2024/04/5.jpg
https://s2.cdnstatic.space/wp-conten.../6-468x300.jpg
Wishful thinking of course …
Losers double down on dumb
In the case of Israel, it is clearly losing in all areas – so what does it do?
It attacks an embassy – in a foreign country —violating international law. It kills some Iranian generals, as well as innocent civilians – which doesn’t help its cause, militarily, diplomatically, or morally. Kind of like peeing in the middle of the street during rush hour. Worse because no one dies when you pee.
And Israel adds insult to injury by murdering 7 World Center Kitchen (aka WCK) workers – Polish, British, and Australian. That generated huge outrage in the West —since 1 Pole, or Brit or Aussi=a couple of hundred Palestinian children.
As Larry Johnson points out, this particular atrocity is just what the Israeli military does. He calls it “unprofessional” – I call it dumb, too.
That said, it is in some sense predictable when you have the entire culture built on victim-hood, exceptionalism, and correlative dehumanization of others.
The attack on the aid workers was an ad hoc action by a military out-of-control and with no moral or ethical sense. Simple bloody mindedness. And, sadly shared by a majority of Israelis.
The attack on the embassy in Syria was a strategic provocation – alienating both the US and Israel globally. Strategically speaking – incredibly stupid.
The US claimed it didn’t know about the attack. It knows about ISIS K attacks but not Israeli ones! This is stupid too. Does anyone believe what the US says anymore? US Intelligence claims to know everything but somehow missed out on this plan? And, of course, the US tried to imply that it was all Iran’s fault!
Deputy US Ambassador Robert Wood denied that his country was involved. He said,
“One thing is clear: Iran and its proxy and partner groups need to avoid escalating tensions in the region.”
Wood also accused Iran and Syria of backing groups that have plotted attacks on US and Israeli personnel and facilities.
Building your own funeral pyre
The Iranians of course will take revenge.
The attack on the embassy will have no effect on their support for the Syrians or Hezbollah or Hamas or the Houthis.
Re: Israel vs Palestine/Lebanon/Iran/Yemen/Syria: a New Middle East War
Max Blumenthal: Netanyahu's Crimes Against Humanity.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=ZDsBTYHNYFU
Re: Israel vs Palestine/Lebanon/Iran/Yemen/Syria: a New Middle East War
Some good news of sort in this genocide perpetrated by Israel as Singapore goes halfway around the world to aid the Palestinians.
SAF completes C-130 Aircraft Deployment for Airdrop Operations over Gaza
Quote:
" The Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) C-130 transport aircraft has returned from its two-week deployment in Jordan, after completing the delivery of Singapore's third tranche of humanitarian aid and conduct of humanitarian airdrop operations over Gaza. ...
The C-130 and mission crew from the Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF) and Singapore Army conducted airdrop operations over Gaza, staged out of Amman, Jordan, in coordination with the Royal Jordanian Air Force. During this deployment, over 20 tonnes of food supplies, equivalent to over 59,000 meals, was delivered via airdrop operations into Gaza. These food items that were airdropped were contributed by the SAF and Non-Governmental Organisations such as Relief Singapore and Caritas Humanitarian Aid & Relief Initiative Singapore, and also included some supplies from the Jordanians. "
Link: https://www.mindef.gov.sg/web/portal...ril/02apr24_nr
