Obviously just pure conspiracy theory from my standpoint but hard to imagine who has more to stand to gain than Putin by having Biden in bad spot with US citizens held hostage in Gaza right now. Gotta imagine there non-zero chance he was pulling strings via Iran??
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Itās not a conspiracy theory it was my first thought. People arenāt happy with Russia getting absolutely wrecked and they want to open another proxy war front. I wonāt be surprised when the Palestinians do way better than expected militarily because someone gave them better weapons. Someone being China and Russia. People being Putin and Xi.
Iām sure backing Hamas has been an option for quite a few people for quite some time. I doubt theyād go this big without at least some assurances that they wonāt just run out of ammo and have to melt back into Lebanon. Theyāve given the IDF quite a bit of justification to go crazy here (as if IDF didnāt give them plenty of justification to do this but such is tit for tat) so if they try to pull the old hit and hide behind the human shields line again the settlers are going to take a looooooot of ground over the next ten years.
So to me at least Hamasās actions make more sense if they think they can actually take some kind of victory here. No idea what that means to them though. Iām extremely sure that if a major power actually sponsored full scale war with Israel Hamas would be happy to do that indefinitely. In fact thatās really what Hamas should be doing to justify its continued existence. Very hard to morally justify being how they are as anything but a wartime army that can posture as something temporary.
Plenty of long term oppressed minorities have come up with leaders that donāt consistently choose attempted genocide with no chance to win. Itās not a natural consequence whatsoever. Furthermore, Hamasā rise to power happened during a time of relative peace. They capitalized on fatah being a shit government and a significant portion of the population wanting war
I really know nothing about Hams relations with China and donāt want to invest the time to read up, but can Russia afford to be giving away weapons right now? Wouldnāt Hamas be getting theirs primarily from Iran?
It wonāt be Iran. Iran is trying to normalize the region to get their economy back online. This whole situation is actually terrible for Iran. Itās more likely to be Saudi Arabia deliberately trying to fuck with Iran than it is to be Iran.
If itās Iran itās some internal faction of their security apparatus trying to push Iran their own way. This will backfire SPECTACULARLY and those guys will almost certainly end up totally irretrievably fuckedā¦ and Hamas will suddenly find itself sponsorless once again with the leadership of Iran super pissed at them.
Speaking of which Iām pretty sure Iran is furious with Hamas right now.
The whole situation is a lot more complicated than you think it is. It sounds like you have Israeli friends and you may have taken their word for it. Iāve got Palestinian friends and Israeli friends and Iām telling you that both sides are lying to me lol. I trust the Palestinians about the Israeliās and I trust the Israeliās about the Palestinians lol. Theyāre also lying to themselves ldo. Very easy to see the other sides bullshit very hard to see your own.
You are the one with the oversimplified point of view here, claiming that hamas is the natural consequence is Israeli behavior. Iām the one arguing itās more complicated.
The whole āit sounds like you have Israeli friendsā is, frankly, the same language used by antisemites.
I didnāt say Hamas was a natural result of Israeli behavior I said it was natural to the conditions on the ground. The expectations of the Palestinians as a population are wildly out of touch with reality and thatās largely a result of how suddenly the world changed for them. Their leaders got them into this mess promising them pretty much total victory and instead they were totally defeated.
Israel isnāt a single coherent actor and neither are the Palestinians or Hamas itself. At this point weāre talking about incentives and how they play out over and over again.
Yes Israelās actions over the last couple of decades have heavily contributed to Hamas being the dominant political force on the other side. Every action they took just about helped Hamas grow lol. And because the relationship is symbiotic every action Hamas took helped the Israeli right.
I donāt know how to interpret this in another way, but I see what you meant now
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Yeah itās all good man. Iām telling you itās a goddamn disaster over there lol. Thereās more than enough blame to go around. I promise at no point have I minimized what Hamas is. I categorize them in the same general family of human organizational types with the Tamil Tigers, the FARC, or continuing that devolution away from Hamasās legitimacy the Lords Resistance Army.
None of those groups could ever be described as āthe good guysā. In fact with the exception of the FARC none of those groups ever came close to cutting/keeping a deal and ended up causing a lot of harm in the world.
Late stage doomed rebel group that long ago turned into a business is a bad club to be in.
Literally every conversation with an Israeli or a Palestinian about the situation is basically just them saying āif the other side would just be reasonableā while being wildly unreasonable.
Both sides want a single state solution where their side conclusively won. The only road to that realistically happening is the Israeliās committing genocide. But the only road to the Palestinians goals is also lol genocide not to mention entirely fucking impossible based on conditions on the ground. Militarily the Palestinians lost but instead of negotiating based on that itās just the āI didnāt hear no bellā meme every seven or eight years if that.
The solution is negotiations in good faith based on reality, which neither side will do. The US helping the Israeliās is helping to keep them from having to negotiate in good faith. With the Palestinians reality needs a carrot to seep in.
Jesus, this is horrific:
Yeah I donāt see how this plays out other than through a slow elimination of the Palestinian people. Israelās plan seems to be to pen them all into the Gaza strip, cut it off from the outside world, and just hope they go away after a few decades. I guess not unlike how the US has handled whatās left of the indigenous population.
Itās easy to see the logic on both sides: after attacks like this you can see why Israel isnāt going to let Palestine have more access to outside resources. Also, easy to see how many desperate Palestinians are just going to say fuck it and go out killing as many Israelis as possible.
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Iām staying off Reddit and TikTok because itās hard to avoid videos from there and elsewhere.
Roughly 10 years ago I thought āIām a pretty smart guy, letās figure this Middle East situation out.ā I did a shitload of reading and talking to people who know more about it than me. I came to the conclusion then, and I still think now, that itās unsolvable. Layers upon layers upon layers of bad faith and manipulation that started wayyyyyyy before 1948. Assessing āblameā, imo, is impossible. Thereās more than plenty to go around.
Between this and other worldwide developments over the last few years, Iām just sad for and extremely cynical about humanity. I donāt think I still believe that the arc of the moral universe bends toward justice. My only response is to try to be kinder and more helpful in my daily interactions with people, from my family to somebody random at the grocery store.
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Several russian-aligned hacker groups have been strongly linked to cyberattacks that launched basically simultaneously with the first rockets
I am guessing weāll see more evidence bubbling up over the next few days
Anonymous Sudan is Russian-backed/controlled and DDoSād the system that sends out alerts to Israeli citizens right as the attack started
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like you think this would get deplorables to shut up about the $6 billion oil money thing but this wonāt change anyoneās mind. they could have live footage of putin kidnapping israeli kids and Gaetz would still be pushing to defund ukraine
Iran is doing none of that in Syria and Iraq
Iran is trying to puppet Syria and integrate Iraq in terms of long term goals. They would like the rest of the neighborhood be as quiet as possible lol.
Iām going to be real with you guys a lot of people donāt seem to realize that Iran used to be the Persian empire. You take powers not from the region out of the equation and that entire part of the world lives inside Iranās sphere of influence. Iām not doing some bullshit realist take here where they get to conquer everyone or anything like that, Iām just saying in that part of the world if thereās a natural superpower the only candidates are Iran and Turkey. Those are countries with meaningful non oil economies, real militaries that arenāt entirely dependent on US aid, and crucially large populations.
Iran, like all large countries, is primarily preoccupied with the domestic economic/political picture. Right now they have large problems with the economy not providing anywhere near enough opportunities for an extremely educated population of mostly young people.
Thatās why theyāre making nice with Saudi Arabia and hopefully staying out of this Hamas thing, although their relations with us are very bad (even though theyāre the best allies we have in the region and it isnāt close not that thatās saying much).
If Iran is involved (and I mean to the extent that they are a major backer not just that the Russians got some info from Trump and used the Iranians to pass some intel to Hamas) theyāre involved because the people backing Hamas are the Chinese and Iran is about to massively increase trade ties with them. I really canāt overstate how unfortunate that development would be. Absolutely the dawn of a new cold war type of shit.
Because of course them making nice with Saudi Arabia at the same time wouldnāt be coincidence. Saudi Arabia would also be joining the Chinese blocā¦ although honestly I think the Saudiās are a liability to whoever the do business with so good fucking riddance.