Apologies if I’ve missed a thread. Assuming I haven’t, does annyone have any thoughts on this? First thought here is it seems like a (nother ) worrying flashpoint for the world. Danger of escalation and involvement of other groups/nations either in a co-ordinated / perhaps even pre-planned way or just hoping to exploit the chaos. On the other hand maybe conflict (leading if it does to some sort of settlement rather than just a return to the miserable status quo) is needed to lance this particular boil which has been lingering so long and leaving so many living in squalid conditions for generations? Unfortunately it is those people who are most likely to suffer the immediate retaliation, as already seems to have been the case today.
The videos emerging of woman and children being paraded like lambs to slaughter is truly horrific. The fact Republicans have quickly jumped on Joe Biden and Ukraine tells you where the money line has come from. Putin - Trump - Republicans. I hate this world.
Attacking civilian targets and taking hostages is particularly abhorrent, as is the hatred that accompanies it. I don’t think we are near to seeing what the wider consequences of this escalation will be, but for now it’s simply dreadful as it is. It must surely continue with the loss of hundreds, probably thousands of lives more on either side. Both seem prepared for that and Israel has no choice other than to protect its citizens and eliminate those that have entered Israel to harm them. Beyond that, it’s very depressing. Both sides speak a similar language, talking of inflicting a terrible blow that will deter the other in the future. They won’t and the cycle of violence will continue.
It's all very sad. Once again it's the innocent civilians that suffer because of the decisions of their leaders. I think it underlines why a "hard-line" approach to such conflicts never works in the long term. Israel has a right to exist and defend itself but doing so by trying to crush the Palestinians is only going to grow resentment and create a greater motivation for "armed resistance". Equally this attack on civilians by Hamas is just going to harden Israel's position. We only need to look at Northern Ireland to see how deep seated hate between two communities can be resolved through dialogue after years of "armed struggle". Hopefully Israelis and Palestinians can find a way to break this horrific cycle of terror too.
It'll be interesting to see how the Red Tories react during their conference this week. Will they be able to resist hoisting the Palestinian flag?
Whilst my politics is decidedly left, I hate how their pet cause of Palestine takes over everything. The Palestinians don't have a good lot, but they also want Israel wiped off the map. Corbyn and co. would happily bang on about it in a one sided manner way more than things like jobs, education, NHS etc. There's something deeply unpleasant about the left cosying up with gay-hating, women-hating Islamists.
The current crisis is a result of an extremist militant section of the Palestinian people being emboldened to take the stance of ‘anything goes’ in the context of an equally extremist and militant, but official, government of the state of Israel waging a campaign of effective ethnic cleansing and dispossession against their people. Israel has a right to exist, but so do the Palestinians, and in something better than the fenced-in poorer areas of land the Israeli government seem determined to ghettoise them into. Hamas are deeply unpleasant, as were the IRA, but countries often get the enemy they create. It is also deeply unpalatable to watch a country created to prevent a repetition of the crimes perpetrated upon their people seeming to view it as perfectly OK to implement the same policies against others. I think the problem is far more intractable than the ‘Irish Problem’.
what an intense lack of knowledge you have on the situation when you mention ethnic cleansing. There are no ifs. There are no buts. Coming across a border and slaughtering 240 20-25 year olds attending a peace party. Killing civilians in their homes in cold blood. Kidnapping people younger than my kids and abusing them and circulating videos on social media There are no excuses. This is barbaric and Israel are at war which will lead to thousands of lives lost on both sides. It is all very depressing
And anybody that likens this situation to Northern Ireland has little if any knowledge of the complexities of the situation
And as a last point.,if anybody truly believes that the aim of the terrorists is to gain an independent state then why was this not actioned when West Bank and East Jerusalem was in Jordanian control? Why no independent state for the Palestinians in Gaza when under Egyptian control? the aim of Hamas is to obliterate all that live in Israel
Says the person who claims others have no concept of the complexity of the situation. I look forward to your erudite defence of the current Israeli government’s policy towards the Palestinians who have lived there for multiple generations. There is no reason for the creation of Israel to have necessarily led to the current crisis, based as it is on potentially insoluble precedent. But we are where we are and Hamas atrocity cannot be viewed in isolation outside the context of clearly unacceptable behaviour by various Israeli governments. Unless you are speaking from the standpoint of an apologist.
Animals in power on both sides, mind controlled populations raised on fear, hate and religion fuel them. A story as old as time and getting rather boring now, I dont see the point of it all.
It was an attempt to frame the intractability of the issue in terms others on here may find more directly familiar. The point still stands that countries end up with the enemy they create.
It shows more about you that on a day when barbarians have come across the border and murdered children younger than my kids enjoying themselves at a music festival that you, as an apologist, blame Israel I’m very very happy to educate you on the history of the region, the number of two state solutions that have been offered to the Arabs, the life of the Palestinians living in Arab countries, life under Hamas..,, but today in this day of bloodshed is not the time
At no time did I defend the actions of Hamas, who I clearly defined as being reprehensible, but trying to contextualise such abhorrent actions is not tantamount to defence.
I disagree; it most definitely IS the time, ESPECIALLY in such days of bloodshed. I am not blaming Israel alone; I am saying your black & white outrage needs some context. But I honestly am very open to valid exposition as to complexities I have hitherto been unaware of. Including justification for Israeli government policy. And never would I justify the heinous actions perpetrated in the current situation, whoever commits them.
Ok something I wrote on another site…some historical facts for your review Fact #1: There could have been a two-state solution as early as 1947. That’s precisely what the UN Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) proposed, recognizing the presence of two peoples – and two nationalisms – in a territory governed temporarily by the United Kingdom. And the UN General Assembly decisively endorsed the UNSCOP proposal. The Jewish side pragmatically accepted the plan, but the Arab world categorically rejected it. Fact #2: When Israel declared independence on May 14, 1948, it extended the hand of friendship to its Arab neighbors, as clearly evidenced by its founding documents and statements. That offer, too, was spurned. Instead, five Arab armies declared war on the fledgling Jewish state, seeking its total destruction. Despite vastly outnumbering the Jews and possessing superior military arsenals, they failed in their quest. Fact #3: Until 1967, the eastern part of Jerusalem and the entire West Bank were in the hands of Jordan, not Israel. Had the Arab world wished, an independent Palestinian state, with its capital in Jerusalem, could have been established at any time. Not only did this not happen, but there is no record of it ever having been discussed. To the contrary, Jordan annexed the territory, seeking full and permanent control. It proceeded to treat Jerusalem as a backwater, while denying Jews any access to Jewish holy sites in the Old City and destroying the synagogues there. Meanwhile, Gaza was under Egyptian military rule. Again, there was no talk of sovereignty for the Palestinians there, either. Fact #4: In May 1967, the Egyptian and Syrian governments repeatedly threatened to annihilate Israel, as these countries demanded that UN peacekeeping forces be withdrawn from the region. Moreover, Israeli shipping lanes to its southern port of Eilat were blocked, and Arab troops were deployed to front-line positions. The Six-Day War was the outcome, a war that Israel won. Coming into possession of the Gaza Strip, Golan Heights, Sinai Peninsula, West Bank, and eastern Jerusalem, Israel extended feelers to its Arab neighbors, via third parties, seeking a “land for peace” formula. The Arab response came back on September 1, 1967, from Khartoum, Sudan, where the Arab League nations were meeting. The message was unmistakable: “No peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, and no negotiations with Israel.” Yet another opportunity to end the conflict had come and gone. Fact #5: In November 1977, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat broke with the Arab rejectionist consensus. He traveled to the Israeli capital of Jerusalem to meet with Israeli leaders and address Israel’s parliament and speak of peace. Two years later, underscoring the lengths to which Israel was prepared to go to end the conflict, a deal was reached, in which Israel – led, notably, by a right-wing government– yielded the vast Sinai Peninsula, with its strategic depth, oil deposits, settlements, and air bases, in exchange for the promise of a new era in relations with the Arab world’s leading country. In 1981, Sadat was slain by the Muslim Brotherhood for his alleged perfidy, but his legacy of peace with Israel, thankfully, has endured. Fact #6: In September 1993, Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) reached an agreement, known as the Oslo Accords, offering hope for peace on that front as well, but eight months later, PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat confirmed the suspicions of many that he was not honest, when he was caught on tape in a Johannesburg mosque asserting that this agreement was nothing more than a temporary truce until final victory. Fact #7: In 1994, Jordan’s King Hussein, following in the footsteps of Egyptian President Sadat, reached an agreement with Israel, again demonstrating Israel’s readiness for peace – and willingness to make territorial sacrifices when sincere Arab leaders come forward. Fact #8: In 2000-1, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, leading a left-of-center government and supported by the Clinton administration, offered a groundbreaking two-state arrangement to Arafat, including a bold compromise on Jerusalem. Not only did the Palestinian leader reject the offer, but he shockingly told Clinton that Jews had never had any historical connection to Jerusalem, gave no counter-offer, and triggered a new wave of Palestinian violence that led to more than 1,000 Israeli fatalities (proportionately equivalent to 40,000 Americans). Fact #9: In 2008, three years after Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon unilaterally withdrew all Israeli soldiers and settlers from Gaza, only to see Hamas seize control and destroy another chance for coexistence, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert went even further than Barak in extending an olive branch to the Palestinian Authority. He offered a still more generous two-state proposal, but got no formal response from Mahmoud Abbas, Arafat’s successor. A Palestinian negotiator subsequently acknowledged in the media that the Israeli plan would have given his side the equivalent of 100 percent of the disputed lands under discussion. Fact #10: At the request of the Obama administration, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to a ten-month freeze on settlement-building in 2010, as a good-faith gesture to lure the Palestinians back to the table. Regrettably, it failed. The Palestinians didn’t show up. Instead, they have continued to this day their strategy of incitement; attempts to bypass Israel – and face-to-face talks – by going to international organizations instead; denial of the age-old Jewish link to Jerusalem and, by extension, the region; and lifetime financial support for captured terrorists and the families of suicide bombers. Isn’t it high time to draw some obvious conclusions from these facts, recognize the many lost opportunities to reach a settlement because of a consistent “no” from one side, and call on the Palestinians to start saying “yes” for a change? I t
I’m absolutely no fan of Netanyahu, nor do I believe in religion, but Israel is in a fight for its existence. This is no ordinary skirmish … this is on a different level I feel hugely sorry for the moderate Arabs in Gaza and the moderate civilians in Israel. But Israel will have to retaliate in a way that will stop any future attack orchestrated by Iran
The current uprising, IMHO, is to do with: the Saudi peace treaty that is so close to being finalised and Iran is so against Iran flexing it’s powers A power battle between Hamas and the PA in West Bank the fact that the political situation, generated by Netanyahu, is in a total state of chaos and Hamas decided to take advantage of this
This is not your normal terror attack. I can upload pictures of babies being taken out of peoples homes and taken back to Gaza in cages. Young girls being kidnapped and paraded around Gaza city. And the murder of children at a festival this isn’t war. This is terrorism on a mass scale
Excellent stuff; thank you. I will go into the detail over the next couple of days when I have time and come back with any comments that occur. Some of the ‘facts’ may be based on a certain interpretation, but then again any counter-interpretation is open to the same assessment. Thanks again.
I do struggle with the idea of Netanyahu being so ‘distracted’ that the entire, much-vaunted Israeli intel organisations just happened to miss all of the clear signals there must have been that Hamas was planning this. But as I generally deplore unfounded conspiracy theories, I won’t go too far down that road. To state again: thinking the Palestinians may have some grounds for feeling hard done by does not justify kidnapping as tool of war, in the same way that youths throwing stones do not deserve to be shot.
There has been a major, major security failure which absolutely needs to be evaluated..but that will come after the IDF ensuring that all hostages are free within Israel and all insurgents have been captured/killed. Then will come the counter response. And depressingly it will be at a level you have never seen before. Nobody wins here as for Palestinians feeling hard down by…yes they are in all regions (google how they are treated in Arab countries). But Hamas control their residents with an iron fist. Instead of investing the approx $1b a year in aid into irrigation, housing, education etc it is invested into arms and terror tunnels
Is this a useful comparison, however foul Hamas are? The two are barely comparable. Israel is a functioning State, open to the West, certainly multi-ethnic, but would be more so if hundreds of thousands of Palestinians had not left for exile during its foundation and beyond. The Palestinian Authority, which is not a state, has a considerable Jewish population (13%?) through settlement. These are hardly the conditions for the creation of a multi-ethnic state. And no one else is going to migrate to those territories. These are isolated territories, there are few business opportunities, housing is scarce and there is no peace.
but Palestinians have had the opportunity again and again for their own independence. Unfortunately, the leaders in Gaza who were elected in 2007 and have never subsequently held an election are far more interested in the “capture” of Israel then what benefits their own people if Egypt and Israel opened their borders on Gaza then the atrocities of Saturday would be a daily occurrence the only hope is to overthrow Hamas, put in a more reform govt who have no ties with Iran, divert the $1bn annual investment into the region into hospitals, irrigation, creation of jobs etc and show the Palestinians that there is a future this will never happen though
It will never happen if, as I suspect it will be, the Israeli response is indiscriminate and more civilians die. This is what Hamas want. I know you do not accept the comparison to NI but it was always said, back in the day, that when a soldier or policeman killed a civilian it was the best recruitment boost the IRA could have. Each time one side seeks retribution or revenge it only escalates the hate and conflict. Every Israeli civilian, man, woman or child that is killed creates multiple relatives that seek "an eye for an eye". Equally Israel strengthens Hamas and the hate every time it's forces kill innocent civilians in a futile attempt to wipe Hamas out. This vicious circle has to be broken. The majority of Israeli and Palestinians that just want to live in peace must be given that chance. Your suggestion of investing in Palestine to show the people that they have a future is far more likely to weaken Hamas than air strikes ever will imho.
I think this notion that the Palestinians have had every chance is seriously undermined by settlement. Even if there was a potentially functional Palestinian state within its current borders, it cannot be right that it is settled on from without. This attack is a deeply depressing turn of events. A tragedy of enormous proportions. The kidnappings and murder of civilians are obscene. Israel now faces an incredible challenge. It’s iron fist approach has not worked, but it cannot possibly tolerate the prospect of a similar attack again. Iran will be emboldened to meddle more, because if nothing else it takes the attention away from its wicked oppression of its own people. I can only see this getting worse and the consequences spreading beyond the region.
I couldn’t agree with you more. but the only thing stopping Hamas, Hezbollah or any repeat of Arab nations attacking Israel is their fear of repercussions. But, as you say, fight back with might and that strengthens Hamas hand the aid goes into the region (source online) but Hamas divert the funds for me Hamas is the issue
Unfortunately I fear that you are correct. israels historic tactic with Hamas is that of containment. Hamas fire rockets into Israel, Israel responds with air attacks targeting key Hamas sites. Goes quiet, Hamas regroups and the process starts again this time it’s different on a major scale. The IDF are still actively trying to neutralise/capture terrorists within Israel. It’s a slow operation as so many have been taken hostage the response is very likely to be of a scale nobody has seen before in their lifetimes. It may go as far as an incursion into Gaza to eradicate Hamas once and for all and then stay in Gaza as they do in the West Bank. It may even mean an attack on the source in Iran. How that involves other Arab states, the US and other allies then who knows what it does mean is we are at the very start of bloodshed on a like not experienced ever in the region. I have no military insight so this is just my depressing view
I saw someone sum up this situation thus: ...which as a single line summary goes seems to capture the essence of the problem. It's soul destroying to see Israeli and Palestinian civilians alike continue to suffer through no fault of their own and at this point, after around seven decades of the same old dance, I just can't see how this will ever get resolved. Every reaction brings a reprisal, and every reprisal forces a reaction.
Even back at school, (which was one h*ll of a long time ago), we were taught about the conflict/s. My history teacher told us quite clearly that WW3 would start in the Middle East. Going to be a blast when Iran gets that nuke, (pun intended).
