I think that Israel is making a big mistake by not reigning in and arresting West Bank Israeli settlers, some of whom have been attacking completely innocent Palestinians. Very, very bad P.R. One elderly Palestinian couple, husband age 77, and wife age 69, was attacked and severely beaten. They had been doing nothing wrong. Just food shopping. Now, I don't side with the Palestinians , BUT attacking peaceful Palestinians is just plain wrong.
I don't have the same confidence in the U.S. military that you do. I have said before that I think the carriers are the battleships of the current conflict. I don't know what would happen if Iran targeted a carrier with 1,000 drones at once if they can catch them with the planes on deck. I don't think the anti-aircraft technology can deal with the saturation, and I have no doubt Iran would do it if they could get a carrier. I have noticed they have moved the carrier groups all the way back to Cyprus or Crete. They are concerned about missile attacks and having time to respond. I don't think anyone really knows what will happen, but more and more countries are lining up against Israel. Iran has been trying to get an oil embargo established against Israel and "its supporters". There are now anti-aircraft systems near Lebanon; U.S. pilots haven't faced real anti-aircraft missiles since Vietnam.
So far as the civilian population goes, they have nowhere to duck. Egypt doesn’t want the refugees and most certainly, Lebanon doesn’t want them and come to find out, there’s a good reason. I had forgotten about a few of the incidents that have occurred in the past when Palestinians were allowed to migrate into another country and then I ran across this short video that reminded me of how disastrous those migrations were. Israel literally gave the Palestinians a place where they can be free and do what they wish and then now, the same thing is happening to Israel that happened in other countries.
Bobby, Thank you for that video. I now see more clearly why Egypt does not want a mass influx of Palestinians.
Exactly. I believe when the UN set up Israel, Jordan was to be the Palestinian homeland, but the people just proved to be a nasty group of people with no ambition other than to sow disruption and chaos. As the gentleman said, they assassinated the PM in Jordan when they were expelled from the country and they wanted to do to Jordan what they have done to Lebanon. When the Palestinians drove the Christians out of Lebanon, there was no international outcry for the displaced, persecuted and murdered Maronite Christians. Nobody wants these people, and that is why the Arabs demand they have their own "homeland" to destroy. As the man said, they have created terror everywhere that has accepted them; Biden and the Squad want unlimited Palestinian refugee acceptance here. Sounds good, eh?
We already have Palestinians and Palestinian sympathizers tearing down posters of Israeli and American hostages, creating havoc on college campuses, protesting on the streets of NY and Washington not to mention a couple of idiotic congresswomen who are making some very dangerous speeches in harmony with Hamas objectives.
Well, the Hezbollah leader did not declare war on Israel as he was expected to do, but he blamed the U.S. for much of the carnage and said we would bear the consequences, whatever that means. At least Israel won't have to worry about an all-out assault from the north as was feared, at least for a few days. Blinken made a very weak speech and I think even CNN thought it missed the mark. They said it was a "very powerful message" but it didn't seem they believed it. He described watching an Israeli father being killed in front of his children by Hamas and the Palestinian children being pulled from the wreckage of attacks. The hatred throughout the Middle East just grows.
Israel has now cut Gaza in half. They are in control of a swath of territory from the eastern portion of Gaza to the sea. The goal seems to be to separate the Hamas fighters in the north from those in the south. Hamas had tried to launch a large surface attack , but the IDF spotted them and they destroyed that attack. At times, Hamas has been able to put up a fight, but each time they are destroyed. Surprisingly, the IDF casualties are very light. I thought that Hamas would have been able to inflict more casualties on the IDF. It seems they are better at killing women and children in sneak attacks than they are are fighting professional soldiers. No word yet from the IDF on actually going down into those tunnels. Maybe their goal is to locate tunnel entrances/exits and close them off ?
Unfortunately, we do not have the leadership we had when Trump was in office. Just after Trump had Solemani eradicated, he told the Mullah’s that we know where they live and even have their telephone numbers. They obviously heard the message that was being delivered. After ISIS was shut down and the hopes of a caliphate was destroyed, the Taliban became strangely silent. The powers that be said we couldn’t recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and move the consulate there but Trump made it happen. Now however, with the weak rhetoric coming from a Presidential office that is nearly unoccupied, every nation that hates us, Israel and freedom is voicing their threats and frankly speaking, they might be able to make good on those threats. 366 and about a half days to go until the next Presidential election.
This is one segment of what is going on in the world and I choose to skip over all that comes to my mail. I'm very against any war and from what I have heard that part of the world has been in wars forever. It's all HORRID.
Yes, you are absolutely correct. The multitude of wars seems never ending. This CURRENT war is but the most recent of a long series of wars in the Islamic world. In my opinion, even if Hamas and Hezbollah could totally destroy Israel, which of course they won't, and replace it with an Islamic regime, the wars wouldn't stop. It is no secret that some significant percentage of Arabs want to create a world-wide Islamic regime. AND even IF that happened, the wars wouldn't stop because they fight against each other... Shiite against Sunni and radicalized against conservative. An unfortunate side effect of THIS war is that Islamic radicals who live in other countries will be attacking us. I expect that we will see more small scale attacks on civilians in the U.S. , U.K. and Europe. The protest marches across the U.S. and the U.K. are only the tip of the iceberg. The one hope that we have is that a few Islamic countries seemed to have learned their lesson. Egypt , Jordan and even the Taliban of Afghanistan are now quiet.
Israel has claimed that they have killed many Hamas top commanders. Israel has even named them. Now, I don't doubt that some Hamas commanders have been killed, I don't understand how Israel could know the names of those commanders.
Today the top Hamas spokesman sent out a message to Israel. He laid out a 4 point "peace" plan calling for an independent Palestine and the withdrawal of all IDF from Gaza. What kind of a joke is that ? The last thing Hamas wants is peace. 26 days ago there were no IDF troops in Gaza and no bombing of Gaza, yet they still slaughtered 1,400 Israeli's and citizens of other nations.
The 1st groups of reporters were escorted into Gaza City outskirts today by teams of IDF. The areas they saw, were completely demolished. Hardly a house left standing. When asked about the civilian population, a IDF officer said, "We hardly ever see any civilians. Those in this area have evacuated to south Gaza. The only people we see are Hamas who are trying and failing to ambush us. They are quickly neutralized." However, we continue to see thousands of young men in the center of Gaza City. The IDF says it has destroyed dozens and dozens of tunnel exits. IDF ground personnel have claimed that they have killed hundreds of Hamas fighters in small unit combat. Tanks and armored vehicles continue to squeeze the outer edges of Gaza City. Riots today in massive pro-Palestinian protests. Especially in Paris where the demonstrators broke shop windows and set fires. After 65 police officers were injured by protesters, Germany has banned all pro-Palestinian demonstrations.
I saw a “man-on-the-street” type of video a day or so ago. The guy was asking people to sign a petition sympathizing with the plight of Hamas run Palestine. When someone would sign the petition, the man with the clipboard asked questions like: So, you agree then to Sharia Law where married women can’t go out of the house unless they are escorted by a male family member? And…you also agree that gays should be jailed or executed and women cannot be educated beyond a certain age? Funny thing but the interviewer rarely got out two questions before the signer said heck no and had his or her name taken off the petition. It is my thought that most people (especially women) who are sympathizing with Hamas do not know anything about them otherwise there wouldn’t be so many folks out there demonstrating.