Another war in Palestine

but none of you should be under any illusion about the prospect of peace whilst Hamas exists

And no one should be under any illusion that peace can exist without justice, it simply can’t, no matter how hard you try.

Israel of course knows this which is why it is armed to the teeth and relative to its size it is the most powerful military force on earth.

And also why the Palestinian people live permanently under military law.

Israel clearly believes that securing peace isn’t important as long as the violence, which its apartheid system inevitably creates, can be contained, and the casualties are overwhelmingly Palestinians.

The Hamas attack was an attempt to challenge that mindset by inflecting horrific casualties on the Israelis, not to actually defeat them, which they obviously cannot do.

But to be fair Israel’s hands are tied, it simply cannot agree to justice for the Palestinians. Injustice to the Palestinian people is in the very fabric of Israel. If justice for the Palestinian people had ever been an issue Israel would not exist as it does today.

Instead there would be a secular Palestine with Muslims, Christians, Jews, and nonbelievers, living side-by-side. A bit like most European countries.

@dancingkitty. Thanks!

But I think the 1922 UN (then LoN) Mandate to put the Balfour Declaration into effect is what sealed it. There’s no evidence I know of to say it wouldn’t have happened if not for the holocaust.

But they are always created with a purpose in mind.

When Isis controlled huge swathes of Iraq, they symbolically drove a bulldozer through a barricade made of sand that they labelled the Sykes-Picot line. The current countries that border or are neighbour to Israel have their origins in post colonial Europe. Their purpose was to allow either the French or British to exert control over territory that used to be the Ottoman Empire. I doubt you’d agree that their founding principle or purpose still applies, would you be equally content to let them be dissolved or changed to something else now, or would exert the rights of their inhabitants to do what they wanted with the countries that they inherited and now occupy?

I doubt many Palestinians would feel the same though. The point is we’ll never know because Hamas had no intention of allowing any more of this ‘democracy’ lark once they’d assumed power

I believe that it is the Israeli occupying authorities that have been an obstacle to elections in Palestine. Well according to the EU, I suspect that Israel would claim otherwise.

There were plenty of attacks on Jews in the one nation Ottoman state that you likely look at through rose tinted glasses Ernie. That kind of reconciliation is a long way off, for both sides – not just the state of Israel.

I would also argue that Europe is moving away from secular multiculturalism towards something darker.

The Hamas attack was not designed to change Israelis minds and develop Israeli support for Palestinian justice, it is designed to galvanise Muslim support through the Arab world and destroy Israeli normalisation of relations with its neighbours. It was designed to force people to pick sides in a battle that is grander than Palestine.

Their purpose was to allow either the French or British to exert control over territory that used to be the Ottoman Empire.

I won’t dispute that!

Injustice to the Palestinian people is in the very fabric of Israel. If justice for the Palestinian people had ever been an issue Israel would not exist as it does today.

This is utterly wrong and bordering on anti-semitic. Please just stop.

There were plenty of attacks on Jews in the one nation Ottoman state that you likely look at through rose tinted glasses Ernie.

I am not sure what glasses you are wearing but it was the “one nation Ottoman state” that welcomed and offered a safe haven for Jews expelled by Europeans from Europe.

Indeed that is the very reason why there were so Jews in North Africa and the Middle East a hundred years ago.

@Benos

The Balfour declaration stated that Jews would have a homeland in Palestine as long it did not impinge on the rights of non-Jews.

However, what sealed the direction of Zionism were the actions of both Arabs and Europeans. These actions created mass migration in the 30s and 40s. The British were turning away Jews from Palestine both before and after the war, even violently boarding one boat of Jews who survived the holocaust. Arabs violently opposed Jewish migration in the 20s culminating in the Hebron massacre, this all drove Zionist militancy and helped produce what we have now.

Ernie, to name one off the top of my head – the 1834 looting of Safed.

The point being, it’s like wishing for the 1950s to return. It won’t.

Injustice to the Palestinian people is in the very fabric of Israel. If justice for the Palestinian people had ever been an issue Israel would not exist as it does today.

This is utterly wrong and bordering on anti-semitic. Please just stop.

I will absolutely not stop it. Palestinians were expelled from their lands for the creation of Israel.

It might have been considered necessary but it certainly wasn’t justice.

And that injustice has persisted to this day.

Why do think there are 2 million Palestinians living in what is the most densely populated place on earth, Gaza?

Because they all love to be by the seaside?

Even the United Nations commemorates the mass displacement of Palestinians known as “the Nakba” or “the Catastrophe”:

https://www.un.org/unispal/nakba75/

“Between 1947 and 1949, about 750,000 Palestinians out of a population of 1.9 million were expelled from their towns and villages to make way for the new Jewish immigrants.”

How on earth is that not an injustice?

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/5/15/nakba-day-for-palestinians-not-just-an-historical-event

The Hamas attack was not designed to change Israelis minds and develop Israeli support for Palestinian justice, it is designed to galvanise Muslim support through the Arab world and destroy Israeli normalisation of relations with its neighbours. It was designed to force people to pick sides in a battle

In the context of Iran vs Saudi, particularly the latter’s move from regional to aspirant international power. I think. In this reading Israel retaliating is doing what Hammas wants it to do. Maximum grimness. I’m now going to think about something else.

Ernie and I say this as someone who despises Netanyahu and the west bank settlers, too much has happened since then to be able to resolve that injustice without more death and war. It’s done, that happened in the 1940s just after 6 million Jews had been gassed, German diaspora had been expelled from further east and Japan had been nuked, the only way is a two state solution.

After Hamas and Bibi have gone, that rhetoric won’t produce any kind of reconciliation. It would be like trying to end the troubles by demanding ethnically Scottish Northern Irish to bugger off home and give all the land back.

also blimey

What exactly is the purpose of Israel today? To provide a home for those who fancy living in a Western enclave in the Middle East, like warm weather, and can make a claim that their ancestors lived there a couple of thousand years ago?

Is that a question looking for an answer, or some sort of statement? Looks worryingly like the latter.

French school teacher stabbed to death this morning. Attacker was shouting ‘revenge’ amongst other things.

It would appear from initial French comms that the individual was known to French Security Services. This cycle of violence has just got to stop. On all sides.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-67101089

Before all of you jump on Ernie, it’s an emotive topic and the destruction being filmed is going to produce emotive responses. He seems like a good person and obviously cares about people suffering, I can understand people questioning the point of all of the death and perhaps framing the Israeli question amongst all the pointless death.

I just don’t think it helps or contributes to peace.

After Hamas have gone, that rhetoric won’t produce any kind of reconciliation.

Hamas are not the problem! They have only been around relatively recently. The Nakba or “the Catastrophe” occurred 75 years ago, the idea that everything was fine until Hamas came along is daft, as is the suggestion that things might get better after Hamas has gone.

Hamas do not control or have significant activity in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, is everything hunkydory there? Everyone happy?

Hamas is not the problem. It is one of the symptoms of the problem.

If justice for the Palestinian people had ever been an issue Israel would not exist as it does today.

Instead there would be a secular Palestine with Muslims, Christians, Jews, and nonbelievers, living side-by-side. A bit like most European countries.

This.

Israel needs to be dismantled, called Majungamabingyland and a secular government that rules for all needs to be put in it’s place.

Israel as a country is younger than my mum.   A religion doesn’t deserve a homeland.   By all means keep the name Israel if you must – but what HAS to happen is the separation of church and state.

Justice cannot happen without that separation.  Israel is, by definition, descriminatory and unjust.  As a country it’s just like segregated buses – some for the whites, some for the blacks – apart from it’s not about race*, it’s about religion.  Rosa Parks would be livid, and rightly so.   And so should we.

*as much as the state of Israel would like us all to believe it is, it isn’t.

No Ernie, we came very, very close to a deal when Arafat was in charge and both sides pissed it up the wall – Israel for not ceding 100 percent of the settled west bank areas and the Palestinians for not accepting something like 78 percent.

At some point the adults in the room have to engage in realpolitik to bring about peace, unfortunately the children are in charge on both sides. Bibi can be voted out but Hamas will have to be removed.

Just a pre-emptive note but before this thread possibly gets closed again if talk gets too heated and even incendary, may I thank the Mods for reopening this thread. I think it’s been generally a good continuation of the discussions and hopefully informative for many.

If the thread does get closed , can the Mods possibly do so for a 24hr ‘cooling off’ period and then look to reopen.

Injustice to the Palestinian people is in the very fabric of Israel. If justice for the Palestinian people had ever been an issue Israel would not exist as it does today.

This is utterly wrong and bordering on anti-semitic. Please just stop.

This is understandably an extremely emotive subject. But we’re never going to get anywhere if people sling accusations around without considering their impact. Whilst I believe Ernielynch’s comments are perhaps rather brusque, I really don’t see any actual anti-Semitic sentiment or rhetoric in them. You can be opposed to the nature of the state of Israel, without being anti-Semitic. Plenty of Jewish people are. The borders of Israel have expanded hugely at the expense of Palestinians, many of whom have been forced from their homeland. This is fact, and pointing it out doesn’t constitute a hate crime. Levelling such accusations in this way is wrong and dangerous, as it then create further ideological division and conflict. We should be looking at what common ground we have, in trying to seek way to resolve the inhumanity that is unfolding. and not waste energy trying to win arguments. This has been a very good thread, and it would be very sad to once again see such a discussion shut down. The answers can only come through such discourse, and right now it’s all many of us have. If we’re ever going to reach any sort of effective ocnsensus, then shouting at each other isn’t going to help. 

@dancingkitty Thanks, gotcha.

Sorry, but I’m going to leave the thread now. We’re way off of how it started when it was reopened.

There was a rare good, secular Thought for the Day on R4 this morning.

And no one should be under any illusion that peace can exist without justice, it simply can’t, no matter how hard you try.

Unfortunately this isnt true, although some of the scenarios involved are so horrific I wish it was true.

Israel as a country is younger than my mum.

Most of the countries in the region are. Iraq -1932, Syria -1941, Lebanon -1920, Saudi Arabia -1932,  to name a few, why single out Israel?

Instead there would be a secular Palestine with Muslims, Christians, Jews, and nonbelievers, living side-by-side. A bit like most European countries.

Golda Meir said in the 60’s (I’m undoubtedly misquoting ) If the Palestinians laid down their guns, there’d be peace, If the Israelis did the same, there’d be no Israel.

I wonder if Chevychase has ever tried to be an ethnic minority, like a Baha’i, Druze or Christian in a Muslim country.

It’s all fine and dandy as a secular European saying a religion doesn’t deserve a homeland but the rest of the world doesn’t think the way secular Europeans do and secular Europeans have only been secular Europeans for as long as Israel has existed. Before that, they committed all sorts of genocides on non-christains – why should the secular European model be trusted by those outside looking in? What have we done in the intervening years to prove to both Jews and Muslims that we aren’t, deep down still the same as pre-war Europe? We’ve bombed Iraq, Libya, Vietnam, set up a concentration camp in Cuba….

@Benos

I don’t think you need to go. You had some good input.

How about, we try and put our money where our mouths are and all try to find common ground in this discussion. That might give us all some hope. I’m looking at you as well Ernie, Benos had a valid point – let’s not resort to bad faith arguments.

Whilst I believe Ernielynch’s comments are perhaps rather brusque, I really don’t see any actual anti-Semitic sentiment or rhetoric in them.

I thought I was quite pro-jewish, no? I don’t think anyone else has repeatedly brought up the horrific crimes committed by Europeans against Jews.

And no one bangs on more than me about opposition to Israeli government policies from Jews, especially American Jews. One link making that point I have posted about 3 three times. I have posted about Jewish Holocaust survivor Alf Dubs holding a Free Palestine placard twice.

I find to even question whether I am anti-sematic bizarre. But I am hardly unique – just look at what UK politicians such as Suella Braverman and Keir Starmer are saying.

I know that the lazy response to criticism of Israel is allegations of anti-semitism, but the Jewish people are not the problem. Racism and injustice is.

The point is Ernie, you brought up a historical injustice that cannot be fully solved. It only contributes and fuels grievance, peace talks need to move on from it. It’s not a position that is taken in good faith.

People will accuse you if anti-Semitism at that point – and I think it’s telling that it came from someone who is likely more moderate than me.

The point is Ernie, you brought up a historical injustice that cannot be fully solved. It only contributes and fuels grievance, peace talks need to move on from it. It’s not a position that is taken in good faith.

But that historical injustice is the root of the inhumanity we’re seeing unfold. No progression can be made without considering the rights of Palestinians to their own homeland, and self-determination as a people. To say we need to ‘move on’ is to ignore that, and excuse the oppression that has existed for many decades. If people keep ignoring history, then they are doomed to repeat its failings.

One last comment:

“Between 1947 and 1949, about 750,000 Palestinians out of a population of 1.9 million were expelled from their towns and villages to make way for the new Jewish immigrants.”

The Arab groups and neighbouring countries rejected the 1947 UN plan, which Jewish groups had accepted, and chose instead to wage war for it all. They lost. No prizes for what guessing what would’ve happened if they’d won.

What really matters now isn’t the past but the future. But if you are going to make it about the past, please do it in good faith.

Golda Meir said in the 60’s (I’m undoubtedly misquoting ) If the Palestinians laid down their guns, there’d be peace, If the Israelis did the same, there’d be no Israel.

Quoting Golda Meir is really not a way to advance this discussion. For balance, she also said:

“There were no such thing as Palestinians, when was there an independent Palestinian people with a Palestinian state? … It was not as though there was a Palestinian people in Palestine considering itself as a Palestinian people and we came and threw them out and took their country away from them. They did not exist,” 

The destruction of the Jewish state of Israel and going back to a pre-Israeli state of some kind is not “self-determination”, it it is a bad faith idea that would only lead to the expulsion of Jews from Israel.

All you are doing by advancing this idea is legitimising the goals of Hamas.

If you want peace, there needs to be more realism/practicality and less entrenchment and than this.

If people keep ignoring history, then they are doomed to repeat its failings.

Well in this case both parties keep refering to their history and it doesn’t seem to be going too well.

If you want peace, there needs to be more realism than this.

Peace or victory; pick one. Because in this case that’s the choice.

Try for both and we’ll revisit this soon enough.

Ding ding, we have a winner Mando.

However, both Hamas and Bibi need to go for peace. Im afraid it’s going to be war first and perhaps peace after, if Hamas can actually be pushed out. I can’t see it happening whilst they or Bibi are at the table.

If people keep ignoring history, then they are doomed to repeat its failings.

Oh no one is ignoring history, it’s just that some people are selective about what history they want to remember.

From them the situation in Palestine 75 years ago isn’t important, in contrast what is important for them is the situation in Judea two thousand years ago.

It is used to justify someone from New York kicking out a Palestinian from his home in the Occupied West Bank.

In fact it forms the very basis of their argument.

Israel needs to be dismantled, called Majungamabingyland and a secular government that rules for all needs to be put in it’s place…A religion doesn’t deserve a homeland. By all means keep the name Israel if you must – but what HAS to happen is the separation of church and state.

The way you get to this kind of position is by:

1) denying the existence of Jews as a people (as opposed to merely a religious congregation)

2) being convinced that Israel is some kind of theocracy

3) ignoring the lessons of history about what happens when Jews are a minority relying on the goodwill of others for their safety

4) being completely convinced of one’s own correctness from afar, when practically no-one in Israel or Palestine actually wants to live in a binational state

NK is that they regularly turn up at pro-Palestinian rallies and demonstrations, and are welcomed by ignorant and naive people who see them as ‘nice Jews’ who are opposed to the oppression of the Palestinian people…See them as like something like the BNP or Britain First etc

They are such an outlier, it is a bit like illustrating the views of British BAME people using the example of Lawrence Rustem, the half-Turkish BNP candidate. Like, technically maybe, but, you know…
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2001/jul/22/race.world1

Most of the countries in the region are. Iraq -1932, Syria -1941, Lebanon -1920, Saudi Arabia -1932, to name a few, why single out Israel?

@nickc – because it’s the topic and hand and because they’re running an apartheid state which is currently collectively punishing over 2 million people having turned off their water.

If denying babies water is an acceptable form of coercion by a nuclear-armed state then maybe I’m just some tree-hugging hippy.

So, what is the worst case scenario here?

In the short term probably the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians from thirst, starvation or bombs dropping on them. In the medium term the West Bank rising up and war between Israel and Iran/Hezbollah. Given the mentality of the lunatics in the Israeli govt I wouldn’t put it past them to use a nuke or two.

which is currently collectively punishing over 2 million people having turned off their water.

I’m happy to condemn the the actions of the Israeli Govt, it has nothing to do with how old, or not it is as a country; in relation to your mum.

Given the mentality of the lunatics in the Israeli govt I wouldn’t put it past them to use a nuke or two.

You’ve been saying the same thing about Putin and Ukraine for months now, let’s hope your prediction here is as accurate.