BS: Israel & Hamas & gaza strip 2024

Subject: RE: BS: Israel & Hamas & gaza strip 2024
From: Thompson
Date: 22 Oct 24 - 03:41 AM

Haviv Rettig Gur seems to be an expert on Zionism and Israel, rather than on Palestinian issues.
I find it hard to believe that stopping killing would be bad for anyone.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel & Hamas & gaza strip 2024
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 22 Oct 24 - 01:57 AM

”Gur disagrees strongly with my call for a ceasefire, and his arguments are the best I’ve heard. He spoke at length about how a ceasefire would harm Palestinians more than Israelis”

Reminds me of the classic ‘logic’ of the father thrashing his kid with his belt - “I’m doing this for your own good, it’s hurting me more than it hurts you”.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel & Hamas & gaza strip 2024
From: robomatic
Date: 22 Oct 24 - 12:25 AM

SRS:
In fairness to me, he has a characteristic way of speaking that I cannot match, and a view that is not easy for me to synopsize. In fairness to YOU, the 4 minutes taken to introduce him are the slowest in the whole interview, and Gur's time goes much faster than you'd think. He's like the guy who just landed from the war and takes over the conversation and keeps promising to stop talking but no one asks him to stop talking.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel & Hamas & gaza strip 2024
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 21 Oct 24 - 11:19 PM

That's a very long interview. Can you give us a few of his talking points? Starting with how a ceasefire would be harmful to Palestinians. In comparison to what? (There's a transcript but the way it displays is almost unreadable or I'd try searching it.)

I spoke with Haviv Gur, an Israeli analyst who — in my humble opinion — is one of the deepest thinkers covering Israel, Palestine, and the conflict between the two. Gur disagrees strongly with my call for a ceasefire, and his arguments are the best I’ve heard. He spoke at length about how a ceasefire would harm Palestinians more than Israelis, the issues motivating Hamas, the state of Islam in the region, the current dynamics of the war, what the Palestinians are owed, and how we might get to a more positive, constructive future for Israelis and Palestinians alike. It was a long, thoughtful, challenging conversation.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel & Hamas & gaza strip 2024
From: robomatic
Date: 21 Oct 24 - 07:19 PM

Listening to this now: It is long, somewhat insightful, dates from May 2024:

A Conversation About Israel/ Palestine- Isaac talks with Haviv Gur

It is with an Israeli, Haviv Gur, with knowledge of the philosophies of more than one side. A few choice observations on the personality of Hamas members and the recently killed Yahya Sinwar.

This is unlikely to change your opinion, but will likely help you orient your opinion with some of the complexities of the situation and some of the enfolding history.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel & Hamas & gaza strip 2024
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 21 Oct 24 - 07:02 PM

You think all of those squatters are going to give up quietly?

Subject: RE: BS: Israel & Hamas & gaza strip 2024
From: Thompson
Date: 21 Oct 24 - 01:29 PM

Tough to be required to give back stolen goods? Wouldn't have thought so.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel & Hamas & gaza strip 2024
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 21 Oct 24 - 11:40 AM

The only way it would work is for Israel to retreat to the original borders and give back all of the land "settlers" squat on. That's a tough one also.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel & Hamas & gaza strip 2024
From: Thompson
Date: 21 Oct 24 - 10:07 AM

Israel making a hames of the Geneva Conventions, using Palestinians as human shields.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel & Hamas & gaza strip 2024
From: Thompson
Date: 21 Oct 24 - 02:51 AM

"A two-state solution" has always meant Palestinians living effectively in prison camps guarded by Israeli troops, with checkpoints and Israeli rules on who can go in and out. This isn't going to work now.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel & Hamas & gaza strip 2024
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 20 Oct 24 - 09:25 PM

This is a hot topic in American politics right now. I listened to an interview with a Michigan lawmaker from Dearborn on the radio - they are experiencing the proverbial "rock and a hard spot" (the scholar in me wants to also point out these would be Scylla and Charybdis). And the person being interviewed even referred to "Israel" in a way to suggest he thinks it doesn't belong there at all - so there is a lot of heat under the light we're seeing about that political turmoil.

Harris has said she supports a two-state solution, but as long as the Israeli government is resisting it, I don't know that there is enough pressure to put to bear to make it happen. After the election if Biden stops the weapons completely (he gave them a 30-day notice that expires one week after the election) maybe Netanyahu will shift, but the Israeli far right will then disassemble the government. So of course this is happening during the American Presidential election season because Netanyahu hopes to come out ahead by continuing the war or gaining Trump's support.

Oy.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel & Hamas & gaza strip 2024
From: Thompson
Date: 20 Oct 24 - 04:45 AM

Starving since the day he was born: a baby dies in Gaza.
73 people also died in another air strike.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel & Hamas & gaza strip 2024
From: The Sandman
Date: 18 Oct 24 - 04:53 AM

Gaza war: Where does Israel get its weapons?
BBC
·
https://www.bbc.com
3 Sept 2024 — The US is by far the biggest supplier of arms to Israel, having helped it build one of the most technologically sophisticated militaries in the world.
HAMAS IS SUPPLIED BY IRAN
Hezbollah by Syria

Subject: RE: BS: Israel & Hamas & gaza strip 2024
From: The Sandman
Date: 18 Oct 24 - 04:14 AM

good point Backwoodsman, one ‘terrorist’, will be replaced by another. The biggest terrorists are those that make money from supplying arms. Masters of War

Subject: RE: BS: Israel & Hamas & gaza strip 2024
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 18 Oct 24 - 01:54 AM

”So... by chance they managed to get Sinwar. I guess that as a major terrorist leader, he deserved his fate.”

Never forget that one man’s ‘terrorist’ is another man’s ‘freedom-fighter’. From the Palestinians’ POV (and mine, FWIW) Netanyahu is a ‘major terrorist leader’.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel & Hamas & gaza strip 2024
From: Thompson
Date: 17 Oct 24 - 06:18 PM

Dear God, Yahya Sinwar's fallen in battle, he'll be a hero to his own. Nothing to rejoice about. This plunges the world into trouble deep.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel & Hamas & gaza strip 2024
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 17 Oct 24 - 04:44 PM

There is a ticking clock right now for Netanyahu - Biden gave him 30 days to clean up the access to food and supplies for the population. That 30 days lands after the election, at which time the gloves may come off.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel & Hamas & gaza strip 2024
From: Bill D
Date: 17 Oct 24 - 03:18 PM

So... by chance they managed to get Sinwar. I guess that as a major terrorist leader, he deserved his fate.
   Sadly there were 10s of thousands of innocent civilians who didn't.
Bibi doesn't seem inclined to ever look for an end to the war.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel & Hamas & gaza strip 2024
From: The Sandman
Date: 17 Oct 24 - 02:15 PM

hopefully things will calm down.quote

unlikely, all the time western powers are selling arms and making money out of conflict

Subject: RE: BS: Israel & Hamas & gaza strip 2024
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 17 Oct 24 - 01:25 PM

This development above all should compel Israel to back off of the assaults: Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar killed In Gaza, Israel confirms

He was the big fish they were going after as they blasted Gaza to bits.

• JUST IN: Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, the architect of the October 7 massacre in Israel, has been killed, according to the Israeli military.

• Sinwar’s body was spotted in the rubble of a building struck by an Israeli tank in Gaza, according to a radio station run by Israel’s military. The Israel Defense Forces confirmed Sinwar was “eliminated” after Israeli officials ran DNA tests and used dental records to confirm his identity.

• There are no signs that hostages were harmed in the mission that left Sinwar dead, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said earlier Thursday. Negotiations for a hostage release and Gaza ceasefire deal have been at a standstill for almost a month, according to Qatar’s prime minister, who said there was “silence from all parties.”

It doesn't take much searching to land on the un-filtered image of Sinwar (Twitter/X) - they compared not just his face (he was killed instantly with a head wound like that) but his teeth pattern, to be sure it's him. If everyone knows beyond a doubt that he is dead, hopefully things will calm down.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel & Hamas & gaza strip 2024
From: Thompson
Date: 17 Oct 24 - 04:25 AM

Currently Israel and its backer are attacking Palestine, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen, and have just killed off a county council which was planning how to rush in aid.
Why is no one terrified?

Subject: RE: BS: Israel & Hamas & gaza strip 2024
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 15 Oct 24 - 06:00 AM

Oh, what a surprise! NOT.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel & Hamas & gaza strip 2024
From: Thompson
Date: 15 Oct 24 - 04:27 AM

Land grab: "Netanyahu mulls plan to empty northern Gaza of civilians and cut off aid to those left inside".

Subject: RE: BS: Israel & Hamas & gaza strip 2024
From: Thompson
Date: 13 Oct 24 - 03:45 PM

Oh, lord, no: Hezbollah has struck Binyamina, a military town about halfway between Jaffa and Tel Aviv, killing four and injuring 60, some of the injuries critical or severe.
And earlier Israeli tanks smashed through the entrance of a Unifil base; when they left there were explosions, with smoke spreading through the base and UN soldiers with "unusual symptoms" despite using gas masks.
The UN says no food has entered northern Gaza this month…

Subject: RE: BS: Israel & Hamas & gaza strip 2024
From: Thompson
Date: 13 Oct 24 - 05:03 AM

BBC Radio 4's Sunday programme this morning had interviews with Christians in Gaza which would make the tears drop from your face.
As for the brutal illegal settlers, the trouble is that as far as I can see they are the government now; Palestinians describe mobs of thugs coming to beat them as they try to harvest their olives, to burn their homes and steal their land - and the army supporting the thugs, not the home owners.
More settlers are flooding into tiny Israel from settlements abroad, according to this Maariv which claims to be sourced from the Hebrew-language paper Maariv.
For the "religious right" and it is increasingly clear, for the Government of Israel, the plan is ethnic cleansing: settlers in Gaza.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel & Hamas & gaza strip 2024
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 12 Oct 24 - 11:27 PM

There was a video on Instagram posted by NPR (National Public Radio - so they will have vetted it) showing Israeli settlers attacking a primary school in the West Bank.

Israel (the government) behaves badly. The government never does anything about the encroachment and violence of the thuggish "settlers" and the vast amount of territory they have now taken over in what should be Palestinian lands. If they'd get them all out of there and stop the second-class citizenship for the non-Jewish citizen, they'd go a long way to calming the animus from their neighbors. Netanyahu is keeping the war going because when it is settled he will probably be sent to jail. He will certainly continue being tried for crimes while in office. He'd love for Trump to be put back in power, another reason to keep people churned up about a war.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel & Hamas & gaza strip 2024
From: robomatic
Date: 12 Oct 24 - 07:18 PM

After a couple visits to New Zealand, I was under the impression that everyone there was a partisan of either Vegamite or Marmite. So introducing them to the Middle East will only foment additional strife.

I used to love marmite which seemed to have no expiration date, though my jars have long since turned crusty. The brand was named "Sanitarium" (which might be a good brand to try out in the ME).

Subject: RE: BS: Israel & Hamas & gaza strip 2024
From: Thompson
Date: 12 Oct 24 - 02:15 PM

Biden is "absolutely, positively" urging Israel to stop shooting at UN observers, according to the BBC.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel & Hamas & gaza strip 2024
From: The Sandman
Date: 12 Oct 24 - 01:23 PM

should Ireland boycott Israel?
According to the Examiner
Israel fired on UN peacekeepers

Subject: RE: BS: Israel & Hamas & gaza strip 2024
From: Thompson
Date: 09 Oct 24 - 04:43 PM

Ah, didn't know that, thanks, BillD

Subject: RE: BS: Israel & Hamas & gaza strip 2024
From: Bill D
Date: 09 Oct 24 - 04:23 PM

Marmite was just in the thread before SRS transferred stuff below it.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel & Hamas & gaza strip 2024
From: Thompson
Date: 09 Oct 24 - 11:02 AM

How strange that Marmite has invaded this thread!
Here's a truly decent person, Roni Keidar: “I see the people as people, not just as an enemy. I could see their faces. I could see their smiles. I could see the look in their eyes. Most Israelis, especially the younger generation, don’t have that opportunity.”

Subject: RE: BS: Israel & Hamas & gaza strip 2024
From: Thompson
Date: 09 Oct 24 - 01:51 AM

Rashid Khalidi's next book will focus on Ireland, and how it was a laboratory for Palestine. It stems from a fellowship he had recently at Trinity College, Dublin. He says that to understand Palestine, you have to understand British colonialism more broadly. He is hoping to examine key figures in the British aristocracy whose Irish experience was central to everything they did afterwards – people such as Arthur James Balfour, Sir Charles Tegart and Gen Sir Frank Kitson. He is hoping to show how the Irish experience was exported to India, Egypt and Palestine, and then returned to Ireland again during the Troubles, having been magnified in the colonies. “It is astonishing how personnel and counter-insurgency techniques, like torture, assassination, find their roots with the British in Ireland,” Khalidi says.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel & Hamas & gaza strip 2024
From: Thompson
Date: 08 Oct 24 - 10:00 AM

Sorry, Backwoodsman.
* In Lebanon 10,000 troops from 50 countries are serving as UNIFIL observers - as they serve in many countries where conflict is present.
* The Irish and Polish are in an area in the south.
* The Israeli Defence Force told them withdraw, and the UN said no. (Newspapers announced this as "Irish refuse to withdraw troops".)
* The IDF have now set up a post with tanks near the Irish UNIFIL post.
* Hezbollah have said they won't attack the Irish base.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel & Hamas & gaza strip 2024
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 08 Oct 24 - 07:47 AM

The Irish area?

Subject: RE: BS: Israel & Hamas & gaza strip 2024
From: Thompson
Date: 08 Oct 24 - 07:16 AM

Apparently a "former US policy advisor" called Matthew RJ Brodsky tweeted that "Israel should carpet bomb the Irish area [of Lebanon] and then drop napalm over it." Tweet, now deleted, in reply to someone who uses the nick @weatherwar.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel & Hamas & gaza strip 2024
From: Thompson
Date: 07 Oct 24 - 04:27 PM

Israel is now saying that 80% of the 42,000 killed were "Hamas or family members" - meaning that either Hamas had 33,600+ members or Israel is openly admitting driving a coach-and-four through the Geneva Convention agreed by civilised countries after World War I.

Subject: BS: Israel & Hamas & gaza strip
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 07 Oct 24 - 11:22 AM

”> there will be no winners

*Disagree*: Vlad.”

Good point, MaJoC!

Subject: BS: Israel & Hamas & gaza strip
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 07 Oct 24 - 11:12 AM

”Of course "...eviction of Palestinians from their homes..."
was one of the issues, but Hamas was not exactly acting just for the good of the Palestinians... they had a far wider agenda.”

Which makes the immensely disproportionate Israeli retaliation, their slaughtering of Gazan non-combatants in their tens of thousands, the displacement of a million others, and now the starvation of those who remain, no better than vengeance and, as such, utterly reprehensible.

Subject: BS: Israel & Hamas & gaza strip
From: Thompson
Date: 07 Oct 24 - 11:11 AM

I have no idea what Hamas was at, this time last year. It seemed a lunatic attack, targeting the nearest Israelis, the ones who were most decent towards their Palestinian neighbours. You'd wonder why they didn't target the illegal settlements - but maybe they weren't so near. You'd wonder why the Israeli army didn't arrive for so very long. The whole hideous thing is baffling.

Subject: BS: Israel & Hamas & gaza strip
From: The Sandman
Date: 07 Oct 24 - 08:40 AM

There are winners, they are the US armament manufacturers, and the people who make money out of supplying THOSE WEAPONS

Subject: BS: Israel & Hamas & gaza strip
From: Bill D
Date: 07 Oct 24 - 08:28 AM

Thompson... Of course "...eviction of Palestinians from their homes..."
was one of the issues, but Hamas was not exactly acting just for the good of the Palestinians... they had a far wider agenda.
All those rockets at Israel and killings at the concert on Oct. 7 were simply the proximate trigger for this scary escalation.

Subject: BS: Israel & Hamas & gaza strip
From: Thompson
Date: 07 Oct 24 - 06:37 AM

From ABC News: Gaza's silent crisis: a child's battle against malnutrition - malnutrition is raging through Gaza, starving children and a terrible future.

Subject: BS: Israel & Hamas & gaza strip
From: Thompson
Date: 07 Oct 24 - 06:29 AM

Yes, good point.

“What needs to be done is for this war to stop,” said Dawas. “It’s a catastrophe… the scale of it is just beyond the human understanding.”

Subject: BS: Israel & Hamas & gaza strip
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 07 Oct 24 - 06:13 AM

Good point.

Subject: BS: Israel & Hamas & gaza strip
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 07 Oct 24 - 06:10 AM

> there will be no winners

*Disagree*: Vlad.

Subject: BS: Israel & Hamas & gaza strip
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 07 Oct 24 - 05:53 AM

The State of Israel has effectively held 2 million Gazan Palestinians hostage in their own country for many years. Now they are engaged in ethnic cleansing and an illegal land-grab.

What Hamas did a year ago was inhumane and utterly indefensible, but something of that kind was inevitable after years and years of oppression of the Palestinians in Gaza. But what the State of Israel has done since, and continues to do, is far worse - it’s State-sponsored terrorism which has cost over 30,000 Gazan lives, displaced a million more, and now threatens the entire Middle-East with all-out war.

Nobody is innocent in this debacle, and there will be no winners.

Subject: BS: Israel & Hamas & gaza strip
From: Thompson
Date: 07 Oct 24 - 05:21 AM

Did Hamas start this, Bill D? Surely their horrible attack this day last year was a reaction to increasing eviction of Palestinians from their homes by illegal settlements?
It seems unlikely anyone can stop it; Israel is now at war with three neighbouring states, and listening to nobody. And the illegal settlements continue to grow. And America continues to back Israel.

Subject: BS: Israel & Hamas & gaza strip
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 07 Oct 24 - 02:22 AM

”Then, IF this escalating violence develops into an area-wide war and Iran and others seriously attack Israel, would be even more committed to Israel's defense.
Hamas stupidly started this &#@*#%& violence, but Netanyahu took advantage of it to begin his desire to annex Gaza and turn the Palestinians into truly a people without a country or hope for one.

Everyone carries part of the responsibility for what is happening and a hundred years of ethnic and religious hate looms large. Sadly, I don't see any solution.”

Absolutely right on the button, Bill. I find it astonishing that a nation, composed heavily of the descendants of a people who were so appallingly brutalised and ethnically-cleansed in Europe in the early/mid 20th century, are now themselves engaged in the brutalisation and ethnic cleansing of their neighbours, and are so happy to appear on our TVs attempting to ‘justify’ their own inhumanity.

If their God actually exists, he/she must be wondering what kind of monster he/she created.

Subject: RE: BS: American Presidential race 2024
From: Neil D
Date: 07 Oct 24 - 02:03 AM

There won't be a cease-fire as long as the opposites in the conflict don't want it. when this all started Netanyahu was being investigated for corruption and it didn't look good for him. All that has been pushed to the back burner but will return to the fore when the war(s) are ended. And as for Hamas they are quite willing to watch the slaughter of their own people as long as Israel is increasingly viewed as a pariah state. According to a Times of Israel article: For years, Netanyahu propped up Hamas. Now it’s blown up in our faces. He's been using them as a foil against Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority in attempts to move toward a Palestinian state. He unofficially negotiated with them via Egypt to allow money from abroad into Gaza. (suitcases full of Qatari cash) He also increased the number of work permits for Gazans from 200 in 2021 to 20,000 in 2023 as a way to get more money into the strip. At a Likud faction meeting in early 2019, he was quoted as saying that those who oppose a Palestinian state should support the transfer of funds to Gaza, because maintaining the separation between the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza would prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state.