International Events Next-

[Zorral]

This Gaza war didn’t come out of nowhere
Everyone forgot about the Palestinians — conditions have been set for two decades, and Biden’s focus on Israel-Saudi talks may have lit a match.

https://www.vox.com/2023/10/7/23907912/israel-palestine-conflict-history-explained-gaza-hamas

Quote

 

.... It comes after nearly two decades of the US and world leaders overlooking the more than 2 million people living in Gaza who endure a humanitarian nightmare, with its airspace and borders and sea under Israeli control. The attack comes amid an ongoing failure to grapple with the dangerous situation for Palestinians in the West Bank where Israel’s extreme-right government over the past year has escalated the already brutal daily pain of occupation.

Instances of Israeli security forces and Israeli settlers antagonizing Palestinians through violence are on the rise, from the pogrom on the city of Huwara to a new tempo of lethal raids on Jenin. Israeli government ministers have been pursuing annexationist policies and sharing raging rhetoric; both incite further violent response from Palestinians and appear at a time when new militant groups have emerged that claim the mantle of the Palestinian cause. The now-regular presence of Israeli Jews praying at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, one of Islam’s holiest sites, have further pressurized the situation. A Hamas commander cited many of these factors in his statement.

But the ongoing reality of the occupation has not featured prominently in US or Arab leaders’ engagement with the region in recent years, even as circumstances for Palestinians worsened. ...

 

Why did Hamas invade Israel?
The assault on southern Israel exposed the reality of the Palestinian conflict.

https://www.vox.com/2023/10/7/23907323/israel-war-hamas-attack-explained-southern-israel-gaza

Quote

 

.... Nothing like this has happened in the modern history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; even the bloody Second Intifada in the early 2000s never saw this kind of mass incursion into Israeli territory. Now an outright war between Israel and Hamas has begun, one whose consequences for the conflict and the broader Middle East we can only dimly anticipate. The only thing we can be certain about the future is that many, many people are about to die.

How can we begin to think about such a nightmare?

We can start by examining the conditions that made it possible. Though we can’t be sure why Hamas chose to launch this attack now, we do know that there are a number of background conditions — including not just the ongoing occupation but also recent surges of conflict in Jerusalem and the West Bank, a far-right Israeli government, and Israeli-Saudi negotiations about normalizing relations — that made the situation especially combustible. ....

... And the past few months have seen plenty of outrages, ones even more significant than events in Jerusalem. Israel’s current hard-right government, dominated by factions that oppose a peace agreement with the Palestinians, has been conducting a de facto annexation of the West Bank. It has turned a blind eye to settler violence against West Bank civilians, including a February rampage in the town of Huwara.

Israel’s focus on the West Bank may also have created an operational opportunity for Hamas. According to Uzi Ben Yitzhak, a retired Israeli general, the Israeli government has deployed most of the regular IDF forces to the West Bank to manage the situation there — leaving only a skeleton force at the Gaza border. The effort to secure permanent Israeli control over the West Bank, in this assessment, created conditions where a Hamas surprise attack could actually succeed.

There are also geopolitical concerns at work. Israel is currently in the midst of a US-brokered negotiation to normalize relations with Saudi Arabia, a major follow-up to the Abraham Accord agreements struck with several Arab countries during the Trump administration. Normalization is widely seen among Palestinians as the Arab world giving up on them, agreeing to treat Israel like a normal country even as the occupation deepens.

Hamas could well be trying to torpedo the Saudi deal and even try undo the existing Abraham Accords. Indeed, a Hamas spokesperson said that the attack was “a message” to Arab countries, calling on them to cut on ties with Israel.

Rising tension in Jerusalem and the West Bank, weaker border security, an Arab political situation turning more and more unfavorable to the Palestinians — these are all conditions in which it makes more strategic sense for Hamas to take a such a huge risk.

To be clear: Saying it makes strategic sense for Hamas to engage in atrocities is not to justify their killing civilians. There is a difference between explanation and justification: The reasoning behind Hamas’s attack may be explicable even as it is morally indefensible. ....

 

 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

26 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

Might be a bit more than that.
The point of 9/11 was to trick the West (and the US especially) into overreaction, to start a conflict of "civilizations" going way beyond Al-Qaida's terrorist actions. Ben Laden considered that he had succeeded.
There's something similar here. For people who want "holy wars" and "clashes of civilizations," any overreaction by Israel and the West will bring us one step closer to that. And it's hard to imagine Netanyahu reacting with moderation.

I almost guarantee Hamas is desperate for Netanyahu to over-react.  It that isn’t their plan… I’d be shocked.

[Darzin]

17 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I almost guarantee Hamas is desperate for Netanyahu to over-react.  It that isn’t their plan… I’d be shocked.

They want him to react but I think they may have miscalculated this. There is a decent chance they lose power in Gaza over this and have to go back to being just militants. 

[Fragile Bird]

I am going to open a thread about the current Israeli situation.

[DireWolfSpirit]

Its suspicious how the missile attack on Syria was in such close proximity of time as the missile attack on Israel.

That they both had very effective and coordinated drone attacks within 24 hours of one another screams of a mysterious coincidence or false flag or something else at design with this?

Israel and Syria have been on opposite sides over the Golan heights with Israel carrying out a strategic strike on Syria over alleged support for belligerant groups also Trump bombing that Syrian airfield over similar claims in 2017. 

And yet within 24 hrs now these two enemies each attacked in a very similar fashion, its too coincidental, yet makes no sense unless the Syrian attack was a gruesome false flag.

I really have no idea but have a deep suspicion theres more at play than has been publicly reported.

Eta: Theres also a very inconvenient possibility that some Syrians claim and that is at odds with prevailing Western narratives- 

That Assad and Bibi fight the same extremist.

Edited October 10, 2023 by DireWolfSpirit

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

2 hours ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

Eta: Theres also a very inconvenient possibility that some Syrians claim and that is at odds prevailing Western narratives- 

Are you suggesting this attack is an Israeli false flag?  

[Zorral]

Cognitive dissonance is WhatsApp calls from Cuba, with Partner lying on the mattress with a/c going, thinking of ice cold beer, and me wearing sweaters, drinking hot tea, and considering whether it's too early to break out the space heater, while thinking surely tomorrow it will be warmer.

So hot there still, even in October, in Havana.  Nevertheless, despite the heat, and the time of year, there are tourists, though mostly in groups, rather than singletons or couples. The majority of the tourists are from Turkey.  Cuba's become a big destination for Turks since the Bolton bullshit went down, which means people from the US and many other countries cannot stay in Cuban owned hotels.  Those big hotels, quite new, which got going during the Obama era, are also quite empty.

There are some that are newer than that, put up post the list compiled by Bolton's agency, which thus, then, aren't on the list, where then, one can stay.

Really weird stuff going on though, from US sanctions.  An Australian, who came with an Australian travel company, got his US travel visa confiscated at the airport, not allowed to board the plane, and in Australia, his credit cards were cut off, because he was booked on a flight from Havana to Newark w/o an ESTA visa -- which broke a bunch of the rules imposed by the USA, the newest ones, that have come out of the Biden administration.

He was stranded in Cuba -- with NO MONEY and no access to his own bank and credit.  Fortunately he had enough minutes on his fone to call a friend of ours in New Orleans, who then called us. We then called our lawyer for Cuban legal affairs and travel.  It was managed that our mutual friend was able to wire money through various ways and countries, to our Cuban friends, who were able to bring it him, pick him up from airport, get him a place to stay, and get him a ticket to fly to Mexico, and take him back to the airport the next day.  From where, then, he could merrily book a flight back home, or to the US, which he had originally planned to do.  He chose to go back home, feeling the US wasn't the greatest place to be.

Back home in Australia I hope he can sue the shyte out of that travel company, which never alerted him to these problems, and just deserted him.  "Not our problem."  Partner never in a million years would have done that to one his Travelers.  But then, he makes sure the Travelers know all the legal conditions and observe them in the first place.

Edited October 9, 2023 by Zorral

[Padraig]

6 hours ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

Its suspicious how the missile attack on Syria was in such close proximity of time as the missile attack on Israel.

...

That Assad and Bibi fight the same extremist.

There are attacks in Syria all the time.  Barely notable that one of them occurs close to an attack on Israel.  Sure, the number of fatalities are terrible but always be aware that humans are well too keen to find patterns in random data.

And yes, Assad and Israel share some of the same enemies.  There is nothing remarkable about that.  Or inconvenient.  Assad and Israel remain enemies after all even if they have currently other primary targets.

[DireWolfSpirit]

14 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Are you suggesting this attack is an Israeli false flag?  

That makes no sense at all.  I was commenting on the drone attacks on the Syrian military graduation ceremony that was so close, less than 24hrs. from the Israeli drone attack.

Basically wondering whether the same extremists couldve had a hand in both attacks.

Im not sure where your reading into that an Israeli false flag suggestion?

10 hours ago, Padraig said:

And yes, Assad and Israel share some of the same enemies.  There is nothing remarkable about that.  Or inconvenient.

Its inconvenient for neocons in my country who are very eager to overthrow both Assad and Iran though. We are already seeing WSJ articles linking Iran to the attack on Israel. Linking Iran without any evidence though according to our Sec State.

"The Wall Street Journal is reporting Iran helped plan Hamas’s attack on Israel.."

U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said he has not seen any evidence to substantiate the claim.

Im pretty sure the same neocons, like John Bolton and the rest would not hesitate to use the Israeli attacks to make their case for attacking both Iran and Syria as well, 2 of the 3 countries they regularly refer to as the axis of evil.

That 3rd country was Iraq and we all now know how the press and intelligence was manipulated for that war.

That is the narrative the neocons will be pushing in the conservative media, they are counting on people not noticing whether the facts say otherwise, they have bogie men and view these type of events as opportunity to affix targets and they are not above falsehoods to achieve their goals.

[maarsen]

14 hours ago, Zorral said:

Cognitive dissonance is WhatsApp calls from Cuba, with Partner lying on the mattress with a/c going, thinking of ice cold beer, and me wearing sweaters, drinking hot tea, and considering whether it's too early to break out the space heater, while thinking surely tomorrow it will be warmer.

So hot there still, even in October, in Havana.  Nevertheless, despite the heat, and the time of year, there are tourists, though mostly in groups, rather than singletons or couples. The majority of the tourists are from Turkey.  Cuba's become a big destination for Turks since the Bolton bullshit went down, which means people from the US and many other countries cannot stay in Cuban owned hotels.  Those big hotels, quite new, which got going during the Obama era, are also quite empty.

There are some that are newer than that, put up post the list compiled by Bolton's agency, which thus, then, aren't on the list, where then, one can stay.

Really weird stuff going on though, from US sanctions.  An Australian, who came with an Australian travel company, got his US travel visa confiscated at the airport, not allowed to board the plane, and in Australia, his credit cards were cut off, because he was booked on a flight from Havana to Newark w/o an ESTA visa -- which broke a bunch of the rules imposed by the USA, the newest ones, that have come out of the Biden administration.

He was stranded in Cuba -- with NO MONEY and no access to his own bank and credit.  Fortunately he had enough minutes on his fone to call a friend of ours in New Orleans, who then called us. We then called our lawyer for Cuban legal affairs and travel.  It was managed that our mutual friend was able to wire money through various ways and countries, to our Cuban friends, who were able to bring it him, pick him up from airport, get him a place to stay, and get him a ticket to fly to Mexico, and take him back to the airport the next day.  From where, then, he could merrily book a flight back home, or to the US, which he had originally planned to do.  He chose to go back home, feeling the US wasn't the greatest place to be.

Back home in Australia I hope he can sue the shyte out of that travel company, which never alerted him to these problems, and just deserted him.  "Not our problem."  Partner never in a million years would have done that to one his Travelers.  But then, he makes sure the Travelers know all the legal conditions and observe them in the first place.

A few years back, while in Cuba, we met an American family with in-laws in Cuba that they would regularly visit. The father told us that they were allowed to travel to Cuba but the paperwork involved was a pain so now they just fly to Toronto and take a regular flight to Cuba with all the other Canadian tourists.

[Zorral]

43 minutes ago, maarsen said:

The father told us that they were allowed to travel to Cuba but the paperwork involved was a pain so now they just fly to Toronto and take a regular flight to Cuba with all the other Canadian tourists.

Plus the chaos demon's people deliberately made the paperwork much more complicated, cut funding and staff to process it, etc. etc. etc.  That hasn't been fixed either.

And now we hardly have any non-stop flights to and from Cuba in the US at all.  JetBlue cut theirs to once a week, and another airline only uses very small planes. The Cornell University Orchestra that is going to Cuba in January -- with the students and the chaperones and minders -- there are far too many for that flight.  So one has to overnight in Miami, or, as you say, go to Canada or Mexico.

Canada does remain as Cuba's number 1 provider of the so necessary tourist income. This time of the year isn't when Canadians prefer to come -- or others, for that matter; it is the low trough of tourism season right now for Cuba, of course.  US is #10. But, as always, there are African Americans present.  There's always been a steady stream of African Americans from the US who go to Cuba, one way and another. Since the Revolution, hey have always felt welcome and comfortable there.

Edited October 10, 2023 by Zorral

[Martell Spy]

Revealed: Amazon linked to trafficking of workers in Saudi Arabia

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/oct/10/amazon-trafficking-links-claims-saudi-arabia-workers-abuse

Quote

 

The only way to escape, he says, was to pay the $1,300 fee demanded by the labor supply firm as a penalty for leaving before the end of his two-year contract. It was an enormous sum for Mansur and his family.

In the end, his family sunk itself even deeper in debt by taking out a loan – at 36% interest – to pay the exit fee.

“It was better going home than dying of hunger,” he says.

Other jobless workers slipped away from the accommodations and worked illegal, off-the-grid jobs.

 

 

 

[DireWolfSpirit]

^^^^Just outrageous!

[Padraig]

13 hours ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

Its inconvenient for neocons in my country who are very eager to overthrow both Assad and Iran though.

I know what you are saying but take Islamic State for example.  No government supports them.  The Taliban opposes them!  It is nice that the Taliban and the US have something in common but does agreement on that one thing have any significant positive effect on relations?  Extremely marginal, at best.

Any neocons can easily ignore such things.

[polishgenius]

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-67118787



I'm wary of exit polls but please oh please be true - PiS might be about to lose the election in Poland. 

[3CityApache]

22 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-67118787



I'm wary of exit polls but please oh please be true - PiS might be about to lose the election in Poland. 

Hell yeah, we’ve made it. The differences between parties in terms of expected parliament seats are too big to change drastically when the official results are published. 
 

PiS has won the election with almost 37%, but that’s not enough to form a government, even with fascist Konfederacja, which only got 6% (and polls gave them even twice as much sometimes).

Democratic opposition should have 248 seats in 460-seats lower chamber of Parliament. 
 

Also, we have a record voting turnout of about 73%, more than in the first free election in 1989. 

Edited October 15, 2023 by 3CityApache

[Padraig]

17 minutes ago, 3CityApache said:

Hell yeah, we’ve made it. The differences between parties in terms of expected parliament seats are too big to change drastically when the official results are published. 
 

PiS has won the election with almost 37%, but that’s not enough to form a government, even with fascist Konfederacja, which only got 6% (and polls gave them even twice as much sometimes). 

Also, we have a record voting turnout of about 73%, more than in the first free election in 1989.

Congrats on the turnout!  And the exit poll is definitely reliable?  The Slovakian one was completely wrong a few weeks ago.

[3CityApache]

8 minutes ago, Padraig said:

Congrats on the turnout!  And the exit poll is definitely reliable?  The Slovakian one was completely wrong a few weeks ago.

Four years ago exit polls were almost exactly right for the first two spots. 
 

There will be differences, sure, but I’m pretty sure they won’t be substantial enough for PiS to have an ability to rule. Plus, the votes from abroad will be the last to come and they’re typically anti-PiS. 

[Erik of Hazelfield]

Finally some good international news! If the results stand, it is good not just for Poland but for the entire EU. If Hungary’s Victor Orbán is stripped of his one ally in the European Council, that means the rest of the council can approve an invocation of article 7 unanimously. 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_7_of_the_Treaty_on_European_Union

[Padraig]

58 minutes ago, Erik of Hazelfield said:

Finally some good international news! If the results stand, it is good not just for Poland but for the entire EU. If Hungary’s Victor Orbán is stripped of his one ally in the European Council, that means the rest of the council can approve an invocation of article 7 unanimously. 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_7_of_the_Treaty_on_European_Union

Unfortunately, the recent Slovakian election puts that in doubt.

But still, you are right that it is a big result for Poland and Europe.  Poland has a significant voice, especially for Eastern and Central Europe.

I was looking at 3 big elections in Europe this year.  Hungary, Turkey and Poland.  None of them looked particularly hopeful but the polls in Poland did seem to grow more positive during the year.