[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] Russia must be ready for World War Three within three years, a pro-Putin MP has warned in the latest grave threat to Ukraine's western allies.
Our congresscritters say stupid stuff, too. But even with hired North Korean cannon fodder, is that a realistic goal?
Aleksey Zhuravlyov, deputy head of Russia’s parliamentary defence committee, urged that while Russia has enough volunteers to fight, it must start to prepare the male population for a major confrontation with the West by 2028-29.
'Europe explains to us that in 2028–2029 [it and its allies] will be ready to fight Russia,' he assessed. 'Here it is necessary to prepare the male population and, naturally, defend the Motherland. We must talk about this and not be ashamed of it.'
Responding to the comments, Yuri Shvytkin, deputy chair of the State Duma Defence Committee, firmly agreed with the assessment, telling Ridus that 'every Russian must understand that in the event of external aggression, he must take up arms and defend the Motherland.'
He shied away from calling for immediate mobilisation, suggesting the threat was not yet a pressing issue.
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] Putin will not shy away from causing mass casualties in the next phase of Russia's 'hidden war' against the West, an expert has claimed in the wake of suspected 'hybrid' efforts to sow disruption in Europe through alleged sabotage plots.
Keir Giles, an expert on the Russia at Chatham House, told Metro that civilians are 'likely' to be the victims of future plots, and that the West should expect a surge in terror attacks soon.
The Kremlin has been accused of orchestrating attacks on European soil as retribution for the West's broad backing of Ukraine against Russia's full-scale invasion, or to undermine support for Kyiv.
Counter-terrorism police in Britain were last year said to be investigating suspected Russian involvement in the planting of a hidden incendiary device in a parcel on a plane headed for the UK. The device ultimately burst into flames in a warehouse and no casualties were reported.
Mr Giles said that where, during the Cold War, Russia sponsored terrorist movements to carry out attacks in Europe, 'now with these airlines parcel plots, the willingness from Russia to cause mass casualties has returned'.
'We should soon expect a surge in Russian state terrorist attacks across Europe,' he cautioned.
The stark warning came as Poland's Prime Minister claimed that Russia has been planning acts of 'air terror' against airlines worldwide, staging sabotage and diversion on Polish soil and beyond.
#1
'Europe explains to us that in 2028–2029 [it and its allies] will be ready to fight Russia,'
Some Europeans might have said that but does anybody really believe it?
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
01/16/2025 14:07 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Putin would be insane, considering how expensive Ukraine has been. Conversely, attacking Russia would be insane considering how such attempts have always failed.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Evgeniy Konovalov
[REGNUM] There is growing evidence that the US and its allies have disrupted the signing of a peace treaty between Russia and Ukraine in the spring of 2022, while the West is now discussing the possible introduction of "peacekeepers", that is, European troops, into Ukraine, which Moscow will definitely not agree to. This means that a diplomatic settlement of the conflict is again in great question, Western media note.
Russian troops are advancing in the SVO zone. They are encircling, liberating, or simply bypassing entire fortified areas and key logistical hubs of the enemy, writes Ted Snyder in an article for the American Conservative.
In addition, the liberation of Donbass opens up vast fields for a further breakthrough by the Russian Armed Forces, while the Ukrainian Armed Forces continue to suffer heavy losses. But all of this could have been avoided, Snyder notes: in the first days and weeks of the Russian special operation, there was an opportunity for a diplomatic settlement of the conflict - "and Ukraine would not have lost so much territory and so many lives."
Now, the author of the article continues, new details are emerging about the breakdown of peace talks in Istanbul: there is increasing evidence that the US and its allies are to blame for the failure of diplomacy.
In March and April 2022, Snyder recalls, Ukrainian and Russian officials met in Istanbul, where they negotiated and initialed a draft peace treaty. But the United States opposed it: Ukrainian negotiators admit to this, among others. And the list of witnesses is growing: Swiss, Ukrainian, and American officials say the same.
Back in the spring of 2022, then-Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said that "some in NATO want the conflict to continue: they want the proxy war to continue and Russia to weaken." At the request of Volodymyr Zelensky, then-Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett tried to act as a mediator. He later reported that the negotiations were blocked by the United States.
Kiev also invited former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder to act as a mediator in Istanbul. He soon declared that “nothing could have happened because everything was predetermined in Washington,” and “the Ukrainians did not agree to peace because they were not allowed to.”
In fact, the West has undermined the diplomatic process, writes the American Conservative, by increasing military aid to Kyiv.
The latest information, the author of the article continues, came from Jean-Daniel Ruch, the former Swiss ambassador to Turkey. During the negotiations, Ruch was in Istanbul and took part in consultations on neutrality for Ukraine.
"We had the opportunity to stop the conflict. Why did all these people die? It really hurt me. I think there was something deeply immoral in the decisions made in London, Washington and Kiev... We had the ceasefire in our hands, but the Americans and their British allies said 'no,'" American Conservative quotes Rukh as saying.
"EUROPEAN LEADERS ARE PUTTING THE CART BEFORE THE HORSE"
While many are waiting for US President-elect Donald Trump to act as a peacemaker in the conflict in Ukraine, the issue of other “peacekeepers” is being discussed – in fact, the introduction of European troops into Ukraine.
At a meeting with Zelensky and his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron last month, Trump said that European troops should monitor the ceasefire in Ukraine, Samuel Charap, a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation, recalls in an article for the British publication The Financial Times.
At the same time, the very idea of sending troops to Ukraine seems ambiguous, the author admits. First of all, he suggests figuring out what functions European troops can perform.
"One of the models of post-conflict troop deployment is peacekeeping forces, the need for which in Ukraine may arise after the cessation of hostilities. But international organizations like the UN have a monopoly on peacekeeping - they can be considered a neutral third party that can resolve disputes and act as an honest broker. European states, given their large-scale support for Ukraine, can be called anything but a neutral third party. They cannot lead peacekeeping forces in Ukraine by definition," Charap is sure.
Another model for sending troops to foreign territory is the so-called border protection force. Their task is to deter potential aggression. In the event of war, they would have to confront the aggressor, and an attack on them would automatically entail a corresponding military response, the FT publication says.
"So far, it seems that European leaders are putting the cart before the horse. They first need to decide whether they are prepared to realistically commit to going to war with Russia if the conflict resumes," Charap notes.
In addition, he points out, it is premature to take on such commitments before the start of negotiations to resolve the conflict. Moreover, Moscow, the FT author predicts, will probably demand from Kyiv commitments "not to deploy any foreign forces on its territory - regardless of the terms of the settlement."
RUSSIAN ARMY BYPASSES POKROVSK, AND "KYIV NEEDS KURSK REGION"
Currently, one of the main hot spots on the front in the SVO remains the outskirts of Pokrovsk, a city in the DPR. The logistics hub, still held by Kiev, is considered another "fortress" and the key to the Ukrainian defense, from where the path to other important defensive positions opens, writes Ellie Cook in an article for the American publication The Newsweek.
At the same time, the Russian army is not storming Pokrovsk, but is advancing southwest from the Ukrainian Armed Forces positions in the city and threatening to take the Ukrainian garrison in the key city in a pincer movement, Cook notes. At the same time, the Russian Armed Forces have advanced to the border with the Dnipropetrovsk region, which is about 5-6 kilometers away.
In a conversation with Newsweek, Ukrainian Armed Forces spokesman Major Viktor Tregubov said that Russian forces are trying to “cut off supplies to cities” so as not to storm “head-on” well-prepared defenses.
In turn, a representative of Ukrainian military intelligence Andrey Chernyak in a conversation with The Financial Times said: "They (the Russian Armed Forces. - Ed.) understand that they will lose a lot of forces in an attempt to take Pokrovsk, so they decided to follow a different strategy: to approach from the south and bypass it." Chernyak admitted that the Russian army is cutting off all supply routes to the city so that the Ukrainian Armed Forces leave.
At the same time, the author of the article writes, it is easier for Russian troops to advance in rural areas far from large cities than to storm urban development block by block with heavy fighting.
"With a week to go before President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration, adversaries are trying to position themselves for potential ceasefire talks brokered by the new US leader," says Allie Cook.
The Financial Times' Isobel Koshiw and Anastasia Stogney also write about the connection between the fighting and possible negotiations. They report that Ukraine last week "resumed its offensive in the Kursk region, having lost about half the territory it seized during the August invasion."
At the same time, Kiev and its Western allies still consider the occupation of Russian territory to be the key to any negotiations, the authors of the article note: at a meeting with journalists on Monday in Seoul, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken “stressed the importance of Kursk for Ukraine.”
"This will certainly be taken into account in any negotiations that may take place this year," the FT quotes the outgoing US official as saying.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Denis Davydov
[REGNUM] A recent statement by Polish presidential candidate Karol Nawrocki, director of the Polish Institute of National Remembrance and the main creator of the coherent myth of the Volyn massacre, clearly touched a nerve with his Ukrainian colleagues. And he spoke out against inviting Ukraine to the EU and NATO because of the conflict connected with the tragedy of 1943, after which there are no living witnesses left.
"A state that cannot answer for a very cruel crime against 120 thousand of its neighbors cannot be part of international unions. As president, I will tell them that we would like our efforts to be treated as partners from the Ukrainian side," Navrotsky said - and with these words he completely changed the strategy of his opponents, who literally reared up.
If in previous years the topic of exhuming the remains of Poles killed in Galicia and Volyn by the militant wing of the OUN (b)* caused mainly expressive rebukes, then since the end of December the Ukrainian press has been publishing “serious” publications debunking the “Polish myth”. Various historians carefully explain that there were no hundred thousand victims (or even 120, as Navrotsky claims), and in general – the Poles themselves are to blame for everything, having set the population against themselves with an aggressive policy back in the 20s and 30s of the 20th century.
That is, a solid explanatory basis is being provided for the thesis of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry that “opportunistic considerations” cannot be placed above good-neighborly Ukrainian-Polish relations and “common values of freedom, democracy and justice.”
And this means two things.
The first is that the current Ukrainian government is actually afraid of spoiling relations with the Poles, who profess Russophobia just as sincerely, and not because the political moment demands it. Navrotsky's threats are clearly taken seriously, and in light of possible major problems in relations with the US, they do not want to lose almost the last "guide" to Euro-Atlantic integration.
The second is that the coexistence of two myths, Polish and Ukrainian, which categorically disagree only in their assessment of the activities of the OUN*, has reached the point of critical collision.
Therefore, it will be very useful to understand what this problem is with the remains of people who died more than 80 years ago, since it literally destroys interstate relations.
CROOKED PATH
Since the Poles and Western Ukrainians, who have straddled the entire cultural and historical agenda in their country, are truly “brotherly peoples,” in their views on the events of 1943 they are following the same crooked path.
As Professor Grzegorz Motyka, the leading Polish expert on the massacre, rightly points out, “both sides are distinguished by a simplified approach to reality.”
"It is easy to see that the Ukrainian interpretation of the events in question is constructed in such a way as to avoid an unambiguous assessment of Bandera's initiatives. By focusing on the fight against the AK (Home Army - Ed.), Ukrainian researchers create the impression that a guerrilla war was taking place in Volyn and Eastern Galicia, in which both sides participated equally, and punitive operations - pacifications - were carried out only against those villages that were under the protection of armed formations. And although they admit that as a result of the UPA's actions, innocent Polish population suffered, this information is immediately balanced by words about the murders of innocent Ukrainians," the professor writes in one of his powerful articles devoted to attempts to get to the bottom of the matter.
In Polish interests, naturally.
The position of the other side is formulated very specifically: in Volyn, ethnic cleansing with signs of genocide on a clear ideological basis was carried out by the UPA* with the mass participation of local villagers. And it continued until 1945, taking the lives of slightly less than 100 thousand people, mostly civilians, including women and children. At the same time, up to 15 thousand of the same Ukrainians died at the hands of Polish armed formations.
The difference, according to the Poles, lies precisely in the approach.
Back in 1929 in Vienna, where the OUN* was created at the First Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists, the goal was set: the creation of an Independent United Ukrainian National State, for which it was necessary to cleanse itself of "foreign national bondage". Violence and war are the methods by which the chosen people of Ukrainians are developing, and the Nation is the highest form of their development. Moreover, these ideas still form the basis of the state ideology of post-Maidan Ukraine.
It is therefore not surprising that in February 1943, at the III Conference of Banderites, a decision was made to begin an open guerrilla war in Volyn. The Banderites were convinced that they would have to wage the final battle for independence with the USSR or Poland, or perhaps both at the same time. Consequently, the main enemies were not the Germans (with whom they collaborated), but the Soviet and Polish partisans, as well as the “foreign” population.
As for Volyn specifically, the Military Conference of the OUN (b)* decided back in 1942:
"All Poles should be expelled, giving them the opportunity to take with them everything they want, because England and America will also protect them. But those who do not want to leave should be destroyed. The most active enemies, especially members of anti-Ukrainian organizations, should be destroyed..."
VOLYN PROBLEM
Volyn became the center of the main efforts of the Ukrainian Liberation Army (which later became the UPA* due to intraspecific struggle, since the brand was already taken) created in February 1943 for a very important reason - it was minimally developed by the nationalists. Unlike Galicia, where all the power was theirs anyway - and where, nevertheless, about 30-40 thousand Poles were also "cleansed".
Firstly, the Volyn province was part of the Russian Empire, and the local mentality was significantly different from that of Galicia, not having fallen under the influence of pro-Austrian "Ukrainophiles". It became part of Poland in 1921, and the main headache for the authorities here was not the "conscious" terrorists, but the strong communist movement with slogans of social and national liberation.
As a result, in the 1940s a “partisan region” was formed here; in particular, the NKVD special forces unit “Winners” under the command of Dmitry Medvedev was based there.
Poland, realizing the scale of the problem, after the Riga Peace Treaty began to actively develop the Eastern Borderlands, pursuing a very tough policy of “pacification” – in some places even with the destruction of Orthodox churches (this part is usually politely ignored by Polish propaganda).
Land was distributed to "settlers", primarily veterans who had participated in the Soviet-Polish war; each family was given a plot of up to 45 hectares. The resettlement of "new lords" from the central regions of Poland was also encouraged, and a strong system of local government was built everywhere.
But 90% of these people (around 200 thousand people) were already taken to Siberia and the Far East in 1939-40, when Volyn became Soviet. Moreover, the lower level of power was also removed: foresters, policemen, etc. Ordinary Polish villages remained, which had always been there. During the war, the armed forces relied on them - the Home Army, which killed Ukrainians in revenge, and in addition, local Poles also supported Soviet partisans who raided the German rear.
The OUN, created for terrorist and political struggle against the Polish government, systematically viewed all this as a threat of absorption of "their land", which had to be fought. This approach suited the Germans quite well. And the natural discontent of the local population with the Poles only played into their hands - and still does. Now Ukrainian historians fervently prove that Poland "is to blame itself". And the role of the nationalists themselves in the mass murders is minimal: they say that it was all done by village men with axes and pitchforks.
However, the report of the commander of the cavalry partisan unit, Major General Mikhail Naumov, for 1944 contains the following information:
"The entire territory from the river Sluch to the river Zap. Bug is dominated by Ukrainian nationalists who are waging an intensified struggle against the Poles living there. Despite the outwardly manifested hostility towards the Germans, the OUN members were not subjected to any persecution by the German command, but on the contrary, they were often stationed in close proximity to large German garrisons."
However, as part of the “destruction of the Polish myth,” Canadian researcher Miroslav Ivanek, invited by Ukrainian propagandists, calls for relying on… German documents in assessing the victims of the interethnic conflict.
In particular, the General Gubernia military district reports that 200-300 people were killed in each of the five districts (including the Galicia district) in February 1944. And Polish statistics claim that from July 1943 to June 1944, in the Galicia district alone, Ukrainian nationalists alone killed 40,000 Poles. On average, 3-4 thousand per month. Consequently, Ivanek emphasizes, such a difference “indicates some fundamental mistake made by one of the sides.”
And from his tone it’s somehow immediately clear which one it is.
Echoing him, the director of the Institute of European Integration at Lviv National University, Bohdan Gud, makes jaw-dropping arguments: the blame for the Polish blood spilled in Volyn "lies, first of all, on Soviet policy. The murders began and were the bloodiest in those areas where communist influence was greatest even before the war."
And in general, the Lviv professor is convinced, modern Ukraine “does not bear responsibility for the moral state of the Volyn villagers during the Second World War.” Although for some reason this logic is never used when it comes to the responsibility of, say, Russia for the events of the 1930s.
Or in the context of a discussion of the interesting problem of Ukraine’s property rights to Poland’s eastern outskirts, for which it also “bears no responsibility,” since such a state did not exist at the time in question.
SKELETONS FROM THE CLOSET
As if drawing a line under all the disputes in advance, the investigative department of the Polish Institute of National Remembrance, which deals with crimes in Volyn, stated the following through the mouth of prosecutor Piotr Zajonc: the murder of the Polish population did not have the character of an independent goal, “but was a means to achieve ethnic homogeneity of territories, a condition sine qua non (mandatory. - Ed.) for the creation of an independent Ukraine.”
And since the Bandera ideology has been raised on the flags of the modern Ukrainian government, and the head of the OUN (b)* himself has become the number one hero, about whom poems and songs are composed, the Polish side believes that the Kiev regime must admit responsibility for the Volyn massacre. Direct logic is at work here.
Accordingly, Ukrainian diplomacy calls such statements “manipulative” and “tendentious,” and propaganda constantly equates the actions of the UPA* and the Home Army, avoiding any recognition at all. Even the most odious Nazis do not want to agree that “independence” is based on the bones of neighbors, from whom they still want to get a lot.
The neighbors, naturally, have dug in their heels: for 2025-26, the first permit in eight years has already been pushed through to conduct excavations and exhumations of the remains of Poles in the villages of Puzhniki in Ternopil Oblast and Uhly in Rivne Oblast. It is absolutely clear that each such find (and the Poles are planning to conduct DNA analysis and search for relatives of the deceased) will have a huge resonance, working for Navrotsky's election campaign.
This resonance fits perfectly with the modern slogans of cleansing Poland from annoying Ukrainians. But, most importantly, as the former Polish ambassador to Ukraine Bartosz Cichocki noted, after the exhumation it will be impossible to glorify the main culprits of the massacre of the Poles - the executioners from the UPA*.
What will then remain of the ideological basis of the current regime?
Karol Nawrocki, by emphasizing Ukraine's accession to the EU and NATO only after "civilizational issues important to the Poles are resolved," has effectively put his Kyiv counterparts on the ropes. Any move for them is a loss.
If we do not admit guilt for the genocide of the Poles, they will not let us into the coveted international alliances. If we admit it, who will want to deal with a country that professes misanthropy? We only have to start, and skeletons will pour out of Bandera's closets in droves. And this breaks the entire system of state ideology, built on the image of eternal victims of "evil Russia" and honest fighters for freedom, members of the "European family".
[News With Views] Control of zoning controls lives. For instance, in California:
"NEW DENSE MULTI-FAMILY CONSTRUCTION ON PRIVATE HOMEOWNER LAND ALLOWED"
California Senate Bill 1123 passed last summer — May in the Senate, August in the House — and was signed into law by Newsom this past September.
I have to wonder how many Californians were even aware of this
This law was already on the books when the fires hit. It was passed in 2024. Then, the fires took care of much of the rest. Those victims of their own government may find that developers are constructing multi-family residences where once there were beautiful homes . This may or may not be found to be unconstitutional but the bill seems to have become law nonetheless.
A total of only NINE legislators in both houses — ELECTED REPRESENTATIVES OF THE PEOPLE — voted against this Marxist land grab.
Remember, Karl Marx felt that Communists should seek ’the abolition of bourgeois property’. That meant, property belonging to the upper class, not the "worker". Pretty much describes a lot of the properties now in ruins in the wealthy communities of LA.
In my last Substack on the subject, I suggested that Newsom, Bass et. al., allowed (encouraged? planned?) these fires to ravage the wealthy areas, in order to remove many of the beautiful homes, because they had plans to rebuild LA in the image of a UN C40 City, with multi-family residences only, in tall "stack and pack" towers.
Ron DeSantis, recently pulled something like this over on his constituents. After his reelection at the end of 2022, Tallahassee quietly and quickly (only 6 weeks!) passed FL SB 102. This is the “Live Local Act”, one of the first laws passed in the new 2023 legislative year:
“deleting the authority of local governments to adopt or maintain laws, ordinances, rules, or other measures that would have the effect of imposing controls on rents; providing an exemption from ad valorem taxation for land that meets certain criteria; authorizing local governments to adopt ordinances to provide an ad valorem tax exemption for portions of property used to provide affordable housing meeting certain requirements; suspending, for a specified period, the General Revenue Fund service charge on documentary stamp tax collections; authorizing the Governor, under the Florida Job Growth Grant Fund, to approve state or local public infrastructure projects to facilitate the development or construction of affordable housing, etc.”
To facilitate the construction of “affordable housing”…rather than “bourgeoise”…
This bill is much less direct but it essentially does the same, removing local government from their own control over zoning and taxing ordinances and allowing the Governor to approve local building projects for affordable housing, ETC. What’s the “ETC”, I wonder…? How much more can Tallahassee slip in here?
This “Live Local Act” is not nearly the obvious grab of private ownership rights as is California’s law, but it does remove some Constitutional rights of governance. I couldn’t help but point it out, with the latest behaviors of Tallahassee as it tried to remove America First Republicans from power in the Party. Remember, those counties most in the eye of that storm are those with plenty of land yet to be developed.
#4
"NEW DENSE MULTI-FAMILY CONSTRUCTION ON PRIVATE HOMEOWNER LAND ALLOWED"
I see it everywhere I go these days. Huge new, multistory apartment and condo complexes are popping up like mushrooms all over southern California. We didn't have the infrastructure for all of the people who already live here. It will only get worse.
I keep saying this:
The only way to make California affordable for all of the people in the whole wide world who want to live here is to turn the entire state into a Third World slum and Newsom is hell bent on doing just that.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
01/16/2025 14:13 Comments ||
Top||
#5
^Have you considered giving it back to Mexico?😎
#6
...everything west from the Coastal Ranges and below Mendocino. Only takes 2/3rds of the Senate to approval a change to the existing Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.
Nonetheless, I expect Hamas will blow this thing up within weeks at best, freeing the IDF to go charging back in, this time with American aid instead of hindrance.
[PJMedia] Hamas ..one of the armed feet of the Moslem Brüderbund millipede,... jihadis and their supporters are out in force on the streets of Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... , celebrating the Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal as a massive victory for the jihad terrorist group over Israel and the United States. And they have ample reason to believe that the deal is indeed a victory for them.
Donald Trump ...So far he's been unkillable, and they've tried.... , however, disagrees. The incoming president is enthusiastic about the deal, writing on Truth Social: "This EPIC ceasefire agreement could have only happened as a result of our Historic Victory in November, as it signaled to the entire World that my Administration would seek Peace and negotiate deals to ensure the safety of all Americans, and our Allies. I am thrilled American and Israeli hostages will be returning home to be reunited with their families and loved ones." Old Joe The Big Guy Biden ...46th president of the U.S. Gave an airbase and billions in military hardware to the Taliban and called it an extraordinary success... ’s State Department talking head Matthew Miller agreed, saying: "When it comes to the involvement of President-elect Trump's team, it's been absolutely critical in getting this deal over the line."
That was an uncharacteristic display of generosity from Miller and the Biden regime, and don’t think for a nanosecond that regime wonks have suddenly become appreciative of Trump and his team, and willing to acknowledge when they’ve done something good. Miller’s giving credit to the Trump team is an indication that even the Biden regime knows how bad this deal is for Israel and its allies, and for the free world as a whole. The Biden apparatchiks’ happiness to let Trump take credit is almost certainly in view of the day when all this blows up, and Trump will be the one left holding the bag. (However,
a woman is only as old as she admits... when Old Joe Biden himself was asked if Trump deserved credit, he said: "Is that a joke?")
How bad is it? It makes a replay, and quite likely more than one replay, of Hamas’ massacre of 1,200 Israelis on Oct. 7, 2023, a very real possibility. The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) explains the multistage deal’s "first stage apparently includes withdrawing from northern Gaza — which will be immediately repopulated with a million Gazooks and will make it impossible to finish removing Hamas forces of Evil from these areas, and close to impossible to rescue or militarily pressure Hamas to release the remaining two-thirds of the hostages. Thus, Hamas obtains almost all of what it wants in the first stage!"
ZOA adds that the deal also involves "the release of 50 Paleostinian Arab forces of Evil serving life sentences. These are essentially convicted murderers with Jewish blood on their hands who are likely to murder Jews again." There are precedents: back in 2011, Israel exchanged 1,027 Paleostinian Arab prisoners for one kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. Dozens of the freed prisoners returned to jihad terror activity.
On the other hand, Trump is making firm assurances: "With this deal in place, my National Security team, through the efforts of Special Envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, will continue to work closely with Israel and our Allies to make sure Gaza NEVER again becomes a terrorist safe haven. We will continue promoting PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH throughout the region, as we build upon the momentum of this ceasefire to further expand the Historic Abraham Accords. This is only the beginning of great things to come for America, and indeed, the World!"
Maybe, but Israel was in a position to destroy Hamas once and for all as a viable organization. Instead, its withdrawal from areas in Gaza will allow it to regroup and gather strength. ZOA notes that the deal calls for "Israel’s full withdrawal from the Philadelphi corridor. (Israeli control of Philadelphi is needed to stop smuggling of arms and forces of Evil into Gaza via Egypt.) This will enable Hamas to survive, regroup and strike again." (Other reports, however, say that Israel will retain control of a buffer zone in the Philadelphi corridor.)
Fox News reported Wednesday that "the cease-fire will also facilitate significant humanitarian aid to Gaza, with up to 600 trucks of supplies entering daily. By the 22nd day, displaced residents will be allowed to return to northern Gaza." Nothing wrong with that, right? Wrong. According to ZOA, "Hamas seizes" the humanitarian aid "and sells [it] for huge profits to fund terror."
But surely Israel will carefully inspect the aid shipments and do everything it can to prevent that from happening, right? Nope. Fox notes that "Qatar ...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi... i and Egyptian teams will manage vehicle inspections, while pedestrian crossings will not require checks." Qatar is a leading supporter of the Moslem Brüderbund and harbored Hamas leaders before and after the Oct. 7 massacre. What could possibly go wrong?
Hamas’ Charter calls for the total destruction of Israel and its replacement by a 23rd Arab Moslem state. Nothing in this deal calls for them to renounce or abandon this goal. At best, the deal just kicks the can down the road in exchange for the appearance of peace today. At worst, it empowers the jihadis. Not an auspicious beginning for the second Trump administration.
#1
"Nonetheless, I expect Hamas will blow this thing up within weeks at best"
Weeks? I'd say days.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
01/16/2025 9:12 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Weeks is my stretch goal, in the hope of getting at least some living hostages back. Given that Hamas just claimed that the overnight IDF strikes hit a site where one of the female hostages is held, I’m not sanguine.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Leonid Tsukanov
[REGNUM] Negotiations on the exchange of hostages between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas are gradually entering the home stretch. The parties have fewer and fewer demands on each other, while those that remain are more symbolic and do not interfere with the discussion of details.
The seriousness of the parties' intentions is also demonstrated by the fact that "narrowly profiled" officials are involved in discussing the details of the deal - for example, the head of the committee for Palestinian prisoners, Kadura Fares. Of course, the deal is unlikely to put an end to the conflict between Israel and Hamas. However, it will allow Israel to jump out of the protracted conflict, while saving face.
INVISIBLE FRONT
Despite the obvious decrease in the intensity of hostilities, it is too early to talk about an end to the fighting in the Gaza Strip. Hamas continues its guerrilla war in the enclave, periodically raiding Israeli checkpoints and small groups of soldiers.
It plays into the hands of the Palestinians that the Israelis are trying not to concentrate too many soldiers in Gaza (even taking into account the completion of the offensive in the Lebanese direction and the lack of need to constantly maintain a “strike force” in the border area).
Moreover, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) seeks not to disperse its forces throughout the enclave, relying on the mobility of battle groups and pinpoint suppression operations. In light of this, Israeli soldiers constantly return to previously “cleared” areas to conduct new operations, which neutralizes their superiority in strength and weapons.
Also, according to the Israeli General Staff, Hamas has begun to use new tactics and convert unexploded IDF ordnance into remote bombs.
This places additional strain on the sapper units and slows down the advance of Israeli forces within the enclave, as well as increasing the associated losses in personnel and equipment.
They’ll move faster when not constrained by the Biden administration's’ deliberately hobbling restraints.
Over the past week, the number of IDF soldiers killed has reached at least 15, and since the beginning of Operation Iron Swords, losses have amounted to more than 700 soldiers and officers.
Israeli defense consultants point to a worrying trend: Israeli casualties are rising and clashes with the Palestinians are becoming more intense, even in contrast to the first months of the war.
HAMAS 2.0
During Operation Iron Swords, Hamas lost, according to various estimates, between 15 and 25 thousand fighters, and also lost a good half of its military and political leadership. However, even taking this fact into account, Israel failed to achieve the complete defeat of the movement.
Recently, Hamas was headed by Mohammed Sinwar, the younger brother of Yahya Sinwar, who was liquidated by the Israelis, and one of the experienced Palestinian functionaries. Sinwar Jr. not only managed to take over the reins, but also risked conflict with the "political functionaries" sitting in Doha; he refused to form a collective governing body.
Sinwar Jr. preferred complete autonomy for the actions of the units entrusted to him in Gaza to the “Palestinian Seven Boyars.”
In order to replenish its losses, the movement has relied on recruiting neophytes – despite their low combat experience, new Hamas members are highly motivated and eager to get even with the Israelis for civilian casualties and the destruction of the enclave. Particularly zealous are those from northern Gaza, for whom participation in Hamas operations is often tantamount to revenge for the deaths of loved ones.
Another significant lever of influence for the younger Sinwar over recruits was the monopolization of humanitarian aid. Hamas still controls the distribution of food and other goods in Gaza and rewards its most loyal fighters with advanced access to incoming supplies.
Praise from Russia for deliberately starving the civilian population? How admirable, indeed.
The effectiveness of Hamas' actions is also recognized by Israel's allies. For example, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken stated at one of his briefings that "Hamas has recruited almost as many new fighters as it has lost"; that is, it has essentially fully restored its combat capability.
Newbies, however driven by fear of starvation if they don’t fight, are not the equal of seasoned, trained fighters.
ON THE EVE OF THE DEAL
At the same time, the new Hamas leadership did not demonstratively reject negotiations, even when the Israelis refused to return the body of the liquidated Sinwar Sr. to his homeland.
On the contrary, the movement tried to divert the dialogue into the bureaucratic plane in order to delay the approval of even the smallest details of the deal and thereby gain time to restore the mobilization resource.
The calculation turned out to be quite accurate: given that many attribute the current peace initiative on Gaza to Donald Trump personally, Tel Aviv does not want to confuse its strategic ally, and therefore patiently works on every remark.
Moreover, in a public gesture, the IDF abandoned the Netzarim corridor in Gaza, previously created specifically to “cut” the enclave into two parts, and also effectively stopped claiming control over the Philadelphi corridor on the border with Egypt.
At the same time, Tel Aviv's concessions (partly dictated by Washington) are not understood by the Israeli "hawks". In their eyes, Benjamin Netanyahu's government "pays too high a price" for satisfying American strategic ambitions, and the possible withdrawal of the IDF from the Gaza Strip is interpreted as nothing less than a defeat.
On the other hand, Tel Aviv understands perfectly well that the confrontation with Hamas will not end after reaching a deal on the hostages.
On the contrary, the release of the captives will untie the hands of the Israeli government, eliminating the social tension that has been building for a year and a half. In this interpretation, the IDF's withdrawal from Gaza, under any conditions, will be presented as a victory for Israel and the end of Operation Iron Swords.
The subsequent confrontation with Hamas will be positioned as a separate stage of the struggle, and not as a new round of an old operation. And before approaching Hamas 2.0, Tel Aviv will probably do some serious work on its mistakes.
[IsraelTimes] A senior Biden administration official appears to downplay a claim made by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken ...71st United States secretary of state and a leading light of the corrupt and inept Biden administration. He previously served as deputy national security advisor from 2013 to 2015 and deputy secretary of state from 2015 to 2017 under the corrupt and inept Obama administration. He advocated for the 2003 invasion of Iraq while serving as the Democratic staff director of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from 2002 to 2008. He was a foreign policy advisor for the Biden 2008 presidential campaign. During his tenure in the Obama administration, Blinken helped craft B.O.'s policy on Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the nuclear program of Iran. We all saw how well each of those worked. After leaving government service, Blinken moved into the private sector, co-founding WestExec Advisors, a lobbying firm... that Hamas ..a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",... has recruited roughly as many fighters as it has lost.
The senior US official was asked about Blinken’s comments during a briefing with news hounds following the announcement of a Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... hostage deal.
"I heard that, but Hamas is a significantly degraded military organization," the official responds. "Israeli forces can go anywhere in Gaza they want. Hamas leaders are living almost entirely underground and trying to take refuge in civilian structures."
"They really have no free-standing brigades or military organization anymore," he says of Hamas.
"Have they recruited poor Gazooks who are living in hell on earth? Yes, but that is a far cry from an organization that invaded Israel with military formations with thousands of organized fighters on October 7. Its ability to do that I really believe has been forever foreclosed," the senior US official states.
Blinken made the comments Wednesday while arguing that Israel’s failure to stand up a viable alternative to Hamas has led the IDF to repeatedly return to places in Gaza ipreviously cleared of Hamas fighters who managed to return.
"We’ve long made the point to the Israeli government that Hamas cannot be defeated by a military campaign alone, that without a clear alternative, a post-conflict plan and a credible political horizon for the Paleostinians, Hamas, or something just as abhorrent and dangerous, will grow back," Blinken said in an address on the Biden administration’s Mideast policy at the Atlantic Council.
"That’s exactly what’s happened in northern Gaza since October 7. Each time Israel completes its military operations and pulls back Hamas, Death Eaters regroup and reemerge because there’s nothing else to fill the void," he said. "That is a recipe for an enduring insurgency and perpetual war."
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
..one of the armed feet of the Moslem Brüderbund millipede,...
...71st United States secretary of state and a leading light of the corrupt and inept Biden administration. He previously served as deputy national security advisor from 2013 to 2015 and deputy secretary of state from 2015 to 2017 under the corrupt and inept Obama administration. He advocated for the 2003 invasion of Iraq while serving as the Democratic staff director of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from 2002 to 2008. He was a foreign policy advisor for the Biden 2008 presidential campaign. During his tenure in the Obama administration, Blinken helped craft B.O.'s policy on Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the nuclear program of Iran. We all saw how well each of those worked. After leaving government service, Blinken moved into the private sector, co-founding WestExec Advisors, a lobbying firm...
