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BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Mrrzy Date: 31 Oct 23 - 08:07 PM Hamas hardly started anything. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: robomatic Date: 30 Oct 23 - 05:52 PM Thanks for what the mods and background digital rehabbers are doing to get the thread back. I thought it was a better than average thread on the unhappy doings in the current Middle East. Meanwhile, I am repeating my link to the Israel/ Lebanon/ Hezbollah fracas of 2006: A History of Violence Reason being, there were great parallels in instigation by terrorist organization, response across the border by Israel, capture of soldiers for ransom, ultimate withdrawal by Israel with a great deal of infrastructure damage to Lebanon. I suspect that Israelis leaders are considering past experiences in Lebanon and Gaza WRT their course of action right now. If you like intersting movies, an interesting Israeli movie that came out after the Lebanon affair was: "Waltz with Bashir" It is important to mention that the movie was based on incidents in 1982 but involved commentary that was heavily influenced by the 2006 war. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: robomatic Date: 02 Nov 23 - 02:57 PM Let's not overlook the fact that the main and continuing victims of HAMAS have been the Palestinian people. In very large and increasing numbers. There is a difference between knowing this and doing something about this. And it applies to every act of aid, every journalistic interview, every artistic act, and from cradle to grave. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: robomatic Date: 02 Nov 23 - 03:47 PM I was reminded that Thomas Friedman has been commenting on Mideast Events. He has a great and thorough background on this subject recent podcast (link is to transcript) . |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: robomatic Date: 02 Nov 23 - 10:14 PM Maybe a release of hostages would alleviate violence and tensions. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: robomatic Date: 03 Nov 23 - 05:27 PM I just spent some time texting my little heart out and lost it all when my computer re-paged or something, probably my own fault. Taking a beat cause I have a life and some ahead of winter work to do outside on maybe one of our last days without snow all over everthing. Back tomorrow maybe |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: robomatic Date: 06 Nov 23 - 01:12 PM “When peace comes we will perhaps in time be able to forgive the Arabs for killing our sons, but it will be harder for us to forgive them for having forced us to kill their sons. Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us.” Golda Meir |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: robomatic Date: 07 Nov 23 - 11:29 AM Hamas has several hundred hostages yet to be released. Still launching rockets. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: robomatic Date: 10 Nov 23 - 07:20 PM I am not too believing in any of the governmental statements and news reports parroting them. I take seriously that Israel wants to 'get Hamas' and they link most humanitarian/ cease fire moves as protective of Hamas either allowing them to regroup or gain physical protection. Most of what I'm listening to is American National Public Radio. I also have access to Free Speech Radio/ Democracy Now. I mentioned the 2006 War with Hezbollah in the previous Hamas Thread. While there were parallels and bombings in Southern Lebanon that left considerable smashed infrastructure, I have no capability of imagining Gaza right now. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: robomatic Date: 11 Nov 23 - 01:20 PM Thompson: You are right about BBC. I should have definitely included them. Beyond current affairs, BBC is an INCREDIBLE RESOURCE on multiple levels and is remarkably available. To flesh out my previous response, I should say that after midnight local time the local public broadcasting station airs BBC World Service through to 0500. BBC has its own perspectives. I also have the DW (German: Deutsche Welle) app on my phone. I consult it regularly for another perspective and sometimes they have stories that I would not run into otherwise. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: robomatic Date: 13 Nov 23 - 12:07 PM The book "A Problem From Hell" by Susan Power credits a Polish Jew named Lemkin with (re?-) coining the word 'genocide' in the 1920s in light of the fallout from the Armenian mass deaths at the hands of the Turks circa WWI. He went on to become a lawyer and concern himself with defining this as an issue. I haven't tried NGRAM viewer but look forward to it! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: robomatic Date: 13 Nov 23 - 12:20 PM "unforgiveable on an industrial scale" Sounds like we're back-tracking to blame Israel for the Hamas Oct7 invasion. The latest 'reports' are that Israelis are in battle with Hamas gunmen and where is this happening? Near the hospitals which Israel claims are the Hamas bases. Time to ask: "WHAT WOULD YOU DO?" And credit is deducted when your answer involves a time machine. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: robomatic Date: 14 Nov 23 - 04:57 PM Thompson: You are the nation of Israel. Alternatively, you can take over the body of the Prime Minister of Israel. After the terror attack of October 7, 2023 and the brutal execution of over 1000 of your citizens, YOU get to respond. What would you do and how far would you take it? And how would you react to world opinion if it didn't side with you as much as you thought it would or should? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: robomatic Date: 15 Nov 23 - 07:59 PM I think the atrocity is continuing - The Hamas atrocity. They are reportedly fighting in the hospital environs, if not the hospital itself. They undoubtedly have food and energy for themselves but not for those served by the hospital. AND. . . They have released no hostages. They may get a pass from you, but not from me. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Donuel Date: 30 Oct 23 - 01:31 PM Cyberwar tactics may emerge regarding links to the Hamas-Israeli war of annihilation and terror unless one can trust the source. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Donuel Date: 30 Oct 23 - 06:39 PM https://www.timesofisrael.com/khamenei-when-iran-speaks-of-wiping-out-israel-it-refers-to-regime-not-jews/ I'm dubious. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Donuel Date: 31 Oct 23 - 07:22 AM Global war on Jews |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Donuel Date: 31 Oct 23 - 10:18 AM My first post was to beware of folks who take sides early. If you were Jewish, by the one drop of blood rule, you would know of the victimization of Jewish victims for the last 2,000 years. You might even take the Hamas side out of a denial complex. More likely you were taught what to think of Jews in childhood. I knew little kids of 9 who knew that Jews killed Jesus. If you are for war for a penny you are for war for a pound. Blaming one side only for the horror of war is foolish and hateful. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Donuel Date: 31 Oct 23 - 10:43 AM Ultimately what is to be done? One can strive to be part of the rational solution. All the while a wise person knows that the silly or horrid beliefs will often persist until the believer dies. Peace is a long game. The crime of war itself is a short-term grab. Without Bebe, the two-state solution has a chance. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Donuel Date: 03 Nov 23 - 03:23 PM DON'T is a demand that is useless What kind of peace do I mean? What kind of peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children--not merely peace for Americans and other democracies but peace for all men and women--not merely peace in our time but peace for all time. I speak of peace because of the new face of war. Total war makes no sense in an age when great powers can maintain large and relatively invulnerable nuclear forces and refuse to surrender without resort to those forces. It makes no sense in an age when a single nuclear weapon contains almost ten times the explosive force delivered by all of the allied air forces in the Second World War. It makes no sense in an age when the deadly poisons produced by a nuclear exchange would be carried by wind and water and soil and seed to the far corners of the globe and to generations yet unborn. Today the expenditure of billions of dollars every year on weapons acquired for the purpose of making sure we never need to use them is essential to keeping the peace. But surely the acquisition of such idle stockpiles--which can only destroy and never create--is not the only, much less the most efficient, means of assuring peace. I speak of peace, therefore, as the necessary rational end of rational men. I realize that the pursuit of peace is not as dramatic as the pursuit of war--and frequently the words of the pursuer fall on deaf ears. But we have no more urgent task. Some say that it is useless to speak of world peace or world law or world disarmament and that it will be useless until the leaders have a more enlightened attitude. I hope they do. I believe we can help them do it. But I also believe that we must reexamine our own attitude--as individuals and as a Nation--for our attitude is as essential every thoughtful citizen who despairs of war and wishes to bring peace. We need to know what to do after hostilities. We need peace. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Donuel Date: 03 Nov 23 - 03:34 PM There could be a collective of Muslim nations (not Iran or Lebanon) that could set up interim governance In post-war Palestine with the aid of reparations from Israel and the US. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Donuel Date: 04 Nov 23 - 06:59 AM Proportionality applies to the concept of not using weapons of mass destruction in response to small weapons. The sad progress of war is to escalate and bring overwhelming forces to bear. To respond in equal proportion to terrorism does not exist. Cry crocodile tears and be at war with anyone who does not agree with you but peace requires more rationality than war. There is danger in taking sides but when you do, you are likely to become more strident and hardened. This is not a war against Israel or Zionism, it is a war against Jews in the global reaction. This is the actual thought process of the supporters of Terrorism. Even the Hamas glorifiers on social media have an agenda they can not hide. The man who spoke the words of peace below was shot in the head while next to his wife because he was a foe of war that stymied the warmakers. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Donuel Date: 04 Nov 23 - 10:12 AM I believe in free speech so go ahead and mutter bitterness. The consequences of speech are more dire for the young than the washed-up and retired. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Donuel Date: 05 Nov 23 - 04:31 AM We all know the jokes about military intelligence. In the sixties, the US still had WWII generals like Curtis Lemay who welcomed a nuclear war with the Soviets. Stupidity in militaries still abounds. Israel has our most advanced cyberwar tools along with autonomous drone hives. With Stuxnet hacking tools Israel stupidly left it exposed so it could be traced. What is called the fog of war is really the stupidity of war. The same factors of a schoolyard fight still apply. Who threw the first punch, pick on someone your own size, bullies have the upper hand... There is nothing more stupid than a smart bomb. It knows no morality. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Donuel Date: 05 Nov 23 - 08:21 AM Biden has resisted requesting a cease-fire by Israel. His popularity has now dropped below 37%. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Donuel Date: 06 Nov 23 - 07:51 AM What's happening: "If there's any chance of us being able to act constructively, to do something, it will require an admission of complexity and maintaining what on the surface may seem contradictory ideas" . "That what Hamas did was horrific and there's no justification for it. And what is also true is that the occupation and what's happening to Palestinians is unbearable." In an interview clip, Barak Obama touched on the significance of recognizing anti-Semitism in the response to this conflict, as well as the Palestinians without any connection to Hamas' actions who are dying as a result of the war. I urge Americans to speak to people whose opinions differ from their own, especially outside of social media. "I would rather see you out there talking to people, including people who you disagree with," he said. "If you genuinely want to change this, then you've got to figure out how to speak to somebody on the other side and listen to them and understand what they're talking about." Barak Obama |
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Subject: RE: Trump INDICTED x4 No new Trump threads pt III From: Donuel Date: 02 Nov 23 - 01:23 PM A pro-Hamas hacktivist group has been observed using a new Linux-based wiper malware dubbed BiBi-Linux Wiper, targeting Israeli entities amidst the ongoing Israeli-Hamas war. "This malware is an x64 ELF executable, lacking obfuscation or protective measures," Security Joes said in a new report published today. 3 days ago |
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Subject: RE: Trump INDICTED x4 No new Trump threads pt III From: Donuel Date: 02 Nov 23 - 12:50 PM https://www.c4isrnet.com/cyber/2023/10/31/hacktivists-join-the-front-lines-in-israel-hamas-war/#:~:text=Outside%20groups%20with% |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Donuel Date: 06 Nov 23 - 01:38 PM Come you masters of war You that build the big guns You that build the death planes You that build all the bombs You that hide behind walls You that hide behind desks I just want you to know I can see through your masks You that never done nothin' But build to destroy You play with my world Like it's your little toy You put a gun in my hand And you hide from my eyes And you turn and run farther When the fast bullets fly Like Judas of old You lie and deceive A world war can be won You want me to believe But I see through your eyes And I see through your brain Like I see through the water That runs down my drain You fasten all the triggers For the others to fire Then you sit back and watch When the death count gets higher You hide in your mansion While the young people's blood Flows out of their bodies And is buried in the mud You've thrown the worst fear That can ever be hurled Fear to bring children Into the world For threatening my baby Unborn and unnamed You ain't worth the blood That runs in your veins How much do I know To talk out of turn You might say that I'm young You might say I'm unlearned But there's one thing I know Though I'm younger than you That even Jesus would never Forgive what you do Let me ask you one question Is your money that good? Will it buy you forgiveness Do you think that it could? I think you will find When your death takes its toll All the money you made Will never buy back your soul And I hope that you die And your death will come soon I'll follow your casket By the pale afternoon And I'll watch while you're lowered Down to your deathbed And I'll stand over your grave 'Til I'm sure that you're dead Bob Dylan. Netanyahu knows damn well the Nazis SS killed 10 for every soldier killed by the resistance. SOMETIMES MUCH MORE. Bibi is almost at that 10 to 1 body count already. I hope that he dies and his death will come soon. I'll watch his casket by the pale afternoon. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Donuel Date: 13 Nov 23 - 06:27 AM Ben Ferenz introduced the word globally when he used it at the Nuremberg trial. As I said before Ben was not the inventor of the word. The longhand copy of the worksheet of the genesis of the word still exists. What naked power can put the long-standing Middle East wars on time out? Who or what can replace all other truths with their own? An Arab alliance, the UN, the US, Mudcat? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Donuel Date: 13 Nov 23 - 09:06 AM Hamas was supposedly elected by Palestinians. Also Hamas has the rhetorical support of Vladamir Putin and Iran. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Donuel Date: 13 Nov 23 - 10:32 AM While I lived here McNamara could be seen walking the DC parks like a sad apparition in an overcoat before his final departure. I believe he was plagued by empathy that came to him too late. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Donuel Date: 15 Nov 23 - 03:40 PM A time machine intervention would have to go back thousands of years before the Crusades. Even then I suspect a prehistoric war of a racist or religious kind. |
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Subject: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Stilly River Sage Date: 30 Oct 23 - 01:19 PM The original thread is suffering from a disk error glitch and I'm seeing stray remarks come up in other places. The rules still apply - stick to the subject, don't post a coherent remark about the war following a jab at someone you disagree with because the whole thing will vanish. If the other thread returns before this one is too unwieldy, they can be merged. The Times of Israel has reported that following forensic examination of a skull piece that a German-Israeli young woman is most likely dead, that she couldn't live without that piece of her skull. This is not the news of hostages that the world is waiting for. I don't read the local papers much (the Times or Al Jazeera) these days because it they are conducting a propaganda slug-fest. And in a truly bizarre twist, a mob in Dagestan pushed into an airport where a plane landed from Israel. They were looking for Jews. Putin calls meeting after mob storms Dagestan airport looking for Israelis on jet from Tel Aviv. MOSCOW (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin called a meeting of security and law enforcement officials Monday, the day after a mob stormed the airport in the southern region of Dagestan after a flight from Israel landed there. Meanwhile Putin is trying to suggest that the remaining Jewish residents in Russia are safe. Are there any Russian-Israeli hostages reported? Is there such a thing? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Stilly River Sage Date: 31 Oct 23 - 01:18 PM I don't hear any supporters of Palestinians shouting "Release the Hostages!" Then you're not looking. Over 200 arrested at Grand Central Terminal during rally for ceasefire in Gaza Splitting hairs, but here, at a protest for a cease fire, a passenger was quoted that they needed to go farther: One passenger said he was not only angry because of delays but also, he says, because the demonstrators aren't talking about what caused the war - the terrorist group Hamas killing 1,400 Israelis and taking others hostage. Part of the problem is that the Israelis aren't discussing the negotiations to release their own people who are hostages. Israel will not agree to a cease-fire, Netanyahu says, as fighting continues in Gaza It sounds like Netanyahu has written them off. Or is everyone being quiet to not jinx negotiations? Israeli officials would not comment on the status of negotiations over a deal to free hostages. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Stilly River Sage Date: 31 Oct 23 - 07:52 PM Either way. Where's the outrage? For your particular focus in this big ugly debate? You expressed it, we answered, then clarified, and moved on. Hamas started it, Israel needs to finish it, but they can do that by stopping the killing, negotiate hostage release, and following through on the two-state things they've been pressured for decades to do and sometimes promised to do, only to back out (after letting some Israelis misbehave and throw a wrench in the peace works - every single time. It's so predictable). Netanyahu is a hot mess and the solution will probably come after he's out of office (because I'm willing to bet the internal pressure is immense for him to resign right now.) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Stilly River Sage Date: 31 Oct 23 - 11:07 PM Hamas started everything this time. Pick your starting point, and say why. The issue here is the assault on civilians on October 7, 2023. War crimes were committed on October 7, and everyone has behaved badly ever since. But Hamas did indeed start it with terrorist attacks. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Stilly River Sage Date: 03 Nov 23 - 08:23 PM Netanyahu seems to have the bit in his teeth, the missile controls in his hands, and is ignoring anyone who tells him he needs to back off and spare civilians. And in other awful news, the Palestinian workers in Israel who were detained by Israel were deported to Gaza, their papers and permission to work erased. This comes from the American ABC news network, but they source the Hamas Health Ministry, so the numbers are probably inflated. Israel deports thousands of Palestinian workers back to Gaza's war zone Israel has deported thousands of workers to the besieged Gaza Strip, capping what many described as harrowing weeks trapped in legal limbo since their detention when the Israel-Hamas war erupted Those who were arrested were sent to the Anatot and Ofer military prisons in the West Bank. There, workers said, they were blindfolded, interrogated, beaten repeatedly and deprived of water and food for extended periods. Any sympathy that was available when the first Hamas terrorism happened has evaporated. The Israelis are just as bad, they are also terrorists at this point. "A Plague on both your houses." Another story from CNN. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Stilly River Sage Date: 04 Nov 23 - 12:44 PM From NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday this morning: How two Dartmouth professors are addressing student questions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict Dartmouth College has set up forums to educate students and the public about the Israel-Hamas conflict. NPR's Scott Simon talks to professors Susannah Heschell and Tarek El-Ariss, the organizers. The transcript isn't up yet, the story is an 8-minute listen. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Stilly River Sage Date: 06 Nov 23 - 09:29 AM Barak Obama is the source. I read it somewhere yesterday. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Stilly River Sage Date: 09 Nov 23 - 04:07 PM Four hour "breaks" will be offered each day so people can move around Gaza. There still aren't enough relief supplies entering, though I read somewhere that Hamas has access to lots of supplies should they choose to release them. That story needs more investigation if true. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Stilly River Sage Date: 12 Nov 23 - 09:00 PM You're all incorrect. If you take a look at Googles Ngram Viewer it examines scanned texts and finds the earliest and most frequent, etc., occurrences of words. "Genocide" first appears in 1808, but a minute fraction in publications. It picks up in ~1902, probably to do with the Armenian genocide. When you take out the smoothing (as I did in this link) it's easier to see the blips on the history of it. In 1940 the graph starts to rise and by 1971 it has really taken off. I deleted a lot of nasty stuff here and in the coin toss threads. If Don and Steve don't stop the personal sniping I'll close both threads and people may find themselves in time out. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Nigel Parsons Date: 10 Nov 23 - 06:02 AM Steve: I have no wish to side with Hamas, but I can't find any reports about Hamas withholding aid. "Goren also said that in coordination with the UN, the army was opening a new humanitarian zone in Khan Younis, a city in the south of the strip, which he said would not be targeted by Israeli bombing. When asked by the Guardian for details, the colonel did not give the location or size of the new “safe zone”, but said it could hold “hundreds of thousands of people” in a “relatively open area”. Goren also accused Hamas of using the area’s civilian population to further its operational goals, withholding stockpiles of water, food, medical supplies and petrol in order to fuel the humanitarian crisis and slow the Israeli advance. Cogat, citing coordination with the UN, said there was “not a food and water shortage” in the strip, although the supply was “not at a normal level” and access was more difficult in some areas than others." Source: The Guardian admittedly you have to read almost to the end to find it, while the Telegraph includes it as a headline (but that article is behind a paywall) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Nigel Parsons Date: 10 Nov 23 - 08:38 AM I was responding to the fact that 'you hadn't seen reports'. As for fact checking, it seems the NYT say the claims have been confirmed by 'Western Officials' NYT Similar date, but at least now you've seen the reports. Whether you believe them is your choice. But in view of the situation in Israel/Gaza it would seem stupid of Hamas to have made their attacks without first stocking up on provisions. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Nigel Parsons Date: 12 Nov 23 - 12:59 PM Donuel: "Nuremberg sentences for those not executed were watered down within a short time. That court introduced the word genocide." The Nuremburg Court was established in November 1945. The word Genocide was coined in 1944 (according to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum) I may not always agree with Steve, but I do try to stick to facts. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Nigel Parsons Date: 19 Nov 23 - 12:42 PM Steve: "I'm not denying that there is, or has been, a considerable Hamas presence in the hospital. That would be a war crime. So is the deliberate targeting of a hospital by the IDF." Once you have accepted that Hamas have (or have had) a considerable presence in the hospital then the war crimes are those of Hamas. From The Guardian Article 8 of the Rome statute, which established the international criminal court (ICC) in The Hague, defines a long list of war crimes including “intentionally directing attacks against buildings dedicated to religion, education, art, science or charitable purposes, historic monuments, hospitals and places where the sick and wounded are collected”. But it makes an exception if the targets are “military objectives”. Philip-Gay said that “if a civilian hospital is used for acts harmful to the enemy, that is the legal term used”, the hospital can lose its protected status under international law and be considered a legitimate target. Nevertheless, if there is doubt as to whether a hospital is a military objective or being used for acts harmful to the enemy, the presumption, under international humanitarian law, is that it is not. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Nigel Parsons Date: 19 Nov 23 - 07:37 PM Steve:But if you want to accuse Hamas of specific bad actions, such as hiding bags of weapons in hospitals, etc., you need much better evidence than likely put-up-job IDF staged photos. I am not looking to provide evidence. You, yourself said: there is, or has been, a considerable Hamas presence in the hospital. This, from your own words, makes the hospitals a valid target! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Lighter Date: 30 Oct 23 - 10:29 PM I'm not a scholar of international law, but it's all more complicated than partisan claims suggest. White phosphorous is indeed outlawed when used intentionally against civilian targets. Its use for smoke screens, for illumination, in tracer rounds, and against military targets, however, is perfectly legal. Whether Israel used WP against civilians in Lebanon is disputed. If an international body like the World Court was ever sufficiently persuaded to bring charges, I haven't seen mention of it. The Convention on Cluster Munitions doesn't "outlaw" cluster bomblets. Their use against certain military targets, in fact, remains legal under international law. Instead, signatories to the Convention simply pledge not to employ certain munitions of that kind. Israel, however, along with Russia, China, India, the United States, and a few other countries, is not a signatory. If someone uses cluster munitions against a non-signatory nation, that non-signatory has no ground for protest or action under international law; however, it is not restrained from using such weapons itself when it deems them "necessary." As for civilian targets in general: it is a war crime to target civilian areas simply to kill civilians or to destroy civilian morale. It's not a war crime, however, if civilians die in attacks on legitimate military targets. Equally interesting is that it is very much a war crime to place military forces or assets in a civilian area to use the residents as human shields. Such military targets have always been legitimate under international law, and any resultant civilian harm is the responsibility of the defending forces. When civilians are harmed, defenders can always charge they were targeted intentionally. (The word "genocide" is often bandied about in such cases.) Current international law requires that reasonable measures be taken to minimize civilian casualties. Of course, what measures are "reasonable" in a given circumstance may be a matter of opinion, and many people don't recognize or won't heed warnings. Moreover, if legitimately targeted enemy forces would be alerted, a warning isn't required. Stakes are high on the world stage, so both sides exaggerate or lie when convenient. It's often difficult to determine whether a war crime has occurred until there's a verdict by a duly appointed international tribunal. In 1864 General W. T. Sherman wrote that "War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it." Later attempts to mitigate the cruelty have had real but very limited success. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Lighter Date: 31 Oct 23 - 09:56 AM No, Steve, I didn't mean you. Was the WP used to kill civilians? What was it used for, and what did it do? Use of white phosphorous shells is not in itself prohibited. And whatever one might think of them, cluster bombs are still legal - unless you have more detailed information about the Convention than I do. The Convention specifically allows cluster munitions of certain sizes anyway. Moreover, https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/4/3/why-we-need-to-challenge-russias-human-shields-narrative "According to international law, using human shields constitutes a war crime, while the party responsible for the death of human shields is not the one killing them – if the attack is proportionate – but instead, the one deploying them." Hamas consciously brought this on themselves and their people to generate international outrage against Israel. In this they have been remarkably successful - even though their eight-hour spree of murder, arson, rape, and torture on Israel was absolutely a series of crimes. According to CNN, even in "peacetime," Hamas lobs two or three rockets a day into Israel. Hamas has explicitly pledged to destroy Israel and its Jewish citizens. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Lighter Date: 31 Oct 23 - 10:21 AM Just to repeat what I wrote some time ago, I don't hear any supporters of Palestinians shouting "Release the Hostages!" Not even in countries where they could do so quite safely. Why is that? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Lighter Date: 31 Oct 23 - 10:35 AM It would all be over if Hamas lays down its arms. Like the Nazis did. Of course, Israel could call a halt too. Like the Allies didn't do in 1944. Any government's first responsibility is to defend and protect its citizens. That's what Israel is doing and Hamas is not, regardless of politics. Hamas is pledged literally to wipe Israel off the map and replace it with a Muslim theocracy. Israel is not sworn to wipe Gaza off the map or to kill Palestinians. Israel withdrew its troops and settlements from Gaza in 2006. Hamas has been in charge since then. Are both sides "equally to blame" for the current situation? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Lighter Date: 31 Oct 23 - 01:49 PM Sorry, Stilly, but there's nothing in the CBS article about any Palestinians calling for the release of hostages. It was a mainly Jewish group calling for a ceasefire. Hardly the same thing. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Lighter Date: 31 Oct 23 - 04:19 PM Either way. Where's the outrage? One more curious point. Israel admits bombing a community called Jabalia. News reports are describing it as a "refugee camp." There's a word picture for you. But Wikpedia describes it as a "city" of over 170,000 people in the northern area where Israel urged evacuation. Images on CNN sure look like a city to me. So why not free the hostages? Why not surrender, end the violence, and turn Gaza over to the Palestinian National Authority/ Fatah, which Hamas violently drove from Gaza? I assume it's largely because the PLA hasn't called for wiping Israel off the map. I have no skin in this game, and no influence over it, but I think I can fairly judge the relative virtues of the belligerents. You know, a lot of lives would have been saved - French and Belgian civilian lives too - if the Allies had given Hitler a black eye at Stalingrad or on D Day and declared peace. I don't think that would have been the best idea. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Thompson Date: 30 Oct 23 - 06:06 PM Oh lord, so so sorry to hear that that poor girl is dead. My hands were clenched into my palms hoping for her safety. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Thompson Date: 01 Nov 23 - 01:44 AM The director of the New York office of the UN high commissioner for human rights has left his post - “The current wholesale slaughter of the Palestinian people, rooted in an ethno-nationalist colonial settler ideology, in continuation of decades of their systematic persecution and purging, based entirely upon their status as Arabs … leaves no room for doubt.” https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/31/un-official-resigns-israel-hamas-war-palestine-new-york (Using a link rather than blickifier because of the blick's problem with long links.) Meanwhile, white phosphorous: why should anyone argue about whether napalm, white phosphorous, killer gases, etc, are "legal". They're murder. And in Ukraine, also from The Guardian, a group of Russian soldiers killed a family, using machine guns with silencers, because the family refused to give them their house. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/31/russian-soldiers-accused-of-killing-family-of-nine-in-ukraine |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Thompson Date: 01 Nov 23 - 08:23 AM The problem both with Israel's invasion of Gaza and the attack on an Israeli plane in Dagestan is that both murderous attacks are against the wrong people. Same with the Hamas attack on Israelis. Hamas attacked random Israelis because of the illegal settlements gradually grabbing increasing amounts of Palestinian land. The State of Israel then attacked and is attacking random Palestinians in revenge. The Dagestan crowd sought to attack random passengers coming from Israel in revenge. The old saying "If you plan revenge, dig two graves" is out of date. Now it should be "If you plan revenge open a whole cemetery for people who were never involved in the first place". |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Thompson Date: 02 Nov 23 - 08:10 PM From the New York Times today: The Israeli military said that in its strikes on Jabaliya it had been targeting Hamas commanders who played key roles in the attacks on Oct. 7, which Israeli officials said killed more than 1,400 people. The military also said that Hamas had an extensive tunnel network in Jabaliya. On Wednesday, Dr. Abu Safyia said, he was working with a colleague in the hospital’s neonatal intensive-care unit — one of two units that still had power amid a severe fuel shortage — when casualties from Jabaliya started arriving. When they rushed down to the emergency room to help, he said, his colleague was stunned to see that two of her own children were among the dead. Her 9-year-old and 7-year-old had been killed in their home, he said, along with several of her siblings and relatives. “We are working at a place where at any moment we expect our children, spouses, siblings or friends to come in in pieces,” he said. Some children could not be identified because of the severity of their injuries, he said. The hospital’s morgue was so full that people were stacking bodies on top of one another. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Thompson Date: 03 Nov 23 - 06:00 AM Have the hostage releases that have happened alleviated the violence and tension? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Thompson Date: 03 Nov 23 - 07:11 AM Looks about right; from August in Haaretz: The number of Palestinian administrative detainees as of August 1 stood at 1,201 – the highest number recorded since human rights organizations began collecting monthly data in 2001. Administrative detainees are held under a procedure defined as “preventive detention,” which is based on intelligence that is not disclosed to the detainees or their lawyers. There are no evidentiary court hearings for their cases and the detainees’ lawyers are not privy to evidence against them, other than a short summary presenting the suspicions against their clients… According to Prison Service figures, 5,014 Palestinians are currently incarcerated in Israeli prisons, 2,353 of whom have been tried and sentenced. A further 1,460 are defined as detainees whose legal proceedings are ongoing, while the remainder are administrative detainees. In addition to the Palestinian administrative detainees, there are currently eight Jews detained under administrative orders – the highest number in years. Also from https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2022-02-24/ty-article/.premium/israels-prisons-hold-thousands-of-inmates-in-solidary-confinement-some-for-years/0000017f-f591-d318-afff-f7f3c7250000 is a piece on the use of solitary confinement (regarded as torture in civilised countries): According to figures provided by the prison service, in the first ten months of 2021, 1,587 inmates, among them 66 minors, had been held in complete solitary confinement. In that same year, by the end of August, another 1,134 prisoners, 53 of whom were minors, were held in “individual seclusion,” or “two-person seclusion.” And from last week, no, last month, 22 October, also Haaretz: Before the war, Israel held close to 5,000 Palestinian prisoners. Over 1,000 of these were held without trial. Almost 200 of them are minors. A large portion of these are political prisoners. A majority of them are serving draconian sentences, handed down in the spirit of the judicial methods of the so-called military justice system. To these were added more than 1,000 Palestinians that Israel abducted in the West Bank only over the last two weeks, as well as an unknown number of armed men from Gaza and thousands of other Gazan residents. The release of most, if not all of them, is now required, unless it is decided to abandon the hostages and leave them to their fates. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Thompson Date: 03 Nov 23 - 07:12 AM Sorry, I mis-copied one of those blickies. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Thompson Date: 03 Nov 23 - 08:42 AM Thanks! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Thompson Date: 04 Nov 23 - 05:12 AM I don't think so, Steve. People are in grief. Governments, that's another matter. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Thompson Date: 07 Nov 23 - 04:26 AM Jewish activists took over the Statue of Liberty yesterday asking for the attacks on Gaza to stop. The phrase on the banner - "Never again for anyone" dates back to the Holocaust. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Thompson Date: 08 Nov 23 - 12:27 AM Has your child ever been in hospital? In Gaza, there's no clean water - the pipes have been bombed - and no medical supplies. Medical staff describe a scene worse than any battlefield, patients with worms coming out of wounds even after they operate. 40% of those killed were children; presumably 40% of patients crushed when their homes were bombed and hit by shrapnel and bullets are also children. This war will shame Israel among the nations forever. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Thompson Date: 10 Nov 23 - 01:15 AM BBC World Service news reported an Israeli statement that these "humanitarian" pauses will not be allowed to be used to bring in humanitarian aid. Meanwhile, here's Oxfam on the whole "humanitarian pause" concept. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Thompson Date: 11 Nov 23 - 02:45 AM BBC World Service is a good radio station, at the moment. Who knows what will happen to it with the current UK government in control, but right now it tells the news straight from all around the world. You can hear it on online radio aggregators like TuneIn Radio Pro. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Thompson Date: 11 Nov 23 - 11:52 AM I'm not sure how it might go in the future either. I stopped listening to BBC Radio 4 (the former "Home Service") a few years ago when it became chokingly jingoistic; maybe it's stopped that now, but at the time every second word was "British" and it stuck in my throat. BBC online news is reporting a demonstration by 300,000 people in London against the war today. Also this mind-numbingly tragic story, which brings home the horror of the 11,000 dead. When it was 10,000 dead, 4,000 of the dead were children. Doctors are saying that the majority of the wounded are children. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Thompson Date: 12 Nov 23 - 12:44 AM The Israelis have succeeded in drawing Hamas into the open - they're fighting in the streets outside - by bombing around the largest hospital in Gaza. Meanwhile in America, a politician has called openly for genocide. The stories get madder. There's one going around, which I can scarcely believe, that 100 Israeli doctors called for the bombing of Gaza hospitals. Another that premature babies have started to die as the hospital runs out of power. And no, these stories don't make me a Hamas supporter. They make me a peace supporter. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Thompson Date: 13 Nov 23 - 09:15 AM Well worth watching The Fog of War, Donuel. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Thompson Date: 13 Nov 23 - 05:30 PM Robomatic, what exactly do you mean by "what would you do", please? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Thompson Date: 19 Nov 23 - 11:35 AM Robomatic, just saw your post. I am the nation or the prime minister of Israel when the 7 October attack by Hamas happens, what will I do? Interesting question. I know what I won't do, and it's kill 5,000 children and 7,000 adults (on today's figures) in revenge and destroy an entire nation with bombing. This does not seem to me an intelligent response, apart from being batshit psycho crazy. Since Mossad and Shin Bet are supposed to be able to track anyone down, and according to Israel's own account they know where every Hamas member is at all times, and know all about every bit of tunnelling, I suppose I would send these spy groups to find the killers and bring them in, and then put them on trial, as well as requesting that this government be tried by the International Criminal Court. And of course they'd be able to find the hostages and bring them home. Speaking for myself (not as a pretend nation or prime minister but just as an ordinary person), I was unutterably horrified by the Hamas raid and the taking of hostages. The smashing of an entire society, killing of journalists so there are no witnesses, the bombing of desalination plants to deprive people of water, the starving of hospitals of power so that premature babies in incubators and people on dialysis and in intensive care die is so far beyond horror that this empathy has not died away, but has been concealed behind a greater disgust and rage. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Backwoodsman Date: 01 Nov 23 - 05:21 AM ”Using a link rather than blickifier because of the blick's problem with long links.)” Thompson, you could try using thIs Mudcat Simple Linkifier - I’m pretty sure it takes care of the long link problem. You can save the Simple Linkifier as a favourite. Here are your links from above… https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/31/un-official-resigns-israel-hamas-war-palestine-new-york https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/31/russian-soldiers-accused-of-killing-family-of-nine-in-ukraine |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Backwoodsman Date: 03 Nov 23 - 07:27 AM Here’s a link to the piece from Haaretz about solitary confinement, Thompson. Thanks for those links. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Backwoodsman Date: 03 Nov 23 - 10:06 AM Thompson, check out my post of 01 Nov 23 - 05:21 AM which contains a link to a Blickifier which handles lengthy links properly. You can save it as a Favourite. I use it every time I need to create a Blicky. I like proper, working Links, because I like to understand precisely where information is coming from, and whether a poster’s ‘interpretation’ of the piece linked to jives with my own. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Backwoodsman Date: 06 Nov 23 - 07:54 AM Source(s)? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Backwoodsman Date: 06 Nov 23 - 10:26 AM John 11:35 |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Backwoodsman Date: 11 Nov 23 - 05:42 AM I agree about BBCWS. I read the i newspaper, as well as listening to the BBCWS. I like the way the i reports news without the bias and spin of the Right- and Left-supporting publications. I still trust BBCWS but I’m not sure how it might go in the future. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Steve Shaw Date: 30 Oct 23 - 04:24 PM Two voices. First, the UK home secretary Suella Braverman. In words that will anger some peace campaigners, the home secretary said “tens of thousands of people” had taken to the streets and had “chanted for the erasure of Israel from the map”. Speaking after a Cobra meeting chaired by Rishi Sunak, Braverman said: “We’ve seen now tens of thousands of people take to the streets following the massacre of Jewish people, the single largest loss of Jewish life since the Holocaust, chanting for the erasure of Israel from the map. “To my mind there is only one way to describe those marches: they are hate marches.” Her words appear to be a reference to the chant “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”. Second, Nowar Diab, a young student from Gaza City who has been forced to flee with her family four times in the last/three weeks and who has lost two friends: ...One thing that has recently given me hope in the face of the tragedy that has become our lives here in Gaza. It is the pictures of hundreds of thousands of people standing up for us and protesting in our name – demonstrations held in the streets of cities across the world, from Algiers and Istanbul to London and Washington DC. The kindness of strangers, often thousands of miles away: this pulls us out of that feeling of hopelessness. Seeing this, I cannot help my eyes filling with tears. It shows people care and our suffering is felt. ...Seeing people of all ages and from all communities descend on the streets of London last weekend proved that our cries were not in vain. We are heard. The world is watching. And our fellow humans are standing up for us by opposing this war. ...My message to those people of Britain – who will stand up for us yet again today by attending peaceful demonstrations held in London and other cities– is a simple word of thanks. You restore my faith in humanity – each time you march in our name and call for peace, each time you chant for a free Palestine and a better world, and with every sign, banner and flag that you wave in our support. ...You give us hope for a better, fairer world. The Guardian is the source for both extracts. I know who I'd rather listen to. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Steve Shaw Date: 30 Oct 23 - 07:00 PM There is a history of violence going back much further than the Israel/Hezbollah conflict you refer to. Whilst everything in the Middle East is connected to everything else, that conflict is just a tad peripheral to the present Israel/Gaza conflict, as it directly involved Hezbollah and Israel alone. Israel didn't even declare war on Lebanon, though they blighted the place with millions of cluster bomblets which killed hundreds of people long after the conflict, and used white phosphorus munitions, both illegal under international law. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Steve Shaw Date: 31 Oct 23 - 07:35 AM Well a few things first. I hope that "partisan claims" is not directed at me. You're clearly a supporter of the Israeli regime (though not necessarily of its current actions, though you do seem to be excusing things that a true neutral probably wouldn't), and as such you should be wary of pointing the finger at folks who could well be less "partisan" than you. I'm very careful as to where I get what information I can about this conflict and I'm trying hard to see things from the point of view of non-combatant civilians (if we ever get the old thread back you'd see that I said that a lot of times). My view of the two enemies in the conflict is that they are both inhumanly repugnant. I can't say equally so because they are repugnant in different ways. I'm not going to make any excuse for Hamas and I'd like to think that no-one is any longer making excuses for the slaughter and thoroughly inhuman treatment of Gaza citizens. "White phosphorous [sic] is indeed outlawed when used intentionally against civilian targets. Its use for smoke screens, for illumination, in tracer rounds, and against military targets, however, is perfectly legal." White phosphorus shells were used on more than one occasion in the first week of this conflict over the port of Gaza (Human Rights Watch). It is not possible to use this in densely-populated areas without a dire threat to civilians. Contact with this material results in horrific, deep burns. It's not conceivable that its use in that part of Gaza was legal. A single shell containing cluster bomblets can spread its load of bomblets over 57 acres. Again, use of cluster munitions in heavily-populated areas wantonly threatens civilians and can never be justified, i.e., it's illegal. " |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Steve Shaw Date: 31 Oct 23 - 07:47 AM And by the way: "It is a war crime to target civilian areas simply to kill civilians or to destroy civilian morale." It's a war crime to not take every possible step to protect civilians from harm, whichever side you're on. Even if you suspect that your enemy is using human shields, it's a war crime to shoot at them. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Steve Shaw Date: 31 Oct 23 - 10:42 AM I'm not going to play tit-for-tat with you here. I have never supported any of Hamas's war crimes and I don't need to be constantly told what I've already said many times about Hamas's inhumanity. Hamas's aggressive actions against Israelis are unjustified and repugnant. But what I hear from apologists for the Israeli regime all the time is excuses for the thousands of civilian deaths THEY cause. THEY shell the schools, hospitals, places of worship and UN installations. THEY are careless of the death and misery being meted out to Gazans. The sheer numbers testify to that. They say that Hamas uses human shields. Gaza is tiny and grossly overcrowded. You can't shoot at Gaza without risking civilian casualties in their thousands. Hamas may well be using human shields. But it's the first thing Israel says every time there's a conflict and it's meant as a deflection from the horrors they are perpetrating. If you shoot at me, an innocent, and kill me, you don't get to blame me for getting in your way when it was you who pulled the trigger. And what you never hear: Bedouin farming communities are being driven from their land in the occupied West Bank by extreme right-wing settlers in rapidly-increasing numbers since this war started, some even being murdered, with the connivance, even encouragement, of the Netanyahu regime. The eyes of the world aren't on that at the moment, of course, because of the current conflict, so it proceeds apace. Just another thing, eh? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Steve Shaw Date: 31 Oct 23 - 11:27 AM "It would all be over if Hamas lays down its arms. Like the Nazis did. Of course, Israel could call a halt too." You want Hamas to lay down its arms, but you only want Israel to call a halt. How's about Hamas calls a halt and Israel calls a halt? You can destroy the manifestation of Hamas that is currently in charge in Gaza. Or drive them out. To be really effective, just destroy Gaza completely. But I think you're missing something, and, again, it's a lesson that history teaches us. Resistance movements arise when a people is subjugated, repressed, discriminated against, persecuted. It's easy enough to find out why we even have a Hamas and Hezbollah. Look it up. By the way, as recently as 2019 Netanyahu stated that Hamas were useful because two dissenting Palestinian factions allowed him all the more easily to divide and rule (his sentiments, not his words). Well that's come back to bite him and the unfortunate citizens of Israel big time. He's a massive part of the problem. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Steve Shaw Date: 31 Oct 23 - 11:35 AM "Just to repeat what I wrote some time ago, I don't hear any supporters of Palestinians shouting 'Release the Hostages!'l Well I'm supporter of Palestinians and I do. And so does everyone else I ever speak to about this. Hostage-taking is a vile war crime. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Steve Shaw Date: 31 Oct 23 - 02:31 PM You didn't say Palestinians. You said supporters of Palestinians. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part From: Steve Shaw Date: 31 Oct 23 - 05:16 PM "Either way?" I don't think so! A Guardian-reading Palestine-sympathiser from afar like me is far more likely to call for hostage release than a Gazan citizen embittered by weeks of Israeli bombardment and previous decades of Israeli repression, especially when there's a good chance that a friend or relative is imprisoned in Israel without trial. Or worse. As I said, I don't know anyone here who wants Hamas to keep the hostages, but I think I'd fully sympathise with millions of Gazans who don't give a shit about them, right or wrong. I'll be checking some of the details of your interpretation of the history too... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Steve Shaw Date: 31 Oct 23 - 06:04 PM "Israel admits bombing a community called Jabalia. News reports are describing it as a 'refugee camp'.There's a word picture for you. But Wikpedia describes it as a 'city' of over 170,000 people in the northern area where Israel urged evacuation. Images on CNN sure look like a city to me." So let's not let the facts get in the way of what's looking dangerously like prejudice... Jabalia is a large town a couple of miles from Gaza City, right? Jabalia refugee camp is just that, a refugee camp, adjacent to Jabalia but NOT Jabalia. It's very large and it's been a refugee camp for many years. "Israel urged evacuation." Sure. Tens of thousands of people in northern Gaza were not able to evacuate. They were in hospital, or they have family members in hospital, or were disabled, or they had no transport or fuel for transport, or the roads to the south were wrecked by shelling. Let's blame all those people for failing to evacuate and remaining behind to be bombed, people in a refugee camp that is the single most overcrowded spot on the planet. This is easy knowledge to obtain, it took me five minutes, and it's knowledge that the Israeli regime possessed as they ordered the bombing. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Steve Shaw Date: 31 Oct 23 - 08:47 PM Thanks, Maggie. An odd thing about the last three weeks, ironic even, given how far apart the factions now are, is the greatly increased frequency of mentions of that two-state solution that, until now, has looked as far away as ever. Maybe it still does, but who knows how things might pan out after the current tumult. I'm pretty confident that Netanyahu's days are numbered, and he won't be back once he's sidelined as he's being confronted with potential criminal proceedings (where have we seen that before...). Whether his vicious hard-right regime will crumble with him is another matter. Had it been my lot to have spent my long life as an Israeli citizen rather than a Brit, having lived through conflict after conflict, knowing that my near-neighbours in Palestinian areas have never lived happily, that I'm currently unable to sleep at night, living in constant fear for my family's wellbeing and security, I think I'd be wanting something very different for Israel when all this has passed. I've always harboured a faint hope that the ordinary citizens of Israel will one day come to feel that way and stop listening to the crop of leaders they've had for so long who persuade them that their hostile neighbours all around are to blame for absolutely everything. Ironically again, maybe Bibi is accelerating the coming of that sentiment. (Cloud cuckoo land again, Stephen. But hope springs eternal...) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part 2 From: Steve Shaw Date: 01 Nov 23 - 06:17 AM Hamas started this particular episode, true enough, with horrendous and inhuman attacks on civilians. Why I keep saying look at the history is because individual outrages, and this was one of the worst ever, can't be seen in isolation. I'm not saying let's look for excuses for Hamas's action. There aren't any. I am saying that the tragic history of the region, particularly the most relevant last three-quarters of a century, puts every single outrage in a wider context. Study the history to get a balanced view. Ignore the history and you'll take sides. I could, for example, take the low road and pick out a single incident to further my prejudice. How about the refugee camp massacres in Lebanon in 1982, the responsibility for which was pinned on a man who later because an Israeli prime minister who went on to trigger an intifada via his provocation at the Wailing Wall. That's the easy, lazy and risky approach, and that's what people like Netanyahu wants us to do. We won't, and should never, forgot the horrors of October, even though Bibi would rather we forgot dozens of other outrages. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Steve Shaw Date: 01 Nov 23 - 08:30 AM Excellent point. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Steve Shaw Date: 02 Nov 23 - 03:26 PM And let's not overlook the fact that most of the dead civilians in Gaza were killed by the IDF, and let's never overlook the history. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Steve Shaw Date: 02 Nov 23 - 06:38 PM Paywall. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Steve Shaw Date: 02 Nov 23 - 08:20 PM Defending itself. I can barely bring myself to watch, day after day, Israel exercising its "right to self-defence." |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Steve Shaw Date: 03 Nov 23 - 06:13 AM In April 2022, there were 4,450 Palestinian security prisoners in Israeli prisons – including 160 children, 32 women, and over 1000 "administrative detainees" (indefinitely incarcerated without charge). Releasing the hostages unilaterally will not alleviate the violence and tension. It would be seen as a defeat by Hamas and will serve to stoke up further tension. So how how about negotiating a prisoner exchange? Both sides are holding citizens of the other side completely unjustly. Stop the shooting and get round that table... From Wikipedia |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Steve Shaw Date: 03 Nov 23 - 08:31 PM "Any sympathy that was available when the first Hamas terrorism happened has evaporated. The Israelis are just as bad, they are also terrorists at this point. "A Plague on both your houses." Well yes. But the pro-Israeli factions are making bloody sure that the October 7 narrative doesn't get lost. Fair enough. It was terrible. But the suspicion is that the aggressive adherence to that narrative is no more than propaganda which hides the appalling atrocities being visited on Gaza. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Steve Shaw Date: 04 Nov 23 - 05:41 AM Er, I did say pro-Israeli factions, not the ordinary Israeli people. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Steve Shaw Date: 04 Nov 23 - 08:40 AM "This is not a war against Israel or Zionism" Yes it is. Hamas has stated explicitly that they want to destroy the state of Israel, founded on Zionism (a word worth using very carefully, actually, as it means different things in different contexts). Three-quarters of a century of justified resentment has culminated in an horrendous and UNjustified assault on Israeli citizens by a bunch of no-gooders who do not represent the people of Palestine. Ramifications further afield are always inevitable when wars start, as we've seen after the invasion of Ukraine. The attack by Hamas was not a war started against Jews globally any more than Putin's war targeted me by forcing me to pay much more for petrol. One ramification is the increase in incidences of antisemitism and Islamophobia. That happens every time there's conflict between Israel and its neighbours. If you think that it means the intended destruction of all Jews globally, you're a better reader of minds that I am, and you may not be being especially helpful to moderate Palestinians and other Arabs the world over. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Steve Shaw Date: 06 Nov 23 - 11:46 AM It wasn't clear to me at all that it was all Obama. It was all a bit garbled. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Steve Shaw Date: 06 Nov 23 - 01:28 PM "The Arabs." Sheesh. Do it the other way round, substitute "the Jews" then consider whether that quote would be acceptable. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Steve Shaw Date: 06 Nov 23 - 05:50 PM He's ordering war crimes. I don't want him dead. I want him facing justice so that Palestinian people can see that the west's uncritical and unconditional support for Israeli regimes has been wrong and will come to an end. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Steve Shaw Date: 07 Nov 23 - 07:29 AM I've said it enough now, that Hamas did a terrible thing. I'm not going to say it any more just to level up with what the Israeli regime is doing and certainly not to justify the slaughter in Gaza. People in Gaza are starving, drinking dirty water, living in constant terror and pulling dead or maimed little children out of rubble in their thousands. That is every bit as bad as or worse than what Hamas did and "self-defence" is just a disgusting lie. One of the most hardened, seasoned Guardian journalists, Simon Jenkins, said that although we can't turn away from suffering, he can no longer watch the news coverage from Gaza. He calls it tabloid TV. He says that every vox pop from Gaza must be preceded or followed by one from Israel. It's a ghoulish gloss on what news should be about. That horror fuels the dangerous instinct of blame. We get more time from tearful victims than we do from the decision-makers or experts and there is no coverage of history or background, and all we can get out of it is a feeling of impotence. None of what we see night after night is increasing public understanding and it simply adds to anger, discord and distress. It's a good read and it's in today's Guardian. As for me, for four weeks I've been forcing myself to watch the horror, but I can't be choked by the dust or smell the blood or rotting flesh or help to drag the kids out of the rubble. Mrs Steve averts her eyes from the horror. I think she's right. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Steve Shaw Date: 07 Nov 23 - 12:15 PM No-one is denying that and no-one is defending that. Perhaps you're not watching the telly either. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Steve Shaw Date: 08 Nov 23 - 04:50 AM It's not about numbers. It's not about trying to compare horrors with horrors. But there surely comes a point at which you have to say that Israel are behaving just as badly as, though differently to, Hamas. At which point we may say that Israel has forfeited any moral high ground. How can we say that a regime that can can visit such unlimited misery on millions of people who have done nothing wrong (as a little boy wailed from the rubble of his home, surrounded by his siblings), murder or maim thousands of their children and condemn them to a potential lifetime of squalor, homelessness, poverty and misery, any better than the evil force that killed 1400 civilians on October 7? And how can a world which has stood back and watched passively as those millions suffered a blockade for 16 years, during which they were deprived of essential medical care, building materials to replace what Israel had destroyed and reliable supplies of power and drinking water, side with those aggressors who live right next door in one of the richest countries in the world, now take sides unconditionally with their aggressor? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Steve Shaw Date: 08 Nov 23 - 04:52 AM Sorry, thst post should have ended with a full stop after the word "world." |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Steve Shaw Date: 08 Nov 23 - 01:25 PM Gaza diary part 18: ‘How many people are we going to lose before we get out of this nightmare?’ (from today's Guardian: A poignant story told by a woman in Gaza who had formed a wonderful friendship with a work colleague, then found out that he'd been wiped out by an Israeli strike, along with his young family. It's a hard read. Netanyahu doesn't value human life, Sunak doesn't value human life, Starmer doesn't value human life. Their politics and their own arses are far more valuable to them. What comes out of this piece is that ordinary people can and do value human life, see it as precious and see the potential in people that's so easily wasted by war. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Steve Shaw Date: 08 Nov 23 - 05:17 PM 150 Palestinian civilians, including over 40 children, killed in the occupied West Bank either by the IDF or by Jewish settlers (illegal) since October 7. This with the connivance, even encouragement, of the Netanyahu regime. Bejaysus, what goes under the radar... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Steve Shaw Date: 09 Nov 23 - 06:39 PM "Nov 4 (Reuters) - U.S. Special Envoy David Satterfield said on Saturday that U.S. officials had not been told that Hamas is blocking or diverting humanitarian aid flowing into the Gaza Strip amid shortages of food, medicine and fuel. Speaking to reporters in the Jordanian capital Amman, he said that those distributing aid in Gaza had not reported aid being diverted since trucks resumed crossing the Egypt-controlled Rafah gate on Oct. 21 after diplomatic wrangling to resume the flow." I have no wish to side with Hamas, but I can't find any reports about Hamas withholding aid. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Steve Shaw Date: 10 Nov 23 - 06:26 AM Not saying you're wrong, Nigel, but a couple of small points anyway: that piece is almost two weeks old and things move rapidly, and, possibly more relevant: Col Elad Goren, head of the civil department at Cogat, the wing of the Israeli defence ministry responsible for civilian operations in the Occupied Palestinian Territories... Hardly a neutral then, and you know what they say about the first casualty of war... Still, there could be something in it and I wouldn't put it past Hamas, but there's nothing like good, solid, neutral evidence. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Steve Shaw Date: 10 Nov 23 - 10:21 AM Well those "officials" declined to say who they were, and I'm not sure that the NYT is necessarily a neutral source. Nigel, forgive me for failing to root out a two-week-old piece in a foreign newspaper. In other words, sheesh. I'm confident that there's some substance in the reports but nothing I've seen adds up to proof. And I'm pretty sure that any military outfit worth its salt would build up its reserves of all sorts of things if they were planning a conflict. You might also reflect on the things that Israel has deprived blockaded Gaza of during the last 16 years. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Steve Shaw Date: 11 Nov 23 - 09:54 AM When you're constantly hearing comments from one side (in this case, very little from Hamas) and from major supporters of both sides (western leaders, Hezbollah, Arab nations, etc.), and seeing highly-selective footage of the carnage on both sides (selected for its tellyworthiness more than anything), but very little about the historical context (unless you dig deep for yourself), and bearing in mind that most news outlets in the west that are not bound by strict neutrality rules are on Israel's side, the truth is incredibly elusive. It's pretty certain that Hamas has most of its military installations in highly-populated areas (they'd be pretty stupid to have them is easily-spotted open areas, eh?). But do we really know that they are deliberately putting civilians in harm's way? Do we really know whether they're obstructing Gazans from moving south? Whose word have we got for these assertions? But we don't half make a Big Thing out of them... One thing I'm sick to the back teeth of hearing is that it's Hamas causing the deaths and maimings of the civilians in Gaza. Netanyahu was at it again yesterday. Here's a very simple fact, Bibi: if you drop thousands of bombs on non-combatant civilians and kill them, YOU killed them. YOU chose to drop the bombs. They were YOUR bombs. If you suspect that Hamas militants are hiding in hospitals and schools, then it's very simple: you don't bomb the hospitals and schools in the hope that you'll bag a terrorist or two. And you had no moral right to try to force civilians in their hundreds of thousands out of their towns and villages so that you could bomb those places, in the full knowledge that tens of thousands were unable to move, willing or not. And you even bombed the escape roads and you bombed the convoys of the refugees moving south and you bombed the "safe places" in the south you told them to go to. Next time you hear about how unavoidably tragic all those deaths are, or hear the obscene euphemism "collateral damage", just imagine that your little son or daughter or grandchild had been caught up in it and wiped out. I have just one grandchild and I do that every time I see the carnage on the telly. If you don't try to see what's happening on that human scale you're not seeing it at all, I reckon. We need a ceasefire, and sod the "tactical considerations." |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Steve Shaw Date: 13 Nov 23 - 01:29 PM "You're all incorrect." We are not all incorrect. I can't be incorrect when I haven't mentioned the word genocide, nor have I discussed the concept. "Sounds like we're back-tracking to blame Israel for the Hamas Oct7 invasion. The latest 'reports' are that Israelis are in battle with Hamas gunmen and where is this happening? Near the hospitals which Israel claims are the Hamas bases." Yeah. "Claim." No we are not backtracking, but let's not go simplistic on this. The blame for the specific action on Oct 7 lies squarely at the door of Hamas. I haven't heard anyone of sound mind saying anything different. However, for the God-knows-how-many-times I've said it, we have to see all acts of aggression between Israel and their adversaries in the Middle East in the context of history. "Time to ask: 'WHAT WOULD YOU DO?'" Well I can tell you several things that you don't do. You don't make an impossible promise to eliminate Hamas forever. The current actions in Gaza are certain to spawn more bitterness and resentment which will certainly revive anti-Israel enmity ten times over. The other thing, glaringly obvious, is that you do not kill thousands of people who have done nothing wrong, including five thousand children, you don't starve hospitals of power so that babies die in incubators and you don't shell the place where you told civilians to go to in order to be safe. Then pretend it's all because "you have the right to defend yourself." |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Steve Shaw Date: 15 Nov 23 - 09:40 AM Well I'm not Thompson, but the fact is that, in the hours after the Hamas atrocity on October 7 most of the world was on Israel's side, despite the history. Since then, "how would you respond?" is at the heart of the matter. Israel did react to defend itself, but that rapidly morphed into vengeful and indiscriminate attacks on people who did no wrong in their thousands. Homes and families destroyed in their tens of thousands. Their schools, hospitals, places of worship and the places of safety ordained by Israel have all come under devastating attack. They have been starved of fuel, food, water and medicines. The right to defend yourself is written into international law, so, as you're into asking questions, let me ask you a really simple one. When do you think that the "self-defence" part of this should have ended? Is Israel still defending itself now? We hear this morning that IDF soldiers are in that benighted hospital, aggressively questioning doctors and patients at gunpoint. People on the upper floor who try to film with their phones what's happening are being shot at. It seems to me that IDF soldiers are now running feral in Gaza. So what do you think about that? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Steve Shaw Date: 19 Nov 23 - 10:31 AM That particular photo/video was done for the benefit of the press who were, exceptionally, allowed access. The BBC confirmed that the IDF later edited the original to show twice as many guns. We all know that it's a simple matter to plant "evidence." As I keep saying, the first casualty of war... I'm not denying that there is, or has been, a considerable Hamas presence in the hospital. That would be a war crime. So is the deliberate targeting of a hospital by the IDF. There are no good guys in this but there are plenty of victims who did nothing wrong. By the way, accusing me of giving Hamas a free pass is patently untrue, as my many posts to this thread attest, and I think it's fair that it shouldn't go unchallenged. By the way again, it looks like the blinkers are finally coming off in the US as the groundswell of opinion there, even among politicians, is increasingly sympathy for the people of Gaza and revulsion aimed at Netanyahu's regime via what we are seeing on our screens every day. It's a trend that's good to see in my opinion. One day we'll have to talk. The sooner that day comes, the sooner the massacre will stop. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Steve Shaw Date: 19 Nov 23 - 04:16 PM Your last sentence being operative, Nigel. Thanks for including it. This is a war, and in war the truth is elusive. But we are not kangaroo courts or lynch mobs. Before we condemn, then attack, we have to know the truth. In the words of judge Webster Thayer in Andy Irvine's song, Facing The Chair, "they're reds and what more do you need," well we do need more. I've never denied that Hamas are thoroughly bad people. But if you want to accuse Hamas of specific bad actions, such as hiding bags of weapons in hospitals, etc., you need much better evidence than likely put-up-job IDF staged photos. Hamas's thoroughly bad reputation isn't enough to pin things like that on them for certain, even if you think there's a high probability that they're true. I think that Hamas are probably guilty of everything we think they are, so I won't need to eat my words when the proof arrives. But, as I said, we are not kangaroo courts or lynch mobs. And there are two sides to all this, lest we forget. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Steve Shaw Date: 19 Nov 23 - 07:10 PM "Hey Sandy on the album 'Writer of Songs' (1972) is another description of the senseless loss of a young life in conflict. It is based on the death of a female student, Sandra Scheuer, who was shot by the Ohio National Guard at the Kent State University in the U.S. anti-Vietnam War demonstration of 1970". [Steve's note: Sandy was not involved in the demonstration, being merely a bystander]. "Hey Sandy, hey Sandy, why were you the one? All the years of growing up are wasted now and gone Did you see them turn, did you feel the burn of the bullets as they flew? Hey Sandy, hey Sandy, just what did you do? Did you see them turn, did you feel the burn of the bullets as they flew? Hey Sandy, hey Sandy, just what did you do? Hey Sandy, hey Sandy, just what did you do?" All the years of growing up, wasted. Times six thousand kids in Gaza, and rising. And what did they do? Why, they got in the way of Israel defending itself, that's what they did. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Steve Shaw Date: 19 Nov 23 - 07:32 PM By the way, you can listen to Christy singing Hey Sandy on Youtube. Just google "Hey Sandy Christy". |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Steve Shaw Date: 19 Nov 23 - 08:41 PM No it doesn't. You have to be sure. We have Israel's word that they're sure. If that's good enough for you, well it's not good enough for me. They've already cheated on that weapons photo. And bombing a hospital that you're sure houses Hamas terrorists, whilst ignoring the fact that you are going to kill patients or refugees who have no means of getting out, is a war crime, never mind whose side you're on. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: MaJoC the Filk Date: 13 Nov 23 - 12:08 PM "Self defence" hits the same hash bucket for me as Lebensraum and "final solution". Don't get me wrong: what Hamas did was unforgivable. But what Israel is doing now is unforgivable on an industrial scale .... and provoking that allergic reaction may or may not have been Hamas's intention. Whatever the outcome, the only winner will be Vlad the Invader. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Mrrzy Date: 21 Nov 23 - 05:37 PM If you start the fight, you ought not claim self-defense when they hit back. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Steve Shaw Date: 21 Nov 23 - 07:52 PM There's hitting back and hitting back. If you push me and steal my sweets I don't have the right to smash your head with a hammer. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Steve Shaw Date: 21 Nov 23 - 07:55 PM Half my post went begging there, my fault. The rest of it said that there is a thing called proportionality. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Donuel Date: 22 Nov 23 - 07:27 AM For the initial attacker, proportionality does not exist. If you see Putin as the initial attacker of Ukraine there is no proportionality. IF you see Catherine the Great as the first attacker then you see how going back to 1948 for the Palestinians confounds the issue. Arbitrarily drawing lines in history just justifies war forever. Perhaps some want to bring up the Crusades. To speak of war as fair and has rules is a delusion. Perhaps you have heard the folk saying "all is fair in love and war". |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Thompson Date: 22 Nov 23 - 04:33 PM Backwoodsman, I've bookmarked your "simple linkifier" link and have been using it ever since. I don't know why my links aren't working, if they're not. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Steve Shaw Date: 22 Nov 23 - 04:43 PM "If you see Putin as the initial attacker of Ukraine there is no proportionality." Yes there is. If Putin invades Ukraine, and you respond by nuking Moscow and Leningrad, you are not exhibiting proportionality. There are international laws applying to all this. You should look them up. Of course, as with wine nomenclatures and UN resolutions, the US thinks that it's an exception and that rules don't apply to it. The great thing about Mudcat is that there are plenty of humanitarians here who, whilst favouring one side or the other, or neither, in this horrid conflict, can see plainly that what is going on in Gaza can't be justified in a million years. You don't have to be political to see this and you certainly don't need to be adopting some kind of quasi-principled high ground. All you have to do is imagine that it's your little son or granddaughter that's just been pulled from the rubble of their family home, their life changed forever. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Backwoodsman Date: 23 Nov 23 - 02:16 AM ”I've bookmarked your "simple linkifier" link and have been using it ever since. I don't know why my links aren't working, if they're not.” Just checked back (easy - a ‘benefit’ of the now-screwed-up listing order on the thread!) and the links look to work correctly. BTW, it’s not ‘my’ Linkifier, it was provided by DaveRo, IIRC. (Perhaps someone will correct me if I got that wrong). |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Thompson Date: 23 Nov 23 - 10:29 AM Crossing my fingers so hard for all the hostages, on both sides. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Stilly River Sage Date: 23 Nov 23 - 11:33 AM I noticed the language of the reporters this morning as we await this truce by any name - perhaps it reflects the terms used by the countries? Israel refers to Israelis in Gaza as "hostages," while Palestinians detained in Israeli jails with no charges and no term of imprisonment are "detainees." One could argue that they are all hostages. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Jack Campin Date: 23 Nov 23 - 11:45 AM Getting banned by a German venue for opposing the genocide: Lankum in Leipzig Okay, Leipzig is a stronghold of the neo-Nazi right so maybe that's the level of tolerance you might expect there. Lankum have got sold-out bookings across the country. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Donuel Date: 23 Nov 23 - 04:10 PM I am aware of the rules regulations and conventions of war but of the multitude of individual war crimes committed, there are only a handful that are actually prosecuted. It is pretty much shoot first and ask questions later. War begins by fighting the last war with leftover equipment and weapons. Innovations soon appear. The advantages of killing and destruction are not made to make war 'even steven' or proportional. WMDs or a sewn-shut mouthful of detesticularization are designed to be terrorizing, not proportional. To think otherwise is for those who don't really know the horror of war. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Donuel attacks War - part II From: Donuel Date: 24 Nov 23 - 09:50 AM Children are the prized poker chips in war today and not just adult civilians. Hamas kidnapped kids for later trades. Putin has taken upwards to 100K Ukrainian kids to be raised in Russia. Trump separated kids from families without records for reuniting families. Sure these examples are a crime but no one is going to jail. Maybe someday Putin will be imprisoned. Maybe Steve Bannon will end up behind bars. Trump? The odds are slim. War is a willingness to forgo laws and civilized behavior up to and including nuclear and bioweapons. Proportionality is not a deterrent. The deterrent is whether a country decides if it can withstand the blowback from global retribution. Proportionality is heartwarming like a cup of hot cocoa but it will not curb the crime of war. The easiest way to sidestep proportionality historically has been to claim an attack upon a ship or ships. Even a bald faced lie is all it takes. The Hamas attack was not a lie. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Steve Shaw Date: 24 Nov 23 - 11:17 AM So we despise Hamas, quite rightly, for abducting "kids." Putin, the same. We could perhaps also mention the many Palestinian "kids" who are held in Israeli jails for throwing stones at armed soldiers. The trouble with truth is that it isn't the truth at all unless it's the whole truth. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Donuel Date: 24 Nov 23 - 11:28 AM Let me know when you find or write the million-volume edition of the Whole Truth. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Steve Shaw Date: 24 Nov 23 - 12:04 PM When I was a mere schoolboy at my Catholic school in the sixties we were told about different ways of telling lies. One way was lying by omission. The trouble with wars is that, amidst all the demonising that goes on, inconvenient facts about "your side" can be omitted in order to retain the purity of your demonisation of the enemy, even when those facts are sort of equivalent to what your adversaries have done. It's not so much about whataboutery, more about avoiding the potential for hypocrisy. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Donuel Date: 24 Nov 23 - 01:19 PM I sense that ending war permanently is an impossibility for most people. The same is probably true of hypocrisy, whataboutism, and lying. We will have those who tilt at windmills and call out the injustices even if they are a minority of one. To varying degrees, we are both 'Donuel Quixote' characters at least to the extent of wanting to right wrongs. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Nigel Parsons Date: 24 Nov 23 - 02:33 PM Donuel: I sense that ending war permanently is an impossibility for most people. The same is probably true of hypocrisy, whataboutism, and lying. Very true. We cannot even discuss it here without some people assuming that their 'truth' is the only valid understanding of the situation. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: robomatic Date: 24 Nov 23 - 03:52 PM "Only the dead have seen the end of war." - Santayana "When peace comes, it will perhaps in time be possible to forgive the Arabs for killing our sons, but it will be harder for us to forgive them for forcing us to kill their sons." - Golda Meir |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Steve Shaw Date: 24 Nov 23 - 05:23 PM Golda Meir's comment was racist, whether "of its time" or not. We've been there before with that one. There are doughty supporters of Israel here. That much is clear and that's fine. There are no supporters of Hamas here. That's absolutely as it should be. If I even began to remotely suspect that anyone here fell into that bracket, I'd be out of here like a shot. My sympathies, as I've said so many times, are with the civilians of both Gaza and Israel. Hamas are thoroughly bad. Netanyahu is thoroughly bad. I'd like to see those Hamas leaders, cosily holed up in Qatar, in court being confronted with their war crimes. I'd like to see Netanyahu and his hard-right lackeys in court, same reason. I've said a number of times is that the truth in any war is incredibly elusive. But what is not elusive is that Hamas fighters committed brutal crimes on 7 October. It's also not elusive that, by order of the Israeli regime, thousands of people who have done nothing wrong have been mercilessly slaughtered in Gaza. That's the truth. Israel says that it's the fault of Hamas that all those innocents have been slaughtered. That's not the truth. That's opinion, it's also propaganda. Israeli orders, Israeli military, Israeli bombs. Israel said it had no choice. No choice but to unfortunately slaughter thousands of children. That's not truth either. That's another opinion, another batch of propaganda. It's not a numbers game. Hamas slaughtered hundreds of people in a few hours. Fact. Israel has slaughtered thousands of people over six weeks. Fact. Not a game. Israel is acting in self-defence. Opinion. Israel is going to destroy Hamas. That's not a fact, that's an aspiration. There's a long history of conflict. That's a fact. The history should be taken into account, though in no way should it be used to justify what happened on October 7. That's my opinion. It's also my opinion that's you can't understand this, or any other conflict in the region, unless you know the history. Sharon oversaw the slaughter of civilians in two refugee camps in 1982. Israel has blockaded Gaza since 2006 and wrecked its economy. An Israeli murderer killed Rabin and prevented what was looking a lot like a good peace settlement in process. None of these facts, and lots of others, justify October 7. They might help to explain it without, even in the slightest way, justifying it. But if your inclination is to support Israel despite everything, you have some facts which you need to honestly confront, and you need to be able to separate facts from opinion and propaganda, whichever side you're on. There's a suspicion of a whiff around here that if you don't support Israel you support Hamas. That's just scurrilous and it's thoroughly schoolyard. And it's not honest. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Nigel Parsons Date: 25 Nov 23 - 07:00 AM Steve: There's a suspicion of a whiff around here that if you don't support Israel you support Hamas. That's just scurrilous and it's thoroughly schoolyard. And it's not honest. I think you're making the same mistake you accuse others of. It is not 'support Israel or support Hamas'. The choice should be noted as between 'Israel and Palestine', or between 'Netanyahu (or his government) and Hamas'. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Donuel Date: 25 Nov 23 - 08:01 AM I am impressed by robo's quote. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Steve Shaw Date: 25 Nov 23 - 12:25 PM You misread the last part of my post, Nigel. You are complaining about the same thing I'm complaining of. Incidentally, it's not especially wise to characterise the conflict as Israel vs Palestine either. There are plenty of Jews in Israel who hate Bibi because of what he's doing to Gaza, and there are are plenty of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza who hate what Hamas does in both Israel and Gaza. I try to remember (and sometimes forget) to say "Israeli regime", not "Israel" - and never "Jews." Pointing the finger happens a lot in wars, and it's important to point accurately. In connection with that, that's what I find abysmal about the Golda Meir remark. "The Arabs..." in its context in that quote manages to lump a whole ethnic group together as a homogenous mass. That's at the root of all racism, and, as I said before, try turning that round and saying "the Jews..." I find that quote ill-judged and less than impressive. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Donuel Date: 25 Nov 23 - 03:26 PM I believe we can read. Most of those protestations are ridiculous rants except in your own screwy skewed opinion. Are you more succinct and eloquent than Golda? I think not. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Steve Shaw Date: 25 Nov 23 - 06:04 PM That is a personal attack that is beneath contempt. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Thompson Date: 26 Nov 23 - 04:49 AM "Forcing us to kill their sons"? The devil made me do it, eh? If this is the documentary on the history of modern Israel I recently watched on PBS America, it's very good: A Twice-Promised Land. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Steve Shaw Date: 26 Nov 23 - 06:02 AM It's something of a shame that Golda Meir didn't see fit to consider how "the Arabs" might one day come to forgive Israel too. And she was far closer to 1948 than we are today. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Steve Shaw Date: 26 Nov 23 - 07:43 AM Interesting parallels between Golda Meir and Netanyahu. The Yom Kippur War in 1973, during which she was prime minister, effectively ended her political career, mainly because Israel was taken by surprise and was badly damaged by the attacks. That sort of echoes the severe intelligence failures that allowed the recent dreadful Hamas attack to take place. Many in Israel are hoping that Bibi's career will also end sooner rather than later, for that reason and, in his case, plenty of other reasons. She was just as dismissive of Palestinians as Netanyahu (she once said that there were no Palestinians, so her remark about "the Arabs..." was not an isolated one). Oddly, she was moved to tears by the sight of Palestinians being turned into fleeing refugees when Israel was formed, though her strong Zionism and nationalistic feelings managed to overcome that sympathy. Unlike Netanyahu, she did at least have peace in mind. Like most western countries, Israel always seems to manage to pick the wrong leaders at the wrong time. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Donuel Date: 26 Nov 23 - 07:57 AM Biden has been very patient and guarded while honoring Israel as an ally. He is in fact older than Israel. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Steve Shaw Date: 26 Nov 23 - 09:17 AM There comes a time when even the most patient and supportive critical friend needs to say, stop doing that right now, because if you don't we'll stop helping you. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Donuel Date: 26 Nov 23 - 09:55 AM Israeli espionage against the US is rampant for an ally. Being an ally is not the paramount point. It is the costs and benefits. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 27 Nov 23 - 06:42 AM Golda Meir didn't actually deny the existence of Palestinians. She saw that as referring to all those living in Palestine before Partition, Jewish Palestinians and Muslim or Christian Arab Palestinians, pointing out that until 1948 she'd been Palestinian herself, with a Palestinian passport. There was a Zionist song with the line "Fight, fight, fight for Palestine" someone posted on the Cat years ago. There'd be a lot to be said in favour of thinking in terms of Partition and Anti-Partition in the context of this conflict. If a two-state solution is the best that could be hoped for (very barely at that) in the present nightmare, that is very much a second best. In the long run an end to Partition must be the goal. It'd be far better if the term Palestine could be reserved for the whole region, with another word for the West Bank and Gaza entity. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Donuel Date: 27 Nov 23 - 07:45 AM Very good perspective and history MOH. Today over 70% of Israelis want Netanyahu gone. Over 70% of Palestinians want peace and Hamas gone. Once again those with little empathy and probable social psychopathy are the nefarious 20% causing most of the tragedy. This is my perspective and is not a provable historical fact. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Steve Shaw Date: 28 Nov 23 - 09:12 AM Many journalists have been killed in Gaza. Here are some quotes from a piece in today's Guardian by Margaret Sullivan: The overwhelming majority of the dead appear to be Palestinian journalists killed in Israeli airstrikes. As of Monday, the CPJ estimates that of the 57 journalists and media workers known to have died during the current war, 50 were Palestinian, four Israeli and three Lebanese. “Meanwhile, the journalists in Gaza cannot leave, and the only outside media permitted to enter have been invited to embed with the Israeli Defense Forces and submit to strict rules controlling what they can see and share,” the organization said in a statement. There’s also the reality that the loss of journalists translates into less information. And that lies and propaganda love a void. You get to see what the army wants you to see and no more. Journalists are not being sufficiently protected. In many regards this war is being fought in our name and we have the moral right to know what's going on. If we can't have brave, independent journalists in Gaza, the victim will be the truth, and that's exacerbated by the death of journalists. Liars and propagandists love a void all right. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Steve Shaw Date: 28 Nov 23 - 10:31 AM "Today over 70% of Israelis want Netanyahu gone." The numbers are, 30% want him gone now and the other 40-odd percent want him to resign after the war. "Over 70% of Palestinians want peace and Hamas gone." Before the war, just under 70% of Gazans said they had little or no trust in Hamas. The war has resulted in around 50% of Gazans now supporting Hamas, and Hamas's popularity has also spiked dramatically in the occupied West Bank, possibly to as much as 90%. I checked several sources and they tend to be consistent. You didn't apprise me of yours so I'm returning the compliment. A possible conclusion to all this is that the Israeli regime is (once again) going to find out that there's more to winning a war, and winning the peace while we're at it, than killing tens of thousands of people who did nothing wrong. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Donuel Date: 29 Nov 23 - 06:14 PM https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/major-speech-schumer-warns-consequences-americans-dont-condemn-antisem-rcna127190 |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Thompson Date: 01 Dec 23 - 11:40 AM Apparently the Israelis are using AI to choose their targets. I wouldn't use AI to choose my soup ingredients. Truly reckless. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Donuel Date: 02 Dec 23 - 11:46 AM Pro Iran terrorists hacked Pittsburg PA's water system. Pro Hamas terrorism supporters demonstrated in NYC at CHRISTMAS tree lighting. Abuse of Jewish students at progressive universities is rampant. We have pro-terrorist blowhards over here too. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Thompson Date: 03 Dec 23 - 03:22 AM Rape of Israelis by Palestinians. Rape of Palestinians by Israelis (report in the last half-hour or so of the programme). |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Jack Campin Date: 03 Dec 23 - 12:26 PM Free Palestinian literature I posted that link to Facebook and they promptly removed it. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Donuel Date: 04 Dec 23 - 07:32 AM OUTRAGE should never be balanced or crimes equivocated. We have had too many examples of victim shaming. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Mrrzy Date: 08 Dec 23 - 09:08 AM Oy vey, America! Being anti-Israeli-goverment is NOT being anti-Semitic! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Steve Shaw Date: 09 Dec 23 - 05:35 AM Utterly predictable and utterly disastrous US veto of the ceasefire resolution at the UN Security Council. That's 44 US vetos protecting Israel now. It's reached the point at which many people are saying (sorry about the weasel words, but it happens to be true) that the US is complicit in the slaughter of Gaza civilians, or that America is fighting another proxy war. They are certainly not imposing conditionality on Israel, just mouthing soft "words of concern," and are continuing to send them unlimited weapons. The pusillanimous abstention of the UK on spurious grounds must be giving Biden succour. I don't know how anyone can think that this disaster can ever help to provide the Israeli people the security they need. Not in a hundred years I'd say. Your pro-Israel lobby still in good shape, Americans? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Doug Chadwick Date: 09 Dec 23 - 06:25 AM Being anti-Israeli-goverment is NOT being anti-Semitic! Agreed - but being anti-Israeli-goverment should not be used as an excuse to BE anti-Semitic. DC |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Steve Shaw Date: 09 Dec 23 - 07:08 AM If bringing down harm on Jewish people is antisemitic, I can't think of anything more antisemitic than what the Israeli regime is currently subjecting its own citizens to. If the people of Israel are being led to think that this war will end up with them living in peace and security, then someone needs to tell them that the very opposite outcome will ensue. The US won't let the Security Council do it, so, eventually, the US will have to tell them. Simultaneously, they will need to tell Netanyahu that what he has done has had nothing to do with "Israel defending itself" and that the supply of arms to Israel is stopping. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Thompson Date: 10 Dec 23 - 04:15 AM Victor Jara was killed half a century ago, the hands with which he tenderly plucked his guitar smashed up before he was machine-gunned and his body dumped. On Friday, Pedro Barrientos was extradited from the US to Chile to face trial - "Another former soldier, José Navarrete, testified that, in the years after the murder, Barrientos had the habit of brandishing his pistol and declaring 'I killed Víctor Jara with this!'” In Gaza last week, the poet Refaat Alareer was killed when his house was targeted by an Israeli missile. Shortly before he died, Alareer wrote a poem that someone may put to music: If I must die, you must live to tell my story to sell my things to buy a piece of cloth and some strings, (make it white with a long tail) so that a child, somewhere in Gaza while looking heaven in the eye awaiting his dad who left in a blaze— and bid no one farewell not even to his flesh not even to himself— sees the kite, my kite you made, flying up above and thinks for a moment an angel is there bringing back love If I must die let it bring hope let it be a tale |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Donuel Date: 11 Dec 23 - 07:19 AM Being anti horror of War is neither anti-Islamic or antisemitic. A soldier knows the horror, victims know the horror and many of the children are affected when their parents are both lost to terrorism. Armchair brigadier blowhards know very little about the details of war no matter how complete their chronical may be. I do not want to still see the repugnant face of Netanyahu. He should be gone, but then again so should Trump. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Steve Shaw Date: 11 Dec 23 - 09:13 AM Biden has bypassed Congress and authorised the supply of thousands of tank shells to Israel. That follows the dismal US veto at the Security Council. Wrong, wrong, wrong. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Thompson Date: 12 Dec 23 - 12:59 PM And there isn't a doubt in the world that Biden feels deeply indignant at what Cromwell did in Ireland. He doesn't seem to make the connection between one genocide and another. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Stilly River Sage Date: 12 Dec 23 - 02:06 PM You are shocked - SHOCKED - that the US sent bombs to Israel? Where do you think most of what they're already using came from? Blinken defends rare move of bypassing Congress to send ammunition to Israel Asked on ABC News’s “This Week” why the Biden administration decided to push the sale of tank ammunition to Israel without congressional review, Blinken said, “When it comes to the weapons that we transfer, there are rules that go along with them. Those rules apply to Israel, as they do to any other country, including the way they’re used and the need, the imperative of respecting international humanitarian law.” Biden soon needs to go around Congress to keep the Ukraine going, if they won't send anything that will let Ukraine end it once and for all (who knows what that would be, short of a nuclear bomb, which they once had but gave up upon US request. Russia might not have attacked if they still had their own doomsday bombs.) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Steve Shaw Date: 12 Dec 23 - 03:17 PM I'm not shocked and I know who provides the arms. We also provide arms to Israel and we also have "rules." Both our countries also have very powerful pro-Israel lobbies. So no surprises, no shocks. Doesn't make what's going on any less wrong. The only way that Hamas will be "destroyed", and that won't happen anyway, is by emptying Gaza of Palestinians. I don't do conspiracy theories but I'm finding it harder by the day to deny that that's what's going on. The bottom line is that Israel is wantonly slaughtering many thousands of non-combatants and they are using our weapons to do it. History will judge us. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Stilly River Sage Date: 12 Dec 23 - 03:24 PM Personally, I think it's the white phosphorus that is an abomination. But Israel dropped that on Lebanon so it doesn't seem to be getting the same attention as bombing with other weapons in Gaza. Israel used U.S.-supplied white phosphorus in Lebanon attack DHEIRA, Lebanon — Israel used U.S.-supplied white phosphorus munitions in an October attack in southern Lebanon that injured at least nine civilians in what a rights group says should be investigated as a war crime, according to a Washington Post analysis of shell fragments found in a small village. Who knows when the US supplied it or how long Israel has been holding onto it. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Thompson Date: 13 Dec 23 - 03:49 AM Do you know what puzzles me? Why is the US still funding Israel - I'm not talking about trading with them, but giving them an annual pocket-money subvention. Surely Israel is a rich country now? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Donuel Date: 13 Dec 23 - 06:33 AM Yesterday Biden ripped the bandaid off the US Israeli relationship. He intimated that Israel needs a new government other than the most conservative regime under Netanyahu. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Steve Shaw Date: 13 Dec 23 - 06:44 AM No he didn't. From the Guardian: Biden said he told the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, that Israel was losing international support because of its “indiscriminate bombing” and that Netanyahu should change his government, which is dominated by hard-right parties. That does not imply that Netanyahu should go. I think he should, but that is not what Biden was saying. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Donuel Date: 13 Dec 23 - 06:57 AM Look up the word intimated. I did not quote. There is such a thing as reading between the lines. At any rate, it is about time. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Donuel Date: 13 Dec 23 - 07:38 AM Israel is flooding Hamas tunnels with seawater. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Thompson Date: 14 Dec 23 - 04:38 AM Yes, Israel is flooding the tunnels where Hamas have said they are keeping the Israeli hostages and hostages from other countries who were working in Israel, deep below the bombing… and there's an aquifer below Gaza that provides fresh water. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Stilly River Sage Date: 14 Dec 23 - 10:59 AM This morning a discussion on NPR about how Israel uses AI to train their weapons launching system to identify military targets. "Much faster than human operators," they say. Apparently they have a lot of on the ground photos from intelligence sources to mark those particular sites. The problem? They don't train the AI on what non-military targets and civilian sites look like. AI learns from itself and doesn't know what to exclude. What could possibly go wrong? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Mrrzy Date: 14 Dec 23 - 12:06 PM WarGames |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Thompson Date: 14 Dec 23 - 02:01 PM Somebody on the BBC the other day was talking about trying out using AI by asking one of the apps to write a profile of him. It got the fact that he was a writer right; it then named three books he hadn't written. Sure what can go wrong, as Oppenheimer might have said. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Stilly River Sage Date: 15 Dec 23 - 02:51 PM Reports are that Biden has been trying diplomatically to get Israel to aim better and pull back by the end of the year. Since Netanyahu's survival in office seems to be dependent upon his slaughter of civilians in Gaza, I predict no suitable response. And today they're saying that three of the hostages were shot in Gaza by Israeli military. There is no "winning" this. They just need to stop. All of them. Can Palestinian civilians shame Hamas in to leaving? Probably not. But what Israel is doing now isn't getting rid of Hamas either. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Donuel Date: 16 Dec 23 - 08:51 AM This is the magical time of year but maybe what we really need is a good dose of realism. There are a lot of nativity scenes but where was the original manger? It is in the West Bank controlled by the Palestinian authority. Bethlehem used to be 86% Christian but is now Muslim. Indulge me for bringing up history but things change, countries, religions, boundaries, and Empires. Palestine was part of the Ottoman Empire for 400 years but now an ottoman is furniture. Byzantium became Constantinople and now is Istanbul. The Irish used to have the island to themselves but not anymore after 30 years of war. Everyone eventually comes to an accommodation. Was it unjust for Arab families to have to move, yes but it is not rare. Muslims moved to Pakistan from India, 12 million ethnic Germans were moved out of Russia and Poland after WWII. A million Greeks were shoved out of Turkey in 1923, a million Ghanians were shoved out of Nigeria in 1983, almost a million French out of Algeria in 1962, about a million Syrians moved to Germany 8 years ago. No one knows about being pushed off land than the Jews. That includes every Arab country they once lived in. History is brutal and humans are not good people. America was an experiment for the ideal of diversity but white Christian nationalists want to cure that disease. People get moved colonized or killed. Mexico one extended almost to Idaho. A Muslim Army once took over much of the world until stopped in Spain. Kosovo was the cradle of Christianity then it became Muslim. In the 90's the war about it stopped,. There have been over 6 attempts to make Palestine a State but their leaders have said NO. If they had said yes 70 years ago Gaza would look more like Dubai instead of believing in the River to the Sea myth. Where do they think Israel is going? After 4 wars, how is it going for Palestinians. There comes a time for common sense to prevail except for Hamas? I expect things will have to eventually change. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Steve Shaw Date: 16 Dec 23 - 10:20 AM From the river to the sea is not a myth. The West Bank is the OCCUPIED West Bank. The forcible eviction of three-quarters of a million Palestinians from what was their homeland in order to create the Jewish state, an act of vicious racism colluded in by the most influential western nations, took place within the lifetimes of some of the older members of Mudcat. You don't get to justify it by providing a list of other victims of evictions or cleansings. We can talk about them in other threads if you like. I've never advocated the destruction of Israel (and Hamas stinks to high heaven), because after 75 years we are where we are and eight million generally peaceful Israelis, the vast majority there only by accident of birth, have the right to exist in peace. But the Palestinian people, mostly now the descendants of those refugees, have an extremely acute sense of their own history and that is not going to go away just because the IDF wants to drive them out of Gaza and because murderous settlers want them out of the occupied West Bank. We have an inept and corrupt administration in the Palestinian Authority, we have an Israeli regime consisting of murderous, racist thugs and we have western governments propping up Israel's military unquestioningly because they have to constantly look over their shoulders fearfully at their pro-Israel lobbies (who no-one voted for). The Gaza-Israel crisis is not the same as any other crisis in your list and we don't get to solve problems like it by saying that, well, that's the way the world is. There but for fortune it could be your or my kids and grandkids being pulled from under the rubble. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Donuel Date: 16 Dec 23 - 10:24 AM Oh Yeah, at 18 I did not want to be killed in war either. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Steve Shaw Date: 16 Dec 23 - 10:49 AM I think the accidental killings of three of their own by the IDF will put even more pressure on Netanyahu. He has failed to neutralise Hamas, and will continue to fail, and it blows wide open the claim that they are doing everything possible to avoid civilian casualties. The three were unarmed and were waving white flags, and one was shot dead even after he'd pleaded with the soldiers in Hebrew. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Steve Shaw Date: 16 Dec 23 - 12:29 PM There’s only one way out of this Gaza war and Netanyahu is blocking it. Joe Biden must force him from power — Jonathan Freedland, Guardian< Netanyahu and his fellow extremist cronies are even stretching ardently pro-Israel Biden's patience. Netanyahu's only remaining target is to save his own skin - should he lose power he'll probably end up in jail, so he has to go to every extreme to keep Israelis onside. He won't countenance talk of a two-state solution. He won't countenance any Palestinian involvement in the future running of Gaza but, equally, it is not possible for Israel to run it either. No Arab state will even remotely consider stepping in to run Gaza without Palestinian involvement. So there can be no end to this until Bibi and his henchmen's are dismissed, never to return. What a mess. So we look to the country that has done the most by far to prop Israel up. And all hands are tied there too. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Donuel Date: 16 Dec 23 - 01:33 PM If you are familiar with State Dept speech, Biden has condemned Netanyahu repeatedly. America recognizes that British media is highly skewed. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Stilly River Sage Date: 16 Dec 23 - 07:47 PM Hostages Waved White Flag Before Being Shot By Israeli Troops That story has these bullets near the top: Here’s what we know: The whole region is a tinderbox. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Steve Shaw Date: 17 Dec 23 - 06:36 AM Almost 500 Palestinians have been killed by the IDF or settlers in the occupied West Bank in 2023, the deadliest year there on record for Palestinian civilians. There has been a proliferation since October 7, all eyes having been on Gaza instead. The IDF have been blocking ambulance access to hospitals and have even tear-gassed an operating theatre. These are war crimes in an area that's not even supposed to be part of the war. There have been multiple raids on a refugee camp in Jenin which have resulted in killings. The Al Jazeera website has an horrific video showing soldiers killing two children. A photo I saw a couple of days ago, I can't remember where, showed IDF soldiers protecting a bunch of settlers who had been attacking Palestinians. The IDF has turned feral and the regime is doing nothing to stop them. Multiple sources. All this information, and much more, is easy to find. Of course, we don't have to believe any of it, especially if we prefer to believe that Israel is merely "defending itself." I have a lovely carol concert playing on the radio as I type this. I feel sick. If there's a God, he's not in Bethlehem. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Steve Shaw Date: 17 Dec 23 - 06:40 AM "America recognizes that British media is highly skewed." This comment is unjustified and is completely without foundation. In our country, as elsewhere, you choose your sources carefully and you choose at least several. "America recognises..." is weasel words par excellence. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Nigel Parsons Date: 17 Dec 23 - 01:40 PM "America recognises..." is weasel words par excellence. On a par, perhaps, with the BBC who insist on describing Hamas as "a group recognised as terrorists by the UK government." BBC will not describe them as terrorists. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Steve Shaw Date: 17 Dec 23 - 01:58 PM Nigel, you have that wrong. "Terrorists" is a tendentious word, whether correctly applied to Hamas or not (correctly, in my view). I could argue that the IDF killing thousands of children in Gaza, or helping settlers to illegally evict Palestinians from their family farms and killing dozens while they're at it, are acts of terrorism. The BBC is trying to be neutral, that's all, as is its remit. We'll leave the emotional and tendentious tags to the tabloids, don't you think? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Nigel Parsons Date: 17 Dec 23 - 02:13 PM But it's not just the tabloids. As even the BBC acknowledge, Hamas are 'proscribed as a terror organisation by the UK Government and others'. So it is, at the very least, the tabloids and the Government. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Backwoodsman Date: 17 Dec 23 - 03:02 PM The BBC have journalists/reporters embedded in Gaza and the West Bank. They probably don’t describe Hamas directly as ‘terrorists’ in order to protect their people ‘on the ground’, and to avoid antagonising Hamas/Hezbollah and their supporters into denying the BBC access to those areas. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Steve Shaw Date: 17 Dec 23 - 05:03 PM They don't call Hamas terrorists because the word is emotional and tendentious. They don't call the IDF terrorists for the exact same reason. The BBC's remit is to try to be neutral. Tabloids and politicians, on the other hand, are free to use that expression at will. If you want the Beeb to call Hamas terrorists, then I challenge you to tell me why you don't think that the Beeb shouldn't also call the IDF terrorists. After all, 18000 innocents dead at their hands, including 8000 children? Unless you think that's OK? The old saw is that the terrorist is the man with the small bomb. There's something in that. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Backwoodsman Date: 17 Dec 23 - 05:24 PM I simply gave one of a number of PERFECTLY POSSIBLE reasons why the BBC are loath to refer to Hamas directly as ‘terrorists’. Nothing more. The rest of your post is nonsense - no-one has said any of what you’ve suggested, they are your words straight out of your mouth, certainly not mine. I’m in agreement with you, I haven’t said any of the things you're suggesting, so why are you trying to fight with me? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Nigel Parsons Date: 17 Dec 23 - 07:13 PM After all, 18000 innocents dead at their hands, including 8000 children? Unless you think that's OK? Do you have a link for that claim? I can see a statement of 18,800 deaths: Here but no comment about the number of children in that figure, The figures may be accurate, as I see that the numbers of children seem to be higher (compared to the number of adults) than we would expect in UK. But if you're going to quote statistics then a source would be appreciated! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Steve Shaw Date: 17 Dec 23 - 07:14 PM I don't understand your hostility. Yes we agree. The point about the Beeb is that, in effect, its hands are tied. They have sidestepped the right-wing accusation that they "won't call Hamas terrorists" by undertaking to make that statement at the start of every news bulletin. Ironically, by trying to be neutral, they are failing to be so by not calling out the IDF at the same time. Personally, I respect the Beeb by taking that stance against right-wing supporters of the Israeli regime. Instead, I think we should be calling out the Express, Mail and Telegraph for being so one-sided. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Steve Shaw Date: 17 Dec 23 - 07:16 PM That last post was to BWM. As for the death stats, Nigel, perhaps you've been fast asleep for the last two months. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Nigel Parsons Date: 17 Dec 23 - 07:32 PM Steve: That last post was to BWM. As for the death stats, Nigel, perhaps you've been fast asleep for the last two months. I take that as an acceptance that you cannot substantiate your claim. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Steve Shaw Date: 17 Dec 23 - 07:47 PM For God's sake, Nigel, just read the news. Yes, the Gaza death stats are originated by the Hamas Health ministry. I'm not aware that any agency has tried to contradict the numbers in any serious material sense. Instead of challenging me about generally-accepted news, just try to look it up for yourself, and try to not be about six weeks behind everyone else who actually try to engage with the world out there. Move on, Nigel. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Stilly River Sage Date: 17 Dec 23 - 08:46 PM Jezus christ Nigel, read the news. I find Steve to be oppressively opinionated in this thread, but I have to agree with him on this. Go look for yourself, the death toll is regularly reported. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Steve Shaw Date: 17 Dec 23 - 08:54 PM I find you to be the same, Maggie. Am I allowed to say that? I could say much more, but thanks anyway. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Backwoodsman Date: 18 Dec 23 - 01:26 AM Maggie, I find Steve to always be aggressively opinionated, no matter the topic. His attack on me for a harmless suggestion that one of the possible multiple reasons for the BBC not openly describing Hamas as a terrorist organisation might be for the protection of its reporters embedded in Gaza and its acceptance as a responsible news agency by Hamas and Gazans in general, and his overt attempt at ‘putting words in my mouth’ are a perfect example. An angry rant, aimed at someone who agrees with him, shabby and deceitful. It’s quite noticeable how few people even bother to engage with him nowadays. Before long, there won’t be anyone left here to discuss anything, and he’ll be ranting to himself. I’m outta here - Steve can have the last word, he always seems to need it. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Steve Shaw Date: 18 Dec 23 - 04:27 AM The BBC came under extremely heavy criticism from the right at the beginning of this conflict for failing to condemn Hamas as terrorists. The public service remit of the licence fee-funded BBC is to be neutral and unbiased in its news reporting. "Reporting" is the operative word. News bulletins that, for example, constantly referred to Hamas as terrorists would, in effect, be mixing news with comment, the very thing that we criticise the tabloids for. I'm not a news reporter and I can freely give my opinion that Hamas commits terrorist acts. The BBC is not in the same place. As for keeping journalists safe in Gaza, it's worth pointing out that dozens of journalists have been killed in Gaza, almost all, as far as I know, by IDF shelling. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Steve Shaw Date: 18 Dec 23 - 04:50 AM I'm a subscriber to Haaretz too. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Steve Shaw Date: 18 Dec 23 - 04:55 AM Propaganda isn't news, but its perpetrators are very clever at conflating the two. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Steve Shaw Date: 18 Dec 23 - 06:12 AM To clarify the question of journalists in Gaza, quite simply, international journalists are banned by Israel from entering Gaza. A very few who have been granted permits must remain embedded with the IDF, are not allowed any contact with Palestinians and are subject to having their reports vetted by the IDF. The reports we do get are mostly from Palestinian "citizen journalists" or are from social media. I could speculate that the IDF have certain things they'd rather we didn't see. Al Jazeera reports that over 90 journalists and their staff have been killed. Other outlets, including the Guardian article, put the number at 63. With the exception of a handful of Israeli and a couple of Lebanese journalists, they were all Palestinians. Jeremy Bowen is the chief BBC mouthpiece in this conflict - see his comment in the article about the difficulty of accurate reporting when he's obliged to report only from Israel. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Steve Shaw Date: 18 Dec 23 - 06:16 AM Sorry, forgot to mention the article. 'Hugely frustrating’: international media seek to overcome Gaza ban Journalists stopped from entering via Israel and Egypt have to rely mostly on Palestinian insiders and social media. [The Guardian] |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Thompson Date: 18 Dec 23 - 06:27 AM The current slaughter is approaching 20,000; or if you take into account that according to Hamas there are 8,000 people missing under the rubble, 28,000. I don't think it matters which side is which in any attack or any war, what matters is who is being butchered and who's the butcher. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Stilly River Sage Date: 18 Dec 23 - 04:24 PM This topic needs to take a rest. Too many tangents have been introduced (and removed because they just make the squabble worse). Don't spill this over into other threads. Take a break for now. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Stilly River Sage Date: 04 Jan 24 - 04:28 PM With the new year Biden's campaign is stepping up their promotions and his campaign staff are making it clear that the Hamas/Israel war has to stop. Biden campaign staff issue anonymous letter protesting approach to Israel-Hamas war The letter says it is a moral imperative for the president to publicly “call for a cessation of violence.” A group of aides hired to reelect President Joe Biden is breaking with him on the conflict between Israel and Hamas. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: robomatic Date: 04 Jan 24 - 06:11 PM SS: Fascinating. I haven't heard this on the news, yet, so thanks. I wonder if the people behind the letter at least told Biden who they were. I'll bet not. I also wonder at confirmation on the Hamas figures of victims. Meanwhile, there is hard fighting going on, and captives are still captives. Being in Alaska, I haven't run into cease fire adocates locally (although I'm sure they exist). Biden's campaign does not have a hope up here, but the main issue in discussion among the locals would be our porous southern border. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Steve Shaw Date: 04 Jan 24 - 06:29 PM It's terrible. At the moment it looks as though the Saudis and their allied states are desperate to avoid escalation, and Hezbollah can see that it wouldn't be in their interests either. But there are plenty of potential flashpoints: commercial shipping in the Gulf has been disrupted almost to a standstill, Hamas/Hezbollah want revenge for the killing of the Hamas leader in Lebanon and Isis have claimed responsibility for the slaughter in Iran. At the heart of it all as things are right now is that ratbag who's in charge in Israel (which in no way is to excuse what Hamas did). There's only one person on the planet who can stop him, and the world is increasingly asking the question, so why doesn't he? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Donuel Date: 05 Jan 24 - 07:08 AM "that ratbag who's in charge in Israel (which in no way is to excuse what Hamas did). There's only one person on the planet who can stop him" Stop him? the assassination of the head of a sovereign nation is an option for Biden? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Steve Shaw Date: 05 Jan 24 - 07:46 AM The glaringly obvious thing to would be to make all military aid to Israel completely and immediately conditional on a permanent ceasefire, along with a firm undertaking to withdraw from Gaza and the West Bank and to engage in serious talks, with a timetable, towards a two-state solution. Of course, this won't happen so let's not dwell. Suffice to say that putting bullets through people's heads never solves a thing. Bibi's prime motive for keeping this horror show going is to save his own skin. If he calls it off before he "wins" (he's already lost), he'll end up in jail for corruption. Of course, he should end up in jail for war crimes in any case, but he'll be long dead before that can be achieved. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Nigel Parsons Date: 05 Jan 24 - 10:43 AM The glaringly obvious thing to would be to make all military aid to Israel completely and immediately conditional on a permanent ceasefire The glaringly obvious thing with that comment is that a permanent ceasefire would negate any need for military aid. (although I may have been confused by the first part of the comment) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Stilly River Sage Date: 05 Jan 24 - 10:58 AM Blinken is back in the Middle East to probably deliver the bad news to Netanyahu - that Biden has no intention of tanking his own presidential campaign to support Bebe. N. may be hoping that Trump gets back into office and Biden knows that, so N. is on his own very soon if he doesn't pull back and call for a permanent cease fire. My guess. This thing is spreading (see DV news) and it is entirely up to Netanyahu to stop what he's doing. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: robomatic Date: 05 Jan 24 - 03:24 PM Newsweek- Trust Me, You'd Rather Live in a Pro-Israel America |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Mrrzy Date: 05 Jan 24 - 04:29 PM I'm just relieved it wasn't Israel that bombed that Iranian thing. I had been afraid it had been. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Steve Shaw Date: 05 Jan 24 - 07:43 PM Nigel, military aid all through periods both of war and of ceasefires has been provided by the US. The US has never stopped supplying Israel with military aid no matter what the circumstances are. I'm suggesting that the UNCONDITIONAL supply of military aid should never be the default. In the current circumstances, I'm suggesting that such aid is unconscionable. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: robomatic Date: 06 Jan 24 - 05:42 PM Time for Israel to undergo irrevocable societal, political change |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Donuel Date: 08 Jan 24 - 07:34 PM They can speak softly but carry a big stick. Bebe is conducting a war to avoid prosecution as much as Trump is running to prevent his own prison time. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Thompson Date: 12 Jan 24 - 06:35 PM Disease cold and misery as the horror goes on. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Thompson Date: 12 Jan 24 - 06:43 PM In the International Court of Justice in The Hague yesterday. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Steve Shaw Date: 12 Jan 24 - 07:31 PM Isn't it amazing that the US and UK will leap into action to protect their shipping/protect western interests/ to prevent a bit more inflation/ to make sure we get our goods as cheaply as possible/to stop oil prices going up, whilst standing by to watch the slaughter of 23000 children, women and male non-combatants in Gaza. Well, they have no oil, I suppose. And, well, we have to please those all-powerful pro-Israel lobbies, don't we? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Thompson Date: 13 Jan 24 - 01:06 AM The first mentions of "voluntary transfers" of the people of Gaza out of their homelands are beginning to peep their shy heads out from behind the genocide. What did I say? Land grab. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: robomatic Date: 13 Jan 24 - 02:04 PM There's still a war. Still Israelis getting killed in battle. And still unreleased hostages. Hamas should be on trial. Germany seems to agree No one is giving Israel a pass |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Steve Shaw Date: 13 Jan 24 - 02:16 PM And only Israel apologists here are taking sides, robo. Most of us are commenting on what we see happening with our eyes wide open and no-one is excusing Hamas, not in the slightest. By now, with millions displaced, a country in ruins and 23000 dead, it's a bit of a stretch for anyone to keep on defending Israel, or,to be more precise, the Israeli regime. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: robomatic Date: 13 Jan 24 - 06:14 PM SS: You sound like you are most definitely 'taking sides.' And have for some time. All I did was mention what is going on and why it is still going on. Others may judge who is sticking to facts. Also, Hamas is being excused when Israel is being taken to court in the manner noted in the recent news. Hamas started this latest war and maintains it as a war. The war is being 'widened' by Iran supported parties both on the Lenanon border and at sea. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Steve Shaw Date: 13 Jan 24 - 07:29 PM You are so blinkered that I can't argue with you. Good luck. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: MaJoC the Filk Date: 14 Jan 24 - 07:01 AM > Well, they have no oil, I suppose. Until Hamas took over, I understand, Gaza was self-sufficient in food. The overall situation reminds me of Galbraith's quote in The Age of Uncertainty, attributed to "a high official of the Department of State to the author, 1974":
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Steve Shaw Date: 14 Jan 24 - 07:27 AM The Houthis have made it crystal clear that the attacks on shipping in the Red Sea are in retaliation to the slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza and are intended to hinder supplies reaching Israel. They have said that they want the continuing destruction of Gaza to stop and they want much more aid to reach the civilians there. The west, on the other hand, is vehemently trying to separate Israel away in our minds from the Red Sea conflict. The UK in particular want us to think that the priorities are to keep the supply chains going, to keep shipping costs down and to prevent inflationary pressures (all while Gaza burns, which isn't getting much stick at the moment, but, of course, Israel aren't our enemies...) I suppose that showing support for Israel "looks bad" in that region at the moment, considering what they're doing, and, of course, the Houthis are allies of Hamas, therefore ARE our enemies, therefore we don't believe them do we, as our enemies are always the baddies? Or am I missing something? Oh, and let's not forget that for years the Houthis were bombed by the Saudis using UK-supplied aircraft and weaponry, delivered by the military that we helped to train... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Donuel Date: 14 Jan 24 - 06:21 PM Armchair generals do not win wars, end wars, or know war. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: robomatic Date: 14 Jan 24 - 06:23 PM SS: I'd say the "blinkered" description describes more than one side. Over here we use the expression "drinking the koolaid". Which I will suggest is very much what Hamas has done to Gaza in more than one sense. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Steve Shaw Date: 14 Jan 24 - 08:32 PM Gaza has been illegally blockaded since 2006. Illegal settlements have proliferated in the illegally occupied West Bank for decades. An apartheid wall has been built. Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been slaughtered, their home obliterated and their futures ruined for life, and hardly any of them have done anything wrong. Perhaps you'd care to contemplate all that, revisit your post and tell me once again that it's "what Hamas did to Gaza." While you're at it, perhaps you'd care to research the reasons why we have Hamas and Hezbollah in the first place. No blinkers this end, old boy. Just seeing what's been going on with eyes wide open. Of course, you may see it differently. If you do, you could be finding yourself in a dwindling minority. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: robomatic Date: 14 Jan 24 - 10:58 PM This is a link to last night's NPR broadcast of "On The Media" (OTM). It features an interview with Masha Gessen who is a regular writer with The New Yorker and has a Russian/ Ukrainian/ Jewish background. I am posting it because she asks good questions, has good insights, and makes me think. I did not find a strong political/ social position in her words, mabe because I didn't want to, maybe because I didn't totally understand her words. I am definitely going to listen again. She was speaking to the Gaza issues even if you don't conclude that with my words above. On The Media spent a lot of time on Gaza and is a full hour program, so there may be other bits of the podcast available. Masha Gessen in "On The Media" |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Donuel Date: 21 Jan 24 - 06:27 AM Blinkers? That euphemism is over a century old. Its older than 'icebox'. Today the term for being partially blinded to one's own suspicion and prejudice might be called wearing a VR headset or an invisible blindfold that blinds the wearer. Fear, prejudice and suspicion are stacked one upon another like bricks that build a wall. Each brick is made of lies and hate until it is impenetrable to all understanding. All that is heard through the wall is a toxic discourse that calls for war. This happens in social media, a neighborhood, a village, houses of worship, and even nations. Blinkers is an old term but so is war. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Thompson Date: 22 Jan 24 - 09:59 AM 25,000 dead now, 10,000 of them children. And America being comprehensively bullied in any feeble attempt it may make to say "Ah, don't kill quite so many, if you kindly wouldn't mind, sirs". And the war is already starting to spread, to Syria, Iran, Yemen, Lebanon; the Suez Canal is already unpassable, and ships have returned to the 18th century route around Africa. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Thompson Date: 28 Jan 24 - 03:39 PM Land grab. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Stilly River Sage Date: 29 Jan 24 - 04:24 PM From an interview broadcast today on MSNBC it sounded like negotiations are underway for prisoner exchanges and a permanent cease fire. The UN has interjected chaos into the whole thing - the participation of some of their UNRWA folks who provide aid in Gaza were seen participating in the October 7 raid. UNRWA is the biggest aid provider in Gaza, where Israel's war against Hamas has displaced the vast majority of the population within the besieged territory and plunged it into a humanitarian catastrophe. U.N. officials say a quarter of the population is starving. More here. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Thompson Date: 03 Feb 24 - 02:27 AM I've read that 12 people out of UNRWA's staff of 13,000 are alleged by Israel to have been involved in the 7 October attack. Nine people have been fired by the UN, one is among over 100 UNWRA staff who've been killed by the Israeli attacks on Gaza, and the situation of two others is being clarified. Here's a good CNN report. It's often hard to find good information about Israel's war on Gaza, because so many reporters, writers and poets are being killed; by mid-January 13 Palestinian poets and 68 journalists had been killed. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Thompson Date: 26 Mar 24 - 05:37 PM Land grab. Jewish settlers set their sights on Gaza beachfront |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: robomatic Date: 27 Mar 24 - 06:13 PM I appreciate the link to Haaretz. They seem to be kind of Guardian-like in their breadth of subject and attitude. I've been expecting an Out-Of-Gaza proposal to develop. No idea where that will take us. I have not caught up on my Thomas Friedman articles. There is a kind of parallelism in the perception difference: In the U S we have many Americans saying that the Jan 06 attack on the Capitol Building was an 'insurrection' and others saying this notion is a hoax and at most it was a demonstration gone a bit over zealous. And with this and various challenges to our institutional authorites we are led by our timetables to a pivotal election in eight months. The parallel I'm drawing here is the notion that currently a war is going on in Gaza between elements of the IDF and the Hamas rulers of Gaza. Versus the notion that it is an extended punitive expedition with unset boundries. My overall observations are that this is mostly due to Hamas not wanting the incipient relationships developing between Israeli and neighboring Arab states. I personally think that all sides have suffered from what Thomas Friedman has called "Failure Of The Imagination." and going on in my words, the failure is combined with a perception held by some parties that this is a Zero-Sum situation, and that considerable religious and political bias is floating all around this situation. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: Thompson Date: 28 Mar 24 - 06:07 AM An interesting book for background is the late Dervla Murphy's A Month by the Sea - from 2013, lots of facts and figures about Hamas, Israeli occupation, etc. "Out of Gaza" is the Israeli equivalent of Cromwell's "To Hell or to Connacht" when removing Irish people from the rich parts of Ireland and sending them to allocations of land one-tenth of the land they owned, and on very poor soil, while their land was given to English and Scottish Protestant farmers - and for much the same reason, an attempt to "plant" a neighbouring country with religiously-approved loyalists. Meanwhile in Gaza, children are starving. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Hamas attacks Israel - part II From: robomatic Date: 28 Mar 24 - 02:46 PM I've noticed many Irish making connections between their history and the current contretemps. Used to be I reckoned the two most unsolvable long term world problems were the Irish/ English/ British troubles and the Mideast. And the Irish stituation got much much better but the rest metastasized. |
