Israel / Palestine News Thread

[zazen]

 

[Nivsch]

" I woke up this morning with a heavy heart. Two of our soldiers fell in Gaza and I want to ask for forgiveness. Forgiveness to the mothers who joined the circle of bereavement tonight. Forgiveness for losing their children, for worlds that were shattered. My heart is filled with pain and guilt because no soldier should have to get hurt, let alone die, to return our kidnapped children. Because we can return them ..."

Edited May 4 by Nivsch

[Nivsch]

[danniel]

(its coming together /j)

[Nivsch]

[zazen]

 

[zazen]

On 07/04/2025 at 10:28 PM, zazen said:

Interesting but dark post from a US game theory POV

 https://x.com/evanwritesonx/status/1908798273097494890?s=46&t=DuLUbFRQFGpB8oo7PwRglQ

Acronyms: MIC = military industrial complex, FIC = financial industrial complex, GCC = gulf cooperation council / gulf states

”If I were the US, purely from a game theory perspective,

I’d be concerned watching the Middle East integrate into a unified front against my little pet project, Israel.

I’d see the UAE sidling up to Iran, the GCC patching things up with Qatar, and Saudi Arabia cozying up to Tehran through the sly hands of China and Russia,

shafting me out of the frame like a has-been actor.

I knew October 7, 2023 was the opening bell of a regional death match, a zero-sum battle pitting a newly united Middle East against my proxy state.

And I decided to sit back and let the chaos crown a winner.

But when Israel started failing to clean out those pesky Palestinians by the 2024 elections, I knew I had to face the music:

my golden goose was turning into rotting flesh.

So, I decide to amputate. I decided to divest.

Profitably, of course.

How?

Simple.

I’d short Israel like it’s a penny stock that's about to tank.
___

I’d turn Israel into my ultimate bargaining chip, a sacrificial pawn in my game.

I’d let them run wild, slaughtering Palestinians while racking up a cool $1 billion a day in war costs, for my MIC.

I’d watch their $50 billion economy choke under a $1 trillion liability, their cabinet implode into a circus of backstabbing clowns, and their global image fester like an open sore.

I’m divesting, after all, why not let it rot?

I’d slap a ceasefire on the table, to get approval from the GCC;

“I’m your new partner now, as promised, on board with the regional plan.”

I’d stonewall Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, and the whole Axis of Resistance, encouraging them to cool their jets while dangling a $40 billion Gaza rebuild and $15 billion in GCC aid as bait.

But I would simultaneously let Israel breach that ceasefire anyway. Because hey, that's extra bargaining chips for me. And I don't represent them. They're a bunch of genocidal Jews. I’d egg them on to overextend, to dig their own grave with every bomb.

I have to push just enough for no one to feel inclined to sabotage the regional plan. 

I need to hold both cards.

Afterall I am the MIC king. They can either stand down and trust the process, or set fire to the entire region by invading my proxy state.

Either way, if they stand down, then we proceed with the GCC's plan. If they escalate and storm in, it’s just more fuel for my fire and we can pick up where we left off. I’d park my FIC on the sidelines, let my MIC rake in the profits from the carnage, and watch the body count climb.

The more people die, the merrier; every corpse is another dollar in my pocket.

And no one’s going to pin it on me. The world already hates Israel and thinks they've got me on a leash.

Why waste that narrative when it’s free leverage?

And as for the GCC and their new shiny future plan for the region, 

I will signal to them; "I am still in charge. Israel is my asset. And I will let it burn itself out under my own volition, while we talk."

I know they're drooling for stability and for the establishment of a Palestinian state, but I’m not some charity case. I’m not handing it over on a silver platter. My British counterpart worked hard to colonize that region 70 years ago.

Plus, I’ve got China’s $50 billion trade deals breathing down my neck, and I need the GCC tethered to my orbit. I can't have any of them dictating terms. I need a head start in this new multipolar game.

So, I’d keep the threat of Palestinian extinction on the table, a grim little bargaining chip.

Israel’s my liability now, but I will milk it dry while it safeguards my negotiations with the GCC. Gaza’s $80 billion ruin is just Israel’s lifeblood hemorrhaging. Their economy is evaporating in the rubble, while my MIC cashes out $100 billion in arms sales.

Meanwhile, I’d let my FIC shift $50-$100 billion to the GCC winners, eyeing their $2 trillion jackpot. I’d outbid China and Russia, but only by keeping the pressure on the GCC through those Palestinian lives, because let’s be real, I have only Israel to lose in doing this and everything else to gain.

Yeah, they were an ally sure. It was nice while the profits lasted, but now I need to cut this colony loose. They weren't supposed to be there anyway.

It’s my perfect defection play.

I maximize my payoff while they eat the cost.

So I have to short Israel to the bone, extracting every last drop of value, $100 billion in MIC profits, $50 billion in GCC deals, before cutting the cord.

Business 101: when an asset turns toxic, you don’t just dump it; you strip it bare, increment by bloody increment. There's value to be drawn from every inch along the fall.

Israel is my toxic collateralized debt obligation.

So I have to make sure that when I finally discard Israel, it’ll be a hollowed-out shell, worthless trash for the GCC to pick over.

I’d hand it to them.

Palestinian lives are worthless to me. So I have to make sure Israel becomes just as worthless before I exchange it over.

The UAE and Saudi can carve up the scraps, in exchange for that $40 billion Gaza rebuild.

Then I’d reap the real prize: a fat slice of the GCC’s $500 billion oil wealth and $2 trillion prosperity.

That’s a steal, considering all they want is a Palestinian state. Which we stole from the outset.

Haha. Cheap ask to be fair.

Sure, I’ll deliver what the GCC want. But on my terms, at a glacial pace.

Every delay squeezes out more leverage, more profit.

The one thing that's an absolute certainty, is that there’s no scenario where I don’t spin Israel’s collapse as my triumph. 

And Netanyahu?

He’s just the perfect symbol for this bloody chapter’s end. I’d pin this godforsaken, brutal, genocidal mess squarely on his crumbling cabinet. As they organically disintegrate, ripping each other apart in a frenzy of blame,

I’d step in, pushing a new chapter of peace and prosperity. 

I’d orchestrate it so I look like an absolute saint, the benevolent hand guiding the region to salvation while the cabinets corpse swings in the wind.

Once the smoke clears, I am going to pivot hard. My MIC will feast on Europe’s paranoia, new markets, new wars, while my FIC chases the Middle East’s reconstruction goldmine, hotels, ports, refineries.

I’d wrap it up with a $350 billion return on investment.

My image?

Spotless.

I’d be the saint who “stabilized” the region, the magnanimous victor who tamed the chaos.

Israel?

They’d be the villain everyone already despises, a discarded shell I timed to perfection.

This is my way out.

Because I can see a new game that's forming. 

And I have to be part of the group that's rewriting the rules while I burn the old board behind me.”

Very impressed by this guy Evan’s geopolitical analysis. He’s been correct on quite a few things. See the above post I shared a month ago and consider what’s occurring now with Trump / Bibi’s supposed divorce.

 

The world order has undeniably shifted.

Connected to this indirectly is the Pakistan-Chinese jets downing India’s French Rafael. Global military circles are shocked and studying this development that’s shaken assumed Western dominance in the Military industrial complex - https://www.reuters.com/world/india/global-militaries-study-india-pakistan-fighter-jet-battle-2025-05-08/

This was Chinas DeepSeek moment in the Military domain. With Pakistan and Turkey both flanking the Middle East and with asymmetric advantages (drones, missiles, electronic warfare, air superiority) over a legacy built conventional Western military - the Middle East is coming under the Asian orbit of asymmetrically stronger regional players.

Hence Trump disengaging with the Houthis also. A multi million dollar cruise missile can sink a multi billion dollar naval asset like a carrier - that’s asymmetry and why $$ spent no longer means eclipsing adversaries on the battle field.

We are in a new world. Asias on the rise with Middle East stabilising and hopefully on the come up also. The Wests imperialistic teeth are being extracted in the global south - by the global south. Even in Africa with Burkin Fasos Ibrahim Traore leading the charge.

The last holdout is India which may be swayed to be used as a bulwark to bog down and contain China via Pakistan (current flare up). The US will opportunistically use this to overextend China so they have a chance at attempting something around Taiwan. That will also fail - I don’t think the US will even attempt it as reality seems to have slapped them across the face.

Edited May 10 by zazen

[Rafael Thundercat]

Something weird is happening lately:

- Yemen ceasefire cutting out Israel
- Trump reportedly cuts contact with Netanyahu
- No normalization in Saudi deal
- Anti-Israel op-ed by Thomas Friedman in the NYT
- Mike Walz fired for being Israeli spy
- Anti-BDS Bill pulled from House vote because of no MAGA support

Normally I’d think this is PR, but part of me does feel a narrative step change here. Anti-Zionism on both sides of the spectrum. Is this the beginning of the end?

[Twentyfirst]

It was obvious that Zionism was done for and couldn't survive any longer than the 1st quarter of this century. A Palestinian state is just a stepping stone to a one state solution with Arab majority and Jewish minority. Everyone in these negotiations know the two state is temporary. Of course the west will blame Jews for all their problems since they are the true anti semites. USA will blame Israel for all the debt they spent on endless wars and Europe will blame the Jews for illegal immigration. Arabs only hate Jews as long as they are hostile and Israelis only hate Arabs as long as they are propagandized to. I think Europeans will start fighting each other just like the good ole days and America won't strongly ally with them anymore 

The GCC has been making too many good moves to be ignored and with BRICS growing and Islam being the fastest growing religion with the highest birth rate it makes sense to move global headquarters of wealth there. Plus the geography is perfect for connecting three continents. Even without fossil fuels they still get more sun than anyone I think so solar is there too. Marketing and advertisers will start to appeal to Muslim consumer bases 

End of Zionism equals new world order

 

[Nivsch]

Head of Opposition in Israel

Edited May 14 by Nivsch

[zazen]

@Twentyfirst Spot on. This is the only way to make sense of what’s occurring. Basically the Military Industrial complex (MIC) has exhausted its profits via war because the only remaining countries in West Asia are too strong to go to war with (Iran, Turkey).

Like snowden said, they profit from forever wars, not world ending ones. They (global elite) need friction but not a complete fracturing of the same globalized economy they are plugged into.

The MIC is just one project of the global elite to milk money from, represented by the neocons and what we consider “establishment” (which Biden comes under) Think “old money” and neocon boomers vs “new money” represented by BlackRock.  The new game in town now is that peace and stability are more profitable than chaos.

The MIC helped crack open access to these markets, where now they’re financial industrial complex and consumer industrial complex can plug into and profit from. This is the deal making we are seeing happening. MBS from Saudi has been working with BlackRock for some time - so when MBS says the Middle East is going to be the new Europe - he’s speaking their language.

That explains: Larry Fink alongside Trump in Saudi, sanctions lifted from Syria, talks of Iran along with its “historic” adversaries Saudi-UAE speaking of a joint nuclear consortium in return for sanctions being lifted off Iran.

That’s why the narrative shift on Israel which is now seen as a liability - and the establishment of a Palestinian state being necessary for peace in the region.

——-

 

Israel’s gone rogue in the way that it’s still playing by the rules of the old game ie the neocon paradigm. The neocon faction are more nationalistic than the new money Blackrock faction who are a-national, trans-national or globalist. Bibi is ramping up things before the lights go out for the neocon empire.

This is the death of the neocon empire and the birth of the shark empire which are borderless, value-hunting elites that outgrew the nest they were born in - the US empire.

They are now circling nations selling to privatize their future. The more sovereign states like China leading BRICS and the GCC are not allies to them but prey and partners, depending on how strong their immune systems are to negotiate with such sharks. 
 

From Trumps speech in Riyadh on Tuesday:

“The so-called nation builders wrecked far more nations than they built, and the interventionists were intervening in complex societies that they did not even understand themselves,” 

Thats the new money Blackrock faction speaking, and saying farewell to the primacy of the neocon game. They’ll still make money for the MIC but it’ll most likely not be from actual war but just the mere threat of it in a multi-polar world where each pole races the other in arms to maintain deterrence. 

Edited May 15 by zazen

[Twentyfirst]

@zazen I think you said it all perfectly there

I think there will be economic and culture wars still but the actual wars will just be threats like you said. Anyways it was all gonna be drone warfare which would have transformed war and I don't think they want to go there

The most important thing is that comforting the lives of 300 million people at the expense of 7.7 billion people is over. Americans will actually be better off. It was making them sick to have all that entitlement and overconsumption go to their heads and the society was going sick. It should be easy for America not to decline as the shift takes place because they aren't being colonized like others were

[zazen]

Could just be words to insulate them from the fallout:

 

Edited May 19 by zazen

[BlessedLion]

Feels like it’s too late. Humanity has simply failed massively on this one by letting the Israeli animals continue their genocide. What a disgrace

[Raze]

 

https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestinians-hamas-war-army-human-shields-80f358dd2c87a1123f26ffada159701c

Quote

Israeli use of human shields in Gaza was systematic, soldiers and former detainees tell the AP

 

Edited Tuesday at 08:04 PM by Raze

[Nivsch]

Senior Israeli journalist (translated with Google Lens)

Edited Wednesday at 08:23 AM by Nivsch