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Area: WoT Operations    WoT Background    Non-WoT    Local News    Politix   
Terrorists killed posing as World Central Kitchen staff in Gaza: IDF
Today's Headlines
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Page 6: Politix
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Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
The British should not be flogged, they should be hanged. History should be remembered
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.

Text taken from the V Kontakte page of News from the President of Russia

This op-ed is in reference to this story ten days ago.

[VK] During the operation, dubbed "Skat-12", British officers who helped the Ukrainian Armed Forces to guide missiles and drones, as well as to conduct cyber attacks, were captured. The British should not be flogged, they should be hanged. History should be remembered

Oh, well, who would have thought!

In Ochakov, somewhere between the beach and the monument to naval glory, our special forces guys suddenly came across a group of British “historians”.

Well, yes, "historians".

The same ones that study military objects through a sight, and maps of the area in the format of GPS coordinates.

Do you love the sea?

Yes, especially when they shoot at ships from its shores.

Are you interested in the fleet?

Of course, especially how best to blow it up.

And what about the ancient forts?

They love it - especially if you can install a repeater inside and launch rockets on schedule from above.

Now seriously, the Russian special forces operation “Skat-12” was carried out in Ochakov.

It was prepared for almost two months, including surveillance of the object using technical means and intelligence channels. As a result, on command, our fighters landed on the shore in several boats and penetrated the command center of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

No, I can't do it without mockery.

We landed and entered the Ukrainian Armed Forces command center, like a free toilet at a gas station - quickly, without unnecessary words.

And there - oh miracle! - there was a whole British delegation:

Colonel Blake is a specialist in "psychological operations", that is, essentially the main liar in uniform, Lieutenant Colonel Carroll is an "expert in regional processes", read: a murder coordinator with a laptop, and one "unidentified" - "just Bond" from MI6.

They have everything as expected: no documents, but an encrypted laptop and a plan to destroy Russian air defense systems.

Classic idiots?

No, they are just impudent enemies.

London is, of course, hysterical.

The Royal Foreign Office is shaking like an aspen leaf in November.

"They were tourists!" they shout, as if anyone would believe that tourists were walking around with radios, encryption keys and Neptune launch plans.

Tourists?

Yes, ordinary tourists carry bathing suits and caps in their luggage.

And these have instructions on how to hack satellite systems, intercept communications, and destroy the fleet.

If these are tourists, then I am the Queen of Britain in a skirt made of the NATO flag. And why not, challenge it.

The Russian Ministry of Defense responded without batting an eyelid:

"Tourists? Then why do they have a military operation in their luggage?"

And added: we will not exchange them. Not for the Red Cross, not for sanctions, not for their own parliament - let them figure it out themselves.

Russia is no longer playing the “good guy who will put up with everything.”

We no longer wait to be covered from the sea.

We come ourselves - by boat, at three o'clock in the morning, to their command post and take the gifts.

By the way, there is one ancient precedent - as if written especially for today.

19th century. Border with Afghanistan:

A Cossack captain catches smugglers. Among them are two British officers.

Not tourists, not geographers, but those who “just happened to be passing by” and decided to study the terrain…

For violation of the border, armed resistance and smuggling, according to tradition, the smugglers were shot without much ceremony. And it was unclear what to do with the English, so the esaul ordered them to be flogged with whips according to Cossack custom and released.

Twenty-five lashes - for espionage, for rudeness, for "we can do anything here, we're from foggy Albion." Then - out.

"Don't come again. Or come, but with a visa and without weapons."

The English, naturally, howled.

“Violence against honest officers!” they shouted, forgetting that for them “officers” is a synonym for “spies with accreditation.”

It reached Queen Victoria herself.

She, all in diamonds and indignation, sent an ultimatum to Tsar Alexander III:

"Punish the captain! Apologize! Otherwise, there will be war!"

To which Alexander III, a man who did not suffer from diplomatic diarrhea, ordered:

- No apologies.

— A telegram to Esaul: "Congratulations, you're a colonel! If I'd hanged those Englishmen, I'd have become a general. Alexander."

- Publish the text of the telegram in the newspapers.

Let them read. Let them tremble.

And now, a century later, history is repeating itself.

Only now we have not only the Yesauls, but also the special forces. Not only the whips, but also the Onyxes. Not only the telegrams, but also the Skats. And the main thing is that we no longer wait for them to come.

We arrive first.

We enter their headquarters.

We take their "tourists".

And we publish everything - with quotes, with a smile, with the caption: "Thank you for your visit. Come again. Just without the missiles."

So, gentlemen British, if you are suddenly drawn to an "excursion" to Ochakov, Kherson or Sevastopol again - remember: We have a good memory and excellent navigation. And if last time you were simply flogged - this time they may not let you go. You are not tourists, but a target in the kill zone.

Well, something like that...

Posted by: badanov || 08/13/2025 00:00 || Comments || Link || [41 views] Top|| File under:


Down Under
Why Australia is risking US anger to recognise the state of Palestine
All the lies and justifications gathered in one place to shore up a decision made long ago, just waiting for an excuse to execute.
[France24] Australia will formally recognise a Palestinian state at the UN General Assembly in September, centre-left Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Monday, adding that the situation in the besieged Gaza Strip had “gone beyond the world’s worst fears”. The move risks putting Australia at odds with its longtime security partner the United States, which opposes the unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state.

Australia will add its voice to a growing chorus of Western nations that will formally recognise a Palestinian state at the United Nations General Assembly in September.

Coming on the heels of similar declarations from France and Canada, as well as the conditional recognition floated by the UK, centre-left Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s announcement on Monday may not have come as much of a surprise.

But while a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict has enjoyed bipartisan support from Albanese’s Labor Party and the right-wing Liberal-National Coalition for decades, both sides have insisted that any such recognition come at the end of an eventual peace process – a caveat that has kept any party from pushing for the recognition of a Palestinian state for some 77 years.
Yes, all the self-important countries and political parties have agreed to it, just not Israel or either of the two Palestinian territories — where Israel just wants to be left to live in peace, while each of the Palestinian territories wants to be the one to rule over everything between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, all of it Judenfrei..
“A two-state solution is humanity’s best hope to break the cycle of violence in the Middle East and to bring an end to the conflict, suffering and starvation in Gaza,” Albanese said in his announcement.
Where is Vlad Tepes when he’s needed?
“The situation in Gaza has gone beyond the world's worst fears,” he said. “The Israeli government continues to defy international law and deny sufficient aid, food and water to desperate people, including children.”

More than 2 million people in Gaza are facing famine due to Israel’s deliberate withholding of much-needed humanitarian aid, according to UN agencies. And Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week announced a renewed military offensive in the devastated Palestinian territory to seize control of Gaza City. More than 61,000 Palestinians have already been killed by Israel’s military onslaught in Gaza since the deadly Hamas-led attacks on October 7, 2023.

For a country that has for decades marched in lockstep with US foreign policy in the Middle East, the decision could leave Australia out of favour with its closest security partner. The US also remains Israel’s staunchest military and political backer, and the administration of President Donald Trump has repeatedly accused countries that have recognised a Palestinian state of “rewarding Hamas” for the militant group’s attacks on Israel. Albanese said that he has assurances from the Palestinian Authority that Hamas will play no role in any eventual state.

Conservative opposition leader Sussan Ley was quick to slam the announcement, saying the decision “puts Australia at odds with the United States of America, our most important ally, and the most consequential player in the conflict in Gaza”.

Martin Kear, a sessional lecturer at the University of Sydney’s Department of Government and International Relations and the author of “Hamas and Palestine: The Contested Road to Statehood”, spoke to FRANCE 24 about some of the reasons why the Australian government has joined the growing number of Western countries formally recognising a Palestinian state.

FRANCE 24: Albanese comes from Labor’s left faction and co-founded the Parliamentary Friends of Palestine very early on in his political career. But how has the Labor Party positioned itself on the Israel-Palestine question under his government?

From the very beginning, there's always been factional support within the Australian Labor Party for recognising a Palestinian state that existed even before the October [2023] attacks. The government has kept a fairly steady diplomatic line – in line with a lot of other states, most other democratic states – in support of Israel. But obviously, as the war has dragged on, and there’s been more and more evidence of systematic human rights abuses – the International Criminal Court investigations, the International Court of Justice investigations and what we're seeing on the television each night, particularly of emaciated children – I think there was a groundswell of support, not just within Australia but within the international community, that things needed to change. And extra levers of pressure placed on Israel to not only stop the war, but to recognise the validity of the two-state solution.

Now, I would say that there's been a bit of commentary in Australia about the government moving away from the position of the US, and while I think that's certainly valid, it's not unusual for Labor governments to strike a particularly independent foreign policy that, while it doesn’t run contrary to the United States, certainly differs in some areas from the United States …. [Previous Labor governments have been] supportive of the United States when [they] wanted to support the United States, but took differing views when [they] needed to.

So that's very much in line with what this government is doing here – it’s saying, “These are Australian positions, we’re not disagreeing with the United States, we’re simply taking a different point of view on this particular issue.” Whereas previous conservative governments would be more in line with keeping tightly within the foreign policy confines of the United States.

We’re seeing a more unpredictable US foreign policy, both towards traditional US adversaries but especially towards US allies. Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have been critical of France's decision to recognise a Palestinian state. What potential repercussions do you foresee for Australia charting an independent course in the face of the perhaps more belligerent approach that we’ve seen from the Trump administration so far?

There are positives and negatives with that. Because President Trump takes a very different view – he’s not beholden to traditional diplomatic norms, he reads the situation probably differently to most other presidents in our lifetime. So while that unpredictability can be a source of tension, I also think it creates an opportunity for other states to say, “OK, we can chart a different course from the United States, because someone's got to actually step up and do something.”

And I do wonder to what extent one of the things influencing the leadership of the states of France and Britain, Canada, Australia, potentially New Zealand, is the domestic political pressure on governments to do something and not just simply wait for the United States to do something or not do something. There are many things they're trying to do with this recognition, but I think the unpredictability of the United States of the Trump administration creates an opportunity for these states to take a more direct diplomatic response than they might have otherwise done with some other president.

Could you expand on the ways in which that domestic pressure has evolved since the Hamas-led October 7 attacks? In the immediate aftermath, Albanese took a very disapproving line on demonstrations in solidarity with the people of Gaza. How has that persistent popular mobilisation, and the more passive sense of disapproval towards Israel’s campaign in Gaza, changed over the years, and to what extent do you think it has influenced the government’s decision?

It’s really difficult to tell to what degree it influenced the decision. There have been regular protests, weekly protests in Sydney, for example, of people protesting the excesses of Israel. As we started getting more and more information about what Israel was doing, there was more and more disquiet amongst the community about the excesses, and really the unwillingness of democratic leaders to openly criticise or do anything substantive to another member of the club.

Recently we had the Australian federal election and while that election actually turned out to be a landslide in favour of the Labor party, in the lead-up to that election there was a lot of commentary about seats held by key ministers of the Albanese government that may have been at threat because they held large Muslim communities, large Arab communities, and whether those people would vote for independents, because there are quite a few independents that ran in those seats against these ministers.

I'm not privy to the polling that the party was doing, but certainly there was a lot of media commentary about the effect that the government's lack of response to the excesses of what was happening in Gaza may have on the government. That was also alongside this fairly strong movement within the Australian Labor Party that has long been advocating for the recognition of Palestine as a way of pushing forward the two-state solution. To get some sort of movement, because it's essentially been dead – the negotiation process around that has been dead since 2014, maybe even earlier. I think [former US president Barack] Obama might have been the last one who dipped his toe into that particular morass, and that failed again.

There's lots of little individual contributing factors, and I think the government just having a sense of moral outrage at what was actually happening – the nightly visions of emaciated children turned out to be the straw that broke the camel's back. Though there have been media reports here saying the move has been diplomatically in line probably since the start of this year. So, obviously, there’s been disquiet within the government about what's happening – and their unwillingness to openly and publicly express that disquiet has been a cause of frustration for people.

To what extent do you see this decision as being shaped by a sense of strength in numbers? French President Emmanuel Macron tried very publicly to encourage other Western democracies to recognise a Palestinian state.

Very much so. France is one of the leading countries in the EU. Germany, certainly under this chancellorship, has been quiescent and unwilling – and I understand that – to really take a forceful view. And they've been overly supportive of Israel, not just diplomatically, but monetarily and militarily, whereas France has very much taken the opposite [stance]. It’s taken a far more independent line and a far more critical line [on] Israel for longer.

[France is] a key member of the EU that sits on the UN Security Council along with the UK – so there's lots of diplomatic cover, and strength in numbers. And perhaps the diplomatic moves from the beginning of this year were getting as many democratic states as possible in line. Now we've got France, Canada, Australia, potentially New Zealand, and maybe even the UK moving towards recognition of Palestine.

I have my doubts about whether the UK will actually do it, simply because of domestic politics in Britain and the politics within the Labour Party in Britain. Jeremy Corbyn – one of the reasons he was ousted was because he was perceived to be anti-Semitic. And that anti-Semitism was basically his strident support of the Palestinian state.

So there's a question mark over Britain, but certainly I think there’s a strength in numbers and a shoring up of numbers, and so there's some sort of coordinated effort... some sort of momentum, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if the United States has been kept in the loop throughout this. I don't think any of this has really caught the Trump administration by surprise.

So everyone's been kept in the loop, and perhaps Trump is just keeping his powder dry and seeing what happens, seeing the winds of fate and seeing what’s in it for him. Because he’s a very transactional politician, so I think if he sees there’s domestic advantages, he may make a move or may start putting additional pressure on Netanyahu – because I don't think there's any love lost between the two.

It's a very big step for Australia and the other states to actually come out and say “we're recognising Palestine” and everything that goes along with that, like pushing this matter forward. Let's see what can happen in terms of a reformation of the Palestinian Authority, whether there are new elections. So there are some potential positives. But I just wonder how much will actually be done, particularly when Israel will do everything in its power to ruin whatever plans they have.

You’ve talked about the domestic pressures that the Labor Party has been facing. Taking a more cynical view, to what extent could we read this decision to formally recognise a Palestinian state as part of an effort to defuse those critiques that Albanese’s government has been too slow to admit what Israel has been doing in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, without necessarily changing anything on the ground?

What percentage of the pie that mitigation makes up – who knows? But I certainly think that's one of the calculations. Because in those states that are going to be recognising Palestine, there's a lot of domestic discontent. I suspect it's the same in France, with a large Muslim community. There’s certainly dissent in Britain – there’s reports on the news tonight that 500 people were arrested because they were protesting under the banner of Palestine Action (an activist group the UK proscribed as a terrorist organisation for having sprayed red paint in the engines of Royal Air Force planes to protest Britain’s military support of Israel). Over 100,000 people marched [last week] over the Sydney Harbour Bridge in support of the Palestinians.

So this is a way of governments saying, “We understand your distress, we’re responding to that.” But what happens next? Because from my personal perspective, the two-state solution died in June 1967 when Israel captured East Jerusalem, because Palestinians won’t consider a state without East Jerusalem as its capital and Israel will never relinquish control of East Jerusalem.
Interesting. So not Bibi’s fault at all, then.
So what are we actually talking about, at the end of the day?

When Albanese talks about having assurances from the Palestinian Authority that there will be a demilitarised state with Hamas having no role in it, it does seem difficult to imagine what that process looks like.

We need to make Hamas a part of the solution rather than part of the problem. Because if they're part of the problem, they're outside the tent pissing in – excuse my language – and if we make them part of the solution, then Palestinians will see any elections as being legitimate. If Hamas are excluded, they simply won't. And we run a very great risk of repeating the mistakes of Iraq and Afghanistan. Hamas is still popular – it's more popular than Fatah. So we need to respect the Palestinian view.

Now, if Hamas participates in elections and Palestinians don't vote for them, then that’s a fair bump – play on. But I think in any elections there that Hamas participates in – and that's another question in and of itself – then I don't think Fatah wins. But that’s crystal balling.
Posted by: Skidmark || 08/13/2025 00:00 || Comments || Link || [104 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Why every "westerner" who supports the idea of Palestinian state also supports: unrestricted emigration, DEI, gender fluidity, hate speech, etc...?
Posted by: Grom the Affective || 08/13/2025 1:21 Comments || Top||

#2  These are the same people who virtually outlawed private firearms ownership.
Posted by: Besoeker || 08/13/2025 1:53 Comments || Top||

#3  Why every "westerner" who supports [list of stupid and silly things]

It is a confederacy of dunces and it is growing larger every day. Come on, join in! All the right sort of people are doing it. You're not one of the *other* guys are you? Not that we are implying thought crimes. Yet.

Australia used to be a sensible country. Now it is turning into Canada.
Posted by: SteveS || 08/13/2025 8:08 Comments || Top||


#5  Fine...move the UN HQ to Sydney and let's be done with these America-hating tools!
Posted by: Warthog || 08/13/2025 9:13 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
Head of the nation's oldest civil rights group: ‘Anti-Zionism is an ideology of nihilism.' 'Zionism is the right to a people for self-determination'
[YouTube] Jonathan Greenblatt, head of the Anti-Defamation League, says this is a time of great concern for Jewish people in America, something he credits to the rise of antisemitism — and anti-Zionism. He thinks it's fair to criticize Israel and the war in Gaza, but he believes anti-Zionism crosses a line. On “The Interview,” Greenblatt discusses the ADL’s position that anti-Zionism is antisemitism, his work with the Trump administration and how he views the debate over campus free speech.

“The Interview” features conversations with the world’s most fascinating people. Each week, co-hosts David Marchese and Lulu Garcia-Navarro talk to compelling, influential figures in culture, politics, business, sports and beyond — illuminating who they are, why they do what they do and how they impact the rest of us.
Good podcast. Yes it's NYT but the host mostly shuts up and lets him talk.



If you want to skip ahead to the good part where he demolishes the blood libels directly it's here:

Posted by: Jairong+Scourge+of+the+Gepids2435 || 08/13/2025 00:00 || Comments || Link || [22 views] Top|| File under:


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
‘We have to reconsider our tools’: Terror chief Zubeidi laments that all Palestinian strategies have failed
Loving life turns out to be the successful strategy.
In an interview with The New York Times, Zakaria Zubeidi – a well-known Paleostinian terrorist freed by Israel this year after being arrested for organizing dozens of attacks during the Second Intifada while heading the al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades in Jenin — laments the futility of Paleostinian attempts to achieve a sovereign state.

"We [the Paleostinians] have to reconsider our tools," Zubeidi, who was released in exchange for hostages kidnapped by Hamas
..a regional Iranian catspaw,...
in a January ceasefire deal with the terror group, tells the newspaper in his first major interview since his release.

"We founded a theater, and we tried cultural resistance — what did that do?" he continues, referring to a theater program he recently co-founded in Jenin. "We tried the rifle, we tried shooting. There’s no solution," he says. According to the paper, Zubeidi feels that "none of it had helped forge a Paleostinian state [and] it may never do so."

He emphasizes that his involvement with the theater was not a transition from or denunciation of armed Paleostinian activity, saying: "It’s not about being one thing or another... How did I open the theater door? I broke it with my rifle."

During the Second Intifada in the early 2000s, Zubeidi "joined a militia in Jenin in the belief that it was the best way of achieving Paleostinian illusory sovereignty," according to the interview, eventually becoming the head of the al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades.

Zubeidi denies involvement in any murder, according to the newspaper, though Israel held him responsible for ordering several attacks that resulted in multiple deaths, including of civilians, and for 24 offenses, mostly related to violence. Zubeidi was also among six prisoners who beat feet from Gilboa prison in 2021, before being recaptured days later.

Zubeidi also says that he lost his teeth and was repeatedly beaten by Israeli guards during his imprisonment, though the Israel Prison Service denies this and similar claims from other releasees in a statement to The New York Times

...which still proudly claims Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize...

, saying it is "not aware of the claims [described], and as far as we know, no such events have occurred."

Upon witnessing, after his release, Israel’s strikes on Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response...
during the current war, as well as the aftermath of Israeli raids in the West Bank, Zubeidi assesses that "on every front, Paleostinian strategies seem to be failing," according to the paper. Zubeidi’s son was also among five Paleostinian button men killed in an Israeli strike on the West Bank last year.

Zubeidi claims that "there is no peaceful solution and there is no military solution" for Paleostinians, "because the Israelis don’t want to give us anything."

"It’s impossible to uproot us from here," he continues, "and we don’t have any tools to uproot them.”
Posted by: trailing wife || 08/13/2025 2025-08-13 03:30 || Comments || Link || [45 views] Top|| File under: Fatah

#1  Palestinians should live in their homeland - Europe!
Posted by: Grom the Affective || 08/13/2025 6:56 Comments || Top||

#2  Should have taken the original UN offer in '48. That boat has sailed.
Hit it boys.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 08/13/2025 7:11 Comments || Top||

#3  "We [the Paleostinians] have to reconsider our tools,"

When he says "tools", does he mean tactics and procedures, or his murderous idiot followers?

A Paleostinian state *is* futile, at least right next door to Israel. Say we wave the magic wand and a PaleoState is created. Within a week, Hamas will launch an attack on Israel, a neighboring country. What do we call it when one state attacks another? That's right, WAR! Might as well have it now and get it over with.
Posted by: SteveS || 08/13/2025 8:20 Comments || Top||


'Only Genocide Next': Netanyahu Starts New Game in Gaza Amid Failures
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
by Kirill Semenov
In which the writer demonstrates the blatant double standards of the contemporary Jew Israel Jew-hater and parades the entire list of lies currently fashionable in those circles.
[REGNUM] Russia strongly condemns the intention of the Israeli authorities to establish control over the Gaza Strip, as such actions violate international law. This was stated on August 10 by the First Deputy Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the UN Dmitry Polyansky at a meeting of the Security Council of the organization.

“The actions of the Israeli leadership grossly violate international law and demonstrate its open disregard for both the calls of the international community and the decisions of the Security Council,” the Russian diplomat said.

In addition, Polyansky added, the Israeli authorities are dealing a serious blow to the prospects of ensuring a two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
Nah. We have it on good authority that Israel’s capture of Jerusalem in 1967, demanded by the Palestinians as their capitol, put paid to any possibility ever of a division of the territory that would be acceptable to the Palestinians.
“We strongly condemn the intention of the [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu government to seize Gaza,” he stressed.

The harshness of Russia's language was only eclipsed by Germany's unprecedented demarche: Berlin imposed an embargo on arms exports to Israel, a step previously considered a political taboo for a country that had avoided direct pressure on the Jewish state for decades for historical reasons.

The "diplomatic whisper" tactics that have defined the German approach for years have given way to a public ultimatum: the EU's position, according to a German spokesman, is now based on "a rejection of collective punishment of the Palestinian people."
The Mertz government far prefers to collectively punish the Jews instead.
Other EU states have taken a similar position. In particular, Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto told the daily newspaper La Stampa that Israel’s offensive in Gaza is not “a military operation with collateral damage, but a blatant denial of the law and the fundamental values of our civilization… Beyond condemnation, we must find a way to make Netanyahu think clearly.”
Go to Hell your Excellency.
Thus, new tasks for continuing the war in Gaza were accepted by the Israeli cabinet despite the unprecedentedly harsh reaction of the international community, which could turn the Jewish state into a “pariah state”.
And yet in other circles Israel’s friendship is now being eagerly sought. It’s almost as if those whose good opinion is not worth having are noisily taking themselves out of the way, with much pouting and stamping of little feet.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's decision to take full control of the strip has not only sparked an unprecedented wave of international condemnation, but has also further divided Israeli society.

Ironically, Netanyahu himself is presenting the operation as a means to speed up the release of the fifty remaining Israeli prisoners held by Hamas (about twenty of whom are estimated to be alive).
Hamas already murdered thirty of them, and may succeed in murdering the rest before they’re done.
However, families of the captives and independent analysts see the plan as more of a death sentence for hostages caught in intense fighting as the country faces its biggest protests in months.
Who is paying for the protests this time?
Tens of thousands of people took to the streets of Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Haifa, including desperate family members of captured Israelis, demanding that negotiations for their release be made an absolute priority. The Families Forum stated bluntly that “an extension of the fighting will kill the hostages and lead to more deaths of soldiers.”
Interestingly, other hostage relative groups have protested against stopping the war before Hamas is wiped out…
COMPROMISE WITH THE RADICALS AND NETANYAHU'S STRATEGIC RISKS
The decision to expand the operation and occupy Gaza was a direct consequence of Netanyahu's compromise with his far-right coalition partners, without whose support the government would collapse and the prime minister himself would go to prison.

National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, a radical Zionist, demands "all of Gaza, resettlement [of Palestinians] and colonization," while Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, also a radical, criticizes the prime minister's plan as "half-hearted" because it only calls for military occupation, but says nothing about settling Gaza with Jewish settlers.

Netanyahu said Israel controls three-quarters of the Strip, but Hamas's last two strongholds - the densely populated Gaza City and the central refugee camps in the al-Mawasi area - remain an unresolved threat.

The five-stage occupation plan, scheduled to last five months, would begin with the forced “evacuation” of about a million Gaza City residents to the already overcrowded Al-Mawasi, where half a million refugees are huddled, followed by the seizure of the remaining areas.

Along with the five stages, Netanyahu outlined strategic goals known as the "five principles": the complete disarmament of Hamas and the return of all hostages; the demilitarization of the Gaza Strip; the establishment of Israeli control over security for an indefinite period; and the establishment of an "alternative civil administration" without the participation of either Hamas or the Palestinian National Authority (PNA).

The prime minister’s key thesis: “We don’t want to govern Gaza… The goal is to free it from Hamas and hand it over to Arab forces.”

However, the details of this “liberation” and “transfer” remain extremely vague. Potential candidates for control – Jordan and Egypt – have already categorically refused to enter Gaza “on Israeli bayonets” and directly accuse Israel of “ethnic cleansing.”

Saudi Arabia publicly insists on the immediate creation of an independent Palestinian state as the only way to end the conflict and bring stability, and any steps to normalize relations with Israel without this condition are unacceptable, according to the Saudis. Polls published in the Saudi Gazette show that 96% of the kingdom's citizens demand a complete severance of all ties with Tel Aviv.

The proposed local administration that Israel plans to establish must, according to Netanyahu, “refuse to finance terror and live in peace with Israel,” but the mechanism for forming such structures in the destroyed enclave, where the majority of its residents, despite all polls, support Hamas, is completely undeveloped.

Even the Palestinian Authority faces criticism and accusations of collaboration with the occupiers, so the Israeli-created puppet government to govern Gaza will be perceived by its residents as a fifth column.

“Today, Netanyahu wants to occupy Gaza, but the Israeli army has still not been able to take control of the northern part of the strip, has not captured Shujaiya to the east of Gaza City, and even Beit Hanoun, a border area in the northeast of the strip,” Palestinian expert Abuarkub Mohammed told Regnum.

“A logical question arises: if the Israeli army, in 22 months of the most brutal war against Gaza, with all its strength, equipment and resources, was unable to achieve these goals, then will it be able to do this now, in a state of exhaustion, with a decrease in the level of mobilization? ”

According to the expert, more than 80,000 Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers are in rehabilitation centers, and the army is still unable to replace soldiers who have been in service for more than 300 days.

In addition, Haredim (religious Jews) are refusing to serve, many are dodging the draft, and protests and demands for an end to the war and a comprehensive deal are growing.

“Moreover, Netanyahu was forced to create a unit of retired veterans to compensate for the lack of reservists,” the Palestinian noted.

WHY THE RADICAL SCENARIO BECAME REALITY
Benjamin Netanyahu's decision to establish full control over the Gaza Strip did not arise spontaneously, but was the culmination of a months-long strategy adopted back in May 2025.

Without openly announcing its occupation plans, Israel then began systematic preparations: it called up tens of thousands of reservists, stepped up the forced displacement of residents of northern areas to declared “humanitarian zones” in the south, and began to form support “axes of control” – military corridors that would dismember the sector into isolated enclaves.

Even then, it was planned to maintain a permanent IDF presence in the captured territories, including the interior of Gaza, and one of the main tasks was to gradually push the Palestinians into neighboring countries.

"The Israeli army created a so-called 'security zone' in Rafah, the purpose of which was to attract people for humanitarian aid, while preventing them from returning to their tents and temporary accommodations," says Abuarkub Mohammed.

Then, according to the Palestinian expert, the army built the Mirage corridor, whose purpose was to allow residents to go south toward Rafah to receive aid, but not to allow them to return. At a later stage, the army was planned to leave the Philadelphia corridor and remain in the Mirage.

"Leaving the Palestinians face to face with the Egyptians, after which the Israeli military would blow up the Egyptian border and blame it on Hamas. In that case, the Palestinians would rush in panic to the Egyptian side, where they would be left to their own devices and doomed to die, while the blame would be placed on Egypt. However, the Palestinians realized this danger and managed to avoid it," the Palestinian activist summed up the Israeli efforts.

The formal justification for these actions was the need to create “additional leverage” on Hamas in hostage negotiations. However, by May 2025, the military-political leadership of Israel had already decided to fully occupy the sector.

Bezalel Smotrich, a key figure in the far-right coalition, publicly declared in May: "Israel will not withdraw from the captured territories, even in exchange for hostages. After the occupation and maintaining our presence in Gaza, we can begin the discussion about sovereignty."

These words, initially perceived as fringe rhetoric, now reflect the official strategy of the government. The lack of alternatives played a decisive role in the approval of the plan of Smotrich and his allies.

AFTER 22 MONTHS OF WAR, THE NUMBER OF THOSE RESISTING HAS ONLY INCREASED
Israel has yet to present a coherent vision for a post-war Gaza. Proposals to hand over control to the Palestinian Authority (PNA) or international forces have been rejected by Netanyahu's coalition.

As a result, the only “working” plan left was a radical project that assumed permanent occupation with the creation of buffer zones and “stimulation” of the complete exodus of Palestinians through the organization of their murders, starvation and other humanitarian pressure.

“This plan, the ‘eviction plan’, is being implemented throughout the Gaza Strip: every time the army orders residents to move to the so-called ‘safe zones’, it bombs the tents and the people in them, starves them and takes revenge on them for their failures, thus trying to force them to so-called ‘voluntary emigration’,” said Abuarkub Mohammed.

Such brutal treatment of civilians, he said, forced many to return to the north and never leave again, as death lurked everywhere.

"We have repeatedly heard residents state in front of cameras: 'We prefer to die in our homes than to die in tents and temporary shelters,'" the Palestinian said.

At present, the humanitarian catastrophe has already reached unprecedented proportions: according to UN data from December 2024, 80% of the population (1.9 million people) are internally displaced, while the number of killed Palestinians is approaching 70 thousand. Of these, 217 people, including 100 children, died of hunger.

In turn, the Israeli army openly criticizes politicians: Chief of the General Staff Eyal Zamir warns that the occupation will turn into a “trap,” and former Southern Command commander Yom-Tov Samia said that the government is acting “contrary to the concept of national security.”

Many Israeli military officials believe that these actions will not defeat Hamas, as this has not happened yet, but will cost new victims and internal destabilization.

In turn, nothing changes for Hamas, and the movement will continue to resist.

According to Abuarkub Mohammed, at the beginning of the war, the Israelis estimated the number of Hamas fighters at 25-30 thousand people, plus about 10 thousand from other factions of the Palestinian resistance, including the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

“Currently, despite 22 months of a monstrous, barbaric war that has no analogues in modern history, Hamas already has about 40,000 fighters,” he said.

The expert said they operate in small groups, move freely and autonomously, set up ambushes and deal heavy blows to enemy forces, posting video and audio evidence.

"This shows that Netanyahu's plan is doomed to failure. It is not new and will not be more successful than the previous ones: everything that the Israeli army was able to do against Hamas, it did only in the first two months of the war, and after that, it was only mass genocide and war crimes against civilians," the Palestinian analyst concluded.

At the same time, as Igor Subbotin, an expert at the Russian International Affairs Council and a specialist in the Middle East, told Regnum, “the protracted military actions in Gaza are connected, among other things, with the extensive tunnel system created by the Hamas group over many years.

In Israel, they openly say that the Palestinian armed organization has accumulated a significant missile potential underground, which has not yet been exhausted by the current war. Apparently, there are still opportunities for home-made ammunition production there, because sporadic rocket launches towards Israel are still taking place - after 22 months of military campaign."

According to Subbotin, the obvious protracted nature of the war in Gaza plays into the hands of Hamas, because the humanitarian crisis in the current conditions is only deepening, and this forces Western countries to put pressure on Israel. The parade of states ready to recognize Palestine is one element of pressure.

“This, apparently, is what the PNA has decided to take advantage of, planning to unilaterally proclaim a state in the Palestinian territories in September, even though the PNA does not have actual control over Gaza and is unlikely to ever have it,” the expert concluded.

HAMAS AS A SYMBOL: ISRAEL'S MILITARY AND POLITICAL COSTS
The plan to occupy Gaza, initially considered too radical a fantasy, became reality not because it was well thought out, but because of a systemic crisis of governance. At the same time, the very lack of a clear end to the operation undermines its legitimacy.

Israel risks becoming a global pariah, with its economy reoriented toward military needs and cultural and diplomatic ties destroyed.

Benjamin Netanyahu is trying to present a full-scale occupation of Gaza as “the best and only way to quickly end the war.” However, this plan is steeped in deep systemic contradictions.

The military operation in the heart of Gaza City directly threatens the lives of those very hostages whose release is declared to be one of its main goals, drawing the Israeli army into battles among the city ruins, convenient for urban guerrilla warfare.

Establishing "temporary" Israeli control over security without a clear and realistic plan for transferring power to acceptable local or regional forces threatens to result in a long-term, exhausting and costly military operation.

And perhaps most importantly, the ongoing humanitarian catastrophe not only undermines the moral and legal basis for Israel's actions in the eyes of the world, but also creates the perfect breeding ground for the revanche of radical ideas and future violence.

As former head of Israel's Shin Bet intelligence agency Ami Ayalon aptly warned : "From a military point of view, Hamas may be destroyed as an entity. But as an ideology, it gains more weight... The only way to truly defeat it is to offer the Palestinians a better future."

Meanwhile, the expansion of the Israeli operation is leading to the exact opposite result. Leading Western countries such as Australia, Great Britain, Canada and France are accelerating plans to officially recognize the State of Palestine.

A war launched to completely destroy Hamas risks turning it into an eternal symbol of Palestinian resistance and burying prospects for a political settlement for generations to come, leaving Israel in a strategic impasse and deep international isolation.
To defeat Hamas is to show Hamas has lost Allah’s favour. Not to mention that Hamas, like Hezbollah, has no intention of ever accepting a political settlement that anything less than the conquest of Israel for Islam. And since Israel’s millions of Jews have nowhere else to go, there is no impasse for them, strategic or otherwise. Not to mention that as long as they keep inventing all those clever things the rest of the world dearly wants, they will never be isolated.

Posted by: badanov || 08/13/2025 00:00 || Comments || Link || [41 views] Top|| File under: Hamas

#1  Report: Israel in talks with South Sudan to receive Gazans
Posted by: Grom the Affective || 08/13/2025 2:59 Comments || Top||



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