Hezbollah’s Exploding Electronics

[Derec]

Smoke can also appear red if backlit, just due to scattering. But that pic looks to me like NO₂ is the colouring agent - compare the 2020 Beirut Ammonium Nitrate silo explosion, which also produced a very red smoke cloud.

I do not think it's backlight, since the hue appears in shots from other angles. And the 2020 Beirut port blast is exactly what I was thinking of. That one was much bigger though - it even generated a Wilson Cloud.

In any case, it would suggest that Hezbollah was storing ammonium nitrate or similar explosives on site. So much for it being "civilian"!

 

[Derec]

Zionists violently assaulted Palestinians in the 1930s-1940s, murdering thousands and stealing their homes, businesses, farms, etc., and driving hundreds of thousands out at gunpoint, many of whom wound up in refugee camps in Jordan.

There were also attacks by Arabs (Palestinian as an ethnonym is anachronistic here) on Jews that you gloss over because you want to portray it as one-sided.
As far as "refugees", there were also Jewish refugees who were fully integrated into Israel. Arabs did not do that.

Why can't you admit that terrorists overrunning a territory and declaring that it's a new State doesn't mean every other State has to recognize it as legitimate. The Jordanians would have been fools to consider Israel a peaceful neighbor while the terrorists running it continued to seize land and murder civilians.

(Trans)Jordan as an independent state was created not long before Israel (1946 vs. 1948). Why do you think it has more legitimacy?
Why do you refer to Israel as "terrorist" other than rank antisemitism?

No one wants a State created via terrorism and run by dyed-in-the-wool, real live terrorists, on their borders.

You mean like modern-day "Palestine" and even Lebanon given how much influence Hezbollah has on the Lebanese state?
Because it certainly does not apply to Israel, which was attacked by five Arab armies right after they proclaimed independence following a UN resolution.

Jordan's monarchy has played a big role in screwing the future of the Muslims in Palestine. And they don't plan to change.

How so?
The Kingdom of Jordan has been a staunch supporter of the Palestinian efforts to be recognized as the indigenous people of Palestine, of the Right of Return for refugees, and has done more than any other nation to help establish a State of Palestine in the West Bank and Gaza.

Indigenous? If they were indigenous, they would not be calling themselves by a colonial name that goes back to Ancient Rome. And not even UNRWA sees them as "indigenous" as they only required a two year residency in Mandatory Palestine to declare fleeing Arabs and all their descendants "Palestinian refugees" in perpetuity.

Palestine refugees are defined as “persons whose normal place of residence was Palestine during the period 1 June 1946 to 15 May 1948, and who lost both home and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 conflict.”

If say an Egyptian or Syrian or a Yemeni Arab moved to Mandatory Palestine in May of 1946 he would be considered a "Palestinian refugee" and you would see him as "indigenous". Even Hamas leader Fathi Hamad knew the Palestinians are not indigenous to the Land of Israel.

Ceterum censeo UNRWA should be abolished. It is untenable to have a separate UN body for just Palestinians, with definitions very different than those applied by say UNHCR. UNRWA is also hopelessly infested with Hamas members and members of other terror groups.

"Right of Return"? That is a non-starter as it would open the floodgates to millions of Arabs to live inside Israel, overwhelming Israelis demographically (especially since Arabs have a high birth rate, especially in Gaza). The insistence on the bogus RoR is one of the greatest impediments to the Two State Solution since it would make both states dominated by Arabs. So, TomC is correct, Jordan is screwing over Palestinians by supporting unrealistic maximalist demands that make reasonable negotiations impossible.

Is life in Jordan awful? Or are you painting with the broadest brush you could find?

It surely depends on where you are and who you are, but Jordan has a per capita GDP of ~$4400 in real dollars and ~$9400 in international dollars (PPP). Compare that with Israel's $55k in real dollars and $48k PPP.

 

[Derec]

Hezbollah, the gang that could not shoot straight.
IDF: Missile from Lebanon lands in West Bank, sparking fire, causing power outages; none hurt

They missed the whole State of Israel. Oy vey! That's what happens when all of their competent missile techs get sent to the ER or straight to jahannam with Nasrallah.

 

[Derec]

If Mexico had nuclear weapons, took over Texas, and doled out Texans' homes to Mexicans, do the Ilk and their fellow travelers not think Texans and their American friends might be exasperated enough to resort to violence?

There was never a "State of Palestine", and so your simplistic comparison does not hold.
The area of Judea and Samaria was controlled by Jordan 1948-1967 and it was a British protectorate before then, and before WWI it was part of the Ottoman Empire.
So not really comparable. It would be like US and Mexico (as well as now defunct independent Republic of Texas) squabbling over land area that used to belong to Imperial Spain. And that actually happened.

Mexico losing territory in the war certainly would not excuse them starting terrorist organizations and shooting missiles into US territory. Much less would it excuse invading the US and massacring young people at a music festival or families in their homes in El Paso or San Diego.

 

[thebeave]

Smoke can also appear red if backlit, just due to scattering. But that pic looks to me like NO₂ is the colouring agent - compare the 2020 Beirut Ammonium Nitrate silo explosion, which also produced a very red smoke cloud.

I do not think it's backlight, since the hue appears in shots from other angles. And the 2020 Beirut port blast is exactly what I was thinking of. That one was much bigger though - it even generated a Wilson Cloud.

In any case, it would suggest that Hezbollah was storing ammonium nitrate or similar explosives on site. So much for it being "civilian"!

Maybe a missile hit a sewer line and caused a poo volcano, like what happend in China recently:

Chinese Poop Volcano Sewage Eruption Sends Poo Flying ... Splatters Cars, People!!!

 

[bilby]

Smoke can also appear red if backlit, just due to scattering. But that pic looks to me like NO₂ is the colouring agent - compare the 2020 Beirut Ammonium Nitrate silo explosion, which also produced a very red smoke cloud.

I do not think it's backlight, since the hue appears in shots from other angles. And the 2020 Beirut port blast is exactly what I was thinking of. That one was much bigger though - it even generated a Wilson Cloud.

In any case, it would suggest that Hezbollah was storing ammonium nitrate or similar explosives on site. So much for it being "civilian"!

Why would it suggest that??

An Israeli bomb containing Amonal, or some other high Nitrogen explosive, as the main charge, wouldn't be in the slightest way unnormal or abusual.

 

[TV and credit cards]

Smoke can also appear red if backlit, just due to scattering. But that pic looks to me like NO₂ is the colouring agent - compare the 2020 Beirut Ammonium Nitrate silo explosion, which also produced a very red smoke cloud.

I do not think it's backlight, since the hue appears in shots from other angles. And the 2020 Beirut port blast is exactly what I was thinking of. That one was much bigger though - it even generated a Wilson Cloud.

In any case, it would suggest that Hezbollah was storing ammonium nitrate or similar explosives on site. So much for it being "civilian"!

Why would it suggest that??

An Israeli bomb containing Amonal, or some other high Nitrogen explosive, as the main charge, wouldn't be in the slightest way unnormal or abusual.

Too late. It's cemented in.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Oh, I actually agree with that. Which means the US staying out of it is a good idea.

An isolationist US would result in more war, not less.

The expectation that the US would 'stay out of it' was a major factor in Utin's invasion of Ukraine.

Exactly. We aren't exactly the best policeman but a society with a poor policeman is still generally better off than a society with no law enforcement.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Handwaved rejections of alternative reasonable possible motivation and meaning in an emotional complex issue strongly suggests an unreasonable confidence in certainty of knowledge that makes rational discussion possible and results in responses like yours.

Nothing has been presented that warrants more than a handwave.

There are plenty of military experts in countries hostile to Israel. If they could throw egg on Israel's face by suggesting a better answer they would. Yet none have. That silence says a lot to me.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I am very certain some people think it is all or nothing at this point and condone the crimes committed by Hamas. But those people aren't a tool to be used as a broad brush in order to dehumanize an entire population of people. Much like how Netanyahu's actions and his shouldn't be used to broad brush the opinions of all Israelis.

"By any means necessary" is an explicit acceptance of the 10/7 atrocity. It is not dehumanizing a population to say that.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Why is the Iran/Israel conflict any of our business? If Israel wants to take out the Iranian government, I say go for it. But to me, there are no goods guys anywhere in this situation.

Israel is our ally and Iran is also our enemy. Appeasement doesn't work.

Where did I say anything about appeasement?

Expecting Israel to not hammer Iranian forces is asking for appeasement.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I don't agree with full isolation. I just don't see any good guys in the Gaza/Hesbo/Israel situation.

It's a not-so-good vs a horrible.

And until you recognize that Hamas and Hezbollah are both just Iranian puppets you won't understand what's going on. You can't make an overall deal with a puppet!

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Don't have to have good guys. We need to try and stop the killing. The problem we have is that the major players in the region are apathetic to the Palestinians at best, while others use them as pawns. I get the Middle Eastern nations don't like the West. There is baggage. Any deal brokered would need to have the Palestinian interests at equal with the Israelis. But with Iran, they don't care about Palestinians. They want their big bad heel in Israel to be suffering. I think the only way to go about it is to sell a final peace plan, hard... something that is great for the Palestinians, something that would make the Iranian theocracy isolated (more so) globally in rejecting it. Of course, the other issue is that the hard liners that control more policy in Israel than the percentage of the vote they receive should allow, also don't care about the Palestinians and have their own agenda.

Which leads to what makes this a difficult peace plan, current leadership on both sides do not want peace. The people are much more likely to want stability, but they aren't in charge.

Clearly showing that you do not understand the situation. It is impossible to make peace with the Palestinians because they're not the ones in charge. Suppose you had a magic wand and made peace with Hamas--the result would simply be the money moving to other groups such as Islamic Jihad. Very soon we would be right back where we were.

Any peace that Iran doesn't agree to will not hold. And Iran has no interest in agreeing to peace. And they have radical Islam in charge--and radical Islam explicitly rejects the notion of making any real peace with non-Muslims.

At this point I suspect that even if you got Iran to agree it wouldn't solve it because Russia has gotten back into the game.

 

[laughing dog]

Handwaved rejections of alternative reasonable possible motivation and meaning in an emotional complex issue strongly suggests an unreasonable confidence in certainty of knowledge that makes rational discussion possible and results in responses like yours.

Nothing has been presented that warrants more than a handwave.

Truly ironic.

There are plenty of military experts in countries hostile to Israel. If they could throw egg on Israel's face by suggesting a better answer they would. Yet none have. That silence says a lot to me.

FFS, the Israeli armed forces were and are divided on what to do.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

An isolationist US would result in much less wars, not more.

BULLSHIT.

Actually, he's probably right. Russia, China and Iran would probably carve up the world between them. Few countries would be in a position to do anything about it so there wouldn't be much war.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I’m with Derec:

There is no question that we should wholeheartedly support Israel.

I wish I could support their leader too. It would make a lot of things easier on a lot of people. Pretty much everyone but Bibi.

Islamists and other religious types will always wreak havoc. Jews don’t have a religious “kill the infidels” type of model, so I think it’s alright to hold them to a slightly higher standard than the bloodthirsty violent Islamist extremists. That’s why it vexes me to see them act equally bad and worse, statistically speaking.

I don't see them acting nearly as bad statistically. The total death toll is an indication of power, not of right/wrong. The combatant vs civilian death rate (considering the circumstances of the combat--in the battle of 73 easting there probably were zero civilians in the combat area so even though it was a tank battle at night there probably were no civilian deaths no matter how anyone behaved) is the measure of how a nation is acting.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I am very certain some people think it is all or nothing at this point and condone the crimes committed by Hamas. But those people aren't a tool to be used as a broad brush in order to dehumanize an entire population of people. Much like how Netanyahu's actions and his shouldn't be used to broad brush the opinions of all Israelis.

"By any means necessary" is an explicit acceptance of the 10/7 atrocity. It is not dehumanizing a population to say that.

Reread my post, feel free to respond to what I actually said... or not.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Who said they should? I certainly didn't. The reality is that Hamas can not be demoted by anyone but the Arab powers. Israeli military force has failed to do the impossible.

Mostly correct. Replace "Arab" with "Muslim". But note the corollary--peace can only come from said powers.

I'm talking about Saudi Arabia and the Arab world. They are the key to peace in that area.

Saudi Arabia is in a proxy war with Iran. They have no way of making Iran make peace. And it's Iran driving the war in Gaza.

Hamas can not be taken out in Gaza. They must be dismantled by the Arab nations. This insistence that just a few more bombs and bullets will take care of Hamas is deluded.

I don't think anyone thinks they can be taken out. The objective is to reduce them as much as possible and get the hostages back.

A ceasefire with Hamas will only kick the can down the road. And how can you rebuild Gaza if another war is right around the corner. After all, Hamas has vowed to repeat 10/7 over and over again until Israel is defeated.

What I don't understand is how you seem utterly incapable of separating Palestine from Hamas.

Because Hamas is in charge of Gaza. The notion that you can somehow make peace without involving either the military or the government makes no sense.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Don't have to have good guys. We need to try and stop the killing. The problem we have is that the major players in the region are apathetic to the Palestinians at best, while others use them as pawns. I get the Middle Eastern nations don't like the West. There is baggage. Any deal brokered would need to have the Palestinian interests at equal with the Israelis. But with Iran, they don't care about Palestinians. They want their big bad heel in Israel to be suffering. I think the only way to go about it is to sell a final peace plan, hard... something that is great for the Palestinians, something that would make the Iranian theocracy isolated (more so) globally in rejecting it. Of course, the other issue is that the hard liners that control more policy in Israel than the percentage of the vote they receive should allow, also don't care about the Palestinians and have their own agenda.

Which leads to what makes this a difficult peace plan, current leadership on both sides do not want peace. The people are much more likely to want stability, but they aren't in charge.

Clearly showing that you do not understand the situation. It is impossible to make peace with the Palestinians because they're not the ones in charge. Suppose you had a magic wand and made peace with Hamas--the result would simply be the money moving to other groups such as Islamic Jihad. Very soon we would be right back where we were.

Any peace that Iran doesn't agree to will not hold. And Iran has no interest in agreeing to peace. And they have radical Islam in charge--and radical Islam explicitly rejects the notion of making any real peace with non-Muslims.

At this point I suspect that even if you got Iran to agree it wouldn't solve it because Russia has gotten back into the game.

Please read my posts before responding with a counterpoint that actually agrees with what I said.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

You are beating the carrion of a dead horse. No one in any thread here justifies the actions of Hamas or wants more dead Israelis. But that does not stop the usual suspects from their slanderous "conclusions".

But people keep minimizing the effects of Islamic terrorists and authoritarians, like Hamas and Hezbollah and Jordan and Iran.

Like blaming Israel for the massive deaths of Gazans who were used brutally for human shields.

Israel made a successful, targeted, attack on a violent and implacable enemy force of Islamic terrorists. Near zero civilians hurt much less killed. Almost 3000 terrorists in a big hurt. Somehow, that's still Israeli misbehavior.
Fuck that noise.
Tom

Exactly. It's antisemitism by holding Israel to an impossible standard.

Reality:

In the numbers, Health Minister Firas Abiad details impact of Israeli strikes on Lebanon

| Lebanon News

www.lbcgroup.tv

Look at the total for Friday's strike. 11 dead. That's with 4 apartment buildings leveled. I can't imagine how they pulled that off. They clearly somehow got the area evacuated without tipping off their target.