[News] Middle East conflict

[borat]

Interesting tweet from John Simpson on this, following on from pressure from Starmer and Shapps that the BBC should refer to Hamas as terrorists rather than militants.
On a related note, one thing that's notable is that politicians currently are very keen on trotting out that 'Israel has a right to defend itself' (it does, in my view) whereas the parallel statement that 'Palestine has a right to defend itself' never gets uttered. If you can unpack why this is the case, then you're basically at the heart of the issue.

This article sheds light on some of the reasons why the US/UK media is heavily biased.

In Bidens own words in 1986 ''If there were not an Israel, we’d have to invent one.”

Biden says the U.S. would have to invent an Israel if it didn’t exist. Why?

Despite claims of defending democracy and shared values, the U.S.-Israel relationship is one of self-interest where the Palestinians pay the price.

theconversation.com

 

[cjd]

Oh how I wish there was a better football forum for Brighton and Hove Albion instead of this one, which has now been presented with the perfect storm of a lull in football games and a major terrorist incursion on foreign lands.

 

[Bozza]

Oh how I wish there was a better football forum for Brighton and Hove Albion instead of this one, which has now been presented with the perfect storm of a lull in football games and a major terrorist incursion on foreign lands.

If this one is as bad as you make out (and, although I have the memory of a goldfish, I have a vague recollection that you've been abusing me and the running of this site for many years now)...

1. Constructively suggest improvements. I always read them. I might not be able to always enact them for a variety of reasons - software restrictions, other technical limitations or not being in the interest of the wider community, but when I can see genuine improvements can be readily made, I'll jump straight onto them.

2. Start your own better forum. it will literally take you about 10 minutes. Build it, and they will come.

 

[Bakero]

Oh how I wish there was a better football forum for Brighton and Hove Albion instead of this one, which has now been presented with the perfect storm of a lull in football games and a major terrorist incursion on foreign lands.

Click on that and all the non-Albion threads will disappear

I'm not sure how much you want that though seeing as 16 of your last 20 posts have been on non-football threads, the majority on this one.

 

[Eric Potts]

Oh how I wish there was a better football forum for Brighton and Hove Albion instead of this one, which has now been presented with the perfect storm of a lull in football games and a major terrorist incursion on foreign lands.

3 exclusively political threads in the current first 20 . 11 exclusively football related ones . And Ive just noticed Bozzas post about filtering out all non Albion stuff.

 

[cjd]

If this one is as bad as you make out (and, although I have the memory of a goldfish, I have a vague recollection that you've been abusing me and the running of this site for many years now)...

1. Constructively suggest improvements. I always read them. I might not be able to always enact them for a variety of reasons - software restrictions, other technical limitations or not being in the interest of the wider community, but when I can see genuine improvements can be readily made, I'll jump straight onto them.

2. Start your own better forum. it will literally take you about 10 minutes. Build it, and they will come.

I don't see where I said it was bad at all. I have often looked at other Brighton Football sites which are generally disappointing.

All I said was , that I wished there was a better football site than this one for Brighton and Hove Albion. Unfortunately at present....there isn't one.

I think you are being over sensitive, which is unusual for you.

 

[FIVESTEPS]

I can only assume that this exchange was a genuine misunderstanding / mis-hearing. McCoist at least, does not come across as a complete ****.

Not surprising a misunderstanding considering how they mangle the English language.

 

[hans kraay fan club]

I don't see where I said it was bad at all. I have often looked at other Brighton Football sites which are generally disappointing.

All I said was , that I wished there was a better football site than this one for Brighton and Hove Albion. Unfortunately at present....there isn't one.

I think you are being over sensitive, which is unusual for you.

I don't think he is at all.

I think putting in the effort required to keep a large site like this running smoothly, only to see members going to the trouble of posting derogatory comments about that site, whose use they freely enjoy, would be pretty f***ing annoying.

A more 'sensitive' person might have replied to you far less politely.

Or just banned you to save you from having to put up with using such a shit site at all.

 

[cjd]

I don't think he is at all.

I think putting in the effort required to keep a large site like this running smoothly, only to see members going to the trouble of posting derogatory comments about that site, whose use they freely enjoy, would be pretty f***ing annoying.

A more 'sensitive' person might have replied to you far less politely.

Or just banned you to save you from having to put up with using such a shit site at all.

Yet again...( is this a Moderator problem..? ) , where have I said it's a shit site..?

Bizarre.

Having been on this site for years, I'm very aware of the time Bozza in particular, spends on this forum and have more times than I care to remember, remarked upon his valuable input on here and my appreciation.. It just so happens that on rare occasions I don't agree with his decisions. But I don't think there is a single poster on here that I agree with 100% all the time. From the years I have spent reading many of your replies to other posters it is very clear that you ( at times, vehemently ) don't always agree with them.

 

[WATFORD zero]

Oh how I wish there was a better football forum for Brighton and Hove Albion instead of this one, which has now been presented with the perfect storm of a lull in football games and a major terrorist incursion on foreign lands.

Yesterday you were given a warning for posting vitriolic abuse on this thread and today you are moaning this thread being here

 

[Mellotron]

All I said was , that I wished there was a better football site than this one for Brighton and Hove Albion. Unfortunately at present....there isn't one.

What is it you would be hoping for from this metaphorical Albion site? Genuine question with no malevolent intent lurking behind.

 

[raymondo]

yep

I've never been a fan of McCoist, but mainly cos I dislike his commentator's drivel. But that's awful, and doubly so if he and Brazil had discussed doing that 'quip'. Action needed. .

 

[sparkie]

Oh how I wish there was a better football forum for Brighton and Hove Albion instead of this one, which has now been presented with the perfect storm of a lull in football games and a major terrorist incursion on foreign lands.

If you don't want to see this particular thread on NSC put the OP on Ignore until this crisis dies down.

The thread will totally disappear for you.

 

[cjd]

Yesterday you were given a warning for posting vitriolic abuse on this thread and today you are moaning this thread being here

Wow..."vitriolic abuse"...!

I beg to differ with you, but it's OK, I bow to your superiority. A lot of over-wrought people on this forum today.

I hope you have a good day and no offence is meant by my reply.

 

[Silverhatch]

Having been to Israel around 10 years ago with Mrs Jakarta for a religious tour it would be interesting to know how many other NSCers have been out there?

All I can say is then when we were out there they clearly thought they were at war with their 'neighbours' and acted accordingly.

For example F16's overhead every 30 minutes, teenage girls in army gear with sub machine guns etc.

Local arabs lobbing rocks at us when we going down to the Wailing Wall didn't make me more sympathetic to their cause I have to say.

I’m not Jewish.

In 1981 as a 20-year old bloke, a mate and I saw a flyer in London for Project 67. It was a recruitment drive to get people to go to Israel and volunteer on a Kibbutz. There was a pre-meet in London and there were 30 or so people there and LOADS of fit women. We signed up thinking sex, sun and booze rather than politics. Our assigned Kibbutz was at the base of the Golan heights on the shore of the Kinneret (Galilee). Beautiful place run by Jewish descendants of the Russian royal family’s gardeners! The work was hard. The partying was harder. It was an unbelievable experience that shaped my life in ways I cannot articulate even now. But given this thread I’ll talk about the Israeli psyche as I see it. At that time there were still survivors of the holocaust working with us in the bananas, dates, fishponds. Their sons and daughters (many my age) were first gen Israelis. There were burnt out T55 tanks just above the borders of the fields on the slopes of the Golan. Yom Kippur was only 8-years before. The kibbutz was a fortified compound with goon towers and bomb shelters. Everyone was armed (to the teeth). Everyone was f***ed off with conflict. They wanted a diplomatic solution but thought it a fanciful idea when certain actors wanted Israel wiped off the face of the Earth. The two kibbutzniks my mate and I worked in the fishponds with were 23 and 25. One was a fighter pilot, the other a tank commander. One day Yossi threw ME the keys to the tractor and said could we handle the ponds for a couple of days - they’d both been called to urgent duty - along with 30 or so other members. This was the Iraqi nuclear plant operation and Israel’s response planning. They appeared scared. At that time Israel was (as we now realised) on a continuous war-footing. They were shaping their iron-fist diplomacy. All the levers of power were controlled by genocide survivors and their progeny. They wanted peace but would fight to the death if attacked. It was real Old-Testament stuff by people who had witnessed the Nazi’s final solution first hand.

I’d told my missus for years that if you wanted to understand geopolitics and it’s entwinement with religion you had to visit Jerusalem. We went back in 2022. The region is still f***ed up, more than ever - and Israel felt torn and was very different to the society I’d met as a kid. In 1981 Jerusalem felt medieval with dusty streets and little development or (visible) security around the wailing wall. I even (as a non-believer) was able to visit the Dome of the Rock! The old city worked as a melting pot and there was an (uneasy) truce. Today Jerusalem is a fortress and it absolutely felt that the Jewish orthodoxy held sway over Christianity and had silenced the Muslims. The Israeli clarity of purpose in the face of Netanyahu’s policies appeared to be fragile.

IMHO, Hamas has poked the bear because it wants any nascent Israeli liberalism to crumble. It wants a unified Israel to come out slugging led by a far-right coalition (it’s got its wish). It wants a ground offensive and close quarters guerilla fighting. Israel has blown its own foot off with its treatment of Gaza and the West Bank/occupied territories particularly since 9/11. Tens of thousands of Palestinians are being sacrificed and thousands of Israelis will die. Most if not all Israelis are scared. All Palestinians in Gaza are terrified. There are very malevolent forces at work here. Israel should, for once, turn the other cheek - even in the face of precedence setting provocation. Then it should get round the table and sort out the two-state solution. Jerusalem should become a Globally-controlled, United Nations protectorate for all-time. That piece of land has been fought over for thousands of years. Neutrality has never been more important.
ALL pie in the sky because everything is too raw and too f***ed up.

 

[raymondo]

I can only assume that this exchange was a genuine misunderstanding / mis-hearing. McCoist at least, does not come across as a complete ****.

I didn't listen to it, but if it was a genuine misunderstanding then no doubt they both apologized profusely on air.

 

[rippleman]

I have to add this, in every case where Hamas in the case of Gaza, and Hezbollah in the north from Lebanon, have fired missiles or crossed the border to kill even a few Israeli citizens.... the IDF has responded in kind, in fact has responded very aggressively with reciprocal devastating, but targeted air strikes... Hamas knew exactly what was going to happen in response to the launching of 5 thousand unguided missiles into built up areas of Israel, together with a mass slaughter of more than a thousand Israelis......

If you are trying to mitigate the causes of the Israeli responses by claiming Hamas didn't realise this would happen, I suggest you give your head a wobble....they knew, they don't care.

My bolding.

Shame many of those air strikes have been "targeted" at refugee camps.

Dozens killed as Israeli airstrikes hit Gaza refugee camp – video report

Israel has intensified its bombardment of the Gaza Strip in retaliation to Hamas’s unprecedented cross-border incursion

www.theguardian.com

Totally agree that Israel should go after the Hamas terrorists but their carpet bombing of refugee camps and other civilian areas suggests that their motive is not to exact revenge on the terrorists but to punish the Palestinan people and take over the Gaza strip.

Just IMHO of course.

 

[Zeberdi]

1. Yeah, understood - but my take home from your previous post was that Zionism can mean different things to different people, and you would like people to accept the Liberal Zionism viewpoint as the established definition.

I accept your argument that that is indeed the case, (it’s NOT!)
especially within the Israeli populace at large, nevertheless it is clear that there are American Jews, with a media platform, who espouse the extreme view prominently. As we know about the current state of right wing American politics, there isn't much room for nuance or differences of opinion. Trump might well court people with this world view, but future right wing leaders may well fully believe it and make it a priority. Where that goes is just umhappy speculation.

1. No - goodness me absolutely not - it has nothing to do with what I want people to think! You completely misunderstood my post - Please read my earlier posts in the thread, perhaps that will help - particularly my response to Guiness Boy a few pages back - - there are objectively clear divisions in ideologies and different streams of Zionism - ‘Liberal Zionism’ is the prevailing philosophy that underpins the Israeli political system characterised by an adherence to recognising civil liberties, laissez faire market economy and accountability of government among other things, which is being slowly being converted by Netanyahu’s revisionist policies and his deals with Religious Zionism factions from the far right, to a more Theocratic State that centralises power over the legislative process and judiciary…. that said, Israel wants normalising relations with the Arab world and the US so Netanyahu accepts that this will come at a price (or for him a concession) of at least being open to a peaceful settlement with the Palestinians.

2. I am not making any argument here, just stating facts - there are different schools of thought/ideologies based on objective definitions beyond the basic shared one of ending the diaspora and achieving Statehood - it’s nothing to do with subjective interpretation or my own beliefs which dont come into it.

The links you provided to support your general understanding of Zionism were extremist/far right views, I just wanted to point out that your idea of what Zionism meant was based on an extremist view point of Zionism because I wasnt sure you understood that.

(And yes, the risk of far right extremist views becoming the prevailing political philosophy behind ruling parties in Western societies is very real and already happing - Switzerland, Poland, Hungary and Italy for example …and probably the GOP under Trump)

Sorry to harp on about it but I do feel ‘Zionism’ is appropriated at times to make a blanket criticism of both of Jewish people and the State of Israel in the context of the Israel/Palestine issue and such misunderstandings about what people think it means in the context they are using it, can inflame racial and religious hatred of Israel - Israel is not pursuing an agenda of conquering the Levant or even the rest of Palestine (AKAIK!) her main concern is security and creating a circle of peace with her Arab neighbours (and defending her borders).

 

[Bozza]

I don't see where I said it was bad at all. I have often looked at other Brighton Football sites which are generally disappointing.

All I said was , that I wished there was a better football site than this one for Brighton and Hove Albion. Unfortunately at present....there isn't one.

I think you are being over sensitive, which is unusual for you.

Fair enough.

It feels like one of those times where the site is running a bit out of control, with people taking the opportunity to take potshots at others here, there and everywhere.

I'm usually pretty thick-skinned on all of this, but do bite sometimes if I feel some criticism is unwarranted.

Apologies for striking out.

I am genuinely interested though - as I'm working on some things in the background - what would your ideal BHAFC site look like? What features would it have?

 

[raymondo]

I’m not Jewish.

In 1981 as a 20-year old bloke, a mate and I saw a flyer in London for Project 67. It was a recruitment drive to get people to go to Israel and volunteer on a Kibbutz. There was a pre-meet in London and there were 30 or so people there and LOADS of fit women. We signed up thinking sex, sun and booze rather than politics. Our assigned Kibbutz was at the base of the Golan heights on the shore of the Kinneret (Galilee). Beautiful place run by Jewish descendants of the Russian royal family’s gardeners! The work was hard. The partying was harder. It was an unbelievable experience that shaped my life in ways I cannot articulate even now. But given this thread I’ll talk about the Israeli psyche as I see it. At that time there were still survivors of the holocaust working with us in the bananas, dates, fishponds. Their sons and daughters (many my age) were first gen Israelis. There were burnt out T55 tanks just above the borders of the fields on the slopes of the Golan. Yom Kippur was only 8-years before. The kibbutz was a fortified compound with goon towers and bomb shelters. Everyone was armed (to the teeth). Everyone was f***ed off with conflict. They wanted a diplomatic solution but thought it a fanciful idea when certain actors wanted Israel wiped off the face of the Earth. The two kibbutzniks my mate and I worked in the fishponds with were 23 and 25. One was a fighter pilot, the other a tank commander. One day Yossi threw ME the keys to the tractor and said could we handle the ponds for a couple of days - they’d both been called to urgent duty - along with 30 or so other members. This was the Iraqi nuclear plant operation and Israel’s response planning. They appeared scared. At that time Israel was (as we now realised) on a continuous war-footing. They were shaping their iron-fist diplomacy. All the levers of power were controlled by genocide survivors and their progeny. They wanted peace but would fight to the death if attacked. It was real Old-Testament stuff by people who had witnessed the Nazi’s final solution first hand.

I’d told my missus for years that if you wanted to understand geopolitics and it’s entwinement with religion you had to visit Jerusalem. We went back in 2022. The region is still f***ed up, more than ever - and Israel felt torn and was very different to the society I’d met as a kid. In 1981 Jerusalem felt medieval with dusty streets and little development or (visible) security around the wailing wall. I even (as a non-believer) was able to visit the Dome of the Rock! The old city worked as a melting pot and there was an (uneasy) truce. Today Jerusalem is a fortress and it absolutely felt that the Jewish orthodoxy held sway over Christianity and had silenced the Muslims. The Israeli clarity of purpose in the face of Netanyahu’s policies appeared to be fragile.

IMHO, Hamas has poked the bear because it wants any nascent Israeli liberalism to crumble. It wants a unified Israel to come out slugging led by a far-right coalition (it’s got its wish). It wants a ground offensive and close quarters guerilla fighting. Israel has blown its own foot off with its treatment of Gaza and the West Bank/occupied territories particularly since 9/11. Tens of thousands of Palestinians are being sacrificed and thousands of Israelis will die. Most if not all Israelis are scared. All Palestinians in Gaza are terrified. There are very malevolent forces at work here. Israel should, for once, turn the other cheek - even in the face of precedence setting provocation. Then it should get round the table and sort out the two-state solution. Jerusalem should become a Globally-controlled, United Nations protectorate for all-time. That piece of land has been fought over for thousands of years. Neutrality has never been more important.
ALL pie in the sky because everything is too raw and too f***ed up.

Very interesting, thanks.