Could be a developing story here - the inquiry has been informed by the Post Office that 363,000 emails may have potentially gone missing - and these are emails from post-2012 - ie as the Post Office went into cover-up mode. The data seems to have been lost in the shift..."
Curtice contends that the Conservative strategy is i) Sunak's competence, ii) traditional conservative values+antiwoke, and iii) hopefully some tax cuts.
Curtice then points out that the two main questions the voters are actually asking are i) can I feed my kids and ii) if I fall ill will the NHS look after me. And that the Conservatives may fall short in this.
I think this is on the money - real world issues for people. Sunak needs the NHS to have a 'good' winter (not too many stories of long ambulance waits, people on trolleys, bed shortages etc). And yes inflation may be falling back but people know that the price increases are now baked in. Prices are not really going back to 2021 levels, and almost certainly won't.
I know that we're going round in circles. The world is. I apparently read like some blood-thirsty lunatic not caring for civilians. If there was a viable ceasefire then of course we should have it now. Yesterday. Last week.
The problem is that Ceasefire Now is not a ceasefire where hostilities end. Lets say that the IDF stop - Hamas won't. They will push out propaganda for a period whilst they get fresh arms in from Iran. Then they go again.
Which is precisely why Israel's policy of permanent occupation fails.
Re-opening serious talks with the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, and stopping further land seizures by settlers would help. If people see progress through peaceful means then they are less supportive of the fanatics.
Over 100 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank by armed settlers and IDF troops in the last month and further lands seized. This is overshadowed by events in Gaza, but some Israelis find it a convenient time to expand.
It’s so easy to say “stop settlements”
The problem is that - historically at least - Netenyahu’s coalition has been dependent on ultra-orthodox members in the Knesset
PR is responsible for the West Bank settlements. Discuss
Likud could have chosen to form a coalition with other parties. I might be willing about this, but I think one of the main reasons they didn't was that the other parties weren't willing to support Netanyahu's attempts to evade corruption prosecutions.
So I think it's more accurate to say that Netanyahu is responsible for the West Bank settlements.
PR doesn't make anything inevitable. It just presents people with different - I would argue, better - choices. But it can't stop people from making choices that I would identify as bad.
"almost exactly a month of fighting, the conflict is not only the deadliest on record for media workers in Israel and Palestine but the deadliest (to the equivalent point) for media workers covering any war in recent memory. [Committee to Protect Journalists] CPJ said that it has not recorded an equivalently deadly period since it began keeping such records in 1992; Reporters Without Borders (or RSF) reached a similar conclusion, calling the early weeks of the conflict the deadliest opening to any war since at least 2000."
For sure, the proportion of journalists to other deaths within Gaza imply that Israel is deliberately targeting the media.
I would posit that its a assassination campaign to remove trusted information sources within the warzone.
I think I would need to see some stronger evidence before drawing such a conclusion.
I don't think I can persuade anyone of this, there are no leaked documents or Freudian slips from senior people. For me there's a pattern in some of the killings. They are killed in their homes or their families are killed whilst they were out. For sure they could simply be unlucky but some very prominent journalists have been seemingly very unlucky.
> The odds seem wrong. So many have been killed this time looking from previous wars and yet the weapons the IDF are using are more precise than before.
> Israel has a habit of targeting media organisations inside Gaza. The media seem to cluster within specific blocks which are regularly imploded.
Plus to me its a coherent strategy. Remove all the trusted sources, make outside news organisations choose between unverified rumours, OSINT, dodgy propaganda etc.
It is curious that this marching for a ceasefire - and there have been a few already - have not noticed that there was a ceasefire, one which Hamas broke on 7 October. During that ceasefire Hamas planned the 7 October atrocity and have made it clear that they will plan more if given the opportunity. Having a ceasefire now without defeating Hamas and making it impossible for them to organise more massacres will allow them to repeat their atrocities. Unless this is addressed a call for a ceasefire is in bad faith because it is not peace and will help a sadistic aggressor.
Second, it is notable and alarming that those marchers do not call for the return of the hostages. They are forgotten. Worse there is a concerted effort to remove the photos of them, to make them unpersons. And when there was a silent vigil yesterday by people in Whitehall holding up their photos and saying their names, there were people nearby shouting abuse . The level of unkindness, callousness to the victims of the massacre, the hostages and those who mourn or fear for them is grotesque and reflects very badly on people who claim to be for peace.
Finally, here is a good commentary on what proportionality means in international law in the context of a war. It does not mean proportional to numbers. It means proportional to the objective - the defeat of the enemy. Most of those opining about international law have not the faintest idea about it and are simply using it as another stick with which to beat Israel. As I have said before, far too many of the criticisms of Israel are bad faith ones made by people who do not wish it to defend itself or to exist either.
As for the marches, one of the issues the police will have to address is whether they are intent on stirring up racial hatred and/or in support of banned terror organisations. Either of those would be valid reasons for a ban.
But the general principle should be to allow protests even of people with whose views you might disagree. How consistently the Met has acted on that principle is quite another matter. Consistent application of the law has not been the Met's strong point.
Well I assume that the UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross must have more than the 'faintest idea' about what constitutes international law and both have said that Israel may be breaking international law. Indeed the UN has said Israel has been breaking international law on many occasions for many years.
I am afraid that within your valid criticisms and concerns there are also some rather more extreme examples of the belief that any criticism of Israel is automatically anti-semitism. I would suggest that you are also indulging in bad faith arguments when you try and tar any criticism of Israel as anti-semitism. It does you no credit at all.
Some highlights: ...the international body has a continuing history of a one-sided, hostile approach to Israel... Successive Secretary Generals have acknowledged this an issue for the institution. Indeed, in a meeting in April 2007, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon acknowledged to ADL leaders that Israel has been treated poorly at the UN and that, while some progress has been made, this bias still remains an issue... “Unfortunately, because of the [Israeli-Palestinian] conflict, Israel’s been weighed down by criticism and suffered from bias — and sometimes even discrimination,” Ban said...
A low point at the UN was the passage of the Arab and Soviet-sponsored United Nations resolution of November 10, 1975 which declared Zionism a “form of racism and racial discrimination.” The highly politicized resolution was aimed at denying Israel its political legitimacy by attacking its moral basis for existence. The resolution was finally repealed on December 16, 1991.
The UN Human Rights Council (HRC), which replaced the Commission on Human Rights in March 2006, has continued its predecessor's extreme focus on and biased treatment of issues relating to Israel, particularly in comparison with its mild action on pressing international human rights crises. The permanent agenda of the HRC includes a specific item targeting Israel - Agenda Item #7 – which is titled: "Human rights situation in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories: Human rights violations and implications of the Israeli occupation of Palestine and other occupied Arab territories and the Right to self-determination of the Palestinian people. Israel is the only country to appear on the HRC's permanent agenda, while other countries such as Iran and Sudan, notorious for their human rights abuses, are included as part of the general debate.
In June 2018, the US announced that it was formally withdrawing from the HRC, citing anti-Israel bias and the body’s inclusion of human rights-violating countries as motivating the decision. The UK also announced that it would withdraw if the Council continued its anti-Israel bias.
I would say that it is not Cyclefree indulging in bad faith arguments.
Well I would say it is. And you. Funny how people always want to cite the UN when they agree with the cause but then slate them when they don't. Including Israel itself who used breaches of UN resolutions by Lebanon to justify invasion in 2006.
And I suppose the International Committee of the Red Cross are anti-semitic as well are they? And MSF? And practically every aid organisation working in the region?
None of this justifies what happened on October 7th but you burying your head in the ground about the actions of Israel against the Palestinians over many years doesn't help either.
For amusement (!) I just googled ICRC anti-semitism.
So the answer to your question about the ICRC is no it doesn't seem so although there was an abject failure (by its own admission) to protect Jews during the war. For, as I see it, reasons related to that classic do you give aid to oppressors conundrum for the greater good. Or anti-semitism. But who knows.
Could be a developing story here - the inquiry has been informed by the Post Office that 363,000 emails may have potentially gone missing - and these are emails from post-2012 - ie as the Post Office went into cover-up mode. The data seems to have been lost in the shift..."
Curtice contends that the Conservative strategy is i) Sunak's competence, ii) traditional conservative values+antiwoke, and iii) hopefully some tax cuts.
Curtice then points out that the two main questions the voters are actually asking are i) can I feed my kids and ii) if I fall ill will the NHS look after me. And that the Conservatives may fall short in this.
I think this is on the money - real world issues for people. Sunak needs the NHS to have a 'good' winter (not too many stories of long ambulance waits, people on trolleys, bed shortages etc). And yes inflation may be falling back but people know that the price increases are now baked in. Prices are not really going back to 2021 levels, and almost certainly won't.
There was a chap from BigFoodCo being rather Tiggerish about how food inflation would soon be falling toward zero, the other day - but it is not at all clear whether he means the rate or (which many folk would assume) the actual change over time. And someone else in the report points out that only a few food categories are actually going down in price absolutely.
"almost exactly a month of fighting, the conflict is not only the deadliest on record for media workers in Israel and Palestine but the deadliest (to the equivalent point) for media workers covering any war in recent memory. [Committee to Protect Journalists] CPJ said that it has not recorded an equivalently deadly period since it began keeping such records in 1992; Reporters Without Borders (or RSF) reached a similar conclusion, calling the early weeks of the conflict the deadliest opening to any war since at least 2000."
Meanwhile, as we drone on and on about Israel, a jihadi militia has just slaughtered 1000 black Africans - of all ages - in Darfur, in an outrageous pogrom - along with accompanying videos celebrating the violence, with an ISIS style soundtrack
Virtually every PB-er blatting on about the Palestinian cause must, by definition, be anti-Semitic - unless they have been equally and vocally outraged by all these other horrors, some far worse than Gaza
I find that logic inescapable. Feel free to point out the flaw
Art 12. Protection of medical units 1. Medical units shall be respected and protected at all times and shall not be the object of attack.
2. Paragraph 1 shall apply to civilian medical units, provided that they: (a) belong to one of the Parties to the conflict; (b) are recognized and authorized by the competent authority of one of the Parties to the conflict; or (c) are authorized in conformity with Article 9, paragraph 2, of this Protocol or Article 27 of the First Convention.
3. The Parties to the conflict are invited to notify each other of the location of their fixed medical units. The absence of such notification shall not exempt any of the Parties from the obligation to comply with the provisions of paragraph 1.
4. Under no circumstances shall medical units be used in an attempt to shield military objectives from attack. Whenever possible, the Parties to the conflict shall ensure that medical units are so sited that attacks against military objectives do not imperil their safety.
Art 13. Discontinuance of protection of civilian medical units 1. The protection to which civilian medical units are entitled shall not cease unless they are used to commit, outside their humanitarian function, acts harmful to the enemy. Protection may, however, cease only after a warning has been given setting, whenever appropriate, a reasonable time-limit, and after such warning has remained unheeded.
I would imagine that one of the reasons that the Met hasn't kicked up a fuss about the planned pro-Palestine/ceasefire march this weekend is that many such marches have taken place in recent weeks without any significant public order problems.
Despite the hyperbole from some, the Met (unlike the HS) will have noticed that given the size of the demonstrations thus far there has been little trouble. Few arrests. No rioting. No significant vandalism. No violence or attacks on police. Yes, a few have been out of order, and the police have rightly filmed them and are following up.
My fervent hope this week is that another peaceful demonstration takes place, while Tommy Robinson and his racist thug mates hang around the Cenotaph with nothing to do, looking like the plonkers they are.
In the arguments around this, there's quite a lot of confusion between the controversial nature of the marches (undeniable), and the likelihood of public disorder (questionable).
The former is in no way grounds for a ban.
I'd agree were it not for the police arresting football fans for wearing shirts with potentially offensive writing on them.
But that is the point: "the police arresting football fans for wearing shirts with potentially offensive writing on them" not banning football matches. The police have already arrested some individual demonstrators with offensive images and are said to be working through video evidence to find others but not banning demonstrations.
The police are tolerating people chanting Jihad and from the river to the sea, so long as they don't do it outside Synagogues or Jewish schools.
That's not an unreasonable distinction to draw. It's not just what you are saying but where you are saying it. This feeds into context and context is always important.
Will it be consistently applied? I can march through Bradford chanting "Deport all Muslim Men before they rape more of our pure white girls" as long as I don't do it near a Mosque or madrasah? The police will leave me be, or indeed steward me safely from counter-protests?
I suspect you'd be in a spot of bother if you did that. Same as you would be if you went to Golders Green High St and chanted something equally vile about jewish people.
But my point is just that context always matters and part of the context is the 'where' as well as the 'what'. Because the 'where' speaks to the 'why' - Intent, which is key in these things.
So if you call black people derogatory epithets it's fine as long as there are no black people present? Is that it?
No, 'this' is (still) it - context is important when assessing whether (eg) a 'stirring up racial hatred' public order offence is being committed, and part of the context is where and in what circumstances it has taken place.
And yet Rishi Sunak appears to have given up. After he met ministers for informal drinks in Downing Street on Monday, one said: “It felt like he’d already checked out, his wheelie was at the door and he was pottering around for his final hours, looking forward to a few foreign sightseeing trips.”
Where once the prime minister was tetchy when asked a difficult question about his wife’s finances, he now sounds resigned. During a visit to Bacton gas terminal in Norfolk this week, Sunak shrugged when asked about yet another Tory MP accused of rape. Yes, he agreed, these were “very serious, anonymous allegations”. He looked like he’d run out of answers.
Meanwhile the Covid inquiry has been hearing evidence about his time as chancellor, when his nickname was apparently Dr Death as he prioritised handing out economic goodies over saving lives. “Now we call him Sunk,” said a Tory backbencher. It all feels pretty grim and even more depressing for a country still grappling with spiralling grocery and heating bills, higher mortgages and crumbling schools.
The thing I like best about this story is that the Tory MPs themselves who are calling him "Sunk". Leader of the Sunk Party.
Obviously there is no way they can change their leader yet again in this Parliament. So Sunk it has to be.
Of course they can. There's no constitutional ban. A VONC is now possible. It would be nice if Sunak has the good taste to resign, but that seems unlikely.
You seem still to be inhabiting the fantasy world where yet another change of leader makes any difference at all.
Unless you're calling for a general election now ?
We have just had a King's speech with no useful content whatever. I am not talking about a new leader to change the presentation - Sunak ain't great at presentation, but he's no worse than Truss or Boris on that front. We need a Government that wants to address the issues we face *now* - we need a new agenda, and the way to get that is with a new leader. Democracy is not served by a Government that is grimly determined to squat in Number 10 doing nothing until a choreographed Labour victory, especially when the polls show there is no enthusiasm about Labour.
Like I said, a fantasy. We need an election.
We need an election where there are actual differences in policy, and therefore actual choices for electors, not just buggins' turn.
Could be a developing story here - the inquiry has been informed by the Post Office that 363,000 emails may have potentially gone missing - and these are emails from post-2012 - ie as the Post Office went into cover-up mode. The data seems to have been lost in the shift..."
Curtice contends that the Conservative strategy is i) Sunak's competence, ii) traditional conservative values+antiwoke, and iii) hopefully some tax cuts.
Curtice then points out that the two main questions the voters are actually asking are i) can I feed my kids and ii) if I fall ill will the NHS look after me. And that the Conservatives may fall short in this.
I think this is on the money - real world issues for people. Sunak needs the NHS to have a 'good' winter (not too many stories of long ambulance waits, people on trolleys, bed shortages etc). And yes inflation may be falling back but people know that the price increases are now baked in. Prices are not really going back to 2021 levels, and almost certainly won't.
There was a chap from BigFoodCo being rather Tiggerish about how food inflation would soon be falling toward zero, the other day - but it is not at all clear whether he means the rate or (which many folk would assume) the actual change over time. And someone else in the report points out that only a few food categories are actually going down in price absolutely.
Could be a developing story here - the inquiry has been informed by the Post Office that 363,000 emails may have potentially gone missing - and these are emails from post-2012 - ie as the Post Office went into cover-up mode. The data seems to have been lost in the shift..."
It is curious that this marching for a ceasefire - and there have been a few already - have not noticed that there was a ceasefire, one which Hamas broke on 7 October. During that ceasefire Hamas planned the 7 October atrocity and have made it clear that they will plan more if given the opportunity. Having a ceasefire now without defeating Hamas and making it impossible for them to organise more massacres will allow them to repeat their atrocities. Unless this is addressed a call for a ceasefire is in bad faith because it is not peace and will help a sadistic aggressor.
Second, it is notable and alarming that those marchers do not call for the return of the hostages. They are forgotten. Worse there is a concerted effort to remove the photos of them, to make them unpersons. And when there was a silent vigil yesterday by people in Whitehall holding up their photos and saying their names, there were people nearby shouting abuse . The level of unkindness, callousness to the victims of the massacre, the hostages and those who mourn or fear for them is grotesque and reflects very badly on people who claim to be for peace.
Finally, here is a good commentary on what proportionality means in international law in the context of a war. It does not mean proportional to numbers. It means proportional to the objective - the defeat of the enemy. Most of those opining about international law have not the faintest idea about it and are simply using it as another stick with which to beat Israel. As I have said before, far too many of the criticisms of Israel are bad faith ones made by people who do not wish it to defend itself or to exist either.
As for the marches, one of the issues the police will have to address is whether they are intent on stirring up racial hatred and/or in support of banned terror organisations. Either of those would be valid reasons for a ban.
But the general principle should be to allow protests even of people with whose views you might disagree. How consistently the Met has acted on that principle is quite another matter. Consistent application of the law has not been the Met's strong point.
Well I assume that the UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross must have more than the 'faintest idea' about what constitutes international law and both have said that Israel may be breaking international law. Indeed the UN has said Israel has been breaking international law on many occasions for many years.
I am afraid that within your valid criticisms and concerns there are also some rather more extreme examples of the belief that any criticism of Israel is automatically anti-semitism. I would suggest that you are also indulging in bad faith arguments when you try and tar any criticism of Israel as anti-semitism. It does you no credit at all.
Some highlights: ...the international body has a continuing history of a one-sided, hostile approach to Israel... Successive Secretary Generals have acknowledged this an issue for the institution. Indeed, in a meeting in April 2007, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon acknowledged to ADL leaders that Israel has been treated poorly at the UN and that, while some progress has been made, this bias still remains an issue... “Unfortunately, because of the [Israeli-Palestinian] conflict, Israel’s been weighed down by criticism and suffered from bias — and sometimes even discrimination,” Ban said...
A low point at the UN was the passage of the Arab and Soviet-sponsored United Nations resolution of November 10, 1975 which declared Zionism a “form of racism and racial discrimination.” The highly politicized resolution was aimed at denying Israel its political legitimacy by attacking its moral basis for existence. The resolution was finally repealed on December 16, 1991.
The UN Human Rights Council (HRC), which replaced the Commission on Human Rights in March 2006, has continued its predecessor's extreme focus on and biased treatment of issues relating to Israel, particularly in comparison with its mild action on pressing international human rights crises. The permanent agenda of the HRC includes a specific item targeting Israel - Agenda Item #7 – which is titled: "Human rights situation in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories: Human rights violations and implications of the Israeli occupation of Palestine and other occupied Arab territories and the Right to self-determination of the Palestinian people. Israel is the only country to appear on the HRC's permanent agenda, while other countries such as Iran and Sudan, notorious for their human rights abuses, are included as part of the general debate.
In June 2018, the US announced that it was formally withdrawing from the HRC, citing anti-Israel bias and the body’s inclusion of human rights-violating countries as motivating the decision. The UK also announced that it would withdraw if the Council continued its anti-Israel bias.
I would say that it is not Cyclefree indulging in bad faith arguments.
Well I would say it is. And you. Funny how people always want to cite the UN when they agree with the cause but then slate them when they don't. Including Israel itself who used breaches of UN resolutions by Lebanon to justify invasion in 2006.
And I suppose the International Committee of the Red Cross are anti-semitic as well are they? And MSF? And practically every aid organisation working in the region?
None of this justifies what happened on October 7th but you burying your head in the ground about the actions of Israel against the Palestinians over many years doesn't help either.
Well, we're talking specifically about international law, and I was just responding to your fallacious appeal to authority. I apologise for encouraging your inability to construct proper logical arguments by failing to point out the fallacy and instead attacking the authority, but either way I am happy to specify that the UN are institutionally anti-semitic and should never be relied upon on matters pertaining to Israel.
I think the problem you have is that you vastly underestimate the level of anti-semitism in the world, in particular in large supranational organisations. i can't speak to why that is, but a easy (albeit somewhat superficial) starting point might be to point out just how many more Muslim/Arab states such organisations have to deal with, than Jewish ones.
I would imagine that one of the reasons that the Met hasn't kicked up a fuss about the planned pro-Palestine/ceasefire march this weekend is that many such marches have taken place in recent weeks without any significant public order problems.
Despite the hyperbole from some, the Met (unlike the HS) will have noticed that given the size of the demonstrations thus far there has been little trouble. Few arrests. No rioting. No significant vandalism. No violence or attacks on police. Yes, a few have been out of order, and the police have rightly filmed them and are following up.
My fervent hope this week is that another peaceful demonstration takes place, while Tommy Robinson and his racist thug mates hang around the Cenotaph with nothing to do, looking like the plonkers they are.
In the arguments around this, there's quite a lot of confusion between the controversial nature of the marches (undeniable), and the likelihood of public disorder (questionable).
The former is in no way grounds for a ban.
I'd agree were it not for the police arresting football fans for wearing shirts with potentially offensive writing on them.
But that is the point: "the police arresting football fans for wearing shirts with potentially offensive writing on them" not banning football matches. The police have already arrested some individual demonstrators with offensive images and are said to be working through video evidence to find others but not banning demonstrations.
The police are tolerating people chanting Jihad and from the river to the sea, so long as they don't do it outside Synagogues or Jewish schools.
That's not an unreasonable distinction to draw. It's not just what you are saying but where you are saying it. This feeds into context and context is always important.
Will it be consistently applied? I can march through Bradford chanting "Deport all Muslim Men before they rape more of our pure white girls" as long as I don't do it near a Mosque or madrasah? The police will leave me be, or indeed steward me safely from counter-protests?
I suspect you'd be in a spot of bother if you did that. Same as you would be if you went to Golders Green High St and chanted something equally vile about jewish people.
But my point is just that context always matters and part of the context is the 'where' as well as the 'what'. Because the 'where' speaks to the 'why' - Intent, which is key in these things.
So if you call black people derogatory epithets it's fine as long as there are no black people present? Is that it?
No, 'this' is (still) it - context is important when assessing whether (eg) a 'stirring up racial hatred' public order offence is being committed, and part of the context is where and in what circumstances it has taken place.
Makes sense when you think about it.
Only if you think that it is not possible to stir up racial hatred when there is no member of the "target" race present.
Which is not logical. Racial hatred can be stirred amongst the "non target" race at any time.
"almost exactly a month of fighting, the conflict is not only the deadliest on record for media workers in Israel and Palestine but the deadliest (to the equivalent point) for media workers covering any war in recent memory. [Committee to Protect Journalists] CPJ said that it has not recorded an equivalently deadly period since it began keeping such records in 1992; Reporters Without Borders (or RSF) reached a similar conclusion, calling the early weeks of the conflict the deadliest opening to any war since at least 2000."
For sure, the proportion of journalists to other deaths within Gaza imply that Israel is deliberately targeting the media.
I would posit that its a assassination campaign to remove trusted information sources within the warzone.
I think I would need to see some stronger evidence before drawing such a conclusion.
I don't think I can persuade anyone of this, there are no leaked documents or Freudian slips from senior people. For me there's a pattern in some of the killings. They are killed in their homes or their families are killed whilst they were out. For sure they could simply be unlucky but some very prominent journalists have been seemingly very unlucky.
> The odds seem wrong. So many have been killed this time looking from previous wars and yet the weapons the IDF are using are more precise than before.
> Israel has a habit of targeting media organisations inside Gaza. The media seem to cluster within specific blocks which are regularly imploded.
Plus to me its a coherent strategy. Remove all the trusted sources, make outside news organisations choose between unverified rumours, OSINT, dodgy propaganda etc.
The detail about the homes of journalists being targeted is a bit stronger than simply looking at numbers.
Could be a developing story here - the inquiry has been informed by the Post Office that 363,000 emails may have potentially gone missing - and these are emails from post-2012 - ie as the Post Office went into cover-up mode. The data seems to have been lost in the shift..."
And yet Rishi Sunak appears to have given up. After he met ministers for informal drinks in Downing Street on Monday, one said: “It felt like he’d already checked out, his wheelie was at the door and he was pottering around for his final hours, looking forward to a few foreign sightseeing trips.”
Where once the prime minister was tetchy when asked a difficult question about his wife’s finances, he now sounds resigned. During a visit to Bacton gas terminal in Norfolk this week, Sunak shrugged when asked about yet another Tory MP accused of rape. Yes, he agreed, these were “very serious, anonymous allegations”. He looked like he’d run out of answers.
Meanwhile the Covid inquiry has been hearing evidence about his time as chancellor, when his nickname was apparently Dr Death as he prioritised handing out economic goodies over saving lives. “Now we call him Sunk,” said a Tory backbencher. It all feels pretty grim and even more depressing for a country still grappling with spiralling grocery and heating bills, higher mortgages and crumbling schools.
The thing I like best about this story is that the Tory MPs themselves who are calling him "Sunk". Leader of the Sunk Party.
Obviously there is no way they can change their leader yet again in this Parliament. So Sunk it has to be.
Of course they can. There's no constitutional ban. A VONC is now possible. It would be nice if Sunak has the good taste to resign, but that seems unlikely.
You seem still to be inhabiting the fantasy world where yet another change of leader makes any difference at all.
Unless you're calling for a general election now ?
We have just had a King's speech with no useful content whatever. I am not talking about a new leader to change the presentation - Sunak ain't great at presentation, but he's no worse than Truss or Boris on that front. We need a Government that wants to address the issues we face *now* - we need a new agenda, and the way to get that is with a new leader. Democracy is not served by a Government that is grimly determined to squat in Number 10 doing nothing until a choreographed Labour victory, especially when the polls show there is no enthusiasm about Labour.
Like I said, a fantasy. We need an election.
We need an election where there are actual differences in policy, and therefore actual choices for electors, not just buggins' turn.
Jeez will you stop with the constant posting about political events and possible betting implications.
I know that we're going round in circles. The world is. I apparently read like some blood-thirsty lunatic not caring for civilians. If there was a viable ceasefire then of course we should have it now. Yesterday. Last week.
The problem is that Ceasefire Now is not a ceasefire where hostilities end. Lets say that the IDF stop - Hamas won't. They will push out propaganda for a period whilst they get fresh arms in from Iran. Then they go again.
Which is precisely why Israel's policy of permanent occupation fails.
Re-opening serious talks with the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, and stopping further land seizures by settlers would help. If people see progress through peaceful means then they are less supportive of the fanatics.
Over 100 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank by armed settlers and IDF troops in the last month and further lands seized. This is overshadowed by events in Gaza, but some Israelis find it a convenient time to expand.
It’s so easy to say “stop settlements”
The problem is that - historically at least - Netenyahu’s coalition has been dependent on ultra-orthodox members in the Knesset
PR is responsible for the West Bank settlements. Discuss
Likud could have chosen to form a coalition with other parties. I might be willing about this, but I think one of the main reasons they didn't was that the other parties weren't willing to support Netanyahu's attempts to evade corruption prosecutions.
So I think it's more accurate to say that Netanyahu is responsible for the West Bank settlements.
PR doesn't make anything inevitable. It just presents people with different - I would argue, better - choices. But it can't stop people from making choices that I would identify as bad.
And, as we've seen, parties in two party systems are hardly immune from such influences.
It is curious that this marching for a ceasefire - and there have been a few already - have not noticed that there was a ceasefire, one which Hamas broke on 7 October. During that ceasefire Hamas planned the 7 October atrocity and have made it clear that they will plan more if given the opportunity. Having a ceasefire now without defeating Hamas and making it impossible for them to organise more massacres will allow them to repeat their atrocities. Unless this is addressed a call for a ceasefire is in bad faith because it is not peace and will help a sadistic aggressor.
Second, it is notable and alarming that those marchers do not call for the return of the hostages. They are forgotten. Worse there is a concerted effort to remove the photos of them, to make them unpersons. And when there was a silent vigil yesterday by people in Whitehall holding up their photos and saying their names, there were people nearby shouting abuse . The level of unkindness, callousness to the victims of the massacre, the hostages and those who mourn or fear for them is grotesque and reflects very badly on people who claim to be for peace.
Finally, here is a good commentary on what proportionality means in international law in the context of a war. It does not mean proportional to numbers. It means proportional to the objective - the defeat of the enemy. Most of those opining about international law have not the faintest idea about it and are simply using it as another stick with which to beat Israel. As I have said before, far too many of the criticisms of Israel are bad faith ones made by people who do not wish it to defend itself or to exist either.
As for the marches, one of the issues the police will have to address is whether they are intent on stirring up racial hatred and/or in support of banned terror organisations. Either of those would be valid reasons for a ban.
But the general principle should be to allow protests even of people with whose views you might disagree. How consistently the Met has acted on that principle is quite another matter. Consistent application of the law has not been the Met's strong point.
Well I assume that the UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross must have more than the 'faintest idea' about what constitutes international law and both have said that Israel may be breaking international law. Indeed the UN has said Israel has been breaking international law on many occasions for many years.
I am afraid that within your valid criticisms and concerns there are also some rather more extreme examples of the belief that any criticism of Israel is automatically anti-semitism. I would suggest that you are also indulging in bad faith arguments when you try and tar any criticism of Israel as anti-semitism. It does you no credit at all.
Some highlights: ...the international body has a continuing history of a one-sided, hostile approach to Israel... Successive Secretary Generals have acknowledged this an issue for the institution. Indeed, in a meeting in April 2007, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon acknowledged to ADL leaders that Israel has been treated poorly at the UN and that, while some progress has been made, this bias still remains an issue... “Unfortunately, because of the [Israeli-Palestinian] conflict, Israel’s been weighed down by criticism and suffered from bias — and sometimes even discrimination,” Ban said...
A low point at the UN was the passage of the Arab and Soviet-sponsored United Nations resolution of November 10, 1975 which declared Zionism a “form of racism and racial discrimination.” The highly politicized resolution was aimed at denying Israel its political legitimacy by attacking its moral basis for existence. The resolution was finally repealed on December 16, 1991.
The UN Human Rights Council (HRC), which replaced the Commission on Human Rights in March 2006, has continued its predecessor's extreme focus on and biased treatment of issues relating to Israel, particularly in comparison with its mild action on pressing international human rights crises. The permanent agenda of the HRC includes a specific item targeting Israel - Agenda Item #7 – which is titled: "Human rights situation in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories: Human rights violations and implications of the Israeli occupation of Palestine and other occupied Arab territories and the Right to self-determination of the Palestinian people. Israel is the only country to appear on the HRC's permanent agenda, while other countries such as Iran and Sudan, notorious for their human rights abuses, are included as part of the general debate.
In June 2018, the US announced that it was formally withdrawing from the HRC, citing anti-Israel bias and the body’s inclusion of human rights-violating countries as motivating the decision. The UK also announced that it would withdraw if the Council continued its anti-Israel bias.
I would say that it is not Cyclefree indulging in bad faith arguments.
Well I would say it is. And you. Funny how people always want to cite the UN when they agree with the cause but then slate them when they don't. Including Israel itself who used breaches of UN resolutions by Lebanon to justify invasion in 2006.
And I suppose the International Committee of the Red Cross are anti-semitic as well are they? And MSF? And practically every aid organisation working in the region?
None of this justifies what happened on October 7th but you burying your head in the ground about the actions of Israel against the Palestinians over many years doesn't help either.
Well, we're talking specifically about international law, and I was just responding to your fallacious appeal to authority. I apologise for encouraging your inability to construct proper logical arguments by failing to point out the fallacy and instead attacking the authority, but either way I am happy to specify that the UN are institutionally anti-semitic and should never be relied upon on matters pertaining to Israel.
I think the problem you have is that you vastly underestimate the level of anti-semitism in the world, in particular in large supranational organisations. i can't speak to why that is, but a easy (albeit somewhat superficial) starting point might be to point out just how many more Muslim/Arab states such organisations have to deal with, than Jewish ones.
Plus they killed Jesus and sacrificed non-Jewish children to drink their blood.
Curtice contends that the Conservative strategy is i) Sunak's competence, ii) traditional conservative values+antiwoke, and iii) hopefully some tax cuts.
Curtice then points out that the two main questions the voters are actually asking are i) can I feed my kids and ii) if I fall ill will the NHS look after me. And that the Conservatives may fall short in this.
I think this is on the money - real world issues for people. Sunak needs the NHS to have a 'good' winter (not too many stories of long ambulance waits, people on trolleys, bed shortages etc). And yes inflation may be falling back but people know that the price increases are now baked in. Prices are not really going back to 2021 levels, and almost certainly won't.
There was a chap from BigFoodCo being rather Tiggerish about how food inflation would soon be falling toward zero, the other day - but it is not at all clear whether he means the rate or (which many folk would assume) the actual change over time. And someone else in the report points out that only a few food categories are actually going down in price absolutely.
Food inflation falling towards zero? Absolutely. Which will lock into place all of the enormous increases we have suffered over the last year.
The oil price is the biggie here. It’s on the way down at the moment. Our economies are less oil dependent than in the past but still not fully decoupled, and oil prices in particular drive the cost of fertilisers.
Set against that it’s an El Niño which tends to mean higher soy prices (and hence meat too) and high rice prices.
Could be a developing story here - the inquiry has been informed by the Post Office that 363,000 emails may have potentially gone missing - and these are emails from post-2012 - ie as the Post Office went into cover-up mode. The data seems to have been lost in the shift..."
As far as I understand it the march will not being going past the Cenotaph and won't begin until well after the proceedings are over. I have expressed major misgivings about this whole 'movement' but I think we should just leave it. The media is not helping by hyping up the possibility of trouble. Braverman's comment about hate marches was as politically unwise as Humza Yousaf's 'a few bad apples.' If sensible people remain silent that is the choice we are left with.
Art 12. Protection of medical units 1. Medical units shall be respected and protected at all times and shall not be the object of attack.
2. Paragraph 1 shall apply to civilian medical units, provided that they: (a) belong to one of the Parties to the conflict; (b) are recognized and authorized by the competent authority of one of the Parties to the conflict; or (c) are authorized in conformity with Article 9, paragraph 2, of this Protocol or Article 27 of the First Convention.
3. The Parties to the conflict are invited to notify each other of the location of their fixed medical units. The absence of such notification shall not exempt any of the Parties from the obligation to comply with the provisions of paragraph 1.
4. Under no circumstances shall medical units be used in an attempt to shield military objectives from attack. Whenever possible, the Parties to the conflict shall ensure that medical units are so sited that attacks against military objectives do not imperil their safety.
Art 13. Discontinuance of protection of civilian medical units 1. The protection to which civilian medical units are entitled shall not cease unless they are used to commit, outside their humanitarian function, acts harmful to the enemy. Protection may, however, cease only after a warning has been given setting, whenever appropriate, a reasonable time-limit, and after such warning has remained unheeded.
I would also quite like someone on the "Israel is not/may not be following international law" side to read this BBC article and let me know:
1) Which other militaries do this? 2) Is Israel required to do this under international law? 3) Are these really the actions of a state that wants indiscriminate civilian casualties?
"almost exactly a month of fighting, the conflict is not only the deadliest on record for media workers in Israel and Palestine but the deadliest (to the equivalent point) for media workers covering any war in recent memory. [Committee to Protect Journalists] CPJ said that it has not recorded an equivalently deadly period since it began keeping such records in 1992; Reporters Without Borders (or RSF) reached a similar conclusion, calling the early weeks of the conflict the deadliest opening to any war since at least 2000."
For sure, the proportion of journalists to other deaths within Gaza imply that Israel is deliberately targeting the media.
I would posit that its a assassination campaign to remove trusted information sources within the warzone.
I think I would need to see some stronger evidence before drawing such a conclusion.
I don't think I can persuade anyone of this, there are no leaked documents or Freudian slips from senior people. For me there's a pattern in some of the killings. They are killed in their homes or their families are killed whilst they were out. For sure they could simply be unlucky but some very prominent journalists have been seemingly very unlucky.
> The odds seem wrong. So many have been killed this time looking from previous wars and yet the weapons the IDF are using are more precise than before.
> Israel has a habit of targeting media organisations inside Gaza. The media seem to cluster within specific blocks which are regularly imploded.
Plus to me its a coherent strategy. Remove all the trusted sources, make outside news organisations choose between unverified rumours, OSINT, dodgy propaganda etc.
The detail about the homes of journalists being targeted is a bit stronger than simply looking at numbers.
Many journalists in Gaza are killed in their homes, what more can you say? I'm sure the Israelis know where the journalists live and guided bombs happen to consistently land on these places. I believe it is likely deliberate but can't prove it.
Meanwhile, as we drone on and on about Israel, a jihadi militia has just slaughtered 1000 black Africans - of all ages - in Darfur, in an outrageous pogrom - along with accompanying videos celebrating the violence, with an ISIS style soundtrack
Virtually every PB-er blatting on about the Palestinian cause must, by definition, be anti-Semitic - unless they have been equally and vocally outraged by all these other horrors, some far worse than Gaza
I find that logic inescapable. Feel free to point out the flaw
A few points I would make.
1. It isn't possible for every individual person to protest against every individual wrong, and protesting against one rather than another isn't necessarily indicative of anything. Not everything is a conspiracy.
2. One distinction that people do sometimes draw is the extent to which Britain is involved, and therefore the extent to which protests in Britain might influence the government here to change policy, which might have some impact, however small, on the issue in question.
So, the British government has provided robust diplomatic support to Israel. To my knowledge, no member of the government has spoken in support of jihadi militias in Darfur. So there's a British government action to protest against in one case and not the other.
3. If you did want to make this argument the more appropriate comparison is with Yemen. I know a few people who have spent many years campaigning against Britain supplying weapons to Saudi Arabia for use in the war in Yemen. They would have loved to have more people join their protests.
Just as I type that England could be getting a good score today, Jos Buttler goes and gets himself caught out. 178/5 30ovs
So stop typing !
You’re right, and I should have gone off to ConHome (or the pub) yestday after making a joke about Australia getting 200 for the 8th wicket, when their stand was about 20.
Does @WatchmanSociety trump the United Nations General Assembly, Amnesty, the Red Crescent.and multiple other Aid Agencies
Obvs in your mind yes but not in any normal world
No
I'm directly quoting the actual Geneva Convention. Easy to say "war crime!". But lets look at the actual law for a minute and read what it says.
Its no different to Covid. Ministers telling people they could only go out for an hour of exercise, actual law saying they could take unlimited exercise. The written law trumps what someone says whilst misinterpreting the law.
It is curious that this marching for a ceasefire - and there have been a few already - have not noticed that there was a ceasefire, one which Hamas broke on 7 October. During that ceasefire Hamas planned the 7 October atrocity and have made it clear that they will plan more if given the opportunity. Having a ceasefire now without defeating Hamas and making it impossible for them to organise more massacres will allow them to repeat their atrocities. Unless this is addressed a call for a ceasefire is in bad faith because it is not peace and will help a sadistic aggressor.
Second, it is notable and alarming that those marchers do not call for the return of the hostages. They are forgotten. Worse there is a concerted effort to remove the photos of them, to make them unpersons. And when there was a silent vigil yesterday by people in Whitehall holding up their photos and saying their names, there were people nearby shouting abuse . The level of unkindness, callousness to the victims of the massacre, the hostages and those who mourn or fear for them is grotesque and reflects very badly on people who claim to be for peace.
Finally, here is a good commentary on what proportionality means in international law in the context of a war. It does not mean proportional to numbers. It means proportional to the objective - the defeat of the enemy. Most of those opining about international law have not the faintest idea about it and are simply using it as another stick with which to beat Israel. As I have said before, far too many of the criticisms of Israel are bad faith ones made by people who do not wish it to defend itself or to exist either.
As for the marches, one of the issues the police will have to address is whether they are intent on stirring up racial hatred and/or in support of banned terror organisations. Either of those would be valid reasons for a ban.
But the general principle should be to allow protests even of people with whose views you might disagree. How consistently the Met has acted on that principle is quite another matter. Consistent application of the law has not been the Met's strong point.
I don't know about anyone else but when I talk about Palestinian casualties being disproportionately high it's not based on some noddy view that International Law says it has to be 1:1 or not more than X:1 or anything like that. I'm just using the word 'disproportionate' in its plain and simple (non legal) meaning. Shockingly high.
Also I find the whole idea that being 'at war' is a justifier of acts that would be criminal otherwise to be rather flimsy. Eg look at Russia/Ukraine. There's a 'war' where the triggering event was Vladimir Putin unleashing a completely unprovoked invasion on another country. I don't see a clear and massive distinction between that and mass murder, whatever the law says.
Could be a developing story here - the inquiry has been informed by the Post Office that 363,000 emails may have potentially gone missing - and these are emails from post-2012 - ie as the Post Office went into cover-up mode. The data seems to have been lost in the shift..."
Meanwhile, as we drone on and on about Israel, a jihadi militia has just slaughtered 1000 black Africans - of all ages - in Darfur, in an outrageous pogrom - along with accompanying videos celebrating the violence, with an ISIS style soundtrack
Virtually every PB-er blatting on about the Palestinian cause must, by definition, be anti-Semitic - unless they have been equally and vocally outraged by all these other horrors, some far worse than Gaza
I find that logic inescapable. Feel free to point out the flaw
A few points I would make.
1. It isn't possible for every individual person to protest against every individual wrong, and protesting against one rather than another isn't necessarily indicative of anything. Not everything is a conspiracy.
2. One distinction that people do sometimes draw is the extent to which Britain is involved, and therefore the extent to which protests in Britain might influence the government here to change policy, which might have some impact, however small, on the issue in question.
So, the British government has provided robust diplomatic support to Israel. To my knowledge, no member of the government has spoken in support of jihadi militias in Darfur. So there's a British government action to protest against in one case and not the other.
3. If you did want to make this argument the more appropriate comparison is with Yemen. I know a few people who have spent many years campaigning against Britain supplying weapons to Saudi Arabia for use in the war in Yemen. They would have loved to have more people join their protests.
A fair point about the UK government
Nonetheless, I’d say TOTAL silence on all these horrors followed by screeds of outrage about Gaza is, indeed, quite strongly indicative of anti-Semitism
There’s a couple of suspects on here. Worse, I have some acquaintances of whom this is true. I now realise they are anti-Semitic - and previously odd behaviour suddenly is explained. A pattern is revealed
Does @WatchmanSociety trump the United Nations General Assembly, Amnesty, the Red Crescent.and multiple other Aid Agencies
Obvs in your mind yes but not in any normal world
No
I'm directly quoting the actual Geneva Convention. Easy to say "war crime!". But lets look at the actual law for a minute and read what it says.
Its no different to Covid. Ministers telling people they could only go out for an hour of exercise, actual law saying they could take unlimited exercise. The written law trumps what someone says whilst misinterpreting the law.
The cut and paste the parts of the GC that suit your case, not so much though
As far as I understand it the march will not being going past the Cenotaph and won't begin until well after the proceedings are over. I have expressed major misgivings about this whole 'movement' but I think we should just leave it. The media is not helping by hyping up the possibility of trouble. Braverman's comment about hate marches was as politically unwise as Humza Yousaf's 'a few bad apples.' If sensible people remain silent that is the choice we are left with.
Worth noting the war memorial in Rochdale has been targeted this week. Clearly some in the pro-Palestine camp see war memorials as a target.
The witness at the PO inquiry just said, in relation to training on the Horizon computer system, "It was one of those things that was supposed to be compulsory if you were there, but if you were not there for any reason, obviously it couldn't be compulsory".
Meanwhile, as we drone on and on about Israel, a jihadi militia has just slaughtered 1000 black Africans - of all ages - in Darfur, in an outrageous pogrom - along with accompanying videos celebrating the violence, with an ISIS style soundtrack
And yet Rishi Sunak appears to have given up. After he met ministers for informal drinks in Downing Street on Monday, one said: “It felt like he’d already checked out, his wheelie was at the door and he was pottering around for his final hours, looking forward to a few foreign sightseeing trips.”
Where once the prime minister was tetchy when asked a difficult question about his wife’s finances, he now sounds resigned. During a visit to Bacton gas terminal in Norfolk this week, Sunak shrugged when asked about yet another Tory MP accused of rape. Yes, he agreed, these were “very serious, anonymous allegations”. He looked like he’d run out of answers.
Meanwhile the Covid inquiry has been hearing evidence about his time as chancellor, when his nickname was apparently Dr Death as he prioritised handing out economic goodies over saving lives. “Now we call him Sunk,” said a Tory backbencher. It all feels pretty grim and even more depressing for a country still grappling with spiralling grocery and heating bills, higher mortgages and crumbling schools.
The thing I like best about this story is that the Tory MPs themselves who are calling him "Sunk". Leader of the Sunk Party.
Obviously there is no way they can change their leader yet again in this Parliament. So Sunk it has to be.
Of course they can. There's no constitutional ban. A VONC is now possible. It would be nice if Sunak has the good taste to resign, but that seems unlikely.
You seem still to be inhabiting the fantasy world where yet another change of leader makes any difference at all.
Unless you're calling for a general election now ?
We have just had a King's speech with no useful content whatever. I am not talking about a new leader to change the presentation - Sunak ain't great at presentation, but he's no worse than Truss or Boris on that front. We need a Government that wants to address the issues we face *now* - we need a new agenda, and the way to get that is with a new leader. Democracy is not served by a Government that is grimly determined to squat in Number 10 doing nothing until a choreographed Labour victory, especially when the polls show there is no enthusiasm about Labour.
That's like a football fan calling for the sacking of yet another manager when the true problem is the squad of players and the results already conceded - refusing to recognise the impact of the disruption that the change would bring, the cost of it, or that there simply might not be anyone better available who wants or is able to take on the job.
With the difference that the fans probably have more idea about who might make an effective manager of their team.
You have a higher opinion of the average football fan that I do.
Indeed, I should have added to the issues of the football metaphor that displacement activity in changing the manager cannot make up for, or mask, a culture of entitlement and living off past victories, and a failure to understand the extent to which the game and other clubs have moved on. The fan expectation is that replaying old methods (but now with players, rules and systems unsuited to them), will somehow restore the glory days. They won't.
It's not the Met's role to decide this; as long as the protests meet their legal requirements, they should go ahead.
I agree.
Actually, I don't think it should be anyone's role to ban marches that meet legal requirements. The precedent is too ominous. Free speech isn't just for people who agree with me or anyone else.
Suppressing them would be counter-productive anyway because they give people a chance to let off steam. Protest is a substitute for achieving something.
Safety grounds is one that matters, and could apply. Say you had a planned protest that was well-organised, where the organisers had talked to the police and local authorities, and had been given the go-ahead. Another march applies for the same town and the same day; in negotiations with the organisers, the start time and route are changed slightly.
All good.
Then a third march is organised; again, they talk to the police and authorities, and meet all the legal requirements. But police are worried about their capacity to police this third march, and with things like public transport to get everyone in and out of the town. Should that third march get the go-ahead, or should the organisers be persuaded to try for a different day? (*)
So I'm not sayin they should be 'banned'; just that there are other factors. But if the police don't think they can cope with that third march, and the organisers choose to go ahead anyway, it should be a politician saying it should be stopped, not the police.
Although if people turn up for that third march, when the police are busy with the first two events, they're going to be in trouble anyway...
(*) I assume this is how it works...
If there is no legal provision that covers that eventuality, then the law should be changed to cover it - with appropriate procedures and safeguards - rather than politicians having discretion to ban political marches without due process.
I differ on this. Politicians should have the discretion to ban *any* march - they are our elected representatives. But it should be known that they banned the march, and reasons should be given.
The 'rights' of a noisy minority to cause chaos to local areas is all too easily abused. Not all marchers / protestors are exactly pure of heart.
Effectively that means a government (presumably Home Secretary) veto on any march or protest.
If only pro-government marches are allowed we have ceased to be a democracy.
Does @WatchmanSociety trump the United Nations General Assembly, Amnesty, the Red Crescent.and multiple other Aid Agencies
Obvs in your mind yes but not in any normal world
No
I'm directly quoting the actual Geneva Convention. Easy to say "war crime!". But lets look at the actual law for a minute and read what it says.
Its no different to Covid. Ministers telling people they could only go out for an hour of exercise, actual law saying they could take unlimited exercise. The written law trumps what someone says whilst misinterpreting the law.
The cut and paste the parts of the GC that suit your case, not so much though
Neither of us are international lawyers. "cut and paste" is the parts that are relevant to the part in question. If that is "cut and paste" then so are all laws when applied to people breaking them.
So we're back to "THIS IS A WAR CRIME" vs "this" being compared to the actual action in the actual context. I would be very happy for one of our learned friends to have a look at it...
It is curious that this marching for a ceasefire - and there have been a few already - have not noticed that there was a ceasefire, one which Hamas broke on 7 October. During that ceasefire Hamas planned the 7 October atrocity and have made it clear that they will plan more if given the opportunity. Having a ceasefire now without defeating Hamas and making it impossible for them to organise more massacres will allow them to repeat their atrocities. Unless this is addressed a call for a ceasefire is in bad faith because it is not peace and will help a sadistic aggressor.
Second, it is notable and alarming that those marchers do not call for the return of the hostages. They are forgotten. Worse there is a concerted effort to remove the photos of them, to make them unpersons. And when there was a silent vigil yesterday by people in Whitehall holding up their photos and saying their names, there were people nearby shouting abuse . The level of unkindness, callousness to the victims of the massacre, the hostages and those who mourn or fear for them is grotesque and reflects very badly on people who claim to be for peace.
Finally, here is a good commentary on what proportionality means in international law in the context of a war. It does not mean proportional to numbers. It means proportional to the objective - the defeat of the enemy. Most of those opining about international law have not the faintest idea about it and are simply using it as another stick with which to beat Israel. As I have said before, far too many of the criticisms of Israel are bad faith ones made by people who do not wish it to defend itself or to exist either.
As for the marches, one of the issues the police will have to address is whether they are intent on stirring up racial hatred and/or in support of banned terror organisations. Either of those would be valid reasons for a ban.
But the general principle should be to allow protests even of people with whose views you might disagree. How consistently the Met has acted on that principle is quite another matter. Consistent application of the law has not been the Met's strong point.
I don't know about anyone else but when I talk about Palestinian casualties being disproportionately high it's not based on some noddy view that International Law says it has to be 1:1 or not more than X:1 or anything like that. I'm just using the word 'disproportionate' in its plain and simple (non legal) meaning. Shockingly high.
Also I find the whole idea that being 'at war' is a justifier of acts that would be criminal otherwise to be rather flimsy. Eg look at Russia/Ukraine. There's a 'war' where the triggering event was Vladimir Putin unleashing a completely unprovoked invasion on another country. I don't see a clear and massive distinction between that and mass murder, whatever the law says.
But, war does indeed. justify (some) acts that would otherwise be treated as criminal. That's been the case ever since people invented rules of war.
Curtice contends that the Conservative strategy is i) Sunak's competence, ii) traditional conservative values+antiwoke, and iii) hopefully some tax cuts.
Curtice then points out that the two main questions the voters are actually asking are i) can I feed my kids and ii) if I fall ill will the NHS look after me. And that the Conservatives may fall short in this.
I think this is on the money - real world issues for people. Sunak needs the NHS to have a 'good' winter (not too many stories of long ambulance waits, people on trolleys, bed shortages etc). And yes inflation may be falling back but people know that the price increases are now baked in. Prices are not really going back to 2021 levels, and almost certainly won't.
Ultimately every incumbent party must run on its record. This is the Tory problem.
Meanwhile, as we drone on and on about Israel, a jihadi militia has just slaughtered 1000 black Africans - of all ages - in Darfur, in an outrageous pogrom - along with accompanying videos celebrating the violence, with an ISIS style soundtrack
Virtually every PB-er blatting on about the Palestinian cause must, by definition, be anti-Semitic - unless they have been equally and vocally outraged by all these other horrors, some far worse than Gaza
I find that logic inescapable. Feel free to point out the flaw
A few points I would make.
1. It isn't possible for every individual person to protest against every individual wrong, and protesting against one rather than another isn't necessarily indicative of anything. Not everything is a conspiracy.
2. One distinction that people do sometimes draw is the extent to which Britain is involved, and therefore the extent to which protests in Britain might influence the government here to change policy, which might have some impact, however small, on the issue in question.
So, the British government has provided robust diplomatic support to Israel. To my knowledge, no member of the government has spoken in support of jihadi militias in Darfur. So there's a British government action to protest against in one case and not the other.
3. If you did want to make this argument the more appropriate comparison is with Yemen. I know a few people who have spent many years campaigning against Britain supplying weapons to Saudi Arabia for use in the war in Yemen. They would have loved to have more people join their protests.
A fair point about the UK government
Nonetheless, I’d say TOTAL silence on all these horrors followed by screeds of outrage about Gaza is, indeed, quite strongly indicative of anti-Semitism
There’s a couple of suspects on here. Worse, I have some acquaintances of whom this is true. I now realise they are anti-Semitic - and previously odd behaviour suddenly is explained. A pattern is revealed
It is a melancholy revelation
The odd thing is that they would object very strongly if accused. It is what I call passive (as opposed to active) anti-semitism. They don't objectively hate the Jews. But they are deeply unsympathetic on a number of levels and apply a special set of standards to Israel which they do not to any other nation and to Jews not to any other group.
How can you ceasefire against this? Israel has no choice but to level Gaza until Hamas is purged
“Hamas official Osama Hamdan in an interiew with Al-Liwaa newspaper says if there was a way to turn back time, Hamas would carry out Oct 7th attack again. Said strategy was to prevent Israel from being a 'natural entity' in the region.”
I would imagine that one of the reasons that the Met hasn't kicked up a fuss about the planned pro-Palestine/ceasefire march this weekend is that many such marches have taken place in recent weeks without any significant public order problems.
Despite the hyperbole from some, the Met (unlike the HS) will have noticed that given the size of the demonstrations thus far there has been little trouble. Few arrests. No rioting. No significant vandalism. No violence or attacks on police. Yes, a few have been out of order, and the police have rightly filmed them and are following up.
My fervent hope this week is that another peaceful demonstration takes place, while Tommy Robinson and his racist thug mates hang around the Cenotaph with nothing to do, looking like the plonkers they are.
In the arguments around this, there's quite a lot of confusion between the controversial nature of the marches (undeniable), and the likelihood of public disorder (questionable).
The former is in no way grounds for a ban.
I'd agree were it not for the police arresting football fans for wearing shirts with potentially offensive writing on them.
But that is the point: "the police arresting football fans for wearing shirts with potentially offensive writing on them" not banning football matches. The police have already arrested some individual demonstrators with offensive images and are said to be working through video evidence to find others but not banning demonstrations.
The police are tolerating people chanting Jihad and from the river to the sea, so long as they don't do it outside Synagogues or Jewish schools.
That's not an unreasonable distinction to draw. It's not just what you are saying but where you are saying it. This feeds into context and context is always important.
Will it be consistently applied? I can march through Bradford chanting "Deport all Muslim Men before they rape more of our pure white girls" as long as I don't do it near a Mosque or madrasah? The police will leave me be, or indeed steward me safely from counter-protests?
I suspect you'd be in a spot of bother if you did that. Same as you would be if you went to Golders Green High St and chanted something equally vile about jewish people.
But my point is just that context always matters and part of the context is the 'where' as well as the 'what'. Because the 'where' speaks to the 'why' - Intent, which is key in these things.
So if you call black people derogatory epithets it's fine as long as there are no black people present? Is that it?
No, 'this' is (still) it - context is important when assessing whether (eg) a 'stirring up racial hatred' public order offence is being committed, and part of the context is where and in what circumstances it has taken place.
Makes sense when you think about it.
Only if you think that it is not possible to stir up racial hatred when there is no member of the "target" race present.
Which is not logical. Racial hatred can be stirred amongst the "non target" race at any time.
Context is important (to whether it's an offence) and the 'where' is relevant to context. This much is true (and indeed was my point). But from this it doesn't follow that it's 'impossible' to commit the offence where there is nobody present of the target race. It certainly is possible.
As far as I understand it the march will not being going past the Cenotaph and won't begin until well after the proceedings are over. I have expressed major misgivings about this whole 'movement' but I think we should just leave it. The media is not helping by hyping up the possibility of trouble. Braverman's comment about hate marches was as politically unwise as Humza Yousaf's 'a few bad apples.' If sensible people remain silent that is the choice we are left with.
Worth noting the war memorial in Rochdale has been targeted this week. Clearly some in the pro-Palestine camp see war memorials as a target.
Well, Balfour was in 1917, during WW1. Not saying it's justified, of course, far from it.
It is curious that this marching for a ceasefire - and there have been a few already - have not noticed that there was a ceasefire, one which Hamas broke on 7 October. During that ceasefire Hamas planned the 7 October atrocity and have made it clear that they will plan more if given the opportunity. Having a ceasefire now without defeating Hamas and making it impossible for them to organise more massacres will allow them to repeat their atrocities. Unless this is addressed a call for a ceasefire is in bad faith because it is not peace and will help a sadistic aggressor.
Second, it is notable and alarming that those marchers do not call for the return of the hostages. They are forgotten. Worse there is a concerted effort to remove the photos of them, to make them unpersons. And when there was a silent vigil yesterday by people in Whitehall holding up their photos and saying their names, there were people nearby shouting abuse . The level of unkindness, callousness to the victims of the massacre, the hostages and those who mourn or fear for them is grotesque and reflects very badly on people who claim to be for peace.
Finally, here is a good commentary on what proportionality means in international law in the context of a war. It does not mean proportional to numbers. It means proportional to the objective - the defeat of the enemy. Most of those opining about international law have not the faintest idea about it and are simply using it as another stick with which to beat Israel. As I have said before, far too many of the criticisms of Israel are bad faith ones made by people who do not wish it to defend itself or to exist either.
As for the marches, one of the issues the police will have to address is whether they are intent on stirring up racial hatred and/or in support of banned terror organisations. Either of those would be valid reasons for a ban.
But the general principle should be to allow protests even of people with whose views you might disagree. How consistently the Met has acted on that principle is quite another matter. Consistent application of the law has not been the Met's strong point.
I don't know about anyone else but when I talk about Palestinian casualties being disproportionately high it's not based on some noddy view that International Law says it has to be 1:1 or not more than X:1 or anything like that. I'm just using the word 'disproportionate' in its plain and simple (non legal) meaning. Shockingly high.
Also I find the whole idea that being 'at war' is a justifier of acts that would be criminal otherwise to be rather flimsy. Eg look at Russia/Ukraine. There's a 'war' where the triggering event was Vladimir Putin unleashing a completely unprovoked invasion on another country. I don't see a clear and massive distinction between that and mass murder, whatever the law says.
But, war does indeed. justify (some) acts that would otherwise be treated as criminal. That's been the case ever since people invented rules of war.
I'm not a legal expert but aren't actions during war based on the principle of self defence? Not something that Russia could be justified in saying.
R5L just had one of the organisers of the protests on, from the PSC. I did not hear the full interview, but he was very clear that they were marching to put pressure on the government (ours) to chance position and persuade Israel to ceasefire.
Note: he wanted one side to cease fire. He did not, from the talk I heard, call on the Palestinians / Hamas to do anything. It sounded a rather one-sided 'ceasefire'.
Could be a developing story here - the inquiry has been informed by the Post Office that 363,000 emails may have potentially gone missing - and these are emails from post-2012 - ie as the Post Office went into cover-up mode. The data seems to have been lost in the shift..."
We're possibly witnessing the largest criminal conspiracy in UK history.
This is a statutory inquiry under the 2005 Act. The inquiry has the right to require witnesses to provide relevant information under s21 and failure to do so is an offence under s35. The maximum sentence is 51 weeks. I think it is long past time Sir Wyn Williams started using these powers. His concern may be that material provided under such an order would potentially prejudice more wide ranging prosecutions but the clock continues to tick.
And yet Rishi Sunak appears to have given up. After he met ministers for informal drinks in Downing Street on Monday, one said: “It felt like he’d already checked out, his wheelie was at the door and he was pottering around for his final hours, looking forward to a few foreign sightseeing trips.”
Where once the prime minister was tetchy when asked a difficult question about his wife’s finances, he now sounds resigned. During a visit to Bacton gas terminal in Norfolk this week, Sunak shrugged when asked about yet another Tory MP accused of rape. Yes, he agreed, these were “very serious, anonymous allegations”. He looked like he’d run out of answers.
Meanwhile the Covid inquiry has been hearing evidence about his time as chancellor, when his nickname was apparently Dr Death as he prioritised handing out economic goodies over saving lives. “Now we call him Sunk,” said a Tory backbencher. It all feels pretty grim and even more depressing for a country still grappling with spiralling grocery and heating bills, higher mortgages and crumbling schools.
The thing I like best about this story is that the Tory MPs themselves who are calling him "Sunk". Leader of the Sunk Party.
Obviously there is no way they can change their leader yet again in this Parliament. So Sunk it has to be.
Of course they can. There's no constitutional ban. A VONC is now possible. It would be nice if Sunak has the good taste to resign, but that seems unlikely.
You seem still to be inhabiting the fantasy world where yet another change of leader makes any difference at all.
Unless you're calling for a general election now ?
We have just had a King's speech with no useful content whatever. I am not talking about a new leader to change the presentation - Sunak ain't great at presentation, but he's no worse than Truss or Boris on that front. We need a Government that wants to address the issues we face *now* - we need a new agenda, and the way to get that is with a new leader. Democracy is not served by a Government that is grimly determined to squat in Number 10 doing nothing until a choreographed Labour victory, especially when the polls show there is no enthusiasm about Labour.
That's like a football fan calling for the sacking of yet another manager when the true problem is the squad of players and the results already conceded - refusing to recognise the impact of the disruption that the change would bring, the cost of it, or that there simply might not be anyone better available who wants or is able to take on the job.
With the difference that the fans probably have more idea about who might make an effective manager of their team.
You have a higher opinion of the average football fan that I do.
Indeed, I should have added to the issues of the football metaphor that displacement activity in changing the manager cannot make up for, or mask, a culture of entitlement and living off past victories, and a failure to understand the extent to which the game and other clubs have moved on. The fan expectation is that replaying old methods (but now with players, rules and systems unsuited to them), will somehow restore the glory days. They won't.
Or a lower opinion of the Conservative party members.
Meanwhile, as we drone on and on about Israel, a jihadi militia has just slaughtered 1000 black Africans - of all ages - in Darfur, in an outrageous pogrom - along with accompanying videos celebrating the violence, with an ISIS style soundtrack
It is curious that this marching for a ceasefire - and there have been a few already - have not noticed that there was a ceasefire, one which Hamas broke on 7 October. During that ceasefire Hamas planned the 7 October atrocity and have made it clear that they will plan more if given the opportunity. Having a ceasefire now without defeating Hamas and making it impossible for them to organise more massacres will allow them to repeat their atrocities. Unless this is addressed a call for a ceasefire is in bad faith because it is not peace and will help a sadistic aggressor.
Second, it is notable and alarming that those marchers do not call for the return of the hostages. They are forgotten. Worse there is a concerted effort to remove the photos of them, to make them unpersons. And when there was a silent vigil yesterday by people in Whitehall holding up their photos and saying their names, there were people nearby shouting abuse . The level of unkindness, callousness to the victims of the massacre, the hostages and those who mourn or fear for them is grotesque and reflects very badly on people who claim to be for peace.
Finally, here is a good commentary on what proportionality means in international law in the context of a war. It does not mean proportional to numbers. It means proportional to the objective - the defeat of the enemy. Most of those opining about international law have not the faintest idea about it and are simply using it as another stick with which to beat Israel. As I have said before, far too many of the criticisms of Israel are bad faith ones made by people who do not wish it to defend itself or to exist either.
As for the marches, one of the issues the police will have to address is whether they are intent on stirring up racial hatred and/or in support of banned terror organisations. Either of those would be valid reasons for a ban.
But the general principle should be to allow protests even of people with whose views you might disagree. How consistently the Met has acted on that principle is quite another matter. Consistent application of the law has not been the Met's strong point.
Well I assume that the UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross must have more than the 'faintest idea' about what constitutes international law and both have said that Israel may be breaking international law. Indeed the UN has said Israel has been breaking international law on many occasions for many years.
I am afraid that within your valid criticisms and concerns there are also some rather more extreme examples of the belief that any criticism of Israel is automatically anti-semitism. I would suggest that you are also indulging in bad faith arguments when you try and tar any criticism of Israel as anti-semitism. It does you no credit at all.
Some highlights: ...the international body has a continuing history of a one-sided, hostile approach to Israel... Successive Secretary Generals have acknowledged this an issue for the institution. Indeed, in a meeting in April 2007, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon acknowledged to ADL leaders that Israel has been treated poorly at the UN and that, while some progress has been made, this bias still remains an issue... “Unfortunately, because of the [Israeli-Palestinian] conflict, Israel’s been weighed down by criticism and suffered from bias — and sometimes even discrimination,” Ban said...
A low point at the UN was the passage of the Arab and Soviet-sponsored United Nations resolution of November 10, 1975 which declared Zionism a “form of racism and racial discrimination.” The highly politicized resolution was aimed at denying Israel its political legitimacy by attacking its moral basis for existence. The resolution was finally repealed on December 16, 1991.
The UN Human Rights Council (HRC), which replaced the Commission on Human Rights in March 2006, has continued its predecessor's extreme focus on and biased treatment of issues relating to Israel, particularly in comparison with its mild action on pressing international human rights crises. The permanent agenda of the HRC includes a specific item targeting Israel - Agenda Item #7 – which is titled: "Human rights situation in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories: Human rights violations and implications of the Israeli occupation of Palestine and other occupied Arab territories and the Right to self-determination of the Palestinian people. Israel is the only country to appear on the HRC's permanent agenda, while other countries such as Iran and Sudan, notorious for their human rights abuses, are included as part of the general debate.
In June 2018, the US announced that it was formally withdrawing from the HRC, citing anti-Israel bias and the body’s inclusion of human rights-violating countries as motivating the decision. The UK also announced that it would withdraw if the Council continued its anti-Israel bias.
I would say that it is not Cyclefree indulging in bad faith arguments.
Well I would say it is. And you. Funny how people always want to cite the UN when they agree with the cause but then slate them when they don't. Including Israel itself who used breaches of UN resolutions by Lebanon to justify invasion in 2006.
And I suppose the International Committee of the Red Cross are anti-semitic as well are they? And MSF? And practically every aid organisation working in the region?
None of this justifies what happened on October 7th but you burying your head in the ground about the actions of Israel against the Palestinians over many years doesn't help either.
Well, we're talking specifically about international law, and I was just responding to your fallacious appeal to authority. I apologise for encouraging your inability to construct proper logical arguments by failing to point out the fallacy and instead attacking the authority, but either way I am happy to specify that the UN are institutionally anti-semitic and should never be relied upon on matters pertaining to Israel.
I think the problem you have is that you vastly underestimate the level of anti-semitism in the world, in particular in large supranational organisations. i can't speak to why that is, but a easy (albeit somewhat superficial) starting point might be to point out just how many more Muslim/Arab states such organisations have to deal with, than Jewish ones.
Bollocks. And that is putting it politely.
You were picking and choosing certain parts of the UN behaviour that you disagree with and using that to justify ignoring them entirely. There are plenty of parts of the actions of the UK police that I disagree with but I don't use that to justify not obeying the law. Indeed it is you who is attacking the authority rather than dealing with the arguments.
Just like Cyclefree you seek to make every criticism of Israel an anti-semitic act. You use that to justify and defend any and all action by Israel up to and including war crimes and crimes against humanity. As such you are part of the problem not the solution just as much as Hamas or the extremists in the current Israeli Government.
It is curious that this marching for a ceasefire - and there have been a few already - have not noticed that there was a ceasefire, one which Hamas broke on 7 October. During that ceasefire Hamas planned the 7 October atrocity and have made it clear that they will plan more if given the opportunity. Having a ceasefire now without defeating Hamas and making it impossible for them to organise more massacres will allow them to repeat their atrocities. Unless this is addressed a call for a ceasefire is in bad faith because it is not peace and will help a sadistic aggressor.
Second, it is notable and alarming that those marchers do not call for the return of the hostages. They are forgotten. Worse there is a concerted effort to remove the photos of them, to make them unpersons. And when there was a silent vigil yesterday by people in Whitehall holding up their photos and saying their names, there were people nearby shouting abuse . The level of unkindness, callousness to the victims of the massacre, the hostages and those who mourn or fear for them is grotesque and reflects very badly on people who claim to be for peace.
Finally, here is a good commentary on what proportionality means in international law in the context of a war. It does not mean proportional to numbers. It means proportional to the objective - the defeat of the enemy. Most of those opining about international law have not the faintest idea about it and are simply using it as another stick with which to beat Israel. As I have said before, far too many of the criticisms of Israel are bad faith ones made by people who do not wish it to defend itself or to exist either.
As for the marches, one of the issues the police will have to address is whether they are intent on stirring up racial hatred and/or in support of banned terror organisations. Either of those would be valid reasons for a ban.
But the general principle should be to allow protests even of people with whose views you might disagree. How consistently the Met has acted on that principle is quite another matter. Consistent application of the law has not been the Met's strong point.
I don't know about anyone else but when I talk about Palestinian casualties being disproportionately high it's not based on some noddy view that International Law says it has to be 1:1 or not more than X:1 or anything like that. I'm just using the word 'disproportionate' in its plain and simple (non legal) meaning. Shockingly high.
Also I find the whole idea that being 'at war' is a justifier of acts that would be criminal otherwise to be rather flimsy. Eg look at Russia/Ukraine. There's a 'war' where the triggering event was Vladimir Putin unleashing a completely unprovoked invasion on another country. I don't see a clear and massive distinction between that and mass murder, whatever the law says.
But, war does indeed. justify (some) acts that would otherwise be treated as criminal. That's been the case ever since people invented rules of war.
Putin orders that invasion. What (morally) distinguishes it from mass murder?
Meanwhile, as we drone on and on about Israel, a jihadi militia has just slaughtered 1000 black Africans - of all ages - in Darfur, in an outrageous pogrom - along with accompanying videos celebrating the violence, with an ISIS style soundtrack
Virtually every PB-er blatting on about the Palestinian cause must, by definition, be anti-Semitic - unless they have been equally and vocally outraged by all these other horrors, some far worse than Gaza
I find that logic inescapable. Feel free to point out the flaw
A few points I would make.
1. It isn't possible for every individual person to protest against every individual wrong, and protesting against one rather than another isn't necessarily indicative of anything. Not everything is a conspiracy.
2. One distinction that people do sometimes draw is the extent to which Britain is involved, and therefore the extent to which protests in Britain might influence the government here to change policy, which might have some impact, however small, on the issue in question.
So, the British government has provided robust diplomatic support to Israel. To my knowledge, no member of the government has spoken in support of jihadi militias in Darfur. So there's a British government action to protest against in one case and not the other.
3. If you did want to make this argument the more appropriate comparison is with Yemen. I know a few people who have spent many years campaigning against Britain supplying weapons to Saudi Arabia for use in the war in Yemen. They would have loved to have more people join their protests.
A fair point about the UK government
Nonetheless, I’d say TOTAL silence on all these horrors followed by screeds of outrage about Gaza is, indeed, quite strongly indicative of anti-Semitism
There’s a couple of suspects on here. Worse, I have some acquaintances of whom this is true. I now realise they are anti-Semitic - and previously odd behaviour suddenly is explained. A pattern is revealed
It is a melancholy revelation
The odd thing is that they would object very strongly if accused. It is what I call passive (as opposed to active) anti-semitism. They don't objectively hate the Jews. But they are deeply unsympathetic on a number of levels and apply a special set of standards to Israel which they do not to any other nation and to Jews not to any other group.
Jeremy Corbyn is a classic passive Anti-Semite.
Your point may be correct in general but in the specific case of Corbyn I think is incorrect. Corbyn has taken a strong position against what he sees as oppression in any number of international settings over the years, including Latin America, the Middle East outside of Israel/Palestine, and of course apartheid South Africa. There is barely an unfashionable international cause that has not had Corbyn turn up to endorse them in some cold and draughty hall. I would accuse Corbyn of being dumb and careless in his ideological bedfellows, and lacking in imagination, but I would strongly disagree that he has focused monomaniacally on the sins of Israel to the exclusion of others. None of this means that I view Corbyn as anything other than an utter disaster for the Labour Party, I just don't think your characterisation of him is accurate or fair.
Could be a developing story here - the inquiry has been informed by the Post Office that 363,000 emails may have potentially gone missing - and these are emails from post-2012 - ie as the Post Office went into cover-up mode. The data seems to have been lost in the shift..."
We're possibly witnessing the largest criminal conspiracy in UK history.
The Post Office's attitude remains scandalous. It is still trying to thwart the Inquiry.
The govt attitude to it seems passive at best too.
I doubt anyone will ever be held to account for this either. It is a disgrace that the victims still have no redress and the Post Office just carries on like this.
Meanwhile, as we drone on and on about Israel, a jihadi militia has just slaughtered 1000 black Africans - of all ages - in Darfur, in an outrageous pogrom - along with accompanying videos celebrating the violence, with an ISIS style soundtrack
Virtually every PB-er blatting on about the Palestinian cause must, by definition, be anti-Semitic - unless they have been equally and vocally outraged by all these other horrors, some far worse than Gaza
I find that logic inescapable. Feel free to point out the flaw
A few points I would make.
1. It isn't possible for every individual person to protest against every individual wrong, and protesting against one rather than another isn't necessarily indicative of anything. Not everything is a conspiracy.
2. One distinction that people do sometimes draw is the extent to which Britain is involved, and therefore the extent to which protests in Britain might influence the government here to change policy, which might have some impact, however small, on the issue in question.
So, the British government has provided robust diplomatic support to Israel. To my knowledge, no member of the government has spoken in support of jihadi militias in Darfur. So there's a British government action to protest against in one case and not the other.
3. If you did want to make this argument the more appropriate comparison is with Yemen. I know a few people who have spent many years campaigning against Britain supplying weapons to Saudi Arabia for use in the war in Yemen. They would have loved to have more people join their protests.
A fair point about the UK government
Nonetheless, I’d say TOTAL silence on all these horrors followed by screeds of outrage about Gaza is, indeed, quite strongly indicative of anti-Semitism
There’s a couple of suspects on here. Worse, I have some acquaintances of whom this is true. I now realise they are anti-Semitic - and previously odd behaviour suddenly is explained. A pattern is revealed
It is a melancholy revelation
The odd thing is that they would object very strongly if accused. It is what I call passive (as opposed to active) anti-semitism. They don't objectively hate the Jews. But they are deeply unsympathetic on a number of levels and apply a special set of standards to Israel which they do not to any other nation and to Jews not to any other group.
Jeremy Corbyn is a classic passive Anti-Semite.
Yes that’s quite a good classification. Overt anti-Semites are rare - or rarely visible (until recently)
There are many more of the passive types
I’m not sure they “don’t hate Jews” tho. They may not hate them as in: immediately filled with loathing. But mistrust Jews, reflexively? Yes. Be more suspicious of Jews than others? Again yes
Curtice contends that the Conservative strategy is i) Sunak's competence, ii) traditional conservative values+antiwoke, and iii) hopefully some tax cuts.
Curtice then points out that the two main questions the voters are actually asking are i) can I feed my kids and ii) if I fall ill will the NHS look after me. And that the Conservatives may fall short in this.
I think this is on the money - real world issues for people. Sunak needs the NHS to have a 'good' winter (not too many stories of long ambulance waits, people on trolleys, bed shortages etc). And yes inflation may be falling back but people know that the price increases are now baked in. Prices are not really going back to 2021 levels, and almost certainly won't.
Ultimately every incumbent party must run on its record. This is the Tory problem.
Fair - 13 years is a lot of record. FWIW I think some of what has happened would have wrecked whichever government was in place (Covid, the price rises after covid combined with the war) but its also true that the economy has never fully recovered from 2007/8. There are many narratives about that. The left will say that the Tories imposed austerity and choked off a recovery. The right would say 'what Austerity', which I have some sympathy with, as the austerity was more in name than effect.
However it is increasingly clear that long term planning and investment is a disaster (schools being the most recent example). A government is not for 5 years, it should be looking far into the future. The one project that was doing that, HS2, is being salami sliced into pointlessness. I am an advocate of capital spending, even if money is borrowed to do so. After all - where does the money spent on construction go? Into the economy (wages etc). What we should not do is sleight of hand spending - PFI - which lock in high costs for decades. the Tories started it, Brown went big and many places are still paying the price.
Meanwhile, as we drone on and on about Israel, a jihadi militia has just slaughtered 1000 black Africans - of all ages - in Darfur, in an outrageous pogrom - along with accompanying videos celebrating the violence, with an ISIS style soundtrack
Virtually every PB-er blatting on about the Palestinian cause must, by definition, be anti-Semitic - unless they have been equally and vocally outraged by all these other horrors, some far worse than Gaza
I find that logic inescapable. Feel free to point out the flaw
A few points I would make.
1. It isn't possible for every individual person to protest against every individual wrong, and protesting against one rather than another isn't necessarily indicative of anything. Not everything is a conspiracy.
2. One distinction that people do sometimes draw is the extent to which Britain is involved, and therefore the extent to which protests in Britain might influence the government here to change policy, which might have some impact, however small, on the issue in question.
So, the British government has provided robust diplomatic support to Israel. To my knowledge, no member of the government has spoken in support of jihadi militias in Darfur. So there's a British government action to protest against in one case and not the other.
3. If you did want to make this argument the more appropriate comparison is with Yemen. I know a few people who have spent many years campaigning against Britain supplying weapons to Saudi Arabia for use in the war in Yemen. They would have loved to have more people join their protests.
A fair point about the UK government
Nonetheless, I’d say TOTAL silence on all these horrors followed by screeds of outrage about Gaza is, indeed, quite strongly indicative of anti-Semitism
There’s a couple of suspects on here. Worse, I have some acquaintances of whom this is true. I now realise they are anti-Semitic - and previously odd behaviour suddenly is explained. A pattern is revealed
It is a melancholy revelation
The odd thing is that they would object very strongly if accused. It is what I call passive (as opposed to active) anti-semitism. They don't objectively hate the Jews. But they are deeply unsympathetic on a number of levels and apply a special set of standards to Israel which they do not to any other nation and to Jews not to any other group.
Jeremy Corbyn is a classic passive Anti-Semite.
I think going on about anti-semitism is missing the poin, actually.
What unites the so-called pro-Palestine movement, is that they are all profoundly anti-Western. They hate capitalism, western values, the USA, etc., etc.
That what unites tankie lefties, and Islamist misognists.
And Israel is of the west. People vote there. They consume. They dance and rave. They have a free press.
That's why these people are out on the streets. That's why no-one is demonstrating about the Uyghurs or the various genocides being committed across the world by vicious authoritarian regimes. Those regimes are anti-Western.
So, yes, there are certainly anti-semites mixed in. But that is not the unifying principle. They just loathe the society they find themselves living in.
Could be a developing story here - the inquiry has been informed by the Post Office that 363,000 emails may have potentially gone missing - and these are emails from post-2012 - ie as the Post Office went into cover-up mode. The data seems to have been lost in the shift..."
We're possibly witnessing the largest criminal conspiracy in UK history.
This is a statutory inquiry under the 2005 Act. The inquiry has the right to require witnesses to provide relevant information under s21 and failure to do so is an offence under s35. The maximum sentence is 51 weeks. I think it is long past time Sir Wyn Williams started using these powers. His concern may be that material provided under such an order would potentially prejudice more wide ranging prosecutions but the clock continues to tick.
Yes, it's an issue, and one on which I think we need the opinion of our resident expert, Ms Cyclefree.
The trouble is that the scandal is so large and so far-reaching that it may take decades for a complete picture to emerge. Meanwhile the culprits escape justice, or simply die off.
I think therefore that in this case some of the more blatant and obvious cases should be commenced immediately, but of course I defer in this matter to MsCF, as I would on most things.
Could be a developing story here - the inquiry has been informed by the Post Office that 363,000 emails may have potentially gone missing - and these are emails from post-2012 - ie as the Post Office went into cover-up mode. The data seems to have been lost in the shift..."
We're possibly witnessing the largest criminal conspiracy in UK history.
This is a statutory inquiry under the 2005 Act. The inquiry has the right to require witnesses to provide relevant information under s21 and failure to do so is an offence under s35. The maximum sentence is 51 weeks. I think it is long past time Sir Wyn Williams started using these powers. His concern may be that material provided under such an order would potentially prejudice more wide ranging prosecutions but the clock continues to tick.
Yes, it's an issue, and one on which I think we need the opinion of our resident expert, Ms Cyclefree.
The trouble is that the scandal is so large and so far-reaching that it may take decades for a complete picture to emerge. Meanwhile the culprits escape justice, or simply die off.
I think therefore that in this case some of the more blatant and obvious cases should be commenced immediately, but of course I defer in this matter to MsCF, as I would on most things.
I would treat them the way they treated others - throw them in jail until they prove their innocence....
Meanwhile, as we drone on and on about Israel, a jihadi militia has just slaughtered 1000 black Africans - of all ages - in Darfur, in an outrageous pogrom - along with accompanying videos celebrating the violence, with an ISIS style soundtrack
Virtually every PB-er blatting on about the Palestinian cause must, by definition, be anti-Semitic - unless they have been equally and vocally outraged by all these other horrors, some far worse than Gaza
I find that logic inescapable. Feel free to point out the flaw
A few points I would make.
1. It isn't possible for every individual person to protest against every individual wrong, and protesting against one rather than another isn't necessarily indicative of anything. Not everything is a conspiracy.
2. One distinction that people do sometimes draw is the extent to which Britain is involved, and therefore the extent to which protests in Britain might influence the government here to change policy, which might have some impact, however small, on the issue in question.
So, the British government has provided robust diplomatic support to Israel. To my knowledge, no member of the government has spoken in support of jihadi militias in Darfur. So there's a British government action to protest against in one case and not the other.
3. If you did want to make this argument the more appropriate comparison is with Yemen. I know a few people who have spent many years campaigning against Britain supplying weapons to Saudi Arabia for use in the war in Yemen. They would have loved to have more people join their protests.
A fair point about the UK government
Nonetheless, I’d say TOTAL silence on all these horrors followed by screeds of outrage about Gaza is, indeed, quite strongly indicative of anti-Semitism
There’s a couple of suspects on here. Worse, I have some acquaintances of whom this is true. I now realise they are anti-Semitic - and previously odd behaviour suddenly is explained. A pattern is revealed
It is a melancholy revelation
The odd thing is that they would object very strongly if accused. It is what I call passive (as opposed to active) anti-semitism. They don't objectively hate the Jews. But they are deeply unsympathetic on a number of levels and apply a special set of standards to Israel which they do not to any other nation and to Jews not to any other group.
Jeremy Corbyn is a classic passive Anti-Semite.
Yes that’s quite a good classification. Overt anti-Semites are rare - or rarely visible (until recently)
There are many more of the passive types
I’m not sure they “don’t hate Jews” tho. They may not hate them as in: immediately filled with loathing. But mistrust Jews, reflexively? Yes. Be more suspicious of Jews than others? Again yes
I am against circumcision and ritual animal slaughter. Does that make me anti-Semitic, or Islamophobic? Both? Neither?
I know that we're going round in circles. The world is. I apparently read like some blood-thirsty lunatic not caring for civilians. If there was a viable ceasefire then of course we should have it now. Yesterday. Last week.
The problem is that Ceasefire Now is not a ceasefire where hostilities end. Lets say that the IDF stop - Hamas won't. They will push out propaganda for a period whilst they get fresh arms in from Iran. Then they go again.
Which is precisely why Israel's policy of permanent occupation fails.
Re-opening serious talks with the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, and stopping further land seizures by settlers would help. If people see progress through peaceful means then they are less supportive of the fanatics.
Over 100 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank by armed settlers and IDF troops in the last month and further lands seized. This is overshadowed by events in Gaza, but some Israelis find it a convenient time to expand.
It’s so easy to say “stop settlements”
The problem is that - historically at least - Netenyahu’s coalition has been dependent on ultra-orthodox members in the Knesset
PR is responsible for the West Bank settlements. Discuss
Likud could have chosen to form a coalition with other parties. I might be willing about this, but I think one of the main reasons they didn't was that the other parties weren't willing to support Netanyahu's attempts to evade corruption prosecutions.
So I think it's more accurate to say that Netanyahu is responsible for the West Bank settlements.
PR doesn't make anything inevitable. It just presents people with different - I would argue, better - choices. But it can't stop people from making choices that I would identify as bad.
The West Bank settlements are an outrage. That is where I lose so much sympathy for Israel. And so many of the settlers are Jewish racial supremacists - with guns. A self selecting group of hardcore nutters
It would almost be better if Israel was more honest and said: we want to ethnically cleanse the West Bank
It is curious that this marching for a ceasefire - and there have been a few already - have not noticed that there was a ceasefire, one which Hamas broke on 7 October. During that ceasefire Hamas planned the 7 October atrocity and have made it clear that they will plan more if given the opportunity. Having a ceasefire now without defeating Hamas and making it impossible for them to organise more massacres will allow them to repeat their atrocities. Unless this is addressed a call for a ceasefire is in bad faith because it is not peace and will help a sadistic aggressor.
Second, it is notable and alarming that those marchers do not call for the return of the hostages. They are forgotten. Worse there is a concerted effort to remove the photos of them, to make them unpersons. And when there was a silent vigil yesterday by people in Whitehall holding up their photos and saying their names, there were people nearby shouting abuse . The level of unkindness, callousness to the victims of the massacre, the hostages and those who mourn or fear for them is grotesque and reflects very badly on people who claim to be for peace.
Finally, here is a good commentary on what proportionality means in international law in the context of a war. It does not mean proportional to numbers. It means proportional to the objective - the defeat of the enemy. Most of those opining about international law have not the faintest idea about it and are simply using it as another stick with which to beat Israel. As I have said before, far too many of the criticisms of Israel are bad faith ones made by people who do not wish it to defend itself or to exist either.
As for the marches, one of the issues the police will have to address is whether they are intent on stirring up racial hatred and/or in support of banned terror organisations. Either of those would be valid reasons for a ban.
But the general principle should be to allow protests even of people with whose views you might disagree. How consistently the Met has acted on that principle is quite another matter. Consistent application of the law has not been the Met's strong point.
I don't know about anyone else but when I talk about Palestinian casualties being disproportionately high it's not based on some noddy view that International Law says it has to be 1:1 or not more than X:1 or anything like that. I'm just using the word 'disproportionate' in its plain and simple (non legal) meaning. Shockingly high.
Also I find the whole idea that being 'at war' is a justifier of acts that would be criminal otherwise to be rather flimsy. Eg look at Russia/Ukraine. There's a 'war' where the triggering event was Vladimir Putin unleashing a completely unprovoked invasion on another country. I don't see a clear and massive distinction between that and mass murder, whatever the law says.
Having a legitimate casus belli on which to launch a war has been a key principle of international relations (and ethics, for that matter) since at least St Augustine, and probably earlier. 'Waging aggressive war' was one of the charges levelled at Nuremburg.
Put simply, Putin's war would still be illegal, even if its actions were carried out in accordance with other international law (which is very much not the case).
States have to reserve the right to violence to some extent because there is no higher authority who can act on their behalf.
It is curious that this marching for a ceasefire - and there have been a few already - have not noticed that there was a ceasefire, one which Hamas broke on 7 October. During that ceasefire Hamas planned the 7 October atrocity and have made it clear that they will plan more if given the opportunity. Having a ceasefire now without defeating Hamas and making it impossible for them to organise more massacres will allow them to repeat their atrocities. Unless this is addressed a call for a ceasefire is in bad faith because it is not peace and will help a sadistic aggressor.
Second, it is notable and alarming that those marchers do not call for the return of the hostages. They are forgotten. Worse there is a concerted effort to remove the photos of them, to make them unpersons. And when there was a silent vigil yesterday by people in Whitehall holding up their photos and saying their names, there were people nearby shouting abuse . The level of unkindness, callousness to the victims of the massacre, the hostages and those who mourn or fear for them is grotesque and reflects very badly on people who claim to be for peace.
Finally, here is a good commentary on what proportionality means in international law in the context of a war. It does not mean proportional to numbers. It means proportional to the objective - the defeat of the enemy. Most of those opining about international law have not the faintest idea about it and are simply using it as another stick with which to beat Israel. As I have said before, far too many of the criticisms of Israel are bad faith ones made by people who do not wish it to defend itself or to exist either.
As for the marches, one of the issues the police will have to address is whether they are intent on stirring up racial hatred and/or in support of banned terror organisations. Either of those would be valid reasons for a ban.
But the general principle should be to allow protests even of people with whose views you might disagree. How consistently the Met has acted on that principle is quite another matter. Consistent application of the law has not been the Met's strong point.
Well I assume that the UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross must have more than the 'faintest idea' about what constitutes international law and both have said that Israel may be breaking international law. Indeed the UN has said Israel has been breaking international law on many occasions for many years.
I am afraid that within your valid criticisms and concerns there are also some rather more extreme examples of the belief that any criticism of Israel is automatically anti-semitism. I would suggest that you are also indulging in bad faith arguments when you try and tar any criticism of Israel as anti-semitism. It does you no credit at all.
Some highlights: ...the international body has a continuing history of a one-sided, hostile approach to Israel... Successive Secretary Generals have acknowledged this an issue for the institution. Indeed, in a meeting in April 2007, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon acknowledged to ADL leaders that Israel has been treated poorly at the UN and that, while some progress has been made, this bias still remains an issue... “Unfortunately, because of the [Israeli-Palestinian] conflict, Israel’s been weighed down by criticism and suffered from bias — and sometimes even discrimination,” Ban said...
A low point at the UN was the passage of the Arab and Soviet-sponsored United Nations resolution of November 10, 1975 which declared Zionism a “form of racism and racial discrimination.” The highly politicized resolution was aimed at denying Israel its political legitimacy by attacking its moral basis for existence. The resolution was finally repealed on December 16, 1991.
The UN Human Rights Council (HRC), which replaced the Commission on Human Rights in March 2006, has continued its predecessor's extreme focus on and biased treatment of issues relating to Israel, particularly in comparison with its mild action on pressing international human rights crises. The permanent agenda of the HRC includes a specific item targeting Israel - Agenda Item #7 – which is titled: "Human rights situation in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories: Human rights violations and implications of the Israeli occupation of Palestine and other occupied Arab territories and the Right to self-determination of the Palestinian people. Israel is the only country to appear on the HRC's permanent agenda, while other countries such as Iran and Sudan, notorious for their human rights abuses, are included as part of the general debate.
In June 2018, the US announced that it was formally withdrawing from the HRC, citing anti-Israel bias and the body’s inclusion of human rights-violating countries as motivating the decision. The UK also announced that it would withdraw if the Council continued its anti-Israel bias.
I would say that it is not Cyclefree indulging in bad faith arguments.
Well I would say it is. And you. Funny how people always want to cite the UN when they agree with the cause but then slate them when they don't. Including Israel itself who used breaches of UN resolutions by Lebanon to justify invasion in 2006.
And I suppose the International Committee of the Red Cross are anti-semitic as well are they? And MSF? And practically every aid organisation working in the region?
None of this justifies what happened on October 7th but you burying your head in the ground about the actions of Israel against the Palestinians over many years doesn't help either.
Well, we're talking specifically about international law, and I was just responding to your fallacious appeal to authority. I apologise for encouraging your inability to construct proper logical arguments by failing to point out the fallacy and instead attacking the authority, but either way I am happy to specify that the UN are institutionally anti-semitic and should never be relied upon on matters pertaining to Israel.
I think the problem you have is that you vastly underestimate the level of anti-semitism in the world, in particular in large supranational organisations. i can't speak to why that is, but a easy (albeit somewhat superficial) starting point might be to point out just how many more Muslim/Arab states such organisations have to deal with, than Jewish ones.
Bollocks. And that is putting it politely.
You were picking and choosing certain parts of the UN behaviour that you disagree with and using that to justify ignoring them entirely. There are plenty of parts of the actions of the UK police that I disagree with but I don't use that to justify not obeying the law. Indeed it is you who is attacking the authority rather than dealing with the arguments.
Just like Cyclefree you seek to make every criticism of Israel an anti-semitic act. You use that to justify and defend any and all action by Israel up to and including war crimes and crimes against humanity. As such you are part of the problem not the solution just as much as Hamas or the extremists in the current Israeli Government.
Personally, I'd argue the political side of the UN is failing badly, and perhaps even destructive to world peace. Just look at the Security Council as an example, and the UN's actions over Russia wrt Ukraine (or, if you're of a different political viewpoint, the US in Iraq).
Where the UN often does massive good is in individual programs, like some of the aid and disease programs.
But I've no idea how we could create a 'better' (i.e. more effective) UN.
I would imagine that one of the reasons that the Met hasn't kicked up a fuss about the planned pro-Palestine/ceasefire march this weekend is that many such marches have taken place in recent weeks without any significant public order problems.
Despite the hyperbole from some, the Met (unlike the HS) will have noticed that given the size of the demonstrations thus far there has been little trouble. Few arrests. No rioting. No significant vandalism. No violence or attacks on police. Yes, a few have been out of order, and the police have rightly filmed them and are following up.
My fervent hope this week is that another peaceful demonstration takes place, while Tommy Robinson and his racist thug mates hang around the Cenotaph with nothing to do, looking like the plonkers they are.
In the arguments around this, there's quite a lot of confusion between the controversial nature of the marches (undeniable), and the likelihood of public disorder (questionable).
The former is in no way grounds for a ban.
I'd agree were it not for the police arresting football fans for wearing shirts with potentially offensive writing on them.
But that is the point: "the police arresting football fans for wearing shirts with potentially offensive writing on them" not banning football matches. The police have already arrested some individual demonstrators with offensive images and are said to be working through video evidence to find others but not banning demonstrations.
The police are tolerating people chanting Jihad and from the river to the sea, so long as they don't do it outside Synagogues or Jewish schools.
That's not an unreasonable distinction to draw. It's not just what you are saying but where you are saying it. This feeds into context and context is always important.
Will it be consistently applied? I can march through Bradford chanting "Deport all Muslim Men before they rape more of our pure white girls" as long as I don't do it near a Mosque or madrasah? The police will leave me be, or indeed steward me safely from counter-protests?
I suspect you'd be in a spot of bother if you did that. Same as you would be if you went to Golders Green High St and chanted something equally vile about jewish people.
But my point is just that context always matters and part of the context is the 'where' as well as the 'what'. Because the 'where' speaks to the 'why' - Intent, which is key in these things.
So if you call black people derogatory epithets it's fine as long as there are no black people present? Is that it?
No, 'this' is (still) it - context is important when assessing whether (eg) a 'stirring up racial hatred' public order offence is being committed, and part of the context is where and in what circumstances it has taken place.
Makes sense when you think about it.
Only if you think that it is not possible to stir up racial hatred when there is no member of the "target" race present.
Which is not logical. Racial hatred can be stirred amongst the "non target" race at any time.
Context is important (to whether it's an offence) and the 'where' is relevant to context. This much is true (and indeed was my point). But from this it doesn't follow that it's 'impossible' to commit the offence where there is nobody present of the target race. It certainly is possible.
You started off saying it was reasonable for the police not to prosecute an offence of stirring racial hatred because the offence did not occur near the target race.
Now you are saying that it is possible to commit the offence of stirring racial hatred where the target race is not present.
I think what you have proved to yourself is that the presence of the target race is irrelevant to the offence and it remains an offence whoever is present. And likewise therefore you have shown to yourself that your position that it is reasonable for the police not to prosecute the offence is wrong.
How can you ceasefire against this? Israel has no choice but to level Gaza until Hamas is purged
“Hamas official Osama Hamdan in an interiew with Al-Liwaa newspaper says if there was a way to turn back time, Hamas would carry out Oct 7th attack again. Said strategy was to prevent Israel from being a 'natural entity' in the region.”
It is curious that this marching for a ceasefire - and there have been a few already - have not noticed that there was a ceasefire, one which Hamas broke on 7 October. During that ceasefire Hamas planned the 7 October atrocity and have made it clear that they will plan more if given the opportunity. Having a ceasefire now without defeating Hamas and making it impossible for them to organise more massacres will allow them to repeat their atrocities. Unless this is addressed a call for a ceasefire is in bad faith because it is not peace and will help a sadistic aggressor.
Second, it is notable and alarming that those marchers do not call for the return of the hostages. They are forgotten. Worse there is a concerted effort to remove the photos of them, to make them unpersons. And when there was a silent vigil yesterday by people in Whitehall holding up their photos and saying their names, there were people nearby shouting abuse . The level of unkindness, callousness to the victims of the massacre, the hostages and those who mourn or fear for them is grotesque and reflects very badly on people who claim to be for peace.
Finally, here is a good commentary on what proportionality means in international law in the context of a war. It does not mean proportional to numbers. It means proportional to the objective - the defeat of the enemy. Most of those opining about international law have not the faintest idea about it and are simply using it as another stick with which to beat Israel. As I have said before, far too many of the criticisms of Israel are bad faith ones made by people who do not wish it to defend itself or to exist either.
As for the marches, one of the issues the police will have to address is whether they are intent on stirring up racial hatred and/or in support of banned terror organisations. Either of those would be valid reasons for a ban.
But the general principle should be to allow protests even of people with whose views you might disagree. How consistently the Met has acted on that principle is quite another matter. Consistent application of the law has not been the Met's strong point.
Well I assume that the UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross must have more than the 'faintest idea' about what constitutes international law and both have said that Israel may be breaking international law. Indeed the UN has said Israel has been breaking international law on many occasions for many years.
I am afraid that within your valid criticisms and concerns there are also some rather more extreme examples of the belief that any criticism of Israel is automatically anti-semitism. I would suggest that you are also indulging in bad faith arguments when you try and tar any criticism of Israel as anti-semitism. It does you no credit at all.
Some highlights: ...the international body has a continuing history of a one-sided, hostile approach to Israel... Successive Secretary Generals have acknowledged this an issue for the institution. Indeed, in a meeting in April 2007, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon acknowledged to ADL leaders that Israel has been treated poorly at the UN and that, while some progress has been made, this bias still remains an issue... “Unfortunately, because of the [Israeli-Palestinian] conflict, Israel’s been weighed down by criticism and suffered from bias — and sometimes even discrimination,” Ban said...
A low point at the UN was the passage of the Arab and Soviet-sponsored United Nations resolution of November 10, 1975 which declared Zionism a “form of racism and racial discrimination.” The highly politicized resolution was aimed at denying Israel its political legitimacy by attacking its moral basis for existence. The resolution was finally repealed on December 16, 1991.
The UN Human Rights Council (HRC), which replaced the Commission on Human Rights in March 2006, has continued its predecessor's extreme focus on and biased treatment of issues relating to Israel, particularly in comparison with its mild action on pressing international human rights crises. The permanent agenda of the HRC includes a specific item targeting Israel - Agenda Item #7 – which is titled: "Human rights situation in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories: Human rights violations and implications of the Israeli occupation of Palestine and other occupied Arab territories and the Right to self-determination of the Palestinian people. Israel is the only country to appear on the HRC's permanent agenda, while other countries such as Iran and Sudan, notorious for their human rights abuses, are included as part of the general debate.
In June 2018, the US announced that it was formally withdrawing from the HRC, citing anti-Israel bias and the body’s inclusion of human rights-violating countries as motivating the decision. The UK also announced that it would withdraw if the Council continued its anti-Israel bias.
I would say that it is not Cyclefree indulging in bad faith arguments.
Well I would say it is. And you. Funny how people always want to cite the UN when they agree with the cause but then slate them when they don't. Including Israel itself who used breaches of UN resolutions by Lebanon to justify invasion in 2006.
And I suppose the International Committee of the Red Cross are anti-semitic as well are they? And MSF? And practically every aid organisation working in the region?
None of this justifies what happened on October 7th but you burying your head in the ground about the actions of Israel against the Palestinians over many years doesn't help either.
Well, we're talking specifically about international law, and I was just responding to your fallacious appeal to authority. I apologise for encouraging your inability to construct proper logical arguments by failing to point out the fallacy and instead attacking the authority, but either way I am happy to specify that the UN are institutionally anti-semitic and should never be relied upon on matters pertaining to Israel.
I think the problem you have is that you vastly underestimate the level of anti-semitism in the world, in particular in large supranational organisations. i can't speak to why that is, but a easy (albeit somewhat superficial) starting point might be to point out just how many more Muslim/Arab states such organisations have to deal with, than Jewish ones.
Bollocks. And that is putting it politely.
You were picking and choosing certain parts of the UN behaviour that you disagree with and using that to justify ignoring them entirely. There are plenty of parts of the actions of the UK police that I disagree with but I don't use that to justify not obeying the law. Indeed it is you who is attacking the authority rather than dealing with the arguments.
Just like Cyclefree you seek to make every criticism of Israel an anti-semitic act. You use that to justify and defend any and all action by Israel up to and including war crimes and crimes against humanity. As such you are part of the problem not the solution just as much as Hamas or the extremists in the current Israeli Government.
Personally, I'd argue the political side of the UN is failing badly, and perhaps even destructive to world peace. Just look at the Security Council as an example, and the UN's actions over Russia wrt Ukraine (or, if you're of a different political viewpoint, the US in Iraq).
Where the UN often does massive good is in individual programs, like some of the aid and disease programs.
But I've no idea how we could create a 'better' (i.e. more effective) UN.
Remove the pemanent member vetoes. That is the main reason why, to use your example, nothing much can be done about Russia via the UN or the US in Iraq.
It is curious that this marching for a ceasefire - and there have been a few already - have not noticed that there was a ceasefire, one which Hamas broke on 7 October. During that ceasefire Hamas planned the 7 October atrocity and have made it clear that they will plan more if given the opportunity. Having a ceasefire now without defeating Hamas and making it impossible for them to organise more massacres will allow them to repeat their atrocities. Unless this is addressed a call for a ceasefire is in bad faith because it is not peace and will help a sadistic aggressor.
Second, it is notable and alarming that those marchers do not call for the return of the hostages. They are forgotten. Worse there is a concerted effort to remove the photos of them, to make them unpersons. And when there was a silent vigil yesterday by people in Whitehall holding up their photos and saying their names, there were people nearby shouting abuse . The level of unkindness, callousness to the victims of the massacre, the hostages and those who mourn or fear for them is grotesque and reflects very badly on people who claim to be for peace.
Finally, here is a good commentary on what proportionality means in international law in the context of a war. It does not mean proportional to numbers. It means proportional to the objective - the defeat of the enemy. Most of those opining about international law have not the faintest idea about it and are simply using it as another stick with which to beat Israel. As I have said before, far too many of the criticisms of Israel are bad faith ones made by people who do not wish it to defend itself or to exist either.
As for the marches, one of the issues the police will have to address is whether they are intent on stirring up racial hatred and/or in support of banned terror organisations. Either of those would be valid reasons for a ban.
But the general principle should be to allow protests even of people with whose views you might disagree. How consistently the Met has acted on that principle is quite another matter. Consistent application of the law has not been the Met's strong point.
Well I assume that the UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross must have more than the 'faintest idea' about what constitutes international law and both have said that Israel may be breaking international law. Indeed the UN has said Israel has been breaking international law on many occasions for many years.
I am afraid that within your valid criticisms and concerns there are also some rather more extreme examples of the belief that any criticism of Israel is automatically anti-semitism. I would suggest that you are also indulging in bad faith arguments when you try and tar any criticism of Israel as anti-semitism. It does you no credit at all.
Some highlights: ...the international body has a continuing history of a one-sided, hostile approach to Israel... Successive Secretary Generals have acknowledged this an issue for the institution. Indeed, in a meeting in April 2007, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon acknowledged to ADL leaders that Israel has been treated poorly at the UN and that, while some progress has been made, this bias still remains an issue... “Unfortunately, because of the [Israeli-Palestinian] conflict, Israel’s been weighed down by criticism and suffered from bias — and sometimes even discrimination,” Ban said...
A low point at the UN was the passage of the Arab and Soviet-sponsored United Nations resolution of November 10, 1975 which declared Zionism a “form of racism and racial discrimination.” The highly politicized resolution was aimed at denying Israel its political legitimacy by attacking its moral basis for existence. The resolution was finally repealed on December 16, 1991.
The UN Human Rights Council (HRC), which replaced the Commission on Human Rights in March 2006, has continued its predecessor's extreme focus on and biased treatment of issues relating to Israel, particularly in comparison with its mild action on pressing international human rights crises. The permanent agenda of the HRC includes a specific item targeting Israel - Agenda Item #7 – which is titled: "Human rights situation in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories: Human rights violations and implications of the Israeli occupation of Palestine and other occupied Arab territories and the Right to self-determination of the Palestinian people. Israel is the only country to appear on the HRC's permanent agenda, while other countries such as Iran and Sudan, notorious for their human rights abuses, are included as part of the general debate.
In June 2018, the US announced that it was formally withdrawing from the HRC, citing anti-Israel bias and the body’s inclusion of human rights-violating countries as motivating the decision. The UK also announced that it would withdraw if the Council continued its anti-Israel bias.
I would say that it is not Cyclefree indulging in bad faith arguments.
Well I would say it is. And you. Funny how people always want to cite the UN when they agree with the cause but then slate them when they don't. Including Israel itself who used breaches of UN resolutions by Lebanon to justify invasion in 2006.
And I suppose the International Committee of the Red Cross are anti-semitic as well are they? And MSF? And practically every aid organisation working in the region?
None of this justifies what happened on October 7th but you burying your head in the ground about the actions of Israel against the Palestinians over many years doesn't help either.
Well, we're talking specifically about international law, and I was just responding to your fallacious appeal to authority. I apologise for encouraging your inability to construct proper logical arguments by failing to point out the fallacy and instead attacking the authority, but either way I am happy to specify that the UN are institutionally anti-semitic and should never be relied upon on matters pertaining to Israel.
I think the problem you have is that you vastly underestimate the level of anti-semitism in the world, in particular in large supranational organisations. i can't speak to why that is, but a easy (albeit somewhat superficial) starting point might be to point out just how many more Muslim/Arab states such organisations have to deal with, than Jewish ones.
Bollocks. And that is putting it politely.
You were picking and choosing certain parts of the UN behaviour that you disagree with and using that to justify ignoring them entirely. There are plenty of parts of the actions of the UK police that I disagree with but I don't use that to justify not obeying the law. Indeed it is you who is attacking the authority rather than dealing with the arguments.
Just like Cyclefree you seek to make every criticism of Israel an anti-semitic act. You use that to justify and defend any and all action by Israel up to and including war crimes and crimes against humanity. As such you are part of the problem not the solution just as much as Hamas or the extremists in the current Israeli Government.
Important and influential as this site is, I’m struggling to see how, when it comes to Gaza, “that @Endillion off of PB” is “as much a part of the problem as Hamas”
Meanwhile, as we drone on and on about Israel, a jihadi militia has just slaughtered 1000 black Africans - of all ages - in Darfur, in an outrageous pogrom - along with accompanying videos celebrating the violence, with an ISIS style soundtrack
Virtually every PB-er blatting on about the Palestinian cause must, by definition, be anti-Semitic - unless they have been equally and vocally outraged by all these other horrors, some far worse than Gaza
I find that logic inescapable. Feel free to point out the flaw
A few points I would make.
1. It isn't possible for every individual person to protest against every individual wrong, and protesting against one rather than another isn't necessarily indicative of anything. Not everything is a conspiracy.
2. One distinction that people do sometimes draw is the extent to which Britain is involved, and therefore the extent to which protests in Britain might influence the government here to change policy, which might have some impact, however small, on the issue in question.
So, the British government has provided robust diplomatic support to Israel. To my knowledge, no member of the government has spoken in support of jihadi militias in Darfur. So there's a British government action to protest against in one case and not the other.
3. If you did want to make this argument the more appropriate comparison is with Yemen. I know a few people who have spent many years campaigning against Britain supplying weapons to Saudi Arabia for use in the war in Yemen. They would have loved to have more people join their protests.
A fair point about the UK government
Nonetheless, I’d say TOTAL silence on all these horrors followed by screeds of outrage about Gaza is, indeed, quite strongly indicative of anti-Semitism
There’s a couple of suspects on here. Worse, I have some acquaintances of whom this is true. I now realise they are anti-Semitic - and previously odd behaviour suddenly is explained. A pattern is revealed
It is a melancholy revelation
The odd thing is that they would object very strongly if accused. It is what I call passive (as opposed to active) anti-semitism. They don't objectively hate the Jews. But they are deeply unsympathetic on a number of levels and apply a special set of standards to Israel which they do not to any other nation and to Jews not to any other group.
Jeremy Corbyn is a classic passive Anti-Semite.
I liked Leon's remark but it is further complicated by the now fashionable concept of 'whiteness'. Some see Jewish and white as synonymous but for those that don't Jews are guilty of aping the cultural norms of whites by behaving in a colonialist manner in the middle east. In short it is difficult to disentangle anti-westernism from antisemitism. No doubt for plenty of them Jew hatred is significant to their political stance but not for all.
Hasn't part of the left always had a problem with Jews? If leftwing politics is about universal solidarity then minority groups that stick together are a potential problem. The revolution won't succeed if the proletariat is divided. So minorities are fine so long as they are poor or disenfranchised. But if they are successful they pose a particular problem. Add in the modern logic of minorities being unable to compete on equal terms with whites due to historic disadvantage and Jews become quite an inconvenient truth.
It is curious that this marching for a ceasefire - and there have been a few already - have not noticed that there was a ceasefire, one which Hamas broke on 7 October. During that ceasefire Hamas planned the 7 October atrocity and have made it clear that they will plan more if given the opportunity. Having a ceasefire now without defeating Hamas and making it impossible for them to organise more massacres will allow them to repeat their atrocities. Unless this is addressed a call for a ceasefire is in bad faith because it is not peace and will help a sadistic aggressor.
Second, it is notable and alarming that those marchers do not call for the return of the hostages. They are forgotten. Worse there is a concerted effort to remove the photos of them, to make them unpersons. And when there was a silent vigil yesterday by people in Whitehall holding up their photos and saying their names, there were people nearby shouting abuse . The level of unkindness, callousness to the victims of the massacre, the hostages and those who mourn or fear for them is grotesque and reflects very badly on people who claim to be for peace.
Finally, here is a good commentary on what proportionality means in international law in the context of a war. It does not mean proportional to numbers. It means proportional to the objective - the defeat of the enemy. Most of those opining about international law have not the faintest idea about it and are simply using it as another stick with which to beat Israel. As I have said before, far too many of the criticisms of Israel are bad faith ones made by people who do not wish it to defend itself or to exist either.
As for the marches, one of the issues the police will have to address is whether they are intent on stirring up racial hatred and/or in support of banned terror organisations. Either of those would be valid reasons for a ban.
But the general principle should be to allow protests even of people with whose views you might disagree. How consistently the Met has acted on that principle is quite another matter. Consistent application of the law has not been the Met's strong point.
Well I assume that the UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross must have more than the 'faintest idea' about what constitutes international law and both have said that Israel may be breaking international law. Indeed the UN has said Israel has been breaking international law on many occasions for many years.
I am afraid that within your valid criticisms and concerns there are also some rather more extreme examples of the belief that any criticism of Israel is automatically anti-semitism. I would suggest that you are also indulging in bad faith arguments when you try and tar any criticism of Israel as anti-semitism. It does you no credit at all.
Some highlights: ...the international body has a continuing history of a one-sided, hostile approach to Israel... Successive Secretary Generals have acknowledged this an issue for the institution. Indeed, in a meeting in April 2007, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon acknowledged to ADL leaders that Israel has been treated poorly at the UN and that, while some progress has been made, this bias still remains an issue... “Unfortunately, because of the [Israeli-Palestinian] conflict, Israel’s been weighed down by criticism and suffered from bias — and sometimes even discrimination,” Ban said...
A low point at the UN was the passage of the Arab and Soviet-sponsored United Nations resolution of November 10, 1975 which declared Zionism a “form of racism and racial discrimination.” The highly politicized resolution was aimed at denying Israel its political legitimacy by attacking its moral basis for existence. The resolution was finally repealed on December 16, 1991.
The UN Human Rights Council (HRC), which replaced the Commission on Human Rights in March 2006, has continued its predecessor's extreme focus on and biased treatment of issues relating to Israel, particularly in comparison with its mild action on pressing international human rights crises. The permanent agenda of the HRC includes a specific item targeting Israel - Agenda Item #7 – which is titled: "Human rights situation in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories: Human rights violations and implications of the Israeli occupation of Palestine and other occupied Arab territories and the Right to self-determination of the Palestinian people. Israel is the only country to appear on the HRC's permanent agenda, while other countries such as Iran and Sudan, notorious for their human rights abuses, are included as part of the general debate.
In June 2018, the US announced that it was formally withdrawing from the HRC, citing anti-Israel bias and the body’s inclusion of human rights-violating countries as motivating the decision. The UK also announced that it would withdraw if the Council continued its anti-Israel bias.
I would say that it is not Cyclefree indulging in bad faith arguments.
Well I would say it is. And you. Funny how people always want to cite the UN when they agree with the cause but then slate them when they don't. Including Israel itself who used breaches of UN resolutions by Lebanon to justify invasion in 2006.
And I suppose the International Committee of the Red Cross are anti-semitic as well are they? And MSF? And practically every aid organisation working in the region?
None of this justifies what happened on October 7th but you burying your head in the ground about the actions of Israel against the Palestinians over many years doesn't help either.
Well, we're talking specifically about international law, and I was just responding to your fallacious appeal to authority. I apologise for encouraging your inability to construct proper logical arguments by failing to point out the fallacy and instead attacking the authority, but either way I am happy to specify that the UN are institutionally anti-semitic and should never be relied upon on matters pertaining to Israel.
I think the problem you have is that you vastly underestimate the level of anti-semitism in the world, in particular in large supranational organisations. i can't speak to why that is, but a easy (albeit somewhat superficial) starting point might be to point out just how many more Muslim/Arab states such organisations have to deal with, than Jewish ones.
Bollocks. And that is putting it politely.
You were picking and choosing certain parts of the UN behaviour that you disagree with and using that to justify ignoring them entirely. There are plenty of parts of the actions of the UK police that I disagree with but I don't use that to justify not obeying the law. Indeed it is you who is attacking the authority rather than dealing with the arguments.
Just like Cyclefree you seek to make every criticism of Israel an anti-semitic act. You use that to justify and defend any and all action by Israel up to and including war crimes and crimes against humanity. As such you are part of the problem not the solution just as much as Hamas or the extremists in the current Israeli Government.
You're not making any arguments. It's literally just an endless appeal to authorities, all of which I have demonstrated - often using their own words - have intrinsic biases against Jews.
Maybe just consider the possibility that you do too?
It is curious that this marching for a ceasefire - and there have been a few already - have not noticed that there was a ceasefire, one which Hamas broke on 7 October. During that ceasefire Hamas planned the 7 October atrocity and have made it clear that they will plan more if given the opportunity. Having a ceasefire now without defeating Hamas and making it impossible for them to organise more massacres will allow them to repeat their atrocities. Unless this is addressed a call for a ceasefire is in bad faith because it is not peace and will help a sadistic aggressor.
Second, it is notable and alarming that those marchers do not call for the return of the hostages. They are forgotten. Worse there is a concerted effort to remove the photos of them, to make them unpersons. And when there was a silent vigil yesterday by people in Whitehall holding up their photos and saying their names, there were people nearby shouting abuse . The level of unkindness, callousness to the victims of the massacre, the hostages and those who mourn or fear for them is grotesque and reflects very badly on people who claim to be for peace.
Finally, here is a good commentary on what proportionality means in international law in the context of a war. It does not mean proportional to numbers. It means proportional to the objective - the defeat of the enemy. Most of those opining about international law have not the faintest idea about it and are simply using it as another stick with which to beat Israel. As I have said before, far too many of the criticisms of Israel are bad faith ones made by people who do not wish it to defend itself or to exist either.
As for the marches, one of the issues the police will have to address is whether they are intent on stirring up racial hatred and/or in support of banned terror organisations. Either of those would be valid reasons for a ban.
But the general principle should be to allow protests even of people with whose views you might disagree. How consistently the Met has acted on that principle is quite another matter. Consistent application of the law has not been the Met's strong point.
I don't know about anyone else but when I talk about Palestinian casualties being disproportionately high it's not based on some noddy view that International Law says it has to be 1:1 or not more than X:1 or anything like that. I'm just using the word 'disproportionate' in its plain and simple (non legal) meaning. Shockingly high.
Also I find the whole idea that being 'at war' is a justifier of acts that would be criminal otherwise to be rather flimsy. Eg look at Russia/Ukraine. There's a 'war' where the triggering event was Vladimir Putin unleashing a completely unprovoked invasion on another country. I don't see a clear and massive distinction between that and mass murder, whatever the law says.
But, war does indeed. justify (some) acts that would otherwise be treated as criminal. That's been the case ever since people invented rules of war.
Putin orders that invasion. What (morally) distinguishes it from mass murder?
Morally, one can argue that any act of military aggression is mass murder, but the fact that the actor in this case is a State, means that it will not be treated legally as mass murder.
Although people were convicted of crimes against peace at Nuremburg, that has never been truly established as a ground for prosecution. In practice, war crimes prosecutions focus on ius in bello, rather than ius ad bellum, that is, the conduct of wars, rather than the right to wage war.
Russia's President, generals, and soldiers, can certainly be accused of mass murder, torture, pillage, maltreatment of civilians, during the course of waging this war.
It is curious that this marching for a ceasefire - and there have been a few already - have not noticed that there was a ceasefire, one which Hamas broke on 7 October. During that ceasefire Hamas planned the 7 October atrocity and have made it clear that they will plan more if given the opportunity. Having a ceasefire now without defeating Hamas and making it impossible for them to organise more massacres will allow them to repeat their atrocities. Unless this is addressed a call for a ceasefire is in bad faith because it is not peace and will help a sadistic aggressor.
Second, it is notable and alarming that those marchers do not call for the return of the hostages. They are forgotten. Worse there is a concerted effort to remove the photos of them, to make them unpersons. And when there was a silent vigil yesterday by people in Whitehall holding up their photos and saying their names, there were people nearby shouting abuse . The level of unkindness, callousness to the victims of the massacre, the hostages and those who mourn or fear for them is grotesque and reflects very badly on people who claim to be for peace.
Finally, here is a good commentary on what proportionality means in international law in the context of a war. It does not mean proportional to numbers. It means proportional to the objective - the defeat of the enemy. Most of those opining about international law have not the faintest idea about it and are simply using it as another stick with which to beat Israel. As I have said before, far too many of the criticisms of Israel are bad faith ones made by people who do not wish it to defend itself or to exist either.
As for the marches, one of the issues the police will have to address is whether they are intent on stirring up racial hatred and/or in support of banned terror organisations. Either of those would be valid reasons for a ban.
But the general principle should be to allow protests even of people with whose views you might disagree. How consistently the Met has acted on that principle is quite another matter. Consistent application of the law has not been the Met's strong point.
Well I assume that the UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross must have more than the 'faintest idea' about what constitutes international law and both have said that Israel may be breaking international law. Indeed the UN has said Israel has been breaking international law on many occasions for many years.
I am afraid that within your valid criticisms and concerns there are also some rather more extreme examples of the belief that any criticism of Israel is automatically anti-semitism. I would suggest that you are also indulging in bad faith arguments when you try and tar any criticism of Israel as anti-semitism. It does you no credit at all.
Some highlights: ...the international body has a continuing history of a one-sided, hostile approach to Israel... Successive Secretary Generals have acknowledged this an issue for the institution. Indeed, in a meeting in April 2007, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon acknowledged to ADL leaders that Israel has been treated poorly at the UN and that, while some progress has been made, this bias still remains an issue... “Unfortunately, because of the [Israeli-Palestinian] conflict, Israel’s been weighed down by criticism and suffered from bias — and sometimes even discrimination,” Ban said...
A low point at the UN was the passage of the Arab and Soviet-sponsored United Nations resolution of November 10, 1975 which declared Zionism a “form of racism and racial discrimination.” The highly politicized resolution was aimed at denying Israel its political legitimacy by attacking its moral basis for existence. The resolution was finally repealed on December 16, 1991.
The UN Human Rights Council (HRC), which replaced the Commission on Human Rights in March 2006, has continued its predecessor's extreme focus on and biased treatment of issues relating to Israel, particularly in comparison with its mild action on pressing international human rights crises. The permanent agenda of the HRC includes a specific item targeting Israel - Agenda Item #7 – which is titled: "Human rights situation in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories: Human rights violations and implications of the Israeli occupation of Palestine and other occupied Arab territories and the Right to self-determination of the Palestinian people. Israel is the only country to appear on the HRC's permanent agenda, while other countries such as Iran and Sudan, notorious for their human rights abuses, are included as part of the general debate.
In June 2018, the US announced that it was formally withdrawing from the HRC, citing anti-Israel bias and the body’s inclusion of human rights-violating countries as motivating the decision. The UK also announced that it would withdraw if the Council continued its anti-Israel bias.
I would say that it is not Cyclefree indulging in bad faith arguments.
Well I would say it is. And you. Funny how people always want to cite the UN when they agree with the cause but then slate them when they don't. Including Israel itself who used breaches of UN resolutions by Lebanon to justify invasion in 2006.
And I suppose the International Committee of the Red Cross are anti-semitic as well are they? And MSF? And practically every aid organisation working in the region?
None of this justifies what happened on October 7th but you burying your head in the ground about the actions of Israel against the Palestinians over many years doesn't help either.
Well, we're talking specifically about international law, and I was just responding to your fallacious appeal to authority. I apologise for encouraging your inability to construct proper logical arguments by failing to point out the fallacy and instead attacking the authority, but either way I am happy to specify that the UN are institutionally anti-semitic and should never be relied upon on matters pertaining to Israel.
I think the problem you have is that you vastly underestimate the level of anti-semitism in the world, in particular in large supranational organisations. i can't speak to why that is, but a easy (albeit somewhat superficial) starting point might be to point out just how many more Muslim/Arab states such organisations have to deal with, than Jewish ones.
Bollocks. And that is putting it politely.
You were picking and choosing certain parts of the UN behaviour that you disagree with and using that to justify ignoring them entirely. There are plenty of parts of the actions of the UK police that I disagree with but I don't use that to justify not obeying the law. Indeed it is you who is attacking the authority rather than dealing with the arguments.
Just like Cyclefree you seek to make every criticism of Israel an anti-semitic act. You use that to justify and defend any and all action by Israel up to and including war crimes and crimes against humanity. As such you are part of the problem not the solution just as much as Hamas or the extremists in the current Israeli Government.
Important and influential as this site is, I’m struggling to see how, when it comes to Gaza, “that @Endillion off of PB” is “as much a part of the problem as Hamas”
Fair point. I would say he is symptomatic of a wider problem within society which ignores or excuses Israeli actions such as those you just mentioned in the West Bank and which seeks to stamp out debate through accusations of anti-semitism.
Meanwhile, as we drone on and on about Israel, a jihadi militia has just slaughtered 1000 black Africans - of all ages - in Darfur, in an outrageous pogrom - along with accompanying videos celebrating the violence, with an ISIS style soundtrack
Virtually every PB-er blatting on about the Palestinian cause must, by definition, be anti-Semitic - unless they have been equally and vocally outraged by all these other horrors, some far worse than Gaza
I find that logic inescapable. Feel free to point out the flaw
A few points I would make.
1. It isn't possible for every individual person to protest against every individual wrong, and protesting against one rather than another isn't necessarily indicative of anything. Not everything is a conspiracy.
2. One distinction that people do sometimes draw is the extent to which Britain is involved, and therefore the extent to which protests in Britain might influence the government here to change policy, which might have some impact, however small, on the issue in question.
So, the British government has provided robust diplomatic support to Israel. To my knowledge, no member of the government has spoken in support of jihadi militias in Darfur. So there's a British government action to protest against in one case and not the other.
3. If you did want to make this argument the more appropriate comparison is with Yemen. I know a few people who have spent many years campaigning against Britain supplying weapons to Saudi Arabia for use in the war in Yemen. They would have loved to have more people join their protests.
A fair point about the UK government
Nonetheless, I’d say TOTAL silence on all these horrors followed by screeds of outrage about Gaza is, indeed, quite strongly indicative of anti-Semitism
There’s a couple of suspects on here. Worse, I have some acquaintances of whom this is true. I now realise they are anti-Semitic - and previously odd behaviour suddenly is explained. A pattern is revealed
It is a melancholy revelation
Now you've dropped the smeary hyperbole you have a serviceable point. If somebody with no personal connection to Israel Palestine and no great usual interest in foreign conflicts is nevertheless massively animated by that specific conflict and is fully and passionately on one side or the other, then a rat can be sniffed. You could well be looking at antisemitism (on the pro Palestinian left) or antimuslimism (on the pro Israeli right).
Similar thing with (say) Immigration. There is nothing untoward or unsavoury about being concerned about immigration. It's certainly not evidence of racism. BUT when a person bangs on and on about Immigration to the exclusion of almost everything else you probably have yourself a racist there.
How can you ceasefire against this? Israel has no choice but to level Gaza until Hamas is purged
“Hamas official Osama Hamdan in an interiew with Al-Liwaa newspaper says if there was a way to turn back time, Hamas would carry out Oct 7th attack again. Said strategy was to prevent Israel from being a 'natural entity' in the region.”
A classic example of why Israel should adopt a policy of assassination. This bloke sits in Beirut taking part in directing Hamas attacks.
I don’t agree with you on most of the Whole Gaza Thing, but I completely agree on assassinating the Hamas leaders. They are genocidal c*nts. Drone the fuck out of them. Shoot them in the streets of Qatar and hang the consequences. Make THEM suffer personally and decapitate the jihadi leadership - it might spare lives on all sides
I am mystified why this doesn’t happen. America has a carrier group parked off Tel Aviv
Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas's convoy attacked, one guard known dead - Yeni Safak
A video of the alleged attack is circulating online. Whether Abbas himself was injured was not specified. A group called the "Sons of Abu Jandal’" claimed responsibility for the attack. https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1721923208029364654
Meanwhile, as we drone on and on about Israel, a jihadi militia has just slaughtered 1000 black Africans - of all ages - in Darfur, in an outrageous pogrom - along with accompanying videos celebrating the violence, with an ISIS style soundtrack
Virtually every PB-er blatting on about the Palestinian cause must, by definition, be anti-Semitic - unless they have been equally and vocally outraged by all these other horrors, some far worse than Gaza
I find that logic inescapable. Feel free to point out the flaw
A few points I would make.
1. It isn't possible for every individual person to protest against every individual wrong, and protesting against one rather than another isn't necessarily indicative of anything. Not everything is a conspiracy.
2. One distinction that people do sometimes draw is the extent to which Britain is involved, and therefore the extent to which protests in Britain might influence the government here to change policy, which might have some impact, however small, on the issue in question.
So, the British government has provided robust diplomatic support to Israel. To my knowledge, no member of the government has spoken in support of jihadi militias in Darfur. So there's a British government action to protest against in one case and not the other.
3. If you did want to make this argument the more appropriate comparison is with Yemen. I know a few people who have spent many years campaigning against Britain supplying weapons to Saudi Arabia for use in the war in Yemen. They would have loved to have more people join their protests.
A fair point about the UK government
Nonetheless, I’d say TOTAL silence on all these horrors followed by screeds of outrage about Gaza is, indeed, quite strongly indicative of anti-Semitism
There’s a couple of suspects on here. Worse, I have some acquaintances of whom this is true. I now realise they are anti-Semitic - and previously odd behaviour suddenly is explained. A pattern is revealed
It is a melancholy revelation
The odd thing is that they would object very strongly if accused. It is what I call passive (as opposed to active) anti-semitism. They don't objectively hate the Jews. But they are deeply unsympathetic on a number of levels and apply a special set of standards to Israel which they do not to any other nation and to Jews not to any other group.
Jeremy Corbyn is a classic passive Anti-Semite.
I think going on about anti-semitism is missing the poin, actually.
What unites the so-called pro-Palestine movement, is that they are all profoundly anti-Western. They hate capitalism, western values, the USA, etc., etc.
That what unites tankie lefties, and Islamist misognists.
And Israel is of the west. People vote there. They consume. They dance and rave. They have a free press.
That's why these people are out on the streets. That's why no-one is demonstrating about the Uyghurs or the various genocides being committed across the world by vicious authoritarian regimes. Those regimes are anti-Western.
So, yes, there are certainly anti-semites mixed in. But that is not the unifying principle. They just loathe the society they find themselves living in.
I think's that largely correct. If, by some bizarre quirk of history, Israel was a Christian state but still occupied Palestine, still received massive support from America and the religious Right in particular, had still been buddies with apartheid South Africa etc. etc. then I imagine pretty much the same people would still dislike it. In contrast, had a Jewish Israel modelled itself on, say, Castro's Cuba then its supporters from the western Right would be much more thin on the ground I suspect.
What is funny about that is he is clearly 'invading' another country at the moment.
Puts me in mind of a documentary on Brits in Cyprus years ago when one talking head said "I was fed up of the immigration in Britain. I felt like a foreigner in my own country". So she moved to Cyprus.
Nothing illogical about that. Maybe she just prefers countries that have different *kinds* of immigration
The illogical bit is her not clicking that she herself is an immigrant. But I suppose that’s back to orientalism again.
It is curious that this marching for a ceasefire - and there have been a few already - have not noticed that there was a ceasefire, one which Hamas broke on 7 October. During that ceasefire Hamas planned the 7 October atrocity and have made it clear that they will plan more if given the opportunity. Having a ceasefire now without defeating Hamas and making it impossible for them to organise more massacres will allow them to repeat their atrocities. Unless this is addressed a call for a ceasefire is in bad faith because it is not peace and will help a sadistic aggressor.
Second, it is notable and alarming that those marchers do not call for the return of the hostages. They are forgotten. Worse there is a concerted effort to remove the photos of them, to make them unpersons. And when there was a silent vigil yesterday by people in Whitehall holding up their photos and saying their names, there were people nearby shouting abuse . The level of unkindness, callousness to the victims of the massacre, the hostages and those who mourn or fear for them is grotesque and reflects very badly on people who claim to be for peace.
Finally, here is a good commentary on what proportionality means in international law in the context of a war. It does not mean proportional to numbers. It means proportional to the objective - the defeat of the enemy. Most of those opining about international law have not the faintest idea about it and are simply using it as another stick with which to beat Israel. As I have said before, far too many of the criticisms of Israel are bad faith ones made by people who do not wish it to defend itself or to exist either.
As for the marches, one of the issues the police will have to address is whether they are intent on stirring up racial hatred and/or in support of banned terror organisations. Either of those would be valid reasons for a ban.
But the general principle should be to allow protests even of people with whose views you might disagree. How consistently the Met has acted on that principle is quite another matter. Consistent application of the law has not been the Met's strong point.
Well I assume that the UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross must have more than the 'faintest idea' about what constitutes international law and both have said that Israel may be breaking international law. Indeed the UN has said Israel has been breaking international law on many occasions for many years.
I am afraid that within your valid criticisms and concerns there are also some rather more extreme examples of the belief that any criticism of Israel is automatically anti-semitism. I would suggest that you are also indulging in bad faith arguments when you try and tar any criticism of Israel as anti-semitism. It does you no credit at all.
Some highlights: ...the international body has a continuing history of a one-sided, hostile approach to Israel... Successive Secretary Generals have acknowledged this an issue for the institution. Indeed, in a meeting in April 2007, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon acknowledged to ADL leaders that Israel has been treated poorly at the UN and that, while some progress has been made, this bias still remains an issue... “Unfortunately, because of the [Israeli-Palestinian] conflict, Israel’s been weighed down by criticism and suffered from bias — and sometimes even discrimination,” Ban said...
A low point at the UN was the passage of the Arab and Soviet-sponsored United Nations resolution of November 10, 1975 which declared Zionism a “form of racism and racial discrimination.” The highly politicized resolution was aimed at denying Israel its political legitimacy by attacking its moral basis for existence. The resolution was finally repealed on December 16, 1991.
The UN Human Rights Council (HRC), which replaced the Commission on Human Rights in March 2006, has continued its predecessor's extreme focus on and biased treatment of issues relating to Israel, particularly in comparison with its mild action on pressing international human rights crises. The permanent agenda of the HRC includes a specific item targeting Israel - Agenda Item #7 – which is titled: "Human rights situation in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories: Human rights violations and implications of the Israeli occupation of Palestine and other occupied Arab territories and the Right to self-determination of the Palestinian people. Israel is the only country to appear on the HRC's permanent agenda, while other countries such as Iran and Sudan, notorious for their human rights abuses, are included as part of the general debate.
In June 2018, the US announced that it was formally withdrawing from the HRC, citing anti-Israel bias and the body’s inclusion of human rights-violating countries as motivating the decision. The UK also announced that it would withdraw if the Council continued its anti-Israel bias.
I would say that it is not Cyclefree indulging in bad faith arguments.
Well I would say it is. And you. Funny how people always want to cite the UN when they agree with the cause but then slate them when they don't. Including Israel itself who used breaches of UN resolutions by Lebanon to justify invasion in 2006.
And I suppose the International Committee of the Red Cross are anti-semitic as well are they? And MSF? And practically every aid organisation working in the region?
None of this justifies what happened on October 7th but you burying your head in the ground about the actions of Israel against the Palestinians over many years doesn't help either.
Well, we're talking specifically about international law, and I was just responding to your fallacious appeal to authority. I apologise for encouraging your inability to construct proper logical arguments by failing to point out the fallacy and instead attacking the authority, but either way I am happy to specify that the UN are institutionally anti-semitic and should never be relied upon on matters pertaining to Israel.
I think the problem you have is that you vastly underestimate the level of anti-semitism in the world, in particular in large supranational organisations. i can't speak to why that is, but a easy (albeit somewhat superficial) starting point might be to point out just how many more Muslim/Arab states such organisations have to deal with, than Jewish ones.
Bollocks. And that is putting it politely.
You were picking and choosing certain parts of the UN behaviour that you disagree with and using that to justify ignoring them entirely. There are plenty of parts of the actions of the UK police that I disagree with but I don't use that to justify not obeying the law. Indeed it is you who is attacking the authority rather than dealing with the arguments.
Just like Cyclefree you seek to make every criticism of Israel an anti-semitic act. You use that to justify and defend any and all action by Israel up to and including war crimes and crimes against humanity. As such you are part of the problem not the solution just as much as Hamas or the extremists in the current Israeli Government.
You're not making any arguments. It's literally just an endless appeal to authorities, all of which I have demonstrated - often using their own words - have intrinsic biases against Jews.
Maybe just consider the possibility that you do too?
There you go again. Accusations of anti semitism. Yet I have been forthright in my condemnation of Hamas, have suggested that Israel should kill all their leaders sitting comfortably in third countries, have explicietly agreed that Israel has the right (and duty) to exist, have condemned the attacks on Jews elsewhere in the West and have never once conflated the extremist Israeli administration with Jews as a whole.
And yet, because I criticise the Neyenyahu administration your go-to accusation is that I am anti-semitic.
Sadly this just shows how extremist you are rather than reflecting on myself and others on here.
Meanwhile, as we drone on and on about Israel, a jihadi militia has just slaughtered 1000 black Africans - of all ages - in Darfur, in an outrageous pogrom - along with accompanying videos celebrating the violence, with an ISIS style soundtrack
Virtually every PB-er blatting on about the Palestinian cause must, by definition, be anti-Semitic - unless they have been equally and vocally outraged by all these other horrors, some far worse than Gaza
I find that logic inescapable. Feel free to point out the flaw
A few points I would make.
1. It isn't possible for every individual person to protest against every individual wrong, and protesting against one rather than another isn't necessarily indicative of anything. Not everything is a conspiracy.
2. One distinction that people do sometimes draw is the extent to which Britain is involved, and therefore the extent to which protests in Britain might influence the government here to change policy, which might have some impact, however small, on the issue in question.
So, the British government has provided robust diplomatic support to Israel. To my knowledge, no member of the government has spoken in support of jihadi militias in Darfur. So there's a British government action to protest against in one case and not the other.
3. If you did want to make this argument the more appropriate comparison is with Yemen. I know a few people who have spent many years campaigning against Britain supplying weapons to Saudi Arabia for use in the war in Yemen. They would have loved to have more people join their protests.
A fair point about the UK government
Nonetheless, I’d say TOTAL silence on all these horrors followed by screeds of outrage about Gaza is, indeed, quite strongly indicative of anti-Semitism
There’s a couple of suspects on here. Worse, I have some acquaintances of whom this is true. I now realise they are anti-Semitic - and previously odd behaviour suddenly is explained. A pattern is revealed
It is a melancholy revelation
The odd thing is that they would object very strongly if accused. It is what I call passive (as opposed to active) anti-semitism. They don't objectively hate the Jews. But they are deeply unsympathetic on a number of levels and apply a special set of standards to Israel which they do not to any other nation and to Jews not to any other group.
Jeremy Corbyn is a classic passive Anti-Semite.
I think going on about anti-semitism is missing the poin, actually.
What unites the so-called pro-Palestine movement, is that they are all profoundly anti-Western. They hate capitalism, western values, the USA, etc., etc.
That what unites tankie lefties, and Islamist misognists.
And Israel is of the west. People vote there. They consume. They dance and rave. They have a free press.
That's why these people are out on the streets. That's why no-one is demonstrating about the Uyghurs or the various genocides being committed across the world by vicious authoritarian regimes. Those regimes are anti-Western.
So, yes, there are certainly anti-semites mixed in. But that is not the unifying principle. They just loathe the society they find themselves living in.
I think's that largely correct. If, by some bizarre quirk of history, Israel was a Christian state but still occupied Palestine, still received massive support from America and the religious Right in particular, had still been buddies with apartheid South Africa etc. etc. then I imagine pretty much the same people would still dislike it. In contrast, had a Jewish Israel modelled itself on, say, Castro's Cuba then its supporters from the western Right would be much more thin on the ground I suspect.
The thing is the Israeli Left were in the ascendancy until the "close shave" of Yom Kippur (1973).
Meanwhile, as we drone on and on about Israel, a jihadi militia has just slaughtered 1000 black Africans - of all ages - in Darfur, in an outrageous pogrom - along with accompanying videos celebrating the violence, with an ISIS style soundtrack
Virtually every PB-er blatting on about the Palestinian cause must, by definition, be anti-Semitic - unless they have been equally and vocally outraged by all these other horrors, some far worse than Gaza
I find that logic inescapable. Feel free to point out the flaw
And yet, you yourself have failed to utter a single 'BRACE' in respect of Sudan.
I do incline towards agreeing with the 'Hate March' label for these demonstrations; phrases like 'there can only be one solution' and 'death to the Jews' are clear-cut racist phrases, as is 'from the river to the sea'. But I agree with this header that banning demonstrations of any sort is a slippery slope - this is a freedom of speech issue. It is disturbing to find out the sentiments of some of the participants, but I would rather know about these people than rest in blissful ignorance. If there are criminals taking part, single them out and let the rest demonstrate. If the occasional Diversity Equity and Inclusion Consultant is revealed to believe that Jews put baby's blood in their bread, sack them and save the taxpayer money as a result.
Meanwhile, as we drone on and on about Israel, a jihadi militia has just slaughtered 1000 black Africans - of all ages - in Darfur, in an outrageous pogrom - along with accompanying videos celebrating the violence, with an ISIS style soundtrack
Virtually every PB-er blatting on about the Palestinian cause must, by definition, be anti-Semitic - unless they have been equally and vocally outraged by all these other horrors, some far worse than Gaza
I find that logic inescapable. Feel free to point out the flaw
A few points I would make.
1. It isn't possible for every individual person to protest against every individual wrong, and protesting against one rather than another isn't necessarily indicative of anything. Not everything is a conspiracy.
2. One distinction that people do sometimes draw is the extent to which Britain is involved, and therefore the extent to which protests in Britain might influence the government here to change policy, which might have some impact, however small, on the issue in question.
So, the British government has provided robust diplomatic support to Israel. To my knowledge, no member of the government has spoken in support of jihadi militias in Darfur. So there's a British government action to protest against in one case and not the other.
3. If you did want to make this argument the more appropriate comparison is with Yemen. I know a few people who have spent many years campaigning against Britain supplying weapons to Saudi Arabia for use in the war in Yemen. They would have loved to have more people join their protests.
A fair point about the UK government
Nonetheless, I’d say TOTAL silence on all these horrors followed by screeds of outrage about Gaza is, indeed, quite strongly indicative of anti-Semitism
There’s a couple of suspects on here. Worse, I have some acquaintances of whom this is true. I now realise they are anti-Semitic - and previously odd behaviour suddenly is explained. A pattern is revealed
It is a melancholy revelation
Now you've dropped the smeary hyperbole you have a serviceable point. If somebody with no personal connection to Israel Palestine and no great usual interest in foreign conflicts is nevertheless massively animated by that specific conflict and is fully and passionately on one side or the other, then a rat can be sniffed. You could well be looking at antisemitism (on the pro Palestinian left) or antimuslimism (on the pro Israeli right).
Similar thing with (say) Immigration. There is nothing untoward or unsavoury about being concerned about immigration. It's certainly not evidence of racism. BUT when a person bangs on and on about Immigration to the exclusion of almost everything else you probably have yourself a racist there.
A rare moment of concord. Yes, monomania is commonly a symptom of a nastier disease lurking beneath
I’ll actually furnish this with an example. One of these acquaintances of mine is moderately well known in the theatre business
In the past he’s made really odd, pointed, sometimes vaguely unpleasant remarks about Israel, Israelis and Jews in general. Nothing bad enough to anger, but certainly puzzling. But you shrug it off
In the last month he’s come out with stuff on social media which is - to my mind - straight forwardly anti Semitic. Thus explaining the prior puzzles
As I say it’s a shame because he’s an intelligent talented person who I mildly respected. But now? Hm, no, not really
What is funny about that is he is clearly 'invading' another country at the moment.
Puts me in mind of a documentary on Brits in Cyprus years ago when one talking head said "I was fed up of the immigration in Britain. I felt like a foreigner in my own country". So she moved to Cyprus.
Nothing illogical about that. Maybe she just prefers countries that have different *kinds* of immigration
The illogical bit is her not clicking that she herself is an immigrant. But I suppose that’s back to orientalism again.
Everyone knows that ex-pats aren’t immigrants!
I am an expat You are an immigrant They are scroungers
How can you ceasefire against this? Israel has no choice but to level Gaza until Hamas is purged
“Hamas official Osama Hamdan in an interiew with Al-Liwaa newspaper says if there was a way to turn back time, Hamas would carry out Oct 7th attack again. Said strategy was to prevent Israel from being a 'natural entity' in the region.”
A classic example of why Israel should adopt a policy of assassination. This bloke sits in Beirut taking part in directing Hamas attacks.
I don’t agree with you on most of the Whole Gaza Thing, but I completely agree on assassinating the Hamas leaders. They are genocidal c*nts. Drone the fuck out of them. Shoot them in the streets of Qatar and hang the consequences. Make THEM suffer personally and decapitate the jihadi leadership - it might spare lives on all sides
I am mystified why this doesn’t happen. America has a carrier group parked off Tel Aviv
It is reflected in a wider point I have never really understood. We are happy to send hundreds of thousands of men to kill each other and to kill civilians who get in the way and yet we (as an international community) balk at targeted killings of those drctly responsible for the wars, murders and terrorism around the world. I assume it is because the people making decisions are the leaders who fear that they themselves will become the targets. So there is a tacit agreement even betwen enemies that assassination of leaders is off the table.
Israel should look back to how they behaved in the 70s and take lessons from that on dealing with terrorists.
Meanwhile, as we drone on and on about Israel, a jihadi militia has just slaughtered 1000 black Africans - of all ages - in Darfur, in an outrageous pogrom - along with accompanying videos celebrating the violence, with an ISIS style soundtrack
International marches in protest? Zero. International outrage? Zero
The pro Palestinian cause is driven almost completely by anti-Semitism
Why protest against the Israeli slaughter of Palestinians but not against the jihadi militia slaughter of black Africans? Because our government and others (including people on this site) excuse the former, but nobody is excusing the latter. There's not much point protesting against something that everyone agrees is wrong. That's why, for example, there are few protests in the UK about the Ukraine/Russia conflict. Most people in the UK broadly agree with the UK/Western position. Likewise China and the Uyghurs.
It is curious that this marching for a ceasefire - and there have been a few already - have not noticed that there was a ceasefire, one which Hamas broke on 7 October. During that ceasefire Hamas planned the 7 October atrocity and have made it clear that they will plan more if given the opportunity. Having a ceasefire now without defeating Hamas and making it impossible for them to organise more massacres will allow them to repeat their atrocities. Unless this is addressed a call for a ceasefire is in bad faith because it is not peace and will help a sadistic aggressor.
Second, it is notable and alarming that those marchers do not call for the return of the hostages. They are forgotten. Worse there is a concerted effort to remove the photos of them, to make them unpersons. And when there was a silent vigil yesterday by people in Whitehall holding up their photos and saying their names, there were people nearby shouting abuse . The level of unkindness, callousness to the victims of the massacre, the hostages and those who mourn or fear for them is grotesque and reflects very badly on people who claim to be for peace.
Finally, here is a good commentary on what proportionality means in international law in the context of a war. It does not mean proportional to numbers. It means proportional to the objective - the defeat of the enemy. Most of those opining about international law have not the faintest idea about it and are simply using it as another stick with which to beat Israel. As I have said before, far too many of the criticisms of Israel are bad faith ones made by people who do not wish it to defend itself or to exist either.
As for the marches, one of the issues the police will have to address is whether they are intent on stirring up racial hatred and/or in support of banned terror organisations. Either of those would be valid reasons for a ban.
But the general principle should be to allow protests even of people with whose views you might disagree. How consistently the Met has acted on that principle is quite another matter. Consistent application of the law has not been the Met's strong point.
Well I assume that the UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross must have more than the 'faintest idea' about what constitutes international law and both have said that Israel may be breaking international law. Indeed the UN has said Israel has been breaking international law on many occasions for many years.
I am afraid that within your valid criticisms and concerns there are also some rather more extreme examples of the belief that any criticism of Israel is automatically anti-semitism. I would suggest that you are also indulging in bad faith arguments when you try and tar any criticism of Israel as anti-semitism. It does you no credit at all.
Some highlights: ...the international body has a continuing history of a one-sided, hostile approach to Israel... Successive Secretary Generals have acknowledged this an issue for the institution. Indeed, in a meeting in April 2007, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon acknowledged to ADL leaders that Israel has been treated poorly at the UN and that, while some progress has been made, this bias still remains an issue... “Unfortunately, because of the [Israeli-Palestinian] conflict, Israel’s been weighed down by criticism and suffered from bias — and sometimes even discrimination,” Ban said...
A low point at the UN was the passage of the Arab and Soviet-sponsored United Nations resolution of November 10, 1975 which declared Zionism a “form of racism and racial discrimination.” The highly politicized resolution was aimed at denying Israel its political legitimacy by attacking its moral basis for existence. The resolution was finally repealed on December 16, 1991.
The UN Human Rights Council (HRC), which replaced the Commission on Human Rights in March 2006, has continued its predecessor's extreme focus on and biased treatment of issues relating to Israel, particularly in comparison with its mild action on pressing international human rights crises. The permanent agenda of the HRC includes a specific item targeting Israel - Agenda Item #7 – which is titled: "Human rights situation in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories: Human rights violations and implications of the Israeli occupation of Palestine and other occupied Arab territories and the Right to self-determination of the Palestinian people. Israel is the only country to appear on the HRC's permanent agenda, while other countries such as Iran and Sudan, notorious for their human rights abuses, are included as part of the general debate.
In June 2018, the US announced that it was formally withdrawing from the HRC, citing anti-Israel bias and the body’s inclusion of human rights-violating countries as motivating the decision. The UK also announced that it would withdraw if the Council continued its anti-Israel bias.
I would say that it is not Cyclefree indulging in bad faith arguments.
Well I would say it is. And you. Funny how people always want to cite the UN when they agree with the cause but then slate them when they don't. Including Israel itself who used breaches of UN resolutions by Lebanon to justify invasion in 2006.
And I suppose the International Committee of the Red Cross are anti-semitic as well are they? And MSF? And practically every aid organisation working in the region?
None of this justifies what happened on October 7th but you burying your head in the ground about the actions of Israel against the Palestinians over many years doesn't help either.
Well, we're talking specifically about international law, and I was just responding to your fallacious appeal to authority. I apologise for encouraging your inability to construct proper logical arguments by failing to point out the fallacy and instead attacking the authority, but either way I am happy to specify that the UN are institutionally anti-semitic and should never be relied upon on matters pertaining to Israel.
I think the problem you have is that you vastly underestimate the level of anti-semitism in the world, in particular in large supranational organisations. i can't speak to why that is, but a easy (albeit somewhat superficial) starting point might be to point out just how many more Muslim/Arab states such organisations have to deal with, than Jewish ones.
Bollocks. And that is putting it politely.
You were picking and choosing certain parts of the UN behaviour that you disagree with and using that to justify ignoring them entirely. There are plenty of parts of the actions of the UK police that I disagree with but I don't use that to justify not obeying the law. Indeed it is you who is attacking the authority rather than dealing with the arguments.
Just like Cyclefree you seek to make every criticism of Israel an anti-semitic act. You use that to justify and defend any and all action by Israel up to and including war crimes and crimes against humanity. As such you are part of the problem not the solution just as much as Hamas or the extremists in the current Israeli Government.
You're not making any arguments. It's literally just an endless appeal to authorities, all of which I have demonstrated - often using their own words - have intrinsic biases against Jews.
Maybe just consider the possibility that you do too?
There you go again. Accusations of anti semitism. Yet I have been forthright in my condemnation of Hamas, have suggested that Israel should kill all their leaders sitting comfortably in third countries, have explicietly agreed that Israel has the right (and duty) to exist, have condemned the attacks on Jews elsewhere in the West and have never once conflated the extremist Israeli administration with Jews as a whole.
And yet, because I criticise the Neyenyahu administration your go-to accusation is that I am anti-semitic.
Sadly this just shows how extremist you are rather than reflecting on myself and others on here.
"... have suggested that Israel should kill all their leaders sitting comfortably in third countries, "
Again, I really don't think that assassinations are in any way a valid way out of this mess for Israel. It will take too much time, and damage relations with other countries. And when Russia does it here (Salisbury, Litvinenko), we rightly complain (although the messy way it did both attacks hardly helped that).
It's not the Met's role to decide this; as long as the protests meet their legal requirements, they should go ahead.
I agree.
Actually, I don't think it should be anyone's role to ban marches that meet legal requirements. The precedent is too ominous. Free speech isn't just for people who agree with me or anyone else.
Suppressing them would be counter-productive anyway because they give people a chance to let off steam. Protest is a substitute for achieving something.
Safety grounds is one that matters, and could apply. Say you had a planned protest that was well-organised, where the organisers had talked to the police and local authorities, and had been given the go-ahead. Another march applies for the same town and the same day; in negotiations with the organisers, the start time and route are changed slightly.
All good.
Then a third march is organised; again, they talk to the police and authorities, and meet all the legal requirements. But police are worried about their capacity to police this third march, and with things like public transport to get everyone in and out of the town. Should that third march get the go-ahead, or should the organisers be persuaded to try for a different day? (*)
So I'm not sayin they should be 'banned'; just that there are other factors. But if the police don't think they can cope with that third march, and the organisers choose to go ahead anyway, it should be a politician saying it should be stopped, not the police.
Although if people turn up for that third march, when the police are busy with the first two events, they're going to be in trouble anyway...
(*) I assume this is how it works...
If there is no legal provision that covers that eventuality, then the law should be changed to cover it - with appropriate procedures and safeguards - rather than politicians having discretion to ban political marches without due process.
I differ on this. Politicians should have the discretion to ban *any* march - they are our elected representatives. But it should be known that they banned the march, and reasons should be given.
The 'rights' of a noisy minority to cause chaos to local areas is all too easily abused. Not all marchers / protestors are exactly pure of heart.
Effectively that means a government (presumably Home Secretary) veto on any march or protest.
If only pro-government marches are allowed we have ceased to be a democracy.
the Met's manpower… [italics mine]
The Met’s resources
...has no pleasing alliteration.
"We're actually supposed to call it "the service" now. Official vocab guidelines state that "force" is too aggressive."
How can you ceasefire against this? Israel has no choice but to level Gaza until Hamas is purged
“Hamas official Osama Hamdan in an interiew with Al-Liwaa newspaper says if there was a way to turn back time, Hamas would carry out Oct 7th attack again. Said strategy was to prevent Israel from being a 'natural entity' in the region.”
A classic example of why Israel should adopt a policy of assassination. This bloke sits in Beirut taking part in directing Hamas attacks.
I don’t agree with you on most of the Whole Gaza Thing, but I completely agree on assassinating the Hamas leaders. They are genocidal c*nts. Drone the fuck out of them. Shoot them in the streets of Qatar and hang the consequences. Make THEM suffer personally and decapitate the jihadi leadership - it might spare lives on all sides
I am mystified why this doesn’t happen. America has a carrier group parked off Tel Aviv
It is reflected in a wider point I have never really understood. We are happy to send hundreds of thousands of men to kill each other and to kill civilians who get in the way and yet we (as an international community) balk at targeted killings of those drctly responsible for the wars, murders and terrorism around the world. I assume it is because the people making decisions are the leaders who fear that they themselves will become the targets. So there is a tacit agreement even betwen enemies that assassination of leaders is off the table.
Israel should look back to how they behaved in the 70s and take lessons from that on dealing with terrorists.
There seems to be a tacit agreement among world leaders that they don't assassinate each other, and they don't execute each other.
How can you ceasefire against this? Israel has no choice but to level Gaza until Hamas is purged
“Hamas official Osama Hamdan in an interiew with Al-Liwaa newspaper says if there was a way to turn back time, Hamas would carry out Oct 7th attack again. Said strategy was to prevent Israel from being a 'natural entity' in the region.”
A classic example of why Israel should adopt a policy of assassination. This bloke sits in Beirut taking part in directing Hamas attacks.
I don’t agree with you on most of the Whole Gaza Thing, but I completely agree on assassinating the Hamas leaders. They are genocidal c*nts. Drone the fuck out of them. Shoot them in the streets of Qatar and hang the consequences. Make THEM suffer personally and decapitate the jihadi leadership - it might spare lives on all sides
I am mystified why this doesn’t happen. America has a carrier group parked off Tel Aviv
It is reflected in a wider point I have never really understood. We are happy to send hundreds of thousands of men to kill each other and to kill civilians who get in the way and yet we (as an international community) balk at targeted killings of those drctly responsible for the wars, murders and terrorism around the world. I assume it is because the people making decisions are the leaders who fear that they themselves will become the targets. So there is a tacit agreement even betwen enemies that assassination of leaders is off the table.
Israel should look back to how they behaved in the 70s and take lessons from that on dealing with terrorists.
Yes, agreed again
I’ve made the same point about Ukraine. Neither side really makes much effort to take out enemy leaders at the top
Would it be so hard for Russia to slot Zelensky? I don’t think so. Yet they don’t even try so I’m guessing, like you, that it’s a tacit agreement
But that shouldn’t apply in Gaza, even if we accept it elsewhere. Kill the Hamas leaders. Make “being a Hamas leader” the worst and shortest job in the world. Give them a life expectancy of 3 hours
It could shorten this hideous conflict. Why not try it?
It is curious that this marching for a ceasefire - and there have been a few already - have not noticed that there was a ceasefire, one which Hamas broke on 7 October. During that ceasefire Hamas planned the 7 October atrocity and have made it clear that they will plan more if given the opportunity. Having a ceasefire now without defeating Hamas and making it impossible for them to organise more massacres will allow them to repeat their atrocities. Unless this is addressed a call for a ceasefire is in bad faith because it is not peace and will help a sadistic aggressor.
Second, it is notable and alarming that those marchers do not call for the return of the hostages. They are forgotten. Worse there is a concerted effort to remove the photos of them, to make them unpersons. And when there was a silent vigil yesterday by people in Whitehall holding up their photos and saying their names, there were people nearby shouting abuse . The level of unkindness, callousness to the victims of the massacre, the hostages and those who mourn or fear for them is grotesque and reflects very badly on people who claim to be for peace.
Finally, here is a good commentary on what proportionality means in international law in the context of a war. It does not mean proportional to numbers. It means proportional to the objective - the defeat of the enemy. Most of those opining about international law have not the faintest idea about it and are simply using it as another stick with which to beat Israel. As I have said before, far too many of the criticisms of Israel are bad faith ones made by people who do not wish it to defend itself or to exist either.
As for the marches, one of the issues the police will have to address is whether they are intent on stirring up racial hatred and/or in support of banned terror organisations. Either of those would be valid reasons for a ban.
But the general principle should be to allow protests even of people with whose views you might disagree. How consistently the Met has acted on that principle is quite another matter. Consistent application of the law has not been the Met's strong point.
Well I assume that the UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross must have more than the 'faintest idea' about what constitutes international law and both have said that Israel may be breaking international law. Indeed the UN has said Israel has been breaking international law on many occasions for many years.
I am afraid that within your valid criticisms and concerns there are also some rather more extreme examples of the belief that any criticism of Israel is automatically anti-semitism. I would suggest that you are also indulging in bad faith arguments when you try and tar any criticism of Israel as anti-semitism. It does you no credit at all.
Some highlights: ...the international body has a continuing history of a one-sided, hostile approach to Israel... Successive Secretary Generals have acknowledged this an issue for the institution. Indeed, in a meeting in April 2007, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon acknowledged to ADL leaders that Israel has been treated poorly at the UN and that, while some progress has been made, this bias still remains an issue... “Unfortunately, because of the [Israeli-Palestinian] conflict, Israel’s been weighed down by criticism and suffered from bias — and sometimes even discrimination,” Ban said...
A low point at the UN was the passage of the Arab and Soviet-sponsored United Nations resolution of November 10, 1975 which declared Zionism a “form of racism and racial discrimination.” The highly politicized resolution was aimed at denying Israel its political legitimacy by attacking its moral basis for existence. The resolution was finally repealed on December 16, 1991.
The UN Human Rights Council (HRC), which replaced the Commission on Human Rights in March 2006, has continued its predecessor's extreme focus on and biased treatment of issues relating to Israel, particularly in comparison with its mild action on pressing international human rights crises. The permanent agenda of the HRC includes a specific item targeting Israel - Agenda Item #7 – which is titled: "Human rights situation in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories: Human rights violations and implications of the Israeli occupation of Palestine and other occupied Arab territories and the Right to self-determination of the Palestinian people. Israel is the only country to appear on the HRC's permanent agenda, while other countries such as Iran and Sudan, notorious for their human rights abuses, are included as part of the general debate.
In June 2018, the US announced that it was formally withdrawing from the HRC, citing anti-Israel bias and the body’s inclusion of human rights-violating countries as motivating the decision. The UK also announced that it would withdraw if the Council continued its anti-Israel bias.
I would say that it is not Cyclefree indulging in bad faith arguments.
Well I would say it is. And you. Funny how people always want to cite the UN when they agree with the cause but then slate them when they don't. Including Israel itself who used breaches of UN resolutions by Lebanon to justify invasion in 2006.
And I suppose the International Committee of the Red Cross are anti-semitic as well are they? And MSF? And practically every aid organisation working in the region?
None of this justifies what happened on October 7th but you burying your head in the ground about the actions of Israel against the Palestinians over many years doesn't help either.
Well, we're talking specifically about international law, and I was just responding to your fallacious appeal to authority. I apologise for encouraging your inability to construct proper logical arguments by failing to point out the fallacy and instead attacking the authority, but either way I am happy to specify that the UN are institutionally anti-semitic and should never be relied upon on matters pertaining to Israel.
I think the problem you have is that you vastly underestimate the level of anti-semitism in the world, in particular in large supranational organisations. i can't speak to why that is, but a easy (albeit somewhat superficial) starting point might be to point out just how many more Muslim/Arab states such organisations have to deal with, than Jewish ones.
Bollocks. And that is putting it politely.
You were picking and choosing certain parts of the UN behaviour that you disagree with and using that to justify ignoring them entirely. There are plenty of parts of the actions of the UK police that I disagree with but I don't use that to justify not obeying the law. Indeed it is you who is attacking the authority rather than dealing with the arguments.
Just like Cyclefree you seek to make every criticism of Israel an anti-semitic act. You use that to justify and defend any and all action by Israel up to and including war crimes and crimes against humanity. As such you are part of the problem not the solution just as much as Hamas or the extremists in the current Israeli Government.
You're not making any arguments. It's literally just an endless appeal to authorities, all of which I have demonstrated - often using their own words - have intrinsic biases against Jews.
Maybe just consider the possibility that you do too?
There you go again. Accusations of anti semitism. Yet I have been forthright in my condemnation of Hamas, have suggested that Israel should kill all their leaders sitting comfortably in third countries, have explicietly agreed that Israel has the right (and duty) to exist, have condemned the attacks on Jews elsewhere in the West and have never once conflated the extremist Israeli administration with Jews as a whole.
And yet, because I criticise the Neyenyahu administration your go-to accusation is that I am anti-semitic.
Sadly this just shows how extremist you are rather than reflecting on myself and others on here.
"... have suggested that Israel should kill all their leaders sitting comfortably in third countries, "
Again, I really don't think that assassinations are in any way a valid way out of this mess for Israel. It will take too much time, and damage relations with other countries. And when Russia does it here (Salisbury, Litvinenko), we rightly complain (although the messy way it did both attacks hardly helped that).
When it comes to political assassinations, Israel makes Putin look like a rank amateur.
Comments
https://twitter.com/WatchmanSociety/status/1722206731168895294
So I think it's more accurate to say that Netanyahu is responsible for the West Bank settlements.
PR doesn't make anything inevitable. It just presents people with different - I would argue, better - choices. But it can't stop people from making choices that I would identify as bad.
> The odds seem wrong. So many have been killed this time looking from previous wars and yet the weapons the IDF are using are more precise than before.
> Israel has a habit of targeting media organisations inside Gaza. The media seem to cluster within specific blocks which are regularly imploded.
https://rsf.org/en/israelpalestine-war-41-journalists-more-one-day-killed-first-month-israel-palestine-war
Plus to me its a coherent strategy. Remove all the trusted sources, make outside news organisations choose between unverified rumours, OSINT, dodgy propaganda etc.
https://www.icrc.org/en/document/icrc-wwii-holocaust
So the answer to your question about the ICRC is no it doesn't seem so although there was an abject failure (by its own admission) to protect Jews during the war. For, as I see it, reasons related to that classic do you give aid to oppressors conundrum for the greater good. Or anti-semitism. But who knows.
James Hacker : How am I going to explain the missing documents to "The Mail"?
Sir Humphrey Appleby : Well, this is what we normally do in circumstnces like these.
James Hacker : [reads memo] This file contains the complete set of papers, except for a number of secret documents, a few others which are part of still active files, some correspondence lost in the floods of 1967...
James Hacker : Was 1967 a particularly bad winter?
Sir Humphrey Appleby : No, a marvellous winter. We lost no end of embarrassing files.
James Hacker : [reads] Some records which went astray in the move to London and others when the War Office was incorporated in the Ministry of Defence, and the normal withdrawal of papers whose publication could give grounds for an action for libel or breach of confidence or cause embarrassment to friendly governments.
James Hacker : That's pretty comprehensive. How many does that normally leave for them to look at?
James Hacker : How many does it actually leave? About a hundred?... Fifty?... Ten?... Five?... Four?... Three?... Two?... One?... *Zero?*
Sir Humphrey Appleby : Yes, Minister.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/nov/07/uk-food-inflation-may-be-gone-by-easter-claims-boss-of-major-retail-owner
“People killed in their homes, in the streets and in mosques
Women and girls raped
Hundreds of thousands fleeing Sudan
Arab fighters scorning ethnic Africans as ‘slaves’
Survivors risking their lives to bury the dead”
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/sudan-politics-darfur/
Virtually every PB-er blatting on about the Palestinian cause must, by definition, be anti-Semitic - unless they have been equally and vocally outraged by all these other horrors, some far worse than Gaza
I find that logic inescapable. Feel free to point out the flaw
Art 12. Protection of medical units
1. Medical units shall be respected and protected at all times and shall not be the object of attack.
2. Paragraph 1 shall apply to civilian medical units, provided that they: (a) belong to one of the Parties to the conflict; (b) are recognized and authorized by the competent authority of one of the Parties to the conflict; or (c) are authorized in conformity with Article 9, paragraph 2, of this Protocol or Article 27 of the First Convention.
3. The Parties to the conflict are invited to notify each other of the location of their fixed medical units. The absence of such notification shall not exempt any of the Parties from the obligation to comply with the provisions of paragraph 1.
4. Under no circumstances shall medical units be used in an attempt to shield military objectives from attack. Whenever possible, the Parties to the conflict shall ensure that medical units are so sited that attacks against military objectives do not imperil their safety.
Art 13. Discontinuance of protection of civilian medical units
1. The protection to which civilian medical units are entitled shall not cease unless they are used to commit, outside their humanitarian function, acts harmful to the enemy. Protection may, however, cease only after a warning has been given setting, whenever appropriate, a reasonable time-limit, and after such warning has remained unheeded.
Makes sense when you think about it.
It is literally impossible to lose them accidentally or through lack of space except by gross incompetence.
I have all mine going back to - checks - 1998
I don't think it's that valuable to discuss individual aid organisations and whether they constitute an authority on international law - both because it's a fallacy and because it's obvious that they don't - but anyway:
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2001/12/24/fallout-at-the-red-cross
https://forward.com/community/344495/why-doctors-without-borders-has-an-israel-problem/
I think the problem you have is that you vastly underestimate the level of anti-semitism in the world, in particular in large supranational organisations. i can't speak to why that is, but a easy (albeit somewhat superficial) starting point might be to point out just how many more Muslim/Arab states such organisations have to deal with, than Jewish ones.
Which is not logical. Racial hatred can be stirred amongst the "non target" race at any time.
Let's not forget that.
Obvs in your mind yes but not in any normal world
No
Set against that it’s an El Niño which tends to mean higher soy prices (and hence meat too) and high rice prices.
1) Which other militaries do this?
2) Is Israel required to do this under international law?
3) Are these really the actions of a state that wants indiscriminate civilian casualties?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-67327079
He says he felt it was ok constitution-wise.
Hmmm...
1. It isn't possible for every individual person to protest against every individual wrong, and protesting against one rather than another isn't necessarily indicative of anything. Not everything is a conspiracy.
2. One distinction that people do sometimes draw is the extent to which Britain is involved, and therefore the extent to which protests in Britain might influence the government here to change policy, which might have some impact, however small, on the issue in question.
So, the British government has provided robust diplomatic support to Israel. To my knowledge, no member of the government has spoken in support of jihadi militias in Darfur. So there's a British government action to protest against in one case and not the other.
3. If you did want to make this argument the more appropriate comparison is with Yemen. I know a few people who have spent many years campaigning against Britain supplying weapons to Saudi Arabia for use in the war in Yemen. They would have loved to have more people join their protests.
Its no different to Covid. Ministers telling people they could only go out for an hour of exercise, actual law saying they could take unlimited exercise. The written law trumps what someone says whilst misinterpreting the law.
Also I find the whole idea that being 'at war' is a justifier of acts that would be criminal otherwise to be rather flimsy. Eg look at Russia/Ukraine. There's a 'war' where the triggering event was Vladimir Putin unleashing a completely unprovoked invasion on another country. I don't see a clear and massive distinction between that and mass murder, whatever the law says.
The fact they will never be recovered so the management would remain in prison until their day is just a side benefit...
To add - my contempt for the people in the post office for what happened holds no limits...
Nonetheless, I’d say TOTAL silence on all these horrors followed by screeds of outrage about Gaza is, indeed, quite strongly indicative of anti-Semitism
There’s a couple of suspects on here. Worse, I have some acquaintances of whom this is true. I now realise they are anti-Semitic - and previously odd behaviour suddenly is explained. A pattern is revealed
It is a melancholy revelation
Indeed, I should have added to the issues of the football metaphor that displacement activity in changing the manager cannot make up for, or mask, a culture of entitlement and living off past victories, and a failure to understand the extent to which the game and other clubs have moved on. The fan expectation is that replaying old methods (but now with players, rules and systems unsuited to them), will somehow restore the glory days. They won't.
So we're back to "THIS IS A WAR CRIME" vs "this" being compared to the actual action in the actual context. I would be very happy for one of our learned friends to have a look at it...
Jeremy Corbyn is a classic passive Anti-Semite.
“Hamas official Osama Hamdan in an interiew with Al-Liwaa newspaper says if there was a way to turn back time, Hamas would carry out Oct 7th attack again. Said strategy was to prevent Israel from being a 'natural entity' in the region.”
https://x.com/itwitius/status/1722183671266893970?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw
Note: he wanted one side to cease fire. He did not, from the talk I heard, call on the Palestinians / Hamas to do anything. It sounded a rather one-sided 'ceasefire'.
You were picking and choosing certain parts of the UN behaviour that you disagree with and using that to justify ignoring them entirely. There are plenty of parts of the actions of the UK police that I disagree with but I don't use that to justify not obeying the law. Indeed it is you who is attacking the authority rather than dealing with the arguments.
Just like Cyclefree you seek to make every criticism of Israel an anti-semitic act. You use that to justify and defend any and all action by Israel up to and including war crimes and crimes against humanity. As such you are part of the problem not the solution just as much as Hamas or the extremists in the current Israeli Government.
None of this means that I view Corbyn as anything other than an utter disaster for the Labour Party, I just don't think your characterisation of him is accurate or fair.
I doubt anyone will ever be held to account for this either. It is a disgrace that the victims still have no redress and the Post Office just carries on like this.
There are many more of the passive types
I’m not sure they “don’t hate Jews” tho. They may not hate them as in: immediately filled with loathing. But mistrust Jews, reflexively? Yes. Be more suspicious of Jews than others? Again yes
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/rupi-kaur-rejects-white-house-s-diwali-invitation-over-its-israel-gaza-response/ar-AA1jxRHD?ocid=entnewsntp&cvid=448a0df95f164bd8ad6240d81de3439a&ei=17
However it is increasingly clear that long term planning and investment is a disaster (schools being the most recent example). A government is not for 5 years, it should be looking far into the future. The one project that was doing that, HS2, is being salami sliced into pointlessness. I am an advocate of capital spending, even if money is borrowed to do so. After all - where does the money spent on construction go? Into the economy (wages etc). What we should not do is sleight of hand spending - PFI - which lock in high costs for decades. the Tories started it, Brown went big and many places are still paying the price.
What unites the so-called pro-Palestine movement, is that they are all profoundly anti-Western. They hate capitalism, western values, the USA, etc., etc.
That what unites tankie lefties, and Islamist misognists.
And Israel is of the west. People vote there. They consume. They dance and rave. They have a free press.
That's why these people are out on the streets. That's why no-one is demonstrating about the Uyghurs or the various genocides being committed across the world by vicious authoritarian regimes. Those regimes are anti-Western.
So, yes, there are certainly anti-semites mixed in. But that is not the unifying principle. They just loathe the society they find themselves living in.
The trouble is that the scandal is so large and so far-reaching that it may take decades for a complete picture to emerge. Meanwhile the culprits escape justice, or simply die off.
I think therefore that in this case some of the more blatant and obvious cases should be commenced immediately, but of course I defer in this matter to MsCF, as I would on most things.
Both? Neither?
It would almost be better if Israel was more honest and said: we want to ethnically cleanse the West Bank
Put simply, Putin's war would still be illegal, even if its actions were carried out in accordance with other international law (which is very much not the case).
States have to reserve the right to violence to some extent because there is no higher authority who can act on their behalf.
Where the UN often does massive good is in individual programs, like some of the aid and disease programs.
But I've no idea how we could create a 'better' (i.e. more effective) UN.
Now you are saying that it is possible to commit the offence of stirring racial hatred where the target race is not present.
I think what you have proved to yourself is that the presence of the target race is irrelevant to the offence and it remains an offence whoever is present. And likewise therefore you have shown to yourself that your position that it is reasonable for the police not to prosecute the offence is wrong.
Your welcome.
Hasn't part of the left always had a problem with Jews? If leftwing politics is about universal solidarity then minority groups that stick together are a potential problem. The revolution won't succeed if the proletariat is divided. So minorities are fine so long as they are poor or disenfranchised. But if they are successful they pose a particular problem. Add in the modern logic of minorities being unable to compete on equal terms with whites due to historic disadvantage and Jews become quite an inconvenient truth.
Maybe just consider the possibility that you do too?
Although people were convicted of crimes against peace at Nuremburg, that has never been truly established as a ground for prosecution. In practice, war crimes prosecutions focus on ius in bello, rather than ius ad bellum, that is, the conduct of wars, rather than the right to wage war.
Russia's President, generals, and soldiers, can certainly be accused of mass murder, torture, pillage, maltreatment of civilians, during the course of waging this war.
Similar thing with (say) Immigration. There is nothing untoward or unsavoury about being concerned about immigration. It's certainly not evidence of racism. BUT when a person bangs on and on about Immigration to the exclusion of almost everything else you probably have yourself a racist there.
I am mystified why this doesn’t happen. America has a carrier group parked off Tel Aviv
Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas's convoy attacked, one guard known dead - Yeni Safak
A video of the alleged attack is circulating online. Whether Abbas himself was injured was not specified. A group called the "Sons of Abu Jandal’" claimed responsibility for the attack.
https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1721923208029364654
And yet, because I criticise the Neyenyahu administration your go-to accusation is that I am anti-semitic.
Sadly this just shows how extremist you are rather than reflecting on myself and others on here.
So by your own inescapable logic...
But I agree with this header that banning demonstrations of any sort is a slippery slope - this is a freedom of speech issue. It is disturbing to find out the sentiments of some of the participants, but I would rather know about these people than rest in blissful ignorance.
If there are criminals taking part, single them out and let the rest demonstrate. If the occasional Diversity Equity and Inclusion Consultant is revealed to believe that Jews put baby's blood in their bread, sack them and save the taxpayer money as a result.
I’ll actually furnish this with an example. One of these acquaintances of mine is moderately well known in the theatre business
In the past he’s made really odd, pointed, sometimes vaguely unpleasant remarks about Israel, Israelis and Jews in general. Nothing bad enough to anger, but certainly puzzling. But you shrug it off
In the last month he’s come out with stuff on social media which is - to my mind - straight forwardly anti Semitic. Thus explaining the prior puzzles
As I say it’s a shame because he’s an intelligent talented person who I mildly respected. But now? Hm, no, not really
You are an immigrant
They are scroungers
Israel should look back to how they behaved in the 70s and take lessons from that on dealing with terrorists.
Again, I really don't think that assassinations are in any way a valid way out of this mess for Israel. It will take too much time, and damage relations with other countries. And when Russia does it here (Salisbury, Litvinenko), we rightly complain (although the messy way it did both attacks hardly helped that).
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-67354706
I’ve made the same point about Ukraine. Neither side really makes much effort to take out enemy leaders at the top
Would it be so hard for Russia to slot Zelensky? I don’t think so. Yet they don’t even try so I’m guessing, like you, that it’s a tacit agreement
But that shouldn’t apply in Gaza, even if we accept it elsewhere. Kill the Hamas leaders. Make “being a Hamas leader” the worst and shortest job in the world. Give them a life expectancy of 3 hours
It could shorten this hideous conflict. Why not try it?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Israeli_assassinations