Following Jon Elmer’s summary of armed resistance videos on the Electronic Intifada livestream for the past year, one can get a sense as to how the official IDF casualty numbers feel ‘off’.
Over the past year I've often wondered whether the Israelis are using the Sri Lankan military's brutality in 2007 to 2009 as its blueprint for the Levant (let's not kid ourselves, they've always coveted the entire region). It is perhaps the only instance where brutally and relentlessly punishing an entire civilian population seems to have worked in nullifying the LTTE. At least that's what it looks like on the surface. I can't say for sure because it's incredibly difficult to get credible information from inside the country. At the point, the only indicator seems to be the absence of violence for the last decade or so.
I'm inclined to think that it was poor tactics and leadership on the LTTE's part that had much to do with its pacification? Is it fully defeated and dismantled as the Sri Lankan government proclaims? Who knows.
"Over the past year I've often wondered whether the Israelis are using the Sri Lankan military's brutality in 2007 to 2009 as its blueprint for the Levant..."
I need to read about this, honestly I am ignorant of what was happening in Sri Lanka at that time - any recommended reading?
Channel 4 put together a dossier of war crimes in the 2007-2009 period (https://youtu.be/3aBLl_M3z40?si=s0x-Jc61XhN_tsfp). I'm not saying that Sri Lanka resembles Palestine in terms of what the overarching issues are (Sri Lanka wasn't a settler colony), but the kinds of scorched earth tactics used by the Sri Lankan army to drive fleeing civilians to so called 'safe zones' and massacre them there is eerily similar to what we're seeing today.
Unlike Palestine, Sri Lanka was a civil war between the two of the land's largest ethnic groups, one of whom was marginalizing the language, culture, faith of the other while dominating it's access to the state's resources. In terms of the nature of the conflict, it's probably far more similar to what we've seen in Sudan, the DRC, Rwanda perhaps even the former Yugoslavia.
As the LTTE (the Tamil liberation movement or Tamil Tigers as they were colloquially known) gained some semblance of power to establish it's military administration in the predominantly Tamil parts of the island, they gradually became reviled amongst their base because they took were corrupt, authoritarian and the likes. Further yet, with UN peacekeepers maintaining the truce between both sides apart, the LTTE seemed to have foregone it's guerrilla tactics and chose to operate more like a conventional military, which made it susceptible to complete defeat because its hardware and positions could be targeted and destroyed by the Sri Lankan airforce (as opposed to airpower only serving the function of terrorising and massacring civilians in Gaza and Lebanon without causing much of a dent in the operational capabilities of Hamas and Hezbollah).
I won't claim to be an expert - but in a nutshell this is what I know.
Get the fuck outta here with your nonsense. If you knew anything - anything - about Israel, you would know that would be impossible.
What a utter buffoon you are. What an ignoramus. What a joke. Nothing you say is real. You just make shit up.(Tell me again how all Israelis come from Poland. LOL.)
Free Palestine from Hamas and ignorant bloodthirsty asshole poseurs like you
Following Jon Elmer’s summary of armed resistance videos on the Electronic Intifada livestream for the past year, one can get a sense as to how the official IDF casualty numbers feel ‘off’.
💯.. my thoughts exactly as I was reading this piece.
Over the past year I've often wondered whether the Israelis are using the Sri Lankan military's brutality in 2007 to 2009 as its blueprint for the Levant (let's not kid ourselves, they've always coveted the entire region). It is perhaps the only instance where brutally and relentlessly punishing an entire civilian population seems to have worked in nullifying the LTTE. At least that's what it looks like on the surface. I can't say for sure because it's incredibly difficult to get credible information from inside the country. At the point, the only indicator seems to be the absence of violence for the last decade or so.
I'm inclined to think that it was poor tactics and leadership on the LTTE's part that had much to do with its pacification? Is it fully defeated and dismantled as the Sri Lankan government proclaims? Who knows.
thank you for commenting, Rahul!
"Over the past year I've often wondered whether the Israelis are using the Sri Lankan military's brutality in 2007 to 2009 as its blueprint for the Levant..."
I need to read about this, honestly I am ignorant of what was happening in Sri Lanka at that time - any recommended reading?
All the best
Channel 4 put together a dossier of war crimes in the 2007-2009 period (https://youtu.be/3aBLl_M3z40?si=s0x-Jc61XhN_tsfp). I'm not saying that Sri Lanka resembles Palestine in terms of what the overarching issues are (Sri Lanka wasn't a settler colony), but the kinds of scorched earth tactics used by the Sri Lankan army to drive fleeing civilians to so called 'safe zones' and massacre them there is eerily similar to what we're seeing today.
Unlike Palestine, Sri Lanka was a civil war between the two of the land's largest ethnic groups, one of whom was marginalizing the language, culture, faith of the other while dominating it's access to the state's resources. In terms of the nature of the conflict, it's probably far more similar to what we've seen in Sudan, the DRC, Rwanda perhaps even the former Yugoslavia.
As the LTTE (the Tamil liberation movement or Tamil Tigers as they were colloquially known) gained some semblance of power to establish it's military administration in the predominantly Tamil parts of the island, they gradually became reviled amongst their base because they took were corrupt, authoritarian and the likes. Further yet, with UN peacekeepers maintaining the truce between both sides apart, the LTTE seemed to have foregone it's guerrilla tactics and chose to operate more like a conventional military, which made it susceptible to complete defeat because its hardware and positions could be targeted and destroyed by the Sri Lankan airforce (as opposed to airpower only serving the function of terrorising and massacring civilians in Gaza and Lebanon without causing much of a dent in the operational capabilities of Hamas and Hezbollah).
I won't claim to be an expert - but in a nutshell this is what I know.
this is a FANTASTIC primer, thank you my friend!
Now I will go down that rabbit hole, maybe I will write about it next week!
Look forward to reading it.
It's unsurprising that they're covering up their casualties. Good explanation, Declan.
We need to have the conversation about why we are not arming the RESISTANCE
Get the fuck outta here with your nonsense. If you knew anything - anything - about Israel, you would know that would be impossible.
What a utter buffoon you are. What an ignoramus. What a joke. Nothing you say is real. You just make shit up.(Tell me again how all Israelis come from Poland. LOL.)
Free Palestine from Hamas and ignorant bloodthirsty asshole poseurs like you