Hamas/Israel conflict: news and discussion

[Pickman's model]

UK imposes sanctions on seven groups that support West Bank settlers

Foreign Office declines to penalise two Israeli ministers as ex-foreign secretary David Cameron had planned

www.theguardian.com

This incensed me.

It's Cameron doing his I really wanted to do something but couldn't line.

When he was in power he did FA except support Israel.

Now he's out of power he's telling public about all the things he wanted to do. But it was all so difficult.

Did this on austerity. He personally didn't want to have to do this and wanted to pursue his big society project.

The right wing Tories get a lot of stick. I think I prefer them to a sensible centrist Tory like Cameron.

The difference between the two is the centrist ones wrong their hands about how they would like to do more. But end up not that different to the right wing Tories.

Very easy to say you were going to do something when you're no longer in a position to do it

 

[teqniq]

This is fucking outrageous completely misleading photo of the fire at AlAsqa hospital used with a completely unrelated news story:

 

[teqniq]

UK imposes sanctions on seven groups that support West Bank settlers

Foreign Office declines to penalise two Israeli ministers as ex-foreign secretary David Cameron had planned

www.theguardian.com

This incensed me.

It's Cameron doing his I really wanted to do something but couldn't line.

When he was in power he did FA except support Israel.

Now he's out of power he's telling public about all the things he wanted to do. But it was all so difficult.

Did this on austerity. He personally didn't want to have to do this and wanted to pursue his big society project.

The right wing Tories get a lot of stick. I think I prefer them to a sensible centrist Tory like Cameron.

The difference between the two is the centrist ones wring their hands about how they would like to do more. But end up not being that different to the right wing Tories.

Lying piece of shit in lying piece of shit shocker. If he imagines that people don't remember his 'I don't recall every piece of paper that crosses my desk' comment when asked about legal advice wrt to sanctions/arms sales etc he can think again.

 

[frogwoman]

Rationalizing the Horrors of Israel’s War in Gaza

The novelist Howard Jacobson has argued that too much press coverage of dead Palestinian children is a new form of “blood libel” against Jews.

www.newyorker.com

Has this been posted yet?

 

[agricola]

UK imposes sanctions on seven groups that support West Bank settlers

Foreign Office declines to penalise two Israeli ministers as ex-foreign secretary David Cameron had planned

www.theguardian.com

This incensed me.

It's Cameron doing his I really wanted to do something but couldn't line.

When he was in power he did FA except support Israel.

Now he's out of power he's telling public about all the things he wanted to do. But it was all so difficult.

Did this on austerity. He personally didn't want to have to do this and wanted to pursue his big society project.

The right wing Tories get a lot of stick. I think I prefer them to a sensible centrist Tory like Cameron.

The difference between the two is the centrist ones wring their hands about how they would like to do more. But end up not being that different to the right wing Tories.

The casual aside about "all the disgusting things they are doing in the West Bank" was what set me off.

 

[klang]

Did this on austerity. He personally didn't want to have to do this and wanted to pursue his big society project.

I would have thought he'd be pleased that big society was largely forgotten about and would never mention it again

 

[TopCat]

I recollect David Mellor giving the IDF serious stick on the news when the IDF were more restrained and were breaking little boys arms as a policy response for throwing stones.

 

[Gramsci]

Rationalizing the Horrors of Israel’s War in Gaza

The novelist Howard Jacobson has argued that too much press coverage of dead Palestinian children is a new form of “blood libel” against Jews.

www.newyorker.com

Has this been posted yet?

So far, and about half way through, he's leaving me open mouthed,

And here was another extraordinary phenomenon: suddenly you could trust the government but you couldn’t trust the people. Governments were sound; people were flaky. Much of this irrationality was coming from institutions of higher education

That's due in his view that western governments have been giving Israeli government lots of support whatever it does and the people haven't.


WTF

And when asked specifics about what's been happening his answer so far is that it's impossible to tell what is going on as their so many accounts and he doesn't know which to believe.

Is this guy serious?

 

[agricola]

Rationalizing the Horrors of Israel’s War in Gaza

The novelist Howard Jacobson has argued that too much press coverage of dead Palestinian children is a new form of “blood libel” against Jews.

www.newyorker.com

Has this been posted yet?

I don't know what to make of it tbh - being as charitable as possible it reads similar to how someone might respond when a close relative has committed a very serious crime, the sort of but I am their relative and have to support them come what may arguments that don't really bear any kind of logic to them. However there is also a strong trend of us vs them about the whole piece too.

 

[HeAthen]

Rationalizing the Horrors of Israel’s War in Gaza

The novelist Howard Jacobson has argued that too much press coverage of dead Palestinian children is a new form of “blood libel” against Jews.

www.newyorker.com

Has this been posted yet?

The scumbag seems to be missing the fact that the blood libel is bullshit whereas the killing of thousands of Palestinian children isn't.

 

[frogwoman]

Some of the lines in that are stunning and not in a good way

 

[Gramsci]

Howard Jacobson on war

The BBC has been appalling. It just showed you pictures, unbearable pictures, heartbreaking pictures of dying babies every night, but any war would look appalling if you just showed the suffering of the women and children.

So what about other wars? The whataboutery argument.

Reminds me of interview with an academic who studied stats. Expert on how to calculate numbers of dead in wars.

He said at different time's gender and age of casualties would change. In a war like this in heavily populated urban area high death tolls of women and children are inevitable.

A war away from urban centres or where civilians had left will have higher proportion of younger men.

So when he says any war he is just wrong.

The BBC has been accurately showing who the casualties are.

 

[Gramsci]

The scumbag seems to be missing the fact that the blood libel is bullshit whereas the killing of thousands of Palestinian children isn't.

I did think your comment was a bit over the top.

But now read the second half of the interview and that's what he's doing

He's accusing in so many words the BBC and those on the marches of using the blood libel.

They keep going on about dead babies. There must be anti semitism underlying this. It's what people have said about Jews for centuries. That's the line

 

[hash tag]

Give them more aid or we will cut some aid; big deal
BBC News - Israel Gaza Lebanon live updates: US gives Israel 30 days to boost aid to Gaza or risk some military aid cuts
Israel Gaza Lebanon live updates: US gives Israel 30 days to boost aid to Gaza or risk some military aid cuts - BBC News

 

[teqniq]

They can kill a lot more Palestinians in 30 days

 

[Boris Sprinkler]

That photo is not acceptable.

So have you written to your MP about it?

 

[vinba]

By some military aid cuts they mean they will still supply weapons to murder civilians in gaza, the west bank and the Lebanon but they will stop supplying the free box of chocolates that come with every 10 pack of hospital and school busting 20,000 lb bombs

 

[HeAthen]

I did think your comment was a bit over the top.

But now read the second half of the interview and that's what he's doing

He's accusing in so many words the BBC and those on the marches of using the blood libel.

They keep going on about dead babies. There must be anti semitism underlying this. It's what people have said about Jews for centuries. That's the line

Just to clarify, as re-reading my post it could be taken the wrong way, I was saying that the actual blood libel is bullshit, not that it hasn't been used by people over the years. Equating it with people being horrified by the atrocities being carried out in Gaza and Lebanon is utterly disgusting.

 

[agricola]

I did think your comment was a bit over the top.

But now read the second half of the interview and that's what he's doing

He's accusing in so many words the BBC and those on the marches of using the blood libel.

They keep going on about dead babies. There must be anti semitism underlying this. It's what people have said about Jews for centuries. That's the line

I suppose that is why the Israeli government were so keen to push the blood libel argument so early on in this horror, to get exactly that reaction from people.

 

[hash tag]

So have you written to your MP about it?

I have written to my MP about the conflict. I've had a reply but it was a prewritten reply that has been sent out to dozens of people

 

[Gramsci]

The thing about Howard Jacobson is that he has a public platform. Something a lot of people don't. Over the years he's used that to lay into people for being anti Semitic. He directs this also at anyone who is anti Zionist.

 

[yield]

Israel's wars mean 'massive' returns for US arms company investors
responsiblestatecraft.org Oct 07, 2024

While profiting off war may be distasteful for some, defense analysts at major investment banks grilled weapons executives in earnings calls last October about how the companies, and their investors, might profit from the war in Gaza.

“Hamas has created additional demand, we have this $106bn request from the president,” said TD Cowen’s Cai von Rumohr, during General Dynamics’ earnings call on October 25, 2023. In a question posed to General Dynamics executives on the call, von Rumohr asked, “Can you give us some general color in terms of areas where you think you could see incremental acceleration in demand?”

One year later, those analysts have been proven correct and Israel’s war grinds on as the White House finds its bids for ceasefires repeatedly rejected while, in seeming contradiction, supplying Israel with the weapons to continue fighting.

 

[Gramsci]

Just to clarify, as re-reading my post it could be taken the wrong way, I was saying that the actual blood libel is bullshit, not that it hasn't been used by people over the years. Equating it with people being horrified by the atrocities being carried out in Gaza and Lebanon is utterly disgusting.

Thanks for the clarification.

To give him a chance looked up what else he has said on this. Here is recent article by him. So more considered piece without being under pressure from questions.

Tales of infanticide have stoked hatred of Jews for centuries. They echo still today | Howard Jacobson

A year after the 7 October attack, the myth of ‘blood libel’ persists in the media coverage of Gaza violence

www.theguardian.com

And its clear he is accusing those marching now of the blood libel

But for many, writing or marching against Israeli action, the savagery of the Jews as told for hundreds of years in literature and art and church sermons.

Ask how Israel is able to target innocent children with such deadly accuracy and no one can tell you. Ask why they would want to target innocent children and make themselves despised among the nations of the Earth and no one can tell you that either. Hate on this scale seeks no rational explanation. Hate feeds off the superstitions that fed it last time round. The narrative of these events requires a heartless villainy and who more heartlessly villainous than those who severed the arteries of Little Hugh of Lincoln?

An answer is that this Israeli government of hardline Zionists is pursuing an eliminationist strategy in Gaza. People like Netanyahu and Likud party are the heirs of Revisionist Zionism and others in his cabinet are even further to the right Zionists

The problem they have is that unlike 48 the Palestinians have no where to go. So are trapped in Gaza. This isn't stopping the wholesale destruction of infrastructure to make the land unliveable as part of that strategy.

And looks like now that IDF/ Israeli government are trying to clear north Gaza. In 48 the population would have fled into exile in another country. That option isn't available now.

So children are going to be killed in large numbers. Not because that's what Jews do. It's a product of years of dehumanisation of Palestinians in Israel/ Palestine.

His view is that the anger at Israel action is not based on rational explanation but hatred of Jews.

There is rational way to look at what is happening in Gaza now. The pronouncements of Israeli leaders and all the documents South Africa have assembled in its case against Israel for example. The past history of removal of Palestinians from their land by Zionist as well.

So yes there is an answer to his question.

 

[Duncan2]

Israel's wars mean 'massive' returns for US arms company investors
responsiblestatecraft.org Oct 07, 2024

In the past year in Gaza alone Israel has killed more than eleven thousand children.As two MPs pointed out to an embattled Anneliese Dodds trying to defend the vacuum that is the Labour Governments foreign policy that's roughly a classroom full per day

 

[AnnO'Neemus]

I did think your comment was a bit over the top.

But now read the second half of the interview and that's what he's doing

He's accusing in so many words the BBC and those on the marches of using the blood libel.

They keep going on about dead babies. There must be anti semitism underlying this. It's what people have said about Jews for centuries. That's the line

Yeah, the thing about libel, ie defamation, is that it's making false statements that damage the reputation of a person (can be a 'legal person' ie company, organisation, etc).

It's not libel when it's true. And the IDF, following the orders of Netanyahu/Netanyahu's government, have struck schools, hospitals, 'refugee camps' (ie camps where IDPs 'Internally Displaced People' are), including killing many, many, children, including many babies.

 

[Humberto]

There's a point, which we've long passed, where you can't negotiate, counsel or restrain a state. Only force can stop it, but that isn't likely to come in this scenario. After all it's an entirely assymetrical response.

What Hamas did was utterly sick and vicious, and deliberatley so. But if you are a government, even a nominally democratic progressive governmet, the response is not to be utterly sick and vicious in response, but an incredibly smart government who sees where the national interest lies 5-10 from now. The response is so utterly barbaric and incredibly violent that the results will cause misery to many generations of Israelis, and many of the other middle-eastern and Arabian nations.

 

[HeAthen]

Thanks for the clarification.

To give him a chance looked up what else he has said on this. Here is recent article by him. So more considered piece without being under pressure from questions.

Tales of infanticide have stoked hatred of Jews for centuries. They echo still today | Howard Jacobson

A year after the 7 October attack, the myth of ‘blood libel’ persists in the media coverage of Gaza violence

www.theguardian.com

And its clear he is accusing those marching now of the blood libel




An answer is that this Israeli government of hardline Zionists is pursuing an eliminationist strategy in Gaza. People like Netanyahu and Likud party are the heirs of Revisionist Zionism and others in his cabinet are even further to the right Zionists

The problem they have is that unlike 48 the Palestinians have no where to go. So are trapped in Gaza. This isn't stopping the wholesale destruction of infrastructure to make the land unliveable as part of that strategy.

And looks like now that IDF/ Israeli government are trying to clear north Gaza. In 48 the population would have fled into exile in another country. That option isn't available now.

So children are going to be killed in large numbers. Not because that's what Jews do. It's a product of years of dehumanisation of Palestinians in Israel/ Palestine.

His view is that the anger at Israel action is not based on rational explanation but hatred of Jews.

There is rational way to look at what is happening in Gaza now. The pronouncements of Israeli leaders and all the documents South Africa have assembled in its case against Israel for example. The past history of removal of Palestinians from their land by Zionist as well.

So yes there is an answer to his question.

There will certainly be people that use what Netanyahu and his far right chums are doing to somehow justify hatred of Jewish people, and to justify the use of blood libel, but they will always find some twisted way to target people who are different to them. When they do that then they absolutely must be called out. Likewise when other groups of people are being targetted as one homogenous group, as is being done in Gaza and increasingly in Lebanon then those doing the targetting need to be called out too which is what Jacobson seems to have a problem with.

It's been heartening to see people in here generally understand that and very few accusations aimed at people whose views may not always align.

 

[mojo pixy]

It's been heartening to see people in here generally understand that and very few accusations aimed at people whose views may not always align.

There have been a few posts here over the last year or so that appeared to conflate jews and israelis, not from any jew here but from one or two self-described 'anti-zionists', but that stuff has been called out quickly. There have been a few accusations chucked around of 'apologist for genocide', and oblique references to 'hasbara'. But in the main this thread's been responsive and intelligent, and the only posters who've completely absented themselves seem to have been those who have more + than - feelings about Israel.

Oh, and a few jewish posters who give this thread a fairly wide berth, but never mind, i guess ... you can't accuse people who aren't here.

(Edit... as for me, before anyone weighs in, I admit I've been policing the line/s between anti-zionism and anti-semitism, trying to offer some balance and context. It's important to me to point out where the line between a-z and a-s is sometimes being blurred, and I hope those contributions have given occasional pause for thought. A few posters might have felt offended but I've not accused anyone of anything, and I've made it clear more than once that I'm not interested in labelling people, so much as trying to un-muddy the waters and keep 'the line' clearly visible.)

 

[HeAthen]

There have been a few posts here over the last year or so that appeared to conflate jews and israelis, not from any jew here but from one or two self-described 'anti-zionists', but that stuff has been called out quickly. There have been a few accusations chucked around of 'apologist for genocide', and oblique references to 'hasbara'. But in the main this thread's been responsive and intelligent, and the only posters who've completely absented themselves seem to have been those who have more + than - feelings about Israel.

Oh, and a few jewish posters who give this thread a fairly wide berth, but never mind, i guess ... you can't accuse people who aren't here.

(Edit... as for me, before anyone weighs in, I admit I've been policing the line/s between anti-zionism and anti-semitism, trying to offer some balance and context. It's important to me to point out where the line between a-z and a-s is sometimes being blurred, and I hope those contributions have given occasional pause for thought. A few posters might have felt offended but I've not accused anyone of anything, and I've made it clear more than once that I'm not interested in labelling people, so much as trying to un-muddy the waters and keep 'the line' clearly visible.)

From what I've seen in the relatively short time I've been on here you've been quite balanced. I may not agree with everything but you're not a rabid pro Likud fan person by any means.

 

[Gramsci]

The thing that I've noticed is no posters with a middle eastern / Muslim background. Or maybe haven't said they are. One does not have to say ones background here.

As at times the marches contained a lot of people from London and across the country who are Muslim and or have middle eastern background. Who aren't necessarily Palestinian but who regard them as their brothers as one told me.

It would provide another perspective.