Gaza

Today, Zionists set fire to the house of a prominent Jewish anti-Zionist activist in Mea Shearim, a Jewish neighborhood of Jerusalem, while his family was inside the house. The only crime of this family was that they were religious and opposed Zionism and Israel.

https://x.com/TorahJudaism/status/1819098460542415295

The letter said: “We are members of the wider British Jewish community and can vouch with certainty that there is a loss of faith in the BBC within our community and a widespread opinion that, when it comes to racism and discrimination at the BBC, ‘Jews don’t count’.

That letter sounds pretty racist – to claim that they are speaking for the Jewish community. Most of the Jews I come in contact with would probably say that the BBC are far too pro-Israeli.

Former Panorama producer Neil Grant said: “When Jews tell you they feel antisemitism, don’t question it or define it for us.

So they even have the nerve to openly admit it – that they should decide what is anti-semitic and no one else. So for example when the far-right Israeli government claims that the International Court of Justice is anti-semitic, as they have done, then no one should argue with that.

And to use their logic perhaps when Jews say that supporting Palestine isn’t anti-semitic these bunch of letter-writing zionists shouldn’t question it ?

The problem is that however absurd it might be to claim that the BBC is anti-semitic, and the accusation is rightly rejected,  the letter-writing zionists know that their actions are likely to have an effect. The BBC will now go out of their way not to offend them, and will likely adjust their reporting with that in mind.

The good news in contrast is that it shows just how desperate the zionists have become as their relentless slaughter of Palestinians creates revulsion throughout the world. So desperate that they want the BBC to whitewash the war crimes and crimes against humanity being committed in the illegally occupied territories.

I agree with you, Ernie on these points..

The issue for me is religion… it has no place in modern society, we can see it very clear all the time when people conflate a government with a religion.

I’m not suggesting religion should be illegal, but when it gets in the way of the general progress of society, it needs to be, and should be stopped.

Back in the real world, away from esoteric contemplation, The UK and the USA really need to send a harsh message by withdrawing support to Israel, it’s a combination  of a land-grab, and genocide, there’s no other way to put it. It’s exacly what Russia is doing to Ukraine.

It really isn’t about religion, 45% of Israeli Jews are secular, as indeed is Netanyahu. In recent years by far the largest immigration into Israel has come Russia, most of which are atheists.

Secular Israelis are as responsible for war crimes and supporting apartheid as their religious counterparts are.

The United States government does not support Israel on religious grounds.

On the Palestinian side Muslims and Christians have lived together side by side, including in Gaza. The creation of Israel built on stolen lands destroyed Muslim-Jewish relations, which had been peaceful coexistence for hundreds of years after Muslims gave Jews fleeing persecution in Europe refuge.

It’s not about religion, it’s geopolitics – power, wealth, and the last remnants of European settler-colonialism/stealing land and resources from indigenous people.

You’ve talked about the halcyon days of “peaceful coexistence” before, @ernielynch, but what Jews had then was dhimmi status, second class citizens who were granted limited rights and protections on payment of a special tax. While Jews were, for a time, treated much less harshly in the ME than elsewhere, they still suffered institutional discrimination and persecution.

The same was true for Christians, who had the same dhimmi status and suffered periods of appalling persecution. (And in modern Gaza, the Christian population has dwindled while the Muslim population has doubled, in stark contrast to the growing and thriving community of Christian Arab Israeli citizens.)

Jews, who are indigenous to the Levant and have lived there continuously, albeit as a minority from the diaspora until the last century, had good reason to want self-determination in their historic homeland over poor treatment they’d experienced until then.

And remember, the Arab World today consists of almost half a billion people in 22 Muslim-majority countries – colonial success story for a people and religion indigenous to the Arabian peninsula.

In other words, you have a hopelessly skewed view of the region’s history, in which all current groups are the result of millennia of conquest and migration.

The geopolitical situation today is Iran and its proxies vs the burgeoning Arab-Israeli alliance, the former with Russian support and the latter with US support. I doubt the US is going anywhere.

Jews, who are indigenous to the Levant and have lived there continuously

Some Jews are, just like some Christians, but the vast majority of Israelis are not. They are simply European colonists.

Which explains why over 20 years ago Israel had the second highest skin cancer rate in the world :

https://archive.li/2022.06.13-010909/https://www.haaretz.com/2003-05-13/ty-article/israels-skin-cancer-rate-second-highest-in-the-world/0000017f-f11e-d8a1-a5ff-f19e2e900000

Dr. Micha Barhana, director of the Health Ministry’s cancer registration unit, says the high rate of skin cancer in Israel is because of the large number of people from Europe and North America, whose fair skin is vulnerable to the desert climate here. 

He said the growing awareness of the disease and of ways to avoid it – both by doctors and the public – may reduce the skin cancer rate in Israel from 2010.

Dr Barhana was right – Europeans who take precautions in climates that they are not indigenous to can reduce the risk of skin cancer. As of 2022 Israel ranks 18th in skin cancer cases.

But even if the false claim that all Israelis had ancestors living in the Levant a couple of thousand years or so ago was actually true, it still would not in anyway at all justify expelling people from their lands, establishing apartheid, and committing genocide.

Can you imagine expelling people and drawing boarders across the world based on what the situation was three thousand years ago?

And claiming some bollocks about the Promised Land and what God wants?

the burgeoning Arab-Israeli alliance

You might want to check how that’s going just now.

Some Jews are, just like some Christians, but the vast majority of Israelis are not. They are simply European colonists.

I have to wonder whether you just make things up to suit your narrative. There are more Jews in Israel from the Middle East and North Africa (Mizrahi/Sephardi) than Europe (Ashkenazi).

You might want to check how that’s going just now.

They cooperated to repel Iran’s attack on Israel in April, and they held a joint defence meeting in Bahrain in June.

I have to wonder whether you just make things up to suit your narrative. There are more Jews in Israel from the Middle East and North Africa (Mizrahi/Sephardi) than Europe (Ashkenazi).

Haha you have just undermined your apparent justification for a  “Jewish Homeland” ……. Jews flourished in Muslim controlled Middle East just as they flourish in Muslim controlled Europe.

Israel was created to deal with the problem of European persecution of Jews, not Muslim persecution of Jews!

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

The golden age of Jewish culture in Spain, which coincided with the Middle Ages in Europe, was a period of Muslim rule during which Jews were accepted in society and Jewish religious, cultural, and economic life flourished.

And I am sure that you know that the word Sephardi comes from the Hebrew for Spain.

The claim that Israelis are the same people who were in the Levant three thousand years ago, as I heard Netanyahu say only a couple of days ago, is nonsense.

Every single prime minister that Israel has had has changed their European sounding parents surname to one that sounded Hebrew, including Netanyahu.

Listen to what the director of the Israeli Health Ministry’s cancer registration unit said as reported by the Haaretz concerning fair skin being vulnerable to the desert climate.

Yes many Jews are genetically close to Palestinians, but the vast majority are nowhere as Semitic as the Palestinians are. If your wife’s grandfather was Jewish you can qualify for Israeli citizenship, even if you don’t have a drop of Jewish blood yourself

Israel is a European settler enterprise designed to drive the indigenous people of their lands and exploit their resources, something which should died out a hundred years ago. And it certainly isn’t sustainable.

Every single prime minister that Israel has had has changed their European sounding parents surname to one that sounded Hebrew, including Netanyahu.

Err… there’s a long history of changed and forgotten Jewish surnames, for obvious reasons. Adopting local names has often been a survival and assimilation necessity. Choosing to switch again and adopt an obviously Jewish name is as unsurprising as a Muslim choosing a “better name”. And Netanyahu didn’t change his name from a Polish one to a Hebrew one, his father did.

And Netanyahu didn’t change his name from a Polish one to a Hebrew one, his father did.

Exactly. Netanyahu is basically Polish. His three thousand year old claim to the right to live in Palestine is absurd. He doesn’t even follow the Jewish religion. He is a colonist shyster

Jews flourished in Muslim controlled Middle East just as they flourish in Muslim controlled Europe.

So a thousand years ago Jews flourished for a couple of centuries years under Islam before it all came crashing down. Yay.

From your Wikipedia link about the end of this brief golden age:

The first major persecution was the 1066 Granada massacre, which occurred on 30 December in which a Muslim mob stormed the royal palace in Granada, crucified the Jewish Vizier Joseph ibn Naghrela and massacred many of the Jewish population of the city. According to one source, “more than 1,500 Jewish families, numbering 4,000 persons, fell in one day”.[13] It was the first persecution of Jews on the Peninsula under Islamic rule.

As I’ve already said, Jews flourished in the Islamic world in the sense that they were, for a time, treated less badly than elsewhere while living under a system of enforced social and religious restrictions. Massacres still occurred, including by the Arabs of Ottoman Palestine, eg Safed in 1834 (long before Zionism and the later riots and massacres committed against Jews in Mandatory Palestine).

From your Wikipedia link about the end of this brief golden age

And you very conveniently miss out the first sentence :

With the death of Al-Hakam II in 976, the caliphate began to dissolve, and the position of the Jews became more precarious..

So it represented a breakdown of law and order and actions of mob rule. You even pasted “stormed the royal palace in Granada, crucified the Jewish Vizier”. Ask yourself what the hell was the Jewish Vizier was doing in the royal palace?

Do the actions of a mob in Southport prove that Muslims aren’t allowed to live in peace in Britain?

And what’s happening in Gaza today is not mob rule. It is straightforward state sanctioned terrorism and wholesale massacre by the current rulers of Israel.

Israel’s armed forces have directly slaughtered 40,000 Palestinians in the last 9 months, and have managed to indirectly kill many times more than that. No “mob” could manage to do that.

Should anyone be interested I believe today is the last day for registration in next Saturday’s London Big Bike Ride for Palestine::

https://booking.thebigride4palestine.com/

This EP finally arrived last week for a mates 16yr old kid in support of Doctors Without Borders, he’s been to a young fathers gig/Fontaines DC gig and I’ll be getting massive attack tickets when next on tour for him. He’s been up to Glasgow for numerous Gaza protests with his mates as well.

It looks like Netanyahu might be getting the war he has been wanting for a long time

‘Leave now,’ UK tells British nationals in Lebanon

https://www.politico.eu/article/uk-us-to-nationals-in-lebanon-leave-now/

The U.S. embassy in Beirut also issued a security alert on Saturday to encourage American citizens in the country “to book any ticket available to them, even if that flight does not depart immediately or does not follow their first-choice route.”

However the consequences for Israel could be severe – Hezbollah has apparently the capability to fire three thousand missiles a day at Israel for up to three weeks, enough to overwhelm Israel’s iron dome defenses.

Although I doubt that Netanyahu will care much about death and destruction it might bring to Israel, if it means that firstly it saves his political skin and secondly, that full-scale war with Hezbollah will reverse the growing rift with Western governments.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jun/23/israel-iron-dome-hezbollah-war-lebanon

I think there is a possibility that if Israel engages in a full scale war and look to be losing, they’ll launch a nuclear strike on Tehran

And **** the consequences.

There’s absolutely no possibility of that barring one single exception: Israel has a doctrine called “The Samson Option”, in which they’ll only consider a nuclear launch if much of the country has already fallen and they are facing total defeat. There’s enough US/EU/Israeli military capacity in the immediate vicinity to deter anyone from seriously trying.

Yes, it’s pretty **** spicy here in the Middle East at the moment but there’s no need to go down an anxiety rabbit hole imagining WW3 is about to start. Take some time away from the news and focus on something closer to home. Maybe not the morons and their race riots though.

there’s no need to go down an anxiety rabbit hole imagining WW3 is about to start.

I totally agree that there is little risk of any massive Israeli military defeat, or of nuclear weapons being used. The collapse of Israeli apartheid will be inward and helped by international isolation,  as was the case of South African apartheid. Possessing nuclear weapons (with help from Israel) did not guarantee the security of the South African apartheid and it won’t help the far more brutal Israeli apartheid.

And as you rightly say the US and the EU will fully back Israel militarily should things get a bit tasty. Which is why at a time when  Israel is facing growing isolation and countries, including the UK,  are considering their requirements under international law to suspend arms sales to Israel it is a reasonably clever ploy by Netanyahu to trigger a full-scale war with Hezbollah.

But I wouldn’t play down the seriousness of an escalating regional war. The risks are extremely real as are the likely consequences. The US government telling its citizens to get out of Lebanon immediately in any way they can isn’t a case of them going down the anxiety rabbit hole.

Nor is the claim by the US government that Israel’s Iron Dome risks being overwhelmed in all-out war with Hezbollah, as detailed in the above link. There could well be a serious amount of deaths within Israel.

And btw ignoring the horrors of what has happened, is happening, and is likely to happen, in Palestine/Israel, and instead focusing on riots being encouraged by Israeli supporting fanatic Tommy Robinson, as you seem to be suggesting, isn’t going to make bad news go away.

No playing down of the severity from me – I’m sat on an official Hezbollah/Hamas/Houthis target as we speak so the reality of the situation is very much front and centre.

But for folk back in the UK I guess it’s less immediate and constantly flitting between threads like this and all the war porn “BREAKING!” news stories probably doesn’t put anyone in a good headspace.

It seems an attack is inevitable now, but at least sections of the Israeli government are starting impress on others the need for de-escalation and accepting ceasefire proposals. Whether or not Bibi takes that advice is another matter. Highly unlikely unfortunately.

This is a thread about Gaza and Israel’s ongoing military offensive. The US and the UK telling their nationals to get out of Lebanon immediately because of escalating tensions between Israel and Hezbollah, due to the situation in Gaza, is perfectly legitimate news.

I can appreciate that you would prefer if this thread was inactive, for obvious reasons, but it’s not reasonable to expect the latest news to be ignored.

You’re completely misreading what I’m saying Ernie.

I’m not saying any particular news should be silenced, I haven’t advocated for concentrating instead on Tommy Robinson and his ilk, and you’re very much mistaken in thinking I would prefer this thread to be closed or inactive – for “obvious reasons”* or otherwise. I just said that if your train of thought is sending you down the nuclear war route then given the anxiety that will likely follow it might be an idea to take a step back and think about nicer things.

*You seem to think I’m either Jewish, Israeli , supportive of what’s happening in Gaza in particular and Israel/Palestine as a whole, or some other combination of traits that means I’m pro-IDF/anti-Palestinian. I’m none of those things. I’m just an ordinary Yorkshireman that happens to work in an industry where my current worksite places me very, very, very close to what’s happening over here.

the need for de-escalation and accepting ceasefire proposals.

Well they assassinated the last bloke they were discussing a ceasefire with, so I don’t see that going far, do you ?

You can try as much as you want to paint Haniyeh as some poor unfortunate “negotiator” caught in the crossfire, but had he still been alive the ICC would have an arrest warrant out for him, for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Would I prefer him to have been tried in a court and punished accordingly? Yes. Am I losing any sleep over him no longer being around? No.

You can try as much as you want to paint Haniyeh as some poor unfortunate “negotiator” caught in the crossfire,

I’m not doing that. I’m saying that he was a key player in a ceasefire negotiation and if Israel was actually interested in a ceasefire then assassinating him is the last thing they’d do. Clearly they aren’t, since a ceasefire would be counter to their genocidal project.

You seem to think I’m either Jewish, Israeli

Well you are mistaken, I don’t think you are Israeli, you have already stated on STW that you are not Israeli. I have no idea if you are Jewish or not nor do I believe that it is in any way relevant. On the pro Palestine demo in London yesterday the ‘Jewish bloc’, which is a multitude of different Jewish organisations which support Palestine, was huge.

The amount of Jews on the pro Palestine demonstrations is clearly disproportionate to the proportion of Jews in the wider community, and certainly far greater than the tiny pro zionist counter demonstrators, most of which are probably not Jewish.

This issue is zionists against Palestinians, not Jews against Palestinians.

I think you are pro Israeli because of what you post, not because you might be Israeli or Jewish.

I haven’t advocated for concentrating instead on Tommy Robinson and his ilk,

Fair comment. My apologies for misreading the final sentence in a previous post of yours.

The Israelis would have been better off assassinating their leader rather than that of Hamas.

I’d be interested to know the precise thinking and meaning behind “obvious reasons”.

And yes, I’m pro-Israeli. Just as I’m pro-Palestinian, pro-Lebanese, etc. because I’m capable of separating a people from the actions of its government/defence force/militias. I think you’ll struggle to find anything I’ve said on this thread that suggests the opposite, at least without presenting any of my posts sans the context in which they were made.

I’m capable of separating a people from the actions of its government/defence force/militias

How does that separation work in a democracy?

Quite easily to be honest.

In contrast I’m guessing by the above you must have held the entire British population accountable for the Conservative government’s many, many forays into cruel performative politics, such as the Rwanda bill, the Bibby Stockholm refugee barge, and every other disastrous policy enactment they made?

The entire population? No. But recognise that these evil things do represent the wish of a significant segment of society. The transgressions you list are deplorable but they don’t exactly compare with obliterating an entire culture and murdering tens of thousands of people, and that when the UK strayed in that direction Blair was shortly ejected from power. The Israeli apologists seem to want to have their cake and eat it – proclaim that Israel is a democracy , and yet forget what that actually means.

The voters of Isreal would be less likely to get behind the “military might” offered by the right wing scum that make up most of their government if other countries didn’t give safe habour to those that organise to kill them.

And yes, I’m pro-Israeli. Just as I’m pro-Palestinian, pro-Lebanese, etc.

You certainly come across as quite pro-Israeli but not so much pro-Palestinian. Unless perhaps you are using the term pro-Palestinian in the way that the Israeli government does……“of course we care about the Palestinians, of course we care about their suffering, of course we want to end the war, of course they deserve to live in peace, blah blah blah blah” ?

I have no idea if you are pro-Lebanese.

Me on the other I don’t sit on the fence whilst there is a genocide going on, I am 100% pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli.

Btw since you are so pro many people are you also pro-Russian too? Do you sit on the fence regarding Russia? I guess you must, no?

Oh here we go again :yawn:

Again? What do you mean again??

I am fairly sure that I have not made the point about fence sitting before. We all choose when to sit on the fence and when not to. I bet you don’t sit on the fence or take a neutral “I don’t take sides” when it concerns Russia.

And yet with your pro-Israel pro-Palestine at the same time stance you obviously want to be seen as being neutral  when it comes to Israel/Palestine.

I didn’t sit on the fence when it came to apartheid in South Africa, despite the fact that I might not have supported everything that the resistance did in the struggles, I opposed the apartheid regime 100%

And the same goes for the current Israeli apartheid regime which is btw incomparably more brutal than the SA regime ever was. If you remain neutral in the case of Israeli apartheid you are supporting it.

As the great anti-apartheid fighter Desmond Tutu said :

“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor”

I’ll remind that under international law apartheid is classed as a crime against humanity.

Looks like Netanyahu will get his war :

Iran rejects calls to tone down Haniyeh’s assassination response: WSJ

https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/iran-rejects-calls-to-tone-down-haniyeh-s-assassination-resp

The WSJ cited people familiar with the talks as saying that Tehran informed Arab diplomats on Saturday that it is unconcerned if its response to the Israeli assassination leads to the outbreak of war.

The Wall Street Journal pointed out that “Iran has refused to provide detailed warnings that would help mitigate the impact of any strike.”i

It is hard to disagree with this :

They also pointed out that “Iran will not yield to pressures and messages of de-escalation because any abandonment of retaliation will open the door to more Israeli aggressions.”

Iran doing nothing will absolutely guarantee further Israeli aggression. Doing nothing really isn’t an option for them unless they want more of the same. And unlike last time when Iran were happy to simply prove to Israel that they had capability to overwhelm iron dome and hit specific targets this time it’s going to have to hurt.

Tel Aviv must be a potential target and if it is hit Netanyahu won’t care – extreme zionists don’t care about Israeli lives, as long as they aren’t blamed.

Netanyahu is desperate for his war as he realises without it he is going to jail along with many members of his cabinet

What countries has Israel struck

Casualties after third Israeli strike on school in a week

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9x88jpw05lo

The strikes were the third time in a week schools in Gaza have been hit by Israeli strikes.

This exposes as a lie the Israeli claim that Hamas use civilians as human shields.

Everyone, including Hamas, knows that it makes zero difference to the IDF if hitting target results in countless innocent deaths. They have proved this over and over again.

Hamas cannot use civilians as human shields because the IDF simply shoots through them. The IDF do not follow the rules of normal armies, Israel is a terrorist state.

Just to add to my previous post, the obvious question is why is the IDF hitting targets that present no military value?

Israel is fighting a psychological war in Gaza,. It needs to break the will of the Palestinian people and leave them totally demoralised.

Firstly so that they lack any motivation to resist, secondly so that they want to flee Gaza, and thirdly so that they turn on Hamas. I have heard Israelis argue that the best way to make people turn on their leaders is to make them hungry – hence the deliberate withholding of food aid.

But the indiscriminate bombing is also part of that, in the same way as Germany suffered saturation bombing in World War II in an attempt to break the will of the German people, or the United States attempted to destroy the will of the Vietnamese and Cambodian people through carpet bombing. Although the tactic obviously never worked – neither in Germany nor in Vietnam not anywhere else.

Another powerful psychological weapon to demoralize the people of Gaza is drive home to them that nowhere, absolutely nowhere, not even the designated “safe areas”, are safe. There is nowhere where they can run to and feel safe.

So from the very onset of this genocide the IDF has targeted hospitals, UN schools, and anywhere that was deemed “safe”. Nearly a year on and Israel still hasn’t defeated Hamas, so the relentless killing of civilians simply continues.