I doubt Doha will ever give up its asset Hamas, this has been a huge card that Doha was dealt in 2012 and is immensely profitable and holding onto the card is also a game winner for them, they can use it for leverage over the U.S., Israel, Hamas, Iran. They hold the lever that can heat up or turn down the war in Gaza and wars throughout the region by Iran’s proxies and they control the fate of 101 hostages. It’s massive for them. Doha happened upon this strategy almost twenty years ago. While other countries such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE were turning against extremism, they realized that by openly hosting extremists they would get more leverage with the U.S. and the west because they could say “as long as we host them we can stop them attacking you”…so they could openly fund these groups and spread extremism via their media. The U.S. actually critiqued other countries more for terror finance than Doha which openly financed Hamas

There are only two sides to the mob violence in Amsterdam.
-One side supports having police presence to protect people from mob violence.
-One side supports mob violence and argues that it is justified and excuses it and say "what about" and "they started it." You're either on the side of mobs taking over cities, or on the side of peace and law and order.

There's no third side here. The side that backs the attacks on the Israeli fans has only one response, which is to claim the Israelis "started it." They never argue police should arrest the Israelis

The fact that Hamas was hosted by Doha encouraged Hamas to kidnap people and hold them hostage because it knew it could than do talks in Doha. It actually increased suffering in this respect. Because it incentivized Hamas to take hostages and target civilian areas to get hostages Think of a different scenarior where Hamas was only hosted by Iran, a country that doesn't negotiate with Israel and can't "mediate." Hamas would have no incentive to take hundreds of hostages. Hamas would still want to attack, but it would be able to use a western ally as mediator

It increasingly looks like Doha may be trying to "play" this issue to get maximum benefit for itself. It poses as a mediator but it's real goal is now to appear to pause mediation in order to pressure Israel, it seems.

https://twitter.com/ElizHagedorn/status/1855325263313420656

The reports about Hamas leaders being asked to leave Qatar or their office being closed may now be twisted by Doha such that it becomes about how, if the Hamas office is closed, then who will mediate.

I've noticed a trend in discussions about the attack on Israelis, Jews and others in Amsterdam after a game. Those who support the attacks or excuse them always claim it was Israelis who "provoked" it via chants or some other activity. What you'll notice is that those who excuse the attacks never argue that police should have made sure to protect people. The people who say "both sides" did something also never say police and authorities should have prevented the violence.

The question these comments raise go to the heart of what the goals are of the current war. When the war began the Hamas atrocities were compared to ISIS and the Israeli public was told there won’t be Hamas in Gaza.

https://twitter.com/yashar/status/1854735438315139270

A year later with Hamas continuing to control a large part of Gaza, even though it has diminished “capabilities”, it appears that at the highest levels there was a dispute not about removing Hamas but more about even whether to keep troops in Rafah and Netzarim corridors.

The firing of Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant is a potential major shakeup of Israel’s war effort after a year of war, removing a key pillar of stability at a time when Israel faces Iranian threats and a war on multiple fronts; a 🧵 on Gallant Gallant has been a symbol of the war effort and a symbol of decency, modesty and iron will during the war. He always wore black after October 7, an embodiment of the empathy and tragedy of October 7 and mourning the losses. He was willing to meet with and face the victims in the communities

Something I always wondered about the October 7 war is this: Prior to Oct. 7 the assessment in Israel was that Hamas was "deterred" and this went along with a view that it was not a major threat. The day after October 7 the assessment was that Hamas has 24 battalions and will take years to defeat.

There are wider lessons to be learned from this question, and I will detail them. What bothers me about this switch from "it's deterred and not a threat" to "it will take years to defeat it" is not only the lack of introspection about how this could happen, but also why so few people prior to Oct. 7 assessed that Hamas was a threat and would be hard to defeat.

Whenever we hear about military pressure on Hamas, which for a year was supposed to bring results on the hostage talks but so far did not; the "pressure" was always said to be in Rafah, Khan Younis, or northern Gaza.

Central Gaza is rarely or never mentioned. This is not a random issue. Central Gaza has not been under military pressure. Hamas knows this. Gaza isn't that big a place, but central Gaza is an area that gives Hamas a decent amount of room to maneuver. It also gives access to Khan Younis, Mawasi, Rafah.

I've seen some posts about Israel's Iron Beam laser air defense system that is expected to be rolled out next year. The innovation is important to bring lasers to the battlefield to address certain threats. However, it's not a magic wand, it's a system that compliments, adds to others. There is a cost issue here. The assertion is that lasers are very cheap to use compared to missile interceptors. This is true, but there is a hurdle. Lasers do not have a long range, they can't be used in all weather. Therefore to bring the cost down you have to fied large numbers.

It's important to understand that October 7 changed everything in terms of how the extremist "pro-Palestinian" movement relates to what it used to use Orwellian terms like "armed struggle" to justify killing civilians. Today it doesn't even hide behind these terms, it openly celebrates the murder of civilians. I remember October 7, 2023 like it was yesterday. One of the first things I saw online after I was woken up to the sirens from rocket threats that day, was the images of the Nova festival victims running and people posting celebrating the massacre of people at Nova.

It would be interesting to get to look behind the scenes at policymaking, especially in the West, and the rise of Hamas and Hezbollah. Back in the 1990s there was an option to try to transition these movements away from their "armed" aspect and toward politics. A decision was made not to. It would be worth understanding why the same western countries that knew that the IRA should put down its guns to enter politics, decided it was fine to quietly accept Hamas and Hezbollah as part of the political systems of Lebanon and the Palestinian Authority.

Sinwar was killed on October 16. It seems his unexpected death could be leveraged and exploited to make significant gains in Gaza. The more time goes by it would seem that Hamas and the Iranian-backed axis may recover from this turn of events. The challenge is that the IDF has been focused on a multi-phase operation in Lebanon, likely expected to go on for months or a year. And Israel is focused on retaliating against Iran. In addition in Gaza, the major mobile force left there, the 162nd, is busy with a month-long or multi-month operation in northern Gaza.

Long THREAD: Israel will begin a wave of strikes in Lebanon that target a key financial conduit run by Hezbollah which serves the Shi'ite community.

"Residents of Lebanon, the IDF will begin attacking infrastructure belonging to the Hezbollah Al-Qard Al-Hassan Association - get away from it immediately" This is the "al-Qard al-Hasan Association (AQAH) – the financial arm of the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah." You can read some background here. fdd.org/analysis/2021/…

I see posts about villages in southern Lebanon being badly damaged in fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, with comments about how these ancient villages are being destroyed, these pretty little quant places harmed. True, they are being damaged. So why didn't you speak out for decades as Hezbollah took them over. For a year Hezbollah used these villages to launch rockets at Israel and store weapons. For decades Hezbollah took over these areas. Why didn't anyone speak up and demand this group disarm and leave, and follow the UN resolution.

Prior to October 7 most of those who today worship Sinwar and Sinwarism were not interested in Hamas. It is BECAUSE Hamas massacred 1,000 people and kidnapped children and elderly that INSPIRED their adoration of Sinwar. Support for Sinwar is genocidal and it’s why they support him. They support him because he committed a genocide. This is the sole reason. Take away October 7 and these folk would not like Sinwar. One has to see Sinwar supporters as Nazis who were solely inspired by the murder of civilians. You can test this by seeing how many of the folk posting about Sinwar today ever cared about him before October 7. They adore him because of mass murder. They never backed two states they only back genocide and he helped them on their path; he was a proxy for them.

If Sinwar had returned to Gaza in 2011 and decided to build institutions such as universities, and work toward making the area prosperous and successful, and worked toward peace; do you think all of those people who admire him "dying as a martyr" would admire him today? The strange thing is that if Sinwar had actually advanced Palestinian statehood and institution building, the whole weird crowd that thinks his war was a "success" to bring ruin on Gaza and die in a ruined house throwing a stick at a small drone...would have been displeased.

The pro-Hamas crowd is trying to portray Sinwar’s death above ground as some kind of heroic last stand. The fact is he strayed outside with several of his men when he believed the IDF was focused on Hezbollah. He ordered the massacre of a 1,000 people, most of them civilians and the hostage taking of children and the elderly. Sinwar brought ruin and devastation on Gaza. He ordered the Oct 7 knowing it would lead to a massive war. He knew he would bring death and suffering to civilians. This was all he ever did in Gaza. He had a chance to make Gaza peaceful. He only brought ruin.

If the Sinwar details are confirmed, imagine Doha today, their prized asset of Hamas and its genocidal leadership may be in question. They've been stringing along the US and others for a year of "talks" over a hostage deal, representing Sinwar and talking on his behalf to slow down the deal and sabotage it. If Sinwar is gone then how will Doha play this, how will they be able to pretend that it is the Gaza-based Hamas leadership slowing down the talks, when it's obviously been Doha all along that wanted to drag out the talks and pressure the US to pressure Israel into a ceasefire for no hostages

The assessment that it has been “unable” would need to be based on knowledge that the IDF wanted to take vast areas in the first week. However, there is no evidence that was the IDF plan. Let’s take a look 🧵

https://twitter.com/andreas_krieg/status/1844420026037866561

There’s no reason to conclude the IDF wanted a war of rapid maneuver yet. This isn’t the IDF plans of 1978 or 2006, this is the kind of slow grinding fighting of removing “terrorist infrastructure” that was done in Khan Younis. It took five months of fighting in Khan Younis.

Increasingly the pro-Palestinian narrative of October 7 mostly boils down to "October 7 is the beginning of a genocide in Gaza."

This take never wrestles with the fact that Hamas started this massive war that led to devastation in Gaza. Their response is only "it didn't begin on October 7" This inability to hold Hamas accountable basically posits that any attack on Israel, including massacring 1,000 civilians, is acceptable because the "conflict" began a long time ago and any "resistance" to "occupation" is acceptable.