Israel / Palestine

It’s an editorial arguing the left needs to distance itself from Hamas. Given all the SWP banners and anti-Tory placards waved by people chanting ‘from the river to the sea’ today, I think he has a point.

Ah ok. It came over as a list of unreasonable things allegedly said on the fringe left.

I wonder what's being said on the fringe right and maybe some of our mainstream politicians should distance themselves from some of that rhetoric.

It seems rather inconsequential to me, that a small bunch of lefties are chanting shit in London.

Meanwhile there's a huge humanitarian crisis unfolding and the rest of the world sits on its hands.

I think the humanitarian crisis is exactly why it does matter - if sympathy with the very real consequences for Palestinian citizens blurs into anti-Semitism, that damages the hopes of this being widely recognised as a disaster for both Israelis and Palestinians.

Or to put it more bluntly, if we want sympathy for the cause of ordinary palestinians, then having racist dicks shouting their support is counterproductive.

That's a fair point.

My view is that the "free Palestine" or whatever march is much less than side show, it's really irrelevant and has no purchase on what's actually happening , what's being reported in the media and the political machinations that could, for example, lead to a humanitarian corridor into Egypt.

How the Free Palestine march is reported has a bearing on public opinion and so on policy. So it matters, however much we don’t want it to.

I'll concede that "largely irrelevant" could be a better description than "really irrelevant".

Marina Hyde’s column in the Guardian today was good on this point. We have no influence over whether the Egyptians will accept Palestinians fleeing Gaza (they’ve given every indication so far that they don’t want to). But we can sweep our own side of the street.

So no comments or defence on what Israel did to tell Palestinian people to leave Gaza, (or die as Israel will invade) gave these people a route to leave where they would be safe. Then bombing the route, killing people and trying and hide the actions.

Also no comment on when Israel will leave.

Didn't the Nazis (were the elections democratic enough compared to the other western countries at the time) do the same of cutting power, water etc in the ghettos in Germany to the Jews. The West ignored it but this time the west know of the actions in Gaza and this is not the first time and are ok with supporting the actions. Wonder if anyone will stand trial for the crimes.

Given the UK record for accepting refugees, maybe Egypt should send them to Rwanda. Get the UK/us organise the flights. If it is acceptable for the UK to do this (which it seems to be with Tory voters)

Not a serious comment of what to do, amazed at the UKs treatment of refugees.

Really can’t tell what point you’re trying to make here apart from some weak whataboutery.

I dunno, the two articles I posted seemed fairly clear that Israel is also making the situation worse by not abiding by international law. I don’t see why anyone sensible would want to defend what they’re doing in response to Hamas’ atrocities.

The point, (badly) is as the UK (and UK gov being seen as one in the same) are ok with these actions of sending refugees to Rwanda, Egypt doing something similar would be ok. As there is no international outcry of the Rwanda idea by the uk, and these Palestinian people being forcefully driven from their homes and country. Once again no outcry.

I read, (did I post here?) that the number of UN sanctions against Israel in 2022 exceeded against all other UN sanctions that year.

If you look at the list of UN sanctions against Israel and how they were enforced well lack of enforcement.

Read something in the book, about Jews in the ghettos going out attacking Germans. The line that stuck (as I think I have read it in other guerilla/ freedom fighter books) was the people consider themselves dead, their life has no worth as they could die tomorrow so they could kill or be killed to get food, needed supplies. Almost ilke the idea of freedom and peace had gone. No more humanity, you treat people as sub human and they no longer have their humanity so not left to lose. Today's actions by isreal don't get a mention but people chanting at a march do.

You can write all the articles in the world, when no one is condemning you actions as they become more and more brutal. You get away with it and then feel like you have a right to do this.

Isreals actions have fitted the definition of terrorism (the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims) for longer than I have been alive yet they are allowed to continue.

I don’t really understand these arguments where ‘nobody is condemning Israeli actions’ when there are clearly lots of people condemning Israeli actions (me included).

But I don’t think that calling for the obliteration of Israel is justified, and I think that calling for its obliteration weakens public support for the Palestinians’ cause. As in the Northern Ireland example, peace is probably only possible when everyone lets go of their desire to revise history and deals with the world as it currently is. (By that I don’t mean accepting the settlers’ attempts to annex even more Palestinian territory, but I do mean accepting that the state of Israel exists).

As for the lack of enforcement of international law - well, the lack of a central authority means that there are only consequences for breaching international law if other countries choose to enforce them, and they often don’t for political reasons.

The UN is not a central authority - it’s more like a co-op that everyone is a part of but nobody really gets expelled from, regardless of how often they’re censured by the General Assembly (which has no real weight in international law).

Rory Stewart and Alastair Campbell speak to Yuval Noah Harrari

He goes from personal to a very broad perspective. Big ideas.

The idea that people can be both victims and perpertraters.

The idea that people directly in the middle of the conflict have no emotional space for empathy, so people less involved have responsibility to empathise with both sides, rather than immediately jump to one or other side.

Thanks for sharing, sounds very worth a listen.

That Podcast helped me find a way in my own head to approach this situation

I mentioned complexity up thread, yet he seems to distill a simple human response

There’s a guy I follow on tik tok who I think touches on this as well? Disclaimer haven’t listened to the podcast yet but sounds like it might. Will listen shortly

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZGJTMqWq7/

Tiktok proxy for those without the app
https://proxitok.pussthecat.org/%40joris_explains/video/7288746821873061152

Thanks for sharing. (and @exteroceptive for the proxy)

Yes, along the same lines, more consise though I'm not clear what he meant by pointing the finger at hyper-individuality as a root cause of the inability to see beyond the individual (pain) to the systemic cause

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-10-15/ty-article/.premium/israeli-minister-seeks-to-imprison-citizens-who-harm-national-morale/0000018b-33a7-d0b2-afff-33e788c00000

Israel wants to imprison anyone in Israel who questions what they're doing and "harms morale"

The minute’s silence at today’s London NFL game abruptly became a moment’s silence as it was obvious the calls of “free Palestine” were going to get louder and louder.

https://jewishcurrents.org/a-textbook-case-of-genocide

That's unlikely to happen.
They'll have to arrest half the population considering the recent protests about the judicial reform.