Gaza under attack yet again.

[scalyboy]

Mad Mel poison whore
at paranoia's deadly door
21st Century Schizoid sham

"whore" and "bitch" are terms probably best avoided tbh

 

[ViolentPanda]

I agree - I think a lot of it is to do with the whole "hate the overprivileged/support the underprivileged" stance a lot of the left takes.
Jews are seen as being pretty rich, well off people with a high standard of living, generally, so are bound to get a bit of flak before theyv'e even bombed any children...

 

[ViolentPanda]

So this is successful resistance because even if it encourages stuff like Cast Lead and Protective Edge (I'm not sure it does actually encourage these operations and think they would likely happen anyway but it does I suppose give a sort of pretext for them; albeit a horrifically unconvincing one) it keeps Israel/Palestine in the newspapers?

I'm sorry, I don't believe that Hamas fires these rockets in the hope that the Guardian and Wall Street Journal will keep talking about them. I think it has far more to do with backing up the image they wish to project as the defenders of the Palestinian masses and therefore continue to enjoy a degree of social support from them.

And what do you believe would have happened if there hadn't been resistance in the West Bank and Gaza?
I think we can fairly safely conclude that "The Occupied Territories" would have been fully-annexed by now.

 

[scalyboy]

Yeah, like my millionaire boot repairer/typist/barber relatives, coining it in, living in social housing...

 

[Idris2002]

Yeah, like my millionaire boot repairer/typist/barber relatives, coining it in, living in social housing...

Is there good money in boot repair then?

 

[ViolentPanda]

Provisional IRA, Shining Path and FARC not exactly successful either...

You say "not exactly successful", I say "well, they all achieved some of their stated aims. Obviously, you're a "glass half-empty" person.

I don't dispute that insurgency is about winning in the conventional sense. But to be meaningful at all, it must at least constitute an irritation to the opposing force. I've seen no evidence that Hamas's rocket firing causes the state of Israel any annoyance whatsoever.

What, besides the air-raid warnings, the loss of production in towns like Sderot, the psychological consequences of living near the border and being punted into an adrenaline state every time the klaxons sound?

 

[ViolentPanda]

Is there good money in boot repair then?

Only in militarised states.

 

[D'wards]

Yeah, like my millionaire boot repairer/typist/barber relatives, coining it in, living in social housing...

I was talking about the stereotype obviously, sigh.

 

[Idris2002]

Only in militarised states.

I'll do the jokes.

 

[scalyboy]

Is there good money in boot repair then?

The odd thing is that my granddad (the cobbler) said he used to make boots for the Cossacks...was that before or after they pogromed the town?

 

[scalyboy]

I was talking about the stereotype obviously, sigh.

Yeah, I didn't think it was your own personal view.
But isn't it odd that people (even on the 'enightened Left') haven't met any ordinary jewish ppl in their daily lives, such that they can conceive of Jews as a privileged/affluent upper class?

 

[uk benzo]

I'm glad you find it poignant but I'm finding it hard to buy into this 'Palestine can't lose' thing what with the death toll rising and all.

Yes, because you are looking at it from a short term perspective. Palestinians have been systematically and brutally repressed for the last 60 years- in this time, we have lived with the hope that our aspirations for a free Palestine come to fruition (whether it is a one state Palestine or an independent workable Palestine partitioned from an 'Israel').

In spite of all this misery, our aspirations have not diminished- and this is what I believe the zionists have been trying to do over the last twenty years by caging us in to ghettos, and then letting rip with missiles into these open air prisons. But with each attack against us that has failed in its objective, our aspirations grow stronger as does our Palestinian identity. Hence, Israel cannot win and we cannot lose.

 

[ViolentPanda]

The odd thing is that my granddad (the cobbler) said he used to make boots for the Cossacks...was that before or after they pogromed the town?

He made Valenki?
BTW, not all Cossacks were anti-Semite, Ukrainian Cossack groups admitted Jews and Subbotniks.

 

[scalyboy]

He made Valenki?
BTW, not all Cossacks were anti-Semite, Ukrainian Cossack groups admitted Jews and Subbotniks.

I've got a nice old sepia photo of him posing outside the shop, with a big Stalin-esque tache and a shiny pair of boots.
Your second sentence has just reminded me of the author Isaac Babel and Red Cavalry - didn't he fight with Buddyony's red cavalry unit?
But I fear this is just another of my legendary thread derails.

 

[phildwyer]

Look at this thing politically, not as some pathological social condition, or as the result of harder nastier jews being able to survive the nazi death camps and so breeding out softer traits or anything on that idiotic continuum.

It would be pretty silly to deny the obvious causal connections between the Holocaust and Israeli policy though.

 

[phildwyer]

Are you unable to grasp that insurgency doesn't need to win battles - that the nature of insurgency is such that merely to be insurgent is "victory" enough?
Seriously: Study up on the LTTE, on the Provisional IRA, th Shining Path, or FARC

None of whom have been victorious.

Do-oh!

 

[frogwoman]

I'd agree there is some on the Left, but IMHO Left anti-Zionism is just as likely to be anti-US; the USA (correctly) seen as the main protector/encourager of the Israeli state.

There is also, I would argue, a weird and most probably unconscious idea that a lot of non-Jewish people hold - that Jews are meant to be victims and to see those in Israel as powerful oppressors is difficult for these people to comprehend.

I have no proof of this, but I have a sneaking feeling that the well-known two-and-ahalf-thousand-year history of the Jewish people as stateless outcasts, forever the humble oppressed, is such a powerful idea (in the Bible/popular history/literature/film) that when Israel's actions go counter to this, a lot of people I reckon can't process it ,and somehow on a semi-conscious level feel unsettled, that it is deeply disturbing and wrong.

Of course the irritating thing about this view is that it makes the false conflation between Israelis and Jews
I find it deeply frustrating to be told "Israel is as bad as the Nazis" as if this was some great, new insight, and as if I - as a really rubbish non-practising (well virtually) semi-Jew - can do anything about it*, as if the Israeli state gives a shit what I think ...

I could be way wrong about this 'popular psychology' idea of mine, but for me it goes some way to explain why Israeli oppression/aparthied and war crimes (let's not beat around the bush) will get people (rightly) outraged and out on the streets, whereas (for example) China's continuing oppression/aparthied/occupation and killing of Tibetans, or of the Muslim Uighurs (sp.?) seems to pass a lot of people by. And China is a major trading partner of the West.

* other than boycotting Israeli products, which I do anyway.

yeah but at the same time, I think that if was happening in any other country it would produce outrage although perhaps not on that level. Remember the Kosovo war, I was in primary school when that took place but I remember it clearly, it was on the news night after night and I remember teachers at school talking about Milosevic as being an evil man etc. the media were discussing the Syria, gaddafi etc in similar terms. I do think that there is a current of left-wing anti-Semitism but I also do not think that this is the whole story as to why Palestine is sometimes focused on more than other conflicts. It is certainly not the case with me. I don't think the majority of people on the gaza demo i went to on Monday were motivated out of anti-semitism, many of them were jewish themselves and a huge number of them weren't left wing activists and "usual suspects" but just ordinary shoppers passing by. I didn't want to support BDS or boycotting Israeli goods or anything like that and you'll find posts from me where I argue against it but I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that it is literally the only thing ordinary people can do to try and stop this regime.

 

[scalyboy]

Thread derail but perhaps more relevant - on the topic of boycotting Israeli goods, does anyone know anything about Palestinian olive oil in the UK, i can only seem to buy the 'Zaytoun' brand in Oxfam shops. Now, when you go into a big supermarket, especially a posh Waitrose, they have a big range, untold different olive oils - but not Palestinian gear the last time I checked?
So here's my question - has there been a 'friends of Israel' lobby of supermarkets to prevent it being stocked?
And, if so, maybe a counter-lobby by customers might reverse the decision? Customers' choice and all that. I would have thought if people could buy it easily in their local Sainsburys, it might fly off the shelves.

Or is there a limit on how much can be exported from the West Bank?

 

[phildwyer]

The Saudis (or at least the Saudi ruling classes) want nothing to do with helping the Palestinians - not when the majority of them are secularist, and pro-democratic.

Double Do-oh!

"Saudi Arabia is one of the largest providers of aid to the Palestinian people.[7] Since 2002, Saudi Arabia has given more than $480 million in monetary support to the Palestinian Authority, and has supported Palestinian refugees by contributing to the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). Through the Arab League it has provided more than $250 million for the Palestinians, and pledged $500 million in assistance over the next three years at the Donors Conference in Dec 2007.[4] Unlike aid from other nations, Saudi Arabian aid to Palestinians was not disrupted by the election of Hamas.[7]"

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

 

[frogwoman]

I agree with a lot of your other points by the way.

 

[scalyboy]

I didn't want to support BDS or boycotting Israeli goods or anything like that and you'll find posts from me where I argue against it but I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that it is literally the only thing ordinary people can do to try and stop this regime.

I do boycott - probably out of a sense of helplessness and 'wanting to do something' - but I am a bit conflicted about it tbh, as I don't necessarily boycott Chinese products so I feel I am a hypocrite

 

[frogwoman]

I do boycott - probably out of a sense of helplessness and 'wanting to do something' - but I am a bit conflicted about it tbh, as I don't necessarily boycott Chinese products so I feel I am a hypocrite

I know.

wtf do we do?

 

[frogwoman]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-28468526

 

[uk benzo]

Double Do-oh!

"Saudi Arabia is one of the largest providers of aid to the Palestinian people.[7] Since 2002, Saudi Arabia has given more than $480 million in monetary support to the Palestinian Authority, and has supported Palestinian refugees by contributing to the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). Through the Arab League it has provided more than $250 million for the Palestinians, and pledged $500 million in assistance over the next three years at the Donors Conference in Dec 2007.[4] Unlike aid from other nations, Saudi Arabian aid to Palestinians was not disrupted by the election of Hamas.[7]"

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

The PA are a bunch of puppet quisling cunts. They distribute the money that has been 'donated' (with conditions of course- such as encouraging wahabism, training the quisling police force etc) among themselves. Moreover, they are regarded as a bunch of mafia scum by the Palestinians. They would sell their own mothers for a pat on the back from Obama and a handful of dollars.

 

[uk benzo]

Thread derail but perhaps more relevant - on the topic of boycotting Israeli goods, does anyone know anything about Palestinian olive oil in the UK, i can only seem to buy the 'Zaytoun' brand in Oxfam shops. Now, when you go into a big supermarket, especially a posh Waitrose, they have a big range, untold different olive oils - but not Palestinian gear the last time I checked?
So here's my question - has there been a 'friends of Israel' lobby of supermarkets to prevent it being stocked?
And, if so, maybe a counter-lobby by customers might reverse the decision? Customers' choice and all that. I would have thought if people could buy it easily in their local Sainsburys, it might fly off the shelves.

Or is there a limit on how much can be exported from the West Bank?

Sainsburys sell it.

 

[frogwoman]

I've got to say as well that a lot of the time when governments engage in this sort of behaviour (but not always - see Ukraine, sri lanka etc) they are not as vocally supported by the west, in fact the west makes noises about how it is wrong and might even drop some bombs on them. Whereas Israel seems to be supported by Cameron and Obama seemingly unequivocally. I say seemingly because it is clear the days of Israel having unquestioned support are coming to an end.

 

[phildwyer]

And it took the Sinhala majority eschewing democracy (or at least democratic practice) and the complicity of "the west" to do so. Prior to that the LTTE had won most of its' aims over the prior 40 years.

You do not know the meaning of the word "eschewing."

TRIPLE DO-OH!

 

[frogwoman]

Middle East crisis: UN criticism 'a travesty' - Netanyahu
5 hours ago
The Israeli Prime Minister has said it is a "travesty of justice and fairness" that Israel's offensive in Gaza has been condemned by the UN Human Rights Council.
Benjamin Netanyahu's comments came after the UN humanitarian chief, Valerie Amos, warned that the plight of Palestinian civilians in Gaza was becoming increasingly desperate.
At least 710 Palestinians and 32 Israeli soldiers, as well as three civilians in Israel, have been killed in the past 16 days of fighting, officials say.
Mr Netanyahu also repeated his criticism of Hamas' treatment of Palestinian civilians as "grotesque".

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-28461045

Wow, someone give this guy a job in Pyongyang

 

[scalyboy]

Sainsburys sell it.

Good, will have a look. May be cheaper than in Oxfam too!

 

[Buckaroo]

TRIPLE DO-OH!

It's 'Doh!' or even 'D'oh!' but never 'Do-oh!'.