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
Written at a time when Protestant England was embattled by Catholic Spain, about someone who lived more than two centuries previously.
It’s a fine piece of verse, but there’s no reason to believe that John of Gaunt ever thought in such terms.
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.
That is simply not true. That Wikipedia article contains citations with evidence for over a dozen other massacres by Israeli forces. It also covers massacres by Arab forces, although these are considerably fewer in number.
Let us consider the Lydda massacre. We have an expulsion order, signed by Yitzhak Rabin, saying, "1. The inhabitants of Lydda must be expelled quickly without attention to age...." We have the eyewitness reports of a US journalist of indiscriminate shooting of civilians: "[The Israeli jeep column] raced into Lydda with rifles, Stens, and sub-machine guns blazing. It coursed through the main streets, blasting at everything that moved ... the corpses of Arab men, women, and even children were strewn about the streets". We have accounts by Palmach fighters.
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
In that case it is a case of English nationalism being tied to a new concept of patriotism arising out of the English Reformation and the perceived threat of nearby Catholic Europe . Before the Reformation, when England was VERY Catholic, most of the conflicts were dynastic - the Tudors being a late entrant to and the last house standing after the Wars of the Roses.
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.
I was at a wedding where one of the guests was an Afrikaaner who had served in Angola. 20 stone of muscle and tattoos. Apparently he was in an undercover position spying on the Cubans when attacked by a leopard. He strangled it, while keeping silent so as to not giveaway the position.
It's an interesting pioneer and machismo culture, not dissimilar to the wagon trains going West at roughly the same time as the Boers trekked North and East.
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.
Not mad keen on all the "rich arseholes" rhetoric but your last bit is spot on. I agree so much that I've bolded it. 'Fetishized' is not an exaggeration.
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.
my mother used to boycott Tesco because of their connections to Shirley Porter and her policies around council homes in London.
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.
Actually, and surprisingly, there’s a theory that our language is essentially Norse in structure with a lot of loan words from Anglo-Saxon and French. It’s a minority view, but not without some credibility. For example our word order and sentence structure, and a lot of basic grammar, resembles Norse more than Germanic or French. We have a highly analytic language that relies upon word order and lots of prepositions, just as did Old Norse. All the Germanic nonsense with verbs at the end went out the window; verb before object is common to English and Scandinavian languages. Preposition stranding - with the preposition at the end of the phrase or sentence (despite the clue in the name!) - for example, “that’s what we were talking about”, is incredibly rare in language, but shared by English and Norse. Split infinitives occur in modern English and in Old Norse, but not in Old English or in Germanic languages.
In terms of vocabulary, whilst about two thirds of our words have cognates in Old Norse, almost one in six derive exclusively from Old Norse, but these are many of our most common words - they/them/their, egg, various words for animals, sky, die, ill, leg, skin, bag, ball, knife, take, hit, etc.
What is striking is that Norse linguistic influence did more than change the vocabulary of what became English, but heavily influenced its structure. That’s pretty unusual as a result of immigration, and evidences long lasting integration and inter-relationships between speakers of Old English and Old Norse.
I have to go now, but I think anyone who thinks that there is any "side" who is absolutely in the right here is living in cloud cuckoo land.
Maybe, but I do know that Hamas are absolutely in the wrong and eradicating Hamas is a worthy goal, though probably very high cost in blood.
Israel have murdered THIRTEEN TIMES as many people as Hamas in the last ten weeks.
Hamas has fired over twelve thousand rockets at Israeli cities in the past few months.
Having inferior military hardware isn't a virtue. Stop giving them credit for it.
Or do you think if they had better weapons, they wouldn't use them?
Why are you siding with the side who've murdered 20,000 people? Hamas are just the Diet Coke of murder.
Is it your view that every one of those 20,000 is innocent, and that Israel has no right whatsoever to go after Hamas?
Is there no middle view possible? Many of those 20,000 were innocent. Israel has a right to go after Hamas. Israel does not have a right to use excessive force against civilians, or indeed to continue building settlements on occupied territories or to annex Palestinian territory.
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.
my mother used to boycott Tesco because of their connections to Shirley Porter and her policies around council homes in London.
What were Tesco's connections to Shirley Porter and her policies around council homes in London?
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.
my mother used to boycott Tesco because of their connections to Shirley Porter and her policies around council homes in London.
What were Tesco's connections to Shirley Porter and her policies around council homes in London?
Daughter of one of its founders. The Co in the name Tesco.
I have to go now, but I think anyone who thinks that there is any "side" who is absolutely in the right here is living in cloud cuckoo land.
Maybe, but I do know that Hamas are absolutely in the wrong and eradicating Hamas is a worthy goal, though probably very high cost in blood.
Israel have murdered THIRTEEN TIMES as many people as Hamas in the last ten weeks.
Hamas has fired over twelve thousand rockets at Israeli cities in the past few months.
Having inferior military hardware isn't a virtue. Stop giving them credit for it.
Or do you think if they had better weapons, they wouldn't use them?
Why are you siding with the side who've murdered 20,000 people? Hamas are just the Diet Coke of murder.
Is it your view that every one of those 20,000 is innocent, and that Israel has no right whatsoever to go after Hamas?
Is there no middle view possible? Many of those 20,000 were innocent. Israel has a right to go after Hamas. Israel does not have a right to use excessive force against civilians, or indeed to continue building settlements on occupied territories or to annex Palestinian territory.
I agree with that. Thousands of innocents have been killed by the IDF. The proportion of civilian deaths I’ve read is 61-66%. By way of comparison, when Mosul was taken in 2017, civilian deaths were 45% of the total. That does suggest that the US and Kurds were more discriminate than the IDF.
Sunil’s view is that if Hamas kills 1,400, the IDF can also kill 1,400, but no more. That’s not how the LOAC work.
I find the trick with these things is to have a bit of empathy.
If you were an Israeli in Southern Israel, having rockets landing on you, having been invaded, having seen your friends raped or killed, what would you think was the right thing to do?
But this cuts both ways. If you were born a Palestinian in the West Bank, how would you feel about the Israeli governments actions? How would you feel about settlers violently evicting your neighbors? About Israeli soldiers patrolling your streets in APCs? Would you genuinely think the best thing to do was to cooperate with a government, where many of the ministers are actively hostile to any possibility of a state? Or would you want to fight the occupier?
I think the random circumstance of my birth would determine my view. And I suspect that is true of almost everyone on this board.
I have to go now, but I think anyone who thinks that there is any "side" who is absolutely in the right here is living in cloud cuckoo land.
Maybe, but I do know that Hamas are absolutely in the wrong and eradicating Hamas is a worthy goal, though probably very high cost in blood.
Israel have murdered THIRTEEN TIMES as many people as Hamas in the last ten weeks.
Hamas has fired over twelve thousand rockets at Israeli cities in the past few months.
Having inferior military hardware isn't a virtue. Stop giving them credit for it.
Or do you think if they had better weapons, they wouldn't use them?
Why are you siding with the side who've murdered 20,000 people? Hamas are just the Diet Coke of murder.
Is it your view that every one of those 20,000 is innocent, and that Israel has no right whatsoever to go after Hamas?
Is there no middle view possible? Many of those 20,000 were innocent. Israel has a right to go after Hamas. Israel does not have a right to use excessive force against civilians, or indeed to continue building settlements on occupied territories or to annex Palestinian territory.
I agree with that. Thousands of innocents have been killed by the IDF. The proportion of civilian deaths I’ve read is 61-66%. By way of comparison, when Mosul was taken in 2017, civilian deaths were 45% of the total. That does suggest that the US and Kurds were more discriminate than the IDF.
Sunil’s view is that if Hamas kills 1,400, the IDF can also kill 1,400, but no more. That’s not how the LOAC work.
That's not my view at all, I'm just presenting the best figures I have, quoted in Wikipedia. How would you feel, in a god-forbid hypothetical situation, where Israel had lost 20,000 people, and Gaza only 1,400?
I have to go now, but I think anyone who thinks that there is any "side" who is absolutely in the right here is living in cloud cuckoo land.
Maybe, but I do know that Hamas are absolutely in the wrong and eradicating Hamas is a worthy goal, though probably very high cost in blood.
Israel have murdered THIRTEEN TIMES as many people as Hamas in the last ten weeks.
Hamas has fired over twelve thousand rockets at Israeli cities in the past few months.
Having inferior military hardware isn't a virtue. Stop giving them credit for it.
Or do you think if they had better weapons, they wouldn't use them?
Why are you siding with the side who've murdered 20,000 people? Hamas are just the Diet Coke of murder.
Is it your view that every one of those 20,000 is innocent, and that Israel has no right whatsoever to go after Hamas?
Is there no middle view possible? Many of those 20,000 were innocent. Israel has a right to go after Hamas. Israel does not have a right to use excessive force against civilians, or indeed to continue building settlements on occupied territories or to annex Palestinian territory.
I agree with that. Thousands of innocents have been killed by the IDF. The proportion of civilian deaths I’ve read is 61-66%. By way of comparison, when Mosul was taken in 2017, civilian deaths were 45% of the total. That does suggest that the US and Kurds were more discriminate than the IDF.
Sunil’s view is that if Hamas kills 1,400, the IDF can also kill 1,400, but no more. That’s not how the LOAC work.
I believe Sunil's view is more nuanced than that. I think, indeed, that we have broad agreement that Israel needs to be more discriminate in the military action it is taking. The shooting of the three hostages, who were unarmed and waving a white flag, has been a powerful symbol of what is wrong with the IDF's actions in 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?
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.
That is simply not true. That Wikipedia article contains citations with evidence for over a dozen other massacres by Israeli forces. It also covers massacres by Arab forces, although these are considerably fewer in number.
Let us consider the Lydda massacre. We have an expulsion order, signed by Yitzhak Rabin, saying, "1. The inhabitants of Lydda must be expelled quickly without attention to age...." We have the eyewitness reports of a US journalist of indiscriminate shooting of civilians: "[The Israeli jeep column] raced into Lydda with rifles, Stens, and sub-machine guns blazing. It coursed through the main streets, blasting at everything that moved ... the corpses of Arab men, women, and even children were strewn about the streets". We have accounts by Palmach fighters.
Entirely missing the point that the Arabs only captured a few Jewish settlements (and, in general, wiped out everyone they found wherever they could) whereas Israel captured hundreds of Arab and shared settlements and today the Jewish and Arab inhabitants live (mostly) peaceably side by side. Lydda (Lod) today is a shared city, as is neighbouring Ramla.
Meanwhile, I am just back from the polling station, as we have a county council by-election in my ward today. Andrew Teale's preview is now up on his site. I'm expecting a Labour win with the LibDems running the Tories close for second.
Last time, the Tories won with an unusually low 27% of the vote, as the rest of the votes were split between a shedload of centre-left independents, Labour, and the far-right 'Vectis Party' who put up a former Tory then UKIP eccentric who, when previously a county councillor, had purchased some sort of title off the internet and went round insisting that everyone address him as "Lord" - which, in foolishness, the county council website actually did. But the Vectis Party leader was recently imprisoned for historic child sex offences (creating a by-election which a young LibDem - daughter of one of the county council Tories - won out of the blue), and that party is now disbanded.
The elected Tory recently resigned for a batch of apparently genuine personal reasons, but who had also become rather inactive since the Tories lost control of the county (against the national trend) and he lost his cabinet position, back in May 2021.
This time its a traditional three-way fight between the Tories, who have put up a generations-long islander, son of our remaining local fisherman, whose family have lots of business interests in the town (which probably counts both ways), Labour, who have put up the same candidate as in 2021 but he's since become the well-regarded town council Mayor, and the LibDems who have found a well-regarded candidate of their own, but who lives in Newport.
The town's civic and artistic life is dominated by Green/centre-left folk, but the silent majority of property owners usually sees the Tory home. I can't see that, this time, and despite the usual reluctance to back Labour, the strength of their candidate will surely see them home tonight.
I have to go now, but I think anyone who thinks that there is any "side" who is absolutely in the right here is living in cloud cuckoo land.
Maybe, but I do know that Hamas are absolutely in the wrong and eradicating Hamas is a worthy goal, though probably very high cost in blood.
Israel have murdered THIRTEEN TIMES as many people as Hamas in the last ten weeks.
Hamas has fired over twelve thousand rockets at Israeli cities in the past few months.
Having inferior military hardware isn't a virtue. Stop giving them credit for it.
Or do you think if they had better weapons, they wouldn't use them?
Why are you siding with the side who've murdered 20,000 people? Hamas are just the Diet Coke of murder.
Is it your view that every one of those 20,000 is innocent, and that Israel has no right whatsoever to go after Hamas?
Is there no middle view possible? Many of those 20,000 were innocent. Israel has a right to go after Hamas. Israel does not have a right to use excessive force against civilians, or indeed to continue building settlements on occupied territories or to annex Palestinian territory.
I agree with that. Thousands of innocents have been killed by the IDF. The proportion of civilian deaths I’ve read is 61-66%. By way of comparison, when Mosul was taken in 2017, civilian deaths were 45% of the total. That does suggest that the US and Kurds were more discriminate than the IDF.
Sunil’s view is that if Hamas kills 1,400, the IDF can also kill 1,400, but no more. That’s not how the LOAC work.
I believe Sunil's view is more nuanced than that. I think, indeed, that we have broad agreement that Israel needs to be more discriminate in the military action it is taking. The shooting of the three hostages, who were unarmed and waving a white flag, has been a powerful symbol of what is wrong with the IDF's actions in Gaza.
They certainly do not get away smelling of roses for sure.
Local by-elections today in Blaby (just south of Leicester) for district and county council and also in Ventnor Isle of Wight as mentioned by IanB2 above.
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.
That is simply not true. That Wikipedia article contains citations with evidence for over a dozen other massacres by Israeli forces. It also covers massacres by Arab forces, although these are considerably fewer in number.
Let us consider the Lydda massacre. We have an expulsion order, signed by Yitzhak Rabin, saying, "1. The inhabitants of Lydda must be expelled quickly without attention to age...." We have the eyewitness reports of a US journalist of indiscriminate shooting of civilians: "[The Israeli jeep column] raced into Lydda with rifles, Stens, and sub-machine guns blazing. It coursed through the main streets, blasting at everything that moved ... the corpses of Arab men, women, and even children were strewn about the streets". We have accounts by Palmach fighters.
Entirely missing the point that the Arabs only captured a few Jewish settlements (and, in general, wiped out everyone they found wherever they could) whereas Israel captured hundreds of Arab and shared settlements and today the Jewish and Arab inhabitants live (mostly) peaceably side by side. Lydda (Lod) today is a shared city, as is neighbouring Ramla.
You are missing the point that you are saying untrue things in a gross act of historical revisionism, an attempt to hide past crimes. There were many massacres and violent expulsions by the nascent Israeli forces of the Arab population. These are well documented. The many Palestinians who fled had plenty of reasons to do so.
We cannot move forward by only looking at the past. The solution to the situation in Gaza today is not to bang on about the Lydda massacre or the Deir Yassin massacre. But some honesty about what happened is a good start. Truth and reconciliation starts with truth.
That is interesting. If the SC were to uphold the Colorado decision what is the direct legal consequence other than Trump can't be on the ballot in that State?
I have to go now, but I think anyone who thinks that there is any "side" who is absolutely in the right here is living in cloud cuckoo land.
Maybe, but I do know that Hamas are absolutely in the wrong and eradicating Hamas is a worthy goal, though probably very high cost in blood.
Israel have murdered THIRTEEN TIMES as many people as Hamas in the last ten weeks.
Israel have murdered very few (though still more than they should have, which is zero).
Hamas set out to murder: to kill Jews - any of them, children, the elderly, women, whatever. That was their objective. That is what murder is.
Israel did not set out to kill Palestinians (other than Hamas fighters, who are a legitimate target in war). That Palestinian civilians have died in the conflict was always going to be an inevitable consequence of urban fighting. That is not murder. (FWIW, I think Israel has been reckless in its actions and has paid insufficient attention to civilian casualties at times. Still a different thing though).
By using the same language for the two, you're creating a legal and moral equivalence - and to cite those numbers in that framing is to legitimise Hamas or delegitimise Israel. Or both.
I have to go now, but I think anyone who thinks that there is any "side" who is absolutely in the right here is living in cloud cuckoo land.
Maybe, but I do know that Hamas are absolutely in the wrong and eradicating Hamas is a worthy goal, though probably very high cost in blood.
Israel have murdered THIRTEEN TIMES as many people as Hamas in the last ten weeks.
Hamas has fired over twelve thousand rockets at Israeli cities in the past few months.
Having inferior military hardware isn't a virtue. Stop giving them credit for it.
Or do you think if they had better weapons, they wouldn't use them?
Why are you siding with the side who've murdered 20,000 people? Hamas are just the Diet Coke of murder.
Is it your view that every one of those 20,000 is innocent, and that Israel has no right whatsoever to go after Hamas?
I would like Hamas eradicated, but your premise is flawed.
If innocents are killed as collateral in a surgical attack on Hamas operatives that is an unfortunate but necessary execution of a war. However bombing a random block of flats in the hope that there might be a Hamas terrorist within is not within the oxymoronic notion of the "rules of war".
The utterly unacceptable "shoot first ask questions later" execution of three Israeli hostages by the IDF, and the sniping of Christian Palestinians holed up in a Church is simply wicked. Or, on the last point do you agree with the Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem who claimed in an interview with Nick Ferrari there are no Churches and no Christians in Gaza.
Israel has the right to protect itself, but as this war progresses it becomes clearer that this war is to protect Bibi rather than Israel.
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.
Loch Ness says Hi, and other theoretical sites are available.
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.
Yes, it's been a point of criticism for years. Turns out you can still do that, despite what some online people think.
I have to go now, but I think anyone who thinks that there is any "side" who is absolutely in the right here is living in cloud cuckoo land.
Maybe, but I do know that Hamas are absolutely in the wrong and eradicating Hamas is a worthy goal, though probably very high cost in blood.
Israel have murdered THIRTEEN TIMES as many people as Hamas in the last ten weeks.
Israel have murdered very few (though still more than they should have, which is zero).
Hamas set out to murder: to kill Jews - any of them, children, the elderly, women, whatever. That was their objective. That is what murder is.
Israel did not set out to kill Palestinians (other than Hamas fighters, who are a legitimate target in war). That Palestinian civilians have died in the conflict was always going to be an inevitable consequence of urban fighting. That is not murder. (FWIW, I think Israel has been reckless in its actions and has paid insufficient attention to civilian casualties at times. Still a different thing though).
By using the same language for the two, you're creating a legal and moral equivalence - and to cite those numbers in that framing is to legitimise Hamas or delegitimise Israel. Or both.
Think carefully.
We agree that Israel has been reckless in its actions and has paid insufficient attention to civilian casualties. At some point, sufficient recklessness does constitute murder, doesn't it? IANAL.
There is plenty of rhetoric from some Israeli politicians and members of the public that shows genocidal intent. This 'recklessness' exists in that context. I don't think recognising that legitimises Hamas or delegitimises Israel.
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
I have to go now, but I think anyone who thinks that there is any "side" who is absolutely in the right here is living in cloud cuckoo land.
Maybe, but I do know that Hamas are absolutely in the wrong and eradicating Hamas is a worthy goal, though probably very high cost in blood.
Israel have murdered THIRTEEN TIMES as many people as Hamas in the last ten weeks.
Hamas has fired over twelve thousand rockets at Israeli cities in the past few months.
Having inferior military hardware isn't a virtue. Stop giving them credit for it.
Or do you think if they had better weapons, they wouldn't use them?
I'd take the point more seriously if not from someone who has declared many of the victims of October as deserving it, which undermines the idea it's a balancing of humanitarian concern.
I have to go now, but I think anyone who thinks that there is any "side" who is absolutely in the right here is living in cloud cuckoo land.
Maybe, but I do know that Hamas are absolutely in the wrong and eradicating Hamas is a worthy goal, though probably very high cost in blood.
Israel have murdered THIRTEEN TIMES as many people as Hamas in the last ten weeks.
Hamas has fired over twelve thousand rockets at Israeli cities in the past few months.
Having inferior military hardware isn't a virtue. Stop giving them credit for it.
Or do you think if they had better weapons, they wouldn't use them?
Why are you siding with the side who've murdered 20,000 people? Hamas are just the Diet Coke of murder.
Is it your view that every one of those 20,000 is innocent, and that Israel has no right whatsoever to go after Hamas?
I would like Hamas eradicated, but your premise is flawed.
If innocents are killed as collateral in a surgical attack on Hamas operatives that is an unfortunate but necessary execution of a war. However bombing a random block of flats in the hope that there might be a Hamas terrorist within is not within the oxymoronic notion of the "rules of war".
The utterly unacceptable "shoot first ask questions later" execution of three Israeli hostages by the IDF, and the sniping of Christian Palestinians holed up in a Church is simply wicked. Or, on the last point do you agree with the Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem who claimed in an interview with Nick Ferrari there are no Churches and no Christians in Gaza.
Israel has the right to protect itself, but as this war progresses it becomes clearer that this war is to protect Bibi rather than Israel.
The killing of the escaped hostages does have to be viewed in the context of a war in which Hamas has repeatedly launched ambushes, using operatives waving white flags and pretending to surrender as traps.
And also in the context that Israeli jails are now filled to bursting point with hundreds of Hamas operatives who have successfully surrendered in the past few weeks. Clearly the IDF doesn't get everything right - no army does, or can - but the policy you claim clearly does not exist.
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.
An interesting example of this, which I used when teaching the Norman conquest, is the different names for animals and their meat.
Cows produce beef Sheep produce mutton Deer produce venison Pigs produce pork
Because the Saxons looks after the animal, but the Normans ate it.
So the animal is named for the Saxon word and the meat for the French word for the same animal (bouef, mouton, porcer - veni comes from 'chase').
It's an easy way to tell who was in charge. When it was in a cold, wet, muddy field covered in sh...stuff it was Saxon, when roasted, garnished, and served as a tasty dish it was Norman.
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.)
This is what I was wondering. Ok it probably won't happen (that the SC upholds Colorado) but IF they do does it mean Trump can't stand at all, or just can't stand in Colorado?
I have to go now, but I think anyone who thinks that there is any "side" who is absolutely in the right here is living in cloud cuckoo land.
Maybe, but I do know that Hamas are absolutely in the wrong and eradicating Hamas is a worthy goal, though probably very high cost in blood.
Israel have murdered THIRTEEN TIMES as many people as Hamas in the last ten weeks.
Hamas has fired over twelve thousand rockets at Israeli cities in the past few months.
Having inferior military hardware isn't a virtue. Stop giving them credit for it.
Or do you think if they had better weapons, they wouldn't use them?
Why are you siding with the side who've murdered 20,000 people? Hamas are just the Diet Coke of murder.
Is it your view that every one of those 20,000 is innocent, and that Israel has no right whatsoever to go after Hamas?
I would like Hamas eradicated, but your premise is flawed.
If innocents are killed as collateral in a surgical attack on Hamas operatives that is an unfortunate but necessary execution of a war. However bombing a random block of flats in the hope that there might be a Hamas terrorist within is not within the oxymoronic notion of the "rules of war".
The utterly unacceptable "shoot first ask questions later" execution of three Israeli hostages by the IDF, and the sniping of Christian Palestinians holed up in a Church is simply wicked. Or, on the last point do you agree with the Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem who claimed in an interview with Nick Ferrari there are no Churches and no Christians in Gaza.
Israel has the right to protect itself, but as this war progresses it becomes clearer that this war is to protect Bibi rather than Israel.
The killing of the escaped hostages does have to be viewed in the context of a war in which Hamas has repeatedly launched ambushes, using operatives waving white flags and pretending to surrender as traps.
And also in the context that Israeli jails are now filled to bursting point with hundreds of Hamas operatives who have successfully surrendered in the past few weeks. Clearly the IDF doesn't get everything right - no army does, or can - but the policy you claim clearly does not exist.
Do you think the right approach is to immediately shoot anyone unarmed and waving a white flag?
I have to go now, but I think anyone who thinks that there is any "side" who is absolutely in the right here is living in cloud cuckoo land.
Maybe, but I do know that Hamas are absolutely in the wrong and eradicating Hamas is a worthy goal, though probably very high cost in blood.
Israel have murdered THIRTEEN TIMES as many people as Hamas in the last ten weeks.
Hamas has fired over twelve thousand rockets at Israeli cities in the past few months.
Having inferior military hardware isn't a virtue. Stop giving them credit for it.
Or do you think if they had better weapons, they wouldn't use them?
Why are you siding with the side who've murdered 20,000 people? Hamas are just the Diet Coke of murder.
Is it your view that every one of those 20,000 is innocent, and that Israel has no right whatsoever to go after Hamas?
Is there no middle view possible? Many of those 20,000 were innocent. Israel has a right to go after Hamas. Israel does not have a right to use excessive force against civilians, or indeed to continue building settlements on occupied territories or to annex Palestinian territory.
I agree with that. Thousands of innocents have been killed by the IDF. The proportion of civilian deaths I’ve read is 61-66%. By way of comparison, when Mosul was taken in 2017, civilian deaths were 45% of the total. That does suggest that the US and Kurds were more discriminate than the IDF.
Sunil’s view is that if Hamas kills 1,400, the IDF can also kill 1,400, but no more. That’s not how the LOAC work.
I have to go now, but I think anyone who thinks that there is any "side" who is absolutely in the right here is living in cloud cuckoo land.
Maybe, but I do know that Hamas are absolutely in the wrong and eradicating Hamas is a worthy goal, though probably very high cost in blood.
Israel have murdered THIRTEEN TIMES as many people as Hamas in the last ten weeks.
Hamas has fired over twelve thousand rockets at Israeli cities in the past few months.
Having inferior military hardware isn't a virtue. Stop giving them credit for it.
Or do you think if they had better weapons, they wouldn't use them?
Why are you siding with the side who've murdered 20,000 people? Hamas are just the Diet Coke of murder.
Is it your view that every one of those 20,000 is innocent, and that Israel has no right whatsoever to go after Hamas?
Is there no middle view possible? Many of those 20,000 were innocent. Israel has a right to go after Hamas. Israel does not have a right to use excessive force against civilians, or indeed to continue building settlements on occupied territories or to annex Palestinian territory.
I agree with that. Thousands of innocents have been killed by the IDF. The proportion of civilian deaths I’ve read is 61-66%. By way of comparison, when Mosul was taken in 2017, civilian deaths were 45% of the total. That does suggest that the US and Kurds were more discriminate than the IDF.
Sunil’s view is that if Hamas kills 1,400, the IDF can also kill 1,400, but no more. That’s not how the LOAC work.
I believe Sunil's view is more nuanced than that. I think, indeed, that we have broad agreement that Israel needs to be more discriminate in the military action it is taking. The shooting of the three hostages, who were unarmed and waving a white flag, has been a powerful symbol of what is wrong with the IDF's actions in Gaza.
They certainly do not get away smelling of roses for sure.
Indeed not, and its easy to say so without buying into every absurd conspiracy or trope against them, despite what the Internet would have us believe.
Western Cape seceding can be seen as rational - they might well end up being better governed - and I increasingly think the Union of SA was a bit of a mistake (although it didn't need to be) anyway.
Western Cape seceding can be seen as rational - they might well end up being better governed - and I increasingly think the Union of SA was a bit of a mistake (although it didn't need to be) anyway.
The debates on secession will probably get very tedious, indeed excessively Boering.
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.
That is simply not true. That Wikipedia article contains citations with evidence for over a dozen other massacres by Israeli forces. It also covers massacres by Arab forces, although these are considerably fewer in number.
Let us consider the Lydda massacre. We have an expulsion order, signed by Yitzhak Rabin, saying, "1. The inhabitants of Lydda must be expelled quickly without attention to age...." We have the eyewitness reports of a US journalist of indiscriminate shooting of civilians: "[The Israeli jeep column] raced into Lydda with rifles, Stens, and sub-machine guns blazing. It coursed through the main streets, blasting at everything that moved ... the corpses of Arab men, women, and even children were strewn about the streets". We have accounts by Palmach fighters.
Entirely missing the point that the Arabs only captured a few Jewish settlements (and, in general, wiped out everyone they found wherever they could) whereas Israel captured hundreds of Arab and shared settlements and today the Jewish and Arab inhabitants live (mostly) peaceably side by side. Lydda (Lod) today is a shared city, as is neighbouring Ramla.
You are missing the point that you are saying untrue things in a gross act of historical revisionism, an attempt to hide past crimes. There were many massacres and violent expulsions by the nascent Israeli forces of the Arab population. These are well documented. The many Palestinians who fled had plenty of reasons to do so.
We cannot move forward by only looking at the past. The solution to the situation in Gaza today is not to bang on about the Lydda massacre or the Deir Yassin massacre. But some honesty about what happened is a good start. Truth and reconciliation starts with truth.
Happy to agree with your second paragraph (subject to caveats that, as previously noted, there is good evidence that Deir Yassin in particular has been massively overblown - but you are correct that it is not especially relevant today).
But, to return to the original point: you cannot claim ethnic cleansing without explaining why it was only applied to such a small proportion of the Arab population, and why those who stayed (and their descendants) are today full Israeli citizens. Saying that hundreds of thousands fled - many before fighting got anywhere near them - because they were terrified of Israeli reprisals is not an answer, because it's based so heavily on the prejudices on those who fled, rather than the evidence from those who didn't.
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.
An interesting example of this, which I used when teaching the Norman conquest, is the different names for animals and their meat.
Cows produce beef Sheep produce mutton Deer produce venison Pigs produce pork
Because the Saxons looks after the animal, but the Normans ate it.
So the animal is named for the Saxon word and the meat for the French word for the same animal (bouef, mouton, porcer - veni comes from 'chase').
It's an easy way to tell who was in charge. When it was in a cold, wet, muddy field covered in sh...stuff it was Saxon, when roasted, garnished, and served as a tasty dish it was Norman.
Yeah, that's an old châtaigne (although French for deer is cerf, n'est-ce pas?)
For anyone over-obsessed with AI (me) a new iteration of an AI image maker has dropped overnight. Midjourney V6
It is another major leap forward - especially for photography
If I may be allowed one single image (and I shall post no more today) - check this photo out. It is completely flawless. Yet entirely fake
This is obviously low res. If you look at the original it just gets better the MORE you zoom in. There are no errors. No weird hands. Nothing to tell you this is not real. And these photos can now be animated into videos and movies. No wonder the Hollywood actors went on strike
It's impressive, but there are often clues. The BBC website has a regular real or AI quiz and generally I get ~70-80% right, at least (occasionally a full house) and I don't think I have any special ability. That's a bit easier as it's all celebs so there's not only the picture but also the likelihood of the image - i.e. whether X is crazy enough to wear that outfit etc.
In this pic, the white rope third from right is weird. The bend looks to be the wrong way - not explained by gravity, could be explained by wind, but the scene is otherwise calm. The light on the deck retainer is also, maybe, slightly off.
Would I think this was fake if flipping through a magazine and seeing this? No, not at all. If asked explicitly whether it was AI or fake then the rope is the tell here, I think. But that doens't really matter - this is perfectly good enough for $expensivewatch or $fancyholiday advertising materials and that's a bit of a problem for people working in that industry. AI image generation is already good enough to replace that.
For the more nefarious purposes, AI plus a bit of manual touch-up probably does the job too. Interesting times.
If I was allowed to post AI pics on here I promise I could post 20 - in a minute - which are entirely indistinguishable from reality. But I’m not so I can’t
Go and look on Discord. It’s mind blowing
And it’s not just invented photos. It’s fake images of real people - it’s cartoons and paintings and illustrations - AI has made another quantum leap. Remember that 3 years ago everyone was amazed when ChatGPT drew a cartoon of a dog in a tutu
Now extrapolate 3 years hence
Well, we got a power cut immediately after my post, which also took down our local mobile phone mast, kicking me off the internet even via tethering (was very slight signal to one further away). I'm only now back online having decamped to the in-laws house some miles away as I'd run out of offline work to do (for security, all the data a work on is only accessed remotely - I have a few admin things I could do, but only for a few hours).
So, the AI gods are mad with me and did rightly smite me. I apologise for dissing 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.
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.
An interesting example of this, which I used when teaching the Norman conquest, is the different names for animals and their meat.
Cows produce beef Sheep produce mutton Deer produce venison Pigs produce pork
Because the Saxons looks after the animal, but the Normans ate it.
So the animal is named for the Saxon word and the meat for the French word for the same animal (bouef, mouton, porcer - veni comes from 'chase').
It's an easy way to tell who was in charge. When it was in a cold, wet, muddy field covered in sh...stuff it was Saxon, when roasted, garnished, and served as a tasty dish it was Norman.
Yeah that's an old châtaigne (although French for deer is cerf n'est-ce pas?)
'Veni comes from 'chase''...it was a reference to how the Normans *got* the meat.
I have to go now, but I think anyone who thinks that there is any "side" who is absolutely in the right here is living in cloud cuckoo land.
Maybe, but I do know that Hamas are absolutely in the wrong and eradicating Hamas is a worthy goal, though probably very high cost in blood.
Israel have murdered THIRTEEN TIMES as many people as Hamas in the last ten weeks.
Hamas has fired over twelve thousand rockets at Israeli cities in the past few months.
Having inferior military hardware isn't a virtue. Stop giving them credit for it.
Or do you think if they had better weapons, they wouldn't use them?
Why are you siding with the side who've murdered 20,000 people? Hamas are just the Diet Coke of murder.
Is it your view that every one of those 20,000 is innocent, and that Israel has no right whatsoever to go after Hamas?
I would like Hamas eradicated, but your premise is flawed.
If innocents are killed as collateral in a surgical attack on Hamas operatives that is an unfortunate but necessary execution of a war. However bombing a random block of flats in the hope that there might be a Hamas terrorist within is not within the oxymoronic notion of the "rules of war".
The utterly unacceptable "shoot first ask questions later" execution of three Israeli hostages by the IDF, and the sniping of Christian Palestinians holed up in a Church is simply wicked. Or, on the last point do you agree with the Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem who claimed in an interview with Nick Ferrari there are no Churches and no Christians in Gaza.
Israel has the right to protect itself, but as this war progresses it becomes clearer that this war is to protect Bibi rather than Israel.
The killing of the escaped hostages does have to be viewed in the context of a war in which Hamas has repeatedly launched ambushes, using operatives waving white flags and pretending to surrender as traps.
And also in the context that Israeli jails are now filled to bursting point with hundreds of Hamas operatives who have successfully surrendered in the past few weeks. Clearly the IDF doesn't get everything right - no army does, or can - but the policy you claim clearly does not exist.
Do you think the right approach is to immediately shoot anyone unarmed and waving a white flag?
Obviously not.
How do you think all those Hamas operatives managed to surrender if that was IDF policy?
I have to go now, but I think anyone who thinks that there is any "side" who is absolutely in the right here is living in cloud cuckoo land.
Maybe, but I do know that Hamas are absolutely in the wrong and eradicating Hamas is a worthy goal, though probably very high cost in blood.
Israel have murdered THIRTEEN TIMES as many people as Hamas in the last ten weeks.
Hamas has fired over twelve thousand rockets at Israeli cities in the past few months.
Having inferior military hardware isn't a virtue. Stop giving them credit for it.
Or do you think if they had better weapons, they wouldn't use them?
Why are you siding with the side who've murdered 20,000 people? Hamas are just the Diet Coke of murder.
Is it your view that every one of those 20,000 is innocent, and that Israel has no right whatsoever to go after Hamas?
I would like Hamas eradicated, but your premise is flawed.
If innocents are killed as collateral in a surgical attack on Hamas operatives that is an unfortunate but necessary execution of a war. However bombing a random block of flats in the hope that there might be a Hamas terrorist within is not within the oxymoronic notion of the "rules of war".
The utterly unacceptable "shoot first ask questions later" execution of three Israeli hostages by the IDF, and the sniping of Christian Palestinians holed up in a Church is simply wicked. Or, on the last point do you agree with the Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem who claimed in an interview with Nick Ferrari there are no Churches and no Christians in Gaza.
Israel has the right to protect itself, but as this war progresses it becomes clearer that this war is to protect Bibi rather than Israel.
The killing of the escaped hostages does have to be viewed in the context of a war in which Hamas has repeatedly launched ambushes, using operatives waving white flags and pretending to surrender as traps.
And also in the context that Israeli jails are now filled to bursting point with hundreds of Hamas operatives who have successfully surrendered in the past few weeks. Clearly the IDF doesn't get everything right - no army does, or can - but the policy you claim clearly does not exist.
The escaped hostages had raised white flags and were speaking Hebrew. The two were killed instantly and the one survivor was shot dead despite orders from officers not to shoot. The IDF are out of control. Maybe understandable in the light of the atrocities of October 7. But please don't excuse such behaviour as acceptable during the fog of war. There is clearly an arbitrary "shoot to kill policy. If there wasn't, those three Israeli lads would still be alive.
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.
An interesting example of this, which I used when teaching the Norman conquest, is the different names for animals and their meat.
Cows produce beef Sheep produce mutton Deer produce venison Pigs produce pork
Because the Saxons looks after the animal, but the Normans ate it.
So the animal is named for the Saxon word and the meat for the French word for the same animal (bouef, mouton, porcer - veni comes from 'chase').
It's an easy way to tell who was in charge. When it was in a cold, wet, muddy field covered in sh...stuff it was Saxon, when roasted, garnished, and served as a tasty dish it was Norman.
Yeah that's an old châtaigne (although French for deer is cerf n'est-ce pas?)
'Veni comes from 'chase''...it was a reference to how the Normans *got* the meat.
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.
But aren't nations and clans, tribes and Kings essentially today now coterminous?
That is interesting. If the SC were to uphold the Colorado decision what is the direct legal consequence other than Trump can't be on the ballot in that State?
Several other states might see similar cases being brought, and possibly won, for a start.
Whichever way they decide is going to open a can of worms, but it will be as important as the decision itself to see on what grounds the Court's decision is based.
This article isn't directly on point in legal terms, but describes the politics around the whole thing quite well, IMO.
The Colorado Decision: Heads Trump Wins. Tails America Loses. Donald Trump must be allowed every possible legal maneuver in his quest to subvert American democracy. But the law must never apply to Trump, because doing so might make him stronger. https://plus.thebulwark.com/p/the-colorado-decision-heads-trump
I have to go now, but I think anyone who thinks that there is any "side" who is absolutely in the right here is living in cloud cuckoo land.
Maybe, but I do know that Hamas are absolutely in the wrong and eradicating Hamas is a worthy goal, though probably very high cost in blood.
Israel have murdered THIRTEEN TIMES as many people as Hamas in the last ten weeks.
Hamas has fired over twelve thousand rockets at Israeli cities in the past few months.
Having inferior military hardware isn't a virtue. Stop giving them credit for it.
Or do you think if they had better weapons, they wouldn't use them?
Why are you siding with the side who've murdered 20,000 people? Hamas are just the Diet Coke of murder.
Is it your view that every one of those 20,000 is innocent, and that Israel has no right whatsoever to go after Hamas?
Is there no middle view possible? Many of those 20,000 were innocent. Israel has a right to go after Hamas. Israel does not have a right to use excessive force against civilians, or indeed to continue building settlements on occupied territories or to annex Palestinian territory.
I agree with that. Thousands of innocents have been killed by the IDF. The proportion of civilian deaths I’ve read is 61-66%. By way of comparison, when Mosul was taken in 2017, civilian deaths were 45% of the total. That does suggest that the US and Kurds were more discriminate than the IDF.
Sunil’s view is that if Hamas kills 1,400, the IDF can also kill 1,400, but no more. That’s not how the LOAC work.
It's a classic sign of autism.
To autistic people numbers are very logical.
Here we go again. Autism as a slur, albeit this time with a sugar coated caveat enclosed.
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.
An interesting example of this, which I used when teaching the Norman conquest, is the different names for animals and their meat.
Cows produce beef Sheep produce mutton Deer produce venison Pigs produce pork
Because the Saxons looks after the animal, but the Normans ate it.
So the animal is named for the Saxon word and the meat for the French word for the same animal (bouef, mouton, porcer - veni comes from 'chase').
It's an easy way to tell who was in charge. When it was in a cold, wet, muddy field covered in sh...stuff it was Saxon, when roasted, garnished, and served as a tasty dish it was Norman.
Yeah that's an old châtaigne (although French for deer is cerf n'est-ce pas?)
'Veni comes from 'chase''...it was a reference to how the Normans *got* the meat.
By chasing poachers and pinching their kill?
Are you suggesting the Normans went round robbing hoods?
Can someone set up an AI version of PB for Leon, with the rest of us as virtual posters, so that he can bombard it with AI photos and arguments about why Putin was right all along.
I have to go now, but I think anyone who thinks that there is any "side" who is absolutely in the right here is living in cloud cuckoo land.
Maybe, but I do know that Hamas are absolutely in the wrong and eradicating Hamas is a worthy goal, though probably very high cost in blood.
Israel have murdered THIRTEEN TIMES as many people as Hamas in the last ten weeks.
Hamas has fired over twelve thousand rockets at Israeli cities in the past few months.
Having inferior military hardware isn't a virtue. Stop giving them credit for it.
Or do you think if they had better weapons, they wouldn't use them?
Why are you siding with the side who've murdered 20,000 people? Hamas are just the Diet Coke of murder.
Is it your view that every one of those 20,000 is innocent, and that Israel has no right whatsoever to go after Hamas?
Is there no middle view possible? Many of those 20,000 were innocent. Israel has a right to go after Hamas. Israel does not have a right to use excessive force against civilians, or indeed to continue building settlements on occupied territories or to annex Palestinian territory.
I agree with that. Thousands of innocents have been killed by the IDF. The proportion of civilian deaths I’ve read is 61-66%. By way of comparison, when Mosul was taken in 2017, civilian deaths were 45% of the total. That does suggest that the US and Kurds were more discriminate than the IDF.
Sunil’s view is that if Hamas kills 1,400, the IDF can also kill 1,400, but no more. That’s not how the LOAC work.
It's a classic sign of autism.
To autistic people numbers are very logical.
Here we go again. Autism as a slur, albeit this time with a sugar coated caveat enclosed.
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.
An interesting example of this, which I used when teaching the Norman conquest, is the different names for animals and their meat.
Cows produce beef Sheep produce mutton Deer produce venison Pigs produce pork
Because the Saxons looks after the animal, but the Normans ate it.
So the animal is named for the Saxon word and the meat for the French word for the same animal (bouef, mouton, porcer - veni comes from 'chase').
It's an easy way to tell who was in charge. When it was in a cold, wet, muddy field covered in sh...stuff it was Saxon, when roasted, garnished, and served as a tasty dish it was Norman.
Yeah that's an old châtaigne (although French for deer is cerf n'est-ce pas?)
'Veni comes from 'chase''...it was a reference to how the Normans *got* the meat.
By chasing poachers and pinching their kill?
Are you suggesting the Normans went round robbing hoods?
I have to go now, but I think anyone who thinks that there is any "side" who is absolutely in the right here is living in cloud cuckoo land.
Maybe, but I do know that Hamas are absolutely in the wrong and eradicating Hamas is a worthy goal, though probably very high cost in blood.
Israel have murdered THIRTEEN TIMES as many people as Hamas in the last ten weeks.
Hamas has fired over twelve thousand rockets at Israeli cities in the past few months.
Having inferior military hardware isn't a virtue. Stop giving them credit for it.
Or do you think if they had better weapons, they wouldn't use them?
Why are you siding with the side who've murdered 20,000 people? Hamas are just the Diet Coke of murder.
Is it your view that every one of those 20,000 is innocent, and that Israel has no right whatsoever to go after Hamas?
Is there no middle view possible? Many of those 20,000 were innocent. Israel has a right to go after Hamas. Israel does not have a right to use excessive force against civilians, or indeed to continue building settlements on occupied territories or to annex Palestinian territory.
I agree with that. Thousands of innocents have been killed by the IDF. The proportion of civilian deaths I’ve read is 61-66%. By way of comparison, when Mosul was taken in 2017, civilian deaths were 45% of the total. That does suggest that the US and Kurds were more discriminate than the IDF.
Sunil’s view is that if Hamas kills 1,400, the IDF can also kill 1,400, but no more. That’s not how the LOAC work.
I have to go now, but I think anyone who thinks that there is any "side" who is absolutely in the right here is living in cloud cuckoo land.
Maybe, but I do know that Hamas are absolutely in the wrong and eradicating Hamas is a worthy goal, though probably very high cost in blood.
Israel have murdered THIRTEEN TIMES as many people as Hamas in the last ten weeks.
Hamas has fired over twelve thousand rockets at Israeli cities in the past few months.
Having inferior military hardware isn't a virtue. Stop giving them credit for it.
Or do you think if they had better weapons, they wouldn't use them?
Why are you siding with the side who've murdered 20,000 people? Hamas are just the Diet Coke of murder.
Is it your view that every one of those 20,000 is innocent, and that Israel has no right whatsoever to go after Hamas?
Is there no middle view possible? Many of those 20,000 were innocent. Israel has a right to go after Hamas. Israel does not have a right to use excessive force against civilians, or indeed to continue building settlements on occupied territories or to annex Palestinian territory.
I agree with that. Thousands of innocents have been killed by the IDF. The proportion of civilian deaths I’ve read is 61-66%. By way of comparison, when Mosul was taken in 2017, civilian deaths were 45% of the total. That does suggest that the US and Kurds were more discriminate than the IDF.
Sunil’s view is that if Hamas kills 1,400, the IDF can also kill 1,400, but no more. That’s not how the LOAC work.
It's a classic sign of autism.
To autistic people numbers are very logical.
Here we go again. Autism as a slur, albeit this time with a sugar coated caveat enclosed.
I have to go now, but I think anyone who thinks that there is any "side" who is absolutely in the right here is living in cloud cuckoo land.
Maybe, but I do know that Hamas are absolutely in the wrong and eradicating Hamas is a worthy goal, though probably very high cost in blood.
Israel have murdered THIRTEEN TIMES as many people as Hamas in the last ten weeks.
Hamas has fired over twelve thousand rockets at Israeli cities in the past few months.
Having inferior military hardware isn't a virtue. Stop giving them credit for it.
Or do you think if they had better weapons, they wouldn't use them?
Why are you siding with the side who've murdered 20,000 people? Hamas are just the Diet Coke of murder.
Is it your view that every one of those 20,000 is innocent, and that Israel has no right whatsoever to go after Hamas?
Is there no middle view possible? Many of those 20,000 were innocent. Israel has a right to go after Hamas. Israel does not have a right to use excessive force against civilians, or indeed to continue building settlements on occupied territories or to annex Palestinian territory.
I agree with that. Thousands of innocents have been killed by the IDF. The proportion of civilian deaths I’ve read is 61-66%. By way of comparison, when Mosul was taken in 2017, civilian deaths were 45% of the total. That does suggest that the US and Kurds were more discriminate than the IDF.
Sunil’s view is that if Hamas kills 1,400, the IDF can also kill 1,400, but no more. That’s not how the LOAC work.
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
No you're missing the point.
The Shakespeare quote describes a people in a kingdom on a land. Those concepts have been around for over a thousand years. But there were two concepts: I) the people were the subjects of the king, and the Realm was broadly where the kings law held sway, and Ii) the Land, where the people stood. The disconnect between Realm and Land meant that the Realm could expand outside the Land, and that enabled the next step, which was an Empire: a Realm across many Lands
Following the treaty/Peace of Westphalia around 50 years after Shakespeare died, the emphasis shifted to the State: a polity with a defined border. This concept gained traction in the 19th century and following WW2 the empires were dissolved and the world became a patchwork of sovereign states, usually (but not always) sovereign nation states. In this concept the state is a patch of land with defined borders which holds a group of people who identify as "us" (the nation) and governs itself (sovereignty) and has a legal personality.
I have to go now, but I think anyone who thinks that there is any "side" who is absolutely in the right here is living in cloud cuckoo land.
Maybe, but I do know that Hamas are absolutely in the wrong and eradicating Hamas is a worthy goal, though probably very high cost in blood.
Israel have murdered THIRTEEN TIMES as many people as Hamas in the last ten weeks.
Hamas has fired over twelve thousand rockets at Israeli cities in the past few months.
Having inferior military hardware isn't a virtue. Stop giving them credit for it.
Or do you think if they had better weapons, they wouldn't use them?
Why are you siding with the side who've murdered 20,000 people? Hamas are just the Diet Coke of murder.
Is it your view that every one of those 20,000 is innocent, and that Israel has no right whatsoever to go after Hamas?
Is there no middle view possible? Many of those 20,000 were innocent. Israel has a right to go after Hamas. Israel does not have a right to use excessive force against civilians, or indeed to continue building settlements on occupied territories or to annex Palestinian territory.
I agree with that. Thousands of innocents have been killed by the IDF. The proportion of civilian deaths I’ve read is 61-66%. By way of comparison, when Mosul was taken in 2017, civilian deaths were 45% of the total. That does suggest that the US and Kurds were more discriminate than the IDF.
Sunil’s view is that if Hamas kills 1,400, the IDF can also kill 1,400, but no more. That’s not how the LOAC work.
I have to go now, but I think anyone who thinks that there is any "side" who is absolutely in the right here is living in cloud cuckoo land.
Maybe, but I do know that Hamas are absolutely in the wrong and eradicating Hamas is a worthy goal, though probably very high cost in blood.
Israel have murdered THIRTEEN TIMES as many people as Hamas in the last ten weeks.
Israel have murdered very few (though still more than they should have, which is zero).
Hamas set out to murder: to kill Jews - any of them, children, the elderly, women, whatever. That was their objective. That is what murder is.
Israel did not set out to kill Palestinians (other than Hamas fighters, who are a legitimate target in war). That Palestinian civilians have died in the conflict was always going to be an inevitable consequence of urban fighting. That is not murder. (FWIW, I think Israel has been reckless in its actions and has paid insufficient attention to civilian casualties at times. Still a different thing though).
By using the same language for the two, you're creating a legal and moral equivalence - and to cite those numbers in that framing is to legitimise Hamas or delegitimise Israel. Or both.
Think carefully.
I disagree.
The current Israeli leadership have set out to murder. They may not have murdered as many innocent people as Hamas (though they have certainly 'killed' far more innocents than Hamas) but this is not a numbers game. Murder is murder and both Hamas and Netenyahu's cabal should be rotting in jail - or preferably Hell.
That is interesting. If the SC were to uphold the Colorado decision what is the direct legal consequence other than Trump can't be on the ballot in that State?
Several other states might see similar cases being brought, and possibly won, for a start.
Whichever way they decide is going to open a can of worms, but it will be as important as the decision itself to see on what grounds the Court's decision is based.
This article isn't directly on point in legal terms, but describes the politics around the whole thing quite well, IMO.
The Colorado Decision: Heads Trump Wins. Tails America Loses. Donald Trump must be allowed every possible legal maneuver in his quest to subvert American democracy. But the law must never apply to Trump, because doing so might make him stronger. https://plus.thebulwark.com/p/the-colorado-decision-heads-trump
As I've said previously, I'm very doubtful SCOTUS would uphold it (and am not convinced they'd be wrong to overturn the Colorado decision - although I do see the argument and they put it very well in the decision).
However, I think the implications of upholding the Colorado decision in full would be bigger than you suggest. I think they would necessarily be saying Trump was ineligible to be President under the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution. I don't think there's a meaningful way to say "this is a state rights issue - individual states can decide if Trump is eligible to be President under the US Constitution or not, and act accordingly". He simply can't be eligible to be US President in Missouri but not in Kansas.
There are obviously things they can do short of fully upholding the Colorado decision. An interesting one would be if they said that Colorado was right in saying the 14th amendment covers the office of President, but erred in saying it could apply absent a conviction. Because there could, of course, be a conviction in due course, whether before or even after the election.
I have to go now, but I think anyone who thinks that there is any "side" who is absolutely in the right here is living in cloud cuckoo land.
Maybe, but I do know that Hamas are absolutely in the wrong and eradicating Hamas is a worthy goal, though probably very high cost in blood.
Israel have murdered THIRTEEN TIMES as many people as Hamas in the last ten weeks.
Hamas has fired over twelve thousand rockets at Israeli cities in the past few months.
Having inferior military hardware isn't a virtue. Stop giving them credit for it.
Or do you think if they had better weapons, they wouldn't use them?
Why are you siding with the side who've murdered 20,000 people? Hamas are just the Diet Coke of murder.
Is it your view that every one of those 20,000 is innocent, and that Israel has no right whatsoever to go after Hamas?
I would like Hamas eradicated, but your premise is flawed.
If innocents are killed as collateral in a surgical attack on Hamas operatives that is an unfortunate but necessary execution of a war. However bombing a random block of flats in the hope that there might be a Hamas terrorist within is not within the oxymoronic notion of the "rules of war".
The utterly unacceptable "shoot first ask questions later" execution of three Israeli hostages by the IDF, and the sniping of Christian Palestinians holed up in a Church is simply wicked. Or, on the last point do you agree with the Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem who claimed in an interview with Nick Ferrari there are no Churches and no Christians in Gaza.
Israel has the right to protect itself, but as this war progresses it becomes clearer that this war is to protect Bibi rather than Israel.
The killing of the escaped hostages does have to be viewed in the context of a war in which Hamas has repeatedly launched ambushes, using operatives waving white flags and pretending to surrender as traps.
And also in the context that Israeli jails are now filled to bursting point with hundreds of Hamas operatives who have successfully surrendered in the past few weeks. Clearly the IDF doesn't get everything right - no army does, or can - but the policy you claim clearly does not exist.
The escaped hostages had raised white flags and were speaking Hebrew. The two were killed instantly and the one survivor was shot dead despite orders from officers not to shoot. The IDF are out of control. Maybe understandable in the light of the atrocities of October 7. But please don't excuse such behaviour as acceptable during the fog of war. There is clearly an arbitrary "shoot to kill policy. If there wasn't, those three Israeli lads would still be alive.
Again: how on earth are Hamas operatives surrendering if IDF policy is to shoot them on sight, regardless of white flags etc?
The fact that you think an army operating a "shoot to kill" policy in a warzone is somehow evidence of being "out of control" is very telling, though.
I have to go now, but I think anyone who thinks that there is any "side" who is absolutely in the right here is living in cloud cuckoo land.
Maybe, but I do know that Hamas are absolutely in the wrong and eradicating Hamas is a worthy goal, though probably very high cost in blood.
Israel have murdered THIRTEEN TIMES as many people as Hamas in the last ten weeks.
Hamas has fired over twelve thousand rockets at Israeli cities in the past few months.
Having inferior military hardware isn't a virtue. Stop giving them credit for it.
Or do you think if they had better weapons, they wouldn't use them?
Why are you siding with the side who've murdered 20,000 people? Hamas are just the Diet Coke of murder.
Is it your view that every one of those 20,000 is innocent, and that Israel has no right whatsoever to go after Hamas?
Is there no middle view possible? Many of those 20,000 were innocent. Israel has a right to go after Hamas. Israel does not have a right to use excessive force against civilians, or indeed to continue building settlements on occupied territories or to annex Palestinian territory.
I agree with that. Thousands of innocents have been killed by the IDF. The proportion of civilian deaths I’ve read is 61-66%. By way of comparison, when Mosul was taken in 2017, civilian deaths were 45% of the total. That does suggest that the US and Kurds were more discriminate than the IDF.
Sunil’s view is that if Hamas kills 1,400, the IDF can also kill 1,400, but no more. That’s not how the LOAC work.
It's a classic sign of autism.
To autistic people numbers are very logical.
Er... aren't numbers very logical?
Not with British Gas they fucking aren't.
I was going to add ...to all but those with learning difficulties. Oh, and journalists, and those with Oxbridge classics degrees,...
So I am coming around to Casino's view.
But my point really is this:
Those with autism see numbers as very logical but numbers ARE very logical; it's the people who don't see the logic in them who have the issue with numbers.
The problem for people with autistic tendencies as far as I can see is not numbers but nuance, emotion, and the essential illogicality of humans that distinguishes from machines or computers.
I have to go now, but I think anyone who thinks that there is any "side" who is absolutely in the right here is living in cloud cuckoo land.
Maybe, but I do know that Hamas are absolutely in the wrong and eradicating Hamas is a worthy goal, though probably very high cost in blood.
Israel have murdered THIRTEEN TIMES as many people as Hamas in the last ten weeks.
Israel have murdered very few (though still more than they should have, which is zero).
Hamas set out to murder: to kill Jews - any of them, children, the elderly, women, whatever. That was their objective. That is what murder is.
Israel did not set out to kill Palestinians (other than Hamas fighters, who are a legitimate target in war). That Palestinian civilians have died in the conflict was always going to be an inevitable consequence of urban fighting. That is not murder. (FWIW, I think Israel has been reckless in its actions and has paid insufficient attention to civilian casualties at times. Still a different thing though).
By using the same language for the two, you're creating a legal and moral equivalence - and to cite those numbers in that framing is to legitimise Hamas or delegitimise Israel. Or both.
Think carefully.
We agree that Israel has been reckless in its actions and has paid insufficient attention to civilian casualties. At some point, sufficient recklessness does constitute murder, doesn't it? IANAL.
There is plenty of rhetoric from some Israeli politicians and members of the public that shows genocidal intent. This 'recklessness' exists in that context. I don't think recognising that legitimises Hamas or delegitimises Israel.
On your question, yes, it does. Sunil's claim however is that pretty much every Gazan death has been a murder, presumably by definition. If we accept that then the logic of the claim is that Israel doesn't have the right to wage war in Gaza, no matter what the provocation, because such deaths are inevitable and if they're illegal then so must any military action within Gaza be.
To state that all deaths in the war are 'murder' is to grant moral equivalence of each one, irrespective of the nature of the deceased, or how the death came about, or reference to international law.
I have to go now, but I think anyone who thinks that there is any "side" who is absolutely in the right here is living in cloud cuckoo land.
Maybe, but I do know that Hamas are absolutely in the wrong and eradicating Hamas is a worthy goal, though probably very high cost in blood.
Israel have murdered THIRTEEN TIMES as many people as Hamas in the last ten weeks.
Hamas has fired over twelve thousand rockets at Israeli cities in the past few months.
Having inferior military hardware isn't a virtue. Stop giving them credit for it.
Or do you think if they had better weapons, they wouldn't use them?
Why are you siding with the side who've murdered 20,000 people? Hamas are just the Diet Coke of murder.
Is it your view that every one of those 20,000 is innocent, and that Israel has no right whatsoever to go after Hamas?
Is there no middle view possible? Many of those 20,000 were innocent. Israel has a right to go after Hamas. Israel does not have a right to use excessive force against civilians, or indeed to continue building settlements on occupied territories or to annex Palestinian territory.
I agree with that. Thousands of innocents have been killed by the IDF. The proportion of civilian deaths I’ve read is 61-66%. By way of comparison, when Mosul was taken in 2017, civilian deaths were 45% of the total. That does suggest that the US and Kurds were more discriminate than the IDF.
Sunil’s view is that if Hamas kills 1,400, the IDF can also kill 1,400, but no more. That’s not how the LOAC work.
I have to go now, but I think anyone who thinks that there is any "side" who is absolutely in the right here is living in cloud cuckoo land.
Maybe, but I do know that Hamas are absolutely in the wrong and eradicating Hamas is a worthy goal, though probably very high cost in blood.
Israel have murdered THIRTEEN TIMES as many people as Hamas in the last ten weeks.
Hamas has fired over twelve thousand rockets at Israeli cities in the past few months.
Having inferior military hardware isn't a virtue. Stop giving them credit for it.
Or do you think if they had better weapons, they wouldn't use them?
Why are you siding with the side who've murdered 20,000 people? Hamas are just the Diet Coke of murder.
Is it your view that every one of those 20,000 is innocent, and that Israel has no right whatsoever to go after Hamas?
I would like Hamas eradicated, but your premise is flawed.
If innocents are killed as collateral in a surgical attack on Hamas operatives that is an unfortunate but necessary execution of a war. However bombing a random block of flats in the hope that there might be a Hamas terrorist within is not within the oxymoronic notion of the "rules of war".
The utterly unacceptable "shoot first ask questions later" execution of three Israeli hostages by the IDF, and the sniping of Christian Palestinians holed up in a Church is simply wicked. Or, on the last point do you agree with the Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem who claimed in an interview with Nick Ferrari there are no Churches and no Christians in Gaza.
Israel has the right to protect itself, but as this war progresses it becomes clearer that this war is to protect Bibi rather than Israel.
The killing of the escaped hostages does have to be viewed in the context of a war in which Hamas has repeatedly launched ambushes, using operatives waving white flags and pretending to surrender as traps.
And also in the context that Israeli jails are now filled to bursting point with hundreds of Hamas operatives who have successfully surrendered in the past few weeks. Clearly the IDF doesn't get everything right - no army does, or can - but the policy you claim clearly does not exist.
The escaped hostages had raised white flags and were speaking Hebrew. The two were killed instantly and the one survivor was shot dead despite orders from officers not to shoot. The IDF are out of control. Maybe understandable in the light of the atrocities of October 7. But please don't excuse such behaviour as acceptable during the fog of war. There is clearly an arbitrary "shoot to kill policy. If there wasn't, those three Israeli lads would still be alive.
Again: how on earth are Hamas operatives surrendering if IDF policy is to shoot them on sight, regardless of white flags etc?
The fact that you think an army operating a "shoot to kill" policy in a warzone is somehow evidence of being "out of control" is very telling, though.
Whilst your apologies for ethnic cleansing are simply a confirmation of what we already knew about you.
I have to go now, but I think anyone who thinks that there is any "side" who is absolutely in the right here is living in cloud cuckoo land.
Maybe, but I do know that Hamas are absolutely in the wrong and eradicating Hamas is a worthy goal, though probably very high cost in blood.
Israel have murdered THIRTEEN TIMES as many people as Hamas in the last ten weeks.
Hamas has fired over twelve thousand rockets at Israeli cities in the past few months.
Having inferior military hardware isn't a virtue. Stop giving them credit for it.
Or do you think if they had better weapons, they wouldn't use them?
Why are you siding with the side who've murdered 20,000 people? Hamas are just the Diet Coke of murder.
Is it your view that every one of those 20,000 is innocent, and that Israel has no right whatsoever to go after Hamas?
Is there no middle view possible? Many of those 20,000 were innocent. Israel has a right to go after Hamas. Israel does not have a right to use excessive force against civilians, or indeed to continue building settlements on occupied territories or to annex Palestinian territory.
I agree with that. Thousands of innocents have been killed by the IDF. The proportion of civilian deaths I’ve read is 61-66%. By way of comparison, when Mosul was taken in 2017, civilian deaths were 45% of the total. That does suggest that the US and Kurds were more discriminate than the IDF.
Sunil’s view is that if Hamas kills 1,400, the IDF can also kill 1,400, but no more. That’s not how the LOAC work.
It's a classic sign of autism.
To autistic people numbers are very logical.
Er... aren't numbers very logical?
All arguments cannot be reduced down to them.
From memory, both language and numbers can be reduced to set theory. Don't ask me for details, my memory hates me and refuses to cooperate... ☹️
I have to go now, but I think anyone who thinks that there is any "side" who is absolutely in the right here is living in cloud cuckoo land.
Maybe, but I do know that Hamas are absolutely in the wrong and eradicating Hamas is a worthy goal, though probably very high cost in blood.
Israel have murdered THIRTEEN TIMES as many people as Hamas in the last ten weeks.
Hamas has fired over twelve thousand rockets at Israeli cities in the past few months.
Having inferior military hardware isn't a virtue. Stop giving them credit for it.
Or do you think if they had better weapons, they wouldn't use them?
Why are you siding with the side who've murdered 20,000 people? Hamas are just the Diet Coke of murder.
Is it your view that every one of those 20,000 is innocent, and that Israel has no right whatsoever to go after Hamas?
Is there no middle view possible? Many of those 20,000 were innocent. Israel has a right to go after Hamas. Israel does not have a right to use excessive force against civilians, or indeed to continue building settlements on occupied territories or to annex Palestinian territory.
I agree with that. Thousands of innocents have been killed by the IDF. The proportion of civilian deaths I’ve read is 61-66%. By way of comparison, when Mosul was taken in 2017, civilian deaths were 45% of the total. That does suggest that the US and Kurds were more discriminate than the IDF.
Sunil’s view is that if Hamas kills 1,400, the IDF can also kill 1,400, but no more. That’s not how the LOAC work.
It's a classic sign of autism.
To autistic people numbers are very logical.
Er... aren't numbers very logical?
Not with British Gas they fucking aren't.
I appreciate your predicament is not comical but that comment did make me laugh
I have to go now, but I think anyone who thinks that there is any "side" who is absolutely in the right here is living in cloud cuckoo land.
Maybe, but I do know that Hamas are absolutely in the wrong and eradicating Hamas is a worthy goal, though probably very high cost in blood.
Israel have murdered THIRTEEN TIMES as many people as Hamas in the last ten weeks.
Hamas has fired over twelve thousand rockets at Israeli cities in the past few months.
Having inferior military hardware isn't a virtue. Stop giving them credit for it.
Or do you think if they had better weapons, they wouldn't use them?
Why are you siding with the side who've murdered 20,000 people? Hamas are just the Diet Coke of murder.
Is it your view that every one of those 20,000 is innocent, and that Israel has no right whatsoever to go after Hamas?
Is there no middle view possible? Many of those 20,000 were innocent. Israel has a right to go after Hamas. Israel does not have a right to use excessive force against civilians, or indeed to continue building settlements on occupied territories or to annex Palestinian territory.
I agree with that. Thousands of innocents have been killed by the IDF. The proportion of civilian deaths I’ve read is 61-66%. By way of comparison, when Mosul was taken in 2017, civilian deaths were 45% of the total. That does suggest that the US and Kurds were more discriminate than the IDF.
Sunil’s view is that if Hamas kills 1,400, the IDF can also kill 1,400, but no more. That’s not how the LOAC work.
It's a classic sign of autism.
To autistic people numbers are very logical.
Here we go again. Autism as a slur, albeit this time with a sugar coated caveat enclosed.
Do you see autism as a slur?
I don't.
This site excuses unconventional behaviour as being "autistic" or "on the spectrum". The main proponent is ASD expert Leon, who offers autism as, for an example, the reason Mrs May is socially awkward. You have, either unwittingly, or by choice, explained away one particular poster's point of view as a result of autism.
The post to which I am replying I find offensive. I don't use autism as a slur, but many in society do. My particular relationship with ASD through my eldest son's autism is well documented on PB, normally in response to one of Leon's outrageously offensive "aspie"* posts, and normally in response to someone he disagreed with.
I have to go now, but I think anyone who thinks that there is any "side" who is absolutely in the right here is living in cloud cuckoo land.
Maybe, but I do know that Hamas are absolutely in the wrong and eradicating Hamas is a worthy goal, though probably very high cost in blood.
Israel have murdered THIRTEEN TIMES as many people as Hamas in the last ten weeks.
Hamas has fired over twelve thousand rockets at Israeli cities in the past few months.
Having inferior military hardware isn't a virtue. Stop giving them credit for it.
Or do you think if they had better weapons, they wouldn't use them?
Why are you siding with the side who've murdered 20,000 people? Hamas are just the Diet Coke of murder.
Is it your view that every one of those 20,000 is innocent, and that Israel has no right whatsoever to go after Hamas?
Is there no middle view possible? Many of those 20,000 were innocent. Israel has a right to go after Hamas. Israel does not have a right to use excessive force against civilians, or indeed to continue building settlements on occupied territories or to annex Palestinian territory.
I agree with that. Thousands of innocents have been killed by the IDF. The proportion of civilian deaths I’ve read is 61-66%. By way of comparison, when Mosul was taken in 2017, civilian deaths were 45% of the total. That does suggest that the US and Kurds were more discriminate than the IDF.
Sunil’s view is that if Hamas kills 1,400, the IDF can also kill 1,400, but no more. That’s not how the LOAC work.
It's a classic sign of autism.
To autistic people numbers are very logical.
Er... aren't numbers very logical?
Not with British Gas they fucking aren't.
I appreciate your predicament is not comical but that comment did make me laugh
It will be comical in twelve months or so, when I can look back on it.
This morning I literally punched a wall in frustration.
That is interesting. If the SC were to uphold the Colorado decision what is the direct legal consequence other than Trump can't be on the ballot in that State?
Several other states might see similar cases being brought, and possibly won, for a start.
Whichever way they decide is going to open a can of worms, but it will be as important as the decision itself to see on what grounds the Court's decision is based.
This article isn't directly on point in legal terms, but describes the politics around the whole thing quite well, IMO.
The Colorado Decision: Heads Trump Wins. Tails America Loses. Donald Trump must be allowed every possible legal maneuver in his quest to subvert American democracy. But the law must never apply to Trump, because doing so might make him stronger. https://plus.thebulwark.com/p/the-colorado-decision-heads-trump
As I've said previously, I'm very doubtful SCOTUS would uphold it (and am not convinced they'd be wrong to overturn the Colorado decision - although I do see the argument and they put it very well in the decision).
However, I think the implications of upholding the Colorado decision in full would be bigger than you suggest. I think they would necessarily be saying Trump was ineligible to be President under the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution. I don't think there's a meaningful way to say "this is a state rights issue - individual states can decide if Trump is eligible to be President under the US Constitution or not, and act accordingly". He simply can't be eligible to be US President in Missouri but not in Kansas.
There are obviously things they can do short of fully upholding the Colorado decision. An interesting one would be if they said that Colorado was right in saying the 14th amendment covers the office of President, but erred in saying it could apply absent a conviction. Because there could, of course, be a conviction in due course, whether before or even after the election.
Indeed. It would be a difficult decision even if the court were impartial, which it fairly obviously isn't - but difficult only in that it's one with huge consequences, however they rule. I don't think the legal issues are particularly complicated (though both sides of the debate will find complications).
I find it hard to argue with this summation. I’m going to have more about this in Thursday’s “One First,” but:
1. I think Trump did, in fact, engage in “insurrection”;
2. I think he is an officer for purposes of Section 3; &
3. I think we’d all be better off if he’s on the ballot and loses.
I have to go now, but I think anyone who thinks that there is any "side" who is absolutely in the right here is living in cloud cuckoo land.
Maybe, but I do know that Hamas are absolutely in the wrong and eradicating Hamas is a worthy goal, though probably very high cost in blood.
Israel have murdered THIRTEEN TIMES as many people as Hamas in the last ten weeks.
Hamas has fired over twelve thousand rockets at Israeli cities in the past few months.
Having inferior military hardware isn't a virtue. Stop giving them credit for it.
Or do you think if they had better weapons, they wouldn't use them?
Why are you siding with the side who've murdered 20,000 people? Hamas are just the Diet Coke of murder.
Is it your view that every one of those 20,000 is innocent, and that Israel has no right whatsoever to go after Hamas?
Is there no middle view possible? Many of those 20,000 were innocent. Israel has a right to go after Hamas. Israel does not have a right to use excessive force against civilians, or indeed to continue building settlements on occupied territories or to annex Palestinian territory.
I agree with that. Thousands of innocents have been killed by the IDF. The proportion of civilian deaths I’ve read is 61-66%. By way of comparison, when Mosul was taken in 2017, civilian deaths were 45% of the total. That does suggest that the US and Kurds were more discriminate than the IDF.
Sunil’s view is that if Hamas kills 1,400, the IDF can also kill 1,400, but no more. That’s not how the LOAC work.
It's a classic sign of autism.
To autistic people numbers are very logical.
Er... aren't numbers very logical?
Not with British Gas they fucking aren't.
I appreciate your predicament is not comical but that comment did make me laugh
It will be comical in twelve months or so, when I can look back on it.
This morning I literally punched a wall in frustration.
Add the re-plastering costs to the BG compensation claim.
I have to go now, but I think anyone who thinks that there is any "side" who is absolutely in the right here is living in cloud cuckoo land.
Maybe, but I do know that Hamas are absolutely in the wrong and eradicating Hamas is a worthy goal, though probably very high cost in blood.
Israel have murdered THIRTEEN TIMES as many people as Hamas in the last ten weeks.
Hamas has fired over twelve thousand rockets at Israeli cities in the past few months.
Having inferior military hardware isn't a virtue. Stop giving them credit for it.
Or do you think if they had better weapons, they wouldn't use them?
Why are you siding with the side who've murdered 20,000 people? Hamas are just the Diet Coke of murder.
Is it your view that every one of those 20,000 is innocent, and that Israel has no right whatsoever to go after Hamas?
Is there no middle view possible? Many of those 20,000 were innocent. Israel has a right to go after Hamas. Israel does not have a right to use excessive force against civilians, or indeed to continue building settlements on occupied territories or to annex Palestinian territory.
I agree with that. Thousands of innocents have been killed by the IDF. The proportion of civilian deaths I’ve read is 61-66%. By way of comparison, when Mosul was taken in 2017, civilian deaths were 45% of the total. That does suggest that the US and Kurds were more discriminate than the IDF.
Sunil’s view is that if Hamas kills 1,400, the IDF can also kill 1,400, but no more. That’s not how the LOAC work.
It's a classic sign of autism.
To autistic people numbers are very logical.
Er... aren't numbers very logical?
Not with British Gas they fucking aren't.
I appreciate your predicament is not comical but that comment did make me laugh
It will be comical in twelve months or so, when I can look back on it.
This morning I literally punched a wall in frustration.
I once couldn't find my football season ticket and kicked a door in frustration, I forgot I'd got my steel toetectors on as I had been in work that day. Foot went straight through
I’m now 2.5 hours into today’s “Christmas travel misery as festive holidaymakers left stranded by French tunnel workers strike”.
Apparently it was over the size of the Christmas bonus. Eurotunnel’s customer service is of course shit. We’re queuing to be able to be let back on the motorway to attempt the ferry.
I’m starting to consider one of those small boats they keep talking about. Does anyone know if they go Dover-Calais or only the other way?
I have to go now, but I think anyone who thinks that there is any "side" who is absolutely in the right here is living in cloud cuckoo land.
Maybe, but I do know that Hamas are absolutely in the wrong and eradicating Hamas is a worthy goal, though probably very high cost in blood.
Israel have murdered THIRTEEN TIMES as many people as Hamas in the last ten weeks.
Hamas has fired over twelve thousand rockets at Israeli cities in the past few months.
Having inferior military hardware isn't a virtue. Stop giving them credit for it.
Or do you think if they had better weapons, they wouldn't use them?
Why are you siding with the side who've murdered 20,000 people? Hamas are just the Diet Coke of murder.
Is it your view that every one of those 20,000 is innocent, and that Israel has no right whatsoever to go after Hamas?
I would like Hamas eradicated, but your premise is flawed.
If innocents are killed as collateral in a surgical attack on Hamas operatives that is an unfortunate but necessary execution of a war. However bombing a random block of flats in the hope that there might be a Hamas terrorist within is not within the oxymoronic notion of the "rules of war".
The utterly unacceptable "shoot first ask questions later" execution of three Israeli hostages by the IDF, and the sniping of Christian Palestinians holed up in a Church is simply wicked. Or, on the last point do you agree with the Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem who claimed in an interview with Nick Ferrari there are no Churches and no Christians in Gaza.
Israel has the right to protect itself, but as this war progresses it becomes clearer that this war is to protect Bibi rather than Israel.
The killing of the escaped hostages does have to be viewed in the context of a war in which Hamas has repeatedly launched ambushes, using operatives waving white flags and pretending to surrender as traps.
And also in the context that Israeli jails are now filled to bursting point with hundreds of Hamas operatives who have successfully surrendered in the past few weeks. Clearly the IDF doesn't get everything right - no army does, or can - but the policy you claim clearly does not exist.
The escaped hostages had raised white flags and were speaking Hebrew. The two were killed instantly and the one survivor was shot dead despite orders from officers not to shoot. The IDF are out of control. Maybe understandable in the light of the atrocities of October 7. But please don't excuse such behaviour as acceptable during the fog of war. There is clearly an arbitrary "shoot to kill policy. If there wasn't, those three Israeli lads would still be alive.
Again: how on earth are Hamas operatives surrendering if IDF policy is to shoot them on sight, regardless of white flags etc?
The fact that you think an army operating a "shoot to kill" policy in a warzone is somehow evidence of being "out of control" is very telling, though.
I believe the IDF have every right to extinguish Hamas fighters. I don't understand how you can dismiss the summary execution of three Israeli hostages as one of those things that happens in the fog of war.
I listen to Regev and Levy so I am aware of your defence of the IDF. If those three lads were my children I would be very upset with Netanyahu and the military.
I have no argument with the notion that Israel is entitled to defend itself against a death cult. I dispute that defeating Hamas is Bibi's primary aim.
I have to go now, but I think anyone who thinks that there is any "side" who is absolutely in the right here is living in cloud cuckoo land.
Maybe, but I do know that Hamas are absolutely in the wrong and eradicating Hamas is a worthy goal, though probably very high cost in blood.
Israel have murdered THIRTEEN TIMES as many people as Hamas in the last ten weeks.
Hamas has fired over twelve thousand rockets at Israeli cities in the past few months.
Having inferior military hardware isn't a virtue. Stop giving them credit for it.
Or do you think if they had better weapons, they wouldn't use them?
Why are you siding with the side who've murdered 20,000 people? Hamas are just the Diet Coke of murder.
Is it your view that every one of those 20,000 is innocent, and that Israel has no right whatsoever to go after Hamas?
Is there no middle view possible? Many of those 20,000 were innocent. Israel has a right to go after Hamas. Israel does not have a right to use excessive force against civilians, or indeed to continue building settlements on occupied territories or to annex Palestinian territory.
I agree with that. Thousands of innocents have been killed by the IDF. The proportion of civilian deaths I’ve read is 61-66%. By way of comparison, when Mosul was taken in 2017, civilian deaths were 45% of the total. That does suggest that the US and Kurds were more discriminate than the IDF.
Sunil’s view is that if Hamas kills 1,400, the IDF can also kill 1,400, but no more. That’s not how the LOAC work.
It's a classic sign of autism.
To autistic people numbers are very logical.
Er... aren't numbers very logical?
All arguments cannot be reduced down to them.
From memory, both language and numbers can be reduced to set theory. Don't ask me for details, my memory hates me and refuses to cooperate... ☹️
Numbers can via von Neumann's construction of the Peano axioms.
That is interesting. If the SC were to uphold the Colorado decision what is the direct legal consequence other than Trump can't be on the ballot in that State?
Means he can be kicked off the ballots in other states.
If it happens in a swing state, that’s the big news.
It shows a polarisation not seen since 1860 - Lincoln wasn’t in the ballot in a number states
I have to go now, but I think anyone who thinks that there is any "side" who is absolutely in the right here is living in cloud cuckoo land.
Maybe, but I do know that Hamas are absolutely in the wrong and eradicating Hamas is a worthy goal, though probably very high cost in blood.
Israel have murdered THIRTEEN TIMES as many people as Hamas in the last ten weeks.
Hamas has fired over twelve thousand rockets at Israeli cities in the past few months.
Having inferior military hardware isn't a virtue. Stop giving them credit for it.
Or do you think if they had better weapons, they wouldn't use them?
Why are you siding with the side who've murdered 20,000 people? Hamas are just the Diet Coke of murder.
Is it your view that every one of those 20,000 is innocent, and that Israel has no right whatsoever to go after Hamas?
I would like Hamas eradicated, but your premise is flawed.
If innocents are killed as collateral in a surgical attack on Hamas operatives that is an unfortunate but necessary execution of a war. However bombing a random block of flats in the hope that there might be a Hamas terrorist within is not within the oxymoronic notion of the "rules of war".
The utterly unacceptable "shoot first ask questions later" execution of three Israeli hostages by the IDF, and the sniping of Christian Palestinians holed up in a Church is simply wicked. Or, on the last point do you agree with the Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem who claimed in an interview with Nick Ferrari there are no Churches and no Christians in Gaza.
Israel has the right to protect itself, but as this war progresses it becomes clearer that this war is to protect Bibi rather than Israel.
The killing of the escaped hostages does have to be viewed in the context of a war in which Hamas has repeatedly launched ambushes, using operatives waving white flags and pretending to surrender as traps.
And also in the context that Israeli jails are now filled to bursting point with hundreds of Hamas operatives who have successfully surrendered in the past few weeks. Clearly the IDF doesn't get everything right - no army does, or can - but the policy you claim clearly does not exist.
The escaped hostages had raised white flags and were speaking Hebrew. The two were killed instantly and the one survivor was shot dead despite orders from officers not to shoot. The IDF are out of control. Maybe understandable in the light of the atrocities of October 7. But please don't excuse such behaviour as acceptable during the fog of war. There is clearly an arbitrary "shoot to kill policy. If there wasn't, those three Israeli lads would still be alive.
Again: how on earth are Hamas operatives surrendering if IDF policy is to shoot them on sight, regardless of white flags etc?
The fact that you think an army operating a "shoot to kill" policy in a warzone is somehow evidence of being "out of control" is very telling, though.
I believe the IDF have every right to extinguish Hamas fighters. I don't understand how you can dismiss the summary execution of three Israeli hostages as one of those things that happens in the fog of war.
I listen to Regev and Levy so I am aware of your defence of the IDF. If those three lads were my children I would be very upset with Netanyahu and the military.
I have no argument with the notion that Israel is entitled to defend itself against a death cult. I dispute that defeating Hamas is Bibi's primary aim.
Something unplanned occurs in fog of war shocker.
What an ignorant snowflake you are.
How many blue on blue (or indeed green on blue) incidents do you think there are in any given conflict.
That is interesting. If the SC were to uphold the Colorado decision what is the direct legal consequence other than Trump can't be on the ballot in that State?
Several other states might see similar cases being brought, and possibly won, for a start.
Whichever way they decide is going to open a can of worms, but it will be as important as the decision itself to see on what grounds the Court's decision is based.
This article isn't directly on point in legal terms, but describes the politics around the whole thing quite well, IMO.
The Colorado Decision: Heads Trump Wins. Tails America Loses. Donald Trump must be allowed every possible legal maneuver in his quest to subvert American democracy. But the law must never apply to Trump, because doing so might make him stronger. https://plus.thebulwark.com/p/the-colorado-decision-heads-trump
Good article. What he says about the nonsensical idea that Donald Trump's success is all down to his opponents saying things that offend his base is spot on imo. I see shades of this in the immigration and 'multiculturalism' debate over here. If we don't embrace far right rhetoric and priorities we're going to end up with a far right government (is how it goes). So if that happens it'll be 'our' fault not the fault of those who vote for it. Because they're just automatons or something.
I have to go now, but I think anyone who thinks that there is any "side" who is absolutely in the right here is living in cloud cuckoo land.
Maybe, but I do know that Hamas are absolutely in the wrong and eradicating Hamas is a worthy goal, though probably very high cost in blood.
Israel have murdered THIRTEEN TIMES as many people as Hamas in the last ten weeks.
Hamas has fired over twelve thousand rockets at Israeli cities in the past few months.
Having inferior military hardware isn't a virtue. Stop giving them credit for it.
Or do you think if they had better weapons, they wouldn't use them?
Why are you siding with the side who've murdered 20,000 people? Hamas are just the Diet Coke of murder.
Is it your view that every one of those 20,000 is innocent, and that Israel has no right whatsoever to go after Hamas?
I would like Hamas eradicated, but your premise is flawed.
If innocents are killed as collateral in a surgical attack on Hamas operatives that is an unfortunate but necessary execution of a war. However bombing a random block of flats in the hope that there might be a Hamas terrorist within is not within the oxymoronic notion of the "rules of war".
The utterly unacceptable "shoot first ask questions later" execution of three Israeli hostages by the IDF, and the sniping of Christian Palestinians holed up in a Church is simply wicked. Or, on the last point do you agree with the Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem who claimed in an interview with Nick Ferrari there are no Churches and no Christians in Gaza.
Israel has the right to protect itself, but as this war progresses it becomes clearer that this war is to protect Bibi rather than Israel.
The killing of the escaped hostages does have to be viewed in the context of a war in which Hamas has repeatedly launched ambushes, using operatives waving white flags and pretending to surrender as traps.
And also in the context that Israeli jails are now filled to bursting point with hundreds of Hamas operatives who have successfully surrendered in the past few weeks. Clearly the IDF doesn't get everything right - no army does, or can - but the policy you claim clearly does not exist.
The escaped hostages had raised white flags and were speaking Hebrew. The two were killed instantly and the one survivor was shot dead despite orders from officers not to shoot. The IDF are out of control. Maybe understandable in the light of the atrocities of October 7. But please don't excuse such behaviour as acceptable during the fog of war. There is clearly an arbitrary "shoot to kill policy. If there wasn't, those three Israeli lads would still be alive.
Again: how on earth are Hamas operatives surrendering if IDF policy is to shoot them on sight, regardless of white flags etc?
The fact that you think an army operating a "shoot to kill" policy in a warzone is somehow evidence of being "out of control" is very telling, though.
I believe the IDF have every right to extinguish Hamas fighters. I don't understand how you can dismiss the summary execution of three Israeli hostages as one of those things that happens in the fog of war.
I listen to Regev and Levy so I am aware of your defence of the IDF. If those three lads were my children I would be very upset with Netanyahu and the military.
I have no argument with the notion that Israel is entitled to defend itself against a death cult. I dispute that defeating Hamas is Bibi's primary aim.
Something unplanned occurs in fog of war shocker.
What an ignorant snowflake you are.
How many blue on blue (or indeed green on blue) incidents do you think there are in any given conflict.
I have to go now, but I think anyone who thinks that there is any "side" who is absolutely in the right here is living in cloud cuckoo land.
Maybe, but I do know that Hamas are absolutely in the wrong and eradicating Hamas is a worthy goal, though probably very high cost in blood.
Israel have murdered THIRTEEN TIMES as many people as Hamas in the last ten weeks.
Israel have murdered very few (though still more than they should have, which is zero).
Hamas set out to murder: to kill Jews - any of them, children, the elderly, women, whatever. That was their objective. That is what murder is.
Israel did not set out to kill Palestinians (other than Hamas fighters, who are a legitimate target in war). That Palestinian civilians have died in the conflict was always going to be an inevitable consequence of urban fighting. That is not murder. (FWIW, I think Israel has been reckless in its actions and has paid insufficient attention to civilian casualties at times. Still a different thing though).
By using the same language for the two, you're creating a legal and moral equivalence - and to cite those numbers in that framing is to legitimise Hamas or delegitimise Israel. Or both.
Think carefully.
I disagree.
The current Israeli leadership have set out to murder. They may not have murdered as many innocent people as Hamas (though they have certainly 'killed' far more innocents than Hamas) but this is not a numbers game. Murder is murder and both Hamas and Netenyahu's cabal should be rotting in jail - or preferably Hell.
I've not said that some members of the IDF haven't murdered, or that the IDF's tactics haven't, at times, been so dismissive of civilian casualties that the operations went beyond the bounds of international law. Those responsible should be held accountable.
However, Israel does have a legitimate cause for military action and a war aim of the removal of the Hamas regime seems to me to be legitimate in the circumstances both of the Oct 7 attack and Hamas's stated aims (whether or not it's achievable is another thing). If that's so then urban warfare must inevitably result, with all that means for the surrounding civilian population.
If Israel goes beyond that and uses the opportunity to raze as much of Gaza's infrastructure, including housing, as possible with the intent of driving out the population, that too would be a war crime. And there has to be the concern that some within the regime, including Netenyahu, are doing exactly that.
That is interesting. If the SC were to uphold the Colorado decision what is the direct legal consequence other than Trump can't be on the ballot in that State?
Means he can be kicked off the ballots in other states.
If it happens in a swing state, that’s the big news.
It shows a polarisation not seen since 1860 - Lincoln wasn’t in the ballot in a number states
That is interesting. If the SC were to uphold the Colorado decision what is the direct legal consequence other than Trump can't be on the ballot in that State?
Means he can be kicked off the ballots in other states.
If it happens in a swing state, that’s the big news.
It shows a polarisation not seen since 1860 - Lincoln wasn’t in the ballot in a number states
We seem to have been talking about Trump for a very long time..my memory stretches back to Ms Plato saying correctly that Trump would win and that must be close to 9 yrs ago....
I have to go now, but I think anyone who thinks that there is any "side" who is absolutely in the right here is living in cloud cuckoo land.
Maybe, but I do know that Hamas are absolutely in the wrong and eradicating Hamas is a worthy goal, though probably very high cost in blood.
Israel have murdered THIRTEEN TIMES as many people as Hamas in the last ten weeks.
Hamas has fired over twelve thousand rockets at Israeli cities in the past few months.
Having inferior military hardware isn't a virtue. Stop giving them credit for it.
Or do you think if they had better weapons, they wouldn't use them?
Why are you siding with the side who've murdered 20,000 people? Hamas are just the Diet Coke of murder.
Is it your view that every one of those 20,000 is innocent, and that Israel has no right whatsoever to go after Hamas?
I would like Hamas eradicated, but your premise is flawed.
If innocents are killed as collateral in a surgical attack on Hamas operatives that is an unfortunate but necessary execution of a war. However bombing a random block of flats in the hope that there might be a Hamas terrorist within is not within the oxymoronic notion of the "rules of war".
The utterly unacceptable "shoot first ask questions later" execution of three Israeli hostages by the IDF, and the sniping of Christian Palestinians holed up in a Church is simply wicked. Or, on the last point do you agree with the Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem who claimed in an interview with Nick Ferrari there are no Churches and no Christians in Gaza.
Israel has the right to protect itself, but as this war progresses it becomes clearer that this war is to protect Bibi rather than Israel.
The killing of the escaped hostages does have to be viewed in the context of a war in which Hamas has repeatedly launched ambushes, using operatives waving white flags and pretending to surrender as traps.
And also in the context that Israeli jails are now filled to bursting point with hundreds of Hamas operatives who have successfully surrendered in the past few weeks. Clearly the IDF doesn't get everything right - no army does, or can - but the policy you claim clearly does not exist.
The escaped hostages had raised white flags and were speaking Hebrew. The two were killed instantly and the one survivor was shot dead despite orders from officers not to shoot. The IDF are out of control. Maybe understandable in the light of the atrocities of October 7. But please don't excuse such behaviour as acceptable during the fog of war. There is clearly an arbitrary "shoot to kill policy. If there wasn't, those three Israeli lads would still be alive.
Again: how on earth are Hamas operatives surrendering if IDF policy is to shoot them on sight, regardless of white flags etc?
The fact that you think an army operating a "shoot to kill" policy in a warzone is somehow evidence of being "out of control" is very telling, though.
I believe the IDF have every right to extinguish Hamas fighters. I don't understand how you can dismiss the summary execution of three Israeli hostages as one of those things that happens in the fog of war.
I listen to Regev and Levy so I am aware of your defence of the IDF. If those three lads were my children I would be very upset with Netanyahu and the military.
I have no argument with the notion that Israel is entitled to defend itself against a death cult. I dispute that defeating Hamas is Bibi's primary aim.
Something unplanned occurs in fog of war shocker.
What an ignorant snowflake you are.
How many blue on blue (or indeed green on blue) incidents do you think there are in any given conflict.
There are loads of friendly fire fatalities in war, and this is likely to be no exception. This was a bit more nuanced than friendly fire.
"Ignorant snowflake", I don't think sums up my position on Israel's right to defeat Hamas which I have promoted through this thread. But unlike @TOPPING I am no Five Star General, so I can't comment to much on the minutiae of combat, but I have a pair of eyes, and a reasonable grasp of right and wrong.
That is interesting. If the SC were to uphold the Colorado decision what is the direct legal consequence other than Trump can't be on the ballot in that State?
Means he can be kicked off the ballots in other states.
If it happens in a swing state, that’s the big news.
It shows a polarisation not seen since 1860 - Lincoln wasn’t in the ballot in a number states
Who was the last major (Dem/Rep) presidential candidate not to be on a state's ballot? IIRC, it was quite normal for Republicans not to be on ballots in the Deep South pre-Civil Rights - although from a quick scan it looks like Johnson wasn't on the Alabama ballot in 1964, which might be the most recent?
That is interesting. If the SC were to uphold the Colorado decision what is the direct legal consequence other than Trump can't be on the ballot in that State?
Several other states might see similar cases being brought, and possibly won, for a start.
Whichever way they decide is going to open a can of worms, but it will be as important as the decision itself to see on what grounds the Court's decision is based.
This article isn't directly on point in legal terms, but describes the politics around the whole thing quite well, IMO.
The Colorado Decision: Heads Trump Wins. Tails America Loses. Donald Trump must be allowed every possible legal maneuver in his quest to subvert American democracy. But the law must never apply to Trump, because doing so might make him stronger. https://plus.thebulwark.com/p/the-colorado-decision-heads-trump
As I've said previously, I'm very doubtful SCOTUS would uphold it (and am not convinced they'd be wrong to overturn the Colorado decision - although I do see the argument and they put it very well in the decision).
However, I think the implications of upholding the Colorado decision in full would be bigger than you suggest. I think they would necessarily be saying Trump was ineligible to be President under the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution. I don't think there's a meaningful way to say "this is a state rights issue - individual states can decide if Trump is eligible to be President under the US Constitution or not, and act accordingly". He simply can't be eligible to be US President in Missouri but not in Kansas.
There are obviously things they can do short of fully upholding the Colorado decision. An interesting one would be if they said that Colorado was right in saying the 14th amendment covers the office of President, but erred in saying it could apply absent a conviction. Because there could, of course, be a conviction in due course, whether before or even after the election.
If they were to say Colorado is wrong but only because there's no conviction that would set up his trial, when it comes, as deciding whether Trump can stand or (if he's been elected) continue as president. To me that sounds like a burden the trial could not bear.
I have to go now, but I think anyone who thinks that there is any "side" who is absolutely in the right here is living in cloud cuckoo land.
Maybe, but I do know that Hamas are absolutely in the wrong and eradicating Hamas is a worthy goal, though probably very high cost in blood.
Israel have murdered THIRTEEN TIMES as many people as Hamas in the last ten weeks.
Hamas has fired over twelve thousand rockets at Israeli cities in the past few months.
Having inferior military hardware isn't a virtue. Stop giving them credit for it.
Or do you think if they had better weapons, they wouldn't use them?
Why are you siding with the side who've murdered 20,000 people? Hamas are just the Diet Coke of murder.
Is it your view that every one of those 20,000 is innocent, and that Israel has no right whatsoever to go after Hamas?
I would like Hamas eradicated, but your premise is flawed.
If innocents are killed as collateral in a surgical attack on Hamas operatives that is an unfortunate but necessary execution of a war. However bombing a random block of flats in the hope that there might be a Hamas terrorist within is not within the oxymoronic notion of the "rules of war".
The utterly unacceptable "shoot first ask questions later" execution of three Israeli hostages by the IDF, and the sniping of Christian Palestinians holed up in a Church is simply wicked. Or, on the last point do you agree with the Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem who claimed in an interview with Nick Ferrari there are no Churches and no Christians in Gaza.
Israel has the right to protect itself, but as this war progresses it becomes clearer that this war is to protect Bibi rather than Israel.
The killing of the escaped hostages does have to be viewed in the context of a war in which Hamas has repeatedly launched ambushes, using operatives waving white flags and pretending to surrender as traps.
And also in the context that Israeli jails are now filled to bursting point with hundreds of Hamas operatives who have successfully surrendered in the past few weeks. Clearly the IDF doesn't get everything right - no army does, or can - but the policy you claim clearly does not exist.
The escaped hostages had raised white flags and were speaking Hebrew. The two were killed instantly and the one survivor was shot dead despite orders from officers not to shoot. The IDF are out of control. Maybe understandable in the light of the atrocities of October 7. But please don't excuse such behaviour as acceptable during the fog of war. There is clearly an arbitrary "shoot to kill policy. If there wasn't, those three Israeli lads would still be alive.
Again: how on earth are Hamas operatives surrendering if IDF policy is to shoot them on sight, regardless of white flags etc?
The fact that you think an army operating a "shoot to kill" policy in a warzone is somehow evidence of being "out of control" is very telling, though.
I believe the IDF have every right to extinguish Hamas fighters. I don't understand how you can dismiss the summary execution of three Israeli hostages as one of those things that happens in the fog of war.
I listen to Regev and Levy so I am aware of your defence of the IDF. If those three lads were my children I would be very upset with Netanyahu and the military.
I have no argument with the notion that Israel is entitled to defend itself against a death cult. I dispute that defeating Hamas is Bibi's primary aim.
Something unplanned occurs in fog of war shocker.
What an ignorant snowflake you are.
How many blue on blue (or indeed green on blue) incidents do you think there are in any given conflict.
There are loads of friendly fire fatalities in war, and this is likely to be no exception. This was a bit more nuanced than friendly fire.
"Ignorant snowflake", I don't think sums up my position on Israel's right to defeat Hamas which I have promoted through this thread. But unlike @TOPPING I am no Five Star General, so I can't comment to much on the minutiae of combat, but I have a pair of eyes, and a reasonable grasp of right and wrong.
It's tricky. I don't know the exact details but I do know that Hamas will ignore the "conventions" of war to gain advantage. Now of course I am the first person to say all's fair in love and war but facing Hamas my trigger finger would be itchy.
Comments
Having inferior military hardware isn't a virtue. Stop giving them credit for it.
Or do you think if they had better weapons, they wouldn't use them?
It’s a fine piece of verse, but there’s no reason to believe that John of Gaunt ever thought in such terms.
Let us consider the Lydda massacre. We have an expulsion order, signed by Yitzhak Rabin, saying, "1. The inhabitants of Lydda must be expelled quickly without attention to age...." We have the eyewitness reports of a US journalist of indiscriminate shooting of civilians: "[The Israeli jeep column] raced into Lydda with rifles, Stens, and sub-machine guns blazing. It coursed through the main streets, blasting at everything that moved ... the corpses of Arab men, women, and even children were strewn about the streets". We have accounts by Palmach fighters.
It's an interesting pioneer and machismo culture, not dissimilar to the wagon trains going West at roughly the same time as the Boers trekked North and East.
In terms of vocabulary, whilst about two thirds of our words have cognates in Old Norse, almost one in six derive exclusively from Old Norse, but these are many of our most common words - they/them/their, egg, various words for animals, sky, die, ill, leg, skin, bag, ball, knife, take, hit, etc.
What is striking is that Norse linguistic influence did more than change the vocabulary of what became English, but heavily influenced its structure. That’s pretty unusual as a result of immigration, and evidences long lasting integration and inter-relationships between speakers of Old English and Old Norse.
Can't you count?
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/dec/21/may-general-election-the-economic-case-for-going-early-and-clinging-on
Contains the snippet that Nick Timothy is the Tory candidate for West Suffolk, Tory safe seat #109. I didn't know he'd overcome his May misery.
‘The Opposite of Politics’: A Conservative Legal Scholar Says Kicking Trump Off the Ballot Is ‘Unassailable’
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/12/21/luttig-14th-amendment-trump-00132792
Sunil’s view is that if Hamas kills 1,400, the IDF can also kill 1,400, but no more. That’s not how the LOAC work.
I find the trick with these things is to have a bit of empathy.
If you were an Israeli in Southern Israel, having rockets landing on you, having been invaded, having seen your friends raped or killed, what would you think was the right thing to do?
But this cuts both ways. If you were born a Palestinian in the West Bank, how would you feel about the Israeli governments actions? How would you feel about settlers violently evicting your neighbors? About Israeli soldiers patrolling your streets in APCs? Would you genuinely think the best thing to do was to cooperate with a government, where many of the ministers are actively hostile to any possibility of a state? Or would you want to fight the occupier?
I think the random circumstance of my birth would determine my view. And I suspect that is true of almost everyone on this board.
Last time, the Tories won with an unusually low 27% of the vote, as the rest of the votes were split between a shedload of centre-left independents, Labour, and the far-right 'Vectis Party' who put up a former Tory then UKIP eccentric who, when previously a county councillor, had purchased some sort of title off the internet and went round insisting that everyone address him as "Lord" - which, in foolishness, the county council website actually did. But the Vectis Party leader was recently imprisoned for historic child sex offences (creating a by-election which a young LibDem - daughter of one of the county council Tories - won out of the blue), and that party is now disbanded.
The elected Tory recently resigned for a batch of apparently genuine personal reasons, but who had also become rather inactive since the Tories lost control of the county (against the national trend) and he lost his cabinet position, back in May 2021.
This time its a traditional three-way fight between the Tories, who have put up a generations-long islander, son of our remaining local fisherman, whose family have lots of business interests in the town (which probably counts both ways), Labour, who have put up the same candidate as in 2021 but he's since become the well-regarded town council Mayor, and the LibDems who have found a well-regarded candidate of their own, but who lives in Newport.
The town's civic and artistic life is dominated by Green/centre-left folk, but the silent majority of property owners usually sees the Tory home. I can't see that, this time, and despite the usual reluctance to back Labour, the strength of their candidate will surely see them home tonight.
Andrew Teale's review
https://medium.com/britainelects/previewing-the-three-local-by-elections-of-21st-december-2023-8cdc378f5d6e
We cannot move forward by only looking at the past. The solution to the situation in Gaza today is not to bang on about the Lydda massacre or the Deir Yassin massacre. But some honesty about what happened is a good start. Truth and reconciliation starts with truth.
Hamas set out to murder: to kill Jews - any of them, children, the elderly, women, whatever. That was their objective. That is what murder is.
Israel did not set out to kill Palestinians (other than Hamas fighters, who are a legitimate target in war). That Palestinian civilians have died in the conflict was always going to be an inevitable consequence of urban fighting. That is not murder. (FWIW, I think Israel has been reckless in its actions and has paid insufficient attention to civilian casualties at times. Still a different thing though).
By using the same language for the two, you're creating a legal and moral equivalence - and to cite those numbers in that framing is to legitimise Hamas or delegitimise Israel. Or both.
Think carefully.
If innocents are killed as collateral in a surgical attack on Hamas operatives that is an unfortunate but necessary execution of a war. However bombing a random block of flats in the hope that there might be a Hamas terrorist within is not within the oxymoronic notion of the "rules of war".
The utterly unacceptable "shoot first ask questions later" execution of three Israeli hostages by the IDF, and the sniping of Christian Palestinians holed up in a Church is simply wicked. Or, on the last point do you agree with the Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem who claimed in an interview with Nick Ferrari there are no Churches and no Christians in Gaza.
Israel has the right to protect itself, but as this war progresses it becomes clearer that this war is to protect Bibi rather than Israel.
150GWhr/50hrs: http://tinyurl.com/150GWhr-50hr 2 good sites (Glendoe having been used) + 8 other reasonably possible.
50GWhr/50hrs: http://tinyurl.com/50GWhr-50hr Too many to count.
There is plenty of rhetoric from some Israeli politicians and members of the public that shows genocidal intent. This 'recklessness' exists in that context. I don't think recognising that legitimises Hamas or delegitimises Israel.
And also in the context that Israeli jails are now filled to bursting point with hundreds of Hamas operatives who have successfully surrendered in the past few weeks. Clearly the IDF doesn't get everything right - no army does, or can - but the policy you claim clearly does not exist.
Cows produce beef
Sheep produce mutton
Deer produce venison
Pigs produce pork
Because the Saxons looks after the animal, but the Normans ate it.
So the animal is named for the Saxon word and the meat for the French word for the same animal (bouef, mouton, porcer - veni comes from 'chase').
It's an easy way to tell who was in charge. When it was in a cold, wet, muddy field covered in sh...stuff it was Saxon, when roasted, garnished, and served as a tasty dish it was Norman.
To autistic people numbers are very logical.
Western Cape seceding can be seen as rational - they might well end up being better governed - and I increasingly think the Union of SA was a bit of a mistake (although it didn't need to be) anyway.
But, to return to the original point: you cannot claim ethnic cleansing without explaining why it was only applied to such a small proportion of the Arab population, and why those who stayed (and their descendants) are today full Israeli citizens. Saying that hundreds of thousands fled - many before fighting got anywhere near them - because they were terrified of Israeli reprisals is not an answer, because it's based so heavily on the prejudices on those who fled, rather than the evidence from those who didn't.
So, the AI gods are mad with me and did rightly smite me. I apologise for dissing them
How do you think all those Hamas operatives managed to surrender if that was IDF policy?
Whichever way they decide is going to open a can of worms, but it will be as important as the decision itself to see on what grounds the Court's decision is based.
This article isn't directly on point in legal terms, but describes the politics around the whole thing quite well, IMO.
The Colorado Decision: Heads Trump Wins. Tails America Loses.
Donald Trump must be allowed every possible legal maneuver in his quest to subvert American democracy. But the law must never apply to Trump, because doing so might make him stronger.
https://plus.thebulwark.com/p/the-colorado-decision-heads-trump
He'd be happy, we'd be happy, what's not to like?
I don't.
I doff my chapeau to my liege Lord Pun.
Spent a full hour online to them yesterday to get the meter readings through.
They rejected them and went with totally wrong estimates.
Instead of them owing me £100, they tried to claim I owed them £300.
So I had to spend another hour today trying to disentangle them.
Not helped by them randomly disconnecting the call.
I have asked them whether this is a matter for the police as it's clear cut fraud. They didn't have an answer.
To psychopaths empathy is very difficult.
I will be in touch with them - and if all goes well, you also in light of last night's very generous offer - very shortly.
The Shakespeare quote describes a people in a kingdom on a land. Those concepts have been around for over a thousand years. But there were two concepts: I) the people were the subjects of the king, and the Realm was broadly where the kings law held sway, and Ii) the Land, where the people stood. The disconnect between Realm and Land meant that the Realm could expand outside the Land, and that enabled the next step, which was an Empire: a Realm across many Lands
Following the treaty/Peace of Westphalia around 50 years after Shakespeare died, the emphasis shifted to the State: a polity with a defined border. This concept gained traction in the 19th century and following WW2 the empires were dissolved and the world became a patchwork of sovereign states, usually (but not always) sovereign nation states. In this concept the state is a patch of land with defined borders which holds a group of people who identify as "us" (the nation) and governs itself (sovereignty) and has a legal personality.
It is this latter that is modern.
The current Israeli leadership have set out to murder. They may not have murdered as many innocent people as Hamas (though they have certainly 'killed' far more innocents than Hamas) but this is not a numbers game. Murder is murder and both Hamas and Netenyahu's cabal should be rotting in jail - or preferably Hell.
However, I think the implications of upholding the Colorado decision in full would be bigger than you suggest. I think they would necessarily be saying Trump was ineligible to be President under the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution. I don't think there's a meaningful way to say "this is a state rights issue - individual states can decide if Trump is eligible to be President under the US Constitution or not, and act accordingly". He simply can't be eligible to be US President in Missouri but not in Kansas.
There are obviously things they can do short of fully upholding the Colorado decision. An interesting one would be if they said that Colorado was right in saying the 14th amendment covers the office of President, but erred in saying it could apply absent a conviction. Because there could, of course, be a conviction in due course, whether before or even after the election.
The fact that you think an army operating a "shoot to kill" policy in a warzone is somehow evidence of being "out of control" is very telling, though.
So I am coming around to Casino's view.
But my point really is this:
Those with autism see numbers as very logical but numbers ARE very logical; it's the people who don't see the logic in them who have the issue with numbers.
The problem for people with autistic tendencies as far as I can see is not numbers but nuance, emotion, and the essential illogicality of humans that distinguishes from machines or computers.
To state that all deaths in the war are 'murder' is to grant moral equivalence of each one, irrespective of the nature of the deceased, or how the death came about, or reference to international law.
The post to which I am replying I find offensive. I don't use autism as a slur, but many in society do. My particular relationship with ASD through my eldest son's autism is well documented on PB, normally in response to one of Leon's outrageously offensive "aspie"* posts, and normally in response to someone he disagreed with.
This morning I literally punched a wall in frustration.
It would be a difficult decision even if the court were impartial, which it fairly obviously isn't - but difficult only in that it's one with huge consequences, however they rule.
I don't think the legal issues are particularly complicated (though both sides of the debate will find complications).
I find it hard to argue with this summation.
I’m going to have more about this in Thursday’s “One First,” but:
1. I think Trump did, in fact, engage in “insurrection”;
2. I think he is an officer for purposes of Section 3; &
3. I think we’d all be better off if he’s on the ballot and loses.
Yes, there’s a tension there...
https://twitter.com/steve_vladeck/status/1737292240681095667
But that doesn't help much.
Perhaps we should just fall back on the good old principle: Fiat justitia ruat caelum.
Apparently it was over the size of the Christmas bonus. Eurotunnel’s customer service is of course shit. We’re queuing to be able to be let back on the motorway to attempt the ferry.
I’m starting to consider one of those small boats they keep talking about. Does anyone know if they go Dover-Calais or only the other way?
I listen to Regev and Levy so I am aware of your defence of the IDF. If those three lads were my children I would be very upset with Netanyahu and the military.
I have no argument with the notion that Israel is entitled to defend itself against a death cult. I dispute that defeating Hamas is Bibi's primary aim.
If it happens in a swing state, that’s the big news.
It shows a polarisation not seen since 1860 - Lincoln wasn’t in the ballot in a number states
What an ignorant snowflake you are.
How many blue on blue (or indeed green on blue) incidents do you think there are in any given conflict.
However, Israel does have a legitimate cause for military action and a war aim of the removal of the Hamas regime seems to me to be legitimate in the circumstances both of the Oct 7 attack and Hamas's stated aims (whether or not it's achievable is another thing). If that's so then urban warfare must inevitably result, with all that means for the surrounding civilian population.
If Israel goes beyond that and uses the opportunity to raze as much of Gaza's infrastructure, including housing, as possible with the intent of driving out the population, that too would be a war crime. And there has to be the concern that some within the regime, including Netenyahu, are doing exactly that.
"Ignorant snowflake", I don't think sums up my position on Israel's right to defeat Hamas which I have promoted through this thread. But unlike @TOPPING I am no Five Star General, so I can't comment to much on the minutiae of combat, but I have a pair of eyes, and a reasonable grasp of right and wrong.
For example:
https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/foreign-policy/227596-pregnant-women-disguise-lessons-from-foiled-terror-attack/