gaza conflict

[Puja]

US bombs falling all over the Middle East. Everything going to plan.

And now apparently the Defence Force is bombing Damascus to go for a third/fourth separate country to attack.

Puja

Hezbollah did attack Israel first. I get the emotion on here but would any country tolerate the continued firing of rockets by a terrorist group from across a border? I think not.

Netanyahu doesn’t want peace due to his domestic problems, but he’s hardly the only warmonger in the region at the moment.

I'm not divesting Hezbollah or Hamas of responsibility for this, but this is very much not a symmetrical situation. Israel has some of the world's best anti-rocketry systems, so a barrage of rockets into them very rarely results in casualties. Lebanon, which it should be noted is very much not the same thing as Hezbollah, has little to no air defence and certainly nothing that can repel what Israel has to hand.

Also, the lack of any diplomatic plan means this military action is futile. It's not going to stop the rockets. In fact, it's probably going to create more willing and eager terrorist recruits. You cannot "destroy Hezbollah" by killing enough people. So it's not about "no country would tolerate rockets" because it's not about stopping the rockets.

Puja

[Sandydragon]

I honestly don't understand why we support Israel. They killed plenty of British when we were custodians of the holy land.

Our foreign policy is a mess. We need to decide what exactly are our interests and advance them consistently.

Partly guilt over the Holocaust (and the fact that the opinions of a lot of our pre-war policitians weren't a great deal less anti-Semitic than Germany's), partly the fact that America travels lock-step with them and we travel lock-step with America, but I think a large part of it is that racism has shifted across the last 70-80 years and Israelis are seen as "like us" (cf. being honorary Europeans in football and Eurovision) whereas Arabic people are seen as "others".

Puja

Partly also because we are a democracy and so are they. Also they are a regional power and we like to be friendly with them.

Racism is a bad argument. The sheer number of arabists in the FO would attest to that. Also we have very good relations with many Arab countries, Jordan for example, so your racism theory doesn’t really work.

[Puja]

I honestly don't understand why we support Israel. They killed plenty of British when we were custodians of the holy land.

Our foreign policy is a mess. We need to decide what exactly are our interests and advance them consistently.

Partly guilt over the Holocaust (and the fact that the opinions of a lot of our pre-war policitians weren't a great deal less anti-Semitic than Germany's), partly the fact that America travels lock-step with them and we travel lock-step with America, but I think a large part of it is that racism has shifted across the last 70-80 years and Israelis are seen as "like us" (cf. being honorary Europeans in football and Eurovision) whereas Arabic people are seen as "others".

Puja

Partly also because we are a democracy and so are they. Also they are a regional power and we like to be friendly with them.

Racism is a bad argument. The sheer number of arabists in the FO would attest to that. Also we have very good relations with many Arab countries, Jordan for example, so your racism theory doesn’t really work.

The state equivalent of, "I have black friends so I can't be racist."

Also, racism has a number of gradations - it's not a binary situation of Racist/NotRacist. It's indisputable that we (both as a government and a country as a whole) care more and empathise more with Westernised, white majority countries: look at the reaction to the terrorist attacks in Paris and in Beirut, look at the reaction to refugees from Ukraine vs the refugees from Syria, look at the war in Ukraine and the war in DR Congo - hells, our last government used being sent to Rwanda as a threat to deter people from trying to claim asylum here.

Add to this the cultural shift since September 11th - Arabs and Muslims and terrorists are conflated in a lot of the public consciousness, not helped by media and fiction glomming onto them as the new easy black-and-white BadGuy (since there wasn't a USSR anymore and Nazi's were old fashioned).

It doesn't matter if there are "Arabists" in the FO, cause there are racists in the foreign office, just like there are racists across the country - I don't say that as a condemnation, but as a fact of life. You're racist, I'm racist, we're all in this stew of opinions that we call a culture. To say it doesn't affect things is naive.


Tl;dr - there are black police officers in the Met Police and there are lots of black people that the Met has very good relations with.

Puja

[Son of Mathonwy]

And now apparently the Defence Force is bombing Damascus to go for a third/fourth separate country to attack.

Puja

Hezbollah did attack Israel first. I get the emotion on here but would any country tolerate the continued firing of rockets by a terrorist group from across a border? I think not.

Netanyahu doesn’t want peace due to his domestic problems, but he’s hardly the only warmonger in the region at the moment.

I'm not divesting Hezbollah or Hamas of responsibility for this, but this is very much not a symmetrical situation. Israel has some of the world's best anti-rocketry systems, so a barrage of rockets into them very rarely results in casualties. Lebanon, which it should be noted is very much not the same thing as Hezbollah, has little to no air defence and certainly nothing that can repel what Israel has to hand.

Also, the lack of any diplomatic plan means this military action is futile. It's not going to stop the rockets. In fact, it's probably going to create more willing and eager terrorist recruits. You cannot "destroy Hezbollah" by killing enough people. So it's not about "no country would tolerate rockets" because it's not about stopping the rockets.

Puja

And, as with Gaza, nothing can justify Israel's war crimes.

[paddy no 11]

Israel announce a plan to starve out hamas, no downside to Israel in starving 300k people

Britain announces sanctions on iran

[Son of Mathonwy]

Israel announce a plan to starve out hamas, no downside to Israel in starving 300k people

Britain announces sanctions on iran

Wow, lucky for Iran they didn't attack a hospital or a school. Imagine how unacceptable it would have been for them to burn children to death in their ICU beds.

Re the starvation plan, they're not just talking about it, no food aid has got into the north this month. They're already doing it.

Genociders. The Israelis are this century's Nazis. The world will never forget.

(I wonder if Biden will try to build another flimsy mobile pier to get food in Nah, he won't even do that)

[paddy no 11]

The americans are fully behind ramping this up and getting into a war with Iran

Palestine may cost harris votes but bombing Tehran is an election winner

[Which Tyler]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/ ... hya-sinwar

[Son of Mathonwy]

They really are stepping it up. Real genocide is happening before our eyes. What I can't work out is if this is Netanyahu realising that the US will never try to stop him (or even stop supplying him with free bombs, Intel, missile defence, political cover . . . ) so why not go all out? Kill them all, bomb, starve, dehydrate, let disease take the rest. Then move on to the West Bank.
Or is he taking it to the max because he genuinely fears a change after the US election? Personally I don't see a change in US policy from Biden till January or from either of his possible successors. And for what it's worth, the UK won't step out of line with the US, no matter the depth of the depravity it is orchestrating.

So that's it for Palestine.

(Although I will keep marching for it)

Ultimately I think this will destroy Israel because some things can never be forgiven. But that might be a long way down the line, when the US is weaker or undergoes significant regime change.

[Puja]

They really are stepping it up. Real genocide is happening before our eyes. What I can't work out is if this is Netanyahu realising that the US will never try to stop him (or even stop supplying him with free bombs, Intel, missile defence, political cover . . . ) so why not go all out? Kill them all, bomb, starve, dehydrate, let disease take the rest. Then move on to the West Bank.
Or is he taking it to the max because he genuinely fears a change after the US election? Personally I don't see a change in US policy from Biden till January or from either of his possible successors. And for what it's worth, the UK won't step out of line with the US, no matter the depth of the depravity it is orchestrating.

So that's it for Palestine.

(Although I will keep marching for it)

Ultimately I think this will destroy Israel because some things can never be forgiven. But that might be a long way down the line, when the US is weaker or undergoes significant regime change.

Netanyahu is taking the opportunity that he has while the world is preoccupied elsewhere and he has a cassus belli that can cover all sins with the right arguments. He's also interested in keeping power - this will endear him to the right-wing members of his coalition to shore up his government and earn him a place in Israel's history books, although hopefully long term it will be a different one to the one he expects.

I don't think he fears any change after the US election - the only effect it can have on him is beneficial if Trump gets in. Not like Harris is going to meaningfully do anything of note.

Puja

[paddy no 11]

I don't see Harris changing anything, it's going to get way worse in the next 3 months

The Americans have the new missile system in place now, so expect lots of Iranians to die in the next week

[Son of Mathonwy]

Despicable Israeli crimes, also UK collusion, not generally reported:

[paddy no 11]

Thanks to channel 4 news for doing some credible reporting for a msm organisation

[Puja]

Israeli settler organisations are already advertising land and opportunities in southern Lebanon.

Puja

[Son of Mathonwy]

Israel's response to Iran was pretty lacklustre. Could it be that the Iron Dome isn't quite as strong as they say? And/or the US really put their foot down over the risk of Israel sending the price of oil* up.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/ ... ons-tehran

* incomparably more important than the price of children's lives.

[Son of Mathonwy]

UNRWA banned (soon). The next step in the genocide - starve all Palestinians of food, healthcare, education.

The UK says this is bad but actions speak louder than words and our actions say something completely different. We're complicit in genocide.

Netanyahu called the Americans' bluff - and that was all it was. Israel can do anything* now, there are no consequences. The Israelis must be kicking themselves - they could have exterminated the Palestinians years ago.

* maybe not actual death camps? But who knows, call them Hamas camps and I reckon they'd get away with it.