Israel and Iran

Very insightful balanced thread.

I've not been following Israel / Palestine affairs closely but if true, some of what they claim may explain at least in part, how the Hamas were able to gather intelligence and pull off their attack.

... Only last week, Israel opened the border with Gaza and allowed thousands of people from Gaza to cross into Israel every day to work and get very high salaries compared to what they make in Gaza. It now turns out that they used this opportunity to put sleeper cells with weapons in Israel. These people are now walking around Israel, killing civilians. ...

 
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That was one of the things that Iran was SUPER worried about. That's why they supported the insurgencies in both countries so heavily.

But as hard as they pushed, we pretty much did... nothing. Nothing that mattered, anyway. So they kept pushing harder and harder, and eventually we decided to leave.

Iran was the big winner of the US wars in Iraq and AFghanistan. And they will be the big winner in the Levant if things there go a certain way.
We even let them drop a few ICBMs on us and did nothing.

The best thing we did was let a few of our sailors cry for a photo op.
 
Conspiracies about intel and Israel allowing this large scale attack to kill a bunch of civilians have no validity in my mind. I was around for the end of Afghanistan and remember how we had a stolen ANP Green Ford Ranger with license plate 123 whatever that was a car bomb, or orange Mercedes dump truck that was going to attack the IZ every week or so.... Afghans used to get stacks of cash for information, and I myself don't know how much of what they were selling was confirmed or correct. I can tell you for certain 95% of the alerts we got were 100% BS, 100% of the time. That includes my time in the Army back in 04+07 Iraq.

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Israel is not innocent, they treat the Palestinians like shit. Both sides believe Jerusalem and the Temple Mount are holy sites. Israel as a whole is the Jews holy land, land of milk and honey.

My choice is simple. Back the people that build towns on scrubland hillsides and kick the locals out, have an aversion to civilian deaths similar to ours, or back the side that kills civilians as policy, and kidnaps young women for rape hostage negotiation.
 
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As I mentioned in a prior post. Gaza is not the remit of Mossad. It is the remit of Shabak and Aman. So effectively Army Intelligence.

Based on their strikes, they have a lot of real time actionable intel and the IAF is smoking dudes left and right currently. Seems more like really good opsec on this and probably knew considerable arms were available and expected a big rocket barrage rather than a major incursion.

The last time someone launched a war against Israel on an anniversary Israel took the Sinai and the West Bank...so I think the governments around them know not to eff around.

Ah, the ol' what did they know and when did they know it game. Anytime anything bad happens the first human and organizational protective response is CYA.

I am curious if part of the problem is that Israel has so many intel departments and agencies (you know, not unlike us). You would have thought someone, somewhere would have heard something.

RE: Mossad, I would be very surprised if they weren't wired in regardless of whose playground it actually is. I mean, it's not like they are shy playing spy pretty publicly around the world.

To your last I would be surprised, too, if among the top 5 calls they got after this thing kicked off weren't from Egypt and Jordan given the history.
 
Ah, the ol' what did they know and when did they know it game. Anytime anything bad happens the first human and organizational protective response is CYA.

I am curious if part of the problem is that Israel has so many intel departments and agencies (you know, not unlike us). You would have thought someone, somewhere would have heard something.

RE: Mossad, I would be very surprised if they weren't wired in regardless of whose playground it actually is. I mean, it's not like they are shy playing spy pretty publicly around the world.

To your last I would be surprised, too, if among the top 5 calls they got after this thing kicked off weren't from Egypt and Jordan given the history.
I had a conversation on Saturday afternoon with a college student who went to Israel with me last year. He asked me what I thought about the "intelligence failure" that led to Hamas' attack.

I told him that it's too soon to tell if there was, in fact, an intel failure. It could be a failure of command, or policy. Intel failure seems highly likely, but many historical "intel failures" were failures of imagination or leadership.

For example, Pearl Harbor.
"Hey, we saw a submarine that wasn't ours inside Pearl Harbor, and there was this flight of incoming airplanes that isn't ours coming in over the radar."
"I'm sure it's nothing. It's Sunday, I'm going golfing.

...or 9/11.
"Hey, we've noticed a bunch of creepy Middle Eastern guys who want to learn how to fly big airplanes, but not land them. Weird, right?"
"What are you, Islamophobic or racist? Take your pick. STFU and stay in your lane."

Even in the Yom Kippur war, back in 1973, there were all kinds of indications and warnings of massive Egyptian troop buildups, leaves being cancelled, etc. in both Syria and Egypt that should have tipped off commanders.

And in this current instance, Egypt is claiming that they gave Israel advanced warning that "something big" was coming.
Egypt intelligence official says Israel ignored repeated warnings of ‘something big’

Now I'm the first to admit the limitations and failings of the intel profession. And a completely ambiguous warning like "Something big is coming!" is pretty much useless without details or context.

But it's super convenient for politicians (and military leaders) to blame intelligence for their own failings.

That said, in something this big there is probably plenty of blame to go around for everyone.
 
Hmmm..

Maybe this is a topic for a separate thread; internet vigilantism. I don't know...

It's a dangerous new world we live in. On one hand, I admire and appreciate the effort taken to identify monsters. I'm sure this bastards days are numbered.

On the flip side, there's so much opportunity for things to go sideways, and there are numerous examples where they have, by mis-identifying the wrong person.

Of course, even the pros make mistakes, but it still may be better to let them handle than have amateurs publish publicly.
 
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Hmmm..

Maybe this is a topic for a separate thread; internet vigilantism. I don't know...

It's a dangerous new world we live in. On one hand, I admire and appreciate the effort taken to identify monsters. I'm sure this bastards days are numbered.

On the flip side, there's so much opportunity for things to go sideways, and there are numerous examples where they have, by mis-identifying the wrong person. Of course, even the pros make mistakes, but it still may be better to let them handle than publish publicly.
When governments fail to provide security for their people, vigilantism is inevitable.

It is coming soon to America, too, if we as a nation continue on this current trajectory.
 
On the flip side, there's so much opportunity for things to go sideways, and there are numerous examples where they have, by mis-identifying the wrong person.

Of course, even the pros make mistakes, but it still may be better to let them handle than have amateurs publish publicly.
Exhibit A: The Boston Marathon bombing where people on reddit misidentified one of the bombers. That interfered with the actual investigation a bit, too, if I remember correctly. In this specific case, I'm not really sure what good could come from the public knowing who it is. Hopefully Israel will make him a thing of the past, but us knowing who it is has no effect on that.
 
So like Egypt doesn't allow migration into Gaza, they want nothing to do with Palestinians let alone Gaza Palestinians. If you think the fence on the Israeli side is militarized...the Egyptian one is more like a DMZ. I suspect that Hamas just turned half of Gaza into a DMZ when this thing is done. Land mines everywhere, trigger lines, everything. But the people in Gaza only want one thing, and Israel is going to give them a completely different thing. Also, like Israel's mobilization ability has always impressed me. Drop of the hat, 300,000 ordered to mobilize. They have stocks of new uniforms everything. Soldier reports day 1, day 2 they're immediately training. Pretty sure we don't have that capability and we have 50x the population?

ETA:
What's the proportion of that? 50k US?
 
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