France recognises Palestine

[PaxAeterna]

A big deal.
Macron said

The urgent thing today is that the war in Gaza stops and the civil population is saved

https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2025/07/24/macron-anuncia-que-franca-ira-reconhecer-estado-da-palestina

I would like to say I can't believe I just read that. To think Palestinians are going to turn into hating Jews because of Israelis. Nobody else, just Jews.

Who on earth said that? Not me? You’ve plucked that out of thin air. Where anywhere does it says Palestinians are going to hate Jews??

My view, for clarity, is that you would have to be a liar, woefully ill-informed or an imbecile if you believe Israel is targeting civilians. But crack on.

I think every army, military and government in the history of time has committed atrocities. I don't think there's any evidence whatsoever to imply the IDF are worse than any other. I also think israelis generally have shown utterly remarkable restraint.

After 9/11, a single attack in which just under 3,000 civilians were killed, the United States launched a global "War on Terror" that resulted in the deaths of over 900,000 people across multiple countries, many of them civilians.

Entire governments were overthrown, cities were flattened, and millions were displaced. Drone strikes, torture sites, indefinite detentions, and sweeping anti-terror laws followed.

The U.S. justified all of this as a necessary response to an attack on its civilians.

By comparison, when Israel responds to a massacre of 1,200 of its citizens - including mass rape, torture, and hostage-taking - it's condemned for defending itself. Even as the hostages are still there.

War is ugly. And civilians die. Particularly in an urban area, with combatants hiding, covered I'm booby traps where no one will evacuate the innocents. I'd far prefer there wasn't a war.

But regardless, the glaring double standard is that Israel is expected to tolerate terrorism on its doorstep day after day for decades and “show restraint” in ways no other country has ever been held to.

Sure, the current government are into the idea of there being no Palestinian state. But the government's before largely weren't and it didn't make two shits of difference.

Sure, there's some highly unfair behaviour in the west bank (on both sides IMO) but when they withdrew from Gaza it didn't make two shits of difference.

The simple truth is that nothing they have ever tried, said, done or not done has ever changed the situation and its the Palestinians who refuse to give up the violence and attacks. They can keep denying it, but every element of their governance is about destruction.

Education
Pay to slay
Tunnels

The whole lot. That's their choice. And Israel has IMO been incredibly patient. If someone did that to Britain there would be no more country next door about 50 years ago.

https://news.sky.com/story/almost-like-a-game-of-target-practice-british-surgeon-says-idf-shooting-gazans-at-aid-points-13401434

I believe Dr Maynard. As will many others.

Dr Maynard continued: "What was even more distressing was the pattern of injuries that we saw, the clustering of injuries to particular body parts on certain days.
"One day they'd be coming in predominately with gunshot wounds to the head or the neck, another day to the chest, another day to the abdomen.
"Twelve days ago, four young teenage boys came in, all of whom had been shot in the testicles and deliberately so. This is not coincidental.
"The clustering was far too obvious to be coincidental, and it seemed to us like this was almost like a game of target practice.
"I would never have believed this possible unless I'd witnessed this with my own eyes."

That’s appalling.
He has no reason to lie.

No, he doesn't.

The IDF are shitty soldiers who target children.

Ah yes. Dr Maynard. Not a word out of him on October 7th, but he managed to speak out by the 13th to claim a "humanitarian crisis" less than a week into israel's response. He can be found at weekends with a keffifeh on, chanting "from the river to the sea" and retweets some of the most virulent antisemites on the planet, including Salaiman Ahmed- but I'm sure he's an excellent source of entirely unembellished information. He is a doctor after all. They can't be antisemitic and it's physically impossible for them to lie.

I'm glad you believe him 👍

Yes he does. He's an anti Israel activist. Here is he for example, sharing a fake image of children with the wrong number of limbs.

It's said on this board, frequently.

But I didn’t say it…. You said you can’t believe what you have just read. Bizarre!

Yes, there's a lot of bizarre things going on.

I'd like to know where this "Palestinian State" is going to be?

Gaza or the West Bank?

Or is there going to be two areas divided by a strip of Israel?

Ghandi tried that with Pakistan and that ended up with a bloody civil war between West and East Pakistan.(Bangladesh) that left 1 million dead.

"Those that don't learn the lessons of history are compelled to repeat them" Winston Churchill, I believe.

I personally support a one state solution but: if the two state orthodoxy is to hold it will have to be "Gaza and the West Bank (including East Jerusalem as its capital) with some plausible mechanism of travel between them".

Any "Bantustan" type situation is inherently unjust and will not bring lasting peace.

I would presume the areas currently defined as Gaza and the West Bank will make up the Palestinian state @mrssmurfspointyhat .

My view is the same about those who deny Israel is targeting civilians.

Anyone with two eyes can see it happening.

Then you have two areas of land divided geographically by Israel ??

As I said, that scenario went down a storm when India was partitioned (sarcasm)

There is a Geneva Accord in place for the corridor, that could be enacted.

What do you suggest should happen?

That's a question well beyond the pay grade of most of us.

But that question doesn't need to be answered before starving and sick women and children can receive necessary food and medical care.

The posts on here are something else.

Honestly I don’t give a flying fuck at this point who did what. What Israelis think or who Palestinians voted for nearly 20 years ago, I just want a war machine to stop massacring families and leveling homes, to stop starving children deliberately and then smiling in parliament buildings talking about luxury condos they’ll build over the wasteland.

It is fucking obscene. It’s shameless and abhorrent. No human should be doing this. History shows us this.

And ... men, too, please!

I just can't even at this point with the dehumanisation of Palestinian men. As if all of them are terrorists. As if a people, a society, could live off only women.

Also: echoes of Srebrenica!

I agree. Actions speak louder than words.