To think Hamas have given Israel the excuse they were looking for?

[MistyMooPup]

Not all of Israel. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he will obliterate Hamas. But undoubtedly hundred if not thousands of civilians will now be killed.

I’m not sure what Hamas thought the end game if this would be? What have the Iranians convinced them of? This was a sophisticated operation, outside help was given for definite.

I’m not sure it’s possible to rationalise with dehumanised terrorists, neither am I sure what the end game will be, but I just can’t understand what Hamas expected if not a total war/strikes from Israel in retaliation.

I never said that what they did 80 years ago was the important point. Why they did it matters, as you know, because the same motivation continues today. Which in turn proves that current support for terrorist groups among Palestinians and neighbouring states is far from solely due to any actions on the part of the Israeli state after 1948, and it would have existed, as it did before 1948, regardless of anything Israel had done.

They refused to allow the Jews a state because they view the lands as rightfully conquered by Islam and they believe you cannot voluntarily hand over Islamic lands to unbelievers. Especially not to people who had lived for centuries, until very recently, as dhimmis, second class citizens who submitted to Islamic rule.

It also helps people to understand why the Jews, and Christians in the French area, wanted states of their own and why the British and French agreed to give that to them. It was absolutely the right thing to do. The refusal of the Arabs to agree to either being given a state demonstrates a collective lack of remorse for the centuries of imperialism and oppression from which they, as the superior religious group, had benefitted. The continuation of second class citizenship for non-muslims in other Islamic states, including above all Qatar which funds Hamas, is another demonstration that those supremacist attitudes have gone nowhere.

I don't know why you have such an objection to immigration. Shouldn't you instead be demanding that the local Arab population should have simply been educated about the benefits of multiculturalism and diversity and the dangers of othering? After all, the Middle East has always been multicultural. Ironically, the Peel Commission Report in 1937 did attempt to explain to the Arabs that one of the benefits of a separate Jewish state would be that all future Jewish immigration would have to go there, so they wouldn't have to tolerate any further cultural enrichment. Very politically incorrect of them, and it still didn't work.

Text of the Peel Commission Report (jewishvirtuallibrary.org)

@headstone / you make a good point. Irrespective of what law will provide to cover military action, this is the single thing the Israelis have to face with their allies. There is a reason why 100,000 people are out in London supporting Palestine. Yes it would be comforting to say they are all antisemitic leftists but that would be a mistake.

Israel has a PR war to fight. I do not think many in the West are particularly happy with Netanyahu either. He could not embrace Biden fast enough and no wonder. His political survival depends on it for the medium term.

You said: 'I really cannot see any difference to going into someone’s home and shooting a whole family dead or blowing them up.'

But it turns out you did understand. Now you've switched to claiming that it's viewed as acceptable because the west is racist/islamophobic. Meanwhile in the real world white western countries are the least racist societies probably in all of human history. We'd also win on any survey of 'most easily emotionally manipulated societies of all time' of course.

'The global social attitudes study claims that the most racially intolerant populations are all in the developing world, with Bangladesh, Jordan and India in the top five.

By contrast, the study of 80 countries over three decades found Western countries were most accepting of other cultures with Britain, the U.S., Canada and Australia more tolerant than anywhere else.'

India among world's most racist countries, says survey - India Today

The difference is intent as opposed to necessity.

Just FYI because I know you're in Ireland - it's not just intent - in the UK negligent manslaughter and other similar offences carry exactly the same maximum sentences as murder - life imprisonment

Really? That's bizarre. Anyway, no matter how odd laws become people apply the same logic to moral responsibility, which is what matters in the end.

Also I've been reliably informed that I'm not Irish, I'm a Jewish Hasbara troll.

It's great, isn't it, that those people are allowed to protest in London. The UK, being multicultural. We accept different cultures living in harmony. Quite ironic really, when those protestors are fighting for something different.

What's even more ironic is that the western penchant for multiculturalism is why Jews living in western countries are less and less safe with each year that passes. I may be highly critical of the supremacist dhimmi system, but there's actually a point to it. It's oppressive, unequal and authoritarian, sure, but everyone's clear on what the hierarchy is and who trumps who, which limits the body count. The West hasn't remotely cracked its novel experiment in infinity conflicting cultures living in harmony in one polity, it just prematurely preens itself on having done so.

Ffs.

It's almost as if non-Jewish independent thinkers could not possibly exist.

We do.

Given recent events we’re seeing cracks emerge, not just in the U.K.

Generally the accusers don't actually believe we're all Israeli government paid trolls (although some are genuinely that gullible). It's a standard propaganda tactic to undermine the credibility of your opponents in the eyes of naive bystanders.

@Pollyputhekettleon "They refused to allow the Jews a state because they view the lands as rightfully conquered by Islam and they believe you cannot voluntarily hand over Islamic lands to unbelievers. Especially not to people who had lived for centuries, until very recently, as dhimmis, second class citizens who submitted to Islamic rule."

This nails it.

After the creation of the State of Israel the surrounding countries continued to harass the Israelis.
In 1948, following disputes surrounding the founding of Israel, a coalition of Arab nations had launched a failed invasion of the nascent Jewish state as part of the First Arab-Israeli War.

An era of relative calm prevailed in the Middle East during the late 1950s and early 1960s, but the political situation was fragile. Arab leaders were aggrieved by their military losses and the hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees created by Israel’s victory in the 1948 war.

A series of border disputes were the major spark for the Six-Day War. By the mid-1960s, Syrian-backed Palestinian guerillas had begun staging attacks across the Israeli border, provoking reprisal raids from the Israel Defence Forces.

In 1967 Egypt advanced forces into Sinai and expelled the UN peace-keeping force of 10 years duration. Then they banned Israeli ships from the Straits of Tiran and the final aggressive act was the signing of a Defence Pact with King Hussein of Jordan.

The USA president at the time Lyndon Johnson tried to broker peace, but that idea went up in smoke when the Israelis, who were fed up to the back teeth with it all launched a pre-emptive strike.
After catching the Egyptians by surprise, they eliminated roughly 90 percent of the Egyptian air force and decimated the air forces of Jordan, Syria and Iraq.

Jordan then began shelling Israeli positions in Jerusalem and Israel responded with a devastating counterattack on East Jerusalem and the West Bank.

Still wounded by their defeat in the Six-Day War, Arab leaders met in Khartoum, Sudan, in August 1967, and signed a resolution that promised “no peace, no recognition and no negotiation” with Israel.

Israel returned the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt in 1982 as part of a peace treaty and then withdrew from the Gaza Strip in 2005, but it has continued to occupy and settle other territory claimed in the Six-Day War, most notably the Golan Heights and the West Bank.

And that's where we are now. 🤔

@EasternStandard Indeed. The problem is gradually becoming obvious to even the most resistant. But acknowledging it is a very long way from solving it. I'm not aware of any society that has ever attempted what the west has done, let alone solved it.

And apparently I'm a Zionist troll

נעים להכיר אותך !

Polly, indeed.
The UK has chosen to import vast numbers of anti semites (never mind sexists and homophobes) - a very very bad decision in my view which may change the nature of our society for generations because of the sheer numbers. IN a sense we may have chosen to destroy our liberal democracy by letting people in who don't share our views and more importantly even after a few generations do not change to our views. The multiculture is fine when it is a drop in the ocean. When it becomes the majority in some areas of the UK it changes the nature of the country for those who live here in those areas.

@headstone "All these air strikes are just murdering civilians on a massive scale and no even touching Hamas "

Unless you have inside knowledge from the IDF you cannot make such a claim.

Please do not spread inflammatory misinformation.

https://nationalpost.com/news/heres-a-list-of-key-hamas-operatives-killed-by-israeli-forces

@Xenia "The UK has chosen to import vast numbers of anti semites (never mind sexists and homophobes) - a very very bad decision in my view which may change the nature of our society for generations because of the sheer numbers."

Exactly.

And now some people say we should take Gazan refugees.

This explains why we shouldn't;

https://www.gbnews.com/opinion/nigel-farage-refugees-palestine-denmark-national-security 

I lost all respect for the pro Palestinian lobby when I saw people ripping posters of missing children.
If you cannot have sympathy for people who were butchered without mercy do not expect any sympathy from me.
I am so amazed that people ignore the initial attack and expect all attention to Gaza.

There's a huge conspiracy theory subculture within the pro-Palestinian side. We've seen it here with people believing that both 9/11 and the recent Hamas attacks were false flags. The poster ripping down is part of that. They generally believe that it's all a hoax, Israeli propaganda, and no civilians were kidnapped. Of course if they ever are forced to accept some part of reality, they switch seamlessly to minimizing, excusing and justifying it.

Why Is the Middle East Still in Thrall to 9/11 Conspiracy Theories? | The New Republic

U.S. Conspiracy Theories Abound in Arab World : NPR

Polly

I never said that what they did 80 years ago was the important point.

If that's the case, why did you make such a pantomime of demanding an answer from me?

I'm not opposed to immigration, I'm opposed to illegal annexations and forced deportations and putting immigrants into the ethnically cleansed areas. Heck, if Israel wants to accept 50 million extra people into its own, legally mandated territory, it's none of my, or anybody else's business.

@Bettyboopsbonnet , at 1140 I think, thank you for your run through of history which I have lived through, as a listening-to-the-news person in the UK. These threads have made me remember General Dayan saying that however far it was to come up the Sinai it is exactly the same distance to go back. Maybe I have misremembered so I will check. I have not met this word 'dhimmi' before so that is something else I will look up. The words 'raid' and 'Entebbe' have also come into my mind while my thoughts have been turned to the Middle East, so I will look for that, too.

Dhimmi means non-Muslims in a Muslim country, who are there on sufferance, with fewer rights. They may have to pay extra taxes, particularly if they want to attend religious services.

I asked you about three times why the Arabs refused to give the Jews 500 square miles in 1938. I had to ask it repeatedly because you seemed to keep forgetting the question. Now you're getting it mixed up with the question 'what did the Palestinians do 80 years ago?' What and why are very different questions.

Quoting my first line is an interesting choice. For those who might have missed it, here was my second sentence from that post:

'Why they did it matters, as you know, because the same motivation continues today.'

Don't you want to discuss why they did that? Aren't you interested in the root causes of this conflict and the motivations of all sides? After all, as you demonstrate, the Arabs opposed letting the Jews have a state, and Jewish immigration into the area, long before any annexations at all.

Wouldn't just 500 square miles have been a nice, albeit small, gesture of remorse towards your native neighbours after centuries of imperialism and legalized religious supremacism that benefited your group? Especially given that that institutionalized religious supremacy was only ended by the Ottomans because they lost the Crimean war. Surely the Arabs were anxious to prove that they did actually support the abolition of dhimmitude, even if they hadn't done it voluntarily at the time?

Did you just look that up by any chance? That's not quite accurate either.