I mean I am a fan of people taking the knee. A visible action against racism, of which there continues to be a fuckload at footie matches and which was beyond endemic in times gone by.
Equally it gives me great pleasure to see a typical PL footie match wherein there is a united nations of races, creeds, colours (not sexuality yet but I'm sure it is coming) and I believe the game is truly colour blind. You only have to see celebrations after a goal to confirm this at least amongst the players.
However, the pickle that the FA and indeed all football clubs finds itself in wrt Israel/Gaza is as a consequence of these gestures.
Like you I have no issue with taking the knee. It’s a harmless gesture against racism and helps raise awareness so where’s the downside ?
Soccer is also happy to have players wear rainbow laces. Again. No problem there.
When people complained about the taking of the knee or the laces the FA and twitterati were quick to condemn. They’re silent now a and this silence shames them.
They’ve made a major error here. They have a chance to rectify it. They need to do it ASAP.
Their reasoning is clear. They don’t want to offend the sort of people who believe 6MWNE.
Possibly. But I suspect they also fear it might 'provoke' attacks against Jews.
6MWNE is obviously a problem but there are a whole more who don't believe it ever happened.
I don't think there's anyone who believes the Holocaust never happened.
Those who claim it just enjoy trolling Jews and/or recognise that the Holocaust is bad PR for their cause. But, the know full well that it happened, and they think it was a good thing.
I'll never forget seeing a discussion in 2004 on another forum where I became of the concept of Holocaust minimisation.
Apparently when you factor in the hype, and the gays and other undesirables only 2 million Jews died in the Holocaust which apparently is fine because it wasn't as bad as other genocides like the Great Leap Forward or some of Stalin's worst excesses or slightly worse than the Rwandan genocide.
I saw a post on Twitter responding to someone making the point they beheaded babies ‘not all of the babies were beheaded’
Hamas committed terrible atrocities which everyone condemns without thrneed to exaggerate and extrapolate to 40 babies beheaded.
It was a terror attack carried out by evil people but making stuff up is just stupid a bit like the Iraq WMD bollocks
The really stupid thing is thinking that it would justify retaliation directly against the civilian population of the Gaza Strip, whether it happened or not.
I am old enough to remember when Israel was being pressed to give up land for peace. Well it did that in Gaza. It gave up land. It removed the settlers. And what it got in return was Hamas and rockets and now massacres.
Israel has made many mistakes over the years. Netanyahu is unquestionably the wrong leader for it, especially at such a time. I fear that an invasion of Gaza now will be a strategic error and lead to all sorts of casualties for the innocent.
But the Palestinians have consistently made huge errors, the biggest one of all being their refusal to accept Israel's right to exist. Hamas seeks the elimination of Israel and the killing of every Jew everywhere - not just in Israel. This is explicitly genocidal. There is no negotiation with such a movement. Eliminating it is the only answer. Just as we sought to eliminate Nazism and ISIS and other similar genocidal movements.
Those who worry about what happens next need to provide an alternative to Israel, one that will not make that country prey to genocidal maniacs. Lots of people are willing to speak hard truths to Israel about obeying the laws of war and civilian deaths and the rest of it. Very few are telling Hamas that it is their genocidal ideology which has brought Gaza to the point it is, that it is their deliberate policy of hiding amongst civilians which is putting Palestinians at risk, it is their refusal to accept Israel's right to exist which means there is not the remotest hope of starting any peace talks.
There is plenty of pressure which needs putting on Israel but Hamas must first be eliminated. It cannot - until it changes what it wants - be a player. It has taken itself outside the universe of civilised decency. So if invasion of Gaza is not the solution, what is? And if we don't have an alternative solution, then we can hardly be surprised if Israel does what it thinks necessary to save itself. What would we do were we in their position?
I sometimes feel that commentators are unwilling to provide or even begin to think about what an alternative might be because - after all the condemnations of Hamas - they give up at expecting anything better from the Palestinians and it is, after all, so much easier and more comfortable to revert to criticising Israel.
I was saying something similar the other day. Gaza allows itself to be ruled by Hamas. It does this in the knowledge that Hamas is committed to the death of all Jews. The murderous assaults came from their territory and seem to have been a source of glee.
I fully get that the residents of Gaza have a terrible life, that they are economically repressed by Israel and made to beg for water and electricity. Israel’s policies have been unenlightened at best and self harming all too often. If I lived in Gaza I would hate the Israeli government and want to resist that oppression.
But if you want to be listened to, if you want things to change, you do not start with the beheading of babies because they are Jews.
It is 17 years since there was an election in Gaza. 17 years during which Hamas has done it's best to kill anyone who actively opposes them. The Palestinians there 'allow' themselves to be ruled by Hamas about as much as the inhabitants of Kabul 'allow' themselves to be ruled by the Taliban.
Or the Germans "allowed" themselves to be ruled by Hitler. Good point.
What is amusing is that I suspect you and I regard that comment in very different ways.
I regard it in a very simple way, Richard. According to Israel the country is at war. You may disagree and we can discuss the difference between a terrorist act and an act of war. Israel, as one of the belligerents, thinks it is war. An existential one, to boot. If it is war then it is war.
I would be very interested to know how you regard that comment.
I agree. Israel is at war. And I do not even think discussing whose fault it might be in the long term changes anything there.
The difference appears to be that you think that being at war means that Israel are allowed to do anything they like to the Palestinian population and sod the consequences. You are one of those who quote, either directly or by inference, a war that ended 78 years ago in defence of this idea.
I believe that, partly as a result of what happened during that war, the world has rightly moved on and certain actions are now considered no longer acceptable even in war and are legally proscribed as such. Indiscriminate bombing of civilians, whether by intent or negligence, is one of thoise things. This is the case whether we believe the faiult lies entirely with Israel, entirely with the Palestinians or with a mixture of the two.
I think the issue here is that we are not used to existential wars. We have wars with limited aims and at the end of them the Americans bug out. Er, I mean at the end of them either one side wins, or there is a working negotiated settlement, or the matter is resolved one way or another.
Israel believes that it is in an existential war, just like we did 80 years ago (and hence my Godwin). In an existential war there is no merit in saying well we lost but at least we played by the (new, victor-imposed) rules. Losing equals annihilation.
And hence under those circumstances I am prepared, as you might have noticed from my various posts on the subject, to cut Israel quite a bit of slack. You often mention the use of white phosphorous by Israel, a horrible weapon. But again, and here we go back to WWII, and our own existential war, firebombing of German cities was seen as a legitimate act of war.
When Israel was founded, I can understand that feeling. Now, as the primary beneficiary of the world's only existing superpowers military largesse and political hegemonic power, no. If they believe it is an existential war it is only because they have propagandised it so to themselves. And I don't think those in the Israeli government do even view it as an existential war, because if you want a sure fire way to guarantee the entire Middle East will never normalise relations with you and may even go to war with you, start doing a genocide in Gaza.
On October 7 more Jews died than on any other day since the Holocaust. What’s more, nearly all of them were civilians - from tiny babies butchered in their cribs to 85 year old women shot in the head
I don’t lightly accuse someone of anti-Semitism but your inability to see how this impacts the Jewish psyche is alarming. I’ll leave it there
When talking about Israel going to war or committing war crimes it is important to note that Israel is a state - it does not represent Jewishness or Jewish people.
It is, explicitly, a Jewish State.
That's what all the fuss and bother is about.
That doesn't mean every Jewish person accepts that. Catholicism would claim to be the one true Christianity - so what?
Indeed. England (UK?) is explicitly an Anglican Protestant state. I don't accept that in my name, in fact I think its moronic and reject the concept unreservedly
Enfranchising people who are implicitly enemies of the state is surely asking for trouble though?
Why are those people enemies of the state? People seem to think that Palestinian dislike of Israel is somehow inherently based in anti-Semitism, when a much clearer position is that, yes anti-Semitism exists in their culture and always has done, the main reason for the conflict is that one state (Israel) has complete control over them and uses that control to do them harm.
I think people look at Israel as a Jewish state and therefore see all conflict with their neighbours as rooted in that - which is a very very large generalisation. The conflict between Israel and neighbouring states could, and arguably is, be as easily explained by the fact it is a colonialist settler project that was forced on the Arab nations against their will by Europeans, many to be the home of secular Jewish (and later more religious Jewish) people. A state that would clearly share more in common geopolitically with the Western powers in an area where those powers had recently been in charge of the entire region and treated them awfully.
Again, does anti-Semitism play a part? Yes.
But to put all of this down to Jewishness versus Islamist is to ignore the material and geopolitical reality.
When people say they hate Jews and want to wipe them out (and Middle Eastern anti-semitism long predates Israel) I think Jews are entitled to believe them.
Perhaps this current conflict could have been avoided had the Ottomans and British authorities simply mandated that no Jew should ever be allowed to settle in Palestine, but I think that would be hard to defend on ethical groudns.-
European people conflate Jewish and Israeli all the time - when you live in Gaza I can see why that would happen more than in most places. And like I said, I am sure that anti-Semitism plays a role in it. But before there was a state of Israel there were also large numbers of mixed communities where Jewish people lived in harmony with the local people there; indeed many who fled European anti-Semitism, pogroms and the Holocaust, went to the holy land. Was it perfect, no, nowhere is, but they did live together.
The issue of partition, with a specific state for Jewish Israelis and a specific state for Palestinian Arabs, is when the modern conflict arose. People do not like being displaced from their land and told to live elsewhere, and other countries don't like new neighbours who will have more in common with an opposing geopolitical block than them.
It's easy to point at partition and call that the problem. However, the only difference between 7th October and thousands of similar massacres over many centuries before 1948, is that Jews now have a state and an army to stand up for them when they're attacked.
It's entirely fanciful to suggest that they're going to give that up, so, however problematic one might view partition, it's something we do have to work with.
Israel has the right to defend itself from attack and I don't think it's plausible to suggest going back to a pre-1947 situation. However, let us remember that Israel has taken a range of different approaches to Palestine over the decades. Bibi's government is the most nationalist and aggressive for decades. Past Israeli governments have been more willing to support a 2-state solution, to stop settlements in occupied territory, to allow the Palestinians control over their lives, etc. We didn't used to have Israeli government ministers who were explicitly calling for a Greater Israel covering all of Gaza, the West Bank and Jordan.
I am old enough to remember when Israel was being pressed to give up land for peace. Well it did that in Gaza. It gave up land. It removed the settlers. And what it got in return was Hamas and rockets and now massacres.
Israel has made many mistakes over the years. Netanyahu is unquestionably the wrong leader for it, especially at such a time. I fear that an invasion of Gaza now will be a strategic error and lead to all sorts of casualties for the innocent.
But the Palestinians have consistently made huge errors, the biggest one of all being their refusal to accept Israel's right to exist. Hamas seeks the elimination of Israel and the killing of every Jew everywhere - not just in Israel. This is explicitly genocidal. There is no negotiation with such a movement. Eliminating it is the only answer. Just as we sought to eliminate Nazism and ISIS and other similar genocidal movements.
Those who worry about what happens next need to provide an alternative to Israel, one that will not make that country prey to genocidal maniacs. Lots of people are willing to speak hard truths to Israel about obeying the laws of war and civilian deaths and the rest of it. Very few are telling Hamas that it is their genocidal ideology which has brought Gaza to the point it is, that it is their deliberate policy of hiding amongst civilians which is putting Palestinians at risk, it is their refusal to accept Israel's right to exist which means there is not the remotest hope of starting any peace talks.
There is plenty of pressure which needs putting on Israel but Hamas must first be eliminated. It cannot - until it changes what it wants - be a player. It has taken itself outside the universe of civilised decency. So if invasion of Gaza is not the solution, what is? And if we don't have an alternative solution, then we can hardly be surprised if Israel does what it thinks necessary to save itself. What would we do were we in their position?
I sometimes feel that commentators are unwilling to provide or even begin to think about what an alternative might be because - after all the condemnations of Hamas - they give up at expecting anything better from the Palestinians and it is, after all, so much easier and more comfortable to revert to criticising Israel.
I was saying something similar the other day. Gaza allows itself to be ruled by Hamas. It does this in the knowledge that Hamas is committed to the death of all Jews. The murderous assaults came from their territory and seem to have been a source of glee.
I fully get that the residents of Gaza have a terrible life, that they are economically repressed by Israel and made to beg for water and electricity. Israel’s policies have been unenlightened at best and self harming all too often. If I lived in Gaza I would hate the Israeli government and want to resist that oppression.
But if you want to be listened to, if you want things to change, you do not start with the beheading of babies because they are Jews.
It is 17 years since there was an election in Gaza. 17 years during which Hamas has done it's best to kill anyone who actively opposes them. The Palestinians there 'allow' themselves to be ruled by Hamas about as much as the inhabitants of Kabul 'allow' themselves to be ruled by the Taliban.
Or the Germans "allowed" themselves to be ruled by Hitler. Good point.
What is amusing is that I suspect you and I regard that comment in very different ways.
I regard it in a very simple way, Richard. According to Israel the country is at war. You may disagree and we can discuss the difference between a terrorist act and an act of war. Israel, as one of the belligerents, thinks it is war. An existential one, to boot. If it is war then it is war.
I would be very interested to know how you regard that comment.
I agree. Israel is at war. And I do not even think discussing whose fault it might be in the long term changes anything there.
The difference appears to be that you think that being at war means that Israel are allowed to do anything they like to the Palestinian population and sod the consequences. You are one of those who quote, either directly or by inference, a war that ended 78 years ago in defence of this idea.
I believe that, partly as a result of what happened during that war, the world has rightly moved on and certain actions are now considered no longer acceptable even in war and are legally proscribed as such. Indiscriminate bombing of civilians, whether by intent or negligence, is one of thoise things. This is the case whether we believe the faiult lies entirely with Israel, entirely with the Palestinians or with a mixture of the two.
I think the issue here is that we are not used to existential wars. We have wars with limited aims and at the end of them the Americans bug out. Er, I mean at the end of them either one side wins, or there is a working negotiated settlement, or the matter is resolved one way or another.
Israel believes that it is in an existential war, just like we did 80 years ago (and hence my Godwin). In an existential war there is no merit in saying well we lost but at least we played by the (new, victor-imposed) rules. Losing equals annihilation.
And hence under those circumstances I am prepared, as you might have noticed from my various posts on the subject, to cut Israel quite a bit of slack. You often mention the use of white phosphorous by Israel, a horrible weapon. But again, and here we go back to WWII, and our own existential war, firebombing of German cities was seen as a legitimate act of war.
And no longer is under any circumstances. We were a signatory in 1949 to the 4th Geneva Convention and we were clear that it applied to us as much as anyone else. Under those laws that we keep purporting to support and try to impose on others, firebombing cities is no longer a legitimate act. Just like the use of chemical weapons or the murder of POWs.
Using the acts of the Allies 80 years ago as support for the current actions of countries is not a defendable argument.
You are speaking from the safety and security of a country that, please Odin, will never again face an existential threat. Israel does not believe it is in that position.
Signatories to this, that, or the other is meaningless. Of course we signed any old document in 1949 as we were at the peak of our powers and had just won a world war. That is not to say that Israel has chucked the Geneva Convention out of the window, according to news reports. Do you think that Israel as we speak is ignoring it? How difficult do you think it would be for Israel literally to level Gaza in an afternoon? Not very is my guess and Gaza is still standing.
The "rules of war" are a logical impossibility. I'm not going to roll out the "if your family were...." type of analogies but none of us can really understand what an existential war means and what you might be prepared to do if you were engaged in one.
Rules of war date back at least to the Code of Hammurabi in 1750BC. The Torah/Old Testament puts forth rules of war, for another early example.
The UK signed the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907. It is notable that the belligerents held to some rules of war, to some extent, through both World War I and World War II. The UK signed up to all four Geneva Conventions (adopted 1864, 1929 and 1949). Much of the modern conception of war crimes goes back to the 1945 London charter. War crimes have been incorporated into UK domestic law.
War crimes are almost inevitable in any major conflict, but we can reduce them. Most countries most of the time make some effort to follow the rules of war. It is ahistorical nonsense to act as if rules of war are only recent or unworkable.
So was the bombing of Dresden and Hiroshima a war crime under the 1750BC statute?
You keep bringing up Dresden and Hiroshima as if people don't view them as war crimes - lots of people, including historians, do. It just happened to be that the UK and the USA were on the winning side of that conflict and did not do any self reflection about that. Your position essentially boils down to "might makes right" - the winner decides what a war crime is and once that's done and dusted you move on.
That was my point and I'm glad we agree. @boulay was telling me that there have been war crimes since 1750BC via 1864 and a week last Thursday. I don't disagree but they are problematic in concept because when you have to win a war you have to win a war and you will, as Dresden and Hiroshima attest, do just about anything you believe you have to to do so.
The fact that afterwards or even before they were deemed war crimes is irrelevant. Do you ignore laws and treaties? No you try not to but as I mentioned, there is no point saying well at least I followed the rules as German forces march up through Kent towards London.
It is unclear the degree to which the bombing of Dresden did aid the Allied war effort. Targeting bombing at the enemy military and infrastructure is probably much more effective than attacking civilian targets. Many view Nazi Germany's decision to switch to targeting civilian targets in the Blitz as being part of why they lost the Battle of Britain.
I'm sure there are plenty of discussions to be had about the efficacy of such tactics but the decision to execute them wasn't encumbered by the thought that they might be "war crimes".
I mean I am a fan of people taking the knee. A visible action against racism, of which there continues to be a fuckload at footie matches and which was beyond endemic in times gone by.
Equally it gives me great pleasure to see a typical PL footie match wherein there is a united nations of races, creeds, colours (not sexuality yet but I'm sure it is coming) and I believe the game is truly colour blind. You only have to see celebrations after a goal to confirm this at least amongst the players.
However, the pickle that the FA and indeed all football clubs finds itself in wrt Israel/Gaza is as a consequence of these gestures.
Like you I have no issue with taking the knee. It’s a harmless gesture against racism and helps raise awareness so where’s the downside ?
Soccer is also happy to have players wear rainbow laces. Again. No problem there.
When people complained about the taking of the knee or the laces the FA and twitterati were quick to condemn. They’re silent now a and this silence shames them.
They’ve made a major error here. They have a chance to rectify it. They need to do it ASAP.
Their reasoning is clear. They don’t want to offend the sort of people who believe 6MWNE.
Possibly. But I suspect they also fear it might 'provoke' attacks against Jews.
6MWNE is obviously a problem but there are a whole more who don't believe it ever happened.
I don't think there's anyone who believes the Holocaust never happened.
Those who claim it just enjoy trolling Jews and/or recognise that the Holocaust is bad PR for their cause. But, the know full well that it happened, and they think it was a good thing.
I'll never forget seeing a discussion in 2004 on another forum where I became of the concept of Holocaust minimisation.
Apparently when you factor in the hype, and the gays and other undesirables only 2 million Jews died in the Holocaust which apparently is fine because it wasn't as bad as other genocides like the Great Leap Forward or some of Stalin's worst excesses or slightly worse than the Rwandan genocide.
I saw a post on Twitter responding to someone making the point they beheaded babies ‘not all of the babies were beheaded’
That has been a huge debate on Twitter (and it is still rumbling on). There have been some quite hideous comments by Hamas apologists saying “oh only five babies were beheaded the rest were shot” or “they only cut the throats of the babies and anyway its racist to suggest all Arabs are beheaders”
(These are real statements)
Islam is supposed to be a religion of peace.
So is Christianity - what with turning the cheek and martyrdom and all that.
I mean I am a fan of people taking the knee. A visible action against racism, of which there continues to be a fuckload at footie matches and which was beyond endemic in times gone by.
Equally it gives me great pleasure to see a typical PL footie match wherein there is a united nations of races, creeds, colours (not sexuality yet but I'm sure it is coming) and I believe the game is truly colour blind. You only have to see celebrations after a goal to confirm this at least amongst the players.
However, the pickle that the FA and indeed all football clubs finds itself in wrt Israel/Gaza is as a consequence of these gestures.
Like you I have no issue with taking the knee. It’s a harmless gesture against racism and helps raise awareness so where’s the downside ?
Soccer is also happy to have players wear rainbow laces. Again. No problem there.
When people complained about the taking of the knee or the laces the FA and twitterati were quick to condemn. They’re silent now a and this silence shames them.
They’ve made a major error here. They have a chance to rectify it. They need to do it ASAP.
Their reasoning is clear. They don’t want to offend the sort of people who believe 6MWNE.
Possibly. But I suspect they also fear it might 'provoke' attacks against Jews.
6MWNE is obviously a problem but there are a whole more who don't believe it ever happened.
I don't think there's anyone who believes the Holocaust never happened.
Those who claim it just enjoy trolling Jews and/or recognise that the Holocaust is bad PR for their cause. But, the know full well that it happened, and they think it was a good thing.
I'll never forget seeing a discussion in 2004 on another forum where I became of the concept of Holocaust minimisation.
Apparently when you factor in the hype, and the gays and other undesirables only 2 million Jews died in the Holocaust which apparently is fine because it wasn't as bad as other genocides like the Great Leap Forward or some of Stalin's worst excesses or slightly worse than the Rwandan genocide.
I saw a post on Twitter responding to someone making the point they beheaded babies ‘not all of the babies were beheaded’
Hamas committed terrible atrocities which everyone condemns without thrneed to exaggerate and extrapolate to 40 babies beheaded.
It was a terror attack carried out by evil people but making stuff up is just stupid a bit like the Iraq WMD bollocks
Worth noting the claim was never 40 babies beheaded, it was that in one community they found 40 dead babies of which some had been beheaded.
And of course it isn't just the alleged beheading, its the rape, the torture, the burning and burying of people to their deaths.
As far as I'm aware none of this reporting has been confirmed, and the reporter it is linked to heard this from IDF soldiers. Also that most immediate reporting of the conflict is coming from international journalists and not local Israeli journalists or NGOs who, perhaps surprisingly, are more willing to be critical of the government at the moment because many see this as either a failure of defending Israel or a long term failure of dealing with the issue of Gaza.
We are at a very dangerous point in this discussion as I think we are flirting with the idea of turning the subject of the entire thread into that most sensitive of topics - the use or not of cash.
Before I head off I will just ask one question - what about Big Issue sellers.
I am old enough to remember when Israel was being pressed to give up land for peace. Well it did that in Gaza. It gave up land. It removed the settlers. And what it got in return was Hamas and rockets and now massacres.
Israel has made many mistakes over the years. Netanyahu is unquestionably the wrong leader for it, especially at such a time. I fear that an invasion of Gaza now will be a strategic error and lead to all sorts of casualties for the innocent.
But the Palestinians have consistently made huge errors, the biggest one of all being their refusal to accept Israel's right to exist. Hamas seeks the elimination of Israel and the killing of every Jew everywhere - not just in Israel. This is explicitly genocidal. There is no negotiation with such a movement. Eliminating it is the only answer. Just as we sought to eliminate Nazism and ISIS and other similar genocidal movements.
Those who worry about what happens next need to provide an alternative to Israel, one that will not make that country prey to genocidal maniacs. Lots of people are willing to speak hard truths to Israel about obeying the laws of war and civilian deaths and the rest of it. Very few are telling Hamas that it is their genocidal ideology which has brought Gaza to the point it is, that it is their deliberate policy of hiding amongst civilians which is putting Palestinians at risk, it is their refusal to accept Israel's right to exist which means there is not the remotest hope of starting any peace talks.
There is plenty of pressure which needs putting on Israel but Hamas must first be eliminated. It cannot - until it changes what it wants - be a player. It has taken itself outside the universe of civilised decency. So if invasion of Gaza is not the solution, what is? And if we don't have an alternative solution, then we can hardly be surprised if Israel does what it thinks necessary to save itself. What would we do were we in their position?
I sometimes feel that commentators are unwilling to provide or even begin to think about what an alternative might be because - after all the condemnations of Hamas - they give up at expecting anything better from the Palestinians and it is, after all, so much easier and more comfortable to revert to criticising Israel.
I was saying something similar the other day. Gaza allows itself to be ruled by Hamas. It does this in the knowledge that Hamas is committed to the death of all Jews. The murderous assaults came from their territory and seem to have been a source of glee.
I fully get that the residents of Gaza have a terrible life, that they are economically repressed by Israel and made to beg for water and electricity. Israel’s policies have been unenlightened at best and self harming all too often. If I lived in Gaza I would hate the Israeli government and want to resist that oppression.
But if you want to be listened to, if you want things to change, you do not start with the beheading of babies because they are Jews.
It is 17 years since there was an election in Gaza. 17 years during which Hamas has done it's best to kill anyone who actively opposes them. The Palestinians there 'allow' themselves to be ruled by Hamas about as much as the inhabitants of Kabul 'allow' themselves to be ruled by the Taliban.
Or the Germans "allowed" themselves to be ruled by Hitler. Good point.
What is amusing is that I suspect you and I regard that comment in very different ways.
I regard it in a very simple way, Richard. According to Israel the country is at war. You may disagree and we can discuss the difference between a terrorist act and an act of war. Israel, as one of the belligerents, thinks it is war. An existential one, to boot. If it is war then it is war.
I would be very interested to know how you regard that comment.
I agree. Israel is at war. And I do not even think discussing whose fault it might be in the long term changes anything there.
The difference appears to be that you think that being at war means that Israel are allowed to do anything they like to the Palestinian population and sod the consequences. You are one of those who quote, either directly or by inference, a war that ended 78 years ago in defence of this idea.
I believe that, partly as a result of what happened during that war, the world has rightly moved on and certain actions are now considered no longer acceptable even in war and are legally proscribed as such. Indiscriminate bombing of civilians, whether by intent or negligence, is one of thoise things. This is the case whether we believe the faiult lies entirely with Israel, entirely with the Palestinians or with a mixture of the two.
I think the issue here is that we are not used to existential wars. We have wars with limited aims and at the end of them the Americans bug out. Er, I mean at the end of them either one side wins, or there is a working negotiated settlement, or the matter is resolved one way or another.
Israel believes that it is in an existential war, just like we did 80 years ago (and hence my Godwin). In an existential war there is no merit in saying well we lost but at least we played by the (new, victor-imposed) rules. Losing equals annihilation.
And hence under those circumstances I am prepared, as you might have noticed from my various posts on the subject, to cut Israel quite a bit of slack. You often mention the use of white phosphorous by Israel, a horrible weapon. But again, and here we go back to WWII, and our own existential war, firebombing of German cities was seen as a legitimate act of war.
And no longer is under any circumstances. We were a signatory in 1949 to the 4th Geneva Convention and we were clear that it applied to us as much as anyone else. Under those laws that we keep purporting to support and try to impose on others, firebombing cities is no longer a legitimate act. Just like the use of chemical weapons or the murder of POWs.
Using the acts of the Allies 80 years ago as support for the current actions of countries is not a defendable argument.
You are speaking from the safety and security of a country that, please Odin, will never again face an existential threat. Israel does not believe it is in that position.
Signatories to this, that, or the other is meaningless. Of course we signed any old document in 1949 as we were at the peak of our powers and had just won a world war. That is not to say that Israel has chucked the Geneva Convention out of the window, according to news reports. Do you think that Israel as we speak is ignoring it? How difficult do you think it would be for Israel literally to level Gaza in an afternoon? Not very is my guess and Gaza is still standing.
The "rules of war" are a logical impossibility. I'm not going to roll out the "if your family were...." type of analogies but none of us can really understand what an existential war means and what you might be prepared to do if you were engaged in one.
Rules of war date back at least to the Code of Hammurabi in 1750BC. The Torah/Old Testament puts forth rules of war, for another early example.
The UK signed the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907. It is notable that the belligerents held to some rules of war, to some extent, through both World War I and World War II. The UK signed up to all four Geneva Conventions (adopted 1864, 1929 and 1949). Much of the modern conception of war crimes goes back to the 1945 London charter. War crimes have been incorporated into UK domestic law.
War crimes are almost inevitable in any major conflict, but we can reduce them. Most countries most of the time make some effort to follow the rules of war. It is ahistorical nonsense to act as if rules of war are only recent or unworkable.
So was the bombing of Dresden and Hiroshima a war crime under the 1750BC statute?
You keep bringing up Dresden and Hiroshima as if people don't view them as war crimes - lots of people, including historians, do. It just happened to be that the UK and the USA were on the winning side of that conflict and did not do any self reflection about that. Your position essentially boils down to "might makes right" - the winner decides what a war crime is and once that's done and dusted you move on.
That was my point and I'm glad we agree. @boulay was telling me that there have been war crimes since 1750BC via 1864 and a week last Thursday. I don't disagree but they are problematic in concept because when you have to win a war you have to win a war and you will, as Dresden and Hiroshima attest, do just about anything you believe you have to to do so.
The fact that afterwards or even before they were deemed war crimes is irrelevant. Do you ignore laws and treaties? No you try not to but as I mentioned, there is no point saying well at least I followed the rules as German forces march up through Kent towards London.
It is unclear the degree to which the bombing of Dresden did aid the Allied war effort. Targeting bombing at the enemy military and infrastructure is probably much more effective than attacking civilian targets. Many view Nazi Germany's decision to switch to targeting civilian targets in the Blitz as being part of why they lost the Battle of Britain.
And the idea that the Blitz would lower British moral seemed to have the opposite effect. Indeed, I think most evidence is that terror bombing does not scare the target into submission and instead makes them more likely to dig in.
The Blitz did lower British moral. We just did an excellent job of pretending it didn't.
I am old enough to remember when Israel was being pressed to give up land for peace. Well it did that in Gaza. It gave up land. It removed the settlers. And what it got in return was Hamas and rockets and now massacres.
Israel has made many mistakes over the years. Netanyahu is unquestionably the wrong leader for it, especially at such a time. I fear that an invasion of Gaza now will be a strategic error and lead to all sorts of casualties for the innocent.
But the Palestinians have consistently made huge errors, the biggest one of all being their refusal to accept Israel's right to exist. Hamas seeks the elimination of Israel and the killing of every Jew everywhere - not just in Israel. This is explicitly genocidal. There is no negotiation with such a movement. Eliminating it is the only answer. Just as we sought to eliminate Nazism and ISIS and other similar genocidal movements.
Those who worry about what happens next need to provide an alternative to Israel, one that will not make that country prey to genocidal maniacs. Lots of people are willing to speak hard truths to Israel about obeying the laws of war and civilian deaths and the rest of it. Very few are telling Hamas that it is their genocidal ideology which has brought Gaza to the point it is, that it is their deliberate policy of hiding amongst civilians which is putting Palestinians at risk, it is their refusal to accept Israel's right to exist which means there is not the remotest hope of starting any peace talks.
There is plenty of pressure which needs putting on Israel but Hamas must first be eliminated. It cannot - until it changes what it wants - be a player. It has taken itself outside the universe of civilised decency. So if invasion of Gaza is not the solution, what is? And if we don't have an alternative solution, then we can hardly be surprised if Israel does what it thinks necessary to save itself. What would we do were we in their position?
I sometimes feel that commentators are unwilling to provide or even begin to think about what an alternative might be because - after all the condemnations of Hamas - they give up at expecting anything better from the Palestinians and it is, after all, so much easier and more comfortable to revert to criticising Israel.
I was saying something similar the other day. Gaza allows itself to be ruled by Hamas. It does this in the knowledge that Hamas is committed to the death of all Jews. The murderous assaults came from their territory and seem to have been a source of glee.
I fully get that the residents of Gaza have a terrible life, that they are economically repressed by Israel and made to beg for water and electricity. Israel’s policies have been unenlightened at best and self harming all too often. If I lived in Gaza I would hate the Israeli government and want to resist that oppression.
But if you want to be listened to, if you want things to change, you do not start with the beheading of babies because they are Jews.
It is 17 years since there was an election in Gaza. 17 years during which Hamas has done it's best to kill anyone who actively opposes them. The Palestinians there 'allow' themselves to be ruled by Hamas about as much as the inhabitants of Kabul 'allow' themselves to be ruled by the Taliban.
Or the Germans "allowed" themselves to be ruled by Hitler. Good point.
What is amusing is that I suspect you and I regard that comment in very different ways.
I regard it in a very simple way, Richard. According to Israel the country is at war. You may disagree and we can discuss the difference between a terrorist act and an act of war. Israel, as one of the belligerents, thinks it is war. An existential one, to boot. If it is war then it is war.
I would be very interested to know how you regard that comment.
I agree. Israel is at war. And I do not even think discussing whose fault it might be in the long term changes anything there.
The difference appears to be that you think that being at war means that Israel are allowed to do anything they like to the Palestinian population and sod the consequences. You are one of those who quote, either directly or by inference, a war that ended 78 years ago in defence of this idea.
I believe that, partly as a result of what happened during that war, the world has rightly moved on and certain actions are now considered no longer acceptable even in war and are legally proscribed as such. Indiscriminate bombing of civilians, whether by intent or negligence, is one of thoise things. This is the case whether we believe the faiult lies entirely with Israel, entirely with the Palestinians or with a mixture of the two.
I think the issue here is that we are not used to existential wars. We have wars with limited aims and at the end of them the Americans bug out. Er, I mean at the end of them either one side wins, or there is a working negotiated settlement, or the matter is resolved one way or another.
Israel believes that it is in an existential war, just like we did 80 years ago (and hence my Godwin). In an existential war there is no merit in saying well we lost but at least we played by the (new, victor-imposed) rules. Losing equals annihilation.
And hence under those circumstances I am prepared, as you might have noticed from my various posts on the subject, to cut Israel quite a bit of slack. You often mention the use of white phosphorous by Israel, a horrible weapon. But again, and here we go back to WWII, and our own existential war, firebombing of German cities was seen as a legitimate act of war.
And no longer is under any circumstances. We were a signatory in 1949 to the 4th Geneva Convention and we were clear that it applied to us as much as anyone else. Under those laws that we keep purporting to support and try to impose on others, firebombing cities is no longer a legitimate act. Just like the use of chemical weapons or the murder of POWs.
Using the acts of the Allies 80 years ago as support for the current actions of countries is not a defendable argument.
You are speaking from the safety and security of a country that, please Odin, will never again face an existential threat. Israel does not believe it is in that position.
Signatories to this, that, or the other is meaningless. Of course we signed any old document in 1949 as we were at the peak of our powers and had just won a world war. That is not to say that Israel has chucked the Geneva Convention out of the window, according to news reports. Do you think that Israel as we speak is ignoring it? How difficult do you think it would be for Israel literally to level Gaza in an afternoon? Not very is my guess and Gaza is still standing.
The "rules of war" are a logical impossibility. I'm not going to roll out the "if your family were...." type of analogies but none of us can really understand what an existential war means and what you might be prepared to do if you were engaged in one.
Rules of war date back at least to the Code of Hammurabi in 1750BC. The Torah/Old Testament puts forth rules of war, for another early example.
The UK signed the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907. It is notable that the belligerents held to some rules of war, to some extent, through both World War I and World War II. The UK signed up to all four Geneva Conventions (adopted 1864, 1929 and 1949). Much of the modern conception of war crimes goes back to the 1945 London charter. War crimes have been incorporated into UK domestic law.
War crimes are almost inevitable in any major conflict, but we can reduce them. Most countries most of the time make some effort to follow the rules of war. It is ahistorical nonsense to act as if rules of war are only recent or unworkable.
So was the bombing of Dresden and Hiroshima a war crime under the 1750BC statute?
You keep bringing up Dresden and Hiroshima as if people don't view them as war crimes - lots of people, including historians, do. It just happened to be that the UK and the USA were on the winning side of that conflict and did not do any self reflection about that. Your position essentially boils down to "might makes right" - the winner decides what a war crime is and once that's done and dusted you move on.
That was my point and I'm glad we agree. @boulay was telling me that there have been war crimes since 1750BC via 1864 and a week last Thursday. I don't disagree but they are problematic in concept because when you have to win a war you have to win a war and you will, as Dresden and Hiroshima attest, do just about anything you believe you have to to do so.
The fact that afterwards or even before they were deemed war crimes is irrelevant. Do you ignore laws and treaties? No you try not to but as I mentioned, there is no point saying well at least I followed the rules as German forces march up through Kent towards London.
It is unclear the degree to which the bombing of Dresden did aid the Allied war effort. Targeting bombing at the enemy military and infrastructure is probably much more effective than attacking civilian targets. Many view Nazi Germany's decision to switch to targeting civilian targets in the Blitz as being part of why they lost the Battle of Britain.
And the idea that the Blitz would lower British moral seemed to have the opposite effect. Indeed, I think most evidence is that terror bombing does not scare the target into submission and instead makes them more likely to dig in.
IN a war like WWII, destroying the enemy's economy undermines the enemy's ability to fight on. Incinerating German cities meant destroying factories, transport links, power stations, mines etc. That's where it worked.
We are at a very dangerous point in this discussion as I think we are flirting with the idea of turning the subject of the entire thread into that most sensitive of topics - the use or not of cash.
Before I head off I will just ask one question - what about Big Issue sellers.
*and flees*
Just had to use cash at a train station cafe because all their electronic systems had broken down. I said to them 'If they'd abolished cash you wouldn't be able to trade at the moment".
I am old enough to remember when Israel was being pressed to give up land for peace. Well it did that in Gaza. It gave up land. It removed the settlers. And what it got in return was Hamas and rockets and now massacres.
Israel has made many mistakes over the years. Netanyahu is unquestionably the wrong leader for it, especially at such a time. I fear that an invasion of Gaza now will be a strategic error and lead to all sorts of casualties for the innocent.
But the Palestinians have consistently made huge errors, the biggest one of all being their refusal to accept Israel's right to exist. Hamas seeks the elimination of Israel and the killing of every Jew everywhere - not just in Israel. This is explicitly genocidal. There is no negotiation with such a movement. Eliminating it is the only answer. Just as we sought to eliminate Nazism and ISIS and other similar genocidal movements.
Those who worry about what happens next need to provide an alternative to Israel, one that will not make that country prey to genocidal maniacs. Lots of people are willing to speak hard truths to Israel about obeying the laws of war and civilian deaths and the rest of it. Very few are telling Hamas that it is their genocidal ideology which has brought Gaza to the point it is, that it is their deliberate policy of hiding amongst civilians which is putting Palestinians at risk, it is their refusal to accept Israel's right to exist which means there is not the remotest hope of starting any peace talks.
There is plenty of pressure which needs putting on Israel but Hamas must first be eliminated. It cannot - until it changes what it wants - be a player. It has taken itself outside the universe of civilised decency. So if invasion of Gaza is not the solution, what is? And if we don't have an alternative solution, then we can hardly be surprised if Israel does what it thinks necessary to save itself. What would we do were we in their position?
I sometimes feel that commentators are unwilling to provide or even begin to think about what an alternative might be because - after all the condemnations of Hamas - they give up at expecting anything better from the Palestinians and it is, after all, so much easier and more comfortable to revert to criticising Israel.
I was saying something similar the other day. Gaza allows itself to be ruled by Hamas. It does this in the knowledge that Hamas is committed to the death of all Jews. The murderous assaults came from their territory and seem to have been a source of glee.
I fully get that the residents of Gaza have a terrible life, that they are economically repressed by Israel and made to beg for water and electricity. Israel’s policies have been unenlightened at best and self harming all too often. If I lived in Gaza I would hate the Israeli government and want to resist that oppression.
But if you want to be listened to, if you want things to change, you do not start with the beheading of babies because they are Jews.
It is 17 years since there was an election in Gaza. 17 years during which Hamas has done it's best to kill anyone who actively opposes them. The Palestinians there 'allow' themselves to be ruled by Hamas about as much as the inhabitants of Kabul 'allow' themselves to be ruled by the Taliban.
Or the Germans "allowed" themselves to be ruled by Hitler. Good point.
What is amusing is that I suspect you and I regard that comment in very different ways.
I regard it in a very simple way, Richard. According to Israel the country is at war. You may disagree and we can discuss the difference between a terrorist act and an act of war. Israel, as one of the belligerents, thinks it is war. An existential one, to boot. If it is war then it is war.
I would be very interested to know how you regard that comment.
I agree. Israel is at war. And I do not even think discussing whose fault it might be in the long term changes anything there.
The difference appears to be that you think that being at war means that Israel are allowed to do anything they like to the Palestinian population and sod the consequences. You are one of those who quote, either directly or by inference, a war that ended 78 years ago in defence of this idea.
I believe that, partly as a result of what happened during that war, the world has rightly moved on and certain actions are now considered no longer acceptable even in war and are legally proscribed as such. Indiscriminate bombing of civilians, whether by intent or negligence, is one of thoise things. This is the case whether we believe the faiult lies entirely with Israel, entirely with the Palestinians or with a mixture of the two.
I think the issue here is that we are not used to existential wars. We have wars with limited aims and at the end of them the Americans bug out. Er, I mean at the end of them either one side wins, or there is a working negotiated settlement, or the matter is resolved one way or another.
Israel believes that it is in an existential war, just like we did 80 years ago (and hence my Godwin). In an existential war there is no merit in saying well we lost but at least we played by the (new, victor-imposed) rules. Losing equals annihilation.
And hence under those circumstances I am prepared, as you might have noticed from my various posts on the subject, to cut Israel quite a bit of slack. You often mention the use of white phosphorous by Israel, a horrible weapon. But again, and here we go back to WWII, and our own existential war, firebombing of German cities was seen as a legitimate act of war.
And no longer is under any circumstances. We were a signatory in 1949 to the 4th Geneva Convention and we were clear that it applied to us as much as anyone else. Under those laws that we keep purporting to support and try to impose on others, firebombing cities is no longer a legitimate act. Just like the use of chemical weapons or the murder of POWs.
Using the acts of the Allies 80 years ago as support for the current actions of countries is not a defendable argument.
You are speaking from the safety and security of a country that, please Odin, will never again face an existential threat. Israel does not believe it is in that position.
Signatories to this, that, or the other is meaningless. Of course we signed any old document in 1949 as we were at the peak of our powers and had just won a world war. That is not to say that Israel has chucked the Geneva Convention out of the window, according to news reports. Do you think that Israel as we speak is ignoring it? How difficult do you think it would be for Israel literally to level Gaza in an afternoon? Not very is my guess and Gaza is still standing.
The "rules of war" are a logical impossibility. I'm not going to roll out the "if your family were...." type of analogies but none of us can really understand what an existential war means and what you might be prepared to do if you were engaged in one.
Rules of war date back at least to the Code of Hammurabi in 1750BC. The Torah/Old Testament puts forth rules of war, for another early example.
The UK signed the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907. It is notable that the belligerents held to some rules of war, to some extent, through both World War I and World War II. The UK signed up to all four Geneva Conventions (adopted 1864, 1929 and 1949). Much of the modern conception of war crimes goes back to the 1945 London charter. War crimes have been incorporated into UK domestic law.
War crimes are almost inevitable in any major conflict, but we can reduce them. Most countries most of the time make some effort to follow the rules of war. It is ahistorical nonsense to act as if rules of war are only recent or unworkable.
So was the bombing of Dresden and Hiroshima a war crime under the 1750BC statute?
You keep bringing up Dresden and Hiroshima as if people don't view them as war crimes - lots of people, including historians, do. It just happened to be that the UK and the USA were on the winning side of that conflict and did not do any self reflection about that. Your position essentially boils down to "might makes right" - the winner decides what a war crime is and once that's done and dusted you move on.
That was my point and I'm glad we agree. @boulay was telling me that there have been war crimes since 1750BC via 1864 and a week last Thursday. I don't disagree but they are problematic in concept because when you have to win a war you have to win a war and you will, as Dresden and Hiroshima attest, do just about anything you believe you have to to do so.
The fact that afterwards or even before they were deemed war crimes is irrelevant. Do you ignore laws and treaties? No you try not to but as I mentioned, there is no point saying well at least I followed the rules as German forces march up through Kent towards London.
It is unclear the degree to which the bombing of Dresden did aid the Allied war effort. Targeting bombing at the enemy military and infrastructure is probably much more effective than attacking civilian targets. Many view Nazi Germany's decision to switch to targeting civilian targets in the Blitz as being part of why they lost the Battle of Britain.
I'm sure there are plenty of discussions to be had about the efficacy of such tactics but the decision to execute them wasn't encumbered by the thought that they might be "war crimes".
Maybe they should have been? And I think we should live in a world where we are encumbered by the thought they might be war crimes.
Someone I listened to said that a high US general believed that the nuclear codes should be sown into a soldier that guarded the President and could only be accessed if the POTUS killed the soldier, so that the weight of taking a life was an imminent and direct experience and not some theoretical conundrum. I obviously dislike the idea in reality, but as a metaphor it seems fitting.
I mean I am a fan of people taking the knee. A visible action against racism, of which there continues to be a fuckload at footie matches and which was beyond endemic in times gone by.
Equally it gives me great pleasure to see a typical PL footie match wherein there is a united nations of races, creeds, colours (not sexuality yet but I'm sure it is coming) and I believe the game is truly colour blind. You only have to see celebrations after a goal to confirm this at least amongst the players.
However, the pickle that the FA and indeed all football clubs finds itself in wrt Israel/Gaza is as a consequence of these gestures.
Like you I have no issue with taking the knee. It’s a harmless gesture against racism and helps raise awareness so where’s the downside ?
Soccer is also happy to have players wear rainbow laces. Again. No problem there.
When people complained about the taking of the knee or the laces the FA and twitterati were quick to condemn. They’re silent now a and this silence shames them.
They’ve made a major error here. They have a chance to rectify it. They need to do it ASAP.
Their reasoning is clear. They don’t want to offend the sort of people who believe 6MWNE.
Possibly. But I suspect they also fear it might 'provoke' attacks against Jews.
6MWNE is obviously a problem but there are a whole more who don't believe it ever happened.
I don't think there's anyone who believes the Holocaust never happened.
Those who claim it just enjoy trolling Jews and/or recognise that the Holocaust is bad PR for their cause. But, the know full well that it happened, and they think it was a good thing.
I'll never forget seeing a discussion in 2004 on another forum where I became of the concept of Holocaust minimisation.
Apparently when you factor in the hype, and the gays and other undesirables only 2 million Jews died in the Holocaust which apparently is fine because it wasn't as bad as other genocides like the Great Leap Forward or some of Stalin's worst excesses or slightly worse than the Rwandan genocide.
I saw a post on Twitter responding to someone making the point they beheaded babies ‘not all of the babies were beheaded’
That has been a huge debate on Twitter (and it is still rumbling on). There have been some quite hideous comments by Hamas apologists saying “oh only five babies were beheaded the rest were shot” or “they only cut the throats of the babies and anyway its racist to suggest all Arabs are beheaders”
(These are real statements)
Islam is supposed to be a religion of peace.
So is Christianity - what with turning the cheek and martyrdom and all that.
Not many Christians in this conflict
There will be dead Christians on both sides of the border - Palestinian Christians in Gaza and Christian tourists / settlers in Israel.
Theyre the collateral damage not the protagonists.
The leader of the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades was a Christian.
I am old enough to remember when Israel was being pressed to give up land for peace. Well it did that in Gaza. It gave up land. It removed the settlers. And what it got in return was Hamas and rockets and now massacres.
Israel has made many mistakes over the years. Netanyahu is unquestionably the wrong leader for it, especially at such a time. I fear that an invasion of Gaza now will be a strategic error and lead to all sorts of casualties for the innocent.
But the Palestinians have consistently made huge errors, the biggest one of all being their refusal to accept Israel's right to exist. Hamas seeks the elimination of Israel and the killing of every Jew everywhere - not just in Israel. This is explicitly genocidal. There is no negotiation with such a movement. Eliminating it is the only answer. Just as we sought to eliminate Nazism and ISIS and other similar genocidal movements.
Those who worry about what happens next need to provide an alternative to Israel, one that will not make that country prey to genocidal maniacs. Lots of people are willing to speak hard truths to Israel about obeying the laws of war and civilian deaths and the rest of it. Very few are telling Hamas that it is their genocidal ideology which has brought Gaza to the point it is, that it is their deliberate policy of hiding amongst civilians which is putting Palestinians at risk, it is their refusal to accept Israel's right to exist which means there is not the remotest hope of starting any peace talks.
There is plenty of pressure which needs putting on Israel but Hamas must first be eliminated. It cannot - until it changes what it wants - be a player. It has taken itself outside the universe of civilised decency. So if invasion of Gaza is not the solution, what is? And if we don't have an alternative solution, then we can hardly be surprised if Israel does what it thinks necessary to save itself. What would we do were we in their position?
I sometimes feel that commentators are unwilling to provide or even begin to think about what an alternative might be because - after all the condemnations of Hamas - they give up at expecting anything better from the Palestinians and it is, after all, so much easier and more comfortable to revert to criticising Israel.
I was saying something similar the other day. Gaza allows itself to be ruled by Hamas. It does this in the knowledge that Hamas is committed to the death of all Jews. The murderous assaults came from their territory and seem to have been a source of glee.
I fully get that the residents of Gaza have a terrible life, that they are economically repressed by Israel and made to beg for water and electricity. Israel’s policies have been unenlightened at best and self harming all too often. If I lived in Gaza I would hate the Israeli government and want to resist that oppression.
But if you want to be listened to, if you want things to change, you do not start with the beheading of babies because they are Jews.
It is 17 years since there was an election in Gaza. 17 years during which Hamas has done it's best to kill anyone who actively opposes them. The Palestinians there 'allow' themselves to be ruled by Hamas about as much as the inhabitants of Kabul 'allow' themselves to be ruled by the Taliban.
Or the Germans "allowed" themselves to be ruled by Hitler. Good point.
What is amusing is that I suspect you and I regard that comment in very different ways.
I regard it in a very simple way, Richard. According to Israel the country is at war. You may disagree and we can discuss the difference between a terrorist act and an act of war. Israel, as one of the belligerents, thinks it is war. An existential one, to boot. If it is war then it is war.
I would be very interested to know how you regard that comment.
I agree. Israel is at war. And I do not even think discussing whose fault it might be in the long term changes anything there.
The difference appears to be that you think that being at war means that Israel are allowed to do anything they like to the Palestinian population and sod the consequences. You are one of those who quote, either directly or by inference, a war that ended 78 years ago in defence of this idea.
I believe that, partly as a result of what happened during that war, the world has rightly moved on and certain actions are now considered no longer acceptable even in war and are legally proscribed as such. Indiscriminate bombing of civilians, whether by intent or negligence, is one of thoise things. This is the case whether we believe the faiult lies entirely with Israel, entirely with the Palestinians or with a mixture of the two.
I think the issue here is that we are not used to existential wars. We have wars with limited aims and at the end of them the Americans bug out. Er, I mean at the end of them either one side wins, or there is a working negotiated settlement, or the matter is resolved one way or another.
Israel believes that it is in an existential war, just like we did 80 years ago (and hence my Godwin). In an existential war there is no merit in saying well we lost but at least we played by the (new, victor-imposed) rules. Losing equals annihilation.
And hence under those circumstances I am prepared, as you might have noticed from my various posts on the subject, to cut Israel quite a bit of slack. You often mention the use of white phosphorous by Israel, a horrible weapon. But again, and here we go back to WWII, and our own existential war, firebombing of German cities was seen as a legitimate act of war.
When Israel was founded, I can understand that feeling. Now, as the primary beneficiary of the world's only existing superpowers military largesse and political hegemonic power, no. If they believe it is an existential war it is only because they have propagandised it so to themselves. And I don't think those in the Israeli government do even view it as an existential war, because if you want a sure fire way to guarantee the entire Middle East will never normalise relations with you and may even go to war with you, start doing a genocide in Gaza.
On October 7 more Jews died than on any other day since the Holocaust. What’s more, nearly all of them were civilians - from tiny babies butchered in their cribs to 85 year old women shot in the head
I don’t lightly accuse someone of anti-Semitism but your inability to see how this impacts the Jewish psyche is alarming. I’ll leave it there
When talking about Israel going to war or committing war crimes it is important to note that Israel is a state - it does not represent Jewishness or Jewish people.
It is, explicitly, a Jewish State.
That's what all the fuss and bother is about.
That doesn't mean every Jewish person accepts that. Catholicism would claim to be the one true Christianity - so what?
Indeed. England (UK?) is explicitly an Anglican Protestant state. I don't accept that in my name, in fact I think its moronic and reject the concept unreservedly
Enfranchising people who are implicitly enemies of the state is surely asking for trouble though?
Why are those people enemies of the state? People seem to think that Palestinian dislike of Israel is somehow inherently based in anti-Semitism, when a much clearer position is that, yes anti-Semitism exists in their culture and always has done, the main reason for the conflict is that one state (Israel) has complete control over them and uses that control to do them harm.
I think people look at Israel as a Jewish state and therefore see all conflict with their neighbours as rooted in that - which is a very very large generalisation. The conflict between Israel and neighbouring states could, and arguably is, be as easily explained by the fact it is a colonialist settler project that was forced on the Arab nations against their will by Europeans, many to be the home of secular Jewish (and later more religious Jewish) people. A state that would clearly share more in common geopolitically with the Western powers in an area where those powers had recently been in charge of the entire region and treated them awfully.
Again, does anti-Semitism play a part? Yes.
But to put all of this down to Jewishness versus Islamist is to ignore the material and geopolitical reality.
When people say they hate Jews and want to wipe them out (and Middle Eastern anti-semitism long predates Israel) I think Jews are entitled to believe them.
Perhaps this current conflict could have been avoided had the Ottomans and British authorities simply mandated that no Jew should ever be allowed to settle in Palestine, but I think that would be hard to defend on ethical groudns.-
European people conflate Jewish and Israeli all the time - when you live in Gaza I can see why that would happen more than in most places. And like I said, I am sure that anti-Semitism plays a role in it. But before there was a state of Israel there were also large numbers of mixed communities where Jewish people lived in harmony with the local people there; indeed many who fled European anti-Semitism, pogroms and the Holocaust, went to the holy land. Was it perfect, no, nowhere is, but they did live together.
The issue of partition, with a specific state for Jewish Israelis and a specific state for Palestinian Arabs, is when the modern conflict arose. People do not like being displaced from their land and told to live elsewhere, and other countries don't like new neighbours who will have more in common with an opposing geopolitical block than them.
It's easy to point at partition and call that the problem. However, the only difference between 7th October and thousands of similar massacres over many centuries before 1948, is that Jews now have a state and an army to stand up for them when they're attacked.
It's entirely fanciful to suggest that they're going to give that up, so, however problematic one might view partition, it's something we do have to work with.
Israel has the right to defend itself from attack and I don't think it's plausible to suggest going back to a pre-1947 situation. However, let us remember that Israel has taken a range of different approaches to Palestine over the decades. Bibi's government is the most nationalist and aggressive for decades. Past Israeli governments have been more willing to support a 2-state solution, to stop settlements in occupied territory, to allow the Palestinians control over their lives, etc. We didn't used to have Israeli government ministers who were explicitly calling for a Greater Israel covering all of Gaza, the West Bank and Jordan.
The ghosts of Ariel Sharon, Yigal Allon and Moshe Dayan wave hello.
We are at a very dangerous point in this discussion as I think we are flirting with the idea of turning the subject of the entire thread into that most sensitive of topics - the use or not of cash.
Before I head off I will just ask one question - what about Big Issue sellers.
*and flees*
Don't you stop and explain to them that they have an obsolete business plan?
I am old enough to remember when Israel was being pressed to give up land for peace. Well it did that in Gaza. It gave up land. It removed the settlers. And what it got in return was Hamas and rockets and now massacres.
Israel has made many mistakes over the years. Netanyahu is unquestionably the wrong leader for it, especially at such a time. I fear that an invasion of Gaza now will be a strategic error and lead to all sorts of casualties for the innocent.
But the Palestinians have consistently made huge errors, the biggest one of all being their refusal to accept Israel's right to exist. Hamas seeks the elimination of Israel and the killing of every Jew everywhere - not just in Israel. This is explicitly genocidal. There is no negotiation with such a movement. Eliminating it is the only answer. Just as we sought to eliminate Nazism and ISIS and other similar genocidal movements.
Those who worry about what happens next need to provide an alternative to Israel, one that will not make that country prey to genocidal maniacs. Lots of people are willing to speak hard truths to Israel about obeying the laws of war and civilian deaths and the rest of it. Very few are telling Hamas that it is their genocidal ideology which has brought Gaza to the point it is, that it is their deliberate policy of hiding amongst civilians which is putting Palestinians at risk, it is their refusal to accept Israel's right to exist which means there is not the remotest hope of starting any peace talks.
There is plenty of pressure which needs putting on Israel but Hamas must first be eliminated. It cannot - until it changes what it wants - be a player. It has taken itself outside the universe of civilised decency. So if invasion of Gaza is not the solution, what is? And if we don't have an alternative solution, then we can hardly be surprised if Israel does what it thinks necessary to save itself. What would we do were we in their position?
I sometimes feel that commentators are unwilling to provide or even begin to think about what an alternative might be because - after all the condemnations of Hamas - they give up at expecting anything better from the Palestinians and it is, after all, so much easier and more comfortable to revert to criticising Israel.
I was saying something similar the other day. Gaza allows itself to be ruled by Hamas. It does this in the knowledge that Hamas is committed to the death of all Jews. The murderous assaults came from their territory and seem to have been a source of glee.
I fully get that the residents of Gaza have a terrible life, that they are economically repressed by Israel and made to beg for water and electricity. Israel’s policies have been unenlightened at best and self harming all too often. If I lived in Gaza I would hate the Israeli government and want to resist that oppression.
But if you want to be listened to, if you want things to change, you do not start with the beheading of babies because they are Jews.
It is 17 years since there was an election in Gaza. 17 years during which Hamas has done it's best to kill anyone who actively opposes them. The Palestinians there 'allow' themselves to be ruled by Hamas about as much as the inhabitants of Kabul 'allow' themselves to be ruled by the Taliban.
Or the Germans "allowed" themselves to be ruled by Hitler. Good point.
What is amusing is that I suspect you and I regard that comment in very different ways.
I regard it in a very simple way, Richard. According to Israel the country is at war. You may disagree and we can discuss the difference between a terrorist act and an act of war. Israel, as one of the belligerents, thinks it is war. An existential one, to boot. If it is war then it is war.
I would be very interested to know how you regard that comment.
I agree. Israel is at war. And I do not even think discussing whose fault it might be in the long term changes anything there.
The difference appears to be that you think that being at war means that Israel are allowed to do anything they like to the Palestinian population and sod the consequences. You are one of those who quote, either directly or by inference, a war that ended 78 years ago in defence of this idea.
I believe that, partly as a result of what happened during that war, the world has rightly moved on and certain actions are now considered no longer acceptable even in war and are legally proscribed as such. Indiscriminate bombing of civilians, whether by intent or negligence, is one of thoise things. This is the case whether we believe the faiult lies entirely with Israel, entirely with the Palestinians or with a mixture of the two.
I think the issue here is that we are not used to existential wars. We have wars with limited aims and at the end of them the Americans bug out. Er, I mean at the end of them either one side wins, or there is a working negotiated settlement, or the matter is resolved one way or another.
Israel believes that it is in an existential war, just like we did 80 years ago (and hence my Godwin). In an existential war there is no merit in saying well we lost but at least we played by the (new, victor-imposed) rules. Losing equals annihilation.
And hence under those circumstances I am prepared, as you might have noticed from my various posts on the subject, to cut Israel quite a bit of slack. You often mention the use of white phosphorous by Israel, a horrible weapon. But again, and here we go back to WWII, and our own existential war, firebombing of German cities was seen as a legitimate act of war.
And no longer is under any circumstances. We were a signatory in 1949 to the 4th Geneva Convention and we were clear that it applied to us as much as anyone else. Under those laws that we keep purporting to support and try to impose on others, firebombing cities is no longer a legitimate act. Just like the use of chemical weapons or the murder of POWs.
Using the acts of the Allies 80 years ago as support for the current actions of countries is not a defendable argument.
You are speaking from the safety and security of a country that, please Odin, will never again face an existential threat. Israel does not believe it is in that position.
Signatories to this, that, or the other is meaningless. Of course we signed any old document in 1949 as we were at the peak of our powers and had just won a world war. That is not to say that Israel has chucked the Geneva Convention out of the window, according to news reports. Do you think that Israel as we speak is ignoring it? How difficult do you think it would be for Israel literally to level Gaza in an afternoon? Not very is my guess and Gaza is still standing.
The "rules of war" are a logical impossibility. I'm not going to roll out the "if your family were...." type of analogies but none of us can really understand what an existential war means and what you might be prepared to do if you were engaged in one.
Rules of war date back at least to the Code of Hammurabi in 1750BC. The Torah/Old Testament puts forth rules of war, for another early example.
The UK signed the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907. It is notable that the belligerents held to some rules of war, to some extent, through both World War I and World War II. The UK signed up to all four Geneva Conventions (adopted 1864, 1929 and 1949). Much of the modern conception of war crimes goes back to the 1945 London charter. War crimes have been incorporated into UK domestic law.
War crimes are almost inevitable in any major conflict, but we can reduce them. Most countries most of the time make some effort to follow the rules of war. It is ahistorical nonsense to act as if rules of war are only recent or unworkable.
So was the bombing of Dresden and Hiroshima a war crime under the 1750BC statute?
You keep bringing up Dresden and Hiroshima as if people don't view them as war crimes - lots of people, including historians, do. It just happened to be that the UK and the USA were on the winning side of that conflict and did not do any self reflection about that. Your position essentially boils down to "might makes right" - the winner decides what a war crime is and once that's done and dusted you move on.
And of course post war the UK and US have signed up to a treaty that, without postdating it, says that actions such as the bombing of Dresen would, forthwith, be considered war crimes.
Hiroshima is more interesting (if you will excuse the rather callous phrase) because the was the argumet that, in the wake of the mass suicides on Iwo Jima using the atomic bomb on the city actually saved more Japanese civilian lives than it took.
But even in that instance, using it as a justification for anything today implies it would be acceptable for a power today to make first use of a nuclear weapon for strategic purposes. Which would certainly be considered a war crime. So I am not convinced Topping has thought this through very carefully.
But, if I found myself in the same position as Truman, then war crime or no, I'd authorise the use of the bomb.
Would you authorise the use of the second bomb? I can see there is a difficult debate over Hiroshima. It's hard to see the same applying to Nagasaki.
The absolute cheek for Australia to ask Bavuma to withdraw the appeal after what happened to Bairstow. Reap what you sow lads.
What did I miss?
Australia Innings
17.2 Rabada to Stoinis, OUT Pace down the leg-side, is that off the bat?! The umpire says no, as de Kock leaps like a rampant salmon and clings on in both gloves. South Africa review! It's close to the hip, close to the bat handle... it's probably one or the other... it's glove, but I think his hand is off the bat... or is it! It's been given! I think, from his explanation, Richard Kettleborough reckons the bottom hand is touching the top hand... The second deeply odd dismissal of the innings... and it's not done yet, as they are checking whether de Kock took it cleanly now. The third umpire is happy with that part too, but Australia are not!
Marcus Stoinis c †de Kock b Rabada 5 (4b 1x4 0x6) SR: 125
South Africa vs Australia, ICC Cricket World Cup, 10th Match
I mean I am a fan of people taking the knee. A visible action against racism, of which there continues to be a fuckload at footie matches and which was beyond endemic in times gone by.
Equally it gives me great pleasure to see a typical PL footie match wherein there is a united nations of races, creeds, colours (not sexuality yet but I'm sure it is coming) and I believe the game is truly colour blind. You only have to see celebrations after a goal to confirm this at least amongst the players.
However, the pickle that the FA and indeed all football clubs finds itself in wrt Israel/Gaza is as a consequence of these gestures.
Like you I have no issue with taking the knee. It’s a harmless gesture against racism and helps raise awareness so where’s the downside ?
Soccer is also happy to have players wear rainbow laces. Again. No problem there.
When people complained about the taking of the knee or the laces the FA and twitterati were quick to condemn. They’re silent now a and this silence shames them.
They’ve made a major error here. They have a chance to rectify it. They need to do it ASAP.
Their reasoning is clear. They don’t want to offend the sort of people who believe 6MWNE.
Possibly. But I suspect they also fear it might 'provoke' attacks against Jews.
6MWNE is obviously a problem but there are a whole more who don't believe it ever happened.
I don't think there's anyone who believes the Holocaust never happened.
Those who claim it just enjoy trolling Jews and/or recognise that the Holocaust is bad PR for their cause. But, the know full well that it happened, and they think it was a good thing.
I'll never forget seeing a discussion in 2004 on another forum where I became of the concept of Holocaust minimisation.
Apparently when you factor in the hype, and the gays and other undesirables only 2 million Jews died in the Holocaust which apparently is fine because it wasn't as bad as other genocides like the Great Leap Forward or some of Stalin's worst excesses or slightly worse than the Rwandan genocide.
I saw a post on Twitter responding to someone making the point they beheaded babies ‘not all of the babies were beheaded’
That has been a huge debate on Twitter (and it is still rumbling on). There have been some quite hideous comments by Hamas apologists saying “oh only five babies were beheaded the rest were shot” or “they only cut the throats of the babies and anyway its racist to suggest all Arabs are beheaders”
(These are real statements)
Islam is supposed to be a religion of peace.
So is Christianity - what with turning the cheek and martyrdom and all that.
Not many Christians in this conflict
There will be dead Christians on both sides of the border - Palestinian Christians in Gaza and Christian tourists / settlers in Israel.
Theyre the collateral damage not the protagonists.
The leader of the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades was a Christian.
About 10% of the West Bank are. They dont like the Israelis any more just because they are not muslims. The other interesting community are the Druze who side with the Israelis but dislike the muslims due to past persecutions,
I am old enough to remember when Israel was being pressed to give up land for peace. Well it did that in Gaza. It gave up land. It removed the settlers. And what it got in return was Hamas and rockets and now massacres.
Israel has made many mistakes over the years. Netanyahu is unquestionably the wrong leader for it, especially at such a time. I fear that an invasion of Gaza now will be a strategic error and lead to all sorts of casualties for the innocent.
But the Palestinians have consistently made huge errors, the biggest one of all being their refusal to accept Israel's right to exist. Hamas seeks the elimination of Israel and the killing of every Jew everywhere - not just in Israel. This is explicitly genocidal. There is no negotiation with such a movement. Eliminating it is the only answer. Just as we sought to eliminate Nazism and ISIS and other similar genocidal movements.
Those who worry about what happens next need to provide an alternative to Israel, one that will not make that country prey to genocidal maniacs. Lots of people are willing to speak hard truths to Israel about obeying the laws of war and civilian deaths and the rest of it. Very few are telling Hamas that it is their genocidal ideology which has brought Gaza to the point it is, that it is their deliberate policy of hiding amongst civilians which is putting Palestinians at risk, it is their refusal to accept Israel's right to exist which means there is not the remotest hope of starting any peace talks.
There is plenty of pressure which needs putting on Israel but Hamas must first be eliminated. It cannot - until it changes what it wants - be a player. It has taken itself outside the universe of civilised decency. So if invasion of Gaza is not the solution, what is? And if we don't have an alternative solution, then we can hardly be surprised if Israel does what it thinks necessary to save itself. What would we do were we in their position?
I sometimes feel that commentators are unwilling to provide or even begin to think about what an alternative might be because - after all the condemnations of Hamas - they give up at expecting anything better from the Palestinians and it is, after all, so much easier and more comfortable to revert to criticising Israel.
I was saying something similar the other day. Gaza allows itself to be ruled by Hamas. It does this in the knowledge that Hamas is committed to the death of all Jews. The murderous assaults came from their territory and seem to have been a source of glee.
I fully get that the residents of Gaza have a terrible life, that they are economically repressed by Israel and made to beg for water and electricity. Israel’s policies have been unenlightened at best and self harming all too often. If I lived in Gaza I would hate the Israeli government and want to resist that oppression.
But if you want to be listened to, if you want things to change, you do not start with the beheading of babies because they are Jews.
It is 17 years since there was an election in Gaza. 17 years during which Hamas has done it's best to kill anyone who actively opposes them. The Palestinians there 'allow' themselves to be ruled by Hamas about as much as the inhabitants of Kabul 'allow' themselves to be ruled by the Taliban.
So send the military in to liberate the populace and destroy Hamas.
2 birds, one stone.
If they were willing to do it in a way that we generally tried to in Afghanistan then I would agree all the way. But they won't. They are simply flattening the place with no regard for Palestinian casualties.
Its war, that happens. They need to flatten the places which Hamas are using.
There are no easy or peaceful solutions in warfare.
Safe refuge out of Gaza should be allowed for those who don't want to be fighting, many towns or cities have lost 95% of their population in Eastern Ukraine, no reason that won't or shouldn't happen in Gaza City too.
The civilians in Eastern Ukraine were allowed to leave. The civilians in Gaza are not.
But interesting that you are now (inadvetently) comparing the what is being done to the Palestinians with what was done to the Ukrainians.
I've made the comparison repeatedly.
Hamas = Russia Ukraine = Israel
Only difference is that Israel has the strength to take the fight onto the invaders territory rather than being forced to have it on their own.
That's not a bad thing, the situations are parallel rather than identical.
The absolute cheek for Australia to ask Bavuma to withdraw the appeal after what happened to Bairstow. Reap what you sow lads.
What did I miss?
Australia Innings
17.2 Rabada to Stoinis, OUT Pace down the leg-side, is that off the bat?! The umpire says no, as de Kock leaps like a rampant salmon and clings on in both gloves. South Africa review! It's close to the hip, close to the bat handle... it's probably one or the other... it's glove, but I think his hand is off the bat... or is it! It's been given! I think, from his explanation, Richard Kettleborough reckons the bottom hand is touching the top hand... The second deeply odd dismissal of the innings... and it's not done yet, as they are checking whether de Kock took it cleanly now. The third umpire is happy with that part too, but Australia are not!
Marcus Stoinis c †de Kock b Rabada 5 (4b 1x4 0x6) SR: 125
South Africa vs Australia, ICC Cricket World Cup, 10th Match
* One of the people involved is Doug Paulley, who was the person who won a legal action to make the rail industry accept that Rail Replacement Buses should be accessible, and another one that wheelchair users have a legal right to first priority on use of wheelchair spaces on buses (which was half a victory, the following problem is making bus drivers accept it in practice - they often do nothing if Karen has put her pushchair there and refuses to move it, so the wheelchair user gets left at the bus stop).
They are terrible in many ways, but I have to say the local bus company here are superb on this. The drivers are pretty forthright about warning people who park pushchairs in the wheelchair bay they'll have to get lost if a wheelchair needs the space.
Which is no small thing; on one occasion I saw a driver attacked because of this. He asked a couple with a pushchair to get off and wait on the next bus (15 minutes wait at most) so a wheelchair user could get on, to much wailing and cursing from the couple. Then some guy, whom I'd seen on the bus before and had obvious mental health issues, gets up and starts screaming at the driver, before trying to get him in a head-lock.
So I can understand why bus drivers are sometimes reluctant to get involved.
I mean I am a fan of people taking the knee. A visible action against racism, of which there continues to be a fuckload at footie matches and which was beyond endemic in times gone by.
Equally it gives me great pleasure to see a typical PL footie match wherein there is a united nations of races, creeds, colours (not sexuality yet but I'm sure it is coming) and I believe the game is truly colour blind. You only have to see celebrations after a goal to confirm this at least amongst the players.
However, the pickle that the FA and indeed all football clubs finds itself in wrt Israel/Gaza is as a consequence of these gestures.
Like you I have no issue with taking the knee. It’s a harmless gesture against racism and helps raise awareness so where’s the downside ?
Soccer is also happy to have players wear rainbow laces. Again. No problem there.
When people complained about the taking of the knee or the laces the FA and twitterati were quick to condemn. They’re silent now a and this silence shames them.
They’ve made a major error here. They have a chance to rectify it. They need to do it ASAP.
Their reasoning is clear. They don’t want to offend the sort of people who believe 6MWNE.
Possibly. But I suspect they also fear it might 'provoke' attacks against Jews.
6MWNE is obviously a problem but there are a whole more who don't believe it ever happened.
I don't think there's anyone who believes the Holocaust never happened.
Those who claim it just enjoy trolling Jews and/or recognise that the Holocaust is bad PR for their cause. But, the know full well that it happened, and they think it was a good thing.
I'll never forget seeing a discussion in 2004 on another forum where I became of the concept of Holocaust minimisation.
Apparently when you factor in the hype, and the gays and other undesirables only 2 million Jews died in the Holocaust which apparently is fine because it wasn't as bad as other genocides like the Great Leap Forward or some of Stalin's worst excesses or slightly worse than the Rwandan genocide.
I saw a post on Twitter responding to someone making the point they beheaded babies ‘not all of the babies were beheaded’
That has been a huge debate on Twitter (and it is still rumbling on). There have been some quite hideous comments by Hamas apologists saying “oh only five babies were beheaded the rest were shot” or “they only cut the throats of the babies and anyway its racist to suggest all Arabs are beheaders”
(These are real statements)
Islam is supposed to be a religion of peace.
So is Christianity - what with turning the cheek and martyrdom and all that.
Not many Christians in this conflict
There will be dead Christians on both sides of the border - Palestinian Christians in Gaza and Christian tourists / settlers in Israel.
I just thought I'd look it up, and there are not that many Palestinian Christians left, and even fewer in Gaza.
"According to the 2017 PCBS census, there are around 47.000 Christians in Palestine, with the vast majority - close to 98 per cent - situated in the West Bank. Gaza's dwindling Christian population amounts to just over 2 per cent of the entire Palestinian Christian community."
"In 2009, there were an estimated 50,000 Christians in the Palestinian territories, mostly in the West Bank, with about 3,000 in the Gaza Strip.[13] In 2022, about 1,100 Christians lived in the Gaza Strip - down from over 1300 in 2014"
I mean I am a fan of people taking the knee. A visible action against racism, of which there continues to be a fuckload at footie matches and which was beyond endemic in times gone by.
Equally it gives me great pleasure to see a typical PL footie match wherein there is a united nations of races, creeds, colours (not sexuality yet but I'm sure it is coming) and I believe the game is truly colour blind. You only have to see celebrations after a goal to confirm this at least amongst the players.
However, the pickle that the FA and indeed all football clubs finds itself in wrt Israel/Gaza is as a consequence of these gestures.
Like you I have no issue with taking the knee. It’s a harmless gesture against racism and helps raise awareness so where’s the downside ?
Soccer is also happy to have players wear rainbow laces. Again. No problem there.
When people complained about the taking of the knee or the laces the FA and twitterati were quick to condemn. They’re silent now a and this silence shames them.
They’ve made a major error here. They have a chance to rectify it. They need to do it ASAP.
Their reasoning is clear. They don’t want to offend the sort of people who believe 6MWNE.
Possibly. But I suspect they also fear it might 'provoke' attacks against Jews.
6MWNE is obviously a problem but there are a whole more who don't believe it ever happened.
I don't think there's anyone who believes the Holocaust never happened.
Those who claim it just enjoy trolling Jews and/or recognise that the Holocaust is bad PR for their cause. But, the know full well that it happened, and they think it was a good thing.
I'll never forget seeing a discussion in 2004 on another forum where I became of the concept of Holocaust minimisation.
Apparently when you factor in the hype, and the gays and other undesirables only 2 million Jews died in the Holocaust which apparently is fine because it wasn't as bad as other genocides like the Great Leap Forward or some of Stalin's worst excesses or slightly worse than the Rwandan genocide.
I saw a post on Twitter responding to someone making the point they beheaded babies ‘not all of the babies were beheaded’
Hamas committed terrible atrocities which everyone condemns without thrneed to exaggerate and extrapolate to 40 babies beheaded.
It was a terror attack carried out by evil people but making stuff up is just stupid a bit like the Iraq WMD bollocks
Worth noting the claim was never 40 babies beheaded, it was that in one community they found 40 dead babies of which some had been beheaded.
And of course it isn't just the alleged beheading, its the rape, the torture, the burning and burying of people to their deaths.
As far as I'm aware none of this reporting has been confirmed, and the reporter it is linked to heard this from IDF soldiers. Also that most immediate reporting of the conflict is coming from international journalists and not local Israeli journalists or NGOs who, perhaps surprisingly, are more willing to be critical of the government at the moment because many see this as either a failure of defending Israel or a long term failure of dealing with the issue of Gaza.
The wider torture, beheading, barbaric killing, rape, burning alive etc, yes it has, multiple source, images, film etc....its this one specific claim of beheaded babies that is attributed currently to a single public source.
I am old enough to remember when Israel was being pressed to give up land for peace. Well it did that in Gaza. It gave up land. It removed the settlers. And what it got in return was Hamas and rockets and now massacres.
Israel has made many mistakes over the years. Netanyahu is unquestionably the wrong leader for it, especially at such a time. I fear that an invasion of Gaza now will be a strategic error and lead to all sorts of casualties for the innocent.
But the Palestinians have consistently made huge errors, the biggest one of all being their refusal to accept Israel's right to exist. Hamas seeks the elimination of Israel and the killing of every Jew everywhere - not just in Israel. This is explicitly genocidal. There is no negotiation with such a movement. Eliminating it is the only answer. Just as we sought to eliminate Nazism and ISIS and other similar genocidal movements.
Those who worry about what happens next need to provide an alternative to Israel, one that will not make that country prey to genocidal maniacs. Lots of people are willing to speak hard truths to Israel about obeying the laws of war and civilian deaths and the rest of it. Very few are telling Hamas that it is their genocidal ideology which has brought Gaza to the point it is, that it is their deliberate policy of hiding amongst civilians which is putting Palestinians at risk, it is their refusal to accept Israel's right to exist which means there is not the remotest hope of starting any peace talks.
There is plenty of pressure which needs putting on Israel but Hamas must first be eliminated. It cannot - until it changes what it wants - be a player. It has taken itself outside the universe of civilised decency. So if invasion of Gaza is not the solution, what is? And if we don't have an alternative solution, then we can hardly be surprised if Israel does what it thinks necessary to save itself. What would we do were we in their position?
I sometimes feel that commentators are unwilling to provide or even begin to think about what an alternative might be because - after all the condemnations of Hamas - they give up at expecting anything better from the Palestinians and it is, after all, so much easier and more comfortable to revert to criticising Israel.
I was saying something similar the other day. Gaza allows itself to be ruled by Hamas. It does this in the knowledge that Hamas is committed to the death of all Jews. The murderous assaults came from their territory and seem to have been a source of glee.
I fully get that the residents of Gaza have a terrible life, that they are economically repressed by Israel and made to beg for water and electricity. Israel’s policies have been unenlightened at best and self harming all too often. If I lived in Gaza I would hate the Israeli government and want to resist that oppression.
But if you want to be listened to, if you want things to change, you do not start with the beheading of babies because they are Jews.
It is 17 years since there was an election in Gaza. 17 years during which Hamas has done it's best to kill anyone who actively opposes them. The Palestinians there 'allow' themselves to be ruled by Hamas about as much as the inhabitants of Kabul 'allow' themselves to be ruled by the Taliban.
Or the Germans "allowed" themselves to be ruled by Hitler. Good point.
What is amusing is that I suspect you and I regard that comment in very different ways.
I regard it in a very simple way, Richard. According to Israel the country is at war. You may disagree and we can discuss the difference between a terrorist act and an act of war. Israel, as one of the belligerents, thinks it is war. An existential one, to boot. If it is war then it is war.
I would be very interested to know how you regard that comment.
I agree. Israel is at war. And I do not even think discussing whose fault it might be in the long term changes anything there.
The difference appears to be that you think that being at war means that Israel are allowed to do anything they like to the Palestinian population and sod the consequences. You are one of those who quote, either directly or by inference, a war that ended 78 years ago in defence of this idea.
I believe that, partly as a result of what happened during that war, the world has rightly moved on and certain actions are now considered no longer acceptable even in war and are legally proscribed as such. Indiscriminate bombing of civilians, whether by intent or negligence, is one of thoise things. This is the case whether we believe the faiult lies entirely with Israel, entirely with the Palestinians or with a mixture of the two.
I think the issue here is that we are not used to existential wars. We have wars with limited aims and at the end of them the Americans bug out. Er, I mean at the end of them either one side wins, or there is a working negotiated settlement, or the matter is resolved one way or another.
Israel believes that it is in an existential war, just like we did 80 years ago (and hence my Godwin). In an existential war there is no merit in saying well we lost but at least we played by the (new, victor-imposed) rules. Losing equals annihilation.
And hence under those circumstances I am prepared, as you might have noticed from my various posts on the subject, to cut Israel quite a bit of slack. You often mention the use of white phosphorous by Israel, a horrible weapon. But again, and here we go back to WWII, and our own existential war, firebombing of German cities was seen as a legitimate act of war.
And no longer is under any circumstances. We were a signatory in 1949 to the 4th Geneva Convention and we were clear that it applied to us as much as anyone else. Under those laws that we keep purporting to support and try to impose on others, firebombing cities is no longer a legitimate act. Just like the use of chemical weapons or the murder of POWs.
Using the acts of the Allies 80 years ago as support for the current actions of countries is not a defendable argument.
You are speaking from the safety and security of a country that, please Odin, will never again face an existential threat. Israel does not believe it is in that position.
Signatories to this, that, or the other is meaningless. Of course we signed any old document in 1949 as we were at the peak of our powers and had just won a world war. That is not to say that Israel has chucked the Geneva Convention out of the window, according to news reports. Do you think that Israel as we speak is ignoring it? How difficult do you think it would be for Israel literally to level Gaza in an afternoon? Not very is my guess and Gaza is still standing.
The "rules of war" are a logical impossibility. I'm not going to roll out the "if your family were...." type of analogies but none of us can really understand what an existential war means and what you might be prepared to do if you were engaged in one.
Rules of war date back at least to the Code of Hammurabi in 1750BC. The Torah/Old Testament puts forth rules of war, for another early example.
The UK signed the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907. It is notable that the belligerents held to some rules of war, to some extent, through both World War I and World War II. The UK signed up to all four Geneva Conventions (adopted 1864, 1929 and 1949). Much of the modern conception of war crimes goes back to the 1945 London charter. War crimes have been incorporated into UK domestic law.
War crimes are almost inevitable in any major conflict, but we can reduce them. Most countries most of the time make some effort to follow the rules of war. It is ahistorical nonsense to act as if rules of war are only recent or unworkable.
So was the bombing of Dresden and Hiroshima a war crime under the 1750BC statute?
You keep bringing up Dresden and Hiroshima as if people don't view them as war crimes - lots of people, including historians, do. It just happened to be that the UK and the USA were on the winning side of that conflict and did not do any self reflection about that. Your position essentially boils down to "might makes right" - the winner decides what a war crime is and once that's done and dusted you move on.
And of course post war the UK and US have signed up to a treaty that, without postdating it, says that actions such as the bombing of Dresen would, forthwith, be considered war crimes.
Hiroshima is more interesting (if you will excuse the rather callous phrase) because the was the argumet that, in the wake of the mass suicides on Iwo Jima using the atomic bomb on the city actually saved more Japanese civilian lives than it took.
But even in that instance, using it as a justification for anything today implies it would be acceptable for a power today to make first use of a nuclear weapon for strategic purposes. Which would certainly be considered a war crime. So I am not convinced Topping has thought this through very carefully.
But, if I found myself in the same position as Truman, then war crime or no, I'd authorise the use of the bomb.
Would you authorise the use of the second bomb? I can see there is a difficult debate over Hiroshima. It's hard to see the same applying to Nagasaki.
I truly don't know. But, if I thought the use of the bomb would end a very brutal war, and could be done without nuclear retaliation, I'd sanction it.
I mean I am a fan of people taking the knee. A visible action against racism, of which there continues to be a fuckload at footie matches and which was beyond endemic in times gone by.
Equally it gives me great pleasure to see a typical PL footie match wherein there is a united nations of races, creeds, colours (not sexuality yet but I'm sure it is coming) and I believe the game is truly colour blind. You only have to see celebrations after a goal to confirm this at least amongst the players.
However, the pickle that the FA and indeed all football clubs finds itself in wrt Israel/Gaza is as a consequence of these gestures.
Like you I have no issue with taking the knee. It’s a harmless gesture against racism and helps raise awareness so where’s the downside ?
Soccer is also happy to have players wear rainbow laces. Again. No problem there.
When people complained about the taking of the knee or the laces the FA and twitterati were quick to condemn. They’re silent now a and this silence shames them.
They’ve made a major error here. They have a chance to rectify it. They need to do it ASAP.
Their reasoning is clear. They don’t want to offend the sort of people who believe 6MWNE.
Possibly. But I suspect they also fear it might 'provoke' attacks against Jews.
6MWNE is obviously a problem but there are a whole more who don't believe it ever happened.
I don't think there's anyone who believes the Holocaust never happened.
Those who claim it just enjoy trolling Jews and/or recognise that the Holocaust is bad PR for their cause. But, the know full well that it happened, and they think it was a good thing.
I'll never forget seeing a discussion in 2004 on another forum where I became of the concept of Holocaust minimisation.
Apparently when you factor in the hype, and the gays and other undesirables only 2 million Jews died in the Holocaust which apparently is fine because it wasn't as bad as other genocides like the Great Leap Forward or some of Stalin's worst excesses or slightly worse than the Rwandan genocide.
I saw a post on Twitter responding to someone making the point they beheaded babies ‘not all of the babies were beheaded’
Hamas committed terrible atrocities which everyone condemns without thrneed to exaggerate and extrapolate to 40 babies beheaded.
It was a terror attack carried out by evil people but making stuff up is just stupid a bit like the Iraq WMD bollocks
Worth noting the claim was never 40 babies beheaded, it was that in one community they found 40 dead babies of which some had been beheaded.
And of course it isn't just the alleged beheading, its the rape, the torture, the burning and burying of people to their deaths. That is why the Biden etc are comparing Hamas actions to ISIS, as this all the stuff they did in Syria / Iraq, finding the most barbaric ways to kill people, film it with real enjoyment e.g.
Hamas terrorists 'raped girls over their friends' bodies' as they carried out 'a second Holocaust', British family members of Israeli captives seized by gunmen alleged today at a London press conference.
It’s actually getting WORSE. More eye witness reports
'I saw a mother holding her baby, and one bullet went through both of them together...I saw 20 children together with their hands tied in the back, and they were shot and burned in a pile' Yossi Landau Commander, Zaka South tells our @davidmatlin
Eye witness recounts horrific details of Hamas cruelty on pregnant women, children and innocent Israeli civilians
'We see a pregnant lady on the floor, and we turn her around...and the stomach is wide open, there's an unborn baby connected to the cord, stabbed with a knife, and the mother shot in the head' Yossi Landau Commander, Zaka South tells our @davidmatlin
The absolute cheek for Australia to ask Bavuma to withdraw the appeal after what happened to Bairstow. Reap what you sow lads.
What did I miss?
Australia Innings
17.2 Rabada to Stoinis, OUT Pace down the leg-side, is that off the bat?! The umpire says no, as de Kock leaps like a rampant salmon and clings on in both gloves. South Africa review! It's close to the hip, close to the bat handle... it's probably one or the other... it's glove, but I think his hand is off the bat... or is it! It's been given! I think, from his explanation, Richard Kettleborough reckons the bottom hand is touching the top hand... The second deeply odd dismissal of the innings... and it's not done yet, as they are checking whether de Kock took it cleanly now. The third umpire is happy with that part too, but Australia are not!
Marcus Stoinis c †de Kock b Rabada 5 (4b 1x4 0x6) SR: 125
South Africa vs Australia, ICC Cricket World Cup, 10th Match
I am old enough to remember when Israel was being pressed to give up land for peace. Well it did that in Gaza. It gave up land. It removed the settlers. And what it got in return was Hamas and rockets and now massacres.
Israel has made many mistakes over the years. Netanyahu is unquestionably the wrong leader for it, especially at such a time. I fear that an invasion of Gaza now will be a strategic error and lead to all sorts of casualties for the innocent.
But the Palestinians have consistently made huge errors, the biggest one of all being their refusal to accept Israel's right to exist. Hamas seeks the elimination of Israel and the killing of every Jew everywhere - not just in Israel. This is explicitly genocidal. There is no negotiation with such a movement. Eliminating it is the only answer. Just as we sought to eliminate Nazism and ISIS and other similar genocidal movements.
Those who worry about what happens next need to provide an alternative to Israel, one that will not make that country prey to genocidal maniacs. Lots of people are willing to speak hard truths to Israel about obeying the laws of war and civilian deaths and the rest of it. Very few are telling Hamas that it is their genocidal ideology which has brought Gaza to the point it is, that it is their deliberate policy of hiding amongst civilians which is putting Palestinians at risk, it is their refusal to accept Israel's right to exist which means there is not the remotest hope of starting any peace talks.
There is plenty of pressure which needs putting on Israel but Hamas must first be eliminated. It cannot - until it changes what it wants - be a player. It has taken itself outside the universe of civilised decency. So if invasion of Gaza is not the solution, what is? And if we don't have an alternative solution, then we can hardly be surprised if Israel does what it thinks necessary to save itself. What would we do were we in their position?
I sometimes feel that commentators are unwilling to provide or even begin to think about what an alternative might be because - after all the condemnations of Hamas - they give up at expecting anything better from the Palestinians and it is, after all, so much easier and more comfortable to revert to criticising Israel.
I was saying something similar the other day. Gaza allows itself to be ruled by Hamas. It does this in the knowledge that Hamas is committed to the death of all Jews. The murderous assaults came from their territory and seem to have been a source of glee.
I fully get that the residents of Gaza have a terrible life, that they are economically repressed by Israel and made to beg for water and electricity. Israel’s policies have been unenlightened at best and self harming all too often. If I lived in Gaza I would hate the Israeli government and want to resist that oppression.
But if you want to be listened to, if you want things to change, you do not start with the beheading of babies because they are Jews.
It is 17 years since there was an election in Gaza. 17 years during which Hamas has done it's best to kill anyone who actively opposes them. The Palestinians there 'allow' themselves to be ruled by Hamas about as much as the inhabitants of Kabul 'allow' themselves to be ruled by the Taliban.
Or the Germans "allowed" themselves to be ruled by Hitler. Good point.
What is amusing is that I suspect you and I regard that comment in very different ways.
I regard it in a very simple way, Richard. According to Israel the country is at war. You may disagree and we can discuss the difference between a terrorist act and an act of war. Israel, as one of the belligerents, thinks it is war. An existential one, to boot. If it is war then it is war.
I would be very interested to know how you regard that comment.
I agree. Israel is at war. And I do not even think discussing whose fault it might be in the long term changes anything there.
The difference appears to be that you think that being at war means that Israel are allowed to do anything they like to the Palestinian population and sod the consequences. You are one of those who quote, either directly or by inference, a war that ended 78 years ago in defence of this idea.
I believe that, partly as a result of what happened during that war, the world has rightly moved on and certain actions are now considered no longer acceptable even in war and are legally proscribed as such. Indiscriminate bombing of civilians, whether by intent or negligence, is one of thoise things. This is the case whether we believe the faiult lies entirely with Israel, entirely with the Palestinians or with a mixture of the two.
I think the issue here is that we are not used to existential wars. We have wars with limited aims and at the end of them the Americans bug out. Er, I mean at the end of them either one side wins, or there is a working negotiated settlement, or the matter is resolved one way or another.
Israel believes that it is in an existential war, just like we did 80 years ago (and hence my Godwin). In an existential war there is no merit in saying well we lost but at least we played by the (new, victor-imposed) rules. Losing equals annihilation.
And hence under those circumstances I am prepared, as you might have noticed from my various posts on the subject, to cut Israel quite a bit of slack. You often mention the use of white phosphorous by Israel, a horrible weapon. But again, and here we go back to WWII, and our own existential war, firebombing of German cities was seen as a legitimate act of war.
And no longer is under any circumstances. We were a signatory in 1949 to the 4th Geneva Convention and we were clear that it applied to us as much as anyone else. Under those laws that we keep purporting to support and try to impose on others, firebombing cities is no longer a legitimate act. Just like the use of chemical weapons or the murder of POWs.
Using the acts of the Allies 80 years ago as support for the current actions of countries is not a defendable argument.
You are speaking from the safety and security of a country that, please Odin, will never again face an existential threat. Israel does not believe it is in that position.
Signatories to this, that, or the other is meaningless. Of course we signed any old document in 1949 as we were at the peak of our powers and had just won a world war. That is not to say that Israel has chucked the Geneva Convention out of the window, according to news reports. Do you think that Israel as we speak is ignoring it? How difficult do you think it would be for Israel literally to level Gaza in an afternoon? Not very is my guess and Gaza is still standing.
The "rules of war" are a logical impossibility. I'm not going to roll out the "if your family were...." type of analogies but none of us can really understand what an existential war means and what you might be prepared to do if you were engaged in one.
Rules of war date back at least to the Code of Hammurabi in 1750BC. The Torah/Old Testament puts forth rules of war, for another early example.
The UK signed the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907. It is notable that the belligerents held to some rules of war, to some extent, through both World War I and World War II. The UK signed up to all four Geneva Conventions (adopted 1864, 1929 and 1949). Much of the modern conception of war crimes goes back to the 1945 London charter. War crimes have been incorporated into UK domestic law.
War crimes are almost inevitable in any major conflict, but we can reduce them. Most countries most of the time make some effort to follow the rules of war. It is ahistorical nonsense to act as if rules of war are only recent or unworkable.
So was the bombing of Dresden and Hiroshima a war crime under the 1750BC statute?
You keep bringing up Dresden and Hiroshima as if people don't view them as war crimes - lots of people, including historians, do. It just happened to be that the UK and the USA were on the winning side of that conflict and did not do any self reflection about that. Your position essentially boils down to "might makes right" - the winner decides what a war crime is and once that's done and dusted you move on.
And of course post war the UK and US have signed up to a treaty that, without postdating it, says that actions such as the bombing of Dresen would, forthwith, be considered war crimes.
Hiroshima is more interesting (if you will excuse the rather callous phrase) because the was the argumet that, in the wake of the mass suicides on Iwo Jima using the atomic bomb on the city actually saved more Japanese civilian lives than it took.
But even in that instance, using it as a justification for anything today implies it would be acceptable for a power today to make first use of a nuclear weapon for strategic purposes. Which would certainly be considered a war crime. So I am not convinced Topping has thought this through very carefully.
But, if I found myself in the same position as Truman, then war crime or no, I'd authorise the use of the bomb.
Would you authorise the use of the second bomb? I can see there is a difficult debate over Hiroshima. It's hard to see the same applying to Nagasaki.
Correct but he wasn't tried for war crimes for either of them.
I am old enough to remember when Israel was being pressed to give up land for peace. Well it did that in Gaza. It gave up land. It removed the settlers. And what it got in return was Hamas and rockets and now massacres.
Israel has made many mistakes over the years. Netanyahu is unquestionably the wrong leader for it, especially at such a time. I fear that an invasion of Gaza now will be a strategic error and lead to all sorts of casualties for the innocent.
But the Palestinians have consistently made huge errors, the biggest one of all being their refusal to accept Israel's right to exist. Hamas seeks the elimination of Israel and the killing of every Jew everywhere - not just in Israel. This is explicitly genocidal. There is no negotiation with such a movement. Eliminating it is the only answer. Just as we sought to eliminate Nazism and ISIS and other similar genocidal movements.
Those who worry about what happens next need to provide an alternative to Israel, one that will not make that country prey to genocidal maniacs. Lots of people are willing to speak hard truths to Israel about obeying the laws of war and civilian deaths and the rest of it. Very few are telling Hamas that it is their genocidal ideology which has brought Gaza to the point it is, that it is their deliberate policy of hiding amongst civilians which is putting Palestinians at risk, it is their refusal to accept Israel's right to exist which means there is not the remotest hope of starting any peace talks.
There is plenty of pressure which needs putting on Israel but Hamas must first be eliminated. It cannot - until it changes what it wants - be a player. It has taken itself outside the universe of civilised decency. So if invasion of Gaza is not the solution, what is? And if we don't have an alternative solution, then we can hardly be surprised if Israel does what it thinks necessary to save itself. What would we do were we in their position?
I sometimes feel that commentators are unwilling to provide or even begin to think about what an alternative might be because - after all the condemnations of Hamas - they give up at expecting anything better from the Palestinians and it is, after all, so much easier and more comfortable to revert to criticising Israel.
I was saying something similar the other day. Gaza allows itself to be ruled by Hamas. It does this in the knowledge that Hamas is committed to the death of all Jews. The murderous assaults came from their territory and seem to have been a source of glee.
I fully get that the residents of Gaza have a terrible life, that they are economically repressed by Israel and made to beg for water and electricity. Israel’s policies have been unenlightened at best and self harming all too often. If I lived in Gaza I would hate the Israeli government and want to resist that oppression.
But if you want to be listened to, if you want things to change, you do not start with the beheading of babies because they are Jews.
It is 17 years since there was an election in Gaza. 17 years during which Hamas has done it's best to kill anyone who actively opposes them. The Palestinians there 'allow' themselves to be ruled by Hamas about as much as the inhabitants of Kabul 'allow' themselves to be ruled by the Taliban.
Or the Germans "allowed" themselves to be ruled by Hitler. Good point.
What is amusing is that I suspect you and I regard that comment in very different ways.
I regard it in a very simple way, Richard. According to Israel the country is at war. You may disagree and we can discuss the difference between a terrorist act and an act of war. Israel, as one of the belligerents, thinks it is war. An existential one, to boot. If it is war then it is war.
I would be very interested to know how you regard that comment.
I agree. Israel is at war. And I do not even think discussing whose fault it might be in the long term changes anything there.
The difference appears to be that you think that being at war means that Israel are allowed to do anything they like to the Palestinian population and sod the consequences. You are one of those who quote, either directly or by inference, a war that ended 78 years ago in defence of this idea.
I believe that, partly as a result of what happened during that war, the world has rightly moved on and certain actions are now considered no longer acceptable even in war and are legally proscribed as such. Indiscriminate bombing of civilians, whether by intent or negligence, is one of thoise things. This is the case whether we believe the faiult lies entirely with Israel, entirely with the Palestinians or with a mixture of the two.
I think the issue here is that we are not used to existential wars. We have wars with limited aims and at the end of them the Americans bug out. Er, I mean at the end of them either one side wins, or there is a working negotiated settlement, or the matter is resolved one way or another.
Israel believes that it is in an existential war, just like we did 80 years ago (and hence my Godwin). In an existential war there is no merit in saying well we lost but at least we played by the (new, victor-imposed) rules. Losing equals annihilation.
And hence under those circumstances I am prepared, as you might have noticed from my various posts on the subject, to cut Israel quite a bit of slack. You often mention the use of white phosphorous by Israel, a horrible weapon. But again, and here we go back to WWII, and our own existential war, firebombing of German cities was seen as a legitimate act of war.
And no longer is under any circumstances. We were a signatory in 1949 to the 4th Geneva Convention and we were clear that it applied to us as much as anyone else. Under those laws that we keep purporting to support and try to impose on others, firebombing cities is no longer a legitimate act. Just like the use of chemical weapons or the murder of POWs.
Using the acts of the Allies 80 years ago as support for the current actions of countries is not a defendable argument.
You are speaking from the safety and security of a country that, please Odin, will never again face an existential threat. Israel does not believe it is in that position.
Signatories to this, that, or the other is meaningless. Of course we signed any old document in 1949 as we were at the peak of our powers and had just won a world war. That is not to say that Israel has chucked the Geneva Convention out of the window, according to news reports. Do you think that Israel as we speak is ignoring it? How difficult do you think it would be for Israel literally to level Gaza in an afternoon? Not very is my guess and Gaza is still standing.
The "rules of war" are a logical impossibility. I'm not going to roll out the "if your family were...." type of analogies but none of us can really understand what an existential war means and what you might be prepared to do if you were engaged in one.
Rules of war date back at least to the Code of Hammurabi in 1750BC. The Torah/Old Testament puts forth rules of war, for another early example.
The UK signed the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907. It is notable that the belligerents held to some rules of war, to some extent, through both World War I and World War II. The UK signed up to all four Geneva Conventions (adopted 1864, 1929 and 1949). Much of the modern conception of war crimes goes back to the 1945 London charter. War crimes have been incorporated into UK domestic law.
War crimes are almost inevitable in any major conflict, but we can reduce them. Most countries most of the time make some effort to follow the rules of war. It is ahistorical nonsense to act as if rules of war are only recent or unworkable.
So was the bombing of Dresden and Hiroshima a war crime under the 1750BC statute?
You keep bringing up Dresden and Hiroshima as if people don't view them as war crimes - lots of people, including historians, do. It just happened to be that the UK and the USA were on the winning side of that conflict and did not do any self reflection about that. Your position essentially boils down to "might makes right" - the winner decides what a war crime is and once that's done and dusted you move on.
And of course post war the UK and US have signed up to a treaty that, without postdating it, says that actions such as the bombing of Dresen would, forthwith, be considered war crimes.
Hiroshima is more interesting (if you will excuse the rather callous phrase) because the was the argumet that, in the wake of the mass suicides on Iwo Jima using the atomic bomb on the city actually saved more Japanese civilian lives than it took.
But even in that instance, using it as a justification for anything today implies it would be acceptable for a power today to make first use of a nuclear weapon for strategic purposes. Which would certainly be considered a war crime. So I am not convinced Topping has thought this through very carefully.
But, if I found myself in the same position as Truman, then war crime or no, I'd authorise the use of the bomb.
Would you authorise the use of the second bomb? I can see there is a difficult debate over Hiroshima. It's hard to see the same applying to Nagasaki.
The intended target for the second bomb was Kokura. The target was obscured so they flew on to Nagasaki, the secondary target. "The luck of Kokura" is an expression in Japanese even today.
I mean I am a fan of people taking the knee. A visible action against racism, of which there continues to be a fuckload at footie matches and which was beyond endemic in times gone by.
Equally it gives me great pleasure to see a typical PL footie match wherein there is a united nations of races, creeds, colours (not sexuality yet but I'm sure it is coming) and I believe the game is truly colour blind. You only have to see celebrations after a goal to confirm this at least amongst the players.
However, the pickle that the FA and indeed all football clubs finds itself in wrt Israel/Gaza is as a consequence of these gestures.
Like you I have no issue with taking the knee. It’s a harmless gesture against racism and helps raise awareness so where’s the downside ?
Soccer is also happy to have players wear rainbow laces. Again. No problem there.
When people complained about the taking of the knee or the laces the FA and twitterati were quick to condemn. They’re silent now a and this silence shames them.
They’ve made a major error here. They have a chance to rectify it. They need to do it ASAP.
Their reasoning is clear. They don’t want to offend the sort of people who believe 6MWNE.
Possibly. But I suspect they also fear it might 'provoke' attacks against Jews.
6MWNE is obviously a problem but there are a whole more who don't believe it ever happened.
I don't think there's anyone who believes the Holocaust never happened.
Those who claim it just enjoy trolling Jews and/or recognise that the Holocaust is bad PR for their cause. But, the know full well that it happened, and they think it was a good thing.
I'll never forget seeing a discussion in 2004 on another forum where I became of the concept of Holocaust minimisation.
Apparently when you factor in the hype, and the gays and other undesirables only 2 million Jews died in the Holocaust which apparently is fine because it wasn't as bad as other genocides like the Great Leap Forward or some of Stalin's worst excesses or slightly worse than the Rwandan genocide.
I saw a post on Twitter responding to someone making the point they beheaded babies ‘not all of the babies were beheaded’
Hamas committed terrible atrocities which everyone condemns without thrneed to exaggerate and extrapolate to 40 babies beheaded.
It was a terror attack carried out by evil people but making stuff up is just stupid a bit like the Iraq WMD bollocks
Worth noting the claim was never 40 babies beheaded, it was that in one community they found 40 dead babies of which some had been beheaded.
And of course it isn't just the alleged beheading, its the rape, the torture, the burning and burying of people to their deaths. That is why the Biden etc are comparing Hamas actions to ISIS, as this all the stuff they did in Syria / Iraq, finding the most barbaric ways to kill people, film it with real enjoyment e.g.
Hamas terrorists 'raped girls over their friends' bodies' as they carried out 'a second Holocaust', British family members of Israeli captives seized by gunmen alleged today at a London press conference.
It’s actually getting WORSE. More eye witness reports
'I saw a mother holding her baby, and one bullet went through both of them together...I saw 20 children together with their hands tied in the back, and they were shot and burned in a pile' Yossi Landau Commander, Zaka South tells our @davidmatlin
Eye witness recounts horrific details of Hamas cruelty on pregnant women, children and innocent Israeli civilians
'We see a pregnant lady on the floor, and we turn her around...and the stomach is wide open, there's an unborn baby connected to the cord, stabbed with a knife, and the mother shot in the head' Yossi Landau Commander, Zaka South tells our @davidmatlin
I imagine it’s videos of this stuff that so horrified NATO ministers in Brussels today
And still the Hamas apologists are counting the beheaded babies…
Its a bit like quibbling over from the reporting of Russian widespread torture and murder of civilians in Kharkiv if there is a story where there is only one source for it, when the picture of widespread barbaric war crimes is everywhere.
We are at a very dangerous point in this discussion as I think we are flirting with the idea of turning the subject of the entire thread into that most sensitive of topics - the use or not of cash.
Before I head off I will just ask one question - what about Big Issue sellers.
*and flees*
Just had to use cash at a train station cafe because all their electronic systems had broken down. I said to them 'If they'd abolished cash you wouldn't be able to trade at the moment".
First word discovered in unopened Herculaneum scroll by 21yo computer science student Vesuvius Challenge $700,000 Grand Prize “now definitely achievable” https://scrollprize.org/firstletters
I am old enough to remember when Israel was being pressed to give up land for peace. Well it did that in Gaza. It gave up land. It removed the settlers. And what it got in return was Hamas and rockets and now massacres.
Israel has made many mistakes over the years. Netanyahu is unquestionably the wrong leader for it, especially at such a time. I fear that an invasion of Gaza now will be a strategic error and lead to all sorts of casualties for the innocent.
But the Palestinians have consistently made huge errors, the biggest one of all being their refusal to accept Israel's right to exist. Hamas seeks the elimination of Israel and the killing of every Jew everywhere - not just in Israel. This is explicitly genocidal. There is no negotiation with such a movement. Eliminating it is the only answer. Just as we sought to eliminate Nazism and ISIS and other similar genocidal movements.
Those who worry about what happens next need to provide an alternative to Israel, one that will not make that country prey to genocidal maniacs. Lots of people are willing to speak hard truths to Israel about obeying the laws of war and civilian deaths and the rest of it. Very few are telling Hamas that it is their genocidal ideology which has brought Gaza to the point it is, that it is their deliberate policy of hiding amongst civilians which is putting Palestinians at risk, it is their refusal to accept Israel's right to exist which means there is not the remotest hope of starting any peace talks.
There is plenty of pressure which needs putting on Israel but Hamas must first be eliminated. It cannot - until it changes what it wants - be a player. It has taken itself outside the universe of civilised decency. So if invasion of Gaza is not the solution, what is? And if we don't have an alternative solution, then we can hardly be surprised if Israel does what it thinks necessary to save itself. What would we do were we in their position?
I sometimes feel that commentators are unwilling to provide or even begin to think about what an alternative might be because - after all the condemnations of Hamas - they give up at expecting anything better from the Palestinians and it is, after all, so much easier and more comfortable to revert to criticising Israel.
I was saying something similar the other day. Gaza allows itself to be ruled by Hamas. It does this in the knowledge that Hamas is committed to the death of all Jews. The murderous assaults came from their territory and seem to have been a source of glee.
I fully get that the residents of Gaza have a terrible life, that they are economically repressed by Israel and made to beg for water and electricity. Israel’s policies have been unenlightened at best and self harming all too often. If I lived in Gaza I would hate the Israeli government and want to resist that oppression.
But if you want to be listened to, if you want things to change, you do not start with the beheading of babies because they are Jews.
It is 17 years since there was an election in Gaza. 17 years during which Hamas has done it's best to kill anyone who actively opposes them. The Palestinians there 'allow' themselves to be ruled by Hamas about as much as the inhabitants of Kabul 'allow' themselves to be ruled by the Taliban.
Or the Germans "allowed" themselves to be ruled by Hitler. Good point.
What is amusing is that I suspect you and I regard that comment in very different ways.
I regard it in a very simple way, Richard. According to Israel the country is at war. You may disagree and we can discuss the difference between a terrorist act and an act of war. Israel, as one of the belligerents, thinks it is war. An existential one, to boot. If it is war then it is war.
I would be very interested to know how you regard that comment.
I agree. Israel is at war. And I do not even think discussing whose fault it might be in the long term changes anything there.
The difference appears to be that you think that being at war means that Israel are allowed to do anything they like to the Palestinian population and sod the consequences. You are one of those who quote, either directly or by inference, a war that ended 78 years ago in defence of this idea.
I believe that, partly as a result of what happened during that war, the world has rightly moved on and certain actions are now considered no longer acceptable even in war and are legally proscribed as such. Indiscriminate bombing of civilians, whether by intent or negligence, is one of thoise things. This is the case whether we believe the faiult lies entirely with Israel, entirely with the Palestinians or with a mixture of the two.
I think the issue here is that we are not used to existential wars. We have wars with limited aims and at the end of them the Americans bug out. Er, I mean at the end of them either one side wins, or there is a working negotiated settlement, or the matter is resolved one way or another.
Israel believes that it is in an existential war, just like we did 80 years ago (and hence my Godwin). In an existential war there is no merit in saying well we lost but at least we played by the (new, victor-imposed) rules. Losing equals annihilation.
And hence under those circumstances I am prepared, as you might have noticed from my various posts on the subject, to cut Israel quite a bit of slack. You often mention the use of white phosphorous by Israel, a horrible weapon. But again, and here we go back to WWII, and our own existential war, firebombing of German cities was seen as a legitimate act of war.
And no longer is under any circumstances. We were a signatory in 1949 to the 4th Geneva Convention and we were clear that it applied to us as much as anyone else. Under those laws that we keep purporting to support and try to impose on others, firebombing cities is no longer a legitimate act. Just like the use of chemical weapons or the murder of POWs.
Using the acts of the Allies 80 years ago as support for the current actions of countries is not a defendable argument.
You are speaking from the safety and security of a country that, please Odin, will never again face an existential threat. Israel does not believe it is in that position.
Signatories to this, that, or the other is meaningless. Of course we signed any old document in 1949 as we were at the peak of our powers and had just won a world war. That is not to say that Israel has chucked the Geneva Convention out of the window, according to news reports. Do you think that Israel as we speak is ignoring it? How difficult do you think it would be for Israel literally to level Gaza in an afternoon? Not very is my guess and Gaza is still standing.
The "rules of war" are a logical impossibility. I'm not going to roll out the "if your family were...." type of analogies but none of us can really understand what an existential war means and what you might be prepared to do if you were engaged in one.
Rules of war date back at least to the Code of Hammurabi in 1750BC. The Torah/Old Testament puts forth rules of war, for another early example.
The UK signed the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907. It is notable that the belligerents held to some rules of war, to some extent, through both World War I and World War II. The UK signed up to all four Geneva Conventions (adopted 1864, 1929 and 1949). Much of the modern conception of war crimes goes back to the 1945 London charter. War crimes have been incorporated into UK domestic law.
War crimes are almost inevitable in any major conflict, but we can reduce them. Most countries most of the time make some effort to follow the rules of war. It is ahistorical nonsense to act as if rules of war are only recent or unworkable.
So was the bombing of Dresden and Hiroshima a war crime under the 1750BC statute?
You keep bringing up Dresden and Hiroshima as if people don't view them as war crimes - lots of people, including historians, do. It just happened to be that the UK and the USA were on the winning side of that conflict and did not do any self reflection about that. Your position essentially boils down to "might makes right" - the winner decides what a war crime is and once that's done and dusted you move on.
And of course post war the UK and US have signed up to a treaty that, without postdating it, says that actions such as the bombing of Dresen would, forthwith, be considered war crimes.
Hiroshima is more interesting (if you will excuse the rather callous phrase) because the was the argumet that, in the wake of the mass suicides on Iwo Jima using the atomic bomb on the city actually saved more Japanese civilian lives than it took.
But even in that instance, using it as a justification for anything today implies it would be acceptable for a power today to make first use of a nuclear weapon for strategic purposes. Which would certainly be considered a war crime. So I am not convinced Topping has thought this through very carefully.
But, if I found myself in the same position as Truman, then war crime or no, I'd authorise the use of the bomb.
Would you authorise the use of the second bomb? I can see there is a difficult debate over Hiroshima. It's hard to see the same applying to Nagasaki.
The intended target for the second bomb was Kokura. The target was obscured so they flew on to Nagasaki, the secondary target. "The luck of Kokura" is an expression in Japanese even today.
Wasn’t Nagasaki needed, to prove that the USA had more than one A bomb, and could therefore destroy all of Japan?
We are at a very dangerous point in this discussion as I think we are flirting with the idea of turning the subject of the entire thread into that most sensitive of topics - the use or not of cash.
Before I head off I will just ask one question - what about Big Issue sellers.
*and flees*
I’m still concerned about the exclusion of Geordie pensioners from the Car Parks in the city due to this mad dash to go cashless that precious few want.
We are at a very dangerous point in this discussion as I think we are flirting with the idea of turning the subject of the entire thread into that most sensitive of topics - the use or not of cash.
Before I head off I will just ask one question - what about Big Issue sellers.
*and flees*
I’m still concerned about the exclusion of Geordie pensioners from the Car Parks in the city due to this mad dash to go cashless that precious few want.
Cash has been in use for a long time. And it will continue to be in use for a long time 👍
I am old enough to remember when Israel was being pressed to give up land for peace. Well it did that in Gaza. It gave up land. It removed the settlers. And what it got in return was Hamas and rockets and now massacres.
Israel has made many mistakes over the years. Netanyahu is unquestionably the wrong leader for it, especially at such a time. I fear that an invasion of Gaza now will be a strategic error and lead to all sorts of casualties for the innocent.
But the Palestinians have consistently made huge errors, the biggest one of all being their refusal to accept Israel's right to exist. Hamas seeks the elimination of Israel and the killing of every Jew everywhere - not just in Israel. This is explicitly genocidal. There is no negotiation with such a movement. Eliminating it is the only answer. Just as we sought to eliminate Nazism and ISIS and other similar genocidal movements.
Those who worry about what happens next need to provide an alternative to Israel, one that will not make that country prey to genocidal maniacs. Lots of people are willing to speak hard truths to Israel about obeying the laws of war and civilian deaths and the rest of it. Very few are telling Hamas that it is their genocidal ideology which has brought Gaza to the point it is, that it is their deliberate policy of hiding amongst civilians which is putting Palestinians at risk, it is their refusal to accept Israel's right to exist which means there is not the remotest hope of starting any peace talks.
There is plenty of pressure which needs putting on Israel but Hamas must first be eliminated. It cannot - until it changes what it wants - be a player. It has taken itself outside the universe of civilised decency. So if invasion of Gaza is not the solution, what is? And if we don't have an alternative solution, then we can hardly be surprised if Israel does what it thinks necessary to save itself. What would we do were we in their position?
I sometimes feel that commentators are unwilling to provide or even begin to think about what an alternative might be because - after all the condemnations of Hamas - they give up at expecting anything better from the Palestinians and it is, after all, so much easier and more comfortable to revert to criticising Israel.
I was saying something similar the other day. Gaza allows itself to be ruled by Hamas. It does this in the knowledge that Hamas is committed to the death of all Jews. The murderous assaults came from their territory and seem to have been a source of glee.
I fully get that the residents of Gaza have a terrible life, that they are economically repressed by Israel and made to beg for water and electricity. Israel’s policies have been unenlightened at best and self harming all too often. If I lived in Gaza I would hate the Israeli government and want to resist that oppression.
But if you want to be listened to, if you want things to change, you do not start with the beheading of babies because they are Jews.
It is 17 years since there was an election in Gaza. 17 years during which Hamas has done it's best to kill anyone who actively opposes them. The Palestinians there 'allow' themselves to be ruled by Hamas about as much as the inhabitants of Kabul 'allow' themselves to be ruled by the Taliban.
So send the military in to liberate the populace and destroy Hamas.
2 birds, one stone.
If they were willing to do it in a way that we generally tried to in Afghanistan then I would agree all the way. But they won't. They are simply flattening the place with no regard for Palestinian casualties.
Its war, that happens. They need to flatten the places which Hamas are using.
There are no easy or peaceful solutions in warfare.
Safe refuge out of Gaza should be allowed for those who don't want to be fighting, many towns or cities have lost 95% of their population in Eastern Ukraine, no reason that won't or shouldn't happen in Gaza City too.
The civilians in Eastern Ukraine were allowed to leave. The civilians in Gaza are not.
But interesting that you are now (inadvetently) comparing the what is being done to the Palestinians with what was done to the Ukrainians.
I've made the comparison repeatedly.
Hamas = Russia Ukraine = Israel
Only difference is that Israel has the strength to take the fight onto the invaders territory rather than being forced to have it on their own.
That's not a bad thing, the situations are parallel rather than identical.
That is no excuse for killing civilians no matter how much you might want to. Neither Russia nor Hamas are civilised democratic entities. Israel is supposed to be. Hopefully they will remember that.
I am old enough to remember when Israel was being pressed to give up land for peace. Well it did that in Gaza. It gave up land. It removed the settlers. And what it got in return was Hamas and rockets and now massacres.
Israel has made many mistakes over the years. Netanyahu is unquestionably the wrong leader for it, especially at such a time. I fear that an invasion of Gaza now will be a strategic error and lead to all sorts of casualties for the innocent.
But the Palestinians have consistently made huge errors, the biggest one of all being their refusal to accept Israel's right to exist. Hamas seeks the elimination of Israel and the killing of every Jew everywhere - not just in Israel. This is explicitly genocidal. There is no negotiation with such a movement. Eliminating it is the only answer. Just as we sought to eliminate Nazism and ISIS and other similar genocidal movements.
Those who worry about what happens next need to provide an alternative to Israel, one that will not make that country prey to genocidal maniacs. Lots of people are willing to speak hard truths to Israel about obeying the laws of war and civilian deaths and the rest of it. Very few are telling Hamas that it is their genocidal ideology which has brought Gaza to the point it is, that it is their deliberate policy of hiding amongst civilians which is putting Palestinians at risk, it is their refusal to accept Israel's right to exist which means there is not the remotest hope of starting any peace talks.
There is plenty of pressure which needs putting on Israel but Hamas must first be eliminated. It cannot - until it changes what it wants - be a player. It has taken itself outside the universe of civilised decency. So if invasion of Gaza is not the solution, what is? And if we don't have an alternative solution, then we can hardly be surprised if Israel does what it thinks necessary to save itself. What would we do were we in their position?
I sometimes feel that commentators are unwilling to provide or even begin to think about what an alternative might be because - after all the condemnations of Hamas - they give up at expecting anything better from the Palestinians and it is, after all, so much easier and more comfortable to revert to criticising Israel.
I was saying something similar the other day. Gaza allows itself to be ruled by Hamas. It does this in the knowledge that Hamas is committed to the death of all Jews. The murderous assaults came from their territory and seem to have been a source of glee.
I fully get that the residents of Gaza have a terrible life, that they are economically repressed by Israel and made to beg for water and electricity. Israel’s policies have been unenlightened at best and self harming all too often. If I lived in Gaza I would hate the Israeli government and want to resist that oppression.
But if you want to be listened to, if you want things to change, you do not start with the beheading of babies because they are Jews.
It is 17 years since there was an election in Gaza. 17 years during which Hamas has done it's best to kill anyone who actively opposes them. The Palestinians there 'allow' themselves to be ruled by Hamas about as much as the inhabitants of Kabul 'allow' themselves to be ruled by the Taliban.
Or the Germans "allowed" themselves to be ruled by Hitler. Good point.
What is amusing is that I suspect you and I regard that comment in very different ways.
I regard it in a very simple way, Richard. According to Israel the country is at war. You may disagree and we can discuss the difference between a terrorist act and an act of war. Israel, as one of the belligerents, thinks it is war. An existential one, to boot. If it is war then it is war.
I would be very interested to know how you regard that comment.
I agree. Israel is at war. And I do not even think discussing whose fault it might be in the long term changes anything there.
The difference appears to be that you think that being at war means that Israel are allowed to do anything they like to the Palestinian population and sod the consequences. You are one of those who quote, either directly or by inference, a war that ended 78 years ago in defence of this idea.
I believe that, partly as a result of what happened during that war, the world has rightly moved on and certain actions are now considered no longer acceptable even in war and are legally proscribed as such. Indiscriminate bombing of civilians, whether by intent or negligence, is one of thoise things. This is the case whether we believe the faiult lies entirely with Israel, entirely with the Palestinians or with a mixture of the two.
I think the issue here is that we are not used to existential wars. We have wars with limited aims and at the end of them the Americans bug out. Er, I mean at the end of them either one side wins, or there is a working negotiated settlement, or the matter is resolved one way or another.
Israel believes that it is in an existential war, just like we did 80 years ago (and hence my Godwin). In an existential war there is no merit in saying well we lost but at least we played by the (new, victor-imposed) rules. Losing equals annihilation.
And hence under those circumstances I am prepared, as you might have noticed from my various posts on the subject, to cut Israel quite a bit of slack. You often mention the use of white phosphorous by Israel, a horrible weapon. But again, and here we go back to WWII, and our own existential war, firebombing of German cities was seen as a legitimate act of war.
And no longer is under any circumstances. We were a signatory in 1949 to the 4th Geneva Convention and we were clear that it applied to us as much as anyone else. Under those laws that we keep purporting to support and try to impose on others, firebombing cities is no longer a legitimate act. Just like the use of chemical weapons or the murder of POWs.
Using the acts of the Allies 80 years ago as support for the current actions of countries is not a defendable argument.
You are speaking from the safety and security of a country that, please Odin, will never again face an existential threat. Israel does not believe it is in that position.
Signatories to this, that, or the other is meaningless. Of course we signed any old document in 1949 as we were at the peak of our powers and had just won a world war. That is not to say that Israel has chucked the Geneva Convention out of the window, according to news reports. Do you think that Israel as we speak is ignoring it? How difficult do you think it would be for Israel literally to level Gaza in an afternoon? Not very is my guess and Gaza is still standing.
The "rules of war" are a logical impossibility. I'm not going to roll out the "if your family were...." type of analogies but none of us can really understand what an existential war means and what you might be prepared to do if you were engaged in one.
Rules of war date back at least to the Code of Hammurabi in 1750BC. The Torah/Old Testament puts forth rules of war, for another early example.
The UK signed the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907. It is notable that the belligerents held to some rules of war, to some extent, through both World War I and World War II. The UK signed up to all four Geneva Conventions (adopted 1864, 1929 and 1949). Much of the modern conception of war crimes goes back to the 1945 London charter. War crimes have been incorporated into UK domestic law.
War crimes are almost inevitable in any major conflict, but we can reduce them. Most countries most of the time make some effort to follow the rules of war. It is ahistorical nonsense to act as if rules of war are only recent or unworkable.
So was the bombing of Dresden and Hiroshima a war crime under the 1750BC statute?
You keep bringing up Dresden and Hiroshima as if people don't view them as war crimes - lots of people, including historians, do. It just happened to be that the UK and the USA were on the winning side of that conflict and did not do any self reflection about that. Your position essentially boils down to "might makes right" - the winner decides what a war crime is and once that's done and dusted you move on.
And of course post war the UK and US have signed up to a treaty that, without postdating it, says that actions such as the bombing of Dresen would, forthwith, be considered war crimes.
Hiroshima is more interesting (if you will excuse the rather callous phrase) because the was the argumet that, in the wake of the mass suicides on Iwo Jima using the atomic bomb on the city actually saved more Japanese civilian lives than it took.
But even in that instance, using it as a justification for anything today implies it would be acceptable for a power today to make first use of a nuclear weapon for strategic purposes. Which would certainly be considered a war crime. So I am not convinced Topping has thought this through very carefully.
But, if I found myself in the same position as Truman, then war crime or no, I'd authorise the use of the bomb.
Would you authorise the use of the second bomb? I can see there is a difficult debate over Hiroshima. It's hard to see the same applying to Nagasaki.
I thought the history now was that Truman didn't authorise the second bomb, and the US military used it without asking, and that this so spooked Truman that it led to the development of the safeguards over nuclear use that we know today.
We are at a very dangerous point in this discussion as I think we are flirting with the idea of turning the subject of the entire thread into that most sensitive of topics - the use or not of cash.
Before I head off I will just ask one question - what about Big Issue sellers.
*and flees*
Just had to use cash at a train station cafe because all their electronic systems had broken down. I said to them 'If they'd abolished cash you wouldn't be able to trade at the moment".
The ticket machine - in a thin metallic voice - replied:
"Once we abolish humans, there will be no need for cash. On your way, meatsack."
I mean I am a fan of people taking the knee. A visible action against racism, of which there continues to be a fuckload at footie matches and which was beyond endemic in times gone by.
Equally it gives me great pleasure to see a typical PL footie match wherein there is a united nations of races, creeds, colours (not sexuality yet but I'm sure it is coming) and I believe the game is truly colour blind. You only have to see celebrations after a goal to confirm this at least amongst the players.
However, the pickle that the FA and indeed all football clubs finds itself in wrt Israel/Gaza is as a consequence of these gestures.
Like you I have no issue with taking the knee. It’s a harmless gesture against racism and helps raise awareness so where’s the downside ?
Soccer is also happy to have players wear rainbow laces. Again. No problem there.
When people complained about the taking of the knee or the laces the FA and twitterati were quick to condemn. They’re silent now a and this silence shames them.
They’ve made a major error here. They have a chance to rectify it. They need to do it ASAP.
Their reasoning is clear. They don’t want to offend the sort of people who believe 6MWNE.
Possibly. But I suspect they also fear it might 'provoke' attacks against Jews.
6MWNE is obviously a problem but there are a whole more who don't believe it ever happened.
I don't think there's anyone who believes the Holocaust never happened.
Those who claim it just enjoy trolling Jews and/or recognise that the Holocaust is bad PR for their cause. But, the know full well that it happened, and they think it was a good thing.
I'll never forget seeing a discussion in 2004 on another forum where I became of the concept of Holocaust minimisation.
Apparently when you factor in the hype, and the gays and other undesirables only 2 million Jews died in the Holocaust which apparently is fine because it wasn't as bad as other genocides like the Great Leap Forward or some of Stalin's worst excesses or slightly worse than the Rwandan genocide.
I saw a post on Twitter responding to someone making the point they beheaded babies ‘not all of the babies were beheaded’
Hamas committed terrible atrocities which everyone condemns without thrneed to exaggerate and extrapolate to 40 babies beheaded.
It was a terror attack carried out by evil people but making stuff up is just stupid a bit like the Iraq WMD bollocks
Worth noting the claim was never 40 babies beheaded, it was that in one community they found 40 dead babies of which some had been beheaded.
And of course it isn't just the alleged beheading, its the rape, the torture, the burning and burying of people to their deaths. That is why the Biden etc are comparing Hamas actions to ISIS, as this all the stuff they did in Syria / Iraq, finding the most barbaric ways to kill people, film it with real enjoyment e.g.
Hamas terrorists 'raped girls over their friends' bodies' as they carried out 'a second Holocaust', British family members of Israeli captives seized by gunmen alleged today at a London press conference.
It’s actually getting WORSE. More eye witness reports
'I saw a mother holding her baby, and one bullet went through both of them together...I saw 20 children together with their hands tied in the back, and they were shot and burned in a pile' Yossi Landau Commander, Zaka South tells our @davidmatlin
Eye witness recounts horrific details of Hamas cruelty on pregnant women, children and innocent Israeli civilians
'We see a pregnant lady on the floor, and we turn her around...and the stomach is wide open, there's an unborn baby connected to the cord, stabbed with a knife, and the mother shot in the head' Yossi Landau Commander, Zaka South tells our @davidmatlin
I imagine it’s videos of this stuff that so horrified NATO ministers in Brussels today
And still the Hamas apologists are counting the beheaded babies…
Its a bit like quibbling over from the reporting of Russian widespread torture and murder of civilians in Kharkiv if there is a story where there is only one source for it, when the picture of widespread barbaric war crimes is everywhere.
Yes. And it’s the usual suspects querying the beheaded baby story. Perhaps someone got it wrong, perhaps a soldier saw a baby with its head blown off by a gun (and they definitely shot babies) does it really fucking matter?
FWIW the latest photo seems to show a baby with its throat slit. Perhaps the beheaded-baby-counters can tell us if that is worse or better than a full beheading, or only counts as 3/8 of a baby beheading
I mean I am a fan of people taking the knee. A visible action against racism, of which there continues to be a fuckload at footie matches and which was beyond endemic in times gone by.
Equally it gives me great pleasure to see a typical PL footie match wherein there is a united nations of races, creeds, colours (not sexuality yet but I'm sure it is coming) and I believe the game is truly colour blind. You only have to see celebrations after a goal to confirm this at least amongst the players.
However, the pickle that the FA and indeed all football clubs finds itself in wrt Israel/Gaza is as a consequence of these gestures.
Like you I have no issue with taking the knee. It’s a harmless gesture against racism and helps raise awareness so where’s the downside ?
Soccer is also happy to have players wear rainbow laces. Again. No problem there.
When people complained about the taking of the knee or the laces the FA and twitterati were quick to condemn. They’re silent now a and this silence shames them.
They’ve made a major error here. They have a chance to rectify it. They need to do it ASAP.
Their reasoning is clear. They don’t want to offend the sort of people who believe 6MWNE.
Possibly. But I suspect they also fear it might 'provoke' attacks against Jews.
6MWNE is obviously a problem but there are a whole more who don't believe it ever happened.
I don't think there's anyone who believes the Holocaust never happened.
Those who claim it just enjoy trolling Jews and/or recognise that the Holocaust is bad PR for their cause. But, the know full well that it happened, and they think it was a good thing.
He genuinely did not believe the Holocaust happened: in the end it got him banned
It’s a shame as I communicated with him privately after his ban and he came across as wry, clever, sensitive and super well informed about elections. He just had this one massive psychic glitch. It happens
I always took it to be trolling on his part.
well if it was it didnt work out well for him.
Shame because he had some of the best politcal insights on PB
I definitely got the impression, by the end, that he meant it. He went into such detail
I will not forget the comment when he claimed the Nazis built “swimming pools” for the inmates at Auschwitz
It really was his "specialist" subject after Psephology.
@RodCrosby was before my time (and Leon's, strangely) but if his comments on his second 'specialist' subject are anything to go by his expertise on psephology might be suspect.
On the contrary his insight was very good and IIRC he was one of the few betting on a Con majority in 2015: in fact he did a header on it. Easily up there with @Andy_JS's spreadsheet. But he wasn't accidentally a denialist and quoter of Hitler, it was something he crowbarred in in the same way I crowbar Star Trek references.
I am old enough to remember when Israel was being pressed to give up land for peace. Well it did that in Gaza. It gave up land. It removed the settlers. And what it got in return was Hamas and rockets and now massacres.
Israel has made many mistakes over the years. Netanyahu is unquestionably the wrong leader for it, especially at such a time. I fear that an invasion of Gaza now will be a strategic error and lead to all sorts of casualties for the innocent.
But the Palestinians have consistently made huge errors, the biggest one of all being their refusal to accept Israel's right to exist. Hamas seeks the elimination of Israel and the killing of every Jew everywhere - not just in Israel. This is explicitly genocidal. There is no negotiation with such a movement. Eliminating it is the only answer. Just as we sought to eliminate Nazism and ISIS and other similar genocidal movements.
Those who worry about what happens next need to provide an alternative to Israel, one that will not make that country prey to genocidal maniacs. Lots of people are willing to speak hard truths to Israel about obeying the laws of war and civilian deaths and the rest of it. Very few are telling Hamas that it is their genocidal ideology which has brought Gaza to the point it is, that it is their deliberate policy of hiding amongst civilians which is putting Palestinians at risk, it is their refusal to accept Israel's right to exist which means there is not the remotest hope of starting any peace talks.
There is plenty of pressure which needs putting on Israel but Hamas must first be eliminated. It cannot - until it changes what it wants - be a player. It has taken itself outside the universe of civilised decency. So if invasion of Gaza is not the solution, what is? And if we don't have an alternative solution, then we can hardly be surprised if Israel does what it thinks necessary to save itself. What would we do were we in their position?
I sometimes feel that commentators are unwilling to provide or even begin to think about what an alternative might be because - after all the condemnations of Hamas - they give up at expecting anything better from the Palestinians and it is, after all, so much easier and more comfortable to revert to criticising Israel.
I was saying something similar the other day. Gaza allows itself to be ruled by Hamas. It does this in the knowledge that Hamas is committed to the death of all Jews. The murderous assaults came from their territory and seem to have been a source of glee.
I fully get that the residents of Gaza have a terrible life, that they are economically repressed by Israel and made to beg for water and electricity. Israel’s policies have been unenlightened at best and self harming all too often. If I lived in Gaza I would hate the Israeli government and want to resist that oppression.
But if you want to be listened to, if you want things to change, you do not start with the beheading of babies because they are Jews.
It is 17 years since there was an election in Gaza. 17 years during which Hamas has done it's best to kill anyone who actively opposes them. The Palestinians there 'allow' themselves to be ruled by Hamas about as much as the inhabitants of Kabul 'allow' themselves to be ruled by the Taliban.
So send the military in to liberate the populace and destroy Hamas.
2 birds, one stone.
If they were willing to do it in a way that we generally tried to in Afghanistan then I would agree all the way. But they won't. They are simply flattening the place with no regard for Palestinian casualties.
Its war, that happens. They need to flatten the places which Hamas are using.
There are no easy or peaceful solutions in warfare.
Safe refuge out of Gaza should be allowed for those who don't want to be fighting, many towns or cities have lost 95% of their population in Eastern Ukraine, no reason that won't or shouldn't happen in Gaza City too.
The civilians in Eastern Ukraine were allowed to leave. The civilians in Gaza are not.
But interesting that you are now (inadvetently) comparing the what is being done to the Palestinians with what was done to the Ukrainians.
I've made the comparison repeatedly.
Hamas = Russia Ukraine = Israel
Only difference is that Israel has the strength to take the fight onto the invaders territory rather than being forced to have it on their own.
That's not a bad thing, the situations are parallel rather than identical.
That is no excuse for killing civilians no matter how much you might want to. Neither Russia nor Hamas are civilised democratic entities. Israel is supposed to be. Hopefully they will remember that.
You have not yet answered my question Richard - does it appear to you that Israel are ignoring the relevant laws and treaties and whatnot. Does Gaza look to you as though Israel is indiscriminately targeting civilians.
We are at a very dangerous point in this discussion as I think we are flirting with the idea of turning the subject of the entire thread into that most sensitive of topics - the use or not of cash.
Before I head off I will just ask one question - what about Big Issue sellers.
*and flees*
I’m still concerned about the exclusion of Geordie pensioners from the Car Parks in the city due to this mad dash to go cashless that precious few want.
Why would you exclude Geordie pensioners? You do realise pensioners can and do use contactless, in their millions, every day?
We are at a very dangerous point in this discussion as I think we are flirting with the idea of turning the subject of the entire thread into that most sensitive of topics - the use or not of cash.
Before I head off I will just ask one question - what about Big Issue sellers.
*and flees*
I’m still concerned about the exclusion of Geordie pensioners from the Car Parks in the city due to this mad dash to go cashless that precious few want.
Cash has been in use for a long time. And it will continue to be in use for a long time 👍
Despite some who have an obsession with a cashless society it is years away, if ever
Henry Kissinger on the support for Hamas in Western countries: “It was a grave mistake to let in so many people of totally different culture and religion and concepts, because it creates a pressure group inside each country that does that."
Henry Kissinger on the support for Hamas in Western countries: “It was a grave mistake to let in so many people of totally different culture and religion and concepts, because it creates a pressure group inside each country that does that."
First word discovered in unopened Herculaneum scroll by 21yo computer science student Vesuvius Challenge $700,000 Grand Prize “now definitely achievable” https://scrollprize.org/firstletters
Uncle Barty always makes Warrington sound bloody awful, soulless identikit housing surrounded by motorways. I have been to Warrington, it’s not that bad in real life. At least not the bit I visited.
Hmm, a look at TripAdvisor throws up cultural activities like Zombie Scavenger Hunts (not sure if the undead are doinf the scavenging or being eaten), though there is a nice looking trad municipal museum with mummy and paintings and dino and all. Okay. Walton Hall is No 1 Best Thing to Do in Warrington, and the Museum is No 3., but it 's a bit worrying that Gullivers World Theme Park is no 2 and an alpaca farm is no 4. Really trad Lanc culture that, of a part with parkin and faggot and so on. It thins out a bit later, No 105 being a bcobblestoned street, which at least doesn't take long to inspect.
Of course people are mobile and via motorways you can get elsewhere within the NW within a very reasonable time too. Want to be in Liverpool, or Manchester, or Chester, or North Wales? All easily accessible.
"Of course people are mobile [...] via motorways [...]".
Lots of people don't have cars. As much reminded on here.
Warrington is not a model that can be transposed on to more densely populated parts of the country, particularly not the south east. You can't just build 10 lane motorways through AONB's and National Parks, which is what would happen if you try and fulfil the demand for car use through building new roads, at some point you need to start reducing the demand for car use and developing other options (public transport) - something we realised about 30-40 years ago.
Also the situation in Warrington and this part of the north west is a product of town planning, not something that has happened because town planning has been swept away. All the roads, infrastructure to go with the housing have to be planned and co-ordinated, along with policies that direct growth to certain areas. You don't just create it by throwing up a few motorways and letting people build wherever they want on vaguely defined zones. Even if you create a zonal system, like Japan and many other countries in Europe, it still has to be planned, it is just a slightly different type of planning.
Yes. I haven't ever advocated anarchy, I advocate zonal planning. Which contrary to what @Richard_Tyndall keeps claiming is not what we have in this country.
In a sensible zonal system, like Japan, you can build whatever you want subject without asking permission first if three conditions are met.
1. You own the land (obviously) 2. It is already zoned for housing. 3. You build to building codes.
Neighbours or Councils don't get a say if you want to demolish your home and rebuild it to something else as it's already zoned.
Plan the public infrastructure absolutely. But the land zoned for housing is NOT the public infrastructure land. Leave that to fill in with whatever people want.
The comment I have is that you purport to be in favour of a radical reform of planning in your posts but when it comes down to it, all you are actually arguing for is for more land to be released for housing (something almost everyone who works in the area agrees with- but subject to it being the right land in the right place which is more difficult to resolve) and a different delivery mechanism - a code based system rather than a discretionary system - something that is also not that controversial to deal with in principle, until you start trying to work out what the code should and shouldn't allow, and how deviations are resolved.
The problem with the last 13 years of planning policy is that the government don't want to tackle difficult decisions about where growth goes, they just keep avoiding it - palming it off to someone else, local authorities, civil servants etc... the Labour party seem to be making the right noises , but lets see.
I don't consider zonal planning a radical concept whatsoever.
But to switch from our current system where politicians and neighbours and assorted NIMBYs get a say in blocking development, to one where they don't, would have radical consequences.
It would end the oligopoly of developers that can play the system to acquire and sit on consent (especially but not only if done in conjunction with a switch to LVT). It would allow more variety in what is built, rather than what is It would allow adaptability as if higher density housing for example were desired people could bulldoze low density housing and rebuild to higher density, without having to get their neighbours or Councillors to approve. It would mean politicians would no longer have to appeal or pander to NIMBYs as codes being set nationally and zoning being approved locally means they have no more input after its zoned.
You may be interested to hear that our house in Finland is in a zoning system. We cannot cut down a tree in the garden without permission. The guy across the road is trying to do a self build and has been waiting for 10 months for permission to knock down the existing building and because the new house is 1m higher than the code allows. And of course, in these established built up areas there are exactly the same grievances and arguments between neighbours, they don't disappear with a code system.
The code system works and it doesn't. On the other hand a relative built an entire housing estate on his farm over the course of about 5 years through a code based system selling the plots off individually. But the latter happened not just because of the code system, also because there is unlimited land in Finland to build on and a low population density and no opposition, also because the Finns keep on top of building new infrastructure, unlike the UK. They've also made mistakes in Finland with too liberal code based systems on similar estates, there are estates where opportunistic developers have crammed in too many single storey houses with no space/gardens, it is the cheapest, poor quality type of development, something must have gone wrong with the plot/space ratios. In our relatives case he thinks it worked better because he employed a landscape architect to design the layout, but that was his choice (and expense)
If its already zoned for residential then I'm proposing abolishing seeking permission [except for special circumstances, like listed buildings]. So if the guy across the road is waiting for permission, then that's not a pure zonal system like I propose.
Absolutely agreed that low density is better, hence the parallel conversation about transport. Some people prefer high density though, so if they do then there should be freedom to do that too.
Of course if we have enough houses able to be built, and a liberal zone/code based system then situations where some developments are badly designed while others are well designed, may mean that the well designed developments are sold and lived in while the badly designed ones may end up vacant and be a burden on the owner who badly designed them as nobody is forced to buy or let them given better alternatives and the stupid owner who screwed up needs to continue paying all taxes on the land himself rather than getting an income from those who have no better alternative.
But is there a code or no code in your preferred zoning system? If there is a code then there has to be a method of dealing with situations that breach the code, hence the requirement for permission. I am not aware of any zoning system in a developed country that does not have some sort of building code that sets out limits that must be followed. The examples you use in support of your proposal all have this characteristic.
Why do you need permission? They don't in Japan.
Yes there should be a code, no there should not be a requirement for permission.
Build to code. If you break the code, then you should face consequences, same as breaking any other law, but if you are operating legally you shouldn't need to ask permission first.
So you want to have a code where there are no exceptions. It sounds to me like this would ultimately be a more restrictive system than that which exists at the moment, where you can apply for anything you want.
No, I want a code where if you build to code you don't need to ask permission, its automatic, for normal zoned appropriately land buildings which are not listed.
Want to build an extension to your property? If its to code, build it. Want to knock down your property and rebuild it? If its to code, do it. Want to buy undeveloped land (that is zoned appropriately) buy it and start building on it. No consultations, no discussions with neighbours, no politicians getting involved.
If you want an exemption? Then apply for one. If you want to convert land not zoned for housing to land zoned for housing? Then apply for it.
But only those outside of code, or outside of what is already zoned, would be going through a permission process.
Ok. But in terms of extensions, you are arguing for the system that we already have. Because you can already extend and alter your property without planning permission under permitted development rules that are very liberal already. It is only when you go beyond PD that you have to apply for permission.
Regarding the idea that you effectively grant permission for new buildings upfront at the time of making a plan, subject to compliance with a code... few people working in the industry would find that idea controversial. But the difficulty of implementing it is that you would have to do a lot more upfront work in making the plan that allocates the land in the first place. Already it takes 5 years to make a plan that allocates sites to resolve all the issues that come with allocating land. If you have to go further and work out where the roads are going and allocate sites all the way down to plot level and write a building code it will just take longer and be much more expensive = it won't ever happen.
The problem ultimately comes down to it being difficult to get anything done because of some strange disorder in the english bureaucratic state. The tories have spent 13 years trying to blast their way through it and bring the blob in to order but somehow they have managed only to make it even more dysfunctional.
The answer to this is to adopt one of the Dutch systems.
There the local Government allocate land for building. They then undertake all the preliminary work, archaeology, environmental etc. They then put in all the services, roads etc. They then allow people to buy plots - paying their share of all the previous costs to date and build their houses (or rather usually get a builder to do it for them) according to any of twenty or more designs previously agreed by the local Goverment.
It is a system as old as the Romans. We know that they often built street plans well in advance of putting in the buildings as we have found lots of examples where the building bit never happened.
Under this system you can still have all the planning rules etc but it is the council who are meeting them not a developer.
Of course developers would hate the system as it leaves nothing for them to do.
The unresolved problem at the bottom of all of this is that it is not that easy to just 'allocate land for development'. Some constraints are political and can in theory be overcome, this is what people hear about. But it isn't as simple as that, because then there are other problems that you hear less about and are just harder to resolve. The recent nutrient issues being one of them, but there are also other problems like road capacity, poor public transport, drainage, education and health authority capacity issues, the need to build flood defences etc. Planning gain can only fund a fraction of what is needed, it requires other parts of the government and the various other organisations to step forward and this a big reason why it is so hard to get a plan in place.
The other thing is that there is an unresolved strategic question about where growth should go. The government used to plan at a regional level but they stopped that in 2010. There is no national plan, or regional plan. So you get stuff thrashed out at a local level without reference to any national spatial strategy.
I mean I am a fan of people taking the knee. A visible action against racism, of which there continues to be a fuckload at footie matches and which was beyond endemic in times gone by.
Equally it gives me great pleasure to see a typical PL footie match wherein there is a united nations of races, creeds, colours (not sexuality yet but I'm sure it is coming) and I believe the game is truly colour blind. You only have to see celebrations after a goal to confirm this at least amongst the players.
However, the pickle that the FA and indeed all football clubs finds itself in wrt Israel/Gaza is as a consequence of these gestures.
Like you I have no issue with taking the knee. It’s a harmless gesture against racism and helps raise awareness so where’s the downside ?
Soccer is also happy to have players wear rainbow laces. Again. No problem there.
When people complained about the taking of the knee or the laces the FA and twitterati were quick to condemn. They’re silent now a and this silence shames them.
They’ve made a major error here. They have a chance to rectify it. They need to do it ASAP.
Their reasoning is clear. They don’t want to offend the sort of people who believe 6MWNE.
Possibly. But I suspect they also fear it might 'provoke' attacks against Jews.
6MWNE is obviously a problem but there are a whole more who don't believe it ever happened.
I don't think there's anyone who believes the Holocaust never happened.
Those who claim it just enjoy trolling Jews and/or recognise that the Holocaust is bad PR for their cause. But, the know full well that it happened, and they think it was a good thing.
I'll never forget seeing a discussion in 2004 on another forum where I became of the concept of Holocaust minimisation.
Apparently when you factor in the hype, and the gays and other undesirables only 2 million Jews died in the Holocaust which apparently is fine because it wasn't as bad as other genocides like the Great Leap Forward or some of Stalin's worst excesses or slightly worse than the Rwandan genocide.
I saw a post on Twitter responding to someone making the point they beheaded babies ‘not all of the babies were beheaded’
Hamas committed terrible atrocities which everyone condemns without thrneed to exaggerate and extrapolate to 40 babies beheaded.
It was a terror attack carried out by evil people but making stuff up is just stupid a bit like the Iraq WMD bollocks
The really stupid thing is thinking that it would justify retaliation directly against the civilian population of the Gaza Strip, whether it happened or not.
I fear Hamas welcomes bombardment of Gaza in order to further radicalise its inhabitants. This is the eternal tragedy of the region. Each side's excesses encourage and radicalise the other.
I think the absurd beheaded baby kerfuffle has pressured Israeli authorities into releasing the more potent, distressing images. You can find them online
I am generally quite hardened to these things, but Jesus
We are at a very dangerous point in this discussion as I think we are flirting with the idea of turning the subject of the entire thread into that most sensitive of topics - the use or not of cash.
Before I head off I will just ask one question - what about Big Issue sellers.
*and flees*
I’m still concerned about the exclusion of Geordie pensioners from the Car Parks in the city due to this mad dash to go cashless that precious few want.
Cash has been in use for a long time. And it will continue to be in use for a long time 👍
We are at a very dangerous point in this discussion as I think we are flirting with the idea of turning the subject of the entire thread into that most sensitive of topics - the use or not of cash.
Before I head off I will just ask one question - what about Big Issue sellers.
*and flees*
I’m still concerned about the exclusion of Geordie pensioners from the Car Parks in the city due to this mad dash to go cashless that precious few want.
Why would you exclude Geordie pensioners? You do realise pensioners can and do use contactless, in their millions, every day?
Indeed they do but there are many millions who don't and I do not understand why you cannot see the merit of both
Henry Kissinger on the support for Hamas in Western countries: “It was a grave mistake to let in so many people of totally different culture and religion and concepts, because it creates a pressure group inside each country that does that."
I mean I am a fan of people taking the knee. A visible action against racism, of which there continues to be a fuckload at footie matches and which was beyond endemic in times gone by.
Equally it gives me great pleasure to see a typical PL footie match wherein there is a united nations of races, creeds, colours (not sexuality yet but I'm sure it is coming) and I believe the game is truly colour blind. You only have to see celebrations after a goal to confirm this at least amongst the players.
However, the pickle that the FA and indeed all football clubs finds itself in wrt Israel/Gaza is as a consequence of these gestures.
Like you I have no issue with taking the knee. It’s a harmless gesture against racism and helps raise awareness so where’s the downside ?
Soccer is also happy to have players wear rainbow laces. Again. No problem there.
When people complained about the taking of the knee or the laces the FA and twitterati were quick to condemn. They’re silent now a and this silence shames them.
They’ve made a major error here. They have a chance to rectify it. They need to do it ASAP.
Their reasoning is clear. They don’t want to offend the sort of people who believe 6MWNE.
Possibly. But I suspect they also fear it might 'provoke' attacks against Jews.
6MWNE is obviously a problem but there are a whole more who don't believe it ever happened.
I don't think there's anyone who believes the Holocaust never happened.
Those who claim it just enjoy trolling Jews and/or recognise that the Holocaust is bad PR for their cause. But, the know full well that it happened, and they think it was a good thing.
I'll never forget seeing a discussion in 2004 on another forum where I became of the concept of Holocaust minimisation.
Apparently when you factor in the hype, and the gays and other undesirables only 2 million Jews died in the Holocaust which apparently is fine because it wasn't as bad as other genocides like the Great Leap Forward or some of Stalin's worst excesses or slightly worse than the Rwandan genocide.
I saw a post on Twitter responding to someone making the point they beheaded babies ‘not all of the babies were beheaded’
Hamas committed terrible atrocities which everyone condemns without thrneed to exaggerate and extrapolate to 40 babies beheaded.
It was a terror attack carried out by evil people but making stuff up is just stupid a bit like the Iraq WMD bollocks
The really stupid thing is thinking that it would justify retaliation directly against the civilian population of the Gaza Strip, whether it happened or not.
I fear Hamas welcomes bombardment of Gaza in order to further radicalise its inhabitants. This is the eternal tragedy of the region. Each side's excesses encourage and radicalise the other.
I can't imagine what else Hamas thought they were going to achieve.
I am old enough to remember when Israel was being pressed to give up land for peace. Well it did that in Gaza. It gave up land. It removed the settlers. And what it got in return was Hamas and rockets and now massacres.
Israel has made many mistakes over the years. Netanyahu is unquestionably the wrong leader for it, especially at such a time. I fear that an invasion of Gaza now will be a strategic error and lead to all sorts of casualties for the innocent.
But the Palestinians have consistently made huge errors, the biggest one of all being their refusal to accept Israel's right to exist. Hamas seeks the elimination of Israel and the killing of every Jew everywhere - not just in Israel. This is explicitly genocidal. There is no negotiation with such a movement. Eliminating it is the only answer. Just as we sought to eliminate Nazism and ISIS and other similar genocidal movements.
Those who worry about what happens next need to provide an alternative to Israel, one that will not make that country prey to genocidal maniacs. Lots of people are willing to speak hard truths to Israel about obeying the laws of war and civilian deaths and the rest of it. Very few are telling Hamas that it is their genocidal ideology which has brought Gaza to the point it is, that it is their deliberate policy of hiding amongst civilians which is putting Palestinians at risk, it is their refusal to accept Israel's right to exist which means there is not the remotest hope of starting any peace talks.
There is plenty of pressure which needs putting on Israel but Hamas must first be eliminated. It cannot - until it changes what it wants - be a player. It has taken itself outside the universe of civilised decency. So if invasion of Gaza is not the solution, what is? And if we don't have an alternative solution, then we can hardly be surprised if Israel does what it thinks necessary to save itself. What would we do were we in their position?
I sometimes feel that commentators are unwilling to provide or even begin to think about what an alternative might be because - after all the condemnations of Hamas - they give up at expecting anything better from the Palestinians and it is, after all, so much easier and more comfortable to revert to criticising Israel.
I was saying something similar the other day. Gaza allows itself to be ruled by Hamas. It does this in the knowledge that Hamas is committed to the death of all Jews. The murderous assaults came from their territory and seem to have been a source of glee.
I fully get that the residents of Gaza have a terrible life, that they are economically repressed by Israel and made to beg for water and electricity. Israel’s policies have been unenlightened at best and self harming all too often. If I lived in Gaza I would hate the Israeli government and want to resist that oppression.
But if you want to be listened to, if you want things to change, you do not start with the beheading of babies because they are Jews.
It is 17 years since there was an election in Gaza. 17 years during which Hamas has done it's best to kill anyone who actively opposes them. The Palestinians there 'allow' themselves to be ruled by Hamas about as much as the inhabitants of Kabul 'allow' themselves to be ruled by the Taliban.
Or the Germans "allowed" themselves to be ruled by Hitler. Good point.
What is amusing is that I suspect you and I regard that comment in very different ways.
I regard it in a very simple way, Richard. According to Israel the country is at war. You may disagree and we can discuss the difference between a terrorist act and an act of war. Israel, as one of the belligerents, thinks it is war. An existential one, to boot. If it is war then it is war.
I would be very interested to know how you regard that comment.
I agree. Israel is at war. And I do not even think discussing whose fault it might be in the long term changes anything there.
The difference appears to be that you think that being at war means that Israel are allowed to do anything they like to the Palestinian population and sod the consequences. You are one of those who quote, either directly or by inference, a war that ended 78 years ago in defence of this idea.
I believe that, partly as a result of what happened during that war, the world has rightly moved on and certain actions are now considered no longer acceptable even in war and are legally proscribed as such. Indiscriminate bombing of civilians, whether by intent or negligence, is one of thoise things. This is the case whether we believe the faiult lies entirely with Israel, entirely with the Palestinians or with a mixture of the two.
I think the issue here is that we are not used to existential wars. We have wars with limited aims and at the end of them the Americans bug out. Er, I mean at the end of them either one side wins, or there is a working negotiated settlement, or the matter is resolved one way or another.
Israel believes that it is in an existential war, just like we did 80 years ago (and hence my Godwin). In an existential war there is no merit in saying well we lost but at least we played by the (new, victor-imposed) rules. Losing equals annihilation.
And hence under those circumstances I am prepared, as you might have noticed from my various posts on the subject, to cut Israel quite a bit of slack. You often mention the use of white phosphorous by Israel, a horrible weapon. But again, and here we go back to WWII, and our own existential war, firebombing of German cities was seen as a legitimate act of war.
And no longer is under any circumstances. We were a signatory in 1949 to the 4th Geneva Convention and we were clear that it applied to us as much as anyone else. Under those laws that we keep purporting to support and try to impose on others, firebombing cities is no longer a legitimate act. Just like the use of chemical weapons or the murder of POWs.
Using the acts of the Allies 80 years ago as support for the current actions of countries is not a defendable argument.
You are speaking from the safety and security of a country that, please Odin, will never again face an existential threat. Israel does not believe it is in that position.
Signatories to this, that, or the other is meaningless. Of course we signed any old document in 1949 as we were at the peak of our powers and had just won a world war. That is not to say that Israel has chucked the Geneva Convention out of the window, according to news reports. Do you think that Israel as we speak is ignoring it? How difficult do you think it would be for Israel literally to level Gaza in an afternoon? Not very is my guess and Gaza is still standing.
The "rules of war" are a logical impossibility. I'm not going to roll out the "if your family were...." type of analogies but none of us can really understand what an existential war means and what you might be prepared to do if you were engaged in one.
Rules of war date back at least to the Code of Hammurabi in 1750BC. The Torah/Old Testament puts forth rules of war, for another early example.
The UK signed the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907. It is notable that the belligerents held to some rules of war, to some extent, through both World War I and World War II. The UK signed up to all four Geneva Conventions (adopted 1864, 1929 and 1949). Much of the modern conception of war crimes goes back to the 1945 London charter. War crimes have been incorporated into UK domestic law.
War crimes are almost inevitable in any major conflict, but we can reduce them. Most countries most of the time make some effort to follow the rules of war. It is ahistorical nonsense to act as if rules of war are only recent or unworkable.
So was the bombing of Dresden and Hiroshima a war crime under the 1750BC statute?
You keep bringing up Dresden and Hiroshima as if people don't view them as war crimes - lots of people, including historians, do. It just happened to be that the UK and the USA were on the winning side of that conflict and did not do any self reflection about that. Your position essentially boils down to "might makes right" - the winner decides what a war crime is and once that's done and dusted you move on.
And of course post war the UK and US have signed up to a treaty that, without postdating it, says that actions such as the bombing of Dresen would, forthwith, be considered war crimes.
Hiroshima is more interesting (if you will excuse the rather callous phrase) because the was the argumet that, in the wake of the mass suicides on Iwo Jima using the atomic bomb on the city actually saved more Japanese civilian lives than it took.
But even in that instance, using it as a justification for anything today implies it would be acceptable for a power today to make first use of a nuclear weapon for strategic purposes. Which would certainly be considered a war crime. So I am not convinced Topping has thought this through very carefully.
But, if I found myself in the same position as Truman, then war crime or no, I'd authorise the use of the bomb.
Would you authorise the use of the second bomb? I can see there is a difficult debate over Hiroshima. It's hard to see the same applying to Nagasaki.
The intended target for the second bomb was Kokura. The target was obscured so they flew on to Nagasaki, the secondary target. "The luck of Kokura" is an expression in Japanese even today.
Truman didn't directly order the dropping of the second bomb. Authority was handed to the military in quite broad terms.
This was the actual "authorisation": https://www.osti.gov/opennet/manhattan-project-history/Resources/order_drop.htm The document below is the order to attack Japanese cities with atomic bombs. In it, the Acting Army Chief of Staff, Thomas Handy, orders Commanding General Carl Spaatz, Army Strategic Air Forces, to "deliver [the] first special bomb as soon as weather will permit . . . after about 3 August 1945." The target list: "Hiroshima, Kokura, Niigata, and Nagasaki." Further attacks were also authorized: "additional bombs will be delivered on the above targets as soon as made ready." Handy was the acting chief of staff because George Marshall was with President Harry S. Truman at the Potsdam Conference. The letter explicitly notes that this order was approved by Marshall and Secretary of War Henry Stimson. Truman, of course, provided the ultimate authorization for dropping the bomb.
https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/nagasaki-the-last-bomb ...President Truman seems to have been surprised by the second bombing, coming as it did so soon after the first. Intercepted Japanese reports of the damage on the ground at Hiroshima were just trickling in to American officials. Truman, who had written in his diary in late July that “military objectives and soldiers and sailors” were the target of the atomic bomb, “not women and children,” apparently confronted the reality of the weapon for the first time. The Secretary of Commerce, Henry Wallace, reported in his journal that “the thought of wiping out another 100,000 people was too horrible” for the President. “He didn’t like the idea of killing, as he said, ‘all those kids,’ ” Wallace added.
The day after Nagasaki, Truman issued his first affirmative command regarding the bomb: no more strikes without his express authorization. He never issued the order to drop the bombs, but he did issue the order to stop dropping them. ..
I think the absurd beheaded baby kerfuffle has pressured Israeli authorities into releasing the more potent, distressing images. You can find them online
I am generally quite hardened to these things, but Jesus
I am surprised some apologists haven't claimed they are AI deep fakes....
Henry Kissinger on the support for Hamas in Western countries: “It was a grave mistake to let in so many people of totally different culture and religion and concepts, because it creates a pressure group inside each country that does that."
Henry Kissinger on the support for Hamas in Western countries: “It was a grave mistake to let in so many people of totally different culture and religion and concepts, because it creates a pressure group inside each country that does that."
Those could almost be Hitler's words about the Jews in Europe.
How ? One of the things notable about European Jews is how they have successfully blended in with the country;s culture. One of the more memorable thing for me was reading accounts of Nazis beating up Jewish WW1 war veterans. people who had done their duty for country and Kaiser more than the thugs attacking them.
Our recent brush as a host country has been naive in parts and probably needed a longer period to let communities integrate. I suspect that route might be less effective as modern comms means immigrant communities can live in a cultural silo if they want. Denmark and Sweden appear to be trying to tackle this it remains to be seen what the outcome is.
We are at a very dangerous point in this discussion as I think we are flirting with the idea of turning the subject of the entire thread into that most sensitive of topics - the use or not of cash.
Before I head off I will just ask one question - what about Big Issue sellers.
*and flees*
I’m still concerned about the exclusion of Geordie pensioners from the Car Parks in the city due to this mad dash to go cashless that precious few want.
Why would you exclude Geordie pensioners? You do realise pensioners can and do use contactless, in their millions, every day?
Indeed they do but there are many millions who don't and I do not understand why you cannot see the merit of both
I wouldn’t ban cash. But if businesses only want to go cashless, up to them. Cash is a rubbish, outdated and expensive system. If businesses want to be cashless, so be it.
I am old enough to remember when Israel was being pressed to give up land for peace. Well it did that in Gaza. It gave up land. It removed the settlers. And what it got in return was Hamas and rockets and now massacres.
Israel has made many mistakes over the years. Netanyahu is unquestionably the wrong leader for it, especially at such a time. I fear that an invasion of Gaza now will be a strategic error and lead to all sorts of casualties for the innocent.
But the Palestinians have consistently made huge errors, the biggest one of all being their refusal to accept Israel's right to exist. Hamas seeks the elimination of Israel and the killing of every Jew everywhere - not just in Israel. This is explicitly genocidal. There is no negotiation with such a movement. Eliminating it is the only answer. Just as we sought to eliminate Nazism and ISIS and other similar genocidal movements.
Those who worry about what happens next need to provide an alternative to Israel, one that will not make that country prey to genocidal maniacs. Lots of people are willing to speak hard truths to Israel about obeying the laws of war and civilian deaths and the rest of it. Very few are telling Hamas that it is their genocidal ideology which has brought Gaza to the point it is, that it is their deliberate policy of hiding amongst civilians which is putting Palestinians at risk, it is their refusal to accept Israel's right to exist which means there is not the remotest hope of starting any peace talks.
There is plenty of pressure which needs putting on Israel but Hamas must first be eliminated. It cannot - until it changes what it wants - be a player. It has taken itself outside the universe of civilised decency. So if invasion of Gaza is not the solution, what is? And if we don't have an alternative solution, then we can hardly be surprised if Israel does what it thinks necessary to save itself. What would we do were we in their position?
I sometimes feel that commentators are unwilling to provide or even begin to think about what an alternative might be because - after all the condemnations of Hamas - they give up at expecting anything better from the Palestinians and it is, after all, so much easier and more comfortable to revert to criticising Israel.
I was saying something similar the other day. Gaza allows itself to be ruled by Hamas. It does this in the knowledge that Hamas is committed to the death of all Jews. The murderous assaults came from their territory and seem to have been a source of glee.
I fully get that the residents of Gaza have a terrible life, that they are economically repressed by Israel and made to beg for water and electricity. Israel’s policies have been unenlightened at best and self harming all too often. If I lived in Gaza I would hate the Israeli government and want to resist that oppression.
But if you want to be listened to, if you want things to change, you do not start with the beheading of babies because they are Jews.
It is 17 years since there was an election in Gaza. 17 years during which Hamas has done it's best to kill anyone who actively opposes them. The Palestinians there 'allow' themselves to be ruled by Hamas about as much as the inhabitants of Kabul 'allow' themselves to be ruled by the Taliban.
So send the military in to liberate the populace and destroy Hamas.
2 birds, one stone.
If they were willing to do it in a way that we generally tried to in Afghanistan then I would agree all the way. But they won't. They are simply flattening the place with no regard for Palestinian casualties.
Its war, that happens. They need to flatten the places which Hamas are using.
There are no easy or peaceful solutions in warfare.
Safe refuge out of Gaza should be allowed for those who don't want to be fighting, many towns or cities have lost 95% of their population in Eastern Ukraine, no reason that won't or shouldn't happen in Gaza City too.
The civilians in Eastern Ukraine were allowed to leave. The civilians in Gaza are not.
But interesting that you are now (inadvetently) comparing the what is being done to the Palestinians with what was done to the Ukrainians.
I've made the comparison repeatedly.
Hamas = Russia Ukraine = Israel
Only difference is that Israel has the strength to take the fight onto the invaders territory rather than being forced to have it on their own.
That's not a bad thing, the situations are parallel rather than identical.
That is no excuse for killing civilians no matter how much you might want to. Neither Russia nor Hamas are civilised democratic entities. Israel is supposed to be. Hopefully they will remember that.
There is no excuse for deliberately killing civilians.
Killing civilians who are caught in the crossfire while you are acting in a way proportional to the objective is regrettable but acceptable.
Henry Kissinger on the support for Hamas in Western countries: “It was a grave mistake to let in so many people of totally different culture and religion and concepts, because it creates a pressure group inside each country that does that."
Those could almost be Hitler's words about the Jews in Europe.
How ? One of the things notable about European Jews is how they have successfully blended in with the country;s culture. One of the more memorable thing for me was reading accounts of Nazis beating up Jewish WW1 war veterans.
Our recent brush as a host country has been naive in parts and probably needed a longer period to let communities integrate. I suspect that route might be less effective as modern comms means immigrant communities can live in a cultural silo if they want. Denmark and Sweden appear to be trying to tackle this it remains to be seen what the outcome is.
I'm sorry, but that is very much a post Second World War (and Western Europe) thing.
The whole rise of Reform Judaism was because the existence of little enclaves of orthodox Judaism, with their different clothes, their inability to eat with goy, etc.,, made them very separate (and distrusted) communities.
In Germany and Eastern Europe in the 1930s, Jewish communities were very much apart from Christian ones.
(And, by the way, that's a natural consequence of a non-proselytizing religion. Kosher rules exist to stop Jews socialising with non-Jews, so as to minimize the risk of people marrying out.)
Henry Kissinger on the support for Hamas in Western countries: “It was a grave mistake to let in so many people of totally different culture and religion and concepts, because it creates a pressure group inside each country that does that."
Henry Kissinger on the support for Hamas in Western countries: “It was a grave mistake to let in so many people of totally different culture and religion and concepts, because it creates a pressure group inside each country that does that."
With regard to the cash/cashless economy, perhaps it might be interesting to do a quick thought experiment.....
Suppose that at some time in the future, in the UK, you need to carry out a cash transaction; furthermore, that transaction requires you to receive some coins in change. What do you think the chances are of any of those coins bearing King Charles III's head?
No doubt the Royal Mint will strike King Charles coins, and a few might go into circulation, but most will be collector's proofs and the like. The few that make it into the public domain will be quickly snapped up as souvenirs. There are already so many QEII coins in the marketplace that are doing a perfectly good job that it's probably not worth the Bank of England or the Mint recalling them, other than for standard wear and tear - but that's a diminishing problem because so few people are using coins nowadays....
There's no blinding revelation at the end of this - but I reckon that in all probability I will never see the new King's head on a coin in general circulation. But I did recently buy a book of stamps, which are probably going the same way as the coin of the Realm.
I am old enough to remember when Israel was being pressed to give up land for peace. Well it did that in Gaza. It gave up land. It removed the settlers. And what it got in return was Hamas and rockets and now massacres.
Israel has made many mistakes over the years. Netanyahu is unquestionably the wrong leader for it, especially at such a time. I fear that an invasion of Gaza now will be a strategic error and lead to all sorts of casualties for the innocent.
But the Palestinians have consistently made huge errors, the biggest one of all being their refusal to accept Israel's right to exist. Hamas seeks the elimination of Israel and the killing of every Jew everywhere - not just in Israel. This is explicitly genocidal. There is no negotiation with such a movement. Eliminating it is the only answer. Just as we sought to eliminate Nazism and ISIS and other similar genocidal movements.
Those who worry about what happens next need to provide an alternative to Israel, one that will not make that country prey to genocidal maniacs. Lots of people are willing to speak hard truths to Israel about obeying the laws of war and civilian deaths and the rest of it. Very few are telling Hamas that it is their genocidal ideology which has brought Gaza to the point it is, that it is their deliberate policy of hiding amongst civilians which is putting Palestinians at risk, it is their refusal to accept Israel's right to exist which means there is not the remotest hope of starting any peace talks.
There is plenty of pressure which needs putting on Israel but Hamas must first be eliminated. It cannot - until it changes what it wants - be a player. It has taken itself outside the universe of civilised decency. So if invasion of Gaza is not the solution, what is? And if we don't have an alternative solution, then we can hardly be surprised if Israel does what it thinks necessary to save itself. What would we do were we in their position?
I sometimes feel that commentators are unwilling to provide or even begin to think about what an alternative might be because - after all the condemnations of Hamas - they give up at expecting anything better from the Palestinians and it is, after all, so much easier and more comfortable to revert to criticising Israel.
I was saying something similar the other day. Gaza allows itself to be ruled by Hamas. It does this in the knowledge that Hamas is committed to the death of all Jews. The murderous assaults came from their territory and seem to have been a source of glee.
I fully get that the residents of Gaza have a terrible life, that they are economically repressed by Israel and made to beg for water and electricity. Israel’s policies have been unenlightened at best and self harming all too often. If I lived in Gaza I would hate the Israeli government and want to resist that oppression.
But if you want to be listened to, if you want things to change, you do not start with the beheading of babies because they are Jews.
It is 17 years since there was an election in Gaza. 17 years during which Hamas has done it's best to kill anyone who actively opposes them. The Palestinians there 'allow' themselves to be ruled by Hamas about as much as the inhabitants of Kabul 'allow' themselves to be ruled by the Taliban.
So send the military in to liberate the populace and destroy Hamas.
2 birds, one stone.
If they were willing to do it in a way that we generally tried to in Afghanistan then I would agree all the way. But they won't. They are simply flattening the place with no regard for Palestinian casualties.
Its war, that happens. They need to flatten the places which Hamas are using.
There are no easy or peaceful solutions in warfare.
Safe refuge out of Gaza should be allowed for those who don't want to be fighting, many towns or cities have lost 95% of their population in Eastern Ukraine, no reason that won't or shouldn't happen in Gaza City too.
The civilians in Eastern Ukraine were allowed to leave. The civilians in Gaza are not.
But interesting that you are now (inadvetently) comparing the what is being done to the Palestinians with what was done to the Ukrainians.
I've made the comparison repeatedly.
Hamas = Russia Ukraine = Israel
Only difference is that Israel has the strength to take the fight onto the invaders territory rather than being forced to have it on their own.
That's not a bad thing, the situations are parallel rather than identical.
That is no excuse for killing civilians no matter how much you might want to. Neither Russia nor Hamas are civilised democratic entities. Israel is supposed to be. Hopefully they will remember that.
There is no excuse for deliberately killing civilians.
Killing civilians who are caught in the crossfire while you are acting in a way proportional to the objective is regrettable but acceptable.
"A woman who spent 20 years saving for her dream wedding has thrown herself her own big day after not meeting the right partner.
Sarah Wilkinson, 42, decided to hold a wedding ceremony conducted by her celebrant friend at Harvest House in Felixstowe, Suffolk. The credit controller said the occasion was a natural progression after she treated herself to an engagement ring. "It was a lovely day for me to be centre of attention," she said. "The ceremony wasn't an official wedding, but I had my wedding day. "I think you get to the point where you think 'I might not have this with a partner by my side, but why should I miss out?' "That money was reserved for my wedding - it was a case of it's there and why not use it for something I want to do."
We are at a very dangerous point in this discussion as I think we are flirting with the idea of turning the subject of the entire thread into that most sensitive of topics - the use or not of cash.
Before I head off I will just ask one question - what about Big Issue sellers.
*and flees*
I’m still concerned about the exclusion of Geordie pensioners from the Car Parks in the city due to this mad dash to go cashless that precious few want.
Why would you exclude Geordie pensioners? You do realise pensioners can and do use contactless, in their millions, every day?
Indeed they do but there are many millions who don't and I do not understand why you cannot see the merit of both
Hopefully a pressure group for OAP’s, such as Age U.K., can mount challenges to this lunacy to move away from cash. A move precious few want or need and marginalises many in society.
Henry Kissinger on the support for Hamas in Western countries: “It was a grave mistake to let in so many people of totally different culture and religion and concepts, because it creates a pressure group inside each country that does that."
Henry Kissinger on the support for Hamas in Western countries: “It was a grave mistake to let in so many people of totally different culture and religion and concepts, because it creates a pressure group inside each country that does that."
Those could almost be Hitler's words about the Jews in Europe.
How ? One of the things notable about European Jews is how they have successfully blended in with the country;s culture. One of the more memorable thing for me was reading accounts of Nazis beating up Jewish WW1 war veterans.
Our recent brush as a host country has been naive in parts and probably needed a longer period to let communities integrate. I suspect that route might be less effective as modern comms means immigrant communities can live in a cultural silo if they want. Denmark and Sweden appear to be trying to tackle this it remains to be seen what the outcome is.
I'm sorry, but that is very much a post Second World War (and Western Europe) thing.
The whole rise of Reform Judaism was because the existence of little enclaves of orthodox Judaism, with their different clothes, their inability to eat with goy, etc.,, made them very separate (and distrusted) communities.
In Germany and Eastern Europe in the 1930s, Jewish communities were very much apart from Christian ones.
(And, by the way, that's a natural consequence of a non-proselytizing religion. Kosher rules exist to stop Jews socialising with non-Jews, so as to minimize the risk of people marrying out.)
I dont think thats quite the case. Christopher Clark in Iron Kingdom makes a strong case for Jewish integration into Prussia at the time of the wars of liberation ( 1813 ). The wave of pogrom based immigration was a shock to the system in the 188os but in western Europe most jewish communities had integrated by the 1930s. There was still always the hard case of anti semitism which could flare up ( eg Dreyfus ) but that could apply to other minorities too - the Irish in our case. Cant remember which book I read it in * Poland had a very outlooking Jewish community pre 1939, quite leftist and very much a part of life in Warsaw.
* Think it was Mark Mazower - Hitlers Empire. But my son has nicked this from me so cant check
Henry Kissinger on the support for Hamas in Western countries: “It was a grave mistake to let in so many people of totally different culture and religion and concepts, because it creates a pressure group inside each country that does that."
Those could almost be Hitler's words about the Jews in Europe.
How ? One of the things notable about European Jews is how they have successfully blended in with the country;s culture. One of the more memorable thing for me was reading accounts of Nazis beating up Jewish WW1 war veterans.
Our recent brush as a host country has been naive in parts and probably needed a longer period to let communities integrate. I suspect that route might be less effective as modern comms means immigrant communities can live in a cultural silo if they want. Denmark and Sweden appear to be trying to tackle this it remains to be seen what the outcome is.
I'm sorry, but that is very much a post Second World War (and Western Europe) thing.
The whole rise of Reform Judaism was because the existence of little enclaves of orthodox Judaism, with their different clothes, their inability to eat with goy, etc.,, made them very separate (and distrusted) communities.
In Germany and Eastern Europe in the 1930s, Jewish communities were very much apart from Christian ones.
(And, by the way, that's a natural consequence of a non-proselytizing religion. Kosher rules exist to stop Jews socialising with non-Jews, so as to minimize the risk of people marrying out.)
Kissinger and his family were, of course, refugees from Nazi Germany in the 30s.
For some reason the new constituency boundaries haven't been officially approved by King Charles at a Privy Council meeting thus far, which means if Rishi called an election today it would be fought on the old/current ones.
With regard to the cash/cashless economy, perhaps it might be interesting to do a quick thought experiment.....
Suppose that at some time in the future, in the UK, you need to carry out a cash transaction; furthermore, that transaction requires you to receive some coins in change. What do you think the chances are of any of those coins bearing King Charles III's head?
No doubt the Royal Mint will strike King Charles coins, and a few might go into circulation, but most will be collector's proofs and the like. The few that make it into the public domain will be quickly snapped up as souvenirs. There are already so many QEII coins in the marketplace that are doing a perfectly good job that it's probably not worth the Bank of England or the Mint recalling them, other than for standard wear and tear - but that's a diminishing problem because so few people are using coins nowadays....
There's no blinding revelation at the end of this - but I reckon that in all probability I will never see the new King's head on a coin in general circulation. But I did recently buy a book of stamps, which are probably going the same way as the coin of the Realm.
Royal Mint give figures for the number of coins minted each year.
More than 42 million 20p pieces minted in 2022 for example, compared to more than 150 million in 2003. They estimate about 29 billion coins in circulation.
The biggest barrier to you regularly coming across a KCIII coin is simply the declining number of cash transactions that you are making. So many fewer coins are travelling through your hands.
I mean I am a fan of people taking the knee. A visible action against racism, of which there continues to be a fuckload at footie matches and which was beyond endemic in times gone by.
Equally it gives me great pleasure to see a typical PL footie match wherein there is a united nations of races, creeds, colours (not sexuality yet but I'm sure it is coming) and I believe the game is truly colour blind. You only have to see celebrations after a goal to confirm this at least amongst the players.
However, the pickle that the FA and indeed all football clubs finds itself in wrt Israel/Gaza is as a consequence of these gestures.
Like you I have no issue with taking the knee. It’s a harmless gesture against racism and helps raise awareness so where’s the downside ?
Soccer is also happy to have players wear rainbow laces. Again. No problem there.
When people complained about the taking of the knee or the laces the FA and twitterati were quick to condemn. They’re silent now a and this silence shames them.
They’ve made a major error here. They have a chance to rectify it. They need to do it ASAP.
Their reasoning is clear. They don’t want to offend the sort of people who believe 6MWNE.
Possibly. But I suspect they also fear it might 'provoke' attacks against Jews.
6MWNE is obviously a problem but there are a whole more who don't believe it ever happened.
I don't think there's anyone who believes the Holocaust never happened.
Those who claim it just enjoy trolling Jews and/or recognise that the Holocaust is bad PR for their cause. But, the know full well that it happened, and they think it was a good thing.
I'll never forget seeing a discussion in 2004 on another forum where I became of the concept of Holocaust minimisation.
Apparently when you factor in the hype, and the gays and other undesirables only 2 million Jews died in the Holocaust which apparently is fine because it wasn't as bad as other genocides like the Great Leap Forward or some of Stalin's worst excesses or slightly worse than the Rwandan genocide.
I saw a post on Twitter responding to someone making the point they beheaded babies ‘not all of the babies were beheaded’
Hamas committed terrible atrocities which everyone condemns without thrneed to exaggerate and extrapolate to 40 babies beheaded.
It was a terror attack carried out by evil people but making stuff up is just stupid a bit like the Iraq WMD bollocks
The really stupid thing is thinking that it would justify retaliation directly against the civilian population of the Gaza Strip, whether it happened or not.
I fear Hamas welcomes bombardment of Gaza in order to further radicalise its inhabitants. This is the eternal tragedy of the region. Each side's excesses encourage and radicalise the other.
I can't imagine what else Hamas thought they were going to achieve.
Of course this is precisely the objective of the attack. It is about the reaction, not the action. Which is why it might not be a great idea for Israel to react in the way Hamas wants it to.
With regard to the cash/cashless economy, perhaps it might be interesting to do a quick thought experiment.....
Suppose that at some time in the future, in the UK, you need to carry out a cash transaction; furthermore, that transaction requires you to receive some coins in change. What do you think the chances are of any of those coins bearing King Charles III's head?
No doubt the Royal Mint will strike King Charles coins, and a few might go into circulation, but most will be collector's proofs and the like. The few that make it into the public domain will be quickly snapped up as souvenirs. There are already so many QEII coins in the marketplace that are doing a perfectly good job that it's probably not worth the Bank of England or the Mint recalling them, other than for standard wear and tear - but that's a diminishing problem because so few people are using coins nowadays....
There's no blinding revelation at the end of this - but I reckon that in all probability I will never see the new King's head on a coin in general circulation. But I did recently buy a book of stamps, which are probably going the same way as the coin of the Realm.
Royal Mint give figures for the number of coins minted each year.
More than 42 million 20p pieces minted in 2022 for example, compared to more than 150 million in 2003. They estimate about 29 billion coins in circulation.
The biggest barrier to you regularly coming across a KCIII coin is simply the declining number of cash transactions that you are making. So many fewer coins are travelling through your hands.
Indeed, and it's been an increasing problem for Primary School teachers for a while now. Because so few children handle coins these days (for a variety of reasons) the standard methods for inculcating practical mental arithmetic are disappearing. There's less need (and less comprehension for the need) to calculate change due, or the combinations of coins needed to buy sweets etc.
I mean I am a fan of people taking the knee. A visible action against racism, of which there continues to be a fuckload at footie matches and which was beyond endemic in times gone by.
Equally it gives me great pleasure to see a typical PL footie match wherein there is a united nations of races, creeds, colours (not sexuality yet but I'm sure it is coming) and I believe the game is truly colour blind. You only have to see celebrations after a goal to confirm this at least amongst the players.
However, the pickle that the FA and indeed all football clubs finds itself in wrt Israel/Gaza is as a consequence of these gestures.
Like you I have no issue with taking the knee. It’s a harmless gesture against racism and helps raise awareness so where’s the downside ?
Soccer is also happy to have players wear rainbow laces. Again. No problem there.
When people complained about the taking of the knee or the laces the FA and twitterati were quick to condemn. They’re silent now a and this silence shames them.
They’ve made a major error here. They have a chance to rectify it. They need to do it ASAP.
Their reasoning is clear. They don’t want to offend the sort of people who believe 6MWNE.
Possibly. But I suspect they also fear it might 'provoke' attacks against Jews.
6MWNE is obviously a problem but there are a whole more who don't believe it ever happened.
I don't think there's anyone who believes the Holocaust never happened.
Those who claim it just enjoy trolling Jews and/or recognise that the Holocaust is bad PR for their cause. But, the know full well that it happened, and they think it was a good thing.
I'll never forget seeing a discussion in 2004 on another forum where I became of the concept of Holocaust minimisation.
Apparently when you factor in the hype, and the gays and other undesirables only 2 million Jews died in the Holocaust which apparently is fine because it wasn't as bad as other genocides like the Great Leap Forward or some of Stalin's worst excesses or slightly worse than the Rwandan genocide.
I saw a post on Twitter responding to someone making the point they beheaded babies ‘not all of the babies were beheaded’
Hamas committed terrible atrocities which everyone condemns without thrneed to exaggerate and extrapolate to 40 babies beheaded.
It was a terror attack carried out by evil people but making stuff up is just stupid a bit like the Iraq WMD bollocks
The really stupid thing is thinking that it would justify retaliation directly against the civilian population of the Gaza Strip, whether it happened or not.
I fear Hamas welcomes bombardment of Gaza in order to further radicalise its inhabitants. This is the eternal tragedy of the region. Each side's excesses encourage and radicalise the other.
I can't imagine what else Hamas thought they were going to achieve.
Of course this is precisely the objective of the attack. It is about the reaction, not the action. Which is why it might not be a great idea for Israel to react in the way Hamas wants it to.
Hamas is mostly concerned about the reaction to the reaction in the Muslim world, while Israel is mostly concerned with its own population's reaction. They have a need to restore confidence in the ability of the state to keep its citizens safe. If they lose that confidence then it's the end of Israel because people will leave to find somewhere safer, unless they first vote for a government they will take the necessary action to make them feel safe.
I am old enough to remember when Israel was being pressed to give up land for peace. Well it did that in Gaza. It gave up land. It removed the settlers. And what it got in return was Hamas and rockets and now massacres.
Israel has made many mistakes over the years. Netanyahu is unquestionably the wrong leader for it, especially at such a time. I fear that an invasion of Gaza now will be a strategic error and lead to all sorts of casualties for the innocent.
But the Palestinians have consistently made huge errors, the biggest one of all being their refusal to accept Israel's right to exist. Hamas seeks the elimination of Israel and the killing of every Jew everywhere - not just in Israel. This is explicitly genocidal. There is no negotiation with such a movement. Eliminating it is the only answer. Just as we sought to eliminate Nazism and ISIS and other similar genocidal movements.
Those who worry about what happens next need to provide an alternative to Israel, one that will not make that country prey to genocidal maniacs. Lots of people are willing to speak hard truths to Israel about obeying the laws of war and civilian deaths and the rest of it. Very few are telling Hamas that it is their genocidal ideology which has brought Gaza to the point it is, that it is their deliberate policy of hiding amongst civilians which is putting Palestinians at risk, it is their refusal to accept Israel's right to exist which means there is not the remotest hope of starting any peace talks.
There is plenty of pressure which needs putting on Israel but Hamas must first be eliminated. It cannot - until it changes what it wants - be a player. It has taken itself outside the universe of civilised decency. So if invasion of Gaza is not the solution, what is? And if we don't have an alternative solution, then we can hardly be surprised if Israel does what it thinks necessary to save itself. What would we do were we in their position?
I sometimes feel that commentators are unwilling to provide or even begin to think about what an alternative might be because - after all the condemnations of Hamas - they give up at expecting anything better from the Palestinians and it is, after all, so much easier and more comfortable to revert to criticising Israel.
I was saying something similar the other day. Gaza allows itself to be ruled by Hamas. It does this in the knowledge that Hamas is committed to the death of all Jews. The murderous assaults came from their territory and seem to have been a source of glee.
I fully get that the residents of Gaza have a terrible life, that they are economically repressed by Israel and made to beg for water and electricity. Israel’s policies have been unenlightened at best and self harming all too often. If I lived in Gaza I would hate the Israeli government and want to resist that oppression.
But if you want to be listened to, if you want things to change, you do not start with the beheading of babies because they are Jews.
It is 17 years since there was an election in Gaza. 17 years during which Hamas has done it's best to kill anyone who actively opposes them. The Palestinians there 'allow' themselves to be ruled by Hamas about as much as the inhabitants of Kabul 'allow' themselves to be ruled by the Taliban.
Or the Germans "allowed" themselves to be ruled by Hitler. Good point.
What is amusing is that I suspect you and I regard that comment in very different ways.
I regard it in a very simple way, Richard. According to Israel the country is at war. You may disagree and we can discuss the difference between a terrorist act and an act of war. Israel, as one of the belligerents, thinks it is war. An existential one, to boot. If it is war then it is war.
I would be very interested to know how you regard that comment.
I agree. Israel is at war. And I do not even think discussing whose fault it might be in the long term changes anything there.
The difference appears to be that you think that being at war means that Israel are allowed to do anything they like to the Palestinian population and sod the consequences. You are one of those who quote, either directly or by inference, a war that ended 78 years ago in defence of this idea.
I believe that, partly as a result of what happened during that war, the world has rightly moved on and certain actions are now considered no longer acceptable even in war and are legally proscribed as such. Indiscriminate bombing of civilians, whether by intent or negligence, is one of thoise things. This is the case whether we believe the faiult lies entirely with Israel, entirely with the Palestinians or with a mixture of the two.
I think the issue here is that we are not used to existential wars. We have wars with limited aims and at the end of them the Americans bug out. Er, I mean at the end of them either one side wins, or there is a working negotiated settlement, or the matter is resolved one way or another.
Israel believes that it is in an existential war, just like we did 80 years ago (and hence my Godwin). In an existential war there is no merit in saying well we lost but at least we played by the (new, victor-imposed) rules. Losing equals annihilation.
And hence under those circumstances I am prepared, as you might have noticed from my various posts on the subject, to cut Israel quite a bit of slack. You often mention the use of white phosphorous by Israel, a horrible weapon. But again, and here we go back to WWII, and our own existential war, firebombing of German cities was seen as a legitimate act of war.
When Israel was founded, I can understand that feeling. Now, as the primary beneficiary of the world's only existing superpowers military largesse and political hegemonic power, no. If they believe it is an existential war it is only because they have propagandised it so to themselves. And I don't think those in the Israeli government do even view it as an existential war, because if you want a sure fire way to guarantee the entire Middle East will never normalise relations with you and may even go to war with you, start doing a genocide in Gaza.
On October 7 more Jews died than on any other day since the Holocaust. What’s more, nearly all of them were civilians - from tiny babies butchered in their cribs to 85 year old women shot in the head
I don’t lightly accuse someone of anti-Semitism but your inability to see how this impacts the Jewish psyche is alarming. I’ll leave it there
Again, as I have said before, the attacks of Hamas on civilians are despicable and morally reprehensible. But they happened for a reason, and that reason is not just the hatred of Jewish people. Indeed, many Jewish people are also pointing out why the reaction that the Israeli government is counterproductive and illegal, and indeed that the acts of the Israeli government is what, in part, led to this situation - including literal pieces published in Israeli newspapers by Israeli journalists. If 1,000 people were killed in London by a modern IRA splinter cell I wouldn't expect us to start carpet bombing Ireland. Hell, we know looking at everything post 9/11 that even if it allows you to vent you bloodlust it makes everything much much much worse - for the people you massacre, the region, and everyone else. Yes, I can understand the visceral reaction on an attack on Israeli soil, but that doesn't mean you get a free reign to do war crimes or treat 2 million civilians as all liable for the attacks of terrorist insurgents!
The equivalent death toll in the UK would be:
8,400 dead 18,900 injured
With most of them civilians, babies burned and chopped, old people stabbed, hundreds of rapes, nearly a thousand kidnapped, many beheadings
And all of this done in ONE day and by a political organisation dedicated to killing every British person in the world
In that event, I suggest the British people would be screaming for bloody revenge and the total elimination of this enemy: and the UK government would oblige
What do you get when you scale up 6407 deaths (before the current attacks) in 15 years by the appropriate factor for Palestinians? I estimate that would be about 85,000.
I am old enough to remember when Israel was being pressed to give up land for peace. Well it did that in Gaza. It gave up land. It removed the settlers. And what it got in return was Hamas and rockets and now massacres.
Israel has made many mistakes over the years. Netanyahu is unquestionably the wrong leader for it, especially at such a time. I fear that an invasion of Gaza now will be a strategic error and lead to all sorts of casualties for the innocent.
But the Palestinians have consistently made huge errors, the biggest one of all being their refusal to accept Israel's right to exist. Hamas seeks the elimination of Israel and the killing of every Jew everywhere - not just in Israel. This is explicitly genocidal. There is no negotiation with such a movement. Eliminating it is the only answer. Just as we sought to eliminate Nazism and ISIS and other similar genocidal movements.
Those who worry about what happens next need to provide an alternative to Israel, one that will not make that country prey to genocidal maniacs. Lots of people are willing to speak hard truths to Israel about obeying the laws of war and civilian deaths and the rest of it. Very few are telling Hamas that it is their genocidal ideology which has brought Gaza to the point it is, that it is their deliberate policy of hiding amongst civilians which is putting Palestinians at risk, it is their refusal to accept Israel's right to exist which means there is not the remotest hope of starting any peace talks.
There is plenty of pressure which needs putting on Israel but Hamas must first be eliminated. It cannot - until it changes what it wants - be a player. It has taken itself outside the universe of civilised decency. So if invasion of Gaza is not the solution, what is? And if we don't have an alternative solution, then we can hardly be surprised if Israel does what it thinks necessary to save itself. What would we do were we in their position?
I sometimes feel that commentators are unwilling to provide or even begin to think about what an alternative might be because - after all the condemnations of Hamas - they give up at expecting anything better from the Palestinians and it is, after all, so much easier and more comfortable to revert to criticising Israel.
I was saying something similar the other day. Gaza allows itself to be ruled by Hamas. It does this in the knowledge that Hamas is committed to the death of all Jews. The murderous assaults came from their territory and seem to have been a source of glee.
I fully get that the residents of Gaza have a terrible life, that they are economically repressed by Israel and made to beg for water and electricity. Israel’s policies have been unenlightened at best and self harming all too often. If I lived in Gaza I would hate the Israeli government and want to resist that oppression.
But if you want to be listened to, if you want things to change, you do not start with the beheading of babies because they are Jews.
It is 17 years since there was an election in Gaza. 17 years during which Hamas has done it's best to kill anyone who actively opposes them. The Palestinians there 'allow' themselves to be ruled by Hamas about as much as the inhabitants of Kabul 'allow' themselves to be ruled by the Taliban.
So send the military in to liberate the populace and destroy Hamas.
2 birds, one stone.
If they were willing to do it in a way that we generally tried to in Afghanistan then I would agree all the way. But they won't. They are simply flattening the place with no regard for Palestinian casualties.
Its war, that happens. They need to flatten the places which Hamas are using.
There are no easy or peaceful solutions in warfare.
Safe refuge out of Gaza should be allowed for those who don't want to be fighting, many towns or cities have lost 95% of their population in Eastern Ukraine, no reason that won't or shouldn't happen in Gaza City too.
The civilians in Eastern Ukraine were allowed to leave. The civilians in Gaza are not.
But interesting that you are now (inadvetently) comparing the what is being done to the Palestinians with what was done to the Ukrainians.
I've made the comparison repeatedly.
Hamas = Russia Ukraine = Israel
Only difference is that Israel has the strength to take the fight onto the invaders territory rather than being forced to have it on their own.
That's not a bad thing, the situations are parallel rather than identical.
That is no excuse for killing civilians no matter how much you might want to. Neither Russia nor Hamas are civilised democratic entities. Israel is supposed to be. Hopefully they will remember that.
There is no excuse for deliberately killing civilians.
Killing civilians who are caught in the crossfire while you are acting in a way proportional to the objective is regrettable but acceptable.
The destruction of Hamas has to be the objective.
And Hamas are embedded in the civilian population. Hamas live there, have arms there, launch missiles there. The slaughter of the civilians of Gaza is explicitly *what Hamas want*.
I do not expect to hear reports of the IDF summarily torturing / mutilating / executing women and children. That kind of depravity isn't just a war crime, it is evil and inhuman. But sadly innocent women and children are being killed in Gaza. And I mourn them as well.
So the calls to open up a humanitarian corridor out of Gaza are right and just. Because the IDF are coming, they have to do what they are to do. There are no other options.
For some reason the new constituency boundaries haven't been officially approved by King Charles at a Privy Council meeting thus far, which means if Rishi called an election today it would be fought on the old/current ones.
They're actually running tight to the wire on that as the reports were laid before Parliament on 27th June, and under the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 2020, they only have four months to make an Order in Council. There is an "exceptional circumstances" proviso but I am not sure what that would be in this case.
I assume it's in hand, but bit surprised it didn't get put before Privy Council yesterday.
I am old enough to remember when Israel was being pressed to give up land for peace. Well it did that in Gaza. It gave up land. It removed the settlers. And what it got in return was Hamas and rockets and now massacres.
Israel has made many mistakes over the years. Netanyahu is unquestionably the wrong leader for it, especially at such a time. I fear that an invasion of Gaza now will be a strategic error and lead to all sorts of casualties for the innocent.
But the Palestinians have consistently made huge errors, the biggest one of all being their refusal to accept Israel's right to exist. Hamas seeks the elimination of Israel and the killing of every Jew everywhere - not just in Israel. This is explicitly genocidal. There is no negotiation with such a movement. Eliminating it is the only answer. Just as we sought to eliminate Nazism and ISIS and other similar genocidal movements.
Those who worry about what happens next need to provide an alternative to Israel, one that will not make that country prey to genocidal maniacs. Lots of people are willing to speak hard truths to Israel about obeying the laws of war and civilian deaths and the rest of it. Very few are telling Hamas that it is their genocidal ideology which has brought Gaza to the point it is, that it is their deliberate policy of hiding amongst civilians which is putting Palestinians at risk, it is their refusal to accept Israel's right to exist which means there is not the remotest hope of starting any peace talks.
There is plenty of pressure which needs putting on Israel but Hamas must first be eliminated. It cannot - until it changes what it wants - be a player. It has taken itself outside the universe of civilised decency. So if invasion of Gaza is not the solution, what is? And if we don't have an alternative solution, then we can hardly be surprised if Israel does what it thinks necessary to save itself. What would we do were we in their position?
I sometimes feel that commentators are unwilling to provide or even begin to think about what an alternative might be because - after all the condemnations of Hamas - they give up at expecting anything better from the Palestinians and it is, after all, so much easier and more comfortable to revert to criticising Israel.
I was saying something similar the other day. Gaza allows itself to be ruled by Hamas. It does this in the knowledge that Hamas is committed to the death of all Jews. The murderous assaults came from their territory and seem to have been a source of glee.
I fully get that the residents of Gaza have a terrible life, that they are economically repressed by Israel and made to beg for water and electricity. Israel’s policies have been unenlightened at best and self harming all too often. If I lived in Gaza I would hate the Israeli government and want to resist that oppression.
But if you want to be listened to, if you want things to change, you do not start with the beheading of babies because they are Jews.
It is 17 years since there was an election in Gaza. 17 years during which Hamas has done it's best to kill anyone who actively opposes them. The Palestinians there 'allow' themselves to be ruled by Hamas about as much as the inhabitants of Kabul 'allow' themselves to be ruled by the Taliban.
So send the military in to liberate the populace and destroy Hamas.
2 birds, one stone.
If they were willing to do it in a way that we generally tried to in Afghanistan then I would agree all the way. But they won't. They are simply flattening the place with no regard for Palestinian casualties.
Its war, that happens. They need to flatten the places which Hamas are using.
There are no easy or peaceful solutions in warfare.
Safe refuge out of Gaza should be allowed for those who don't want to be fighting, many towns or cities have lost 95% of their population in Eastern Ukraine, no reason that won't or shouldn't happen in Gaza City too.
The civilians in Eastern Ukraine were allowed to leave. The civilians in Gaza are not.
But interesting that you are now (inadvetently) comparing the what is being done to the Palestinians with what was done to the Ukrainians.
I've made the comparison repeatedly.
Hamas = Russia Ukraine = Israel
Only difference is that Israel has the strength to take the fight onto the invaders territory rather than being forced to have it on their own.
That's not a bad thing, the situations are parallel rather than identical.
That is no excuse for killing civilians no matter how much you might want to. Neither Russia nor Hamas are civilised democratic entities. Israel is supposed to be. Hopefully they will remember that.
There is no excuse for deliberately killing civilians.
Killing civilians who are caught in the crossfire while you are acting in a way proportional to the objective is regrettable but acceptable.
The destruction of Hamas has to be the objective.
How do you actually destroy Hamas?
I was going to flippantly say take off and nuke the entire site from orbit - its the only way to be sure.
In reality I think Israel will ask what nuclear options it has. Literally obliterating its enemies would be a powerful statement of intent for its neighbours. But Gaza may be a little too close to places they don't want to be irradiated.
With regard to the cash/cashless economy, perhaps it might be interesting to do a quick thought experiment.....
Suppose that at some time in the future, in the UK, you need to carry out a cash transaction; furthermore, that transaction requires you to receive some coins in change. What do you think the chances are of any of those coins bearing King Charles III's head?
No doubt the Royal Mint will strike King Charles coins, and a few might go into circulation, but most will be collector's proofs and the like. The few that make it into the public domain will be quickly snapped up as souvenirs. There are already so many QEII coins in the marketplace that are doing a perfectly good job that it's probably not worth the Bank of England or the Mint recalling them, other than for standard wear and tear - but that's a diminishing problem because so few people are using coins nowadays....
There's no blinding revelation at the end of this - but I reckon that in all probability I will never see the new King's head on a coin in general circulation. But I did recently buy a book of stamps, which are probably going the same way as the coin of the Realm.
Is Chas on stamps now? Stopped using those a while back - just do click and collect with the postman nowadays.
(P.S. find the prejudice that elderly folk can’t/won’t use contactless bizarre. Why don’t we put our efforts into reducing digital exclusion rather than propping up an obsolete form of barter?)
With regard to the cash/cashless economy, perhaps it might be interesting to do a quick thought experiment.....
Suppose that at some time in the future, in the UK, you need to carry out a cash transaction; furthermore, that transaction requires you to receive some coins in change. What do you think the chances are of any of those coins bearing King Charles III's head?
No doubt the Royal Mint will strike King Charles coins, and a few might go into circulation, but most will be collector's proofs and the like. The few that make it into the public domain will be quickly snapped up as souvenirs. There are already so many QEII coins in the marketplace that are doing a perfectly good job that it's probably not worth the Bank of England or the Mint recalling them, other than for standard wear and tear - but that's a diminishing problem because so few people are using coins nowadays....
There's no blinding revelation at the end of this - but I reckon that in all probability I will never see the new King's head on a coin in general circulation. But I did recently buy a book of stamps, which are probably going the same way as the coin of the Realm.
Royal Mint give figures for the number of coins minted each year.
More than 42 million 20p pieces minted in 2022 for example, compared to more than 150 million in 2003. They estimate about 29 billion coins in circulation.
The biggest barrier to you regularly coming across a KCIII coin is simply the declining number of cash transactions that you are making. So many fewer coins are travelling through your hands.
Indeed, and it's been an increasing problem for Primary School teachers for a while now. Because so few children handle coins these days (for a variety of reasons) the standard methods for inculcating practical mental arithmetic are disappearing. There's less need (and less comprehension for the need) to calculate change due, or the combinations of coins needed to buy sweets etc.
(Also, thanks for the Royal Mail info.)
Yes. Kids just don't recognise the coins. We have the same trouble with teaching the time on clocks. They just don't see them. But they're on the national curriculum. As are Roman numerals for some reason. I think this is what modern Maths is supposed to solve.
We are at a very dangerous point in this discussion as I think we are flirting with the idea of turning the subject of the entire thread into that most sensitive of topics - the use or not of cash.
Before I head off I will just ask one question - what about Big Issue sellers.
*and flees*
Just had to use cash at a train station cafe because all their electronic systems had broken down. I said to them 'If they'd abolished cash you wouldn't be able to trade at the moment".
Some years ago we were holidaying in Hawaii and there was an earthquake.All the electricity went off and we had to go an look for food. All the restaurants were shut an any shops that were open could operate because they needed electricity for there tills. We found a little Vietnamese take away with a gas ring and a small pile of cash who probably made his fortune that day!
With regard to the cash/cashless economy, perhaps it might be interesting to do a quick thought experiment.....
Suppose that at some time in the future, in the UK, you need to carry out a cash transaction; furthermore, that transaction requires you to receive some coins in change. What do you think the chances are of any of those coins bearing King Charles III's head?
No doubt the Royal Mint will strike King Charles coins, and a few might go into circulation, but most will be collector's proofs and the like. The few that make it into the public domain will be quickly snapped up as souvenirs. There are already so many QEII coins in the marketplace that are doing a perfectly good job that it's probably not worth the Bank of England or the Mint recalling them, other than for standard wear and tear - but that's a diminishing problem because so few people are using coins nowadays....
There's no blinding revelation at the end of this - but I reckon that in all probability I will never see the new King's head on a coin in general circulation. But I did recently buy a book of stamps, which are probably going the same way as the coin of the Realm.
Royal Mint give figures for the number of coins minted each year.
More than 42 million 20p pieces minted in 2022 for example, compared to more than 150 million in 2003. They estimate about 29 billion coins in circulation.
The biggest barrier to you regularly coming across a KCIII coin is simply the declining number of cash transactions that you are making. So many fewer coins are travelling through your hands.
Two out of every three hundred UK coins in circulation were minted in 2022, so the rate of minting has certainly declined, but you would expect to come across KCIII coins regularly if you were conducting cash transactions every day. A couple of cash transactions every month, not so much.
Henry Kissinger on the support for Hamas in Western countries: “It was a grave mistake to let in so many people of totally different culture and religion and concepts, because it creates a pressure group inside each country that does that."
Those could almost be Hitler's words about the Jews in Europe.
How ? One of the things notable about European Jews is how they have successfully blended in with the country;s culture. One of the more memorable thing for me was reading accounts of Nazis beating up Jewish WW1 war veterans.
Our recent brush as a host country has been naive in parts and probably needed a longer period to let communities integrate. I suspect that route might be less effective as modern comms means immigrant communities can live in a cultural silo if they want. Denmark and Sweden appear to be trying to tackle this it remains to be seen what the outcome is.
I'm sorry, but that is very much a post Second World War (and Western Europe) thing.
The whole rise of Reform Judaism was because the existence of little enclaves of orthodox Judaism, with their different clothes, their inability to eat with goy, etc.,, made them very separate (and distrusted) communities.
In Germany and Eastern Europe in the 1930s, Jewish communities were very much apart from Christian ones.
(And, by the way, that's a natural consequence of a non-proselytizing religion. Kosher rules exist to stop Jews socialising with non-Jews, so as to minimize the risk of people marrying out.)
I dont think thats quite the case. Christopher Clark in Iron Kingdom makes a strong case for Jewish integration into Prussia at the time of the wars of liberation ( 1813 ). The wave of pogrom based immigration was a shock to the system in the 188os but in western Europe most jewish communities had integrated by the 1930s. There was still always the hard case of anti semitism which could flare up ( eg Dreyfus ) but that could apply to other minorities too - the Irish in our case. Cant remember which book I read it in * Poland had a very outlooking Jewish community pre 1939, quite leftist and very much a part of life in Warsaw.
* Think it was Mark Mazower - Hitlers Empire. But my son has nicked this from me so cant check
I agree with most of that: the further East you got (and especially once you reached Russia), the more separate Jewish communities were. And, hence, why many Poles, Czechs, and the like were often much more... enthusiastic... about the holocaust than those in Western Germany.
But I wouldn't underestimate how seperate the new Jewish communities in Eastern Germany and Berlin were. There were around 100,000 living very separate lives in Berlin Scheunenviertel on the eve of Hitler's accession to power.
It surprises me how popular cash is once you go outside metropolitan areas. Even younger people use it a bit, which they certainly don't in central London, etc.
With regard to the cash/cashless economy, perhaps it might be interesting to do a quick thought experiment.....
Suppose that at some time in the future, in the UK, you need to carry out a cash transaction; furthermore, that transaction requires you to receive some coins in change. What do you think the chances are of any of those coins bearing King Charles III's head?
No doubt the Royal Mint will strike King Charles coins, and a few might go into circulation, but most will be collector's proofs and the like. The few that make it into the public domain will be quickly snapped up as souvenirs. There are already so many QEII coins in the marketplace that are doing a perfectly good job that it's probably not worth the Bank of England or the Mint recalling them, other than for standard wear and tear - but that's a diminishing problem because so few people are using coins nowadays....
There's no blinding revelation at the end of this - but I reckon that in all probability I will never see the new King's head on a coin in general circulation. But I did recently buy a book of stamps, which are probably going the same way as the coin of the Realm.
Is Chas on stamps now? Stopped using those a while back - just do click and collect with the postman nowadays.
(P.S. find the prejudice that elderly folk can’t/won’t use contactless bizarre. Why don’t we put our efforts into reducing digital exclusion rather than propping up an obsolete form of barter?)
Yes, I've seen one or two stamps.
Only the banknotes haven't entered circulation at all, partly because they have security features that need adapting to the new design, and partly because there were apparently a fair number of Elizabeth II notes printed but not in circulation (partly as printing was still happening but use was negligible in COVID) and the Palace expressed a preference that they be issued rather than going to waste. Charles III notes are meant to be issued in mid-2024 although not sure if huge numbers even then.
I am old enough to remember when Israel was being pressed to give up land for peace. Well it did that in Gaza. It gave up land. It removed the settlers. And what it got in return was Hamas and rockets and now massacres.
Israel has made many mistakes over the years. Netanyahu is unquestionably the wrong leader for it, especially at such a time. I fear that an invasion of Gaza now will be a strategic error and lead to all sorts of casualties for the innocent.
But the Palestinians have consistently made huge errors, the biggest one of all being their refusal to accept Israel's right to exist. Hamas seeks the elimination of Israel and the killing of every Jew everywhere - not just in Israel. This is explicitly genocidal. There is no negotiation with such a movement. Eliminating it is the only answer. Just as we sought to eliminate Nazism and ISIS and other similar genocidal movements.
Those who worry about what happens next need to provide an alternative to Israel, one that will not make that country prey to genocidal maniacs. Lots of people are willing to speak hard truths to Israel about obeying the laws of war and civilian deaths and the rest of it. Very few are telling Hamas that it is their genocidal ideology which has brought Gaza to the point it is, that it is their deliberate policy of hiding amongst civilians which is putting Palestinians at risk, it is their refusal to accept Israel's right to exist which means there is not the remotest hope of starting any peace talks.
There is plenty of pressure which needs putting on Israel but Hamas must first be eliminated. It cannot - until it changes what it wants - be a player. It has taken itself outside the universe of civilised decency. So if invasion of Gaza is not the solution, what is? And if we don't have an alternative solution, then we can hardly be surprised if Israel does what it thinks necessary to save itself. What would we do were we in their position?
I sometimes feel that commentators are unwilling to provide or even begin to think about what an alternative might be because - after all the condemnations of Hamas - they give up at expecting anything better from the Palestinians and it is, after all, so much easier and more comfortable to revert to criticising Israel.
I was saying something similar the other day. Gaza allows itself to be ruled by Hamas. It does this in the knowledge that Hamas is committed to the death of all Jews. The murderous assaults came from their territory and seem to have been a source of glee.
I fully get that the residents of Gaza have a terrible life, that they are economically repressed by Israel and made to beg for water and electricity. Israel’s policies have been unenlightened at best and self harming all too often. If I lived in Gaza I would hate the Israeli government and want to resist that oppression.
But if you want to be listened to, if you want things to change, you do not start with the beheading of babies because they are Jews.
It is 17 years since there was an election in Gaza. 17 years during which Hamas has done it's best to kill anyone who actively opposes them. The Palestinians there 'allow' themselves to be ruled by Hamas about as much as the inhabitants of Kabul 'allow' themselves to be ruled by the Taliban.
So send the military in to liberate the populace and destroy Hamas.
2 birds, one stone.
If they were willing to do it in a way that we generally tried to in Afghanistan then I would agree all the way. But they won't. They are simply flattening the place with no regard for Palestinian casualties.
Its war, that happens. They need to flatten the places which Hamas are using.
There are no easy or peaceful solutions in warfare.
Safe refuge out of Gaza should be allowed for those who don't want to be fighting, many towns or cities have lost 95% of their population in Eastern Ukraine, no reason that won't or shouldn't happen in Gaza City too.
The civilians in Eastern Ukraine were allowed to leave. The civilians in Gaza are not.
But interesting that you are now (inadvetently) comparing the what is being done to the Palestinians with what was done to the Ukrainians.
I've made the comparison repeatedly.
Hamas = Russia Ukraine = Israel
Only difference is that Israel has the strength to take the fight onto the invaders territory rather than being forced to have it on their own.
That's not a bad thing, the situations are parallel rather than identical.
That is no excuse for killing civilians no matter how much you might want to. Neither Russia nor Hamas are civilised democratic entities. Israel is supposed to be. Hopefully they will remember that.
There is no excuse for deliberately killing civilians.
Killing civilians who are caught in the crossfire while you are acting in a way proportional to the objective is regrettable but acceptable.
The destruction of Hamas has to be the objective.
And Hamas are embedded in the civilian population. Hamas live there, have arms there, launch missiles there. The slaughter of the civilians of Gaza is explicitly *what Hamas want*.
I do not expect to hear reports of the IDF summarily torturing / mutilating / executing women and children. That kind of depravity isn't just a war crime, it is evil and inhuman. But sadly innocent women and children are being killed in Gaza. And I mourn them as well.
So the calls to open up a humanitarian corridor out of Gaza are right and just. Because the IDF are coming, they have to do what they are to do. There are no other options.
Re corridors - I have yet to hear anyone say where the refugees will go.
It wont be Israel obviously
Bar a handful of lucky folk ( eg Humza Yousafs rellies ) I cant see it being Europe as Europe is already saying it has enough on its hands
Half the arab world is out because its a mess - Libya, Syria, Iraq Lebanon Yemen
And the other half doesnt want the palestinians since they have been difficult citizens
I cant even see the West bank wanting many because of the Hamas\PLO emnity
So where ? Russia, Iran, North Korea ?
Until this is solved calls for corridors mean little.
We are at a very dangerous point in this discussion as I think we are flirting with the idea of turning the subject of the entire thread into that most sensitive of topics - the use or not of cash.
Before I head off I will just ask one question - what about Big Issue sellers.
*and flees*
Just had to use cash at a train station cafe because all their electronic systems had broken down. I said to them 'If they'd abolished cash you wouldn't be able to trade at the moment".
Some years ago we were holidaying in Hawaii and there was an earthquake.All the electricity went off and we had to go an look for food. All the restaurants were shut an any shops that were open could operate because they needed electricity for there tills. We found a little Vietnamese take away with a gas ring and a small pile of cash who probably made his fortune that day!
I was in New York when the massive East Coast power cut happened (2004?). Cash and gas burners were king for a few days.
I am old enough to remember when Israel was being pressed to give up land for peace. Well it did that in Gaza. It gave up land. It removed the settlers. And what it got in return was Hamas and rockets and now massacres.
Israel has made many mistakes over the years. Netanyahu is unquestionably the wrong leader for it, especially at such a time. I fear that an invasion of Gaza now will be a strategic error and lead to all sorts of casualties for the innocent.
But the Palestinians have consistently made huge errors, the biggest one of all being their refusal to accept Israel's right to exist. Hamas seeks the elimination of Israel and the killing of every Jew everywhere - not just in Israel. This is explicitly genocidal. There is no negotiation with such a movement. Eliminating it is the only answer. Just as we sought to eliminate Nazism and ISIS and other similar genocidal movements.
Those who worry about what happens next need to provide an alternative to Israel, one that will not make that country prey to genocidal maniacs. Lots of people are willing to speak hard truths to Israel about obeying the laws of war and civilian deaths and the rest of it. Very few are telling Hamas that it is their genocidal ideology which has brought Gaza to the point it is, that it is their deliberate policy of hiding amongst civilians which is putting Palestinians at risk, it is their refusal to accept Israel's right to exist which means there is not the remotest hope of starting any peace talks.
There is plenty of pressure which needs putting on Israel but Hamas must first be eliminated. It cannot - until it changes what it wants - be a player. It has taken itself outside the universe of civilised decency. So if invasion of Gaza is not the solution, what is? And if we don't have an alternative solution, then we can hardly be surprised if Israel does what it thinks necessary to save itself. What would we do were we in their position?
I sometimes feel that commentators are unwilling to provide or even begin to think about what an alternative might be because - after all the condemnations of Hamas - they give up at expecting anything better from the Palestinians and it is, after all, so much easier and more comfortable to revert to criticising Israel.
I was saying something similar the other day. Gaza allows itself to be ruled by Hamas. It does this in the knowledge that Hamas is committed to the death of all Jews. The murderous assaults came from their territory and seem to have been a source of glee.
I fully get that the residents of Gaza have a terrible life, that they are economically repressed by Israel and made to beg for water and electricity. Israel’s policies have been unenlightened at best and self harming all too often. If I lived in Gaza I would hate the Israeli government and want to resist that oppression.
But if you want to be listened to, if you want things to change, you do not start with the beheading of babies because they are Jews.
It is 17 years since there was an election in Gaza. 17 years during which Hamas has done it's best to kill anyone who actively opposes them. The Palestinians there 'allow' themselves to be ruled by Hamas about as much as the inhabitants of Kabul 'allow' themselves to be ruled by the Taliban.
Or the Germans "allowed" themselves to be ruled by Hitler. Good point.
What is amusing is that I suspect you and I regard that comment in very different ways.
I regard it in a very simple way, Richard. According to Israel the country is at war. You may disagree and we can discuss the difference between a terrorist act and an act of war. Israel, as one of the belligerents, thinks it is war. An existential one, to boot. If it is war then it is war.
I would be very interested to know how you regard that comment.
I agree. Israel is at war. And I do not even think discussing whose fault it might be in the long term changes anything there.
The difference appears to be that you think that being at war means that Israel are allowed to do anything they like to the Palestinian population and sod the consequences. You are one of those who quote, either directly or by inference, a war that ended 78 years ago in defence of this idea.
I believe that, partly as a result of what happened during that war, the world has rightly moved on and certain actions are now considered no longer acceptable even in war and are legally proscribed as such. Indiscriminate bombing of civilians, whether by intent or negligence, is one of thoise things. This is the case whether we believe the faiult lies entirely with Israel, entirely with the Palestinians or with a mixture of the two.
I think the issue here is that we are not used to existential wars. We have wars with limited aims and at the end of them the Americans bug out. Er, I mean at the end of them either one side wins, or there is a working negotiated settlement, or the matter is resolved one way or another.
Israel believes that it is in an existential war, just like we did 80 years ago (and hence my Godwin). In an existential war there is no merit in saying well we lost but at least we played by the (new, victor-imposed) rules. Losing equals annihilation.
And hence under those circumstances I am prepared, as you might have noticed from my various posts on the subject, to cut Israel quite a bit of slack. You often mention the use of white phosphorous by Israel, a horrible weapon. But again, and here we go back to WWII, and our own existential war, firebombing of German cities was seen as a legitimate act of war.
When Israel was founded, I can understand that feeling. Now, as the primary beneficiary of the world's only existing superpowers military largesse and political hegemonic power, no. If they believe it is an existential war it is only because they have propagandised it so to themselves. And I don't think those in the Israeli government do even view it as an existential war, because if you want a sure fire way to guarantee the entire Middle East will never normalise relations with you and may even go to war with you, start doing a genocide in Gaza.
On October 7 more Jews died than on any other day since the Holocaust. What’s more, nearly all of them were civilians - from tiny babies butchered in their cribs to 85 year old women shot in the head
I don’t lightly accuse someone of anti-Semitism but your inability to see how this impacts the Jewish psyche is alarming. I’ll leave it there
Again, as I have said before, the attacks of Hamas on civilians are despicable and morally reprehensible. But they happened for a reason, and that reason is not just the hatred of Jewish people. Indeed, many Jewish people are also pointing out why the reaction that the Israeli government is counterproductive and illegal, and indeed that the acts of the Israeli government is what, in part, led to this situation - including literal pieces published in Israeli newspapers by Israeli journalists. If 1,000 people were killed in London by a modern IRA splinter cell I wouldn't expect us to start carpet bombing Ireland. Hell, we know looking at everything post 9/11 that even if it allows you to vent you bloodlust it makes everything much much much worse - for the people you massacre, the region, and everyone else. Yes, I can understand the visceral reaction on an attack on Israeli soil, but that doesn't mean you get a free reign to do war crimes or treat 2 million civilians as all liable for the attacks of terrorist insurgents!
The equivalent death toll in the UK would be:
8,400 dead 18,900 injured
With most of them civilians, babies burned and chopped, old people stabbed, hundreds of rapes, nearly a thousand kidnapped, many beheadings
And all of this done in ONE day and by a political organisation dedicated to killing every British person in the world
In that event, I suggest the British people would be screaming for bloody revenge and the total elimination of this enemy: and the UK government would oblige
What do you get when you scale up 6407 deaths (before the current attacks) in 15 years by the appropriate factor for Palestinians? I estimate that would be about 85,000.
An entirely fair point. For many years I’ve generally been much more sympathetic to the Palestinian cause than to the Israelis…
However I was trying to explain to another commenter how shocking October 7 has been for all of Israel
And the death toll (bodies being found) keeps rising. It’s now 1300 dead in a day
I am old enough to remember when Israel was being pressed to give up land for peace. Well it did that in Gaza. It gave up land. It removed the settlers. And what it got in return was Hamas and rockets and now massacres.
Israel has made many mistakes over the years. Netanyahu is unquestionably the wrong leader for it, especially at such a time. I fear that an invasion of Gaza now will be a strategic error and lead to all sorts of casualties for the innocent.
But the Palestinians have consistently made huge errors, the biggest one of all being their refusal to accept Israel's right to exist. Hamas seeks the elimination of Israel and the killing of every Jew everywhere - not just in Israel. This is explicitly genocidal. There is no negotiation with such a movement. Eliminating it is the only answer. Just as we sought to eliminate Nazism and ISIS and other similar genocidal movements.
Those who worry about what happens next need to provide an alternative to Israel, one that will not make that country prey to genocidal maniacs. Lots of people are willing to speak hard truths to Israel about obeying the laws of war and civilian deaths and the rest of it. Very few are telling Hamas that it is their genocidal ideology which has brought Gaza to the point it is, that it is their deliberate policy of hiding amongst civilians which is putting Palestinians at risk, it is their refusal to accept Israel's right to exist which means there is not the remotest hope of starting any peace talks.
There is plenty of pressure which needs putting on Israel but Hamas must first be eliminated. It cannot - until it changes what it wants - be a player. It has taken itself outside the universe of civilised decency. So if invasion of Gaza is not the solution, what is? And if we don't have an alternative solution, then we can hardly be surprised if Israel does what it thinks necessary to save itself. What would we do were we in their position?
I sometimes feel that commentators are unwilling to provide or even begin to think about what an alternative might be because - after all the condemnations of Hamas - they give up at expecting anything better from the Palestinians and it is, after all, so much easier and more comfortable to revert to criticising Israel.
I was saying something similar the other day. Gaza allows itself to be ruled by Hamas. It does this in the knowledge that Hamas is committed to the death of all Jews. The murderous assaults came from their territory and seem to have been a source of glee.
I fully get that the residents of Gaza have a terrible life, that they are economically repressed by Israel and made to beg for water and electricity. Israel’s policies have been unenlightened at best and self harming all too often. If I lived in Gaza I would hate the Israeli government and want to resist that oppression.
But if you want to be listened to, if you want things to change, you do not start with the beheading of babies because they are Jews.
It is 17 years since there was an election in Gaza. 17 years during which Hamas has done it's best to kill anyone who actively opposes them. The Palestinians there 'allow' themselves to be ruled by Hamas about as much as the inhabitants of Kabul 'allow' themselves to be ruled by the Taliban.
So send the military in to liberate the populace and destroy Hamas.
2 birds, one stone.
If they were willing to do it in a way that we generally tried to in Afghanistan then I would agree all the way. But they won't. They are simply flattening the place with no regard for Palestinian casualties.
Its war, that happens. They need to flatten the places which Hamas are using.
There are no easy or peaceful solutions in warfare.
Safe refuge out of Gaza should be allowed for those who don't want to be fighting, many towns or cities have lost 95% of their population in Eastern Ukraine, no reason that won't or shouldn't happen in Gaza City too.
The civilians in Eastern Ukraine were allowed to leave. The civilians in Gaza are not.
But interesting that you are now (inadvetently) comparing the what is being done to the Palestinians with what was done to the Ukrainians.
I've made the comparison repeatedly.
Hamas = Russia Ukraine = Israel
Only difference is that Israel has the strength to take the fight onto the invaders territory rather than being forced to have it on their own.
That's not a bad thing, the situations are parallel rather than identical.
That is no excuse for killing civilians no matter how much you might want to. Neither Russia nor Hamas are civilised democratic entities. Israel is supposed to be. Hopefully they will remember that.
There is no excuse for deliberately killing civilians.
Killing civilians who are caught in the crossfire while you are acting in a way proportional to the objective is regrettable but acceptable.
The destruction of Hamas has to be the objective.
And Hamas are embedded in the civilian population. Hamas live there, have arms there, launch missiles there. The slaughter of the civilians of Gaza is explicitly *what Hamas want*.
I do not expect to hear reports of the IDF summarily torturing / mutilating / executing women and children. That kind of depravity isn't just a war crime, it is evil and inhuman. But sadly innocent women and children are being killed in Gaza. And I mourn them as well.
So the calls to open up a humanitarian corridor out of Gaza are right and just. Because the IDF are coming, they have to do what they are to do. There are no other options.
Re corridors - I have yet to hear anyone say where the refugees will go.
It wont be Israel obviously
Bar a handful of lucky folk ( eg Humza Yousafs rellies ) I cant see it being Europe as Europe is already saying it has enough on its hands
Half the arab world is out because its a mess - Libya, Syria, Iraq Lebanon Yemen
And the other half doesnt want the palestinians since they have been difficult citizens
I cant even see the West bank wanting many because of the Hamas\PLO emnity
So where ? Russia, Iran, North Korea ?
Until this is solved calls for corridors mean little.
Mr Yousaf's relatives are already UK subjects, anyway. So luck is not involved there. (Except obvs in getting out safely.)
With regard to the cash/cashless economy, perhaps it might be interesting to do a quick thought experiment.....
Suppose that at some time in the future, in the UK, you need to carry out a cash transaction; furthermore, that transaction requires you to receive some coins in change. What do you think the chances are of any of those coins bearing King Charles III's head?
No doubt the Royal Mint will strike King Charles coins, and a few might go into circulation, but most will be collector's proofs and the like. The few that make it into the public domain will be quickly snapped up as souvenirs. There are already so many QEII coins in the marketplace that are doing a perfectly good job that it's probably not worth the Bank of England or the Mint recalling them, other than for standard wear and tear - but that's a diminishing problem because so few people are using coins nowadays....
There's no blinding revelation at the end of this - but I reckon that in all probability I will never see the new King's head on a coin in general circulation. But I did recently buy a book of stamps, which are probably going the same way as the coin of the Realm.
Is Chas on stamps now? Stopped using those a while back - just do click and collect with the postman nowadays.
(P.S. find the prejudice that elderly folk can’t/won’t use contactless bizarre. Why don’t we put our efforts into reducing digital exclusion rather than propping up an obsolete form of barter?)
"Digital exclusion" isn't a clear cut thing.
Are you "digitally excluded" if you refuse to touch Facebook with a 10ft pole?
What if you refuse to install 10 parking apps of unknown provenance and security?
Or you prefer not to bother paying for mobile data that you don't need?
Comments
Before I head off I will just ask one question - what about Big Issue sellers.
*and flees*
Someone I listened to said that a high US general believed that the nuclear codes should be sown into a soldier that guarded the President and could only be accessed if the POTUS killed the soldier, so that the weight of taking a life was an imminent and direct experience and not some theoretical conundrum. I obviously dislike the idea in reality, but as a metaphor it seems fitting.
17.2 Rabada to Stoinis, OUT
Pace down the leg-side, is that off the bat?! The umpire says no, as de Kock leaps like a rampant salmon and clings on in both gloves. South Africa review! It's close to the hip, close to the bat handle... it's probably one or the other... it's glove, but I think his hand is off the bat... or is it! It's been given! I think, from his explanation, Richard Kettleborough reckons the bottom hand is touching the top hand... The second deeply odd dismissal of the innings... and it's not done yet, as they are checking whether de Kock took it cleanly now. The third umpire is happy with that part too, but Australia are not!
Marcus Stoinis c †de Kock b Rabada 5 (4b 1x4 0x6) SR: 125
South Africa vs Australia, ICC Cricket World Cup, 10th Match
https://www.espncricinfo.com/series/icc-cricket-world-cup-2023-24-1367856/australia-vs-south-africa-10th-match-1384401/live-cricket-score
Hamas = Russia
Ukraine = Israel
Only difference is that Israel has the strength to take the fight onto the invaders territory rather than being forced to have it on their own.
That's not a bad thing, the situations are parallel rather than identical.
Which is no small thing; on one occasion I saw a driver attacked because of this. He asked a couple with a pushchair to get off and wait on the next bus (15 minutes wait at most) so a wheelchair user could get on, to much wailing and cursing from the couple. Then some guy, whom I'd seen on the bus before and had obvious mental health issues, gets up and starts screaming at the driver, before trying to get him in a head-lock.
So I can understand why bus drivers are sometimes reluctant to get involved.
"According to the 2017 PCBS census, there are around 47.000 Christians in Palestine, with the vast majority - close to 98 per cent - situated in the West Bank. Gaza's dwindling Christian population amounts to just over 2 per cent of the entire Palestinian Christian community."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_Christians
"In 2009, there were an estimated 50,000 Christians in the Palestinian territories, mostly in the West Bank, with about 3,000 in the Gaza Strip.[13] In 2022, about 1,100 Christians lived in the Gaza Strip - down from over 1300 in 2014"
https://www.refworld.org/docid/49749cd12.html
'I saw a mother holding her baby, and one bullet went through both of them together...I saw 20 children together with their hands tied in the back, and they were shot and burned in a pile' Yossi Landau Commander, Zaka South tells our @davidmatlin
Eye witness recounts horrific details of Hamas cruelty on pregnant women, children and innocent Israeli civilians
'We see a pregnant lady on the floor, and we turn her around...and the stomach is wide open, there's an unborn baby connected to the cord, stabbed with a knife, and the mother shot in the head' Yossi Landau Commander, Zaka South tells our @davidmatlin
https://x.com/i24news_en/status/1712446872353141235?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw
I imagine it’s videos of this stuff that so horrified NATO ministers in Brussels today
And still the Hamas apologists are counting the beheaded babies…
When it was replayed on the big screen Stoinis wanted to stay on and get the South African captain to withdraw his appeal.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aS-FWEb5xo
Vesuvius Challenge $700,000 Grand Prize “now definitely achievable”
https://scrollprize.org/firstletters
Makes sense, and I can see the brutal logic
"Once we abolish humans, there will be no need for cash. On your way, meatsack."
FWIW the latest photo seems to show a baby with its throat slit. Perhaps the beheaded-baby-counters can tell us if that is worse or better than a full beheading, or only counts as 3/8 of a baby beheading
They dropped more than Clinton's trousers.
If Australia don't get their act together we will have to start chanting 'are you Atherton's England in disguise?'
I should say that I rarely use cash
https://www.politico.eu/article/henry-kissinger-germany-let-in-way-too-many-foreigners/
https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2023/08/05/reading-ancient-scrolls/
(I used to avidly read Casey's blog, but fell out of the habit.)
The other thing is that there is an unresolved strategic question about where growth should go. The government used to plan at a regional level but they stopped that in 2010. There is no national plan, or regional plan. So you get stuff thrashed out at a local level without reference to any national spatial strategy.
Forcing Ecclestone to cough up £653m is a real achievement for HMRC
I am generally quite hardened to these things, but Jesus
This was the actual "authorisation":
https://www.osti.gov/opennet/manhattan-project-history/Resources/order_drop.htm
The document below is the order to attack Japanese cities with atomic bombs. In it, the Acting Army Chief of Staff, Thomas Handy, orders Commanding General Carl Spaatz, Army Strategic Air Forces, to "deliver [the] first special bomb as soon as weather will permit . . . after about 3 August 1945." The target list: "Hiroshima, Kokura, Niigata, and Nagasaki." Further attacks were also authorized: "additional bombs will be delivered on the above targets as soon as made ready." Handy was the acting chief of staff because George Marshall was with President Harry S. Truman at the Potsdam Conference. The letter explicitly notes that this order was approved by Marshall and Secretary of War Henry Stimson. Truman, of course, provided the ultimate authorization for dropping the bomb.
https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/nagasaki-the-last-bomb
...President Truman seems to have been surprised by the second bombing, coming as it did so soon after the first. Intercepted Japanese reports of the damage on the ground at Hiroshima were just trickling in to American officials. Truman, who had written in his diary in late July that “military objectives and soldiers and sailors” were the target of the atomic bomb, “not women and children,” apparently confronted the reality of the weapon for the first time. The Secretary of Commerce, Henry Wallace, reported in his journal that “the thought of wiping out another 100,000 people was too horrible” for the President. “He didn’t like the idea of killing, as he said, ‘all those kids,’ ” Wallace added.
The day after Nagasaki, Truman issued his first affirmative command regarding the bomb: no more strikes without his express authorization. He never issued the order to drop the bombs, but he did issue the order to stop dropping them. ..
Our recent brush as a host country has been naive in parts and probably needed a longer period to let communities integrate. I suspect that route might be less effective as modern comms means immigrant communities can live in a cultural silo if they want. Denmark and Sweden appear to be trying to tackle this it remains to be seen what the outcome is.
Killing civilians who are caught in the crossfire while you are acting in a way proportional to the objective is regrettable but acceptable.
The destruction of Hamas has to be the objective.
The whole rise of Reform Judaism was because the existence of little enclaves of orthodox Judaism, with their different clothes, their inability to eat with goy, etc.,, made them very separate (and distrusted) communities.
In Germany and Eastern Europe in the 1930s, Jewish communities were very much apart from Christian ones.
(And, by the way, that's a natural consequence of a non-proselytizing religion. Kosher rules exist to stop Jews socialising with non-Jews, so as to minimize the risk of people marrying out.)
Suppose that at some time in the future, in the UK, you need to carry out a cash transaction; furthermore, that transaction requires you to receive some coins in change. What do you think the chances are of any of those coins bearing King Charles III's head?
No doubt the Royal Mint will strike King Charles coins, and a few might go into circulation, but most will be collector's proofs and the like. The few that make it into the public domain will be quickly snapped up as souvenirs. There are already so many QEII coins in the marketplace that are doing a perfectly good job that it's probably not worth the Bank of England or the Mint recalling them, other than for standard wear and tear - but that's a diminishing problem because so few people are using coins nowadays....
There's no blinding revelation at the end of this - but I reckon that in all probability I will never see the new King's head on a coin in general circulation. But I did recently buy a book of stamps, which are probably going the same way as the coin of the Realm.
"A woman who spent 20 years saving for her dream wedding has thrown herself her own big day after not meeting the right partner.
Sarah Wilkinson, 42, decided to hold a wedding ceremony conducted by her celebrant friend at Harvest House in Felixstowe, Suffolk. The credit controller said the occasion was a natural progression after she treated herself to an engagement ring. "It was a lovely day for me to be centre of attention," she said. "The ceremony wasn't an official wedding, but I had my wedding day. "I think you get to the point where you think 'I might not have this with a partner by my side, but why should I miss out?' "That money was reserved for my wedding - it was a case of it's there and why not use it for something I want to do."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-suffolk-67084850
* Think it was Mark Mazower - Hitlers Empire. But my son has nicked this from me so cant check
https://vote-2012.proboards.com/post/1420970/thread
to add: ok, I've worked it out - rhyming slang
https://www.royalmint.com/corporate/circulating-coin/uk-currency/mintages/
More than 42 million 20p pieces minted in 2022 for example, compared to more than 150 million in 2003. They estimate about 29 billion coins in circulation.
The biggest barrier to you regularly coming across a KCIII coin is simply the declining number of cash transactions that you are making. So many fewer coins are travelling through your hands.
"John Gray: liberal civilisation is finished
Our reigning ideology has rotted from within
BY JOHN GRAY"
https://unherd.com/2023/10/john-gray-liberal-civilisation-is-finished/
(Also, thanks for the Royal Mail info.)
I do not expect to hear reports of the IDF summarily torturing / mutilating / executing women and children. That kind of depravity isn't just a war crime, it is evil and inhuman. But sadly innocent women and children are being killed in Gaza. And I mourn them as well.
So the calls to open up a humanitarian corridor out of Gaza are right and just. Because the IDF are coming, they have to do what they are to do. There are no other options.
I assume it's in hand, but bit surprised it didn't get put before Privy Council yesterday.
In reality I think Israel will ask what nuclear options it has. Literally obliterating its enemies would be a powerful statement of intent for its neighbours. But Gaza may be a little too close to places they don't want to be irradiated.
(P.S. find the prejudice that elderly folk can’t/won’t use contactless bizarre. Why don’t we put our efforts into reducing digital exclusion rather than propping up an obsolete form of barter?)
Kids just don't recognise the coins. We have the same trouble with teaching the time on clocks.
They just don't see them. But they're on the national curriculum. As are Roman numerals for some reason.
I think this is what modern Maths is supposed to solve.
We found a little Vietnamese take away with a gas ring and a small pile of cash who probably made his fortune that day!
But I wouldn't underestimate how seperate the new Jewish communities in Eastern Germany and Berlin were. There were around 100,000 living very separate lives in Berlin Scheunenviertel on the eve of Hitler's accession to power.
Only the banknotes haven't entered circulation at all, partly because they have security features that need adapting to the new design, and partly because there were apparently a fair number of Elizabeth II notes printed but not in circulation (partly as printing was still happening but use was negligible in COVID) and the Palace expressed a preference that they be issued rather than going to waste. Charles III notes are meant to be issued in mid-2024 although not sure if huge numbers even then.
It wont be Israel obviously
Bar a handful of lucky folk ( eg Humza Yousafs rellies ) I cant see it being Europe as Europe is already saying it has enough on its hands
Half the arab world is out because its a mess - Libya, Syria, Iraq Lebanon Yemen
And the other half doesnt want the palestinians since they have been difficult citizens
I cant even see the West bank wanting many because of the Hamas\PLO emnity
So where ? Russia, Iran, North Korea ?
Until this is solved calls for corridors mean little.
However I was trying to explain to another commenter how shocking October 7 has been for all of Israel
And the death toll (bodies being found) keeps rising. It’s now 1300 dead in a day
= 9,100 in the UK
Are you "digitally excluded" if you refuse to touch Facebook with a 10ft pole?
What if you refuse to install 10 parking apps of unknown provenance and security?
Or you prefer not to bother paying for mobile data that you don't need?