Hamas/Israel conflict: news and discussion
- Thread starter PR1Berske
- Start date
PTK
Paul Kegan
Eylon Levy. He also said that the ratio of civilians to fighters killed was lower than in other wars.
mojo pixy
שיר חדש
Fair enough, I didn't think that but it's a way to look at it.
* * *
I still think there's a double standard here but it's enough for me to express that, I don't need anyone else to 'get' it. I'm certainly not ruining my day by getting into the weeds on it.
I find it interesting and inspiring that one of the most impoverished and war torn countries in the world is the most vocal in their support of Gaza. Superficially you might think that they have enough of their own problems. It goes well beyond the Houthis.
Sanaa
Sanaa
mojo pixy
שיר חדש
Of course this is true.
However, there is a sizeable number of people in the world - and the region - who just don't like there being a Jewish nation in the middle east. And without getting into a stupid back-and-forth that can never be resolved, I personally believe that even if Israel had been peaceful from the start (unlikely since it was seeded by war but let's momentarily imagine...) it would have had war forced onto it sooner or later, because it's widely hated not only for its behaviour but for its essence.
Sadly this is used by Israelis to justify some extremely cruel and shit behaviour, but that doesnt stop it remaining true.
PTK
Paul Kegan
I believe that if the State of Israel ever elected a communist government, the USA would immediately impose sanctions and try to topple it.
PTK
Paul Kegan
This is very good. Thank you for posting it.
Gramsci
Well-Known Member
I do not think your being paranoid.
Biden announces US will build pier on Gaza shore for large-scale aid delivery
President lays out plans in State of the Union speech while senior US official says ‘we are not waiting on the Israelis’
Biden is promising "no boots" on the ground.
First thing I thought when I heard about this is why is Biden doing this?
IMO its about US getting a toehold in Gaza. Its US initiative and will start to give US actual presence on the ground. Whatever Biden says about no boots on the ground.
I just do not believe this is purely about humanitarian aid.
For starters as other posters have pointed out it will take weeks to put in place.
This is about positioning US as broker on the ground for what happens to Gaza in future
When aid can come in lorries now immediately. But Biden will not put pressure on Israeli government to make this work.
Also no mention of UNWRA.
I'm really suspicious about this,
Last edited:
Gramsci
Well-Known Member
But it was "seeded" by the Nakba.
I've meet people from across the middle East. Secular / religious does not matter. The problem is for them that Palestinians had their land stolen from them.
What you are saying is that people from this region are inherently anti Semitic.
That is essentialist argument imo. And wrong.
Johnny Vodka
The Abominable Scotsman
There's an election coming up and many Muslim voters are angry at his stance on Gaza so far to the extent that they might not vote. Might have something to do with it.
Gramsci
Well-Known Member
Yes and a lot of the younger democrats are as well.
If I was in US Id still be thinking why does Biden not use US leverage more. That this is to little to late.
mojo pixy
שיר חדש
WW2 and the Shoah, as well as Mandate Palestine and the Balfour declaration, all normally placed before the Nakba, temporally-speaking.
And I'm not saying that at all, I wrote 'a sizable number of people in the world and the region', which is true. You're responding as if that means everyone ('essentialist') and you're not stupid enough to be doing that accidentally. I wouldn't like to speculate on your motivation for deliberately attributing attitudes to me I don't have or express, but just stop it.
Gramsci
Well-Known Member
Go on speculate
Gramsci
Well-Known Member
Alright your saying a "sizeable" number of people in region are inherently anti Semitic. A big enough number to mean a war. Which to me means a least a majority.
Gramsci
Well-Known Member
Though it was not a simple as the Balfour declaration and a straight line to state of Israel.
The British Empire played both sides. Promising Arabs support if they aided British war effort in WW1 and later at start of WW2.
There were people like Balfour who supported Zionism. But that was not all of the British elite.
This historian says that British promised Arab leaders this part of Ottoman Empire and then reneged on it.
Its a historical debate.
From what I've read in British state circles like the Foreign office some had the neither Zionism nor Arab but for British Empire view.
When Zionists were lobbying Britain in early 1930s to support a population "transfer" for example they met with mixed reception.
I would say British Empire made a complete hash of its policy in middle East. Culminating in the debacle of Suez.
And in the video the historian says Britain should be honest about its impact on the middle East.
Of course later as Britain declined as an Empire US took over.
Interesting interview with the historian who says British misled Arab leaders.
I see nothing about Britain's involvement in the middle East as an Imperial power that it should be proud of.
The British Empire played both sides. Promising Arabs support if they aided British war effort in WW1 and later at start of WW2.
There were people like Balfour who supported Zionism. But that was not all of the British elite.
This historian says that British promised Arab leaders this part of Ottoman Empire and then reneged on it.
Its a historical debate.
From what I've read in British state circles like the Foreign office some had the neither Zionism nor Arab but for British Empire view.
When Zionists were lobbying Britain in early 1930s to support a population "transfer" for example they met with mixed reception.
I would say British Empire made a complete hash of its policy in middle East. Culminating in the debacle of Suez.
And in the video the historian says Britain should be honest about its impact on the middle East.
Of course later as Britain declined as an Empire US took over.
Interesting interview with the historian who says British misled Arab leaders.
I see nothing about Britain's involvement in the middle East as an Imperial power that it should be proud of.
Last edited:
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
counter to what they say there's an obvious reason to starve people in gaza because if genocide's your aim - and i think we've established it's what the netanyahu government wants - then hunger's a great way to do it
mojo pixy
שיר חדש
No thanks
So majorities start wars then? I thought perhaps an elite minority, eg some part of the ruling classes, with bad attitudes and power games to hand, lots of dog whistles and populist incitement.
It seems you're inventing all kinds of shit I never said. Why is that?
CH1
"Red Guard"(NLYL)
As an aside - and I don't think the Balfour declaration has turned out to be a good idea - it frightens me when normal inhibitions break down and art is vandalised.
Same goes for Just Stop Oil and any other movements embracing cultural vandalism.
Gramsci
Well-Known Member
Gone back to look at your original post and I'm not inventing "shit".
mojo pixy
שיר חדש
Yes you are, you're reading things I wrote as things you'd prefer to argue with instead, and arguing with those. But I don't have to argue over what I didn't write.
CH1
"Red Guard"(NLYL)
I think there are good grounds for saying that Zionism (that is to say the concept of the Restoration of Israel) was a British religious ideology which had some force as early as the 1830s. Sorry to repeat myself - but the point needs to be made.
"In 1841, a mission of inquiry sent by the Church of Scotland to Palestine issued a Memorandum to Protestant Monarchs of Europe for the Restoration of the Jews to Palestine, and called on them to take on the mantle of Cyrus and restore the people of Israel to their native land.[6] A member of the mission, a Scottish clergyman named Alexander Keith, was the first to speak of ‘a people without a country; even as their own land [. . .] is in a great measure a country without a people,’ a phrase which eventually came to be transformed into the specious slogan ‘a land without people for a people without a land’. So this slogan, notwithstanding its attribution to the Zionist movement, and sometimes to Israel Zangwill, himself a British Zionist and associate of Herzl, wasn’t Jewish in origin. "
Balfour 100 | Christian Zionism and the Balfour Declaration
Gershon Shafir argues that British Christian Zionism pre-dated practical Jewish Zionism and helped to ensure that, by the First World War, British imperial interests were woven into a narrative of Jew...
fathomjournal.org
PTK
Paul Kegan
An air drop of aid to the Gaza Strip killed five people on the ground, when the parachutes failed.
So, it is better to kill people by dropping aid on them then it is to impose sanctions on the State of Israel with a view of forcing it to allow in aid.
Latest: US denies aid drop killed people. That's all right then. Everything is normal, everything is fine. Of course the State of Israel should be allowed to block aid by land, and to be in Cyprus examining aid supplied by the EU, to be shipped to a temporary harbour.
So, it is better to kill people by dropping aid on them then it is to impose sanctions on the State of Israel with a view of forcing it to allow in aid.
Latest: US denies aid drop killed people. That's all right then. Everything is normal, everything is fine. Of course the State of Israel should be allowed to block aid by land, and to be in Cyprus examining aid supplied by the EU, to be shipped to a temporary harbour.
mojo pixy
שיר חדש
I think there are good grounds for saying that Zionism (that is to say the concept of the Restoration of Israel) was a British religious ideology which had some force as early as the 1830s. Sorry to repeat myself - but the point needs to be made.
"In 1841, a mission of inquiry sent by the Church of Scotland to Palestine issued a Memorandum to Protestant Monarchs of Europe for the Restoration of the Jews to Palestine, and called on them to take on the mantle of Cyrus and restore the people of Israel to their native land.[6] A member of the mission, a Scottish clergyman named Alexander Keith, was the first to speak of ‘a people without a country; even as their own land [. . .] is in a great measure a country without a people,’ a phrase which eventually came to be transformed into the specious slogan ‘a land without people for a people without a land’. So this slogan, notwithstanding its attribution to the Zionist movement, and sometimes to Israel Zangwill, himself a British Zionist and associate of Herzl, wasn’t Jewish in origin. "
Balfour 100 | Christian Zionism and the Balfour Declaration
Gershon Shafir argues that British Christian Zionism pre-dated practical Jewish Zionism and helped to ensure that, by the First World War, British imperial interests were woven into a narrative of Jew...
I've mentioned it a few times but I agree that Christian zionism is a very powerful force in how Israel is allowed to behave by eg the USA, and is what ultimately gives Israel its sense of and actual impunity. Jewish zionism might be driving the sharp end of the project, so to speak, but Christian zionist organizations make a huge contribution of both legitimacy and cash.
CH1
"Red Guard"(NLYL)
That is NOW.
The point I was trying to bring out was historically the Zionist movement as kick-started by the Balfour Declaration had Calvinist roots from 100 years earlier. Which led post World War II to a rapid colonisation - somewhat in the manner of the earlier French colonisation of Algeria.
Israel is almost a mirror image of Algeria, where French settlers with no claim to the land were kicked out after millions of indigenes were displaced or killed.
In Israel psychologically the Israelis have convinced themselves (and the Americans and British) that they are the "home team" and Palestine and Palestinians do not exist for them. "Arabs" they always say.
Similar threads
