Middle East Defence & Security

Perun

New Member
The Tel Aviv hospital that was struck with shock wave is the main one that receives IDF casualties from Gaza. Is this legitimate target then? What does says IDF RoE in the ghetto Gaza and their experiance with destroying all hospitals there and executing medical staff?
 
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seaspear

Well-Known Member
Is there information known on where the I.D.F refuels its aircraft obviously the closer to the target the more reach these aircraft have into western Iran also saying that the I.D.F would not admit to having such aircraft in a vulnerable position unless the security of the aircraft was secure
This is an article claiming significant loss to the launchers , certainly bias may be claimed but if true significant launches of missiles would be seen as per some above articles
 

seaspear

Well-Known Member
The Tel Aviv hospital that was struck with shock wave is the main one that receives IDF casualties from Gaza. Is this legitimate target then? What does says IDF RoE in the ghetto Gaza and their experiance with destroying all hospitals there and executing medical staff?
as per some claims not evacuated
 

Big_Zucchini

Well-Known Member
Is there information known on where the I.D.F refuels its aircraft obviously the closer to the target the more reach these aircraft have into western Iran also saying that the I.D.F would not admit to having such aircraft in a vulnerable position unless the security of the aircraft was secure
This is an article claiming significant loss to the launchers , certainly bias may be claimed but if true significant launches of missiles would be seen as per some above articles
There was one documentation of aerial refueling conducted over Syria from the first 1-2 days of the war. Nothing since then.
 

KipPotapych

Well-Known Member
If you say you do not wish to discuss further the reasons, how do you expect the conclusion to be accepted?
Have I not provided enough to go on here? It is not my prerogative for you to accept my conclusions or reason because I know to begin with they will not be accepted, which is completely fine.

I do not see it as simple logic because I see 2 possibilities.[…]
The reality is that there are other sides than Israel to the negotiations. One of them is Iran and others include everyone else in the world. Bilateral implies two parties, by definition. Just like Iranian enrichment is not acceptable to Israel, no enrichment is not acceptable to Iran. So it seems there is an impasse here. However, the purpose of the negotiations from the very beginning was to find the solution acceptable to most, not just Israel or/and Iran.

I also cannot accept your proposition if I cannot rule out other logical possibilities:
  1. Israel and US coordinated so Israeli action would be the stick to the American carrot.
  2. Similar coordination to enforce western demands for no enrichment which Iran reportedly rejected.
    1. Coordination emphasizing Israeli solo action to portray the US as the exhausted diplomat.
  3. Negotiations being a facade to eliminate a nuclear program and/or a regime that had lost their deterrent beforehand.
Maybe there are more, but these are possible explanations I could think of within less than a minute.
Sure, all possible. However, all three refer to the same point, number three in your list (and it circles back to my point of “best timing”).

In essence, Israel had never had a negotiating position here. It has a stance and a demand: no enrichment in Iran period. And they do everything to achieve that goal. That’s not what the rest of the world was negotiating though. The rest of the (western) world has their own goals and interests, which, frankly, greatly diverge from Israeli demands. One being to deprive Iran of possessing nuclear weapons (but not enrichment, nullifying which would be the ideal state, but not reasonably achievable). Another being not to have an active war in Iran (or elsewhere in the middle east or elsewhere generally, really) because they (Europe in particular) really don’t want another wave of immigration which would without a doubt happen if Iran is wrecked. And I am not talking only about Iran here, but migration in the middle east as a whole in this case. We have been through that a few times now. Merz showed himself to be a dummy again with his comment of “Israel is doing everyone’s dirty work”. The current events are categorically against the European interests at their very core. That’s why there never were multilateral negotiations until tomorrow, where Europeans will probably try to convince Iran to give up on the enrichment program (but more likely than not they will not succeed). Note that Iran had already chosen to get wrecked over their stance because everything I argued so far is not a secret. Whether they expected for things to unfold the way they did is very questionable (they didn’t), but the fact remains.

Everyone, including Euros, Russians, Chinese, and Americans, but Israel (I can’t speak for the Arabs, but they have little to no say anyway) found the JCPOA to be an acceptable resolution. When Trump came to office, the never previously exacting opportunity opened up for Israel: they had to convince one man (who is generally sceptical of common sense) to exit the agreement, which he did. It’s been a clusterfuck, pardon my language, ever since.

To the professional negotiations point you made. The negotiations that preceded the JCPOA were, in fact, professional. It was a multi-state solution that involved very intensive work and expertise. Sure, Israel did not want to have any of it because, like I said before, they do not have a negotiating position, but a demand and no flexibility (this is an understandable position, btw; whether it is entirely rational can be argued though).

The negotiations that preceded the current developments, on the other hand, were anything but professional. First of all, the negotiations were between Iran and Israel (via the United States - or Trump, to be more precise - because it is almost entirely representing Israeli interest here, not their own, definitely not since the kinetic action began at the very least). While I already expressed my opinion on the Israeli negotiating terms (they don’t exist), for this very reason there was no one else involved, no other states, no experts, nothing of substance, but contradictory statements from the main negotiator (Witkoff) and the boss (Trump). The likely outcome was predictable, but definitely not certain had the negotiations continued. See my other post for the rest of the story.

It IS a point of argument. Media reports about the negotiations are inconclusive and obviously self-contradictory (report and anti-report tactic).
Most contradictory were the statements made by the people involved on the American side. These were not media interpretations, but direct statements by the individuals.

It is impossible to tell with certainty that the US would agree to enrichment. In fact, its likelihood was very low.
I agree and I stated as much.

Why? One, because as I said earlier, Israel is also party to these negotiations, and it insists on no enrichment. Two, when Iran passed the deadline for reaching a nuclear deal and remained adamant on enrichment, it got bonked.
Put this way (and your one and two are the same thing), there was no deal to be made because enrichment is the bottom line that is not going to be crossed by Iran even now, in my opinion, but we shall see.

You are building your argument entirely from the Israeli perspective. There is an entire world out there that have their own interests that, in most cases, do align with yours, to put it simply. I believe we had very briefly discussed something similar in the “unity” or whatever thread.

There have been multiple points in time when action would be ideal as well. 2010 for example. The conventional threat was minimal, but the capabilities to strike were there.
This is simply not true and you argue aginst it yourself:

It is a common misconception among Americans and even some foreigners in general that Israel would go rogue, but that's why it's called a MIS-conception. Strong relations with the US are of immense strategic importance to Israel, and a strike campaign that could seriously upset that, could yield more loss than gain.
2010 was certainly far from ideal - quite the opposite, in fact. Due to the one reason you described yourself. The same reason that makes it ideal today. There was no chance any of this would be acceptable under Obama and (heavily) Democrat-dominated Congress of 2010.

It seems you are taking Trump's statements too literally.
You would have to trust me on this, but your assertion could not be further from reality.

Trump's coherence should be observed through actions, not words.
Sure, I agree. His actions are way weaker than his words. Be it his first term or second. I don’t want to touch politics, so I will settle on the relevance to the forum. His negotiating skills have so far proven to be beyond subpar. The strategy of seeding chaos to increase/demonstrate leverage has not worked (it is a failure, really) in trade negotiations; good effing luck using the same strategy in geopolitical context, especially as it relates to the “existential” issues, or otherwise major issues that have a great effect on the entire world. So far, his failure is quite obvious. I am going to stop here (and risk you not accepting my argument or conclusion, ha).

Netanyahu recited the conclusions in the video. The conclusions refer to a breakout time. You cannot understand that so long as you refuse to learn what nuclear breakout is.
You keep insisting that I (and others) do not understand what nuclear breakout is. I can’t speak for others, but I can assure you that I personally understand the meaning and the general process behind it (I would argue that my understanding is better than that of an average person). The point you seem to be intentionally missing is the fact that Benjamin talked about “very quickly” in 2018; “weeks away” in 2015; “six months away” in 2012; “Iran is gearing up to produce 25 atomic bombs a year, 250 in a decade” in 2006; “three to five years” in 1995. This is not even a complete list, at that.

There is a valid reason to be at least sceptical of Benjamin’s claims. However, I would suggest that his claims now are closest to reality than ever before because of his very own efforts.

IMG_0864.png

Source as indicated on the image.

Flat earthers at least believe in a revised concept of gravity or could not believe in one at all. For gravity to act on an object, there must be a center to that gravitational pull. If the earth is flat, there is no such center. Else they'd be smeared across the earth's surface.
Yes, I am aware of how gravity works. I was just curious how the flat-earthers explain it.
 
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