Bulletpoint

So, they say they should evacuate northern Ghaza. Where to? Southern Ghaza I guess. Doubling the population of an area that is already one of the most densely populated places in the world. Maybe the plan is to create such a bad humanitarian situation for the Palestinians that Egypt will be under immense political pressure to open the border and take them in and help them "temporarily". Which will then turn into forever.

Yes. The link says "It speaks volumes about the Israeli threat assessments of Iranian proxy forces in Lebanon and Syria that they were willing to take this risk." But really it speaks more about the Israeli threat assesment of Syria as a nation state. They can bomb them with near impunity as they have done before.

With all the crazy things that have happened in the last couple of years, I would almost not be surprised.

I'm against illegal occupation and killing civilians no matter who does it.

Or an asteroid, because then the survivors might conclude that it was the will of god that the conflict should end. But hopefully it will never come to that.

I don't think that the people who wrote those rules were under any illusions about human nature. The thing is though - following the rules makes war more difficult for us, but at the same time, it allows us to be the good guys. That's worth a lot in itself. But it also helps rally support. At least in the Western world where we still (generally) believe in higher values and principles. That's also why Hamas is filing and distributing their atrocities. To people in the west, that is repulsive- But to a tribal mind, it's triumph.

That's probably because they were driven into the remaining Germany. And Germany continued to exist after the war as a viable and eventually prosperous state. Partly thanks to generous economic help. If the whole of Germany had been taken over by Russians and the remaining Germans had been driven into a small area and then treated like the Palestinians have been, then we would also talk about German refugees today. If I seem to think so, then I gave the wrong impression. But I was responding to another guy who said that if Israel pushed 2 million Palestinians into Egypt, then they and the rest of the Arab world would attack. I do not believe for a moment that they would. It would just be another huge refugee camp like the others. Not saying it would be a good thing. Yes, that would be very one-sided. Not sure where that idea came from.

Yes, it would surprise me. But because of the paywall I can't read the details of who says that. Could be that the US wants to blame Russia instead, in order to keep focus on Ukraine instead of opening another front against Iran at this time.

It wouldn't be the first time Israel drove out Palestinians into neighbouring countries where many of them are still stuck in huge refugee camps to this day. Ghazans already live in what has been described as "the world's biggest prison", completely controlled and dominated by Israel. And the Arab countries can do nothing against Israel and they all know that. Israel also knows that, and that is a big part of why they act like they do.

Could also be that the endgame is driving all Palestinians out of Ghaza and into Egypt.

But who are the real Hamas leadership? I'm pretty sure you are correct that they are not in Ghaza.

I see Hamas as less of a player and more of a pawn. And this attack was another move on the chessboard that is the Middle East. So asking what Hamas gains from this is the wrong question, I think. They served their purpose.

This is kind of the same logic that terrorists use when killing civilians in Europe and USA.

My prediction, for what it's worth: Israel will kick out Hamas and drop lots of bombs, maybe do an incursion into Gaza, then a memorial will be held for the victims and then things will quiet down and we'll be back at the usual situation of endless tensions and occasional rumblings. Down the line, a hostage exchange. I don't see this conflict really escalating.

Now that the summer offensive has failed, what are the chances the winter offensive will bring any substantial results? Anything about to fundamentally change apart from keeping on keeping on killing Russians?

Interesting little detail from the latest Denys Davydov video (16:29): "About our leader Zelensky, I have my own opinion about him, but I will not say it to you right now - I will wait till the war is over". Doesn't exactly sound like his opinion is all that positive. The comment comes in the context of fighting corruption in Ukraine.

Yes if you are able to completely disconnect from the reality of what you're actually doing, then killing people in war is great fun.

I get it man. I just think maybe there's like a woodline in between or something If someone complained about the situation in the video happening in the game, I'd be among the first to poke fun of him...

well, I don't think it is broken. At least it works fine in nearly all cases. My point was just that I would think it was pretty funny if I recognised people complaining about the situation in the video. Actually I think it's more likely that someone would complain that his Ukrainian tank did not spot the Russian one even though it was driving straight past ...

It would be funny if it were funny.

Nobody would ever claim there's a spotting problem in CM based on this example. At least I never saw any complaints about flanking along a treeline, which obviously blocks line of sight.

So if the Russians are down to just cooks and drivers now, who don't want to fight, and they have no ammunition, surely we can expect Ukraine to make big advances around Bakhmut very soon?

He's still not really been proven wrong though, because his argument is about the amount of people dying in wars compared to the total population size. You can definitely criticise that approach, but that's the crux of it. The war in Ukraine, horrible as it is, is still a relatively small war, if you look at it in a cynical way and compare to the population sizes of the countries involved. I think it's this cynicism that triggers a lot of people about Pinker. And of course that he has big, curly hair and called his book "The Better Angels of our Nature".

Calling Azerbaijan a European country is a bit of a stretch...