Interesting bit buried in the middle of the article:

For the last six years, Mexico bragged about its oft-questioned “hugs, not bullets” strategy, in which its leaders avoided confrontations with drug cartels that were gradually taking control of large parts of the country. The thinking was that social programs, not shootouts, would gradually drain the pool of cartel gunmen.

Now, a month into the term of new President Claudia Sheinbaum, a string of bloody confrontations suggests the government is quietly abandoning the “no bullets” part of that strategy and is much more willing to use the full force of the military and the militarized National Guard.

1. Lemmy
2. Mastodon
3. Pixelfed
4. Various Misskey forks that are all about the same
5. Peertube

Lemmy has eaten up just about all the time I used to spend on Mastodon. Pixelfed would be in the running for #1 if it hadn’t become so vaporware-y in the last few months.

I just meant that there are around 500 confirmed cases. There are probably many that have yet to be confirmed and others where it’ll never be possible to confirm. So ~500 is the floor not the ceiling.

I read that more as “at least 500.”

He has a real Michael McKean vibe

I’m not sure that the headline is saying that it’s not normal to be freaked out – just that people are freaked out.

Yep!

Both sides taking the off-ramp, returning to the shadow war, and not attacking each other directly.

Whoa, this was my 1000th post. Huzzah! (or Sorry!)

Unprecedented? Maybe? But unexpected? You’d have to have been deluded to think Iran was just going to take it.

You’ve sort of set that up as either that reaction or no reaction. Everyone expected a reaction. Iran and Israel have been at this a long time. Israel expected a reaction similar to their past actions. And they’ve always avoided direct confrontation. I don’t think I saw anyone predicting that response from Iran before it happened.

No it definitely was. The first attack from Iran from a few months back was done pretty politely.

I’m just skeptical of that. I think their second attack was similar to the first but with less lead time and better weaponry – an amped up version of their initial message which was basically, “don’t fuck with us.”

The main reason I’m skeptical is that I don’t think Iran wants war right now. They had even initially said that Hezbollah was going to responsible for the response. That led to internal debate that was won by more hard line voices. But this really couldn’t be a worse time for war for Iran. They’re probably weaker right now than they’ve ever been. Their economy is terrible and the public hates the government. Their unpopularity led to civil unrest that they violently suppressed, which restored order but increased public dislike of the government. The domestic picture is not rosy right now.

On top of that, their game plan in conflict is to be backed up by their proxies, primarily Hezbollah. That plan is in tatters now. Hamas has probably lost about 75% of their fighters. They’re in no position to be a major threat at the moment. Hezbollah has been weakened and is relatively disorganized compared to a few months ago. They had near absolute trust in Nasrallah and they probably can’t be certain that whoever replaces him will share his level of commitment. The Houthis are further away and are the least reliable of the three. Finally, Iran doesn’t have to lose to lose. Any diminishment of Iran is a relative strengthening of Saudi Arabia that shifts the balance of power in the region.

All of that taken together leads me to think their intention was to put an exclamation mark on their previous message and not dare Israel to go to war with them.

Iran’s response was literally unprecedented. No one could have reasonably expected them to react that way based on their past behaviour.

The point though, is that Israel miscalculated. They saw that attack as similar to past actions they’d taken. They didn’t see it as an escalation and, most importantly, they didn’t think Iran would see it that way. They were extremely wrong. Similarly, though based on much less information, I suspect that Iran’s most recent attack wasn’t intended as a massive escalation but as coming right up to the line without crossing it. More saying “we are deadly fucking serious.” It wasn’t taken that way.

The larger point is that two sides that don’t talk to each other making estimates of reactions to violent responses is dangerous as fuck.

From the JPost article:

Two articles published in the last few days were part of the IDF investigation, one from Jewish Chronicle and one from the German tabloid newspaper Bild. Both have claimed to reveal internal and top secret documents of Hamas, supposedly straight from Yahya Sinwar’s computer.

Not the NYT. Not sure how the Times gets painted with that brush for not publishing based on those documents. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t, I guess.

Your claim about the sexual violence article is also not true. The NYT spent a month re-reporting that story which didn’t result in a single correction. The reporting is also supported by a UN investigation that concluded that there “are reasonable grounds to believe that conflict-related sexual violence — including rape and gang-rape — occurred across multiple locations of Israel and the Gaza periphery during the attacks on 7 October 2023.” I don’t think you can accuse the UN of collaborating with the IDF.

From this article:

The Times assessed the documents’ authenticity by sharing some of their contents with members of and experts close to Hamas. Salah al-Din al-Awawdeh, a Hamas member and a former fighter in its military wing who is now an analyst based in Istanbul, said that he was familiar with some of the details described in the documents and that keeping organized notes was consistent with the group’s general practices. A Palestinian analyst with knowledge of Hamas’s inner workings, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive topics, also confirmed certain details as well as general structural operations of Hamas that aligned with the documents.

The Israeli military, in a separate internal report obtained by The Times, concluded the documents were real and represented another failure by intelligence officials to prevent the Oct. 7 attack. The Times also researched details mentioned in the meeting records to check that they corresponded with actual events.

It’s a good question. Ukraine doesn’t disclose that. They’re high though. There are a few estimates that vary widely and sometimes include civilian casualties. This NYT piece published today cites an unnamed American official estimating that Ukrainian casualties are “a bit more than half of Russia’s casualties, or more than 57,500 killed and 250,000 wounded.” (Archive) This WSJ article from about a month ago cites an unnamed Ukrainian official putting the estimate at 80k killed, 400k wounded. (Archive)

Really interesting read. Thanks!

It’s fake because it’s not an ad.

It’s propaganda designed to look like an ad. The group that made it does not sell or develop property. It is impossible to buy the “advertised” property because it doesn’t exist and they are not selling property.

The threat from the group is real. Their intention is to legitimize the idea of occupying and settling southern Lebanon. They themselves say that they are not selling property but promoting a future where it’s possible for Israelis to buy/sell property in southern Lebanon.

You:

I’m not buying the fact that Israel has no plans to settle Lebanon

I’m not selling that.

I’m not commenting on Israeli intentions in Lebanon. I’m not defending Israel or their aims. I’m just commenting on one small thing:

Is Israel advertising property for sale in Lebanon?

And they aren’t.

I’m not trying to convince you that it has some big implication for their intentions in Lebanon. It doesn’t. They just aren’t advertising property for sale in Lebanon. Whatever Israel’s intentions are, that claim is false.

What’s that got to do with me? I wasn’t talking about whether Israel has plans to occupy or settle Lebanon. I was commenting on whether they are advertising property for sale, which they are not.

What exactly aren’t you buying?

It is literally not an advertisement for property. No one is advertising property for sale. Your speculation about the relationship between two groups not selling property seems pretty pointless in this case.

There are plenty things to be angry at Israel about. You shouldn’t waste your time being angry about imaginary things.

If by “they” you mean Israel, no they aren’t.

That ad is fake. It’s propaganda from a small, extremist organization that advocates for Israeli settlement of southern Lebanon. They’ve also sent eviction notices to residents of Labanon via balloons and drones.

I think the logic is that an attack on nuclear facilities would be – and would be perceived by Iran to be – more substantial. The US accepts that Israel is going to respond but is hoping that Iran won’t escalate after the Israeli retaliation because they don’t want war. They’d be less willing and, maybe, unable to back down after an attack on nuclear facilities.