Gaza

I dont think this is ever going to get old

It sounds like the Reginald D Hunter incident might have been a setup. There just happened to be a Daily Telegraph journalist in the audience who was able to provide a very detailed report on the whole incident, and who very conveniently remained  to report on what also happened after the unnamed UK born Israelis, on holiday from Israel, left the theatre.

According to the Daily Mail the entire audience was a “baying mob” and not one single person came to their defence. Quote :

The looks on people’s faces in the audience – it was like they wanted to attack us and beat us,’ Talia recalls. ‘There was so much hate in their eyes – angry that we were daring to be alive.’

How on earth did Reginald D Hunter manage to select such an anti-Israeli audience for his show, and how did this Israeli couple and Daily Telegraph reporter manage to slip through? It seems quite bizarre.

The Daily Mail also reports that the Israeli couple gave the audience a little lecture on how terrible October 7 last year had been for Israel, which must have been quite a long heckle.

I suspect that the background to this story is that someone heard that Reginald D Hunter made a joke comparing Israel with an abusive partner and thought that it would be useful to stage an incident with a Daily Telegraph reporter present.

Extra points for having the guy who the audience wanted to “attack and beat” in a wheelchair. And extra points also for the police finding that no hate crime had been committed, proving yet again that everyone, including the UK police, are anti-semitic. Add that to the UN, ICJ, ICC, etc.

Israel says UK ‘expected to take part in retaliatory strikes on Iran’ if they are attacked

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/israel-says-uk-expected-to-take-part-in-strikes-on-iran-david-lammy-gaza-ceasefire-b1177051.html

So Israel deliberately provokes both Iran and Hezbollah in the full knowledge that it cannot deal with any likely retaliatory attack without the help of the US, UK, and France.

And yet Netanyahu shows his disapproval of the current UK government by refusing to meet the visiting UK Foreign Secretary :

https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/netanyahu-reportedly-refused-british-requests-for-meeting-with-visiting-fm/

After the last time that the US, the UK, and France, came to the assistance of Israel,  because Israeli air defences couldn’t cope with an Iranian retaliatory attack, they hoped  it would make Netanyahu more amiable to their opinions as he clearly needs their support.

Netanyahu’s sense of entitlement is obviously too great to worry about such things. He is obviously convinced that there are no red lines and he can do whatever he wants.

^ meanwhile Netanyahu and his goon squad of thugs have zero intention of negotiating in good faith to get the hostages back and end the conflict in Gaza, at this rate it’s going to take a coup within Israel to remove them, but only if Netanyahu doesn’t remove Gallant beforehand, as some commentators are predicting

Foreign Office official resigns over Israel arms sales

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cyvpm1049d9o

While hundreds of officials in the UK, Europe and the US have registered unprecedented levels of dissent at their governments’ policies towards Israel over the war in Gaza, there have been far fewer known cases of so-called principled resignations, meaning Mr Smith’s case is extremely rare for the British government.

 Netanyahu’s sense of entitlement is obviously too great to worry about such things. He is obviously convinced that there are no red lines and he can do whatever he wants.

He knows it and our governments know it, but the people of Gaza know it more than anyone.

If this was a state full of Muslim “dark people” inflicting endless atrocity and genocide on a Christian/Jew “white people” country, the narrative would be rather different.

Netanyahu and his goon squad of thugs have zero intention of negotiating in good faith

In stark contrast to the good faith Hamas have shown in refusing to attend, rejecting the US deal, then claiming a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv and saying more are on the way.

In stark contrast to the good faith Hamas have shown in refusing to attend, rejecting the US deal, then claiming a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv and saying more are on the way.

Love to the family

In stark contrast to the good faith Hamas have shown in refusing to attend

Assassinating their chief negotiator might not have predisposed Hamas to attend a US-Israeli stitch-up. Just a thought.

Poor Hamas, eh? It’s almost like being absolute ratbastard terrorists puts a target on your back.

Poor Hamas, eh? It’s almost like being absolute ratbastard terrorists puts a target on your back.

Where “terrorist” is roughly translated as “someone I don’t like”.  Meanwhile the most moral army in the world:

He said: “I understand that Israel justifies its attacks on hospitals by reference to its claim that the hospitals are overrun by militants but in my four weeks in al-Aqsa hospital I personally did not see a single one.” He said he met many patients who had clearly been beaten in detention camps, and one patient who had been dragged along the ground by the external fixator holding his broken limb together.

He added that on his second visit he treated a disabled man who “in detention had been handcuffed, blindfolded and handcuffed to his wheelchair with his wrists tied to the right of his torso for 30 days”.

He said on his second visit he found the morale of staff had deteriorated and by April “there was a sense of fatalism that this would never end”.

Another consultant, based in Britain but not being named, detailed how he and a group of doctors were bombed at a so-called safe house on 18 January. He said that “the episode acted as an impetus for NGOs to stop sending humanitarian workers” and despite assurances given by British diplomats in Cairo that the attack would be taken up at the highest level in the UK, he claims nobody in government in London contacted the medical team.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/aug/19/lawyers-seeking-arms-export-ban-submit-claims-israeli-war-crimes-uk-court

I hope the flying ox is/was watching the C4 news tonight, the most moral army in the world on show, doing what they do best.

Channel 4 News this evening had a report on the torture and abuse of Palestinians by IDF. You might want to watch.

Where “terrorist” is roughly translated as “someone I don’t like”.

I mean you could use it like that, because it’s true: I don’t like people for whom the ICC have requested arrest warrants relating war crimes and crimes against humanity. And have claimed suicide bomb attacks and promised more.

But plain “terrorist” works just as well.

Am I to infer that you wouldn‘t use the term “terrorist” to describe Hamas members?

I can only speak for myself in welcoming the arrest warrants for Hamas members who participated in the attacks of October, as well as the arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his officials.

Amnesty -ICC applications for arrest warrants for Netanyahu, Sinwar and other senior Israeli and Hamas officials crucial step towards justice

And I heartily approve of the same.

I don’t like people for whom the ICC have requested arrest warrants relating war crimes and crimes against humanity

Netanyahu, democratically elected prime minister of Israel, you mean?

Absolutely. I’m fully aware of who the ICC wants to arrest and why, and I think they should all face trial. Granted that ship has sailed for Haniyeh and “Deif” but it’s hardly a controversial opinion.

Hinting that calling a Sinwar a terrorist is unfair as I said it just because I don’t like him on the other hand…

Hinting that calling a Sinwar a terrorist is unfair as I said it just because I don’t like him on the other hand…

Odd that you don’t describe Netanyahu the same way. 

But these word games don’t disguise the more important truth – that Israel is embarked on a campaign of genocide, has killed over 40000 people and systematically tortures hundreds of others, but not content with that they are happy to risk starting a regional war.

The more important truth is that useful idiots take what’s happening in Gaza and use it to dilute the actual meaning of the word “genocide” to the point where it’ll be used incorrectly to describe every conflict from this point onwards, forevermore diminishing the impact of true genocides, past, present and – god forbid – future. Whether or not this is purposeful is another question.

To be perfectly clear: I believe there are acts being committed by the IDF that are unconscionable – I’m in no way saying they are beyond reproach. But from the broader spectrum of media I’m exposed to than the average Brit, and with direct knowledge of what’s going on over here, I do not believe Israel is actively and purposefully committing genocide against the Palestinians.

the actual meaning of the word “genocide”

Do enlighten us – what is the “actual meaning” of the word genocide? Have you shared your wisdom with the ICJ ?

The actual meaning is “the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group.”

Are they deliberately killing people? Yes. Are those people from a particular nation or ethnic group? Yes. Do they want to destroy that nation or ethnic group? They want to destroy Hamas, not Palestinians.

They want to destroy Hamas, not Palestinians.

Actions speak louder than words, I think they are trying to eradicate the Palestinians in Gaza, and would only need the flimsiest of excuses to do the same in the West Bank. and for what it’s worth I see both Hamas and the IDF as terrorists, they both use terror to further their goals.

They want to destroy Hamas, not Palestinians.

To counter your argument – Israel are deliberately targeting and destroying civilian infrastructure, health care facilities, schools, universities, water and sewerage infrastructure, they are withholding aid, whether that be medical or humanitarian aid, repeatedly moving displaced people from one encampment to another, time and time again, refusal to grant the international Red Cross access to detention camps and detainees, refusal to grant access to lawyers for detainees, refusal to grant access to independent observers, refusal to grant access to international journalists, refusal to show just and legal proceedings when investigating their own crimes.

I could go on, but I guess I’ve made my point

Everyone posts these things as though Israel is acting on a whim with no external stimuli.

Why are they targeting those places? Because Hamas are using them as staging points for rocket attacks, acts which themselves both constitute a war crime and strip those places of protected status.

Refusing aid? You mention nothing of Hamas confiscating the aid that gets through, or attacking the agencies in Gaza that try to distribute it. There are dozens of trucks delivering aid to the Gaza side of the Kerem Shalom crossing every day but it just sits there rotting.

Why are they moving people? Because Hamas are entrenched within the camps and moving them is better than bombing them.

You’ve made the point that there are awful things happening there, and I absolutely agree. Many of those things could and should be argued as falling under the term “crimes against humanity”. But crimes against humanity and genocide are separate things, and that’s my point. Conflating everything into genocide, as horrific as some of those things are, chips away at the meaning of genocide – the absolute worst crime. And normalising it now means it’ll be easier to say the next conflict is genocide, and the next, and the next. And there’ll come a point where an unfortunate incidence of collateral damage will be labelled genocide, and suddenly everyone will be all “what are the Ugyurs/Rohingyas/Jews/Armenians moaning about – genocide? It was just an accident”.

Refusing aid? You mention nothing of Hamas confiscating the aid that gets through, or attacking the agencies in Gaza that try to distribute it. There are dozens of trucks delivering aid to the Gaza side of the Kerem Shalom crossing every day but it just sits there rotting.

Like bombing World Food Kitchen, you mean? Oh no – that was the IDF.  It is the responsibility if the Israelis to provide aid to the civilian population, not just to truck it to a checkpoint, let some rabble trash it, and then expect the UN to deliver it through hell. If aid is rotting it’s because the Israelis refuse to facilitate its delivery to the people who need it – a starving civilian population. I wonder why?

Why are they targeting those places?

So they’re blowing up an unoccupied library in case Hamas are hiding in the bookshelves? Or is it to eradicate Palestinian culture? Really, we’ve heard these pathetic excuses a million times before, from the mouths of the various apologists that the Israelis wheel out to insult us on our TV screens.

As for your point about the meaning of genocide, you have things exactly backwards – as long as the Israelis insist on pursuing their policy of destruction of the Palestinian people, people will stop seeing the Holocaust as a uniquely awful event, and stop seeing the Jewish people as uniquely deserving of protection, so the next time it rolls around they will just shrug their shoulders and make excuses about “collateral damage” and other obscenities.

Deleted.

Oxfam, the UK,UN, the EU and UNRWA have stated that Israel is deliberately blocking aid trucks. Couple that with the systematic tearing up of roads in an also deliberate tactic, to prevent aid from delivering its contents.

It was stated that the number of aid deliveries needed to be approx 500 trucks a day. Those that Israel did eventually let in amounted to less than 100. Another deliberate attempt to starve the Palestinians out, or have them die from disease. Hamas might be the target, but it is clear it is not the only target

You mention nothing of Hamas confiscating the aid that gets through, or attacking the agencies in Gaza that try to distribute it. There are dozens of trucks delivering aid to the Gaza side of the Kerem Shalom crossing every day but it just sits there rotting.

It’s not just somafunk – the UN and a multitude of international aid agencies don’t mention it either, it’s just the far-right Israeli apartheid regime, various extreme pro-zionists, and you, who do. Funny that.

In fact international aid agencies accuse Israel of deliberately starving Palestinians. And deliberately killing international aid  workers.

Bezalel Smotrich is no minor far-right fringe politician, he is Israeli Chancellor of the Exchequer. Less than a fortnight ago:

Israel minister condemned for saying starvation of millions in Gaza might be ‘justified and moral’

https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/aug/08/israel-finance-minister-bezalel-smotrich-gaza-starve-2m-people-comments

The UK foreign secretary, David Lammy, called on “the wider Israeli government to retract and condemn” the remarks.

“International law could not be more clear – the deliberate starvation of civilians is a war crime,” he tweeted. “There can be no justification for Minister Smotrich’s remarks.”

Imagine the western media outcry had a senior Russian politician made similar comments to Smotrich about civilians in occupied territories.

While its correct to highlight the importance of defining certain terms, especially those which carry such weight as genocide, the belief that Israel is targeting Hamas and not Palestinians for the “crime” of being Palestinian is naivety in the highest order and ignores the basic facts on the ground. For example, the murder of a 6-year-old girl and her family by the IDF who fired 360 rounds into her families vehicle, killing her family instantly while she died alone and terrified some hours later. When the paramedics came to rescue her, they were murdered too, despite the relevant authorities calling ahead for clearance. These atrocities are not accidents; they are intent to kill individuals because they belong to a certain group. What is happening in Gaza is genocide.

No it’s not.

I think most reasonable people would accept that the far-right government in Tel Aviv intends, at least in part, to destroy the Palestinian people.

There no other explanation for their relentless targeting of Palestinian civilians and the destruction of their civil society – to the extent that they have even carried out the destruction of a captured university through controlled explosions.

The extreme zionist government is also currently expanding their annexation of Palestinian land in the West Bank in blatant violation of international law. The aim is clear – to deny the Palestinians  statehood by making the West Bank unviable as part of a Palestinian  state due to the huge Israeli population living on it.

All this fulls within the definition of genocide.

“a crime committed with the intent to destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, in whole or in part.”

They aren’t targeting civilians though.

Yes they definitely are. They are working on the old and widely discredited premise that if you bomb civilians sufficiently you will break their morale. The Allies tried that tactic during WW2 and the Americans tried it in Vietnam and Cambodia. The Israelis are using it to such a level of intensity that it amounts to genocide.

The far-right Israeli government uses psychological warfare – targeting civilians in “safe” places such as hospitals and UN schools is more effective than targeting in their homes as it sends a clear message than nowhere is safe and they have nowhere to run to.

Israel has a long history of massacres of civilians in refugee camps which predates the current situation in Gaza. It also has a long history of “collective punishments” which by definition requires civilians to be targeted.

Furthermore Israel is using the blockade of food to create conditions of starvation among the population of Gaza, that is indisputably targeting civilians, and in fact forms part of the allegations of genocide and war crimes in the international courts.

Don’t agree with any of that .

They aren’t targeting civilians . If Hamas want to hide behind children that’s the war crime you should concentrate on.

Hamas cannot hide behind children because the IDF will kill children without any hesitation at all.

In fact IDF snipers will target children. They know full well that killing children has a profoundly devastating effect on Palestinians. By doing so they are destroying what means most to Palestinian parents.

There is not a shred of evidence that the IDF are doing anything at all to avoid killing children. So far they have directly killed over 16 thousand children.

I’d love to see your evidence of what you’ve alleged in that post .

Completely untrue of course but if you can back that up I’d love to see it .

Too much evidence to list. Here’s a start

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/02/gaza-palestinian-children-killed-idf-israel-war?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

That’s not evidence ! Thats third hand allegations in a notoriously left wing newspaper!

About as far from evidence as you can get.