For decades, UK governments from all 3 parties have had a foreign policy supporting a rules-based international order, and a domestic law forbidding war crimes. Yet multiple people here have, in recent days, advocated that Israel should commit war crimes. (And they're not defending Israel's actions. They're calling for Israel to go further than they currently are.)
Can I ask these people: why didn't you speak out against the UK's policy in favour of a rules-based International order and against war crimes? If war crimes don't exist or they're fine in some circumstances, shouldn't we have said that decades ago?
It was customary for UK govts not to lie to Parliament about going to war.
Then New Labour gave us Iraq, all HMGs lost their credibility at that point
Eden basically had to resign over lying repeatedly to Parliament about Suez, you half-wit.
Blair didnt and I can do without the insult unless you want to make it less civil.
We fought a war in Malaysia from 1948 to 1960 and forgot to mention it to Parliament at all. And we won. Both parties didn’t see an upside in talking about it.
Wasn't a war - just an "emergency" [edit] in the term of the time, of course. (It, or something like it, did break out again a few years later. But let's call that a separate un-war.).
Quite a few of my friends felt they’d wasted two years of their lives out there!
Yes the Ottoman Empire was a fucking multinational multi faith paradise. Except for the Jews and Christians who had to pay a tax to exist. And the Balkan people who had their children stolen every year. And the black castrated slaves imported by the millions. Apart from THAT it was all lovely and brilliant and everything bad is because of the Brits and the Americans. And the Jews
In a world where Pelion shit is piled incessantly on Ossa shit, one of the few unambiguously good achievements of the Conservative administration (not Sunak's bit, obviously) has been the steady stream of new train stations. Headbolt Lane opened on the 5th. Geoff Marshall went to visit.
New lines as well (slowly catching up with Scotland and Wales...). The Oakhampton line reopened recently, and the Northumberland Loop is being worked on. The Camps Hill Line near Birmingham *should* reopen next year, and there's murmurings about the Portishead Line.
The most demented people on social media are those who were offended by Laurence’s Fox’s comments about a female journalist yet celebrate women getting raped and murdered by a terrorist organisation. https://twitter.com/francisjfoster/status/1711421487620542958
For decades, UK governments from all 3 parties have had a foreign policy supporting a rules-based international order, and a domestic law forbidding war crimes. Yet multiple people here have, in recent days, advocated that Israel should commit war crimes. (And they're not defending Israel's actions. They're calling for Israel to go further than they currently are.)
Can I ask these people: why didn't you speak out against the UK's policy in favour of a rules-based International order and against war crimes? If war crimes don't exist or they're fine in some circumstances, shouldn't we have said that decades ago?
It was customary for UK govts not to lie to Parliament about going to war.
Then New Labour gave us Iraq, all HMGs lost their credibility at that point
Eden basically had to resign over lying repeatedly to Parliament about Suez, you half-wit.
Blair didnt and I can do without the insult unless you want to make it less civil.
We fought a war in Malaysia from 1948 to 1960 and forgot to mention it to Parliament at all. And we won. Both parties didn’t see an upside in talking about it.
Wasn't a war - just an "emergency" [edit] in the term of the time, of course. (It, or something like it, did break out again a few years later. But let's call that a separate un-war.).
Quite a few of my friends felt they’d wasted two years of their lives out there!
My father had a hell of a time there. Shagged for England. Including the Colonel's daughter.
Didn't do anything good for his marriage to my mother though.
The fact that Israel has the ability to cut off power , water and food supplies to Gaza highlights one of the issues that have bred hatred .
Hamas lives off the hatred . Children are brought up with the hatred and it’s just a repeating cycle.
There are still those on both sides who wanted a peaceful resolution , sadly that’s been consigned to the bin for yet more years .
Israel can raze Gaza to the ground but the hatred will remain .
But if the Israelis can somehow shift the Gazans into Egypt, then the hatred will be further away, and the chances of Hamas repeating their spectacular incursion will be greatly minimised
I do wonder if that is what the Israelis are planning. I don't see any other point in wading into Gaza at the cost of many thousands of lives, quite a few of them Israeli
Will Egypt accept them ? The whole situation is just awful. There are no good outcomes here .
Absolutely. No good outcomes
If Egypt seals the border (and they have tightened control this morning) then Israel will be left with a cornered population unable to go anywhere. What then?
I may be wrong and this isn't the Israeli plan, but then I am bewildered as to what Israel thinks it can achieve with ANOTHER invasion that does nothing but stir up evermore enmity. It simply ensures further attacks down the line
As I said last night, they might possibly be planning a renewed Occupation of Gaza, with Israel in control, and the reintroduction of Israeli settlers, who will act as a de facto spy network and military police, so October 7 is not repeated. But that's damnably tricky and could so easily go wrong
The final possibility is that Israel doesn't have a plan. It is acting in a spirit of pure revenge
With whom would they negotiate? Hamas is the *government* of Gaza. Israel has declared war on Gaza amd it shouldn't be a surprise - its *government* has launched these attacks.
So the Israeli goal will I believe be simple - remove Hamas as a threat. How they achieve that is tricky, but they won't just be pushing the cross-border terrorists back into their prison.
Removal of Hamas - and the Hamas state - has to be the goal. And that will largely mean the killing of anyone who is Hamas, supports Hamas, lives near Hamas. It is going to be awful - war usually is. Especially when the aggressor is pledged to the extermination of the other side.
That may be Israel’s strategy. That (“killing of anyone who […] lives near Hamas”) would clearly be a war crime and we, as in the UK, should do everything we can to stop war crimes. We cannot criticise Russia for war crimes in Ukraine and wave through Israel, or Hamas, committing war crimes.
Here’s a simple rule of thumb: war crimes are bad. Don’t carry out war crimes. Don’t respond to say crimes with more war crimes. Why is that a proposition that some on PB struggle with?
"war crimes" is a fantasy. There is/are no such thing. They only exist for the winners in war.
The fact that they are typically enforced against the vanquished rather than the victors doesn't mean they aren't a "thing".
They are reasonably clearly defined by international convention, and provide at least some incentive to moderate the conduct of war in terms of impact on non-combatants. The incentive not to commit them is that if you turn out to be the vanquished, you'd probably rather slip away into exile and obscurity rather than ending up in The Hague or as a fugitive.
Should Israel deliberately target civilians? No. Do civilians have some responsibility to flee a war zone? Yes. Again Hamas are not just embedded in the civilian population, they are the government. So eradicating them is going to involve blowing a great many buildings up.
If your neighbour fires his AK47 at prayers 5 times a day, it is time to leave. Because in wartime it is always legitimate to go after CCC targets regardless of where the enemy has put them.
How exactly do 3 million people flee a war zone when they are not allowed to leave by any of the surrounding countries?
They should decide not to have Hamas as their leadership.
Even coming from you that is genuinely one of the stupidest comments any one has made on this topic.
I suppose the Catholics in Northern Ireland deserved to be bombed out and killed because they had Sinn Féin councillors.
There is huge support in Gaza for the Hamas leadership. They can send thousands of "militants" to Israel on near suicide missions. They have mass rallies of hundreds of thousands in the streets protesting against Israel and the Great Satan. They show pictures of six-yr old girls wielding AKs and crying with happiness at the onslaught happening in Israel.
But they are all harmless civilians who only want to find a way out of danger.
It must be very strange living inside your head where everything in the world is so black and white.
It is dangerously close to exactly the sort of attitude that led to Rwanda, Bosnia and indeed the Holocaust. Regarding people as a mass (and indeed to use the words of your friend Netenyahu as animals) rather than individuals is an easy road to 'untermensch'.
You seem pretty conflicted about it all.
Those poor Gazans who turned out in their hundreds of thousands to celebrate actions against Israel are now to be pitied. Of course it's best that civilians leave and they can do so via Egypt or indeed the coast if they wanted to. I have heard nothing about a port blockade perhaps you know different.
I don't for one moment think that every German in 1939 was complicit in the German war aims but I have read nowhere of a safe passage being discussed for them to escape the country before we bombed it.
This is the notion of collective guilt. It is explicitly a war crime.
Then it's one that every country including our own is guilty of. As noted above, it only matters if you lose. But actually of all the Nuremburg trials was one ever held for the bombing of Coventry?
See, I think this is where you and I differ @TOPPING - you see this as an argument for why we shouldn't worry about the plight of the Palestinian people. I see this as an argument for why we should have had a Nuremburg trial not only for the bombing of Coventry, but also the bombing of Dresden. And Hiroshima. Humanity got to a place where it almost said "only following orders" was not a good enough reason for individuals committing crimes against humanity. Much since has been trying to roll that back - we need only look at the indifference to history our Home Secretary displays when discussing the refugee convention, or our own history of "defending our troops" from the consequences of the crimes they committed during the Troubles.
And I find your view wholly admirable. And I do care about the plight of the Palestinian people. I think they have been dreadfully lead although bear not a small amount of responsibility for their leadership.
This is another Brexit issue. Because I was a Remainer it doesn't mean that I thought that everything the EU did was fantastic and beyond reproach; while Brexiters probably didn't think everything the EU did was dreadful, but internet forums, including if you can believe it PB, often force people to adopt those positions.
In this case Israel is not without fault in its behaviour over the past but after the events of the weekend I am giving them quite a lot of leeway to progress the war in whatever way they want and wanted only to point out that at some point a distinction between the sweet, good-natured, wouldn't harm a fly Palestinian people who only want peace with their beloved neighbours Israel, and the Palestinians who, in their hundreds of thousands march in support of the destruction of Israel needs to be drawn.
We didn't single out the nice Germans from the beastly ones and Israel can be forgiven for not doing the same in this instance wrt the Palestinians.
You're an odd fruit sometimes.
On the 'Putin attacking Ukraine' topic you've been at pains to explore the context, discuss the things that might have pushed him into the action (eg did the Iraq War set a precedent? I recall you posing that question quite doggedly), lots of that from you on that one.
Yet on this one, this 'Hamas attacking Israel' topic, any attempt by people to do similar, to mention the context, to discuss reasons why this attack might have happened (eg could the maltreatment of the Palestinians by Israel have anything to do with it?) seems to give you an attack of the vapors.
I'm not slagging you off, I'm genuinely interested in the different way you approach the 2 topics. Putin Ukraine, very up for context and the whys and wherefores. Hamas Israel, not so much. Why is this, do we think?
I am extremely clear on why Hamas attacked Israel. I am extremely clear on why Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Transjordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt attacked them in 1948. And in 1967. And 1973. And 2023.
They attacked them because they wanted to wipe Israel off the map. In each instance they failed and in trying they got themselves into quite a pickle.
Has Israel behaved as you or indeed I would have wished them to over the past 70 years? I'm sure not. But it's useful idiots like you who think that if Israel had only been a bit nicer over the period everyone would be holding hands and making daisy chains together.
You think that I am excusing Israel's behaviour to the Palestinians on the one hand and ignoring the fact that this might be a root cause of this weekend's actions. Just like I seek to understand the reasons for Putin's actions.
I am here to educate you that for centuries and most recently decades the Arab world (and of course others) has been antipathetic to the Jews and hence this weekend's actions are a symptom of that hatred.
Thanks for non flip reply. Doesn't happen too often. I treasure it.
So iyo the antipathy towards Israel in Gaza has little to do with the maltreatment of its Palestinian population. It's down to the inherent appetite of Palestinians for antisemitism.
Ok. I think that's incredibly jaundiced (and arguably racist) but given that is your view of course you won't (as you say) be shedding too many tears if Israel does end up engaging in large scale collective punishment of 'innocent' Palestinians. Inverted commas since they won't be innocent, will they?
Makes sense now. Quality exchange. Thanks again. Chilean red and nuts time.
Hope you are enjoying your red & nuts. To you and @148grss it seems that you have difficulty believing that there is anti-semitism amongst the Arabs. And that Israel has committed some (original - we'll come on to that later) sin which has brought this behaviour upon them.
I think it doesn't take a google genius to determine quickly that there has been a long and well-documented history of anti-semitism amongst everyone including the Arabs.
For the Arabs it takes on a more "traditional" angle because there is a land angle there also. But a cursory reading of any text or oratory of many of today's Arab leaders now or indeed from history will show that there is deep antipathy towards the Jews. I think this is pervasive hence while someone somewhere in Hamas might see this as a homeland issue, to deny the rampant anti-semitism of much of the Arab world is imo to misunderstimate the dynamic of the Middle East both now and throughout history.
Is there a history of anti Semitism amongst Arabic peoples? Of course. But I do not think it is the driving force behind the issue of Israel, especially not to begin with. Indeed, if the finger of anti Semitism should point anywhere it should be at the hegemonic western powers who refused fleeing Jewish people to their shores prior to WW2 - whereas at that point multicultural communities built on common understanding between Palestinian and Jewish exiles were commonplace. The land that is Israel and Palestine were also relatively free of faith based conflict under Ottoman control - all faiths had the freedom to access Jerusalem, for instance. The issue, I would argue, hinges on the forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of people from their land. This creates long lasting conflict - it has done with India and Pakistan, it has done in Africa, and it is the case with Israel and Palestine. People want to return to their homes, to farm their olives, to live and die in the house they were born in. At least with Indian partition people on both Hindu/secular and the Muslim sides held both positions - with Israel it is clear that one side was being forced out by the other.
I wondered how long it would be before we got to: "It's all out fault!"
You really should look at the history of Jews in the region, e.g. Iraq, to see why your pretend high-minded ideal of allowing people to return is utterly bogus. Why are the Palestinians the only ones who have this right to return?
I mean the history is quite clear that in many ways this is all our fault - both the British state specifically and western imperial nations more generally. I mean it was European imperialist states that committed pogroms and refused Jewish refugees entry for hundreds of years, and European imperialist logic that led to the holocaust. The concentration camp was not a Nazi invention, although their evolution into a specific death camp arguably was, and the European imperial powers had already committed acts of mass murder on par with the death camps - just over longer periods of time and less formalised in parts.
I mean I’m in favour of a stateless, classless society without borders - that goes slightly beyond the mere right to return in my mind - but yes, Jewish people should be able to live where they wish, especially more so if their near ancestors were expelled from there. That includes Iraq. I don’t see how me having the position that all states (if they are going to exist at all) should be like that therefore means I am specifically calling on Israel as a special case.
Yes the Ottoman Empire was a fucking multinational multi faith paradise. Except for the Jews and Christians who had to pay a tax to exist. And the Balkan people who had their children stolen every year. And the black castrated slaves imported by the millions. Apart from THAT it was all lovely and brilliant and everything bad is because of the Brits and the Americans. And the Jews
Leaving aside the sarcasm for a moment, there does seem to be a weird tendency for some people to ascribe all ills to things that happened at the start of the 20th century, give or take a few decades, whilst ridiculing the idea things more longstanding could have played a part.
That's not a universal of course, the after effects of slavery being very recognised, but it is possible to get very infantilising in assuming areas cannot have f*cked up histories and divisions which can predate more recent western involvement.
It seems supremely arrogant to ascribe everything to ourselves, even if in the modern period that influence should not be simply dismissed.
I think that I am right in saying a very high proportion of Gaza’s water and electricity comes from Israel. People are going to be driven out by thirst.
Oh, close to 100% of Gaza's water and electricity comes from Israel.
Gaza has no airport, and Israel has blockaded its port, so there is no ability for Gaza to import coal or gas from anywhere else, to allow them to make power. (And without power, they can't make clean water.)
There is some diesel that comes across in trucks from Egypt, and which is used to power backup generators. And there is some rooftop solar. But - basically - Gaza is 100% dependent on Israel.
And they will exploit that to make Gaza uninhabitable. This is not going to end well for anyone.
There are two lots of losers here:
The people of Southern Israel, who saw their land invaded, and who were tortured, raped and kidnapped. (And by the way, for what? It's not like there was any possibility that motorcycle riding Hamas fighters were going to militarily defeat Izsrael.)
And the ordinary people of Gaza.
Life was already miserable there. It is going to get worse.
This mess is never getting any better for years and is only getting worse.
The rich world (including the UK) should pay a fortune to Egypt and Gazans to relocate Gazans to Sinai and provide humongous levels of aid and development. Stuff their mouths with money to ensure they're developed in a way that frankly is never going to happen in Gaza.
Sovereignty only matters to people like us then eh. Matters so much to us that we can't even tolerate being in the EU. But those Palestinians, hmm, different strokes. Lower level types.
True. No one is defending the Hamas attacks but they didn’t just appear from nowhere . Cause and effect , there’s a lot of moralizing from those who have no idea what it’s like to live in an open prison , no hope , no jobs and absolutely no sign of anything changing. Your water, food and energy is at the whim of what your perceive as an occupying force. Settlements are built on land stolen from your family. The pie keeps shrinking so any future deal even if that was possible means you get a few scraps . The attacks by Hamas are disgusting but let’s not pretend the Israeli government doesn’t bear some responsibility for its actions over many years which just continued to help forment the hatred and resentment.
The fact that Israel has the ability to cut off power , water and food supplies to Gaza highlights one of the issues that have bred hatred .
Hamas lives off the hatred . Children are brought up with the hatred and it’s just a repeating cycle.
There are still those on both sides who wanted a peaceful resolution , sadly that’s been consigned to the bin for yet more years .
Israel can raze Gaza to the ground but the hatred will remain .
But if the Israelis can somehow shift the Gazans into Egypt, then the hatred will be further away, and the chances of Hamas repeating their spectacular incursion will be greatly minimised
I do wonder if that is what the Israelis are planning. I don't see any other point in wading into Gaza at the cost of many thousands of lives, quite a few of them Israeli
Will Egypt accept them ? The whole situation is just awful. There are no good outcomes here .
Absolutely. No good outcomes
If Egypt seals the border (and they have tightened control this morning) then Israel will be left with a cornered population unable to go anywhere. What then?
I may be wrong and this isn't the Israeli plan, but then I am bewildered as to what Israel thinks it can achieve with ANOTHER invasion that does nothing but stir up evermore enmity. It simply ensures further attacks down the line
As I said last night, they might possibly be planning a renewed Occupation of Gaza, with Israel in control, and the reintroduction of Israeli settlers, who will act as a de facto spy network and military police, so October 7 is not repeated. But that's damnably tricky and could so easily go wrong
The final possibility is that Israel doesn't have a plan. It is acting in a spirit of pure revenge
With whom would they negotiate? Hamas is the *government* of Gaza. Israel has declared war on Gaza amd it shouldn't be a surprise - its *government* has launched these attacks.
So the Israeli goal will I believe be simple - remove Hamas as a threat. How they achieve that is tricky, but they won't just be pushing the cross-border terrorists back into their prison.
Removal of Hamas - and the Hamas state - has to be the goal. And that will largely mean the killing of anyone who is Hamas, supports Hamas, lives near Hamas. It is going to be awful - war usually is. Especially when the aggressor is pledged to the extermination of the other side.
That may be Israel’s strategy. That (“killing of anyone who […] lives near Hamas”) would clearly be a war crime and we, as in the UK, should do everything we can to stop war crimes. We cannot criticise Russia for war crimes in Ukraine and wave through Israel, or Hamas, committing war crimes.
Here’s a simple rule of thumb: war crimes are bad. Don’t carry out war crimes. Don’t respond to say crimes with more war crimes. Why is that a proposition that some on PB struggle with?
"war crimes" is a fantasy. There is/are no such thing. They only exist for the winners in war.
The fact that they are typically enforced against the vanquished rather than the victors doesn't mean they aren't a "thing".
They are reasonably clearly defined by international convention, and provide at least some incentive to moderate the conduct of war in terms of impact on non-combatants. The incentive not to commit them is that if you turn out to be the vanquished, you'd probably rather slip away into exile and obscurity rather than ending up in The Hague or as a fugitive.
Should Israel deliberately target civilians? No. Do civilians have some responsibility to flee a war zone? Yes. Again Hamas are not just embedded in the civilian population, they are the government. So eradicating them is going to involve blowing a great many buildings up.
If your neighbour fires his AK47 at prayers 5 times a day, it is time to leave. Because in wartime it is always legitimate to go after CCC targets regardless of where the enemy has put them.
How exactly do 3 million people flee a war zone when they are not allowed to leave by any of the surrounding countries?
They should decide not to have Hamas as their leadership.
Even coming from you that is genuinely one of the stupidest comments any one has made on this topic.
I suppose the Catholics in Northern Ireland deserved to be bombed out and killed because they had Sinn Féin councillors.
There is huge support in Gaza for the Hamas leadership. They can send thousands of "militants" to Israel on near suicide missions. They have mass rallies of hundreds of thousands in the streets protesting against Israel and the Great Satan. They show pictures of six-yr old girls wielding AKs and crying with happiness at the onslaught happening in Israel.
But they are all harmless civilians who only want to find a way out of danger.
It must be very strange living inside your head where everything in the world is so black and white.
It is dangerously close to exactly the sort of attitude that led to Rwanda, Bosnia and indeed the Holocaust. Regarding people as a mass (and indeed to use the words of your friend Netenyahu as animals) rather than individuals is an easy road to 'untermensch'.
You seem pretty conflicted about it all.
Those poor Gazans who turned out in their hundreds of thousands to celebrate actions against Israel are now to be pitied. Of course it's best that civilians leave and they can do so via Egypt or indeed the coast if they wanted to. I have heard nothing about a port blockade perhaps you know different.
I don't for one moment think that every German in 1939 was complicit in the German war aims but I have read nowhere of a safe passage being discussed for them to escape the country before we bombed it.
This is the notion of collective guilt. It is explicitly a war crime.
Then it's one that every country including our own is guilty of. As noted above, it only matters if you lose. But actually of all the Nuremburg trials was one ever held for the bombing of Coventry?
See, I think this is where you and I differ @TOPPING - you see this as an argument for why we shouldn't worry about the plight of the Palestinian people. I see this as an argument for why we should have had a Nuremburg trial not only for the bombing of Coventry, but also the bombing of Dresden. And Hiroshima. Humanity got to a place where it almost said "only following orders" was not a good enough reason for individuals committing crimes against humanity. Much since has been trying to roll that back - we need only look at the indifference to history our Home Secretary displays when discussing the refugee convention, or our own history of "defending our troops" from the consequences of the crimes they committed during the Troubles.
And I find your view wholly admirable. And I do care about the plight of the Palestinian people. I think they have been dreadfully lead although bear not a small amount of responsibility for their leadership.
This is another Brexit issue. Because I was a Remainer it doesn't mean that I thought that everything the EU did was fantastic and beyond reproach; while Brexiters probably didn't think everything the EU did was dreadful, but internet forums, including if you can believe it PB, often force people to adopt those positions.
In this case Israel is not without fault in its behaviour over the past but after the events of the weekend I am giving them quite a lot of leeway to progress the war in whatever way they want and wanted only to point out that at some point a distinction between the sweet, good-natured, wouldn't harm a fly Palestinian people who only want peace with their beloved neighbours Israel, and the Palestinians who, in their hundreds of thousands march in support of the destruction of Israel needs to be drawn.
We didn't single out the nice Germans from the beastly ones and Israel can be forgiven for not doing the same in this instance wrt the Palestinians.
You're an odd fruit sometimes.
On the 'Putin attacking Ukraine' topic you've been at pains to explore the context, discuss the things that might have pushed him into the action (eg did the Iraq War set a precedent? I recall you posing that question quite doggedly), lots of that from you on that one.
Yet on this one, this 'Hamas attacking Israel' topic, any attempt by people to do similar, to mention the context, to discuss reasons why this attack might have happened (eg could the maltreatment of the Palestinians by Israel have anything to do with it?) seems to give you an attack of the vapors.
I'm not slagging you off, I'm genuinely interested in the different way you approach the 2 topics. Putin Ukraine, very up for context and the whys and wherefores. Hamas Israel, not so much. Why is this, do we think?
I am extremely clear on why Hamas attacked Israel. I am extremely clear on why Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Transjordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt attacked them in 1948. And in 1967. And 1973. And 2023.
They attacked them because they wanted to wipe Israel off the map. In each instance they failed and in trying they got themselves into quite a pickle.
Has Israel behaved as you or indeed I would have wished them to over the past 70 years? I'm sure not. But it's useful idiots like you who think that if Israel had only been a bit nicer over the period everyone would be holding hands and making daisy chains together.
You think that I am excusing Israel's behaviour to the Palestinians on the one hand and ignoring the fact that this might be a root cause of this weekend's actions. Just like I seek to understand the reasons for Putin's actions.
I am here to educate you that for centuries and most recently decades the Arab world (and of course others) has been antipathetic to the Jews and hence this weekend's actions are a symptom of that hatred.
Thanks for non flip reply. Doesn't happen too often. I treasure it.
So iyo the antipathy towards Israel in Gaza has little to do with the maltreatment of its Palestinian population. It's down to the inherent appetite of Palestinians for antisemitism.
Ok. I think that's incredibly jaundiced (and arguably racist) but given that is your view of course you won't (as you say) be shedding too many tears if Israel does end up engaging in large scale collective punishment of 'innocent' Palestinians. Inverted commas since they won't be innocent, will they?
Makes sense now. Quality exchange. Thanks again. Chilean red and nuts time.
Hope you are enjoying your red & nuts. To you and @148grss it seems that you have difficulty believing that there is anti-semitism amongst the Arabs. And that Israel has committed some (original - we'll come on to that later) sin which has brought this behaviour upon them.
I think it doesn't take a google genius to determine quickly that there has been a long and well-documented history of anti-semitism amongst everyone including the Arabs.
For the Arabs it takes on a more "traditional" angle because there is a land angle there also. But a cursory reading of any text or oratory of many of today's Arab leaders now or indeed from history will show that there is deep antipathy towards the Jews. I think this is pervasive hence while someone somewhere in Hamas might see this as a homeland issue, to deny the rampant anti-semitism of much of the Arab world is imo to misunderstimate the dynamic of the Middle East both now and throughout history.
Is there a history of anti Semitism amongst Arabic peoples? Of course. But I do not think it is the driving force behind the issue of Israel, especially not to begin with. Indeed, if the finger of anti Semitism should point anywhere it should be at the hegemonic western powers who refused fleeing Jewish people to their shores prior to WW2 - whereas at that point multicultural communities built on common understanding between Palestinian and Jewish exiles were commonplace. The land that is Israel and Palestine were also relatively free of faith based conflict under Ottoman control - all faiths had the freedom to access Jerusalem, for instance. The issue, I would argue, hinges on the forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of people from their land. This creates long lasting conflict - it has done with India and Pakistan, it has done in Africa, and it is the case with Israel and Palestine. People want to return to their homes, to farm their olives, to live and die in the house they were born in. At least with Indian partition people on both Hindu/secular and the Muslim sides held both positions - with Israel it is clear that one side was being forced out by the other.
I wondered how long it would be before we got to: "It's all out fault!"
You really should look at the history of Jews in the region, e.g. Iraq, to see why your pretend high-minded ideal of allowing people to return is utterly bogus. Why are the Palestinians the only ones who have this right to return?
I mean the history is quite clear that in many ways this is all our fault - both the British state specifically and western imperial nations more generally. I mean it was European imperialist states that committed pogroms and refused Jewish refugees entry for hundreds of years, and European imperialist logic that led to the holocaust. The concentration camp was not a Nazi invention, although their evolution into a specific death camp arguably was, and the European imperial powers had already committed acts of mass murder on par with the death camps - just over longer periods of time and less formalised in parts.
I mean I’m in favour of a stateless, classless society without borders - that goes slightly beyond the mere right to return in my mind - but yes, Jewish people should be able to live where they wish, especially more so if their near ancestors were expelled from there. That includes Iraq. I don’t see how me having the position that all states (if they are going to exist at all) should be like that therefore means I am specifically calling on Israel as a special case.
"I mean the history is quite clear that in many ways this is all our fault"
You really don't need to say any more than this. We already understand that this is your answer for EVERYTHING
The fact that Israel has the ability to cut off power , water and food supplies to Gaza highlights one of the issues that have bred hatred .
Hamas lives off the hatred . Children are brought up with the hatred and it’s just a repeating cycle.
There are still those on both sides who wanted a peaceful resolution , sadly that’s been consigned to the bin for yet more years .
Israel can raze Gaza to the ground but the hatred will remain .
But if the Israelis can somehow shift the Gazans into Egypt, then the hatred will be further away, and the chances of Hamas repeating their spectacular incursion will be greatly minimised
I do wonder if that is what the Israelis are planning. I don't see any other point in wading into Gaza at the cost of many thousands of lives, quite a few of them Israeli
Will Egypt accept them ? The whole situation is just awful. There are no good outcomes here .
Absolutely. No good outcomes
If Egypt seals the border (and they have tightened control this morning) then Israel will be left with a cornered population unable to go anywhere. What then?
I may be wrong and this isn't the Israeli plan, but then I am bewildered as to what Israel thinks it can achieve with ANOTHER invasion that does nothing but stir up evermore enmity. It simply ensures further attacks down the line
As I said last night, they might possibly be planning a renewed Occupation of Gaza, with Israel in control, and the reintroduction of Israeli settlers, who will act as a de facto spy network and military police, so October 7 is not repeated. But that's damnably tricky and could so easily go wrong
The final possibility is that Israel doesn't have a plan. It is acting in a spirit of pure revenge
With whom would they negotiate? Hamas is the *government* of Gaza. Israel has declared war on Gaza amd it shouldn't be a surprise - its *government* has launched these attacks.
So the Israeli goal will I believe be simple - remove Hamas as a threat. How they achieve that is tricky, but they won't just be pushing the cross-border terrorists back into their prison.
Removal of Hamas - and the Hamas state - has to be the goal. And that will largely mean the killing of anyone who is Hamas, supports Hamas, lives near Hamas. It is going to be awful - war usually is. Especially when the aggressor is pledged to the extermination of the other side.
That may be Israel’s strategy. That (“killing of anyone who […] lives near Hamas”) would clearly be a war crime and we, as in the UK, should do everything we can to stop war crimes. We cannot criticise Russia for war crimes in Ukraine and wave through Israel, or Hamas, committing war crimes.
Here’s a simple rule of thumb: war crimes are bad. Don’t carry out war crimes. Don’t respond to say crimes with more war crimes. Why is that a proposition that some on PB struggle with?
"war crimes" is a fantasy. There is/are no such thing. They only exist for the winners in war.
The fact that they are typically enforced against the vanquished rather than the victors doesn't mean they aren't a "thing".
They are reasonably clearly defined by international convention, and provide at least some incentive to moderate the conduct of war in terms of impact on non-combatants. The incentive not to commit them is that if you turn out to be the vanquished, you'd probably rather slip away into exile and obscurity rather than ending up in The Hague or as a fugitive.
Should Israel deliberately target civilians? No. Do civilians have some responsibility to flee a war zone? Yes. Again Hamas are not just embedded in the civilian population, they are the government. So eradicating them is going to involve blowing a great many buildings up.
If your neighbour fires his AK47 at prayers 5 times a day, it is time to leave. Because in wartime it is always legitimate to go after CCC targets regardless of where the enemy has put them.
How exactly do 3 million people flee a war zone when they are not allowed to leave by any of the surrounding countries?
They should decide not to have Hamas as their leadership.
Even coming from you that is genuinely one of the stupidest comments any one has made on this topic.
I suppose the Catholics in Northern Ireland deserved to be bombed out and killed because they had Sinn Féin councillors.
There is huge support in Gaza for the Hamas leadership. They can send thousands of "militants" to Israel on near suicide missions. They have mass rallies of hundreds of thousands in the streets protesting against Israel and the Great Satan. They show pictures of six-yr old girls wielding AKs and crying with happiness at the onslaught happening in Israel.
But they are all harmless civilians who only want to find a way out of danger.
It must be very strange living inside your head where everything in the world is so black and white.
It is dangerously close to exactly the sort of attitude that led to Rwanda, Bosnia and indeed the Holocaust. Regarding people as a mass (and indeed to use the words of your friend Netenyahu as animals) rather than individuals is an easy road to 'untermensch'.
You seem pretty conflicted about it all.
Those poor Gazans who turned out in their hundreds of thousands to celebrate actions against Israel are now to be pitied. Of course it's best that civilians leave and they can do so via Egypt or indeed the coast if they wanted to. I have heard nothing about a port blockade perhaps you know different.
I don't for one moment think that every German in 1939 was complicit in the German war aims but I have read nowhere of a safe passage being discussed for them to escape the country before we bombed it.
This is the notion of collective guilt. It is explicitly a war crime.
Then it's one that every country including our own is guilty of. As noted above, it only matters if you lose. But actually of all the Nuremburg trials was one ever held for the bombing of Coventry?
See, I think this is where you and I differ @TOPPING - you see this as an argument for why we shouldn't worry about the plight of the Palestinian people. I see this as an argument for why we should have had a Nuremburg trial not only for the bombing of Coventry, but also the bombing of Dresden. And Hiroshima. Humanity got to a place where it almost said "only following orders" was not a good enough reason for individuals committing crimes against humanity. Much since has been trying to roll that back - we need only look at the indifference to history our Home Secretary displays when discussing the refugee convention, or our own history of "defending our troops" from the consequences of the crimes they committed during the Troubles.
And I find your view wholly admirable. And I do care about the plight of the Palestinian people. I think they have been dreadfully lead although bear not a small amount of responsibility for their leadership.
This is another Brexit issue. Because I was a Remainer it doesn't mean that I thought that everything the EU did was fantastic and beyond reproach; while Brexiters probably didn't think everything the EU did was dreadful, but internet forums, including if you can believe it PB, often force people to adopt those positions.
In this case Israel is not without fault in its behaviour over the past but after the events of the weekend I am giving them quite a lot of leeway to progress the war in whatever way they want and wanted only to point out that at some point a distinction between the sweet, good-natured, wouldn't harm a fly Palestinian people who only want peace with their beloved neighbours Israel, and the Palestinians who, in their hundreds of thousands march in support of the destruction of Israel needs to be drawn.
We didn't single out the nice Germans from the beastly ones and Israel can be forgiven for not doing the same in this instance wrt the Palestinians.
You're an odd fruit sometimes.
On the 'Putin attacking Ukraine' topic you've been at pains to explore the context, discuss the things that might have pushed him into the action (eg did the Iraq War set a precedent? I recall you posing that question quite doggedly), lots of that from you on that one.
Yet on this one, this 'Hamas attacking Israel' topic, any attempt by people to do similar, to mention the context, to discuss reasons why this attack might have happened (eg could the maltreatment of the Palestinians by Israel have anything to do with it?) seems to give you an attack of the vapors.
I'm not slagging you off, I'm genuinely interested in the different way you approach the 2 topics. Putin Ukraine, very up for context and the whys and wherefores. Hamas Israel, not so much. Why is this, do we think?
I am extremely clear on why Hamas attacked Israel. I am extremely clear on why Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Transjordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt attacked them in 1948. And in 1967. And 1973. And 2023.
They attacked them because they wanted to wipe Israel off the map. In each instance they failed and in trying they got themselves into quite a pickle.
Has Israel behaved as you or indeed I would have wished them to over the past 70 years? I'm sure not. But it's useful idiots like you who think that if Israel had only been a bit nicer over the period everyone would be holding hands and making daisy chains together.
You think that I am excusing Israel's behaviour to the Palestinians on the one hand and ignoring the fact that this might be a root cause of this weekend's actions. Just like I seek to understand the reasons for Putin's actions.
I am here to educate you that for centuries and most recently decades the Arab world (and of course others) has been antipathetic to the Jews and hence this weekend's actions are a symptom of that hatred.
Thanks for non flip reply. Doesn't happen too often. I treasure it.
So iyo the antipathy towards Israel in Gaza has little to do with the maltreatment of its Palestinian population. It's down to the inherent appetite of Palestinians for antisemitism.
Ok. I think that's incredibly jaundiced (and arguably racist) but given that is your view of course you won't (as you say) be shedding too many tears if Israel does end up engaging in large scale collective punishment of 'innocent' Palestinians. Inverted commas since they won't be innocent, will they?
Makes sense now. Quality exchange. Thanks again. Chilean red and nuts time.
Hope you are enjoying your red & nuts. To you and @148grss it seems that you have difficulty believing that there is anti-semitism amongst the Arabs. And that Israel has committed some (original - we'll come on to that later) sin which has brought this behaviour upon them.
I think it doesn't take a google genius to determine quickly that there has been a long and well-documented history of anti-semitism amongst everyone including the Arabs.
For the Arabs it takes on a more "traditional" angle because there is a land angle there also. But a cursory reading of any text or oratory of many of today's Arab leaders now or indeed from history will show that there is deep antipathy towards the Jews. I think this is pervasive hence while someone somewhere in Hamas might see this as a homeland issue, to deny the rampant anti-semitism of much of the Arab world is imo to misunderstimate the dynamic of the Middle East both now and throughout history.
Is there a history of anti Semitism amongst Arabic peoples? Of course. But I do not think it is the driving force behind the issue of Israel, especially not to begin with. Indeed, if the finger of anti Semitism should point anywhere it should be at the hegemonic western powers who refused fleeing Jewish people to their shores prior to WW2 - whereas at that point multicultural communities built on common understanding between Palestinian and Jewish exiles were commonplace. The land that is Israel and Palestine were also relatively free of faith based conflict under Ottoman control - all faiths had the freedom to access Jerusalem, for instance. The issue, I would argue, hinges on the forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of people from their land. This creates long lasting conflict - it has done with India and Pakistan, it has done in Africa, and it is the case with Israel and Palestine. People want to return to their homes, to farm their olives, to live and die in the house they were born in. At least with Indian partition people on both Hindu/secular and the Muslim sides held both positions - with Israel it is clear that one side was being forced out by the other.
I wondered how long it would be before we got to: "It's all out fault!"
You really should look at the history of Jews in the region, e.g. Iraq, to see why your pretend high-minded ideal of allowing people to return is utterly bogus. Why are the Palestinians the only ones who have this right to return?
I mean the history is quite clear that in many ways this is all our fault - both the British state specifically and western imperial nations more generally. I mean it was European imperialist states that committed pogroms and refused Jewish refugees entry for hundreds of years, and European imperialist logic that led to the holocaust. The concentration camp was not a Nazi invention, although their evolution into a specific death camp arguably was, and the European imperial powers had already committed acts of mass murder on par with the death camps - just over longer periods of time and less formalised in parts.
I mean I’m in favour of a stateless, classless society without borders - that goes slightly beyond the mere right to return in my mind - but yes, Jewish people should be able to live where they wish, especially more so if their near ancestors were expelled from there. That includes Iraq. I don’t see how me having the position that all states (if they are going to exist at all) should be like that therefore means I am specifically calling on Israel as a special case.
It isn't *our* fault - at least, in full. I'd argue our blame in the current mess is relatively minor - I doubt there were any good answers in 1948. You also utterly ignore the long and sad history of anti-Semitism in the region, which colours events to this day.
The most demented people on social media are those who were offended by Laurence’s Fox’s comments about a female journalist yet celebrate women getting raped and murdered by a terrorist organisation. https://twitter.com/francisjfoster/status/1711421487620542958
I think that I am right in saying a very high proportion of Gaza’s water and electricity comes from Israel. People are going to be driven out by thirst.
Oh, close to 100% of Gaza's water and electricity comes from Israel.
Gaza has no airport, and Israel has blockaded its port, so there is no ability for Gaza to import coal or gas from anywhere else, to allow them to make power. (And without power, they can't make clean water.)
There is some diesel that comes across in trucks from Egypt, and which is used to power backup generators. And there is some rooftop solar. But - basically - Gaza is 100% dependent on Israel.
And they will exploit that to make Gaza uninhabitable. This is not going to end well for anyone.
There are two lots of losers here:
The people of Southern Israel, who saw their land invaded, and who were tortured, raped and kidnapped. (And by the way, for what? It's not like there was any possibility that motorcycle riding Hamas fighters were going to militarily defeat Izsrael.)
And the ordinary people of Gaza.
Life was already miserable there. It is going to get worse.
This mess is never getting any better for years and is only getting worse.
The rich world (including the UK) should pay a fortune to Egypt and Gazans to relocate Gazans to Sinai and provide humongous levels of aid and development. Stuff their mouths with money to ensure they're developed in a way that frankly is never going to happen in Gaza.
Sovereignty only matters to people like us then eh. Matters so much to us that we can't even tolerate being in the EU. But those Palestinians, hmm, different strokes. Lower level types.
True. No one is defending the Hamas attacks but they didn’t just appear from nowhere . Cause and effect , there’s a lot of moralizing from those who have no idea what it’s like to live in an open prison , no hope , no jobs and absolutely no sign of anything changing. Your water, food and energy is at the whim of what your perceive as an occupying force. Settlements are built on land stolen from your family. The pie keeps shrinking so any future deal even if that was possible means you get a few scraps . The attacks by Hamas are disgusting but let’s not pretend the Israeli government doesn’t bear some responsibility for its actions over many years which just continued to help forment the hatred and resentment.
Apparently Biden retired for the day at..... 11.50 am. "We will not be seeing the president again"
An hour later Hamas announced they are gonna start executing hostages, live, on air - including up to a dozen American nationals
Sleepy Joe is not having a good war so far. He could lose the election in the coming days, if he's not careful. An urgent global crisis is when you realise you don't want an 80 year old man running the shop. This also applies to Trump, nearly as much, of course
I think that I am right in saying a very high proportion of Gaza’s water and electricity comes from Israel. People are going to be driven out by thirst.
Oh, close to 100% of Gaza's water and electricity comes from Israel.
Gaza has no airport, and Israel has blockaded its port, so there is no ability for Gaza to import coal or gas from anywhere else, to allow them to make power. (And without power, they can't make clean water.)
There is some diesel that comes across in trucks from Egypt, and which is used to power backup generators. And there is some rooftop solar. But - basically - Gaza is 100% dependent on Israel.
And they will exploit that to make Gaza uninhabitable. This is not going to end well for anyone.
There are two lots of losers here:
The people of Southern Israel, who saw their land invaded, and who were tortured, raped and kidnapped. (And by the way, for what? It's not like there was any possibility that motorcycle riding Hamas fighters were going to militarily defeat Izsrael.)
And the ordinary people of Gaza.
Life was already miserable there. It is going to get worse.
This mess is never getting any better for years and is only getting worse.
The rich world (including the UK) should pay a fortune to Egypt and Gazans to relocate Gazans to Sinai and provide humongous levels of aid and development. Stuff their mouths with money to ensure they're developed in a way that frankly is never going to happen in Gaza.
Sovereignty only matters to people like us then eh. Matters so much to us that we can't even tolerate being in the EU. But those Palestinians, hmm, different strokes. Lower level types.
True. No one is defending the Hamas attacks but they didn’t just appear from nowhere . Cause and effect , there’s a lot of moralizing from those who have no idea what it’s like to live in an open prison , no hope , no jobs and absolutely no sign of anything changing. Your water, food and energy is at the whim of what your perceive as an occupying force. Settlements are built on land stolen from your family. The pie keeps shrinking so any future deal even if that was possible means you get a few scraps . The attacks by Hamas are disgusting but let’s not pretend the Israeli government doesn’t bear some responsibility for its actions over many years which just continued to help forment the hatred and resentment.
Victim blaming, nice.
Her skirt was too short.
The Jews had it coming.
I’m not victim blaming . This is the typical response when people don’t want to debate the issues and the actual history of the troubles.
The most demented people on social media are those who were offended by Laurence’s Fox’s comments about a female journalist yet celebrate women getting raped and murdered by a terrorist organisation. https://twitter.com/francisjfoster/status/1711421487620542958
Were they the same people?
Examples can probably be found of people doing both, but it would help to have that example when making that point.
Counterfactual alert: If Britain and France hadn't given in to US pressure over Suez, would Israel have ended up annexing the Sinai peninsula?
Didn’t they occupy it anyway in 1967 and only return it in toto in 1982?
Yes, in a way my question is really: "Would the entire history of the second half of the 20th century have been different if Eden hadn't buckled under pressure?"
The fact that Israel has the ability to cut off power , water and food supplies to Gaza highlights one of the issues that have bred hatred .
Hamas lives off the hatred . Children are brought up with the hatred and it’s just a repeating cycle.
There are still those on both sides who wanted a peaceful resolution , sadly that’s been consigned to the bin for yet more years .
Israel can raze Gaza to the ground but the hatred will remain .
But if the Israelis can somehow shift the Gazans into Egypt, then the hatred will be further away, and the chances of Hamas repeating their spectacular incursion will be greatly minimised
I do wonder if that is what the Israelis are planning. I don't see any other point in wading into Gaza at the cost of many thousands of lives, quite a few of them Israeli
Will Egypt accept them ? The whole situation is just awful. There are no good outcomes here .
Absolutely. No good outcomes
If Egypt seals the border (and they have tightened control this morning) then Israel will be left with a cornered population unable to go anywhere. What then?
I may be wrong and this isn't the Israeli plan, but then I am bewildered as to what Israel thinks it can achieve with ANOTHER invasion that does nothing but stir up evermore enmity. It simply ensures further attacks down the line
As I said last night, they might possibly be planning a renewed Occupation of Gaza, with Israel in control, and the reintroduction of Israeli settlers, who will act as a de facto spy network and military police, so October 7 is not repeated. But that's damnably tricky and could so easily go wrong
The final possibility is that Israel doesn't have a plan. It is acting in a spirit of pure revenge
With whom would they negotiate? Hamas is the *government* of Gaza. Israel has declared war on Gaza amd it shouldn't be a surprise - its *government* has launched these attacks.
So the Israeli goal will I believe be simple - remove Hamas as a threat. How they achieve that is tricky, but they won't just be pushing the cross-border terrorists back into their prison.
Removal of Hamas - and the Hamas state - has to be the goal. And that will largely mean the killing of anyone who is Hamas, supports Hamas, lives near Hamas. It is going to be awful - war usually is. Especially when the aggressor is pledged to the extermination of the other side.
That may be Israel’s strategy. That (“killing of anyone who […] lives near Hamas”) would clearly be a war crime and we, as in the UK, should do everything we can to stop war crimes. We cannot criticise Russia for war crimes in Ukraine and wave through Israel, or Hamas, committing war crimes.
Here’s a simple rule of thumb: war crimes are bad. Don’t carry out war crimes. Don’t respond to say crimes with more war crimes. Why is that a proposition that some on PB struggle with?
"war crimes" is a fantasy. There is/are no such thing. They only exist for the winners in war.
The fact that they are typically enforced against the vanquished rather than the victors doesn't mean they aren't a "thing".
They are reasonably clearly defined by international convention, and provide at least some incentive to moderate the conduct of war in terms of impact on non-combatants. The incentive not to commit them is that if you turn out to be the vanquished, you'd probably rather slip away into exile and obscurity rather than ending up in The Hague or as a fugitive.
Should Israel deliberately target civilians? No. Do civilians have some responsibility to flee a war zone? Yes. Again Hamas are not just embedded in the civilian population, they are the government. So eradicating them is going to involve blowing a great many buildings up.
If your neighbour fires his AK47 at prayers 5 times a day, it is time to leave. Because in wartime it is always legitimate to go after CCC targets regardless of where the enemy has put them.
How exactly do 3 million people flee a war zone when they are not allowed to leave by any of the surrounding countries?
They should decide not to have Hamas as their leadership.
Even coming from you that is genuinely one of the stupidest comments any one has made on this topic.
I suppose the Catholics in Northern Ireland deserved to be bombed out and killed because they had Sinn Féin councillors.
There is huge support in Gaza for the Hamas leadership. They can send thousands of "militants" to Israel on near suicide missions. They have mass rallies of hundreds of thousands in the streets protesting against Israel and the Great Satan. They show pictures of six-yr old girls wielding AKs and crying with happiness at the onslaught happening in Israel.
But they are all harmless civilians who only want to find a way out of danger.
It must be very strange living inside your head where everything in the world is so black and white.
It is dangerously close to exactly the sort of attitude that led to Rwanda, Bosnia and indeed the Holocaust. Regarding people as a mass (and indeed to use the words of your friend Netenyahu as animals) rather than individuals is an easy road to 'untermensch'.
You seem pretty conflicted about it all.
Those poor Gazans who turned out in their hundreds of thousands to celebrate actions against Israel are now to be pitied. Of course it's best that civilians leave and they can do so via Egypt or indeed the coast if they wanted to. I have heard nothing about a port blockade perhaps you know different.
I don't for one moment think that every German in 1939 was complicit in the German war aims but I have read nowhere of a safe passage being discussed for them to escape the country before we bombed it.
This is the notion of collective guilt. It is explicitly a war crime.
Then it's one that every country including our own is guilty of. As noted above, it only matters if you lose. But actually of all the Nuremburg trials was one ever held for the bombing of Coventry?
See, I think this is where you and I differ @TOPPING - you see this as an argument for why we shouldn't worry about the plight of the Palestinian people. I see this as an argument for why we should have had a Nuremburg trial not only for the bombing of Coventry, but also the bombing of Dresden. And Hiroshima. Humanity got to a place where it almost said "only following orders" was not a good enough reason for individuals committing crimes against humanity. Much since has been trying to roll that back - we need only look at the indifference to history our Home Secretary displays when discussing the refugee convention, or our own history of "defending our troops" from the consequences of the crimes they committed during the Troubles.
And I find your view wholly admirable. And I do care about the plight of the Palestinian people. I think they have been dreadfully lead although bear not a small amount of responsibility for their leadership.
This is another Brexit issue. Because I was a Remainer it doesn't mean that I thought that everything the EU did was fantastic and beyond reproach; while Brexiters probably didn't think everything the EU did was dreadful, but internet forums, including if you can believe it PB, often force people to adopt those positions.
In this case Israel is not without fault in its behaviour over the past but after the events of the weekend I am giving them quite a lot of leeway to progress the war in whatever way they want and wanted only to point out that at some point a distinction between the sweet, good-natured, wouldn't harm a fly Palestinian people who only want peace with their beloved neighbours Israel, and the Palestinians who, in their hundreds of thousands march in support of the destruction of Israel needs to be drawn.
We didn't single out the nice Germans from the beastly ones and Israel can be forgiven for not doing the same in this instance wrt the Palestinians.
You're an odd fruit sometimes.
On the 'Putin attacking Ukraine' topic you've been at pains to explore the context, discuss the things that might have pushed him into the action (eg did the Iraq War set a precedent? I recall you posing that question quite doggedly), lots of that from you on that one.
Yet on this one, this 'Hamas attacking Israel' topic, any attempt by people to do similar, to mention the context, to discuss reasons why this attack might have happened (eg could the maltreatment of the Palestinians by Israel have anything to do with it?) seems to give you an attack of the vapors.
I'm not slagging you off, I'm genuinely interested in the different way you approach the 2 topics. Putin Ukraine, very up for context and the whys and wherefores. Hamas Israel, not so much. Why is this, do we think?
I am extremely clear on why Hamas attacked Israel. I am extremely clear on why Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Transjordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt attacked them in 1948. And in 1967. And 1973. And 2023.
They attacked them because they wanted to wipe Israel off the map. In each instance they failed and in trying they got themselves into quite a pickle.
Has Israel behaved as you or indeed I would have wished them to over the past 70 years? I'm sure not. But it's useful idiots like you who think that if Israel had only been a bit nicer over the period everyone would be holding hands and making daisy chains together.
You think that I am excusing Israel's behaviour to the Palestinians on the one hand and ignoring the fact that this might be a root cause of this weekend's actions. Just like I seek to understand the reasons for Putin's actions.
I am here to educate you that for centuries and most recently decades the Arab world (and of course others) has been antipathetic to the Jews and hence this weekend's actions are a symptom of that hatred.
Thanks for non flip reply. Doesn't happen too often. I treasure it.
So iyo the antipathy towards Israel in Gaza has little to do with the maltreatment of its Palestinian population. It's down to the inherent appetite of Palestinians for antisemitism.
Ok. I think that's incredibly jaundiced (and arguably racist) but given that is your view of course you won't (as you say) be shedding too many tears if Israel does end up engaging in large scale collective punishment of 'innocent' Palestinians. Inverted commas since they won't be innocent, will they?
Makes sense now. Quality exchange. Thanks again. Chilean red and nuts time.
Hope you are enjoying your red & nuts. To you and @148grss it seems that you have difficulty believing that there is anti-semitism amongst the Arabs. And that Israel has committed some (original - we'll come on to that later) sin which has brought this behaviour upon them.
I think it doesn't take a google genius to determine quickly that there has been a long and well-documented history of anti-semitism amongst everyone including the Arabs.
For the Arabs it takes on a more "traditional" angle because there is a land angle there also. But a cursory reading of any text or oratory of many of today's Arab leaders now or indeed from history will show that there is deep antipathy towards the Jews. I think this is pervasive hence while someone somewhere in Hamas might see this as a homeland issue, to deny the rampant anti-semitism of much of the Arab world is imo to misunderstimate the dynamic of the Middle East both now and throughout history.
Is there a history of anti Semitism amongst Arabic peoples? Of course. But I do not think it is the driving force behind the issue of Israel, especially not to begin with. Indeed, if the finger of anti Semitism should point anywhere it should be at the hegemonic western powers who refused fleeing Jewish people to their shores prior to WW2 - whereas at that point multicultural communities built on common understanding between Palestinian and Jewish exiles were commonplace. The land that is Israel and Palestine were also relatively free of faith based conflict under Ottoman control - all faiths had the freedom to access Jerusalem, for instance. The issue, I would argue, hinges on the forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of people from their land. This creates long lasting conflict - it has done with India and Pakistan, it has done in Africa, and it is the case with Israel and Palestine. People want to return to their homes, to farm their olives, to live and die in the house they were born in. At least with Indian partition people on both Hindu/secular and the Muslim sides held both positions - with Israel it is clear that one side was being forced out by the other.
I wondered how long it would be before we got to: "It's all out fault!"
You really should look at the history of Jews in the region, e.g. Iraq, to see why your pretend high-minded ideal of allowing people to return is utterly bogus. Why are the Palestinians the only ones who have this right to return?
I mean the history is quite clear that in many ways this is all our fault - both the British state specifically and western imperial nations more generally. I mean it was European imperialist states that committed pogroms and refused Jewish refugees entry for hundreds of years, and European imperialist logic that led to the holocaust. The concentration camp was not a Nazi invention, although their evolution into a specific death camp arguably was, and the European imperial powers had already committed acts of mass murder on par with the death camps - just over longer periods of time and less formalised in parts.
I mean I’m in favour of a stateless, classless society without borders - that goes slightly beyond the mere right to return in my mind - but yes, Jewish people should be able to live where they wish, especially more so if their near ancestors were expelled from there. That includes Iraq. I don’t see how me having the position that all states (if they are going to exist at all) should be like that therefore means I am specifically calling on Israel as a special case.
"I mean the history is quite clear that in many ways this is all our fault"
You really don't need to say any more than this. We already understand that this is your answer for EVERYTHING
I mean when you have an Empire that spanned a whole lot of the globe… yeah - lots of things that are bad with the world are going to be, in part, related to that. It’s not rocket science.
Yes the Ottoman Empire was a fucking multinational multi faith paradise. Except for the Jews and Christians who had to pay a tax to exist. And the Balkan people who had their children stolen every year. And the black castrated slaves imported by the millions. Apart from THAT it was all lovely and brilliant and everything bad is because of the Brits and the Americans. And the Jews
Now, I agree with you on the whole bollocking of people who say it is all the Brits / Americans fault and hate their own countries.
From a historical standpoint, there is some truth that Jews and Christians of different faiths were treated - relatively - better than in much of Europe for up to the 18/19th Centuries.
The slaves - well, that is a different matter. Both the black ones they imported and the white ones taken on slave raids.
Apparently Biden retired for the day at..... 11.50 am. "We will not be seeing the president again"
An hour later Hamas announced they are gonna start executing hostages, live, on air - including up to a dozen American nationals
Sleepy Joe is not having a good war so far. He could lose the election in the coming days, if he's not careful. An urgent global crisis is when you realise you don't want an 80 year old man running the shop. This also applies to Trump, nearly as much, of course
I mean, I’m as willing to say Biden is not up to the job as much as the next guy, but if this isn’t code for “is on the phone swearing at anyone who will listen for the chaos that is about to be unleashed to be somewhat less chaotic” - I don’t know what is.
I think that I am right in saying a very high proportion of Gaza’s water and electricity comes from Israel. People are going to be driven out by thirst.
Oh, close to 100% of Gaza's water and electricity comes from Israel.
Gaza has no airport, and Israel has blockaded its port, so there is no ability for Gaza to import coal or gas from anywhere else, to allow them to make power. (And without power, they can't make clean water.)
There is some diesel that comes across in trucks from Egypt, and which is used to power backup generators. And there is some rooftop solar. But - basically - Gaza is 100% dependent on Israel.
And they will exploit that to make Gaza uninhabitable. This is not going to end well for anyone.
There are two lots of losers here:
The people of Southern Israel, who saw their land invaded, and who were tortured, raped and kidnapped. (And by the way, for what? It's not like there was any possibility that motorcycle riding Hamas fighters were going to militarily defeat Izsrael.)
And the ordinary people of Gaza.
Life was already miserable there. It is going to get worse.
This mess is never getting any better for years and is only getting worse.
The rich world (including the UK) should pay a fortune to Egypt and Gazans to relocate Gazans to Sinai and provide humongous levels of aid and development. Stuff their mouths with money to ensure they're developed in a way that frankly is never going to happen in Gaza.
Sovereignty only matters to people like us then eh. Matters so much to us that we can't even tolerate being in the EU. But those Palestinians, hmm, different strokes. Lower level types.
True. No one is defending the Hamas attacks but they didn’t just appear from nowhere . Cause and effect , there’s a lot of moralizing from those who have no idea what it’s like to live in an open prison , no hope , no jobs and absolutely no sign of anything changing. Your water, food and energy is at the whim of what your perceive as an occupying force. Settlements are built on land stolen from your family. The pie keeps shrinking so any future deal even if that was possible means you get a few scraps . The attacks by Hamas are disgusting but let’s not pretend the Israeli government doesn’t bear some responsibility for its actions over many years which just continued to help forment the hatred and resentment.
Victim blaming, nice.
Her skirt was too short.
The Jews had it coming.
I’m not victim blaming . This is the typical response when people don’t want to debate the issues and the actual history of the troubles.
Happy to debate the issue and the actual history.
The actual history is a swathe of Arab states (plus Iran) attempting genocide against the Jews and the only Jewish state on the planet, from 1948 to today, from the immediate aftermath of the Holocaust onwards.
In that time the Red Army cleared Germans out of Eastern Europe, the Arabs cleared Jews out of their states, meanwhile the Israelis have bent over backwards hosting in land they control people who literally call for and aim for their extermination.
The fact that Israel has the ability to cut off power , water and food supplies to Gaza highlights one of the issues that have bred hatred .
Hamas lives off the hatred . Children are brought up with the hatred and it’s just a repeating cycle.
There are still those on both sides who wanted a peaceful resolution , sadly that’s been consigned to the bin for yet more years .
Israel can raze Gaza to the ground but the hatred will remain .
But if the Israelis can somehow shift the Gazans into Egypt, then the hatred will be further away, and the chances of Hamas repeating their spectacular incursion will be greatly minimised
I do wonder if that is what the Israelis are planning. I don't see any other point in wading into Gaza at the cost of many thousands of lives, quite a few of them Israeli
Will Egypt accept them ? The whole situation is just awful. There are no good outcomes here .
Absolutely. No good outcomes
If Egypt seals the border (and they have tightened control this morning) then Israel will be left with a cornered population unable to go anywhere. What then?
I may be wrong and this isn't the Israeli plan, but then I am bewildered as to what Israel thinks it can achieve with ANOTHER invasion that does nothing but stir up evermore enmity. It simply ensures further attacks down the line
As I said last night, they might possibly be planning a renewed Occupation of Gaza, with Israel in control, and the reintroduction of Israeli settlers, who will act as a de facto spy network and military police, so October 7 is not repeated. But that's damnably tricky and could so easily go wrong
The final possibility is that Israel doesn't have a plan. It is acting in a spirit of pure revenge
With whom would they negotiate? Hamas is the *government* of Gaza. Israel has declared war on Gaza amd it shouldn't be a surprise - its *government* has launched these attacks.
So the Israeli goal will I believe be simple - remove Hamas as a threat. How they achieve that is tricky, but they won't just be pushing the cross-border terrorists back into their prison.
Removal of Hamas - and the Hamas state - has to be the goal. And that will largely mean the killing of anyone who is Hamas, supports Hamas, lives near Hamas. It is going to be awful - war usually is. Especially when the aggressor is pledged to the extermination of the other side.
That may be Israel’s strategy. That (“killing of anyone who […] lives near Hamas”) would clearly be a war crime and we, as in the UK, should do everything we can to stop war crimes. We cannot criticise Russia for war crimes in Ukraine and wave through Israel, or Hamas, committing war crimes.
Here’s a simple rule of thumb: war crimes are bad. Don’t carry out war crimes. Don’t respond to say crimes with more war crimes. Why is that a proposition that some on PB struggle with?
"war crimes" is a fantasy. There is/are no such thing. They only exist for the winners in war.
The fact that they are typically enforced against the vanquished rather than the victors doesn't mean they aren't a "thing".
They are reasonably clearly defined by international convention, and provide at least some incentive to moderate the conduct of war in terms of impact on non-combatants. The incentive not to commit them is that if you turn out to be the vanquished, you'd probably rather slip away into exile and obscurity rather than ending up in The Hague or as a fugitive.
Should Israel deliberately target civilians? No. Do civilians have some responsibility to flee a war zone? Yes. Again Hamas are not just embedded in the civilian population, they are the government. So eradicating them is going to involve blowing a great many buildings up.
If your neighbour fires his AK47 at prayers 5 times a day, it is time to leave. Because in wartime it is always legitimate to go after CCC targets regardless of where the enemy has put them.
How exactly do 3 million people flee a war zone when they are not allowed to leave by any of the surrounding countries?
They should decide not to have Hamas as their leadership.
Even coming from you that is genuinely one of the stupidest comments any one has made on this topic.
I suppose the Catholics in Northern Ireland deserved to be bombed out and killed because they had Sinn Féin councillors.
There is huge support in Gaza for the Hamas leadership. They can send thousands of "militants" to Israel on near suicide missions. They have mass rallies of hundreds of thousands in the streets protesting against Israel and the Great Satan. They show pictures of six-yr old girls wielding AKs and crying with happiness at the onslaught happening in Israel.
But they are all harmless civilians who only want to find a way out of danger.
It must be very strange living inside your head where everything in the world is so black and white.
It is dangerously close to exactly the sort of attitude that led to Rwanda, Bosnia and indeed the Holocaust. Regarding people as a mass (and indeed to use the words of your friend Netenyahu as animals) rather than individuals is an easy road to 'untermensch'.
You seem pretty conflicted about it all.
Those poor Gazans who turned out in their hundreds of thousands to celebrate actions against Israel are now to be pitied. Of course it's best that civilians leave and they can do so via Egypt or indeed the coast if they wanted to. I have heard nothing about a port blockade perhaps you know different.
I don't for one moment think that every German in 1939 was complicit in the German war aims but I have read nowhere of a safe passage being discussed for them to escape the country before we bombed it.
This is the notion of collective guilt. It is explicitly a war crime.
Then it's one that every country including our own is guilty of. As noted above, it only matters if you lose. But actually of all the Nuremburg trials was one ever held for the bombing of Coventry?
See, I think this is where you and I differ @TOPPING - you see this as an argument for why we shouldn't worry about the plight of the Palestinian people. I see this as an argument for why we should have had a Nuremburg trial not only for the bombing of Coventry, but also the bombing of Dresden. And Hiroshima. Humanity got to a place where it almost said "only following orders" was not a good enough reason for individuals committing crimes against humanity. Much since has been trying to roll that back - we need only look at the indifference to history our Home Secretary displays when discussing the refugee convention, or our own history of "defending our troops" from the consequences of the crimes they committed during the Troubles.
And I find your view wholly admirable. And I do care about the plight of the Palestinian people. I think they have been dreadfully lead although bear not a small amount of responsibility for their leadership.
This is another Brexit issue. Because I was a Remainer it doesn't mean that I thought that everything the EU did was fantastic and beyond reproach; while Brexiters probably didn't think everything the EU did was dreadful, but internet forums, including if you can believe it PB, often force people to adopt those positions.
In this case Israel is not without fault in its behaviour over the past but after the events of the weekend I am giving them quite a lot of leeway to progress the war in whatever way they want and wanted only to point out that at some point a distinction between the sweet, good-natured, wouldn't harm a fly Palestinian people who only want peace with their beloved neighbours Israel, and the Palestinians who, in their hundreds of thousands march in support of the destruction of Israel needs to be drawn.
We didn't single out the nice Germans from the beastly ones and Israel can be forgiven for not doing the same in this instance wrt the Palestinians.
You're an odd fruit sometimes.
On the 'Putin attacking Ukraine' topic you've been at pains to explore the context, discuss the things that might have pushed him into the action (eg did the Iraq War set a precedent? I recall you posing that question quite doggedly), lots of that from you on that one.
Yet on this one, this 'Hamas attacking Israel' topic, any attempt by people to do similar, to mention the context, to discuss reasons why this attack might have happened (eg could the maltreatment of the Palestinians by Israel have anything to do with it?) seems to give you an attack of the vapors.
I'm not slagging you off, I'm genuinely interested in the different way you approach the 2 topics. Putin Ukraine, very up for context and the whys and wherefores. Hamas Israel, not so much. Why is this, do we think?
I am extremely clear on why Hamas attacked Israel. I am extremely clear on why Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Transjordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt attacked them in 1948. And in 1967. And 1973. And 2023.
They attacked them because they wanted to wipe Israel off the map. In each instance they failed and in trying they got themselves into quite a pickle.
Has Israel behaved as you or indeed I would have wished them to over the past 70 years? I'm sure not. But it's useful idiots like you who think that if Israel had only been a bit nicer over the period everyone would be holding hands and making daisy chains together.
You think that I am excusing Israel's behaviour to the Palestinians on the one hand and ignoring the fact that this might be a root cause of this weekend's actions. Just like I seek to understand the reasons for Putin's actions.
I am here to educate you that for centuries and most recently decades the Arab world (and of course others) has been antipathetic to the Jews and hence this weekend's actions are a symptom of that hatred.
Thanks for non flip reply. Doesn't happen too often. I treasure it.
So iyo the antipathy towards Israel in Gaza has little to do with the maltreatment of its Palestinian population. It's down to the inherent appetite of Palestinians for antisemitism.
Ok. I think that's incredibly jaundiced (and arguably racist) but given that is your view of course you won't (as you say) be shedding too many tears if Israel does end up engaging in large scale collective punishment of 'innocent' Palestinians. Inverted commas since they won't be innocent, will they?
Makes sense now. Quality exchange. Thanks again. Chilean red and nuts time.
Hope you are enjoying your red & nuts. To you and @148grss it seems that you have difficulty believing that there is anti-semitism amongst the Arabs. And that Israel has committed some (original - we'll come on to that later) sin which has brought this behaviour upon them.
I think it doesn't take a google genius to determine quickly that there has been a long and well-documented history of anti-semitism amongst everyone including the Arabs.
For the Arabs it takes on a more "traditional" angle because there is a land angle there also. But a cursory reading of any text or oratory of many of today's Arab leaders now or indeed from history will show that there is deep antipathy towards the Jews. I think this is pervasive hence while someone somewhere in Hamas might see this as a homeland issue, to deny the rampant anti-semitism of much of the Arab world is imo to misunderstimate the dynamic of the Middle East both now and throughout history.
Is there a history of anti Semitism amongst Arabic peoples? Of course. But I do not think it is the driving force behind the issue of Israel, especially not to begin with. Indeed, if the finger of anti Semitism should point anywhere it should be at the hegemonic western powers who refused fleeing Jewish people to their shores prior to WW2 - whereas at that point multicultural communities built on common understanding between Palestinian and Jewish exiles were commonplace. The land that is Israel and Palestine were also relatively free of faith based conflict under Ottoman control - all faiths had the freedom to access Jerusalem, for instance. The issue, I would argue, hinges on the forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of people from their land. This creates long lasting conflict - it has done with India and Pakistan, it has done in Africa, and it is the case with Israel and Palestine. People want to return to their homes, to farm their olives, to live and die in the house they were born in. At least with Indian partition people on both Hindu/secular and the Muslim sides held both positions - with Israel it is clear that one side was being forced out by the other.
On a purely empirical basis the fact that here were 100ks in ancient Jewish communities across the Middle East before they were expelled suggests that antisemitism wasn’t all pervasive until that point.
Apparently Biden retired for the day at..... 11.50 am. "We will not be seeing the president again"
An hour later Hamas announced they are gonna start executing hostages, live, on air - including up to a dozen American nationals
Sleepy Joe is not having a good war so far. He could lose the election in the coming days, if he's not careful. An urgent global crisis is when you realise you don't want an 80 year old man running the shop. This also applies to Trump, nearly as much, of course
Same day that Kennedy announces he is running as an indie.
God knows whether that will matter but in some crucial states we could be looking at margins of few 1000s of votes and who can say whose vote Kennedy will peel off more.
Bonkers GOP anti-vax/world is run by lizards voters or bonkers Dem Davos runs the world voters????
The fact that Israel has the ability to cut off power , water and food supplies to Gaza highlights one of the issues that have bred hatred .
Hamas lives off the hatred . Children are brought up with the hatred and it’s just a repeating cycle.
There are still those on both sides who wanted a peaceful resolution , sadly that’s been consigned to the bin for yet more years .
Israel can raze Gaza to the ground but the hatred will remain .
But if the Israelis can somehow shift the Gazans into Egypt, then the hatred will be further away, and the chances of Hamas repeating their spectacular incursion will be greatly minimised
I do wonder if that is what the Israelis are planning. I don't see any other point in wading into Gaza at the cost of many thousands of lives, quite a few of them Israeli
Will Egypt accept them ? The whole situation is just awful. There are no good outcomes here .
Absolutely. No good outcomes
If Egypt seals the border (and they have tightened control this morning) then Israel will be left with a cornered population unable to go anywhere. What then?
I may be wrong and this isn't the Israeli plan, but then I am bewildered as to what Israel thinks it can achieve with ANOTHER invasion that does nothing but stir up evermore enmity. It simply ensures further attacks down the line
As I said last night, they might possibly be planning a renewed Occupation of Gaza, with Israel in control, and the reintroduction of Israeli settlers, who will act as a de facto spy network and military police, so October 7 is not repeated. But that's damnably tricky and could so easily go wrong
The final possibility is that Israel doesn't have a plan. It is acting in a spirit of pure revenge
With whom would they negotiate? Hamas is the *government* of Gaza. Israel has declared war on Gaza amd it shouldn't be a surprise - its *government* has launched these attacks.
So the Israeli goal will I believe be simple - remove Hamas as a threat. How they achieve that is tricky, but they won't just be pushing the cross-border terrorists back into their prison.
Removal of Hamas - and the Hamas state - has to be the goal. And that will largely mean the killing of anyone who is Hamas, supports Hamas, lives near Hamas. It is going to be awful - war usually is. Especially when the aggressor is pledged to the extermination of the other side.
That may be Israel’s strategy. That (“killing of anyone who […] lives near Hamas”) would clearly be a war crime and we, as in the UK, should do everything we can to stop war crimes. We cannot criticise Russia for war crimes in Ukraine and wave through Israel, or Hamas, committing war crimes.
Here’s a simple rule of thumb: war crimes are bad. Don’t carry out war crimes. Don’t respond to say crimes with more war crimes. Why is that a proposition that some on PB struggle with?
"war crimes" is a fantasy. There is/are no such thing. They only exist for the winners in war.
The fact that they are typically enforced against the vanquished rather than the victors doesn't mean they aren't a "thing".
They are reasonably clearly defined by international convention, and provide at least some incentive to moderate the conduct of war in terms of impact on non-combatants. The incentive not to commit them is that if you turn out to be the vanquished, you'd probably rather slip away into exile and obscurity rather than ending up in The Hague or as a fugitive.
Should Israel deliberately target civilians? No. Do civilians have some responsibility to flee a war zone? Yes. Again Hamas are not just embedded in the civilian population, they are the government. So eradicating them is going to involve blowing a great many buildings up.
If your neighbour fires his AK47 at prayers 5 times a day, it is time to leave. Because in wartime it is always legitimate to go after CCC targets regardless of where the enemy has put them.
How exactly do 3 million people flee a war zone when they are not allowed to leave by any of the surrounding countries?
They should decide not to have Hamas as their leadership.
Even coming from you that is genuinely one of the stupidest comments any one has made on this topic.
I suppose the Catholics in Northern Ireland deserved to be bombed out and killed because they had Sinn Féin councillors.
There is huge support in Gaza for the Hamas leadership. They can send thousands of "militants" to Israel on near suicide missions. They have mass rallies of hundreds of thousands in the streets protesting against Israel and the Great Satan. They show pictures of six-yr old girls wielding AKs and crying with happiness at the onslaught happening in Israel.
But they are all harmless civilians who only want to find a way out of danger.
It must be very strange living inside your head where everything in the world is so black and white.
It is dangerously close to exactly the sort of attitude that led to Rwanda, Bosnia and indeed the Holocaust. Regarding people as a mass (and indeed to use the words of your friend Netenyahu as animals) rather than individuals is an easy road to 'untermensch'.
You seem pretty conflicted about it all.
Those poor Gazans who turned out in their hundreds of thousands to celebrate actions against Israel are now to be pitied. Of course it's best that civilians leave and they can do so via Egypt or indeed the coast if they wanted to. I have heard nothing about a port blockade perhaps you know different.
I don't for one moment think that every German in 1939 was complicit in the German war aims but I have read nowhere of a safe passage being discussed for them to escape the country before we bombed it.
This is the notion of collective guilt. It is explicitly a war crime.
Then it's one that every country including our own is guilty of. As noted above, it only matters if you lose. But actually of all the Nuremburg trials was one ever held for the bombing of Coventry?
See, I think this is where you and I differ @TOPPING - you see this as an argument for why we shouldn't worry about the plight of the Palestinian people. I see this as an argument for why we should have had a Nuremburg trial not only for the bombing of Coventry, but also the bombing of Dresden. And Hiroshima. Humanity got to a place where it almost said "only following orders" was not a good enough reason for individuals committing crimes against humanity. Much since has been trying to roll that back - we need only look at the indifference to history our Home Secretary displays when discussing the refugee convention, or our own history of "defending our troops" from the consequences of the crimes they committed during the Troubles.
And I find your view wholly admirable. And I do care about the plight of the Palestinian people. I think they have been dreadfully lead although bear not a small amount of responsibility for their leadership.
This is another Brexit issue. Because I was a Remainer it doesn't mean that I thought that everything the EU did was fantastic and beyond reproach; while Brexiters probably didn't think everything the EU did was dreadful, but internet forums, including if you can believe it PB, often force people to adopt those positions.
In this case Israel is not without fault in its behaviour over the past but after the events of the weekend I am giving them quite a lot of leeway to progress the war in whatever way they want and wanted only to point out that at some point a distinction between the sweet, good-natured, wouldn't harm a fly Palestinian people who only want peace with their beloved neighbours Israel, and the Palestinians who, in their hundreds of thousands march in support of the destruction of Israel needs to be drawn.
We didn't single out the nice Germans from the beastly ones and Israel can be forgiven for not doing the same in this instance wrt the Palestinians.
You're an odd fruit sometimes.
On the 'Putin attacking Ukraine' topic you've been at pains to explore the context, discuss the things that might have pushed him into the action (eg did the Iraq War set a precedent? I recall you posing that question quite doggedly), lots of that from you on that one.
Yet on this one, this 'Hamas attacking Israel' topic, any attempt by people to do similar, to mention the context, to discuss reasons why this attack might have happened (eg could the maltreatment of the Palestinians by Israel have anything to do with it?) seems to give you an attack of the vapors.
I'm not slagging you off, I'm genuinely interested in the different way you approach the 2 topics. Putin Ukraine, very up for context and the whys and wherefores. Hamas Israel, not so much. Why is this, do we think?
I am extremely clear on why Hamas attacked Israel. I am extremely clear on why Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Transjordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt attacked them in 1948. And in 1967. And 1973. And 2023.
They attacked them because they wanted to wipe Israel off the map. In each instance they failed and in trying they got themselves into quite a pickle.
Has Israel behaved as you or indeed I would have wished them to over the past 70 years? I'm sure not. But it's useful idiots like you who think that if Israel had only been a bit nicer over the period everyone would be holding hands and making daisy chains together.
You think that I am excusing Israel's behaviour to the Palestinians on the one hand and ignoring the fact that this might be a root cause of this weekend's actions. Just like I seek to understand the reasons for Putin's actions.
I am here to educate you that for centuries and most recently decades the Arab world (and of course others) has been antipathetic to the Jews and hence this weekend's actions are a symptom of that hatred.
Thanks for non flip reply. Doesn't happen too often. I treasure it.
So iyo the antipathy towards Israel in Gaza has little to do with the maltreatment of its Palestinian population. It's down to the inherent appetite of Palestinians for antisemitism.
Ok. I think that's incredibly jaundiced (and arguably racist) but given that is your view of course you won't (as you say) be shedding too many tears if Israel does end up engaging in large scale collective punishment of 'innocent' Palestinians. Inverted commas since they won't be innocent, will they?
Makes sense now. Quality exchange. Thanks again. Chilean red and nuts time.
Hope you are enjoying your red & nuts. To you and @148grss it seems that you have difficulty believing that there is anti-semitism amongst the Arabs. And that Israel has committed some (original - we'll come on to that later) sin which has brought this behaviour upon them.
I think it doesn't take a google genius to determine quickly that there has been a long and well-documented history of anti-semitism amongst everyone including the Arabs.
For the Arabs it takes on a more "traditional" angle because there is a land angle there also. But a cursory reading of any text or oratory of many of today's Arab leaders now or indeed from history will show that there is deep antipathy towards the Jews. I think this is pervasive hence while someone somewhere in Hamas might see this as a homeland issue, to deny the rampant anti-semitism of much of the Arab world is imo to misunderstimate the dynamic of the Middle East both now and throughout history.
Is there a history of anti Semitism amongst Arabic peoples? Of course. But I do not think it is the driving force behind the issue of Israel, especially not to begin with. Indeed, if the finger of anti Semitism should point anywhere it should be at the hegemonic western powers who refused fleeing Jewish people to their shores prior to WW2 - whereas at that point multicultural communities built on common understanding between Palestinian and Jewish exiles were commonplace. The land that is Israel and Palestine were also relatively free of faith based conflict under Ottoman control - all faiths had the freedom to access Jerusalem, for instance. The issue, I would argue, hinges on the forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of people from their land. This creates long lasting conflict - it has done with India and Pakistan, it has done in Africa, and it is the case with Israel and Palestine. People want to return to their homes, to farm their olives, to live and die in the house they were born in. At least with Indian partition people on both Hindu/secular and the Muslim sides held both positions - with Israel it is clear that one side was being forced out by the other.
I wondered how long it would be before we got to: "It's all out fault!"
You really should look at the history of Jews in the region, e.g. Iraq, to see why your pretend high-minded ideal of allowing people to return is utterly bogus. Why are the Palestinians the only ones who have this right to return?
I mean the history is quite clear that in many ways this is all our fault - both the British state specifically and western imperial nations more generally. I mean it was European imperialist states that committed pogroms and refused Jewish refugees entry for hundreds of years, and European imperialist logic that led to the holocaust. The concentration camp was not a Nazi invention, although their evolution into a specific death camp arguably was, and the European imperial powers had already committed acts of mass murder on par with the death camps - just over longer periods of time and less formalised in parts.
I mean I’m in favour of a stateless, classless society without borders - that goes slightly beyond the mere right to return in my mind - but yes, Jewish people should be able to live where they wish, especially more so if their near ancestors were expelled from there. That includes Iraq. I don’t see how me having the position that all states (if they are going to exist at all) should be like that therefore means I am specifically calling on Israel as a special case.
"I mean the history is quite clear that in many ways this is all our fault"
You really don't need to say any more than this. We already understand that this is your answer for EVERYTHING
I mean when you have an Empire that spanned a whole lot of the globe… yeah - lots of things that are bad with the world are going to be, in part, related to that. It’s not rocket science.
We are now at the stage that many countries in Africa have been independent longer than when they were actual colonies.
Even laying aside the fact that the norm in many colonies was for the powers to rule through the local tribes, how long should we assume everything is our fault and not those independent countries' own issues?
Apparently Biden retired for the day at..... 11.50 am. "We will not be seeing the president again"
An hour later Hamas announced they are gonna start executing hostages, live, on air - including up to a dozen American nationals
Sleepy Joe is not having a good war so far. He could lose the election in the coming days, if he's not careful. An urgent global crisis is when you realise you don't want an 80 year old man running the shop. This also applies to Trump, nearly as much, of course
Biden is old, possibly sleepy, but guidable. Trump is old, possibly sleepy, and utterly unpredictable, and not in the 'comes up with genius unconventional ideas' way.
It's not a difficult choice at all, but it is admittedly not great that it is the choice they have, but it is also too late to do anything about it - either could technically be defeated in a primary, but neither will be, nor will they pull out.
The fact that Israel has the ability to cut off power , water and food supplies to Gaza highlights one of the issues that have bred hatred .
Hamas lives off the hatred . Children are brought up with the hatred and it’s just a repeating cycle.
There are still those on both sides who wanted a peaceful resolution , sadly that’s been consigned to the bin for yet more years .
Israel can raze Gaza to the ground but the hatred will remain .
But if the Israelis can somehow shift the Gazans into Egypt, then the hatred will be further away, and the chances of Hamas repeating their spectacular incursion will be greatly minimised
I do wonder if that is what the Israelis are planning. I don't see any other point in wading into Gaza at the cost of many thousands of lives, quite a few of them Israeli
Will Egypt accept them ? The whole situation is just awful. There are no good outcomes here .
Absolutely. No good outcomes
If Egypt seals the border (and they have tightened control this morning) then Israel will be left with a cornered population unable to go anywhere. What then?
I may be wrong and this isn't the Israeli plan, but then I am bewildered as to what Israel thinks it can achieve with ANOTHER invasion that does nothing but stir up evermore enmity. It simply ensures further attacks down the line
As I said last night, they might possibly be planning a renewed Occupation of Gaza, with Israel in control, and the reintroduction of Israeli settlers, who will act as a de facto spy network and military police, so October 7 is not repeated. But that's damnably tricky and could so easily go wrong
The final possibility is that Israel doesn't have a plan. It is acting in a spirit of pure revenge
With whom would they negotiate? Hamas is the *government* of Gaza. Israel has declared war on Gaza amd it shouldn't be a surprise - its *government* has launched these attacks.
So the Israeli goal will I believe be simple - remove Hamas as a threat. How they achieve that is tricky, but they won't just be pushing the cross-border terrorists back into their prison.
Removal of Hamas - and the Hamas state - has to be the goal. And that will largely mean the killing of anyone who is Hamas, supports Hamas, lives near Hamas. It is going to be awful - war usually is. Especially when the aggressor is pledged to the extermination of the other side.
That may be Israel’s strategy. That (“killing of anyone who […] lives near Hamas”) would clearly be a war crime and we, as in the UK, should do everything we can to stop war crimes. We cannot criticise Russia for war crimes in Ukraine and wave through Israel, or Hamas, committing war crimes.
Here’s a simple rule of thumb: war crimes are bad. Don’t carry out war crimes. Don’t respond to say crimes with more war crimes. Why is that a proposition that some on PB struggle with?
"war crimes" is a fantasy. There is/are no such thing. They only exist for the winners in war.
The fact that they are typically enforced against the vanquished rather than the victors doesn't mean they aren't a "thing".
They are reasonably clearly defined by international convention, and provide at least some incentive to moderate the conduct of war in terms of impact on non-combatants. The incentive not to commit them is that if you turn out to be the vanquished, you'd probably rather slip away into exile and obscurity rather than ending up in The Hague or as a fugitive.
Should Israel deliberately target civilians? No. Do civilians have some responsibility to flee a war zone? Yes. Again Hamas are not just embedded in the civilian population, they are the government. So eradicating them is going to involve blowing a great many buildings up.
If your neighbour fires his AK47 at prayers 5 times a day, it is time to leave. Because in wartime it is always legitimate to go after CCC targets regardless of where the enemy has put them.
How exactly do 3 million people flee a war zone when they are not allowed to leave by any of the surrounding countries?
They should decide not to have Hamas as their leadership.
Even coming from you that is genuinely one of the stupidest comments any one has made on this topic.
I suppose the Catholics in Northern Ireland deserved to be bombed out and killed because they had Sinn Féin councillors.
There is huge support in Gaza for the Hamas leadership. They can send thousands of "militants" to Israel on near suicide missions. They have mass rallies of hundreds of thousands in the streets protesting against Israel and the Great Satan. They show pictures of six-yr old girls wielding AKs and crying with happiness at the onslaught happening in Israel.
But they are all harmless civilians who only want to find a way out of danger.
It must be very strange living inside your head where everything in the world is so black and white.
It is dangerously close to exactly the sort of attitude that led to Rwanda, Bosnia and indeed the Holocaust. Regarding people as a mass (and indeed to use the words of your friend Netenyahu as animals) rather than individuals is an easy road to 'untermensch'.
You seem pretty conflicted about it all.
Those poor Gazans who turned out in their hundreds of thousands to celebrate actions against Israel are now to be pitied. Of course it's best that civilians leave and they can do so via Egypt or indeed the coast if they wanted to. I have heard nothing about a port blockade perhaps you know different.
I don't for one moment think that every German in 1939 was complicit in the German war aims but I have read nowhere of a safe passage being discussed for them to escape the country before we bombed it.
This is the notion of collective guilt. It is explicitly a war crime.
Then it's one that every country including our own is guilty of. As noted above, it only matters if you lose. But actually of all the Nuremburg trials was one ever held for the bombing of Coventry?
See, I think this is where you and I differ @TOPPING - you see this as an argument for why we shouldn't worry about the plight of the Palestinian people. I see this as an argument for why we should have had a Nuremburg trial not only for the bombing of Coventry, but also the bombing of Dresden. And Hiroshima. Humanity got to a place where it almost said "only following orders" was not a good enough reason for individuals committing crimes against humanity. Much since has been trying to roll that back - we need only look at the indifference to history our Home Secretary displays when discussing the refugee convention, or our own history of "defending our troops" from the consequences of the crimes they committed during the Troubles.
And I find your view wholly admirable. And I do care about the plight of the Palestinian people. I think they have been dreadfully lead although bear not a small amount of responsibility for their leadership.
This is another Brexit issue. Because I was a Remainer it doesn't mean that I thought that everything the EU did was fantastic and beyond reproach; while Brexiters probably didn't think everything the EU did was dreadful, but internet forums, including if you can believe it PB, often force people to adopt those positions.
In this case Israel is not without fault in its behaviour over the past but after the events of the weekend I am giving them quite a lot of leeway to progress the war in whatever way they want and wanted only to point out that at some point a distinction between the sweet, good-natured, wouldn't harm a fly Palestinian people who only want peace with their beloved neighbours Israel, and the Palestinians who, in their hundreds of thousands march in support of the destruction of Israel needs to be drawn.
We didn't single out the nice Germans from the beastly ones and Israel can be forgiven for not doing the same in this instance wrt the Palestinians.
You're an odd fruit sometimes.
On the 'Putin attacking Ukraine' topic you've been at pains to explore the context, discuss the things that might have pushed him into the action (eg did the Iraq War set a precedent? I recall you posing that question quite doggedly), lots of that from you on that one.
Yet on this one, this 'Hamas attacking Israel' topic, any attempt by people to do similar, to mention the context, to discuss reasons why this attack might have happened (eg could the maltreatment of the Palestinians by Israel have anything to do with it?) seems to give you an attack of the vapors.
I'm not slagging you off, I'm genuinely interested in the different way you approach the 2 topics. Putin Ukraine, very up for context and the whys and wherefores. Hamas Israel, not so much. Why is this, do we think?
I am extremely clear on why Hamas attacked Israel. I am extremely clear on why Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Transjordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt attacked them in 1948. And in 1967. And 1973. And 2023.
They attacked them because they wanted to wipe Israel off the map. In each instance they failed and in trying they got themselves into quite a pickle.
Has Israel behaved as you or indeed I would have wished them to over the past 70 years? I'm sure not. But it's useful idiots like you who think that if Israel had only been a bit nicer over the period everyone would be holding hands and making daisy chains together.
You think that I am excusing Israel's behaviour to the Palestinians on the one hand and ignoring the fact that this might be a root cause of this weekend's actions. Just like I seek to understand the reasons for Putin's actions.
I am here to educate you that for centuries and most recently decades the Arab world (and of course others) has been antipathetic to the Jews and hence this weekend's actions are a symptom of that hatred.
Thanks for non flip reply. Doesn't happen too often. I treasure it.
So iyo the antipathy towards Israel in Gaza has little to do with the maltreatment of its Palestinian population. It's down to the inherent appetite of Palestinians for antisemitism.
Ok. I think that's incredibly jaundiced (and arguably racist) but given that is your view of course you won't (as you say) be shedding too many tears if Israel does end up engaging in large scale collective punishment of 'innocent' Palestinians. Inverted commas since they won't be innocent, will they?
Makes sense now. Quality exchange. Thanks again. Chilean red and nuts time.
Hope you are enjoying your red & nuts. To you and @148grss it seems that you have difficulty believing that there is anti-semitism amongst the Arabs. And that Israel has committed some (original - we'll come on to that later) sin which has brought this behaviour upon them.
I think it doesn't take a google genius to determine quickly that there has been a long and well-documented history of anti-semitism amongst everyone including the Arabs.
For the Arabs it takes on a more "traditional" angle because there is a land angle there also. But a cursory reading of any text or oratory of many of today's Arab leaders now or indeed from history will show that there is deep antipathy towards the Jews. I think this is pervasive hence while someone somewhere in Hamas might see this as a homeland issue, to deny the rampant anti-semitism of much of the Arab world is imo to misunderstimate the dynamic of the Middle East both now and throughout history.
Is there a history of anti Semitism amongst Arabic peoples? Of course. But I do not think it is the driving force behind the issue of Israel, especially not to begin with. Indeed, if the finger of anti Semitism should point anywhere it should be at the hegemonic western powers who refused fleeing Jewish people to their shores prior to WW2 - whereas at that point multicultural communities built on common understanding between Palestinian and Jewish exiles were commonplace. The land that is Israel and Palestine were also relatively free of faith based conflict under Ottoman control - all faiths had the freedom to access Jerusalem, for instance. The issue, I would argue, hinges on the forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of people from their land. This creates long lasting conflict - it has done with India and Pakistan, it has done in Africa, and it is the case with Israel and Palestine. People want to return to their homes, to farm their olives, to live and die in the house they were born in. At least with Indian partition people on both Hindu/secular and the Muslim sides held both positions - with Israel it is clear that one side was being forced out by the other.
I wondered how long it would be before we got to: "It's all out fault!"
You really should look at the history of Jews in the region, e.g. Iraq, to see why your pretend high-minded ideal of allowing people to return is utterly bogus. Why are the Palestinians the only ones who have this right to return?
I mean the history is quite clear that in many ways this is all our fault - both the British state specifically and western imperial nations more generally. I mean it was European imperialist states that committed pogroms and refused Jewish refugees entry for hundreds of years, and European imperialist logic that led to the holocaust. The concentration camp was not a Nazi invention, although their evolution into a specific death camp arguably was, and the European imperial powers had already committed acts of mass murder on par with the death camps - just over longer periods of time and less formalised in parts.
I mean I’m in favour of a stateless, classless society without borders - that goes slightly beyond the mere right to return in my mind - but yes, Jewish people should be able to live where they wish, especially more so if their near ancestors were expelled from there. That includes Iraq. I don’t see how me having the position that all states (if they are going to exist at all) should be like that therefore means I am specifically calling on Israel as a special case.
"I mean the history is quite clear that in many ways this is all our fault"
You really don't need to say any more than this. We already understand that this is your answer for EVERYTHING
I mean when you have an Empire that spanned a whole lot of the globe… yeah - lots of things that are bad with the world are going to be, in part, related to that. It’s not rocket science.
Related to in part is not the problem, it would be wrong to assume there can be no relation at all. It's when its automatically taken as the primary driver even in factional conflicts spanning the better part of a millenium, or that it must be solved by such outside forces, that it becomes unhelpful and self important.
The fact that Israel has the ability to cut off power , water and food supplies to Gaza highlights one of the issues that have bred hatred .
Hamas lives off the hatred . Children are brought up with the hatred and it’s just a repeating cycle.
There are still those on both sides who wanted a peaceful resolution , sadly that’s been consigned to the bin for yet more years .
Israel can raze Gaza to the ground but the hatred will remain .
But if the Israelis can somehow shift the Gazans into Egypt, then the hatred will be further away, and the chances of Hamas repeating their spectacular incursion will be greatly minimised
I do wonder if that is what the Israelis are planning. I don't see any other point in wading into Gaza at the cost of many thousands of lives, quite a few of them Israeli
Will Egypt accept them ? The whole situation is just awful. There are no good outcomes here .
Absolutely. No good outcomes
If Egypt seals the border (and they have tightened control this morning) then Israel will be left with a cornered population unable to go anywhere. What then?
I may be wrong and this isn't the Israeli plan, but then I am bewildered as to what Israel thinks it can achieve with ANOTHER invasion that does nothing but stir up evermore enmity. It simply ensures further attacks down the line
As I said last night, they might possibly be planning a renewed Occupation of Gaza, with Israel in control, and the reintroduction of Israeli settlers, who will act as a de facto spy network and military police, so October 7 is not repeated. But that's damnably tricky and could so easily go wrong
The final possibility is that Israel doesn't have a plan. It is acting in a spirit of pure revenge
With whom would they negotiate? Hamas is the *government* of Gaza. Israel has declared war on Gaza amd it shouldn't be a surprise - its *government* has launched these attacks.
So the Israeli goal will I believe be simple - remove Hamas as a threat. How they achieve that is tricky, but they won't just be pushing the cross-border terrorists back into their prison.
Removal of Hamas - and the Hamas state - has to be the goal. And that will largely mean the killing of anyone who is Hamas, supports Hamas, lives near Hamas. It is going to be awful - war usually is. Especially when the aggressor is pledged to the extermination of the other side.
That may be Israel’s strategy. That (“killing of anyone who […] lives near Hamas”) would clearly be a war crime and we, as in the UK, should do everything we can to stop war crimes. We cannot criticise Russia for war crimes in Ukraine and wave through Israel, or Hamas, committing war crimes.
Here’s a simple rule of thumb: war crimes are bad. Don’t carry out war crimes. Don’t respond to say crimes with more war crimes. Why is that a proposition that some on PB struggle with?
"war crimes" is a fantasy. There is/are no such thing. They only exist for the winners in war.
The fact that they are typically enforced against the vanquished rather than the victors doesn't mean they aren't a "thing".
They are reasonably clearly defined by international convention, and provide at least some incentive to moderate the conduct of war in terms of impact on non-combatants. The incentive not to commit them is that if you turn out to be the vanquished, you'd probably rather slip away into exile and obscurity rather than ending up in The Hague or as a fugitive.
Should Israel deliberately target civilians? No. Do civilians have some responsibility to flee a war zone? Yes. Again Hamas are not just embedded in the civilian population, they are the government. So eradicating them is going to involve blowing a great many buildings up.
If your neighbour fires his AK47 at prayers 5 times a day, it is time to leave. Because in wartime it is always legitimate to go after CCC targets regardless of where the enemy has put them.
How exactly do 3 million people flee a war zone when they are not allowed to leave by any of the surrounding countries?
They should decide not to have Hamas as their leadership.
Even coming from you that is genuinely one of the stupidest comments any one has made on this topic.
I suppose the Catholics in Northern Ireland deserved to be bombed out and killed because they had Sinn Féin councillors.
There is huge support in Gaza for the Hamas leadership. They can send thousands of "militants" to Israel on near suicide missions. They have mass rallies of hundreds of thousands in the streets protesting against Israel and the Great Satan. They show pictures of six-yr old girls wielding AKs and crying with happiness at the onslaught happening in Israel.
But they are all harmless civilians who only want to find a way out of danger.
It must be very strange living inside your head where everything in the world is so black and white.
It is dangerously close to exactly the sort of attitude that led to Rwanda, Bosnia and indeed the Holocaust. Regarding people as a mass (and indeed to use the words of your friend Netenyahu as animals) rather than individuals is an easy road to 'untermensch'.
You seem pretty conflicted about it all.
Those poor Gazans who turned out in their hundreds of thousands to celebrate actions against Israel are now to be pitied. Of course it's best that civilians leave and they can do so via Egypt or indeed the coast if they wanted to. I have heard nothing about a port blockade perhaps you know different.
I don't for one moment think that every German in 1939 was complicit in the German war aims but I have read nowhere of a safe passage being discussed for them to escape the country before we bombed it.
This is the notion of collective guilt. It is explicitly a war crime.
Then it's one that every country including our own is guilty of. As noted above, it only matters if you lose. But actually of all the Nuremburg trials was one ever held for the bombing of Coventry?
See, I think this is where you and I differ @TOPPING - you see this as an argument for why we shouldn't worry about the plight of the Palestinian people. I see this as an argument for why we should have had a Nuremburg trial not only for the bombing of Coventry, but also the bombing of Dresden. And Hiroshima. Humanity got to a place where it almost said "only following orders" was not a good enough reason for individuals committing crimes against humanity. Much since has been trying to roll that back - we need only look at the indifference to history our Home Secretary displays when discussing the refugee convention, or our own history of "defending our troops" from the consequences of the crimes they committed during the Troubles.
And I find your view wholly admirable. And I do care about the plight of the Palestinian people. I think they have been dreadfully lead although bear not a small amount of responsibility for their leadership.
This is another Brexit issue. Because I was a Remainer it doesn't mean that I thought that everything the EU did was fantastic and beyond reproach; while Brexiters probably didn't think everything the EU did was dreadful, but internet forums, including if you can believe it PB, often force people to adopt those positions.
In this case Israel is not without fault in its behaviour over the past but after the events of the weekend I am giving them quite a lot of leeway to progress the war in whatever way they want and wanted only to point out that at some point a distinction between the sweet, good-natured, wouldn't harm a fly Palestinian people who only want peace with their beloved neighbours Israel, and the Palestinians who, in their hundreds of thousands march in support of the destruction of Israel needs to be drawn.
We didn't single out the nice Germans from the beastly ones and Israel can be forgiven for not doing the same in this instance wrt the Palestinians.
You're an odd fruit sometimes.
On the 'Putin attacking Ukraine' topic you've been at pains to explore the context, discuss the things that might have pushed him into the action (eg did the Iraq War set a precedent? I recall you posing that question quite doggedly), lots of that from you on that one.
Yet on this one, this 'Hamas attacking Israel' topic, any attempt by people to do similar, to mention the context, to discuss reasons why this attack might have happened (eg could the maltreatment of the Palestinians by Israel have anything to do with it?) seems to give you an attack of the vapors.
I'm not slagging you off, I'm genuinely interested in the different way you approach the 2 topics. Putin Ukraine, very up for context and the whys and wherefores. Hamas Israel, not so much. Why is this, do we think?
I am extremely clear on why Hamas attacked Israel. I am extremely clear on why Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Transjordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt attacked them in 1948. And in 1967. And 1973. And 2023.
They attacked them because they wanted to wipe Israel off the map. In each instance they failed and in trying they got themselves into quite a pickle.
Has Israel behaved as you or indeed I would have wished them to over the past 70 years? I'm sure not. But it's useful idiots like you who think that if Israel had only been a bit nicer over the period everyone would be holding hands and making daisy chains together.
You think that I am excusing Israel's behaviour to the Palestinians on the one hand and ignoring the fact that this might be a root cause of this weekend's actions. Just like I seek to understand the reasons for Putin's actions.
I am here to educate you that for centuries and most recently decades the Arab world (and of course others) has been antipathetic to the Jews and hence this weekend's actions are a symptom of that hatred.
Thanks for non flip reply. Doesn't happen too often. I treasure it.
So iyo the antipathy towards Israel in Gaza has little to do with the maltreatment of its Palestinian population. It's down to the inherent appetite of Palestinians for antisemitism.
Ok. I think that's incredibly jaundiced (and arguably racist) but given that is your view of course you won't (as you say) be shedding too many tears if Israel does end up engaging in large scale collective punishment of 'innocent' Palestinians. Inverted commas since they won't be innocent, will they?
Makes sense now. Quality exchange. Thanks again. Chilean red and nuts time.
Hope you are enjoying your red & nuts. To you and @148grss it seems that you have difficulty believing that there is anti-semitism amongst the Arabs. And that Israel has committed some (original - we'll come on to that later) sin which has brought this behaviour upon them.
I think it doesn't take a google genius to determine quickly that there has been a long and well-documented history of anti-semitism amongst everyone including the Arabs.
For the Arabs it takes on a more "traditional" angle because there is a land angle there also. But a cursory reading of any text or oratory of many of today's Arab leaders now or indeed from history will show that there is deep antipathy towards the Jews. I think this is pervasive hence while someone somewhere in Hamas might see this as a homeland issue, to deny the rampant anti-semitism of much of the Arab world is imo to misunderstimate the dynamic of the Middle East both now and throughout history.
Is there a history of anti Semitism amongst Arabic peoples? Of course. But I do not think it is the driving force behind the issue of Israel, especially not to begin with. Indeed, if the finger of anti Semitism should point anywhere it should be at the hegemonic western powers who refused fleeing Jewish people to their shores prior to WW2 - whereas at that point multicultural communities built on common understanding between Palestinian and Jewish exiles were commonplace. The land that is Israel and Palestine were also relatively free of faith based conflict under Ottoman control - all faiths had the freedom to access Jerusalem, for instance. The issue, I would argue, hinges on the forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of people from their land. This creates long lasting conflict - it has done with India and Pakistan, it has done in Africa, and it is the case with Israel and Palestine. People want to return to their homes, to farm their olives, to live and die in the house they were born in. At least with Indian partition people on both Hindu/secular and the Muslim sides held both positions - with Israel it is clear that one side was being forced out by the other.
I wondered how long it would be before we got to: "It's all out fault!"
You really should look at the history of Jews in the region, e.g. Iraq, to see why your pretend high-minded ideal of allowing people to return is utterly bogus. Why are the Palestinians the only ones who have this right to return?
I mean the history is quite clear that in many ways this is all our fault - both the British state specifically and western imperial nations more generally. I mean it was European imperialist states that committed pogroms and refused Jewish refugees entry for hundreds of years, and European imperialist logic that led to the holocaust. The concentration camp was not a Nazi invention, although their evolution into a specific death camp arguably was, and the European imperial powers had already committed acts of mass murder on par with the death camps - just over longer periods of time and less formalised in parts.
I mean I’m in favour of a stateless, classless society without borders - that goes slightly beyond the mere right to return in my mind - but yes, Jewish people should be able to live where they wish, especially more so if their near ancestors were expelled from there. That includes Iraq. I don’t see how me having the position that all states (if they are going to exist at all) should be like that therefore means I am specifically calling on Israel as a special case.
"I mean the history is quite clear that in many ways this is all our fault"
You really don't need to say any more than this. We already understand that this is your answer for EVERYTHING
I mean when you have an Empire that spanned a whole lot of the globe… yeah - lots of things that are bad with the world are going to be, in part, related to that. It’s not rocket science.
We are now at the stage that many countries in Africa have been independent longer than when they were actual colonies.
Even laying aside the fact that the norm in many colonies was for the powers to rule through the local tribes, how long should we assume everything is our fault and not those independent countries' own issues?
On some level @148grss seems to believe that decolonisation was a mistake, and we should instead have all joined in one big happy family with no borders.
I think that I am right in saying a very high proportion of Gaza’s water and electricity comes from Israel. People are going to be driven out by thirst.
Oh, close to 100% of Gaza's water and electricity comes from Israel.
Gaza has no airport, and Israel has blockaded its port, so there is no ability for Gaza to import coal or gas from anywhere else, to allow them to make power. (And without power, they can't make clean water.)
There is some diesel that comes across in trucks from Egypt, and which is used to power backup generators. And there is some rooftop solar. But - basically - Gaza is 100% dependent on Israel.
And they will exploit that to make Gaza uninhabitable. This is not going to end well for anyone.
There are two lots of losers here:
The people of Southern Israel, who saw their land invaded, and who were tortured, raped and kidnapped. (And by the way, for what? It's not like there was any possibility that motorcycle riding Hamas fighters were going to militarily defeat Izsrael.)
And the ordinary people of Gaza.
Life was already miserable there. It is going to get worse.
This mess is never getting any better for years and is only getting worse.
The rich world (including the UK) should pay a fortune to Egypt and Gazans to relocate Gazans to Sinai and provide humongous levels of aid and development. Stuff their mouths with money to ensure they're developed in a way that frankly is never going to happen in Gaza.
Sovereignty only matters to people like us then eh. Matters so much to us that we can't even tolerate being in the EU. But those Palestinians, hmm, different strokes. Lower level types.
True. No one is defending the Hamas attacks but they didn’t just appear from nowhere . Cause and effect , there’s a lot of moralizing from those who have no idea what it’s like to live in an open prison , no hope , no jobs and absolutely no sign of anything changing. Your water, food and energy is at the whim of what your perceive as an occupying force. Settlements are built on land stolen from your family. The pie keeps shrinking so any future deal even if that was possible means you get a few scraps . The attacks by Hamas are disgusting but let’s not pretend the Israeli government doesn’t bear some responsibility for its actions over many years which just continued to help forment the hatred and resentment.
Victim blaming, nice.
Her skirt was too short.
The Jews had it coming.
I’m not victim blaming . This is the typical response when people don’t want to debate the issues and the actual history of the troubles.
Happy to debate the issue and the actual history.
The actual history is a swathe of Arab states (plus Iran) attempting genocide against the Jews and the only Jewish state on the planet, from 1948 to today, from the immediate aftermath of the Holocaust onwards.
In that time the Red Army cleared Germans out of Eastern Europe, the Arabs cleared Jews out of their states, meanwhile the Israelis have bent over backwards hosting in land they control people who literally call for and aim for their extermination.
You’re allowed your own opinion not your own facts ! Israel has never shown any recent inclination to come to any sort of agreement . You do understand the term illegal settlements ! And as for bending over backwards dear me , talk about revisionism on steroids .
The fact that Israel has the ability to cut off power , water and food supplies to Gaza highlights one of the issues that have bred hatred .
Hamas lives off the hatred . Children are brought up with the hatred and it’s just a repeating cycle.
There are still those on both sides who wanted a peaceful resolution , sadly that’s been consigned to the bin for yet more years .
Israel can raze Gaza to the ground but the hatred will remain .
But if the Israelis can somehow shift the Gazans into Egypt, then the hatred will be further away, and the chances of Hamas repeating their spectacular incursion will be greatly minimised
I do wonder if that is what the Israelis are planning. I don't see any other point in wading into Gaza at the cost of many thousands of lives, quite a few of them Israeli
Will Egypt accept them ? The whole situation is just awful. There are no good outcomes here .
Absolutely. No good outcomes
If Egypt seals the border (and they have tightened control this morning) then Israel will be left with a cornered population unable to go anywhere. What then?
I may be wrong and this isn't the Israeli plan, but then I am bewildered as to what Israel thinks it can achieve with ANOTHER invasion that does nothing but stir up evermore enmity. It simply ensures further attacks down the line
As I said last night, they might possibly be planning a renewed Occupation of Gaza, with Israel in control, and the reintroduction of Israeli settlers, who will act as a de facto spy network and military police, so October 7 is not repeated. But that's damnably tricky and could so easily go wrong
The final possibility is that Israel doesn't have a plan. It is acting in a spirit of pure revenge
With whom would they negotiate? Hamas is the *government* of Gaza. Israel has declared war on Gaza amd it shouldn't be a surprise - its *government* has launched these attacks.
So the Israeli goal will I believe be simple - remove Hamas as a threat. How they achieve that is tricky, but they won't just be pushing the cross-border terrorists back into their prison.
Removal of Hamas - and the Hamas state - has to be the goal. And that will largely mean the killing of anyone who is Hamas, supports Hamas, lives near Hamas. It is going to be awful - war usually is. Especially when the aggressor is pledged to the extermination of the other side.
That may be Israel’s strategy. That (“killing of anyone who […] lives near Hamas”) would clearly be a war crime and we, as in the UK, should do everything we can to stop war crimes. We cannot criticise Russia for war crimes in Ukraine and wave through Israel, or Hamas, committing war crimes.
Here’s a simple rule of thumb: war crimes are bad. Don’t carry out war crimes. Don’t respond to say crimes with more war crimes. Why is that a proposition that some on PB struggle with?
"war crimes" is a fantasy. There is/are no such thing. They only exist for the winners in war.
The fact that they are typically enforced against the vanquished rather than the victors doesn't mean they aren't a "thing".
They are reasonably clearly defined by international convention, and provide at least some incentive to moderate the conduct of war in terms of impact on non-combatants. The incentive not to commit them is that if you turn out to be the vanquished, you'd probably rather slip away into exile and obscurity rather than ending up in The Hague or as a fugitive.
Should Israel deliberately target civilians? No. Do civilians have some responsibility to flee a war zone? Yes. Again Hamas are not just embedded in the civilian population, they are the government. So eradicating them is going to involve blowing a great many buildings up.
If your neighbour fires his AK47 at prayers 5 times a day, it is time to leave. Because in wartime it is always legitimate to go after CCC targets regardless of where the enemy has put them.
How exactly do 3 million people flee a war zone when they are not allowed to leave by any of the surrounding countries?
They should decide not to have Hamas as their leadership.
Even coming from you that is genuinely one of the stupidest comments any one has made on this topic.
I suppose the Catholics in Northern Ireland deserved to be bombed out and killed because they had Sinn Féin councillors.
There is huge support in Gaza for the Hamas leadership. They can send thousands of "militants" to Israel on near suicide missions. They have mass rallies of hundreds of thousands in the streets protesting against Israel and the Great Satan. They show pictures of six-yr old girls wielding AKs and crying with happiness at the onslaught happening in Israel.
But they are all harmless civilians who only want to find a way out of danger.
It must be very strange living inside your head where everything in the world is so black and white.
It is dangerously close to exactly the sort of attitude that led to Rwanda, Bosnia and indeed the Holocaust. Regarding people as a mass (and indeed to use the words of your friend Netenyahu as animals) rather than individuals is an easy road to 'untermensch'.
You seem pretty conflicted about it all.
Those poor Gazans who turned out in their hundreds of thousands to celebrate actions against Israel are now to be pitied. Of course it's best that civilians leave and they can do so via Egypt or indeed the coast if they wanted to. I have heard nothing about a port blockade perhaps you know different.
I don't for one moment think that every German in 1939 was complicit in the German war aims but I have read nowhere of a safe passage being discussed for them to escape the country before we bombed it.
This is the notion of collective guilt. It is explicitly a war crime.
Then it's one that every country including our own is guilty of. As noted above, it only matters if you lose. But actually of all the Nuremburg trials was one ever held for the bombing of Coventry?
See, I think this is where you and I differ @TOPPING - you see this as an argument for why we shouldn't worry about the plight of the Palestinian people. I see this as an argument for why we should have had a Nuremburg trial not only for the bombing of Coventry, but also the bombing of Dresden. And Hiroshima. Humanity got to a place where it almost said "only following orders" was not a good enough reason for individuals committing crimes against humanity. Much since has been trying to roll that back - we need only look at the indifference to history our Home Secretary displays when discussing the refugee convention, or our own history of "defending our troops" from the consequences of the crimes they committed during the Troubles.
And I find your view wholly admirable. And I do care about the plight of the Palestinian people. I think they have been dreadfully lead although bear not a small amount of responsibility for their leadership.
This is another Brexit issue. Because I was a Remainer it doesn't mean that I thought that everything the EU did was fantastic and beyond reproach; while Brexiters probably didn't think everything the EU did was dreadful, but internet forums, including if you can believe it PB, often force people to adopt those positions.
In this case Israel is not without fault in its behaviour over the past but after the events of the weekend I am giving them quite a lot of leeway to progress the war in whatever way they want and wanted only to point out that at some point a distinction between the sweet, good-natured, wouldn't harm a fly Palestinian people who only want peace with their beloved neighbours Israel, and the Palestinians who, in their hundreds of thousands march in support of the destruction of Israel needs to be drawn.
We didn't single out the nice Germans from the beastly ones and Israel can be forgiven for not doing the same in this instance wrt the Palestinians.
You're an odd fruit sometimes.
On the 'Putin attacking Ukraine' topic you've been at pains to explore the context, discuss the things that might have pushed him into the action (eg did the Iraq War set a precedent? I recall you posing that question quite doggedly), lots of that from you on that one.
Yet on this one, this 'Hamas attacking Israel' topic, any attempt by people to do similar, to mention the context, to discuss reasons why this attack might have happened (eg could the maltreatment of the Palestinians by Israel have anything to do with it?) seems to give you an attack of the vapors.
I'm not slagging you off, I'm genuinely interested in the different way you approach the 2 topics. Putin Ukraine, very up for context and the whys and wherefores. Hamas Israel, not so much. Why is this, do we think?
I am extremely clear on why Hamas attacked Israel. I am extremely clear on why Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Transjordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt attacked them in 1948. And in 1967. And 1973. And 2023.
They attacked them because they wanted to wipe Israel off the map. In each instance they failed and in trying they got themselves into quite a pickle.
Has Israel behaved as you or indeed I would have wished them to over the past 70 years? I'm sure not. But it's useful idiots like you who think that if Israel had only been a bit nicer over the period everyone would be holding hands and making daisy chains together.
You think that I am excusing Israel's behaviour to the Palestinians on the one hand and ignoring the fact that this might be a root cause of this weekend's actions. Just like I seek to understand the reasons for Putin's actions.
I am here to educate you that for centuries and most recently decades the Arab world (and of course others) has been antipathetic to the Jews and hence this weekend's actions are a symptom of that hatred.
Thanks for non flip reply. Doesn't happen too often. I treasure it.
So iyo the antipathy towards Israel in Gaza has little to do with the maltreatment of its Palestinian population. It's down to the inherent appetite of Palestinians for antisemitism.
Ok. I think that's incredibly jaundiced (and arguably racist) but given that is your view of course you won't (as you say) be shedding too many tears if Israel does end up engaging in large scale collective punishment of 'innocent' Palestinians. Inverted commas since they won't be innocent, will they?
Makes sense now. Quality exchange. Thanks again. Chilean red and nuts time.
Hope you are enjoying your red & nuts. To you and @148grss it seems that you have difficulty believing that there is anti-semitism amongst the Arabs. And that Israel has committed some (original - we'll come on to that later) sin which has brought this behaviour upon them.
I think it doesn't take a google genius to determine quickly that there has been a long and well-documented history of anti-semitism amongst everyone including the Arabs.
For the Arabs it takes on a more "traditional" angle because there is a land angle there also. But a cursory reading of any text or oratory of many of today's Arab leaders now or indeed from history will show that there is deep antipathy towards the Jews. I think this is pervasive hence while someone somewhere in Hamas might see this as a homeland issue, to deny the rampant anti-semitism of much of the Arab world is imo to misunderstimate the dynamic of the Middle East both now and throughout history.
Is there a history of anti Semitism amongst Arabic peoples? Of course. But I do not think it is the driving force behind the issue of Israel, especially not to begin with. Indeed, if the finger of anti Semitism should point anywhere it should be at the hegemonic western powers who refused fleeing Jewish people to their shores prior to WW2 - whereas at that point multicultural communities built on common understanding between Palestinian and Jewish exiles were commonplace. The land that is Israel and Palestine were also relatively free of faith based conflict under Ottoman control - all faiths had the freedom to access Jerusalem, for instance. The issue, I would argue, hinges on the forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of people from their land. This creates long lasting conflict - it has done with India and Pakistan, it has done in Africa, and it is the case with Israel and Palestine. People want to return to their homes, to farm their olives, to live and die in the house they were born in. At least with Indian partition people on both Hindu/secular and the Muslim sides held both positions - with Israel it is clear that one side was being forced out by the other.
On a purely empirical basis the fact that here were 100ks in ancient Jewish communities across the Middle East before they were expelled suggests that antisemitism wasn’t all pervasive until that point.
Er, the Jews were captured and enslaved in Babylon. This is historical fact
"The Babylonian captivity or Babylonian exile is the period in Jewish history during which a large number of Judeans from the ancient Kingdom of Judah were captives in Babylon, the capital city of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, following their defeat in the Jewish–Babylonian War and the destruction of Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem. The event is known to be historical, and is described in the Hebrew Bible in addition to archaeological and extra-biblical sources."
Apparently Biden retired for the day at..... 11.50 am. "We will not be seeing the president again"
An hour later Hamas announced they are gonna start executing hostages, live, on air - including up to a dozen American nationals
Sleepy Joe is not having a good war so far. He could lose the election in the coming days, if he's not careful. An urgent global crisis is when you realise you don't want an 80 year old man running the shop. This also applies to Trump, nearly as much, of course
He is going to get hammered on the $6 billion deal with Iran and the Robert Malley thing for sure. Then the analogies already being drawn between what has happened in his Presidency and Trump's on foreign affairs.
He has also got the problem of his left wing to deal with who are more 'equivocal' when it comes to Israel.
Moreover, it looks like the Israel conflict is spurring the GOP to get the House Speaker contest over with ASAP. Even Gaetz has said he will respect the majority result. That helps on the aid front but it probably means there is not the extended process of the House GOP ripping itself apart.
Apparently Biden retired for the day at..... 11.50 am. "We will not be seeing the president again"
An hour later Hamas announced they are gonna start executing hostages, live, on air - including up to a dozen American nationals
Sleepy Joe is not having a good war so far. He could lose the election in the coming days, if he's not careful. An urgent global crisis is when you realise you don't want an 80 year old man running the shop. This also applies to Trump, nearly as much, of course
Biden is old, possibly sleepy, but guidable. Trump is old, possibly sleepy, and utterly unpredictable, and not in the 'comes up with genius unconventional ideas' way.
It's not a difficult choice at all, but it is admittedly not great that it is the choice they have, but it is also too late to do anything about it - either could technically be defeated in a primary, but neither will be, nor will they pull out.
The Dems need to tell Biden to fuck off and shift over, and stop being a selfish old twat
For decades, UK governments from all 3 parties have had a foreign policy supporting a rules-based international order, and a domestic law forbidding war crimes. Yet multiple people here have, in recent days, advocated that Israel should commit war crimes. (And they're not defending Israel's actions. They're calling for Israel to go further than they currently are.)
Can I ask these people: why didn't you speak out against the UK's policy in favour of a rules-based International order and against war crimes? If war crimes don't exist or they're fine in some circumstances, shouldn't we have said that decades ago?
"Rules-based international order" - give me a break!
The fact that Israel has the ability to cut off power , water and food supplies to Gaza highlights one of the issues that have bred hatred .
Hamas lives off the hatred . Children are brought up with the hatred and it’s just a repeating cycle.
There are still those on both sides who wanted a peaceful resolution , sadly that’s been consigned to the bin for yet more years .
Israel can raze Gaza to the ground but the hatred will remain .
But if the Israelis can somehow shift the Gazans into Egypt, then the hatred will be further away, and the chances of Hamas repeating their spectacular incursion will be greatly minimised
I do wonder if that is what the Israelis are planning. I don't see any other point in wading into Gaza at the cost of many thousands of lives, quite a few of them Israeli
Will Egypt accept them ? The whole situation is just awful. There are no good outcomes here .
Absolutely. No good outcomes
If Egypt seals the border (and they have tightened control this morning) then Israel will be left with a cornered population unable to go anywhere. What then?
I may be wrong and this isn't the Israeli plan, but then I am bewildered as to what Israel thinks it can achieve with ANOTHER invasion that does nothing but stir up evermore enmity. It simply ensures further attacks down the line
As I said last night, they might possibly be planning a renewed Occupation of Gaza, with Israel in control, and the reintroduction of Israeli settlers, who will act as a de facto spy network and military police, so October 7 is not repeated. But that's damnably tricky and could so easily go wrong
The final possibility is that Israel doesn't have a plan. It is acting in a spirit of pure revenge
With whom would they negotiate? Hamas is the *government* of Gaza. Israel has declared war on Gaza amd it shouldn't be a surprise - its *government* has launched these attacks.
So the Israeli goal will I believe be simple - remove Hamas as a threat. How they achieve that is tricky, but they won't just be pushing the cross-border terrorists back into their prison.
Removal of Hamas - and the Hamas state - has to be the goal. And that will largely mean the killing of anyone who is Hamas, supports Hamas, lives near Hamas. It is going to be awful - war usually is. Especially when the aggressor is pledged to the extermination of the other side.
That may be Israel’s strategy. That (“killing of anyone who […] lives near Hamas”) would clearly be a war crime and we, as in the UK, should do everything we can to stop war crimes. We cannot criticise Russia for war crimes in Ukraine and wave through Israel, or Hamas, committing war crimes.
Here’s a simple rule of thumb: war crimes are bad. Don’t carry out war crimes. Don’t respond to say crimes with more war crimes. Why is that a proposition that some on PB struggle with?
"war crimes" is a fantasy. There is/are no such thing. They only exist for the winners in war.
The fact that they are typically enforced against the vanquished rather than the victors doesn't mean they aren't a "thing".
They are reasonably clearly defined by international convention, and provide at least some incentive to moderate the conduct of war in terms of impact on non-combatants. The incentive not to commit them is that if you turn out to be the vanquished, you'd probably rather slip away into exile and obscurity rather than ending up in The Hague or as a fugitive.
Should Israel deliberately target civilians? No. Do civilians have some responsibility to flee a war zone? Yes. Again Hamas are not just embedded in the civilian population, they are the government. So eradicating them is going to involve blowing a great many buildings up.
If your neighbour fires his AK47 at prayers 5 times a day, it is time to leave. Because in wartime it is always legitimate to go after CCC targets regardless of where the enemy has put them.
How exactly do 3 million people flee a war zone when they are not allowed to leave by any of the surrounding countries?
They should decide not to have Hamas as their leadership.
Even coming from you that is genuinely one of the stupidest comments any one has made on this topic.
I suppose the Catholics in Northern Ireland deserved to be bombed out and killed because they had Sinn Féin councillors.
There is huge support in Gaza for the Hamas leadership. They can send thousands of "militants" to Israel on near suicide missions. They have mass rallies of hundreds of thousands in the streets protesting against Israel and the Great Satan. They show pictures of six-yr old girls wielding AKs and crying with happiness at the onslaught happening in Israel.
But they are all harmless civilians who only want to find a way out of danger.
It must be very strange living inside your head where everything in the world is so black and white.
It is dangerously close to exactly the sort of attitude that led to Rwanda, Bosnia and indeed the Holocaust. Regarding people as a mass (and indeed to use the words of your friend Netenyahu as animals) rather than individuals is an easy road to 'untermensch'.
You seem pretty conflicted about it all.
Those poor Gazans who turned out in their hundreds of thousands to celebrate actions against Israel are now to be pitied. Of course it's best that civilians leave and they can do so via Egypt or indeed the coast if they wanted to. I have heard nothing about a port blockade perhaps you know different.
I don't for one moment think that every German in 1939 was complicit in the German war aims but I have read nowhere of a safe passage being discussed for them to escape the country before we bombed it.
This is the notion of collective guilt. It is explicitly a war crime.
Then it's one that every country including our own is guilty of. As noted above, it only matters if you lose. But actually of all the Nuremburg trials was one ever held for the bombing of Coventry?
See, I think this is where you and I differ @TOPPING - you see this as an argument for why we shouldn't worry about the plight of the Palestinian people. I see this as an argument for why we should have had a Nuremburg trial not only for the bombing of Coventry, but also the bombing of Dresden. And Hiroshima. Humanity got to a place where it almost said "only following orders" was not a good enough reason for individuals committing crimes against humanity. Much since has been trying to roll that back - we need only look at the indifference to history our Home Secretary displays when discussing the refugee convention, or our own history of "defending our troops" from the consequences of the crimes they committed during the Troubles.
And I find your view wholly admirable. And I do care about the plight of the Palestinian people. I think they have been dreadfully lead although bear not a small amount of responsibility for their leadership.
This is another Brexit issue. Because I was a Remainer it doesn't mean that I thought that everything the EU did was fantastic and beyond reproach; while Brexiters probably didn't think everything the EU did was dreadful, but internet forums, including if you can believe it PB, often force people to adopt those positions.
In this case Israel is not without fault in its behaviour over the past but after the events of the weekend I am giving them quite a lot of leeway to progress the war in whatever way they want and wanted only to point out that at some point a distinction between the sweet, good-natured, wouldn't harm a fly Palestinian people who only want peace with their beloved neighbours Israel, and the Palestinians who, in their hundreds of thousands march in support of the destruction of Israel needs to be drawn.
We didn't single out the nice Germans from the beastly ones and Israel can be forgiven for not doing the same in this instance wrt the Palestinians.
You're an odd fruit sometimes.
On the 'Putin attacking Ukraine' topic you've been at pains to explore the context, discuss the things that might have pushed him into the action (eg did the Iraq War set a precedent? I recall you posing that question quite doggedly), lots of that from you on that one.
Yet on this one, this 'Hamas attacking Israel' topic, any attempt by people to do similar, to mention the context, to discuss reasons why this attack might have happened (eg could the maltreatment of the Palestinians by Israel have anything to do with it?) seems to give you an attack of the vapors.
I'm not slagging you off, I'm genuinely interested in the different way you approach the 2 topics. Putin Ukraine, very up for context and the whys and wherefores. Hamas Israel, not so much. Why is this, do we think?
I am extremely clear on why Hamas attacked Israel. I am extremely clear on why Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Transjordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt attacked them in 1948. And in 1967. And 1973. And 2023.
They attacked them because they wanted to wipe Israel off the map. In each instance they failed and in trying they got themselves into quite a pickle.
Has Israel behaved as you or indeed I would have wished them to over the past 70 years? I'm sure not. But it's useful idiots like you who think that if Israel had only been a bit nicer over the period everyone would be holding hands and making daisy chains together.
You think that I am excusing Israel's behaviour to the Palestinians on the one hand and ignoring the fact that this might be a root cause of this weekend's actions. Just like I seek to understand the reasons for Putin's actions.
I am here to educate you that for centuries and most recently decades the Arab world (and of course others) has been antipathetic to the Jews and hence this weekend's actions are a symptom of that hatred.
Thanks for non flip reply. Doesn't happen too often. I treasure it.
So iyo the antipathy towards Israel in Gaza has little to do with the maltreatment of its Palestinian population. It's down to the inherent appetite of Palestinians for antisemitism.
Ok. I think that's incredibly jaundiced (and arguably racist) but given that is your view of course you won't (as you say) be shedding too many tears if Israel does end up engaging in large scale collective punishment of 'innocent' Palestinians. Inverted commas since they won't be innocent, will they?
Makes sense now. Quality exchange. Thanks again. Chilean red and nuts time.
Hope you are enjoying your red & nuts. To you and @148grss it seems that you have difficulty believing that there is anti-semitism amongst the Arabs. And that Israel has committed some (original - we'll come on to that later) sin which has brought this behaviour upon them.
I think it doesn't take a google genius to determine quickly that there has been a long and well-documented history of anti-semitism amongst everyone including the Arabs.
For the Arabs it takes on a more "traditional" angle because there is a land angle there also. But a cursory reading of any text or oratory of many of today's Arab leaders now or indeed from history will show that there is deep antipathy towards the Jews. I think this is pervasive hence while someone somewhere in Hamas might see this as a homeland issue, to deny the rampant anti-semitism of much of the Arab world is imo to misunderstimate the dynamic of the Middle East both now and throughout history.
Is there a history of anti Semitism amongst Arabic peoples? Of course. But I do not think it is the driving force behind the issue of Israel, especially not to begin with. Indeed, if the finger of anti Semitism should point anywhere it should be at the hegemonic western powers who refused fleeing Jewish people to their shores prior to WW2 - whereas at that point multicultural communities built on common understanding between Palestinian and Jewish exiles were commonplace. The land that is Israel and Palestine were also relatively free of faith based conflict under Ottoman control - all faiths had the freedom to access Jerusalem, for instance. The issue, I would argue, hinges on the forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of people from their land. This creates long lasting conflict - it has done with India and Pakistan, it has done in Africa, and it is the case with Israel and Palestine. People want to return to their homes, to farm their olives, to live and die in the house they were born in. At least with Indian partition people on both Hindu/secular and the Muslim sides held both positions - with Israel it is clear that one side was being forced out by the other.
On a purely empirical basis the fact that here were 100ks in ancient Jewish communities across the Middle East before they were expelled suggests that antisemitism wasn’t all pervasive until that point.
Yes, but many of those Jews were living under rather poor conditions compared to others in those countries.
Take, for instance, the following about Jews in Persia:
"In the middle of the 19th century, J. J. Benjamin wrote about the life of Persian Jews, describing conditions and beliefs that went back to the 16th century:
They are obliged to live in a separate part of town…; for they are considered as unclean creatures… Under the pretext of their being unclean, they are treated with the greatest severity and should they enter a street, inhabited by Mussulmans, they are pelted by the boys and mobs with stones and dirt… For the same reason, they are prohibited to go out when it rains; for it is said the rain would wash dirt off them, which would sully the feet of the Mussulmans… If a Jew is recognized as such in the streets, he is subjected to the greatest insults. The passers-by spit in his face, and sometimes beat him… unmercifully… If a Jew enters a shop for anything, he is forbidden to inspect the goods… Should his hand incautiously touch the goods, he must take them at any price the seller chooses to ask for them... Sometimes the Persians intrude into the dwellings of the Jews and take possession of whatever please them. Should the owner make the least opposition in defense of his property, he incurs the danger of atoning for it with his life... If... a Jew shows himself in the street during the three days of the Katel (Muharram)…, he is sure to be murdered.[36]"
I think that I am right in saying a very high proportion of Gaza’s water and electricity comes from Israel. People are going to be driven out by thirst.
Oh, close to 100% of Gaza's water and electricity comes from Israel.
Gaza has no airport, and Israel has blockaded its port, so there is no ability for Gaza to import coal or gas from anywhere else, to allow them to make power. (And without power, they can't make clean water.)
There is some diesel that comes across in trucks from Egypt, and which is used to power backup generators. And there is some rooftop solar. But - basically - Gaza is 100% dependent on Israel.
And they will exploit that to make Gaza uninhabitable. This is not going to end well for anyone.
There are two lots of losers here:
The people of Southern Israel, who saw their land invaded, and who were tortured, raped and kidnapped. (And by the way, for what? It's not like there was any possibility that motorcycle riding Hamas fighters were going to militarily defeat Izsrael.)
And the ordinary people of Gaza.
Life was already miserable there. It is going to get worse.
This mess is never getting any better for years and is only getting worse.
The rich world (including the UK) should pay a fortune to Egypt and Gazans to relocate Gazans to Sinai and provide humongous levels of aid and development. Stuff their mouths with money to ensure they're developed in a way that frankly is never going to happen in Gaza.
Sovereignty only matters to people like us then eh. Matters so much to us that we can't even tolerate being in the EU. But those Palestinians, hmm, different strokes. Lower level types.
True. No one is defending the Hamas attacks but they didn’t just appear from nowhere . Cause and effect , there’s a lot of moralizing from those who have no idea what it’s like to live in an open prison , no hope , no jobs and absolutely no sign of anything changing. Your water, food and energy is at the whim of what your perceive as an occupying force. Settlements are built on land stolen from your family. The pie keeps shrinking so any future deal even if that was possible means you get a few scraps . The attacks by Hamas are disgusting but let’s not pretend the Israeli government doesn’t bear some responsibility for its actions over many years which just continued to help forment the hatred and resentment.
What about the prison that the Jews had created for the Arabs in 1948. The bastards.
Counterfactual alert: If Britain and France hadn't given in to US pressure over Suez, would Israel have ended up annexing the Sinai peninsula?
Didn’t they occupy it anyway in 1967 and only return it in toto in 1982?
Yes, in a way my question is really: "Would the entire history of the second half of the 20th century have been different if Eden hadn't buckled under pressure?"
Nah. The currents of history are strong.
The tide had turned against the British empire and it was only a matter of time. Credit to MacMillan that he recognised that and more or less dissolved it peacefully
The fact that Israel has the ability to cut off power , water and food supplies to Gaza highlights one of the issues that have bred hatred .
Hamas lives off the hatred . Children are brought up with the hatred and it’s just a repeating cycle.
There are still those on both sides who wanted a peaceful resolution , sadly that’s been consigned to the bin for yet more years .
Israel can raze Gaza to the ground but the hatred will remain .
But if the Israelis can somehow shift the Gazans into Egypt, then the hatred will be further away, and the chances of Hamas repeating their spectacular incursion will be greatly minimised
I do wonder if that is what the Israelis are planning. I don't see any other point in wading into Gaza at the cost of many thousands of lives, quite a few of them Israeli
Will Egypt accept them ? The whole situation is just awful. There are no good outcomes here .
Absolutely. No good outcomes
If Egypt seals the border (and they have tightened control this morning) then Israel will be left with a cornered population unable to go anywhere. What then?
I may be wrong and this isn't the Israeli plan, but then I am bewildered as to what Israel thinks it can achieve with ANOTHER invasion that does nothing but stir up evermore enmity. It simply ensures further attacks down the line
As I said last night, they might possibly be planning a renewed Occupation of Gaza, with Israel in control, and the reintroduction of Israeli settlers, who will act as a de facto spy network and military police, so October 7 is not repeated. But that's damnably tricky and could so easily go wrong
The final possibility is that Israel doesn't have a plan. It is acting in a spirit of pure revenge
With whom would they negotiate? Hamas is the *government* of Gaza. Israel has declared war on Gaza amd it shouldn't be a surprise - its *government* has launched these attacks.
So the Israeli goal will I believe be simple - remove Hamas as a threat. How they achieve that is tricky, but they won't just be pushing the cross-border terrorists back into their prison.
Removal of Hamas - and the Hamas state - has to be the goal. And that will largely mean the killing of anyone who is Hamas, supports Hamas, lives near Hamas. It is going to be awful - war usually is. Especially when the aggressor is pledged to the extermination of the other side.
That may be Israel’s strategy. That (“killing of anyone who […] lives near Hamas”) would clearly be a war crime and we, as in the UK, should do everything we can to stop war crimes. We cannot criticise Russia for war crimes in Ukraine and wave through Israel, or Hamas, committing war crimes.
Here’s a simple rule of thumb: war crimes are bad. Don’t carry out war crimes. Don’t respond to say crimes with more war crimes. Why is that a proposition that some on PB struggle with?
"war crimes" is a fantasy. There is/are no such thing. They only exist for the winners in war.
The fact that they are typically enforced against the vanquished rather than the victors doesn't mean they aren't a "thing".
They are reasonably clearly defined by international convention, and provide at least some incentive to moderate the conduct of war in terms of impact on non-combatants. The incentive not to commit them is that if you turn out to be the vanquished, you'd probably rather slip away into exile and obscurity rather than ending up in The Hague or as a fugitive.
Should Israel deliberately target civilians? No. Do civilians have some responsibility to flee a war zone? Yes. Again Hamas are not just embedded in the civilian population, they are the government. So eradicating them is going to involve blowing a great many buildings up.
If your neighbour fires his AK47 at prayers 5 times a day, it is time to leave. Because in wartime it is always legitimate to go after CCC targets regardless of where the enemy has put them.
How exactly do 3 million people flee a war zone when they are not allowed to leave by any of the surrounding countries?
They should decide not to have Hamas as their leadership.
Even coming from you that is genuinely one of the stupidest comments any one has made on this topic.
I suppose the Catholics in Northern Ireland deserved to be bombed out and killed because they had Sinn Féin councillors.
There is huge support in Gaza for the Hamas leadership. They can send thousands of "militants" to Israel on near suicide missions. They have mass rallies of hundreds of thousands in the streets protesting against Israel and the Great Satan. They show pictures of six-yr old girls wielding AKs and crying with happiness at the onslaught happening in Israel.
But they are all harmless civilians who only want to find a way out of danger.
It must be very strange living inside your head where everything in the world is so black and white.
It is dangerously close to exactly the sort of attitude that led to Rwanda, Bosnia and indeed the Holocaust. Regarding people as a mass (and indeed to use the words of your friend Netenyahu as animals) rather than individuals is an easy road to 'untermensch'.
You seem pretty conflicted about it all.
Those poor Gazans who turned out in their hundreds of thousands to celebrate actions against Israel are now to be pitied. Of course it's best that civilians leave and they can do so via Egypt or indeed the coast if they wanted to. I have heard nothing about a port blockade perhaps you know different.
I don't for one moment think that every German in 1939 was complicit in the German war aims but I have read nowhere of a safe passage being discussed for them to escape the country before we bombed it.
This is the notion of collective guilt. It is explicitly a war crime.
Then it's one that every country including our own is guilty of. As noted above, it only matters if you lose. But actually of all the Nuremburg trials was one ever held for the bombing of Coventry?
See, I think this is where you and I differ @TOPPING - you see this as an argument for why we shouldn't worry about the plight of the Palestinian people. I see this as an argument for why we should have had a Nuremburg trial not only for the bombing of Coventry, but also the bombing of Dresden. And Hiroshima. Humanity got to a place where it almost said "only following orders" was not a good enough reason for individuals committing crimes against humanity. Much since has been trying to roll that back - we need only look at the indifference to history our Home Secretary displays when discussing the refugee convention, or our own history of "defending our troops" from the consequences of the crimes they committed during the Troubles.
And I find your view wholly admirable. And I do care about the plight of the Palestinian people. I think they have been dreadfully lead although bear not a small amount of responsibility for their leadership.
This is another Brexit issue. Because I was a Remainer it doesn't mean that I thought that everything the EU did was fantastic and beyond reproach; while Brexiters probably didn't think everything the EU did was dreadful, but internet forums, including if you can believe it PB, often force people to adopt those positions.
In this case Israel is not without fault in its behaviour over the past but after the events of the weekend I am giving them quite a lot of leeway to progress the war in whatever way they want and wanted only to point out that at some point a distinction between the sweet, good-natured, wouldn't harm a fly Palestinian people who only want peace with their beloved neighbours Israel, and the Palestinians who, in their hundreds of thousands march in support of the destruction of Israel needs to be drawn.
We didn't single out the nice Germans from the beastly ones and Israel can be forgiven for not doing the same in this instance wrt the Palestinians.
You're an odd fruit sometimes.
On the 'Putin attacking Ukraine' topic you've been at pains to explore the context, discuss the things that might have pushed him into the action (eg did the Iraq War set a precedent? I recall you posing that question quite doggedly), lots of that from you on that one.
Yet on this one, this 'Hamas attacking Israel' topic, any attempt by people to do similar, to mention the context, to discuss reasons why this attack might have happened (eg could the maltreatment of the Palestinians by Israel have anything to do with it?) seems to give you an attack of the vapors.
I'm not slagging you off, I'm genuinely interested in the different way you approach the 2 topics. Putin Ukraine, very up for context and the whys and wherefores. Hamas Israel, not so much. Why is this, do we think?
I am extremely clear on why Hamas attacked Israel. I am extremely clear on why Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Transjordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt attacked them in 1948. And in 1967. And 1973. And 2023.
They attacked them because they wanted to wipe Israel off the map. In each instance they failed and in trying they got themselves into quite a pickle.
Has Israel behaved as you or indeed I would have wished them to over the past 70 years? I'm sure not. But it's useful idiots like you who think that if Israel had only been a bit nicer over the period everyone would be holding hands and making daisy chains together.
You think that I am excusing Israel's behaviour to the Palestinians on the one hand and ignoring the fact that this might be a root cause of this weekend's actions. Just like I seek to understand the reasons for Putin's actions.
I am here to educate you that for centuries and most recently decades the Arab world (and of course others) has been antipathetic to the Jews and hence this weekend's actions are a symptom of that hatred.
Thanks for non flip reply. Doesn't happen too often. I treasure it.
So iyo the antipathy towards Israel in Gaza has little to do with the maltreatment of its Palestinian population. It's down to the inherent appetite of Palestinians for antisemitism.
Ok. I think that's incredibly jaundiced (and arguably racist) but given that is your view of course you won't (as you say) be shedding too many tears if Israel does end up engaging in large scale collective punishment of 'innocent' Palestinians. Inverted commas since they won't be innocent, will they?
Makes sense now. Quality exchange. Thanks again. Chilean red and nuts time.
Hope you are enjoying your red & nuts. To you and @148grss it seems that you have difficulty believing that there is anti-semitism amongst the Arabs. And that Israel has committed some (original - we'll come on to that later) sin which has brought this behaviour upon them.
I think it doesn't take a google genius to determine quickly that there has been a long and well-documented history of anti-semitism amongst everyone including the Arabs.
For the Arabs it takes on a more "traditional" angle because there is a land angle there also. But a cursory reading of any text or oratory of many of today's Arab leaders now or indeed from history will show that there is deep antipathy towards the Jews. I think this is pervasive hence while someone somewhere in Hamas might see this as a homeland issue, to deny the rampant anti-semitism of much of the Arab world is imo to misunderstimate the dynamic of the Middle East both now and throughout history.
Is there a history of anti Semitism amongst Arabic peoples? Of course. But I do not think it is the driving force behind the issue of Israel, especially not to begin with. Indeed, if the finger of anti Semitism should point anywhere it should be at the hegemonic western powers who refused fleeing Jewish people to their shores prior to WW2 - whereas at that point multicultural communities built on common understanding between Palestinian and Jewish exiles were commonplace. The land that is Israel and Palestine were also relatively free of faith based conflict under Ottoman control - all faiths had the freedom to access Jerusalem, for instance. The issue, I would argue, hinges on the forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of people from their land. This creates long lasting conflict - it has done with India and Pakistan, it has done in Africa, and it is the case with Israel and Palestine. People want to return to their homes, to farm their olives, to live and die in the house they were born in. At least with Indian partition people on both Hindu/secular and the Muslim sides held both positions - with Israel it is clear that one side was being forced out by the other.
On a purely empirical basis the fact that here were 100ks in ancient Jewish communities across the Middle East before they were expelled suggests that antisemitism wasn’t all pervasive until that point.
"Until they were expelled". You mean it wasn't the fall that killed him but the final three feet.
The fact that Israel has the ability to cut off power , water and food supplies to Gaza highlights one of the issues that have bred hatred .
Hamas lives off the hatred . Children are brought up with the hatred and it’s just a repeating cycle.
There are still those on both sides who wanted a peaceful resolution , sadly that’s been consigned to the bin for yet more years .
Israel can raze Gaza to the ground but the hatred will remain .
But if the Israelis can somehow shift the Gazans into Egypt, then the hatred will be further away, and the chances of Hamas repeating their spectacular incursion will be greatly minimised
I do wonder if that is what the Israelis are planning. I don't see any other point in wading into Gaza at the cost of many thousands of lives, quite a few of them Israeli
Will Egypt accept them ? The whole situation is just awful. There are no good outcomes here .
Absolutely. No good outcomes
If Egypt seals the border (and they have tightened control this morning) then Israel will be left with a cornered population unable to go anywhere. What then?
I may be wrong and this isn't the Israeli plan, but then I am bewildered as to what Israel thinks it can achieve with ANOTHER invasion that does nothing but stir up evermore enmity. It simply ensures further attacks down the line
As I said last night, they might possibly be planning a renewed Occupation of Gaza, with Israel in control, and the reintroduction of Israeli settlers, who will act as a de facto spy network and military police, so October 7 is not repeated. But that's damnably tricky and could so easily go wrong
The final possibility is that Israel doesn't have a plan. It is acting in a spirit of pure revenge
With whom would they negotiate? Hamas is the *government* of Gaza. Israel has declared war on Gaza amd it shouldn't be a surprise - its *government* has launched these attacks.
So the Israeli goal will I believe be simple - remove Hamas as a threat. How they achieve that is tricky, but they won't just be pushing the cross-border terrorists back into their prison.
Removal of Hamas - and the Hamas state - has to be the goal. And that will largely mean the killing of anyone who is Hamas, supports Hamas, lives near Hamas. It is going to be awful - war usually is. Especially when the aggressor is pledged to the extermination of the other side.
That may be Israel’s strategy. That (“killing of anyone who […] lives near Hamas”) would clearly be a war crime and we, as in the UK, should do everything we can to stop war crimes. We cannot criticise Russia for war crimes in Ukraine and wave through Israel, or Hamas, committing war crimes.
Here’s a simple rule of thumb: war crimes are bad. Don’t carry out war crimes. Don’t respond to say crimes with more war crimes. Why is that a proposition that some on PB struggle with?
"war crimes" is a fantasy. There is/are no such thing. They only exist for the winners in war.
The fact that they are typically enforced against the vanquished rather than the victors doesn't mean they aren't a "thing".
They are reasonably clearly defined by international convention, and provide at least some incentive to moderate the conduct of war in terms of impact on non-combatants. The incentive not to commit them is that if you turn out to be the vanquished, you'd probably rather slip away into exile and obscurity rather than ending up in The Hague or as a fugitive.
Should Israel deliberately target civilians? No. Do civilians have some responsibility to flee a war zone? Yes. Again Hamas are not just embedded in the civilian population, they are the government. So eradicating them is going to involve blowing a great many buildings up.
If your neighbour fires his AK47 at prayers 5 times a day, it is time to leave. Because in wartime it is always legitimate to go after CCC targets regardless of where the enemy has put them.
How exactly do 3 million people flee a war zone when they are not allowed to leave by any of the surrounding countries?
They should decide not to have Hamas as their leadership.
Even coming from you that is genuinely one of the stupidest comments any one has made on this topic.
I suppose the Catholics in Northern Ireland deserved to be bombed out and killed because they had Sinn Féin councillors.
There is huge support in Gaza for the Hamas leadership. They can send thousands of "militants" to Israel on near suicide missions. They have mass rallies of hundreds of thousands in the streets protesting against Israel and the Great Satan. They show pictures of six-yr old girls wielding AKs and crying with happiness at the onslaught happening in Israel.
But they are all harmless civilians who only want to find a way out of danger.
It must be very strange living inside your head where everything in the world is so black and white.
It is dangerously close to exactly the sort of attitude that led to Rwanda, Bosnia and indeed the Holocaust. Regarding people as a mass (and indeed to use the words of your friend Netenyahu as animals) rather than individuals is an easy road to 'untermensch'.
You seem pretty conflicted about it all.
Those poor Gazans who turned out in their hundreds of thousands to celebrate actions against Israel are now to be pitied. Of course it's best that civilians leave and they can do so via Egypt or indeed the coast if they wanted to. I have heard nothing about a port blockade perhaps you know different.
I don't for one moment think that every German in 1939 was complicit in the German war aims but I have read nowhere of a safe passage being discussed for them to escape the country before we bombed it.
This is the notion of collective guilt. It is explicitly a war crime.
Then it's one that every country including our own is guilty of. As noted above, it only matters if you lose. But actually of all the Nuremburg trials was one ever held for the bombing of Coventry?
See, I think this is where you and I differ @TOPPING - you see this as an argument for why we shouldn't worry about the plight of the Palestinian people. I see this as an argument for why we should have had a Nuremburg trial not only for the bombing of Coventry, but also the bombing of Dresden. And Hiroshima. Humanity got to a place where it almost said "only following orders" was not a good enough reason for individuals committing crimes against humanity. Much since has been trying to roll that back - we need only look at the indifference to history our Home Secretary displays when discussing the refugee convention, or our own history of "defending our troops" from the consequences of the crimes they committed during the Troubles.
And I find your view wholly admirable. And I do care about the plight of the Palestinian people. I think they have been dreadfully lead although bear not a small amount of responsibility for their leadership.
This is another Brexit issue. Because I was a Remainer it doesn't mean that I thought that everything the EU did was fantastic and beyond reproach; while Brexiters probably didn't think everything the EU did was dreadful, but internet forums, including if you can believe it PB, often force people to adopt those positions.
In this case Israel is not without fault in its behaviour over the past but after the events of the weekend I am giving them quite a lot of leeway to progress the war in whatever way they want and wanted only to point out that at some point a distinction between the sweet, good-natured, wouldn't harm a fly Palestinian people who only want peace with their beloved neighbours Israel, and the Palestinians who, in their hundreds of thousands march in support of the destruction of Israel needs to be drawn.
We didn't single out the nice Germans from the beastly ones and Israel can be forgiven for not doing the same in this instance wrt the Palestinians.
You're an odd fruit sometimes.
On the 'Putin attacking Ukraine' topic you've been at pains to explore the context, discuss the things that might have pushed him into the action (eg did the Iraq War set a precedent? I recall you posing that question quite doggedly), lots of that from you on that one.
Yet on this one, this 'Hamas attacking Israel' topic, any attempt by people to do similar, to mention the context, to discuss reasons why this attack might have happened (eg could the maltreatment of the Palestinians by Israel have anything to do with it?) seems to give you an attack of the vapors.
I'm not slagging you off, I'm genuinely interested in the different way you approach the 2 topics. Putin Ukraine, very up for context and the whys and wherefores. Hamas Israel, not so much. Why is this, do we think?
I am extremely clear on why Hamas attacked Israel. I am extremely clear on why Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Transjordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt attacked them in 1948. And in 1967. And 1973. And 2023.
They attacked them because they wanted to wipe Israel off the map. In each instance they failed and in trying they got themselves into quite a pickle.
Has Israel behaved as you or indeed I would have wished them to over the past 70 years? I'm sure not. But it's useful idiots like you who think that if Israel had only been a bit nicer over the period everyone would be holding hands and making daisy chains together.
You think that I am excusing Israel's behaviour to the Palestinians on the one hand and ignoring the fact that this might be a root cause of this weekend's actions. Just like I seek to understand the reasons for Putin's actions.
I am here to educate you that for centuries and most recently decades the Arab world (and of course others) has been antipathetic to the Jews and hence this weekend's actions are a symptom of that hatred.
Thanks for non flip reply. Doesn't happen too often. I treasure it.
So iyo the antipathy towards Israel in Gaza has little to do with the maltreatment of its Palestinian population. It's down to the inherent appetite of Palestinians for antisemitism.
Ok. I think that's incredibly jaundiced (and arguably racist) but given that is your view of course you won't (as you say) be shedding too many tears if Israel does end up engaging in large scale collective punishment of 'innocent' Palestinians. Inverted commas since they won't be innocent, will they?
Makes sense now. Quality exchange. Thanks again. Chilean red and nuts time.
Hope you are enjoying your red & nuts. To you and @148grss it seems that you have difficulty believing that there is anti-semitism amongst the Arabs. And that Israel has committed some (original - we'll come on to that later) sin which has brought this behaviour upon them.
I think it doesn't take a google genius to determine quickly that there has been a long and well-documented history of anti-semitism amongst everyone including the Arabs.
For the Arabs it takes on a more "traditional" angle because there is a land angle there also. But a cursory reading of any text or oratory of many of today's Arab leaders now or indeed from history will show that there is deep antipathy towards the Jews. I think this is pervasive hence while someone somewhere in Hamas might see this as a homeland issue, to deny the rampant anti-semitism of much of the Arab world is imo to misunderstimate the dynamic of the Middle East both now and throughout history.
Is there a history of anti Semitism amongst Arabic peoples? Of course. But I do not think it is the driving force behind the issue of Israel, especially not to begin with. Indeed, if the finger of anti Semitism should point anywhere it should be at the hegemonic western powers who refused fleeing Jewish people to their shores prior to WW2 - whereas at that point multicultural communities built on common understanding between Palestinian and Jewish exiles were commonplace. The land that is Israel and Palestine were also relatively free of faith based conflict under Ottoman control - all faiths had the freedom to access Jerusalem, for instance. The issue, I would argue, hinges on the forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of people from their land. This creates long lasting conflict - it has done with India and Pakistan, it has done in Africa, and it is the case with Israel and Palestine. People want to return to their homes, to farm their olives, to live and die in the house they were born in. At least with Indian partition people on both Hindu/secular and the Muslim sides held both positions - with Israel it is clear that one side was being forced out by the other.
I wondered how long it would be before we got to: "It's all out fault!"
You really should look at the history of Jews in the region, e.g. Iraq, to see why your pretend high-minded ideal of allowing people to return is utterly bogus. Why are the Palestinians the only ones who have this right to return?
I mean the history is quite clear that in many ways this is all our fault - both the British state specifically and western imperial nations more generally. I mean it was European imperialist states that committed pogroms and refused Jewish refugees entry for hundreds of years, and European imperialist logic that led to the holocaust. The concentration camp was not a Nazi invention, although their evolution into a specific death camp arguably was, and the European imperial powers had already committed acts of mass murder on par with the death camps - just over longer periods of time and less formalised in parts.
I mean I’m in favour of a stateless, classless society without borders - that goes slightly beyond the mere right to return in my mind - but yes, Jewish people should be able to live where they wish, especially more so if their near ancestors were expelled from there. That includes Iraq. I don’t see how me having the position that all states (if they are going to exist at all) should be like that therefore means I am specifically calling on Israel as a special case.
"I mean the history is quite clear that in many ways this is all our fault"
You really don't need to say any more than this. We already understand that this is your answer for EVERYTHING
I mean when you have an Empire that spanned a whole lot of the globe… yeah - lots of things that are bad with the world are going to be, in part, related to that. It’s not rocket science.
If we are gonna be blamed for everything bad then it is only fair we get the credit for everything good: democracy, parliaments, the rule of law, free speech, Magna Carta, the English language, the internet, cricket, universal suffrage, television, antibiotics, smiling politely, decent suits, rugby, erotic spanking, the Raj, Pax Brittanica, the abolition of slavery, football, and the sandwich
I think that I am right in saying a very high proportion of Gaza’s water and electricity comes from Israel. People are going to be driven out by thirst.
Oh, close to 100% of Gaza's water and electricity comes from Israel.
Gaza has no airport, and Israel has blockaded its port, so there is no ability for Gaza to import coal or gas from anywhere else, to allow them to make power. (And without power, they can't make clean water.)
There is some diesel that comes across in trucks from Egypt, and which is used to power backup generators. And there is some rooftop solar. But - basically - Gaza is 100% dependent on Israel.
And they will exploit that to make Gaza uninhabitable. This is not going to end well for anyone.
There are two lots of losers here:
The people of Southern Israel, who saw their land invaded, and who were tortured, raped and kidnapped. (And by the way, for what? It's not like there was any possibility that motorcycle riding Hamas fighters were going to militarily defeat Izsrael.)
And the ordinary people of Gaza.
Life was already miserable there. It is going to get worse.
This mess is never getting any better for years and is only getting worse.
The rich world (including the UK) should pay a fortune to Egypt and Gazans to relocate Gazans to Sinai and provide humongous levels of aid and development. Stuff their mouths with money to ensure they're developed in a way that frankly is never going to happen in Gaza.
Sovereignty only matters to people like us then eh. Matters so much to us that we can't even tolerate being in the EU. But those Palestinians, hmm, different strokes. Lower level types.
True. No one is defending the Hamas attacks but they didn’t just appear from nowhere . Cause and effect , there’s a lot of moralizing from those who have no idea what it’s like to live in an open prison , no hope , no jobs and absolutely no sign of anything changing. Your water, food and energy is at the whim of what your perceive as an occupying force. Settlements are built on land stolen from your family. The pie keeps shrinking so any future deal even if that was possible means you get a few scraps . The attacks by Hamas are disgusting but let’s not pretend the Israeli government doesn’t bear some responsibility for its actions over many years which just continued to help forment the hatred and resentment.
Victim blaming, nice.
Her skirt was too short.
The Jews had it coming.
I’m not victim blaming . This is the typical response when people don’t want to debate the issues and the actual history of the troubles.
bart gets a bit out of his depth when he has to go beyond quoting from his Ladybird guide in the middle east.
I think that I am right in saying a very high proportion of Gaza’s water and electricity comes from Israel. People are going to be driven out by thirst.
Oh, close to 100% of Gaza's water and electricity comes from Israel.
Gaza has no airport, and Israel has blockaded its port, so there is no ability for Gaza to import coal or gas from anywhere else, to allow them to make power. (And without power, they can't make clean water.)
There is some diesel that comes across in trucks from Egypt, and which is used to power backup generators. And there is some rooftop solar. But - basically - Gaza is 100% dependent on Israel.
And they will exploit that to make Gaza uninhabitable. This is not going to end well for anyone.
There are two lots of losers here:
The people of Southern Israel, who saw their land invaded, and who were tortured, raped and kidnapped. (And by the way, for what? It's not like there was any possibility that motorcycle riding Hamas fighters were going to militarily defeat Izsrael.)
And the ordinary people of Gaza.
Life was already miserable there. It is going to get worse.
This mess is never getting any better for years and is only getting worse.
The rich world (including the UK) should pay a fortune to Egypt and Gazans to relocate Gazans to Sinai and provide humongous levels of aid and development. Stuff their mouths with money to ensure they're developed in a way that frankly is never going to happen in Gaza.
Sovereignty only matters to people like us then eh. Matters so much to us that we can't even tolerate being in the EU. But those Palestinians, hmm, different strokes. Lower level types.
True. No one is defending the Hamas attacks but they didn’t just appear from nowhere . Cause and effect , there’s a lot of moralizing from those who have no idea what it’s like to live in an open prison , no hope , no jobs and absolutely no sign of anything changing. Your water, food and energy is at the whim of what your perceive as an occupying force. Settlements are built on land stolen from your family. The pie keeps shrinking so any future deal even if that was possible means you get a few scraps . The attacks by Hamas are disgusting but let’s not pretend the Israeli government doesn’t bear some responsibility for its actions over many years which just continued to help forment the hatred and resentment.
Victim blaming, nice.
Her skirt was too short.
The Jews had it coming.
I’m not victim blaming . This is the typical response when people don’t want to debate the issues and the actual history of the troubles.
Happy to debate the issue and the actual history.
The actual history is a swathe of Arab states (plus Iran) attempting genocide against the Jews and the only Jewish state on the planet, from 1948 to today, from the immediate aftermath of the Holocaust onwards.
In that time the Red Army cleared Germans out of Eastern Europe, the Arabs cleared Jews out of their states, meanwhile the Israelis have bent over backwards hosting in land they control people who literally call for and aim for their extermination.
You’re allowed your own opinion not your own facts ! Israel has never shown any recent inclination to come to any sort of agreement . You do understand the term illegal settlements ! And as for bending over backwards dear me , talk about revisionism on steroids .
I'm the one using facts - you just don't like them!
They've tried to reach agreement, it would have happened had Arafat not blown it all up.
There's no negotiating with Hamas, a group that literally call for Israel's destruction and the extermination of Jews. Israel has never called for the destruction of all Arab states and the extermination of Arabs.
Yes they've bent over backwards. For a country that is routinely abused by racists in this country, and treated like they're the ones to blame, they've been routinely attacked and yet have hosted people who call for the extermination of their entire state and people.
Can you name any other 'bad' country on the planet that has hosted for decades people who call for the destruction of that entire country, and the extermination of that country's populace?
I think that I am right in saying a very high proportion of Gaza’s water and electricity comes from Israel. People are going to be driven out by thirst.
Oh, close to 100% of Gaza's water and electricity comes from Israel.
Gaza has no airport, and Israel has blockaded its port, so there is no ability for Gaza to import coal or gas from anywhere else, to allow them to make power. (And without power, they can't make clean water.)
There is some diesel that comes across in trucks from Egypt, and which is used to power backup generators. And there is some rooftop solar. But - basically - Gaza is 100% dependent on Israel.
And they will exploit that to make Gaza uninhabitable. This is not going to end well for anyone.
There are two lots of losers here:
The people of Southern Israel, who saw their land invaded, and who were tortured, raped and kidnapped. (And by the way, for what? It's not like there was any possibility that motorcycle riding Hamas fighters were going to militarily defeat Izsrael.)
And the ordinary people of Gaza.
Life was already miserable there. It is going to get worse.
This mess is never getting any better for years and is only getting worse.
The rich world (including the UK) should pay a fortune to Egypt and Gazans to relocate Gazans to Sinai and provide humongous levels of aid and development. Stuff their mouths with money to ensure they're developed in a way that frankly is never going to happen in Gaza.
Sovereignty only matters to people like us then eh. Matters so much to us that we can't even tolerate being in the EU. But those Palestinians, hmm, different strokes. Lower level types.
True. No one is defending the Hamas attacks but they didn’t just appear from nowhere . Cause and effect , there’s a lot of moralizing from those who have no idea what it’s like to live in an open prison , no hope , no jobs and absolutely no sign of anything changing. Your water, food and energy is at the whim of what your perceive as an occupying force. Settlements are built on land stolen from your family. The pie keeps shrinking so any future deal even if that was possible means you get a few scraps . The attacks by Hamas are disgusting but let’s not pretend the Israeli government doesn’t bear some responsibility for its actions over many years which just continued to help forment the hatred and resentment.
Victim blaming, nice.
Her skirt was too short.
The Jews had it coming.
I’m not victim blaming . This is the typical response when people don’t want to debate the issues and the actual history of the troubles.
bart gets a bit out of his depth when he has to go beyond quoting from his Ladybird guide in the middle east.
Nico said the Jews must bear some responsibility for the Hamas attack. First that is the very definition of victim blaming. And secondly what had they done in 1948 apart from agree to UN Resolution181?
The fact that Israel has the ability to cut off power , water and food supplies to Gaza highlights one of the issues that have bred hatred .
Hamas lives off the hatred . Children are brought up with the hatred and it’s just a repeating cycle.
There are still those on both sides who wanted a peaceful resolution , sadly that’s been consigned to the bin for yet more years .
Israel can raze Gaza to the ground but the hatred will remain .
But if the Israelis can somehow shift the Gazans into Egypt, then the hatred will be further away, and the chances of Hamas repeating their spectacular incursion will be greatly minimised
I do wonder if that is what the Israelis are planning. I don't see any other point in wading into Gaza at the cost of many thousands of lives, quite a few of them Israeli
Will Egypt accept them ? The whole situation is just awful. There are no good outcomes here .
Absolutely. No good outcomes
If Egypt seals the border (and they have tightened control this morning) then Israel will be left with a cornered population unable to go anywhere. What then?
I may be wrong and this isn't the Israeli plan, but then I am bewildered as to what Israel thinks it can achieve with ANOTHER invasion that does nothing but stir up evermore enmity. It simply ensures further attacks down the line
As I said last night, they might possibly be planning a renewed Occupation of Gaza, with Israel in control, and the reintroduction of Israeli settlers, who will act as a de facto spy network and military police, so October 7 is not repeated. But that's damnably tricky and could so easily go wrong
The final possibility is that Israel doesn't have a plan. It is acting in a spirit of pure revenge
With whom would they negotiate? Hamas is the *government* of Gaza. Israel has declared war on Gaza amd it shouldn't be a surprise - its *government* has launched these attacks.
So the Israeli goal will I believe be simple - remove Hamas as a threat. How they achieve that is tricky, but they won't just be pushing the cross-border terrorists back into their prison.
Removal of Hamas - and the Hamas state - has to be the goal. And that will largely mean the killing of anyone who is Hamas, supports Hamas, lives near Hamas. It is going to be awful - war usually is. Especially when the aggressor is pledged to the extermination of the other side.
That may be Israel’s strategy. That (“killing of anyone who […] lives near Hamas”) would clearly be a war crime and we, as in the UK, should do everything we can to stop war crimes. We cannot criticise Russia for war crimes in Ukraine and wave through Israel, or Hamas, committing war crimes.
Here’s a simple rule of thumb: war crimes are bad. Don’t carry out war crimes. Don’t respond to say crimes with more war crimes. Why is that a proposition that some on PB struggle with?
"war crimes" is a fantasy. There is/are no such thing. They only exist for the winners in war.
The fact that they are typically enforced against the vanquished rather than the victors doesn't mean they aren't a "thing".
They are reasonably clearly defined by international convention, and provide at least some incentive to moderate the conduct of war in terms of impact on non-combatants. The incentive not to commit them is that if you turn out to be the vanquished, you'd probably rather slip away into exile and obscurity rather than ending up in The Hague or as a fugitive.
Should Israel deliberately target civilians? No. Do civilians have some responsibility to flee a war zone? Yes. Again Hamas are not just embedded in the civilian population, they are the government. So eradicating them is going to involve blowing a great many buildings up.
If your neighbour fires his AK47 at prayers 5 times a day, it is time to leave. Because in wartime it is always legitimate to go after CCC targets regardless of where the enemy has put them.
How exactly do 3 million people flee a war zone when they are not allowed to leave by any of the surrounding countries?
They should decide not to have Hamas as their leadership.
Even coming from you that is genuinely one of the stupidest comments any one has made on this topic.
I suppose the Catholics in Northern Ireland deserved to be bombed out and killed because they had Sinn Féin councillors.
There is huge support in Gaza for the Hamas leadership. They can send thousands of "militants" to Israel on near suicide missions. They have mass rallies of hundreds of thousands in the streets protesting against Israel and the Great Satan. They show pictures of six-yr old girls wielding AKs and crying with happiness at the onslaught happening in Israel.
But they are all harmless civilians who only want to find a way out of danger.
It must be very strange living inside your head where everything in the world is so black and white.
It is dangerously close to exactly the sort of attitude that led to Rwanda, Bosnia and indeed the Holocaust. Regarding people as a mass (and indeed to use the words of your friend Netenyahu as animals) rather than individuals is an easy road to 'untermensch'.
You seem pretty conflicted about it all.
Those poor Gazans who turned out in their hundreds of thousands to celebrate actions against Israel are now to be pitied. Of course it's best that civilians leave and they can do so via Egypt or indeed the coast if they wanted to. I have heard nothing about a port blockade perhaps you know different.
I don't for one moment think that every German in 1939 was complicit in the German war aims but I have read nowhere of a safe passage being discussed for them to escape the country before we bombed it.
This is the notion of collective guilt. It is explicitly a war crime.
Then it's one that every country including our own is guilty of. As noted above, it only matters if you lose. But actually of all the Nuremburg trials was one ever held for the bombing of Coventry?
See, I think this is where you and I differ @TOPPING - you see this as an argument for why we shouldn't worry about the plight of the Palestinian people. I see this as an argument for why we should have had a Nuremburg trial not only for the bombing of Coventry, but also the bombing of Dresden. And Hiroshima. Humanity got to a place where it almost said "only following orders" was not a good enough reason for individuals committing crimes against humanity. Much since has been trying to roll that back - we need only look at the indifference to history our Home Secretary displays when discussing the refugee convention, or our own history of "defending our troops" from the consequences of the crimes they committed during the Troubles.
And I find your view wholly admirable. And I do care about the plight of the Palestinian people. I think they have been dreadfully lead although bear not a small amount of responsibility for their leadership.
This is another Brexit issue. Because I was a Remainer it doesn't mean that I thought that everything the EU did was fantastic and beyond reproach; while Brexiters probably didn't think everything the EU did was dreadful, but internet forums, including if you can believe it PB, often force people to adopt those positions.
In this case Israel is not without fault in its behaviour over the past but after the events of the weekend I am giving them quite a lot of leeway to progress the war in whatever way they want and wanted only to point out that at some point a distinction between the sweet, good-natured, wouldn't harm a fly Palestinian people who only want peace with their beloved neighbours Israel, and the Palestinians who, in their hundreds of thousands march in support of the destruction of Israel needs to be drawn.
We didn't single out the nice Germans from the beastly ones and Israel can be forgiven for not doing the same in this instance wrt the Palestinians.
You're an odd fruit sometimes.
On the 'Putin attacking Ukraine' topic you've been at pains to explore the context, discuss the things that might have pushed him into the action (eg did the Iraq War set a precedent? I recall you posing that question quite doggedly), lots of that from you on that one.
Yet on this one, this 'Hamas attacking Israel' topic, any attempt by people to do similar, to mention the context, to discuss reasons why this attack might have happened (eg could the maltreatment of the Palestinians by Israel have anything to do with it?) seems to give you an attack of the vapors.
I'm not slagging you off, I'm genuinely interested in the different way you approach the 2 topics. Putin Ukraine, very up for context and the whys and wherefores. Hamas Israel, not so much. Why is this, do we think?
I am extremely clear on why Hamas attacked Israel. I am extremely clear on why Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Transjordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt attacked them in 1948. And in 1967. And 1973. And 2023.
They attacked them because they wanted to wipe Israel off the map. In each instance they failed and in trying they got themselves into quite a pickle.
Has Israel behaved as you or indeed I would have wished them to over the past 70 years? I'm sure not. But it's useful idiots like you who think that if Israel had only been a bit nicer over the period everyone would be holding hands and making daisy chains together.
You think that I am excusing Israel's behaviour to the Palestinians on the one hand and ignoring the fact that this might be a root cause of this weekend's actions. Just like I seek to understand the reasons for Putin's actions.
I am here to educate you that for centuries and most recently decades the Arab world (and of course others) has been antipathetic to the Jews and hence this weekend's actions are a symptom of that hatred.
Thanks for non flip reply. Doesn't happen too often. I treasure it.
So iyo the antipathy towards Israel in Gaza has little to do with the maltreatment of its Palestinian population. It's down to the inherent appetite of Palestinians for antisemitism.
Ok. I think that's incredibly jaundiced (and arguably racist) but given that is your view of course you won't (as you say) be shedding too many tears if Israel does end up engaging in large scale collective punishment of 'innocent' Palestinians. Inverted commas since they won't be innocent, will they?
Makes sense now. Quality exchange. Thanks again. Chilean red and nuts time.
Hope you are enjoying your red & nuts. To you and @148grss it seems that you have difficulty believing that there is anti-semitism amongst the Arabs. And that Israel has committed some (original - we'll come on to that later) sin which has brought this behaviour upon them.
I think it doesn't take a google genius to determine quickly that there has been a long and well-documented history of anti-semitism amongst everyone including the Arabs.
For the Arabs it takes on a more "traditional" angle because there is a land angle there also. But a cursory reading of any text or oratory of many of today's Arab leaders now or indeed from history will show that there is deep antipathy towards the Jews. I think this is pervasive hence while someone somewhere in Hamas might see this as a homeland issue, to deny the rampant anti-semitism of much of the Arab world is imo to misunderstimate the dynamic of the Middle East both now and throughout history.
Is there a history of anti Semitism amongst Arabic peoples? Of course. But I do not think it is the driving force behind the issue of Israel, especially not to begin with. Indeed, if the finger of anti Semitism should point anywhere it should be at the hegemonic western powers who refused fleeing Jewish people to their shores prior to WW2 - whereas at that point multicultural communities built on common understanding between Palestinian and Jewish exiles were commonplace. The land that is Israel and Palestine were also relatively free of faith based conflict under Ottoman control - all faiths had the freedom to access Jerusalem, for instance. The issue, I would argue, hinges on the forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of people from their land. This creates long lasting conflict - it has done with India and Pakistan, it has done in Africa, and it is the case with Israel and Palestine. People want to return to their homes, to farm their olives, to live and die in the house they were born in. At least with Indian partition people on both Hindu/secular and the Muslim sides held both positions - with Israel it is clear that one side was being forced out by the other.
I wondered how long it would be before we got to: "It's all out fault!"
You really should look at the history of Jews in the region, e.g. Iraq, to see why your pretend high-minded ideal of allowing people to return is utterly bogus. Why are the Palestinians the only ones who have this right to return?
I mean the history is quite clear that in many ways this is all our fault - both the British state specifically and western imperial nations more generally. I mean it was European imperialist states that committed pogroms and refused Jewish refugees entry for hundreds of years, and European imperialist logic that led to the holocaust. The concentration camp was not a Nazi invention, although their evolution into a specific death camp arguably was, and the European imperial powers had already committed acts of mass murder on par with the death camps - just over longer periods of time and less formalised in parts.
I mean I’m in favour of a stateless, classless society without borders - that goes slightly beyond the mere right to return in my mind - but yes, Jewish people should be able to live where they wish, especially more so if their near ancestors were expelled from there. That includes Iraq. I don’t see how me having the position that all states (if they are going to exist at all) should be like that therefore means I am specifically calling on Israel as a special case.
"I mean the history is quite clear that in many ways this is all our fault"
You really don't need to say any more than this. We already understand that this is your answer for EVERYTHING
I mean when you have an Empire that spanned a whole lot of the globe… yeah - lots of things that are bad with the world are going to be, in part, related to that. It’s not rocket science.
If we are gonna be blamed for everything bad then it is only fair we get the credit for everything good: democracy, parliaments, the rule of law, free speech, Magna Carta, the English language, the internet, cricket, universal suffrage, television, antibiotics, smiling politely, decent suits, rugby, erotic spanking, the Raj, Pax Brittanica, the abolition of slavery, football, and the sandwich
Pedantic moment: not the internet, but the Web. Internet was American invention I am afraid to say.
Worth noting a week of almost unlimited coverage for Rishi Sunak saw his approval numbers fall of six points in his approval while in the "better PM" polling, Starmer extends his lead to 10 points.
I suspect Sunak's best approach is to do and say nothing before the election - it seems people's view of him mellows the less they hear from him.
Apparently Biden retired for the day at..... 11.50 am. "We will not be seeing the president again"
An hour later Hamas announced they are gonna start executing hostages, live, on air - including up to a dozen American nationals
Sleepy Joe is not having a good war so far. He could lose the election in the coming days, if he's not careful. An urgent global crisis is when you realise you don't want an 80 year old man running the shop. This also applies to Trump, nearly as much, of course
Biden is old, possibly sleepy, but guidable. Trump is old, possibly sleepy, and utterly unpredictable, and not in the 'comes up with genius unconventional ideas' way.
It's not a difficult choice at all, but it is admittedly not great that it is the choice they have, but it is also too late to do anything about it - either could technically be defeated in a primary, but neither will be, nor will they pull out.
The Dems need to tell Biden to fuck off and shift over, and stop being a selfish old twat
I think so too. But I have to say, this NY Times piece has given me food for thought.
"As I’ve thought about Biden’s chances in 2024, I find myself deeply conscious of all the disadvantages that he and the Democrats have as they try to retain power, and preparing for what that could bring. But I also find myself arriving foursquare at the conclusion that rejecting the president now would be, in the first place, a mistake. He offers the most plausible route toward winning the working- and middle-class groups the Democrats need, the most plausible route toward building a broad-based majority party."
The fact that Israel has the ability to cut off power , water and food supplies to Gaza highlights one of the issues that have bred hatred .
Hamas lives off the hatred . Children are brought up with the hatred and it’s just a repeating cycle.
There are still those on both sides who wanted a peaceful resolution , sadly that’s been consigned to the bin for yet more years .
Israel can raze Gaza to the ground but the hatred will remain .
But if the Israelis can somehow shift the Gazans into Egypt, then the hatred will be further away, and the chances of Hamas repeating their spectacular incursion will be greatly minimised
I do wonder if that is what the Israelis are planning. I don't see any other point in wading into Gaza at the cost of many thousands of lives, quite a few of them Israeli
Will Egypt accept them ? The whole situation is just awful. There are no good outcomes here .
Absolutely. No good outcomes
If Egypt seals the border (and they have tightened control this morning) then Israel will be left with a cornered population unable to go anywhere. What then?
I may be wrong and this isn't the Israeli plan, but then I am bewildered as to what Israel thinks it can achieve with ANOTHER invasion that does nothing but stir up evermore enmity. It simply ensures further attacks down the line
As I said last night, they might possibly be planning a renewed Occupation of Gaza, with Israel in control, and the reintroduction of Israeli settlers, who will act as a de facto spy network and military police, so October 7 is not repeated. But that's damnably tricky and could so easily go wrong
The final possibility is that Israel doesn't have a plan. It is acting in a spirit of pure revenge
With whom would they negotiate? Hamas is the *government* of Gaza. Israel has declared war on Gaza amd it shouldn't be a surprise - its *government* has launched these attacks.
So the Israeli goal will I believe be simple - remove Hamas as a threat. How they achieve that is tricky, but they won't just be pushing the cross-border terrorists back into their prison.
Removal of Hamas - and the Hamas state - has to be the goal. And that will largely mean the killing of anyone who is Hamas, supports Hamas, lives near Hamas. It is going to be awful - war usually is. Especially when the aggressor is pledged to the extermination of the other side.
That may be Israel’s strategy. That (“killing of anyone who […] lives near Hamas”) would clearly be a war crime and we, as in the UK, should do everything we can to stop war crimes. We cannot criticise Russia for war crimes in Ukraine and wave through Israel, or Hamas, committing war crimes.
Here’s a simple rule of thumb: war crimes are bad. Don’t carry out war crimes. Don’t respond to say crimes with more war crimes. Why is that a proposition that some on PB struggle with?
"war crimes" is a fantasy. There is/are no such thing. They only exist for the winners in war.
The fact that they are typically enforced against the vanquished rather than the victors doesn't mean they aren't a "thing".
They are reasonably clearly defined by international convention, and provide at least some incentive to moderate the conduct of war in terms of impact on non-combatants. The incentive not to commit them is that if you turn out to be the vanquished, you'd probably rather slip away into exile and obscurity rather than ending up in The Hague or as a fugitive.
Should Israel deliberately target civilians? No. Do civilians have some responsibility to flee a war zone? Yes. Again Hamas are not just embedded in the civilian population, they are the government. So eradicating them is going to involve blowing a great many buildings up.
If your neighbour fires his AK47 at prayers 5 times a day, it is time to leave. Because in wartime it is always legitimate to go after CCC targets regardless of where the enemy has put them.
How exactly do 3 million people flee a war zone when they are not allowed to leave by any of the surrounding countries?
They should decide not to have Hamas as their leadership.
Even coming from you that is genuinely one of the stupidest comments any one has made on this topic.
I suppose the Catholics in Northern Ireland deserved to be bombed out and killed because they had Sinn Féin councillors.
There is huge support in Gaza for the Hamas leadership. They can send thousands of "militants" to Israel on near suicide missions. They have mass rallies of hundreds of thousands in the streets protesting against Israel and the Great Satan. They show pictures of six-yr old girls wielding AKs and crying with happiness at the onslaught happening in Israel.
But they are all harmless civilians who only want to find a way out of danger.
It must be very strange living inside your head where everything in the world is so black and white.
It is dangerously close to exactly the sort of attitude that led to Rwanda, Bosnia and indeed the Holocaust. Regarding people as a mass (and indeed to use the words of your friend Netenyahu as animals) rather than individuals is an easy road to 'untermensch'.
You seem pretty conflicted about it all.
Those poor Gazans who turned out in their hundreds of thousands to celebrate actions against Israel are now to be pitied. Of course it's best that civilians leave and they can do so via Egypt or indeed the coast if they wanted to. I have heard nothing about a port blockade perhaps you know different.
I don't for one moment think that every German in 1939 was complicit in the German war aims but I have read nowhere of a safe passage being discussed for them to escape the country before we bombed it.
This is the notion of collective guilt. It is explicitly a war crime.
Then it's one that every country including our own is guilty of. As noted above, it only matters if you lose. But actually of all the Nuremburg trials was one ever held for the bombing of Coventry?
See, I think this is where you and I differ @TOPPING - you see this as an argument for why we shouldn't worry about the plight of the Palestinian people. I see this as an argument for why we should have had a Nuremburg trial not only for the bombing of Coventry, but also the bombing of Dresden. And Hiroshima. Humanity got to a place where it almost said "only following orders" was not a good enough reason for individuals committing crimes against humanity. Much since has been trying to roll that back - we need only look at the indifference to history our Home Secretary displays when discussing the refugee convention, or our own history of "defending our troops" from the consequences of the crimes they committed during the Troubles.
And I find your view wholly admirable. And I do care about the plight of the Palestinian people. I think they have been dreadfully lead although bear not a small amount of responsibility for their leadership.
This is another Brexit issue. Because I was a Remainer it doesn't mean that I thought that everything the EU did was fantastic and beyond reproach; while Brexiters probably didn't think everything the EU did was dreadful, but internet forums, including if you can believe it PB, often force people to adopt those positions.
In this case Israel is not without fault in its behaviour over the past but after the events of the weekend I am giving them quite a lot of leeway to progress the war in whatever way they want and wanted only to point out that at some point a distinction between the sweet, good-natured, wouldn't harm a fly Palestinian people who only want peace with their beloved neighbours Israel, and the Palestinians who, in their hundreds of thousands march in support of the destruction of Israel needs to be drawn.
We didn't single out the nice Germans from the beastly ones and Israel can be forgiven for not doing the same in this instance wrt the Palestinians.
You're an odd fruit sometimes.
On the 'Putin attacking Ukraine' topic you've been at pains to explore the context, discuss the things that might have pushed him into the action (eg did the Iraq War set a precedent? I recall you posing that question quite doggedly), lots of that from you on that one.
Yet on this one, this 'Hamas attacking Israel' topic, any attempt by people to do similar, to mention the context, to discuss reasons why this attack might have happened (eg could the maltreatment of the Palestinians by Israel have anything to do with it?) seems to give you an attack of the vapors.
I'm not slagging you off, I'm genuinely interested in the different way you approach the 2 topics. Putin Ukraine, very up for context and the whys and wherefores. Hamas Israel, not so much. Why is this, do we think?
I am extremely clear on why Hamas attacked Israel. I am extremely clear on why Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Transjordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt attacked them in 1948. And in 1967. And 1973. And 2023.
They attacked them because they wanted to wipe Israel off the map. In each instance they failed and in trying they got themselves into quite a pickle.
Has Israel behaved as you or indeed I would have wished them to over the past 70 years? I'm sure not. But it's useful idiots like you who think that if Israel had only been a bit nicer over the period everyone would be holding hands and making daisy chains together.
You think that I am excusing Israel's behaviour to the Palestinians on the one hand and ignoring the fact that this might be a root cause of this weekend's actions. Just like I seek to understand the reasons for Putin's actions.
I am here to educate you that for centuries and most recently decades the Arab world (and of course others) has been antipathetic to the Jews and hence this weekend's actions are a symptom of that hatred.
Thanks for non flip reply. Doesn't happen too often. I treasure it.
So iyo the antipathy towards Israel in Gaza has little to do with the maltreatment of its Palestinian population. It's down to the inherent appetite of Palestinians for antisemitism.
Ok. I think that's incredibly jaundiced (and arguably racist) but given that is your view of course you won't (as you say) be shedding too many tears if Israel does end up engaging in large scale collective punishment of 'innocent' Palestinians. Inverted commas since they won't be innocent, will they?
Makes sense now. Quality exchange. Thanks again. Chilean red and nuts time.
Hope you are enjoying your red & nuts. To you and @148grss it seems that you have difficulty believing that there is anti-semitism amongst the Arabs. And that Israel has committed some (original - we'll come on to that later) sin which has brought this behaviour upon them.
I think it doesn't take a google genius to determine quickly that there has been a long and well-documented history of anti-semitism amongst everyone including the Arabs.
For the Arabs it takes on a more "traditional" angle because there is a land angle there also. But a cursory reading of any text or oratory of many of today's Arab leaders now or indeed from history will show that there is deep antipathy towards the Jews. I think this is pervasive hence while someone somewhere in Hamas might see this as a homeland issue, to deny the rampant anti-semitism of much of the Arab world is imo to misunderstimate the dynamic of the Middle East both now and throughout history.
Is there a history of anti Semitism amongst Arabic peoples? Of course. But I do not think it is the driving force behind the issue of Israel, especially not to begin with. Indeed, if the finger of anti Semitism should point anywhere it should be at the hegemonic western powers who refused fleeing Jewish people to their shores prior to WW2 - whereas at that point multicultural communities built on common understanding between Palestinian and Jewish exiles were commonplace. The land that is Israel and Palestine were also relatively free of faith based conflict under Ottoman control - all faiths had the freedom to access Jerusalem, for instance. The issue, I would argue, hinges on the forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of people from their land. This creates long lasting conflict - it has done with India and Pakistan, it has done in Africa, and it is the case with Israel and Palestine. People want to return to their homes, to farm their olives, to live and die in the house they were born in. At least with Indian partition people on both Hindu/secular and the Muslim sides held both positions - with Israel it is clear that one side was being forced out by the other.
I wondered how long it would be before we got to: "It's all out fault!"
You really should look at the history of Jews in the region, e.g. Iraq, to see why your pretend high-minded ideal of allowing people to return is utterly bogus. Why are the Palestinians the only ones who have this right to return?
I mean the history is quite clear that in many ways this is all our fault - both the British state specifically and western imperial nations more generally. I mean it was European imperialist states that committed pogroms and refused Jewish refugees entry for hundreds of years, and European imperialist logic that led to the holocaust. The concentration camp was not a Nazi invention, although their evolution into a specific death camp arguably was, and the European imperial powers had already committed acts of mass murder on par with the death camps - just over longer periods of time and less formalised in parts.
I mean I’m in favour of a stateless, classless society without borders - that goes slightly beyond the mere right to return in my mind - but yes, Jewish people should be able to live where they wish, especially more so if their near ancestors were expelled from there. That includes Iraq. I don’t see how me having the position that all states (if they are going to exist at all) should be like that therefore means I am specifically calling on Israel as a special case.
"I mean the history is quite clear that in many ways this is all our fault"
You really don't need to say any more than this. We already understand that this is your answer for EVERYTHING
I mean when you have an Empire that spanned a whole lot of the globe… yeah - lots of things that are bad with the world are going to be, in part, related to that. It’s not rocket science.
We are now at the stage that many countries in Africa have been independent longer than when they were actual colonies.
Even laying aside the fact that the norm in many colonies was for the powers to rule through the local tribes, how long should we assume everything is our fault and not those independent countries' own issues?
On some level @148grss seems to believe that decolonisation was a mistake, and we should instead have all joined in one big happy family with no borders.
I mean, that is the least favourable way of interpreting my beliefs. My political ideals are, without a deep education in what many call "theory", broadly communist / anarchist - I believe that states are fictive creations of groups of people that are typically used on the behalf of the elite of those groups to better position themselves in international power structures. I see no reason why we cannot live in a stateless society, with the second best option being some form of singular global state (although that is a far second best, big gap between first and second preference). I also understand that is not a likely state of political reality in my lifetime, so... yeah
Worth noting a week of almost unlimited coverage for Rishi Sunak saw his approval numbers fall of six points in his approval while in the "better PM" polling, Starmer extends his lead to 10 points.
I suspect Sunak's best approach is to do and say nothing before the election - it seems people's view of him mellows the less they hear from him.
Well, if he's going to spout the nonsense dreamed up by Dumbinic Cumstain, he certainly would be better off keeping his mouth shut.
I think that I am right in saying a very high proportion of Gaza’s water and electricity comes from Israel. People are going to be driven out by thirst.
Oh, close to 100% of Gaza's water and electricity comes from Israel.
Gaza has no airport, and Israel has blockaded its port, so there is no ability for Gaza to import coal or gas from anywhere else, to allow them to make power. (And without power, they can't make clean water.)
There is some diesel that comes across in trucks from Egypt, and which is used to power backup generators. And there is some rooftop solar. But - basically - Gaza is 100% dependent on Israel.
And they will exploit that to make Gaza uninhabitable. This is not going to end well for anyone.
There are two lots of losers here:
The people of Southern Israel, who saw their land invaded, and who were tortured, raped and kidnapped. (And by the way, for what? It's not like there was any possibility that motorcycle riding Hamas fighters were going to militarily defeat Izsrael.)
And the ordinary people of Gaza.
Life was already miserable there. It is going to get worse.
This mess is never getting any better for years and is only getting worse.
The rich world (including the UK) should pay a fortune to Egypt and Gazans to relocate Gazans to Sinai and provide humongous levels of aid and development. Stuff their mouths with money to ensure they're developed in a way that frankly is never going to happen in Gaza.
Sovereignty only matters to people like us then eh. Matters so much to us that we can't even tolerate being in the EU. But those Palestinians, hmm, different strokes. Lower level types.
True. No one is defending the Hamas attacks but they didn’t just appear from nowhere . Cause and effect , there’s a lot of moralizing from those who have no idea what it’s like to live in an open prison , no hope , no jobs and absolutely no sign of anything changing. Your water, food and energy is at the whim of what your perceive as an occupying force. Settlements are built on land stolen from your family. The pie keeps shrinking so any future deal even if that was possible means you get a few scraps . The attacks by Hamas are disgusting but let’s not pretend the Israeli government doesn’t bear some responsibility for its actions over many years which just continued to help forment the hatred and resentment.
Victim blaming, nice.
Her skirt was too short.
The Jews had it coming.
I’m not victim blaming . This is the typical response when people don’t want to debate the issues and the actual history of the troubles.
bart gets a bit out of his depth when he has to go beyond quoting from his Ladybird guide in the middle east.
Nico said the Jews must bear some responsibility for the Hamas attack. First that is the very definition of victim blaming. And secondly what had they done in 1948 apart from agree to UN Resolution181?
The problems started in 1917 . In 1948 neither side were happy with the partition . The Brits handed over the problem to the UN after promising both sides the moon on a stick . As for victim blaming jeez it’s like Netanyahu is now Mary Poppins and the Israeli government is all sweetness and light .
The fact that Israel has the ability to cut off power , water and food supplies to Gaza highlights one of the issues that have bred hatred .
Hamas lives off the hatred . Children are brought up with the hatred and it’s just a repeating cycle.
There are still those on both sides who wanted a peaceful resolution , sadly that’s been consigned to the bin for yet more years .
Israel can raze Gaza to the ground but the hatred will remain .
But if the Israelis can somehow shift the Gazans into Egypt, then the hatred will be further away, and the chances of Hamas repeating their spectacular incursion will be greatly minimised
I do wonder if that is what the Israelis are planning. I don't see any other point in wading into Gaza at the cost of many thousands of lives, quite a few of them Israeli
Will Egypt accept them ? The whole situation is just awful. There are no good outcomes here .
Absolutely. No good outcomes
If Egypt seals the border (and they have tightened control this morning) then Israel will be left with a cornered population unable to go anywhere. What then?
I may be wrong and this isn't the Israeli plan, but then I am bewildered as to what Israel thinks it can achieve with ANOTHER invasion that does nothing but stir up evermore enmity. It simply ensures further attacks down the line
As I said last night, they might possibly be planning a renewed Occupation of Gaza, with Israel in control, and the reintroduction of Israeli settlers, who will act as a de facto spy network and military police, so October 7 is not repeated. But that's damnably tricky and could so easily go wrong
The final possibility is that Israel doesn't have a plan. It is acting in a spirit of pure revenge
With whom would they negotiate? Hamas is the *government* of Gaza. Israel has declared war on Gaza amd it shouldn't be a surprise - its *government* has launched these attacks.
So the Israeli goal will I believe be simple - remove Hamas as a threat. How they achieve that is tricky, but they won't just be pushing the cross-border terrorists back into their prison.
Removal of Hamas - and the Hamas state - has to be the goal. And that will largely mean the killing of anyone who is Hamas, supports Hamas, lives near Hamas. It is going to be awful - war usually is. Especially when the aggressor is pledged to the extermination of the other side.
That may be Israel’s strategy. That (“killing of anyone who […] lives near Hamas”) would clearly be a war crime and we, as in the UK, should do everything we can to stop war crimes. We cannot criticise Russia for war crimes in Ukraine and wave through Israel, or Hamas, committing war crimes.
Here’s a simple rule of thumb: war crimes are bad. Don’t carry out war crimes. Don’t respond to say crimes with more war crimes. Why is that a proposition that some on PB struggle with?
"war crimes" is a fantasy. There is/are no such thing. They only exist for the winners in war.
The fact that they are typically enforced against the vanquished rather than the victors doesn't mean they aren't a "thing".
They are reasonably clearly defined by international convention, and provide at least some incentive to moderate the conduct of war in terms of impact on non-combatants. The incentive not to commit them is that if you turn out to be the vanquished, you'd probably rather slip away into exile and obscurity rather than ending up in The Hague or as a fugitive.
Should Israel deliberately target civilians? No. Do civilians have some responsibility to flee a war zone? Yes. Again Hamas are not just embedded in the civilian population, they are the government. So eradicating them is going to involve blowing a great many buildings up.
If your neighbour fires his AK47 at prayers 5 times a day, it is time to leave. Because in wartime it is always legitimate to go after CCC targets regardless of where the enemy has put them.
How exactly do 3 million people flee a war zone when they are not allowed to leave by any of the surrounding countries?
They should decide not to have Hamas as their leadership.
Even coming from you that is genuinely one of the stupidest comments any one has made on this topic.
I suppose the Catholics in Northern Ireland deserved to be bombed out and killed because they had Sinn Féin councillors.
There is huge support in Gaza for the Hamas leadership. They can send thousands of "militants" to Israel on near suicide missions. They have mass rallies of hundreds of thousands in the streets protesting against Israel and the Great Satan. They show pictures of six-yr old girls wielding AKs and crying with happiness at the onslaught happening in Israel.
But they are all harmless civilians who only want to find a way out of danger.
It must be very strange living inside your head where everything in the world is so black and white.
It is dangerously close to exactly the sort of attitude that led to Rwanda, Bosnia and indeed the Holocaust. Regarding people as a mass (and indeed to use the words of your friend Netenyahu as animals) rather than individuals is an easy road to 'untermensch'.
You seem pretty conflicted about it all.
Those poor Gazans who turned out in their hundreds of thousands to celebrate actions against Israel are now to be pitied. Of course it's best that civilians leave and they can do so via Egypt or indeed the coast if they wanted to. I have heard nothing about a port blockade perhaps you know different.
I don't for one moment think that every German in 1939 was complicit in the German war aims but I have read nowhere of a safe passage being discussed for them to escape the country before we bombed it.
This is the notion of collective guilt. It is explicitly a war crime.
Then it's one that every country including our own is guilty of. As noted above, it only matters if you lose. But actually of all the Nuremburg trials was one ever held for the bombing of Coventry?
See, I think this is where you and I differ @TOPPING - you see this as an argument for why we shouldn't worry about the plight of the Palestinian people. I see this as an argument for why we should have had a Nuremburg trial not only for the bombing of Coventry, but also the bombing of Dresden. And Hiroshima. Humanity got to a place where it almost said "only following orders" was not a good enough reason for individuals committing crimes against humanity. Much since has been trying to roll that back - we need only look at the indifference to history our Home Secretary displays when discussing the refugee convention, or our own history of "defending our troops" from the consequences of the crimes they committed during the Troubles.
And I find your view wholly admirable. And I do care about the plight of the Palestinian people. I think they have been dreadfully lead although bear not a small amount of responsibility for their leadership.
This is another Brexit issue. Because I was a Remainer it doesn't mean that I thought that everything the EU did was fantastic and beyond reproach; while Brexiters probably didn't think everything the EU did was dreadful, but internet forums, including if you can believe it PB, often force people to adopt those positions.
In this case Israel is not without fault in its behaviour over the past but after the events of the weekend I am giving them quite a lot of leeway to progress the war in whatever way they want and wanted only to point out that at some point a distinction between the sweet, good-natured, wouldn't harm a fly Palestinian people who only want peace with their beloved neighbours Israel, and the Palestinians who, in their hundreds of thousands march in support of the destruction of Israel needs to be drawn.
We didn't single out the nice Germans from the beastly ones and Israel can be forgiven for not doing the same in this instance wrt the Palestinians.
You're an odd fruit sometimes.
On the 'Putin attacking Ukraine' topic you've been at pains to explore the context, discuss the things that might have pushed him into the action (eg did the Iraq War set a precedent? I recall you posing that question quite doggedly), lots of that from you on that one.
Yet on this one, this 'Hamas attacking Israel' topic, any attempt by people to do similar, to mention the context, to discuss reasons why this attack might have happened (eg could the maltreatment of the Palestinians by Israel have anything to do with it?) seems to give you an attack of the vapors.
I'm not slagging you off, I'm genuinely interested in the different way you approach the 2 topics. Putin Ukraine, very up for context and the whys and wherefores. Hamas Israel, not so much. Why is this, do we think?
I am extremely clear on why Hamas attacked Israel. I am extremely clear on why Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Transjordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt attacked them in 1948. And in 1967. And 1973. And 2023.
They attacked them because they wanted to wipe Israel off the map. In each instance they failed and in trying they got themselves into quite a pickle.
Has Israel behaved as you or indeed I would have wished them to over the past 70 years? I'm sure not. But it's useful idiots like you who think that if Israel had only been a bit nicer over the period everyone would be holding hands and making daisy chains together.
You think that I am excusing Israel's behaviour to the Palestinians on the one hand and ignoring the fact that this might be a root cause of this weekend's actions. Just like I seek to understand the reasons for Putin's actions.
I am here to educate you that for centuries and most recently decades the Arab world (and of course others) has been antipathetic to the Jews and hence this weekend's actions are a symptom of that hatred.
Thanks for non flip reply. Doesn't happen too often. I treasure it.
So iyo the antipathy towards Israel in Gaza has little to do with the maltreatment of its Palestinian population. It's down to the inherent appetite of Palestinians for antisemitism.
Ok. I think that's incredibly jaundiced (and arguably racist) but given that is your view of course you won't (as you say) be shedding too many tears if Israel does end up engaging in large scale collective punishment of 'innocent' Palestinians. Inverted commas since they won't be innocent, will they?
Makes sense now. Quality exchange. Thanks again. Chilean red and nuts time.
Hope you are enjoying your red & nuts. To you and @148grss it seems that you have difficulty believing that there is anti-semitism amongst the Arabs. And that Israel has committed some (original - we'll come on to that later) sin which has brought this behaviour upon them.
I think it doesn't take a google genius to determine quickly that there has been a long and well-documented history of anti-semitism amongst everyone including the Arabs.
For the Arabs it takes on a more "traditional" angle because there is a land angle there also. But a cursory reading of any text or oratory of many of today's Arab leaders now or indeed from history will show that there is deep antipathy towards the Jews. I think this is pervasive hence while someone somewhere in Hamas might see this as a homeland issue, to deny the rampant anti-semitism of much of the Arab world is imo to misunderstimate the dynamic of the Middle East both now and throughout history.
Is there a history of anti Semitism amongst Arabic peoples? Of course. But I do not think it is the driving force behind the issue of Israel, especially not to begin with. Indeed, if the finger of anti Semitism should point anywhere it should be at the hegemonic western powers who refused fleeing Jewish people to their shores prior to WW2 - whereas at that point multicultural communities built on common understanding between Palestinian and Jewish exiles were commonplace. The land that is Israel and Palestine were also relatively free of faith based conflict under Ottoman control - all faiths had the freedom to access Jerusalem, for instance. The issue, I would argue, hinges on the forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of people from their land. This creates long lasting conflict - it has done with India and Pakistan, it has done in Africa, and it is the case with Israel and Palestine. People want to return to their homes, to farm their olives, to live and die in the house they were born in. At least with Indian partition people on both Hindu/secular and the Muslim sides held both positions - with Israel it is clear that one side was being forced out by the other.
I wondered how long it would be before we got to: "It's all out fault!"
You really should look at the history of Jews in the region, e.g. Iraq, to see why your pretend high-minded ideal of allowing people to return is utterly bogus. Why are the Palestinians the only ones who have this right to return?
I mean the history is quite clear that in many ways this is all our fault - both the British state specifically and western imperial nations more generally. I mean it was European imperialist states that committed pogroms and refused Jewish refugees entry for hundreds of years, and European imperialist logic that led to the holocaust. The concentration camp was not a Nazi invention, although their evolution into a specific death camp arguably was, and the European imperial powers had already committed acts of mass murder on par with the death camps - just over longer periods of time and less formalised in parts.
I mean I’m in favour of a stateless, classless society without borders - that goes slightly beyond the mere right to return in my mind - but yes, Jewish people should be able to live where they wish, especially more so if their near ancestors were expelled from there. That includes Iraq. I don’t see how me having the position that all states (if they are going to exist at all) should be like that therefore means I am specifically calling on Israel as a special case.
"I mean the history is quite clear that in many ways this is all our fault"
You really don't need to say any more than this. We already understand that this is your answer for EVERYTHING
I mean when you have an Empire that spanned a whole lot of the globe… yeah - lots of things that are bad with the world are going to be, in part, related to that. It’s not rocket science.
We are now at the stage that many countries in Africa have been independent longer than when they were actual colonies.
Even laying aside the fact that the norm in many colonies was for the powers to rule through the local tribes, how long should we assume everything is our fault and not those independent countries' own issues?
When we return to those previously colonised countries the same amount of relative wealth that we extracted from them when we colonised them?
I'm sure you're aware of the foot race metaphor for structural problems related to class, race, gender etc. That is the same between colonised and coloniser.
Britain extracted wealth and labour from other countries; it also destroyed industry in other countries so that industry based at home could monopolise markets (see how we destroyed the Indian manufacturing economy under British rule so that our manufactured goods could be sold more). Some of those things advantaged us, and our colonial contemporaries, and disadvantaged others. Again, see how Haiti was forced to pay the debt to France for their own emancipation.
In a major intelligence failure, Israel believed it was containing Hamas by giving economic incentives to workers in Gaza, despite fighters often conducting exercises in plain sight and reported warnings from other intelligence agencies.
Apparently Biden retired for the day at..... 11.50 am. "We will not be seeing the president again"
An hour later Hamas announced they are gonna start executing hostages, live, on air - including up to a dozen American nationals
Sleepy Joe is not having a good war so far. He could lose the election in the coming days, if he's not careful. An urgent global crisis is when you realise you don't want an 80 year old man running the shop. This also applies to Trump, nearly as much, of course
He is going to get hammered on the $6 billion deal with Iran and the Robert Malley thing for sure. Then the analogies already being drawn between what has happened in his Presidency and Trump's on foreign affairs.
He has also got the problem of his left wing to deal with who are more 'equivocal' when it comes to Israel.
Moreover, it looks like the Israel conflict is spurring the GOP to get the House Speaker contest over with ASAP. Even Gaetz has said he will respect the majority result. That helps on the aid front but it probably means there is not the extended process of the House GOP ripping itself apart.
Islamic empires were not - in general - multi-culti beacons of tolerance. Certainly not the Ottomans.
There were several extensive massacres of Jews, during the 19th century. Not, by any means, all the fault of Muslims. Intellectual anti-semitism was the brainchild of Arab nationalists, who were predominantly Christian Arabs at that point, but it became widespread among the Muslim population as well. And, the creation of Israel plainly turbocharged it.
Then again, why should the creation of a State which encompasses a tiny fraction of the Middle East generate widespread Jew-hatred, unless anti-semitism was already endemic among the surrounding populations?
Apparently Biden retired for the day at..... 11.50 am. "We will not be seeing the president again"
An hour later Hamas announced they are gonna start executing hostages, live, on air - including up to a dozen American nationals
Sleepy Joe is not having a good war so far. He could lose the election in the coming days, if he's not careful. An urgent global crisis is when you realise you don't want an 80 year old man running the shop. This also applies to Trump, nearly as much, of course
He is going to get hammered on the $6 billion deal with Iran and the Robert Malley thing for sure. Then the analogies already being drawn between what has happened in his Presidency and Trump's on foreign affairs.
He has also got the problem of his left wing to deal with who are more 'equivocal' when it comes to Israel.
Moreover, it looks like the Israel conflict is spurring the GOP to get the House Speaker contest over with ASAP. Even Gaetz has said he will respect the majority result. That helps on the aid front but it probably means there is not the extended process of the House GOP ripping itself apart.
If Hezbollah escalate then we potentially see war spread first through Lebanon then into Syria. An IDF invasion of Southern Syria and bombing of Iran changes Middle East politics quite a lot.
The fact that Israel has the ability to cut off power , water and food supplies to Gaza highlights one of the issues that have bred hatred .
Hamas lives off the hatred . Children are brought up with the hatred and it’s just a repeating cycle.
There are still those on both sides who wanted a peaceful resolution , sadly that’s been consigned to the bin for yet more years .
Israel can raze Gaza to the ground but the hatred will remain .
But if the Israelis can somehow shift the Gazans into Egypt, then the hatred will be further away, and the chances of Hamas repeating their spectacular incursion will be greatly minimised
I do wonder if that is what the Israelis are planning. I don't see any other point in wading into Gaza at the cost of many thousands of lives, quite a few of them Israeli
Will Egypt accept them ? The whole situation is just awful. There are no good outcomes here .
Absolutely. No good outcomes
If Egypt seals the border (and they have tightened control this morning) then Israel will be left with a cornered population unable to go anywhere. What then?
I may be wrong and this isn't the Israeli plan, but then I am bewildered as to what Israel thinks it can achieve with ANOTHER invasion that does nothing but stir up evermore enmity. It simply ensures further attacks down the line
As I said last night, they might possibly be planning a renewed Occupation of Gaza, with Israel in control, and the reintroduction of Israeli settlers, who will act as a de facto spy network and military police, so October 7 is not repeated. But that's damnably tricky and could so easily go wrong
The final possibility is that Israel doesn't have a plan. It is acting in a spirit of pure revenge
With whom would they negotiate? Hamas is the *government* of Gaza. Israel has declared war on Gaza amd it shouldn't be a surprise - its *government* has launched these attacks.
So the Israeli goal will I believe be simple - remove Hamas as a threat. How they achieve that is tricky, but they won't just be pushing the cross-border terrorists back into their prison.
Removal of Hamas - and the Hamas state - has to be the goal. And that will largely mean the killing of anyone who is Hamas, supports Hamas, lives near Hamas. It is going to be awful - war usually is. Especially when the aggressor is pledged to the extermination of the other side.
That may be Israel’s strategy. That (“killing of anyone who […] lives near Hamas”) would clearly be a war crime and we, as in the UK, should do everything we can to stop war crimes. We cannot criticise Russia for war crimes in Ukraine and wave through Israel, or Hamas, committing war crimes.
Here’s a simple rule of thumb: war crimes are bad. Don’t carry out war crimes. Don’t respond to say crimes with more war crimes. Why is that a proposition that some on PB struggle with?
"war crimes" is a fantasy. There is/are no such thing. They only exist for the winners in war.
The fact that they are typically enforced against the vanquished rather than the victors doesn't mean they aren't a "thing".
They are reasonably clearly defined by international convention, and provide at least some incentive to moderate the conduct of war in terms of impact on non-combatants. The incentive not to commit them is that if you turn out to be the vanquished, you'd probably rather slip away into exile and obscurity rather than ending up in The Hague or as a fugitive.
Should Israel deliberately target civilians? No. Do civilians have some responsibility to flee a war zone? Yes. Again Hamas are not just embedded in the civilian population, they are the government. So eradicating them is going to involve blowing a great many buildings up.
If your neighbour fires his AK47 at prayers 5 times a day, it is time to leave. Because in wartime it is always legitimate to go after CCC targets regardless of where the enemy has put them.
How exactly do 3 million people flee a war zone when they are not allowed to leave by any of the surrounding countries?
They should decide not to have Hamas as their leadership.
Even coming from you that is genuinely one of the stupidest comments any one has made on this topic.
I suppose the Catholics in Northern Ireland deserved to be bombed out and killed because they had Sinn Féin councillors.
There is huge support in Gaza for the Hamas leadership. They can send thousands of "militants" to Israel on near suicide missions. They have mass rallies of hundreds of thousands in the streets protesting against Israel and the Great Satan. They show pictures of six-yr old girls wielding AKs and crying with happiness at the onslaught happening in Israel.
But they are all harmless civilians who only want to find a way out of danger.
It must be very strange living inside your head where everything in the world is so black and white.
It is dangerously close to exactly the sort of attitude that led to Rwanda, Bosnia and indeed the Holocaust. Regarding people as a mass (and indeed to use the words of your friend Netenyahu as animals) rather than individuals is an easy road to 'untermensch'.
You seem pretty conflicted about it all.
Those poor Gazans who turned out in their hundreds of thousands to celebrate actions against Israel are now to be pitied. Of course it's best that civilians leave and they can do so via Egypt or indeed the coast if they wanted to. I have heard nothing about a port blockade perhaps you know different.
I don't for one moment think that every German in 1939 was complicit in the German war aims but I have read nowhere of a safe passage being discussed for them to escape the country before we bombed it.
This is the notion of collective guilt. It is explicitly a war crime.
Then it's one that every country including our own is guilty of. As noted above, it only matters if you lose. But actually of all the Nuremburg trials was one ever held for the bombing of Coventry?
See, I think this is where you and I differ @TOPPING - you see this as an argument for why we shouldn't worry about the plight of the Palestinian people. I see this as an argument for why we should have had a Nuremburg trial not only for the bombing of Coventry, but also the bombing of Dresden. And Hiroshima. Humanity got to a place where it almost said "only following orders" was not a good enough reason for individuals committing crimes against humanity. Much since has been trying to roll that back - we need only look at the indifference to history our Home Secretary displays when discussing the refugee convention, or our own history of "defending our troops" from the consequences of the crimes they committed during the Troubles.
And I find your view wholly admirable. And I do care about the plight of the Palestinian people. I think they have been dreadfully lead although bear not a small amount of responsibility for their leadership.
This is another Brexit issue. Because I was a Remainer it doesn't mean that I thought that everything the EU did was fantastic and beyond reproach; while Brexiters probably didn't think everything the EU did was dreadful, but internet forums, including if you can believe it PB, often force people to adopt those positions.
In this case Israel is not without fault in its behaviour over the past but after the events of the weekend I am giving them quite a lot of leeway to progress the war in whatever way they want and wanted only to point out that at some point a distinction between the sweet, good-natured, wouldn't harm a fly Palestinian people who only want peace with their beloved neighbours Israel, and the Palestinians who, in their hundreds of thousands march in support of the destruction of Israel needs to be drawn.
We didn't single out the nice Germans from the beastly ones and Israel can be forgiven for not doing the same in this instance wrt the Palestinians.
You're an odd fruit sometimes.
On the 'Putin attacking Ukraine' topic you've been at pains to explore the context, discuss the things that might have pushed him into the action (eg did the Iraq War set a precedent? I recall you posing that question quite doggedly), lots of that from you on that one.
Yet on this one, this 'Hamas attacking Israel' topic, any attempt by people to do similar, to mention the context, to discuss reasons why this attack might have happened (eg could the maltreatment of the Palestinians by Israel have anything to do with it?) seems to give you an attack of the vapors.
I'm not slagging you off, I'm genuinely interested in the different way you approach the 2 topics. Putin Ukraine, very up for context and the whys and wherefores. Hamas Israel, not so much. Why is this, do we think?
I am extremely clear on why Hamas attacked Israel. I am extremely clear on why Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Transjordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt attacked them in 1948. And in 1967. And 1973. And 2023.
They attacked them because they wanted to wipe Israel off the map. In each instance they failed and in trying they got themselves into quite a pickle.
Has Israel behaved as you or indeed I would have wished them to over the past 70 years? I'm sure not. But it's useful idiots like you who think that if Israel had only been a bit nicer over the period everyone would be holding hands and making daisy chains together.
You think that I am excusing Israel's behaviour to the Palestinians on the one hand and ignoring the fact that this might be a root cause of this weekend's actions. Just like I seek to understand the reasons for Putin's actions.
I am here to educate you that for centuries and most recently decades the Arab world (and of course others) has been antipathetic to the Jews and hence this weekend's actions are a symptom of that hatred.
Thanks for non flip reply. Doesn't happen too often. I treasure it.
So iyo the antipathy towards Israel in Gaza has little to do with the maltreatment of its Palestinian population. It's down to the inherent appetite of Palestinians for antisemitism.
Ok. I think that's incredibly jaundiced (and arguably racist) but given that is your view of course you won't (as you say) be shedding too many tears if Israel does end up engaging in large scale collective punishment of 'innocent' Palestinians. Inverted commas since they won't be innocent, will they?
Makes sense now. Quality exchange. Thanks again. Chilean red and nuts time.
Hope you are enjoying your red & nuts. To you and @148grss it seems that you have difficulty believing that there is anti-semitism amongst the Arabs. And that Israel has committed some (original - we'll come on to that later) sin which has brought this behaviour upon them.
I think it doesn't take a google genius to determine quickly that there has been a long and well-documented history of anti-semitism amongst everyone including the Arabs.
For the Arabs it takes on a more "traditional" angle because there is a land angle there also. But a cursory reading of any text or oratory of many of today's Arab leaders now or indeed from history will show that there is deep antipathy towards the Jews. I think this is pervasive hence while someone somewhere in Hamas might see this as a homeland issue, to deny the rampant anti-semitism of much of the Arab world is imo to misunderstimate the dynamic of the Middle East both now and throughout history.
Is there a history of anti Semitism amongst Arabic peoples? Of course. But I do not think it is the driving force behind the issue of Israel, especially not to begin with. Indeed, if the finger of anti Semitism should point anywhere it should be at the hegemonic western powers who refused fleeing Jewish people to their shores prior to WW2 - whereas at that point multicultural communities built on common understanding between Palestinian and Jewish exiles were commonplace. The land that is Israel and Palestine were also relatively free of faith based conflict under Ottoman control - all faiths had the freedom to access Jerusalem, for instance. The issue, I would argue, hinges on the forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of people from their land. This creates long lasting conflict - it has done with India and Pakistan, it has done in Africa, and it is the case with Israel and Palestine. People want to return to their homes, to farm their olives, to live and die in the house they were born in. At least with Indian partition people on both Hindu/secular and the Muslim sides held both positions - with Israel it is clear that one side was being forced out by the other.
I wondered how long it would be before we got to: "It's all out fault!"
You really should look at the history of Jews in the region, e.g. Iraq, to see why your pretend high-minded ideal of allowing people to return is utterly bogus. Why are the Palestinians the only ones who have this right to return?
I mean the history is quite clear that in many ways this is all our fault - both the British state specifically and western imperial nations more generally. I mean it was European imperialist states that committed pogroms and refused Jewish refugees entry for hundreds of years, and European imperialist logic that led to the holocaust. The concentration camp was not a Nazi invention, although their evolution into a specific death camp arguably was, and the European imperial powers had already committed acts of mass murder on par with the death camps - just over longer periods of time and less formalised in parts.
I mean I’m in favour of a stateless, classless society without borders - that goes slightly beyond the mere right to return in my mind - but yes, Jewish people should be able to live where they wish, especially more so if their near ancestors were expelled from there. That includes Iraq. I don’t see how me having the position that all states (if they are going to exist at all) should be like that therefore means I am specifically calling on Israel as a special case.
"I mean the history is quite clear that in many ways this is all our fault"
You really don't need to say any more than this. We already understand that this is your answer for EVERYTHING
I mean when you have an Empire that spanned a whole lot of the globe… yeah - lots of things that are bad with the world are going to be, in part, related to that. It’s not rocket science.
We are now at the stage that many countries in Africa have been independent longer than when they were actual colonies.
Even laying aside the fact that the norm in many colonies was for the powers to rule through the local tribes, how long should we assume everything is our fault and not those independent countries' own issues?
On some level @148grss seems to believe that decolonisation was a mistake, and we should instead have all joined in one big happy family with no borders.
I mean, that is the least favourable way of interpreting my beliefs. My political ideals are, without a deep education in what many call "theory", broadly communist / anarchist - I believe that states are fictive creations of groups of people that are typically used on the behalf of the elite of those groups to better position themselves in international power structures. I see no reason why we cannot live in a stateless society, with the second best option being some form of singular global state (although that is a far second best, big gap between first and second preference). I also understand that is not a likely state of political reality in my lifetime, so... yeah
No state?
So no state education? No voting for state elections? No state welfare? No state healthcare? No taxes paid to the state?
-Air strikes against Hamas in Gaza are just the beginning. -Our enemies in the region understand significance of having US Aircraft carrier on the way. -A number of Palestinian gunmen still inside #Israel -We have tough days ahead of us and we are determined to win. -The enemy wanted war - they will get war. -Benjamin Netanyahu
For decades, UK governments from all 3 parties have had a foreign policy supporting a rules-based international order, and a domestic law forbidding war crimes. Yet multiple people here have, in recent days, advocated that Israel should commit war crimes. (And they're not defending Israel's actions. They're calling for Israel to go further than they currently are.)
Can I ask these people: why didn't you speak out against the UK's policy in favour of a rules-based International order and against war crimes? If war crimes don't exist or they're fine in some circumstances, shouldn't we have said that decades ago?
It was customary for UK govts not to lie to Parliament about going to war.
Then New Labour gave us Iraq, all HMGs lost their credibility at that point
Eden basically had to resign over lying repeatedly to Parliament about Suez, you half-wit.
Blair didnt and I can do without the insult unless you want to make it less civil.
We fought a war in Malaysia from 1948 to 1960 and forgot to mention it to Parliament at all. And we won. Both parties didn’t see an upside in talking about it.
Wasn't a war - just an "emergency" [edit] in the term of the time, of course. (It, or something like it, did break out again a few years later. But let's call that a separate un-war.).
Quite a few of my friends felt they’d wasted two years of their lives out there!
One of my friends fought in Malaysia. When I asked him about it he said wink 😉
The fact that Israel has the ability to cut off power , water and food supplies to Gaza highlights one of the issues that have bred hatred .
Hamas lives off the hatred . Children are brought up with the hatred and it’s just a repeating cycle.
There are still those on both sides who wanted a peaceful resolution , sadly that’s been consigned to the bin for yet more years .
Israel can raze Gaza to the ground but the hatred will remain .
But if the Israelis can somehow shift the Gazans into Egypt, then the hatred will be further away, and the chances of Hamas repeating their spectacular incursion will be greatly minimised
I do wonder if that is what the Israelis are planning. I don't see any other point in wading into Gaza at the cost of many thousands of lives, quite a few of them Israeli
Will Egypt accept them ? The whole situation is just awful. There are no good outcomes here .
Absolutely. No good outcomes
If Egypt seals the border (and they have tightened control this morning) then Israel will be left with a cornered population unable to go anywhere. What then?
I may be wrong and this isn't the Israeli plan, but then I am bewildered as to what Israel thinks it can achieve with ANOTHER invasion that does nothing but stir up evermore enmity. It simply ensures further attacks down the line
As I said last night, they might possibly be planning a renewed Occupation of Gaza, with Israel in control, and the reintroduction of Israeli settlers, who will act as a de facto spy network and military police, so October 7 is not repeated. But that's damnably tricky and could so easily go wrong
The final possibility is that Israel doesn't have a plan. It is acting in a spirit of pure revenge
With whom would they negotiate? Hamas is the *government* of Gaza. Israel has declared war on Gaza amd it shouldn't be a surprise - its *government* has launched these attacks.
So the Israeli goal will I believe be simple - remove Hamas as a threat. How they achieve that is tricky, but they won't just be pushing the cross-border terrorists back into their prison.
Removal of Hamas - and the Hamas state - has to be the goal. And that will largely mean the killing of anyone who is Hamas, supports Hamas, lives near Hamas. It is going to be awful - war usually is. Especially when the aggressor is pledged to the extermination of the other side.
That may be Israel’s strategy. That (“killing of anyone who […] lives near Hamas”) would clearly be a war crime and we, as in the UK, should do everything we can to stop war crimes. We cannot criticise Russia for war crimes in Ukraine and wave through Israel, or Hamas, committing war crimes.
Here’s a simple rule of thumb: war crimes are bad. Don’t carry out war crimes. Don’t respond to say crimes with more war crimes. Why is that a proposition that some on PB struggle with?
"war crimes" is a fantasy. There is/are no such thing. They only exist for the winners in war.
The fact that they are typically enforced against the vanquished rather than the victors doesn't mean they aren't a "thing".
They are reasonably clearly defined by international convention, and provide at least some incentive to moderate the conduct of war in terms of impact on non-combatants. The incentive not to commit them is that if you turn out to be the vanquished, you'd probably rather slip away into exile and obscurity rather than ending up in The Hague or as a fugitive.
Should Israel deliberately target civilians? No. Do civilians have some responsibility to flee a war zone? Yes. Again Hamas are not just embedded in the civilian population, they are the government. So eradicating them is going to involve blowing a great many buildings up.
If your neighbour fires his AK47 at prayers 5 times a day, it is time to leave. Because in wartime it is always legitimate to go after CCC targets regardless of where the enemy has put them.
How exactly do 3 million people flee a war zone when they are not allowed to leave by any of the surrounding countries?
They should decide not to have Hamas as their leadership.
Even coming from you that is genuinely one of the stupidest comments any one has made on this topic.
I suppose the Catholics in Northern Ireland deserved to be bombed out and killed because they had Sinn Féin councillors.
There is huge support in Gaza for the Hamas leadership. They can send thousands of "militants" to Israel on near suicide missions. They have mass rallies of hundreds of thousands in the streets protesting against Israel and the Great Satan. They show pictures of six-yr old girls wielding AKs and crying with happiness at the onslaught happening in Israel.
But they are all harmless civilians who only want to find a way out of danger.
It must be very strange living inside your head where everything in the world is so black and white.
It is dangerously close to exactly the sort of attitude that led to Rwanda, Bosnia and indeed the Holocaust. Regarding people as a mass (and indeed to use the words of your friend Netenyahu as animals) rather than individuals is an easy road to 'untermensch'.
You seem pretty conflicted about it all.
Those poor Gazans who turned out in their hundreds of thousands to celebrate actions against Israel are now to be pitied. Of course it's best that civilians leave and they can do so via Egypt or indeed the coast if they wanted to. I have heard nothing about a port blockade perhaps you know different.
I don't for one moment think that every German in 1939 was complicit in the German war aims but I have read nowhere of a safe passage being discussed for them to escape the country before we bombed it.
This is the notion of collective guilt. It is explicitly a war crime.
Then it's one that every country including our own is guilty of. As noted above, it only matters if you lose. But actually of all the Nuremburg trials was one ever held for the bombing of Coventry?
See, I think this is where you and I differ @TOPPING - you see this as an argument for why we shouldn't worry about the plight of the Palestinian people. I see this as an argument for why we should have had a Nuremburg trial not only for the bombing of Coventry, but also the bombing of Dresden. And Hiroshima. Humanity got to a place where it almost said "only following orders" was not a good enough reason for individuals committing crimes against humanity. Much since has been trying to roll that back - we need only look at the indifference to history our Home Secretary displays when discussing the refugee convention, or our own history of "defending our troops" from the consequences of the crimes they committed during the Troubles.
And I find your view wholly admirable. And I do care about the plight of the Palestinian people. I think they have been dreadfully lead although bear not a small amount of responsibility for their leadership.
This is another Brexit issue. Because I was a Remainer it doesn't mean that I thought that everything the EU did was fantastic and beyond reproach; while Brexiters probably didn't think everything the EU did was dreadful, but internet forums, including if you can believe it PB, often force people to adopt those positions.
In this case Israel is not without fault in its behaviour over the past but after the events of the weekend I am giving them quite a lot of leeway to progress the war in whatever way they want and wanted only to point out that at some point a distinction between the sweet, good-natured, wouldn't harm a fly Palestinian people who only want peace with their beloved neighbours Israel, and the Palestinians who, in their hundreds of thousands march in support of the destruction of Israel needs to be drawn.
We didn't single out the nice Germans from the beastly ones and Israel can be forgiven for not doing the same in this instance wrt the Palestinians.
You're an odd fruit sometimes.
On the 'Putin attacking Ukraine' topic you've been at pains to explore the context, discuss the things that might have pushed him into the action (eg did the Iraq War set a precedent? I recall you posing that question quite doggedly), lots of that from you on that one.
Yet on this one, this 'Hamas attacking Israel' topic, any attempt by people to do similar, to mention the context, to discuss reasons why this attack might have happened (eg could the maltreatment of the Palestinians by Israel have anything to do with it?) seems to give you an attack of the vapors.
I'm not slagging you off, I'm genuinely interested in the different way you approach the 2 topics. Putin Ukraine, very up for context and the whys and wherefores. Hamas Israel, not so much. Why is this, do we think?
I am extremely clear on why Hamas attacked Israel. I am extremely clear on why Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Transjordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt attacked them in 1948. And in 1967. And 1973. And 2023.
They attacked them because they wanted to wipe Israel off the map. In each instance they failed and in trying they got themselves into quite a pickle.
Has Israel behaved as you or indeed I would have wished them to over the past 70 years? I'm sure not. But it's useful idiots like you who think that if Israel had only been a bit nicer over the period everyone would be holding hands and making daisy chains together.
You think that I am excusing Israel's behaviour to the Palestinians on the one hand and ignoring the fact that this might be a root cause of this weekend's actions. Just like I seek to understand the reasons for Putin's actions.
I am here to educate you that for centuries and most recently decades the Arab world (and of course others) has been antipathetic to the Jews and hence this weekend's actions are a symptom of that hatred.
Thanks for non flip reply. Doesn't happen too often. I treasure it.
So iyo the antipathy towards Israel in Gaza has little to do with the maltreatment of its Palestinian population. It's down to the inherent appetite of Palestinians for antisemitism.
Ok. I think that's incredibly jaundiced (and arguably racist) but given that is your view of course you won't (as you say) be shedding too many tears if Israel does end up engaging in large scale collective punishment of 'innocent' Palestinians. Inverted commas since they won't be innocent, will they?
Makes sense now. Quality exchange. Thanks again. Chilean red and nuts time.
Hope you are enjoying your red & nuts. To you and @148grss it seems that you have difficulty believing that there is anti-semitism amongst the Arabs. And that Israel has committed some (original - we'll come on to that later) sin which has brought this behaviour upon them.
I think it doesn't take a google genius to determine quickly that there has been a long and well-documented history of anti-semitism amongst everyone including the Arabs.
For the Arabs it takes on a more "traditional" angle because there is a land angle there also. But a cursory reading of any text or oratory of many of today's Arab leaders now or indeed from history will show that there is deep antipathy towards the Jews. I think this is pervasive hence while someone somewhere in Hamas might see this as a homeland issue, to deny the rampant anti-semitism of much of the Arab world is imo to misunderstimate the dynamic of the Middle East both now and throughout history.
Is there a history of anti Semitism amongst Arabic peoples? Of course. But I do not think it is the driving force behind the issue of Israel, especially not to begin with. Indeed, if the finger of anti Semitism should point anywhere it should be at the hegemonic western powers who refused fleeing Jewish people to their shores prior to WW2 - whereas at that point multicultural communities built on common understanding between Palestinian and Jewish exiles were commonplace. The land that is Israel and Palestine were also relatively free of faith based conflict under Ottoman control - all faiths had the freedom to access Jerusalem, for instance. The issue, I would argue, hinges on the forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of people from their land. This creates long lasting conflict - it has done with India and Pakistan, it has done in Africa, and it is the case with Israel and Palestine. People want to return to their homes, to farm their olives, to live and die in the house they were born in. At least with Indian partition people on both Hindu/secular and the Muslim sides held both positions - with Israel it is clear that one side was being forced out by the other.
I wondered how long it would be before we got to: "It's all out fault!"
You really should look at the history of Jews in the region, e.g. Iraq, to see why your pretend high-minded ideal of allowing people to return is utterly bogus. Why are the Palestinians the only ones who have this right to return?
I mean the history is quite clear that in many ways this is all our fault - both the British state specifically and western imperial nations more generally. I mean it was European imperialist states that committed pogroms and refused Jewish refugees entry for hundreds of years, and European imperialist logic that led to the holocaust. The concentration camp was not a Nazi invention, although their evolution into a specific death camp arguably was, and the European imperial powers had already committed acts of mass murder on par with the death camps - just over longer periods of time and less formalised in parts.
I mean I’m in favour of a stateless, classless society without borders - that goes slightly beyond the mere right to return in my mind - but yes, Jewish people should be able to live where they wish, especially more so if their near ancestors were expelled from there. That includes Iraq. I don’t see how me having the position that all states (if they are going to exist at all) should be like that therefore means I am specifically calling on Israel as a special case.
"I mean the history is quite clear that in many ways this is all our fault"
You really don't need to say any more than this. We already understand that this is your answer for EVERYTHING
I mean when you have an Empire that spanned a whole lot of the globe… yeah - lots of things that are bad with the world are going to be, in part, related to that. It’s not rocket science.
We are now at the stage that many countries in Africa have been independent longer than when they were actual colonies.
Even laying aside the fact that the norm in many colonies was for the powers to rule through the local tribes, how long should we assume everything is our fault and not those independent countries' own issues?
When we return to those previously colonised countries the same amount of relative wealth that we extracted from them when we colonised them?
I'm sure you're aware of the foot race metaphor for structural problems related to class, race, gender etc. That is the same between colonised and coloniser.
Britain extracted wealth and labour from other countries; it also destroyed industry in other countries so that industry based at home could monopolise markets (see how we destroyed the Indian manufacturing economy under British rule so that our manufactured goods could be sold more). Some of those things advantaged us, and our colonial contemporaries, and disadvantaged others. Again, see how Haiti was forced to pay the debt to France for their own emancipation.
There is not a fixed pot of wealth in the world, so that the UK can only grow wealthy if other countries grow poorer. The world, two hundred and fifty years ago, was a place in which 90% of the population lived in absolute poverty. Now 8% do. The trading order, based upon industrial capitalism, which was created by the USA and the Western powers, floated almost all boats. And, those non-Western countries that are most closely integrated into that system are those that have seen their living standards rise the most.
There's no reason for any country to remain desperately poor now, other than the determination of its leaders to keep it so.
John Rentoul @JohnRentoul · 11m Proper rhetoric from Reeves. Well written, well delivered. More or less content-free
The real takeaway from both party conferences is that the leadership of both parties recognise there is no money. And the tightening could get even worse.
Geopolitical, economic and demographic headwinds aren't great. HMG won't be able to splurge again for some time.
Indeed. As I've said before, Election 24 is 1974, not 1997.
It reminds me more of 2010 when we had all the righties on the board were gobsmacked when Cameron didnt win a majority.
Partly because a seven point lead feels like it ought to win a majority. But the second order effects of FPTP means that it doesn't if the other parties are all lined up against you. See also 1992.
Talking of which, more Conference Splat news,
Labour 43% (–) Conservative 27% (-2) Liberal Democrat 13% (+1) Reform UK 8% (+1) Green 6% (+2) Scottish National Party 1% (-2) Other 2% (+1)
I’m not for reviving the old McBan Hammer, but there was a time when your post would have resulted your being exiled for several months in the Caledonian wilderness.
For decades, UK governments from all 3 parties have had a foreign policy supporting a rules-based international order, and a domestic law forbidding war crimes. Yet multiple people here have, in recent days, advocated that Israel should commit war crimes. (And they're not defending Israel's actions. They're calling for Israel to go further than they currently are.)
Can I ask these people: why didn't you speak out against the UK's policy in favour of a rules-based International order and against war crimes? If war crimes don't exist or they're fine in some circumstances, shouldn't we have said that decades ago?
It was customary for UK govts not to lie to Parliament about going to war.
Then New Labour gave us Iraq, all HMGs lost their credibility at that point
Eden basically had to resign over lying repeatedly to Parliament about Suez, you half-wit.
Blair didnt and I can do without the insult unless you want to make it less civil.
We fought a war in Malaysia from 1948 to 1960 and forgot to mention it to Parliament at all. And we won. Both parties didn’t see an upside in talking about it.
Wasn't a war - just an "emergency" [edit] in the term of the time, of course. (It, or something like it, did break out again a few years later. But let's call that a separate un-war.).
My daughter borrowed my late father’s medals for her wedding. They included a service medal for Malaysia. I don’t remember him ever mentioning it. Really no idea what he did. He had good stories about Cyprus. But of Malaysia, nothing. I’m reasonably sure they were told not to talk of it.
To his credit Neil Ascherson talked about it eventually. His frankness perhaps indicates why others weren’t inclined to.
The fact that Israel has the ability to cut off power , water and food supplies to Gaza highlights one of the issues that have bred hatred .
Hamas lives off the hatred . Children are brought up with the hatred and it’s just a repeating cycle.
There are still those on both sides who wanted a peaceful resolution , sadly that’s been consigned to the bin for yet more years .
Israel can raze Gaza to the ground but the hatred will remain .
But if the Israelis can somehow shift the Gazans into Egypt, then the hatred will be further away, and the chances of Hamas repeating their spectacular incursion will be greatly minimised
I do wonder if that is what the Israelis are planning. I don't see any other point in wading into Gaza at the cost of many thousands of lives, quite a few of them Israeli
Will Egypt accept them ? The whole situation is just awful. There are no good outcomes here .
Absolutely. No good outcomes
If Egypt seals the border (and they have tightened control this morning) then Israel will be left with a cornered population unable to go anywhere. What then?
I may be wrong and this isn't the Israeli plan, but then I am bewildered as to what Israel thinks it can achieve with ANOTHER invasion that does nothing but stir up evermore enmity. It simply ensures further attacks down the line
As I said last night, they might possibly be planning a renewed Occupation of Gaza, with Israel in control, and the reintroduction of Israeli settlers, who will act as a de facto spy network and military police, so October 7 is not repeated. But that's damnably tricky and could so easily go wrong
The final possibility is that Israel doesn't have a plan. It is acting in a spirit of pure revenge
With whom would they negotiate? Hamas is the *government* of Gaza. Israel has declared war on Gaza amd it shouldn't be a surprise - its *government* has launched these attacks.
So the Israeli goal will I believe be simple - remove Hamas as a threat. How they achieve that is tricky, but they won't just be pushing the cross-border terrorists back into their prison.
Removal of Hamas - and the Hamas state - has to be the goal. And that will largely mean the killing of anyone who is Hamas, supports Hamas, lives near Hamas. It is going to be awful - war usually is. Especially when the aggressor is pledged to the extermination of the other side.
That may be Israel’s strategy. That (“killing of anyone who […] lives near Hamas”) would clearly be a war crime and we, as in the UK, should do everything we can to stop war crimes. We cannot criticise Russia for war crimes in Ukraine and wave through Israel, or Hamas, committing war crimes.
Here’s a simple rule of thumb: war crimes are bad. Don’t carry out war crimes. Don’t respond to say crimes with more war crimes. Why is that a proposition that some on PB struggle with?
"war crimes" is a fantasy. There is/are no such thing. They only exist for the winners in war.
The fact that they are typically enforced against the vanquished rather than the victors doesn't mean they aren't a "thing".
They are reasonably clearly defined by international convention, and provide at least some incentive to moderate the conduct of war in terms of impact on non-combatants. The incentive not to commit them is that if you turn out to be the vanquished, you'd probably rather slip away into exile and obscurity rather than ending up in The Hague or as a fugitive.
Should Israel deliberately target civilians? No. Do civilians have some responsibility to flee a war zone? Yes. Again Hamas are not just embedded in the civilian population, they are the government. So eradicating them is going to involve blowing a great many buildings up.
If your neighbour fires his AK47 at prayers 5 times a day, it is time to leave. Because in wartime it is always legitimate to go after CCC targets regardless of where the enemy has put them.
How exactly do 3 million people flee a war zone when they are not allowed to leave by any of the surrounding countries?
They should decide not to have Hamas as their leadership.
Even coming from you that is genuinely one of the stupidest comments any one has made on this topic.
I suppose the Catholics in Northern Ireland deserved to be bombed out and killed because they had Sinn Féin councillors.
There is huge support in Gaza for the Hamas leadership. They can send thousands of "militants" to Israel on near suicide missions. They have mass rallies of hundreds of thousands in the streets protesting against Israel and the Great Satan. They show pictures of six-yr old girls wielding AKs and crying with happiness at the onslaught happening in Israel.
But they are all harmless civilians who only want to find a way out of danger.
It must be very strange living inside your head where everything in the world is so black and white.
It is dangerously close to exactly the sort of attitude that led to Rwanda, Bosnia and indeed the Holocaust. Regarding people as a mass (and indeed to use the words of your friend Netenyahu as animals) rather than individuals is an easy road to 'untermensch'.
You seem pretty conflicted about it all.
Those poor Gazans who turned out in their hundreds of thousands to celebrate actions against Israel are now to be pitied. Of course it's best that civilians leave and they can do so via Egypt or indeed the coast if they wanted to. I have heard nothing about a port blockade perhaps you know different.
I don't for one moment think that every German in 1939 was complicit in the German war aims but I have read nowhere of a safe passage being discussed for them to escape the country before we bombed it.
This is the notion of collective guilt. It is explicitly a war crime.
Then it's one that every country including our own is guilty of. As noted above, it only matters if you lose. But actually of all the Nuremburg trials was one ever held for the bombing of Coventry?
See, I think this is where you and I differ @TOPPING - you see this as an argument for why we shouldn't worry about the plight of the Palestinian people. I see this as an argument for why we should have had a Nuremburg trial not only for the bombing of Coventry, but also the bombing of Dresden. And Hiroshima. Humanity got to a place where it almost said "only following orders" was not a good enough reason for individuals committing crimes against humanity. Much since has been trying to roll that back - we need only look at the indifference to history our Home Secretary displays when discussing the refugee convention, or our own history of "defending our troops" from the consequences of the crimes they committed during the Troubles.
And I find your view wholly admirable. And I do care about the plight of the Palestinian people. I think they have been dreadfully lead although bear not a small amount of responsibility for their leadership.
This is another Brexit issue. Because I was a Remainer it doesn't mean that I thought that everything the EU did was fantastic and beyond reproach; while Brexiters probably didn't think everything the EU did was dreadful, but internet forums, including if you can believe it PB, often force people to adopt those positions.
In this case Israel is not without fault in its behaviour over the past but after the events of the weekend I am giving them quite a lot of leeway to progress the war in whatever way they want and wanted only to point out that at some point a distinction between the sweet, good-natured, wouldn't harm a fly Palestinian people who only want peace with their beloved neighbours Israel, and the Palestinians who, in their hundreds of thousands march in support of the destruction of Israel needs to be drawn.
We didn't single out the nice Germans from the beastly ones and Israel can be forgiven for not doing the same in this instance wrt the Palestinians.
You're an odd fruit sometimes.
On the 'Putin attacking Ukraine' topic you've been at pains to explore the context, discuss the things that might have pushed him into the action (eg did the Iraq War set a precedent? I recall you posing that question quite doggedly), lots of that from you on that one.
Yet on this one, this 'Hamas attacking Israel' topic, any attempt by people to do similar, to mention the context, to discuss reasons why this attack might have happened (eg could the maltreatment of the Palestinians by Israel have anything to do with it?) seems to give you an attack of the vapors.
I'm not slagging you off, I'm genuinely interested in the different way you approach the 2 topics. Putin Ukraine, very up for context and the whys and wherefores. Hamas Israel, not so much. Why is this, do we think?
I am extremely clear on why Hamas attacked Israel. I am extremely clear on why Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Transjordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt attacked them in 1948. And in 1967. And 1973. And 2023.
They attacked them because they wanted to wipe Israel off the map. In each instance they failed and in trying they got themselves into quite a pickle.
Has Israel behaved as you or indeed I would have wished them to over the past 70 years? I'm sure not. But it's useful idiots like you who think that if Israel had only been a bit nicer over the period everyone would be holding hands and making daisy chains together.
You think that I am excusing Israel's behaviour to the Palestinians on the one hand and ignoring the fact that this might be a root cause of this weekend's actions. Just like I seek to understand the reasons for Putin's actions.
I am here to educate you that for centuries and most recently decades the Arab world (and of course others) has been antipathetic to the Jews and hence this weekend's actions are a symptom of that hatred.
Thanks for non flip reply. Doesn't happen too often. I treasure it.
So iyo the antipathy towards Israel in Gaza has little to do with the maltreatment of its Palestinian population. It's down to the inherent appetite of Palestinians for antisemitism.
Ok. I think that's incredibly jaundiced (and arguably racist) but given that is your view of course you won't (as you say) be shedding too many tears if Israel does end up engaging in large scale collective punishment of 'innocent' Palestinians. Inverted commas since they won't be innocent, will they?
Makes sense now. Quality exchange. Thanks again. Chilean red and nuts time.
Hope you are enjoying your red & nuts. To you and @148grss it seems that you have difficulty believing that there is anti-semitism amongst the Arabs. And that Israel has committed some (original - we'll come on to that later) sin which has brought this behaviour upon them.
I think it doesn't take a google genius to determine quickly that there has been a long and well-documented history of anti-semitism amongst everyone including the Arabs.
For the Arabs it takes on a more "traditional" angle because there is a land angle there also. But a cursory reading of any text or oratory of many of today's Arab leaders now or indeed from history will show that there is deep antipathy towards the Jews. I think this is pervasive hence while someone somewhere in Hamas might see this as a homeland issue, to deny the rampant anti-semitism of much of the Arab world is imo to misunderstimate the dynamic of the Middle East both now and throughout history.
Is there a history of anti Semitism amongst Arabic peoples? Of course. But I do not think it is the driving force behind the issue of Israel, especially not to begin with. Indeed, if the finger of anti Semitism should point anywhere it should be at the hegemonic western powers who refused fleeing Jewish people to their shores prior to WW2 - whereas at that point multicultural communities built on common understanding between Palestinian and Jewish exiles were commonplace. The land that is Israel and Palestine were also relatively free of faith based conflict under Ottoman control - all faiths had the freedom to access Jerusalem, for instance. The issue, I would argue, hinges on the forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of people from their land. This creates long lasting conflict - it has done with India and Pakistan, it has done in Africa, and it is the case with Israel and Palestine. People want to return to their homes, to farm their olives, to live and die in the house they were born in. At least with Indian partition people on both Hindu/secular and the Muslim sides held both positions - with Israel it is clear that one side was being forced out by the other.
I wondered how long it would be before we got to: "It's all out fault!"
You really should look at the history of Jews in the region, e.g. Iraq, to see why your pretend high-minded ideal of allowing people to return is utterly bogus. Why are the Palestinians the only ones who have this right to return?
I mean the history is quite clear that in many ways this is all our fault - both the British state specifically and western imperial nations more generally. I mean it was European imperialist states that committed pogroms and refused Jewish refugees entry for hundreds of years, and European imperialist logic that led to the holocaust. The concentration camp was not a Nazi invention, although their evolution into a specific death camp arguably was, and the European imperial powers had already committed acts of mass murder on par with the death camps - just over longer periods of time and less formalised in parts.
I mean I’m in favour of a stateless, classless society without borders - that goes slightly beyond the mere right to return in my mind - but yes, Jewish people should be able to live where they wish, especially more so if their near ancestors were expelled from there. That includes Iraq. I don’t see how me having the position that all states (if they are going to exist at all) should be like that therefore means I am specifically calling on Israel as a special case.
"I mean the history is quite clear that in many ways this is all our fault"
You really don't need to say any more than this. We already understand that this is your answer for EVERYTHING
I mean when you have an Empire that spanned a whole lot of the globe… yeah - lots of things that are bad with the world are going to be, in part, related to that. It’s not rocket science.
We are now at the stage that many countries in Africa have been independent longer than when they were actual colonies.
Even laying aside the fact that the norm in many colonies was for the powers to rule through the local tribes, how long should we assume everything is our fault and not those independent countries' own issues?
When we return to those previously colonised countries the same amount of relative wealth that we extracted from them when we colonised them?
I'm sure you're aware of the foot race metaphor for structural problems related to class, race, gender etc. That is the same between colonised and coloniser.
Britain extracted wealth and labour from other countries; it also destroyed industry in other countries so that industry based at home could monopolise markets (see how we destroyed the Indian manufacturing economy under British rule so that our manufactured goods could be sold more). Some of those things advantaged us, and our colonial contemporaries, and disadvantaged others. Again, see how Haiti was forced to pay the debt to France for their own emancipation.
Done, in full, with interest.
The previously colonised countries are mammothly richer per capita than they were before we arrived.
Britain didn't destroy manufacturing capacity, it invented it and exported it.
And if any isn't, its purely due to corruption and theft of its leaders, not us.
The fact that Israel has the ability to cut off power , water and food supplies to Gaza highlights one of the issues that have bred hatred .
Hamas lives off the hatred . Children are brought up with the hatred and it’s just a repeating cycle.
There are still those on both sides who wanted a peaceful resolution , sadly that’s been consigned to the bin for yet more years .
Israel can raze Gaza to the ground but the hatred will remain .
But if the Israelis can somehow shift the Gazans into Egypt, then the hatred will be further away, and the chances of Hamas repeating their spectacular incursion will be greatly minimised
I do wonder if that is what the Israelis are planning. I don't see any other point in wading into Gaza at the cost of many thousands of lives, quite a few of them Israeli
Will Egypt accept them ? The whole situation is just awful. There are no good outcomes here .
Absolutely. No good outcomes
If Egypt seals the border (and they have tightened control this morning) then Israel will be left with a cornered population unable to go anywhere. What then?
I may be wrong and this isn't the Israeli plan, but then I am bewildered as to what Israel thinks it can achieve with ANOTHER invasion that does nothing but stir up evermore enmity. It simply ensures further attacks down the line
As I said last night, they might possibly be planning a renewed Occupation of Gaza, with Israel in control, and the reintroduction of Israeli settlers, who will act as a de facto spy network and military police, so October 7 is not repeated. But that's damnably tricky and could so easily go wrong
The final possibility is that Israel doesn't have a plan. It is acting in a spirit of pure revenge
With whom would they negotiate? Hamas is the *government* of Gaza. Israel has declared war on Gaza amd it shouldn't be a surprise - its *government* has launched these attacks.
So the Israeli goal will I believe be simple - remove Hamas as a threat. How they achieve that is tricky, but they won't just be pushing the cross-border terrorists back into their prison.
Removal of Hamas - and the Hamas state - has to be the goal. And that will largely mean the killing of anyone who is Hamas, supports Hamas, lives near Hamas. It is going to be awful - war usually is. Especially when the aggressor is pledged to the extermination of the other side.
That may be Israel’s strategy. That (“killing of anyone who […] lives near Hamas”) would clearly be a war crime and we, as in the UK, should do everything we can to stop war crimes. We cannot criticise Russia for war crimes in Ukraine and wave through Israel, or Hamas, committing war crimes.
Here’s a simple rule of thumb: war crimes are bad. Don’t carry out war crimes. Don’t respond to say crimes with more war crimes. Why is that a proposition that some on PB struggle with?
"war crimes" is a fantasy. There is/are no such thing. They only exist for the winners in war.
The fact that they are typically enforced against the vanquished rather than the victors doesn't mean they aren't a "thing".
They are reasonably clearly defined by international convention, and provide at least some incentive to moderate the conduct of war in terms of impact on non-combatants. The incentive not to commit them is that if you turn out to be the vanquished, you'd probably rather slip away into exile and obscurity rather than ending up in The Hague or as a fugitive.
Should Israel deliberately target civilians? No. Do civilians have some responsibility to flee a war zone? Yes. Again Hamas are not just embedded in the civilian population, they are the government. So eradicating them is going to involve blowing a great many buildings up.
If your neighbour fires his AK47 at prayers 5 times a day, it is time to leave. Because in wartime it is always legitimate to go after CCC targets regardless of where the enemy has put them.
How exactly do 3 million people flee a war zone when they are not allowed to leave by any of the surrounding countries?
They should decide not to have Hamas as their leadership.
Even coming from you that is genuinely one of the stupidest comments any one has made on this topic.
I suppose the Catholics in Northern Ireland deserved to be bombed out and killed because they had Sinn Féin councillors.
There is huge support in Gaza for the Hamas leadership. They can send thousands of "militants" to Israel on near suicide missions. They have mass rallies of hundreds of thousands in the streets protesting against Israel and the Great Satan. They show pictures of six-yr old girls wielding AKs and crying with happiness at the onslaught happening in Israel.
But they are all harmless civilians who only want to find a way out of danger.
It must be very strange living inside your head where everything in the world is so black and white.
It is dangerously close to exactly the sort of attitude that led to Rwanda, Bosnia and indeed the Holocaust. Regarding people as a mass (and indeed to use the words of your friend Netenyahu as animals) rather than individuals is an easy road to 'untermensch'.
You seem pretty conflicted about it all.
Those poor Gazans who turned out in their hundreds of thousands to celebrate actions against Israel are now to be pitied. Of course it's best that civilians leave and they can do so via Egypt or indeed the coast if they wanted to. I have heard nothing about a port blockade perhaps you know different.
I don't for one moment think that every German in 1939 was complicit in the German war aims but I have read nowhere of a safe passage being discussed for them to escape the country before we bombed it.
This is the notion of collective guilt. It is explicitly a war crime.
Then it's one that every country including our own is guilty of. As noted above, it only matters if you lose. But actually of all the Nuremburg trials was one ever held for the bombing of Coventry?
See, I think this is where you and I differ @TOPPING - you see this as an argument for why we shouldn't worry about the plight of the Palestinian people. I see this as an argument for why we should have had a Nuremburg trial not only for the bombing of Coventry, but also the bombing of Dresden. And Hiroshima. Humanity got to a place where it almost said "only following orders" was not a good enough reason for individuals committing crimes against humanity. Much since has been trying to roll that back - we need only look at the indifference to history our Home Secretary displays when discussing the refugee convention, or our own history of "defending our troops" from the consequences of the crimes they committed during the Troubles.
And I find your view wholly admirable. And I do care about the plight of the Palestinian people. I think they have been dreadfully lead although bear not a small amount of responsibility for their leadership.
This is another Brexit issue. Because I was a Remainer it doesn't mean that I thought that everything the EU did was fantastic and beyond reproach; while Brexiters probably didn't think everything the EU did was dreadful, but internet forums, including if you can believe it PB, often force people to adopt those positions.
In this case Israel is not without fault in its behaviour over the past but after the events of the weekend I am giving them quite a lot of leeway to progress the war in whatever way they want and wanted only to point out that at some point a distinction between the sweet, good-natured, wouldn't harm a fly Palestinian people who only want peace with their beloved neighbours Israel, and the Palestinians who, in their hundreds of thousands march in support of the destruction of Israel needs to be drawn.
We didn't single out the nice Germans from the beastly ones and Israel can be forgiven for not doing the same in this instance wrt the Palestinians.
You're an odd fruit sometimes.
On the 'Putin attacking Ukraine' topic you've been at pains to explore the context, discuss the things that might have pushed him into the action (eg did the Iraq War set a precedent? I recall you posing that question quite doggedly), lots of that from you on that one.
Yet on this one, this 'Hamas attacking Israel' topic, any attempt by people to do similar, to mention the context, to discuss reasons why this attack might have happened (eg could the maltreatment of the Palestinians by Israel have anything to do with it?) seems to give you an attack of the vapors.
I'm not slagging you off, I'm genuinely interested in the different way you approach the 2 topics. Putin Ukraine, very up for context and the whys and wherefores. Hamas Israel, not so much. Why is this, do we think?
I am extremely clear on why Hamas attacked Israel. I am extremely clear on why Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Transjordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt attacked them in 1948. And in 1967. And 1973. And 2023.
They attacked them because they wanted to wipe Israel off the map. In each instance they failed and in trying they got themselves into quite a pickle.
Has Israel behaved as you or indeed I would have wished them to over the past 70 years? I'm sure not. But it's useful idiots like you who think that if Israel had only been a bit nicer over the period everyone would be holding hands and making daisy chains together.
You think that I am excusing Israel's behaviour to the Palestinians on the one hand and ignoring the fact that this might be a root cause of this weekend's actions. Just like I seek to understand the reasons for Putin's actions.
I am here to educate you that for centuries and most recently decades the Arab world (and of course others) has been antipathetic to the Jews and hence this weekend's actions are a symptom of that hatred.
Thanks for non flip reply. Doesn't happen too often. I treasure it.
So iyo the antipathy towards Israel in Gaza has little to do with the maltreatment of its Palestinian population. It's down to the inherent appetite of Palestinians for antisemitism.
Ok. I think that's incredibly jaundiced (and arguably racist) but given that is your view of course you won't (as you say) be shedding too many tears if Israel does end up engaging in large scale collective punishment of 'innocent' Palestinians. Inverted commas since they won't be innocent, will they?
Makes sense now. Quality exchange. Thanks again. Chilean red and nuts time.
Hope you are enjoying your red & nuts. To you and @148grss it seems that you have difficulty believing that there is anti-semitism amongst the Arabs. And that Israel has committed some (original - we'll come on to that later) sin which has brought this behaviour upon them.
I think it doesn't take a google genius to determine quickly that there has been a long and well-documented history of anti-semitism amongst everyone including the Arabs.
For the Arabs it takes on a more "traditional" angle because there is a land angle there also. But a cursory reading of any text or oratory of many of today's Arab leaders now or indeed from history will show that there is deep antipathy towards the Jews. I think this is pervasive hence while someone somewhere in Hamas might see this as a homeland issue, to deny the rampant anti-semitism of much of the Arab world is imo to misunderstimate the dynamic of the Middle East both now and throughout history.
Is there a history of anti Semitism amongst Arabic peoples? Of course. But I do not think it is the driving force behind the issue of Israel, especially not to begin with. Indeed, if the finger of anti Semitism should point anywhere it should be at the hegemonic western powers who refused fleeing Jewish people to their shores prior to WW2 - whereas at that point multicultural communities built on common understanding between Palestinian and Jewish exiles were commonplace. The land that is Israel and Palestine were also relatively free of faith based conflict under Ottoman control - all faiths had the freedom to access Jerusalem, for instance. The issue, I would argue, hinges on the forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of people from their land. This creates long lasting conflict - it has done with India and Pakistan, it has done in Africa, and it is the case with Israel and Palestine. People want to return to their homes, to farm their olives, to live and die in the house they were born in. At least with Indian partition people on both Hindu/secular and the Muslim sides held both positions - with Israel it is clear that one side was being forced out by the other.
On a purely empirical basis the fact that here were 100ks in ancient Jewish communities across the Middle East before they were expelled suggests that antisemitism wasn’t all pervasive until that point.
"Until they were expelled". You mean it wasn't the fall that killed him but the final three feet.
I know you’re the PB self appointed chief antisemitism sniffer outer, but do jog on, there’s a good chap.
The fact that Israel has the ability to cut off power , water and food supplies to Gaza highlights one of the issues that have bred hatred .
Hamas lives off the hatred . Children are brought up with the hatred and it’s just a repeating cycle.
There are still those on both sides who wanted a peaceful resolution , sadly that’s been consigned to the bin for yet more years .
Israel can raze Gaza to the ground but the hatred will remain .
But if the Israelis can somehow shift the Gazans into Egypt, then the hatred will be further away, and the chances of Hamas repeating their spectacular incursion will be greatly minimised
I do wonder if that is what the Israelis are planning. I don't see any other point in wading into Gaza at the cost of many thousands of lives, quite a few of them Israeli
Will Egypt accept them ? The whole situation is just awful. There are no good outcomes here .
Absolutely. No good outcomes
If Egypt seals the border (and they have tightened control this morning) then Israel will be left with a cornered population unable to go anywhere. What then?
I may be wrong and this isn't the Israeli plan, but then I am bewildered as to what Israel thinks it can achieve with ANOTHER invasion that does nothing but stir up evermore enmity. It simply ensures further attacks down the line
As I said last night, they might possibly be planning a renewed Occupation of Gaza, with Israel in control, and the reintroduction of Israeli settlers, who will act as a de facto spy network and military police, so October 7 is not repeated. But that's damnably tricky and could so easily go wrong
The final possibility is that Israel doesn't have a plan. It is acting in a spirit of pure revenge
With whom would they negotiate? Hamas is the *government* of Gaza. Israel has declared war on Gaza amd it shouldn't be a surprise - its *government* has launched these attacks.
So the Israeli goal will I believe be simple - remove Hamas as a threat. How they achieve that is tricky, but they won't just be pushing the cross-border terrorists back into their prison.
Removal of Hamas - and the Hamas state - has to be the goal. And that will largely mean the killing of anyone who is Hamas, supports Hamas, lives near Hamas. It is going to be awful - war usually is. Especially when the aggressor is pledged to the extermination of the other side.
That may be Israel’s strategy. That (“killing of anyone who […] lives near Hamas”) would clearly be a war crime and we, as in the UK, should do everything we can to stop war crimes. We cannot criticise Russia for war crimes in Ukraine and wave through Israel, or Hamas, committing war crimes.
Here’s a simple rule of thumb: war crimes are bad. Don’t carry out war crimes. Don’t respond to say crimes with more war crimes. Why is that a proposition that some on PB struggle with?
"war crimes" is a fantasy. There is/are no such thing. They only exist for the winners in war.
The fact that they are typically enforced against the vanquished rather than the victors doesn't mean they aren't a "thing".
They are reasonably clearly defined by international convention, and provide at least some incentive to moderate the conduct of war in terms of impact on non-combatants. The incentive not to commit them is that if you turn out to be the vanquished, you'd probably rather slip away into exile and obscurity rather than ending up in The Hague or as a fugitive.
Should Israel deliberately target civilians? No. Do civilians have some responsibility to flee a war zone? Yes. Again Hamas are not just embedded in the civilian population, they are the government. So eradicating them is going to involve blowing a great many buildings up.
If your neighbour fires his AK47 at prayers 5 times a day, it is time to leave. Because in wartime it is always legitimate to go after CCC targets regardless of where the enemy has put them.
How exactly do 3 million people flee a war zone when they are not allowed to leave by any of the surrounding countries?
They should decide not to have Hamas as their leadership.
Even coming from you that is genuinely one of the stupidest comments any one has made on this topic.
I suppose the Catholics in Northern Ireland deserved to be bombed out and killed because they had Sinn Féin councillors.
There is huge support in Gaza for the Hamas leadership. They can send thousands of "militants" to Israel on near suicide missions. They have mass rallies of hundreds of thousands in the streets protesting against Israel and the Great Satan. They show pictures of six-yr old girls wielding AKs and crying with happiness at the onslaught happening in Israel.
But they are all harmless civilians who only want to find a way out of danger.
It must be very strange living inside your head where everything in the world is so black and white.
It is dangerously close to exactly the sort of attitude that led to Rwanda, Bosnia and indeed the Holocaust. Regarding people as a mass (and indeed to use the words of your friend Netenyahu as animals) rather than individuals is an easy road to 'untermensch'.
You seem pretty conflicted about it all.
Those poor Gazans who turned out in their hundreds of thousands to celebrate actions against Israel are now to be pitied. Of course it's best that civilians leave and they can do so via Egypt or indeed the coast if they wanted to. I have heard nothing about a port blockade perhaps you know different.
I don't for one moment think that every German in 1939 was complicit in the German war aims but I have read nowhere of a safe passage being discussed for them to escape the country before we bombed it.
This is the notion of collective guilt. It is explicitly a war crime.
Then it's one that every country including our own is guilty of. As noted above, it only matters if you lose. But actually of all the Nuremburg trials was one ever held for the bombing of Coventry?
See, I think this is where you and I differ @TOPPING - you see this as an argument for why we shouldn't worry about the plight of the Palestinian people. I see this as an argument for why we should have had a Nuremburg trial not only for the bombing of Coventry, but also the bombing of Dresden. And Hiroshima. Humanity got to a place where it almost said "only following orders" was not a good enough reason for individuals committing crimes against humanity. Much since has been trying to roll that back - we need only look at the indifference to history our Home Secretary displays when discussing the refugee convention, or our own history of "defending our troops" from the consequences of the crimes they committed during the Troubles.
And I find your view wholly admirable. And I do care about the plight of the Palestinian people. I think they have been dreadfully lead although bear not a small amount of responsibility for their leadership.
This is another Brexit issue. Because I was a Remainer it doesn't mean that I thought that everything the EU did was fantastic and beyond reproach; while Brexiters probably didn't think everything the EU did was dreadful, but internet forums, including if you can believe it PB, often force people to adopt those positions.
In this case Israel is not without fault in its behaviour over the past but after the events of the weekend I am giving them quite a lot of leeway to progress the war in whatever way they want and wanted only to point out that at some point a distinction between the sweet, good-natured, wouldn't harm a fly Palestinian people who only want peace with their beloved neighbours Israel, and the Palestinians who, in their hundreds of thousands march in support of the destruction of Israel needs to be drawn.
We didn't single out the nice Germans from the beastly ones and Israel can be forgiven for not doing the same in this instance wrt the Palestinians.
You're an odd fruit sometimes.
On the 'Putin attacking Ukraine' topic you've been at pains to explore the context, discuss the things that might have pushed him into the action (eg did the Iraq War set a precedent? I recall you posing that question quite doggedly), lots of that from you on that one.
Yet on this one, this 'Hamas attacking Israel' topic, any attempt by people to do similar, to mention the context, to discuss reasons why this attack might have happened (eg could the maltreatment of the Palestinians by Israel have anything to do with it?) seems to give you an attack of the vapors.
I'm not slagging you off, I'm genuinely interested in the different way you approach the 2 topics. Putin Ukraine, very up for context and the whys and wherefores. Hamas Israel, not so much. Why is this, do we think?
I am extremely clear on why Hamas attacked Israel. I am extremely clear on why Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Transjordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt attacked them in 1948. And in 1967. And 1973. And 2023.
They attacked them because they wanted to wipe Israel off the map. In each instance they failed and in trying they got themselves into quite a pickle.
Has Israel behaved as you or indeed I would have wished them to over the past 70 years? I'm sure not. But it's useful idiots like you who think that if Israel had only been a bit nicer over the period everyone would be holding hands and making daisy chains together.
You think that I am excusing Israel's behaviour to the Palestinians on the one hand and ignoring the fact that this might be a root cause of this weekend's actions. Just like I seek to understand the reasons for Putin's actions.
I am here to educate you that for centuries and most recently decades the Arab world (and of course others) has been antipathetic to the Jews and hence this weekend's actions are a symptom of that hatred.
Thanks for non flip reply. Doesn't happen too often. I treasure it.
So iyo the antipathy towards Israel in Gaza has little to do with the maltreatment of its Palestinian population. It's down to the inherent appetite of Palestinians for antisemitism.
Ok. I think that's incredibly jaundiced (and arguably racist) but given that is your view of course you won't (as you say) be shedding too many tears if Israel does end up engaging in large scale collective punishment of 'innocent' Palestinians. Inverted commas since they won't be innocent, will they?
Makes sense now. Quality exchange. Thanks again. Chilean red and nuts time.
Hope you are enjoying your red & nuts. To you and @148grss it seems that you have difficulty believing that there is anti-semitism amongst the Arabs. And that Israel has committed some (original - we'll come on to that later) sin which has brought this behaviour upon them.
I think it doesn't take a google genius to determine quickly that there has been a long and well-documented history of anti-semitism amongst everyone including the Arabs.
For the Arabs it takes on a more "traditional" angle because there is a land angle there also. But a cursory reading of any text or oratory of many of today's Arab leaders now or indeed from history will show that there is deep antipathy towards the Jews. I think this is pervasive hence while someone somewhere in Hamas might see this as a homeland issue, to deny the rampant anti-semitism of much of the Arab world is imo to misunderstimate the dynamic of the Middle East both now and throughout history.
Is there a history of anti Semitism amongst Arabic peoples? Of course. But I do not think it is the driving force behind the issue of Israel, especially not to begin with. Indeed, if the finger of anti Semitism should point anywhere it should be at the hegemonic western powers who refused fleeing Jewish people to their shores prior to WW2 - whereas at that point multicultural communities built on common understanding between Palestinian and Jewish exiles were commonplace. The land that is Israel and Palestine were also relatively free of faith based conflict under Ottoman control - all faiths had the freedom to access Jerusalem, for instance. The issue, I would argue, hinges on the forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of people from their land. This creates long lasting conflict - it has done with India and Pakistan, it has done in Africa, and it is the case with Israel and Palestine. People want to return to their homes, to farm their olives, to live and die in the house they were born in. At least with Indian partition people on both Hindu/secular and the Muslim sides held both positions - with Israel it is clear that one side was being forced out by the other.
On a purely empirical basis the fact that here were 100ks in ancient Jewish communities across the Middle East before they were expelled suggests that antisemitism wasn’t all pervasive until that point.
Er, the Jews were captured and enslaved in Babylon. This is historical fact
"The Babylonian captivity or Babylonian exile is the period in Jewish history during which a large number of Judeans from the ancient Kingdom of Judah were captives in Babylon, the capital city of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, following their defeat in the Jewish–Babylonian War and the destruction of Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem. The event is known to be historical, and is described in the Hebrew Bible in addition to archaeological and extra-biblical sources."
The fact that Israel has the ability to cut off power , water and food supplies to Gaza highlights one of the issues that have bred hatred .
Hamas lives off the hatred . Children are brought up with the hatred and it’s just a repeating cycle.
There are still those on both sides who wanted a peaceful resolution , sadly that’s been consigned to the bin for yet more years .
Israel can raze Gaza to the ground but the hatred will remain .
But if the Israelis can somehow shift the Gazans into Egypt, then the hatred will be further away, and the chances of Hamas repeating their spectacular incursion will be greatly minimised
I do wonder if that is what the Israelis are planning. I don't see any other point in wading into Gaza at the cost of many thousands of lives, quite a few of them Israeli
Will Egypt accept them ? The whole situation is just awful. There are no good outcomes here .
Absolutely. No good outcomes
If Egypt seals the border (and they have tightened control this morning) then Israel will be left with a cornered population unable to go anywhere. What then?
I may be wrong and this isn't the Israeli plan, but then I am bewildered as to what Israel thinks it can achieve with ANOTHER invasion that does nothing but stir up evermore enmity. It simply ensures further attacks down the line
As I said last night, they might possibly be planning a renewed Occupation of Gaza, with Israel in control, and the reintroduction of Israeli settlers, who will act as a de facto spy network and military police, so October 7 is not repeated. But that's damnably tricky and could so easily go wrong
The final possibility is that Israel doesn't have a plan. It is acting in a spirit of pure revenge
With whom would they negotiate? Hamas is the *government* of Gaza. Israel has declared war on Gaza amd it shouldn't be a surprise - its *government* has launched these attacks.
So the Israeli goal will I believe be simple - remove Hamas as a threat. How they achieve that is tricky, but they won't just be pushing the cross-border terrorists back into their prison.
Removal of Hamas - and the Hamas state - has to be the goal. And that will largely mean the killing of anyone who is Hamas, supports Hamas, lives near Hamas. It is going to be awful - war usually is. Especially when the aggressor is pledged to the extermination of the other side.
That may be Israel’s strategy. That (“killing of anyone who […] lives near Hamas”) would clearly be a war crime and we, as in the UK, should do everything we can to stop war crimes. We cannot criticise Russia for war crimes in Ukraine and wave through Israel, or Hamas, committing war crimes.
Here’s a simple rule of thumb: war crimes are bad. Don’t carry out war crimes. Don’t respond to say crimes with more war crimes. Why is that a proposition that some on PB struggle with?
"war crimes" is a fantasy. There is/are no such thing. They only exist for the winners in war.
The fact that they are typically enforced against the vanquished rather than the victors doesn't mean they aren't a "thing".
They are reasonably clearly defined by international convention, and provide at least some incentive to moderate the conduct of war in terms of impact on non-combatants. The incentive not to commit them is that if you turn out to be the vanquished, you'd probably rather slip away into exile and obscurity rather than ending up in The Hague or as a fugitive.
Should Israel deliberately target civilians? No. Do civilians have some responsibility to flee a war zone? Yes. Again Hamas are not just embedded in the civilian population, they are the government. So eradicating them is going to involve blowing a great many buildings up.
If your neighbour fires his AK47 at prayers 5 times a day, it is time to leave. Because in wartime it is always legitimate to go after CCC targets regardless of where the enemy has put them.
How exactly do 3 million people flee a war zone when they are not allowed to leave by any of the surrounding countries?
They should decide not to have Hamas as their leadership.
Even coming from you that is genuinely one of the stupidest comments any one has made on this topic.
I suppose the Catholics in Northern Ireland deserved to be bombed out and killed because they had Sinn Féin councillors.
There is huge support in Gaza for the Hamas leadership. They can send thousands of "militants" to Israel on near suicide missions. They have mass rallies of hundreds of thousands in the streets protesting against Israel and the Great Satan. They show pictures of six-yr old girls wielding AKs and crying with happiness at the onslaught happening in Israel.
But they are all harmless civilians who only want to find a way out of danger.
It must be very strange living inside your head where everything in the world is so black and white.
It is dangerously close to exactly the sort of attitude that led to Rwanda, Bosnia and indeed the Holocaust. Regarding people as a mass (and indeed to use the words of your friend Netenyahu as animals) rather than individuals is an easy road to 'untermensch'.
You seem pretty conflicted about it all.
Those poor Gazans who turned out in their hundreds of thousands to celebrate actions against Israel are now to be pitied. Of course it's best that civilians leave and they can do so via Egypt or indeed the coast if they wanted to. I have heard nothing about a port blockade perhaps you know different.
I don't for one moment think that every German in 1939 was complicit in the German war aims but I have read nowhere of a safe passage being discussed for them to escape the country before we bombed it.
This is the notion of collective guilt. It is explicitly a war crime.
Then it's one that every country including our own is guilty of. As noted above, it only matters if you lose. But actually of all the Nuremburg trials was one ever held for the bombing of Coventry?
See, I think this is where you and I differ @TOPPING - you see this as an argument for why we shouldn't worry about the plight of the Palestinian people. I see this as an argument for why we should have had a Nuremburg trial not only for the bombing of Coventry, but also the bombing of Dresden. And Hiroshima. Humanity got to a place where it almost said "only following orders" was not a good enough reason for individuals committing crimes against humanity. Much since has been trying to roll that back - we need only look at the indifference to history our Home Secretary displays when discussing the refugee convention, or our own history of "defending our troops" from the consequences of the crimes they committed during the Troubles.
And I find your view wholly admirable. And I do care about the plight of the Palestinian people. I think they have been dreadfully lead although bear not a small amount of responsibility for their leadership.
This is another Brexit issue. Because I was a Remainer it doesn't mean that I thought that everything the EU did was fantastic and beyond reproach; while Brexiters probably didn't think everything the EU did was dreadful, but internet forums, including if you can believe it PB, often force people to adopt those positions.
In this case Israel is not without fault in its behaviour over the past but after the events of the weekend I am giving them quite a lot of leeway to progress the war in whatever way they want and wanted only to point out that at some point a distinction between the sweet, good-natured, wouldn't harm a fly Palestinian people who only want peace with their beloved neighbours Israel, and the Palestinians who, in their hundreds of thousands march in support of the destruction of Israel needs to be drawn.
We didn't single out the nice Germans from the beastly ones and Israel can be forgiven for not doing the same in this instance wrt the Palestinians.
You're an odd fruit sometimes.
On the 'Putin attacking Ukraine' topic you've been at pains to explore the context, discuss the things that might have pushed him into the action (eg did the Iraq War set a precedent? I recall you posing that question quite doggedly), lots of that from you on that one.
Yet on this one, this 'Hamas attacking Israel' topic, any attempt by people to do similar, to mention the context, to discuss reasons why this attack might have happened (eg could the maltreatment of the Palestinians by Israel have anything to do with it?) seems to give you an attack of the vapors.
I'm not slagging you off, I'm genuinely interested in the different way you approach the 2 topics. Putin Ukraine, very up for context and the whys and wherefores. Hamas Israel, not so much. Why is this, do we think?
I am extremely clear on why Hamas attacked Israel. I am extremely clear on why Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Transjordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt attacked them in 1948. And in 1967. And 1973. And 2023.
They attacked them because they wanted to wipe Israel off the map. In each instance they failed and in trying they got themselves into quite a pickle.
Has Israel behaved as you or indeed I would have wished them to over the past 70 years? I'm sure not. But it's useful idiots like you who think that if Israel had only been a bit nicer over the period everyone would be holding hands and making daisy chains together.
You think that I am excusing Israel's behaviour to the Palestinians on the one hand and ignoring the fact that this might be a root cause of this weekend's actions. Just like I seek to understand the reasons for Putin's actions.
I am here to educate you that for centuries and most recently decades the Arab world (and of course others) has been antipathetic to the Jews and hence this weekend's actions are a symptom of that hatred.
Thanks for non flip reply. Doesn't happen too often. I treasure it.
So iyo the antipathy towards Israel in Gaza has little to do with the maltreatment of its Palestinian population. It's down to the inherent appetite of Palestinians for antisemitism.
Ok. I think that's incredibly jaundiced (and arguably racist) but given that is your view of course you won't (as you say) be shedding too many tears if Israel does end up engaging in large scale collective punishment of 'innocent' Palestinians. Inverted commas since they won't be innocent, will they?
Makes sense now. Quality exchange. Thanks again. Chilean red and nuts time.
Hope you are enjoying your red & nuts. To you and @148grss it seems that you have difficulty believing that there is anti-semitism amongst the Arabs. And that Israel has committed some (original - we'll come on to that later) sin which has brought this behaviour upon them.
I think it doesn't take a google genius to determine quickly that there has been a long and well-documented history of anti-semitism amongst everyone including the Arabs.
For the Arabs it takes on a more "traditional" angle because there is a land angle there also. But a cursory reading of any text or oratory of many of today's Arab leaders now or indeed from history will show that there is deep antipathy towards the Jews. I think this is pervasive hence while someone somewhere in Hamas might see this as a homeland issue, to deny the rampant anti-semitism of much of the Arab world is imo to misunderstimate the dynamic of the Middle East both now and throughout history.
Is there a history of anti Semitism amongst Arabic peoples? Of course. But I do not think it is the driving force behind the issue of Israel, especially not to begin with. Indeed, if the finger of anti Semitism should point anywhere it should be at the hegemonic western powers who refused fleeing Jewish people to their shores prior to WW2 - whereas at that point multicultural communities built on common understanding between Palestinian and Jewish exiles were commonplace. The land that is Israel and Palestine were also relatively free of faith based conflict under Ottoman control - all faiths had the freedom to access Jerusalem, for instance. The issue, I would argue, hinges on the forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of people from their land. This creates long lasting conflict - it has done with India and Pakistan, it has done in Africa, and it is the case with Israel and Palestine. People want to return to their homes, to farm their olives, to live and die in the house they were born in. At least with Indian partition people on both Hindu/secular and the Muslim sides held both positions - with Israel it is clear that one side was being forced out by the other.
I wondered how long it would be before we got to: "It's all out fault!"
You really should look at the history of Jews in the region, e.g. Iraq, to see why your pretend high-minded ideal of allowing people to return is utterly bogus. Why are the Palestinians the only ones who have this right to return?
I mean the history is quite clear that in many ways this is all our fault - both the British state specifically and western imperial nations more generally. I mean it was European imperialist states that committed pogroms and refused Jewish refugees entry for hundreds of years, and European imperialist logic that led to the holocaust. The concentration camp was not a Nazi invention, although their evolution into a specific death camp arguably was, and the European imperial powers had already committed acts of mass murder on par with the death camps - just over longer periods of time and less formalised in parts.
I mean I’m in favour of a stateless, classless society without borders - that goes slightly beyond the mere right to return in my mind - but yes, Jewish people should be able to live where they wish, especially more so if their near ancestors were expelled from there. That includes Iraq. I don’t see how me having the position that all states (if they are going to exist at all) should be like that therefore means I am specifically calling on Israel as a special case.
"I mean the history is quite clear that in many ways this is all our fault"
You really don't need to say any more than this. We already understand that this is your answer for EVERYTHING
I mean when you have an Empire that spanned a whole lot of the globe… yeah - lots of things that are bad with the world are going to be, in part, related to that. It’s not rocket science.
We are now at the stage that many countries in Africa have been independent longer than when they were actual colonies.
Even laying aside the fact that the norm in many colonies was for the powers to rule through the local tribes, how long should we assume everything is our fault and not those independent countries' own issues?
On some level @148grss seems to believe that decolonisation was a mistake, and we should instead have all joined in one big happy family with no borders.
I mean, that is the least favourable way of interpreting my beliefs. My political ideals are, without a deep education in what many call "theory", broadly communist / anarchist - I believe that states are fictive creations of groups of people that are typically used on the behalf of the elite of those groups to better position themselves in international power structures. I see no reason why we cannot live in a stateless society, with the second best option being some form of singular global state (although that is a far second best, big gap between first and second preference). I also understand that is not a likely state of political reality in my lifetime, so... yeah
No state?
So no state education? No voting for state elections? No state welfare? No state healthcare? No taxes paid to the state?
Or not?
I mean, in my ideal utopian position - anarchist organisation methods via community organising and mutual aid would cover those things, and things would be done on a basis of direct democracy within the community you live and work - with mutually beneficial arrangements between those communities to support each other. We can take some ideas from the how Native American confederacies worked, we can look at the democratic confederalism of the Kurdish theorists and Rojavan project. Again, I understand this is not a realistic position in the political reality of the now, even if I think it is both a possible and preferable way to live. I also accept that, relative to others on the left, I am not a theory nerd and therefore cannot and do not wish to give you a full outline of how this would function or answer the questions that are often asked of, like, "how would x under anarchist utopia" when the answer is roughly "if enough people want x, and enough people have the skills to make x, people who enjoy making x will be free to make x and you, as someone who enjoys x but may not have the skills to make x, would be able to also have x".
John Rentoul @JohnRentoul · 11m Proper rhetoric from Reeves. Well written, well delivered. More or less content-free
The real takeaway from both party conferences is that the leadership of both parties recognise there is no money. And the tightening could get even worse.
Geopolitical, economic and demographic headwinds aren't great. HMG won't be able to splurge again for some time.
Indeed. As I've said before, Election 24 is 1974, not 1997.
It reminds me more of 2010 when we had all the righties on the board were gobsmacked when Cameron didnt win a majority.
Partly because a seven point lead feels like it ought to win a majority. But the second order effects of FPTP means that it doesn't if the other parties are all lined up against you. See also 1992.
Talking of which, more Conference Splat news,
Labour 43% (–) Conservative 27% (-2) Liberal Democrat 13% (+1) Reform UK 8% (+1) Green 6% (+2) Scottish National Party 1% (-2) Other 2% (+1)
I’m not for reviving the old McBan Hammer, but there was a time when your post would have resulted your being exiled for several months in the Caledonian wilderness.
-Air strikes against Hamas in Gaza are just the beginning. -Our enemies in the region understand significance of having US Aircraft carrier on the way. -A number of Palestinian gunmen still inside #Israel -We have tough days ahead of us and we are determined to win. -The enemy wanted war - they will get war. -Benjamin Netanyahu
The enemies sugar daddy wanted war me thinks. Or should that be sugar daddies??
John Rentoul @JohnRentoul · 11m Proper rhetoric from Reeves. Well written, well delivered. More or less content-free
The real takeaway from both party conferences is that the leadership of both parties recognise there is no money. And the tightening could get even worse.
Geopolitical, economic and demographic headwinds aren't great. HMG won't be able to splurge again for some time.
Indeed. As I've said before, Election 24 is 1974, not 1997.
It reminds me more of 2010 when we had all the righties on the board were gobsmacked when Cameron didnt win a majority.
Partly because a seven point lead feels like it ought to win a majority. But the second order effects of FPTP means that it doesn't if the other parties are all lined up against you. See also 1992.
Talking of which, more Conference Splat news,
Labour 43% (–) Conservative 27% (-2) Liberal Democrat 13% (+1) Reform UK 8% (+1) Green 6% (+2) Scottish National Party 1% (-2) Other 2% (+1)
I’m not for reviving the old McBan Hammer, but there was a time when your post would have resulted your being exiled for several months in the Caledonian wilderness.
The fact that Israel has the ability to cut off power , water and food supplies to Gaza highlights one of the issues that have bred hatred .
Hamas lives off the hatred . Children are brought up with the hatred and it’s just a repeating cycle.
There are still those on both sides who wanted a peaceful resolution , sadly that’s been consigned to the bin for yet more years .
Israel can raze Gaza to the ground but the hatred will remain .
But if the Israelis can somehow shift the Gazans into Egypt, then the hatred will be further away, and the chances of Hamas repeating their spectacular incursion will be greatly minimised
I do wonder if that is what the Israelis are planning. I don't see any other point in wading into Gaza at the cost of many thousands of lives, quite a few of them Israeli
Will Egypt accept them ? The whole situation is just awful. There are no good outcomes here .
Absolutely. No good outcomes
If Egypt seals the border (and they have tightened control this morning) then Israel will be left with a cornered population unable to go anywhere. What then?
I may be wrong and this isn't the Israeli plan, but then I am bewildered as to what Israel thinks it can achieve with ANOTHER invasion that does nothing but stir up evermore enmity. It simply ensures further attacks down the line
As I said last night, they might possibly be planning a renewed Occupation of Gaza, with Israel in control, and the reintroduction of Israeli settlers, who will act as a de facto spy network and military police, so October 7 is not repeated. But that's damnably tricky and could so easily go wrong
The final possibility is that Israel doesn't have a plan. It is acting in a spirit of pure revenge
With whom would they negotiate? Hamas is the *government* of Gaza. Israel has declared war on Gaza amd it shouldn't be a surprise - its *government* has launched these attacks.
So the Israeli goal will I believe be simple - remove Hamas as a threat. How they achieve that is tricky, but they won't just be pushing the cross-border terrorists back into their prison.
Removal of Hamas - and the Hamas state - has to be the goal. And that will largely mean the killing of anyone who is Hamas, supports Hamas, lives near Hamas. It is going to be awful - war usually is. Especially when the aggressor is pledged to the extermination of the other side.
That may be Israel’s strategy. That (“killing of anyone who […] lives near Hamas”) would clearly be a war crime and we, as in the UK, should do everything we can to stop war crimes. We cannot criticise Russia for war crimes in Ukraine and wave through Israel, or Hamas, committing war crimes.
Here’s a simple rule of thumb: war crimes are bad. Don’t carry out war crimes. Don’t respond to say crimes with more war crimes. Why is that a proposition that some on PB struggle with?
"war crimes" is a fantasy. There is/are no such thing. They only exist for the winners in war.
The fact that they are typically enforced against the vanquished rather than the victors doesn't mean they aren't a "thing".
They are reasonably clearly defined by international convention, and provide at least some incentive to moderate the conduct of war in terms of impact on non-combatants. The incentive not to commit them is that if you turn out to be the vanquished, you'd probably rather slip away into exile and obscurity rather than ending up in The Hague or as a fugitive.
Should Israel deliberately target civilians? No. Do civilians have some responsibility to flee a war zone? Yes. Again Hamas are not just embedded in the civilian population, they are the government. So eradicating them is going to involve blowing a great many buildings up.
If your neighbour fires his AK47 at prayers 5 times a day, it is time to leave. Because in wartime it is always legitimate to go after CCC targets regardless of where the enemy has put them.
How exactly do 3 million people flee a war zone when they are not allowed to leave by any of the surrounding countries?
They should decide not to have Hamas as their leadership.
Even coming from you that is genuinely one of the stupidest comments any one has made on this topic.
I suppose the Catholics in Northern Ireland deserved to be bombed out and killed because they had Sinn Féin councillors.
There is huge support in Gaza for the Hamas leadership. They can send thousands of "militants" to Israel on near suicide missions. They have mass rallies of hundreds of thousands in the streets protesting against Israel and the Great Satan. They show pictures of six-yr old girls wielding AKs and crying with happiness at the onslaught happening in Israel.
But they are all harmless civilians who only want to find a way out of danger.
It must be very strange living inside your head where everything in the world is so black and white.
It is dangerously close to exactly the sort of attitude that led to Rwanda, Bosnia and indeed the Holocaust. Regarding people as a mass (and indeed to use the words of your friend Netenyahu as animals) rather than individuals is an easy road to 'untermensch'.
You seem pretty conflicted about it all.
Those poor Gazans who turned out in their hundreds of thousands to celebrate actions against Israel are now to be pitied. Of course it's best that civilians leave and they can do so via Egypt or indeed the coast if they wanted to. I have heard nothing about a port blockade perhaps you know different.
I don't for one moment think that every German in 1939 was complicit in the German war aims but I have read nowhere of a safe passage being discussed for them to escape the country before we bombed it.
This is the notion of collective guilt. It is explicitly a war crime.
Then it's one that every country including our own is guilty of. As noted above, it only matters if you lose. But actually of all the Nuremburg trials was one ever held for the bombing of Coventry?
See, I think this is where you and I differ @TOPPING - you see this as an argument for why we shouldn't worry about the plight of the Palestinian people. I see this as an argument for why we should have had a Nuremburg trial not only for the bombing of Coventry, but also the bombing of Dresden. And Hiroshima. Humanity got to a place where it almost said "only following orders" was not a good enough reason for individuals committing crimes against humanity. Much since has been trying to roll that back - we need only look at the indifference to history our Home Secretary displays when discussing the refugee convention, or our own history of "defending our troops" from the consequences of the crimes they committed during the Troubles.
And I find your view wholly admirable. And I do care about the plight of the Palestinian people. I think they have been dreadfully lead although bear not a small amount of responsibility for their leadership.
This is another Brexit issue. Because I was a Remainer it doesn't mean that I thought that everything the EU did was fantastic and beyond reproach; while Brexiters probably didn't think everything the EU did was dreadful, but internet forums, including if you can believe it PB, often force people to adopt those positions.
In this case Israel is not without fault in its behaviour over the past but after the events of the weekend I am giving them quite a lot of leeway to progress the war in whatever way they want and wanted only to point out that at some point a distinction between the sweet, good-natured, wouldn't harm a fly Palestinian people who only want peace with their beloved neighbours Israel, and the Palestinians who, in their hundreds of thousands march in support of the destruction of Israel needs to be drawn.
We didn't single out the nice Germans from the beastly ones and Israel can be forgiven for not doing the same in this instance wrt the Palestinians.
You're an odd fruit sometimes.
On the 'Putin attacking Ukraine' topic you've been at pains to explore the context, discuss the things that might have pushed him into the action (eg did the Iraq War set a precedent? I recall you posing that question quite doggedly), lots of that from you on that one.
Yet on this one, this 'Hamas attacking Israel' topic, any attempt by people to do similar, to mention the context, to discuss reasons why this attack might have happened (eg could the maltreatment of the Palestinians by Israel have anything to do with it?) seems to give you an attack of the vapors.
I'm not slagging you off, I'm genuinely interested in the different way you approach the 2 topics. Putin Ukraine, very up for context and the whys and wherefores. Hamas Israel, not so much. Why is this, do we think?
I am extremely clear on why Hamas attacked Israel. I am extremely clear on why Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Transjordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt attacked them in 1948. And in 1967. And 1973. And 2023.
They attacked them because they wanted to wipe Israel off the map. In each instance they failed and in trying they got themselves into quite a pickle.
Has Israel behaved as you or indeed I would have wished them to over the past 70 years? I'm sure not. But it's useful idiots like you who think that if Israel had only been a bit nicer over the period everyone would be holding hands and making daisy chains together.
You think that I am excusing Israel's behaviour to the Palestinians on the one hand and ignoring the fact that this might be a root cause of this weekend's actions. Just like I seek to understand the reasons for Putin's actions.
I am here to educate you that for centuries and most recently decades the Arab world (and of course others) has been antipathetic to the Jews and hence this weekend's actions are a symptom of that hatred.
Thanks for non flip reply. Doesn't happen too often. I treasure it.
So iyo the antipathy towards Israel in Gaza has little to do with the maltreatment of its Palestinian population. It's down to the inherent appetite of Palestinians for antisemitism.
Ok. I think that's incredibly jaundiced (and arguably racist) but given that is your view of course you won't (as you say) be shedding too many tears if Israel does end up engaging in large scale collective punishment of 'innocent' Palestinians. Inverted commas since they won't be innocent, will they?
Makes sense now. Quality exchange. Thanks again. Chilean red and nuts time.
Hope you are enjoying your red & nuts. To you and @148grss it seems that you have difficulty believing that there is anti-semitism amongst the Arabs. And that Israel has committed some (original - we'll come on to that later) sin which has brought this behaviour upon them.
I think it doesn't take a google genius to determine quickly that there has been a long and well-documented history of anti-semitism amongst everyone including the Arabs.
For the Arabs it takes on a more "traditional" angle because there is a land angle there also. But a cursory reading of any text or oratory of many of today's Arab leaders now or indeed from history will show that there is deep antipathy towards the Jews. I think this is pervasive hence while someone somewhere in Hamas might see this as a homeland issue, to deny the rampant anti-semitism of much of the Arab world is imo to misunderstimate the dynamic of the Middle East both now and throughout history.
Is there a history of anti Semitism amongst Arabic peoples? Of course. But I do not think it is the driving force behind the issue of Israel, especially not to begin with. Indeed, if the finger of anti Semitism should point anywhere it should be at the hegemonic western powers who refused fleeing Jewish people to their shores prior to WW2 - whereas at that point multicultural communities built on common understanding between Palestinian and Jewish exiles were commonplace. The land that is Israel and Palestine were also relatively free of faith based conflict under Ottoman control - all faiths had the freedom to access Jerusalem, for instance. The issue, I would argue, hinges on the forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of people from their land. This creates long lasting conflict - it has done with India and Pakistan, it has done in Africa, and it is the case with Israel and Palestine. People want to return to their homes, to farm their olives, to live and die in the house they were born in. At least with Indian partition people on both Hindu/secular and the Muslim sides held both positions - with Israel it is clear that one side was being forced out by the other.
I wondered how long it would be before we got to: "It's all out fault!"
You really should look at the history of Jews in the region, e.g. Iraq, to see why your pretend high-minded ideal of allowing people to return is utterly bogus. Why are the Palestinians the only ones who have this right to return?
I mean the history is quite clear that in many ways this is all our fault - both the British state specifically and western imperial nations more generally. I mean it was European imperialist states that committed pogroms and refused Jewish refugees entry for hundreds of years, and European imperialist logic that led to the holocaust. The concentration camp was not a Nazi invention, although their evolution into a specific death camp arguably was, and the European imperial powers had already committed acts of mass murder on par with the death camps - just over longer periods of time and less formalised in parts.
I mean I’m in favour of a stateless, classless society without borders - that goes slightly beyond the mere right to return in my mind - but yes, Jewish people should be able to live where they wish, especially more so if their near ancestors were expelled from there. That includes Iraq. I don’t see how me having the position that all states (if they are going to exist at all) should be like that therefore means I am specifically calling on Israel as a special case.
"I mean the history is quite clear that in many ways this is all our fault"
You really don't need to say any more than this. We already understand that this is your answer for EVERYTHING
I mean when you have an Empire that spanned a whole lot of the globe… yeah - lots of things that are bad with the world are going to be, in part, related to that. It’s not rocket science.
We are now at the stage that many countries in Africa have been independent longer than when they were actual colonies.
Even laying aside the fact that the norm in many colonies was for the powers to rule through the local tribes, how long should we assume everything is our fault and not those independent countries' own issues?
On some level @148grss seems to believe that decolonisation was a mistake, and we should instead have all joined in one big happy family with no borders.
I mean, that is the least favourable way of interpreting my beliefs. My political ideals are, without a deep education in what many call "theory", broadly communist / anarchist - I believe that states are fictive creations of groups of people that are typically used on the behalf of the elite of those groups to better position themselves in international power structures. I see no reason why we cannot live in a stateless society, with the second best option being some form of singular global state (although that is a far second best, big gap between first and second preference). I also understand that is not a likely state of political reality in my lifetime, so... yeah
No state?
So no state education? No voting for state elections? No state welfare? No state healthcare? No taxes paid to the state?
Or not?
I mean, in my ideal utopian position - anarchist organisation methods via community organising and mutual aid would cover those things, and things would be done on a basis of direct democracy within the community you live and work - with mutually beneficial arrangements between those communities to support each other. We can take some ideas from the how Native American confederacies worked, we can look at the democratic confederalism of the Kurdish theorists and Rojavan project. Again, I understand this is not a realistic position in the political reality of the now, even if I think it is both a possible and preferable way to live. I also accept that, relative to others on the left, I am not a theory nerd and therefore cannot and do not wish to give you a full outline of how this would function or answer the questions that are often asked of, like, "how would x under anarchist utopia" when the answer is roughly "if enough people want x, and enough people have the skills to make x, people who enjoy making x will be free to make x and you, as someone who enjoys x but may not have the skills to make x, would be able to also have x".
You must be the most right-wing libertarian on the state.
So if people want to voluntarily pay towards the community aid then they can be free to do so, but if they don't then there's no taxes and no compulsion?
Or are you saying that people would be forced to pay taxes? In which case there is a state in your utopian position, even if you dislike the word.
If we are gonna be blamed for everything bad then it is only fair we get the credit for everything good
democracy (Greece), parliaments (Vikings), the rule of law (Rome), free speech (we haven't got it), Magna Carta (England), the English language (England), the internet (USA), cricket (UK), universal suffrage (Iceland?), television (Scotland), antibiotics (England), smiling politely (China), decent suits (you might be right here), rugby (Wales/NZ), erotic spanking (Germany/Austria?), the Raj (UK), Pax Britannica (UK), the abolition of slavery (mostly UK), football (England), and the sandwich (England)
John Rentoul @JohnRentoul · 11m Proper rhetoric from Reeves. Well written, well delivered. More or less content-free
The real takeaway from both party conferences is that the leadership of both parties recognise there is no money. And the tightening could get even worse.
Geopolitical, economic and demographic headwinds aren't great. HMG won't be able to splurge again for some time.
Indeed. As I've said before, Election 24 is 1974, not 1997.
It reminds me more of 2010 when we had all the righties on the board were gobsmacked when Cameron didnt win a majority.
Partly because a seven point lead feels like it ought to win a majority. But the second order effects of FPTP means that it doesn't if the other parties are all lined up against you. See also 1992.
Talking of which, more Conference Splat news,
Labour 43% (–) Conservative 27% (-2) Liberal Democrat 13% (+1) Reform UK 8% (+1) Green 6% (+2) Scottish National Party 1% (-2) Other 2% (+1)
I’m not for reviving the old McBan Hammer, but there was a time when your post would have resulted your being exiled for several months in the Caledonian wilderness.
John Rentoul @JohnRentoul · 11m Proper rhetoric from Reeves. Well written, well delivered. More or less content-free
The real takeaway from both party conferences is that the leadership of both parties recognise there is no money. And the tightening could get even worse.
Geopolitical, economic and demographic headwinds aren't great. HMG won't be able to splurge again for some time.
Indeed. As I've said before, Election 24 is 1974, not 1997.
It reminds me more of 2010 when we had all the righties on the board were gobsmacked when Cameron didnt win a majority.
Partly because a seven point lead feels like it ought to win a majority. But the second order effects of FPTP means that it doesn't if the other parties are all lined up against you. See also 1992.
Talking of which, more Conference Splat news,
Labour 43% (–) Conservative 27% (-2) Liberal Democrat 13% (+1) Reform UK 8% (+1) Green 6% (+2) Scottish National Party 1% (-2) Other 2% (+1)
I’m not for reviving the old McBan Hammer, but there was a time when your post would have resulted your being exiled for several months in the Caledonian wilderness.
John Rentoul @JohnRentoul · 11m Proper rhetoric from Reeves. Well written, well delivered. More or less content-free
The real takeaway from both party conferences is that the leadership of both parties recognise there is no money. And the tightening could get even worse.
Geopolitical, economic and demographic headwinds aren't great. HMG won't be able to splurge again for some time.
Indeed. As I've said before, Election 24 is 1974, not 1997.
It reminds me more of 2010 when we had all the righties on the board were gobsmacked when Cameron didnt win a majority.
Partly because a seven point lead feels like it ought to win a majority. But the second order effects of FPTP means that it doesn't if the other parties are all lined up against you. See also 1992.
Talking of which, more Conference Splat news,
Labour 43% (–) Conservative 27% (-2) Liberal Democrat 13% (+1) Reform UK 8% (+1) Green 6% (+2) Scottish National Party 1% (-2) Other 2% (+1)
I’m not for reviving the old McBan Hammer, but there was a time when your post would have resulted your being exiled for several months in the Caledonian wilderness.
John Rentoul @JohnRentoul · 11m Proper rhetoric from Reeves. Well written, well delivered. More or less content-free
The real takeaway from both party conferences is that the leadership of both parties recognise there is no money. And the tightening could get even worse.
Geopolitical, economic and demographic headwinds aren't great. HMG won't be able to splurge again for some time.
Indeed. As I've said before, Election 24 is 1974, not 1997.
It reminds me more of 2010 when we had all the righties on the board were gobsmacked when Cameron didnt win a majority.
Partly because a seven point lead feels like it ought to win a majority. But the second order effects of FPTP means that it doesn't if the other parties are all lined up against you. See also 1992.
Talking of which, more Conference Splat news,
Labour 43% (–) Conservative 27% (-2) Liberal Democrat 13% (+1) Reform UK 8% (+1) Green 6% (+2) Scottish National Party 1% (-2) Other 2% (+1)
I’m not for reviving the old McBan Hammer, but there was a time when your post would have resulted your being exiled for several months in the Caledonian wilderness.
The fact that Israel has the ability to cut off power , water and food supplies to Gaza highlights one of the issues that have bred hatred .
Hamas lives off the hatred . Children are brought up with the hatred and it’s just a repeating cycle.
There are still those on both sides who wanted a peaceful resolution , sadly that’s been consigned to the bin for yet more years .
Israel can raze Gaza to the ground but the hatred will remain .
But if the Israelis can somehow shift the Gazans into Egypt, then the hatred will be further away, and the chances of Hamas repeating their spectacular incursion will be greatly minimised
I do wonder if that is what the Israelis are planning. I don't see any other point in wading into Gaza at the cost of many thousands of lives, quite a few of them Israeli
Will Egypt accept them ? The whole situation is just awful. There are no good outcomes here .
Absolutely. No good outcomes
If Egypt seals the border (and they have tightened control this morning) then Israel will be left with a cornered population unable to go anywhere. What then?
I may be wrong and this isn't the Israeli plan, but then I am bewildered as to what Israel thinks it can achieve with ANOTHER invasion that does nothing but stir up evermore enmity. It simply ensures further attacks down the line
As I said last night, they might possibly be planning a renewed Occupation of Gaza, with Israel in control, and the reintroduction of Israeli settlers, who will act as a de facto spy network and military police, so October 7 is not repeated. But that's damnably tricky and could so easily go wrong
The final possibility is that Israel doesn't have a plan. It is acting in a spirit of pure revenge
With whom would they negotiate? Hamas is the *government* of Gaza. Israel has declared war on Gaza amd it shouldn't be a surprise - its *government* has launched these attacks.
So the Israeli goal will I believe be simple - remove Hamas as a threat. How they achieve that is tricky, but they won't just be pushing the cross-border terrorists back into their prison.
Removal of Hamas - and the Hamas state - has to be the goal. And that will largely mean the killing of anyone who is Hamas, supports Hamas, lives near Hamas. It is going to be awful - war usually is. Especially when the aggressor is pledged to the extermination of the other side.
That may be Israel’s strategy. That (“killing of anyone who […] lives near Hamas”) would clearly be a war crime and we, as in the UK, should do everything we can to stop war crimes. We cannot criticise Russia for war crimes in Ukraine and wave through Israel, or Hamas, committing war crimes.
Here’s a simple rule of thumb: war crimes are bad. Don’t carry out war crimes. Don’t respond to say crimes with more war crimes. Why is that a proposition that some on PB struggle with?
"war crimes" is a fantasy. There is/are no such thing. They only exist for the winners in war.
The fact that they are typically enforced against the vanquished rather than the victors doesn't mean they aren't a "thing".
They are reasonably clearly defined by international convention, and provide at least some incentive to moderate the conduct of war in terms of impact on non-combatants. The incentive not to commit them is that if you turn out to be the vanquished, you'd probably rather slip away into exile and obscurity rather than ending up in The Hague or as a fugitive.
Should Israel deliberately target civilians? No. Do civilians have some responsibility to flee a war zone? Yes. Again Hamas are not just embedded in the civilian population, they are the government. So eradicating them is going to involve blowing a great many buildings up.
If your neighbour fires his AK47 at prayers 5 times a day, it is time to leave. Because in wartime it is always legitimate to go after CCC targets regardless of where the enemy has put them.
How exactly do 3 million people flee a war zone when they are not allowed to leave by any of the surrounding countries?
They should decide not to have Hamas as their leadership.
Even coming from you that is genuinely one of the stupidest comments any one has made on this topic.
I suppose the Catholics in Northern Ireland deserved to be bombed out and killed because they had Sinn Féin councillors.
There is huge support in Gaza for the Hamas leadership. They can send thousands of "militants" to Israel on near suicide missions. They have mass rallies of hundreds of thousands in the streets protesting against Israel and the Great Satan. They show pictures of six-yr old girls wielding AKs and crying with happiness at the onslaught happening in Israel.
But they are all harmless civilians who only want to find a way out of danger.
It must be very strange living inside your head where everything in the world is so black and white.
It is dangerously close to exactly the sort of attitude that led to Rwanda, Bosnia and indeed the Holocaust. Regarding people as a mass (and indeed to use the words of your friend Netenyahu as animals) rather than individuals is an easy road to 'untermensch'.
You seem pretty conflicted about it all.
Those poor Gazans who turned out in their hundreds of thousands to celebrate actions against Israel are now to be pitied. Of course it's best that civilians leave and they can do so via Egypt or indeed the coast if they wanted to. I have heard nothing about a port blockade perhaps you know different.
I don't for one moment think that every German in 1939 was complicit in the German war aims but I have read nowhere of a safe passage being discussed for them to escape the country before we bombed it.
This is the notion of collective guilt. It is explicitly a war crime.
Then it's one that every country including our own is guilty of. As noted above, it only matters if you lose. But actually of all the Nuremburg trials was one ever held for the bombing of Coventry?
See, I think this is where you and I differ @TOPPING - you see this as an argument for why we shouldn't worry about the plight of the Palestinian people. I see this as an argument for why we should have had a Nuremburg trial not only for the bombing of Coventry, but also the bombing of Dresden. And Hiroshima. Humanity got to a place where it almost said "only following orders" was not a good enough reason for individuals committing crimes against humanity. Much since has been trying to roll that back - we need only look at the indifference to history our Home Secretary displays when discussing the refugee convention, or our own history of "defending our troops" from the consequences of the crimes they committed during the Troubles.
And I find your view wholly admirable. And I do care about the plight of the Palestinian people. I think they have been dreadfully lead although bear not a small amount of responsibility for their leadership.
This is another Brexit issue. Because I was a Remainer it doesn't mean that I thought that everything the EU did was fantastic and beyond reproach; while Brexiters probably didn't think everything the EU did was dreadful, but internet forums, including if you can believe it PB, often force people to adopt those positions.
In this case Israel is not without fault in its behaviour over the past but after the events of the weekend I am giving them quite a lot of leeway to progress the war in whatever way they want and wanted only to point out that at some point a distinction between the sweet, good-natured, wouldn't harm a fly Palestinian people who only want peace with their beloved neighbours Israel, and the Palestinians who, in their hundreds of thousands march in support of the destruction of Israel needs to be drawn.
We didn't single out the nice Germans from the beastly ones and Israel can be forgiven for not doing the same in this instance wrt the Palestinians.
You're an odd fruit sometimes.
On the 'Putin attacking Ukraine' topic you've been at pains to explore the context, discuss the things that might have pushed him into the action (eg did the Iraq War set a precedent? I recall you posing that question quite doggedly), lots of that from you on that one.
Yet on this one, this 'Hamas attacking Israel' topic, any attempt by people to do similar, to mention the context, to discuss reasons why this attack might have happened (eg could the maltreatment of the Palestinians by Israel have anything to do with it?) seems to give you an attack of the vapors.
I'm not slagging you off, I'm genuinely interested in the different way you approach the 2 topics. Putin Ukraine, very up for context and the whys and wherefores. Hamas Israel, not so much. Why is this, do we think?
I am extremely clear on why Hamas attacked Israel. I am extremely clear on why Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Transjordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt attacked them in 1948. And in 1967. And 1973. And 2023.
They attacked them because they wanted to wipe Israel off the map. In each instance they failed and in trying they got themselves into quite a pickle.
Has Israel behaved as you or indeed I would have wished them to over the past 70 years? I'm sure not. But it's useful idiots like you who think that if Israel had only been a bit nicer over the period everyone would be holding hands and making daisy chains together.
You think that I am excusing Israel's behaviour to the Palestinians on the one hand and ignoring the fact that this might be a root cause of this weekend's actions. Just like I seek to understand the reasons for Putin's actions.
I am here to educate you that for centuries and most recently decades the Arab world (and of course others) has been antipathetic to the Jews and hence this weekend's actions are a symptom of that hatred.
Thanks for non flip reply. Doesn't happen too often. I treasure it.
So iyo the antipathy towards Israel in Gaza has little to do with the maltreatment of its Palestinian population. It's down to the inherent appetite of Palestinians for antisemitism.
Ok. I think that's incredibly jaundiced (and arguably racist) but given that is your view of course you won't (as you say) be shedding too many tears if Israel does end up engaging in large scale collective punishment of 'innocent' Palestinians. Inverted commas since they won't be innocent, will they?
Makes sense now. Quality exchange. Thanks again. Chilean red and nuts time.
Hope you are enjoying your red & nuts. To you and @148grss it seems that you have difficulty believing that there is anti-semitism amongst the Arabs. And that Israel has committed some (original - we'll come on to that later) sin which has brought this behaviour upon them.
I think it doesn't take a google genius to determine quickly that there has been a long and well-documented history of anti-semitism amongst everyone including the Arabs.
For the Arabs it takes on a more "traditional" angle because there is a land angle there also. But a cursory reading of any text or oratory of many of today's Arab leaders now or indeed from history will show that there is deep antipathy towards the Jews. I think this is pervasive hence while someone somewhere in Hamas might see this as a homeland issue, to deny the rampant anti-semitism of much of the Arab world is imo to misunderstimate the dynamic of the Middle East both now and throughout history.
Is there a history of anti Semitism amongst Arabic peoples? Of course. But I do not think it is the driving force behind the issue of Israel, especially not to begin with. Indeed, if the finger of anti Semitism should point anywhere it should be at the hegemonic western powers who refused fleeing Jewish people to their shores prior to WW2 - whereas at that point multicultural communities built on common understanding between Palestinian and Jewish exiles were commonplace. The land that is Israel and Palestine were also relatively free of faith based conflict under Ottoman control - all faiths had the freedom to access Jerusalem, for instance. The issue, I would argue, hinges on the forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of people from their land. This creates long lasting conflict - it has done with India and Pakistan, it has done in Africa, and it is the case with Israel and Palestine. People want to return to their homes, to farm their olives, to live and die in the house they were born in. At least with Indian partition people on both Hindu/secular and the Muslim sides held both positions - with Israel it is clear that one side was being forced out by the other.
On a purely empirical basis the fact that here were 100ks in ancient Jewish communities across the Middle East before they were expelled suggests that antisemitism wasn’t all pervasive until that point.
Er, the Jews were captured and enslaved in Babylon. This is historical fact
"The Babylonian captivity or Babylonian exile is the period in Jewish history during which a large number of Judeans from the ancient Kingdom of Judah were captives in Babylon, the capital city of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, following their defeat in the Jewish–Babylonian War and the destruction of Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem. The event is known to be historical, and is described in the Hebrew Bible in addition to archaeological and extra-biblical sources."
John Rentoul @JohnRentoul · 11m Proper rhetoric from Reeves. Well written, well delivered. More or less content-free
The real takeaway from both party conferences is that the leadership of both parties recognise there is no money. And the tightening could get even worse.
Geopolitical, economic and demographic headwinds aren't great. HMG won't be able to splurge again for some time.
Indeed. As I've said before, Election 24 is 1974, not 1997.
It reminds me more of 2010 when we had all the righties on the board were gobsmacked when Cameron didnt win a majority.
Partly because a seven point lead feels like it ought to win a majority. But the second order effects of FPTP means that it doesn't if the other parties are all lined up against you. See also 1992.
Talking of which, more Conference Splat news,
Labour 43% (–) Conservative 27% (-2) Liberal Democrat 13% (+1) Reform UK 8% (+1) Green 6% (+2) Scottish National Party 1% (-2) Other 2% (+1)
I’m not for reviving the old McBan Hammer, but there was a time when your post would have resulted your being exiled for several months in the Caledonian wilderness.
For decades, UK governments from all 3 parties have had a foreign policy supporting a rules-based international order, and a domestic law forbidding war crimes. Yet multiple people here have, in recent days, advocated that Israel should commit war crimes. (And they're not defending Israel's actions. They're calling for Israel to go further than they currently are.)
Can I ask these people: why didn't you speak out against the UK's policy in favour of a rules-based International order and against war crimes? If war crimes don't exist or they're fine in some circumstances, shouldn't we have said that decades ago?
It was customary for UK govts not to lie to Parliament about going to war.
Then New Labour gave us Iraq, all HMGs lost their credibility at that point
Eden basically had to resign over lying repeatedly to Parliament about Suez, you half-wit.
Blair didnt and I can do without the insult unless you want to make it less civil.
We fought a war in Malaysia from 1948 to 1960 and forgot to mention it to Parliament at all. And we won. Both parties didn’t see an upside in talking about it.
Wasn't a war - just an "emergency" [edit] in the term of the time, of course. (It, or something like it, did break out again a few years later. But let's call that a separate un-war.).
Quite a few of my friends felt they’d wasted two years of their lives out there!
One of my friends fought in Malaysia. When I asked him about it he said wink 😉
I recently got given my late grandfather's 'Near East' medal for his time in Aden with 42 Commando
I don't know why, but he didn't like talking about that
The fact that Israel has the ability to cut off power , water and food supplies to Gaza highlights one of the issues that have bred hatred .
Hamas lives off the hatred . Children are brought up with the hatred and it’s just a repeating cycle.
There are still those on both sides who wanted a peaceful resolution , sadly that’s been consigned to the bin for yet more years .
Israel can raze Gaza to the ground but the hatred will remain .
But if the Israelis can somehow shift the Gazans into Egypt, then the hatred will be further away, and the chances of Hamas repeating their spectacular incursion will be greatly minimised
I do wonder if that is what the Israelis are planning. I don't see any other point in wading into Gaza at the cost of many thousands of lives, quite a few of them Israeli
Will Egypt accept them ? The whole situation is just awful. There are no good outcomes here .
Absolutely. No good outcomes
If Egypt seals the border (and they have tightened control this morning) then Israel will be left with a cornered population unable to go anywhere. What then?
I may be wrong and this isn't the Israeli plan, but then I am bewildered as to what Israel thinks it can achieve with ANOTHER invasion that does nothing but stir up evermore enmity. It simply ensures further attacks down the line
As I said last night, they might possibly be planning a renewed Occupation of Gaza, with Israel in control, and the reintroduction of Israeli settlers, who will act as a de facto spy network and military police, so October 7 is not repeated. But that's damnably tricky and could so easily go wrong
The final possibility is that Israel doesn't have a plan. It is acting in a spirit of pure revenge
With whom would they negotiate? Hamas is the *government* of Gaza. Israel has declared war on Gaza amd it shouldn't be a surprise - its *government* has launched these attacks.
So the Israeli goal will I believe be simple - remove Hamas as a threat. How they achieve that is tricky, but they won't just be pushing the cross-border terrorists back into their prison.
Removal of Hamas - and the Hamas state - has to be the goal. And that will largely mean the killing of anyone who is Hamas, supports Hamas, lives near Hamas. It is going to be awful - war usually is. Especially when the aggressor is pledged to the extermination of the other side.
That may be Israel’s strategy. That (“killing of anyone who […] lives near Hamas”) would clearly be a war crime and we, as in the UK, should do everything we can to stop war crimes. We cannot criticise Russia for war crimes in Ukraine and wave through Israel, or Hamas, committing war crimes.
Here’s a simple rule of thumb: war crimes are bad. Don’t carry out war crimes. Don’t respond to say crimes with more war crimes. Why is that a proposition that some on PB struggle with?
"war crimes" is a fantasy. There is/are no such thing. They only exist for the winners in war.
The fact that they are typically enforced against the vanquished rather than the victors doesn't mean they aren't a "thing".
They are reasonably clearly defined by international convention, and provide at least some incentive to moderate the conduct of war in terms of impact on non-combatants. The incentive not to commit them is that if you turn out to be the vanquished, you'd probably rather slip away into exile and obscurity rather than ending up in The Hague or as a fugitive.
Should Israel deliberately target civilians? No. Do civilians have some responsibility to flee a war zone? Yes. Again Hamas are not just embedded in the civilian population, they are the government. So eradicating them is going to involve blowing a great many buildings up.
If your neighbour fires his AK47 at prayers 5 times a day, it is time to leave. Because in wartime it is always legitimate to go after CCC targets regardless of where the enemy has put them.
How exactly do 3 million people flee a war zone when they are not allowed to leave by any of the surrounding countries?
They should decide not to have Hamas as their leadership.
Even coming from you that is genuinely one of the stupidest comments any one has made on this topic.
I suppose the Catholics in Northern Ireland deserved to be bombed out and killed because they had Sinn Féin councillors.
There is huge support in Gaza for the Hamas leadership. They can send thousands of "militants" to Israel on near suicide missions. They have mass rallies of hundreds of thousands in the streets protesting against Israel and the Great Satan. They show pictures of six-yr old girls wielding AKs and crying with happiness at the onslaught happening in Israel.
But they are all harmless civilians who only want to find a way out of danger.
It must be very strange living inside your head where everything in the world is so black and white.
It is dangerously close to exactly the sort of attitude that led to Rwanda, Bosnia and indeed the Holocaust. Regarding people as a mass (and indeed to use the words of your friend Netenyahu as animals) rather than individuals is an easy road to 'untermensch'.
You seem pretty conflicted about it all.
Those poor Gazans who turned out in their hundreds of thousands to celebrate actions against Israel are now to be pitied. Of course it's best that civilians leave and they can do so via Egypt or indeed the coast if they wanted to. I have heard nothing about a port blockade perhaps you know different.
I don't for one moment think that every German in 1939 was complicit in the German war aims but I have read nowhere of a safe passage being discussed for them to escape the country before we bombed it.
This is the notion of collective guilt. It is explicitly a war crime.
Then it's one that every country including our own is guilty of. As noted above, it only matters if you lose. But actually of all the Nuremburg trials was one ever held for the bombing of Coventry?
See, I think this is where you and I differ @TOPPING - you see this as an argument for why we shouldn't worry about the plight of the Palestinian people. I see this as an argument for why we should have had a Nuremburg trial not only for the bombing of Coventry, but also the bombing of Dresden. And Hiroshima. Humanity got to a place where it almost said "only following orders" was not a good enough reason for individuals committing crimes against humanity. Much since has been trying to roll that back - we need only look at the indifference to history our Home Secretary displays when discussing the refugee convention, or our own history of "defending our troops" from the consequences of the crimes they committed during the Troubles.
And I find your view wholly admirable. And I do care about the plight of the Palestinian people. I think they have been dreadfully lead although bear not a small amount of responsibility for their leadership.
This is another Brexit issue. Because I was a Remainer it doesn't mean that I thought that everything the EU did was fantastic and beyond reproach; while Brexiters probably didn't think everything the EU did was dreadful, but internet forums, including if you can believe it PB, often force people to adopt those positions.
In this case Israel is not without fault in its behaviour over the past but after the events of the weekend I am giving them quite a lot of leeway to progress the war in whatever way they want and wanted only to point out that at some point a distinction between the sweet, good-natured, wouldn't harm a fly Palestinian people who only want peace with their beloved neighbours Israel, and the Palestinians who, in their hundreds of thousands march in support of the destruction of Israel needs to be drawn.
We didn't single out the nice Germans from the beastly ones and Israel can be forgiven for not doing the same in this instance wrt the Palestinians.
You're an odd fruit sometimes.
On the 'Putin attacking Ukraine' topic you've been at pains to explore the context, discuss the things that might have pushed him into the action (eg did the Iraq War set a precedent? I recall you posing that question quite doggedly), lots of that from you on that one.
Yet on this one, this 'Hamas attacking Israel' topic, any attempt by people to do similar, to mention the context, to discuss reasons why this attack might have happened (eg could the maltreatment of the Palestinians by Israel have anything to do with it?) seems to give you an attack of the vapors.
I'm not slagging you off, I'm genuinely interested in the different way you approach the 2 topics. Putin Ukraine, very up for context and the whys and wherefores. Hamas Israel, not so much. Why is this, do we think?
I am extremely clear on why Hamas attacked Israel. I am extremely clear on why Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Transjordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt attacked them in 1948. And in 1967. And 1973. And 2023.
They attacked them because they wanted to wipe Israel off the map. In each instance they failed and in trying they got themselves into quite a pickle.
Has Israel behaved as you or indeed I would have wished them to over the past 70 years? I'm sure not. But it's useful idiots like you who think that if Israel had only been a bit nicer over the period everyone would be holding hands and making daisy chains together.
You think that I am excusing Israel's behaviour to the Palestinians on the one hand and ignoring the fact that this might be a root cause of this weekend's actions. Just like I seek to understand the reasons for Putin's actions.
I am here to educate you that for centuries and most recently decades the Arab world (and of course others) has been antipathetic to the Jews and hence this weekend's actions are a symptom of that hatred.
Thanks for non flip reply. Doesn't happen too often. I treasure it.
So iyo the antipathy towards Israel in Gaza has little to do with the maltreatment of its Palestinian population. It's down to the inherent appetite of Palestinians for antisemitism.
Ok. I think that's incredibly jaundiced (and arguably racist) but given that is your view of course you won't (as you say) be shedding too many tears if Israel does end up engaging in large scale collective punishment of 'innocent' Palestinians. Inverted commas since they won't be innocent, will they?
Makes sense now. Quality exchange. Thanks again. Chilean red and nuts time.
Hope you are enjoying your red & nuts. To you and @148grss it seems that you have difficulty believing that there is anti-semitism amongst the Arabs. And that Israel has committed some (original - we'll come on to that later) sin which has brought this behaviour upon them.
I think it doesn't take a google genius to determine quickly that there has been a long and well-documented history of anti-semitism amongst everyone including the Arabs.
For the Arabs it takes on a more "traditional" angle because there is a land angle there also. But a cursory reading of any text or oratory of many of today's Arab leaders now or indeed from history will show that there is deep antipathy towards the Jews. I think this is pervasive hence while someone somewhere in Hamas might see this as a homeland issue, to deny the rampant anti-semitism of much of the Arab world is imo to misunderstimate the dynamic of the Middle East both now and throughout history.
Is there a history of anti Semitism amongst Arabic peoples? Of course. But I do not think it is the driving force behind the issue of Israel, especially not to begin with. Indeed, if the finger of anti Semitism should point anywhere it should be at the hegemonic western powers who refused fleeing Jewish people to their shores prior to WW2 - whereas at that point multicultural communities built on common understanding between Palestinian and Jewish exiles were commonplace. The land that is Israel and Palestine were also relatively free of faith based conflict under Ottoman control - all faiths had the freedom to access Jerusalem, for instance. The issue, I would argue, hinges on the forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of people from their land. This creates long lasting conflict - it has done with India and Pakistan, it has done in Africa, and it is the case with Israel and Palestine. People want to return to their homes, to farm their olives, to live and die in the house they were born in. At least with Indian partition people on both Hindu/secular and the Muslim sides held both positions - with Israel it is clear that one side was being forced out by the other.
On a purely empirical basis the fact that here were 100ks in ancient Jewish communities across the Middle East before they were expelled suggests that antisemitism wasn’t all pervasive until that point.
Er, the Jews were captured and enslaved in Babylon. This is historical fact
"The Babylonian captivity or Babylonian exile is the period in Jewish history during which a large number of Judeans from the ancient Kingdom of Judah were captives in Babylon, the capital city of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, following their defeat in the Jewish–Babylonian War and the destruction of Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem. The event is known to be historical, and is described in the Hebrew Bible in addition to archaeological and extra-biblical sources."
BY the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept : when we remembered thee, O Sion.
2 As for our harps, we hanged them up : upon the trees that are therein.
3 For they that led us away captive required of us then a song, and melody in our heaviness : Sing us one of the songs of Sion.
4 How shall we sing the Lord's song : in a strange land?
5 If I forget thee, O Jerusalem : let my right hand forget her cunning.
6 If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth : yea, if I prefer not Jerusalem in my mirth.
7 Remember the children of Edom, O Lord, in the day of Jerusalem : how they said, Down with it, down with it, even to the ground.
8 O daughter of Babylon, wasted with misery : yea, happy shall he be that rewardeth thee, as thou hast served us.
9 Blessed shall he be that taketh thy children : and throweth them against the stones.
Ps 137
That's not the lyrics I know.
By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down Yeah, we wept, when we remembered Zion By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down Yeah, we wept, when we remembered Zion
There the wicked Carried us away in captivity Required from us a song Now how shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land? There the wicked Carried us away in captivity Requiring of us a song Now how shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Let the words of our mouth and the meditation of our heart Be acceptable in thy sight here tonight Let the words of our mouth and the meditation of our hearts Be acceptable in thy sight here tonight
By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down Yeah, we wept, when we remembered Zion By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down Yeah, we wept, when we remembered Zion
By the rivers of Babylon (dark tears of Babylon) There we sat down (you got to sing a song) Yeah, we wept (sing a song of love) When we remembered Zion (yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah) By the rivers of Babylon (rough bits of Babylon)
There we sat down (you hear the people cry) Yeah, we wept (they need their God) When we remembered Zion (ooh, have the power) By the rivers of Babylon (oh yeah yeah), there we sat down (yeah, yeah)
The fact that Israel has the ability to cut off power , water and food supplies to Gaza highlights one of the issues that have bred hatred .
Hamas lives off the hatred . Children are brought up with the hatred and it’s just a repeating cycle.
There are still those on both sides who wanted a peaceful resolution , sadly that’s been consigned to the bin for yet more years .
Israel can raze Gaza to the ground but the hatred will remain .
But if the Israelis can somehow shift the Gazans into Egypt, then the hatred will be further away, and the chances of Hamas repeating their spectacular incursion will be greatly minimised
I do wonder if that is what the Israelis are planning. I don't see any other point in wading into Gaza at the cost of many thousands of lives, quite a few of them Israeli
Will Egypt accept them ? The whole situation is just awful. There are no good outcomes here .
Absolutely. No good outcomes
If Egypt seals the border (and they have tightened control this morning) then Israel will be left with a cornered population unable to go anywhere. What then?
I may be wrong and this isn't the Israeli plan, but then I am bewildered as to what Israel thinks it can achieve with ANOTHER invasion that does nothing but stir up evermore enmity. It simply ensures further attacks down the line
As I said last night, they might possibly be planning a renewed Occupation of Gaza, with Israel in control, and the reintroduction of Israeli settlers, who will act as a de facto spy network and military police, so October 7 is not repeated. But that's damnably tricky and could so easily go wrong
The final possibility is that Israel doesn't have a plan. It is acting in a spirit of pure revenge
With whom would they negotiate? Hamas is the *government* of Gaza. Israel has declared war on Gaza amd it shouldn't be a surprise - its *government* has launched these attacks.
So the Israeli goal will I believe be simple - remove Hamas as a threat. How they achieve that is tricky, but they won't just be pushing the cross-border terrorists back into their prison.
Removal of Hamas - and the Hamas state - has to be the goal. And that will largely mean the killing of anyone who is Hamas, supports Hamas, lives near Hamas. It is going to be awful - war usually is. Especially when the aggressor is pledged to the extermination of the other side.
That may be Israel’s strategy. That (“killing of anyone who […] lives near Hamas”) would clearly be a war crime and we, as in the UK, should do everything we can to stop war crimes. We cannot criticise Russia for war crimes in Ukraine and wave through Israel, or Hamas, committing war crimes.
Here’s a simple rule of thumb: war crimes are bad. Don’t carry out war crimes. Don’t respond to say crimes with more war crimes. Why is that a proposition that some on PB struggle with?
"war crimes" is a fantasy. There is/are no such thing. They only exist for the winners in war.
The fact that they are typically enforced against the vanquished rather than the victors doesn't mean they aren't a "thing".
They are reasonably clearly defined by international convention, and provide at least some incentive to moderate the conduct of war in terms of impact on non-combatants. The incentive not to commit them is that if you turn out to be the vanquished, you'd probably rather slip away into exile and obscurity rather than ending up in The Hague or as a fugitive.
Should Israel deliberately target civilians? No. Do civilians have some responsibility to flee a war zone? Yes. Again Hamas are not just embedded in the civilian population, they are the government. So eradicating them is going to involve blowing a great many buildings up.
If your neighbour fires his AK47 at prayers 5 times a day, it is time to leave. Because in wartime it is always legitimate to go after CCC targets regardless of where the enemy has put them.
How exactly do 3 million people flee a war zone when they are not allowed to leave by any of the surrounding countries?
They should decide not to have Hamas as their leadership.
Even coming from you that is genuinely one of the stupidest comments any one has made on this topic.
I suppose the Catholics in Northern Ireland deserved to be bombed out and killed because they had Sinn Féin councillors.
There is huge support in Gaza for the Hamas leadership. They can send thousands of "militants" to Israel on near suicide missions. They have mass rallies of hundreds of thousands in the streets protesting against Israel and the Great Satan. They show pictures of six-yr old girls wielding AKs and crying with happiness at the onslaught happening in Israel.
But they are all harmless civilians who only want to find a way out of danger.
It must be very strange living inside your head where everything in the world is so black and white.
It is dangerously close to exactly the sort of attitude that led to Rwanda, Bosnia and indeed the Holocaust. Regarding people as a mass (and indeed to use the words of your friend Netenyahu as animals) rather than individuals is an easy road to 'untermensch'.
You seem pretty conflicted about it all.
Those poor Gazans who turned out in their hundreds of thousands to celebrate actions against Israel are now to be pitied. Of course it's best that civilians leave and they can do so via Egypt or indeed the coast if they wanted to. I have heard nothing about a port blockade perhaps you know different.
I don't for one moment think that every German in 1939 was complicit in the German war aims but I have read nowhere of a safe passage being discussed for them to escape the country before we bombed it.
This is the notion of collective guilt. It is explicitly a war crime.
Then it's one that every country including our own is guilty of. As noted above, it only matters if you lose. But actually of all the Nuremburg trials was one ever held for the bombing of Coventry?
See, I think this is where you and I differ @TOPPING - you see this as an argument for why we shouldn't worry about the plight of the Palestinian people. I see this as an argument for why we should have had a Nuremburg trial not only for the bombing of Coventry, but also the bombing of Dresden. And Hiroshima. Humanity got to a place where it almost said "only following orders" was not a good enough reason for individuals committing crimes against humanity. Much since has been trying to roll that back - we need only look at the indifference to history our Home Secretary displays when discussing the refugee convention, or our own history of "defending our troops" from the consequences of the crimes they committed during the Troubles.
And I find your view wholly admirable. And I do care about the plight of the Palestinian people. I think they have been dreadfully lead although bear not a small amount of responsibility for their leadership.
This is another Brexit issue. Because I was a Remainer it doesn't mean that I thought that everything the EU did was fantastic and beyond reproach; while Brexiters probably didn't think everything the EU did was dreadful, but internet forums, including if you can believe it PB, often force people to adopt those positions.
In this case Israel is not without fault in its behaviour over the past but after the events of the weekend I am giving them quite a lot of leeway to progress the war in whatever way they want and wanted only to point out that at some point a distinction between the sweet, good-natured, wouldn't harm a fly Palestinian people who only want peace with their beloved neighbours Israel, and the Palestinians who, in their hundreds of thousands march in support of the destruction of Israel needs to be drawn.
We didn't single out the nice Germans from the beastly ones and Israel can be forgiven for not doing the same in this instance wrt the Palestinians.
You're an odd fruit sometimes.
On the 'Putin attacking Ukraine' topic you've been at pains to explore the context, discuss the things that might have pushed him into the action (eg did the Iraq War set a precedent? I recall you posing that question quite doggedly), lots of that from you on that one.
Yet on this one, this 'Hamas attacking Israel' topic, any attempt by people to do similar, to mention the context, to discuss reasons why this attack might have happened (eg could the maltreatment of the Palestinians by Israel have anything to do with it?) seems to give you an attack of the vapors.
I'm not slagging you off, I'm genuinely interested in the different way you approach the 2 topics. Putin Ukraine, very up for context and the whys and wherefores. Hamas Israel, not so much. Why is this, do we think?
I am extremely clear on why Hamas attacked Israel. I am extremely clear on why Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Transjordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt attacked them in 1948. And in 1967. And 1973. And 2023.
They attacked them because they wanted to wipe Israel off the map. In each instance they failed and in trying they got themselves into quite a pickle.
Has Israel behaved as you or indeed I would have wished them to over the past 70 years? I'm sure not. But it's useful idiots like you who think that if Israel had only been a bit nicer over the period everyone would be holding hands and making daisy chains together.
You think that I am excusing Israel's behaviour to the Palestinians on the one hand and ignoring the fact that this might be a root cause of this weekend's actions. Just like I seek to understand the reasons for Putin's actions.
I am here to educate you that for centuries and most recently decades the Arab world (and of course others) has been antipathetic to the Jews and hence this weekend's actions are a symptom of that hatred.
Thanks for non flip reply. Doesn't happen too often. I treasure it.
So iyo the antipathy towards Israel in Gaza has little to do with the maltreatment of its Palestinian population. It's down to the inherent appetite of Palestinians for antisemitism.
Ok. I think that's incredibly jaundiced (and arguably racist) but given that is your view of course you won't (as you say) be shedding too many tears if Israel does end up engaging in large scale collective punishment of 'innocent' Palestinians. Inverted commas since they won't be innocent, will they?
Makes sense now. Quality exchange. Thanks again. Chilean red and nuts time.
Hope you are enjoying your red & nuts. To you and @148grss it seems that you have difficulty believing that there is anti-semitism amongst the Arabs. And that Israel has committed some (original - we'll come on to that later) sin which has brought this behaviour upon them.
I think it doesn't take a google genius to determine quickly that there has been a long and well-documented history of anti-semitism amongst everyone including the Arabs.
For the Arabs it takes on a more "traditional" angle because there is a land angle there also. But a cursory reading of any text or oratory of many of today's Arab leaders now or indeed from history will show that there is deep antipathy towards the Jews. I think this is pervasive hence while someone somewhere in Hamas might see this as a homeland issue, to deny the rampant anti-semitism of much of the Arab world is imo to misunderstimate the dynamic of the Middle East both now and throughout history.
Is there a history of anti Semitism amongst Arabic peoples? Of course. But I do not think it is the driving force behind the issue of Israel, especially not to begin with. Indeed, if the finger of anti Semitism should point anywhere it should be at the hegemonic western powers who refused fleeing Jewish people to their shores prior to WW2 - whereas at that point multicultural communities built on common understanding between Palestinian and Jewish exiles were commonplace. The land that is Israel and Palestine were also relatively free of faith based conflict under Ottoman control - all faiths had the freedom to access Jerusalem, for instance. The issue, I would argue, hinges on the forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of people from their land. This creates long lasting conflict - it has done with India and Pakistan, it has done in Africa, and it is the case with Israel and Palestine. People want to return to their homes, to farm their olives, to live and die in the house they were born in. At least with Indian partition people on both Hindu/secular and the Muslim sides held both positions - with Israel it is clear that one side was being forced out by the other.
I wondered how long it would be before we got to: "It's all out fault!"
You really should look at the history of Jews in the region, e.g. Iraq, to see why your pretend high-minded ideal of allowing people to return is utterly bogus. Why are the Palestinians the only ones who have this right to return?
I mean the history is quite clear that in many ways this is all our fault - both the British state specifically and western imperial nations more generally. I mean it was European imperialist states that committed pogroms and refused Jewish refugees entry for hundreds of years, and European imperialist logic that led to the holocaust. The concentration camp was not a Nazi invention, although their evolution into a specific death camp arguably was, and the European imperial powers had already committed acts of mass murder on par with the death camps - just over longer periods of time and less formalised in parts.
I mean I’m in favour of a stateless, classless society without borders - that goes slightly beyond the mere right to return in my mind - but yes, Jewish people should be able to live where they wish, especially more so if their near ancestors were expelled from there. That includes Iraq. I don’t see how me having the position that all states (if they are going to exist at all) should be like that therefore means I am specifically calling on Israel as a special case.
"I mean the history is quite clear that in many ways this is all our fault"
You really don't need to say any more than this. We already understand that this is your answer for EVERYTHING
I mean when you have an Empire that spanned a whole lot of the globe… yeah - lots of things that are bad with the world are going to be, in part, related to that. It’s not rocket science.
We are now at the stage that many countries in Africa have been independent longer than when they were actual colonies.
Even laying aside the fact that the norm in many colonies was for the powers to rule through the local tribes, how long should we assume everything is our fault and not those independent countries' own issues?
On some level @148grss seems to believe that decolonisation was a mistake, and we should instead have all joined in one big happy family with no borders.
I mean, that is the least favourable way of interpreting my beliefs. My political ideals are, without a deep education in what many call "theory", broadly communist / anarchist - I believe that states are fictive creations of groups of people that are typically used on the behalf of the elite of those groups to better position themselves in international power structures. I see no reason why we cannot live in a stateless society, with the second best option being some form of singular global state (although that is a far second best, big gap between first and second preference). I also understand that is not a likely state of political reality in my lifetime, so... yeah
No state?
So no state education? No voting for state elections? No state welfare? No state healthcare? No taxes paid to the state?
Or not?
I mean, in my ideal utopian position - anarchist organisation methods via community organising and mutual aid would cover those things, and things would be done on a basis of direct democracy within the community you live and work - with mutually beneficial arrangements between those communities to support each other. We can take some ideas from the how Native American confederacies worked, we can look at the democratic confederalism of the Kurdish theorists and Rojavan project. Again, I understand this is not a realistic position in the political reality of the now, even if I think it is both a possible and preferable way to live. I also accept that, relative to others on the left, I am not a theory nerd and therefore cannot and do not wish to give you a full outline of how this would function or answer the questions that are often asked of, like, "how would x under anarchist utopia" when the answer is roughly "if enough people want x, and enough people have the skills to make x, people who enjoy making x will be free to make x and you, as someone who enjoys x but may not have the skills to make x, would be able to also have x".
You must be the most right-wing libertarian on the state.
So if people want to voluntarily pay towards the community aid then they can be free to do so, but if they don't then there's no taxes and no compulsion?
Or are you saying that people would be forced to pay taxes? In which case there is a state in your utopian position, even if you dislike the word.
Again - my utopianism does not believe in capital; from each according to their ability, to each according to their need.
And if you look at Rojava then involvement in the direct democracy is compulsory - but that was enforced in part to make sure that women and other ethnic groups were represented and speaking for themselves in what was (and still is) a very patriarchal culture with a long history of political tensions down ethnic lines.
The fact that Israel has the ability to cut off power , water and food supplies to Gaza highlights one of the issues that have bred hatred .
Hamas lives off the hatred . Children are brought up with the hatred and it’s just a repeating cycle.
There are still those on both sides who wanted a peaceful resolution , sadly that’s been consigned to the bin for yet more years .
Israel can raze Gaza to the ground but the hatred will remain .
But if the Israelis can somehow shift the Gazans into Egypt, then the hatred will be further away, and the chances of Hamas repeating their spectacular incursion will be greatly minimised
I do wonder if that is what the Israelis are planning. I don't see any other point in wading into Gaza at the cost of many thousands of lives, quite a few of them Israeli
Will Egypt accept them ? The whole situation is just awful. There are no good outcomes here .
Absolutely. No good outcomes
If Egypt seals the border (and they have tightened control this morning) then Israel will be left with a cornered population unable to go anywhere. What then?
I may be wrong and this isn't the Israeli plan, but then I am bewildered as to what Israel thinks it can achieve with ANOTHER invasion that does nothing but stir up evermore enmity. It simply ensures further attacks down the line
As I said last night, they might possibly be planning a renewed Occupation of Gaza, with Israel in control, and the reintroduction of Israeli settlers, who will act as a de facto spy network and military police, so October 7 is not repeated. But that's damnably tricky and could so easily go wrong
The final possibility is that Israel doesn't have a plan. It is acting in a spirit of pure revenge
With whom would they negotiate? Hamas is the *government* of Gaza. Israel has declared war on Gaza amd it shouldn't be a surprise - its *government* has launched these attacks.
So the Israeli goal will I believe be simple - remove Hamas as a threat. How they achieve that is tricky, but they won't just be pushing the cross-border terrorists back into their prison.
Removal of Hamas - and the Hamas state - has to be the goal. And that will largely mean the killing of anyone who is Hamas, supports Hamas, lives near Hamas. It is going to be awful - war usually is. Especially when the aggressor is pledged to the extermination of the other side.
That may be Israel’s strategy. That (“killing of anyone who […] lives near Hamas”) would clearly be a war crime and we, as in the UK, should do everything we can to stop war crimes. We cannot criticise Russia for war crimes in Ukraine and wave through Israel, or Hamas, committing war crimes.
Here’s a simple rule of thumb: war crimes are bad. Don’t carry out war crimes. Don’t respond to say crimes with more war crimes. Why is that a proposition that some on PB struggle with?
"war crimes" is a fantasy. There is/are no such thing. They only exist for the winners in war.
The fact that they are typically enforced against the vanquished rather than the victors doesn't mean they aren't a "thing".
They are reasonably clearly defined by international convention, and provide at least some incentive to moderate the conduct of war in terms of impact on non-combatants. The incentive not to commit them is that if you turn out to be the vanquished, you'd probably rather slip away into exile and obscurity rather than ending up in The Hague or as a fugitive.
Should Israel deliberately target civilians? No. Do civilians have some responsibility to flee a war zone? Yes. Again Hamas are not just embedded in the civilian population, they are the government. So eradicating them is going to involve blowing a great many buildings up.
If your neighbour fires his AK47 at prayers 5 times a day, it is time to leave. Because in wartime it is always legitimate to go after CCC targets regardless of where the enemy has put them.
How exactly do 3 million people flee a war zone when they are not allowed to leave by any of the surrounding countries?
They should decide not to have Hamas as their leadership.
Even coming from you that is genuinely one of the stupidest comments any one has made on this topic.
I suppose the Catholics in Northern Ireland deserved to be bombed out and killed because they had Sinn Féin councillors.
There is huge support in Gaza for the Hamas leadership. They can send thousands of "militants" to Israel on near suicide missions. They have mass rallies of hundreds of thousands in the streets protesting against Israel and the Great Satan. They show pictures of six-yr old girls wielding AKs and crying with happiness at the onslaught happening in Israel.
But they are all harmless civilians who only want to find a way out of danger.
It must be very strange living inside your head where everything in the world is so black and white.
It is dangerously close to exactly the sort of attitude that led to Rwanda, Bosnia and indeed the Holocaust. Regarding people as a mass (and indeed to use the words of your friend Netenyahu as animals) rather than individuals is an easy road to 'untermensch'.
You seem pretty conflicted about it all.
Those poor Gazans who turned out in their hundreds of thousands to celebrate actions against Israel are now to be pitied. Of course it's best that civilians leave and they can do so via Egypt or indeed the coast if they wanted to. I have heard nothing about a port blockade perhaps you know different.
I don't for one moment think that every German in 1939 was complicit in the German war aims but I have read nowhere of a safe passage being discussed for them to escape the country before we bombed it.
This is the notion of collective guilt. It is explicitly a war crime.
Then it's one that every country including our own is guilty of. As noted above, it only matters if you lose. But actually of all the Nuremburg trials was one ever held for the bombing of Coventry?
See, I think this is where you and I differ @TOPPING - you see this as an argument for why we shouldn't worry about the plight of the Palestinian people. I see this as an argument for why we should have had a Nuremburg trial not only for the bombing of Coventry, but also the bombing of Dresden. And Hiroshima. Humanity got to a place where it almost said "only following orders" was not a good enough reason for individuals committing crimes against humanity. Much since has been trying to roll that back - we need only look at the indifference to history our Home Secretary displays when discussing the refugee convention, or our own history of "defending our troops" from the consequences of the crimes they committed during the Troubles.
And I find your view wholly admirable. And I do care about the plight of the Palestinian people. I think they have been dreadfully lead although bear not a small amount of responsibility for their leadership.
This is another Brexit issue. Because I was a Remainer it doesn't mean that I thought that everything the EU did was fantastic and beyond reproach; while Brexiters probably didn't think everything the EU did was dreadful, but internet forums, including if you can believe it PB, often force people to adopt those positions.
In this case Israel is not without fault in its behaviour over the past but after the events of the weekend I am giving them quite a lot of leeway to progress the war in whatever way they want and wanted only to point out that at some point a distinction between the sweet, good-natured, wouldn't harm a fly Palestinian people who only want peace with their beloved neighbours Israel, and the Palestinians who, in their hundreds of thousands march in support of the destruction of Israel needs to be drawn.
We didn't single out the nice Germans from the beastly ones and Israel can be forgiven for not doing the same in this instance wrt the Palestinians.
You're an odd fruit sometimes.
On the 'Putin attacking Ukraine' topic you've been at pains to explore the context, discuss the things that might have pushed him into the action (eg did the Iraq War set a precedent? I recall you posing that question quite doggedly), lots of that from you on that one.
Yet on this one, this 'Hamas attacking Israel' topic, any attempt by people to do similar, to mention the context, to discuss reasons why this attack might have happened (eg could the maltreatment of the Palestinians by Israel have anything to do with it?) seems to give you an attack of the vapors.
I'm not slagging you off, I'm genuinely interested in the different way you approach the 2 topics. Putin Ukraine, very up for context and the whys and wherefores. Hamas Israel, not so much. Why is this, do we think?
I am extremely clear on why Hamas attacked Israel. I am extremely clear on why Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Transjordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt attacked them in 1948. And in 1967. And 1973. And 2023.
They attacked them because they wanted to wipe Israel off the map. In each instance they failed and in trying they got themselves into quite a pickle.
Has Israel behaved as you or indeed I would have wished them to over the past 70 years? I'm sure not. But it's useful idiots like you who think that if Israel had only been a bit nicer over the period everyone would be holding hands and making daisy chains together.
You think that I am excusing Israel's behaviour to the Palestinians on the one hand and ignoring the fact that this might be a root cause of this weekend's actions. Just like I seek to understand the reasons for Putin's actions.
I am here to educate you that for centuries and most recently decades the Arab world (and of course others) has been antipathetic to the Jews and hence this weekend's actions are a symptom of that hatred.
Thanks for non flip reply. Doesn't happen too often. I treasure it.
So iyo the antipathy towards Israel in Gaza has little to do with the maltreatment of its Palestinian population. It's down to the inherent appetite of Palestinians for antisemitism.
Ok. I think that's incredibly jaundiced (and arguably racist) but given that is your view of course you won't (as you say) be shedding too many tears if Israel does end up engaging in large scale collective punishment of 'innocent' Palestinians. Inverted commas since they won't be innocent, will they?
Makes sense now. Quality exchange. Thanks again. Chilean red and nuts time.
Hope you are enjoying your red & nuts. To you and @148grss it seems that you have difficulty believing that there is anti-semitism amongst the Arabs. And that Israel has committed some (original - we'll come on to that later) sin which has brought this behaviour upon them.
I think it doesn't take a google genius to determine quickly that there has been a long and well-documented history of anti-semitism amongst everyone including the Arabs.
For the Arabs it takes on a more "traditional" angle because there is a land angle there also. But a cursory reading of any text or oratory of many of today's Arab leaders now or indeed from history will show that there is deep antipathy towards the Jews. I think this is pervasive hence while someone somewhere in Hamas might see this as a homeland issue, to deny the rampant anti-semitism of much of the Arab world is imo to misunderstimate the dynamic of the Middle East both now and throughout history.
Is there a history of anti Semitism amongst Arabic peoples? Of course. But I do not think it is the driving force behind the issue of Israel, especially not to begin with. Indeed, if the finger of anti Semitism should point anywhere it should be at the hegemonic western powers who refused fleeing Jewish people to their shores prior to WW2 - whereas at that point multicultural communities built on common understanding between Palestinian and Jewish exiles were commonplace. The land that is Israel and Palestine were also relatively free of faith based conflict under Ottoman control - all faiths had the freedom to access Jerusalem, for instance. The issue, I would argue, hinges on the forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of people from their land. This creates long lasting conflict - it has done with India and Pakistan, it has done in Africa, and it is the case with Israel and Palestine. People want to return to their homes, to farm their olives, to live and die in the house they were born in. At least with Indian partition people on both Hindu/secular and the Muslim sides held both positions - with Israel it is clear that one side was being forced out by the other.
On a purely empirical basis the fact that here were 100ks in ancient Jewish communities across the Middle East before they were expelled suggests that antisemitism wasn’t all pervasive until that point.
"Until they were expelled". You mean it wasn't the fall that killed him but the final three feet.
I know you’re the PB self appointed chief antisemitism sniffer outer, but do jog on, there’s a good chap.
Just as I'm the chief PB sun rises in the East correspondent also.
The fact that Israel has the ability to cut off power , water and food supplies to Gaza highlights one of the issues that have bred hatred .
Hamas lives off the hatred . Children are brought up with the hatred and it’s just a repeating cycle.
There are still those on both sides who wanted a peaceful resolution , sadly that’s been consigned to the bin for yet more years .
Israel can raze Gaza to the ground but the hatred will remain .
But if the Israelis can somehow shift the Gazans into Egypt, then the hatred will be further away, and the chances of Hamas repeating their spectacular incursion will be greatly minimised
I do wonder if that is what the Israelis are planning. I don't see any other point in wading into Gaza at the cost of many thousands of lives, quite a few of them Israeli
Will Egypt accept them ? The whole situation is just awful. There are no good outcomes here .
Absolutely. No good outcomes
If Egypt seals the border (and they have tightened control this morning) then Israel will be left with a cornered population unable to go anywhere. What then?
I may be wrong and this isn't the Israeli plan, but then I am bewildered as to what Israel thinks it can achieve with ANOTHER invasion that does nothing but stir up evermore enmity. It simply ensures further attacks down the line
As I said last night, they might possibly be planning a renewed Occupation of Gaza, with Israel in control, and the reintroduction of Israeli settlers, who will act as a de facto spy network and military police, so October 7 is not repeated. But that's damnably tricky and could so easily go wrong
The final possibility is that Israel doesn't have a plan. It is acting in a spirit of pure revenge
With whom would they negotiate? Hamas is the *government* of Gaza. Israel has declared war on Gaza amd it shouldn't be a surprise - its *government* has launched these attacks.
So the Israeli goal will I believe be simple - remove Hamas as a threat. How they achieve that is tricky, but they won't just be pushing the cross-border terrorists back into their prison.
Removal of Hamas - and the Hamas state - has to be the goal. And that will largely mean the killing of anyone who is Hamas, supports Hamas, lives near Hamas. It is going to be awful - war usually is. Especially when the aggressor is pledged to the extermination of the other side.
That may be Israel’s strategy. That (“killing of anyone who […] lives near Hamas”) would clearly be a war crime and we, as in the UK, should do everything we can to stop war crimes. We cannot criticise Russia for war crimes in Ukraine and wave through Israel, or Hamas, committing war crimes.
Here’s a simple rule of thumb: war crimes are bad. Don’t carry out war crimes. Don’t respond to say crimes with more war crimes. Why is that a proposition that some on PB struggle with?
"war crimes" is a fantasy. There is/are no such thing. They only exist for the winners in war.
The fact that they are typically enforced against the vanquished rather than the victors doesn't mean they aren't a "thing".
They are reasonably clearly defined by international convention, and provide at least some incentive to moderate the conduct of war in terms of impact on non-combatants. The incentive not to commit them is that if you turn out to be the vanquished, you'd probably rather slip away into exile and obscurity rather than ending up in The Hague or as a fugitive.
Should Israel deliberately target civilians? No. Do civilians have some responsibility to flee a war zone? Yes. Again Hamas are not just embedded in the civilian population, they are the government. So eradicating them is going to involve blowing a great many buildings up.
If your neighbour fires his AK47 at prayers 5 times a day, it is time to leave. Because in wartime it is always legitimate to go after CCC targets regardless of where the enemy has put them.
How exactly do 3 million people flee a war zone when they are not allowed to leave by any of the surrounding countries?
They should decide not to have Hamas as their leadership.
Even coming from you that is genuinely one of the stupidest comments any one has made on this topic.
I suppose the Catholics in Northern Ireland deserved to be bombed out and killed because they had Sinn Féin councillors.
There is huge support in Gaza for the Hamas leadership. They can send thousands of "militants" to Israel on near suicide missions. They have mass rallies of hundreds of thousands in the streets protesting against Israel and the Great Satan. They show pictures of six-yr old girls wielding AKs and crying with happiness at the onslaught happening in Israel.
But they are all harmless civilians who only want to find a way out of danger.
It must be very strange living inside your head where everything in the world is so black and white.
It is dangerously close to exactly the sort of attitude that led to Rwanda, Bosnia and indeed the Holocaust. Regarding people as a mass (and indeed to use the words of your friend Netenyahu as animals) rather than individuals is an easy road to 'untermensch'.
You seem pretty conflicted about it all.
Those poor Gazans who turned out in their hundreds of thousands to celebrate actions against Israel are now to be pitied. Of course it's best that civilians leave and they can do so via Egypt or indeed the coast if they wanted to. I have heard nothing about a port blockade perhaps you know different.
I don't for one moment think that every German in 1939 was complicit in the German war aims but I have read nowhere of a safe passage being discussed for them to escape the country before we bombed it.
This is the notion of collective guilt. It is explicitly a war crime.
Then it's one that every country including our own is guilty of. As noted above, it only matters if you lose. But actually of all the Nuremburg trials was one ever held for the bombing of Coventry?
See, I think this is where you and I differ @TOPPING - you see this as an argument for why we shouldn't worry about the plight of the Palestinian people. I see this as an argument for why we should have had a Nuremburg trial not only for the bombing of Coventry, but also the bombing of Dresden. And Hiroshima. Humanity got to a place where it almost said "only following orders" was not a good enough reason for individuals committing crimes against humanity. Much since has been trying to roll that back - we need only look at the indifference to history our Home Secretary displays when discussing the refugee convention, or our own history of "defending our troops" from the consequences of the crimes they committed during the Troubles.
And I find your view wholly admirable. And I do care about the plight of the Palestinian people. I think they have been dreadfully lead although bear not a small amount of responsibility for their leadership.
This is another Brexit issue. Because I was a Remainer it doesn't mean that I thought that everything the EU did was fantastic and beyond reproach; while Brexiters probably didn't think everything the EU did was dreadful, but internet forums, including if you can believe it PB, often force people to adopt those positions.
In this case Israel is not without fault in its behaviour over the past but after the events of the weekend I am giving them quite a lot of leeway to progress the war in whatever way they want and wanted only to point out that at some point a distinction between the sweet, good-natured, wouldn't harm a fly Palestinian people who only want peace with their beloved neighbours Israel, and the Palestinians who, in their hundreds of thousands march in support of the destruction of Israel needs to be drawn.
We didn't single out the nice Germans from the beastly ones and Israel can be forgiven for not doing the same in this instance wrt the Palestinians.
You're an odd fruit sometimes.
On the 'Putin attacking Ukraine' topic you've been at pains to explore the context, discuss the things that might have pushed him into the action (eg did the Iraq War set a precedent? I recall you posing that question quite doggedly), lots of that from you on that one.
Yet on this one, this 'Hamas attacking Israel' topic, any attempt by people to do similar, to mention the context, to discuss reasons why this attack might have happened (eg could the maltreatment of the Palestinians by Israel have anything to do with it?) seems to give you an attack of the vapors.
I'm not slagging you off, I'm genuinely interested in the different way you approach the 2 topics. Putin Ukraine, very up for context and the whys and wherefores. Hamas Israel, not so much. Why is this, do we think?
I am extremely clear on why Hamas attacked Israel. I am extremely clear on why Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Transjordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt attacked them in 1948. And in 1967. And 1973. And 2023.
They attacked them because they wanted to wipe Israel off the map. In each instance they failed and in trying they got themselves into quite a pickle.
Has Israel behaved as you or indeed I would have wished them to over the past 70 years? I'm sure not. But it's useful idiots like you who think that if Israel had only been a bit nicer over the period everyone would be holding hands and making daisy chains together.
You think that I am excusing Israel's behaviour to the Palestinians on the one hand and ignoring the fact that this might be a root cause of this weekend's actions. Just like I seek to understand the reasons for Putin's actions.
I am here to educate you that for centuries and most recently decades the Arab world (and of course others) has been antipathetic to the Jews and hence this weekend's actions are a symptom of that hatred.
Thanks for non flip reply. Doesn't happen too often. I treasure it.
So iyo the antipathy towards Israel in Gaza has little to do with the maltreatment of its Palestinian population. It's down to the inherent appetite of Palestinians for antisemitism.
Ok. I think that's incredibly jaundiced (and arguably racist) but given that is your view of course you won't (as you say) be shedding too many tears if Israel does end up engaging in large scale collective punishment of 'innocent' Palestinians. Inverted commas since they won't be innocent, will they?
Makes sense now. Quality exchange. Thanks again. Chilean red and nuts time.
Hope you are enjoying your red & nuts. To you and @148grss it seems that you have difficulty believing that there is anti-semitism amongst the Arabs. And that Israel has committed some (original - we'll come on to that later) sin which has brought this behaviour upon them.
I think it doesn't take a google genius to determine quickly that there has been a long and well-documented history of anti-semitism amongst everyone including the Arabs.
For the Arabs it takes on a more "traditional" angle because there is a land angle there also. But a cursory reading of any text or oratory of many of today's Arab leaders now or indeed from history will show that there is deep antipathy towards the Jews. I think this is pervasive hence while someone somewhere in Hamas might see this as a homeland issue, to deny the rampant anti-semitism of much of the Arab world is imo to misunderstimate the dynamic of the Middle East both now and throughout history.
Is there a history of anti Semitism amongst Arabic peoples? Of course. But I do not think it is the driving force behind the issue of Israel, especially not to begin with. Indeed, if the finger of anti Semitism should point anywhere it should be at the hegemonic western powers who refused fleeing Jewish people to their shores prior to WW2 - whereas at that point multicultural communities built on common understanding between Palestinian and Jewish exiles were commonplace. The land that is Israel and Palestine were also relatively free of faith based conflict under Ottoman control - all faiths had the freedom to access Jerusalem, for instance. The issue, I would argue, hinges on the forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of people from their land. This creates long lasting conflict - it has done with India and Pakistan, it has done in Africa, and it is the case with Israel and Palestine. People want to return to their homes, to farm their olives, to live and die in the house they were born in. At least with Indian partition people on both Hindu/secular and the Muslim sides held both positions - with Israel it is clear that one side was being forced out by the other.
I wondered how long it would be before we got to: "It's all out fault!"
You really should look at the history of Jews in the region, e.g. Iraq, to see why your pretend high-minded ideal of allowing people to return is utterly bogus. Why are the Palestinians the only ones who have this right to return?
I mean the history is quite clear that in many ways this is all our fault - both the British state specifically and western imperial nations more generally. I mean it was European imperialist states that committed pogroms and refused Jewish refugees entry for hundreds of years, and European imperialist logic that led to the holocaust. The concentration camp was not a Nazi invention, although their evolution into a specific death camp arguably was, and the European imperial powers had already committed acts of mass murder on par with the death camps - just over longer periods of time and less formalised in parts.
I mean I’m in favour of a stateless, classless society without borders - that goes slightly beyond the mere right to return in my mind - but yes, Jewish people should be able to live where they wish, especially more so if their near ancestors were expelled from there. That includes Iraq. I don’t see how me having the position that all states (if they are going to exist at all) should be like that therefore means I am specifically calling on Israel as a special case.
"I mean the history is quite clear that in many ways this is all our fault"
You really don't need to say any more than this. We already understand that this is your answer for EVERYTHING
I mean when you have an Empire that spanned a whole lot of the globe… yeah - lots of things that are bad with the world are going to be, in part, related to that. It’s not rocket science.
We are now at the stage that many countries in Africa have been independent longer than when they were actual colonies.
Even laying aside the fact that the norm in many colonies was for the powers to rule through the local tribes, how long should we assume everything is our fault and not those independent countries' own issues?
On some level @148grss seems to believe that decolonisation was a mistake, and we should instead have all joined in one big happy family with no borders.
I mean, that is the least favourable way of interpreting my beliefs. My political ideals are, without a deep education in what many call "theory", broadly communist / anarchist - I believe that states are fictive creations of groups of people that are typically used on the behalf of the elite of those groups to better position themselves in international power structures. I see no reason why we cannot live in a stateless society, with the second best option being some form of singular global state (although that is a far second best, big gap between first and second preference). I also understand that is not a likely state of political reality in my lifetime, so... yeah
No state?
So no state education? No voting for state elections? No state welfare? No state healthcare? No taxes paid to the state?
Or not?
I mean, in my ideal utopian position - anarchist organisation methods via community organising and mutual aid would cover those things, and things would be done on a basis of direct democracy within the community you live and work - with mutually beneficial arrangements between those communities to support each other. We can take some ideas from the how Native American confederacies worked, we can look at the democratic confederalism of the Kurdish theorists and Rojavan project. Again, I understand this is not a realistic position in the political reality of the now, even if I think it is both a possible and preferable way to live. I also accept that, relative to others on the left, I am not a theory nerd and therefore cannot and do not wish to give you a full outline of how this would function or answer the questions that are often asked of, like, "how would x under anarchist utopia" when the answer is roughly "if enough people want x, and enough people have the skills to make x, people who enjoy making x will be free to make x and you, as someone who enjoys x but may not have the skills to make x, would be able to also have x".
You must be the most right-wing libertarian on the state.
So if people want to voluntarily pay towards the community aid then they can be free to do so, but if they don't then there's no taxes and no compulsion?
Or are you saying that people would be forced to pay taxes? In which case there is a state in your utopian position, even if you dislike the word.
Again - my utopianism does not believe in capital; from each according to their ability, to each according to their need.
And if you look at Rojava then involvement in the direct democracy is compulsory - but that was enforced in part to make sure that women and other ethnic groups were represented and speaking for themselves in what was (and still is) a very patriarchal culture with a long history of political tensions down ethnic lines.
If its compulsory, its a state.
So you don't believe in no state. You believe in your version of a state.
The fact that Israel has the ability to cut off power , water and food supplies to Gaza highlights one of the issues that have bred hatred .
Hamas lives off the hatred . Children are brought up with the hatred and it’s just a repeating cycle.
There are still those on both sides who wanted a peaceful resolution , sadly that’s been consigned to the bin for yet more years .
Israel can raze Gaza to the ground but the hatred will remain .
But if the Israelis can somehow shift the Gazans into Egypt, then the hatred will be further away, and the chances of Hamas repeating their spectacular incursion will be greatly minimised
I do wonder if that is what the Israelis are planning. I don't see any other point in wading into Gaza at the cost of many thousands of lives, quite a few of them Israeli
Will Egypt accept them ? The whole situation is just awful. There are no good outcomes here .
Absolutely. No good outcomes
If Egypt seals the border (and they have tightened control this morning) then Israel will be left with a cornered population unable to go anywhere. What then?
I may be wrong and this isn't the Israeli plan, but then I am bewildered as to what Israel thinks it can achieve with ANOTHER invasion that does nothing but stir up evermore enmity. It simply ensures further attacks down the line
As I said last night, they might possibly be planning a renewed Occupation of Gaza, with Israel in control, and the reintroduction of Israeli settlers, who will act as a de facto spy network and military police, so October 7 is not repeated. But that's damnably tricky and could so easily go wrong
The final possibility is that Israel doesn't have a plan. It is acting in a spirit of pure revenge
With whom would they negotiate? Hamas is the *government* of Gaza. Israel has declared war on Gaza amd it shouldn't be a surprise - its *government* has launched these attacks.
So the Israeli goal will I believe be simple - remove Hamas as a threat. How they achieve that is tricky, but they won't just be pushing the cross-border terrorists back into their prison.
Removal of Hamas - and the Hamas state - has to be the goal. And that will largely mean the killing of anyone who is Hamas, supports Hamas, lives near Hamas. It is going to be awful - war usually is. Especially when the aggressor is pledged to the extermination of the other side.
That may be Israel’s strategy. That (“killing of anyone who […] lives near Hamas”) would clearly be a war crime and we, as in the UK, should do everything we can to stop war crimes. We cannot criticise Russia for war crimes in Ukraine and wave through Israel, or Hamas, committing war crimes.
Here’s a simple rule of thumb: war crimes are bad. Don’t carry out war crimes. Don’t respond to say crimes with more war crimes. Why is that a proposition that some on PB struggle with?
"war crimes" is a fantasy. There is/are no such thing. They only exist for the winners in war.
The fact that they are typically enforced against the vanquished rather than the victors doesn't mean they aren't a "thing".
They are reasonably clearly defined by international convention, and provide at least some incentive to moderate the conduct of war in terms of impact on non-combatants. The incentive not to commit them is that if you turn out to be the vanquished, you'd probably rather slip away into exile and obscurity rather than ending up in The Hague or as a fugitive.
Should Israel deliberately target civilians? No. Do civilians have some responsibility to flee a war zone? Yes. Again Hamas are not just embedded in the civilian population, they are the government. So eradicating them is going to involve blowing a great many buildings up.
If your neighbour fires his AK47 at prayers 5 times a day, it is time to leave. Because in wartime it is always legitimate to go after CCC targets regardless of where the enemy has put them.
How exactly do 3 million people flee a war zone when they are not allowed to leave by any of the surrounding countries?
They should decide not to have Hamas as their leadership.
Even coming from you that is genuinely one of the stupidest comments any one has made on this topic.
I suppose the Catholics in Northern Ireland deserved to be bombed out and killed because they had Sinn Féin councillors.
There is huge support in Gaza for the Hamas leadership. They can send thousands of "militants" to Israel on near suicide missions. They have mass rallies of hundreds of thousands in the streets protesting against Israel and the Great Satan. They show pictures of six-yr old girls wielding AKs and crying with happiness at the onslaught happening in Israel.
But they are all harmless civilians who only want to find a way out of danger.
It must be very strange living inside your head where everything in the world is so black and white.
It is dangerously close to exactly the sort of attitude that led to Rwanda, Bosnia and indeed the Holocaust. Regarding people as a mass (and indeed to use the words of your friend Netenyahu as animals) rather than individuals is an easy road to 'untermensch'.
You seem pretty conflicted about it all.
Those poor Gazans who turned out in their hundreds of thousands to celebrate actions against Israel are now to be pitied. Of course it's best that civilians leave and they can do so via Egypt or indeed the coast if they wanted to. I have heard nothing about a port blockade perhaps you know different.
I don't for one moment think that every German in 1939 was complicit in the German war aims but I have read nowhere of a safe passage being discussed for them to escape the country before we bombed it.
This is the notion of collective guilt. It is explicitly a war crime.
Then it's one that every country including our own is guilty of. As noted above, it only matters if you lose. But actually of all the Nuremburg trials was one ever held for the bombing of Coventry?
See, I think this is where you and I differ @TOPPING - you see this as an argument for why we shouldn't worry about the plight of the Palestinian people. I see this as an argument for why we should have had a Nuremburg trial not only for the bombing of Coventry, but also the bombing of Dresden. And Hiroshima. Humanity got to a place where it almost said "only following orders" was not a good enough reason for individuals committing crimes against humanity. Much since has been trying to roll that back - we need only look at the indifference to history our Home Secretary displays when discussing the refugee convention, or our own history of "defending our troops" from the consequences of the crimes they committed during the Troubles.
And I find your view wholly admirable. And I do care about the plight of the Palestinian people. I think they have been dreadfully lead although bear not a small amount of responsibility for their leadership.
This is another Brexit issue. Because I was a Remainer it doesn't mean that I thought that everything the EU did was fantastic and beyond reproach; while Brexiters probably didn't think everything the EU did was dreadful, but internet forums, including if you can believe it PB, often force people to adopt those positions.
In this case Israel is not without fault in its behaviour over the past but after the events of the weekend I am giving them quite a lot of leeway to progress the war in whatever way they want and wanted only to point out that at some point a distinction between the sweet, good-natured, wouldn't harm a fly Palestinian people who only want peace with their beloved neighbours Israel, and the Palestinians who, in their hundreds of thousands march in support of the destruction of Israel needs to be drawn.
We didn't single out the nice Germans from the beastly ones and Israel can be forgiven for not doing the same in this instance wrt the Palestinians.
You're an odd fruit sometimes.
On the 'Putin attacking Ukraine' topic you've been at pains to explore the context, discuss the things that might have pushed him into the action (eg did the Iraq War set a precedent? I recall you posing that question quite doggedly), lots of that from you on that one.
Yet on this one, this 'Hamas attacking Israel' topic, any attempt by people to do similar, to mention the context, to discuss reasons why this attack might have happened (eg could the maltreatment of the Palestinians by Israel have anything to do with it?) seems to give you an attack of the vapors.
I'm not slagging you off, I'm genuinely interested in the different way you approach the 2 topics. Putin Ukraine, very up for context and the whys and wherefores. Hamas Israel, not so much. Why is this, do we think?
I am extremely clear on why Hamas attacked Israel. I am extremely clear on why Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Transjordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt attacked them in 1948. And in 1967. And 1973. And 2023.
They attacked them because they wanted to wipe Israel off the map. In each instance they failed and in trying they got themselves into quite a pickle.
Has Israel behaved as you or indeed I would have wished them to over the past 70 years? I'm sure not. But it's useful idiots like you who think that if Israel had only been a bit nicer over the period everyone would be holding hands and making daisy chains together.
You think that I am excusing Israel's behaviour to the Palestinians on the one hand and ignoring the fact that this might be a root cause of this weekend's actions. Just like I seek to understand the reasons for Putin's actions.
I am here to educate you that for centuries and most recently decades the Arab world (and of course others) has been antipathetic to the Jews and hence this weekend's actions are a symptom of that hatred.
Thanks for non flip reply. Doesn't happen too often. I treasure it.
So iyo the antipathy towards Israel in Gaza has little to do with the maltreatment of its Palestinian population. It's down to the inherent appetite of Palestinians for antisemitism.
Ok. I think that's incredibly jaundiced (and arguably racist) but given that is your view of course you won't (as you say) be shedding too many tears if Israel does end up engaging in large scale collective punishment of 'innocent' Palestinians. Inverted commas since they won't be innocent, will they?
Makes sense now. Quality exchange. Thanks again. Chilean red and nuts time.
Hope you are enjoying your red & nuts. To you and @148grss it seems that you have difficulty believing that there is anti-semitism amongst the Arabs. And that Israel has committed some (original - we'll come on to that later) sin which has brought this behaviour upon them.
I think it doesn't take a google genius to determine quickly that there has been a long and well-documented history of anti-semitism amongst everyone including the Arabs.
For the Arabs it takes on a more "traditional" angle because there is a land angle there also. But a cursory reading of any text or oratory of many of today's Arab leaders now or indeed from history will show that there is deep antipathy towards the Jews. I think this is pervasive hence while someone somewhere in Hamas might see this as a homeland issue, to deny the rampant anti-semitism of much of the Arab world is imo to misunderstimate the dynamic of the Middle East both now and throughout history.
Is there a history of anti Semitism amongst Arabic peoples? Of course. But I do not think it is the driving force behind the issue of Israel, especially not to begin with. Indeed, if the finger of anti Semitism should point anywhere it should be at the hegemonic western powers who refused fleeing Jewish people to their shores prior to WW2 - whereas at that point multicultural communities built on common understanding between Palestinian and Jewish exiles were commonplace. The land that is Israel and Palestine were also relatively free of faith based conflict under Ottoman control - all faiths had the freedom to access Jerusalem, for instance. The issue, I would argue, hinges on the forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of people from their land. This creates long lasting conflict - it has done with India and Pakistan, it has done in Africa, and it is the case with Israel and Palestine. People want to return to their homes, to farm their olives, to live and die in the house they were born in. At least with Indian partition people on both Hindu/secular and the Muslim sides held both positions - with Israel it is clear that one side was being forced out by the other.
On a purely empirical basis the fact that here were 100ks in ancient Jewish communities across the Middle East before they were expelled suggests that antisemitism wasn’t all pervasive until that point.
Er, the Jews were captured and enslaved in Babylon. This is historical fact
"The Babylonian captivity or Babylonian exile is the period in Jewish history during which a large number of Judeans from the ancient Kingdom of Judah were captives in Babylon, the capital city of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, following their defeat in the Jewish–Babylonian War and the destruction of Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem. The event is known to be historical, and is described in the Hebrew Bible in addition to archaeological and extra-biblical sources."
BY the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept : when we remembered thee, O Sion.
2 As for our harps, we hanged them up : upon the trees that are therein.
3 For they that led us away captive required of us then a song, and melody in our heaviness : Sing us one of the songs of Sion.
4 How shall we sing the Lord's song : in a strange land?
5 If I forget thee, O Jerusalem : let my right hand forget her cunning.
6 If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth : yea, if I prefer not Jerusalem in my mirth.
7 Remember the children of Edom, O Lord, in the day of Jerusalem : how they said, Down with it, down with it, even to the ground.
8 O daughter of Babylon, wasted with misery : yea, happy shall he be that rewardeth thee, as thou hast served us.
9 Blessed shall he be that taketh thy children : and throweth them against the stones.
Ps 137
That's not the lyrics I know.
By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down Yeah, we wept, when we remembered Zion By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down Yeah, we wept, when we remembered Zion
There the wicked Carried us away in captivity Required from us a song Now how shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land? There the wicked Carried us away in captivity Requiring of us a song Now how shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Let the words of our mouth and the meditation of our heart Be acceptable in thy sight here tonight Let the words of our mouth and the meditation of our hearts Be acceptable in thy sight here tonight
By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down Yeah, we wept, when we remembered Zion By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down Yeah, we wept, when we remembered Zion
By the rivers of Babylon (dark tears of Babylon) There we sat down (you got to sing a song) Yeah, we wept (sing a song of love) When we remembered Zion (yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah) By the rivers of Babylon (rough bits of Babylon)
There we sat down (you hear the people cry) Yeah, we wept (they need their God) When we remembered Zion (ooh, have the power) By the rivers of Babylon (oh yeah yeah), there we sat down (yeah, yeah)
If Hezbollah escalate then we potentially see war spread first through Lebanon then into Syria. An IDF invasion of Southern Syria and bombing of Iran changes Middle East politics quite a lot.
There's all sorts of dodgy rumours but Hezbollah are claiming dead and injured from Israeli cross-border strikes. There's rumours of mobilisation in Lebanon and Israel are evacuating the border towns.
The fact that Israel has the ability to cut off power , water and food supplies to Gaza highlights one of the issues that have bred hatred .
Hamas lives off the hatred . Children are brought up with the hatred and it’s just a repeating cycle.
There are still those on both sides who wanted a peaceful resolution , sadly that’s been consigned to the bin for yet more years .
Israel can raze Gaza to the ground but the hatred will remain .
But if the Israelis can somehow shift the Gazans into Egypt, then the hatred will be further away, and the chances of Hamas repeating their spectacular incursion will be greatly minimised
I do wonder if that is what the Israelis are planning. I don't see any other point in wading into Gaza at the cost of many thousands of lives, quite a few of them Israeli
Will Egypt accept them ? The whole situation is just awful. There are no good outcomes here .
Absolutely. No good outcomes
If Egypt seals the border (and they have tightened control this morning) then Israel will be left with a cornered population unable to go anywhere. What then?
I may be wrong and this isn't the Israeli plan, but then I am bewildered as to what Israel thinks it can achieve with ANOTHER invasion that does nothing but stir up evermore enmity. It simply ensures further attacks down the line
As I said last night, they might possibly be planning a renewed Occupation of Gaza, with Israel in control, and the reintroduction of Israeli settlers, who will act as a de facto spy network and military police, so October 7 is not repeated. But that's damnably tricky and could so easily go wrong
The final possibility is that Israel doesn't have a plan. It is acting in a spirit of pure revenge
With whom would they negotiate? Hamas is the *government* of Gaza. Israel has declared war on Gaza amd it shouldn't be a surprise - its *government* has launched these attacks.
So the Israeli goal will I believe be simple - remove Hamas as a threat. How they achieve that is tricky, but they won't just be pushing the cross-border terrorists back into their prison.
Removal of Hamas - and the Hamas state - has to be the goal. And that will largely mean the killing of anyone who is Hamas, supports Hamas, lives near Hamas. It is going to be awful - war usually is. Especially when the aggressor is pledged to the extermination of the other side.
That may be Israel’s strategy. That (“killing of anyone who […] lives near Hamas”) would clearly be a war crime and we, as in the UK, should do everything we can to stop war crimes. We cannot criticise Russia for war crimes in Ukraine and wave through Israel, or Hamas, committing war crimes.
Here’s a simple rule of thumb: war crimes are bad. Don’t carry out war crimes. Don’t respond to say crimes with more war crimes. Why is that a proposition that some on PB struggle with?
"war crimes" is a fantasy. There is/are no such thing. They only exist for the winners in war.
The fact that they are typically enforced against the vanquished rather than the victors doesn't mean they aren't a "thing".
They are reasonably clearly defined by international convention, and provide at least some incentive to moderate the conduct of war in terms of impact on non-combatants. The incentive not to commit them is that if you turn out to be the vanquished, you'd probably rather slip away into exile and obscurity rather than ending up in The Hague or as a fugitive.
Should Israel deliberately target civilians? No. Do civilians have some responsibility to flee a war zone? Yes. Again Hamas are not just embedded in the civilian population, they are the government. So eradicating them is going to involve blowing a great many buildings up.
If your neighbour fires his AK47 at prayers 5 times a day, it is time to leave. Because in wartime it is always legitimate to go after CCC targets regardless of where the enemy has put them.
How exactly do 3 million people flee a war zone when they are not allowed to leave by any of the surrounding countries?
They should decide not to have Hamas as their leadership.
Even coming from you that is genuinely one of the stupidest comments any one has made on this topic.
I suppose the Catholics in Northern Ireland deserved to be bombed out and killed because they had Sinn Féin councillors.
There is huge support in Gaza for the Hamas leadership. They can send thousands of "militants" to Israel on near suicide missions. They have mass rallies of hundreds of thousands in the streets protesting against Israel and the Great Satan. They show pictures of six-yr old girls wielding AKs and crying with happiness at the onslaught happening in Israel.
But they are all harmless civilians who only want to find a way out of danger.
It must be very strange living inside your head where everything in the world is so black and white.
It is dangerously close to exactly the sort of attitude that led to Rwanda, Bosnia and indeed the Holocaust. Regarding people as a mass (and indeed to use the words of your friend Netenyahu as animals) rather than individuals is an easy road to 'untermensch'.
You seem pretty conflicted about it all.
Those poor Gazans who turned out in their hundreds of thousands to celebrate actions against Israel are now to be pitied. Of course it's best that civilians leave and they can do so via Egypt or indeed the coast if they wanted to. I have heard nothing about a port blockade perhaps you know different.
I don't for one moment think that every German in 1939 was complicit in the German war aims but I have read nowhere of a safe passage being discussed for them to escape the country before we bombed it.
This is the notion of collective guilt. It is explicitly a war crime.
Then it's one that every country including our own is guilty of. As noted above, it only matters if you lose. But actually of all the Nuremburg trials was one ever held for the bombing of Coventry?
See, I think this is where you and I differ @TOPPING - you see this as an argument for why we shouldn't worry about the plight of the Palestinian people. I see this as an argument for why we should have had a Nuremburg trial not only for the bombing of Coventry, but also the bombing of Dresden. And Hiroshima. Humanity got to a place where it almost said "only following orders" was not a good enough reason for individuals committing crimes against humanity. Much since has been trying to roll that back - we need only look at the indifference to history our Home Secretary displays when discussing the refugee convention, or our own history of "defending our troops" from the consequences of the crimes they committed during the Troubles.
And I find your view wholly admirable. And I do care about the plight of the Palestinian people. I think they have been dreadfully lead although bear not a small amount of responsibility for their leadership.
This is another Brexit issue. Because I was a Remainer it doesn't mean that I thought that everything the EU did was fantastic and beyond reproach; while Brexiters probably didn't think everything the EU did was dreadful, but internet forums, including if you can believe it PB, often force people to adopt those positions.
In this case Israel is not without fault in its behaviour over the past but after the events of the weekend I am giving them quite a lot of leeway to progress the war in whatever way they want and wanted only to point out that at some point a distinction between the sweet, good-natured, wouldn't harm a fly Palestinian people who only want peace with their beloved neighbours Israel, and the Palestinians who, in their hundreds of thousands march in support of the destruction of Israel needs to be drawn.
We didn't single out the nice Germans from the beastly ones and Israel can be forgiven for not doing the same in this instance wrt the Palestinians.
You're an odd fruit sometimes.
On the 'Putin attacking Ukraine' topic you've been at pains to explore the context, discuss the things that might have pushed him into the action (eg did the Iraq War set a precedent? I recall you posing that question quite doggedly), lots of that from you on that one.
Yet on this one, this 'Hamas attacking Israel' topic, any attempt by people to do similar, to mention the context, to discuss reasons why this attack might have happened (eg could the maltreatment of the Palestinians by Israel have anything to do with it?) seems to give you an attack of the vapors.
I'm not slagging you off, I'm genuinely interested in the different way you approach the 2 topics. Putin Ukraine, very up for context and the whys and wherefores. Hamas Israel, not so much. Why is this, do we think?
I am extremely clear on why Hamas attacked Israel. I am extremely clear on why Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Transjordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt attacked them in 1948. And in 1967. And 1973. And 2023.
They attacked them because they wanted to wipe Israel off the map. In each instance they failed and in trying they got themselves into quite a pickle.
Has Israel behaved as you or indeed I would have wished them to over the past 70 years? I'm sure not. But it's useful idiots like you who think that if Israel had only been a bit nicer over the period everyone would be holding hands and making daisy chains together.
You think that I am excusing Israel's behaviour to the Palestinians on the one hand and ignoring the fact that this might be a root cause of this weekend's actions. Just like I seek to understand the reasons for Putin's actions.
I am here to educate you that for centuries and most recently decades the Arab world (and of course others) has been antipathetic to the Jews and hence this weekend's actions are a symptom of that hatred.
Thanks for non flip reply. Doesn't happen too often. I treasure it.
So iyo the antipathy towards Israel in Gaza has little to do with the maltreatment of its Palestinian population. It's down to the inherent appetite of Palestinians for antisemitism.
Ok. I think that's incredibly jaundiced (and arguably racist) but given that is your view of course you won't (as you say) be shedding too many tears if Israel does end up engaging in large scale collective punishment of 'innocent' Palestinians. Inverted commas since they won't be innocent, will they?
Makes sense now. Quality exchange. Thanks again. Chilean red and nuts time.
Hope you are enjoying your red & nuts. To you and @148grss it seems that you have difficulty believing that there is anti-semitism amongst the Arabs. And that Israel has committed some (original - we'll come on to that later) sin which has brought this behaviour upon them.
I think it doesn't take a google genius to determine quickly that there has been a long and well-documented history of anti-semitism amongst everyone including the Arabs.
For the Arabs it takes on a more "traditional" angle because there is a land angle there also. But a cursory reading of any text or oratory of many of today's Arab leaders now or indeed from history will show that there is deep antipathy towards the Jews. I think this is pervasive hence while someone somewhere in Hamas might see this as a homeland issue, to deny the rampant anti-semitism of much of the Arab world is imo to misunderstimate the dynamic of the Middle East both now and throughout history.
Is there a history of anti Semitism amongst Arabic peoples? Of course. But I do not think it is the driving force behind the issue of Israel, especially not to begin with. Indeed, if the finger of anti Semitism should point anywhere it should be at the hegemonic western powers who refused fleeing Jewish people to their shores prior to WW2 - whereas at that point multicultural communities built on common understanding between Palestinian and Jewish exiles were commonplace. The land that is Israel and Palestine were also relatively free of faith based conflict under Ottoman control - all faiths had the freedom to access Jerusalem, for instance. The issue, I would argue, hinges on the forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of people from their land. This creates long lasting conflict - it has done with India and Pakistan, it has done in Africa, and it is the case with Israel and Palestine. People want to return to their homes, to farm their olives, to live and die in the house they were born in. At least with Indian partition people on both Hindu/secular and the Muslim sides held both positions - with Israel it is clear that one side was being forced out by the other.
I wondered how long it would be before we got to: "It's all out fault!"
You really should look at the history of Jews in the region, e.g. Iraq, to see why your pretend high-minded ideal of allowing people to return is utterly bogus. Why are the Palestinians the only ones who have this right to return?
I mean the history is quite clear that in many ways this is all our fault - both the British state specifically and western imperial nations more generally. I mean it was European imperialist states that committed pogroms and refused Jewish refugees entry for hundreds of years, and European imperialist logic that led to the holocaust. The concentration camp was not a Nazi invention, although their evolution into a specific death camp arguably was, and the European imperial powers had already committed acts of mass murder on par with the death camps - just over longer periods of time and less formalised in parts.
I mean I’m in favour of a stateless, classless society without borders - that goes slightly beyond the mere right to return in my mind - but yes, Jewish people should be able to live where they wish, especially more so if their near ancestors were expelled from there. That includes Iraq. I don’t see how me having the position that all states (if they are going to exist at all) should be like that therefore means I am specifically calling on Israel as a special case.
"I mean the history is quite clear that in many ways this is all our fault"
You really don't need to say any more than this. We already understand that this is your answer for EVERYTHING
I mean when you have an Empire that spanned a whole lot of the globe… yeah - lots of things that are bad with the world are going to be, in part, related to that. It’s not rocket science.
We are now at the stage that many countries in Africa have been independent longer than when they were actual colonies.
Even laying aside the fact that the norm in many colonies was for the powers to rule through the local tribes, how long should we assume everything is our fault and not those independent countries' own issues?
When we return to those previously colonised countries the same amount of relative wealth that we extracted from them when we colonised them?
I'm sure you're aware of the foot race metaphor for structural problems related to class, race, gender etc. That is the same between colonised and coloniser.
Britain extracted wealth and labour from other countries; it also destroyed industry in other countries so that industry based at home could monopolise markets (see how we destroyed the Indian manufacturing economy under British rule so that our manufactured goods could be sold more). Some of those things advantaged us, and our colonial contemporaries, and disadvantaged others. Again, see how Haiti was forced to pay the debt to France for their own emancipation.
Done, in full, with interest.
The previously colonised countries are mammothly richer per capita than they were before we arrived.
Britain didn't destroy manufacturing capacity, it invented it and exported it.
And if any isn't, its purely due to corruption and theft of its leaders, not us.
That is patently untrue - least of all because those countries may be richer per capita now before they arrived, but they still have to do labour for that. I am saying we should give them back resources relatively equal to the wealth we extracted from them under colonial rule with zero strings attached, for free, as reparations. The fact that we have offshored our sweatshops to their countries under the guise of "providing them with jobs" and have given "aid" to regimes that are friendly to western interests do not count and, indeed, count against us.
The fact that Israel has the ability to cut off power , water and food supplies to Gaza highlights one of the issues that have bred hatred .
Hamas lives off the hatred . Children are brought up with the hatred and it’s just a repeating cycle.
There are still those on both sides who wanted a peaceful resolution , sadly that’s been consigned to the bin for yet more years .
Israel can raze Gaza to the ground but the hatred will remain .
But if the Israelis can somehow shift the Gazans into Egypt, then the hatred will be further away, and the chances of Hamas repeating their spectacular incursion will be greatly minimised
I do wonder if that is what the Israelis are planning. I don't see any other point in wading into Gaza at the cost of many thousands of lives, quite a few of them Israeli
Will Egypt accept them ? The whole situation is just awful. There are no good outcomes here .
Absolutely. No good outcomes
If Egypt seals the border (and they have tightened control this morning) then Israel will be left with a cornered population unable to go anywhere. What then?
I may be wrong and this isn't the Israeli plan, but then I am bewildered as to what Israel thinks it can achieve with ANOTHER invasion that does nothing but stir up evermore enmity. It simply ensures further attacks down the line
As I said last night, they might possibly be planning a renewed Occupation of Gaza, with Israel in control, and the reintroduction of Israeli settlers, who will act as a de facto spy network and military police, so October 7 is not repeated. But that's damnably tricky and could so easily go wrong
The final possibility is that Israel doesn't have a plan. It is acting in a spirit of pure revenge
With whom would they negotiate? Hamas is the *government* of Gaza. Israel has declared war on Gaza amd it shouldn't be a surprise - its *government* has launched these attacks.
So the Israeli goal will I believe be simple - remove Hamas as a threat. How they achieve that is tricky, but they won't just be pushing the cross-border terrorists back into their prison.
Removal of Hamas - and the Hamas state - has to be the goal. And that will largely mean the killing of anyone who is Hamas, supports Hamas, lives near Hamas. It is going to be awful - war usually is. Especially when the aggressor is pledged to the extermination of the other side.
That may be Israel’s strategy. That (“killing of anyone who […] lives near Hamas”) would clearly be a war crime and we, as in the UK, should do everything we can to stop war crimes. We cannot criticise Russia for war crimes in Ukraine and wave through Israel, or Hamas, committing war crimes.
Here’s a simple rule of thumb: war crimes are bad. Don’t carry out war crimes. Don’t respond to say crimes with more war crimes. Why is that a proposition that some on PB struggle with?
"war crimes" is a fantasy. There is/are no such thing. They only exist for the winners in war.
The fact that they are typically enforced against the vanquished rather than the victors doesn't mean they aren't a "thing".
They are reasonably clearly defined by international convention, and provide at least some incentive to moderate the conduct of war in terms of impact on non-combatants. The incentive not to commit them is that if you turn out to be the vanquished, you'd probably rather slip away into exile and obscurity rather than ending up in The Hague or as a fugitive.
Should Israel deliberately target civilians? No. Do civilians have some responsibility to flee a war zone? Yes. Again Hamas are not just embedded in the civilian population, they are the government. So eradicating them is going to involve blowing a great many buildings up.
If your neighbour fires his AK47 at prayers 5 times a day, it is time to leave. Because in wartime it is always legitimate to go after CCC targets regardless of where the enemy has put them.
How exactly do 3 million people flee a war zone when they are not allowed to leave by any of the surrounding countries?
They should decide not to have Hamas as their leadership.
Even coming from you that is genuinely one of the stupidest comments any one has made on this topic.
I suppose the Catholics in Northern Ireland deserved to be bombed out and killed because they had Sinn Féin councillors.
There is huge support in Gaza for the Hamas leadership. They can send thousands of "militants" to Israel on near suicide missions. They have mass rallies of hundreds of thousands in the streets protesting against Israel and the Great Satan. They show pictures of six-yr old girls wielding AKs and crying with happiness at the onslaught happening in Israel.
But they are all harmless civilians who only want to find a way out of danger.
It must be very strange living inside your head where everything in the world is so black and white.
It is dangerously close to exactly the sort of attitude that led to Rwanda, Bosnia and indeed the Holocaust. Regarding people as a mass (and indeed to use the words of your friend Netenyahu as animals) rather than individuals is an easy road to 'untermensch'.
You seem pretty conflicted about it all.
Those poor Gazans who turned out in their hundreds of thousands to celebrate actions against Israel are now to be pitied. Of course it's best that civilians leave and they can do so via Egypt or indeed the coast if they wanted to. I have heard nothing about a port blockade perhaps you know different.
I don't for one moment think that every German in 1939 was complicit in the German war aims but I have read nowhere of a safe passage being discussed for them to escape the country before we bombed it.
This is the notion of collective guilt. It is explicitly a war crime.
Then it's one that every country including our own is guilty of. As noted above, it only matters if you lose. But actually of all the Nuremburg trials was one ever held for the bombing of Coventry?
See, I think this is where you and I differ @TOPPING - you see this as an argument for why we shouldn't worry about the plight of the Palestinian people. I see this as an argument for why we should have had a Nuremburg trial not only for the bombing of Coventry, but also the bombing of Dresden. And Hiroshima. Humanity got to a place where it almost said "only following orders" was not a good enough reason for individuals committing crimes against humanity. Much since has been trying to roll that back - we need only look at the indifference to history our Home Secretary displays when discussing the refugee convention, or our own history of "defending our troops" from the consequences of the crimes they committed during the Troubles.
And I find your view wholly admirable. And I do care about the plight of the Palestinian people. I think they have been dreadfully lead although bear not a small amount of responsibility for their leadership.
This is another Brexit issue. Because I was a Remainer it doesn't mean that I thought that everything the EU did was fantastic and beyond reproach; while Brexiters probably didn't think everything the EU did was dreadful, but internet forums, including if you can believe it PB, often force people to adopt those positions.
In this case Israel is not without fault in its behaviour over the past but after the events of the weekend I am giving them quite a lot of leeway to progress the war in whatever way they want and wanted only to point out that at some point a distinction between the sweet, good-natured, wouldn't harm a fly Palestinian people who only want peace with their beloved neighbours Israel, and the Palestinians who, in their hundreds of thousands march in support of the destruction of Israel needs to be drawn.
We didn't single out the nice Germans from the beastly ones and Israel can be forgiven for not doing the same in this instance wrt the Palestinians.
You're an odd fruit sometimes.
On the 'Putin attacking Ukraine' topic you've been at pains to explore the context, discuss the things that might have pushed him into the action (eg did the Iraq War set a precedent? I recall you posing that question quite doggedly), lots of that from you on that one.
Yet on this one, this 'Hamas attacking Israel' topic, any attempt by people to do similar, to mention the context, to discuss reasons why this attack might have happened (eg could the maltreatment of the Palestinians by Israel have anything to do with it?) seems to give you an attack of the vapors.
I'm not slagging you off, I'm genuinely interested in the different way you approach the 2 topics. Putin Ukraine, very up for context and the whys and wherefores. Hamas Israel, not so much. Why is this, do we think?
I am extremely clear on why Hamas attacked Israel. I am extremely clear on why Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Transjordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt attacked them in 1948. And in 1967. And 1973. And 2023.
They attacked them because they wanted to wipe Israel off the map. In each instance they failed and in trying they got themselves into quite a pickle.
Has Israel behaved as you or indeed I would have wished them to over the past 70 years? I'm sure not. But it's useful idiots like you who think that if Israel had only been a bit nicer over the period everyone would be holding hands and making daisy chains together.
You think that I am excusing Israel's behaviour to the Palestinians on the one hand and ignoring the fact that this might be a root cause of this weekend's actions. Just like I seek to understand the reasons for Putin's actions.
I am here to educate you that for centuries and most recently decades the Arab world (and of course others) has been antipathetic to the Jews and hence this weekend's actions are a symptom of that hatred.
Thanks for non flip reply. Doesn't happen too often. I treasure it.
So iyo the antipathy towards Israel in Gaza has little to do with the maltreatment of its Palestinian population. It's down to the inherent appetite of Palestinians for antisemitism.
Ok. I think that's incredibly jaundiced (and arguably racist) but given that is your view of course you won't (as you say) be shedding too many tears if Israel does end up engaging in large scale collective punishment of 'innocent' Palestinians. Inverted commas since they won't be innocent, will they?
Makes sense now. Quality exchange. Thanks again. Chilean red and nuts time.
Hope you are enjoying your red & nuts. To you and @148grss it seems that you have difficulty believing that there is anti-semitism amongst the Arabs. And that Israel has committed some (original - we'll come on to that later) sin which has brought this behaviour upon them.
I think it doesn't take a google genius to determine quickly that there has been a long and well-documented history of anti-semitism amongst everyone including the Arabs.
For the Arabs it takes on a more "traditional" angle because there is a land angle there also. But a cursory reading of any text or oratory of many of today's Arab leaders now or indeed from history will show that there is deep antipathy towards the Jews. I think this is pervasive hence while someone somewhere in Hamas might see this as a homeland issue, to deny the rampant anti-semitism of much of the Arab world is imo to misunderstimate the dynamic of the Middle East both now and throughout history.
Is there a history of anti Semitism amongst Arabic peoples? Of course. But I do not think it is the driving force behind the issue of Israel, especially not to begin with. Indeed, if the finger of anti Semitism should point anywhere it should be at the hegemonic western powers who refused fleeing Jewish people to their shores prior to WW2 - whereas at that point multicultural communities built on common understanding between Palestinian and Jewish exiles were commonplace. The land that is Israel and Palestine were also relatively free of faith based conflict under Ottoman control - all faiths had the freedom to access Jerusalem, for instance. The issue, I would argue, hinges on the forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of people from their land. This creates long lasting conflict - it has done with India and Pakistan, it has done in Africa, and it is the case with Israel and Palestine. People want to return to their homes, to farm their olives, to live and die in the house they were born in. At least with Indian partition people on both Hindu/secular and the Muslim sides held both positions - with Israel it is clear that one side was being forced out by the other.
On a purely empirical basis the fact that here were 100ks in ancient Jewish communities across the Middle East before they were expelled suggests that antisemitism wasn’t all pervasive until that point.
Er, the Jews were captured and enslaved in Babylon. This is historical fact
"The Babylonian captivity or Babylonian exile is the period in Jewish history during which a large number of Judeans from the ancient Kingdom of Judah were captives in Babylon, the capital city of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, following their defeat in the Jewish–Babylonian War and the destruction of Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem. The event is known to be historical, and is described in the Hebrew Bible in addition to archaeological and extra-biblical sources."
BY the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept : when we remembered thee, O Sion.
2 As for our harps, we hanged them up : upon the trees that are therein.
3 For they that led us away captive required of us then a song, and melody in our heaviness : Sing us one of the songs of Sion.
4 How shall we sing the Lord's song : in a strange land?
5 If I forget thee, O Jerusalem : let my right hand forget her cunning.
6 If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth : yea, if I prefer not Jerusalem in my mirth.
7 Remember the children of Edom, O Lord, in the day of Jerusalem : how they said, Down with it, down with it, even to the ground.
8 O daughter of Babylon, wasted with misery : yea, happy shall he be that rewardeth thee, as thou hast served us.
9 Blessed shall he be that taketh thy children : and throweth them against the stones.
Ps 137
That's not the lyrics I know.
By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down Yeah, we wept, when we remembered Zion By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down Yeah, we wept, when we remembered Zion
There the wicked Carried us away in captivity Required from us a song Now how shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land? There the wicked Carried us away in captivity Requiring of us a song Now how shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Let the words of our mouth and the meditation of our heart Be acceptable in thy sight here tonight Let the words of our mouth and the meditation of our hearts Be acceptable in thy sight here tonight
By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down Yeah, we wept, when we remembered Zion By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down Yeah, we wept, when we remembered Zion
By the rivers of Babylon (dark tears of Babylon) There we sat down (you got to sing a song) Yeah, we wept (sing a song of love) When we remembered Zion (yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah) By the rivers of Babylon (rough bits of Babylon)
There we sat down (you hear the people cry) Yeah, we wept (they need their God) When we remembered Zion (ooh, have the power) By the rivers of Babylon (oh yeah yeah), there we sat down (yeah, yeah)
Boney M.
It's no 'Rah Rah, Rasputin' mind. Also didn't have the 'Cossack' disco dancing.
The fact that Israel has the ability to cut off power , water and food supplies to Gaza highlights one of the issues that have bred hatred .
Hamas lives off the hatred . Children are brought up with the hatred and it’s just a repeating cycle.
There are still those on both sides who wanted a peaceful resolution , sadly that’s been consigned to the bin for yet more years .
Israel can raze Gaza to the ground but the hatred will remain .
But if the Israelis can somehow shift the Gazans into Egypt, then the hatred will be further away, and the chances of Hamas repeating their spectacular incursion will be greatly minimised
I do wonder if that is what the Israelis are planning. I don't see any other point in wading into Gaza at the cost of many thousands of lives, quite a few of them Israeli
Will Egypt accept them ? The whole situation is just awful. There are no good outcomes here .
Absolutely. No good outcomes
If Egypt seals the border (and they have tightened control this morning) then Israel will be left with a cornered population unable to go anywhere. What then?
I may be wrong and this isn't the Israeli plan, but then I am bewildered as to what Israel thinks it can achieve with ANOTHER invasion that does nothing but stir up evermore enmity. It simply ensures further attacks down the line
As I said last night, they might possibly be planning a renewed Occupation of Gaza, with Israel in control, and the reintroduction of Israeli settlers, who will act as a de facto spy network and military police, so October 7 is not repeated. But that's damnably tricky and could so easily go wrong
The final possibility is that Israel doesn't have a plan. It is acting in a spirit of pure revenge
With whom would they negotiate? Hamas is the *government* of Gaza. Israel has declared war on Gaza amd it shouldn't be a surprise - its *government* has launched these attacks.
So the Israeli goal will I believe be simple - remove Hamas as a threat. How they achieve that is tricky, but they won't just be pushing the cross-border terrorists back into their prison.
Removal of Hamas - and the Hamas state - has to be the goal. And that will largely mean the killing of anyone who is Hamas, supports Hamas, lives near Hamas. It is going to be awful - war usually is. Especially when the aggressor is pledged to the extermination of the other side.
That may be Israel’s strategy. That (“killing of anyone who […] lives near Hamas”) would clearly be a war crime and we, as in the UK, should do everything we can to stop war crimes. We cannot criticise Russia for war crimes in Ukraine and wave through Israel, or Hamas, committing war crimes.
Here’s a simple rule of thumb: war crimes are bad. Don’t carry out war crimes. Don’t respond to say crimes with more war crimes. Why is that a proposition that some on PB struggle with?
"war crimes" is a fantasy. There is/are no such thing. They only exist for the winners in war.
The fact that they are typically enforced against the vanquished rather than the victors doesn't mean they aren't a "thing".
They are reasonably clearly defined by international convention, and provide at least some incentive to moderate the conduct of war in terms of impact on non-combatants. The incentive not to commit them is that if you turn out to be the vanquished, you'd probably rather slip away into exile and obscurity rather than ending up in The Hague or as a fugitive.
Should Israel deliberately target civilians? No. Do civilians have some responsibility to flee a war zone? Yes. Again Hamas are not just embedded in the civilian population, they are the government. So eradicating them is going to involve blowing a great many buildings up.
If your neighbour fires his AK47 at prayers 5 times a day, it is time to leave. Because in wartime it is always legitimate to go after CCC targets regardless of where the enemy has put them.
How exactly do 3 million people flee a war zone when they are not allowed to leave by any of the surrounding countries?
They should decide not to have Hamas as their leadership.
Even coming from you that is genuinely one of the stupidest comments any one has made on this topic.
I suppose the Catholics in Northern Ireland deserved to be bombed out and killed because they had Sinn Féin councillors.
There is huge support in Gaza for the Hamas leadership. They can send thousands of "militants" to Israel on near suicide missions. They have mass rallies of hundreds of thousands in the streets protesting against Israel and the Great Satan. They show pictures of six-yr old girls wielding AKs and crying with happiness at the onslaught happening in Israel.
But they are all harmless civilians who only want to find a way out of danger.
It must be very strange living inside your head where everything in the world is so black and white.
It is dangerously close to exactly the sort of attitude that led to Rwanda, Bosnia and indeed the Holocaust. Regarding people as a mass (and indeed to use the words of your friend Netenyahu as animals) rather than individuals is an easy road to 'untermensch'.
You seem pretty conflicted about it all.
Those poor Gazans who turned out in their hundreds of thousands to celebrate actions against Israel are now to be pitied. Of course it's best that civilians leave and they can do so via Egypt or indeed the coast if they wanted to. I have heard nothing about a port blockade perhaps you know different.
I don't for one moment think that every German in 1939 was complicit in the German war aims but I have read nowhere of a safe passage being discussed for them to escape the country before we bombed it.
This is the notion of collective guilt. It is explicitly a war crime.
Then it's one that every country including our own is guilty of. As noted above, it only matters if you lose. But actually of all the Nuremburg trials was one ever held for the bombing of Coventry?
See, I think this is where you and I differ @TOPPING - you see this as an argument for why we shouldn't worry about the plight of the Palestinian people. I see this as an argument for why we should have had a Nuremburg trial not only for the bombing of Coventry, but also the bombing of Dresden. And Hiroshima. Humanity got to a place where it almost said "only following orders" was not a good enough reason for individuals committing crimes against humanity. Much since has been trying to roll that back - we need only look at the indifference to history our Home Secretary displays when discussing the refugee convention, or our own history of "defending our troops" from the consequences of the crimes they committed during the Troubles.
And I find your view wholly admirable. And I do care about the plight of the Palestinian people. I think they have been dreadfully lead although bear not a small amount of responsibility for their leadership.
This is another Brexit issue. Because I was a Remainer it doesn't mean that I thought that everything the EU did was fantastic and beyond reproach; while Brexiters probably didn't think everything the EU did was dreadful, but internet forums, including if you can believe it PB, often force people to adopt those positions.
In this case Israel is not without fault in its behaviour over the past but after the events of the weekend I am giving them quite a lot of leeway to progress the war in whatever way they want and wanted only to point out that at some point a distinction between the sweet, good-natured, wouldn't harm a fly Palestinian people who only want peace with their beloved neighbours Israel, and the Palestinians who, in their hundreds of thousands march in support of the destruction of Israel needs to be drawn.
We didn't single out the nice Germans from the beastly ones and Israel can be forgiven for not doing the same in this instance wrt the Palestinians.
You're an odd fruit sometimes.
On the 'Putin attacking Ukraine' topic you've been at pains to explore the context, discuss the things that might have pushed him into the action (eg did the Iraq War set a precedent? I recall you posing that question quite doggedly), lots of that from you on that one.
Yet on this one, this 'Hamas attacking Israel' topic, any attempt by people to do similar, to mention the context, to discuss reasons why this attack might have happened (eg could the maltreatment of the Palestinians by Israel have anything to do with it?) seems to give you an attack of the vapors.
I'm not slagging you off, I'm genuinely interested in the different way you approach the 2 topics. Putin Ukraine, very up for context and the whys and wherefores. Hamas Israel, not so much. Why is this, do we think?
I am extremely clear on why Hamas attacked Israel. I am extremely clear on why Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Transjordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt attacked them in 1948. And in 1967. And 1973. And 2023.
They attacked them because they wanted to wipe Israel off the map. In each instance they failed and in trying they got themselves into quite a pickle.
Has Israel behaved as you or indeed I would have wished them to over the past 70 years? I'm sure not. But it's useful idiots like you who think that if Israel had only been a bit nicer over the period everyone would be holding hands and making daisy chains together.
You think that I am excusing Israel's behaviour to the Palestinians on the one hand and ignoring the fact that this might be a root cause of this weekend's actions. Just like I seek to understand the reasons for Putin's actions.
I am here to educate you that for centuries and most recently decades the Arab world (and of course others) has been antipathetic to the Jews and hence this weekend's actions are a symptom of that hatred.
Thanks for non flip reply. Doesn't happen too often. I treasure it.
So iyo the antipathy towards Israel in Gaza has little to do with the maltreatment of its Palestinian population. It's down to the inherent appetite of Palestinians for antisemitism.
Ok. I think that's incredibly jaundiced (and arguably racist) but given that is your view of course you won't (as you say) be shedding too many tears if Israel does end up engaging in large scale collective punishment of 'innocent' Palestinians. Inverted commas since they won't be innocent, will they?
Makes sense now. Quality exchange. Thanks again. Chilean red and nuts time.
Hope you are enjoying your red & nuts. To you and @148grss it seems that you have difficulty believing that there is anti-semitism amongst the Arabs. And that Israel has committed some (original - we'll come on to that later) sin which has brought this behaviour upon them.
I think it doesn't take a google genius to determine quickly that there has been a long and well-documented history of anti-semitism amongst everyone including the Arabs.
For the Arabs it takes on a more "traditional" angle because there is a land angle there also. But a cursory reading of any text or oratory of many of today's Arab leaders now or indeed from history will show that there is deep antipathy towards the Jews. I think this is pervasive hence while someone somewhere in Hamas might see this as a homeland issue, to deny the rampant anti-semitism of much of the Arab world is imo to misunderstimate the dynamic of the Middle East both now and throughout history.
Is there a history of anti Semitism amongst Arabic peoples? Of course. But I do not think it is the driving force behind the issue of Israel, especially not to begin with. Indeed, if the finger of anti Semitism should point anywhere it should be at the hegemonic western powers who refused fleeing Jewish people to their shores prior to WW2 - whereas at that point multicultural communities built on common understanding between Palestinian and Jewish exiles were commonplace. The land that is Israel and Palestine were also relatively free of faith based conflict under Ottoman control - all faiths had the freedom to access Jerusalem, for instance. The issue, I would argue, hinges on the forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of people from their land. This creates long lasting conflict - it has done with India and Pakistan, it has done in Africa, and it is the case with Israel and Palestine. People want to return to their homes, to farm their olives, to live and die in the house they were born in. At least with Indian partition people on both Hindu/secular and the Muslim sides held both positions - with Israel it is clear that one side was being forced out by the other.
I wondered how long it would be before we got to: "It's all out fault!"
You really should look at the history of Jews in the region, e.g. Iraq, to see why your pretend high-minded ideal of allowing people to return is utterly bogus. Why are the Palestinians the only ones who have this right to return?
I mean the history is quite clear that in many ways this is all our fault - both the British state specifically and western imperial nations more generally. I mean it was European imperialist states that committed pogroms and refused Jewish refugees entry for hundreds of years, and European imperialist logic that led to the holocaust. The concentration camp was not a Nazi invention, although their evolution into a specific death camp arguably was, and the European imperial powers had already committed acts of mass murder on par with the death camps - just over longer periods of time and less formalised in parts.
I mean I’m in favour of a stateless, classless society without borders - that goes slightly beyond the mere right to return in my mind - but yes, Jewish people should be able to live where they wish, especially more so if their near ancestors were expelled from there. That includes Iraq. I don’t see how me having the position that all states (if they are going to exist at all) should be like that therefore means I am specifically calling on Israel as a special case.
"I mean the history is quite clear that in many ways this is all our fault"
You really don't need to say any more than this. We already understand that this is your answer for EVERYTHING
I mean when you have an Empire that spanned a whole lot of the globe… yeah - lots of things that are bad with the world are going to be, in part, related to that. It’s not rocket science.
We are now at the stage that many countries in Africa have been independent longer than when they were actual colonies.
Even laying aside the fact that the norm in many colonies was for the powers to rule through the local tribes, how long should we assume everything is our fault and not those independent countries' own issues?
When we return to those previously colonised countries the same amount of relative wealth that we extracted from them when we colonised them?
I'm sure you're aware of the foot race metaphor for structural problems related to class, race, gender etc. That is the same between colonised and coloniser.
Britain extracted wealth and labour from other countries; it also destroyed industry in other countries so that industry based at home could monopolise markets (see how we destroyed the Indian manufacturing economy under British rule so that our manufactured goods could be sold more). Some of those things advantaged us, and our colonial contemporaries, and disadvantaged others. Again, see how Haiti was forced to pay the debt to France for their own emancipation.
Done, in full, with interest.
The previously colonised countries are mammothly richer per capita than they were before we arrived.
Britain didn't destroy manufacturing capacity, it invented it and exported it.
And if any isn't, its purely due to corruption and theft of its leaders, not us.
That is patently untrue - least of all because those countries may be richer per capita now before they arrived, but they still have to do labour for that. I am saying we should give them back resources relatively equal to the wealth we extracted from them under colonial rule with zero strings attached, for free, as reparations. The fact that we have offshored our sweatshops to their countries under the guise of "providing them with jobs" and have given "aid" to regimes that are friendly to western interests do not count and, indeed, count against us.
"We" should not do diddly shit, as "we" did not take anything from them - and its absolutely racist to say "we" did.
I think that I am right in saying a very high proportion of Gaza’s water and electricity comes from Israel. People are going to be driven out by thirst.
Oh, close to 100% of Gaza's water and electricity comes from Israel.
Gaza has no airport, and Israel has blockaded its port, so there is no ability for Gaza to import coal or gas from anywhere else, to allow them to make power. (And without power, they can't make clean water.)
There is some diesel that comes across in trucks from Egypt, and which is used to power backup generators. And there is some rooftop solar. But - basically - Gaza is 100% dependent on Israel.
And they will exploit that to make Gaza uninhabitable. This is not going to end well for anyone.
There are two lots of losers here:
The people of Southern Israel, who saw their land invaded, and who were tortured, raped and kidnapped. (And by the way, for what? It's not like there was any possibility that motorcycle riding Hamas fighters were going to militarily defeat Izsrael.)
And the ordinary people of Gaza.
Life was already miserable there. It is going to get worse.
This mess is never getting any better for years and is only getting worse.
The rich world (including the UK) should pay a fortune to Egypt and Gazans to relocate Gazans to Sinai and provide humongous levels of aid and development. Stuff their mouths with money to ensure they're developed in a way that frankly is never going to happen in Gaza.
That's still looks like ethnic cleansing. That's still a crime against humanity. UK government involvement in such a scheme would be illegal.
Would you propose the rich world (including the UK) pay a fortune to Ukrainians in Donetsk to be relocated?
The fact that Israel has the ability to cut off power , water and food supplies to Gaza highlights one of the issues that have bred hatred .
Hamas lives off the hatred . Children are brought up with the hatred and it’s just a repeating cycle.
There are still those on both sides who wanted a peaceful resolution , sadly that’s been consigned to the bin for yet more years .
Israel can raze Gaza to the ground but the hatred will remain .
But if the Israelis can somehow shift the Gazans into Egypt, then the hatred will be further away, and the chances of Hamas repeating their spectacular incursion will be greatly minimised
I do wonder if that is what the Israelis are planning. I don't see any other point in wading into Gaza at the cost of many thousands of lives, quite a few of them Israeli
Will Egypt accept them ? The whole situation is just awful. There are no good outcomes here .
Absolutely. No good outcomes
If Egypt seals the border (and they have tightened control this morning) then Israel will be left with a cornered population unable to go anywhere. What then?
I may be wrong and this isn't the Israeli plan, but then I am bewildered as to what Israel thinks it can achieve with ANOTHER invasion that does nothing but stir up evermore enmity. It simply ensures further attacks down the line
As I said last night, they might possibly be planning a renewed Occupation of Gaza, with Israel in control, and the reintroduction of Israeli settlers, who will act as a de facto spy network and military police, so October 7 is not repeated. But that's damnably tricky and could so easily go wrong
The final possibility is that Israel doesn't have a plan. It is acting in a spirit of pure revenge
With whom would they negotiate? Hamas is the *government* of Gaza. Israel has declared war on Gaza amd it shouldn't be a surprise - its *government* has launched these attacks.
So the Israeli goal will I believe be simple - remove Hamas as a threat. How they achieve that is tricky, but they won't just be pushing the cross-border terrorists back into their prison.
Removal of Hamas - and the Hamas state - has to be the goal. And that will largely mean the killing of anyone who is Hamas, supports Hamas, lives near Hamas. It is going to be awful - war usually is. Especially when the aggressor is pledged to the extermination of the other side.
That may be Israel’s strategy. That (“killing of anyone who […] lives near Hamas”) would clearly be a war crime and we, as in the UK, should do everything we can to stop war crimes. We cannot criticise Russia for war crimes in Ukraine and wave through Israel, or Hamas, committing war crimes.
Here’s a simple rule of thumb: war crimes are bad. Don’t carry out war crimes. Don’t respond to say crimes with more war crimes. Why is that a proposition that some on PB struggle with?
"war crimes" is a fantasy. There is/are no such thing. They only exist for the winners in war.
The fact that they are typically enforced against the vanquished rather than the victors doesn't mean they aren't a "thing".
They are reasonably clearly defined by international convention, and provide at least some incentive to moderate the conduct of war in terms of impact on non-combatants. The incentive not to commit them is that if you turn out to be the vanquished, you'd probably rather slip away into exile and obscurity rather than ending up in The Hague or as a fugitive.
Should Israel deliberately target civilians? No. Do civilians have some responsibility to flee a war zone? Yes. Again Hamas are not just embedded in the civilian population, they are the government. So eradicating them is going to involve blowing a great many buildings up.
If your neighbour fires his AK47 at prayers 5 times a day, it is time to leave. Because in wartime it is always legitimate to go after CCC targets regardless of where the enemy has put them.
How exactly do 3 million people flee a war zone when they are not allowed to leave by any of the surrounding countries?
They should decide not to have Hamas as their leadership.
Even coming from you that is genuinely one of the stupidest comments any one has made on this topic.
I suppose the Catholics in Northern Ireland deserved to be bombed out and killed because they had Sinn Féin councillors.
There is huge support in Gaza for the Hamas leadership. They can send thousands of "militants" to Israel on near suicide missions. They have mass rallies of hundreds of thousands in the streets protesting against Israel and the Great Satan. They show pictures of six-yr old girls wielding AKs and crying with happiness at the onslaught happening in Israel.
But they are all harmless civilians who only want to find a way out of danger.
It must be very strange living inside your head where everything in the world is so black and white.
It is dangerously close to exactly the sort of attitude that led to Rwanda, Bosnia and indeed the Holocaust. Regarding people as a mass (and indeed to use the words of your friend Netenyahu as animals) rather than individuals is an easy road to 'untermensch'.
You seem pretty conflicted about it all.
Those poor Gazans who turned out in their hundreds of thousands to celebrate actions against Israel are now to be pitied. Of course it's best that civilians leave and they can do so via Egypt or indeed the coast if they wanted to. I have heard nothing about a port blockade perhaps you know different.
I don't for one moment think that every German in 1939 was complicit in the German war aims but I have read nowhere of a safe passage being discussed for them to escape the country before we bombed it.
This is the notion of collective guilt. It is explicitly a war crime.
Then it's one that every country including our own is guilty of. As noted above, it only matters if you lose. But actually of all the Nuremburg trials was one ever held for the bombing of Coventry?
See, I think this is where you and I differ @TOPPING - you see this as an argument for why we shouldn't worry about the plight of the Palestinian people. I see this as an argument for why we should have had a Nuremburg trial not only for the bombing of Coventry, but also the bombing of Dresden. And Hiroshima. Humanity got to a place where it almost said "only following orders" was not a good enough reason for individuals committing crimes against humanity. Much since has been trying to roll that back - we need only look at the indifference to history our Home Secretary displays when discussing the refugee convention, or our own history of "defending our troops" from the consequences of the crimes they committed during the Troubles.
And I find your view wholly admirable. And I do care about the plight of the Palestinian people. I think they have been dreadfully lead although bear not a small amount of responsibility for their leadership.
This is another Brexit issue. Because I was a Remainer it doesn't mean that I thought that everything the EU did was fantastic and beyond reproach; while Brexiters probably didn't think everything the EU did was dreadful, but internet forums, including if you can believe it PB, often force people to adopt those positions.
In this case Israel is not without fault in its behaviour over the past but after the events of the weekend I am giving them quite a lot of leeway to progress the war in whatever way they want and wanted only to point out that at some point a distinction between the sweet, good-natured, wouldn't harm a fly Palestinian people who only want peace with their beloved neighbours Israel, and the Palestinians who, in their hundreds of thousands march in support of the destruction of Israel needs to be drawn.
We didn't single out the nice Germans from the beastly ones and Israel can be forgiven for not doing the same in this instance wrt the Palestinians.
You're an odd fruit sometimes.
On the 'Putin attacking Ukraine' topic you've been at pains to explore the context, discuss the things that might have pushed him into the action (eg did the Iraq War set a precedent? I recall you posing that question quite doggedly), lots of that from you on that one.
Yet on this one, this 'Hamas attacking Israel' topic, any attempt by people to do similar, to mention the context, to discuss reasons why this attack might have happened (eg could the maltreatment of the Palestinians by Israel have anything to do with it?) seems to give you an attack of the vapors.
I'm not slagging you off, I'm genuinely interested in the different way you approach the 2 topics. Putin Ukraine, very up for context and the whys and wherefores. Hamas Israel, not so much. Why is this, do we think?
I am extremely clear on why Hamas attacked Israel. I am extremely clear on why Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Transjordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt attacked them in 1948. And in 1967. And 1973. And 2023.
They attacked them because they wanted to wipe Israel off the map. In each instance they failed and in trying they got themselves into quite a pickle.
Has Israel behaved as you or indeed I would have wished them to over the past 70 years? I'm sure not. But it's useful idiots like you who think that if Israel had only been a bit nicer over the period everyone would be holding hands and making daisy chains together.
You think that I am excusing Israel's behaviour to the Palestinians on the one hand and ignoring the fact that this might be a root cause of this weekend's actions. Just like I seek to understand the reasons for Putin's actions.
I am here to educate you that for centuries and most recently decades the Arab world (and of course others) has been antipathetic to the Jews and hence this weekend's actions are a symptom of that hatred.
Thanks for non flip reply. Doesn't happen too often. I treasure it.
So iyo the antipathy towards Israel in Gaza has little to do with the maltreatment of its Palestinian population. It's down to the inherent appetite of Palestinians for antisemitism.
Ok. I think that's incredibly jaundiced (and arguably racist) but given that is your view of course you won't (as you say) be shedding too many tears if Israel does end up engaging in large scale collective punishment of 'innocent' Palestinians. Inverted commas since they won't be innocent, will they?
Makes sense now. Quality exchange. Thanks again. Chilean red and nuts time.
Hope you are enjoying your red & nuts. To you and @148grss it seems that you have difficulty believing that there is anti-semitism amongst the Arabs. And that Israel has committed some (original - we'll come on to that later) sin which has brought this behaviour upon them.
I think it doesn't take a google genius to determine quickly that there has been a long and well-documented history of anti-semitism amongst everyone including the Arabs.
For the Arabs it takes on a more "traditional" angle because there is a land angle there also. But a cursory reading of any text or oratory of many of today's Arab leaders now or indeed from history will show that there is deep antipathy towards the Jews. I think this is pervasive hence while someone somewhere in Hamas might see this as a homeland issue, to deny the rampant anti-semitism of much of the Arab world is imo to misunderstimate the dynamic of the Middle East both now and throughout history.
Is there a history of anti Semitism amongst Arabic peoples? Of course. But I do not think it is the driving force behind the issue of Israel, especially not to begin with. Indeed, if the finger of anti Semitism should point anywhere it should be at the hegemonic western powers who refused fleeing Jewish people to their shores prior to WW2 - whereas at that point multicultural communities built on common understanding between Palestinian and Jewish exiles were commonplace. The land that is Israel and Palestine were also relatively free of faith based conflict under Ottoman control - all faiths had the freedom to access Jerusalem, for instance. The issue, I would argue, hinges on the forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of people from their land. This creates long lasting conflict - it has done with India and Pakistan, it has done in Africa, and it is the case with Israel and Palestine. People want to return to their homes, to farm their olives, to live and die in the house they were born in. At least with Indian partition people on both Hindu/secular and the Muslim sides held both positions - with Israel it is clear that one side was being forced out by the other.
I wondered how long it would be before we got to: "It's all out fault!"
You really should look at the history of Jews in the region, e.g. Iraq, to see why your pretend high-minded ideal of allowing people to return is utterly bogus. Why are the Palestinians the only ones who have this right to return?
I mean the history is quite clear that in many ways this is all our fault - both the British state specifically and western imperial nations more generally. I mean it was European imperialist states that committed pogroms and refused Jewish refugees entry for hundreds of years, and European imperialist logic that led to the holocaust. The concentration camp was not a Nazi invention, although their evolution into a specific death camp arguably was, and the European imperial powers had already committed acts of mass murder on par with the death camps - just over longer periods of time and less formalised in parts.
I mean I’m in favour of a stateless, classless society without borders - that goes slightly beyond the mere right to return in my mind - but yes, Jewish people should be able to live where they wish, especially more so if their near ancestors were expelled from there. That includes Iraq. I don’t see how me having the position that all states (if they are going to exist at all) should be like that therefore means I am specifically calling on Israel as a special case.
"I mean the history is quite clear that in many ways this is all our fault"
You really don't need to say any more than this. We already understand that this is your answer for EVERYTHING
I mean when you have an Empire that spanned a whole lot of the globe… yeah - lots of things that are bad with the world are going to be, in part, related to that. It’s not rocket science.
We are now at the stage that many countries in Africa have been independent longer than when they were actual colonies.
Even laying aside the fact that the norm in many colonies was for the powers to rule through the local tribes, how long should we assume everything is our fault and not those independent countries' own issues?
On some level @148grss seems to believe that decolonisation was a mistake, and we should instead have all joined in one big happy family with no borders.
I mean, that is the least favourable way of interpreting my beliefs. My political ideals are, without a deep education in what many call "theory", broadly communist / anarchist - I believe that states are fictive creations of groups of people that are typically used on the behalf of the elite of those groups to better position themselves in international power structures. I see no reason why we cannot live in a stateless society, with the second best option being some form of singular global state (although that is a far second best, big gap between first and second preference). I also understand that is not a likely state of political reality in my lifetime, so... yeah
No state?
So no state education? No voting for state elections? No state welfare? No state healthcare? No taxes paid to the state?
Or not?
I mean, in my ideal utopian position - anarchist organisation methods via community organising and mutual aid would cover those things, and things would be done on a basis of direct democracy within the community you live and work - with mutually beneficial arrangements between those communities to support each other. We can take some ideas from the how Native American confederacies worked, we can look at the democratic confederalism of the Kurdish theorists and Rojavan project. Again, I understand this is not a realistic position in the political reality of the now, even if I think it is both a possible and preferable way to live. I also accept that, relative to others on the left, I am not a theory nerd and therefore cannot and do not wish to give you a full outline of how this would function or answer the questions that are often asked of, like, "how would x under anarchist utopia" when the answer is roughly "if enough people want x, and enough people have the skills to make x, people who enjoy making x will be free to make x and you, as someone who enjoys x but may not have the skills to make x, would be able to also have x".
You must be the most right-wing libertarian on the state.
So if people want to voluntarily pay towards the community aid then they can be free to do so, but if they don't then there's no taxes and no compulsion?
Or are you saying that people would be forced to pay taxes? In which case there is a state in your utopian position, even if you dislike the word.
Again - my utopianism does not believe in capital; from each according to their ability, to each according to their need.
And if you look at Rojava then involvement in the direct democracy is compulsory - but that was enforced in part to make sure that women and other ethnic groups were represented and speaking for themselves in what was (and still is) a very patriarchal culture with a long history of political tensions down ethnic lines.
If its compulsory, its a state.
So you don't believe in no state. You believe in your version of a state.
Like I described, in Rojava they have made specific provisions to make it compulsory that women and ethnic minorities are involved in the direct democracy because they recognise the cultural and historic barriers that prevent that.
If you were to do it in your village, for example, and you didn't want to be involved - that would be fine.
If we are gonna be blamed for everything bad then it is only fair we get the credit for everything good
democracy (Greece), parliaments (Vikings), the rule of law (Rome), free speech (we haven't got it), Magna Carta (England), the English language (England), the internet (USA), cricket (UK), universal suffrage (Iceland?), television (Scotland), antibiotics (England), smiling politely (China), decent suits (you might be right here), rugby (Wales/NZ), erotic spanking (Germany/Austria?), the Raj (UK), Pax Britannica (UK), the abolition of slavery (mostly UK), football (England), and the sandwich (England)
Reminds me. And apologies for the teeny-weeny compressed image courtesy of vanilla (I assume).
I think that I am right in saying a very high proportion of Gaza’s water and electricity comes from Israel. People are going to be driven out by thirst.
Oh, close to 100% of Gaza's water and electricity comes from Israel.
Gaza has no airport, and Israel has blockaded its port, so there is no ability for Gaza to import coal or gas from anywhere else, to allow them to make power. (And without power, they can't make clean water.)
There is some diesel that comes across in trucks from Egypt, and which is used to power backup generators. And there is some rooftop solar. But - basically - Gaza is 100% dependent on Israel.
And they will exploit that to make Gaza uninhabitable. This is not going to end well for anyone.
There are two lots of losers here:
The people of Southern Israel, who saw their land invaded, and who were tortured, raped and kidnapped. (And by the way, for what? It's not like there was any possibility that motorcycle riding Hamas fighters were going to militarily defeat Izsrael.)
And the ordinary people of Gaza.
Life was already miserable there. It is going to get worse.
This mess is never getting any better for years and is only getting worse.
The rich world (including the UK) should pay a fortune to Egypt and Gazans to relocate Gazans to Sinai and provide humongous levels of aid and development. Stuff their mouths with money to ensure they're developed in a way that frankly is never going to happen in Gaza.
That's still looks like ethnic cleansing. That's still a crime against humanity. UK government involvement in such a scheme would be illegal.
Would you propose the rich world (including the UK) pay a fortune to Ukrainians in Donetsk to be relocated?
No.
I'd say I have no qualms with the Russian apologists being relocated after Crimea is liberated.
The fact that Israel has the ability to cut off power , water and food supplies to Gaza highlights one of the issues that have bred hatred .
Hamas lives off the hatred . Children are brought up with the hatred and it’s just a repeating cycle.
There are still those on both sides who wanted a peaceful resolution , sadly that’s been consigned to the bin for yet more years .
Israel can raze Gaza to the ground but the hatred will remain .
But if the Israelis can somehow shift the Gazans into Egypt, then the hatred will be further away, and the chances of Hamas repeating their spectacular incursion will be greatly minimised
I do wonder if that is what the Israelis are planning. I don't see any other point in wading into Gaza at the cost of many thousands of lives, quite a few of them Israeli
Will Egypt accept them ? The whole situation is just awful. There are no good outcomes here .
Absolutely. No good outcomes
If Egypt seals the border (and they have tightened control this morning) then Israel will be left with a cornered population unable to go anywhere. What then?
I may be wrong and this isn't the Israeli plan, but then I am bewildered as to what Israel thinks it can achieve with ANOTHER invasion that does nothing but stir up evermore enmity. It simply ensures further attacks down the line
As I said last night, they might possibly be planning a renewed Occupation of Gaza, with Israel in control, and the reintroduction of Israeli settlers, who will act as a de facto spy network and military police, so October 7 is not repeated. But that's damnably tricky and could so easily go wrong
The final possibility is that Israel doesn't have a plan. It is acting in a spirit of pure revenge
With whom would they negotiate? Hamas is the *government* of Gaza. Israel has declared war on Gaza amd it shouldn't be a surprise - its *government* has launched these attacks.
So the Israeli goal will I believe be simple - remove Hamas as a threat. How they achieve that is tricky, but they won't just be pushing the cross-border terrorists back into their prison.
Removal of Hamas - and the Hamas state - has to be the goal. And that will largely mean the killing of anyone who is Hamas, supports Hamas, lives near Hamas. It is going to be awful - war usually is. Especially when the aggressor is pledged to the extermination of the other side.
That may be Israel’s strategy. That (“killing of anyone who […] lives near Hamas”) would clearly be a war crime and we, as in the UK, should do everything we can to stop war crimes. We cannot criticise Russia for war crimes in Ukraine and wave through Israel, or Hamas, committing war crimes.
Here’s a simple rule of thumb: war crimes are bad. Don’t carry out war crimes. Don’t respond to say crimes with more war crimes. Why is that a proposition that some on PB struggle with?
"war crimes" is a fantasy. There is/are no such thing. They only exist for the winners in war.
The fact that they are typically enforced against the vanquished rather than the victors doesn't mean they aren't a "thing".
They are reasonably clearly defined by international convention, and provide at least some incentive to moderate the conduct of war in terms of impact on non-combatants. The incentive not to commit them is that if you turn out to be the vanquished, you'd probably rather slip away into exile and obscurity rather than ending up in The Hague or as a fugitive.
Should Israel deliberately target civilians? No. Do civilians have some responsibility to flee a war zone? Yes. Again Hamas are not just embedded in the civilian population, they are the government. So eradicating them is going to involve blowing a great many buildings up.
If your neighbour fires his AK47 at prayers 5 times a day, it is time to leave. Because in wartime it is always legitimate to go after CCC targets regardless of where the enemy has put them.
How exactly do 3 million people flee a war zone when they are not allowed to leave by any of the surrounding countries?
They should decide not to have Hamas as their leadership.
Even coming from you that is genuinely one of the stupidest comments any one has made on this topic.
I suppose the Catholics in Northern Ireland deserved to be bombed out and killed because they had Sinn Féin councillors.
There is huge support in Gaza for the Hamas leadership. They can send thousands of "militants" to Israel on near suicide missions. They have mass rallies of hundreds of thousands in the streets protesting against Israel and the Great Satan. They show pictures of six-yr old girls wielding AKs and crying with happiness at the onslaught happening in Israel.
But they are all harmless civilians who only want to find a way out of danger.
It must be very strange living inside your head where everything in the world is so black and white.
It is dangerously close to exactly the sort of attitude that led to Rwanda, Bosnia and indeed the Holocaust. Regarding people as a mass (and indeed to use the words of your friend Netenyahu as animals) rather than individuals is an easy road to 'untermensch'.
You seem pretty conflicted about it all.
Those poor Gazans who turned out in their hundreds of thousands to celebrate actions against Israel are now to be pitied. Of course it's best that civilians leave and they can do so via Egypt or indeed the coast if they wanted to. I have heard nothing about a port blockade perhaps you know different.
I don't for one moment think that every German in 1939 was complicit in the German war aims but I have read nowhere of a safe passage being discussed for them to escape the country before we bombed it.
This is the notion of collective guilt. It is explicitly a war crime.
Then it's one that every country including our own is guilty of. As noted above, it only matters if you lose. But actually of all the Nuremburg trials was one ever held for the bombing of Coventry?
See, I think this is where you and I differ @TOPPING - you see this as an argument for why we shouldn't worry about the plight of the Palestinian people. I see this as an argument for why we should have had a Nuremburg trial not only for the bombing of Coventry, but also the bombing of Dresden. And Hiroshima. Humanity got to a place where it almost said "only following orders" was not a good enough reason for individuals committing crimes against humanity. Much since has been trying to roll that back - we need only look at the indifference to history our Home Secretary displays when discussing the refugee convention, or our own history of "defending our troops" from the consequences of the crimes they committed during the Troubles.
And I find your view wholly admirable. And I do care about the plight of the Palestinian people. I think they have been dreadfully lead although bear not a small amount of responsibility for their leadership.
This is another Brexit issue. Because I was a Remainer it doesn't mean that I thought that everything the EU did was fantastic and beyond reproach; while Brexiters probably didn't think everything the EU did was dreadful, but internet forums, including if you can believe it PB, often force people to adopt those positions.
In this case Israel is not without fault in its behaviour over the past but after the events of the weekend I am giving them quite a lot of leeway to progress the war in whatever way they want and wanted only to point out that at some point a distinction between the sweet, good-natured, wouldn't harm a fly Palestinian people who only want peace with their beloved neighbours Israel, and the Palestinians who, in their hundreds of thousands march in support of the destruction of Israel needs to be drawn.
We didn't single out the nice Germans from the beastly ones and Israel can be forgiven for not doing the same in this instance wrt the Palestinians.
You're an odd fruit sometimes.
On the 'Putin attacking Ukraine' topic you've been at pains to explore the context, discuss the things that might have pushed him into the action (eg did the Iraq War set a precedent? I recall you posing that question quite doggedly), lots of that from you on that one.
Yet on this one, this 'Hamas attacking Israel' topic, any attempt by people to do similar, to mention the context, to discuss reasons why this attack might have happened (eg could the maltreatment of the Palestinians by Israel have anything to do with it?) seems to give you an attack of the vapors.
I'm not slagging you off, I'm genuinely interested in the different way you approach the 2 topics. Putin Ukraine, very up for context and the whys and wherefores. Hamas Israel, not so much. Why is this, do we think?
I am extremely clear on why Hamas attacked Israel. I am extremely clear on why Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Transjordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt attacked them in 1948. And in 1967. And 1973. And 2023.
They attacked them because they wanted to wipe Israel off the map. In each instance they failed and in trying they got themselves into quite a pickle.
Has Israel behaved as you or indeed I would have wished them to over the past 70 years? I'm sure not. But it's useful idiots like you who think that if Israel had only been a bit nicer over the period everyone would be holding hands and making daisy chains together.
You think that I am excusing Israel's behaviour to the Palestinians on the one hand and ignoring the fact that this might be a root cause of this weekend's actions. Just like I seek to understand the reasons for Putin's actions.
I am here to educate you that for centuries and most recently decades the Arab world (and of course others) has been antipathetic to the Jews and hence this weekend's actions are a symptom of that hatred.
Thanks for non flip reply. Doesn't happen too often. I treasure it.
So iyo the antipathy towards Israel in Gaza has little to do with the maltreatment of its Palestinian population. It's down to the inherent appetite of Palestinians for antisemitism.
Ok. I think that's incredibly jaundiced (and arguably racist) but given that is your view of course you won't (as you say) be shedding too many tears if Israel does end up engaging in large scale collective punishment of 'innocent' Palestinians. Inverted commas since they won't be innocent, will they?
Makes sense now. Quality exchange. Thanks again. Chilean red and nuts time.
Hope you are enjoying your red & nuts. To you and @148grss it seems that you have difficulty believing that there is anti-semitism amongst the Arabs. And that Israel has committed some (original - we'll come on to that later) sin which has brought this behaviour upon them.
I think it doesn't take a google genius to determine quickly that there has been a long and well-documented history of anti-semitism amongst everyone including the Arabs.
For the Arabs it takes on a more "traditional" angle because there is a land angle there also. But a cursory reading of any text or oratory of many of today's Arab leaders now or indeed from history will show that there is deep antipathy towards the Jews. I think this is pervasive hence while someone somewhere in Hamas might see this as a homeland issue, to deny the rampant anti-semitism of much of the Arab world is imo to misunderstimate the dynamic of the Middle East both now and throughout history.
Is there a history of anti Semitism amongst Arabic peoples? Of course. But I do not think it is the driving force behind the issue of Israel, especially not to begin with. Indeed, if the finger of anti Semitism should point anywhere it should be at the hegemonic western powers who refused fleeing Jewish people to their shores prior to WW2 - whereas at that point multicultural communities built on common understanding between Palestinian and Jewish exiles were commonplace. The land that is Israel and Palestine were also relatively free of faith based conflict under Ottoman control - all faiths had the freedom to access Jerusalem, for instance. The issue, I would argue, hinges on the forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of people from their land. This creates long lasting conflict - it has done with India and Pakistan, it has done in Africa, and it is the case with Israel and Palestine. People want to return to their homes, to farm their olives, to live and die in the house they were born in. At least with Indian partition people on both Hindu/secular and the Muslim sides held both positions - with Israel it is clear that one side was being forced out by the other.
I wondered how long it would be before we got to: "It's all out fault!"
You really should look at the history of Jews in the region, e.g. Iraq, to see why your pretend high-minded ideal of allowing people to return is utterly bogus. Why are the Palestinians the only ones who have this right to return?
I mean the history is quite clear that in many ways this is all our fault - both the British state specifically and western imperial nations more generally. I mean it was European imperialist states that committed pogroms and refused Jewish refugees entry for hundreds of years, and European imperialist logic that led to the holocaust. The concentration camp was not a Nazi invention, although their evolution into a specific death camp arguably was, and the European imperial powers had already committed acts of mass murder on par with the death camps - just over longer periods of time and less formalised in parts.
I mean I’m in favour of a stateless, classless society without borders - that goes slightly beyond the mere right to return in my mind - but yes, Jewish people should be able to live where they wish, especially more so if their near ancestors were expelled from there. That includes Iraq. I don’t see how me having the position that all states (if they are going to exist at all) should be like that therefore means I am specifically calling on Israel as a special case.
"I mean the history is quite clear that in many ways this is all our fault"
You really don't need to say any more than this. We already understand that this is your answer for EVERYTHING
I mean when you have an Empire that spanned a whole lot of the globe… yeah - lots of things that are bad with the world are going to be, in part, related to that. It’s not rocket science.
We are now at the stage that many countries in Africa have been independent longer than when they were actual colonies.
Even laying aside the fact that the norm in many colonies was for the powers to rule through the local tribes, how long should we assume everything is our fault and not those independent countries' own issues?
On some level @148grss seems to believe that decolonisation was a mistake, and we should instead have all joined in one big happy family with no borders.
I mean, that is the least favourable way of interpreting my beliefs. My political ideals are, without a deep education in what many call "theory", broadly communist / anarchist - I believe that states are fictive creations of groups of people that are typically used on the behalf of the elite of those groups to better position themselves in international power structures. I see no reason why we cannot live in a stateless society, with the second best option being some form of singular global state (although that is a far second best, big gap between first and second preference). I also understand that is not a likely state of political reality in my lifetime, so... yeah
No state?
So no state education? No voting for state elections? No state welfare? No state healthcare? No taxes paid to the state?
Or not?
I mean, in my ideal utopian position - anarchist organisation methods via community organising and mutual aid would cover those things, and things would be done on a basis of direct democracy within the community you live and work - with mutually beneficial arrangements between those communities to support each other. We can take some ideas from the how Native American confederacies worked, we can look at the democratic confederalism of the Kurdish theorists and Rojavan project. Again, I understand this is not a realistic position in the political reality of the now, even if I think it is both a possible and preferable way to live. I also accept that, relative to others on the left, I am not a theory nerd and therefore cannot and do not wish to give you a full outline of how this would function or answer the questions that are often asked of, like, "how would x under anarchist utopia" when the answer is roughly "if enough people want x, and enough people have the skills to make x, people who enjoy making x will be free to make x and you, as someone who enjoys x but may not have the skills to make x, would be able to also have x".
You must be the most right-wing libertarian on the state.
So if people want to voluntarily pay towards the community aid then they can be free to do so, but if they don't then there's no taxes and no compulsion?
Or are you saying that people would be forced to pay taxes? In which case there is a state in your utopian position, even if you dislike the word.
Again - my utopianism does not believe in capital; from each according to their ability, to each according to their need.
And if you look at Rojava then involvement in the direct democracy is compulsory - but that was enforced in part to make sure that women and other ethnic groups were represented and speaking for themselves in what was (and still is) a very patriarchal culture with a long history of political tensions down ethnic lines.
If its compulsory, its a state.
So you don't believe in no state. You believe in your version of a state.
Like I described, in Rojava they have made specific provisions to make it compulsory that women and ethnic minorities are involved in the direct democracy because they recognise the cultural and historic barriers that prevent that.
If you were to do it in your village, for example, and you didn't want to be involved - that would be fine.
If I was an ethnic minority woman in my village, would that be ok? Is there someone adjudicating on this? Am I ethnic enough to be compelled or just not ethnic enough so don't need to bother and sit with my feet up while I watch the fully ethnics walk past my window?
The fact that Israel has the ability to cut off power , water and food supplies to Gaza highlights one of the issues that have bred hatred .
Hamas lives off the hatred . Children are brought up with the hatred and it’s just a repeating cycle.
There are still those on both sides who wanted a peaceful resolution , sadly that’s been consigned to the bin for yet more years .
Israel can raze Gaza to the ground but the hatred will remain .
But if the Israelis can somehow shift the Gazans into Egypt, then the hatred will be further away, and the chances of Hamas repeating their spectacular incursion will be greatly minimised
I do wonder if that is what the Israelis are planning. I don't see any other point in wading into Gaza at the cost of many thousands of lives, quite a few of them Israeli
Will Egypt accept them ? The whole situation is just awful. There are no good outcomes here .
Absolutely. No good outcomes
If Egypt seals the border (and they have tightened control this morning) then Israel will be left with a cornered population unable to go anywhere. What then?
I may be wrong and this isn't the Israeli plan, but then I am bewildered as to what Israel thinks it can achieve with ANOTHER invasion that does nothing but stir up evermore enmity. It simply ensures further attacks down the line
As I said last night, they might possibly be planning a renewed Occupation of Gaza, with Israel in control, and the reintroduction of Israeli settlers, who will act as a de facto spy network and military police, so October 7 is not repeated. But that's damnably tricky and could so easily go wrong
The final possibility is that Israel doesn't have a plan. It is acting in a spirit of pure revenge
With whom would they negotiate? Hamas is the *government* of Gaza. Israel has declared war on Gaza amd it shouldn't be a surprise - its *government* has launched these attacks.
So the Israeli goal will I believe be simple - remove Hamas as a threat. How they achieve that is tricky, but they won't just be pushing the cross-border terrorists back into their prison.
Removal of Hamas - and the Hamas state - has to be the goal. And that will largely mean the killing of anyone who is Hamas, supports Hamas, lives near Hamas. It is going to be awful - war usually is. Especially when the aggressor is pledged to the extermination of the other side.
That may be Israel’s strategy. That (“killing of anyone who […] lives near Hamas”) would clearly be a war crime and we, as in the UK, should do everything we can to stop war crimes. We cannot criticise Russia for war crimes in Ukraine and wave through Israel, or Hamas, committing war crimes.
Here’s a simple rule of thumb: war crimes are bad. Don’t carry out war crimes. Don’t respond to say crimes with more war crimes. Why is that a proposition that some on PB struggle with?
"war crimes" is a fantasy. There is/are no such thing. They only exist for the winners in war.
The fact that they are typically enforced against the vanquished rather than the victors doesn't mean they aren't a "thing".
They are reasonably clearly defined by international convention, and provide at least some incentive to moderate the conduct of war in terms of impact on non-combatants. The incentive not to commit them is that if you turn out to be the vanquished, you'd probably rather slip away into exile and obscurity rather than ending up in The Hague or as a fugitive.
Should Israel deliberately target civilians? No. Do civilians have some responsibility to flee a war zone? Yes. Again Hamas are not just embedded in the civilian population, they are the government. So eradicating them is going to involve blowing a great many buildings up.
If your neighbour fires his AK47 at prayers 5 times a day, it is time to leave. Because in wartime it is always legitimate to go after CCC targets regardless of where the enemy has put them.
How exactly do 3 million people flee a war zone when they are not allowed to leave by any of the surrounding countries?
They should decide not to have Hamas as their leadership.
Even coming from you that is genuinely one of the stupidest comments any one has made on this topic.
I suppose the Catholics in Northern Ireland deserved to be bombed out and killed because they had Sinn Féin councillors.
There is huge support in Gaza for the Hamas leadership. They can send thousands of "militants" to Israel on near suicide missions. They have mass rallies of hundreds of thousands in the streets protesting against Israel and the Great Satan. They show pictures of six-yr old girls wielding AKs and crying with happiness at the onslaught happening in Israel.
But they are all harmless civilians who only want to find a way out of danger.
It must be very strange living inside your head where everything in the world is so black and white.
It is dangerously close to exactly the sort of attitude that led to Rwanda, Bosnia and indeed the Holocaust. Regarding people as a mass (and indeed to use the words of your friend Netenyahu as animals) rather than individuals is an easy road to 'untermensch'.
You seem pretty conflicted about it all.
Those poor Gazans who turned out in their hundreds of thousands to celebrate actions against Israel are now to be pitied. Of course it's best that civilians leave and they can do so via Egypt or indeed the coast if they wanted to. I have heard nothing about a port blockade perhaps you know different.
I don't for one moment think that every German in 1939 was complicit in the German war aims but I have read nowhere of a safe passage being discussed for them to escape the country before we bombed it.
This is the notion of collective guilt. It is explicitly a war crime.
Then it's one that every country including our own is guilty of. As noted above, it only matters if you lose. But actually of all the Nuremburg trials was one ever held for the bombing of Coventry?
See, I think this is where you and I differ @TOPPING - you see this as an argument for why we shouldn't worry about the plight of the Palestinian people. I see this as an argument for why we should have had a Nuremburg trial not only for the bombing of Coventry, but also the bombing of Dresden. And Hiroshima. Humanity got to a place where it almost said "only following orders" was not a good enough reason for individuals committing crimes against humanity. Much since has been trying to roll that back - we need only look at the indifference to history our Home Secretary displays when discussing the refugee convention, or our own history of "defending our troops" from the consequences of the crimes they committed during the Troubles.
And I find your view wholly admirable. And I do care about the plight of the Palestinian people. I think they have been dreadfully lead although bear not a small amount of responsibility for their leadership.
This is another Brexit issue. Because I was a Remainer it doesn't mean that I thought that everything the EU did was fantastic and beyond reproach; while Brexiters probably didn't think everything the EU did was dreadful, but internet forums, including if you can believe it PB, often force people to adopt those positions.
In this case Israel is not without fault in its behaviour over the past but after the events of the weekend I am giving them quite a lot of leeway to progress the war in whatever way they want and wanted only to point out that at some point a distinction between the sweet, good-natured, wouldn't harm a fly Palestinian people who only want peace with their beloved neighbours Israel, and the Palestinians who, in their hundreds of thousands march in support of the destruction of Israel needs to be drawn.
We didn't single out the nice Germans from the beastly ones and Israel can be forgiven for not doing the same in this instance wrt the Palestinians.
You're an odd fruit sometimes.
On the 'Putin attacking Ukraine' topic you've been at pains to explore the context, discuss the things that might have pushed him into the action (eg did the Iraq War set a precedent? I recall you posing that question quite doggedly), lots of that from you on that one.
Yet on this one, this 'Hamas attacking Israel' topic, any attempt by people to do similar, to mention the context, to discuss reasons why this attack might have happened (eg could the maltreatment of the Palestinians by Israel have anything to do with it?) seems to give you an attack of the vapors.
I'm not slagging you off, I'm genuinely interested in the different way you approach the 2 topics. Putin Ukraine, very up for context and the whys and wherefores. Hamas Israel, not so much. Why is this, do we think?
I am extremely clear on why Hamas attacked Israel. I am extremely clear on why Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Transjordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt attacked them in 1948. And in 1967. And 1973. And 2023.
They attacked them because they wanted to wipe Israel off the map. In each instance they failed and in trying they got themselves into quite a pickle.
Has Israel behaved as you or indeed I would have wished them to over the past 70 years? I'm sure not. But it's useful idiots like you who think that if Israel had only been a bit nicer over the period everyone would be holding hands and making daisy chains together.
You think that I am excusing Israel's behaviour to the Palestinians on the one hand and ignoring the fact that this might be a root cause of this weekend's actions. Just like I seek to understand the reasons for Putin's actions.
I am here to educate you that for centuries and most recently decades the Arab world (and of course others) has been antipathetic to the Jews and hence this weekend's actions are a symptom of that hatred.
Thanks for non flip reply. Doesn't happen too often. I treasure it.
So iyo the antipathy towards Israel in Gaza has little to do with the maltreatment of its Palestinian population. It's down to the inherent appetite of Palestinians for antisemitism.
Ok. I think that's incredibly jaundiced (and arguably racist) but given that is your view of course you won't (as you say) be shedding too many tears if Israel does end up engaging in large scale collective punishment of 'innocent' Palestinians. Inverted commas since they won't be innocent, will they?
Makes sense now. Quality exchange. Thanks again. Chilean red and nuts time.
Hope you are enjoying your red & nuts. To you and @148grss it seems that you have difficulty believing that there is anti-semitism amongst the Arabs. And that Israel has committed some (original - we'll come on to that later) sin which has brought this behaviour upon them.
I think it doesn't take a google genius to determine quickly that there has been a long and well-documented history of anti-semitism amongst everyone including the Arabs.
For the Arabs it takes on a more "traditional" angle because there is a land angle there also. But a cursory reading of any text or oratory of many of today's Arab leaders now or indeed from history will show that there is deep antipathy towards the Jews. I think this is pervasive hence while someone somewhere in Hamas might see this as a homeland issue, to deny the rampant anti-semitism of much of the Arab world is imo to misunderstimate the dynamic of the Middle East both now and throughout history.
Is there a history of anti Semitism amongst Arabic peoples? Of course. But I do not think it is the driving force behind the issue of Israel, especially not to begin with. Indeed, if the finger of anti Semitism should point anywhere it should be at the hegemonic western powers who refused fleeing Jewish people to their shores prior to WW2 - whereas at that point multicultural communities built on common understanding between Palestinian and Jewish exiles were commonplace. The land that is Israel and Palestine were also relatively free of faith based conflict under Ottoman control - all faiths had the freedom to access Jerusalem, for instance. The issue, I would argue, hinges on the forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of people from their land. This creates long lasting conflict - it has done with India and Pakistan, it has done in Africa, and it is the case with Israel and Palestine. People want to return to their homes, to farm their olives, to live and die in the house they were born in. At least with Indian partition people on both Hindu/secular and the Muslim sides held both positions - with Israel it is clear that one side was being forced out by the other.
I wondered how long it would be before we got to: "It's all out fault!"
You really should look at the history of Jews in the region, e.g. Iraq, to see why your pretend high-minded ideal of allowing people to return is utterly bogus. Why are the Palestinians the only ones who have this right to return?
I mean the history is quite clear that in many ways this is all our fault - both the British state specifically and western imperial nations more generally. I mean it was European imperialist states that committed pogroms and refused Jewish refugees entry for hundreds of years, and European imperialist logic that led to the holocaust. The concentration camp was not a Nazi invention, although their evolution into a specific death camp arguably was, and the European imperial powers had already committed acts of mass murder on par with the death camps - just over longer periods of time and less formalised in parts.
I mean I’m in favour of a stateless, classless society without borders - that goes slightly beyond the mere right to return in my mind - but yes, Jewish people should be able to live where they wish, especially more so if their near ancestors were expelled from there. That includes Iraq. I don’t see how me having the position that all states (if they are going to exist at all) should be like that therefore means I am specifically calling on Israel as a special case.
It isn't *our* fault - at least, in full. I'd argue our blame in the current mess is relatively minor - I doubt there were any good answers in 1948. You also utterly ignore the long and sad history of anti-Semitism in the region, which colours events to this day.
The pullout in 1948 wasn’t that dissimilar to recent withdrawal from Afghanistan; we’d reached the point where we weren’t doing any good staying and lost the will to do anything about the bad consequences of going. Kosminsky’s The Promise drama-documents it rather clearly.
Gaza and ghetto.
Israel’s current line “ we are fighting human animals” isn’t a good look, the massive provocation notwithstanding.
Comments
The most demented people on social media are those who were offended by Laurence’s Fox’s comments about a female journalist yet celebrate women getting raped and murdered by a terrorist organisation.
https://twitter.com/francisjfoster/status/1711421487620542958
Didn't do anything good for his marriage to my mother though.
I mean I’m in favour of a stateless, classless society without borders - that goes slightly beyond the mere right to return in my mind - but yes, Jewish people should be able to live where they wish, especially more so if their near ancestors were expelled from there. That includes Iraq. I don’t see how me having the position that all states (if they are going to exist at all) should be like that therefore means I am specifically calling on Israel as a special case.
That's not a universal of course, the after effects of slavery being very recognised, but it is possible to get very infantilising in assuming areas cannot have f*cked up histories and divisions which can predate more recent western involvement.
It seems supremely arrogant to ascribe everything to ourselves, even if in the modern period that influence should not be simply dismissed.
"I mean the history is quite clear that in many ways this is all our fault"
You really don't need to say any more than this. We already understand that this is your answer for EVERYTHING
Her skirt was too short.
The Jews had it coming.
An hour later Hamas announced they are gonna start executing hostages, live, on air - including up to a dozen American nationals
Sleepy Joe is not having a good war so far. He could lose the election in the coming days, if he's not careful. An urgent global crisis is when you realise you don't want an 80 year old man running the shop. This also applies to Trump, nearly as much, of course
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/food/article-12609735/Sandwich-shop-Bristol-ubereats.html
Check the photos of their sandwiches out. Massive. Completely over the top bonkers. No mention of price.
From a historical standpoint, there is some truth that Jews and Christians of different faiths were treated - relatively - better than in much of Europe for up to the 18/19th Centuries.
The slaves - well, that is a different matter. Both the black ones they imported and the white ones taken on slave raids.
The actual history is a swathe of Arab states (plus Iran) attempting genocide against the Jews and the only Jewish state on the planet, from 1948 to today, from the immediate aftermath of the Holocaust onwards.
In that time the Red Army cleared Germans out of Eastern Europe, the Arabs cleared Jews out of their states, meanwhile the Israelis have bent over backwards hosting in land they control people who literally call for and aim for their extermination.
God knows whether that will matter but in some crucial states we could be looking at margins of few 1000s of votes and who can say whose vote Kennedy will peel off more.
Bonkers GOP anti-vax/world is run by lizards voters or bonkers Dem Davos runs the world voters????
Even laying aside the fact that the norm in many colonies was for the powers to rule through the local tribes, how long should we assume everything is our fault and not those independent countries' own issues?
It's not a difficult choice at all, but it is admittedly not great that it is the choice they have, but it is also too late to do anything about it - either could technically be defeated in a primary, but neither will be, nor will they pull out.
Except to weep at the shitshow unfolding.
"The Babylonian captivity or Babylonian exile is the period in Jewish history during which a large number of Judeans from the ancient Kingdom of Judah were captives in Babylon, the capital city of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, following their defeat in the Jewish–Babylonian War and the destruction of Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem. The event is known to be historical, and is described in the Hebrew Bible in addition to archaeological and extra-biblical sources."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylonian_captivity
He has also got the problem of his left wing to deal with who are more 'equivocal' when it comes to Israel.
Moreover, it looks like the Israel conflict is spurring the GOP to get the House Speaker contest over with ASAP. Even Gaetz has said he will respect the majority result. That helps on the aid front but it probably means there is not the extended process of the House GOP ripping itself apart.
I'll say the same today as I've always said.
Take, for instance, the following about Jews in Persia:
"In the middle of the 19th century, J. J. Benjamin wrote about the life of Persian Jews, describing conditions and beliefs that went back to the 16th century:
They are obliged to live in a separate part of town…; for they are considered as unclean creatures… Under the pretext of their being unclean, they are treated with the greatest severity and should they enter a street, inhabited by Mussulmans, they are pelted by the boys and mobs with stones and dirt… For the same reason, they are prohibited to go out when it rains; for it is said the rain would wash dirt off them, which would sully the feet of the Mussulmans… If a Jew is recognized as such in the streets, he is subjected to the greatest insults. The passers-by spit in his face, and sometimes beat him… unmercifully… If a Jew enters a shop for anything, he is forbidden to inspect the goods… Should his hand incautiously touch the goods, he must take them at any price the seller chooses to ask for them... Sometimes the Persians intrude into the dwellings of the Jews and take possession of whatever please them. Should the owner make the least opposition in defense of his property, he incurs the danger of atoning for it with his life... If... a Jew shows himself in the street during the three days of the Katel (Muharram)…, he is sure to be murdered.[36]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_Jews
The tide had turned against the British empire and it was only a matter of time. Credit to MacMillan that he recognised that and more or less dissolved it peacefully
They've tried to reach agreement, it would have happened had Arafat not blown it all up.
There's no negotiating with Hamas, a group that literally call for Israel's destruction and the extermination of Jews. Israel has never called for the destruction of all Arab states and the extermination of Arabs.
Yes they've bent over backwards. For a country that is routinely abused by racists in this country, and treated like they're the ones to blame, they've been routinely attacked and yet have hosted people who call for the extermination of their entire state and people.
Can you name any other 'bad' country on the planet that has hosted for decades people who call for the destruction of that entire country, and the extermination of that country's populace?
I suspect Sunak's best approach is to do and say nothing before the election - it seems people's view of him mellows the less they hear from him.
"As I’ve thought about Biden’s chances in 2024, I find myself deeply conscious of all the disadvantages that he and the Democrats have as they try to retain power, and preparing for what that could bring. But I also find myself arriving foursquare at the conclusion that rejecting the president now would be, in the first place, a mistake. He offers the most plausible route toward winning the working- and middle-class groups the Democrats need, the most plausible route toward building a broad-based majority party."
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/06/opinion/joe-biden-trump-election.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damascus_affair
I'm sure you're aware of the foot race metaphor for structural problems related to class, race, gender etc. That is the same between colonised and coloniser.
Britain extracted wealth and labour from other countries; it also destroyed industry in other countries so that industry based at home could monopolise markets (see how we destroyed the Indian manufacturing economy under British rule so that our manufactured goods could be sold more). Some of those things advantaged us, and our colonial contemporaries, and disadvantaged others. Again, see how Haiti was forced to pay the debt to France for their own emancipation.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/10/09/israel-hamas-gaza-stone-age-avoid-detection/
https://x.com/jengriffinfnc/status/1710735779834593355?s=61&t=s0ae0IFncdLS1Dc7J0P_TQ
There were several extensive massacres of Jews, during the 19th century. Not, by any means, all the fault of Muslims. Intellectual anti-semitism was the brainchild of Arab nationalists, who were predominantly Christian Arabs at that point, but it became widespread among the Muslim population as well. And, the creation of Israel plainly turbocharged it.
Then again, why should the creation of a State which encompasses a tiny fraction of the Middle East generate widespread Jew-hatred, unless anti-semitism was already endemic among the surrounding populations?
So no state education?
No voting for state elections?
No state welfare?
No state healthcare?
No taxes paid to the state?
Or not?
-Our enemies in the region understand significance of having US Aircraft carrier on the way.
-A number of Palestinian gunmen still inside #Israel
-We have tough days ahead of us and we are determined to win.
-The enemy wanted war - they will get war.
-Benjamin Netanyahu
There's no reason for any country to remain desperately poor now, other than the determination of its leaders to keep it so.
Do we really have to go over this again?
I’m not for reviving the old McBan Hammer, but there was a time when your post would have resulted your being exiled for several months in the Caledonian wilderness.
Just ask @StuartDickson
https://www.heraldscotland.com/opinion/15055547.they-horribly-wounded-shot-dead-neal-ascherson-tries-make-sense-traumatic-wartime-memory/
The previously colonised countries are mammothly richer per capita than they were before we arrived.
Britain didn't destroy manufacturing capacity, it invented it and exported it.
And if any isn't, its purely due to corruption and theft of its leaders, not us.
BY the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept : when we remembered thee, O Sion.
2 As for our harps, we hanged them up : upon the trees that are therein.
3 For they that led us away captive required of us then a song, and melody in our heaviness : Sing us one of the songs of Sion.
4 How shall we sing the Lord's song : in a strange land?
5 If I forget thee, O Jerusalem : let my right hand forget her cunning.
6 If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth : yea, if I prefer not Jerusalem in my mirth.
7 Remember the children of Edom, O Lord, in the day of Jerusalem : how they said, Down with it, down with it, even to the ground.
8 O daughter of Babylon, wasted with misery : yea, happy shall he be that rewardeth thee, as thou hast served us.
9 Blessed shall he be that taketh thy children : and throweth them against the stones.
Ps 137
Stuart got in trouble for misrepresenting sub-samples as actual polls.
There's never been a rule against telling the truth, just misrepresentation.
Posting subsamples is fine if you make it clear it is a subsample.
The issue is when you try and pretend a subsample is a full blown Scotland poll.
So if people want to voluntarily pay towards the community aid then they can be free to do so, but if they don't then there's no taxes and no compulsion?
Or are you saying that people would be forced to pay taxes? In which case there is a state in your utopian position, even if you dislike the word.
Does the McBan Hammer remain for the egregious behaviour you outline?
Coincidence ?
I don't know why, but he didn't like talking about that
"Israel is at War", Task & Purpose, YouTube, 2023/10/08, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXiW6hhC6Bs , 22mins
Hmm
By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down
Yeah, we wept, when we remembered Zion
By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down
Yeah, we wept, when we remembered Zion
There the wicked
Carried us away in captivity
Required from us a song
Now how shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
There the wicked
Carried us away in captivity
Requiring of us a song
Now how shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Let the words of our mouth and the meditation of our heart
Be acceptable in thy sight here tonight
Let the words of our mouth and the meditation of our hearts
Be acceptable in thy sight here tonight
By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down
Yeah, we wept, when we remembered Zion
By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down
Yeah, we wept, when we remembered Zion
By the rivers of Babylon (dark tears of Babylon)
There we sat down (you got to sing a song)
Yeah, we wept (sing a song of love)
When we remembered Zion (yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah)
By the rivers of Babylon (rough bits of Babylon)
There we sat down (you hear the people cry)
Yeah, we wept (they need their God)
When we remembered Zion (ooh, have the power)
By the rivers of Babylon (oh yeah yeah), there we sat down (yeah, yeah)
Boney M.
And if you look at Rojava then involvement in the direct democracy is compulsory - but that was enforced in part to make sure that women and other ethnic groups were represented and speaking for themselves in what was (and still is) a very patriarchal culture with a long history of political tensions down ethnic lines.
https://x.com/nazirafzal/status/1711299397957431622?s=61&t=s0ae0IFncdLS1Dc7J0P_TQ
Anyway why so touchy.
So you don't believe in no state. You believe in your version of a state.
Would you propose the rich world (including the UK) pay a fortune to Ukrainians in Donetsk to be relocated?
If you were to do it in your village, for example, and you didn't want to be involved - that would be fine.
I'd say I have no qualms with the Russian apologists being relocated after Crimea is liberated.
Gaza and ghetto.
Israel’s current line “ we are fighting human animals” isn’t a good look, the massive provocation notwithstanding.