Iran launches drone attack against Israel as Biden rushes to White House

breakfastmtn@lemmy.ca to World News@lemmy.world – 422 points –
Iran launches drone attack against Israel as Biden rushes to White House
theguardian.com

Iran said it launched dozens of drones and ballistic missiles towards Israel on Saturday in a major attack following days of acute tension building up in the region and warnings from the US and elsewhere about a wider conflict erupting.

Air attack warning sirens began wailing over Jerusalem just before 2am local time on Sunday after the weapons were fired a few hours earlier from Iran with US and Jordanian military assisting Israel’s air defenses in intercepting the first incoming barrage.

With weapons believed to be still in the air en route to Israel, Iran’s mission to the United Nations posted on X: “Iran’s military action was in response to the Zionist regime’s aggression against our diplomatic premises in Damascus. The matter can be deemed concluded.”

However, it threatened more severe action in the face of further Israeli aggression and warned the US and Jordan specifically not to assist Israel.

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Edit: here are links to the NYT and BBC live feeds.

Edit 2: updated summary and archive to reflect article changes.

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So now the Zionist spam brigades have started infesting Lemmy as well judging from some of the comments here. Very sad to see that. Last time I checked on Reddit it was already unbearable there.

This is really bad news, and by no means do I support Iran. But the attack on Irans embassy should have caused sanctions and condemnations. Instead Biden rushed to defend Israel as if Israel wouldn’t have started this.

I can’t believe what a fucking tragedy this is. With the US elections upcoming, Biden being prepared to die on this hill is what may actually cause that Trump wins and the US turns into full on fascism. Needless to say Trump won’t do jackshit for Palestinians either.

Western media hypocrisy made it seem mike an ordinary thing to target embassies, which have a very particular status akin to targeting the homeland territory , some mainstream media barely touched upon the news or dismissed it completely, if it were any other country like Russia targeting an EU embassy in asia or Africa it would have been non-stop news and escalation. they manufacture the outrage on small issues and keep the people ignorant on more important ones.

My local news straight up called these air attacks "Iranian aggression". No, you fuckers, Israel went first this time. Usually it's a slight slant but that's just lies.

"You furnish the pictures, I'll furnish the war!"

William Randolph Hearsts, the lot of them.

"went first"? Are we just sweeping under the rug Iran's role on the 7th of October?

How far back do you want to go, lol? It's easy to skip back to the last "tat" in a series of "tit-for-tat" that stretches back to the 40's at least. The hardliners on both sides like to go back all the way to mythology, and while that's obviously backwards it at least is intellectually honest.

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I’ve seen the media careful to make a distinction between the embassy and “a consular building adjacent to the embassy”. I did a quick search expecting the to be the defense.

But international law is the real wtf. According to the Wikipedia entry

is the obligation of the country in which an embassy is located to protect the embassy, but international treaties do not expressly prohibit a third country to target diplomatic premises if they host combatants and are targeted in an act of self-defense, although a claim of self-defense cannot usually justify an attack on the territory of a country not participating in hostilities.

So, it’s Syria’s fault for not protecting diplomatic buildings? Plus Syria probably has a claim against Israel, whereas Iran doesn’t?

I’m sure Israel will attempt to argue self defense based on the targeted officers and however they may have participated in the original attack and involvement of Yemen, but that’s a pretty big stretch.

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This is all due to the breakdown of norms by allowing Israel to do whatever it wants. Respect for American soft power is non existent because of the double standard with Israel, Russia and the Middle East. Now American citizens get dragged into another war that they don't want by the ruling class.

Not just allowing israel to do so, but providing them with weapons and now America and the UK are even intercepting any retaliation. Making sure nobody can fight back against the bully.

I think it's fair to rush to intercept. It's a purely defensive action, and if they're able to intercept the entire barrage of attacks, Israel may not retaliate. It's in everyone's best interest -- Iran included -- that this doesn't escalate even farther and farther.

Iran had all the right to do this, but that doesn't mean they should have. The ideal situation would be for the US and company to prevent attacks from landing and then telling Israel to end their genocidal operations unless they want to face the next wave themselves.

And if Israel refuses, then let Netanyahu handle it himself. Make good on our threat to not help.

Unfortunately, I'm not certain it's in Israel's best interest that this doesn't escalate. They can probably do serious damage to Iran whereas the reverse is far less certain (evidently from this attack). And they knew very well that their embassy attack will bring Iranian retaliation. Now they'll just use that for an even greater response.

"You're out of office and getting prosecuted right away when this war is over!"

Netanyahu:

Starting a two front war is never a good idea. Israel has the advantage over any single country in the region but it would be stupid of them to escalate that into multiple countries.

From coverage I just read:

The U.S. has no doubt Israel will respond whether lives are lost or not. And that Iran itself will be targeted.

My hot take: at least Iran didn't shoot down its own civilian airliner this time thinking they were taking out a US bomber or whatever. My fear is that Iran thinks it's ordained by Dog to restore Islam to its rightful place (read: cleanse Israel of all the Jews and and put decent Muslim folk in charge of all the holy piles of rocks), and maybe that means their strategic calculus isn't exactly sober. Perhaps they think they can win a war with Israel, what with Dog on their side, and they absolutely cannot. Iran has said they are willing to let this wave of attacks be the end of the matter so let's hope they are sober enough to not keep going blow for blow. So far it seems to be a proportionate response by Iran (given that almost nothing seems to have made it through (though I am not sure what their targets were, specifically)). I'd like to see Iran have a nice Arab spring and see the Supreme Leader get the respect he deserves just like Gaddafi, but I'd be just ducky if it could be a drone strike. Hopefully this doesn't devolve into utter catastrophe and a cascade of failed states.

This drone attack by Iran may have more to do with "showing" it's little vassal terrorist groups it's prodding and bankrolling into doing Iran's dirty work that Iran is "doing" something militarily in support of Hamas and the Houthi.

What is a drone strike that is going to take 8 to 10 hours to arrive supposed to accomplish when it's so easy to spot coming well ahead of time. It's not like Iran doesn't have missiles that can hit Israel in a handful of minutes if Iran really wanted to do damage.

I’d say the best that could be hoped for is Israel shoots everything down.

  • Iran got their revenge
  • Israel wasn’t harmed
  • As a US citizen, I’m fine with encouraging this part of the war to end with “sure, we’ll replace all the missiles Israel used to defend themselves”

Before everyone attacks me, remember that anti-aircraft missiles are good for defense but not offense.

They've been here for a while. Try reading new posts and find the negative vote comments. Same for y'all-queda and the qultists and white supremacists, and tankies, and most misinformation campaigns. It is the internet after all.

God I hope this place doesn't turn into something like Voat where it's just another 4chan like environment filled with all the users banned for posting racist shit and CP.

Nah, mods here are pretty liberal with the banhammer.

Banned for calling mods liberals

Yep. They had CP come through a couple of the communities and they locked that shit down pretty quickly.

Some motherfuckers don't know how to act.

They're being a bit futile. If your default sort is active it doesn't hide any downvoted comments.

And if you're on an instance like Kbin or Beehaw, downvotes don't even affect vote count because the downvotes are not federated.

Who do you think the tankies support in this conflict? Or, is this just poisoning the well to help Israel / US?

"Tankie" doesn't coincide with any distinct political bloc, it's essentially a buzzword to discredit leftists that are claimed to support authoritarian regimes. But what one might call a tankie in this instance would support Palestine as 'tankies' are against the US and their proxies.

Someone who supports Palestine and is against the US is not automatically a Tankie. But if this person at the same time makes excuses for the Russian invasion or argues that Taiwan belongs to China, then they are.

Hypocrisy (lying / arguing in bad faith) is exactly what makes the difference between a leftist and a Tankie.

You are correct, and it is used that way, what I'm saying though is there isn't a distinct definition, it's used differently by different groups and so only really serves to muddy discussions and shun ideological outsiders.

The same embassy that was full of Hezbollah? Iran is a terrorist state that sponsors terrorism.

Based on what evidence? Even if it were, an attack on an embassy or consulate is akin to attacking their territory. If Israel has a right to retaliate against Hamas then Iran has every right to retaliate against Israel.

The Iranian General they killed planned the October 6th massacre near Gaza.

Terrorist is a meaningless word.

It’s not completely meaningless, but it only means “people I don’t like”. It’s not anything objective.

Would you prefer Jihadist?

Yes. But then you run up against the fact there's plenty of Jewish holy warriors in Israel, including in the government, so it starts looking morally equivalent again.

If you had to pick between Israel and Saudi Arabia to move your family to which one would you choose?

Well, this is completely unrelated to the original point, but Israel. Which happens to get along okay with Saudi Arabia, and both of which hate the original subject of Iran.

Even as an atheist Jew, somewhere Muslim like Khazakhstan or Indonesia are still higher on my list, in part because they don't have theocrats in government.

Can't say they're much higher on my list. I guess what I'm trying to highlight is that Israel is a lot closer to a functional democracy than any other state in the Middle East and advocating for the terrorists they're fighting is really naive.

Again, terrorist is a meaningless word.

Historically, sure, but they're definitely not heading that direction. As far as I'm concerned they're just another state in the Middle East at this point.

By terrorism you mean brown people committing acts of violence? This is a response to Israel attacking Iran much like the genocide in Palestine is a response to Hamas attacking Israel.

Irrelevant, embassies are internationally protected sanctuaries.

So it's okay to massacre 1200 civilians wherever, I don't personally respect the international rights of Iran being they're a terrorist state who does a lot of terrorism.

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