When is a terrorist a rebel ?

[mouthpipette]

Just that really.

Lots of different connotations for each word, so it makes a difference which is used.

Yes, could be Iran or Russia. Or maybe the UAE. What worries me though is that he might go to the west of Syria where the Alawites are in a majority. He could turn up in Tartus where there is a big Russian naval base.

If the rebels try to move westwards they could come up against increased resistance from Alawites. If the Alawites are backed by Russian warplanes then the fighting could go on for a long time.

However, it seems that the Assad regime, the Russians and the Iranians have no desire to fight. It seems they have given up.

I don't know what will happen to the million Alawites in Syria. It is possible that they will try to flee as did so many Sunni Syrians a few years ago. Many will want to come to Europe, but in parts of Europe (Germany, Sweden) there are many Sunni Syrians who will be hostile to them.

To quote Blackadder "who's got the family braincell today"?

Wondering what you mean @Daftasabroom?

I think it’s complicated, the SNA that is aligned with HTS is currently attacking kurds. I’m happy for the Syrian people to be free of Assad and I genuinely hope that Jolani has had a damascene conversion. He is ethnically syrian but grew up elsewhere. I do wonder if spending time in Syria has caused a fit of patriotism and acceptance of the fact that nation states are more important than pan regional non state actors like al-qaeda. A lot of the current strories coming out of rebels looting etc are the directly backed by Turkish groups and grouos of jihadis. Think HTS has started arresting anyone found to be breaking the law basically.

I sincerely hope he has changed because the alternative will be dire. But yes he still has a ten million bounty on his head and HTS is still considered to be an offshoot of al-qaeda. He has committed atrocities as have his group and the groups he’s aligned with. The problem here is there are so many different rebel groups with different aims and ideologies that the designation “rebel” covers all of them. I wish the media were much more specific.

I can’t say I can be supportive of a group like HTS. As with Gaza, Israel and Lebanon, my sympathies lie firmly with civilians.

Or you could answer rather than being abusive?

It's not surprising that SharonEllis is confused seeing as how you have misrepresented the situation. There were three Jewish armed groups and two main Palestine armed groups.

The Haganah developed into the IDF. They did bomb the Semiramis hotel, not to kill civilians but because they thought it was a headquarters of Palestinian armed forces. Irgun and Stern Gang were more into killing civilians.

The PLO didn't exist at that time.

Well exactly. My brain cell can count past the number 2. Which is quite useful in this situation.

A friend of my DF did time in Palestine after the war (he was stationed there having signed up in 1944). I remember him saying he was being shot at by "Ben Gurions mob" as he reflected on the way the world works when DBG came to the UK as Israels PM.

"Funny old world" were his exact words.

One possibility is that there will be elections. The Syrian people might vote for an Islamist. If that does happen I hope the West will give them a chance. In Egypt the people elected Morsi. I always felt that if we had given him a chance Egypt might still be a democracy today. Instead it is as bad now in Egypt as it was under Mubarak. The West don't care so much as long as he is pro Western.

At least Morsi didn't gun down protestors like Mubarak and Al Sisi.

Haganah were killing civilians too. These are the 3 massacres that involved 50+ civilians:

On December 31, 1947, the first large attack by the Haganah Zionist militia took place against the village of Balad al-Sheikh, east of the port city of Haifa, in which 60 to 70 Palestinians were killed, according to Walid Khalidi’s book, All That Remains.

Two massacres were carried out by the Haganah in Saasaa in 1948: One in mid-February and another at the end of October. According to Khalidi’s book, on February 15, a Palmach force raided the village of Saasaa and detonated explosives inside several homes, destroying 10 houses and killing “tens”, according to Haganah estimates. The New York Times reported at the time that 11 people were killed, five of them children, with 14 houses also destroyed.

The second massacre was perpetrated on October 30, when “mass murder” took place, according to Israel Galili, the former head of the Haganah National Staff. The exact numbers of those killed are unclear, nor are there detailed accounts of the killings, according to All That Remains. The village was eventually depopulated.

Before 1948, the village was known for being at an intersection that linked many urban centres, including Safad. It was dotted with water springs, apple and olive trees, as well as grape vines. In 1949, an Israeli settlement by the same name was established on the village site.

After this massacre, the Haganah was absorbed into the new IDF and massacres continued under the IDF name.

The problem with democracies is that they have really weird ideas. Like running the country for the citizens rather than the myriad foreign interests that crave their natural resources at discount prices.

I'm just going to copy-and-paste what AI has to say about it

The Haganah primarily focused on defending Jewish settlements and facilitating Jewish immigration to Palestine. However, during the Jewish insurgency against British rule, the Haganah did engage in sabotage operations against British infrastructure, such as bombing bridges, railways, and ships. While their main goal was not to kill British soldiers, these operations did result in casualties.

The more militant groups, Irgun and Lehi, were more directly involved in attacks targeting British military and police personnel.

DBG wasn't the leader of Haganah but he had a lot of influence on what they did.

While their main goal was not to kill British soldiers, these operations did result in casualties.

contains the statement:

"Begin shot at by David Ben Gurions mob"

Not understanding what "AI" has to do with any of this or why you felt the need to consult it. But since you now have, what is it's solution to the Rubiks cube of the middle east ? Buy smoothies ?

So true! Do you know about Mohammad Mosaddegh? He was the Prime Minister of Iran in the 1950s. He was a moderate and a democrat. He wanted to use the oil wealth of Iran to invest in the country.

So the British and the Americans got rid of him. They put the Shah in his place. No more democracy, no more human rights. People imprisoned and tortured. Then the Islamists came to power in a revolution.

The decisions made in the 1950s by Britain and America created the situation we have now. What would have happened if we had backed Mosaddegh? No Islamic Republic, probably no Al-Qaeda or Isis. No support for Hezbollah and Hamas. Or Assad for that matter.

You absolutely cannot tell that story without letting the world remember the involvement of Kermit Roosevelt Jnr ....

So the British and the Americans got rid of him. They put the Shah in his place. No more democracy, no more human rights.

Apropos of nothing, I see Kemi Badenoch is in the US at the moment.

AI is a very quick and easy way to check historical facts. It's not always accurate, but you can always tell us when you think it is not so.

Nobody is going to find solutions if they don't understand the facts. David Ben Gurion was the head of the Jewish Agency. Israel Galili was the head of Haganah. As far as I can tell, Haganah did not have snipers targeting British soldiers.

It is easy to see why a British soldier would think he was being shot at by 'Ben Gurion's mob'. He would see Ben Gurion as a terrorist and be a bit put out when he was invited to Britain as Israeli head of state. It is more likely that he was a target of Irgun or Lehi (Stern Gang).

What an absolute load of rubbish. I can’t stand this ridiculous ‘it’s all the British fault’ simplistic nonsense. Sunni and Shia and associated ‘smaller factions’ of the Islamic faith were slaughtering each other for hundreds of years before the British came along and continue to do so long after we’ve left and when we even don't get involved. The religion has been fighting itself for hundreds of years and seems they wish to continue. Yes each faction has, a one point or another, sold resources for various foreign govt military/ political support but this idea that the region was some peaceful oasis of tranquility and then the British / US arrived uninvited and caused all this is utterly ridiculous. And extremely racist as if the Arabic leaders are some kind of half wits that can’t make any decisions and are too thick to understand exactly what they are doing when they seek these alliances.
Christianity had its centuries of trying to exterminate each other ….. Islamic faith is the same but whereas Christians, have for the most part stopped, the Islam faith has not. They should be left to bloody get on with it now though. Instead of begging / selling themselves to which ever political power the current ruler wants to get into bed with and then whining that it’s all that ‘western govt’ fault when it goes to shit.

@Skipthisbit there does seem to be that tendency on these threads

And generally with anti west type rhetoric

I listened to a US guy the other day who talked about withdrawing from various places

If the US does just leave people to it we'll see what no interference is like

Before 9/11 Bush stood as a candidate on a policy of non-involvement because people were already claiming terrorism ( lockerbie, united nations bombing, various American embassy bombing) was justified by US interference. 9/11 escalated existing conflicts in the same way that 7/10 did.

@User37482

I think it’s complicated...

Surely the understatement of the century.

What an absolute load of rubbish. I can’t stand this ridiculous ‘it’s all the British fault’ simplistic nonsense. Sunni and Shia and associated ‘smaller factions’ of the Islamic faith were slaughtering each other for hundreds of years before the British came along and continue to do so long after we’ve left and when we even don't get involved.

.....Unlike Europe which had spent the same hundreds of years holding hands in blissful peace and harmony. :)

The religion has been fighting itself for hundreds of years and seems they wish to continue. Yes each faction has, a one point or another, sold resources for various foreign govt military/ political support but this idea that the region was some peaceful oasis of tranquility and then the British / US arrived uninvited and caused all this is utterly ridiculous.

@SuePine69 didn't suggest it was some peaceful oasis of tranquility though. She simply pointed out that the current situation was created by Britain and America, which is true. For one thing, it was America's removal of the moderate and tolerant Iranian government which led to the 1979 Islamist revolution. For another, even more obvious one, it was the British planned and western-executed partition of Palestine that led to the existence of Israel. So when we talk about violent conflict between Iran and Israel we're talking about a conflict between one country that literally wouldn't exist outside of its creation by the west, and another that wouldn't exist in anything like its current form.

What form the borders and governments WOULD have taken if the west had simply kept their self-interested oar out of it and - shock horror - let the people who lived there get on with living under structures that were serving them perfectly well, and how much violence would have been involved, is of course impossible to answer.

But it's important to acknowledge that sharp ethnic and religious division between barbarous fundamentalist cults is not a bug in the western foreign policy we're talking about, it's a feature. The west has often supported such group precisely BECAUSE of their capacity to destabilise governments in regions it wanted control over. Iran is one example. The Wahhabis who founded Saudi Arabia are another. There's nothing worse for a foreign power seeking control, than a nice united populace who can all agree on how they want to run things.

My point, very very clearly, and in the context of the OP, was that the moment Israel was declared a state the Zionist terrorists were no longer terrorists yet the Palestinian terrorists were still terrorists.

But you have sympathy for YPG terrorist organisation by labeling them as 'Kurds'.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0q0w1g8zqvo