Forum menu
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.