BadFish
Huge Member
- Oct 19, 2003
- 18,194
I disagree rather with your comments about Sunak - I don’t think his opportunism in response to the Rochdale by-election is either the response of a leader in control or has any integrity whatsoever - he is stoking Islamophobia the way his ex-Home Secretary did. Arrests at pro-Palestine protests in London attended by millions of people last year resulted in just 36 charges – despite attempts by senior politicians to label them as “mass extremism” and “openly criminal”. There have been more people convicted as a result of environmental campaigns last year than those on peace marches. Between October and the end of December, there were only 153 arrests – with the majority of people, 117, being released without charge despite the draconian measures introduced by Braverman to restrict the freedoms on protesting.
As for the attacks on Starmar/Labour, Biden is coming under similar attacks for his stance on Gaza - in both incidences, the risk is the potential impact on political support. Labour and Democrat support seems blind to the fact, that Sunak and Trump have similar stances, This is much more serious for the Democrats than it is for the Labour Party though, it would take a massive swing away from Labour to make any kind of dent in Starmar‘s popularity in the Country compared to Sunak’s as you know.
It’s this kind of ridiculous, uninformed level of debate that turned people off reading and participating in the Israel Hamas thread;
UNRWA do an essential job in the region and have done for many years - it has been the main provider for humanitarian aid in Gaza since it has been under blockade by Israel since 2007.
18 Countries have suspended funding because of Israeli allegations that 12 workers (out of the 10,000 assigned to the Gaza field office) were involved in the 7/10 massacre. Those workers were immediately sacked and the UN began an investigation. After March, that aid to Gaza will start to dry up at a time where nearly 2 million Gazans are in food crisis. Although the UN/UNRWA have an independent investigation taking place, Israel are not cooperating or providing evidence to back up their allegations. All there is at the moment is IDF propaganda and Israel’s typical anti-UN rhetoric to discredit UNRWA - Israel believes UNRWA is perpetuating refugee camps in Gaza so have an agenda to get UNRWA disbanded. In some respects this is true, without the work of UNRWA the refugee camps would probably collapse and there would be a humanitarian catastrophe of mammoth proportions. It is also true that Hamas has Gazan citizens under tight control and have siphoned off aid meant for civilians for many years and resold it to buy arms - UNRWA operate in extremely difficult circumstances where the administration and control of the area is under control of groups of competing terroist groups who do not put the welfare of the civilians first. But who would be responsible for providing aid, education and health for destitute Palestinians refugees if Israel got it’s way and disbanded UNRWA? The alternative to providing indefinite aid to Gaza would be to lift the blockade in the first instance and enable them to be self -sufficient in the long term but the Israeli Government do not want that.
The Americans had low confidence that UNRAW workers were involved.
Great interview on CNN Amanpour
I’m still not sure this is the appropriate thread to start another long heated debate about the war in Gaza but if this is where it is now at ….
No Zeberdi, this is the thread where we are talking about John Peel and Noel Edmunds . . . at a stretch pressure washers
DM me if you want converse
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