I do find it interesting that there's been no real push back from Egypt, Jordan, UAE, Saudi Arabia or Qatar to Israel's ground invasion and stepping up the campaign against Hamas.
It's almost as though the neighbouring countries are aligned with Israel and want Hamas eradicated too but would prefer not to have their fingerprints on it.
There's probably wider geopolitics at play. Iran is behind Hezbollah, and Iran and Qatar 'help' Hamas. If you're not on good terms with those countries, then you probably don't want Hamas to succeed. In particular, although it was supposed to be cooling down, the Iran-Saudi proxy conflict may well be playing a part. The latest chapter in a conflict between Arab and Persians that has been ongoing for centuries...
The Arabs and the Persians/Iranians have, as you rightly say, been at loggerheads for centuries. They even have different versions of Islam. Bit like the Catholics, Protestants and Orthodox Christians.
I do find it interesting that there's been no real push back from Egypt, Jordan, UAE, Saudi Arabia or Qatar to Israel's ground invasion and stepping up the campaign against Hamas.
It's almost as though the neighbouring countries are aligned with Israel and want Hamas eradicated too but would prefer not to have their fingerprints on it.
Why would Shia Iran be supporting Sunni Hamas? Obviously destroying Israel is a mutual aim but isn't there the added benefit of sowing discord in the Sunni world.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Israel is an enemy of Iran; and even better, Israel receives massive support from the Great Satan, America. Funding Hamas makes it appear that Iran is somewhat pro-Sunni, and causes the Little and Great Satans significant problems.
Basically: Iran's leadership hates Israel and the USA more than they hate Sunnis.
But don't for a moment think Iran cares anything for Hamas, or Palestinians. Hamas is a tool for Iran.
The biggest fallacy I see get quoted here is because Hamas wants war, Israel shouldn't fight one.
What should Israel do instead? Rollover and play dead? Let Hamas strike them and just turn the other cheek and say "come, take more hostages, rape more women, kill more babies, be our guest"?
When the other party wants war, then sometimes the only thing to do is give them what they want - and defeat them until they don't want it anymore.
The Jihadis are no better than Nazi Germany. They lack its power, but they have the same authoritarian rule in Gaza, anyone who speaks against them would get murdered, they've destroyed any nascent democracy there, and if they had the chance they would genocidally murder every single Jew "from the river to the sea" as they openly say. Their writings are as horrific and evil and as open as Mein Kampf.
When the Nazis wanted war, we didn't turn around and say "well you want war, so we're not playing your game, no war for you". We eventually said "if there needs to be war, there will be war, and we will beat you".
That is exactly the situation Israel faces, for its survival, and they need to fight the war and fight it to win.
Any civilians caught in the crossfire its a tragedy, but their concerns should be as secondary to Israel as German civilians concerns were to us in WWII. In war you have to put your own people first - if only Hamas felt the same, the Palestinians would not be in the situation they're in.
The other thread has been closed, which in the absence of any new news might have been the wrong choice but here we are.
I blame the end of daylight saving time, and call for an immediate judge led inquiry into keeping BST for the whole year to avoid confusing PB's editors.
(Is that the right way to do it?)
On topic - badly. Which is what Hamas wants and why Netanyahu is being even more foolish than usual.
I think Hamas would actually prefer Gaza as a wasteland occupied by Israel to a two state solution. It allows them to extend their grievance and get loads more lovely cash from their backers to maintain their personally lavish lifestyles (and kill Jews).
And unfortunately, so would Likud, who naively believe it would secure Israel's future as a Jewish state encompassing the whole of Mandatory Palestine.
The Palestinian people wouldn't, according to such information as we have, but nobody involved seems to care about them (including these idiot protestors in the West).
A hat tip to @Cyclefree for this article by Simon Sebag Montefiore:
There is one mistake in it. The number of Jews who are non-white (insofar as that label has any meaning) is around 3-3.5 million not 5 million. I think he may have added in the Muslim and Christian populations to get to 5 million but it is a little misleading.
Otherwise, it's a good article and well worth reading.
Now you've finished Sebag Montefiore's well known Zionist pleadings you might enjoy this which gives a slightly more interesting and relevant picture of things as they really are. A review by Jonathan Friedland
Reposting this from the other day as it was addressed to you but you may not have been on -
"Have you ever read Benevolence and Betrayal by Alexander Stille? You should. It's about 5 Italian Jewish families under fascism. One of them is led by a man who supports Mussolini, thinks fascism a good thing, ingratiates himself with the regime and thinks he will be safe. He is one of the good pro-Italy-under-Mussolini Jews. When I read your comments I think of that man. Too late he realises that all his sucking up and ingratiation and support for the regime is of no consequence. The only thing that matters about him is that he is a Jew - nothing else - not his support or his money or his opinions. Too late he tries to escape. He does not and is murdered.
That, Roger, is how Hamas view you. They don't care about your dislike of Netanyahu or that you call Israel a one-eyed country or that you support the Palestinian cause. They didn't care about the elderly journalist who wrote about the Sabra and Chatila massacres and Israel's shameful role in them. They still took him hostage. They didn't care about the woman who had been helping Palestinians in Gaza get medical treatment. They took her hostage too. They didn't care about the Israeli IT CEO who was building businesses inside Gaza to give good jobs to Gazans. They still killed his 15 year old daughter. They kill Jews because they are Jews - because of who they are not because of their opinions or what they have done or who they vote for. That is what their Charter says and it is what they have done and will continue doing until they are stopped. You are profoundly naive if you think otherwise."
Indeed. But can you not see that in killing thousands in Gaza who are not card-carrying (or grenade throwing) Hamas supporters, Israel is provoking some to the same conclusion as you but about the other side? And extremists on both sides, even if not welcoming death, will lap it up as proving what they have always said: that the other lot cannot be trusted.
Support for Hamas amongst people in Gaza varies according to survey, but it's clear vast swathes of Palestinians support Hamas. If large numbers did not, Hamas could not maintain power. Don't start pretending that every Palestinian civilian in Gaza is innocent of supporting a genocidal, anti-Semitic, homophobic and terrorist organisation.
As do, I fear, many of the people protesting yesterday,
Without elections and with only one side having guns, how would Palestinians rid themselves of Hamas? Or any other population of any other murderous dictatorship? Look at ex-Soviet states that are now democracies but who never rose to the armed overthrow of Stalin or his successors.
But here is the paradox. As Israel flattens Gaza, its people will look to whoever is willing to shoot back, which is Hamas, just as Israelis rallied behind the flag after their countrymen (and women and children) were mown down on 7th October.
"...how would Palestinians rid themselves of Hamas?"
In the ways many countries have rid themselves of dictators. Dictators survive by keeping enough of the people supportive, especially enough of the 'right' people. But we've seen dictators overthrown time and time again by popular revolt. Idi Amin or Ceaușescu being two examples.
You blame Israel's actions for getting Gazans to rally behind the evil of Hamas. I'd argue far too many did so beforehand.
Hamas abolished elections so perhaps they were less confident of their support than you seem to be.
Ceaucescu had been dictator for 25 years when he fell as one of the revolutions around the Soviet break-up. Amin was ousted by a military coup. Neither is relevant to Gaza and Hamas.
I do find it interesting that there's been no real push back from Egypt, Jordan, UAE, Saudi Arabia or Qatar to Israel's ground invasion and stepping up the campaign against Hamas.
It's almost as though the neighbouring countries are aligned with Israel and want Hamas eradicated too but would prefer not to have their fingerprints on it.
Why would Shia Iran be supporting Sunni Hamas? Obviously destroying Israel is a mutual aim but isn't there the added benefit of sowing discord in the Sunni world.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Israel is an enemy of Iran; and even better, Israel receives massive support from the Great Satan, America. Funding Hamas makes it appear that Iran is somewhat pro-Sunni, and causes the Little and Great Satans significant problems.
Basically: Iran's leadership hates Israel and the USA more than they hate Sunnis.
But don't for a moment think Iran cares anything for Hamas, or Palestinians. Hamas is a tool for Iran.
Indeed, Palestinians suffering and Israel hurting is an accomplishment for Iran, not a failure.
If you want what's best for the Palestinians, liberating them from Hamas is a starting point, though that can only be done via a lot of bloodshed and warfare. Same as Germans were better off after the war once the Nazis were gone.
The biggest fallacy I see get quoted here is because Hamas wants war, Israel shouldn't fight one.
What should Israel do instead? Rollover and play dead? Let Hamas strike them and just turn the other cheek and say "come, take more hostages, rape more women, kill more babies, be our guest"?
When the other party wants war, then sometimes the only thing to do is give them what they want - and defeat them until they don't want it anymore.
The Jihadis are no better than Nazi Germany. They lack its power, but they have the same authoritarian rule in Gaza, anyone who speaks against them would get murdered, they've destroyed any nascent democracy there, and if they had the chance they would genocidally murder every single Jew "from the river to the sea" as they openly say. Their writings are as horrific and evil and as open as Mein Kampf.
When the Nazis wanted war, we didn't turn around and say "well you want war, so we're not playing your game, no war for you". We eventually said "if there needs to be war, there will be war, and we will beat you".
That is exactly the situation Israel faces, for its survival, and they need to fight the war and fight it to win.
Any civilians caught in the crossfire its a tragedy, but their concerns should be as secondary to Israel as German civilians concerns were to us in WWII. In war you have to put your own people first - if only Hamas felt the same, the Palestinians would not be in the situation they're in.
You are a psychopath.
Wanting fascists defeated and democracies to be able to live in peace is not psychopathic.
You can say that you don't mean genocide of the Jews when you say it; you may even believe it. But others screeching it *will* be meaning that, and your shouting of it gives power to them and their calls.
They are phrases to avoid; not excuse.
Anyone who claims “from the river to the sea” isn’t calling the destruction of Israel is naive or stupid.
As it happens, 90% of the time they actually are naive and just haven’t read into the issue they are protesting about. They want goodies and baddies, and simplicity, and Israel/Palestine isn’t like that.
The only sensible peace proposal starts with “I wouldn’t start from here but we are where are…” and this issue is that (for understandable reasons) that doesn’t butter any Palestinian parsnips.
Apologies if I'm mistaken, but don't Likud and other right-wing Israelis also want a land "from the river to the sea"?
Yes. And are equally wrong. No simple goodies and baddies here.
Perhaps the Palestinians should say “ok I’ll take my citizenship”.
I do find it interesting that there's been no real push back from Egypt, Jordan, UAE, Saudi Arabia or Qatar to Israel's ground invasion and stepping up the campaign against Hamas.
It's almost as though the neighbouring countries are aligned with Israel and want Hamas eradicated too but would prefer not to have their fingerprints on it.
There's probably wider geopolitics at play. Iran is behind Hezbollah, and Iran and Qatar 'help' Hamas. If you're not on good terms with those countries, then you probably don't want Hamas to succeed. In particular, although it was supposed to be cooling down, the Iran-Saudi proxy conflict may well be playing a part. The latest chapter in a conflict between Arab and Persians that has been ongoing for centuries...
Yes. In a sense any discussion of rights and wrongs needs to start with an agreed date before which you decide not to go. In Rory Stewart's recent podcast (a tour de force BTW) he started as recently as 66-70AD. Even more recent dates are available. The Persiaon conquest of Jerusalem and The Islamic conquest of Jerusalem, both 7th century AD; 1453; 1918; 1939-45; 1948; 1967; 1973; 7th October 2023 and so on.
Personally I think all discussion should start from either 586BC, the destruction of the first temple not long after Josiah's reforms, or Joshua's invasion, 1400/1300BC??.
I do find it interesting that there's been no real push back from Egypt, Jordan, UAE, Saudi Arabia or Qatar to Israel's ground invasion and stepping up the campaign against Hamas.
It's almost as though the neighbouring countries are aligned with Israel and want Hamas eradicated too but would prefer not to have their fingerprints on it.
Why would Shia Iran be supporting Sunni Hamas? Obviously destroying Israel is a mutual aim but isn't there the added benefit of sowing discord in the Sunni world.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Israel is an enemy of Iran; and even better, Israel receives massive support from the Great Satan, America. Funding Hamas makes it appear that Iran is somewhat pro-Sunni, and causes the Little and Great Satans significant problems.
Basically: Iran's leadership hates Israel and the USA more than they hate Sunnis.
But don't for a moment think Iran cares anything for Hamas, or Palestinians. Hamas is a tool for Iran.
But they also want regional dominance. Weakening the Arab states is all a part of that.
You can say that you don't mean genocide of the Jews when you say it; you may even believe it. But others screeching it *will* be meaning that, and your shouting of it gives power to them and their calls.
They are phrases to avoid; not excuse.
Anyone who claims “from the river to the sea” isn’t calling the destruction of Israel is naive or stupid.
As it happens, 90% of the time they actually are naive and just haven’t read into the issue they are protesting about. They want goodies and baddies, and simplicity, and Israel/Palestine isn’t like that.
The only sensible peace proposal starts with “I wouldn’t start from here but we are where are…” and this issue is that (for understandable reasons) that doesn’t butter any Palestinian parsnips.
Apologies if I'm mistaken, but don't Likud and other right-wing Israelis also want a land "from the river to the sea"?
Yes. And are equally wrong. No simple goodies and baddies here.
Perhaps the Palestinians should say “ok I’ll take my citizenship”.
There are goodies and baddies here, Israel are good, Hamas are bad.
No Likud don't want a land "from the river to the sea", that has never been Likud policy. It could have been if they wanted it to be, they've controlled that land for fifty years. If they'd evicted the Palestinians fifty years ago, they'd have a "Greater Israel" and the Palestinian issue wouldn't exist they'd live in other Arab nations. But they didn't. They're better than that.
The Azerbaijan-Armenia conflict this year saw one nation take land off the other and effectively expel its inhabitants and it was all done and dusted in days and the world barely blinked an eye. Has Israel done that? No, its better than that.
Israel has tried for peace for decades. Despite the constant threats they've faced. They are good, Hamas are bad. Its that clear cut.
I do find it interesting that there's been no real push back from Egypt, Jordan, UAE, Saudi Arabia or Qatar to Israel's ground invasion and stepping up the campaign against Hamas.
It's almost as though the neighbouring countries are aligned with Israel and want Hamas eradicated too but would prefer not to have their fingerprints on it.
There's probably wider geopolitics at play. Iran is behind Hezbollah, and Iran and Qatar 'help' Hamas. If you're not on good terms with those countries, then you probably don't want Hamas to succeed. In particular, although it was supposed to be cooling down, the Iran-Saudi proxy conflict may well be playing a part. The latest chapter in a conflict between Arab and Persians that has been ongoing for centuries...
Yes. In a sense any discussion of rights and wrongs needs to start with an agreed date before which you decide not to go. In Rory Stewart's recent podcast (a tour de force BTW) he started as recently as 66-70AD. Even more recent dates are available. The Persiaon conquest of Jerusalem and The Islamic conquest of Jerusalem, both 7th century AD; 1453; 1918; 1939-45; 1948; 1967; 1973; 7th October 2023 and so on.
Personally I think all discussion should start from either 586BC, the destruction of the first temple not long after Josiah's reforms, or Joshua's invasion, 1400/1300BC??.
Whoever it was who told the Jews that Palestine was their Promised Land has a lot to answer for!
I do find it interesting that there's been no real push back from Egypt, Jordan, UAE, Saudi Arabia or Qatar to Israel's ground invasion and stepping up the campaign against Hamas.
It's almost as though the neighbouring countries are aligned with Israel and want Hamas eradicated too but would prefer not to have their fingerprints on it.
There's probably wider geopolitics at play. Iran is behind Hezbollah, and Iran and Qatar 'help' Hamas. If you're not on good terms with those countries, then you probably don't want Hamas to succeed. In particular, although it was supposed to be cooling down, the Iran-Saudi proxy conflict may well be playing a part. The latest chapter in a conflict between Arab and Persians that has been ongoing for centuries...
Yes. In a sense any discussion of rights and wrongs needs to start with an agreed date before which you decide not to go. In Rory Stewart's recent podcast (a tour de force BTW) he started as recently as 66-70AD. Even more recent dates are available. The Persiaon conquest of Jerusalem and The Islamic conquest of Jerusalem, both 7th century AD; 1453; 1918; 1939-45; 1948; 1967; 1973; 7th October 2023 and so on.
Personally I think all discussion should start from either 586BC, the destruction of the first temple not long after Josiah's reforms, or Joshua's invasion, 1400/1300BC??.
Well yes, but all that happens is that people choose a date which most suits their political agenda. For example choosing around 1492 because that includes Europeans colonising the Americas but doesn't include Anglo-Saxons being colonised by the Normans in 1066.
I do find it interesting that there's been no real push back from Egypt, Jordan, UAE, Saudi Arabia or Qatar to Israel's ground invasion and stepping up the campaign against Hamas.
It's almost as though the neighbouring countries are aligned with Israel and want Hamas eradicated too but would prefer not to have their fingerprints on it.
There's probably wider geopolitics at play. Iran is behind Hezbollah, and Iran and Qatar 'help' Hamas. If you're not on good terms with those countries, then you probably don't want Hamas to succeed. In particular, although it was supposed to be cooling down, the Iran-Saudi proxy conflict may well be playing a part. The latest chapter in a conflict between Arab and Persians that has been ongoing for centuries...
Yes. In a sense any discussion of rights and wrongs needs to start with an agreed date before which you decide not to go. In Rory Stewart's recent podcast (a tour de force BTW) he started as recently as 66-70AD. Even more recent dates are available. The Persiaon conquest of Jerusalem and The Islamic conquest of Jerusalem, both 7th century AD; 1453; 1918; 1939-45; 1948; 1967; 1973; 7th October 2023 and so on.
Personally I think all discussion should start from either 586BC, the destruction of the first temple not long after Josiah's reforms, or Joshua's invasion, 1400/1300BC??.
It all really went wrong from 1918-48. Which idiots were responsible for that?
I wrote a couple of articles back in March 2020 about warning signs of illiberalism in our country. Of course, what with other events no-one paid a blind bit of notice.
I am reposting them now because they are, IMO, as - if not more - relevant than ever.
This section from the second article seems pertinent today.
Anti Semitism has been devalued by all the false claims made back then.
As for you bleating on about how terrible it is for British Jews right now.
You have no sense of proportion
There are 2 million in Gaza who are suffering a genocidal attack from Netanyahu. So I think the lot of British Jews is a lot better than those Gazans don't you. Your priorities are all to cock.
The petition in solidarity with British Jews has less100 signatories the one on a ceasefire in Gaza nearly 600,000 which accurately reflects the scale of suffering IMO
"Genocide". You and you're ilk are devaluing this word. The Holocaust was a genocide, what happened in Rwanda was a genocide, Armenians suffered a genocide. What is happening in Gaza is retaliation for a terrorist attack by the government of Gaza. If you want Israel to stop then go and ask Hamas to give the hostages back.
Hard to believe you almost never see anyone in Britain say free the hostages , lay down your arms, send out hte murderers from 7th October , etc and then talk about peace. Bizarre.
I would suggest that, or some variation of it, is the standard middling position of many, especially older, political centrists in the UK - the sort that vote, don't demonstrate, expect our centrist politicians to do their job, and have no quarrel with good people on all sides.
They have a special dislike of seeing children and babies murdered by barbarians; many of them cried at telly coverage of young mothers and their babies/children going into exile from Ukraine leaving their menfolk behind and have cried again recently on 7 October and after, and find it so unthinkable they don't want to talk about it.
Hardest to talk about for decent people is the dilemma facing Israel whose policies involve also killing children and babies in their beds. Most don't think Israelis are also barbarians; every effort is under way to change this perspective.
The Israeli response to Oct 7th is going to wreak such appalling 'collateral damage' on Gaza and its population that it will strain the resolve of all but their most hardline supporters in the west. That's my sense of where this is going, PR wise.
Oh well, a bit of a flurry from the home side’s tail-enders there, and we have 230 as the target.
I’d probably back almost any other team in this competition to get these runs. But sadly not England in the form they’ve been showing in recent matches.
You can say that you don't mean genocide of the Jews when you say it; you may even believe it. But others screeching it *will* be meaning that, and your shouting of it gives power to them and their calls.
They are phrases to avoid; not excuse.
Anyone who claims “from the river to the sea” isn’t calling the destruction of Israel is naive or stupid.
As it happens, 90% of the time they actually are naive and just haven’t read into the issue they are protesting about. They want goodies and baddies, and simplicity, and Israel/Palestine isn’t like that.
The only sensible peace proposal starts with “I wouldn’t start from here but we are where are…” and this issue is that (for understandable reasons) that doesn’t butter any Palestinian parsnips.
Apologies if I'm mistaken, but don't Likud and other right-wing Israelis also want a land "from the river to the sea"?
Yes. And are equally wrong. No simple goodies and baddies here.
Perhaps the Palestinians should say “ok I’ll take my citizenship”.
There are goodies and baddies here, Israel are good, Hamas are bad.
No Likud don't want a land "from the river to the sea", that has never been Likud policy. It could have been if they wanted it to be, they've controlled that land for fifty years. If they'd evicted the Palestinians fifty years ago, they'd have a "Greater Israel" and the Palestinian issue wouldn't exist they'd live in other Arab nations. But they didn't. They're better than that.
The Azerbaijan-Armenia conflict this year saw one nation take land off the other and effectively expel its inhabitants and it was all done and dusted in days and the world barely blinked an eye. Has Israel done that? No, its better than that.
Israel has tried for peace for decades. Despite the constant threats they've faced. They are good, Hamas are bad. Its that clear cut.
Is it "Hamas bad, Netanyahu good"? Or "Hamas bad, Likud good"? Or is it "Palestinians bad, Israelis good"? Or "Arabs bad, everyone else good? Or "Muslims bad, Jews good"?
If you're going to boil it down to goodies v baddies, it would help to be clear what the dividing line is.
"...how would Palestinians rid themselves of Hamas?"
In the ways many countries have rid themselves of dictators. Dictators survive by keeping enough of the people supportive, especially enough of the 'right' people. But we've seen dictators overthrown time and time again by popular revolt. Idi Amin or Ceaușescu being two examples.
You blame Israel's actions for getting Gazans to rally behind the evil of Hamas. I'd argue far too many did so beforehand.
Is there a Che Jessop manual for successfully overthrowing dictators? I'm sure the Palestinians who don't support Hamas would love to see it.
'First get your computer chair set up just right for comfortable opining..'
The biggest fallacy I see get quoted here is because Hamas wants war, Israel shouldn't fight one.
What should Israel do instead? Rollover and play dead? Let Hamas strike them and just turn the other cheek and say "come, take more hostages, rape more women, kill more babies, be our guest"?
When the other party wants war, then sometimes the only thing to do is give them what they want - and defeat them until they don't want it anymore.
The Jihadis are no better than Nazi Germany. They lack its power, but they have the same authoritarian rule in Gaza, anyone who speaks against them would get murdered, they've destroyed any nascent democracy there, and if they had the chance they would genocidally murder every single Jew "from the river to the sea" as they openly say. Their writings are as horrific and evil and as open as Mein Kampf.
When the Nazis wanted war, we didn't turn around and say "well you want war, so we're not playing your game, no war for you". We eventually said "if there needs to be war, there will be war, and we will beat you".
That is exactly the situation Israel faces, for its survival, and they need to fight the war and fight it to win.
Any civilians caught in the crossfire its a tragedy, but their concerns should be as secondary to Israel as German civilians concerns were to us in WWII. In war you have to put your own people first - if only Hamas felt the same, the Palestinians would not be in the situation they're in.
You are a psychopath.
Wanting fascists defeated and democracies to be able to live in peace is not psychopathic.
Your moral compass is broken.
I hope you include Netenyahu and Likud in that fascist description. Otherwise you ar a hypocrite.
I do find it interesting that there's been no real push back from Egypt, Jordan, UAE, Saudi Arabia or Qatar to Israel's ground invasion and stepping up the campaign against Hamas.
It's almost as though the neighbouring countries are aligned with Israel and want Hamas eradicated too but would prefer not to have their fingerprints on it.
There's probably wider geopolitics at play. Iran is behind Hezbollah, and Iran and Qatar 'help' Hamas. If you're not on good terms with those countries, then you probably don't want Hamas to succeed. In particular, although it was supposed to be cooling down, the Iran-Saudi proxy conflict may well be playing a part. The latest chapter in a conflict between Arab and Persians that has been ongoing for centuries...
Yes. In a sense any discussion of rights and wrongs needs to start with an agreed date before which you decide not to go. In Rory Stewart's recent podcast (a tour de force BTW) he started as recently as 66-70AD. Even more recent dates are available. The Persiaon conquest of Jerusalem and The Islamic conquest of Jerusalem, both 7th century AD; 1453; 1918; 1939-45; 1948; 1967; 1973; 7th October 2023 and so on.
Personally I think all discussion should start from either 586BC, the destruction of the first temple not long after Josiah's reforms, or Joshua's invasion, 1400/1300BC??.
Whoever it was who told the Jews that Palestine was their Promised Land has a lot to answer for!
S/he is not alone. More or less the entire of human history is the history of conquest, population movements, empire building and dissolution and so on.
The extent to which this particular chunk of this dismal history is seen and acted upon in uniquely special ways is slightly strange, and invites whataboutery.
What about: Tibet, the various bit of India, USA, Australia, New Zealand, Ostrogoths, Lombards, Franks, Normans.. and so on.
The biggest fallacy I see get quoted here is because Hamas wants war, Israel shouldn't fight one.
What should Israel do instead? Rollover and play dead? Let Hamas strike them and just turn the other cheek and say "come, take more hostages, rape more women, kill more babies, be our guest"?
When the other party wants war, then sometimes the only thing to do is give them what they want - and defeat them until they don't want it anymore.
The Jihadis are no better than Nazi Germany. They lack its power, but they have the same authoritarian rule in Gaza, anyone who speaks against them would get murdered, they've destroyed any nascent democracy there, and if they had the chance they would genocidally murder every single Jew "from the river to the sea" as they openly say. Their writings are as horrific and evil and as open as Mein Kampf.
When the Nazis wanted war, we didn't turn around and say "well you want war, so we're not playing your game, no war for you". We eventually said "if there needs to be war, there will be war, and we will beat you".
That is exactly the situation Israel faces, for its survival, and they need to fight the war and fight it to win.
Any civilians caught in the crossfire its a tragedy, but their concerns should be as secondary to Israel as German civilians concerns were to us in WWII. In war you have to put your own people first - if only Hamas felt the same, the Palestinians would not be in the situation they're in.
You are a psychopath.
Wanting fascists defeated and democracies to be able to live in peace is not psychopathic.
Your moral compass is broken.
I hope you include Netenyahu and Likud in that fascist description. Otherwise you ar a hypocrite.
People with family involved should be spared any criticisms from those of us who have no idea how that feels. However they also should not be put up as party spokespeople and/or expected to have any objectivity in interviews.
The biggest fallacy I see get quoted here is because Hamas wants war, Israel shouldn't fight one.
What should Israel do instead? Rollover and play dead? Let Hamas strike them and just turn the other cheek and say "come, take more hostages, rape more women, kill more babies, be our guest"?
When the other party wants war, then sometimes the only thing to do is give them what they want - and defeat them until they don't want it anymore.
The Jihadis are no better than Nazi Germany. They lack its power, but they have the same authoritarian rule in Gaza, anyone who speaks against them would get murdered, they've destroyed any nascent democracy there, and if they had the chance they would genocidally murder every single Jew "from the river to the sea" as they openly say. Their writings are as horrific and evil and as open as Mein Kampf.
When the Nazis wanted war, we didn't turn around and say "well you want war, so we're not playing your game, no war for you". We eventually said "if there needs to be war, there will be war, and we will beat you".
That is exactly the situation Israel faces, for its survival, and they need to fight the war and fight it to win.
Any civilians caught in the crossfire its a tragedy, but their concerns should be as secondary to Israel as German civilians concerns were to us in WWII. In war you have to put your own people first - if only Hamas felt the same, the Palestinians would not be in the situation they're in.
You are a psychopath.
Perhaps social media are just the natural territory of psychopaths, and should be avoided by others.
The biggest fallacy I see get quoted here is because Hamas wants war, Israel shouldn't fight one.
What should Israel do instead? Rollover and play dead? Let Hamas strike them and just turn the other cheek and say "come, take more hostages, rape more women, kill more babies, be our guest"?
When the other party wants war, then sometimes the only thing to do is give them what they want - and defeat them until they don't want it anymore.
The Jihadis are no better than Nazi Germany. They lack its power, but they have the same authoritarian rule in Gaza, anyone who speaks against them would get murdered, they've destroyed any nascent democracy there, and if they had the chance they would genocidally murder every single Jew "from the river to the sea" as they openly say. Their writings are as horrific and evil and as open as Mein Kampf.
When the Nazis wanted war, we didn't turn around and say "well you want war, so we're not playing your game, no war for you". We eventually said "if there needs to be war, there will be war, and we will beat you".
That is exactly the situation Israel faces, for its survival, and they need to fight the war and fight it to win.
Any civilians caught in the crossfire its a tragedy, but their concerns should be as secondary to Israel as German civilians concerns were to us in WWII. In war you have to put your own people first - if only Hamas felt the same, the Palestinians would not be in the situation they're in.
You are a psychopath.
Wanting fascists defeated and democracies to be able to live in peace is not psychopathic.
Your moral compass is broken.
I hope you include Netenyahu and Likud in that fascist description. Otherwise you ar a hypocrite.
The biggest fallacy I see get quoted here is because Hamas wants war, Israel shouldn't fight one.
What should Israel do instead? Rollover and play dead? Let Hamas strike them and just turn the other cheek and say "come, take more hostages, rape more women, kill more babies, be our guest"?
When the other party wants war, then sometimes the only thing to do is give them what they want - and defeat them until they don't want it anymore.
The Jihadis are no better than Nazi Germany. They lack its power, but they have the same authoritarian rule in Gaza, anyone who speaks against them would get murdered, they've destroyed any nascent democracy there, and if they had the chance they would genocidally murder every single Jew "from the river to the sea" as they openly say. Their writings are as horrific and evil and as open as Mein Kampf.
When the Nazis wanted war, we didn't turn around and say "well you want war, so we're not playing your game, no war for you". We eventually said "if there needs to be war, there will be war, and we will beat you".
That is exactly the situation Israel faces, for its survival, and they need to fight the war and fight it to win.
Any civilians caught in the crossfire its a tragedy, but their concerns should be as secondary to Israel as German civilians concerns were to us in WWII. In war you have to put your own people first - if only Hamas felt the same, the Palestinians would not be in the situation they're in.
You are a psychopath.
Wanting fascists defeated and democracies to be able to live in peace is not psychopathic.
Your moral compass is broken.
I hope you include Netenyahu and Likud in that fascist description. Otherwise you ar a hypocrite.
Can fascists be democratically elected?
Godwin has entered the debate.
Okay, democratically re-elected (Israel have had plenty of elections recently).
The biggest fallacy I see get quoted here is because Hamas wants war, Israel shouldn't fight one.
What should Israel do instead? Rollover and play dead? Let Hamas strike them and just turn the other cheek and say "come, take more hostages, rape more women, kill more babies, be our guest"?
When the other party wants war, then sometimes the only thing to do is give them what they want - and defeat them until they don't want it anymore.
The Jihadis are no better than Nazi Germany. They lack its power, but they have the same authoritarian rule in Gaza, anyone who speaks against them would get murdered, they've destroyed any nascent democracy there, and if they had the chance they would genocidally murder every single Jew "from the river to the sea" as they openly say. Their writings are as horrific and evil and as open as Mein Kampf.
When the Nazis wanted war, we didn't turn around and say "well you want war, so we're not playing your game, no war for you". We eventually said "if there needs to be war, there will be war, and we will beat you".
That is exactly the situation Israel faces, for its survival, and they need to fight the war and fight it to win.
Any civilians caught in the crossfire its a tragedy, but their concerns should be as secondary to Israel as German civilians concerns were to us in WWII. In war you have to put your own people first - if only Hamas felt the same, the Palestinians would not be in the situation they're in.
You are a psychopath.
Wanting fascists defeated and democracies to be able to live in peace is not psychopathic.
Your moral compass is broken.
I hope you include Netenyahu and Likud in that fascist description. Otherwise you ar a hypocrite.
Can fascists be democratically elected?
Yes, even Hitler was an elected member of the Reichstag before he became Chancellor and Fuhrer
"...how would Palestinians rid themselves of Hamas?"
In the ways many countries have rid themselves of dictators. Dictators survive by keeping enough of the people supportive, especially enough of the 'right' people. But we've seen dictators overthrown time and time again by popular revolt. Idi Amin or Ceaușescu being two examples.
You blame Israel's actions for getting Gazans to rally behind the evil of Hamas. I'd argue far too many did so beforehand.
Is there a Che Jessop manual for successfully overthrowing dictators? I'm sure the Palestinians who don't support Hamas would love to see it.
'First get your computer chair set up just right for comfortable opining..'
No, there will be no manual for overthrowing dictators, as every dictator, and overthrow, will be different. Ceaușescu's fall is very different from Gadaffi's; let alone Tunisia or the wider Arab Spring.
Then you get popular counter-coups, such as the one in Venezuela a couple of decades ago, where popular support stopped a coup.
The biggest fallacy I see get quoted here is because Hamas wants war, Israel shouldn't fight one.
What should Israel do instead? Rollover and play dead? Let Hamas strike them and just turn the other cheek and say "come, take more hostages, rape more women, kill more babies, be our guest"?
When the other party wants war, then sometimes the only thing to do is give them what they want - and defeat them until they don't want it anymore.
The Jihadis are no better than Nazi Germany. They lack its power, but they have the same authoritarian rule in Gaza, anyone who speaks against them would get murdered, they've destroyed any nascent democracy there, and if they had the chance they would genocidally murder every single Jew "from the river to the sea" as they openly say. Their writings are as horrific and evil and as open as Mein Kampf.
When the Nazis wanted war, we didn't turn around and say "well you want war, so we're not playing your game, no war for you". We eventually said "if there needs to be war, there will be war, and we will beat you".
That is exactly the situation Israel faces, for its survival, and they need to fight the war and fight it to win.
Any civilians caught in the crossfire its a tragedy, but their concerns should be as secondary to Israel as German civilians concerns were to us in WWII. In war you have to put your own people first - if only Hamas felt the same, the Palestinians would not be in the situation they're in.
You are a psychopath.
Wanting fascists defeated and democracies to be able to live in peace is not psychopathic.
Your moral compass is broken.
I hope you include Netenyahu and Likud in that fascist description. Otherwise you ar a hypocrite.
The other thread has been closed, which in the absence of any new news might have been the wrong choice but here we are.
I blame the end of daylight saving time, and call for an immediate judge led inquiry into keeping BST for the whole year to avoid confusing PB's editors.
(Is that the right way to do it?)
On topic - badly. Which is what Hamas wants and why Netanyahu is being even more foolish than usual.
I think Hamas would actually prefer Gaza as a wasteland occupied by Israel to a two state solution. It allows them to extend their grievance and get loads more lovely cash from their backers to maintain their personally lavish lifestyles (and kill Jews).
And unfortunately, so would Likud, who naively believe it would secure Israel's future as a Jewish state encompassing the whole of Mandatory Palestine.
The Palestinian people wouldn't, according to such information as we have, but nobody involved seems to care about them (including these idiot protestors in the West).
A hat tip to @Cyclefree for this article by Simon Sebag Montefiore:
There is one mistake in it. The number of Jews who are non-white (insofar as that label has any meaning) is around 3-3.5 million not 5 million. I think he may have added in the Muslim and Christian populations to get to 5 million but it is a little misleading.
Otherwise, it's a good article and well worth reading.
Now you've finished Sebag Montefiore's well known Zionist pleadings you might enjoy this which gives a slightly more interesting and relevant picture of things as they really are. A review by Jonathan Friedland
Reposting this from the other day as it was addressed to you but you may not have been on -
"Have you ever read Benevolence and Betrayal by Alexander Stille? You should. It's about 5 Italian Jewish families under fascism. One of them is led by a man who supports Mussolini, thinks fascism a good thing, ingratiates himself with the regime and thinks he will be safe. He is one of the good pro-Italy-under-Mussolini Jews. When I read your comments I think of that man. Too late he realises that all his sucking up and ingratiation and support for the regime is of no consequence. The only thing that matters about him is that he is a Jew - nothing else - not his support or his money or his opinions. Too late he tries to escape. He does not and is murdered.
That, Roger, is how Hamas view you. They don't care about your dislike of Netanyahu or that you call Israel a one-eyed country or that you support the Palestinian cause. They didn't care about the elderly journalist who wrote about the Sabra and Chatila massacres and Israel's shameful role in them. They still took him hostage. They didn't care about the woman who had been helping Palestinians in Gaza get medical treatment. They took her hostage too. They didn't care about the Israeli IT CEO who was building businesses inside Gaza to give good jobs to Gazans. They still killed his 15 year old daughter. They kill Jews because they are Jews - because of who they are not because of their opinions or what they have done or who they vote for. That is what their Charter says and it is what they have done and will continue doing until they are stopped. You are profoundly naive if you think otherwise."
I read it but found nothing in it relatable to me. I worked in Beirut for the first time in 1996 just as the civil war was coming to an end. P&G had chosen five directors world-wide who could shoot their Pantene ads and I was one. They split the World into six I think and asked me if I'd do one with Miss Lebanon in Beirut. Though I wasn't keen on working for them Beirut sounded interesting.
Over the two weeks of that first shoot I got to really like the Lebanese. They were bright hospitable and had an inate intelligence that was unusual in a business which was largely visual. We talked endlessly about the politics of the area as most Lebanese do. I was told how the war started. The Palestinians put up roadblocks...... In retaliation a Christan factions blew up a schoolbus ......and so it began. Twenty years of it. .....
On my first ride from the airport it looked like Gaza does now. I worked there often for the next several years and met people from every faction. I met two of Terry Waite's kidnappers I saw the Holiday Inn where the Phalangists jumped suicidally to their death.....and so on and so on. I won their top advertising ward for 'Environment' and became their favourite director and could have worked non stop there if I'd wanted to. We post- produced in London though clients with Palestinian passports couldn't get a visa. We couldn't process locally because only Israel had the facilities and that was forbidden. I needed a second passport.
I was in the Marriott Hotel by the sea when we were told to evacuate. Israel had decided to blow up a nearby power station. No one knew why. Ten power station workers were killed. I saw little little like this but lots of optimism. Israel was a fear because as they saw it they had the power and no boundaries. So was Hesbollah though it isn't seen as a terrorist organisation there as much as a political one. They run schools and hositals and to many are the good guys
So cyclefree I really do know the area and more importantly I feel I know the people. Generalising is never accurate though the Arabs I have met show a much greater humility than their Israeli counterparts which is why I fear for the citizens of Gaza more than I fear for the Israelis and much more than I fear for British Jews. a great deal of whom share my views.
You can say that you don't mean genocide of the Jews when you say it; you may even believe it. But others screeching it *will* be meaning that, and your shouting of it gives power to them and their calls.
They are phrases to avoid; not excuse.
Anyone who claims “from the river to the sea” isn’t calling the destruction of Israel is naive or stupid.
As it happens, 90% of the time they actually are naive and just haven’t read into the issue they are protesting about. They want goodies and baddies, and simplicity, and Israel/Palestine isn’t like that.
The only sensible peace proposal starts with “I wouldn’t start from here but we are where are…” and this issue is that (for understandable reasons) that doesn’t butter any Palestinian parsnips.
Apologies if I'm mistaken, but don't Likud and other right-wing Israelis also want a land "from the river to the sea"?
Yes. And are equally wrong. No simple goodies and baddies here.
Perhaps the Palestinians should say “ok I’ll take my citizenship”.
There are goodies and baddies here, Israel are good, Hamas are bad.
No Likud don't want a land "from the river to the sea", that has never been Likud policy. It could have been if they wanted it to be, they've controlled that land for fifty years. If they'd evicted the Palestinians fifty years ago, they'd have a "Greater Israel" and the Palestinian issue wouldn't exist they'd live in other Arab nations. But they didn't. They're better than that.
The Azerbaijan-Armenia conflict this year saw one nation take land off the other and effectively expel its inhabitants and it was all done and dusted in days and the world barely blinked an eye. Has Israel done that? No, its better than that.
Israel has tried for peace for decades. Despite the constant threats they've faced. They are good, Hamas are bad. Its that clear cut.
Is it "Hamas bad, Netanyahu good"? Or "Hamas bad, Likud good"? Or is it "Palestinians bad, Israelis good"? Or "Arabs bad, everyone else good? Or "Muslims bad, Jews good"?
If you're going to boil it down to goodies v baddies, it would help to be clear what the dividing line is.
Its "Hamas bad, Israel good" Or "Fascist dictatorships that want to exterminate Jews bad, free democracies good".
Yes Israel has flaws, all democracies do, but compared to the alternative its undeniably good.
No its not Palestinians bad, Hamas don't represent all Palestinians any more than the Nazis represented all Germans. No its not Arabs bad, Hamas don't represent all Arabs any more than the Nazis represented all Europeans. Indeed Israel has reached four peace agreements with Arab states that were formerly hostile to it in this decade alone. No its not Muslims bad, Hamas don't represent all Muslims any more than the Nazis represented all Christians.
Fascist dictatorships that want to exterminate Jews and go to war need to be defeated militarily whether they're Arab or European, Muslim or Christian, German or Palestinian. Or is there something unique about Muslims that you think fascism and wanting to exterminate Jews comes naturally to them? Are Muslims or Arabs somehow inferior in your eyes to Europeans?
I wrote a couple of articles back in March 2020 about warning signs of illiberalism in our country. Of course, what with other events no-one paid a blind bit of notice.
I am reposting them now because they are, IMO, as - if not more - relevant than ever.
This section from the second article seems pertinent today.
Anti Semitism has been devalued by all the false claims made back then.
As for you bleating on about how terrible it is for British Jews right now.
You have no sense of proportion
There are 2 million in Gaza who are suffering a genocidal attack from Netanyahu. So I think the lot of British Jews is a lot better than those Gazans don't you. Your priorities are all to cock.
The petition in solidarity with British Jews has less100 signatories the one on a ceasefire in Gaza nearly 600,000 which accurately reflects the scale of suffering IMO
"Genocide". You and you're ilk are devaluing this word. The Holocaust was a genocide, what happened in Rwanda was a genocide, Armenians suffered a genocide. What is happening in Gaza is retaliation for a terrorist attack by the government of Gaza. If you want Israel to stop then go and ask Hamas to give the hostages back.
Hard to believe you almost never see anyone in Britain say free the hostages , lay down your arms, send out hte murderers from 7th October , etc and then talk about peace. Bizarre.
I would suggest that, or some variation of it, is the standard middling position of many, especially older, political centrists in the UK - the sort that vote, don't demonstrate, expect our centrist politicians to do their job, and have no quarrel with good people on all sides.
They have a special dislike of seeing children and babies murdered by barbarians; many of them cried at telly coverage of young mothers and their babies/children going into exile from Ukraine leaving their menfolk behind and have cried again recently on 7 October and after, and find it so unthinkable they don't want to talk about it.
Hardest to talk about for decent people is the dilemma facing Israel whose policies involve also killing children and babies in their beds. Most don't think Israelis are also barbarians; every effort is under way to change this perspective.
The Israeli response to Oct 7th is going to wreak such appalling 'collateral damage' on Gaza and its population that it will strain the resolve of all but their most hardline supporters in the west. That's my sense of where this is going, PR wise.
Perhaps. But, there was not much outrage over the thousands of civilians killed in 2016/17, when the US and its allies destroyed Islamic State.
Hamas is as bad as IS, and happily uses civilians as shields as they did.
I accept that Netanyahu and Likud are less sympathetic than the enemies of IS.
I do find it interesting that there's been no real push back from Egypt, Jordan, UAE, Saudi Arabia or Qatar to Israel's ground invasion and stepping up the campaign against Hamas.
It's almost as though the neighbouring countries are aligned with Israel and want Hamas eradicated too but would prefer not to have their fingerprints on it.
There's probably wider geopolitics at play. Iran is behind Hezbollah, and Iran and Qatar 'help' Hamas. If you're not on good terms with those countries, then you probably don't want Hamas to succeed. In particular, although it was supposed to be cooling down, the Iran-Saudi proxy conflict may well be playing a part. The latest chapter in a conflict between Arab and Persians that has been ongoing for centuries...
The Arabs and the Persians/Iranians have, as you rightly say, been at loggerheads for centuries. They even have different versions of Islam. Bit like the Catholics, Protestants and Orthodox Christians.
Not even “my god is the true god and your god is a false god”. It’s “my interpretation of the one true god is the one true interpretation of the one true god, and yours is a wholly false interpretation.”
The biggest fallacy I see get quoted here is because Hamas wants war, Israel shouldn't fight one.
What should Israel do instead? Rollover and play dead? Let Hamas strike them and just turn the other cheek and say "come, take more hostages, rape more women, kill more babies, be our guest"?
When the other party wants war, then sometimes the only thing to do is give them what they want - and defeat them until they don't want it anymore.
The Jihadis are no better than Nazi Germany. They lack its power, but they have the same authoritarian rule in Gaza, anyone who speaks against them would get murdered, they've destroyed any nascent democracy there, and if they had the chance they would genocidally murder every single Jew "from the river to the sea" as they openly say. Their writings are as horrific and evil and as open as Mein Kampf.
When the Nazis wanted war, we didn't turn around and say "well you want war, so we're not playing your game, no war for you". We eventually said "if there needs to be war, there will be war, and we will beat you".
That is exactly the situation Israel faces, for its survival, and they need to fight the war and fight it to win.
Any civilians caught in the crossfire its a tragedy, but their concerns should be as secondary to Israel as German civilians concerns were to us in WWII. In war you have to put your own people first - if only Hamas felt the same, the Palestinians would not be in the situation they're in.
You are a psychopath.
Wanting fascists defeated and democracies to be able to live in peace is not psychopathic.
Your moral compass is broken.
I hope you include Netenyahu and Likud in that fascist description. Otherwise you ar a hypocrite.
Can fascists be democratically elected?
Most certainly. Whether they can be unseated democratically a few years down the line is a different question.
The biggest fallacy I see get quoted here is because Hamas wants war, Israel shouldn't fight one.
What should Israel do instead? Rollover and play dead? Let Hamas strike them and just turn the other cheek and say "come, take more hostages, rape more women, kill more babies, be our guest"?
When the other party wants war, then sometimes the only thing to do is give them what they want - and defeat them until they don't want it anymore.
The Jihadis are no better than Nazi Germany. They lack its power, but they have the same authoritarian rule in Gaza, anyone who speaks against them would get murdered, they've destroyed any nascent democracy there, and if they had the chance they would genocidally murder every single Jew "from the river to the sea" as they openly say. Their writings are as horrific and evil and as open as Mein Kampf.
When the Nazis wanted war, we didn't turn around and say "well you want war, so we're not playing your game, no war for you". We eventually said "if there needs to be war, there will be war, and we will beat you".
That is exactly the situation Israel faces, for its survival, and they need to fight the war and fight it to win.
Any civilians caught in the crossfire its a tragedy, but their concerns should be as secondary to Israel as German civilians concerns were to us in WWII. In war you have to put your own people first - if only Hamas felt the same, the Palestinians would not be in the situation they're in.
You are a psychopath.
Wanting fascists defeated and democracies to be able to live in peace is not psychopathic.
Your moral compass is broken.
I hope you include Netenyahu and Likud in that fascist description. Otherwise you ar a hypocrite.
Don't be ridiculous.
Netanyahu and Likud are flawed, in the same way as democratic politicians around the planet are flawed. But they're not fascists.
I must have missed the Israeli equivalent of the Reichstag fire, or the cancellation of Israeli democracy.
Or has it not happened, and Netanyahu is where he is because he's been (very thinly) duly elected under a proportional representation voting system.
I would rather see the Israeli opposition win its elections, I don't like Netanyahu, but for all his flaws he remains an elected politician in a true democracy.
The biggest fallacy I see get quoted here is because Hamas wants war, Israel shouldn't fight one.
What should Israel do instead? Rollover and play dead? Let Hamas strike them and just turn the other cheek and say "come, take more hostages, rape more women, kill more babies, be our guest"?
When the other party wants war, then sometimes the only thing to do is give them what they want - and defeat them until they don't want it anymore.
The Jihadis are no better than Nazi Germany. They lack its power, but they have the same authoritarian rule in Gaza, anyone who speaks against them would get murdered, they've destroyed any nascent democracy there, and if they had the chance they would genocidally murder every single Jew "from the river to the sea" as they openly say. Their writings are as horrific and evil and as open as Mein Kampf.
When the Nazis wanted war, we didn't turn around and say "well you want war, so we're not playing your game, no war for you". We eventually said "if there needs to be war, there will be war, and we will beat you".
That is exactly the situation Israel faces, for its survival, and they need to fight the war and fight it to win.
Any civilians caught in the crossfire its a tragedy, but their concerns should be as secondary to Israel as German civilians concerns were to us in WWII. In war you have to put your own people first - if only Hamas felt the same, the Palestinians would not be in the situation they're in.
You are a psychopath.
Wanting fascists defeated and democracies to be able to live in peace is not psychopathic.
Your moral compass is broken.
I hope you include Netenyahu and Likud in that fascist description. Otherwise you ar a hypocrite.
Can fascists be democratically elected?
Godwin has entered the debate.
If Bart didn't want the spectre of Godwin to be raised he shouldn't have done it himself.
The biggest fallacy I see get quoted here is because Hamas wants war, Israel shouldn't fight one.
What should Israel do instead? Rollover and play dead? Let Hamas strike them and just turn the other cheek and say "come, take more hostages, rape more women, kill more babies, be our guest"?
When the other party wants war, then sometimes the only thing to do is give them what they want - and defeat them until they don't want it anymore.
The Jihadis are no better than Nazi Germany. They lack its power, but they have the same authoritarian rule in Gaza, anyone who speaks against them would get murdered, they've destroyed any nascent democracy there, and if they had the chance they would genocidally murder every single Jew "from the river to the sea" as they openly say. Their writings are as horrific and evil and as open as Mein Kampf.
When the Nazis wanted war, we didn't turn around and say "well you want war, so we're not playing your game, no war for you". We eventually said "if there needs to be war, there will be war, and we will beat you".
That is exactly the situation Israel faces, for its survival, and they need to fight the war and fight it to win.
Any civilians caught in the crossfire its a tragedy, but their concerns should be as secondary to Israel as German civilians concerns were to us in WWII. In war you have to put your own people first - if only Hamas felt the same, the Palestinians would not be in the situation they're in.
You are a psychopath.
Wanting fascists defeated and democracies to be able to live in peace is not psychopathic.
Your moral compass is broken.
I hope you include Netenyahu and Likud in that fascist description. Otherwise you ar a hypocrite.
Can fascists be democratically elected?
Godwin has entered the debate.
Okay, democratically re-elected (Israel have had plenty of elections recently).
I am going deep into pedantry here, but he won a referendum in 1934 to become fuhrer, and most historians agree he would have won even without manipulating the result. That was de facto re-election.
One of the dangerous things about fascism is that it can be popular. See some of what Trump flirts with for evidence.
I wrote a couple of articles back in March 2020 about warning signs of illiberalism in our country. Of course, what with other events no-one paid a blind bit of notice.
I am reposting them now because they are, IMO, as - if not more - relevant than ever.
This section from the second article seems pertinent today.
Anti Semitism has been devalued by all the false claims made back then.
As for you bleating on about how terrible it is for British Jews right now.
You have no sense of proportion
There are 2 million in Gaza who are suffering a genocidal attack from Netanyahu. So I think the lot of British Jews is a lot better than those Gazans don't you. Your priorities are all to cock.
The petition in solidarity with British Jews has less100 signatories the one on a ceasefire in Gaza nearly 600,000 which accurately reflects the scale of suffering IMO
"Genocide". You and you're ilk are devaluing this word. The Holocaust was a genocide, what happened in Rwanda was a genocide, Armenians suffered a genocide. What is happening in Gaza is retaliation for a terrorist attack by the government of Gaza. If you want Israel to stop then go and ask Hamas to give the hostages back.
Hard to believe you almost never see anyone in Britain say free the hostages , lay down your arms, send out hte murderers from 7th October , etc and then talk about peace. Bizarre.
I would suggest that, or some variation of it, is the standard middling position of many, especially older, political centrists in the UK - the sort that vote, don't demonstrate, expect our centrist politicians to do their job, and have no quarrel with good people on all sides.
They have a special dislike of seeing children and babies murdered by barbarians; many of them cried at telly coverage of young mothers and their babies/children going into exile from Ukraine leaving their menfolk behind and have cried again recently on 7 October and after, and find it so unthinkable they don't want to talk about it.
Hardest to talk about for decent people is the dilemma facing Israel whose policies involve also killing children and babies in their beds. Most don't think Israelis are also barbarians; every effort is under way to change this perspective.
The Israeli response to Oct 7th is going to wreak such appalling 'collateral damage' on Gaza and its population that it will strain the resolve of all but their most hardline supporters in the west. That's my sense of where this is going, PR wise.
Who knows. It is easily possible that Hezbollah attacks from the north, the West Bank erupts, Iran lobs a few missiles and suddenly Israel itself seems mortally endangered - and then sympathy will get behind Israel
I wrote a couple of articles back in March 2020 about warning signs of illiberalism in our country. Of course, what with other events no-one paid a blind bit of notice.
I am reposting them now because they are, IMO, as - if not more - relevant than ever.
This section from the second article seems pertinent today.
Anti Semitism has been devalued by all the false claims made back then.
As for you bleating on about how terrible it is for British Jews right now.
You have no sense of proportion
There are 2 million in Gaza who are suffering a genocidal attack from Netanyahu. So I think the lot of British Jews is a lot better than those Gazans don't you. Your priorities are all to cock.
The petition in solidarity with British Jews has less100 signatories the one on a ceasefire in Gaza nearly 600,000 which accurately reflects the scale of suffering IMO
"Genocide". You and you're ilk are devaluing this word. The Holocaust was a genocide, what happened in Rwanda was a genocide, Armenians suffered a genocide. What is happening in Gaza is retaliation for a terrorist attack by the government of Gaza. If you want Israel to stop then go and ask Hamas to give the hostages back.
Hard to believe you almost never see anyone in Britain say free the hostages , lay down your arms, send out hte murderers from 7th October , etc and then talk about peace. Bizarre.
I would suggest that, or some variation of it, is the standard middling position of many, especially older, political centrists in the UK - the sort that vote, don't demonstrate, expect our centrist politicians to do their job, and have no quarrel with good people on all sides.
They have a special dislike of seeing children and babies murdered by barbarians; many of them cried at telly coverage of young mothers and their babies/children going into exile from Ukraine leaving their menfolk behind and have cried again recently on 7 October and after, and find it so unthinkable they don't want to talk about it.
Hardest to talk about for decent people is the dilemma facing Israel whose policies involve also killing children and babies in their beds. Most don't think Israelis are also barbarians; every effort is under way to change this perspective.
The Israeli response to Oct 7th is going to wreak such appalling 'collateral damage' on Gaza and its population that it will strain the resolve of all but their most hardline supporters in the west. That's my sense of where this is going, PR wise.
That's what happens in war. 🤷♂️
How much collateral damage happened in Basra when we were bombing ISIS?
Or in Dresden when we were bombing the Nazis?
Hopefully Israel continues to stick to the rules of proportionality, which it has done so far, but it must seek to eliminate Hamas as a threat, it is an existential conflict. Once Hamas are eliminated, hopefully then this war can end as WWII did with an unconditional surrender and not a ceasefire but a complete and immediate peace treaty.
The biggest fallacy I see get quoted here is because Hamas wants war, Israel shouldn't fight one.
What should Israel do instead? Rollover and play dead? Let Hamas strike them and just turn the other cheek and say "come, take more hostages, rape more women, kill more babies, be our guest"?
When the other party wants war, then sometimes the only thing to do is give them what they want - and defeat them until they don't want it anymore.
The Jihadis are no better than Nazi Germany. They lack its power, but they have the same authoritarian rule in Gaza, anyone who speaks against them would get murdered, they've destroyed any nascent democracy there, and if they had the chance they would genocidally murder every single Jew "from the river to the sea" as they openly say. Their writings are as horrific and evil and as open as Mein Kampf.
When the Nazis wanted war, we didn't turn around and say "well you want war, so we're not playing your game, no war for you". We eventually said "if there needs to be war, there will be war, and we will beat you".
That is exactly the situation Israel faces, for its survival, and they need to fight the war and fight it to win.
Any civilians caught in the crossfire its a tragedy, but their concerns should be as secondary to Israel as German civilians concerns were to us in WWII. In war you have to put your own people first - if only Hamas felt the same, the Palestinians would not be in the situation they're in.
You are a psychopath.
Wanting fascists defeated and democracies to be able to live in peace is not psychopathic.
Your moral compass is broken.
I hope you include Netenyahu and Likud in that fascist description. Otherwise you ar a hypocrite.
Can fascists be democratically elected?
Godwin has entered the debate.
If Bart didn't want the spectre of Godwin to be raised he shouldn't have done it himself.
As Godwin himself has said, its not a Godwin to compare literal fascists to the Nazis.
Hamas are Islamofascists who want the extermination of all Jews. They would do a Holocaust if they could. They have their own writings that are as explicit, and as evil, as Mein Kampf.
This isn't a minor war between distant parties of whom we know little, this is an existential fight between civilisation and barbarianism, between democracy and fascism, between good and evil. I hope good wins the war.
The other thread has been closed, which in the absence of any new news might have been the wrong choice but here we are.
I blame the end of daylight saving time, and call for an immediate judge led inquiry into keeping BST for the whole year to avoid confusing PB's editors.
(Is that the right way to do it?)
On topic - badly. Which is what Hamas wants and why Netanyahu is being even more foolish than usual.
I think Hamas would actually prefer Gaza as a wasteland occupied by Israel to a two state solution. It allows them to extend their grievance and get loads more lovely cash from their backers to maintain their personally lavish lifestyles (and kill Jews).
And unfortunately, so would Likud, who naively believe it would secure Israel's future as a Jewish state encompassing the whole of Mandatory Palestine.
The Palestinian people wouldn't, according to such information as we have, but nobody involved seems to care about them (including these idiot protestors in the West).
A hat tip to @Cyclefree for this article by Simon Sebag Montefiore:
There is one mistake in it. The number of Jews who are non-white (insofar as that label has any meaning) is around 3-3.5 million not 5 million. I think he may have added in the Muslim and Christian populations to get to 5 million but it is a little misleading.
Otherwise, it's a good article and well worth reading.
I too have an old French clock which needs rewinding forward but now have no idea of what the correct time is. Not that it makes a huge difference here.
I’ve signed the solidarity pledge. Regardless of the rights and wrongs in Gaza, on whichever side of the fence you sit, British Jews are Not Responsible.
The reason why I give Israel more leeway than may otherwise happen is because of what has happened in this country and in others since Hamas blew this up.
It is blatant and depressing anti-semitism to blame one set of Jews for the alleged actions of another set of Jews. And the people who screech on about false claims of antisemitism against their belovlied Jeremy are so often the ones making antisemitic accusations against British Jews. I have seen it with my own eyes.
Another protest in that London yesterday chanting “from the River to the Sea Palestine will be free”. Free of Jews they mean. At best a pogrom. At worst a genocide. And the hard left think that is a just cause - usually because the Jew is more than capable of looking after themselves as they are so rich - more antisemitism.
The above petition doesn't seem to be gaining much traction. I thought I should highlight this one instead, which already has over 60,000 signatures, including some very well known individuals:
Well the reason that one gains signatories is that it should.
Everyone with decency does stand with those affected by 7th October attacks
The reason why the one you linked to previously isnt gaining much support is because it is one eyed tin eared and wrong headed (like you) at a time when 1m people have had to leave their homes and 8k and rising have been killed out of revenge.
The plight of British Jews is a bit less important than halting genocide
The two things are not in opposition, and your whataboutery is effectively arguing that antisemitism is justified.
You are a prime example of what is wrong with the Corbyn gang on the left.
And your self indulgent claptrap isn't halting anything anyway.
I wrote a couple of articles back in March 2020 about warning signs of illiberalism in our country. Of course, what with other events no-one paid a blind bit of notice.
I am reposting them now because they are, IMO, as - if not more - relevant than ever.
This section from the second article seems pertinent today.
Anti Semitism has been devalued by all the false claims made back then.
As for you bleating on about how terrible it is for British Jews right now.
You have no sense of proportion
There are 2 million in Gaza who are suffering a genocidal attack from Netanyahu. So I think the lot of British Jews is a lot better than those Gazans don't you. Your priorities are all to cock.
The petition in solidarity with British Jews has less100 signatories the one on a ceasefire in Gaza nearly 600,000 which accurately reflects the scale of suffering IMO
"Genocide". You and you're ilk are devaluing this word. The Holocaust was a genocide, what happened in Rwanda was a genocide, Armenians suffered a genocide. What is happening in Gaza is retaliation for a terrorist attack by the government of Gaza. If you want Israel to stop then go and ask Hamas to give the hostages back.
Hard to believe you almost never see anyone in Britain say free the hostages , lay down your arms, send out hte murderers from 7th October , etc and then talk about peace. Bizarre.
I would suggest that, or some variation of it, is the standard middling position of many, especially older, political centrists in the UK - the sort that vote, don't demonstrate, expect our centrist politicians to do their job, and have no quarrel with good people on all sides.
They have a special dislike of seeing children and babies murdered by barbarians; many of them cried at telly coverage of young mothers and their babies/children going into exile from Ukraine leaving their menfolk behind and have cried again recently on 7 October and after, and find it so unthinkable they don't want to talk about it.
Hardest to talk about for decent people is the dilemma facing Israel whose policies involve also killing children and babies in their beds. Most don't think Israelis are also barbarians; every effort is under way to change this perspective.
The Israeli response to Oct 7th is going to wreak such appalling 'collateral damage' on Gaza and its population that it will strain the resolve of all but their most hardline supporters in the west. That's my sense of where this is going, PR wise.
That's what happens in war. 🤷♂️
How much collateral damage happened in Basra when we were bombing ISIS?
Or in Dresden when we were bombing the Nazis?
Hopefully Israel continues to stick to the rules of proportionality, which it has done so far, but it must seek to eliminate Hamas as a threat, it is an existential conflict. Once Hamas are eliminated, hopefully then this war can end as WWII did with an unconditional surrender and not a ceasefire but a complete and immediate peace treaty.
You are using Dresden as an example of what to do? You know Churchill bollocked Harris for Dresden and Potsdam and hated that we had done it? No sensible person thinks Dresden was right, when applying an ounce of hindsight (or just “sight” in Churchill’s case - “are we beasts?”)
Oh well, a bit of a flurry from the home side’s tail-enders there, and we have 230 as the target.
I’d probably back almost any other team in this competition to get these runs. But sadly not England in the form they’ve been showing in recent matches.
They've remembered how to bowl. They've remembered how to field. Now for the tricky bit.
I wrote a couple of articles back in March 2020 about warning signs of illiberalism in our country. Of course, what with other events no-one paid a blind bit of notice.
I am reposting them now because they are, IMO, as - if not more - relevant than ever.
This section from the second article seems pertinent today.
Anti Semitism has been devalued by all the false claims made back then.
As for you bleating on about how terrible it is for British Jews right now.
You have no sense of proportion
There are 2 million in Gaza who are suffering a genocidal attack from Netanyahu. So I think the lot of British Jews is a lot better than those Gazans don't you. Your priorities are all to cock.
The petition in solidarity with British Jews has less100 signatories the one on a ceasefire in Gaza nearly 600,000 which accurately reflects the scale of suffering IMO
"Genocide". You and you're ilk are devaluing this word. The Holocaust was a genocide, what happened in Rwanda was a genocide, Armenians suffered a genocide. What is happening in Gaza is retaliation for a terrorist attack by the government of Gaza. If you want Israel to stop then go and ask Hamas to give the hostages back.
Hard to believe you almost never see anyone in Britain say free the hostages , lay down your arms, send out hte murderers from 7th October , etc and then talk about peace. Bizarre.
I would suggest that, or some variation of it, is the standard middling position of many, especially older, political centrists in the UK - the sort that vote, don't demonstrate, expect our centrist politicians to do their job, and have no quarrel with good people on all sides.
They have a special dislike of seeing children and babies murdered by barbarians; many of them cried at telly coverage of young mothers and their babies/children going into exile from Ukraine leaving their menfolk behind and have cried again recently on 7 October and after, and find it so unthinkable they don't want to talk about it.
Hardest to talk about for decent people is the dilemma facing Israel whose policies involve also killing children and babies in their beds. Most don't think Israelis are also barbarians; every effort is under way to change this perspective.
The Israeli response to Oct 7th is going to wreak such appalling 'collateral damage' on Gaza and its population that it will strain the resolve of all but their most hardline supporters in the west. That's my sense of where this is going, PR wise.
That's what happens in war. 🤷♂️
How much collateral damage happened in Basra when we were bombing ISIS?
Or in Dresden when we were bombing the Nazis?
Hopefully Israel continues to stick to the rules of proportionality, which it has done so far, but it must seek to eliminate Hamas as a threat, it is an existential conflict. Once Hamas are eliminated, hopefully then this war can end as WWII did with an unconditional surrender and not a ceasefire but a complete and immediate peace treaty.
You are using Dresden as an example of what to do? You know Churchill bollocked Harris for Dresden and Potsdam and hated that we had done it? No sensible person thinks Dresden was right, when applying an ounce of hindsight (or just “sight” in Churchill’s case - “are we beasts?”)
I'm not saying its what Israel should do, I'm saying that Israel are being better than us.
That we are in no position to criticise Israel for doing far, far, far less collateral damage than we would and have done in their shoes.
I wrote a couple of articles back in March 2020 about warning signs of illiberalism in our country. Of course, what with other events no-one paid a blind bit of notice.
I am reposting them now because they are, IMO, as - if not more - relevant than ever.
This section from the second article seems pertinent today.
Anti Semitism has been devalued by all the false claims made back then.
As for you bleating on about how terrible it is for British Jews right now.
You have no sense of proportion
There are 2 million in Gaza who are suffering a genocidal attack from Netanyahu. So I think the lot of British Jews is a lot better than those Gazans don't you. Your priorities are all to cock.
The petition in solidarity with British Jews has less100 signatories the one on a ceasefire in Gaza nearly 600,000 which accurately reflects the scale of suffering IMO
"Genocide". You and you're ilk are devaluing this word. The Holocaust was a genocide, what happened in Rwanda was a genocide, Armenians suffered a genocide. What is happening in Gaza is retaliation for a terrorist attack by the government of Gaza. If you want Israel to stop then go and ask Hamas to give the hostages back.
Hard to believe you almost never see anyone in Britain say free the hostages , lay down your arms, send out hte murderers from 7th October , etc and then talk about peace. Bizarre.
I would suggest that, or some variation of it, is the standard middling position of many, especially older, political centrists in the UK - the sort that vote, don't demonstrate, expect our centrist politicians to do their job, and have no quarrel with good people on all sides.
They have a special dislike of seeing children and babies murdered by barbarians; many of them cried at telly coverage of young mothers and their babies/children going into exile from Ukraine leaving their menfolk behind and have cried again recently on 7 October and after, and find it so unthinkable they don't want to talk about it.
Hardest to talk about for decent people is the dilemma facing Israel whose policies involve also killing children and babies in their beds. Most don't think Israelis are also barbarians; every effort is under way to change this perspective.
The Israeli response to Oct 7th is going to wreak such appalling 'collateral damage' on Gaza and its population that it will strain the resolve of all but their most hardline supporters in the west. That's my sense of where this is going, PR wise.
Who knows. It is easily possible that Hezbollah attacks from the north, the West Bank erupts, Iran lobs a few missiles and suddenly Israel itself seems mortally endangered - and then sympathy will get behind Israel
I don't think sympathy would get get behind Israel. The noisy people out on the streets yesterday will just blame Israel for their own dilemma, and continue standing alongside people screeching "Jihad!" or "From the river to the sea!" They will be making the noise.
Oh well, a bit of a flurry from the home side’s tail-enders there, and we have 230 as the target.
I’d probably back almost any other team in this competition to get these runs. But sadly not England in the form they’ve been showing in recent matches.
They've remembered how to bowl. They've remembered how to field. Now for the tricky bit.
Reversion to the mean. I think we will win these last games, and someone is in for a spanking.
5% chance we up progressing and still retain the thing.
I wrote a couple of articles back in March 2020 about warning signs of illiberalism in our country. Of course, what with other events no-one paid a blind bit of notice.
I am reposting them now because they are, IMO, as - if not more - relevant than ever.
This section from the second article seems pertinent today.
Anti Semitism has been devalued by all the false claims made back then.
As for you bleating on about how terrible it is for British Jews right now.
You have no sense of proportion
There are 2 million in Gaza who are suffering a genocidal attack from Netanyahu. So I think the lot of British Jews is a lot better than those Gazans don't you. Your priorities are all to cock.
The petition in solidarity with British Jews has less100 signatories the one on a ceasefire in Gaza nearly 600,000 which accurately reflects the scale of suffering IMO
"Genocide". You and you're ilk are devaluing this word. The Holocaust was a genocide, what happened in Rwanda was a genocide, Armenians suffered a genocide. What is happening in Gaza is retaliation for a terrorist attack by the government of Gaza. If you want Israel to stop then go and ask Hamas to give the hostages back.
Hard to believe you almost never see anyone in Britain say free the hostages , lay down your arms, send out hte murderers from 7th October , etc and then talk about peace. Bizarre.
I would suggest that, or some variation of it, is the standard middling position of many, especially older, political centrists in the UK - the sort that vote, don't demonstrate, expect our centrist politicians to do their job, and have no quarrel with good people on all sides.
They have a special dislike of seeing children and babies murdered by barbarians; many of them cried at telly coverage of young mothers and their babies/children going into exile from Ukraine leaving their menfolk behind and have cried again recently on 7 October and after, and find it so unthinkable they don't want to talk about it.
Hardest to talk about for decent people is the dilemma facing Israel whose policies involve also killing children and babies in their beds. Most don't think Israelis are also barbarians; every effort is under way to change this perspective.
The Israeli response to Oct 7th is going to wreak such appalling 'collateral damage' on Gaza and its population that it will strain the resolve of all but their most hardline supporters in the west. That's my sense of where this is going, PR wise.
Who knows. It is easily possible that Hezbollah attacks from the north, the West Bank erupts, Iran lobs a few missiles and suddenly Israel itself seems mortally endangered - and then sympathy will get behind Israel
I meant to post this a few days ago, which echoes your concerns:
I have a self-denying ordinance on the Israel-Gaza conflict, on the basis that I cannot realistically process moment-by-moment information without the prospect of error. Certainly PB cannot do so. However I can provide geopolitical overviews on a broader scale, which covers that link.
I wrote a couple of articles back in March 2020 about warning signs of illiberalism in our country. Of course, what with other events no-one paid a blind bit of notice.
I am reposting them now because they are, IMO, as - if not more - relevant than ever.
This section from the second article seems pertinent today.
Anti Semitism has been devalued by all the false claims made back then.
As for you bleating on about how terrible it is for British Jews right now.
You have no sense of proportion
There are 2 million in Gaza who are suffering a genocidal attack from Netanyahu. So I think the lot of British Jews is a lot better than those Gazans don't you. Your priorities are all to cock.
The petition in solidarity with British Jews has less100 signatories the one on a ceasefire in Gaza nearly 600,000 which accurately reflects the scale of suffering IMO
"Genocide". You and you're ilk are devaluing this word. The Holocaust was a genocide, what happened in Rwanda was a genocide, Armenians suffered a genocide. What is happening in Gaza is retaliation for a terrorist attack by the government of Gaza. If you want Israel to stop then go and ask Hamas to give the hostages back.
Hard to believe you almost never see anyone in Britain say free the hostages , lay down your arms, send out hte murderers from 7th October , etc and then talk about peace. Bizarre.
I would suggest that, or some variation of it, is the standard middling position of many, especially older, political centrists in the UK - the sort that vote, don't demonstrate, expect our centrist politicians to do their job, and have no quarrel with good people on all sides.
They have a special dislike of seeing children and babies murdered by barbarians; many of them cried at telly coverage of young mothers and their babies/children going into exile from Ukraine leaving their menfolk behind and have cried again recently on 7 October and after, and find it so unthinkable they don't want to talk about it.
Hardest to talk about for decent people is the dilemma facing Israel whose policies involve also killing children and babies in their beds. Most don't think Israelis are also barbarians; every effort is under way to change this perspective.
The Israeli response to Oct 7th is going to wreak such appalling 'collateral damage' on Gaza and its population that it will strain the resolve of all but their most hardline supporters in the west. That's my sense of where this is going, PR wise.
That's what happens in war. 🤷♂️
How much collateral damage happened in Basra when we were bombing ISIS?
Or in Dresden when we were bombing the Nazis?
Hopefully Israel continues to stick to the rules of proportionality, which it has done so far, but it must seek to eliminate Hamas as a threat, it is an existential conflict. Once Hamas are eliminated, hopefully then this war can end as WWII did with an unconditional surrender and not a ceasefire but a complete and immediate peace treaty.
This is below is not proportionate.
I've posted before that I think Israel are walking into a trap. And one of the reasons for thinking that is that they will end up doing things that are beyond the pale like this and thereby lose even more in the battle of international opinion.
Shashank Joshi @shashj 'The Palestinian Red Crescent said on Sunday it has received warnings from Israeli authorities to immediately evacuate al-Quds hospital in the Gaza Strip, as it is “going to be bombarded”.'
The law of armed conflict / IHL gives special protection to hospitals. That protection can be lost if the protected sites are used for certain military purpose. But even then, importantly, attackers are still circumscribed in what they may do. http://opiniojuris.org/2016/10/21/dont-blame-ihl-for-attacks-on-hospitals/
I wrote a couple of articles back in March 2020 about warning signs of illiberalism in our country. Of course, what with other events no-one paid a blind bit of notice.
I am reposting them now because they are, IMO, as - if not more - relevant than ever.
This section from the second article seems pertinent today.
Anti Semitism has been devalued by all the false claims made back then.
As for you bleating on about how terrible it is for British Jews right now.
You have no sense of proportion
There are 2 million in Gaza who are suffering a genocidal attack from Netanyahu. So I think the lot of British Jews is a lot better than those Gazans don't you. Your priorities are all to cock.
The petition in solidarity with British Jews has less100 signatories the one on a ceasefire in Gaza nearly 600,000 which accurately reflects the scale of suffering IMO
"Genocide". You and you're ilk are devaluing this word. The Holocaust was a genocide, what happened in Rwanda was a genocide, Armenians suffered a genocide. What is happening in Gaza is retaliation for a terrorist attack by the government of Gaza. If you want Israel to stop then go and ask Hamas to give the hostages back.
Hard to believe you almost never see anyone in Britain say free the hostages , lay down your arms, send out hte murderers from 7th October , etc and then talk about peace. Bizarre.
I would suggest that, or some variation of it, is the standard middling position of many, especially older, political centrists in the UK - the sort that vote, don't demonstrate, expect our centrist politicians to do their job, and have no quarrel with good people on all sides.
They have a special dislike of seeing children and babies murdered by barbarians; many of them cried at telly coverage of young mothers and their babies/children going into exile from Ukraine leaving their menfolk behind and have cried again recently on 7 October and after, and find it so unthinkable they don't want to talk about it.
Hardest to talk about for decent people is the dilemma facing Israel whose policies involve also killing children and babies in their beds. Most don't think Israelis are also barbarians; every effort is under way to change this perspective.
The Israeli response to Oct 7th is going to wreak such appalling 'collateral damage' on Gaza and its population that it will strain the resolve of all but their most hardline supporters in the west. That's my sense of where this is going, PR wise.
Who knows. It is easily possible that Hezbollah attacks from the north, the West Bank erupts, Iran lobs a few missiles and suddenly Israel itself seems mortally endangered - and then sympathy will get behind Israel
I meant to post this a few days ago, which echoes your concerns:
You can say that you don't mean genocide of the Jews when you say it; you may even believe it. But others screeching it *will* be meaning that, and your shouting of it gives power to them and their calls.
They are phrases to avoid; not excuse.
Anyone who claims “from the river to the sea” isn’t calling the destruction of Israel is naive or stupid.
As it happens, 90% of the time they actually are naive and just haven’t read into the issue they are protesting about. They want goodies and baddies, and simplicity, and Israel/Palestine isn’t like that.
The only sensible peace proposal starts with “I wouldn’t start from here but we are where are…” and this issue is that (for understandable reasons) that doesn’t butter any Palestinian parsnips.
Apologies if I'm mistaken, but don't Likud and other right-wing Israelis also want a land "from the river to the sea"?
Yes. And are equally wrong. No simple goodies and baddies here.
Perhaps the Palestinians should say “ok I’ll take my citizenship”.
There are goodies and baddies here, Israel are good, Hamas are bad.
No Likud don't want a land "from the river to the sea", that has never been Likud policy. It could have been if they wanted it to be, they've controlled that land for fifty years. If they'd evicted the Palestinians fifty years ago, they'd have a "Greater Israel" and the Palestinian issue wouldn't exist they'd live in other Arab nations. But they didn't. They're better than that.
The Azerbaijan-Armenia conflict this year saw one nation take land off the other and effectively expel its inhabitants and it was all done and dusted in days and the world barely blinked an eye. Has Israel done that? No, its better than that.
Israel has tried for peace for decades. Despite the constant threats they've faced. They are good, Hamas are bad. Its that clear cut.
Not an fair comparison though.
You can compare Hamas with Likud and the nutters they depend on for a majority in the Israeli Parliament. Settlers and all.
You can compare the people of Israel with the people of Palestine.
But comparing a whole nation, with better and worse people in it against the worst of another nation... Nah. Not on.
I wrote a couple of articles back in March 2020 about warning signs of illiberalism in our country. Of course, what with other events no-one paid a blind bit of notice.
I am reposting them now because they are, IMO, as - if not more - relevant than ever.
This section from the second article seems pertinent today.
Anti Semitism has been devalued by all the false claims made back then.
As for you bleating on about how terrible it is for British Jews right now.
You have no sense of proportion
There are 2 million in Gaza who are suffering a genocidal attack from Netanyahu. So I think the lot of British Jews is a lot better than those Gazans don't you. Your priorities are all to cock.
The petition in solidarity with British Jews has less100 signatories the one on a ceasefire in Gaza nearly 600,000 which accurately reflects the scale of suffering IMO
"Genocide". You and you're ilk are devaluing this word. The Holocaust was a genocide, what happened in Rwanda was a genocide, Armenians suffered a genocide. What is happening in Gaza is retaliation for a terrorist attack by the government of Gaza. If you want Israel to stop then go and ask Hamas to give the hostages back.
Hard to believe you almost never see anyone in Britain say free the hostages , lay down your arms, send out hte murderers from 7th October , etc and then talk about peace. Bizarre.
I would suggest that, or some variation of it, is the standard middling position of many, especially older, political centrists in the UK - the sort that vote, don't demonstrate, expect our centrist politicians to do their job, and have no quarrel with good people on all sides.
They have a special dislike of seeing children and babies murdered by barbarians; many of them cried at telly coverage of young mothers and their babies/children going into exile from Ukraine leaving their menfolk behind and have cried again recently on 7 October and after, and find it so unthinkable they don't want to talk about it.
Hardest to talk about for decent people is the dilemma facing Israel whose policies involve also killing children and babies in their beds. Most don't think Israelis are also barbarians; every effort is under way to change this perspective.
The Israeli response to Oct 7th is going to wreak such appalling 'collateral damage' on Gaza and its population that it will strain the resolve of all but their most hardline supporters in the west. That's my sense of where this is going, PR wise.
That's what happens in war. 🤷♂️
How much collateral damage happened in Basra when we were bombing ISIS?
Or in Dresden when we were bombing the Nazis?
Hopefully Israel continues to stick to the rules of proportionality, which it has done so far, but it must seek to eliminate Hamas as a threat, it is an existential conflict. Once Hamas are eliminated, hopefully then this war can end as WWII did with an unconditional surrender and not a ceasefire but a complete and immediate peace treaty.
How can Hamas sign a peace treaty if they have been eliminated?
I wrote a couple of articles back in March 2020 about warning signs of illiberalism in our country. Of course, what with other events no-one paid a blind bit of notice.
I am reposting them now because they are, IMO, as - if not more - relevant than ever.
This section from the second article seems pertinent today.
Anti Semitism has been devalued by all the false claims made back then.
As for you bleating on about how terrible it is for British Jews right now.
You have no sense of proportion
There are 2 million in Gaza who are suffering a genocidal attack from Netanyahu. So I think the lot of British Jews is a lot better than those Gazans don't you. Your priorities are all to cock.
The petition in solidarity with British Jews has less100 signatories the one on a ceasefire in Gaza nearly 600,000 which accurately reflects the scale of suffering IMO
"Genocide". You and you're ilk are devaluing this word. The Holocaust was a genocide, what happened in Rwanda was a genocide, Armenians suffered a genocide. What is happening in Gaza is retaliation for a terrorist attack by the government of Gaza. If you want Israel to stop then go and ask Hamas to give the hostages back.
Hard to believe you almost never see anyone in Britain say free the hostages , lay down your arms, send out hte murderers from 7th October , etc and then talk about peace. Bizarre.
I would suggest that, or some variation of it, is the standard middling position of many, especially older, political centrists in the UK - the sort that vote, don't demonstrate, expect our centrist politicians to do their job, and have no quarrel with good people on all sides.
They have a special dislike of seeing children and babies murdered by barbarians; many of them cried at telly coverage of young mothers and their babies/children going into exile from Ukraine leaving their menfolk behind and have cried again recently on 7 October and after, and find it so unthinkable they don't want to talk about it.
Hardest to talk about for decent people is the dilemma facing Israel whose policies involve also killing children and babies in their beds. Most don't think Israelis are also barbarians; every effort is under way to change this perspective.
The Israeli response to Oct 7th is going to wreak such appalling 'collateral damage' on Gaza and its population that it will strain the resolve of all but their most hardline supporters in the west. That's my sense of where this is going, PR wise.
That's what happens in war. 🤷♂️
How much collateral damage happened in Basra when we were bombing ISIS?
Or in Dresden when we were bombing the Nazis?
Hopefully Israel continues to stick to the rules of proportionality, which it has done so far, but it must seek to eliminate Hamas as a threat, it is an existential conflict. Once Hamas are eliminated, hopefully then this war can end as WWII did with an unconditional surrender and not a ceasefire but a complete and immediate peace treaty.
You are using Dresden as an example of what to do? You know Churchill bollocked Harris for Dresden and Potsdam and hated that we had done it? No sensible person thinks Dresden was right, when applying an ounce of hindsight (or just “sight” in Churchill’s case - “are we beasts?”)
Raaqa and Mosul would be better comparators. Our side was not aiming to kill civilians, but thousands were still killed Orr injured by the bombing.
I wrote a couple of articles back in March 2020 about warning signs of illiberalism in our country. Of course, what with other events no-one paid a blind bit of notice.
I am reposting them now because they are, IMO, as - if not more - relevant than ever.
This section from the second article seems pertinent today.
Anti Semitism has been devalued by all the false claims made back then.
As for you bleating on about how terrible it is for British Jews right now.
You have no sense of proportion
There are 2 million in Gaza who are suffering a genocidal attack from Netanyahu. So I think the lot of British Jews is a lot better than those Gazans don't you. Your priorities are all to cock.
The petition in solidarity with British Jews has less100 signatories the one on a ceasefire in Gaza nearly 600,000 which accurately reflects the scale of suffering IMO
"Genocide". You and you're ilk are devaluing this word. The Holocaust was a genocide, what happened in Rwanda was a genocide, Armenians suffered a genocide. What is happening in Gaza is retaliation for a terrorist attack by the government of Gaza. If you want Israel to stop then go and ask Hamas to give the hostages back.
Hard to believe you almost never see anyone in Britain say free the hostages , lay down your arms, send out hte murderers from 7th October , etc and then talk about peace. Bizarre.
I would suggest that, or some variation of it, is the standard middling position of many, especially older, political centrists in the UK - the sort that vote, don't demonstrate, expect our centrist politicians to do their job, and have no quarrel with good people on all sides.
They have a special dislike of seeing children and babies murdered by barbarians; many of them cried at telly coverage of young mothers and their babies/children going into exile from Ukraine leaving their menfolk behind and have cried again recently on 7 October and after, and find it so unthinkable they don't want to talk about it.
Hardest to talk about for decent people is the dilemma facing Israel whose policies involve also killing children and babies in their beds. Most don't think Israelis are also barbarians; every effort is under way to change this perspective.
The Israeli response to Oct 7th is going to wreak such appalling 'collateral damage' on Gaza and its population that it will strain the resolve of all but their most hardline supporters in the west. That's my sense of where this is going, PR wise.
Who knows. It is easily possible that Hezbollah attacks from the north, the West Bank erupts, Iran lobs a few missiles and suddenly Israel itself seems mortally endangered - and then sympathy will get behind Israel
I don't think sympathy would get get behind Israel. The noisy people out on the streets yesterday will just blame Israel for their own dilemma, and continue standing alongside people screeching "Jihad!" or "From the river to the sea!" They will be making the noise.
Anti-Semitism runs deep.
I don't think the morons on the streets represent sympathy, or the British public, any more than the masses [of mostly the same people] rallying to Corbyn in 2019 meant he was about to win a landslide majority.
Anti-semitism does run deep, but thankfully its narrow and deep, rather than wide and shallow.
These noisy idiots may get lots of retweets on Twitter, or rallies in public, but the rest of the country ignores them and moves on without them.
I wrote a couple of articles back in March 2020 about warning signs of illiberalism in our country. Of course, what with other events no-one paid a blind bit of notice.
I am reposting them now because they are, IMO, as - if not more - relevant than ever.
This section from the second article seems pertinent today.
Anti Semitism has been devalued by all the false claims made back then.
As for you bleating on about how terrible it is for British Jews right now.
You have no sense of proportion
There are 2 million in Gaza who are suffering a genocidal attack from Netanyahu. So I think the lot of British Jews is a lot better than those Gazans don't you. Your priorities are all to cock.
The petition in solidarity with British Jews has less100 signatories the one on a ceasefire in Gaza nearly 600,000 which accurately reflects the scale of suffering IMO
"Genocide". You and you're ilk are devaluing this word. The Holocaust was a genocide, what happened in Rwanda was a genocide, Armenians suffered a genocide. What is happening in Gaza is retaliation for a terrorist attack by the government of Gaza. If you want Israel to stop then go and ask Hamas to give the hostages back.
Hard to believe you almost never see anyone in Britain say free the hostages , lay down your arms, send out hte murderers from 7th October , etc and then talk about peace. Bizarre.
I would suggest that, or some variation of it, is the standard middling position of many, especially older, political centrists in the UK - the sort that vote, don't demonstrate, expect our centrist politicians to do their job, and have no quarrel with good people on all sides.
They have a special dislike of seeing children and babies murdered by barbarians; many of them cried at telly coverage of young mothers and their babies/children going into exile from Ukraine leaving their menfolk behind and have cried again recently on 7 October and after, and find it so unthinkable they don't want to talk about it.
Hardest to talk about for decent people is the dilemma facing Israel whose policies involve also killing children and babies in their beds. Most don't think Israelis are also barbarians; every effort is under way to change this perspective.
The Israeli response to Oct 7th is going to wreak such appalling 'collateral damage' on Gaza and its population that it will strain the resolve of all but their most hardline supporters in the west. That's my sense of where this is going, PR wise.
That's what happens in war. 🤷♂️
How much collateral damage happened in Basra when we were bombing ISIS?
Or in Dresden when we were bombing the Nazis?
Hopefully Israel continues to stick to the rules of proportionality, which it has done so far, but it must seek to eliminate Hamas as a threat, it is an existential conflict. Once Hamas are eliminated, hopefully then this war can end as WWII did with an unconditional surrender and not a ceasefire but a complete and immediate peace treaty.
How can Hamas sign a peace treaty if they have been eliminated?
How did Hitler sign a peace treaty once he was dead?
Get someone else to sign the peace treaty. Or whoever is left in Hamas once they're willing to unconditionally surrender.
I wrote a couple of articles back in March 2020 about warning signs of illiberalism in our country. Of course, what with other events no-one paid a blind bit of notice.
I am reposting them now because they are, IMO, as - if not more - relevant than ever.
This section from the second article seems pertinent today.
Anti Semitism has been devalued by all the false claims made back then.
As for you bleating on about how terrible it is for British Jews right now.
You have no sense of proportion
There are 2 million in Gaza who are suffering a genocidal attack from Netanyahu. So I think the lot of British Jews is a lot better than those Gazans don't you. Your priorities are all to cock.
The petition in solidarity with British Jews has less100 signatories the one on a ceasefire in Gaza nearly 600,000 which accurately reflects the scale of suffering IMO
"Genocide". You and you're ilk are devaluing this word. The Holocaust was a genocide, what happened in Rwanda was a genocide, Armenians suffered a genocide. What is happening in Gaza is retaliation for a terrorist attack by the government of Gaza. If you want Israel to stop then go and ask Hamas to give the hostages back.
Hard to believe you almost never see anyone in Britain say free the hostages , lay down your arms, send out hte murderers from 7th October , etc and then talk about peace. Bizarre.
I would suggest that, or some variation of it, is the standard middling position of many, especially older, political centrists in the UK - the sort that vote, don't demonstrate, expect our centrist politicians to do their job, and have no quarrel with good people on all sides.
They have a special dislike of seeing children and babies murdered by barbarians; many of them cried at telly coverage of young mothers and their babies/children going into exile from Ukraine leaving their menfolk behind and have cried again recently on 7 October and after, and find it so unthinkable they don't want to talk about it.
Hardest to talk about for decent people is the dilemma facing Israel whose policies involve also killing children and babies in their beds. Most don't think Israelis are also barbarians; every effort is under way to change this perspective.
The Israeli response to Oct 7th is going to wreak such appalling 'collateral damage' on Gaza and its population that it will strain the resolve of all but their most hardline supporters in the west. That's my sense of where this is going, PR wise.
That's what happens in war. 🤷♂️
How much collateral damage happened in Basra when we were bombing ISIS?
Or in Dresden when we were bombing the Nazis?
Hopefully Israel continues to stick to the rules of proportionality, which it has done so far, but it must seek to eliminate Hamas as a threat, it is an existential conflict. Once Hamas are eliminated, hopefully then this war can end as WWII did with an unconditional surrender and not a ceasefire but a complete and immediate peace treaty.
You are using Dresden as an example of what to do? You know Churchill bollocked Harris for Dresden and Potsdam and hated that we had done it? No sensible person thinks Dresden was right, when applying an ounce of hindsight (or just “sight” in Churchill’s case - “are we beasts?”)
Raaqa and Mosul would be better comparators. Our side was not aiming to kill civilians, but thousands were still killed Orr injured by the bombing.
But, there was no other way to achieve victory.
Yes. Also Falujah (three times). Very occasionally you have to assault a dense urban area, but doing so is horrible. No matter how careful you are (and I broadly think the Israelis try) you look horrible from outside the Ops room.
I do find it interesting that there's been no real push back from Egypt, Jordan, UAE, Saudi Arabia or Qatar to Israel's ground invasion and stepping up the campaign against Hamas.
It's almost as though the neighbouring countries are aligned with Israel and want Hamas eradicated too but would prefer not to have their fingerprints on it.
There's probably wider geopolitics at play. Iran is behind Hezbollah, and Iran and Qatar 'help' Hamas. If you're not on good terms with those countries, then you probably don't want Hamas to succeed. In particular, although it was supposed to be cooling down, the Iran-Saudi proxy conflict may well be playing a part. The latest chapter in a conflict between Arab and Persians that has been ongoing for centuries...
In many of those countries, slaughtering
1) Islamic Fundamentalists of The Wrong Kind 2) People who might be IFTWK 3) Families of IFTWK 4) People who live next to IFTWK 5) Anyone in the general neighbourhood of IFTWK
Is just AOK with the government. It’s how they roll as well.
The biggest fallacy I see get quoted here is because Hamas wants war, Israel shouldn't fight one.
What should Israel do instead? Rollover and play dead? Let Hamas strike them and just turn the other cheek and say "come, take more hostages, rape more women, kill more babies, be our guest"?
When the other party wants war, then sometimes the only thing to do is give them what they want - and defeat them until they don't want it anymore.
The Jihadis are no better than Nazi Germany. They lack its power, but they have the same authoritarian rule in Gaza, anyone who speaks against them would get murdered, they've destroyed any nascent democracy there, and if they had the chance they would genocidally murder every single Jew "from the river to the sea" as they openly say. Their writings are as horrific and evil and as open as Mein Kampf.
When the Nazis wanted war, we didn't turn around and say "well you want war, so we're not playing your game, no war for you". We eventually said "if there needs to be war, there will be war, and we will beat you".
That is exactly the situation Israel faces, for its survival, and they need to fight the war and fight it to win.
Any civilians caught in the crossfire its a tragedy, but their concerns should be as secondary to Israel as German civilians concerns were to us in WWII. In war you have to put your own people first - if only Hamas felt the same, the Palestinians would not be in the situation they're in.
You are a psychopath.
Wanting fascists defeated and democracies to be able to live in peace is not psychopathic.
Your moral compass is broken.
You literally called for ethnic cleansing, a crime against humanity. If any moral compasses are broken, it’s yours.
You can say that you don't mean genocide of the Jews when you say it; you may even believe it. But others screeching it *will* be meaning that, and your shouting of it gives power to them and their calls.
They are phrases to avoid; not excuse.
Anyone who claims “from the river to the sea” isn’t calling the destruction of Israel is naive or stupid.
As it happens, 90% of the time they actually are naive and just haven’t read into the issue they are protesting about. They want goodies and baddies, and simplicity, and Israel/Palestine isn’t like that.
The only sensible peace proposal starts with “I wouldn’t start from here but we are where are…” and this issue is that (for understandable reasons) that doesn’t butter any Palestinian parsnips.
Apologies if I'm mistaken, but don't Likud and other right-wing Israelis also want a land "from the river to the sea"?
Yes. And are equally wrong. No simple goodies and baddies here.
Perhaps the Palestinians should say “ok I’ll take my citizenship”.
There are goodies and baddies here, Israel are good, Hamas are bad.
No Likud don't want a land "from the river to the sea", that has never been Likud policy. It could have been if they wanted it to be, they've controlled that land for fifty years. If they'd evicted the Palestinians fifty years ago, they'd have a "Greater Israel" and the Palestinian issue wouldn't exist they'd live in other Arab nations. But they didn't. They're better than that.
The Azerbaijan-Armenia conflict this year saw one nation take land off the other and effectively expel its inhabitants and it was all done and dusted in days and the world barely blinked an eye. Has Israel done that? No, its better than that.
Israel has tried for peace for decades. Despite the constant threats they've faced. They are good, Hamas are bad. Its that clear cut.
Not an fair comparison though.
You can compare Hamas with Likud and the nutters they depend on for a majority in the Israeli Parliament. Settlers and all.
You can compare the people of Israel with the people of Palestine.
But comparing a whole nation, with better and worse people in it against the worst of another nation... Nah. Not on.
Israel remains a free democracy, Palestine does not. Israel has elections, Likud can be defeated democratically - Gaza does not, Hamas can not.
I would quite reasonably compare England against the Nazis in WWII. Or America against the Soviets in the Cold War.
Why? Because one side was totalitarian, the other was not. In a way its to also divorce saying the worst things you need to say as seemingly being against all Germans/Palestinians too but specifically against those who are in charge.
But until the totalitarian dictatorship is defeated, yes its reasonable to use the totalitarian regime as a proxy for the comparison.
As flawed as Netanyahu, or Chamberlain, or Nixon may be they are elected politicians who can be removed via constitutional means depending upon the nations democracy and rules. The same does not apply to Hamas.
Oh well, a bit of a flurry from the home side’s tail-enders there, and we have 230 as the target.
I’d probably back almost any other team in this competition to get these runs. But sadly not England in the form they’ve been showing in recent matches.
They've remembered how to bowl. They've remembered how to field. Now for the tricky bit.
Reversion to the mean. I think we will win these last games, and someone is in for a spanking.
5% chance we up progressing and still retain the thing.
I fear that they will screw up at least once more, possibly even today. There is something really wrong with the set up that has produced performances like this.
I wrote a couple of articles back in March 2020 about warning signs of illiberalism in our country. Of course, what with other events no-one paid a blind bit of notice.
I am reposting them now because they are, IMO, as - if not more - relevant than ever.
This section from the second article seems pertinent today.
Anti Semitism has been devalued by all the false claims made back then.
As for you bleating on about how terrible it is for British Jews right now.
You have no sense of proportion
There are 2 million in Gaza who are suffering a genocidal attack from Netanyahu. So I think the lot of British Jews is a lot better than those Gazans don't you. Your priorities are all to cock.
The petition in solidarity with British Jews has less100 signatories the one on a ceasefire in Gaza nearly 600,000 which accurately reflects the scale of suffering IMO
"Genocide". You and you're ilk are devaluing this word. The Holocaust was a genocide, what happened in Rwanda was a genocide, Armenians suffered a genocide. What is happening in Gaza is retaliation for a terrorist attack by the government of Gaza. If you want Israel to stop then go and ask Hamas to give the hostages back.
Hard to believe you almost never see anyone in Britain say free the hostages , lay down your arms, send out hte murderers from 7th October , etc and then talk about peace. Bizarre.
I would suggest that, or some variation of it, is the standard middling position of many, especially older, political centrists in the UK - the sort that vote, don't demonstrate, expect our centrist politicians to do their job, and have no quarrel with good people on all sides.
They have a special dislike of seeing children and babies murdered by barbarians; many of them cried at telly coverage of young mothers and their babies/children going into exile from Ukraine leaving their menfolk behind and have cried again recently on 7 October and after, and find it so unthinkable they don't want to talk about it.
Hardest to talk about for decent people is the dilemma facing Israel whose policies involve also killing children and babies in their beds. Most don't think Israelis are also barbarians; every effort is under way to change this perspective.
The Israeli response to Oct 7th is going to wreak such appalling 'collateral damage' on Gaza and its population that it will strain the resolve of all but their most hardline supporters in the west. That's my sense of where this is going, PR wise.
That's what happens in war. 🤷♂️
How much collateral damage happened in Basra when we were bombing ISIS?
Or in Dresden when we were bombing the Nazis?
Hopefully Israel continues to stick to the rules of proportionality, which it has done so far, but it must seek to eliminate Hamas as a threat, it is an existential conflict. Once Hamas are eliminated, hopefully then this war can end as WWII did with an unconditional surrender and not a ceasefire but a complete and immediate peace treaty.
How can Hamas sign a peace treaty if they have been eliminated?
How did Hitler sign a peace treaty once he was dead?
Get someone else to sign the peace treaty. Or whoever is left in Hamas once they're willing to unconditionally surrender.
Not a ceasefire. Unconditional surrender.
So you want Hamas to only be partially eliminated? Turning into a bit of a softy.
The biggest fallacy I see get quoted here is because Hamas wants war, Israel shouldn't fight one.
What should Israel do instead? Rollover and play dead? Let Hamas strike them and just turn the other cheek and say "come, take more hostages, rape more women, kill more babies, be our guest"?
When the other party wants war, then sometimes the only thing to do is give them what they want - and defeat them until they don't want it anymore.
The Jihadis are no better than Nazi Germany. They lack its power, but they have the same authoritarian rule in Gaza, anyone who speaks against them would get murdered, they've destroyed any nascent democracy there, and if they had the chance they would genocidally murder every single Jew "from the river to the sea" as they openly say. Their writings are as horrific and evil and as open as Mein Kampf.
When the Nazis wanted war, we didn't turn around and say "well you want war, so we're not playing your game, no war for you". We eventually said "if there needs to be war, there will be war, and we will beat you".
That is exactly the situation Israel faces, for its survival, and they need to fight the war and fight it to win.
Any civilians caught in the crossfire its a tragedy, but their concerns should be as secondary to Israel as German civilians concerns were to us in WWII. In war you have to put your own people first - if only Hamas felt the same, the Palestinians would not be in the situation they're in.
If you ignore the minor issue of morality and rules, what about achieving something.
Going into Gaza and blowing shut up may temporarily degrade Hamas. A bit. Other than that, it’s stamping in a puddle - you get wet, and the puddle is pretty much unchanged. Of course, in this case, the puddle is blood. Which gives you a nasty dry cleaning problem.
My solution would probably horrify everyone here. It would be a stark and devastating example of Will on the part of the Israelis. Would definitely fuck up Hamas . And would definitely kill many fewer civilians doing so.
The biggest fallacy I see get quoted here is because Hamas wants war, Israel shouldn't fight one.
What should Israel do instead? Rollover and play dead? Let Hamas strike them and just turn the other cheek and say "come, take more hostages, rape more women, kill more babies, be our guest"?
When the other party wants war, then sometimes the only thing to do is give them what they want - and defeat them until they don't want it anymore.
The Jihadis are no better than Nazi Germany. They lack its power, but they have the same authoritarian rule in Gaza, anyone who speaks against them would get murdered, they've destroyed any nascent democracy there, and if they had the chance they would genocidally murder every single Jew "from the river to the sea" as they openly say. Their writings are as horrific and evil and as open as Mein Kampf.
When the Nazis wanted war, we didn't turn around and say "well you want war, so we're not playing your game, no war for you". We eventually said "if there needs to be war, there will be war, and we will beat you".
That is exactly the situation Israel faces, for its survival, and they need to fight the war and fight it to win.
Any civilians caught in the crossfire its a tragedy, but their concerns should be as secondary to Israel as German civilians concerns were to us in WWII. In war you have to put your own people first - if only Hamas felt the same, the Palestinians would not be in the situation they're in.
You are a psychopath.
Wanting fascists defeated and democracies to be able to live in peace is not psychopathic.
Your moral compass is broken.
You literally called for ethnic cleansing, a crime against humanity. If any moral compasses are broken, it’s yours.
Ethnic cleansing has happened repeatedly across the planet, it happened earlier this year with Azerbaijan without more than a murmur.
But it should be bloodless and voluntary I said and was proposed as a lesser evil than genocide.
The movement of people is a far lesser crime than the murder of them.
This will be an interesting case, as some of the alleged offences postdate the Murdock mea culpa from the first time around.
Three former senior Lib Dems sue Sun and NoW publisher over phone hacking https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/oct/28/three-former-senior-lib-dems-sue-sun-now-publisher-phone-hacking ...In further support of Cable’s allegations, the particulars of claim say the former cabinet minister will rely on a series of calls to his mobile in June 2010, when News Corp’s intention to buy the shares was announced, and then the day after the company had asked the EU to approve its proposed takeover in December that year.
Cable claims that between 27 July 2004 and 31 December 2011, a total of 383 calls were made by journalists at the Wapping headquarters of the Sun and News of the World, “the overwhelming majority of which he will infer were made for the purposes of unlawfully intercepting his voicemail messages”...
I wrote a couple of articles back in March 2020 about warning signs of illiberalism in our country. Of course, what with other events no-one paid a blind bit of notice.
I am reposting them now because they are, IMO, as - if not more - relevant than ever.
This section from the second article seems pertinent today.
Anti Semitism has been devalued by all the false claims made back then.
As for you bleating on about how terrible it is for British Jews right now.
You have no sense of proportion
There are 2 million in Gaza who are suffering a genocidal attack from Netanyahu. So I think the lot of British Jews is a lot better than those Gazans don't you. Your priorities are all to cock.
The petition in solidarity with British Jews has less100 signatories the one on a ceasefire in Gaza nearly 600,000 which accurately reflects the scale of suffering IMO
"Genocide". You and you're ilk are devaluing this word. The Holocaust was a genocide, what happened in Rwanda was a genocide, Armenians suffered a genocide. What is happening in Gaza is retaliation for a terrorist attack by the government of Gaza. If you want Israel to stop then go and ask Hamas to give the hostages back.
Hard to believe you almost never see anyone in Britain say free the hostages , lay down your arms, send out hte murderers from 7th October , etc and then talk about peace. Bizarre.
I would suggest that, or some variation of it, is the standard middling position of many, especially older, political centrists in the UK - the sort that vote, don't demonstrate, expect our centrist politicians to do their job, and have no quarrel with good people on all sides.
They have a special dislike of seeing children and babies murdered by barbarians; many of them cried at telly coverage of young mothers and their babies/children going into exile from Ukraine leaving their menfolk behind and have cried again recently on 7 October and after, and find it so unthinkable they don't want to talk about it.
Hardest to talk about for decent people is the dilemma facing Israel whose policies involve also killing children and babies in their beds. Most don't think Israelis are also barbarians; every effort is under way to change this perspective.
The Israeli response to Oct 7th is going to wreak such appalling 'collateral damage' on Gaza and its population that it will strain the resolve of all but their most hardline supporters in the west. That's my sense of where this is going, PR wise.
That's what happens in war. 🤷♂️
How much collateral damage happened in Basra when we were bombing ISIS?
Or in Dresden when we were bombing the Nazis?
Hopefully Israel continues to stick to the rules of proportionality, which it has done so far, but it must seek to eliminate Hamas as a threat, it is an existential conflict. Once Hamas are eliminated, hopefully then this war can end as WWII did with an unconditional surrender and not a ceasefire but a complete and immediate peace treaty.
How can Hamas sign a peace treaty if they have been eliminated?
How did Hitler sign a peace treaty once he was dead?
Get someone else to sign the peace treaty. Or whoever is left in Hamas once they're willing to unconditionally surrender.
Not a ceasefire. Unconditional surrender.
So you want Hamas to only be partially eliminated? Turning into a bit of a softy.
If Hamas are willing to unconditionally surrender, then the threat has been eliminated.
Once the Nazis were defeated and unconditionally surrendered, then the war ended.
Not a ceasefire though. That just postpones fighting and keeps the war ongoing for another round of bloodshed.
The biggest fallacy I see get quoted here is because Hamas wants war, Israel shouldn't fight one.
What should Israel do instead? Rollover and play dead? Let Hamas strike them and just turn the other cheek and say "come, take more hostages, rape more women, kill more babies, be our guest"?
When the other party wants war, then sometimes the only thing to do is give them what they want - and defeat them until they don't want it anymore.
The Jihadis are no better than Nazi Germany. They lack its power, but they have the same authoritarian rule in Gaza, anyone who speaks against them would get murdered, they've destroyed any nascent democracy there, and if they had the chance they would genocidally murder every single Jew "from the river to the sea" as they openly say. Their writings are as horrific and evil and as open as Mein Kampf.
When the Nazis wanted war, we didn't turn around and say "well you want war, so we're not playing your game, no war for you". We eventually said "if there needs to be war, there will be war, and we will beat you".
That is exactly the situation Israel faces, for its survival, and they need to fight the war and fight it to win.
Any civilians caught in the crossfire its a tragedy, but their concerns should be as secondary to Israel as German civilians concerns were to us in WWII. In war you have to put your own people first - if only Hamas felt the same, the Palestinians would not be in the situation they're in.
You are a psychopath.
Wanting fascists defeated and democracies to be able to live in peace is not psychopathic.
Your moral compass is broken.
You literally called for ethnic cleansing, a crime against humanity. If any moral compasses are broken, it’s yours.
Ethnic cleansing has happened repeatedly across the planet, it happened earlier this year with Azerbaijan without more than a murmur.
But it should be bloodless and voluntary I said and was proposed as a lesser evil than genocide.
The movement of people is a far lesser crime than the murder of them.
The biggest fallacy I see get quoted here is because Hamas wants war, Israel shouldn't fight one.
What should Israel do instead? Rollover and play dead? Let Hamas strike them and just turn the other cheek and say "come, take more hostages, rape more women, kill more babies, be our guest"?
When the other party wants war, then sometimes the only thing to do is give them what they want - and defeat them until they don't want it anymore.
The Jihadis are no better than Nazi Germany. They lack its power, but they have the same authoritarian rule in Gaza, anyone who speaks against them would get murdered, they've destroyed any nascent democracy there, and if they had the chance they would genocidally murder every single Jew "from the river to the sea" as they openly say. Their writings are as horrific and evil and as open as Mein Kampf.
When the Nazis wanted war, we didn't turn around and say "well you want war, so we're not playing your game, no war for you". We eventually said "if there needs to be war, there will be war, and we will beat you".
That is exactly the situation Israel faces, for its survival, and they need to fight the war and fight it to win.
Any civilians caught in the crossfire its a tragedy, but their concerns should be as secondary to Israel as German civilians concerns were to us in WWII. In war you have to put your own people first - if only Hamas felt the same, the Palestinians would not be in the situation they're in.
You are a psychopath.
Wanting fascists defeated and democracies to be able to live in peace is not psychopathic.
Your moral compass is broken.
I hope you include Netenyahu and Likud in that fascist description. Otherwise you ar a hypocrite.
Can fascists be democratically elected?
There have been a number of occasions where quite Fascistic parties have won elections.
This will be an interesting case, as some of the alleged offences postdate the Murdock mea culpa from the first time around.
Three former senior Lib Dems sue Sun and NoW publisher over phone hacking https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/oct/28/three-former-senior-lib-dems-sue-sun-now-publisher-phone-hacking ...In further support of Cable’s allegations, the particulars of claim say the former cabinet minister will rely on a series of calls to his mobile in June 2010, when News Corp’s intention to buy the shares was announced, and then the day after the company had asked the EU to approve its proposed takeover in December that year.
Cable claims that between 27 July 2004 and 31 December 2011, a total of 383 calls were made by journalists at the Wapping headquarters of the Sun and News of the World, “the overwhelming majority of which he will infer were made for the purposes of unlawfully intercepting his voicemail messages”...
At some stage are we going to allowed to also observe that if, even after the NotW “revelations”, you left your voicemail password as 1234 then you are an idiot?
I wrote a couple of articles back in March 2020 about warning signs of illiberalism in our country. Of course, what with other events no-one paid a blind bit of notice.
I am reposting them now because they are, IMO, as - if not more - relevant than ever.
This section from the second article seems pertinent today.
Anti Semitism has been devalued by all the false claims made back then.
As for you bleating on about how terrible it is for British Jews right now.
You have no sense of proportion
There are 2 million in Gaza who are suffering a genocidal attack from Netanyahu. So I think the lot of British Jews is a lot better than those Gazans don't you. Your priorities are all to cock.
The petition in solidarity with British Jews has less100 signatories the one on a ceasefire in Gaza nearly 600,000 which accurately reflects the scale of suffering IMO
"Genocide". You and you're ilk are devaluing this word. The Holocaust was a genocide, what happened in Rwanda was a genocide, Armenians suffered a genocide. What is happening in Gaza is retaliation for a terrorist attack by the government of Gaza. If you want Israel to stop then go and ask Hamas to give the hostages back.
Hard to believe you almost never see anyone in Britain say free the hostages , lay down your arms, send out hte murderers from 7th October , etc and then talk about peace. Bizarre.
I would suggest that, or some variation of it, is the standard middling position of many, especially older, political centrists in the UK - the sort that vote, don't demonstrate, expect our centrist politicians to do their job, and have no quarrel with good people on all sides.
They have a special dislike of seeing children and babies murdered by barbarians; many of them cried at telly coverage of young mothers and their babies/children going into exile from Ukraine leaving their menfolk behind and have cried again recently on 7 October and after, and find it so unthinkable they don't want to talk about it.
Hardest to talk about for decent people is the dilemma facing Israel whose policies involve also killing children and babies in their beds. Most don't think Israelis are also barbarians; every effort is under way to change this perspective.
The Israeli response to Oct 7th is going to wreak such appalling 'collateral damage' on Gaza and its population that it will strain the resolve of all but their most hardline supporters in the west. That's my sense of where this is going, PR wise.
That's what happens in war. 🤷♂️
How much collateral damage happened in Basra when we were bombing ISIS?
Or in Dresden when we were bombing the Nazis?
Hopefully Israel continues to stick to the rules of proportionality, which it has done so far, but it must seek to eliminate Hamas as a threat, it is an existential conflict. Once Hamas are eliminated, hopefully then this war can end as WWII did with an unconditional surrender and not a ceasefire but a complete and immediate peace treaty.
How can Hamas sign a peace treaty if they have been eliminated?
Bonaparte: Yes well, I'll discuss peace over Wellington's dead body, that's my peace table!
What happened on 7th October was unspeakably evil, utterly dehumanising both the victims and those who did it. Israel is entitled to vengeance, no one can deny that.
But the Secretary General of the UN was not wrong to say this evil did not happen in a vacuum. The way Palestinians have been treated by Israel since at least 1967, particularly in Gaza, is also dehumanising and provokes both desperation and hatred. If Israel wishes to live in peace it must allow the Palestinians to live peaceably, to have some skin in the game, the chance to progress, make money, acquire skills and provide for their children.
Whilst the anger, the revulsion and the contempt on the part of Israel is understandable they need to come to terms with this and find ways to facilitate it whilst rightly protecting their own security.
I wrote a couple of articles back in March 2020 about warning signs of illiberalism in our country. Of course, what with other events no-one paid a blind bit of notice.
I am reposting them now because they are, IMO, as - if not more - relevant than ever.
This section from the second article seems pertinent today.
Anti Semitism has been devalued by all the false claims made back then.
As for you bleating on about how terrible it is for British Jews right now.
You have no sense of proportion
There are 2 million in Gaza who are suffering a genocidal attack from Netanyahu. So I think the lot of British Jews is a lot better than those Gazans don't you. Your priorities are all to cock.
The petition in solidarity with British Jews has less100 signatories the one on a ceasefire in Gaza nearly 600,000 which accurately reflects the scale of suffering IMO
"Genocide". You and you're ilk are devaluing this word. The Holocaust was a genocide, what happened in Rwanda was a genocide, Armenians suffered a genocide. What is happening in Gaza is retaliation for a terrorist attack by the government of Gaza. If you want Israel to stop then go and ask Hamas to give the hostages back.
Hard to believe you almost never see anyone in Britain say free the hostages , lay down your arms, send out hte murderers from 7th October , etc and then talk about peace. Bizarre.
I would suggest that, or some variation of it, is the standard middling position of many, especially older, political centrists in the UK - the sort that vote, don't demonstrate, expect our centrist politicians to do their job, and have no quarrel with good people on all sides.
They have a special dislike of seeing children and babies murdered by barbarians; many of them cried at telly coverage of young mothers and their babies/children going into exile from Ukraine leaving their menfolk behind and have cried again recently on 7 October and after, and find it so unthinkable they don't want to talk about it.
Hardest to talk about for decent people is the dilemma facing Israel whose policies involve also killing children and babies in their beds. Most don't think Israelis are also barbarians; every effort is under way to change this perspective.
The Israeli response to Oct 7th is going to wreak such appalling 'collateral damage' on Gaza and its population that it will strain the resolve of all but their most hardline supporters in the west. That's my sense of where this is going, PR wise.
That's what happens in war. 🤷♂️
How much collateral damage happened in Basra when we were bombing ISIS?
Or in Dresden when we were bombing the Nazis?
Hopefully Israel continues to stick to the rules of proportionality, which it has done so far, but it must seek to eliminate Hamas as a threat, it is an existential conflict. Once Hamas are eliminated, hopefully then this war can end as WWII did with an unconditional surrender and not a ceasefire but a complete and immediate peace treaty.
This is below is not proportionate.
I've posted before that I think Israel are walking into a trap. And one of the reasons for thinking that is that they will end up doing things that are beyond the pale like this and thereby lose even more in the battle of international opinion.
Shashank Joshi @shashj 'The Palestinian Red Crescent said on Sunday it has received warnings from Israeli authorities to immediately evacuate al-Quds hospital in the Gaza Strip, as it is “going to be bombarded”.'
The law of armed conflict / IHL gives special protection to hospitals. That protection can be lost if the protected sites are used for certain military purpose. But even then, importantly, attackers are still circumscribed in what they may do. http://opiniojuris.org/2016/10/21/dont-blame-ihl-for-attacks-on-hospitals/
It absolutely 100% is proportionate and as said the protection is lost if the protected site is being used for military purposes.
Since Hamas is using the military site for operations (in the knowledge they're using the hospital as a human shield) it is absolutely proportionate to destroy it.
See the article linked to: First, the logic of the human shields clauses can, it seems, quite easily be transferred to medical facilities. International law prohibits the use of civilians as human shields to protect military targets, but it also permits the attacking forces to kill human shields as long as they abide by the principle of proportionality. In this instance, then, international law ceases to protect civilians and actually becomes a weapon of the strong, protecting those who kill non-combatants. By extension, if hospitals are used as shields, they too can be bombed provided the principle of proportionality is not breached.
It goes on to say the restrictions: Most importantly, Art.19 of the Fourth Geneva Convention provides that hospitals being misused lose their protection against attack “only after due warning has been given, naming, in all appropriate cases, a reasonable time limit and after such warning has remained unheeded.” Assuming that the attacking military complies with Art. 19 (and it is hardly IHL’s fault if it doesn’t), no hospital will be attacked that has not had an opportunity to expel the military objective it is shielding. IHL thus puts so much emphasis on protecting hospitals that it would rather require an attacker to let the enemy escape unharmed rather than apply the normal targeting regime of distinction and proportionality.
If the hospital is being used as a military base with human shields, and if Israel gives a due warning, and if the there is a reasonable time limit, and if the warning has remained unheeded then at that point the Genera Convention makes it crystal clear the target becomes a legitimate, military target and all protection is lost.
Don't like it? That's the law. That's the Geneva Convention. And its a sensible law.
The biggest fallacy I see get quoted here is because Hamas wants war, Israel shouldn't fight one.
What should Israel do instead? Rollover and play dead? Let Hamas strike them and just turn the other cheek and say "come, take more hostages, rape more women, kill more babies, be our guest"?
When the other party wants war, then sometimes the only thing to do is give them what they want - and defeat them until they don't want it anymore.
The Jihadis are no better than Nazi Germany. They lack its power, but they have the same authoritarian rule in Gaza, anyone who speaks against them would get murdered, they've destroyed any nascent democracy there, and if they had the chance they would genocidally murder every single Jew "from the river to the sea" as they openly say. Their writings are as horrific and evil and as open as Mein Kampf.
When the Nazis wanted war, we didn't turn around and say "well you want war, so we're not playing your game, no war for you". We eventually said "if there needs to be war, there will be war, and we will beat you".
That is exactly the situation Israel faces, for its survival, and they need to fight the war and fight it to win.
Any civilians caught in the crossfire its a tragedy, but their concerns should be as secondary to Israel as German civilians concerns were to us in WWII. In war you have to put your own people first - if only Hamas felt the same, the Palestinians would not be in the situation they're in.
You are a psychopath.
Wanting fascists defeated and democracies to be able to live in peace is not psychopathic.
Your moral compass is broken.
I hope you include Netenyahu and Likud in that fascist description. Otherwise you ar a hypocrite.
Can fascists be democratically elected?
Godwin has entered the debate.
If Bart didn't want the spectre of Godwin to be raised he shouldn't have done it himself.
As Godwin himself has said, its not a Godwin to compare literal fascists to the Nazis.
Hamas are Islamofascists who want the extermination of all Jews. They would do a Holocaust if they could. They have their own writings that are as explicit, and as evil, as Mein Kampf.
This isn't a minor war between distant parties of whom we know little, this is an existential fight between civilisation and barbarianism, between democracy and fascism, between good and evil. I hope good wins the war.
There is no 'good' side in this. At least not amongst those actually making the decisions. There are just innocent and guilty. Most of the people in both communities are innocent and most of the leaders in both camps are guilty. Your partisan apologist attempts for one side just show you are no better than they are.
The biggest fallacy I see get quoted here is because Hamas wants war, Israel shouldn't fight one.
What should Israel do instead? Rollover and play dead? Let Hamas strike them and just turn the other cheek and say "come, take more hostages, rape more women, kill more babies, be our guest"?
When the other party wants war, then sometimes the only thing to do is give them what they want - and defeat them until they don't want it anymore.
The Jihadis are no better than Nazi Germany. They lack its power, but they have the same authoritarian rule in Gaza, anyone who speaks against them would get murdered, they've destroyed any nascent democracy there, and if they had the chance they would genocidally murder every single Jew "from the river to the sea" as they openly say. Their writings are as horrific and evil and as open as Mein Kampf.
When the Nazis wanted war, we didn't turn around and say "well you want war, so we're not playing your game, no war for you". We eventually said "if there needs to be war, there will be war, and we will beat you".
That is exactly the situation Israel faces, for its survival, and they need to fight the war and fight it to win.
Any civilians caught in the crossfire its a tragedy, but their concerns should be as secondary to Israel as German civilians concerns were to us in WWII. In war you have to put your own people first - if only Hamas felt the same, the Palestinians would not be in the situation they're in.
You are a psychopath.
Wanting fascists defeated and democracies to be able to live in peace is not psychopathic.
Your moral compass is broken.
I hope you include Netenyahu and Likud in that fascist description. Otherwise you ar a hypocrite.
Can fascists be democratically elected?
Godwin has entered the debate.
If Bart didn't want the spectre of Godwin to be raised he shouldn't have done it himself.
As Godwin himself has said, its not a Godwin to compare literal fascists to the Nazis.
Hamas are Islamofascists who want the extermination of all Jews. They would do a Holocaust if they could. They have their own writings that are as explicit, and as evil, as Mein Kampf.
This isn't a minor war between distant parties of whom we know little, this is an existential fight between civilisation and barbarianism, between democracy and fascism, between good and evil. I hope good wins the war.
There is no 'good' side in this. At least not amongst those actually making the decisions. There are just innocent and guilty. Most of the people in both communities are innocent and most of the leaders in both camps are guilty. Your partisan apologist attempts for one side just show you are no better than they are.
I wrote a couple of articles back in March 2020 about warning signs of illiberalism in our country. Of course, what with other events no-one paid a blind bit of notice.
I am reposting them now because they are, IMO, as - if not more - relevant than ever.
This section from the second article seems pertinent today.
Anti Semitism has been devalued by all the false claims made back then.
As for you bleating on about how terrible it is for British Jews right now.
You have no sense of proportion
There are 2 million in Gaza who are suffering a genocidal attack from Netanyahu. So I think the lot of British Jews is a lot better than those Gazans don't you. Your priorities are all to cock.
The petition in solidarity with British Jews has less100 signatories the one on a ceasefire in Gaza nearly 600,000 which accurately reflects the scale of suffering IMO
"Genocide". You and you're ilk are devaluing this word. The Holocaust was a genocide, what happened in Rwanda was a genocide, Armenians suffered a genocide. What is happening in Gaza is retaliation for a terrorist attack by the government of Gaza. If you want Israel to stop then go and ask Hamas to give the hostages back.
Hard to believe you almost never see anyone in Britain say free the hostages , lay down your arms, send out hte murderers from 7th October , etc and then talk about peace. Bizarre.
I would suggest that, or some variation of it, is the standard middling position of many, especially older, political centrists in the UK - the sort that vote, don't demonstrate, expect our centrist politicians to do their job, and have no quarrel with good people on all sides.
They have a special dislike of seeing children and babies murdered by barbarians; many of them cried at telly coverage of young mothers and their babies/children going into exile from Ukraine leaving their menfolk behind and have cried again recently on 7 October and after, and find it so unthinkable they don't want to talk about it.
Hardest to talk about for decent people is the dilemma facing Israel whose policies involve also killing children and babies in their beds. Most don't think Israelis are also barbarians; every effort is under way to change this perspective.
The Israeli response to Oct 7th is going to wreak such appalling 'collateral damage' on Gaza and its population that it will strain the resolve of all but their most hardline supporters in the west. That's my sense of where this is going, PR wise.
Who knows. It is easily possible that Hezbollah attacks from the north, the West Bank erupts, Iran lobs a few missiles and suddenly Israel itself seems mortally endangered - and then sympathy will get behind Israel
I meant to post this a few days ago, which echoes your concerns:
The biggest fallacy I see get quoted here is because Hamas wants war, Israel shouldn't fight one.
What should Israel do instead? Rollover and play dead? Let Hamas strike them and just turn the other cheek and say "come, take more hostages, rape more women, kill more babies, be our guest"?
When the other party wants war, then sometimes the only thing to do is give them what they want - and defeat them until they don't want it anymore.
The Jihadis are no better than Nazi Germany. They lack its power, but they have the same authoritarian rule in Gaza, anyone who speaks against them would get murdered, they've destroyed any nascent democracy there, and if they had the chance they would genocidally murder every single Jew "from the river to the sea" as they openly say. Their writings are as horrific and evil and as open as Mein Kampf.
When the Nazis wanted war, we didn't turn around and say "well you want war, so we're not playing your game, no war for you". We eventually said "if there needs to be war, there will be war, and we will beat you".
That is exactly the situation Israel faces, for its survival, and they need to fight the war and fight it to win.
Any civilians caught in the crossfire its a tragedy, but their concerns should be as secondary to Israel as German civilians concerns were to us in WWII. In war you have to put your own people first - if only Hamas felt the same, the Palestinians would not be in the situation they're in.
You are a psychopath.
Wanting fascists defeated and democracies to be able to live in peace is not psychopathic.
Your moral compass is broken.
You literally called for ethnic cleansing, a crime against humanity. If any moral compasses are broken, it’s yours.
Ethnic cleansing has happened repeatedly across the planet, it happened earlier this year with Azerbaijan without more than a murmur.
But it should be bloodless and voluntary I said and was proposed as a lesser evil than genocide.
The movement of people is a far lesser crime than the murder of them.
Lots of bad things happen repeatedly across the planet. Our moral compasses still recognise them as being bad.
The choice is not between ethnic cleansing or genocide. Most of the world recognise that there are other choices. Most of the world have a moral compass.
Ethnic cleansing is a crime against humanity. Supporting it is wrong. You cannot see that.
I wrote a couple of articles back in March 2020 about warning signs of illiberalism in our country. Of course, what with other events no-one paid a blind bit of notice.
I am reposting them now because they are, IMO, as - if not more - relevant than ever.
This section from the second article seems pertinent today.
Anti Semitism has been devalued by all the false claims made back then.
As for you bleating on about how terrible it is for British Jews right now.
You have no sense of proportion
There are 2 million in Gaza who are suffering a genocidal attack from Netanyahu. So I think the lot of British Jews is a lot better than those Gazans don't you. Your priorities are all to cock.
The petition in solidarity with British Jews has less100 signatories the one on a ceasefire in Gaza nearly 600,000 which accurately reflects the scale of suffering IMO
"Genocide". You and you're ilk are devaluing this word. The Holocaust was a genocide, what happened in Rwanda was a genocide, Armenians suffered a genocide. What is happening in Gaza is retaliation for a terrorist attack by the government of Gaza. If you want Israel to stop then go and ask Hamas to give the hostages back.
Hard to believe you almost never see anyone in Britain say free the hostages , lay down your arms, send out hte murderers from 7th October , etc and then talk about peace. Bizarre.
I would suggest that, or some variation of it, is the standard middling position of many, especially older, political centrists in the UK - the sort that vote, don't demonstrate, expect our centrist politicians to do their job, and have no quarrel with good people on all sides.
They have a special dislike of seeing children and babies murdered by barbarians; many of them cried at telly coverage of young mothers and their babies/children going into exile from Ukraine leaving their menfolk behind and have cried again recently on 7 October and after, and find it so unthinkable they don't want to talk about it.
Hardest to talk about for decent people is the dilemma facing Israel whose policies involve also killing children and babies in their beds. Most don't think Israelis are also barbarians; every effort is under way to change this perspective.
The Israeli response to Oct 7th is going to wreak such appalling 'collateral damage' on Gaza and its population that it will strain the resolve of all but their most hardline supporters in the west. That's my sense of where this is going, PR wise.
Who knows. It is easily possible that Hezbollah attacks from the north, the West Bank erupts, Iran lobs a few missiles and suddenly Israel itself seems mortally endangered - and then sympathy will get behind Israel
I meant to post this a few days ago, which echoes your concerns:
The biggest fallacy I see get quoted here is because Hamas wants war, Israel shouldn't fight one.
What should Israel do instead? Rollover and play dead? Let Hamas strike them and just turn the other cheek and say "come, take more hostages, rape more women, kill more babies, be our guest"?
When the other party wants war, then sometimes the only thing to do is give them what they want - and defeat them until they don't want it anymore.
The Jihadis are no better than Nazi Germany. They lack its power, but they have the same authoritarian rule in Gaza, anyone who speaks against them would get murdered, they've destroyed any nascent democracy there, and if they had the chance they would genocidally murder every single Jew "from the river to the sea" as they openly say. Their writings are as horrific and evil and as open as Mein Kampf.
When the Nazis wanted war, we didn't turn around and say "well you want war, so we're not playing your game, no war for you". We eventually said "if there needs to be war, there will be war, and we will beat you".
That is exactly the situation Israel faces, for its survival, and they need to fight the war and fight it to win.
Any civilians caught in the crossfire its a tragedy, but their concerns should be as secondary to Israel as German civilians concerns were to us in WWII. In war you have to put your own people first - if only Hamas felt the same, the Palestinians would not be in the situation they're in.
You are a psychopath.
Wanting fascists defeated and democracies to be able to live in peace is not psychopathic.
Your moral compass is broken.
You literally called for ethnic cleansing, a crime against humanity. If any moral compasses are broken, it’s yours.
Ethnic cleansing has happened repeatedly across the planet, it happened earlier this year with Azerbaijan without more than a murmur.
But it should be bloodless and voluntary I said and was proposed as a lesser evil than genocide.
The movement of people is a far lesser crime than the murder of them.
To go full Godwin, I am struck by this juxtaposition:
Hitler, 22 August 1939, “Wer redet heute noch von der Vernichtung der Armenier?”, or "Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?"
Bart, 29 October 2023, “Ethnic cleansing has happened repeatedly across the planet, it happened earlier this year with Azerbaijan without more than a murmur.”
The biggest fallacy I see get quoted here is because Hamas wants war, Israel shouldn't fight one.
What should Israel do instead? Rollover and play dead? Let Hamas strike them and just turn the other cheek and say "come, take more hostages, rape more women, kill more babies, be our guest"?
When the other party wants war, then sometimes the only thing to do is give them what they want - and defeat them until they don't want it anymore.
The Jihadis are no better than Nazi Germany. They lack its power, but they have the same authoritarian rule in Gaza, anyone who speaks against them would get murdered, they've destroyed any nascent democracy there, and if they had the chance they would genocidally murder every single Jew "from the river to the sea" as they openly say. Their writings are as horrific and evil and as open as Mein Kampf.
When the Nazis wanted war, we didn't turn around and say "well you want war, so we're not playing your game, no war for you". We eventually said "if there needs to be war, there will be war, and we will beat you".
That is exactly the situation Israel faces, for its survival, and they need to fight the war and fight it to win.
Any civilians caught in the crossfire its a tragedy, but their concerns should be as secondary to Israel as German civilians concerns were to us in WWII. In war you have to put your own people first - if only Hamas felt the same, the Palestinians would not be in the situation they're in.
You are a psychopath.
Wanting fascists defeated and democracies to be able to live in peace is not psychopathic.
Your moral compass is broken.
You literally called for ethnic cleansing, a crime against humanity. If any moral compasses are broken, it’s yours.
Members of the Israel regime have literally admitted they are fascists.
What happened on 7th October was unspeakably evil, utterly dehumanising both the victims and those who did it. Israel is entitled to vengeance, no one can deny that.
But the Secretary General of the UN was not wrong to say this evil did not happen in a vacuum. The way Palestinians have been treated by Israel since at least 1967, particularly in Gaza, is also dehumanising and provokes both desperation and hatred. If Israel wishes to live in peace it must allow the Palestinians to live peaceably, to have some skin in the game, the chance to progress, make money, acquire skills and provide for their children.
Whilst the anger, the revulsion and the contempt on the part of Israel is understandable they need to come to terms with this and find ways to facilitate it whilst rightly protecting their own security.
Yup. This is awfully good on getting beyond the cartoon of goodies and baddies.
Israel now has been forced to look beyond deterrence. It has now concluded that it is dealing with an entity that has never truly been deterred and can’t be deterred in the future. Wilder elements in Israel may fantasise about pushing all the Gazans out of the territory but that is not a serious option. This where the other flaw in Israel’s past deterrence strategy becomes painfully evident. It has not been accompanied by a more positive political strategy. The only long-term vision Israel offers is a Gaza without Hamas. The chaos and instability that would result if Gaza was turned into an ungovernable space without anyone in charge would serve nobody’s interests. A way will have to be found to fill the space...
So if Israel can’t find a government for Gaza someone else will have to. Here the main initiative will have to come from the Arab world, probably in concert with the US. This seems to be the conclusion of many of the analyses of those thinking about the aftermath of this war. It is possible, for example, to imagine at some point a multilateral conference including the main Arab and Western players, with Israel on the sidelines, tasked to come up with a viable government for Gaza, and manage the influx of aid necessary if the territory is to recover from the traumas of the past weeks as well as look to the possibilities for future development. It would also need to consider both Gaza’s internal security and how to stop it causing trouble to its neighbours (Egypt as well as Israel) in the future.
As an aside, An acquaintance told me off for calling the current Russian government 'fascist'.
... and it highlighted the problem with such phrases. I looked up various definitions of 'fascist', and some fitted Russia; others did not. Some definitions were so tight that you could argue they applied to Nazi Germany, but not Mussolini's Italy.
I'd argue that few definitions go near fitting Israel, even under Netanyahu. Particularly when some parts of some definitions - such as making yourself to be the victim of an outside enemy - is actually true for Israel. But the biggest argument against it is that Israel is democratic - indeed, perhaps they have too many elections! (four or five since 2019).
The biggest fallacy I see get quoted here is because Hamas wants war, Israel shouldn't fight one.
What should Israel do instead? Rollover and play dead? Let Hamas strike them and just turn the other cheek and say "come, take more hostages, rape more women, kill more babies, be our guest"?
When the other party wants war, then sometimes the only thing to do is give them what they want - and defeat them until they don't want it anymore.
The Jihadis are no better than Nazi Germany. They lack its power, but they have the same authoritarian rule in Gaza, anyone who speaks against them would get murdered, they've destroyed any nascent democracy there, and if they had the chance they would genocidally murder every single Jew "from the river to the sea" as they openly say. Their writings are as horrific and evil and as open as Mein Kampf.
When the Nazis wanted war, we didn't turn around and say "well you want war, so we're not playing your game, no war for you". We eventually said "if there needs to be war, there will be war, and we will beat you".
That is exactly the situation Israel faces, for its survival, and they need to fight the war and fight it to win.
Any civilians caught in the crossfire its a tragedy, but their concerns should be as secondary to Israel as German civilians concerns were to us in WWII. In war you have to put your own people first - if only Hamas felt the same, the Palestinians would not be in the situation they're in.
You are a psychopath.
Wanting fascists defeated and democracies to be able to live in peace is not psychopathic.
Your moral compass is broken.
You literally called for ethnic cleansing, a crime against humanity. If any moral compasses are broken, it’s yours.
Ethnic cleansing has happened repeatedly across the planet, it happened earlier this year with Azerbaijan without more than a murmur.
But it should be bloodless and voluntary I said and was proposed as a lesser evil than genocide.
The movement of people is a far lesser crime than the murder of them.
To go full Godwin, I am struck by this juxtaposition:
Hitler, 22 August 1939, “Wer redet heute noch von der Vernichtung der Armenier?”, or "Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?"
Bart, 29 October 2023, “Ethnic cleansing has happened repeatedly across the planet, it happened earlier this year with Azerbaijan without more than a murmur.”
Yes, Hitler and Hamas support annihilation. Murder, killing them.
I do not. I am OK with voluntary emigration, I always have been and always will be.
I wrote a couple of articles back in March 2020 about warning signs of illiberalism in our country. Of course, what with other events no-one paid a blind bit of notice.
I am reposting them now because they are, IMO, as - if not more - relevant than ever.
This section from the second article seems pertinent today.
Anti Semitism has been devalued by all the false claims made back then.
As for you bleating on about how terrible it is for British Jews right now.
You have no sense of proportion
There are 2 million in Gaza who are suffering a genocidal attack from Netanyahu. So I think the lot of British Jews is a lot better than those Gazans don't you. Your priorities are all to cock.
The petition in solidarity with British Jews has less100 signatories the one on a ceasefire in Gaza nearly 600,000 which accurately reflects the scale of suffering IMO
"Genocide". You and you're ilk are devaluing this word. The Holocaust was a genocide, what happened in Rwanda was a genocide, Armenians suffered a genocide. What is happening in Gaza is retaliation for a terrorist attack by the government of Gaza. If you want Israel to stop then go and ask Hamas to give the hostages back.
Hard to believe you almost never see anyone in Britain say free the hostages , lay down your arms, send out hte murderers from 7th October , etc and then talk about peace. Bizarre.
I would suggest that, or some variation of it, is the standard middling position of many, especially older, political centrists in the UK - the sort that vote, don't demonstrate, expect our centrist politicians to do their job, and have no quarrel with good people on all sides.
They have a special dislike of seeing children and babies murdered by barbarians; many of them cried at telly coverage of young mothers and their babies/children going into exile from Ukraine leaving their menfolk behind and have cried again recently on 7 October and after, and find it so unthinkable they don't want to talk about it.
Hardest to talk about for decent people is the dilemma facing Israel whose policies involve also killing children and babies in their beds. Most don't think Israelis are also barbarians; every effort is under way to change this perspective.
The Israeli response to Oct 7th is going to wreak such appalling 'collateral damage' on Gaza and its population that it will strain the resolve of all but their most hardline supporters in the west. That's my sense of where this is going, PR wise.
Who knows. It is easily possible that Hezbollah attacks from the north, the West Bank erupts, Iran lobs a few missiles and suddenly Israel itself seems mortally endangered - and then sympathy will get behind Israel
I meant to post this a few days ago, which echoes your concerns:
The biggest fallacy I see get quoted here is because Hamas wants war, Israel shouldn't fight one.
What should Israel do instead? Rollover and play dead? Let Hamas strike them and just turn the other cheek and say "come, take more hostages, rape more women, kill more babies, be our guest"?
When the other party wants war, then sometimes the only thing to do is give them what they want - and defeat them until they don't want it anymore.
The Jihadis are no better than Nazi Germany. They lack its power, but they have the same authoritarian rule in Gaza, anyone who speaks against them would get murdered, they've destroyed any nascent democracy there, and if they had the chance they would genocidally murder every single Jew "from the river to the sea" as they openly say. Their writings are as horrific and evil and as open as Mein Kampf.
When the Nazis wanted war, we didn't turn around and say "well you want war, so we're not playing your game, no war for you". We eventually said "if there needs to be war, there will be war, and we will beat you".
That is exactly the situation Israel faces, for its survival, and they need to fight the war and fight it to win.
Any civilians caught in the crossfire its a tragedy, but their concerns should be as secondary to Israel as German civilians concerns were to us in WWII. In war you have to put your own people first - if only Hamas felt the same, the Palestinians would not be in the situation they're in.
You are a psychopath.
Wanting fascists defeated and democracies to be able to live in peace is not psychopathic.
Your moral compass is broken.
You literally called for ethnic cleansing, a crime against humanity. If any moral compasses are broken, it’s yours.
Members of the Israel regime have literally admitted they are fascists.
I’m reminded in this war that the polities of the West and Israel have different approaches to hearts and minds. It catches us by surprise every time.
Put simply, most Western governments and populations put great store by being liked. They frequently do bad things in foreign policy but they try to stay on the good side of international public opinion. Even Russia, in its warped way, makes a modicum of effort on that score.
Israel just doesn’t seem to care about international opinion. It says it as it is, and that can be very uncomfortable during wars, because what it is saying is brutal. It’s a Millwall attitude. My experience with Israeli clients is somewhat similar: extremely direct and borderline rude, especially with each other. But truthful as a result.
You could say Israel lacks a strategy for hearts and minds, or you could say Western countries are just hypocritical. Probably right in either case.
The biggest fallacy I see get quoted here is because Hamas wants war, Israel shouldn't fight one.
What should Israel do instead? Rollover and play dead? Let Hamas strike them and just turn the other cheek and say "come, take more hostages, rape more women, kill more babies, be our guest"?
When the other party wants war, then sometimes the only thing to do is give them what they want - and defeat them until they don't want it anymore.
The Jihadis are no better than Nazi Germany. They lack its power, but they have the same authoritarian rule in Gaza, anyone who speaks against them would get murdered, they've destroyed any nascent democracy there, and if they had the chance they would genocidally murder every single Jew "from the river to the sea" as they openly say. Their writings are as horrific and evil and as open as Mein Kampf.
When the Nazis wanted war, we didn't turn around and say "well you want war, so we're not playing your game, no war for you". We eventually said "if there needs to be war, there will be war, and we will beat you".
That is exactly the situation Israel faces, for its survival, and they need to fight the war and fight it to win.
Any civilians caught in the crossfire its a tragedy, but their concerns should be as secondary to Israel as German civilians concerns were to us in WWII. In war you have to put your own people first - if only Hamas felt the same, the Palestinians would not be in the situation they're in.
You are a psychopath.
Wanting fascists defeated and democracies to be able to live in peace is not psychopathic.
Your moral compass is broken.
You literally called for ethnic cleansing, a crime against humanity. If any moral compasses are broken, it’s yours.
Members of the Israel regime have literally admitted they are fascists.
As an aside, An acquaintance told me off for calling the current Russian government 'fascist'.
... and it highlighted the problem with such phrases. I looked up various definitions of 'fascist', and some fitted Russia; others did not. Some definitions were so tight that you could argue they applied to Nazi Germany, but not Mussolini's Italy.
I'd argue that few definitions go near fitting Israel, even under Netanyahu. Particularly when some parts of some definitions - such as making yourself to be the victim of an outside enemy - is actually true for Israel. But the biggest argument against it is that Israel is democratic - indeed, perhaps they have too many elections! (four or five since 2019).
I wrote a couple of articles back in March 2020 about warning signs of illiberalism in our country. Of course, what with other events no-one paid a blind bit of notice.
I am reposting them now because they are, IMO, as - if not more - relevant than ever.
This section from the second article seems pertinent today.
Anti Semitism has been devalued by all the false claims made back then.
As for you bleating on about how terrible it is for British Jews right now.
You have no sense of proportion
There are 2 million in Gaza who are suffering a genocidal attack from Netanyahu. So I think the lot of British Jews is a lot better than those Gazans don't you. Your priorities are all to cock.
The petition in solidarity with British Jews has less100 signatories the one on a ceasefire in Gaza nearly 600,000 which accurately reflects the scale of suffering IMO
"Genocide". You and you're ilk are devaluing this word. The Holocaust was a genocide, what happened in Rwanda was a genocide, Armenians suffered a genocide. What is happening in Gaza is retaliation for a terrorist attack by the government of Gaza. If you want Israel to stop then go and ask Hamas to give the hostages back.
Hard to believe you almost never see anyone in Britain say free the hostages , lay down your arms, send out hte murderers from 7th October , etc and then talk about peace. Bizarre.
I would suggest that, or some variation of it, is the standard middling position of many, especially older, political centrists in the UK - the sort that vote, don't demonstrate, expect our centrist politicians to do their job, and have no quarrel with good people on all sides.
They have a special dislike of seeing children and babies murdered by barbarians; many of them cried at telly coverage of young mothers and their babies/children going into exile from Ukraine leaving their menfolk behind and have cried again recently on 7 October and after, and find it so unthinkable they don't want to talk about it.
Hardest to talk about for decent people is the dilemma facing Israel whose policies involve also killing children and babies in their beds. Most don't think Israelis are also barbarians; every effort is under way to change this perspective.
The Israeli response to Oct 7th is going to wreak such appalling 'collateral damage' on Gaza and its population that it will strain the resolve of all but their most hardline supporters in the west. That's my sense of where this is going, PR wise.
Who knows. It is easily possible that Hezbollah attacks from the north, the West Bank erupts, Iran lobs a few missiles and suddenly Israel itself seems mortally endangered - and then sympathy will get behind Israel
I meant to post this a few days ago, which echoes your concerns:
The single most positive thing about Afghanistan atm is their cricket team, which is interesting because football was more popular than cricket there until recently.
The biggest fallacy I see get quoted here is because Hamas wants war, Israel shouldn't fight one.
What should Israel do instead? Rollover and play dead? Let Hamas strike them and just turn the other cheek and say "come, take more hostages, rape more women, kill more babies, be our guest"?
When the other party wants war, then sometimes the only thing to do is give them what they want - and defeat them until they don't want it anymore.
The Jihadis are no better than Nazi Germany. They lack its power, but they have the same authoritarian rule in Gaza, anyone who speaks against them would get murdered, they've destroyed any nascent democracy there, and if they had the chance they would genocidally murder every single Jew "from the river to the sea" as they openly say. Their writings are as horrific and evil and as open as Mein Kampf.
When the Nazis wanted war, we didn't turn around and say "well you want war, so we're not playing your game, no war for you". We eventually said "if there needs to be war, there will be war, and we will beat you".
That is exactly the situation Israel faces, for its survival, and they need to fight the war and fight it to win.
Any civilians caught in the crossfire its a tragedy, but their concerns should be as secondary to Israel as German civilians concerns were to us in WWII. In war you have to put your own people first - if only Hamas felt the same, the Palestinians would not be in the situation they're in.
You are a psychopath.
Wanting fascists defeated and democracies to be able to live in peace is not psychopathic.
Your moral compass is broken.
You literally called for ethnic cleansing, a crime against humanity. If any moral compasses are broken, it’s yours.
Ethnic cleansing has happened repeatedly across the planet, it happened earlier this year with Azerbaijan without more than a murmur.
But it should be bloodless and voluntary I said and was proposed as a lesser evil than genocide.
The movement of people is a far lesser crime than the murder of them.
To go full Godwin, I am struck by this juxtaposition:
Hitler, 22 August 1939, “Wer redet heute noch von der Vernichtung der Armenier?”, or "Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?"
Bart, 29 October 2023, “Ethnic cleansing has happened repeatedly across the planet, it happened earlier this year with Azerbaijan without more than a murmur.”
Yes, Hitler and Hamas support annihilation. Murder, killing them.
I do not. I am OK with voluntary emigration, I always have been and always will be.
Ah yes, voluntary. A word that had done a lot of the heavy lifting, historically.
What’s the point of becoming what you hate? Especially when it doesn’t even get you a win?
What happened on 7th October was unspeakably evil, utterly dehumanising both the victims and those who did it. Israel is entitled to vengeance, no one can deny that.
But the Secretary General of the UN was not wrong to say this evil did not happen in a vacuum. The way Palestinians have been treated by Israel since at least 1967, particularly in Gaza, is also dehumanising and provokes both desperation and hatred. If Israel wishes to live in peace it must allow the Palestinians to live peaceably, to have some skin in the game, the chance to progress, make money, acquire skills and provide for their children.
Whilst the anger, the revulsion and the contempt on the part of Israel is understandable they need to come to terms with this and find ways to facilitate it whilst rightly protecting their own security.
Yup. This is awfully good on getting beyond the cartoon of goodies and baddies.
Israel now has been forced to look beyond deterrence. It has now concluded that it is dealing with an entity that has never truly been deterred and can’t be deterred in the future. Wilder elements in Israel may fantasise about pushing all the Gazans out of the territory but that is not a serious option. This where the other flaw in Israel’s past deterrence strategy becomes painfully evident. It has not been accompanied by a more positive political strategy. The only long-term vision Israel offers is a Gaza without Hamas. The chaos and instability that would result if Gaza was turned into an ungovernable space without anyone in charge would serve nobody’s interests. A way will have to be found to fill the space...
So if Israel can’t find a government for Gaza someone else will have to. Here the main initiative will have to come from the Arab world, probably in concert with the US. This seems to be the conclusion of many of the analyses of those thinking about the aftermath of this war. It is possible, for example, to imagine at some point a multilateral conference including the main Arab and Western players, with Israel on the sidelines, tasked to come up with a viable government for Gaza, and manage the influx of aid necessary if the territory is to recover from the traumas of the past weeks as well as look to the possibilities for future development. It would also need to consider both Gaza’s internal security and how to stop it causing trouble to its neighbours (Egypt as well as Israel) in the future.
Interesting link, thank you. Coincidentally the author is Laurence Freedman[1], whose latest book[2] is on display at my local library: I leafed thru it last week. I don't know if I'll get a copy because his writing style (so important!) does not necessarily mesh with my head, but I'll give it another look
The biggest fallacy I see get quoted here is because Hamas wants war, Israel shouldn't fight one.
What should Israel do instead? Rollover and play dead? Let Hamas strike them and just turn the other cheek and say "come, take more hostages, rape more women, kill more babies, be our guest"?
When the other party wants war, then sometimes the only thing to do is give them what they want - and defeat them until they don't want it anymore.
The Jihadis are no better than Nazi Germany. They lack its power, but they have the same authoritarian rule in Gaza, anyone who speaks against them would get murdered, they've destroyed any nascent democracy there, and if they had the chance they would genocidally murder every single Jew "from the river to the sea" as they openly say. Their writings are as horrific and evil and as open as Mein Kampf.
When the Nazis wanted war, we didn't turn around and say "well you want war, so we're not playing your game, no war for you". We eventually said "if there needs to be war, there will be war, and we will beat you".
That is exactly the situation Israel faces, for its survival, and they need to fight the war and fight it to win.
Any civilians caught in the crossfire its a tragedy, but their concerns should be as secondary to Israel as German civilians concerns were to us in WWII. In war you have to put your own people first - if only Hamas felt the same, the Palestinians would not be in the situation they're in.
You are a psychopath.
Wanting fascists defeated and democracies to be able to live in peace is not psychopathic.
Your moral compass is broken.
You literally called for ethnic cleansing, a crime against humanity. If any moral compasses are broken, it’s yours.
Members of the Israel regime have literally admitted they are fascists.
As an aside, An acquaintance told me off for calling the current Russian government 'fascist'.
... and it highlighted the problem with such phrases. I looked up various definitions of 'fascist', and some fitted Russia; others did not. Some definitions were so tight that you could argue they applied to Nazi Germany, but not Mussolini's Italy.
I'd argue that few definitions go near fitting Israel, even under Netanyahu. Particularly when some parts of some definitions - such as making yourself to be the victim of an outside enemy - is actually true for Israel. But the biggest argument against it is that Israel is democratic - indeed, perhaps they have too many elections! (four or five since 2019).
The other thread has been closed, which in the absence of any new news might have been the wrong choice but here we are.
I blame the end of daylight saving time, and call for an immediate judge led inquiry into keeping BST for the whole year to avoid confusing PB's editors.
(Is that the right way to do it?)
On topic - badly. Which is what Hamas wants and why Netanyahu is being even more foolish than usual.
I think Hamas would actually prefer Gaza as a wasteland occupied by Israel to a two state solution. It allows them to extend their grievance and get loads more lovely cash from their backers to maintain their personally lavish lifestyles (and kill Jews).
And unfortunately, so would Likud, who naively believe it would secure Israel's future as a Jewish state encompassing the whole of Mandatory Palestine.
The Palestinian people wouldn't, according to such information as we have, but nobody involved seems to care about them (including these idiot protestors in the West).
A hat tip to @Cyclefree for this article by Simon Sebag Montefiore:
There is one mistake in it. The number of Jews who are non-white (insofar as that label has any meaning) is around 3-3.5 million not 5 million. I think he may have added in the Muslim and Christian populations to get to 5 million but it is a little misleading.
Otherwise, it's a good article and well worth reading.
Now you've finished Sebag Montefiore's well known Zionist pleadings you might enjoy this which gives a slightly more interesting and relevant picture of things as they really are. A review by Jonathan Friedland
The biggest fallacy I see get quoted here is because Hamas wants war, Israel shouldn't fight one.
What should Israel do instead? Rollover and play dead? Let Hamas strike them and just turn the other cheek and say "come, take more hostages, rape more women, kill more babies, be our guest"?
When the other party wants war, then sometimes the only thing to do is give them what they want - and defeat them until they don't want it anymore.
The Jihadis are no better than Nazi Germany. They lack its power, but they have the same authoritarian rule in Gaza, anyone who speaks against them would get murdered, they've destroyed any nascent democracy there, and if they had the chance they would genocidally murder every single Jew "from the river to the sea" as they openly say. Their writings are as horrific and evil and as open as Mein Kampf.
When the Nazis wanted war, we didn't turn around and say "well you want war, so we're not playing your game, no war for you". We eventually said "if there needs to be war, there will be war, and we will beat you".
That is exactly the situation Israel faces, for its survival, and they need to fight the war and fight it to win.
Any civilians caught in the crossfire its a tragedy, but their concerns should be as secondary to Israel as German civilians concerns were to us in WWII. In war you have to put your own people first - if only Hamas felt the same, the Palestinians would not be in the situation they're in.
You are a psychopath.
Wanting fascists defeated and democracies to be able to live in peace is not psychopathic.
Your moral compass is broken.
You literally called for ethnic cleansing, a crime against humanity. If any moral compasses are broken, it’s yours.
Ethnic cleansing has happened repeatedly across the planet, it happened earlier this year with Azerbaijan without more than a murmur.
But it should be bloodless and voluntary I said and was proposed as a lesser evil than genocide.
The movement of people is a far lesser crime than the murder of them.
To go full Godwin, I am struck by this juxtaposition:
Hitler, 22 August 1939, “Wer redet heute noch von der Vernichtung der Armenier?”, or "Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?"
Bart, 29 October 2023, “Ethnic cleansing has happened repeatedly across the planet, it happened earlier this year with Azerbaijan without more than a murmur.”
Yes, Hitler and Hamas support annihilation. Murder, killing them.
I do not. I am OK with voluntary emigration, I always have been and always will be.
Ah yes, voluntary. A word that had done a lot of the heavy lifting, historically.
What’s the ping of becoming what you hate? Especially when it doesn’t even get you a win?
My proposal, which @bondegezou has called "ethnic cleansing" was that an agreement should be reached at the cost of possibly tens of billions of dollars that anyone who wants to move away from the conflict zone can do so and be given a considerable sum of money to help them start a new life somewhere else. Let any Gazan who wants to move away from there do so, and give them something like $5000 or $10000 to start them off a new life in a new home.
And give aid to the country taking the migrants as well.
Bondegezou calls it ethnic cleansing, I call it migration or refuge, and migration or refuge happens all over the planet. There are Ukrainian refugees all around us in this country, many of whom will never go back to Ukraine.
I said that I would oppose any violence to compel people to move. I want people to have a choice, if they want to, do so - and it will make them safer than remaining caught in the crossfires of a war. If any choose not to take up that choice, they should be able to remain where they are.
There should be absolutely no excuse for violence deliberately targeting civilians (as opposed to human shields getting killed in proportionate warfare).
Comments
Bit like the Catholics, Protestants and Orthodox Christians.
Basically: Iran's leadership hates Israel and the USA more than they hate Sunnis.
But don't for a moment think Iran cares anything for Hamas, or Palestinians. Hamas is a tool for Iran.
Ceaucescu had been dictator for 25 years when he fell as one of the revolutions around the Soviet break-up. Amin was ousted by a military coup. Neither is relevant to Gaza and Hamas.
If you want what's best for the Palestinians, liberating them from Hamas is a starting point, though that can only be done via a lot of bloodshed and warfare. Same as Germans were better off after the war once the Nazis were gone.
Your moral compass is broken.
Perhaps the Palestinians should say “ok I’ll take my citizenship”.
Personally I think all discussion should start from either 586BC, the destruction of the first temple not long after Josiah's reforms, or Joshua's invasion, 1400/1300BC??.
No Likud don't want a land "from the river to the sea", that has never been Likud policy. It could have been if they wanted it to be, they've controlled that land for fifty years. If they'd evicted the Palestinians fifty years ago, they'd have a "Greater Israel" and the Palestinian issue wouldn't exist they'd live in other Arab nations. But they didn't. They're better than that.
The Azerbaijan-Armenia conflict this year saw one nation take land off the other and effectively expel its inhabitants and it was all done and dusted in days and the world barely blinked an eye. Has Israel done that? No, its better than that.
Israel has tried for peace for decades. Despite the constant threats they've faced. They are good, Hamas are bad. Its that clear cut.
I’d probably back almost any other team in this competition to get these runs. But sadly not England in the form they’ve been showing in recent matches.
Or "Hamas bad, Likud good"?
Or is it "Palestinians bad, Israelis good"?
Or "Arabs bad, everyone else good?
Or "Muslims bad, Jews good"?
If you're going to boil it down to goodies v baddies, it would help to be clear what the dividing line is.
Hopefully correct on the rest as well….
'First get your computer chair set up just right for comfortable opining..'
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/live/cricket/66858750
@BBCPolitics
·
2h
"The question they are now asking is 'where do we want to be when we die?'"
Liberal Democrat MP Layla Moran, whose family have been sheltering in a church in Gaza City, says "nowhere is safe" for civilians
https://twitter.com/BBCPolitics/status/1718571652726894768
The extent to which this particular chunk of this dismal history is seen and acted upon in uniquely special ways is slightly strange, and invites whataboutery.
What about: Tibet, the various bit of India, USA, Australia, New Zealand, Ostrogoths, Lombards, Franks, Normans.. and so on.
Then you get popular counter-coups, such as the one in Venezuela a couple of decades ago, where popular support stopped a coup.
Over the two weeks of that first shoot I got to really like the Lebanese. They were bright hospitable and had an inate intelligence that was unusual in a business which was largely visual. We talked endlessly about the politics of the area as most Lebanese do. I was told how the war started. The Palestinians put up roadblocks...... In retaliation a Christan factions blew up a schoolbus ......and so it began. Twenty years of it. .....
On my first ride from the airport it looked like Gaza does now. I worked there often for the next several years and met people from every faction. I met two of Terry Waite's kidnappers I saw the Holiday Inn where the Phalangists jumped suicidally to their death.....and so on and so on. I won their top advertising ward for 'Environment' and became their favourite director and could have worked non stop there if I'd wanted to. We post- produced in London though clients with Palestinian passports couldn't get a visa. We couldn't process locally because only Israel had the facilities and that was forbidden. I needed a second passport.
I was in the Marriott Hotel by the sea when we were told to evacuate. Israel had decided to blow up a nearby power station. No one knew why. Ten power station workers were killed. I saw little little like this but lots of optimism. Israel was a fear because as they saw it they had the power and no boundaries. So was Hesbollah though it isn't seen as a terrorist organisation there as much as a political one. They run schools and hositals and to many are the good guys
So cyclefree I really do know the area and more importantly I feel I know the people. Generalising is never accurate though the Arabs I have met show a much greater humility than their Israeli counterparts which is why I fear for the citizens of Gaza more than I fear for the Israelis and much more than I fear for British Jews. a great deal of whom share my views.
Or "Fascist dictatorships that want to exterminate Jews bad, free democracies good".
Yes Israel has flaws, all democracies do, but compared to the alternative its undeniably good.
No its not Palestinians bad, Hamas don't represent all Palestinians any more than the Nazis represented all Germans.
No its not Arabs bad, Hamas don't represent all Arabs any more than the Nazis represented all Europeans. Indeed Israel has reached four peace agreements with Arab states that were formerly hostile to it in this decade alone.
No its not Muslims bad, Hamas don't represent all Muslims any more than the Nazis represented all Christians.
Fascist dictatorships that want to exterminate Jews and go to war need to be defeated militarily whether they're Arab or European, Muslim or Christian, German or Palestinian. Or is there something unique about Muslims that you think fascism and wanting to exterminate Jews comes naturally to them? Are Muslims or Arabs somehow inferior in your eyes to Europeans?
Hamas is as bad as IS, and happily uses civilians as shields as they did.
I accept that Netanyahu and Likud are less sympathetic than the enemies of IS.
Netanyahu and Likud are flawed, in the same way as democratic politicians around the planet are flawed. But they're not fascists.
I must have missed the Israeli equivalent of the Reichstag fire, or the cancellation of Israeli democracy.
Or has it not happened, and Netanyahu is where he is because he's been (very thinly) duly elected under a proportional representation voting system.
I would rather see the Israeli opposition win its elections, I don't like Netanyahu, but for all his flaws he remains an elected politician in a true democracy.
One of the dangerous things about fascism is that it can be popular. See some of what Trump flirts with for evidence.
How much collateral damage happened in Basra when we were bombing ISIS?
Or in Dresden when we were bombing the Nazis?
Hopefully Israel continues to stick to the rules of proportionality, which it has done so far, but it must seek to eliminate Hamas as a threat, it is an existential conflict. Once Hamas are eliminated, hopefully then this war can end as WWII did with an unconditional surrender and not a ceasefire but a complete and immediate peace treaty.
Hamas are Islamofascists who want the extermination of all Jews. They would do a Holocaust if they could. They have their own writings that are as explicit, and as evil, as Mein Kampf.
This isn't a minor war between distant parties of whom we know little, this is an existential fight between civilisation and barbarianism, between democracy and fascism, between good and evil. I hope good wins the war.
You are a prime example of what is wrong with the Corbyn gang on the left.
And your self indulgent claptrap isn't halting anything anyway.
That we are in no position to criticise Israel for doing far, far, far less collateral damage than we would and have done in their shoes.
Anti-Semitism runs deep.
5% chance we up progressing and still retain the thing.
"How Gaza could trigger a regional war", CaspianReport, 27Oct2023, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBH3nMNKtaQ
I have a self-denying ordinance on the Israel-Gaza conflict, on the basis that I cannot realistically process moment-by-moment information without the prospect of error. Certainly PB cannot do so. However I can provide geopolitical overviews on a broader scale, which covers that link.
I've posted before that I think Israel are walking into a trap. And one of the reasons for thinking that is that they will end up doing things that are beyond the pale like this and thereby lose even more in the battle of international opinion.
Shashank Joshi
@shashj
'The Palestinian Red Crescent said on Sunday it has received warnings from Israeli authorities to immediately evacuate al-Quds hospital in the Gaza Strip, as it is “going to be bombarded”.'
The law of armed conflict / IHL gives special protection to hospitals. That protection can be lost if the protected sites are used for certain military purpose. But even then, importantly, attackers are still circumscribed in what they may do.
http://opiniojuris.org/2016/10/21/dont-blame-ihl-for-attacks-on-hospitals/
https://twitter.com/shashj/status/1718592573189521460
You can compare Hamas with Likud and the nutters they depend on for a majority in the Israeli Parliament. Settlers and all.
You can compare the people of Israel with the people of Palestine.
But comparing a whole nation, with better and worse people in it against the worst of another nation... Nah. Not on.
But, there was no other way to achieve victory.
Anti-semitism does run deep, but thankfully its narrow and deep, rather than wide and shallow.
These noisy idiots may get lots of retweets on Twitter, or rallies in public, but the rest of the country ignores them and moves on without them.
Get someone else to sign the peace treaty. Or whoever is left in Hamas once they're willing to unconditionally surrender.
Not a ceasefire. Unconditional surrender.
1) Islamic Fundamentalists of The Wrong Kind
2) People who might be IFTWK
3) Families of IFTWK
4) People who live next to IFTWK
5) Anyone in the general neighbourhood of IFTWK
Is just AOK with the government. It’s how they roll as well.
Hamas is on their list of IFTWK
I would quite reasonably compare England against the Nazis in WWII. Or America against the Soviets in the Cold War.
Why? Because one side was totalitarian, the other was not. In a way its to also divorce saying the worst things you need to say as seemingly being against all Germans/Palestinians too but specifically against those who are in charge.
But until the totalitarian dictatorship is defeated, yes its reasonable to use the totalitarian regime as a proxy for the comparison.
As flawed as Netanyahu, or Chamberlain, or Nixon may be they are elected politicians who can be removed via constitutional means depending upon the nations democracy and rules. The same does not apply to Hamas.
Going into Gaza and blowing shut up may temporarily degrade Hamas. A bit. Other than that, it’s stamping in a puddle - you get wet, and the puddle is pretty much unchanged. Of course, in this case, the puddle is blood. Which gives you a nasty dry cleaning problem.
My solution would probably horrify everyone here. It would be a stark and devastating example of Will on the part of the Israelis. Would definitely fuck up Hamas . And would definitely kill many fewer civilians doing so.
But it should be bloodless and voluntary I said and was proposed as a lesser evil than genocide.
The movement of people is a far lesser crime than the murder of them.
Three former senior Lib Dems sue Sun and NoW publisher over phone hacking
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/oct/28/three-former-senior-lib-dems-sue-sun-now-publisher-phone-hacking
...In further support of Cable’s allegations, the particulars of claim say the former cabinet minister will rely on a series of calls to his mobile in June 2010, when News Corp’s intention to buy the shares was announced, and then the day after the company had asked the EU to approve its proposed takeover in December that year.
Cable claims that between 27 July 2004 and 31 December 2011, a total of 383 calls were made by journalists at the Wapping headquarters of the Sun and News of the World, “the overwhelming majority of which he will infer were made for the purposes of unlawfully intercepting his voicemail messages”...
Once the Nazis were defeated and unconditionally surrendered, then the war ended.
Not a ceasefire though. That just postpones fighting and keeps the war ongoing for another round of bloodshed.
But the Secretary General of the UN was not wrong to say this evil did not happen in a vacuum. The way Palestinians have been treated by Israel since at least 1967, particularly in Gaza, is also dehumanising and provokes both desperation and hatred. If Israel wishes to live in peace it must allow the Palestinians to live peaceably, to have some skin in the game, the chance to progress, make money, acquire skills and provide for their children.
Whilst the anger, the revulsion and the contempt on the part of Israel is understandable they need to come to terms with this and find ways to facilitate it whilst rightly protecting their own security.
Since Hamas is using the military site for operations (in the knowledge they're using the hospital as a human shield) it is absolutely proportionate to destroy it.
See the article linked to:
First, the logic of the human shields clauses can, it seems, quite easily be transferred to medical facilities. International law prohibits the use of civilians as human shields to protect military targets, but it also permits the attacking forces to kill human shields as long as they abide by the principle of proportionality. In this instance, then, international law ceases to protect civilians and actually becomes a weapon of the strong, protecting those who kill non-combatants. By extension, if hospitals are used as shields, they too can be bombed provided the principle of proportionality is not breached.
It goes on to say the restrictions:
Most importantly, Art.19 of the Fourth Geneva Convention provides that hospitals being misused lose their protection against attack “only after due warning has been given, naming, in all appropriate cases, a reasonable time limit and after such warning has remained unheeded.” Assuming that the attacking military complies with Art. 19 (and it is hardly IHL’s fault if it doesn’t), no hospital will be attacked that has not had an opportunity to expel the military objective it is shielding. IHL thus puts so much emphasis on protecting hospitals that it would rather require an attacker to let the enemy escape unharmed rather than apply the normal targeting regime of distinction and proportionality.
If the hospital is being used as a military base with human shields, and if Israel gives a due warning, and if the there is a reasonable time limit, and if the warning has remained unheeded then at that point the Genera Convention makes it crystal clear the target becomes a legitimate, military target and all protection is lost.
Don't like it? That's the law. That's the Geneva Convention. And its a sensible law.
Democracy and freedom is good.
Fascism and exterminating Jews is bad.
The choice is not between ethnic cleansing or genocide. Most of the world recognise that there are other choices. Most of the world have a moral compass.
Ethnic cleansing is a crime against humanity. Supporting it is wrong. You cannot see that.
Hitler, 22 August 1939, “Wer redet heute noch von der Vernichtung der Armenier?”, or "Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?"
Bart, 29 October 2023, “Ethnic cleansing has happened repeatedly across the planet, it happened earlier this year with Azerbaijan without more than a murmur.”
Israel now has been forced to look beyond deterrence. It has now concluded that it is dealing with an entity that has never truly been deterred and can’t be deterred in the future. Wilder elements in Israel may fantasise about pushing all the Gazans out of the territory but that is not a serious option. This where the other flaw in Israel’s past deterrence strategy becomes painfully evident. It has not been accompanied by a more positive political strategy. The only long-term vision Israel offers is a Gaza without Hamas. The chaos and instability that would result if Gaza was turned into an ungovernable space without anyone in charge would serve nobody’s interests. A way will have to be found to fill the space...
So if Israel can’t find a government for Gaza someone else will have to. Here the main initiative will have to come from the Arab world, probably in concert with the US. This seems to be the conclusion of many of the analyses of those thinking about the aftermath of this war. It is possible, for example, to imagine at some point a multilateral conference including the main Arab and Western players, with Israel on the sidelines, tasked to come up with a viable government for Gaza, and manage the influx of aid necessary if the territory is to recover from the traumas of the past weeks as well as look to the possibilities for future development. It would also need to consider both Gaza’s internal security and how to stop it causing trouble to its neighbours (Egypt as well as Israel) in the future.
https://samf.substack.com/p/israel-beyond-deterrence
... and it highlighted the problem with such phrases. I looked up various definitions of 'fascist', and some fitted Russia; others did not. Some definitions were so tight that you could argue they applied to Nazi Germany, but not Mussolini's Italy.
I'd argue that few definitions go near fitting Israel, even under Netanyahu. Particularly when some parts of some definitions - such as making yourself to be the victim of an outside enemy - is actually true for Israel. But the biggest argument against it is that Israel is democratic - indeed, perhaps they have too many elections! (four or five since 2019).
As some examples:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definitions_of_fascism
I do not. I am OK with voluntary emigration, I always have been and always will be.
Put simply, most Western governments and populations put great store by being liked. They frequently do bad things in foreign policy but they try to stay on the good side of international public opinion. Even Russia, in its warped way, makes a modicum of effort on that score.
Israel just doesn’t seem to care about international opinion. It says it as it is, and that can be very uncomfortable during wars, because what it is saying is brutal. It’s a Millwall attitude. My experience with Israeli clients is somewhat similar: extremely direct and borderline rude, especially with each other. But truthful as a result.
You could say Israel lacks a strategy for hearts and minds, or you could say Western countries are just hypocritical. Probably right in either case.
Betting PostF1: shooting in the dark, but backed Hamilton at 19 each way to win.
https://enormo-haddock.blogspot.com/2023/10/mexico-pre-race-2023.html
I think the chap who tattooed SS rank tabs on his shoulders was probably a little bit of a Nazi.
What’s the point of becoming what you hate? Especially when it doesn’t even get you a win?
That’s the head of the second largest party in Bibi’s coalition.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/oct/27/tragedy-israel-palestine-conflict-horror
I realise they don't confirm your prejudices. Tough.
And give aid to the country taking the migrants as well.
Bondegezou calls it ethnic cleansing, I call it migration or refuge, and migration or refuge happens all over the planet. There are Ukrainian refugees all around us in this country, many of whom will never go back to Ukraine.
I said that I would oppose any violence to compel people to move. I want people to have a choice, if they want to, do so - and it will make them safer than remaining caught in the crossfires of a war. If any choose not to take up that choice, they should be able to remain where they are.
There should be absolutely no excuse for violence deliberately targeting civilians (as opposed to human shields getting killed in proportionate warfare).