Reconstruction of Gaza - realistic?

[mids2019]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj41y42qxq8o

I think the problem with the below is the mammoth coast and the problem of who pays. To build a city of the size of Birmingham from scratch including public infrastructure to a sufficient standard using non slave Labour is going to be astronomical. Who pays? All the Arab states (although some with concentrated extreme wealth) have their own domestic pressures without stumping up hundreds of billions to produce a new sixth state. There could be international loans but that would bring into question Gazan public debt and how loans could be repaid.

There is also the thorny question about how Gazans go about establishing legal ownership of land or whether they need to buy it again. It seems like a conveyincing nightmare. One solution would be to build identical properties and allocate them the to the populace as a whole but would Gazans want this form of communism in terms of property? If you do have a housing market how do establish a realistic economy to support it?

International aid is extremely stressed and certainly as a UK tax payer I would hope we wouldn't get to involved and as Gazan reconstruction is talked about we should be conscious of the levels of poverty in other regions of the world.

You are saying exactly that by delegitimating their connection to the land. Noone here argues the Palestinians shouldn't have a right to self determination. Its a straw man.

Thank you for sharing your knowledge on this.

Is this a joke? You've posted daily about Israel for months and months and months...

@Twiglets1 Israel has recently killed 69,000 Palestinians, Australia, America and New Zealand have not recently carried out such massacres and as @Thedawnchorus pointed out, they do not operate as apartheid states, indigenous people have equal rights, that is why Israel

Jeez you really are twisting history:

The mass exodus of Jews from Baghdad and the rest of Iraqoccurred primarily in the early 1950s, driven by severe state persecution, anti-Jewish sentiment, and a specific law that required them to forfeit their citizenship to leave the country. This process culminated in the airlifting of over 120,000 Jews to Israel in Operation Ezra and Nehemiah.

So it was clearly the Iraqi State and anti Jewish sentiment that caused the Baghdad Jews to leave and not "European Zionism ".

However I am genuinely interested as to how you have come to believe that Jews leaving Baghdad was due to "European Zionism" and not the easily accessible facts shown above. Is this because someone told you this or just simply a hatred of Jews ?

The obsession with hating Israel. Thought that was obvious.

And @Everexpanding the Israel hate didn’t start on 7/10 or with the casualties from the subsequent war. There was glee from some quarters when Israel was attacked even on Mumsnet.

Historically, other countries have plenty to be ashamed about with regard to their treatment of indigenous peoples. Yet people still obsess over the history of Israel more than other countries.

Thank you for this. The lie you mention is hard to see. I’m not Jewish but I appreciate this post.

No glee here @Twiglets1 , but I think if you are concerned with anti Semitism probably good not to focus on those opposing the killing of civilians, they tend to be decent humans. There are actual anti semites among those who would claim to support Israel

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-interactive/2025/nov/18/deeply-shocking-nigel-farage-faces-fresh-claims-of-racism-and-antisemitism-at-school

When someone tells you who they are......

We Europeans hate colonialism. We know the damage we've done historically with our colonial projects. The lie that Jewish people have no links to the land of Israel / Palestine, and that its purely a European colonial project is specifically meant to tap into the deep feeling of guilt we know we carry- and it drives us to speak and fight against modern day colonialism. As soon as we believe Israel is a purely colonial project, we open the door to some very radical thought, and disturbingly- a chance to prove ourselves better than the colonists we definitely dont want to be. I think thats one reason why people feel so strongly about it.... it's as if we are saying- I am not like that!

Its a very insidious, dangerous lie.

Both Jewish and Arab Palestinians deserve a home where they are. The arguments should only be about how they can possibly get around to sharing without periodically ripping each other apart. They should never be about the legitimacy of eithers actual claim to the land. That's the way of extremists on both sides 😩. And there's more than enough extremists on both sides.

Very perceptive, thank you.

Totally agree!

Yes there were jews living there thousands of years ago but equally there were christians and muslims. Multiple religions have ties to the land, there are so many ancient christian sites in Israel. The problem lies when someone decides that because people who shared the same religion as them thousands of years ago live in a place that they are somehow entitled to land and houses that people are already living in - people who also have historic ties to the land.

Had people in 1948 came and bought land there would be no problems today. People were massacred and displaced to create Israel. People are being massacred and displaced today to expand Israel. Whatever word you ascribe to it, it was wrong then and is wrong now. Many Israelis today are living in houses built on land people were murdered for. Many settlers are now murdering people for their land. When will this mass land grab end, when will people stop killing for territory.

No there were not muslims living there 1000s of years ago. Jews were there 1000s of years ago. Christianity emerged from Judaism in the 1st century and muslims turned up through conquest in the 7th. Obviously there are ancient christian sites in Israel where else would you expect them to be? But Israel is the only Jewish state. Jews were there throughout history, and the population ebbed and flowed, despite numerous events to chuck them out and Jews bought land before, during and after 1948. Stop trying to delegitimise the Jewish presence in Israel.

And it is nonsense to say there would be no problem if Jews had bought land. Completely historically illiterate because a. They did, and b. Buying land and being full citizens of other parts of the ME and the wider world has never stopped people turning on the Jewish people.

Oh sorry.

Obsessively defending the world's most profuse child killers - healthy

Obsessively criticising the world's most profuse child killers - unhealthy

It makes a lot more sense now

world's most profuse child killers

That’s your opinion. Why are you presenting it as a fact?

Well according to Save the children UK, children in Gaza were being killed at the rate at least one child every hour from Oct 23 until September 25. I think that counts as prolific.

The Israel hate didn't start on 7/10/23 @CrossChecking

So even if you put all the blame for the high number of child deaths since then at the door of the IDF rather than sharing the responsibility just a little bit with the militants who started a war and then hid amongst civilians, it still doesn't explain the obsession with hating Israel.

So much hate can't be good for those harbouring it.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/03/13/children-killed-gaza-united-nations-wars-worldwide/

https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/03/1147512

@Twiglets1 the child killing and the hateful behaviour from Israel didn't start on Oct 7 either. A lot of people don't like countries who enact racial segregation, or blow up small children while they play on the beach or corner and kill people with SN on their way to school, that's pretty normal tbh.

It seems, from mumsnet at least, that it is also normal for some people to admire hateful, racist, illegal occupiers.

Which is 'healthier', well the jury is out I suppose.

In 2022 (before the war in Gaza) these were the the 10 worst conflict-affected countries in which to be a child, according to Save the Children. I don't remember more hate being widely expressed for them than Israel at the time.

The 10 worst conflict-affected counties in which to be a child.

1. Afghanistan
2. Democratic republic of Congo
3. Syria
4. Yemen
5. Somalia
6. Mali
7. Nigeria
8. Cameroon
9. Sudan

10.Central African republic

And I'm not aware that anyone on this board supports the illegal Settlers in Gaza, if that is who you mean by hateful, racist, illegal occupiers. No one defends them let alone admires them.

Until Israel guarantee a right to return, then I’m afraid that this is very much true. People should not be forced to leave their country. It’s a sad state of affairs.

"Under today's devastating conditions in Gaza, any such 'encouragement' cannot amount to free choice," argues Gisha director Hary. "All the more so as Israel refuses to guarantee that people who leave will be allowed to return. Taken together, the unlivable conditions and the official promotion of 'voluntary departure' reflect a pattern of forced transfer disguised as free choice."
Forcible transfer of a population is a crime against humanity under international law.

No one is forcing people to leave Gaza though are they?

Would you prefer those with means and desires to leave stay to make a political point?

Depends how you define “force” surely? Making a place totally uninhabitable and dangerous, controlling and limiting food and water, there’s just a couple of ways of forcing people out.