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Hamas/Israel conflict: news and discussion

CH1 said:
Funnily enough BBC Four TV have just started re-showing this
www.bbc.co.uk

The Fifty Years War: Israel and the Arabs

The inside story of the Arab-Israel conflict.
www.bbc.co.uk www.bbc.co.uk

I suspect this is largely put together by PBS (WGBH) and was clearly an event to try to document "both sides" in 1998 - 50 years from the foundation of Israel as a state.
Interesting from episode 1 - General Marshal (of Marshal Plan fame) was totally opposed to declaring Israel as a separate state - but was bounced into accepting it by President Truman
other things I noted (as depicted) David Ben Gurion - founding Prime Minister was violently obsessive - and when he "retired" persistently undermined his successor as being too soft - eventually dispatching him and coming back out of retirement to run things because he didn't trust anyone else. Also Begin when he came to power was totally impossible to deal with.
It was stated that the six day war (1967) was the result of machinations by Soviet Prime Minister Kosygin trying to manipulate both Egypt and Syria into effective client states.
There was a lot of stuff about the Munich Olypics, Black September, and the PLO who seemed originally to have been much more violent than one remembers from Arafat's dotage.
The Palestinians tired a coup against King Hussein of Jordan, and when he chucked them out they completely devastated Beirut.

I've only seen the first 4 episodes - the only positive thing I saw was that nice President Carter, and his semi-hippy negotiating style in Camp David.
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Something like 20,000 Palestinians were killed by the Jordanian army in September 1970, and the PLO was forced to move to Lebanon. Lebanon was precariously balanced between the two main communities, the Christians and the Muslims. Civil war broke out in 1975, and most of the groups in the PLO took the side of the Christians (one major group took the other side, I believe).

Beirut was wrecked by the civil war, all sides contributing to that. Then the State of Israel invaded in 1982, put Beirut under siege, and heavily bombed it.

The PLO fighters were forced to evacuate to Tunis, under an international agreement.

The Israeli army than bussed in a right-wing militia, which massacred hundreds of unarmed old men, children, and women in two refugees camps in West Beirut, Sabra and Shatila. (All men of military age having been evacuated). The Israeli army observed the massacre, and even fired off flares so that the killers could continue their work in the dark.

This ITV documentary from 1976 gives a good insight into the civil war in Lebanon, which raged from 1975 to 1990. Note that, in 1976, there is not a hint of any Islamist groups. It was the failure of secularist nationalist and socialist parties in the region that prepared the ground for Islamist parties to form and grow.
 
ska invita said:
yes although there's nowhere to leave to either
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Not Israel's problem.

I'm not even exaggerating. That is the attitude of many. The Palestinians shouldn't be there in the first place. They should have left years ago. That they haven't had the wherewithal to sort out somewhere else to go is their fault.
 
PTK said:
Something like 20,000 Palestinians were killed by the Jordanian army in September 1970, and the PLO was forced to move to Lebanon. Lebanon was precariously balanced between the two main communities, the Christians and the Muslims. Civil war broke out in 1975, and most of the groups in the PLO took the side of the Christians (one major group took the other side, I believe).

Beirut was wrecked by the civil war, all sides contributing to that. Then the State of Israel invaded in 1982, put Beirut under siege, and heavily bombed it.

The PLO fighters were forced to evacuate to Tunis, under an international agreement.

The Israeli army than bussed in a right-wing militia, which massacred hundreds of unarmed old men, children, and women in two refugees camps in West Beirut, Sabra and Shatila. (All men of military age having been evacuated). The Israeli army observed the massacre, and even fired off flares so that the killers could continue their work in the dark.

This ITV documentary from 1976 gives a good insight into the civil war in Lebanon, which raged from 1975 to 1990. Note that, in 1976, there is not a hint of any Islamist groups. It was the failure of secularist nationalist and socialist parties in the region that prepared the ground for Islamist parties to form and grow.
Click to expand...

I was going to say that the Palestinians were apparently doing Marxist struggle in 1970 but now are doing Jihad, although this reflects who will support the struggle I suppose. (Meaning states or parastatals who could supply arms and political cover)
"The West" definitely made a bad move easing the Shah out of Iran in favour of the Ayatollah. Things got a whole lot nastier once suicide bombing and the 72 virgins (or grapes) got into it.
 
CH1 said:
"The West" definitely made a bad move easing the Shah out of Iran in favour of the Ayatollah. Things got a whole lot nastier once suicide bombing and the 72 virgins (or grapes) got into it.
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Is that what happened?

'The West' (in this case, the US and UK) forced out the democratically elected Mossadegh in 1953 and placed power with the Shah.

The Shah's undemocratic, repressive regime was deeply unpopular, which led in 1979 to a revolution against him. That was a genuinely popular revolution against a 'West'-backed despot. It was eventually hijacked by the Islamists, but it was far from only Islamists involved in the revolution.

Lesson from that? Don't instigate coups against democratically elected leaders and replace them with your chosen despots, maybe? There may be unintended consequences. Maybe?

Of course they never learn that lesson.
 
littlebabyjesus said:
The Shah's undemocratic, repressive regime was deeply unpopular, which led in 1979 to a revolution against him. That was a genuinely popular revolution against a 'West'-backed despot. It was eventually hijacked by the Islamists, but it was far from only Islamists involved in the revolution.
Click to expand...
Eventually?
Give us the timeline between the Shah being evacuated for cancer treatment and the Ayatollah imposing theocratic rule.
 
CH1 said:
Eventually?
Give us the timeline between the Shah being evacuated for cancer treatment and the Ayatollah imposing theocratic rule.
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You make it sound like the US orchestrated things. They didn't. There had been massive unrest for months before he finally went into exile. He was on his way out. The US merely refused to try to prop him up any longer. Probably couldn't have done so even if they'd tried.
 
Did anyone happen to hear the speech by the muslim cleric in Lebanon, a couple weeks ago? he said the report he got about october 7th, was that there was a lot less violence until the most armed group arrived, and that they acted insanely, and killed their "own" in much crossfire.

Seems quite plausible, seeing who is currently getting their kicks off of mass killing unarmed and defenseless people, like a giant crushing everything with its feet.

Speech link
 
Statement by Jewish Voice for Labour for the march last Saturday. Really good statement.

Quite different from view of Jewish Labour Movement who are supporting Starmer position.

www.jewishvoiceforlabour.org.uk

Jews against the war on Gaza

When United Nations General Secretary António Guterres said the Hamas murders of Israelis in October 2023 did not happen in…
www.jewishvoiceforlabour.org.uk www.jewishvoiceforlabour.org.uk

Killing from 20,000 feet is no less immoral than killing at close quarters. Distance and technology does not confer morality. Guterres had stated a simple fact, acknowledged by us and many thousands of Jews around the world: “The Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of occupation, their people displaced and their homes demolished. Their hopes for a political solution have been vanishing.”
Click to expand...

WE SAY:

NOT IN OUR NAME

STOP KILLING GAZANS

NO MORE APARTHEID

END THE OCCUPATION

FREE THE HOSTAGES

FREE THE DETAINEES
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
How about this for some gallows humour: have just come across a (hard copy) Times article dated 16/7/22 (journalist David Charter) reporting on a Joe Biden visit to Israel. Biden is quoted as saying "Palestinians and Israelis deserve equal measure of freedom, security, prosperity and dignity. And access to healthcare, when you need it, is essential to living a life of dignity". Do you think that last sentence (as with World War 2 bombs) could be stencilled/painted as a message on the US munitions used to annihilate Palestine's hospitals? Then, as the Western media jackals wander among the ruins (careful to avoid the corpses) if they chance upon a missile fragment where it is still legible, they could use it like an autocue to tell viewers that this shows Biden's commitment to decency?

Discuss...
 
littlebabyjesus said:
Is that what happened?

'The West' (in this case, the US and UK) forced out the democratically elected Mossadegh in 1953 and placed power with the Shah.

The Shah's undemocratic, repressive regime was deeply unpopular, which led in 1979 to a revolution against him. That was a genuinely popular revolution against a 'West'-backed despot. It was eventually hijacked by the Islamists, but it was far from only Islamists involved in the revolution.

Lesson from that? Don't instigate coups against democratically elected leaders and replace them with your chosen despots, maybe? There may be unintended consequences. Maybe?

Of course they never learn that lesson.
Click to expand...
It's an even more shameful episode that that. What happened is that Middle East oil exploitation was divvied up with the US oil companies having the rights to exploit Saudi oil reserves and the UK to exploit Iran's. Eatly in the 50s Sheikh Yamani, the Saudi oil minister, negotiated a new deal with the USA that allowed them to get a fairer share of the profits. Mossadegh attempted to do the same but the UK refused to negotiate so he nationalised the Iranian oil industry. The Tory government wren't having that. With the aid of the USA the Shah was installed in power to replace the elected government. Then a new deal was agreed for UK oil companies to exploit Iran's oil reserves, that was worse for the UK than could have been obtained by negotiations with Mossadegh. Then an oppressed Iranian population revolted and we got Khomeini. All basically down to Tory greed and racism.
 
Larry O'Hara said:
How about this for some gallows humour: have just come across a (hard copy) Times article dated 16/7/22 (journalist David Charter) reporting on a Joe Biden visit to Israel. Biden is quoted as saying "Palestinians and Israelis deserve equal measure of freedom, security, prosperity and dignity. And access to healthcare, when you need it, is essential to living a life of dignity". Do you think that last sentence (as with World War 2 bombs) could be stencilled/painted as a message on the US munitions used to annihilate Palestine's hospitals? Then, as the Western media jackals wander among the ruins (careful to avoid the corpses) if they chance upon a missile fragment where it is still legible, they could use it like an autocue to tell viewers that this shows Biden's commitment to decency?

Discuss...
Click to expand...

The full interesting report is here - https://archive.ph/TD9TF

President Biden showed his deeply held affinity with Ireland when he compared the plight of the Palestinians to Britain’s “attitude toward Irish-Catholics over the years” in remarks in Israel yesterday.
Click to expand...
His latest dig at Britain came in brief remarks to announce $100 million to support Palestinian hospitals. “My background and the background of my family is Irish American, and we have a long history of — not fundamentally unlike the Palestinian people — with Great Britain and their attitude toward Irish-Catholics over the years, for 400 years,” Biden, 79, said.

He then quoted a poem by Seamus Heaney that says sometimes “justice rises up/ And hope and history rhyme”.

He added: “Palestinians and Israelis deserve equal measure of freedom, security, prosperity and dignity. And access to healthcare, when you need it, is essential to living a life of dignity.”
Click to expand...

He must have forgotten he said that.
 
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