Replies

Be precise: The Russian diplomat to the U.N. said this:

"“Do not call others to de-escalation and pin the labels of aggressors on the victims of the attack,” Russian Ambassador Vasily Nebenzia said “In this context, any potential escalation in the situation will be fully on your conscience.”

Now the article says this was directed at America and Britain, but he's actually talking about Israel.

Israel violated one of the few conventions that most civilzed nations adhere to: the sanctity of embassies.

We were outraged, and rightly so, when Iran over-ran our embassy in Tehran during Carter's presidency. We were furious when Al Qaeda bombed our embassies in Africa. And, rightly so.

So, if there is any thing remotely resembling "international rules based order" the first rule is: Thou shalt not violate embassies.

Israel just bombed the shit out of the Iranian one in Syria, so (from their point of view) they got three birds with one stone: the Iranians, the Syrians (who had their territory violated and bombed) and by extension the Palestinians.

All good for them, but the rest of the world is looking at that and saying "You bombed an embassy!"

So, when Iran bombs something in Israel, well ... it's the same thing that caused Israel to go into Gaza: Hamas broke any rules of warfare that exist.

It was a terrible day for Israel. Losing the moral high ground is a serious loss for them, most obviously likely to push some Americans (who like me remember our outrage at the violation of our embassies over the years) into not wanting to send more money to them (just like Americans don't want to send more money to Ukraine, in part because of their actions like the terrorist bombing in Moscow of a journalist.

Killing the aid workers was another auto-delegitimization failure by Israel on the same day.

Late on Monday night three cars from the World Central Kitchen pulled out of the organisation’s warehouse in Gaza to distribute aid to Palestinians. Each vehicle was clearly marked as working for the humanitarian organisation, followed an IDF-approved route and had GPS trackers and SOS beacons broadcasting their positions.
But despite taking every precaution, the seven brave volunteers inside the cars were being watched – and were soon deemed hostile targets and eliminated.
Among the doomed passengers were former Royal Marine James Henderson, 33; former SBS soldier John Chapman, 57; as well as a British military veteran named last night by the BBC as James Kirby.
the IDF unit responsible for securing the area ordered UAV operators to attack one of the vehicles shortly before midnight.
It deployed a precision R9X Hellfire missile which smashed into one of the armoured cars. Passengers were seen scrambling from the wreckage and jumping into the other two vehicles.
They informed authorities monitoring their movements that they had been hit and sped off.
After travelling just 900 metres the Hermes 450 fired once more. The second armoured car was hit, leaving just the soft-skinned 4×4 remaining. Surviving passengers loaded the wounded into the final vehicle and pulled away.
But having made it 1.5km further along the coastal road the UAV fired for a third time – blasting the remaining vehicle to bits.

Now they aren't going to suffer military retalition for that, so it's less important militarily. But in terms of 4GW theory it's much worse, because it again takes Israel off the moral high-ground.