The Palestinians were the ones having land taken, to use your German Poland example should Poland have ceded territory to Germany and would they only have themselves to blame if they didn't and ended up losing even more land?
No they weren't.
You are going to have to explain to me your thinking as I have seen a few angles on this...
There is no country called Palestine!
So much like London if you some people came along and set up a country and replaced the people living there there we would have no problems as London isn't a country.
The British controlled the land (or some slightly more articulate take)!
So much like if Britain were for some reason to fall into civil unrest in the future and we end up under the control of the Chinese if they wanted to set up a country for people in the Middle East in England and Wales but gave us Scotland and N. Ireland we'd all be very happy as we were kicked out of house and home as we now have a share of Scotland and N. Ireland....
Or another take....?
If there is (was) no country called Palestine what was the Palestine Mandate all about?
The row over Austin outlines the dilemma facing the party’s Corbynsceptic MPs.
Corbynsceptic MPs recognize that if you tell another member of Parliament in your own party, that they are a “fucking bastard” and “wanker” in front of lots of witnesses, then you can reasonably expect to be the subject of disciplinary action.
But they cant politically resist supporting him because of their realisation that Corbyn has them all on ignore.
Same with Hodge completely unacceptable language and she cries victim when called out
Yes. Blame the victims of racism for getting angry about it. It's utterly shameful what Corbynism has done to Labour. Turned a good, caring party into a poisonous sewer where racism and bullying of dissenters is fine, but any calling out of that is clamped down upon. Appalling - history will not look kindly on those who've done this.
You think that if you tell another member of Parliament in your own party, that they are a “fucking bastard” and “wanker” in front of lots of witnesses, then you can reasonably expect to be the subject of disciplinary action?
You think if you scream in your Party leaders face that he is a fucking antisemite and racist in front of witnesses and then repeat the allegation and pretend to be the victim then you can reasonably expect to be the subject of disciplinary action?
Call me old fashioned
But of course Saint Jez is irreproachable, even when he's caught propagating conspiracy theories about Israel on Iranian TV. Not anti-Semitic at all, no Siree.
Do you call your colleagues fucking bastards, wankers fucking anti semites and racists?
Is that acceptable behaviour in the workplace?
My colleagues aren't wankers and anti-Semites.
To be serious for a second yes, I have had the odd sweary row with my boss, which has generally resulted in us talking it through without firing off disciplinary letters. And to be honest if those rows were about potential racial discrimination within the company - that would be the primary complaint to be investigated not whether one of us had used blue language when arguing about it.
I also don’t have that much sympathy with moderate Labour MPs. Although I would say moderates have been more guilty of ceding ground to the right than the far left in the last two decades or so.
I also don’t think the ‘Hard Brexit’ tendency can be described as fringe as far as the Tories are concerned - strong euroscepticism has been a significant, not fringe part of the party since the 1980s. It has dogged pretty much every single Conservative leader since Thatcher.
The only possible solution (possible, but not likely) that I can see is some kind of grand bargain involving massive economic aid to the neighbouring Arab countries in order to offer the Palestinians a new home, incorporating some of the West Bank.
Given the entrenched positions on both sides, it’s a very slim chance (and even slimmer under a Trump presidency), but it could possibly be sold on the basis of compensation for lost land were it sufficiently generous.
Your solution has the merit of being sensible, but there is a flaw. The neighbour in question for a number of reasons would have to be Jordan. The majority of Jordan's population is in fact of Palestinian origin or descent (70% according to the Jerusalem post: https://m.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/A-Palestinian-Jordanian-confederation) However, Jordan itself faces economic problems and water shortages that would make absorbing more refugees almost impossible. Money might sort the former - hard to see it resolving the latter in an all but landlocked state.
I also don’t have that much sympathy with moderate Labour MPs. Although I would say moderates have been more guilty of ceding ground to the right than the far left in the last two decades or so.
I also don’t think the ‘Hard Brexit’ tendency can be described as fringe as far as the Tories are concerned - strong euroscepticism has been a significant, not fringe part of the party since the 1980s. It has dogged pretty much every single Conservative leader since Thatcher.
There is a difference between Euroscepticism, and Brexitism which is a much more recent phenomenon.
The only possible solution (possible, but not likely) that I can see is some kind of grand bargain involving massive economic aid to the neighbouring Arab countries in order to offer the Palestinians a new home, incorporating some of the West Bank.
Given the entrenched positions on both sides, it’s a very slim chance (and even slimmer under a Trump presidency), but it could possibly be sold on the basis of compensation for lost land were it sufficiently generous.
Your solution has the merit of being sensible, but there is a flaw. The neighbour in question for a number of reasons would have to be Jordan. The majority of Jordan's population is in fact of Palestinian origin or descent (70% according to the Jerusalem post: https://m.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/A-Palestinian-Jordanian-confederation) However, Jordan itself faces economic problems and water shortages that would make absorbing more refugees almost impossible. Money might sort the former - hard to see it resolving the latter in an all but landlocked state.
Genuine question. What is the genetic difference between a Jordamian and a Palestinian? Or the cultural difference?
I also don’t have that much sympathy with moderate Labour MPs. Although I would say moderates have been more guilty of ceding ground to the right than the far left in the last two decades or so.
I also don’t think the ‘Hard Brexit’ tendency can be described as fringe as far as the Tories are concerned - strong euroscepticism has been a significant, not fringe part of the party since the 1980s. It has dogged pretty much every single Conservative leader since Thatcher.
There is a difference between Euroscepticism, and Brexitism which is a much more recent phenomenon.
The aim that many of these Tory eurosceptics have had for years was Brexit though, and from there a Hard Brexit.
The only possible solution (possible, but not likely) that I can see is some kind of grand bargain involving massive economic aid to the neighbouring Arab countries in order to offer the Palestinians a new home, incorporating some of the West Bank.
Given the entrenched positions on both sides, it’s a very slim chance (and even slimmer under a Trump presidency), but it could possibly be sold on the basis of compensation for lost land were it sufficiently generous.
Your solution has the merit of being sensible, but there is a flaw. The neighbour in question for a number of reasons would have to be Jordan. The majority of Jordan's population is in fact of Palestinian origin or descent (70% according to the Jerusalem post: https://m.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/A-Palestinian-Jordanian-confederation) However, Jordan itself faces economic problems and water shortages that would make absorbing more refugees almost impossible. Money might sort the former - hard to see it resolving the latter in an all but landlocked state.
Genuine question. What is the genetic difference between a Jordamian and a Palestinian? Or the cultural difference?
Genetic, none. 70% of Jordanians are considers Palestinians.
Culturally, one group has been occupied by Israel for fifty years and one hasn't.
The unseasonable weather is unduly affecting the perspicacity of some PB'ers today, it seems?
Israel and Palestine, for those days when Brexit just isn’t quite divisive enough!
Actually with maybe two exceptions I think it's been a civilised and intelligent discussion. It has also shown (I hope!) how you can quite legitimately criticise the Israeli government without being anti-Semitic.
The problem for Labour is too many, I have to say including Corbyn, haven't quite grasped that rather simple skill yet. I'm quite prepared to accuse Israel of policies in Gaza that breach international law, but I don't need to make common cause with Holocaust deniers to do so.
Indeed. It’s actually a great credit to the denizens of PB that such discussions can happen in relative calm, compared to almost anywhere else on the internet.
The Palestinians were the ones having land taken, to use your German Poland example should Poland have ceded territory to Germany and would they only have themselves to blame if they didn't and ended up losing even more land?
No they weren't.
You are going to have to explain to me your thinking as I have seen a few angles on this...
There is no country called Palestine!
So much like London if you some people came along and set up a country and replaced the people living there there we would have no problems as London isn't a country.
The British controlled the land (or some slightly more articulate take)!
So much like if Britain were for some reason to fall into civil unrest in the future and we end up under the control of the Chinese if they wanted to set up a country for people in the Middle East in England and Wales but gave us Scotland and N. Ireland we'd all be very happy as we were kicked out of house and home as we now have a share of Scotland and N. Ireland....
Or another take....?
If there is (was) no country called Palestine what was the Palestine Mandate all about?
TBH it is a line I have had sometimes off people to (I guess) justify the redistribution of the land. Happy to be corrected here but from memory the British basically acquired the territory from the Ottoman Empire and I guess Palestine was an area/region within that territory rather than known as a separate entity like a country. Sort of like the Midlands is to Britain now so Palestine was to the Ottoman Empire, a region rather than a country. Which I guess is the basis of it not being a country but I always felt it was a weak argument in terms of taking the land whether the area was a country or not.
The unseasonable weather is unduly affecting the perspicacity of some PB'ers today, it seems?
Israel and Palestine, for those days when Brexit just isn’t quite divisive enough!
Actually with maybe two exceptions I think it's been a civilised and intelligent discussion. It has also shown (I hope!) how you can quite legitimately criticise the Israeli government without being anti-Semitic.
The problem for Labour is too many, I have to say including Corbyn, haven't quite grasped that rather simple skill yet. I'm quite prepared to accuse Israel of policies in Gaza that breach international law, but I don't need to make common cause with Holocaust deniers to do so.
This is spot on. The most frustrating thing about the 'criticism of Israel is not anti-Semitism' crowd is that lots of us can and do criticise Israel all the time - and are horrified at policies that seem to have given up hope of peace. What they really mean is that they think extreme forms of criticism, which most would recognise as being based on prejudice, hatred, and unsupportable but widespread conspiracy theories that almost inevitably are anti-Semitic, shouldn't be off limits as at heart those guilty of it are on the right 'side' in opposing the existence of Israel in any plausible form. Corbyn of course is the prime example of this attitude given how many times he's spoken up for, alongside and even praised or agreed with people who when their views are examined in the cold light of day rather than at an event where the idea Israel is evil is taken as read, are anti-Semitic.
I also don’t have that much sympathy with moderate Labour MPs. Although I would say moderates have been more guilty of ceding ground to the right than the far left in the last two decades or so.
I also don’t think the ‘Hard Brexit’ tendency can be described as fringe as far as the Tories are concerned - strong euroscepticism has been a significant, not fringe part of the party since the 1980s. It has dogged pretty much every single Conservative leader since Thatcher.
There is a difference between Euroscepticism, and Brexitism which is a much more recent phenomenon.
I think it's more of a gateway drug. You start by thinking that there's too much QMV and before you know it you think we should blackmail Ireland into leaving the customs union.
It is a conspiracy theory because it is made up rubbish not based on fact, the far left, the left and Corbyn supporters are no more anti semitic than other groups.
Anti-semitism is a thing across all politics, there does seem to be some kind of strange centrist thought process these days that claims all racism must exist in the crazy people to the right and left of them whilst the centre is racism free. Racism is everywhere.
_____________________________________________ In 2015, 16% of Labour voters agreed with the statement that ‘Jews hold too much power in the media’, compared to 11% in 2017.
This compares with 17% of Conservative voters agreeing with the statement in 2015, with a 2% reduction to 15% in 2017.
In 2015, 11% of Labour voters agreed with the statement that ‘Jews talk about the Holocaust too much in order to get sympathy’, declining to 8% in 2017.
This decline from Labour voters is in stark contrast to Tory voters who actually saw a rise in their supporters agreeing in this statement – with 12% agreeing with it in 2015 compared to 13% in 2017. _______________________________________________
Here are the links to the data sets from yougov so you can look for yourself
The Palestinians were the ones having land taken, to use your German Poland example should Poland have ceded territory to Germany and would they only have themselves to blame if they didn't and ended up losing even more land?
No they weren't.
You are going to have to explain to me your thinking as I have seen a few angles on this...
There is no country called Palestine!
So much like London if you some people came along and set up a country and replaced the people living there there we would have no problems as London isn't a country.
The British controlled the land (or some slightly more articulate take)!
So much like if Britain were for some reason to fall into civil unrest in the future and we end up under the control of the Chinese if they wanted to set up a country for people in the Middle East in England and Wales but gave us Scotland and N. Ireland we'd all be very happy as we were kicked out of house and home as we now have a share of Scotland and N. Ireland....
Or another take....?
The Palestinians weren't the only people living there, there was also a substantial Jewish population too. Hence the idea to partition the land between the Jews and the Palestinians. Although a lot of Jews moved there post-WWII there was already a significant population there pre-WWII. The idea that the land was all Palestinian is a complete fallacy.
Saying Israel took land off the Palestinians pre-1948 is no more accurate than saying Pakistan took land off India.
The analogy for Britain would be if Britain had not been an independent nation for a long time and was under the control of the Chinese and then China proposed creating two new nations - England and Scotland. But England wanted the entire land for itself so attacked Scotland upon its creation, only for Scotland to win the war and annex Northumberland.
The unseasonable weather is unduly affecting the perspicacity of some PB'ers today, it seems?
Israel and Palestine, for those days when Brexit just isn’t quite divisive enough!
Actually with maybe two exceptions I think it's been a civilised and intelligent discussion. It has also shown (I hope!) how you can quite legitimately criticise the Israeli government without being anti-Semitic.
The problem for Labour is too many, I have to say including Corbyn, haven't quite grasped that rather simple skill yet. I'm quite prepared to accuse Israel of policies in Gaza that breach international law, but I don't need to make common cause with Holocaust deniers to do so.
This is spot on. The most frustrating thing about the 'criticism of Israel is not anti-Semitism' crowd is that lots of us can and do criticise Israel all the time - and are horrified at policies that seem to have given up hope of peace. What they really mean is that they think extreme forms of criticism, which most would recognise as being based on prejudice, hatred, and unsupportable but widespread conspiracy theories that almost inevitably are anti-Semitic, shouldn't be off limits as at heart those guilty of it are on the right 'side' in opposing the existence of Israel in any plausible form. Corbyn of course is the prime example of this attitude given how many times he's spoken up for, alongside and even praised or agreed with people who when their views are examined in the cold light of day rather than at an event where the idea Israel is evil is taken as read, are anti-Semitic.
Interesting that we adopted those IHRA rules then, given the anti semitic prejudice is so obvious as you claim then there shouldn't be any problem clearing the hurdle of anti semitic intent. Also if your upset about Corbyn you are going to be devastated when I tell you about a couple of fellas who were big in the 40's that our Prime ministers Chamberlain and Churchill met.
The Palestinians were the ones having land taken, to use your German Poland example should Poland have ceded territory to Germany and would they only have themselves to blame if they didn't and ended up losing even more land?
No they weren't.
You are going to have to explain to me your thinking as I have seen a few angles on this...
There is no country called Palestine!
So much like London if you some people came along and set up a country and replaced the people living there there we would have no problems as London isn't a country.
The British controlled the land (or some slightly more articulate take)!
So much like if Britain were for some reason to fall into civil unrest in the future and we end up under the control of the Chinese if they wanted to set up a country for people in the Middle East in England and Wales but gave us Scotland and N. Ireland we'd all be very happy as we were kicked out of house and home as we now have a share of Scotland and N. Ireland....
Or another take....?
If there is (was) no country called Palestine what was the Palestine Mandate all about?
TBH it is a line I have had sometimes off people to (I guess) justify the redistribution of the land. Happy to be corrected here but from memory the British basically acquired the territory from the Ottoman Empire and I guess Palestine was an area/region within that territory rather than known as a separate entity like a country. Sort of like the Midlands is to Britain now so Palestine was to the Ottoman Empire, a region rather than a country. Which I guess is the basis of it not being a country but I always felt it was a weak argument in terms of taking the land whether the area was a country or not.
More like Wales to Britain. Palestine was a province of the Roman Empire, formed after the Bar Kochba revolt, and conquered by the Muslims in the 7th century. Its only brief period of fully independent existence as a more-or-less unified state was, ironically, from 1099 to 1187 as the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem. But it was always recognised as a distinct area.
The Palestinians were the ones having land taken, to use your German Poland example should Poland have ceded territory to Germany and would they only have themselves to blame if they didn't and ended up losing even more land?
No they weren't.
You are going to have to explain to me your thinking as I have seen a few angles on this...
There is no country called Palestine!
So much like London if you some people came along and set up a country and replaced the people living there there we would have no problems as London isn't a country.
The British controlled the land (or some slightly more articulate take)!
So much like if Britain were for some reason to fall into civil unrest in the future and we end up under the control of the Chinese if they wanted to set up a country for people in the Middle East in England and Wales but gave us Scotland and N. Ireland we'd all be very happy as we were kicked out of house and home as we now have a share of Scotland and N. Ireland....
Or another take....?
The Palestinians weren't the only people living there, there was also a substantial Jewish population too. Hence the idea to partition the land between the Jews and the Palestinians. Although a lot of Jews moved there post-WWII there was already a significant population there pre-WWII. The idea that the land was all Palestinian is a complete fallacy.
Saying Israel took land off the Palestinians pre-1948 is no more accurate than saying Pakistan took land off India.
The analogy for Britain would be if Britain had not been an independent nation for a long time and was under the control of the Chinese and then China proposed creating two new nations - England and Scotland. But England wanted the entire land for itself so attacked Scotland upon its creation, only for Scotland to win the war and annex Northumberland.
The mistake is to assume that Jews are interlopers and Arabs are the original inhabitants of Palestine.
Both groups have a good claim to a part of the land.
Racism (or more specifically anti-semitism which I see as the same thing) is everywhere."
But that can't be right. The Jezzarites call the Tories 'racists'. Surely, they're not guilty of rank hypocrisy as well as racism?
I'm sure Labour called Tories racist before Jezza was even much of a thing in British politics (still a backbencher) also I'm pretty sure the accusations have been flying far more Labours way since Corbyn took over than the other direction, it was one of the things that was brought up before he even took over.
Also if you are referring to all the Brexit stuff that does seem to be some on the left but to be honest the backlash to it seems to be strongest from the more centrist types rather than the left...
Although we are quite far apart ideologically so we might have different views on who is left etc.
The Palestinians were the ones having land taken, to use your German Poland example should Poland have ceded territory to Germany and would they only have themselves to blame if they didn't and ended up losing even more land?
No they weren't.
You are going to have to explain to me your thinking as I have seen a few angles on this...
There is no country called Palestine!
So much like London if you some people came along and set up a country and replaced the people living there there we would have no problems as London isn't a country.
The British controlled the land (or some slightly more articulate take)!
So much like if Britain were for some reason to fall into civil unrest in the future and we end up under the control of the Chinese if they wanted to set up a country for people in the Middle East in England and Wales but gave us Scotland and N. Ireland we'd all be very happy as we were kicked out of house and home as we now have a share of Scotland and N. Ireland....
Or another take....?
The Palestinians weren't the only people living there, there was also a substantial Jewish population too. Hence the idea to partition the land between the Jews and the Palestinians. Although a lot of Jews moved there post-WWII there was already a significant population there pre-WWII. The idea that the land was all Palestinian is a complete fallacy.
Saying Israel took land off the Palestinians pre-1948 is no more accurate than saying Pakistan took land off India.
The analogy for Britain would be if Britain had not been an independent nation for a long time and was under the control of the Chinese and then China proposed creating two new nations - England and Scotland. But England wanted the entire land for itself so attacked Scotland upon its creation, only for Scotland to win the war and annex Northumberland.
The mistake is to assume that Jews are interlopers and Arabs are the original inhabitants of Palestine.
Both groups have a good claim to a part of the land.
Indeed and both groups were given a part of the land in the 1948 partition.
The problem is that one group wanted to deny the other group their own land and their supporters in the likes of Jezziah still cling to the myth that only one group had that land.
The land Israel was awarded in the partition in 1948 was majority Jewish already. It wasn't a case of giving the Jews that land and them then migrating there afterwards.
The Palestinians were the ones having land taken, to use your German Poland example should Poland have ceded territory to Germany and would they only have themselves to blame if they didn't and ended up losing even more land?
No they weren't.
You are going to have to explain to me your thinking as I have seen a few angles on this...
There is no country called Palestine!
So much like London if you some people came along and set up a country and replaced the people living there there we would have no problems as London isn't a country.
The British controlled the land (or some slightly more articulate take)!
So much like if Britain were for some reason to fall into civil unrest in the future and we end up under the control of the Chinese if they wanted to set up a country for people in the Middle East in England and Wales but gave us Scotland and N. Ireland we'd all be very happy as we were kicked out of house and home as we now have a share of Scotland and N. Ireland....
Or another take....?
The Palestinians weren't the only people living there, there was also a substantial Jewish population too. Hence the idea to partition the land between the Jews and the Palestinians. Although a lot of Jews moved there post-WWII there was already a significant population there pre-WWII. The idea that the land was all Palestinian is a complete fallacy.
Saying Israel took land off the Palestinians pre-1948 is no more accurate than saying Pakistan took land off India.
The analogy for Britain would be if Britain had not been an independent nation for a long time and was under the control of the Chinese and then China proposed creating two new nations - England and Scotland. But England wanted the entire land for itself so attacked Scotland upon its creation, only for Scotland to win the war and annex Northumberland.
The Jewish population living there in 1890 was even smaller than the Christian population. Claiming people who were mostly immigrants as part of the claim on the land is based on a complete lack of understanding the history of the place.
There were numbers in the low tens of thousands who had been living there for a very long time if they had been given a country I doubt there'd be any complaints. The millions of immigrants who hadn't lived in the place and turned up didn't make them magically entitled to the land of people living there.
I don't imagine the British would be too happy if a massive wave of Muslim immigration came to Britain, which we objected to but had no power to stop and then that was used as justification to carve Britain up and gave our land away to these foreign people.
The Palestinians were the ones having land taken, to use your German Poland example should Poland have ceded territory to Germany and would they only have themselves to blame if they didn't and ended up losing even more land?
No they weren't.
You are going to have to explain to me your thinking as I have seen a few angles on this...
There is no country called Palestine!
So much like London if you some people came along and set up a country and replaced the people living there there we would have no problems as London isn't a country.
The British controlled the land (or some slightly more articulate take)!
So much like if Britain were for some reason to fall into civil unrest in the future and we end up under the control of the Chinese if they wanted to set up a country for people in the Middle East in England and Wales but gave us Scotland and N. Ireland we'd all be very happy as we were kicked out of house and home as we now have a share of Scotland and N. Ireland....
Or another take....?
The Palestinians weren't the only people living there, there was also a substantial Jewish population too. Hence the idea to partition the land between the Jews and the Palestinians. Although a lot of Jews moved there post-WWII there was already a significant population there pre-WWII. The idea that the land was all Palestinian is a complete fallacy.
Saying Israel took land off the Palestinians pre-1948 is no more accurate than saying Pakistan took land off India.
The analogy for Britain would be if Britain had not been an independent nation for a long time and was under the control of the Chinese and then China proposed creating two new nations - England and Scotland. But England wanted the entire land for itself so attacked Scotland upon its creation, only for Scotland to win the war and annex Northumberland.
The mistake is to assume that Jews are interlopers and Arabs are the original inhabitants of Palestine.
Both groups have a good claim to a part of the land.
The small Jewish population living there for centuries had as a good a claim as the larger Christian population and the overwhelming majority Muslim population who had lived there centuries for their appropriate share.
The millions of recent arrivals from abroad don't automatically have justification on other peoples land.
Mostly writing the F1 thingummyjig, but how far back are taking this historical pissing contest? Are we getting grumpy about the Crusades? Or the Muslim invasion in the 7th century? Or the Jewish War of the 1st century AD?
I also don’t have that much sympathy with moderate Labour MPs. Although I would say moderates have been more guilty of ceding ground to the right than the far left in the last two decades or so.
I also don’t think the ‘Hard Brexit’ tendency can be described as fringe as far as the Tories are concerned - strong euroscepticism has been a significant, not fringe part of the party since the 1980s. It has dogged pretty much every single Conservative leader since Thatcher.
There is a difference between Euroscepticism, and Brexitism which is a much more recent phenomenon.
How else do you think euroscepticism was going to manifest itself if not "Brexitism" (urgh!) if the EU would not engage with Cameron's renegotiation in any meaningful sense?
I don’t know why I remember it, but long years ago I read 'They Died With Their Boots Clean (Heinemann 1941)’ by the late Gerald Kersh, in which he described his time as a Coldsrteam Guards recruit at the beginning of WWII. In it the Trained Soldier, responsible for the recruits, tells of his time serving in Palestine, ‘peacekeeping' in the 30’s, and hostility between the Jews and Arabs at that time.
The Palestinians were the ones having land taken, to use your German Poland example should Poland have ceded territory to Germany and would they only have themselves to blame if they didn't and ended up losing even more land?
No they weren't.
You are going to have to explain to me your thinking as I have seen a few angles on this...
There is no country called Palestine!
So much like London if you some people came along and set up a country and replaced the people living there there we would have no problems as London isn't a country.
The British controlled the land (or some slightly more articulate take)!
So much like if Britain were for some reason to fall into civil unrest in the future and we end up under the control of the Chinese if they wanted to set up a country for people in the Middle East in England and Wales but gave us Scotland and N. Ireland we'd all be very happy as we were kicked out of house and home as we now have a share of Scotland and N. Ireland....
Or another take....?
If there is (was) no country called Palestine what was the Palestine Mandate all about?
TBH it is a line I have had sometimes off people to (I guess) justify the redistribution of the land. Happy to be corrected here but from memory the British basically acquired the territory from the Ottoman Empire and I guess Palestine was an area/region within that territory rather than known as a separate entity like a country. Sort of like the Midlands is to Britain now so Palestine was to the Ottoman Empire, a region rather than a country. Which I guess is the basis of it not being a country but I always felt it was a weak argument in terms of taking the land whether the area was a country or not.
More like Wales to Britain. Palestine was a province of the Roman Empire, formed after the Bar Kochba revolt, and conquered by the Muslims in the 7th century. Its only brief period of fully independent existence as a more-or-less unified state was, ironically, from 1099 to 1187 as the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem. But it was always recognised as a distinct area.
I was more just going for a random region within Britain rather than an appropriate one but I did go against Wales incase it was too distinct. Interesting anyway, the little I know going way back is mainly little bits from computer games, like Rome and Medieval Total War.
Looks like the Hungarian weather forecast is about right, it’s going to be a hot and sunny race. With one hour to go it’s 35° with the track over 50°C.
Looking at bets (all these on Betfair) Hamilton to win at 2.52 looks good given that he starts on pole, Vettel is also odds against at 2.9. No SC at 2.32 also looks good, there weren’t any in the dry support races. Verstappen is a lay for a podium at 3.75, as is Ricciardo for top 6 at 1.54. To lead the first lap, Bottas at 6.4 is better value than Hamilton at 1.6.
The Palestinians weren't the only people living there, there was also a substantial Jewish population too. Hence the idea to partition the land between the Jews and the Palestinians. Although a lot of Jews moved there post-WWII there was already a significant population there pre-WWII. The idea that the land was all Palestinian is a complete fallacy.
Saying Israel took land off the Palestinians pre-1948 is no more accurate than saying Pakistan took land off India.
The analogy for Britain would be if Britain had not been an independent nation for a long time and was under the control of the Chinese and then China proposed creating two new nations - England and Scotland. But England wanted the entire land for itself so attacked Scotland upon its creation, only for Scotland to win the war and annex Northumberland.
The Jewish population living there in 1890 was even smaller than the Christian population. Claiming people who were mostly immigrants as part of the claim on the land is based on a complete lack of understanding the history of the place.
There were numbers in the low tens of thousands who had been living there for a very long time if they had been given a country I doubt there'd be any complaints. The millions of immigrants who hadn't lived in the place and turned up didn't make them magically entitled to the land of people living there.
I don't imagine the British would be too happy if a massive wave of Muslim immigration came to Britain, which we objected to but had no power to stop and then that was used as justification to carve Britain up and gave our land away to these foreign people.
Millions? There wasn't a million of anyone living there in 1890!
The entirety of Palestine (which includes parts of modern day Jordan) only had barely over half a million people total in 1890. The "tens of thousands" Jewish population in 1890 was a higher proportion of the total than the Scottish population is of the UK. Would you deny the Scots?
I also don’t have that much sympathy with moderate Labour MPs. Although I would say moderates have been more guilty of ceding ground to the right than the far left in the last two decades or so.
I also don’t think the ‘Hard Brexit’ tendency can be described as fringe as far as the Tories are concerned - strong euroscepticism has been a significant, not fringe part of the party since the 1980s. It has dogged pretty much every single Conservative leader since Thatcher.
There is a difference between Euroscepticism, and Brexitism which is a much more recent phenomenon.
How else do you think euroscepticism was going to manifest itself if not "Brexitism" (urgh!) if the EU would not engage with Cameron's renegotiation in any meaningful sense?
Even many of its adherents would recognise that it was never supposed to get this far. As it was before it sustained their need to gnaw away at a perpetual grievance without doing the rest of us any significant had,.
I also don’t have that much sympathy with moderate Labour MPs. Although I would say moderates have been more guilty of ceding ground to the right than the far left in the last two decades or so.
I also don’t think the ‘Hard Brexit’ tendency can be described as fringe as far as the Tories are concerned - strong euroscepticism has been a significant, not fringe part of the party since the 1980s. It has dogged pretty much every single Conservative leader since Thatcher.
There is a difference between Euroscepticism, and Brexitism which is a much more recent phenomenon.
How else do you think euroscepticism was going to manifest itself if not "Brexitism" (urgh!) if the EU would not engage with Cameron's renegotiation in any meaningful sense?
I am aware that the Brexiteers are now strong, but am just stating a fact. Tories advocating leaving the EU, as opposed to merely opposing further centralisation, are a recent phenomenon.
Racism (or more specifically anti-semitism which I see as the same thing) is everywhere.
We're talking about members, not voters.
There is very little anti-semitism among mainstream social democrats (eg the vast majority of Labour MP's).
There is huge amount of anti-semitism among the extreme left, and many of these people have joined Labour since 2015.
Exactly. We're not talking about Labour voters - or even actually members. Probably not even the majority of Corbyn supporters - many of whom are attracted to the idea of a more left-wing, activist Labour Party and have little interest or inclination in the various hard left traditions, their intellectual underpinnings, or even beyond a vague sense Palestinians are hard done by much of an interest in Israel/Palestine.
What's well documented with oodles of evidence from Marx's writings, through Stalin's purges to the obsession with anti-Zionism as anti-Imperialism is the persistence on the extreme left of a strain of anti-Semitism that sees Jews as suspect counter-revolutionary capitalists.
It's not a conspiracy theory, but has been studied and documented repeatedly - and if you don't believe me, then perhaps you'll believe your hero Jeremy who said in March:
"“The idea of Jewish bankers and capitalists exploiting the workers of the world is an old antisemitic conspiracy theory. This was long ago, and rightly, described as ‘the socialism of fools’. I am sorry for not having studied the content of the mural more closely before wrongly questioning its removal in 2012.”
As I said, the question is not whether it's there - anyone who's spent any time in the company of people on the far left knows it is - but whether Corbyn and his beliefs are too closely intertwined with it to ever be separated enough to tackle it properly.
I also don’t have that much sympathy with moderate Labour MPs. Although I would say moderates have been more guilty of ceding ground to the right than the far left in the last two decades or so.
I also don’t think the ‘Hard Brexit’ tendency can be described as fringe as far as the Tories are concerned - strong euroscepticism has been a significant, not fringe part of the party since the 1980s. It has dogged pretty much every single Conservative leader since Thatcher.
There is a difference between Euroscepticism, and Brexitism which is a much more recent phenomenon.
How else do you think euroscepticism was going to manifest itself if not "Brexitism" (urgh!) if the EU would not engage with Cameron's renegotiation in any meaningful sense?
Even many of its adherents would recognise that it was never supposed to get this far. As it was before it sustained their need to gnaw away at a perpetual grievance without doing the rest of us any significant had,.
It would not have gotten this far had the EU dealt with our legitimate concerns when given the opportunity. Or if our own leaders had dealt with legitimate concerns.
Instead like a tumour ignored it has grown and grown until drastic action is now necessary which could have been avoided if dealt with earlier. But the easy options are now no longer available.
I also don’t have that much sympathy with moderate Labour MPs. Although I would say moderates have been more guilty of ceding ground to the right than the far left in the last two decades or so.
I also don’t think the ‘Hard Brexit’ tendency can be described as fringe as far as the Tories are concerned - strong euroscepticism has been a significant, not fringe part of the party since the 1980s. It has dogged pretty much every single Conservative leader since Thatcher.
There is a difference between Euroscepticism, and Brexitism which is a much more recent phenomenon.
How else do you think euroscepticism was going to manifest itself if not "Brexitism" (urgh!) if the EU would not engage with Cameron's renegotiation in any meaningful sense?
That's a question for Cameron. He should be held to account for it, the twat.
I also don’t have that much sympathy with moderate Labour MPs. Although I would say moderates have been more guilty of ceding ground to the right than the far left in the last two decades or so.
I also don’t think the ‘Hard Brexit’ tendency can be described as fringe as far as the Tories are concerned - strong euroscepticism has been a significant, not fringe part of the party since the 1980s. It has dogged pretty much every single Conservative leader since Thatcher.
There is a difference between Euroscepticism, and Brexitism which is a much more recent phenomenon.
How else do you think euroscepticism was going to manifest itself if not "Brexitism" (urgh!) if the EU would not engage with Cameron's renegotiation in any meaningful sense?
I am aware that the Brexiteers are now strong, but am just stating a fact. Tories advocating leaving the EU, as opposed to merely opposing further centralisation, are a recent phenomenon.
The turning point for many was Lisbon and Cameron's failed renegotiation. The two combined showed that the EU ratchet was inexorably turning and that mooted reforms we wanted were no longer possible.
I voted leave fully expecting the establishment to deliver a dripping wet Brexit while telling us we would be regaining control, etc.
Now ironically it seems that the degree of parliamentary oversight noisily and seemingly hypocritically demanded by the remainers has ironically rendered unworkable a further watered down version of the Chequers agreement which is the type of deal May and the civil servants would have been happy making at the very last minute in the absence of such oversight (and the EU negotiators not being so withering in public).
Is no deal a real runner now? I'm loath to get my hopes up.
I also don’t have that much sympathy with moderate Labour MPs. Although I would say moderates have been more guilty of ceding ground to the right than the far left in the last two decades or so.
I also don’t think the ‘Hard Brexit’ tendency can be described as fringe as far as the Tories are concerned - strong euroscepticism has been a significant, not fringe part of the party since the 1980s. It has dogged pretty much every single Conservative leader since Thatcher.
There is a difference between Euroscepticism, and Brexitism which is a much more recent phenomenon.
How else do you think euroscepticism was going to manifest itself if not "Brexitism" (urgh!) if the EU would not engage with Cameron's renegotiation in any meaningful sense?
That's a question for Cameron. He should be held to account for it, the twat.
It isn't Cameron's fault his renegotiation failed. It is his fault he pretended it hadn't but he had no choice by that stage of he wanted us to remain.
I don’t know why I remember it, but long years ago I read 'They Died With Their Boots Clean (Heinemann 1941)’ by the late Gerald Kersh, in which he described his time as a Coldsrteam Guards recruit at the beginning of WWII. In it the Trained Soldier, responsible for the recruits, tells of his time serving in Palestine, ‘peacekeeping' in the 30’s, and hostility between the Jews and Arabs at that time.
IIRC (could be another book I read 40 years ago ...) Sterling's book on the formation of the Long-Range Desert Group, the forerunner of the SAS, also talks of his time in the Mandate between the World Wars, and of the growing tensions caused by well-funded Jewish immigrants buying up the best lands.
I also don’t have that much sympathy with moderate Labour MPs. Although I would say moderates have been more guilty of ceding ground to the right than the far left in the last two decades or so.
I also don’t think the ‘Hard Brexit’ tendency can be described as fringe as far as the Tories are concerned - strong euroscepticism has been a significant, not fringe part of the party since the 1980s. It has dogged pretty much every single Conservative leader since Thatcher.
There is a difference between Euroscepticism, and Brexitism which is a much more recent phenomenon.
How else do you think euroscepticism was going to manifest itself if not "Brexitism" (urgh!) if the EU would not engage with Cameron's renegotiation in any meaningful sense?
That's a question for Cameron. He should be held to account for it, the twat.
It isn't Cameron's fault his renegotiation failed. It is his fault he pretended it hadn't but he had no choice by that stage of he wanted us to remain.
It is his fault. He gave the impression he would be able to bring back things that could only happen by renegotiating the treaties, which he didn't attempt to do, and wouldn't have got anywhere even if he had the patience for it.
The Palestinians weren't the only people living there, there was also a substantial Jewish population too. Hence the idea to partition the land between the Jews and the Palestinians. Although a lot of Jews moved there post-WWII there was already a significant population there pre-WWII. The idea that the land was all Palestinian is a complete fallacy.
Saying Israel took land off the Palestinians pre-1948 is no more accurate than saying Pakistan took land off India.
The analogy for Britain would be if Britain had not been an independent nation for a long time and was under the control of the Chinese and then China proposed creating two new nations - England and Scotland. But England wanted the entire land for itself so attacked Scotland upon its creation, only for Scotland to win the war and annex Northumberland.
The Jewish population living there in 1890 was even smaller than the Christian population. Claiming people who were mostly immigrants as part of the claim on the land is based on a complete lack of understanding the history of the place.
There were numbers in the low tens of thousands who had been living there for a very long time if they had been given a country I doubt there'd be any complaints. The millions of immigrants who hadn't lived in the place and turned up didn't make them magically entitled to the land of people living there.
I don't imagine the British would be too happy if a massive wave of Muslim immigration came to Britain, which we objected to but had no power to stop and then that was used as justification to carve Britain up and gave our land away to these foreign people.
Millions? There wasn't a million of anyone living there in 1890!
The entirety of Palestine (which includes parts of modern day Jordan) only had barely over half a million people total in 1890. The "tens of thousands" Jewish population in 1890 was a higher proportion of the total than the Scottish population is of the UK. Would you deny the Scots?
The entire world was less populated then, but Palestine was about 80% Muslim at that time. A similar proportion to the rest of the Ottoman empire, which had major Greek, Assyrian Christian, and Armenian populations across what is now Turkey, Syria and Lebanon.
Whether the Jewish population of the land is present from the 19th Century, or from recent decades, they have the right to be there. Even the post independence settlers have been there as long as the Windrush generation have been in the UK, or Hispanic Americans have been in the USA. I am not comfortable with the idea that they have fewer rights than those with a longer lineage.
The Palestinians weren't the only people living there, there was also a substantial Jewish population too. Hence the idea to partition the land between the Jews and the Palestinians. Although a lot of Jews moved there post-WWII there was already a significant population there pre-WWII. The idea that the land was all Palestinian is a complete fallacy.
Saying Israel took land off the Palestinians pre-1948 is no more accurate than saying Pakistan took land off India.
The analogy for Britain would be if Britain had not been an independent nation for a long time and was under the control of the Chinese and then China proposed creating two new nations - England and Scotland. But England wanted the entire land for itself so attacked Scotland upon its creation, only for Scotland to win the war and annex Northumberland.
The Jewish population living there in 1890 was even smaller than the Christian population. Claiming people who were mostly immigrants as part of the claim on the land is based on a complete lack of understanding the history of the place.
There were numbers in the low tens of thousands who had been living there for a very long time if they had been given a country I doubt there'd be any complaints. The millions of immigrants who hadn't lived in the place and turned up didn't make them magically entitled to the land of people living there.
I don't imagine the British would be too happy if a massive wave of Muslim immigration came to Britain, which we objected to but had no power to stop and then that was used as justification to carve Britain up and gave our land away to these foreign people.
Millions? There wasn't a million of anyone living there in 1890!
The entirety of Palestine (which includes parts of modern day Jordan) only had barely over half a million people total in 1890. The "tens of thousands" Jewish population in 1890 was a higher proportion of the total than the Scottish population is of the UK. Would you deny the Scots?
Where in my post did it say millions living there in 1890?
The country was eventually set up post 45, 55 years later.
Edit: Although using millions would still be inaccurate then...
1800 Jewish population 7,000 2.55% 1890 Jewish population 43,000 8.08%
1800 Christian population 22,000 8% 1890 Christian population 57,000 10.71%
1800 Muslim population 246,000 89.45% 1890 Muslim population 432,000 81.2%
A good portion of Palestinian land where they had lived for centuries was given away to recent foreign immigrants, far more than the Jewish 8.08% share that had lived there since 1890. You shouldn't forget the Christian population that despite some small Jewish immigration at that point is still the largest minority.
I also don’t have that much sympathy with moderate Labour MPs. Although I would say moderates have been more guilty of ceding ground to the right than the far left in the last two decades or so.
I also don’t think the ‘Hard Brexit’ tendency can be described as fringe as far as the Tories are concerned - strong euroscepticism has been a significant, not fringe part of the party since the 1980s. It has dogged pretty much every single Conservative leader since Thatcher.
There is a difference between Euroscepticism, and Brexitism which is a much more recent phenomenon.
How else do you think euroscepticism was going to manifest itself if not "Brexitism" (urgh!) if the EU would not engage with Cameron's renegotiation in any meaningful sense?
I am aware that the Brexiteers are now strong, but am just stating a fact. Tories advocating leaving the EU, as opposed to merely opposing further centralisation, are a recent phenomenon.
The turning point for many was Lisbon and Cameron's failed renegotiation. The two combined showed that the EU ratchet was inexorably turning and that mooted reforms we wanted were no longer possible.
I accept that timescale, so you must agree that Brexitism is a recent phenomenon as Euroscepticism morphed into Euro-rejectionism.
The Palestinians were the ones having land taken, to use your German Poland example should Poland have ceded territory to Germany and would they only have themselves to blame if they didn't and ended up losing even more land?
No they weren't.
You are going to have to explain to me your thinking as I have seen a few angles on this...
There is no country called Palestine!
So much like London if you some people came along and set up a country and replaced the people living there there we would have no problems as London isn't a country.
The British controlled the land (or some slightly more articulate take)!
So much like if Britain were for some reason to fall into civil unrest in the future and we end up under the control of the Chinese if they wanted to set up a country for people in the Middle East in England and Wales but gave us Scotland and N. Ireland we'd all be very happy as we were kicked out of house and home as we now have a share of Scotland and N. Ireland....
Or another take....?
The Palestinians weren't the only people living there, there was also a substantial Jewish population too. Hence the idea to partition the land between the Jews and the Palestinians. Although a lot of Jews moved there post-WWII there was already a significant population there pre-WWII. The idea that the land was all Palestinian is a complete fallacy.
Saying Israel took land off the Palestinians pre-1948 is no more accurate than saying Pakistan took land off India.
The analogy for Britain would be if Britain had not been an independent nation for a long time and was under the control of the Chinese and then China proposed creating two new nations - England and Scotland. But England wanted the entire land for itself so attacked Scotland upon its creation, only for Scotland to win the war and annex Northumberland.
The mistake is to assume that Jews are interlopers and Arabs are the original inhabitants of Palestine.
Both groups have a good claim to a part of the land.
The Jews were the third largest religious community from the 10th / 11th century. They were never the majority since after the 4th century. In 1890, the Christians outnumbered them easily. As late as 1947, the Jewish population was about half of the Muslim population.
I also don’t have that much sympathy with moderate Labour MPs. Although I would say moderates have been more guilty of ceding ground to the right than the far left in the last two decades or so.
I also don’t think the ‘Hard Brexit’ tendency can be described as fringe as far as the Tories are concerned - strong euroscepticism has been a significant, not fringe part of the party since the 1980s. It has dogged pretty much every single Conservative leader since Thatcher.
There is a difference between Euroscepticism, and Brexitism which is a much more recent phenomenon.
How else do you think euroscepticism was going to manifest itself if not "Brexitism" (urgh!) if the EU would not engage with Cameron's renegotiation in any meaningful sense?
I am aware that the Brexiteers are now strong, but am just stating a fact. Tories advocating leaving the EU, as opposed to merely opposing further centralisation, are a recent phenomenon.
The turning point for many was Lisbon and Cameron's failed renegotiation. The two combined showed that the EU ratchet was inexorably turning and that mooted reforms we wanted were no longer possible.
It was the turning point for me too. After Cameron's renegotiation I was resigned to the fact that the UK would never join the Euro. Thanks to Brexit, it's back on the table again. Three cheers for the Brexiteers!
The Palestinians were the ones having land taken, to use your German Poland example should Poland have ceded territory to Germany and would they only have themselves to blame if they didn't and ended up losing even more land?
No they weren't.
You are going to have to explain to me your thinking as I have seen a few angles on this...
There is no country called Palestine!
So much like London if you some people came along and set up a country and replaced the people living there there we would have no problems as London isn't a country.
The British controlled the land (or some slightly more articulate take)!
So much like if Britain were for some reason to fall into civil unrest in the future and we end up under the control of the Chinese if they wanted to set up a country for people in the Middle East in England and Wales but gave us Scotland and N. Ireland we'd all be very happy as we were kicked out of house and home as we now have a share of Scotland and N. Ireland....
Or another take....?
The Palestinians weren't the only people living there, there was also a substantial Jewish population too. Hence the idea to partition the land between the Jews and the Palestinians. Although a lot of Jews moved there post-WWII there was already a significant population there pre-WWII. The idea that the land was all Palestinian is a complete fallacy.
Saying Israel took land off the Palestinians pre-1948 is no more accurate than saying Pakistan took land off India.
The analogy for Britain would be if Britain had not been an independent nation for a long time and was under the control of the Chinese and then China proposed creating two new nations - England and Scotland. But England wanted the entire land for itself so attacked Scotland upon its creation, only for Scotland to win the war and annex Northumberland.
The mistake is to assume that Jews are interlopers and Arabs are the original inhabitants of Palestine.
Both groups have a good claim to a part of the land.
The Jews were the third largest religious community from the 10th / 11th century. They were never the majority since after the 4th century. In 1890, the Christians outnumbered them easily. As late as 1947, the Jewish population was about half of the Muslim population.
In fact, Christians have a good claim too. Hannan Ashrawi, Suha Arafat, George Habash are all Christians.
More like Wales to Britain. Palestine was a province of the Roman Empire, formed after the Bar Kochba revolt, and conquered by the Muslims in the 7th century. Its only brief period of fully independent existence as a more-or-less unified state was, ironically, from 1099 to 1187 as the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem. But it was always recognised as a distinct area.
I was more just going for a random region within Britain rather than an appropriate one but I did go against Wales incase it was too distinct. Interesting anyway, the little I know going way back is mainly little bits from computer games, like Rome and Medieval Total War.
Wales is an area and a language, and a language which varies strongly among the regions at that. With the exception of 1055-63, and more dubiously 1405-1408, it has never been a united independent country. The parallel seems to me (as an unabashed Welshman) a fair one.
One thing to remember about the Palestinian situation is that under the partition plan the land was not 'given away'. The Jewish areas contained lands the Jews had bought and developed, perfectly legally, and often to the considerable economic benefit of their Palestinian neighbours.
Mostly writing the F1 thingummyjig, but how far back are taking this historical pissing contest? Are we getting grumpy about the Crusades? Or the Muslim invasion in the 7th century? Or the Jewish War of the 1st century AD?
The neighbours might get more of a hearing for their complaints of Israeli excess if only they'd ever stopped to apologise for what Merneptah got up to. And as for Sennacherib, well...
Millions? There wasn't a million of anyone living there in 1890!
The entirety of Palestine (which includes parts of modern day Jordan) only had barely over half a million people total in 1890. The "tens of thousands" Jewish population in 1890 was a higher proportion of the total than the Scottish population is of the UK. Would you deny the Scots?
The entire world was less populated then, but Palestine was about 80% Muslim at that time. A similar proportion to the rest of the Ottoman empire, which had major Greek, Assyrian Christian, and Armenian populations across what is now Turkey, Syria and Lebanon.
Whether the Jewish population of the land is present from the 19th Century, or from recent decades, they have the right to be there. Even the post independence settlers have been there as long as the Windrush generation have been in the UK, or Hispanic Americans have been in the USA. I am not comfortable with the idea that they have fewer rights than those with a longer lineage.
I don't approve of kicking them out of the middle east or disbanding the country but it is important as people try to pin the original blame on the Palestinians and argue that them fighting then and continuing to fight is what justifies Israel's actions as they are 'defending' themselves. When you look at the history though you cannot blame the Palestinians for defending their land when anyone would, any people, British, American etc. would have done the same.
Once you understand what was done to the Palestinians you can begin to understand why we have to deal with people like Hamas now and why ignoring the situation and hoping it improves so we can talk to the Palestinian Ghandi instead is less realistic than going in with our unicorn army to take out both sides and solve the problem through force.
The unseasonable weather is unduly affecting the perspicacity of some PB'ers today, it seems?
Israel and Palestine, for those days when Brexit just isn’t quite divisive enough!
The
This
As regards the IHRA stuff. There are two big problems with the specific changes and a wider one of confidence. The first is changing the example of dual loyalties from being 'anti-Semitic' to 'wrong'. It's one of the most common and hurtful anti-Semitic tropes - and one that would obviously cause problems for Labour if a disciplinary matter given how often its Jewish MPs are accused of it by those who are implacably anti-Israel.
Then the problem of intent. Intent is rarely provable or even present in all but the most extreme racist incidents. In fact, the greatest change brought about by the Macpherson report was that you no longer had to prove intent but the result.
Instead it said "processes, attitudes, and behaviour, which amount to discrimination through unwitting prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness, and racist stereotyping, which disadvantages minority ethnic people" constituted institutional racism.
It's vital because now you can hold a police chief to account for ignoring racism within the ranks when siding with his officers (perhaps for non-racist reasons) with the effect that the force operates racist policies. It's troubling in the Labour code firstly because it hugely raises the bar - a lot of those spouting hateful stuff fully believe they're morally unimpeachable 'anti-racists', and secondly because it provides a rather large loophole for any disciplinary tribunal to let someone off if they are so inclined.
Which brings us to confidence. People are right to say the IHRA definition and examples are not chiselled into stone for all eternity - but there's not the trust in Labour to mark its own homework, especially when the alterations made look suspiciously like they are designed to ease the party's problems rather than come down hard on the issue. Political parties are bad enough policing themselves before we even get to Labour's factional problems and the specifics of anti-Semitism on the left.
The Palestinians weren't the only people living there, there was also a substantial Jewish population too. Hence the idea to partition the land between the Jews and the Palestinians. Although a lot of Jews moved there post-WWII there was already a significant population there pre-WWII. The idea that the land was all Palestinian is a complete fallacy.
Saying Israel took land off the Palestinians pre-1948 is no more accurate than saying Pakistan took land off India.
.
The Jewish population living there in 1890 was even smaller than the Christian population. Claiming people who were mostly immigrants as part of the claim on the land is based on a complete lack of understanding the history of the place.
There were numbers in the low tens of thousands who had been living there for a very long time if they had been given a country I doubt there'd be any complaints. The millions of immigrants who hadn't lived in the place and turned up didn't make them magically entitled to the land of people living there.
I don't imagine the British would be too happy if a massive wave of Muslim immigration came to Britain, which we objected to but had no power to stop and then that was used as justification to carve Britain up and gave our land away to these foreign people.
Millions? There wasn't a million of anyone living there in 1890!
The entirety of Palestine (which includes parts of modern day Jordan) only had barely over half a million people total in 1890. The "tens of thousands" Jewish population in 1890 was a higher proportion of the total than the Scottish population is of the UK. Would you deny the Scots?
The entire world was less populated then, but Palestine was about 80% Muslim at that time. A similar proportion to the rest of the Ottoman empire, which had major Greek, Assyrian Christian, and Armenian populations across what is now Turkey, Syria and Lebanon.
Whether the Jewish population of the land is present from the 19th Century, or from recent decades, they have the right to be there. Even the post independence settlers have been there as long as the Windrush generation have been in the UK, or Hispanic Americans have been in the USA. I am not comfortable with the idea that they have fewer rights than those with a longer lineage.
No one is suggesting, least of all me, that the European or even recent Russians should be kicked out or Israel should not be recognised.
Even though the 1947 mandate was totally unjust [ and the Palestinians never agreed to it ], Israel keeps on expanding and taking land which belongs to others. It uses force disproportionately. And the people who are resisting are called terrorists. Why were the French resistance not called terrorists ?
More like Wales to Britain. Palestine was a province of the Roman Empire, formed after the Bar Kochba revolt, and conquered by the Muslims in the 7th century. Its only brief period of fully independent existence as a more-or-less unified state was, ironically, from 1099 to 1187 as the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem. But it was always recognised as a distinct area.
I was more just going for a random region within Britain rather than an appropriate one but I did go against Wales incase it was too distinct. Interesting anyway, the little I know going way back is mainly little bits from computer games, like Rome and Medieval Total War.
Wales is an area and a language, and a language which varies strongly among the regions at that. With the exception of 1055-63, and more dubiously 1405-1408, it has never been a united independent country. The parallel seems to me (as an unabashed Welshman) a fair one.
One thing to remember about the Palestinian situation is that under the partition plan the land was not 'given away'. The Jewish areas contained lands the Jews had bought and developed, perfectly legally, and often to the considerable economic benefit of their Palestinian neighbours.
Yeah some of the land was bought, unfortunately for some local Palestinians they were tenants for absentee landlords with their homes and the land they'd work sold from under them. Whilst there is some justification there you could understand why in Britain say, especially if you took it back to when many were poorer and renting rather than owning their own property, there would probably be anger and a fight back if the place they lived was sold from underneath to a foreign people to set up a country even if it was legally bought from the owners of the land.
It could be called given away in a country sense but not an ownership sense (for the parts that were bought)
Millions? There wasn't a million of anyone living there in 1890!
The entirety of Palestine (which includes parts of modern day Jordan) only had barely over half a million people total in 1890. The "tens of thousands" Jewish population in 1890 was a higher proportion of the total than the Scottish population is of the UK. Would you deny the Scots?
The entire world was less populated then, but Palestine was about 80% Muslim at that time. A similar proportion to the rest of the Ottoman empire, which had major Greek, Assyrian Christian, and Armenian populations across what is now Turkey, Syria and Lebanon.
Whether the Jewish population of the land is present from the 19th Century, or from recent decades, they have the right to be there. Even the post independence settlers have been there as long as the Windrush generation have been in the UK, or Hispanic Americans have been in the USA. I am not comfortable with the idea that they have fewer rights than those with a longer lineage.
I don't approve of kicking them out of the middle east or disbanding the country but it is important as people try to pin the original blame on the Palestinians and argue that them fighting then and continuing to fight is what justifies Israel's actions as they are 'defending' themselves. When you look at the history though you cannot blame the Palestinians for defending their land when anyone would, any people, British, American etc. would have done the same.
Once you understand what was done to the Palestinians you can begin to understand why we have to deal with people like Hamas now and why ignoring the situation and hoping it improves so we can talk to the Palestinian Ghandi instead is less realistic than going in with our unicorn army to take out both sides and solve the problem through force.
I'd believe you more if you showed any concern for the populations disinherited of land (and often their lives) in the other great (in fact, greater) forced population movements before, during, and after 1968. Some not a million miles away from Palestine.
The world was an absolute mess, and region more so. As an example, the decline and fall of the Ottoman Empire led to some utterly great evils.
Things were 'done' to those populations as well, whether (now) Indian, Greek, Turkish, Pakistani, or any of the others. It doesn't make what happened in Palestine right, but it does make it far from unique.
Where in my post did it say millions living there in 1890?
The country was eventually set up post 45, 55 years later.
Edit: Although using millions would still be inaccurate then...
1800 Jewish population 7,000 2.55% 1890 Jewish population 43,000 8.08%
1800 Christian population 22,000 8% 1890 Christian population 57,000 10.71%
1800 Muslim population 246,000 89.45% 1890 Muslim population 432,000 81.2%
A good portion of Palestinian land where they had lived for centuries was given away to recent foreign immigrants, far more than the Jewish 8.08% share that had lived there since 1890. You shouldn't forget the Christian population that despite some small Jewish immigration at that point is still the largest minority.
It is these peoples land that was given away.
8% of the population is a higher share of the population than Scotland has. Would you deny the Scots rights?
Though again you forget that it includes Arab land that was to become Transjordan in 1920. The Jewish population of the land that was divided in 1948 was thus higher even in 1890.
Considering that Transjordan was spun off in 1920 try looking at the 1920 demographics excluding Transjordan.
The Palestinians were the ones having land taken, to use your German Poland example should Poland have ceded territory to Germany and would they only have themselves to blame if they didn't and ended up losing even more land?
No they weren't.
You are going to have to explain to me your thinking as I have seen a few angles on this...
There is no country called Palestine!
So much like London if you some people came along and set up a country and replaced the people living there there we would have no problems as London isn't a country.
The British controlled the land (or some slightly more articulate take)!
So much like if Britain were for some reason to fall into civil unrest in the future and we end up under the control of the Chinese if they wanted to set up a country for people in the Middle East in England and Wales but gave us Scotland and N. Ireland we'd all be very happy as we were kicked out of house and home as we now have a share of Scotland and N. Ireland....
Or another take....?
The Palestinians weren't the only people living there, there was also a substantial Jewish population too. Hence the idea to partition the land between the Jews and the Palestinians. Although a lot of Jews moved there post-WWII there was already a significant population there pre-WWII. The idea that the land was all Palestinian is a complete fallacy.
Saying Israel took land off the Palestinians pre-1948 is no more accurate than saying Pakistan took land off India.
The analogy for Britain would be if Britain had not been an independent nation for a long time and was under the control of the Chinese and then China proposed creating two new nations - England and Scotland. But England wanted the entire land for itself so attacked Scotland upon its creation, only for Scotland to win the war and annex Northumberland.
The mistake is to assume that Jews are interlopers and Arabs are the original inhabitants of Palestine.
Both groups have a good claim to a part of the land.
The Jews were the third largest religious community from the 10th / 11th century. They were never the majority since after the 4th century. In 1890, the Christians outnumbered them easily. As late as 1947, the Jewish population was about half of the Muslim population.
Let's not rewrite history.
They weren't the majority and they weren't given the majority of the land. The Arabs were. They were a minority and were given a minority of the land where they DID form the majority.
I also don’t have that much sympathy with moderate Labour MPs. Although I would say moderates have been more guilty of ceding ground to the right than the far left in the last two decades or so.
I also don’t think the ‘Hard Brexit’ tendency can be described as fringe as far as the Tories are concerned - strong euroscepticism has been a significant, not fringe part of the party since the 1980s. It has dogged pretty much every single Conservative leader since Thatcher.
There is a difference between Euroscepticism, and Brexitism which is a much more recent phenomenon.
How else do you think euroscepticism was going to manifest itself if not "Brexitism" (urgh!) if the EU would not engage with Cameron's renegotiation in any meaningful sense?
I am aware that the Brexiteers are now strong, but am just stating a fact. Tories advocating leaving the EU, as opposed to merely opposing further centralisation, are a recent phenomenon.
The turning point for many was Lisbon and Cameron's failed renegotiation. The two combined showed that the EU ratchet was inexorably turning and that mooted reforms we wanted were no longer possible.
I accept that timescale, so you must agree that Brexitism is a recent phenomenon as Euroscepticism morphed into Euro-rejectionism.
Yes. But it is the natural consequence of prior scepticism not being acknowledged and dealt with. It did not just spring up out of nowhere.
More like Wales to Britain. Palestine was a province of the Roman Empire, formed after the Bar Kochba revolt, and conquered by the Muslims in the 7th century. Its only brief period of fully independent existence as a more-or-less unified state was, ironically, from 1099 to 1187 as the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem. But it was always recognised as a distinct area.
I was more just going for a random region within Britain rather than an appropriate one but I did go against Wales incase it was too distinct. Interesting anyway, the little I know going way back is mainly little bits from computer games, like Rome and Medieval Total War.
Wales is an area and a language, and a language which varies strongly among the regions at that. With the exception of 1055-63, and more dubiously 1405-1408, it has never been a united independent country. The parallel seems to me (as an unabashed Welshman) a fair one.
One thing to remember about the Palestinian situation is that under the partition plan the land was not 'given away'. The Jewish areas contained lands the Jews had bought and developed, perfectly legally, and often to the considerable economic benefit of their Palestinian neighbours.
Up to a point was the land acquired legally.
The initial Zionist settlers were mostly an urban population, but after the British Mandate was imposed, Jewish land agencies started major land purchases. The land was largely owned by absentee landlords, who had many tenant farmers often farming the land for many generations. An appropriate analogy might be early 19th Century land ownership in Ireland.
These peasants had the farms sold from under them, often against their will, and were thereby forced into becoming a landless proletariat. Legally sold, but a major cause of the rising tensions in the British Mandate. This still occurs within East Jerusalem and West Bank, with settlers buying land via intermediaries, then occupying the house with ostentatious displays of flags, and demands for IDF protection. The IDF then "protect" the settlers via rigid control of neighbours, preventing normal life for them.
This is what I saw in my trip to the West Bank, most grotesquely in Hebron, where a handful of settlers were guarded by hundreds of IDF soldiers in the centre of an Arab town of 100 000.Palestinians. The roadblocks, searches, barbed wire and arrogance made me angry and I was there only a few hours with no skin in the game. To live it every day would try the patience of saints.
Where in my post did it say millions living there in 1890?
The country was eventually set up post 45, 55 years later.
Edit: Although using millions would still be inaccurate then...
1800 Jewish population 7,000 2.55% 1890 Jewish population 43,000 8.08%
1800 Christian population 22,000 8% 1890 Christian population 57,000 10.71%
1800 Muslim population 246,000 89.45% 1890 Muslim population 432,000 81.2%
A good portion of Palestinian land where they had lived for centuries was given away to recent foreign immigrants, far more than the Jewish 8.08% share that had lived there since 1890. You shouldn't forget the Christian population that despite some small Jewish immigration at that point is still the largest minority.
It is these peoples land that was given away.
8% of the population is a higher share of the population than Scotland has. Would you deny the Scots rights?
Though again you forget that it includes Arab land that was to become Transjordan in 1920. The Jewish population of the land that was divided in 1948 was thus higher even in 1890.
Considering that Transjordan was spun off in 1920 try looking at the 1920 demographics excluding Transjordan.
And if we make the inclusions you talked about what are we at 10% say that lived there since 1890 (and that includes some Jewish immigration in the 1800's) so 10% was justified, just about as big as the Christian population, but what about the rest of the land that was taken, would you give away huge chunks of England to the Scottish?
Millions? There wasn't a million of anyone living there in 1890!
The entirety of Palestine (which includes parts of modern day Jordan) only had barely over half a million people total in 1890. The "tens of thousands" Jewish population in 1890 was a higher proportion of the total than the Scottish population is of the UK. Would you deny the Scots?
The entire world was less populated then, but Palestine was about 80% Muslim at that time. A similar proportion to the rest of the Ottoman empire, which had major Greek, Assyrian Christian, and Armenian populations across what is now Turkey, Syria and Lebanon.
Whether the Jewish population of the land is present from the 19th Century, or from recent decades, they have the right to be there. Even the post independence settlers have been there as long as the Windrush generation have been in the UK, or Hispanic Americans have been in the USA. I am not comfortable with the idea that they have fewer rights than those with a longer lineage.
I don't approve of kicking them out of the middle east or disbanding the country but it is important as people try to pin the original blame on the Palestinians and argue that them fighting then and continuing to fight is what justifies Israel's actions as they are 'defending' themselves. When you look at the history though you cannot blame the Palestinians for defending their land when anyone would, any people, British, American etc. would have done the same.
Once you understand what was done to the Palestinians you can begin to understand why we have to deal with people like Hamas now and why ignoring the situation and hoping it improves so we can talk to the Palestinian Ghandi instead is less realistic than going in with our unicorn army to take out both sides and solve the problem through force.
I'd believe you more if you showed any concern for the populations disinherited of land (and often their lives) in the other great (in fact, greater) forced population movements before, during, and after 1968. Some not a million miles away from Palestine.
The world was an absolute mess, and region more so. As an example, the decline and fall of the Ottoman Empire led to some utterly great evils.
Things were 'done' to those populations as well, whether (now) Indian, Greek, Turkish, Pakistani, or any of the others. It doesn't make what happened in Palestine right, but it does make it far from unique.
I don't approve of kicking them out of the middle east or disbanding the country but it is important as people try to pin the original blame on the Palestinians and argue that them fighting then and continuing to fight is what justifies Israel's actions as they are 'defending' themselves. When you look at the history though you cannot blame the Palestinians for defending their land when anyone would, any people, British, American etc. would have done the same.
Once you understand what was done to the Palestinians you can begin to understand why we have to deal with people like Hamas now and why ignoring the situation and hoping it improves so we can talk to the Palestinian Ghandi instead is less realistic than going in with our unicorn army to take out both sides and solve the problem through force.
I'd believe you more if you showed any concern for the populations disinherited of land (and often their lives) in the other great (in fact, greater) forced population movements before, during, and after 1968. Some not a million miles away from Palestine.
The world was an absolute mess, and region more so. As an example, the decline and fall of the Ottoman Empire led to some utterly great evils.
Things were 'done' to those populations as well, whether (now) Indian, Greek, Turkish, Pakistani, or any of the others. It doesn't make what happened in Palestine right, but it does make it far from unique.
Look if you want to support some country occupying its far weaker neighbour who it stole land from and continues to dominate and steal land from in the name of defence I will happily disagree with you.
It is quite frankly the cheapest argument, why the hell do you ever complain about any of the petty stuff we talk about on here when there are murderers, paedophiles and rapists out there on the streets?
Maybe I would believe your concern for people if instead of discussing petty stuff like the rest of us you were charging about like a hero saving every single person you could from bad things happening. As it is you seem to be as guilty as the rest of us of talking about the subjects we talk about we do on here so I will judge your concern for people to be just as low as mine.
Look if you want to support some country occupying its far weaker neighbour who it stole land from and continues to dominate and steal land from in the name of defence I will happily disagree with you.
It is quite frankly the cheapest argument, why the hell do you ever complain about any of the petty stuff we talk about on here when there are murderers, paedophiles and rapists out there on the streets?
Maybe I would believe your concern for people if instead of discussing petty stuff like the rest of us you were charging about like a hero saving every single person you could from bad things happening. As it is you seem to be as guilty as the rest of us of talking about the subjects we talk about we do on here so I will judge your concern for people to be just as low as mine.
Your first paragraph is wrong. I support the people in the area, whether Muslim, Jew, Christian, atheist, or a.n.other. I don't see how your pretend anguish about things that happened in the past - especially when you are so blindly selective - helps. The question comes how can we help the peoples of the area prosper in peace in the long term.
Your second paragraph is ridiculous, and my point flies merrily over your head on the way to more fertile pastures.
Your third paragraph is absolutely pathetic. You are supporting one side in a war that, if one side wins, will lead to untold deaths and more population movements. And you are supporting that one side because your leader supports that side.
The debate, or that part of it had gone into a basically who started it routine.
Your point was ridiculous, there are not 350 different events/conflicts (or any x number of events/conflicts) that I have to bring up myself out of the blue on PB in a complete topic shift before I can discuss a topic that is already being discussed on PB. It feels like this is usually done as a cheap tactic to shut down debate on areas people don't want to debate, although quite frankly I could ask you the same. Why do you discuss this topic so much?
Don't use my excuse that you are joining in others conversations.
I'm supporting the idea that until the Israelis stop mistreating the Palestinians then the Palestinians aren't going to become more moderate, if anything they will get worse. The Palestinians have very little power in the situation, they can say words and lob the occasional firework or not but it makes little difference. When they are on ceasefire life continues much the same.
If there is to be any progress in the situation it requires a change of approach from Israel. The only angle we have got for that is to try and influence them in that direction, our current approach seems to be the equivalent of a helpless parent softly asking their child not to throw his toys as he throws his toys and then occasionally agreeing with him that the occasional bits of toy that break off and hit him are causing him to keep throwing the toys.
We cannot actually change their policy but we can as part of an international effort put diplomatic pressure on them to do so. Maybe need a new American president as well..... Bernie would be useful.
Lastly I knew about the Israel-Palestine conflict before I heard of Jezza.
The debate, or that part of it had gone into a basically who started it routine.
Your point was ridiculous, there are not 350 different events/conflicts (or any x number of events/conflicts) that I have to bring up myself out of the blue on PB in a complete topic shift before I can discuss a topic that is already being discussed on PB. It feels like this is usually done as a cheap tactic to shut down debate on areas people don't want to debate, although quite frankly I could ask you the same. Why do you discuss this topic so much?
Don't use my excuse that you are joining in others conversations.
I'm supporting the idea that until the Israelis stop mistreating the Palestinians then the Palestinians aren't going to become more moderate, if anything they will get worse. The Palestinians have very little power in the situation, they can say words and lob the occasional firework or not but it makes little difference. When they are on ceasefire life continues much the same.
If there is to be any progress in the situation it requires a change of approach from Israel. The only angle we have got for that is to try and influence them in that direction, our current approach seems to be the equivalent of a helpless parent softly asking their child not to throw his toys as he throws his toys and then occasionally agreeing with him that the occasional bits of toy that break off and hit him are causing him to keep throwing the toys.
We cannot actually change their policy but we can as part of an international effort put diplomatic pressure on them to do so. Maybe need a new American president as well..... Bernie would be useful.
Lastly I knew about the Israel-Palestine conflict before I heard of Jezza.
" lob the occasional firework" ???
They are not 'fireworks'. You seem rather keen to comparisons with Britain: if Britain was facing hundreds of rockets being fired at it by a belligerent neighbour, we'd fight back - as would be our right.
As I said the other day (when you didn't have a clue about what to do): both sides have a lot of blame for the current situation, and both sides need to move. Shrieking about Israel without addressing the wrong-doing of Hamas and other belligerents will lead to disaster and potentially genocide.
Most of all, trust needs to be built up on both (*all*) sides.
And Israel can move: when they started trusting Egypt, they handed back the Sinai to them - and even Taba a few years later. Trust is what is needed, and that needs delivering on both sides. Your attitude, and Jezza's, will not get that, as you are blindly blaming one side only.
They are not 'fireworks'. You seem rather keen to comparisons with Britain: if Britain was facing hundreds of rockets being fired at it by a belligerent neighbour, we'd fight back - as would be our right.
As I said the other day (when you didn't have a clue about what to do): both sides have a lot of blame for the current situation, and both sides need to move. Shrieking about Israel without addressing the wrong-doing of Hamas and other belligerents will lead to disaster and potentially genocide.
Most of all, trust needs to be built up on both (*all*) sides.
And Israel can move: when they started trusting Egypt, they handed back the Sinai to them - and even Taba a few years later. Trust is what is needed, and that needs delivering on both sides. Your attitude, and Jezza's, will not get that, as you are blindly blaming one side only.
There's a term for that.
I should have probably said advanced or enhanced...
________________________________________________________ What is Gaza? What are its weapons? What is its arsenal? Let’s take the last attack. We have exactly—we know exactly how much damage was done by these weapons. There were 5,000 so-called rockets and 2,000 mortars fired at—mortar shells fired at Israel. So, altogether, that’s 7,000 projectiles. You know the damage done? Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, it had a diary, listing all the damage done each day. Five thousands rockets, 2,000 mortar shells. One house was destroyed. One house. How is it possible that 5,000 rockets and 2,000 mortar shells can only destroy one house? Because they’re not rockets. They’re fireworks. They’re enhanced fireworks. ______________________________________________________
If you want to compare Britain's fightback between say 1 house getting destroyed and tens of millions of Muslims moving here and kicking out the locals to begin setting up a new country here we can do that.
Britain would be angry if a house was destroyed, there might even be some kind of diplomatic incident. Britain would be engaged in a full scale war with the tens of millions coming here to take our homes and there would be millions of casualties.
So you are saying until Israel can 'trust' Egypt, the weaker power whose ass it could royally kick, it can't stop horribly mistreating the Palestinians and that is the right thing to do....
And me and Jezza are biased because we don't see that.
Is the term for that sane by any chance? or maybe rational?
If you want to compare Britain's fightback between say 1 house getting destroyed and tens of millions of Muslims moving here and kicking out the locals to begin setting up a new country here we can do that.
Britain would be angry if a house was destroyed, there might even be some kind of diplomatic incident. Britain would be engaged in a full scale war with the tens of millions coming here to take our homes and there would be millions of casualties.
So you are saying until Israel can 'trust' Egypt, the weaker power whose ass it could royally kick, it can't stop horribly mistreating the Palestinians and that is the right thing to do....
And me and Jezza are biased because we don't see that.
Is the term for that sane by any chance? or maybe rational?
Now you are just trolling. The Israelis have invested billions in trying to prevent the 'fireworks' causing them damage, and large swathes of the population take cover during attacks. If you really want deescalation of the conflict, not firing the 'fireworks' is vital.
Saying 'one house destroyed' is stupid and telling (and also I believe incorrect): it does not account for the rockets intercepted, or the effect it has on a population that are the target who regularly have to flee into bomb shelters.
Both sides are doing wrong; you castigate one side for its sins whilst downplaying the sins of the other.
I really hope you don't ever organise a fireworks display, at least for the sake of your neighbours ...
According to Amnesty (those well-know right-wingers in 2009:; "Scores [of rockets] have struck homes, businesses, schools, other public buildings and vehicles in and around towns and villages in southern Israel. It is purely by chance that in most cases such strikes have not caused death or injury, and the lethal potential of such projectiles should not be underestimated. Above all, the constant threat of impending rocket attacks has caused fear and disrupted the lives of the growing number of Israelis who live within range of such attacks, reaching up to a million."
I really hope you don't ever organise a fireworks display, at least for the sake of your neighbours ... ............................................................
Haha, first time I lit one and second straight after they didn't leave the floor just a big boom at floor level, struggling to remember now but I don't think we used the launcher or didn't use it properly!
In my defence I was handed them just a minute earlier.
I've seen them described as advanced fireworks a few times, obviously they can be deadly but they are incredibly ineffective and comparatively are a joke. When you compare them to the strength of Israel's attacks its a flick on the arm to a broken nose.
I'm sure having to go to bomb shelters is not fun, it really doesn't compare to the Palestinians though.
Also in reference to the Amnesty report I would argue it is down to a lot more than chance, it is down to them being advanced fireworks rather than the kind of military weaponry that gets launched at Palestinians.
Israel have the power to change the situation but you would rather act as if both sides have equal power. The Palestinians can change nothing, when they do have ceasefires nothing changes. The Palestinians have no power, we can condemn them if you like but it does absolutely nothing.
If you want the situation to change you have to pressure the Israeli government, if you want the situation to continue you sit there tutting until the Palestinians are bombed and starved into becoming the Liberal Democrat party, funnily enough it looks a lot like just allowing Israel to continue doing as they please.
I've seen them described as advanced fireworks a few times, obviously they can be deadly but they are incredibly ineffective and comparatively are a joke. When you compare them to the strength of Israel's attacks its a flick on the arm to a broken nose.
I'm sure having to go to bomb shelters is not fun, it really doesn't compare to the Palestinians though.
Also in reference to the Amnesty report I would argue it is down to a lot more than chance, it is down to them being advanced fireworks rather than the kind of military weaponry that gets launched at Palestinians.
Israel have the power to change the situation but you would rather act as if both sides have equal power. The Palestinians can change nothing, when they do have ceasefires nothing changes. The Palestinians have no power, we can condemn them if you like but it does absolutely nothing.
If you want the situation to change you have to pressure the Israeli government, if you want the situation to continue you sit there tutting until the Palestinians are bombed and starved into becoming the Liberal Democrat party, funnily enough it looks a lot like just allowing Israel to continue doing as they please.
"I've seen them described as advanced fireworks a few times"
I'm surprised you didn't research them a little more then. For I might suggest that it is fairly obvious that a firework cannot even go half a mile, and that a Saturn V might also be called an 'advanced firework'. It is therefore a term that can mean many things - and in this case, that can be a fairly nasty and lethal capability, often using ex-Soviet weapons.
The Palestinians often used mortars - the same weapons the IRA tried to use to kill Major. Hardly 'fireworks'.
You are totally clueless on this. Absolutely, hideously clueless.
As for the rest: both sides have the power to change the situation - I gave some steps the other day, but the Palestinian groups stopping the rockets and unequivocally accepting the right for Israel to exist, and Israel stopping new settlements and allowing more aid into Gaza and the West Bank might be a good start. But both sides have to move.
The reason both sides have to move is simple: too many people on both sides profit from the conflict, politically, religiously or monetarily. Moving independently would be seen as surrender by the side making the move, and as a victory by the other. That doesn't happen if both sides move, especially in a way that is symbolic. They both have significant internal and external resistance.
"I've seen them described as advanced fireworks a few times"
I'm surprised you didn't research them a little more then. For I might suggest that it is fairly obvious that a firework cannot even go half a mile, and that a Saturn V might also be called an 'advanced firework'. It is therefore a term that can mean many things - and in this case, that can be a fairly nasty and lethal capability, often using ex-Soviet weapons.
The Palestinians often used mortars - the same weapons the IRA tried to use to kill Major. Hardly 'fireworks'.
You are totally clueless on this. Absolutely, hideously clueless.
As for the rest: both sides have the power to change the situation - I gave some steps the other day, but the Palestinian groups stopping the rockets and unequivocally accepting the right for Israel to exist, and Israel stopping new settlements and allowing more aid into Gaza and the West Bank might be a good start. But both sides have to move.
The reason both sides have to move is simple: too many people on both sides profit from the conflict, politically, religiously or monetarily. Moving independently would be seen as surrender by the side making the move, and as a victory by the other. That doesn't happen if both sides move, especially in a way that is symbolic. They both have significant internal and external resistance.
You can't really call me clueless on this when you cling to your fantasies about the Palestinians doing much of anything. The Israeli suffer very few losses and very little damage to the Palestinians attacks, the Israelis suffer more from their driving than the Palestinians. The idea this token resistance is holding the whole thing back is nothing but propaganda you either tell yourself or have swallowed whole. When the Palestinians do stop the attacks absolutely nothing changes bar the Israelis being able to continue to take Palestinian land but without resistance.
The Palestinians are not going to be starved, beaten, shot or bombed into moderation anybody can see that Israel has done exactly that and had completely the opposite effect.
Your strategy, either through ignorance or design is basically to let Israel continue to do what it wants, which does flag up your I'm on both side rhetoric as suspicious. The Palestinians have in a way taken all the moves (not by choice) Israel has almost everything of worth and Palestine has nothing.
Can't you see that the country that has been stealing their land and forcing them into poverty for years upon years needs to make the first steps?
You can't really call me clueless on this when you cling to your fantasies about the Palestinians doing much of anything. The Israeli suffer very few losses and very little damage to the Palestinians attacks, the Israelis suffer more from their driving than the Palestinians. The idea this token resistance is holding the whole thing back is nothing but propaganda you either tell yourself or have swallowed whole. When the Palestinians do stop the attacks absolutely nothing changes bar the Israelis being able to continue to take Palestinian land but without resistance.
The Palestinians are not going to be starved, beaten, shot or bombed into moderation anybody can see that Israel has done exactly that and had completely the opposite effect.
Your strategy, either through ignorance or design is basically to let Israel continue to do what it wants, which does flag up your I'm on both side rhetoric as suspicious. The Palestinians have in a way taken all the moves (not by choice) Israel has almost everything of worth and Palestine has nothing.
Can't you see that the country that has been stealing their land and forcing them into poverty for years upon years needs to make the first steps?
Your entire post is proved false by the launching of the fireworks - sorry, I mean sophisticated mortars and rockets. I'd expect you to see that stopping those would be easy and cheap, and Israel could (and should) respond to such a cessation. In addition, what's the harm in Hamas et al stating unequivocally that Israel has a right to exist? Words matter.
If you are going to be so sick as to misstate my 'strategy', then please let me state yours: you evidently will not be happy until Israel is destroyed and all the Jews, well, you evidently don't care about them, do you?
To make it clear: I care little about the politicians and leaders on all sides who gain power and make money from the continuation of this mess. I care for the everyday Muslim, Jew, Christian or a.n.other unlucky enough to live in the area and who wants just to live a peaceful life.
As you showed the other day, you don't have any answers, only foot-stamping strops about how awful Israel is and how wonderful the Palestinians are. There's truth in that, but also in the converse. And you wont get peace without accepting that and working from that position.
You want the Palestinians dead, you realise the best strategy to get that is to bring all conversations about Israel and Palestine down to the level of tut tut aren't they both bad, we'll have to stay out of this and let the Israelis continue to slaughter the Palestinians until they magically become moderates overnight.... because that is just bound to happen.
It doesn't take much intelligence to see that Israel has all the power in the situation and can only change it when they decide that peace is more important than taking land. I'm sure you realise that.
Without diplomatic pressure (even with it) I struggle to see Israel ever reaching that point.
They were referred to as advanced fireworks because they are such rudimentary weaponry, a difficult concept to grasp I understand.
Stopping incoming fireworks isn't cheap, also the logic of the weapons are cheaply made so they must be cheap to shoot down really doesn't work. The Israeli defence shield (or was it called a missile dome, I struggle to remember) is quite expensive.
You want the Palestinians dead, you realise the best strategy to get that is to bring all conversations about Israel and Palestine down to the level of tut tut aren't they both bad, we'll have to stay out of this and let the Israelis continue to slaughter the Palestinians until they magically become moderates overnight.... because that is just bound to happen.
It doesn't take much intelligence to see that Israel has all the power in the situation and can only change it when they decide that peace is more important than taking land. I'm sure you realise that.
Without diplomatic pressure (even with it) I struggle to see Israel ever reaching that point.
They were referred to as advanced fireworks because they are such rudimentary weaponry, a difficult concept to grasp I understand.
Stopping incoming fireworks isn't cheap, also the logic of the weapons are cheaply made so they must be cheap to shoot down really doesn't work. The Israeli defence shield (or was it called a missile dome, I struggle to remember) is quite expensive.
"You want the Palestinians dead"
Quite a claim. And a wrong one. As I've said, I want the people to live in peace. It's often the leadership who are the problem, not the people. Whereas you have shown *no* concern for the Jews over there. Nothing. Not one iota of concern or sympathy.
"They were referred to as advanced fireworks because they are such rudimentary weaponry, a difficult concept to grasp I understand."
Its also worth reading that first link for the effects of these rocket attacks. It's more than the one house you claim was destroyed.
And neither have I said that the Palestinians have to make the first move: both sides can move together (and with some outside pressure put on neighbouring countries not to stir)
"Stopping incoming fireworks isn't cheap, also the logic of the weapons are cheaply made so they must be cheap to shoot down really doesn't work."
Where have I said that; in fact I believe I said exactly the opposite ...
Once again proving you know nothing on the situation or deliberately feign ignorance to advance your strategy that is seeing the Palestinians land taken and us supporting it.
As you point out many of them are home made, when they talk about thousands of rockets and there has been barely any damage it is because the vast majority of it is fireworks. The military grade stuff is very few and far between.
The Palestinians have no real move left, their one card is recognising that Israel should keep the majority of Palestine that it has conquered, which you want it do as a first move?!
The Israeli government has nothing to gain from it either really, the idea of Hamas wiping them out or being something they have to worry about is painfully laughable for anyone who understands military capability to even an incredibly simple level. Israeli driving is a bigger threat than many Hamas' let alone the pitiful one they face.
Either they can continue to wage war with the excuse of self defence or being afraid or they can move for peace.
Although outside of a moral argument there is no reason to go for peace. Enough people don't care about the Palestinians to happily approve of their slaughter on the basis that they will eventually be starved, bombed and shot into turning into Lib Dems.....
Once again proving you know nothing on the situation or deliberately feign ignorance to advance your strategy that is seeing the Palestinians land taken and us supporting it.
As you point out many of them are home made, when they talk about thousands of rockets and there has been barely any damage it is because the vast majority of it is fireworks. The military grade stuff is very few and far between.
The Palestinians have no real move left, their one card is recognising that Israel should keep the majority of Palestine that it has conquered, which you want it do as a first move?!
The Israeli government has nothing to gain from it either really, the idea of Hamas wiping them out or being something they have to worry about is painfully laughable for anyone who understands military capability to even an incredibly simple level. Israeli driving is a bigger threat than many Hamas' let alone the pitiful one they face.
Either they can continue to wage war with the excuse of self defence or being afraid or they can move for peace.
Although outside of a moral argument there is no reason to go for peace. Enough people don't care about the Palestinians to happily approve of their slaughter on the basis that they will eventually be starved, bombed and shot into turning into Lib Dems.....
"Once again proving you know nothing on the situation or deliberately feign ignorance"
Nope. In fact, I've proven you wrong on your rather sick 'fireworks' claim, amongst others.
"The Palestinians have no real move left."
Of course they do - I've highlighted some in the past. I admit Israel has more room to move, but I'd suggest that accepting Israel's right to exist and not firing the rockets are two rather significant moves they could make - and it's important for Israel to move at the same time.
"Although outside of a moral argument there is no reason to go for peace."
For the leaderships of Israel and the various Palestinian factions (and neighbouring countries), perhaps not. For the people in the Middle East: heck, yes, there is.
For the Palestinians there is every reason but there isn't for the Israelis, they gain from the current situation. It is why a status quo or Hamas must turn into something moderate in conditions that will make them more extreme policy favours Israel.
Accepting Israel's to exist is pretty meaningless, it is not as if Hamas can actually not make them exist. Nobody remotely serious would suggest Israel have anything to serious to fear from Hamas. Israeli drivers make Hamas look like a non existent problem.
Why would Israel move though, they have the support of most of the world who tut at the Palestinians for being a bit extreme as they die and suffer in poverty and they suffer little in return for getting what they want.
The proof being that is why they keep doing what they do. As long as they have the support of people like you, or at least the equal disdain there is no need to stop and no real diplomatic pressure on them.
For the Palestinians there is every reason but there isn't for the Israelis, they gain from the current situation. It is why a status quo or Hamas must turn into something moderate in conditions that will make them more extreme policy favours Israel.
Accepting Israel's to exist is pretty meaningless, it is not as if Hamas can actually not make them exist. Nobody remotely serious would suggest Israel have anything to serious to fear from Hamas. Israeli drivers make Hamas look like a non existent problem.
Why would Israel move though, they have the support of most of the world who tut at the Palestinians for being a bit extreme as they die and suffer in poverty and they suffer little in return for getting what they want.
The proof being that is why they keep doing what they do. As long as they have the support of people like you, or at least the equal disdain there is no need to stop and no real diplomatic pressure on them.
"Accepting Israel's to exist is pretty meaningless"
This does start to sound as if you have a somewhat dark agenda. It isn't meaningless. Firstly, it's symbolic - it says we'll let you exist if you let us exist. Secondly, it sends a message to the surrounding countries.
And they matter. Since the formation of Israel, there have been two major conflicts where neighbouring countries have tried to destroy Israel. Israel has made peace with Egypt and Jordan, but the refusal of Palestinian groups to accept Israel's right to exist gives other countries a potential reason for a third war.
And what does such an undertaking cost Hamas et al? Nothing. If you say it is 'meaningless', then what is the harm in doing it?
"As long as they have the support of people like you"
LOL. You are something else. I have said many times that I want Israel to stop building settlements and to allow the Palestinians more freedoms. The new law is perverse and crass and should be abolished. And Israel can also reconfirm that it believes in a two-state solution.
But you refuse to criticise Palestinian bad behaviour when it occurs, and refuse to acknowledge there are even simple and cheap things that they can do to move towards peace.
You don't want peace, as you're not even willing to accept that the Palestinians have to make even minor moves towards it as well as Israel.
Comments
I also don’t think the ‘Hard Brexit’ tendency can be described as fringe as far as the Tories are concerned - strong euroscepticism has been a significant, not fringe part of the party since the 1980s. It has dogged pretty much every single Conservative leader since Thatcher.
Culturally, one group has been occupied by Israel for fifty years and one hasn't.
There is very little anti-semitism among mainstream social democrats (eg the vast majority of Labour MP's).
There is huge amount of anti-semitism among the extreme left, and many of these people have joined Labour since 2015.
Saying Israel took land off the Palestinians pre-1948 is no more accurate than saying Pakistan took land off India.
The analogy for Britain would be if Britain had not been an independent nation for a long time and was under the control of the Chinese and then China proposed creating two new nations - England and Scotland. But England wanted the entire land for itself so attacked Scotland upon its creation, only for Scotland to win the war and annex Northumberland.
Both groups have a good claim to a part of the land.
Well, once again both bets failed. One was rather bad luck, the other just didn't come off.
Astonished Ocon didn't have the book thrown at him.
Also if you are referring to all the Brexit stuff that does seem to be some on the left but to be honest the backlash to it seems to be strongest from the more centrist types rather than the left...
Although we are quite far apart ideologically so we might have different views on who is left etc.
The problem is that one group wanted to deny the other group their own land and their supporters in the likes of Jezziah still cling to the myth that only one group had that land.
The land Israel was awarded in the partition in 1948 was majority Jewish already. It wasn't a case of giving the Jews that land and them then migrating there afterwards.
There were numbers in the low tens of thousands who had been living there for a very long time if they had been given a country I doubt there'd be any complaints. The millions of immigrants who hadn't lived in the place and turned up didn't make them magically entitled to the land of people living there.
I don't imagine the British would be too happy if a massive wave of Muslim immigration came to Britain, which we objected to but had no power to stop and then that was used as justification to carve Britain up and gave our land away to these foreign people.
The millions of recent arrivals from abroad don't automatically have justification on other peoples land.
Lose
Win (2.32)
Win (lay 3.75)
Lose
Lose.
The entirety of Palestine (which includes parts of modern day Jordan) only had barely over half a million people total in 1890. The "tens of thousands" Jewish population in 1890 was a higher proportion of the total than the Scottish population is of the UK. Would you deny the Scots?
What's well documented with oodles of evidence from Marx's writings, through Stalin's purges to the obsession with anti-Zionism as anti-Imperialism is the persistence on the extreme left of a strain of anti-Semitism that sees Jews as suspect counter-revolutionary capitalists.
It's not a conspiracy theory, but has been studied and documented repeatedly - and if you don't believe me, then perhaps you'll believe your hero Jeremy who said in March:
"“The idea of Jewish bankers and capitalists exploiting the workers of the world is an old antisemitic conspiracy theory. This was long ago, and rightly, described as ‘the socialism of fools’. I am sorry for not having studied the content of the mural more closely before wrongly questioning its removal in 2012.”
As I said, the question is not whether it's there - anyone who's spent any time in the company of people on the far left knows it is - but whether Corbyn and his beliefs are too closely intertwined with it to ever be separated enough to tackle it properly.
Instead like a tumour ignored it has grown and grown until drastic action is now necessary which could have been avoided if dealt with earlier. But the easy options are now no longer available.
It depends on what might been said, or done to have triggered off said quote.
Now ironically it seems that the degree of parliamentary oversight noisily and seemingly hypocritically demanded by the remainers has ironically rendered unworkable a further watered down version of the Chequers agreement which is the type of deal May and the civil servants would have been happy making at the very last minute in the absence of such oversight (and the EU negotiators not being so withering in public).
Is no deal a real runner now? I'm loath to get my hopes up.
Whether the Jewish population of the land is present from the 19th Century, or from recent decades, they have the right to be there. Even the post independence settlers have been there as long as the Windrush generation have been in the UK, or Hispanic Americans have been in the USA. I am not comfortable with the idea that they have fewer rights than those with a longer lineage.
The country was eventually set up post 45, 55 years later.
Edit: Although using millions would still be inaccurate then...
1800 Jewish population 7,000 2.55%
1890 Jewish population 43,000 8.08%
1800 Christian population 22,000 8%
1890 Christian population 57,000 10.71%
1800 Muslim population 246,000 89.45%
1890 Muslim population 432,000 81.2%
A good portion of Palestinian land where they had lived for centuries was given away to recent foreign immigrants, far more than the Jewish 8.08% share that had lived there since 1890. You shouldn't forget the Christian population that despite some small Jewish immigration at that point is still the largest minority.
It is these peoples land that was given away.
Let's not rewrite history.
http://enormo-haddock.blogspot.com/2018/07/hungary-post-race-analysis-2018.html
One thing to remember about the Palestinian situation is that under the partition plan the land was not 'given away'. The Jewish areas contained lands the Jews had bought and developed, perfectly legally, and often to the considerable economic benefit of their Palestinian neighbours.
Once you understand what was done to the Palestinians you can begin to understand why we have to deal with people like Hamas now and why ignoring the situation and hoping it improves so we can talk to the Palestinian Ghandi instead is less realistic than going in with our unicorn army to take out both sides and solve the problem through force.
Even though the 1947 mandate was totally unjust [ and the Palestinians never agreed to it ], Israel keeps on expanding and taking land which belongs to others. It uses force disproportionately. And the people who are resisting are called terrorists. Why were the French resistance not called terrorists ?
It could be called given away in a country sense but not an ownership sense (for the parts that were bought)
The world was an absolute mess, and region more so. As an example, the decline and fall of the Ottoman Empire led to some utterly great evils.
Things were 'done' to those populations as well, whether (now) Indian, Greek, Turkish, Pakistani, or any of the others. It doesn't make what happened in Palestine right, but it does make it far from unique.
Though again you forget that it includes Arab land that was to become Transjordan in 1920. The Jewish population of the land that was divided in 1948 was thus higher even in 1890.
Considering that Transjordan was spun off in 1920 try looking at the 1920 demographics excluding Transjordan.
And if I wanted the ban hammer I would comment about xenophobia...as if we are all that shallow!
(Well, we probably are, to be fair.)
The initial Zionist settlers were mostly an urban population, but after the British Mandate was imposed, Jewish land agencies started major land purchases. The land was largely owned by absentee landlords, who had many tenant farmers often farming the land for many generations. An appropriate analogy might be early 19th Century land ownership in Ireland.
These peasants had the farms sold from under them, often against their will, and were thereby forced into becoming a landless proletariat. Legally sold, but a major cause of the rising tensions in the British Mandate. This still occurs within East Jerusalem and West Bank, with settlers buying land via intermediaries, then occupying the house with ostentatious displays of flags, and demands for IDF protection. The IDF then "protect" the settlers via rigid control of neighbours, preventing normal life for them.
This is what I saw in my trip to the West Bank, most grotesquely in Hebron, where a handful of settlers were guarded by hundreds of IDF soldiers in the centre of an Arab town of 100 000.Palestinians. The roadblocks, searches, barbed wire and arrogance made me angry and I was there only a few hours with no skin in the game. To live it every day would try the patience of saints.
And if we make the inclusions you talked about what are we at 10% say that lived there since 1890 (and that includes some Jewish immigration in the 1800's) so 10% was justified, just about as big as the Christian population, but what about the rest of the land that was taken, would you give away huge chunks of England to the Scottish?
It is quite frankly the cheapest argument, why the hell do you ever complain about any of the petty stuff we talk about on here when there are murderers, paedophiles and rapists out there on the streets?
Maybe I would believe your concern for people if instead of discussing petty stuff like the rest of us you were charging about like a hero saving every single person you could from bad things happening. As it is you seem to be as guilty as the rest of us of talking about the subjects we talk about we do on here so I will judge your concern for people to be just as low as mine.
Your second paragraph is ridiculous, and my point flies merrily over your head on the way to more fertile pastures.
Your third paragraph is absolutely pathetic. You are supporting one side in a war that, if one side wins, will lead to untold deaths and more population movements. And you are supporting that one side because your leader supports that side.
We need a way forward. You don't have one.
Your point was ridiculous, there are not 350 different events/conflicts (or any x number of events/conflicts) that I have to bring up myself out of the blue on PB in a complete topic shift before I can discuss a topic that is already being discussed on PB. It feels like this is usually done as a cheap tactic to shut down debate on areas people don't want to debate, although quite frankly I could ask you the same. Why do you discuss this topic so much?
Don't use my excuse that you are joining in others conversations.
I'm supporting the idea that until the Israelis stop mistreating the Palestinians then the Palestinians aren't going to become more moderate, if anything they will get worse. The Palestinians have very little power in the situation, they can say words and lob the occasional firework or not but it makes little difference. When they are on ceasefire life continues much the same.
If there is to be any progress in the situation it requires a change of approach from Israel. The only angle we have got for that is to try and influence them in that direction, our current approach seems to be the equivalent of a helpless parent softly asking their child not to throw his toys as he throws his toys and then occasionally agreeing with him that the occasional bits of toy that break off and hit him are causing him to keep throwing the toys.
We cannot actually change their policy but we can as part of an international effort put diplomatic pressure on them to do so. Maybe need a new American president as well..... Bernie would be useful.
Lastly I knew about the Israel-Palestine conflict before I heard of Jezza.
They are not 'fireworks'. You seem rather keen to comparisons with Britain: if Britain was facing hundreds of rockets being fired at it by a belligerent neighbour, we'd fight back - as would be our right.
As I said the other day (when you didn't have a clue about what to do): both sides have a lot of blame for the current situation, and both sides need to move. Shrieking about Israel without addressing the wrong-doing of Hamas and other belligerents will lead to disaster and potentially genocide.
Most of all, trust needs to be built up on both (*all*) sides.
And Israel can move: when they started trusting Egypt, they handed back the Sinai to them - and even Taba a few years later. Trust is what is needed, and that needs delivering on both sides. Your attitude, and Jezza's, will not get that, as you are blindly blaming one side only.
There's a term for that.
https://www.democracynow.org/2018/1/19/norman_finkelstein_on_the_big_lie
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What is Gaza? What are its weapons? What is its arsenal? Let’s take the last attack. We have exactly—we know exactly how much damage was done by these weapons. There were 5,000 so-called rockets and 2,000 mortars fired at—mortar shells fired at Israel. So, altogether, that’s 7,000 projectiles. You know the damage done? Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, it had a diary, listing all the damage done each day. Five thousands rockets, 2,000 mortar shells. One house was destroyed. One house. How is it possible that 5,000 rockets and 2,000 mortar shells can only destroy one house? Because they’re not rockets. They’re fireworks. They’re enhanced fireworks.
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If you want to compare Britain's fightback between say 1 house getting destroyed and tens of millions of Muslims moving here and kicking out the locals to begin setting up a new country here we can do that.
Britain would be angry if a house was destroyed, there might even be some kind of diplomatic incident. Britain would be engaged in a full scale war with the tens of millions coming here to take our homes and there would be millions of casualties.
So you are saying until Israel can 'trust' Egypt, the weaker power whose ass it could royally kick, it can't stop horribly mistreating the Palestinians and that is the right thing to do....
And me and Jezza are biased because we don't see that.
Is the term for that sane by any chance? or maybe rational?
Saying 'one house destroyed' is stupid and telling (and also I believe incorrect): it does not account for the rockets intercepted, or the effect it has on a population that are the target who regularly have to flee into bomb shelters.
Both sides are doing wrong; you castigate one side for its sins whilst downplaying the sins of the other.
I really hope you don't ever organise a fireworks display, at least for the sake of your neighbours ...
According to Amnesty (those well-know right-wingers in 2009:;
"Scores [of rockets] have struck homes, businesses, schools, other public buildings and vehicles in and around towns and villages in southern Israel. It is purely by chance that in most cases such strikes have not caused death or injury, and the lethal potential of such projectiles should not be underestimated. Above all, the constant threat of impending rocket attacks has caused fear and disrupted the lives of the growing number of Israelis who live within range of such attacks, reaching up to a million."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_rocket_attacks_on_Israel
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Haha, first time I lit one and second straight after they didn't leave the floor just a big boom at floor level, struggling to remember now but I don't think we used the launcher or didn't use it properly!
In my defence I was handed them just a minute earlier.
I've seen them described as advanced fireworks a few times, obviously they can be deadly but they are incredibly ineffective and comparatively are a joke. When you compare them to the strength of Israel's attacks its a flick on the arm to a broken nose.
I'm sure having to go to bomb shelters is not fun, it really doesn't compare to the Palestinians though.
Also in reference to the Amnesty report I would argue it is down to a lot more than chance, it is down to them being advanced fireworks rather than the kind of military weaponry that gets launched at Palestinians.
Israel have the power to change the situation but you would rather act as if both sides have equal power. The Palestinians can change nothing, when they do have ceasefires nothing changes. The Palestinians have no power, we can condemn them if you like but it does absolutely nothing.
If you want the situation to change you have to pressure the Israeli government, if you want the situation to continue you sit there tutting until the Palestinians are bombed and starved into becoming the Liberal Democrat party, funnily enough it looks a lot like just allowing Israel to continue doing as they please.
I'm surprised you didn't research them a little more then. For I might suggest that it is fairly obvious that a firework cannot even go half a mile, and that a Saturn V might also be called an 'advanced firework'. It is therefore a term that can mean many things - and in this case, that can be a fairly nasty and lethal capability, often using ex-Soviet weapons.
The Palestinians often used mortars - the same weapons the IRA tried to use to kill Major. Hardly 'fireworks'.
You are totally clueless on this. Absolutely, hideously clueless.
As for the rest: both sides have the power to change the situation - I gave some steps the other day, but the Palestinian groups stopping the rockets and unequivocally accepting the right for Israel to exist, and Israel stopping new settlements and allowing more aid into Gaza and the West Bank might be a good start. But both sides have to move.
The reason both sides have to move is simple: too many people on both sides profit from the conflict, politically, religiously or monetarily. Moving independently would be seen as surrender by the side making the move, and as a victory by the other. That doesn't happen if both sides move, especially in a way that is symbolic. They both have significant internal and external resistance.
The Palestinians are not going to be starved, beaten, shot or bombed into moderation anybody can see that Israel has done exactly that and had completely the opposite effect.
Your strategy, either through ignorance or design is basically to let Israel continue to do what it wants, which does flag up your I'm on both side rhetoric as suspicious. The Palestinians have in a way taken all the moves (not by choice) Israel has almost everything of worth and Palestine has nothing.
Can't you see that the country that has been stealing their land and forcing them into poverty for years upon years needs to make the first steps?
If you are going to be so sick as to misstate my 'strategy', then please let me state yours: you evidently will not be happy until Israel is destroyed and all the Jews, well, you evidently don't care about them, do you?
To make it clear: I care little about the politicians and leaders on all sides who gain power and make money from the continuation of this mess. I care for the everyday Muslim, Jew, Christian or a.n.other unlucky enough to live in the area and who wants just to live a peaceful life.
As you showed the other day, you don't have any answers, only foot-stamping strops about how awful Israel is and how wonderful the Palestinians are. There's truth in that, but also in the converse. And you wont get peace without accepting that and working from that position.
It doesn't take much intelligence to see that Israel has all the power in the situation and can only change it when they decide that peace is more important than taking land. I'm sure you realise that.
Without diplomatic pressure (even with it) I struggle to see Israel ever reaching that point.
They were referred to as advanced fireworks because they are such rudimentary weaponry, a difficult concept to grasp I understand.
Stopping incoming fireworks isn't cheap, also the logic of the weapons are cheaply made so they must be cheap to shoot down really doesn't work. The Israeli defence shield (or was it called a missile dome, I struggle to remember) is quite expensive.
Quite a claim. And a wrong one. As I've said, I want the people to live in peace. It's often the leadership who are the problem, not the people. Whereas you have shown *no* concern for the Jews over there. Nothing. Not one iota of concern or sympathy.
"They were referred to as advanced fireworks because they are such rudimentary weaponry, a difficult concept to grasp I understand."
You see, this is an example of where you are clueless. Yes, many are home-made. Many are shipped over from Iran. But here's Wiki's take:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_rocket_arsenal
And they include military-grade weapons such as the Al-Quds 3
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Quds_3
Its also worth reading that first link for the effects of these rocket attacks. It's more than the one house you claim was destroyed.
And neither have I said that the Palestinians have to make the first move: both sides can move together (and with some outside pressure put on neighbouring countries not to stir)
"Stopping incoming fireworks isn't cheap, also the logic of the weapons are cheaply made so they must be cheap to shoot down really doesn't work."
Where have I said that; in fact I believe I said exactly the opposite ...
As you point out many of them are home made, when they talk about thousands of rockets and there has been barely any damage it is because the vast majority of it is fireworks. The military grade stuff is very few and far between.
The Palestinians have no real move left, their one card is recognising that Israel should keep the majority of Palestine that it has conquered, which you want it do as a first move?!
The Israeli government has nothing to gain from it either really, the idea of Hamas wiping them out or being something they have to worry about is painfully laughable for anyone who understands military capability to even an incredibly simple level. Israeli driving is a bigger threat than many Hamas' let alone the pitiful one they face.
Either they can continue to wage war with the excuse of self defence or being afraid or they can move for peace.
Although outside of a moral argument there is no reason to go for peace. Enough people don't care about the Palestinians to happily approve of their slaughter on the basis that they will eventually be starved, bombed and shot into turning into Lib Dems.....
Nope. In fact, I've proven you wrong on your rather sick 'fireworks' claim, amongst others.
"The Palestinians have no real move left."
Of course they do - I've highlighted some in the past. I admit Israel has more room to move, but I'd suggest that accepting Israel's right to exist and not firing the rockets are two rather significant moves they could make - and it's important for Israel to move at the same time.
"Although outside of a moral argument there is no reason to go for peace."
For the leaderships of Israel and the various Palestinian factions (and neighbouring countries), perhaps not. For the people in the Middle East: heck, yes, there is.
Accepting Israel's to exist is pretty meaningless, it is not as if Hamas can actually not make them exist. Nobody remotely serious would suggest Israel have anything to serious to fear from Hamas. Israeli drivers make Hamas look like a non existent problem.
Why would Israel move though, they have the support of most of the world who tut at the Palestinians for being a bit extreme as they die and suffer in poverty and they suffer little in return for getting what they want.
The proof being that is why they keep doing what they do. As long as they have the support of people like you, or at least the equal disdain there is no need to stop and no real diplomatic pressure on them.
This does start to sound as if you have a somewhat dark agenda. It isn't meaningless. Firstly, it's symbolic - it says we'll let you exist if you let us exist. Secondly, it sends a message to the surrounding countries.
And they matter. Since the formation of Israel, there have been two major conflicts where neighbouring countries have tried to destroy Israel. Israel has made peace with Egypt and Jordan, but the refusal of Palestinian groups to accept Israel's right to exist gives other countries a potential reason for a third war.
And what does such an undertaking cost Hamas et al? Nothing. If you say it is 'meaningless', then what is the harm in doing it?
"As long as they have the support of people like you"
LOL. You are something else. I have said many times that I want Israel to stop building settlements and to allow the Palestinians more freedoms. The new law is perverse and crass and should be abolished. And Israel can also reconfirm that it believes in a two-state solution.
But you refuse to criticise Palestinian bad behaviour when it occurs, and refuse to acknowledge there are even simple and cheap things that they can do to move towards peace.
You don't want peace, as you're not even willing to accept that the Palestinians have to make even minor moves towards it as well as Israel.