MegaSack DRAW - This year's winner is user - rgwb
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Despite international arrest warrants being issued for Benjamin Netanyahu and his defence minister for war crimes and crimes against humanity it would appear that there is no let up with Israel killing aid workers.
Still, I guess there is no reason why Israel should suddenly stop committing war crimes, they know that the United States government will protect them whatever they do.
I've been watching Dark Winds, a TV series about a Navajo policeman, and hence about life on a reservation. One of the themes is the policy (?) of sterilising Native American women for various reasons, with the inevitable impact on population. In fact it's exactly what you'd do if you wanted to quietly bring about a genocide. So it should be no surprise that UNRWA report that 70% of casualties in Gaza are women and children - exactly the people you'd target if you were intent on wiping out a group of people. So no surprises there, and no surprise that the US does nothing to stop it.
Blimey even Ynet, the staunch supporter of the zionist regime, is reporting allegations of Israeli ceasefire violations.
France warns alleged Israeli violations risk collapse of Lebanon cease-fire
https://www.ynetnews.com/article/rk6deikmyx
Paris reports 52 alleged IDF violations of cease-fire agreement, accusing Israel of bypassing international committee tasked with overseeing compliance.
Regime accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity not complying with ceasefire commitments......who would have thought it?
How long before Netanyahu accuses the French government of anti-Semitism?
This is possibly the most damming appraisal of the Israeli genocidal assault on Gaza I have heard/watched.
Susan Abulhawa speaks in proposition of the motion that “This House Believes Israel is an Apartheid State Responsible for Genocide”
This is # 7 of 8, There are 4 debates for the motion and 4 debates against the motion, further debates can be watched if you check out the Oxford Union YouTube
Former Israeli president claims Queen Elizabeth ‘saw Israelis as terrorists’
The former President of Israel said: “The relationship between us and Queen Elizabeth was a little bit difficult, because she believed that every one of us was either a terrorist or a son of a terrorist.”
He added: “She refused to accept any Israeli official into (Buckingham) Palace, apart from international occasions.”
As the chant in the streets goes....
“1,2,3,4, occupation no more”
"5,6,7,8, Israel is a terrorist state!"
Even Queen Elizabeth knew it!
because the issue isn’t religion.
It isn't only religion. It's also ethnicity, history, and nationality. But you can't deny that extreme religious Zionists in Israel increasingly see themselves as guardians and definers of the how the Jewish state should be, and are very reactionary when it comes to any concessions to Palestinians, and Islamist groups in Palestine and elsewhere in the Islamic world advocate the necessity of liberating the “holy” territories and sites for religious reasons, and preach violence and hatred against Israel and Jews.
You can't ignore the influence of social media propagating "Jewish Plans" to destroy mosques and build synagogues in their place, any more than you can't ignore the hopeless socio-economic outlook of most of Gaza and be surprised that young unemployed uneducated disaffected men turn to violence as a result. Both extremist Sunni and Shia organisations call for the destruction of Israel, and Iran in particular does so from a strictly theological standpoint, just as the Muslim brotherhood still calls Israel a 'Foreign Object' in the middle of what they regard as a potential Islamic Caliphate, just as Makerhet (Gush Emunim) went from Messianic propaganda to violent terrorism in the 80's.
It's not the entire solution obviously, but without religious tolerance/understanding, there isn't gong to be any peace anytime soon, and neither the settler right or Islamist groups have any interest in seeking it.
I see Jewish religious extremists on every pro-palestine demo in London, in solidarity with Palestinians. And I see Netanyahu, an obvious atheist, overseeing a genocide in Gaza.
Israel could not function or exist without secular Jews.
As I said previously if Palestinians all converted to Judaism it would solve nothing. Because it isn't about religion.
What about if all Israelis converted to Islam? Presumably the Jewish diaspora in the US would stop pretending it is their "homeland", and the cash flow would dry up ?
Well, it's nice to dream ....
I see Jewish religious extremists on every pro-palestine demo in London, in solidarity with Palestinians. And I see Netanyahu, an obvious atheist, overseeing a genocide in Gaza.
Israel could not function or exist without secular Jews.
As I said previously if Palestinians all converted to Judaism it would solve nothing. Because it isn’t about religion.
Nothing here contradicts anything nickc said...
Can't you both be right?
It isn’t only religion.
I consider blaming religion as an easy cop out/excuse. Yeah sure plenty of things come into it, one side speaks Arabic and the other side speaks Hebrew, are we therefore going to blame language for the Palestinian-zionist conflict?
The problem with focusing on detailed differences is that it ignores the actual cause of the conflict.... settler-colonialism and its need for land.
No one pretends that the American Indian Wars had anything to do with religion, although the religious differences between the two sides could not have been any starker, so why pretend that religion is the issue with zionist settler-colonialists?
The reason that Netanyahu hates Palestinians is because they won't get off the land that he wants, it has nothing to do with religion, the language they speak, or anything else. They are Palestinians and he is not, it is exactly the same mentality as white settlers 200 years ago in the "New World"
But Netanyahu is not the only one fighting here. Nor is this in any way a recent thing. Religion may not be the driving force behind the more recent conflicts but it is a large part of the whole background and bad feeling between the two sides. No one's saying it's the only cause.
Religion is not a large part of the whole background to the Palestinian-zionist conflict. It was the Nakba that caused the "bad feeling", as you call it, between the two sides.
The Nakba was a simple but devastating act of ethnic cleansing, but it was not carried out in the name religion.
Can you imagine if it had been???
LOL out of curiosity I decided to click on the Wikipedia definition of the Nakba, I could not have put it better myself!
The Nakba (Arabic: النَّكْبَة, romanized: an-Nakba, lit. 'the catastrophe') is the ethnic cleansing[2] of Palestinian Arabs through their violent displacement and dispossession of land, property, and belongings, along with the destruction of their society and the suppression of their culture, identity, political rights, and national aspirations.
And not once is religion mentioned.
No one pretends that the American Indian Wars had anything to do with religion
Your history is wrong. The Indian wars were very much defined by the religiosity of 19thC Federal Govt, from policies that sought to encourage Indians to put aside their "savage ways" they thought so that it would help them to assimilate if they accepted Christianity, to boarding schools filled with children forcibly removed from their parents run by Federally appointed Christian orders in order to "Kill the Indian and save the Man" That doesn't mean that the US Govt didn't want the land, it most certainly did, but to ignore how much evangelical Christianity was a part of that, is to fail to understand what motivated them.
Eh yes, that is exactly my point...... religion was/is used as an excuse for settler-colonialism. It always has been, I would never dispute that, on the contrary.
But it was a need for the indigenous people's land that drove the settler-colonialists, not a need to save their souls from eternal damnation.
Obviously it makes sense to send a few missionaries to pretend to be on a moral crusade, but they put a lot more effort in killing them than in trying to save their souls.
Religion is not a large part of the whole background to the Palestinian-zionist conflict. It was the Nakba that caused the “bad feeling”, as you call it, between the two sides.
I'll admit I'm not hugely well informed on all of this, but don't you then get into the "Who kicked who off the land first" argument? Do you focus on the actions of the 20th Century or the last few thousand years.
Do you focus on the actions of the 20th Century or the last few thousand years.
I would suggest not focusing on the actions which occured a few thousand years ago. Although Netanyahu would obviously love to. According to Netanyahu Israel was promised to him a few thousand years ago by a God which he doesn't believe in.
The term Nakba was coined by Constantin Zureiq in his 1948 book Ma'na al-Nakba (The Meaning of the Catastrophe), and he was referring to the failure of the Arab armies in the 1948 war to destroy Israel, i.e. their failure to carry out an ethnic cleansing.
The revised meaning came much later, and ignores the fact that the 1948 Nakba was the result of a war that 7 Arab armies started and lost.
Then, of course, the Arab world expelled or drove out almost a million Jews, which doubled Israel's population with Middle Eastern and North African Jews who had nowhere else to go and nothing left to lose, which makes any settler colonialism argument moot anyway.
Goodness me has nothing happened in the last year to convince you that the creation of a brutal apartheid regime was a huge mistake and that the Palestinians were right to resist from the very start?
Today are witnessing a far-right Israeli state committing war crimes and crimes against humanity whilst it slaughters tens of thousands of innocent Palestinians. How could a zionist doctrine steeped in racism have resulted in anything else?
"The national pride and euphoria that followed the Six-Day War are temporary and will bring us from proud, rising nationalism to extreme, messianic, ultranationalism. The third stage will be brutality and the final stage will be the end of Zionism.”
The prophesy of Yeshayahu Leibowitz, a Jewish Israeli philosopher.
We appear to be currently witnessing the third stage.
We appear to be currently witnessing the third stage.
Middle east is changing fast. The more brutal they are in the 3rd stage the more severe is the ending for the Zionist state.
This will be the 3rd and final expulsion from the land with no return.
I love this video clip in the Sun....... Boxing legend and his entire team of bodyguards get chased down the road because a jeweler in Hatton Garden recognises him and informs all the others that Mayweather is genocide supporter !
https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/32232491/moment-floyd-mayweather-held-back-entourage-london/
Apparently 70% of Hatton Garden traders are Jewish, which must have added to Mayweather's humiliation. He probably believed zionist nonsense and presumably thought it was one place in London where he would be safe!
Death feels imminent for 96% of children in Gaza, study finds
A new study of children living through the war in Gaza has found that 96% of them feel that their death is imminent and almost half want to die as a result of the trauma they have been through.
A needs assessment, carried out by a Gaza-based NGO sponsored by the War Child Alliance charity, also found that 92% of the children in the survey were “not accepting of reality”, 79% suffer from nightmares and 73% exhibit symptoms of aggression.
An estimated 17,000 children in Gaza are unaccompanied, separated from their parents, although the study notes the real number may be much higher.
The estimated death toll in Gaza is more than 44,000 and a recent assessment by the UN Human Rights Office found that 44% of the fatalities it was able to verify were children.
So according to the United Nations almost half of all the people that the IDF are currently slaughtering in Gaza are children.
If the IDF spoke Arabic instead of Hebrew is there any doubt that they would be classified as a terrorist organisation by Western governments? But instead of that they are generously supplied with all the weapons that they could possibly need to carry out the killings.
Racism is at the very core of this conflict, as is the 19th century colonial attitude which attaches so little value to non-european lives.
We are horrified and intolerant of racism on our shores and yet when it happens in far distant lands it is somehow so much more acceptable.
Who would have thought that this mentality would still persist in 2024?
https://www.israelhayom.com/2024/12/12/asked-about-war-crimes-idf-soldiers-denied-australia-visa/
While four applications were swiftly approved, Omer, serving in the academic reserve program, and Ella, an Intelligence Corps service member, were required to complete extensive 13-page declarations typically reserved for foreign fighters and government officials. The questionnaire included pointed inquiries about participation in prisoner abuse, detention center operations, and potential involvement in war crimes or genocide.
Wow, Israel's pariah status continues to grow as does the overwhelming evidence that it commits war crimes and crimes against humanity.
And yet they appear to be incredulous that anyone should disapprove of their genocidal slaughtering of men, women, and children.
"Why are we subjecting friendly allies to war crimes investigations?" he asked.
How about because murdering people isn't cool?
Government backed far-right Israeli fascists demand the fruits of genocide against Palestinians and the ethnic cleansing of Gaza, and the IDF provides them with security :
Event calling for Gaza settlements held in closed military zone with IDF permission
So the most moral army in the world murders thousands upon thousands of men, women, and children, whilst providing protection to racist fascists. And the West responds by providing them with weapons.
So the most moral army in the world murders thousands upon thousands of men, women, and children, whilst providing protection to racist fascists. And the West responds by providing them with weapons.
Which is the surprising bit ? At least they won't be inconvenienced by any nearby hospitals or anything.
I was watching a documentary about Rwanda yesterday - not about the lovely holiday destination for asylum seekers, but the events that happened a while ago. Thousands dying every day while the west did absolutely nothing. So I'm sorry to say that I think the likelihood of a single Palestinian surviving this "self defence action" is quite small.
I was watching a documentary about Rwanda yesterday ............Thousands dying every day while the west did absolutely nothing.
So nothing like Gaza then. No one can accuse the West of doing nothing - they are actively helping Israel.
I have not been following this thread . I assume you all know about the deliberate destruction of all the hospitals in gaza?
Yes the Israelis set alight the last hospital in northern Gaza yesterday.
Obviously there is no military objective at all in destroying a hospital but it is an important part of Israel's psychological warfare against the Palestinian people.
It sends a very clear message - no-one and nowhere is safe, not even very sick people in hospitals. It creates a feeling of total hopelessness and drives home that Palestinians in Gaza have nothing - no homes, no schools, no universities, no.hospitals, no civil structures at all.
Genocide goes beyond just killing people directly, the destruction of an ethnic group requires more than that. According to the United Nations definition of genocide it includes :
Deliberately inflicting conditions of life that will lead to the group's physical destruction
Destroying hospitals (apart from being a war crime) when combined with everything else that Israel is doing is an important element in the ongoing genocide and ethnic cleansing which it is carrying out.
So nothing like Gaza then.
No, similar. France and South Africa were shipping large quantities of arms to Rwanda, the US knew the potential harm this would cause and knew about the scale of the violence but chose not to intervene as they were still stinging from Somalia.
Israel have long been suspected of selling arms to them also but any legal challenges to access records have been unsuccessful, they even had the records sealed for an undetermined periods of time.
The french also mounted an intervention of which there have been enquiries as they aided one side which ultimately facilitated more murder.
Have the Israelis reduced every building in Gaza to rubble and achieved the kill tally they want yet?
All other questions are pretty much redundant as no one is going to lift a finger to stop them.
Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu to undergo prostate removal surgery, his office says
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/israel-benjamin-netanyahu-prostate-removal-surgery-gaza-war-hamas/
The 75-year-old leader underwent a test at Hadassah Hospital on Wednesday, where he was "diagnosed with a urinary tract infection resulting from a benign prostate enlargement," the prime minister's office said in a statement.
"As a result, the prime minister will undergo prostate removal surgery tomorrow," it said.
Grotesque isn't it?
Netanyahu is a wanted war criminal who has ensured that every hospital in Gaza has been destroyed. There is no possibility of a hospital appointment in Gaza thanks to him, whether it is for prostrate treatment, amputations, childbirth, or anything else. No one knows when Palestinians in Gaza will next be able to have a hospital appointment.
And yet the waiting time for Netanyahu was just 4 days - diagnosis on Wednesday, surgery tomorrow.
I guess that it someone was to set alight to the hospital that would be classed as terrorism.
Lets hope the genocidal **** doesn’t wake up.
The UK will probably fly the Israeli flag at half made over parliament if he doesn't.
Since former United States President Jimmy Carter passed away yesterday it might be apt to remember his views on the apartheid regime in Israel/Palestine
And it is worth remembering that Article 7 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court criminalises apartheid as a crime against humanity.
It turns out that the far-right government in Israel hasn't killed enough Palestinians in the last 15 months so two weeks before his departure from the Whitehouse Joe Biden is letting them have another $8 billion worth of arms to get on with their genocide.
Maybe he is worried that Donald Trump won't be so generous?
US maintains support for Israel’s war in Gaza with planned $8 billion arms sale
Biden administration says it is helping its ally defend against Iran-backed militant groups like Hamas
So Hamas still hasn't been defeated?
Ilan Pappe is someone whose opinions on Palestine I particularly value. He has long argued that we are witnessing the final phase of "the zionist experiment", and he is no less convinced of that today than he was at the start of the Israeli onslaught on Gaza.
As a respected Israeli Jewish historian he speaks with particular insight and authority
https://twitter.com/AJEnglish/status/1879215165280768147
Lets see how long this cease fire deal lasts.
Awaiting Tango man to announce it was him wot sorted it
The ceasefire coming into effect on Sunday is undoubtedly down to Trump. Netanyahu knew that he could totally ignore Joe Biden and whatever red line he drew because Biden's commitment to zionism is total, and in his own words "ironclad", Biden, Netanyahu knew, would never stop supporting Israel no matter what he did, and how many Palestinian were slaughtered. Even if it damaged Biden politically, which it did.
Donald Trump on the other hand is a totally different creature who has zero commitment to anyone and anything other than his own ego. He cares no more about Israelis than does about anyone else. He is perfectly capable of stabbing anyone in the back if he thinks that it would benefit him politically or financially. Netanyahu knows that too.
The ceasefire deal which will come into effect on Sunday is basically the same ceasefire deal that the Biden administration has been pushing since last May but which Netanyahu has been totally refusing to agree to.
Now eight months later Netanyahu has agreed that it should come into effect the day before Trump's inauguration, because clearly that is the deadline that Trump's team have given Netanyahu. You would have to be naive to believe that a ceasefire deal which remained unattainable for eight months just coincidentally kicked in.the day before Trump was reinstalled as US president.
Netanyahu knows that he cannot afford to ignore Trump.
Biden, meanwhile, stressed that the deal was reached under “the precise contours” of a plan that he set out in late May.
Biden’s administration worked for months to broker peace in talks that inched frustratingly close to success before repeatedly breaking down. Trump, for his part, had warned of “hell to pay” if a deal wasn’t done by his inauguration — in five days.
https://apnews.com/article/gaza-ceasefire-trump-biden-israel-hamas-0e6c324ba0e3e9413bafe740fdefebc6
Isreal has already breached the ceasefire. What a surprise
Israel intensified strikes on Gaza hours after a ceasefire and hostage release deal was announced, residents and authorities in the Palestinian enclave have said, with dozens of people killed
From the guardian live blog.
Isreal ofcourse has form for this
They can't have, it's not technically in force until an as yet undecided time on Sunday 19th. I don't quite get the 'no more killing after....' nature, but that's the terms, so while every bombing is an abhorrence, it hasn't breached anything yet.
More worryingly, Netanyahu is saying deal hasn't been agreed, claiming Hamas has backtracked on part of it.
Needs to be approved by the Israeli parliament as well, iirc? That could be tricky
Biden administration says it is helping its ally defend against Iran-backed militant groups like Hamas
Maybe he's concerned with the reality of a nuclear Iran pushed to accelerate their weapons programme because their middle-eastern proxies have been badly weakened
Netanyahu knows that he cannot afford to ignore Trump.
Netanyahu has been aligning himself with the Republican Party for years, but he messed up in 2020 by congratulating President Biden for winning the White House, a victory that President Trump still regards as his
Trump said then, "F*ck him", and it appears that both remembered that one-liner https://www.timesofisrael.com/****-him-in-interview-trump-rages-at-netanyahu-over-congratulations-to-biden/
Needs to be approved by the Israeli parliament as well, iirc? That could be tricky
Cabinet approval, and yes that could be tricky. Some of the far-right parties that form Netanyahu's coalition are furious and so they should be - the two stated aims of the genocidal onslaught were to totally destroy Hamas and release the Israelis that they held.
Not only has that not been achieved 15 months later despite everything, including starvation, being thrown at the operation, but Hamas is still strong enough to negotiate from a position of reasonable strength.
Netanyahu probably will get Cabinet approval though because failure to do so would unravel the coalition and possibly lead to a general election, something which could leave the far-right in a much weaker position.
Imo this ceasefire will not be good news for zionism, apart from the fact that the Palestinian resistance has not been destroyed it will accentuate and increase very deep divisions within a society facing its greatest existential threat ever. Ilan Pappe would argue that it will be just another nail in Zionism's coffin. Although frankly they have no choice - it is a failing settler-colonialist project in the 21st century and well out of step with history.
They might have had better luck a couple of hundred years ago.
So a ceasefire announced, but given it doesn't take affect for a few days israel seize the opportunity to kill a few more innocent folks, probably as they know they won't be able to get away with it for a wee while after the weekend.
Just incase anyone is under any illusion on who the bad guys are in all of this ..
Yes they are maintaining their aerial and artillery assaults with obviously the inevitable deaths of innocent people :
https://israelpalestine.liveuamap.com/
But no, I think they know full well they will get away with breaking the ceasefire in the weeks ahead, they will simply blame the Palestinians. They always do.
And if people don't believe them they won't care after all they are able to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity with complete impunity so why would ceasefire violations be any more of a problem for them?
Obviously they won't be able slaughter Palestinians on quite the same genocidal scale as they have been but they will still be able to carry on quietly killing them, as they have been in illegal occupied West Bank where they are currently killing about 10 Palestinians every week, despite there being no "war" there or organised Hamas presence.
So they will be able to maintain their campaign of terror against Palestinian men, women, and children.
According to OCHA, between 7 October 2023 and 8 January 2024, 813 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. Of those, 498 Palestinians were killed in 2024.
Anyway it's starting to look as if Israeli Cabinet might not confirm the ceasefire. They were supposed to meet this morning to vote on it but they never met.
Obviously they are blaming Hamas but the problem appears to be the far-right finance minister Bezalel Smotrich. It looks possible that the Israeli government is close to collapse resulting in a general election in which the far-right and Likud will get a hammering.
Israel really is in a crisis and to think many believed that Trump winning the presidential election was nothing short of fantastic news for hardline zionists. Who knows but it's not looking that way right now.
I guess it depends how successful Trump is in pursuing his Abraham Accords and the normalisation of Saudi-Israeli relations, which necessitates the ceasefire, and whether it manages to guarantee Israel's long-term security and future in the region. Personally I don't think anything can do that, I subscribe to Ilan Pappe's critique.
The only thing keeping Israel from finalising a ceasefire is PM Netanyahu's inevitable appearance in an Israeli Court to answer various corruption charges.
On Friday morning, the prime minister's office said he had been informed by the negotiating team that agreements on the deal had been reached.
It added that the security cabinet would meet later on Friday to ratify the agreement, before approval from the full government is sought. Families of the hostages have been informed. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwypppw9jrko
From the above link. :
Two hardline right-wing ministers, Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, who are both members of the security cabinet and oppose the deal, have said they will resign in protest.
But they've signalled they will not join the opposition - to bring the government down - yet, so long as the war resumes in six weeks time, when phase one of the ceasefire and hostage release deal ends.
What is being ignored here about Trump having sway over Netanyahu, is that Trump specifically told Netanyahu not to agree to a ceasefire ‘till the credit could be taken by Trump. How many people have died for Trump to get one over Biden and the Democrats? That’s what his transactional politics are about, the deal has to be good for him, no matter who else has to suffer, for how long.
is that Trump specifically told Netanyahu not to agree to a ceasefire ‘till the credit could be taken by Trump.
Maybe for the last couple of months but thats down to Trump being, as you say, transactional.
Biden did fail since everytime Netanyahu took the piss the response was at best to keep sending weapons and at worse sending even more. Of course if he had done differently the maga lot would have gone nuts but its still a failing on his part.
What is being ignored here about Trump having sway over Netanyahu, is that Trump specifically told Netanyahu not to agree to a ceasefire ‘till the credit could be taken by Trump.
And what is also being ignored here is that if Donald Trump could twist Netanyahu arm then if course so too could have Joe Biden........"don't sign my ceasefire deal, don't get any more US weapons and parts, simply as"
It is just bizarre to believe that Joe Biden was not in a position to sway Netanyahu. As little as two weeks ago Joe Biden was still doing everything that Netanyahu wanted him to do :
Biden notifies Congress of $8 billion arms sale to Israel
https://www.axios.com/2025/01/04/biden-arms-deal-israel-8-billion
How many people have died because the President of the world's greatest superpower wouldn't stand up to Netanyahu and his fascist far-right government?
But let's blame Donald Trump for that.
Only a bunch of batshit lefties could try and twist this into being a dig at Trump. I'd say it was unbelievable, but sadly it isn't.
I was thinking on the drive home earlier about checking in on here and asking how you would swing this one. Seems I didn't have to bother
No, all the lefties I know, and I know quite a few, blame Joe Biden for allowing the Israeli government's genocidal onslaught on the Palestinian people.
None of them blame Donald Trump for the tens of thousands of mostly women and children who have died in Gaza over the last 15 months.
Which batshit lefties did you have in mind?
Which batshit lefties did you have in mind
Certainly not you. In the brief time I've spent in this thread, I agree with what you are saying
But Trump used his leverage to actively delay the deal.
So you claim. And yet Netanyahu did not wait until Trump had been sworn in to agree to the ceasefire. As soon as Trump was declared the winner of the presidential election had Netanyahu agreed to a ceasefire Trump would still have been able to claim credit as it was one of his campaign promises - he said he would bring peace to Gaza and that there would be hell to pay if there wasn't a ceasefire by the time he was US president.
You claim, without providing any evidence at all (Trump style!) that Trump did a deal with Netanyahu in which he would not to agree to a ceasefire whilst Joe Biden was still president. And yet all the political pundits appear to universally agree that it was intense pressure this week from Steven Witkoff, on behalf of Donald Trump, that forced Netanyahu to capitulate over the issue.
Netanyahu did not want to agree to this ceasefire, his far-right coalition partners have publicly stated that they will pull out of the government in six weeks time if fighting in Gaza does not resume, they see this as a victory for Hamas who only a couple of days ago were still inflicting casualties on the IDF.
But under intense pressure from Steven Witkoff/Donald Trump Netanyahu had no choice.
This ceasefire could ultimately bring about the political downfall of Netanyahu, even though his ability to survive political crises is the stuff of legends.
his ability to survive political crises is the stuff of legends.
Surviving political crises in Israel seems to be fairly straightforward - just go out and murder some Palestinians; the “peace-loving” electorate flock to your defence. It’s when you negotiate a peace treaty that things get tricky.
An interesting article from a left-wing Israeli source which argues that Netanyahu has used Donald Trump's arm twisting as an excuse to stop a war which was no longer providing him sufficient benefits.
https://www.972mag.com/ceasefire-trump-netanyahu-gaza/
Well the news this morning is not surprising. Netanyahu is a genocidal war tyrant with UK and USA wrapped around his little finger. Glad to see my tax money going to fund weapons to use on innocent children. All it come down to is a vanity project for him for greed and power, and anyone in support of Israel should hang their heads. No different to Nazi Germany.
All it come down to is a vanity project for him for greed and power,
Well in his case its more about avoiding court and prison.
achievements
Until a few hours ago this man was the Israeli Cabinet Minister responsible for National Security.
Ben-Gvir has been convicted eight times for offences that include racism and supporting a terrorist organisation. As a teen, his views were so extreme that the army banned him from compulsory military service.
And he is very proud of his commitment to the genocide in Gaza :
In his Cabinet post, Ben-Gvir oversaw the country’s police force. He used his influence to encourage Netanyahu to press ahead with the war in Gaza and recently boasted that he had blocked past efforts to reach a ceasefire.
Having criticised Netanyahu for allegedly helping Hamas I am a little surprised that Ben-Gvir hasn't accused him of anti-semitism, isn't that the route which the argument usually follows?
At least Emily has a home to go back to....
I'm not really that clued up on Israeli politics. Surely now it's a good thing overall that 3 of the most extreme far-righters have gone? Less chance of the fighting restarting, surely?
It may destabilise the government... ok, but what does that actually mean? Help bring down Netenyahu's coalition? Does that mean more moderates will replace the government? Will it be better or worse for Israel? Gaza? Palestinians? The middle east in general?
Surely now it’s a good thing overall that 3 of the most extreme far-righters have gone? Less chance of the fighting restarting, surely?
Well, the fighting will restart, as sure as night follows day. There are still Palestinians to murder and land to grab, and the next four years offer an excellent opportunity to do both with zero consequences. On the specific question of these three nutters, I guess it depends on if Netanyahu needs their support to keep out of prison, and in that case, if they can be coaxed back with promises of restarting the bombing in 41 days.
15yr old boy on a donkey? Must be a hamas operative according to the IDF so it’s ok to break the ceasefire
I hope every single one of these genocidal war criminals are hunted down and face the justice they deserve
https://twitter.com/ase/status/1881427131265392940?s=46&t=qvPR6lBfBXtAWZ-6beFWyA
Don't blame the boots on the ground. I know " i was just following orders" is a poor defense but they have been indoctrinated all their lives.
So what’s the solution - check the entire Israeli population into rehab?
I have no idea. Stop arming the Israelis? Un forces on the ground well armed ones?
My question was not how to stop the Israelis from killing, but how ro deradicalise them. Can anything be done? Or are they lost forever?
My question was not how to stop the Israelis from killing, but how ro deradicalise them. Can anything be done? Or are they lost forever?
I don't think that deradicalising Israelis is a realistic option, certainly not in the short term. So TJ's suggestion of stop arming them plus applying sanctions, and an international force to force them to comply with international law, is the only realistic option.
If you want to stop the slaughter of Palestinians and guarantee that they enjoy the same basic rights as everyone is entitled to. The problem is that Western governments who arm and support Israel really don't treat any of that as a priority.
When it was pointed out to Israeli historian Ilan Pappe :
But within Israel, young people also have access to the documentation of the genocide on social media, on platforms like TikTok. But many still disregard Palestinian suffering.
He replied :
They didn’t get the same education as young Jews in America. They got an education from a very indoctrinated country. And that’s the key. They were produced, if you want, engineered by the Israeli education system.
I wrote an article in 1999 warning that, looking at the Israeli curricula, the next graduates of this system would be racist fanatics, extreme and dangerous to themselves and to others. Unfortunately, I was absolutely right.
This is the product of a very indoctrinated society from the cradle to the grave.
You need to re-educate these people. You can’t just show them things and hope that this would move them.
They can see dead Palestinian babies and say ‘Good, very good’. Dehumanisation is part of the Israeli DNA and it’s very hard to confront just by giving them more information.
Well, it’s becoming clearer what a Trump backed “Peace” will look like. The West Bank settlements being expanded by force, backed by IDF forces freed up from Gaza, with no USA sanctions on those expanding illegal settlements any more. All while what’s left of the people in Gaza being prepared to be cleared out, the land divided, and the whole region rebuilt to the design of, and more deeply controlled by, Israel. Depressing.
Un forces on the ground well armed ones?
That would be a slow motion car crash for sure. Without a very clear structure of outcomes for breaches of whatever rules that would be applied, you would need a very capable force who are empowered to act accordingly.
The UN doesn't have a good track history there, it's why they favour on the whole poorly equipped nations who lack the doctrine to be effective in that space.
Great in principle, fraught with risks in the application, the current tick box force lets people think the UN are doing something while posing absolutely no risk in curtailing Israeli or Hamas activities.
There are very limited UNTSO forces on the ground. But this is no Cyprus… where’s the border? And how do you prevent deliberate escalation from third party neighbouring states, by targeting blue helmets, if you had a larger more interventional UN presence?
There are UNTSO forces on the ground. But this is no Cyprus
I know. And they're ineffective. In part they're not doctrinally or materially prepared for what others propose and the UN lacks the will to enforce compliance and many nations (of influence) lack the will to support the UN.
Edit to add: and many nations lack the will to do more politically to being this to an end. Which has been very obvious throughout. I think Israel as a nation are simultaneously culturally desensitised to the impact of this and have an aggressive entrenched mentality towards Hamas, Palestine and Iran. I understand in some regards, "but do what you've always done, get what you've always got" is applicable here.