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Monday, Feb 12, 2024 - 18:37 SGT
Posted By: Gilbert

Ten Five Five Tens

"Yes: I am a dreamer. For a dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world."

- Oscar Wilde, always Earnest


Our wannabe Seto Kaiba has taken his leave after the slight misunderstanding, only to be waylaid at the exit door by two competing cabals of suited gentlemen, who appear to be negotiating for the rights to his "dragon-based technology", with some whispers of "NFT" also heard. According to the rulebook, there are no prohibitions against side-deals being proposed, so let's leave them to it, and refocus on the main table where both Teams have again gathered en masse:


Turn 15, Headline Phase (Team Red)

At this point, we might perhaps deep dive into the rules governing the Headline Phase in greater detail. While the Team Red-goes-first order had been followed in previous Turns for convenience - and because it didn't really matter, formal Twilight Struggle Headline resolution has both Teams play their chosen card facedown, before both cards are revealed simultaneously; the card with the higher Ops value is then resolved first. In the case where both cards have the same Ops value, the U.S./Team Blue card is resolved first.

This established, let us turn our attention back to the Team representatives at the table, with the Reds sending out a balaclava-wearing Man of Mystery, and for the Blues, still Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu!


Its nature never changes, its vehicles... do
(Original sources: twilightstrategy.com, telegraph.co.uk)


On the seventh of October, almost fifty years to the day of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, at that liminal morning twilight that is neither day nor night, under the waning light of a moon fading to new; the Palestinian resistance organization* Hamas declared the next chapter in their jihad - or armed struggle - as outlined in their founding charter. Fifteen, fifty, the twilight and the struggle, the arrival of the new moon; ladies and gentlemen, Turn Fifteen of Twilight Struggle: New Moon!

There is surely no need to recount the sordid details of the many massacres that took place that day, but it is possible to note that when the dust of the initial assaults had settled after the eighth, over a thousand had been killed on both sides - which included over seven hundred civilians for the Israelis, with an additional 247 hostages taken, to insure that the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) would not just raze Gaza in retaliation.

[*Following initial memos by Team Blue media such as the BBC/CBC to not apply the "terrorist" label too freely.]

That the act was, indubitably, terrorism could not plausibly be denied given the flood of video and audio evidence released by the perpetrators themselves, including a chilling conversation between a militant and his parents on his murder of civilians. Regrettably, such an attitude appears quite prevalent amongst Palestinians, with the Palestinian Authority (generally considered moderates, compared to Hamas) duly paying out stipends to the families of the attackers. It however gets a little muddled when one considers that Israel had previously aided Hamas to counter the PLO, in what looks like a symbiotic relationship between hardliners on both sides.


Iran: Time's up. Israel: Come at me, bro.
(Source: r/NonCredibleDiplomacy)


Similar to how the Ukrainian war was never much about Ukraine, however, this isn't all that much about Gaza or even Israel either, and fingers would soon be pointed at Iran (0/7), after Hamas directly claimed that their surprise assault had been backed - and planned - by Iran, whose Quds Force had reportedly helped train many of the militants. Iran would do little to dispel those accusations in their prompt congratulations of the Hamas fighters, before toning it down to avoid full involvement... for now. Iran have since declared that the attacks were revenge for Soleimani's assassination, whilst ramping up their weapons-grade nuclear fuel production.

Returning to the bigger picture, October 7 has been interpreted as a strategic victory for both Hamas and Team Red, the former due to reinvigorating anti-Zionist sentiment in the region and elsewhere whilst dragging Israel into a no-win asymmetric imbroglio, and the latter through the act having sabotaged the Abraham Accords painstakingly crafted by GEOTUS, with lynchpin Saudi Arabia (4/4) now unable to proceed in normalizing diplomatic relations with Israel against public opinion, and reduced to making useless calls for a ceasefire.

Although predictions of World War III might be jumping the gun (or nuke) a little, it is hard to deny that a Greater Game is being played here (as analyzed in detail in Turn 13, Action Round 2 with Muslim Revolution), with Hamas as the latest entrants; Russia and China would unsurprisingly veto the American-led U.N. Security Council resolution condemning the attack, and with a Hamas delegation then visiting Moscow to arrange the release of Russian hostages, it's pretty clear who's friendly with who here. With Hamas leader Sinwar insisting that October 7 is just a rehearsal, one can hardly fault U.S. intelligence officers from figuring that Iran is trying to draw America into a larger conflict, and trying to re-freeze that US$6 billion from Iranian Hostage Crisis in Turn 14, Action Round 5.


The *nicer* Superman would achieve it another way
[N.B. The moral, of course, being that it isn't that simple**.]
[**Note Burma (0/3), Syria (3/3) and Sudan (0/1) indeed being hotspots.]
(Source: r/IsraelPalestine, enlarged)


While mourning the latest tragedy to befall that contentious land, we might attempt a very quick overview of the latest installment in its story, dating from modern Israel's (re-)founding in 1948. This followed the U.N. Partition Plan for Palestine that assigned 56% of the territory to the resident Jews, who had previously owned only about 7% of the land whilst being a third of the population, and that after considerable immigration over the past few decades.

Now, while one might certainly sympathize with the Jewish people for the wrongs inflicted on them, culminating in the Holocaust, it remains somewhat telling that their response to violent displacement and dispossession was... the very same, to another population. Here, one might muse at why it was the Palestinians (or Malagasy) who had to give up their homeland, when it would be far more fitting for Germany or the other Axis powers to yield territory in recompense, especially since it really doesn't take much wisdom to foresee the troubles that would ensue. Sure, Holy Land and all that, but in my estimation, if an omnipotent God does exist, I gather that He will be able to return whenever and whereever He jolly well wants to.

The Abrahamic religious tribalism that has characterized the region for millennia thus rekindled, Israeli would survive the first Arab-Israeli War against Arab League forces, which left them as Public Enemy Number One amongst the surrounding Muslim nations, and one of very few causes able to bridge the Sunni-Shia divide. October 7 might then be recognized as just the latest event in an undying cycle of hatred that has seen Palestinian schools glorify the massacre, if with parallels on the other side too. Alas, the lilies of the field of Gaza are, as ever, watered only with blood.


History of the Levant, in three and a half minutes

[To be continued...]



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Next: Samson's Last Sigh


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