Urban75 Home About Offline BrixtonBuzz Contact

Hamas/Israel conflict: news and discussion

I predict the Met will be highly provocative tomorrow on the free Gaza March.
Is it about twelve years since that big row on Park Lane on a previous free Palestine demo? I recollect lots of blokes getting three plus years in nick.
 
Knotted said:
I don't have any problems with Jews understanding traumatic experiences in terms of their historical trauma. There was an activist/holocaust survivor called Hajo Meyer who wrote a book comparing Israel to Nazi Germany in the 30's. Applying his personal experience to current events - I think that's fine as well even if it may be historically questionable. Or you could make academic comparisons. I did leave a caveat of context in there.

I think if its a "you of all people" style argument or what Kabbes is doing here with a psychological theory about Israeli aggression then that's a different case. You're messing around with Jewish historical trauma. Probably just don't do that.
Click to expand...
I know what you mean and understand it. But does that mean only Jews can make such comparisons? Or only Zionist Jews? What about my mate who is a lifelong anti-Zionist atheist Jew? Or his gentile wife? Or my friend whose dad was in a concentration camp but was brought up non-Jewish?
It's better maybe that no-one makes such comparisons. But can you then make comparisons with other Jewish pogroms? Or pogroms of non-Jews?
It gets more than a bit messy to lay down any such ground rules.
 
ska invita said:
When I visited Auschwitz I was shocked - disgusted tbh - to see groups of young Israelis - IDF conscripts - walking around the site in full military fatigues, jack boots, and flying the Israeli flag. It was quite sickening as the strong lesson of visiting the camp is ABOLISH MILITARISM....that was not the lesson these young people were taking away

IMO a deliberate attempt to refuel, continue and remilitarise the trauma.

What's so great about graphic novel Maus is that it deals so honestly with the passing down of this trauma, though in that case within the context of an american jewish holocaust surviving family
Click to expand...

I was a bit shocked by that post tbh, and I found it politically suspect tbh ska invita, and quite emblematic of some of the issues that some the left have with Israel that sometimes slip into anti-semitism.

So you were 'disgusted' by some young Israeli conscripts (probably mostly/all Jewish?) touring Auschwitz probably as part of national service and maybe a memorial, likely some of whom had relatives murdered by the Nazis, possibly even at that location? I mean in jack boots no less. I assume you just mean boots, unless you consciously or subconsiously are trying to conjure up totalitarian fascist imagery?

Abolish militarism is not the strong lesson of visiting the camp at all, that again is you, as you regularly do, imposing your ideologically anti-militarist position on situations where it is meaningless to others and then being outraged when others don't feel the same.

The problem with this discussion around 'collective trauma', of which I have a lot of time for, it that it in some way it is applicable to nearly all people directly involved in this. Both/all feel existentially threatened and attacked, and to some extent the problem is there's elements on all sides that are a real threat to some others, there's no getting around that. So something more than acknowledging that needs to happen to collectively get over it.

People also have mentioned 'wrongs' around the likely invasion of Gaza and the current blockade, but pointing out moral/ethical 'wrongs' again does nothing to edge people towards a better situation, because again some of the actors and groups of people involved have a different understanding of it all, so people on here clamouring against the brutality of the Israeli State/Hamas/etc. lead us nowhere at all.

I guess I'm a bit saying what I think RD2003 keeps repeating over Russia/Ukraine, that this, at this point in time and with the events that have happened is almost inevitable.

So problem I'm trying to grapple with is the framework within all this is looked at by all sides. It's not that there's no 'facts' or truth contained within any of them, but that they're clearly inadequate to moving us towards a solution, and that includes much of what gets said on here and elsewhere about it, especially the simplistic stuff.
 
Last edited:
Ax^ said:
and the space taken , then being open to new Israeli settlements after the land has been raised and levelled :(
Click to expand...
There were settlements in Gaza. They were dismantled because they were undefendable. The Israeli State will murder a lot of people in the next few days, but they know that the costs of a permanent military or civilian Israeli presence in the Gaza Strip would be far too high.

History of Jewish Settlements in Gaza

Encyclopedia of Jewish and Israeli history, politics and culture, with biographies, statistics, articles and documents on topics from anti-Semitism to Zionism.
www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org
 
Last edited:
Gramsci said:
For years Israeli governments have been gradually grinding Palestinians done with knowledge that the international community wouldn't genuinely try and stop them. I was reading an Israeli human rights organisation analysis of the policies of this present government in Israel. Whilst not directly annexing west bank the sum of its policies is to build more settlements and push Palestinian farmers off their land. The settler violence does not exist in a vacuum. It's condoned by this present government in Israel. It's not as dramatic as what might happen in Gaza nor does it constitute lashing out in revenge or genocide. It is however a form of ethnic cleansing.

Exactly at what point should international community ( US , UK etc) should threaten to stop supporting Israeli governments? If the view is that to do so now would mean that Israeli government would lash out. Well they have been using controlled violence against Palestinians in occupied territories. Gaza is effectively been under harsh military occupation for years. Whilst this was going on international community did not put any real pressure on Israeli governments.

The Israeli peace activist I posted about earlier said best way to support Israelis is for is to say no to this government. Which means not cutting off water and electricity and sending in troop's.

Another thing if the view is that Hamas should be destroyed militarily then reminded of Rashid Khalidi ( historian). saying if they go something else will take its place. The Palestinians aren't going away.

Don't think it's helpful to look at this recent events as leading to genocide. Imo it's better to see what's been happening to Palestinians as ethnic cleansing.
Click to expand...
Hasn't the ethnic cleansing already happened? Still happening of course in the West Bank. But placing 2 million people under siege and bombing them, ordering half of them to leave their homes in 24 hours or face death? That's attempting genocide. I don't think we should shy away from that word.
 
The39thStep said:
Gaza civilians , of which nearly half the population are under 18, will have had more bombs dropped on them in a week than what the US dropped in Afganistan within a year or NATO in the duration of their war in Libya.

From The Washington Post

View attachment 395260
Click to expand...
And senior politicians, including "ours" are are supporting this ffs.
 
LDC said:
People also have mentioned 'wrongs' around the likely invasion of Gaza and the current blockade, but pointing out moral/ethical 'wrongs' again does nothing to edge people towards a better situation,
Click to expand...

I don't think it's ever wrong to call out genocide. And though people's opinions here count for shit obviously, those calling it out do so in varying amounts of hope and disbelief that the most powerful western leaders are encouraging that genocide. Because if they called it out there would be the faintest chance of putting a brake on it, of this great Israeli democracy not determining themselves of the Palestinians having 'collective responsibility'. The faintest chance of a better situation to use your words.
 
Kevbad the Bad said:
I know what you mean and understand it. But does that mean only Jews can make such comparisons? Or only Zionist Jews? What about my mate who is a lifelong anti-Zionist atheist Jew? Or his gentile wife? Or my friend whose dad was in a concentration camp but was brought up non-Jewish?
It's better maybe that no-one makes such comparisons. But can you then make comparisons with other Jewish pogroms? Or pogroms of non-Jews?
It gets more than a bit messy to lay down any such ground rules.
Click to expand...

I don't have all the answers. Just advising avoidance. Apart from anything we've now switched the discussion away from the unfolding situation in Gaza and I think that's what holocaust comparisons will do.
 
planetgeli said:
I don't think it's ever wrong to call out genocide. And though people's opinions here count for shit obviously, those calling it out do so in varying amounts of hope and disbelief that the most powerful western leaders are encouraging that genocide. Because if they called it out there would be the faintest chance of putting a brake on it, of this great Israeli democracy not determining themselves of the Palestinians having 'collective responsibility'. The faintest chance of a better situation to use your words.
Click to expand...
And tbh sunak and Biden and all the other shits will have been told broadly what the zionists are planning, by their intelligence services if not by Netanyahu or reports in the press.
 
Sky is reporting the IDF has confirmed they have been active on the ground in Gaza for some hours now, carrying out what they describe as 'raids', I guess the tanks and other heavy resources will be going in very soon now.
 
Ruwaida Kamal Amer, a freelance journalist from Khan Younis, writes from inside Gaza:

With each passing day of Israel’s unprecedented assault on Gaza, it is becoming more difficult to be a journalist in the strip — caught between the non-stop missiles from the occupation’s warplanes, and the near-total loss of power since Israel sealed us off from the world entirely earlier this week. Early this morning, Israel ordered the 1.1 million residents who live in the north of the strip to flee south within the next 24 hours, cleansing the area of Palestinians in preparation for the army’s expected ground invasion. As the Palestinian death toll enters the thousands, I feel a duty to keep exposing the world to what Israel is doing here.
Click to expand...

Amer quotes Laila Al-Khalid, 45:

The occupation aims to close off Gaza and isolate us from the world, so that no one can reach us and know what is happening here,” she continued. “This is an ugly policy, added to its longstanding policies of siege. The war, the sound of shells and missiles, and the scenes of martyrs of our friends and neighbors are very painful.
Click to expand...

Full article: Israel is ordering Gazans to flee south. But they’re bombing us here too
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Protag
Israel-Iran conflicts - news and discussion
2 3 4 5 6
Replies
154
Views
8K
_Russ_
_Russ_
Pickman's model
Israel and hezbollah after the exploding pagers
6 7 8 9 10
Replies
287
Views
11K
TomUS
T
WhyLikeThis
Mpox - news and discussion
9 10 11 12 13
Replies
387
Views
21K
Cerv
C
teqniq
Worldwide protest/actions concerning events in Gaza/Palestine/Israel
2 3 4 5 6
Replies
167
Views
10K
teqniq
teqniq
littlebabyjesus
Israel's shoddy Gaza propaganda
2 3 4
Replies
116
Views
8K
frogwoman
frogwoman
Back
Top Bottom