Protesters drape Westfield Stratford in colossal Palestinian flag

[Oystercavity]

Not acceptable in a family environment. There is a time and a place.

Well done to the shopping centre in dealing with this so smoothly:

"A spokesperson for the London shopping centre said: “Westfield London and Westfield Stratford City are busy family-centric destinations and to ensure a safe and inclusive environment for all our visitors, we do not facilitate protests within our centres."

https://www.thejc.com/news/uk/protesters-drape-westfield-stratford-in-colossal-palestinian-flag-lw9ma1jo

I’m not sure if the reason for this is anti-semitism, or left v right, or something else, but it’s worth thinking about.

I would suggest it is because Israel is a democracy, you are more interested in things you can relate to and that are similar to your understanding of the world. If any other democratic country was currently involved in the kind of conflict isreal is and committing similar war crimes there would be just as much, if not more, focus on it, protests about it and condemnation of it. As unpalatable as it is people are sometimes not as aware, or tuned in to things that happen in countries or regions they can't relate to or understand. It's too far away, and I don't mean that in the literal sense.

Different people, different experiences I suppose

In mine young children are not affected at all and lots of shouty masked people waving flags and chanting scares them

I realise in this case it was just a flag, but I'm talking in general.

This wasn't in Israel or gaza though so that's irrelevant

I work in this industry though not at this centre.

The first job of the managing agent is to minimise risk and keep occupants safe.

As a security guard walking in to work and seeing this unfold you have no way of knowing what may follow it.

If they did nothing and it turned violent they would be criticised for doing nothing!

They will be responding to national guidance as to how to handle these situations.

Regardless of any of the above and regardless of personal opinion, a shopping centre is private property. They can do as they wish and allow who they want in or not. A good way to look at it is "would you like someone doing this to your house?" If the answer is no well there you go.

Interesting. So you think it’s because they identify with Israel as a place with a ‘western’ style of government and hold it to a higher standard?

No that's not what I said at all. Where did I mention holding them to a higher standard? It's more they can relate to the political structure better and are therefore more tuned into it and their atrocities are more obvious to them because they compare it to their own governments/ armies.

That doesn’t really make sense to me. I can see that if a country appears to have things in common with western countries, people would identify with it. But surely we hold democracies to a different standard because we think they should behave ‘better’? We associate Israel with the West and when the west behaves badly we protest. When other countries behave badly we’re less interested. Isn’t that because our expectations are lower?

Why do we expect France or America to behave better than Saudi Arabia? Presumably because we think a democracy should produce a more moral government?

Yes you can read it that way. I'm personally not a fan of assuming one system is "better" than another. I think that is what has led to a lot of the crap we're dealing with now tbh.

I don't think Israel can be considered to be a democracy any more.

Quite. Otherwise it is the most ineffective genocide ever.

The population exploded over the last few years.

If Israel wanted to they could have carpet bombed Gaza in October 2023. They could have razed Gaza to the ground and taken the land for themselves. And yet...

It's war. The term genocide is thrown around just to hurt the Israelis as we all know what that word means to them.

It's a war.

No, people are calling it a genocide because they believe it meets the criteria.

Which people? Joe public ?

Connie Counter might not think so but it is a democracy and Connie doesn't get to decide.

If Israel wanted to they could have carpet bombed Gaza in October 2023. They could have razed Gaza to the ground and taken the land for themselves. And yet...

This is the most ineffective argument that I have seen on here. That just because Israel didn't do so and so the day after the attack, then it can't possibly mean this.
It's ridiculous.

Lots of people. Experts, members of the public.

Why is it reasonable for a members of the public to say it's not a genocide (like you just did) but the opposing opinion is not allowed?

Genocide is a word overused nowadays. Some young people even say 'it's literal genocide', when they have been misgendered. It's ridiculous of course.

There are specific criteria laid down, which the tragedy in Darfur for example was considered to meet.

The courts will decide not social media. There are definitely examples of potential war crimes. These need investigating properly. The rules of war are clearly laid out.

It's called disagreements.

However, correctly, untiit's s legally decided its a genocide then it isn't actually one. No matter how much people say it is.

You're right. Genocides are never ruled legally to be genocides until after the fact. It will take a few years sadly before that happens. It's a major failure in international law that we have to watch Israel commit a genocide and we can't stop it.

I strongly believe that if the Israeli government could have got away with carpet bombing the entire place in one go, they would have done so. What stopped them? They rely on the USA' money and weapons and, even Biden wouldn't/ couldn't have endorsed it. Instead, it is done slowly through various mean.
After all, Netanyahu was happy to hold a map of Israel without Gaza and the WB on it...

Typo fail.

Until its legally called a genocide then it isn't and referring to it as such is factually incorrect.

This week is the anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide. A horrendous massacre of innocent men and boys.

No carpet bombing there, and 8000 killed. Still a genocide.

That doesn't mean that I don't think it's a travesty and that more pressure shouldn't be brought to end this conflict. I wish for it to end immediately. The suffering is awful. I really was hopeful for a ceasefire agreement but nothing so far. Not sure why though.

@US2gether I think talks are still in progress. Last I saw was Hamas agreed to stand down and let a interim government take over during the second stage of the ceasefire agreement. This was one of the big obstacles that there was a breakthrough in.
I also read in the TOI that Netanyahu has now added extra conditions on top of the already agreed ceasefire proposal that he says are non negotiable
Looks like there's still a long road ahead

Apologies, I haven’t read all the later posts on this thread but a few days ago there were a few unclear how the UK is complicit in the genocide. I just saw this video which is a good explainer, so I thought I’d share it here.

@Parkingt111

"Last I saw was Hamas agreed to stand down and let a interim government take over during the second stage of the ceasefire agreement"

That's a pretty significant progress and in line with the original Egyptian proposal back in December 2023.

Do you have a link to this agreement by Hamas?