Netanyahu now says flat out that he will not end the war.
Hamas could end the war by surrendering unconditionally and releasing the hostages.
Netanyahu is a bad, corrupt leader who should be replaced but even broken clocks can be right. Why the hell should Israel end the war before Hamas are defeated and before the hostages are released?
Because they are engaged in a crime against humanity.
Israel had the right to wage war against Hamas, and, by extension, the Gaza territory it was the de facto government of, within the bounds of the laws of international conflict. Those bounds have been so consistently breached, and, in its blockade, so grossly breached, that it's time for the international community to act.
Put simply, Israel is not conducting a war of legitimate military action but of, at minimum, ethnic cleansing and, perhaps, extermination. The latter would certainly be the practical outcome of its current policy if continues, as appears to be the Israeli government's intention.
Time to place full sanctions on the regime, and on the country.
I agree with this but can anyone tell me if hostage taking (and murder of said hostages) is a war crime?
Yes, of course it is. So was the original Hamas attack on unarmed civilians, and the murders, rapes and other crimes that accompanied it. That formed a legitimate casus belli.
However, the war crimes of one side do not legitimise* the war crimes of the other, particularly when the other's crimes are considerably in excess of the original.
* There is a case, which I'd agree with, that when one side in a war engages in actions which are illegal but give it an advantage, as a matter of policy, then that legitimises the victim to take proportionate and equivalent actions in retaliation and/or defence. This is dodgy ground legally but it cannot be right that a victim is bound to suffer further - and potentially to lose a war - in defence of a principle that the aggressor rejects. Where is the logic in that? However, that doesn't apply to Israel/Gaza, where Israel started the war with an overwhelming military advantage, and has only increased that advantage since.
We seem to have arrived at Jan 1945. Germany (Gaza) is a ruin, and any normal state would have surrendered ages ok. But they do not. The Nazis (Hamas) have a tight stranglehold and will never surrender. How then do the Allies (Israel) win?
The losers, as always in war, are the poor bloody civilians.
Well said.
We insisted upon unconditional surrender of the Nazis to end the war. Israel should do the same and we should be a steadfast ally of theirs until that happens and make it clear the war only ends when Hamas surrenders.
The mealy-mouthed talk of peace without doing anything is the worst of both worlds falling between the stools of siding with Hamas or siding with Israel. We don't need a ceasefire, we need a victory and the end of war.
At least it's not as bad as Japan 1945. No matter how bad it gets, Israel isn't going to nuke Gaza City and Khan Younis.
Lab 464 Con 65 LD 71 SNP/PC 21 Reform 6 Green 3 Minority (Galloway in fact) 1 Speaker 1
Yougov (The most accurate MRP) gave
Lab 425 Con 108 LD 67 SNP/PC 24 Reform 5 Green 2 Speaker 1
Result
Lab 411 Con 121 LD 72 SNP/PC 13 Reform 5 Green 4 Minority 5 Speaker 1
I note Baxter (EC) is currently forecasting
Rfm 245 Lab 177 Con 94 LD 60 Green 4 SNP 43 Plaid 4
Which looks like a Farage minority Gov't supported by Bobby J (Kemi is surely not long for this political world)'s Tory rump to me.
Tory MPs are more likely to replace Kemi with Cleverly or Stride before the next GE than Jenrick
Mel Stride would truly seal the Tories fate I think, probably even more than Badenoch.
I doubt it, MiC had a Cameron and Sunak led Tories on 22-24% compared to 21% under Badenoch and 20% under Jenrick and Stride is closer to the former 2 than the latter.
Boris of course reached 26% but he is not an option unless he becomes an MP again
Netanyahu now says flat out that he will not end the war.
Hamas could end the war by surrendering unconditionally and releasing the hostages.
Netanyahu is a bad, corrupt leader who should be replaced but even broken clocks can be right. Why the hell should Israel end the war before Hamas are defeated and before the hostages are released?
Because they are engaged in a crime against humanity.
Israel had the right to wage war against Hamas, and, by extension, the Gaza territory it was the de facto government of, within the bounds of the laws of international conflict. Those bounds have been so consistently breached, and, in its blockade, so grossly breached, that it's time for the international community to act.
Put simply, Israel is not conducting a war of legitimate military action but of, at minimum, ethnic cleansing and, perhaps, extermination. The latter would certainly be the practical outcome of its current policy if continues, as appears to be the Israeli government's intention.
Time to place full sanctions on the regime, and on the country.
I agree with this but can anyone tell me if hostage taking (and murder of said hostages) is a war crime?
Yes, of course it is. So was the original Hamas attack on unarmed civilians, and the murders, rapes and other crimes that accompanied it. That formed a legitimate casus belli.
However, the war crimes of one side do not legitimise* the war crimes of the other, particularly when the other's crimes are considerably in excess of the original.
* There is a case, which I'd agree with, that when one side in a war engages in actions which are illegal but give it an advantage, as a matter of policy, then that legitimises the victim to take proportionate and equivalent actions in retaliation and/or defence. This is dodgy ground legally but it cannot be right that a victim is bound to suffer further - and potentially to lose a war - in defence of a principle that the aggressor rejects. Where is the logic in that? However, that doesn't apply to Israel/Gaza, where Israel started the war with an overwhelming military advantage, and has only increased that advantage since.
We seem to have arrived at Jan 1945. Germany (Gaza) is a ruin, and any normal state would have surrendered ages ok. But they do not. The Nazis (Hamas) have a tight stranglehold and will never surrender. How then do the Allies (Israel) win?
The losers, as always in war, are the poor bloody civilians.
Well said.
We insisted upon unconditional surrender of the Nazis to end the war. Israel should do the same and we should be a steadfast ally of theirs until that happens and make it clear the war only ends when Hamas surrenders.
The mealy-mouthed talk of peace without doing anything is the worst of both worlds falling between the stools of siding with Hamas or siding with Israel. We don't need a ceasefire, we need a victory and the end of war.
At least it's not as bad as Japan 1945. No matter how bad it gets, Israel isn't going to nuke Gaza City and Khan Younis.
Saying Israel isn't going to nuke Gaza is rather damning with faint praise.
It's an existential battle for them like it was for us in 1945.
America was right to bomb Japan. Israel is fighting a horrific war better than we did.
It’s back to proportionality, again.
80 m died in WWII, millions of them, as a result of deliberate genocide and enslavement, on the part of the Axis.
Vile though Hamas’ actions were, they do not remotely approach the crimes of Nazi Germany in scale.
So, one can’t simply apply what was appropriate in 1945 to Gaza, today. There’s no doubt to me that the IDF now views any Gazan man, woman, and child as a legitimate target.
Netanyahu now says flat out that he will not end the war.
Hamas could end the war by surrendering unconditionally and releasing the hostages.
Netanyahu is a bad, corrupt leader who should be replaced but even broken clocks can be right. Why the hell should Israel end the war before Hamas are defeated and before the hostages are released?
Because they are engaged in a crime against humanity.
Israel had the right to wage war against Hamas, and, by extension, the Gaza territory it was the de facto government of, within the bounds of the laws of international conflict. Those bounds have been so consistently breached, and, in its blockade, so grossly breached, that it's time for the international community to act.
Put simply, Israel is not conducting a war of legitimate military action but of, at minimum, ethnic cleansing and, perhaps, extermination. The latter would certainly be the practical outcome of its current policy if continues, as appears to be the Israeli government's intention.
Time to place full sanctions on the regime, and on the country.
I agree with this but can anyone tell me if hostage taking (and murder of said hostages) is a war crime?
Yes, of course it is. So was the original Hamas attack on unarmed civilians, and the murders, rapes and other crimes that accompanied it. That formed a legitimate casus belli.
However, the war crimes of one side do not legitimise* the war crimes of the other, particularly when the other's crimes are considerably in excess of the original.
* There is a case, which I'd agree with, that when one side in a war engages in actions which are illegal but give it an advantage, as a matter of policy, then that legitimises the victim to take proportionate and equivalent actions in retaliation and/or defence. This is dodgy ground legally but it cannot be right that a victim is bound to suffer further - and potentially to lose a war - in defence of a principle that the aggressor rejects. Where is the logic in that? However, that doesn't apply to Israel/Gaza, where Israel started the war with an overwhelming military advantage, and has only increased that advantage since.
We seem to have arrived at Jan 1945. Germany (Gaza) is a ruin, and any normal state would have surrendered ages ok. But they do not. The Nazis (Hamas) have a tight stranglehold and will never surrender. How then do the Allies (Israel) win?
The losers, as always in war, are the poor bloody civilians.
Well said.
We insisted upon unconditional surrender of the Nazis to end the war. Israel should do the same and we should be a steadfast ally of theirs until that happens and make it clear the war only ends when Hamas surrenders.
The mealy-mouthed talk of peace without doing anything is the worst of both worlds falling between the stools of siding with Hamas or siding with Israel. We don't need a ceasefire, we need a victory and the end of war.
At least it's not as bad as Japan 1945. No matter how bad it gets, Israel isn't going to nuke Gaza City and Khan Younis.
Tehran otoh..
That would be a good and legitimate target, 100%
You are now promoted to Major T. J. "King" Kong of the IDF. I feel a fictional character is better suited to what's going on in your heid.
“Honestly I am becoming radicalised by watching fully grown adults - adults - push through the ticket barriers on the tube while I pay 6 quid a day to get to and from work. This is not how a functioning good quality society is meant to work.”
Netanyahu now says flat out that he will not end the war.
Hamas could end the war by surrendering unconditionally and releasing the hostages.
Netanyahu is a bad, corrupt leader who should be replaced but even broken clocks can be right. Why the hell should Israel end the war before Hamas are defeated and before the hostages are released?
Because they are engaged in a crime against humanity.
Israel had the right to wage war against Hamas, and, by extension, the Gaza territory it was the de facto government of, within the bounds of the laws of international conflict. Those bounds have been so consistently breached, and, in its blockade, so grossly breached, that it's time for the international community to act.
Put simply, Israel is not conducting a war of legitimate military action but of, at minimum, ethnic cleansing and, perhaps, extermination. The latter would certainly be the practical outcome of its current policy if continues, as appears to be the Israeli government's intention.
Time to place full sanctions on the regime, and on the country.
I agree with this but can anyone tell me if hostage taking (and murder of said hostages) is a war crime?
Yes, of course it is. So was the original Hamas attack on unarmed civilians, and the murders, rapes and other crimes that accompanied it. That formed a legitimate casus belli.
However, the war crimes of one side do not legitimise* the war crimes of the other, particularly when the other's crimes are considerably in excess of the original.
* There is a case, which I'd agree with, that when one side in a war engages in actions which are illegal but give it an advantage, as a matter of policy, then that legitimises the victim to take proportionate and equivalent actions in retaliation and/or defence. This is dodgy ground legally but it cannot be right that a victim is bound to suffer further - and potentially to lose a war - in defence of a principle that the aggressor rejects. Where is the logic in that? However, that doesn't apply to Israel/Gaza, where Israel started the war with an overwhelming military advantage, and has only increased that advantage since.
We seem to have arrived at Jan 1945. Germany (Gaza) is a ruin, and any normal state would have surrendered ages ok. But they do not. The Nazis (Hamas) have a tight stranglehold and will never surrender. How then do the Allies (Israel) win?
The losers, as always in war, are the poor bloody civilians.
Well said.
We insisted upon unconditional surrender of the Nazis to end the war. Israel should do the same and we should be a steadfast ally of theirs until that happens and make it clear the war only ends when Hamas surrenders.
The mealy-mouthed talk of peace without doing anything is the worst of both worlds falling between the stools of siding with Hamas or siding with Israel. We don't need a ceasefire, we need a victory and the end of war.
At least it's not as bad as Japan 1945. No matter how bad it gets, Israel isn't going to nuke Gaza City and Khan Younis.
Saying Israel isn't going to nuke Gaza is rather damning with faint praise.
It's an existential battle for them like it was for us in 1945.
America was right to bomb Japan. Israel is fighting a horrific war better than we did.
It’s back to proportionality, again.
80 m died in WWII, millions of them, as a result of deliberate genocide and enslavement, on the part of the Axis.
Vile though Hamas’ actions were, they do not remotely approach the crimes of Nazi Germany in scale.
So, one can’t simply apply what was appropriate in 1945 to Gaza, today. There’s no doubt to me that the IDF now views any Gazan man, woman, and child as a legitimate target.
Do you not think that Hamas sees every Israeli man, woman and child as a legitimate target?
“Honestly I am becoming radicalised by watching fully grown adults - adults - push through the ticket barriers on the tube while I pay 6 quid a day to get to and from work. This is not how a functioning good quality society is meant to work.”
I’ve not witnessed this. Shoplifting yes, fare-dodging no
Any other PB-ers?
I've seen it a few times but actually not recently. It's certainly not a recent phenomenon, nor unique to London. I remember in Newcastle in the 1980s seeing a lot of people vaulting the Metro barriers.
Hmmm. Mr Trump's Executive Order on excessive drug prices. Have we mentioned this?
The usual verbiage blaming everyone else, but also this about Pharmaceuticals supplying drugs directly to the public at international prices ("Most Favoured Nation" price = the lowest price in a country with >60% of USA PPP GDP).
Sec. 4. Enabling Direct-to-Consumer Sales to American Patients at the Most-Favored-Nation Price. To the extent consistent with law, the Secretary of Health and Human Services (Secretary) shall facilitate direct-to-consumer purchasing programs for pharmaceutical manufacturers that sell their products to American patients at the most-favored-nation price.
If it gets through the legal landmines, that may have potential. It's an interestingly different take on "facilitate" compared to the application to deportees illegally rendered to El Salvador by Trump.
Trump has realised that the US healthcare industry is hated by about 90% of the population. If he drops drug prices to European levels (let alone Indian!), it will be wildly popular.
Reduced drug prices will be wildly popular with American health insurance companies.
“Honestly I am becoming radicalised by watching fully grown adults - adults - push through the ticket barriers on the tube while I pay 6 quid a day to get to and from work. This is not how a functioning good quality society is meant to work.”
“Honestly I am becoming radicalised by watching fully grown adults - adults - push through the ticket barriers on the tube while I pay 6 quid a day to get to and from work. This is not how a functioning good quality society is meant to work.”
I’ve not witnessed this. Shoplifting yes, fare-dodging no
Any other PB-ers?
I've seen it a few times but actually not recently. It's certainly not a recent phenomenon, nor unique to London. I remember in Newcastle in the 1980s seeing a lot of people vaulting the Metro barriers.
If caught on CCTV they can be prosecuted and fined or given a community order
Netanyahu now says flat out that he will not end the war.
Hamas could end the war by surrendering unconditionally and releasing the hostages.
Netanyahu is a bad, corrupt leader who should be replaced but even broken clocks can be right. Why the hell should Israel end the war before Hamas are defeated and before the hostages are released?
Because they are engaged in a crime against humanity.
Israel had the right to wage war against Hamas, and, by extension, the Gaza territory it was the de facto government of, within the bounds of the laws of international conflict. Those bounds have been so consistently breached, and, in its blockade, so grossly breached, that it's time for the international community to act.
Put simply, Israel is not conducting a war of legitimate military action but of, at minimum, ethnic cleansing and, perhaps, extermination. The latter would certainly be the practical outcome of its current policy if continues, as appears to be the Israeli government's intention.
Time to place full sanctions on the regime, and on the country.
I agree with this but can anyone tell me if hostage taking (and murder of said hostages) is a war crime?
Yes, of course it is. So was the original Hamas attack on unarmed civilians, and the murders, rapes and other crimes that accompanied it. That formed a legitimate casus belli.
However, the war crimes of one side do not legitimise* the war crimes of the other, particularly when the other's crimes are considerably in excess of the original.
* There is a case, which I'd agree with, that when one side in a war engages in actions which are illegal but give it an advantage, as a matter of policy, then that legitimises the victim to take proportionate and equivalent actions in retaliation and/or defence. This is dodgy ground legally but it cannot be right that a victim is bound to suffer further - and potentially to lose a war - in defence of a principle that the aggressor rejects. Where is the logic in that? However, that doesn't apply to Israel/Gaza, where Israel started the war with an overwhelming military advantage, and has only increased that advantage since.
We seem to have arrived at Jan 1945. Germany (Gaza) is a ruin, and any normal state would have surrendered ages ok. But they do not. The Nazis (Hamas) have a tight stranglehold and will never surrender. How then do the Allies (Israel) win?
The losers, as always in war, are the poor bloody civilians.
Well said.
We insisted upon unconditional surrender of the Nazis to end the war. Israel should do the same and we should be a steadfast ally of theirs until that happens and make it clear the war only ends when Hamas surrenders.
The mealy-mouthed talk of peace without doing anything is the worst of both worlds falling between the stools of siding with Hamas or siding with Israel. We don't need a ceasefire, we need a victory and the end of war.
At least it's not as bad as Japan 1945. No matter how bad it gets, Israel isn't going to nuke Gaza City and Khan Younis.
Saying Israel isn't going to nuke Gaza is rather damning with faint praise.
It's an existential battle for them like it was for us in 1945.
America was right to bomb Japan. Israel is fighting a horrific war better than we did.
It’s back to proportionality, again.
80 m died in WWII, millions of them, as a result of deliberate genocide and enslavement, on the part of the Axis.
Vile though Hamas’ actions were, they do not remotely approach the crimes of Nazi Germany in scale.
So, one can’t simply apply what was appropriate in 1945 to Gaza, today. There’s no doubt to me that the IDF now views any Gazan man, woman, and child as a legitimate target.
Do you not think that Hamas sees every Israeli man, woman and child as a legitimate target?
They do.
But right now, the IDF is killing a lot more non-combatants than Hamas.
“Honestly I am becoming radicalised by watching fully grown adults - adults - push through the ticket barriers on the tube while I pay 6 quid a day to get to and from work. This is not how a functioning good quality society is meant to work.”
“Honestly I am becoming radicalised by watching fully grown adults - adults - push through the ticket barriers on the tube while I pay 6 quid a day to get to and from work. This is not how a functioning good quality society is meant to work.”
I’ve not witnessed this. Shoplifting yes, fare-dodging no
Any other PB-ers?
I've seen it a few times but actually not recently. It's certainly not a recent phenomenon, nor unique to London. I remember in Newcastle in the 1980s seeing a lot of people vaulting the Metro barriers.
Definitely not particularly unusual to see it when crowded but not sure its an increase over time. Here is a foi request from 2004 as people were concerned back then too. At the time they thought 3.6% were evading fares on the tube, I expect it is similar or lower now.
“Honestly I am becoming radicalised by watching fully grown adults - adults - push through the ticket barriers on the tube while I pay 6 quid a day to get to and from work. This is not how a functioning good quality society is meant to work.”
I’ve not witnessed this. Shoplifting yes, fare-dodging no
Any other PB-ers?
I've seen it a few times but actually not recently. It's certainly not a recent phenomenon, nor unique to London. I remember in Newcastle in the 1980s seeing a lot of people vaulting the Metro barriers.
Definitely not particularly unusual to see it when crowded but not sure its an increase over time. Here is a foi request from 2004 as people were concerned back then too. At the time they thought 3.6% were evading fares on the tube, I expect it is similar or lower now.
Netanyahu now says flat out that he will not end the war.
Hamas could end the war by surrendering unconditionally and releasing the hostages.
Netanyahu is a bad, corrupt leader who should be replaced but even broken clocks can be right. Why the hell should Israel end the war before Hamas are defeated and before the hostages are released?
Because they are engaged in a crime against humanity.
Israel had the right to wage war against Hamas, and, by extension, the Gaza territory it was the de facto government of, within the bounds of the laws of international conflict. Those bounds have been so consistently breached, and, in its blockade, so grossly breached, that it's time for the international community to act.
Put simply, Israel is not conducting a war of legitimate military action but of, at minimum, ethnic cleansing and, perhaps, extermination. The latter would certainly be the practical outcome of its current policy if continues, as appears to be the Israeli government's intention.
Time to place full sanctions on the regime, and on the country.
I agree with this but can anyone tell me if hostage taking (and murder of said hostages) is a war crime?
Yes, of course it is. So was the original Hamas attack on unarmed civilians, and the murders, rapes and other crimes that accompanied it. That formed a legitimate casus belli.
However, the war crimes of one side do not legitimise* the war crimes of the other, particularly when the other's crimes are considerably in excess of the original.
* There is a case, which I'd agree with, that when one side in a war engages in actions which are illegal but give it an advantage, as a matter of policy, then that legitimises the victim to take proportionate and equivalent actions in retaliation and/or defence. This is dodgy ground legally but it cannot be right that a victim is bound to suffer further - and potentially to lose a war - in defence of a principle that the aggressor rejects. Where is the logic in that? However, that doesn't apply to Israel/Gaza, where Israel started the war with an overwhelming military advantage, and has only increased that advantage since.
We seem to have arrived at Jan 1945. Germany (Gaza) is a ruin, and any normal state would have surrendered ages ok. But they do not. The Nazis (Hamas) have a tight stranglehold and will never surrender. How then do the Allies (Israel) win?
The losers, as always in war, are the poor bloody civilians.
Well said.
We insisted upon unconditional surrender of the Nazis to end the war. Israel should do the same and we should be a steadfast ally of theirs until that happens and make it clear the war only ends when Hamas surrenders.
The mealy-mouthed talk of peace without doing anything is the worst of both worlds falling between the stools of siding with Hamas or siding with Israel. We don't need a ceasefire, we need a victory and the end of war.
At least it's not as bad as Japan 1945. No matter how bad it gets, Israel isn't going to nuke Gaza City and Khan Younis.
Saying Israel isn't going to nuke Gaza is rather damning with faint praise.
It's an existential battle for them like it was for us in 1945.
America was right to bomb Japan. Israel is fighting a horrific war better than we did.
It’s back to proportionality, again.
80 m died in WWII, millions of them, as a result of deliberate genocide and enslavement, on the part of the Axis.
Vile though Hamas’ actions were, they do not remotely approach the crimes of Nazi Germany in scale.
So, one can’t simply apply what was appropriate in 1945 to Gaza, today. There’s no doubt to me that the IDF now views any Gazan man, woman, and child as a legitimate target.
Do you not think that Hamas sees every Israeli man, woman and child as a legitimate target?
That's not the point. That Hamas holds that view, and has put that principle into practice, is what gave Israel the right to respond with war to Hamas's attack. It does not give Israel the right to react in kind.
FWIW, I don't think the IDF does "view any Gazan man, woman, and child as a legitimate target" as such: they'd have inflicted far more deaths if they did hold such a view. But. They do seem to regard any Palestinian life as irrelevant when it comes to targeting decisions, and some have certainly killed civilians deliberately. The Israeli government, however, is certainly using civilian suffering and deaths through starvation and denial of medical equipment as an illegal weapon of war.
Real identity of Diane killer 'was known on estates'
The real identity of the man who brutally murdered Diane Sindall was known by people on the estates in Birkenhead, a charity set up in her memory has claimed.
“Honestly I am becoming radicalised by watching fully grown adults - adults - push through the ticket barriers on the tube while I pay 6 quid a day to get to and from work. This is not how a functioning good quality society is meant to work.”
I’ve not witnessed this. Shoplifting yes, fare-dodging no
Any other PB-ers?
I've seen it a few times but actually not recently. It's certainly not a recent phenomenon, nor unique to London. I remember in Newcastle in the 1980s seeing a lot of people vaulting the Metro barriers.
Definitely not particularly unusual to see it when crowded but not sure its an increase over time. Here is a foi request from 2004 as people were concerned back then too. At the time they thought 3.6% were evading fares on the tube, I expect it is similar or lower now.
Real identity of Diane killer 'was known on estates'
The real identity of the man who brutally murdered Diane Sindall was known by people on the estates in Birkenhead, a charity set up in her memory has claimed.
US has told UK to eff out of the IndoPacific region
"...Elbridge Colby, now one of the most senior officials in the Pentagon, has made it clear that the British military, including the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force, should focus on the Euro-Atlantic..."
“Honestly I am becoming radicalised by watching fully grown adults - adults - push through the ticket barriers on the tube while I pay 6 quid a day to get to and from work. This is not how a functioning good quality society is meant to work.”
I’ve not witnessed this. Shoplifting yes, fare-dodging no
Any other PB-ers?
Fare-dodging used to be rife on bendy-buses and was one reason for their demise. These days, flat fares (so no cheating by paying for one mile and riding all the way to the station) and cashless payment on all London buses, along with free travel for teenagers means there is less problem than used to be the case. Although as my bus driver mate said, he's not putting his life on the line to save the bus company 50p.
At tube stations you do see it, and it's not just the usual suspects. Every now and then you read about some City highflyer losing his job for the price of a season ticket.
But if you are looking for an angle for the Gazette, spin through 180 degrees and look at how easy it is to be overcharged by TfL, not just by using different cards (which is not TfL's fault, obviously) but by tapping out and back in again when changing trains. TfL's computer sees these as incomplete journeys and charges a week's rent money. A proper Gazette hack would check the details but that's the gist.
Not to mention the complete racket of rail fares that are up and down with the phase of the moon, whether booked in advance, from the machine or website or app or ticket office.
Oh, and you can't take this empty train because you've booked on that other train half an hour later, which annoys you and probably costs the rail operator money and possibly capacity (as otherwise they'd be able to resell your seat on the later train (or indeed plane)).
Blimey, I've ranted so long I've missed my Deliveroo window.
Netanyahu now says flat out that he will not end the war.
Hamas could end the war by surrendering unconditionally and releasing the hostages.
Netanyahu is a bad, corrupt leader who should be replaced but even broken clocks can be right. Why the hell should Israel end the war before Hamas are defeated and before the hostages are released?
Because they are engaged in a crime against humanity.
Israel had the right to wage war against Hamas, and, by extension, the Gaza territory it was the de facto government of, within the bounds of the laws of international conflict. Those bounds have been so consistently breached, and, in its blockade, so grossly breached, that it's time for the international community to act.
Put simply, Israel is not conducting a war of legitimate military action but of, at minimum, ethnic cleansing and, perhaps, extermination. The latter would certainly be the practical outcome of its current policy if continues, as appears to be the Israeli government's intention.
Time to place full sanctions on the regime, and on the country.
I agree with this but can anyone tell me if hostage taking (and murder of said hostages) is a war crime?
Yes, of course it is. So was the original Hamas attack on unarmed civilians, and the murders, rapes and other crimes that accompanied it. That formed a legitimate casus belli.
However, the war crimes of one side do not legitimise* the war crimes of the other, particularly when the other's crimes are considerably in excess of the original.
* There is a case, which I'd agree with, that when one side in a war engages in actions which are illegal but give it an advantage, as a matter of policy, then that legitimises the victim to take proportionate and equivalent actions in retaliation and/or defence. This is dodgy ground legally but it cannot be right that a victim is bound to suffer further - and potentially to lose a war - in defence of a principle that the aggressor rejects. Where is the logic in that? However, that doesn't apply to Israel/Gaza, where Israel started the war with an overwhelming military advantage, and has only increased that advantage since.
We seem to have arrived at Jan 1945. Germany (Gaza) is a ruin, and any normal state would have surrendered ages ok. But they do not. The Nazis (Hamas) have a tight stranglehold and will never surrender. How then do the Allies (Israel) win?
The losers, as always in war, are the poor bloody civilians.
Well said.
We insisted upon unconditional surrender of the Nazis to end the war. Israel should do the same and we should be a steadfast ally of theirs until that happens and make it clear the war only ends when Hamas surrenders.
The mealy-mouthed talk of peace without doing anything is the worst of both worlds falling between the stools of siding with Hamas or siding with Israel. We don't need a ceasefire, we need a victory and the end of war.
At least it's not as bad as Japan 1945. No matter how bad it gets, Israel isn't going to nuke Gaza City and Khan Younis.
Saying Israel isn't going to nuke Gaza is rather damning with faint praise.
It's an existential battle for them like it was for us in 1945.
America was right to bomb Japan. Israel is fighting a horrific war better than we did.
It’s back to proportionality, again.
80 m died in WWII, millions of them, as a result of deliberate genocide and enslavement, on the part of the Axis.
Vile though Hamas’ actions were, they do not remotely approach the crimes of Nazi Germany in scale.
So, one can’t simply apply what was appropriate in 1945 to Gaza, today. There’s no doubt to me that the IDF now views any Gazan man, woman, and child as a legitimate target.
Yes, proportionality.
Does the Hamas atrocity of Oct 23 merit the brutal collective punishment of 2m people, the vast majority of whom are non-combatants?
To answer "yes" you need to hold the view that Palestinians are not fully human in the way that "we" are, or Israelis are, or Ukrainians are.
If you don't hold that view you'll answer "no" and you won't need to agonise over it.
“Honestly I am becoming radicalised by watching fully grown adults - adults - push through the ticket barriers on the tube while I pay 6 quid a day to get to and from work. This is not how a functioning good quality society is meant to work.”
I’ve not witnessed this. Shoplifting yes, fare-dodging no
Any other PB-ers?
I've seen it a few times but actually not recently. It's certainly not a recent phenomenon, nor unique to London. I remember in Newcastle in the 1980s seeing a lot of people vaulting the Metro barriers.
Netanyahu now says flat out that he will not end the war.
Hamas could end the war by surrendering unconditionally and releasing the hostages.
Netanyahu is a bad, corrupt leader who should be replaced but even broken clocks can be right. Why the hell should Israel end the war before Hamas are defeated and before the hostages are released?
Because they are engaged in a crime against humanity.
Israel had the right to wage war against Hamas, and, by extension, the Gaza territory it was the de facto government of, within the bounds of the laws of international conflict. Those bounds have been so consistently breached, and, in its blockade, so grossly breached, that it's time for the international community to act.
Put simply, Israel is not conducting a war of legitimate military action but of, at minimum, ethnic cleansing and, perhaps, extermination. The latter would certainly be the practical outcome of its current policy if continues, as appears to be the Israeli government's intention.
Time to place full sanctions on the regime, and on the country.
I agree with this but can anyone tell me if hostage taking (and murder of said hostages) is a war crime?
Yes, of course it is. So was the original Hamas attack on unarmed civilians, and the murders, rapes and other crimes that accompanied it. That formed a legitimate casus belli.
However, the war crimes of one side do not legitimise* the war crimes of the other, particularly when the other's crimes are considerably in excess of the original.
* There is a case, which I'd agree with, that when one side in a war engages in actions which are illegal but give it an advantage, as a matter of policy, then that legitimises the victim to take proportionate and equivalent actions in retaliation and/or defence. This is dodgy ground legally but it cannot be right that a victim is bound to suffer further - and potentially to lose a war - in defence of a principle that the aggressor rejects. Where is the logic in that? However, that doesn't apply to Israel/Gaza, where Israel started the war with an overwhelming military advantage, and has only increased that advantage since.
We seem to have arrived at Jan 1945. Germany (Gaza) is a ruin, and any normal state would have surrendered ages ok. But they do not. The Nazis (Hamas) have a tight stranglehold and will never surrender. How then do the Allies (Israel) win?
The losers, as always in war, are the poor bloody civilians.
Well said.
We insisted upon unconditional surrender of the Nazis to end the war. Israel should do the same and we should be a steadfast ally of theirs until that happens and make it clear the war only ends when Hamas surrenders.
The mealy-mouthed talk of peace without doing anything is the worst of both worlds falling between the stools of siding with Hamas or siding with Israel. We don't need a ceasefire, we need a victory and the end of war.
At least it's not as bad as Japan 1945. No matter how bad it gets, Israel isn't going to nuke Gaza City and Khan Younis.
Saying Israel isn't going to nuke Gaza is rather damning with faint praise.
It's an existential battle for them like it was for us in 1945.
America was right to bomb Japan. Israel is fighting a horrific war better than we did.
You say this with some regularity. It remains bollocks. The fight against Hamas in Gaza is not an existential battle for Israel. Israel has complete military domination over Gaza. Israel is not going to cease to exist,
Here’s proof that it’s not an existential battle. Israel has diverted significant resources to bombing and invading parts of Syria despite no immediate threat and positive words wanting peace coming from the new Syrian administration. Israel has said they’ve done much of this to protect the Syrian Druze population. Were Israel really in an existential battle in Gaza, they wouldn’t have capacity to go into Syria. Israel is, if in a subtler manner than Putin, invading its neighbours for territorial gain.
The US in 1945 did not control Japan. Israel controls Gaza. They should do to Gaza what we did to West Germany: hand it back to the local population after a few years.
Netanyahu now says flat out that he will not end the war.
Hamas could end the war by surrendering unconditionally and releasing the hostages.
Netanyahu is a bad, corrupt leader who should be replaced but even broken clocks can be right. Why the hell should Israel end the war before Hamas are defeated and before the hostages are released?
Because they are engaged in a crime against humanity.
Israel had the right to wage war against Hamas, and, by extension, the Gaza territory it was the de facto government of, within the bounds of the laws of international conflict. Those bounds have been so consistently breached, and, in its blockade, so grossly breached, that it's time for the international community to act.
Put simply, Israel is not conducting a war of legitimate military action but of, at minimum, ethnic cleansing and, perhaps, extermination. The latter would certainly be the practical outcome of its current policy if continues, as appears to be the Israeli government's intention.
Time to place full sanctions on the regime, and on the country.
I agree with this but can anyone tell me if hostage taking (and murder of said hostages) is a war crime?
Yes, of course it is. So was the original Hamas attack on unarmed civilians, and the murders, rapes and other crimes that accompanied it. That formed a legitimate casus belli.
However, the war crimes of one side do not legitimise* the war crimes of the other, particularly when the other's crimes are considerably in excess of the original.
* There is a case, which I'd agree with, that when one side in a war engages in actions which are illegal but give it an advantage, as a matter of policy, then that legitimises the victim to take proportionate and equivalent actions in retaliation and/or defence. This is dodgy ground legally but it cannot be right that a victim is bound to suffer further - and potentially to lose a war - in defence of a principle that the aggressor rejects. Where is the logic in that? However, that doesn't apply to Israel/Gaza, where Israel started the war with an overwhelming military advantage, and has only increased that advantage since.
We seem to have arrived at Jan 1945. Germany (Gaza) is a ruin, and any normal state would have surrendered ages ok. But they do not. The Nazis (Hamas) have a tight stranglehold and will never surrender. How then do the Allies (Israel) win?
The losers, as always in war, are the poor bloody civilians.
Well said.
We insisted upon unconditional surrender of the Nazis to end the war. Israel should do the same and we should be a steadfast ally of theirs until that happens and make it clear the war only ends when Hamas surrenders.
The mealy-mouthed talk of peace without doing anything is the worst of both worlds falling between the stools of siding with Hamas or siding with Israel. We don't need a ceasefire, we need a victory and the end of war.
At least it's not as bad as Japan 1945. No matter how bad it gets, Israel isn't going to nuke Gaza City and Khan Younis.
Saying Israel isn't going to nuke Gaza is rather damning with faint praise.
It's an existential battle for them like it was for us in 1945.
America was right to bomb Japan. Israel is fighting a horrific war better than we did.
You say this with some regularity. It remains bollocks. The fight against Hamas in Gaza is not an existential battle for Israel. Israel has complete military domination over Gaza. Israel is not going to cease to exist,
Here’s proof that it’s not an existential battle. Israel has diverted significant resources to bombing and invading parts of Syria despite no immediate threat and positive words wanting peace coming from the new Syrian administration. Israel has said they’ve done much of this to protect the Syrian Druze population. Were Israel really in an existential battle in Gaza, they wouldn’t have capacity to go into Syria. Israel is, if in a subtler manner than Putin, invading its neighbours for territorial gain.
The US in 1945 did not control Japan. Israel controls Gaza. They should do to Gaza what we did to West Germany: hand it back to the local population after a few years.
If we're being honest, by 1945, it wasn't existential for us or the Americans.
Not saying that makes what Israel is doing okay, but what happened at the end of WW2 was about making sure it didn't happen again.
Netanyahu now says flat out that he will not end the war.
Hamas could end the war by surrendering unconditionally and releasing the hostages.
Netanyahu is a bad, corrupt leader who should be replaced but even broken clocks can be right. Why the hell should Israel end the war before Hamas are defeated and before the hostages are released?
Because they are engaged in a crime against humanity.
Israel had the right to wage war against Hamas, and, by extension, the Gaza territory it was the de facto government of, within the bounds of the laws of international conflict. Those bounds have been so consistently breached, and, in its blockade, so grossly breached, that it's time for the international community to act.
Put simply, Israel is not conducting a war of legitimate military action but of, at minimum, ethnic cleansing and, perhaps, extermination. The latter would certainly be the practical outcome of its current policy if continues, as appears to be the Israeli government's intention.
Time to place full sanctions on the regime, and on the country.
I agree with this but can anyone tell me if hostage taking (and murder of said hostages) is a war crime?
Yes, of course it is. So was the original Hamas attack on unarmed civilians, and the murders, rapes and other crimes that accompanied it. That formed a legitimate casus belli.
However, the war crimes of one side do not legitimise* the war crimes of the other, particularly when the other's crimes are considerably in excess of the original.
* There is a case, which I'd agree with, that when one side in a war engages in actions which are illegal but give it an advantage, as a matter of policy, then that legitimises the victim to take proportionate and equivalent actions in retaliation and/or defence. This is dodgy ground legally but it cannot be right that a victim is bound to suffer further - and potentially to lose a war - in defence of a principle that the aggressor rejects. Where is the logic in that? However, that doesn't apply to Israel/Gaza, where Israel started the war with an overwhelming military advantage, and has only increased that advantage since.
We seem to have arrived at Jan 1945. Germany (Gaza) is a ruin, and any normal state would have surrendered ages ok. But they do not. The Nazis (Hamas) have a tight stranglehold and will never surrender. How then do the Allies (Israel) win?
The losers, as always in war, are the poor bloody civilians.
Well said.
We insisted upon unconditional surrender of the Nazis to end the war. Israel should do the same and we should be a steadfast ally of theirs until that happens and make it clear the war only ends when Hamas surrenders.
The mealy-mouthed talk of peace without doing anything is the worst of both worlds falling between the stools of siding with Hamas or siding with Israel. We don't need a ceasefire, we need a victory and the end of war.
At least it's not as bad as Japan 1945. No matter how bad it gets, Israel isn't going to nuke Gaza City and Khan Younis.
Saying Israel isn't going to nuke Gaza is rather damning with faint praise.
It's an existential battle for them like it was for us in 1945.
America was right to bomb Japan. Israel is fighting a horrific war better than we did.
It’s back to proportionality, again.
80 m died in WWII, millions of them, as a result of deliberate genocide and enslavement, on the part of the Axis.
Vile though Hamas’ actions were, they do not remotely approach the crimes of Nazi Germany in scale.
So, one can’t simply apply what was appropriate in 1945 to Gaza, today. There’s no doubt to me that the IDF now views any Gazan man, woman, and child as a legitimate target.
Yes, proportionality.
Does the Hamas atrocity of Oct 23 merit the brutal collective punishment of 2m people, the vast majority of whom are non-combatants?
To answer "yes" you need to hold the view that Palestinians are not fully human in the way that "we" are, or Israelis are, or Ukrainians are.
If you don't hold that view you'll answer "no" and you won't need to agonise over it.
Quite clearly the answer is no, but the problem is what is done about it?
“Honestly I am becoming radicalised by watching fully grown adults - adults - push through the ticket barriers on the tube while I pay 6 quid a day to get to and from work. This is not how a functioning good quality society is meant to work.”
Netanyahu now says flat out that he will not end the war.
Hamas could end the war by surrendering unconditionally and releasing the hostages.
Netanyahu is a bad, corrupt leader who should be replaced but even broken clocks can be right. Why the hell should Israel end the war before Hamas are defeated and before the hostages are released?
Because they are engaged in a crime against humanity.
Israel had the right to wage war against Hamas, and, by extension, the Gaza territory it was the de facto government of, within the bounds of the laws of international conflict. Those bounds have been so consistently breached, and, in its blockade, so grossly breached, that it's time for the international community to act.
Put simply, Israel is not conducting a war of legitimate military action but of, at minimum, ethnic cleansing and, perhaps, extermination. The latter would certainly be the practical outcome of its current policy if continues, as appears to be the Israeli government's intention.
Time to place full sanctions on the regime, and on the country.
I agree with this but can anyone tell me if hostage taking (and murder of said hostages) is a war crime?
Yes, of course it is. So was the original Hamas attack on unarmed civilians, and the murders, rapes and other crimes that accompanied it. That formed a legitimate casus belli.
However, the war crimes of one side do not legitimise* the war crimes of the other, particularly when the other's crimes are considerably in excess of the original.
* There is a case, which I'd agree with, that when one side in a war engages in actions which are illegal but give it an advantage, as a matter of policy, then that legitimises the victim to take proportionate and equivalent actions in retaliation and/or defence. This is dodgy ground legally but it cannot be right that a victim is bound to suffer further - and potentially to lose a war - in defence of a principle that the aggressor rejects. Where is the logic in that? However, that doesn't apply to Israel/Gaza, where Israel started the war with an overwhelming military advantage, and has only increased that advantage since.
We seem to have arrived at Jan 1945. Germany (Gaza) is a ruin, and any normal state would have surrendered ages ok. But they do not. The Nazis (Hamas) have a tight stranglehold and will never surrender. How then do the Allies (Israel) win?
The losers, as always in war, are the poor bloody civilians.
Well said.
We insisted upon unconditional surrender of the Nazis to end the war. Israel should do the same and we should be a steadfast ally of theirs until that happens and make it clear the war only ends when Hamas surrenders.
The mealy-mouthed talk of peace without doing anything is the worst of both worlds falling between the stools of siding with Hamas or siding with Israel. We don't need a ceasefire, we need a victory and the end of war.
At least it's not as bad as Japan 1945. No matter how bad it gets, Israel isn't going to nuke Gaza City and Khan Younis.
Tehran otoh..
That would be a good and legitimate target, 100%
Tehran has a population of about 10 million people, most of whom oppose the Iranian regime. And you think Israel should nuke the city?
“Honestly I am becoming radicalised by watching fully grown adults - adults - push through the ticket barriers on the tube while I pay 6 quid a day to get to and from work. This is not how a functioning good quality society is meant to work.”
I’ve not witnessed this. Shoplifting yes, fare-dodging no
Any other PB-ers?
Yes, there was a road man at Basingstoke station the other day. The railway official was remonstrating with him - 'No, you ain't going through those barriers, mate! - but the road man just forced his way through the barriers and disappeared into the station. The official just stood there impotent and bashful.
US has told UK to eff out of the IndoPacific region
"...Elbridge Colby, now one of the most senior officials in the Pentagon, has made it clear that the British military, including the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force, should focus on the Euro-Atlantic..."
That's actually good advice. Securing the North Atlantic is a mission that's within the real, as opposed to and contrasted with the imagined, capabilities of the British armed forces.
I doubt SKS will be inclined to heed this counsel. He can't retreat from the #globalbritain rubbish while the Fukkers are chewing on his nut bag.
Netanyahu now says flat out that he will not end the war.
Hamas could end the war by surrendering unconditionally and releasing the hostages.
Netanyahu is a bad, corrupt leader who should be replaced but even broken clocks can be right. Why the hell should Israel end the war before Hamas are defeated and before the hostages are released?
Because they are engaged in a crime against humanity.
Israel had the right to wage war against Hamas, and, by extension, the Gaza territory it was the de facto government of, within the bounds of the laws of international conflict. Those bounds have been so consistently breached, and, in its blockade, so grossly breached, that it's time for the international community to act.
Put simply, Israel is not conducting a war of legitimate military action but of, at minimum, ethnic cleansing and, perhaps, extermination. The latter would certainly be the practical outcome of its current policy if continues, as appears to be the Israeli government's intention.
Time to place full sanctions on the regime, and on the country.
I agree with this but can anyone tell me if hostage taking (and murder of said hostages) is a war crime?
Yes, of course it is. So was the original Hamas attack on unarmed civilians, and the murders, rapes and other crimes that accompanied it. That formed a legitimate casus belli.
However, the war crimes of one side do not legitimise* the war crimes of the other, particularly when the other's crimes are considerably in excess of the original.
* There is a case, which I'd agree with, that when one side in a war engages in actions which are illegal but give it an advantage, as a matter of policy, then that legitimises the victim to take proportionate and equivalent actions in retaliation and/or defence. This is dodgy ground legally but it cannot be right that a victim is bound to suffer further - and potentially to lose a war - in defence of a principle that the aggressor rejects. Where is the logic in that? However, that doesn't apply to Israel/Gaza, where Israel started the war with an overwhelming military advantage, and has only increased that advantage since.
We seem to have arrived at Jan 1945. Germany (Gaza) is a ruin, and any normal state would have surrendered ages ok. But they do not. The Nazis (Hamas) have a tight stranglehold and will never surrender. How then do the Allies (Israel) win?
The losers, as always in war, are the poor bloody civilians.
Well said.
We insisted upon unconditional surrender of the Nazis to end the war. Israel should do the same and we should be a steadfast ally of theirs until that happens and make it clear the war only ends when Hamas surrenders.
The mealy-mouthed talk of peace without doing anything is the worst of both worlds falling between the stools of siding with Hamas or siding with Israel. We don't need a ceasefire, we need a victory and the end of war.
At least it's not as bad as Japan 1945. No matter how bad it gets, Israel isn't going to nuke Gaza City and Khan Younis.
Saying Israel isn't going to nuke Gaza is rather damning with faint praise.
It's an existential battle for them like it was for us in 1945.
America was right to bomb Japan. Israel is fighting a horrific war better than we did.
It’s back to proportionality, again.
80 m died in WWII, millions of them, as a result of deliberate genocide and enslavement, on the part of the Axis.
Vile though Hamas’ actions were, they do not remotely approach the crimes of Nazi Germany in scale.
So, one can’t simply apply what was appropriate in 1945 to Gaza, today. There’s no doubt to me that the IDF now views any Gazan man, woman, and child as a legitimate target.
Do you not think that Hamas sees every Israeli man, woman and child as a legitimate target?
That's not the point. That Hamas holds that view, and has put that principle into practice, is what gave Israel the right to respond with war to Hamas's attack. It does not give Israel the right to react in kind.
FWIW, I don't think the IDF does "view any Gazan man, woman, and child as a legitimate target" as such: they'd have inflicted far more deaths if they did hold such a view. But. They do seem to regard any Palestinian life as irrelevant when it comes to targeting decisions, and some have certainly killed civilians deliberately. The Israeli government, however, is certainly using civilian suffering and deaths through starvation and denial of medical equipment as an illegal weapon of war.
Because they're not fighting a conventional war and Hamas deliberately maximise the use of human shields, which is yet another war crime but of Hamas not Israel.
The loss of "collateral damage" is terrible but the rule of proportionality is to minimise it where possible, not eliminate it or sacrifice legitimate military targets.
I assume you agree the head of Hamas military wing, Muhammed Sinwar is/was a legitimate target?
Israel may have got him this week, was still waiting for confirmation last I saw. That's good news, isn't it, if they have?
The problem is he was hiding at a hospital, using that as his military base. A war crime. Turning the hospital into a legitimate, military target as a result.
Thankfully it seems that Israel may have got him through the use of very targeted munitions. If they were half as evil or genocidal or heartless as they get accused of being here they could have levelled the entire building to get to him.
Netanyahu now says flat out that he will not end the war.
Hamas could end the war by surrendering unconditionally and releasing the hostages.
Netanyahu is a bad, corrupt leader who should be replaced but even broken clocks can be right. Why the hell should Israel end the war before Hamas are defeated and before the hostages are released?
Because they are engaged in a crime against humanity.
Israel had the right to wage war against Hamas, and, by extension, the Gaza territory it was the de facto government of, within the bounds of the laws of international conflict. Those bounds have been so consistently breached, and, in its blockade, so grossly breached, that it's time for the international community to act.
Put simply, Israel is not conducting a war of legitimate military action but of, at minimum, ethnic cleansing and, perhaps, extermination. The latter would certainly be the practical outcome of its current policy if continues, as appears to be the Israeli government's intention.
Time to place full sanctions on the regime, and on the country.
I agree with this but can anyone tell me if hostage taking (and murder of said hostages) is a war crime?
Yes, of course it is. So was the original Hamas attack on unarmed civilians, and the murders, rapes and other crimes that accompanied it. That formed a legitimate casus belli.
However, the war crimes of one side do not legitimise* the war crimes of the other, particularly when the other's crimes are considerably in excess of the original.
* There is a case, which I'd agree with, that when one side in a war engages in actions which are illegal but give it an advantage, as a matter of policy, then that legitimises the victim to take proportionate and equivalent actions in retaliation and/or defence. This is dodgy ground legally but it cannot be right that a victim is bound to suffer further - and potentially to lose a war - in defence of a principle that the aggressor rejects. Where is the logic in that? However, that doesn't apply to Israel/Gaza, where Israel started the war with an overwhelming military advantage, and has only increased that advantage since.
We seem to have arrived at Jan 1945. Germany (Gaza) is a ruin, and any normal state would have surrendered ages ok. But they do not. The Nazis (Hamas) have a tight stranglehold and will never surrender. How then do the Allies (Israel) win?
The losers, as always in war, are the poor bloody civilians.
Well said.
We insisted upon unconditional surrender of the Nazis to end the war. Israel should do the same and we should be a steadfast ally of theirs until that happens and make it clear the war only ends when Hamas surrenders.
The mealy-mouthed talk of peace without doing anything is the worst of both worlds falling between the stools of siding with Hamas or siding with Israel. We don't need a ceasefire, we need a victory and the end of war.
At least it's not as bad as Japan 1945. No matter how bad it gets, Israel isn't going to nuke Gaza City and Khan Younis.
Saying Israel isn't going to nuke Gaza is rather damning with faint praise.
It's an existential battle for them like it was for us in 1945.
America was right to bomb Japan. Israel is fighting a horrific war better than we did.
You say this with some regularity. It remains bollocks. The fight against Hamas in Gaza is not an existential battle for Israel. Israel has complete military domination over Gaza. Israel is not going to cease to exist,
Here’s proof that it’s not an existential battle. Israel has diverted significant resources to bombing and invading parts of Syria despite no immediate threat and positive words wanting peace coming from the new Syrian administration. Israel has said they’ve done much of this to protect the Syrian Druze population. Were Israel really in an existential battle in Gaza, they wouldn’t have capacity to go into Syria. Israel is, if in a subtler manner than Putin, invading its neighbours for territorial gain.
The US in 1945 did not control Japan. Israel controls Gaza. They should do to Gaza what we did to West Germany: hand it back to the local population after a few years.
If we're being honest, by 1945, it wasn't existential for us or the Americans.
Not saying that makes what Israel is doing okay, but what happened at the end of WW2 was about making sure it didn't happen again.
Making sure WW2 (and WW1, the war it was hoped would end all wars) never happened again included the establishment of pan-national and global institutions such as Nato, the ECSC/EEC/EU, the Council of Europe, the ECJ, the ECHR, the ICC, the United Nations, the WTO and various other bodies which recently seem to be falling out of favour, both here and in America.
Netanyahu now says flat out that he will not end the war.
Hamas could end the war by surrendering unconditionally and releasing the hostages.
Netanyahu is a bad, corrupt leader who should be replaced but even broken clocks can be right. Why the hell should Israel end the war before Hamas are defeated and before the hostages are released?
Because they are engaged in a crime against humanity.
Israel had the right to wage war against Hamas, and, by extension, the Gaza territory it was the de facto government of, within the bounds of the laws of international conflict. Those bounds have been so consistently breached, and, in its blockade, so grossly breached, that it's time for the international community to act.
Put simply, Israel is not conducting a war of legitimate military action but of, at minimum, ethnic cleansing and, perhaps, extermination. The latter would certainly be the practical outcome of its current policy if continues, as appears to be the Israeli government's intention.
Time to place full sanctions on the regime, and on the country.
I agree with this but can anyone tell me if hostage taking (and murder of said hostages) is a war crime?
Yes, of course it is. So was the original Hamas attack on unarmed civilians, and the murders, rapes and other crimes that accompanied it. That formed a legitimate casus belli.
However, the war crimes of one side do not legitimise* the war crimes of the other, particularly when the other's crimes are considerably in excess of the original.
* There is a case, which I'd agree with, that when one side in a war engages in actions which are illegal but give it an advantage, as a matter of policy, then that legitimises the victim to take proportionate and equivalent actions in retaliation and/or defence. This is dodgy ground legally but it cannot be right that a victim is bound to suffer further - and potentially to lose a war - in defence of a principle that the aggressor rejects. Where is the logic in that? However, that doesn't apply to Israel/Gaza, where Israel started the war with an overwhelming military advantage, and has only increased that advantage since.
We seem to have arrived at Jan 1945. Germany (Gaza) is a ruin, and any normal state would have surrendered ages ok. But they do not. The Nazis (Hamas) have a tight stranglehold and will never surrender. How then do the Allies (Israel) win?
The losers, as always in war, are the poor bloody civilians.
Well said.
We insisted upon unconditional surrender of the Nazis to end the war. Israel should do the same and we should be a steadfast ally of theirs until that happens and make it clear the war only ends when Hamas surrenders.
The mealy-mouthed talk of peace without doing anything is the worst of both worlds falling between the stools of siding with Hamas or siding with Israel. We don't need a ceasefire, we need a victory and the end of war.
At least it's not as bad as Japan 1945. No matter how bad it gets, Israel isn't going to nuke Gaza City and Khan Younis.
Saying Israel isn't going to nuke Gaza is rather damning with faint praise.
It's an existential battle for them like it was for us in 1945.
America was right to bomb Japan. Israel is fighting a horrific war better than we did.
It’s back to proportionality, again.
80 m died in WWII, millions of them, as a result of deliberate genocide and enslavement, on the part of the Axis.
Vile though Hamas’ actions were, they do not remotely approach the crimes of Nazi Germany in scale.
So, one can’t simply apply what was appropriate in 1945 to Gaza, today. There’s no doubt to me that the IDF now views any Gazan man, woman, and child as a legitimate target.
Yes, proportionality.
Does the Hamas atrocity of Oct 23 merit the brutal collective punishment of 2m people, the vast majority of whom are non-combatants?
To answer "yes" you need to hold the view that Palestinians are not fully human in the way that "we" are, or Israelis are, or Ukrainians are.
If you don't hold that view you'll answer "no" and you won't need to agonise over it.
No, to answer "yes" means that you understand that the enemies civilians suffer during war, which is why war should only ever be a last resort.
Especially when the enemy maximises the use of human shields.
“Honestly I am becoming radicalised by watching fully grown adults - adults - push through the ticket barriers on the tube while I pay 6 quid a day to get to and from work. This is not how a functioning good quality society is meant to work.”
I’ve not witnessed this. Shoplifting yes, fare-dodging no
Any other PB-ers?
Yes, very much. I don't visit London that often but whenever I do I see it usually within 30 mins of arriving. Never noticed it before the pandemic but see it all the time now. Paddington and Stratford are 2 of the worst places. Also saw it at Hampstead Heath station last time I was in London.
Last bit of revenue protection I saw on the trams was (And bear in mind you can buy a ticket on them) involved someone having (I think) having a laugh with the revenue officer followed by their picture being taken.
“Honestly I am becoming radicalised by watching fully grown adults - adults - push through the ticket barriers on the tube while I pay 6 quid a day to get to and from work. This is not how a functioning good quality society is meant to work.”
I’ve not witnessed this. Shoplifting yes, fare-dodging no
Any other PB-ers?
Yes, there was a road man at Basingstoke station the other day. The railway official was remonstrating with him - 'No, you ain't going through those barriers, mate! - but the road man just forced his way through the barriers and disappeared into the station. The official just stood there impotent and bashful.
“Honestly I am becoming radicalised by watching fully grown adults - adults - push through the ticket barriers on the tube while I pay 6 quid a day to get to and from work. This is not how a functioning good quality society is meant to work.”
Netanyahu now says flat out that he will not end the war.
Hamas could end the war by surrendering unconditionally and releasing the hostages.
Netanyahu is a bad, corrupt leader who should be replaced but even broken clocks can be right. Why the hell should Israel end the war before Hamas are defeated and before the hostages are released?
Because they are engaged in a crime against humanity.
Israel had the right to wage war against Hamas, and, by extension, the Gaza territory it was the de facto government of, within the bounds of the laws of international conflict. Those bounds have been so consistently breached, and, in its blockade, so grossly breached, that it's time for the international community to act.
Put simply, Israel is not conducting a war of legitimate military action but of, at minimum, ethnic cleansing and, perhaps, extermination. The latter would certainly be the practical outcome of its current policy if continues, as appears to be the Israeli government's intention.
Time to place full sanctions on the regime, and on the country.
I agree with this but can anyone tell me if hostage taking (and murder of said hostages) is a war crime?
Yes, of course it is. So was the original Hamas attack on unarmed civilians, and the murders, rapes and other crimes that accompanied it. That formed a legitimate casus belli.
However, the war crimes of one side do not legitimise* the war crimes of the other, particularly when the other's crimes are considerably in excess of the original.
* There is a case, which I'd agree with, that when one side in a war engages in actions which are illegal but give it an advantage, as a matter of policy, then that legitimises the victim to take proportionate and equivalent actions in retaliation and/or defence. This is dodgy ground legally but it cannot be right that a victim is bound to suffer further - and potentially to lose a war - in defence of a principle that the aggressor rejects. Where is the logic in that? However, that doesn't apply to Israel/Gaza, where Israel started the war with an overwhelming military advantage, and has only increased that advantage since.
We seem to have arrived at Jan 1945. Germany (Gaza) is a ruin, and any normal state would have surrendered ages ok. But they do not. The Nazis (Hamas) have a tight stranglehold and will never surrender. How then do the Allies (Israel) win?
The losers, as always in war, are the poor bloody civilians.
Well said.
We insisted upon unconditional surrender of the Nazis to end the war. Israel should do the same and we should be a steadfast ally of theirs until that happens and make it clear the war only ends when Hamas surrenders.
The mealy-mouthed talk of peace without doing anything is the worst of both worlds falling between the stools of siding with Hamas or siding with Israel. We don't need a ceasefire, we need a victory and the end of war.
At least it's not as bad as Japan 1945. No matter how bad it gets, Israel isn't going to nuke Gaza City and Khan Younis.
Saying Israel isn't going to nuke Gaza is rather damning with faint praise.
It's an existential battle for them like it was for us in 1945.
America was right to bomb Japan. Israel is fighting a horrific war better than we did.
You say this with some regularity. It remains bollocks. The fight against Hamas in Gaza is not an existential battle for Israel. Israel has complete military domination over Gaza. Israel is not going to cease to exist,
Here’s proof that it’s not an existential battle. Israel has diverted significant resources to bombing and invading parts of Syria despite no immediate threat and positive words wanting peace coming from the new Syrian administration. Israel has said they’ve done much of this to protect the Syrian Druze population. Were Israel really in an existential battle in Gaza, they wouldn’t have capacity to go into Syria. Israel is, if in a subtler manner than Putin, invading its neighbours for territorial gain.
The US in 1945 did not control Japan. Israel controls Gaza. They should do to Gaza what we did to West Germany: hand it back to the local population after a few years.
If we're being honest, by 1945, it wasn't existential for us or the Americans.
Not saying that makes what Israel is doing okay, but what happened at the end of WW2 was about making sure it didn't happen again.
Making sure WW2 (and WW1, the war it was hoped would end all wars) never happened again included the establishment of pan-national and global institutions such as Nato, the ECSC/EEC/EU, the Council of Europe, the ECJ, the ECHR, the ICC, the United Nations, the WTO and various other bodies which recently seem to be falling out of favour, both here and in America.
Because they're as useless as the League of Nations.
Netanyahu now says flat out that he will not end the war.
Hamas could end the war by surrendering unconditionally and releasing the hostages.
Netanyahu is a bad, corrupt leader who should be replaced but even broken clocks can be right. Why the hell should Israel end the war before Hamas are defeated and before the hostages are released?
Because they are engaged in a crime against humanity.
Israel had the right to wage war against Hamas, and, by extension, the Gaza territory it was the de facto government of, within the bounds of the laws of international conflict. Those bounds have been so consistently breached, and, in its blockade, so grossly breached, that it's time for the international community to act.
Put simply, Israel is not conducting a war of legitimate military action but of, at minimum, ethnic cleansing and, perhaps, extermination. The latter would certainly be the practical outcome of its current policy if continues, as appears to be the Israeli government's intention.
Time to place full sanctions on the regime, and on the country.
I agree with this but can anyone tell me if hostage taking (and murder of said hostages) is a war crime?
Yes, of course it is. So was the original Hamas attack on unarmed civilians, and the murders, rapes and other crimes that accompanied it. That formed a legitimate casus belli.
However, the war crimes of one side do not legitimise* the war crimes of the other, particularly when the other's crimes are considerably in excess of the original.
* There is a case, which I'd agree with, that when one side in a war engages in actions which are illegal but give it an advantage, as a matter of policy, then that legitimises the victim to take proportionate and equivalent actions in retaliation and/or defence. This is dodgy ground legally but it cannot be right that a victim is bound to suffer further - and potentially to lose a war - in defence of a principle that the aggressor rejects. Where is the logic in that? However, that doesn't apply to Israel/Gaza, where Israel started the war with an overwhelming military advantage, and has only increased that advantage since.
We seem to have arrived at Jan 1945. Germany (Gaza) is a ruin, and any normal state would have surrendered ages ok. But they do not. The Nazis (Hamas) have a tight stranglehold and will never surrender. How then do the Allies (Israel) win?
The losers, as always in war, are the poor bloody civilians.
Well said.
We insisted upon unconditional surrender of the Nazis to end the war. Israel should do the same and we should be a steadfast ally of theirs until that happens and make it clear the war only ends when Hamas surrenders.
The mealy-mouthed talk of peace without doing anything is the worst of both worlds falling between the stools of siding with Hamas or siding with Israel. We don't need a ceasefire, we need a victory and the end of war.
At least it's not as bad as Japan 1945. No matter how bad it gets, Israel isn't going to nuke Gaza City and Khan Younis.
Saying Israel isn't going to nuke Gaza is rather damning with faint praise.
It's an existential battle for them like it was for us in 1945.
America was right to bomb Japan. Israel is fighting a horrific war better than we did.
It’s back to proportionality, again.
80 m died in WWII, millions of them, as a result of deliberate genocide and enslavement, on the part of the Axis.
Vile though Hamas’ actions were, they do not remotely approach the crimes of Nazi Germany in scale.
So, one can’t simply apply what was appropriate in 1945 to Gaza, today. There’s no doubt to me that the IDF now views any Gazan man, woman, and child as a legitimate target.
Do you not think that Hamas sees every Israeli man, woman and child as a legitimate target?
That's not the point. That Hamas holds that view, and has put that principle into practice, is what gave Israel the right to respond with war to Hamas's attack. It does not give Israel the right to react in kind.
FWIW, I don't think the IDF does "view any Gazan man, woman, and child as a legitimate target" as such: they'd have inflicted far more deaths if they did hold such a view. But. They do seem to regard any Palestinian life as irrelevant when it comes to targeting decisions, and some have certainly killed civilians deliberately. The Israeli government, however, is certainly using civilian suffering and deaths through starvation and denial of medical equipment as an illegal weapon of war.
Because they're not fighting a conventional war and Hamas deliberately maximise the use of human shields, which is yet another war crime but of Hamas not Israel.
The loss of "collateral damage" is terrible but the rule of proportionality is to minimise it where possible, not eliminate it or sacrifice legitimate military targets.
I assume you agree the head of Hamas military wing, Muhammed Sinwar is/was a legitimate target?
Israel may have got him this week, was still waiting for confirmation last I saw. That's good news, isn't it, if they have?
The problem is he was hiding at a hospital, using that as his military base. A war crime. Turning the hospital into a legitimate, military target as a result.
Thankfully it seems that Israel may have got him through the use of very targeted munitions. If they were half as evil or genocidal or heartless as they get accused of being here they could have levelled the entire building to get to him.
In Barty Bobbins World is starving 2 million Palestinians to death a war crime or what victory looks like?
Netanyahu now says flat out that he will not end the war.
Hamas could end the war by surrendering unconditionally and releasing the hostages.
Netanyahu is a bad, corrupt leader who should be replaced but even broken clocks can be right. Why the hell should Israel end the war before Hamas are defeated and before the hostages are released?
Because they are engaged in a crime against humanity.
Israel had the right to wage war against Hamas, and, by extension, the Gaza territory it was the de facto government of, within the bounds of the laws of international conflict. Those bounds have been so consistently breached, and, in its blockade, so grossly breached, that it's time for the international community to act.
Put simply, Israel is not conducting a war of legitimate military action but of, at minimum, ethnic cleansing and, perhaps, extermination. The latter would certainly be the practical outcome of its current policy if continues, as appears to be the Israeli government's intention.
Time to place full sanctions on the regime, and on the country.
I agree with this but can anyone tell me if hostage taking (and murder of said hostages) is a war crime?
Yes, of course it is. So was the original Hamas attack on unarmed civilians, and the murders, rapes and other crimes that accompanied it. That formed a legitimate casus belli.
However, the war crimes of one side do not legitimise* the war crimes of the other, particularly when the other's crimes are considerably in excess of the original.
* There is a case, which I'd agree with, that when one side in a war engages in actions which are illegal but give it an advantage, as a matter of policy, then that legitimises the victim to take proportionate and equivalent actions in retaliation and/or defence. This is dodgy ground legally but it cannot be right that a victim is bound to suffer further - and potentially to lose a war - in defence of a principle that the aggressor rejects. Where is the logic in that? However, that doesn't apply to Israel/Gaza, where Israel started the war with an overwhelming military advantage, and has only increased that advantage since.
We seem to have arrived at Jan 1945. Germany (Gaza) is a ruin, and any normal state would have surrendered ages ok. But they do not. The Nazis (Hamas) have a tight stranglehold and will never surrender. How then do the Allies (Israel) win?
The losers, as always in war, are the poor bloody civilians.
Well said.
We insisted upon unconditional surrender of the Nazis to end the war. Israel should do the same and we should be a steadfast ally of theirs until that happens and make it clear the war only ends when Hamas surrenders.
The mealy-mouthed talk of peace without doing anything is the worst of both worlds falling between the stools of siding with Hamas or siding with Israel. We don't need a ceasefire, we need a victory and the end of war.
At least it's not as bad as Japan 1945. No matter how bad it gets, Israel isn't going to nuke Gaza City and Khan Younis.
Saying Israel isn't going to nuke Gaza is rather damning with faint praise.
It's an existential battle for them like it was for us in 1945.
America was right to bomb Japan. Israel is fighting a horrific war better than we did.
It’s back to proportionality, again.
80 m died in WWII, millions of them, as a result of deliberate genocide and enslavement, on the part of the Axis.
Vile though Hamas’ actions were, they do not remotely approach the crimes of Nazi Germany in scale.
So, one can’t simply apply what was appropriate in 1945 to Gaza, today. There’s no doubt to me that the IDF now views any Gazan man, woman, and child as a legitimate target.
Do you not think that Hamas sees every Israeli man, woman and child as a legitimate target?
That's not the point. That Hamas holds that view, and has put that principle into practice, is what gave Israel the right to respond with war to Hamas's attack. It does not give Israel the right to react in kind.
FWIW, I don't think the IDF does "view any Gazan man, woman, and child as a legitimate target" as such: they'd have inflicted far more deaths if they did hold such a view. But. They do seem to regard any Palestinian life as irrelevant when it comes to targeting decisions, and some have certainly killed civilians deliberately. The Israeli government, however, is certainly using civilian suffering and deaths through starvation and denial of medical equipment as an illegal weapon of war.
Because they're not fighting a conventional war and Hamas deliberately maximise the use of human shields, which is yet another war crime but of Hamas not Israel.
The loss of "collateral damage" is terrible but the rule of proportionality is to minimise it where possible, not eliminate it or sacrifice legitimate military targets.
I assume you agree the head of Hamas military wing, Muhammed Sinwar is/was a legitimate target?
Israel may have got him this week, was still waiting for confirmation last I saw. That's good news, isn't it, if they have?
The problem is he was hiding at a hospital, using that as his military base. A war crime. Turning the hospital into a legitimate, military target as a result.
Thankfully it seems that Israel may have got him through the use of very targeted munitions. If they were half as evil or genocidal or heartless as they get accused of being here they could have levelled the entire building to get to him.
Netanyahu now says flat out that he will not end the war.
Hamas could end the war by surrendering unconditionally and releasing the hostages.
Netanyahu is a bad, corrupt leader who should be replaced but even broken clocks can be right. Why the hell should Israel end the war before Hamas are defeated and before the hostages are released?
Because they are engaged in a crime against humanity.
Israel had the right to wage war against Hamas, and, by extension, the Gaza territory it was the de facto government of, within the bounds of the laws of international conflict. Those bounds have been so consistently breached, and, in its blockade, so grossly breached, that it's time for the international community to act.
Put simply, Israel is not conducting a war of legitimate military action but of, at minimum, ethnic cleansing and, perhaps, extermination. The latter would certainly be the practical outcome of its current policy if continues, as appears to be the Israeli government's intention.
Time to place full sanctions on the regime, and on the country.
I agree with this but can anyone tell me if hostage taking (and murder of said hostages) is a war crime?
Yes, of course it is. So was the original Hamas attack on unarmed civilians, and the murders, rapes and other crimes that accompanied it. That formed a legitimate casus belli.
However, the war crimes of one side do not legitimise* the war crimes of the other, particularly when the other's crimes are considerably in excess of the original.
* There is a case, which I'd agree with, that when one side in a war engages in actions which are illegal but give it an advantage, as a matter of policy, then that legitimises the victim to take proportionate and equivalent actions in retaliation and/or defence. This is dodgy ground legally but it cannot be right that a victim is bound to suffer further - and potentially to lose a war - in defence of a principle that the aggressor rejects. Where is the logic in that? However, that doesn't apply to Israel/Gaza, where Israel started the war with an overwhelming military advantage, and has only increased that advantage since.
We seem to have arrived at Jan 1945. Germany (Gaza) is a ruin, and any normal state would have surrendered ages ok. But they do not. The Nazis (Hamas) have a tight stranglehold and will never surrender. How then do the Allies (Israel) win?
The losers, as always in war, are the poor bloody civilians.
Well said.
We insisted upon unconditional surrender of the Nazis to end the war. Israel should do the same and we should be a steadfast ally of theirs until that happens and make it clear the war only ends when Hamas surrenders.
The mealy-mouthed talk of peace without doing anything is the worst of both worlds falling between the stools of siding with Hamas or siding with Israel. We don't need a ceasefire, we need a victory and the end of war.
At least it's not as bad as Japan 1945. No matter how bad it gets, Israel isn't going to nuke Gaza City and Khan Younis.
Saying Israel isn't going to nuke Gaza is rather damning with faint praise.
It's an existential battle for them like it was for us in 1945.
America was right to bomb Japan. Israel is fighting a horrific war better than we did.
You say this with some regularity. It remains bollocks. The fight against Hamas in Gaza is not an existential battle for Israel. Israel has complete military domination over Gaza. Israel is not going to cease to exist,
Here’s proof that it’s not an existential battle. Israel has diverted significant resources to bombing and invading parts of Syria despite no immediate threat and positive words wanting peace coming from the new Syrian administration. Israel has said they’ve done much of this to protect the Syrian Druze population. Were Israel really in an existential battle in Gaza, they wouldn’t have capacity to go into Syria. Israel is, if in a subtler manner than Putin, invading its neighbours for territorial gain.
The US in 1945 did not control Japan. Israel controls Gaza. They should do to Gaza what we did to West Germany: hand it back to the local population after a few years.
If we're being honest, by 1945, it wasn't existential for us or the Americans.
Not saying that makes what Israel is doing okay, but what happened at the end of WW2 was about making sure it didn't happen again.
Making sure WW2 (and WW1, the war it was hoped would end all wars) never happened again included the establishment of pan-national and global institutions such as Nato, the ECSC/EEC/EU, the Council of Europe, the ECJ, the ECHR, the ICC, the United Nations, the WTO and various other bodies which recently seem to be falling out of favour, both here and in America.
Because they're as useless as the League of Nations.
The track record of the UN’s contributions to world peace, while far from perfect, are clearly much better than the League’s.
Netanyahu now says flat out that he will not end the war.
Hamas could end the war by surrendering unconditionally and releasing the hostages.
Netanyahu is a bad, corrupt leader who should be replaced but even broken clocks can be right. Why the hell should Israel end the war before Hamas are defeated and before the hostages are released?
Because they are engaged in a crime against humanity.
Israel had the right to wage war against Hamas, and, by extension, the Gaza territory it was the de facto government of, within the bounds of the laws of international conflict. Those bounds have been so consistently breached, and, in its blockade, so grossly breached, that it's time for the international community to act.
Put simply, Israel is not conducting a war of legitimate military action but of, at minimum, ethnic cleansing and, perhaps, extermination. The latter would certainly be the practical outcome of its current policy if continues, as appears to be the Israeli government's intention.
Time to place full sanctions on the regime, and on the country.
I agree with this but can anyone tell me if hostage taking (and murder of said hostages) is a war crime?
Yes, of course it is. So was the original Hamas attack on unarmed civilians, and the murders, rapes and other crimes that accompanied it. That formed a legitimate casus belli.
However, the war crimes of one side do not legitimise* the war crimes of the other, particularly when the other's crimes are considerably in excess of the original.
* There is a case, which I'd agree with, that when one side in a war engages in actions which are illegal but give it an advantage, as a matter of policy, then that legitimises the victim to take proportionate and equivalent actions in retaliation and/or defence. This is dodgy ground legally but it cannot be right that a victim is bound to suffer further - and potentially to lose a war - in defence of a principle that the aggressor rejects. Where is the logic in that? However, that doesn't apply to Israel/Gaza, where Israel started the war with an overwhelming military advantage, and has only increased that advantage since.
We seem to have arrived at Jan 1945. Germany (Gaza) is a ruin, and any normal state would have surrendered ages ok. But they do not. The Nazis (Hamas) have a tight stranglehold and will never surrender. How then do the Allies (Israel) win?
The losers, as always in war, are the poor bloody civilians.
Well said.
We insisted upon unconditional surrender of the Nazis to end the war. Israel should do the same and we should be a steadfast ally of theirs until that happens and make it clear the war only ends when Hamas surrenders.
The mealy-mouthed talk of peace without doing anything is the worst of both worlds falling between the stools of siding with Hamas or siding with Israel. We don't need a ceasefire, we need a victory and the end of war.
At least it's not as bad as Japan 1945. No matter how bad it gets, Israel isn't going to nuke Gaza City and Khan Younis.
Saying Israel isn't going to nuke Gaza is rather damning with faint praise.
It's an existential battle for them like it was for us in 1945.
America was right to bomb Japan. Israel is fighting a horrific war better than we did.
You say this with some regularity. It remains bollocks. The fight against Hamas in Gaza is not an existential battle for Israel. Israel has complete military domination over Gaza. Israel is not going to cease to exist,
Here’s proof that it’s not an existential battle. Israel has diverted significant resources to bombing and invading parts of Syria despite no immediate threat and positive words wanting peace coming from the new Syrian administration. Israel has said they’ve done much of this to protect the Syrian Druze population. Were Israel really in an existential battle in Gaza, they wouldn’t have capacity to go into Syria. Israel is, if in a subtler manner than Putin, invading its neighbours for territorial gain.
The US in 1945 did not control Japan. Israel controls Gaza. They should do to Gaza what we did to West Germany: hand it back to the local population after a few years.
If we're being honest, by 1945, it wasn't existential for us or the Americans.
Not saying that makes what Israel is doing okay, but what happened at the end of WW2 was about making sure it didn't happen again.
Making sure WW2 (and WW1, the war it was hoped would end all wars) never happened again included the establishment of pan-national and global institutions such as Nato, the ECSC/EEC/EU, the Council of Europe, the ECJ, the ECHR, the ICC, the United Nations, the WTO and various other bodies which recently seem to be falling out of favour, both here and in America.
Because they're as useless as the League of Nations.
It's the same as fare-dodging. If the big boys decide they are not going to play by the rules, there's not much can be done about it.
“Honestly I am becoming radicalised by watching fully grown adults - adults - push through the ticket barriers on the tube while I pay 6 quid a day to get to and from work. This is not how a functioning good quality society is meant to work.”
“Honestly I am becoming radicalised by watching fully grown adults - adults - push through the ticket barriers on the tube while I pay 6 quid a day to get to and from work. This is not how a functioning good quality society is meant to work.”
I’ve not witnessed this. Shoplifting yes, fare-dodging no
Any other PB-ers?
Maybe it’s a London thing I’ve not witnessed it either. When I worked on the tube revenue protection were very good. What’s changed ? Cuts ?
It’s a great point. Why should I obey the rules when theirs no consequences for those who don’t
Cuts, and also de-manning. I'd guess it is psychologically easier to cheat a machine than a human.
Not just a London thing. Happens on the Metrolink. Except there are no barriers on the Met, so it doesn't appear in that way; instead, you get, for example, what I saw yesterday: when the (sporadic) revenue protection officers checked people's tickets, four teenage boys dodged them and jogged off - or last time I saw them board and ask for tickets, a woman simply blanked them until the next stop where she got off - they're not empowered, I don't think, to physically restrain people. I think the assumption is about 30-40% of journeys across the network aren't paid for. (Unless you;re on the Ashton line, in which case it appears to be close to 100% - when the RPOs get on on the Ashton line, everyone gets off.)
Netanyahu now says flat out that he will not end the war.
Hamas could end the war by surrendering unconditionally and releasing the hostages.
Netanyahu is a bad, corrupt leader who should be replaced but even broken clocks can be right. Why the hell should Israel end the war before Hamas are defeated and before the hostages are released?
Because they are engaged in a crime against humanity.
Israel had the right to wage war against Hamas, and, by extension, the Gaza territory it was the de facto government of, within the bounds of the laws of international conflict. Those bounds have been so consistently breached, and, in its blockade, so grossly breached, that it's time for the international community to act.
Put simply, Israel is not conducting a war of legitimate military action but of, at minimum, ethnic cleansing and, perhaps, extermination. The latter would certainly be the practical outcome of its current policy if continues, as appears to be the Israeli government's intention.
Time to place full sanctions on the regime, and on the country.
I agree with this but can anyone tell me if hostage taking (and murder of said hostages) is a war crime?
Yes, of course it is. So was the original Hamas attack on unarmed civilians, and the murders, rapes and other crimes that accompanied it. That formed a legitimate casus belli.
However, the war crimes of one side do not legitimise* the war crimes of the other, particularly when the other's crimes are considerably in excess of the original.
* There is a case, which I'd agree with, that when one side in a war engages in actions which are illegal but give it an advantage, as a matter of policy, then that legitimises the victim to take proportionate and equivalent actions in retaliation and/or defence. This is dodgy ground legally but it cannot be right that a victim is bound to suffer further - and potentially to lose a war - in defence of a principle that the aggressor rejects. Where is the logic in that? However, that doesn't apply to Israel/Gaza, where Israel started the war with an overwhelming military advantage, and has only increased that advantage since.
We seem to have arrived at Jan 1945. Germany (Gaza) is a ruin, and any normal state would have surrendered ages ok. But they do not. The Nazis (Hamas) have a tight stranglehold and will never surrender. How then do the Allies (Israel) win?
The losers, as always in war, are the poor bloody civilians.
Well said.
We insisted upon unconditional surrender of the Nazis to end the war. Israel should do the same and we should be a steadfast ally of theirs until that happens and make it clear the war only ends when Hamas surrenders.
The mealy-mouthed talk of peace without doing anything is the worst of both worlds falling between the stools of siding with Hamas or siding with Israel. We don't need a ceasefire, we need a victory and the end of war.
At least it's not as bad as Japan 1945. No matter how bad it gets, Israel isn't going to nuke Gaza City and Khan Younis.
Saying Israel isn't going to nuke Gaza is rather damning with faint praise.
It's an existential battle for them like it was for us in 1945.
America was right to bomb Japan. Israel is fighting a horrific war better than we did.
It’s back to proportionality, again.
80 m died in WWII, millions of them, as a result of deliberate genocide and enslavement, on the part of the Axis.
Vile though Hamas’ actions were, they do not remotely approach the crimes of Nazi Germany in scale.
So, one can’t simply apply what was appropriate in 1945 to Gaza, today. There’s no doubt to me that the IDF now views any Gazan man, woman, and child as a legitimate target.
Yes, proportionality.
Does the Hamas atrocity of Oct 23 merit the brutal collective punishment of 2m people, the vast majority of whom are non-combatants?
To answer "yes" you need to hold the view that Palestinians are not fully human in the way that "we" are, or Israelis are, or Ukrainians are.
If you don't hold that view you'll answer "no" and you won't need to agonise over it.
Quite clearly the answer is no, but the problem is what is done about it?
America should make continued support for Israel conditional on ending its barbaric behaviour.
Netanyahu now says flat out that he will not end the war.
Hamas could end the war by surrendering unconditionally and releasing the hostages.
Netanyahu is a bad, corrupt leader who should be replaced but even broken clocks can be right. Why the hell should Israel end the war before Hamas are defeated and before the hostages are released?
Because they are engaged in a crime against humanity.
Israel had the right to wage war against Hamas, and, by extension, the Gaza territory it was the de facto government of, within the bounds of the laws of international conflict. Those bounds have been so consistently breached, and, in its blockade, so grossly breached, that it's time for the international community to act.
Put simply, Israel is not conducting a war of legitimate military action but of, at minimum, ethnic cleansing and, perhaps, extermination. The latter would certainly be the practical outcome of its current policy if continues, as appears to be the Israeli government's intention.
Time to place full sanctions on the regime, and on the country.
I agree with this but can anyone tell me if hostage taking (and murder of said hostages) is a war crime?
Yes, of course it is. So was the original Hamas attack on unarmed civilians, and the murders, rapes and other crimes that accompanied it. That formed a legitimate casus belli.
However, the war crimes of one side do not legitimise* the war crimes of the other, particularly when the other's crimes are considerably in excess of the original.
* There is a case, which I'd agree with, that when one side in a war engages in actions which are illegal but give it an advantage, as a matter of policy, then that legitimises the victim to take proportionate and equivalent actions in retaliation and/or defence. This is dodgy ground legally but it cannot be right that a victim is bound to suffer further - and potentially to lose a war - in defence of a principle that the aggressor rejects. Where is the logic in that? However, that doesn't apply to Israel/Gaza, where Israel started the war with an overwhelming military advantage, and has only increased that advantage since.
We seem to have arrived at Jan 1945. Germany (Gaza) is a ruin, and any normal state would have surrendered ages ok. But they do not. The Nazis (Hamas) have a tight stranglehold and will never surrender. How then do the Allies (Israel) win?
The losers, as always in war, are the poor bloody civilians.
Well said.
We insisted upon unconditional surrender of the Nazis to end the war. Israel should do the same and we should be a steadfast ally of theirs until that happens and make it clear the war only ends when Hamas surrenders.
The mealy-mouthed talk of peace without doing anything is the worst of both worlds falling between the stools of siding with Hamas or siding with Israel. We don't need a ceasefire, we need a victory and the end of war.
At least it's not as bad as Japan 1945. No matter how bad it gets, Israel isn't going to nuke Gaza City and Khan Younis.
Saying Israel isn't going to nuke Gaza is rather damning with faint praise.
It's an existential battle for them like it was for us in 1945.
America was right to bomb Japan. Israel is fighting a horrific war better than we did.
You say this with some regularity. It remains bollocks. The fight against Hamas in Gaza is not an existential battle for Israel. Israel has complete military domination over Gaza. Israel is not going to cease to exist,
Here’s proof that it’s not an existential battle. Israel has diverted significant resources to bombing and invading parts of Syria despite no immediate threat and positive words wanting peace coming from the new Syrian administration. Israel has said they’ve done much of this to protect the Syrian Druze population. Were Israel really in an existential battle in Gaza, they wouldn’t have capacity to go into Syria. Israel is, if in a subtler manner than Putin, invading its neighbours for territorial gain.
The US in 1945 did not control Japan. Israel controls Gaza. They should do to Gaza what we did to West Germany: hand it back to the local population after a few years.
If we're being honest, by 1945, it wasn't existential for us or the Americans.
Not saying that makes what Israel is doing okay, but what happened at the end of WW2 was about making sure it didn't happen again.
Making sure WW2 (and WW1, the war it was hoped would end all wars) never happened again included the establishment of pan-national and global institutions such as Nato, the ECSC/EEC/EU, the Council of Europe, the ECJ, the ECHR, the ICC, the United Nations, the WTO and various other bodies which recently seem to be falling out of favour, both here and in America.
Because they're as useless as the League of Nations.
The track record of the UN’s contributions to world peace, while far from perfect, are clearly much better than the League’s.
Not convinced of that; the track record of nuclear weapons and mutually assured destruction is much better.
“Honestly I am becoming radicalised by watching fully grown adults - adults - push through the ticket barriers on the tube while I pay 6 quid a day to get to and from work. This is not how a functioning good quality society is meant to work.”
I’ve not witnessed this. Shoplifting yes, fare-dodging no
Any other PB-ers?
Yes, there was a road man at Basingstoke station the other day. The railway official was remonstrating with him - 'No, you ain't going through those barriers, mate! - but the road man just forced his way through the barriers and disappeared into the station. The official just stood there impotent and bashful.
Was this "road man" wearing hi vis and on the way to work at Wimpy?
Netanyahu now says flat out that he will not end the war.
Hamas could end the war by surrendering unconditionally and releasing the hostages.
Netanyahu is a bad, corrupt leader who should be replaced but even broken clocks can be right. Why the hell should Israel end the war before Hamas are defeated and before the hostages are released?
Because they are engaged in a crime against humanity.
Israel had the right to wage war against Hamas, and, by extension, the Gaza territory it was the de facto government of, within the bounds of the laws of international conflict. Those bounds have been so consistently breached, and, in its blockade, so grossly breached, that it's time for the international community to act.
Put simply, Israel is not conducting a war of legitimate military action but of, at minimum, ethnic cleansing and, perhaps, extermination. The latter would certainly be the practical outcome of its current policy if continues, as appears to be the Israeli government's intention.
Time to place full sanctions on the regime, and on the country.
I agree with this but can anyone tell me if hostage taking (and murder of said hostages) is a war crime?
Yes, of course it is. So was the original Hamas attack on unarmed civilians, and the murders, rapes and other crimes that accompanied it. That formed a legitimate casus belli.
However, the war crimes of one side do not legitimise* the war crimes of the other, particularly when the other's crimes are considerably in excess of the original.
* There is a case, which I'd agree with, that when one side in a war engages in actions which are illegal but give it an advantage, as a matter of policy, then that legitimises the victim to take proportionate and equivalent actions in retaliation and/or defence. This is dodgy ground legally but it cannot be right that a victim is bound to suffer further - and potentially to lose a war - in defence of a principle that the aggressor rejects. Where is the logic in that? However, that doesn't apply to Israel/Gaza, where Israel started the war with an overwhelming military advantage, and has only increased that advantage since.
We seem to have arrived at Jan 1945. Germany (Gaza) is a ruin, and any normal state would have surrendered ages ok. But they do not. The Nazis (Hamas) have a tight stranglehold and will never surrender. How then do the Allies (Israel) win?
The losers, as always in war, are the poor bloody civilians.
Well said.
We insisted upon unconditional surrender of the Nazis to end the war. Israel should do the same and we should be a steadfast ally of theirs until that happens and make it clear the war only ends when Hamas surrenders.
The mealy-mouthed talk of peace without doing anything is the worst of both worlds falling between the stools of siding with Hamas or siding with Israel. We don't need a ceasefire, we need a victory and the end of war.
At least it's not as bad as Japan 1945. No matter how bad it gets, Israel isn't going to nuke Gaza City and Khan Younis.
Saying Israel isn't going to nuke Gaza is rather damning with faint praise.
It's an existential battle for them like it was for us in 1945.
America was right to bomb Japan. Israel is fighting a horrific war better than we did.
It’s back to proportionality, again.
80 m died in WWII, millions of them, as a result of deliberate genocide and enslavement, on the part of the Axis.
Vile though Hamas’ actions were, they do not remotely approach the crimes of Nazi Germany in scale.
So, one can’t simply apply what was appropriate in 1945 to Gaza, today. There’s no doubt to me that the IDF now views any Gazan man, woman, and child as a legitimate target.
Yes, proportionality.
Does the Hamas atrocity of Oct 23 merit the brutal collective punishment of 2m people, the vast majority of whom are non-combatants?
To answer "yes" you need to hold the view that Palestinians are not fully human in the way that "we" are, or Israelis are, or Ukrainians are.
If you don't hold that view you'll answer "no" and you won't need to agonise over it.
No, to answer "yes" means that you understand that the enemies civilians suffer during war, which is why war should only ever be a last resort.
Especially when the enemy maximises the use of human shields.
Netanyahu now says flat out that he will not end the war.
Hamas could end the war by surrendering unconditionally and releasing the hostages.
Netanyahu is a bad, corrupt leader who should be replaced but even broken clocks can be right. Why the hell should Israel end the war before Hamas are defeated and before the hostages are released?
Because they are engaged in a crime against humanity.
Israel had the right to wage war against Hamas, and, by extension, the Gaza territory it was the de facto government of, within the bounds of the laws of international conflict. Those bounds have been so consistently breached, and, in its blockade, so grossly breached, that it's time for the international community to act.
Put simply, Israel is not conducting a war of legitimate military action but of, at minimum, ethnic cleansing and, perhaps, extermination. The latter would certainly be the practical outcome of its current policy if continues, as appears to be the Israeli government's intention.
Time to place full sanctions on the regime, and on the country.
I agree with this but can anyone tell me if hostage taking (and murder of said hostages) is a war crime?
Yes, of course it is. So was the original Hamas attack on unarmed civilians, and the murders, rapes and other crimes that accompanied it. That formed a legitimate casus belli.
However, the war crimes of one side do not legitimise* the war crimes of the other, particularly when the other's crimes are considerably in excess of the original.
* There is a case, which I'd agree with, that when one side in a war engages in actions which are illegal but give it an advantage, as a matter of policy, then that legitimises the victim to take proportionate and equivalent actions in retaliation and/or defence. This is dodgy ground legally but it cannot be right that a victim is bound to suffer further - and potentially to lose a war - in defence of a principle that the aggressor rejects. Where is the logic in that? However, that doesn't apply to Israel/Gaza, where Israel started the war with an overwhelming military advantage, and has only increased that advantage since.
We seem to have arrived at Jan 1945. Germany (Gaza) is a ruin, and any normal state would have surrendered ages ok. But they do not. The Nazis (Hamas) have a tight stranglehold and will never surrender. How then do the Allies (Israel) win?
The losers, as always in war, are the poor bloody civilians.
Well said.
We insisted upon unconditional surrender of the Nazis to end the war. Israel should do the same and we should be a steadfast ally of theirs until that happens and make it clear the war only ends when Hamas surrenders.
The mealy-mouthed talk of peace without doing anything is the worst of both worlds falling between the stools of siding with Hamas or siding with Israel. We don't need a ceasefire, we need a victory and the end of war.
At least it's not as bad as Japan 1945. No matter how bad it gets, Israel isn't going to nuke Gaza City and Khan Younis.
Saying Israel isn't going to nuke Gaza is rather damning with faint praise.
It's an existential battle for them like it was for us in 1945.
America was right to bomb Japan. Israel is fighting a horrific war better than we did.
It’s back to proportionality, again.
80 m died in WWII, millions of them, as a result of deliberate genocide and enslavement, on the part of the Axis.
Vile though Hamas’ actions were, they do not remotely approach the crimes of Nazi Germany in scale.
So, one can’t simply apply what was appropriate in 1945 to Gaza, today. There’s no doubt to me that the IDF now views any Gazan man, woman, and child as a legitimate target.
Do you not think that Hamas sees every Israeli man, woman and child as a legitimate target?
That's not the point. That Hamas holds that view, and has put that principle into practice, is what gave Israel the right to respond with war to Hamas's attack. It does not give Israel the right to react in kind.
FWIW, I don't think the IDF does "view any Gazan man, woman, and child as a legitimate target" as such: they'd have inflicted far more deaths if they did hold such a view. But. They do seem to regard any Palestinian life as irrelevant when it comes to targeting decisions, and some have certainly killed civilians deliberately. The Israeli government, however, is certainly using civilian suffering and deaths through starvation and denial of medical equipment as an illegal weapon of war.
Because they're not fighting a conventional war and Hamas deliberately maximise the use of human shields, which is yet another war crime but of Hamas not Israel.
The loss of "collateral damage" is terrible but the rule of proportionality is to minimise it where possible, not eliminate it or sacrifice legitimate military targets.
I assume you agree the head of Hamas military wing, Muhammed Sinwar is/was a legitimate target?
Israel may have got him this week, was still waiting for confirmation last I saw. That's good news, isn't it, if they have?
The problem is he was hiding at a hospital, using that as his military base. A war crime. Turning the hospital into a legitimate, military target as a result.
Thankfully it seems that Israel may have got him through the use of very targeted munitions. If they were half as evil or genocidal or heartless as they get accused of being here they could have levelled the entire building to get to him.
Netanyahu now says flat out that he will not end the war.
Hamas could end the war by surrendering unconditionally and releasing the hostages.
Netanyahu is a bad, corrupt leader who should be replaced but even broken clocks can be right. Why the hell should Israel end the war before Hamas are defeated and before the hostages are released?
Because they are not fighting a just war
Defeating Hamas and seeking the release of the hostages is just.
They should follow the rule of law while doing so, and I oppose the blockade of aid - that is a far more legitimate criticism.
But continuing the war until the aims are achieved? So long as the law is followed, that is entirely just.
A just war has a very specific definition in ethics. Go and reread your Aquinas.
Proportionality is one of the key criteria and Israel is not behaving proportionally.
I know, which is why I said they should not commit war crimes and should allow aid in.
Proportional doesn't mean a 1:1 ratio or no casualties, it means doing what is necessary but not more to achieve the aims of the war.
That is what Israel should do. Until Hamas surrender unconditionally, disarm, and release all hostages.
They tick 4 of 5 boxes for jus ad bellum (I have my doubts on “right intention”) but only 1 of 3 for jus in bello (they miss on proportionality and discrimination)
Proportionality is not a ratio: it means the use of force must be proportionate to the threat
At the very real risk of triggering John Lennon's dirge. Would it be radical to say I'm not really in favour of anyone nuking, raping, murdering or starving anyone? Thank you for your attention on this matter.
Real identity of Diane killer 'was known on estates'
The real identity of the man who brutally murdered Diane Sindall was known by people on the estates in Birkenhead, a charity set up in her memory has claimed.
Netanyahu now says flat out that he will not end the war.
Hamas could end the war by surrendering unconditionally and releasing the hostages.
Netanyahu is a bad, corrupt leader who should be replaced but even broken clocks can be right. Why the hell should Israel end the war before Hamas are defeated and before the hostages are released?
Because they are engaged in a crime against humanity.
Israel had the right to wage war against Hamas, and, by extension, the Gaza territory it was the de facto government of, within the bounds of the laws of international conflict. Those bounds have been so consistently breached, and, in its blockade, so grossly breached, that it's time for the international community to act.
Put simply, Israel is not conducting a war of legitimate military action but of, at minimum, ethnic cleansing and, perhaps, extermination. The latter would certainly be the practical outcome of its current policy if continues, as appears to be the Israeli government's intention.
Time to place full sanctions on the regime, and on the country.
I agree with this but can anyone tell me if hostage taking (and murder of said hostages) is a war crime?
Yes, of course it is. So was the original Hamas attack on unarmed civilians, and the murders, rapes and other crimes that accompanied it. That formed a legitimate casus belli.
However, the war crimes of one side do not legitimise* the war crimes of the other, particularly when the other's crimes are considerably in excess of the original.
* There is a case, which I'd agree with, that when one side in a war engages in actions which are illegal but give it an advantage, as a matter of policy, then that legitimises the victim to take proportionate and equivalent actions in retaliation and/or defence. This is dodgy ground legally but it cannot be right that a victim is bound to suffer further - and potentially to lose a war - in defence of a principle that the aggressor rejects. Where is the logic in that? However, that doesn't apply to Israel/Gaza, where Israel started the war with an overwhelming military advantage, and has only increased that advantage since.
We seem to have arrived at Jan 1945. Germany (Gaza) is a ruin, and any normal state would have surrendered ages ok. But they do not. The Nazis (Hamas) have a tight stranglehold and will never surrender. How then do the Allies (Israel) win?
The losers, as always in war, are the poor bloody civilians.
Well said.
We insisted upon unconditional surrender of the Nazis to end the war. Israel should do the same and we should be a steadfast ally of theirs until that happens and make it clear the war only ends when Hamas surrenders.
The mealy-mouthed talk of peace without doing anything is the worst of both worlds falling between the stools of siding with Hamas or siding with Israel. We don't need a ceasefire, we need a victory and the end of war.
At least it's not as bad as Japan 1945. No matter how bad it gets, Israel isn't going to nuke Gaza City and Khan Younis.
Saying Israel isn't going to nuke Gaza is rather damning with faint praise.
It's an existential battle for them like it was for us in 1945.
America was right to bomb Japan. Israel is fighting a horrific war better than we did.
It’s back to proportionality, again.
80 m died in WWII, millions of them, as a result of deliberate genocide and enslavement, on the part of the Axis.
Vile though Hamas’ actions were, they do not remotely approach the crimes of Nazi Germany in scale.
So, one can’t simply apply what was appropriate in 1945 to Gaza, today. There’s no doubt to me that the IDF now views any Gazan man, woman, and child as a legitimate target.
Yes, proportionality.
Does the Hamas atrocity of Oct 23 merit the brutal collective punishment of 2m people, the vast majority of whom are non-combatants?
To answer "yes" you need to hold the view that Palestinians are not fully human in the way that "we" are, or Israelis are, or Ukrainians are.
If you don't hold that view you'll answer "no" and you won't need to agonise over it.
Quite clearly the answer is no, but the problem is what is done about it?
America should make continued support for Israel conditional on ending its barbaric behaviour.
There are signs the White House is falling out of love with Netanyahu.
Netanyahu now says flat out that he will not end the war.
Hamas could end the war by surrendering unconditionally and releasing the hostages.
Netanyahu is a bad, corrupt leader who should be replaced but even broken clocks can be right. Why the hell should Israel end the war before Hamas are defeated and before the hostages are released?
Because they are engaged in a crime against humanity.
Israel had the right to wage war against Hamas, and, by extension, the Gaza territory it was the de facto government of, within the bounds of the laws of international conflict. Those bounds have been so consistently breached, and, in its blockade, so grossly breached, that it's time for the international community to act.
Put simply, Israel is not conducting a war of legitimate military action but of, at minimum, ethnic cleansing and, perhaps, extermination. The latter would certainly be the practical outcome of its current policy if continues, as appears to be the Israeli government's intention.
Time to place full sanctions on the regime, and on the country.
I agree with this but can anyone tell me if hostage taking (and murder of said hostages) is a war crime?
Yes, of course it is. So was the original Hamas attack on unarmed civilians, and the murders, rapes and other crimes that accompanied it. That formed a legitimate casus belli.
However, the war crimes of one side do not legitimise* the war crimes of the other, particularly when the other's crimes are considerably in excess of the original.
* There is a case, which I'd agree with, that when one side in a war engages in actions which are illegal but give it an advantage, as a matter of policy, then that legitimises the victim to take proportionate and equivalent actions in retaliation and/or defence. This is dodgy ground legally but it cannot be right that a victim is bound to suffer further - and potentially to lose a war - in defence of a principle that the aggressor rejects. Where is the logic in that? However, that doesn't apply to Israel/Gaza, where Israel started the war with an overwhelming military advantage, and has only increased that advantage since.
We seem to have arrived at Jan 1945. Germany (Gaza) is a ruin, and any normal state would have surrendered ages ok. But they do not. The Nazis (Hamas) have a tight stranglehold and will never surrender. How then do the Allies (Israel) win?
The losers, as always in war, are the poor bloody civilians.
Well said.
We insisted upon unconditional surrender of the Nazis to end the war. Israel should do the same and we should be a steadfast ally of theirs until that happens and make it clear the war only ends when Hamas surrenders.
The mealy-mouthed talk of peace without doing anything is the worst of both worlds falling between the stools of siding with Hamas or siding with Israel. We don't need a ceasefire, we need a victory and the end of war.
At least it's not as bad as Japan 1945. No matter how bad it gets, Israel isn't going to nuke Gaza City and Khan Younis.
Saying Israel isn't going to nuke Gaza is rather damning with faint praise.
It's an existential battle for them like it was for us in 1945.
America was right to bomb Japan. Israel is fighting a horrific war better than we did.
It’s back to proportionality, again.
80 m died in WWII, millions of them, as a result of deliberate genocide and enslavement, on the part of the Axis.
Vile though Hamas’ actions were, they do not remotely approach the crimes of Nazi Germany in scale.
So, one can’t simply apply what was appropriate in 1945 to Gaza, today. There’s no doubt to me that the IDF now views any Gazan man, woman, and child as a legitimate target.
Do you not think that Hamas sees every Israeli man, woman and child as a legitimate target?
That's not the point. That Hamas holds that view, and has put that principle into practice, is what gave Israel the right to respond with war to Hamas's attack. It does not give Israel the right to react in kind.
FWIW, I don't think the IDF does "view any Gazan man, woman, and child as a legitimate target" as such: they'd have inflicted far more deaths if they did hold such a view. But. They do seem to regard any Palestinian life as irrelevant when it comes to targeting decisions, and some have certainly killed civilians deliberately. The Israeli government, however, is certainly using civilian suffering and deaths through starvation and denial of medical equipment as an illegal weapon of war.
Because they're not fighting a conventional war and Hamas deliberately maximise the use of human shields, which is yet another war crime but of Hamas not Israel.
The loss of "collateral damage" is terrible but the rule of proportionality is to minimise it where possible, not eliminate it or sacrifice legitimate military targets.
I assume you agree the head of Hamas military wing, Muhammed Sinwar is/was a legitimate target?
Israel may have got him this week, was still waiting for confirmation last I saw. That's good news, isn't it, if they have?
The problem is he was hiding at a hospital, using that as his military base. A war crime. Turning the hospital into a legitimate, military target as a result.
Thankfully it seems that Israel may have got him through the use of very targeted munitions. If they were half as evil or genocidal or heartless as they get accused of being here they could have levelled the entire building to get to him.
In Barty Bobbins World is starving 2 million Palestinians to death a war crime or what victory looks like?
In my world war is hell and there's going to be a lot more suffering unless Hamas surrenders.
In my world I would like to see the innocent Palestinians getting refuge in other nearby Islamic states.
But it seems many people who normally bang on about how important refugee rights are wish to deny it to Palestinians.
It seems to me that many people care more about whether a hypothetical potential future Palestinian state ever exists than about the suffering of those Palestinians.
Netanyahu now says flat out that he will not end the war.
It's interesting just how many pro-Israeli people are condemning Israel now, when you've lost Edward Leigh you know they've gone too far, Kit Malthouse speaks for the party.
Edward Leigh(Tory MP): "I've been a member of the Conservative friends of Israel for over 40 years... when is genocide not genocide?"
Mass starvation is a savage weapon of war, which no government should resort to.
It’s not a “savage weapon of war”
It’s a war crime.
I believe it is explicitly banned under the Geneva Conventions.
It is both. And, yes, it is illegal.
One can debate allegations of genocide. But, the IDF is certainly guilty of indiscriminate mass murder.
To describe a war crime as a “weapon of war” implies that there are circumstances that it might be acceptable. That is not the case.
It seems to me that the easy part of the discussion is for most non aligned people to agree that both sides have committed war crimes. We also have no difficulty in knowing we are being systematically lied to by all sides.
The harder part comes in two questions: How should each side have acted instead? And secondly, from where we are right now, what is the process, stage by stage, which peacefully gives the best possible outcome to good people of all backgrounds wherever they currently live?
If the answer is that there is no such possible process, then violence is going to continue. But, fatally, so are war crimes. If there is no peaceful process involving real change that can be worked on, then war crimes are going to continue as the political constraints, geography and history of the region does not allow this war to be conducted, by both sides, without them.
Allowing food and medicines to be delivered to Gaza, and punishing soldiers who do stuff like murdering medics, and then lying about it, don’t seem a lot to ask for.
The first stage is that Israel should pull back to a defensive stance
Then the global community needs to obliterate Hamas. They have demonstrated they are beyond the pale. Targeted sanctions, international arrests, moral suasion.
At the same time put in an interim government into Gaza with a fuck ton of money for reconstruction. A plan for a transition to the election of a new Palestinian authority as well.
In parallel a truth and reconciliation commission for everyone except the political and military leadership.
And ultimately a single state with a consociational democratic structure, the abolition of list PR and the introduction of a German style minimum threshold for Knesset representation
Thanks. This is heavily reliant on an imaginary concept of 'the global community', identical I suppose with 'the international community' which is so often called on as the last resort to do something about something. The commentating media have a special love for it, as there is no difficulty so great that it cannot be called upon to resolve it. Sadly it doesn't exist.
Key members of the EU and the US & UK are all you need
Netanyahu now says flat out that he will not end the war.
Hamas could end the war by surrendering unconditionally and releasing the hostages.
Netanyahu is a bad, corrupt leader who should be replaced but even broken clocks can be right. Why the hell should Israel end the war before Hamas are defeated and before the hostages are released?
Because they are engaged in a crime against humanity.
Israel had the right to wage war against Hamas, and, by extension, the Gaza territory it was the de facto government of, within the bounds of the laws of international conflict. Those bounds have been so consistently breached, and, in its blockade, so grossly breached, that it's time for the international community to act.
Put simply, Israel is not conducting a war of legitimate military action but of, at minimum, ethnic cleansing and, perhaps, extermination. The latter would certainly be the practical outcome of its current policy if continues, as appears to be the Israeli government's intention.
Time to place full sanctions on the regime, and on the country.
I agree with this but can anyone tell me if hostage taking (and murder of said hostages) is a war crime?
Yes, of course it is. So was the original Hamas attack on unarmed civilians, and the murders, rapes and other crimes that accompanied it. That formed a legitimate casus belli.
However, the war crimes of one side do not legitimise* the war crimes of the other, particularly when the other's crimes are considerably in excess of the original.
* There is a case, which I'd agree with, that when one side in a war engages in actions which are illegal but give it an advantage, as a matter of policy, then that legitimises the victim to take proportionate and equivalent actions in retaliation and/or defence. This is dodgy ground legally but it cannot be right that a victim is bound to suffer further - and potentially to lose a war - in defence of a principle that the aggressor rejects. Where is the logic in that? However, that doesn't apply to Israel/Gaza, where Israel started the war with an overwhelming military advantage, and has only increased that advantage since.
We seem to have arrived at Jan 1945. Germany (Gaza) is a ruin, and any normal state would have surrendered ages ok. But they do not. The Nazis (Hamas) have a tight stranglehold and will never surrender. How then do the Allies (Israel) win?
The losers, as always in war, are the poor bloody civilians.
Well said.
We insisted upon unconditional surrender of the Nazis to end the war. Israel should do the same and we should be a steadfast ally of theirs until that happens and make it clear the war only ends when Hamas surrenders.
The mealy-mouthed talk of peace without doing anything is the worst of both worlds falling between the stools of siding with Hamas or siding with Israel. We don't need a ceasefire, we need a victory and the end of war.
At least it's not as bad as Japan 1945. No matter how bad it gets, Israel isn't going to nuke Gaza City and Khan Younis.
Saying Israel isn't going to nuke Gaza is rather damning with faint praise.
It's an existential battle for them like it was for us in 1945.
America was right to bomb Japan. Israel is fighting a horrific war better than we did.
You say this with some regularity. It remains bollocks. The fight against Hamas in Gaza is not an existential battle for Israel. Israel has complete military domination over Gaza. Israel is not going to cease to exist,
Here’s proof that it’s not an existential battle. Israel has diverted significant resources to bombing and invading parts of Syria despite no immediate threat and positive words wanting peace coming from the new Syrian administration. Israel has said they’ve done much of this to protect the Syrian Druze population. Were Israel really in an existential battle in Gaza, they wouldn’t have capacity to go into Syria. Israel is, if in a subtler manner than Putin, invading its neighbours for territorial gain.
The US in 1945 did not control Japan. Israel controls Gaza. They should do to Gaza what we did to West Germany: hand it back to the local population after a few years.
If we're being honest, by 1945, it wasn't existential for us or the Americans.
Not saying that makes what Israel is doing okay, but what happened at the end of WW2 was about making sure it didn't happen again.
Making sure WW2 (and WW1, the war it was hoped would end all wars) never happened again included the establishment of pan-national and global institutions such as Nato, the ECSC/EEC/EU, the Council of Europe, the ECJ, the ECHR, the ICC, the United Nations, the WTO and various other bodies which recently seem to be falling out of favour, both here and in America.
Because they're as useless as the League of Nations.
The track record of the UN’s contributions to world peace, while far from perfect, are clearly much better than the League’s.
Not convinced of that; the track record of nuclear weapons and mutually assured destruction is much better.
Yes, no nuclear power has gone to war since the 50s (excluding Russia, of course, and America and Britain and Israel and India and Pakistan). China maybe?
Real identity of Diane killer 'was known on estates'
The real identity of the man who brutally murdered Diane Sindall was known by people on the estates in Birkenhead, a charity set up in her memory has claimed.
At the very real risk of triggering John Lennon's dirge. Would it be radical to say I'm not really in favour of anyone nuking, raping, murdering or starving anyone? Thank you for your attention on this matter.
Would it be wrong to assume you have not met Piers Morgan yet?
Netanyahu now says flat out that he will not end the war.
Hamas could end the war by surrendering unconditionally and releasing the hostages.
Netanyahu is a bad, corrupt leader who should be replaced but even broken clocks can be right. Why the hell should Israel end the war before Hamas are defeated and before the hostages are released?
Because they are engaged in a crime against humanity.
Israel had the right to wage war against Hamas, and, by extension, the Gaza territory it was the de facto government of, within the bounds of the laws of international conflict. Those bounds have been so consistently breached, and, in its blockade, so grossly breached, that it's time for the international community to act.
Put simply, Israel is not conducting a war of legitimate military action but of, at minimum, ethnic cleansing and, perhaps, extermination. The latter would certainly be the practical outcome of its current policy if continues, as appears to be the Israeli government's intention.
Time to place full sanctions on the regime, and on the country.
I agree with this but can anyone tell me if hostage taking (and murder of said hostages) is a war crime?
Yes, of course it is. So was the original Hamas attack on unarmed civilians, and the murders, rapes and other crimes that accompanied it. That formed a legitimate casus belli.
However, the war crimes of one side do not legitimise* the war crimes of the other, particularly when the other's crimes are considerably in excess of the original.
* There is a case, which I'd agree with, that when one side in a war engages in actions which are illegal but give it an advantage, as a matter of policy, then that legitimises the victim to take proportionate and equivalent actions in retaliation and/or defence. This is dodgy ground legally but it cannot be right that a victim is bound to suffer further - and potentially to lose a war - in defence of a principle that the aggressor rejects. Where is the logic in that? However, that doesn't apply to Israel/Gaza, where Israel started the war with an overwhelming military advantage, and has only increased that advantage since.
We seem to have arrived at Jan 1945. Germany (Gaza) is a ruin, and any normal state would have surrendered ages ok. But they do not. The Nazis (Hamas) have a tight stranglehold and will never surrender. How then do the Allies (Israel) win?
The losers, as always in war, are the poor bloody civilians.
Well said.
We insisted upon unconditional surrender of the Nazis to end the war. Israel should do the same and we should be a steadfast ally of theirs until that happens and make it clear the war only ends when Hamas surrenders.
The mealy-mouthed talk of peace without doing anything is the worst of both worlds falling between the stools of siding with Hamas or siding with Israel. We don't need a ceasefire, we need a victory and the end of war.
At least it's not as bad as Japan 1945. No matter how bad it gets, Israel isn't going to nuke Gaza City and Khan Younis.
Saying Israel isn't going to nuke Gaza is rather damning with faint praise.
It's an existential battle for them like it was for us in 1945.
America was right to bomb Japan. Israel is fighting a horrific war better than we did.
It’s back to proportionality, again.
80 m died in WWII, millions of them, as a result of deliberate genocide and enslavement, on the part of the Axis.
Vile though Hamas’ actions were, they do not remotely approach the crimes of Nazi Germany in scale.
So, one can’t simply apply what was appropriate in 1945 to Gaza, today. There’s no doubt to me that the IDF now views any Gazan man, woman, and child as a legitimate target.
Do you not think that Hamas sees every Israeli man, woman and child as a legitimate target?
That's not the point. That Hamas holds that view, and has put that principle into practice, is what gave Israel the right to respond with war to Hamas's attack. It does not give Israel the right to react in kind.
FWIW, I don't think the IDF does "view any Gazan man, woman, and child as a legitimate target" as such: they'd have inflicted far more deaths if they did hold such a view. But. They do seem to regard any Palestinian life as irrelevant when it comes to targeting decisions, and some have certainly killed civilians deliberately. The Israeli government, however, is certainly using civilian suffering and deaths through starvation and denial of medical equipment as an illegal weapon of war.
Because they're not fighting a conventional war and Hamas deliberately maximise the use of human shields, which is yet another war crime but of Hamas not Israel.
The loss of "collateral damage" is terrible but the rule of proportionality is to minimise it where possible, not eliminate it or sacrifice legitimate military targets.
I assume you agree the head of Hamas military wing, Muhammed Sinwar is/was a legitimate target?
Israel may have got him this week, was still waiting for confirmation last I saw. That's good news, isn't it, if they have?
The problem is he was hiding at a hospital, using that as his military base. A war crime. Turning the hospital into a legitimate, military target as a result.
Thankfully it seems that Israel may have got him through the use of very targeted munitions. If they were half as evil or genocidal or heartless as they get accused of being here they could have levelled the entire building to get to him.
Not automatically, eg if they're getting treatment then it certainly doesn't, but your link confirms this was a legitimate target.
Do you wish to contend that the head of Hamas military wing is NOT a legitimate target?
Do you wish to contend there was any other way to realistically achieve the objective of eliminating him?
If he was using the hospital as a military base and coordinating attacks on Israel, then the hospital would be a legitimate target. I don’t know if he was or wasn’t doing that. The IDF, I believe, have claimed that, but they have repeatedly lied in this conflict.
Netanyahu now says flat out that he will not end the war.
Hamas could end the war by surrendering unconditionally and releasing the hostages.
Netanyahu is a bad, corrupt leader who should be replaced but even broken clocks can be right. Why the hell should Israel end the war before Hamas are defeated and before the hostages are released?
Because they are engaged in a crime against humanity.
Israel had the right to wage war against Hamas, and, by extension, the Gaza territory it was the de facto government of, within the bounds of the laws of international conflict. Those bounds have been so consistently breached, and, in its blockade, so grossly breached, that it's time for the international community to act.
Put simply, Israel is not conducting a war of legitimate military action but of, at minimum, ethnic cleansing and, perhaps, extermination. The latter would certainly be the practical outcome of its current policy if continues, as appears to be the Israeli government's intention.
Time to place full sanctions on the regime, and on the country.
I agree with this but can anyone tell me if hostage taking (and murder of said hostages) is a war crime?
Yes, of course it is. So was the original Hamas attack on unarmed civilians, and the murders, rapes and other crimes that accompanied it. That formed a legitimate casus belli.
However, the war crimes of one side do not legitimise* the war crimes of the other, particularly when the other's crimes are considerably in excess of the original.
* There is a case, which I'd agree with, that when one side in a war engages in actions which are illegal but give it an advantage, as a matter of policy, then that legitimises the victim to take proportionate and equivalent actions in retaliation and/or defence. This is dodgy ground legally but it cannot be right that a victim is bound to suffer further - and potentially to lose a war - in defence of a principle that the aggressor rejects. Where is the logic in that? However, that doesn't apply to Israel/Gaza, where Israel started the war with an overwhelming military advantage, and has only increased that advantage since.
We seem to have arrived at Jan 1945. Germany (Gaza) is a ruin, and any normal state would have surrendered ages ok. But they do not. The Nazis (Hamas) have a tight stranglehold and will never surrender. How then do the Allies (Israel) win?
The losers, as always in war, are the poor bloody civilians.
Well said.
We insisted upon unconditional surrender of the Nazis to end the war. Israel should do the same and we should be a steadfast ally of theirs until that happens and make it clear the war only ends when Hamas surrenders.
The mealy-mouthed talk of peace without doing anything is the worst of both worlds falling between the stools of siding with Hamas or siding with Israel. We don't need a ceasefire, we need a victory and the end of war.
At least it's not as bad as Japan 1945. No matter how bad it gets, Israel isn't going to nuke Gaza City and Khan Younis.
Saying Israel isn't going to nuke Gaza is rather damning with faint praise.
It's an existential battle for them like it was for us in 1945.
America was right to bomb Japan. Israel is fighting a horrific war better than we did.
You say this with some regularity. It remains bollocks. The fight against Hamas in Gaza is not an existential battle for Israel. Israel has complete military domination over Gaza. Israel is not going to cease to exist,
Here’s proof that it’s not an existential battle. Israel has diverted significant resources to bombing and invading parts of Syria despite no immediate threat and positive words wanting peace coming from the new Syrian administration. Israel has said they’ve done much of this to protect the Syrian Druze population. Were Israel really in an existential battle in Gaza, they wouldn’t have capacity to go into Syria. Israel is, if in a subtler manner than Putin, invading its neighbours for territorial gain.
The US in 1945 did not control Japan. Israel controls Gaza. They should do to Gaza what we did to West Germany: hand it back to the local population after a few years.
If we're being honest, by 1945, it wasn't existential for us or the Americans.
Not saying that makes what Israel is doing okay, but what happened at the end of WW2 was about making sure it didn't happen again.
Making sure WW2 (and WW1, the war it was hoped would end all wars) never happened again included the establishment of pan-national and global institutions such as Nato, the ECSC/EEC/EU, the Council of Europe, the ECJ, the ECHR, the ICC, the United Nations, the WTO and various other bodies which recently seem to be falling out of favour, both here and in America.
Because they're as useless as the League of Nations.
The track record of the UN’s contributions to world peace, while far from perfect, are clearly much better than the League’s.
Not convinced of that; the track record of nuclear weapons and mutually assured destruction is much better.
Yes, no nuclear power has gone to war since the 50s (excluding Russia, of course, and America and Britain and Israel and India and Pakistan). China maybe?
Nuclear weapons prevent the nuclear state from being invaded, not invading others who don't have nukes.
Nuclear weapons mean none of the states you name have been invaded, with the potential exception of Ukraine going into Russia's border territory during a war Russia chose to start.
The UN has done jack shit to prevent any of those wars that have happened.
Netanyahu now says flat out that he will not end the war.
Hamas could end the war by surrendering unconditionally and releasing the hostages.
Netanyahu is a bad, corrupt leader who should be replaced but even broken clocks can be right. Why the hell should Israel end the war before Hamas are defeated and before the hostages are released?
Because they are engaged in a crime against humanity.
Israel had the right to wage war against Hamas, and, by extension, the Gaza territory it was the de facto government of, within the bounds of the laws of international conflict. Those bounds have been so consistently breached, and, in its blockade, so grossly breached, that it's time for the international community to act.
Put simply, Israel is not conducting a war of legitimate military action but of, at minimum, ethnic cleansing and, perhaps, extermination. The latter would certainly be the practical outcome of its current policy if continues, as appears to be the Israeli government's intention.
Time to place full sanctions on the regime, and on the country.
I agree with this but can anyone tell me if hostage taking (and murder of said hostages) is a war crime?
Yes, of course it is. So was the original Hamas attack on unarmed civilians, and the murders, rapes and other crimes that accompanied it. That formed a legitimate casus belli.
However, the war crimes of one side do not legitimise* the war crimes of the other, particularly when the other's crimes are considerably in excess of the original.
* There is a case, which I'd agree with, that when one side in a war engages in actions which are illegal but give it an advantage, as a matter of policy, then that legitimises the victim to take proportionate and equivalent actions in retaliation and/or defence. This is dodgy ground legally but it cannot be right that a victim is bound to suffer further - and potentially to lose a war - in defence of a principle that the aggressor rejects. Where is the logic in that? However, that doesn't apply to Israel/Gaza, where Israel started the war with an overwhelming military advantage, and has only increased that advantage since.
We seem to have arrived at Jan 1945. Germany (Gaza) is a ruin, and any normal state would have surrendered ages ok. But they do not. The Nazis (Hamas) have a tight stranglehold and will never surrender. How then do the Allies (Israel) win?
The losers, as always in war, are the poor bloody civilians.
Well said.
We insisted upon unconditional surrender of the Nazis to end the war. Israel should do the same and we should be a steadfast ally of theirs until that happens and make it clear the war only ends when Hamas surrenders.
The mealy-mouthed talk of peace without doing anything is the worst of both worlds falling between the stools of siding with Hamas or siding with Israel. We don't need a ceasefire, we need a victory and the end of war.
At least it's not as bad as Japan 1945. No matter how bad it gets, Israel isn't going to nuke Gaza City and Khan Younis.
Saying Israel isn't going to nuke Gaza is rather damning with faint praise.
It's an existential battle for them like it was for us in 1945.
America was right to bomb Japan. Israel is fighting a horrific war better than we did.
It’s back to proportionality, again.
80 m died in WWII, millions of them, as a result of deliberate genocide and enslavement, on the part of the Axis.
Vile though Hamas’ actions were, they do not remotely approach the crimes of Nazi Germany in scale.
So, one can’t simply apply what was appropriate in 1945 to Gaza, today. There’s no doubt to me that the IDF now views any Gazan man, woman, and child as a legitimate target.
Do you not think that Hamas sees every Israeli man, woman and child as a legitimate target?
That's not the point. That Hamas holds that view, and has put that principle into practice, is what gave Israel the right to respond with war to Hamas's attack. It does not give Israel the right to react in kind.
FWIW, I don't think the IDF does "view any Gazan man, woman, and child as a legitimate target" as such: they'd have inflicted far more deaths if they did hold such a view. But. They do seem to regard any Palestinian life as irrelevant when it comes to targeting decisions, and some have certainly killed civilians deliberately. The Israeli government, however, is certainly using civilian suffering and deaths through starvation and denial of medical equipment as an illegal weapon of war.
Because they're not fighting a conventional war and Hamas deliberately maximise the use of human shields, which is yet another war crime but of Hamas not Israel.
The loss of "collateral damage" is terrible but the rule of proportionality is to minimise it where possible, not eliminate it or sacrifice legitimate military targets.
I assume you agree the head of Hamas military wing, Muhammed Sinwar is/was a legitimate target?
Israel may have got him this week, was still waiting for confirmation last I saw. That's good news, isn't it, if they have?
The problem is he was hiding at a hospital, using that as his military base. A war crime. Turning the hospital into a legitimate, military target as a result.
Thankfully it seems that Israel may have got him through the use of very targeted munitions. If they were half as evil or genocidal or heartless as they get accused of being here they could have levelled the entire building to get to him.
In Barty Bobbins World is starving 2 million Palestinians to death a war crime or what victory looks like?
In my world war is hell and there's going to be a lot more suffering unless Hamas surrenders.
In my world I would like to see the innocent Palestinians getting refuge in other nearby Islamic states.
But it seems many people who normally bang on about how important refugee rights are wish to deny it to Palestinians.
It seems to me that many people care more about whether a hypothetical potential future Palestinian state ever exists than about the suffering of those Palestinians.
Why do Palestinians need refuge in nearby states? Why isn’t the occupying military power looking after them?
Netanyahu now says flat out that he will not end the war.
Hamas could end the war by surrendering unconditionally and releasing the hostages.
Netanyahu is a bad, corrupt leader who should be replaced but even broken clocks can be right. Why the hell should Israel end the war before Hamas are defeated and before the hostages are released?
Because they are engaged in a crime against humanity.
Israel had the right to wage war against Hamas, and, by extension, the Gaza territory it was the de facto government of, within the bounds of the laws of international conflict. Those bounds have been so consistently breached, and, in its blockade, so grossly breached, that it's time for the international community to act.
Put simply, Israel is not conducting a war of legitimate military action but of, at minimum, ethnic cleansing and, perhaps, extermination. The latter would certainly be the practical outcome of its current policy if continues, as appears to be the Israeli government's intention.
Time to place full sanctions on the regime, and on the country.
I agree with this but can anyone tell me if hostage taking (and murder of said hostages) is a war crime?
Yes, of course it is. So was the original Hamas attack on unarmed civilians, and the murders, rapes and other crimes that accompanied it. That formed a legitimate casus belli.
However, the war crimes of one side do not legitimise* the war crimes of the other, particularly when the other's crimes are considerably in excess of the original.
* There is a case, which I'd agree with, that when one side in a war engages in actions which are illegal but give it an advantage, as a matter of policy, then that legitimises the victim to take proportionate and equivalent actions in retaliation and/or defence. This is dodgy ground legally but it cannot be right that a victim is bound to suffer further - and potentially to lose a war - in defence of a principle that the aggressor rejects. Where is the logic in that? However, that doesn't apply to Israel/Gaza, where Israel started the war with an overwhelming military advantage, and has only increased that advantage since.
We seem to have arrived at Jan 1945. Germany (Gaza) is a ruin, and any normal state would have surrendered ages ok. But they do not. The Nazis (Hamas) have a tight stranglehold and will never surrender. How then do the Allies (Israel) win?
The losers, as always in war, are the poor bloody civilians.
Well said.
We insisted upon unconditional surrender of the Nazis to end the war. Israel should do the same and we should be a steadfast ally of theirs until that happens and make it clear the war only ends when Hamas surrenders.
The mealy-mouthed talk of peace without doing anything is the worst of both worlds falling between the stools of siding with Hamas or siding with Israel. We don't need a ceasefire, we need a victory and the end of war.
At least it's not as bad as Japan 1945. No matter how bad it gets, Israel isn't going to nuke Gaza City and Khan Younis.
Saying Israel isn't going to nuke Gaza is rather damning with faint praise.
It's an existential battle for them like it was for us in 1945.
America was right to bomb Japan. Israel is fighting a horrific war better than we did.
It’s back to proportionality, again.
80 m died in WWII, millions of them, as a result of deliberate genocide and enslavement, on the part of the Axis.
Vile though Hamas’ actions were, they do not remotely approach the crimes of Nazi Germany in scale.
So, one can’t simply apply what was appropriate in 1945 to Gaza, today. There’s no doubt to me that the IDF now views any Gazan man, woman, and child as a legitimate target.
Do you not think that Hamas sees every Israeli man, woman and child as a legitimate target?
That's not the point. That Hamas holds that view, and has put that principle into practice, is what gave Israel the right to respond with war to Hamas's attack. It does not give Israel the right to react in kind.
FWIW, I don't think the IDF does "view any Gazan man, woman, and child as a legitimate target" as such: they'd have inflicted far more deaths if they did hold such a view. But. They do seem to regard any Palestinian life as irrelevant when it comes to targeting decisions, and some have certainly killed civilians deliberately. The Israeli government, however, is certainly using civilian suffering and deaths through starvation and denial of medical equipment as an illegal weapon of war.
Because they're not fighting a conventional war and Hamas deliberately maximise the use of human shields, which is yet another war crime but of Hamas not Israel.
The loss of "collateral damage" is terrible but the rule of proportionality is to minimise it where possible, not eliminate it or sacrifice legitimate military targets.
I assume you agree the head of Hamas military wing, Muhammed Sinwar is/was a legitimate target?
Israel may have got him this week, was still waiting for confirmation last I saw. That's good news, isn't it, if they have?
The problem is he was hiding at a hospital, using that as his military base. A war crime. Turning the hospital into a legitimate, military target as a result.
Thankfully it seems that Israel may have got him through the use of very targeted munitions. If they were half as evil or genocidal or heartless as they get accused of being here they could have levelled the entire building to get to him.
Not automatically, eg if they're getting treatment then it certainly doesn't, but your link confirms this was a legitimate target.
Do you wish to contend that the head of Hamas military wing is NOT a legitimate target?
Do you wish to contend there was any other way to realistically achieve the objective of eliminating him?
If he as using the hospital as a military base and coordinating attacks on Israel, then the hospital would be a legitimate target. I don’t know if he was or wasn’t doing that. The IDF, I believe, have claimed that, but they have repeatedly lied in this conflict.
Glad we can agree on something.
You're right, I'm sure he was there as a nurse and not using it as a military base with human shields . . .
Real identity of Diane killer 'was known on estates'
The real identity of the man who brutally murdered Diane Sindall was known by people on the estates in Birkenhead, a charity set up in her memory has claimed.
Netanyahu now says flat out that he will not end the war.
Hamas could end the war by surrendering unconditionally and releasing the hostages.
Netanyahu is a bad, corrupt leader who should be replaced but even broken clocks can be right. Why the hell should Israel end the war before Hamas are defeated and before the hostages are released?
Because they are engaged in a crime against humanity.
Israel had the right to wage war against Hamas, and, by extension, the Gaza territory it was the de facto government of, within the bounds of the laws of international conflict. Those bounds have been so consistently breached, and, in its blockade, so grossly breached, that it's time for the international community to act.
Put simply, Israel is not conducting a war of legitimate military action but of, at minimum, ethnic cleansing and, perhaps, extermination. The latter would certainly be the practical outcome of its current policy if continues, as appears to be the Israeli government's intention.
Time to place full sanctions on the regime, and on the country.
I agree with this but can anyone tell me if hostage taking (and murder of said hostages) is a war crime?
Yes, of course it is. So was the original Hamas attack on unarmed civilians, and the murders, rapes and other crimes that accompanied it. That formed a legitimate casus belli.
However, the war crimes of one side do not legitimise* the war crimes of the other, particularly when the other's crimes are considerably in excess of the original.
* There is a case, which I'd agree with, that when one side in a war engages in actions which are illegal but give it an advantage, as a matter of policy, then that legitimises the victim to take proportionate and equivalent actions in retaliation and/or defence. This is dodgy ground legally but it cannot be right that a victim is bound to suffer further - and potentially to lose a war - in defence of a principle that the aggressor rejects. Where is the logic in that? However, that doesn't apply to Israel/Gaza, where Israel started the war with an overwhelming military advantage, and has only increased that advantage since.
We seem to have arrived at Jan 1945. Germany (Gaza) is a ruin, and any normal state would have surrendered ages ok. But they do not. The Nazis (Hamas) have a tight stranglehold and will never surrender. How then do the Allies (Israel) win?
The losers, as always in war, are the poor bloody civilians.
Well said.
We insisted upon unconditional surrender of the Nazis to end the war. Israel should do the same and we should be a steadfast ally of theirs until that happens and make it clear the war only ends when Hamas surrenders.
The mealy-mouthed talk of peace without doing anything is the worst of both worlds falling between the stools of siding with Hamas or siding with Israel. We don't need a ceasefire, we need a victory and the end of war.
At least it's not as bad as Japan 1945. No matter how bad it gets, Israel isn't going to nuke Gaza City and Khan Younis.
Saying Israel isn't going to nuke Gaza is rather damning with faint praise.
It's an existential battle for them like it was for us in 1945.
America was right to bomb Japan. Israel is fighting a horrific war better than we did.
You say this with some regularity. It remains bollocks. The fight against Hamas in Gaza is not an existential battle for Israel. Israel has complete military domination over Gaza. Israel is not going to cease to exist,
Here’s proof that it’s not an existential battle. Israel has diverted significant resources to bombing and invading parts of Syria despite no immediate threat and positive words wanting peace coming from the new Syrian administration. Israel has said they’ve done much of this to protect the Syrian Druze population. Were Israel really in an existential battle in Gaza, they wouldn’t have capacity to go into Syria. Israel is, if in a subtler manner than Putin, invading its neighbours for territorial gain.
The US in 1945 did not control Japan. Israel controls Gaza. They should do to Gaza what we did to West Germany: hand it back to the local population after a few years.
If we're being honest, by 1945, it wasn't existential for us or the Americans.
Not saying that makes what Israel is doing okay, but what happened at the end of WW2 was about making sure it didn't happen again.
Making sure WW2 (and WW1, the war it was hoped would end all wars) never happened again included the establishment of pan-national and global institutions such as Nato, the ECSC/EEC/EU, the Council of Europe, the ECJ, the ECHR, the ICC, the United Nations, the WTO and various other bodies which recently seem to be falling out of favour, both here and in America.
Because they're as useless as the League of Nations.
The track record of the UN’s contributions to world peace, while far from perfect, are clearly much better than the League’s.
Not convinced of that; the track record of nuclear weapons and mutually assured destruction is much better.
Yes, no nuclear power has gone to war since the 50s (excluding Russia, of course, and America and Britain and Israel and India and Pakistan). China maybe?
Nuclear weapons prevent the nuclear state from being invaded, not invading others who don't have nukes.
Nuclear weapons mean none of the states you name have been invaded, with the potential exception of Ukraine going into Russia's border territory during a war Russia chose to start.
The UN has done jack shit to prevent any of those wars that have happened.
Ukraine invaded and occupied part of Russia without a nuclear response.
Netanyahu now says flat out that he will not end the war.
Hamas could end the war by surrendering unconditionally and releasing the hostages.
Netanyahu is a bad, corrupt leader who should be replaced but even broken clocks can be right. Why the hell should Israel end the war before Hamas are defeated and before the hostages are released?
Because they are engaged in a crime against humanity.
Israel had the right to wage war against Hamas, and, by extension, the Gaza territory it was the de facto government of, within the bounds of the laws of international conflict. Those bounds have been so consistently breached, and, in its blockade, so grossly breached, that it's time for the international community to act.
Put simply, Israel is not conducting a war of legitimate military action but of, at minimum, ethnic cleansing and, perhaps, extermination. The latter would certainly be the practical outcome of its current policy if continues, as appears to be the Israeli government's intention.
Time to place full sanctions on the regime, and on the country.
I agree with this but can anyone tell me if hostage taking (and murder of said hostages) is a war crime?
Yes, of course it is. So was the original Hamas attack on unarmed civilians, and the murders, rapes and other crimes that accompanied it. That formed a legitimate casus belli.
However, the war crimes of one side do not legitimise* the war crimes of the other, particularly when the other's crimes are considerably in excess of the original.
* There is a case, which I'd agree with, that when one side in a war engages in actions which are illegal but give it an advantage, as a matter of policy, then that legitimises the victim to take proportionate and equivalent actions in retaliation and/or defence. This is dodgy ground legally but it cannot be right that a victim is bound to suffer further - and potentially to lose a war - in defence of a principle that the aggressor rejects. Where is the logic in that? However, that doesn't apply to Israel/Gaza, where Israel started the war with an overwhelming military advantage, and has only increased that advantage since.
We seem to have arrived at Jan 1945. Germany (Gaza) is a ruin, and any normal state would have surrendered ages ok. But they do not. The Nazis (Hamas) have a tight stranglehold and will never surrender. How then do the Allies (Israel) win?
The losers, as always in war, are the poor bloody civilians.
Well said.
We insisted upon unconditional surrender of the Nazis to end the war. Israel should do the same and we should be a steadfast ally of theirs until that happens and make it clear the war only ends when Hamas surrenders.
The mealy-mouthed talk of peace without doing anything is the worst of both worlds falling between the stools of siding with Hamas or siding with Israel. We don't need a ceasefire, we need a victory and the end of war.
At least it's not as bad as Japan 1945. No matter how bad it gets, Israel isn't going to nuke Gaza City and Khan Younis.
Saying Israel isn't going to nuke Gaza is rather damning with faint praise.
It's an existential battle for them like it was for us in 1945.
America was right to bomb Japan. Israel is fighting a horrific war better than we did.
You say this with some regularity. It remains bollocks. The fight against Hamas in Gaza is not an existential battle for Israel. Israel has complete military domination over Gaza. Israel is not going to cease to exist,
Here’s proof that it’s not an existential battle. Israel has diverted significant resources to bombing and invading parts of Syria despite no immediate threat and positive words wanting peace coming from the new Syrian administration. Israel has said they’ve done much of this to protect the Syrian Druze population. Were Israel really in an existential battle in Gaza, they wouldn’t have capacity to go into Syria. Israel is, if in a subtler manner than Putin, invading its neighbours for territorial gain.
The US in 1945 did not control Japan. Israel controls Gaza. They should do to Gaza what we did to West Germany: hand it back to the local population after a few years.
If we're being honest, by 1945, it wasn't existential for us or the Americans.
Not saying that makes what Israel is doing okay, but what happened at the end of WW2 was about making sure it didn't happen again.
Making sure WW2 (and WW1, the war it was hoped would end all wars) never happened again included the establishment of pan-national and global institutions such as Nato, the ECSC/EEC/EU, the Council of Europe, the ECJ, the ECHR, the ICC, the United Nations, the WTO and various other bodies which recently seem to be falling out of favour, both here and in America.
Because they're as useless as the League of Nations.
The track record of the UN’s contributions to world peace, while far from perfect, are clearly much better than the League’s.
Not convinced of that; the track record of nuclear weapons and mutually assured destruction is much better.
Yes, no nuclear power has gone to war since the 50s (excluding Russia, of course, and America and Britain and Israel and India and Pakistan). China maybe?
Netanyahu now says flat out that he will not end the war.
Hamas could end the war by surrendering unconditionally and releasing the hostages.
Netanyahu is a bad, corrupt leader who should be replaced but even broken clocks can be right. Why the hell should Israel end the war before Hamas are defeated and before the hostages are released?
Because they are engaged in a crime against humanity.
Israel had the right to wage war against Hamas, and, by extension, the Gaza territory it was the de facto government of, within the bounds of the laws of international conflict. Those bounds have been so consistently breached, and, in its blockade, so grossly breached, that it's time for the international community to act.
Put simply, Israel is not conducting a war of legitimate military action but of, at minimum, ethnic cleansing and, perhaps, extermination. The latter would certainly be the practical outcome of its current policy if continues, as appears to be the Israeli government's intention.
Time to place full sanctions on the regime, and on the country.
I agree with this but can anyone tell me if hostage taking (and murder of said hostages) is a war crime?
Yes, of course it is. So was the original Hamas attack on unarmed civilians, and the murders, rapes and other crimes that accompanied it. That formed a legitimate casus belli.
However, the war crimes of one side do not legitimise* the war crimes of the other, particularly when the other's crimes are considerably in excess of the original.
* There is a case, which I'd agree with, that when one side in a war engages in actions which are illegal but give it an advantage, as a matter of policy, then that legitimises the victim to take proportionate and equivalent actions in retaliation and/or defence. This is dodgy ground legally but it cannot be right that a victim is bound to suffer further - and potentially to lose a war - in defence of a principle that the aggressor rejects. Where is the logic in that? However, that doesn't apply to Israel/Gaza, where Israel started the war with an overwhelming military advantage, and has only increased that advantage since.
We seem to have arrived at Jan 1945. Germany (Gaza) is a ruin, and any normal state would have surrendered ages ok. But they do not. The Nazis (Hamas) have a tight stranglehold and will never surrender. How then do the Allies (Israel) win?
The losers, as always in war, are the poor bloody civilians.
Well said.
We insisted upon unconditional surrender of the Nazis to end the war. Israel should do the same and we should be a steadfast ally of theirs until that happens and make it clear the war only ends when Hamas surrenders.
The mealy-mouthed talk of peace without doing anything is the worst of both worlds falling between the stools of siding with Hamas or siding with Israel. We don't need a ceasefire, we need a victory and the end of war.
At least it's not as bad as Japan 1945. No matter how bad it gets, Israel isn't going to nuke Gaza City and Khan Younis.
Saying Israel isn't going to nuke Gaza is rather damning with faint praise.
It's an existential battle for them like it was for us in 1945.
America was right to bomb Japan. Israel is fighting a horrific war better than we did.
You say this with some regularity. It remains bollocks. The fight against Hamas in Gaza is not an existential battle for Israel. Israel has complete military domination over Gaza. Israel is not going to cease to exist,
Here’s proof that it’s not an existential battle. Israel has diverted significant resources to bombing and invading parts of Syria despite no immediate threat and positive words wanting peace coming from the new Syrian administration. Israel has said they’ve done much of this to protect the Syrian Druze population. Were Israel really in an existential battle in Gaza, they wouldn’t have capacity to go into Syria. Israel is, if in a subtler manner than Putin, invading its neighbours for territorial gain.
The US in 1945 did not control Japan. Israel controls Gaza. They should do to Gaza what we did to West Germany: hand it back to the local population after a few years.
If we're being honest, by 1945, it wasn't existential for us or the Americans.
Not saying that makes what Israel is doing okay, but what happened at the end of WW2 was about making sure it didn't happen again.
Making sure WW2 (and WW1, the war it was hoped would end all wars) never happened again included the establishment of pan-national and global institutions such as Nato, the ECSC/EEC/EU, the Council of Europe, the ECJ, the ECHR, the ICC, the United Nations, the WTO and various other bodies which recently seem to be falling out of favour, both here and in America.
Because they're as useless as the League of Nations.
The track record of the UN’s contributions to world peace, while far from perfect, are clearly much better than the League’s.
Not convinced of that; the track record of nuclear weapons and mutually assured destruction is much better.
Yes, no nuclear power has gone to war since the 50s (excluding Russia, of course, and America and Britain and Israel and India and Pakistan). China maybe?
Nuclear weapons prevent the nuclear state from being invaded, not invading others who don't have nukes.
Nuclear weapons mean none of the states you name have been invaded, with the potential exception of Ukraine going into Russia's border territory during a war Russia chose to start.
The UN has done jack shit to prevent any of those wars that have happened.
Ukraine invaded and occupied part of Russia without a nuclear response.
Yes, due to a war Russia started and without threatening Moscow which is all that the Muscovite Empire of Russia actually cares about.
Ukraine did not and would not have done that unprovoked.
Had it not been for nuclear weapons there would have been a conventional war at some point between the USA and USSR/Russia. MAD prevented that, not the UN.
Netanyahu now says flat out that he will not end the war.
Hamas could end the war by surrendering unconditionally and releasing the hostages.
Netanyahu is a bad, corrupt leader who should be replaced but even broken clocks can be right. Why the hell should Israel end the war before Hamas are defeated and before the hostages are released?
Because they are engaged in a crime against humanity.
Israel had the right to wage war against Hamas, and, by extension, the Gaza territory it was the de facto government of, within the bounds of the laws of international conflict. Those bounds have been so consistently breached, and, in its blockade, so grossly breached, that it's time for the international community to act.
Put simply, Israel is not conducting a war of legitimate military action but of, at minimum, ethnic cleansing and, perhaps, extermination. The latter would certainly be the practical outcome of its current policy if continues, as appears to be the Israeli government's intention.
Time to place full sanctions on the regime, and on the country.
I agree with this but can anyone tell me if hostage taking (and murder of said hostages) is a war crime?
Yes, of course it is. So was the original Hamas attack on unarmed civilians, and the murders, rapes and other crimes that accompanied it. That formed a legitimate casus belli.
However, the war crimes of one side do not legitimise* the war crimes of the other, particularly when the other's crimes are considerably in excess of the original.
* There is a case, which I'd agree with, that when one side in a war engages in actions which are illegal but give it an advantage, as a matter of policy, then that legitimises the victim to take proportionate and equivalent actions in retaliation and/or defence. This is dodgy ground legally but it cannot be right that a victim is bound to suffer further - and potentially to lose a war - in defence of a principle that the aggressor rejects. Where is the logic in that? However, that doesn't apply to Israel/Gaza, where Israel started the war with an overwhelming military advantage, and has only increased that advantage since.
We seem to have arrived at Jan 1945. Germany (Gaza) is a ruin, and any normal state would have surrendered ages ok. But they do not. The Nazis (Hamas) have a tight stranglehold and will never surrender. How then do the Allies (Israel) win?
The losers, as always in war, are the poor bloody civilians.
Well said.
We insisted upon unconditional surrender of the Nazis to end the war. Israel should do the same and we should be a steadfast ally of theirs until that happens and make it clear the war only ends when Hamas surrenders.
The mealy-mouthed talk of peace without doing anything is the worst of both worlds falling between the stools of siding with Hamas or siding with Israel. We don't need a ceasefire, we need a victory and the end of war.
At least it's not as bad as Japan 1945. No matter how bad it gets, Israel isn't going to nuke Gaza City and Khan Younis.
Saying Israel isn't going to nuke Gaza is rather damning with faint praise.
It's an existential battle for them like it was for us in 1945.
America was right to bomb Japan. Israel is fighting a horrific war better than we did.
It’s back to proportionality, again.
80 m died in WWII, millions of them, as a result of deliberate genocide and enslavement, on the part of the Axis.
Vile though Hamas’ actions were, they do not remotely approach the crimes of Nazi Germany in scale.
So, one can’t simply apply what was appropriate in 1945 to Gaza, today. There’s no doubt to me that the IDF now views any Gazan man, woman, and child as a legitimate target.
Do you not think that Hamas sees every Israeli man, woman and child as a legitimate target?
That's not the point. That Hamas holds that view, and has put that principle into practice, is what gave Israel the right to respond with war to Hamas's attack. It does not give Israel the right to react in kind.
FWIW, I don't think the IDF does "view any Gazan man, woman, and child as a legitimate target" as such: they'd have inflicted far more deaths if they did hold such a view. But. They do seem to regard any Palestinian life as irrelevant when it comes to targeting decisions, and some have certainly killed civilians deliberately. The Israeli government, however, is certainly using civilian suffering and deaths through starvation and denial of medical equipment as an illegal weapon of war.
Because they're not fighting a conventional war and Hamas deliberately maximise the use of human shields, which is yet another war crime but of Hamas not Israel.
The loss of "collateral damage" is terrible but the rule of proportionality is to minimise it where possible, not eliminate it or sacrifice legitimate military targets.
I assume you agree the head of Hamas military wing, Muhammed Sinwar is/was a legitimate target?
Israel may have got him this week, was still waiting for confirmation last I saw. That's good news, isn't it, if they have?
The problem is he was hiding at a hospital, using that as his military base. A war crime. Turning the hospital into a legitimate, military target as a result.
Thankfully it seems that Israel may have got him through the use of very targeted munitions. If they were half as evil or genocidal or heartless as they get accused of being here they could have levelled the entire building to get to him.
Not automatically, eg if they're getting treatment then it certainly doesn't, but your link confirms this was a legitimate target.
Do you wish to contend that the head of Hamas military wing is NOT a legitimate target?
Do you wish to contend there was any other way to realistically achieve the objective of eliminating him?
If he as using the hospital as a military base and coordinating attacks on Israel, then the hospital would be a legitimate target. I don’t know if he was or wasn’t doing that. The IDF, I believe, have claimed that, but they have repeatedly lied in this conflict.
Glad we can agree on something.
You're right, I'm sure he was there as a nurse and not using it as a military base with human shields . . .
If he was just hiding there, then the hospital would not have been a legitimate target. He may just have been hiding there. I don’t know. I’m glad you agree that we can’t trust what the IDF says on the matter.
Real identity of Diane killer 'was known on estates'
The real identity of the man who brutally murdered Diane Sindall was known by people on the estates in Birkenhead, a charity set up in her memory has claimed.
Real identity of Diane killer 'was known on estates'
The real identity of the man who brutally murdered Diane Sindall was known by people on the estates in Birkenhead, a charity set up in her memory has claimed.
Read the story. It doesn't give out a strong sense of being true. Individuals protect murdering rapists. Communities don't.
I've read the story. People who were in a position to know whodunnit were also the ones who'd be intimidated by his OCG. For a start, most of them were probably his colleagues. Next you'll be complaining the Provos never offered up any murderers when they said we'd convicted the wrong people for some bomb or other.
And what could these people offer? Dear Detective Inspector, the real killer was X but I've got no evidence, it's just the word on the street.
Netanyahu now says flat out that he will not end the war.
Hamas could end the war by surrendering unconditionally and releasing the hostages.
Netanyahu is a bad, corrupt leader who should be replaced but even broken clocks can be right. Why the hell should Israel end the war before Hamas are defeated and before the hostages are released?
Because they are engaged in a crime against humanity.
Israel had the right to wage war against Hamas, and, by extension, the Gaza territory it was the de facto government of, within the bounds of the laws of international conflict. Those bounds have been so consistently breached, and, in its blockade, so grossly breached, that it's time for the international community to act.
Put simply, Israel is not conducting a war of legitimate military action but of, at minimum, ethnic cleansing and, perhaps, extermination. The latter would certainly be the practical outcome of its current policy if continues, as appears to be the Israeli government's intention.
Time to place full sanctions on the regime, and on the country.
I agree with this but can anyone tell me if hostage taking (and murder of said hostages) is a war crime?
Yes, of course it is. So was the original Hamas attack on unarmed civilians, and the murders, rapes and other crimes that accompanied it. That formed a legitimate casus belli.
However, the war crimes of one side do not legitimise* the war crimes of the other, particularly when the other's crimes are considerably in excess of the original.
* There is a case, which I'd agree with, that when one side in a war engages in actions which are illegal but give it an advantage, as a matter of policy, then that legitimises the victim to take proportionate and equivalent actions in retaliation and/or defence. This is dodgy ground legally but it cannot be right that a victim is bound to suffer further - and potentially to lose a war - in defence of a principle that the aggressor rejects. Where is the logic in that? However, that doesn't apply to Israel/Gaza, where Israel started the war with an overwhelming military advantage, and has only increased that advantage since.
We seem to have arrived at Jan 1945. Germany (Gaza) is a ruin, and any normal state would have surrendered ages ok. But they do not. The Nazis (Hamas) have a tight stranglehold and will never surrender. How then do the Allies (Israel) win?
The losers, as always in war, are the poor bloody civilians.
Well said.
We insisted upon unconditional surrender of the Nazis to end the war. Israel should do the same and we should be a steadfast ally of theirs until that happens and make it clear the war only ends when Hamas surrenders.
The mealy-mouthed talk of peace without doing anything is the worst of both worlds falling between the stools of siding with Hamas or siding with Israel. We don't need a ceasefire, we need a victory and the end of war.
At least it's not as bad as Japan 1945. No matter how bad it gets, Israel isn't going to nuke Gaza City and Khan Younis.
Saying Israel isn't going to nuke Gaza is rather damning with faint praise.
It's an existential battle for them like it was for us in 1945.
America was right to bomb Japan. Israel is fighting a horrific war better than we did.
It’s back to proportionality, again.
80 m died in WWII, millions of them, as a result of deliberate genocide and enslavement, on the part of the Axis.
Vile though Hamas’ actions were, they do not remotely approach the crimes of Nazi Germany in scale.
So, one can’t simply apply what was appropriate in 1945 to Gaza, today. There’s no doubt to me that the IDF now views any Gazan man, woman, and child as a legitimate target.
Do you not think that Hamas sees every Israeli man, woman and child as a legitimate target?
That's not the point. That Hamas holds that view, and has put that principle into practice, is what gave Israel the right to respond with war to Hamas's attack. It does not give Israel the right to react in kind.
FWIW, I don't think the IDF does "view any Gazan man, woman, and child as a legitimate target" as such: they'd have inflicted far more deaths if they did hold such a view. But. They do seem to regard any Palestinian life as irrelevant when it comes to targeting decisions, and some have certainly killed civilians deliberately. The Israeli government, however, is certainly using civilian suffering and deaths through starvation and denial of medical equipment as an illegal weapon of war.
Because they're not fighting a conventional war and Hamas deliberately maximise the use of human shields, which is yet another war crime but of Hamas not Israel.
The loss of "collateral damage" is terrible but the rule of proportionality is to minimise it where possible, not eliminate it or sacrifice legitimate military targets.
I assume you agree the head of Hamas military wing, Muhammed Sinwar is/was a legitimate target?
Israel may have got him this week, was still waiting for confirmation last I saw. That's good news, isn't it, if they have?
The problem is he was hiding at a hospital, using that as his military base. A war crime. Turning the hospital into a legitimate, military target as a result.
Thankfully it seems that Israel may have got him through the use of very targeted munitions. If they were half as evil or genocidal or heartless as they get accused of being here they could have levelled the entire building to get to him.
In Barty Bobbins World is starving 2 million Palestinians to death a war crime or what victory looks like?
In my world war is hell and there's going to be a lot more suffering unless Hamas surrenders.
In my world I would like to see the innocent Palestinians getting refuge in other nearby Islamic states.
But it seems many people who normally bang on about how important refugee rights are wish to deny it to Palestinians.
It seems to me that many people care more about whether a hypothetical potential future Palestinian state ever exists than about the suffering of those Palestinians.
Why do Palestinians need refuge in nearby states? Why isn’t the occupying military power looking after them?
Because there is an ongoing violent conflict.
If innocent Palestinians don't deserve refugee status we should just repeal the right to asylum and deny all claims going forward because clearly nobody does.
Real identity of Diane killer 'was known on estates'
The real identity of the man who brutally murdered Diane Sindall was known by people on the estates in Birkenhead, a charity set up in her memory has claimed.
Real identity of Diane killer 'was known on estates'
The real identity of the man who brutally murdered Diane Sindall was known by people on the estates in Birkenhead, a charity set up in her memory has claimed.
Why didn't any of them come forward to help get an innocent man out of prison?
Police fit up a vulnerable adult, witnesses not prepared to name the real perpetrator? If it was 1980s vintage Met then we know the most probable reason and I doubt it was any different on Merseyside.
It costs £16 to buy a one day travel card in London, and then you see multiple people barging through the barriers. No wonder people are furious. The TFL employees just stand there, watching it happen in front of their noses. I can understand why they don't challenge the criminals, in case they have weapons.
Netanyahu now says flat out that he will not end the war.
Hamas could end the war by surrendering unconditionally and releasing the hostages.
Netanyahu is a bad, corrupt leader who should be replaced but even broken clocks can be right. Why the hell should Israel end the war before Hamas are defeated and before the hostages are released?
Because they are engaged in a crime against humanity.
Israel had the right to wage war against Hamas, and, by extension, the Gaza territory it was the de facto government of, within the bounds of the laws of international conflict. Those bounds have been so consistently breached, and, in its blockade, so grossly breached, that it's time for the international community to act.
Put simply, Israel is not conducting a war of legitimate military action but of, at minimum, ethnic cleansing and, perhaps, extermination. The latter would certainly be the practical outcome of its current policy if continues, as appears to be the Israeli government's intention.
Time to place full sanctions on the regime, and on the country.
I agree with this but can anyone tell me if hostage taking (and murder of said hostages) is a war crime?
Yes, of course it is. So was the original Hamas attack on unarmed civilians, and the murders, rapes and other crimes that accompanied it. That formed a legitimate casus belli.
However, the war crimes of one side do not legitimise* the war crimes of the other, particularly when the other's crimes are considerably in excess of the original.
* There is a case, which I'd agree with, that when one side in a war engages in actions which are illegal but give it an advantage, as a matter of policy, then that legitimises the victim to take proportionate and equivalent actions in retaliation and/or defence. This is dodgy ground legally but it cannot be right that a victim is bound to suffer further - and potentially to lose a war - in defence of a principle that the aggressor rejects. Where is the logic in that? However, that doesn't apply to Israel/Gaza, where Israel started the war with an overwhelming military advantage, and has only increased that advantage since.
An overwhelming military advantage is only relevant when the fight is conventional, but this is not a conventional war.
When Hamas use hospitals as human shields and embed themselves into Gazan society as much as they can, Israel can't use its overwhelming majority advantage so the fighting is going to be riskier and at much more risk of innocent civilian casualties.
Or they could, but it would utterly flatten and wipe out the entire population. Which they could do if they wanted to, but they haven't, quite rightly as it would not be proportional.
Netanyahu now says flat out that he will not end the war.
Hamas could end the war by surrendering unconditionally and releasing the hostages.
Netanyahu is a bad, corrupt leader who should be replaced but even broken clocks can be right. Why the hell should Israel end the war before Hamas are defeated and before the hostages are released?
Because they are engaged in a crime against humanity.
Israel had the right to wage war against Hamas, and, by extension, the Gaza territory it was the de facto government of, within the bounds of the laws of international conflict. Those bounds have been so consistently breached, and, in its blockade, so grossly breached, that it's time for the international community to act.
Put simply, Israel is not conducting a war of legitimate military action but of, at minimum, ethnic cleansing and, perhaps, extermination. The latter would certainly be the practical outcome of its current policy if continues, as appears to be the Israeli government's intention.
Time to place full sanctions on the regime, and on the country.
I agree with this but can anyone tell me if hostage taking (and murder of said hostages) is a war crime?
Yes, of course it is. So was the original Hamas attack on unarmed civilians, and the murders, rapes and other crimes that accompanied it. That formed a legitimate casus belli.
However, the war crimes of one side do not legitimise* the war crimes of the other, particularly when the other's crimes are considerably in excess of the original.
* There is a case, which I'd agree with, that when one side in a war engages in actions which are illegal but give it an advantage, as a matter of policy, then that legitimises the victim to take proportionate and equivalent actions in retaliation and/or defence. This is dodgy ground legally but it cannot be right that a victim is bound to suffer further - and potentially to lose a war - in defence of a principle that the aggressor rejects. Where is the logic in that? However, that doesn't apply to Israel/Gaza, where Israel started the war with an overwhelming military advantage, and has only increased that advantage since.
We seem to have arrived at Jan 1945. Germany (Gaza) is a ruin, and any normal state would have surrendered ages ok. But they do not. The Nazis (Hamas) have a tight stranglehold and will never surrender. How then do the Allies (Israel) win?
The losers, as always in war, are the poor bloody civilians.
Well said.
We insisted upon unconditional surrender of the Nazis to end the war. Israel should do the same and we should be a steadfast ally of theirs until that happens and make it clear the war only ends when Hamas surrenders.
The mealy-mouthed talk of peace without doing anything is the worst of both worlds falling between the stools of siding with Hamas or siding with Israel. We don't need a ceasefire, we need a victory and the end of war.
At least it's not as bad as Japan 1945. No matter how bad it gets, Israel isn't going to nuke Gaza City and Khan Younis.
Saying Israel isn't going to nuke Gaza is rather damning with faint praise.
It's an existential battle for them like it was for us in 1945.
America was right to bomb Japan. Israel is fighting a horrific war better than we did.
You say this with some regularity. It remains bollocks. The fight against Hamas in Gaza is not an existential battle for Israel. Israel has complete military domination over Gaza. Israel is not going to cease to exist,
Here’s proof that it’s not an existential battle. Israel has diverted significant resources to bombing and invading parts of Syria despite no immediate threat and positive words wanting peace coming from the new Syrian administration. Israel has said they’ve done much of this to protect the Syrian Druze population. Were Israel really in an existential battle in Gaza, they wouldn’t have capacity to go into Syria. Israel is, if in a subtler manner than Putin, invading its neighbours for territorial gain.
The US in 1945 did not control Japan. Israel controls Gaza. They should do to Gaza what we did to West Germany: hand it back to the local population after a few years.
If we're being honest, by 1945, it wasn't existential for us or the Americans.
Not saying that makes what Israel is doing okay, but what happened at the end of WW2 was about making sure it didn't happen again.
Making sure it didn't happen again meant it *was* existential given what 'again' would entail.
In any case, there was no realistic possibility of ending the war with anything other than total German surrender by that point anyway.
Real identity of Diane killer 'was known on estates'
The real identity of the man who brutally murdered Diane Sindall was known by people on the estates in Birkenhead, a charity set up in her memory has claimed.
Why didn't any of them come forward to help get an innocent man out of prison?
They did come forward. They told the charity that the wrong man was convicted. Even if they knew the real killer's name, they had no evidence.
Should be easy to tell if the story is true. If it was someone will come forward now given the police have DNA and are looking for a match, and lots of people will have moved away from the area over the course of 4 decades. They don't need to give evidence just a name.
Netanyahu now says flat out that he will not end the war.
Hamas could end the war by surrendering unconditionally and releasing the hostages.
Netanyahu is a bad, corrupt leader who should be replaced but even broken clocks can be right. Why the hell should Israel end the war before Hamas are defeated and before the hostages are released?
Because they are engaged in a crime against humanity.
Israel had the right to wage war against Hamas, and, by extension, the Gaza territory it was the de facto government of, within the bounds of the laws of international conflict. Those bounds have been so consistently breached, and, in its blockade, so grossly breached, that it's time for the international community to act.
Put simply, Israel is not conducting a war of legitimate military action but of, at minimum, ethnic cleansing and, perhaps, extermination. The latter would certainly be the practical outcome of its current policy if continues, as appears to be the Israeli government's intention.
Time to place full sanctions on the regime, and on the country.
I agree with this but can anyone tell me if hostage taking (and murder of said hostages) is a war crime?
Yes, of course it is. So was the original Hamas attack on unarmed civilians, and the murders, rapes and other crimes that accompanied it. That formed a legitimate casus belli.
However, the war crimes of one side do not legitimise* the war crimes of the other, particularly when the other's crimes are considerably in excess of the original.
* There is a case, which I'd agree with, that when one side in a war engages in actions which are illegal but give it an advantage, as a matter of policy, then that legitimises the victim to take proportionate and equivalent actions in retaliation and/or defence. This is dodgy ground legally but it cannot be right that a victim is bound to suffer further - and potentially to lose a war - in defence of a principle that the aggressor rejects. Where is the logic in that? However, that doesn't apply to Israel/Gaza, where Israel started the war with an overwhelming military advantage, and has only increased that advantage since.
We seem to have arrived at Jan 1945. Germany (Gaza) is a ruin, and any normal state would have surrendered ages ok. But they do not. The Nazis (Hamas) have a tight stranglehold and will never surrender. How then do the Allies (Israel) win?
The losers, as always in war, are the poor bloody civilians.
Well said.
We insisted upon unconditional surrender of the Nazis to end the war. Israel should do the same and we should be a steadfast ally of theirs until that happens and make it clear the war only ends when Hamas surrenders.
The mealy-mouthed talk of peace without doing anything is the worst of both worlds falling between the stools of siding with Hamas or siding with Israel. We don't need a ceasefire, we need a victory and the end of war.
At least it's not as bad as Japan 1945. No matter how bad it gets, Israel isn't going to nuke Gaza City and Khan Younis.
Saying Israel isn't going to nuke Gaza is rather damning with faint praise.
It's an existential battle for them like it was for us in 1945.
America was right to bomb Japan. Israel is fighting a horrific war better than we did.
You say this with some regularity. It remains bollocks. The fight against Hamas in Gaza is not an existential battle for Israel. Israel has complete military domination over Gaza. Israel is not going to cease to exist,
Here’s proof that it’s not an existential battle. Israel has diverted significant resources to bombing and invading parts of Syria despite no immediate threat and positive words wanting peace coming from the new Syrian administration. Israel has said they’ve done much of this to protect the Syrian Druze population. Were Israel really in an existential battle in Gaza, they wouldn’t have capacity to go into Syria. Israel is, if in a subtler manner than Putin, invading its neighbours for territorial gain.
The US in 1945 did not control Japan. Israel controls Gaza. They should do to Gaza what we did to West Germany: hand it back to the local population after a few years.
If we're being honest, by 1945, it wasn't existential for us or the Americans.
Not saying that makes what Israel is doing okay, but what happened at the end of WW2 was about making sure it didn't happen again.
Making sure it didn't happen again meant it *was* existential given what 'again' would entail.
In any case, there was no realistic possibility of ending the war with anything other than total German surrender by that point anyway.
Indeed.
And Israel is in the same existential conflict with Hamas.
Hamas need to surrender unconditionally, just as the Nazis did.
Real identity of Diane killer 'was known on estates'
The real identity of the man who brutally murdered Diane Sindall was known by people on the estates in Birkenhead, a charity set up in her memory has claimed.
Netanyahu now says flat out that he will not end the war.
Hamas could end the war by surrendering unconditionally and releasing the hostages.
Netanyahu is a bad, corrupt leader who should be replaced but even broken clocks can be right. Why the hell should Israel end the war before Hamas are defeated and before the hostages are released?
Because they are engaged in a crime against humanity.
Israel had the right to wage war against Hamas, and, by extension, the Gaza territory it was the de facto government of, within the bounds of the laws of international conflict. Those bounds have been so consistently breached, and, in its blockade, so grossly breached, that it's time for the international community to act.
Put simply, Israel is not conducting a war of legitimate military action but of, at minimum, ethnic cleansing and, perhaps, extermination. The latter would certainly be the practical outcome of its current policy if continues, as appears to be the Israeli government's intention.
Time to place full sanctions on the regime, and on the country.
I agree with this but can anyone tell me if hostage taking (and murder of said hostages) is a war crime?
Yes, of course it is. So was the original Hamas attack on unarmed civilians, and the murders, rapes and other crimes that accompanied it. That formed a legitimate casus belli.
However, the war crimes of one side do not legitimise* the war crimes of the other, particularly when the other's crimes are considerably in excess of the original.
* There is a case, which I'd agree with, that when one side in a war engages in actions which are illegal but give it an advantage, as a matter of policy, then that legitimises the victim to take proportionate and equivalent actions in retaliation and/or defence. This is dodgy ground legally but it cannot be right that a victim is bound to suffer further - and potentially to lose a war - in defence of a principle that the aggressor rejects. Where is the logic in that? However, that doesn't apply to Israel/Gaza, where Israel started the war with an overwhelming military advantage, and has only increased that advantage since.
We seem to have arrived at Jan 1945. Germany (Gaza) is a ruin, and any normal state would have surrendered ages ok. But they do not. The Nazis (Hamas) have a tight stranglehold and will never surrender. How then do the Allies (Israel) win?
The losers, as always in war, are the poor bloody civilians.
Well said.
We insisted upon unconditional surrender of the Nazis to end the war. Israel should do the same and we should be a steadfast ally of theirs until that happens and make it clear the war only ends when Hamas surrenders.
The mealy-mouthed talk of peace without doing anything is the worst of both worlds falling between the stools of siding with Hamas or siding with Israel. We don't need a ceasefire, we need a victory and the end of war.
At least it's not as bad as Japan 1945. No matter how bad it gets, Israel isn't going to nuke Gaza City and Khan Younis.
Saying Israel isn't going to nuke Gaza is rather damning with faint praise.
It's an existential battle for them like it was for us in 1945.
America was right to bomb Japan. Israel is fighting a horrific war better than we did.
You say this with some regularity. It remains bollocks. The fight against Hamas in Gaza is not an existential battle for Israel. Israel has complete military domination over Gaza. Israel is not going to cease to exist,
Here’s proof that it’s not an existential battle. Israel has diverted significant resources to bombing and invading parts of Syria despite no immediate threat and positive words wanting peace coming from the new Syrian administration. Israel has said they’ve done much of this to protect the Syrian Druze population. Were Israel really in an existential battle in Gaza, they wouldn’t have capacity to go into Syria. Israel is, if in a subtler manner than Putin, invading its neighbours for territorial gain.
The US in 1945 did not control Japan. Israel controls Gaza. They should do to Gaza what we did to West Germany: hand it back to the local population after a few years.
If we're being honest, by 1945, it wasn't existential for us or the Americans.
Not saying that makes what Israel is doing okay, but what happened at the end of WW2 was about making sure it didn't happen again.
Making sure WW2 (and WW1, the war it was hoped would end all wars) never happened again included the establishment of pan-national and global institutions such as Nato, the ECSC/EEC/EU, the Council of Europe, the ECJ, the ECHR, the ICC, the United Nations, the WTO and various other bodies which recently seem to be falling out of favour, both here and in America.
Because they're as useless as the League of Nations.
The track record of the UN’s contributions to world peace, while far from perfect, are clearly much better than the League’s.
Not convinced of that; the track record of nuclear weapons and mutually assured destruction is much better.
Yes, no nuclear power has gone to war since the 50s (excluding Russia, of course, and America and Britain and Israel and India and Pakistan). China maybe?
Nuclear weapons prevent the nuclear state from being invaded, not invading others who don't have nukes.
Nuclear weapons mean none of the states you name have been invaded, with the potential exception of Ukraine going into Russia's border territory during a war Russia chose to start.
The UN has done jack shit to prevent any of those wars that have happened.
“Honestly I am becoming radicalised by watching fully grown adults - adults - push through the ticket barriers on the tube while I pay 6 quid a day to get to and from work. This is not how a functioning good quality society is meant to work.”
Netanyahu now says flat out that he will not end the war.
Hamas could end the war by surrendering unconditionally and releasing the hostages.
Netanyahu is a bad, corrupt leader who should be replaced but even broken clocks can be right. Why the hell should Israel end the war before Hamas are defeated and before the hostages are released?
Because they are engaged in a crime against humanity.
Israel had the right to wage war against Hamas, and, by extension, the Gaza territory it was the de facto government of, within the bounds of the laws of international conflict. Those bounds have been so consistently breached, and, in its blockade, so grossly breached, that it's time for the international community to act.
Put simply, Israel is not conducting a war of legitimate military action but of, at minimum, ethnic cleansing and, perhaps, extermination. The latter would certainly be the practical outcome of its current policy if continues, as appears to be the Israeli government's intention.
Time to place full sanctions on the regime, and on the country.
I agree with this but can anyone tell me if hostage taking (and murder of said hostages) is a war crime?
Yes, of course it is. So was the original Hamas attack on unarmed civilians, and the murders, rapes and other crimes that accompanied it. That formed a legitimate casus belli.
However, the war crimes of one side do not legitimise* the war crimes of the other, particularly when the other's crimes are considerably in excess of the original.
* There is a case, which I'd agree with, that when one side in a war engages in actions which are illegal but give it an advantage, as a matter of policy, then that legitimises the victim to take proportionate and equivalent actions in retaliation and/or defence. This is dodgy ground legally but it cannot be right that a victim is bound to suffer further - and potentially to lose a war - in defence of a principle that the aggressor rejects. Where is the logic in that? However, that doesn't apply to Israel/Gaza, where Israel started the war with an overwhelming military advantage, and has only increased that advantage since.
An overwhelming military advantage is only relevant when the fight is conventional, but this is not a conventional war.
When Hamas use hospitals as human shields and embed themselves into Gazan society as much as they can, Israel can't use its overwhelming majority advantage so the fighting is going to be riskier and at much more risk of innocent civilian casualties.
Or they could, but it would utterly flatten and wipe out the entire population. Which they could do if they wanted to, but they haven't, quite rightly as it would not be proportional.
Yes they could and it would be genocide but what could/will the world do about it?
Netanyahu now says flat out that he will not end the war.
Hamas could end the war by surrendering unconditionally and releasing the hostages.
Netanyahu is a bad, corrupt leader who should be replaced but even broken clocks can be right. Why the hell should Israel end the war before Hamas are defeated and before the hostages are released?
Because they are engaged in a crime against humanity.
Israel had the right to wage war against Hamas, and, by extension, the Gaza territory it was the de facto government of, within the bounds of the laws of international conflict. Those bounds have been so consistently breached, and, in its blockade, so grossly breached, that it's time for the international community to act.
Put simply, Israel is not conducting a war of legitimate military action but of, at minimum, ethnic cleansing and, perhaps, extermination. The latter would certainly be the practical outcome of its current policy if continues, as appears to be the Israeli government's intention.
Time to place full sanctions on the regime, and on the country.
I agree with this but can anyone tell me if hostage taking (and murder of said hostages) is a war crime?
Yes, of course it is. So was the original Hamas attack on unarmed civilians, and the murders, rapes and other crimes that accompanied it. That formed a legitimate casus belli.
However, the war crimes of one side do not legitimise* the war crimes of the other, particularly when the other's crimes are considerably in excess of the original.
* There is a case, which I'd agree with, that when one side in a war engages in actions which are illegal but give it an advantage, as a matter of policy, then that legitimises the victim to take proportionate and equivalent actions in retaliation and/or defence. This is dodgy ground legally but it cannot be right that a victim is bound to suffer further - and potentially to lose a war - in defence of a principle that the aggressor rejects. Where is the logic in that? However, that doesn't apply to Israel/Gaza, where Israel started the war with an overwhelming military advantage, and has only increased that advantage since.
We seem to have arrived at Jan 1945. Germany (Gaza) is a ruin, and any normal state would have surrendered ages ok. But they do not. The Nazis (Hamas) have a tight stranglehold and will never surrender. How then do the Allies (Israel) win?
The losers, as always in war, are the poor bloody civilians.
Well said.
We insisted upon unconditional surrender of the Nazis to end the war. Israel should do the same and we should be a steadfast ally of theirs until that happens and make it clear the war only ends when Hamas surrenders.
The mealy-mouthed talk of peace without doing anything is the worst of both worlds falling between the stools of siding with Hamas or siding with Israel. We don't need a ceasefire, we need a victory and the end of war.
At least it's not as bad as Japan 1945. No matter how bad it gets, Israel isn't going to nuke Gaza City and Khan Younis.
Saying Israel isn't going to nuke Gaza is rather damning with faint praise.
It's an existential battle for them like it was for us in 1945.
America was right to bomb Japan. Israel is fighting a horrific war better than we did.
You say this with some regularity. It remains bollocks. The fight against Hamas in Gaza is not an existential battle for Israel. Israel has complete military domination over Gaza. Israel is not going to cease to exist,
Here’s proof that it’s not an existential battle. Israel has diverted significant resources to bombing and invading parts of Syria despite no immediate threat and positive words wanting peace coming from the new Syrian administration. Israel has said they’ve done much of this to protect the Syrian Druze population. Were Israel really in an existential battle in Gaza, they wouldn’t have capacity to go into Syria. Israel is, if in a subtler manner than Putin, invading its neighbours for territorial gain.
The US in 1945 did not control Japan. Israel controls Gaza. They should do to Gaza what we did to West Germany: hand it back to the local population after a few years.
If we're being honest, by 1945, it wasn't existential for us or the Americans.
Not saying that makes what Israel is doing okay, but what happened at the end of WW2 was about making sure it didn't happen again.
Making sure WW2 (and WW1, the war it was hoped would end all wars) never happened again included the establishment of pan-national and global institutions such as Nato, the ECSC/EEC/EU, the Council of Europe, the ECJ, the ECHR, the ICC, the United Nations, the WTO and various other bodies which recently seem to be falling out of favour, both here and in America.
Because they're as useless as the League of Nations.
The track record of the UN’s contributions to world peace, while far from perfect, are clearly much better than the League’s.
Not convinced of that; the track record of nuclear weapons and mutually assured destruction is much better.
Yes, no nuclear power has gone to war since the 50s (excluding Russia, of course, and America and Britain and Israel and India and Pakistan). China maybe?
Nuclear weapons prevent the nuclear state from being invaded, not invading others who don't have nukes.
Nuclear weapons mean none of the states you name have been invaded, with the potential exception of Ukraine going into Russia's border territory during a war Russia chose to start.
The UN has done jack shit to prevent any of those wars that have happened.
Invasions of countries with nuclear weapons:
Yom Kippur War, 1973 Argentine invasion of the Falklands, 1982 Siachen conflict, 1984 Kargil War, 1999 October 7 Hamas attack on Israel, 2023
Netanyahu now says flat out that he will not end the war.
Hamas could end the war by surrendering unconditionally and releasing the hostages.
Netanyahu is a bad, corrupt leader who should be replaced but even broken clocks can be right. Why the hell should Israel end the war before Hamas are defeated and before the hostages are released?
Because they are engaged in a crime against humanity.
Israel had the right to wage war against Hamas, and, by extension, the Gaza territory it was the de facto government of, within the bounds of the laws of international conflict. Those bounds have been so consistently breached, and, in its blockade, so grossly breached, that it's time for the international community to act.
Put simply, Israel is not conducting a war of legitimate military action but of, at minimum, ethnic cleansing and, perhaps, extermination. The latter would certainly be the practical outcome of its current policy if continues, as appears to be the Israeli government's intention.
Time to place full sanctions on the regime, and on the country.
I agree with this but can anyone tell me if hostage taking (and murder of said hostages) is a war crime?
Yes, of course it is. So was the original Hamas attack on unarmed civilians, and the murders, rapes and other crimes that accompanied it. That formed a legitimate casus belli.
However, the war crimes of one side do not legitimise* the war crimes of the other, particularly when the other's crimes are considerably in excess of the original.
* There is a case, which I'd agree with, that when one side in a war engages in actions which are illegal but give it an advantage, as a matter of policy, then that legitimises the victim to take proportionate and equivalent actions in retaliation and/or defence. This is dodgy ground legally but it cannot be right that a victim is bound to suffer further - and potentially to lose a war - in defence of a principle that the aggressor rejects. Where is the logic in that? However, that doesn't apply to Israel/Gaza, where Israel started the war with an overwhelming military advantage, and has only increased that advantage since.
We seem to have arrived at Jan 1945. Germany (Gaza) is a ruin, and any normal state would have surrendered ages ok. But they do not. The Nazis (Hamas) have a tight stranglehold and will never surrender. How then do the Allies (Israel) win?
The losers, as always in war, are the poor bloody civilians.
Well said.
We insisted upon unconditional surrender of the Nazis to end the war. Israel should do the same and we should be a steadfast ally of theirs until that happens and make it clear the war only ends when Hamas surrenders.
The mealy-mouthed talk of peace without doing anything is the worst of both worlds falling between the stools of siding with Hamas or siding with Israel. We don't need a ceasefire, we need a victory and the end of war.
At least it's not as bad as Japan 1945. No matter how bad it gets, Israel isn't going to nuke Gaza City and Khan Younis.
Saying Israel isn't going to nuke Gaza is rather damning with faint praise.
It's an existential battle for them like it was for us in 1945.
America was right to bomb Japan. Israel is fighting a horrific war better than we did.
You say this with some regularity. It remains bollocks. The fight against Hamas in Gaza is not an existential battle for Israel. Israel has complete military domination over Gaza. Israel is not going to cease to exist,
Here’s proof that it’s not an existential battle. Israel has diverted significant resources to bombing and invading parts of Syria despite no immediate threat and positive words wanting peace coming from the new Syrian administration. Israel has said they’ve done much of this to protect the Syrian Druze population. Were Israel really in an existential battle in Gaza, they wouldn’t have capacity to go into Syria. Israel is, if in a subtler manner than Putin, invading its neighbours for territorial gain.
The US in 1945 did not control Japan. Israel controls Gaza. They should do to Gaza what we did to West Germany: hand it back to the local population after a few years.
If we're being honest, by 1945, it wasn't existential for us or the Americans.
Not saying that makes what Israel is doing okay, but what happened at the end of WW2 was about making sure it didn't happen again.
Making sure it didn't happen again meant it *was* existential given what 'again' would entail.
In any case, there was no realistic possibility of ending the war with anything other than total German surrender by that point anyway.
Indeed.
And Israel is in the same existential conflict with Hamas.
Hamas need to surrender unconditionally, just as the Nazis did.
Did we achieve peace in Northern Ireland by requiring the IRA to surrender unconditionally?
Netanyahu now says flat out that he will not end the war.
Hamas could end the war by surrendering unconditionally and releasing the hostages.
Netanyahu is a bad, corrupt leader who should be replaced but even broken clocks can be right. Why the hell should Israel end the war before Hamas are defeated and before the hostages are released?
Because they are engaged in a crime against humanity.
Israel had the right to wage war against Hamas, and, by extension, the Gaza territory it was the de facto government of, within the bounds of the laws of international conflict. Those bounds have been so consistently breached, and, in its blockade, so grossly breached, that it's time for the international community to act.
Put simply, Israel is not conducting a war of legitimate military action but of, at minimum, ethnic cleansing and, perhaps, extermination. The latter would certainly be the practical outcome of its current policy if continues, as appears to be the Israeli government's intention.
Time to place full sanctions on the regime, and on the country.
I agree with this but can anyone tell me if hostage taking (and murder of said hostages) is a war crime?
Yes, of course it is. So was the original Hamas attack on unarmed civilians, and the murders, rapes and other crimes that accompanied it. That formed a legitimate casus belli.
However, the war crimes of one side do not legitimise* the war crimes of the other, particularly when the other's crimes are considerably in excess of the original.
* There is a case, which I'd agree with, that when one side in a war engages in actions which are illegal but give it an advantage, as a matter of policy, then that legitimises the victim to take proportionate and equivalent actions in retaliation and/or defence. This is dodgy ground legally but it cannot be right that a victim is bound to suffer further - and potentially to lose a war - in defence of a principle that the aggressor rejects. Where is the logic in that? However, that doesn't apply to Israel/Gaza, where Israel started the war with an overwhelming military advantage, and has only increased that advantage since.
We seem to have arrived at Jan 1945. Germany (Gaza) is a ruin, and any normal state would have surrendered ages ok. But they do not. The Nazis (Hamas) have a tight stranglehold and will never surrender. How then do the Allies (Israel) win?
The losers, as always in war, are the poor bloody civilians.
Well said.
We insisted upon unconditional surrender of the Nazis to end the war. Israel should do the same and we should be a steadfast ally of theirs until that happens and make it clear the war only ends when Hamas surrenders.
The mealy-mouthed talk of peace without doing anything is the worst of both worlds falling between the stools of siding with Hamas or siding with Israel. We don't need a ceasefire, we need a victory and the end of war.
At least it's not as bad as Japan 1945. No matter how bad it gets, Israel isn't going to nuke Gaza City and Khan Younis.
Saying Israel isn't going to nuke Gaza is rather damning with faint praise.
It's an existential battle for them like it was for us in 1945.
America was right to bomb Japan. Israel is fighting a horrific war better than we did.
It’s back to proportionality, again.
80 m died in WWII, millions of them, as a result of deliberate genocide and enslavement, on the part of the Axis.
Vile though Hamas’ actions were, they do not remotely approach the crimes of Nazi Germany in scale.
So, one can’t simply apply what was appropriate in 1945 to Gaza, today. There’s no doubt to me that the IDF now views any Gazan man, woman, and child as a legitimate target.
Do you not think that Hamas sees every Israeli man, woman and child as a legitimate target?
That's not the point. That Hamas holds that view, and has put that principle into practice, is what gave Israel the right to respond with war to Hamas's attack. It does not give Israel the right to react in kind.
FWIW, I don't think the IDF does "view any Gazan man, woman, and child as a legitimate target" as such: they'd have inflicted far more deaths if they did hold such a view. But. They do seem to regard any Palestinian life as irrelevant when it comes to targeting decisions, and some have certainly killed civilians deliberately. The Israeli government, however, is certainly using civilian suffering and deaths through starvation and denial of medical equipment as an illegal weapon of war.
Because they're not fighting a conventional war and Hamas deliberately maximise the use of human shields, which is yet another war crime but of Hamas not Israel.
The loss of "collateral damage" is terrible but the rule of proportionality is to minimise it where possible, not eliminate it or sacrifice legitimate military targets.
I assume you agree the head of Hamas military wing, Muhammed Sinwar is/was a legitimate target?
Israel may have got him this week, was still waiting for confirmation last I saw. That's good news, isn't it, if they have?
The problem is he was hiding at a hospital, using that as his military base. A war crime. Turning the hospital into a legitimate, military target as a result.
Thankfully it seems that Israel may have got him through the use of very targeted munitions. If they were half as evil or genocidal or heartless as they get accused of being here they could have levelled the entire building to get to him.
In Barty Bobbins World is starving 2 million Palestinians to death a war crime or what victory looks like?
In my world war is hell and there's going to be a lot more suffering unless Hamas surrenders.
In my world I would like to see the innocent Palestinians getting refuge in other nearby Islamic states.
But it seems many people who normally bang on about how important refugee rights are wish to deny it to Palestinians.
It seems to me that many people care more about whether a hypothetical potential future Palestinian state ever exists than about the suffering of those Palestinians.
Why do Palestinians need refuge in nearby states? Why isn’t the occupying military power looking after them?
Because there is an ongoing violent conflict.
If innocent Palestinians don't deserve refugee status we should just repeal the right to asylum and deny all claims going forward because clearly nobody does.
So there we have it, BR preference is for ethnic cleansing by displacement but if not, regrettably, "collateral damage" is justifiable (ethnic cleansing by death). Which does appear to be the official policy.
It costs £16 to buy a one day travel card in London, and then you see multiple people barging through the barriers. No wonder people are furious. The TFL employees just stand there, watching it happen in front of their noses. I can understand why they don't challenge the criminals, in case they have weapons.
Indeed. It’s an obvious and dangerous erosion of the social contract. Why should ANYONE be law abiding - and pay their fares, and buy their shopping - when they daily see people blatantly dodging the costs of both and the state refusing to act
This is broken windows theory. It’s true and it’s obvious. If Starmer wants a second term he needs to get to grips with this. Scuzz Nation. The petty crime and the litter. The graffiti and the grift
It’s also relatively low hanging fruit in our difficult times. Change the law so that fare dodgers and shoplifters face hefty punishment and they can be stopped with force. Make an example of several hundred of them - this is, after all, what Starmer did with several hundred post Southport protestors. This is what he’s good at
Guaranteed people will stop once they see that doing it can be extremely painful
This alone could lift Starmer by 5 points in the polls over a few years
Real identity of Diane killer 'was known on estates'
The real identity of the man who brutally murdered Diane Sindall was known by people on the estates in Birkenhead, a charity set up in her memory has claimed.
Why didn't any of them come forward to help get an innocent man out of prison?
They did come forward. They told the charity that the wrong man was convicted. Even if they knew the real killer's name, they had no evidence.
Should be easy to tell if the story is true. If it was someone will come forward now given the police have DNA and are looking for a match, and lots of people will have moved away from the area over the course of 4 decades. They don't need to give evidence just a name.
If what story is true? The story that the wrong man had been convicted seems to be true.
It costs £16 to buy a one day travel card in London, and then you see multiple people barging through the barriers. No wonder people are furious. The TFL employees just stand there, watching it happen in front of their noses. I can understand why they don't challenge the criminals, in case they have weapons.
I never pay on the rare occasions I travel on the underground. Nobody cares. Nobody gives a shit.
Real identity of Diane killer 'was known on estates'
The real identity of the man who brutally murdered Diane Sindall was known by people on the estates in Birkenhead, a charity set up in her memory has claimed.
Why didn't any of them come forward to help get an innocent man out of prison?
They did come forward. They told the charity that the wrong man was convicted. Even if they knew the real killer's name, they had no evidence.
Should be easy to tell if the story is true. If it was someone will come forward now given the police have DNA and are looking for a match, and lots of people will have moved away from the area over the course of 4 decades. They don't need to give evidence just a name.
If what story is true? The story that the wrong man had been convicted seems to be true.
That locals know who did it. Some of them will be ex locals and just need to provide a name for a DNA match, not evidence.
FFS is it possible to turn on the news without seeing Trump.
No one gives a flying fxck what he’s doing in the Middle East .
What Trump is doing in the Middle East is even more important than the Eurovision semifinals. He is contributing towards world peace, and also taking a massive bung. So pro- or anti-Trump, this really does matter.
This is the Dublin Agreement nonsense again. It's been explained to you multiple times.
And Chris Philp has explained it to you again just yesterday.
As an aside. The current Government is struggling to renegotiate post 2026 fishing quotas with the EU. We apparently want a better deal than Johnson and Frost negotiated. Nigel Farage was on the EU Fishing Committee. Of the 42 meetings he could have attended on his pet subject of fishing quotas, he attended ONE!
It expires. France wants it extended. There’s nothing to renegotiate unless they offer us value in return.
It costs £16 to buy a one day travel card in London, and then you see multiple people barging through the barriers. No wonder people are furious. The TFL employees just stand there, watching it happen in front of their noses. I can understand why they don't challenge the criminals, in case they have weapons.
I never pay on the rare occasions I travel on the underground. Nobody cares. Nobody gives a shit.
As long as you don't get in the front and drive happy to give you a pass here......
Netanyahu now says flat out that he will not end the war.
Hamas could end the war by surrendering unconditionally and releasing the hostages.
Netanyahu is a bad, corrupt leader who should be replaced but even broken clocks can be right. Why the hell should Israel end the war before Hamas are defeated and before the hostages are released?
Because they are engaged in a crime against humanity.
Israel had the right to wage war against Hamas, and, by extension, the Gaza territory it was the de facto government of, within the bounds of the laws of international conflict. Those bounds have been so consistently breached, and, in its blockade, so grossly breached, that it's time for the international community to act.
Put simply, Israel is not conducting a war of legitimate military action but of, at minimum, ethnic cleansing and, perhaps, extermination. The latter would certainly be the practical outcome of its current policy if continues, as appears to be the Israeli government's intention.
Time to place full sanctions on the regime, and on the country.
I agree with this but can anyone tell me if hostage taking (and murder of said hostages) is a war crime?
Yes, of course it is. So was the original Hamas attack on unarmed civilians, and the murders, rapes and other crimes that accompanied it. That formed a legitimate casus belli.
However, the war crimes of one side do not legitimise* the war crimes of the other, particularly when the other's crimes are considerably in excess of the original.
* There is a case, which I'd agree with, that when one side in a war engages in actions which are illegal but give it an advantage, as a matter of policy, then that legitimises the victim to take proportionate and equivalent actions in retaliation and/or defence. This is dodgy ground legally but it cannot be right that a victim is bound to suffer further - and potentially to lose a war - in defence of a principle that the aggressor rejects. Where is the logic in that? However, that doesn't apply to Israel/Gaza, where Israel started the war with an overwhelming military advantage, and has only increased that advantage since.
An overwhelming military advantage is only relevant when the fight is conventional, but this is not a conventional war.
When Hamas use hospitals as human shields and embed themselves into Gazan society as much as they can, Israel can't use its overwhelming majority advantage so the fighting is going to be riskier and at much more risk of innocent civilian casualties.
Or they could, but it would utterly flatten and wipe out the entire population. Which they could do if they wanted to, but they haven't, quite rightly as it would not be proportional.
Yes they could and it would be genocide but what could/will the world do about it?
That’s the equation in play at the moment
Thankfully Israel isn't doing that, because they're not genocidal, no matter if they regularly get falsely accused of being so.
If Israel were half as bad as they're accused of being, the death toll would be much higher.
FFS is it possible to turn on the news without seeing Trump.
No one gives a flying fxck what he’s doing in the Middle East .
What Trump is doing in the Middle East is even more important than the Eurovision semifinals. He is contributing towards world peace, and also taking a massive bung. So pro- or anti-Trump, this really does matter.
The Saudis and Qataris seem to be even better at dickriding him than SKS. Look and learn, Canada.
Netanyahu now says flat out that he will not end the war.
Hamas could end the war by surrendering unconditionally and releasing the hostages.
Netanyahu is a bad, corrupt leader who should be replaced but even broken clocks can be right. Why the hell should Israel end the war before Hamas are defeated and before the hostages are released?
Because they are engaged in a crime against humanity.
Israel had the right to wage war against Hamas, and, by extension, the Gaza territory it was the de facto government of, within the bounds of the laws of international conflict. Those bounds have been so consistently breached, and, in its blockade, so grossly breached, that it's time for the international community to act.
Put simply, Israel is not conducting a war of legitimate military action but of, at minimum, ethnic cleansing and, perhaps, extermination. The latter would certainly be the practical outcome of its current policy if continues, as appears to be the Israeli government's intention.
Time to place full sanctions on the regime, and on the country.
I agree with this but can anyone tell me if hostage taking (and murder of said hostages) is a war crime?
Yes, of course it is. So was the original Hamas attack on unarmed civilians, and the murders, rapes and other crimes that accompanied it. That formed a legitimate casus belli.
However, the war crimes of one side do not legitimise* the war crimes of the other, particularly when the other's crimes are considerably in excess of the original.
* There is a case, which I'd agree with, that when one side in a war engages in actions which are illegal but give it an advantage, as a matter of policy, then that legitimises the victim to take proportionate and equivalent actions in retaliation and/or defence. This is dodgy ground legally but it cannot be right that a victim is bound to suffer further - and potentially to lose a war - in defence of a principle that the aggressor rejects. Where is the logic in that? However, that doesn't apply to Israel/Gaza, where Israel started the war with an overwhelming military advantage, and has only increased that advantage since.
We seem to have arrived at Jan 1945. Germany (Gaza) is a ruin, and any normal state would have surrendered ages ok. But they do not. The Nazis (Hamas) have a tight stranglehold and will never surrender. How then do the Allies (Israel) win?
The losers, as always in war, are the poor bloody civilians.
Well said.
We insisted upon unconditional surrender of the Nazis to end the war. Israel should do the same and we should be a steadfast ally of theirs until that happens and make it clear the war only ends when Hamas surrenders.
The mealy-mouthed talk of peace without doing anything is the worst of both worlds falling between the stools of siding with Hamas or siding with Israel. We don't need a ceasefire, we need a victory and the end of war.
At least it's not as bad as Japan 1945. No matter how bad it gets, Israel isn't going to nuke Gaza City and Khan Younis.
Saying Israel isn't going to nuke Gaza is rather damning with faint praise.
It's an existential battle for them like it was for us in 1945.
America was right to bomb Japan. Israel is fighting a horrific war better than we did.
It’s back to proportionality, again.
80 m died in WWII, millions of them, as a result of deliberate genocide and enslavement, on the part of the Axis.
Vile though Hamas’ actions were, they do not remotely approach the crimes of Nazi Germany in scale.
So, one can’t simply apply what was appropriate in 1945 to Gaza, today. There’s no doubt to me that the IDF now views any Gazan man, woman, and child as a legitimate target.
Do you not think that Hamas sees every Israeli man, woman and child as a legitimate target?
That's not the point. That Hamas holds that view, and has put that principle into practice, is what gave Israel the right to respond with war to Hamas's attack. It does not give Israel the right to react in kind.
FWIW, I don't think the IDF does "view any Gazan man, woman, and child as a legitimate target" as such: they'd have inflicted far more deaths if they did hold such a view. But. They do seem to regard any Palestinian life as irrelevant when it comes to targeting decisions, and some have certainly killed civilians deliberately. The Israeli government, however, is certainly using civilian suffering and deaths through starvation and denial of medical equipment as an illegal weapon of war.
Because they're not fighting a conventional war and Hamas deliberately maximise the use of human shields, which is yet another war crime but of Hamas not Israel.
The loss of "collateral damage" is terrible but the rule of proportionality is to minimise it where possible, not eliminate it or sacrifice legitimate military targets.
I assume you agree the head of Hamas military wing, Muhammed Sinwar is/was a legitimate target?
Israel may have got him this week, was still waiting for confirmation last I saw. That's good news, isn't it, if they have?
The problem is he was hiding at a hospital, using that as his military base. A war crime. Turning the hospital into a legitimate, military target as a result.
Thankfully it seems that Israel may have got him through the use of very targeted munitions. If they were half as evil or genocidal or heartless as they get accused of being here they could have levelled the entire building to get to him.
In Barty Bobbins World is starving 2 million Palestinians to death a war crime or what victory looks like?
In my world war is hell and there's going to be a lot more suffering unless Hamas surrenders.
In my world I would like to see the innocent Palestinians getting refuge in other nearby Islamic states.
But it seems many people who normally bang on about how important refugee rights are wish to deny it to Palestinians.
It seems to me that many people care more about whether a hypothetical potential future Palestinian state ever exists than about the suffering of those Palestinians.
Why do Palestinians need refuge in nearby states? Why isn’t the occupying military power looking after them?
Because there is an ongoing violent conflict.
If innocent Palestinians don't deserve refugee status we should just repeal the right to asylum and deny all claims going forward because clearly nobody does.
So there we have it, BR preference is for ethnic cleansing by displacement but if not, regrettably, "collateral damage" is justifiable (ethnic cleansing by death). Which does appear to be the official policy.
Bullshit. My preference is that Hamas surrenders unconditionally.
If Hamas refuse to surrender, then either displacement or collateral damage is inevitable, but that's because of Hamas.
Real identity of Diane killer 'was known on estates'
The real identity of the man who brutally murdered Diane Sindall was known by people on the estates in Birkenhead, a charity set up in her memory has claimed.
Why didn't any of them come forward to help get an innocent man out of prison?
They did come forward. They told the charity that the wrong man was convicted. Even if they knew the real killer's name, they had no evidence.
Should be easy to tell if the story is true. If it was someone will come forward now given the police have DNA and are looking for a match, and lots of people will have moved away from the area over the course of 4 decades. They don't need to give evidence just a name.
If what story is true? The story that the wrong man had been convicted seems to be true.
That locals know who did it. Some of them will be ex locals and just need to provide a name for a DNA match, not evidence.
The locals who know will likely be friends, colleagues or even relatives of the real killer. Assuming any are still alive 38 years on, it might be naive to expect any more help. What's in it for them, especially now Sullivan has been sprung?
It is like expecting the old PIRA to confirm who did plant the pub bombs for which the Guildford Four and Birmingham Six were convicted, despite maintaining their innocence. They've not even said who kidnapped Shergar.
“Honestly I am becoming radicalised by watching fully grown adults - adults - push through the ticket barriers on the tube while I pay 6 quid a day to get to and from work. This is not how a functioning good quality society is meant to work.”
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His majority was just 61 over Labour but even on current polls there has been a swing from Labour to the Tories since the GE.
Reform got a higher percentage of the vote in Jenrick and Cleverly's seats than Stride's
Boris of course reached 26% but he is not an option unless he becomes an MP again
80 m died in WWII, millions of them, as a result of deliberate genocide and enslavement, on the part of the Axis.
Vile though Hamas’ actions were, they do not remotely approach the crimes of Nazi Germany in scale.
So, one can’t simply apply what was appropriate in 1945 to Gaza, today. There’s no doubt to me that the IDF now views any Gazan man, woman, and child as a legitimate target.
I feel a fictional character is better suited to what's going on in your heid.
“Honestly I am becoming radicalised by watching fully grown adults - adults - push through the ticket barriers on the tube while I pay 6 quid a day to get to and from work. This is not how a functioning good quality society is meant to work.”
https://x.com/discoplomacy/status/1922902853586129161?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw
I’ve not witnessed this. Shoplifting yes, fare-dodging no
Any other PB-ers?
I suspect Railcard fraud is widespread. They never check mine.
But right now, the IDF is killing a lot more non-combatants than Hamas.
https://www.london.gov.uk/who-we-are/what-london-assembly-does/questions-mayor/find-an-answer/fare-evasion
FWIW, I don't think the IDF does "view any Gazan man, woman, and child as a legitimate target" as such: they'd have inflicted far more deaths if they did hold such a view. But. They do seem to regard any Palestinian life as irrelevant when it comes to targeting decisions, and some have certainly killed civilians deliberately. The Israeli government, however, is certainly using civilian suffering and deaths through starvation and denial of medical equipment as an illegal weapon of war.
Sort of..
Real identity of Diane killer 'was known on estates'
The real identity of the man who brutally murdered Diane Sindall was known by people on the estates in Birkenhead, a charity set up in her memory has claimed.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c2lkd2wn815o
"...Elbridge Colby, now one of the most senior officials in the Pentagon, has made it clear that the British military, including the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force, should focus on the Euro-Atlantic..."
https://www.ft.com/content/21dffaa9-e73b-44f0-be3b-acb6d0d35ced
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPmCwQIE958
https://www.instagram.com/p/DJXaWzTvyqb/
At tube stations you do see it, and it's not just the usual suspects. Every now and then you read about some City highflyer losing his job for the price of a season ticket.
But if you are looking for an angle for the Gazette, spin through 180 degrees and look at how easy it is to be overcharged by TfL, not just by using different cards (which is not TfL's fault, obviously) but by tapping out and back in again when changing trains. TfL's computer sees these as incomplete journeys and charges a week's rent money. A proper Gazette hack would check the details but that's the gist.
Not to mention the complete racket of rail fares that are up and down with the phase of the moon, whether booked in advance, from the machine or website or app or ticket office.
Oh, and you can't take this empty train because you've booked on that other train half an hour later, which annoys you and probably costs the rail operator money and possibly capacity (as otherwise they'd be able to resell your seat on the later train (or indeed plane)).
Blimey, I've ranted so long I've missed my Deliveroo window.
Does the Hamas atrocity of Oct 23 merit the brutal collective punishment of 2m people, the vast majority of whom are non-combatants?
To answer "yes" you need to hold the view that Palestinians are not fully human in the way that "we" are, or Israelis are, or Ukrainians are.
If you don't hold that view you'll answer "no" and you won't need to agonise over it.
Here’s proof that it’s not an existential battle. Israel has diverted significant resources to bombing and invading parts of Syria despite no immediate threat and positive words wanting peace coming from the new Syrian administration. Israel has said they’ve done much of this to protect the Syrian Druze population. Were Israel really in an existential battle in Gaza, they wouldn’t have capacity to go into Syria. Israel is, if in a subtler manner than Putin, invading its neighbours for territorial gain.
The US in 1945 did not control Japan. Israel controls Gaza. They should do to Gaza what we did to West Germany: hand it back to the local population after a few years.
Not saying that makes what Israel is doing okay, but what happened at the end of WW2 was about making sure it didn't happen again.
It’s a great point. Why should I obey the rules when theirs no consequences for those who don’t
I doubt SKS will be inclined to heed this counsel. He can't retreat from the #globalbritain rubbish while the Fukkers are chewing on his nut bag.
The loss of "collateral damage" is terrible but the rule of proportionality is to minimise it where possible, not eliminate it or sacrifice legitimate military targets.
I assume you agree the head of Hamas military wing, Muhammed Sinwar is/was a legitimate target?
Israel may have got him this week, was still waiting for confirmation last I saw. That's good news, isn't it, if they have?
The problem is he was hiding at a hospital, using that as his military base. A war crime. Turning the hospital into a legitimate, military target as a result.
Thankfully it seems that Israel may have got him through the use of very targeted munitions. If they were half as evil or genocidal or heartless as they get accused of being here they could have levelled the entire building to get to him.
https://andrewspreviews.substack.com/p/previewing-the-four-council-by-elections-204
Especially when the enemy maximises the use of human shields.
Do you wish to contend that the head of Hamas military wing is NOT a legitimate target?
Do you wish to contend there was any other way to realistically achieve the objective of eliminating him?
Proportionality is not a ratio: it means the use of force must be proportionate to the threat
Would it be radical to say I'm not really in favour of anyone nuking, raping, murdering or starving anyone?
Thank you for your attention on this matter.
In my world I would like to see the innocent Palestinians getting refuge in other nearby Islamic states.
But it seems many people who normally bang on about how important refugee rights are wish to deny it to Palestinians.
It seems to me that many people care more about whether a hypothetical potential future Palestinian state ever exists than about the suffering of those Palestinians.
Nuclear weapons mean none of the states you name have been invaded, with the potential exception of Ukraine going into Russia's border territory during a war Russia chose to start.
The UN has done jack shit to prevent any of those wars that have happened.
You're right, I'm sure he was there as a nurse and not using it as a military base with human shields . . .
Ukraine did not and would not have done that unprovoked.
Had it not been for nuclear weapons there would have been a conventional war at some point between the USA and USSR/Russia. MAD prevented that, not the UN.
And what could these people offer? Dear Detective Inspector, the real killer was X but I've got no evidence, it's just the word on the street.
If innocent Palestinians don't deserve refugee status we should just repeal the right to asylum and deny all claims going forward because clearly nobody does.
If it was 1980s vintage Met then we know the most probable reason and I doubt it was any different on Merseyside.
When Hamas use hospitals as human shields and embed themselves into Gazan society as much as they can, Israel can't use its overwhelming majority advantage so the fighting is going to be riskier and at much more risk of innocent civilian casualties.
Or they could, but it would utterly flatten and wipe out the entire population. Which they could do if they wanted to, but they haven't, quite rightly as it would not be proportional.
In any case, there was no realistic possibility of ending the war with anything other than total German surrender by that point anyway.
And Israel is in the same existential conflict with Hamas.
Hamas need to surrender unconditionally, just as the Nazis did.
That’s the equation in play at the moment
Yom Kippur War, 1973
Argentine invasion of the Falklands, 1982
Siachen conflict, 1984
Kargil War, 1999
October 7 Hamas attack on Israel, 2023
Which does appear to be the official policy.
This is broken windows theory. It’s true and it’s obvious. If Starmer wants a second term he needs to get to grips with this. Scuzz Nation. The petty crime and the litter. The graffiti and the grift
It’s also relatively low hanging fruit in our difficult times. Change the law so that fare dodgers and shoplifters face hefty punishment and they can be stopped with force. Make an example of several hundred of them - this is, after all, what Starmer did with several hundred post Southport protestors. This is what he’s good at
Guaranteed people will stop once they see that doing it can be extremely painful
This alone could lift Starmer by 5 points in the polls over a few years
No one gives a flying fxck what he’s doing in the Middle East .
If Israel were half as bad as they're accused of being, the death toll would be much higher.
If Hamas refuse to surrender, then either displacement or collateral damage is inevitable, but that's because of Hamas.
It is like expecting the old PIRA to confirm who did plant the pub bombs for which the Guildford Four and Birmingham Six were convicted, despite maintaining their innocence. They've not even said who kidnapped Shergar.