For context on how seismic Hezbollah’s decapitation is politically, from the perspective of most of the Middle East the Iranian “Resistance Axis”, of which Hezbollah is a critical component, has never “lost” a war, and have come out with some kind of victory in every conflict. That image of invulnerability was bought and paid for mostly with Arab blood, with very little domestic impact on Iran, despite the vast sums it was pumping into its proxies in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen.

Hezbollah was the crown jewel of the IRGC network.

We know from Hezbollah themselves that these were 5000 devices on a secure network that had explosives hidden inside & bought by Hezbollah for their own operatives, and solely their own operatives.

Not civilians, active members of Hezbollah with pagers for secure communications. By all means feel free to object to this attack on principle, but there’s no justification for pretending that these pagers were given to regular civilians going about their daily lives with no direct connection to Hezbollah’s secure military command infrastructure.

1. Be Conservative
2. Spend 14 years transferring money from the young & poor to the old & wealthy
3. Enact cruel policies, punish those without generational wealth
3. Destroy the country
4. Suffer the worst election defeat in 100 years
5. Meltdown when Labour end those policies Do you think screaming at me about government cruelty towards retired landlords is going to work at all? I could barely afford to eat in my twenties and the government told me to suck it up and get on with it.

We’re taking your mum & dad’s winter bung. It’s over. Cry more!

Seeing a lot of analysis about last night's events in the Middle East that I think misses the wood for the trees, so here are a few of my brief thoughts on the situation 🧵: Firstly, immediately after October 7th I was very vocal about the fact that I did not think Israel's stated war aims were achievable, namely, 1) destruction of Hamas, 2) return of the hostages, and 3) permanent pacification of the Gaza Strip - I do not think that has changed.

I’ve survived a lot in my life, so it’s rare these days that I get too emotional over things, but receiving an email from one of my favourite musicians telling me how profoundly moved they were by my documentary has hit me right in the feels today. It’s still hard to believe I’m now a director to be honest! I spent so much of my career producing content for other people I had almost given up the ambition to create things of my own.

Somehow I managed to climb that mountain, and I can’t wait to share it with you all.

Who is ready for @OwenJones84/@Guardian to be forced into a humiliating retraction over his latest piece? One that exposes how lazy he is as a "journalist", who is so committed to his own ideological bubble that he has published an egregious error.
theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
This is not a small mistake, but first I want to point out that this truly does reveal how little research he does, he badly read he is on foreign policy, national security and defence, and why he has no business writing on any of these topics. This is why he is bad at his job.

The hysteria over this motion, or rather the precise wording of it, despite it having no impact on policy and no way of affecting the situation at all, shows not just how clueless most people are on foreign policy, but also exposes their own narcissism.

https://twitter.com/rmcunliffe/status/1760317588704285112

As someone who was very vocal on the last opposition party’s foreign policy positions, what I cared about were binding votes that had an impact on policy, like retaliatory air strikes in Syria in 2013, not empty motions that achieve nothing.

People are very emotional and they react emotionally to hearing news they don’t like and sometimes that leads them to accusing reporters - who are simply doing their jobs correctly - of lying or conspiring to spread disinformation

https://twitter.com/j_jhelin/status/1752035425202458909

A lot of journalism is based on sources, particularly political squabbles taking place behind closed doors. We cannot verify all of those stories using OSINT.

Branko Marcetic here, refusing to amend his fantasy interpretation of the Istanbul talks, despite the fact that the only source he has to corroborate them says that his interpretation is incorrect, and no withdrawal was ever offered by Russia.

https://x.com/BMarchetich/status/1750167149191029115?s=20

No such deal by the Russians was ever offered. In fact, the Russians specifically cited the campaign in Donbass as a reason for withdrawing from Kyiv.

Even though Branko has no sources corroborating his lie, he still refuses to concede.

https://x.com/BMarchetich/status/1750167152684933246?s=20

I think people dismissing the idea that Russia would attack a NATO state are woefully clueless. If Russia wins in Ukraine, and gets in Trump a President willing to abandon NATO, Putin will strike NATO. This isn’t a low-probability event, it’s Russia’s explicit goal in Europe. Every question about the future of European security and the prospect of a world war needs to be understood in this context. This is Russia’s plan, to destroy the West’s collective defence policy and then to conquer territory to rebuild the Russian empire.

My family come from a middle class Sunni district of Beirut that borders Dahiyeh. Our neighbourhood has been effectively under armed Hezbollah control since 2008. They have thugs positioned there with barely concealed weapons, used to threaten, intimidate & suppress local dissent Even though our neighbourhood is effectively controlled & occupied by Hezbollah (and the SSNP), it is not under their direct control like Dahiyeh is. The state still exists in my family’s neighbourhood. The state does not exist in Dahiyeh. Police cannot even enter the suburb.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has reportedly cancelled his scheduled speech tomorrow on the 3rd anniversary of the Soleimani assassination due to the Israeli assassination of Saleh Al-Arouri in Dahiyeh today. His last two speeches since October 7th have been heavy on threats and rhetoric while Hezbollah's armed response has been very quiet considering their known capabilities in southern Lebanon.

It’s been particularly depressing watching certain Arab American influencers cheer this on, knowing full well that they are going to feign shock at the catastrophe they are flirting with when it finally dawns upon them.

https://twitter.com/ngrossman81/status/1737100738562515084

And everyone knows I’m one of @mehdirhasan’s loudest critics, but he’s at least out here sounding the alarm while so many are willing Biden to lose in 2024. If Mehdi and I are agreeing on issues, you know things are serious.

This is definitively not the remains of an R9X:

https://twitter.com/muhammadsmiry/status/1722905554647998622

Lots of people falsely claiming an R9X “fires” blades, which it does not do. If you were trying to cause maximum damage, the R9X is the last missile on Earth you would use. In either case, this shell fragment definitely does not belong to an R9X

There was no peace deal on offer last year Mehdi, and there’s no peace deal on offer this year. Why are you spouting something that is demonstrably bollocks?

https://twitter.com/mehdirhasan/status/1721575883645816962

I'm sorry but this stuff is beyond irresponsible. If you're going to talk about imaginary peace deals the very least you should do is state clearly what the terms are, who proposed them and when. Mehdi can't do that, because no such peace deal was ever even proposed.

I can tell you all one place in Europe that definitely has not seen an uptick in antisemitic violence in the last few weeks - Ukraine.

After everything that has been said about this country and her people, I feel like this should be more widely acknowledged. I’ve been to the masjid and the Islamic cultural centre a couple of times in Kyiv this week too. Not a single thing out of the ordinary to report. Everyone just going about their lives, interrupted only by air raid sirens and Russian drone attacks.

International news organisations and even national intelligence services have been relying on the work of OSINT journalists to corroborate their reporting for years now. It’s time they started paying us for it.

https://twitter.com/rebel44cz/status/1716375663916044500

It’s insane that the Oryx list failed to meet its funding targets & I’m sure it had a part to play in Oryx stepping down from maintaining it.

We all want to keep collaborating, but all of these professionals need paying, this isn’t a hobby, it’s a full time skilled profession.

CBS News now citing a secondary direct source for their reporting that children’s bodies were among those found beheaded at Kfar Aza: cbsnews.com/live-updates/i… Yossi Landau, head of operations of the southern region of Zaka told CBS reporters that he had personally seen the bodies of beheaded babies.

A direct eyewitness first responder.

People can now officially stop accusing good reporters on the scene of fabricating this story.

It’s worth pointing out that many of the same people who have spent 18 months supporting the occupation & destruction of Ukraine because of the existence of the Azov Battalion have spent the last 48 hours cheering on wanton rape & child murder in the name of opposing occupation. Also the same people who claimed to oppose the fall of the Assad regime by smearing all his opponents as murderous Salafi Jihadists currently defending the most brutal Islamist massacre of civilians since the ISIS genocide of Iraqi Yazidis.

I know I should just ignore it but it makes me very angry when I say that killing civilians is wrong and then idiots who don’t know the first thing about my career reply “these people don’t care when Israel does it”.

Yes I do. I cared long before you even heard of the conflict. I’m Lebanese. I was born into a pro-Palestine family. I have spent my entire life advocating for the creation of a Palestinian state and opposing the occupation. I am frequently attacked on here for being a pro-Palestinian Muslim.

Strategically speaking, Gazans want the Israeli blockade of Gaza lifted, and Palestinians in general want statehood, an end to the occupation & an end to Israeli military & settler violence. Hard to see how today’s attacks advance these causes beyond revenge. The Israeli military response is going to be heavy, and will disproportionately affect civilians as any military action in densely populated urban centres always does. Furthermore it will be supported by a unified population & sympathetic international community.