Hamas/Israel conflict: news and discussion

[redsquirrel]

Ten Myths About Israel By Ilan Pappe (2017) : Ilan Pappe : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Ten Myths About Israel By Ilan Pappe (2017)In this groundbreaking book, published on the fiftieth anniversary of the Occupation, the outspoken and radical...

archive.org

Most who are interested have probably seen already - but just in case anyone hasn't - Verso providing a free download of this

Ten Myths About Israel

In this groundbreaking book, the outspoken and radical Israeli historian Ilan Pappe examines the most contested ideas concerning the origins and identity of the contemporary state of Israel. This has been updated with a new afterword on the 2023 invasion of Gaza.1. Palestine was an Empty Land2...

www.versobooks.com

 

[kabbes]

Sympathies for the Israelis Palestinian conflict

Thinking only of the continuing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, do your own sympathies lie more with the Israelis or more with the Palestinians?

yougov.co.uk

Yougov polling is broadly in line with what I experience in daily life which is very different to the intense bias of the political class and media.

Most people say they don't know who they support or that they don't support either side (almost 2 thirds of people are neutral). However supporters of Palestine significantly outnumber supporters of Israel (24% to 10%).

https://d3nkl3psvxxpe9.cloudfront.net/documents/YouGov_Eurotrack_plus_US_-_Israel_Palestine_attitudes.pdf

All the western European countries surveyed are more sympathetic to Palestine than to Israel with most people neutral or undecided apart from Germany with a slight preference for Israel. However Americans are around twice as likely to sympathise with Israel as they are Palestine (15% to 29%) and also with most people neutral.

This was a preposterous polling question, though, which forces people to construct a position in the moment that they wouldn’t normally have thought about. Most people will have “sympathy” for any innocent who gets caught up in violence they did not seek. So the question forces people to decide, in the moment of being asked, who best fits that categorisation. Unsurprisingly the answer is “both and neither”. It also mixes up peoples and states. For example, it’s not the same as asking “which political group of leaders do you mostly blame for the violence?” So I don’t think you can read too much into the results of the poll. The very fact that you don’t get a clear answer from more than half the respondents backs this up too — it shows a question that is not aligned with how people are actually thinking about the situation.

 

[Rimbaud]

This was a preposterous polling question, though, which forces people to construct a position in the moment that they wouldn’t normally have thought about. Most people will have “sympathy” for any innocent who gets caught up in violence they did not seek. So the question forces people to decide, in the moment of being asked, who best fits that categorisation. Unsurprisingly the answer is “both and neither”. It also mixes up peoples and states. For example, it’s not the same as asking “which political group of leaders do you mostly blame for the violence?” So I don’t think you can read too much into the results of the poll. The very fact that you doing get a clear answer from more than half the respondents backs this up too — it shows a question that is not aligned with how people are actually thinking about the situation.

True, but my point is that it broadly indicates that people have more nuanced or more pro-Palestine views on the conflict than you'd think from the posturing of our politicians.

 

[kabbes]

True, but my point is that it broadly indicates that people have more nuanced or more pro-Palestine views on the conflict than you'd think from the posturing of our politicians.

I think it shows that people don’t have ready-formed views on the conflict at all. They feel it is something they don’t really understand and don’t want to form a position on — they just want the “bad” people to stop hurting the “good“ people.

 

[emanymton]

I think it shows that people don’t have ready-formed views on the conflict at all. They feel it is something they don’t really understand and don’t want to form a position on — they just want the “bad” people to stop hurting the “good“ people.

Which is a better position than most politicians.

 

[Johnny Vodka]

Which is a better position than most politicians.

And arms dealers obviously.

 

[Eric Jarvis]

I keep coming back to the same thing. There is really only one important conflict in the world. That between the people who preach hatred and violence in order to gain wealth and/or power, and the rest of us... and there are 8 billion of us on our side, if we would only turn on the actual enemy and stop fighting each other it would be no contest.

 

[emanymton]

And arms dealers obviously.

I think they must be the lowest form of human life. Pretty much anything else with some twisted logic you can probably convince yourself you are doing some good, or are at least neutral. But dealing in weapons, nah.

 

[brogdale]

Interesting; in as much as it will be uncomfortable for Sunak & co.

300 Palestinians killed in past 24 hours, health ministry reports – as it happened

Israeli PM posts video to troops saying ‘we are all ready’

www.theguardian.com

 

[deeyo]

meanwhile, in the west bank.

Settlers take advantage of Gaza war to launch West Bank pogroms

Israeli settlers and soldiers have killed 51 Palestinians in the West Bank this past week, with two villages entirely depopulated.

www.972mag.com

 

[The39thStep]

Be very interesting to see how many any of the current crop of Labour MP's will attend the rally in support of Palestine today, let alone speak.

In contrast, here's a clip of Gerald Kaufmann, an MP in two areas of Manchester, not known for far left views whatsoever but a consistent critic of the Zionist State

 

[teqniq]

Derail a Saudi-Israeli deal?

Partial success here:

 

[Petcha]

Hamas have released a video showing sophisticated training involving paragliders, hog tying hostages, using RPGs on walls etc etc. Even mocked up kibbutzes which they raided. All within hundreds of metres of Israel. And their mighty intelligence services knew nothing about this? Something's not right.

 

[Cid]

Hamas have released a video showing sophisticated training involving paragliders, hog tying hostages, using RPGs on walls etc etc. Even mocked up kibbutzes which they raided. All within hundreds of metres of Israel. And their mighty intelligence services knew nothing about this? Something's not right.

I'd caution against conspiracy theories, but even this CNN report is along the lines of 'what the fuck?'. At best Israeli intelligence seems significantly less competent than a 35 year old in his mom's basement with a Doge avatar and several bits of fella merch.



Always remembering that this is presumably the same intelligence service that is currently identifying exactly which buildings contain militants, with a few days notice, in the middle of a forced population displacement.

 

[LDC]

You could argue the same with 9/11 and all sorts of intelligence failures. Systems are flawed as they're run and overseen by humans, and there's already been some stuff written to explain some of the reasons why this might have happened.

 

[Petcha]

I'm not usually a conspiracy theorist but this does seem incredibly fishy. Gaza is tiny. And they were training and planning for years according to that video. How could that go undetected.

 

[Gramsci]

Most who are interested have probably seen already - but just in case anyone hasn't - Verso providing a free download of this

Ten Myths About Israel

In this groundbreaking book, the outspoken and radical Israeli historian Ilan Pappe examines the most contested ideas concerning the origins and identity of the contemporary state of Israel. This has been updated with a new afterword on the 2023 invasion of Gaza.1. Palestine was an Empty Land2...

www.versobooks.com

I read the Ten Myths of Israel several years ago. His other book I read more recently is the Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine.

I will download it for another look.

The Ten Myths are those that he grew up with as he was born in Israel.

Id also recommend Rashid Khalidi The Hundred Years War on Palestine. It mixes personal recollections of his family with analysis of key events in Palestinian history. He also took part in the peace negotiations and was living in Lebanon when it was invaded by Israel. He is quite critical of Palestinian leadership whilst seeing the conflict as primarily the fault of Zionists and western powers who support them.

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781627798556/thehundredyearswaronpalestine

What both books debunk is idea that this is a conflict where both sides are evenly matched. A recurring cycle of violence.

 

[platinumsage]

I'm not usually a conspiracy theorist but this does seem incredibly fishy. Gaza is tiny. And they were training and planning for years according to that video. How could that go undetected.

It didn’t. It was detected but then that information has to feed into a larger system in which decisions on action are taken. If it was thought for example that Hamas are always doing that sort of stuff, and that politically they wouldn’t currently want to attack from Gaza, then it doesn’t need a conspiracy theory to see how data on Hamas training exercises didn’t lead to intervention. See also the Yom Kippur war.

 

[mojo pixy]

I'm not usually a conspiracy theorist but this does seem incredibly fishy. Gaza is tiny. And they were training and planning for years according to that video. How could that go undetected.

So are you edging towards a view that some powerful in-group within Israel, somewhere between the Shin-Bet, the IDF and the government, allowed the attack last week to happen so as to give a pretext for [whatever happens next]?

 

[Johnny Vodka]

meanwhile, in the west bank.

Settlers take advantage of Gaza war to launch West Bank pogroms

Israeli settlers and soldiers have killed 51 Palestinians in the West Bank this past week, with two villages entirely depopulated.

www.972mag.com

But Israel really cares about Palestinian civilians, yeah?

 

[Petcha]

So are you edging towards a view that some powerful in-group within Israel, somewhere between the Shin-Bet, the IDF and the government, allowed the attack last week to happen so as to give a pretext for [whatever happens next]?

Whatever happens next is the acquisition of some prime real beachside real estate which they've been after for generations. I don't know. Doesn't feel right.

 

[Pickman's model]

So are you edging towards a view that some powerful in-group within Israel, somewhere between the Shin-Bet, the IDF and the government, allowed the attack last week to happen so as to give a pretext for [whatever happens next]?

false flag obvs

 

[LDC]

Whatever happens next is the acquisition of some prime real beachside real estate which they've been after for generations. I don't know. Doesn't feel right.

Oh fuck off. Your feeling and lack of knowledge are not analysis or understanding. And proper lol at prime real estate.

 

[Petcha]

Oh fuck off. Your feeling and lack of knowledge are not analysis or understanding. And proper lol at prime real estate.

Have you been to Gaza?

 

[teqniq]

Re: Intelligence failure I think it can be reasonably argued that Israeli society up until this point had become seriously divided over the constitutional reforms that Netenyahu and his far-right friends wished to push though. So much so that Netenhahu was heard to accuse members of the military as being compromised by the left. Netenhayu's personal motive for the reforms is to protect himself from corruption charges. in any event this may well have led a combination of the leadership being unwilling to listen to the military and the military themselves taking their eye off the ball.

this article provides some useful background:

Netanyahu’s Legal Crusade Is Sparking a Military Backlash in Israel

Top generals worry about the fate of liberal democracy—and that the country’s enemies see mass refusal among reservists as an opportunity to strike.

foreignpolicy.com

And this current article agues that Netenyahu is completely unsuitable to be in charge right now:

In the midst of war, Benjamin Netanyahu is a liability who can only make things worse. He must go | Simon Tisdall

The so-called international community must also make up for its years of neglect of Israel-Palestine, says foreign affairs commentator Simon Tisdall

www.theguardian.com

 

[LDC]

Have you been to Gaza?

Double fuck off, like that's got anything to do with this bit of the discussion!

 

[Johnny Vodka]

Israel’s response to this terror must be resolute. But it must remain consistent with international law | Margaret Hodge

I went to Kfar Aza kibbutz when it was an oasis of tranquillity. We stand with Israel as it defends itself, and hope for peace, says Labour MP Margaret Hodge

www.theguardian.com

This is what I don't get. Mention of the security fence, but absolutely no curiosity around as to what life might be like for those on the other side of it.

 

[A380]

Whatever happens next is the acquisition of some prime real beachside real estate which they've been after for generations. I don't know. Doesn't feel right.

Please don't. You have always seemed a decent person. Carry on this way and your'll be back here talking about chemtrails and the NWA in a month.

 

[Elohim]

Garage gas fields hmm

Is this a conspiracy or a possible reason?

War and Natural Gas: The Israeli Invasion and Gaza’s Offshore Gas Fields

Almost 15 years ago in December 2008, Israel invaded Gaza under “Operation Cast Lead (2008-2009).”

michelchossudovsky.substack.com

 

[Larry O'Hara]

Interesting; in as much as it will be uncomfortable for Sunak & co.

300 Palestinians killed in past 24 hours, health ministry reports – as it happened

Israeli PM posts video to troops saying ‘we are all ready’

www.theguardian.com

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Crispin Blunt: interesting, former forces I believe