st albans fox

If it was us then I know a lot of posters on here that would have been apoplectic that it wasn’t given

We were desperate for a win Now we’ve got one, let’s see what the next three games have in store. Mentally we should be in a better place. They are winnable and at the end of the, we’ll be at 10 games in. then we can make a proper judgement on whether we get rid of cooper at that point or after we’ve managed to somehow stay up!

I’ve not see any evidence that even the RW settlers are interested in areas to the east of the Jordan.(which I think is pretty inhospitable in any case,). The Negev and Sinai is unwanted for obvious reasons. Syria beyond the Golan and s Lebanon - whilst Israel occupies the western golan for strategic reasons, the heights themselves are generally inhabited by Druze. Israel occupied s Lebanon for 18 years in the run up to 2000. There were no attempts to settle there. from what I can see, it’s only some areas of the West Bank which are subject to illegal settlements. We also know that there were settlements in Gaza pre 2005. I don’t see that even the more extreme proponents of Zionism would attempt to expand east beyond areas of the West Bank currently being ‘settled’ and no doubt they’d be keen to get access to parts of Gaza. Your map from 2018 of ‘biblical Israel’ is probably not relevant now.

The armistice agreement of 1949 set new legal boundaries. I would say that Zionism is, by its nature, expansionist within the biblical homeland of Judaism. We can’t know how things would have played out if the Arab countries had accepted the 1947 partition plan. Israel has expanded its territory because three times its Arab neighbours have gone to war against it and three times lost. the fact they lost in 1948/49 is quite remarkable. I suppose you can understand why they thought it was a good idea to launch the war, given that Israel’s army and air force were fledgling at best. In the period pre mid seventies it was the Arab countries who continually miscalculated. Thereafter the ‘Palestinians’ took over their interest in both Gaza and the West Bank because Egypt and Jordan had lost control in the 67 and 73 wars. Prior to 1967, Gaza was part of Egypt and the West Bank part of Jordan. (Golan heights part of Syria - the Palestinians have never been interested in settling in that area preferring that it be returned to Syria). I wouldn’t think that Zionism has much detailed interest in what defines Palestine. But within that expansionist ideology it didn’t start three wars with its neighbours and it left Gaza in 2005 (forcibly evicting Israelis settled there ) and it offered the PLA pretty much all the West Bank in 2001.. so whilst Zionism is imo expansionist (within that biblical area), the Arabs would control much of what is now Israel (and occupied lands) if they’d kept their guns in their holsters and even allowing for those 3 poor calls, the Palestinians could possibly be governing (with no Israeli interference) both Gaza and the West Bank if Arafat hadn’t been scared of assassination for agreeing a deal. Whilst Israel would have wanted a big say in what was allowed militarily in both areas 20 years ago, without any subsequent security problems, by now the two countries could be prospering in mutual co existence. How far away from that we seem to be now - I think a Harris win in November may reshape the speed at which something can be done to move things forward.

I was surprised when I first saw this map because I never realised how little of the land Israel was ‘given’ in the partition plan. (almost all of the land south of Beersheba is the Negev desert). the decision of the Arab countries surrounding Israel to attack it in 1948 and to instruct the Arab population living there to flee was possibly the worst strategic call in modern history.

i think Biden has been clumsy in the face of a difficult political situation and I think trump is more dumb than evil when it comes to foreign affairs the gates to hades are sure gonna be busy ……..

Can I take issue with your Hezbollah line ? they launched their first rockets on October 8th. Israel were still fighting against Hamas inside their country on Oct 8th. Hezbollah’s actions were purely opportunistic on Oct 8th. It was done in support of Hamas and to try and open up a second front to stretch the Israeli forces. It was only much much later that they linked it to a ceasefire.

Shame for Sammi cos he’s actively gone out to get game time alves - no surprise as he’s simply not playing at any level

Zionism was originally defined as supporting the existence of a Jewish state. The word has been hijacked over the past few years, especially the past twelve months.

We couldn’t possibly become involved in regime change ……. Well not overtly

Urban warfare is ugly israel estimated the numbers of Hamas fighters killed in mid July at 17k. You’d assume by now that’s over 20k. If you’re prepared to accept Hamas numbers then you should also accept IDF ones - then that’s approx 1:1. If you think that 2:1 is horrific then don’t look up what was done to clear ISIS fighters by forces inc NATO. there was a Haaretz (not known for their sympathetic approach to govt) article early sept which pointed out that Hamas had barely admitted any casualties of its fighters since last October ( in contrast to Hamas in the West Bank and Hezbollah who usually announced combat deaths on telegram). This is apparently done to drive sympathy in the west to their plight - admitting x number of fighters killed affects that. On that subject, I have noted over the last few days that Hezbollah are no longer announcing its casualties. we have total numbers from the Lebanese govt (should be more reliable than Hamas) but we don’t know how many are Hezbollah fighters. I saw a figure of 6.5% children as a percentage of deaths recorded up to today. I can’t find women numbers but I thought I’d seen was around 200 which would be around 10%.. hamas should have surrendered ages ago. Their only hope is that Harris wins and they’ve managed to stumble through to January. I believe that she will force through a deal.

Villa have employed v capable people to run their club together with owners prepared to invest as much as is allowed they have recruited a top quality coach and ‘hey presto’ …….

I feel bad correcting you because it’s probably somewhere between 10/15k - tough to defend that on any level though. @mph - they haven’t really started fighting on the ground. Up until yesterday the IDF were no more than 400m into Lebanese territory and some reports said that they hadn’t stayed there but returned. In 2006 they went in with less caution and paid heavily for it. Hezbollah are a formidable ground fighting force in the south where there are extensive tunnel structures for them to hide in. Israel had a lot of success in destroying hezbollah missiles from the air before they could be launched in 2006. Hezbollah learned from this which is why they developed the incredible tactic of paying locals sympathetic to their cause to house such weaponry. Videos from the last week often show many secondary explosions in what appear to be civilian structures. Israel made a lot of miscalculations in 2006 - they were clearly preoccupied in recovering half a dozen soldiers that had been taken hostage (which effectively kicked off the month long war). As @SecretPro posted, the pagers etc were a very effective way to destroy the enemy’s comms structure and also take out more than a thousand senior military personnel from the fight. I expect if Israel gets more involved on the ground in s Lebanon that they will take a lot more casualties than they have in Gaza.

I can only think that the us think that Iran’s nuclear program is leverage in general negotiations around the region.(eg. Allowing that to proceed gives the USA some leverage over Iran geo politically). if Israel were to destroy it then Iran has way less to lose in future discussions about global issues. Saudi would surely be delighted if it were gone. However, surely the USA aren’t keen for Iran to actually have nuclear weapon capability - up to this point, hezbollah has been the insurance policy against Israel attempting to blow it to pieces. If Israel are really dismantling hezbollah then whilst they may frame that as protecting their northern borders and removing the threat of missiles so close by, my guess is that it’s related to a move to push back Iran’s nukes by a decade. the take out from this is that whilst the G7 might publicly say that an attack on the nuclear sites is off limits, privately they won’t be.

As far as I was aware he’d had a pretty tough time before this evening. Let’s hope this kicks him on

Fernandes red card overturned so no ban can only think that he was effectively a victim of Martinez’ jump tackle at palace where the outcome dictated the sanction. Presumably refs were told that this should have been red because the player was not in control of where his opponent would be when he landed and was therefore ‘out of control’. it’s amazing that the three var officials didn’t see that there was insufficient force involved in the challenge on Sunday to warrant a red, irrespective of the slip etc. he could have pulled out but he made sure he made contact with madders

I guess I thought it perhaps illustrated that the ‘invasion’ at this stage isn’t as stupid as a full on movement of troops into s Lebanon would be and which your post alluded to. Iran launching a fair number of ballistic missiles towards Israel would be.

UNIFIL spokesman just said on CNN that his info was that incursions were limited and close to the border. Infact today Israel released videos of its forces operating inside s lebanon border area over the past months destroying Hezbollah infrastructure. That shows Hezbollah weren’t prepared to highlight that this had been happening.(Presumably to save face.) the spokesman also said that his info was that currently no forces were inside Lebanon. It’s Jewish new year tomorrow night - I doubt Israel will want to have forces under fire until Friday so this pattern may continue. or it could use that expectation to surprise Hezbollah.

So yesterday we had the USA offering a running commentary on Israel preparing to enter Lebanon and today on Iran responding to recent events by targeting Israel. I noted the Israeli spokesman mentioned yesterday evening that public comments on Israeli plans would compromise their soldier’s safety (surely a criticism of the USA spokesman). Can only assume that making these public comments is biden’s attempt to try and stop them from going ahead. Clumsy but likely shows how impotent the administration feel.

There can’t be any media substance to it cos I believe under the terms of a super injunction the media can’t make any reference to it. So it will only be on SM (as per boris and his daughter)

The tweet quotes mailonline but there was nothing on there. This was originally on social media during the transfer window and clearly a wind up. It includes ngolo too! neither player is affordable on wages alone ! They are both contracted till 2026 at least. No point wasting any time on wind ups

No but that can be solved with a by election ( he could actually be stuffed into the House of Lords and wouldn’t need to be elected an MP) echoes of a metropolitan mayor becoming PM ……. @Daggers was having a laugh but I reckon if jezza was on the ballot then the membership would elect him

Some talk about starmer and a super injunction re his private life Would those who know more about the Labour Party than me like to have a guess at who would be the most likely replacement for him if he wasn’t there ??

Young kids find it difficult to get playing time in a struggling team coaches will go with what they know to save their job. We have space for one creative player in cooper’s system and facundo +BEK are in front of will

They would argue that the international community have had eleven months to get this done diplomatically - I’m wondering if this is all pointing to an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear program in the near future