How do you view this opinion piece from yesterday’s Guardian…..agree or disagree?
[theguardian.com]
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Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.Well, again, I wrote a long commentary- and it vanished. I TOTALLY agree with the Guardian article.There are a few points to be made, but even educated Jews around the world are sickened by the murders of civilian Palestinians- and a try for another land grab.
Diogenes
Level 8
Oct 31, 2023
1
The West is effectively complicit in persecution of the Palestinians. As I was flying to Chicago this weekend, I wondered if we have to fear planes being flown in to buildings more, but then considered that the Saudis don't care enough about the Palestinians.
Switchcraft
Level 7
Oct 22, 2023
1
Sad but true observation!
I posted a quote yesterday about assumptions. There are two very dangerous assumptions going on here. The first is the Israeli's have the superior military force in the area atm. This assumption is wrong in my view as Hezbollah has over 100,000 troops who are battle hardened ie they are considered heroes in Syria for defeating ISIS. They have indicated they will join the fight if a ground invasion in Gaza occurs and if they do, no guarantee the IDF would prevail. Turkey also has a huge, well trained army and with Israel killing some of their own whilst attempting to deliver aid to Gaza years ago, they will not run to their defense..
Secondly, listening to Biden's speech, the US also assume their military capabilities are something they are not. If they join in and target Hezbollah based in Syria then those carriers will be targets for Russia, an Assad allie. The aircraft carriers are within range of Russian hypersonic missiles, missiles for which there is no defense.
I see Israel falling if they go into Gaza, where they will get bogged down with all those tunnels and urban warfare. Then they will have to deal with other fronts not of their choosing.
I think the US can say goodbye to garrison outposts in Syria and Iraq, which are already being attacked.
I do think the Israeli plan is to ethnic cleanse Gaza and claim it as their own, displacing Gazians into Egypt. I also think they will fail. Either way, it's going to get bloodier.
According to Scott Ritter, Israel being defeated will be a good thing because it is the only way a 2 state solution will come about for the Palestinians. They truly do need it as well to knock some of the arrogance out of them, reflected by how Palestinians are treated. If it means a long term, stable peace, I support the outcome of the IDF being defeated and forced to negotiate. Bit like what will happen in Ukraine.
Enough is enough.
Ed the scary thing is Israel has nukes and is far more likely to use them than all others who have them imo, excepting Nth Korea. That is scary.
puff
Level 8
Oct 21, 2023
1
The whole situation being Scary is definitely something we can certainly all agree on….
puff:
@Marionville Should clarify a bit. When I say Israel defeated I mean militarily, the IDF. I do not wish for the destruction of the state of Israel per say, the dismantling of their society or the slaughter of their population. Just enough to force real negotiations for a Palestinian state, as per the UN resolution from many years ago.
Agree for the most part. Both sides have engaged in war crimes, genocide and ethnic cleansing. However, Egypt's blockade against Palestinians who want to leave is at least as evil as the active combatants. They don't mention that Israel has sought to destroy Palestinian militants on the Egyptian side, which Egypt doesn't like, but secretly welcomes. Egypt has no desire to take on Hamas.
King Abdullah of Jordan (which is mostly Palestinian) won't let in more Palestinians, calling such a prospect a 'Red Line' that Israel must not cross. Except that Abdullah is a dictator in a line of dictators that have stopped Palestinian self-determination in Jordan, but no one talks about that because he is a fellow Muslim.
racocn8
Level 9
Oct 21, 2023
1
Yes..the complexities of the Israel/Palestine situation run very deep and are much more convoluted than just a straightforward warring two factions…the number of side interests and alliances, all with their own agendas run into double figures. There is the fact too that not all Palestinians are Muslim but there is a sizeable number of Christians amongst them…wasn’t the PLO’s chief spokesperson during the 1990’s Hanan Ashrawi a woman and a Christian?
I don’t see how a potential new wave of refugees should be Jordan’s problem. They got their sizable Palestinian population from the displacement of 1948. It was the Emirate of Transjordan not Palestine. I think some on the Israeli right feel Jordan should now be Palestine and earlier Revisionists thought Transjordan was unjustly carved from what should have been Jewish lands (1). Nope! The Hashemites have their sovereignty and they probably are not the worst regime in the region. Saudi Arabia might get that distinction.
(1) a notion I got from Neil Caplan’s The Israel-Palestine Conflict which is a decent neutral source as I’ve read.
@Marionville
Yes Ashrawi is Christian and among the more moderate Palestinian notables.
George Habash was a Christian too and founded PFLP, so not a moderate. The Christian Arab population might be less sizable due to the rise of Islamist militants. But being Arab and being Muslim are not 1:1 characteristics.
Hamas is wrong, lsreal is wrong, and the USA has been wrong on pretty much everything we have done in the Middle East since the end of WWII. As soon as Isreal started encroaching into designated Palestinian land we should have stepped in and stopped it. Our hypocrisy knows no limits.
Sticks48
Level 9
Oct 21, 2023
2
Yes…fault all round and wrongs all round …our own countries notwithstanding!
What he said. Quite frankly, I am concerned that we are fast approaching WWIII.
You only have to read a few lines and you immediately know that this is exactly the anti-Semitic crap that made Jeremy Corbyn lose his post as Labour leader, the guy who fails to clearly condemn the mass murder of 1300 civilians - just because they are Jews.
The author bemoans that the Gaza strip is under siege for 16 years now, but he does not ask the simple question: Why is this the case?
It certainly wasn't meant to become the "biggest open-air prison of the world" when Ariel Sharon handed control over to the Palestinian authorities in 2005 (against the fierce resistance from the settlers living there). The Palestinians there could have opted for business and peace, investing for example in tourism, but no -- after Hamas took control over the strip in 2006, it immediately turned it into a breeding ground for terror and a launching pad for DIY missiles, attacking again and again Israel only to provoke "overreactions" from the other side to get those gory pictures Hamas needs for its propaganda videos.
Question: if you live in a house and then discover that your worst enemies have moved into the neighbor's house, people who have sworn to kill you and your family: won't you invest in security measures, high fences, strong doors, double locks, an alarm system etc...? I bet you would.
Thibaud70
Level 7
Oct 21, 2023
0
I take it from your reply that you strongly disagree with the article. Thank you for your detailed answer…from it I deduce you cannot see any fault on the Israeli side, being so dismissive of any other viewpoint as you are. There is nothing antisemitic in questioning or expressing disapproval of the actions of Israeli politicians such as Netanyahu, a large number of Israeli citizens do not approve of him and their government at present. Hamas is certainly a plague on the people of Gaza, but terrorism doesn’t happen overnight and throughout history there is usually a traceable cause such as oppression, injustice and inequality…cause and effect in other words. If the Palestians had been treated better there would have been no breeding grounds and festering grievances for Hamas to feed on. I speak as one who lived through 40 years of IRA terrorism in Northern Ireland where there was also another breeding ground ready made for terrorism due to inequality and injustice.
The 2005 Disengagement was at least partly about fear of the Palestinian womb, how the demographic time bomb would impact the Jewish character of Israel. That’s a reason they mostly dislike the Palestinian right of return. Disengagement was also about freezing the peace process, putting it in formaldehyde so to speak.
The "antisemitic" trope is a huge cop out. One must be so if they criticize Israel. It's a very lazy argument. We all abhor the violence of Hamas, the generalities do not need to be constantlyrepeated.
Reminds me of the Trump/Christian alliance here. Netanyahu is a corrupt, unpopular, and cynical opportunist who needs this war to stay in power. The religious nuts want to take what little the Palestineans have because they have no interest in anything but their own agenda. Evil fanatics backing an amoral despot is a recipe for disaster.
Buttercup
Level 8
Oct 21, 2023
4
It is a sad and insoluble situation. The increasingly polarising effect of Netanyahu and his unholy alliance with even more extreme right parties and the increased support & influence of Hamas in Gaza was never going to bode well for peaceful co-existence.
"...who needs this war to stay in power..." - - Bullshit. The last thing Netanyahu needed to stay in power was this attack and the following war. After the war there will be judgment day for him, 80% of all Israelis hold him responsable for the security failure which made possible this attack in the first place. For the time being, Israel stands united, but N. knows that his days in office are numbered
I do believe that is what the Orthodox Jew and Netanyahu want. In my lifetime these people have been unable to coexist. Each side, from what I read want the other side gone or better yet exterminated.
Sierra4
Level 8
Oct 21, 2023
1
Yes…I’m of the same view. I think it was understandable for the UN to agree on granting Israel the right to set up its own State in 1947…subsequently founded in the following year 1948, due to collective guilt about the Nazis and the Holocaust…but that was always going to be problematic for the Palestinians who were displaced. The past 75 years have been bloody and increasingly worse for the Palestinians, and not exactly peaceful or secure for Israelis either.
@Marionville "due to collective guilt about the Nazis and the Holocaust… ??
First of all: why the hell should the British and the Americans feel any guilt about crimes committed by the Nazis?
If you had some background information about the history of the conflict (instead of parroting hackneyed phrases from people who do NOT like Israel, to put it mildly), you'd know that the British planned to partition Palestine well before the Holocaust (the so-called Peel Commission in 1936), because it was obvious that some sort of two-state-solution was the only way to defuse the conflict. As in 1948 it was the Arab side which roundly rejected the plan.
[en.wikipedia.org]
@Thibaud70 I will not be told by you or anyone else that I parrot anything, I know the history..my thoughts are my own, my views are my own…drawn on much research and by just living during most of the history we are talking of, and taking a keen interest on what is going on in the world I live in. I told you yesterday not to patronise me and I will repeat it again today. If you cannot be civil in your discourse to me or any others in the group then I would ask you to leave the group.
@Thibaud70
The Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry (1946) came after the Peel Commission (1937):
[en.m.wikipedia.org]
It too was a pipe dream but recommended a binational solution.
@Marionville They should have cut out a part of Germany and given them that as a country. These people were from Europe, not the Middle East. The Palestinians had nothing to do with the Holocaust. Just because my family line goes back to a 14th Century Scottish Black Knight, does that mean l should be able to go to Scotland and take someone's house and property. There is no justification for what the U.K. and the U S. did in Palistine. It is that arrogance of Europeans and American,White people, that they always know what is better it comes to the afairs of people of color. White people have been the bane of this planet as soon as Europeans figured out how to circumnavigate the planet.
@Sticks48 I agree 100%…and now we have Brooklyn Jews who have travelled to Israel from NY as new settlers on the West Bank…contravening UN sanctions and international law…
Weirdly enough some ultra-Orthodox Jews are rabidly anti-Zionist. See:
[en.m.wikipedia.org]
I can understand where Zionism was coming from after the Dreyfus Affair and pogroms they figured enough was enough of that. The whole migrating to Palestine and setting up shop thing is surely controversial and I get that too. It was not a land without a people for a people without a land regardless of what Mark Twain said. I draw the line with Revisionist Zionism though Labor was problematic in many ways too.
The history and current situation are a very complex issue where there exists some serious polarization. I dunno what the answers are. I would wish for a two state solution with good faith actors on both sides. Not in my lifetime. Two words: intransigence and intractable. Full stop.
@Marionville , why encourage him, why don't you just ignore that brainwashed idiot?
@callmedubious Good advice…thanks!
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