Israel and hezbollah after the exploding pagers
- Thread starter Pickman's model
- Start date
PTK
Paul Kegan
By the State of Israel. Hezbollah would be very demoralised indeed in they thought that they had been spied on in this way since 2015. It would make the State of Israel seem even more formidable.
The39thStep
Urban critical thinker
Interesting , if slightly speculative, article in the Guardian about the emigration of secular Israelis who feel they no longer have a future in the country.
"He thinks Israel’s economy will be hampered by the growing number of ultra-orthodox young people not qualified for professional jobs because they do not study maths or science, or speak English. Socially, he fears the rise of religious conservatives will make life hard for secular Jews. “If you ask me what we are headed for, you can look at the Iranian model, where religion plays a major role in daily life."
www.theguardian.com
"He thinks Israel’s economy will be hampered by the growing number of ultra-orthodox young people not qualified for professional jobs because they do not study maths or science, or speak English. Socially, he fears the rise of religious conservatives will make life hard for secular Jews. “If you ask me what we are headed for, you can look at the Iranian model, where religion plays a major role in daily life."
A year of war accelerates ‘silent departure’ of Israel’s elite
Brain drain could undermine the country’s hi-tech economy as liberal families conclude social contract has been broken
Spymaster
Plastic Paddy
Oh, I see. I believe it. There's quite a lot of detail out there as to how and when it was done, and the fact that Israeli intelligence has deeply infiltrated Hamas and Hezbollah is uncontentious.
I don't think Israel particularly needs to propagandise to demoralise Hezbollah, having just practically obliterated their former membership.
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PTK
Paul Kegan
I cannot find many reports of the claim that the pagers were sabotaged in 2015. As far as I can establish, Hezbollah was not using pagers in 2015.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
If it's a failure to act on intelligence it's not an if. A failure to collect or a failure to draw the right conclusions, sure. But tbh hamas played a blinder doing all their preparations under the eyes of the idf. It's the sort of planning which many state forces in the world wouldn't be able to bring off. That the Israelis didn't move to stop what they saw happening speaks to complacency and group think among decisionmakers more than inadequacies in collection.
Spymaster
Plastic Paddy
PTK
Paul Kegan
This may have been a clue.
Spymaster
Plastic Paddy
There's no doubt that the Hamas action was extremely well planned militarily. They've also managed to achieve the short term aim of drawing Iran even deeper into the conflict. Given the price that has come at, and will continue to be paid, one might question the wisdom of that.
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PTK
Paul Kegan
From where are you getting this widely reported information?
Where are you getting this from?
Spymaster
Plastic Paddy
You'll have to do your own Googling I'm afraid, but most of the reporting at the moment seems to be based on this Washington Post article from Saturday.
Not sure why you're so incredulous!
The39thStep
Urban critical thinker
Must be up there with Pearl Harbour as one the top intelligence failures of all time ( which is worthy of a list in itself)
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
one might question the wisdom of that. but if their strategic aim is ending the existence of the zionist state it seems that they're doing really well. israel is becoming a pariah state, its ability to keep its citizens safe is at the least open to question, and many of the people who are behind israel's high tech economy are leaving or considering whether to leave. the americans' world standing has been harmed by this too. sure, the price has been severe and many estimates of palestinian deaths place them in the hundreds of thousands. it's gone beyond the point where any reasonable settlement can be made - the zionists will have to kill all the palestinians if they want peace, or offer a peace deal which is probably now too little too late to prevent years of conflict ahead.
frogwoman
No amount of cajolery...
Israel used to have a pretty thriving tourist industry especially with tourists from Russia and the former Soviet Union (it was like going to spend weeks on the beach in Turkey with tbh, similar ethical issues involved) especially since Israel didn't apply sanctions to Russia. I am pretty sure that's gone now
PTK
Paul Kegan
The reason that I asked you is because I did so some web searching, and the only article I could find was the one from the Indian publication that you posted. I will look at the Washington Post.
The39thStep
Urban critical thinker
Russia has advised its citizens to leave Israel for safety reasons. I saw a before/after photo of an Israeli beach resort early this morning and googling came across this article about the impact of the war on Israel's tourist industry.
Israeli Tourism Struggles to Maintain the Infrastructure | .TR
Israeli Tourism needs to cope with the impact of the war.
www.tourism-review.com
Spymaster
Plastic Paddy
Don't disagree with much of that but Israel has only become a pariah state with those who already hated them. As you note, the stated aim to end Israel's existence, by means of deliberately goading them into killing civilians, engenders short term fury but long term empathy among many. Israel isn't going anywhere, so aims to destroy them are futile. Trump will likely win soon and Israel will have the strongest backing from the US that they've ever had. Even if he doesn't win, US support is arguably at an all time high. Nobody else matters really. You'll get the usual handwringing and platitudes from other nations, but at the end of the day it'll all be back to "normal" with the lines exactly the same as they are now and Israel largely back in favour with those they supposedly alienated. All that will be different is that several hundred thousand Palestinians will be dead. Cheers Hamas.
agricola
a genuine importer of owls
I think it’s possible to get a peace deal that largely prevents conflict in the medium term, though not with the current Israeli government / political class (really not without making an example out of them if I’m being honest).
Spymaster
Plastic Paddy
I don't. Any such deal would be very temporary. There will always be people who will attack Israel regardless of any deals done, and Israel will always be able to kill insane numbers of Palestinians in retaliation, as well as protect their borders from any game changing incursions.
frogwoman
No amount of cajolery...
I don't know what will happen then, as many of them will probably not return to Russia and it may actually be dangerous to go back.Russia has advised its citizens to leave Israel for safety reasons. I saw a before/after photo of an Israeli beach resort early this morning and googling came across this article about the impact of the war on Israel's tourist industry.
Israeli Tourism Struggles to Maintain the Infrastructure | .TR
Israeli Tourism needs to cope with the impact of the war.
If I remember right, there were over 1 million Russian citizens living there at one point and many more on temporary visas, thousands more from Ukraine and other former USSR countries as well. Not all (or iirc even most) of whom were Jewish. Following the Ukraine invasion a lot of people moved there from Russia due to an increase in antisemitism in Russian politics, to escape mobilisation or both. I know a few people who moved out there from Russia. When I was in Russia i had a lot of friends in the Jewish community, but there was an organisation called Torah Mitzion which offered education classes and encouraged people to move to Israel, basically telling people that Jews were commanded by G-d to actually move there. In the UK even most orthodox Jews don't believe that the Torah actively tells you to move there but I even met some reform Jews who believed this when I was there. If someone became religious or converted via Orthodox Judaism some people actively expected you to do this.
There was a controversy some years ago in Israel, because many of those from Russia and the FSU had 'New Year' trees (aka Christmas trees) in their houses during the festive period and some people got offended as this was a Christian invention, it was seen as an example of the Russians not being 'real' Jews and not wanting to integrate into a Jewish state. There was also a claim that the Christian New Year (the most important holiday in Russia and most of the former USSR) celebrated a massacre of Jews as well.
When I was there I was shocked at how little awareness there was of the Israeli Palestinian conflict in general, many non Jewish people went to Israel regularly on holiday or had relatives working there as well. It's not just Russia either- it was the same in many former Soviet countries (until very recently anyway)
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frogwoman
No amount of cajolery...
Oh forgot to mention at my uni we had to share rooms in the hall of residence and their policy was to put people in rooms with someone of the same nationality, they put an Israeli guy in the same room as a Palestinian guy because nobody else was either Israeli or Palestinian lol. It actually worked out OK for them but could also have gone very badly. I didn't hear much or any antisemitism when I was there tbh, but I heard a lot of casual islamophobic stuff.
agricola
a genuine importer of owls
There are, but the numbers of those people would (as they were in NI) be reduced if a genuine deal emerged that actually dealt with many of the key issues at hand.
I mean if these people weren’t having their land and homes pinched, their relatives abducted / beaten / killed with impunity, had decent economic and social conditions and weren’t being systematically humiliated by a system designed to humiliate them there would be a lot less violence.
Spymaster
Plastic Paddy
Yes. I think the best that can be achieved is less violence, rather than no violence.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
Yeh right but returning unwillingly to the real world people who have invested more time in examining the situation disagree with you eg How Netanyahu stole defeat from the jaws of victory
Spymaster
Plastic Paddy
Which bit of that are you trying to draw my attention to?
I don't usually disagree with Hearst much.
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Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
The bit where he says the zionists have lost much of the global south as well as a number of western countries, for a start
Spymaster
Plastic Paddy
I don't disagree with that. I just contend that the loss of support will be temporary. As I said in the post you've quoted.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
Yeh. Well things are going to get a lot worse before they reach some stable level of shittyness. And we'll see how long temporary is then.
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