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Rather than take sides I'm more interested in how to stop the killing on all sides. I may have subconsciously dragged up and adapted some problem solving ideas from my OU MBA, but "whataboutery" is sort of how problems are solved what about tryng out scenarios, what do you consider about my thoughts or possible actions, etc? Sorry if that's too theoretical.I'm concerned that with current strategies there appears to be no viable discussions to seek peace. The despicable attack by Hamas on Israelis citizens has been legitimately responded to by Israel in self defence, but I feel that the intensity of the response isn't going to be helpful to Israel in the longer term - although it may keep Netanyahu in power longer and out of the courts which some think is his major concern? It's certainly not getting more hostages back alive at present, at least during the last ceasefire a few were released. Killing Hezbollah and Hama leaders - terrorists who are quite rightly proscribed by the US, UK, EU et al - may give a short term gain in the chaos it creates but I suspect the collateral damage on Palestinians and Arab Lebanese will spawn more recruits to both terrorist organisations to launch offensives against Israel, meaning just an escalation in the number of deaths on both sides but probably disproportionately on the Palestinian and Lebanese side. I've no idea what the effect of deaths of Christians in the Lebanon will be; could it be more support for their muslim neighbours who are the primary victims whether they support Hezbolla or not? It would seem Israel is losing the PR battle if not the military one?I'm also concerned that Iran with its scientific and technical abilities - and possibly with help of sympathetic experts from other countries with nuclear knowledge - might successfully develop a nuclear weapon; that would be a game changer. Dismiss that as "whataboutery " if you like but I see it as a possibility and a bigger threat to the middle east and world stability than the current terrorist groups, so let's hope I'm wrong. Your list of Y/N questions might be a good start for problem solving; but perhaps include questions such as "should settlers be allowed in the west bank Y/N", "should Israel compensate Palestinians who've been evicted by setlers Y/N", perhaps even "why do Hamas want to eliminate Israel", etc ... I'm sure a skilled negotiator would determine a list of questions far better than I can ...I'm sure Messrs Hawkes and Rose will disagree so probably not worth any more time on this forum :-(

Michael Ixer ● 22d

@Robert Wheeler"@Jonathan you say “The right wing support the Israelis and downplay the death and destruction in Gaza and now Lebanon while the left focus on the disproportionate retaliations of the Israelis over many years, not just the last one”.Odd nobody took this view with Ukraine when Russia invaded and killed thousands.  No mention then of right or left wing just a desire to let people live in their own country in peace without rockets flying in."I see no equivalence between Ukraine and Israel.  They both get very different levels of Western support but with Ukraine it is far more arms-length than with Israel, principally, I would suggest, because of who these countries' adversaries are.Israel has a complex relationship with Russia which receives too little attention.  They have not taken sides in the illegal Russian invasion of Ukraine and provided zero military assistance, unlike their Western supporters, to Ukraine, even before the events of a year ago.  Some humanitarian aid, I believe, but nothing more.How the Ukrainians could have benefited from an Iron Dome missile defence system!  And how they looked on enviously when American and British jets helped them repel the missile barrage from Iran (a Russian ally of course).It is rather more straightforward to work out the rights and wrongs in Ukraine.  They were illegally invaded and their internationally recognised borders are being unilaterally changed by Russia with apparent impunity.As Mike Ixer again points out, the conflict in the Middle East has multiple moving parts.  But while there are extremists on both sides that see no solution other than total victory at the expense of the other half of the population of Israel/Palestine a way out of the bloody impasse seems impossible.

Jonathan Callaway ● 22d

Have Googled what the Muslim Association of Britain has said about the 7 October 2023 massacre, rape, sexual assault and kidnapping of Jewish women, children and the elderly.DAILY TELEGRAPH30 December 2023 7:10pm GMT'An activist involved in the Armistice Day pro-Palestine march has said that the taking of hostages was a “very important part” of any “act of resistance” and that Israel was “mimicking” Nazis.Anas Altikriti, a director of the Muslim Association of Britain, also criticised the designation of Hamas as a terrorist group and said reports that the group had perpetrated rape on October 7 were a “lie”.The Muslim Association of Britain was founded by the former Hamas chief Muhammad Kathem Sawalha, and was one of the organisations which organised the pro-Palestine march which took place in London on Armistice Day. (2023).In a video recorded with the US imam Tom Facchine last month, Dr Altikriti was asked about Hamas’s taking of hostages.He said: “The taking of hostages is a very important part of any strategic sort of military action or act of resistance or the such because for every hostage you can then negotiate.“You have personnel who are vital and crucial at least in your thinking and your mind to your adversary, to your enemy, so it’s a negotiating power.On the day of the Hamas attack, he tweeted: “What did we think was going to happen? That Palestinians would stay silent whilst forever subjugated, victimised, abused, violated, murdered and tortured?! This is for every time western governments stayed silent and whitewashed Israel’s crimes and violations.”On December 13, he indicated that he disagreed with Hamas being designated a terrorist group, tweeting: “The fact that our government, only a few years ago, decided to proscribe Hamas, whilst dozens of other countries in the world, including our friends, consider them a national liberation movement and continue to deal with them, doesn’t make them terrorist, as much as it brings into question the political decision of our government, which in my estimation, is entirely and completely wrong.”In another tweet the same day, he said: “Allegations of rape made by Israel are false. It’s a lie… Just like every other allegation made by Israel turns out to be a lie, including the mass slaughter of Israeli citizens on the 7th of October. That too was a lie.”The Muslim Association of Britain (MAB) was described by Michael Gove (then Communities Secretary of State) as the UK affiliate of the Muslim Brotherhood, an international and complex network of Islamist organisations.Islamism is a political ideology that believes that predominantly Muslim countries should be run according to a form of government drawn from Islam's holy book, the Quran.

John Hawkes ● 22d

@Visiting family in Central London at the weekend l saw  placards with “I ❤️ Hamas”, this is the intelligence of our young people'.I wonder how many of the protesters at the weekend were indiginous Britons and how many were Palestinians and other Arabs that somehow have been given the right to live here ?Live in a country where protest is risk free but in their case pointless as there is nothing the UK can (or should) do to influence the conflict other than to stop the annihilation of the democratic sovereign state of Israel.More than that it's not our problem.Note also how protesting on the streets of London is so much safer than going to the conflict area and FIGHTING for their beliefs.It's very hard to explain why the 'young' seem to be so supportive of Palestinians and so antagonistic to the Jews though this probably mainly pertains to those in higher education with time on their hands to 'philosophize' on the matter.And being taught by 'academics' not much older than them and just as prejudiced and historically and politically ignorant.A larger proportion of this age range are doing a proper job and have neither time nor inclination to give it much thought.Obviously the 'anti-Jew pro-Arab' fraternity tend to mix in colleges and universities with Arabs, a great source of revenue for the 'Higher Education' sector of the economy.As well of course they are also just one more generation who tend to see all Jews as rich and exploitative and now also carrying the extra racial and social burden of being deemed 'white'.For their opponents also have lapped up the accusation that the 'whites' have for generations been exploiting the 'blacks' and 'non-whites'.And so to ease their consciences (though God knows why they should, except it makes them feel self-righteously better) they believe the 'non-whites' and now especially the 'browns' are oppressed, blameless in all matters and need their unquestioning support.And of course I suspect few of them have any sense of history which would demonstrate the oppression Jews have suffered for millennia and some are probably beginning to forget the Holocaust or consider it in a miasma of 'whataboutary'.But even so how anyone can support the barbarians that are Hamas Palestinians is beyond belief.Don't they realise they are supporting antisemites and hence are tending to become such themselves ?What a future this country faces !

John Hawkes ● 23d

I don’t think Jeremy Bowen is a source of a ‘balanced’ coverage of the conflict in the Middle East. He is and always has been highly critical of Israel. Viewers of the BBC will recall that he accused the Israelis of bombing the  Al-Ahli hospital in Gaza back in October, a false accusation which was widely reported in the Arab world and which, among other things, caused Saudi Arabia to break off peace talks with Israel. Later he cast doubt on whether the Al-Shifa hospital was used by Hamas even though cctv footage showed hostages being bundled into the hospital. He argued that the weapons found in the hospital didn’t prove anything because weapons are everywhere to be found in the Middle East. In his recent  interview with a senior Hamas representative he brought up the assault on October 7 but failed to press his terrorist interlocutor on the rape, mutilation, abduction and murder of the victims. At the end of the interview he criticised Israel for refusing to allow foreign journalists into Gaza, thereby preventing them from speaking to all parties, including those opposed to Hamas. In fact the war in Gaza has been extensively covered by local journalists whose reports  have been shown on the BBC. Viewers will recall the reports of the BBC’s Palestinian journalist, Rushdi Abualuf, but never once, as far as I am aware, did he ever interview an opponent of Hamas or even ask anyone what they thought of Hamas, since to do so would have put both his interviewee and himself in danger. The BBC is free to report in any way it wants within Israel but it is noticeable that the only Israelis they seem to interview are either grieving relatives of the hostages, who are highly critical of Netanyahu’s failure to get them back, or else fanatical settlers on the West Bank, reinforcing the BBC’s institutionalised view that ordinary Israelis are opposed to Netanyahu’s government, whose policy is dictated by right wing parties who support the settlements and condone the actions of the loonies  and racists who live there. The BBC, so far as I am aware, has seldom interviewed the man or woman on the street. If they did so, I suspect they would find that large numbers of Israelis reluctantly support their government’s attempt to eliminate the threat of Hamas and Hezbollah and, while they have no particular regard for the settlers, would be opposed to a unilateral withdrawal from the West Bank for fear that it would soon be taken over by Hamas and used as a base to attack Israel.The Asserson report has suggested that the BBC has breached its own guidelines of impartiality on 1500 occasions since October 7. Headline findings include the fact that  Israel has been associated with war crimes in BBC reporting 592 times and Hamas only 98 times, Hamas is referred to as a terrorist organisation in just 7.7% of instances and is more likely to be described  as a health ministry, BBC Arabic exhibits pro-Palestinian bias in 90% of its web articles and videos and an analysis of the podcasts presented by Jeremy Bowen and Lise Doucet showed that 84% of the content was pro- Palestinian.

Steven Rose ● 24d

I also find David Ainsworth very annoying but I think it is best to try to be polite. Otherwise people tend to complain that the Forum has become toxic and are reluctant to contribute. It seems to me that the critics of Israel in this country fall into two main groups. First there are those who deny the right of Jews to have a homeland in Palestine. These anti-Zionists,  whose views are shared by Hamas, Hezbollah and  Iran, include British Islamists such as the Friends of Al Aqsa and the Muslim Association of Great Britain who help to organise the marches in London, hundreds of bigoted university students and, apparently, David Ainsworth. They regard any resistance to Israel, whether Hezbollah rockets or terrorist assaults by Hamas, as justified. When confronted with the facts of the appalling massacre on October 7, they either deny  that any war crimes took place or say that the Israelis are just as bad or worse, citing the ‘genocide’ of the Palestinian people. The second group do not deny Israel’s right to exist but oppose the occupation of the West Bank, often citing the settler violence. They are also highly critical of the campaigns in Gaza and now Lebanon, which have caused thousands of civilian casualties.I too would like to see the Israelis dismantle the settlements and withdraw from the West Bank. But I can understand why many Israelis are reluctant to do so, fearing that once their security forces are gone the West Bank will become a second Gaza, a base which Hamas will use to attack Israel.As to the charge that Israel’s response in Gaza and Lebanon is disproportionate, it is hard to understand what measures would be proportionate given that the enemy’s stated ambition is to destroy the State of Israel and even, in the case of Hamas, to exterminate its Jewish population.

Steven Rose ● 24d

I think the key to understanding David Ainsworth’s extreme views on the topic of Israel is his comment regarding the UN partition plan. He asked why the Arabs should have agreed to sharing Palestine with the Jews when ‘they had a right to it all’.  He evidently believes that Jews should  never have been allowed to immigrate to Palestine under the Ottoman Empire and the British Mandate, let alone create a Jewish homeland. In other words Israel has no right to exist as a Jewish state. This is a view shared by Hamas and Hezbollah.To use a Jewish turn of phrase, where is it written that only Arabs have the right to live in Palestine? Jews have lived there since Biblical times. Following the destruction of the Temple by the Romans in 70 CE and the dispersal of most of the Jewish population (who always dreamed of returning), Palestine was conquered by the Arabs in 640, by the Crusaders in 1099, by the Turks in 1516 and by the British in 1917. Yet according to the extremist narrative propagated by Islamists and others, the only legitimate inhabitants are Arabs while the Jews are colonialists.In 1947 the UN by a clear majority in the General Assembly decided that the fairest solution, given the persecution of the Jews and the rise of Palestinian nationalism in the twentieth century, was to divide Palestine between the Jews and the Arabs. Most people believe in a two state solution as the only recipe for peace. The Palestinian Authority (unlike Hama and Hezbollah) also say  they accept the principle of a two state solution. The problem is that most Israelis don’t believe them when they say it.

Steven Rose ● 25d

Mr RoseVery cogent and balanced comments.However might I suggest you and I both stop indulging this man ?As my grandmother would have said, we should advise him to "save his breath to cool his porridge".We have stopped listening.He is obviously extremely and vehemently anti-Israel and does not give any impression of accepting its right to exist as an independent nation state.Even though it is one of the few in the region that is politically, socially, economically and culturally vibrant and thriving, and also akin to majority opinion in this country.Whether his antipathy extends to the country's Jewish citizens, we and others can make up our own minds by reading his posts.And it is obvious that he feels that what the Arabs in the  region have experienced in the millennia of conflict over disputed but shared territory, means they deserve unalloyed approval and warrants them the right to take whatever action they want, however barbaric we might feel it to be.Rather that is than to negotiate peaceful terms with Israel, accept them, and then themselves put in the effort to improve their own lot.He also seems to have unlimited time on his hands to research obscure sources that he thinks add weight to his prejudiced arguments.It might seem presumptuous but perhaps we should suggest he takes up a hobby.Jigsaw puzzles ? Stamp collecting ? Pulling the wings off flies ?! BTW this is a thought provoking article.https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/10/02/is-this-the-death-rattle-of-iranian-tyranny/ 

John Hawkes ● 25d

'Good old Telegraph/Mail, the source of opinion for those who cannot form their own'.Most of us are bright enough to take views and opinions from a wide range of sources and then come to our own conclusions.They may not be shared by others and may not even be correct.But what else can one do ?Just read the Guardian I suppose and mouth what little Owen Jones or Nesrine Malik ("Says exactly what it believes on the tin") put out.'Her parents immigrated from Georgia (old SU). Palestinians were driven out to make room for them. Their descendants have no "Law of Return". They may not benefit from a "Law of Return" but none the less Israel has a large Arabic population who must feel quite content or else they would perhaps choose to move to Syria, Iran, Gaza or the West Bank.Jews however don't seem to feel quite so content or secure in Iran.After the 1979 Islamic revolution, Jewish emigration from Iran increased dramatically. (I wonder why ?). Today it is estimated there are only 8,500 Jews in Iran.At the time of the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, there were approximately 140,000–150,000 Jews living in Iran, the historical centre of Persian Jewry. Over 95% have since migrated abroad.'Indeed, they don't have votes in the Knesset, as Israel is not a democracy, is it' ?There have been Israeli Arab members of the Knesset ever since the first Knesset elections in 1949. There are 10 such currently.Why do Hizballah and Hamas not put themselves forward to represent Palestinians by proxy under their own 'party' titles ? The total Jewish population in May 2024 was 7,427,000 (73.2%), and 2,089,000 (21.1%) were Arabs.The Knesset has 120 members so it would indeed seem the Arabs are unrepresented, though perhaps Israel's electoral process is like ours and is not directly proportional.Or perhaps some Arabs are not voting for Arabic Parties ?Apparently the Knesset includes one Druze lawmaker, 29 women, 23 new MKs and three openly gay MKs.I wonder how many openly gay MPs there are in the Iranian, Gazan and West Bank governments ?I assume there are women MPs ?

John Hawkes ● 25d

"However I would say that the massacre of October 7 when civilians, including teenagers and children, were raped, mutilated and murdered was worse than the worst Nazi pogrom of the Second World War."Well, if you must compare the utter horrors of the Hamas October 7th massacre with Nazi German massacres:-"One of the most violent episodes was the Iași pogrom in the summer of 1941.When Romania, an ally of the Third Reich, sent its army into neighbouring Moldova which was occupied by Soviet forces, the Soviets bombed the city in revenge. Iași was a cradle of several fascist and anti-Semitic movements and the Jewish population was immediately targeted in retaliation, accused of being Communist spies. The police then attacked and were joined by mobs taking up pickaxes and sticks. Many Jewish people were rounded up and shot dead at the police headquarters, or thrown into so-called death trains, where they were crammed one on top of the another in atrocious conditions – many dying of heat, hunger, thirst and suffocation. A tenth of the population of Iași – more than 13,000 people – was massacred in the space of just a few days."Or:-Carried out by Germans and Latvians"The first column of [Jewish] people arrived at Rumbula [Latvia] at about 9:00 am on November 30 [1941]. The people were ordered to disrobe and deposit their clothing and valuables in designated locations and collection boxes, shoes in one, overcoats in another, and so forth. Luggage was deposited before the Jews entered the wood. They were then marched towards the murder pits. If there were too many people arriving to be readily murdered immediately, they were held in the nearby forest until their turn came. As the piles of clothing became huge, members of the Arajs Commando loaded the articles on trucks to be transported back to Riga. The disrobing point was watched carefully by the killers, because it was here that there was a pause in the conveyor-like system, where resistance or rebellion might arise.The people were then marched down the ramps into the pits, in single file ten at time, on top of previously shot victims, many of whom were still alive. Some people wept, others prayed and recited the Torah. Handicapped and elderly people were helped into the pit by other sturdier victims.The victims were made to lie face down on top of those who had already been shot and were still writhing and heaving, oozing blood, stinking of brains and excrement. With their Russian automatic weapons set on single shots, the marksmen murdered the Jews from a distance of about two meters with a shot in the backs of their heads. One bullet per person was allotted in the Jeckeln system.— Andrew Ezergailis, The Holocaust in Latvia, 1941-1944: The Missing Center, pp. 253–4"  (Wikipedia)I'm not adding any more (I do not want to). Just a map to show the numbers of massacres, by the Germans, in one particular period (18 months) of WW2:-https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/map/einsatzgruppen-massacres-in-eastern-europe-enlargementI don't think that it is an area for comparison.

David Ainsworth ● 26d

There are a number of misleading statements in this thread:1) ‘However Jews and Arabs are not treated equally in Israel … ‘ .This sweeping statement is  unfair. Israeli Arabs have the right to leave and enter the country as they please. They have the right to vote  and indeed in 2021 an Arab party joined Netanyahu’s governing coalition. There are Arab schools, Arabic radio and television channels. Arabs make up 17% of the university student population. Hardly evidence of an ‘apartheid state’. This is not to say that Arabs do not face some discrimination in Israel, the main one being that Arabs (outside those from the Golan and East Jerusalem) are not allowed to become Israeli citizens. But Israel’s treatment of its ethnic minorities compares favourably with other countries in the Middle East.2) ‘By 1947 Britain handed the issue to the United Nations, which proposed a partition plan for two independent Arab and Jewish states and an independent entity for Jerusalem, but a civil war broke out and the plan was not implemented.’‘The 1948 Palestine war saw the forcible displacement of most of its predominantly Palestinian Arab population and consequently the establishment of Israel, in what Palestinians call the Nakba’.This is all true, but the account fails to mention that the Jews accepted the UN partition plan while the Palestinians and the surrounding Arab states rejected it, that Israel was simultaneously attacked by its Arab neighbours on the day it declared its independence in 1948 and that in the following two decades hundreds of thousands of Jews were forced seek refuge in Israel after being forced to leave their homes in North Africa and the Middle East. These individuals and their descendants now constitute over half of the Jewish population of Israel.3) ‘ From my angle, I think the Israelis might improve their own thinking a bit by stopping labelling the Palestinians as Nazis’.As far as I am aware, it is the critics of Israel who often compare the Israelis to Nazis. For example, in 2010 Jeremy Corbyn hosted a meeting in Parliament under the banner ‘From Auschwitz to Gaza’.  However I would say that the massacre of October 7 when civilians, including teenagers and children,  were raped, mutilated and murdered was worse than the worst Nazi pogrom of the Second World War.

Steven Rose ● 26d

The majority of the Palestinian Arabs were ethnically cleansed. The Zionists had had the idea for decades and carried out the first part in 1948.  "Over the next two decades, he [Ben-Gurion] consolidated his control over the Zionist movement. He advocated Jewish immigration to Palestine, raised money among wealthy Jews abroad and promoted the idea of Hebrew labour. As Segev makes clear, his ‘socialism’ was always in the service of his nationalism: when he invoked the ‘dictatorship of the Hebrew labourer’, he meant the dictatorship of the Histadrut and Mapai, the Palestinian Workers’ Party he founded in 1930. He replaced Weizmann as head of the Jewish Agency, and they frequently clashed. Weizmann was a more cautious leader, so keen to assuage British concerns that at one point he agreed to shelve the demand for a Jewish state: asking for a state in Palestine, he said, was like asking for one in Manhattan. But Ben-Gurion believed in the necessity of street combat, and was prepared to see blood shed – Jewish blood included. (He once threatened to starve a Jewish settlement if it failed to capitulate to his demands.) ‘You are Bolsheviks,’ Isser Harel, a future head of the Mossad, told him. ‘Not in the communist sense, but in the sense of the dictatorship of the party.’Ben-Gurion never concealed his admiration of Lenin, ‘a man of iron will who does not spare human life and the blood of innocent children for the sake of the revolution’. Eastern European Jews like himself, he believed, made the best Zionists because they had been touched by the flames of the October Revolution. After Hitler’s rise to power – ‘a huge political and economic boost for the Zionist enterprise’, in his words – he fought attempts to resettle German Jews anywhere other than Palestine. But he ended up taking a dim view of the new arrivals: they were ‘Hitler Zionists’ who had come to Palestine in search of refuge rather than national salvation and had suspiciously conciliatory attitudes towards the Arabs. Nor was he shy of using antisemitic language when confronted by immigrants who ‘live off the labour of others ... luft-masses, eager to speculate, living in air ... dangling, sterile and parasitic’. Ben-Gurion wanted ‘not just any immigrants but pioneers’.He was intent on building a Jewish state, not a sanctuary, and he was doing so in the certainty that this would lead to war with the Arab majority. Although he did not yet speak of expulsion, the idea of ‘transfer’, always present in Zionist ideology, would assume growing prominence in his thinking. The ‘price of Zionism’, as Segev puts it, was permanent conflict, which could be managed but never resolved. His wish to counter the rising force of Arab nationalism was tempered only by his partnership with the British, who had been given mandatory control over Palestine after the war, and now found themselves caught between their commitment to the Yishuv and their need to contain the anger of the Palestinian Arab community. But Ben-Gurion was adept at turning events to his advantage. When, in 1930, the British released a white paper that reinterpreted Balfour as a ‘dual and equal commitment to both Jews and Arabs’ most Zionists were furious. Ben-Gurion, however, took his colleagues to task for succumbing to panic: ‘Such hysterical mood swings are not to our credit and we need to fight them with all our strength.’ (The white paper was eventually revoked.) The Peel Commission report of 1937, which recommended partition into two states and the restriction of immigration to 12,000 Jews a year, was even more disappointing, but Ben-Gurion saw it as ‘the strongest possible impetus for the step-by-step conquest of Palestine as a whole’. The commission, he noted, was proposing to move Arabs out of territory that had been assigned to the Jewish state: ‘compulsory transfer’, he underlined approvingly in his diary. Who would carry out the transfer was unclear: ideally the British, he thought; or perhaps the Zionist Organisation could pay Iraq £10 million to absorb the refugees. In his diary he kept a list of Arab villages with the numbers of their inhabitants. ‘Our movement is maximalist,’ he wrote. ‘Even all of Palestine is not our final goal.’Ben-Gurion would eventually throw his weight behind the Jewish revolt against British rule that began to surge in the late 1930s, in part because he was afraid of being upstaged by the right-wing militias of the underground – Menachem Begin’s Irgun and Yitzhak Shamir’s Lehi. But he postponed his confrontation with the British for as long as he could. When an Arab nationalist suggested that they join forces against the British, he replied that Jews would never fight the British – and notified the high commissioner of the man’s remark. The Jewish Agency had relied on the Mandate authorities to help suppress the Arab revolts of the 1920s and 1930s, and would support Britain in its fight against the Axis powers. In public Ben-Gurion denounced the Mandate as a ‘half-Nazi regime’, but Britain also provided a bulwark against a Nazi invasion of Palestine, which would have necessitated a mass evacuation of the Jewish population. During the war the British recruited, armed and trained thousands of young Jews, enabling Ben-Gurion to develop his forces, the Haganah (Hebrew for ‘defence’), into an increasingly powerful army. He also created a separate organisation called ‘Special Squads’, designed to punish Arabs for attacks on Jews. The use of special forces, whose relationship to the state could conveniently be denied, would become a cornerstone of Israel’s ‘aggressive self-defence’ after the war." "The ‘price of Zionism’, as Segev puts it, was permanent conflict, which could be managed but never resolved."(Segev - review)

David Ainsworth ● 26d

I have accessed the Wikipedia article but I have not read it as it is so voluminous.However it is obviously a serious and unbiased  analysis as its opening statement proves -'Israeli apartheid is a system of institutionalized segregation and discrimination in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories and to a lesser extent in Israel. This system is characterized by near-total physical separation between the Palestinian and the Israeli settler population of the West Bank, as well as the judicial separation that governs both communities, which discriminates against the Palestinians in a wide range of ways. Israel also discriminates against Palestinian refugees in the diaspora and against its own Palestinian citizens'.But I have to say I can't find who is the author of the article.Would you enlighten me ?  From what you say you must have read it and thus I can see why you do not have time to spend 'arguing against your (my) extremely entrenched views' nor time enough to tell the Forum in your own words why you hold the views you do on the conflict- your views being neither extreme nor entrenched of course.I can perhaps help you here: Palestinian Arabs 'always good' Israeli Jews 'always bad'.For a more balanced view of the situation, both current and historical might I suggest you try reading -https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_Palestine#:~:text=Palestine,%20[i]%20officially%20the%20State%20of%20Palestine,%20[ii]#:~:text=Palestine,%20[i]%20officially%20the%20State%20of%20Palestine,%20[ii]

John Hawkes ● 26d

Article AND links:-"Jerusalem Post deletes article claiming Lebanon is part of Israel’s ‘promised land’" (Middle East Monitor 1/10/24)"The Jerusalem Post has prompted a controversy after publishing then swiftly deleting an article suggesting that Lebanon and several other Middle Eastern countries are part of Israel’s “promised land”.“Is Lebanon part of Israel’s promised territory?” was published on 25 September, coinciding with Israel’s assault on Lebanon and subsequent ground invasion. The timing and content of the piece have been viewed by critics as evidence of Israel’s expansionist ambitions in the region.157Sharesfacebook sharing buttontwitter sharing buttonreddit sharing buttonwhatsapp sharing buttonemail sharing buttonsharethis sharing buttonThe Jerusalem Post has prompted a controversy after publishing then swiftly deleting an article suggesting that Lebanon and several other Middle Eastern countries are part of Israel’s “promised land”.“Is Lebanon part of Israel’s promised territory?” was published on 25 September, coinciding with Israel’s assault on Lebanon and subsequent ground invasion. The timing and content of the piece have been viewed by critics as evidence of Israel’s expansionist ambitions in the region.In the now-deleted article, Mark Fish claimed that the land “promised by God” to the “children of Israel” includes parts of modern-day Israel, the West Bank, Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Iraq and even Turkey. Fish cited religious texts to support its claims.“The Torah provides clear guidelines regarding the areas we were commanded to conquer when taking possession of the land,” he wrote. He elaborated further on the concept of “Greater Israel”, suggesting that the Biblical boundaries stretch “from the ‘River of Egypt’ [interpreted by some as the Nile or a smaller river in Sinai] to the Perat River [Euphrates].”The Jerusalem Post removed the article following a backlash on social media, with many accusing the newspaper of promoting expansionist ideology under the guise of religious justification. However, the article has been archived and continues to circulate online.Notably, the author provides Torah-based justifications for holding onto occupied land. He said that “Hashem [God] tells us that we are granted every land we will conquer within the borders mentioned,” suggesting that God has sanctioned territorial expansion and occupation. This is an argument that aligns with a core tenet of Zionist ideology, which often cites Biblical prophecy about God’s promise to the Jews as justification for claiming Palestine and surrounding areas.“Every place where the sole of your foot will tread shall be yours — from the wilderness and the Lebanon, from the river — the Euphrates River — until the western sea shall be your boundary,” wrote Fish. “This promise from the Creator clearly places the land of Lebanon within the Promised Land of Israel, or what some refer to as ‘the Complete Land of Israel’, or ‘The greater Israel’.”Critics argue that the publication of such content, especially during another Israeli invasion of Lebanon, serves to legitimise Israel’s ongoing colonisation efforts in the Middle East. They contend that it reflects a broader ideology within certain Israeli circles that seeks to justify territorial expansion based on religious beliefs.The controversy has reignited debates about the role of Israel’s religious claims to Palestine and the potential consequences of such rhetoric in an already volatile region. Like the early Zionists who concealed their true intention about ethnic cleansing and the complete colonisation of all of Palestine, Israeli leaders tend to avoid commenting on the concept of Greater Israel.As of the time of writing, the Jerusalem Post had not issued an official statement regarding the publication and subsequent removal of the article."It'll get worse. "Greater Israel" will require the ethnic cleansing of millions of Arabs. Guess where some of them will try to go.https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20241001-jerusalem-post-deletes-article-claiming-lebanon-is-part-of-israels-promised-land/https://web.archive.org/web/20240925120359/https://www.jpost.com/judaism/article-821680

David Ainsworth ● 27d

Tzipi Hotovely."While a member of the Knesset's Committee on the State of Women and Gender Equality in 2011, she invited representatives from Lehava (Prevention of Assimilation in the Holy Land), an anti-miscegenation fascist group whose primary objective is to oppose assimilation of Jews and which objects to any personal or business relationships between Jews and non-Jews, to a discussion of the tactics used by the organization to prevent romantic relationships between Jews and Arabs. Hotovely defended her decision at the time, saying, "it is important to me to check systems to prevent mixed marriages, and Lehava are the most suitable for this.""Hotovely practises Orthodox Judaism, and is a self-described "religious right-winger".In 2013, Hotovely rejected Palestinian statehood aspirations, supporting a Greater Israel spanning over the entire land of current Israel, along with the Palestinian territories. She later reiterated her position in a speech to Israeli diplomats on 22 May 2015, rejecting criticism from the international community regarding the West Bank settlement policies and saying that Israel has tried too hard to appease the world, and must stand up for itself. She said: "We need to return to the basic truth of our rights to this country." She added: "This land is ours. All of it is ours. We did not come here to apologise for that." She has also stated that she will make every effort to achieve global recognition for West Bank settlements, as well as asserting that Israel owes no apologies for its policies in the Holy Land towards the Palestinians. She justified her position as she referenced religious texts to back her belief that the Israeli-occupied West Bank belongs to the Jewish people.In October 2015, in an interview with the Knesset Channel, Hotovely said: "It's my dream to see the Israeli flag flying on the Temple Mount." She added: "I think it's the center of Israeli sovereignty, the capital of Israel, the holiest place for the Jewish people", despite the government's insistence that it has no intention of changing the status quo at the site.""In 2019, Hotovely criticised the Board of Deputies of British Jews. Following the publication of the Board's Jewish Manifesto, which noted support for a two-state solution, she complained that they had not consulted "Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, our ambassador, any other political authority" before publication; also stating "an organization that supports the establishment of a Palestinian state is working against Israeli interests"""At her first event as ambassador with the Board of Deputies of British Jews in November 2021, Hotovely described the Nakba as an "Arab lie". She had earlier sponsored in the Knesset groups deemed to be 'racist' who are opposed to mixed marriages; favours a one-state solution that withholds citizenship from West Bank Palestinians.""In an interview with Sky News on 13 December 2023 in her capacity as Israel's ambassador to the United Kingdom, Hotovely rejected the two-state solution and expressed her opposition to the establishment of any Palestinian state. Saying "The answer is absolutely no", she went on to claim that Palestinians "want to have a state from the river to the sea". She criticised her interviewer, Mark Austin, asking him "Why are you obsessed with a formula that never worked, that created these radical people on the other side?" Her comments were rejected by the Conservative government, Labour Party, and Labour Friends of Israel. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak stated that "We don’t agree with that" and that "Our longstanding position remains the two-state solution is the right outcome here." Baroness Sayeeda Warsi called her remarks "appalling", saying "She has a long and well documented history of denying the right of Palestine to exist and is a clear example of why this Israeli government is not a partner for peace"."(Wikipedia)

David Ainsworth ● 27d

'feeling Israel's boot on their necks'A metaphor old chap, not a description of reality.Thought you might have spotted that !From our favourite source -'During the British mandate period, numerous plans of partition of Palestine were proposed but without the agreement of all parties. In 1947, the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine was voted for. The leaders of the Jewish Agency for Palestine accepted parts of the plan, while Arab leaders refused it. This triggered the 1947–1949 Palestine war and led, in 1948, to the establishment of the state of Israel on a part of Mandate Palestine as the Mandate came to an end'.So, even then the Arabs read it all wrong.And as regards the historical basis for a Palestinian state, I refer you (again) to 'Myths and Facts - A Guide to the Arab-Israeli Conflict' by Mitchell G Bard ISBN 1537152726 p.3.'When the distinguished Arab-American historian Princeton University professor Philip Hitti testified against partition before the Anglo American Committee in 1946 to derive a solution to the Arab-Jewish conflict, he said -  "There is no such thing as 'Palestine' in history, absolutely not".Prior to partition, Palestinian Arabs did not view themselves as having a separate identity. When the First Congress of Muslim-Christian Associations met in Jerusalem in February 1919 to choose Palestinian representatives for the Paris Peace Conference, they adopted the following resolution:'We consider Palestine as part of Arab Syria, as it has never been separated from it at any time. We are connected by national, religious, linguistic, natural, economic, and geographical bonds'.In 1937 a local Arab leader Auni Bey Abdul Hadi told the Peel Commission (a British Royal Commission of Inquiry that ultimately suggested partition of Palestine): "There is no such country as Palestine! Palestine is a term the Zionists invented! There is no Palestine in the Bible. Our country was for centuries part of Syria".The representatives of the Higher Committee to the United nations echoed this view in a statement to the General Assembly in May 1947 which said Palestine was part of the Province of Syria and the Arabs of Palestine did not comprise a separate political entity.A few years later Ahmed Shuqeiri, later chairman of the PLO, told the Security Council: "It is common knowledge that Palestine is nothing but southern Syria."Palestinian Arab nationalism is largely a post-WWI phenomenon that did not become a significant political movement until after the 1967 Six-Day War against Israel led by Egypt, Syria and Jordon, following the breakdown of the 1949 armistice after the 1948 Arab Israeli War'. And I ask again why are you so antipathetic towards Israel and its Jewish citizens ?

John Hawkes ● 27d