To think someone has got to stop the mass killings in Gaza

[BotanicalCake]

We are back to hundreds of Gazans being killed each day after the so called ceasefire and over 50,000 now slaughtered, mostly women and children.
The bombing of hospitals, schools and 'safe zones' not being enough, they are now picking off paramedics. How much depravity is the world going to tolerate?

AIBU to suggest that the world leaders complicit in Netanyahu's genocide should all stand before the Hague?

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/apr/03/the-guardian-view-on-israels-killing-of-paramedics-a-new-atrocity-in-an-unending-conflict

One group developed mainly desert lands and built a thriving country. Another group previously Arabs spent the time since the 1940's attacking and killing the other group.

One group built a very necessary defence system. Another group didn't.

One group is given billions in aid and so had health and education funded by the west but their terrorist leaders and others threw it all away.in years of hatred. Look at Germany and Japan at the end of the second world war. They built and developed and emerged better. Some just go back.to the 40s like a stuck record never wanting better, others build and move forward.

Imagine if other countries said in the year x we lost x therefore we will hate forever. Good grief most of them weren't born in the 40s but useful westerners keep the mantra going.

Palestine prior to the establishment of the state of Israel was not an empty or destitute land. It had thriving communities, was considered to have comparable development to other countries in the Middle East, it had industrial and commercial regions as well as rural, higher literacy rates among Palestinian Arabs than were found in some neighbouring countries, its own airline, etc.

It was defined as a Class A Mandate, meaning that it was considered to "... have reached a stage of development where their existence as independent nations can be provisionally recognised subject to the rendering of administrative advice and assistance by a Mandatory until such time as they are able to stand alone. The wishes of these communities must be a principal consideration in the selection of the Mandatory." (Quote from the League of Nations). It was the only Class A Mandate not to be independent by the mid-1940s.

It was not perfect. There are many things that can be criticised about it. But it was not empty. It was not a land without a people.

Which map shows Palestine as an independent state prior to 1940? Arabs and Jews and Christians lived in the area. Not 'Palestinian people'. You know that.

The region of Palestine has been recognised in historical records since about the 5th century BCE, and records from that time referenced the state of Philistia having existed from the 12th century BCE. Names and boundaries change, but the land was not an empty desert devoid of civilisation, culture and progress. People lived there and thrived there before the establishment of the state of Israel.

Wow that’s some serious revisionism.

In 1948 the Palestinians were forcibly removed from their houses, many of whom had previously welcomed refugees fleeing persecution. It was a place where multiple religions coexisted! Read The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine by Professor Ilan Pape - there are photos, evidence etc…

Blurb from the book page “Between 1947 and 1949, over 400 Palestinian villages were deliberately destroyed, civilians were massacred and around a million men, women, and children were expelled from their homes at gunpoint. Denied for almost six decades, had it happened today it could only have been called 'ethnic cleansing'”

It details how 93% of the cultivated land was owned by arabs and christians so to create a jewish state they had to use force. Before they invaded the zionist leaders drew up detailed maps with details of what was owned by what ethnicity, they bought a small amount of land but the rest was seized. Villages were razed with important historical buildings destroyed, these were not just arab villages but also christian ones! Men were murdered, women were raped, churches and mosques levels, orchards destroyed. It details how Israel was formed through violence and has expanded it’s borders decade after decade through violence.

It wasn't claimed that it was an "independent state". The regions of the Ottoman Empire didn't work that way, they were a hangover from the age of empire into the age of the nation state. Yet somehow all the others - Transjordan, Syria etc. - had their mandates fulfilled and the political infrastructure to function as an independent state created (based on the will of their peoples as a whole) by the end of the second world war. All except Palestine.

Palestinian people lived in the area, most of whom were Arab muslims with significant Christian and jewish minorities.

I know that if posters were actually Pro Israel they would be loudly advocating for an end to the settlements to keep everyone safer. I know that if Israel were actually trying to keep their citizens safe they wouldn't be ploughing more and more money into helping them steal homes and settle in land that isn't theirs. Instead the lure of free land and stolen resources wins out.

Before 7/10 50-75% of IDF members on active duty were in the OPT protecting the people Israel pay to steal and live on free land. Only a third were dealing with Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah etc. So Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah etc the ones who are a threat to Israels very existence apparently, got less resources than throwing Palestinians out of their homes and policing people collecting rainwater. Seems a bit wrong to me and something that all of the people who care so deeply about Israels existence that they dedicate hours of their lives here typing in their defence might have wanted to pipe up about.

I certainly think that's a point worthy of consideration. One problem is that we can always say "YOU STARTED IT!" based on which point in the conflict we choose to go from. So I've pointed out that the Oct 7th attack was a reaction to the 1967 occupation, so it's Israel's fault. You've in turn pointed out that Israel's seizure of the "buffer zone" areas in 1967 was made necessary by Palestinian hostility before that, so it's actually the Palestinians' fault.

We could play this game all day. But unlike a lot of such political games, in this one there is actually an ultimate, right answer. Palestine was a functioning region of the Ottoman Empire for centuries, with (like other regions and countries) a majority religion defined by its majority population and space for religious and ethnic minorities as well. The first thing to change that and turn it into a battleground between two separate ethnicities that had to have their own state excluding the other, was the Zionist project from the late 19th century and then the actions by Britain to encourage that project as a separatist aspiration, to tolerate the driving of native Palestinians off their lands etc.

This gave rise to the 1948 war. That gave rise (as you rightly point out) to anti-Israeli resentment and violence by Palestinians. That gave rise to the 1967 occupation. That gave rise to the intifada and Hamas. That gave rise to Oct 7th...

Now I'm NOT saying that this means the answer is to obliterate Israel and try to recreate the Palestine of the 19th century. I'm saying we can gain a better understanding of the Palestinians' attitudes and actions within the conflict by admitting, honestly and realisitically, the original genesis of the WHOLE conflict which was visited upon them, which was not of their doing.

Especially seeing as the Palestinian ‘cause’ is to annihilate Israel and wipe out the Jews?

That's not the "Palestinian" cause. Plenty of Palestinians just want to be left in peace to get on with their lives. That's the cause of the particular subset of Palestinians who have reacted to the situation in the most violently extreme manner. Any situation where one country illegally occupies and oppresses another people is going to provoke a range of reactions like that among those people.

But it's quite handy for the untra-Zionist element within Israel, who see themselves as having the ultimate right to rule ALL of Palestine and would happily just wipe out any remaining vestige of Arab/muslim Palestine that stands in their way. Because they've always got an excuse to justify their violent oppression of the occupied territories, all of which is only necessary because they initiated the settler colonial project in the first place.

I wrote one sentence, you wrote a little essay. Who's spending hours?

Thank you for expressing explaining this so well.

I forgot to add, anyone confused as to who are the colonisers, stop and think for a moment as to how come there is a massive mosque BUILT ON TOP OF a massive Jewish temple.

🤔

You read it though and have unsurprisingly have nothing of note to say. Like I said if people were truly driven by being pro Israel(and by that I mean wanting what is best for the safety of Israelis) and not anti Palestinian they would have a lot more to say on the issue.

indeed.

Why didn’t the Arabs want their own state in the region before 1967? They had 20 years to create one under Egyptian/Jordanian rule which would surely have been sympathetic seeing as a big majority of Gazans/West Bankers were Egyptian/Jordanian?

The people living in Gaza were Palestinian not Egyptian. They were not from Egypt and were not given citizenship by Egypt and Egypt didn’t attempt to integrate it. And Egypt did not want for them to be an independent state either so no they were not sympathetic to this.

I thought the Romans destroyed the temple?

They did in 70 CE.

So by your logic the Greeks should take back Istanbul/Constantinople?

There you go.

Yep pretty much. Some countries move forward and some look back. No progress will be made though. Pointless engaging.

We are in 2025 now. Not 1940's. Most people around in 1940's are deceased or very old. Still hate rumbles on and so what if the young bear the cost of that ongoing hate and resentment. As I said before some people look forward and some look back. I know whom I'd rather live amongst.

TBF
Istanbul is not the holiest site of their faith for Greeks.
The Greeks have Greece.
There has been some contention over Cyprus between Greece & Turkey.
Otherwise it's not a straw man argument at all.😶

I would say the statement I commented on was clutching at straws.

Hagia Sophia is very holy.

I forgot to say hat what has happened to it is contentious too.

from the BBC in July 2029

Hagia Sophia was built as a Christian cathedral nearly 1,500 years ago and turned into a mosque after the Ottoman conquest of 1453.

The Unesco World Heritage Site became a museum in 1934 under Turkish Republic founding father Ataturk.

But earlier this week a Turkish court annulled the site's museum status, saying its use as anything other than a mosque was "not possible legally"

Pope Francis confined himself to a few words on the issue: "My thoughts go to Istanbul. I think of Santa Sophia and I am very pained."

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the first Muslim prayers would be held in Hagia Sophia on July 24.

and,

The Pope is one of several religious and political leaders worldwide who have criticised the move.

The World Council of Churches has called on President Erdogan to reverse the decision. The Church in Russia, home to the world's largest Orthodox Christian community, immediately expressed regret that the Turkish court had not taken its concerns into account when ruling on Hagia Sophia.

It has also drawn condemnation from Greece, and Unesco said its World Heritage Committee would now review the monument's status.

and,

The World Council of Churches has called on Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to reverse his decision to turn the celebrated Hagia Sophia museum back into a mosque.

No, it’s not built on top of Jewish temple, but on top of an old Roman pagan temple, built adjacent to where the stables were in Soloman’s time when it was both 1st Temple and Royal Palace.

The Al-Aqsa mosque is built 330ft south of the rock from which Jesus began his walk bearing the cross to gol gotha where he was crucified in 30 CE.

The Jewish Temple that was on the same hilltop was destroyed forty years later in 70CE. It was located north of the rock near the wailing wall. The Jewish Temple could not have been built over the same rock where Dome of the Rock now exists if we are going to treat scripture equally.

Six hundred years later, in the time of the Prophet Mohammad, the Jewish Temple no longer existed. The mont still had the large rock on it from Jesus time, from which Mohammad is said to have ascended from to heaven. (this rock is also by legend supposed to be where the ark of the covenant was placed)

A Muslim shrine is built over that rock- Dome of the Rock. The mosque is 330ft south of the rock, whereas the long lost Jewish Temple was to the north of the rock and spanned the high area from east to west.

The Jewish Temple was on Temple Mont, but it is not under the Al-Aqsa mosque or the Dome of the Rock and by the time the mosque was built, there hadn’t been a Temple there for over 600yrs.

In addition, the Arabian conquest of the region wasn’t one of mass migration and colonisation but of imperialist conquest over an indigenous population that included pressure to convert to the imperial state religion but no diaspora or ethnic cleansing. This is corroborated by historical documents, archaeology and DNA tests. In fact, many of the early Christians and Muslims in the region spoke Aramaic, indicating they had converted from Judaism to one of the newer religions.