It looks like the BBC, an institution known for its own issues with anti-semitism, have selected a candidate for Eurovision who seems to flirt with anti semitism.
As others have said, the view of Israel's regime (the specific target of the quote) operating on apartheid lines has moved from fringe abuse to something that many mainstream people sadly acknowledge as at least arguably true. It's not an opinion that is so outlandish that he shouldn't be allowed to sing.
In general I don't think singers' opinions should either be very influential or a reason to cancel them, unless they sing specifically extremist songs. The same applies to composers, writers, etc. The new poetry collection by Corbyn and McCluskey (a good read IMO - https://www.orbooks.com/catalog/poetry-for-the-many/) includes people like Rudyard Kipling, on the basis that their poetry should be admired in context regardless of their personal views on other matters.
Interesting a) that it was an LGBTQ charity that made the first statement; and b) that the statement was made not two weeks after October 7th. This latter suggests that the charity virtually from the outset had formed its view. The former point of course reiterates the powerful/powerless dynamic that we are living in. And which I have, ahem, much commented upon.
Yes, IIRC the statement rather uncomfortably acknowledges that LGBTQ+ rights are not recognised in Palestine (by implication by Hamas, who would basically want to kill them) but justifies their view on the basis that general solidarity with the underdog trumps that specific issue. I'm not sure I'd have commented if I were them, but it's not a reason to ban him from singing.
Chatting to the farm contractor who cuts our hedges today. He mentioned what a mess the Middle East is and how it had pushed up the price of red diesel: "Why can't they sort themselves out? It looks like a total shithole, can't think why anyone would want to live there, let alone fight over it."
To which I stupidly said 'no wonder so many are trying to come over on boats'. Cue: "I'm not a racist but... the country can't take any more, we will literally sink if any more come in."
Now, I understand quite a few people feel that way but the odd thing to me is this guy is living in a small village in a sparsely populated part of Dorset. He will have next to zero contact with anyone who's not white. The only people from ethic minorities for miles around are running the few Indian and Chinese takaways in the nearest town.
Personally, I'm convinced the less contact people have with those from other cultures the more they fear them.
Anyway, there's definitely some kind of market for the ERG RefUK line on immigration, hopefully, a small one.
It looks like the BBC, an institution known for its own issues with anti-semitism, have selected a candidate for Eurovision who seems to flirt with anti semitism.
As there is not the slightest doubt that Israel is an Apartheid State I don't know what the Telegraph is talking about. Do people still read the telegraph. Apart from a half decent film critic the rest seems to be simply manufactured nonsense.
Israeli Arabs have the same rights as Israeli Jews. There is a huge amount of doubt as to whether Israel is an apartheid state.
But it’s a legitimate political debate (as is the contention - in my view false - that Israel is committing genocide). The use of the term “Zionist propaganda” is potentially more troubling but it is context dependent and you can’t tell without that.
It’s the Telegraph muck raking
While Israel proper is not an apartheid State, the West Bank certainly is.
If you are a Palestinian born in the Israeli administered West Bank, then you do not have the same rights as a Jew born there.
What differences are there? Isn't the West Bank governed by the PA.
The PA has some powers, but not a lot. It's like saying "well, you get a vote for your local parish council".
For example, the Palestinian Authority has no authority to stop Israel building new settlements in... errr... areas previously controlled by the Palestinian Authority.
And Israeli soldiers are quite free to enter Palestinian Authority controlled towns. While PA policy are certainly not free to enter Israeli settlements.
The whole road network is designed around the Israeli settlers. Getting from one Palestinian village to another can take hours.
You cannot spend time in the West Bank, and not see that it is controlled by Israel.
Yes the settlements absolutely must stop and should be on the table in any serious negotiation.
But what is the difference in individual rights.
Ummmm:
So, South African apartheit was characterised by a few elements:
(1) While everyone got a vote, you only got to vote for the "parliament" for your race, and the white parliament was the one with all the money and power. That is pretty much exactly the situation with Palestinians versus Jews in the West Bank.
(2) There were severe restrictions on where people of colour were allowed to own property and to live. That is, again, exactly the same as the situation in the West Bank.
(3) The provision of basic services - transport, health, power, and water - was very different depending on whether you were in a black or a white area. That is, again, exactly the same in the West Bank.
Now, one might argue that it is the job of Palestinians to better themselves, and only once they have done so and proved themselves to not be a threat to the Jews can they be given more rights.
That argument was also made, many times, in the South African apartheit era. South Africa's blacks would need to earn the vote.
Thanks.
Yes that does seem restrictive. But I suppose it takes time to normalise lands acquired in war. We should perhaps commend the Israelis for making some effort to do so.
I'll have you know that some countries never bother.
What proportion of people in the West Bank date back from before Israel took it over? 20%?10%? Given young populations, it's going to be far nearer the latter.
Those people - the vast majority of Palestinians - have been born in a State adminstered by Israel for a half century.
Israel needs to either: (a) regard them as Israelis with the same rights as every other Israeli, or (b) allow them their own State.
You know, I have some sympathy with the "ah, it's war and it takes time to sort out" view. And in 1980 you could make that case. You could maybe even make it in 1990.
But it's not 1990. It's 2023. The majority of people alive in the West Bank were not even born when the Oslo Accords were signed.
Yes. I don't disagree. The settlers should be removed and the Palestinians given a chance to govern on their own.
Thing is, you know what the definition of madness is, now, don't you.
Suppose you were an Israeli minding his own business in downtown Tel Aviv (does Tel Aviv have a downtown) and you had seen what happened in oh I don't know, say Gaza. What might your view on it all be.
Oh, I have total sympathy with the Israelis in Southern Israel who've been attacked by Hamas. And I believe we should cut their government a lot of slack in recovering the hostages,
But we also need to accept that the current Israeli government has no interest in even reducing settlement building, let alone dismantling or moving settlers, and that therefore a two state solution is not possible. Or even desired by those in power in Israel.
There will therefore continue to be an almost unlimited number of radicalised Palestinians who have every bit as good a reason to be angry as those Israelis.
They did precisely what you say they had no intention of doing. In Gaza. In 2005.
I would be overjoyed if that were to happen. Obviously, I would prefer it if it was not combined with the destruction of the international airport and the blockade of the port. You know, things which make it quite difficult to develop an economy
In the short run, Israel can - I'm sure - ensure a pliant Palestine via superior weapons, blockades and the like.
But that comes with a cost. It comes with the cost of Israel surrendering the moral high ground it has had for so long. The lives of Palestinians born inside Israeli administered Palestine are pretty shit. And while you can put a lot of that down to shitty Palestinian leadership, Israel cannot shirk all responsibility, because Palestine is not self governing.
Would you build a factory in Palestine to make T-Shirts, if you didn't know whether you could export them?
There were plans in 2005 to develop the port. Then Hamas were elected. Why are you studiously ignoring the fact that a party was elected into power in Gaza that was sworn to the destruction of Israel. Why do you think that shouldn't have been a factor in Israel's behaviour.
Take out Sharon handing back Gaza and trying to develop it and I wouldn't have a leg to stand on in all my arguments. But he did and they did so I do.
You seem keen to ignore this critical factor in recent history.
I think anyone with skills or property would be well-advised to get out of South Africa.
Given the hilarious Scottish budget this week, one wonders how long it will take until people start saying similar about Scotland under the SNP.
Many, many business colleagues of mine - people who never talk politics - mentioned to me, sotto voce, that they'd be moving to England if independence happened, sometimes suffixed with 'if I can sell my house'!
When I was there there was a strike or protest over wages by municipal workers (Cape Town).
Around 500 people in their high-viz vests and council clothing were marching with associated banners through the city.
Except they weren't marching. The weren't jogging. They were moving rhythmically forward to a beat which they were singing to also. A gutteral, visceral noise, no doubt demanding nothing more sinister than better "pay 'n conditions". But dear god to this white boy it seemed like Cetshwayo's advancing army.
Trivia point: in my platoon I had a private called Chard who was a direct descendant. Fantastic soldier.
Direct descendant of who?
(And what's an indirect descendent?)
Cetshwayo
An “indirect descendent” means that you have a common ancestor.
It can be used in a ridiculous manner (eg I am an indirect descendent of the King). But it’s more commonly used for nephews and nieces (ie common ancestor in grandparents but not in the direct line)
The soldier's name was Chard ffs.
Sounds like a good man to have your back. In which campaign was he awarded the FFS?
It looks like the BBC, an institution known for its own issues with anti-semitism, have selected a candidate for Eurovision who seems to flirt with anti semitism.
As there is not the slightest doubt that Israel is an Apartheid State I don't know what the Telegraph is talking about. Do people still read the telegraph. Apart from a half decent film critic the rest seems to be simply manufactured nonsense.
Israeli Arabs have the same rights as Israeli Jews. There is a huge amount of doubt as to whether Israel is an apartheid state.
But it’s a legitimate political debate (as is the contention - in my view false - that Israel is committing genocide). The use of the term “Zionist propaganda” is potentially more troubling but it is context dependent and you can’t tell without that.
It’s the Telegraph muck raking
While Israel proper is not an apartheid State, the West Bank certainly is.
If you are a Palestinian born in the Israeli administered West Bank, then you do not have the same rights as a Jew born there.
What differences are there? Isn't the West Bank governed by the PA.
The PA has some powers, but not a lot. It's like saying "well, you get a vote for your local parish council".
For example, the Palestinian Authority has no authority to stop Israel building new settlements in... errr... areas previously controlled by the Palestinian Authority.
And Israeli soldiers are quite free to enter Palestinian Authority controlled towns. While PA policy are certainly not free to enter Israeli settlements.
The whole road network is designed around the Israeli settlers. Getting from one Palestinian village to another can take hours.
You cannot spend time in the West Bank, and not see that it is controlled by Israel.
Yes the settlements absolutely must stop and should be on the table in any serious negotiation.
But what is the difference in individual rights.
Ummmm:
So, South African apartheit was characterised by a few elements:
(1) While everyone got a vote, you only got to vote for the "parliament" for your race, and the white parliament was the one with all the money and power. That is pretty much exactly the situation with Palestinians versus Jews in the West Bank.
(2) There were severe restrictions on where people of colour were allowed to own property and to live. That is, again, exactly the same as the situation in the West Bank.
(3) The provision of basic services - transport, health, power, and water - was very different depending on whether you were in a black or a white area. That is, again, exactly the same in the West Bank.
Now, one might argue that it is the job of Palestinians to better themselves, and only once they have done so and proved themselves to not be a threat to the Jews can they be given more rights.
That argument was also made, many times, in the South African apartheit era. South Africa's blacks would need to earn the vote.
Thanks.
Yes that does seem restrictive. But I suppose it takes time to normalise lands acquired in war. We should perhaps commend the Israelis for making some effort to do so.
I'll have you know that some countries never bother.
What proportion of people in the West Bank date back from before Israel took it over? 20%?10%? Given young populations, it's going to be far nearer the latter.
Those people - the vast majority of Palestinians - have been born in a State adminstered by Israel for a half century.
Israel needs to either: (a) regard them as Israelis with the same rights as every other Israeli, or (b) allow them their own State.
You know, I have some sympathy with the "ah, it's war and it takes time to sort out" view. And in 1980 you could make that case. You could maybe even make it in 1990.
But it's not 1990. It's 2023. The majority of people alive in the West Bank were not even born when the Oslo Accords were signed.
Yes. I don't disagree. The settlers should be removed and the Palestinians given a chance to govern on their own.
Thing is, you know what the definition of madness is, now, don't you.
Suppose you were an Israeli minding his own business in downtown Tel Aviv (does Tel Aviv have a downtown) and you had seen what happened in oh I don't know, say Gaza. What might your view on it all be.
Oh, I have total sympathy with the Israelis in Southern Israel who've been attacked by Hamas. And I believe we should cut their government a lot of slack in recovering the hostages,
But we also need to accept that the current Israeli government has no interest in even reducing settlement building, let alone dismantling or moving settlers, and that therefore a two state solution is not possible. Or even desired by those in power in Israel.
There will therefore continue to be an almost unlimited number of radicalised Palestinians who have every bit as good a reason to be angry as those Israelis.
I don’t think that a two state solution is viable given conflicts over water rights etc.
Far better to hand the West Bank back to Jordan. Add in security guarantees for Israel and stuff the Hashemite’s mouths with gold.
That is a perfectly sensible solution.
It still - however -needs the dismantlement of massive numbers of settlements in the West Bank. And those settlements keep growing, and keep moving further and further inside the West Bank.
And with every person that moves there, and every outpost constructed, it becomes harder for Israel to leave.
Illegal settlements are the core of many of the problems.
After the next election, at this rate we are going to see the first government in a long time that has been elected in Great Britain by all constituent countries.
It’s notable that the ‘two-state’ solution is so often seen as resting upon ethnic cleansing.
There are plenty of Palestinians living in Israel, many of whom have citizenship. So there is no reason why Israelis cannot live in Palestine, and have citizenship. Of course, very many of them may well wish to relocate in the event that two states ever come about, and indeed the Israeli government may wish to provide financial assistance for those who do so. But the two-state solution isn’t going to get a happy birth if this requires some sort of religious apartheid.
There has always been a lot of SA people in London - as @rcs1000 mentions is is now the new black middle class who are leaving.
The society there has produced a crop of good developers (a couple in the team next to mine in the bank) - I think it must be a combination of basic education, a wish to get out, and the fact that if you have some kind of computer, you can teach yourself IT. The tools are nearly all free.
Another thing that seems to have changed is the ambitions. Previously, it was all about getting money together to go back to SA, buy a house and start a business. It's been a while since I heard that. They want to stay anywhere but SA.
I think at this point that the next step of the cycle in South Africa will, indeed be Zimbabwe style expropriation of assets. All the SA people I meet (black and white) assume this.
Which raises an interesting point. When Zimbabwe started expropriating assets, illegally (according to their own Supreme Court), at gun point, the then British government fought tooth and nail to stop the white farmers coming to the UK. Wrong kind of refugees.
That's interesting about the Zimbabweans. What was wrong about them? Their having declared UDI some years before? Which would remove them from the Commonwealth realms' passport privileges, presumably?
The government at the time went to some lengths to deny entry into the UK. Because the then Labour government assumed, collectively, that all white farmers from Zimbabwe must be racist scum.
The first thing they did was to tell the visa/passport applications unit in Zimbabwe to clamp down on any applications. Any excuse to deny an application.
The unit, which like many of its kind, is staffed with locals, took this to mean all applications. A little time later, after some anguished calls, the supply of Zimbabwean medical staff for the NHS resumed - the local employees hadn't been told/understood that it was just the white applicants who were to be cracked down on.
A secondary element of this comedy was a re-write of the rules for apply for UK residency/passport. One of which was to declare that service in the British military wasn't a "connection with the UK". Quite a few of the Zimbabweans in questions has served in the UK military.
This caused fun, when sometime later, a Gurkha chap with a VC applied to come to the UK. And was denied.
Nearly all the white farmers had patriality, as most white migration to Southern Rhodesia was post war. It was mostly the Black Zimbabweans that were being excluded.
We have a lively Zimbabwean gospel choir in Leicester now, of successful asylum seekers.
It looks like the BBC, an institution known for its own issues with anti-semitism, have selected a candidate for Eurovision who seems to flirt with anti semitism.
As there is not the slightest doubt that Israel is an Apartheid State I don't know what the Telegraph is talking about. Do people still read the telegraph. Apart from a half decent film critic the rest seems to be simply manufactured nonsense.
Israeli Arabs have the same rights as Israeli Jews. There is a huge amount of doubt as to whether Israel is an apartheid state.
But it’s a legitimate political debate (as is the contention - in my view false - that Israel is committing genocide). The use of the term “Zionist propaganda” is potentially more troubling but it is context dependent and you can’t tell without that.
It’s the Telegraph muck raking
While Israel proper is not an apartheid State, the West Bank certainly is.
If you are a Palestinian born in the Israeli administered West Bank, then you do not have the same rights as a Jew born there.
What differences are there? Isn't the West Bank governed by the PA.
The PA has some powers, but not a lot. It's like saying "well, you get a vote for your local parish council".
For example, the Palestinian Authority has no authority to stop Israel building new settlements in... errr... areas previously controlled by the Palestinian Authority.
And Israeli soldiers are quite free to enter Palestinian Authority controlled towns. While PA policy are certainly not free to enter Israeli settlements.
The whole road network is designed around the Israeli settlers. Getting from one Palestinian village to another can take hours.
You cannot spend time in the West Bank, and not see that it is controlled by Israel.
Yes the settlements absolutely must stop and should be on the table in any serious negotiation.
But what is the difference in individual rights.
Ummmm:
So, South African apartheit was characterised by a few elements:
(1) While everyone got a vote, you only got to vote for the "parliament" for your race, and the white parliament was the one with all the money and power. That is pretty much exactly the situation with Palestinians versus Jews in the West Bank.
(2) There were severe restrictions on where people of colour were allowed to own property and to live. That is, again, exactly the same as the situation in the West Bank.
(3) The provision of basic services - transport, health, power, and water - was very different depending on whether you were in a black or a white area. That is, again, exactly the same in the West Bank.
Now, one might argue that it is the job of Palestinians to better themselves, and only once they have done so and proved themselves to not be a threat to the Jews can they be given more rights.
That argument was also made, many times, in the South African apartheit era. South Africa's blacks would need to earn the vote.
Thanks.
Yes that does seem restrictive. But I suppose it takes time to normalise lands acquired in war. We should perhaps commend the Israelis for making some effort to do so.
I'll have you know that some countries never bother.
What proportion of people in the West Bank date back from before Israel took it over? 20%?10%? Given young populations, it's going to be far nearer the latter.
Those people - the vast majority of Palestinians - have been born in a State adminstered by Israel for a half century.
Israel needs to either: (a) regard them as Israelis with the same rights as every other Israeli, or (b) allow them their own State.
You know, I have some sympathy with the "ah, it's war and it takes time to sort out" view. And in 1980 you could make that case. You could maybe even make it in 1990.
But it's not 1990. It's 2023. The majority of people alive in the West Bank were not even born when the Oslo Accords were signed.
Yes. I don't disagree. The settlers should be removed and the Palestinians given a chance to govern on their own.
Thing is, you know what the definition of madness is, now, don't you.
Suppose you were an Israeli minding his own business in downtown Tel Aviv (does Tel Aviv have a downtown) and you had seen what happened in oh I don't know, say Gaza. What might your view on it all be.
Oh, I have total sympathy with the Israelis in Southern Israel who've been attacked by Hamas. And I believe we should cut their government a lot of slack in recovering the hostages,
But we also need to accept that the current Israeli government has no interest in even reducing settlement building, let alone dismantling or moving settlers, and that therefore a two state solution is not possible. Or even desired by those in power in Israel.
There will therefore continue to be an almost unlimited number of radicalised Palestinians who have every bit as good a reason to be angry as those Israelis.
They did precisely what you say they had no intention of doing. In Gaza. In 2005.
I would be overjoyed if that were to happen. Obviously, I would prefer it if it was not combined with the destruction of the international airport and the blockade of the port. You know, things which make it quite difficult to develop an economy
In the short run, Israel can - I'm sure - ensure a pliant Palestine via superior weapons, blockades and the like.
But that comes with a cost. It comes with the cost of Israel surrendering the moral high ground it has had for so long. The lives of Palestinians born inside Israeli administered Palestine are pretty shit. And while you can put a lot of that down to shitty Palestinian leadership, Israel cannot shirk all responsibility, because Palestine is not self governing.
Would you build a factory in Palestine to make T-Shirts, if you didn't know whether you could export them?
In the short run, Israel can - I'm sure - ensure a pliant Palestine via superior weapons, blockades and the like.
That didn't work in Gaza, so I really don't know why you'd think it'd work in the West Bank, which is much larger and has much more complicated terrain. There would be a huge onus on Jordanian forces to police their border effectively, which they simply aren't up to.
The simple fact is that a self-governing Palestinian state means Hamas (or other Iranian backed and funded terror groups) in charge, with their insistence on continuing the struggle until the state of Israel ceases to exist. As soon as they were in charge (which they could do either via the ballot box or by simple force) they would do exactly what they've spent the last 15+ years doing in Gaza: murdering any form of moderate Arab opposition, stealing from their own people, subverting any and all civilian infrastructure to the purpose of fighting an endless war with Israel.
As soon as someone figures out a way to stop all that from happening, the Palestinians can have their own state more or less immediately. There would be immense public support from Israelis to do so, regardless of what it cost in terms of settlement removal.
In the meantime, everything happening on the West Bank that you don't like is a direct consequence of two facts: 1) the PA cannot be relied upon to keep Israeli citizens safe, and 2) no-one in Israel seriously believes any of this is likely to change any time soon.
It looks like the BBC, an institution known for its own issues with anti-semitism, have selected a candidate for Eurovision who seems to flirt with anti semitism.
As there is not the slightest doubt that Israel is an Apartheid State I don't know what the Telegraph is talking about. Do people still read the telegraph. Apart from a half decent film critic the rest seems to be simply manufactured nonsense.
Israeli Arabs have the same rights as Israeli Jews. There is a huge amount of doubt as to whether Israel is an apartheid state.
But it’s a legitimate political debate (as is the contention - in my view false - that Israel is committing genocide). The use of the term “Zionist propaganda” is potentially more troubling but it is context dependent and you can’t tell without that.
It’s the Telegraph muck raking
While Israel proper is not an apartheid State, the West Bank certainly is.
If you are a Palestinian born in the Israeli administered West Bank, then you do not have the same rights as a Jew born there.
What differences are there? Isn't the West Bank governed by the PA.
The PA has some powers, but not a lot. It's like saying "well, you get a vote for your local parish council".
For example, the Palestinian Authority has no authority to stop Israel building new settlements in... errr... areas previously controlled by the Palestinian Authority.
And Israeli soldiers are quite free to enter Palestinian Authority controlled towns. While PA policy are certainly not free to enter Israeli settlements.
The whole road network is designed around the Israeli settlers. Getting from one Palestinian village to another can take hours.
You cannot spend time in the West Bank, and not see that it is controlled by Israel.
Yes the settlements absolutely must stop and should be on the table in any serious negotiation.
But what is the difference in individual rights.
Ummmm:
So, South African apartheit was characterised by a few elements:
(1) While everyone got a vote, you only got to vote for the "parliament" for your race, and the white parliament was the one with all the money and power. That is pretty much exactly the situation with Palestinians versus Jews in the West Bank.
(2) There were severe restrictions on where people of colour were allowed to own property and to live. That is, again, exactly the same as the situation in the West Bank.
(3) The provision of basic services - transport, health, power, and water - was very different depending on whether you were in a black or a white area. That is, again, exactly the same in the West Bank.
Now, one might argue that it is the job of Palestinians to better themselves, and only once they have done so and proved themselves to not be a threat to the Jews can they be given more rights.
That argument was also made, many times, in the South African apartheit era. South Africa's blacks would need to earn the vote.
Thanks.
Yes that does seem restrictive. But I suppose it takes time to normalise lands acquired in war. We should perhaps commend the Israelis for making some effort to do so.
I'll have you know that some countries never bother.
What proportion of people in the West Bank date back from before Israel took it over? 20%?10%? Given young populations, it's going to be far nearer the latter.
Those people - the vast majority of Palestinians - have been born in a State adminstered by Israel for a half century.
Israel needs to either: (a) regard them as Israelis with the same rights as every other Israeli, or (b) allow them their own State.
You know, I have some sympathy with the "ah, it's war and it takes time to sort out" view. And in 1980 you could make that case. You could maybe even make it in 1990.
But it's not 1990. It's 2023. The majority of people alive in the West Bank were not even born when the Oslo Accords were signed.
Yes. I don't disagree. The settlers should be removed and the Palestinians given a chance to govern on their own.
Thing is, you know what the definition of madness is, now, don't you.
Suppose you were an Israeli minding his own business in downtown Tel Aviv (does Tel Aviv have a downtown) and you had seen what happened in oh I don't know, say Gaza. What might your view on it all be.
Oh, I have total sympathy with the Israelis in Southern Israel who've been attacked by Hamas. And I believe we should cut their government a lot of slack in recovering the hostages,
But we also need to accept that the current Israeli government has no interest in even reducing settlement building, let alone dismantling or moving settlers, and that therefore a two state solution is not possible. Or even desired by those in power in Israel.
There will therefore continue to be an almost unlimited number of radicalised Palestinians who have every bit as good a reason to be angry as those Israelis.
They did precisely what you say they had no intention of doing. In Gaza. In 2005.
I would be overjoyed if that were to happen. Obviously, I would prefer it if it was not combined with the destruction of the international airport and the blockade of the port. You know, things which make it quite difficult to develop an economy
In the short run, Israel can - I'm sure - ensure a pliant Palestine via superior weapons, blockades and the like.
But that comes with a cost. It comes with the cost of Israel surrendering the moral high ground it has had for so long. The lives of Palestinians born inside Israeli administered Palestine are pretty shit. And while you can put a lot of that down to shitty Palestinian leadership, Israel cannot shirk all responsibility, because Palestine is not self governing.
Would you build a factory in Palestine to make T-Shirts, if you didn't know whether you could export them?
In the meantime, everything happening on the West Bank that you don't like is a direct consequence of two facts: 1) the PA cannot be relied upon to keep Israeli citizens safe, and 2) no-one in Israel seriously believes any of this is likely to change any time soon.
Very much the same argument that the whites of South Africa used to make, hence Apartheid.
Considerable sympathy for that position it seems btl, with no real discussion of how to build a more inclusive South Africa on the basis of economic redistribution.
It looks like the BBC, an institution known for its own issues with anti-semitism, have selected a candidate for Eurovision who seems to flirt with anti semitism.
As there is not the slightest doubt that Israel is an Apartheid State I don't know what the Telegraph is talking about. Do people still read the telegraph. Apart from a half decent film critic the rest seems to be simply manufactured nonsense.
Israeli Arabs have the same rights as Israeli Jews. There is a huge amount of doubt as to whether Israel is an apartheid state.
But it’s a legitimate political debate (as is the contention - in my view false - that Israel is committing genocide). The use of the term “Zionist propaganda” is potentially more troubling but it is context dependent and you can’t tell without that.
It’s the Telegraph muck raking
While Israel proper is not an apartheid State, the West Bank certainly is.
If you are a Palestinian born in the Israeli administered West Bank, then you do not have the same rights as a Jew born there.
What differences are there? Isn't the West Bank governed by the PA.
The PA has some powers, but not a lot. It's like saying "well, you get a vote for your local parish council".
For example, the Palestinian Authority has no authority to stop Israel building new settlements in... errr... areas previously controlled by the Palestinian Authority.
And Israeli soldiers are quite free to enter Palestinian Authority controlled towns. While PA policy are certainly not free to enter Israeli settlements.
The whole road network is designed around the Israeli settlers. Getting from one Palestinian village to another can take hours.
You cannot spend time in the West Bank, and not see that it is controlled by Israel.
Yes the settlements absolutely must stop and should be on the table in any serious negotiation.
But what is the difference in individual rights.
Ummmm:
So, South African apartheit was characterised by a few elements:
(1) While everyone got a vote, you only got to vote for the "parliament" for your race, and the white parliament was the one with all the money and power. That is pretty much exactly the situation with Palestinians versus Jews in the West Bank.
(2) There were severe restrictions on where people of colour were allowed to own property and to live. That is, again, exactly the same as the situation in the West Bank.
(3) The provision of basic services - transport, health, power, and water - was very different depending on whether you were in a black or a white area. That is, again, exactly the same in the West Bank.
Now, one might argue that it is the job of Palestinians to better themselves, and only once they have done so and proved themselves to not be a threat to the Jews can they be given more rights.
That argument was also made, many times, in the South African apartheit era. South Africa's blacks would need to earn the vote.
Thanks.
Yes that does seem restrictive. But I suppose it takes time to normalise lands acquired in war. We should perhaps commend the Israelis for making some effort to do so.
I'll have you know that some countries never bother.
What proportion of people in the West Bank date back from before Israel took it over? 20%?10%? Given young populations, it's going to be far nearer the latter.
Those people - the vast majority of Palestinians - have been born in a State adminstered by Israel for a half century.
Israel needs to either: (a) regard them as Israelis with the same rights as every other Israeli, or (b) allow them their own State.
You know, I have some sympathy with the "ah, it's war and it takes time to sort out" view. And in 1980 you could make that case. You could maybe even make it in 1990.
But it's not 1990. It's 2023. The majority of people alive in the West Bank were not even born when the Oslo Accords were signed.
Yes. I don't disagree. The settlers should be removed and the Palestinians given a chance to govern on their own.
Thing is, you know what the definition of madness is, now, don't you.
Suppose you were an Israeli minding his own business in downtown Tel Aviv (does Tel Aviv have a downtown) and you had seen what happened in oh I don't know, say Gaza. What might your view on it all be.
Oh, I have total sympathy with the Israelis in Southern Israel who've been attacked by Hamas. And I believe we should cut their government a lot of slack in recovering the hostages,
But we also need to accept that the current Israeli government has no interest in even reducing settlement building, let alone dismantling or moving settlers, and that therefore a two state solution is not possible. Or even desired by those in power in Israel.
There will therefore continue to be an almost unlimited number of radicalised Palestinians who have every bit as good a reason to be angry as those Israelis.
They did precisely what you say they had no intention of doing. In Gaza. In 2005.
I would be overjoyed if that were to happen. Obviously, I would prefer it if it was not combined with the destruction of the international airport and the blockade of the port. You know, things which make it quite difficult to develop an economy
In the short run, Israel can - I'm sure - ensure a pliant Palestine via superior weapons, blockades and the like.
But that comes with a cost. It comes with the cost of Israel surrendering the moral high ground it has had for so long. The lives of Palestinians born inside Israeli administered Palestine are pretty shit. And while you can put a lot of that down to shitty Palestinian leadership, Israel cannot shirk all responsibility, because Palestine is not self governing.
Would you build a factory in Palestine to make T-Shirts, if you didn't know whether you could export them?
In the short run, Israel can - I'm sure - ensure a pliant Palestine via superior weapons, blockades and the like.
That didn't work in Gaza, so I really don't know why you'd think it'd work in the West Bank, which is much larger and has much more complicated terrain. There would be a huge onus on Jordanian forces to police their border effectively, which they simply aren't up to.
The simple fact is that a self-governing Palestinian state means Hamas (or other Iranian backed and funded terror groups) in charge, with their insistence on continuing the struggle until the state of Israel ceases to exist. As soon as they were in charge (which they could do either via the ballot box or by simple force) they would do exactly what they've spent the last 15+ years doing in Gaza: murdering any form of moderate Arab opposition, stealing from their own people, subverting any and all civilian infrastructure to the purpose of fighting an endless war with Israel.
As soon as someone figures out a way to stop all that from happening, the Palestinians can have their own state more or less immediately. There would be immense public support from Israelis to do so, regardless of what it cost in terms of settlement removal.
In the meantime, everything happening on the West Bank that you don't like is a direct consequence of two facts: 1) the PA cannot be relied upon to keep Israeli citizens safe, and 2) no-one in Israel seriously believes any of this is likely to change any time soon.
That would be a lot more persuasive an argument if Israel had not spent the last 20 years continually building out settlements in the West Bank.
Do you really think that that (a) increases support for Hamas and the destruction of Israel? or (b) diminishes it?
It looks like the BBC, an institution known for its own issues with anti-semitism, have selected a candidate for Eurovision who seems to flirt with anti semitism.
As there is not the slightest doubt that Israel is an Apartheid State I don't know what the Telegraph is talking about. Do people still read the telegraph. Apart from a half decent film critic the rest seems to be simply manufactured nonsense.
Israeli Arabs have the same rights as Israeli Jews. There is a huge amount of doubt as to whether Israel is an apartheid state.
But it’s a legitimate political debate (as is the contention - in my view false - that Israel is committing genocide). The use of the term “Zionist propaganda” is potentially more troubling but it is context dependent and you can’t tell without that.
It’s the Telegraph muck raking
While Israel proper is not an apartheid State, the West Bank certainly is.
If you are a Palestinian born in the Israeli administered West Bank, then you do not have the same rights as a Jew born there.
What differences are there? Isn't the West Bank governed by the PA.
The PA has some powers, but not a lot. It's like saying "well, you get a vote for your local parish council".
For example, the Palestinian Authority has no authority to stop Israel building new settlements in... errr... areas previously controlled by the Palestinian Authority.
And Israeli soldiers are quite free to enter Palestinian Authority controlled towns. While PA policy are certainly not free to enter Israeli settlements.
The whole road network is designed around the Israeli settlers. Getting from one Palestinian village to another can take hours.
You cannot spend time in the West Bank, and not see that it is controlled by Israel.
Yes the settlements absolutely must stop and should be on the table in any serious negotiation.
But what is the difference in individual rights.
Ummmm:
So, South African apartheit was characterised by a few elements:
(1) While everyone got a vote, you only got to vote for the "parliament" for your race, and the white parliament was the one with all the money and power. That is pretty much exactly the situation with Palestinians versus Jews in the West Bank.
(2) There were severe restrictions on where people of colour were allowed to own property and to live. That is, again, exactly the same as the situation in the West Bank.
(3) The provision of basic services - transport, health, power, and water - was very different depending on whether you were in a black or a white area. That is, again, exactly the same in the West Bank.
Now, one might argue that it is the job of Palestinians to better themselves, and only once they have done so and proved themselves to not be a threat to the Jews can they be given more rights.
That argument was also made, many times, in the South African apartheit era. South Africa's blacks would need to earn the vote.
Thanks.
Yes that does seem restrictive. But I suppose it takes time to normalise lands acquired in war. We should perhaps commend the Israelis for making some effort to do so.
I'll have you know that some countries never bother.
What proportion of people in the West Bank date back from before Israel took it over? 20%?10%? Given young populations, it's going to be far nearer the latter.
Those people - the vast majority of Palestinians - have been born in a State adminstered by Israel for a half century.
Israel needs to either: (a) regard them as Israelis with the same rights as every other Israeli, or (b) allow them their own State.
You know, I have some sympathy with the "ah, it's war and it takes time to sort out" view. And in 1980 you could make that case. You could maybe even make it in 1990.
But it's not 1990. It's 2023. The majority of people alive in the West Bank were not even born when the Oslo Accords were signed.
Yes. I don't disagree. The settlers should be removed and the Palestinians given a chance to govern on their own.
Thing is, you know what the definition of madness is, now, don't you.
Suppose you were an Israeli minding his own business in downtown Tel Aviv (does Tel Aviv have a downtown) and you had seen what happened in oh I don't know, say Gaza. What might your view on it all be.
Oh, I have total sympathy with the Israelis in Southern Israel who've been attacked by Hamas. And I believe we should cut their government a lot of slack in recovering the hostages,
But we also need to accept that the current Israeli government has no interest in even reducing settlement building, let alone dismantling or moving settlers, and that therefore a two state solution is not possible. Or even desired by those in power in Israel.
There will therefore continue to be an almost unlimited number of radicalised Palestinians who have every bit as good a reason to be angry as those Israelis.
They did precisely what you say they had no intention of doing. In Gaza. In 2005.
That wasn’t the current Israeli government.
The number of settlements in Gaza was tiny compared to the West Bank.
It is clearly true that the current Israeli government has no interest in even reducing settlement building, let alone dismantling or moving settlers. The current Israeli government is seeking to slowly annex the West Bank.
It looks like the BBC, an institution known for its own issues with anti-semitism, have selected a candidate for Eurovision who seems to flirt with anti semitism.
As there is not the slightest doubt that Israel is an Apartheid State I don't know what the Telegraph is talking about. Do people still read the telegraph. Apart from a half decent film critic the rest seems to be simply manufactured nonsense.
Israeli Arabs have the same rights as Israeli Jews. There is a huge amount of doubt as to whether Israel is an apartheid state.
But it’s a legitimate political debate (as is the contention - in my view false - that Israel is committing genocide). The use of the term “Zionist propaganda” is potentially more troubling but it is context dependent and you can’t tell without that.
It’s the Telegraph muck raking
While Israel proper is not an apartheid State, the West Bank certainly is.
If you are a Palestinian born in the Israeli administered West Bank, then you do not have the same rights as a Jew born there.
What differences are there? Isn't the West Bank governed by the PA.
The PA has some powers, but not a lot. It's like saying "well, you get a vote for your local parish council".
For example, the Palestinian Authority has no authority to stop Israel building new settlements in... errr... areas previously controlled by the Palestinian Authority.
And Israeli soldiers are quite free to enter Palestinian Authority controlled towns. While PA policy are certainly not free to enter Israeli settlements.
The whole road network is designed around the Israeli settlers. Getting from one Palestinian village to another can take hours.
You cannot spend time in the West Bank, and not see that it is controlled by Israel.
Yes the settlements absolutely must stop and should be on the table in any serious negotiation.
But what is the difference in individual rights.
Ummmm:
So, South African apartheit was characterised by a few elements:
(1) While everyone got a vote, you only got to vote for the "parliament" for your race, and the white parliament was the one with all the money and power. That is pretty much exactly the situation with Palestinians versus Jews in the West Bank.
(2) There were severe restrictions on where people of colour were allowed to own property and to live. That is, again, exactly the same as the situation in the West Bank.
(3) The provision of basic services - transport, health, power, and water - was very different depending on whether you were in a black or a white area. That is, again, exactly the same in the West Bank.
Now, one might argue that it is the job of Palestinians to better themselves, and only once they have done so and proved themselves to not be a threat to the Jews can they be given more rights.
That argument was also made, many times, in the South African apartheit era. South Africa's blacks would need to earn the vote.
Thanks.
Yes that does seem restrictive. But I suppose it takes time to normalise lands acquired in war. We should perhaps commend the Israelis for making some effort to do so.
I'll have you know that some countries never bother.
What proportion of people in the West Bank date back from before Israel took it over? 20%?10%? Given young populations, it's going to be far nearer the latter.
Those people - the vast majority of Palestinians - have been born in a State adminstered by Israel for a half century.
Israel needs to either: (a) regard them as Israelis with the same rights as every other Israeli, or (b) allow them their own State.
You know, I have some sympathy with the "ah, it's war and it takes time to sort out" view. And in 1980 you could make that case. You could maybe even make it in 1990.
But it's not 1990. It's 2023. The majority of people alive in the West Bank were not even born when the Oslo Accords were signed.
Amazing how despite numerous lessons from history*, nations / ethnic groups / communities still feel that indefinite suppression of other peoples can be a permanent way forward.
(*Soviet Russia, British Empire, Apartheid South Africa, Ulster Protestants, China towards Uyghur. I have no doubt missed many even more egregious examples.)
It worked for the British colonisers in the seventeenth century. And the Spanish for that matter. Plus who invaded Australia. Plus I think Scotland and Wales are pretty much under the thumb right now.
To a degree, I suppose.
Although, North & South America and Australia required massive immigrant numbers swamping the original inhabitants coupled with near genocide unwittingly abetted by European diseases.
Sometimes it works (North America) sometimes it doesn't (India).
There is no rule. I am a realpolitikist. I very much disagree with the I want it to be so therefore it shall be so school of geopolitical analysis.
There was never any intention to settle India. Europeans were always well under 1% of the population. The British, as in much of Africa, and Malaysia, co-opted local elites and ruled through them.
It looks like the BBC, an institution known for its own issues with anti-semitism, have selected a candidate for Eurovision who seems to flirt with anti semitism.
As there is not the slightest doubt that Israel is an Apartheid State I don't know what the Telegraph is talking about. Do people still read the telegraph. Apart from a half decent film critic the rest seems to be simply manufactured nonsense.
Israeli Arabs have the same rights as Israeli Jews. There is a huge amount of doubt as to whether Israel is an apartheid state.
But it’s a legitimate political debate (as is the contention - in my view false - that Israel is committing genocide). The use of the term “Zionist propaganda” is potentially more troubling but it is context dependent and you can’t tell without that.
It’s the Telegraph muck raking
While Israel proper is not an apartheid State, the West Bank certainly is.
If you are a Palestinian born in the Israeli administered West Bank, then you do not have the same rights as a Jew born there.
What differences are there? Isn't the West Bank governed by the PA.
The PA has some powers, but not a lot. It's like saying "well, you get a vote for your local parish council".
For example, the Palestinian Authority has no authority to stop Israel building new settlements in... errr... areas previously controlled by the Palestinian Authority.
And Israeli soldiers are quite free to enter Palestinian Authority controlled towns. While PA policy are certainly not free to enter Israeli settlements.
The whole road network is designed around the Israeli settlers. Getting from one Palestinian village to another can take hours.
You cannot spend time in the West Bank, and not see that it is controlled by Israel.
Yes the settlements absolutely must stop and should be on the table in any serious negotiation.
But what is the difference in individual rights.
Ummmm:
So, South African apartheit was characterised by a few elements:
(1) While everyone got a vote, you only got to vote for the "parliament" for your race, and the white parliament was the one with all the money and power. That is pretty much exactly the situation with Palestinians versus Jews in the West Bank.
(2) There were severe restrictions on where people of colour were allowed to own property and to live. That is, again, exactly the same as the situation in the West Bank.
(3) The provision of basic services - transport, health, power, and water - was very different depending on whether you were in a black or a white area. That is, again, exactly the same in the West Bank.
Now, one might argue that it is the job of Palestinians to better themselves, and only once they have done so and proved themselves to not be a threat to the Jews can they be given more rights.
That argument was also made, many times, in the South African apartheit era. South Africa's blacks would need to earn the vote.
Thanks.
Yes that does seem restrictive. But I suppose it takes time to normalise lands acquired in war. We should perhaps commend the Israelis for making some effort to do so.
I'll have you know that some countries never bother.
What proportion of people in the West Bank date back from before Israel took it over? 20%?10%? Given young populations, it's going to be far nearer the latter.
Those people - the vast majority of Palestinians - have been born in a State adminstered by Israel for a half century.
Israel needs to either: (a) regard them as Israelis with the same rights as every other Israeli, or (b) allow them their own State.
You know, I have some sympathy with the "ah, it's war and it takes time to sort out" view. And in 1980 you could make that case. You could maybe even make it in 1990.
But it's not 1990. It's 2023. The majority of people alive in the West Bank were not even born when the Oslo Accords were signed.
Yes. I don't disagree. The settlers should be removed and the Palestinians given a chance to govern on their own.
Thing is, you know what the definition of madness is, now, don't you.
Suppose you were an Israeli minding his own business in downtown Tel Aviv (does Tel Aviv have a downtown) and you had seen what happened in oh I don't know, say Gaza. What might your view on it all be.
Oh, I have total sympathy with the Israelis in Southern Israel who've been attacked by Hamas. And I believe we should cut their government a lot of slack in recovering the hostages,
But we also need to accept that the current Israeli government has no interest in even reducing settlement building, let alone dismantling or moving settlers, and that therefore a two state solution is not possible. Or even desired by those in power in Israel.
There will therefore continue to be an almost unlimited number of radicalised Palestinians who have every bit as good a reason to be angry as those Israelis.
They did precisely what you say they had no intention of doing. In Gaza. In 2005.
I would be overjoyed if that were to happen. Obviously, I would prefer it if it was not combined with the destruction of the international airport and the blockade of the port. You know, things which make it quite difficult to develop an economy
In the short run, Israel can - I'm sure - ensure a pliant Palestine via superior weapons, blockades and the like.
But that comes with a cost. It comes with the cost of Israel surrendering the moral high ground it has had for so long. The lives of Palestinians born inside Israeli administered Palestine are pretty shit. And while you can put a lot of that down to shitty Palestinian leadership, Israel cannot shirk all responsibility, because Palestine is not self governing.
Would you build a factory in Palestine to make T-Shirts, if you didn't know whether you could export them?
There were plans in 2005 to develop the port. Then Hamas were elected. Why are you studiously ignoring the fact that a party was elected into power in Gaza that was sworn to the destruction of Israel. Why do you think that shouldn't have been a factor in Israel's behaviour.
Take out Sharon handing back Gaza and trying to develop it and I wouldn't have a leg to stand on in all my arguments. But he did and they did so I do.
You seem keen to ignore this critical factor in recent history.
And you are choosing to be equally blind to the people in Israel's current government who have the same attitude to the existence of Palestine, that Hamas has to the existence of Israel.
As I've said - ad nauseum - I have enormous sympathy with both sides. And Israel has every right to defend itself against Hamas's attacks.
But we can't be hypocrites here. We have to hold both sides to the same standards.
It looks like the BBC, an institution known for its own issues with anti-semitism, have selected a candidate for Eurovision who seems to flirt with anti semitism.
As there is not the slightest doubt that Israel is an Apartheid State I don't know what the Telegraph is talking about. Do people still read the telegraph. Apart from a half decent film critic the rest seems to be simply manufactured nonsense.
Israeli Arabs have the same rights as Israeli Jews. There is a huge amount of doubt as to whether Israel is an apartheid state.
But it’s a legitimate political debate (as is the contention - in my view false - that Israel is committing genocide). The use of the term “Zionist propaganda” is potentially more troubling but it is context dependent and you can’t tell without that.
It’s the Telegraph muck raking
While Israel proper is not an apartheid State, the West Bank certainly is.
If you are a Palestinian born in the Israeli administered West Bank, then you do not have the same rights as a Jew born there.
What differences are there? Isn't the West Bank governed by the PA.
The PA has some powers, but not a lot. It's like saying "well, you get a vote for your local parish council".
For example, the Palestinian Authority has no authority to stop Israel building new settlements in... errr... areas previously controlled by the Palestinian Authority.
And Israeli soldiers are quite free to enter Palestinian Authority controlled towns. While PA policy are certainly not free to enter Israeli settlements.
The whole road network is designed around the Israeli settlers. Getting from one Palestinian village to another can take hours.
You cannot spend time in the West Bank, and not see that it is controlled by Israel.
Yes the settlements absolutely must stop and should be on the table in any serious negotiation.
But what is the difference in individual rights.
Ummmm:
So, South African apartheit was characterised by a few elements:
(1) While everyone got a vote, you only got to vote for the "parliament" for your race, and the white parliament was the one with all the money and power. That is pretty much exactly the situation with Palestinians versus Jews in the West Bank.
(2) There were severe restrictions on where people of colour were allowed to own property and to live. That is, again, exactly the same as the situation in the West Bank.
(3) The provision of basic services - transport, health, power, and water - was very different depending on whether you were in a black or a white area. That is, again, exactly the same in the West Bank.
Now, one might argue that it is the job of Palestinians to better themselves, and only once they have done so and proved themselves to not be a threat to the Jews can they be given more rights.
That argument was also made, many times, in the South African apartheit era. South Africa's blacks would need to earn the vote.
Thanks.
Yes that does seem restrictive. But I suppose it takes time to normalise lands acquired in war. We should perhaps commend the Israelis for making some effort to do so.
I'll have you know that some countries never bother.
What proportion of people in the West Bank date back from before Israel took it over? 20%?10%? Given young populations, it's going to be far nearer the latter.
Those people - the vast majority of Palestinians - have been born in a State adminstered by Israel for a half century.
Israel needs to either: (a) regard them as Israelis with the same rights as every other Israeli, or (b) allow them their own State.
You know, I have some sympathy with the "ah, it's war and it takes time to sort out" view. And in 1980 you could make that case. You could maybe even make it in 1990.
But it's not 1990. It's 2023. The majority of people alive in the West Bank were not even born when the Oslo Accords were signed.
Yes. I don't disagree. The settlers should be removed and the Palestinians given a chance to govern on their own.
Thing is, you know what the definition of madness is, now, don't you.
Suppose you were an Israeli minding his own business in downtown Tel Aviv (does Tel Aviv have a downtown) and you had seen what happened in oh I don't know, say Gaza. What might your view on it all be.
Oh, I have total sympathy with the Israelis in Southern Israel who've been attacked by Hamas. And I believe we should cut their government a lot of slack in recovering the hostages,
But we also need to accept that the current Israeli government has no interest in even reducing settlement building, let alone dismantling or moving settlers, and that therefore a two state solution is not possible. Or even desired by those in power in Israel.
There will therefore continue to be an almost unlimited number of radicalised Palestinians who have every bit as good a reason to be angry as those Israelis.
They did precisely what you say they had no intention of doing. In Gaza. In 2005.
I would be overjoyed if that were to happen. Obviously, I would prefer it if it was not combined with the destruction of the international airport and the blockade of the port. You know, things which make it quite difficult to develop an economy
In the short run, Israel can - I'm sure - ensure a pliant Palestine via superior weapons, blockades and the like.
But that comes with a cost. It comes with the cost of Israel surrendering the moral high ground it has had for so long. The lives of Palestinians born inside Israeli administered Palestine are pretty shit. And while you can put a lot of that down to shitty Palestinian leadership, Israel cannot shirk all responsibility, because Palestine is not self governing.
Would you build a factory in Palestine to make T-Shirts, if you didn't know whether you could export them?
In the short run, Israel can - I'm sure - ensure a pliant Palestine via superior weapons, blockades and the like.
That didn't work in Gaza, so I really don't know why you'd think it'd work in the West Bank, which is much larger and has much more complicated terrain. There would be a huge onus on Jordanian forces to police their border effectively, which they simply aren't up to.
The simple fact is that a self-governing Palestinian state means Hamas (or other Iranian backed and funded terror groups) in charge, with their insistence on continuing the struggle until the state of Israel ceases to exist. As soon as they were in charge (which they could do either via the ballot box or by simple force) they would do exactly what they've spent the last 15+ years doing in Gaza: murdering any form of moderate Arab opposition, stealing from their own people, subverting any and all civilian infrastructure to the purpose of fighting an endless war with Israel.
As soon as someone figures out a way to stop all that from happening, the Palestinians can have their own state more or less immediately. There would be immense public support from Israelis to do so, regardless of what it cost in terms of settlement removal.
In the meantime, everything happening on the West Bank that you don't like is a direct consequence of two facts: 1) the PA cannot be relied upon to keep Israeli citizens safe, and 2) no-one in Israel seriously believes any of this is likely to change any time soon.
That would be a lot more persuasive an argument if Israel had not spent the last 20 years continually building out settlements in the West Bank.
Do you really think that that (a) increases support for Hamas and the destruction of Israel? or (b) diminishes it?
In 1947-48 Israel was fighting the Arab states. Arguably for its life and arguably in a war of defence (certainly post UN 181). When it began to get the upper hand it thought fuck it they want us all dead so the "rules" go out the window and hence "the Nakba".
You say the last 20 years. When exactly did Hamas take over Gaza?
It looks like the BBC, an institution known for its own issues with anti-semitism, have selected a candidate for Eurovision who seems to flirt with anti semitism.
As there is not the slightest doubt that Israel is an Apartheid State I don't know what the Telegraph is talking about. Do people still read the telegraph. Apart from a half decent film critic the rest seems to be simply manufactured nonsense.
Israeli Arabs have the same rights as Israeli Jews. There is a huge amount of doubt as to whether Israel is an apartheid state.
But it’s a legitimate political debate (as is the contention - in my view false - that Israel is committing genocide). The use of the term “Zionist propaganda” is potentially more troubling but it is context dependent and you can’t tell without that.
It’s the Telegraph muck raking
While Israel proper is not an apartheid State, the West Bank certainly is.
If you are a Palestinian born in the Israeli administered West Bank, then you do not have the same rights as a Jew born there.
What differences are there? Isn't the West Bank governed by the PA.
The PA has some powers, but not a lot. It's like saying "well, you get a vote for your local parish council".
For example, the Palestinian Authority has no authority to stop Israel building new settlements in... errr... areas previously controlled by the Palestinian Authority.
And Israeli soldiers are quite free to enter Palestinian Authority controlled towns. While PA policy are certainly not free to enter Israeli settlements.
The whole road network is designed around the Israeli settlers. Getting from one Palestinian village to another can take hours.
You cannot spend time in the West Bank, and not see that it is controlled by Israel.
Yes the settlements absolutely must stop and should be on the table in any serious negotiation.
But what is the difference in individual rights.
Ummmm:
So, South African apartheit was characterised by a few elements:
(1) While everyone got a vote, you only got to vote for the "parliament" for your race, and the white parliament was the one with all the money and power. That is pretty much exactly the situation with Palestinians versus Jews in the West Bank.
(2) There were severe restrictions on where people of colour were allowed to own property and to live. That is, again, exactly the same as the situation in the West Bank.
(3) The provision of basic services - transport, health, power, and water - was very different depending on whether you were in a black or a white area. That is, again, exactly the same in the West Bank.
Now, one might argue that it is the job of Palestinians to better themselves, and only once they have done so and proved themselves to not be a threat to the Jews can they be given more rights.
That argument was also made, many times, in the South African apartheit era. South Africa's blacks would need to earn the vote.
Thanks.
Yes that does seem restrictive. But I suppose it takes time to normalise lands acquired in war. We should perhaps commend the Israelis for making some effort to do so.
I'll have you know that some countries never bother.
What proportion of people in the West Bank date back from before Israel took it over? 20%?10%? Given young populations, it's going to be far nearer the latter.
Those people - the vast majority of Palestinians - have been born in a State adminstered by Israel for a half century.
Israel needs to either: (a) regard them as Israelis with the same rights as every other Israeli, or (b) allow them their own State.
You know, I have some sympathy with the "ah, it's war and it takes time to sort out" view. And in 1980 you could make that case. You could maybe even make it in 1990.
But it's not 1990. It's 2023. The majority of people alive in the West Bank were not even born when the Oslo Accords were signed.
Yes. I don't disagree. The settlers should be removed and the Palestinians given a chance to govern on their own.
Thing is, you know what the definition of madness is, now, don't you.
Suppose you were an Israeli minding his own business in downtown Tel Aviv (does Tel Aviv have a downtown) and you had seen what happened in oh I don't know, say Gaza. What might your view on it all be.
Oh, I have total sympathy with the Israelis in Southern Israel who've been attacked by Hamas. And I believe we should cut their government a lot of slack in recovering the hostages,
But we also need to accept that the current Israeli government has no interest in even reducing settlement building, let alone dismantling or moving settlers, and that therefore a two state solution is not possible. Or even desired by those in power in Israel.
There will therefore continue to be an almost unlimited number of radicalised Palestinians who have every bit as good a reason to be angry as those Israelis.
They did precisely what you say they had no intention of doing. In Gaza. In 2005.
I would be overjoyed if that were to happen. Obviously, I would prefer it if it was not combined with the destruction of the international airport and the blockade of the port. You know, things which make it quite difficult to develop an economy
In the short run, Israel can - I'm sure - ensure a pliant Palestine via superior weapons, blockades and the like.
But that comes with a cost. It comes with the cost of Israel surrendering the moral high ground it has had for so long. The lives of Palestinians born inside Israeli administered Palestine are pretty shit. And while you can put a lot of that down to shitty Palestinian leadership, Israel cannot shirk all responsibility, because Palestine is not self governing.
Would you build a factory in Palestine to make T-Shirts, if you didn't know whether you could export them?
In the short run, Israel can - I'm sure - ensure a pliant Palestine via superior weapons, blockades and the like.
That didn't work in Gaza, so I really don't know why you'd think it'd work in the West Bank, which is much larger and has much more complicated terrain. There would be a huge onus on Jordanian forces to police their border effectively, which they simply aren't up to.
The simple fact is that a self-governing Palestinian state means Hamas (or other Iranian backed and funded terror groups) in charge, with their insistence on continuing the struggle until the state of Israel ceases to exist. As soon as they were in charge (which they could do either via the ballot box or by simple force) they would do exactly what they've spent the last 15+ years doing in Gaza: murdering any form of moderate Arab opposition, stealing from their own people, subverting any and all civilian infrastructure to the purpose of fighting an endless war with Israel.
As soon as someone figures out a way to stop all that from happening, the Palestinians can have their own state more or less immediately. There would be immense public support from Israelis to do so, regardless of what it cost in terms of settlement removal.
In the meantime, everything happening on the West Bank that you don't like is a direct consequence of two facts: 1) the PA cannot be relied upon to keep Israeli citizens safe, and 2) no-one in Israel seriously believes any of this is likely to change any time soon.
That would be a lot more persuasive an argument if Israel had not spent the last 20 years continually building out settlements in the West Bank.
Do you really think that that (a) increases support for Hamas and the destruction of Israel? or (b) diminishes it?
I think it makes absolutely no difference. Palestinian sentiment to Israel hasn't changed materially since 1948 (actually, since well before that). The policy of settlement building is just a reflection of the fact that it isn't going to, so why bother planning around it?
It’s notable that the ‘two-state’ solution is so often seen as resting upon ethnic cleansing.
There are plenty of Palestinians living in Israel, many of whom have citizenship. So there is no reason why Israelis cannot live in Palestine, and have citizenship. Of course, very many of them may well wish to relocate in the event that two states ever come about, and indeed the Israeli government may wish to provide financial assistance for those who do so. But the two-state solution isn’t going to get a happy birth if this requires some sort of religious apartheid.
The settlers are not inclined to live peacefully in a Palestinian state
It looks like the BBC, an institution known for its own issues with anti-semitism, have selected a candidate for Eurovision who seems to flirt with anti semitism.
As there is not the slightest doubt that Israel is an Apartheid State I don't know what the Telegraph is talking about. Do people still read the telegraph. Apart from a half decent film critic the rest seems to be simply manufactured nonsense.
Israeli Arabs have the same rights as Israeli Jews. There is a huge amount of doubt as to whether Israel is an apartheid state.
But it’s a legitimate political debate (as is the contention - in my view false - that Israel is committing genocide). The use of the term “Zionist propaganda” is potentially more troubling but it is context dependent and you can’t tell without that.
It’s the Telegraph muck raking
While Israel proper is not an apartheid State, the West Bank certainly is.
If you are a Palestinian born in the Israeli administered West Bank, then you do not have the same rights as a Jew born there.
What differences are there? Isn't the West Bank governed by the PA.
The PA has some powers, but not a lot. It's like saying "well, you get a vote for your local parish council".
For example, the Palestinian Authority has no authority to stop Israel building new settlements in... errr... areas previously controlled by the Palestinian Authority.
And Israeli soldiers are quite free to enter Palestinian Authority controlled towns. While PA policy are certainly not free to enter Israeli settlements.
The whole road network is designed around the Israeli settlers. Getting from one Palestinian village to another can take hours.
You cannot spend time in the West Bank, and not see that it is controlled by Israel.
Yes the settlements absolutely must stop and should be on the table in any serious negotiation.
But what is the difference in individual rights.
Ummmm:
So, South African apartheit was characterised by a few elements:
(1) While everyone got a vote, you only got to vote for the "parliament" for your race, and the white parliament was the one with all the money and power. That is pretty much exactly the situation with Palestinians versus Jews in the West Bank.
(2) There were severe restrictions on where people of colour were allowed to own property and to live. That is, again, exactly the same as the situation in the West Bank.
(3) The provision of basic services - transport, health, power, and water - was very different depending on whether you were in a black or a white area. That is, again, exactly the same in the West Bank.
Now, one might argue that it is the job of Palestinians to better themselves, and only once they have done so and proved themselves to not be a threat to the Jews can they be given more rights.
That argument was also made, many times, in the South African apartheit era. South Africa's blacks would need to earn the vote.
Thanks.
Yes that does seem restrictive. But I suppose it takes time to normalise lands acquired in war. We should perhaps commend the Israelis for making some effort to do so.
I'll have you know that some countries never bother.
What proportion of people in the West Bank date back from before Israel took it over? 20%?10%? Given young populations, it's going to be far nearer the latter.
Those people - the vast majority of Palestinians - have been born in a State adminstered by Israel for a half century.
Israel needs to either: (a) regard them as Israelis with the same rights as every other Israeli, or (b) allow them their own State.
You know, I have some sympathy with the "ah, it's war and it takes time to sort out" view. And in 1980 you could make that case. You could maybe even make it in 1990.
But it's not 1990. It's 2023. The majority of people alive in the West Bank were not even born when the Oslo Accords were signed.
Amazing how despite numerous lessons from history*, nations / ethnic groups / communities still feel that indefinite suppression of other peoples can be a permanent way forward.
(*Soviet Russia, British Empire, Apartheid South Africa, Ulster Protestants, China towards Uyghur. I have no doubt missed many even more egregious examples.)
Well, it can be. Ethnic cleansing settles the issue forever.
The alternative is to assimilate the subject people, but that usually requires giving them a stake in the system.
Perhaps the lesson is that to be successful it needs to be absolute oppression or active integration. The former = ethnic cleansing and is generally frowned upon now of course.
The Norman invasion might be an example of severe oppression short of ethnic cleansing that was never really overthrown, I guess?
The Normans were successful imperialists because they gradually assimilated to the local population.
There are many different forms of imperialism, and many reasons why some forms work, and others fail.
Israel's treatment of the West Bank seems designed to maximise the locals' hated for them, while doing nothing to diminish their capacity to threaten Israel. It's worse than a crime, it's a blunder.
It looks like the BBC, an institution known for its own issues with anti-semitism, have selected a candidate for Eurovision who seems to flirt with anti semitism.
As there is not the slightest doubt that Israel is an Apartheid State I don't know what the Telegraph is talking about. Do people still read the telegraph. Apart from a half decent film critic the rest seems to be simply manufactured nonsense.
Israeli Arabs have the same rights as Israeli Jews. There is a huge amount of doubt as to whether Israel is an apartheid state.
But it’s a legitimate political debate (as is the contention - in my view false - that Israel is committing genocide). The use of the term “Zionist propaganda” is potentially more troubling but it is context dependent and you can’t tell without that.
It’s the Telegraph muck raking
While Israel proper is not an apartheid State, the West Bank certainly is.
If you are a Palestinian born in the Israeli administered West Bank, then you do not have the same rights as a Jew born there.
What differences are there? Isn't the West Bank governed by the PA.
The PA has some powers, but not a lot. It's like saying "well, you get a vote for your local parish council".
For example, the Palestinian Authority has no authority to stop Israel building new settlements in... errr... areas previously controlled by the Palestinian Authority.
And Israeli soldiers are quite free to enter Palestinian Authority controlled towns. While PA policy are certainly not free to enter Israeli settlements.
The whole road network is designed around the Israeli settlers. Getting from one Palestinian village to another can take hours.
You cannot spend time in the West Bank, and not see that it is controlled by Israel.
Yes the settlements absolutely must stop and should be on the table in any serious negotiation.
But what is the difference in individual rights.
Ummmm:
So, South African apartheit was characterised by a few elements:
(1) While everyone got a vote, you only got to vote for the "parliament" for your race, and the white parliament was the one with all the money and power. That is pretty much exactly the situation with Palestinians versus Jews in the West Bank.
(2) There were severe restrictions on where people of colour were allowed to own property and to live. That is, again, exactly the same as the situation in the West Bank.
(3) The provision of basic services - transport, health, power, and water - was very different depending on whether you were in a black or a white area. That is, again, exactly the same in the West Bank.
Now, one might argue that it is the job of Palestinians to better themselves, and only once they have done so and proved themselves to not be a threat to the Jews can they be given more rights.
That argument was also made, many times, in the South African apartheit era. South Africa's blacks would need to earn the vote.
Thanks.
Yes that does seem restrictive. But I suppose it takes time to normalise lands acquired in war. We should perhaps commend the Israelis for making some effort to do so.
I'll have you know that some countries never bother.
What proportion of people in the West Bank date back from before Israel took it over? 20%?10%? Given young populations, it's going to be far nearer the latter.
Those people - the vast majority of Palestinians - have been born in a State adminstered by Israel for a half century.
Israel needs to either: (a) regard them as Israelis with the same rights as every other Israeli, or (b) allow them their own State.
You know, I have some sympathy with the "ah, it's war and it takes time to sort out" view. And in 1980 you could make that case. You could maybe even make it in 1990.
But it's not 1990. It's 2023. The majority of people alive in the West Bank were not even born when the Oslo Accords were signed.
Yes. I don't disagree. The settlers should be removed and the Palestinians given a chance to govern on their own.
Thing is, you know what the definition of madness is, now, don't you.
Suppose you were an Israeli minding his own business in downtown Tel Aviv (does Tel Aviv have a downtown) and you had seen what happened in oh I don't know, say Gaza. What might your view on it all be.
Oh, I have total sympathy with the Israelis in Southern Israel who've been attacked by Hamas. And I believe we should cut their government a lot of slack in recovering the hostages,
But we also need to accept that the current Israeli government has no interest in even reducing settlement building, let alone dismantling or moving settlers, and that therefore a two state solution is not possible. Or even desired by those in power in Israel.
There will therefore continue to be an almost unlimited number of radicalised Palestinians who have every bit as good a reason to be angry as those Israelis.
They did precisely what you say they had no intention of doing. In Gaza. In 2005.
I would be overjoyed if that were to happen. Obviously, I would prefer it if it was not combined with the destruction of the international airport and the blockade of the port. You know, things which make it quite difficult to develop an economy
In the short run, Israel can - I'm sure - ensure a pliant Palestine via superior weapons, blockades and the like.
But that comes with a cost. It comes with the cost of Israel surrendering the moral high ground it has had for so long. The lives of Palestinians born inside Israeli administered Palestine are pretty shit. And while you can put a lot of that down to shitty Palestinian leadership, Israel cannot shirk all responsibility, because Palestine is not self governing.
Would you build a factory in Palestine to make T-Shirts, if you didn't know whether you could export them?
There were plans in 2005 to develop the port. Then Hamas were elected. Why are you studiously ignoring the fact that a party was elected into power in Gaza that was sworn to the destruction of Israel. Why do you think that shouldn't have been a factor in Israel's behaviour.
Take out Sharon handing back Gaza and trying to develop it and I wouldn't have a leg to stand on in all my arguments. But he did and they did so I do.
You seem keen to ignore this critical factor in recent history.
And you are choosing to be equally blind to the people in Israel's current government who have the same attitude to the existence of Palestine, that Hamas has to the existence of Israel.
As I've said - ad nauseum - I have enormous sympathy with both sides. And Israel has every right to defend itself against Hamas's attacks.
But we can't be hypocrites here. We have to hold both sides to the same standards.
We do. We are also looking at root causes and "people in Israel's current government" vs the government mission of Hamas.
I absolutely don't hold the Israeli government and Hamas to be equivalent.
It looks like the BBC, an institution known for its own issues with anti-semitism, have selected a candidate for Eurovision who seems to flirt with anti semitism.
As there is not the slightest doubt that Israel is an Apartheid State I don't know what the Telegraph is talking about. Do people still read the telegraph. Apart from a half decent film critic the rest seems to be simply manufactured nonsense.
Israeli Arabs have the same rights as Israeli Jews. There is a huge amount of doubt as to whether Israel is an apartheid state.
But it’s a legitimate political debate (as is the contention - in my view false - that Israel is committing genocide). The use of the term “Zionist propaganda” is potentially more troubling but it is context dependent and you can’t tell without that.
It’s the Telegraph muck raking
While Israel proper is not an apartheid State, the West Bank certainly is.
If you are a Palestinian born in the Israeli administered West Bank, then you do not have the same rights as a Jew born there.
What differences are there? Isn't the West Bank governed by the PA.
The PA has some powers, but not a lot. It's like saying "well, you get a vote for your local parish council".
For example, the Palestinian Authority has no authority to stop Israel building new settlements in... errr... areas previously controlled by the Palestinian Authority.
And Israeli soldiers are quite free to enter Palestinian Authority controlled towns. While PA policy are certainly not free to enter Israeli settlements.
The whole road network is designed around the Israeli settlers. Getting from one Palestinian village to another can take hours.
You cannot spend time in the West Bank, and not see that it is controlled by Israel.
Yes the settlements absolutely must stop and should be on the table in any serious negotiation.
But what is the difference in individual rights.
Ummmm:
So, South African apartheit was characterised by a few elements:
(1) While everyone got a vote, you only got to vote for the "parliament" for your race, and the white parliament was the one with all the money and power. That is pretty much exactly the situation with Palestinians versus Jews in the West Bank.
(2) There were severe restrictions on where people of colour were allowed to own property and to live. That is, again, exactly the same as the situation in the West Bank.
(3) The provision of basic services - transport, health, power, and water - was very different depending on whether you were in a black or a white area. That is, again, exactly the same in the West Bank.
Now, one might argue that it is the job of Palestinians to better themselves, and only once they have done so and proved themselves to not be a threat to the Jews can they be given more rights.
That argument was also made, many times, in the South African apartheit era. South Africa's blacks would need to earn the vote.
Thanks.
Yes that does seem restrictive. But I suppose it takes time to normalise lands acquired in war. We should perhaps commend the Israelis for making some effort to do so.
I'll have you know that some countries never bother.
What proportion of people in the West Bank date back from before Israel took it over? 20%?10%? Given young populations, it's going to be far nearer the latter.
Those people - the vast majority of Palestinians - have been born in a State adminstered by Israel for a half century.
Israel needs to either: (a) regard them as Israelis with the same rights as every other Israeli, or (b) allow them their own State.
You know, I have some sympathy with the "ah, it's war and it takes time to sort out" view. And in 1980 you could make that case. You could maybe even make it in 1990.
But it's not 1990. It's 2023. The majority of people alive in the West Bank were not even born when the Oslo Accords were signed.
Yes. I don't disagree. The settlers should be removed and the Palestinians given a chance to govern on their own.
Thing is, you know what the definition of madness is, now, don't you.
Suppose you were an Israeli minding his own business in downtown Tel Aviv (does Tel Aviv have a downtown) and you had seen what happened in oh I don't know, say Gaza. What might your view on it all be.
Oh, I have total sympathy with the Israelis in Southern Israel who've been attacked by Hamas. And I believe we should cut their government a lot of slack in recovering the hostages,
But we also need to accept that the current Israeli government has no interest in even reducing settlement building, let alone dismantling or moving settlers, and that therefore a two state solution is not possible. Or even desired by those in power in Israel.
There will therefore continue to be an almost unlimited number of radicalised Palestinians who have every bit as good a reason to be angry as those Israelis.
They did precisely what you say they had no intention of doing. In Gaza. In 2005.
I would be overjoyed if that were to happen. Obviously, I would prefer it if it was not combined with the destruction of the international airport and the blockade of the port. You know, things which make it quite difficult to develop an economy
In the short run, Israel can - I'm sure - ensure a pliant Palestine via superior weapons, blockades and the like.
But that comes with a cost. It comes with the cost of Israel surrendering the moral high ground it has had for so long. The lives of Palestinians born inside Israeli administered Palestine are pretty shit. And while you can put a lot of that down to shitty Palestinian leadership, Israel cannot shirk all responsibility, because Palestine is not self governing.
Would you build a factory in Palestine to make T-Shirts, if you didn't know whether you could export them?
In the short run, Israel can - I'm sure - ensure a pliant Palestine via superior weapons, blockades and the like.
That didn't work in Gaza, so I really don't know why you'd think it'd work in the West Bank, which is much larger and has much more complicated terrain. There would be a huge onus on Jordanian forces to police their border effectively, which they simply aren't up to.
The simple fact is that a self-governing Palestinian state means Hamas (or other Iranian backed and funded terror groups) in charge, with their insistence on continuing the struggle until the state of Israel ceases to exist. As soon as they were in charge (which they could do either via the ballot box or by simple force) they would do exactly what they've spent the last 15+ years doing in Gaza: murdering any form of moderate Arab opposition, stealing from their own people, subverting any and all civilian infrastructure to the purpose of fighting an endless war with Israel.
As soon as someone figures out a way to stop all that from happening, the Palestinians can have their own state more or less immediately. There would be immense public support from Israelis to do so, regardless of what it cost in terms of settlement removal.
In the meantime, everything happening on the West Bank that you don't like is a direct consequence of two facts: 1) the PA cannot be relied upon to keep Israeli citizens safe, and 2) no-one in Israel seriously believes any of this is likely to change any time soon.
That would be a lot more persuasive an argument if Israel had not spent the last 20 years continually building out settlements in the West Bank.
Do you really think that that (a) increases support for Hamas and the destruction of Israel? or (b) diminishes it?
It may seems a technical point, but it is important.
It’s not *Israel* that is building settlements in the West Bank
It’s nut job religious extremists doing so, often through violence and theft. (How they align that with religious principles is a question for another day).
The Israeli government is guilty of turning a blind eye, although their dependence on settler voters in the Knesset makes it politically impossible for them to intervene.
It looks like the BBC, an institution known for its own issues with anti-semitism, have selected a candidate for Eurovision who seems to flirt with anti semitism.
As there is not the slightest doubt that Israel is an Apartheid State I don't know what the Telegraph is talking about. Do people still read the telegraph. Apart from a half decent film critic the rest seems to be simply manufactured nonsense.
Israeli Arabs have the same rights as Israeli Jews. There is a huge amount of doubt as to whether Israel is an apartheid state.
But it’s a legitimate political debate (as is the contention - in my view false - that Israel is committing genocide). The use of the term “Zionist propaganda” is potentially more troubling but it is context dependent and you can’t tell without that.
It’s the Telegraph muck raking
While Israel proper is not an apartheid State, the West Bank certainly is.
If you are a Palestinian born in the Israeli administered West Bank, then you do not have the same rights as a Jew born there.
What differences are there? Isn't the West Bank governed by the PA.
The PA has some powers, but not a lot. It's like saying "well, you get a vote for your local parish council".
For example, the Palestinian Authority has no authority to stop Israel building new settlements in... errr... areas previously controlled by the Palestinian Authority.
And Israeli soldiers are quite free to enter Palestinian Authority controlled towns. While PA policy are certainly not free to enter Israeli settlements.
The whole road network is designed around the Israeli settlers. Getting from one Palestinian village to another can take hours.
You cannot spend time in the West Bank, and not see that it is controlled by Israel.
Yes the settlements absolutely must stop and should be on the table in any serious negotiation.
But what is the difference in individual rights.
Ummmm:
So, South African apartheit was characterised by a few elements:
(1) While everyone got a vote, you only got to vote for the "parliament" for your race, and the white parliament was the one with all the money and power. That is pretty much exactly the situation with Palestinians versus Jews in the West Bank.
(2) There were severe restrictions on where people of colour were allowed to own property and to live. That is, again, exactly the same as the situation in the West Bank.
(3) The provision of basic services - transport, health, power, and water - was very different depending on whether you were in a black or a white area. That is, again, exactly the same in the West Bank.
Now, one might argue that it is the job of Palestinians to better themselves, and only once they have done so and proved themselves to not be a threat to the Jews can they be given more rights.
That argument was also made, many times, in the South African apartheit era. South Africa's blacks would need to earn the vote.
Thanks.
Yes that does seem restrictive. But I suppose it takes time to normalise lands acquired in war. We should perhaps commend the Israelis for making some effort to do so.
I'll have you know that some countries never bother.
What proportion of people in the West Bank date back from before Israel took it over? 20%?10%? Given young populations, it's going to be far nearer the latter.
Those people - the vast majority of Palestinians - have been born in a State adminstered by Israel for a half century.
Israel needs to either: (a) regard them as Israelis with the same rights as every other Israeli, or (b) allow them their own State.
You know, I have some sympathy with the "ah, it's war and it takes time to sort out" view. And in 1980 you could make that case. You could maybe even make it in 1990.
But it's not 1990. It's 2023. The majority of people alive in the West Bank were not even born when the Oslo Accords were signed.
Yes. I don't disagree. The settlers should be removed and the Palestinians given a chance to govern on their own.
Thing is, you know what the definition of madness is, now, don't you.
Suppose you were an Israeli minding his own business in downtown Tel Aviv (does Tel Aviv have a downtown) and you had seen what happened in oh I don't know, say Gaza. What might your view on it all be.
Oh, I have total sympathy with the Israelis in Southern Israel who've been attacked by Hamas. And I believe we should cut their government a lot of slack in recovering the hostages,
But we also need to accept that the current Israeli government has no interest in even reducing settlement building, let alone dismantling or moving settlers, and that therefore a two state solution is not possible. Or even desired by those in power in Israel.
There will therefore continue to be an almost unlimited number of radicalised Palestinians who have every bit as good a reason to be angry as those Israelis.
They did precisely what you say they had no intention of doing. In Gaza. In 2005.
I would be overjoyed if that were to happen. Obviously, I would prefer it if it was not combined with the destruction of the international airport and the blockade of the port. You know, things which make it quite difficult to develop an economy
In the short run, Israel can - I'm sure - ensure a pliant Palestine via superior weapons, blockades and the like.
But that comes with a cost. It comes with the cost of Israel surrendering the moral high ground it has had for so long. The lives of Palestinians born inside Israeli administered Palestine are pretty shit. And while you can put a lot of that down to shitty Palestinian leadership, Israel cannot shirk all responsibility, because Palestine is not self governing.
Would you build a factory in Palestine to make T-Shirts, if you didn't know whether you could export them?
There were plans in 2005 to develop the port. Then Hamas were elected. Why are you studiously ignoring the fact that a party was elected into power in Gaza that was sworn to the destruction of Israel. Why do you think that shouldn't have been a factor in Israel's behaviour.
Take out Sharon handing back Gaza and trying to develop it and I wouldn't have a leg to stand on in all my arguments. But he did and they did so I do.
You seem keen to ignore this critical factor in recent history.
And you are choosing to be equally blind to the people in Israel's current government who have the same attitude to the existence of Palestine, that Hamas has to the existence of Israel.
As I've said - ad nauseum - I have enormous sympathy with both sides. And Israel has every right to defend itself against Hamas's attacks.
But we can't be hypocrites here. We have to hold both sides to the same standards.
After the next election, at this rate we are going to see the first government in a long time that has been elected in Great Britain by all constituent countries.
2005 was the last time if you are counting MPs and 2001 if counting votes. I don't consider that to be that long ago in terms of General Elections.
After the next election, at this rate we are going to see the first government in a long time that has been elected in Great Britain by all constituent countries.
2005 was the last time if you are counting MPs and 2001 if counting votes. I don't consider that to be that long ago in terms of General Elections.
In local UK news we’re now 3 days into what will certainly be the most impressive sustained period of wind power dominating the grid to date.
Currently generating 21gw of power from wind, and only 2.6gw from any form of fossil fuel (CCGT).
There were a rash of stories last week about the grid not being able to cope with surges in wind power and the need to switch many of the turbines off as a result. It was alleged that the money wasted (the turbine owners still get paid) was adding £40 onto the average bill.
Given our massive investment in wind this seemed a somewhat suboptimal state of affairs.
Then we need a massive investment in battery (or pumped, or big weights up and down mineshafts) storage.
The quickest return is on high voltage interconnects.
A European grid with sufficient capacity would cut such losses by a substantial amount, and pay for itself in perhaps half a decade - much quicker than any of the other alternatives. For now, we don't even have a UK wide grid with enough capacity.
Batteries, for now, are too expensive for anything but local, short term storage (and EVs will probably add capacity faster than pure storage projects).
Awaiting the inevitable reaction from the usual suspects:
Pumped Scottish based storage for an independent Scotland = laudable aim for progress to Net Zero.
Pumped Scottish based storage for the UK market = colonialist exploitation.
It looks like the BBC, an institution known for its own issues with anti-semitism, have selected a candidate for Eurovision who seems to flirt with anti semitism.
As there is not the slightest doubt that Israel is an Apartheid State I don't know what the Telegraph is talking about. Do people still read the telegraph. Apart from a half decent film critic the rest seems to be simply manufactured nonsense.
Israeli Arabs have the same rights as Israeli Jews. There is a huge amount of doubt as to whether Israel is an apartheid state.
But it’s a legitimate political debate (as is the contention - in my view false - that Israel is committing genocide). The use of the term “Zionist propaganda” is potentially more troubling but it is context dependent and you can’t tell without that.
It’s the Telegraph muck raking
While Israel proper is not an apartheid State, the West Bank certainly is.
If you are a Palestinian born in the Israeli administered West Bank, then you do not have the same rights as a Jew born there.
What differences are there? Isn't the West Bank governed by the PA.
The PA has some powers, but not a lot. It's like saying "well, you get a vote for your local parish council".
For example, the Palestinian Authority has no authority to stop Israel building new settlements in... errr... areas previously controlled by the Palestinian Authority.
And Israeli soldiers are quite free to enter Palestinian Authority controlled towns. While PA policy are certainly not free to enter Israeli settlements.
The whole road network is designed around the Israeli settlers. Getting from one Palestinian village to another can take hours.
You cannot spend time in the West Bank, and not see that it is controlled by Israel.
Yes the settlements absolutely must stop and should be on the table in any serious negotiation.
But what is the difference in individual rights.
Ummmm:
So, South African apartheit was characterised by a few elements:
(1) While everyone got a vote, you only got to vote for the "parliament" for your race, and the white parliament was the one with all the money and power. That is pretty much exactly the situation with Palestinians versus Jews in the West Bank.
(2) There were severe restrictions on where people of colour were allowed to own property and to live. That is, again, exactly the same as the situation in the West Bank.
(3) The provision of basic services - transport, health, power, and water - was very different depending on whether you were in a black or a white area. That is, again, exactly the same in the West Bank.
Now, one might argue that it is the job of Palestinians to better themselves, and only once they have done so and proved themselves to not be a threat to the Jews can they be given more rights.
That argument was also made, many times, in the South African apartheit era. South Africa's blacks would need to earn the vote.
Thanks.
Yes that does seem restrictive. But I suppose it takes time to normalise lands acquired in war. We should perhaps commend the Israelis for making some effort to do so.
I'll have you know that some countries never bother.
What proportion of people in the West Bank date back from before Israel took it over? 20%?10%? Given young populations, it's going to be far nearer the latter.
Those people - the vast majority of Palestinians - have been born in a State adminstered by Israel for a half century.
Israel needs to either: (a) regard them as Israelis with the same rights as every other Israeli, or (b) allow them their own State.
You know, I have some sympathy with the "ah, it's war and it takes time to sort out" view. And in 1980 you could make that case. You could maybe even make it in 1990.
But it's not 1990. It's 2023. The majority of people alive in the West Bank were not even born when the Oslo Accords were signed.
Yes. I don't disagree. The settlers should be removed and the Palestinians given a chance to govern on their own.
Thing is, you know what the definition of madness is, now, don't you.
Suppose you were an Israeli minding his own business in downtown Tel Aviv (does Tel Aviv have a downtown) and you had seen what happened in oh I don't know, say Gaza. What might your view on it all be.
Oh, I have total sympathy with the Israelis in Southern Israel who've been attacked by Hamas. And I believe we should cut their government a lot of slack in recovering the hostages,
But we also need to accept that the current Israeli government has no interest in even reducing settlement building, let alone dismantling or moving settlers, and that therefore a two state solution is not possible. Or even desired by those in power in Israel.
There will therefore continue to be an almost unlimited number of radicalised Palestinians who have every bit as good a reason to be angry as those Israelis.
They did precisely what you say they had no intention of doing. In Gaza. In 2005.
I would be overjoyed if that were to happen. Obviously, I would prefer it if it was not combined with the destruction of the international airport and the blockade of the port. You know, things which make it quite difficult to develop an economy
In the short run, Israel can - I'm sure - ensure a pliant Palestine via superior weapons, blockades and the like.
But that comes with a cost. It comes with the cost of Israel surrendering the moral high ground it has had for so long. The lives of Palestinians born inside Israeli administered Palestine are pretty shit. And while you can put a lot of that down to shitty Palestinian leadership, Israel cannot shirk all responsibility, because Palestine is not self governing.
Would you build a factory in Palestine to make T-Shirts, if you didn't know whether you could export them?
In the short run, Israel can - I'm sure - ensure a pliant Palestine via superior weapons, blockades and the like.
That didn't work in Gaza, so I really don't know why you'd think it'd work in the West Bank, which is much larger and has much more complicated terrain. There would be a huge onus on Jordanian forces to police their border effectively, which they simply aren't up to.
The simple fact is that a self-governing Palestinian state means Hamas (or other Iranian backed and funded terror groups) in charge, with their insistence on continuing the struggle until the state of Israel ceases to exist. As soon as they were in charge (which they could do either via the ballot box or by simple force) they would do exactly what they've spent the last 15+ years doing in Gaza: murdering any form of moderate Arab opposition, stealing from their own people, subverting any and all civilian infrastructure to the purpose of fighting an endless war with Israel.
As soon as someone figures out a way to stop all that from happening, the Palestinians can have their own state more or less immediately. There would be immense public support from Israelis to do so, regardless of what it cost in terms of settlement removal.
In the meantime, everything happening on the West Bank that you don't like is a direct consequence of two facts: 1) the PA cannot be relied upon to keep Israeli citizens safe, and 2) no-one in Israel seriously believes any of this is likely to change any time soon.
That would be a lot more persuasive an argument if Israel had not spent the last 20 years continually building out settlements in the West Bank.
Do you really think that that (a) increases support for Hamas and the destruction of Israel? or (b) diminishes it?
It may seems a technical point, but it is important.
It’s not *Israel* that is building settlements in the West Bank
It’s nut job religious extremists doing so, often through violence and theft. (How they align that with religious principles is a question for another day).
The Israeli government is guilty of turning a blind eye, although their dependence on settler voters in the Knesset makes it politically impossible for them to intervene.
There are many stories along these lines which suggest it's a great deal more than 'turning a blind eye', and has been for some time:
Lines Increasingly Blurred Between Soldiers and Settlers in the West Bank https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/11/09/west-bank-palestinians-israeli-settlers-attacks-idf/ ..The blurring of lines between the army and the settlers goes back at least two decades. From the 2000s onwards, there has been a bifurcation within the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), leading to the emergence of two distinct armies: the official army and a secondary policing force dedicated to operations in the Israeli-controlled West Bank.
This policing army is comprised of several elements: an infantry brigade permanently stationed in the region; units of the border police; and settler militias, which are part of what are known as territorial defense units, which are armed and trained by the IDF. The forces of the policing army are bolstered by the rotational deployment of regular combat brigades from the official IDF.
This policing army, ostensibly under formal political control, has effectively morphed into a quasi-militia entity. Its own activities in the West Bank suggest that its underlying goal is the consolidation of Israel’s control over the West Bank, particularly Area C, which encompasses both the Israeli settlements and Palestinian-inhabited regions. This strategy serves as an informal means of annexation, circumventing the need for a formal annexation that would likely face international resistance...
It looks like the BBC, an institution known for its own issues with anti-semitism, have selected a candidate for Eurovision who seems to flirt with anti semitism.
As there is not the slightest doubt that Israel is an Apartheid State I don't know what the Telegraph is talking about. Do people still read the telegraph. Apart from a half decent film critic the rest seems to be simply manufactured nonsense.
Israeli Arabs have the same rights as Israeli Jews. There is a huge amount of doubt as to whether Israel is an apartheid state.
But it’s a legitimate political debate (as is the contention - in my view false - that Israel is committing genocide). The use of the term “Zionist propaganda” is potentially more troubling but it is context dependent and you can’t tell without that.
It’s the Telegraph muck raking
While Israel proper is not an apartheid State, the West Bank certainly is.
If you are a Palestinian born in the Israeli administered West Bank, then you do not have the same rights as a Jew born there.
What differences are there? Isn't the West Bank governed by the PA.
The PA has some powers, but not a lot. It's like saying "well, you get a vote for your local parish council".
For example, the Palestinian Authority has no authority to stop Israel building new settlements in... errr... areas previously controlled by the Palestinian Authority.
And Israeli soldiers are quite free to enter Palestinian Authority controlled towns. While PA policy are certainly not free to enter Israeli settlements.
The whole road network is designed around the Israeli settlers. Getting from one Palestinian village to another can take hours.
You cannot spend time in the West Bank, and not see that it is controlled by Israel.
Yes the settlements absolutely must stop and should be on the table in any serious negotiation.
But what is the difference in individual rights.
Ummmm:
So, South African apartheit was characterised by a few elements:
(1) While everyone got a vote, you only got to vote for the "parliament" for your race, and the white parliament was the one with all the money and power. That is pretty much exactly the situation with Palestinians versus Jews in the West Bank.
(2) There were severe restrictions on where people of colour were allowed to own property and to live. That is, again, exactly the same as the situation in the West Bank.
(3) The provision of basic services - transport, health, power, and water - was very different depending on whether you were in a black or a white area. That is, again, exactly the same in the West Bank.
Now, one might argue that it is the job of Palestinians to better themselves, and only once they have done so and proved themselves to not be a threat to the Jews can they be given more rights.
That argument was also made, many times, in the South African apartheit era. South Africa's blacks would need to earn the vote.
Thanks.
Yes that does seem restrictive. But I suppose it takes time to normalise lands acquired in war. We should perhaps commend the Israelis for making some effort to do so.
I'll have you know that some countries never bother.
What proportion of people in the West Bank date back from before Israel took it over? 20%?10%? Given young populations, it's going to be far nearer the latter.
Those people - the vast majority of Palestinians - have been born in a State adminstered by Israel for a half century.
Israel needs to either: (a) regard them as Israelis with the same rights as every other Israeli, or (b) allow them their own State.
You know, I have some sympathy with the "ah, it's war and it takes time to sort out" view. And in 1980 you could make that case. You could maybe even make it in 1990.
But it's not 1990. It's 2023. The majority of people alive in the West Bank were not even born when the Oslo Accords were signed.
Yes. I don't disagree. The settlers should be removed and the Palestinians given a chance to govern on their own.
Thing is, you know what the definition of madness is, now, don't you.
Suppose you were an Israeli minding his own business in downtown Tel Aviv (does Tel Aviv have a downtown) and you had seen what happened in oh I don't know, say Gaza. What might your view on it all be.
Oh, I have total sympathy with the Israelis in Southern Israel who've been attacked by Hamas. And I believe we should cut their government a lot of slack in recovering the hostages,
But we also need to accept that the current Israeli government has no interest in even reducing settlement building, let alone dismantling or moving settlers, and that therefore a two state solution is not possible. Or even desired by those in power in Israel.
There will therefore continue to be an almost unlimited number of radicalised Palestinians who have every bit as good a reason to be angry as those Israelis.
They did precisely what you say they had no intention of doing. In Gaza. In 2005.
I would be overjoyed if that were to happen. Obviously, I would prefer it if it was not combined with the destruction of the international airport and the blockade of the port. You know, things which make it quite difficult to develop an economy
In the short run, Israel can - I'm sure - ensure a pliant Palestine via superior weapons, blockades and the like.
But that comes with a cost. It comes with the cost of Israel surrendering the moral high ground it has had for so long. The lives of Palestinians born inside Israeli administered Palestine are pretty shit. And while you can put a lot of that down to shitty Palestinian leadership, Israel cannot shirk all responsibility, because Palestine is not self governing.
Would you build a factory in Palestine to make T-Shirts, if you didn't know whether you could export them?
In the short run, Israel can - I'm sure - ensure a pliant Palestine via superior weapons, blockades and the like.
That didn't work in Gaza, so I really don't know why you'd think it'd work in the West Bank, which is much larger and has much more complicated terrain. There would be a huge onus on Jordanian forces to police their border effectively, which they simply aren't up to.
The simple fact is that a self-governing Palestinian state means Hamas (or other Iranian backed and funded terror groups) in charge, with their insistence on continuing the struggle until the state of Israel ceases to exist. As soon as they were in charge (which they could do either via the ballot box or by simple force) they would do exactly what they've spent the last 15+ years doing in Gaza: murdering any form of moderate Arab opposition, stealing from their own people, subverting any and all civilian infrastructure to the purpose of fighting an endless war with Israel.
As soon as someone figures out a way to stop all that from happening, the Palestinians can have their own state more or less immediately. There would be immense public support from Israelis to do so, regardless of what it cost in terms of settlement removal.
In the meantime, everything happening on the West Bank that you don't like is a direct consequence of two facts: 1) the PA cannot be relied upon to keep Israeli citizens safe, and 2) no-one in Israel seriously believes any of this is likely to change any time soon.
That would be a lot more persuasive an argument if Israel had not spent the last 20 years continually building out settlements in the West Bank.
Do you really think that that (a) increases support for Hamas and the destruction of Israel? or (b) diminishes it?
It may seems a technical point, but it is important.
It’s not *Israel* that is building settlements in the West Bank
It’s nut job religious extremists doing so, often through violence and theft. (How they align that with religious principles is a question for another day).
The Israeli government is guilty of turning a blind eye, although their dependence on settler voters in the Knesset makes it politically impossible for them to intervene.
They are doing a lot more than turning a blind eye. They are providing military outposts to ensure that when the settlers randomly shoot Palestinians to drive them off the land, the Palestinians are not able to shoot back.
After the next election, at this rate we are going to see the first government in a long time that has been elected in Great Britain by all constituent countries.
2005 was the last time if you are counting MPs and 2001 if counting votes. I don't consider that to be that long ago in terms of General Elections.
In local UK news we’re now 3 days into what will certainly be the most impressive sustained period of wind power dominating the grid to date.
Currently generating 21gw of power from wind, and only 2.6gw from any form of fossil fuel (CCGT).
There were a rash of stories last week about the grid not being able to cope with surges in wind power and the need to switch many of the turbines off as a result. It was alleged that the money wasted (the turbine owners still get paid) was adding £40 onto the average bill.
Given our massive investment in wind this seemed a somewhat suboptimal state of affairs.
Then we need a massive investment in battery (or pumped, or big weights up and down mineshafts) storage.
The quickest return is on high voltage interconnects.
A European grid with sufficient capacity would cut such losses by a substantial amount, and pay for itself in perhaps half a decade - much quicker than any of the other alternatives. For now, we don't even have a UK wide grid with enough capacity.
Batteries, for now, are too expensive for anything but local, short term storage (and EVs will probably add capacity faster than pure storage projects).
Awaiting the inevitable reaction from the usual suspects:
Pumped Scottish based storage for an independent Scotland = laudable aim for progress to Net Zero.
Pumped Scottish based storage for the UK market = colonialist exploitation.
I would have thought that Scottish enterprises building valuable facilities in Scotland would tend to help rather than hinder any case for Scottish independence. I don't see it as that kind of issue at all, FWIW.
It looks like the BBC, an institution known for its own issues with anti-semitism, have selected a candidate for Eurovision who seems to flirt with anti semitism.
As there is not the slightest doubt that Israel is an Apartheid State I don't know what the Telegraph is talking about. Do people still read the telegraph. Apart from a half decent film critic the rest seems to be simply manufactured nonsense.
Israeli Arabs have the same rights as Israeli Jews. There is a huge amount of doubt as to whether Israel is an apartheid state.
But it’s a legitimate political debate (as is the contention - in my view false - that Israel is committing genocide). The use of the term “Zionist propaganda” is potentially more troubling but it is context dependent and you can’t tell without that.
It’s the Telegraph muck raking
While Israel proper is not an apartheid State, the West Bank certainly is.
If you are a Palestinian born in the Israeli administered West Bank, then you do not have the same rights as a Jew born there.
What differences are there? Isn't the West Bank governed by the PA.
The PA has some powers, but not a lot. It's like saying "well, you get a vote for your local parish council".
For example, the Palestinian Authority has no authority to stop Israel building new settlements in... errr... areas previously controlled by the Palestinian Authority.
And Israeli soldiers are quite free to enter Palestinian Authority controlled towns. While PA policy are certainly not free to enter Israeli settlements.
The whole road network is designed around the Israeli settlers. Getting from one Palestinian village to another can take hours.
You cannot spend time in the West Bank, and not see that it is controlled by Israel.
Yes the settlements absolutely must stop and should be on the table in any serious negotiation.
But what is the difference in individual rights.
Ummmm:
So, South African apartheit was characterised by a few elements:
(1) While everyone got a vote, you only got to vote for the "parliament" for your race, and the white parliament was the one with all the money and power. That is pretty much exactly the situation with Palestinians versus Jews in the West Bank.
(2) There were severe restrictions on where people of colour were allowed to own property and to live. That is, again, exactly the same as the situation in the West Bank.
(3) The provision of basic services - transport, health, power, and water - was very different depending on whether you were in a black or a white area. That is, again, exactly the same in the West Bank.
Now, one might argue that it is the job of Palestinians to better themselves, and only once they have done so and proved themselves to not be a threat to the Jews can they be given more rights.
That argument was also made, many times, in the South African apartheit era. South Africa's blacks would need to earn the vote.
Thanks.
Yes that does seem restrictive. But I suppose it takes time to normalise lands acquired in war. We should perhaps commend the Israelis for making some effort to do so.
I'll have you know that some countries never bother.
What proportion of people in the West Bank date back from before Israel took it over? 20%?10%? Given young populations, it's going to be far nearer the latter.
Those people - the vast majority of Palestinians - have been born in a State adminstered by Israel for a half century.
Israel needs to either: (a) regard them as Israelis with the same rights as every other Israeli, or (b) allow them their own State.
You know, I have some sympathy with the "ah, it's war and it takes time to sort out" view. And in 1980 you could make that case. You could maybe even make it in 1990.
But it's not 1990. It's 2023. The majority of people alive in the West Bank were not even born when the Oslo Accords were signed.
Yes. I don't disagree. The settlers should be removed and the Palestinians given a chance to govern on their own.
Thing is, you know what the definition of madness is, now, don't you.
Suppose you were an Israeli minding his own business in downtown Tel Aviv (does Tel Aviv have a downtown) and you had seen what happened in oh I don't know, say Gaza. What might your view on it all be.
Oh, I have total sympathy with the Israelis in Southern Israel who've been attacked by Hamas. And I believe we should cut their government a lot of slack in recovering the hostages,
But we also need to accept that the current Israeli government has no interest in even reducing settlement building, let alone dismantling or moving settlers, and that therefore a two state solution is not possible. Or even desired by those in power in Israel.
There will therefore continue to be an almost unlimited number of radicalised Palestinians who have every bit as good a reason to be angry as those Israelis.
They did precisely what you say they had no intention of doing. In Gaza. In 2005.
I would be overjoyed if that were to happen. Obviously, I would prefer it if it was not combined with the destruction of the international airport and the blockade of the port. You know, things which make it quite difficult to develop an economy
In the short run, Israel can - I'm sure - ensure a pliant Palestine via superior weapons, blockades and the like.
But that comes with a cost. It comes with the cost of Israel surrendering the moral high ground it has had for so long. The lives of Palestinians born inside Israeli administered Palestine are pretty shit. And while you can put a lot of that down to shitty Palestinian leadership, Israel cannot shirk all responsibility, because Palestine is not self governing.
Would you build a factory in Palestine to make T-Shirts, if you didn't know whether you could export them?
In the short run, Israel can - I'm sure - ensure a pliant Palestine via superior weapons, blockades and the like.
That didn't work in Gaza, so I really don't know why you'd think it'd work in the West Bank, which is much larger and has much more complicated terrain. There would be a huge onus on Jordanian forces to police their border effectively, which they simply aren't up to.
The simple fact is that a self-governing Palestinian state means Hamas (or other Iranian backed and funded terror groups) in charge, with their insistence on continuing the struggle until the state of Israel ceases to exist. As soon as they were in charge (which they could do either via the ballot box or by simple force) they would do exactly what they've spent the last 15+ years doing in Gaza: murdering any form of moderate Arab opposition, stealing from their own people, subverting any and all civilian infrastructure to the purpose of fighting an endless war with Israel.
As soon as someone figures out a way to stop all that from happening, the Palestinians can have their own state more or less immediately. There would be immense public support from Israelis to do so, regardless of what it cost in terms of settlement removal.
In the meantime, everything happening on the West Bank that you don't like is a direct consequence of two facts: 1) the PA cannot be relied upon to keep Israeli citizens safe, and 2) no-one in Israel seriously believes any of this is likely to change any time soon.
That would be a lot more persuasive an argument if Israel had not spent the last 20 years continually building out settlements in the West Bank.
Do you really think that that (a) increases support for Hamas and the destruction of Israel? or (b) diminishes it?
It may seems a technical point, but it is important.
It’s not *Israel* that is building settlements in the West Bank
It’s nut job religious extremists doing so, often through violence and theft. (How they align that with religious principles is a question for another day).
The Israeli government is guilty of turning a blind eye, although their dependence on settler voters in the Knesset makes it politically impossible for them to intervene.
They are doing a lot more than turning a blind eye. They are providing military outposts to ensure that when the settlers randomly shoot Palestinians to drive them off the land, the Palestinians are not able to shoot back.
Apparently that's why the October 7 atrocity happened: military resources that should have been defending the Gaza border had been re-deployed to deal with the settlers in the West Bank.
After the next election, at this rate we are going to see the first government in a long time that has been elected in Great Britain by all constituent countries.
2005 was the last time if you are counting MPs and 2001 if counting votes. I don't consider that to be that long ago in terms of General Elections.
That's nearly twenty years ago!
Or five GEs ago.
There are people old enough to vote now who won't alive! That's ancient.
I think anyone with skills or property would be well-advised to get out of South Africa.
Given the hilarious Scottish budget this week, one wonders how long it will take until people start saying similar about Scotland under the SNP.
Many, many business colleagues of mine - people who never talk politics - mentioned to me, sotto voce, that they'd be moving to England if independence happened, sometimes suffixed with 'if I can sell my house'!
I am glad you found it funny. Some of us have to live with the consequences.
It looks like the BBC, an institution known for its own issues with anti-semitism, have selected a candidate for Eurovision who seems to flirt with anti semitism.
As there is not the slightest doubt that Israel is an Apartheid State I don't know what the Telegraph is talking about. Do people still read the telegraph. Apart from a half decent film critic the rest seems to be simply manufactured nonsense.
Israeli Arabs have the same rights as Israeli Jews. There is a huge amount of doubt as to whether Israel is an apartheid state.
But it’s a legitimate political debate (as is the contention - in my view false - that Israel is committing genocide). The use of the term “Zionist propaganda” is potentially more troubling but it is context dependent and you can’t tell without that.
It’s the Telegraph muck raking
While Israel proper is not an apartheid State, the West Bank certainly is.
If you are a Palestinian born in the Israeli administered West Bank, then you do not have the same rights as a Jew born there.
What differences are there? Isn't the West Bank governed by the PA.
The PA has some powers, but not a lot. It's like saying "well, you get a vote for your local parish council".
For example, the Palestinian Authority has no authority to stop Israel building new settlements in... errr... areas previously controlled by the Palestinian Authority.
And Israeli soldiers are quite free to enter Palestinian Authority controlled towns. While PA policy are certainly not free to enter Israeli settlements.
The whole road network is designed around the Israeli settlers. Getting from one Palestinian village to another can take hours.
You cannot spend time in the West Bank, and not see that it is controlled by Israel.
Yes the settlements absolutely must stop and should be on the table in any serious negotiation.
But what is the difference in individual rights.
Ummmm:
So, South African apartheit was characterised by a few elements:
(1) While everyone got a vote, you only got to vote for the "parliament" for your race, and the white parliament was the one with all the money and power. That is pretty much exactly the situation with Palestinians versus Jews in the West Bank.
(2) There were severe restrictions on where people of colour were allowed to own property and to live. That is, again, exactly the same as the situation in the West Bank.
(3) The provision of basic services - transport, health, power, and water - was very different depending on whether you were in a black or a white area. That is, again, exactly the same in the West Bank.
Now, one might argue that it is the job of Palestinians to better themselves, and only once they have done so and proved themselves to not be a threat to the Jews can they be given more rights.
That argument was also made, many times, in the South African apartheit era. South Africa's blacks would need to earn the vote.
Thanks.
Yes that does seem restrictive. But I suppose it takes time to normalise lands acquired in war. We should perhaps commend the Israelis for making some effort to do so.
I'll have you know that some countries never bother.
What proportion of people in the West Bank date back from before Israel took it over? 20%?10%? Given young populations, it's going to be far nearer the latter.
Those people - the vast majority of Palestinians - have been born in a State adminstered by Israel for a half century.
Israel needs to either: (a) regard them as Israelis with the same rights as every other Israeli, or (b) allow them their own State.
You know, I have some sympathy with the "ah, it's war and it takes time to sort out" view. And in 1980 you could make that case. You could maybe even make it in 1990.
But it's not 1990. It's 2023. The majority of people alive in the West Bank were not even born when the Oslo Accords were signed.
Yes. I don't disagree. The settlers should be removed and the Palestinians given a chance to govern on their own.
Thing is, you know what the definition of madness is, now, don't you.
Suppose you were an Israeli minding his own business in downtown Tel Aviv (does Tel Aviv have a downtown) and you had seen what happened in oh I don't know, say Gaza. What might your view on it all be.
Oh, I have total sympathy with the Israelis in Southern Israel who've been attacked by Hamas. And I believe we should cut their government a lot of slack in recovering the hostages,
But we also need to accept that the current Israeli government has no interest in even reducing settlement building, let alone dismantling or moving settlers, and that therefore a two state solution is not possible. Or even desired by those in power in Israel.
There will therefore continue to be an almost unlimited number of radicalised Palestinians who have every bit as good a reason to be angry as those Israelis.
They did precisely what you say they had no intention of doing. In Gaza. In 2005.
I would be overjoyed if that were to happen. Obviously, I would prefer it if it was not combined with the destruction of the international airport and the blockade of the port. You know, things which make it quite difficult to develop an economy
In the short run, Israel can - I'm sure - ensure a pliant Palestine via superior weapons, blockades and the like.
But that comes with a cost. It comes with the cost of Israel surrendering the moral high ground it has had for so long. The lives of Palestinians born inside Israeli administered Palestine are pretty shit. And while you can put a lot of that down to shitty Palestinian leadership, Israel cannot shirk all responsibility, because Palestine is not self governing.
Would you build a factory in Palestine to make T-Shirts, if you didn't know whether you could export them?
In the short run, Israel can - I'm sure - ensure a pliant Palestine via superior weapons, blockades and the like.
That didn't work in Gaza, so I really don't know why you'd think it'd work in the West Bank, which is much larger and has much more complicated terrain. There would be a huge onus on Jordanian forces to police their border effectively, which they simply aren't up to.
The simple fact is that a self-governing Palestinian state means Hamas (or other Iranian backed and funded terror groups) in charge, with their insistence on continuing the struggle until the state of Israel ceases to exist. As soon as they were in charge (which they could do either via the ballot box or by simple force) they would do exactly what they've spent the last 15+ years doing in Gaza: murdering any form of moderate Arab opposition, stealing from their own people, subverting any and all civilian infrastructure to the purpose of fighting an endless war with Israel.
As soon as someone figures out a way to stop all that from happening, the Palestinians can have their own state more or less immediately. There would be immense public support from Israelis to do so, regardless of what it cost in terms of settlement removal.
In the meantime, everything happening on the West Bank that you don't like is a direct consequence of two facts: 1) the PA cannot be relied upon to keep Israeli citizens safe, and 2) no-one in Israel seriously believes any of this is likely to change any time soon.
That would be a lot more persuasive an argument if Israel had not spent the last 20 years continually building out settlements in the West Bank.
Do you really think that that (a) increases support for Hamas and the destruction of Israel? or (b) diminishes it?
It may seems a technical point, but it is important.
It’s not *Israel* that is building settlements in the West Bank
It’s nut job religious extremists doing so, often through violence and theft. (How they align that with religious principles is a question for another day).
The Israeli government is guilty of turning a blind eye, although their dependence on settler voters in the Knesset makes it politically impossible for them to intervene.
They are doing a lot more than turning a blind eye. They are providing military outposts to ensure that when the settlers randomly shoot Palestinians to drive them off the land, the Palestinians are not able to shoot back.
They're sowing dragons' teeth, and they're blind to it.
In an ethnically divided region, I'd far rather have a smaller state, where my group forms an overwhelming majority, than a larger state with a huge hostile population. Land-grabbing for its own sake is the stupidest policy.
It looks like the BBC, an institution known for its own issues with anti-semitism, have selected a candidate for Eurovision who seems to flirt with anti semitism.
As there is not the slightest doubt that Israel is an Apartheid State I don't know what the Telegraph is talking about. Do people still read the telegraph. Apart from a half decent film critic the rest seems to be simply manufactured nonsense.
Israeli Arabs have the same rights as Israeli Jews. There is a huge amount of doubt as to whether Israel is an apartheid state.
But it’s a legitimate political debate (as is the contention - in my view false - that Israel is committing genocide). The use of the term “Zionist propaganda” is potentially more troubling but it is context dependent and you can’t tell without that.
It’s the Telegraph muck raking
While Israel proper is not an apartheid State, the West Bank certainly is.
If you are a Palestinian born in the Israeli administered West Bank, then you do not have the same rights as a Jew born there.
What differences are there? Isn't the West Bank governed by the PA.
The PA has some powers, but not a lot. It's like saying "well, you get a vote for your local parish council".
For example, the Palestinian Authority has no authority to stop Israel building new settlements in... errr... areas previously controlled by the Palestinian Authority.
And Israeli soldiers are quite free to enter Palestinian Authority controlled towns. While PA policy are certainly not free to enter Israeli settlements.
The whole road network is designed around the Israeli settlers. Getting from one Palestinian village to another can take hours.
You cannot spend time in the West Bank, and not see that it is controlled by Israel.
Yes the settlements absolutely must stop and should be on the table in any serious negotiation.
But what is the difference in individual rights.
Ummmm:
So, South African apartheit was characterised by a few elements:
(1) While everyone got a vote, you only got to vote for the "parliament" for your race, and the white parliament was the one with all the money and power. That is pretty much exactly the situation with Palestinians versus Jews in the West Bank.
(2) There were severe restrictions on where people of colour were allowed to own property and to live. That is, again, exactly the same as the situation in the West Bank.
(3) The provision of basic services - transport, health, power, and water - was very different depending on whether you were in a black or a white area. That is, again, exactly the same in the West Bank.
Now, one might argue that it is the job of Palestinians to better themselves, and only once they have done so and proved themselves to not be a threat to the Jews can they be given more rights.
That argument was also made, many times, in the South African apartheit era. South Africa's blacks would need to earn the vote.
Thanks.
Yes that does seem restrictive. But I suppose it takes time to normalise lands acquired in war. We should perhaps commend the Israelis for making some effort to do so.
I'll have you know that some countries never bother.
What proportion of people in the West Bank date back from before Israel took it over? 20%?10%? Given young populations, it's going to be far nearer the latter.
Those people - the vast majority of Palestinians - have been born in a State adminstered by Israel for a half century.
Israel needs to either: (a) regard them as Israelis with the same rights as every other Israeli, or (b) allow them their own State.
You know, I have some sympathy with the "ah, it's war and it takes time to sort out" view. And in 1980 you could make that case. You could maybe even make it in 1990.
But it's not 1990. It's 2023. The majority of people alive in the West Bank were not even born when the Oslo Accords were signed.
Yes. I don't disagree. The settlers should be removed and the Palestinians given a chance to govern on their own.
Thing is, you know what the definition of madness is, now, don't you.
Suppose you were an Israeli minding his own business in downtown Tel Aviv (does Tel Aviv have a downtown) and you had seen what happened in oh I don't know, say Gaza. What might your view on it all be.
Oh, I have total sympathy with the Israelis in Southern Israel who've been attacked by Hamas. And I believe we should cut their government a lot of slack in recovering the hostages,
But we also need to accept that the current Israeli government has no interest in even reducing settlement building, let alone dismantling or moving settlers, and that therefore a two state solution is not possible. Or even desired by those in power in Israel.
There will therefore continue to be an almost unlimited number of radicalised Palestinians who have every bit as good a reason to be angry as those Israelis.
They did precisely what you say they had no intention of doing. In Gaza. In 2005.
I would be overjoyed if that were to happen. Obviously, I would prefer it if it was not combined with the destruction of the international airport and the blockade of the port. You know, things which make it quite difficult to develop an economy
In the short run, Israel can - I'm sure - ensure a pliant Palestine via superior weapons, blockades and the like.
But that comes with a cost. It comes with the cost of Israel surrendering the moral high ground it has had for so long. The lives of Palestinians born inside Israeli administered Palestine are pretty shit. And while you can put a lot of that down to shitty Palestinian leadership, Israel cannot shirk all responsibility, because Palestine is not self governing.
Would you build a factory in Palestine to make T-Shirts, if you didn't know whether you could export them?
In the short run, Israel can - I'm sure - ensure a pliant Palestine via superior weapons, blockades and the like.
That didn't work in Gaza, so I really don't know why you'd think it'd work in the West Bank, which is much larger and has much more complicated terrain. There would be a huge onus on Jordanian forces to police their border effectively, which they simply aren't up to.
The simple fact is that a self-governing Palestinian state means Hamas (or other Iranian backed and funded terror groups) in charge, with their insistence on continuing the struggle until the state of Israel ceases to exist. As soon as they were in charge (which they could do either via the ballot box or by simple force) they would do exactly what they've spent the last 15+ years doing in Gaza: murdering any form of moderate Arab opposition, stealing from their own people, subverting any and all civilian infrastructure to the purpose of fighting an endless war with Israel.
As soon as someone figures out a way to stop all that from happening, the Palestinians can have their own state more or less immediately. There would be immense public support from Israelis to do so, regardless of what it cost in terms of settlement removal.
In the meantime, everything happening on the West Bank that you don't like is a direct consequence of two facts: 1) the PA cannot be relied upon to keep Israeli citizens safe, and 2) no-one in Israel seriously believes any of this is likely to change any time soon.
That would be a lot more persuasive an argument if Israel had not spent the last 20 years continually building out settlements in the West Bank.
Do you really think that that (a) increases support for Hamas and the destruction of Israel? or (b) diminishes it?
It may seems a technical point, but it is important.
It’s not *Israel* that is building settlements in the West Bank
It’s nut job religious extremists doing so, often through violence and theft. (How they align that with religious principles is a question for another day).
The Israeli government is guilty of turning a blind eye, although their dependence on settler voters in the Knesset makes it politically impossible for them to intervene.
They are doing a lot more than turning a blind eye. They are providing military outposts to ensure that when the settlers randomly shoot Palestinians to drive them off the land, the Palestinians are not able to shoot back.
The current Israeli govt supports the settlers in all but name. Especially given they want the settler vote and as more and more illegal settlements open there will be more votes up for Bibi and co.
Fry has repeatedly expressed opposition to organised religion, and has identified himself as an atheist and humanist, while declaring some sympathy for the ancient Greek belief in gods. In his first autobiography he described how he once considered ordination to the Anglican priesthood, but came to the conclusion that he couldn't believe in God. In 2010, Fry was made a Distinguished Supporter of the British Humanist Association, stating: "it is essential to nail one's colours to the mast as a humanist."
I believe David Baddiel told a story about how since he started talking more about his Jewish identity he sometimes gets invited to events about religion, and one time a rabbi phoned him up about one and he didn't feel like going so told him he was an atheist, to which the rabbi apparently cheerfully replied 'that's alright, so am I'.
Judaism is both an ethnicity and a religion. So of course Stephen Fry can be both Jewish and an atheist.
I think anyone with skills or property would be well-advised to get out of South Africa.
Given the hilarious Scottish budget this week, one wonders how long it will take until people start saying similar about Scotland under the SNP.
Many, many business colleagues of mine - people who never talk politics - mentioned to me, sotto voce, that they'd be moving to England if independence happened, sometimes suffixed with 'if I can sell my house'!
I am glad you found it funny. Some of us have to live with the consequences.
I'm being flippant, of course, David. Devolution was a terrible mistake IMO.
During the 2019 election I seriously considered relocating if Corbyn got anywhere near No. 10 - I suspect many Scots will start thinking similarly with Humza in charge....
It looks like the BBC, an institution known for its own issues with anti-semitism, have selected a candidate for Eurovision who seems to flirt with anti semitism.
As there is not the slightest doubt that Israel is an Apartheid State I don't know what the Telegraph is talking about. Do people still read the telegraph. Apart from a half decent film critic the rest seems to be simply manufactured nonsense.
Israeli Arabs have the same rights as Israeli Jews. There is a huge amount of doubt as to whether Israel is an apartheid state.
But it’s a legitimate political debate (as is the contention - in my view false - that Israel is committing genocide). The use of the term “Zionist propaganda” is potentially more troubling but it is context dependent and you can’t tell without that.
It’s the Telegraph muck raking
While Israel proper is not an apartheid State, the West Bank certainly is.
If you are a Palestinian born in the Israeli administered West Bank, then you do not have the same rights as a Jew born there.
What differences are there? Isn't the West Bank governed by the PA.
The PA has some powers, but not a lot. It's like saying "well, you get a vote for your local parish council".
For example, the Palestinian Authority has no authority to stop Israel building new settlements in... errr... areas previously controlled by the Palestinian Authority.
And Israeli soldiers are quite free to enter Palestinian Authority controlled towns. While PA policy are certainly not free to enter Israeli settlements.
The whole road network is designed around the Israeli settlers. Getting from one Palestinian village to another can take hours.
You cannot spend time in the West Bank, and not see that it is controlled by Israel.
Yes the settlements absolutely must stop and should be on the table in any serious negotiation.
But what is the difference in individual rights.
Ummmm:
So, South African apartheit was characterised by a few elements:
(1) While everyone got a vote, you only got to vote for the "parliament" for your race, and the white parliament was the one with all the money and power. That is pretty much exactly the situation with Palestinians versus Jews in the West Bank.
(2) There were severe restrictions on where people of colour were allowed to own property and to live. That is, again, exactly the same as the situation in the West Bank.
(3) The provision of basic services - transport, health, power, and water - was very different depending on whether you were in a black or a white area. That is, again, exactly the same in the West Bank.
Now, one might argue that it is the job of Palestinians to better themselves, and only once they have done so and proved themselves to not be a threat to the Jews can they be given more rights.
That argument was also made, many times, in the South African apartheit era. South Africa's blacks would need to earn the vote.
Thanks.
Yes that does seem restrictive. But I suppose it takes time to normalise lands acquired in war. We should perhaps commend the Israelis for making some effort to do so.
I'll have you know that some countries never bother.
What proportion of people in the West Bank date back from before Israel took it over? 20%?10%? Given young populations, it's going to be far nearer the latter.
Those people - the vast majority of Palestinians - have been born in a State adminstered by Israel for a half century.
Israel needs to either: (a) regard them as Israelis with the same rights as every other Israeli, or (b) allow them their own State.
You know, I have some sympathy with the "ah, it's war and it takes time to sort out" view. And in 1980 you could make that case. You could maybe even make it in 1990.
But it's not 1990. It's 2023. The majority of people alive in the West Bank were not even born when the Oslo Accords were signed.
Yes. I don't disagree. The settlers should be removed and the Palestinians given a chance to govern on their own.
Thing is, you know what the definition of madness is, now, don't you.
Suppose you were an Israeli minding his own business in downtown Tel Aviv (does Tel Aviv have a downtown) and you had seen what happened in oh I don't know, say Gaza. What might your view on it all be.
Oh, I have total sympathy with the Israelis in Southern Israel who've been attacked by Hamas. And I believe we should cut their government a lot of slack in recovering the hostages,
But we also need to accept that the current Israeli government has no interest in even reducing settlement building, let alone dismantling or moving settlers, and that therefore a two state solution is not possible. Or even desired by those in power in Israel.
There will therefore continue to be an almost unlimited number of radicalised Palestinians who have every bit as good a reason to be angry as those Israelis.
They did precisely what you say they had no intention of doing. In Gaza. In 2005.
I would be overjoyed if that were to happen. Obviously, I would prefer it if it was not combined with the destruction of the international airport and the blockade of the port. You know, things which make it quite difficult to develop an economy
In the short run, Israel can - I'm sure - ensure a pliant Palestine via superior weapons, blockades and the like.
But that comes with a cost. It comes with the cost of Israel surrendering the moral high ground it has had for so long. The lives of Palestinians born inside Israeli administered Palestine are pretty shit. And while you can put a lot of that down to shitty Palestinian leadership, Israel cannot shirk all responsibility, because Palestine is not self governing.
Would you build a factory in Palestine to make T-Shirts, if you didn't know whether you could export them?
In the short run, Israel can - I'm sure - ensure a pliant Palestine via superior weapons, blockades and the like.
That didn't work in Gaza, so I really don't know why you'd think it'd work in the West Bank, which is much larger and has much more complicated terrain. There would be a huge onus on Jordanian forces to police their border effectively, which they simply aren't up to.
The simple fact is that a self-governing Palestinian state means Hamas (or other Iranian backed and funded terror groups) in charge, with their insistence on continuing the struggle until the state of Israel ceases to exist. As soon as they were in charge (which they could do either via the ballot box or by simple force) they would do exactly what they've spent the last 15+ years doing in Gaza: murdering any form of moderate Arab opposition, stealing from their own people, subverting any and all civilian infrastructure to the purpose of fighting an endless war with Israel.
As soon as someone figures out a way to stop all that from happening, the Palestinians can have their own state more or less immediately. There would be immense public support from Israelis to do so, regardless of what it cost in terms of settlement removal.
In the meantime, everything happening on the West Bank that you don't like is a direct consequence of two facts: 1) the PA cannot be relied upon to keep Israeli citizens safe, and 2) no-one in Israel seriously believes any of this is likely to change any time soon.
That would be a lot more persuasive an argument if Israel had not spent the last 20 years continually building out settlements in the West Bank.
Do you really think that that (a) increases support for Hamas and the destruction of Israel? or (b) diminishes it?
In 1947-48 Israel was fighting the Arab states. Arguably for its life and arguably in a war of defence (certainly post UN 181). When it began to get the upper hand it thought fuck it they want us all dead so the "rules" go out the window and hence "the Nakba".
You say the last 20 years. When exactly did Hamas take over Gaza?
We call ethnic cleansing a crime against humanity because it can have no excuses. It is wrong in all circumstances. It was wrong then; it is wrong now. You yourself note that the Nakba came after Isreal “began to get the upper hand”, so when defence had turned to territorial expansion.
Hamas took over Gaza beginning 2006. Israel was committed to settlements before then.
Fry has repeatedly expressed opposition to organised religion, and has identified himself as an atheist and humanist, while declaring some sympathy for the ancient Greek belief in gods. In his first autobiography he described how he once considered ordination to the Anglican priesthood, but came to the conclusion that he couldn't believe in God. In 2010, Fry was made a Distinguished Supporter of the British Humanist Association, stating: "it is essential to nail one's colours to the mast as a humanist."
I believe David Baddiel told a story about how since he started talking more about his Jewish identity he sometimes gets invited to events about religion, and one time a rabbi phoned him up about one and he didn't feel like going so told him he was an atheist, to which the rabbi apparently cheerfully replied 'that's alright, so am I'.
Judaism is both an ethnicity and a religion. So of course Stephen Fry can be both Jewish and an atheist.
In local UK news we’re now 3 days into what will certainly be the most impressive sustained period of wind power dominating the grid to date.
Currently generating 21gw of power from wind, and only 2.6gw from any form of fossil fuel (CCGT).
There were a rash of stories last week about the grid not being able to cope with surges in wind power and the need to switch many of the turbines off as a result. It was alleged that the money wasted (the turbine owners still get paid) was adding £40 onto the average bill.
Given our massive investment in wind this seemed a somewhat suboptimal state of affairs.
On topic, there are a lot of individual issues, the most vexing of which is governments allowing wind farms to be built with guaranteed purchase prices, but with insufficient take away capacity to allow wind energy poor regions to benefit. Scotland has a number of particularly terrible examples, where turbines were installed on islands, and where interconnectors are completely insufficient for the power capacity of the farm.
Financially, it has made absolute sense for the Scottish Government to allow Wind Farms to be built in inaccessible areas. The constraint payments (which account for loss of subsidy, and are somehow worth considerably more than actually providing power) make the wind farms very wealthy, and the UK billpayers as a whole foot the bill.
You will not get planning permission for a wind farm, without getting guarantees that interconnects will be built. (And bear in mind that you are now allowed to build your own interconnector, as that is the job of National Grid*)
Among the many problems, though, have been:
(1) Councils rescinding planning permission for interconnectors (2) National Grid dragging their feet (3) National Grid refusing payments from wind developers for interconnects, because that reduced their regulatory asset base and therefore what they are allows to earn in profits
* Yes, I know there are exceptions, but they are usually national security rather than wind related
Of course they would have to be connected to the grid to build a power station - adequate connectivity is quite another thing. The whole thing is a complete scam.
In local UK news we’re now 3 days into what will certainly be the most impressive sustained period of wind power dominating the grid to date.
Currently generating 21gw of power from wind, and only 2.6gw from any form of fossil fuel (CCGT).
There were a rash of stories last week about the grid not being able to cope with surges in wind power and the need to switch many of the turbines off as a result. It was alleged that the money wasted (the turbine owners still get paid) was adding £40 onto the average bill.
Given our massive investment in wind this seemed a somewhat suboptimal state of affairs.
Then we need a massive investment in battery (or pumped, or big weights up and down mineshafts) storage.
The quickest return is on high voltage interconnects.
A European grid with sufficient capacity would cut such losses by a substantial amount, and pay for itself in perhaps half a decade - much quicker than any of the other alternatives. For now, we don't even have a UK wide grid with enough capacity.
Batteries, for now, are too expensive for anything but local, short term storage (and EVs will probably add capacity faster than pure storage projects).
Awaiting the inevitable reaction from the usual suspects:
Pumped Scottish based storage for an independent Scotland = laudable aim for progress to Net Zero.
Pumped Scottish based storage for the UK market = colonialist exploitation.
I would have thought that Scottish enterprises building valuable facilities in Scotland would tend to help rather than hinder any case for Scottish independence. I don't see it as that kind of issue at all, FWIW.
The problem with pumped storage is that it means flooding land. There will, undoubtedly, be local opposition to each and every proposal.
This is why building new reservoirs, for whatever reason, has fallen out of fashion.
Batteries will win, in the medium term, simply because they scale from small installations, and there is pretty much no planning required.
Park a handful of shipping containers on a site - and under U.K. planning rules a small installation doesn’t require full scale planning. So if you have an old power station site (or even a container park) already, there would be next to nothing to stop you parking the containers.
The main constraint is actually supply - not enough batteries. Yet.
I calculated, recently, that replicating Dinorwig with batteries would cost about the same as building it with water storage.
It looks like the BBC, an institution known for its own issues with anti-semitism, have selected a candidate for Eurovision who seems to flirt with anti semitism.
As there is not the slightest doubt that Israel is an Apartheid State I don't know what the Telegraph is talking about. Do people still read the telegraph. Apart from a half decent film critic the rest seems to be simply manufactured nonsense.
Israeli Arabs have the same rights as Israeli Jews. There is a huge amount of doubt as to whether Israel is an apartheid state.
But it’s a legitimate political debate (as is the contention - in my view false - that Israel is committing genocide). The use of the term “Zionist propaganda” is potentially more troubling but it is context dependent and you can’t tell without that.
It’s the Telegraph muck raking
While Israel proper is not an apartheid State, the West Bank certainly is.
If you are a Palestinian born in the Israeli administered West Bank, then you do not have the same rights as a Jew born there.
What differences are there? Isn't the West Bank governed by the PA.
The PA has some powers, but not a lot. It's like saying "well, you get a vote for your local parish council".
For example, the Palestinian Authority has no authority to stop Israel building new settlements in... errr... areas previously controlled by the Palestinian Authority.
And Israeli soldiers are quite free to enter Palestinian Authority controlled towns. While PA policy are certainly not free to enter Israeli settlements.
The whole road network is designed around the Israeli settlers. Getting from one Palestinian village to another can take hours.
You cannot spend time in the West Bank, and not see that it is controlled by Israel.
Yes the settlements absolutely must stop and should be on the table in any serious negotiation.
But what is the difference in individual rights.
Ummmm:
So, South African apartheit was characterised by a few elements:
(1) While everyone got a vote, you only got to vote for the "parliament" for your race, and the white parliament was the one with all the money and power. That is pretty much exactly the situation with Palestinians versus Jews in the West Bank.
(2) There were severe restrictions on where people of colour were allowed to own property and to live. That is, again, exactly the same as the situation in the West Bank.
(3) The provision of basic services - transport, health, power, and water - was very different depending on whether you were in a black or a white area. That is, again, exactly the same in the West Bank.
Now, one might argue that it is the job of Palestinians to better themselves, and only once they have done so and proved themselves to not be a threat to the Jews can they be given more rights.
That argument was also made, many times, in the South African apartheit era. South Africa's blacks would need to earn the vote.
Thanks.
Yes that does seem restrictive. But I suppose it takes time to normalise lands acquired in war. We should perhaps commend the Israelis for making some effort to do so.
I'll have you know that some countries never bother.
What proportion of people in the West Bank date back from before Israel took it over? 20%?10%? Given young populations, it's going to be far nearer the latter.
Those people - the vast majority of Palestinians - have been born in a State adminstered by Israel for a half century.
Israel needs to either: (a) regard them as Israelis with the same rights as every other Israeli, or (b) allow them their own State.
You know, I have some sympathy with the "ah, it's war and it takes time to sort out" view. And in 1980 you could make that case. You could maybe even make it in 1990.
But it's not 1990. It's 2023. The majority of people alive in the West Bank were not even born when the Oslo Accords were signed.
Yes. I don't disagree. The settlers should be removed and the Palestinians given a chance to govern on their own.
Thing is, you know what the definition of madness is, now, don't you.
Suppose you were an Israeli minding his own business in downtown Tel Aviv (does Tel Aviv have a downtown) and you had seen what happened in oh I don't know, say Gaza. What might your view on it all be.
Oh, I have total sympathy with the Israelis in Southern Israel who've been attacked by Hamas. And I believe we should cut their government a lot of slack in recovering the hostages,
But we also need to accept that the current Israeli government has no interest in even reducing settlement building, let alone dismantling or moving settlers, and that therefore a two state solution is not possible. Or even desired by those in power in Israel.
There will therefore continue to be an almost unlimited number of radicalised Palestinians who have every bit as good a reason to be angry as those Israelis.
They did precisely what you say they had no intention of doing. In Gaza. In 2005.
I would be overjoyed if that were to happen. Obviously, I would prefer it if it was not combined with the destruction of the international airport and the blockade of the port. You know, things which make it quite difficult to develop an economy
In the short run, Israel can - I'm sure - ensure a pliant Palestine via superior weapons, blockades and the like.
But that comes with a cost. It comes with the cost of Israel surrendering the moral high ground it has had for so long. The lives of Palestinians born inside Israeli administered Palestine are pretty shit. And while you can put a lot of that down to shitty Palestinian leadership, Israel cannot shirk all responsibility, because Palestine is not self governing.
Would you build a factory in Palestine to make T-Shirts, if you didn't know whether you could export them?
In the short run, Israel can - I'm sure - ensure a pliant Palestine via superior weapons, blockades and the like.
That didn't work in Gaza, so I really don't know why you'd think it'd work in the West Bank, which is much larger and has much more complicated terrain. There would be a huge onus on Jordanian forces to police their border effectively, which they simply aren't up to.
The simple fact is that a self-governing Palestinian state means Hamas (or other Iranian backed and funded terror groups) in charge, with their insistence on continuing the struggle until the state of Israel ceases to exist. As soon as they were in charge (which they could do either via the ballot box or by simple force) they would do exactly what they've spent the last 15+ years doing in Gaza: murdering any form of moderate Arab opposition, stealing from their own people, subverting any and all civilian infrastructure to the purpose of fighting an endless war with Israel.
As soon as someone figures out a way to stop all that from happening, the Palestinians can have their own state more or less immediately. There would be immense public support from Israelis to do so, regardless of what it cost in terms of settlement removal.
In the meantime, everything happening on the West Bank that you don't like is a direct consequence of two facts: 1) the PA cannot be relied upon to keep Israeli citizens safe, and 2) no-one in Israel seriously believes any of this is likely to change any time soon.
That would be a lot more persuasive an argument if Israel had not spent the last 20 years continually building out settlements in the West Bank.
Do you really think that that (a) increases support for Hamas and the destruction of Israel? or (b) diminishes it?
It may seems a technical point, but it is important.
It’s not *Israel* that is building settlements in the West Bank
It’s nut job religious extremists doing so, often through violence and theft. (How they align that with religious principles is a question for another day).
The Israeli government is guilty of turning a blind eye, although their dependence on settler voters in the Knesset makes it politically impossible for them to intervene.
They are doing a lot more than turning a blind eye. They are providing military outposts to ensure that when the settlers randomly shoot Palestinians to drive them off the land, the Palestinians are not able to shoot back.
They're sowing dragons' teeth, and they're blind to it.
In an ethnically divided region, I'd far rather have a smaller state, where my group forms an overwhelming majority, than a larger state with a huge hostile population. Land-grabbing for its own sake is the stupidest policy.
A look at the map of Israel and the West Bank will tell you exactly why Israel does not wants the West Bank under a hostile authority.
From a defence standpoint, a hostile West Bank would be horrendous to defend against as Israel would need to position troops on a border multiple times longer than that of Gaza or Lebanon.
The latter also shows why having a UN force would not work to keep the peace - in likelihood it would be ineffective.
Imagine if Hezbollah was able to position at least some of its might / rocketry in the West Bank. Israel would be the proverbial StepMom.
In local UK news we’re now 3 days into what will certainly be the most impressive sustained period of wind power dominating the grid to date.
Currently generating 21gw of power from wind, and only 2.6gw from any form of fossil fuel (CCGT).
There were a rash of stories last week about the grid not being able to cope with surges in wind power and the need to switch many of the turbines off as a result. It was alleged that the money wasted (the turbine owners still get paid) was adding £40 onto the average bill.
Given our massive investment in wind this seemed a somewhat suboptimal state of affairs.
Then we need a massive investment in battery (or pumped, or big weights up and down mineshafts) storage.
The quickest return is on high voltage interconnects.
A European grid with sufficient capacity would cut such losses by a substantial amount, and pay for itself in perhaps half a decade - much quicker than any of the other alternatives. For now, we don't even have a UK wide grid with enough capacity.
Batteries, for now, are too expensive for anything but local, short term storage (and EVs will probably add capacity faster than pure storage projects).
Awaiting the inevitable reaction from the usual suspects:
Pumped Scottish based storage for an independent Scotland = laudable aim for progress to Net Zero.
Pumped Scottish based storage for the UK market = colonialist exploitation.
I would have thought that Scottish enterprises building valuable facilities in Scotland would tend to help rather than hinder any case for Scottish independence. I don't see it as that kind of issue at all, FWIW.
The problem with pumped storage is that it means flooding land. There will, undoubtedly, be local opposition to each and every proposal.
This is why building new reservoirs, for whatever reason, has fallen out of fashion.
Batteries will win, in the medium term, simply because they scale from small installations, and there is pretty much no planning required.
Park a handful of shipping containers on a site - and under U.K. planning rules a small installation doesn’t require full scale planning. So if you have an old power station site (or even a container park) already, there would be next to nothing to stop you parking the containers.
The main constraint is actually supply - not enough batteries. Yet.
I calculated, recently, that replicating Dinorwig with batteries would cost about the same as building it with water storage.
You don't have to buy spare water to make sure the water doesn't run out at an inconvenient time. Water is Wales's biggest import.
I think anyone with skills or property would be well-advised to get out of South Africa.
Given the hilarious Scottish budget this week, one wonders how long it will take until people start saying similar about Scotland under the SNP.
Many, many business colleagues of mine - people who never talk politics - mentioned to me, sotto voce, that they'd be moving to England if independence happened, sometimes suffixed with 'if I can sell my house'!
I am glad you found it funny. Some of us have to live with the consequences.
I'm being flippant, of course, David. Devolution was a terrible mistake IMO.
During the 2019 election I seriously considered relocating if Corbyn got anywhere near No. 10 - I suspect many Scots will start thinking similarly with Humza in charge....
He will be in charge until 2026 unless Branchform turns out to be much wider than expected (and, indeed, the police complete their investigation by then). At which point it is likely that some sort of Labour led coalition should take over.
The economic base of Scotland is being destroyed with a State that regards anything private with deep suspicion and wants to regulate the life out of it. There seems to be almost no appreciation that these policies are confusing the layers of golden eggs with turkeys. Our state becomes ever more unsustainable.
It looks like the BBC, an institution known for its own issues with anti-semitism, have selected a candidate for Eurovision who seems to flirt with anti semitism.
As there is not the slightest doubt that Israel is an Apartheid State I don't know what the Telegraph is talking about. Do people still read the telegraph. Apart from a half decent film critic the rest seems to be simply manufactured nonsense.
Israeli Arabs have the same rights as Israeli Jews. There is a huge amount of doubt as to whether Israel is an apartheid state.
But it’s a legitimate political debate (as is the contention - in my view false - that Israel is committing genocide). The use of the term “Zionist propaganda” is potentially more troubling but it is context dependent and you can’t tell without that.
It’s the Telegraph muck raking
While Israel proper is not an apartheid State, the West Bank certainly is.
If you are a Palestinian born in the Israeli administered West Bank, then you do not have the same rights as a Jew born there.
What differences are there? Isn't the West Bank governed by the PA.
The PA has some powers, but not a lot. It's like saying "well, you get a vote for your local parish council".
For example, the Palestinian Authority has no authority to stop Israel building new settlements in... errr... areas previously controlled by the Palestinian Authority.
And Israeli soldiers are quite free to enter Palestinian Authority controlled towns. While PA policy are certainly not free to enter Israeli settlements.
The whole road network is designed around the Israeli settlers. Getting from one Palestinian village to another can take hours.
You cannot spend time in the West Bank, and not see that it is controlled by Israel.
Yes the settlements absolutely must stop and should be on the table in any serious negotiation.
But what is the difference in individual rights.
Ummmm:
So, South African apartheit was characterised by a few elements:
(1) While everyone got a vote, you only got to vote for the "parliament" for your race, and the white parliament was the one with all the money and power. That is pretty much exactly the situation with Palestinians versus Jews in the West Bank.
(2) There were severe restrictions on where people of colour were allowed to own property and to live. That is, again, exactly the same as the situation in the West Bank.
(3) The provision of basic services - transport, health, power, and water - was very different depending on whether you were in a black or a white area. That is, again, exactly the same in the West Bank.
Now, one might argue that it is the job of Palestinians to better themselves, and only once they have done so and proved themselves to not be a threat to the Jews can they be given more rights.
That argument was also made, many times, in the South African apartheit era. South Africa's blacks would need to earn the vote.
Thanks.
Yes that does seem restrictive. But I suppose it takes time to normalise lands acquired in war. We should perhaps commend the Israelis for making some effort to do so.
I'll have you know that some countries never bother.
What proportion of people in the West Bank date back from before Israel took it over? 20%?10%? Given young populations, it's going to be far nearer the latter.
Those people - the vast majority of Palestinians - have been born in a State adminstered by Israel for a half century.
Israel needs to either: (a) regard them as Israelis with the same rights as every other Israeli, or (b) allow them their own State.
You know, I have some sympathy with the "ah, it's war and it takes time to sort out" view. And in 1980 you could make that case. You could maybe even make it in 1990.
But it's not 1990. It's 2023. The majority of people alive in the West Bank were not even born when the Oslo Accords were signed.
Yes. I don't disagree. The settlers should be removed and the Palestinians given a chance to govern on their own.
Thing is, you know what the definition of madness is, now, don't you.
Suppose you were an Israeli minding his own business in downtown Tel Aviv (does Tel Aviv have a downtown) and you had seen what happened in oh I don't know, say Gaza. What might your view on it all be.
Oh, I have total sympathy with the Israelis in Southern Israel who've been attacked by Hamas. And I believe we should cut their government a lot of slack in recovering the hostages,
But we also need to accept that the current Israeli government has no interest in even reducing settlement building, let alone dismantling or moving settlers, and that therefore a two state solution is not possible. Or even desired by those in power in Israel.
There will therefore continue to be an almost unlimited number of radicalised Palestinians who have every bit as good a reason to be angry as those Israelis.
They did precisely what you say they had no intention of doing. In Gaza. In 2005.
I would be overjoyed if that were to happen. Obviously, I would prefer it if it was not combined with the destruction of the international airport and the blockade of the port. You know, things which make it quite difficult to develop an economy
In the short run, Israel can - I'm sure - ensure a pliant Palestine via superior weapons, blockades and the like.
But that comes with a cost. It comes with the cost of Israel surrendering the moral high ground it has had for so long. The lives of Palestinians born inside Israeli administered Palestine are pretty shit. And while you can put a lot of that down to shitty Palestinian leadership, Israel cannot shirk all responsibility, because Palestine is not self governing.
Would you build a factory in Palestine to make T-Shirts, if you didn't know whether you could export them?
In the short run, Israel can - I'm sure - ensure a pliant Palestine via superior weapons, blockades and the like.
That didn't work in Gaza, so I really don't know why you'd think it'd work in the West Bank, which is much larger and has much more complicated terrain. There would be a huge onus on Jordanian forces to police their border effectively, which they simply aren't up to.
The simple fact is that a self-governing Palestinian state means Hamas (or other Iranian backed and funded terror groups) in charge, with their insistence on continuing the struggle until the state of Israel ceases to exist. As soon as they were in charge (which they could do either via the ballot box or by simple force) they would do exactly what they've spent the last 15+ years doing in Gaza: murdering any form of moderate Arab opposition, stealing from their own people, subverting any and all civilian infrastructure to the purpose of fighting an endless war with Israel.
As soon as someone figures out a way to stop all that from happening, the Palestinians can have their own state more or less immediately. There would be immense public support from Israelis to do so, regardless of what it cost in terms of settlement removal.
In the meantime, everything happening on the West Bank that you don't like is a direct consequence of two facts: 1) the PA cannot be relied upon to keep Israeli citizens safe, and 2) no-one in Israel seriously believes any of this is likely to change any time soon.
That would be a lot more persuasive an argument if Israel had not spent the last 20 years continually building out settlements in the West Bank.
Do you really think that that (a) increases support for Hamas and the destruction of Israel? or (b) diminishes it?
It may seems a technical point, but it is important.
It’s not *Israel* that is building settlements in the West Bank
It’s nut job religious extremists doing so, often through violence and theft. (How they align that with religious principles is a question for another day).
The Israeli government is guilty of turning a blind eye, although their dependence on settler voters in the Knesset makes it politically impossible for them to intervene.
They are doing a lot more than turning a blind eye. They are providing military outposts to ensure that when the settlers randomly shoot Palestinians to drive them off the land, the Palestinians are not able to shoot back.
They're sowing dragons' teeth, and they're blind to it.
In an ethnically divided region, I'd far rather have a smaller state, where my group forms an overwhelming majority, than a larger state with a huge hostile population. Land-grabbing for its own sake is the stupidest policy.
If they can kill thousands of children and threaten to kill many thousands more through famine and disease with the support and protection of the world's most powerful countries I would imagine they think they can do whatever the fuck they want, and will keep on doing it.
Fry has repeatedly expressed opposition to organised religion, and has identified himself as an atheist and humanist, while declaring some sympathy for the ancient Greek belief in gods. In his first autobiography he described how he once considered ordination to the Anglican priesthood, but came to the conclusion that he couldn't believe in God. In 2010, Fry was made a Distinguished Supporter of the British Humanist Association, stating: "it is essential to nail one's colours to the mast as a humanist."
I believe David Baddiel told a story about how since he started talking more about his Jewish identity he sometimes gets invited to events about religion, and one time a rabbi phoned him up about one and he didn't feel like going so told him he was an atheist, to which the rabbi apparently cheerfully replied 'that's alright, so am I'.
Judaism is both an ethnicity and a religion. So of course Stephen Fry can be both Jewish and an atheist.
IIUC he's not ethnically Jewish.
According to Wikipedia his mother is Jewish, which makes him Jewish
In local UK news we’re now 3 days into what will certainly be the most impressive sustained period of wind power dominating the grid to date.
Currently generating 21gw of power from wind, and only 2.6gw from any form of fossil fuel (CCGT).
There were a rash of stories last week about the grid not being able to cope with surges in wind power and the need to switch many of the turbines off as a result. It was alleged that the money wasted (the turbine owners still get paid) was adding £40 onto the average bill.
Given our massive investment in wind this seemed a somewhat suboptimal state of affairs.
Then we need a massive investment in battery (or pumped, or big weights up and down mineshafts) storage.
The quickest return is on high voltage interconnects.
A European grid with sufficient capacity would cut such losses by a substantial amount, and pay for itself in perhaps half a decade - much quicker than any of the other alternatives. For now, we don't even have a UK wide grid with enough capacity.
Batteries, for now, are too expensive for anything but local, short term storage (and EVs will probably add capacity faster than pure storage projects).
Awaiting the inevitable reaction from the usual suspects:
Pumped Scottish based storage for an independent Scotland = laudable aim for progress to Net Zero.
Pumped Scottish based storage for the UK market = colonialist exploitation.
I would have thought that Scottish enterprises building valuable facilities in Scotland would tend to help rather than hinder any case for Scottish independence. I don't see it as that kind of issue at all, FWIW.
The problem with pumped storage is that it means flooding land. There will, undoubtedly, be local opposition to each and every proposal.
This is why building new reservoirs, for whatever reason, has fallen out of fashion.
Batteries will win, in the medium term, simply because they scale from small installations, and there is pretty much no planning required.
Park a handful of shipping containers on a site - and under U.K. planning rules a small installation doesn’t require full scale planning. So if you have an old power station site (or even a container park) already, there would be next to nothing to stop you parking the containers.
The main constraint is actually supply - not enough batteries. Yet.
I calculated, recently, that replicating Dinorwig with batteries would cost about the same as building it with water storage.
You don't have to buy spare water to make sure the water doesn't run out at an inconvenient time. Water is Wales's biggest import.
There’s spare electrical power going to waste at the moment. Being able to time shift it is growing more valuable.
It looks like the BBC, an institution known for its own issues with anti-semitism, have selected a candidate for Eurovision who seems to flirt with anti semitism.
As there is not the slightest doubt that Israel is an Apartheid State I don't know what the Telegraph is talking about. Do people still read the telegraph. Apart from a half decent film critic the rest seems to be simply manufactured nonsense.
Israeli Arabs have the same rights as Israeli Jews. There is a huge amount of doubt as to whether Israel is an apartheid state.
But it’s a legitimate political debate (as is the contention - in my view false - that Israel is committing genocide). The use of the term “Zionist propaganda” is potentially more troubling but it is context dependent and you can’t tell without that.
It’s the Telegraph muck raking
While Israel proper is not an apartheid State, the West Bank certainly is.
If you are a Palestinian born in the Israeli administered West Bank, then you do not have the same rights as a Jew born there.
What differences are there? Isn't the West Bank governed by the PA.
The PA has some powers, but not a lot. It's like saying "well, you get a vote for your local parish council".
For example, the Palestinian Authority has no authority to stop Israel building new settlements in... errr... areas previously controlled by the Palestinian Authority.
And Israeli soldiers are quite free to enter Palestinian Authority controlled towns. While PA policy are certainly not free to enter Israeli settlements.
The whole road network is designed around the Israeli settlers. Getting from one Palestinian village to another can take hours.
You cannot spend time in the West Bank, and not see that it is controlled by Israel.
Yes the settlements absolutely must stop and should be on the table in any serious negotiation.
But what is the difference in individual rights.
Ummmm:
So, South African apartheit was characterised by a few elements:
(1) While everyone got a vote, you only got to vote for the "parliament" for your race, and the white parliament was the one with all the money and power. That is pretty much exactly the situation with Palestinians versus Jews in the West Bank.
(2) There were severe restrictions on where people of colour were allowed to own property and to live. That is, again, exactly the same as the situation in the West Bank.
(3) The provision of basic services - transport, health, power, and water - was very different depending on whether you were in a black or a white area. That is, again, exactly the same in the West Bank.
Now, one might argue that it is the job of Palestinians to better themselves, and only once they have done so and proved themselves to not be a threat to the Jews can they be given more rights.
That argument was also made, many times, in the South African apartheit era. South Africa's blacks would need to earn the vote.
Thanks.
Yes that does seem restrictive. But I suppose it takes time to normalise lands acquired in war. We should perhaps commend the Israelis for making some effort to do so.
I'll have you know that some countries never bother.
What proportion of people in the West Bank date back from before Israel took it over? 20%?10%? Given young populations, it's going to be far nearer the latter.
Those people - the vast majority of Palestinians - have been born in a State adminstered by Israel for a half century.
Israel needs to either: (a) regard them as Israelis with the same rights as every other Israeli, or (b) allow them their own State.
You know, I have some sympathy with the "ah, it's war and it takes time to sort out" view. And in 1980 you could make that case. You could maybe even make it in 1990.
But it's not 1990. It's 2023. The majority of people alive in the West Bank were not even born when the Oslo Accords were signed.
Amazing how despite numerous lessons from history*, nations / ethnic groups / communities still feel that indefinite suppression of other peoples can be a permanent way forward.
(*Soviet Russia, British Empire, Apartheid South Africa, Ulster Protestants, China towards Uyghur. I have no doubt missed many even more egregious examples.)
Well, it can be. Ethnic cleansing settles the issue forever.
The alternative is to assimilate the subject people, but that usually requires giving them a stake in the system.
Perhaps the lesson is that to be successful it needs to be absolute oppression or active integration. The former = ethnic cleansing and is generally frowned upon now of course.
The Norman invasion might be an example of severe oppression short of ethnic cleansing that was never really overthrown, I guess?
The Normans were successful imperialists because they gradually assimilated to the local population.
.
If you have any spare time over the holidays, you might wish to brush up on your history as to how the Norman Conquest went? It was centuries before the locals could speak their own language in any official context and the handful of invaders took possession of almost all the property. And so was born the English class system, which we still experience today.
Chatting to the farm contractor who cuts our hedges today. He mentioned what a mess the Middle East is and how it had pushed up the price of red diesel: "Why can't they sort themselves out? It looks like a total shithole, can't think why anyone would want to live there, let alone fight over it."
To which I stupidly said 'no wonder so many are trying to come over on boats'. Cue: "I'm not a racist but... the country can't take any more, we will literally sink if any more come in."
Now, I understand quite a few people feel that way but the odd thing to me is this guy is living in a small village in a sparsely populated part of Dorset. He will have next to zero contact with anyone who's not white. The only people from ethic minorities for miles around are running the few Indian and Chinese takaways in the nearest town.
Personally, I'm convinced the less contact people have with those from other cultures the more they fear them.
Anyway, there's definitely some kind of market for the ERG RefUK line on immigration, hopefully, a small one.
Hmmm, you can have little contact but if you read the news that the country is going to teh dogs, no houses, NHS knackered , 8 gazillion a day on hotels etc etc it is very easy to get impression a lot of that is down to the huge increase in immigration regardless of race or creed and so have a jaundiced opinion of it.
Fry has repeatedly expressed opposition to organised religion, and has identified himself as an atheist and humanist, while declaring some sympathy for the ancient Greek belief in gods. In his first autobiography he described how he once considered ordination to the Anglican priesthood, but came to the conclusion that he couldn't believe in God. In 2010, Fry was made a Distinguished Supporter of the British Humanist Association, stating: "it is essential to nail one's colours to the mast as a humanist."
I believe David Baddiel told a story about how since he started talking more about his Jewish identity he sometimes gets invited to events about religion, and one time a rabbi phoned him up about one and he didn't feel like going so told him he was an atheist, to which the rabbi apparently cheerfully replied 'that's alright, so am I'.
Judaism is both an ethnicity and a religion. So of course Stephen Fry can be both Jewish and an atheist.
In local UK news we’re now 3 days into what will certainly be the most impressive sustained period of wind power dominating the grid to date.
Currently generating 21gw of power from wind, and only 2.6gw from any form of fossil fuel (CCGT).
There were a rash of stories last week about the grid not being able to cope with surges in wind power and the need to switch many of the turbines off as a result. It was alleged that the money wasted (the turbine owners still get paid) was adding £40 onto the average bill.
Given our massive investment in wind this seemed a somewhat suboptimal state of affairs.
Then we need a massive investment in battery (or pumped, or big weights up and down mineshafts) storage.
The quickest return is on high voltage interconnects.
A European grid with sufficient capacity would cut such losses by a substantial amount, and pay for itself in perhaps half a decade - much quicker than any of the other alternatives. For now, we don't even have a UK wide grid with enough capacity.
Batteries, for now, are too expensive for anything but local, short term storage (and EVs will probably add capacity faster than pure storage projects).
Awaiting the inevitable reaction from the usual suspects:
Pumped Scottish based storage for an independent Scotland = laudable aim for progress to Net Zero.
Pumped Scottish based storage for the UK market = colonialist exploitation.
I would have thought that Scottish enterprises building valuable facilities in Scotland would tend to help rather than hinder any case for Scottish independence. I don't see it as that kind of issue at all, FWIW.
The problem with pumped storage is that it means flooding land. There will, undoubtedly, be local opposition to each and every proposal.
This is why building new reservoirs, for whatever reason, has fallen out of fashion.
Batteries will win, in the medium term, simply because they scale from small installations, and there is pretty much no planning required.
Park a handful of shipping containers on a site - and under U.K. planning rules a small installation doesn’t require full scale planning. So if you have an old power station site (or even a container park) already, there would be next to nothing to stop you parking the containers.
The main constraint is actually supply - not enough batteries. Yet.
I calculated, recently, that replicating Dinorwig with batteries would cost about the same as building it with water storage.
I don't agree about local objections; the areas are very remote and I believe much of the pumped storage has already received planning permission - what is missing is the economical impetus to build the facilities, in no small part because the constraint payments regime makes it far more lucrative to get paid for switching off than to organise effective storage.
Pumped hydro is massively cleaner than batteries and the energy can be stored indefinitely, whereas batteries can store it for (afaik) a day. There is also no competition for materials, resulting in supply issues that you admit.
Storage will be addressed seriously when power providers *need* to sell their energy to make money. Until this situation occurs, we will continue to mutter about it and nothing will happen.
Building new reservoirs did not 'fall out of fashion', it fell foul of the EU water framework directive which has been gold plated enthusiastically by UK agencies. Nobody would object to (for example) an old quarry being made into a reservoir, and it is specious or uncharicteristically ignorant to blame nimbies for our lack of new water infrastructure.
In local UK news we’re now 3 days into what will certainly be the most impressive sustained period of wind power dominating the grid to date.
Currently generating 21gw of power from wind, and only 2.6gw from any form of fossil fuel (CCGT).
There were a rash of stories last week about the grid not being able to cope with surges in wind power and the need to switch many of the turbines off as a result. It was alleged that the money wasted (the turbine owners still get paid) was adding £40 onto the average bill.
Given our massive investment in wind this seemed a somewhat suboptimal state of affairs.
Then we need a massive investment in battery (or pumped, or big weights up and down mineshafts) storage.
The quickest return is on high voltage interconnects.
A European grid with sufficient capacity would cut such losses by a substantial amount, and pay for itself in perhaps half a decade - much quicker than any of the other alternatives. For now, we don't even have a UK wide grid with enough capacity.
Batteries, for now, are too expensive for anything but local, short term storage (and EVs will probably add capacity faster than pure storage projects).
Awaiting the inevitable reaction from the usual suspects:
Pumped Scottish based storage for an independent Scotland = laudable aim for progress to Net Zero.
Pumped Scottish based storage for the UK market = colonialist exploitation.
I would have thought that Scottish enterprises building valuable facilities in Scotland would tend to help rather than hinder any case for Scottish independence. I don't see it as that kind of issue at all, FWIW.
The problem with pumped storage is that it means flooding land. There will, undoubtedly, be local opposition to each and every proposal.
This is why building new reservoirs, for whatever reason, has fallen out of fashion.
Batteries will win, in the medium term, simply because they scale from small installations, and there is pretty much no planning required.
Park a handful of shipping containers on a site - and under U.K. planning rules a small installation doesn’t require full scale planning. So if you have an old power station site (or even a container park) already, there would be next to nothing to stop you parking the containers.
The main constraint is actually supply - not enough batteries. Yet.
I calculated, recently, that replicating Dinorwig with batteries would cost about the same as building it with water storage.
You don't have to buy spare water to make sure the water doesn't run out at an inconvenient time. Water is Wales's biggest import.
There’s spare electrical power going to waste at the moment.
It looks like the BBC, an institution known for its own issues with anti-semitism, have selected a candidate for Eurovision who seems to flirt with anti semitism.
As there is not the slightest doubt that Israel is an Apartheid State I don't know what the Telegraph is talking about. Do people still read the telegraph. Apart from a half decent film critic the rest seems to be simply manufactured nonsense.
Israeli Arabs have the same rights as Israeli Jews. There is a huge amount of doubt as to whether Israel is an apartheid state.
But it’s a legitimate political debate (as is the contention - in my view false - that Israel is committing genocide). The use of the term “Zionist propaganda” is potentially more troubling but it is context dependent and you can’t tell without that.
It’s the Telegraph muck raking
While Israel proper is not an apartheid State, the West Bank certainly is.
If you are a Palestinian born in the Israeli administered West Bank, then you do not have the same rights as a Jew born there.
What differences are there? Isn't the West Bank governed by the PA.
The PA has some powers, but not a lot. It's like saying "well, you get a vote for your local parish council".
For example, the Palestinian Authority has no authority to stop Israel building new settlements in... errr... areas previously controlled by the Palestinian Authority.
And Israeli soldiers are quite free to enter Palestinian Authority controlled towns. While PA policy are certainly not free to enter Israeli settlements.
The whole road network is designed around the Israeli settlers. Getting from one Palestinian village to another can take hours.
You cannot spend time in the West Bank, and not see that it is controlled by Israel.
Yes the settlements absolutely must stop and should be on the table in any serious negotiation.
But what is the difference in individual rights.
Ummmm:
So, South African apartheit was characterised by a few elements:
(1) While everyone got a vote, you only got to vote for the "parliament" for your race, and the white parliament was the one with all the money and power. That is pretty much exactly the situation with Palestinians versus Jews in the West Bank.
(2) There were severe restrictions on where people of colour were allowed to own property and to live. That is, again, exactly the same as the situation in the West Bank.
(3) The provision of basic services - transport, health, power, and water - was very different depending on whether you were in a black or a white area. That is, again, exactly the same in the West Bank.
Now, one might argue that it is the job of Palestinians to better themselves, and only once they have done so and proved themselves to not be a threat to the Jews can they be given more rights.
That argument was also made, many times, in the South African apartheit era. South Africa's blacks would need to earn the vote.
Thanks.
Yes that does seem restrictive. But I suppose it takes time to normalise lands acquired in war. We should perhaps commend the Israelis for making some effort to do so.
I'll have you know that some countries never bother.
What proportion of people in the West Bank date back from before Israel took it over? 20%?10%? Given young populations, it's going to be far nearer the latter.
Those people - the vast majority of Palestinians - have been born in a State adminstered by Israel for a half century.
Israel needs to either: (a) regard them as Israelis with the same rights as every other Israeli, or (b) allow them their own State.
You know, I have some sympathy with the "ah, it's war and it takes time to sort out" view. And in 1980 you could make that case. You could maybe even make it in 1990.
But it's not 1990. It's 2023. The majority of people alive in the West Bank were not even born when the Oslo Accords were signed.
Yes. I don't disagree. The settlers should be removed and the Palestinians given a chance to govern on their own.
Thing is, you know what the definition of madness is, now, don't you.
Suppose you were an Israeli minding his own business in downtown Tel Aviv (does Tel Aviv have a downtown) and you had seen what happened in oh I don't know, say Gaza. What might your view on it all be.
Oh, I have total sympathy with the Israelis in Southern Israel who've been attacked by Hamas. And I believe we should cut their government a lot of slack in recovering the hostages,
But we also need to accept that the current Israeli government has no interest in even reducing settlement building, let alone dismantling or moving settlers, and that therefore a two state solution is not possible. Or even desired by those in power in Israel.
There will therefore continue to be an almost unlimited number of radicalised Palestinians who have every bit as good a reason to be angry as those Israelis.
They did precisely what you say they had no intention of doing. In Gaza. In 2005.
I would be overjoyed if that were to happen. Obviously, I would prefer it if it was not combined with the destruction of the international airport and the blockade of the port. You know, things which make it quite difficult to develop an economy
In the short run, Israel can - I'm sure - ensure a pliant Palestine via superior weapons, blockades and the like.
But that comes with a cost. It comes with the cost of Israel surrendering the moral high ground it has had for so long. The lives of Palestinians born inside Israeli administered Palestine are pretty shit. And while you can put a lot of that down to shitty Palestinian leadership, Israel cannot shirk all responsibility, because Palestine is not self governing.
Would you build a factory in Palestine to make T-Shirts, if you didn't know whether you could export them?
In the short run, Israel can - I'm sure - ensure a pliant Palestine via superior weapons, blockades and the like.
That didn't work in Gaza, so I really don't know why you'd think it'd work in the West Bank, which is much larger and has much more complicated terrain. There would be a huge onus on Jordanian forces to police their border effectively, which they simply aren't up to.
The simple fact is that a self-governing Palestinian state means Hamas (or other Iranian backed and funded terror groups) in charge, with their insistence on continuing the struggle until the state of Israel ceases to exist. As soon as they were in charge (which they could do either via the ballot box or by simple force) they would do exactly what they've spent the last 15+ years doing in Gaza: murdering any form of moderate Arab opposition, stealing from their own people, subverting any and all civilian infrastructure to the purpose of fighting an endless war with Israel.
As soon as someone figures out a way to stop all that from happening, the Palestinians can have their own state more or less immediately. There would be immense public support from Israelis to do so, regardless of what it cost in terms of settlement removal.
In the meantime, everything happening on the West Bank that you don't like is a direct consequence of two facts: 1) the PA cannot be relied upon to keep Israeli citizens safe, and 2) no-one in Israel seriously believes any of this is likely to change any time soon.
That would be a lot more persuasive an argument if Israel had not spent the last 20 years continually building out settlements in the West Bank.
Do you really think that that (a) increases support for Hamas and the destruction of Israel? or (b) diminishes it?
It may seems a technical point, but it is important.
It’s not *Israel* that is building settlements in the West Bank
It’s nut job religious extremists doing so, often through violence and theft. (How they align that with religious principles is a question for another day).
The Israeli government is guilty of turning a blind eye, although their dependence on settler voters in the Knesset makes it politically impossible for them to intervene.
They are doing a lot more than turning a blind eye. They are providing military outposts to ensure that when the settlers randomly shoot Palestinians to drive them off the land, the Palestinians are not able to shoot back.
They're sowing dragons' teeth, and they're blind to it.
In an ethnically divided region, I'd far rather have a smaller state, where my group forms an overwhelming majority, than a larger state with a huge hostile population. Land-grabbing for its own sake is the stupidest policy.
If they can kill thousands of children and threaten to kill many thousands more through famine and disease with the support and protection of the world's most powerful countries I would imagine they think they can do whatever the fuck they want, and will keep on doing it.
they are doing it in Sudan and no-ones gives a tinkers curse. Plenty of this goes on year after year , Yemen < Ukraine etc. Some get publicity , others don't rate a byline. It is all fake bollox whining with both sides out to wreck the other.
In local UK news we’re now 3 days into what will certainly be the most impressive sustained period of wind power dominating the grid to date.
Currently generating 21gw of power from wind, and only 2.6gw from any form of fossil fuel (CCGT).
There were a rash of stories last week about the grid not being able to cope with surges in wind power and the need to switch many of the turbines off as a result. It was alleged that the money wasted (the turbine owners still get paid) was adding £40 onto the average bill.
Given our massive investment in wind this seemed a somewhat suboptimal state of affairs.
Then we need a massive investment in battery (or pumped, or big weights up and down mineshafts) storage.
The quickest return is on high voltage interconnects.
A European grid with sufficient capacity would cut such losses by a substantial amount, and pay for itself in perhaps half a decade - much quicker than any of the other alternatives. For now, we don't even have a UK wide grid with enough capacity.
Batteries, for now, are too expensive for anything but local, short term storage (and EVs will probably add capacity faster than pure storage projects).
Awaiting the inevitable reaction from the usual suspects:
Pumped Scottish based storage for an independent Scotland = laudable aim for progress to Net Zero.
Pumped Scottish based storage for the UK market = colonialist exploitation.
I would have thought that Scottish enterprises building valuable facilities in Scotland would tend to help rather than hinder any case for Scottish independence. I don't see it as that kind of issue at all, FWIW.
The problem with pumped storage is that it means flooding land. There will, undoubtedly, be local opposition to each and every proposal.
This is why building new reservoirs, for whatever reason, has fallen out of fashion.
Batteries will win, in the medium term, simply because they scale from small installations, and there is pretty much no planning required.
Park a handful of shipping containers on a site - and under U.K. planning rules a small installation doesn’t require full scale planning. So if you have an old power station site (or even a container park) already, there would be next to nothing to stop you parking the containers.
The main constraint is actually supply - not enough batteries. Yet.
I calculated, recently, that replicating Dinorwig with batteries would cost about the same as building it with water storage.
You don't have to buy spare water to make sure the water doesn't run out at an inconvenient time. Water is Wales's biggest import.
There’s spare electrical power going to waste at the moment. Being able to time shift it is growing more valuable.
Todays record confirmed by National Grid:
All I want for Christmas is a new max #Wind generation record 🎅🎄
Today (21 December), wind generated a new high of 21.8GW electricity ⚡ between 8:00-8:30, providing 56% of the generation mix. This breaks the previous record set in January.
In local UK news we’re now 3 days into what will certainly be the most impressive sustained period of wind power dominating the grid to date.
Currently generating 21gw of power from wind, and only 2.6gw from any form of fossil fuel (CCGT).
There were a rash of stories last week about the grid not being able to cope with surges in wind power and the need to switch many of the turbines off as a result. It was alleged that the money wasted (the turbine owners still get paid) was adding £40 onto the average bill.
Given our massive investment in wind this seemed a somewhat suboptimal state of affairs.
Then we need a massive investment in battery (or pumped, or big weights up and down mineshafts) storage.
The quickest return is on high voltage interconnects.
A European grid with sufficient capacity would cut such losses by a substantial amount, and pay for itself in perhaps half a decade - much quicker than any of the other alternatives. For now, we don't even have a UK wide grid with enough capacity.
Batteries, for now, are too expensive for anything but local, short term storage (and EVs will probably add capacity faster than pure storage projects).
Awaiting the inevitable reaction from the usual suspects:
Pumped Scottish based storage for an independent Scotland = laudable aim for progress to Net Zero.
Pumped Scottish based storage for the UK market = colonialist exploitation.
I would have thought that Scottish enterprises building valuable facilities in Scotland would tend to help rather than hinder any case for Scottish independence. I don't see it as that kind of issue at all, FWIW.
The problem with pumped storage is that it means flooding land. There will, undoubtedly, be local opposition to each and every proposal.
This is why building new reservoirs, for whatever reason, has fallen out of fashion.
Batteries will win, in the medium term, simply because they scale from small installations, and there is pretty much no planning required.
Park a handful of shipping containers on a site - and under U.K. planning rules a small installation doesn’t require full scale planning. So if you have an old power station site (or even a container park) already, there would be next to nothing to stop you parking the containers.
The main constraint is actually supply - not enough batteries. Yet.
I calculated, recently, that replicating Dinorwig with batteries would cost about the same as building it with water storage.
You don't have to buy spare water to make sure the water doesn't run out at an inconvenient time. Water is Wales's biggest import.
It looks like the BBC, an institution known for its own issues with anti-semitism, have selected a candidate for Eurovision who seems to flirt with anti semitism.
As there is not the slightest doubt that Israel is an Apartheid State I don't know what the Telegraph is talking about. Do people still read the telegraph. Apart from a half decent film critic the rest seems to be simply manufactured nonsense.
Israeli Arabs have the same rights as Israeli Jews. There is a huge amount of doubt as to whether Israel is an apartheid state.
But it’s a legitimate political debate (as is the contention - in my view false - that Israel is committing genocide). The use of the term “Zionist propaganda” is potentially more troubling but it is context dependent and you can’t tell without that.
It’s the Telegraph muck raking
While Israel proper is not an apartheid State, the West Bank certainly is.
If you are a Palestinian born in the Israeli administered West Bank, then you do not have the same rights as a Jew born there.
What differences are there? Isn't the West Bank governed by the PA.
The PA has some powers, but not a lot. It's like saying "well, you get a vote for your local parish council".
For example, the Palestinian Authority has no authority to stop Israel building new settlements in... errr... areas previously controlled by the Palestinian Authority.
And Israeli soldiers are quite free to enter Palestinian Authority controlled towns. While PA policy are certainly not free to enter Israeli settlements.
The whole road network is designed around the Israeli settlers. Getting from one Palestinian village to another can take hours.
You cannot spend time in the West Bank, and not see that it is controlled by Israel.
Yes the settlements absolutely must stop and should be on the table in any serious negotiation.
But what is the difference in individual rights.
Ummmm:
So, South African apartheit was characterised by a few elements:
(1) While everyone got a vote, you only got to vote for the "parliament" for your race, and the white parliament was the one with all the money and power. That is pretty much exactly the situation with Palestinians versus Jews in the West Bank.
(2) There were severe restrictions on where people of colour were allowed to own property and to live. That is, again, exactly the same as the situation in the West Bank.
(3) The provision of basic services - transport, health, power, and water - was very different depending on whether you were in a black or a white area. That is, again, exactly the same in the West Bank.
Now, one might argue that it is the job of Palestinians to better themselves, and only once they have done so and proved themselves to not be a threat to the Jews can they be given more rights.
That argument was also made, many times, in the South African apartheit era. South Africa's blacks would need to earn the vote.
Thanks.
Yes that does seem restrictive. But I suppose it takes time to normalise lands acquired in war. We should perhaps commend the Israelis for making some effort to do so.
I'll have you know that some countries never bother.
What proportion of people in the West Bank date back from before Israel took it over? 20%?10%? Given young populations, it's going to be far nearer the latter.
Those people - the vast majority of Palestinians - have been born in a State adminstered by Israel for a half century.
Israel needs to either: (a) regard them as Israelis with the same rights as every other Israeli, or (b) allow them their own State.
You know, I have some sympathy with the "ah, it's war and it takes time to sort out" view. And in 1980 you could make that case. You could maybe even make it in 1990.
But it's not 1990. It's 2023. The majority of people alive in the West Bank were not even born when the Oslo Accords were signed.
Amazing how despite numerous lessons from history*, nations / ethnic groups / communities still feel that indefinite suppression of other peoples can be a permanent way forward.
(*Soviet Russia, British Empire, Apartheid South Africa, Ulster Protestants, China towards Uyghur. I have no doubt missed many even more egregious examples.)
Well, it can be. Ethnic cleansing settles the issue forever.
The alternative is to assimilate the subject people, but that usually requires giving them a stake in the system.
Perhaps the lesson is that to be successful it needs to be absolute oppression or active integration. The former = ethnic cleansing and is generally frowned upon now of course.
The Norman invasion might be an example of severe oppression short of ethnic cleansing that was never really overthrown, I guess?
The Normans were successful imperialists because they gradually assimilated to the local population.
.
If you have any spare time over the holidays, you might wish to brush up on your history as to how the Norman Conquest went? It was centuries before the locals could speak their own language in any official context and the handful of invaders took possession of almost all the property. And so was born the English class system, which we still experience today.
I'm well aware of the brutality. But, a tiny minority could not rule forever over much larger numbers, just at the point of the sword.
And, I think for the average English peasant, it was more a change of overlords, rather than subjugation of a wholly free people.
It looks like the BBC, an institution known for its own issues with anti-semitism, have selected a candidate for Eurovision who seems to flirt with anti semitism.
As there is not the slightest doubt that Israel is an Apartheid State I don't know what the Telegraph is talking about. Do people still read the telegraph. Apart from a half decent film critic the rest seems to be simply manufactured nonsense.
Israeli Arabs have the same rights as Israeli Jews. There is a huge amount of doubt as to whether Israel is an apartheid state.
But it’s a legitimate political debate (as is the contention - in my view false - that Israel is committing genocide). The use of the term “Zionist propaganda” is potentially more troubling but it is context dependent and you can’t tell without that.
It’s the Telegraph muck raking
While Israel proper is not an apartheid State, the West Bank certainly is.
If you are a Palestinian born in the Israeli administered West Bank, then you do not have the same rights as a Jew born there.
What differences are there? Isn't the West Bank governed by the PA.
The PA has some powers, but not a lot. It's like saying "well, you get a vote for your local parish council".
For example, the Palestinian Authority has no authority to stop Israel building new settlements in... errr... areas previously controlled by the Palestinian Authority.
And Israeli soldiers are quite free to enter Palestinian Authority controlled towns. While PA policy are certainly not free to enter Israeli settlements.
The whole road network is designed around the Israeli settlers. Getting from one Palestinian village to another can take hours.
You cannot spend time in the West Bank, and not see that it is controlled by Israel.
Yes the settlements absolutely must stop and should be on the table in any serious negotiation.
But what is the difference in individual rights.
Ummmm:
So, South African apartheit was characterised by a few elements:
(1) While everyone got a vote, you only got to vote for the "parliament" for your race, and the white parliament was the one with all the money and power. That is pretty much exactly the situation with Palestinians versus Jews in the West Bank.
(2) There were severe restrictions on where people of colour were allowed to own property and to live. That is, again, exactly the same as the situation in the West Bank.
(3) The provision of basic services - transport, health, power, and water - was very different depending on whether you were in a black or a white area. That is, again, exactly the same in the West Bank.
Now, one might argue that it is the job of Palestinians to better themselves, and only once they have done so and proved themselves to not be a threat to the Jews can they be given more rights.
That argument was also made, many times, in the South African apartheit era. South Africa's blacks would need to earn the vote.
Thanks.
Yes that does seem restrictive. But I suppose it takes time to normalise lands acquired in war. We should perhaps commend the Israelis for making some effort to do so.
I'll have you know that some countries never bother.
What proportion of people in the West Bank date back from before Israel took it over? 20%?10%? Given young populations, it's going to be far nearer the latter.
Those people - the vast majority of Palestinians - have been born in a State adminstered by Israel for a half century.
Israel needs to either: (a) regard them as Israelis with the same rights as every other Israeli, or (b) allow them their own State.
You know, I have some sympathy with the "ah, it's war and it takes time to sort out" view. And in 1980 you could make that case. You could maybe even make it in 1990.
But it's not 1990. It's 2023. The majority of people alive in the West Bank were not even born when the Oslo Accords were signed.
Amazing how despite numerous lessons from history*, nations / ethnic groups / communities still feel that indefinite suppression of other peoples can be a permanent way forward.
(*Soviet Russia, British Empire, Apartheid South Africa, Ulster Protestants, China towards Uyghur. I have no doubt missed many even more egregious examples.)
Well, it can be. Ethnic cleansing settles the issue forever.
The alternative is to assimilate the subject people, but that usually requires giving them a stake in the system.
Perhaps the lesson is that to be successful it needs to be absolute oppression or active integration. The former = ethnic cleansing and is generally frowned upon now of course.
The Norman invasion might be an example of severe oppression short of ethnic cleansing that was never really overthrown, I guess?
The Normans were successful imperialists because they gradually assimilated to the local population.
.
If you have any spare time over the holidays, you might wish to brush up on your history as to how the Norman Conquest went? It was centuries before the locals could speak their own language in any official context and the handful of invaders took possession of almost all the property. And so was born the English class system, which we still experience today.
All true of course. But in the end, unless I am mistaken, the Normans spoke English not French and England became, er, England not North Normandy.
So the Norman toffs did eventually assimilate. Probably made easier by dint of continuing to own all the land they'd stolen.
I think anyone with skills or property would be well-advised to get out of South Africa.
Given the hilarious Scottish budget this week, one wonders how long it will take until people start saying similar about Scotland under the SNP.
Many, many business colleagues of mine - people who never talk politics - mentioned to me, sotto voce, that they'd be moving to England if independence happened, sometimes suffixed with 'if I can sell my house'!
Pompous little Englander arsehole. I hope your sleazeball friends get out quick and get shit prices for their houses
Chatting to the farm contractor who cuts our hedges today. He mentioned what a mess the Middle East is and how it had pushed up the price of red diesel: "Why can't they sort themselves out? It looks like a total shithole, can't think why anyone would want to live there, let alone fight over it."
To which I stupidly said 'no wonder so many are trying to come over on boats'. Cue: "I'm not a racist but... the country can't take any more, we will literally sink if any more come in."
Now, I understand quite a few people feel that way but the odd thing to me is this guy is living in a small village in a sparsely populated part of Dorset. He will have next to zero contact with anyone who's not white. The only people from ethic minorities for miles around are running the few Indian and Chinese takaways in the nearest town.
Personally, I'm convinced the less contact people have with those from other cultures the more they fear them.
Anyway, there's definitely some kind of market for the ERG RefUK line on immigration, hopefully, a small one.
Hmmm, you can have little contact but if you read the news that the country is going to teh dogs, no houses, NHS knackered , 8 gazillion a day on hotels etc etc it is very easy to get impression a lot of that is down to the huge increase in immigration regardless of race or creed and so have a jaundiced opinion of it.
Not only that the news is full of stories about people who are not migrants, but Brits (off all races and creeds) stuck in temporary accomodation. In Newham an astonishing amount of children in school are in temporary accomodation. It was on the news this week.
If we cannot provide adequate homes for people here already how can we cope with more ? It is not an unreasonable question to ask although anyone asking it is automatically assumed to be the next Tommy Robinson.
Govts since 2000 have pursued a policy of large scale inward migration while posturing against it and, as a consequence, not putting adequate resources in place.
Screw the NIMBYs in the words of our Ukrainian Ultra here, and build build build.
In local UK news we’re now 3 days into what will certainly be the most impressive sustained period of wind power dominating the grid to date.
Currently generating 21gw of power from wind, and only 2.6gw from any form of fossil fuel (CCGT).
There were a rash of stories last week about the grid not being able to cope with surges in wind power and the need to switch many of the turbines off as a result. It was alleged that the money wasted (the turbine owners still get paid) was adding £40 onto the average bill.
Given our massive investment in wind this seemed a somewhat suboptimal state of affairs.
Then we need a massive investment in battery (or pumped, or big weights up and down mineshafts) storage.
The quickest return is on high voltage interconnects.
A European grid with sufficient capacity would cut such losses by a substantial amount, and pay for itself in perhaps half a decade - much quicker than any of the other alternatives. For now, we don't even have a UK wide grid with enough capacity.
Batteries, for now, are too expensive for anything but local, short term storage (and EVs will probably add capacity faster than pure storage projects).
Awaiting the inevitable reaction from the usual suspects:
Pumped Scottish based storage for an independent Scotland = laudable aim for progress to Net Zero.
Pumped Scottish based storage for the UK market = colonialist exploitation.
I would have thought that Scottish enterprises building valuable facilities in Scotland would tend to help rather than hinder any case for Scottish independence. I don't see it as that kind of issue at all, FWIW.
The problem with pumped storage is that it means flooding land. There will, undoubtedly, be local opposition to each and every proposal.
This is why building new reservoirs, for whatever reason, has fallen out of fashion.
Batteries will win, in the medium term, simply because they scale from small installations, and there is pretty much no planning required.
Park a handful of shipping containers on a site - and under U.K. planning rules a small installation doesn’t require full scale planning. So if you have an old power station site (or even a container park) already, there would be next to nothing to stop you parking the containers.
The main constraint is actually supply - not enough batteries. Yet.
I calculated, recently, that replicating Dinorwig with batteries would cost about the same as building it with water storage.
I don't agree about local objections; the areas are very remote and I believe much of the pumped storage has already received planning permission - what is missing is the economical impetus to build the facilities, in no small part because the constraint payments regime makes it far more lucrative to get paid for switching off than to organise effective storage.
Pumped hydro is massively cleaner than batteries and the energy can be stored indefinitely, whereas batteries can store it for (afaik) a day. There is also no competition for materials, resulting in supply issues that you admit.
Storage will be addressed seriously when power providers *need* to sell their energy to make money. Until this situation occurs, we will continue to mutter about it and nothing will happen.
Building new reservoirs did not 'fall out of fashion', it fell foul of the EU water framework directive which has been gold plated enthusiastically by UK agencies. Nobody would object to (for example) an old quarry being made into a reservoir, and it is specious or uncharicteristically ignorant to blame nimbies for our lack of new water infrastructure.
Batteries can store power long term. In any case, most of the time shifting that is required is over the 24h cycle.
Perhaps in an ideal world it would be all pumped storage. But within a decade, we will be looking at surplus battery production, at prices about 50% less than now.
It looks like the BBC, an institution known for its own issues with anti-semitism, have selected a candidate for Eurovision who seems to flirt with anti semitism.
As there is not the slightest doubt that Israel is an Apartheid State I don't know what the Telegraph is talking about. Do people still read the telegraph. Apart from a half decent film critic the rest seems to be simply manufactured nonsense.
Israeli Arabs have the same rights as Israeli Jews. There is a huge amount of doubt as to whether Israel is an apartheid state.
But it’s a legitimate political debate (as is the contention - in my view false - that Israel is committing genocide). The use of the term “Zionist propaganda” is potentially more troubling but it is context dependent and you can’t tell without that.
It’s the Telegraph muck raking
While Israel proper is not an apartheid State, the West Bank certainly is.
If you are a Palestinian born in the Israeli administered West Bank, then you do not have the same rights as a Jew born there.
What differences are there? Isn't the West Bank governed by the PA.
The PA has some powers, but not a lot. It's like saying "well, you get a vote for your local parish council".
For example, the Palestinian Authority has no authority to stop Israel building new settlements in... errr... areas previously controlled by the Palestinian Authority.
And Israeli soldiers are quite free to enter Palestinian Authority controlled towns. While PA policy are certainly not free to enter Israeli settlements.
The whole road network is designed around the Israeli settlers. Getting from one Palestinian village to another can take hours.
You cannot spend time in the West Bank, and not see that it is controlled by Israel.
Yes the settlements absolutely must stop and should be on the table in any serious negotiation.
But what is the difference in individual rights.
Ummmm:
So, South African apartheit was characterised by a few elements:
(1) While everyone got a vote, you only got to vote for the "parliament" for your race, and the white parliament was the one with all the money and power. That is pretty much exactly the situation with Palestinians versus Jews in the West Bank.
(2) There were severe restrictions on where people of colour were allowed to own property and to live. That is, again, exactly the same as the situation in the West Bank.
(3) The provision of basic services - transport, health, power, and water - was very different depending on whether you were in a black or a white area. That is, again, exactly the same in the West Bank.
Now, one might argue that it is the job of Palestinians to better themselves, and only once they have done so and proved themselves to not be a threat to the Jews can they be given more rights.
That argument was also made, many times, in the South African apartheit era. South Africa's blacks would need to earn the vote.
Thanks.
Yes that does seem restrictive. But I suppose it takes time to normalise lands acquired in war. We should perhaps commend the Israelis for making some effort to do so.
I'll have you know that some countries never bother.
What proportion of people in the West Bank date back from before Israel took it over? 20%?10%? Given young populations, it's going to be far nearer the latter.
Those people - the vast majority of Palestinians - have been born in a State adminstered by Israel for a half century.
Israel needs to either: (a) regard them as Israelis with the same rights as every other Israeli, or (b) allow them their own State.
You know, I have some sympathy with the "ah, it's war and it takes time to sort out" view. And in 1980 you could make that case. You could maybe even make it in 1990.
But it's not 1990. It's 2023. The majority of people alive in the West Bank were not even born when the Oslo Accords were signed.
Amazing how despite numerous lessons from history*, nations / ethnic groups / communities still feel that indefinite suppression of other peoples can be a permanent way forward.
(*Soviet Russia, British Empire, Apartheid South Africa, Ulster Protestants, China towards Uyghur. I have no doubt missed many even more egregious examples.)
Well, it can be. Ethnic cleansing settles the issue forever.
The alternative is to assimilate the subject people, but that usually requires giving them a stake in the system.
Perhaps the lesson is that to be successful it needs to be absolute oppression or active integration. The former = ethnic cleansing and is generally frowned upon now of course.
The Norman invasion might be an example of severe oppression short of ethnic cleansing that was never really overthrown, I guess?
The Normans were successful imperialists because they gradually assimilated to the local population.
.
If you have any spare time over the holidays, you might wish to brush up on your history as to how the Norman Conquest went? It was centuries before the locals could speak their own language in any official context and the handful of invaders took possession of almost all the property. And so was born the English class system, which we still experience today.
All true of course. But in the end, unless I am mistaken, the Normans spoke English not French and England became, er, England not North Normandy.
So the Norman toffs did eventually assimilate. Probably made easier by dint of continuing to own all the land they'd stolen.
You are mistaken. Our language today consists to a large degree of the French language they brought with them.
It looks like the BBC, an institution known for its own issues with anti-semitism, have selected a candidate for Eurovision who seems to flirt with anti semitism.
As there is not the slightest doubt that Israel is an Apartheid State I don't know what the Telegraph is talking about. Do people still read the telegraph. Apart from a half decent film critic the rest seems to be simply manufactured nonsense.
Israeli Arabs have the same rights as Israeli Jews. There is a huge amount of doubt as to whether Israel is an apartheid state.
But it’s a legitimate political debate (as is the contention - in my view false - that Israel is committing genocide). The use of the term “Zionist propaganda” is potentially more troubling but it is context dependent and you can’t tell without that.
It’s the Telegraph muck raking
While Israel proper is not an apartheid State, the West Bank certainly is.
If you are a Palestinian born in the Israeli administered West Bank, then you do not have the same rights as a Jew born there.
What differences are there? Isn't the West Bank governed by the PA.
The PA has some powers, but not a lot. It's like saying "well, you get a vote for your local parish council".
For example, the Palestinian Authority has no authority to stop Israel building new settlements in... errr... areas previously controlled by the Palestinian Authority.
And Israeli soldiers are quite free to enter Palestinian Authority controlled towns. While PA policy are certainly not free to enter Israeli settlements.
The whole road network is designed around the Israeli settlers. Getting from one Palestinian village to another can take hours.
You cannot spend time in the West Bank, and not see that it is controlled by Israel.
Yes the settlements absolutely must stop and should be on the table in any serious negotiation.
But what is the difference in individual rights.
Ummmm:
So, South African apartheit was characterised by a few elements:
(1) While everyone got a vote, you only got to vote for the "parliament" for your race, and the white parliament was the one with all the money and power. That is pretty much exactly the situation with Palestinians versus Jews in the West Bank.
(2) There were severe restrictions on where people of colour were allowed to own property and to live. That is, again, exactly the same as the situation in the West Bank.
(3) The provision of basic services - transport, health, power, and water - was very different depending on whether you were in a black or a white area. That is, again, exactly the same in the West Bank.
Now, one might argue that it is the job of Palestinians to better themselves, and only once they have done so and proved themselves to not be a threat to the Jews can they be given more rights.
That argument was also made, many times, in the South African apartheit era. South Africa's blacks would need to earn the vote.
Thanks.
Yes that does seem restrictive. But I suppose it takes time to normalise lands acquired in war. We should perhaps commend the Israelis for making some effort to do so.
I'll have you know that some countries never bother.
What proportion of people in the West Bank date back from before Israel took it over? 20%?10%? Given young populations, it's going to be far nearer the latter.
Those people - the vast majority of Palestinians - have been born in a State adminstered by Israel for a half century.
Israel needs to either: (a) regard them as Israelis with the same rights as every other Israeli, or (b) allow them their own State.
You know, I have some sympathy with the "ah, it's war and it takes time to sort out" view. And in 1980 you could make that case. You could maybe even make it in 1990.
But it's not 1990. It's 2023. The majority of people alive in the West Bank were not even born when the Oslo Accords were signed.
Yes. I don't disagree. The settlers should be removed and the Palestinians given a chance to govern on their own.
Thing is, you know what the definition of madness is, now, don't you.
Suppose you were an Israeli minding his own business in downtown Tel Aviv (does Tel Aviv have a downtown) and you had seen what happened in oh I don't know, say Gaza. What might your view on it all be.
Oh, I have total sympathy with the Israelis in Southern Israel who've been attacked by Hamas. And I believe we should cut their government a lot of slack in recovering the hostages,
But we also need to accept that the current Israeli government has no interest in even reducing settlement building, let alone dismantling or moving settlers, and that therefore a two state solution is not possible. Or even desired by those in power in Israel.
There will therefore continue to be an almost unlimited number of radicalised Palestinians who have every bit as good a reason to be angry as those Israelis.
They did precisely what you say they had no intention of doing. In Gaza. In 2005.
I would be overjoyed if that were to happen. Obviously, I would prefer it if it was not combined with the destruction of the international airport and the blockade of the port. You know, things which make it quite difficult to develop an economy
In the short run, Israel can - I'm sure - ensure a pliant Palestine via superior weapons, blockades and the like.
But that comes with a cost. It comes with the cost of Israel surrendering the moral high ground it has had for so long. The lives of Palestinians born inside Israeli administered Palestine are pretty shit. And while you can put a lot of that down to shitty Palestinian leadership, Israel cannot shirk all responsibility, because Palestine is not self governing.
Would you build a factory in Palestine to make T-Shirts, if you didn't know whether you could export them?
In the short run, Israel can - I'm sure - ensure a pliant Palestine via superior weapons, blockades and the like.
That didn't work in Gaza, so I really don't know why you'd think it'd work in the West Bank, which is much larger and has much more complicated terrain. There would be a huge onus on Jordanian forces to police their border effectively, which they simply aren't up to.
The simple fact is that a self-governing Palestinian state means Hamas (or other Iranian backed and funded terror groups) in charge, with their insistence on continuing the struggle until the state of Israel ceases to exist. As soon as they were in charge (which they could do either via the ballot box or by simple force) they would do exactly what they've spent the last 15+ years doing in Gaza: murdering any form of moderate Arab opposition, stealing from their own people, subverting any and all civilian infrastructure to the purpose of fighting an endless war with Israel.
As soon as someone figures out a way to stop all that from happening, the Palestinians can have their own state more or less immediately. There would be immense public support from Israelis to do so, regardless of what it cost in terms of settlement removal.
In the meantime, everything happening on the West Bank that you don't like is a direct consequence of two facts: 1) the PA cannot be relied upon to keep Israeli citizens safe, and 2) no-one in Israel seriously believes any of this is likely to change any time soon.
That would be a lot more persuasive an argument if Israel had not spent the last 20 years continually building out settlements in the West Bank.
Do you really think that that (a) increases support for Hamas and the destruction of Israel? or (b) diminishes it?
In 1947-48 Israel was fighting the Arab states. Arguably for its life and arguably in a war of defence (certainly post UN 181). When it began to get the upper hand it thought fuck it they want us all dead so the "rules" go out the window and hence "the Nakba".
You say the last 20 years. When exactly did Hamas take over Gaza?
We call ethnic cleansing a crime against humanity because it can have no excuses. It is wrong in all circumstances. It was wrong then; it is wrong now. You yourself note that the Nakba came after Isreal “began to get the upper hand”, so when defence had turned to territorial expansion.
Hamas took over Gaza beginning 2006. Israel was committed to settlements before then.
That's simply not true - clearing out the Arab settlements in the Ayalon valley had far more to do with lifting the siege placed on the Jews in West Jerusalem than "territorial expansion". There was obviously strong desire to ensure that Jerusalem would form part of the nascent Israeli state, but the Arab villages were being used as lookout points to prevent aid convoys getting through and clearing them was a military decision (there are plenty of Arab villages left in that area that didn't command strategic positions over the road).
The majority of Arabs elsewhere were left in peace, which is why there is today such a sizeable Arab minority in Israel.
Of course, there were also a large number of those who fled of their own accord (Safed is a good example), terrified that the Jews would do to them what they'd intended to do to the Jews.
It looks like the BBC, an institution known for its own issues with anti-semitism, have selected a candidate for Eurovision who seems to flirt with anti semitism.
As there is not the slightest doubt that Israel is an Apartheid State I don't know what the Telegraph is talking about. Do people still read the telegraph. Apart from a half decent film critic the rest seems to be simply manufactured nonsense.
Israeli Arabs have the same rights as Israeli Jews. There is a huge amount of doubt as to whether Israel is an apartheid state.
But it’s a legitimate political debate (as is the contention - in my view false - that Israel is committing genocide). The use of the term “Zionist propaganda” is potentially more troubling but it is context dependent and you can’t tell without that.
It’s the Telegraph muck raking
While Israel proper is not an apartheid State, the West Bank certainly is.
If you are a Palestinian born in the Israeli administered West Bank, then you do not have the same rights as a Jew born there.
What differences are there? Isn't the West Bank governed by the PA.
The PA has some powers, but not a lot. It's like saying "well, you get a vote for your local parish council".
For example, the Palestinian Authority has no authority to stop Israel building new settlements in... errr... areas previously controlled by the Palestinian Authority.
And Israeli soldiers are quite free to enter Palestinian Authority controlled towns. While PA policy are certainly not free to enter Israeli settlements.
The whole road network is designed around the Israeli settlers. Getting from one Palestinian village to another can take hours.
You cannot spend time in the West Bank, and not see that it is controlled by Israel.
Yes the settlements absolutely must stop and should be on the table in any serious negotiation.
But what is the difference in individual rights.
Ummmm:
So, South African apartheit was characterised by a few elements:
(1) While everyone got a vote, you only got to vote for the "parliament" for your race, and the white parliament was the one with all the money and power. That is pretty much exactly the situation with Palestinians versus Jews in the West Bank.
(2) There were severe restrictions on where people of colour were allowed to own property and to live. That is, again, exactly the same as the situation in the West Bank.
(3) The provision of basic services - transport, health, power, and water - was very different depending on whether you were in a black or a white area. That is, again, exactly the same in the West Bank.
Now, one might argue that it is the job of Palestinians to better themselves, and only once they have done so and proved themselves to not be a threat to the Jews can they be given more rights.
That argument was also made, many times, in the South African apartheit era. South Africa's blacks would need to earn the vote.
Thanks.
Yes that does seem restrictive. But I suppose it takes time to normalise lands acquired in war. We should perhaps commend the Israelis for making some effort to do so.
I'll have you know that some countries never bother.
What proportion of people in the West Bank date back from before Israel took it over? 20%?10%? Given young populations, it's going to be far nearer the latter.
Those people - the vast majority of Palestinians - have been born in a State adminstered by Israel for a half century.
Israel needs to either: (a) regard them as Israelis with the same rights as every other Israeli, or (b) allow them their own State.
You know, I have some sympathy with the "ah, it's war and it takes time to sort out" view. And in 1980 you could make that case. You could maybe even make it in 1990.
But it's not 1990. It's 2023. The majority of people alive in the West Bank were not even born when the Oslo Accords were signed.
Amazing how despite numerous lessons from history*, nations / ethnic groups / communities still feel that indefinite suppression of other peoples can be a permanent way forward.
(*Soviet Russia, British Empire, Apartheid South Africa, Ulster Protestants, China towards Uyghur. I have no doubt missed many even more egregious examples.)
Well, it can be. Ethnic cleansing settles the issue forever.
The alternative is to assimilate the subject people, but that usually requires giving them a stake in the system.
Perhaps the lesson is that to be successful it needs to be absolute oppression or active integration. The former = ethnic cleansing and is generally frowned upon now of course.
The Norman invasion might be an example of severe oppression short of ethnic cleansing that was never really overthrown, I guess?
The Normans were successful imperialists because they gradually assimilated to the local population.
.
If you have any spare time over the holidays, you might wish to brush up on your history as to how the Norman Conquest went? It was centuries before the locals could speak their own language in any official context and the handful of invaders took possession of almost all the property. And so was born the English class system, which we still experience today.
The feudal class system very much predated Oct 1066.
The Norman conquest simply substituted a set of Normans for a set of Saxons (and a few Anglo-Danes) as the ruling class, buttressed by lesser Normans as a significant land-owning class. It was a revolution in personnel, not structure.
I think anyone with skills or property would be well-advised to get out of South Africa.
Given the hilarious Scottish budget this week, one wonders how long it will take until people start saying similar about Scotland under the SNP.
Many, many business colleagues of mine - people who never talk politics - mentioned to me, sotto voce, that they'd be moving to England if independence happened, sometimes suffixed with 'if I can sell my house'!
Pompous little Englander arsehole. I hope your sleazeball friends get out quick and get shit prices for their houses
It looks like the BBC, an institution known for its own issues with anti-semitism, have selected a candidate for Eurovision who seems to flirt with anti semitism.
As there is not the slightest doubt that Israel is an Apartheid State I don't know what the Telegraph is talking about. Do people still read the telegraph. Apart from a half decent film critic the rest seems to be simply manufactured nonsense.
Israeli Arabs have the same rights as Israeli Jews. There is a huge amount of doubt as to whether Israel is an apartheid state.
But it’s a legitimate political debate (as is the contention - in my view false - that Israel is committing genocide). The use of the term “Zionist propaganda” is potentially more troubling but it is context dependent and you can’t tell without that.
It’s the Telegraph muck raking
While Israel proper is not an apartheid State, the West Bank certainly is.
If you are a Palestinian born in the Israeli administered West Bank, then you do not have the same rights as a Jew born there.
What differences are there? Isn't the West Bank governed by the PA.
The PA has some powers, but not a lot. It's like saying "well, you get a vote for your local parish council".
For example, the Palestinian Authority has no authority to stop Israel building new settlements in... errr... areas previously controlled by the Palestinian Authority.
And Israeli soldiers are quite free to enter Palestinian Authority controlled towns. While PA policy are certainly not free to enter Israeli settlements.
The whole road network is designed around the Israeli settlers. Getting from one Palestinian village to another can take hours.
You cannot spend time in the West Bank, and not see that it is controlled by Israel.
Yes the settlements absolutely must stop and should be on the table in any serious negotiation.
But what is the difference in individual rights.
Ummmm:
So, South African apartheit was characterised by a few elements:
(1) While everyone got a vote, you only got to vote for the "parliament" for your race, and the white parliament was the one with all the money and power. That is pretty much exactly the situation with Palestinians versus Jews in the West Bank.
(2) There were severe restrictions on where people of colour were allowed to own property and to live. That is, again, exactly the same as the situation in the West Bank.
(3) The provision of basic services - transport, health, power, and water - was very different depending on whether you were in a black or a white area. That is, again, exactly the same in the West Bank.
Now, one might argue that it is the job of Palestinians to better themselves, and only once they have done so and proved themselves to not be a threat to the Jews can they be given more rights.
That argument was also made, many times, in the South African apartheit era. South Africa's blacks would need to earn the vote.
Thanks.
Yes that does seem restrictive. But I suppose it takes time to normalise lands acquired in war. We should perhaps commend the Israelis for making some effort to do so.
I'll have you know that some countries never bother.
What proportion of people in the West Bank date back from before Israel took it over? 20%?10%? Given young populations, it's going to be far nearer the latter.
Those people - the vast majority of Palestinians - have been born in a State adminstered by Israel for a half century.
Israel needs to either: (a) regard them as Israelis with the same rights as every other Israeli, or (b) allow them their own State.
You know, I have some sympathy with the "ah, it's war and it takes time to sort out" view. And in 1980 you could make that case. You could maybe even make it in 1990.
But it's not 1990. It's 2023. The majority of people alive in the West Bank were not even born when the Oslo Accords were signed.
Amazing how despite numerous lessons from history*, nations / ethnic groups / communities still feel that indefinite suppression of other peoples can be a permanent way forward.
(*Soviet Russia, British Empire, Apartheid South Africa, Ulster Protestants, China towards Uyghur. I have no doubt missed many even more egregious examples.)
Well, it can be. Ethnic cleansing settles the issue forever.
The alternative is to assimilate the subject people, but that usually requires giving them a stake in the system.
Perhaps the lesson is that to be successful it needs to be absolute oppression or active integration. The former = ethnic cleansing and is generally frowned upon now of course.
The Norman invasion might be an example of severe oppression short of ethnic cleansing that was never really overthrown, I guess?
The Normans were successful imperialists because they gradually assimilated to the local population.
.
If you have any spare time over the holidays, you might wish to brush up on your history as to how the Norman Conquest went? It was centuries before the locals could speak their own language in any official context and the handful of invaders took possession of almost all the property. And so was born the English class system, which we still experience today.
All true of course. But in the end, unless I am mistaken, the Normans spoke English not French and England became, er, England not North Normandy.
So the Norman toffs did eventually assimilate. Probably made easier by dint of continuing to own all the land they'd stolen.
You are mistaken. Our language today consists to a large degree of the French language they brought with them.
“English is the result of Norman men-at-arms chatting up Anglo-Saxon barmaids”
Fry has repeatedly expressed opposition to organised religion, and has identified himself as an atheist and humanist, while declaring some sympathy for the ancient Greek belief in gods. In his first autobiography he described how he once considered ordination to the Anglican priesthood, but came to the conclusion that he couldn't believe in God. In 2010, Fry was made a Distinguished Supporter of the British Humanist Association, stating: "it is essential to nail one's colours to the mast as a humanist."
I believe David Baddiel told a story about how since he started talking more about his Jewish identity he sometimes gets invited to events about religion, and one time a rabbi phoned him up about one and he didn't feel like going so told him he was an atheist, to which the rabbi apparently cheerfully replied 'that's alright, so am I'.
Judaism is both an ethnicity and a religion. So of course Stephen Fry can be both Jewish and an atheist.
IIUC he's not ethnically Jewish.
He would have been counted as Jewish by the Nazis and would be counted as Jewish by Israeli immigration.
In local UK news we’re now 3 days into what will certainly be the most impressive sustained period of wind power dominating the grid to date.
Currently generating 21gw of power from wind, and only 2.6gw from any form of fossil fuel (CCGT).
There were a rash of stories last week about the grid not being able to cope with surges in wind power and the need to switch many of the turbines off as a result. It was alleged that the money wasted (the turbine owners still get paid) was adding £40 onto the average bill.
Given our massive investment in wind this seemed a somewhat suboptimal state of affairs.
Then we need a massive investment in battery (or pumped, or big weights up and down mineshafts) storage.
The quickest return is on high voltage interconnects.
A European grid with sufficient capacity would cut such losses by a substantial amount, and pay for itself in perhaps half a decade - much quicker than any of the other alternatives. For now, we don't even have a UK wide grid with enough capacity.
Batteries, for now, are too expensive for anything but local, short term storage (and EVs will probably add capacity faster than pure storage projects).
Awaiting the inevitable reaction from the usual suspects:
Pumped Scottish based storage for an independent Scotland = laudable aim for progress to Net Zero.
Pumped Scottish based storage for the UK market = colonialist exploitation.
I would have thought that Scottish enterprises building valuable facilities in Scotland would tend to help rather than hinder any case for Scottish independence. I don't see it as that kind of issue at all, FWIW.
The problem with pumped storage is that it means flooding land. There will, undoubtedly, be local opposition to each and every proposal.
This is why building new reservoirs, for whatever reason, has fallen out of fashion.
Batteries will win, in the medium term, simply because they scale from small installations, and there is pretty much no planning required.
Park a handful of shipping containers on a site - and under U.K. planning rules a small installation doesn’t require full scale planning. So if you have an old power station site (or even a container park) already, there would be next to nothing to stop you parking the containers.
The main constraint is actually supply - not enough batteries. Yet.
I calculated, recently, that replicating Dinorwig with batteries would cost about the same as building it with water storage.
I don't agree about local objections; the areas are very remote and I believe much of the pumped storage has already received planning permission - what is missing is the economical impetus to build the facilities, in no small part because the constraint payments regime makes it far more lucrative to get paid for switching off than to organise effective storage.
Pumped hydro is massively cleaner than batteries and the energy can be stored indefinitely, whereas batteries can store it for (afaik) a day. There is also no competition for materials, resulting in supply issues that you admit.
Storage will be addressed seriously when power providers *need* to sell their energy to make money. Until this situation occurs, we will continue to mutter about it and nothing will happen.
Building new reservoirs did not 'fall out of fashion', it fell foul of the EU water framework directive which has been gold plated enthusiastically by UK agencies. Nobody would object to (for example) an old quarry being made into a reservoir, and it is specious or uncharicteristically ignorant to blame nimbies for our lack of new water infrastructure.
Batteries can store power long term. In any case, most of the time shifting that is required is over the 24h cycle.
Perhaps in an ideal world it would be all pumped storage. But within a decade, we will be looking at surplus battery production, at prices about 50% less than now.
Which will make batteries the cheaper option.
I don’t see how. Pumped is like tidal - an initial investment then it virtually pays for itself. Batteries still need to be replaced, recycled/disposed of.
Chatting to the farm contractor who cuts our hedges today. He mentioned what a mess the Middle East is and how it had pushed up the price of red diesel: "Why can't they sort themselves out? It looks like a total shithole, can't think why anyone would want to live there, let alone fight over it."
To which I stupidly said 'no wonder so many are trying to come over on boats'. Cue: "I'm not a racist but... the country can't take any more, we will literally sink if any more come in."
Now, I understand quite a few people feel that way but the odd thing to me is this guy is living in a small village in a sparsely populated part of Dorset. He will have next to zero contact with anyone who's not white. The only people from ethic minorities for miles around are running the few Indian and Chinese takaways in the nearest town.
Personally, I'm convinced the less contact people have with those from other cultures the more they fear them.
Anyway, there's definitely some kind of market for the ERG RefUK line on immigration, hopefully, a small one.
Hmmm, you can have little contact but if you read the news that the country is going to teh dogs, no houses, NHS knackered , 8 gazillion a day on hotels etc etc it is very easy to get impression a lot of that is down to the huge increase in immigration regardless of race or creed and so have a jaundiced opinion of it.
Not only that the news is full of stories about people who are not migrants, but Brits (off all races and creeds) stuck in temporary accomodation. In Newham an astonishing amount of children in school are in temporary accomodation. It was on the news this week.
If we cannot provide adequate homes for people here already how can we cope with more ? It is not an unreasonable question to ask although anyone asking it is automatically assumed to be the next Tommy Robinson.
Govts since 2000 have pursued a policy of large scale inward migration while posturing against it and, as a consequence, not putting adequate resources in place.
Screw the NIMBYs in the words of our Ukrainian Ultra here, and build build build.
Yes and it usually rich arseholes pointing the finger and saying racist , they are insulated from the issues. UK si a shithole at present and taking in nearly a million people a year is crazy. It will come to a head at some point.
It has come to my attention that the biggest impact of Trump being (potentially) off the ballot in Colorado, is that he won't therefore be a part of the Republican Primary.
Colorado, while only a medium sized state, is a Super Tuesday state. So if Trump is off the ballot, that may - effectively - hand the delegate haul almost entirely to Hayley.
In local UK news we’re now 3 days into what will certainly be the most impressive sustained period of wind power dominating the grid to date.
Currently generating 21gw of power from wind, and only 2.6gw from any form of fossil fuel (CCGT).
There were a rash of stories last week about the grid not being able to cope with surges in wind power and the need to switch many of the turbines off as a result. It was alleged that the money wasted (the turbine owners still get paid) was adding £40 onto the average bill.
Given our massive investment in wind this seemed a somewhat suboptimal state of affairs.
Then we need a massive investment in battery (or pumped, or big weights up and down mineshafts) storage.
The quickest return is on high voltage interconnects.
A European grid with sufficient capacity would cut such losses by a substantial amount, and pay for itself in perhaps half a decade - much quicker than any of the other alternatives. For now, we don't even have a UK wide grid with enough capacity.
Batteries, for now, are too expensive for anything but local, short term storage (and EVs will probably add capacity faster than pure storage projects).
Awaiting the inevitable reaction from the usual suspects:
Pumped Scottish based storage for an independent Scotland = laudable aim for progress to Net Zero.
Pumped Scottish based storage for the UK market = colonialist exploitation.
I would have thought that Scottish enterprises building valuable facilities in Scotland would tend to help rather than hinder any case for Scottish independence. I don't see it as that kind of issue at all, FWIW.
The problem with pumped storage is that it means flooding land. There will, undoubtedly, be local opposition to each and every proposal.
This is why building new reservoirs, for whatever reason, has fallen out of fashion.
Batteries will win, in the medium term, simply because they scale from small installations, and there is pretty much no planning required.
Park a handful of shipping containers on a site - and under U.K. planning rules a small installation doesn’t require full scale planning. So if you have an old power station site (or even a container park) already, there would be next to nothing to stop you parking the containers.
The main constraint is actually supply - not enough batteries. Yet.
I calculated, recently, that replicating Dinorwig with batteries would cost about the same as building it with water storage.
I don't agree about local objections; the areas are very remote and I believe much of the pumped storage has already received planning permission - what is missing is the economical impetus to build the facilities, in no small part because the constraint payments regime makes it far more lucrative to get paid for switching off than to organise effective storage.
Pumped hydro is massively cleaner than batteries and the energy can be stored indefinitely, whereas batteries can store it for (afaik) a day. There is also no competition for materials, resulting in supply issues that you admit.
Storage will be addressed seriously when power providers *need* to sell their energy to make money. Until this situation occurs, we will continue to mutter about it and nothing will happen.
Building new reservoirs did not 'fall out of fashion', it fell foul of the EU water framework directive which has been gold plated enthusiastically by UK agencies. Nobody would object to (for example) an old quarry being made into a reservoir, and it is specious or uncharicteristically ignorant to blame nimbies for our lack of new water infrastructure.
Batteries can store power long term. In any case, most of the time shifting that is required is over the 24h cycle.
Perhaps in an ideal world it would be all pumped storage. But within a decade, we will be looking at surplus battery production, at prices about 50% less than now.
Which will make batteries the cheaper option.
I don’t see how. Pumped is like tidal - an initial investment then it virtually pays for itself. Batteries still need to be replaced, recycled/disposed of.
Pumped storage isn’t maintenance free. The technologies are mature - massive improvement are unlikely.
Batteries are at the point in the development cycle where they are steadily getting cheaper and better by the year. Not the flashy stories in the press, but a series of methodical improvements in the details of chemistry and production.
It looks like the BBC, an institution known for its own issues with anti-semitism, have selected a candidate for Eurovision who seems to flirt with anti semitism.
As there is not the slightest doubt that Israel is an Apartheid State I don't know what the Telegraph is talking about. Do people still read the telegraph. Apart from a half decent film critic the rest seems to be simply manufactured nonsense.
Israeli Arabs have the same rights as Israeli Jews. There is a huge amount of doubt as to whether Israel is an apartheid state.
But it’s a legitimate political debate (as is the contention - in my view false - that Israel is committing genocide). The use of the term “Zionist propaganda” is potentially more troubling but it is context dependent and you can’t tell without that.
It’s the Telegraph muck raking
While Israel proper is not an apartheid State, the West Bank certainly is.
If you are a Palestinian born in the Israeli administered West Bank, then you do not have the same rights as a Jew born there.
What differences are there? Isn't the West Bank governed by the PA.
The PA has some powers, but not a lot. It's like saying "well, you get a vote for your local parish council".
For example, the Palestinian Authority has no authority to stop Israel building new settlements in... errr... areas previously controlled by the Palestinian Authority.
And Israeli soldiers are quite free to enter Palestinian Authority controlled towns. While PA policy are certainly not free to enter Israeli settlements.
The whole road network is designed around the Israeli settlers. Getting from one Palestinian village to another can take hours.
You cannot spend time in the West Bank, and not see that it is controlled by Israel.
Yes the settlements absolutely must stop and should be on the table in any serious negotiation.
But what is the difference in individual rights.
Ummmm:
So, South African apartheit was characterised by a few elements:
(1) While everyone got a vote, you only got to vote for the "parliament" for your race, and the white parliament was the one with all the money and power. That is pretty much exactly the situation with Palestinians versus Jews in the West Bank.
(2) There were severe restrictions on where people of colour were allowed to own property and to live. That is, again, exactly the same as the situation in the West Bank.
(3) The provision of basic services - transport, health, power, and water - was very different depending on whether you were in a black or a white area. That is, again, exactly the same in the West Bank.
Now, one might argue that it is the job of Palestinians to better themselves, and only once they have done so and proved themselves to not be a threat to the Jews can they be given more rights.
That argument was also made, many times, in the South African apartheit era. South Africa's blacks would need to earn the vote.
Thanks.
Yes that does seem restrictive. But I suppose it takes time to normalise lands acquired in war. We should perhaps commend the Israelis for making some effort to do so.
I'll have you know that some countries never bother.
What proportion of people in the West Bank date back from before Israel took it over? 20%?10%? Given young populations, it's going to be far nearer the latter.
Those people - the vast majority of Palestinians - have been born in a State adminstered by Israel for a half century.
Israel needs to either: (a) regard them as Israelis with the same rights as every other Israeli, or (b) allow them their own State.
You know, I have some sympathy with the "ah, it's war and it takes time to sort out" view. And in 1980 you could make that case. You could maybe even make it in 1990.
But it's not 1990. It's 2023. The majority of people alive in the West Bank were not even born when the Oslo Accords were signed.
Yes. I don't disagree. The settlers should be removed and the Palestinians given a chance to govern on their own.
Thing is, you know what the definition of madness is, now, don't you.
Suppose you were an Israeli minding his own business in downtown Tel Aviv (does Tel Aviv have a downtown) and you had seen what happened in oh I don't know, say Gaza. What might your view on it all be.
Oh, I have total sympathy with the Israelis in Southern Israel who've been attacked by Hamas. And I believe we should cut their government a lot of slack in recovering the hostages,
But we also need to accept that the current Israeli government has no interest in even reducing settlement building, let alone dismantling or moving settlers, and that therefore a two state solution is not possible. Or even desired by those in power in Israel.
There will therefore continue to be an almost unlimited number of radicalised Palestinians who have every bit as good a reason to be angry as those Israelis.
They did precisely what you say they had no intention of doing. In Gaza. In 2005.
I would be overjoyed if that were to happen. Obviously, I would prefer it if it was not combined with the destruction of the international airport and the blockade of the port. You know, things which make it quite difficult to develop an economy
In the short run, Israel can - I'm sure - ensure a pliant Palestine via superior weapons, blockades and the like.
But that comes with a cost. It comes with the cost of Israel surrendering the moral high ground it has had for so long. The lives of Palestinians born inside Israeli administered Palestine are pretty shit. And while you can put a lot of that down to shitty Palestinian leadership, Israel cannot shirk all responsibility, because Palestine is not self governing.
Would you build a factory in Palestine to make T-Shirts, if you didn't know whether you could export them?
In the short run, Israel can - I'm sure - ensure a pliant Palestine via superior weapons, blockades and the like.
That didn't work in Gaza, so I really don't know why you'd think it'd work in the West Bank, which is much larger and has much more complicated terrain. There would be a huge onus on Jordanian forces to police their border effectively, which they simply aren't up to.
The simple fact is that a self-governing Palestinian state means Hamas (or other Iranian backed and funded terror groups) in charge, with their insistence on continuing the struggle until the state of Israel ceases to exist. As soon as they were in charge (which they could do either via the ballot box or by simple force) they would do exactly what they've spent the last 15+ years doing in Gaza: murdering any form of moderate Arab opposition, stealing from their own people, subverting any and all civilian infrastructure to the purpose of fighting an endless war with Israel.
As soon as someone figures out a way to stop all that from happening, the Palestinians can have their own state more or less immediately. There would be immense public support from Israelis to do so, regardless of what it cost in terms of settlement removal.
In the meantime, everything happening on the West Bank that you don't like is a direct consequence of two facts: 1) the PA cannot be relied upon to keep Israeli citizens safe, and 2) no-one in Israel seriously believes any of this is likely to change any time soon.
That would be a lot more persuasive an argument if Israel had not spent the last 20 years continually building out settlements in the West Bank.
Do you really think that that (a) increases support for Hamas and the destruction of Israel? or (b) diminishes it?
It may seems a technical point, but it is important.
It’s not *Israel* that is building settlements in the West Bank
It’s nut job religious extremists doing so, often through violence and theft. (How they align that with religious principles is a question for another day).
The Israeli government is guilty of turning a blind eye, although their dependence on settler voters in the Knesset makes it politically impossible for them to intervene.
They are doing a lot more than turning a blind eye. They are providing military outposts to ensure that when the settlers randomly shoot Palestinians to drive them off the land, the Palestinians are not able to shoot back.
They're sowing dragons' teeth, and they're blind to it.
In an ethnically divided region, I'd far rather have a smaller state, where my group forms an overwhelming majority, than a larger state with a huge hostile population. Land-grabbing for its own sake is the stupidest policy.
A look at the map of Israel and the West Bank will tell you exactly why Israel does not wants the West Bank under a hostile authority.
From a defence standpoint, a hostile West Bank would be horrendous to defend against as Israel would need to position troops on a border multiple times longer than that of Gaza or Lebanon.
The latter also shows why having a UN force would not work to keep the peace - in likelihood it would be ineffective.
Imagine if Hezbollah was able to position at least some of its might / rocketry in the West Bank. Israel would be the proverbial StepMom.
The Croatian border is difficult to defend. Should we get rid of Bosnia?
The Indian border is difficult to defend around the north-east. Should we dismantle Bangladesh?
The Burmese border gets long and thin. Bye-bye Thailand?
Israel, like any country, should get to do what it wants within Israel's border (short of crimes against humanity). If it is concerned about hostile neighbours, it can do the same things as any other country concerned about hostile neighbours: invest in defence, seek support promises from allies, make peace and improve relations. What it shouldn't do is occupy territory for decades and seek to annex it.
Oh great, I’m in the queue at the channel tunnel and they’ve just gone on surprise strike. So it’s going to be one of those transport delay odysseys isn’t it?
It looks like the BBC, an institution known for its own issues with anti-semitism, have selected a candidate for Eurovision who seems to flirt with anti semitism.
As there is not the slightest doubt that Israel is an Apartheid State I don't know what the Telegraph is talking about. Do people still read the telegraph. Apart from a half decent film critic the rest seems to be simply manufactured nonsense.
Israeli Arabs have the same rights as Israeli Jews. There is a huge amount of doubt as to whether Israel is an apartheid state.
But it’s a legitimate political debate (as is the contention - in my view false - that Israel is committing genocide). The use of the term “Zionist propaganda” is potentially more troubling but it is context dependent and you can’t tell without that.
It’s the Telegraph muck raking
While Israel proper is not an apartheid State, the West Bank certainly is.
If you are a Palestinian born in the Israeli administered West Bank, then you do not have the same rights as a Jew born there.
What differences are there? Isn't the West Bank governed by the PA.
The PA has some powers, but not a lot. It's like saying "well, you get a vote for your local parish council".
For example, the Palestinian Authority has no authority to stop Israel building new settlements in... errr... areas previously controlled by the Palestinian Authority.
And Israeli soldiers are quite free to enter Palestinian Authority controlled towns. While PA policy are certainly not free to enter Israeli settlements.
The whole road network is designed around the Israeli settlers. Getting from one Palestinian village to another can take hours.
You cannot spend time in the West Bank, and not see that it is controlled by Israel.
Yes the settlements absolutely must stop and should be on the table in any serious negotiation.
But what is the difference in individual rights.
Ummmm:
So, South African apartheit was characterised by a few elements:
(1) While everyone got a vote, you only got to vote for the "parliament" for your race, and the white parliament was the one with all the money and power. That is pretty much exactly the situation with Palestinians versus Jews in the West Bank.
(2) There were severe restrictions on where people of colour were allowed to own property and to live. That is, again, exactly the same as the situation in the West Bank.
(3) The provision of basic services - transport, health, power, and water - was very different depending on whether you were in a black or a white area. That is, again, exactly the same in the West Bank.
Now, one might argue that it is the job of Palestinians to better themselves, and only once they have done so and proved themselves to not be a threat to the Jews can they be given more rights.
That argument was also made, many times, in the South African apartheit era. South Africa's blacks would need to earn the vote.
Thanks.
Yes that does seem restrictive. But I suppose it takes time to normalise lands acquired in war. We should perhaps commend the Israelis for making some effort to do so.
I'll have you know that some countries never bother.
What proportion of people in the West Bank date back from before Israel took it over? 20%?10%? Given young populations, it's going to be far nearer the latter.
Those people - the vast majority of Palestinians - have been born in a State adminstered by Israel for a half century.
Israel needs to either: (a) regard them as Israelis with the same rights as every other Israeli, or (b) allow them their own State.
You know, I have some sympathy with the "ah, it's war and it takes time to sort out" view. And in 1980 you could make that case. You could maybe even make it in 1990.
But it's not 1990. It's 2023. The majority of people alive in the West Bank were not even born when the Oslo Accords were signed.
Amazing how despite numerous lessons from history*, nations / ethnic groups / communities still feel that indefinite suppression of other peoples can be a permanent way forward.
(*Soviet Russia, British Empire, Apartheid South Africa, Ulster Protestants, China towards Uyghur. I have no doubt missed many even more egregious examples.)
Well, it can be. Ethnic cleansing settles the issue forever.
The alternative is to assimilate the subject people, but that usually requires giving them a stake in the system.
Perhaps the lesson is that to be successful it needs to be absolute oppression or active integration. The former = ethnic cleansing and is generally frowned upon now of course.
The Norman invasion might be an example of severe oppression short of ethnic cleansing that was never really overthrown, I guess?
The Normans were successful imperialists because they gradually assimilated to the local population.
.
If you have any spare time over the holidays, you might wish to brush up on your history as to how the Norman Conquest went? It was centuries before the locals could speak their own language in any official context and the handful of invaders took possession of almost all the property. And so was born the English class system, which we still experience today.
I'm well aware of the brutality. But, a tiny minority could not rule forever over much larger numbers, just at the point of the sword.
And, I think for the average English peasant, it was more a change of overlords, rather than subjugation of a wholly free people.
The Normans did force their foreign ways on the Anglo-Saxons. For example, they eradicated slavery.
It looks like the BBC, an institution known for its own issues with anti-semitism, have selected a candidate for Eurovision who seems to flirt with anti semitism.
As there is not the slightest doubt that Israel is an Apartheid State I don't know what the Telegraph is talking about. Do people still read the telegraph. Apart from a half decent film critic the rest seems to be simply manufactured nonsense.
Israeli Arabs have the same rights as Israeli Jews. There is a huge amount of doubt as to whether Israel is an apartheid state.
But it’s a legitimate political debate (as is the contention - in my view false - that Israel is committing genocide). The use of the term “Zionist propaganda” is potentially more troubling but it is context dependent and you can’t tell without that.
It’s the Telegraph muck raking
While Israel proper is not an apartheid State, the West Bank certainly is.
If you are a Palestinian born in the Israeli administered West Bank, then you do not have the same rights as a Jew born there.
What differences are there? Isn't the West Bank governed by the PA.
The PA has some powers, but not a lot. It's like saying "well, you get a vote for your local parish council".
For example, the Palestinian Authority has no authority to stop Israel building new settlements in... errr... areas previously controlled by the Palestinian Authority.
And Israeli soldiers are quite free to enter Palestinian Authority controlled towns. While PA policy are certainly not free to enter Israeli settlements.
The whole road network is designed around the Israeli settlers. Getting from one Palestinian village to another can take hours.
You cannot spend time in the West Bank, and not see that it is controlled by Israel.
Yes the settlements absolutely must stop and should be on the table in any serious negotiation.
But what is the difference in individual rights.
Ummmm:
So, South African apartheit was characterised by a few elements:
(1) While everyone got a vote, you only got to vote for the "parliament" for your race, and the white parliament was the one with all the money and power. That is pretty much exactly the situation with Palestinians versus Jews in the West Bank.
(2) There were severe restrictions on where people of colour were allowed to own property and to live. That is, again, exactly the same as the situation in the West Bank.
(3) The provision of basic services - transport, health, power, and water - was very different depending on whether you were in a black or a white area. That is, again, exactly the same in the West Bank.
Now, one might argue that it is the job of Palestinians to better themselves, and only once they have done so and proved themselves to not be a threat to the Jews can they be given more rights.
That argument was also made, many times, in the South African apartheit era. South Africa's blacks would need to earn the vote.
Thanks.
Yes that does seem restrictive. But I suppose it takes time to normalise lands acquired in war. We should perhaps commend the Israelis for making some effort to do so.
I'll have you know that some countries never bother.
What proportion of people in the West Bank date back from before Israel took it over? 20%?10%? Given young populations, it's going to be far nearer the latter.
Those people - the vast majority of Palestinians - have been born in a State adminstered by Israel for a half century.
Israel needs to either: (a) regard them as Israelis with the same rights as every other Israeli, or (b) allow them their own State.
You know, I have some sympathy with the "ah, it's war and it takes time to sort out" view. And in 1980 you could make that case. You could maybe even make it in 1990.
But it's not 1990. It's 2023. The majority of people alive in the West Bank were not even born when the Oslo Accords were signed.
Amazing how despite numerous lessons from history*, nations / ethnic groups / communities still feel that indefinite suppression of other peoples can be a permanent way forward.
(*Soviet Russia, British Empire, Apartheid South Africa, Ulster Protestants, China towards Uyghur. I have no doubt missed many even more egregious examples.)
Well, it can be. Ethnic cleansing settles the issue forever.
The alternative is to assimilate the subject people, but that usually requires giving them a stake in the system.
Perhaps the lesson is that to be successful it needs to be absolute oppression or active integration. The former = ethnic cleansing and is generally frowned upon now of course.
The Norman invasion might be an example of severe oppression short of ethnic cleansing that was never really overthrown, I guess?
The Normans were successful imperialists because they gradually assimilated to the local population.
.
If you have any spare time over the holidays, you might wish to brush up on your history as to how the Norman Conquest went? It was centuries before the locals could speak their own language in any official context and the handful of invaders took possession of almost all the property. And so was born the English class system, which we still experience today.
All true of course. But in the end, unless I am mistaken, the Normans spoke English not French and England became, er, England not North Normandy.
So the Norman toffs did eventually assimilate. Probably made easier by dint of continuing to own all the land they'd stolen.
You are mistaken. Our language today consists to a large degree of the French language they brought with them.
Loan words yes, but the core of the language, the words used most often, derives largely from the germanic languages.
I think anyone with skills or property would be well-advised to get out of South Africa.
Given the hilarious Scottish budget this week, one wonders how long it will take until people start saying similar about Scotland under the SNP.
Many, many business colleagues of mine - people who never talk politics - mentioned to me, sotto voce, that they'd be moving to England if independence happened, sometimes suffixed with 'if I can sell my house'!
Pompous little Englander arsehole. I hope your sleazeball friends get out quick and get shit prices for their houses
It has come to my attention that the biggest impact of Trump being (potentially) off the ballot in Colorado, is that he won't therefore be a part of the Republican Primary.
Colorado, while only a medium sized state, is a Super Tuesday state. So if Trump is off the ballot, that may - effectively - hand the delegate haul almost entirely to Hayley.
Surely the biggest impact of Trump being off the ballot in Colorado is the impact it has on every other state?
The SCOTUS case will be settled long before the Colorado primary (March 5, 37 delegates out of 2467). So either Trump wins, in which case he's back on the ballot, or he loses.
If he loses, it goes far wider than Colorado. The SCOTUS will have effectively said that yes, Trump did engage in insurrection or rebellion as per the 14th Amendment and therefore is barred from standing for public office - not just in Colorado but across the entire Union.
It looks like the BBC, an institution known for its own issues with anti-semitism, have selected a candidate for Eurovision who seems to flirt with anti semitism.
As there is not the slightest doubt that Israel is an Apartheid State I don't know what the Telegraph is talking about. Do people still read the telegraph. Apart from a half decent film critic the rest seems to be simply manufactured nonsense.
Israeli Arabs have the same rights as Israeli Jews. There is a huge amount of doubt as to whether Israel is an apartheid state.
But it’s a legitimate political debate (as is the contention - in my view false - that Israel is committing genocide). The use of the term “Zionist propaganda” is potentially more troubling but it is context dependent and you can’t tell without that.
It’s the Telegraph muck raking
While Israel proper is not an apartheid State, the West Bank certainly is.
If you are a Palestinian born in the Israeli administered West Bank, then you do not have the same rights as a Jew born there.
What differences are there? Isn't the West Bank governed by the PA.
The PA has some powers, but not a lot. It's like saying "well, you get a vote for your local parish council".
For example, the Palestinian Authority has no authority to stop Israel building new settlements in... errr... areas previously controlled by the Palestinian Authority.
And Israeli soldiers are quite free to enter Palestinian Authority controlled towns. While PA policy are certainly not free to enter Israeli settlements.
The whole road network is designed around the Israeli settlers. Getting from one Palestinian village to another can take hours.
You cannot spend time in the West Bank, and not see that it is controlled by Israel.
Yes the settlements absolutely must stop and should be on the table in any serious negotiation.
But what is the difference in individual rights.
Ummmm:
So, South African apartheit was characterised by a few elements:
(1) While everyone got a vote, you only got to vote for the "parliament" for your race, and the white parliament was the one with all the money and power. That is pretty much exactly the situation with Palestinians versus Jews in the West Bank.
(2) There were severe restrictions on where people of colour were allowed to own property and to live. That is, again, exactly the same as the situation in the West Bank.
(3) The provision of basic services - transport, health, power, and water - was very different depending on whether you were in a black or a white area. That is, again, exactly the same in the West Bank.
Now, one might argue that it is the job of Palestinians to better themselves, and only once they have done so and proved themselves to not be a threat to the Jews can they be given more rights.
That argument was also made, many times, in the South African apartheit era. South Africa's blacks would need to earn the vote.
Thanks.
Yes that does seem restrictive. But I suppose it takes time to normalise lands acquired in war. We should perhaps commend the Israelis for making some effort to do so.
I'll have you know that some countries never bother.
What proportion of people in the West Bank date back from before Israel took it over? 20%?10%? Given young populations, it's going to be far nearer the latter.
Those people - the vast majority of Palestinians - have been born in a State adminstered by Israel for a half century.
Israel needs to either: (a) regard them as Israelis with the same rights as every other Israeli, or (b) allow them their own State.
You know, I have some sympathy with the "ah, it's war and it takes time to sort out" view. And in 1980 you could make that case. You could maybe even make it in 1990.
But it's not 1990. It's 2023. The majority of people alive in the West Bank were not even born when the Oslo Accords were signed.
Amazing how despite numerous lessons from history*, nations / ethnic groups / communities still feel that indefinite suppression of other peoples can be a permanent way forward.
(*Soviet Russia, British Empire, Apartheid South Africa, Ulster Protestants, China towards Uyghur. I have no doubt missed many even more egregious examples.)
Well, it can be. Ethnic cleansing settles the issue forever.
The alternative is to assimilate the subject people, but that usually requires giving them a stake in the system.
Perhaps the lesson is that to be successful it needs to be absolute oppression or active integration. The former = ethnic cleansing and is generally frowned upon now of course.
The Norman invasion might be an example of severe oppression short of ethnic cleansing that was never really overthrown, I guess?
The Normans were successful imperialists because they gradually assimilated to the local population.
.
If you have any spare time over the holidays, you might wish to brush up on your history as to how the Norman Conquest went? It was centuries before the locals could speak their own language in any official context and the handful of invaders took possession of almost all the property. And so was born the English class system, which we still experience today.
All true of course. But in the end, unless I am mistaken, the Normans spoke English not French and England became, er, England not North Normandy.
So the Norman toffs did eventually assimilate. Probably made easier by dint of continuing to own all the land they'd stolen.
The first King whose mother tongue was English was Henry IV, about three centuries after 1066.
Chatting to the farm contractor who cuts our hedges today. He mentioned what a mess the Middle East is and how it had pushed up the price of red diesel: "Why can't they sort themselves out? It looks like a total shithole, can't think why anyone would want to live there, let alone fight over it."
To which I stupidly said 'no wonder so many are trying to come over on boats'. Cue: "I'm not a racist but... the country can't take any more, we will literally sink if any more come in."
Now, I understand quite a few people feel that way but the odd thing to me is this guy is living in a small village in a sparsely populated part of Dorset. He will have next to zero contact with anyone who's not white. The only people from ethic minorities for miles around are running the few Indian and Chinese takaways in the nearest town.
Personally, I'm convinced the less contact people have with those from other cultures the more they fear them.
Anyway, there's definitely some kind of market for the ERG RefUK line on immigration, hopefully, a small one.
Hmmm, you can have little contact but if you read the news that the country is going to teh dogs, no houses, NHS knackered , 8 gazillion a day on hotels etc etc it is very easy to get impression a lot of that is down to the huge increase in immigration regardless of race or creed and so have a jaundiced opinion of it.
Not only that the news is full of stories about people who are not migrants, but Brits (off all races and creeds) stuck in temporary accomodation. In Newham an astonishing amount of children in school are in temporary accomodation. It was on the news this week.
If we cannot provide adequate homes for people here already how can we cope with more ? It is not an unreasonable question to ask although anyone asking it is automatically assumed to be the next Tommy Robinson.
Govts since 2000 have pursued a policy of large scale inward migration while posturing against it and, as a consequence, not putting adequate resources in place.
Screw the NIMBYs in the words of our Ukrainian Ultra here, and build build build.
Yes and it usually rich arseholes pointing the finger and saying racist , they are insulated from the issues. UK si a shithole at present and taking in nearly a million people a year is crazy. It will come to a head at some point.
It has to, it really must. It is not just the disparity between the have's and have not's, it is people in work, sometimes doing more than one job and with children, stuck in temporary accomodation for years as they cannot get somewhere to live. It is disgraceful this has been allowed to happen.
The same rich arseholes are the first to start up petitions if the local council dares to want to build some homes on an old brownfield site. Usually saying "we want housebuilding, but these are the wrong homes in the wrong area".
The same rich arseholes want their areas gentrified and expect their tradesmen to slum it miles away and come in on the tube to do the jobs they cannot be arsed to do.
So much wrong with this fucking country. People cannot even get a home to live in. Hard working people often holding down more than 1 job. We have commoditised and fetishised housing and house prices so much it is politically untenable to try to do anything to bring them down. It is a joke.
Oh great, I’m in the queue at the channel tunnel and they’ve just gone on surprise strike. So it’s going to be one of those transport delay odysseys isn’t it?
Sit and wait or experience the joys of a ferry crossing in a force 8?
It looks like the BBC, an institution known for its own issues with anti-semitism, have selected a candidate for Eurovision who seems to flirt with anti semitism.
As there is not the slightest doubt that Israel is an Apartheid State I don't know what the Telegraph is talking about. Do people still read the telegraph. Apart from a half decent film critic the rest seems to be simply manufactured nonsense.
Israeli Arabs have the same rights as Israeli Jews. There is a huge amount of doubt as to whether Israel is an apartheid state.
But it’s a legitimate political debate (as is the contention - in my view false - that Israel is committing genocide). The use of the term “Zionist propaganda” is potentially more troubling but it is context dependent and you can’t tell without that.
It’s the Telegraph muck raking
While Israel proper is not an apartheid State, the West Bank certainly is.
If you are a Palestinian born in the Israeli administered West Bank, then you do not have the same rights as a Jew born there.
What differences are there? Isn't the West Bank governed by the PA.
The PA has some powers, but not a lot. It's like saying "well, you get a vote for your local parish council".
For example, the Palestinian Authority has no authority to stop Israel building new settlements in... errr... areas previously controlled by the Palestinian Authority.
And Israeli soldiers are quite free to enter Palestinian Authority controlled towns. While PA policy are certainly not free to enter Israeli settlements.
The whole road network is designed around the Israeli settlers. Getting from one Palestinian village to another can take hours.
You cannot spend time in the West Bank, and not see that it is controlled by Israel.
Yes the settlements absolutely must stop and should be on the table in any serious negotiation.
But what is the difference in individual rights.
Ummmm:
So, South African apartheit was characterised by a few elements:
(1) While everyone got a vote, you only got to vote for the "parliament" for your race, and the white parliament was the one with all the money and power. That is pretty much exactly the situation with Palestinians versus Jews in the West Bank.
(2) There were severe restrictions on where people of colour were allowed to own property and to live. That is, again, exactly the same as the situation in the West Bank.
(3) The provision of basic services - transport, health, power, and water - was very different depending on whether you were in a black or a white area. That is, again, exactly the same in the West Bank.
Now, one might argue that it is the job of Palestinians to better themselves, and only once they have done so and proved themselves to not be a threat to the Jews can they be given more rights.
That argument was also made, many times, in the South African apartheit era. South Africa's blacks would need to earn the vote.
Thanks.
Yes that does seem restrictive. But I suppose it takes time to normalise lands acquired in war. We should perhaps commend the Israelis for making some effort to do so.
I'll have you know that some countries never bother.
What proportion of people in the West Bank date back from before Israel took it over? 20%?10%? Given young populations, it's going to be far nearer the latter.
Those people - the vast majority of Palestinians - have been born in a State adminstered by Israel for a half century.
Israel needs to either: (a) regard them as Israelis with the same rights as every other Israeli, or (b) allow them their own State.
You know, I have some sympathy with the "ah, it's war and it takes time to sort out" view. And in 1980 you could make that case. You could maybe even make it in 1990.
But it's not 1990. It's 2023. The majority of people alive in the West Bank were not even born when the Oslo Accords were signed.
Yes. I don't disagree. The settlers should be removed and the Palestinians given a chance to govern on their own.
Thing is, you know what the definition of madness is, now, don't you.
Suppose you were an Israeli minding his own business in downtown Tel Aviv (does Tel Aviv have a downtown) and you had seen what happened in oh I don't know, say Gaza. What might your view on it all be.
Oh, I have total sympathy with the Israelis in Southern Israel who've been attacked by Hamas. And I believe we should cut their government a lot of slack in recovering the hostages,
But we also need to accept that the current Israeli government has no interest in even reducing settlement building, let alone dismantling or moving settlers, and that therefore a two state solution is not possible. Or even desired by those in power in Israel.
There will therefore continue to be an almost unlimited number of radicalised Palestinians who have every bit as good a reason to be angry as those Israelis.
They did precisely what you say they had no intention of doing. In Gaza. In 2005.
I would be overjoyed if that were to happen. Obviously, I would prefer it if it was not combined with the destruction of the international airport and the blockade of the port. You know, things which make it quite difficult to develop an economy
In the short run, Israel can - I'm sure - ensure a pliant Palestine via superior weapons, blockades and the like.
But that comes with a cost. It comes with the cost of Israel surrendering the moral high ground it has had for so long. The lives of Palestinians born inside Israeli administered Palestine are pretty shit. And while you can put a lot of that down to shitty Palestinian leadership, Israel cannot shirk all responsibility, because Palestine is not self governing.
Would you build a factory in Palestine to make T-Shirts, if you didn't know whether you could export them?
In the short run, Israel can - I'm sure - ensure a pliant Palestine via superior weapons, blockades and the like.
That didn't work in Gaza, so I really don't know why you'd think it'd work in the West Bank, which is much larger and has much more complicated terrain. There would be a huge onus on Jordanian forces to police their border effectively, which they simply aren't up to.
The simple fact is that a self-governing Palestinian state means Hamas (or other Iranian backed and funded terror groups) in charge, with their insistence on continuing the struggle until the state of Israel ceases to exist. As soon as they were in charge (which they could do either via the ballot box or by simple force) they would do exactly what they've spent the last 15+ years doing in Gaza: murdering any form of moderate Arab opposition, stealing from their own people, subverting any and all civilian infrastructure to the purpose of fighting an endless war with Israel.
As soon as someone figures out a way to stop all that from happening, the Palestinians can have their own state more or less immediately. There would be immense public support from Israelis to do so, regardless of what it cost in terms of settlement removal.
In the meantime, everything happening on the West Bank that you don't like is a direct consequence of two facts: 1) the PA cannot be relied upon to keep Israeli citizens safe, and 2) no-one in Israel seriously believes any of this is likely to change any time soon.
That would be a lot more persuasive an argument if Israel had not spent the last 20 years continually building out settlements in the West Bank.
Do you really think that that (a) increases support for Hamas and the destruction of Israel? or (b) diminishes it?
In 1947-48 Israel was fighting the Arab states. Arguably for its life and arguably in a war of defence (certainly post UN 181). When it began to get the upper hand it thought fuck it they want us all dead so the "rules" go out the window and hence "the Nakba".
You say the last 20 years. When exactly did Hamas take over Gaza?
We call ethnic cleansing a crime against humanity because it can have no excuses. It is wrong in all circumstances. It was wrong then; it is wrong now. You yourself note that the Nakba came after Isreal “began to get the upper hand”, so when defence had turned to territorial expansion.
Hamas took over Gaza beginning 2006. Israel was committed to settlements before then.
That's simply not true - clearing out the Arab settlements in the Ayalon valley had far more to do with lifting the siege placed on the Jews in West Jerusalem than "territorial expansion". There was obviously strong desire to ensure that Jerusalem would form part of the nascent Israeli state, but the Arab villages were being used as lookout points to prevent aid convoys getting through and clearing them was a military decision (there are plenty of Arab villages left in that area that didn't command strategic positions over the road).
The majority of Arabs elsewhere were left in peace, which is why there is today such a sizeable Arab minority in Israel.
Of course, there were also a large number of those who fled of their own accord (Safed is a good example), terrified that the Jews would do to them what they'd intended to do to the Jews.
In local UK news we’re now 3 days into what will certainly be the most impressive sustained period of wind power dominating the grid to date.
Currently generating 21gw of power from wind, and only 2.6gw from any form of fossil fuel (CCGT).
There were a rash of stories last week about the grid not being able to cope with surges in wind power and the need to switch many of the turbines off as a result. It was alleged that the money wasted (the turbine owners still get paid) was adding £40 onto the average bill.
Given our massive investment in wind this seemed a somewhat suboptimal state of affairs.
Then we need a massive investment in battery (or pumped, or big weights up and down mineshafts) storage.
The quickest return is on high voltage interconnects.
A European grid with sufficient capacity would cut such losses by a substantial amount, and pay for itself in perhaps half a decade - much quicker than any of the other alternatives. For now, we don't even have a UK wide grid with enough capacity.
Batteries, for now, are too expensive for anything but local, short term storage (and EVs will probably add capacity faster than pure storage projects).
Awaiting the inevitable reaction from the usual suspects:
Pumped Scottish based storage for an independent Scotland = laudable aim for progress to Net Zero.
Pumped Scottish based storage for the UK market = colonialist exploitation.
I would have thought that Scottish enterprises building valuable facilities in Scotland would tend to help rather than hinder any case for Scottish independence. I don't see it as that kind of issue at all, FWIW.
The problem with pumped storage is that it means flooding land. There will, undoubtedly, be local opposition to each and every proposal.
This is why building new reservoirs, for whatever reason, has fallen out of fashion.
Batteries will win, in the medium term, simply because they scale from small installations, and there is pretty much no planning required.
Park a handful of shipping containers on a site - and under U.K. planning rules a small installation doesn’t require full scale planning. So if you have an old power station site (or even a container park) already, there would be next to nothing to stop you parking the containers.
The main constraint is actually supply - not enough batteries. Yet.
I calculated, recently, that replicating Dinorwig with batteries would cost about the same as building it with water storage.
I don't agree about local objections; the areas are very remote and I believe much of the pumped storage has already received planning permission - what is missing is the economical impetus to build the facilities, in no small part because the constraint payments regime makes it far more lucrative to get paid for switching off than to organise effective storage.
Pumped hydro is massively cleaner than batteries and the energy can be stored indefinitely, whereas batteries can store it for (afaik) a day. There is also no competition for materials, resulting in supply issues that you admit.
Storage will be addressed seriously when power providers *need* to sell their energy to make money. Until this situation occurs, we will continue to mutter about it and nothing will happen.
Building new reservoirs did not 'fall out of fashion', it fell foul of the EU water framework directive which has been gold plated enthusiastically by UK agencies. Nobody would object to (for example) an old quarry being made into a reservoir, and it is specious or uncharicteristically ignorant to blame nimbies for our lack of new water infrastructure.
Batteries can store power long term. In any case, most of the time shifting that is required is over the 24h cycle.
Perhaps in an ideal world it would be all pumped storage. But within a decade, we will be looking at surplus battery production, at prices about 50% less than now.
Which will make batteries the cheaper option.
I don’t see how. Pumped is like tidal - an initial investment then it virtually pays for itself. Batteries still need to be replaced, recycled/disposed of.
The issue with pumped storage is that you need two massive reservoirs that are next to each other, and which have a large vertical drop between them. And it helps if there is some nice solid rock for you to mount turbines in, rather than pouring concrete.
(Power capacity is vertical drop x amount of water / reduced by a factor according to the horizontal distance between reservoirs.)
The last time I looked, there were very few sites with two big reservoirs. Most potential sites were quite small. And that's a bit of a problem, because they are not maintenance free. Those turbines take a battering from the water going through them. And you need to regularly desilt your reservoirs.
Given the big differentials between peak and off peak electricity, it may make economic sense to build out some of these smaller sites. But I'm highly doubtful that there are enough sites to really meaningfully add capacity.
It looks like the BBC, an institution known for its own issues with anti-semitism, have selected a candidate for Eurovision who seems to flirt with anti semitism.
As there is not the slightest doubt that Israel is an Apartheid State I don't know what the Telegraph is talking about. Do people still read the telegraph. Apart from a half decent film critic the rest seems to be simply manufactured nonsense.
Israeli Arabs have the same rights as Israeli Jews. There is a huge amount of doubt as to whether Israel is an apartheid state.
But it’s a legitimate political debate (as is the contention - in my view false - that Israel is committing genocide). The use of the term “Zionist propaganda” is potentially more troubling but it is context dependent and you can’t tell without that.
It’s the Telegraph muck raking
While Israel proper is not an apartheid State, the West Bank certainly is.
If you are a Palestinian born in the Israeli administered West Bank, then you do not have the same rights as a Jew born there.
What differences are there? Isn't the West Bank governed by the PA.
The PA has some powers, but not a lot. It's like saying "well, you get a vote for your local parish council".
For example, the Palestinian Authority has no authority to stop Israel building new settlements in... errr... areas previously controlled by the Palestinian Authority.
And Israeli soldiers are quite free to enter Palestinian Authority controlled towns. While PA policy are certainly not free to enter Israeli settlements.
The whole road network is designed around the Israeli settlers. Getting from one Palestinian village to another can take hours.
You cannot spend time in the West Bank, and not see that it is controlled by Israel.
Yes the settlements absolutely must stop and should be on the table in any serious negotiation.
But what is the difference in individual rights.
Ummmm:
So, South African apartheit was characterised by a few elements:
(1) While everyone got a vote, you only got to vote for the "parliament" for your race, and the white parliament was the one with all the money and power. That is pretty much exactly the situation with Palestinians versus Jews in the West Bank.
(2) There were severe restrictions on where people of colour were allowed to own property and to live. That is, again, exactly the same as the situation in the West Bank.
(3) The provision of basic services - transport, health, power, and water - was very different depending on whether you were in a black or a white area. That is, again, exactly the same in the West Bank.
Now, one might argue that it is the job of Palestinians to better themselves, and only once they have done so and proved themselves to not be a threat to the Jews can they be given more rights.
That argument was also made, many times, in the South African apartheit era. South Africa's blacks would need to earn the vote.
Thanks.
Yes that does seem restrictive. But I suppose it takes time to normalise lands acquired in war. We should perhaps commend the Israelis for making some effort to do so.
I'll have you know that some countries never bother.
What proportion of people in the West Bank date back from before Israel took it over? 20%?10%? Given young populations, it's going to be far nearer the latter.
Those people - the vast majority of Palestinians - have been born in a State adminstered by Israel for a half century.
Israel needs to either: (a) regard them as Israelis with the same rights as every other Israeli, or (b) allow them their own State.
You know, I have some sympathy with the "ah, it's war and it takes time to sort out" view. And in 1980 you could make that case. You could maybe even make it in 1990.
But it's not 1990. It's 2023. The majority of people alive in the West Bank were not even born when the Oslo Accords were signed.
Amazing how despite numerous lessons from history*, nations / ethnic groups / communities still feel that indefinite suppression of other peoples can be a permanent way forward.
(*Soviet Russia, British Empire, Apartheid South Africa, Ulster Protestants, China towards Uyghur. I have no doubt missed many even more egregious examples.)
Well, it can be. Ethnic cleansing settles the issue forever.
The alternative is to assimilate the subject people, but that usually requires giving them a stake in the system.
Perhaps the lesson is that to be successful it needs to be absolute oppression or active integration. The former = ethnic cleansing and is generally frowned upon now of course.
The Norman invasion might be an example of severe oppression short of ethnic cleansing that was never really overthrown, I guess?
The Normans were successful imperialists because they gradually assimilated to the local population.
.
If you have any spare time over the holidays, you might wish to brush up on your history as to how the Norman Conquest went? It was centuries before the locals could speak their own language in any official context and the handful of invaders took possession of almost all the property. And so was born the English class system, which we still experience today.
All true of course. But in the end, unless I am mistaken, the Normans spoke English not French and England became, er, England not North Normandy.
So the Norman toffs did eventually assimilate. Probably made easier by dint of continuing to own all the land they'd stolen.
The first King whose mother tongue was English was Henry IV, about three centuries after 1066.
I think we are all making the mistake of applying modern views of the nation state
The Plantagenets were Kings of England. But that was just one part of their familial land holdings - arguably they saw their heartland as being the Angevin and England was merely an interesting adjunct.
As a result it was entirely natural for them that speak French.
It looks like the BBC, an institution known for its own issues with anti-semitism, have selected a candidate for Eurovision who seems to flirt with anti semitism.
As there is not the slightest doubt that Israel is an Apartheid State I don't know what the Telegraph is talking about. Do people still read the telegraph. Apart from a half decent film critic the rest seems to be simply manufactured nonsense.
Israeli Arabs have the same rights as Israeli Jews. There is a huge amount of doubt as to whether Israel is an apartheid state.
But it’s a legitimate political debate (as is the contention - in my view false - that Israel is committing genocide). The use of the term “Zionist propaganda” is potentially more troubling but it is context dependent and you can’t tell without that.
It’s the Telegraph muck raking
While Israel proper is not an apartheid State, the West Bank certainly is.
If you are a Palestinian born in the Israeli administered West Bank, then you do not have the same rights as a Jew born there.
What differences are there? Isn't the West Bank governed by the PA.
The PA has some powers, but not a lot. It's like saying "well, you get a vote for your local parish council".
For example, the Palestinian Authority has no authority to stop Israel building new settlements in... errr... areas previously controlled by the Palestinian Authority.
And Israeli soldiers are quite free to enter Palestinian Authority controlled towns. While PA policy are certainly not free to enter Israeli settlements.
The whole road network is designed around the Israeli settlers. Getting from one Palestinian village to another can take hours.
You cannot spend time in the West Bank, and not see that it is controlled by Israel.
Yes the settlements absolutely must stop and should be on the table in any serious negotiation.
But what is the difference in individual rights.
Ummmm:
So, South African apartheit was characterised by a few elements:
(1) While everyone got a vote, you only got to vote for the "parliament" for your race, and the white parliament was the one with all the money and power. That is pretty much exactly the situation with Palestinians versus Jews in the West Bank.
(2) There were severe restrictions on where people of colour were allowed to own property and to live. That is, again, exactly the same as the situation in the West Bank.
(3) The provision of basic services - transport, health, power, and water - was very different depending on whether you were in a black or a white area. That is, again, exactly the same in the West Bank.
Now, one might argue that it is the job of Palestinians to better themselves, and only once they have done so and proved themselves to not be a threat to the Jews can they be given more rights.
That argument was also made, many times, in the South African apartheit era. South Africa's blacks would need to earn the vote.
Thanks.
Yes that does seem restrictive. But I suppose it takes time to normalise lands acquired in war. We should perhaps commend the Israelis for making some effort to do so.
I'll have you know that some countries never bother.
What proportion of people in the West Bank date back from before Israel took it over? 20%?10%? Given young populations, it's going to be far nearer the latter.
Those people - the vast majority of Palestinians - have been born in a State adminstered by Israel for a half century.
Israel needs to either: (a) regard them as Israelis with the same rights as every other Israeli, or (b) allow them their own State.
You know, I have some sympathy with the "ah, it's war and it takes time to sort out" view. And in 1980 you could make that case. You could maybe even make it in 1990.
But it's not 1990. It's 2023. The majority of people alive in the West Bank were not even born when the Oslo Accords were signed.
Amazing how despite numerous lessons from history*, nations / ethnic groups / communities still feel that indefinite suppression of other peoples can be a permanent way forward.
(*Soviet Russia, British Empire, Apartheid South Africa, Ulster Protestants, China towards Uyghur. I have no doubt missed many even more egregious examples.)
Well, it can be. Ethnic cleansing settles the issue forever.
The alternative is to assimilate the subject people, but that usually requires giving them a stake in the system.
Perhaps the lesson is that to be successful it needs to be absolute oppression or active integration. The former = ethnic cleansing and is generally frowned upon now of course.
The Norman invasion might be an example of severe oppression short of ethnic cleansing that was never really overthrown, I guess?
The Normans were successful imperialists because they gradually assimilated to the local population.
.
If you have any spare time over the holidays, you might wish to brush up on your history as to how the Norman Conquest went? It was centuries before the locals could speak their own language in any official context and the handful of invaders took possession of almost all the property. And so was born the English class system, which we still experience today.
All true of course. But in the end, unless I am mistaken, the Normans spoke English not French and England became, er, England not North Normandy.
So the Norman toffs did eventually assimilate. Probably made easier by dint of continuing to own all the land they'd stolen.
The first King whose mother tongue was English was Henry IV, about three centuries after 1066.
Indeed, it took 300 years. A dozen generations lived in a land where the people spoke one language, the rulers spoke another, and their religion was conducted in a third.
Oh, for a time machine to go and see how that played out day to day. (Return ticket only please.)
It looks like the BBC, an institution known for its own issues with anti-semitism, have selected a candidate for Eurovision who seems to flirt with anti semitism.
As there is not the slightest doubt that Israel is an Apartheid State I don't know what the Telegraph is talking about. Do people still read the telegraph. Apart from a half decent film critic the rest seems to be simply manufactured nonsense.
Israeli Arabs have the same rights as Israeli Jews. There is a huge amount of doubt as to whether Israel is an apartheid state.
But it’s a legitimate political debate (as is the contention - in my view false - that Israel is committing genocide). The use of the term “Zionist propaganda” is potentially more troubling but it is context dependent and you can’t tell without that.
It’s the Telegraph muck raking
While Israel proper is not an apartheid State, the West Bank certainly is.
If you are a Palestinian born in the Israeli administered West Bank, then you do not have the same rights as a Jew born there.
What differences are there? Isn't the West Bank governed by the PA.
The PA has some powers, but not a lot. It's like saying "well, you get a vote for your local parish council".
For example, the Palestinian Authority has no authority to stop Israel building new settlements in... errr... areas previously controlled by the Palestinian Authority.
And Israeli soldiers are quite free to enter Palestinian Authority controlled towns. While PA policy are certainly not free to enter Israeli settlements.
The whole road network is designed around the Israeli settlers. Getting from one Palestinian village to another can take hours.
You cannot spend time in the West Bank, and not see that it is controlled by Israel.
Yes the settlements absolutely must stop and should be on the table in any serious negotiation.
But what is the difference in individual rights.
Ummmm:
So, South African apartheit was characterised by a few elements:
(1) While everyone got a vote, you only got to vote for the "parliament" for your race, and the white parliament was the one with all the money and power. That is pretty much exactly the situation with Palestinians versus Jews in the West Bank.
(2) There were severe restrictions on where people of colour were allowed to own property and to live. That is, again, exactly the same as the situation in the West Bank.
(3) The provision of basic services - transport, health, power, and water - was very different depending on whether you were in a black or a white area. That is, again, exactly the same in the West Bank.
Now, one might argue that it is the job of Palestinians to better themselves, and only once they have done so and proved themselves to not be a threat to the Jews can they be given more rights.
That argument was also made, many times, in the South African apartheit era. South Africa's blacks would need to earn the vote.
Thanks.
Yes that does seem restrictive. But I suppose it takes time to normalise lands acquired in war. We should perhaps commend the Israelis for making some effort to do so.
I'll have you know that some countries never bother.
What proportion of people in the West Bank date back from before Israel took it over? 20%?10%? Given young populations, it's going to be far nearer the latter.
Those people - the vast majority of Palestinians - have been born in a State adminstered by Israel for a half century.
Israel needs to either: (a) regard them as Israelis with the same rights as every other Israeli, or (b) allow them their own State.
You know, I have some sympathy with the "ah, it's war and it takes time to sort out" view. And in 1980 you could make that case. You could maybe even make it in 1990.
But it's not 1990. It's 2023. The majority of people alive in the West Bank were not even born when the Oslo Accords were signed.
Amazing how despite numerous lessons from history*, nations / ethnic groups / communities still feel that indefinite suppression of other peoples can be a permanent way forward.
(*Soviet Russia, British Empire, Apartheid South Africa, Ulster Protestants, China towards Uyghur. I have no doubt missed many even more egregious examples.)
Well, it can be. Ethnic cleansing settles the issue forever.
The alternative is to assimilate the subject people, but that usually requires giving them a stake in the system.
Perhaps the lesson is that to be successful it needs to be absolute oppression or active integration. The former = ethnic cleansing and is generally frowned upon now of course.
The Norman invasion might be an example of severe oppression short of ethnic cleansing that was never really overthrown, I guess?
The Normans were successful imperialists because they gradually assimilated to the local population.
.
If you have any spare time over the holidays, you might wish to brush up on your history as to how the Norman Conquest went? It was centuries before the locals could speak their own language in any official context and the handful of invaders took possession of almost all the property. And so was born the English class system, which we still experience today.
The feudal class system very much predated Oct 1066.
The Norman conquest simply substituted a set of Normans for a set of Saxons (and a few Anglo-Danes) as the ruling class, buttressed by lesser Normans as a significant land-owning class. It was a revolution in personnel, not structure.
The illegal channel boat crossing numbers must have have spiked a bit in 1066.
It looks like the BBC, an institution known for its own issues with anti-semitism, have selected a candidate for Eurovision who seems to flirt with anti semitism.
As there is not the slightest doubt that Israel is an Apartheid State I don't know what the Telegraph is talking about. Do people still read the telegraph. Apart from a half decent film critic the rest seems to be simply manufactured nonsense.
Israeli Arabs have the same rights as Israeli Jews. There is a huge amount of doubt as to whether Israel is an apartheid state.
But it’s a legitimate political debate (as is the contention - in my view false - that Israel is committing genocide). The use of the term “Zionist propaganda” is potentially more troubling but it is context dependent and you can’t tell without that.
It’s the Telegraph muck raking
While Israel proper is not an apartheid State, the West Bank certainly is.
If you are a Palestinian born in the Israeli administered West Bank, then you do not have the same rights as a Jew born there.
What differences are there? Isn't the West Bank governed by the PA.
The PA has some powers, but not a lot. It's like saying "well, you get a vote for your local parish council".
For example, the Palestinian Authority has no authority to stop Israel building new settlements in... errr... areas previously controlled by the Palestinian Authority.
And Israeli soldiers are quite free to enter Palestinian Authority controlled towns. While PA policy are certainly not free to enter Israeli settlements.
The whole road network is designed around the Israeli settlers. Getting from one Palestinian village to another can take hours.
You cannot spend time in the West Bank, and not see that it is controlled by Israel.
Yes the settlements absolutely must stop and should be on the table in any serious negotiation.
But what is the difference in individual rights.
Ummmm:
So, South African apartheit was characterised by a few elements:
(1) While everyone got a vote, you only got to vote for the "parliament" for your race, and the white parliament was the one with all the money and power. That is pretty much exactly the situation with Palestinians versus Jews in the West Bank.
(2) There were severe restrictions on where people of colour were allowed to own property and to live. That is, again, exactly the same as the situation in the West Bank.
(3) The provision of basic services - transport, health, power, and water - was very different depending on whether you were in a black or a white area. That is, again, exactly the same in the West Bank.
Now, one might argue that it is the job of Palestinians to better themselves, and only once they have done so and proved themselves to not be a threat to the Jews can they be given more rights.
That argument was also made, many times, in the South African apartheit era. South Africa's blacks would need to earn the vote.
Thanks.
Yes that does seem restrictive. But I suppose it takes time to normalise lands acquired in war. We should perhaps commend the Israelis for making some effort to do so.
I'll have you know that some countries never bother.
What proportion of people in the West Bank date back from before Israel took it over? 20%?10%? Given young populations, it's going to be far nearer the latter.
Those people - the vast majority of Palestinians - have been born in a State adminstered by Israel for a half century.
Israel needs to either: (a) regard them as Israelis with the same rights as every other Israeli, or (b) allow them their own State.
You know, I have some sympathy with the "ah, it's war and it takes time to sort out" view. And in 1980 you could make that case. You could maybe even make it in 1990.
But it's not 1990. It's 2023. The majority of people alive in the West Bank were not even born when the Oslo Accords were signed.
Amazing how despite numerous lessons from history*, nations / ethnic groups / communities still feel that indefinite suppression of other peoples can be a permanent way forward.
(*Soviet Russia, British Empire, Apartheid South Africa, Ulster Protestants, China towards Uyghur. I have no doubt missed many even more egregious examples.)
Well, it can be. Ethnic cleansing settles the issue forever.
The alternative is to assimilate the subject people, but that usually requires giving them a stake in the system.
Perhaps the lesson is that to be successful it needs to be absolute oppression or active integration. The former = ethnic cleansing and is generally frowned upon now of course.
The Norman invasion might be an example of severe oppression short of ethnic cleansing that was never really overthrown, I guess?
The Normans were successful imperialists because they gradually assimilated to the local population.
.
If you have any spare time over the holidays, you might wish to brush up on your history as to how the Norman Conquest went? It was centuries before the locals could speak their own language in any official context and the handful of invaders took possession of almost all the property. And so was born the English class system, which we still experience today.
All true of course. But in the end, unless I am mistaken, the Normans spoke English not French and England became, er, England not North Normandy.
So the Norman toffs did eventually assimilate. Probably made easier by dint of continuing to own all the land they'd stolen.
The first King whose mother tongue was English was Henry IV, about three centuries after 1066.
I think we are all making the mistake of applying modern views of the nation state
The Plantagenets were Kings of England. But that was just one part of their familial land holdings - arguably they saw their heartland as being the Angevin and England was merely an interesting adjunct.
As a result it was entirely natural for them that speak French.
We take nationalism so much for granted that it’s easy to overlook how modern nationalism is as an idea, and heavily tied to the growth of democracy.
For most of human history, loyalty to king, overlord, clan, tribe, religion counted for a lot more than loyalty to nation.
It’s why modern history that’s written from nationalist viewpoints is usually just inaccurate polemic.
It looks like the BBC, an institution known for its own issues with anti-semitism, have selected a candidate for Eurovision who seems to flirt with anti semitism.
As there is not the slightest doubt that Israel is an Apartheid State I don't know what the Telegraph is talking about. Do people still read the telegraph. Apart from a half decent film critic the rest seems to be simply manufactured nonsense.
Israeli Arabs have the same rights as Israeli Jews. There is a huge amount of doubt as to whether Israel is an apartheid state.
But it’s a legitimate political debate (as is the contention - in my view false - that Israel is committing genocide). The use of the term “Zionist propaganda” is potentially more troubling but it is context dependent and you can’t tell without that.
It’s the Telegraph muck raking
While Israel proper is not an apartheid State, the West Bank certainly is.
If you are a Palestinian born in the Israeli administered West Bank, then you do not have the same rights as a Jew born there.
What differences are there? Isn't the West Bank governed by the PA.
The PA has some powers, but not a lot. It's like saying "well, you get a vote for your local parish council".
For example, the Palestinian Authority has no authority to stop Israel building new settlements in... errr... areas previously controlled by the Palestinian Authority.
And Israeli soldiers are quite free to enter Palestinian Authority controlled towns. While PA policy are certainly not free to enter Israeli settlements.
The whole road network is designed around the Israeli settlers. Getting from one Palestinian village to another can take hours.
You cannot spend time in the West Bank, and not see that it is controlled by Israel.
Yes the settlements absolutely must stop and should be on the table in any serious negotiation.
But what is the difference in individual rights.
Ummmm:
So, South African apartheit was characterised by a few elements:
(1) While everyone got a vote, you only got to vote for the "parliament" for your race, and the white parliament was the one with all the money and power. That is pretty much exactly the situation with Palestinians versus Jews in the West Bank.
(2) There were severe restrictions on where people of colour were allowed to own property and to live. That is, again, exactly the same as the situation in the West Bank.
(3) The provision of basic services - transport, health, power, and water - was very different depending on whether you were in a black or a white area. That is, again, exactly the same in the West Bank.
Now, one might argue that it is the job of Palestinians to better themselves, and only once they have done so and proved themselves to not be a threat to the Jews can they be given more rights.
That argument was also made, many times, in the South African apartheit era. South Africa's blacks would need to earn the vote.
Thanks.
Yes that does seem restrictive. But I suppose it takes time to normalise lands acquired in war. We should perhaps commend the Israelis for making some effort to do so.
I'll have you know that some countries never bother.
What proportion of people in the West Bank date back from before Israel took it over? 20%?10%? Given young populations, it's going to be far nearer the latter.
Those people - the vast majority of Palestinians - have been born in a State adminstered by Israel for a half century.
Israel needs to either: (a) regard them as Israelis with the same rights as every other Israeli, or (b) allow them their own State.
You know, I have some sympathy with the "ah, it's war and it takes time to sort out" view. And in 1980 you could make that case. You could maybe even make it in 1990.
But it's not 1990. It's 2023. The majority of people alive in the West Bank were not even born when the Oslo Accords were signed.
Yes. I don't disagree. The settlers should be removed and the Palestinians given a chance to govern on their own.
Thing is, you know what the definition of madness is, now, don't you.
Suppose you were an Israeli minding his own business in downtown Tel Aviv (does Tel Aviv have a downtown) and you had seen what happened in oh I don't know, say Gaza. What might your view on it all be.
Oh, I have total sympathy with the Israelis in Southern Israel who've been attacked by Hamas. And I believe we should cut their government a lot of slack in recovering the hostages,
But we also need to accept that the current Israeli government has no interest in even reducing settlement building, let alone dismantling or moving settlers, and that therefore a two state solution is not possible. Or even desired by those in power in Israel.
There will therefore continue to be an almost unlimited number of radicalised Palestinians who have every bit as good a reason to be angry as those Israelis.
They did precisely what you say they had no intention of doing. In Gaza. In 2005.
I would be overjoyed if that were to happen. Obviously, I would prefer it if it was not combined with the destruction of the international airport and the blockade of the port. You know, things which make it quite difficult to develop an economy
In the short run, Israel can - I'm sure - ensure a pliant Palestine via superior weapons, blockades and the like.
But that comes with a cost. It comes with the cost of Israel surrendering the moral high ground it has had for so long. The lives of Palestinians born inside Israeli administered Palestine are pretty shit. And while you can put a lot of that down to shitty Palestinian leadership, Israel cannot shirk all responsibility, because Palestine is not self governing.
Would you build a factory in Palestine to make T-Shirts, if you didn't know whether you could export them?
In the short run, Israel can - I'm sure - ensure a pliant Palestine via superior weapons, blockades and the like.
That didn't work in Gaza, so I really don't know why you'd think it'd work in the West Bank, which is much larger and has much more complicated terrain. There would be a huge onus on Jordanian forces to police their border effectively, which they simply aren't up to.
The simple fact is that a self-governing Palestinian state means Hamas (or other Iranian backed and funded terror groups) in charge, with their insistence on continuing the struggle until the state of Israel ceases to exist. As soon as they were in charge (which they could do either via the ballot box or by simple force) they would do exactly what they've spent the last 15+ years doing in Gaza: murdering any form of moderate Arab opposition, stealing from their own people, subverting any and all civilian infrastructure to the purpose of fighting an endless war with Israel.
As soon as someone figures out a way to stop all that from happening, the Palestinians can have their own state more or less immediately. There would be immense public support from Israelis to do so, regardless of what it cost in terms of settlement removal.
In the meantime, everything happening on the West Bank that you don't like is a direct consequence of two facts: 1) the PA cannot be relied upon to keep Israeli citizens safe, and 2) no-one in Israel seriously believes any of this is likely to change any time soon.
That would be a lot more persuasive an argument if Israel had not spent the last 20 years continually building out settlements in the West Bank.
Do you really think that that (a) increases support for Hamas and the destruction of Israel? or (b) diminishes it?
In 1947-48 Israel was fighting the Arab states. Arguably for its life and arguably in a war of defence (certainly post UN 181). When it began to get the upper hand it thought fuck it they want us all dead so the "rules" go out the window and hence "the Nakba".
You say the last 20 years. When exactly did Hamas take over Gaza?
We call ethnic cleansing a crime against humanity because it can have no excuses. It is wrong in all circumstances. It was wrong then; it is wrong now. You yourself note that the Nakba came after Isreal “began to get the upper hand”, so when defence had turned to territorial expansion.
Hamas took over Gaza beginning 2006. Israel was committed to settlements before then.
That's simply not true - clearing out the Arab settlements in the Ayalon valley had far more to do with lifting the siege placed on the Jews in West Jerusalem than "territorial expansion". There was obviously strong desire to ensure that Jerusalem would form part of the nascent Israeli state, but the Arab villages were being used as lookout points to prevent aid convoys getting through and clearing them was a military decision (there are plenty of Arab villages left in that area that didn't command strategic positions over the road).
The majority of Arabs elsewhere were left in peace, which is why there is today such a sizeable Arab minority in Israel.
Of course, there were also a large number of those who fled of their own accord (Safed is a good example), terrified that the Jews would do to them what they'd intended to do to the Jews.
...the Deir Yassin massacre is considered to have generated more panic among the Arab population than all other previous operations together and to have caused a mass flight of Palestinians in numerous areas, partly because the actual events at Deir Yassin were greatly embellished by the media.
There's very little evidence of actual massacres of Arabs by Israeli forces (lots the other way round, though). As the article you reference notes, most of this reputation is based on Deir Yassin, and it's unclear that a massacre even occurred.
It is however, unarguable that the result of the war going the other way would have been tens if not thousands of Jews dead.
It has come to my attention that the biggest impact of Trump being (potentially) off the ballot in Colorado, is that he won't therefore be a part of the Republican Primary.
Colorado, while only a medium sized state, is a Super Tuesday state. So if Trump is off the ballot, that may - effectively - hand the delegate haul almost entirely to Hayley.
Surely the biggest impact of Trump being off the ballot in Colorado is the impact it has on every other state?
The SCOTUS case will be settled long before the Colorado primary (March 5, 37 delegates out of 2467). So either Trump wins, in which case he's back on the ballot, or he loses.
If he loses, it goes far wider than Colorado. The SCOTUS will have effectively said that yes, Trump did engage in insurrection or rebellion as per the 14th Amendment and therefore is barred from standing for public office - not just in Colorado but across the entire Union.
One of the expert views on the 538 podcast I just listened to is that it's not that automatic. The Colorado SC is interpreting Colorado electoral law, which lets them find that the relevant state official may not put Trump on the ballot. But electoral law in other states and its interpretation is up to those states' courts, and they may rule differently on what the facts mean for their electoral process. It would certainly increase the number of places where states end up looking at this. (An SC ruling in Trump's favour, on the other hand, is much more likely to knock the other state cases on the head pretty quickly.)
It looks like the BBC, an institution known for its own issues with anti-semitism, have selected a candidate for Eurovision who seems to flirt with anti semitism.
As there is not the slightest doubt that Israel is an Apartheid State I don't know what the Telegraph is talking about. Do people still read the telegraph. Apart from a half decent film critic the rest seems to be simply manufactured nonsense.
Israeli Arabs have the same rights as Israeli Jews. There is a huge amount of doubt as to whether Israel is an apartheid state.
But it’s a legitimate political debate (as is the contention - in my view false - that Israel is committing genocide). The use of the term “Zionist propaganda” is potentially more troubling but it is context dependent and you can’t tell without that.
It’s the Telegraph muck raking
While Israel proper is not an apartheid State, the West Bank certainly is.
If you are a Palestinian born in the Israeli administered West Bank, then you do not have the same rights as a Jew born there.
What differences are there? Isn't the West Bank governed by the PA.
The PA has some powers, but not a lot. It's like saying "well, you get a vote for your local parish council".
For example, the Palestinian Authority has no authority to stop Israel building new settlements in... errr... areas previously controlled by the Palestinian Authority.
And Israeli soldiers are quite free to enter Palestinian Authority controlled towns. While PA policy are certainly not free to enter Israeli settlements.
The whole road network is designed around the Israeli settlers. Getting from one Palestinian village to another can take hours.
You cannot spend time in the West Bank, and not see that it is controlled by Israel.
Yes the settlements absolutely must stop and should be on the table in any serious negotiation.
But what is the difference in individual rights.
Ummmm:
So, South African apartheit was characterised by a few elements:
(1) While everyone got a vote, you only got to vote for the "parliament" for your race, and the white parliament was the one with all the money and power. That is pretty much exactly the situation with Palestinians versus Jews in the West Bank.
(2) There were severe restrictions on where people of colour were allowed to own property and to live. That is, again, exactly the same as the situation in the West Bank.
(3) The provision of basic services - transport, health, power, and water - was very different depending on whether you were in a black or a white area. That is, again, exactly the same in the West Bank.
Now, one might argue that it is the job of Palestinians to better themselves, and only once they have done so and proved themselves to not be a threat to the Jews can they be given more rights.
That argument was also made, many times, in the South African apartheit era. South Africa's blacks would need to earn the vote.
Thanks.
Yes that does seem restrictive. But I suppose it takes time to normalise lands acquired in war. We should perhaps commend the Israelis for making some effort to do so.
I'll have you know that some countries never bother.
What proportion of people in the West Bank date back from before Israel took it over? 20%?10%? Given young populations, it's going to be far nearer the latter.
Those people - the vast majority of Palestinians - have been born in a State adminstered by Israel for a half century.
Israel needs to either: (a) regard them as Israelis with the same rights as every other Israeli, or (b) allow them their own State.
You know, I have some sympathy with the "ah, it's war and it takes time to sort out" view. And in 1980 you could make that case. You could maybe even make it in 1990.
But it's not 1990. It's 2023. The majority of people alive in the West Bank were not even born when the Oslo Accords were signed.
Amazing how despite numerous lessons from history*, nations / ethnic groups / communities still feel that indefinite suppression of other peoples can be a permanent way forward.
(*Soviet Russia, British Empire, Apartheid South Africa, Ulster Protestants, China towards Uyghur. I have no doubt missed many even more egregious examples.)
Well, it can be. Ethnic cleansing settles the issue forever.
The alternative is to assimilate the subject people, but that usually requires giving them a stake in the system.
Perhaps the lesson is that to be successful it needs to be absolute oppression or active integration. The former = ethnic cleansing and is generally frowned upon now of course.
The Norman invasion might be an example of severe oppression short of ethnic cleansing that was never really overthrown, I guess?
The Normans were successful imperialists because they gradually assimilated to the local population.
.
If you have any spare time over the holidays, you might wish to brush up on your history as to how the Norman Conquest went? It was centuries before the locals could speak their own language in any official context and the handful of invaders took possession of almost all the property. And so was born the English class system, which we still experience today.
All true of course. But in the end, unless I am mistaken, the Normans spoke English not French and England became, er, England not North Normandy.
So the Norman toffs did eventually assimilate. Probably made easier by dint of continuing to own all the land they'd stolen.
The first King whose mother tongue was English was Henry IV, about three centuries after 1066.
I think we are all making the mistake of applying modern views of the nation state
The Plantagenets were Kings of England. But that was just one part of their familial land holdings - arguably they saw their heartland as being the Angevin and England was merely an interesting adjunct.
As a result it was entirely natural for them that speak French.
We take nationalism so much for granted that it’s easy to overlook how modern nationalism is as an idea, and heavily tied to the growth of democracy.
For most of human history, loyalty to king, overlord, clan, tribe, religion counted for a lot more than loyalty to nation.
It’s why modern history that’s written from nationalist viewpoints is usually just inaccurate polemic.
Er...
This royal throne of kings, this scepter’d isle, This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, This other Eden, demi-paradise, This fortress built by Nature for herself Against infection and the hand of war, This happy breed of men, this little world, This precious stone set in the silver sea, Which serves it in the office of a wall Or as a moat defensive to a house, Against the envy of less happier lands, This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England
It looks like the BBC, an institution known for its own issues with anti-semitism, have selected a candidate for Eurovision who seems to flirt with anti semitism.
As others have said, the view of Israel's regime (the specific target of the quote) operating on apartheid lines has moved from fringe abuse to something that many mainstream people sadly acknowledge as at least arguably true. It's not an opinion that is so outlandish that he shouldn't be allowed to sing.
In general I don't think singers' opinions should either be very influential or a reason to cancel them, unless they sing specifically extremist songs. The same applies to composers, writers, etc. The new poetry collection by Corbyn and McCluskey (a good read IMO - https://www.orbooks.com/catalog/poetry-for-the-many/) includes people like Rudyard Kipling, on the basis that their poetry should be admired in context regardless of their personal views on other matters.
Interesting a) that it was an LGBTQ charity that made the first statement; and b) that the statement was made not two weeks after October 7th. This latter suggests that the charity virtually from the outset had formed its view. The former point of course reiterates the powerful/powerless dynamic that we are living in. And which I have, ahem, much commented upon.
Ah yes, your scurrilous theory that the Left are forever seeking to champion the poor, the dispossessed, the powerless.
Until they achieve what the Left says it wants for them and they stop being poor or dispossessed or powerless. And then they are the enemy. cf working class boys done good in the UK. They are now part of the oppressor class.
I suppose living your life in primary colours and regurgitating leftist orthodoxy is much easier. Especially if you are too scared to form your own opinions about much at all
Anything except 'Israel Good Palestine Bad' is Leftist Orthodoxy in your eyes, though, isn't it. It's striking because you're not usually to the extreme Right on any particular issue. If you don't mind sharing I'd be interested in how you've arrived at such a strident pro-Israel position and how it remains unshaken even as they lay waste to the entire Gaza Strip. Tesco now (for my sins) but I'll check back later and see if there's something sincere and enlightening on offer.
I think @Sean_F sums it up well a couple of posts ago.
Enjoy Tesco's. Your nod to the mores of the working class I'm sure. They still hate you as a class traitor though.
We need to ask another poster how you, Topping, have arrived at your strident uncritical pro-Israel position?
Another interesting feature of South Africa was the difference between the Afrikaans and the 'English'. You could tell the difference beyond accent. The Afrikaans seemed more macho. The 'English' more genteel. The first and only fight I saw while working was with a South African crew in the Maldives. We were shooting by a beach hut and the crew looked pretty fearsome. Tatoos long platted hair giant knives. They looked like pirates.
Something was brewing but I had no idea what. Then it exploded.....
Apparently they had booked a scuba diving trip and one of them had heard there were sharks in the area so decided to pull out. Two or three of the others joined him. This thing simmered overnight and blew up mid morning. What I discovered as it was explained later was that one of the protagonists used to go underwater diamond collecting for a living which was one of the toughest jobs you could do and someone had called him a coward.......
There was definitely a pioneer spirit about the Afrikaans. My Afrikaaner driver asked me once to open a box next to me which I did. In it was a pistol. I asked him if it was real and he told me I should point it out of the window and shoot. We were in a suburb and going past a bus stop...... I changed drivers.
In local UK news we’re now 3 days into what will certainly be the most impressive sustained period of wind power dominating the grid to date.
Currently generating 21gw of power from wind, and only 2.6gw from any form of fossil fuel (CCGT).
There were a rash of stories last week about the grid not being able to cope with surges in wind power and the need to switch many of the turbines off as a result. It was alleged that the money wasted (the turbine owners still get paid) was adding £40 onto the average bill.
Given our massive investment in wind this seemed a somewhat suboptimal state of affairs.
Then we need a massive investment in battery (or pumped, or big weights up and down mineshafts) storage.
The quickest return is on high voltage interconnects.
A European grid with sufficient capacity would cut such losses by a substantial amount, and pay for itself in perhaps half a decade - much quicker than any of the other alternatives. For now, we don't even have a UK wide grid with enough capacity.
Batteries, for now, are too expensive for anything but local, short term storage (and EVs will probably add capacity faster than pure storage projects).
Awaiting the inevitable reaction from the usual suspects:
Pumped Scottish based storage for an independent Scotland = laudable aim for progress to Net Zero.
Pumped Scottish based storage for the UK market = colonialist exploitation.
I would have thought that Scottish enterprises building valuable facilities in Scotland would tend to help rather than hinder any case for Scottish independence. I don't see it as that kind of issue at all, FWIW.
The problem with pumped storage is that it means flooding land. There will, undoubtedly, be local opposition to each and every proposal.
This is why building new reservoirs, for whatever reason, has fallen out of fashion.
Batteries will win, in the medium term, simply because they scale from small installations, and there is pretty much no planning required.
Park a handful of shipping containers on a site - and under U.K. planning rules a small installation doesn’t require full scale planning. So if you have an old power station site (or even a container park) already, there would be next to nothing to stop you parking the containers.
The main constraint is actually supply - not enough batteries. Yet.
I calculated, recently, that replicating Dinorwig with batteries would cost about the same as building it with water storage.
Dinorwig is tiny.
This scheme wouldn't be. http://euanmearns.com/the-seawater-pumped-hydro-potential-of-the-world/ ...In total there are about fifteen pits with capacities ranging from 1 to 6 GWh within 5-15 km of the sea. Water surface elevations are between 100m and 250m. Total storage capacity is about 50 GWh, which would more than double current UK pumped hydro capacity. The environmental damage has already been done, and flooding the pits would not affect one of the area’s main attractions – the white, conical waste dumps known as the “Cornish Alps”. Watching the water go up and down in the pits as UK electricity demand fluctuates might even turn into a tourist attraction in its own right...
Comments
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/17/two-state-solution-would-mean-relocating-200000-settlers-says-israeli-lawyer-who-has-david-camerons-ear
Chatting to the farm contractor who cuts our hedges today. He mentioned what a mess the Middle East is and how it had pushed up the price of red diesel: "Why can't they sort themselves out? It looks like a total shithole, can't think why anyone would want to live there, let alone fight over it."
To which I stupidly said 'no wonder so many are trying to come over on boats'. Cue: "I'm not a racist but... the country can't take any more, we will literally sink if any more come in."
Now, I understand quite a few people feel that way but the odd thing to me is this guy is living in a small village in a sparsely populated part of Dorset. He will have next to zero contact with anyone who's not white. The only people from ethic minorities for miles around are running the few Indian and Chinese takaways in the nearest town.
Personally, I'm convinced the less contact people have with those from other cultures the more they fear them.
Anyway, there's definitely some kind of market for the ERG RefUK line on immigration, hopefully, a small one.
Take out Sharon handing back Gaza and trying to develop it and I wouldn't have a leg to stand on in all my arguments. But he did and they did so I do.
You seem keen to ignore this critical factor in recent history.
Many, many business colleagues of mine - people who never talk politics - mentioned to me, sotto voce, that they'd be moving to England if independence happened, sometimes suffixed with 'if I can sell my house'!
PR is to blame for the Arab-Israeli conflict
There are plenty of Palestinians living in Israel, many of whom have citizenship. So there is no reason why Israelis cannot live in Palestine, and have citizenship. Of course, very many of them may well wish to relocate in the event that two states ever come about, and indeed the Israeli government may wish to provide financial assistance for those who do so. But the two-state solution isn’t going to get a happy birth if this requires some sort of religious apartheid.
We have a lively Zimbabwean gospel choir in Leicester now, of successful asylum seekers.
That didn't work in Gaza, so I really don't know why you'd think it'd work in the West Bank, which is much larger and has much more complicated terrain. There would be a huge onus on Jordanian forces to police their border effectively, which they simply aren't up to.
The simple fact is that a self-governing Palestinian state means Hamas (or other Iranian backed and funded terror groups) in charge, with their insistence on continuing the struggle until the state of Israel ceases to exist. As soon as they were in charge (which they could do either via the ballot box or by simple force) they would do exactly what they've spent the last 15+ years doing in Gaza: murdering any form of moderate Arab opposition, stealing from their own people, subverting any and all civilian infrastructure to the purpose of fighting an endless war with Israel.
As soon as someone figures out a way to stop all that from happening, the Palestinians can have their own state more or less immediately. There would be immense public support from Israelis to do so, regardless of what it cost in terms of settlement removal.
In the meantime, everything happening on the West Bank that you don't like is a direct consequence of two facts: 1) the PA cannot be relied upon to keep Israeli citizens safe, and 2) no-one in Israel seriously believes any of this is likely to change any time soon.
Considerable sympathy for that position it seems btl, with no real discussion of how to build a more inclusive South Africa on the basis of economic redistribution.
Do you really think that that (a) increases support for Hamas and the destruction of Israel? or (b) diminishes it?
The number of settlements in Gaza was tiny compared to the West Bank.
It is clearly true that the current Israeli government has no interest in even reducing settlement building, let alone dismantling or moving settlers. The current Israeli government is seeking to slowly annex the West Bank.
As I've said - ad nauseum - I have enormous sympathy with both sides. And Israel has every right to defend itself against Hamas's attacks.
But we can't be hypocrites here. We have to hold both sides to the same standards.
You say the last 20 years. When exactly did Hamas take over Gaza?
There are many different forms of imperialism, and many reasons why some forms work, and others fail.
Israel's treatment of the West Bank seems designed to maximise the locals' hated for them, while doing nothing to diminish their capacity to threaten Israel. It's worse than a crime, it's a blunder.
I absolutely don't hold the Israeli government and Hamas to be equivalent.
It’s not *Israel* that is building settlements in the West Bank
It’s nut job religious extremists doing so, often through violence and theft. (How they align that with religious principles is a question for another day).
The Israeli government is guilty of turning a blind eye, although their dependence on settler voters in the Knesset makes it politically impossible for them to intervene.
Is that some kind of new rule?
Pumped Scottish based storage for an independent Scotland = laudable aim for progress to Net Zero.
Pumped Scottish based storage for the UK market = colonialist exploitation.
Rishi Sunak Red Wall Net Approval Rating (17-18 December):
Disapprove: 50% (+2)
Approve: 25% (-2)
Net: -25% (-4)
Changes +/- 19 November
Lines Increasingly Blurred Between Soldiers and Settlers in the West Bank
https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/11/09/west-bank-palestinians-israeli-settlers-attacks-idf/
..The blurring of lines between the army and the settlers goes back at least two decades. From the 2000s onwards, there has been a bifurcation within the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), leading to the emergence of two distinct armies: the official army and a secondary policing force dedicated to operations in the Israeli-controlled West Bank.
This policing army is comprised of several elements: an infantry brigade permanently stationed in the region; units of the border police; and settler militias, which are part of what are known as territorial defense units, which are armed and trained by the IDF. The forces of the policing army are bolstered by the rotational deployment of regular combat brigades from the official IDF.
This policing army, ostensibly under formal political control, has effectively morphed into a quasi-militia entity. Its own activities in the West Bank suggest that its underlying goal is the consolidation of Israel’s control over the West Bank, particularly Area C, which encompasses both the Israeli settlements and Palestinian-inhabited regions. This strategy serves as an informal means of annexation, circumventing the need for a formal annexation that would likely face international resistance...
Happy Christmas Rishi Sunak
@hzeffman
Told official portraits of Boris Johnson and Liz Truss are currently being added to the yellow staircase in No 10
I don't see it as that kind of issue at all, FWIW.
Unsurprisingly he thinks it is brilliant and the bad bits are down to Westminster.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/the-scottish-greens-are-ensuring-the-rich-pay-more-to-support-our-public-services/ar-AA1lPX6X?ocid=entnewsntp&cvid=1ced1ff5de514eb59b5238585bd45b9f&ei=13
In an ethnically divided region, I'd far rather have a smaller state, where my group forms an overwhelming majority, than a larger state with a huge hostile population. Land-grabbing for its own sake is the stupidest policy.
"When the war began, the typical Russian fighter whose death was recorded in the BBC's count was 21-years-old and a low-ranking professional soldier.
In recent months, the typical Russian soldier killed in Ukraine is a 34-year-old convict recruited from prison."
During the 2019 election I seriously considered relocating if Corbyn got anywhere near No. 10 - I suspect many Scots will start thinking similarly with Humza in charge....
Hamas took over Gaza beginning 2006. Israel was committed to settlements before then.
This is why building new reservoirs, for whatever reason, has fallen out of fashion.
Batteries will win, in the medium term, simply because they scale from small installations, and there is pretty much no planning required.
Park a handful of shipping containers on a site - and under U.K. planning rules a small installation doesn’t require full scale planning. So if you have an old power station site (or even a container park) already, there would be next to nothing to stop you parking the containers.
The main constraint is actually supply - not enough batteries. Yet.
I calculated, recently, that replicating Dinorwig with batteries would cost about the same as building it with water storage.
From a defence standpoint, a hostile West Bank would be horrendous to defend against as Israel would need to position troops on a border multiple times longer than that of Gaza or Lebanon.
The latter also shows why having a UN force would not work to keep the peace - in likelihood it would be ineffective.
Imagine if Hezbollah was able to position at least some of its might / rocketry in the West Bank. Israel would be the proverbial StepMom.
The economic base of Scotland is being destroyed with a State that regards anything private with deep suspicion and wants to regulate the life out of it. There seems to be almost no appreciation that these policies are confusing the layers of golden eggs with turkeys. Our state becomes ever more unsustainable.
Pumped hydro is massively cleaner than batteries and the energy can be stored indefinitely, whereas batteries can store it for (afaik) a day. There is also no competition for materials, resulting in supply issues that you admit.
Storage will be addressed seriously when power providers *need* to sell their energy to make money. Until this situation occurs, we will continue to mutter about it and nothing will happen.
Building new reservoirs did not 'fall out of fashion', it fell foul of the EU water framework directive which has been gold plated enthusiastically by UK agencies. Nobody would object to (for example) an old quarry being made into a reservoir, and it is specious or uncharicteristically ignorant to blame nimbies for our lack of new water infrastructure.
All I want for Christmas is a new max #Wind generation record 🎅🎄
Today (21 December), wind generated a new high of 21.8GW electricity ⚡ between 8:00-8:30, providing 56% of the generation mix. This breaks the previous record set in January.
We are still waiting for all the data to come through, so this figure might be adjusted slightly.
https://x.com/nationalgrideso/status/1737824446822453612?s=46
Or do you mean export?
And, I think for the average English peasant, it was more a change of overlords, rather than subjugation of a wholly free people.
So the Norman toffs did eventually assimilate. Probably made easier by dint of continuing to own all the land they'd stolen.
If we cannot provide adequate homes for people here already how can we cope with more ? It is not an unreasonable question to ask although anyone asking it is automatically assumed to be the next Tommy Robinson.
Govts since 2000 have pursued a policy of large scale inward migration while posturing against it and, as a consequence, not putting adequate resources in place.
Screw the NIMBYs in the words of our Ukrainian Ultra here, and build build build.
Perhaps in an ideal world it would be all pumped storage. But within a decade, we will be looking at surplus battery production, at prices about 50% less than now.
Which will make batteries the cheaper option.
The majority of Arabs elsewhere were left in peace, which is why there is today such a sizeable Arab minority in Israel.
Of course, there were also a large number of those who fled of their own accord (Safed is a good example), terrified that the Jews would do to them what they'd intended to do to the Jews.
The Norman conquest simply substituted a set of Normans for a set of Saxons (and a few Anglo-Danes) as the ruling class, buttressed by lesser Normans as a significant land-owning class. It was a revolution in personnel, not structure.
Batteries are at the point in the development cycle where they are steadily getting cheaper and better by the year. Not the flashy stories in the press, but a series of methodical improvements in the details of chemistry and production.
The Indian border is difficult to defend around the north-east. Should we dismantle Bangladesh?
The Burmese border gets long and thin. Bye-bye Thailand?
Israel, like any country, should get to do what it wants within Israel's border (short of crimes against humanity). If it is concerned about hostile neighbours, it can do the same things as any other country concerned about hostile neighbours: invest in defence, seek support promises from allies, make peace and improve relations. What it shouldn't do is occupy territory for decades and seek to annex it.
The SCOTUS case will be settled long before the Colorado primary (March 5, 37 delegates out of 2467). So either Trump wins, in which case he's back on the ballot, or he loses.
If he loses, it goes far wider than Colorado. The SCOTUS will have effectively said that yes, Trump did engage in insurrection or rebellion as per the 14th Amendment and therefore is barred from standing for public office - not just in Colorado but across the entire Union.
The same rich arseholes are the first to start up petitions if the local council dares to want to build some homes on an old brownfield site. Usually saying "we want housebuilding, but these are the wrong homes in the wrong area".
The same rich arseholes want their areas gentrified and expect their tradesmen to slum it miles away and come in on the tube to do the jobs they cannot be arsed to do.
So much wrong with this fucking country. People cannot even get a home to live in. Hard working people often holding down more than 1 job. We have commoditised and fetishised housing and house prices so much it is politically untenable to try to do anything to bring them down. It is a joke.
Me, I'd wait a bit.
(Power capacity is vertical drop x amount of water / reduced by a factor according to the horizontal distance between reservoirs.)
The last time I looked, there were very few sites with two big reservoirs. Most potential sites were quite small. And that's a bit of a problem, because they are not maintenance free. Those turbines take a battering from the water going through them. And you need to regularly desilt your reservoirs.
Given the big differentials between peak and off peak electricity, it may make economic sense to build out some of these smaller sites. But I'm highly doubtful that there are enough sites to really meaningfully add capacity.
The Plantagenets were Kings of England. But that was just one part of their familial land holdings - arguably they saw their heartland as being the Angevin and England was merely an interesting adjunct.
As a result it was entirely natural for them that speak French.
Oh, for a time machine to go and see how that played out day to day. (Return ticket only please.)
For most of human history, loyalty to king, overlord, clan, tribe, religion counted for a lot more than loyalty to nation.
It’s why modern history that’s written from nationalist viewpoints is usually just inaccurate polemic.
There's very little evidence of actual massacres of Arabs by Israeli forces (lots the other way round, though). As the article you reference notes, most of this reputation is based on Deir Yassin, and it's unclear that a massacre even occurred.
It is however, unarguable that the result of the war going the other way would have been tens if not thousands of Jews dead.
This royal throne of kings, this scepter’d isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands,
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England
Hmm, I know a brush off when I see one.
Something was brewing but I had no idea what. Then it exploded.....
Apparently they had booked a scuba diving trip and one of them had heard there were sharks in the area so decided to pull out. Two or three of the others joined him. This thing simmered overnight and blew up mid morning. What I discovered as it was explained later was that one of the protagonists used to go underwater diamond collecting for a living which was one of the toughest jobs you could do and someone had called him a coward.......
There was definitely a pioneer spirit about the Afrikaans. My Afrikaaner driver asked me once to open a box next to me which I did. In it was a pistol. I asked him if it was real and he told me I should point it out of the window and shoot. We were in a suburb and going past a bus stop...... I changed drivers.
This scheme wouldn't be.
http://euanmearns.com/the-seawater-pumped-hydro-potential-of-the-world/
...In total there are about fifteen pits with capacities ranging from 1 to 6 GWh within 5-15 km of the sea. Water surface elevations are between 100m and 250m. Total storage capacity is about 50 GWh, which would more than double current UK pumped hydro capacity. The environmental damage has already been done, and flooding the pits would not affect one of the area’s main attractions – the white, conical waste dumps known as the “Cornish Alps”. Watching the water go up and down in the pits as UK electricity demand fluctuates might even turn into a tourist attraction in its own right...