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Failed US diplomacy gives Israel a free vengeful hand
Asia Times ^

Posted on 11/09/2023 4:58:26 AM PST by FarCenter

Israel has served notice that it will seek to kill Hamas operatives not only in the Gaza Strip but also beyond the borders of Israel and the West Bank, the latest threat of a coming wider regional conflict. The official comment specified Qatar and Turkey as countries that host Hamas officials.

The warning, delivered by an Israeli military spokesman, suggests that should Israel achieve its goal of wiping out Hamas rule and military resources from Gaza it will also pursue its enemies abroad.

“The directive is definitely to kill or capture all the leaders of Hamas. Those who planned, facilitated and executed the murderous October 7 massacre in Israel,” said Jonathan Conricus, spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces. “All of them are dead men walking. It’s only a matter of time inside Gaza and outside of Gaza until these Hamas leaders will either be captured or killed by Israel.”

“All of them will pay a price,” he said, suggesting Israel may mount a kind of global manhunt of Hamas officials even after the military operation in the Gaza Strip is finished.

Such a search-and-kill operation was mounted for almost two decades after the 1972 Munich Olympics, during which the Black September Palestinian terror group abducted and killed 11 Israeli athletes. Outrage and fear among Israelis accompanied the shock of the Munich massacre.

Israeli intelligence agents spent several years hunting down and killing Black September operatives abroad. The October 7, 2023, killings of some 1,300 Israeli civilians by Hamas militants have stirred calls inside Israel for similar retribution.

The IDF pronouncement followed last weekend’s string of diplomatic failures by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who spent five days barnstorming the region.

The top US diplomat tried to persuade Israel to alter its hardline war tactics and to persuade friendly Arab governments as well as NATO ally Turkey to support American military backing of Israel and accept that the US also wants to protect Palestinian civilians.

Blinken’s entreaties apparently failed to win support. It was an unusual – and likely for Washington – an unsettlingly open display of reduced US influence in the region. The crisis has mired President Joe Biden’s foreign policy in a place he didn’t expect it to be—the chronically unstable Middle East.

Just eight days before the Hamas raid, Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security advisor, publicly declared, “The Middle East region is quieter today than it has been in two decades now.”


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS:

1 posted on 11/09/2023 4:58:26 AM PST by FarCenter
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To: FarCenter

“The Middle East region is quieter today than it has been in two decades now.”

Well, that aged like milk.

CC


2 posted on 11/09/2023 5:03:38 AM PST by Celtic Conservative (My cats are more amusing than 200 channels worth of TV.)
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To: FarCenter

Sounds good. Let it be so, despite Joe’s meddling and crossed signals from Obama.


3 posted on 11/09/2023 5:04:05 AM PST by Alas Babylon! (Repeal the Patriot Act; Abolish the DHS; reform FBI top to bottom!)
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To: FarCenter

Israel having a free hand seems like a success rather than a failure to me.


4 posted on 11/09/2023 5:10:23 AM PST by AndyTheBear (Certified smarter than average for my species)
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To: FarCenter

A decree has been made. Feelin’ all biblical an’ stuff.


5 posted on 11/09/2023 5:22:09 AM PST by Libloather (Why do climate change hoax deniers live in mansions on the beach?)
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To: FarCenter

“vengeful hand” ?? lol

you sure love posting the anti-Israel Asia Times ChiComm propaganda!!

FAIL


6 posted on 11/09/2023 5:26:09 AM PST by canuck_conservative (there would be no more need for NATO, if Russia could just stop attacking its neighbors)
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To: FarCenter

It is not revenge. Israel MUST STOP THE HAMAS PROBLEM, AND EVENTUALLY THE IRANIAN PROBLEM, or it will rear its ugly head again and again. The globalists want to frame it as revenge, but it is not. IF it were revenge, they would completely destroy the Gaza Strip, and pile stone upon stone with no hope of recovery for the people. They have no intention of doing that and have gone out of their way to protect the non-combatants.


7 posted on 11/09/2023 5:28:32 AM PST by silent majority rising
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To: AndyTheBear

Absolutely. Israelis are the ones doing the dying... no one has the right to advise constraint.

This has been going on TOO long


8 posted on 11/09/2023 5:32:08 AM PST by SMARTY ("A lie which is half a truth is ever the blackest of lies." Tennyson)
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To: FarCenter

Diplomacy is dead with Hamas, (or Iran for that matter). They view it as weakness, and it considered a ‘hudna’, or cessation in order to re-arm and re-group.


9 posted on 11/09/2023 5:32:29 AM PST by silent majority rising
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To: silent majority rising

“It is not revenge.”

No. It’s a reckoning. (Tombstone ref.)


10 posted on 11/09/2023 5:37:04 AM PST by Danie_2023
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To: All

Comments BUMP!


11 posted on 11/09/2023 5:50:22 AM PST by PGalt (Past Peak Civilization?)
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To: FarCenter
Blinken’s entreaties apparently failed to win support. It was an unusual – and likely for Washington – an unsettlingly open display of reduced US influence in the region.

Although I wouldn't really push the comparison too far, this does remind me of the Suez Crisis of 1956. Coming our of WWII, both France and the UK were still seen as Great Powers. But when Egypt seized the canal, the European "Great Powers" could do nothing without US help -- and Eisenhower would not help. It was hugely embarrassing for France and the UK and they haven't really been "Great Powers" since then.

12 posted on 11/09/2023 5:51:26 AM PST by ClearCase_guy
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To: Celtic Conservative

no,
Not ‘vengeful’ anymore than it was vengeful for the united states to have advanced through europe into berlin. There is a fight until the enemy surrenders unconditionally or hopefully they commit suicide in the bunker is the best option. Anyone who survives should be put on war crimes trial and hanged without delay.

But that’s not how todays outcomes are, is it.


13 posted on 11/09/2023 6:16:32 AM PST by Samurai_Jack (This is not about hypocrisy, this is about hierarchy!)
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To: ClearCase_guy
It's simply a matter that the Obama crowd back in power are the same cowards as before: they are desperate to resume their Iran butt kissing and to avoid a wider war.

Israel can torpedo their objectives at any time simply by acting against Iran directly. That leaves US left to check any Iranian aggression if it takes place but gives Israel a free hand.

The cowardice and idiotic policies of the "Biden" regime have left the US with no ability to take the initiative.

14 posted on 11/09/2023 6:23:26 AM PST by pierrem15 ("Massacrez-les, car le seigneur connait les siens" )
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To: FarCenter

The headline seems to indicate the author thinks it is a bad thing.


15 posted on 11/09/2023 6:26:55 AM PST by EastTexasTraveler
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