Sitrep: IDF sit in their tanks as the Israeli economy crumbles, a new Mid-East axis gains strength

There’s not any one particular big update today, but things continue heating up everywhere, on every global front.

Israel steams ahead but still tiptoes around Gaza City without entering its heart. Expert commentators have noted how Israel sticks to their armored vehicles and has very few patrolling foot soldiers to guard them—the exact ‘amateurish mistake’ that Russian mechanized forces were accused of making in the early part of the war.

But we see now that in many ways it’s a necessity because soldiers become targets for snipers. For instance, one illustrative story was the following—an IDF tanker who stepped out for just a second to get supplies for his unit, and was instantly taken out:

LINK

This has led to speculation that the IDF is terrified of engaging in firefights with Hamas units, preferring to bomb everything into dust prior to moving their huge armored columns forward, inch by inch.

This is standard NATO doctrine but we’re seeing the limitations of it. Huge armored columns are sitting out in the open, doing ‘nothing’ but waiting while the air force clears the path. Against a competent enemy they would be targeted and taken out en masse.

We have to recognize the fact that in the first month of the SMO, Russia had already incurred hundreds of kilometers into Ukrainian territory while using only 70-80k total men against a highly NATO-trained and NATO-funded AFU force of 250-700k (depending which source you trust). In only a week and change, Russia had captured the major city of Kherson, surrounded Mariupol and Kiev, etc.

The IDF—with a total force of now over 500k against a Hamas force of as little as 5,000, barefooted soldiers—has advanced a couple kilometers in a month of war, and has shown no serious evidence of having eliminated even an appreciable number of enemy combatants.

Sure, this is a bit of a tongue-in-cheek comparison but the point has to be made that the double standards and hypocrisy when it comes to anything Russia is off the charts. If it was any NATO army doing what Russia is currently doing, they would be celebrated and wreathed with glory, Hollywood titans lining up their scripts to do mega-blockbuster reenactments starring Tom Hanks as Shoigu. And if it was Russia in IDF’s present place, it would be globally panned and ridiculed as an absolutely inept farce-force unable to take out a tiny amount of unshod hayseeds with small arms, who have already been totally blockaded with no ability to receive outside assistance.

“Oh but they’ve got underground tunnels! That’s why IDF is having problems!” And what do you think Russia is up against in Avdeevka? Except the underground tunnels there are funded by $200B from NATO, and receive daily shipments from the most powerful alliance in history. While Hamas’s tunnels are lucky to have some stagnant water and stale bread.

ER: It has to be said that deep underground tunnels not only in Israel/Gaza and Ukraine, but everywhere are proving to be highly interesting and relevant places. This topic is just starting to be raised in public consciousness.

Imagine if Russia and China began providing Hamas with full satellite ISR, as well as shipping mass artillery, tanks, and stand-off missiles like Iskanders to them? How long would IDF last?

As for those who think Israel is taking its time—many reports indicate that Israel’s economy is facing massive shocks from this war. They’re bleeding over $600M per week—6% of GDP—from a combination of war costs, lost tourist revenues, as well as a lot of agricultural operations reportedly completely shutting down as settlers and workers flee particularly the north near Lebanon.

Israel‘s economy is at a steep peak. The mobilization of 360k reservists took 8-10% of the workforce. Incomes fell by 1/3, construction projects rose. Tourist flow has almost stopped. Meanwhile, spending on the army increases. Economy is predicted to drop by 11% this quarter.

The above is straight from Bloomberg:

Another one from Bloomberg states:

Bank of Israel Governor Amir Yaron said the war with Hamas is a “major shock” to the economy that is proving costlier than initially estimated.

As well as

“…the debt-to-GDP ratio is likely to rise somewhat more than 65% (from 60%) by the end of ‘24, as costs are larger than it was initially projected.”

So how long can Israel afford to “take its time” and tiptoe around the perimeters of Gaza City, without ever actually entering it to do the real, hard work of weeding out ‘Hamas’?

Of course, the U.S. will do its best to bolster its ‘greatest ally’ with unlimited funding, as usual—but thus far, major funding continues to be held up in U.S. Congressional deadlock.

By the way, Ukraine’s economy reportedly only shrunk 30%+ after a year plus of onslaught in its far more intense war. So an 11% economic destruction is quite massive, and could potentially increase if the Arab nations actually show some solidarity in carrying out one of the proposed punitive measures, like joint embargoes on Israel.

ER: It sounds as if western deep state funding (fiat currency) is being deliberately depleted across the board, at least according to optics.

***

Now as of this writing, another major and unprecedented meeting is taking place, with both Assad, Iran’s Raisi, and the Emir of Qatar all landing in Saudi Arabia for what some described as an ‘emergency meeting’ on the Gaza situation.

The truth is, it’s not any major expected action itself that is the big story here. It’s the continued reconciliations and birth of a new Middle East hierarchy and [geo]political and security architecture; in short, the steady realignment and establishment of an Arab/Muslim ‘pole’—as Dugin calls it—in the nascent multipolarity sphere.

Many anticipate one flashy “big arrow” event, like a total Hezbollah declaration of war and invasion of north Israel. But in fact, the slow needling strategy of tension from the Iran-aligned side is doing great harm to the West and its political fabric. There are renewed rumors of huge, unprecedented ‘mutinies’ within the [deep] State Department of the U.S.

Yesterday a report hit the newswires that American diplomats and consuls in the MidEast, acting as canaries in the coalmine, are signaling alarm from their milieu that an entire “generation of Arab support” is being lost by what the U.S. is helping perpetrate in Gaza:

American diplomats conveyed a “sharp warning” to the Biden administration about “growing rage against the United States in the Arab world,” CNN writes, citing a telegram received by the editors.

In it, diplomats write that because of Washington’s support for Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, the United States is “losing Arab society for a whole generation.”

“We are losing badly in the messaging department,” said a cable sent Wednesday from the U.S. Embassy in Oman, citing conversations with “a wide range of trusted and clear-headed contacts.”

Active US support for Israel’s actions is seen “as material and moral guilt for what they consider possible war crimes.”

And the embassy in Cairo relayed to the White House a comment from a state-run Egyptian newspaper that President Biden’s “cruelty and disregard for the Palestinians surpassed all previous US presidents.”

There are reportedly growing concerns within the administration about US support for Israel, and Biden is also facing “growing frustration at home.”

CNN recalls that at a recent summit with Blinken, Arab leaders called for an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, and the secretary of state reiterated US opposition, saying it would give Hamas time to regroup and launch a new attack on Israel.

Meanwhile, U.S. bases in the region have been getting hit almost every day while MSM continues trying to downplay it. Now it’s come to light that over 50 U.S. troops have again suffered severe ‘brain trauma’ after being rocked by “Iranian-backed militia” strikes.

One gets the sense that it’s actually the U.S. now desperately fighting off the backfoot, trying to keep from being cornered into too aggressive a response. The reason is: they know they’re being baited into enflaming ever more resistance and insurgency around the region. By goading U.S. into making flashy strikes, it foments a surging bloodlust amongst agitated resistance-sphere fighters in the entire region. And the U.S. senses it’s beginning to wade into something that can snowball into a conflagration which would undo decades of Western imperial control.

Does this sound like a man over-eager to go blow-for-blow with Iran?

That video was from yesterday. Many of the ‘rah rah’ persuasion say in the past, the U.S. would have “annihilated” any country openly striking its troops. Now it’s happening daily and Biden sheepishly murmurs that they’ll only be hit “if they keep hitting us.”

To me, this represents a declining Empire trying desperately to keep the situation from spinning out of control. But if they’re so timid, why the massive armada and carrier groups towards Iran, you ask?

ER: Trump is still Commander-in-Chief (see The Greatest Show on Earth) …

Firstly, there are factions in the gov’t which are likely split on what to do. The Zionist/Neocons of course will throw their considerable weight around and make sure the U.S. military is backing Israel at the least defensively, to create a shield around them ‘just in case’.

I’ve already opined before that all this may be a bluff; however, there are certainly factions within the deep state that are likely pushing for the situation to escalate, particularly because their top-echelon financial cabal globalist overlords demand for them to incite a major global war in order to reset the spiraling monetary system. (ER: This interpretation we’re not buying. Likely these people are no longer in control.) But those voices would still technically be the minority and for the most part drowned out by the vast fear presently being conveyed from the bowels of the entire establishment. For the most part, much of the force posture may simply be brought about by pressure to act within an understood role, so as not to appear weak—but in reality, much of the U.S. establishment fears potential escalations.

This ‘fear’ is not only of ‘losing support’ of the entire MidEast, as referenced before, but the fear of embroiling the U.S. into a quagmire which will see it nearly defenseless on the dual Russia and China fronts. The insiders sense U.S. can’t take on 3 fronts simultaneously, so why risk regional war with Iran, only to lose Europe to Russia and Taiwan and the west Pacific to China?

On that count, one line of reasoning is that U.S. is trying to foist Ukraine off on Europe, sticking them with the ‘bill’. This is most recently evidenced by EU’s announcement they’re now discussing ways to bypass Hungary’s veto and give Ukraine a massive $50B subsidy, which is almost exactly the amount shortfalled ($60B) from Biden’s planned budget, now bogged down in Congress.

In short, the U.S. isn’t a monolith—it’s being torn from the inside out by disagreement and partisanship. The sailing of its giant armadas to the MidEast represents a sort of absent-minded, reflexive action of a bygone superpower whose senses push it into making a ‘show of force’ for no better reason than mimicking its own perceived stereotype, like an old Alzheimers patient going through the foggy motions of something he ‘feels’ he should be doing, but no longer quite knows why.

That doesn’t mean there still isn’t danger for major things to erupt, but simply that for the first time, it appears Iran and its axis are in the driver’s seat.

Now let’s cover Avdeevka, as it’s the only real front worth covering in depth at the moment.

There are reports of major breakthroughs by Russian forces. The most notable is on the northern front where, according to some reports, RF forces have finally lodged into Stepove itself, while others even claim they’ve fully captured Stepove—though this is unlikely, for now.

CONTINUE READING HERE

************