Hamas/Israel conflict: news and discussion

[Gramsci]

I take your broader point, but nothing now quite compares to what is happening now in terms of brutality, not even 1947-8 Nakba.

Agree with most of what you say.

On Nakba. A difference between then and now was that the Zionists then couldn't use an attack as justification.

According to Ilan Pappe ( I haven't read Benny Morris. He did a book on the border wars I was interested in. But it is now expensive) when the Zionists saw the UN partition plan they realised, even though it was generous in amounts of land , it contained to many Palestinians for their liking. So Plan Dilat using Haganah and others expelled Palestinians from numerous villages. This violence wasn't in any way self defense. Nor was Palestinian community in any fit state to put up much of a defence after losing best fighters in the Arab Revolt.

Yes David Ben Gurion had those who wanted to take it further. So in that sense he was restrained.

Some of what Ive seen reported does remind me of reading about the Nakba. The footage of Palestinian men and boys in the stadium. Just in underpants. Separating men and boys out was one of first things Haganah ( fore runner of IDF) did when entering villages. What's happening to them no one knows. Given IDF history nothing good.

Ilan Pappe book on Nakba compares Nakba with the ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia in 90s.

Looking at what is happening in Gaza and I'd agree this is worse. Partly because USA and our government are in effect accessories in this.

I'd say, reading the history, that the ethnic cleansing has been an ongoing process throughout Israel history. Gradual at some points and extremely violent like now at others. So something is integral to Zionism.

These are egregious war crimes in process on television. Self defense can no longer be used as justification with this level of ongoing week after week destruction of civilian infrastructure and civilian deaths.

I'd say Zionism has lasted as it's known how far it can push things at any one time. As you say early Zionism hoped the Palestinian Arabs would just move and give up. That hasn't happened.

The Jewish population of Ottoman empire had lived their a long time. And as you say were not always keen on Zionism. Some opposed the Balfour declaration. They had coexisted with Christians and Muslims.

I don't think anything good is going to come out of this for Israel now. The Arab street isn't going to put up with their leaders normalising relations with Israel after this.

 

[PursuedByBears]

Wow, so Boris is a full blown loon. I'd always assumed the space x isn't real stuff was a wind up but clearly I was badly wrong. Satire really is dead isn't it?

He's always been a loon

 

[andysays]

He's always been a loon

He's had a chaotic life, poor dear...

 

[Knotted]

I'd say, reading the history, that the ethnic cleansing has been an ongoing process throughout Israel history. Gradual at some points and extremely violent like now at others. So something is integral to Zionism.

The above is very Ilan Pappe and I have a bit of quibble with it. I don't like the idea that anything is integral to an ideology or that the ideology is driving history.

In less abstract terms it doesn't account for the fairly serious attempts to create a two state solution in the 90's. Someone like Yitzhak Rabin who fought in 1948, who formulated the broken bones policy in response to the first intifada and who believed in a greater Israel was willing to comprise and try to come to an agreement (albeit very much on Israeli terms) and could have ended the policy of disruption of Palestinian national project in the Occupied Territories via settlements of the post 1967 period. Rabin was very much a Zionist and should be regarded very critically in my view, but there is a qualitive difference there compared to those in power now.

I find Norman Finkelstein's approach in that he avoids isms (Zionism or settler colonialism) more illuminating. It's not that these terms are wrong as such (IMO) but there are opportunities even within the ism that are being missed.

Historically the Zionists/Israelis thought the Arabs were placid and easy to manipulate cf. classic orientalist thinking and also the apparent (to them) tolerance for despotism. Golda Meir thought there was no such thing as Palestinians and that they were all just Arabs and could be shunted around. My sense is that this paradigm crumbled during the intifadas and it's been replaced by a sense of rising panic and the idea that this is a hostile population that needs to be dealt with. I don't think the main motive for what is happening now is the re-colonisation of Gaza with massacres and expulsions as necessary, rather it is the burning need to destroy a population.

 

[Larry O'Hara]

let’s not mention the British status quo.
You got a giant lizard in charge of you, a fucking Nazi that proclaims to own everything you own. .
And that’s just how things are.




Wake up

The holocaust is work in progress.
Data centers consuming massive amounts of electricity.
Don’t you think it’s unseasonably warm?
How did you cope last summer?
Did anyone care to check the temperature not by their phone?



Ridicule me all you want. At least no one can say we didn’t warn you. I’m out. Good luck with your triple locked pensions and being told what to do.

Idiots.

And your political correctness makes me piss me pants. No threads with female genitalia (which we are scared of so we mustn’t mention it) in the title.
Whilst you pile onto a thread about sCUNThorpe.
Your politics are so wanky as to be flaccidly ineffective. Arguing about antisemitism whilst there’s a fucking genocide going on. Suck up your illusions dickheads. Most of you wouldn’t be where you are without the status quo.

Laters taters.




Free ninjaboy

You have forgotten tinfoil hats and COVID jabs. Are you an Illuminati agent?

 

[kalidarkone]

He's had a chaotic life, poor dear...

Fuck off. You know nothing.

 

[andysays]

Fuck off. You know nothing.

I only know what Boris himself has chosen to post

 

[TopCat]

• Israel has responded furiously to comments by Turkey’s president,Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, comparing Benjamin Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler. Speaking at an awards ceremony in Ankara, Erdoğan said the Israeli prime minister was no different from Hitler and likened Israel’s attacks on Gaza to the treatment of Jewish people by the Nazis. Netanyahu responded by saying the Turkish president should be the last person to lecture Israel. Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, said Erdoğan’s remarks were “deeply offensive” to Jewish people around the world.

 

[TopCat]

Big up Tal Misnick

 

[teqniq]

This is a great article. Covers a lot of ground previously discussed on here and in other articles but is still worth a read. Well-argued solution at the end:

All that remains

Israel has brought death and destruction to Gazans many times. But in retaliation for Hamas’s terrorist acts, it has raised the possibility of somethi...

www.prospectmagazine.co.uk

 

[teqniq]

• Israel has responded furiously to comments by Turkey’s president,Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, comparing Benjamin Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler. Speaking at an awards ceremony in Ankara, Erdoğan said the Israeli prime minister was no different from Hitler and likened Israel’s attacks on Gaza to the treatment of Jewish people by the Nazis. Netanyahu responded by saying the Turkish president should be the last person to lecture Israel. Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, said Erdoğan’s remarks were “deeply offensive” to Jewish people around the world.

They both need to be reminded that people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.

 

[ska invita]

Well-argued solution at the end:

All that remains

Israel has brought death and destruction to Gazans many times. But in retaliation for Hamas’s terrorist acts, it has raised the possibility of somethi...

www.prospectmagazine.co.uk

We are long past reasonable Calls For A Ceasefire, just as we are well past rational calls for "What is needed now is a new international coalition led by the UN which includes the US and EU but also Arab states and members of the global south. "
There's a million policies I would like to see happen in the world, none of which are about to happen.

We are once again faced with the murderous nature of too-powerful military states. We are back at the desperate Fuck The Political System And Everyone Who Supports it stage. That's all there is. That's the missing article in Prospect, an editorial asking How Are We Ever Going To Overthrow These Cunts.

There's no solution: US-Israel will do what they want, no realistic civil pressure will stop them and, for now at least, nor will opposed external military state pressure. Just another chapter in the book of military horrors

This was about the most interesting thing I've read this week...explains a lot

'Take what you want and we'll sort it out later': US weapons stash fuels Gaza carnage

Concerns are growing over the Pentagon's practice of transferring munitions to Israel from a secretive US stockpile without congressional oversight or policy reviews

new.thecradle.co

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I only know what Boris himself has chosen to post

Why post that, though?

You've set yourself up as the noble caller outer of antisemitism on this thread, but truth is that you just can't resist having a nasty dig at people. It's a very high percentage of your posting history.

Maybe try contributing to the topic instead. Or if you've nothing to say, say nothing.

 

[Gramsci]

This is a great article. Covers a lot of ground previously discussed on here and in other articles but is still worth a read. Well-argued solution at the end:

All that remains

Israel has brought death and destruction to Gazans many times. But in retaliation for Hamas’s terrorist acts, it has raised the possibility of somethi...

www.prospectmagazine.co.uk

Yes its a good summary of some of the arguments me and others have posted here from reading up on this.

Avi Shlaim - havent read him. He was one of the New Historians along with Benny Morris / Ilan Pappe of Israel

I do note a sense of pessimism in last paragraph when he ends it by saying a few trifles,

Such a plan is eminently practical. All it would take to realise it is for Israel to shed its settler-colonial and Jewish-supremacist ambitions, for America to end its unconditional support for Israel, for the EU to morph from a payer to an active player, for the United Nations to overcome its self-imposed impotence, and a few similar trifles.

 

[andysays]

Why post that, though?

You've set yourself up as the noble caller outer of antisemitism on this thread, but truth is that you just can't resist having a nasty dig at people. It's a very high percentage of your posting history.

Maybe try contributing to the topic instead. Or if you've nothing to say, say nothing.

I'm not setting myself up as noble anything, but it's interesting to see you've chosen to attack someone challenging antisemitism and all-round conspiaraloonery rather than the person actually posting it.

Edited to remove typo

 

[mojo pixy]

I'm not settling myself up as noble anything, but it's interesting to see you've chosen to attack someone challenging antisemitism and all-round conspiaraloonery rather than the person actually posting it.

As well as huffing about posters talking about A-S instead of genocide (as if this discussion isn't ranging here and there all over on a daily basis). And previously suggesting the October 7th event was a kind of accident and that most of those dead israelis were actually killed by israelis.

I think this horror is fucking with everyone's heads quite badly.

 

[emanymton]

Why post that, though?

You've set yourself up as the noble caller outer of antisemitism on this thread, but truth is that you just can't resist having a nasty dig at people. It's a very high percentage of your posting history.

Maybe try contributing to the topic instead. Or if you've nothing to say, say nothing.

When people complain about this thread and say they are giving up on it this is why.

People defending the batshit crap Boris comes out with just because they are against Israel. He has always been batshit by the way don't get why so many seem to have missed it.

You're better than this, read what you are defending here.

I think Mojo is right this is fucking with peoples heads and perspectives.

 

[Larry O'Hara]

We are long past reasonable Calls For A Ceasefire, just as we are well past rational calls for "What is needed now is a new international coalition led by the UN which includes the US and EU but also Arab states and members of the global south. "
There's a million policies I would like to see happen in the world, none of which are about to happen.

We are once again faced with the murderous nature of too-powerful military states. We are back at the desperate Fuck The Political System And Everyone Who Supports it stage. That's all there is. That's the missing article in Prospect, an editorial asking How Are We Ever Going To Overthrow These Cunts.

There's no solution: US-Israel will do what they want, no realistic civil pressure will stop them and, for now at least, nor will opposed external military state pressure. Just another chapter in the book of military horrors

This was about the most interesting thing I've read this week...explains a lot

'Take what you want and we'll sort it out later': US weapons stash fuels Gaza carnage

Concerns are growing over the Pentagon's practice of transferring munitions to Israel from a secretive US stockpile without congressional oversight or policy reviews

new.thecradle.co

Are you aware Prospect is edited by thatlickspittle Rusbridger?

 

[hitmouse]

They both need to be reminded that people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.

Glad I'm not the only person thinking that - obv this isn't a Turkey/Syria thread and there's a place to discuss it elsewhere, but Erdogan of all people claiming the moral high ground when his air force has literally been bombing hospitals this week is fucking infuriating.

 

[Gramsci]

The above is very Ilan Pappe and I have a bit of quibble with it. I don't like the idea that anything is integral to an ideology or that the ideology is driving history.

In less abstract terms it doesn't account for the fairly serious attempts to create a two state solution in the 90's. Someone like Yitzhak Rabin who fought in 1948, who formulated the broken bones policy in response to the first intifada and who believed in a greater Israel was willing to comprise and try to come to an agreement (albeit very much on Israeli terms) and could have ended the policy of disruption of Palestinian national project in the Occupied Territories via settlements of the post 1967 period. Rabin was very much a Zionist and should be regarded very critically in my view, but there is a qualitive difference there compared to those in power now.

I find Norman Finkelstein's approach in that he avoids isms (Zionism or settler colonialism) more illuminating. It's not that these terms are wrong as such (IMO) but there are opportunities even within the ism that are being missed.

Historically the Zionists/Israelis thought the Arabs were placid and easy to manipulate cf. classic orientalist thinking and also the apparent (to them) tolerance for despotism. Golda Meir thought there was no such thing as Palestinians and that they were all just Arabs and could be shunted around. My sense is that this paradigm crumbled during the intifadas and it's been replaced by a sense of rising panic and the idea that this is a hostile population that needs to be dealt with. I don't think the main motive for what is happening now is the re-colonisation of Gaza with massacres and expulsions as necessary, rather it is the burning need to destroy a population.

Finkelstein I haven't read. So on my (long) reading list.

 

[Gramsci]

Are you aware Prospect is edited by thatlickspittle Rusbridger?

I was a bit surprised to see an article like that on it. I did look at the link and when I realised who wrote it decided to give it a go

 

[Gramsci]

When people complain about this thread and say they are giving up on it this is why.

These complaints are regularly aired on this thread from very early on.

General point Id make is in my experience the politics boards are not for the faint hearted. I at one point had all of it on ignore. I have some topics on ignore permanently.

Its so aggressive. Make a point and do not know if your going to be taken apart.

This topic I know a bit about and have held my own on this thread.

I kind of get the feeling that this thread is being picked out for special condemnation.

 

[Knotted]

Finkelstein I haven't read. So on my (long) reading list.

He's worth listening to if that suits you. There's loads of online talks on the broader conflict and he's a very good speaker.

 

[two sheds]

I also think it's fair to question the Israeli version of how many people were killed by Hamas in the attack, like it's fair to question Hamas' versions of events, both in favour of independent assessments. Not to minimize the attack, but to get an accurate picture of what happened.

 

[8ball]

I kind of get the feeling that this thread is being picked out for special condemnation.

I think a lot of people have thoughts and opinions relating to this conflict that they would like to discuss, but don’t feel like they can because of the atmosphere on this thread and the loose board rule about creating (hopefully less confrontational) duplicates.

 

[Knotted]

I don't think anybody is looking at Boris Sprinkler 's posts and thinking "well he's attacking Israel so that's alright, it's all grist to the mill so I must defend him." Personally I find his posts troubling but I don't know what's going on with him. I don't see the point of calling him out, non of what he says has any purchase.

 

[Gramsci]

I think a lot of people have thoughts and opinions relating to this conflict that they would like to discuss, but don’t feel like they can because of the atmosphere on this thread and the loose board rule about creating (hopefully less confrontational) duplicates.

But what Im saying is that this problem of atmosphere is not particular to this thread on the politics boards.

I do have a look around the politics boards and some threads I think twice about posting on and then don't.

Its that it keeps being said for this thread.

 

[8ball]

But what Im saying is that this problem of atmosphere is not particular to this thread on the politics boards.

I do have a look around the politics boards and some threads I think twice about posting on and then don't.

Its that it keeps being said for this thread.

No, it isn’t, but there are a huge number of posters who don’t give much of a toss about most of the other threads on the politics boards, but would like to contribute on this issue.

The p&p “house style” is leaving many feeling silenced imo.

 

[8ball]

I don't think anybody is looking at Boris Sprinkler 's posts and thinking "well he's attacking Israel so that's alright, it's all grist to the mill so I must defend him." Personally I find his posts troubling but I don't know what's going on with him. I don't see the point of calling him out, non of what he says has any purchase.

I’m not sure how much of it is sarcasm or provocation. It’s a bit full-on, though, and I hope this isn’t a symptom of something really worrying (I mean life-wise rather than right-or-wrong-opinions-wise).

 

[Knotted]

I tell you what, if anybody wants to post up their opinions with a preface along the lines of "I have this to say but I don't want a fight about it". I'll respect that. Within limits of course, don't do a racism or whatever.