That's a one sided view OP
comment by manusince52 (U9692)
posted 13 minutes ago
That's a one sided view OP
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Rob doesn’t understand the concept of objectivity.
Having said that, there are a lot of similarities between the Israeli leadership and a certain German government.
Quite ironic.
comment by Busby (U19985)
posted 9 minutes ago
comment by manusince52 (U9692)
posted 13 minutes ago
That's a one sided view OP
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Rob doesn’t understand the concept of objectivity.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Thanks for that contribution Tory Busby
You genuinely think that practically the entire world will be back in conflict with each other do you?
The US have already said they won’t back Israel if they attack Iran’s nuclear facilities although I’m pretty sure they’ll be delighted if they take out this awful regime’s nuclear capability for as long as possible.
The US and the UK will stay clear of anything other than helping Israel defence itself and arming it (which will eventually dry up as stocks of arms are being severely depleted around the world.
And how many fronts do you think Isreal can fight on? Other than that; apart from the usual suspects (and even most of them don’t want a full blown conflict), there isn’t anyone else tripping over themselves to join in the fight.
comment by Robb Raygun (U22716)
posted 6 minutes ago
comment by Busby (U19985)
posted 9 minutes ago
comment by manusince52 (U9692)
posted 13 minutes ago
That's a one sided view OP
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Rob doesn’t understand the concept of objectivity.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Thanks for that contribution Tory Busby
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Original. Won’t be long until being a Labour voter is discriminated, give it until the October budget.
It's a very dangerous situation we're in at the moment, without needing to go into the apocalyptic WW3 stuff (not for the first time, Robb, you drama queen!). Current levels of bloodshed are a moral outrage and a humanitarian tragedy, and a wider regional war that multiplies this seems very possible.
Anyway, I've always tried to understand the Middle East as a whole and relations between Israel and its neighbours as a very complex ecosystem. I try to factor in how the collective trauma of the Holocaust impacts a Jewish Israeli's sense of security, of homeland, and risk calculations. I know that all of the regional powers are corrupt and murderous, and that the wider geopolitical players - the US, UK, Russia, China are self-interested and have exerted a malign and destabilising influence in recent years, even before we talk about the legacy of colonialism in shaping the problems we see today.
But let's be clear: Israel is now run by a coalition government fronted by an unprincipled crook who uses nationalist populism for political gain, who is likely to go to prison for corruption as soon as he leaves power, and who relies on extremist, neo-fascist parties who are his coalition partners to retain power. Place this present situation on top of decades of humiliation, oppression, illegal land grabs, and murder of Palestinians with impunity, and within a situation which is clearly complex to resolve there should be little moral ambiguity that Israel is committing monstrous crimes against humanity, and our successive governments have been complicit in this.
Eventually, 100 / 200 / 500 years down the line, people will realise that all religions are made up and have better things to worry about...................
I'm not pro-Israeli but if a group in another country were firing rockets at us, I think we would all be happy to go in and smash them up then take a piece of their land to give us a buffer zone.
It's two sides that don't want to negotiate, that both only see 1 state solutions. It's been a war that has basically continued for at least 70+ years and loads of people have died.
Are we not now at the point where it's better that it ends even if that means the destruction of one state?
There's no peaceful solution that either side would agree to so the only option is to fight until the other side is crushed, take the land you need to make your people safe regardless of the rights and wrongs of the whole situation.
And yes they shouldn't have been there in the first place but the reality is they are and they aren't going anywhere.
FWIW Iran rocket attacks are posturing, can't see them being reckless enough to have a full on war because of the American support of Israel.
“ queen!). Current levels of bloodshed are a moral outrage and a humanitarian tragedy, and a wider regional war that multiplies this seems very possible.”
The trouble with nations ruled by dictatorships is they put a very different value on their citizens lives than we do in true democracies.
Don't you mean WW4? The Ukraine/Russia conflict was supposed to be WW3, remember?
comment by Spurtle (U1608)
posted 2 minutes ago
Don't you mean WW4? The Ukraine/Russia conflict was supposed to be WW3, remember?
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I think we’re already at WW5, given that Robb predicted whilst Trump was in office that escalating tensions with North Korea would trigger WW3 (Ukraine/Russia was actually WW4 )
comment by Busby (U19985)
posted 8 minutes ago
“ queen!). Current levels of bloodshed are a moral outrage and a humanitarian tragedy, and a wider regional war that multiplies this seems very possible.”
The trouble with nations ruled by dictatorships is they put a very different value on their citizens lives than we do in true democracies.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Define 'true democracy'. I think this depends very much on how degraded the democracy is. Israel has fair and open elections, and the rule of law. But a lot of Israeli thinkers have been warning for years that the national blind spot in terms of not extending civil and democratic rights to Palestinians within the territories it controls will end up corroding its whole democracy. The idea is that the 'external' occupation would eventually, inevitably turn inward. And I think we're beginning to see this, with Netanyahu driving policies to curb the rule of law, limit the ability of the courts to hold him to account, greater levels of hostility, and even cohesive suppression, toward dissenting voices within Israel. And with that, we also see an upsurge in indiscriminate bloodshed, killing tens of thousands of children.
Democracy isn't an absolute. It's relative, and it's fragile. It's something to fight for, nurture, protect, even within countries that ostensibly have it. In 1961 the democratic French state massacred Algerian protestors in Paris - throwing bodies into the Seine - and it didn't acknowledge the truth of what had happened until 1998. Germany in the early 1930s had a democracy, but a weak and degraded one, which brought the NSDAP to power in legally legitimate (though democratically compromised) elections. The USA right now is a seriously degraded democracy, endangered above all by the fragmentation of information systems that enable relatively truth-based discourse to thrive.
comment by Spurtle (U1608)
posted 19 minutes ago
Don't you mean WW4? The Ukraine/Russia conflict was supposed to be WW3, remember?
----------------------------------------------------------------------
It’s all part of the same thing. Putin is playing his role in things to get funding cut from Ukraine by getting Trump back in power. Netanyahu won’t make any peace deals until after the election.
FWIW Iran rocket attacks are posturing, can't see them being reckless enough to have a full on war because of the American support of Israel.
----------------------------------------------------------
It's true that Iran almost certainly doesn't want escalation, but the danger of the situation is that Iran and its proxies calculate that they can't afford to show weakness either. When you have that on one side, and an Israeli government that has military superiority *and* sees political gain in prolonged warfare, it's hard to see a dynamic favourable to de-escalation.
Netanyahu won’t make any peace deals until after the election.
---------------------------------------------------------
Isn't it more likely that Netanyahu is acting in his own self-interest rather than at the service of attempting to get Trump re-elected? It's pretty clear that his political position is very precarious and depends on the support of the far-right coalition partners. On the other hand, despite being politically friendlier to Trump, Biden's presidency has steadfastly supported Israel: there's no material difference between the two sides in terms of being an enabler of Palestinian dispossession and regional belligerence. Except perhaps that Trump might enthusiastically support full-on genocide, but that goes against your suggestion that he'll sue for peace once Trump is back in the White House.
comment by Red Russian (U4715)
posted 23 seconds ago
Netanyahu won’t make any peace deals until after the election.
---------------------------------------------------------
Isn't it more likely that Netanyahu is acting in his own self-interest rather than at the service of attempting to get Trump re-elected? It's pretty clear that his political position is very precarious and depends on the support of the far-right coalition partners. On the other hand, despite being politically friendlier to Trump, Biden's presidency has steadfastly supported Israel: there's no material difference between the two sides in terms of being an enabler of Palestinian dispossession and regional belligerence. Except perhaps that Trump might enthusiastically support full-on genocide, but that goes against your suggestion that he'll sue for peace once Trump is back in the White House.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I guess it all depends on how far down the rabbit hole you wanna go. You could see Saudi Arabia as a state that helped fund Musk’s takeover of Twitter who have a vested interest in getting Trump (and eventually Vance via Thiel) into the White House.
As for the difference between the dems and GOP in regards to how Israel is allowed to get away with stuff - I feel Trump would be more damaging to the region as this time he won’t have the generals he inherited from Obama to keep him on the straight and narrow and I’m sure the Saudis and Netanyahu see Trump/Vance as malleable folks.
Which side do I support based on which football team I support?
If I started supporting Rangers in the 90s because I liked Ally McCoist, do I now back Israel?
If Larsson was my man, do I now support Iran?
That chip against Rangers in the 6-2 victory was massively influential in me being against Israel.
Is there any solution that means a secure. democratic and contented region.
Israel doesn't want to be surrounded by enemies, pledged to it's extermination, and developing nuclear weapons.
Against that Israel have acted abominably against Palestinians, stealing land and homes by force, and currently killing many thousands of innocent men women and children, out of proportion to the cowardly attack on itself a year ago.
I can't see how it's possible to reconcile the two sides.
Robb, I tend to doubt conspiratorial views of the world where major points of power are fully coordinated. I think it's more of a case of interests coming into partial and provisional alignment. I don't think Saudi Arabia sees a Trump presidency as a fundamental strategic priority. It has probably observed that he is entirely untrustworthy, capricious and prone to chaos. It may tend to prefer him on balance, but I'd guess not enough to enter into a grand conspiracy to support his election, because that cannot be guaranteed, and it enjoys a good relationship with the USA whichever party is in power. (Russia is different, primarily because it wants to weaken the West and sees Trump as a vehicle for this aim, as well as a player that can be manipulated by flattery and apparent ideological sympathy.) As for Israel, it's a good example of the pragmatic and fleeting nature of geopolitical alignment. Israel has often sought to retain cordial relations with Russia, as seen by its unwillingness to back Ukraine, when pushing back against liberal critiques of its policy, and Russia has reciprocated. At the same time, Russia-Iran is looking like an increasingly strategic alliance, and Russia saw an opportunity to grandstand (entirely hypocritically) against colonial violence after Israel's operations in Gaza began.
I hate how polarised debate is regarding this war. Hamas are, and have always been, a terrorist organisation, yet you wouldn't know it based on the pro-Palestinian support in the western world. There's evil on both sides. You can't just pretend the barbarism on October 7th didn't happen. As bad as Israel's retaliation has been, it's a consequence of having been brutally attacked themselves. There is no good guy in this equation. Just suffering on both sides, usually innocent civilians. Plus it's a very, very complex political debate. It goes back a lot further than 70 years. Rory Stewart can explain it far better than I can...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAs5EOBUDcs
comment by manusince52 (U9692)
posted 8 minutes ago
Is there any solution that means a secure. democratic and contented region.
Israel doesn't want to be surrounded by enemies, pledged to it's extermination, and developing nuclear weapons.
Against that Israel have acted abominably against Palestinians, stealing land and homes by force, and currently killing many thousands of innocent men women and children, out of proportion to the cowardly attack on itself a year ago.
I can't see how it's possible to reconcile the two sides.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Granting Palestinians statehood and returning their stolen land seems like a plausible first step toward regional stability. It strikes me that this would increase, rather than decrease, Israel's security. However, this is politically unthinkable in Israel at the moment.
comment by fridgeboy (U1053)
posted 1 minute ago
I hate how polarised debate is regarding this war. Hamas are, and have always been, a terrorist organisation, yet you wouldn't know it based on the pro-Palestinian support in the western world. There's evil on both sides. You can't just pretend the barbarism on October 7th didn't happen. As bad as Israel's retaliation has been, it's a consequence of having been brutally attacked themselves. There is no good guy in this equation. Just suffering on both sides, usually innocent civilians. Plus it's a very, very complex political debate. It goes back a lot further than 70 years. Rory Stewart can explain it far better than I can...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAs5EOBUDcs
----------------------------------------------------------------------
There’s only one side committing a genocide. When you say there’s no good guys? How about the tens of thousands of innocent children killed by disproportionate bombing. ‘Pro Palestinian support’ is the only sane reaction to all this horror.
comment by Robb Raygun (U22716)
posted 4 minutes ago
comment by fridgeboy (U1053)
posted 1 minute ago
I hate how polarised debate is regarding this war. Hamas are, and have always been, a terrorist organisation, yet you wouldn't know it based on the pro-Palestinian support in the western world. There's evil on both sides. You can't just pretend the barbarism on October 7th didn't happen. As bad as Israel's retaliation has been, it's a consequence of having been brutally attacked themselves. There is no good guy in this equation. Just suffering on both sides, usually innocent civilians. Plus it's a very, very complex political debate. It goes back a lot further than 70 years. Rory Stewart can explain it far better than I can...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAs5EOBUDcs
----------------------------------------------------------------------
There’s only one side committing a genocide. When you say there’s no good guys? How about the tens of thousands of innocent children killed by disproportionate bombing. ‘Pro Palestinian support’ is the only sane reaction to all this horror.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
No. A plea for a cease-fire is the only sane reaction to this horror. Otherwise you're actively backing the bombing of innocent civilians in Jerusalem.
comment by fridgeboy (U1053)
posted 2 minutes ago
I hate how polarised debate is regarding this war. Hamas are, and have always been, a terrorist organisation, yet you wouldn't know it based on the pro-Palestinian support in the western world. There's evil on both sides. You can't just pretend the barbarism on October 7th didn't happen. As bad as Israel's retaliation has been, it's a consequence of having been brutally attacked themselves. There is no good guy in this equation. Just suffering on both sides, usually innocent civilians. Plus it's a very, very complex political debate. It goes back a lot further than 70 years. Rory Stewart can explain it far better than I can...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAs5EOBUDcs
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Actually, there are plenty of good guys. Plenty of Palestinians who don't support Hamas (which incidentally came to power when Israel undermined the democratically elected and non-Islamist Palestinian Authority) and just want to live their lives in security and dignity. There are plenty of Israelis who express solidarity with Palestinians, though their voices are currently shouted down. I reject the notion that we have two peoples who cannot coexist as neighbours, simply want all the land for themselves. And it's nonsense that Western criticism of Israel since its mass-slaughter in Gaza equates to apologetics for Hamas. We know that Hamas is cynical and murderous, and anyone who is paying attention knows that Netanyahu's government isn't principally driven by returning hostages or destroying Hamas. It is systematically making district after district of Gaza uninhabitable. Not just bombing hospitals, schools and blocks of flats on the suspicion that Hamas fighters might be in the basement. But bulldozing whole neighbourhoods *after securing and driving the population out*. This is not a legitimate response to 7th October, unless you subscribe to the view that genocide is a valid response to massacre.
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Israel and WW3
Page 1 of 7
6 | 7
posted on 3/10/24
That's a one sided view OP
posted on 3/10/24
comment by manusince52 (U9692)
posted 13 minutes ago
That's a one sided view OP
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Rob doesn’t understand the concept of objectivity.
posted on 3/10/24
Having said that, there are a lot of similarities between the Israeli leadership and a certain German government.
Quite ironic.
posted on 3/10/24
comment by Busby (U19985)
posted 9 minutes ago
comment by manusince52 (U9692)
posted 13 minutes ago
That's a one sided view OP
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Rob doesn’t understand the concept of objectivity.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Thanks for that contribution Tory Busby
posted on 3/10/24
You genuinely think that practically the entire world will be back in conflict with each other do you?
The US have already said they won’t back Israel if they attack Iran’s nuclear facilities although I’m pretty sure they’ll be delighted if they take out this awful regime’s nuclear capability for as long as possible.
The US and the UK will stay clear of anything other than helping Israel defence itself and arming it (which will eventually dry up as stocks of arms are being severely depleted around the world.
And how many fronts do you think Isreal can fight on? Other than that; apart from the usual suspects (and even most of them don’t want a full blown conflict), there isn’t anyone else tripping over themselves to join in the fight.
posted on 3/10/24
comment by Robb Raygun (U22716)
posted 6 minutes ago
comment by Busby (U19985)
posted 9 minutes ago
comment by manusince52 (U9692)
posted 13 minutes ago
That's a one sided view OP
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Rob doesn’t understand the concept of objectivity.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Thanks for that contribution Tory Busby
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Original. Won’t be long until being a Labour voter is discriminated, give it until the October budget.
posted on 3/10/24
It's a very dangerous situation we're in at the moment, without needing to go into the apocalyptic WW3 stuff (not for the first time, Robb, you drama queen!). Current levels of bloodshed are a moral outrage and a humanitarian tragedy, and a wider regional war that multiplies this seems very possible.
Anyway, I've always tried to understand the Middle East as a whole and relations between Israel and its neighbours as a very complex ecosystem. I try to factor in how the collective trauma of the Holocaust impacts a Jewish Israeli's sense of security, of homeland, and risk calculations. I know that all of the regional powers are corrupt and murderous, and that the wider geopolitical players - the US, UK, Russia, China are self-interested and have exerted a malign and destabilising influence in recent years, even before we talk about the legacy of colonialism in shaping the problems we see today.
But let's be clear: Israel is now run by a coalition government fronted by an unprincipled crook who uses nationalist populism for political gain, who is likely to go to prison for corruption as soon as he leaves power, and who relies on extremist, neo-fascist parties who are his coalition partners to retain power. Place this present situation on top of decades of humiliation, oppression, illegal land grabs, and murder of Palestinians with impunity, and within a situation which is clearly complex to resolve there should be little moral ambiguity that Israel is committing monstrous crimes against humanity, and our successive governments have been complicit in this.
posted on 3/10/24
Eventually, 100 / 200 / 500 years down the line, people will realise that all religions are made up and have better things to worry about...................
posted on 3/10/24
I'm not pro-Israeli but if a group in another country were firing rockets at us, I think we would all be happy to go in and smash them up then take a piece of their land to give us a buffer zone.
It's two sides that don't want to negotiate, that both only see 1 state solutions. It's been a war that has basically continued for at least 70+ years and loads of people have died.
Are we not now at the point where it's better that it ends even if that means the destruction of one state?
There's no peaceful solution that either side would agree to so the only option is to fight until the other side is crushed, take the land you need to make your people safe regardless of the rights and wrongs of the whole situation.
And yes they shouldn't have been there in the first place but the reality is they are and they aren't going anywhere.
FWIW Iran rocket attacks are posturing, can't see them being reckless enough to have a full on war because of the American support of Israel.
posted on 3/10/24
“ queen!). Current levels of bloodshed are a moral outrage and a humanitarian tragedy, and a wider regional war that multiplies this seems very possible.”
The trouble with nations ruled by dictatorships is they put a very different value on their citizens lives than we do in true democracies.
posted on 3/10/24
Don't you mean WW4? The Ukraine/Russia conflict was supposed to be WW3, remember?
posted on 3/10/24
comment by Spurtle (U1608)
posted 2 minutes ago
Don't you mean WW4? The Ukraine/Russia conflict was supposed to be WW3, remember?
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I think we’re already at WW5, given that Robb predicted whilst Trump was in office that escalating tensions with North Korea would trigger WW3 (Ukraine/Russia was actually WW4 )
posted on 3/10/24
comment by Busby (U19985)
posted 8 minutes ago
“ queen!). Current levels of bloodshed are a moral outrage and a humanitarian tragedy, and a wider regional war that multiplies this seems very possible.”
The trouble with nations ruled by dictatorships is they put a very different value on their citizens lives than we do in true democracies.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Define 'true democracy'. I think this depends very much on how degraded the democracy is. Israel has fair and open elections, and the rule of law. But a lot of Israeli thinkers have been warning for years that the national blind spot in terms of not extending civil and democratic rights to Palestinians within the territories it controls will end up corroding its whole democracy. The idea is that the 'external' occupation would eventually, inevitably turn inward. And I think we're beginning to see this, with Netanyahu driving policies to curb the rule of law, limit the ability of the courts to hold him to account, greater levels of hostility, and even cohesive suppression, toward dissenting voices within Israel. And with that, we also see an upsurge in indiscriminate bloodshed, killing tens of thousands of children.
Democracy isn't an absolute. It's relative, and it's fragile. It's something to fight for, nurture, protect, even within countries that ostensibly have it. In 1961 the democratic French state massacred Algerian protestors in Paris - throwing bodies into the Seine - and it didn't acknowledge the truth of what had happened until 1998. Germany in the early 1930s had a democracy, but a weak and degraded one, which brought the NSDAP to power in legally legitimate (though democratically compromised) elections. The USA right now is a seriously degraded democracy, endangered above all by the fragmentation of information systems that enable relatively truth-based discourse to thrive.
posted on 3/10/24
comment by Spurtle (U1608)
posted 19 minutes ago
Don't you mean WW4? The Ukraine/Russia conflict was supposed to be WW3, remember?
----------------------------------------------------------------------
It’s all part of the same thing. Putin is playing his role in things to get funding cut from Ukraine by getting Trump back in power. Netanyahu won’t make any peace deals until after the election.
posted on 3/10/24
FWIW Iran rocket attacks are posturing, can't see them being reckless enough to have a full on war because of the American support of Israel.
----------------------------------------------------------
It's true that Iran almost certainly doesn't want escalation, but the danger of the situation is that Iran and its proxies calculate that they can't afford to show weakness either. When you have that on one side, and an Israeli government that has military superiority *and* sees political gain in prolonged warfare, it's hard to see a dynamic favourable to de-escalation.
posted on 3/10/24
Netanyahu won’t make any peace deals until after the election.
---------------------------------------------------------
Isn't it more likely that Netanyahu is acting in his own self-interest rather than at the service of attempting to get Trump re-elected? It's pretty clear that his political position is very precarious and depends on the support of the far-right coalition partners. On the other hand, despite being politically friendlier to Trump, Biden's presidency has steadfastly supported Israel: there's no material difference between the two sides in terms of being an enabler of Palestinian dispossession and regional belligerence. Except perhaps that Trump might enthusiastically support full-on genocide, but that goes against your suggestion that he'll sue for peace once Trump is back in the White House.
posted on 3/10/24
comment by Red Russian (U4715)
posted 23 seconds ago
Netanyahu won’t make any peace deals until after the election.
---------------------------------------------------------
Isn't it more likely that Netanyahu is acting in his own self-interest rather than at the service of attempting to get Trump re-elected? It's pretty clear that his political position is very precarious and depends on the support of the far-right coalition partners. On the other hand, despite being politically friendlier to Trump, Biden's presidency has steadfastly supported Israel: there's no material difference between the two sides in terms of being an enabler of Palestinian dispossession and regional belligerence. Except perhaps that Trump might enthusiastically support full-on genocide, but that goes against your suggestion that he'll sue for peace once Trump is back in the White House.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I guess it all depends on how far down the rabbit hole you wanna go. You could see Saudi Arabia as a state that helped fund Musk’s takeover of Twitter who have a vested interest in getting Trump (and eventually Vance via Thiel) into the White House.
As for the difference between the dems and GOP in regards to how Israel is allowed to get away with stuff - I feel Trump would be more damaging to the region as this time he won’t have the generals he inherited from Obama to keep him on the straight and narrow and I’m sure the Saudis and Netanyahu see Trump/Vance as malleable folks.
posted on 3/10/24
Which side do I support based on which football team I support?
If I started supporting Rangers in the 90s because I liked Ally McCoist, do I now back Israel?
If Larsson was my man, do I now support Iran?
That chip against Rangers in the 6-2 victory was massively influential in me being against Israel.
posted on 3/10/24
Is there any solution that means a secure. democratic and contented region.
Israel doesn't want to be surrounded by enemies, pledged to it's extermination, and developing nuclear weapons.
Against that Israel have acted abominably against Palestinians, stealing land and homes by force, and currently killing many thousands of innocent men women and children, out of proportion to the cowardly attack on itself a year ago.
I can't see how it's possible to reconcile the two sides.
posted on 3/10/24
Robb, I tend to doubt conspiratorial views of the world where major points of power are fully coordinated. I think it's more of a case of interests coming into partial and provisional alignment. I don't think Saudi Arabia sees a Trump presidency as a fundamental strategic priority. It has probably observed that he is entirely untrustworthy, capricious and prone to chaos. It may tend to prefer him on balance, but I'd guess not enough to enter into a grand conspiracy to support his election, because that cannot be guaranteed, and it enjoys a good relationship with the USA whichever party is in power. (Russia is different, primarily because it wants to weaken the West and sees Trump as a vehicle for this aim, as well as a player that can be manipulated by flattery and apparent ideological sympathy.) As for Israel, it's a good example of the pragmatic and fleeting nature of geopolitical alignment. Israel has often sought to retain cordial relations with Russia, as seen by its unwillingness to back Ukraine, when pushing back against liberal critiques of its policy, and Russia has reciprocated. At the same time, Russia-Iran is looking like an increasingly strategic alliance, and Russia saw an opportunity to grandstand (entirely hypocritically) against colonial violence after Israel's operations in Gaza began.
posted on 3/10/24
I hate how polarised debate is regarding this war. Hamas are, and have always been, a terrorist organisation, yet you wouldn't know it based on the pro-Palestinian support in the western world. There's evil on both sides. You can't just pretend the barbarism on October 7th didn't happen. As bad as Israel's retaliation has been, it's a consequence of having been brutally attacked themselves. There is no good guy in this equation. Just suffering on both sides, usually innocent civilians. Plus it's a very, very complex political debate. It goes back a lot further than 70 years. Rory Stewart can explain it far better than I can...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAs5EOBUDcs
posted on 3/10/24
comment by manusince52 (U9692)
posted 8 minutes ago
Is there any solution that means a secure. democratic and contented region.
Israel doesn't want to be surrounded by enemies, pledged to it's extermination, and developing nuclear weapons.
Against that Israel have acted abominably against Palestinians, stealing land and homes by force, and currently killing many thousands of innocent men women and children, out of proportion to the cowardly attack on itself a year ago.
I can't see how it's possible to reconcile the two sides.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Granting Palestinians statehood and returning their stolen land seems like a plausible first step toward regional stability. It strikes me that this would increase, rather than decrease, Israel's security. However, this is politically unthinkable in Israel at the moment.
posted on 3/10/24
comment by fridgeboy (U1053)
posted 1 minute ago
I hate how polarised debate is regarding this war. Hamas are, and have always been, a terrorist organisation, yet you wouldn't know it based on the pro-Palestinian support in the western world. There's evil on both sides. You can't just pretend the barbarism on October 7th didn't happen. As bad as Israel's retaliation has been, it's a consequence of having been brutally attacked themselves. There is no good guy in this equation. Just suffering on both sides, usually innocent civilians. Plus it's a very, very complex political debate. It goes back a lot further than 70 years. Rory Stewart can explain it far better than I can...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAs5EOBUDcs
----------------------------------------------------------------------
There’s only one side committing a genocide. When you say there’s no good guys? How about the tens of thousands of innocent children killed by disproportionate bombing. ‘Pro Palestinian support’ is the only sane reaction to all this horror.
posted on 3/10/24
comment by Robb Raygun (U22716)
posted 4 minutes ago
comment by fridgeboy (U1053)
posted 1 minute ago
I hate how polarised debate is regarding this war. Hamas are, and have always been, a terrorist organisation, yet you wouldn't know it based on the pro-Palestinian support in the western world. There's evil on both sides. You can't just pretend the barbarism on October 7th didn't happen. As bad as Israel's retaliation has been, it's a consequence of having been brutally attacked themselves. There is no good guy in this equation. Just suffering on both sides, usually innocent civilians. Plus it's a very, very complex political debate. It goes back a lot further than 70 years. Rory Stewart can explain it far better than I can...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAs5EOBUDcs
----------------------------------------------------------------------
There’s only one side committing a genocide. When you say there’s no good guys? How about the tens of thousands of innocent children killed by disproportionate bombing. ‘Pro Palestinian support’ is the only sane reaction to all this horror.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
No. A plea for a cease-fire is the only sane reaction to this horror. Otherwise you're actively backing the bombing of innocent civilians in Jerusalem.
posted on 3/10/24
comment by fridgeboy (U1053)
posted 2 minutes ago
I hate how polarised debate is regarding this war. Hamas are, and have always been, a terrorist organisation, yet you wouldn't know it based on the pro-Palestinian support in the western world. There's evil on both sides. You can't just pretend the barbarism on October 7th didn't happen. As bad as Israel's retaliation has been, it's a consequence of having been brutally attacked themselves. There is no good guy in this equation. Just suffering on both sides, usually innocent civilians. Plus it's a very, very complex political debate. It goes back a lot further than 70 years. Rory Stewart can explain it far better than I can...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAs5EOBUDcs
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Actually, there are plenty of good guys. Plenty of Palestinians who don't support Hamas (which incidentally came to power when Israel undermined the democratically elected and non-Islamist Palestinian Authority) and just want to live their lives in security and dignity. There are plenty of Israelis who express solidarity with Palestinians, though their voices are currently shouted down. I reject the notion that we have two peoples who cannot coexist as neighbours, simply want all the land for themselves. And it's nonsense that Western criticism of Israel since its mass-slaughter in Gaza equates to apologetics for Hamas. We know that Hamas is cynical and murderous, and anyone who is paying attention knows that Netanyahu's government isn't principally driven by returning hostages or destroying Hamas. It is systematically making district after district of Gaza uninhabitable. Not just bombing hospitals, schools and blocks of flats on the suspicion that Hamas fighters might be in the basement. But bulldozing whole neighbourhoods *after securing and driving the population out*. This is not a legitimate response to 7th October, unless you subscribe to the view that genocide is a valid response to massacre.
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