Hamas/Israel conflict: news and discussion

[Pickman's model]

There was a Russian state proposed at one stage, iirc. Very poor land and it didn't work out.

The Jewish autonomous oblast centred on birobidzhan is 14k sq miles as compared to the current zionist entity's 8. And I'm sure the zionists with their defence industry would receive a warm welcome

 

[Idris2002]

it'll be interesting to see in a few weeks time where the UK's establishment "Israel has a right to" brigade end up drawing a line as to whether Israel has gone beyond that right or not

Even when they drive two million into Sinai, the establishment won't draw the line there.

 

[PTK]

The Jewish Autonomous Oblast in the Russian Federation has an area of 36,271 square kilometres, and the State of Israel has an area of 20,770 square kilometres.

 

[Brayfart]

The Jewish Autonomous Oblast in the Russian Federation has an area of 36,271 square kilometres, and the State of Israel has an area of 20,770 square kilometres.

One's on the Mediterranean and is crammed with Jewish history and holy sites and the other makes Outer Mongolia look cosmopolitan and easy to get to.

 

[PTK]

Ones on the Mediterranean and is crammed with Jewish history and holy sites and the other makes Outer Mongolia look cosmopolitan and easy to get to.

I agree. I was correcting an earlier assertion.

 

[planetgeli]

‘Hamas has created additional demand’: Wall Street eyes big profits from war

Morgan Stanley and TD Bank hope for aerospace and weapons boon after a 7% value increase from start of Israel-Hamas conflict

www.theguardian.com

Nothing we didn't know. War is good for some.

 

[JimW]

The Jewish Autonomous Oblast in the Russian Federation has an area of 36,271 square kilometres, and the State of Israel has an area of 20,770 square kilometres.

Could we have that in sizes of Wales?

 

[teqniq]

Please read and share this obituary:

To the loving memory of Mahmoud Naouq, the human rights defender who Israel turned into a victim

To the loving memory of Mahmoud, the “not just a survivor” as he loved to call himself, to the human with the kindest heart I have known: We cannot and will not forget, and we will not forgive.

euromedmonitor.org

 

[RedRedRose]

They're not rational actors. I think the answer's that simple. It's one of the great myths of capitalism; rational self-interest does not and never has governed the behaviour of capitalists. Just the self-interest bit, and through that lens it's a mess of short-term survival, legacy, personal loyalty, symbolic power etc etc. There is a rationality there of course; if we don't cleave to the Israeli far right, then you get Trump and that will be far worse. It's a subjective and limited rationality though; it's axioms are flawed and act more to justify a need to preserve personal relevance for those in power, and a predictable path for those seeking to attain it.

I've said this already on the thread but I think Israel is the USs most stable power base in the area, and a nuclear power at that. In second place I guess it's Saudi, but that's far less reliable.
That explains the majority of the self interest.

Then there's just the element that a lot of exiled and refugee Jewish people made a home in the States over the last century and have some influence on the politics there.

I did read a piece a few years ago suggesting that the current younger generation of young Jewish Americans are far more critical of Israel than previous generations and more supportive of Palestinian rights, but that doesn't seem to have trickled into meaningful Washington action yet.

From memory, Chomsky says Israel is used by the west as an important bulwark against the Arabs, earlier secular nationalism, today more conservative and radical variants of islamism. He also says some of the early state actors were Christian Zionists, who thought highly of Jews returning to their supposedly religious lands. I could also rope in a line of argument I liked in an Ilan Pappe lecture, about settler colonial societies being able to recognise one another and happy to reinforce the same logic of domination.

That all said, my problem still is, even by the UK's own selfish merits, support for Israel is a terrible idea. It increases the likelihood of Arab states working against the west. It increases the likelihood of a backlash by the global south against the west. It undermines the moral position and the longevity of supporting Ukraine in its conflict. Strengthens the hand of Russia and other bad actors. It increases the likelihood of global terrorism. It commits Israel/Palestine to potentially further cycles of violence. And definitely will not make Jews, globally, any safer.

 

[Pickman's model]

From memory, Chomsky says Israel is used by the west as an important bulwark against the Arabs, earlier secular nationalism, today more conservative and radical variants of islamism. He also says some of the early state actors were Christian Zionists, who thought highly of Jews returning to their supposedly religious lands. I could also rope in a line of argument I liked in an Ilan Pappe lecture, about settler colonial societies being able to recognise one another and happy to reinforce the same logic of domination.

That all said, my problem still is, even by the UK's own selfish merits, support for Israel is a terrible idea. It increases the likelihood of Arab states working against the west. It increases the likelihood of a backlash by the global south against the west. It undermines the moral position and the longevity of supporting Ukraine in its conflict. Strengthens the hand of Russia and other bad actors. It increases the likelihood of global terrorism. It commits Israel/Palestine to potentially further cycles of violence. And definitely will not make Jews, globally, any safer.

yeh but you're not seeing things entirely as they are. your rationality is not shared by eg the christian zionists in the united states, who see the existence of the state of israel in terms of eschatology and there are a lot of nutty christian zionists: have a look at david s katz & richard h popkin's messianic revolution. you'll never look at eg ronald reagan in the same way again

 

[JimW]

Please read and share this obituary:

To the loving memory of Mahmoud Naouq, the human rights defender who Israel turned into a victim

To the loving memory of Mahmoud, the “not just a survivor” as he loved to call himself, to the human with the kindest heart I have known: We cannot and will not forget, and we will not forgive.

euromedmonitor.org

Working as a translator too there were parts of that that really hit home even harder. Fuck it all.

 

[YouSir]

From memory, Chomsky says Israel is used by the west as an important bulwark against the Arabs, earlier secular nationalism, today more conservative and radical variants of islamism. He also says some of the early state actors were Christian Zionists, who thought highly of Jews returning to their supposedly religious lands. I could also rope in a line of argument I liked in an Ilan Pappe lecture, about settler colonial societies being able to recognise one another and happy to reinforce the same logic of domination.

That all said, my problem still is, even by the UK's own selfish merits, support for Israel is a terrible idea. It increases the likelihood of Arab states working against the west. It increases the likelihood of a backlash by the global south against the west. It undermines the moral position and the longevity of supporting Ukraine in its conflict. Strengthens the hand of Russia and other bad actors. It increases the likelihood of global terrorism. It commits Israel/Palestine to potentially further cycles of violence. And definitely will not make Jews, globally, any safer.

As a proxy though it could, I imagine, be relied upon to commit to any action requested of it no matter how extreme, especially as a nuclear power. From a US perspective at least there's a level of internal acceptance of and potential willingness to indulge in total war that any other proxy might find de-stablising/impossible. As you say though, even that logic makes no sense, the uses for that kind of last resort force are increasingly likely to only be necessary because of the relationship with Israel.

 

[PTK]

yeh but you're not seeing things entirely as they are. your rationality is not shared by eg the christian zionists in the united states, who see the existence of the state of israel in terms of eschatology and there are a lot of nutty christian zionists: have a look at david s katz & richard h popkin's messianic revolution. you'll never look at eg ronald reagan in the same way again

Ronald Reagan did believe in all this End Times crap, but he nevertheless ordered the State of Israel to cease fire at some point in Beirut in 1982.

 

[Pickman's model]

Ronald Reagan did believe in all this End Times crap, but he nevertheless ordered the State of Israel to cease fire at some point in Beirut in 1982.

yeh i think you've missed the point. it's not about ronald reagan, it's about christian zionists and why they support the state of israel. and at the moment i wouldn't be surprised if there's rapture among a lot of them as the potential for great violence in and around the zionist entity and its occupied territories doubtless ticks some of their pre-rapture checklist

 

[Pickman's model]

oh: and a link on biden and his longstanding zionism https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/2...utweighs-his-commitment-to-international-law/

 

[Brayfart]

Could we have that in sizes of Wales?

Israel is almost exactly the same size as Wales. The Russian place is nearly two.

 

[CNT36]

Al Qaeda and ISIS both grew from Wahabi financial support from Saudi Arabia. I'm not sure there are many Wahabists anywhere in Palestine. As I understand it Islam in the Levant has mostly been a mix of Shia and less "oppressive" Sunni sects. with a fair amount of Sufi in there too. Palestine has a tradition of being cosmopolitan, tolerant, and outward looking. So Hamas couldn't afford to be anything even vaguely like ISIS or the Taliban, they wouldn't get recruits. As I understand it Islamic Jihad have closer ties to Egypt than Hamas have which may mean they have connections with the early religious leaders behind ISIS and Al Qaeda, but as you say, they are a minor player. Unfortunately it appears there are an awful lot of Western politicians who are incapable of understanding that not everybody who identifies as Muslim is identical. Then again an awful lot of them seem to have the same problem with pretty much any label.

As well as actual Al Qaeda leaders I'd imagine. Egyptian Islamic Jihad became part of Al qaeda a few months before 9/11 and its "Emir" Aymaan Zwahiri took over the leadership from the deceased Bin Laden. His time at the top ended with him being sliced up by a fancy American bomb in Kabul last year.

 

[Serge Forward]

Turns out Birobidzhan still exists, even though only 2% of the population now has Jewish roots;

Birobidzhan: Israel-Hamas war sows discord in remote Jewish region of Russia

The furore over the Israel-Hamas war has reached all the way to Birobidzhan in Russia’s Far East, the world’s only autonomous Jewish territory outside Israel, after a local newspaper published its support…

www.france24.com

I seem to recall in the novel Phineas Kahn by Simon Blumenfeld that the book ended when the family packed up and left the poverty of 1930s Stepney and headed off for the veritable Eden of the Jewish Autonomous Oblast, all thanks to dear Uncle Joe Stalin

 

[Bingoman]

The reporter and her family in this apartment block where the only one told to leave?



So it does look like Israel are targeting journalists in Gaza by the sounds of things?

 

[zahir]

Expel all Palestinians from Gaza, recommends Israeli gov't ministry

An Intelligence Ministry document revealed by Local Call and +972 shows how population transfer to the Sinai is reaching official discussions.

www.972mag.com

 

[PTK]

The reporter and her family in this apartment block where the only one told to leave?



So it does look like Israel are targeting journalists in Gaza by the sounds of things?

If she was the only one told to leave, then we would have to conclude that the IDf was sparing journalists, by warning only journalists. I expect everyone in the block was warned.

 

[PTK]

​

Labour movement voices call for a ceasefire in Israel and Gaza​

Labour movement voices call for a ceasefire in Israel and Gaza

Follow live updates from Labour Outlook as Labour representatives join the call for a ceasefire.

labouroutlook.org

 

[ska invita]

Important thread about the thousands of Palestinian prisoners from a Senior Lecturer in Law at Queen Mary University
Basically they round people up old and young and stick them in jail

Thread by @HediViterbo on Thread Reader App

@HediViterbo: Hamas says it would release all Israeli hostages in exchange for the #Palestinians imprisoned by Israel. But what do we know about these imprisoned Palestinians? A thread 🧵 1/25 #Palestine First of all...…

threadreaderapp.com

 

[teqniq]

According to the article Israeli government sources are playing down the existence of the document discussing this:

Israeli Intel Ministry Suggests Relocating Gazans to Sinai After Hamas War

 

[WhyLikeThis]

Destruction and killing today in Jenin. This has fuck all to do with Hamas. This is ethnic cleansing, racism and pure hate.

 

[WhyLikeThis]

Here’s the Israeli’s parading their handiwork of destroying a symbol of resistance.

 

[Wilf]

I don't agree with people shouting Jihad, or the events in Dagestan, or people saying 'yay hamas' in some form, but those who can't understand it should be nowhere near power

Yeah, agreed, of course. But facing this degree of mass murder, of people who were already squeezed, oppressed and in the shit, I almost feel like I can't be arsed doing those qualifications. Don't get me wrong, we need to oppose Islamism, we shouldn't devolve to 'my side right or wrong', but fucking hell, Israel is simply committing mass murder. Its a school shooter with an endless of automatic weapons and a promise that it will never end up in court.

 

[Bingoman]

According to the article Israeli government sources are playing down the existence of the document discussing this:

Israeli Intel Ministry Suggests Relocating Gazans to Sinai After Hamas War

Does Egypt know about this?

 

[teqniq]

Does Egypt know about this?

If nothing else they'll have read it in news reports. I imagine they will be distinctly unimpressed.

 

[Mezzer]

If nothing else they'll have read it in news reports. I imagine they will be distinctly unimpressed.

And Biden's already assured them that it won't happen, hasn't he?