Erdogan had plans for Syria …
… but Israel has apparently thwarted them, at least for now:
Turkey scoped out at least three airbases in Syria where it could deploy forces as part of a planned joint defense pact before Israel hit the sites with airstrikes this week, four people familiar with the matter said. …
The Israeli strikes on the three sites Turkey was assessing, including a heavy barrage on Wednesday night, came despite Ankara’s efforts to reassure Washington that a deeper military presence in Syria was not intended to threaten Israel.
I wouldn’t trust Turkey’s reassurances of much of anything.
It’s always interesting when Israel shows what it is capable of doing in the region. I think it has been clear for a long long time that if Israel was intent on anything resembling genocide it could have accomplished that a long long time ago. The charges of “genocide” are both ridiculous and illogical, but that doesn’t stop “Israel is committing genocide” propaganda from succeeding nor does it stop nations like South Africa or entities like international courts from labeling just about anything Israel does to defend itself as “genocide.”
Meanwhile, the Never-Netanyahus have created a Russiagate-type narrative about Netanyahu that involves Qatar. It’s rather convoluted, but – as with so much of Netanyahu’s enemies’ effort to destroy him – it resembles some of the tactics of those who tried to destroy Trump. I’ve cued up this video for the part where they discuss what they call “Qatar-gate”, including how it resembles many attacks on Trump:
If you want to know how the “Qatar-gate” story is being used, here’s an example:
Merav Svirsky, sister of slain hostage Itay Svirsky, tells some 1,000 anti-government protesters at the Begin Road entrance to the IDF headquarters that it’s “insane and insufferable, and painful to the spirit and soul and body, that I paid the dearest price because of this government of destruction and its head,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“He’ll do anything to preserve his rule,” she says. “And if that’s not enough, today we also know that ‘diplomatic source’” — reportedly Netanyahu’s pseudonym in press statements from his office — “is sometimes Qatari public relations posing as a diplomatic source,” adds Svirsky, alluding to recent revelations from the criminal investigation of alleged criminal ties between Hamas-backer Qatar and top aides to Netanyahu.
Much of the carnage on October 7 was targeted at Israelis on the left, who already detested Netanyahu. It is natural for many (not all) of the hostage families to blame Netanyahu first and foremost, as though Hamas is barely involved and/or more than willing to have peace and it’s merely Netanyahu and his evil ambitions that stand in the way of the hostages’ freedom. And the anti-Netanyahu forces in the press and in public life play on that already-existent hatred of Netanyahu, fanning the flames.
In other news in Israel, the IDF claims it killed the terrorist involved in the Bibas kidnappings and probably in their murders as well.
To be sure, Erdogan’s just an uber-corrupt, Neo-Ottoman Hamas fanboy…
(In his favor, though, one could say that he’s far more capable than “Biden” when it comes to imprisoning political opponents on fake charges….)
It must make the terrs nuts to know the Israelis know when and where to hit a named Bad Guy.
I wonder how much internal energy they waste, along with personnel actions (ranging from eavesdropping to death by torture) they feel are necessary to keep their secrets secret. Better spent internally.
Like the dude the blew up in his hostel room in Teheran. Knew where, when, room number, and how to get the bomb under the bed. Knew who could be approached without giving the game away.
How do they KNOW this stuff? a good many people must be asking.
How they know, I know not. I merely applaud.
“We can take out whatever we want whenever we want. Anybody listening?”
I’m sorry, but it’s perfectly reasonable that when someone is elected on the grounds that “I’m the only one who can keep us secure” and then he fails miserably, people turn against him. Especially when his plan for “keeping Israelis secure” seems to mostly consist of pandering to the ultra-Orthodox and to the most ultra-Zionist West Bank settlers, while ignoring the real threats.
y81:
Do tell, don’t be shy, what are the real threats, or who is the real threat?
Especially when his plan for “keeping Israelis secure” seems to mostly consist of pandering to the ultra-Orthodox and to the most ultra-Zionist West Bank settlers,
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Israel’s political spectrum has the following: (1) the nationalist parties, (2) the social-liberal parties, (3) the religious parties, (4) the Arab interest parties, and (5) the residue of the Jewish left. The current coalition is one between the nationalist parties (bar one) and the religious parties. Coalitions approximating that formed the ministry about 46% of the time between 1972 and 2022. Strange as it may seem to you, you contribute a bloc of parliamentary votes to the ministry, you receive cabinet portfolios and you get your way in certain areas of policy. You can call that ‘pandering’, but that’s just rhetorical gamesmanship.
Erdogan, the man who wants to be Sultan of the second Ottoman Empire.I didn’t know they had low round furniture in Syria!
Some questions:
What happened when Israel withdrew from South Lebanon?
What happened when Israel withdrew from Gaza?
(Should one add, What happened when Israel from the Sinai?)
And so…
What WILL happen when/if Israel withdraws from the entire West Bank?
It’s not rocket science…though to be sure, some people do have a bit of trouble catching on…
(OTOH, some would seem to prefer that a lot of people get killed—for the “right” cause, of course! AAANND the “right” outcome.)