Israel / Palestine

Israel aren't analogous to Ukraine in this situation. They are the other guys.

The comparison I was making was not so much who’s the historical aggressor, but rather their strategic approach to eventually needing to portray their position in a context that Western countries can relate to. Ukraine clearly had a communications playbook ready for an eventual Russian invasion; didn’t Israel have one? Apparently not, and they were caught unprepared.

I agree with your point about the narrative Israel is putting out. I’d politely caution against losing sight of the other fact that Hamas claim to have tens of thousands of fighters and stores of weaponry that they intend to use imminently against Israel. They’ve also said that protecting Palestinian civilians is the UN’s job, not theirs. This doesn’t justify Israel’s brutalising of two million civilians, but it begs the question: what is Israel to do against a perfidious, sworn enemy, happy to attack from behind a thick human shield?

This is all for discussion purposes. I am very much against how Palestinians have and are being treated.

Ukraine clearly honed their comms style to appeal to a western audience. It seems Israel didn’t have any such planning in place for a possible war.

As alluded to by Chas, I think this isn't true. The Israeli government has, I think, decided that they have enough support in the corridors of power, that they don't need to try and justify things to the moderates.

Instead they are pushing the "you either support us unquestioningly, or you're an enemy" line, which may be helping them in the short term, but provides no room to maneuver politically if they don't achieve their military goals quickly and get bogged down in a post 9-11 style asymmetric war.

.thread to ignore because I should've done that a long time ago.

This was about editing the post above.

I think you’re right. Thanks, also @ChasnotRobert.

Israel aren't analogous to Ukraine in this situation.

Agree with this.

They are the other guys.

Don't think this follows though. Israel hasn't just decided to invade apropos of nothing - they were the victim of a huge attack, which itself was in the context of over a century of friction between two main groups in the same area.

Israel hasn't just decided to invade apropos of nothing

yes; apologies as it was a bit of a throw away line. i just meant in terms of relative size and military power they are more similar.

Ah gotcha. Yeah if anything the disparity in military power is greater between Israel + Hamas, but it does seem a very different battle, being within a city

Israel planning to occupy Gaza for an indefinite period
The U.S. suggesting to install the deeply unpopular PA as a ruling authority

Seems like once the genocide is over, the solution to colonialism is going to be more colonialism

.

And? In an artificial choice between two entities, Gazans prefer entity B.

It does not then follow that Israel and the US imposing the PA at the barrel of a gun will solve anything in the long term.

It’s amazing how people think self-determination is important until they start talking about the Palestinian people.

That the PA are preferred over a death cult that drag dissenters through the streets is not exactly surprising

Isn't that Braverman's vision for Britain?

but rather their strategic approach to eventually needing to portray their position in a context that Western countries can relate to.

Ukraine is in Europe, the Russian invaded Europe, that why we (Western) are shitting about

This account of Israeli intelligence warning a Palestinian of bombing by phone is pretty nuts:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-67327079

I guess there was Hamas infrastructure in every single one of those apartment buildings, definitely not that the IDF wanted to raze the whole area or anything like that obviously...

Horrifying

Not a new tactic either, goes back to at least 2006:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/jul/28/israel
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/5/15/give-us-10-minutes-how-israel-bombed-gaza-media-tower

The worst bit (from that Guardian article):

The warnings, which sometimes are followed by an Israeli attack and sometimes not

That is nightmarish

Interesting where some casual muckraking Google gets you..

Useless, the enemy in plain sight...
[https://www.meforum.org/64197/scotland-probable-next-leader-has-an-islamist](https://www.meforum.org/64197/scotland-probable-next-leader-has-an-islamist

Published by...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_East_Forum

Funded by..
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donors_Capital_Fund

Which is part of..
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donors_Trust

Described as the dark money ATM of the American right.

It's interesting watching the various bias and uncertainty about positioning in the more mainstream UK media around Palestine.

https://www.jadaliyya.com/Details/45466
https://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2023-11-02/bbc-october-7/

What a read. Astonishing.

The BBC has always been a mouthpiece for state propaganda, possibly the most effective one ever crafted that’s still operating. Hopefully some people will start seeing that, but the conversation always ends in the same arguments with the same moving goalposts.

I think it has improved on the tone used in the current reporting, but it's depressing that it started out so biased, considering they really should have known better

Thanks for this. My rather clunky post above was an attempt to question the narrative.

Just finished Naomi Klein's 'Doppelganger'. It's not really about Israel/Palestine, but since this has been a frequent topic of her career so far she gives an updated account of her views on the situation also in 'Doppelganger'. It's well worth a read. Amongst other things she goes far in connecting the modern history of state of Israel to European colonisation, downplaying any historic claim to the land and the extent to which such a claim could justify what has been going on.

Hope that the peaceful protest today remains peaceful to show that stupid Cruela Cowardman how wrong she is. 70 or so arrested are all from the right-wing crowd she stoked with her article and other comments.