Why is Israel determined to start WW3?

I haven't listened to that but I have read quite a bit of his writing. A gay boy growing up in a small conservative town (as he describes it) might face discrimination almost anywhere in the west because there are still prejudiced people around and most conservative strads of most religions are anti-gay. There is still much to do everywhere. But, Israel has the best record on gay rights in the middle east & most of Asia. As he points out, compare that to Gaza, where homosexuality is illegal & gay men are persecuted. Tel Aviv has been voted highly in various international polls about gay experience.Gay relationships have been legal for a long time & Harari himself still lives in Israel with his husband. Iran on the other hand persecutes, imprisons & executes gay people & has the secind highest rate of reassignment surgery in the world because gay men are forced into surgery. Really, no comparison.

@Auvergne63 - I think it was my post from 20:57 last night which prompted your question. Although I used the present tense, the post (and the one I was replying to) was about the 40s.

If I post on what's happening in Gaza, I refer to the Gazans - since that's most accurate. I think if I was talking about negotiation about a Palestinian state I'd refer to the Palestinians, but I'm not sure since I generally don't.

I mainly just challenge posts which are blatantly inaccurate or seem very biased to me, or very occasionally to call out antisemitism. I think it's important for this board not to become an anti-Israel echo chamber where one viewpoint is repeated and repeated until anyone coming in thinks it must be the only truth.

Sharon you need to listen to Yuval Noah Harari talk about growing up in Israel as a gay man. He certainly didn't find it accepting of homosexuality. His "leading" talk is very interesting.

There are a couple of oil fields off Gaza, but they really aren't very big or worth getting into a fight over. The big ones are much further North, off Israel's coast.

Israel clearly prefer peace to land given that as part of their peace treaty with Egypt, they returned the entire Sinai Peninsula which they had captured in war. The Sinai is 60,000 square km, about 3 times the size of Israel (22, 000 square km) and about 425 times the size of Gaza (141 square km). They did insist on a large demilitarised zone though, to make sure Egypt didn't invade them again. 40 years on, relations are normalised and Israel no longer fear invasion from Egypt, so the demilitarised zones have reduced.

Lots of terrorists quite happy to have a war against Israel. Again more facts which are generally not well received.

I agree

@Duckinglunacy thats because gay Israelis have no problem staying in Israel. Whereas I do know a gay Iranian & a straight Iranian and they are both exiles in the UK who have a wide circle of fellow exiles, all with horrific stories. This extremely well documented so you dont actually need to have personal contacts to research whether it is true. Whenever ther is a march or vigil in support of Jews or Israel you will invariably find an Iranian contingent.

Don't bring facts into a thread, the mantra is blame Israel for everything. Didn't you get the memo?

But I think this argument, that Israel treats its citizens better than Iran, is actually a straw man argument. I made no explicit comment on Israel’s treatment of its citizens, I do hear often that it treats women and LGBT better, but I don’t know any gay Israeli people to ask.

the point being that at this point it doesn’t really matter how well a government treats its own citizens when the problem right now is the country’s attitude to citizens of neighbouring countries. Israel may treat its own citizens well but it has shat on Palestinians for decades.

If we are in a situation where we are all willing the Islamic Republic to de-escalate and show restraint that’s hugely risky in my opinion.

It really isn’t Israel who wants war, they are perfectly happy to have peace e.g. with Egypt, Jordan, Saudi, etc.

It is the Islamic Republic and it’s proxies, Hezbollah, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad (other terrorist organisations too) that are intent on starting a holy war.

it doesn’t end with Israel either. islamists are bigger imperialists and colonialists than even GB was.

There focused on getting that 500 trillion worth of gas of the gaza strip coast line plus they want to build there beach houses on gaza they want the Palestinian people gone, look at all the land Israel has stolen already this is all about greed, uk and America has already signed deals for gas with Israel. The whole world is watching a genocide and doing nothing because the mainstream media has it so twisted

You see I would have been with you on this until they started genocide - imagine being a woman or child in Gaza and see if you still think they are better. They've sunk to the same level.

Sorry, that post was to @Auvergne63

I use the terms primarily to describe ethnicity, but sometimes also cultural identity which crosses countries. I do that when it seems the accurate term. I can't guarantee that I haven't mistakenly used it in other ways, but accuracy is generally my intention.

I use the term 'Arabs' when the discussion requires me to distinguish people of the ethnicity who originated on the Arabic Peninsula - who tend to share a culture - from people of Jewish ethnicity - who tend to share a different culture.

I especially use it when talking historically about a time when both lived in the area which now forms Israel, and the people of Arabic ethicity didn't have any other specific national or cultural name to identify them.

I find it revisionist to use the term 'Palestinians' for Palestinian Arabs when talking about the period before 'Palestinian' became a national identity in the 60s.

The British did talk about 'Palestinian Arabs' and 'Palestinian Jews' - but at that time 'Palestinian' referred to the region rather than a specific national identity - in the same way as we might refer to 'European Jews'. I drop 'Palestinian' from both when it's obvious we're talking about that region.

I also use it for current people when I'm talking about a cultural identity across a number of nationalities, very much as I'd use the term 'Europeans' to group British, French, German, Italian people when talking about some shared cultural ideas. 'European' describes a geographic area, but it can also be used to describe shared traditional culture across the different countries, where that shared culture stems from our shared history, from a time when people didn't tend to travel so far. (Of course, we also sometimes use the term European to describe citizenship or geography)

I don't think either term is offensive when used in that way.

I don't feel able to comment as I'd really like to but I am equally bemused at the fact the rest of the world appears to be somehow fine about not stopping it. I know there have been many protests around the world by all kinds of people - including many, many ordinary decent Israelis who are absolutely horrified at what is being done in their name.

Yet somehow these protests never seem to make it to the mainstream media.

Future generations will judge us very harshly - if, if course, there's anyone left TO judge, because at this rate I'm not convinced there will be.

Whether you are in support of Israel's prosecution of this war or not there is no way that Israel is not much better than Iran. Try being a woman or a gay person and see how you get on in each (I suspect about an hour will be all you need). Israel's problem is too much democracy leading to small extremist parties & political groupings holding too much power in coalition governments. There is no evidence that Neyanyahu wants to annhilate Iran except in his dreams (the Iranian peoole would also, mostly, like to annhilate their leadership). He is just warning them not to try & annhilate Israel which Iran certainly would like to do & trying to control their influence which is an entirely legitimate thing to do.

I really dislike the term "the Arabs" as much as I dislike the term " The Jews".
An Egyptian/a Moroccan/An Algerian are all Arabs as much as a French/a Pole/an Italian are all Europeans.
When people refer to Palestinians as Arabs, they are, in my view, making no distinction between different nationalities/culture/customs/cuisine.
I am French before being an European.

A Gazan is a Palestinian before being an Arab.
I have noticed that this term is used by pro Israeli government posters in general. I would like to understand why.

@IItisymoi I had the impression that the British were an enemy that had to be kicked out by Jewish fighter groups, hence King David Hotel bombing etc. It didn't seem like Britain gave them the the land, more like they gave up and left, and the UN attempted to resolve issues by partitioning. There was quite a good TV film called 'The Promise', I think, which gave that impression, though years since I've seen it.

Perhaps you should read into the history, back to before the 1940s.

It's really quite self-centered and completely inaccurate to think 'it's all Britain's fault for interfering' or that 'Britain gave Israel to the Jews'. It's quite strange how that's become a standard narrative. Part of our post-colonial self flagellation combined with self-importance, I suppose. And definitely a bit of anti-semitism in it too - in terms of not recognising that Jewish people are just as local to the area as Arabs and holding both to the same standard.

indiscriminate bombing is probably the most accurate. Although with up to 80% of Gaza destroyed, it’s a bit of a moot point.

Has anyone else that has responded or read this thread actually been to Israel? I have (not really as a tourist) and certainly it is a strange experience with the level of 'security' being akin to state paranoia. I would not bother going again as even the rough dangerous end of Sao Paulo felt more welcoming generally. This is not to say individuals were not very hopspitable BUT there is a permanent air of tension. Damascus (with the ever present possibilities of bomb threats (when I went) felt more relaxed and open.

Change ‘human beings’ to ‘men’.

The whole thing is an epic shit show.

Iran is a country being run under a hostile theocratic dictatorship masquerading as a democracy (it has elections from time to time), that opresses its people, particularly women. It has a long history of hostility and proxy-violence to the Jewish state and people.

Israel at the moment is not actually that much better. Netanyahu is a war-hungry ghoul who wishes to annihilate Iran as much as Iran does Israel. He appears to be looking for any excuse to start proper country to country conflict. But seems also insistent to drag the west in too.

both countries are interesting as they have governments with a core religious aspect and context and I think that’s problematic anyway; I do not think religion and government go together, or rather governments should not favour people of different religions over others, or enforce religious observances. That is not democracy.

Iran is currently playing a very interesting game of appearing to be the most reasonable. The consulate attack was problematic - even if there were terrorist groups and senior military officials meeting there, Iran cannot just come out and say ‘oh yeah it doesn’t matter that you bombed our consulate because they were bad guys’. So they planned the most feeble attack imaginable, with tons of notice. They put a few big weapons on the end to make a point but gently. Israel has gone back and the press narrative this week is ‘Iran started it with the drones’ but the issue is that this has been going on forever.

There is a Persian saying ‘cut their throat with a feather’ which makes me slightly nervous about what comes next. Iran being measured isn’t always a good thing.

but my big personal issue at the moment is that this whole thing is a massive distraction from the absolute atrocities being carried out by the IDF in Gaza. The Palestinian people are all just caught up in this.

They have not been carpet bombing. The inability to use google explains a lot of your analysis. No point in continuing to debate with you, I think.