Image is of destruction and damage inside Israel, sourced from this article.


Iran and Israel have struck each other many times over the last few days. There has been a general focus on military facilities and headquarters by both sides, though Israel has also struck oil facilities, civilian structures and hospitals, and in return for this, Iran has struck major scientific centers and the Haifa oil facilities.

Israel appears to have three main aims. First, to collapse the Iranian state, either through shock and breakdown by killing enough senior officials, or via some sort of internal military coup. Second, to try and destroy Iranian nuclear sites and underground missile cities, or at least to paralyze them long enough to achieve the first and third goals. And third, to bring the US into a direct conflict with Iran. This is because the US better equipped to fight them than Israel is (though victory would still not be guaranteed depending on what Iran chooses to do).

Iranian nuclear facilities are hidden deep underground (800 meters), far beyond the depth range of even the most powerful bunker busters (~70 meters or so), and built such that the visible ground entrances are horizontally far away in an unknown direction from the actual underground chambers. Only an extremely competent full-scale American bombing force all simultaneously using multiple of the most powerful conventional (perhaps even nuclear) bunker busters could even hypothetically hope to breach them (and we have seen how, in practice, American bunker busters have largely failed to impair or deter Ansarallah). There are several analysts on both sides who have concluded that it is entirely impossible to physically prevent Iran from building nukes.

I fully expect the US to join the war. I believe the current ambiguity is a deliberate invention of the US while they work to move their military assets into position, and as soon as they are ready, the US will start bombing Iran. After that, Iran’s leadership must - if they haven’t already - harden their hearts, and strike back with no fear, or risk following the path of Libya, Syria, and Iraq, either into either surrender, occupation, or annihilation. Every day where they do not possess a nuke is a day where lives are being lost and cities are being bombed.


Last week’s thread is here.
The Imperialism Reading Group is here.

Please check out the RedAtlas!

The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.

Israel-Palestine Conflict

If you have evidence of Israeli crimes and atrocities that you wish to preserve, there is a thread here in which to do so.

Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:

UNRWA reports on Israel’s destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.

English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news.
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.

English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.

Russia-Ukraine Conflict

Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict

Sources:

Defense Politics Asia’s youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don’t want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it’s just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists’ side.

Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.

Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:

Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.

https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR’s former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR’s forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster’s telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a ‘propaganda tax’, if you don’t believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.

Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:

Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.


  • Nama [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    9 hours ago

    Attacks on hospitals are never okay, though I suspect it wasn’t the target here. Since Iran seems to be going tit for tat, and the relative inaccuracy of the missiles, the university right next door could have been what they were going for. At least in my armchair opinion.

    • Even Ukraine and Russia have, for the most part, followed intl. law on civilians during war. But only because they are both aware that it otherwise escalates on both sides.

      Israel does not follow that same equation; it believes it can strike innocents with impunity and hide behind civilian infrastructure, as anyone who hits back will subsumed by the internationally community. May that equation vaporise itself against an enemy that is willing to call that bluff.

    • martin4598@lemm.ee
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      6 hours ago

      For the Israelis, it’s OK (see Gaza), so they shouldn’t complain. Hospitals, schools, universities, hungry crowds gathered for food, anything is legit for them.

      So…

    • Hermes [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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      9 hours ago

      The entity has a command post under a hospital that they have been posting about online for the past few days, I don’t remember if its this hospital, but they are using them as military sites.

      • Grapho@lemmy.ml
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        8 hours ago

        And that’s not even tit-for-tat. Iranians aren’t using hospitals as bases. Israelis are.

        Israelis are just hitting hospitals and schools because responding to even the slightest insult with horrific war crimes is their entire doctrine.

        • companero [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          9 hours ago

          Don’t forget that there are some Israelis who are native to the region, and some who refuse to serve in the IDF.

          But, per Israel’s own logic that they apply to Palestinians, former soldiers are considered valid military targets for life. And that’s most(?) Israelis, due to conscription.

      • Nama [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        9 hours ago

        Oh, I agree that “Israel” has no right to complain. I just don’t think Iran intentionally stoops this low. Of two possible targets in range, a university and a hospital, I think they would have preferred hitting the university 20m away.

        • companero [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          8 hours ago

          It sounds like the missile struck the courtyard, and there were no fatalities. Either a very precise symbolic strike, or a lucky miss.

      • Nama [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        8 hours ago

        I’ve seen them use (stolen) homes, schools and civilian bomb shelters, so I don’t doubt it. You got some references for me that I can throw at people?

        Edit: Found something, though not the name of the hospital https://www.instagram.com/p/DK4lcVyNsAg/?img_index=3 Edit2: That specifically Rambam hospital in Haifa, not the one targeted. Though this could very well be standard practice. Just to be clear, this IS directly under a “Israel” hospital. Here is a video bragging about it from 9month ago https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tR503uPSrls

          • And the IOF does that knowing that their enemies do not have the capability for precision strikes like they do.

            If you know the Iranian missiles in service have a target radius of 500M (for sake of argument) and you then build a sensitive military installation within 500M of a hospital, you know exactly what would happen.

            Even the Americans take to building shit like the pentagon outside of urban centers???

            Only the resistance axis of Lebanon, Yemen, Gaza etc. can morally make those kinds of decisions, since it is a guaranteed fact that Israel would happily execute an infinite number of innocent noncombatants for their heads regardless. At least their doctrines of tunnels, disguises, deception etc. force Israel to rely on infantry to fight them, which gives said civilians a chance to survive.

    • MarmiteLover123 [comrade/them, any]@hexbear.net
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      9 hours ago

      Think it’s just Iranian deterrence doctrine in action. Israel just bombed the Arak heavy water nuclear reactor/facility in Iran two hours ago (suspected of being inactive, but still), so Iran responds by launching as many ballistic missiles as it can at population centres. This has always been Iranian deterrence doctrine, if Israel bombs our nuclear facilities they’ll pay a high price/we’ll bomb Tel Aviv and other population centres to inflict maximum damage. Israel will likely respond by bombing some more oil or energy infrastructure.