Israel-Gaza War (and Iranian Distractions)

[Syne]

Israel definitely needs to use this attack from Iranian soil and admitted to by Iran's government as full justification to destroy their nuclear capabilities. If Iran is getting this bold (never having directly attacked Israel before, as far as I know), they could either have, or be on the verge of having, nuclear weapons. That would be bad for the entire region and absolutely deadly for Israel.

While I would assume it's just out of pure Iranian hubris, with the global rise of antisemitism, Israel should use this outright declaration of war while they have it. Yes, leftists will believe the bullshit excuse about Iran's consulate, but leftists were never going to support Israel anyway. They're morons who openly support evil.

[Yazata]

An unnamed US official says that the US Navy Arleigh Burke class destroyers shot down three Iranian medium-range ballistic missiles that were targeting an Israeli airbase in southern Israel yesterday. They used their AEGIS radar/fire-control systems that detected the Iranian missiles in space, then launched SM-3 'standard' missiles to intercept them. This demonstrates a fairly robust ABM anti-ballistic missile capability already fielded and operational on normal warships. North Korea might want to take notice.

Edit: Other "officials" are saying that the actual number of MRBMs intercepted by the destroyers was as many as 6. The destroyers are said to have been the USS Arleigh Burke and the USS Carney.

US Navy photo of a standard missile emerging from its vertical launch tube

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Jennifer Griffin is reporting that the American F-15's from RAF Lakenheath in England were indeed busy and succeeded in taking out as many as 70 drones. That's a significant fraction of the entire Iranian attack package.

[Syne]

Biden is trying to talk Netanyahu out of a counter attack, saying Israel should take the successful defense as a win, but would it have been without the US and UK help? Do we really want to commit forces to the defense of Israel for the foreseeable future? With an emboldened Iran seeking nuclear weapons?

Chuck Schumer has declared the US will help defend Israel, but he refused to bring standalone Israel defense funding up for a vote in the Senate. He and other Democrats wanted to hold that aide hostage for also getting more aide for Ukraine and Palestine (which Hamas and the PA would obviously hijack). Now he's demanding the Republican controlled House vote for this Israel/Ukraine/Palestine aide bill instead of just voting for the standalone, House-passed aide for Israel.

So he wants to voice support, but his actions prove that it's contingent upon getting other things Democrats want. That's really just self-serving, not genuine support.

[Yazata]

Big meeting of the Israeli War Cabinet just concluded, without a counter-attack plan being decided upon. The Israeli military has been tasked with developing more options.

It's easy to see that they are trying to thread the needle between 'too little' and 'too dangerous'.

And it's clear that Washington DC is telling them to go small or else just declare victory because they fought off the IRGC's grand attack so effectively. America doesn't want to face the threat of a major war with Iran (so close to an election).

That means that whatever Israel decides on will be very revealing about how much influence Washington really has in Israel.

[Syne]

I'm not sure Biden wants to avoid a war with Iran so much as he'd prefer it to break out closer to the election, hoping the history of not voting out an incumbent President in wartime saves his ass.

[Yazata]

Reports in just the last few minutes of incoming drones at Israel's southern port of Eilat. Air defense rockets launched headed east over Jordan & sound of explosions. (Edit The IDF says the Eilat drones were tracked up the Red Sea and were launched by the Yemeni Houthis.)

The IRGC seems to be signalling that their (and their proxies') attacks on Israel will continue like before the Israeli attack on the Damascus embassy, but if anyone strikes back at Iran directly, it means war with Iran. Hence the 'declare victory', 'let it end here' option is stillborn, unless Israel accepts being a target for endless Iranian attacks launched from third countries.

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The Israeli IDF have released video of large craters on a runway at nevatim from yesterday. Tractors and excavators are shown busily filling them in.

Reuters is reporting that "according to officials", Biden has told Netanyahu that the US will not participate in any Israeli counter-strike against Iran. (The US Secretary of Defense just said the same at a press conference.)

They are also reporting that two "senior Israeli ministers" told them that an Israeli strike is "not immanent" and that Israel would not act alone.

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-eas...024-04-14/

[Yazata]

Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett says

https://twitter.com/naftalibennett/statu...5662648467

1. Contrary to what pundits are saying, this wasn’t designed merely as “bells and whistles” with no damage.

When you shoot 350 flying objects timed to hit Israel at the same moment,
when you use three fundamentally different weapon types—cruise missiles, ballistic missiles and UAVs,
you’re looking to penetrate Israel’s defenses and kill Israelis.

2. The US administration is telling us: “This is a victory, you’ve already won by thwarting the missiles.
No need for any further action.”
No, it’s NOT a victory.
Yes, it’s a remarkable success of Israel’s air defense systems, but it’s not a victory.

When a bully tries to hit you 350 times and only succeeds seven time, you’ve NOT won.

You don’t win wars just by intercepting your enemy’s hits, nor do you deter it.
Your enemy will just try harder with more and better weapons and methods next time.
How DO you deter?
By exacting a deeply painful price.

3. It’s incorrect to say “nobody got hurt”.
There’s a 7 year-old Israeli-Arab girl called Amina Elhasuny fighting for her life.
That’s who coward Khamenei hit.

4. The Islamic Republic of Iran made a big mistake.
For the past 30 years it’s been wreaking havoc on the region—through its proxies.
A terror-octopus whose head is Tehran, and its tentacles are in Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq, Syria and Gaza.

How convenient.
The Mullahs send others to conduct horrendous terror attacks, and die for them.
Other people’s blood.

Israel’s strategic mistake for the past 30 years was to play along this strategy.
We always fought the Octopus’ arms, but hardly exacted a price from its Iranian head.
This should change now:
Hezbollah or Hamas shoots a rocket at Israel?
Tehran pays a price.

5. The enemy is the Iranian REGIME, not the wonderful Iranian people.
The Iranian regime reminds me of the Soviet regime in 1985: corrupt to the core, old, incompetent, despised by its own people, and destined to collapse.
The sooner the better.
The West can accelerate the regime’s inevitable collapse with a set of soft and clever actions, short of military force.
Remember, USSR collapsed without any need for a direct American attack.
Let’s do this.

6. Israel is fighting everybody’s war. In Gaza, Lebanon and Tehran.
We’re considered “the small satan” by radical Islam. America is the big one.

I’ll be clear: if these crazy fanatic Islamic terrorists get away with murder by hiding among civilians, this method will be adopted by terrorists worldwide.

We’re not asking anyone to fight for us. We’ll do the job.
But we do expect our allies to have our back, especially when it’s tough—and now it’s tough.

Be on the right side and help us defeat these horrible and savage regimes.

[Yazata]

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that only about half of the Iranian ballistic missiles launched were actually intercepted. This was due to the Iranian missiles having a roughly 50% failure rate at launch or soon after.

"So much for the vaunted ballistic missile capability of Iran."

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nsNS

[Yazata]

U.S. Defense Officials say that the Arleigh Burke-class Guided-Missile Destroyers, USS Carney (DDG-64) and USS Arleigh Burke (DDG-51) were in the Eastern Mediterranean and launched Standard Missile-3s (SM-3s) to down between 4 and 6 Iranian Medium-Range Ballistic Missiles last night over Israel.

US Central Command says

"Defense of Israel Activities Update

On April 13 and the morning of April 14, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) forces, supported by U.S. European Command destroyers, successfully engaged and destroyed more than 80 one-way attack uncrewed aerial vehicles (OWA UAV) and at least six ballistic missiles intended to strike Israel from Iran and Yemen.

This includes a ballistic missile on its launcher vehicle and seven UAVs destroyed on the ground in Iranian-backed Houthi controlled areas of Yemen prior to their launch.

Iran's continued unprecedented, malign, and reckless behavior endangers regional stability and the safety of U.S. and coalition forces.

CENTCOM remains postured to support Israel’s defense against these dangerous actions by Iran. We will continue to work with all our regional partners to increase regional security."

https://twitter.com/CENTCOM/status/1779651553789362216

[Yazata]

Another Israeli War Cabinet meeting.

Everyone is agreed that there must be retaliation, but apparently there's still no agreement on what kind, or when. The options appear to be narrowing down to either 1) a large scale attack, or 2) a more symbolic attack on selected "strategic" targets.

I'd personally question how large a retaliatory attack Israel can mount. Iran is a large country with military bases all over. Some of their most important facilities are buried deeply underground. Does Israel have enough missiles and attack drones to do real damage? If they launch a massive crewed air attack it would be very complex with aerial refueling on a large scale and almost a certainty of downed airmen, POWs and a new hostage crisis.

But that being said, I'm sure that Netanyahu really wants to destroy Iran's nuclear program. The question is whether Israel can and at what cost.

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