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PaperclipPerfector  9mo ago (text post)   37513 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 22, 2024

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There was a Hezbollah rocket attack on the Golan heights about 45 minutes ago. I don’t think it was that large overall, but one of the rockets hit a school soccer practice. Mass casualties confirmed, including at least four dead children. Prime Minister Netanyahu has been pulled into an emergency security meeting due to the incident. My gut tells me the response will be severe and that this will trigger a war between Israel and Hezbollah, which has already been brewing for some time.

Edit (7:30 PM GMT) Israeli media is reporting that Prime Minister Netanyahu has received approval from the United States for a major operation against Hezbollah.

Edit 2 (8:00PM GMT) Israeli authorities are saying at least 10 dead.

Edit 3 (8:47PM GMT) Massive GPS jamming occurring throughout the Mediterranean

Edit 4: (10:23PM GMT) Prime Minister Netanyahu has expressed condolences to the Druze community, dates that the attack “will not pass on silence”

Edit 5 (4:43AM GMT) Unconfirmed reports in Lebanese media of Israeli air strikes in Lebanon.

Edit 6 (5:10 PM GMT) Confirmed IAF air strikes on Lebanon occurring now.

Edit 7 (7:32 PM GMT) Israeli drones are airborne over Beirut. Israel is calling up medical volunteers to surge staff to hospitals in northern Israel in anticipation of large volumes of casualties.

Edit 8 (8:02 PM GMT) Municipal officials in Western and Northern Galilee regions are ordering residents into shelters

Edit 9 (3:04PM GMT) The Israeli Cabinet has given Prime Minister Netanyahu authorization for a strike on Hezbollah forces in Lebanon.

The only thing that concerns me is that such a war is going to make elements of the left flip out at the Dems, most probably at the convention, and get Trump elected. Like, do they think that Trump, the guy who moved the US embassy to Jerusalem, would be better for the Palestinians than Harris?

Trump unironically probably would be better for everyone in the ME, including Palestinians (though not for the reasons that Democrats think). The worst outcome for Palestinians is that Hamas keeps using them as meat-shields in new conflicts they feel emboldened in starting because they're confident a Democrat administration will keep restraining Israel. That factor is lessened with Trump in power.

Of course, as I've said before, none of the people who claim to care about Palestinian lives really do. They're far more invested in killing Israelis.

I find it pretty ironic that most of the people on Reddit that are telling the Palestinians to just give up and leave are the same ones telling the Ukrainians to fight to the last man woman child and dog.

Most NAFO types seem to not be too mad at individual Ukrainian men fleeing and often say they’d do the same thing. The people arguing stuff like ‘those men who flee the draft should be shot’ or whatever tend to be more ultra-hardline Eastern European/Baltic anti-Russian types, or indeed Ukrainians (who are present in some numbers on English-speaking discussions of these topics). Nevertheless, people throw their arms up and say “look, these people seem to want to die for their country”.

Most NAFO types seem to not be too mad at individual Ukrainian men fleeing and often say they’d do the same thing.

I haven't seen the same, though of course I'm mostly exposed to the local environments and saying one would flee if under Russian attack is currently pretty taboo here for obvious reasons.

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