Hezbollah rocket causes carnage at Druze soccer game in the Golan Heights
I don’t know whether the soccer field was the intended target, but it’s the one that was hit:
Several Israeli civilians, including children, were reported killed on Saturday afternoon after a Hezbollah rocket hit a soccer field in northern Israel.
The rocket strike took place in Majdal Shams, a largely Druze town in Golan Height. “At least nine young Druze Israelis died an many more were in critical condition,” the Israeli TV channel i24NEWS reported. This is the deadliest Hezbollah terror attack on Israel since October 7, Israeli media reports say.
When I say I don’t know whether it was the intended target, I don’t mean to imply that Hezbollah would hesitate to target children. Au contraire. However, the Druze wouldn’t necessarily be their first choice, although they probably wouldn’t mind them as targets, either. The Druze are Arabs although not Muslims, and they are also a minority group in Lebanon itself. Their religion is an interesting one:
The Druze faith originated in Isma’ilism (a branch of Shia Islam), and was influenced by Christianity, Gnosticism, Neoplatonism, Zoroastrianism, Gandharan Buddhism, Manichaeism Pythagoreanism, and other philosophies and beliefs, creating a distinct and secretive theology based on an esoteric interpretation of scripture, which emphasizes the role of the mind and truthfulness. Druze believe in theophany and reincarnation.
The Druze believe that at the end of the cycle of rebirth, which is achieved through successive reincarnations, the soul is united with the Cosmic Mind.
RIP.
Netanyahu is returning to Israel slightly early because of the attack.
Druze regularly serve in the IDF, and some of the soldiers killed in the Gaza campaign were Druze. As Israel’s supporters regularly point out, non-Jewish citizens are fully Israeli. Israel will take this atrocity very seriously. I think there are still 20,000 or so who are living away from their homes in northern Israel because of Hezbollah attacks.
RIP.
hezbollah is in love with death, and we fund their proxy army the lebanese armed forces, which are useful as the proverbial ‘fish on a bicycle’
“there are still 20,000” . . . it’s closer to 80,000, though perhaps a few as 65,000 or so. Still, that’s a lot of constituents to be living out of bags for 9 months with no clear end in sight.
With their syncretic mix of esoteric religious beliefs, their reputation as desert trackers at home in the desert wastes, and their secretive nature, the Druze remind me of the Fremen of Dune. Warriors of the Order of Assassins (Hashasheen), from whom the Druze are decended, where called Fedayeen, just as the Herbert’s desert dweller on Arrakis. Druze also do not identify as Muslims. I find them interesting.
Correction: Hashishin not Hashasheen, from which the term “assassin” is derived. They were known as users of hashish. “Spice” anyone? Herbert clearly based the Fremen on them.
They were known as users of hashish. “Spice” anyone? Herbert clearly based the Fremen on them.
IrishOtter49:
Herbert was such a polymath that I’m sure that the assassin/hash connection went into his mix when creating the Fremen.
However, in the early 60s Herbert was also a pioneer explorer of psilocybin mushrooms, i.e. he personally tripped the light psychedelic on mushrooms.
The trademark of most psilocybin mushrooms is that they stain blue when crushed. Blue, like the eyes of the Fremen after prolonged spice usage.
Photos of those dead individual kids, but in happier days: https://x.com/visegrad24/status/1817325694659035363?t=LCNtVuKhIGtYLm1G3QpXWw&s=19
https://x.com/TheMossadIL/status/1817329596020257049?t=2FLwxC_jVVhG7vV0Jcal-g&s=19
huxley:
I know all about psilocybin mushrooms.
Don’t ask.
I know all about psilocybin mushrooms … Don’t ask.
IrishOtter49:
Noted. Not asking.
I cannot imagine but that the refusal of the sitting VP and President of the Senate to attend Netanyahu’s address the other day, together with the now fully open secret that any meeting with the sitting President of the United States is pure theater if it even occurs, was a factor in Hezbollah’s decision to carry out this strike.
Omri Ceren —
https://x.com/omriceren/status/1817566622300692587?t=5iSBOqJOw91fdRVscp_FRQ&s=19
Richard Grennell —
https://x.com/RichardGrenell/status/1817563025794035887?t=T1DUPX8d6Udhn2ffsQLl-w&s=19
What “Margaret” wrote: ** White House officials have been working the phones trying to contain the fallout from this horrific attack that killed children, and to prevent Hezbollah and Israel from all out war. US has long been concerned that such a war would draw in the US. **
The “US” is concerned their ally — the Islamic Republic of Iran — will be unhappy. Wouldn’t want to make the mullahs unhappy. Just Wouldn’t Be Right.
Tony Badran —
https://x.com/AcrossTheBay/status/1817598795355447324?t=C1UEsEzWD2nawYh3pBhj0g&s=19
Tony is also reporting this: “Hezbollah’s man and middleman with Team Obama, Abbas Ibrahim claims that Amos Hochstein was passing intel to them whenever he got word the Israelis were going to hit in Lebanon to warn them.” (His source, BBC Arabic)
the deuxieme (intelligence) chief, yes the times did a big puff piece of hochstein, atlantic council center square, involved with burisma, yes remember them
for the most devout moslems sunni and I assume shia, the druze are polytheists, thats really anyone who isn’t a Moslem,
https://www.breitbart.com/border/2024/07/28/report-3-suspected-palestinian-terror-suspects-caught-after-illegally-crossing-border-into-california/
Hochstein is very, very bad news.
(He’s the one who helped “Biden” orchestrate the previous Israeli caretaker government’s, i.e., Lapid’s, cave-in to Hezbullah—AKA the Lebanese Government—WRT the maritime border between the two countries. IOW Blinken’s man in the M.E…. Blinken? Huh? Er, make that “Blinken Hah!”)
Essentially, this means that Hezbullah has carte blanche WRT making the north of Israel uninhabitable…in the same way that the Houthis have carte blanche WRT making the Bab al-Mandab unnavigable. (But then we already knew that…)
Altogether now! “‘Biden’ is Israel’s best friend and most important ally!”
Re: “Israeli controlled” I’ve noticed that usage on NPR and other media (BBC.com) as well. Quelle surprise. (I do try to monitor the enemy’s propaganda.)
The Golan Heights are part of Israel now, and if Arabs don’t want to lose more territory, they should quit attacking Israel.
“. . . they should quit attacking Israel.”
Ha! Too Late! (i.e., territory will be lost.)
It occurs to me that Amal Clooney, the anti-Israel “human rights” lawyer, is the daughter of a Druze father. Wonder if this massacre will change her thinking. It ought to, but I suppose it won’t.
Not to worry, though.
Israel’ll be strong-armed to give it all back.
For…promises, promises…
If he’s Lebanese Druze, then all bets are off, though…since Druze traditionally are allied to the governments under which they live.
OTOH, this tradition has fractured since the “Arab Spring” and the increased influence of Iran in both Lebanon and Syria.
(And then there was Walid Jumblatt…about whom Tony Badran, IIRC, wrote a fascinating article a while back….)
maybe they arent that sharp
https://www.timesofisrael.com/resist-israel-father-tells-new-leader-of-lebanons-druze/
of course, nabih berri has been double talking us for forty years,
Barry M., can’t find it offhand, but the Lebanese Druze have issued a statement saying that this attack constitutes “an act of war” by Hezbollah against the Druze. I don’t know if they have any capability to do anything about it. Hezbollah is reported to be evacuating terror sites in advance of expected Israeli retaliation strikes.
https://www.ynetnews.com/article/rk3ncamt0
miguel’s link to Times of Israel about the Druze leader is from 2017.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taymur_Jumblatt
@ miguel > “miguel cervantes on July 28, 2024 at 1:53 pm said:
for the most devout moslems sunni and I assume shia, the druze are polytheists, thats really anyone who isn’t a Moslem,”
Which makes the Jumblatt marriages rather … interesting.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walid_Jumblatt
“At the age of 20, Jumblatt married an Iranian actress, ten years his senior.[8] His father did not endorse the marriage and the two became estranged.[8] In 1981, after a divorce and his father’s death, Jumblatt married Gervette,[29] a Jordanian of Circassian descent.[30] Together they had three children: Taymour, Aslan, and Dalia. Later he married Nora al-Sharabati, daughter of the former Syrian defense minister Ahmad al-Sharabati.[30][31] ”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taymur_Jumblatt
“Taymur was born in 1982.[6] He is the son of the leader Walid Jumblatt and grandson of Kamal Jumblatt who are members of the historic Druze Jumblatt clan in the Chouf mountains. He is married to Diana Zu’ytar who descends from a Shiite family based in the Beqaa Valley.[6]”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circassians
“Circassians have played major roles in areas where they settled: in Turkey, those of Circassian origin have had massive influence, being instrumental in the Turkish War of Independence[32] and among the elites of Turkey’s intelligence agency;[33] in Jordan, they founded the capital city Amman,[34][35] and continue to play a major role in the country; in Syria, they served as the volunteer guards of the Allies upon their entry into the country and still have high positions;[36] in Libya, they serve in high military positions; in Egypt, they were part of the ruling class.[37] They also contributed to cultural literary, intellectual, and political life starting with the reign of Muhammad Ali Pasha in Egypt and continuing to the modern day, especially through the country’s largest Circassian clan: the Abaza family.[38][39][40] in Israel, they are considered one of the most interesting and unique minority communities. They served in the Haganah during the Israeli War of Independence.[41] Bibras Natcho is the captain of the Israeli national soccer team.”
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Kate, Adam Hochstein was born in Israel and is supposedly a “Modern Orthodox” Jew but that hasn’t kept him from full participation in the O’Biden administration’s selling Israel down the river. When you’re a leftist your ideology trumps (small t) everything. So I doubt Amal Clooney is going to see the light.
Gadi Taub, JNS, “Netanyahu’s Speech Was a Message to Biden”: https://www.jns.org/netanyahus-speech-was-a-message-to-biden/
And what do ya know, surprise!
Thanks to Hezbollah’s vile character we’ve already arrived at a line of choice . . . and the “ObamaBidens” choose? . . . Iran!
As various middle eastern governments have found, if the rebels live among you, things get difficult. And the Druze are supposedly pretty effective in their IDF units. What is their dispersal in areas controlled by Hezbollah?
AesopFan , the Wiki link on Circassians led off with:
I found it interesting that the Circassians are also called “Cherkess,” as a guy from my hometown had the surname of Cherkes. He was in my Spanish class one year. Also a class officer. I had always assumed he was Greek.