Mr. Eagles, Mitchell's a moron. Expecting 15th century monarchs to abide by 21st century social and legal norms is akin to condemning modern day politicians for failing to follow the standard approaches of the 27th century.
I also question his grasp of the most basic tents of medieval history if he thinks Henry V was remarkable for being into war quite a lot.
Even in the 21st century the most important thing a government has to do is keep its country safe. H'aretz the Israeli newspaper has been pretty brutal in its attack on the Israeli PM for appointing incompetents to security posts. There will be a reckoning for Netanyahu - and I am not all sure that bombing Gaza is going to help him.
That most basic of governmental functions often gets lost sight of, in socieities that take peace for granted.
Better a ruthless leader who succeeds at war than a nice guy who sees his country invaded.
Hopefully, the one silver lining in this affair will be that a man who has been a cancer in Israeli politics for decades will see his career ended.
The incredible military/intel failure in Israel is ONGOING
Hamas fighters are still in Israel, killing Israelis, and still crossing the border
Guardian liveblog:
“Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus says situation is ‘dire’ in south, with Hamas still able to cross border from Gaza”
This is an existential crisis for Israel
No it isn't. Israel's military is much too strong. It will still exist in its current form this time next year, and so will its occupation of most of the lands it seized in 1967.
The half hearted efforts by Hezbollah so far in the North imply this can’t be a true Iranian proxy attack, unless they are hiding their time for a second strike. But even with two fronts this will peter out, I agree.
Question is what happens next.
You misunderstand. This is not an existential crisis for Israel because the IDF are incapable of squashing this incursion. Of course they will get it done (tho it is taking a remarkably long time)
The deeper problem for Israel - and I’d say it is now fundamental - is that there is no obvious way for them to stop this happening again, as long as Gaza exists. And if this keeps happening then investment and people will flee Israel
And it is not possible for them to obliterate Gaza, as we discussed at length last night. They are in a terrible bind
What this makes clear has essentially been what anyone sensible has been saying for decades - the only solution that doesn't kill tens of thousands of people is a peaceful two state solution. The PLO have been ready to negotiate that for a long time - it is the Israeli governments which have refused and have, indeed, made matters worse by increasing illegal settlements. As the PLO spokespeople have been saying - acts like those we have seen over the weekend have not been a question of if, but when, considering the conditions the Palestinian people have been kept in. Is it right to attack civilians, of course not. But organised, peaceful attempts - from within Palestine and outside of Palestine (think BDS) - have been made impossible.
I think it is reasonable to expect Palestinian self-styled freedom fighters to keep to the rules of war. Keep to military targets and avoid civilian casualties as much as possible.
If they had done so I think they would find they had a lot more sympathy in the West. I don't accept that the brutal targeting of civilians we have seen is an inevitable consequence of occupation.
Why - they have been the inevitable consequences of previous occupations; again, Ireland, India, South Africa: all had civilian targets and casualties.
Again - let's go to my thought experiment I previously mentioned of an occupied England 80 years after WW2 (and, for the sake of argument, let us remove the spectre of Nazism - not because fascism is not an extra existential threat, but because I want to highlight a reaction to any military occupation, not just a fascist one). Do you think "English freedom fighters" would not target, say, Berlin or Munich or even a German run London or Manchester? That, after 80 years of occupation, they might kidnap German citizens who were present in England - even if they had nothing to do directly with the occupation? I think it is clearly inevitable; ideologically, because those civilians would represent occupation as much as the state or military, but also strategically, because they would be easier to target and you could leverage them easier than a politician or a soldier.
The IRA were not paragons of virtue, and many civilians were killed by the IRA, but did you know that they also often gave warnings before their bomb attacks on economic targets, because their objective was not, in general, to cause the indiscriminate slaughter of civilians.
It's not accurate to to draw an equivalence between the IRA and Hamas. The objective of the IRA was to defeat the British government. The objective of Hamas is to kill every Jew who does not flee from Israel.
But that is not the view of every Palestinian who turns to Hamas. Hamas also do a lot of on the ground work to look after Palestinian civilians - you can say this is a cynical ploy or is a sincere concern for their people - but either way the incentive structure for Palestinian support of Hamas and their tactics exists because the incentive to support the PLO or another peaceful solution keeps getting closed down. And I'm pretty sure many members of the IRA wanted no English people on the island of Ireland.
There are doubtless still people in Ireland today who would be hostile towards an English man like myself living among them (not that I've met any), and there were brutal attacks carried out by the IRA, but it was never the policy of the IRA to exterminate every English person living in Ireland, as opposed to decreasing the British government and forcing a British withdrawal.
It's not remotely comparable. It's incredibly insulting actually.
This just feels like some exceptionalist thinking - I'm pretty sure the IRA wanted every English person out of Ireland and I don't see how that is particularly distinct from Hamas wanting every Israeli Jewish person out of the land they view as theirs. Is your position that because the IRA didn't want to kill every English person on Irish soil that this is somehow distinct? If that was the only option available to them, I think they would have taken it.
Sounds logical. So in your view there should not be an Israel in the Middle East have I got that right?
I mean, I think there were multiple solutions to the so called "Jewish Question" of the 20th century - the first and foremost being that the countries with a history of persecuting Jewish people and mass state sponsored anti Semitism should all have a good hard look at themselves and make their countries welcome places for Jewish people rather than deciding that having one Jewish state would be a better solution (indeed, many non Jewish people liked the idea of a single Jewish state specifically because they were anti Semites who wanted somewhere to send all the Jewish people in their countries).
To the degree that I believe any state should exist (they shouldn't, but I'm not going to get into that utopian position) I believe that if Israel was to exist in the Middle East that partitioning land based on ethnic and religious grounds was the wrong thing to do, and the better option would have been a multicultural state that recognised the specific history of Jewish persecution that led to its creation, but that also gave the right of self determination to the people who lived there under colonial British rule. The Jewish diaspora and the Palestinian people could have worked together to form a single state. I understand that would have been difficult, no doubt, and I also understand the underlying concerns of the Jewish community about persecution in a state that was not solely under Jewish control. But coexistence was already happening in communities across that land, and I think a single state would have been (and still is) the only solution for a lasting peace.
Cannot fault your thinking.
But we are where we are and the United Nations decided upon a course of events some 70 years ago.
You now find yourself in the position of justifying Hamas' violence because you disagree with that United Nations resolution.
I now find myself in the position of recognising the inevitability of Hamas' violence because of the long history that led the world here. Is it justifying the sacking of the monasteries to explain why Henry VIII did what he did? No - that is history. We just happen to be living in history, and therefore explaining modern events as if they were history involves giving cause and effect. I am not saying that Hamas' violence is good; in the same way I am not saying that the violence of the Israeli state is good. I can understand why both happen. I am saying to get to a world where we have reduced violence and a peaceful solution to the Israel / Palestine conflict that is not "one side genocides the other" what decisions should have been made, and what decisions can still be made.
Yeah not sure what the fuck you are saying but I would say that if you justify violence by people if they disagree with eg UN resolutions then we are off down a slippery slope.
Mr. Eagles, Mitchell's a moron. Expecting 15th century monarchs to abide by 21st century social and legal norms is akin to condemning modern day politicians for failing to follow the standard approaches of the 27th century.
I also question his grasp of the most basic tents of medieval history if he thinks Henry V was remarkable for being into war quite a lot.
Even in the 21st century the most important thing a government has to do is keep its country safe. H'aretz the Israeli newspaper has been pretty brutal in its attack on the Israeli PM for appointing incompetents to security posts. There will be a reckoning for Netanyahu - and I am not all sure that bombing Gaza is going to help him.
That most basic of governmental functions often gets lost sight of, in socieities that take peace for granted.
Better a ruthless leader who succeeds at war than a nice guy who sees his country invaded.
Hopefully, the one silver lining in this affair will be that a man who has been a cancer in Israeli politics for decades will see his career ended.
The incredible military/intel failure in Israel is ONGOING
Hamas fighters are still in Israel, killing Israelis, and still crossing the border
Guardian liveblog:
“Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus says situation is ‘dire’ in south, with Hamas still able to cross border from Gaza”
This is an existential crisis for Israel
No it isn't. Israel's military is much too strong. It will still exist in its current form this time next year, and so will its occupation of most of the lands it seized in 1967.
The half hearted efforts by Hezbollah so far in the North imply this can’t be a true Iranian proxy attack, unless they are hiding their time for a second strike. But even with two fronts this will peter out, I agree.
Question is what happens next.
You misunderstand. This is not an existential crisis for Israel because the IDF are incapable of squashing this incursion. Of course they will get it done (tho it is taking a remarkably long time)
The deeper problem for Israel - and I’d say it is now fundamental - is that there is no obvious way for them to stop this happening again, as long as Gaza exists. And if this keeps happening then investment and people will flee Israel
And it is not possible for them to obliterate Gaza, as we discussed at length last night. They are in a terrible bind
What this makes clear has essentially been what anyone sensible has been saying for decades - the only solution that doesn't kill tens of thousands of people is a peaceful two state solution. The PLO have been ready to negotiate that for a long time - it is the Israeli governments which have refused and have, indeed, made matters worse by increasing illegal settlements. As the PLO spokespeople have been saying - acts like those we have seen over the weekend have not been a question of if, but when, considering the conditions the Palestinian people have been kept in. Is it right to attack civilians, of course not. But organised, peaceful attempts - from within Palestine and outside of Palestine (think BDS) - have been made impossible.
The Clinton Parameters were probably before your time.
I would have been 9. And reading about them it seems that both the Israeli and Palestinian authorities had issues with the plan - Arafat wanted some degree of right to return for displaced people, and Israel wanted more territorial control over Jerusalem and the other areas they would have been in control of. It seems that at the beginning Palestinian concerns where quite large, but also the Knesset and right wing of the Israeli state probably wouldn't have accepted the agreement anyway.
But at the end of the day, like many similar conflicts like it throughout history, we have to understand that people when pushed to the edge of precarious living with choose to lash out violently instead of coming around the negotiating table - especially when over time they have been told again and again that there will be no negotiations. This happened in India, in Ireland, in South Africa - and many other places.
England has been lucky that, in modern history at least, there has been no full scale invasion of our country. We all know what the plans were should the Germans have invaded during WW2 - for everyone to become a guerrilla fighter, stashes of weapons and explosives hidden for civilians to pick up if needed, for a government in exile to find safe haven overseas and help coordinate the resistance movement and so on. And we know, if that had come to pass, that would have been justified: not just because it was the Nazis doing the invading, but because it would have meant a military invasion and occupation that removed the freedom of the people within the nation - to speak their language, to practice their religion, to have their will expressed in a democratic forum. We can recognise that if it were our country invaded and occupied and our people oppressed, even if it had been the case for 80 years or more, that a group doing Hamas style attacks could exist and that we would understand or even have sympathy for their cause. And we know what we would demand as freedom that would end such attacks - a sincere removal of occupying forces, a real democratic government chosen by the people, an investigation and reconciliation process, reparations and so on.
That Palestinians were offered less than that and did not scoop it up is understandable, even if the realpolitik suggested they should have. But considering Israeli state reaction to the Parameters, as well as their actions in the decades since, I think it is clear why the events we are seeing are happening.
So you are with the group of people who didn't accept those parameters. Fair enough. I can see why you would advocate violence.
In their position, had the same thing happened to England, would you or I accept those parameters? I am not in charge of a nation, I am not a representative of all my peoples. Maybe they should have done - again, I think the issue is moot because it seems the Israeli government was also not likely to accept the parameters either.
Also where in my statements did I advocate violence? I just explained a situation where I think violence has been made inevitable. Am I an advocate of gravity if I say that if I drop a stone it will fall? You can also see in my first comment that you replied to where I said "Is it right to attack civilians, of course not". But what is "right" and what will happen in certain circumstances are different things.
If we accept your logic - and maybe we should - the same standards apply to Israelis. For a long time right wing Israelis have said “you don’t understand, many Palestinians simply want us dead, they see every Jew as a legitimate target, even women and kids, and they want Israel annihilated”
After Saturday, who is to say these Israelis are wrong?
In which case it is kill or be killed. It’s that simple. And Israel is justified in annihilating Gaza or hurling them all into Egypt, just as Gazans are justified in kidnapping, raping and murdering Israeli girls
That’s your logic. And that’s where we’re heading
Israelis have been killing Palestinians, including women and girls, on a regular basis with barely a peep from the West. Here's a recent example:
Killing of innocents is a terrible thing, and those who do it need to be brought to justice. What I don't understand is why Western outrage is reserved for Israeli deaths.
Israel has behaved with great cruelty towards the Palestinians. In some respects it is reaping what it sowed: I agree
But nothing justifies what we saw on Saturday. The gleeful depravity, the sadistic misogyny, the ISIS-like barbarism
Part of me just wants them all to go outside and settle it once and for all. Fight to the death. Enough. It’s like being stuck on a long train ride with a loud, rude, and constantly bickering couple
I read something on Twitter/X yesterday which I thought was quite revealing. Think what each group would do if they had full power to.
Israel has had pretty much power over the Palestinians and could do what they wanted. Although conditions were not good in Gaza people there have been able to go about their lives.
What would Hamas do if it had the power to? I would think they would exterminate every Jew they could get their hands on.
That, for me, is the difference.
Yes. I absolutely believe that - especially after this weekend. Hamas would kill every Jew they could. It’s in their DNA
I once had an interesting chat with an elderly German lady - a distant relative of my late wife - who was born in around 1920 in what was then Palestine. She remembered her childhood as an idyllic time, with Jewish, Muslim and Christian neighbours who all got on with one another in relative peace. Very few people of any denomination wanted to kill anyone else. It is events since then that have made murderers of people, not their DNA.
I meant their religious/ideological DNA. Their charter. Their raison d’etre. Not their literal genes
Duh
Don't use the abbreviation DNA then. There is no religious DNA.
I’ll use my English language how I like. So you can fuck off
Of course you can. But you sound like a berk when you critique a reply which uses the same metaphor.
The extent to which I care about your opinion must be measured in nanometers
"Yoav Gallant, Israel’s defense minister, just said that he has ordered a “complete closure” of the Gaza Strip. “No electricity, no food, no water, no fuel” will be allowed into the coastal enclave, Gallant said."
Is that in itself a war crime? Israel has the sympathy of the world. It should not blow it.
It is stretching the limit for sure. However, having made a formal declaration of war, the question then becomes how much of the responsibility transfers to the other side to say, for example, organise an evacuation of people etc. Certainly, in WW1 and WW2, there were no war crimes punishments for Allied blockades.
Can't they just get everything from/head off to Egypt? Their stalwart ally in the region.
Mr. Eagles, Mitchell's a moron. Expecting 15th century monarchs to abide by 21st century social and legal norms is akin to condemning modern day politicians for failing to follow the standard approaches of the 27th century.
I also question his grasp of the most basic tents of medieval history if he thinks Henry V was remarkable for being into war quite a lot.
Even in the 21st century the most important thing a government has to do is keep its country safe. H'aretz the Israeli newspaper has been pretty brutal in its attack on the Israeli PM for appointing incompetents to security posts. There will be a reckoning for Netanyahu - and I am not all sure that bombing Gaza is going to help him.
That most basic of governmental functions often gets lost sight of, in socieities that take peace for granted.
Better a ruthless leader who succeeds at war than a nice guy who sees his country invaded.
Hopefully, the one silver lining in this affair will be that a man who has been a cancer in Israeli politics for decades will see his career ended.
The incredible military/intel failure in Israel is ONGOING
Hamas fighters are still in Israel, killing Israelis, and still crossing the border
Guardian liveblog:
“Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus says situation is ‘dire’ in south, with Hamas still able to cross border from Gaza”
This is an existential crisis for Israel
No it isn't. Israel's military is much too strong. It will still exist in its current form this time next year, and so will its occupation of most of the lands it seized in 1967.
The half hearted efforts by Hezbollah so far in the North imply this can’t be a true Iranian proxy attack, unless they are hiding their time for a second strike. But even with two fronts this will peter out, I agree.
Question is what happens next.
You misunderstand. This is not an existential crisis for Israel because the IDF are incapable of squashing this incursion. Of course they will get it done (tho it is taking a remarkably long time)
The deeper problem for Israel - and I’d say it is now fundamental - is that there is no obvious way for them to stop this happening again, as long as Gaza exists. And if this keeps happening then investment and people will flee Israel
And it is not possible for them to obliterate Gaza, as we discussed at length last night. They are in a terrible bind
What this makes clear has essentially been what anyone sensible has been saying for decades - the only solution that doesn't kill tens of thousands of people is a peaceful two state solution. The PLO have been ready to negotiate that for a long time - it is the Israeli governments which have refused and have, indeed, made matters worse by increasing illegal settlements. As the PLO spokespeople have been saying - acts like those we have seen over the weekend have not been a question of if, but when, considering the conditions the Palestinian people have been kept in. Is it right to attack civilians, of course not. But organised, peaceful attempts - from within Palestine and outside of Palestine (think BDS) - have been made impossible.
The Clinton Parameters were probably before your time.
I would have been 9. And reading about them it seems that both the Israeli and Palestinian authorities had issues with the plan - Arafat wanted some degree of right to return for displaced people, and Israel wanted more territorial control over Jerusalem and the other areas they would have been in control of. It seems that at the beginning Palestinian concerns where quite large, but also the Knesset and right wing of the Israeli state probably wouldn't have accepted the agreement anyway.
But at the end of the day, like many similar conflicts like it throughout history, we have to understand that people when pushed to the edge of precarious living with choose to lash out violently instead of coming around the negotiating table - especially when over time they have been told again and again that there will be no negotiations. This happened in India, in Ireland, in South Africa - and many other places.
England has been lucky that, in modern history at least, there has been no full scale invasion of our country. We all know what the plans were should the Germans have invaded during WW2 - for everyone to become a guerrilla fighter, stashes of weapons and explosives hidden for civilians to pick up if needed, for a government in exile to find safe haven overseas and help coordinate the resistance movement and so on. And we know, if that had come to pass, that would have been justified: not just because it was the Nazis doing the invading, but because it would have meant a military invasion and occupation that removed the freedom of the people within the nation - to speak their language, to practice their religion, to have their will expressed in a democratic forum. We can recognise that if it were our country invaded and occupied and our people oppressed, even if it had been the case for 80 years or more, that a group doing Hamas style attacks could exist and that we would understand or even have sympathy for their cause. And we know what we would demand as freedom that would end such attacks - a sincere removal of occupying forces, a real democratic government chosen by the people, an investigation and reconciliation process, reparations and so on.
That Palestinians were offered less than that and did not scoop it up is understandable, even if the realpolitik suggested they should have. But considering Israeli state reaction to the Parameters, as well as their actions in the decades since, I think it is clear why the events we are seeing are happening.
So you are with the group of people who didn't accept those parameters. Fair enough. I can see why you would advocate violence.
In their position, had the same thing happened to England, would you or I accept those parameters? I am not in charge of a nation, I am not a representative of all my peoples. Maybe they should have done - again, I think the issue is moot because it seems the Israeli government was also not likely to accept the parameters either.
Also where in my statements did I advocate violence? I just explained a situation where I think violence has been made inevitable. Am I an advocate of gravity if I say that if I drop a stone it will fall? You can also see in my first comment that you replied to where I said "Is it right to attack civilians, of course not". But what is "right" and what will happen in certain circumstances are different things.
If we accept your logic - and maybe we should - the same standards apply to Israelis. For a long time right wing Israelis have said “you don’t understand, many Palestinians simply want us dead, they see every Jew as a legitimate target, even women and kids, and they want Israel annihilated”
After Saturday, who is to say these Israelis are wrong?
In which case it is kill or be killed. It’s that simple. And Israel is justified in annihilating Gaza or hurling them all into Egypt, just as Gazans are justified in kidnapping, raping and murdering Israeli girls
That’s your logic. And that’s where we’re heading
Israelis have been killing Palestinians, including women and girls, on a regular basis with barely a peep from the West. Here's a recent example:
Killing of innocents is a terrible thing, and those who do it need to be brought to justice. What I don't understand is why Western outrage is reserved for Israeli deaths.
Israel has behaved with great cruelty towards the Palestinians. In some respects it is reaping what it sowed: I agree
But nothing justifies what we saw on Saturday. The gleeful depravity, the sadistic misogyny, the ISIS-like barbarism
Part of me just wants them all to go outside and settle it once and for all. Fight to the death. Enough. It’s like being stuck on a long train ride with a loud, rude, and constantly bickering couple
I read something on Twitter/X yesterday which I thought was quite revealing. Think what each group would do if they had full power to.
Israel has had pretty much power over the Palestinians and could do what they wanted. Although conditions were not good in Gaza people there have been able to go about their lives.
What would Hamas do if it had the power to? I would think they would exterminate every Jew they could get their hands on.
That, for me, is the difference.
Yes. I absolutely believe that - especially after this weekend. Hamas would kill every Jew they could. It’s in their DNA
I once had an interesting chat with an elderly German lady - a distant relative of my late wife - who was born in around 1920 in what was then Palestine. She remembered her childhood as an idyllic time, with Jewish, Muslim and Christian neighbours who all got on with one another in relative peace. Very few people of any denomination wanted to kill anyone else. It is events since then that have made murderers of people, not their DNA.
I meant their religious/ideological DNA. Their charter. Their raison d’etre. Not their literal genes
Duh
Don't use the abbreviation DNA then. There is no religious DNA.
I’ll use my English language how I like. So you can fuck off
Of course you can. But you sound like a berk when you critique a reply which uses the same metaphor.
The extent to which I care about your opinion must be measured in nanometers
Mr. Eagles, Mitchell's a moron. Expecting 15th century monarchs to abide by 21st century social and legal norms is akin to condemning modern day politicians for failing to follow the standard approaches of the 27th century.
I also question his grasp of the most basic tents of medieval history if he thinks Henry V was remarkable for being into war quite a lot.
Even in the 21st century the most important thing a government has to do is keep its country safe. H'aretz the Israeli newspaper has been pretty brutal in its attack on the Israeli PM for appointing incompetents to security posts. There will be a reckoning for Netanyahu - and I am not all sure that bombing Gaza is going to help him.
That most basic of governmental functions often gets lost sight of, in socieities that take peace for granted.
Better a ruthless leader who succeeds at war than a nice guy who sees his country invaded.
Hopefully, the one silver lining in this affair will be that a man who has been a cancer in Israeli politics for decades will see his career ended.
The incredible military/intel failure in Israel is ONGOING
Hamas fighters are still in Israel, killing Israelis, and still crossing the border
Guardian liveblog:
“Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus says situation is ‘dire’ in south, with Hamas still able to cross border from Gaza”
This is an existential crisis for Israel
No it isn't. Israel's military is much too strong. It will still exist in its current form this time next year, and so will its occupation of most of the lands it seized in 1967.
The half hearted efforts by Hezbollah so far in the North imply this can’t be a true Iranian proxy attack, unless they are hiding their time for a second strike. But even with two fronts this will peter out, I agree.
Question is what happens next.
You misunderstand. This is not an existential crisis for Israel because the IDF are incapable of squashing this incursion. Of course they will get it done (tho it is taking a remarkably long time)
The deeper problem for Israel - and I’d say it is now fundamental - is that there is no obvious way for them to stop this happening again, as long as Gaza exists. And if this keeps happening then investment and people will flee Israel
And it is not possible for them to obliterate Gaza, as we discussed at length last night. They are in a terrible bind
What this makes clear has essentially been what anyone sensible has been saying for decades - the only solution that doesn't kill tens of thousands of people is a peaceful two state solution. The PLO have been ready to negotiate that for a long time - it is the Israeli governments which have refused and have, indeed, made matters worse by increasing illegal settlements. As the PLO spokespeople have been saying - acts like those we have seen over the weekend have not been a question of if, but when, considering the conditions the Palestinian people have been kept in. Is it right to attack civilians, of course not. But organised, peaceful attempts - from within Palestine and outside of Palestine (think BDS) - have been made impossible.
The Clinton Parameters were probably before your time.
I would have been 9. And reading about them it seems that both the Israeli and Palestinian authorities had issues with the plan - Arafat wanted some degree of right to return for displaced people, and Israel wanted more territorial control over Jerusalem and the other areas they would have been in control of. It seems that at the beginning Palestinian concerns where quite large, but also the Knesset and right wing of the Israeli state probably wouldn't have accepted the agreement anyway.
But at the end of the day, like many similar conflicts like it throughout history, we have to understand that people when pushed to the edge of precarious living with choose to lash out violently instead of coming around the negotiating table - especially when over time they have been told again and again that there will be no negotiations. This happened in India, in Ireland, in South Africa - and many other places.
England has been lucky that, in modern history at least, there has been no full scale invasion of our country. We all know what the plans were should the Germans have invaded during WW2 - for everyone to become a guerrilla fighter, stashes of weapons and explosives hidden for civilians to pick up if needed, for a government in exile to find safe haven overseas and help coordinate the resistance movement and so on. And we know, if that had come to pass, that would have been justified: not just because it was the Nazis doing the invading, but because it would have meant a military invasion and occupation that removed the freedom of the people within the nation - to speak their language, to practice their religion, to have their will expressed in a democratic forum. We can recognise that if it were our country invaded and occupied and our people oppressed, even if it had been the case for 80 years or more, that a group doing Hamas style attacks could exist and that we would understand or even have sympathy for their cause. And we know what we would demand as freedom that would end such attacks - a sincere removal of occupying forces, a real democratic government chosen by the people, an investigation and reconciliation process, reparations and so on.
That Palestinians were offered less than that and did not scoop it up is understandable, even if the realpolitik suggested they should have. But considering Israeli state reaction to the Parameters, as well as their actions in the decades since, I think it is clear why the events we are seeing are happening.
So you are with the group of people who didn't accept those parameters. Fair enough. I can see why you would advocate violence.
In their position, had the same thing happened to England, would you or I accept those parameters? I am not in charge of a nation, I am not a representative of all my peoples. Maybe they should have done - again, I think the issue is moot because it seems the Israeli government was also not likely to accept the parameters either.
Also where in my statements did I advocate violence? I just explained a situation where I think violence has been made inevitable. Am I an advocate of gravity if I say that if I drop a stone it will fall? You can also see in my first comment that you replied to where I said "Is it right to attack civilians, of course not". But what is "right" and what will happen in certain circumstances are different things.
If we accept your logic - and maybe we should - the same standards apply to Israelis. For a long time right wing Israelis have said “you don’t understand, many Palestinians simply want us dead, they see every Jew as a legitimate target, even women and kids, and they want Israel annihilated”
After Saturday, who is to say these Israelis are wrong?
In which case it is kill or be killed. It’s that simple. And Israel is justified in annihilating Gaza or hurling them all into Egypt, just as Gazans are justified in kidnapping, raping and murdering Israeli girls
That’s your logic. And that’s where we’re heading
Israelis have been killing Palestinians, including women and girls, on a regular basis with barely a peep from the West. Here's a recent example:
Killing of innocents is a terrible thing, and those who do it need to be brought to justice. What I don't understand is why Western outrage is reserved for Israeli deaths.
Neither side is good, but it is all shades of grey rather than entirely backing one side over the other.
I read that story and think that the tragedy isn't just a dead 14 year-old, its that she lived in "Jenin refugee camp". She is 14. She is not a refugee. Neither are her parents. Or potentially their parents.
I understand that people were displaced from their homes. But it was not their country - there was no country. The idea that we have these multi-generational camps - awaiting the day when the invading Jew is removed and the Ottoman empire restored - is madness.
The status quo patently does not work. A peace will have to imposed as it cannot be negotiated, and unfortunately that will leave Israel a fortress and Gaza / chunks of the West Bank a ruin. Unless neighbouring arab states intervene and forge a settlement.
Instead of these multi-generational refugee camps, people should be offered to settle in other parts of the former empire, or to become Israeli citizens as several million already have. Israel does terrible things to people in camps like this girl, but it is not seeking death to the arab in the way that Hamas et al seek death to the Jew. Arabs are represented in in the Knesset as equals - an arab is deputy speaker FFS.
We are way past being able to do a two state solution. It will be peace on Israel's terms. Let us hope they don't decide that they need a buffer zone between them and the genocidal neighbours - because if so they will carve it out of Egypy, Jordan and Lebanon. Again.
It was their country. It was the land on which they lived and the land they were expelled from. It may not have had a formal recognition but it was still their homeland. You are simply indulging in victim blaming.
There was a United Nations resolution dividing the land and the Arabs disagreed with that Resolution and hence they invaded the newly-created Israel aiming to wipe it off the map. During the course of that war, which Israel found itself winning, Israel thought "fuck it and fuck you" and started to expel Arabs from their villages. As I noted the other day when we were discussing, like the victim of a mugging who overpowers their attacker and gives them one extra slap.
"There was a United Nations resolution dividing the land and the Arabs disagreed with that Resolution" - which is a major part of the original problem; no? The consent of the people living on the land that is now Israel, and was previously under Ottoman and then British colonial control, was not granted to partition in to two separate states. Therefore conflict was inevitable.
"Yoav Gallant, Israel’s defense minister, just said that he has ordered a “complete closure” of the Gaza Strip. “No electricity, no food, no water, no fuel” will be allowed into the coastal enclave, Gallant said."
Is that in itself a war crime? Israel has the sympathy of the world. It should not blow it.
I'm plowing thru "End Times" at the moment (https://www.waterstones.com/book/end-times/peter-turchin/9780241553480 ), where Peter Turchin noted the increase in popular immiseration and elite overproduction would lead to political instability in the 2020s, and we have a situation where people make war on other people.
Cross-reference that with Peter Zeihan (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZ0IUCMpgEE) and how the US is withdrawing from global hegemony because increased US self-sufficiency renders global entanglement unnecessary, and we have a situation where countries make war on other countries.
Yes, its why the whole net zero programme is wrong for the UK, its not our priority. We will not have any major crisis because our temperatures will simply become like central France. The Severn will be the new Garonne.
Our priorities should be eliminating plastics, energy security, protecting bio diversity and future proofing infrastructure.
Britain imports a huge proportion of its food. One of the major risks from climate change is disrupting global agriculture. If the world moves into a food deficit, and some food-exporting nations ban exports to prevent their own poor being priced out of food, then Britain is in a very vulnerable position.
Currently brits are among the fattest people in the world.
Brits throw away something like 25% of all the food we buy.
The government spends millions trying to slim us down and stop food waste.
We have a long way to go before we hit starvation and the steps before we get there might be good for us.
But, without clear food supplies, you'd get there in 4-6 weeks. And there would probably be social breakdown before then.
However, in reality, in case of shortage, the richer countries would just buy-out everyone else and the economics would switch land-use domestically too, although that'd take effect over a 6-18 month timescale.
Climate change will take place over 4-6 decades not 4-6 weeks, thats why future proofing should be our aim not net zero, our minuscule efforts will be wiped out by China and India
My point is that's how long it takes someone to starve with no food, even an overweight individual.
I agree the climate challenge will be progressive.
"Yoav Gallant, Israel’s defense minister, just said that he has ordered a “complete closure” of the Gaza Strip. “No electricity, no food, no water, no fuel” will be allowed into the coastal enclave, Gallant said."
Is that in itself a war crime? Israel has the sympathy of the world. It should not blow it.
It is stretching the limit for sure. However, having made a formal declaration of war, the question then becomes how much of the responsibility transfers to the other side to say, for example, organise an evacuation of people etc. Certainly, in WW1 and WW2, there were no war crimes punishments for Allied blockades.
Can't they just get everything from/head off to Egypt? Their stalwart ally in the region.
Isn’t the Gaza/Egypt situation another layer of complication to the whole thing? I must admit I am rusty on that side of it. There are reasons why Egypt won’t involve itself.
Mr. Eagles, Mitchell's a moron. Expecting 15th century monarchs to abide by 21st century social and legal norms is akin to condemning modern day politicians for failing to follow the standard approaches of the 27th century.
I also question his grasp of the most basic tents of medieval history if he thinks Henry V was remarkable for being into war quite a lot.
Even in the 21st century the most important thing a government has to do is keep its country safe. H'aretz the Israeli newspaper has been pretty brutal in its attack on the Israeli PM for appointing incompetents to security posts. There will be a reckoning for Netanyahu - and I am not all sure that bombing Gaza is going to help him.
That most basic of governmental functions often gets lost sight of, in socieities that take peace for granted.
Better a ruthless leader who succeeds at war than a nice guy who sees his country invaded.
Hopefully, the one silver lining in this affair will be that a man who has been a cancer in Israeli politics for decades will see his career ended.
The incredible military/intel failure in Israel is ONGOING
Hamas fighters are still in Israel, killing Israelis, and still crossing the border
Guardian liveblog:
“Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus says situation is ‘dire’ in south, with Hamas still able to cross border from Gaza”
This is an existential crisis for Israel
No it isn't. Israel's military is much too strong. It will still exist in its current form this time next year, and so will its occupation of most of the lands it seized in 1967.
The half hearted efforts by Hezbollah so far in the North imply this can’t be a true Iranian proxy attack, unless they are hiding their time for a second strike. But even with two fronts this will peter out, I agree.
Question is what happens next.
You misunderstand. This is not an existential crisis for Israel because the IDF are incapable of squashing this incursion. Of course they will get it done (tho it is taking a remarkably long time)
The deeper problem for Israel - and I’d say it is now fundamental - is that there is no obvious way for them to stop this happening again, as long as Gaza exists. And if this keeps happening then investment and people will flee Israel
And it is not possible for them to obliterate Gaza, as we discussed at length last night. They are in a terrible bind
What this makes clear has essentially been what anyone sensible has been saying for decades - the only solution that doesn't kill tens of thousands of people is a peaceful two state solution. The PLO have been ready to negotiate that for a long time - it is the Israeli governments which have refused and have, indeed, made matters worse by increasing illegal settlements. As the PLO spokespeople have been saying - acts like those we have seen over the weekend have not been a question of if, but when, considering the conditions the Palestinian people have been kept in. Is it right to attack civilians, of course not. But organised, peaceful attempts - from within Palestine and outside of Palestine (think BDS) - have been made impossible.
The Clinton Parameters were probably before your time.
I would have been 9. And reading about them it seems that both the Israeli and Palestinian authorities had issues with the plan - Arafat wanted some degree of right to return for displaced people, and Israel wanted more territorial control over Jerusalem and the other areas they would have been in control of. It seems that at the beginning Palestinian concerns where quite large, but also the Knesset and right wing of the Israeli state probably wouldn't have accepted the agreement anyway.
But at the end of the day, like many similar conflicts like it throughout history, we have to understand that people when pushed to the edge of precarious living with choose to lash out violently instead of coming around the negotiating table - especially when over time they have been told again and again that there will be no negotiations. This happened in India, in Ireland, in South Africa - and many other places.
England has been lucky that, in modern history at least, there has been no full scale invasion of our country. We all know what the plans were should the Germans have invaded during WW2 - for everyone to become a guerrilla fighter, stashes of weapons and explosives hidden for civilians to pick up if needed, for a government in exile to find safe haven overseas and help coordinate the resistance movement and so on. And we know, if that had come to pass, that would have been justified: not just because it was the Nazis doing the invading, but because it would have meant a military invasion and occupation that removed the freedom of the people within the nation - to speak their language, to practice their religion, to have their will expressed in a democratic forum. We can recognise that if it were our country invaded and occupied and our people oppressed, even if it had been the case for 80 years or more, that a group doing Hamas style attacks could exist and that we would understand or even have sympathy for their cause. And we know what we would demand as freedom that would end such attacks - a sincere removal of occupying forces, a real democratic government chosen by the people, an investigation and reconciliation process, reparations and so on.
That Palestinians were offered less than that and did not scoop it up is understandable, even if the realpolitik suggested they should have. But considering Israeli state reaction to the Parameters, as well as their actions in the decades since, I think it is clear why the events we are seeing are happening.
So you are with the group of people who didn't accept those parameters. Fair enough. I can see why you would advocate violence.
In their position, had the same thing happened to England, would you or I accept those parameters? I am not in charge of a nation, I am not a representative of all my peoples. Maybe they should have done - again, I think the issue is moot because it seems the Israeli government was also not likely to accept the parameters either.
Also where in my statements did I advocate violence? I just explained a situation where I think violence has been made inevitable. Am I an advocate of gravity if I say that if I drop a stone it will fall? You can also see in my first comment that you replied to where I said "Is it right to attack civilians, of course not". But what is "right" and what will happen in certain circumstances are different things.
If we accept your logic - and maybe we should - the same standards apply to Israelis. For a long time right wing Israelis have said “you don’t understand, many Palestinians simply want us dead, they see every Jew as a legitimate target, even women and kids, and they want Israel annihilated”
After Saturday, who is to say these Israelis are wrong?
In which case it is kill or be killed. It’s that simple. And Israel is justified in annihilating Gaza or hurling them all into Egypt, just as Gazans are justified in kidnapping, raping and murdering Israeli girls
That’s your logic. And that’s where we’re heading
Israelis have been killing Palestinians, including women and girls, on a regular basis with barely a peep from the West. Here's a recent example:
Killing of innocents is a terrible thing, and those who do it need to be brought to justice. What I don't understand is why Western outrage is reserved for Israeli deaths.
Neither side is good, but it is all shades of grey rather than entirely backing one side over the other.
I read that story and think that the tragedy isn't just a dead 14 year-old, its that she lived in "Jenin refugee camp". She is 14. She is not a refugee. Neither are her parents. Or potentially their parents.
I understand that people were displaced from their homes. But it was not their country - there was no country. The idea that we have these multi-generational camps - awaiting the day when the invading Jew is removed and the Ottoman empire restored - is madness.
The status quo patently does not work. A peace will have to imposed as it cannot be negotiated, and unfortunately that will leave Israel a fortress and Gaza / chunks of the West Bank a ruin. Unless neighbouring arab states intervene and forge a settlement.
Instead of these multi-generational refugee camps, people should be offered to settle in other parts of the former empire, or to become Israeli citizens as several million already have. Israel does terrible things to people in camps like this girl, but it is not seeking death to the arab in the way that Hamas et al seek death to the Jew. Arabs are represented in in the Knesset as equals - an arab is deputy speaker FFS.
We are way past being able to do a two state solution. It will be peace on Israel's terms. Let us hope they don't decide that they need a buffer zone between them and the genocidal neighbours - because if so they will carve it out of Egypy, Jordan and Lebanon. Again.
It was their country. It was the land on which they lived and the land they were expelled from. It may not have had a formal recognition but it was still their homeland. You are simply indulging in victim blaming.
There was a United Nations resolution dividing the land and the Arabs disagreed with that Resolution and hence they invaded the newly-created Israel aiming to wipe it off the map. During the course of that war, which Israel found itself winning, Israel thought "fuck it and fuck you" and started to expel Arabs from their villages. As I noted the other day when we were discussing, like the victim of a mugging who overpowers their attacker and gives them one extra slap.
"There was a United Nations resolution dividing the land and the Arabs disagreed with that Resolution" - which is a major part of the original problem; no? The consent of the people living on the land that is now Israel, and was previously under Ottoman and then British colonial control, was not granted to partition in to two separate states. Therefore conflict was inevitable.
The UN is far from perfect but it exists precisely to determine actions in situations where there is conflict and strife and the two sides don't agree.
Speeding up the planning for critically important infrastructure by updating all national policy statements – which set out what types of projects the country needs – within the first six months of a Labour government. Fast-tracking the planning process for priority growth areas of the economy, such as battery factories, laboratories, and 5G infrastructure. Ensuring local communities get something back by providing businesses and communities with a menu of potential incentives, which could include cheaper energy bills. Tackling unnecessary, egregious, and time-consuming litigation by setting clearer national guidance for developers on the engagement and consultation expected with local communities. Strengthening public sector capacity to expedite planning decisions by raising the stamp duty surcharge on non-UK residents to appoint 300 new planning officers...
20 minutes into the conference perimeter and so far the only political personalities I’ve spotted are not Labour Party: Steven Norris, Tom Brake and Steve Bray.
The BBC don't help themselves...above not calling Hamas terrorists / this event a terrorist attack, stuff like this is clearly is written with a narrative in mind.
"We saw dead bodies of Hamas fighters still lying on the ground - left to rot - unlike their Israeli victims who’ve long ago been taken away for identification and burial. We watched as one Israeli driver stopped his truck so he could pick up a rock to throw at the corpse of one dead Hamas fighter."
I would suggest a big reason Israel number 1 priority isn't recovering Hamas fighter bodies is because they are often coming under fire from remaining terrorists when they are trying to recover the bodies of Israelis.
Mr. Eagles, Mitchell's a moron. Expecting 15th century monarchs to abide by 21st century social and legal norms is akin to condemning modern day politicians for failing to follow the standard approaches of the 27th century.
I also question his grasp of the most basic tents of medieval history if he thinks Henry V was remarkable for being into war quite a lot.
Even in the 21st century the most important thing a government has to do is keep its country safe. H'aretz the Israeli newspaper has been pretty brutal in its attack on the Israeli PM for appointing incompetents to security posts. There will be a reckoning for Netanyahu - and I am not all sure that bombing Gaza is going to help him.
That most basic of governmental functions often gets lost sight of, in socieities that take peace for granted.
Better a ruthless leader who succeeds at war than a nice guy who sees his country invaded.
Hopefully, the one silver lining in this affair will be that a man who has been a cancer in Israeli politics for decades will see his career ended.
The incredible military/intel failure in Israel is ONGOING
Hamas fighters are still in Israel, killing Israelis, and still crossing the border
Guardian liveblog:
“Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus says situation is ‘dire’ in south, with Hamas still able to cross border from Gaza”
This is an existential crisis for Israel
No it isn't. Israel's military is much too strong. It will still exist in its current form this time next year, and so will its occupation of most of the lands it seized in 1967.
The half hearted efforts by Hezbollah so far in the North imply this can’t be a true Iranian proxy attack, unless they are hiding their time for a second strike. But even with two fronts this will peter out, I agree.
Question is what happens next.
You misunderstand. This is not an existential crisis for Israel because the IDF are incapable of squashing this incursion. Of course they will get it done (tho it is taking a remarkably long time)
The deeper problem for Israel - and I’d say it is now fundamental - is that there is no obvious way for them to stop this happening again, as long as Gaza exists. And if this keeps happening then investment and people will flee Israel
And it is not possible for them to obliterate Gaza, as we discussed at length last night. They are in a terrible bind
What this makes clear has essentially been what anyone sensible has been saying for decades - the only solution that doesn't kill tens of thousands of people is a peaceful two state solution. The PLO have been ready to negotiate that for a long time - it is the Israeli governments which have refused and have, indeed, made matters worse by increasing illegal settlements. As the PLO spokespeople have been saying - acts like those we have seen over the weekend have not been a question of if, but when, considering the conditions the Palestinian people have been kept in. Is it right to attack civilians, of course not. But organised, peaceful attempts - from within Palestine and outside of Palestine (think BDS) - have been made impossible.
The Clinton Parameters were probably before your time.
I would have been 9. And reading about them it seems that both the Israeli and Palestinian authorities had issues with the plan - Arafat wanted some degree of right to return for displaced people, and Israel wanted more territorial control over Jerusalem and the other areas they would have been in control of. It seems that at the beginning Palestinian concerns where quite large, but also the Knesset and right wing of the Israeli state probably wouldn't have accepted the agreement anyway.
But at the end of the day, like many similar conflicts like it throughout history, we have to understand that people when pushed to the edge of precarious living with choose to lash out violently instead of coming around the negotiating table - especially when over time they have been told again and again that there will be no negotiations. This happened in India, in Ireland, in South Africa - and many other places.
England has been lucky that, in modern history at least, there has been no full scale invasion of our country. We all know what the plans were should the Germans have invaded during WW2 - for everyone to become a guerrilla fighter, stashes of weapons and explosives hidden for civilians to pick up if needed, for a government in exile to find safe haven overseas and help coordinate the resistance movement and so on. And we know, if that had come to pass, that would have been justified: not just because it was the Nazis doing the invading, but because it would have meant a military invasion and occupation that removed the freedom of the people within the nation - to speak their language, to practice their religion, to have their will expressed in a democratic forum. We can recognise that if it were our country invaded and occupied and our people oppressed, even if it had been the case for 80 years or more, that a group doing Hamas style attacks could exist and that we would understand or even have sympathy for their cause. And we know what we would demand as freedom that would end such attacks - a sincere removal of occupying forces, a real democratic government chosen by the people, an investigation and reconciliation process, reparations and so on.
That Palestinians were offered less than that and did not scoop it up is understandable, even if the realpolitik suggested they should have. But considering Israeli state reaction to the Parameters, as well as their actions in the decades since, I think it is clear why the events we are seeing are happening.
So you are with the group of people who didn't accept those parameters. Fair enough. I can see why you would advocate violence.
In their position, had the same thing happened to England, would you or I accept those parameters? I am not in charge of a nation, I am not a representative of all my peoples. Maybe they should have done - again, I think the issue is moot because it seems the Israeli government was also not likely to accept the parameters either.
Also where in my statements did I advocate violence? I just explained a situation where I think violence has been made inevitable. Am I an advocate of gravity if I say that if I drop a stone it will fall? You can also see in my first comment that you replied to where I said "Is it right to attack civilians, of course not". But what is "right" and what will happen in certain circumstances are different things.
If we accept your logic - and maybe we should - the same standards apply to Israelis. For a long time right wing Israelis have said “you don’t understand, many Palestinians simply want us dead, they see every Jew as a legitimate target, even women and kids, and they want Israel annihilated”
After Saturday, who is to say these Israelis are wrong?
In which case it is kill or be killed. It’s that simple. And Israel is justified in annihilating Gaza or hurling them all into Egypt, just as Gazans are justified in kidnapping, raping and murdering Israeli girls
That’s your logic. And that’s where we’re heading
Israelis have been killing Palestinians, including women and girls, on a regular basis with barely a peep from the West. Here's a recent example:
Killing of innocents is a terrible thing, and those who do it need to be brought to justice. What I don't understand is why Western outrage is reserved for Israeli deaths.
Israel has behaved with great cruelty towards the Palestinians. In some respects it is reaping what it sowed: I agree
But nothing justifies what we saw on Saturday. The gleeful depravity, the sadistic misogyny, the ISIS-like barbarism
Part of me just wants them all to go outside and settle it once and for all. Fight to the death. Enough. It’s like being stuck on a long train ride with a loud, rude, and constantly bickering couple
I read something on Twitter/X yesterday which I thought was quite revealing. Think what each group would do if they had full power to.
Israel has had pretty much power over the Palestinians and could do what they wanted. Although conditions were not good in Gaza people there have been able to go about their lives.
What would Hamas do if it had the power to? I would think they would exterminate every Jew they could get their hands on.
That, for me, is the difference.
Yes. I absolutely believe that - especially after this weekend. Hamas would kill every Jew they could. It’s in their DNA
I once had an interesting chat with an elderly German lady - a distant relative of my late wife - who was born in around 1920 in what was then Palestine. She remembered her childhood as an idyllic time, with Jewish, Muslim and Christian neighbours who all got on with one another in relative peace. Very few people of any denomination wanted to kill anyone else. It is events since then that have made murderers of people, not their DNA.
I meant their religious/ideological DNA. Their charter. Their raison d’etre. Not their literal genes
Duh
Don't use the abbreviation DNA then. There is no religious DNA.
I’ll use my English language how I like. So you can fuck off
Of course you can. But you sound like a berk when you critique a reply which uses the same metaphor.
The extent to which I care about your opinion must be measured in nanometers
Speeding up the planning for critically important infrastructure by updating all national policy statements – which set out what types of projects the country needs – within the first six months of a Labour government. Fast-tracking the planning process for priority growth areas of the economy, such as battery factories, laboratories, and 5G infrastructure. Ensuring local communities get something back by providing businesses and communities with a menu of potential incentives, which could include cheaper energy bills. Tackling unnecessary, egregious, and time-consuming litigation by setting clearer national guidance for developers on the engagement and consultation expected with local communities. Strengthening public sector capacity to expedite planning decisions by raising the stamp duty surcharge on non-UK residents to appoint 300 new planning officers...
Wasn't this basically what Big Dom wanted and was criticised by the likes of Labour at the time?
Mr. Eagles, Mitchell's a moron. Expecting 15th century monarchs to abide by 21st century social and legal norms is akin to condemning modern day politicians for failing to follow the standard approaches of the 27th century.
I also question his grasp of the most basic tents of medieval history if he thinks Henry V was remarkable for being into war quite a lot.
Even in the 21st century the most important thing a government has to do is keep its country safe. H'aretz the Israeli newspaper has been pretty brutal in its attack on the Israeli PM for appointing incompetents to security posts. There will be a reckoning for Netanyahu - and I am not all sure that bombing Gaza is going to help him.
That most basic of governmental functions often gets lost sight of, in socieities that take peace for granted.
Better a ruthless leader who succeeds at war than a nice guy who sees his country invaded.
Hopefully, the one silver lining in this affair will be that a man who has been a cancer in Israeli politics for decades will see his career ended.
The incredible military/intel failure in Israel is ONGOING
Hamas fighters are still in Israel, killing Israelis, and still crossing the border
Guardian liveblog:
“Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus says situation is ‘dire’ in south, with Hamas still able to cross border from Gaza”
This is an existential crisis for Israel
No it isn't. Israel's military is much too strong. It will still exist in its current form this time next year, and so will its occupation of most of the lands it seized in 1967.
The half hearted efforts by Hezbollah so far in the North imply this can’t be a true Iranian proxy attack, unless they are hiding their time for a second strike. But even with two fronts this will peter out, I agree.
Question is what happens next.
You misunderstand. This is not an existential crisis for Israel because the IDF are incapable of squashing this incursion. Of course they will get it done (tho it is taking a remarkably long time)
The deeper problem for Israel - and I’d say it is now fundamental - is that there is no obvious way for them to stop this happening again, as long as Gaza exists. And if this keeps happening then investment and people will flee Israel
And it is not possible for them to obliterate Gaza, as we discussed at length last night. They are in a terrible bind
What this makes clear has essentially been what anyone sensible has been saying for decades - the only solution that doesn't kill tens of thousands of people is a peaceful two state solution. The PLO have been ready to negotiate that for a long time - it is the Israeli governments which have refused and have, indeed, made matters worse by increasing illegal settlements. As the PLO spokespeople have been saying - acts like those we have seen over the weekend have not been a question of if, but when, considering the conditions the Palestinian people have been kept in. Is it right to attack civilians, of course not. But organised, peaceful attempts - from within Palestine and outside of Palestine (think BDS) - have been made impossible.
The Clinton Parameters were probably before your time.
I would have been 9. And reading about them it seems that both the Israeli and Palestinian authorities had issues with the plan - Arafat wanted some degree of right to return for displaced people, and Israel wanted more territorial control over Jerusalem and the other areas they would have been in control of. It seems that at the beginning Palestinian concerns where quite large, but also the Knesset and right wing of the Israeli state probably wouldn't have accepted the agreement anyway.
But at the end of the day, like many similar conflicts like it throughout history, we have to understand that people when pushed to the edge of precarious living with choose to lash out violently instead of coming around the negotiating table - especially when over time they have been told again and again that there will be no negotiations. This happened in India, in Ireland, in South Africa - and many other places.
England has been lucky that, in modern history at least, there has been no full scale invasion of our country. We all know what the plans were should the Germans have invaded during WW2 - for everyone to become a guerrilla fighter, stashes of weapons and explosives hidden for civilians to pick up if needed, for a government in exile to find safe haven overseas and help coordinate the resistance movement and so on. And we know, if that had come to pass, that would have been justified: not just because it was the Nazis doing the invading, but because it would have meant a military invasion and occupation that removed the freedom of the people within the nation - to speak their language, to practice their religion, to have their will expressed in a democratic forum. We can recognise that if it were our country invaded and occupied and our people oppressed, even if it had been the case for 80 years or more, that a group doing Hamas style attacks could exist and that we would understand or even have sympathy for their cause. And we know what we would demand as freedom that would end such attacks - a sincere removal of occupying forces, a real democratic government chosen by the people, an investigation and reconciliation process, reparations and so on.
That Palestinians were offered less than that and did not scoop it up is understandable, even if the realpolitik suggested they should have. But considering Israeli state reaction to the Parameters, as well as their actions in the decades since, I think it is clear why the events we are seeing are happening.
So you are with the group of people who didn't accept those parameters. Fair enough. I can see why you would advocate violence.
In their position, had the same thing happened to England, would you or I accept those parameters? I am not in charge of a nation, I am not a representative of all my peoples. Maybe they should have done - again, I think the issue is moot because it seems the Israeli government was also not likely to accept the parameters either.
Also where in my statements did I advocate violence? I just explained a situation where I think violence has been made inevitable. Am I an advocate of gravity if I say that if I drop a stone it will fall? You can also see in my first comment that you replied to where I said "Is it right to attack civilians, of course not". But what is "right" and what will happen in certain circumstances are different things.
If we accept your logic - and maybe we should - the same standards apply to Israelis. For a long time right wing Israelis have said “you don’t understand, many Palestinians simply want us dead, they see every Jew as a legitimate target, even women and kids, and they want Israel annihilated”
After Saturday, who is to say these Israelis are wrong?
In which case it is kill or be killed. It’s that simple. And Israel is justified in annihilating Gaza or hurling them all into Egypt, just as Gazans are justified in kidnapping, raping and murdering Israeli girls
That’s your logic. And that’s where we’re heading
Israelis have been killing Palestinians, including women and girls, on a regular basis with barely a peep from the West. Here's a recent example:
Killing of innocents is a terrible thing, and those who do it need to be brought to justice. What I don't understand is why Western outrage is reserved for Israeli deaths.
Neither side is good, but it is all shades of grey rather than entirely backing one side over the other.
I read that story and think that the tragedy isn't just a dead 14 year-old, its that she lived in "Jenin refugee camp". She is 14. She is not a refugee. Neither are her parents. Or potentially their parents.
I understand that people were displaced from their homes. But it was not their country - there was no country. The idea that we have these multi-generational camps - awaiting the day when the invading Jew is removed and the Ottoman empire restored - is madness.
The status quo patently does not work. A peace will have to imposed as it cannot be negotiated, and unfortunately that will leave Israel a fortress and Gaza / chunks of the West Bank a ruin. Unless neighbouring arab states intervene and forge a settlement.
Instead of these multi-generational refugee camps, people should be offered to settle in other parts of the former empire, or to become Israeli citizens as several million already have. Israel does terrible things to people in camps like this girl, but it is not seeking death to the arab in the way that Hamas et al seek death to the Jew. Arabs are represented in in the Knesset as equals - an arab is deputy speaker FFS.
We are way past being able to do a two state solution. It will be peace on Israel's terms. Let us hope they don't decide that they need a buffer zone between them and the genocidal neighbours - because if so they will carve it out of Egypy, Jordan and Lebanon. Again.
It was their country. It was the land on which they lived and the land they were expelled from. It may not have had a formal recognition but it was still their homeland. You are simply indulging in victim blaming.
There was a United Nations resolution dividing the land and the Arabs disagreed with that Resolution and hence they invaded the newly-created Israel aiming to wipe it off the map. During the course of that war, which Israel found itself winning, Israel thought "fuck it and fuck you" and started to expel Arabs from their villages. As I noted the other day when we were discussing, like the victim of a mugging who overpowers their attacker and gives them one extra slap.
"There was a United Nations resolution dividing the land and the Arabs disagreed with that Resolution" - which is a major part of the original problem; no? The consent of the people living on the land that is now Israel, and was previously under Ottoman and then British colonial control, was not granted to partition in to two separate states. Therefore conflict was inevitable.
The UN is far from perfect but it exists precisely to determine actions in situations where there is conflict and strife and the two sides don't agree.
If not the UN then who? The Arabs? The Jews? You?
Jews are not interlopers, in a place that has had Jewish settlement for millenia, any more than Arabs are.
The UN Resolution was an attempt to split the difference between them. It might not ever have worked, but neighbouring Arab States never gave it the chance to work.
Mr. Eagles, Mitchell's a moron. Expecting 15th century monarchs to abide by 21st century social and legal norms is akin to condemning modern day politicians for failing to follow the standard approaches of the 27th century.
I also question his grasp of the most basic tents of medieval history if he thinks Henry V was remarkable for being into war quite a lot.
Even in the 21st century the most important thing a government has to do is keep its country safe. H'aretz the Israeli newspaper has been pretty brutal in its attack on the Israeli PM for appointing incompetents to security posts. There will be a reckoning for Netanyahu - and I am not all sure that bombing Gaza is going to help him.
That most basic of governmental functions often gets lost sight of, in socieities that take peace for granted.
Better a ruthless leader who succeeds at war than a nice guy who sees his country invaded.
Hopefully, the one silver lining in this affair will be that a man who has been a cancer in Israeli politics for decades will see his career ended.
The incredible military/intel failure in Israel is ONGOING
Hamas fighters are still in Israel, killing Israelis, and still crossing the border
Guardian liveblog:
“Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus says situation is ‘dire’ in south, with Hamas still able to cross border from Gaza”
This is an existential crisis for Israel
No it isn't. Israel's military is much too strong. It will still exist in its current form this time next year, and so will its occupation of most of the lands it seized in 1967.
The half hearted efforts by Hezbollah so far in the North imply this can’t be a true Iranian proxy attack, unless they are hiding their time for a second strike. But even with two fronts this will peter out, I agree.
Question is what happens next.
You misunderstand. This is not an existential crisis for Israel because the IDF are incapable of squashing this incursion. Of course they will get it done (tho it is taking a remarkably long time)
The deeper problem for Israel - and I’d say it is now fundamental - is that there is no obvious way for them to stop this happening again, as long as Gaza exists. And if this keeps happening then investment and people will flee Israel
And it is not possible for them to obliterate Gaza, as we discussed at length last night. They are in a terrible bind
What this makes clear has essentially been what anyone sensible has been saying for decades - the only solution that doesn't kill tens of thousands of people is a peaceful two state solution. The PLO have been ready to negotiate that for a long time - it is the Israeli governments which have refused and have, indeed, made matters worse by increasing illegal settlements. As the PLO spokespeople have been saying - acts like those we have seen over the weekend have not been a question of if, but when, considering the conditions the Palestinian people have been kept in. Is it right to attack civilians, of course not. But organised, peaceful attempts - from within Palestine and outside of Palestine (think BDS) - have been made impossible.
I think it is reasonable to expect Palestinian self-styled freedom fighters to keep to the rules of war. Keep to military targets and avoid civilian casualties as much as possible.
If they had done so I think they would find they had a lot more sympathy in the West. I don't accept that the brutal targeting of civilians we have seen is an inevitable consequence of occupation.
Why - they have been the inevitable consequences of previous occupations; again, Ireland, India, South Africa: all had civilian targets and casualties.
Again - let's go to my thought experiment I previously mentioned of an occupied England 80 years after WW2 (and, for the sake of argument, let us remove the spectre of Nazism - not because fascism is not an extra existential threat, but because I want to highlight a reaction to any military occupation, not just a fascist one). Do you think "English freedom fighters" would not target, say, Berlin or Munich or even a German run London or Manchester? That, after 80 years of occupation, they might kidnap German citizens who were present in England - even if they had nothing to do directly with the occupation? I think it is clearly inevitable; ideologically, because those civilians would represent occupation as much as the state or military, but also strategically, because they would be easier to target and you could leverage them easier than a politician or a soldier.
The IRA were not paragons of virtue, and many civilians were killed by the IRA, but did you know that they also often gave warnings before their bomb attacks on economic targets, because their objective was not, in general, to cause the indiscriminate slaughter of civilians.
It's not accurate to to draw an equivalence between the IRA and Hamas. The objective of the IRA was to defeat the British government. The objective of Hamas is to kill every Jew who does not flee from Israel.
But that is not the view of every Palestinian who turns to Hamas. Hamas also do a lot of on the ground work to look after Palestinian civilians - you can say this is a cynical ploy or is a sincere concern for their people - but either way the incentive structure for Palestinian support of Hamas and their tactics exists because the incentive to support the PLO or another peaceful solution keeps getting closed down. And I'm pretty sure many members of the IRA wanted no English people on the island of Ireland.
There are doubtless still people in Ireland today who would be hostile towards an English man like myself living among them (not that I've met any), and there were brutal attacks carried out by the IRA, but it was never the policy of the IRA to exterminate every English person living in Ireland, as opposed to decreasing the British government and forcing a British withdrawal.
It's not remotely comparable. It's incredibly insulting actually.
This just feels like some exceptionalist thinking - I'm pretty sure the IRA wanted every English person out of Ireland and I don't see how that is particularly distinct from Hamas wanting every Israeli Jewish person out of the land they view as theirs. Is your position that because the IRA didn't want to kill every English person on Irish soil that this is somehow distinct? If that was the only option available to them, I think they would have taken it.
Sounds logical. So in your view there should not be an Israel in the Middle East have I got that right?
I mean, I think there were multiple solutions to the so called "Jewish Question" of the 20th century - the first and foremost being that the countries with a history of persecuting Jewish people and mass state sponsored anti Semitism should all have a good hard look at themselves and make their countries welcome places for Jewish people rather than deciding that having one Jewish state would be a better solution (indeed, many non Jewish people liked the idea of a single Jewish state specifically because they were anti Semites who wanted somewhere to send all the Jewish people in their countries).
To the degree that I believe any state should exist (they shouldn't, but I'm not going to get into that utopian position) I believe that if Israel was to exist in the Middle East that partitioning land based on ethnic and religious grounds was the wrong thing to do, and the better option would have been a multicultural state that recognised the specific history of Jewish persecution that led to its creation, but that also gave the right of self determination to the people who lived there under colonial British rule. The Jewish diaspora and the Palestinian people could have worked together to form a single state. I understand that would have been difficult, no doubt, and I also understand the underlying concerns of the Jewish community about persecution in a state that was not solely under Jewish control. But coexistence was already happening in communities across that land, and I think a single state would have been (and still is) the only solution for a lasting peace.
Cannot fault your thinking.
But we are where we are and the United Nations decided upon a course of events some 70 years ago.
You now find yourself in the position of justifying Hamas' violence because you disagree with that United Nations resolution.
I now find myself in the position of recognising the inevitability of Hamas' violence because of the long history that led the world here. Is it justifying the sacking of the monasteries to explain why Henry VIII did what he did? No - that is history. We just happen to be living in history, and therefore explaining modern events as if they were history involves giving cause and effect. I am not saying that Hamas' violence is good; in the same way I am not saying that the violence of the Israeli state is good. I can understand why both happen. I am saying to get to a world where we have reduced violence and a peaceful solution to the Israel / Palestine conflict that is not "one side genocides the other" what decisions should have been made, and what decisions can still be made.
Yeah not sure what the fuck you are saying but I would say that if you justify violence by people if they disagree with eg UN resolutions then we are off down a slippery slope.
Do you not see a difference between "justifying" something and "explaining" something? Justifying denotes a moral defence or even a moral agreement; explaining is about discussing and recognising why things happened. I have no desire to make a moral defence of Hamas' attacks on civilians - they are immoral. As are the acts of the Israeli state. I do wish to explain why their acts are, in my view, inevitable. To say that they are inevitable is not to say they are morally good.
You yourself have said that my explanation sounds logical. What I don't understand is why you keep saying that I am "justifying" Hamas' actions. Because I have sympathy for the people of Palestine at all, or lay more cause for this at the feet of Western powers and the Israeli state than I do the people of Palestine?
Mr. Eagles, Mitchell's a moron. Expecting 15th century monarchs to abide by 21st century social and legal norms is akin to condemning modern day politicians for failing to follow the standard approaches of the 27th century.
I also question his grasp of the most basic tents of medieval history if he thinks Henry V was remarkable for being into war quite a lot.
Even in the 21st century the most important thing a government has to do is keep its country safe. H'aretz the Israeli newspaper has been pretty brutal in its attack on the Israeli PM for appointing incompetents to security posts. There will be a reckoning for Netanyahu - and I am not all sure that bombing Gaza is going to help him.
That most basic of governmental functions often gets lost sight of, in socieities that take peace for granted.
Better a ruthless leader who succeeds at war than a nice guy who sees his country invaded.
Hopefully, the one silver lining in this affair will be that a man who has been a cancer in Israeli politics for decades will see his career ended.
The incredible military/intel failure in Israel is ONGOING
Hamas fighters are still in Israel, killing Israelis, and still crossing the border
Guardian liveblog:
“Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus says situation is ‘dire’ in south, with Hamas still able to cross border from Gaza”
This is an existential crisis for Israel
No it isn't. Israel's military is much too strong. It will still exist in its current form this time next year, and so will its occupation of most of the lands it seized in 1967.
The half hearted efforts by Hezbollah so far in the North imply this can’t be a true Iranian proxy attack, unless they are hiding their time for a second strike. But even with two fronts this will peter out, I agree.
Question is what happens next.
You misunderstand. This is not an existential crisis for Israel because the IDF are incapable of squashing this incursion. Of course they will get it done (tho it is taking a remarkably long time)
The deeper problem for Israel - and I’d say it is now fundamental - is that there is no obvious way for them to stop this happening again, as long as Gaza exists. And if this keeps happening then investment and people will flee Israel
And it is not possible for them to obliterate Gaza, as we discussed at length last night. They are in a terrible bind
What this makes clear has essentially been what anyone sensible has been saying for decades - the only solution that doesn't kill tens of thousands of people is a peaceful two state solution. The PLO have been ready to negotiate that for a long time - it is the Israeli governments which have refused and have, indeed, made matters worse by increasing illegal settlements. As the PLO spokespeople have been saying - acts like those we have seen over the weekend have not been a question of if, but when, considering the conditions the Palestinian people have been kept in. Is it right to attack civilians, of course not. But organised, peaceful attempts - from within Palestine and outside of Palestine (think BDS) - have been made impossible.
The Clinton Parameters were probably before your time.
I would have been 9. And reading about them it seems that both the Israeli and Palestinian authorities had issues with the plan - Arafat wanted some degree of right to return for displaced people, and Israel wanted more territorial control over Jerusalem and the other areas they would have been in control of. It seems that at the beginning Palestinian concerns where quite large, but also the Knesset and right wing of the Israeli state probably wouldn't have accepted the agreement anyway.
But at the end of the day, like many similar conflicts like it throughout history, we have to understand that people when pushed to the edge of precarious living with choose to lash out violently instead of coming around the negotiating table - especially when over time they have been told again and again that there will be no negotiations. This happened in India, in Ireland, in South Africa - and many other places.
England has been lucky that, in modern history at least, there has been no full scale invasion of our country. We all know what the plans were should the Germans have invaded during WW2 - for everyone to become a guerrilla fighter, stashes of weapons and explosives hidden for civilians to pick up if needed, for a government in exile to find safe haven overseas and help coordinate the resistance movement and so on. And we know, if that had come to pass, that would have been justified: not just because it was the Nazis doing the invading, but because it would have meant a military invasion and occupation that removed the freedom of the people within the nation - to speak their language, to practice their religion, to have their will expressed in a democratic forum. We can recognise that if it were our country invaded and occupied and our people oppressed, even if it had been the case for 80 years or more, that a group doing Hamas style attacks could exist and that we would understand or even have sympathy for their cause. And we know what we would demand as freedom that would end such attacks - a sincere removal of occupying forces, a real democratic government chosen by the people, an investigation and reconciliation process, reparations and so on.
That Palestinians were offered less than that and did not scoop it up is understandable, even if the realpolitik suggested they should have. But considering Israeli state reaction to the Parameters, as well as their actions in the decades since, I think it is clear why the events we are seeing are happening.
So you are with the group of people who didn't accept those parameters. Fair enough. I can see why you would advocate violence.
In their position, had the same thing happened to England, would you or I accept those parameters? I am not in charge of a nation, I am not a representative of all my peoples. Maybe they should have done - again, I think the issue is moot because it seems the Israeli government was also not likely to accept the parameters either.
Also where in my statements did I advocate violence? I just explained a situation where I think violence has been made inevitable. Am I an advocate of gravity if I say that if I drop a stone it will fall? You can also see in my first comment that you replied to where I said "Is it right to attack civilians, of course not". But what is "right" and what will happen in certain circumstances are different things.
It's ok I understand your thinking. You believe the Palestinians had no alternative but to choose violence. It is a legitimate point of view. It is how violence is justified in many of the places it occurs.
I think many people believe that Palestinians have no alternative but to use violence. My personal view is that the Palestinians likely have no options at all - violence won't free them and the international community do not seem to care. I think the writing has been on the wall for a while and that the Israeli government will just kill everyone in the Gaza Strip who cannot run away and annex the entire thing.
The Palestinians do have an alternative.Specifically, Hamas which rules Gaza has an alternative. It could accept Israel's right to exist. It does not do so. If it did then there would be an opportunity for Israel and Hamas to come to some sort of peace deal. And there would be intense pressure on Israel to do so. But Hamas has an explicitly genocidal intent vs Israel. It wants it - and its people - wiped off the map. You cannot reach a peace deal with people who think like that.
Until Hamas changes its mind, the dreary dreadful cycle of violence from Hamas and Israel will continue.
"Yoav Gallant, Israel’s defense minister, just said that he has ordered a “complete closure” of the Gaza Strip. “No electricity, no food, no water, no fuel” will be allowed into the coastal enclave, Gallant said."
So they’re going to starve them out including the children .
They can win in the “court of public opinion”. They can also win by forcing Arab states to side, more overtly, with Palestine
They will lose the immediate military conflict, for sure
No one can predict the long term. We are in a new and unprecedented phase
Yes, Israel will crush Hamas and wreak its revenge in the short term. In the long term, though, with the US hegemony slowly waning as China and India become more powerful and as new technologies like drones and AI reduce military differentials, who knows how long Israel will be able to maintain its supremacy in the region.
Mr. Eagles, Mitchell's a moron. Expecting 15th century monarchs to abide by 21st century social and legal norms is akin to condemning modern day politicians for failing to follow the standard approaches of the 27th century.
I also question his grasp of the most basic tents of medieval history if he thinks Henry V was remarkable for being into war quite a lot.
Even in the 21st century the most important thing a government has to do is keep its country safe. H'aretz the Israeli newspaper has been pretty brutal in its attack on the Israeli PM for appointing incompetents to security posts. There will be a reckoning for Netanyahu - and I am not all sure that bombing Gaza is going to help him.
That most basic of governmental functions often gets lost sight of, in socieities that take peace for granted.
Better a ruthless leader who succeeds at war than a nice guy who sees his country invaded.
Hopefully, the one silver lining in this affair will be that a man who has been a cancer in Israeli politics for decades will see his career ended.
The incredible military/intel failure in Israel is ONGOING
Hamas fighters are still in Israel, killing Israelis, and still crossing the border
Guardian liveblog:
“Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus says situation is ‘dire’ in south, with Hamas still able to cross border from Gaza”
This is an existential crisis for Israel
No it isn't. Israel's military is much too strong. It will still exist in its current form this time next year, and so will its occupation of most of the lands it seized in 1967.
The half hearted efforts by Hezbollah so far in the North imply this can’t be a true Iranian proxy attack, unless they are hiding their time for a second strike. But even with two fronts this will peter out, I agree.
Question is what happens next.
You misunderstand. This is not an existential crisis for Israel because the IDF are incapable of squashing this incursion. Of course they will get it done (tho it is taking a remarkably long time)
The deeper problem for Israel - and I’d say it is now fundamental - is that there is no obvious way for them to stop this happening again, as long as Gaza exists. And if this keeps happening then investment and people will flee Israel
And it is not possible for them to obliterate Gaza, as we discussed at length last night. They are in a terrible bind
What this makes clear has essentially been what anyone sensible has been saying for decades - the only solution that doesn't kill tens of thousands of people is a peaceful two state solution. The PLO have been ready to negotiate that for a long time - it is the Israeli governments which have refused and have, indeed, made matters worse by increasing illegal settlements. As the PLO spokespeople have been saying - acts like those we have seen over the weekend have not been a question of if, but when, considering the conditions the Palestinian people have been kept in. Is it right to attack civilians, of course not. But organised, peaceful attempts - from within Palestine and outside of Palestine (think BDS) - have been made impossible.
The Clinton Parameters were probably before your time.
I would have been 9. And reading about them it seems that both the Israeli and Palestinian authorities had issues with the plan - Arafat wanted some degree of right to return for displaced people, and Israel wanted more territorial control over Jerusalem and the other areas they would have been in control of. It seems that at the beginning Palestinian concerns where quite large, but also the Knesset and right wing of the Israeli state probably wouldn't have accepted the agreement anyway.
But at the end of the day, like many similar conflicts like it throughout history, we have to understand that people when pushed to the edge of precarious living with choose to lash out violently instead of coming around the negotiating table - especially when over time they have been told again and again that there will be no negotiations. This happened in India, in Ireland, in South Africa - and many other places.
England has been lucky that, in modern history at least, there has been no full scale invasion of our country. We all know what the plans were should the Germans have invaded during WW2 - for everyone to become a guerrilla fighter, stashes of weapons and explosives hidden for civilians to pick up if needed, for a government in exile to find safe haven overseas and help coordinate the resistance movement and so on. And we know, if that had come to pass, that would have been justified: not just because it was the Nazis doing the invading, but because it would have meant a military invasion and occupation that removed the freedom of the people within the nation - to speak their language, to practice their religion, to have their will expressed in a democratic forum. We can recognise that if it were our country invaded and occupied and our people oppressed, even if it had been the case for 80 years or more, that a group doing Hamas style attacks could exist and that we would understand or even have sympathy for their cause. And we know what we would demand as freedom that would end such attacks - a sincere removal of occupying forces, a real democratic government chosen by the people, an investigation and reconciliation process, reparations and so on.
That Palestinians were offered less than that and did not scoop it up is understandable, even if the realpolitik suggested they should have. But considering Israeli state reaction to the Parameters, as well as their actions in the decades since, I think it is clear why the events we are seeing are happening.
So you are with the group of people who didn't accept those parameters. Fair enough. I can see why you would advocate violence.
In their position, had the same thing happened to England, would you or I accept those parameters? I am not in charge of a nation, I am not a representative of all my peoples. Maybe they should have done - again, I think the issue is moot because it seems the Israeli government was also not likely to accept the parameters either.
Also where in my statements did I advocate violence? I just explained a situation where I think violence has been made inevitable. Am I an advocate of gravity if I say that if I drop a stone it will fall? You can also see in my first comment that you replied to where I said "Is it right to attack civilians, of course not". But what is "right" and what will happen in certain circumstances are different things.
If we accept your logic - and maybe we should - the same standards apply to Israelis. For a long time right wing Israelis have said “you don’t understand, many Palestinians simply want us dead, they see every Jew as a legitimate target, even women and kids, and they want Israel annihilated”
After Saturday, who is to say these Israelis are wrong?
In which case it is kill or be killed. It’s that simple. And Israel is justified in annihilating Gaza or hurling them all into Egypt, just as Gazans are justified in kidnapping, raping and murdering Israeli girls
That’s your logic. And that’s where we’re heading
Israelis have been killing Palestinians, including women and girls, on a regular basis with barely a peep from the West. Here's a recent example:
Killing of innocents is a terrible thing, and those who do it need to be brought to justice. What I don't understand is why Western outrage is reserved for Israeli deaths.
Neither side is good, but it is all shades of grey rather than entirely backing one side over the other.
I read that story and think that the tragedy isn't just a dead 14 year-old, its that she lived in "Jenin refugee camp". She is 14. She is not a refugee. Neither are her parents. Or potentially their parents.
I understand that people were displaced from their homes. But it was not their country - there was no country. The idea that we have these multi-generational camps - awaiting the day when the invading Jew is removed and the Ottoman empire restored - is madness.
The status quo patently does not work. A peace will have to imposed as it cannot be negotiated, and unfortunately that will leave Israel a fortress and Gaza / chunks of the West Bank a ruin. Unless neighbouring arab states intervene and forge a settlement.
Instead of these multi-generational refugee camps, people should be offered to settle in other parts of the former empire, or to become Israeli citizens as several million already have. Israel does terrible things to people in camps like this girl, but it is not seeking death to the arab in the way that Hamas et al seek death to the Jew. Arabs are represented in in the Knesset as equals - an arab is deputy speaker FFS.
We are way past being able to do a two state solution. It will be peace on Israel's terms. Let us hope they don't decide that they need a buffer zone between them and the genocidal neighbours - because if so they will carve it out of Egypy, Jordan and Lebanon. Again.
It was their country. It was the land on which they lived and the land they were expelled from. It may not have had a formal recognition but it was still their homeland. You are simply indulging in victim blaming.
There was a United Nations resolution dividing the land and the Arabs disagreed with that Resolution and hence they invaded the newly-created Israel aiming to wipe it off the map. During the course of that war, which Israel found itself winning, Israel thought "fuck it and fuck you" and started to expel Arabs from their villages. As I noted the other day when we were discussing, like the victim of a mugging who overpowers their attacker and gives them one extra slap.
You keep trying to shift the discussion because you know (or should know) you are in the wrong. This (Rochdale's comment and my reply) is not about the invasion by the neighbouring coutries it is about the status of the [people who actually lived on that land and their descendents.
Oh and to answer your rather purile analogy, under the law in this country any violence beyond that necessary for simple defence is assualt. As plenty of people have found out to their cost in the past.
You were wrong the other day (mostly becaue you didn't bother to actually check what was being discussed before you jumped in with both feet) and you are wrong now (for a very similar reason)
Mr. Eagles, Mitchell's a moron. Expecting 15th century monarchs to abide by 21st century social and legal norms is akin to condemning modern day politicians for failing to follow the standard approaches of the 27th century.
I also question his grasp of the most basic tents of medieval history if he thinks Henry V was remarkable for being into war quite a lot.
Even in the 21st century the most important thing a government has to do is keep its country safe. H'aretz the Israeli newspaper has been pretty brutal in its attack on the Israeli PM for appointing incompetents to security posts. There will be a reckoning for Netanyahu - and I am not all sure that bombing Gaza is going to help him.
That most basic of governmental functions often gets lost sight of, in socieities that take peace for granted.
Better a ruthless leader who succeeds at war than a nice guy who sees his country invaded.
Hopefully, the one silver lining in this affair will be that a man who has been a cancer in Israeli politics for decades will see his career ended.
The incredible military/intel failure in Israel is ONGOING
Hamas fighters are still in Israel, killing Israelis, and still crossing the border
Guardian liveblog:
“Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus says situation is ‘dire’ in south, with Hamas still able to cross border from Gaza”
This is an existential crisis for Israel
No it isn't. Israel's military is much too strong. It will still exist in its current form this time next year, and so will its occupation of most of the lands it seized in 1967.
The half hearted efforts by Hezbollah so far in the North imply this can’t be a true Iranian proxy attack, unless they are hiding their time for a second strike. But even with two fronts this will peter out, I agree.
Question is what happens next.
You misunderstand. This is not an existential crisis for Israel because the IDF are incapable of squashing this incursion. Of course they will get it done (tho it is taking a remarkably long time)
The deeper problem for Israel - and I’d say it is now fundamental - is that there is no obvious way for them to stop this happening again, as long as Gaza exists. And if this keeps happening then investment and people will flee Israel
And it is not possible for them to obliterate Gaza, as we discussed at length last night. They are in a terrible bind
What this makes clear has essentially been what anyone sensible has been saying for decades - the only solution that doesn't kill tens of thousands of people is a peaceful two state solution. The PLO have been ready to negotiate that for a long time - it is the Israeli governments which have refused and have, indeed, made matters worse by increasing illegal settlements. As the PLO spokespeople have been saying - acts like those we have seen over the weekend have not been a question of if, but when, considering the conditions the Palestinian people have been kept in. Is it right to attack civilians, of course not. But organised, peaceful attempts - from within Palestine and outside of Palestine (think BDS) - have been made impossible.
I think it is reasonable to expect Palestinian self-styled freedom fighters to keep to the rules of war. Keep to military targets and avoid civilian casualties as much as possible.
If they had done so I think they would find they had a lot more sympathy in the West. I don't accept that the brutal targeting of civilians we have seen is an inevitable consequence of occupation.
Why - they have been the inevitable consequences of previous occupations; again, Ireland, India, South Africa: all had civilian targets and casualties.
Again - let's go to my thought experiment I previously mentioned of an occupied England 80 years after WW2 (and, for the sake of argument, let us remove the spectre of Nazism - not because fascism is not an extra existential threat, but because I want to highlight a reaction to any military occupation, not just a fascist one). Do you think "English freedom fighters" would not target, say, Berlin or Munich or even a German run London or Manchester? That, after 80 years of occupation, they might kidnap German citizens who were present in England - even if they had nothing to do directly with the occupation? I think it is clearly inevitable; ideologically, because those civilians would represent occupation as much as the state or military, but also strategically, because they would be easier to target and you could leverage them easier than a politician or a soldier.
The IRA were not paragons of virtue, and many civilians were killed by the IRA, but did you know that they also often gave warnings before their bomb attacks on economic targets, because their objective was not, in general, to cause the indiscriminate slaughter of civilians.
It's not accurate to to draw an equivalence between the IRA and Hamas. The objective of the IRA was to defeat the British government. The objective of Hamas is to kill every Jew who does not flee from Israel.
But that is not the view of every Palestinian who turns to Hamas. Hamas also do a lot of on the ground work to look after Palestinian civilians - you can say this is a cynical ploy or is a sincere concern for their people - but either way the incentive structure for Palestinian support of Hamas and their tactics exists because the incentive to support the PLO or another peaceful solution keeps getting closed down. And I'm pretty sure many members of the IRA wanted no English people on the island of Ireland.
There are doubtless still people in Ireland today who would be hostile towards an English man like myself living among them (not that I've met any), and there were brutal attacks carried out by the IRA, but it was never the policy of the IRA to exterminate every English person living in Ireland, as opposed to decreasing the British government and forcing a British withdrawal.
It's not remotely comparable. It's incredibly insulting actually.
This just feels like some exceptionalist thinking - I'm pretty sure the IRA wanted every English person out of Ireland and I don't see how that is particularly distinct from Hamas wanting every Israeli Jewish person out of the land they view as theirs. Is your position that because the IRA didn't want to kill every English person on Irish soil that this is somehow distinct? If that was the only option available to them, I think they would have taken it.
Sounds logical. So in your view there should not be an Israel in the Middle East have I got that right?
I mean, I think there were multiple solutions to the so called "Jewish Question" of the 20th century - the first and foremost being that the countries with a history of persecuting Jewish people and mass state sponsored anti Semitism should all have a good hard look at themselves and make their countries welcome places for Jewish people rather than deciding that having one Jewish state would be a better solution (indeed, many non Jewish people liked the idea of a single Jewish state specifically because they were anti Semites who wanted somewhere to send all the Jewish people in their countries).
To the degree that I believe any state should exist (they shouldn't, but I'm not going to get into that utopian position) I believe that if Israel was to exist in the Middle East that partitioning land based on ethnic and religious grounds was the wrong thing to do, and the better option would have been a multicultural state that recognised the specific history of Jewish persecution that led to its creation, but that also gave the right of self determination to the people who lived there under colonial British rule. The Jewish diaspora and the Palestinian people could have worked together to form a single state. I understand that would have been difficult, no doubt, and I also understand the underlying concerns of the Jewish community about persecution in a state that was not solely under Jewish control. But coexistence was already happening in communities across that land, and I think a single state would have been (and still is) the only solution for a lasting peace.
Cannot fault your thinking.
But we are where we are and the United Nations decided upon a course of events some 70 years ago.
You now find yourself in the position of justifying Hamas' violence because you disagree with that United Nations resolution.
I now find myself in the position of recognising the inevitability of Hamas' violence because of the long history that led the world here. Is it justifying the sacking of the monasteries to explain why Henry VIII did what he did? No - that is history. We just happen to be living in history, and therefore explaining modern events as if they were history involves giving cause and effect. I am not saying that Hamas' violence is good; in the same way I am not saying that the violence of the Israeli state is good. I can understand why both happen. I am saying to get to a world where we have reduced violence and a peaceful solution to the Israel / Palestine conflict that is not "one side genocides the other" what decisions should have been made, and what decisions can still be made.
Yeah not sure what the fuck you are saying but I would say that if you justify violence by people if they disagree with eg UN resolutions then we are off down a slippery slope.
Do you not see a difference between "justifying" something and "explaining" something? Justifying denotes a moral defence or even a moral agreement; explaining is about discussing and recognising why things happened. I have no desire to make a moral defence of Hamas' attacks on civilians - they are immoral. As are the acts of the Israeli state. I do wish to explain why their acts are, in my view, inevitable. To say that they are inevitable is not to say they are morally good.
You yourself have said that my explanation sounds logical. What I don't understand is why you keep saying that I am "justifying" Hamas' actions. Because I have sympathy for the people of Palestine at all, or lay more cause for this at the feet of Western powers and the Israeli state than I do the people of Palestine?
You yourself said that peaceful protest is impossible. But it is only you saying that. You have made a judgement (that peaceful protest is impossible) and that judgement leads to the only other method of protest which is violence. It is your values and moral code which has lead to the justification of violence.
20 minutes into the conference perimeter and so far the only political personalities I’ve spotted are not Labour Party: Steven Norris, Tom Brake and Steve Bray.
Mr. Eagles, Mitchell's a moron. Expecting 15th century monarchs to abide by 21st century social and legal norms is akin to condemning modern day politicians for failing to follow the standard approaches of the 27th century.
I also question his grasp of the most basic tents of medieval history if he thinks Henry V was remarkable for being into war quite a lot.
Even in the 21st century the most important thing a government has to do is keep its country safe. H'aretz the Israeli newspaper has been pretty brutal in its attack on the Israeli PM for appointing incompetents to security posts. There will be a reckoning for Netanyahu - and I am not all sure that bombing Gaza is going to help him.
That most basic of governmental functions often gets lost sight of, in socieities that take peace for granted.
Better a ruthless leader who succeeds at war than a nice guy who sees his country invaded.
Hopefully, the one silver lining in this affair will be that a man who has been a cancer in Israeli politics for decades will see his career ended.
The incredible military/intel failure in Israel is ONGOING
Hamas fighters are still in Israel, killing Israelis, and still crossing the border
Guardian liveblog:
“Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus says situation is ‘dire’ in south, with Hamas still able to cross border from Gaza”
This is an existential crisis for Israel
No it isn't. Israel's military is much too strong. It will still exist in its current form this time next year, and so will its occupation of most of the lands it seized in 1967.
The half hearted efforts by Hezbollah so far in the North imply this can’t be a true Iranian proxy attack, unless they are hiding their time for a second strike. But even with two fronts this will peter out, I agree.
Question is what happens next.
You misunderstand. This is not an existential crisis for Israel because the IDF are incapable of squashing this incursion. Of course they will get it done (tho it is taking a remarkably long time)
The deeper problem for Israel - and I’d say it is now fundamental - is that there is no obvious way for them to stop this happening again, as long as Gaza exists. And if this keeps happening then investment and people will flee Israel
And it is not possible for them to obliterate Gaza, as we discussed at length last night. They are in a terrible bind
What this makes clear has essentially been what anyone sensible has been saying for decades - the only solution that doesn't kill tens of thousands of people is a peaceful two state solution. The PLO have been ready to negotiate that for a long time - it is the Israeli governments which have refused and have, indeed, made matters worse by increasing illegal settlements. As the PLO spokespeople have been saying - acts like those we have seen over the weekend have not been a question of if, but when, considering the conditions the Palestinian people have been kept in. Is it right to attack civilians, of course not. But organised, peaceful attempts - from within Palestine and outside of Palestine (think BDS) - have been made impossible.
The Clinton Parameters were probably before your time.
I would have been 9. And reading about them it seems that both the Israeli and Palestinian authorities had issues with the plan - Arafat wanted some degree of right to return for displaced people, and Israel wanted more territorial control over Jerusalem and the other areas they would have been in control of. It seems that at the beginning Palestinian concerns where quite large, but also the Knesset and right wing of the Israeli state probably wouldn't have accepted the agreement anyway.
But at the end of the day, like many similar conflicts like it throughout history, we have to understand that people when pushed to the edge of precarious living with choose to lash out violently instead of coming around the negotiating table - especially when over time they have been told again and again that there will be no negotiations. This happened in India, in Ireland, in South Africa - and many other places.
England has been lucky that, in modern history at least, there has been no full scale invasion of our country. We all know what the plans were should the Germans have invaded during WW2 - for everyone to become a guerrilla fighter, stashes of weapons and explosives hidden for civilians to pick up if needed, for a government in exile to find safe haven overseas and help coordinate the resistance movement and so on. And we know, if that had come to pass, that would have been justified: not just because it was the Nazis doing the invading, but because it would have meant a military invasion and occupation that removed the freedom of the people within the nation - to speak their language, to practice their religion, to have their will expressed in a democratic forum. We can recognise that if it were our country invaded and occupied and our people oppressed, even if it had been the case for 80 years or more, that a group doing Hamas style attacks could exist and that we would understand or even have sympathy for their cause. And we know what we would demand as freedom that would end such attacks - a sincere removal of occupying forces, a real democratic government chosen by the people, an investigation and reconciliation process, reparations and so on.
That Palestinians were offered less than that and did not scoop it up is understandable, even if the realpolitik suggested they should have. But considering Israeli state reaction to the Parameters, as well as their actions in the decades since, I think it is clear why the events we are seeing are happening.
So you are with the group of people who didn't accept those parameters. Fair enough. I can see why you would advocate violence.
In their position, had the same thing happened to England, would you or I accept those parameters? I am not in charge of a nation, I am not a representative of all my peoples. Maybe they should have done - again, I think the issue is moot because it seems the Israeli government was also not likely to accept the parameters either.
Also where in my statements did I advocate violence? I just explained a situation where I think violence has been made inevitable. Am I an advocate of gravity if I say that if I drop a stone it will fall? You can also see in my first comment that you replied to where I said "Is it right to attack civilians, of course not". But what is "right" and what will happen in certain circumstances are different things.
If we accept your logic - and maybe we should - the same standards apply to Israelis. For a long time right wing Israelis have said “you don’t understand, many Palestinians simply want us dead, they see every Jew as a legitimate target, even women and kids, and they want Israel annihilated”
After Saturday, who is to say these Israelis are wrong?
In which case it is kill or be killed. It’s that simple. And Israel is justified in annihilating Gaza or hurling them all into Egypt, just as Gazans are justified in kidnapping, raping and murdering Israeli girls
That’s your logic. And that’s where we’re heading
Israelis have been killing Palestinians, including women and girls, on a regular basis with barely a peep from the West. Here's a recent example:
Killing of innocents is a terrible thing, and those who do it need to be brought to justice. What I don't understand is why Western outrage is reserved for Israeli deaths.
Neither side is good, but it is all shades of grey rather than entirely backing one side over the other.
I read that story and think that the tragedy isn't just a dead 14 year-old, its that she lived in "Jenin refugee camp". She is 14. She is not a refugee. Neither are her parents. Or potentially their parents.
I understand that people were displaced from their homes. But it was not their country - there was no country. The idea that we have these multi-generational camps - awaiting the day when the invading Jew is removed and the Ottoman empire restored - is madness.
The status quo patently does not work. A peace will have to imposed as it cannot be negotiated, and unfortunately that will leave Israel a fortress and Gaza / chunks of the West Bank a ruin. Unless neighbouring arab states intervene and forge a settlement.
Instead of these multi-generational refugee camps, people should be offered to settle in other parts of the former empire, or to become Israeli citizens as several million already have. Israel does terrible things to people in camps like this girl, but it is not seeking death to the arab in the way that Hamas et al seek death to the Jew. Arabs are represented in in the Knesset as equals - an arab is deputy speaker FFS.
We are way past being able to do a two state solution. It will be peace on Israel's terms. Let us hope they don't decide that they need a buffer zone between them and the genocidal neighbours - because if so they will carve it out of Egypy, Jordan and Lebanon. Again.
It was their country. It was the land on which they lived and the land they were expelled from. It may not have had a formal recognition but it was still their homeland. You are simply indulging in victim blaming.
There was a United Nations resolution dividing the land and the Arabs disagreed with that Resolution and hence they invaded the newly-created Israel aiming to wipe it off the map. During the course of that war, which Israel found itself winning, Israel thought "fuck it and fuck you" and started to expel Arabs from their villages. As I noted the other day when we were discussing, like the victim of a mugging who overpowers their attacker and gives them one extra slap.
"There was a United Nations resolution dividing the land and the Arabs disagreed with that Resolution" - which is a major part of the original problem; no? The consent of the people living on the land that is now Israel, and was previously under Ottoman and then British colonial control, was not granted to partition in to two separate states. Therefore conflict was inevitable.
The UN is far from perfect but it exists precisely to determine actions in situations where there is conflict and strife and the two sides don't agree.
If not the UN then who? The Arabs? The Jews? You?
I agree - it is a difficult situation. I think that the fact that the resolution was passed with 33 votes in favour, 13 against, and 10 abstentions reflects that. I think, in such a situation, they should have gone back to the negotiation table. We are where we are, as you rightly say.
"Yoav Gallant, Israel’s defense minister, just said that he has ordered a “complete closure” of the Gaza Strip. “No electricity, no food, no water, no fuel” will be allowed into the coastal enclave, Gallant said."
Is that in itself a war crime? Israel has the sympathy of the world. It should not blow it.
It is stretching the limit for sure. However, having made a formal declaration of war, the question then becomes how much of the responsibility transfers to the other side to say, for example, organise an evacuation of people etc. Certainly, in WW1 and WW2, there were no war crimes punishments for Allied blockades.
Can't they just get everything from/head off to Egypt? Their stalwart ally in the region.
Isn’t the Gaza/Egypt situation another layer of complication to the whole thing? I must admit I am rusty on that side of it. There are reasons why Egypt won’t involve itself.
The Palestinians are not much liked by other Arab countries, judging by how they have treated them. Egypt has closed its border with Gaza. Lebanon loathed them. Jordan expelled them. It is one of the many hypocrisies that, for all the crocodile tears shed for them, very few Arab countries want to have anything to do with them.
The BBC don't help themselves...above not calling Hamas terrorists / this event a terrorist attack, stuff like this is clearly is written with a narrative in mind.
"We saw dead bodies of Hamas fighters still lying on the ground - left to rot - unlike their Israeli victims who’ve long ago been taken away for identification and burial. We watched as one Israeli driver stopped his truck so he could pick up a rock to throw at the corpse of one dead Hamas fighter."
I would suggest a big reason Israel number 1 priority isn't recovering Hamas fighter bodies is because they are often coming under fire from remaining terrorists when they are trying to recover the bodies of Israelis.
Not really. This is a few paragraphs below: ...Volunteers searching for bodies at the Supernova music festival site - where at least 260 people were killed on Saturday - have had to suspend their search because they are “under fire” from militants.
Yossi Landau, a commander in the Zaka volunteer group, says his team of 25 have so far recovered 162 bodies from the site of the festival but “couldn’t get any further”.
“We work under fire, so had to evacuate that place,” Landau told the BBC's Today programm The 600-strong volunteer group, trained by the army, works to recover all the remains of victims for religious reasons, so that the individual can be buried “as he was alive”...
There's a legitimate debate about whether that news organisations should use "terrorist" - many have chosen not to as general editorial policy - and I'd agree with you that they probably ought to in such cases.
I've had at times more sympathy for Corbyn than some on PB, but this morning's statement from him was undoubtedly the lowpoint of his career. The morning after some of the worst atrocities ever committed by Hamas was not the day for his rhetoric.
I worry that we're now about to see the Israeli atrocity phase, and have already.
Mr. Eagles, Mitchell's a moron. Expecting 15th century monarchs to abide by 21st century social and legal norms is akin to condemning modern day politicians for failing to follow the standard approaches of the 27th century.
I also question his grasp of the most basic tents of medieval history if he thinks Henry V was remarkable for being into war quite a lot.
Even in the 21st century the most important thing a government has to do is keep its country safe. H'aretz the Israeli newspaper has been pretty brutal in its attack on the Israeli PM for appointing incompetents to security posts. There will be a reckoning for Netanyahu - and I am not all sure that bombing Gaza is going to help him.
That most basic of governmental functions often gets lost sight of, in socieities that take peace for granted.
Better a ruthless leader who succeeds at war than a nice guy who sees his country invaded.
Hopefully, the one silver lining in this affair will be that a man who has been a cancer in Israeli politics for decades will see his career ended.
The incredible military/intel failure in Israel is ONGOING
Hamas fighters are still in Israel, killing Israelis, and still crossing the border
Guardian liveblog:
“Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus says situation is ‘dire’ in south, with Hamas still able to cross border from Gaza”
This is an existential crisis for Israel
No it isn't. Israel's military is much too strong. It will still exist in its current form this time next year, and so will its occupation of most of the lands it seized in 1967.
The half hearted efforts by Hezbollah so far in the North imply this can’t be a true Iranian proxy attack, unless they are hiding their time for a second strike. But even with two fronts this will peter out, I agree.
Question is what happens next.
You misunderstand. This is not an existential crisis for Israel because the IDF are incapable of squashing this incursion. Of course they will get it done (tho it is taking a remarkably long time)
The deeper problem for Israel - and I’d say it is now fundamental - is that there is no obvious way for them to stop this happening again, as long as Gaza exists. And if this keeps happening then investment and people will flee Israel
And it is not possible for them to obliterate Gaza, as we discussed at length last night. They are in a terrible bind
What this makes clear has essentially been what anyone sensible has been saying for decades - the only solution that doesn't kill tens of thousands of people is a peaceful two state solution. The PLO have been ready to negotiate that for a long time - it is the Israeli governments which have refused and have, indeed, made matters worse by increasing illegal settlements. As the PLO spokespeople have been saying - acts like those we have seen over the weekend have not been a question of if, but when, considering the conditions the Palestinian people have been kept in. Is it right to attack civilians, of course not. But organised, peaceful attempts - from within Palestine and outside of Palestine (think BDS) - have been made impossible.
The Clinton Parameters were probably before your time.
I would have been 9. And reading about them it seems that both the Israeli and Palestinian authorities had issues with the plan - Arafat wanted some degree of right to return for displaced people, and Israel wanted more territorial control over Jerusalem and the other areas they would have been in control of. It seems that at the beginning Palestinian concerns where quite large, but also the Knesset and right wing of the Israeli state probably wouldn't have accepted the agreement anyway.
But at the end of the day, like many similar conflicts like it throughout history, we have to understand that people when pushed to the edge of precarious living with choose to lash out violently instead of coming around the negotiating table - especially when over time they have been told again and again that there will be no negotiations. This happened in India, in Ireland, in South Africa - and many other places.
England has been lucky that, in modern history at least, there has been no full scale invasion of our country. We all know what the plans were should the Germans have invaded during WW2 - for everyone to become a guerrilla fighter, stashes of weapons and explosives hidden for civilians to pick up if needed, for a government in exile to find safe haven overseas and help coordinate the resistance movement and so on. And we know, if that had come to pass, that would have been justified: not just because it was the Nazis doing the invading, but because it would have meant a military invasion and occupation that removed the freedom of the people within the nation - to speak their language, to practice their religion, to have their will expressed in a democratic forum. We can recognise that if it were our country invaded and occupied and our people oppressed, even if it had been the case for 80 years or more, that a group doing Hamas style attacks could exist and that we would understand or even have sympathy for their cause. And we know what we would demand as freedom that would end such attacks - a sincere removal of occupying forces, a real democratic government chosen by the people, an investigation and reconciliation process, reparations and so on.
That Palestinians were offered less than that and did not scoop it up is understandable, even if the realpolitik suggested they should have. But considering Israeli state reaction to the Parameters, as well as their actions in the decades since, I think it is clear why the events we are seeing are happening.
So you are with the group of people who didn't accept those parameters. Fair enough. I can see why you would advocate violence.
In their position, had the same thing happened to England, would you or I accept those parameters? I am not in charge of a nation, I am not a representative of all my peoples. Maybe they should have done - again, I think the issue is moot because it seems the Israeli government was also not likely to accept the parameters either.
Also where in my statements did I advocate violence? I just explained a situation where I think violence has been made inevitable. Am I an advocate of gravity if I say that if I drop a stone it will fall? You can also see in my first comment that you replied to where I said "Is it right to attack civilians, of course not". But what is "right" and what will happen in certain circumstances are different things.
If we accept your logic - and maybe we should - the same standards apply to Israelis. For a long time right wing Israelis have said “you don’t understand, many Palestinians simply want us dead, they see every Jew as a legitimate target, even women and kids, and they want Israel annihilated”
After Saturday, who is to say these Israelis are wrong?
In which case it is kill or be killed. It’s that simple. And Israel is justified in annihilating Gaza or hurling them all into Egypt, just as Gazans are justified in kidnapping, raping and murdering Israeli girls
That’s your logic. And that’s where we’re heading
Israelis have been killing Palestinians, including women and girls, on a regular basis with barely a peep from the West. Here's a recent example:
Killing of innocents is a terrible thing, and those who do it need to be brought to justice. What I don't understand is why Western outrage is reserved for Israeli deaths.
Neither side is good, but it is all shades of grey rather than entirely backing one side over the other.
I read that story and think that the tragedy isn't just a dead 14 year-old, its that she lived in "Jenin refugee camp". She is 14. She is not a refugee. Neither are her parents. Or potentially their parents.
I understand that people were displaced from their homes. But it was not their country - there was no country. The idea that we have these multi-generational camps - awaiting the day when the invading Jew is removed and the Ottoman empire restored - is madness.
The status quo patently does not work. A peace will have to imposed as it cannot be negotiated, and unfortunately that will leave Israel a fortress and Gaza / chunks of the West Bank a ruin. Unless neighbouring arab states intervene and forge a settlement.
Instead of these multi-generational refugee camps, people should be offered to settle in other parts of the former empire, or to become Israeli citizens as several million already have. Israel does terrible things to people in camps like this girl, but it is not seeking death to the arab in the way that Hamas et al seek death to the Jew. Arabs are represented in in the Knesset as equals - an arab is deputy speaker FFS.
We are way past being able to do a two state solution. It will be peace on Israel's terms. Let us hope they don't decide that they need a buffer zone between them and the genocidal neighbours - because if so they will carve it out of Egypy, Jordan and Lebanon. Again.
It was their country. It was the land on which they lived and the land they were expelled from. It may not have had a formal recognition but it was still their homeland. You are simply indulging in victim blaming.
There was a United Nations resolution dividing the land and the Arabs disagreed with that Resolution and hence they invaded the newly-created Israel aiming to wipe it off the map. During the course of that war, which Israel found itself winning, Israel thought "fuck it and fuck you" and started to expel Arabs from their villages. As I noted the other day when we were discussing, like the victim of a mugging who overpowers their attacker and gives them one extra slap.
You keep trying to shift the discussion because you know (or should know) you are in the wrong. This (Rochdale's comment and my reply) is not about the invasion by the neighbouring coutries it is about the status of the [people who actually lived on that land and their descendents.
Oh and to answer your rather purile analogy, under the law in this country any violence beyond that necessary for simple defence is assualt. As plenty of people have found out to their cost in the past.
You were wrong the other day (mostly becaue you didn't bother to actually check what was being discussed before you jumped in with both feet) and you are wrong now (for a very similar reason)
You said "it was their country and they were expelled from it" but I don't know what you are referring to. Or who. Are you talking about 1948 or 1967 or 1973 (or 800BC). Whose land and when were they expelled.
Hence, I brought up UN 181 because that might be what you were referring to (who knows). I also said that in the midst of the war following UN 181 Israel expelled Arabs from their villages. Context is important. It was in the middle of a war wherein Israel was fighting for its existence. Wars often determine borders and this is one of those situations, which even the UN doesn't dispute.
So I'm not sure what you are trying to say but a) you are failing to say it; and b) you are wrong.
They can win in the “court of public opinion”. They can also win by forcing Arab states to side, more overtly, with Palestine
They will lose the immediate military conflict, for sure
No one can predict the long term. We are in a new and unprecedented phase
Yes, Israel will crush Hamas and wreak its revenge in the short term. In the long term, though, with the US hegemony slowly waning as China and India become more powerful and as new technologies like drones and AI reduce military differentials, who knows how long Israel will be able to maintain its supremacy in the region.
Well you know what happens in the long term, though, don't you.
20 minutes into the conference perimeter and so far the only political personalities I’ve spotted are not Labour Party: Steven Norris, Tom Brake and Steve Bray.
Steve Bray is an absolute bell end.
One assumes that his inane activities are funded by someone. What a waste of a life, standing right shouting into the ether moronically.
(Far better posting rubbish on an obscure political betting website).
I've had at times more sympathy for Corbyn than some on PB, but this morning's statement from him was undoubtedly the lowpoint of his career. The morning after some of the worst atrocities ever committed by Hamas was not the day for his rhetoric.
I worry that we're now about to see the Israeli atrocity phase, and have already.
Jezza sees the world through this overly simplified lens.....there are oppressors and oppressed. The wrong doings of oppressed are always as a result of the actions of the oppressors. Hence his inability to overtly and unequivocally criticise these events, and why he ends up being friends with some evil people.
"Yoav Gallant, Israel’s defense minister, just said that he has ordered a “complete closure” of the Gaza Strip. “No electricity, no food, no water, no fuel” will be allowed into the coastal enclave, Gallant said."
So they’re going to starve them out including the children .
I've decided to go swimming occasionally. To book certain swimming sessions at a local leisure centre, you need to be a member, so I created an account online. I used a relatively secure password; long, with some special characters (e.g. &, ^ etc).
When I went into the centre last Monday to pick up my card, I was told they could not create one as my password had special characters in it. I'm unsure why my password prevented them from creating a fob for the account, but never mind. I was told to change my password.
Except to change the password, you need to enter the old password ... which the system does not accept (even though I could create a password for it). So I tried the 'forgotten password' email system: only for my account to become locked.
After a week and three visits to the centre, I think it's finally fixed...
"Yoav Gallant, Israel’s defense minister, just said that he has ordered a “complete closure” of the Gaza Strip. “No electricity, no food, no water, no fuel” will be allowed into the coastal enclave, Gallant said."
So they’re going to starve them out including the children .
Why can't they bring food supplies in via Egypt?
Or just bring the food in along with the missiles... I assume the missiles aren't coming in via Israel?
Mr. Eagles, Mitchell's a moron. Expecting 15th century monarchs to abide by 21st century social and legal norms is akin to condemning modern day politicians for failing to follow the standard approaches of the 27th century.
I also question his grasp of the most basic tents of medieval history if he thinks Henry V was remarkable for being into war quite a lot.
Even in the 21st century the most important thing a government has to do is keep its country safe. H'aretz the Israeli newspaper has been pretty brutal in its attack on the Israeli PM for appointing incompetents to security posts. There will be a reckoning for Netanyahu - and I am not all sure that bombing Gaza is going to help him.
That most basic of governmental functions often gets lost sight of, in socieities that take peace for granted.
Better a ruthless leader who succeeds at war than a nice guy who sees his country invaded.
Hopefully, the one silver lining in this affair will be that a man who has been a cancer in Israeli politics for decades will see his career ended.
The incredible military/intel failure in Israel is ONGOING
Hamas fighters are still in Israel, killing Israelis, and still crossing the border
Guardian liveblog:
“Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus says situation is ‘dire’ in south, with Hamas still able to cross border from Gaza”
This is an existential crisis for Israel
No it isn't. Israel's military is much too strong. It will still exist in its current form this time next year, and so will its occupation of most of the lands it seized in 1967.
The half hearted efforts by Hezbollah so far in the North imply this can’t be a true Iranian proxy attack, unless they are hiding their time for a second strike. But even with two fronts this will peter out, I agree.
Question is what happens next.
You misunderstand. This is not an existential crisis for Israel because the IDF are incapable of squashing this incursion. Of course they will get it done (tho it is taking a remarkably long time)
The deeper problem for Israel - and I’d say it is now fundamental - is that there is no obvious way for them to stop this happening again, as long as Gaza exists. And if this keeps happening then investment and people will flee Israel
And it is not possible for them to obliterate Gaza, as we discussed at length last night. They are in a terrible bind
What this makes clear has essentially been what anyone sensible has been saying for decades - the only solution that doesn't kill tens of thousands of people is a peaceful two state solution. The PLO have been ready to negotiate that for a long time - it is the Israeli governments which have refused and have, indeed, made matters worse by increasing illegal settlements. As the PLO spokespeople have been saying - acts like those we have seen over the weekend have not been a question of if, but when, considering the conditions the Palestinian people have been kept in. Is it right to attack civilians, of course not. But organised, peaceful attempts - from within Palestine and outside of Palestine (think BDS) - have been made impossible.
I think it is reasonable to expect Palestinian self-styled freedom fighters to keep to the rules of war. Keep to military targets and avoid civilian casualties as much as possible.
If they had done so I think they would find they had a lot more sympathy in the West. I don't accept that the brutal targeting of civilians we have seen is an inevitable consequence of occupation.
Why - they have been the inevitable consequences of previous occupations; again, Ireland, India, South Africa: all had civilian targets and casualties.
Again - let's go to my thought experiment I previously mentioned of an occupied England 80 years after WW2 (and, for the sake of argument, let us remove the spectre of Nazism - not because fascism is not an extra existential threat, but because I want to highlight a reaction to any military occupation, not just a fascist one). Do you think "English freedom fighters" would not target, say, Berlin or Munich or even a German run London or Manchester? That, after 80 years of occupation, they might kidnap German citizens who were present in England - even if they had nothing to do directly with the occupation? I think it is clearly inevitable; ideologically, because those civilians would represent occupation as much as the state or military, but also strategically, because they would be easier to target and you could leverage them easier than a politician or a soldier.
The IRA were not paragons of virtue, and many civilians were killed by the IRA, but did you know that they also often gave warnings before their bomb attacks on economic targets, because their objective was not, in general, to cause the indiscriminate slaughter of civilians.
It's not accurate to to draw an equivalence between the IRA and Hamas. The objective of the IRA was to defeat the British government. The objective of Hamas is to kill every Jew who does not flee from Israel.
But that is not the view of every Palestinian who turns to Hamas. Hamas also do a lot of on the ground work to look after Palestinian civilians - you can say this is a cynical ploy or is a sincere concern for their people - but either way the incentive structure for Palestinian support of Hamas and their tactics exists because the incentive to support the PLO or another peaceful solution keeps getting closed down. And I'm pretty sure many members of the IRA wanted no English people on the island of Ireland.
There are doubtless still people in Ireland today who would be hostile towards an English man like myself living among them (not that I've met any), and there were brutal attacks carried out by the IRA, but it was never the policy of the IRA to exterminate every English person living in Ireland, as opposed to decreasing the British government and forcing a British withdrawal.
It's not remotely comparable. It's incredibly insulting actually.
This just feels like some exceptionalist thinking - I'm pretty sure the IRA wanted every English person out of Ireland and I don't see how that is particularly distinct from Hamas wanting every Israeli Jewish person out of the land they view as theirs. Is your position that because the IRA didn't want to kill every English person on Irish soil that this is somehow distinct? If that was the only option available to them, I think they would have taken it.
Sounds logical. So in your view there should not be an Israel in the Middle East have I got that right?
I mean, I think there were multiple solutions to the so called "Jewish Question" of the 20th century - the first and foremost being that the countries with a history of persecuting Jewish people and mass state sponsored anti Semitism should all have a good hard look at themselves and make their countries welcome places for Jewish people rather than deciding that having one Jewish state would be a better solution (indeed, many non Jewish people liked the idea of a single Jewish state specifically because they were anti Semites who wanted somewhere to send all the Jewish people in their countries).
To the degree that I believe any state should exist (they shouldn't, but I'm not going to get into that utopian position) I believe that if Israel was to exist in the Middle East that partitioning land based on ethnic and religious grounds was the wrong thing to do, and the better option would have been a multicultural state that recognised the specific history of Jewish persecution that led to its creation, but that also gave the right of self determination to the people who lived there under colonial British rule. The Jewish diaspora and the Palestinian people could have worked together to form a single state. I understand that would have been difficult, no doubt, and I also understand the underlying concerns of the Jewish community about persecution in a state that was not solely under Jewish control. But coexistence was already happening in communities across that land, and I think a single state would have been (and still is) the only solution for a lasting peace.
Cannot fault your thinking.
But we are where we are and the United Nations decided upon a course of events some 70 years ago.
You now find yourself in the position of justifying Hamas' violence because you disagree with that United Nations resolution.
I now find myself in the position of recognising the inevitability of Hamas' violence because of the long history that led the world here. Is it justifying the sacking of the monasteries to explain why Henry VIII did what he did? No - that is history. We just happen to be living in history, and therefore explaining modern events as if they were history involves giving cause and effect. I am not saying that Hamas' violence is good; in the same way I am not saying that the violence of the Israeli state is good. I can understand why both happen. I am saying to get to a world where we have reduced violence and a peaceful solution to the Israel / Palestine conflict that is not "one side genocides the other" what decisions should have been made, and what decisions can still be made.
Yeah not sure what the fuck you are saying but I would say that if you justify violence by people if they disagree with eg UN resolutions then we are off down a slippery slope.
Do you not see a difference between "justifying" something and "explaining" something? Justifying denotes a moral defence or even a moral agreement; explaining is about discussing and recognising why things happened. I have no desire to make a moral defence of Hamas' attacks on civilians - they are immoral. As are the acts of the Israeli state. I do wish to explain why their acts are, in my view, inevitable. To say that they are inevitable is not to say they are morally good.
You yourself have said that my explanation sounds logical. What I don't understand is why you keep saying that I am "justifying" Hamas' actions. Because I have sympathy for the people of Palestine at all, or lay more cause for this at the feet of Western powers and the Israeli state than I do the people of Palestine?
You yourself said that peaceful protest is impossible. But it is only you saying that. You have made a judgement (that peaceful protest is impossible) and that judgement leads to the only other method of protest which is violence. It is your values and moral code which has lead to the justification of violence.
I see. I say the avenues of peaceful protest are impossible because of the actions of both the state of Israel and other state actors. In similar historical situations, for instance South Africa, individuals have campaigned outside of state power for things like BDS. In this instance many states are making BDS of Israel illegal or very difficult - this means that instead of states allowing the democratic actions of people or organisations to have an effect on foreign policy, as has happened in the past, the state is dictating to the people that this is unacceptable. As for peaceful protest of Palestinians in the occupied territories - they will be shot. We have seen this happen again and again. In philosophy it is generally accepted that a decision made at the point of a gun, or with a general threat to life or safety, is not a free choice. So when I say peaceful protest is impossible, I am saying that the typical avenues for political change have been blocked. The will for political change exists - within the Palestinian people themselves but also across the world. So how is that will going to be expressed? Some people, feeling that political change is impossible via peaceful means by looking at the political conditions as they exist, will turn to violence - as violence is also a proven method of forcing political change.
Do you think that there is a path for a equitable solution to the Israel / Palestine conflict through peaceful means under our current political conditions?
20 minutes into the conference perimeter and so far the only political personalities I’ve spotted are not Labour Party: Steven Norris, Tom Brake and Steve Bray.
Steve Bray is an absolute bell end.
You’ll be delighted to know that the fourth person I spotted was kimono-clad fox-botherer Jolyon Maughan.
20 minutes into the conference perimeter and so far the only political personalities I’ve spotted are not Labour Party: Steven Norris, Tom Brake and Steve Bray.
Steve Bray is an absolute bell end.
One assumes that his inane activities are funded by someone. What a waste of a life, standing right shouting into the ether moronically.
(Far better posting rubbish on an obscure political betting website).
Pimlico Plumber bloke was bankrolling him for a quite a while. For a long time he was been rented a flat near Westminster for him (I believe a neighbour of Jacob Ress-Mogg), so he could always be there.
20 minutes into the conference perimeter and so far the only political personalities I’ve spotted are not Labour Party: Steven Norris, Tom Brake and Steve Bray.
Steve Bray is an absolute bell end.
You’ll be delighted to know that the fourth person I spotted was kimono-clad fox-botherer Jolyon Maughan.
With that sort of guest list, you would have to pay me serious money to attend.....
Mr. Eagles, Mitchell's a moron. Expecting 15th century monarchs to abide by 21st century social and legal norms is akin to condemning modern day politicians for failing to follow the standard approaches of the 27th century.
I also question his grasp of the most basic tents of medieval history if he thinks Henry V was remarkable for being into war quite a lot.
Even in the 21st century the most important thing a government has to do is keep its country safe. H'aretz the Israeli newspaper has been pretty brutal in its attack on the Israeli PM for appointing incompetents to security posts. There will be a reckoning for Netanyahu - and I am not all sure that bombing Gaza is going to help him.
That most basic of governmental functions often gets lost sight of, in socieities that take peace for granted.
Better a ruthless leader who succeeds at war than a nice guy who sees his country invaded.
Hopefully, the one silver lining in this affair will be that a man who has been a cancer in Israeli politics for decades will see his career ended.
The incredible military/intel failure in Israel is ONGOING
Hamas fighters are still in Israel, killing Israelis, and still crossing the border
Guardian liveblog:
“Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus says situation is ‘dire’ in south, with Hamas still able to cross border from Gaza”
This is an existential crisis for Israel
No it isn't. Israel's military is much too strong. It will still exist in its current form this time next year, and so will its occupation of most of the lands it seized in 1967.
The half hearted efforts by Hezbollah so far in the North imply this can’t be a true Iranian proxy attack, unless they are hiding their time for a second strike. But even with two fronts this will peter out, I agree.
Question is what happens next.
You misunderstand. This is not an existential crisis for Israel because the IDF are incapable of squashing this incursion. Of course they will get it done (tho it is taking a remarkably long time)
The deeper problem for Israel - and I’d say it is now fundamental - is that there is no obvious way for them to stop this happening again, as long as Gaza exists. And if this keeps happening then investment and people will flee Israel
And it is not possible for them to obliterate Gaza, as we discussed at length last night. They are in a terrible bind
What this makes clear has essentially been what anyone sensible has been saying for decades - the only solution that doesn't kill tens of thousands of people is a peaceful two state solution. The PLO have been ready to negotiate that for a long time - it is the Israeli governments which have refused and have, indeed, made matters worse by increasing illegal settlements. As the PLO spokespeople have been saying - acts like those we have seen over the weekend have not been a question of if, but when, considering the conditions the Palestinian people have been kept in. Is it right to attack civilians, of course not. But organised, peaceful attempts - from within Palestine and outside of Palestine (think BDS) - have been made impossible.
The Clinton Parameters were probably before your time.
I would have been 9. And reading about them it seems that both the Israeli and Palestinian authorities had issues with the plan - Arafat wanted some degree of right to return for displaced people, and Israel wanted more territorial control over Jerusalem and the other areas they would have been in control of. It seems that at the beginning Palestinian concerns where quite large, but also the Knesset and right wing of the Israeli state probably wouldn't have accepted the agreement anyway.
But at the end of the day, like many similar conflicts like it throughout history, we have to understand that people when pushed to the edge of precarious living with choose to lash out violently instead of coming around the negotiating table - especially when over time they have been told again and again that there will be no negotiations. This happened in India, in Ireland, in South Africa - and many other places.
England has been lucky that, in modern history at least, there has been no full scale invasion of our country. We all know what the plans were should the Germans have invaded during WW2 - for everyone to become a guerrilla fighter, stashes of weapons and explosives hidden for civilians to pick up if needed, for a government in exile to find safe haven overseas and help coordinate the resistance movement and so on. And we know, if that had come to pass, that would have been justified: not just because it was the Nazis doing the invading, but because it would have meant a military invasion and occupation that removed the freedom of the people within the nation - to speak their language, to practice their religion, to have their will expressed in a democratic forum. We can recognise that if it were our country invaded and occupied and our people oppressed, even if it had been the case for 80 years or more, that a group doing Hamas style attacks could exist and that we would understand or even have sympathy for their cause. And we know what we would demand as freedom that would end such attacks - a sincere removal of occupying forces, a real democratic government chosen by the people, an investigation and reconciliation process, reparations and so on.
That Palestinians were offered less than that and did not scoop it up is understandable, even if the realpolitik suggested they should have. But considering Israeli state reaction to the Parameters, as well as their actions in the decades since, I think it is clear why the events we are seeing are happening.
So you are with the group of people who didn't accept those parameters. Fair enough. I can see why you would advocate violence.
In their position, had the same thing happened to England, would you or I accept those parameters? I am not in charge of a nation, I am not a representative of all my peoples. Maybe they should have done - again, I think the issue is moot because it seems the Israeli government was also not likely to accept the parameters either.
Also where in my statements did I advocate violence? I just explained a situation where I think violence has been made inevitable. Am I an advocate of gravity if I say that if I drop a stone it will fall? You can also see in my first comment that you replied to where I said "Is it right to attack civilians, of course not". But what is "right" and what will happen in certain circumstances are different things.
If we accept your logic - and maybe we should - the same standards apply to Israelis. For a long time right wing Israelis have said “you don’t understand, many Palestinians simply want us dead, they see every Jew as a legitimate target, even women and kids, and they want Israel annihilated”
After Saturday, who is to say these Israelis are wrong?
In which case it is kill or be killed. It’s that simple. And Israel is justified in annihilating Gaza or hurling them all into Egypt, just as Gazans are justified in kidnapping, raping and murdering Israeli girls
That’s your logic. And that’s where we’re heading
Israelis have been killing Palestinians, including women and girls, on a regular basis with barely a peep from the West. Here's a recent example:
Killing of innocents is a terrible thing, and those who do it need to be brought to justice. What I don't understand is why Western outrage is reserved for Israeli deaths.
Neither side is good, but it is all shades of grey rather than entirely backing one side over the other.
I read that story and think that the tragedy isn't just a dead 14 year-old, its that she lived in "Jenin refugee camp". She is 14. She is not a refugee. Neither are her parents. Or potentially their parents.
I understand that people were displaced from their homes. But it was not their country - there was no country. The idea that we have these multi-generational camps - awaiting the day when the invading Jew is removed and the Ottoman empire restored - is madness.
The status quo patently does not work. A peace will have to imposed as it cannot be negotiated, and unfortunately that will leave Israel a fortress and Gaza / chunks of the West Bank a ruin. Unless neighbouring arab states intervene and forge a settlement.
Instead of these multi-generational refugee camps, people should be offered to settle in other parts of the former empire, or to become Israeli citizens as several million already have. Israel does terrible things to people in camps like this girl, but it is not seeking death to the arab in the way that Hamas et al seek death to the Jew. Arabs are represented in in the Knesset as equals - an arab is deputy speaker FFS.
We are way past being able to do a two state solution. It will be peace on Israel's terms. Let us hope they don't decide that they need a buffer zone between them and the genocidal neighbours - because if so they will carve it out of Egypy, Jordan and Lebanon. Again.
It was their country. It was the land on which they lived and the land they were expelled from. It may not have had a formal recognition but it was still their homeland. You are simply indulging in victim blaming.
There was a United Nations resolution dividing the land and the Arabs disagreed with that Resolution and hence they invaded the newly-created Israel aiming to wipe it off the map. During the course of that war, which Israel found itself winning, Israel thought "fuck it and fuck you" and started to expel Arabs from their villages. As I noted the other day when we were discussing, like the victim of a mugging who overpowers their attacker and gives them one extra slap.
You keep trying to shift the discussion because you know (or should know) you are in the wrong. This (Rochdale's comment and my reply) is not about the invasion by the neighbouring coutries it is about the status of the [people who actually lived on that land and their descendents.
Oh and to answer your rather purile analogy, under the law in this country any violence beyond that necessary for simple defence is assualt. As plenty of people have found out to their cost in the past.
You were wrong the other day (mostly becaue you didn't bother to actually check what was being discussed before you jumped in with both feet) and you are wrong now (for a very similar reason)
You said "it was their country and they were expelled from it" but I don't know what you are referring to. Or who. Are you talking about 1948 or 1967 or 1973 (or 800BC). Whose land and when were they expelled.
Hence, I brought up UN 181 because that might be what you were referring to (who knows). I also said that in the midst of the war following UN 181 Israel expelled Arabs from their villages. Context is important. It was in the middle of a war wherein Israel was fighting for its existence. Wars often determine borders and this is one of those situations, which even the UN doesn't dispute.
So I'm not sure what you are trying to say but a) you are failing to say it; and b) you are wrong.
There are people, alive today, who left their house during peace times and came back to find other people living in their house with IDF soldiers protecting them.
If that isn't individuals being expelled from their land - what is?
Just to assist in the general understanding of the site (your welcome) here is the text of UN Resolution 181.
This is Clause 3.
3.Independent Arab and Jewish States and the Special International Regime for the City of Jerusalem, set forth in part III of this plan, shall come into existence in Palestine two months after the evacuation of the armed forces of the mandatory Power has been completed but in any case not later than 1 October 1948. The boundaries of the Arab State, the Jewish State, and the City of Jerusalem shall be as described in parts II and III below.
This is what the history books state happened after it was enacted:
"After Israel declared its independence on May 14, 1948, the fighting intensified with other Arab forces joining the Palestinian Arabs in attacking territory in the former Palestinian mandate. On the eve of May 14, the Arabs launched an air attack on Tel Aviv, which the Israelis resisted. This action was followed by the invasion of the former Palestinian mandate by Arab armies from Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Egypt. Saudi Arabia sent a formation that fought under the Egyptian command. British trained forces from Transjordan eventually intervened in the conflict, but only in areas that had been designated as part of the Arab state under the United Nations Partition Plan and the corpus separatum of Jerusalem. After tense early fighting, Israeli forces, now under joint command, were able to gain the offensive."
Mr. Eagles, Mitchell's a moron. Expecting 15th century monarchs to abide by 21st century social and legal norms is akin to condemning modern day politicians for failing to follow the standard approaches of the 27th century.
I also question his grasp of the most basic tents of medieval history if he thinks Henry V was remarkable for being into war quite a lot.
Even in the 21st century the most important thing a government has to do is keep its country safe. H'aretz the Israeli newspaper has been pretty brutal in its attack on the Israeli PM for appointing incompetents to security posts. There will be a reckoning for Netanyahu - and I am not all sure that bombing Gaza is going to help him.
That most basic of governmental functions often gets lost sight of, in socieities that take peace for granted.
Better a ruthless leader who succeeds at war than a nice guy who sees his country invaded.
Hopefully, the one silver lining in this affair will be that a man who has been a cancer in Israeli politics for decades will see his career ended.
The incredible military/intel failure in Israel is ONGOING
Hamas fighters are still in Israel, killing Israelis, and still crossing the border
Guardian liveblog:
“Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus says situation is ‘dire’ in south, with Hamas still able to cross border from Gaza”
This is an existential crisis for Israel
No it isn't. Israel's military is much too strong. It will still exist in its current form this time next year, and so will its occupation of most of the lands it seized in 1967.
The half hearted efforts by Hezbollah so far in the North imply this can’t be a true Iranian proxy attack, unless they are hiding their time for a second strike. But even with two fronts this will peter out, I agree.
Question is what happens next.
You misunderstand. This is not an existential crisis for Israel because the IDF are incapable of squashing this incursion. Of course they will get it done (tho it is taking a remarkably long time)
The deeper problem for Israel - and I’d say it is now fundamental - is that there is no obvious way for them to stop this happening again, as long as Gaza exists. And if this keeps happening then investment and people will flee Israel
And it is not possible for them to obliterate Gaza, as we discussed at length last night. They are in a terrible bind
What this makes clear has essentially been what anyone sensible has been saying for decades - the only solution that doesn't kill tens of thousands of people is a peaceful two state solution. The PLO have been ready to negotiate that for a long time - it is the Israeli governments which have refused and have, indeed, made matters worse by increasing illegal settlements. As the PLO spokespeople have been saying - acts like those we have seen over the weekend have not been a question of if, but when, considering the conditions the Palestinian people have been kept in. Is it right to attack civilians, of course not. But organised, peaceful attempts - from within Palestine and outside of Palestine (think BDS) - have been made impossible.
The Clinton Parameters were probably before your time.
I would have been 9. And reading about them it seems that both the Israeli and Palestinian authorities had issues with the plan - Arafat wanted some degree of right to return for displaced people, and Israel wanted more territorial control over Jerusalem and the other areas they would have been in control of. It seems that at the beginning Palestinian concerns where quite large, but also the Knesset and right wing of the Israeli state probably wouldn't have accepted the agreement anyway.
But at the end of the day, like many similar conflicts like it throughout history, we have to understand that people when pushed to the edge of precarious living with choose to lash out violently instead of coming around the negotiating table - especially when over time they have been told again and again that there will be no negotiations. This happened in India, in Ireland, in South Africa - and many other places.
England has been lucky that, in modern history at least, there has been no full scale invasion of our country. We all know what the plans were should the Germans have invaded during WW2 - for everyone to become a guerrilla fighter, stashes of weapons and explosives hidden for civilians to pick up if needed, for a government in exile to find safe haven overseas and help coordinate the resistance movement and so on. And we know, if that had come to pass, that would have been justified: not just because it was the Nazis doing the invading, but because it would have meant a military invasion and occupation that removed the freedom of the people within the nation - to speak their language, to practice their religion, to have their will expressed in a democratic forum. We can recognise that if it were our country invaded and occupied and our people oppressed, even if it had been the case for 80 years or more, that a group doing Hamas style attacks could exist and that we would understand or even have sympathy for their cause. And we know what we would demand as freedom that would end such attacks - a sincere removal of occupying forces, a real democratic government chosen by the people, an investigation and reconciliation process, reparations and so on.
That Palestinians were offered less than that and did not scoop it up is understandable, even if the realpolitik suggested they should have. But considering Israeli state reaction to the Parameters, as well as their actions in the decades since, I think it is clear why the events we are seeing are happening.
So you are with the group of people who didn't accept those parameters. Fair enough. I can see why you would advocate violence.
In their position, had the same thing happened to England, would you or I accept those parameters? I am not in charge of a nation, I am not a representative of all my peoples. Maybe they should have done - again, I think the issue is moot because it seems the Israeli government was also not likely to accept the parameters either.
Also where in my statements did I advocate violence? I just explained a situation where I think violence has been made inevitable. Am I an advocate of gravity if I say that if I drop a stone it will fall? You can also see in my first comment that you replied to where I said "Is it right to attack civilians, of course not". But what is "right" and what will happen in certain circumstances are different things.
If we accept your logic - and maybe we should - the same standards apply to Israelis. For a long time right wing Israelis have said “you don’t understand, many Palestinians simply want us dead, they see every Jew as a legitimate target, even women and kids, and they want Israel annihilated”
After Saturday, who is to say these Israelis are wrong?
In which case it is kill or be killed. It’s that simple. And Israel is justified in annihilating Gaza or hurling them all into Egypt, just as Gazans are justified in kidnapping, raping and murdering Israeli girls
That’s your logic. And that’s where we’re heading
Israelis have been killing Palestinians, including women and girls, on a regular basis with barely a peep from the West. Here's a recent example:
Killing of innocents is a terrible thing, and those who do it need to be brought to justice. What I don't understand is why Western outrage is reserved for Israeli deaths.
Neither side is good, but it is all shades of grey rather than entirely backing one side over the other.
I read that story and think that the tragedy isn't just a dead 14 year-old, its that she lived in "Jenin refugee camp". She is 14. She is not a refugee. Neither are her parents. Or potentially their parents.
I understand that people were displaced from their homes. But it was not their country - there was no country. The idea that we have these multi-generational camps - awaiting the day when the invading Jew is removed and the Ottoman empire restored - is madness.
The status quo patently does not work. A peace will have to imposed as it cannot be negotiated, and unfortunately that will leave Israel a fortress and Gaza / chunks of the West Bank a ruin. Unless neighbouring arab states intervene and forge a settlement.
Instead of these multi-generational refugee camps, people should be offered to settle in other parts of the former empire, or to become Israeli citizens as several million already have. Israel does terrible things to people in camps like this girl, but it is not seeking death to the arab in the way that Hamas et al seek death to the Jew. Arabs are represented in in the Knesset as equals - an arab is deputy speaker FFS.
We are way past being able to do a two state solution. It will be peace on Israel's terms. Let us hope they don't decide that they need a buffer zone between them and the genocidal neighbours - because if so they will carve it out of Egypy, Jordan and Lebanon. Again.
It was their country. It was the land on which they lived and the land they were expelled from. It may not have had a formal recognition but it was still their homeland. You are simply indulging in victim blaming.
There was a United Nations resolution dividing the land and the Arabs disagreed with that Resolution and hence they invaded the newly-created Israel aiming to wipe it off the map. During the course of that war, which Israel found itself winning, Israel thought "fuck it and fuck you" and started to expel Arabs from their villages. As I noted the other day when we were discussing, like the victim of a mugging who overpowers their attacker and gives them one extra slap.
You keep trying to shift the discussion because you know (or should know) you are in the wrong. This (Rochdale's comment and my reply) is not about the invasion by the neighbouring coutries it is about the status of the [people who actually lived on that land and their descendents.
Oh and to answer your rather purile analogy, under the law in this country any violence beyond that necessary for simple defence is assualt. As plenty of people have found out to their cost in the past.
You were wrong the other day (mostly becaue you didn't bother to actually check what was being discussed before you jumped in with both feet) and you are wrong now (for a very similar reason)
There is a pretty big difference between the land and the legality. There were Palestinians - have been for millennia. But there was no Palestine state - the Ottoman Empire followed by a LoN carve-up. People talk about the green line or border lines of various dates but in reality none of those are relevant any more - just as nobody tries to go back to previous boundaries of a country like Poland.
I support the right of arab Palestinians to live in peace and security as much as I do the same for the Israelis. But refugee camps with 3rd and 4th generation people is a failure of the region and the other arab states, and what they point to is an alternative where Israel is swept off the map into the sea.
We are where we are. Whatever the rights and wrongs of how we got here, you can't stuff the genie back in the bottle. Forwards, not Backwards. And Gaza as a terrorist prison camp is no longer tenable. No other state in the region wants ownership (and Egypt has a closed border as well), but other states are happy to train and arm them to attack Israel.
So it will have to be swept clean, with all that entails, because peace is not possible and detente is not possible. I feel awful for the genuine civilians there who will suffer the consequences of the weeks to come, but what alternative is there now? What negotiation would Hamas enter into? With what demands? Its impossible. This is total war to the end. Sadly.
Just to assist in the general understanding of the site (your welcome) here is the text of UN Resolution 181.
This is Clause 3.
3.Independent Arab and Jewish States and the Special International Regime for the City of Jerusalem, set forth in part III of this plan, shall come into existence in Palestine two months after the evacuation of the armed forces of the mandatory Power has been completed but in any case not later than 1 October 1948. The boundaries of the Arab State, the Jewish State, and the City of Jerusalem shall be as described in parts II and III below.
This is what the history books state happened after it was enacted:
"After Israel declared its independence on May 14, 1948, the fighting intensified with other Arab forces joining the Palestinian Arabs in attacking territory in the former Palestinian mandate. On the eve of May 14, the Arabs launched an air attack on Tel Aviv, which the Israelis resisted. This action was followed by the invasion of the former Palestinian mandate by Arab armies from Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Egypt. Saudi Arabia sent a formation that fought under the Egyptian command. British trained forces from Transjordan eventually intervened in the conflict, but only in areas that had been designated as part of the Arab state under the United Nations Partition Plan and the corpus separatum of Jerusalem. After tense early fighting, Israeli forces, now under joint command, were able to gain the offensive."
A vote of countries predominantly under the sphere of influence of the USA and other Western powers over the objections of predominantly post colonial and geographically close countries led to the countries that bordering the newly created state to fight on behalf of the people who were going to be forcibly moved into a new state against their will.
I don't know where you live, @TOPPING, but I'm sure if Parliament voted to move you, specifically, from where you live and to move you elsewhere in the country - a place where you have no home, no family and no connections - you would probably kick up a fuss, as would your friends and family and neighbours. I also wonder, if the police kicked in the door of your house to do this, whether you would physically resist those officers, or if the people around you would do the same. Parliament possibly has the legal power to make that policy decision, and if they do the police would possibly have the legal power to treat you thusly. But would it be right, and would the reaction of you and your friends, family, neighbours not be understandable?
Mr. Eagles, Mitchell's a moron. Expecting 15th century monarchs to abide by 21st century social and legal norms is akin to condemning modern day politicians for failing to follow the standard approaches of the 27th century.
I also question his grasp of the most basic tents of medieval history if he thinks Henry V was remarkable for being into war quite a lot.
Even in the 21st century the most important thing a government has to do is keep its country safe. H'aretz the Israeli newspaper has been pretty brutal in its attack on the Israeli PM for appointing incompetents to security posts. There will be a reckoning for Netanyahu - and I am not all sure that bombing Gaza is going to help him.
That most basic of governmental functions often gets lost sight of, in socieities that take peace for granted.
Better a ruthless leader who succeeds at war than a nice guy who sees his country invaded.
Hopefully, the one silver lining in this affair will be that a man who has been a cancer in Israeli politics for decades will see his career ended.
The incredible military/intel failure in Israel is ONGOING
Hamas fighters are still in Israel, killing Israelis, and still crossing the border
Guardian liveblog:
“Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus says situation is ‘dire’ in south, with Hamas still able to cross border from Gaza”
This is an existential crisis for Israel
No it isn't. Israel's military is much too strong. It will still exist in its current form this time next year, and so will its occupation of most of the lands it seized in 1967.
The half hearted efforts by Hezbollah so far in the North imply this can’t be a true Iranian proxy attack, unless they are hiding their time for a second strike. But even with two fronts this will peter out, I agree.
Question is what happens next.
You misunderstand. This is not an existential crisis for Israel because the IDF are incapable of squashing this incursion. Of course they will get it done (tho it is taking a remarkably long time)
The deeper problem for Israel - and I’d say it is now fundamental - is that there is no obvious way for them to stop this happening again, as long as Gaza exists. And if this keeps happening then investment and people will flee Israel
And it is not possible for them to obliterate Gaza, as we discussed at length last night. They are in a terrible bind
What this makes clear has essentially been what anyone sensible has been saying for decades - the only solution that doesn't kill tens of thousands of people is a peaceful two state solution. The PLO have been ready to negotiate that for a long time - it is the Israeli governments which have refused and have, indeed, made matters worse by increasing illegal settlements. As the PLO spokespeople have been saying - acts like those we have seen over the weekend have not been a question of if, but when, considering the conditions the Palestinian people have been kept in. Is it right to attack civilians, of course not. But organised, peaceful attempts - from within Palestine and outside of Palestine (think BDS) - have been made impossible.
The Clinton Parameters were probably before your time.
I would have been 9. And reading about them it seems that both the Israeli and Palestinian authorities had issues with the plan - Arafat wanted some degree of right to return for displaced people, and Israel wanted more territorial control over Jerusalem and the other areas they would have been in control of. It seems that at the beginning Palestinian concerns where quite large, but also the Knesset and right wing of the Israeli state probably wouldn't have accepted the agreement anyway.
But at the end of the day, like many similar conflicts like it throughout history, we have to understand that people when pushed to the edge of precarious living with choose to lash out violently instead of coming around the negotiating table - especially when over time they have been told again and again that there will be no negotiations. This happened in India, in Ireland, in South Africa - and many other places.
England has been lucky that, in modern history at least, there has been no full scale invasion of our country. We all know what the plans were should the Germans have invaded during WW2 - for everyone to become a guerrilla fighter, stashes of weapons and explosives hidden for civilians to pick up if needed, for a government in exile to find safe haven overseas and help coordinate the resistance movement and so on. And we know, if that had come to pass, that would have been justified: not just because it was the Nazis doing the invading, but because it would have meant a military invasion and occupation that removed the freedom of the people within the nation - to speak their language, to practice their religion, to have their will expressed in a democratic forum. We can recognise that if it were our country invaded and occupied and our people oppressed, even if it had been the case for 80 years or more, that a group doing Hamas style attacks could exist and that we would understand or even have sympathy for their cause. And we know what we would demand as freedom that would end such attacks - a sincere removal of occupying forces, a real democratic government chosen by the people, an investigation and reconciliation process, reparations and so on.
That Palestinians were offered less than that and did not scoop it up is understandable, even if the realpolitik suggested they should have. But considering Israeli state reaction to the Parameters, as well as their actions in the decades since, I think it is clear why the events we are seeing are happening.
So you are with the group of people who didn't accept those parameters. Fair enough. I can see why you would advocate violence.
In their position, had the same thing happened to England, would you or I accept those parameters? I am not in charge of a nation, I am not a representative of all my peoples. Maybe they should have done - again, I think the issue is moot because it seems the Israeli government was also not likely to accept the parameters either.
Also where in my statements did I advocate violence? I just explained a situation where I think violence has been made inevitable. Am I an advocate of gravity if I say that if I drop a stone it will fall? You can also see in my first comment that you replied to where I said "Is it right to attack civilians, of course not". But what is "right" and what will happen in certain circumstances are different things.
If we accept your logic - and maybe we should - the same standards apply to Israelis. For a long time right wing Israelis have said “you don’t understand, many Palestinians simply want us dead, they see every Jew as a legitimate target, even women and kids, and they want Israel annihilated”
After Saturday, who is to say these Israelis are wrong?
In which case it is kill or be killed. It’s that simple. And Israel is justified in annihilating Gaza or hurling them all into Egypt, just as Gazans are justified in kidnapping, raping and murdering Israeli girls
That’s your logic. And that’s where we’re heading
Israelis have been killing Palestinians, including women and girls, on a regular basis with barely a peep from the West. Here's a recent example:
Killing of innocents is a terrible thing, and those who do it need to be brought to justice. What I don't understand is why Western outrage is reserved for Israeli deaths.
Neither side is good, but it is all shades of grey rather than entirely backing one side over the other.
I read that story and think that the tragedy isn't just a dead 14 year-old, its that she lived in "Jenin refugee camp". She is 14. She is not a refugee. Neither are her parents. Or potentially their parents.
I understand that people were displaced from their homes. But it was not their country - there was no country. The idea that we have these multi-generational camps - awaiting the day when the invading Jew is removed and the Ottoman empire restored - is madness.
The status quo patently does not work. A peace will have to imposed as it cannot be negotiated, and unfortunately that will leave Israel a fortress and Gaza / chunks of the West Bank a ruin. Unless neighbouring arab states intervene and forge a settlement.
Instead of these multi-generational refugee camps, people should be offered to settle in other parts of the former empire, or to become Israeli citizens as several million already have. Israel does terrible things to people in camps like this girl, but it is not seeking death to the arab in the way that Hamas et al seek death to the Jew. Arabs are represented in in the Knesset as equals - an arab is deputy speaker FFS.
We are way past being able to do a two state solution. It will be peace on Israel's terms. Let us hope they don't decide that they need a buffer zone between them and the genocidal neighbours - because if so they will carve it out of Egypy, Jordan and Lebanon. Again.
It was their country. It was the land on which they lived and the land they were expelled from. It may not have had a formal recognition but it was still their homeland. You are simply indulging in victim blaming.
There was a United Nations resolution dividing the land and the Arabs disagreed with that Resolution and hence they invaded the newly-created Israel aiming to wipe it off the map. During the course of that war, which Israel found itself winning, Israel thought "fuck it and fuck you" and started to expel Arabs from their villages. As I noted the other day when we were discussing, like the victim of a mugging who overpowers their attacker and gives them one extra slap.
You keep trying to shift the discussion because you know (or should know) you are in the wrong. This (Rochdale's comment and my reply) is not about the invasion by the neighbouring coutries it is about the status of the [people who actually lived on that land and their descendents.
Oh and to answer your rather purile analogy, under the law in this country any violence beyond that necessary for simple defence is assualt. As plenty of people have found out to their cost in the past.
You were wrong the other day (mostly becaue you didn't bother to actually check what was being discussed before you jumped in with both feet) and you are wrong now (for a very similar reason)
You said "it was their country and they were expelled from it" but I don't know what you are referring to. Or who. Are you talking about 1948 or 1967 or 1973 (or 800BC). Whose land and when were they expelled.
Hence, I brought up UN 181 because that might be what you were referring to (who knows). I also said that in the midst of the war following UN 181 Israel expelled Arabs from their villages. Context is important. It was in the middle of a war wherein Israel was fighting for its existence. Wars often determine borders and this is one of those situations, which even the UN doesn't dispute.
So I'm not sure what you are trying to say but a) you are failing to say it; and b) you are wrong.
Yes, Palestine wasn't a land. As has been pointed out, it was part of the Ottoman Empire and then the League of Nations.
Probably the closest comparable with what happened in 1948 was the population shifts that happened post-WW2 (and indeed post-WW1). In that context, the Israelis evicting the Palestinians was not unusual - the Czechs, Poles, Romanians etc did it with the Volksdeutsche.
What was unusual was that, unlike the latter, the Palestinians had no formal territory to go into nor, as has been stated before, did any other Arab nation want them.
20 minutes into the conference perimeter and so far the only political personalities I’ve spotted are not Labour Party: Steven Norris, Tom Brake and Steve Bray.
Steve Bray is an absolute bell end.
You’ll be delighted to know that the fourth person I spotted was kimono-clad fox-botherer Jolyon Maughan.
20 minutes into the conference perimeter and so far the only political personalities I’ve spotted are not Labour Party: Steven Norris, Tom Brake and Steve Bray.
Steve Bray is an absolute bell end.
You’ll be delighted to know that the fourth person I spotted was kimono-clad fox-botherer Jolyon Maughan.
Just to assist in the general understanding of the site (your welcome) here is the text of UN Resolution 181.
This is Clause 3.
3.Independent Arab and Jewish States and the Special International Regime for the City of Jerusalem, set forth in part III of this plan, shall come into existence in Palestine two months after the evacuation of the armed forces of the mandatory Power has been completed but in any case not later than 1 October 1948. The boundaries of the Arab State, the Jewish State, and the City of Jerusalem shall be as described in parts II and III below.
This is what the history books state happened after it was enacted:
"After Israel declared its independence on May 14, 1948, the fighting intensified with other Arab forces joining the Palestinian Arabs in attacking territory in the former Palestinian mandate. On the eve of May 14, the Arabs launched an air attack on Tel Aviv, which the Israelis resisted. This action was followed by the invasion of the former Palestinian mandate by Arab armies from Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Egypt. Saudi Arabia sent a formation that fought under the Egyptian command. British trained forces from Transjordan eventually intervened in the conflict, but only in areas that had been designated as part of the Arab state under the United Nations Partition Plan and the corpus separatum of Jerusalem. After tense early fighting, Israeli forces, now under joint command, were able to gain the offensive."
A vote of countries predominantly under the sphere of influence of the USA and other Western powers over the objections of predominantly post colonial and geographically close countries led to the countries that bordering the newly created state to fight on behalf of the people who were going to be forcibly moved into a new state against their will.
I don't know where you live, @TOPPING, but I'm sure if Parliament voted to move you, specifically, from where you live and to move you elsewhere in the country - a place where you have no home, no family and no connections - you would probably kick up a fuss, as would your friends and family and neighbours. I also wonder, if the police kicked in the door of your house to do this, whether you would physically resist those officers, or if the people around you would do the same. Parliament possibly has the legal power to make that policy decision, and if they do the police would possibly have the legal power to treat you thusly. But would it be right, and would the reaction of you and your friends, family, neighbours not be understandable?
The views of the various Arab monarchies and dictatorships carried no more moral or legal weight than the views of the USA, USSR, and European nations.
Not just Maomentum....I'm shouting at my telly.....we want to get rid of corrupt dodgy f##kers from politics....looks like we are just swapping one lot for reformation of the other lot.
Just to assist in the general understanding of the site (your welcome) here is the text of UN Resolution 181.
This is Clause 3.
3.Independent Arab and Jewish States and the Special International Regime for the City of Jerusalem, set forth in part III of this plan, shall come into existence in Palestine two months after the evacuation of the armed forces of the mandatory Power has been completed but in any case not later than 1 October 1948. The boundaries of the Arab State, the Jewish State, and the City of Jerusalem shall be as described in parts II and III below.
This is what the history books state happened after it was enacted:
"After Israel declared its independence on May 14, 1948, the fighting intensified with other Arab forces joining the Palestinian Arabs in attacking territory in the former Palestinian mandate. On the eve of May 14, the Arabs launched an air attack on Tel Aviv, which the Israelis resisted. This action was followed by the invasion of the former Palestinian mandate by Arab armies from Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Egypt. Saudi Arabia sent a formation that fought under the Egyptian command. British trained forces from Transjordan eventually intervened in the conflict, but only in areas that had been designated as part of the Arab state under the United Nations Partition Plan and the corpus separatum of Jerusalem. After tense early fighting, Israeli forces, now under joint command, were able to gain the offensive."
A vote of countries predominantly under the sphere of influence of the USA and other Western powers over the objections of predominantly post colonial and geographically close countries led to the countries that bordering the newly created state to fight on behalf of the people who were going to be forcibly moved into a new state against their will.
I don't know where you live, @TOPPING, but I'm sure if Parliament voted to move you, specifically, from where you live and to move you elsewhere in the country - a place where you have no home, no family and no connections - you would probably kick up a fuss, as would your friends and family and neighbours. I also wonder, if the police kicked in the door of your house to do this, whether you would physically resist those officers, or if the people around you would do the same. Parliament possibly has the legal power to make that policy decision, and if they do the police would possibly have the legal power to treat you thusly. But would it be right, and would the reaction of you and your friends, family, neighbours not be understandable?
Parliament did precisely that to enable HS2. I don't think raping and brutalising relatives of the police sent to enforce the law of compulsory purchases would have been a reasonable or expected response to that, no.
Everybody I disagree with should just shut the fuck up
But how do you know who they are in advance, if they don't say what they think?
The intractability of the Palestine issue has got me thinking about the endless bickering on here, and how it goes nowhere, and if there's anything we can do about it
So this is my solution. Before you comment, think to yourself, "would Leon possibly disagree with this", and if the answer is remotely near "Yes" - THEN SHUT THE FUCK UP
Simples. The genius of this proposal is that it should be self policing, and it will reduce the acrimony on here by at least 64.8%
Everybody I disagree with should just shut the fuck up
But how do you know who they are in advance, if they don't say what they think?
The intractability of the Palestine issue has got me thinking about the endless bickering on here, and how it goes nowhere, and if there's anything we can do about it
So this is my solution. Before you comment, think to yourself, "would Leon possibly disagree with this", and if the answer is remotely near "Yes" - THEN SHUT THE FUCK UP
Simples. The genius of this proposal is that it should be self policing, and it will reduce the acrimony on here by at least 64.8%
If that's going to work then we'd need precise and current readings of your blood alcohol levels.
Everybody I disagree with should just shut the fuck up
But how do you know who they are in advance, if they don't say what they think?
The intractability of the Palestine issue has got me thinking about the endless bickering on here, and how it goes nowhere, and if there's anything we can do about it
So this is my solution. Before you comment, think to yourself, "would Leon possibly disagree with this", and if the answer is remotely near "Yes" - THEN SHUT THE FUCK UP
Simples. The genius of this proposal is that it should be self policing, and it will reduce the acrimony on here by at least 64.8%
If that's going to work then we'd need precise and current readings of your blood alcohol levels.
Are they not pegged pretty well to the hour of the day? We'd only need his current timezone for that.
Everybody I disagree with should just shut the fuck up
But how do you know who they are in advance, if they don't say what they think?
The intractability of the Palestine issue has got me thinking about the endless bickering on here, and how it goes nowhere, and if there's anything we can do about it
So this is my solution. Before you comment, think to yourself, "would Leon possibly disagree with this", and if the answer is remotely near "Yes" - THEN SHUT THE FUCK UP
Simples. The genius of this proposal is that it should be self policing, and it will reduce the acrimony on here by at least 64.8%
The thing is, politics in this country is actually pretty settled; there is probably more that the Conservatives and Labour agree with than disagree with, and the disagreements are often about tiny matters - hence stupidity like the pasty tax.
I’ve spent the last 12 hours speaking to Israelis who were at the Supernova music festival. Their testimonies, as you would imagine, are very emotional.
Everybody I disagree with should just shut the fuck up
But how do you know who they are in advance, if they don't say what they think?
The intractability of the Palestine issue has got me thinking about the endless bickering on here, and how it goes nowhere, and if there's anything we can do about it
So this is my solution. Before you comment, think to yourself, "would Leon possibly disagree with this", and if the answer is remotely near "Yes" - THEN SHUT THE FUCK UP
Simples. The genius of this proposal is that it should be self policing, and it will reduce the acrimony on here by at least 64.8%
My personal view is that both lighting up buildings in Israeli colours, are mass marches in Palestinian colours, are the wrong road for inhabitants of Western nations.
These are two damaged nations on the wrong path, and we should not be importing the level of polarisation their conflict has reached at, here. I say this as someone married into a Jewish family, several of whom on several occasions, have said much the same to me.
Everybody I disagree with should just shut the fuck up
But how do you know who they are in advance, if they don't say what they think?
The intractability of the Palestine issue has got me thinking about the endless bickering on here, and how it goes nowhere, and if there's anything we can do about it
So this is my solution. Before you comment, think to yourself, "would Leon possibly disagree with this", and if the answer is remotely near "Yes" - THEN SHUT THE FUCK UP
Simples. The genius of this proposal is that it should be self policing, and it will reduce the acrimony on here by at least 64.8%
How do you get to 64.8%.
I think you made that up.
Apparently 33.65% of all stats are made up
Bullshit. I get so ***ing annoyed when people say that. It's actually 33.23%.
20 minutes into the conference perimeter and so far the only political personalities I’ve spotted are not Labour Party: Steven Norris, Tom Brake and Steve Bray.
Steve Bray is an absolute bell end.
You’ll be delighted to know that the fourth person I spotted was kimono-clad fox-botherer Jolyon Maughan.
Does the 'back of a fag packet' joke work for younger viewers? Is that still a phrase people under 30 use?
Under 30s on the group chat: apparently they "still call ciggies fags" and most know what that phrase means. Sample size of 4, based in North London and Hertfordshire.
oh FFS now shes promising more laws to stop government doing budgeets without OBR approval
Fking moron and a flavour of what Starmer will look like in government endless laws.
So outsourcing economic policy to an unelected quango....also these kind of moves are so stupid in that if a new party comes in, they can simply reverse them under the guise of it is too restrictive / complicated / hampering decision making.
Elected officials, make decisions, then the electorate can judge if they were a success or not.
oh FFS now shes promising more laws to stop government doing budgeets without OBR approval
Fking moron and a flavour of what Starmer will look like in government endless laws.
So outsourcing economic policy to an unelected quango....also these kind of moves are so stupid in that if a new party comes in, they can simply reverse them under the guise of it is too restrictive / complicated / hampering decision making.
If thats the best Labour can do I truly despair.
Now shes in to banning the gimmicks which will bite her in the arse when if government
oh FFS now shes promising more laws to stop government doing budgeets without OBR approval
Fking moron and a flavour of what Starmer will look like in government endless laws.
All that will happen is that the OBR will be appointed by the government to tell them what they want to hear, and then used as an excuse when things go wrong.
"Well, the OBR said it would be OK, so this crash can't possibly be our fault".
They do also seem to be wedded to the idea that making something a law will ensure it happens. Like targets, only more so.
oh FFS now shes promising more laws to stop government doing budgeets without OBR approval
Fking moron and a flavour of what Starmer will look like in government endless laws.
So outsourcing economic policy to an unelected quango....also these kind of moves are so stupid in that if a new party comes in, they can simply reverse them under the guise of it is too restrictive / complicated / hampering decision making.
Elected officials, make decisions, then the electorate can judge if they were a success or not.
The OBR doesn't make fiscal policy. It simply produces forecasts of the policies' impact on the economy, free from political interference. I would say the creation of the OBR and gay marriage are the only government policy successes since 2010. It's great that Labour will strengthen the OBR.
“In this new age of insecurity, it is no longer enough for government to turn a blind eye to where things are made or who is making them,” she says.
That's a bit Brexity.....Also, going to be fascinating how you achieve this transformation without impoverishing everybody, well at very least tell them they can't have that £5 dress of Shein every week etc.
We are really going to stand up to the likes of China, I will believe it when I see it.
oh FFS now shes promising more laws to stop government doing budgeets without OBR approval
Fking moron and a flavour of what Starmer will look like in government endless laws.
So outsourcing economic policy to an unelected quango....also these kind of moves are so stupid in that if a new party comes in, they can simply reverse them under the guise of it is too restrictive / complicated / hampering decision making.
Elected officials, make decisions, then the electorate can judge if they were a success or not.
The OBR doesn't make fiscal policy. It simply produces forecasts of the policies' impact on the economy, free from political interference. I would say the creation of the OBR and gay marriage are the only government policy successes since 2010. It's great that Labour will strengthen the OBR.
There's no such thing as a politics free economic forecast.
oh FFS now shes promising more laws to stop government doing budgeets without OBR approval
Fking moron and a flavour of what Starmer will look like in government endless laws.
So outsourcing economic policy to an unelected quango....also these kind of moves are so stupid in that if a new party comes in, they can simply reverse them under the guise of it is too restrictive / complicated / hampering decision making.
Elected officials, make decisions, then the electorate can judge if they were a success or not.
The OBR doesn't make fiscal policy. It simply produces forecasts of the policies' impact on the economy, free from political interference. I would say the creation of the OBR and gay marriage are the only government policy successes since 2010. It's great that Labour will strengthen the OBR.
The OBR is about as successful at predicting as I am at predicting horse racing results.
Does the 'back of a fag packet' joke work for younger viewers? Is that still a phrase people under 30 use?
Under 30s on the group chat: apparently they "still call ciggies fags" and most know what that phrase means. Sample size of 4, based in North London and Hertfordshire.
Young people mostly smoke rollies and refer to regular cigarettes as "straights".
oh FFS now shes promising more laws to stop government doing budgeets without OBR approval
Fking moron and a flavour of what Starmer will look like in government endless laws.
So outsourcing economic policy to an unelected quango....also these kind of moves are so stupid in that if a new party comes in, they can simply reverse them under the guise of it is too restrictive / complicated / hampering decision making.
Elected officials, make decisions, then the electorate can judge if they were a success or not.
It's pointless because no Parliament can bind its successor, but I think it's rather corrosive to good governance, because it's saying that the government can't trust itself to do the right thing without a law that forces them to do so.
That feeds the idea that it's fine for people to do whatever they like, and it's only a problem if they get caught. That people are not expected to exercise self-restraint, good judgement and a reasonable regard for the effect of their actions on others. And the consequence of that is the necessity of total surveillance to catch people when they break the law, and a flood of laws to regulate the minutiae of people's lives.
"Yoav Gallant, Israel’s defense minister, just said that he has ordered a “complete closure” of the Gaza Strip. “No electricity, no food, no water, no fuel” will be allowed into the coastal enclave, Gallant said."
So they’re going to starve them out including the children .
Countries at war don't normally provide goods and services to those they are fighting. Britain didn't.
It will of course be awful for the innocents caught up in this.
Comments
They will lose the immediate military conflict, for sure
No one can predict the long term. We are in a new and unprecedented phase
Cross-reference that with Peter Zeihan (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZ0IUCMpgEE) and how the US is withdrawing from global hegemony because increased US self-sufficiency renders global entanglement unnecessary, and we have a situation where countries make war on other countries.
The 2020's is going to be messy.
I agree the climate challenge will be progressive.
If not the UN then who? The Arabs? The Jews? You?
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2023/oct/09/labour-party-conference-rachel-reeves-planning-building-infrastructure-uk-politics-live
...Here is the Labour summary of the reforms that the party is proposing.
Speeding up the planning for critically important infrastructure by updating all national policy statements – which set out what types of projects the country needs – within the first six months of a Labour government.
Fast-tracking the planning process for priority growth areas of the economy, such as battery factories, laboratories, and 5G infrastructure.
Ensuring local communities get something back by providing businesses and communities with a menu of potential incentives, which could include cheaper energy bills.
Tackling unnecessary, egregious, and time-consuming litigation by setting clearer national guidance for developers on the engagement and consultation expected with local communities.
Strengthening public sector capacity to expedite planning decisions by raising the stamp duty surcharge on non-UK residents to appoint 300 new planning officers...
"We saw dead bodies of Hamas fighters still lying on the ground - left to rot - unlike their Israeli victims who’ve long ago been taken away for identification and burial. We watched as one Israeli driver stopped his truck so he could pick up a rock to throw at the corpse of one dead Hamas fighter."
I would suggest a big reason Israel number 1 priority isn't recovering Hamas fighter bodies is because they are often coming under fire from remaining terrorists when they are trying to recover the bodies of Israelis.
The UN Resolution was an attempt to split the difference between them. It might not ever have worked, but neighbouring Arab States never gave it the chance to work.
You yourself have said that my explanation sounds logical. What I don't understand is why you keep saying that I am "justifying" Hamas' actions. Because I have sympathy for the people of Palestine at all, or lay more cause for this at the feet of Western powers and the Israeli state than I do the people of Palestine?
Until Hamas changes its mind, the dreary dreadful cycle of violence from Hamas and Israel will continue.
It is supposed to be designed to shoot down targets on approach.
-> They are much better prepared than anybody ever expected.
https://x.com/mylordbebo/status/1711323082684813438?s=61&t=GGp3Vs1t1kTWDiyA-odnZg
Oh and to answer your rather purile analogy, under the law in this country any violence beyond that necessary for simple defence is assualt. As plenty of people have found out to their cost in the past.
You were wrong the other day (mostly becaue you didn't bother to actually check what was being discussed before you jumped in with both feet) and you are wrong now (for a very similar reason)
This is a few paragraphs below:
...Volunteers searching for bodies at the Supernova music festival site - where at least 260 people were killed on Saturday - have had to suspend their search because they are “under fire” from militants.
Yossi Landau, a commander in the Zaka volunteer group, says his team of 25 have so far recovered 162 bodies from the site of the festival but “couldn’t get any further”.
“We work under fire, so had to evacuate that place,” Landau told the BBC's Today programm
The 600-strong volunteer group, trained by the army, works to recover all the remains of victims for religious reasons, so that the individual can be buried “as he was alive”...
There's a legitimate debate about whether that news organisations should use "terrorist" - many have chosen not to as general editorial policy - and I'd agree with you that they probably ought to in such cases.
I worry that we're now about to see the Israeli atrocity phase, and have already.
Hence, I brought up UN 181 because that might be what you were referring to (who knows). I also said that in the midst of the war following UN 181 Israel expelled Arabs from their villages. Context is important. It was in the middle of a war wherein Israel was fighting for its existence. Wars often determine borders and this is one of those situations, which even the UN doesn't dispute.
So I'm not sure what you are trying to say but a) you are failing to say it; and b) you are wrong.
(Far better posting rubbish on an obscure political betting website).
I've decided to go swimming occasionally. To book certain swimming sessions at a local leisure centre, you need to be a member, so I created an account online. I used a relatively secure password; long, with some special characters (e.g. &, ^ etc).
When I went into the centre last Monday to pick up my card, I was told they could not create one as my password had special characters in it. I'm unsure why my password prevented them from creating a fob for the account, but never mind. I was told to change my password.
Except to change the password, you need to enter the old password ... which the system does not accept (even though I could create a password for it). So I tried the 'forgotten password' email system: only for my account to become locked.
After a week and three visits to the centre, I think it's finally fixed...
Do you think that there is a path for a equitable solution to the Israel / Palestine conflict through peaceful means under our current political conditions?
If that isn't individuals being expelled from their land - what is?
This is Clause 3.
3.Independent Arab and Jewish States and the Special International Regime for the City of Jerusalem, set forth in part III of this plan, shall come into existence in Palestine two months after the evacuation of the armed forces of the mandatory Power has been completed but in any case not later than 1 October 1948. The boundaries of the Arab State, the Jewish State, and the City of Jerusalem shall be as described in parts II and III below.
This is what the history books state happened after it was enacted:
"After Israel declared its independence on May 14, 1948, the fighting intensified with other Arab forces joining the Palestinian Arabs in attacking territory in the former Palestinian mandate. On the eve of May 14, the Arabs launched an air attack on Tel Aviv, which the Israelis resisted. This action was followed by the invasion of the former Palestinian mandate by Arab armies from Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Egypt. Saudi Arabia sent a formation that fought under the Egyptian command. British trained forces from Transjordan eventually intervened in the conflict, but only in areas that had been designated as part of the Arab state under the United Nations Partition Plan and the corpus separatum of Jerusalem. After tense early fighting, Israeli forces, now under joint command, were able to gain the offensive."
I support the right of arab Palestinians to live in peace and security as much as I do the same for the Israelis. But refugee camps with 3rd and 4th generation people is a failure of the region and the other arab states, and what they point to is an alternative where Israel is swept off the map into the sea.
We are where we are. Whatever the rights and wrongs of how we got here, you can't stuff the genie back in the bottle. Forwards, not Backwards. And Gaza as a terrorist prison camp is no longer tenable. No other state in the region wants ownership (and Egypt has a closed border as well), but other states are happy to train and arm them to attack Israel.
So it will have to be swept clean, with all that entails, because peace is not possible and detente is not possible. I feel awful for the genuine civilians there who will suffer the consequences of the weeks to come, but what alternative is there now? What negotiation would Hamas enter into? With what demands? Its impossible. This is total war to the end. Sadly.
I don't know where you live, @TOPPING, but I'm sure if Parliament voted to move you, specifically, from where you live and to move you elsewhere in the country - a place where you have no home, no family and no connections - you would probably kick up a fuss, as would your friends and family and neighbours. I also wonder, if the police kicked in the door of your house to do this, whether you would physically resist those officers, or if the people around you would do the same. Parliament possibly has the legal power to make that policy decision, and if they do the police would possibly have the legal power to treat you thusly. But would it be right, and would the reaction of you and your friends, family, neighbours not be understandable?
Probably the closest comparable with what happened in 1948 was the population shifts that happened post-WW2 (and indeed post-WW1). In that context, the Israelis evicting the Palestinians was not unusual - the Czechs, Poles, Romanians etc did it with the Volksdeutsche.
What was unusual was that, unlike the latter, the Palestinians had no formal territory to go into nor, as has been stated before, did any other Arab nation want them.
Labour pointing out that Rachel Reeves will be the first female Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1000 years, I see.
I wonder if that bodes well for a new job for Liz Truss in the next 6 months?
Is Rishi *that* desperate?
And will do it only for investment
Just like Gordon Brown
ROFL
Momentum will all be shouting at the telly.
In fact, this approach is already very popular in Tehran and Moscow.
And increasingly in Western social media too, ofcourse.
Do you?
I'm looking forward to this opening.
So this is my solution. Before you comment, think to yourself, "would Leon possibly disagree with this", and if the answer is remotely near "Yes" - THEN SHUT THE FUCK UP
Simples. The genius of this proposal is that it should be self policing, and it will reduce the acrimony on here by at least 64.8%
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/09/encrochat-crime-encryption-drugs-murder-prison-1200/
Now the party which butchered manufacturing thinks its a good thing.
Youre just 20 years too late
https://x.com/dailytelegraph/status/1711328284880064896
I’ve spent the last 12 hours speaking to Israelis who were at the Supernova music festival. Their testimonies, as you would imagine, are very emotional.
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/israel-music-festival-massacre-eyewitness-account
I think you made that up.
Apparently 33.65% of all stats are made up
These are two damaged nations on the wrong path, and we should not be importing the level of polarisation their conflict has reached at, here. I say this as someone married into a Jewish family, several of whom on several occasions, have said much the same to me.
oh FFS now shes promising more laws to stop government doing budgeets without OBR approval
Fking moron and a flavour of what Starmer will look like in government endless laws.
Elected officials, make decisions, then the electorate can judge if they were a success or not.
Now shes in to banning the gimmicks which will bite her in the arse when if government
Labour targeting the UK's Pear-Shaped demographic ! Apples go hang.
"Well, the OBR said it would be OK, so this crash can't possibly be our fault".
They do also seem to be wedded to the idea that making something a law will ensure it happens. Like targets, only more so.
Bon appetit
I would say the creation of the OBR and gay marriage are the only government policy successes since 2010. It's great that Labour will strengthen the OBR.
“In this new age of insecurity, it is no longer enough for government to turn a blind eye to where things are made or who is making them,” she says.
That's a bit Brexity.....Also, going to be fascinating how you achieve this transformation without impoverishing everybody, well at very least tell them they can't have that £5 dress of Shein every week etc.
We are really going to stand up to the likes of China, I will believe it when I see it.
Reeves is a numpty
That feeds the idea that it's fine for people to do whatever they like, and it's only a problem if they get caught. That people are not expected to exercise self-restraint, good judgement and a reasonable regard for the effect of their actions on others. And the consequence of that is the necessity of total surveillance to catch people when they break the law, and a flood of laws to regulate the minutiae of people's lives.
It will of course be awful for the innocents caught up in this.
Absolutely bizarre, she has more hostages to fortune and shes not even in office.