Please, please, please, I know you are a moderator but this is not a game. 10000s people are losing their lives. Potential escalation to WW3. I don’t play games. I am interested in what other people would do.
That is not a relevant or intellectually honest question in my view, because the genocide is being committed right now in one direction - thanks in large part to the tacit support given by our government and other western governments.
I thought as much; thanks for confirming.
Is this meant to be taken seriously?
Ah, so "we must do something, this is something, let's do it", have I understood you correctly?
Spot on; some of the questions in this thread are very dubious in nature. I am glad there are people such as yourself who have more time to challenge them than I do.
Indeed.
Its enormously complex situation but the West should have slapped down Israel years ago over its approach to contain the Palestinians and let Israels push out others from the West Bank this has just fuelled the tensions. Of course what happened nearly a year ago was diabolical and Israel had to respond but its a consequence of its own actions and fundamentally Netanyahu administration failed to protect its citizens. It also suits Netanyahu to perpetuate this for as long as possible and while he tries to rope Iran into it as well
There was very little of this covered in the mainstream media I thought, I think I saw one of the mini documentaries on BBC News quite a few years ago now and found myself shocked with what I was watching and how no one seemed to want to do anything about it.
Unfortunately, there are those who claim that any criticism of the Israeli Government is anti-semitic, especially when referring to the extreme right wing Likud party presently in power. The continual pillaging of the meagre resources of the West Bank Palestinians by Zionists is actively supported by the administration, so even if there was no fighting between the IDF and the neighbouring countries, it is a constant driver of Palestinian resentment and motivates those currently involved in the two war zones.
Unfortunately, much of the time that "Palestinian resentment" is wrongly construed as "terrorism" when people are legitimately trying to hold on to their homes and livelihoods. They cannot rely on the rest of the world to enforce UN resolutions, so they turn to groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah to back them up.
If my mum had a saddle she'd be a motorbike.
Hezbollah was founded as a direct response to Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1982, during which the IDF and the puppet Lebanese government they'd installed massacred about 3,500 Shia people in Beirut.
Not really, Hamas have made it quite clear they want to remove Israel from the map! How does anyone suggest you negotiate with that?
Totally spot on and i had hoped someone like Lammy who knows this is the correct assessment would reassert that message and whilst unlikely to be able to exert real influence over Israel he could at least engage with other countries to try and build a better consensus at the UN. It would also go down well with a lot of UK nationals. But what do we get is Starmer/Lammy now going backwards from previous movement and just reinforcing that Israel can do what it wants.
It's all whataboutery because Hamas don't have the capability. Not even Iran has that capability.
www.timesofisrael.com
Starmer- married to a Jewish woman and raising his children in the Jewish faith- is uniquely placed to apply soft pressure on Israel. Unlike many critics of Israel, Starmer simply cannot be accused of being anti-Semitic; to all intents and purposes, his family is Jewish.
Well no it isn't really because Hamas do commit terrorist attacks against Israel, it just so happens Israel is a stronger military force.It's all whataboutery because Hamas don't have the capability. Not even Iran has that capability.
As for why Hamas are so powerful in Gaza, the real reason- as so often- goes straight back to Benjamin Netanyahu. His tactic was to prop up Hamas in order to prolong the internal disputes between Hamas and the much larger (and much more moderate) Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. This meant that the Palestinian Authority were unable to make any moves towards establishing themselves as the Palestinian government.
So how do you negotiate with Hamas? You don't. You negotiate with the Palestinian Authority and enable them to become the government of the whole of the occupied Palestinian territory.
The Times of Israel explains it much better than I:
For years, Netanyahu propped up Hamas. Now it’s blown up in our faces
The premier's policy of treating the terror group as a partner, at the expense of Abbas and Palestinian statehood, has resulted in wounds that will take Israel years to heal from
== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==
Starmer- married to a Jewish woman and raising his children in the Jewish faith- is uniquely placed to apply soft pressure on Israel. Unlike many critics of Israel, Starmer simply cannot be accused of being anti-Semitic; to all intents and purposes, his family is Jewish.
It is therefore as frustrating as it is regrettable that Starmer has instead chosen to go down the route of justifying the Israeli extremism.
The only sensible way out of this seems to be mass continuous peaceful protest in all the countries whose official position is wrong, in an attempt to make them change. If this doesn't work, keep going and make them larger. There are very few government voices in the UK and US who seem capable of gaining traction on the issue.
Netanyahu and his ragtag collection of far-right loons were elected by the Israeli public. Bezalel Smotrich is a illegal settler and his party won 14 seats in the Knesset. So clearly they do not see it the same way at all.
Meanwhile, Israel is actually removing Gaza from the map, physically, with munitions, and killing tens of thousands of the people and children who live there in a genocide. They are also in the process of invading another sovereign state.
It’ll take a bit more than peaceful protest to turn the crank here, I fear. It certainly did, when it came to changing our policies in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Sadly the problem here, especially when discussions look to a long term view on Gaza most Western allies of Israel want PA to have a considerable amount of say. Yet they don’t really look in any sort of position to do that, not to mention amount of corruption within it.
I'd agree that the Western allies probably do.
Spot on. The problem is that both sides are being led by the religious zealots and the main protagonists (Israel and Iran) are states where religion is part of the founding ethos. And for a zealot, religion is vastly more important than human rights even for their own believers, and all others are (at best) third class. Is there any possibility of breaking out of this apparently never ending cycle of war?
Its not good that being negative about Israel actions automatically make you anti-sematic in the eyes of Netanyahu
It's just a very cynical yet effective means of shutting down criticism. The few Jews I know personally regard this as scurrilous and ultimately damaging to their religion's reputation. One day there may be a swing away from the respect that the majority of the faith enjoys.
Different opinion about what?
Indeed, but it doesn't make Netanyahu look good. It makes him come across as an autocrat and a demagogue who wants to libel people in order to silence them. "If you protest against us bombing Gazans, you are an anti-Semite".
If you're worried about WW3 one solution would be that the IDF keep the hell out of other people's land and the West refuse to support them until they behave themselves. We should absolutely not be aligning ourselves with this violent, far-right government or excusing their actions; it will do us no good at all.
OK so I accept that you feel Israel has no right to exist. I think you mentioned in one of your rants that you would include Jewish people in your Israel Mk2. Is that right? If so, how would you propose to protect them?
I’m really not interested in sealioning. Enjoy the rest of your evening.
They do value their ancestral homeland, but are far from impressed with the behaviour of the elected administration. Indeed to the extent of embarassment that it has used the very methods of colonisation by violence that for over 70 years the Jews have have reminded the world should never be allowed to happen again.
Ultimately it is very damaging.
