Image is of destruction and damage inside Israel, sourced from this article.
Iran and Israel have struck each other many times over the last few days. There has been a general focus on military facilities and headquarters by both sides, though Israel has also struck oil facilities, civilian structures and hospitals, and in return for this, Iran has struck major scientific centers and the Haifa oil facilities.
Israel appears to have three main aims. First, to collapse the Iranian state, either through shock and breakdown by killing enough senior officials, or via some sort of internal military coup. Second, to try and destroy Iranian nuclear sites and underground missile cities, or at least to paralyze them long enough to achieve the first and third goals. And third, to bring the US into a direct conflict with Iran. This is because the US better equipped to fight them than Israel is (though victory would still not be guaranteed depending on what Iran chooses to do).
Iranian nuclear facilities are hidden deep underground (800 meters), far beyond the depth range of even the most powerful bunker busters (~70 meters or so), and built such that the visible ground entrances are horizontally far away in an unknown direction from the actual underground chambers. Only an extremely competent full-scale American bombing force all simultaneously using multiple of the most powerful conventional (perhaps even nuclear) bunker busters could even hypothetically hope to breach them (and we have seen how, in practice, American bunker busters have largely failed to impair or deter Ansarallah). There are several analysts on both sides who have concluded that it is entirely impossible to physically prevent Iran from building nukes.
I fully expect the US to join the war. I believe the current ambiguity is a deliberate invention of the US while they work to move their military assets into position, and as soon as they are ready, the US will start bombing Iran. After that, Iran's leadership must - if they haven't already - harden their hearts, and strike back with no fear, or risk following the path of Libya, Syria, and Iraq, either into either surrender, occupation, or annihilation. Every day where they do not possess a nuke is a day where lives are being lost and cities are being bombed.
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Israel-Palestine Conflict
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA reports on Israel's destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news.
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don't want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it's just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists' side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR's former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR's forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster's telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a 'propaganda tax', if you don't believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
Hey, what is the average Hexbear take on this guy?
He popped out of nowhere with a very interesting video, from 1 year ago, predicting what is happening now with Iran.
I would like to explore his other videos, but i'm preparing a final.
Still, the last one doesn't take into account China, Russia and other middle east countries. I don't see Israel becoming an hegemon in the region after an hypothetical US retreat.
Now, the sionist world end cult plan... I would like to read more on that before expressing an opinion.
I was not super impressed with his video that 'predicted' the conflict in Iran.
He believes the US will somehow insert hundreds of thousands of soldiers into Iran with no ability to supply or withdraw them, because this happened once to Athens in 400BC, and that this will lead to a complete collapse of the US army and total defeat.
He also believes Israel's best outcome here is to provoke the collapse of the United States AND Iran, in order to take over military dominance of the region. That is absurd - Israel is closer to a colony than a sovereign country. They cannot even manufacture enough missiles to defend themselves with a population of a mere 10 million. Military collapse of the US in the region would be the worst possible thing to happen to Israel.
He also claims that Putin will, somehow, decide to extend his nuclear umbrella to Iran. Something he was loathe to do even for Belarus, thus preventing the US from nuking their way out of military disaster.
He made a basic prediction that anyone on Hexbear could have made - that the crisis in Gaza would eventually expand to a conflict with Iran (something very predictable after they began bombing eachother in Operation True Promise) and is being seen a visionary.
I got suspicious when he talked about Israel for those same reasons - seems to put too much on Israel being an entity independent of the US and almost in competition in West Asia.
I think he’s a quack.
He’s doing cargo cult realism.
Like, he invoked “game theory” to explain the war escalation ladder, a theory that assumes players are rational and seeking to maximize benefit, and he gives the IRGC the motivation of “they just want to kill Americans to get revenge for the US supporting the Shah.”
Not to mention the way he explained the Israel lobby just being completely anti-materialist. Just saying "Yeah the Jews support it because they're Jews and billionaires, the Christians also support it for religious reasons" ??? nothing about OPEC, replicating Operation Cyclone, strategizing around destroying Arab Nationalism? Just vibes about the religions?
This doesn't undermine his other video from 1 year ago...
But oh boy:
Lol, haven’t seen that video before. Unsurprising really, from what I’ve listened to of his lectures he’s an idealist through and through.
he's just uninformed as fuck about the shit he talks about come on
this describes the majority of idealists tbqh
He’s obsessed with the “hubris of empires” and has a video about how Russian leaders just have better understanding of geopolitics (because….?). If that isn’t idealism I don’t know what is lol