Another war in Palestine

This thread provides a platform for (some of) STW’s regular political posters to attempt to ‘dominate the airwaves’.
None of their comments will make an iota of difference; the huge chunks of verbiage they post do not inform the debate.
It’s a bit like the self-professed know it all kid in school – hand always up; please miss/sir, listen to me.
Israel and Gaza has been a festering political problem for decades which has never been anywhere close to a resolution.
Now the two sides are further apart than ever.
There will be a high number of civilian deaths on both sides and Israel are likely to conduct ‘surgical’ political assassinations.
Israel is a nuclear power with the ability to use small scale nuclear weapons – they could have against Egypt but didn’t.
Which countries in the middle east stand to benefit?
Is there a hidden hand of Russia/China/North Korea? Probably.
Keyboard warriors on STW are just an irrelevance on such an important subject.
With that, I’m out so let the verbiage and pointless posting continue.

Its a thread where a block feature would be beneficial to avoid having to scroll past posts made by some posters, who you know what they are going to do and say, before theyve done it. There’d be no missing out on healthy discussion, only improving it, there’s challenging views given far better by other contributors. 

yes i think a block or timeout capability is needed….
a particular low point is arguing the toss with one of our members whose just been through some scary shit with rockets flying over head and is trying to get back home…..

as for the wider implications on this war, just take a look at our news.  dominated by it.  I’ve seen very little about ukraine.  tbh even the Labour conference is a foot note on the beeb.  I don’t for a second think hamas just decided alone to do a full scale invasion and how was it possible for them to stockpile so many munitions and to do it under Israeli noses.

it is interesting to see how the other middle East countries respond  I think most see Iran as a threat, and will likely have a better clue than any of us keyboard warriors of Iranian involvement.  that leaves them in potentially a weird dilemma that in supporting hamas they end up strengthening Iran, which I doubt they will want to do.

Tell me you’ve spent an hour on Wikipedia without telling me you’ve spent an hour on Wikipedia.

Nah, more likely ChatGPT working overtime.

Stay safe.

a particular low point is arguing the toss with one of our members whose just been through some scary shit with rockets flying over head and is trying to get back home…..

That’s the joy of holding luxury beliefs, you can wax lyrical about what others ‘should’ with ideal world solutions dreamed up in the safety of your own home without ever facing risk or actually having to put in any of the hard yards.

This thread is good for bringing out the sock puppets and cranks who’ve never had to face more than a little boo boo from falling off the swings.

If you think someone needs a timeout report the post and see if the mods agree with you.

I’d just like to thank @brownperson for their very balanced contribution to this thread.

100% this!

This thread provides a platform for (some of) STW’s regular political posters to attempt to ‘dominate the airwaves’.
None of their comments will make an iota of difference; the huge chunks of verbiage they post do not inform the debate.
It’s a bit like the self-professed know it all kid in school – hand always up; please miss/sir, listen to me.
Israel and Gaza has been a festering political problem for decades which has never been anywhere close to a resolution.

and this!

a particular low point is arguing the toss with one of our members whose just been through some scary shit with rockets flying over head and is trying to get back home…..

That’s the joy of holding luxury beliefs, you can wax lyrical about what others ‘should’ with ideal world solutions dreamed up in the safety of your own home without ever facing risk or actually having to put in any of the hard yards.

This thread is good for bringing out the sock puppets and cranks who’ve never had to face more than a little boo boo from falling off the swings.

Also signaling the important and insightful post that @brownperson has made here, thank you for the input and your contribution.

Interesting to hear William Hague this morning warning Israel from falling into the trap set by Hamas by undertaking a ground assault on Gaza as revenge.

Estimates on BBC2 Newsnight last night stated that a ground assault in Gaza would lead to upwards of 20,000 Gaza civilian deaths.

This thread provides a platform for (some of) STW’s regular political posters to attempt to ‘dominate the airwaves’.
None of their comments will make an iota of difference; the huge chunks of verbiage they post do not inform the debate.

Do you mean regular political posters like yourself?

This thread won’t bring peace in Palestine but global opinions concerning Palestine are slowly changing massive:

“More than half of Americans (55%) have favorable views of Israel, while 41% say they have unfavorable views of the country.”

2. American views of Israel

41% of Americans having an unfavourable view of Israel is quite staggering, not least when you consider the intense pro-Israeli propaganda which they are exposed to by both the mass media and their governments, especially right-wing governments such as the Trump administration.

This has been a long process and there is little doubt that among other things social media which didn’t exist 40 years ago now plays a part, as people learn truth about Palestine and the root causes.

The reference to the death of a “British” soldier, tragic as it undoubtedly is, all deaths are of course tragic, shines a light on much of what this conflict is really about. There are no British soldiers fighting in Palestine, only Israeli soldiers.

The need to emphasis that the soldier had British nationality was obviously to create a feeling that this conflict is “them” against “us”. A colonial mindset where the people whose land is being taken are savages who are killing the civilised British who would never act in such a barbaric way.

This however is 2023 and this colonial mindset and the talk of the rights of “settlers” to live peacefully is losing traction. A guess silencing or dismissing the debate is one way to push back. In Labour Party Conference 2023 any meaningful debates concerning Palestine are banned, beyond expressing total support for Israel.

As is any reference to Israel being an apartheid state as recognised by Amnesty International, and even now the United Nations.

That’ll be very difficult for Israel to justify on the world stage as a proportionate response.

I disagree, it’s not difficult to justify in the slightest; the challenge is will other nations take it seriously or with any validity?

And that all depends on the respective nations press, political leanings and relationships with influential nations.

it is interesting to see how the other middle East countries respond  I think most see Iran as a threat, and will likely have a better clue than any of us keyboard warriors of Iranian involvement.  that leaves them in potentially a weird dilemma that in supporting hamas they end up strengthening Iran, which I doubt they will want to do.

I don’t think it will be much of a dilemma for many. Qatar/Iran/Syria/Hezbollah have their own arc, and that’s more or less it. No state is really championing the cause of Palestinians. I wonder what Pakistan is up to now? For them, obviously, Palestine is a parallel to Jammu and Kashmir.

From the United Nations:

https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/03/1114702

“There is today in the Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967 a deeply discriminatory dual legal and political system, that privileges the 700,000 Israeli Jewish settlers living in the 300 illegal Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank,” said Michael Lynk, the UN Special Rapporteur for the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967.

“Another two million Palestinians live in Gaza, described regularly as an ‘open-air prison’, without adequate access to power, water or health, with a collapsing economy and with no ability to freely travel to the rest of Palestine or the outside world”, he added.

He ran through the internationally-understood legal definition of apartheid – the system of institutionalized racial segregation practiced in South Africa prior to its dismantling in the early 1990s.

Israel, he said, conforms to the definition as a “political regime which so intentionally and clearly prioritizes fundamental political, legal and social rights to one group over another, within the same geographic unit on the basis of one’s racial-national-ethnic identity”.

And most important of all, it is a “war crime”.

“Apartheid is not, sadly, a phenomenon confined to the history books on southern Africa,” Mr. Lynk said, in his report to the Human Rights Council.

“The 1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court came into law after the collapse of the old South Africa. It is a forward-looking legal instrument which prohibits apartheid as a crime against humanity today and into the future, wherever it may exist.”

As it exists today the entire Israeli government are war criminals, not to put too finer point on it.

Interesting to hear William Hague this morning warning Israel from falling into the trap set by Hamas by undertaking a ground assault on Gaza as revenge.

Estimates on BBC2 Newsnight last night stated that a ground assault in Gaza would lead to upwards of 20,000 Gaza civilian deaths.

What is very worrying is the language that all western governments are presently using. James Cleverley certainly wasn’t putting any caveats on Israel’s response on radio 4 just now, which I’m sure will be taken as a green light by Netanyahu as a free pass to do whatever, no matter how extreme.

They’re already imposing ‘collective punishment’ on the Palestinian people, which is against international law, by stopping water, electricity, food and medical supplies. Would anyone put it past Netanyahu to mount a full scale ground assault into the Gaza Strip? Its certainly looking that way. They’ve ‘called up’ over 300,000 reservists on top of their already enormous military.

This is exactly what the nutters at the top of Hamas want and the civilian death toll if that happens just doesn’t bear thinking about. Its a pretty depressing prospect. Just imagine being a normal person in the Gaza strip with nowhere to go and the prospect of a full scale war on the near horizon

As an aside I thought that the body count in Israel was interesting, 900 Israelis and 1500 Hamas militants, so not quite the massacre by the militants as has been portrayed (IMHO)……

I absolutely agree this is going in a really really bad direction

But is it right to just assume they are all ‘nutters’? and as interesting and horrible as all the contextual history of the region is, I think there is more to it.  Using past misdeeds to justify future ones isn’t how we (humans) should live otherwise its never ending spiral of violence.  The nutters aren’t in charge, sane cold calculating people trying to gain power are in charge and using things like religion and transgression to create the nutters.  The nutters are the pawns that are easily manipulated and made to do horrific stuff.  Its actually much easier to come to terms with horrific actions when we think they are planned and perpetrated by nutters.

I agree with the un report quoted above. But there is more chance of me winning the lottery twice than the security council actually doing anything to bring Israel into line with its international legal obligations.

We’re not immune to this here. When I was 18 (late 80s) i used to work in a pub in Manchester with a Protestant bloke from Belfast.

When he found out my Dad was from Leinster he wouldn’t talk to me. Apparently he hated everyone in the Republic of Ireland because they left the lights on in WW2 and the Germans used them as navigation to bomb Belfast. He was the same age as me, i.e. born in 1971. Such ingrained bullshit is not uncommon

From the United Nations:

As if anything the UN says has any impact on any state or quasi-state actor? I mean; China is a signatory of the UN Human Rights charter, as is Iran, being a signatory of the Geneva Conventions didn’t stop US service men and women from torturing prisoners in Abu Ghraib, the UN Genocide Convention didn’t stop the genocide in Rwanda. Hamas backed by Iran and Qatar will, like Israel, doubtless ignore any sort of rules when it comes to this round of warfare, indeed the raping of women and shooting of civilians has already started (continued). I’m happy to blame Netanyahu when it comes to his part in the increasingly depressing breakdown of rules based order, and terrorists like Haniyeh ‘exiled’ in comfort in Qatar have never paid attention to them unless they play a part in lip service to his cause. 

A pox on all their houses. 

No winners in war, just more hate. Our focus these days should be on all saving the world, and not killing each other.

JeZ

Hopefully future generations on both sides will realise their made up deity didn’t promise them rights to any land and that we’re all the same, trying to live this one life as best we can and it’s better to get on together than have these made up divisions of beliefs and land between us.

As an aside I thought that the body count in Israel was interesting, 900 Israelis and 1500 Hamas militants, so not quite the massacre by the militants as has been portrayed (IMHO)……

Jesus christ – 900 people not a massacre enough for you?!

Jesus christ – 900 people not a massacre enough for you?!

Maybe I didn’t phrase that very well, 900 dead is apalling, but I was surprised that 1500 Hamas miltants died doing it.  The Israeli defence forces would appear to have put up more resistance than it first appeared.

but I was surprised that 1500 Hamas miltants died doing it.

I expect many were either encircled by Israeli forces or just decided to stay and fight to the death, given the alternative of retreating to Gaza and waiting to be bombed

As an aside, it’s slightly worrying to see the increased police presence on the streets here in a Jewish area of Manchester.

Last time there was a ground war in Gaza there was a sharp uptick in anti-semitism in the UK. I was walking along at one point when a convoy of cars bearing large Palestine flags came racing down the road at high speed… this instance was just a statement but could easily have been an actual attack.

Not nice to think I am likely to be abused or attacked simply because I share a religion with the Israeli leadership (who are not religious 🙄)

As an aside, it’s slightly worrying to see the increased police presence on the streets here in a Jewish area of Manchester.

my mate’s kids go to a Jewish primary school in a fairly jewish area of north london. There is always security guards on the gates, whenever any kids are in the school – a significant difference to any other schools I’m aware of in the country. There’s an extra level of concern from the community and so it doesn’t surprise me that it extends to more coppers around too

Hamas terrorist shared sick photos of Israeli grandma’s body on her Facebook after butchering her…

militants or terrorists?

and yet BBC refuses to call them terrorists or even report on this story !

Woman at pro-Palestine rally in Brighton calls Hamas attacks on Israel ‘beautiful and inspiring’ – she should be arrested !

keep your left wing ideology’s coming – keyboard warriors !

BBC refuses to call them terrorists

I don’t think the bbc label anyone terrorists – see http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/guidelines/editorialguidelines/pdfs/reporting-terrorism.pdf

There’s so many smaller stories to report on, but there are atrocities on both sides, Israel’s blockade of medicine and water to Gaza for example could be considered a war crime (UN have said that it’s illegal).

Interesting, balanced discussion on BBC from Sebastian Usher this morning, at one point comparing Russia’s encroachment on Ukrainian territory with Israel’s encroachment on Palestinian territory and how the west have responded to each.

This is an excellent article in the Guardian imo:

https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/oct/08/hamas-offensive-israel-west-bank-guerrilla-movement-gaza

I thought this was particularly interesting – the suggestion that the attack was an attempt by Hamas to seize the initiative in a situation which was already developing and which was resulting in mounting Palestinian casualties, they could see another intifada coming

“But a major escalation in Palestine/Israel was already under way, with a dramatic rise in Palestinian casualties in the West Bank, the ethnic cleansing of several small communities, intensified settlers’ attacks, and blatant changes to the status quo at the al-Aqsa mosque/Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Many, therefore, believed a popular uprising – another intifada – was only a matter of time.

It may have been that Hamas decided that an escalation was coming and it wanted to keep the initiative in its own hands, rather than respond to a popular uprising.”

Also interesting in the Guardian article is this:

“It seems that Hamas, also, is trying to force Israel into negotiations. In 2018, Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar sent a note in Hebrew to Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, suggesting he take a “calculated risk” by agreeing a long-term truce. While Netanyahu agreed to some easing of pressure on Gaza, he was unwilling to accept Hamas’s long-term demands, including a large-scale prisoner swap, lifting the siege by opening the international border crossing, and establishing a port and airport in Gaza. After 16 years of siege and several catastrophic rounds of war, in which thousands of Gaza residents have been killed, Hamas may be hoping to break the deadlock.”

Who knew that for years Hamas has been actively trying to force the most right-wing and hostile Israeli government in history to the negotiation table?

Bearing in mind that Israeli Military Order 101 makes peaceful protests by the Palestinians illegal, and subjects them to a court martial, what choices do the Palestinian people have?

No peaceful protests, no armed resistance, and no negotiations. Despite all three being perfectly legal under international law.

Edit: If another intifada had indeed occurred, even with without Hamas’s attack, the Palestinian people would have been slaughtered They always are in every intifada.

First and foremost, those attacks were horrendous and absolutely beyond the pale. But those who are painting this as innocent Israelis against ‘human animals’, please consider:

“People drink, snack and pose for selfies against a background of explosions as Palestinian death toll mounts in ongoing offensive”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/20/israelis-cheer-gaza-bombing

Israel gets a free pass by the West and virtually any atrocity or violation of international law is tolerated, much like with the Saudis, a state which stones to death gay men or condemns its subjects to life imprisonment for voicing the mildest complaints, merely because it suits Western interests to overlook such things.

A key measure of how the optics change to suit the narrative can be viewed through the Ukraine war, a state which is being fully supported and bankrolled to defend itself against a much larger, well-resourced aggressor. If you support the Ukraine’s unequivocal right, including launching drone attacks into Russian territory, why would you not support Gaza’s right to defend itself? In a war of survival and attrition, would you justify war crimes if they achieved the aim of expelling Russia?

Likewise, if Russia annexed a Ukrainian city tomorrow, bombed it indiscriminately, and cut off water, food, and fuel supplies to over 2.4 million people, with her ministry of defence calling Ukrainian civilians “human animals”, people would be outraged. The attacks on civilians are absolutely horrendous, but how can they be resolved by doing the exact same thing, albeit with battleships, artillery and fighter jets?

Hamas terrorist shared sick photos of Israeli grandma’s body on her Facebook after butchering her…

militants or terrorists?

and yet BBC refuses to call them terrorists or even report on this story !

Woman at pro-Palestine rally in Brighton calls Hamas attacks on Israel ‘beautiful and inspiring’ – she should be arrested !

keep your left wing ideology’s coming – keyboard warriors !

It’s got nothing to do with anyone being a keyboard warrior – why should that woman be arrested? For expressing an opinion?

Why do Hamas exist? Because ultimately someone elses actions have bought them into being. What they have done is utterly abhorrent & is impossible to defend.
But Isreal aren’t any angelic force for good either. The whole situation is a utter bit of a mess & my heart goes out to anyone caught up in it.

Ernie, your arguments have gone from the nonsensical to the deranged now.

Military Order 101 is a travesty, but it applies in the West Bank not Gaza because Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005. In Gaza, it’s Hamas that suppresses peaceful protests.

If Hamas believes the best way to bring Israel back to the negitiating table is the mass rape and muder of civilians, then Gazan’s best hope for a peaceful solution is that international pressure causes Hamas to step down.

If you support the Ukraine’s unequivocal right, including launching drone attacks into Russian territory, why would you not support Gaza’s right to defend itself?

I think most people would agree there’s a significant difference between the tactics uses by Ukraine, which appear to be small, targetted at millitary installations (with very few civilian casualties) and controlled, with the approach used last weekend, which was for the large part a deliberate attack against unarmed civilians with no link to military targets. I’d not have a problem with Hamas trying to blow up a site used to launch rockets at them, but running round killing people at a festival is a long way from that.

I think the take away from this disastrous situation is that two wrongs (war crimes committed by both sides) do not make a right (justify such action by either side)

Full disclosure – MrsMC has an aunt who moved to Israel in the 1950s and married an Israeli, we are trying to get in touch to see if aunt and cousins are safe and well.

why should that woman be arrested? For expressing an opinion?

IANAL so don’t know if it crosses the line but hate speech is very much an arrestable offence.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech_laws_in_the_United_Kingdom

Ernie, your arguments have gone from the nonsensical to the deranged now.

Military Order 101 is a travesty, but it applies in the West Bank not Gaza because Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005. In Gaza, it’s Hamas that suppresses peaceful protests.

Next you will be claiming that Gaza isn’t “occupied”, which is what the Israeli government claims.

The United Nations considers Gaza to be under occupation because Israel controls everything that goes in and out.

The fact that the IDF can’t make day to day arrests in Gaza because they don’t have permanent troops on the ground is utterly irrelevant, Military Order 101 applies to the whole of Occupied Palestine.

It specifically bans Palestinians from engaging in peaceful protests.

And btw you can sling as many personal insults as you fancy, it won’t make one iota of difference, I will continue to express support the Palestinian people. In fact I find it quite reassuring that you feel the need to resort to insults.

You could have made exactly the same point without resorting to insults – just pointed out that the IDF can’t make arrests in Gaza so no military orders can be implemented, but presumably you felt the insults would somehow silence me. It won’t.

Never mind the arguing on here over pithy little verbal spats. There’s a horrendous humanitarian crisis going on in Gaza right now. No power, gas, water, safe shelter, no aid, very little medical help with shocking battlefield injuries suffered by civilians under the constant threat of extreme military prejudice. Watched by the world’s media, with the support of Western governments. How have we come to this, again. Not a question, a condemnation. I have no skin in the game personally,  but I’m so angry and ashamed.

It’s not surprising the world breeds extremists seeking revenge.

It’s not surprising the world breeds extremists seeking revenge

I fear that after this has ended, with Israel declaring it’s ‘victory’ extremist revenge will go on for years after in the form of suicide attacks.

Injured on the Palestinian side currently around 4000+ . So from that we can infer that the vast majority of those are Palestinian families, brought about by Israel’s indiscriminate bombing campaign, with a high degree of women and children.

Israel will class all of those as terrorists, or well tough luck or ‘human shields’ even though that phrase is meaningless.

Its up to the world now to force sanctions on Israel and maybe put an end to this deliberate targeting of Palestinian families as an act of revenge. For that to happen the people must force their leaders to take a stand and condemn Israel publicly.