For people who say I stand with Israel

I did not say it was! what I DID say was that the concept - specifically its rise! - was potentially relevant historical context!

Specifically as in: Zionism is a direct expression thereof! As, for that matter, is the rise of a distinct Palestinian national identity in the late 19th/early 20th century!

I did not say I this was wrong (or right, for that matter). Just that it was potentially relevant - whereas I did not particularly think we ought to be debating based on ancient history!

Israel has kept Palestinians in the largest open air prison. They have no way in and no way out. They have nothing. Settlers keep stealing their land so Gaza has drastically reduced in size over the past decades. IDF constantly arrest small children and imprison them. Palestinians are constantly attacked by settlers and their homes and businesses destroyed. The frustration and anger has finally boiled over. These people have nothing compared to Israelis living in luxury and having the most powerful army. Israel are now indiscriminately killing innocent children and destroying whatever these poor people had.

No-one who has any residue of humanity, empathy or decency in them could say those actions are proportionate. I'm appalled you think they could be. Genuinely I am.

And I was not talking about Hamas in my quote. I was talking about those over here ( UK and elsewhere) and how they have turned their faces away from the Jewish victims. I do think that is a deep, probably unconscious for many, anti-semitism. I don't think they would have responded like that to a massacre of any other group of people.

I stand with Israel because I will never justify or support terrorism, and most especially will never justify the rape and murder of women and children no matter what the cause.

I’m also a historian who knows a lot about the long history of the conflict, and the situation is by no means morally clear-cut. But I think Israel has a right to exist, and to exist without the threat of antisemitism annihilation, no matter which Israeli government is in charge. A two state solution would be ideal. There have been plenty of opportunities to achieve it; and it isn’t the Israelis who have consistently blocked it. And the rest of the Arab world needs to take on a problem that is very substantially of their own making.

I also will not support or excuse religious or nationalist terrorism under any circumstances — whether it’s the IRA, jihadists, whatever. It’s undeniable that Hamas could achieve a Palestinian state peacefully at any time they wanted. Right now, in fact. All they needed to do would be to commit to a peaceful two-state solution, disarm, and stop all terrorist attacks and rocket fire. They don’t want to. The PLO didn’t want to either, no matter how many deals were brokered.

Just like Hamas could stop this in a moment by giving back the hostages, disarming and agreeing to peace talks. That’s the reality: are those buying the Hamas propaganda pretending not to know this?

I have no liking for the current Israeli administration, or any support for Israeli settlers going beyond originally agreed borders. But this terrorism has been going on whatever Israeli governments have done or offered over the last decades, from rocket shelling to suicide bus bombers. And really, those who think the conflict is simple and easy, with one side “genociding” the other, have simply very little knowledge of the historical situation; and, moreover, seem to believe just about anything they like that floats around social media and seems to fit in with their “side”. And all too often it’s clearly a thin cover for a delight in socially approved antisemitism — because you can bet your ass the same posters aren’t getting in a snit about oppression in China, Iran or Afghanistan or most other places.

Try Canadian intelligence. Al Jazeera reported that Canada is confident Israel not behind deadly blast at Gaza Hospital.

I think it's because the post-1960's IRA was part of a global leftwing anti-imperialist movement and it trained with jihadists. They were seen as fellow freedom-fighters against colonialism. That's also why Ireland today remains one of the most pro-Palestinian places in the western world.

@HeidiInTheBigCity

The idea that nationalism, or the nation-state system, is worse than what preceded it is Garden of Eden stuff. What preceded it in the Middle East was a system of religious supremacist imperialism. The West is not the centre of the universe, for either good or evil.

I don't know why people keep bringing the troubles up as an analogy. The two conflicts have absolutely nothing in common

Actually I have to disagree. History has a cumulative effect on a culture. Maybe look at the beginning of Jewish persecution and exile to understand the millennia that followed.

Although I have to agree Roman occupation will have had little impact on Ireland 😂😂😂

And why are those accusing Israel of war crimes, not condemning Hamas for war crimes in their recent ttacks?. Why are those accusing Israel of disproportionality not accusing Hamas and their attacks of being disproportionate in these attacks? We all know that the disgusting answer to that is because they think the torture, rape and murder of Jewish men, women and children was proportionate. And there is no word for that other than deep anti-semitism.

Tried to reply to this, for some reason it didn't work.

Even if they do think that, I wouldn't even call it anti-Semitism unless they only believe that should happen to them because they are Jewish. Not that it's OK, but said person could believe that those actions are proportional for any state in Palestine's position, with no favour held to a particular race or religion. They may believe it would be proportional for, say, Armenians to have taken such actions against Turks, what -ism would it be then?

To those quibbling over whether 'standing with Israel' means defending any and all retaliatory action...

Here's what you should be willing to defend. Whatever you feel the British government should do if Ireland/France's theoretical terrorist rulers invaded the UK and murdered 1300 of our citizens in the most brutal way imaginable and took 200 more as hostages, including babies and children...

Whatever you would want your government to do in that scenario, that's what you should defend Israel's right to do. Of course, there would be limits to what you would defend in that scenario hopefully and I imagine most of us would be against deliberate targeting of civilians, for example. But 'nothing/peace/ceasefire' is 100% not what you would be calling for your government to do, so if you're calling for Israel to do something different or less, I'd take a long hard look at why that is.

I think you may have missed some of the sarcasm and hyperbole there!

For the record: I'm definitely NOT claiming you can somehow explain 1970s Belfast with relations between Rome and the Iceni or anything. On the contrary!

What I am saying is: it's not only unreasonable but also utterly pointless to try and frame modern political issues in the terms of ancient history.

Also: totally pointless and impractical! We can't even determine how to interpret a biologically female skeleton with arms in a Viking grave! How on earth do you propose we get a differentiated enough sense of ancient history to actually make it usefully applicable to modern day questions?

By the way, I think @petuniasandpetals and I both agree with this - and we are not taking the same view of the overall conflict.

Because that’s not where the history starts, I know you would desperately desperately like it to but that’s not the position.

If you want to discuss the effect of Roman occupation on Ireland you really ought to step back from anything to do with history. 🤦‍♀️

I stand with Israel because 2500 years ago they were subject to the first round of persecution and exile (by the Babylonians) when the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah were targeted for several reasons, possibly largely because of the strategic value of their lands.

Since then, almost invariably every culture who has come into contact with them, persecution, exile and genocide has almost always followed them.

Successive religions of Christianity (which thanks to Paul moved away from being a Jewish sect) and more recently Islam has appropriated the religion and its sacred areas in an attempt to usurp their power and literally build over them. Lo and behold the ancient Jewish site became sacred to the appropriating religions in an attempt to mark their territory as a direct challenge to Jewish History.

After the Holocaust enough was enough they needed a land where no other culture should have been able to touch them. Where they could break the chain of exile, persecution and genocide. With antisemitism on the rise ridiculous conspiracy theories whipping up hatred and distrust the need for Israel has never been more necessary.

Yet even in this safe haven they have been surrounded by nations which does not recognise their historic right to be there, the humanitarian need for them to be there. They have to hold at bay terrorist groups who want to destroy them. Terrorist groups backed by surrounding states.

When Hamas invaded Israel and committed acts of unspeakable terror, who can really blame them for fighting back with all their might, if they would. have been on a position to do that at the start of the Nazi threat who knows how things would have worked out.

I'm not Jewish but I 100% understand their reaction, I 100% understand the need for Israel, I 100% see why their lands should replicate as close as possible to their historic lands from which they were first exiled.

Of course no one wants to see anyone suffer and die, but this is the fault of Hamas it is an inevitable consequence of their terrorism. Egypt could be taking refugees(as could all the Anti Israel countries through Egypt) but they are willing to see women and children die.

So I 100% stand with Israel and all Jewish people.

That was basically my point, too! Thanks!

To be fair, I think it absolutely isrelevant to possibly go back a bit further than that! The birth of Zionism within the context of the nascent concept of nationalism, Russian pogroms, the Shoa, WWI, the fall of the Ottoman empire, British colonialism ... all seem "fair game" to me in terms of relevant historical context. All pre 1948.

But the reasonable standard really ought to be: "if you would not use it in a discussion of NI, you probably should not on I/P". I mean: more than happy to be given a compelling argument for how Roman occupation meaningfully contributed to the Troubles, but ... that would have to be some argument!

You obviously know better than American intelligence.

It's not like America is biased in favour of Israel at all.

Rather than going back to Abraham why not look at 'historically' as 1948!
Israel is a sovereign legal state from then!
We are not all religious fanatics. Israel is a secular Jewish state (with 20% Arab population).

In about the same vein, you could argue that - had we not had the extraordinarily stupid (in hindsight) idea of inventing the concept of nationalism back in the Romanticist era, not only would we not be looking at this particular problem - we could have also averted myriad other bloody conflicts. We might just have averted both world wars, actually! Lots of problems solved!

But - unless you have invented a time machine, in which case: congrats on your Nobel! - that is hardly an answer to the question!

Really? So whose nation is it?

Oh, come on now!

We all know the biblical God is, essentially, the most murderous entity ever to have existed (including that one time he supposedly committed genocide against every human alive - bar one family). Some will say that is metaphor, others will deal differently with it.

But the Bible is hardly history! This is utterly ridiculous!

'We' won't be dealing with anything of the kind because we have no influence whatsoever on the situation. In any event, the time to prevent everything happening now was either during the centuries of religious supremacism known as dhimmitude, or when the two state solution was offered in the 1920s and 30's. Had the Arabs allowed the Jews their state at that time, they could have legally removed all Jews from the Arab state and permanently prohibited the immigration of any more, ever. Problem solved.

The Guardian has said reports of antisemitic hate crimes in London are up 1,350 per cent. Who are Jews supposed to centre when they read that information? The antisemites?