Israel - Palestine discussion thread

[Eunos_Cosmo]

It shouldn't stop everything, it counter only missiles that could hit something viable. So far, it working pretty well - there is only one report of one dead in Jericho, Palestine Autonomy. Few Israeli were injured while heading to vaults, more dead after shooting in Jaffa.

Iron Dome does that - does Arrow?

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

Reports that some Israeli airbases were hit.

Yeah, Netanyahu is going to be seeing blood if legitimate targets were hit by Iran. It will also kind of break the spell of Israeli invincibility.

No idea the provenance of this, but if this is an Israeli airbase, it's getting hammered

 

[Joey D]

I really hope Americans don't have to go die for this.

 

[inCloud]

Iron Dome does that - does Arrow?

Whole Israeli AA system works like that - predicting tragetory of missiles and destroying dangerous targets.

 

[Danoff]

Whole Israeli AA system works like that - predicting tragetory of missiles and destroying dangerous targets.

My understanding is that a lot of this technology comes from the US.

 

[HenrySwanson]

UK forces ‘played their part’ in response to Iran missile attack

Sir Keir Starmer was speaking to Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when Iran launched its missile attack on Tuesday night

www.independent.co.uk

Why are we in thrall to these religious idiots.

 

[Liquid]

UK forces ‘played their part’ in response to Iran missile attack

Sir Keir Starmer was speaking to Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when Iran launched its missile attack on Tuesday night

www.independent.co.uk

Why are we in thrall to these religious idiots.

Because we don't like the other religious idiots.

 

[HenrySwanson]

Because we don't like the other religious idiots.

That's not a good enough reason to intervene. It's like the West is under some spell.

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Iran had a rich and ancient history long before the adoption of Islam after the Arabs defeated their Zoroastrian rulers 1,350 years ago. There were positive links between the ancient Hebrews and the first Persian emperor, Cyrus, who liberated them from their captivity in Babylon. Israel hopes to weaponise Iranians’ non-Arabic identity as a way of emphasising the Ayatollahs’ putting Arab issues like Palestine ahead of Iranians’ national interest since the fall of the Shah in 1979.
A potent mix of foreign setbacks and economic hardships could produce a variant of the Arab Spring popular uprisings in Iran – a Persian Autumn, if you will.
But we should remember the souring of the Arab Spring following the early optimism in 2011. Political infighting and sectarian splits emerged producing new authoritarian regimes in Tunisia and Egypt and civil war in Libya, Syria and Yemen. It would be naive to presume that regime change from below in Iran would necessarily produce harmony, democracy and prosperity there.
Understandably, people will hope anything must be better than the regime which produced such a dystopian mix of fundamentalism and cynicism.
Regime change would end sanctions and give a new government access to oil and gas revenues plus foreign investment which could revive the Iranian economy. But the Iranian state could face disintegration if its ethnic minorities – Kurds and Arabs in the west, and Baluchis in the southeast – see a collapse of the Ayatollahs’ regime as the moment to break away from the country. That could destabilise neighbouring states.
Iran’s biggest minority, Azeris, a third of the population, straddle the border with ex-Soviet Azerbaijan. They have so far aligned with Iran, and the Islamic Republic’s leaders, including Khamenei, have Azeri family links. But if Shiism ceases to be an integrating factor and family ties to a fallen regime no longer pull strings in Tehran, then Azeris might seek separation.
An independent, ex-Iranian Azerbaijan would be dangerous for Israel’s regional ally, ex-Soviet Azerbaijan, since its population would be five times greater and its capital, Tabriz, a more ancient centre of Azeri culture than Baku.
The danger that militant Iranian nationalism itself would rise out of the ruins of the Islamic Republic shouldn’t be ruled out.
What made the Ayatollahs’ regime formidable was its ability to synthesise Shiite fundamentalism with Iranian imperial patriotism. If the Islamic pillar collapses out of popular disillusion with the mullahs’ incompetence, corruption and external failure, Iranians might turn to nationalism, even if consecrated at the ballot box. They wouldn’t be the first nation to liberate themselves from one oppressive ideology only to fall for another.

But at least it is high time for Iranians to make their own mistakes freely. This autumn could be their chance.

Will the Iranian people finally rise up in a ‘Persian autumn’?

With Israel’s ground invasion of southern Lebanon, the Islamic regime’s invincibility has been shattered – but Benjamin Netanyahu’s video appeal encouraging ordinary Iranians to liberate themselves may fall on deaf ears, says Mark Almond

www.independent.co.uk

 

[Liquid]

That's not a good enough reason to intervene.

I didn't say that it was.