Israel / Palestine

Unlikely, but arresting loads of the population to reduce the protesting and scare many of the remaining to stay quiet isn’t unusual.

So is this push to move people out of Northern Gaza in order for Israel to attack with impunity whilst saying that the only people there are going to be Hamas or is it a precursor to a land grab or something else?

A solution to Israel's problems (in the opinion of some of their leaders) is not a two state solution, but instead to eradicate Palestine. Palestine are it's people, if you can reduce the number of people then you reduce Palestine... this can be done by taking their land and forcing them to not be in Israel.

But also... if you are Israel and can close every border to Israel, and force Egypt to open their border, and apply an enormous military push from the North you can turn the entirety of the population of Gaza in a moving refugee mass of 2 million people who will be forced by geography and the guns to move into Egypt.

Israel does not have to solve for a 2 state solution if they can force Palestinian people, all Palestinian people, to get off their land and become another (Muslim) countries problem.

This, this is the goal of this entire operation.

They are not seeking to find and capture 20k Hamas terrorists, they are seeking to move 2 million people into Egypt... but as this goal is super long-term, they'll accept moving 1 million people further South and increasing the pressure on all 2 million even more.

This is why I'm so appalled, on top of decades of apartheid we now have blatant ethnic cleansing.

It's also why I'm sickened by our govt, because we're busy sending more military, and we're also urging Egypt to open their border... we are fully complicit in ethnic cleansing in this day and age. We can't hide behind "our great-grandfathers did that stuff and it was not us and we care more" when we're actively participating in ethnic cleansing.

BTW... this is why the US carrier fleet are there, etc... if the pressure is such that it forces the surrounding Islamic countries to also respond militarily to try and prevent Israel from doing this, then Israel needs the help of the US to subdue the urge of other countries and reasonable parties to get involved in a way that isn't aligned to the goals of Israel's leadership.

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.

Depressing. A collective respect for all of the dead seems like the most basic thing.

I agree. I can also see though, that some people might feel that standing in silence while massacres occur is part of the problem rather than the solution.

I'm struggling to imagine people stupid enough to think that holding minutes of silence causes terrorism or state sanctioned genocide, but at this point anything seems possible I guess.

Thanks for the link.

I wasn't really suggesting that.

I don’t buy that the US is down with this. I think they’re horribly naive in the face of what Netanyahu has shown himself to be time and time over, but I think there are many people in the State Dept who would be up in arms if they thought this was the US game plan, and we’d have heard about that by now.

Certainly I think Netanyahu is considering what you’re positing and that a lot of western countries are telling him not to. I guess we’ll see how much of a spine they really have if he goes through with it.

So what is Hamas’ tactic?
Poke the bear, get an extreme reaction from Israel, use human shield tactics, get support from other Arab nations/extreme Islamic groups who wade into war also?

…prevent Israel signing a peace deal with Saudi, make it impossible for the rest of the Arab world to acquiesce in Netanyahu’s plan to just maintain a de facto concentration camp in Gaza while quietly annexing the West Bank settlement by settlement. Accelerationism as revolutionary praxis.

I mean, why they did what they did isn’t hard, it’s just that what they did is utterly unconscionable.

Behind a paywall but I think this is accurate
https://www.ft.com/content/e0a6da0f-8a66-4154-8122-92f2b578febf

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Thanks for sharing

It needs to be repeated that liberals in Israel have blamed the Hamas attack on Netanyahu's Machiavellian policies. Various western papers, including US ones, have picked up this story, but the UK press have almost ignored it https://t.ly/pJVI_

It's worth reading lots of Haaretz opinion pieces https://www.haaretz.com/opinion They're a refreshing change from simplistic, bloodthirsty British voices. It's good to be reminded that despite Hamas' savagery there are many Israelis committed to a Palestinian state.

There was an element of this in the Rest is Politics episode linked up thread.

I think I was relatively cognisant and sympathetic of how these attacks tied into historical persecution. However, last night listing to Harari speaking on the Rest is Politics, and Hugo Rifkind on a podmasters podcast the other day, I realized from my privileged position I've been naive to the trauma and natural human reactions to this.

It's a laughably shit parallel, but if you think of the visceral reaction a lot of us will have to something as trivial as bike theft, it makes you wonder whether there is a time and a place for throwing your 2p in. And if so when that is.

There have been stories that a meeting was called with the families of the hostages. Apparently, most of the families wanted the government to negotiate, but Netanyahu rolled out 3 right-wing families and called on them to speak, one of whom said he was willing to sacrifice his family member for the greater good. Straight after the meeting the government issued a statement pretty much aligned with the right-wing families' views.

Gonna be an awks reunion if they manage to get them back

I think the inference was that they may have been a stooge who didn't actually have a family member kidnapped.

If Biden makes this trip to Israel to cool their jets (literally), then it'll be very difficult for Netanyahu to call a ground attack. I don't see them being able to contradict the US.

Biden will force them to create a humanitarian zone, it'll be the South near the Egyptian border. Gaza city will be invaded and taken over, the new Palistinian border will be the South half of Gaza, Israel will probably still lob some bombs in to the humanitarian area to international outrage forgotten in 12 hours.

British media and British authorities are very unwilling to openly criticise the state of Israel. It's a tangled knot of international law and relations.

All the while, innocents on both "sides" are shelled to shit.

Fucking mess.

This is "interesting". Leading tech/startup people refusing to attend Websummit because the founder (quite gently) calls out the fact that war crimes are war crimes even if the people committing them are our mates and likes tweets with a similar viewpoint.

https://twitter.com/garrytan/status/1713937044798603313

Sadly, his stance is complicated by the fact he also has a venture with the Qatari government which leads people to think he might be approaching this with a little dishonesty.

Seems to be almost entirely Israeli tech bros on twitter that are outraged. Can't say I'm surprised.

The problem that Biden has is a) he has a very strong pro-Israel section of his own party, along with a fairly rabid GOP. He doesn't control the House (which is also dysfunctional at the moment). Israel know this and can exploit that weakness by not just doing everything Biden says.