The Middle East Thread

At least 330 dead people from the strikes tonight, of which a lot of children . Well done Israel. :+1:

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The ceasefire was never anything more than a ruse , they said as much. There is no endgame here for the Israelis apart from causing as much death and destruction as they possibly can.

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In terms of diplomacy, this risks becoming a real fork in the road. It appears these attacks had White House blessing, including the sheer scale of them. I know many did not appear to appreciate the line that the Biden White House was walking, but this is something different. With the US behaving in a unilateral fashion on everything else, US allies now are about to be put in an impossible situation. I don’t see how Saudi Arabia can continue along with this, let alone Western allies.

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What’s different about it? Israel have regularly killed that many innocent people (and more) in a day over the past 2 years

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Well, perhaps the difference is no more than ‘please only drop 250 kg bombs, not 500 kgs’, but it appears that the Trump White House is actually exhorting this escalation t destroy the ceasefire - and timing their attacks on the Houthi accordingly.

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Nah. Saudi Arabia won’t do a shit about it. They can put up some newsbites etc. But end of. Nothing that’s going to be done.

I think that dramatically oversimplifies the governance problem in Saudi Arabia. The elites may not give a damn, but their grip is based more on force than popular support - this risks pushing it to the edge. Given how the current balance is based on something of a purge among the elites, this is inherently destabilizing. Combined with Saudi Arabia duly increasing production to push oil prices down, there are some deep divisions at play.

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There was a long stall in hostage negotiations, Hamas chose to not release further hostages, unclear on phase 2 etc. with Hamas demanding more. With Hamas not releasing hostages and carte BlanchĂš from the White House; Israel called the Cease Fire off and announced that it was going back to war.
So to be clear, there is no Cease Fire.

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It will further increase tensions, that’s for sure. It’s their goal.

Yes, that was fairly clear by the time I got up in the morning to read reports of what was happening. Last night, the scale of it was not clear, though it seemed fairly extensive and unlikely to be one of the raids that Israel has been conducting intermittently, seemingly to demonstrate impatience.

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The frustration with Hamas and how they release (and not release) hostages have been building for more than a month and there is a sense that Hamas is trying to milk it too much, with bad cards on their hands.

It’s a tragedy in any case. Because now, as you pointed to above, there is carte blanchĂȘ for Israel.
Israel’s main limitation is its economy and civil cohesion. Otherwise, it can wage it’s campaign in Gaza for years. But I doubt this will last years because they are eager to accomplish something with the bombing and they are not interested, I think, in occupation. So I think ground raids and air raids. They seek to establish better terms and higher fatigue on Hamas, I assume.

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Like it or not, Hamas released all the hostages stipulated under the ceasefire deal, Hamas was also pushing for phase 2 of the ceasefire, and it’s Israel that started/resumed the attack.

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I think it’s safe to assume that Saudi Arabia or any of the Gulf monarchies don’t have any commitment for the Palestine cause. You are right, the Palestine issue has traction among the general masses in Saudi Arabia. But since it didn’t pose any challenge for MBZ even during the worst phase, it’s unlikely to trouble him now.

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Outraged :rofl:

Fuck-off you bunch of jackass

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’ Netanyahu never seriously intended to honour the second phase of the ceasefire, which was supposed to begin on 1 March and which calls for full Israeli military withdrawal. He blocked humanitarian aid; he cut water and electricity supplies; he delayed second-phase implementation and obstructed talks to get it back on track. He waged war by other means. And when these provocations failed, he insisted, in breach of the ceasefire deal, that Hamas unilaterally liberate more hostages while offering only limited prisoner releases and a temporary truce extension in return.’

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I didn’t think anyone believed Israel’s lies anymore but seems some still do. That could have been written by their spokesman.

The truth is they never intended to have a proper ceasefire and continued killing by drones and blocking all aid. They were always going to continue with the genocide once they got some hostages back

I don’t have the energy to educate you and if I tried, you would hardly thank me regardless.

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About the ceasefire. Neither does Hamas want it to continue for too long.

Israel wanted the ceasefire to basically say “hey we’ve tried negotiations” and then go back to bombing. Some hostages being released means little for them.

Hamas wants the ceasefire to get in some supplies which they’ll mostly repurpose into qassam rockets. Some added prisoners being released means little in the long run.

Two sides of the same fucking scummy coin. Neither of them care about the people dying. Not when their names and bodies can be used for their propaganda.

Evidently, Israel hasn’t given Hamas enough time to rearm themselves. Which a side in ascendancy will always look to do in terms of warfare.

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Educate me from your twitter research, on a place that you’ve never been and don’t know anyone from? :roll_eyes:

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