Another war in Palestine

Christ. The US is sending a carrier strike force to the Eastern Med in support of Israel. Gaza is likely to be wiped off the face of the earth. Poor sods, the electricity has been cut off to the whole strip apparently; there’s only going to be one way this ends, probably the whole Middle East at war, then who the hell knows from there?

Christ. The US is sending a carrier strike force to the Eastern Med in support of Israel.

That’s never going to end well. It never does. I guess we are too close to the US election to expect anything other than a warmongering response in support of Israel.

So why is the conversation about ‘peace’ so one-sided?

Maybe because this:

Initiatives, and so-called peaceful solutions and international conferences, are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement.

Is Article 10 of the document which sets out one side’s ideology as decreed by its founders.

If we want to go back decades – my own grandfather was shot and injured by an Israeli settler.  He wasn’t a Palestinian objecting and rebelling against giving land to settlers – he was an English soldier, serving in Palestine.  The settlers decided that the English government and its soldiers were not working quickly enough.  

I’m not saying your grandfather individually had much of a say in the matter, but the Brits weren’t just “not working quickly enough”. The Brits were an imperial power that had for decades been completely duplicitous in making totally inconsistent promises to Jews and Arabs about what would happen in Mandatory Palestine, and had blocked Jewish migration to both the UK and Palestine – even after the concentration camps and the genocide of Jews (and others) were well known, and even after World War Two was over! You would have to have been totally nuts to trust an Imperial, anti-Semitic, European power to safeguard you.

Driving the Brits out of Palestine (not that they were particularly keen to stay at that point) and establishing a state by any means necessary was the only rational choice. Plus, more generally, if you’re an empire trying to control foreign lands, you can expect people to attack you from time to time…

As I say – obviously not a question of choice for many British soldiers. My own grandfather was engaged in another theatre, were one empire was fighting another for control of land that really belonged to the people that lived there.

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/british-restrictions-on-jewish-immigration-to-palestine

Until now, most young Israelis see very little of actual combat; the war is distant and removed from their lives. Suddenly, war has been visited upon the more affluent secular middle classes in the big cities. Now, it is real, and incredibly close.

There’s a piece of footage taken at some kind of festival where young Israelis are dancing to techno while Hamas microlights are flying into view. And in a way it’s a microcosm of what Israel has insulated itself from the Palestinian question in the last 20 years: a European-style, raucous society where tattooed fashionable kids set up vegan carbon neutral crypto platforms, and their parents buy Ikea from African and Filipino shop workers. And meanwhile a short distance away there is Gaza and the West Bank, divided up, choked and crushed by the occupation. There is no free exit – no free trade – no free flow of money – no land tenure or security for farmers. But you can hang out with an iced frapp and ignore all that practically your whole life.

It didn’t used to be like this – for example at the time of the first intifada. With the separation wall and the influx of foreign, non-Arab labour, what happened in the West Bank used to really impact Israeli life and give them a stake in its success or failure. Perhaps for totally understandable reasons, that visibility is now gone. Perhaps a little like how US and UK people are oblivious to the wars in Syria and the Sahel and Yemen in which their governments remain deeply involved.

If you call for balance during one side’s attack

The Palestinians are under constant attack by Israel, this is not a new development. Israeli occupation is enforced through military might, not through some sort of agreement with the Palestinians.

The only development which has occurred in the last couple of days is that the Palestinian resistance has challenged Israeli military might to a degree never seen before. The idea that there was peace before “one side” launched an attack is nonsense.

How else do you expect the Palestinians to resist the occupation of their lands by a foreign invader? Or don’t you think that they should resist the illegal occupation of their country?

I seem to remember reading about Zionists campaigning to stop refugees getting into the US so they had to go to Palestine, anti-Semitic bastards.

The only development which has occurred in the last couple of days is that the Palestinian resistance has challenged Israeli military might to a degree never seen before.

Slitting pensioners throats is not challenging anyones military might.

Slitting pensioners throats is not challenging anyones military might.

No it’s not, which is why it is obviously not what I am talking about.

Or are suggesting that the only way that the Palestinians can reasonably challenge Israeli occupation is by slitting pensioners throats?

I reckon your problem is that you don’t actually believe that the Palestinians have any right to challenge the illegal occupation of their country – am I right?

https://www.ft.com/content/aa7eb6ba-6dc1-46dc-b96a-b7c3a1b0446e?accessToken=zwAAAYsQgc7CkdOqfra6bcFG3NO5arfDobBEbg.MEYCIQDMsVbA0M6FrAqls67aUTFuH7S3bPidso7I5G0TzkLpzQIhAL5PMIiMNZ50BF7RV7fqAm_Z3HJ5O9sR-zO43xv-fNVG&segmentId=e95a9ae7-622c-6235-5f87-51e412b47e97&shareType=enterprise

As an aside, I found the references to Arab immigration crowding out Jewish immigration in mandatory Palestine a bit if a stretch – considering the land borders were porousbor nonexistent at the time, and that there had always been migration for work, trade, marriage and study between the towns of Palestine and Damascus, Cairo, Beirut, Amman etc. https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/british-restrictions-on-jewish-immigration-to-palestine

I seem to remember…

🤣

The Palestinians are under constant attack by Israel, this is not a new development. Israeli occupation is enforced through military might, not through some sort of agreement with the Palestinians.

The only development which has occurred in the last couple of days is that the Palestinian resistance has challenged Israeli military might to a degree never seen before. The idea that there was peace before “one side” launched an attack is nonsense.

How else do you expect the Palestinians to resist the occupation of their lands by a foreign invader? Or don’t you think that they should resist the illegal occupation of their country?

Still waiting to question earlier.

There is one root cause for this.  The Israeli illgal occopation and the forming of the gaza ghetto

Root cause or not, war crimes are not an excusable retaliation for war crimes.

Ever.

You can similarly understand what got people to that point without endorsing their actions.

And FFS stop engaging with Ernie, he’s just a sealioning shit stirrer who will use any excuse for an argument.

For those who do not understand what a hideous crime has and still is being committed against an entire people look at this.

https://mondoweiss.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/cropped-maps-53.jpg

This an interesting news item which was reported two days before Hamas launched their attack:

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/5/israeli-troops-kill-two-palestinians-in-occupied-west-bank-clash

I only became aware of that ^^ because Hamas are currently claiming that they launched their attack in retaliation for the killing of 4 Palestinians. This is obviously nonsense as the attack had clearly been planned for a very long time.

But it does show the background to this latest development and there have undoubtedly been very many similar incidents since Hamas first started planning their attack, pretty much on a daily basis I would imagine.

So this is what was being reported last Thursday, two days before Hamas launched their attack:

“What is happening on the main street of the town of Huwara is a real battlefield between Palestinian residents and Israeli settlers. The situation in our town is very, very difficult,”

Netanyahu might well be claiming today that ‘Israel is at war’, but it has obviously been at war for a very long time. The only difference appears to be that one side was doing practically all the killing until this weekend.

And FFS stop engaging with Ernie, he’s just a sealioning shit stirrer who will use any excuse for an argument.

Wise words from squirrelking. You don’t have to argue with me just because you don’t agree with my point of view.

I have just realised the significance of this paragraph in the link which I have just posted:

Settlers regularly attack Huwara, including in February when they killed one Palestinian in a rampage and destroyed homes and cars. An Israeli general described the incident as a pogrom, but Israel’s far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, later called for Huwara to be wiped out.

So an Israeli general describes the incident as a ‘pogrom’ (a particularly damning term for a Jew to use) and the Israeli finance minister calls for the Palestinian town to be “wiped out”.

For those who don’t know, Bezalel Smotrich, who is deputy speaker as well as Israeli finance minister, is proud to call himself a “fascist” :

https://www.thepinknews.com/2023/01/18/bezalel-smotrich-israel-minister-fascist-homophobe-kan/

The current Israeli government is the most right-wing Israeli government in history. They very clearly want no peace with the Palestinians, they want Palestinians towns wiped out. Never has the future looked more bleak for the Palestinians. The second most senior cabinet minister calls himself a fascist.

And yet some people believe that the Palestinians should bide their time and be patient with this foreign far-right government which illegally occupies their lands, violates international law, and hates them.

‘🤣’ and your point is?

**** knows. I think we’re supposed to feel sorry for the kind of people that raped and beat a 22 year old woman to death just for existing whilst filming it for the world’s media as they were forced into it really.

Or maybe we’re supposed to just ignore it, I’m not really sure at this point.

I could link videos if you all like, just so we’re all on the same page. Plenty more where that came from, there’s another awesome one of them rushing the border post with plenty of bodies lying around. Of course the IDF have plenty of form for that as well so it’s not really a crime.

I think we’re supposed to feel sorry for the kind of people that raped and beat a 22 year old woman to death just for existing whilst filming it for the world’s media as they were forced into it really.

Is that what you really “think”?

I think Ernie’s post is begging for a response in the form of a “who’s who” of the Hamas government in Palestine. Well I’ve got an unknown number of days before I’m able to get out of Israel so I’ll do a deep dive.
I have a feeling it won’t be pretty, but at least we’ll know where his sympathies lie.

The alternative to legal armed resistance is of course peaceful protest.

Israeli Military Order 101 specifically bans Palestinians from engaging in peaceful protest. And has done for over 50 years.

50 years of Israeli Occupation: Four Outrageous Facts about Military Order 101

All Palestinians are tried in military courts.

I have a feeling it won’t be pretty, but at least we’ll know where his sympathies lie.

Don’t be in any doubt where my sympathies lie, they lie foursquare behind the Palestinian people.

And the reason? Well look at the above Amnesty International link for some clues.

Although perhaps you feel that Amnesty International must support atrocities because they clearly have a lot of sympathy for the Palestinian people?

Btw I am sorry that you have been forced to leave your home FlyingOx, I have a lot of sympathy for people who are driven from their homes. I’m sure you do too.

I’m not saying your grandfather individually had much of a say in the matter.

I would be surprised if he did – he was only a private at the time.

Yes, the United Kingdom government wasn’t moving quickly, but to shoot at soldiers who were not shooting at you is criminal.  We were not at war with the Jewish settlers.   Despite what was happening at the time – according to him, he faced no violence from Arab Palestinians.  

I have little truck with British Imperialism.  My fathers side of the family originated in one country that suffered as part of the Empire and lived in another which only gained independence in the late 1960’s.  Part of it’s territories are still controlled by the United Kingdom with Diego Garcia leased to the United States.

Shows exactly how much you know, Ernie. I’ve been evacuated from work after Hamas decided that the facilty that provides Gaza with power was a legitimate target. I live in Scotland, hopefully to return.

Don’t be in any doubt where my sympathies lie, they lie foursquare behind the Palestinian people.

Sorry Ernie, but it appears some here feel you shouldn’t be allowed to hold such views. At least it seems that way from the personal attacks posted directly against you on this thread.

YOu can be sympathetic to the Palestinian cause without excusing terrorism.    To understand the roots of the conflict does not mean you agree with the use of indiscriminate violence and murder on either side.

If you want to swap atrocity stories there are plenty by both sides.

A plague on both their houses.  “an eye for an eye makes us all blind”  Bloody old testamentarians

Shows exactly how much you know, Ernie.

I know absolutely nothing about your circumstances FlyingOx, you claimed to have been evacuated to northern Israel, I assumed that you had a home from which you were evacuated – that after all is what usually happens when someone claims to have been “evacuated”.

What does my lack of knowledge of the precise details of your current accommodation have to do with my support for the people who are living under Israeli occupation?

I am not entitled to have any sympathy for them because I don’t know where you live?

Only a prize **** would be arguing semantics around the word “evacuation” in a situation like this

And there’s no “claim” about it, I was under direct rocket attack, with some landing 100m away despite the presence of an Iron Dome… thing..  I have photos of the fires in Ashkelon and Ashdod as well as photos immediately prior to the video everyone’s seen on the news re: Israel’s fisrt retalatory strike on Gaza. I would post here but who knows what trouble it might get me in.

Well said. I hope you find safety, and peace….

It seems like this will go on for a long time. Hamas are terrorists, the Israeli government are terrorists. The balance of power is firmly on the side of the Israeli terrorists and not the Palestinian terrorists, meaning when it’s all happening, Palestinian civilians will suffer on a greater scale.

It’s distressing to watch.

For those who do not understand what a hideous crime has and still is being committed against an entire people look at this.

@tjagain that map is a propaganda piece created within the last couple of decades designed to give the impression of creeping land theft over many decades.

The area it calls Palestine in the 1st image never existed as a country. Along with neighbouring Transjordan, it was an administrative area created by the League of Nations after the fall of the Ottoman Empire at the end of WWI. Under the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine, the two territories were to be administered by Britain until Jewish and Arab states could be created within them. The area coloured green is all the land not privately owned by Jewish people, regardless of whether it was owned by anyone else.

The 2nd image is the 1947 UN proposal for those states in the Mandatory Palestine area. It was never agreed or enacted. War followed instead, including invasions from Egypt, Transjordan, Syria, and Iraq, the day after the British Mandate ended in May 1948

The 1949-67 image shows the borders of the 1949 Armistice Agreement. What it doesn’t show is that the two green areas labelled Palestine were actually annexed by Jordan (West Bank) and Egypt (Gaza) during that time.

From 1967 there’s more wars, peace treaties, intifadas, summits. Complex and violent.

I’m not arguing that any of this justifies West Bank settlements. But that map is politically-skewed distortion of the complex and tumultuous 20th century history of that area. Sharing it is frankly dodgy.

YOu can be sympathetic to the Palestinian cause without excusing terrorism.

Absolutely. That’s where I started, very one-sidedly actually. It took me many years to come to understand the Israeli cause (gaining Jewish family was a big part of that).

there is no Israeli cause.  They stole a country.  Thats the facts of the matter and the root of the conflict.

@dyna-ti

Sorry Ernie, but it appears some here feel you shouldn’t be allowed to hold such views.

No, it’s the complete imbalance (and usual scraping of any excuse for an argument) that’s getting people’s backs up. To expand on TJs last post it’s possible to have sympathy for both and it doesn’t have to be unconditional as some seem to suggest.

Just to be clear, coming out with some shite about all your sympathy being with the Palestinians and a load of stuff about Isreal being the aggressors the day after Hamas massacres a load of folk (who weren’t all Isrealis) is tone deaf at best and extreme **** ishness at worst.

I hate what Isreal has done, does and will continue to do. It’s utterly abhorrent that we allow such things to happen in this day and age. But make no mistake, the attack by Hamas was nothing more than utter cowardice and I’d gladly see every participant hung as I would for any similar attack by anyone on any side of a conflict. They launched a wholesale indescriminate attack on unarmed civilians, raped, murder and defiled them and will no doubt disappear back amongst their own populace using them as human shields and martyr fodder to further their own cause.

I think I’m going to disengage now as there’s clearly no chance of reasoned debate and I’m not in the mood for a holiday.

@theflyingox stay safe, hope you get out soon.

@tjagain do you think they stole it from the British or the Turks?

edit: you have to ignore over 3000 years of history to make a simplistic claim like “stole”. There are competing claims is about the best you can say.

I’m out too.

*looks in for some useful insight or news.  Sees usual suspects arguing the toss and being pretty obnoxious.  Think I’ll stick to diy and bike threads…

I think I’m going to disengage now as there’s clearly no chance of reasoned debate and I’m not in the mood for a holiday.

I reckon it speaks volumes that you don’t trust yourself to engage in a topic on stw without earning a ban.

You clearly have some issues if you are so quick to ‘lose your shit’, as you call it, with strangers on the internet who happen to have different opinions to yours.

I appreciate that passions run high on the issue of Occupied Palestine, I certainly feel extremely passionate about it considering it the greatest injustice of our current times (I felt a similar passion about apartheid South Africa) but you seem to lose it whatever the issue being discussed happens to be.

Instead of blaming other people for your self-confessed lack of emotional control, and getting yourself regular bans, you should perhaps try to deal with it.

The US is sending a carrier strike force to the Eastern Med in support of Israel. Gaza is likely to be wiped off the face of the earth.

Not by the US it won’t be, they are there primarily as a deterrent vs Iran. They’ll also be providing intelligence support to Israel no doubt but I can’t believe they’ll launch missile or air attacks on Gaza. I also doubt Israel will go much further than occupying Gaza City (or part of it anyway), trying to wipe out Gaza would not only be extremely costly in terms of men & materiel but they know they’d lose a lot of support (although likely just Arab ones in the short-term). It would almost certainly fully bring in Hezbollah as well (they seem mostly to be sniping from the edges currently, being careful not to escalate beyond border posts) and whilst Israel would no doubt prevail it would be extremely costly to them given how well Hezbollah has supposedly been armed by Iran.
As for this conflict – firstly **** religion, it’s the root of all evil and it’s depressing that the human race hasn’t been able to move past it. Secondly, Hamas’ actions should never be condoned but I’m not sure what else is to be expected if you violently oppress a people for so long and with a right-wing Zionist Israeli government meaning no prospect of change for years more. Imagine being a 20 year old guy born in Gaza, what prospects do you have? You’re condemned to live in a shit hole with virtually no hope of leaving and/or bettering your situation. Whilst Hamas taking power is a large part of the reason things are so bad in Gaza what other way to you have to push back against your oppression than by joining them? If a people don’t have anything to live for it’s no surprise some will find a cause to die for.

Only a prize **** would be arguing semantics around the word “evacuation” in a situation like this

And yet you felt the compulsion to say “Shows exactly how much you know, Ernie” because I didn’t know details of your personal situation.

I am not interested in your personal accommodation arrangements, this is not what this thread is about. It is about the greatest crisis in Palestine in decades.

I am perfectly happy to admit that I know absolutely nothing about your personal circumstances, but it doesn’t somehow translate into meaning that I know nothing about what is happening in Occupied Palestine.

Although I would not claim to be any sort of expert on the issue – the Amnesty International report in the link further up the page genuinely shocked me, I had no idea about the details behind Military Order 101.

Edit: I guess it would help if stw had a forum member who was a resident of Gaza, and who could therefore give their perspective on the issues. Sadly I don’t think singletrack mountain biking is particularly popular in Gaza.

Ernie –  you should seek help. Your vexatious, pseudo-casuistic  posting style is alarming at best.

I’ve called you out several times for it. You’re either a complete moron  or you’ve got issues that need professional help 

I don’t care why you frequently spout  utter bollocks I just know that you ruin the forum for many users.

Have a day off FFS