When Tehran launched dozens of explosives-laden drones to attack Israel, it wasn’t long before they were heard and spotted over the skies of Iran.
Videos posted online tracked them above the Iranian cities of Kermanshah, Khozestan and Andimeshk.
And before long they were filmed over the border in Iraq’s Sulaymaniyah and the city of Karbala.
Given the Gazan war and the tensions that are always present in the Middle East but are particularly high now, a little original thinking would be particularly useful. As I have had occasion to write in this space before, there can be no resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian issue until the terrorist apparatus of Hamas is completely destroyed. This is not just another episode, the latest skirmish, in the endless series of such incidents until on some far-off day by sheer attrition the parties turn their swords into plowshares. Hamas’s attack on Israel on Oct. 7 was an act of war in violation of an agreed ceasefire and was conducted with the maximum possible barbarity, with the support of the Iranians, to sabotage an impending agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia, and specifically targeted against the most vulnerable people — children, women and the elderly, and those who had shown their commitment to reconciliation with the Arabs by choosing to live so close to the border of Gaza. It combined the sneak attack aspect of the Japanese descent on Pearl Harbor with the repulsive notion of a massacre of the innocents as on 9/11 at the World Trade Center in New York. The loss of life was somewhat smaller in Israel, but proportionately much greater.
IDF Spokesperson, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, responded late Saturday night to Iran’s attack on Israel, which saw the launch of over 100 UAVs, as well as cruise missiles.
“Iran has launched a direct attack from Iranian soil toward the State of Israel,” Hagari said. “We are closely monitoring Iranian killer drones that are en-route to Israel sent by Iran.”
He stressed, “This is a severe and dangerous escalation.”
IDF spokesman “A short time ago, Iran launched missiles from its territory into the territory of the State of Israel.
You are asked to be alert and act according to the instructions of the Home Front Command.
The Home Front Command’s warning system knows how to provide a… pic.twitter.com/A6ymiWH2cq— Mossad Commentary (@MOSSADil) April 13, 2024
The world stands on the brink of all-out war
I’m writing from Israel where the country is tonight braced for a wave of drone attacks from Iran.
The Israel Defense Force (IDF) warned at around 11pm that at least 100 drones had been launched. This was followed by an announcement from Iran’s state-run news agency that ballistic missiles have also been launched.
Israel has been expecting Iranian strikes since conducting an air strike on April 1 that killed Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commanders in Damascus.
RAF jets ‘shoot down Iranian drones bound for Israel’
British RAF jets were reported to have shot down Iranian drones bound for Israel on Saturday night.
It was reported that British jets took off from Cyprus in order to intercept drones and missiles launched from Iran.
Israel’s Channel 12 said that US and UK fighter jets shot down Iranian drones near the Syria-Iraq border.
When asked about the missile strikes, the Ministry of Defence did not comment.
The mullahs in Tehran care about Jerusalem so much that they launched dozens of missiles at it. pic.twitter.com/COZ2fbiKKQ
— Israel War Room (@IsraelWarRoom) April 13, 2024
Justin Trudeau ‘briefed’ on situation as Israel closes airspace: PMO https://t.co/EOhRyp4BaV pic.twitter.com/fQ2JlJ1cEz
— Fancypants Maloney (@fancypants_s) April 13, 2024
… Every year, Chemerinsky—an affable and generous man, who is Jewish—has had new students to his house for dinner. Ahead of this year’s dinners, which were partly make-ups for those postponed during the pandemic in 2021, posters appeared in the aforementioned hallways. The group behind the posters, Berkeley Law Students for Justice in Palestine (LSJP)—“from the river to the sea,” they proclaim on their Instagram profile—denounced the dinners as “no more than PR events for Zionist admin to distract us from the genocide in Gaza.” They demanded that Chemerinsky be treated as a pariah until the university “divest[s] . . . from ALL TIES to the apartheid state of Israel.”
More bullying: This spoiled student at UC Berkeley attended a dinner by the law school dean for graduates for the sole purpose of staging a protest about “Palestine” at her house. The student was asked to leave repeatedly and refused
pic.twitter.com/BnZuyTaxEM— Adam Milstein (@AdamMilstein) April 11, 2024
In the tumultuous landscape of the Middle East, Israel stands as a beacon of freedoms, human rights and democracy amid a sea of terrorist organizations and authoritarian regimes seeking its destruction.
Israel is currently facing a multi-front war for its survival, with Qatar, Iran and Iran’s proxies, which are encircling Israel, leading the charge. The gravity of this aggression cannot be overstated: not just for the existence of Israel, but also for that of the US, Europe and the West.
The IDF announced on Saturday night that Iran has launched dozens of drones directly from its territory against Israel, in a radical change from its usual use of proxies.
The military said that it is ready to shoot them down, though air defense is not hermetic.
The IDF’s shoot-down capabilities include aircraft, Iron Dome, David’s Sling, and the Arrow missile system.
BREAKING:
Netanyahu releases statement:
“For the past weeks Israel has been preparing for the possibility of a direct attack from Iran, our air defenses are deployed, we are ready for any scenario, both in attack & in defense.
Via @YaariCohen pic.twitter.com/p20EvaFBNB
— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) April 13, 2024
BREAKING: Iran launches drone attacks on Israel. pic.twitter.com/Ca8fIQWeUo
— NEWSMAX (@NEWSMAX) April 13, 2024
Meanwhile in the restive Mohammedan bastion of Torontostan …
Protesters react to breaking news of Iran launching drones at Israel in retaliatory attack for a strike which killed a top Iranian commander.#cdnpoli #Toronto #Palestine #Israel #Gaza #ProtestMania pic.twitter.com/VZHyTcmuZi
— Caryma Sa'd – Lawyer + Political Satirist (@CarymaRules) April 13, 2024
A judge has told the Metropolitan Police it cannot stop an Iranian dissident who displays a sign branding Hamas as terrorists from attending pro-Palestinian protests.
Under strict bail conditions imposed by the force, Niyak Ghorbani, who has been arrested three times during his counter-protests, would have been prevented from going near any central London demonstrations relating to Israel and the conflict in Gaza.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have detained a container ship near the Strait of Hormuz, Iran’s official IRNA news agency reported on Saturday.
Footage provided to the news agency Associated Press showed commandos rappelling down from a helicopter and raiding the ship.
The vessel has been linked to Zodiac Group, a shipping company owned by Israeli billionaire Eyal Ofer.
What.. the f*ck is going on?
The new Pro-Hamas rector of @UofGlasgow Ghassan Abu-Sittah just declared in front of students:
“Our will be the laughter of our children”
Abu-Sittah declared “utmost loyalty” to Hamas on social media and was caught at the… pic.twitter.com/Z30jDVIo95
— Kosher (@KosherCockney) April 12, 2024
h/t Patti Jo
The government of Canada has upgraded its travel advisories to Israel and the West Bank, instructing Canadians to avoid all travel amid escalating tensions in the region.
Previously, the federal government had advised Canadians to “avoid non-essential travel” to Israel and certain areas of the West Bank.
Harvard University’s gender and sexuality department will offer a wide-range of classes next semester: Gender as Technology; Gender and Sexuality in Korean Pop Culture; Feminism in the Age of Empire; Gender, Race and Poverty in the United States; Decolonization; Love’s Labors Found: Uncovering Histories of Emotional Labor; and more. Decolonization is as relevant to feminist theory as the songs of BTS are to Korean gender roles in Harvard’s gender studies department. As NR’s George Leef has written, gender studies is “not really an intellectual enterprise, but ideological posturing,” one that “is not about trying to understand the world, but is all about trying to change it in certain ways.”
Self-hating Jews, Queers4Palestine, and conservatives walk into a bar and ask for the strongest drink available. The bartender says, “Are you sure? It’s pretty potent.” One from the groups replies, “We’re not afraid of extinction; we’re embracing it!”
Now that you have wiped the laugh tears from your eyes and your knees have stopped hurting from the slapping, let’s look at why this joke works.
It’s wild when you think about it: news organizations were taking Hamas propaganda as if it were verified and accurate information. No one learned from the Gaza hospital fiasco, the first wall the media crashed into when they erroneously said that an Israeli airstrike hit this facility. The reality was it was the terrorists’ own rocket salvo, fired by Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The New York Times had to print a retraction, but the damage was done. Now, Hamas has openly admitted they inflated the death toll in Gaza, and the media is AWOL
h/t XC
In “How to Do Things with Words,” philosopher J.L. Austin makes a useful distinction between two kinds of speech acts, the referential and the constative. The referential delineates an actual state of affairs; the constative establishes not a quality but a social function. Austin offers an analogy from baseball: the ball may travel knee-high across the center of the plate, a perfect strike, but if the umpire calls “ball,” that’s how it registers on the scoreboard and operates in the game.
Biographies of UN employees who took part in the Oct. 7 massacre in Israel.
Satellite photos of Gaza schools constructed atop buried terrorist bunkers.
Hamas rocket launchers installed within metres of marked United Nations compounds.
