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Operation pillar of cloud. Israeli assault on Gaza

Frumious B. said:
I'm convinced that Netanyahu's game plan is to bomb Iran imminently. The assassination was intended to stoke up this current conflict. He will escalate it in the hope of a massacre of his own civilians by Iranian-supplied weapons and/or a modest loss of territory to a Hamas "invasion" in order to get public support in the US and force Obama's hand. The accuracy of the rockets will be linked to the story that Iran has advanced delivery systems. Plenty of Israelis sincerely believe they must do this to defend against annihilation. They are panicking about the instability resulting from Mubarak's departure and the war in Syria. They feel they have no choice. Iran understands all this which is why it's gone quiet.
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Yep, I'm coming rapidly to this view also.
 
They are somewhat on the defensive over the attack on the media building. They've posted video showing how much of a precision strike on a particular antenna it was.

 
weltweit said:
If Israel wants to involve Iran, I think it has to get evidence that these new longer range missiles are coming from Iran. It might be possible to prove that from their wreckage in Israel but perhaps might better be discovered by a ground invasion into Gaza to get some pre firing.

If Israel agrees to a ceasefire now, what has it achieved? Gaza will still have missiles (some of which are long range), assuming they have not fired them all. I suppose it has proved the value of Iron Dome.
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What Israel has achieved is greater notoriety than they already had. Israel doesn't need to implicate Iran in the Gaza rockets, they are already convinced of its intention to create nuclear weapons. This has already determined Israel to attack Iran. They just want to get America on board. By stirring up their existing war - even resulting in Tel Avive being attacked, they hope to get the American Christian Zionist sympathisers to put pressure on Obama to back Israel in the attack on Iraq. I hope William Hague wakes up and doesn't follow suit, he is horribly pro-Israel in his current statements. Britain is no longer powerful enough to 'send in the gunboats'.
 
I think it's part of the 'mowing the grass', or killing the new set of militants in Gaza - the lame duck congress/senate in the states gives them cover. See 2004, 2008 for repeat performances. Netanyahu wants Iran, but he wants Iran like Castro wanted to go for the U.S in 1962. Except this time it's Obama as Krushchev, who realises how batshit insane it would be to try and go after Iran.

Israel are on limited time. Once Libya & Egypt get themselves straightened out, and should the rebels take Syria - there'll be less ambivalence in the region. A lot of people are getting their voices heard in those countries, and having fought for a change of leader and elections - the issue of Palestinian statehood could be portrayed as the reasonable next step in the Arab Spring.
 
Hocus Eye. said:
What Israel has achieved is greater notoriety than they already had. Israel doesn't need to implicate Iran in the Gaza rockets, they are already convinced of its intention to create nuclear weapons. This has already determined Israel to attack Iran. They just want to get America on board. By stirring up their existing war - even resulting in Tel Avive being attacked, they hope to get the American Christian Zionist sympathisers to put pressure on Obama to back Israel in the attack on Iraq. I hope William Hague wakes up and doesn't follow suit, he is horribly pro-Israel in his current statements. Britain is no longer powerful enough to 'send in the gunboats'.
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Indeed, and by attacking those that it's easy for people to feel sorry it means when they go after Iran (which most don't have any real strong feelings over) it'll be 'Well at least Iran deserved it if they were threatening Israel' etc. Particularly in the US.
 
A civilian house has been hit and four kids have been killed. Pictures of the dead kids circulating on Twitter now.
 
That was reportedly the house of a Hamas official, with his family wiped out, he was the only adult male victim. Some neighbours may also have been hurt.
 
Yeah no worries. The pics show four kids but the link says 6 kids. One thingis certain ..a civilian house has been hit.
 
elbows said:
That was reportedly the house of a Hamas official, with his family wiped out, he was the only adult male victim. Some neighbours may also have been hurt.
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Makes sense, if they're going to target Hamas people it's very possible they might be at home with family at times so civ casualties will go up on the back of this...it's odd how the talk of ground invasion seems to have shifted to this type of reporting though.
 
Kid_Eternity said:
it's odd how the talk of ground invasion seems to have shifted to this type of reporting though.
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I'm not sure it really has shifted - there is a danger of reading too much into brief shifts if you analyse commentary both in the media and on twitter by the hour, different subjects will ebb and flow.
 
elbows said:
I'm not sure it really has shifted - there is a danger of reading too much into brief shifts if you analyse commentary both in the media and on twitter by the hour, different subjects will ebb and flow.
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That depends if you're doing that, reading huge amounts across different channels you can gain an overview if you so choose, I can't see many mentions on ground invasion popping up compared to this time yesterday.
 
Despite talk of negotiations I still think a ground invasion is inevitable and soon and for the following reasons.

For all the talk of Iran and elections the bottom line is this conflict has been initiated by Israel in order to degrade Hamas' increased missile capacity. This is what this is about. In particular to destroy Hamas' possession of Fajr 5 missiles.

It's as simple as that. Hamas possession of these weapons is a significant upgrade in capacity for Hamas. It means for the first time they can target and threaten central Israel, particularly Tel Aviv. If Hamas can weather this conflict and keep some of these weapons and add them to their long term arsenal then they have achieved a significant strategic victory. This for obvious reasons, is something Israel are determined to prevent. This conflict is in a sense then a consequence of Israel's intelligence failure (something I can see having political consequences for Netanyahu inside Israel once the dust settles) in failing to stop these missiles getting to Hamas in the first place. Its an attempt to undo that intelligence mistake by war

To Hamas, these weapons are a fact on the ground and they are now an essential part of their arsenal. Losing them then would be a serious blow to their military capacity. It cannot therefore afford to lose them. Hamas are content to maintain the status quo because the status quo means their retention of these weapons. To Israel, Hamas's possession of these weapons can't be tolerated.It cannot therefore afford to leave them in Hamas' hands.Israel then, by initiating this conflict intends to change the status quo. So that begs the question. If Israel ends hostilities now has the status quo changed to Israel's satisfaction? clearly not.

So we have a gulf between them that I can't see being bridged enough to end hostilities. In any negotiation, Israel are going to demand Hamas give them up. Hamas can't do that and besides Israel have no way of knowing they have given them all up even if Hamas agreed. So what is there to negotiate about?

By demanding Hamas give up these weapons, Israel would be demanding the impossible. Hamas cannot do that and I'm sure Israel is well aware of this. On the other hand, Hamas refusing to give them up is unacceptable to Israel. This means a ground assault. This war was initiated by Israel because the status quo is not acceptable to it. Pulling back now leaves the status quo intact and thus defeats the purpose of initiating this conflict in the first place.

This I think makes a ground assault inevitable and negotiations futile. The gulf between the parties is not ideological in this instance, it is strategic. Its about weapons and the long term consequences of possession of those weapons.
 
I'llbelieve the bombing iranthing when i seeit .they've been sayingisrael willdothat for yers andits never happened.

personally i thinj this will be one of the last (but maybe not the last) time israel will ever bombard gaza like this. i hope i am right andthere are a few reasons why i think this.

haveto say a ground invasion looks likely at the mo. i do believe tho that the time when israel willjust do this shit whenever its govt feel like is coming to an end
 
Kid_Eternity said:
That depends if you're doing that, reading huge amounts across different channels you can gain an overview if you so choose, I can't see many mentions on ground invasion popping up compared to this time yesterday.
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From which sources? Western leaders have been talking about it more today than before - Hague suggesting it would be unwise, Obama much the same albeit with the usual difference in tone and emphasis on other stuff.
 
While there has apparently been no recent mention of a ground attack in recent exchanges on Twitter and social media the main media are reporting that originally 30,000 and more recently 70,000 recruits have been made to the Israeli army. The bombing from the air can perhaps be seen as the 'softening up' that usually precedes a ground attack.

If that attack goes ahead I wonder what the newly democratised Egypt will make of it. Will they continue with their own peace agreement with Israel. Currently they stick with it because they want to keep America on side to the extent that they are on side. Egypt's new status is not solidly stable though and there are many Egyptians who would be happy to support Gaza if the war moved too near to Egypt.
 
elbows said:
From which sources? Western leaders have been talking about it more today than before - Hague suggesting it would be unwise, Obama much the same albeit with the usual difference in tone and emphasis on other stuff.
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I've seen quotes of de-escalation but not ground invasion. Sources, Hareetz, RT, Guardian, BBC, and about 50 twitter columns on Tweetdeck!
 
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...that-ground-invasion-would-damage-Israel.html


Mr Hague told Sky News that it was much more difficult to limit civilian casualties in a ground assault, which would threaten to prolong the conflict.
His comments came after Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, said the armed forces were ready to "significantly expand" their operation against militants in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip as it entered its fifth day.
The Government has said that Hamas bears the principal responsibility for the crisis due to perpetual rocket attacks on Israeli territory.
But Mr Hague said it would be hard for the international community to maintain sympathy with Israel if it launched a ground operation.
"That, of course, is a different proposition," he said.
"The Prime Minister and I have both stressed to our Israeli counterparts that a ground invasion of Gaza would lose Israel a lot of the international support and sympathy that they have in this situation.
"It's much more difficult to restrict and avoid civilian casualties during a ground invasion and a large ground operation would threaten to prolong the conflict.
"So we have made our views very clear on that with Israel, just as we have made very clear our view that the barrage of rockets from Gaza onto southern Israel is an intolerable situation for the Israelis and it's not surprising they have responded to that.
"A ground invasion is much more difficult for the international community to sympathise with or support - including the United Kingdom."
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As for the abundance of tweets on a particular subject, in a conflict situation this often reflects the fears, rumours and propaganda that has risen to the top of the pile at any particular moment in time.
 
elbows said:
As for the abundance of tweets on a particular subject, in a conflict situation this often reflects the fears, rumours and propaganda that has risen to the top of the pile at any particular moment in time.
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Indeed but some of us have been doing this for a very long time, it's not like we just all woke up yesterday and are just parroting whatever dramatic tweet we see fly by!
 
Balbi said:
Hence the ''claimed".
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Yep, think it's good we use correct language, cite sources and add caveats where needed on this. This thread is a very good source of information but it doesn't need contaminating with the usual bun fights or misleading posts.
 
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