Conservative Friends of Israel

“It is time we stop regarding despicable phenomena like this with tolerance,” Levin said of Levy. Soon after that interview, Eldad Yaniv, a former political adviser to ex-prime minister Ehud Barack, wrote on his Facebook page: “The late Gideon Levy. Get used to it.”

No one would be surprised if Gideon Levy was to eventually leave Israel permanently, life for Israelis with compassion, empathy, and strong feelings of anti-racism, must sometimes be really quite intolerable for them.

Of course the consequence of people such as Gideon Levy leaving Israel is that it simply makes Israel an even more bigoted, intolerant, and racist, society.

And that’s the problem with Israel – it’s a concentration of Zionist fanatics, bigots, and racists. It’s moved from being a rather more left-wing country decades ago to one which today is far more right-wing than any other “western” country.

It has sucked the Zionist fanatics, bigots, and racists, from Jewish communities across the globe and concentrated them in one small place.

Which I guess goes some way in explaining why Jews left in the US, for example, are on the whole so much more anti-racist, compassionate, and left-wing, than even the American public, let alone Israeli.

Jews Express Wide Criticism of Israel[/url]

Why Jewish Americans vote Democratic

70% of Jews self-identify as leaning to or members of the Democratic party. That compares with just 49% of the American public overall who at least lean Democratic. Only 22% of Jews consider themselves as leaning Republican, compared to 39% of the overall public.

And 82% of Jews think that homosexuality should be accepted by society, while just 57% of the general public believes so.

72% of Jews say Muslims in America are discriminated against, versus just 47% of the public at large who say that. While 64% of Jews say there is discrimination against African Americans, only 47% of all Americans do.

I’m not sure how that is a summary of the Gaza conflict, it’s due to restart tomorrow morning and the US has restocked Israel’s ammunition supplies so that they can carry on killing Palestinians.

As the Op of this thread its not really worked out as intended.

I was posting about our Goverments support for.. well pretty much anyone who’ll give them money, they are with out doubt what any right minded person would consider a right bunch of ****.

TBH though my concerns have moved on since then, a little skim across the web will reveal stories of such heartbreaking sadness that even the most rufty tufty UK geezer could not fail be effected.

I honestly don’t see anything that caused our grandparents go to war being any more deserving a cause for violent action than the slaughter and maiming of defenceless kids by Israel today but we won’t be sending in the troops because theres no money it it.

I know nothing going to happen, there’ll be words and then it’ll happen again- if nothing else good comes from it I suspect OUR kids will realise how ridiculous and pointless national sentiment is and make some better choices than we have.

but we won’t be sending in the troops because theres no money it it.

I think it’s more that Israel has spent 100s of million bribing sponsoring politicians in the US and Europe to ensure no one intervenes. They might be utterly evil, but they’re not daft and know money buys influence.

an interesting read…
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/06/gaza-israel-movement-that-dare-not-speak-its-name

@gonzy people who voice their disagreement with Hamas don’t get to do so for long. Executed double quick. It’s been covered in the UK press and by the UN

I’m not sure how that is a summary of the Gaza conflict, it’s due to restart tomorrow morning and the US has restocked Israel’s ammunition supplies so that they can carry on killing Palestinians.

Israel accepted the ceasefire extension and said it would not fire unless fired upon. We know how that has turned out.

I think it’s more that Israel has spent 100s of million bribing sponsoring politicians in the US and Europe to ensure no one intervenes. They might be utterly evil, but they’re not daft and know money buys influence.

If it was a matter of money it would be no contest, the Arab world has trillions of dollars. Politicians in the US and the EU are doing the right thing by backing Israel, its nothing to do with money or influence. Hamas has no virtually no support in the region, not from Egypt, Lebanon, Syria nor Jordon. Jordon was criticized by Human Rights Watch as it won’t let Palastinian refugees from Syria into their country, whilst they are taking other nationalities. Palestine has little support as Hamas is in the wrong here.

So I keep hearing on here that ISIS and Hamas/Gaza are separate issues and should not be discussed together.

Well whoever put this ISIS replica Jihadist flag up alongside Free Gaza signs and a Palastinian flag seems to share my view that they are related issues.

A very worrying development especially the behaviour of the individuals around the flags.

Jihadist Flag flown over East London

@gonzy people who voice their disagreement with Hamas don’t get to do so for long. Executed double quick. It’s been covered in the UK press and by the UN

And yet more whataboutery.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_relative_privation

Ever heard the phrase ‘two wrongs don’t make a right’ jambalaya?

Politicians in the US and the EU are doing the right thing by backing Israel, its nothing to do with money or influence.

Suggesting that there isn’t a very powerful pro-Israel lobby in American politics just makes you sound like an idiot, frankly.

Jambalaya you still continue to equate Palestinian people and Hamas justifying the killing of palistians on the basis of the actions of Hamas. Collective punishment is wrong particularly when based on racial or religious groupings.

We now have Israeli ministers calling for a Holocaust against the people of Gaza death threats against israilis who speak against the “war” and the expulsion from the Knesset of any member who speaks out in protest but still all you do is point at the Hamas boggy man.

How about the wars surrounding the region? So many being killed but there seem to be rather limited coverage? hhhmmmm … 🙄

What with Palestinian Vs Israel that is so important over other death?

A number of different bodies have been examining the casualty statistics in Gaza

What is interesting is that women and children form a much mower percentage that would be expected based on the population. Women and chidren are 71% of the population and but 33% of the casualties. Men from 20-29 are 7% of the population but 34% of the casualties.

The inference is quite clear Israels attempts to minimise civilian casualties has been successful, not perfect by a long way but successful. The majority of those killed have been men and of the ages one would expect to be involved in fighting for or supporting Hamas

The final quote from the BBC piece is

In conclusion, we do not yet know for sure how many of the dead in Gaza are civilians and how many were fighters. This is in no sense the fault of the UN employees collecting the figures – their statistics are accompanied by caveats and described as preliminary and subject to to revision.

But it does mean that some of the conclusions being drawn from them may be premature.

BBC – Casualty Statistics

Suggesting that there isn’t a very powerful pro-Israel lobby in American politics just makes you sound like an idiot, frankly.

+1 Frankly, jambalaya, you’re getting boring. You can’t even come up with anything new to justify your stance on Israel’s actions. You just keep repeating the same things over and over – but the point to which grum refers above is ludicrous. You can’t seriously believe yourself when you say that kind of stuff can you? Have you watched David Norris’ speech in Seanad Éireann? I wondered what you thought of it. (I realise this is the Irish upper house and you may have to lower yourself to listen to someone from a country you once described as being a bit backward as a whole society).

Also, when you have to start massaging casualty statistics to mitigate the killing of innocent women and children (not to mention that a fair percentage of the men killed would be innocent…although our definitions of innocent are probably miles apart…to a Zionist, being Palestinian and living in Gaza makes one fair game) shows the kind of shaky ground on which you feel yourself that you’re standing.

Mossad, Israeli intelligence, is globally renowned for its vast scale of operations. There is no doubt whatsoever that intelligence gathering in Gaza would be a prime objective of Mossad, that’s how they identify many of their targets – the Palestinian authorities don’t supply Israel with a list of targets.

It is is obvious that Mossad needs to rely on spies and collaborators in Gaza to identify targets and individuals if it is to be successful, specially in targeted assassinations. And successful they often are – Israeli strikes on Gaza cost the Palestinians dearly in terms of loss of life and destruction of buildings.

The Palestinian authorities/Hamas executes collaborators – a fairly understandable measure imo, specially as imprisonment is not a feasible alternative. After all like the Palestinian resistance the French resistance in occupied territories executed collaborators, which isn’t something they were condemned for.

Much less acceptable is the fact that the French resistance continued to execute collaborators even after territory had been liberated and they no longer posed a threat, and imprisonment was a realistic alternative. They weren’t condemned for that either.

I guess when individuals collaborate with a brutal and murderous regime and helps them to murder your compatriots the feelings of retribution are strong.

@ jambalaya

what the author of the article i posted was referring to was that the Israeli governments propaganda against Palestine was brainwashed the Israeli population so much that it refuses to accept anything else other than the Knesset approved doctrine.
this is why he said that those who oppose what is going on are too scared to come out into the open to voice their opinions.
as Crankboy correctly points out…

We now have Israeli ministers calling for a Holocaust against the people of Gaza death threats against Israelis who speak against the “war” and the expulsion from the Knesset of any member who speaks out

the Israeli population is actively being encouraged to do the same and express their racist, bigoted hatred towards the Palestinians.
what they do to the African refugees is equally as bad and they are proud to be labelled as racists, just so long as it rids their country of the “infiltrators”

This is a bit grizzly but I have been looking at the casualty statistics after reading the BBC piece.

Firstly let me repeat any civilian casualties are terrible, especially children. With Hamas refusing to extend the ceasefire and then actively engaging in further fire sadly there will be more casualties but it is my view that this is exactly Hamas’s intention to fight a propoganda war.

The UN quotes 1923 casualties
1240 Men 75%
448 Children 27%
235 Women 14%

Its quite starting how much higher the male casualties are, if the casualty figures where truely random this would not be the case (one thing that was drawn out in the BBC piece). I believe the male casualties are much higher as they are militant fighters even if when they arrive a the hospital Hamas claims they are civilians.

If we assume all the women where civilians (which of course might not be true) and apply that same percentage to the men, ie 14% we have 1005 male casualties who are not civilians (my assumption)

What is revealing is that this number of 1,000 is almost exactly the same as the number of militants the IDF claims to have killed.

@gonzy I think if you are an Israeli who has had 1000’s of missiles fired at you including 100’s before the conflict flared up in July you are going to be pretty anti Hamas without any other coercion.

Firstly let me repeat any civilian casualties are terrible, especially children.

Well that’s cleared that up ….. I wasn’t entirely sure. Thank you.

.

With Hamas refusing to extend the ceasefire and then actively engaging in further fire sadly there will be more casualties but it is my view that this is exactly Hamas’s intention to fight a propoganda war.

So let me get this straight, you are saying that because Hamas is allegedly firing rockets, which kill no one, Israel is being forced to kill innocent Palestinian civilians, including children (which is “terrible”) ?

And Israel is doing this even though according to you it is exactly what Hamas wants them to do ?

So to sum up : Israel is killing innocent civilians (including children) which it doesn’t want to kill, because Hamas wants Israel to kill them, and it’s being done in retribution for Hamas not killing innocent Israeli civilians ?

You see jambalaya when you dissect spin which is designed to turn reality on its head what you end up with is nonsense.

.

this number of 1,000 is almost exactly the same as the number of militants the IDF claims to have killed.

Actually the Israelis claim to have killed “up to 900 fighters”, but even if we accept your figure of a thousand and your claim that Israel has been targeting purely military targets and fighters for a month now causing this level of destruction :

to the point where they are needing to plead for more ammunition from the US, then you need to explain how according to you the Palestinian resistance has just relaunched rockets attacks against Israel.

Have they just received a new delivery of rockets to replace all the ones destroyed by Israel in the last month ? It hasn’t made the news if they have.

Don’t poke the wasps nest with a stick if you can’t bear the pain. 🙄

those brave IDF heroes have managed to kill nearly 1000 women and children and another 1000 men

if they are so poor that theyve killed just as many innocents as alleged millitants then whose to say any of the men are actually millitants?

more to the point are you (and the IDF and israeli government) really that stupid jambalaya?
theyve been blowing the crap out of these people for a month now AND STILL THEY CANT STOP THE HAMAS ROCKET ATTACKS
their tactics obviously dont work yet still they persist in butchering the people theyve already radicalised, segregated, persecuted, dehumanised and squeezed into a giant prison camp.
If it didnt look like genocide before, it certainly does now.

and is this true?

kimbers,

With all the lengthy justification you still miss the very basic point.

Someone is raining rockets on Israel and I am absolutely sure those rockets definitely do not come from USA.

I bet if the home made rockets stop raining on Israel then there would be no retaliation.

It takes two to tango but every keeps saying one can tango … hmmm … I hate dancing.

🙄

p/s: I did not see anyone firing rockets either … where?

Kimbers, listen out for greg dyke’s take on the bbc, and indeed the volume and content of complaints he used to get from israel about the partiality of the beeb.
”Any questions” radio 4, a couple of weeks ago.

(Edit) oh btw yes i do think the beeb are scared and bullied into reporting in a way and tone that they have not done in other comparable crises, and i base this in part on greg dyke’s comments in the link above, but i also do believe Bowen might just be on holiday. Will be watching with interest when he returns….

Apparently Jeremy Bowen is on a holiday that was planned months ago, true or not i dunno?.

And as for jambalaya/chewkw?……. round and round and round we go…….

I know the best way to destroy a wasps nest, but the analogy i am likely to draw is best kept to myself.

and is this true?

Not according to him:

@RAFx103 because I'm on holiday

— Jeremy Bowen (@BowenBBC) August 1, 2014

See also:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-28639101

Now, regards the rockets, Reporting we’re not seeing in the UK:

somafunk – Member
Apparently Jeremy Bowen is on a holiday that was planned months ago, true or not i dunno?.

And as for jambalaya/chewkw?……. round and round and round we go…….

I know the best way to destroy a wasps nest, but the analogy i am likely to draw is best kept to myself.

I wonder if anyone wants to be filmed firing home made rockets?

Round and round … well to break the deadlock stop firing the home made rockets. Then proceed with filing in papers to UN whatever on Israel land encroachment. Why start shooting rockets?

🙄

Edit: Ya, you call in pest controller? Yes? (or in this analogy … there wasps are stronger)

Edit edit: Oh look foreign reports … nahhh … can’t be true that is a set up. Oh look an Asian reporter … nahhh … he must be making things up.

good radio4 link there julian wilson, not often I find myself agreeing with dan hannan, he spoke a lot of sense on gaza/israel!

ninfan, fair enough regards jez bowen

but all news outlets here that I saw, bbc, guardian, telegraph all stated that hamas hadnt accepted israels terms for a caesefire and resumed rockets before israeli airstrikes earlier today

kimbers – Member

good radio4 link there julian wilson, not often I find myself agreeing with dan hannan, he spoke a lot of sense on gaza/israel!

ninfan, fair enough regards jez bowen

but all news outlets here that I saw, bbc, guardian, telegraph all stated that hamas hadnt accepted israels terms for a caesefire and resumed rockets before israeli airstrikes

You only see or listen according to your preference and you have made up your mind long time ago.

🙄

Its quite starting how much higher the male casualties are, if the casualty figures where truely random this would not be the case (one thing that was drawn out in the BBC piece).

Of course, but there are many reasons why the casualty figures are not random, a blindingly obvious one being that women and children are ALWAYS looked after first, whether in Gaza, or in Titanic lifeboats.

I believe the male casualties are much higher as they are militant fighters even if when they arrive a the hospital Hamas claims they are civilians.

Of course you do, but that’s just because you’re an industrial strength plonker.

Have you seen this Kimbers ?

Foreign press: Hamas didn’t censor us in Gaza, they were nowhere to be found

It’s a long article but this bit is particularly interesting :

This is perhaps the biggest bone of contention that Israeli spokesmen have with the foreign media corps: Why won’t they acknowledge they were being pressured and monitored by Hamas? All but a few journalists deny there was any such pressure.

“I wasn’t intimidated at any point,” says one seasoned war reporter. “I didn’t feel Hamas were a threat to my welfare any more than Israeli bombings. I’m aware some people had problems, but nothing beyond what you would expect covering a conflict. Hamas’s levels of intimidation weren’t any worse than what you occasionally experience at the hands of the IDF, which didn’t allow access to fighting for most of the conflict either. As a rule no armed forces permit you to broadcast militarily sensitive information.”

If anything, most reporters are complaining that Hamas seemed to make little effort to engage with the media. “How could there be Hamas censorship if there was no Hamas to be seen?” says one exasperated reporter.

“The American military, and many others including Israel, imposes limits on embedded reporters under which you cannot reveal troop movements, weapons locations and other info that could compromise ‘operational security,’” says another experienced correspondent. “There was no such official restriction from Hamas because there was no embed and almost no contact. Hamas did not complain about anything to anyone on our team.”

So it seems that Israel, despite having a highly slick, professional, and well-funded, PR machine, compared to the Palestinian’s more or less non-existing one, and compliant broadcasters such as the BBC at their disposal, are still not happy because can’t control one hundred percent the news that we receive.

If it was a matter of money it would be no contest, the Arab world has trillions of dollars.

all Arabs aren’t Palestinians. the Arab governments have little or no interest in an Palestinian state or ordinary Palestinians.

Back on topic :

Lady Warsi revealed that senior foreign office officials and ministers were overruled by David Cameron who decided that the Government would not take a stronger line on Israel’s incursion into Gaza. She suggested that senior Tory figures may have been overly influenced by pro-Israeli lobbying groups such as Conservative Friends of Israel.

She went on to say: “One of the advantages we have in the Conservative Party is that the relationships between the Israeli government and the leadership of the Conservative Party is incredibly close. People like George Osborne and Michael Gove are very, very close to the Israeli leadership. What is the point of having that relationship if you can’t use it to move them to a position which is in their interest and our interest?”

Asked if she believed that the amount of funding from wealthy pro-Israeli donors might have influenced the Government’s stance on Gaza, she replied: “I hope that how the Conservative Party raises its funds does not have an impact in relation to its policy in Government. The national interest should never be subject to the chequebooks of anybody.”

Baroness Warsi turns on ‘public school’ Tories

She’s only stating what everyone knows anyway. What was also telling was the delightful Lynton Crosby’s reaction to her statement …

“They (by which I presume he means muslamics) don’t vote for us anyway”

Which pretty much sums up where the civilians of Gaza are on Dave’s Radar.

What’s type of education and political persuasion got to do with this. The UK relationship with Israel is long-standing and transcends both.

Warsi has valid points behind the headlines but it starts to get a bit rich when she ignores the factors that helped her rise to power and influence.

Why don’t you read the article properly THM. Warsi makes no comment about “political persuasion” only “public school” Tories.

She has been under sustained attacks from sections of the Tory Party ever since she rose to the upper echelons of the party, those attacks have become more widespread since her resignation.

Her criticism is based on :

…on the “public school” Tories around David Cameron who have dismissed her for years as “a brown, working-class woman not good enough” to serve in government.

I did and actually also looking for what she actually said as well. I was referring to the headline and her comments about schooling. That’s irrelevant. Forgive me for thinking that “Tories” meant anything to do with political persuasion.

The alleged quote above has enough ironies to do all my shirts for next week!

A link to her actual letter might help although don’t subscribe to the Times.

I was referring to the headline and her comments about schooling. That’s irrelevant. Forgive me for thinking that “Tories” meant anything to do with political persuasion.

ffs are you really that daft ? ! 😀

Did you really expect the headline to read : Baroness Warsi turns on ‘public school’ politicians

Instead of : Baroness Warsi turns on ‘public school’ Tories

?

😆

No, are you?

The school and the political party happen to be irrelevant when determining UK policy toward Israel

You did notice how I contrasted her valid points and the headlines I am sure, it would be “daft” not to.

But there’s a specific thread on Warsi and her motives etc elsewhere