Lets talk about the West Bank and how it could serve as a homeland. Here is the actual amount of land available to the Palestinians in comparison to that available to settlers and the IDF. It's been sliced and diced by roads between settlements that disrupt life there and kettles the population. Gaza is now being prepared for the same slice and dice with the various corridors.
Even the wannabe Nobel Peace Prize winner hasn't the influence to change the facts on the ground. Note where the water for is.
Israel doesn’t want a 2 state solution. The US currently supports Israel.
Nothing else really is of any consequence here.
The Palestinians don't want a 2-state solution either.
Most Palestinians want a 2-state solution. That's the stated aim of the Palestinian Authority.
Reform voters the main outlier in still rejecting a Palestinian state while most of the other main parties back recognition of it, especially Green, Labour and LD voters.
Four out of five permanent UN Security Council members would also likely back it as would the UN General Assembly but the US would again likely veto it
Apart from @Leon , I’m not aware of any posters supporting Reform. Yet they consistently poll around 30%. Do we have a cohort of shy Reformers who are pretending still to be Conservatives, whilst agreeing with the views of Reform voters?
There are a few tories on here who are clearly Fukker-adjacent in their thinking but understandably shy about publicly committing to a political project concocted by sociopaths for the votes of easily gulled racist morons.
A Balfour declaration for our times. A homeland for the Palestinian people.
Yes, thank god for Britain and France finally stepping up to the plate to sort out borders and states hashed together by the stupid, er, British and French.
To be fair, trying to draw borders in a land where ethnic/religious nationalism haven’t been the deciding factors for centuries, then suddenly are the deciding factor is pretty much.
A nasty thought - the main reason that Europe has stable borders is mad ethnic cleansing, first one way, then the other, followed by half a century of two nuclear armed super states telling everyone “that’s how it is”.
The unpleasant truth is that ethnic cleansing works, when it comes to settling borders.
If I was in a dispute with you, killing you would work when it comes to settling that dispute. It would still be wrong. We should not countenance crimes against humanity like ethnic cleansing and genocide. There are alternatives possible.
Picking up one question from the previous thread, and attempting to get a grip on Allison Pearson, this is her tweeting on 28/7:
Allison Pearson @AllisonPearson Some of us remember when we didn’t have “communities around the country”. There were the British people. Us. Yes, there were huge class inequalities but there was a priceless feeling of being united. Things like the Lionesses fleetingly remind us. The way we were. https://x.com/AllisonPearson/status/1949902800483471548
Pearson was born in 1960, so would realistically remember things analytically from perhaps 1975. I'm not sure what she even means. "Communities around the country" are the British reality, and have been for a number of centuries - whilst acknowledging that the state has quite the record of oppressing minorities *.
I'm not sure what she is hankering after other than a projected 'memory' of something that never existed, or a world that may have existed in her subcultural bubble. I might suggest it is a stereotype from Terry and June.
I'm interested what triggered her to go down the identity politics and victimhood route - it's very "woke". Most recently it seems to me to be policing standards that have long been applied to other people being applied to Pearson herself.
* As an aside form my other post, quite a number of nonconformist denominations or associations still have memories of suppression by Govt as a significant part of their self-understanding eg under Acts requiring conformity to the Church of England, Folk-memories get institutionalised here for a long time,
I’ve noticed with a couple of Scottish relatives - they find London a culture shock after rural Scotland. Not that they upset - more a kind of “this is really different”.
There is something real at the back of what she is saying - a changed context between a singular culture and multiple cultures.
I’d say that there has been staggering cultural changes between 1985 and 2025.
I'm more inclined to look at changed visibility / communication via technology becoming more ubiquitous, and perhaps geographical areas.
Taking 40 year periods, is the staggering change greater than happened previously? Say between 1880 and 1920, or 1935 and 1975?
Lets talk about the West Bank and how it could serve as a homeland. Here is the actual amount of land available to the Palestinians in comparison to that available to settlers and the IDF. It's been sliced and diced by roads between settlements that disrupt life there and kettles the population. Gaza is now being prepared for the same slice and dice with the various corridors.
Even the wannabe Nobel Peace Prize winner hasn't the influence to change the facts on the ground. Note where the water for is.
That’s a very misleading chart by combining settlers, military, state land and roads. Presumably if it were an independent homeland the military state and transport infrastructure would belong to the new state not Israel
The areas in white are where the IDF are in control. Those roads and other infrastructure are for the use of the Israeli military and settlers only. Palestinians are not allowed.
Its a slow but inexorable strangulation and encroachment of Area B.
But yes, you are right. For the West Bank to become a viable state +/- Gaza and East Jerusalem the Israeli military and settlers need to go. I can't see that happening.
Not least because the Israeli military and settlers were removed from Gaza in 2005.
For which Israel received neither thanks nor security.
I'm not sure why the Israelis should be thanked for ceasing to occupy someone else's country.
The 'someone else' being at war with Israel and committed to destroying Israel.
And Israel being at war with "someone else" and committed to occupying their country and establishing settlers on it.
Which ended in 2005 when Israel withdrew its military and settlers from Gaza.
Now which side started the current war ? Did Israel attack Gaza or did Gaza attack Israel ?
You would be on more reasonable ground to complain about Israel's behaviour in the West Bank or its treatment of its own Palestinian population than how it acted towards Gaza between 2005 and 2023.
Gaza is part of Palestine, which the Israelis are still occupying.
Yes Hamas started the current war. The argument is about the Israelis' conduct in responding to it.
So the part of Palestine which Israel is occupying didn't attack Israel but the part of Palestine which Israel wasn't occupying did attack Israel.
Do you see why withdrawing from more of Palestine isn't going to be accepted by the Israelis ?
As to how Israel has responded - blockading food supplies, destruction of urban areas, military occupation, ethnic cleansing - how does that differ to what British strategy was to Germany in the world wars ?
Maybe I'm in a minority of one but I don't join the self-righteous condemnation of Israel for doing what we applaud ourselves for doing a few generations back.
Isn't it because of the horrors of the 2 world wars that we banned mass reprisals, carpet bombing of civilians and starvation as weapons of war?
Reform voters the main outlier in still rejecting a Palestinian state while most of the other main parties back recognition of it, especially Green, Labour and LD voters.
Four out of five permanent UN Security Council members would also likely back it as would the UN General Assembly but the US would again likely veto it
Apart from @Leon , I’m not aware of any posters supporting Reform. Yet they consistently poll around 30%. Do we have a cohort of shy Reformers who are pretending still to be Conservatives, whilst agreeing with the views of Reform voters?
Several posters have said they are very seriously considering voting Reform due to the evil forces of Woke/Starmerism/the Boats/fill in your own hysterical guff.
Picking up one question from the previous thread, and attempting to get a grip on Allison Pearson, this is her tweeting on 28/7:
Allison Pearson @AllisonPearson Some of us remember when we didn’t have “communities around the country”. There were the British people. Us. Yes, there were huge class inequalities but there was a priceless feeling of being united. Things like the Lionesses fleetingly remind us. The way we were. https://x.com/AllisonPearson/status/1949902800483471548
Pearson was born in 1960, so would realistically remember things analytically from perhaps 1975. I'm not sure what she even means. "Communities around the country" are the British reality, and have been for a number of centuries - whilst acknowledging that the state has quite the record of oppressing minorities *.
I'm not sure what she is hankering after other than a projected 'memory' of something that never existed, or a world that may have existed in her subcultural bubble. I might suggest it is a stereotype from Terry and June.
I'm interested what triggered her to go down the identity politics and victimhood route - it's very "woke". Most recently it seems to me to be policing standards that have long been applied to other people being applied to Pearson herself.
* As an aside form my other post, quite a number of nonconformist denominations or associations still have memories of suppression by Govt as a significant part of their self-understanding eg under Acts requiring conformity to the Church of England, Folk-memories get institutionalised here for a long time,
I’ve noticed with a couple of Scottish relatives - they find London a culture shock after rural Scotland. Not that they upset - more a kind of “this is really different”.
There is something real at the back of what she is saying - a changed context between a singular culture and multiple cultures.
I’d say that there has been staggering cultural changes between 1985 and 2025.
Taking 40 year periods, is the staggering change greater than happened previously? Say between 1880 and 1920, or 1935 and 1975?
Lets talk about the West Bank and how it could serve as a homeland. Here is the actual amount of land available to the Palestinians in comparison to that available to settlers and the IDF. It's been sliced and diced by roads between settlements that disrupt life there and kettles the population. Gaza is now being prepared for the same slice and dice with the various corridors.
Even the wannabe Nobel Peace Prize winner hasn't the influence to change the facts on the ground. Note where the water for is.
Israel doesn’t want a 2 state solution. The US currently supports Israel.
Nothing else really is of any consequence here.
The Palestinians don't want a 2-state solution either.
Most Palestinians want a 2-state solution. That's the stated aim of the Palestinian Authority.
Lets talk about the West Bank and how it could serve as a homeland. Here is the actual amount of land available to the Palestinians in comparison to that available to settlers and the IDF. It's been sliced and diced by roads between settlements that disrupt life there and kettles the population. Gaza is now being prepared for the same slice and dice with the various corridors.
Even the wannabe Nobel Peace Prize winner hasn't the influence to change the facts on the ground. Note where the water for is.
Israel doesn’t want a 2 state solution. The US currently supports Israel.
Nothing else really is of any consequence here.
The Palestinians don't want a 2-state solution either.
Most Palestinians want a 2-state solution. That's the stated aim of the Palestinian Authority.
The PA is not Hamas, who 'run' Gaza.
I'm unsure how the events of October 2023 were meant to bring about a two-state solution.
One interesting thing in this poll is that the youngsters are the least likely to say "don't know". That is very unusual for opinion polling.
Gaza is a big thing for young voters. It was a major part of why neither of my boys would vote Labour last year.
Too late for Starmer to get them onside. As ever he does too little too late.
Did you make any attempt to educate them further on the issue? I'm staggered by how ignorant most of the young people who feel strongly about Gaza are on the issue. No wonder if tiktok is their biggest source of news.
I was told this exchange took place in a recent focus group and chimes in with these findings.
Reform voter: I really don’t care what happens in Gaza.
Tory voter: You cannot watch the footage of all those kids being starved and not be moved, it’s like Russia’s killing of Ukrainians, if you care about that, then you should care about Gaza.
Reform voters the main outlier in still rejecting a Palestinian state while most of the other main parties back recognition of it, especially Green, Labour and LD voters.
Four out of five permanent UN Security Council members would also likely back it as would the UN General Assembly but the US would again likely veto it
Apart from @Leon , I’m not aware of any posters supporting Reform. Yet they consistently poll around 30%. Do we have a cohort of shy Reformers who are pretending still to be Conservatives, whilst agreeing with the views of Reform voters?
No one has ever seriously pretended this site is representative - it isn't. Pale, Male and Stale (or Sad, Mad and Bad if you prefer) would be apposite.
We're no sounding board for what "Britain" is thinking than we are for what Germany or Denmark are thinking.
There's more gammon here than at most butchers probably as well.
The geographic profile is possibly more representative - we seem to be all over the place on so many levels.
Someone once compared PB to a cliche pub bar - as good an analogy as any.
Lets talk about the West Bank and how it could serve as a homeland. Here is the actual amount of land available to the Palestinians in comparison to that available to settlers and the IDF. It's been sliced and diced by roads between settlements that disrupt life there and kettles the population. Gaza is now being prepared for the same slice and dice with the various corridors.
Even the wannabe Nobel Peace Prize winner hasn't the influence to change the facts on the ground. Note where the water for is.
That’s a very misleading chart by combining settlers, military, state land and roads. Presumably if it were an independent homeland the military state and transport infrastructure would belong to the new state not Israel
The areas in white are where the IDF are in control. Those roads and other infrastructure are for the use of the Israeli military and settlers only. Palestinians are not allowed.
Its a slow but inexorable strangulation and encroachment of Area B.
But yes, you are right. For the West Bank to become a viable state +/- Gaza and East Jerusalem the Israeli military and settlers need to go. I can't see that happening.
Not least because the Israeli military and settlers were removed from Gaza in 2005.
For which Israel received neither thanks nor security.
I'm not sure why the Israelis should be thanked for ceasing to occupy someone else's country.
The 'someone else' being at war with Israel and committed to destroying Israel.
And Israel being at war with "someone else" and committed to occupying their country and establishing settlers on it.
Which ended in 2005 when Israel withdrew its military and settlers from Gaza.
Now which side started the current war ? Did Israel attack Gaza or did Gaza attack Israel ?
You would be on more reasonable ground to complain about Israel's behaviour in the West Bank or its treatment of its own Palestinian population than how it acted towards Gaza between 2005 and 2023.
Gaza is part of Palestine, which the Israelis are still occupying.
Yes Hamas started the current war. The argument is about the Israelis' conduct in responding to it.
So the part of Palestine which Israel is occupying didn't attack Israel but the part of Palestine which Israel wasn't occupying did attack Israel.
Do you see why withdrawing from more of Palestine isn't going to be accepted by the Israelis ?
As to how Israel has responded - blockading food supplies, destruction of urban areas, military occupation, ethnic cleansing - how does that differ to what British strategy was to Germany in the world wars ?
Maybe I'm in a minority of one but I don't join the self-righteous condemnation of Israel for doing what we applaud ourselves for doing a few generations back.
Isn't it because of the horrors of the 2 world wars that we banned mass reprisals, carpet bombing of civilians and starvation as weapons of war?
Easy to virtue signal when you've won lasting peace.
A Balfour declaration for our times. A homeland for the Palestinian people.
Yes, thank god for Britain and France finally stepping up to the plate to sort out borders and states hashed together by the stupid, er, British and French.
To be fair, trying to draw borders in a land where ethnic/religious nationalism haven’t been the deciding factors for centuries, then suddenly are the deciding factor is pretty much.
A nasty thought - the main reason that Europe has stable borders is mad ethnic cleansing, first one way, then the other, followed by half a century of two nuclear armed super states telling everyone “that’s how it is”.
The unpleasant truth is that ethnic cleansing works, when it comes to settling borders.
If I was in a dispute with you, killing you would work when it comes to settling that dispute. It would still be wrong. We should not countenance crimes against humanity like ethnic cleansing and genocide. There are alternatives possible.
Key thing as always is compromise. Where you have competing claims both sides cannot win all that they want. NI is largely peaceful now, yet when I was growing up it was a very different place. Eventually enough people on both sides realised it couldn't go on as it was.
Right now in Gaza and Israel the ones in charge have not reached that point.
Lets talk about the West Bank and how it could serve as a homeland. Here is the actual amount of land available to the Palestinians in comparison to that available to settlers and the IDF. It's been sliced and diced by roads between settlements that disrupt life there and kettles the population. Gaza is now being prepared for the same slice and dice with the various corridors.
Even the wannabe Nobel Peace Prize winner hasn't the influence to change the facts on the ground. Note where the water for is.
That’s a very misleading chart by combining settlers, military, state land and roads. Presumably if it were an independent homeland the military state and transport infrastructure would belong to the new state not Israel
The areas in white are where the IDF are in control. Those roads and other infrastructure are for the use of the Israeli military and settlers only. Palestinians are not allowed.
Its a slow but inexorable strangulation and encroachment of Area B.
But yes, you are right. For the West Bank to become a viable state +/- Gaza and East Jerusalem the Israeli military and settlers need to go. I can't see that happening.
Not least because the Israeli military and settlers were removed from Gaza in 2005.
For which Israel received neither thanks nor security.
I'm not sure why the Israelis should be thanked for ceasing to occupy someone else's country.
The 'someone else' being at war with Israel and committed to destroying Israel.
And Israel being at war with "someone else" and committed to occupying their country and establishing settlers on it.
Which ended in 2005 when Israel withdrew its military and settlers from Gaza.
Now which side started the current war ? Did Israel attack Gaza or did Gaza attack Israel ?
You would be on more reasonable ground to complain about Israel's behaviour in the West Bank or its treatment of its own Palestinian population than how it acted towards Gaza between 2005 and 2023.
Gaza is part of Palestine, which the Israelis are still occupying.
Yes Hamas started the current war. The argument is about the Israelis' conduct in responding to it.
So the part of Palestine which Israel is occupying didn't attack Israel but the part of Palestine which Israel wasn't occupying did attack Israel.
Do you see why withdrawing from more of Palestine isn't going to be accepted by the Israelis ?
As to how Israel has responded - blockading food supplies, destruction of urban areas, military occupation, ethnic cleansing - how does that differ to what British strategy was to Germany in the world wars ?
Maybe I'm in a minority of one but I don't join the self-righteous condemnation of Israel for doing what we applaud ourselves for doing a few generations back.
Isn't it because of the horrors of the 2 world wars that we banned mass reprisals, carpet bombing of civilians and starvation as weapons of war?
Easy to virtue signal when you've won lasting peace.
Well, that's what we did in the Geneva Convention of 1947.
Call it virtue signalling if you like, but what were formerly considered reasonable acts of war are now war crimes.
One interesting thing in this poll is that the youngsters are the least likely to say "don't know". That is very unusual for opinion polling.
Hamas has comprehensively won the social media war, to the extent that it's now commonplace on social media to deny that October 7th ever happened and that the hostages are all just crisis actors etc...
Lets talk about the West Bank and how it could serve as a homeland. Here is the actual amount of land available to the Palestinians in comparison to that available to settlers and the IDF. It's been sliced and diced by roads between settlements that disrupt life there and kettles the population. Gaza is now being prepared for the same slice and dice with the various corridors.
Even the wannabe Nobel Peace Prize winner hasn't the influence to change the facts on the ground. Note where the water for is.
That’s a very misleading chart by combining settlers, military, state land and roads. Presumably if it were an independent homeland the military state and transport infrastructure would belong to the new state not Israel
The areas in white are where the IDF are in control. Those roads and other infrastructure are for the use of the Israeli military and settlers only. Palestinians are not allowed.
Its a slow but inexorable strangulation and encroachment of Area B.
But yes, you are right. For the West Bank to become a viable state +/- Gaza and East Jerusalem the Israeli military and settlers need to go. I can't see that happening.
Not least because the Israeli military and settlers were removed from Gaza in 2005.
For which Israel received neither thanks nor security.
I'm not sure why the Israelis should be thanked for ceasing to occupy someone else's country.
The 'someone else' being at war with Israel and committed to destroying Israel.
And Israel being at war with "someone else" and committed to occupying their country and establishing settlers on it.
Which ended in 2005 when Israel withdrew its military and settlers from Gaza.
Now which side started the current war ? Did Israel attack Gaza or did Gaza attack Israel ?
You would be on more reasonable ground to complain about Israel's behaviour in the West Bank or its treatment of its own Palestinian population than how it acted towards Gaza between 2005 and 2023.
Gaza is part of Palestine, which the Israelis are still occupying.
Yes Hamas started the current war. The argument is about the Israelis' conduct in responding to it.
So the part of Palestine which Israel is occupying didn't attack Israel but the part of Palestine which Israel wasn't occupying did attack Israel.
Do you see why withdrawing from more of Palestine isn't going to be accepted by the Israelis ?
As to how Israel has responded - blockading food supplies, destruction of urban areas, military occupation, ethnic cleansing - how does that differ to what British strategy was to Germany in the world wars ?
Maybe I'm in a minority of one but I don't join the self-righteous condemnation of Israel for doing what we applaud ourselves for doing a few generations back.
Isn't it because of the horrors of the 2 world wars that we banned mass reprisals, carpet bombing of civilians and starvation as weapons of war?
Did we ? And if we did, did we ever mean it in anything other than self-righteousness ?
You'll remember that we also had/have huge numbers of nuclear weapons ready to do vastly more destruction than happened in either world war.
Countries will fight with whatever means possible if they're in an existential war.
Israel believes it is such a war now just as we did in the world wars.
We've forgotten that and what we did because the wars we've engaged in since have not been existential.
Lets talk about the West Bank and how it could serve as a homeland. Here is the actual amount of land available to the Palestinians in comparison to that available to settlers and the IDF. It's been sliced and diced by roads between settlements that disrupt life there and kettles the population. Gaza is now being prepared for the same slice and dice with the various corridors.
Even the wannabe Nobel Peace Prize winner hasn't the influence to change the facts on the ground. Note where the water for is.
That’s a very misleading chart by combining settlers, military, state land and roads. Presumably if it were an independent homeland the military state and transport infrastructure would belong to the new state not Israel
The areas in white are where the IDF are in control. Those roads and other infrastructure are for the use of the Israeli military and settlers only. Palestinians are not allowed.
Its a slow but inexorable strangulation and encroachment of Area B.
But yes, you are right. For the West Bank to become a viable state +/- Gaza and East Jerusalem the Israeli military and settlers need to go. I can't see that happening.
Not least because the Israeli military and settlers were removed from Gaza in 2005.
For which Israel received neither thanks nor security.
I'm not sure why the Israelis should be thanked for ceasing to occupy someone else's country.
The 'someone else' being at war with Israel and committed to destroying Israel.
And Israel being at war with "someone else" and committed to occupying their country and establishing settlers on it.
Which ended in 2005 when Israel withdrew its military and settlers from Gaza.
Now which side started the current war ? Did Israel attack Gaza or did Gaza attack Israel ?
You would be on more reasonable ground to complain about Israel's behaviour in the West Bank or its treatment of its own Palestinian population than how it acted towards Gaza between 2005 and 2023.
Gaza is part of Palestine, which the Israelis are still occupying.
Yes Hamas started the current war. The argument is about the Israelis' conduct in responding to it.
So the part of Palestine which Israel is occupying didn't attack Israel but the part of Palestine which Israel wasn't occupying did attack Israel.
Do you see why withdrawing from more of Palestine isn't going to be accepted by the Israelis ?
As to how Israel has responded - blockading food supplies, destruction of urban areas, military occupation, ethnic cleansing - how does that differ to what British strategy was to Germany in the world wars ?
Maybe I'm in a minority of one but I don't join the self-righteous condemnation of Israel for doing what we applaud ourselves for doing a few generations back.
Isn't it because of the horrors of the 2 world wars that we banned mass reprisals, carpet bombing of civilians and starvation as weapons of war?
Easy to virtue signal when you've won lasting peace.
But it wasn’t just virtue signalling, the Marshall Plan etc was all part of a plan that hoped we never went down the route of another war.
Lets talk about the West Bank and how it could serve as a homeland. Here is the actual amount of land available to the Palestinians in comparison to that available to settlers and the IDF. It's been sliced and diced by roads between settlements that disrupt life there and kettles the population. Gaza is now being prepared for the same slice and dice with the various corridors.
Even the wannabe Nobel Peace Prize winner hasn't the influence to change the facts on the ground. Note where the water for is.
That’s a very misleading chart by combining settlers, military, state land and roads. Presumably if it were an independent homeland the military state and transport infrastructure would belong to the new state not Israel
The areas in white are where the IDF are in control. Those roads and other infrastructure are for the use of the Israeli military and settlers only. Palestinians are not allowed.
Its a slow but inexorable strangulation and encroachment of Area B.
But yes, you are right. For the West Bank to become a viable state +/- Gaza and East Jerusalem the Israeli military and settlers need to go. I can't see that happening.
Not least because the Israeli military and settlers were removed from Gaza in 2005.
For which Israel received neither thanks nor security.
I'm not sure why the Israelis should be thanked for ceasing to occupy someone else's country.
The 'someone else' being at war with Israel and committed to destroying Israel.
And Israel being at war with "someone else" and committed to occupying their country and establishing settlers on it.
Which ended in 2005 when Israel withdrew its military and settlers from Gaza.
Now which side started the current war ? Did Israel attack Gaza or did Gaza attack Israel ?
You would be on more reasonable ground to complain about Israel's behaviour in the West Bank or its treatment of its own Palestinian population than how it acted towards Gaza between 2005 and 2023.
Gaza is part of Palestine, which the Israelis are still occupying.
Yes Hamas started the current war. The argument is about the Israelis' conduct in responding to it.
Yes true.
Potted history:
Israel's view - they left Gaza completely to see if the Palestinians could live peacefully alongside Israel. At the time there were great investment plans (eg for the port) and billions committed to the regeneration of Gaza. Then, on account of the corruption of the PA, the Palestinians voted in Hamas and the rest is history.
Palestinian view - Israel continues to occupy Palestine which comprises Gaza and the West Bank (and arguably the bit in between) and it is only via armed struggle that Israel agreed to leave Gaza and therefore the struggle continues.
That is yer problem right there.
What about the other problem - what happens when peace is achieved? Israel's defence (for want of a better word) spending is 8.8% of GDP and has been on a growing trend since 1985. Only Ukraine outspends it as % of GDP. How will it replace that spending or will it need a call to the IMF or the Fed?
A Balfour declaration for our times. A homeland for the Palestinian people.
Yes, thank god for Britain and France finally stepping up to the plate to sort out borders and states hashed together by the stupid, er, British and French.
To be fair, trying to draw borders in a land where ethnic/religious nationalism haven’t been the deciding factors for centuries, then suddenly are the deciding factor is pretty much.
A nasty thought - the main reason that Europe has stable borders is mad ethnic cleansing, first one way, then the other, followed by half a century of two nuclear armed super states telling everyone “that’s how it is”.
The unpleasant truth is that ethnic cleansing works, when it comes to settling borders.
If I was in a dispute with you, killing you would work when it comes to settling that dispute. It would still be wrong. We should not countenance crimes against humanity like ethnic cleansing and genocide. There are alternatives possible.
Key thing as always is compromise. Where you have competing claims both sides cannot win all that they want. NI is largely peaceful now, yet when I was growing up it was a very different place. Eventually enough people on both sides realised it couldn't go on as it was.
Right now in Gaza and Israel the ones in charge have not reached that point.
The comparisons with Northern Ireland don't work in my opinion. Whatever you think the two sides in Northern Ireland, they're actually not that far apart in their outlook on life. That's not the case in the Middle East.
Reform voters the main outlier in still rejecting a Palestinian state while most of the other main parties back recognition of it, especially Green, Labour and LD voters.
Four out of five permanent UN Security Council members would also likely back it as would the UN General Assembly but the US would again likely veto it
Apart from @Leon , I’m not aware of any posters supporting Reform. Yet they consistently poll around 30%. Do we have a cohort of shy Reformers who are pretending still to be Conservatives, whilst agreeing with the views of Reform voters?
There are a few tories on here who are clearly Fukker-adjacent in their thinking but understandably shy about publicly committing to a political project concocted by sociopaths for the votes of easily gulled racist morons.
It's much harder to identify Reform voters during canvassing than the traditional parties - in a well-canvassed Tory seat that Labour had as a target and Reform won, we had a clear majority of evasive replies - "We'll have to see on the day", "Not really sure, will decide when I get there", etc. I think I only met 2 or 3 explicit Reform voters in a couple of weeks of daily canvassing, compared with scores of Labour and Tory voters. Partly it's probably shyness at the perceived distance from Labour (little point in getting into an argument with a stranger on your doorstep) and partly a fairly slight commitment to a new party on "oh well, I'll give them a try" lines. The fact that all the main established parties have been tried and found wanting by many is clearly an issue.
The new leftist party has had over 500,000 "supporters" online in a week, which potentially makes it a significant force if they don't mess up. I know several Labour people who are tempted.
One interesting thing in this poll is that the youngsters are the least likely to say "don't know". That is very unusual for opinion polling.
Gaza is a big thing for young voters. It was a major part of why neither of my boys would vote Labour last year.
Too late for Starmer to get them onside. As ever he does too little too late.
The extent to which Israel/Palestine dominates left discourse in this country when other foreign conflicts with far greater death tolls & distribution of misery are completely ignored has always depressed me. Why this conflict in particular?
Reform voters the main outlier in still rejecting a Palestinian state while most of the other main parties back recognition of it, especially Green, Labour and LD voters.
Four out of five permanent UN Security Council members would also likely back it as would the UN General Assembly but the US would again likely veto it
Apart from @Leon , I’m not aware of any posters supporting Reform. Yet they consistently poll around 30%. Do we have a cohort of shy Reformers who are pretending still to be Conservatives, whilst agreeing with the views of Reform voters?
No one has ever seriously pretended this site is representative - it isn't. Pale, Male and Stale (or Sad, Mad and Bad if you prefer) would be apposite.
We're no sounding board for what "Britain" is thinking than we are for what Germany or Denmark are thinking.
There's more gammon here than at most butchers probably as well.
The geographic profile is possibly more representative - we seem to be all over the place on so many levels.
Someone once compared PB to a cliche pub bar - as good an analogy as any.
One interesting thing in this poll is that the youngsters are the least likely to say "don't know". That is very unusual for opinion polling.
Hamas has comprehensively won the social media war, to the extent that it's now commonplace on social media to deny that October 7th ever happened and that the hostages are all just crisis actors etc...
Picking up one question from the previous thread, and attempting to get a grip on Allison Pearson, this is her tweeting on 28/7:
Allison Pearson @AllisonPearson Some of us remember when we didn’t have “communities around the country”. There were the British people. Us. Yes, there were huge class inequalities but there was a priceless feeling of being united. Things like the Lionesses fleetingly remind us. The way we were. https://x.com/AllisonPearson/status/1949902800483471548
Pearson was born in 1960, so would realistically remember things analytically from perhaps 1975. I'm not sure what she even means. "Communities around the country" are the British reality, and have been for a number of centuries - whilst acknowledging that the state has quite the record of oppressing minorities *.
I'm not sure what she is hankering after other than a projected 'memory' of something that never existed, or a world that may have existed in her subcultural bubble. I might suggest it is a stereotype from Terry and June.
I'm interested what triggered her to go down the identity politics and victimhood route - it's very "woke". Most recently it seems to me to be policing standards that have long been applied to other people being applied to Pearson herself.
* As an aside form my other post, quite a number of nonconformist denominations or associations still have memories of suppression by Govt as a significant part of their self-understanding eg under Acts requiring conformity to the Church of England, Folk-memories get institutionalised here for a long time,
I’ve noticed with a couple of Scottish relatives - they find London a culture shock after rural Scotland. Not that they upset - more a kind of “this is really different”.
There is something real at the back of what she is saying - a changed context between a singular culture and multiple cultures.
I’d say that there has been staggering cultural changes between 1985 and 2025.
Taking 40 year periods, is the staggering change greater than happened previously? Say between 1880 and 1920, or 1935 and 1975?
Or indeed between 1945 and 1985?
The demographic and cultural change of moving to a multi-cultural society from a fairly mono cultural society is unprecedented.
Shying away from that suggests fear or being ashamed.
I feel neither. It is what it is. Trying to say it hasn’t happened or it’s nothing, really, is to hand an open goal to the nutters.
I'm curious to know what boundaries Starmer will acknowledge as comprising the State of Palestine.
I assume he’s not going to. The whole thing is rather nebulous (which I don’t really blame the government for, the whole thing is intractably complex) but then on the other hand I’m not entirely sure what recognising statehood actually means, beyond the gesture.
I'm not clear on this either.
I would expect it perhaps to be effectively a formalisation of the 'recognition of the Right of the Palestinian State to Exist."
Is the Balfour Declaration (all 67 words of it) a useful comparison?
His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balfour_Declaration
THAT did not lead to a formal state being established until 1948.
One interesting thing in this poll is that the youngsters are the least likely to say "don't know". That is very unusual for opinion polling.
Gaza is a big thing for young voters. It was a major part of why neither of my boys would vote Labour last year.
Too late for Starmer to get them onside. As ever he does too little too late.
The extent to which Israel/Palestine dominates left discourse in this country when other foreign conflicts with far greater death tolls & distribution of misery are completely ignored has always depressed me. Why this conflict in particular?
I think that's fairly obvious. But, why does it dominate the news? Because Israel is a democracy.
One interesting thing in this poll is that the youngsters are the least likely to say "don't know". That is very unusual for opinion polling.
Hamas has comprehensively won the social media war, to the extent that it's now commonplace on social media to deny that October 7th ever happened and that the hostages are all just crisis actors etc...
What utter shite.* I haven't seen a single instance of that, and I move in significantly woker circles than you.
The satellite images of Gaza are enough for most people - as demonstrated by the polling. Unless you think Hamas have hacked the satellites?
One interesting thing in this poll is that the youngsters are the least likely to say "don't know". That is very unusual for opinion polling.
Gaza is a big thing for young voters. It was a major part of why neither of my boys would vote Labour last year.
Too late for Starmer to get them onside. As ever he does too little too late.
The extent to which Israel/Palestine dominates left discourse in this country when other foreign conflicts with far greater death tolls & distribution of misery are completely ignored has always depressed me. Why this conflict in particular?
You know precisely why, Phil though not many would care to admit it.
A Balfour declaration for our times. A homeland for the Palestinian people.
Yes, thank god for Britain and France finally stepping up to the plate to sort out borders and states hashed together by the stupid, er, British and French.
To be fair, trying to draw borders in a land where ethnic/religious nationalism haven’t been the deciding factors for centuries, then suddenly are the deciding factor is pretty much.
A nasty thought - the main reason that Europe has stable borders is mad ethnic cleansing, first one way, then the other, followed by half a century of two nuclear armed super states telling everyone “that’s how it is”.
The unpleasant truth is that ethnic cleansing works, when it comes to settling borders.
If I was in a dispute with you, killing you would work when it comes to settling that dispute. It would still be wrong. We should not countenance crimes against humanity like ethnic cleansing and genocide. There are alternatives possible.
We accepted ethnic cleansing in Nagorno-Karabakh in September 2023.
In December 2023, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell stated: "Look for example at what has happened in Azerbaijan and Armenia. A long-frozen conflict that suddenly has been – I would not say solved – but decisively determined by a military intervention that, in one week, made 150,000 people move. In one week. Like this. 150,000 people had to abandon their houses and run. And the international community regretted [it], expressed concern, sent humanitarian support, but it happened [with] the use of force."
Reform voters the main outlier in still rejecting a Palestinian state while most of the other main parties back recognition of it, especially Green, Labour and LD voters.
Four out of five permanent UN Security Council members would also likely back it as would the UN General Assembly but the US would again likely veto it
Apart from @Leon , I’m not aware of any posters supporting Reform. Yet they consistently poll around 30%. Do we have a cohort of shy Reformers who are pretending still to be Conservatives, whilst agreeing with the views of Reform voters?
No one has ever seriously pretended this site is representative - it isn't. Pale, Male and Stale (or Sad, Mad and Bad if you prefer) would be apposite.
We're no sounding board for what "Britain" is thinking than we are for what Germany or Denmark are thinking.
There's more gammon here than at most butchers probably as well.
The geographic profile is possibly more representative - we seem to be all over the place on so many levels.
Someone once compared PB to a cliche pub bar - as good an analogy as any.
Yes, but given the views expressed, I would have expected a lot of Reform supporters on here. Maybe they just want the Conservatives to act like Reform.
One interesting thing in this poll is that the youngsters are the least likely to say "don't know". That is very unusual for opinion polling.
Gaza is a big thing for young voters. It was a major part of why neither of my boys would vote Labour last year.
Too late for Starmer to get them onside. As ever he does too little too late.
The extent to which Israel/Palestine dominates left discourse in this country when other foreign conflicts with far greater death tolls & distribution of misery are completely ignored has always depressed me. Why this conflict in particular?
Israel/Palestine is the acid test for determining if you are truly anti establishment.
I notice people talking about how the parties of NI eventually decided they wanted peace.
Lets talk about the West Bank and how it could serve as a homeland. Here is the actual amount of land available to the Palestinians in comparison to that available to settlers and the IDF. It's been sliced and diced by roads between settlements that disrupt life there and kettles the population. Gaza is now being prepared for the same slice and dice with the various corridors.
Even the wannabe Nobel Peace Prize winner hasn't the influence to change the facts on the ground. Note where the water for is.
Israel doesn’t want a 2 state solution. The US currently supports Israel.
Nothing else really is of any consequence here.
The Palestinians don't want a 2-state solution either.
So what.
What they do or don’t want is irrelevant as they have no power here.
One interesting thing in this poll is that the youngsters are the least likely to say "don't know". That is very unusual for opinion polling.
Hamas has comprehensively won the social media war, to the extent that it's now commonplace on social media to deny that October 7th ever happened and that the hostages are all just crisis actors etc...
What utter shite. I haven't seen a single instance of that, and I move in significantly woker circles than you.
The satellite images of Gaza are enough for most people - as demonstrated by the polling. Unless you think Hamas have hacked the satellites?
Your kidding. Not woke enough, I imagine.
Or your wokeness prevents you from looking at the places where this occurs, ie social media (or are you on that holier-than-thou, Blue sky social or whatever it is).
Take Glasto, for example. I missed the Israeli flags waving amongst the rainbows. Ponder what would have happened had some poor soul taken one of those puppies to the Pyramid stage.
One interesting thing in this poll is that the youngsters are the least likely to say "don't know". That is very unusual for opinion polling.
Hamas has comprehensively won the social media war, to the extent that it's now commonplace on social media to deny that October 7th ever happened and that the hostages are all just crisis actors etc...
What utter shite.* I haven't seen a single instance of that, and I move in significantly woker circles than you.
The satellite images of Gaza are enough for most people - as demonstrated by the polling. Unless you think Hamas have hacked the satellites?
Lets talk about the West Bank and how it could serve as a homeland. Here is the actual amount of land available to the Palestinians in comparison to that available to settlers and the IDF. It's been sliced and diced by roads between settlements that disrupt life there and kettles the population. Gaza is now being prepared for the same slice and dice with the various corridors.
Even the wannabe Nobel Peace Prize winner hasn't the influence to change the facts on the ground. Note where the water for is.
That’s a very misleading chart by combining settlers, military, state land and roads. Presumably if it were an independent homeland the military state and transport infrastructure would belong to the new state not Israel
The areas in white are where the IDF are in control. Those roads and other infrastructure are for the use of the Israeli military and settlers only. Palestinians are not allowed.
Its a slow but inexorable strangulation and encroachment of Area B.
But yes, you are right. For the West Bank to become a viable state +/- Gaza and East Jerusalem the Israeli military and settlers need to go. I can't see that happening.
Not least because the Israeli military and settlers were removed from Gaza in 2005.
For which Israel received neither thanks nor security.
I'm not sure why the Israelis should be thanked for ceasing to occupy someone else's country.
The 'someone else' being at war with Israel and committed to destroying Israel.
And Israel being at war with "someone else" and committed to occupying their country and establishing settlers on it.
Which ended in 2005 when Israel withdrew its military and settlers from Gaza.
Now which side started the current war ? Did Israel attack Gaza or did Gaza attack Israel ?
You would be on more reasonable ground to complain about Israel's behaviour in the West Bank or its treatment of its own Palestinian population than how it acted towards Gaza between 2005 and 2023.
Gaza is part of Palestine, which the Israelis are still occupying.
Yes Hamas started the current war. The argument is about the Israelis' conduct in responding to it.
Yes true.
Potted history:
Israel's view - they left Gaza completely to see if the Palestinians could live peacefully alongside Israel. At the time there were great investment plans (eg for the port) and billions committed to the regeneration of Gaza. Then, on account of the corruption of the PA, the Palestinians voted in Hamas and the rest is history.
Palestinian view - Israel continues to occupy Palestine which comprises Gaza and the West Bank (and arguably the bit in between) and it is only via armed struggle that Israel agreed to leave Gaza and therefore the struggle continues.
That is yer problem right there.
Does the violence cause the occupation or the occupation cause the violence.
One interesting thing in this poll is that the youngsters are the least likely to say "don't know". That is very unusual for opinion polling.
Gaza is a big thing for young voters. It was a major part of why neither of my boys would vote Labour last year.
Too late for Starmer to get them onside. As ever he does too little too late.
The extent to which Israel/Palestine dominates left discourse in this country when other foreign conflicts with far greater death tolls & distribution of misery are completely ignored has always depressed me. Why this conflict in particular?
Because the left see white as the bad guys and black/brown as the good guys? Israel/Palestine fits that view. Ukraine/Russia doesn’t, because it’s white v white.
If you are having a break from PB while collecting your thoughts about who has the right to ethnic cleanse who from what area, a short visual presentation.
Lets talk about the West Bank and how it could serve as a homeland. Here is the actual amount of land available to the Palestinians in comparison to that available to settlers and the IDF. It's been sliced and diced by roads between settlements that disrupt life there and kettles the population. Gaza is now being prepared for the same slice and dice with the various corridors.
Even the wannabe Nobel Peace Prize winner hasn't the influence to change the facts on the ground. Note where the water for is.
That’s a very misleading chart by combining settlers, military, state land and roads. Presumably if it were an independent homeland the military state and transport infrastructure would belong to the new state not Israel
The areas in white are where the IDF are in control. Those roads and other infrastructure are for the use of the Israeli military and settlers only. Palestinians are not allowed.
Its a slow but inexorable strangulation and encroachment of Area B.
But yes, you are right. For the West Bank to become a viable state +/- Gaza and East Jerusalem the Israeli military and settlers need to go. I can't see that happening.
Not least because the Israeli military and settlers were removed from Gaza in 2005.
For which Israel received neither thanks nor security.
I'm not sure why the Israelis should be thanked for ceasing to occupy someone else's country.
The 'someone else' being at war with Israel and committed to destroying Israel.
And Israel being at war with "someone else" and committed to occupying their country and establishing settlers on it.
Which ended in 2005 when Israel withdrew its military and settlers from Gaza.
Now which side started the current war ? Did Israel attack Gaza or did Gaza attack Israel ?
You would be on more reasonable ground to complain about Israel's behaviour in the West Bank or its treatment of its own Palestinian population than how it acted towards Gaza between 2005 and 2023.
Gaza is part of Palestine, which the Israelis are still occupying.
Yes Hamas started the current war. The argument is about the Israelis' conduct in responding to it.
So the part of Palestine which Israel is occupying didn't attack Israel but the part of Palestine which Israel wasn't occupying did attack Israel.
Do you see why withdrawing from more of Palestine isn't going to be accepted by the Israelis ?
As to how Israel has responded - blockading food supplies, destruction of urban areas, military occupation, ethnic cleansing - how does that differ to what British strategy was to Germany in the world wars ?
Maybe I'm in a minority of one but I don't join the self-righteous condemnation of Israel for doing what we applaud ourselves for doing a few generations back.
Isn't it because of the horrors of the 2 world wars that we banned mass reprisals, carpet bombing of civilians and starvation as weapons of war?
Easy to virtue signal when you've won lasting peace.
Easy to make hyperbolic claims of "carpet bombing". Carpet bombing a heavily populated urban area would kill more than the 90 a day claimed by Hamas. Indeed if one were to carpet bomb Gaza it should be possible to eliminate the entire population within a week or two. Even killing Gazans at the rate the Red Army killed Germans in the Battle of Berlin would have done it in just under 5 months.
Reform voters the main outlier in still rejecting a Palestinian state while most of the other main parties back recognition of it, especially Green, Labour and LD voters.
Four out of five permanent UN Security Council members would also likely back it as would the UN General Assembly but the US would again likely veto it
Apart from @Leon , I’m not aware of any posters supporting Reform. Yet they consistently poll around 30%. Do we have a cohort of shy Reformers who are pretending still to be Conservatives, whilst agreeing with the views of Reform voters?
There are a few tories on here who are clearly Fukker-adjacent in their thinking but understandably shy about publicly committing to a political project concocted by sociopaths for the votes of easily gulled racist morons.
It's much harder to identify Reform voters during canvassing than the traditional parties - in a well-canvassed Tory seat that Labour had as a target and Reform won, we had a clear majority of evasive replies - "We'll have to see on the day", "Not really sure, will decide when I get there", etc. I think I only met 2 or 3 explicit Reform voters in a couple of weeks of daily canvassing, compared with scores of Labour and Tory voters. Partly it's probably shyness at the perceived distance from Labour (little point in getting into an argument with a stranger on your doorstep) and partly a fairly slight commitment to a new party on "oh well, I'll give them a try" lines. The fact that all the main established parties have been tried and found wanting by many is clearly an issue.
The new leftist party has had over 500,000 "supporters" online in a week, which potentially makes it a significant force if they don't mess up. I know several Labour people who are tempted.
I've referenced this before but I remember going out canvassing in early 1982 for the Liberals in my staunchly Tory (it was then) part of London. We had a short street (about 50 houses) which was our "barometer" - it usually returned 70-80% Conservative but on that night we got something like a third still Conservative and half backing the SDP.
As you say, it's a lot about something new and "different" and people being able to project their hopes and desires for change onto that. I'm far more confident about the "old" parties surviving all this than many - I suspect in 20 years time it will still be Conservatives, Labour and Liberal Democrats with the Nationalists.
One interesting thing in this poll is that the youngsters are the least likely to say "don't know". That is very unusual for opinion polling.
Gaza is a big thing for young voters. It was a major part of why neither of my boys would vote Labour last year.
Too late for Starmer to get them onside. As ever he does too little too late.
The extent to which Israel/Palestine dominates left discourse in this country when other foreign conflicts with far greater death tolls & distribution of misery are completely ignored has always depressed me. Why this conflict in particular?
Proximity. Israel is our friend and ally. If my best friend punched someone in the street that would cause me much more angst and dismay that some ned in Greenock punching someone.
One interesting thing in this poll is that the youngsters are the least likely to say "don't know". That is very unusual for opinion polling.
Hamas has comprehensively won the social media war, to the extent that it's now commonplace on social media to deny that October 7th ever happened and that the hostages are all just crisis actors etc...
What utter shite.* I haven't seen a single instance of that, and I move in significantly woker circles than you.
The satellite images of Gaza are enough for most people - as demonstrated by the polling. Unless you think Hamas have hacked the satellites?
That rather misses the point - those believing that Oct 7th didn't happen will be believing that the IDF has destroyed most of Gaza.
One interesting thing in this poll is that the youngsters are the least likely to say "don't know". That is very unusual for opinion polling.
Hamas has comprehensively won the social media war, to the extent that it's now commonplace on social media to deny that October 7th ever happened and that the hostages are all just crisis actors etc...
What utter shite. I haven't seen a single instance of that, and I move in significantly woker circles than you.
The satellite images of Gaza are enough for most people - as demonstrated by the polling. Unless you think Hamas have hacked the satellites?
Your kidding. Not woke enough, I imagine.
Or your wokeness prevents you from looking at the places where this occurs, ie social media (or are you on that holier-than-thou, Blue sky social or whatever it is).
Take Glasto, for example. I missed the Israeli flags waving amongst the rainbows. Ponder what would have happened had some poor soul taken one of those puppies to the Pyramid stage.
I think perhaps the inverse has happened. You and Max have been fed propaganda that suggests these views are widely held, when it's simply not the case.
One interesting thing in this poll is that the youngsters are the least likely to say "don't know". That is very unusual for opinion polling.
Gaza is a big thing for young voters. It was a major part of why neither of my boys would vote Labour last year.
Too late for Starmer to get them onside. As ever he does too little too late.
The extent to which Israel/Palestine dominates left discourse in this country when other foreign conflicts with far greater death tolls & distribution of misery are completely ignored has always depressed me. Why this conflict in particular?
Israel/Palestine is the acid test for determining if you are truly anti establishment.
I notice people talking about how the parties of NI eventually decided they wanted peace.
Er.... the IRA realised it was losing.
Realising you are losing is a valid reason to opt for peace too.
Lets talk about the West Bank and how it could serve as a homeland. Here is the actual amount of land available to the Palestinians in comparison to that available to settlers and the IDF. It's been sliced and diced by roads between settlements that disrupt life there and kettles the population. Gaza is now being prepared for the same slice and dice with the various corridors.
Even the wannabe Nobel Peace Prize winner hasn't the influence to change the facts on the ground. Note where the water for is.
That’s a very misleading chart by combining settlers, military, state land and roads. Presumably if it were an independent homeland the military state and transport infrastructure would belong to the new state not Israel
The areas in white are where the IDF are in control. Those roads and other infrastructure are for the use of the Israeli military and settlers only. Palestinians are not allowed.
Its a slow but inexorable strangulation and encroachment of Area B.
But yes, you are right. For the West Bank to become a viable state +/- Gaza and East Jerusalem the Israeli military and settlers need to go. I can't see that happening.
Not least because the Israeli military and settlers were removed from Gaza in 2005.
For which Israel received neither thanks nor security.
I'm not sure why the Israelis should be thanked for ceasing to occupy someone else's country.
The 'someone else' being at war with Israel and committed to destroying Israel.
And Israel being at war with "someone else" and committed to occupying their country and establishing settlers on it.
Which ended in 2005 when Israel withdrew its military and settlers from Gaza.
Now which side started the current war ? Did Israel attack Gaza or did Gaza attack Israel ?
You would be on more reasonable ground to complain about Israel's behaviour in the West Bank or its treatment of its own Palestinian population than how it acted towards Gaza between 2005 and 2023.
Gaza is part of Palestine, which the Israelis are still occupying.
Yes Hamas started the current war. The argument is about the Israelis' conduct in responding to it.
Yes true.
Potted history:
Israel's view - they left Gaza completely to see if the Palestinians could live peacefully alongside Israel. At the time there were great investment plans (eg for the port) and billions committed to the regeneration of Gaza. Then, on account of the corruption of the PA, the Palestinians voted in Hamas and the rest is history.
Palestinian view - Israel continues to occupy Palestine which comprises Gaza and the West Bank (and arguably the bit in between) and it is only via armed struggle that Israel agreed to leave Gaza and therefore the struggle continues.
That is yer problem right there.
Does the violence cause the occupation or the occupation cause the violence.
But the trouble is that is to look at the crisis in isolation. Hamas is sponsored by Qatar who we gleefully buy gas from (unlike Russia) and are used by Iran as part of their plan to destroy Israel by a thousand cuts.
One interesting thing in this poll is that the youngsters are the least likely to say "don't know". That is very unusual for opinion polling.
Hamas has comprehensively won the social media war, to the extent that it's now commonplace on social media to deny that October 7th ever happened and that the hostages are all just crisis actors etc...
What utter shite. I haven't seen a single instance of that, and I move in significantly woker circles than you.
The satellite images of Gaza are enough for most people - as demonstrated by the polling. Unless you think Hamas have hacked the satellites?
Your kidding. Not woke enough, I imagine.
Or your wokeness prevents you from looking at the places where this occurs, ie social media (or are you on that holier-than-thou, Blue sky social or whatever it is).
Take Glasto, for example. I missed the Israeli flags waving amongst the rainbows. Ponder what would have happened had some poor soul taken one of those puppies to the Pyramid stage.
I think perhaps the inverse has happened. You and Max have been fed propaganda that suggests these views are widely held, when it's simply not the case.
There you go, Topping, you’re brainwashed by propaganda.
One interesting thing in this poll is that the youngsters are the least likely to say "don't know". That is very unusual for opinion polling.
Gaza is a big thing for young voters. It was a major part of why neither of my boys would vote Labour last year.
Too late for Starmer to get them onside. As ever he does too little too late.
The extent to which Israel/Palestine dominates left discourse in this country when other foreign conflicts with far greater death tolls & distribution of misery are completely ignored has always depressed me. Why this conflict in particular?
You know precisely why, Phil though not many would care to admit it.
Let's be more generous to Phil, even if it was a rhetorical question.
Israel is seen as white/strong/the oppressor. Ranged against white, strong oppressors are the full spectrum of "weak" groups globally. For such groups the struggle against the strong is a critical mission and this is a prime example of that.
Who tf knows who the weak or strong side is in Somalia, or Yemen or wherever, whereas in Israel it's pretty clear. Imperialist oppressors vs the downtrodden. And hence the groups who think they are also being oppressed line up with Israel's enemy, no matter the nature of that enemy. And hence Queers for Palestine, etc.
Lets talk about the West Bank and how it could serve as a homeland. Here is the actual amount of land available to the Palestinians in comparison to that available to settlers and the IDF. It's been sliced and diced by roads between settlements that disrupt life there and kettles the population. Gaza is now being prepared for the same slice and dice with the various corridors.
Even the wannabe Nobel Peace Prize winner hasn't the influence to change the facts on the ground. Note where the water for is.
Israel doesn’t want a 2 state solution. The US currently supports Israel.
Nothing else really is of any consequence here.
The Palestinians don't want a 2-state solution either.
So what.
What they do or don’t want is irrelevant as they have no power here.
What they do or don't want is very relevant, since any attempt at peace has to include them.
One interesting thing in this poll is that the youngsters are the least likely to say "don't know". That is very unusual for opinion polling.
Gaza is a big thing for young voters. It was a major part of why neither of my boys would vote Labour last year.
Too late for Starmer to get them onside. As ever he does too little too late.
The extent to which Israel/Palestine dominates left discourse in this country when other foreign conflicts with far greater death tolls & distribution of misery are completely ignored has always depressed me. Why this conflict in particular?
You know precisely why, Phil though not many would care to admit it.
Black lives don't matter when its other Blacks killing them. Muslim lives don't matter when its other Muslims killing them.
These two aspects are both in effect with the lack of interest in the Sudanese civil war.
Lets talk about the West Bank and how it could serve as a homeland. Here is the actual amount of land available to the Palestinians in comparison to that available to settlers and the IDF. It's been sliced and diced by roads between settlements that disrupt life there and kettles the population. Gaza is now being prepared for the same slice and dice with the various corridors.
Even the wannabe Nobel Peace Prize winner hasn't the influence to change the facts on the ground. Note where the water for is.
That’s a very misleading chart by combining settlers, military, state land and roads. Presumably if it were an independent homeland the military state and transport infrastructure would belong to the new state not Israel
The areas in white are where the IDF are in control. Those roads and other infrastructure are for the use of the Israeli military and settlers only. Palestinians are not allowed.
Its a slow but inexorable strangulation and encroachment of Area B.
But yes, you are right. For the West Bank to become a viable state +/- Gaza and East Jerusalem the Israeli military and settlers need to go. I can't see that happening.
Not least because the Israeli military and settlers were removed from Gaza in 2005.
For which Israel received neither thanks nor security.
I'm not sure why the Israelis should be thanked for ceasing to occupy someone else's country.
The 'someone else' being at war with Israel and committed to destroying Israel.
And Israel being at war with "someone else" and committed to occupying their country and establishing settlers on it.
Which ended in 2005 when Israel withdrew its military and settlers from Gaza.
Now which side started the current war ? Did Israel attack Gaza or did Gaza attack Israel ?
You would be on more reasonable ground to complain about Israel's behaviour in the West Bank or its treatment of its own Palestinian population than how it acted towards Gaza between 2005 and 2023.
Gaza is part of Palestine, which the Israelis are still occupying.
Yes Hamas started the current war. The argument is about the Israelis' conduct in responding to it.
Yes true.
Potted history:
Israel's view - they left Gaza completely to see if the Palestinians could live peacefully alongside Israel. At the time there were great investment plans (eg for the port) and billions committed to the regeneration of Gaza. Then, on account of the corruption of the PA, the Palestinians voted in Hamas and the rest is history.
Palestinian view - Israel continues to occupy Palestine which comprises Gaza and the West Bank (and arguably the bit in between) and it is only via armed struggle that Israel agreed to leave Gaza and therefore the struggle continues.
That is yer problem right there.
Does the violence cause the occupation or the occupation cause the violence.
But the trouble is that is to look at the crisis in isolation. Hamas is sponsored by Qatar who we gleefully buy gas from (unlike Russia) and are used by Iran as part of their plan to destroy Israel by a thousand cuts.
Reform voters the main outlier in still rejecting a Palestinian state while most of the other main parties back recognition of it, especially Green, Labour and LD voters.
Four out of five permanent UN Security Council members would also likely back it as would the UN General Assembly but the US would again likely veto it
Apart from @Leon , I’m not aware of any posters supporting Reform. Yet they consistently poll around 30%. Do we have a cohort of shy Reformers who are pretending still to be Conservatives, whilst agreeing with the views of Reform voters?
No one has ever seriously pretended this site is representative - it isn't. Pale, Male and Stale (or Sad, Mad and Bad if you prefer) would be apposite.
We're no sounding board for what "Britain" is thinking than we are for what Germany or Denmark are thinking.
There's more gammon here than at most butchers probably as well.
The geographic profile is possibly more representative - we seem to be all over the place on so many levels.
Someone once compared PB to a cliche pub bar - as good an analogy as any.
Yes, but given the views expressed, I would have expected a lot of Reform supporters on here. Maybe they just want the Conservatives to act like Reform.
Perhaps this stems from the way we view those with different views to out own? How many on the left regard Tories as scum and imagine that they want to cut benefits to zero, re-open the workhouses and send anyone with a hint of brown colour back 'somewhere'? And how many on the right think that the left want communism, with all property abolished and the upper classes up against the wall?
In reality right and left are not so far apart. I think for a lot of the left what Reform actually is is how they think Tories are. So they expect Tories to be leaping on the Reform bandwagon shouting 'At last! A party I agree with".
One interesting thing in this poll is that the youngsters are the least likely to say "don't know". That is very unusual for opinion polling.
Gaza is a big thing for young voters. It was a major part of why neither of my boys would vote Labour last year.
Too late for Starmer to get them onside. As ever he does too little too late.
The extent to which Israel/Palestine dominates left discourse in this country when other foreign conflicts with far greater death tolls & distribution of misery are completely ignored has always depressed me. Why this conflict in particular?
Israel/Palestine is the acid test for determining if you are truly anti establishment.
I notice people talking about how the parties of NI eventually decided they wanted peace.
Er.... the IRA realised it was losing.
Number of Nationalist MPs in 2024: 9 Number of Nationalist MPs in 1992: 4
Picking up one question from the previous thread, and attempting to get a grip on Allison Pearson, this is her tweeting on 28/7:
Allison Pearson @AllisonPearson Some of us remember when we didn’t have “communities around the country”. There were the British people. Us. Yes, there were huge class inequalities but there was a priceless feeling of being united. Things like the Lionesses fleetingly remind us. The way we were. https://x.com/AllisonPearson/status/1949902800483471548
Pearson was born in 1960, so would realistically remember things analytically from perhaps 1975. I'm not sure what she even means. "Communities around the country" are the British reality, and have been for a number of centuries - whilst acknowledging that the state has quite the record of oppressing minorities *.
I'm not sure what she is hankering after other than a projected 'memory' of something that never existed, or a world that may have existed in her subcultural bubble. I might suggest it is a stereotype from Terry and June.
I'm interested what triggered her to go down the identity politics and victimhood route - it's very "woke". Most recently it seems to me to be policing standards that have long been applied to other people being applied to Pearson herself.
* As an aside form my other post, quite a number of nonconformist denominations or associations still have memories of suppression by Govt as a significant part of their self-understanding eg under Acts requiring conformity to the Church of England, Folk-memories get institutionalised here for a long time,
I’ve noticed with a couple of Scottish relatives - they find London a culture shock after rural Scotland. Not that they upset - more a kind of “this is really different”.
There is something real at the back of what she is saying - a changed context between a singular culture and multiple cultures.
I’d say that there has been staggering cultural changes between 1985 and 2025.
Taking 40 year periods, is the staggering change greater than happened previously? Say between 1880 and 1920, or 1935 and 1975?
Or indeed between 1945 and 1985?
The demographic and cultural change of moving to a multi-cultural society from a fairly mono cultural society is unprecedented.
Shying away from that suggests fear or being ashamed.
I feel neither. It is what it is. Trying to say it hasn’t happened or it’s nothing, really, is to hand an open goal to the nutters.
I think the claim that earlier UK being monocultural is perhaps over reaching. But that depends on conflation between race, religion and culture, and what we understand by each.
Lets talk about the West Bank and how it could serve as a homeland. Here is the actual amount of land available to the Palestinians in comparison to that available to settlers and the IDF. It's been sliced and diced by roads between settlements that disrupt life there and kettles the population. Gaza is now being prepared for the same slice and dice with the various corridors.
Even the wannabe Nobel Peace Prize winner hasn't the influence to change the facts on the ground. Note where the water for is.
That’s a very misleading chart by combining settlers, military, state land and roads. Presumably if it were an independent homeland the military state and transport infrastructure would belong to the new state not Israel
The areas in white are where the IDF are in control. Those roads and other infrastructure are for the use of the Israeli military and settlers only. Palestinians are not allowed.
Its a slow but inexorable strangulation and encroachment of Area B.
But yes, you are right. For the West Bank to become a viable state +/- Gaza and East Jerusalem the Israeli military and settlers need to go. I can't see that happening.
Not least because the Israeli military and settlers were removed from Gaza in 2005.
For which Israel received neither thanks nor security.
I'm not sure why the Israelis should be thanked for ceasing to occupy someone else's country.
The 'someone else' being at war with Israel and committed to destroying Israel.
And Israel being at war with "someone else" and committed to occupying their country and establishing settlers on it.
Which ended in 2005 when Israel withdrew its military and settlers from Gaza.
Now which side started the current war ? Did Israel attack Gaza or did Gaza attack Israel ?
You would be on more reasonable ground to complain about Israel's behaviour in the West Bank or its treatment of its own Palestinian population than how it acted towards Gaza between 2005 and 2023.
Gaza is part of Palestine, which the Israelis are still occupying.
Yes Hamas started the current war. The argument is about the Israelis' conduct in responding to it.
Yes true.
Potted history:
Israel's view - they left Gaza completely to see if the Palestinians could live peacefully alongside Israel. At the time there were great investment plans (eg for the port) and billions committed to the regeneration of Gaza. Then, on account of the corruption of the PA, the Palestinians voted in Hamas and the rest is history.
Palestinian view - Israel continues to occupy Palestine which comprises Gaza and the West Bank (and arguably the bit in between) and it is only via armed struggle that Israel agreed to leave Gaza and therefore the struggle continues.
That is yer problem right there.
Does the violence cause the occupation or the occupation cause the violence.
A Balfour declaration for our times. A homeland for the Palestinian people.
Yes, thank god for Britain and France finally stepping up to the plate to sort out borders and states hashed together by the stupid, er, British and French.
To be fair, trying to draw borders in a land where ethnic/religious nationalism haven’t been the deciding factors for centuries, then suddenly are the deciding factor is pretty much.
A nasty thought - the main reason that Europe has stable borders is mad ethnic cleansing, first one way, then the other, followed by half a century of two nuclear armed super states telling everyone “that’s how it is”.
Putin doesn't seem to accept those borders...
The main reason that those borders have remained stable until recently is because of the rise of democracy and the EU. With FoM it matters little who controls Alsalce and Lorraine or the Sudetenland.
Borders in Africa and Asia have also remained pretty much unchanged in recent decades too. Not because of ethnic homogenised, but rather because of the recognition that redrawing borders requires either bloody war or interminable discussions, see the recent Thai/Cambodia fighting.
I recently read "The Peacemakers" on the Versailles treaty of 1919. An awful lot of later conflicts were set up by those negotiations, which rarely took into account local populations views.
I think that’s unfair on the Versailles treaty-makers. They organised plenty of local plebiscites to try to fix borders (even one over whether Hanover should remain a part of Germany). It’s just they were dealing with a patchwork of ethnic groups across Europe. As well as powers which had established facts on the ground.
It was literally impossible.
Remember, that until WWII, there were villages of ethnic Germans, speaking a dialect of German scattered between the USSR border and about half way to Moscow*. Just an example.
Europe was a very, very patchwork quilt.
Drawing a border that encompassed all of ethnic group A, without B-Z, was impossible.
Much of the rest of the world was similar.
*Many of whom fought and died for Russia, very loyally, in WWII
There are still about 400k Volga Germans in Russia, and another 200k in Kazakhstan.
One interesting thing in this poll is that the youngsters are the least likely to say "don't know". That is very unusual for opinion polling.
Gaza is a big thing for young voters. It was a major part of why neither of my boys would vote Labour last year.
Too late for Starmer to get them onside. As ever he does too little too late.
The extent to which Israel/Palestine dominates left discourse in this country when other foreign conflicts with far greater death tolls & distribution of misery are completely ignored has always depressed me. Why this conflict in particular?
Because the left see white as the bad guys and black/brown as the good guys? Israel/Palestine fits that view. Ukraine/Russia doesn’t, because it’s white v white.
The 'progressive' groupthink that Israelis are universally white and Palestinians universally black or brown is a bizarre one to be honest. Put Ahed Tamimi next to a Mizrahi, let alone a Beta Israeli...
We are concerned that the UK’s proposal risks delaying the release of the hostages. This is because the UK has said that it will recognise a Palestinian state unless Israel agrees a ceasefire. But the risk is that Hamas will continue to refuse to a ceasefire because if it agrees to one this would make U.K. recognition less likely.
Lets talk about the West Bank and how it could serve as a homeland. Here is the actual amount of land available to the Palestinians in comparison to that available to settlers and the IDF. It's been sliced and diced by roads between settlements that disrupt life there and kettles the population. Gaza is now being prepared for the same slice and dice with the various corridors.
Even the wannabe Nobel Peace Prize winner hasn't the influence to change the facts on the ground. Note where the water for is.
That’s a very misleading chart by combining settlers, military, state land and roads. Presumably if it were an independent homeland the military state and transport infrastructure would belong to the new state not Israel
The areas in white are where the IDF are in control. Those roads and other infrastructure are for the use of the Israeli military and settlers only. Palestinians are not allowed.
Its a slow but inexorable strangulation and encroachment of Area B.
But yes, you are right. For the West Bank to become a viable state +/- Gaza and East Jerusalem the Israeli military and settlers need to go. I can't see that happening.
Not least because the Israeli military and settlers were removed from Gaza in 2005.
For which Israel received neither thanks nor security.
I'm not sure why the Israelis should be thanked for ceasing to occupy someone else's country.
The 'someone else' being at war with Israel and committed to destroying Israel.
And Israel being at war with "someone else" and committed to occupying their country and establishing settlers on it.
Which ended in 2005 when Israel withdrew its military and settlers from Gaza.
Now which side started the current war ? Did Israel attack Gaza or did Gaza attack Israel ?
You would be on more reasonable ground to complain about Israel's behaviour in the West Bank or its treatment of its own Palestinian population than how it acted towards Gaza between 2005 and 2023.
Gaza is part of Palestine, which the Israelis are still occupying.
Yes Hamas started the current war. The argument is about the Israelis' conduct in responding to it.
Yes true.
Potted history:
Israel's view - they left Gaza completely to see if the Palestinians could live peacefully alongside Israel. At the time there were great investment plans (eg for the port) and billions committed to the regeneration of Gaza. Then, on account of the corruption of the PA, the Palestinians voted in Hamas and the rest is history.
Palestinian view - Israel continues to occupy Palestine which comprises Gaza and the West Bank (and arguably the bit in between) and it is only via armed struggle that Israel agreed to leave Gaza and therefore the struggle continues.
That is yer problem right there.
Does the violence cause the occupation or the occupation cause the violence.
But the trouble is that is to look at the crisis in isolation. Hamas is sponsored by Qatar who we gleefully buy gas from (unlike Russia) and are used by Iran as part of their plan to destroy Israel by a thousand cuts.
You know who else sponsored Hamas?
Israel.
Oh gawd we've been through this. Netanyahu hosed money at Hamas because he thought that if they were getting money they wouldn't cause any problems. Not the best political call you might say but it was far from support. It was trying to buy friends. And boy did it not work.
Picking up one question from the previous thread, and attempting to get a grip on Allison Pearson, this is her tweeting on 28/7:
Allison Pearson @AllisonPearson Some of us remember when we didn’t have “communities around the country”. There were the British people. Us. Yes, there were huge class inequalities but there was a priceless feeling of being united. Things like the Lionesses fleetingly remind us. The way we were. https://x.com/AllisonPearson/status/1949902800483471548
Pearson was born in 1960, so would realistically remember things analytically from perhaps 1975. I'm not sure what she even means. "Communities around the country" are the British reality, and have been for a number of centuries - whilst acknowledging that the state has quite the record of oppressing minorities *.
I'm not sure what she is hankering after other than a projected 'memory' of something that never existed, or a world that may have existed in her subcultural bubble. I might suggest it is a stereotype from Terry and June.
I'm interested what triggered her to go down the identity politics and victimhood route - it's very "woke". Most recently it seems to me to be policing standards that have long been applied to other people being applied to Pearson herself.
* As an aside form my other post, quite a number of nonconformist denominations or associations still have memories of suppression by Govt as a significant part of their self-understanding eg under Acts requiring conformity to the Church of England, Folk-memories get institutionalised here for a long time,
Indeed. Nationalism as a political theory has to deny diversity, yet there has always been considerable diversity within every nation.
Lets talk about the West Bank and how it could serve as a homeland. Here is the actual amount of land available to the Palestinians in comparison to that available to settlers and the IDF. It's been sliced and diced by roads between settlements that disrupt life there and kettles the population. Gaza is now being prepared for the same slice and dice with the various corridors.
Even the wannabe Nobel Peace Prize winner hasn't the influence to change the facts on the ground. Note where the water for is.
That’s a very misleading chart by combining settlers, military, state land and roads. Presumably if it were an independent homeland the military state and transport infrastructure would belong to the new state not Israel
The areas in white are where the IDF are in control. Those roads and other infrastructure are for the use of the Israeli military and settlers only. Palestinians are not allowed.
Its a slow but inexorable strangulation and encroachment of Area B.
But yes, you are right. For the West Bank to become a viable state +/- Gaza and East Jerusalem the Israeli military and settlers need to go. I can't see that happening.
Not least because the Israeli military and settlers were removed from Gaza in 2005.
For which Israel received neither thanks nor security.
I'm not sure why the Israelis should be thanked for ceasing to occupy someone else's country.
The 'someone else' being at war with Israel and committed to destroying Israel.
And Israel being at war with "someone else" and committed to occupying their country and establishing settlers on it.
Which ended in 2005 when Israel withdrew its military and settlers from Gaza.
Now which side started the current war ? Did Israel attack Gaza or did Gaza attack Israel ?
You would be on more reasonable ground to complain about Israel's behaviour in the West Bank or its treatment of its own Palestinian population than how it acted towards Gaza between 2005 and 2023.
Gaza is part of Palestine, which the Israelis are still occupying.
Yes Hamas started the current war. The argument is about the Israelis' conduct in responding to it.
Yes true.
Potted history:
Israel's view - they left Gaza completely to see if the Palestinians could live peacefully alongside Israel. At the time there were great investment plans (eg for the port) and billions committed to the regeneration of Gaza. Then, on account of the corruption of the PA, the Palestinians voted in Hamas and the rest is history.
Palestinian view - Israel continues to occupy Palestine which comprises Gaza and the West Bank (and arguably the bit in between) and it is only via armed struggle that Israel agreed to leave Gaza and therefore the struggle continues.
That is yer problem right there.
Does the violence cause the occupation or the occupation cause the violence.
Israel ceasing to occupy Gaza was the test case for this.
The occupation ended, the violence increased.
Would we prefer the West Bank to be more like Gaza?
Would a normal Israeli voter even see that as a serious question?
One interesting thing in this poll is that the youngsters are the least likely to say "don't know". That is very unusual for opinion polling.
Hamas has comprehensively won the social media war, to the extent that it's now commonplace on social media to deny that October 7th ever happened and that the hostages are all just crisis actors etc...
What utter shite.* I haven't seen a single instance of that, and I move in significantly woker circles than you.
The satellite images of Gaza are enough for most people - as demonstrated by the polling. Unless you think Hamas have hacked the satellites?
That rather misses the point - those believing that Oct 7th didn't happen will be believing that the IDF has destroyed most of Gaza.
That doesn't mean that everyone who thinks the IDF are destroying Gaza thinks October 6th didn't happen.
I need to go the YouGov polling for a bit of solace. Phew.
Adam Wagner, who was previously Starmer’s biggest fan…
STATEMENT FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 30 July 2025
British hostage families are deeply concerned that hostages have been made a bargaining chip by the UK in its Palestinian State declaration statement
Since October 2023, we have represented the 7 families of the 10 hostages held by Hamas who are either British or have very close British ties, including British citizens Emily Damari (released in February 2025) and Nadav Popplewell (murdered in June 2024). We continue to represent a number of families including those of remaining hostages Avinatan Or, who is presumed alive and whose mother is British, and Yossi Sharabi, whose body is held by Hamas.
For almost two years, the British hostage families have encouraged the U.K. to use any leverage it has to help secure the release of their loved ones. They have sat in 10 Downing Street with successive Prime Ministers and Foreign Secretaries who have looked them in the eyes and promised the U.K. will do everything in its power to secure the immediate and unconditional release of their loved ones, whose detention is unambiguously a war crime.
We are concerned that the UK’s proposal risks delaying the release of the hostages. This is because the UK has said that it will recognise a Palestinian state unless Israel agrees a ceasefire. But the risk is that Hamas will continue to refuse to a ceasefire because if it agrees to one this would make U.K. recognition less likely.
The families are therefore deeply concerned that the U.K.’s approach risks disincentivising Hamas from releasing the hostages. This risks doing exactly what the Prime Minister’s statement says the U.K. will not do: reward Hamas for its heinous and illegal acts.
The British hostage families take no position on the wider politics. Their concern is to bring their loved ones home, and time is fast running out. They therefore implore the Prime Minister to provide clarity and confirm, unambiguously, that Hamas will not be rewarded and that the U.K. will not take any substantive steps until all the hostages are free.
One interesting thing in this poll is that the youngsters are the least likely to say "don't know". That is very unusual for opinion polling.
Hamas has comprehensively won the social media war, to the extent that it's now commonplace on social media to deny that October 7th ever happened and that the hostages are all just crisis actors etc...
Has a single PBer ever suggested that ? I haven't even seen that on X - though there's a great deal of anti-semitic shit there.
Lets talk about the West Bank and how it could serve as a homeland. Here is the actual amount of land available to the Palestinians in comparison to that available to settlers and the IDF. It's been sliced and diced by roads between settlements that disrupt life there and kettles the population. Gaza is now being prepared for the same slice and dice with the various corridors.
Even the wannabe Nobel Peace Prize winner hasn't the influence to change the facts on the ground. Note where the water for is.
That’s a very misleading chart by combining settlers, military, state land and roads. Presumably if it were an independent homeland the military state and transport infrastructure would belong to the new state not Israel
The areas in white are where the IDF are in control. Those roads and other infrastructure are for the use of the Israeli military and settlers only. Palestinians are not allowed.
Its a slow but inexorable strangulation and encroachment of Area B.
But yes, you are right. For the West Bank to become a viable state +/- Gaza and East Jerusalem the Israeli military and settlers need to go. I can't see that happening.
Not least because the Israeli military and settlers were removed from Gaza in 2005.
For which Israel received neither thanks nor security.
I'm not sure why the Israelis should be thanked for ceasing to occupy someone else's country.
The 'someone else' being at war with Israel and committed to destroying Israel.
And Israel being at war with "someone else" and committed to occupying their country and establishing settlers on it.
Which ended in 2005 when Israel withdrew its military and settlers from Gaza.
Now which side started the current war ? Did Israel attack Gaza or did Gaza attack Israel ?
You would be on more reasonable ground to complain about Israel's behaviour in the West Bank or its treatment of its own Palestinian population than how it acted towards Gaza between 2005 and 2023.
Gaza is part of Palestine, which the Israelis are still occupying.
Yes Hamas started the current war. The argument is about the Israelis' conduct in responding to it.
Yes true.
Potted history:
Israel's view - they left Gaza completely to see if the Palestinians could live peacefully alongside Israel. At the time there were great investment plans (eg for the port) and billions committed to the regeneration of Gaza. Then, on account of the corruption of the PA, the Palestinians voted in Hamas and the rest is history.
Palestinian view - Israel continues to occupy Palestine which comprises Gaza and the West Bank (and arguably the bit in between) and it is only via armed struggle that Israel agreed to leave Gaza and therefore the struggle continues.
That is yer problem right there.
Does the violence cause the occupation or the occupation cause the violence.
But the trouble is that is to look at the crisis in isolation. Hamas is sponsored by Qatar who we gleefully buy gas from (unlike Russia) and are used by Iran as part of their plan to destroy Israel by a thousand cuts.
You know who else sponsored Hamas?
Israel.
Oh gawd we've been through this. Netanyahu hosed money at Hamas because he thought that if they were getting money they wouldn't cause any problems. Not the best political call you might say but it was far from support. It was trying to buy friends. And boy did it not work.
No, he did it to ensure the fracture between Hamas and the PLO continued.
Lets talk about the West Bank and how it could serve as a homeland. Here is the actual amount of land available to the Palestinians in comparison to that available to settlers and the IDF. It's been sliced and diced by roads between settlements that disrupt life there and kettles the population. Gaza is now being prepared for the same slice and dice with the various corridors.
Even the wannabe Nobel Peace Prize winner hasn't the influence to change the facts on the ground. Note where the water for is.
That’s a very misleading chart by combining settlers, military, state land and roads. Presumably if it were an independent homeland the military state and transport infrastructure would belong to the new state not Israel
The areas in white are where the IDF are in control. Those roads and other infrastructure are for the use of the Israeli military and settlers only. Palestinians are not allowed.
Its a slow but inexorable strangulation and encroachment of Area B.
But yes, you are right. For the West Bank to become a viable state +/- Gaza and East Jerusalem the Israeli military and settlers need to go. I can't see that happening.
Not least because the Israeli military and settlers were removed from Gaza in 2005.
For which Israel received neither thanks nor security.
I'm not sure why the Israelis should be thanked for ceasing to occupy someone else's country.
The 'someone else' being at war with Israel and committed to destroying Israel.
And Israel being at war with "someone else" and committed to occupying their country and establishing settlers on it.
Which ended in 2005 when Israel withdrew its military and settlers from Gaza.
Now which side started the current war ? Did Israel attack Gaza or did Gaza attack Israel ?
You would be on more reasonable ground to complain about Israel's behaviour in the West Bank or its treatment of its own Palestinian population than how it acted towards Gaza between 2005 and 2023.
Gaza is part of Palestine, which the Israelis are still occupying.
Yes Hamas started the current war. The argument is about the Israelis' conduct in responding to it.
Yes true.
Potted history:
Israel's view - they left Gaza completely to see if the Palestinians could live peacefully alongside Israel. At the time there were great investment plans (eg for the port) and billions committed to the regeneration of Gaza. Then, on account of the corruption of the PA, the Palestinians voted in Hamas and the rest is history.
Palestinian view - Israel continues to occupy Palestine which comprises Gaza and the West Bank (and arguably the bit in between) and it is only via armed struggle that Israel agreed to leave Gaza and therefore the struggle continues.
That is yer problem right there.
Does the violence cause the occupation or the occupation cause the violence.
But the trouble is that is to look at the crisis in isolation. Hamas is sponsored by Qatar who we gleefully buy gas from (unlike Russia) and are used by Iran as part of their plan to destroy Israel by a thousand cuts.
You know who else sponsored Hamas?
Israel.
Oh gawd we've been through this. Netanyahu hosed money at Hamas because he thought that if they were getting money they wouldn't cause any problems. Not the best political call you might say but it was far from support. It was trying to buy friends. And boy did it not work.
Has Netanyahu made any good political calls? He doesn't seem interested in the hostages.
Lets talk about the West Bank and how it could serve as a homeland. Here is the actual amount of land available to the Palestinians in comparison to that available to settlers and the IDF. It's been sliced and diced by roads between settlements that disrupt life there and kettles the population. Gaza is now being prepared for the same slice and dice with the various corridors.
Even the wannabe Nobel Peace Prize winner hasn't the influence to change the facts on the ground. Note where the water for is.
That’s a very misleading chart by combining settlers, military, state land and roads. Presumably if it were an independent homeland the military state and transport infrastructure would belong to the new state not Israel
The areas in white are where the IDF are in control. Those roads and other infrastructure are for the use of the Israeli military and settlers only. Palestinians are not allowed.
Its a slow but inexorable strangulation and encroachment of Area B.
But yes, you are right. For the West Bank to become a viable state +/- Gaza and East Jerusalem the Israeli military and settlers need to go. I can't see that happening.
Not least because the Israeli military and settlers were removed from Gaza in 2005.
For which Israel received neither thanks nor security.
I'm not sure why the Israelis should be thanked for ceasing to occupy someone else's country.
The 'someone else' being at war with Israel and committed to destroying Israel.
And Israel being at war with "someone else" and committed to occupying their country and establishing settlers on it.
Which ended in 2005 when Israel withdrew its military and settlers from Gaza.
Now which side started the current war ? Did Israel attack Gaza or did Gaza attack Israel ?
You would be on more reasonable ground to complain about Israel's behaviour in the West Bank or its treatment of its own Palestinian population than how it acted towards Gaza between 2005 and 2023.
Gaza is part of Palestine, which the Israelis are still occupying.
Yes Hamas started the current war. The argument is about the Israelis' conduct in responding to it.
Yes true.
Potted history:
Israel's view - they left Gaza completely to see if the Palestinians could live peacefully alongside Israel. At the time there were great investment plans (eg for the port) and billions committed to the regeneration of Gaza. Then, on account of the corruption of the PA, the Palestinians voted in Hamas and the rest is history.
Palestinian view - Israel continues to occupy Palestine which comprises Gaza and the West Bank (and arguably the bit in between) and it is only via armed struggle that Israel agreed to leave Gaza and therefore the struggle continues.
That is yer problem right there.
Does the violence cause the occupation or the occupation cause the violence.
But the trouble is that is to look at the crisis in isolation. Hamas is sponsored by Qatar who we gleefully buy gas from (unlike Russia) and are used by Iran as part of their plan to destroy Israel by a thousand cuts.
You know who else sponsored Hamas?
Israel.
Oh gawd we've been through this. Netanyahu hosed money at Hamas because he thought that if they were getting money they wouldn't cause any problems. Not the best political call you might say but it was far from support. It was trying to buy friends. And boy did it not work.
He cynically provided money to Hamas to keep the Palestinians divided between the PLA and Hamas. In this he was successful.
I suspect he also naively ignored the warnings from Israeli Intelligence about the Oct 7th because he though he had Hamas on side. That's one of the reasons he can't allow the war to stop because then there will be a n investigation into this "intelligence failure".
One interesting thing in this poll is that the youngsters are the least likely to say "don't know". That is very unusual for opinion polling.
Hamas has comprehensively won the social media war, to the extent that it's now commonplace on social media to deny that October 7th ever happened and that the hostages are all just crisis actors etc...
What utter shite.* I haven't seen a single instance of that, and I move in significantly woker circles than you.
The satellite images of Gaza are enough for most people - as demonstrated by the polling. Unless you think Hamas have hacked the satellites?
That rather misses the point - those believing that Oct 7th didn't happen will be believing that the IDF has destroyed most of Gaza.
That doesn't mean that everyone who thinks the IDF are destroying Gaza thinks October 6th didn't happen.
I need to go the YouGov polling for a bit of solace. Phew.
No but you seem to be implying that Hamas is faking the destruction of Gaza, which felt a bit odd.
One interesting thing in this poll is that the youngsters are the least likely to say "don't know". That is very unusual for opinion polling.
Hamas has comprehensively won the social media war, to the extent that it's now commonplace on social media to deny that October 7th ever happened and that the hostages are all just crisis actors etc...
Has a single PBer ever suggested that ? I haven't even seen that on X - though there's a great deal of anti-semitic shit there.
I have seen it a couple of times. Though they were people *reacting* to tweets, rather than the tweets themselves. Which is a slightly different thing, as the reaction can magnify a single event.
Adam Wagner, who was previously Starmer’s biggest fan…
STATEMENT FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 30 July 2025
British hostage families are deeply concerned that hostages have been made a bargaining chip by the UK in its Palestinian State declaration statement
Since October 2023, we have represented the 7 families of the 10 hostages held by Hamas who are either British or have very close British ties, including British citizens Emily Damari (released in February 2025) and Nadav Popplewell (murdered in June 2024). We continue to represent a number of families including those of remaining hostages Avinatan Or, who is presumed alive and whose mother is British, and Yossi Sharabi, whose body is held by Hamas.
For almost two years, the British hostage families have encouraged the U.K. to use any leverage it has to help secure the release of their loved ones. They have sat in 10 Downing Street with successive Prime Ministers and Foreign Secretaries who have looked them in the eyes and promised the U.K. will do everything in its power to secure the immediate and unconditional release of their loved ones, whose detention is unambiguously a war crime.
We are concerned that the UK’s proposal risks delaying the release of the hostages. This is because the UK has said that it will recognise a Palestinian state unless Israel agrees a ceasefire. But the risk is that Hamas will continue to refuse to a ceasefire because if it agrees to one this would make U.K. recognition less likely.
The families are therefore deeply concerned that the U.K.’s approach risks disincentivising Hamas from releasing the hostages. This risks doing exactly what the Prime Minister’s statement says the U.K. will not do: reward Hamas for its heinous and illegal acts.
The British hostage families take no position on the wider politics. Their concern is to bring their loved ones home, and time is fast running out. They therefore implore the Prime Minister to provide clarity and confirm, unambiguously, that Hamas will not be rewarded and that the U.K. will not take any substantive steps until all the hostages are free.
Presumably these are dual nationals where their own government only sees continued war as the means to secure the release. Complaining about the UK government who has little sway is a bit off target. But someone other than Netanyahu has to be blamed.
Picking up one question from the previous thread, and attempting to get a grip on Allison Pearson, this is her tweeting on 28/7:
Allison Pearson @AllisonPearson Some of us remember when we didn’t have “communities around the country”. There were the British people. Us. Yes, there were huge class inequalities but there was a priceless feeling of being united. Things like the Lionesses fleetingly remind us. The way we were. https://x.com/AllisonPearson/status/1949902800483471548
Pearson was born in 1960, so would realistically remember things analytically from perhaps 1975. I'm not sure what she even means. "Communities around the country" are the British reality, and have been for a number of centuries - whilst acknowledging that the state has quite the record of oppressing minorities *.
I'm not sure what she is hankering after other than a projected 'memory' of something that never existed, or a world that may have existed in her subcultural bubble. I might suggest it is a stereotype from Terry and June.
I'm interested what triggered her to go down the identity politics and victimhood route - it's very "woke". Most recently it seems to me to be policing standards that have long been applied to other people being applied to Pearson herself.
* As an aside form my other post, quite a number of nonconformist denominations or associations still have memories of suppression by Govt as a significant part of their self-understanding eg under Acts requiring conformity to the Church of England, Folk-memories get institutionalised here for a long time,
I’ve noticed with a couple of Scottish relatives - they find London a culture shock after rural Scotland. Not that they upset - more a kind of “this is really different”.
There is something real at the back of what she is saying - a changed context between a singular culture and multiple cultures.
I’d say that there has been staggering cultural changes between 1985 and 2025.
There has been huge cultural change between 1985 and 2025. There was also huge cultural change between 1945 and 1985 or between 1905 and 1945. That's what happens over forty years.
As you say, there are big differences within the UK between different people's societies and culture. London is not like rural Scotland. Camden is not even like Stamford Hill or Bethnal Green. Rural Scotland on the islands is different to rural Scotland in the north-east (Gaelic versus Doric, for example). Bolton has a different culture to Oxford, etc. etc. etc. We have commonalities and we have differences.
I would argue that many of those differences between different parts of the UK were larger a hundred years ago. Modern IT and communication technology and transport infrastructure, changes in the role of the state in education, and other factors have made the experiences of a child growing up in the Orkneys and one in Stepney more similar than they used to be.
"Second-largest population increase in England and Wales in over 75 years - mainly fuelled by migration It is the second-largest numerical jump since at least 1949, when comparable data began, and has largely been fuelled by international migration."
One interesting thing in this poll is that the youngsters are the least likely to say "don't know". That is very unusual for opinion polling.
Hamas has comprehensively won the social media war, to the extent that it's now commonplace on social media to deny that October 7th ever happened and that the hostages are all just crisis actors etc...
What utter shite.* I haven't seen a single instance of that, and I move in significantly woker circles than you.
The satellite images of Gaza are enough for most people - as demonstrated by the polling. Unless you think Hamas have hacked the satellites?
That rather misses the point - those believing that Oct 7th didn't happen will be believing that the IDF has destroyed most of Gaza.
That doesn't mean that everyone who thinks the IDF are destroying Gaza thinks October 6th didn't happen.
I need to go the YouGov polling for a bit of solace. Phew.
No but you seem to be implying that Hamas is faking the destruction of Gaza, which felt a bit odd.
Too late to correct this - I meant that people were alleging that Hamas were faking the destruction.
Lets talk about the West Bank and how it could serve as a homeland. Here is the actual amount of land available to the Palestinians in comparison to that available to settlers and the IDF. It's been sliced and diced by roads between settlements that disrupt life there and kettles the population. Gaza is now being prepared for the same slice and dice with the various corridors.
Even the wannabe Nobel Peace Prize winner hasn't the influence to change the facts on the ground. Note where the water for is.
That’s a very misleading chart by combining settlers, military, state land and roads. Presumably if it were an independent homeland the military state and transport infrastructure would belong to the new state not Israel
The areas in white are where the IDF are in control. Those roads and other infrastructure are for the use of the Israeli military and settlers only. Palestinians are not allowed.
Its a slow but inexorable strangulation and encroachment of Area B.
But yes, you are right. For the West Bank to become a viable state +/- Gaza and East Jerusalem the Israeli military and settlers need to go. I can't see that happening.
Not least because the Israeli military and settlers were removed from Gaza in 2005.
For which Israel received neither thanks nor security.
I'm not sure why the Israelis should be thanked for ceasing to occupy someone else's country.
The 'someone else' being at war with Israel and committed to destroying Israel.
And Israel being at war with "someone else" and committed to occupying their country and establishing settlers on it.
Which ended in 2005 when Israel withdrew its military and settlers from Gaza.
Now which side started the current war ? Did Israel attack Gaza or did Gaza attack Israel ?
You would be on more reasonable ground to complain about Israel's behaviour in the West Bank or its treatment of its own Palestinian population than how it acted towards Gaza between 2005 and 2023.
Gaza is part of Palestine, which the Israelis are still occupying.
Yes Hamas started the current war. The argument is about the Israelis' conduct in responding to it.
So the part of Palestine which Israel is occupying didn't attack Israel but the part of Palestine which Israel wasn't occupying did attack Israel.
Do you see why withdrawing from more of Palestine isn't going to be accepted by the Israelis ?
As to how Israel has responded - blockading food supplies, destruction of urban areas, military occupation, ethnic cleansing - how does that differ to what British strategy was to Germany in the world wars ?
Maybe I'm in a minority of one but I don't join the self-righteous condemnation of Israel for doing what we applaud ourselves for doing a few generations back.
The UK did not ethnically cleanse Germany or parts of Germany. Stalin did and the UK opposed that, although was basically impotent to stop it. Broadly, the UK and other western powers recognised the mistakes of Versailles and tried a different approach, one based on helping Germany re-build and bringing Germany into a peaceful relationship with its neighbours through structures like the EU.
When the UK and the other Western powers occupied Germany, we made sure the population was fed.
Military doctrine in the West has long eschewed the widescale bombing of civilians used in WWII.
Reform voters the main outlier in still rejecting a Palestinian state while most of the other main parties back recognition of it, especially Green, Labour and LD voters.
Four out of five permanent UN Security Council members would also likely back it as would the UN General Assembly but the US would again likely veto it
Apart from @Leon , I’m not aware of any posters supporting Reform. Yet they consistently poll around 30%. Do we have a cohort of shy Reformers who are pretending still to be Conservatives, whilst agreeing with the views of Reform voters?
No one has ever seriously pretended this site is representative - it isn't. Pale, Male and Stale (or Sad, Mad and Bad if you prefer) would be apposite.
We're no sounding board for what "Britain" is thinking than we are for what Germany or Denmark are thinking.
There's more gammon here than at most butchers probably as well.
The geographic profile is possibly more representative - we seem to be all over the place on so many levels.
Someone once compared PB to a cliche pub bar - as good an analogy as any.
This site is far more middle-class than the average voter.
Lets talk about the West Bank and how it could serve as a homeland. Here is the actual amount of land available to the Palestinians in comparison to that available to settlers and the IDF. It's been sliced and diced by roads between settlements that disrupt life there and kettles the population. Gaza is now being prepared for the same slice and dice with the various corridors.
Even the wannabe Nobel Peace Prize winner hasn't the influence to change the facts on the ground. Note where the water for is.
Israel doesn’t want a 2 state solution. The US currently supports Israel.
Nothing else really is of any consequence here.
The Palestinians don't want a 2-state solution either.
So what.
What they do or don’t want is irrelevant as they have no power here.
What they do or don't want is very relevant, since any attempt at peace has to include them.
Well it depends how that peace is negotiated and what terms did the Germans at the end of WW1 or WW2, for example, have a great deal of say and, anyway, as Bondezegou pointed out you were incorrect.
One interesting thing in this poll is that the youngsters are the least likely to say "don't know". That is very unusual for opinion polling.
Hamas has comprehensively won the social media war, to the extent that it's now commonplace on social media to deny that October 7th ever happened and that the hostages are all just crisis actors etc...
What utter shite.* I haven't seen a single instance of that, and I move in significantly woker circles than you.
The satellite images of Gaza are enough for most people - as demonstrated by the polling. Unless you think Hamas have hacked the satellites?
Neither have I, but I don't do Twitter, because it is infested and owned by bigoted trolls and bots pushing their agenda.
I have no idea if these people that Max has seen are genuine or just bots trolling him with clickbait.
"Second-largest population increase in England and Wales in over 75 years - mainly fuelled by migration It is the second-largest numerical jump since at least 1949, when comparable data began, and has largely been fuelled by international migration."
Lets talk about the West Bank and how it could serve as a homeland. Here is the actual amount of land available to the Palestinians in comparison to that available to settlers and the IDF. It's been sliced and diced by roads between settlements that disrupt life there and kettles the population. Gaza is now being prepared for the same slice and dice with the various corridors.
Even the wannabe Nobel Peace Prize winner hasn't the influence to change the facts on the ground. Note where the water for is.
That’s a very misleading chart by combining settlers, military, state land and roads. Presumably if it were an independent homeland the military state and transport infrastructure would belong to the new state not Israel
The areas in white are where the IDF are in control. Those roads and other infrastructure are for the use of the Israeli military and settlers only. Palestinians are not allowed.
Its a slow but inexorable strangulation and encroachment of Area B.
But yes, you are right. For the West Bank to become a viable state +/- Gaza and East Jerusalem the Israeli military and settlers need to go. I can't see that happening.
Not least because the Israeli military and settlers were removed from Gaza in 2005.
For which Israel received neither thanks nor security.
I'm not sure why the Israelis should be thanked for ceasing to occupy someone else's country.
The 'someone else' being at war with Israel and committed to destroying Israel.
And Israel being at war with "someone else" and committed to occupying their country and establishing settlers on it.
Which ended in 2005 when Israel withdrew its military and settlers from Gaza.
Now which side started the current war ? Did Israel attack Gaza or did Gaza attack Israel ?
You would be on more reasonable ground to complain about Israel's behaviour in the West Bank or its treatment of its own Palestinian population than how it acted towards Gaza between 2005 and 2023.
Gaza is part of Palestine, which the Israelis are still occupying.
Yes Hamas started the current war. The argument is about the Israelis' conduct in responding to it.
Yes true.
Potted history:
Israel's view - they left Gaza completely to see if the Palestinians could live peacefully alongside Israel. At the time there were great investment plans (eg for the port) and billions committed to the regeneration of Gaza. Then, on account of the corruption of the PA, the Palestinians voted in Hamas and the rest is history.
Palestinian view - Israel continues to occupy Palestine which comprises Gaza and the West Bank (and arguably the bit in between) and it is only via armed struggle that Israel agreed to leave Gaza and therefore the struggle continues.
That is yer problem right there.
Does the violence cause the occupation or the occupation cause the violence.
But the trouble is that is to look at the crisis in isolation. Hamas is sponsored by Qatar who we gleefully buy gas from (unlike Russia) and are used by Iran as part of their plan to destroy Israel by a thousand cuts.
You know who else sponsored Hamas?
Israel.
Oh gawd we've been through this. Netanyahu hosed money at Hamas because he thought that if they were getting money they wouldn't cause any problems. Not the best political call you might say but it was far from support. It was trying to buy friends. And boy did it not work.
No, he did it to ensure the fracture between Hamas and the PLO continued.
"Second-largest population increase in England and Wales in over 75 years - mainly fuelled by migration It is the second-largest numerical jump since at least 1949, when comparable data began, and has largely been fuelled by international migration."
Not much concern then for demographic collapse as long as we can continue to bring people into the country.
Trouble is, if you reduced that 690,000 or so to just, well, zero, 10,000, 50,000 or whatever you'd end up looking at significant demographic changes over time.
One interesting thing in this poll is that the youngsters are the least likely to say "don't know". That is very unusual for opinion polling.
Hamas has comprehensively won the social media war, to the extent that it's now commonplace on social media to deny that October 7th ever happened and that the hostages are all just crisis actors etc...
What utter shite.* I haven't seen a single instance of that, and I move in significantly woker circles than you.
The satellite images of Gaza are enough for most people - as demonstrated by the polling. Unless you think Hamas have hacked the satellites?
That rather misses the point - those believing that Oct 7th didn't happen will be believing that the IDF has destroyed most of Gaza.
That doesn't mean that everyone who thinks the IDF are destroying Gaza thinks October 6th didn't happen.
I need to go the YouGov polling for a bit of solace. Phew.
I'm curious to know what boundaries Starmer will acknowledge as comprising the State of Palestine.
I assume he’s not going to. The whole thing is rather nebulous (which I don’t really blame the government for, the whole thing is intractably complex) but then on the other hand I’m not entirely sure what recognising statehood actually means, beyond the gesture.
I'm not clear on this either.
I would expect it perhaps to be effectively a formalisation of the 'recognition of the Right of the Palestinian State to Exist."
Is the Balfour Declaration (all 67 words of it) a useful comparison?
His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balfour_Declaration
THAT did not lead to a formal state being established until 1948.
It would be lovely if they just used that wording (with a couple of adjustments obviously) for their statement
Lets talk about the West Bank and how it could serve as a homeland. Here is the actual amount of land available to the Palestinians in comparison to that available to settlers and the IDF. It's been sliced and diced by roads between settlements that disrupt life there and kettles the population. Gaza is now being prepared for the same slice and dice with the various corridors.
Even the wannabe Nobel Peace Prize winner hasn't the influence to change the facts on the ground. Note where the water for is.
That’s a very misleading chart by combining settlers, military, state land and roads. Presumably if it were an independent homeland the military state and transport infrastructure would belong to the new state not Israel
The areas in white are where the IDF are in control. Those roads and other infrastructure are for the use of the Israeli military and settlers only. Palestinians are not allowed.
Its a slow but inexorable strangulation and encroachment of Area B.
But yes, you are right. For the West Bank to become a viable state +/- Gaza and East Jerusalem the Israeli military and settlers need to go. I can't see that happening.
Not least because the Israeli military and settlers were removed from Gaza in 2005.
For which Israel received neither thanks nor security.
I'm not sure why the Israelis should be thanked for ceasing to occupy someone else's country.
The 'someone else' being at war with Israel and committed to destroying Israel.
And Israel being at war with "someone else" and committed to occupying their country and establishing settlers on it.
Which ended in 2005 when Israel withdrew its military and settlers from Gaza.
Now which side started the current war ? Did Israel attack Gaza or did Gaza attack Israel ?
You would be on more reasonable ground to complain about Israel's behaviour in the West Bank or its treatment of its own Palestinian population than how it acted towards Gaza between 2005 and 2023.
Gaza is part of Palestine, which the Israelis are still occupying.
Yes Hamas started the current war. The argument is about the Israelis' conduct in responding to it.
So the part of Palestine which Israel is occupying didn't attack Israel but the part of Palestine which Israel wasn't occupying did attack Israel.
Do you see why withdrawing from more of Palestine isn't going to be accepted by the Israelis ?
As to how Israel has responded - blockading food supplies, destruction of urban areas, military occupation, ethnic cleansing - how does that differ to what British strategy was to Germany in the world wars ?
Maybe I'm in a minority of one but I don't join the self-righteous condemnation of Israel for doing what we applaud ourselves for doing a few generations back.
The UK did not ethnically cleanse Germany or parts of Germany. Stalin did and the UK opposed that, although was basically impotent to stop it. Broadly, the UK and other western powers recognised the mistakes of Versailles and tried a different approach, one based on helping Germany re-build and bringing Germany into a peaceful relationship with its neighbours through structures like the EU.
When the UK and the other Western powers occupied Germany, we made sure the population was fed.
Military doctrine in the West has long eschewed the widescale bombing of civilians used in WWII.
Indeed, the lessons learnt from the blockade of Germany (which continued until mid 1919, causing many deaths and bitterness) were why we took a different approach to Germany, Austria and Japan post WW2. A highly successful way to entrench democracy and liberal capitalism, turning enemies into friends and partners.
Lets talk about the West Bank and how it could serve as a homeland. Here is the actual amount of land available to the Palestinians in comparison to that available to settlers and the IDF. It's been sliced and diced by roads between settlements that disrupt life there and kettles the population. Gaza is now being prepared for the same slice and dice with the various corridors.
Even the wannabe Nobel Peace Prize winner hasn't the influence to change the facts on the ground. Note where the water for is.
Israel doesn’t want a 2 state solution. The US currently supports Israel.
Nothing else really is of any consequence here.
The Palestinians don't want a 2-state solution either.
Most Palestinians want a 2-state solution. That's the stated aim of the Palestinian Authority.
The PA is not Hamas, who 'run' Gaza.
I'm unsure how the events of October 2023 were meant to bring about a two-state solution.
There is a diversity of Palestinian views. As I said, most Palestinians want a 2-state solution. Palestine was split between the larger West Bank under the Palestinian Authority, seeking a 2-state solution, and the smaller Gaza under Hamas, and even Hamas's position had been in favour of a 2-state solution (as with their 2017 charter). Hamas chose a different path in 2023. Their actions constitute war crimes.
Coming up to the present, Hamas do not run Gaza. The Israeli Defense Forces run Gaza, by and large.
The implication that Labour won the seat at the second attempt partly by being more like Reform on immigration is uncomfortable.
Labour are not in tune with voters on migration, neither are the other main parties.
They don’t have to be like Reform, they just need to act and do stuff rather than just more empty talk.
The problem for Reform is a) they don't have any coherent, workable, legal and above all inexpensive solutions to the "boats" or indeed to the whole immigration question (true, no one else does) and b) the rest of their policy programme is so riddled with inconsistencies and misconceptions it will fall apart quicker than some beautifully cooked roast lamb on a Sunday.
Currently (and they have time), Reform's campaign will disintegrate quicker than the Conservative campaign last year based on what they are saying.
Put them in charge of anything (such as a county council), and you quickly discover a) they haven't got a clue and b) the assumptions and pledges about waste they made to get elected are incorrect.
Lets talk about the West Bank and how it could serve as a homeland. Here is the actual amount of land available to the Palestinians in comparison to that available to settlers and the IDF. It's been sliced and diced by roads between settlements that disrupt life there and kettles the population. Gaza is now being prepared for the same slice and dice with the various corridors.
Even the wannabe Nobel Peace Prize winner hasn't the influence to change the facts on the ground. Note where the water for is.
That’s a very misleading chart by combining settlers, military, state land and roads. Presumably if it were an independent homeland the military state and transport infrastructure would belong to the new state not Israel
The areas in white are where the IDF are in control. Those roads and other infrastructure are for the use of the Israeli military and settlers only. Palestinians are not allowed.
Its a slow but inexorable strangulation and encroachment of Area B.
But yes, you are right. For the West Bank to become a viable state +/- Gaza and East Jerusalem the Israeli military and settlers need to go. I can't see that happening.
Not least because the Israeli military and settlers were removed from Gaza in 2005.
For which Israel received neither thanks nor security.
I'm not sure why the Israelis should be thanked for ceasing to occupy someone else's country.
The 'someone else' being at war with Israel and committed to destroying Israel.
And Israel being at war with "someone else" and committed to occupying their country and establishing settlers on it.
Which ended in 2005 when Israel withdrew its military and settlers from Gaza.
Now which side started the current war ? Did Israel attack Gaza or did Gaza attack Israel ?
You would be on more reasonable ground to complain about Israel's behaviour in the West Bank or its treatment of its own Palestinian population than how it acted towards Gaza between 2005 and 2023.
Gaza is part of Palestine, which the Israelis are still occupying.
Yes Hamas started the current war. The argument is about the Israelis' conduct in responding to it.
So the part of Palestine which Israel is occupying didn't attack Israel but the part of Palestine which Israel wasn't occupying did attack Israel.
Do you see why withdrawing from more of Palestine isn't going to be accepted by the Israelis ?
As to how Israel has responded - blockading food supplies, destruction of urban areas, military occupation, ethnic cleansing - how does that differ to what British strategy was to Germany in the world wars ?
Maybe I'm in a minority of one but I don't join the self-righteous condemnation of Israel for doing what we applaud ourselves for doing a few generations back.
Isn't it because of the horrors of the 2 world wars that we banned mass reprisals, carpet bombing of civilians and starvation as weapons of war?
Easy to virtue signal when you've won lasting peace.
The likes of Ehud Olmert were clearly doing better at achieving lasting peace than Bibi has been.
Lets talk about the West Bank and how it could serve as a homeland. Here is the actual amount of land available to the Palestinians in comparison to that available to settlers and the IDF. It's been sliced and diced by roads between settlements that disrupt life there and kettles the population. Gaza is now being prepared for the same slice and dice with the various corridors.
Even the wannabe Nobel Peace Prize winner hasn't the influence to change the facts on the ground. Note where the water for is.
That’s a very misleading chart by combining settlers, military, state land and roads. Presumably if it were an independent homeland the military state and transport infrastructure would belong to the new state not Israel
The areas in white are where the IDF are in control. Those roads and other infrastructure are for the use of the Israeli military and settlers only. Palestinians are not allowed.
Its a slow but inexorable strangulation and encroachment of Area B.
But yes, you are right. For the West Bank to become a viable state +/- Gaza and East Jerusalem the Israeli military and settlers need to go. I can't see that happening.
Not least because the Israeli military and settlers were removed from Gaza in 2005.
For which Israel received neither thanks nor security.
I'm not sure why the Israelis should be thanked for ceasing to occupy someone else's country.
The 'someone else' being at war with Israel and committed to destroying Israel.
And Israel being at war with "someone else" and committed to occupying their country and establishing settlers on it.
Which ended in 2005 when Israel withdrew its military and settlers from Gaza.
Now which side started the current war ? Did Israel attack Gaza or did Gaza attack Israel ?
You would be on more reasonable ground to complain about Israel's behaviour in the West Bank or its treatment of its own Palestinian population than how it acted towards Gaza between 2005 and 2023.
Gaza is part of Palestine, which the Israelis are still occupying.
Yes Hamas started the current war. The argument is about the Israelis' conduct in responding to it.
So the part of Palestine which Israel is occupying didn't attack Israel but the part of Palestine which Israel wasn't occupying did attack Israel.
Do you see why withdrawing from more of Palestine isn't going to be accepted by the Israelis ?
As to how Israel has responded - blockading food supplies, destruction of urban areas, military occupation, ethnic cleansing - how does that differ to what British strategy was to Germany in the world wars ?
Maybe I'm in a minority of one but I don't join the self-righteous condemnation of Israel for doing what we applaud ourselves for doing a few generations back.
Isn't it because of the horrors of the 2 world wars that we banned mass reprisals, carpet bombing of civilians and starvation as weapons of war?
Did we ? And if we did, did we ever mean it in anything other than self-righteousness ?
You'll remember that we also had/have huge numbers of nuclear weapons ready to do vastly more destruction than happened in either world war.
Countries will fight with whatever means possible if they're in an existential war.
Israel believes it is such a war now just as we did in the world wars.
We've forgotten that and what we did because the wars we've engaged in since have not been existential.
Israel is not in an existential war. Were Israel in an existential war, they wouldn't have opened new fronts in Syria, Iran and Yemen! Israel is militarily dominant and its government is using that dominance to annex territory and delay Netanyahu's criminal trial.
Lets talk about the West Bank and how it could serve as a homeland. Here is the actual amount of land available to the Palestinians in comparison to that available to settlers and the IDF. It's been sliced and diced by roads between settlements that disrupt life there and kettles the population. Gaza is now being prepared for the same slice and dice with the various corridors.
Even the wannabe Nobel Peace Prize winner hasn't the influence to change the facts on the ground. Note where the water for is.
That’s a very misleading chart by combining settlers, military, state land and roads. Presumably if it were an independent homeland the military state and transport infrastructure would belong to the new state not Israel
The areas in white are where the IDF are in control. Those roads and other infrastructure are for the use of the Israeli military and settlers only. Palestinians are not allowed.
Its a slow but inexorable strangulation and encroachment of Area B.
But yes, you are right. For the West Bank to become a viable state +/- Gaza and East Jerusalem the Israeli military and settlers need to go. I can't see that happening.
Not least because the Israeli military and settlers were removed from Gaza in 2005.
For which Israel received neither thanks nor security.
I'm not sure why the Israelis should be thanked for ceasing to occupy someone else's country.
The 'someone else' being at war with Israel and committed to destroying Israel.
And Israel being at war with "someone else" and committed to occupying their country and establishing settlers on it.
Which ended in 2005 when Israel withdrew its military and settlers from Gaza.
Now which side started the current war ? Did Israel attack Gaza or did Gaza attack Israel ?
You would be on more reasonable ground to complain about Israel's behaviour in the West Bank or its treatment of its own Palestinian population than how it acted towards Gaza between 2005 and 2023.
Gaza is part of Palestine, which the Israelis are still occupying.
Yes Hamas started the current war. The argument is about the Israelis' conduct in responding to it.
Yes true.
Potted history:
Israel's view - they left Gaza completely to see if the Palestinians could live peacefully alongside Israel. At the time there were great investment plans (eg for the port) and billions committed to the regeneration of Gaza. Then, on account of the corruption of the PA, the Palestinians voted in Hamas and the rest is history.
Palestinian view - Israel continues to occupy Palestine which comprises Gaza and the West Bank (and arguably the bit in between) and it is only via armed struggle that Israel agreed to leave Gaza and therefore the struggle continues.
That is yer problem right there.
Does the violence cause the occupation or the occupation cause the violence.
But the trouble is that is to look at the crisis in isolation. Hamas is sponsored by Qatar who we gleefully buy gas from (unlike Russia) and are used by Iran as part of their plan to destroy Israel by a thousand cuts.
You know who else sponsored Hamas?
Israel.
Oh gawd we've been through this. Netanyahu hosed money at Hamas because he thought that if they were getting money they wouldn't cause any problems. Not the best political call you might say but it was far from support. It was trying to buy friends. And boy did it not work.
He cynically provided money to Hamas to keep the Palestinians divided between the PLA and Hamas. In this he was successful.
I suspect he also naively ignored the warnings from Israeli Intelligence about the Oct 7th because he though he had Hamas on side. That's one of the reasons he can't allow the war to stop because then there will be a n investigation into this "intelligence failure".
The intelligence failure leading up to October 7th (Hamas was conducting weekly full scale rehearsals for the day itself, for example) were many and included just about everyone involved in the intelligence infrastructure of Israel. Which ultimately includes Netanyahu. Seth Frantzman's book is particularly good on this.
My own theory is that Israel, collectively, didn't want to believe that something like that would happen. Because it would have been too disruptive up and down Israeli society. The only analogy I could think of is when we see an unattended bag. The other day I was in Paris at some tourist place. There was quite obviously an unattended bag (black rucksack on its own in a seating area, no one else around, waited a few minutes, no one came to collect it).
I went up to a gendarme and as best I could told him about it. Then I walked off. And in so doing I ruined that guy's day. Because what were his options. What he should have done is to evacuate the immediate area, put up a cordon, call in the relevant agencies and let them deal with the bag, probably via a robot which would likely disrupt any detonator. What I had little doubt he would do, would be to walk up to the bag, pick it up, shake it, and look inside. He might also have ignored it and hoped that the owner would come back and retrieve it having forgotten it (most likely scenario).
The palaver of having to treat the bag as a likely IED were likely too onerous and disruptive.
Somewhat analagously, Israel just didn't want to go through that huge disruption of taking a Hamas threat from Gaza seriously which would involve the whole of Israeli society or at least a large part of its military. So they ignored it. And they studiously ignored it as well because (according to Frantzman and survivors) there were continuous reports by Israeli OPs on the ground warning them of this activity (all in those OPs were killed early on Oct 7th).
One interesting thing in this poll is that the youngsters are the least likely to say "don't know". That is very unusual for opinion polling.
Gaza is a big thing for young voters. It was a major part of why neither of my boys would vote Labour last year.
Too late for Starmer to get them onside. As ever he does too little too late.
The extent to which Israel/Palestine dominates left discourse in this country when other foreign conflicts with far greater death tolls & distribution of misery are completely ignored has always depressed me. Why this conflict in particular?
For the umpteenth time, because Israel wants to be accounted as part of the civilised(sic) West. The Rapid Support Forces aren’t demanding to be on Eurovision and the Lord’s Resistance Army don’t have a seat at the UN.
Despite all the piteous cries of ‘what about Sudan’ I’ve yet to see much actual discussion of it here at all, let alone interesting or insightful comments.
One interesting thing in this poll is that the youngsters are the least likely to say "don't know". That is very unusual for opinion polling.
Gaza is a big thing for young voters. It was a major part of why neither of my boys would vote Labour last year.
Too late for Starmer to get them onside. As ever he does too little too late.
The extent to which Israel/Palestine dominates left discourse in this country when other foreign conflicts with far greater death tolls & distribution of misery are completely ignored has always depressed me. Why this conflict in particular?
That is a good question without clear answers. Possible partial reasons include Britain's historical connection to the area (compared to, say, DRC); the greater ease with which Western journalists can report on this conflict (compared to, say, DRC); and the degree to which the Left sees Israel/Palestine as a colonial conflict between colonisers and colonised (compared to, say, DRC).
A Balfour declaration for our times. A homeland for the Palestinian people.
Yes, thank god for Britain and France finally stepping up to the plate to sort out borders and states hashed together by the stupid, er, British and French.
To be fair, trying to draw borders in a land where ethnic/religious nationalism haven’t been the deciding factors for centuries, then suddenly are the deciding factor is pretty much.
A nasty thought - the main reason that Europe has stable borders is mad ethnic cleansing, first one way, then the other, followed by half a century of two nuclear armed super states telling everyone “that’s how it is”.
The unpleasant truth is that ethnic cleansing works, when it comes to settling borders.
If I was in a dispute with you, killing you would work when it comes to settling that dispute. It would still be wrong. We should not countenance crimes against humanity like ethnic cleansing and genocide. There are alternatives possible.
We accepted ethnic cleansing in Nagorno-Karabakh in September 2023.
In December 2023, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell stated: "Look for example at what has happened in Azerbaijan and Armenia. A long-frozen conflict that suddenly has been – I would not say solved – but decisively determined by a military intervention that, in one week, made 150,000 people move. In one week. Like this. 150,000 people had to abandon their houses and run. And the international community regretted [it], expressed concern, sent humanitarian support, but it happened [with] the use of force."
"Second-largest population increase in England and Wales in over 75 years - mainly fuelled by migration It is the second-largest numerical jump since at least 1949, when comparable data began, and has largely been fuelled by international migration."
Not much concern then for demographic collapse as long as we can continue to bring people into the country.
Trouble is, if you reduced that 690,000 or so to just, well, zero, 10,000, 50,000 or whatever you'd end up looking at significant demographic changes over time.
That's not logical. How can importing 1.5 million over two years (mid-22 to mid-24) doesn't cause a significant demographic change, but importing 50,000 in a future year does?
Lets talk about the West Bank and how it could serve as a homeland. Here is the actual amount of land available to the Palestinians in comparison to that available to settlers and the IDF. It's been sliced and diced by roads between settlements that disrupt life there and kettles the population. Gaza is now being prepared for the same slice and dice with the various corridors.
Even the wannabe Nobel Peace Prize winner hasn't the influence to change the facts on the ground. Note where the water for is.
That’s a very misleading chart by combining settlers, military, state land and roads. Presumably if it were an independent homeland the military state and transport infrastructure would belong to the new state not Israel
The areas in white are where the IDF are in control. Those roads and other infrastructure are for the use of the Israeli military and settlers only. Palestinians are not allowed.
Its a slow but inexorable strangulation and encroachment of Area B.
But yes, you are right. For the West Bank to become a viable state +/- Gaza and East Jerusalem the Israeli military and settlers need to go. I can't see that happening.
Not least because the Israeli military and settlers were removed from Gaza in 2005.
For which Israel received neither thanks nor security.
I'm not sure why the Israelis should be thanked for ceasing to occupy someone else's country.
The 'someone else' being at war with Israel and committed to destroying Israel.
And Israel being at war with "someone else" and committed to occupying their country and establishing settlers on it.
Which ended in 2005 when Israel withdrew its military and settlers from Gaza.
Now which side started the current war ? Did Israel attack Gaza or did Gaza attack Israel ?
You would be on more reasonable ground to complain about Israel's behaviour in the West Bank or its treatment of its own Palestinian population than how it acted towards Gaza between 2005 and 2023.
Gaza is part of Palestine, which the Israelis are still occupying.
Yes Hamas started the current war. The argument is about the Israelis' conduct in responding to it.
So the part of Palestine which Israel is occupying didn't attack Israel but the part of Palestine which Israel wasn't occupying did attack Israel.
Do you see why withdrawing from more of Palestine isn't going to be accepted by the Israelis ?
As to how Israel has responded - blockading food supplies, destruction of urban areas, military occupation, ethnic cleansing - how does that differ to what British strategy was to Germany in the world wars ?
Maybe I'm in a minority of one but I don't join the self-righteous condemnation of Israel for doing what we applaud ourselves for doing a few generations back.
Isn't it because of the horrors of the 2 world wars that we banned mass reprisals, carpet bombing of civilians and starvation as weapons of war?
Did we ? And if we did, did we ever mean it in anything other than self-righteousness ?
You'll remember that we also had/have huge numbers of nuclear weapons ready to do vastly more destruction than happened in either world war.
Countries will fight with whatever means possible if they're in an existential war.
Israel believes it is such a war now just as we did in the world wars.
We've forgotten that and what we did because the wars we've engaged in since have not been existential.
Israel is not in an existential war. Were Israel in an existential war, they wouldn't have opened new fronts in Syria, Iran and Yemen! Israel is militarily dominant and its government is using that dominance to annex territory and delay Netanyahu's criminal trial.
Israel has certainly stepmommed the never fight a war on two (or more) fronts concept, apart from fucking up the concept of long term peaceful security for Israel.
Comments
Too late for Starmer to get them onside. As ever he does too little too late.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S05gEklAL5E
It might have been the 'swinging sixties' but life was pretty drab back then.
Taking 40 year periods, is the staggering change greater than happened previously? Say between 1880 and 1920, or 1935 and 1975?
I'm unsure how the events of October 2023 were meant to bring about a two-state solution.
Reform voter: I really don’t care what happens in Gaza.
Tory voter: You cannot watch the footage of all those kids being starved and not be moved, it’s like Russia’s killing of Ukrainians, if you care about that, then you should care about Gaza.
Reform voter: I don’t care about Ukraine either.
We're no sounding board for what "Britain" is thinking than we are for what Germany or Denmark are thinking.
There's more gammon here than at most butchers probably as well.
The geographic profile is possibly more representative - we seem to be all over the place on so many levels.
Someone once compared PB to a cliche pub bar - as good an analogy as any.
Right now in Gaza and Israel the ones in charge have not reached that point.
Call it virtue signalling if you like, but what were formerly considered reasonable acts of war are now war crimes.
You'll remember that we also had/have huge numbers of nuclear weapons ready to do vastly more destruction than happened in either world war.
Countries will fight with whatever means possible if they're in an existential war.
Israel believes it is such a war now just as we did in the world wars.
We've forgotten that and what we did because the wars we've engaged in since have not been existential.
https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/isr/israel/military-spending-defense-budget
The new leftist party has had over 500,000 "supporters" online in a week, which potentially makes it a significant force if they don't mess up. I know several Labour people who are tempted.
And yet - we've had the Hungarian Uprising and the Yugoslav Civil war.
The latter showed Europe hadn't overgrown the barbarity of earlier times - concentration camps, massacres, ethnic cleansing etc.
Shying away from that suggests fear or being ashamed.
I feel neither. It is what it is. Trying to say it hasn’t happened or it’s nothing, really, is to hand an open goal to the nutters.
I would expect it perhaps to be effectively a formalisation of the 'recognition of the Right of the Palestinian State to Exist."
Is the Balfour Declaration (all 67 words of it) a useful comparison?
His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balfour_Declaration
THAT did not lead to a formal state being established until 1948.
The satellite images of Gaza are enough for most people - as demonstrated by the polling. Unless you think Hamas have hacked the satellites?
In December 2023, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell stated: "Look for example at what has happened in Azerbaijan and Armenia. A long-frozen conflict that suddenly has been – I would not say solved – but decisively determined by a military intervention that, in one week, made 150,000 people move. In one week. Like this. 150,000 people had to abandon their houses and run. And the international community regretted [it], expressed concern, sent humanitarian support, but it happened [with] the use of force."
https://labourlist.org/2025/07/stevenage-woman-news-conor-mcgrath-council-election-vote/?source=email-labour-list&link_id=13&can_id=b64611f4630a0fb4878f4059d69caa69&email_referrer=email_2830085&email_subject=how-labour-lost-and-won-stevenage-woman
The implication that Labour won the seat at the second attempt partly by being more like Reform on immigration is uncomfortable.
I notice people talking about how the parties of NI eventually decided they wanted peace.
Er.... the IRA realised it was losing.
What they do or don’t want is irrelevant as they have no power here.
Or your wokeness prevents you from looking at the places where this occurs, ie social media (or are you on that holier-than-thou, Blue sky social or whatever it is).
Take Glasto, for example. I missed the Israeli flags waving amongst the rainbows. Ponder what would have happened had some poor soul taken one of those puppies to the Pyramid stage.
https://youtu.be/CZ1m8bvgBVI
As you say, it's a lot about something new and "different" and people being able to project their hopes and desires for change onto that. I'm far more confident about the "old" parties surviving all this than many - I suspect in 20 years time it will still be Conservatives, Labour and Liberal Democrats with the Nationalists.
They don’t have to be like Reform, they just need to act and do stuff rather than just more empty talk.
https://x.com/Timodc/status/1950375706573132092
Senate confirms Emil Bove to appeals court despite whistleblower complaints, controversy
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5426437-senate-confirms-emil-bove-appeals-court/
Israel is seen as white/strong/the oppressor. Ranged against white, strong oppressors are the full spectrum of "weak" groups globally. For such groups the struggle against the strong is a critical mission and this is a prime example of that.
Who tf knows who the weak or strong side is in Somalia, or Yemen or wherever, whereas in Israel it's pretty clear. Imperialist oppressors vs the downtrodden. And hence the groups who think they are also being oppressed line up with Israel's enemy, no matter the nature of that enemy. And hence Queers for Palestine, etc.
Muslim lives don't matter when its other Muslims killing them.
These two aspects are both in effect with the lack of interest in the Sudanese civil war.
Israel.
In reality right and left are not so far apart. I think for a lot of the left what Reform actually is is how they think Tories are. So they expect Tories to be leaping on the Reform bandwagon shouting 'At last! A party I agree with".
Number of Nationalist MPs in 1992: 4
https://x.com/AdamWagner1/status/1950483143959491051
We are concerned that the UK’s proposal risks delaying the release of the hostages. This is because the UK has said that it will recognise a Palestinian state unless Israel agrees a ceasefire. But the risk is that Hamas will continue to refuse to a ceasefire because if it agrees to one this would make U.K. recognition less likely.
How would you compare that to Danish politics (which iirc is one your areas of knowledge) ?
The occupation ended, the violence increased.
Would we prefer the West Bank to be more like Gaza?
Would a normal Israeli voter even see that as a serious question?
I need to go the YouGov polling for a bit of solace. Phew.
STATEMENT FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
30 July 2025
British hostage families are deeply concerned that hostages have been made a bargaining chip by the UK in its Palestinian State declaration statement
Since October 2023, we have represented the 7 families of the 10 hostages held by Hamas who are either British or have very close British ties, including British citizens Emily Damari (released in February 2025) and Nadav Popplewell (murdered in June 2024). We continue to represent a number of families including those of remaining hostages Avinatan Or, who is presumed alive and whose mother is British, and Yossi Sharabi, whose body is held by Hamas.
For almost two years, the British hostage families have encouraged the U.K. to use any leverage it has to help secure the release of their loved ones. They have sat in 10 Downing Street with successive Prime Ministers and Foreign Secretaries who have looked them in the eyes and promised the U.K. will do everything in its power to secure the immediate and unconditional release of their loved ones, whose detention is unambiguously a war crime.
We are concerned that the UK’s proposal risks delaying the release of the hostages. This is because the UK has said that it will recognise a Palestinian state unless Israel agrees a ceasefire. But the risk is that Hamas will continue to refuse to a ceasefire because if it agrees to one this would make U.K. recognition less likely.
The families are therefore deeply concerned that the U.K.’s approach risks disincentivising Hamas from releasing the hostages. This risks doing exactly what the Prime Minister’s statement says the U.K. will not do: reward Hamas for its heinous and illegal acts.
The British hostage families take no position on the wider politics. Their concern is to bring their loved ones home, and time is fast running out. They therefore implore the Prime Minister to provide clarity and confirm, unambiguously, that Hamas will not be rewarded and that the U.K. will not take any substantive steps until all the hostages are free.
Adam Rose
Adam Wagner KC
Lawyers for British hostage families
https://x.com/adamwagner1/status/1950483143959491051?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
I haven't even seen that on X - though there's a great deal of anti-semitic shit there.
In this he was successful.
I suspect he also naively ignored the warnings from Israeli Intelligence about the Oct 7th because he though he had Hamas on side. That's one of the reasons he can't allow the war to stop because then there will be a n investigation into this "intelligence failure".
As you say, there are big differences within the UK between different people's societies and culture. London is not like rural Scotland. Camden is not even like Stamford Hill or Bethnal Green. Rural Scotland on the islands is different to rural Scotland in the north-east (Gaelic versus Doric, for example). Bolton has a different culture to Oxford, etc. etc. etc. We have commonalities and we have differences.
I would argue that many of those differences between different parts of the UK were larger a hundred years ago. Modern IT and communication technology and transport infrastructure, changes in the role of the state in education, and other factors have made the experiences of a child growing up in the Orkneys and one in Stepney more similar than they used to be.
It is the second-largest numerical jump since at least 1949, when comparable data began, and has largely been fuelled by international migration."
https://news.sky.com/story/second-largest-population-increase-in-england-and-wales-in-over-75-years-mainly-fuelled-by-migration-13403904
When the UK and the other Western powers occupied Germany, we made sure the population was fed.
Military doctrine in the West has long eschewed the widescale bombing of civilians used in WWII.
I have no idea if these people that Max has seen are genuine or just bots trolling him with clickbait.
Trouble is, if you reduced that 690,000 or so to just, well, zero, 10,000, 50,000 or whatever you'd end up looking at significant demographic changes over time.
Coming up to the present, Hamas do not run Gaza. The Israeli Defense Forces run Gaza, by and large.
Currently (and they have time), Reform's campaign will disintegrate quicker than the Conservative campaign last year based on what they are saying.
Put them in charge of anything (such as a county council), and you quickly discover a) they haven't got a clue and b) the assumptions and pledges about waste they made to get elected are incorrect.
My own theory is that Israel, collectively, didn't want to believe that something like that would happen. Because it would have been too disruptive up and down Israeli society. The only analogy I could think of is when we see an unattended bag. The other day I was in Paris at some tourist place. There was quite obviously an unattended bag (black rucksack on its own in a seating area, no one else around, waited a few minutes, no one came to collect it).
I went up to a gendarme and as best I could told him about it. Then I walked off. And in so doing I ruined that guy's day. Because what were his options. What he should have done is to evacuate the immediate area, put up a cordon, call in the relevant agencies and let them deal with the bag, probably via a robot which would likely disrupt any detonator. What I had little doubt he would do, would be to walk up to the bag, pick it up, shake it, and look inside. He might also have ignored it and hoped that the owner would come back and retrieve it having forgotten it (most likely scenario).
The palaver of having to treat the bag as a likely IED were likely too onerous and disruptive.
Somewhat analagously, Israel just didn't want to go through that huge disruption of taking a Hamas threat from Gaza seriously which would involve the whole of Israeli society or at least a large part of its military. So they ignored it. And they studiously ignored it as well because (according to Frantzman and survivors) there were continuous reports by Israeli OPs on the ground warning them of this activity (all in those OPs were killed early on Oct 7th).
Despite all the piteous cries of ‘what about Sudan’ I’ve yet to see much actual discussion of it here at all, let alone interesting or insightful comments.