Israel/Palestine (Conflict to more Conflicts)

[Wij]

oooh, and:


/Scouse sides with the Israeli Attourney General (and the myriad rights groups who are saying something quite different from Wij).

🤷

And I said that what happens in the West Bank is still the responsibility of the Israeli government so I don't even know what you are arguing about.

 

[Scouse]

And I said that what happens in the West Bank is still the responsibility of the Israeli government so I don't even know what you are arguing about.

Are you hard of reading?? Quite clearly that it's all of Israel. "There's no two Israels". Apartheid behind the green line as well as in the OT. As the Attorney General said: Between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.

Apartheid everywhere. Says the guy who's job it was to enforce it.

 

[Wij]

And also:

..much of the discussion in the international community operates as if Israel’s behaviour in the occupied territories can be distinguished from the liberal democracy that exists within the Green Line. This is a mistake.

Apartheid in occupied territories and liberal democracy elsewhere. One regime, two systems.

He's not making the point you think he's making.

 

[Bodhi]

Didn't think it would take Scouse this long to start talking about "From the River to the Sea".

 

[Raven]

Anyway, correct answer.

Hamas = bad
Israel = bad
Jewish people, caught in the middle
Palestinian people, caught in the middle.

Endless circlejerk of violence that will only end up with more violence. Israel needs to stop bombing civilians, now, not in a week. Hamas need to stop the rocket attacks, but seeing as they are about as useful as a chocolate tampon, it's not even close to being as important as jet fighters not roaring overhead dropping actual bombs.

 

[Bodhi]

Not entirely sure how Israel are the bad guys here for responding to one of the most heinous attacks on civilians since 9/11. To me it looks like they've been remarkably reserved considering what happened.

Hamas need to:

- Release the hostages. That should not even be up for debate.
- Stop lobbing rockets at Israel, considering when they do they kill more of their own people than they do Israeli's.
- Fuck off back to whatever middle ages backwater they came from.
- Let some of the aid sent for the Palestinian people actually reach the people rather than Hamas themselves.
- Stop digging up water pipes to make rockets out of.
- Maintain the acquifier in Gaza that supplies 95% of Gaza's water properly.
- Just generally fuck off and let some grown ups negotiate with Israel, who's attitude would probably change if they didn't have neighbours dedicated to their destruction.

 

[Scouse]

Didn't think it would take Scouse this long to start talking about "From the River to the Sea".

Wondered which cunt would be the first to bring this up, thought it'd be you.

I was quoting the Israeli Attourney General. So get back in your hole.

Apartheid in occupied territories and liberal democracy elsewhere. One regime, two systems.

"as if Israel’s behaviour in the occupied territories can be distinguished from the liberal democracy that exists within the Green Line. This is a mistake"

This is a mistake.
This is a mistake.
This is a mistake.

He's clearly saying there's one system, one Israel, one apartheid from the river Jordan, behind the green line, to the med.

One regime. One system. Whole country. The idea that Israel is a liberal democracy is an outright lie. Says it's own Attorney General.

Edit: And frankly @Wij, even if you were right (and you're very much not) it still wouldn't be acceptable.

 

[Wij]

Wondered which cunt would be the first to bring this up, thought it'd be you.

I was quoting the Israeli Attourney General. So get back in your hole.



"as if Israel’s behaviour in the occupied territories can be distinguished from the liberal democracy that exists within the Green Line. This is a mistake"

This is a mistake.
This is a mistake.
This is a mistake.

He's clearly saying there's one system, one Israel, one apartheid from the river Jordan, behind the green line, to the med.

One regime. One system. Whole country. The idea that Israel is a liberal democracy is an outright lie. Says it's own Attorney General.

He really isn’t. He’s specifically saying that there are two systems. He’s the former AG. He can hardly deny that the laws are different in different areas. They are there on the statute books. Different laws. He’s saying they are all Israel’s laws. All of Israel is responsible for those laws. He’s not saying they all apply in all of Israel. That would be an obvious falsehood.

 

[Bodhi]

Wondered which cunt would be the first to bring this up, thought it'd be you.

I was quoting the Israeli Attourney General. So get back in your hole.



"as if Israel’s behaviour in the occupied territories can be distinguished from the liberal democracy that exists within the Green Line. This is a mistake"

This is a mistake.
This is a mistake.
This is a mistake.

He's clearly saying there's one system, one Israel, one apartheid from the river Jordan, behind the green line, to the med.

One regime. One system. Whole country. The idea that Israel is a liberal democracy is an outright lie. Says it's own Attorney General.

Edit: And frankly @Wij, even if you were right (and you're very much not) it still wouldn't be acceptable.

Considering your "solution" to the problem would result in the deaths of most of the Jewish population in Israel I'd suggest you get back in your own antisemitic hole tbh.

 

[Scouse]

He really isn’t. He’s specifically saying that there are two systems. He’s the former AG. He can hardly deny that the laws are different in different areas. They are there on the statute books. Different laws. He’s saying they are all Israel’s laws. All of Israel is responsible for those laws. He’s not saying they all apply in all of Israel. That would be an obvious falsehood.

Sorry Wij, but he's saying that the laws behind the green line are discriminatory too. They've got multiple different laws in different areas, but behind the green line they're just as discriminatory. Which is why Israeli Arabs suffer. It's why they're effectively restricted to about 3% of the entire Israeli land mass.

Israeli isn't a nationality - it's a mark of your citizenship. Jewish is a 'nationality'. Druze (ethnic Arab) is a 'nationality'. And laws are based on your nationality, not your citizenship. Israel is effectively a (religious) enthnocracy.

Take five minutes to think about that @Wij. Giving you the benefit of the doubt: Did you know that?

As Israel's laws centre around your 'nationality' then that's the fundamental mechanism for structural discrimination against people of different enthnicity. The country is discriminatory by design.

How about the nation state law? Which says the right to exercise national self-determination in Israel is unique to the Jewish people. That Jewish settlement is a national value? How inclusive!

Even if all this was bunkum @Wij, which it really isn't, if it was restricted to the OT's only, it doesn't make it any better. It's still an apartheid state. But that system forms the root of the fundamental structural apartheid.

 

[Wij]

Sorry Wij, but he's saying that the laws behind the green line are discriminatory too. They've got multiple different laws in different areas, but behind the green line they're just as discriminatory. Which is why Israeli Arabs suffer. It's why they're effectively restricted to about 3% of the entire Israeli land mass.

Israeli isn't a nationality - it's a mark of your citizenship. Jewish is a 'nationality'. Druze (ethnic Arab) is a 'nationality'. And laws are based on your nationality, not your citizenship. Israel is effectively a (religious) enthnocracy.

Take five minutes to think about that @Wij. Giving you the benefit of the doubt: Did you know that?

As Israel's laws centre around your 'nationality' then that's the fundamental mechanism for structural discrimination against people of different enthnicity. The country is discriminatory by design.

How about the nation state law? Which says the right to exercise national self-determination in Israel is unique to the Jewish people. That Jewish settlement is a national value? How inclusive!

Even if all this was bunkum @Wij, which it really isn't, if it was restricted to the OT's only, it doesn't make it any better. It's still an apartheid state. But that system forms the root of the fundamental structural apartheid.

Druze is a religion. Not an ethnicity. It's a minority religion in Israel, neither Jewish nor Islamic.

Arabs face discrimination in Israel, west of the green line. I explicitly stated this. Some right-wing laws have been passed by right-wing governments in recent years that make this worse. Although some things have been passed to attempt to redress that:

Historic Economic Development Plan for Arab Sector: Overview... | IATask Force

On December 30, the Israeli government approved a groundbreaking, five-year economic development plan for the Arab sector, aimed at tackling major gaps bet...

www.iataskforce.org

However, discrimination, even if in some cases built into law, is not the same as apartheid:

Israel as an Ethnic Democracy: Palestinian Citizens and the Fight for Equal Rights

Raphael Cohen-Almagor considers the challenges and possibilities of multicultural democracy in Israel following violence in the Israel-Palestine conflict in May 2021, exploring the place of the Palestinian minority in Israel.

berkleycenter.georgetown.edu

And ethnicity being a factor in the running of a state is hardly rare in the region. It's not something that marks Israel out as a horrific exception. There's a country based on the House of Saud just down the road. Laws on ethnicity are the norm. Israeli Arabs ARE discriminated against, and I've never said otherwise, but it's better than being a Syrian Jew or Kurd.

 

[Wij]

On a related note, what the fuck?


View: https://twitter.com/unwatch/status/1719043200873107893?s=61&t=iv1E1O7hVRuRm0TFdyUzyw

 

[Wij]

And the GOP is happily taking the bait that Iran and Putin helped set up and prioritising aid for Israel, which doesn’t need it, over aid for Ukraine, which does.


View: https://twitter.com/eeriknkross/status/1718906807907762215?s=61&t=iv1E1O7hVRuRm0TFdyUzyw

 

[Scouse]

Druze is a religion. Not an ethnicity.

Same as Jewish.

I didn't say their idiotic rules make sense. So if Israel insists Jewish is an ethnicity (which politically for Israel it needs to be) then they can define whatever they want as 'nationality' - and the proof is in the pudding. It is what it is - bullshit, but the way it's done.

If you want to argue more on this then take it up with Amnesty, Human Rights Watch, the Israeli Attourney General and the UN Secretary General, because I think it's simple denialism on your part.

Plenty of people supported Apartheid in South Africa too, no matter what mental flips they had to do. And the only countries to vote against a UN resolution for an economic embargo of racist south africa were the UK, US, France, Spain, Portugal... We have form for propping up Apartheid regimes.

Hey ho. It's Apartheid pure and simple. And, for me, that's a complete u-turn on the opinion I held in my youth. The evidence is stark and clear amd we gain nothing by debating it further, in the same way that you don't gain anything debating whether smoking causes cancer with the tobacco industry or whether burning fossil fuel causes global warming with the oil industry or the 'global warming policy foundation'.

 

[Wij]

They see Jewish as an ethnicity (as well as a religion but that's a different thing) just like Arab, or even Irish. You can have a secular Jew, who considers himself part of the Jewish people but does not believe all the hocus pocus, in the same way an Irish person can give up catholicism, and can live in America but still consider Ireland as the 'home' of the Irish people.

I know that (to the best of my knowledge) Ireland doesn't have laws which favour 'Irish' people over other citizens, but it doesn't change the point of nationalities as ethnicities. It doesn't really make much sense from a genetic point of view but neither does Arab etc...

Anyway, there is no point in going round the circle again. I consider Israel (west of the green line yadda yadda) to function as an imperfect democracy with some discrimination. I do not consider this to be apartheid where black people weren't even allowed to vote on the laws that discriminated against them. Imperfect democracies are very commonplace. As are non-democracies where no-one gets to vote on discriminatory laws.

I'm not alone in this view. hold whatever view you like. It isn't going to change mine.

Got my Mum's funeral tomorrow so need time to get ready.

 

[Scouse]

I'm so so sorry to hear that @Wij. Had no idea. Horrible time

We've both got our views. Mine's changed from yours to in-step with the people and organisations I've mentioned. I find it staggering that given the facts others cannot see that. But that's always the way isn't it. We agree to disagree.

 

[Deebs]

<snip></snip>

Got my Mum's funeral tomorrow so need time to get ready.

Ah man so sorry to hear that, sending you love and hugs.

 

[BloodOmen]

Not entirely sure how Israel are the bad guys here for responding to one of the most heinous attacks on civilians since 9/11. To me it looks like they've been remarkably reserved considering what happened.

Hamas need to:

- Release the hostages. That should not even be up for debate.
- Stop lobbing rockets at Israel, considering when they do they kill more of their own people than they do Israeli's.
- Fuck off back to whatever middle ages backwater they came from.
- Let some of the aid sent for the Palestinian people actually reach the people rather than Hamas themselves.
- Stop digging up water pipes to make rockets out of.
- Maintain the acquifier in Gaza that supplies 95% of Gaza's water properly.
- Just generally fuck off and let some grown ups negotiate with Israel, who's attitude would probably change if they didn't have neighbours dedicated to their destruction.

They won't though, it's going exactly like they want... they want to enrage Muslims the globe over, and it speeds up terrorist recruitment and incites terrorist attacks globally. Hamas doesn't give two flying fucks about Palestine or its citizens, they just want to keep kicking the bee-hive that is Israel then use propaganda going "Oh look! they're killing citizens! rise up, brothers and sisters!"


Bit of art I seen awhile ago sums it up perfectly, why do you think they built their main base below the biggest hospital in Gaza? so when Israel inevitable attacks it they can claim Israel blew up another hospital

 

[Bodhi]

They won't though, it's going exactly like they want... they want to enrage Muslims the globe over, and it speeds up terrorist recruitment and incites terrorist attacks globally. Hamas doesn't give two flying fucks about Palestine or its citizens, they just want to keep kicking the bee-hive that is Israel then use propaganda going "Oh look! they're killing citizens! rise up, brothers and sisters!"


Bit of art I seen awhile ago sums it up perfectly

Interesting link I found from an Egyptian journalist - and probably helps explain why Egypt aren't in a hurry to open the border to Gaza:

https://x.com/Ed_Husain/status/1719369227931468094?s=20

So they're happy to use the aid they get to dig tunnels for military purposes, but never thought to build any bomb shelters to protect their people from all the wars they keep starting with Israel.

Clearly all Israel's fault - if you're a bit of a midwit that reads The Guardian anyway.

 

[BloodOmen]

Interesting link I found from an Egyptian journalist - and probably helps explain why Egypt aren't in a hurry to open the border to Gaza:

https://x.com/Ed_Husain/status/1719369227931468094?s=20

So they're happy to use the aid they get to dig tunnels for military purposes, but never thought to build any bomb shelters to protect their people from all the wars they keep starting with Israel.

Clearly all Israel's fault - if you're a bit of a midwit that reads The Guardian anyway.

It's also unfortunately why Israel can't "win" this war, sure, they can completely level Gaza but like the rats they are Hamas will just fuck off to Iran and Hezbollah will welcome them with open arms whilst at the same time start attacking Israel themselves, starting the whole process over and over again.

What's the outcome? millions of displaced Muslims fleeing the Middle East, more immigration across Europe, more strain on already strained public systems, and in the process they can weasel hate preachers and terrorists into countries hiding among genuine refugees.

I think the world is at a tipping point right now, they can continue accepting refugees from such wars without proper vetting or they now need to start investing heavily into vetting to weed out terrorists, just a trojan horse waiting to pop otherwise.

 

[Wij]

Interesting link I found from an Egyptian journalist - and probably helps explain why Egypt aren't in a hurry to open the border to Gaza:

https://x.com/Ed_Husain/status/1719369227931468094?s=20

So they're happy to use the aid they get to dig tunnels for military purposes, but never thought to build any bomb shelters to protect their people from all the wars they keep starting with Israel.

Clearly all Israel's fault - if you're a bit of a midwit that reads The Guardian anyway.

Embedded tweets still work if you change x.com to twitter.com btw

 

[BloodOmen]

Some countries are starting to wake up to the realization after the mass protests across the world

Germany, who essentially opened the gates for mass immigration is now on about starting mass deportation, France the same and Sweden too I believe.

 

[Scouse]

so when Israel inevitable attacks

I agree. Israel inevitably attacks hospitals and commits a war crime.

They could, of course, choose an alternative method of conflict resolution but Israel doesn't want to. They've explicitly stated they don't want to. They would rather commit war crimes against their prison population.

If you were in prison, and you knew the only place the screws weren't legally allowed to shoot you was in the hospital wing, you'd fucking go there too wouldn't you?

Doesn't make it right. But it doesn't make Israeli atrocities right either. And, last time I looked, Israel was the nuclear-armed state and Gaza was the concentration camp Israel owns.

 

[BloodOmen]

I agree. Israel inevitably attacks hospitals and commits a war crime.

They could, of course, choose an alternative method of conflict resolution but Israel doesn't want to. They've explicitly stated they don't want to. They would rather commit war crimes against their prison population.

If you were in prison, and you knew the only place the screws weren't legally allowed to shoot you was in the hospital wing, you'd fucking go there too wouldn't you?

Doesn't make it right. But it doesn't make Israeli atrocities right either. And, last time I looked, Israel was the nuclear-armed state and Gaza was the concentration camp Israel owns.

Sadly Terrorists are lower than low. Neigh impossible to beat them without killing innocents. Also, a ceasefire is meaningless in the long run, other than sparing Gazans (for now) from Israel's bombing, all it does is allow Hamas to bolster their ranks and plan future atrocities.

You have to draw a line somewhere, unfortunately, the line Israel has drawn involves war crimes as you say, I'm not even going to dispute that, it's war crimes plain and simple.

 

[BloodOmen]

Let's be honest, nothing will likely ever come of Israel's War Crimes. You'd have more hope of getting Putin dragged before the Hague than anyone from Israel because Israel have a lot of power on the world stage despite their size.

 

[Scouse]

Sadly Terrorists are lower than low. Neigh impossible to beat them without killing innocents. Also, a ceasefire is meaningless in the long run, other than sparing Gazans (for now) from Israel's bombing, all it does is allow Hamas to bolster their ranks and plan future atrocities.

You have to draw a line somewhere, unfortunately, the line Israel has drawn involves war crimes as you say, I'm not even going to dispute that, it's war crimes plain and simple.

Morally, Israel's the much bigger offender. It's the well-armed state. Hamas are a subset of people unjustly maintained - from birth - in a prison camp. Israel has killed ~3500 prisoner children so far in this conflict (the same number of children that Israel has killed in the past few years - this "war" is just an extension of a multi-decade atrocity).

Israel is propped us by us. We have an oar in this game to fix the issues - but we're doing what we did whilst Hitler was killing and burning jews.

i.e. nothing.

Edit: Oh, btw. Hostages. It's a disgusting situation. But remember, Israel just arrested thousands of Gazans who had work permits and were in Israel at the time this kicked off. (How can 4500 of these be "unaccounted for"??) They've arrested loads more in the West Bank. They've thousands in jails - many of which haven't had a sniff of a trial. The rest, well - they're in a country that discriminates against them, so a fair trial isn't possible.

So whilst Hamas has taken innocent civilians hostage, you could consider that the Israeli police do the same thing. But because: Apartheid - it's legal for them to do so. Israeli prisons aren't chock full of Jewish Israeli civilians who've been murdering and raping and burning the homes of Arabs are they? Or even the police and military who do the same with impunity?

Don't make the mistake of false-equivalence. It's not a fair fight and it's not a fair moral landscape. The state of Israel and the way it is run is the primary problem.

 

[BloodOmen]

Speak of the devil, DM article but gets the point across

Dozens killed in Israeli strike on Gaza refugee camp, Hamas claims

An intense blast has levelled buildings in the densely-populated neighbourhood then opened up huge sinkholes, with residents reporting that the ground began to collapse around them.

www.dailymail.co.uk

 

[Scouse]

UN director of human rights body retires after 30+ year career and drops a reality bomb:

Top UN official in New York steps down citing ‘genocide’ of Palestinian civilians

Craig Mokhiber, director of human rights body, accuses the US, UK and much of Europe as ‘wholly complicit in the horrific assault’

www.theguardian.com

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.

We must support the establishment of a single, democratic secular state in all of historic Palestine, with equal rights for Christians, Muslims, and Jews ... and, therefore, the dismantling of the deeply racist, settler-colonial project and an end to apartheid across the land.

It's an eminently sensible assessment of both the cause and only real solution.

And he blames us squarely for our complicity.

 

[Scouse]

Meanwhile in parts of the West Bank palestinians are fleeing violence as jewish settlers steal more land through violence in the last year than they have in total since 1967.

‘A new Nakba’: settler violence forces Palestinians out of West Bank villages

Communities who have clung on for decades are leaving their homes in the face of rising attrition by Israelis

www.theguardian.com

 

[Tom]

I think the situation is so complicated, and so much hatred has festered on all sides, that it won't ever see significant improvement in our lifetimes. People are very good at clinging on to hatred, even if they've never had direct experience of it. And there are too many vested interests from outside countries sticking their beaks in to prolong that hatred.

I've purposely stayed away from all comment and discussion on it everywhere, mostly because I'm ignorant of the history of it.