BS: Hamas attacks Israel

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 Oct 23 - 02:06 PM

I hit send instead of preview with my fat finger there. I don't think I need to add corrections.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 Oct 23 - 05:51 PM

UN chief António Guterres condemned “clear violations of international law” in Gaza as the US added to mounting pressure on the Israeli government to pause its bombardment of the besieged coastal enclave and allow in more aid.

In his toughest remarks so far about the conduct of the war in the Gaza Strip, Guterres told the UN security council on Tuesday that the safety of civilians was paramount.

“Protecting civilians can never mean using them as human shields,” the secretary-general said, adding that it “does not mean ordering more than 1mn people to evacuate to the south, where there is no shelter, no food, no water, no medicine and no fuel, and then continuing to bomb the south itself”.

Guterres also said that Hamas’s deadly assault on southern Israel on October 7 “did not happen in a vacuum”.

“The Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation,” he added, though he said their grievances could not justify the “appalling attacks”.

That's the secretary-general of the UN. Not the favourite institution of the US, of course. The first really influential voice to speak up against Israeli violence in Gaza. The reaction of the Israeli regime is to call for his removal. The Israeli regime can't take criticism. You can bet your ass that Biden won't defend Gutteres. Let's see.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 Oct 23 - 05:58 PM

Yes Bill. But the existential issue is the death of thousands of civilians, including thousands of children. That has to stop. I don't give a flying fart about your US politics today. That can come later. Thousands of children, just like my grandson, are being slaughtered. If anyone thinks that that means Israel taking the moral high ground, then I'm at a complete loss. We need Biden to change his mind and call for an immediate ceasefire. If he doesn't, he'll be complicit in the deaths of thousands more Gaza citizens.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 26 Oct 23 - 04:55 AM

The Israeli regime is facing a massive and increasing problem of perception. Every time one of their spokespeople pops up on the telly they repeat the (justified: don't get me wrong) rant about the horrors of October 7, commonly in graphic detail. But that happened nearly three weeks ago and, since then, Hamas has done little that's different from what they usually do (I'm excluding the dreadful hospital incident because it's not been settled who it was who did it and it isn't being used by either side for propaganda). On the other hand, there are video cameras everywhere in Gaza which are providing us with footage of new horrors every day. Dunno about you, but that has the cumulative effect on me of generating increasing revulsion at what I'm seeing Israel doing, and there's no end in sight. The stated aim of destroying Hamas can't be achieved and I strongly suspect that the real aim is to destroy Gaza and drive its citizens into Egypt.

Another thing: I don't understand the concept of "humanitarian pause" versus ceasefire. Are we really saying "stop for now and resume the killing later"?

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 26 Oct 23 - 06:42 AM

Whilst I'm a fan of Al Jazeera, I've been avoiding their coverage of this conflict. I'm not saying they're biased, but I suppose that if I repeatedly quoted them in this thread that accusation would be levelled at me and I already suspect that some might think that I'm a bit too pro-Palestinian as it is. I can keep up with what's going on wherever I am with the Guardian website and, in the evening, on BBC TV. Getting your news from unbiased sources and avoiding one's own tendency toward confirmation bias is fraught with difficulty.

It's been well said that no-one can claim the moral high ground in this conflict and that there are no good guys. Just to nuance that slightly, we should say that we are talking about the leaders of factions and not about the ordinary civilians on both sides. There will be thousands of hard-headed Gazans who support Hamas and all the terrible things they did, and there will thousands of hard-headed Israelis who think that all those suffering Gazans are only getting what they deserve and for whom Bibi is their hero. But even people like that on both sides don't deserve to be bombed, shot at or murdered. Eighty million deluded idiots voted for Trump but they don't deserve to be bombed, shot at or murdered either.

Current media coverage can't show much that's new about what's happening to Israeli citizens, but we can see plenty that's new that's happening in Gaza every day. That can make news bulletins look biased, but I don't think that's right. We should be shown what is known to be happening in as near to an honest and objective way as is possible. And I agree with Mr Gutierrez when he reminds us of the long history of the region and that this conflict isn't happening in a vacuum. Israeli leaders seem to think that mentioning that is antisemitic, blood libel even. Well they would, wouldn't they.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 26 Oct 23 - 05:37 PM

Not available here.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 27 Oct 23 - 05:29 AM

The attacks in Syria are absolutely connected to the conflict in Israel. Iran has said that attacking US military installations in the region will continue as long as the US continues to support Israel against the Palestinians.

In the 1980s the presence of US military bases in the UK caused such revulsion that there were huge demonstrations at the bases (I went on several of them, with several Labour MPs also present) and there was a women's camp for years at the Greenham Common nuclear weapons US base which Mrs Steve and I also supported, which, arguably, changed the face of peace protests in this country. And we were your allies. The US has precious few enthusiastic allies in the Middle East and its presence in the form of military bases is a provocation, a running sore to many. The claim that the US has to strike back "in self-defence" by bombing weapons dumps in Syria would be laughable if it wasn't so serious. The US is there to protect its own interests, and its biggest interest in the region is propping up Israeli regimes, however bad they are, and there have been none worse than this one.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 27 Oct 23 - 06:40 AM

The Labour mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has called for a ceasefire. That's very revealing of a significant split in Labour apropos of its policy regarding how this war should be conducted and it puts Starmer on the back foot, deservedly in my opinion.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 27 Oct 23 - 01:13 PM

From your Time piece:

The Hamas massacre that took place over the weekend was not the result of decades of “occupation.” Israel left Gaza in 2005, uprooting families and wrenching the country into an impassioned debate along the way. Not a settler, nor single IDF soldier, nor any type of Israeli personnel has remained in the Gaza Strip.

What gobsmacking misrepresentation this is. Just because settlers, etc., left Gaza in 2005 (on the orders of their regime, by the way), it doesn't mean that Gaza has not, in effect, been "occupied." It has been blockaded ever since, it has been invaded at will by the IDF, its civilians have been slaughtered in their thousands and its economy has been trashed via Israeli-imposed sanctions. Not only that, its infrastructure has come under frequent military attack, hospitals, schools, power stations, water treatment plants, villages, the lot. There have been constant crises of water, power, medical and food supply, by no means not all of that caused by Hamas (before you say anything). In addition, when Israel "left" Gaza in 2005 they didn't do it out of the goodness of their hearts - as they left they trashed the place, bulldozing villages and infrastructure. Just a little reminder that the two million-plus citizens of Gaza, collectively punished for sixteen years, are NOT Hamas. Finally, the piece starts with a complete and dismal denial of the history of the region. That's what Israeli regimes and their supporters always do: whenever it's raised they shout it down as though we're all indulging in antisemitism and blood libel. Well, the history IS quite embarrassing, I suppose.

Further down the piece there's a healthy smattering of Islamophobia. I won't go on.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 27 Oct 23 - 04:38 PM

"Israel's response has come in for criticism because there is a basic understanding, or hope, or desire, that Israel can behave more 'humanely'"

But Israel doesn't. It never has. What measure would you like to use? Deaths of civilians? Children? Evictions? Bulldozing of villages? Discrimination?

As I keep saying, the history is not just important: ignore it and you simply can't understand. Israeli regimes would like us to sideline the history. We shouldn't be fooled.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: SPB-Cooperator
Date: 26 Oct 23 - 11:29 AM

Even those of us who are trying to keep an open mind and are concerned about the innocent victims on both sides of the conflict still have to base our judgment on what is shown by the media. What we don't know is how much the media news is biased towards one side or the other, and even in the case of impartial reporting, how much access to what is actually going on has been allowed.

We do not know to what extent, if any, media news coverage is being manipulated or controlled to support their side of the conflict.

I am not a conspiracy theorists by any means, otherwise I would be firmly believing that the BBC is part of both a Zionist and and Islamic Fundamentalist conspiracy at one and the same time.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Bill D
Date: 08 Oct 23 - 10:16 AM

The USA is trapped into 'unwavering support' of Israel, no matter what the situation. Granted, it is easier when an attack like this occurs, but if Biden had even hinted at suggesting "they shouldn't have been surprised after the way they treated the Palestinians.", his hopes of being re-elected would be toast!

   Big mistakes were made in 1948 in a rush to compensate Jews for the atrocities of the Holocaust. Now, after 75 years, there's little that can be done. The Palestinians can't *win* this, and I expect they know it, but a trapped and wounded animal will eventually react violently.

I am so sad for all of those on both sides who suffer because of unyielding leaders.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Bill D
Date: 09 Oct 23 - 09:14 AM

"Yet the Israeli regime has no compunction in punishing every single citizen of Gaza."

Yes, they are responding as if Gaza as a whole is guilty.... but it's hard to imagine how else they could have done it. Hamas probably knew what would happen when they planned this stupidity.
   Many Germans were against Hitler, but they were bombed too.

Electricity, water and food... and munitions.... have to come into Gaza from outside, and Israel can control most of it. Iran can't email more rockets to Hamas.

The early reports say that there has been not only murder, but savage, horrible mutilation of victims where Hamas fighters have been. This alone would cause Israel to pull very few punches in retaliation. They are trying to because they don't know where captives are being held.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Bill D
Date: 09 Oct 23 - 11:42 AM

A mountain to climb... with hairpin turns and rock falls. We can only *hope* that most other counties show restraint until Hamas wears thin.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Bill D
Date: 10 Oct 23 - 01:48 PM

What Israel did to provoke Hamas was not much above Bear baiting

If you taunt and restrain a dangerous adversary long enough, its rage and frustration will come out...somehow...., and usually in an unpleasant way. Yes, Hamas acted not only like terrorists, but like barbarians. We can't read the minds of those who planned this attack, but sometimes a violent reaction is merely rage and a desire to inflict suffering. Hamas may have no real hope of 'solving' anything, but maybe they no longer care.

   I kinda doubt that a 2-state solution has much chance now... if it ever did after 1948.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Bill D
Date: 10 Oct 23 - 01:57 PM

"Even though Israel gave up control of the Gaza Strip, it has kept a land, air and sea blockade on Gaza since 2007. The result has been damaging for Palestinians, with the United Nations saying in 2009 that the blockade from both Israel and Egypt had been “devastating livelihoods” and causing gradual “de-development” in Gaza. Israel has argued that the blockade has served to keep control of Gaza’s border, prevent Hamas from getting stronger and protect Israelis from Palestinian rocket attacks."

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Bill D
Date: 11 Oct 23 - 12:14 PM

"If there's a God, he isn't in Israel or Gaza."

If there is a god, he would have made sure that everyone had access to that Temple Mount spot! 3 religions arguing over it makes for an interesting situation.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Bill D
Date: 15 Oct 23 - 02:07 PM

This is not the evacuation of a city. It's the evacuation of half of Gaza so that Israel can destroy it. The Israeli regime wants there to be nothing left for the million-plus evacuees to go home to.

Well, Steve, this 'may' be the case, but I don't read minds.
Declaring that as fact is a little premature. I hope it is NOT the case, but I'll wait.
Obviously, the damage done to Gaza, no matter what the political outcome will not leave much of a great place to live.
   IF you are right, a very large number of Palestinians will need to move to the West Bank, Jordan... or any state that will have them.
   This entire attack by Hamas reminds me of the idea of Suicide by Cop that desperate men sometimes choose. It is just sad that they inflicted it on the population in general.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Bill D
Date: 15 Oct 23 - 02:26 PM

Our remote ancestors automatically adopted the idea that "to the victor goes the spoils" and "Do unto others before they do unto you."
I think it is hard coded into our DNA, and it takes a real effort to see that it's not the best choice in today's society.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Bill D
Date: 16 Oct 23 - 01:06 PM

"That fight was over a long time ago"

Exactly, Steve. My comment about where Palestinians will "need to go", does NOT assume that will be easy..or even possible. Of course all obvious destinations are already overcrowded, and no 'supervising entity' now exists to declare a Palestinian state anywhere in the Middle East such as was done for the Jews in 1948.

   Right now, I'm not sure that even Israel has a clear plan for what they intend to do in the next few months. As I said, I don't read minds.
They are sure of a few things they DON'T want, but that's hardly a working plan.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Bill D
Date: 18 Oct 23 - 09:00 AM

When all of this began, I had 'some' opinions about culpability. Now I simply can't fathom it all. Too many 'incidents' and too many deaths, with human suffering on a scale that can't be measured.
   Politicians will pontificate, hotheads will protest, soldiers will *follow orders* and blame will be shared.
   As with all wars, the shooting & bombing will eventually, if not totally stop, then become isolated instances..... and memorials will be created as families... those that can... try to carry on.

    I won't live long enough to see the semi-ultimate resolution of borders and power centers, and it's just as well, as it won't be fair to ANY side.
   I don't pray, so I can only watch and be saddened at what we humans do.

Further, deponent sayeth not.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Bill D
Date: 19 Oct 23 - 09:13 AM

"
We know that death always works when it comes to changing behavior."

We don't KNOW any such thing. If you mean about the ones dead, it's a tautology, as the dead no longer have any 'behavior'.

"We know what doesn't work like; pacts, treaties, extortion, big lies, financial penalties etc."

   Actually, some of those DO work, depending on the situation.


Slogans and ambiguities don't tell us anything new.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Bill D
Date: 19 Oct 23 - 07:22 PM

I was told by a friend many years ago that the conflict in Ireland was "not about religion". My reply was that "Perhaps, but when someone wants to make a violent statement about things, they know which church to target."
   "Causality" is a complex concept, but is some senses a remote ideological (religious) difference can be a very significant force in determining future events. (look up "remote cause", "formal cause", "final cause" and "material cause")
Donuel makes a minor point this time, even though neither side is debating theology.
   Steve is right on the mark as to the actual history of offenses by both sides. After a while, it it true that simple border fights and 'revenge' color ALL aspects of the situation. Who supports each side often ends up being political.
   The areas of Gaza and Israel are coveted by more groups than can possibly be reasonably be accommodated.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: gillymor
Date: 14 Oct 23 - 05:31 PM

Correction, BW- Thoroughly corrupt ‘Murdering Arse-hole’.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Mrrzy
Date: 08 Oct 23 - 10:49 PM

Oh, fuck.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Mrrzy
Date: 11 Oct 23 - 08:06 PM

My nephew lives in Jerusalem. 5th child will be delivered by planned c-section Monday. They think nobody will blow up Jerusalem.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Mrrzy
Date: 16 Oct 23 - 10:23 AM

Trump was a symptom, not a cause.

I do not support Israel's right to wxist where others were already existing. Never did. Yes, mom was a Holocaust survivor. She didn't, either.

Nor do I support the actions Hamas is taking, Never did.

Armies slaughtering civilians is a war crime.

I have no answers.

I have no questions.

My ortho-er-than-ortho nephew, in Jerusalem, 's wife just had their 5th baby today. A boy.

I worry. It is not constructive.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Mrrzy
Date: 18 Oct 23 - 08:09 PM

"Intelligence" thinks the hospital blast was friendly fire...

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Mrrzy
Date: 19 Oct 23 - 07:12 PM

It being religious was too obvious to state.

Sigh.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Mrrzy
Date: 20 Oct 23 - 07:45 AM

Nothing religious? Israel?

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Mrrzy
Date: 20 Oct 23 - 08:04 AM

Israel is a jewish state. It *defines* itself by religion, and only religion. It was carved out of a place other people already lived and and had a different religion, without asking them, so that the jewish religion would have a nation.

The US, despite the right's efforts, is not.

However, we do appear to be shootin' in this war. Was that authorized?

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Mrrzy
Date: 20 Oct 23 - 05:35 PM

Hamas released 2 hostages

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 11 Oct 23 - 02:20 PM

I reposted a song I am trying to learn only the other day. One verse is referring to another war in the middle East but some things never change

"But our friend was only money; it was greed that brought us here
For there's billions to be made from selling weapons, peddling fear
And our governments denounce that they are playing age old games
They didn't know, it wasn't them, they're not to blame"

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 20 Oct 23 - 08:06 AM

It's all about money and power. The religious aspect is the religious leaders using their sway over people to gain themselves more money and power.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 20 Oct 23 - 03:48 PM

It would be an even greater improvement if everyone would stop trying to score petty points from what is a tragic situation

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 20 Oct 23 - 04:20 PM

The post does say "from today's Guardian live feed" which, for those who do not know, is a transient feed. Try Google and I'm sure that your doubts will be assuaged.

Now, can we return to the point?

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 20 Oct 23 - 05:11 PM

Nigel. Once again, it was clearly stated that it was a news feed.

Do you ever see news feeds? They are one liners. Quite often unrelated. Now, do you have anything to say about Gaza?

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 21 Oct 23 - 08:50 AM

As always I see some excited fans of war going down dark alleys.

On here, Don?

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 21 Oct 23 - 10:33 AM

Daughter in law and grandson are the Salford demo protesting about the BBC complicity with Israeli crimes. Good on 'em!

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Joe_F
Date: 10 Oct 23 - 06:54 PM

"It all started when he hit me back."

If you followed the news before the current "war", you must have noted that scarcely a day passed without the Israeli army or settlers killing some Palestinians.

If by a solution you mean an outcome that is politically possible and that decent people might wish for, then this problem has no solution.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: robomatic
Date: 11 Oct 23 - 01:51 PM

I have no words of balm here. It is a living nightmare full of humans displaying how utterly cruel yet predictable they can be when their thinking is pre-structured by rites.

At the same time, it is important for us to stay aware and not just hope, but think and speak. And we MUST also hope, because we are in an age where the solutions are all around us, but the tools we employ can be used against us as well, even with the best of intentions. Maybe especially with the best of intentions.

This is all just generalized crap and I know it. But it's the best I can do just now and I thought with such a moderate amount of moderate messages I owed it to say something no matter how unworthy. I've seen and been in way worse threads on this subject.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: robomatic
Date: 12 Oct 23 - 06:07 PM

It's the bloody battle of body counts. Played in Europe for hundreds of years, currently in every country of the Middle East, Africa, the Near East, and recently re-opened in Ukraine.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: robomatic
Date: 13 Oct 23 - 12:33 PM

I agree that this thread has been an exceptionally well modulated thread, I suspect with some help from moderation. I am not familiar with the song reference but I'll listen to it. My own reference is Stan Rogers' "House of Orange."

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: robomatic
Date: 17 Oct 23 - 04:08 PM

I would like that to be true. I have few comments to make here because people are making good ones that I can't significantly improve on. I think Biden is performing well. I think Blinken is performing VERY well. But I don't have a sense of progress. Just a sense of horrible dejas vu with a little bit of dejas new which is horrible.

I know that progress is possible. But possible ain't yet 'probable'. And too few of us have a vision of what progress looks like. For me it has been that Irish saying (or a saying from a book I bought in Eason's in Dublin many years ago): "It's handy when people don't die."

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: robomatic
Date: 18 Oct 23 - 02:33 PM

Much as I love these guys, Steve is getting into his pseudo virtuosity corner, which has nothing new to offer, and Don'l is digging into his deepity nook, although I always enjoy a good TOM LEHRER link.

I disagree with Don'ls point that "The mutual assured destruction of war is a lesson still unlearned." There's a valid quote "Only the dead have seen the end of war." There's also this recent movie: "OPPENHEIMER" which has a pretty good version of the original atomic explosion Trinity test.

That 'lesson' had as its point that technology has led to the end of heroism. Among the many many sublessons we have been exposed to is that mankind will still put up with an immense amount of killing, from the death factories of the Holocaust to the simple machetes of Rwanda. Our species will not waste even the prospect of a minor advantage in arms, tactics, geography, or timing in shedding blood.

But lay an atom bomb or two down and even the biggest death dealers will take a decades long pause.

So Don'l's observation is to date the most timely, but my outlook unfortunately is the current reality:

"There will be peace in the Middle East after we have exhausted the other alternatives. And, let's not make nuclear one of the alternatives.

I think if we're not 'there' we're damn close.

I don't have much more to say since I'm as repetitive as my digital forum friends. But I may find my copy of the 50s version of "The Day the Earth Stood Still" and watch it all the way through. Wonder if there's a couple versions with subtitles that read right-to-left.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: robomatic
Date: 18 Oct 23 - 07:05 PM

Steve: I have long considered you thin-skinned. It is okay but it weakens your positions, when you make them.

I agree that this occasion does not necessarily betoken going nuclear. But I think the issue raised its head under existing comments and I thought I was bringing some relatively realistic philosophy to the issue.

As to what you mean by 'news' you need to be more specific. But I'll say right now that I might not be believing things marketed as 'news'. In particular if you want to talk about competing dead baby counts, my stomach will literally not allow me to go there.

And I agree with Hitchens obsrvation: "That which can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof."

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: robomatic
Date: 19 Oct 23 - 01:15 PM

I heard that NPR interview with David Kirkpatrick and found it similarly interesting. It is available in text here. The article headline and most of the interview was regarding some important background U.S. politics and the Middle East stuff comes up more than halfway down but it's easy to find and I haven't heard the specific subject come up anywhere else. When one interviews the 'evil enemy' one has to be careful, circumspect, and get one's journalistic ducks in a row. This was done well, and was most likely a lot harder than it appeared. First rate journalism which is still available in this era to those who care.

I had meant to mention a very good one hour special by PBS called "War in the Holy Land". Both good as a background article and a 'filler-in' article. Should be available over the internet or via their app.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: robomatic
Date: 19 Oct 23 - 06:36 PM

Yeah, again with the virtuosity, Steve. Your own prejudice is showing, because this is your existing argument from other threads and other times. You are doing this to yourself and this thread. Case in point, you are so one-sided that in your latest point you mention displaced Arabs, but NOT the displaced Jews from beyond Europe, but other Arab lands. Not only that, but the Arab states around Israel form majoritarian states which have persecuted their minorities, and are universally corrupt or hostile to democracy. Also, whether or not Israel deserves defensible borders, which I think we can all understand is going to be a sine qua non going forward.

If you were honest with yourself and the rest of us, you would back off the insistence that you are not being religiously judgmental. I think it is inherent in your words and arguments.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: robomatic
Date: 19 Oct 23 - 09:33 PM

I just watched President Biden's address from the Oval Office. I think he hit the right notes at the right times. I liked his bringing up the senseless murder of six year old Wadea Al-Fayoume and the cautionary notes of reaction to violence begetting poor decisions.

I still think this thread has been an improvement upon others covering the subject in the past. I think there is some decrepitating on fixed positions/ judgmments which I am not going to address because then this thread will look like past threads of repetitive bombast. Good luck to all.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Donuel
Date: 08 Oct 23 - 07:59 PM

I'm gonna lay down my sword and shield
Down by the riverside, down by the riverside
Down by the riverside
I'm gonna lay down my sword and shield
Down by the riverside and study war no more

When you treat folks like stinking shit
You're bound for a great big hit, bound for a great big hit
bound for a great big hit
I'm gonna lay down my sword and shield
I'm not gonna cheer on or study war no more.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Donuel
Date: 09 Oct 23 - 04:05 PM

No one wins a war.
The bigger the war the more no tribe wins including the environment.
One side or another pauses hostilities only to rekindle war later.
The ironies and vengeance grow quickly and fade if ever, ever so slowly.
The temporary victors change history for a while until all lies are forgotten...in about 10,000 years. Sometimes one side ends in extinction.
One is a direct/distant victim of war, a participant, or an excitable fan of war.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Donuel
Date: 09 Oct 23 - 07:11 PM

In other words, war has its own feedback loop no matter how complex or simple the conflict may be.

We have tried to make rules for war but honestly, there are no rules.
When a state-sponsored military kills civilians it is called collateral damage. When a non state-sponsored military kills civilians it is called terrorism.

War is primitive. A bullet similar to a spear, sword or arrow makes a hole in people. Explosions are just fire that have become supersonic in modern times from dynamite to Nuclear bombs.
One exception is the neutron bomb which leaves infrastructure intact and only kills all life and sterilizes bodies so they do not rot.

Biologic and chemical war have the same purpose as all the other methods of murder.

We sometimes glorify war, abhor war and support war from a distance.
It is rare for anyone to not contribute to war even if it is only paying taxes. War ungh, what is it good for ...nothin...

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Donuel
Date: 10 Oct 23 - 07:55 AM

More obvious than the primitive carnage of war is as rich-joy says 'it makes money' for some people. War is a racket. War claims its for protection. There are many bottom lines but I am ill-equipped to know exactly who profits.

Some of the war corporations of WW2 like Krup, Mitsubishi, GM and many others are still around as if they are immortal. You and I are not.

In my neck of the woods, Virginia is said to have more of the death-motivated companies. Maryland has more of the life-giving/sustaining businesses.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Donuel
Date: 10 Oct 23 - 11:59 AM

I believe Americans would agree that the Pearl Harbor attack was an unprovoked surprise. Events often reveal a person's true colors.
Note that I DO NOT blame the victims of ethnic massacres.

It takes a special person to justify bloodlust with technicalities of oil embargos, or other disputes.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Donuel
Date: 10 Oct 23 - 03:08 PM

Bear baiting or FDR's backdoor to war (allowing Japan to attack) are just theories for a deliberate cause for war while I say it is war itself that historically feeds back until the next war. So down the rabbit hole you go, as though wrongful details might turn into a Statesman solution.

The nicest thing I can say is that the Kruger-Dunning effect is alive and well. While I do not have an immediate cure for war, you can rightly assume AI does. You wouldn't like the AI cure.

Taking sides and assigning blame
is a very dangerous game.
I'm not saying you're indifferent
I'm saying you are a participant.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Donuel
Date: 11 Oct 23 - 05:12 AM

What is extremely facile is how simply war spins out of control.
It is as simple as trust in a fallible wall. As illogical as revenge for an Archduke. As foggy as rumors of babies thrown from their incubators. Truth is at a low and lies are on the rise.
Lying to oneself is the first victim of war.

Stilly mentioned the Democracy movement that wanted to maintain a Supreme Court. Bebe is facing his Waterloo.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Donuel
Date: 11 Oct 23 - 07:20 AM

The first casualty of war is truth
Again it seems to me that...
Hyper excited fans of war rabble rouse for war itself. They may not see what the do, nor may it matter, but they move from advocates for war to distant participants. Rabble-rousing is encouragement that a person gives to a group of people to behave violently or aggressively, often for that person's own political advantage or opinion.

I am in opposition to war itself which is probably a minority position at our current stage of evolution.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Donuel
Date: 13 Oct 23 - 07:02 AM

War is dreadful. No if and or buts. 18 posts here repeating "Isreal got what they deserved!" is as wrong as Trump's comments.

Let's make a personal hypothetical that highlights the cruel comments. Imagine a stupid medical mistake that leads to the slow agonizing death of Steve Shaw. In response a fanatic posts 18 times in a row that "Steve got what he deserved". That Trumpian person keeps up the defamation posts about Steve for years. What would you think of that kind of behavior? When does that strident opinion turn into propaganda and become hate speech and who decides?

Now we may wish Steve well but if he does not see what he does, he needs to be shown where his repetition leads. No judgment here particularly because the average person is immersed in war by language, paradigm, and early education.

---

Let's not start making personal comparisons and attacks. The strikethrough is to get your attention. ---mudelf

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Donuel
Date: 13 Oct 23 - 01:21 PM

Hypothetical arguments are usually found in Supream Court arguments or academic settings but seldom on social media. They could pertain to widgets or oneself but they are not personal attacks.
I believe denialism is prevalent because it works for people, especially in the short run. I cannot deny that there is a global right-wing narrative that Israel/the Jews got what they asked for.
To declare there is no anti-Semitism 'here' strikes me as a peacekeeping gesture and not a reality.

I assume an anti-war position should be tolerated if not respected as a real global possibility although probably not in our lifetime.
Life is too fragile to eliminate murder altogether. Morally speaking,
go big or go home.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Donuel
Date: 15 Oct 23 - 10:52 AM

Donald Trump’s ‘very fine people on both sides’ remarks are similar to 'bad guys on both sides'.

War is ad infinitum in its current configuration of;
violence, vengeance, violence, vengeance, escalation,
violence, vengeance, violence, vengeance, escalation, etc.

Until we can think outside of that box there will be no creative solution in our lifetime. The time to try and think differently is now.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Donuel
Date: 15 Oct 23 - 02:28 PM

Lighter you are seldom incorrect but millions of us DO make a difference. Even one person can make a difference over time.
Although justice concerning multinational corporations and their militaries is today not much more than a punchline.

At least Europe is willing to take on giants like Google and Microsoft.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Donuel
Date: 15 Oct 23 - 02:48 PM

"I think it (war) is hardcoded into our DNA, and it takes a real effort to see that it's not the best choice in today's society."

Yes and no. I think that's what 20% of our population that are social psychopaths are for. Most of us have DNA that is pre-set for cooperation.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Donuel
Date: 15 Oct 23 - 07:01 PM

I am being persuaded that social psychopaths are also the biggest fans of war. A very small percentage of the 20% are criminal psychopaths who are the serial murderers and such.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Donuel
Date: 16 Oct 23 - 07:24 AM

I have found some respite from war media with sports.
As the US escalates by sending a second aircraft carrier I have heard the war described as a game. The HAMAS airforce of paragliders may have met their match. The area of Gaza designated for invasion is of course the area of the most extreme poverty.

The moral high ground used to be a slippery slope. Now it is an abyss of baby body counts.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Donuel
Date: 17 Oct 23 - 06:47 AM

Historically the UK is responsible for many artificial national borders in the area of Ethniclashistan. An impossible task.
The US set up puppet leaders that created more angst.
Many Arab leaders were aligned with Nazi Germany and shared attitudes about Jews. Throw in radically ancient religion and oil and we have a problem beyond any simple solution. Carving out a Jewish homeland in Western Germany in 1945 would have been just as problematic.

You can never go home again.
an olde saying

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Donuel
Date: 17 Oct 23 - 07:46 AM

For a Statesman to face vengeance, fear,
and anger with justice and peace will be a monumental task.
Is Biden up to it? So far so good.

In any compromise, there must be sacrifice.
How much more sacrifice can each side endure?
Hostage settlements will play a large role.

Most horrific military actions occur at the dark of the moon.
The next 2 weeks, with the help of miracles, will set the stage for peace and justice or more endless war.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Donuel
Date: 18 Oct 23 - 06:20 AM

When war is waged by land air and sea, such is the nature of the amphibious frog of war.
Hamas says it is ready to release hostages if Israel stops bombing Gaza.
If you can't trust Hamas, who can you trust?

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Donuel
Date: 18 Oct 23 - 10:34 AM

This is kid's stuff. Imagine a nuclear war.
I do not respect war.
I regret war.

This is not the place to say Voldemort? Is calling evil by its ridiculous name too sacred to say out loud or laugh in its face?

Not me.

We should all support restraint from violence in every quarter, but some do not have the ears to hear it or the sense to demand it.
Instead, there is rage at US Embassies.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Donuel
Date: 18 Oct 23 - 01:43 PM

how far back?

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Donuel
Date: 19 Oct 23 - 08:34 AM

We know that death always works when it comes to changing behavior.
There may be other means. Good will is a goal but not the operant tool to effect change. First, you have to be open to the possibility of ending war before AI discovers our existence is the problem and enacts a solution.
We know what doesn't work like; pacts, treaties, extortion, big lies, financial penalties etc.
I look to neurobiology and genetics but a delivery system can not be voluntary or complex. We may already be getting help to quell our worst war reactions. If not and we screw up big time it won't be the only extinction age followed by reemergent new life. Half a billion years makes for big changes.

My post to Lighter about being smart and I being a pacifist was inexplicably deleted.
Peace or condemning war should not be considered dangerous speech.
For some the concept of peace is as corny as the song 'I'd like to teach the world to sing'. For others, it is what they seek in life.
I think peaceniks are in the majority.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Donuel
Date: 19 Oct 23 - 09:05 AM

I see how upset the enemies of Israel became when a hospital parking lot in Gaza blew up.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Donuel
Date: 19 Oct 23 - 06:46 PM

My impression from what I have read is my own for my own reasons.
I do not want to be sucked into the tornado of war, its lies and its tit for tat inhumane outcomes.

I do know Israel is on the cusp of making a great humanitarian gesture that the world could admire (despite the weakness argument) OR do the same old violence, vengeance, escalation cycle.

I also admit the probable impossibility of ridding the world of war.
But nothing ever ventured, nothing ever gained.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Donuel
Date: 20 Oct 23 - 06:13 AM

"Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice."
not mine but good

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Donuel
Date: 21 Oct 23 - 08:16 AM

To just comment on a substantive issue at hand, the news slant regarding Hamas in the USA is substantially different from the UK news.
Biden is unequivocally in support of Israel not because they do no wrong but because of the terror tactics of Hamas and our hopes for Democracy. He also warns of hate and rage going too far. This position opposes some of the liberal fringe of his own party. In this country that is known as a sister Solja moment. That refers to Bill Clinton separating himself from a radical statement from Ms.Solja.

The difference in 'news feeds' between countries is propaganda that may invisibly steer attitudes. You may think you are thinking for yourself but you could be on a leash you do not see. As always I see some excited fans of war going down dark alleys. I wonder if they know any part of war close-up. Have they ever; been in active duty, been shot at, faced a pointed gun or suffered as a direct result of war.
If they have, I do not think they would be such excited fans. Perhaps they only know second hand from family stories.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 07 Oct 23 - 08:37 PM

Israel is a terrible neighbor to the countries in the region and the irony of the Palestinians forced into ghettos and second-class citizenship should be obvious to all.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 08 Oct 23 - 01:20 PM

There has been a steady protest against the attempt the change the judicial system in Israel - empowering the ultra conservative parties if it happens. Considering what the Federalist Society has backed in the US for years and the damage Trump did, Israel can be viewed as a cautionary example of what can happen in the US if everyone doesn't pull together to evict the toxic minority.

Friends have been traveling in the Middle East for the last couple of weeks, spending a few days in Egypt. Were I in their place, I think I'd cut short the visit and get the hell out of Dodge.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 10 Oct 23 - 11:15 AM

I look at the state of the world after Trump was elected and it seems like no-holds-barred has become more of a thing. Trump said he wanted to use the US Army to shoot people at the border, to use them for Martial Law during the George Floyd riots. He said it out loud and the world was listening.

What Hamas has done is terrorism. As details filter through (I don't watch hours of this, it is too awful) clearly civilians were the target. I still don't stand with Israel, but I do support the civilians, especially those who were pushing back against the treatment of the Israeli judiciary and the treatment of Palestinians. Just because the Israeli government has done this doesn't mean Hamas should also do it, but in a tit-for-tat world they are showing Israelis what life is like in the Palestinian territories all of the time. The whole population of those ghettos are in a way hostages, subjected to the whims of the ultra-right political parties.

Putin has to love that all eyes are off of what was that place? Oh, yes - Ukraine. It gives him more freedom to continue his brutality.

Trump is a symptom, not the reason - it has been coming for a long time, as various politicians think they can outsmart the systems in place to get what they want and control everyone else.

I suppose if Iran is giving all of these weapons to Hamas they won't have as many for Russia.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 10 Oct 23 - 12:30 PM

I see on Twitter/X that the Trump juggernaut is swinging for the ditches again - One of the "adult sons" has posted that three weeks ago during the hostage release Biden gave Iran $6B and they're now using it to attack Israel. To say nothing of the impossibility of such a rapid turnaround, people like the Trumps who hate their own country so much that they would make these claims are really scary (because they have followers who listen to this BS).

MSNBC and CNN are wall-to-wall coverage since this all started. It has been pointed out that while Senator Tuberville is blocking promotions of US military officials, Senator Cruz has been blocking the hearings for all diplomatic offices so many are unfilled. There is no US Ambassador to Israel at this point, when it would be helpful.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 10 Oct 23 - 02:59 PM

Israel has turned neighborhoods into rubble and survivors are now sheltering in the UN schools built in Gaza, but they are also being targeted. At least four so far. These buildings are usually neutral shelters. This according to AlJazeera.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 12 Oct 23 - 09:59 PM

The photos coming out of Gaza are dreadful, as are the Israeli photos. Heartbreaking.

Had the Israeli government reigned in the hard right and stopped the constant harassment and killings of Palestinians on their own land, had a two-state peace accord been established, Hamas wouldn't have so many angry young men to draw from.

Netanyahu allowed this to keep festering in order to stay in power. Civilians have died or been maimed in this terrorist act, and the choking off of all access in and out of Gaza guarantees many more will die. Like George W. Bush, Bebe Netanyahu deserves to be called a war criminal. Hamas all need to be treated like the SS in WWII.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 13 Oct 23 - 11:25 AM

No one here says Israelis deserve this horrific attack.

I think it is more accurate to say that the Israeli government set themselves up for this kind of tragic assault after allowing or tolerating the continual sabotage of every previous attempt at peace talks or better yet, forming a two-state solution and giving Palestinians autonomy over their own land and government. Progress would move forward, then a group of "Settlers" would encroach on another Palestinian orchard or village and start building and move in. Or a bomb would go off, sparking fighting. Every single time. This thumb in the eye approach always was enough to stir up Palestinians and fighting again breaks out. Hamas has had a large, captive pool of angry young men to convert to their terrorist ways.

What a small right wing extremist group has been able to do is keep the whole nation from settling on a peaceful coexistence. Much like what a small group of right wing extremists are doing in the US right now. The tail wagging the dog has caused this catastrophic situation, when an emboldened Hamas struck with impunity.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 13 Oct 23 - 09:05 PM

Just. Stop. Don, post facts, stop with the pontificating. Trying to stake a claim on moral high ground isn't going to fly here. Steve, ignore him.

Tonight on a PBS special report Hanan Ashrawi, Palestinian scholar, dignitary and politician, noted that these atrocities of rape and murder happen daily in the Palestinian territories and few notice, but when it happens in Israel, the whole world takes notice. She is correct - there is a war by accretion, the slow deadly force used against the Palestinian population by Israeli police and citizens, a few here, a few there, but no world moral outrage to that.

What happened in Israel isn't justified in any way, even when compared to the assault on Palestinians, as much as some might wish it were so. The old schoolyard adage of "two wrongs don't make a right" applies, as much as any more sophisticated law.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 18 Oct 23 - 10:32 AM

That hospital blast is going to take a forensic examination to identify the source, but it does seem that even Israel in their quest to wipe out Hamas would have taken leave of their collective senses to have intentionally done something so barbarous. Any combatant would be crazy to do that intentionally. Unless maybe it was Putin. I fear all of this attention in Israel lets a true madman go unexamined right now.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 19 Oct 23 - 10:52 AM

An interview with David Kirkpatrick of The New Yorker on Fresh Air on Wednesday included a discussion of his interview with one of the political leaders of Hamas. It's worth a listen; the whole thing is interesting but skip to about 25:00 - there is an awkward transition from the ADF discussion the the Hamas discussion (they overlap, no transition), but it gives more information about what they know about that explosion at the hospital and about the political activity of Hamas.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 21 Oct 23 - 11:25 AM

From Thompson:
"White House walks back Biden's comment agreeing that Israel should delay Gaza ground assault". So America is encouraging the ethnic cleansing followed by lovely beachfront property land grab.

Walking anything back can simply mean they're trying to let behind the scenes diplomacy do its work. You read too much into it.

Backwoodsman quoting Steve:
”The tiresome and widespread use of "innocent" is no more than a tendentious appeal to emotions. The facts of this conflict are terrible enough without our having to resort to that. If you mentally remove the word from the phrase every time you see it, you'll see that the statement in question is just as powerful, if not more so”

And there you go again. The only person who seems to find it tiresome is you. If you were ever a Boy Scout I’ll bet you were the kid who couldn’t March in step.

The trouble is, there are terms that are attached to events or activities and it is difficult to make people even think about what they mean or how they are being overused and take them out of play. "Innocent" is one that jumps out at me; it's more than the overuse of filler words ("just" or "sort of" or "basically"), it's like saying the "plight of" the American Indians or Palestinians, etc. Or always phrasing anything released from North Korea as "bellicose." Rhetorically it is staking a position. (English major rant off)

And Donuel scored a perfect 10 with this one:
Biden is unequivocally in support of Israel not because they do no wrong but because of the terror tactics of Hamas and our hopes for Democracy. He also warns of hate and rage going too far. This position opposes some of the liberal fringe of his own party. In this country that is known as a sister Solja [Soulja] moment. That refers to Bill Clinton separating himself from a radical statement from Ms.Solja.

The difference in 'news feeds' between countries is propaganda that may invisibly steer attitudes. You may think you are thinking for yourself but you could be on a leash you do not see. . .

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 21 Oct 23 - 12:16 PM

The first thing Trump did when he was foisted on the American people in 2017 was to place a ban on Muslim travel to the US. He must have thought he could get away with it because he supported Israel. It was overturned as soon as it could be done legally. In reading the American attitude I would suggest that while there is a general recognition that anti-semitism exists, many Americans make a strong distinction between Jews in general as a religion or a tribe of people, and the Israeli government, which consistently works against its best interest in how it treats Palestinians. The growing understanding of the Palestinian and Muslim position in the world is separate from what is understood about the zealots behind 9-11 terrorism and Isis and Hamas and their ilk.

It is more nuanced and there is a much stronger groundswell of Palestinian support than might appear to the rest of the world. Netanyahu and Hamas are conducting a war that they people they purport to represent want no part of. The growing support of a two-state solution (and are reparations in there?) is on the table for a lot of people here.

Will Biden move the US Embassy back to Tel Aviv? He should, but I don't know if he has the time to address that issue with all else that is going on.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 22 Oct 23 - 12:28 AM

Mr. Cosgrave is correct. If Israel follows through with the proposed invasion or incursion or whatever it calls the plan to assault Gaza, then they are putting civilians in harm's way big time and need to be held accountable for the carnage. For that crime. Hamas isn't going to stick around in the north end of Gaza waiting for Israel to attack, they're going to hide among civilians as they always do.   

Hamas is a terrorist organization and what they did was a terrorist act—their slaughter of Israeli civilians and the taking of hostages are war crimes they need to be held responsible for. That kind of act is never one that will promote cooperation or establish a Palestinian state.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: rich-joy
Date: 09 Oct 23 - 02:02 AM

Sadly agree, Steve Shaw.
Sad for the loss of civilian life, but my immediate thoughts at the news were that Israel had brought it upon themselves. Their govts have treated Palestinians and their "human rights" like shite for so many years and now the chickens have come home to roost.
Sad too that the Aust'n PM and other pollies are vociferously supporting Israel, but then that's not entirely unexpected as criticizing that particular country tends to bring its own load of criticism and retribution :(
But as Aussie Journalist, Caitlin Johnstone, has pointed out, Palestinians are now a population without anything to lose, and it follows that "desperate people ....." etc etc.

Vale, Chance of Peace in the Middle East.

R-J

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: rich-joy
Date: 10 Oct 23 - 03:34 AM

"War ungh, what is it good for ...nothin... "

Ah Donuel, Donuel!    American politicians, bureaucrats, corporation heads, have explained this over and over, particularly with regard to The Ukraine in recent times :

IT MAKES MONEY!!!

( and consequently, some 'people' (a loose description), EVEN RICHER )

That's the reason and The Bottom Line.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 10 Oct 23 - 08:24 AM

Link to the mentioned article US opinion divided amid battle for narrative over Hamas attack on Israel

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 20 Oct 23 - 03:10 PM

Steve:
Three points from today's Guardian live feed:

At least 18 people are reported to have been killed in an Israeli airstrike on a Greek Orthodox church compound in Gaza.

The Palestinian health ministry says 13 people, including five children, were killed after an Israeli assault on the Nur Shams refugee camp in the West Bank.

The UN has also warned that any escalation of military activities in the Gaza Strip would be “catastrophic” for people there.

At least 18 people killed: 13 people 'including 5 children'. That is, by my count, 13. Do you just take all these claims at face value, without any scientific rigour?
Or is it a case of 'any claim by Hamas must be true, any claim by Israel must be false'?

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 20 Oct 23 - 04:50 PM

Steve:
Nigel, read about those two incidents again. They are separate, but you've conflated them. And yet again, try not to let petty details cloud the bigger picture in your mind. Cheers.

With no references to tell us what you're talking about there is nothing to say that those are separate incidents. Your post appeared to be the one conflating them.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Lighter
Date: 11 Oct 23 - 04:33 PM

Israel withdrew its settlements and occupation forces from the Gaza Strip in 2005.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Lighter
Date: 13 Oct 23 - 10:26 AM

Israel is dropping leaflets advising Palestinian civilians to move south from northern Gaza within 24 hours.

Whatever one thinks of that, the leaders of Hamas, "which controls the strip, told residents to stay put, and vowed to fight to the last drop of blood" (Reuters)."

I.e., civilian blood. That's "glory" for you.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Lighter
Date: 14 Oct 23 - 05:52 PM

Not "ethnic cleansing" except by tendentious metaphor.

Israel is required by international law to try to minimize civilian casualties. Advising the populace to run for their lives before an all-out air campaign or a ground invasion may be the most effective way to do it. (Had they *not* given warning, they'd be accused of the merciless killing of civilians.)

When Coalition forces surrounded ISIS in Mosul, a city of 3,000,000 people, they also urged/warned/ordered the civilian population to evacuate. Many did, and their lives were saved.

Of course, whether there should be an invasion at all is another question.

What isn't in question, though is that Hamas, as Gaza's governing authority, is required to at least try to protect its population. Instead it tells them to stay where they are and achieve martyrdom. News reports show that thousands of people are ignoring that request (or "order"; reports are ambiguous). Their lives will likely be saved.


It could be argued that Israel has already pounded Gaza enough to punish Hamas for last weeks pogromic raids, but the level of punishment required to neutralize them is not known. Recall that Hamas's charter demands not just an independent Palestinian state but the "eradication" of Israel and the establishment of fundamentalist Sharia law. To many people that and recent events mean genocide, no metaphor necessary.

Israel talks about eradicating Hamas, not Palestinians. How to do it?

Hamas, of course, could return the hostages right now, no strings attached. (Taking hostages, like singling out civilians for rape and murder, is a recognized war crime.) It could renounce the genocidal clauses of its charter. It could order its soldiers to stand down or even disband its military. It could install leaders ready to negotiate the "two-state solution." In other words, it could surrender right now and dissolve itself.

It hasn't, of course, and won't, even though that would save thousands of lives, promote peace, and Palestinians in Gaza would be better off than they are now.

Or Israel could sit tight and wait for the next round of raids and rain of 5,000 rockets (by Hamas's own count). That would save lives in the very short run and do nothing else - except convince Israelis that their government doesn't care if they're fair game and persuade Iran and others that Israel is too weak and disorganized to go head-to-head.

Unfortunately the civilians involved are compelled to play the hands history dealt them.

According to the proverb, "When the buffaloes fight, the ants are trampled."

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Lighter
Date: 15 Oct 23 - 02:16 PM

We wouldn't like to live like that - or, for that matter, under constant threat like Israelis (which includes Muslims and Christians as well as Jews, because rockets from Hamas and Hizbollah and God forbid, Iran, don't discriminate).

So what? I mean knowing what you and I and millions of others wouldn't like clearly makes no difference.

Maybe a new anti-war song will help. Or (I know!) a religion with eternal punishment for miscreants.

Till then, war is hell on your enemy. That's one reason for its popularity.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Lighter
Date: 15 Oct 23 - 02:36 PM

"... any state that will have them."

Egypt and Jordan and the Arab world generally have wanted nothing to do with them. And here's Iran's chance to show great goodwill toward its co-religionists by settling them there.

It's a little like Jewish refugees after World War II, isn't it? Giving them their own country seemed like the best solution, but, of course, "best" is relative.

BTW, the latest report from CNN is that Hamas has set up barricades and roadblocks to prevent people from leaving. (The more civvy deaths, the worse Israel looks.) But many, thank God, are getting out anyway.

I'd repeat the line about the buffaloes, but it's just too obvious.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Lighter
Date: 15 Oct 23 - 02:47 PM

Thanks for the vote of confidence, Donuel. I try.

Secular pacifist organizations began forming in Europe and America after 1815. Two hundred years later, with probably more people revolted by war than ever, the wars have just become more inhuman.

You don't even have to want a war to get one. Somebody else will provide it.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Lighter
Date: 18 Oct 23 - 04:38 PM

Five years after two nuclear bombs were dropped on Japan, North Korea invaded South Korea. No deterrent there.

The next time one is used, it will virtually normalize the practice.

Leaders start wars because they think they'll win and get what they want.

How does one prevent that? I haven't even mentioned the Kellogg-Briand Pact that supposedly outlawed war in 1928. Three years later one of the signatories, Japan, invaded China. A few years later another signatory, Italy, invaded Ethiopia. In 1939 Germany invaded Poland while a fourth signatory, the USSR, attacked Poland and Finland.

The U.N. was supposed to prevent future wars through negotiation and multilateral deterrence. Didn't happen.

Sorry to sound so negative, but the belief that war in general can be abolished through good will is a triumph of hope over experience.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Lighter
Date: 18 Oct 23 - 09:36 PM

If it was a bomb, where's the crater?

An exploding bomb should leave a twenty-foot-wide crater. A rocket might not leave anything nearly that size, depending on its explosive force. A seemingly undisputed video shows a huge fireball - possibly the result of the combination of the explosives and the unexpended fuel in a malfunctioning rocket. Contrary to what you see in movies, a high-explosive bomb should make a brief flash and clouds of smoke and dust.

The blast affected a parking lot (with lots more gasoline in the parked cars) but did little damage to the hospital itself. Not even Hamas has claimed there was a crater, and Al-Jazeera's overhead photo shows burned-out cars with limited impact to the surface of the lot.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/18/what-is-israels-narrative-on-the-gaza-hospital-explosion

CNN has broadcast a video that it concludes shows a rocket malfunctioning and falling in the vicinity of the lot.

Donal, I'm not any smarter; I've just spent more time studying the general topic.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Lighter
Date: 19 Oct 23 - 12:01 PM

A prompt ceasefire would result if Hamas would come out of their 300 miles of reinforced, sheltering tunnels, lay down their arms, return the hostages.

But they won't. Not when they have more than 5,000 rockets, an army of some 30,000 terrorists (many of whom crave martyrdom), two million human shields, and an expectation of help from Hezbollah and Iran.

For Israel to offer a ceasefire now would be a bit like the Allies offering the Axis a ceasefire in the middle of 1944. Wars end only when one side decides it can no longer win. Look at Wold War I. They had years to agree to a mutually beneficial end to hostilities.

But that would be quitting.

Horrible but true.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Lighter
Date: 19 Oct 23 - 01:52 PM

If they were to do that, Hamas would simply strike again and again. And again, since stopping the campaign would prove that Israel is weak, afraid of to public pressure, frightened of casualties, and, by Hamas's logic, not tough enough to keep killing civilians as they would, have, and are. After all, those Palestinian civilians are martyrs, and what could be better to whip up more support.

Politically, Hamas is 100% responsible for what's happening now. And they're proud of it.

Morally, both sides are murderers, but Israel has the unassailable argument of self defense, which based on past experience requires the eradication of the political domination Hamas over Gaza. Hamas, in contrast, demands the eradication of the State of Israel and the "removal" of Israeli Jews. Hamas even kicked Fatah out of Gaza because Fatah was amenable to the co-existence of Israel and a Palestinian state.

Anyone who thinks Hamas is morally superior (like the Harvard students who are today accusing Barack Obama of genocide) is welcome to that opinion; but superior based on what values? Very few that civilized human beings anywhere would endorse.

I believe that Israel is clearly the lesser of the two evils. Of course, from a purely humanitarian viewpoint, the lesser of two is often still pretty bad. But it remains the lesser.

Take Iran and the U.S. and everyone else out of the equation. What would change? Both sides have the will, the weapons, and the public support to wreak havoc on each other. Hamas has decreed, in its own charter, an absolute zero-sum game, and it wants Israel to play.

We can shout all we like. It doesn't matter. Workable solutions welcome.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Lighter
Date: 19 Oct 23 - 03:48 PM

What happened in 1948 or 1848 or 48 BC explains the origin of the situation and no more.

You mean if you'd survived of the Holocaust and heard you could settle safely in a Jewish state guaranteed by the United Nations where there'd be no more pogroms, you wouldn't go?

Perhaps you're fixing blame on the U.N. or the British? And don't forget the five Arab armies that attempted to eradicate Israel as soon as it was proclaimed, putting it in a permanently defensive position?

Don't bother. All the people who created Israel as a legal entity, recognized as such by nearly every nation in the world, are long gone. They're beyond the reach of Palestinian rage. Those Arab armies are gone too.

Yet Hamas (and others) want to destroy today's Israel and kill, rape, and torture Israeli Jews (and others) who are alive and living peaceable lives today. Cost in Palestinian lives no object. Hamas want a Muslim state under a fascist Hamas regime. No rights for women or sexual minorities, by the way. No "two-state solution." No compromise. Elimination, not negotiation.

You don't get much more evil than that, no matter what your claimed justification.

But as I said, while shouting and pointing fingers feels good, it's a waste of time, because each side is determined to destroy the other. Calling down a pox on both is equally meaningless.

Workable solutions are still welcome. Got one?

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Lighter
Date: 20 Oct 23 - 01:26 PM

Hamas has announced it will release two (American) hostages.

Now let's have the rest of them.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Lighter
Date: 20 Oct 23 - 03:44 PM

And presuming the localities really were struck by Israeli ordnance (a highly questionable assumption at this point) doesn't entail that any of them were calculated acts by genocidal fiends. Even smart bombs go awry about 5% of the time.

With all the violence that's going on, arguments about whether Israel blew up a church at a distance or whether Hamas beheaded a baby during its murder/ torture/ raping/ kidnapping spree seem to me to evade the main issues.

As for innocent victims (of which there are and will be plenty), probably a million, not thousands, of civilians died at Allied hands in putting an end to the German fascists and the Japanese warlords.

What was the alternative? A Nobel Peace Prize to the theorist who comes up with a good one.

And, yeah, it all sucks. I agree with that. Since religion doesn't work, maybe righteous indignation, or good vibrations and happy thoughts will fix it.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Lighter
Date: 21 Oct 23 - 09:55 AM

Those incidents are private-sector actions which have nothing to do with the guarantee of "free speech." Free speech means the government can't shut you up. Moreover, anyone who's fired for their ethnicity or has grounds for a significant lawsuit.

Free speech allowed students at Harvard, for example, to demonstrate against Barack Obama a few days ago, chanting "Barry, Barry, you can't hide! We charge you with genocide!" because his administration had supported Israel.


https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2023/10/19/harvard-die-in-palestine/
Meanwhile, at a different level:

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/tlaib-refuses-apologize-blaming-israel-gaza-hospital-blast/story?id=104085727

Constitutionally guaranteed free speech is not under threat in the United States.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Lighter
Date: 21 Oct 23 - 09:59 AM

Of course that should read

" https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2023/10/19/harvard-die-in-palestine/


"Meanwhile, at a different level:"

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Thompson
Date: 08 Oct 23 - 06:59 AM

Amazing (or perhaps not) that Biden is backing revenge attacks by Israel.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Thompson
Date: 11 Oct 23 - 04:12 PM

I'm all for supporting Israel - there's something wonderful and romantic about supporting the most driven-away people in the worle in their effort to make a new country - as long as Palestine is also supported, and illegal settlements stealing other people's homes and farms are suppressed.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Thompson
Date: 17 Oct 23 - 02:48 AM

I assume that Israel's coming assault on Gaza - sorry "assault on Hamas" - is another land grab: the people of Gaza are being driven out and will never return home. Nice bit of seashore there.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Thompson
Date: 19 Oct 23 - 01:13 AM

Hamas' brief invasion of Israel was hideous, unspeakable cruelty.
Israel's response is a land grab. If they go into Gaza, they'll consider it their land now. There will be settlers moving in before you can say knife.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Thompson
Date: 20 Oct 23 - 01:35 AM

Heard an Israeli this morning saying their army would go in and "destroy Hamas".
How is an army supposed to find guerrillas? They're fighting ghosts.
The invasion is going to be a slaughter of already dying people.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Thompson
Date: 20 Oct 23 - 05:36 PM

Again, it's a land grab.
Israel's behaviour is uncannily similar to that of the English in Ireland in the 16th and 17th centuries (the most famous example being Cromwell, who gave well-off Irish landowners the stark choice "To Hell or to Connacht" - in other words, be killed or go to the poorest land).
Israel is successively clearing Palestinians from their land and "planting" it (as used to be said in Ireland) with Israelis. Today, apart from the continued bombing of Gaza, 27 people were killed in the West Bank. Local people on TV said "settlers" nearby continually stone people picking their olives or farming; today Israeli forces came in and killed.
It's kind of astonishing to see western governments, including that of America which historically sheltered so many refugees, backing the Plantation of Palestine.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Thompson
Date: 21 Oct 23 - 02:09 AM

The Guardian is saying this morning that "White House walks back Biden's comment agreeing that Israel should delay Gaza ground assault". So America is encouraging the ethnic cleansing followed by lovely beachfront property land grab.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Thompson
Date: 21 Oct 23 - 02:16 AM

Meanwhile on the West Bank: Angels of Peace invaded the the Bedouin village of Ein Rashash in the West Bank and drove out its Bedoin inhabitants.

From The Guardian:

The tiny settlement overlooking the Bedouin village of Ein Rashash is named “Angels of Peace”, but, says Sliman al-Zawahri, its residents have visited only violence, fear and despair on his family.

This week the Bedouin community packed up most of their belongings and drove all the women, children and elderly people from the West Bank ridge they had called home for nearly four decades, perched above a spring and beside an archaeological site…

“They came into the village and destroyed houses and sheep pens, beat an 85-year-old man, scared our children. Slowly our lives became unlivable.”

…This was not an individual tragedy. Men from Angels of Peace are part of a broad, violent and very successful political project to expand Israeli control of the West Bank that has accelerated, say activists, since the 7 October attacks by Hamas launched a war with Israel.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Thompson
Date: 21 Oct 23 - 11:54 AM

Harvard students have lost job offers because of opposition to Israel's genocide.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Thompson
Date: 21 Oct 23 - 06:10 PM

I read that in Gaza, children are writing their names on the palms of their hands, so they can be identified if killed.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Thompson
Date: 21 Oct 23 - 11:01 PM

There's an international tech gathering called the Web Summit that's been going for years, started and run by a man called Paddy Cosgrave.
This week Cosgrave has resigned as CEO after multiple withdrawals from this year's summit by individuals such as actress Gillian Anderson and entities such as Intel, Siemens, Google, Meta and Amazon because of remarks he made about the Gaza invasion.
What he tweeted was this: “War crimes are war crimes even when committed by allies, and should be called out for what they are.” He added that he was “shocked at the rhetoric and actions of so many western leaders and governments, with the exception in particular of Ireland’s Government, who for once are doing the right thing”. In a subsequent post, he added the actions of Hamas were “outrageous and disgusting”.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 09 Oct 23 - 06:28 AM

Just on BBC News that a ‘total blockade’ has been declared by the Israelis on the Gaza Strip. God help the 2 million-or-so ordinary Palestinians who live there.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 10 Oct 23 - 10:51 AM

Israel’s ‘total blockade’ of Gaza - obviously designed to cause starvation, amongst all of its other effects - must surely be a ‘crime against humanity’, and against international law? So why aren’t other nations speaking out against it?

https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/customary-ihl/v1/rule53#:~:text=that%20cause%20starvation-,Rule%2053.,method%20of%20warfare%20is%20prohibited.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 14 Oct 23 - 01:16 PM

His name is Benjamin Netanyahu. FFS stop calling him ‘Bibi’ - it makes him sound like somebody’s cuddly pet poodle instead of the vicious, snarling attack-dog he actually is.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 14 Oct 23 - 05:27 PM

Your choice, definitely not mine. I know all about his nickname, but I refuse to humanise him by using it. The only nickname he deserves is ‘Murdering Arse-hole’.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 14 Oct 23 - 05:41 PM

I’ll take that, Gilly.

Although, as Steve so rightly says, there are no good guys in this - not on either side. I feel for the innocent civilians, both Israeli and Gazan, whose lives are being destroyed by violence.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 20 Oct 23 - 08:22 AM

Spot on Dave. Religion is the ultimate control mechanism.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 20 Oct 23 - 03:36 PM

It would be a great improvement if Steve would give links to the sources of his claims so that we could read and verify them for ourselves.

It’s really not difficult, even my wife’s 10-year-old great-niece can do it.

Mudcat Simple Linkifier

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 20 Oct 23 - 04:02 PM

Dave, there’s more than enough dis- and mis-information flying about in this tragic situation, and it seems perfectly reasonable to ask that statements posted as ‘facts’ are supported by a link to the source - it’s accepted Best Practice on internet forums.

No ‘scoring petty points’, simply a request for a means of substantiation of claims that are made here, that’s all.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 21 Oct 23 - 03:17 AM

”I click on links here all the time, especially from one particular poster, that are nearly always a flippant waste of time, John, but I don't hear you moaning about those.

You don’t hear me moaning because I don’t see those links (and, if I do, I don’t click on them) because I follow my own advice which I’ve repeatedly given you - I ignore his posts, I don’t read them, i don’t comment, I just scroll past them. You should try doing the same.

”I keep asking that we stick to the issue, I don't know how many times. If you haven't anything to say, it seems, you'll say something offensive and off-topic.”

I post when I feel I can add to the discussion. My earlier post referring to ‘innocent Gazans’ resulted in excoriation of the use of the word ‘innocent’. That kind of unnecessary, unjustified and, dare I say it, offensive criticism tends to dissipate one’s enthusiasm for contributing to threads and, as a result, I’ve refrained from commenting. However, I still read what others post.

There is nothing ‘offensive’ or ‘off-topic’ in asking that statements purporting to reflect ‘facts’ are supported by a link to the source. It’s perfectly normal practice, and it’s good manners. I provide links where appropriate on my own posts, and I really don’t understand how you can justify claiming that it’s ‘offensive’ to request that others do the same.

”Please let's just comment about the substantive issue to hand.”

I completely agree, I’ve said all I need to say, and I won’t be commenting further.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 21 Oct 23 - 04:57 AM

”The tiresome and widespread use of "innocent" is no more than a tendentious appeal to emotions. The facts of this conflict are terrible enough without our having to resort to that. If you mentally remove the word from the phrase every time you see it, you'll see that the statement in question is just as powerful, if not more so”

And there you go again. The only person who seems to find it tiresome is you. If you were ever a Boy Scout I’ll bet you were the kid who couldn’t March in step.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 21 Oct 23 - 05:19 AM

I’m sure they were delighted you didn’t. And who’s this ‘God’ character you’re invoking? ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 21 Oct 23 - 05:38 AM

”As for marching in step, heed the wise words of Henry Thoreau:

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.”

Instilled in me as a life-long guiding principle by my old father. You’re preaching to the converted. ;-)

But being the only one who finds a particular word ‘irritating’ doesn’t make you ‘right’, it just makes you ‘right AFAYC’, and adds no weight whatsoever to your argument against its use.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 21 Oct 23 - 08:20 AM

”You agreed that we should stick to the point. I suppose that's why you've posted six times in a row without mentioning the conflict. :-)”

Why should you always have the last word? ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 21 Oct 23 - 11:54 AM

I’m inclined to feel that world leaders - Biden, Sunak, et al - feel constrained to a great extent over what they can say publically by the ‘new’ definition of Anti-semitism, highly-spun as it is in favour of the Israeli regime, and which makes criticism of the regime virtually impossible on the (dubious, IMHO) grounds of being ‘Anti-Semitic’.

And I’m inclined to believe that comments they make in private conversations with the Israel leadership are almost certainly at odds with their public statements.

At least, I hope so…

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 21 Oct 23 - 02:14 PM

From BWM…

”Although, as Steve so rightly says, there are no good guys in this - not on either side. I feel for the innocent civilians, both Israeli and Gazan, whose lives are being destroyed by violence.”

From SRS…

”Backwoodsman quoting Steve:
”The tiresome and widespread use of "innocent" is no more than a tendentious appeal to emotions. The facts of this conflict are terrible enough without our having to resort to that. If you mentally remove the word from the phrase every time you see it, you'll see that the statement in question is just as powerful, if not more so”

And there you go again. The only person who seems to find it tiresome is you. If you were ever a Boy Scout I’ll bet you were the kid who couldn’t March in step.

The trouble is, there are terms that are attached to events or activities and it is difficult to make people even think about what they mean or how they are being overused and take them out of play. "Innocent" is one that jumps out at me; it's more than the overuse of filler words ("just" or "sort of" or "basically"), it's like saying the "plight of" the American Indians or Palestinians, etc. Or always phrasing anything released from North Korea as "bellicose." Rhetorically it is staking a position. (English major rant off)”

Point well made, Maggie, and taken.

However, although I’m tired of this nonsense and have no wish to drag it on, I do have to say that, in the instance of my reference to ‘innocent civilians, both Israeli and Gazan’, I thought it was pretty obvious from the context that the intended meaning of ‘innocent’ was ‘innocent of taking part in the violence being committed by the Israeli regime and Hamas’.

Obviously I didn’t make that clear enough for some, but hey, can’t win ‘em all… ;-)

Gentle, bijou rantette over. Back to the scheduled programs….

Subject: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 Oct 23 - 07:03 PM

We don't discuss Israel/Palestine here these days very much, but I think that today's events deserve a thread, maybe. I posted this on the non-covid news thread but there's not much of a pointer there to specific issues such as this one, so I thought I'd start this.

Here's my post from that thread:

"The EU and the US have immediately condemned Hamas and sided with Israel. That's disgusting. I don't like what Hamas are doing but I'm not going to forget the dreadful things visited on the Palestinians over the last few decades, and, more specifically and relevantly in this instance, to Gaza, which get a free pass from Israel's chief ally. Two and a quarter million civilians blockaded into a stinking ghetto, deprived of proper medical care and even of decent drinking water by the Israeli regime. It's new news and it's bloody bad news. Sickening."

I don't know what prompted Hamas to start this action against Israel, but terrible consequences, mostly for the citizens of Gaza, are almost inevitable. What I don't like even more than Hamas's attack is the kneejerk response of western governments who are all too prepared to ignore the context of the last half-century or more and, specifically, the inhuman treatment of the two million-plus citizens of Gaza in the last fifteen years by the Israeli regimes. The theft of the best land in the occupied areas of Israel and the construction of illegal settlements, virtually unchallenged by western nations and the EU, is an issue perhaps not directly connected to Hamas but which is a running sore for all Palestinians in any case.

Anyway, the whole bloody thing depresses me. There are no good guys in all this. Enough from me for now.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 08 Oct 23 - 03:49 AM

Hezbollah are getting involved on the Lebanon border. That's ominous. Hezbollah usually refrain from direct military involvement in the Israel/Palestine conflict. The Israeli regime is going to cut off power and other supplies to Gaza. So that's two million civilians punished.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 08 Oct 23 - 12:35 PM

Whilst I know that the majority of Israeli citizens support their regime, I feel sorry for them. I wouldn't want to live in a country in which you're scared for yourself and your loved ones and in which you might be afraid to sleep at night. Good governments should have the pursuit of peace, security and prosperity at the top of their agenda for their citizens. What a shame that successive Israeli regimes never afford those things for the Palestinian citizens in their country. As you imply, Bill, the pro-Israel lobby in the US is mighty powerful and it behoves your politicians to kowtow if they wish to survive. That's one of the main reasons why there's no peace process, no good will and no end in sight. Needless to say, we all know who suffers the most, and it's generally not the ones with guns and bombs in their hands.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 08 Oct 23 - 07:03 PM

From the Guardian.

The US announced it was sending military support to Israel and strengthening its naval and air force presence in the region amid widespread condemnation of the Hamas attack on Israeli civilians, and as the UN warned the region was on a “dangerous precipice”.

Joe Biden told Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday that “additional assistance for the Israel Defence Forces is now on its way to Israel with more to follow over the coming days”, according to a White House account of the conversation. The US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, said the military support would include “equipment and resources, including munitions”.

Austin also announced that the USS Gerald Ford aircraft carrier and its strike group of warships including guided missile destroyers would be deployed farther east in the Mediterranean while US air force squadrons of fighter planes around the region would be augmented, in what he portrayed as a show of deterrence.

“The US maintains ready forces globally to further reinforce this deterrence posture if required,” the defence secretary said.

Great. Another proxy war then. :-(

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 09 Oct 23 - 07:06 AM

No water, no food, no electricity, no escape. Hundreds, maybe thousands, injured who can't be properly treated in hospitals. It's about 17 years since there have been elections in Gaza and it's a fair bet that most Gazans don't support Hamas. On the contrary, they probably live in constant fear of them. Yet the Israeli regime has no compunction in punishing every single citizen of Gaza. All I'm hearing from western politicians is that Israel has been attacked by "terrorists" and that Israel "has every right to defend itself." The disgusting Rachel Reeves was among them this morning. Not a single word against the Israeli regime's repeated outrages against Palestinians. Well Israel has one of the world's biggest armies (bankrolled by the US and for a population the size of Scotland's) and Gaza hasn't got an army. You can't be a terrorist if you have an army, but if you fight back, without an army, after year after year of blockade and repression, and seeing your fellow Palestinians under illegal occupation being hounded out from their own best territory in the West Bank, you must be a terrorist. Have I got that right, d'you think?

As with the civil war in Syria, there are no good guys in this. Just stop shooting, release all your hostages and political prisoners and take a step back from revenge attacks. No more blockades, no more giving Hamas the pretext for attacks. I hear that the IDF has managed to kill some of its own, who were being held hostage, during attacks on Gaza. Great. :-(

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 09 Oct 23 - 07:19 AM

From the Guardian:

Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) says that it has conducted a few surgeries at Al-Awda hospital and is about to send medical supplies to the ministry of health in Gaza.

“Health facilities need this equipment because of the many injured patients,” said Ayman Al-Djaroucha, MSF deputy coordinator in Gaza. “Hospitals are overcrowded with injured people, there is a shortage of drugs and consumables and a shortage of fuel for generators.”

“Ambulances can’t be used right now because they’re being hit by airstrikes,” said Darwin Diaz, medical coordinator for MSF in Gaza.

MSF has “asked all parties to respect the sanctity of medical facilities, vehicles and personnel”.

But if you deprive hospitals of the wherewithal to treat civilian casualties and you bomb ambulances, you can't be a terrorist because you have a big army.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 09 Oct 23 - 09:45 AM

Hamas definitely know what they are doing. They know that Gaza citizens will be killed in droves. You start a war, you will bring devastation on your own people. Thousands of Russians are going home in body bags. Tens of thousands of Americans died in Vietnam. I don't know what Hamas are trying to do, but we do know that an escalation will bring in other countries. The US is sending more weapons. Hezbollah are waiting in the wings and if they join in they'll get weapons from Iran, who are in cahoots with Putin. Hamas alone don't have the power to go alone, but dragging other countries in will be one of their aims, I'm sure. In the last couple of days, antisemitism has been on the rise in the west. In the next few months, as western countries side with Israel there will be terrorist attacks all over the place. We need to insist on restraint, make our assistance conditional on the withdrawal of aggression, and we need Hamas's allies to do the same. Sounds like a mountain to climb.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Oct 23 - 08:02 AM

The White House has called the attack by Hamas "unprovoked." That is simply farcical, risible, ridiculous. I mean, don't we regard decades of violent incursions, blockading, discrimination, repression and land theft against Palestinians "provocation?" Have Biden and company been seeing the world through blinkers all that time? Whatever we think of the action of Hamas, there's no need for us to tell the big lie that this has come unprovoked. By all mean argue that the action was unjustified by its nature, but "unprovoked" is just deluded.

Have a read about this:

US opinion divided amid battle for narrative over Hamas attack on Israel
[Chris McGreal
in New York]. (The Guardian)

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Oct 23 - 10:54 AM

Because the US is in Israel's pocket and the rest of the west follow like sheep.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Oct 23 - 11:40 AM

I can't deny that what Hamas has done comes under the accepted definition of terrorism. I would just say that's it's a pretty loaded word to use and it is used to deflect us, in this case, from thinking about the serial atrocities committed over decades by successive Israeli regimes. So many of those atrocities would equally come under the heading of terrorism (I won't bother listing them) as long as we regard it as possible that states with powerful armies also commit terrorism. No-one here, for example, would argue against the opinion that Putin is guilty of terrorist acts against civilians. I have no wish to use whataboutery to justify what Hamas has done, not for a split second. But let's at least see the context for what's going on here. It isn't exactly something that started the day before yesterday, is it? By the way, deliberately starving civilians and cutting off their water and power are war crimes, as is the indiscriminate shelling of buildings in extremely crowded residential areas. I think I'd call that terrorism too. No good guys in this, eh?

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Oct 23 - 02:22 PM

Well Israel may well have "given up control" of Gaza almost 20 years ago ( by withdrawing, so that they can claim not to be "occupying" the territory (a piece of arrant nonsense parroted by our shadow chancellor yesterday - if you control the borders with an iron grip and decide what goes in and who is allowed in and out, of course you're occupying it).

A two-state solution is impossible for two reasons. First, what might have formed a Palestinian state has been broken into pieces via the proliferation of illegal settlements in the West Bank. There's no viable contiguous territory any more. Second, there is no peace process. Arguably, there never has been a serious one, but such a process is as far away as ever. We have an extreme right-wing, racist regime in Israel that has, in all but name, created an apartheid state, and we have a completely hopeless geriatric in charge of the PA who makes very unwise antisemitic mutterings, on top of his incompetence. Oh, then there's Hamas. Let's not pretend that we can leave them out. And do we really want to create a pair of enemy states sharing a border?

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Oct 23 - 07:11 PM

Taking sides and assigning blame is an extremely facile take on this situation. I haven't seen anyone here doing that so far. If you respond in that way to the events of the last few days and ignore history, sure, you'll do the black-and-white thing and take sides and assign blame. There's far too much going on here to make that simplistic decision.

Hamas are in charge in Gaza because Netanyahu wants them in charge. There is a huge rift between Hamas and the PA, which provides a permanent divide-and-rule setup for Bibi. He blockades Gaza but not the West Bank or East Jerusalem. He knows that the PA doesn't really mind the blockade too much. These are his calculations and he's on record as having said these things.

The current blockade goes back 17 years and has resulted in the trashing of the Gaza economy. During or just before that time there have been numerous incursions into Gaza, involving the bulldozing of homes, the shelling of schools, hospitals and water infrastructure and the deaths of hundreds of civilians, including many children. White phosphorus flares have been used to illuminate civilian buildings to make the shelling easier. Children have been murdered by snipers on the border. In the West Bank, Arab communities have been persecuted and often driven out of their homes. The discrimination has involved harmless civilians being detained at checkpoints sometimes for days at a time. The best land and the best water supplies have been stolen in order to build illegal settlements for Jewish citizens only. There have been recent provocations at the Al-Aqsa mosque by Jews going in to pray, which is currently not permitted.

All this is terrible and the history is peppered with atrocities. At the same time, Hamas has fired thousands of rockets into Israel, until now a largely ineffectual response. What Hamas have just perpetrated is truly terrible and every news bulletin shows it to be worse by the hour. I can't think that any sane person, even on the Palestinian side, would justify the specific actions this week of Hamas gunmen in Israel.

The history of this conflict has always made me more sympathetic to the plight, and plight it is, of the Palestinians in Israel and Gaza. This revolting action by Hamas, were I being simplistic, might have caused that to evaporate. But here's a thought: if Hamas can be like this now, what must life have been like for the civilians of Gaza in the last 17 years? Do the people there actually support Hamas? I severely doubt it, though there are never elections to decide it. So your house, your school, your hospital and maybe even your family are destroyed, and you might be thinking, what have I ever done to deserve this? The people in southern Israel might be thinking the same thing. Well it looks certain that there's a lot more of it to come. Pity the poor civilians. I don't know who to blame and the only "side" I'm taking is the side of ordinary non-combatants caught up in all this. And even my analysis is too simplistic.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 11 Oct 23 - 05:33 AM

The first victim of war is the death toll and the misery inflicted on non-combatants. Stay grounded rather than trying to be over-clever. You might care to consult a good dictionary as to the meaning of "facile."

Netanyahu is facing a dilemma. Go ahead with your ground invasion and thousands of civilians will die just as horribly as Israelis did at the hands of Hamas. Don't do it and he looks feeble, not least because of the apocalyptic threats he's already made. He's in trouble already at home because he failed to see this coming and he thinks he needs the invasion to shore himself up. A bloody invasion, and it will be bloody because Hamas are ready, is likely to lose him most of the (undeserved) respect in the west he currently enjoys. Hamas don't care about reputations because their only allies are steeped in unshakeable shit-on-the-west ideology. It's so easy for western leaders to rattle on about the heinous crimes of Hamas (and they are heinous, we see it graphically on our screens constantly and we don't need them to keep telling us that) and how they are standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Israel, conveniently ignoring the whole of history since 1948. I've yet to see a single wise head that can have any influence. If there's a God, he isn't in Israel or Gaza.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 11 Oct 23 - 07:55 AM

Another good Guardian read with some interesting takes on the present and future:

I was in Israel when Hamas attacked – now we must reflect on the senselessness of killing and being killed

(Daphna Baram)

[Daphna Baram is a Jerusalem-born former human rights lawyer, journalist and standup comedian, and a PhD researcher at Lancaster University. Her book Disenchantment: the Guardian and Israel was published in 2004 (Guardian Books)]

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 11 Oct 23 - 12:26 PM

I find it all very sad.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 11 Oct 23 - 04:47 PM

Whilst that's true, the theft of land in the West Bank has gone on unabated and has all but ended any hope of a two-state solution (which was actually the idea). As I've said before, just because you withdraw your troops and remove your settlers doesn't mean that Gaza isn't occupied. You control what or who goes in and out, you destroy their infrastructure, you wreck their economy, you make regular military incursions and you impose a 17-year blockade. That may not add up to occupation to you, but it does to me.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 11 Oct 23 - 05:08 PM

I don't think that hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who were driven out of their homeland in order for that new country to be made would have found it wonderful and romantic, Thompson.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 12 Oct 23 - 11:59 AM

The English Football Association (FA) has refused to allow the Wembley stadium arch to be lit up in Israeli flag colours at a friendly match on Friday evening. They are banning flags and other regalia representing both Israel and Palestine in the stadium, though there will be a minute's silence in memory of ALL the victims of the conflict and black armbands will be worn by the players. I think that's excellent. Of course, the Board of Deputies don't think so at all and have excoriated the FA for making this brave and completely impartial stand. What a disgrace. Even Starmer wants the arch to be lit up. Sheesh.

From the Guardian: ...the cricketer Moeen Ali [England's vice-captain] has indicated his support for Palestinians as Israel sets out to “crush and destroy” the Hamas operation in the Gaza Strip, posting an image of their flag on Instagram alongside a quote attributed to the American Muslim human rights activist Malcolm X which read: “If you’re not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.”

Exactly.

I believe that Moeen has now removed the post.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 12 Oct 23 - 12:08 PM

447 children have been killed in Gaza by Israeli air-strikes.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 12 Oct 23 - 04:19 PM

"The number of Palestinians killed has risen to 1,537, according to Gaza’s health ministry. That includes 500 children and 276 women, it said."

That was the Guardian 15 minutes ago as I type. I'm wondering how killing all those children and women is helping to satisfy the need for self-defence...

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 12 Oct 23 - 07:51 PM

Well I've mentioned body counts in two posts, both of citizens of Gaza. I think that there is a lot more than a battle of body counts and it wasn't my intention to turn it into that. Plenty of my posts to this thread have focused on the complexities of this conflict and the need to not ignore history. I realise that dwelling on body counts is a rather loaded and crude way of characterising war, but just a couple of things. First, my sympathies are with non-combatant civilians on both sides: I have no sympathies whatsoever with either Hamas or Netanyahu, not a scrap. Second, there's a huge and understandable emphasis in our mass media, understandably, on the horrors perpetrated by Hamas on Israeli citizens. After all, it was they who were attacked. What I'm not seeing anywhere near as much of is comment on the indiscriminate and utterly inhuman nature of the retaliation by the Israeli regime. Whole civilian neighbourhoods in Gaza are being shelled and razed, with not a care for the ordinary people who are literally trapped there. Hundreds of women, children and non-combatant men killed. A blockade which is going to starve people of food and water. No heat or light, no cooking of the rapidly-diminishing supplies of food. A hospital running out of power, medicines and beds which is now little more than a massive refugee camp. I see the stale old lie about human shields popping up again, as if you could somehow avoid being near civilians in the most overcrowded place on earth.

I could mention women being raped, babies beheaded and bodies ripped apart, hostages taken. We've seen those revolting sights on our tellies all week. When it comes to Gaza, we see lots of bomb explosions and collapsed buildings but we see less of those human stories (though the BBC tries hard). I think it's important that we see the scale of the killing in Gaza and that much of that horror is little more than tit-for-tat revenge slaughter, little to do with self-defence. Both sides are committing war crimes with apparent impunity - both. Body counts do matter a little bit too.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 13 Oct 23 - 05:51 AM

The UK government, if you can call it that, turns a very determined blind eye to the destruction and death of civilians in Gaza whilst asserting Israel's right to "defend itself." By any measure, both sides are guilty of war crimes. Bibi has the west in his pocket and I can't see him ever being prosecuted for war crimes. To put it mildly, I'm not very impressed by your man Blinken in all this. This morning we had a UK cabinet minister, Grant Shapps, declaring that Israel has every right, etc. etc., literally not a word of criticism, and he repeatedly refused to address the sheer impossibility of moving a million people from Gaza City in 24 hours. The roads are blocked by debris, many people have no means of transport, there are thousands of people immobilised by injuries and they are running out of food and water. All credit to the BBC interviewer Mishal Hussain for pinning him down. The interview for Shapps was a total car-crash. It was on BBC Radio 4's Today programme at about 8.10 am UK time.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 13 Oct 23 - 07:22 AM

That post was directed at Donuel. And I have to tell him that I've been through this thread with a fine-tooth comb just now and I found that, far from 18, there's just one single post that implies that Israel "had it coming." In fact, the whole thread has been conducted in a commendably measured tone when you consider the inflammatory tone of some earlier threads on Israel. With the egregious exception of Piers Morgan, the Question Time Panel on the BBC last night did similarly. Let's keep it that way and let's not make it personal.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 13 Oct 23 - 11:08 AM

As I've said, Lighter, asking a million people to move is an impossible ask. The roads in urban areas are blocked by rubble, many people have no transport and there's no petrol. People in hospitals and those incapacitated by injury can't move. I don't understand the injunction from Hamas, but Israeli forces should not be shelling civilian areas whether vacated or not. That is categorised as a war crime. It's easy enough to look that up.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 13 Oct 23 - 11:59 AM

"Hamas has had a large, captive pool of angry young men to convert to their terrorist ways."

More than a grain of truth here. Those angry young men are captives in two senses, first by being blockaded inside Gaza, second, by the authoritarian, grooming and twisted ideology of Hamas. The poisoned icing on the cake is that they have also suffered, in many cases for most of their lives, from the deprivations visited on them by the cruel actions of successive Israeli regimes. That all created a powder keg. This can be an explanation of what's just happened, at least in part, though in no way meant as any sort of justification for the brutality we've just seen. The angry young men in the occupied West Bank are also discriminated against but they are in no way in the same boat as the Gazans.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 13 Oct 23 - 01:50 PM

"I cannot deny that there is a global right-wing narrative that Israel/the Jews got what they asked for."

That's as maybe (and there's a left-wing narrative too), but that sentiment is not reflected in the posts to this thread. The other posters here have been restrained and balanced in setting that tone. In addition, the rest of us are actually discussing the substantive of the current crisis. Personally, I don't know anyone who is pro-war but there are many different opinions about the opposition to war. Yours is just one of them and, in my view, pacifists don't have a monopoly on what constitutes the most moral position.

"To declare there is no anti-Semitism 'here' strikes me as a peacekeeping gesture and not a reality"

Not one scrap of antisemitism has been expressed in this thread. Just a reminder that it's perfectly possible to criticise the actions of the Israeli regime without attracting accusations of antisemitism. I'd like to suggest that we shelve any more insinuations of antisemitism in this thread until it arises. Just a thought.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Oct 23 - 04:05 AM

Well that's right. If a plane full of passengers crashes and kills a couple of hundred people, it's banner headlines. The same number of people die on UK roads every month, one or two at a time, but they just scrape into local papers.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Oct 23 - 07:42 AM

Both sides have committed war crimes and no-one is taking the high road. Netanyahu has pledged to destroy Hamas completely. He's got to be kidding. Unless he ethnically cleanses the whole of Gaza (he appears already to be trying to do that in the northern half, another war crime underway), Hamas will just renew itself via its radicalised young generation of men, and there's plenty of outside help. Hamas have networks of tunnels and bunkers and will mine areas likely to be attacked by an IDF ground force. Bibi is right about one thing if he goes ahead: this is only the beginning. If it happens, a lot of Israeli families will be getting their loved ones home in body bags. He can't go on blaming Hamas for every single death for ever. I think that a ground invasion, as well as being bloody, will inflict a heavy political price on him, quite likely fatal.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Oct 23 - 07:57 AM

Sorry, me again. Another take on a similar theme:

Netanyahu told 1.1 million Palestinians they had 24 hours to evacuate. What is that if not ethnic cleansing?
Sarah Helm

(From the Guardian)

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Oct 23 - 03:59 PM

Bibi is his childhood nickname. In Israeli culture, including politics, informality is the way to go. Bibi is not a term of endearment, rather it's an example of levelling-down (if you want to put it that way). I hear what you say, but context is everything. If I refer to him as Bibi, you may rest assured that I'm not being affectionate. More of a trivialisation, actually.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 15 Oct 23 - 06:58 AM

This is not the evacuation of a city. It's the evacuation of half of Gaza so that Israel can destroy it. The Israeli regime wants there to be nothing left for the million-plus evacuees to go home to. The area has already been largely devastated and that will continue. Hamas can't be eliminated. That's no more than a bogus reason for continuing with the destruction. As we speak, the evil that has descended on two million trapped Palestinians is radicalising a new generation. You don't make millions of refugees without creating new enemies, and enemies without an army will turn to what we call terrorism. There are outside forces in Lebanon and Iran especially that will make sure that Israel can never find peace in the way they're supposedly trying to achieve it. We could hope that this current disaster will eventually spawn a peace movement in Israel as the ordinary people see what their leaders are bringing down on them. Before that, who's to say that there won't be an uprising in the West Bank as the people there see their brethren in Gaza being persecuted and slaughtered. As Bibi said, this is only the beginning, and the blinkered leaders of the west are conniving in the disaster.

When I say we shouldn't ignore history, however badly Hamas are behaving (and their actions are completely disgusting by any standard, no matter how provoked they were), we should remember that every Palestinian citizen in Gaza is either a refugee or the descendant of refugees. Almost a million were thrown out of their towns and villages, in actions aided and abetted by terrorist gangs, to make way for the new state of Israel. Some of those devastated villages are so close to the blockaded Gaza border that the Gaza internees can see them every day through the wire fence. We in the west can pontificate at our safe distance about "how Israel has every right to defend itself" when we could be asking ourselves instead, how would I like to live like that?

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 15 Oct 23 - 07:10 AM

As we don't agree with the death penalty, by the way, we should stop calling civilians "innocent." I've spent much of my life being not particularly innocent when it comes to this, that and the other, flawed human being that I am. If I'm murdered in my sleep by a terrorist, never having raised a fist in anger all my life, I don't suddenly become innocent. On the other hand, just because I'm not innocent doesn't mean I deserve to die in that way. Non-combatants, ordinary people, or simply "civilians" do it for me.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 15 Oct 23 - 04:35 PM

Sorry, Bill, but the evacuation of Gaza has long been hinted at. The Israeli military has in the past suggested that Sinai, which is a desert area belonging to Egypt, would be an alternative Palestinian state, conveniently out of Israel's way, of course. Unfortunately for Israel, the Rafa crossing from Gaza into Egypt is very jealously guarded by Egypt. It's literally the only escape route for Gazans but Egypt allows no more than a daily trickle in and out via that route, and is fiercely resisting Israel's desire to use the crossing as the means of evacuation of Gaza. Egypt's economy is in a parlous state and there's no way they will accept millions of refugees, which, of course, Israel would abandon. Egypt has trashed a large area of the Sinai adjacent to the Rafah crossing in order to discourage settlement there. As for Gazans, they know that if they escape en masse into Egypt they will never be allowed to return. Reality, Bill, and there's no way that Gazans can be relocated to the occupied West Bank. It's already overcrowded, it lacks infrastructure already and has been ravaged by the building of illegal Israeli settlements.

One last thing, that I've already said a couple of times: there is only one way for Israel to carry out its stated aim of eradicating Hamas, and that is to completely evacuate Gaza. They can try for the next few years to root them out but that will never happen, and Hamas are not stupid and they've had decades to dig themselves in. And all the time there will be an unlimited supply of radicalised new recruits.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 15 Oct 23 - 07:52 PM

To cheer myself up in this vale of tears, I've just watched my dvd recording, for the umpteenth time, of Daniel Barenboim conducting Ravel at the 2014 Proms. Daniel is a great humanitarian and I imagine that the current crisis has had a devastating effect on him.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 16 Oct 23 - 12:30 PM

I agree with all that, with the caveat that Israel has been a nation for 75 years and has ten million people, almost all of whom were not yet born or were just children in 1948. Israel can't and shouldn't be "wiped off the map." That fight was over a long time ago. Israeli citizens of all ethnicities are the same as everyone else. They have their good points and their prejudices and they can elect (or have forced on them) bad people who try to persuade them that bigotry and discrimination and racism are justified. Trump does it, Bibi does it, Thatcher did it, Putin does it. Ordinary citizens should never be the target and should never be subjected to collective punishment. Having said all that, I really don't know where we start.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 17 Oct 23 - 06:16 PM

What's happened tonight in Gaza is a game-changer in a very bad way. Biden will no longer be meeting the leaders of Jordan and the occupied West Bank as planned. He'd probably love to cancel his trip, but that would look like he was deserting Israel, so I guess he'll come and be lied to by Netanyahu and fail to look him in the eye to criticise him.

I suppose it's pointless to keep prattling on about the deliberate targeting of civilians and the war crime of collective punishment. There have been furious demonstrations tonight against Israel in several middle-eastern countries, and Iran/Hezbollah are upping their level of threat.

We don't know who did this tonight but some of the hasty explanations given by Israeli spokespeople don't hold water. That was a big bomb and it was very precisely targeted. Progress in the wrong direction...

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 17 Oct 23 - 06:25 PM

Biden is on the plane. He's no longer meeting the president of Egypt now.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 18 Oct 23 - 07:58 AM

This is not the place for quasi-clever remarks. Believe it or not, this is a deadly serious issue.

If any good can come out of yesterday, it could - just could - be that Netanyahu will stay his hand apropos of the ground invasion. Considering how long ago he gave the Gaza civilians 24 hours to leave the north, there's been what looks like a degree of hesitancy. There's no doubt that any attempts to bomb Hamas out of existence will slaughter thousands more non-combatants. Bibi's star has fallen with his own people and he is risking the same with his erstwhile allies in the west.

There's outrage in the UK Labour Party over Starmer's pusillanimous and lopsided response to this conflict. He seems to be excusing Israeli war crimes. Western leaders who refuse to condemn the Israeli regime, alongside condemning Hamas, will by their silence be complicit in future slaughters of civilians. I'm resigning from the party forthwith, as have several prominent members already. I've had enough.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 18 Oct 23 - 11:50 AM

Well there's culpability, there's discrimination, there's previous conflicts, there's demonisation, there's theft of land, there's refugee crises, there's proxy fighting, there's standoffs between Arab nations and the west, there's terrorism on both sides, there's blinker-wearing. How far do we go back? 1948? Back to the rampant antisemitism of the 19th century, or to the Holocaust? The Crusades??

So many grievances on all sides and a mass of incompetent interference from western regimes. We all utterly condemn the barbarism perpetrated by Hamas, rightly so. But if you stop at that, you're not seeing the whole miserable picture and you may be indulging in kneejerk I-told-you-so bigotry. We've seen plenty of that in the last ten days.

We need to remember the ordinary people in Gaza and Israel caught up in all this, most of them probably just like us, not particularly political but vulnerable to persuasion by evil people. Hoping against hope, but perhaps the ordinary people in our democracies will be so revolted by all this that they'll eventually get the message through to our leaders, get this stopped. This much and no more. :-(

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 18 Oct 23 - 06:06 PM

Well thanks for the insult, Robo. Neither you nor Donuel seem to be able to focus anywhere near enough on the current crisis, which was the whole point of my starting this thread. I understand your need for philosophical waffle, but, in the case of both of you, it reeks of your not following the news. The fact that you are both meandering into the theory of potential nuclear war, which is manifestly not going to happen on this occasion, is further proof of that.   This is a conflict that has both elements of an existential emergency and of considerations of a very long history of strife in the Middle East. It would be nice if you could focus on that and, perhaps, save your philosophising for another thread. Finally, why don't both of you actually follow the news?

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 18 Oct 23 - 07:44 PM

You think I'm thin-skinned, yet I stick my head above the parapet more than anyone else here? Don't be ridiculous. I'm glad you agree that we won't "necessarily" be going nuclear. So why did you mention it? Is Donuel your uncle? As for news, well we see video footage every day of the horrors occurring in Israel and Gaza. Maybe you think it was all filmed in the Nevada desert...

Don't take sides if you don't want to. But the focus of this thread, which, naturally, I have no control over, is meant to be a very narrow one. Do try to address that and avoid making things personal or widening things out into your cod-philosophising.   After all, you don't want to be accused of acting like a microcosm of the Middle East, do you?

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 18 Oct 23 - 08:29 PM

You may well be right. However, in war the truth is hard to get at. Dunno whether a truly independent enquiry into the attack would be possible, but that seems to be the only way of clearing this up. But if enough Arab countries and enough Palestinians THINK it was Israel...

That's how it works, sadly.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 18 Oct 23 - 08:57 PM

A cri de coeur from two Jews who oppose what Israel - and the US - is doing:

We’re anti-Zionist Jews and we see genocide unfolding in Gaza
Ellen Brotsky and Ariel Koren

(The Guardian)

---

link ---mudelf

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 19 Oct 23 - 06:38 AM

The response from Israel has already gone way beyond self-defence. Yes they want to eliminate Hamas, but they also need to change their ways. Without Israeli aggression in the region for many decades, and without their repression of Palestinians, there would be no Hamas and no Hezbollah. Something to reflect on.

As for the hospital explosion, like a lot of other people my kneejerk response, and the wrong response (though maybe not the wrong conclusion) was that Israel had perpetrated it. I'm not convinced that talk of the size of the crater or of scratchy bits of videos are especially enlightening. Until there's been an independent investigation I'm staying neutral. I could be waiting forever, but hey ho. The problem for Israel is that, whoever did it, it has already fomented much unrest in the region and put us all in a far more dangerous place. Both sides have lied incessantly about their military aggression in the past, lest we forget.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 19 Oct 23 - 11:07 AM

Never in Oxfam’s history have we seen a humanitarian crisis like the one in Gaza

"Instead of running relief services, our staff are running for their lives. We need a ceasefire now – for the sakes of both Palestinians and Israelis."

[Dhananjayan Sriskandarajah, chief executive of Oxfam GB]. Source: Guardian.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 19 Oct 23 - 12:48 PM

So you're not also asking the Israeli army to get away from the border fence and lay down THEIR weapons, in spite of not only their expectation of help but their assurance of help to the tune of four or five billion dollars a year in military aid and a couple of the biggest US warships standing by just offshore...

As I said, it's OK to (lopsidedly) take sides...

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 19 Oct 23 - 03:52 PM

Yes he is. Though we don't agree, at least we can talk to each other ABOUT THE MATTER IN HAND.

We are not talking about religion because this particular conflict has nothing to do with religion, and it's this conflict we're supposed to be talking about if only you'd allow it. It's more about decades of discrimination, blockades, invasions, imprisonment without trial, razing of Palestinian villages, stealing of land for settlements and a whole host of other grievances that have finally come to the surface. That in no way justifies the brutality shown by Hamas, but it does remind us, as I've said several times now, that unconditional support for Israel, along with the sidelining of the long history of Israel's repression of the Palestinians, is the way of looking at this conflict that I simply can't agree with.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 19 Oct 23 - 03:58 PM

Thst last post was to Donuel.

I'm not trying to justify anything, and I'm at a loss as to why you think my posts in this thread think that I am. As for 1948, I could remind you that three quarters of a million Palestinians were forcibly removed from their homeland in order that the state of Israel could be created. They and their descendants have never been given the right of return and they now live in Gaza, their grievances intact. Please review the history and take off the blinkers.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 19 Oct 23 - 07:01 PM

A completely stupid response. The displacement of Jews has nothing to do with the conflict between Palestinians and Israel. In the first half of the twentieth century, cock up after cock up, largely by weak Brits, allowed the Jewish diaspora to create the state of Israel, partly because of (fully justified) sympathy after the Holocaust outrage and partly because of terrorist Zionist gangs who bullied the region in order to get their state. That bullying included the enforced eviction of three quarters of a million Palestinians, creating a huge refugee crisis that has powerful repercussions even today. These are historical facts of which you are clearly ignorant, possibly deliberately, who knows. Israeli regime apologists, of which you appear to be one, are rather prone to ignoring history. It doesn't matter how badly non-democratic Arab states mistreat their people (and I'd remind you that most of those states have the west in their pockets. Oil speaks big, eh, and has us ditching principle after principle). That's whataboutery and is irrelevant to the current crisis, and you know it. Read what you like into my words but I've tried to stay measured in this thread. What I read into your words is that you have kept yourself wilfully ignorant of history in order to support Israel's outrages. As for me, as I've repeatedly said, I'm on the side of civilians on both sides of that border fence. I want the bloodshed to stop and I want both sides to recognise that they have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity.

And I'm very honest. I hope you can say the same. By your fruits...

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 19 Oct 23 - 07:13 PM

That was to robomatic.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 19 Oct 23 - 07:15 PM

There's nothing religious going on here. You can safely ignore any appeals to God by either side. Don't be manipulated.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 19 Oct 23 - 07:36 PM

Hitching your bellicose cause to religion is a time-honoured way of adding virtuosity. God, if he existed, would be seriously displeased.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 19 Oct 23 - 07:53 PM

Interestingly, while some of us can and do, quite justifiably, criticise authoritarian regimes in the Arab world over their disgusting human rights record, we in the west do tend to keep shtum about vile regimes that just happen to chime with our politics. Thinking of Chile, Portugal, Central America...And how we shit on their enemies (same places... we murdered Allende, didn't we? Venezuela?). We're OK with China, more or less, because they make all our stuff, and all those frankly detestable oil states in the Middle East... Gotta keep those cars running...

But Israel gets a free pass. Nothing to do with that pro-Israel lobby in the US, of course...

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 19 Oct 23 - 08:01 PM

It’s not always easy to speak in times like these … There has been too much violence and too much heartbreaking brutality. The escalation in recent weeks is unbearable to witness. All lives are sacred and must be protected. The massacres need to stop. Families are being torn apart.

What is clear now is that humanitarian aid to Gaza must be allowed immediately. The people there are in terrible conditions. The scenes at the hospital last night were horrifying. The people of Gaza need food, water and medical supplies urgently.

I’m calling on the world leaders to come together to prevent further slaughter of all innocent souls. Humanity must prevail.

Who said these divinely wise words, do you think? Well I'll tell you. It was the Egyptian striker, Liverpool FC's greatest player and devout Muslim Mo Salah. He's also given a very large donation to Red Crescent.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 20 Oct 23 - 04:13 AM

I couldn't agree more. We can hope that Joe Biden has leaned on Netanyahu behind the scenes to persuade him to be careful what he wishes for. The blundering reactions to 9-11 spawned decades of terrorism and led to Islamic State. There's plenty of potential for something equally horrible to happen again. Iran is watching intently.

"I think there is some decrepitating on fixed positions/ judgmments which I am not going to address because then this thread will look like past threads of repetitive bombast."

Well let's not get personal simply because of different perspectives and let's avoid off-topic philosophising. That would help a lot.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 20 Oct 23 - 07:16 AM

Three points from today's Guardian live feed:

At least 18 people are reported to have been killed in an Israeli airstrike on a Greek Orthodox church compound in Gaza.

The Palestinian health ministry says 13 people, including five children, were killed after an Israeli assault on the Nur Shams refugee camp in the West Bank.

The UN has also warned that any escalation of military activities in the Gaza Strip would be “catastrophic” for people there.

Churches, refugee camps... Kill civilians and get rid of Hamas that way, huh?

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 20 Oct 23 - 07:51 AM

Why? The US is a very religious country but we don't accuse them of fighting their many conflicts in the name of religion.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 20 Oct 23 - 01:11 PM

Well I agree with that, but there's a distinction between Jewish people who practise Judaism and secular Jews. We can use those expressions about Jewish people but we don't usually talk about secular Catholics or secular Methodists... Jewish people tend to regard themselves as an ethnic group rather than a religious bloc.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 20 Oct 23 - 01:39 PM

All the hostages should be released forthwith. We can all agree with that.

From wiki:

In April 2022, there were 4,450 Palestinian security prisoners in Israeli prisons – including 160 children, 32 women, and over 1000 "administrative detainees" (incarcerated without charge).

You OK with those being kept where they are? Children? A thousand prisoners held without charge?

Tell you what. Let everyone agree to release their hostages/political prisoners. There you go - an immediate end to the bloodshed!

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 20 Oct 23 - 04:42 PM

It's a very petty point to moan about no links when I consistently report my source. It might not be an official Mudcat-style link but it's still a link. A quick copy and google will cut it every time. I click on links here all the time, especially from one particular poster, that are nearly always a flippant waste of time, John, but I don't hear you moaning about those. I keep asking that we stick to the issue, I don't know how many times. If you haven't anything to say, it seems, you'll say something offensive and off-topic. Please let's just comment about the substantive issue to hand.

Nigel, read about those two incidents again. They are separate, but you've conflated them. And yet again, try not to let petty details cloud the bigger picture in your mind. Cheers.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 20 Oct 23 - 04:47 PM

"Even smart bombs go awry about 5% of the time."

Sure. It's just that more than half of the civilian fatal casualties in Gaza, pushing 4000 last time I heard, are women and children. I can't work out whether it's the bombs or the bomb operators that aren't so smart, or whether it's something else...

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 20 Oct 23 - 05:45 PM

For goodness sake, Nigel, it was a straight copy and paste. One incident said church, another said refugee camp. Not hard to get one's head round, eh? Take it up with the Grauniad!

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 20 Oct 23 - 06:10 PM

"Again, it's a land grab"

It looks more and more like the Israeli regime wants Gaza emptied. They've forced a million people into the south, where there's a potentially enticing route out into Egypt. Several Israeli nut jobs, including Bibi, have mooted the Sinai desert as an alternative Palestinian state. Two things about that stupid notion: first, I'm pretty sure that Biden had a word in Bibi's shell-like to warn him of the dire consequences of ethnic cleansing. Second, Egypt has set its face firmly against such a move as they won't sell out the Palestinians. Third, Sinai is no place fore two million people to suddenly take up residence.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 20 Oct 23 - 06:33 PM

That was three things. As they say, there are three kinds of people on this earth: those who are good at arithmetic and those who aren't...

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 20 Oct 23 - 01:32 PM

A couple of comments from hopefully-not-erstwhile allies of Israel and the US:

Lana Zaki Nusseibeh, the United Arab Emirates UN envoy and the linchpin of Arab diplomacy in New York, told the security council this week: “We support a humanitarian ceasefire not at the expense of Israel security but so that people can tend to the wounded, bury their dead and begin to put their lives back together.

“Hamas is indeed responsible for sparking this latest fire that is now engulfing the streets of Arab capitals around the region. We have called them out openly for their heinous attacks but, make no mistake, the kindling was already there, fuelled by decades of violent dehumanisation, dispossession and despair. That is why we cannot, however convenient, lose sight of the context of this crisis: the longest-going occupation in the world by people who do not want to be ruled and have been let down again and again and again by all of us.”

Prince al-Faisal the former Saudi ambassador to the US, speaking in Washington, said: “I’ve been hearing a repeated phrase in American media: unprovoked attack. What more provocation is required to make it provoked than what Israel has done to the Palestinians over three-quarters of a century?

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 20 Oct 23 - 07:58 PM

And now the occupied West Bank is erupting:

'Day of rage’ erupts across West Bank after Israeli forces attack refugee camp

(Source: the Guardian)

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 21 Oct 23 - 04:21 AM

The tiresome and widespread use of "innocent" is no more than a tendentious appeal to emotions. The facts of this conflict are terrible enough without our having to resort to that. If you mentally remove the word from the phrase every time you see it, you'll see that the statement in question is just as powerful, if not more so. Have a nice day, John.

I've read about the land grab in the West Bank, the persecution of the Bedouins. They've been persecuted before, driven out of their villages in the Negev. What's happening in the West Bank is extremely dangerous as well as being highly immoral.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 21 Oct 23 - 05:13 AM

I was never one for joining junior quasi-paramilitary brigades, thank God.

The Guardian piece about the forcing~out of the West Bank Bedouins that Thompson referred to is a really good, if very disturbing, read. Makes you think that Israel isn't really a democracy at all, and is edging inexorably towards becoming an apartheid state.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 21 Oct 23 - 05:18 AM

As for marching in step, heed the wise words of Henry Thoreau:

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.

[Henry David Thoreau]

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 21 Oct 23 - 06:21 AM

You agreed that we should stick to the point. I suppose that's why you've posted six times in a row without mentioning the conflict. :-)

Meanwhile in the US, free speech appears to no longer reign supreme:

Widespread attempts to suppress pro-Palestinian views in the US after the Hamas attack on Israel have forced the cancellation of major conferences, prompted demands for the dismissal of workers who express support for Palestinians and led to intimidation campaigns against Arab American voices critical of Israeli policies.

Earlier this week, a leading US Jewish group forced the cancellation of a major Palestinian campaign organisation’s national conference by alleging it was a front for Hamas, which killed more than 1,400 Israelis and abducted about 200 people in its attack from Gaza.

Palestinian American activists say television networks also have censored or cancelled interviews. NPR and the BBC pulled advertising for a widely praised new book about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict after a campaign of “listener complaints”.

The Orthodox Jewish Chamber of Commerce has declared a “victory” after pressuring Hilton hotels into cancelling the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights event in Houston later this month at which the congresswoman Rashida Tlaib was to be the main speaker. [Chris McGreal, Guardian]

That infamous, powerful lobby once again rears its head (and no-one voted for them...)

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 21 Oct 23 - 10:07 AM

That's the second time he's come out with the excited-fans-of-war smear. He won't answer you, Dave. The points about slanted newsfeeds and propaganda are unsubstantiated. He won't address that either. As for Biden and his "unequivocal" support for Israel, I think better of him than that. We don't know what he said to Netanyahu behind the scenes but I'm pretty confident that he warned him against further wanton bloodshed in Gaza, as western leaders are going to find it more and more difficult to keep their nations onside in support of Israel. That support is already becoming eroded in the Democrat party in the US, and it's a reflection of the worry among the pro-Israel lobby that they are using strongarm tactics to silence pro-Palestinian voices. The Labour Party in the UK is seriously split over Starmer's recent blindfolded announcements about the crisis. For Israeli people (and they've recognised it), one of their main problems is Netanyahu. A corrupt man who is trying to sideline democracy by fiddling with the judiciary and who was so consumed with his own hubris that he simply didn't see this coming.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 21 Oct 23 - 10:10 AM

Well you've got me there, Lighter. You appear to have redefined the concept of free speech in a remarkably novel way if I may say so. Doesn't apply in the private sector, eh? Well blow me down!

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 21 Oct 23 - 10:23 AM

Many Jewish people are feeling unease about Israel's actions in Gaza. From Harriet Sherwood in the Guardian:

...In the US, there have [also] been signs of discomfort about the unfolding war among American Jews. Protesters – including 400 Jews and 25 rabbis, according to Jewish Voice for Peace – gathered to demand a ceasefire near the Capitol. “We are here to say, ‘Not in our name’,” Jay Saper told the Washington Post. “We are here as Jews – many descendants of survivors of genocide – to stop a genocide from unfolding in real time.”

In London on Thursday, several hundred people joined a protest in Parliament Square organised by Na’amod, an organisation of leftwing Jews that campaigns against the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory and the “crimes of apartheid”. “We will not let our grief be weaponised to justify genocide,” Na’amod wrote on X.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 21 Oct 23 - 02:07 PM

It's important to make sure we don't say things like "Israel commits war crimes", that sort of thing. You may not have an antisemitic bone in your body, but it sounds like you have if you lapse into things like that. It's the Israeli regime/government, or, depending on what, the IDF. A quarter of Israelis are not Jews, and a lot of the other three-quarters don't support their government and/or are secular Jews. Likewise, it's not "the Jewish lobby." That isn't even near-accurate, as many of the powerful factions in the lobby are not Jews. The pro-Israel lobby cuts it for me. If you use careful expressions of that kind and you still get called antisemitic, then your critics are scoundrels.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 21 Oct 23 - 02:29 PM

I think that if you say civilians or non-combatants, it's clear that you're talking about people not involved in the fighting. Qualifying adjectives aren't needed, and they might just sound a wee tendentious. That's all.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 21 Oct 23 - 07:24 PM

I've seen those reports and I have no reason to think they're not true.

United Nations reports say that at least 70% of all dead and wounded are women and children.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Vic Smith
Date: 13 Oct 23 - 07:06 AM

If you have contributed to this thread, and even if you haven't, you should listen to the most relevant song about this situation. Sadly, this is not a new song, Pete Morton wrote it after a visit to Isreal and the West Bank about 20 years ago.
PETE MORTON Two Brothers

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Bill D
Date: 24 Oct 23 - 01:11 PM

Well, "the lesser of two evils" doesn't exactly make me feel virtuous.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Bill D
Date: 24 Oct 23 - 05:50 PM

" One word of direct criticism means that he will lose the next election..":

That's exactly what Biden's problem is. The frustrating thing is that his losing the election would give us a president who would be even MORE toadying to Israel and screw up other things at the same time.
    Does the phrase "Damned if you do and damned if you don't" ring any bells?

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Bill D
Date: 26 Oct 23 - 08:55 AM

"It all depends on whose ox is being gored!"

Right now there are badly gored oxen everywhere.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Bill D
Date: 26 Oct 23 - 12:00 PM

USA & World Newspapers..

scroll down

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: gillymor
Date: 23 Oct 23 - 10:14 AM

You've been accusing people here of being "fans of war", it looks like you're a fan of torture.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: gillymor
Date: 23 Oct 23 - 11:19 AM

Humane torture has got to be the mother of all oxymorons.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Mrrzy
Date: 23 Oct 23 - 10:20 AM

Sigh. Wish I had a contribution.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: robomatic
Date: 23 Oct 23 - 05:55 PM

There are most definitely 'good guys' here. Or, at least, less bad guys. Let's not continually impose a shape to these doings based on our preconceptions/ predilections/ prejudices. There are plenty of folks to do that for us, OP.

Sounds like Don'l saw the PBS broadcast on the Platypus Guardian, some wonderful photography and a glimpse of the male Platypus' poison spurs, including a fight between males where one was able to jam his spurs into his foe. It said nothing about how deadly they were, and I'm inclined to believe they are bad but not near as bad as many reptilian venoms. There is a scene in the fictional Aubrey-Maturin series where one of the protagonists gets spurred and is considerably endangered. While fictional the author based events off of much research.

NPR day before yesterday aired a short segment where the Israeli guide insisted there was Hamas tunnel activity below them, under Israeli territory, as the recording was being made.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: robomatic
Date: 23 Oct 23 - 06:26 PM

I have to apologize for my rotten English. Playpus' spurs deliver venom. I do know better and I have no really good excuse except for the vacuum.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: robomatic
Date: 23 Oct 23 - 06:57 PM

SS: I was trying to be low key and not explicitly go down the litany of of forever pain. Maybe I was even allowing for Palestinians who don't have a vote and want to go to a school that isn't built around a launch site.
And I did want to gently remind ourselves that the OP was stimulated by a horrendous attack on genuinely innocent folks who were celebrating culture in a culture that is statistically pretty free compared to ALL the surrounding 'neighbors.'

But you do you.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: robomatic
Date: 24 Oct 23 - 06:33 PM

Nor should he. Those statements are clearly prejudicial as hell. Biden does not have to repond to them. His remarks to Israel have included cautionary terms.
TRMP is a moveable beast. He lets down every one who puts any faith in him. It's his thing. I would prefer it if he suddenly flipped full scale support to Hamas and their followers.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: robomatic
Date: 26 Oct 23 - 04:12 PM

The Horror

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: robomatic
Date: 27 Oct 23 - 04:01 PM

My earlier post of 'The Horror' was a piece of monologue from the movie Apocalypse Now. While the movie uses as its model Conrad's Heart of Darkness, it was the specific point the Kurtz character makes that I wanted to drive home: The use of implacable hate and violence to make and carry the point of the terrorists.
Hamas uses their absolutist basic of beliefs very publicly to beat anybody they dominate. Their beliefs are known, their horrid behavior is understood immediately at home and abroad.

Israel's response has come in for criticism because there is a basic understanding, or hope, or desire, that Israel can behave more 'humanely' whereas no one is under a delusion that Hamas is going to be so limited. But Israel understands that moderation in response to Hamas' attack will be criticized by its enemies in any case, and somewhat criticized by its non-enemies but it is Hamas that is observing the butcher's bill.

This quote is closer to home:

"We can forgive [them] for killing our children. We cannot forgive them for forcing us to kill their children. We will only have peace [with them] when they love their children more than they hate us.

Golda Meir (1957!)

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: robomatic
Date: 27 Oct 23 - 11:38 PM

A History of Violence

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Donuel
Date: 22 Oct 23 - 08:13 AM

Everyone seems to ignore the reality that war Is The Killing Of The Most CIVILIANS, not just soldiers, ever since World War 2.

I assume That Steve requested that my posts of Songs of Peace are to be deleted. What is more inappropriate than songs of Peace in Steve's contentious WAR THREAD? Peace has no standing in a WAR thread? I see deletions of peace songs as crazed but this is what the conservative radio stations did when we attacked IRAQ. The song 'Imagine' was the most 'hated and deleted' song in the US at that time.
Wanting songs of peace removed is something rabid fans of war would do.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Donuel
Date: 22 Oct 23 - 08:35 AM

Lighter has a lighter hand in discussions.

We sometimes blame
our reptilian brain
for war's ugly pain

but ... There is no such brain structure atop our brainstem.
We have an amygdala, hypothalamus, and frontal cortex that responds to and judges threats however, I doubt evolution will remove those structures.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Donuel
Date: 22 Oct 23 - 10:52 AM

one was NATURE BOY, instrumental trumpet and bass flute with lyric subtitles from YouTube

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Donuel
Date: 23 Oct 23 - 07:45 AM

An Israeli invasion is not delayed because of Biden. It is because the first available dark of the moon is not until Nov. 13. Infrared eyewear is not as likely available to Hamas compared to Israel.
Thirst and hunger are likely to be worse by then. Yes, starvation is a war crime but we are hypnotized to believe 'all is fair in love and war'.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Donuel
Date: 23 Oct 23 - 08:25 AM

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/269867590_WHY_NATIONS_GO_TO_WARJOHN_G_STOESSINGER


I remember how thirst was used as a weapon of war in the Humphrey Bogart movie 'Sahara'.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Donuel
Date: 23 Oct 23 - 09:38 AM

Deterrence is an important tactic for war and its prevention.
I see that mutual assured destruction is the only pain avoidance strategy but what about non-lethal actual ultimate pain being used as a deterrence?

Using an ultimate pain venom for humans that morphine can not diminish and only an induced coma could relieve, might be a deterrence. PTSD and suicide would probably be an outcome so it is not truly non-lethal. Call it fact or fiction but a 'non-lethal' weapon that induces suffering without measure may have a place in our future.

A synthetic hybrid version of Platypus venom combined with fire ant venom may be a candidate for such a weapon. Is the concept of ultimate pain an evil or a potential good considering the alternatives?
jus thinkin outside the box.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Donuel
Date: 23 Oct 23 - 10:10 AM

Platypus venom impervious to morphine. Worse than fire ants are an Amazon species.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Donuel
Date: 23 Oct 23 - 11:15 AM

Thinking of an alternative to war is not easy. I found alternatives all involved a lesser of two evils. What is your alternative Gilly?

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Donuel
Date: 23 Oct 23 - 03:01 PM

Ground penetrating radar instruments would use a 400-MHz radio wave impulse to define stratigraphy at a spacial resolution of tens of centimeters to 10-15 m depth from a high altitude of about a mile. It is best used at ground level.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Donuel
Date: 23 Oct 23 - 04:10 PM

400 !?

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Donuel
Date: 23 Oct 23 - 09:46 PM

I missed that nature show but speaking of predilections and news, Steve's slants remind me of Mr. Mahmood and News of the World.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Donuel
Date: 24 Oct 23 - 07:15 AM

Lundging toward Non Stop moral equivalency for Hamas is what I expect from a hateful child.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Donuel
Date: 24 Oct 23 - 07:52 AM

It may take less than a generation to change. The old white men with deep roots in racism and ethnic hatred who reminisce about colonialism and always getting their way, look at their last few months of life and finally depart the stage. Just living without the incitement to hate is a peace worth keeping.

When one lives long enough you get to see the bastard's lies die in front of you.
quote: Anonymous

Subject: RE: written so a child can understand
From: Donuel
Date: 24 Oct 23 - 06:40 PM

When a person or a nation practices power, it corrupts. A person feels, 'I have sacrificed, I have been wronged, and deserve to do what I want because I can do no wrong - I am always right - until they become assholes aka fascists.

My own country is being threatened by fascist fantasies. That does not mean that shooting fascists is what there is to be done.

The Hamas-Israel conflict has gone way beyond our stage and are both assholes who believe they are right to kill.
'Who was wronged most' games are played in narratives by both sides.
The real answer is that both are wrong.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Donuel
Date: 26 Oct 23 - 09:15 AM

Cheerleaders for war on FOX News have nicknamed this war, World War 3.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Donuel
Date: 26 Oct 23 - 06:01 PM

It's basically Heart of Darkness.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 22 Oct 23 - 10:29 AM

There were no songs of peace posted here and none were deleted.

The Sunday morning radio talk (NPR) have some calmer heads offering insight, and there was a piece about the role that those who advocate for peace are playing - and that they are encountering surprising pushback. The world of Social Media is great for taking sides, but one particular faith leader (apparently multi-denominational?) said that when addressing all parties and wishing for peace the pushback was confounding. We have seen it here when Don inserts his wish for peace as we debate the guilt or innocence of Hamas v. Israel. (Whether a resistance to peace or resistance to a change of thread topic is the question - offering divergent themes is a classic Donuel move.)

Another commentator (thanks, Mara Liasson!) remarked that Hamas is only about war, and one of their big stated goals has been to stop the peace/trade/etc negotiations between Israel and Saudi Arabia. (That is one of the few plus marks in Trump's column, while his son-in-law was collecting huge payouts from MBS he also got talks started between the two countries.) Those talks are on hold, so Hamas count themselves winners.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 23 Oct 23 - 02:19 PM

CNN Live Updates includes information that 20 more trucks with humanitarian aid entered Gaza today, but are a drop in the bucket of what is needed. And the Israeli defence minister is telling troops to keep preparing.

Over the weekend I listened to an interview with a woman whose research specialty is the tunnels under Gaza. It seems there are hundred of miles of them and they run at various depths so the routes criss-cross. They connect with the basements of a lot of homes. Many are concrete lined and are sufficient that military equipment is stored in there, leaders sleep down there, as do a lot of the fighters. It makes me wonder if technology such as LIDAR are going to be used, if they would work that deep.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 24 Oct 23 - 12:02 PM

The New York Times really messed up when the accepted the Hamas account of the explosions at the Gaza hospital, and now have done a big mea culpa about publishing too quickly. The culprits were from the Gaza territory and their weapon failed to clear the territory.

Like all insurgents and guerrilla groups, they resort to tactics that those powerful armies have no need to resort to.

Hamas are not Palestinians who are freedom fighters, they are a dictatorial terrorist group who have not allowed any other parties to participate in elections in the territories since 2006. Their leaders live abroad in rich surroundings. They are sponsored by Iran. There are no "good guys" in this war, but you need to stop calling the kettle black and set aside your very dark blinders.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 25 Oct 23 - 05:11 PM

Give this subject a rest. The thread was making no progress, only taking more side trips and requiring the removal of sniping posts. If things change drastically it might be reopened, but don't start any more complaint threads suggesting you're not questioning why this was closed when in fact that's exactly what you were doing.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 25 Oct 23 - 11:20 PM

Participants in this thread have differing opinions regarding the guilty parties in the current Israel/Hamas war. There is no moral high ground. So far, 38 posts have been deleted, or 13% of the thread. When a thread like this includes wide-ranging information from other wars, from kind-of-similar-events, and whatever brain lint drips out through their fingertips, participants start dragging their personal soap boxes along to air their grievances about other people's opinions.

Keep in mind that if you post something about the war and in the same message post an ad hominem attack critical of other people's opinions, or snotty responses to someone you have a running battle with, that the whole post is gone, good point and BS. So just stick to the facts and leave the personal animus unpublished. DON'T FEED THE TROLLS.

There is news today. The Israeli IDF have played raw video (46 minutes of it) for the international media; it includes body cams, closed-circuit video, and that taken from rescuers as well as what was captured on social media from both victims and terrorists at the time of the terrorist attacks. This is pushback against the photos of wounded children in Gaza that are all over the airwaves. They are making the case that the original assault was worthy of this bloody response (their reasoning, not my opinion). I haven't looked for any of those videos, and have no plans to share any. If there are any glimpses in the links below, my apologies, I didn't view the videos in the stories.

From The Times of Israel IDF shows foreign press Hamas bodycam videos, photos of murder, torture, decapitation
Government says it’s revealing horrific footage collected from various sources to the media in order to fight ‘Holocaust-like denials’ of Hamas’s massacres in southern Israel

From NBC News in the US: Israel shows Hamas attack videos as it tries to keep focus on brutality of Oct. 7 ambush
The Israel Defense Forces defended Israel’s bombardment of Gaza but acknowledged that “we failed to protect our civilians” from Hamas’ unprecedented attack.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 26 Oct 23 - 10:54 AM

I regularly read Al Jazeera news also, but haven't tapped into it as much as usual. It might be an interesting exercise to look at the English-language Chinese news; they try to have an inviting site but the news is really skewed to the party line. And (alas) while the Canadian government is blocking US news sources because of fee disputes, I think we can still read the CBC reports. Offshore news helps balance what we see in the US.

Senator Bernie Sanders is arguing that the bombing needs to stop, and he has enough of an audience (outside of the Senate) that some might hear him.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 26 Oct 23 - 10:34 PM

Apocalypse Now was a modern rendering of Heart of Darkness. "The Horror. The Horror." That story of colonizers in Africa, in an archetypal story that could to told in many places. Palestine was colonized several times over.

And the US appears to have bombed something in Syria. Unrelated to the Hamas/Israel events, but the timing makes it all the more complicated. "Self-defense strikes" against something Iran is doing. Iran who is behind Hamas.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 27 Oct 23 - 11:51 PM

Power and Internet and Cell coverage are all off in Gaza, and an Israeli assault has been underway tonight. Few reports from inside.

The arguments for both sides in this war are powerful. With the state of social media today (what a dreadful time for Elon Musk to be at the helm of Twitter/X) there is little way to learn any truth about what is happening.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Lighter
Date: 22 Oct 23 - 08:02 AM

Frederic Manning, Australian novelist, enlisted veteran of the Somme (1929):

"War is...a peculiarly human activity. To call it a crime against mankind is to miss at least half its significance; it is also the punishment of a crime. That raises a moral question, the kind of problem with which the present age is disinclined to deal."

Possibly because it is insoluble at our current stage of evolution.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Lighter
Date: 22 Oct 23 - 10:19 AM

The insoluble problem is that wars happen when leaders want what somebody else won't give them, or they need to punish other leaders for trying to grab something of theirs. Or they want to forestall a rival from striking first. Or they want revenge.

And much of the time the led are all for it.

No need to invoke genes, testosterone, -isms, or anything else. Kids will steal unless they're taught not to.

Unfortunately, leaders don't have parents to discipline them.

The pacifist movement and the League of Nations couldn't do it, and the UN hasn't been able to do it.

Even the threat of nuclear weapons has been less than entirely successful. Both the US and USSR were nuclear when North Korea invaded the South.

Everybody able to make an atom bomb wants one, and everybody wants cyberweapons.

It's to get what they want, material or psychological.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Lighter
Date: 22 Oct 23 - 10:19 AM

Or political, obviously.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Lighter
Date: 22 Oct 23 - 10:46 AM

Scuttling the potential Israel-Saudi accord is likely one of the chief reasons for Hamas's attack.

BTW, Hamas can't lose at this point. The more death and destruction, the more converts and recruits.

Its senior leaders, again BTW, live in luxury in Qatar, not with "their people" in Gaza. And their wealth makes them more popular. (Sound familiar?)

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Lighter
Date: 23 Oct 23 - 08:01 AM

Just for instance, Steve, you might refer to John G. Stoessinger's "Why Nations Go to War" (now in its 11th edition), especially the chapter on Arab-Israeli wars since 1948.

A bleak general overview of destructive human activity is "War: Ends and Means," by Angelo Codevilla and Paul Seabury (2nd ed.).

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Lighter
Date: 23 Oct 23 - 02:43 PM

Expect Hamas to usher civilian shields into these tunnels (or "air-raid shelters" if you prefer), where the terrorists will hunker down as well.

Problem for Israel: get the bad guys and their weapons out, while trying to recognize and spare the unarmed citizens.

On Iwo Jima, it took U.S. Marines more than a month to pry the Japanese out of eleven miles of such tunnels. Hamas allegedly has 300 miles. And the Japanese didn't use human shields to generate world outrage.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Lighter
Date: 23 Oct 23 - 03:41 PM

Two more hostages (Israeli women) have been released.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Lighter
Date: 23 Oct 23 - 03:56 PM

Not sufficiently publicized is that besides the 200+ hostages kidnapped in Israel, Hamas is preventing some 400 American citizens and foreign nationals from leaving Gaza.

These people are essentially hostages also.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Lighter
Date: 23 Oct 23 - 04:24 PM

According to a regional expert on MSNBC.

They're not under guard as hostages, but they're not allowed to leave Gaza.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Lighter
Date: 24 Oct 23 - 12:22 PM

Cecil Day-Lewis (father of Daniel) summed it up in 1943 in "Where Are the War Poets?"

It is the logic of our times,
No subject for immortal verse –
That we who lived by honest dreams
Defend the bad against the worse.


(In a corrupt world, defending the "bad" is sometimes a virtue, even for idealists.)

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Lighter
Date: 24 Oct 23 - 01:26 PM

It's all relative, Bill. Because Hitler was worse, we sent weapons and materiel to Stalin, who was not a threat at the time.

In any case, here's the son of one of the founders of Hamas giving the skinny. It's well worth listening to the whole thing, even if it was on Fox News:


https://www.yahoo.com/news/son-founding-hamas-leader-issues-113823186.html

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Lighter
Date: 27 Oct 23 - 12:43 PM

Rundown from the Associated Press:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/us-strikes-iran-linked-sites-020822123.html

A little deep background:

https://time.com/6323178/antisemitism-israel-gaza-attack-essay/

"From the pulpits of mosques to the pages of op-eds to the stands of bookstores across the Arab world, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Hitler’s Mein Kampf and other timeless fictions and hateful works were peddled, updated, and perfected to the point that large swathes of the public stopped seeing Zionists or Israelis or Jews as human long ago. School children are taught to hate Israel, Jews are demonized as part of official curriculum, and 'summer camps' involve learning how to fire automatic weapons and kidnap Israelis."

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Lighter
Date: 27 Oct 23 - 04:31 PM

For those who can't see the video, Kurtz says:

"I remember when I was with Special Forces. Seems a thousand centuries ago. We went into a camp to inoculate the children. We left the camp after we had inoculated the children for polio, and this old
man came running after us and he was crying. He couldn't see. We went
back there and they had come and hacked off every inoculated arm. There they were in a pile...A pile of little arms. And I remember - I - I - I cried. I wept like some grandmother. I wanted to tear my teeth out. I didn't know what I wanted to do. ... And then I realized - like I was shot. Like I was shot with a diamond - a diamond bullet right through my forehead.

"And I thought: My God! The genius of that! The genius. The will to do that. Perfect, genuine, complete, crystalline, pure....And then I realized they were stronger than we. Because...[t]hese were not monsters. These were men, trained cadres,these men who fought with their hearts, who had families, who had children, who were filled with love. But they had the strength...the strength...to do that! If I had ten divisions of those men our troubles here would be over very quickly.

"You have to have men who are moral, and at the same time who are able to utilize their primordial instincts to kill without feeling, without passion, without judgement - without judgement. Because it's judgement that defeats us."

The "horror" is no less than sixfold:

The atrocity itself.

Kurtz's realization that the perpetrators were (once, anyway) ordinary men.

His conclusion that their kind of "strength" is necessary to win the war.

Kurtz's implicit decision to adopt similar tactics. (That's why Willard is there to kill him.)

The earlier information that Kurtz has a PhD and was once a model officer.

The fact that exposure to atrocity has stripped him of his own humanity.

(More "horror" than Conrad's Kurtz succumbs to?)

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Thompson
Date: 22 Oct 23 - 06:30 AM

There are already 4,000 dead, most of them children.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Thompson
Date: 22 Oct 23 - 06:38 AM

To be more exact, 70% are children, women and old people of the 4,700 in Palestine.
In Israel 1,400 are now known to be dead; I can't find figures on the balance of age and sex, but have no doubt it's similar.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Thompson
Date: 23 Oct 23 - 05:25 AM

Converts and recruits aren't a lot of good if you have no country.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Thompson
Date: 24 Oct 23 - 04:42 AM

The late Dervla Murphy (a travel writer who started her career in her thirties (after caring for her parents for most of her youth) by transiting Europe in the dreadful winter of 1963, then crossing Afghanistan, all on a sturdy steel bicycle, ending up working in a refugee camp for Tibetan children) spoke to a Daily Telegraph journalist about Gaza, West Bank and Israel:

“In all the countries I’ve visited,” she told me, “that is the only one where I felt it was my actual duty as a writer not to be neutral. Not to play this game of… we must look at this, look at that. We must only look at the fact that the Palestinians are treated utterly outrageously.” But each side, she says, must relinquish a dream in return for peace: the one-state solution is the only answer. “The Palestinians have to give up any notion of having their own separate, independent state, just as the Israelis have to give up having their Jewish-only state… In a sense that’s a good beginning: they both have to give up. But I don’t think that’s going to happen for a generation or two.”

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Thompson
Date: 26 Oct 23 - 03:24 AM

I was skipping around through the news channels available to me last night - BBC News, France 24, Channel 4, very occasionally Sky; Freesat used to have CNN but that's gone from me, alas. I clicked on to Al-Jazeera - which has really excellent reporting on international stories that other channels don't touch, except sometimes France 24, which has some good coverage of African news - and the focus was on a burly white-haired man in a flak jacket with PRESS on it, walking through surrounded by others similarly dressed; sometimes with a hand coming in from the crowd to pet his arm.
The commentary soon told me that this was Al-Jazeera's bureau chief, Wael Al-Dahdouh. A few minutes earlier he had been commenting for the channel on an Israeli air strike on the Nuseirat refugee camp. His own family had fled to this central Gaza camp after Israeli bombing threats had warned people living in the north to move south. As he was giving his report, someone came to him and he turned aside to speak. The camera followed him to the hospital, where the bodies of his wife, his teenage son and his seven-year-old daughter were laid out. Other members of his family were under the rubble; his grandson has been found and they're still searching.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Thompson
Date: 26 Oct 23 - 12:39 PM

Coming in for a dog walk I met my neighbour, who said that she couldn't watch Al-Jazeera's coverage of Gaza any more. "They're showing children discovering the bodies of their parents," she said, tears in her eyes. "I don't know what news channel to watch - I'm just switching away from every one."

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Thompson
Date: 27 Oct 23 - 02:04 AM

Special Forces inoculating children against polio? Plot hole here, surely?
Does this come from Conrad? Conrad would've heard about plenty of horror from his friend Roger Casement, whom he cowardly abandoned in his time of greatest need of a friend. But it would have been the horror of the colonists.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 22 Oct 23 - 10:30 AM

I'm sure that the moderators here will confirm that I didn't ask for your post to be deleted. You need to look to yourself when you get deleted. I didn't even notice the post(s) in question, but I should think it contained something not very nice (and I'm not referring to your usual doggerel). It behoves you to not make completely unjustified assumptions unless you keep them strictly to yourself. Find another way of trying to pin the "excited fan of war" slur on me. It will be a long and ultimately fruitless search, I assure you.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 22 Oct 23 - 10:32 AM

Cross-posted there, Maggie.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 22 Oct 23 - 03:20 PM

Perhaps you have evidence somewhere for those assertions, Lighter. Not sayin' you're wrong...

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 23 Oct 23 - 02:17 PM

I started this thread so we could discuss the terrible crisis in the Middle East, not so that we could go off-topic and meander about our personal philosophies of war, Maggie. Things are moving fast in Israel/Gaza and around and there's a lot to discuss. The philosophical stuff might deserve a thread of its own but in my view it doesn't belong here. A distraction that I've called out, though you clearly don't agree..

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 23 Oct 23 - 04:53 PM

Well yes, Lighter, but (at risk of being accused of whataboutery), there are 4000 "political prisoners" in Israel, including hundreds of women and children and at least 1000 who are being held without charge. So no good guys in this, eh?

As for Hamas hiding in tunnels, etc., some of you talk as if somehow that "isn't fair." Well they are not an army. They are up against one of the world's most powerful armies. Like all insurgents and guerrilla groups, they resort to tactics that those powerful armies have no need to resort to. That's a statement of the way things are and always have been, and is totally disconnected as to whether we should support one side of the other. Hamas thinks they're right, Israel thinks they're right. Hamas's actions were thoroughly disgusting. Israel has killed 5000-plus civilians, half of them children and women. Recoil from that but remember the history.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 23 Oct 23 - 06:25 PM

That's your judgement, and it's clear that your predilections and prejudices are in favour of the Israeli regime. So they are the less bad guys, eh, having repressed Palestinians for three quarters of a century, stolen land from them, created almost a million refugees and killed many thousands more in every conflict since WW2, including this one. The horror of the Hamas attack was dreadful, it shouldn't have happened and I would never excuse it for one second. But,as I've said several times in this thread, do cast off the blinkers and look to the history. He really honest with yourself and reassess your notion as to who the bad and the less than bad guys really are.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 Oct 23 - 03:30 AM

"And I did want to gently remind ourselves that the OP was stimulated by a horrendous attack on genuinely innocent folks who were celebrating culture in a culture that is statistically pretty free compared to ALL the surrounding 'neighbors.'"

Well your "statistically free" culture applies to three-quarters of Israeli citizens but not the quarter who live in the occupied areas. That minority are free to be discriminated against, with low pay, insecure work, poor housing and schools and blatant discrimination at checkpoints, etc., and to be shot at and bulldozed out every now and then. They're perfectly free to have their best land stolen so that those culture-celebrators you mentioned can build illegal settlements. The folks may be "genuinely innocent" (here we go again...) but their leaders never have been. I feel like a parrot saying the same thing all the time, but unless you make the effort to study the history of the region, at the very least since 1948, you really can't understand what is going on in the region today. The young people had every right to have their music festival, every right to feel safe there and every right to go home happy, and Hamas had no right to perpetrate their outrage. A terrible incident, but just one out of thousands (literally) of terrible incidents that have happened down the decades. Read the history.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 Oct 23 - 04:48 AM

From the Guardian:

"The US has said now is not the time for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, as the UN reports that some Palestinians who fled their homes in the north of Gaza have returned due to a lack of food and shelter in the south.

The White House national security spokesperson John Kirby told CNN on Monday that Israel still had 'work to do to go after Hamas leadership,' echoing comments from the US president, Joe Biden, that any discussions of a ceasefire could only take place if Hamas freed all its hostages in Gaza.

The statement from the White House was at odds with comments from UN and EU officials who on Monday called for a humanitarian pause in fighting so that aid could be delivered into Gaza."


So the US is conniving in the further bombardment of civilians in Gaza by excusing the actions which have already killed 5000 civilians, including over 2000 children, many of them having taken refuge in zones which are supposed to be safe. God help us. Not calling for an immediate ceasefire is sheer insanity. Well done Joe Biden. One of the less-bad guys, I suppose. I have just one grandchild, a lively eight-year-old lad, bright as a button, full of energy with a real zest for life. There but for fortune he doesn't live in Gaza. I wonder what I'd be thinking if he did. I wonder what Biden would be thinking if it was his grandchild who was living in Gaza. Do you think he'd take off his blindfold and see that children's lives are not less valuable, and less valued, just because they're thousands of miles away, thirsty, starving, dressed in filthy rags and living in mortal fear? "Big Important Political Decision," eh? As you were, Bibi, carry on. We only see what you're doing if we turn the telly on, but that's voluntary. We don't look if we don't have to.

Every sane person in the planet should be calling for an immediate ceasefire. After everything we're seeing over the last two weeks, I for one don't want to hear of any more "tactical reasons" we shouldn't. If I were that child in Gaza I think I'd be wanting Joe Biden and Bibi, brothers in war, to shove their tactics where the sun don't shine.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 Oct 23 - 01:39 PM

'Lundging toward Non Stop moral equivalency for Hamas is what I expect from a hateful child."

You simply don't understand what I was saying. Perhaps you could share some thoughts about the actual conflict in question, once you've apprised yourself of some facts. That would be a welcome move.

Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 Oct 23 - 02:04 PM

"...but you need to stop calling the kettle black and set aside your very dark blinders."

Well perhaps, after all I've said about, them, you think I have a smidgeon of empathy for Hamas. Well I haven't, and I certainly don't need you to tell me how bad they are, thanks. But Biden refuses to criticise the utterly disproportionate response of Netanyahu. There are several pots and kettles here. Netanyahu is seriously in trouble at home and he sees the only way out is by carrying out vicious and utterly disproportionate attacks on civilians. He can't destroy Hamas and he knows it. It's just cutting off the head of the Hydra. You know that, I know that, we all know that. Biden, and he's not alone by any means, utters soft words of "advice" about how Bibi should be careful about hurting civilians. But no criticism and no call for a ceasefire. The reason for this is that Biden is not his own man. One word of direct criticism means that he will lose the next election, thanks to your all powerful pro-Israel lobby. Sunak is on the far right, is doomed anyway but is grasping at fake hubris as a last resort, so he will also say nothing. The bald fact here is that the Israeli regime requires more than criticism. It needs to be threatened with withdrawal of military aid unless it stops attacking civilians, and almost all of that military aid is sanctioned by Biden's administration. Decent people who know that Israeli shells have killed thousands of children are not going to continue to watch this horror show for evermore just because Bibi brutally and pointlessly keeps it going. We don't want to hear any more about tactics. We want to hear thst the killing has stopped. The man in the middle who can have the biggest influence I Joe Biden, and he's failing. We need a ceasefire. No more killing. Let's decide that political skins are less valuable than the lives of chidren.