The Middle East Thread

Jordan is possibly the weakest country, in all possible ways, in the region.

Their economy is weak. Their king/government is dependent on the Army and the tribal chiefs for survival. It’s their weakness and the resultant dependence on US which made them normalize ties with Israel.

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I knew their economy wasn’t as strong as a number of other states but was not aware their military and the tribal chiefs held so much sway

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True, they are weak since they were squarely beaten by Israel in the 1970s. The US have done everything to keep them weak since, so the idea that they could eventually get the atomic bomb is a pipedream of course. I found it still a seducing idea, mind…

Lebanon is even weaker than Jordan though. The poor buggers, they can’t catch a break… :frowning:

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A Muslim country has nukes. Pakistan. It won’t work out.

White House: Some progress made in ceasefire talks

Haven’t they been saying this for months now???

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A large scale Israeli Preemtive attack is ongoing. This is large scale.
https://x.com/manniefabian/status/1827534030524576195
Hezbollah firing back. This is not a minor clash, but I will go to bed (I think).

https://x.com/JoeTruzman/status/1827527478380011750
https://x.com/no_itsmyturn/status/1827535721327907143
https://x.com/no_itsmyturn/status/1827540444315537408
https://x.com/academic_la/status/1827537394209583143
https://x.com/no_itsmyturn/status/1827544066231243211
https://x.com/InstaNewsAlerts/status/1827546971319447757

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:laughing:

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“We are seeing a catastrophic health crisis unfolding in front of our eyes," said Lama Abdul Samad, a water and sanitation expert at Oxfam.

“Polio is a waterborne disease and it is directly linked to the sanitation situation.”

“The sanitation infrastructure has been damaged severely to the point that it is flooding the streets and the neighbourhoods, and people are basically living adjacent to puddles of sewage," she added.

Aid agencies say doctors in Gaza are also struggling to treat a huge caseload of dysentery, pneumonia, and severe skin diseases because of the collapse of the health sector.

“The reason behind the spread of these bacterial diseases is the complete lack of a sanitation system,” paediatric consultant Dr Ahmed al-Farra explained.

He said the problems included the “mixing of clean ground water and sewage, the severe overpopulation, the extreme heat, the lack of ventilation, the overpopulated tents, [and] the oversharing of toilets”.

The UN estimates the vast majority of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been internally displaced since last autumn.

Many people are living in shelters with just one toilet for 600 people, a World Health Organization official told reporters in July.

On 7 October, Hamas launched unprecedented assault on Israel, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken back to Gaza as hostages.

Since the attack, the Israeli military operation in Gaza has killed more than 40,200 Palestinians, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

Reuters Yasmine al-Shanbari, a Palestinian girl with a skin infection, sits with her father in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip (5 August 2024)Reuters
The heat and water crisis has led to an outbreak of skin infections, particularly among children

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First case of Polio detected in 44 years :face_with_symbols_over_mouth:

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That’s almost certainly from bad sanitation. TBH, I can barely work out how anyone is still alive.

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I read a news on AJ yesterday that UN/UNRAW has managed to bring in 500 portable toilets, after six months.

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Those they can’t kill with bombs they will kill by disease. This isn’t accidental , it’s a part of the overall strategy of making the entire Strip uninhabitable.

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But you can’t say “genocide”.

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is it spelled holocaust ?

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No, that’s the point. Here:

An eschatological Right-wing cult now holds the majority in cabinet – and wields a vigilante militia ready to attack the military establishment, and the Israeli state. No one was arrested for the attack and take-over of the two bases. They do not dare.

Moshe “Bogie” Ya’alon, former Chief of Staff of the IDF, who also served as Israel’s Defence Minister, had this to say in a video interview on the forces taking over in Israel:

When you talk about Smotrich and Ben Gvir: They have a Rabbi. His name is Dov Lior. He is the Rabbi of the Jewish Underground, who intended to blow up the Dome of the Rock – and before that the buses in Jerusalem. Why? In order to hurry up the ‘Last War’. Do you [not] hear them talking in terms of the Last War; or of Smotrich’s concept of ‘subjugation’? Read the article he published in Shiloh in 2017. First of all, this concept rests on Jewish supremacy: Mein Kampf in reverse”.

My hair stands on end when I say that – as he said it. I learned and grew up in the house of Holocaust survivors and ‘never again’. It is Mein Kampf in reverse: Jewish supremacy: and therefore [Smotrich] says: “My wife won’t go into a room with an Arab”. It is anchored in ideology. And then actually what he aspires to – as soon as possible – is to go to a big war. A war of Gog and Magog. How do you start the flames? A massacre like the [1994] Cave of the Patriarchs? Baruch Goldstein is a student of this Rabbi. Ben Gvir has hung up Goldstein’s picture [in his house]”.

This is what goes into the decision-making process in the Israeli government”.

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Shin Bet is Israeli Internal Security Services.

Shaiel Ben-Ephraim @academic_la - 18:30 UTC · Aug 22, 2024

Ronen Bar, head of the Shin Bet sent the most dire letter I have seen, warning against the emerging threat of settler terrorism. He believes it is supported by many in the system and is going to grow into a movement that will threaten the well-being of Israel. Here are the most important portions of the letter, as reported by Guy Peleg of Channel 12:

"I am writing you this letter in pain. In deep fear. As a Jew, as an Israeli, and as a security official, I learned about the increasing phenomenon of Jewish terrorism by the hilltop youth. The hilltop youth phenomenon has long created a significant amount of terrorism towards Palestinians.

With the deterioration of the security situation, and the inability of the police to enforce the law, and perhaps hidden encouragement from them, the phenomenon is changing and becoming more significant. From the work of individuals, it is now taken up by hundreds. There is no longer a fear of executive detention due to the good conditions they receive there.

Along with the money they receive when freed and the praise they receive from members of Knesset, alongside the delegitimization of security services. It has moved from secretive and narrow activity to open and large-scale organization. Sometimes, it is due to the use of weapons provided by the state. From avoiding the security forces to attacking them. From disconnecting from the establishment to receiving support from parts of the establishment.

The answer is not the Shin Bet. The Shin Bet is a band-aid designed to deal with a small group of extremists. It cannot deal with the root of the problem. What is needed is a coalition of navigators, including ministers, government departments, rabbis, and regional leaders. Without that, it might makes right.

The leaders of this movement attempted to bring the system to a total loss of control. We are on the verge of a process that will change our reality. The damage to Israel and to most of the settlers is beyond description:

  1. Global delegitimization even among our closest friends.
  2. Significant IDF forces are needed, and they are already struggling to meet operational needs.
  3. Revenge attacks that will launch another front in the already existing multi-front war.
  4. The entry of new elements in the terror cycle that were out of it.
  5. A slippery slope towards lawlessness.
  6. Difficulty in creating regional alliances against the Shi’ite axis.
  7. Above all, it is a stain on Judaism and all of us.

Continuing in this direction will lead to a great amount of bloodshed and change the face of Israel into something unrecognizable."

The bottom line is that too many elements in Israeli society support Jewish terrorism. Meanwhile, the outcomes it leads to could undermine the existence of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. This is a crisis that must be addressed.

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You’re overqualified for this place.

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You gave CoG a hard on.