Image is of legal adviser to Israel's foreign ministry Tal Becker and British jurist Malcolm Shaw at the ICJ hearing.
The ICJ case against Israel might not achieve much for the Palestinian cause directly, given that Israeli politicians have explicitly stated that the Hague will not stop them - and I believe them. The Resistance will be what stops them, and they are doing quite well for themselves. Hezbollah has hit highly sensitive and important Israeli military sites over the last couple weeks, and in general persist in several border attacks every day. The battles in Iraq and Syria also continue. Hamas remains largely intact, and is successfully forcing Israeli forces in the northern Gaza Strip to retreat, and other parts of the Gazan Resistance are continuing to battle down in Khan Yunis. And, last but not least, Yemen is firmly dedicated to the blockade, warding off another ship literally minutes before I started writing this paragraph.
What the ICJ is battling over isn't Palestine and Israel - not really - but the legitimacy of international law itself, and to what degree victimized countries can rely on it to solve problems, versus needing to take more militant routes for justice. In a weird sense, it might be an L for Israel either way. If international law sides with Palestine, then when Israel refuses to stop, it will invalidate international law. If international law sides with Israel, then it will invalidate international law. There is no conceivable way for the West to come out of this looking good.
The South African portion detailing Israeli atrocities against Gaza was largely ignored by the western media. They have instead, obviously, decided to focus on the Israeli portion. Their defense appears to amount to "We didn't do it, Hamas did it. And if we did do it, it doesn't matter, because that's just urban warfare for you. Please get this whole thing thrown out on a very dubious technicality so we don't have to advance to the next stage."
From Craig Murray, who has been physically going to the Hague:
It is important to realise this. Israel is hoping to win on their procedural points about existence of dispute, unilateral assurances and jurisdiction. The obvious nonsense they spoke about the damage to homes and infrastructure being caused by Hamas, trucks entering Gaza and casualty figures, was not serious. They did not expect the judges to believe any of this. The procedural points were for the court. The rest was mass propaganda for the media.
...I am sure the judges want to get out of this and they may go for the procedural points. But there is a real problem with Israel’s “no dispute” argument. If accepted, it would mean that a country committing genocide can simply not reply to a challenge, and then legal action will not be possible because no reply means “no dispute”. I hope that absurdity is obvious to the judges. But they may of course wish not to notice it…
What do I think will happen? Some sort of “compromise”. The judges will issue provisional measures different to South Africa’s request, asking Israel to continue to take measures to protect the civilian population, or some such guff. Doubtless the State Department have drafted something like this for President of the court Donoghoe already.
I hope I am wrong. I would hate to give up on international law. One thing I do know for certain. These two days in the Hague were absolutely crucial for deciding if there is any meaning left in notions of international law and human rights. I still believe action by the court could cause the US and UK to back off and provide some measure of relief. For now, let us all pray or wish, each in our way, for the children of Gaza.
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The Country of the Week is South Africa! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
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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 daily-ish 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 (and has automated posting when the person running it goes to sleep).
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.
Various sources that are covering the Ukraine conflict are also covering the one in Palestine, like Rybar.
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.
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.
what explains why Russian advances are so slow everywhere is that large-scale offensives by either side are almost impossible as there's way too much surveillance to put significant forces together for large pushes
it's also why Ukraine's counteroffensive wasn't even really able to get off the ground, and they were totally willing to just send 50,000 dudes to their deaths in frontal assaults if they gained like 10 meters of ground. sure, NATO tactics suck, but in retrospect I doubt even a "perfect" strategy would have gotten past Tokmak, so long as Russia didn't totally fuck up.
Russia isn't willing to face those losses so they'll go even slower.
unless and until all western military aid is cut off - or there's some massive breakthrough in anti-surveillance and anti-drone technology - it'll be attrition until a Ukrainian military collapse and then Russia will roll up to the Dniper and perhaps beyond
Love when my devastated tank obviously continues to function despite taking multiple rounds, with the video cutting away just as the T90 pops smoke and hits the reverse
Also no fucking shit Russia will occasionally lose equipment. It's fighting a war with peer equivalent equipment. Everyone is so poisoned from 20 years of the West massacring barely armed farmers that they forget that in peer level conflicts, losses are going to happen
Doubt. That puny 25mm cannon isn't even scratching the T90M. The explosions you see are the T90's reactive armor detonating the rounds before they hit the actual plate armor, which 25mm can not penetrate with out using depleted uranium ammo (which isn't being sent to Ukraine).
There is no evidence for that second second link though, aside from a video of a radar screen on telegram. Even the Ukrainians themselves have walked back some of it, instead posting photographs of the IL-22 being "damaged beyond repair" after an emergency landing in Anapa, instead of being shot down. There is speculation that the Ukrainians weren't even involved at all, and the whole thing was a friendly fire incident, as Russia prepares it's air defences for the arrival of F-16s. The only weapons system Ukraine has that would even be capable of such an attack are the Patriot surface to air missiles.
I agree that the IL-22 had landed but there were casualties and damage seems significant. However the Kremlin has refused to answer about the A-50, and I don’t buy the “friendly fire” at all. Like you are shooting down your most important air asset by mistake? I think some advanced Western weapons are being tested in Ukraine and Russia is finding difficulty coping with them.
The thing is that the only weapons system Ukraine has that is even capable of such an attack are the Patriot surface to air missiles. This is why high altitude jets like the Mig-31 have been able to fly untouched over Ukraine while launching their attacks. Russia have shot down their own aircraft by accident before, including highly valuable air assets, due to miscommunication with their allied forces/separatists in the LPR. Russia shot down 1 of only 10 known to exist at the time, Su-34M fighter bomber and electronic warfare aircraft in a friendly fire incident earlier in the war.
Ukrainian side has even posted an edited video of shooting down a Kinzhal with a Javelin
I would have the same suspicions usually, but this actually happened before in Syria.
Syria missile strikes (September 2018)
Whether or not you believe the entire account on the wiki it was clear it happened during a combat situation involving Israeli F-16s and for whatever reason be it incompetence or misfortune the Syrians shot down a friendly Russian aircraft.
It is definitely possible now and the theory may be as simple as Russian SAM operators thinking it was another Ukrainian missile launch, they may be under some scrutiny to not let any Ukrainian attacks succeed and if you notice the Ukrainians do sometimes hit because they use those American decoys which are proven to be problematic at best.
Also the reason the A-50 aircraft is flying in the area it is, is to extend the range of the S400 SAMs, as they can act as their radar and redirect the missiles. This is being done in preparation for the arrival of western fighter jets, such as the F-16s and Gripens. It also protects the S400 systems, as they don't have to be as close to the front lines, due to their range being extended by the A-50. Ukraine have launched successful attacks against S400 sites before.
If you want to competitively post as many OSINT claims as we can find of materiel being destroyed to create the micronarrative we want, I can recommend some places where it will be received better.
Only time I think I've posted actual OSINT was about a new kind of drone being developed, and I didn't even leave it in this thread because the signal-to-noise ratio of that kind of posting is terrible.
I watched an analysis on that video, basically: first explosion was caused by a drone, then the second explosion was actually the smoke T90 uses to disturb heat signal tracking, then when the Bradleys shoot the T90 they shoot a part in the turret which makes it spin unstopably
https://www.yewtu.be/watch?v=CKvmpcLbZFA
i guess simplicius remains prescient here, fpv drones looking like they're still the real headaches for the russians
Definitely, and part of why they are fearsome is that they don't require unique and high end manufacturing to make. Simple fpv drones are single use, plastic, and use parts that are not unique to drones (chips, cameras, transmitters, are all found in other consumer electronics) and they don't require fancy metallurgy like gun barrels or what have you. A workshop needs a 3d printer and a screwdriver to put simple ones together, not big hangars or vehicle factories. The things that make them smarter and better are software and AI/image recognition based, technology that the west is as good or better at deploying at scale than Russia.
russian genshin forums are gonna be blowing up again if that chaingun actually mission killed the tank imo
Why do you fall for blatant ukro propaganda still after 2 years of this? Like the other user said the first video is heavily manipulated and doesn’t show the tank being knocked out like you claim. There have been no confirmations of the loss of the A50, it’s a rumor that’s been going around Ukrainian telegrams that western cope media picked up on without proof. Western media also claimed Ukraine shot down 10 hypersonic khinzals.