Re: The Bigger, Badder, Even More Serious Thread

[Pettytyrant101]

{{ By definition accepting the 1967 boundaries includes Israel, they are part of those boundaries and of the 1967 settlement. And they have agreed to those boundaries. What they do say is that they will not recognise the Israeli government as a legitimate government for so long as there is an occupation, but they will abide by the borders set out in 1967. The same document also emphasis that Hamas  'is not seeking war with the Jewish people – only with Zionism that drives the occupation of Palestine.'
Again by definition if the 1967 borders are restored then there is no occupation of Palestine, and so no cause to fight.

Israel's response to this is telling however and is now absolutely typical of their attitude on this-

'Israel rejected the document before its full publication, with a spokesman for the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, saying: “Hamas is attempting to fool the world, but it will not succeed.”
Israel does not, has never wanted peace with Palestinians, that's why they backed Hamas to run Gaza in the first place and helped it happen by undermining the PLO. And they don't want the world to accept, or even know, that Hamas is the one side that keeps trying to make a deal.


'Israel is tasting the bitter fruits of a divide-and-rule policy that helped midwife the birth of the Hamas "Frankenstein monster" that it is now seeking to subdue. Hamas, for its part, emerged out of the Israeli-financed Islamist movement in Gaza, with Israel’s then-military governor in that territory, Brig. Gen. Yitzhak Segev, disclosing in 1981 that he had been given a budget for funding Palestinian Islamists to counter the rising power of Palestinian secularists. Hamas, a spin-off of the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, was formally established with Israel’s support soon after the first Intifada flared in 1987 as an uprising against the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands.
Israel’s spy agency Mossad played a role in this divide-and-rule game in the occupied territories. In a 1994 book, “The Other Side of Deception,” Mossad whistleblower Victor Ostrovsky contended that aiding Hamas meshed with “Mossad’s general plan” for an Arab world “run by fundamentalists” that would reject “any negotiations with the West,” thereby leaving Israel as “the only democratic, rational country in the region.”
Avner Cohen, a former Israeli religious affairs official involved in Gaza for over two decades, told a newspaper interviewer in 2009 that, “Hamas, to my great regret, is Israel’s creation.” }}

[halfwise]

It is true that Odessa has always been considered very Russian. But let's get your analogy correct. Let's say 85% of Houstonions voted to rejoin Mexico, which is majority Anglo, and in this case the Anglos model the Russians and the latinos model the Ukrainians. I think you'd see the US government working with the Anglos to root out the terrorists. You wouldn't see an invasion and declaration that it goes back to America.

[Pettytyrant101]

{{ Halfy- stick a crucial US navy base in the same region of Texas that's gone to Mexico which the US still has control of and that is essential to US shipping and security, and the terrorists are threatening access, or even the port itself, and see how long it takes America to start dropping the bombs- I'd give it about, 5 minutes. }}

[Lancebloke]

No, it doesn't by definition mean any of those things.

It says that all of the lands are Palestinian (article 2), the goals remains to liberate Palestine (article 1), Israel is illegal (article 18), Jerusalem is its capital (article 20) and the bit about 1967 is not clear if that refers to Jerusalem itself or the country of Palestine of which they still claim from river to sea (also article 20 and river to sea defined in article 2), this is backed by article 27, article 20 also rejects the "zionist entity" which is basically Israel in its current form.

I think this is wholly ambiguous and the weight points far more to Palestine is all theirs and will eventually be with specific calls to armed resistance.

[Pettytyrant101]

{{You leave out the bit where Israel deliberately stopped the emergence of a secular government in favour of putting religious fundamentalists in power in Gaza specifically so Palestinian would have no ruling body that was sensible. Yes Hamas are contradictory in what they say, and have a habit of changing their tune to suit the political moment, but that's what happens when you deliberately put a government of extremist religious nutters in charge (as is the current case with the Israeli government made up as it is of religious extremists).
Israel's aim, policy and their actions since at least the 1980's has been to destabilize Palestine, stop it having a coherent government that would deal with the West or make peace and to fund terrorists in Gaza, and they did it because they are utterly opposed to peace and a 2-state solution. And now the nutters they put in charge have, predictably and possibly even as part of the plan, done something nutty and awful and Israel have taken the chance to use it as an excuse to annihilate an entire people. Does that sound like the actions of the 'good guys'? Doesn't to me.
Hamas are bad guys for sure, but Israeli funded and created bad guys deliberately for an evil purpose.
There's a good Scottish word for the Israeli government, they are sleekit. }}

[Lancebloke]

"Secularism completely contradicts religious ideology. Attitudes, conduct and decisions stem from ideologies. That is why, with all our appreciation for The Palestinian Liberation Organization - and what it can develop into - and without belittling its role in the Arab-Israeli conflict, we are unable to exchange the present or future Islamic Palestine with the secular idea"

From the Hamas doctrine in 1988. Not in 2017 but that is only 6 years ago so it was until then.

[Lancebloke]

Long and short of this is thay there are two parties that believe they have the divine right to this land. They are both as bad as each other and if the roles were reversed I have no doubt there would have been an even bigger massacre the other way around.

I dont know that this can ever be resolved.

[Mrs Figg]

It will never be resolved. They will continue killing each other until the Sun becomes a red giant and turns the Earth into a crisp.

[Pettytyrant101]

{{ That is far too negative a view of humanity for me Figg. There is always the chance if there are people on all sides who want it.
Sinn Fein masterminded atrocities, but there were still people in its ruling council of reason that could be approached and negotiated with. Hamas is no different, the people who carried out the massacre on Oct 7th are the footsoldiers of Hamas, not its ruling elite. If we dont differentiate between them as we did with IRA/Sinn Féin, then peace is unlikely.
Where I see less hope is on the Israeli side, they seem more adament to rid Gaza of Palestinians come what may than Hamas seem adamant that Israel should go, certainly in actions. Hamas at least have made offers and overtures, both to Israel and to the international community, Israel have been in breach of international law for decades now and have made no such peace initiatives, quite the opposite they have closed every one down and dismissed them before they could even begin.

But there are level heads in the region, Saudi can be negotiated with, as can Egypt. There are even level heads with Iran which has a strong underground resistance to the ruling religious order particularly among the young- see the protests over how women should dress and such. There are voices there we can talk to and help. But only if we publicly acknowledge, condemn and act to prevent Israeli crimes alongside Hamas ones.

But it takes a concentrated effort. Acknowledging Israel's role in creating, funding and establishing Hamas, and recognising the truth of why they did so. Working to ensure Israel accepts an international 2 state solution, even if that in the end means sanctions or withholding of military aid and funds (we can't do this to Hamas because we already have been for years). These would be good starting points, especially in getting other middle eastern Muslim countries on side. }}

[Mrs Figg]

After a nuclear Armageddon, there will be 3 things that survive. Cockroaches, virus, and a certain Middle Eastern religion. They will never, ever, compromise or negotiate. Why would they when they are told they are getting 27 sex slaves in heaven.

[halfwise]

Actually 72, but they're all virgins. So you're gonna have to explain everything over and over which is going to get tedious.

[Pettytyrant101]

{{ Im with Billy Connolly, what do you want with 72 virgins, give me 72 fire breathing whores! And what you going to do with them anyway if you're a suicide bomber? You just blew your own balls into mince! }}

[Mrs Figg]

It'ss all very well but what kind of god keeps trillions of female sex slaves just waiting around for some ugly goat smelling oik with a penchant for young girls? Did anyone ask the virgins if this was ok?

[Pettytyrant101]

{{ The sort of God completely invented by a bunch of bronze and iron age farmers who, having invented the first cities in approx 5400BC, and a God for every city, invented a fully functioning expressive written language by 2500bc, and then invented city-states by 2000bc and interstate religious war about five minutes later.

More or less, beyond some names changing, all the Gods getting consolidated into one (with the predictable result of merging 100 contradictory personalities that everyone immediately started fighting over whose version of the new one God was the right made up God, trouble is they all are, their God is a schizophrenic, a mass murdering maniac war God who orders genocide and thinks nothing of murdering a third of his own followers in a fit of rage but who loves and protects us all and wishes there to be no killing or harm) the climate getting worse and harsher and the city-states getting bigger, that's the entire history of the Middle East in a nutshell ever since! }}

[Pettytyrant101]

{{ Decent decision from the International Court today, Israel does have a case to answer re genocide and that will be investigated, S. Africa's claims were largely upheld and legally binding provisions have been put on Israel (which they will ignore but it makes it much harder for Western countries to back them in breaking the law).
Some are disappointed there was no ceasefire demand, but I always thought that was a very long shot as legally Israel to have a right to defence.
As it is this is a solid start from the courts. Also pleasantly surprised that by a majority the judges have voted to uphold the law, not the national positions of their home nations- I was particularly happy to see the US judge voting against Israel on every count as I had feared she would be under orders to just oppose everything and justice would not come into it, happy to wrong about that. }}

[halfwise]

In most past administrations the American judge probably would have instructions to vote with Israel blindly, but the Biden administration has been showing signs of running out of patience with Israel.

[Pettytyrant101]

{{ I'm not surprised, it's hard for anyone to justify Israel's actions, they are unjustifiable, and this Israeli government is a religiously extreme, far right government, hardly natural bedfellows for US democrats.

Excellent bit of journalism on CNN thats worth checking out on the cases, including recorded cases, of Israeli troops shooting dead civilians waving white flags-

https://edition.cnn.com/videos/world/2024/01/25/palestinians-gaza-shooting-investigation-ward-intl-ldn-vpx.cnn

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/01/26/middleeast/hala-khreis-white-flag-shooting-gaza-cmd-intl/index.html

Had o laugh at Fox news coverage of it, if you can call it that, half a day after the ruling and their only news piece on it is from before the judgement and it's buried under the 'world' section more than halfway down the page. Guess they are still working out how to spin it positively for Israel. }}

[Pettytyrant101]

{{ Well bombing the Houthis to make them stop is going about as well as I expected.

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A tanker with links to the UK was on fire for several hours in the Gulf of Aden after a being hit by a missile fired by the Houthis. - BBC

Not to worry I'm sure we will retaliate on a bigger scale than before, for the exact same result. And the bigger our response is the sooner it is we will screw something up and kill civilians and light the touchpaper. }}

[Pettytyrant101]

{{ And so the inevitable happens - the US has had abase attacked in Syria with the loss of 3 US personnel and a couple dozen wounded. The US is of course immediately blaming Iran, claiming they were attacked by Iran backed groups. But the reality is there are no shortage of groups in the region who have a very big grudge against the US, the US screwed over Iraq, screwed over Yemen, Syria and Libya and Afghanistan, and right now they are what has prevented a ceasefire in Gaza by using their veto to prevent it whilst continuing to fund and arm Israel.
The truth is the US is a legitimate military target, and for good reason.

The question is now how will the US respond when their stated aim in the region is de-escalation? Are they going to start bombing groups in Syria and the Houthis? Is this de-escalation?

And all this could have been avoided if the US had simply not vetoed the first ceasefire vote.}}

[Pettytyrant101]

{{ America has itself in a hard place of its own making. How are they going to respond? If they hit back hard it will have a 99.9% of escalating the situation or drawing in more players. This started with Israel and Gaza, its now also got war in Syria and along the Lebanon border involved in it and the Houthis. And if America heeds its allies in the region and doesn't hit hard it has a 99.9% chance as being seen as weakness and increasing the likelihood of further attacks on US personnel and bases in the region, and maybe even on home soil.
And all because of a string of strategic errors - choosing to blindly fund, arm and support Israel all this time regardless of their actions or the legality of them, continuing to do so even after war began and it became clear Israel was not abiding by the laws of warfare, choosing to veto a ceasefire three times against the international will, choosing to respond to the Houthis with military actions. All leading here and now and a disastrous no-win choice. }}

[Pettytyrant101]

{{ Well I never thought I'd say but, David Cameron is talking sense!}}

Lord Cameron said, "Together with that, almost most important of all, is to give the Palestinian people a political horizon so that they can see that there is going to be irreversible progress to a two-state solution and crucially the establishment of a Palestinian state. We have a responsibility there because we should be starting to set out what a Palestinian state would look like, what it would comprise, how it would work and crucially, looking at the issue, that as that happens, we with allies will look at the issue of recognising a Palestinian state, including at the United Nations. That could be one of the things that helps to make this process irreversible. If the last 30 years tells us anything, it is a story of failure. Ultimately it is a story of failure for Israel because yes, they had a growing economy, yes they had rising living standards, yes they invested in defence and security and walls and the rest of it, but they couldn't provide what a state most wants, what every family wants, which is security. And so the last 30 years has been a failure. And it is only by recognising that failure and recognising that true peace and progress will come when the benefits of peace and progress are greater than the benefits of returning to fighting."- BBC

[Pettytyrant101]

{{ So the UK Covid Enquiry. You may have seen various headlines,I wouldn't pay them much attention Ive watched the entire bloody thing so far and the headlines bare little relationship to the proceedings, interesting in itself.

First I should lay out clearly what the supposed purpose of this Enquiry is. Its to see if they are any lessons to be leaned from how the pandemic was handled by the UK and devolved administrations, what they got right, what they got wrong, and to try to be better prepared for any future outbreaks. Its is not supposed to allocate blame or pass comment on the people involved, just on if their decisions were good or bad re fighting the infection.
Its important this is understood.

And so its how the committee began, its first sessions were in Westminster where it grilled the Tory ministers involved, I say grilled it was as these committees usually are, somewhat dry, formal, and level toned. And this is the same Tories who partied during Lockdown, a PM who got fined by the police for breaking his own laws and a party who gave all their mates and family hugely lucrative ppi contracts throughout the pandemic and were as crooked as a corkscrew. Bear that in mind henceforth.

And then the inquiry moved to Scotland, Holyrood and the SNP government. And suddenly the tone was entirely different, now it was aggressive, argumentative, accusatory. It even started effectively laying charges, pointing fingers and allocating blame to individuals, in particular Nicola Sturgeon whom they were relentless in their pursuit of and attempts to entirely destroy.
Not enough it seems that she is no longer head of the SNP or First Minister, they wanted to ruin her legacy too.

When watching what it reminded me most of, are 16th Century government political trials under King James. It had that same format, the aim was not to discover or get to the truth, certainly not to see if there were lessons to be learned. No, the purpose here as then was to publicly make the accusations, to fill the peoples ears with the accusations. The answers don't matter, they will be little reported (as they were in both time periods) and when they are it will be in dismissal of them (I'll come to that with the Scottish Secretary). Mary, Queen of Scots would have found this particular 'trial' uncomfortably familiar. It was in its own horrifying way fascinating to see unfold in our day and age.

So what happened, well their star witness was of course Sturgeon, she got a full day grilling. The bulk of the morning session was them trying to frame her as someone who had tried to conceal and hide what her decision making was, based mainly on her deletion of her Whatsapp messages. They used leading and accusatory phrases such as “the Scottish Government doesn't like having a spotlight shone on it, does I?” Those phrases got wide reporting in the press, the answers did not.

If you are interested in the answers they are actually fairly simple, first Surgeon barely used whatsapp and never for government business, was not a member of any groups and secondly standing Scottish Government policy on social media, which is that government business should not be done on it, anything which could be considered so should be copied to official files, then the messages should be deleted as Whatsapp is not considered a secure government device.

But perhaps the widest stretch was the notion that Sturgeon was keeping things secret, that she didn't want the public to know her thinking or how her government was making decisions.

There is however a major issue with this if you happened to be living in Scotland during the pandemic, we have memories! We remember how, in Boris's frequent absences, how Sturgeon was at her office from 5 in the morning till 11 at night, how every single day of the pandemic she came to the public on television, internet and radio and gave her update. In that she told us what the current science advise was, what the numbers were for the day, what stage the vaccines were at, what decisions her government had taken and the reasons they had taken them.
The main reason she didn't have to worry to much about messages was she was telling the entire country, every single day what was going on and why, in detail. There is no one in Scotland who was not informed. My own dad, who loathes the SNP and for reasons of the US Navy being here and his career has been a rare Scottish Tory voter his whole life, he used to say to me when I'd call him during the Pandemic to check up on him, “got to go (sarcastic) Saint Nicks coming on to tell us what to do”.  But he watched and he complied and even grudgingly had to admit she was doing a good job in very shit circumstances. And that was typical of Scotland, we all watched her every day to find out what was going on as up to the minute as possible, whether you loved or hated her it was where you got your daily information from. Yet the committee made no mention of this as it contradicted their line of attack that the SNP wanted to act in secrecy.

Their second line of attack which unfolded in the afternoon session was to accuse Sturgeon of using the pandemic to promote the cause of Independence, and that decisions she made such as announcing a change to rules agreed at UK level earlier than the rest of the UK were purely political (her response was Westminster was moving to slow and she felt it was necessary to move faster for the well being of the nation, she was right with most experts saying the UK should have locked down 2 weeks sooner than it did), it was during this session she almost broke down in tears. Tied into this was the accusation she could never work with Unionists equally or fairly as “you are a nationalist to your core, do you think you can ever make decisions not seen through that nationalist prism?” and such lines of questioning.
It was in answering that she nearly broke down, saying at the start she was scared and felt the full weight of the responsibility of all the lives in her hands and wished she had not been First Minister when it had happened and she talked about the lives lost and the decisions she took every day. She went onto refute the notion her actions were for political advantage.

This now famous 'crying' which widely reported on, in which Sturgeons voice broke at one point and she was clearly fighting back tears has been so misreported it should be criminal.
This is where we get to the bit where the witness is discredited  so only the accusation remains. In the following days session it was the turn of the Scottish Secretary, who is a Tory, appointed by them at Westminster to 'oversee' Scotland for them and to represent the interests of the Union. In his session he was asked if he believed Sturgeon when she said she took her decisions in light of what was the best choice she felt for Scotland, not for political point scoring. His reply was that he did not believe a word she said and that she “could cry out of one eye”. He accused her of crocodile tears.
And this of course is how the right wing media reported it- when it came to using the pandemic to push the cause of Independence Sturgeon put it first and then tried to cover up for it with crocodile tears at her questioning.
Its classic 15th century stuff this.

First the question the Scottish Sec (who incidentally also deleted all his messages, but that was ok somehow as Scottish Sec it wasn't as important he kept his and so the committee moved on -after grilling Sturgeon for literally hours on the same matter -even the BBC had to comment on that -'If it is a scandal for Ms Sturgeon to have done so, then surely it is a scandal for Mr Jack to have done so, and vice versa') he was asked about Sturgeons reply to being accused of politicising the pandemic, Sturgeon though she got emotionally angry when answering that question, saying in her whole life she had never thought less about independence or politics in general than she did during the pandemic, but emotional as she was in that  reply, that's not when she shed a tear or two. She shed a tear or two earlier in that response, when talking about how she felt as a human being suddenly given this responsibility and having to act for the best interests of all, not knowing in the early stages just how bad it could yet be. And how she wished she had not been First Minister . Something for which there is zero reason to lie about, let alone to cry false tears to sell it. Why on earth would this be a lie? It of course obviously is not a lie, which is why the Scottish Secretary had to conflate it with another topic, that of politicising the pandemic.
And the press having been given the excuse by the Scottish Sec to tie the two separate things together reports it as witness is not credible, sheds crocodile tears in response to using pandemic to push independence. And the photos that accompany the news are from the session when she did cry, cementing the false association.


Now at first I thought the reason for all this, apart from the Tory hatred of Sturgeon which seemingly has no bottom, was to try to switch the public focus from just how bad it was at Westminster with Ministers all the way up to PM Boris himself being fined by police for breaking their own covid laws, and all the money scandals throughout, by trying to shift as much of the blame and focus onto devolved administrations and to somehow try to make them seem worse.

But today has clarified matters a great deal, now we have had the witch trial and the accused discredited in the press, we have the 'solutions', proposed by the Westminster government of course. It explains why they spent so much time trying to imply the Scottish government is secretive and hides stuff from its own people and then spent the rest of the session trying to prove the SNP were only using the pandemic for pushing their cause and not acting in the best interests of the people of Scotland-

'Should the UK government have been able to make the most important public health decisions — such as lockdown — for the whole of the UK, or at least for the whole of the island of Great Britain?...the UK government could have invoked the 2004 Civil Contingencies Act to take control of public health decisions on a UK-wide basis when the novel coronavirus first emerged.
Giving evidence in a previous module, Michael Gove - who as Cabinet Office minister during the pandemic was responsible for UK government liaison with the devolved administrations in Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast - said he believed such a move would have been "draconian."
But he did suggest it might be worth considering whether some other mechanism should be used to enable the UK government to "override some of the independent decision-making" of the devolved administrations during a national emergency....Depending on her recommendations, Baroness Heather Hallett could yet become a significant player in the highly contentious, deeply complicated, and seemingly never ending debate about Scotland's place in the UK.'- BBC

And so the purpose of this farce starts to home into view. A further attempt to take power away from the devolved administrations and concentrate it back at Westminster. And this 'committee' is one of the trojan horses for doing so tasked with first discrediting the strongest pillar the Scottish Government has, its openness with the public compared to Westminster, and then by showing why having an independence party in power is bad for the people and why its better Westminster looks after us all. }}

[Pettytyrant101]

{{ What a surprise Netanyahu has rejected the latest peace offer from Hamas, by channelling Hitler from the sounds of it-

"There is no other solution but a complete and final victory," Mr Netanyahu told a press conference on Wednesday.

Yes, we've heard mad leaders ranting about complete and final victories before. But nice of him to be so blunt in drawing the comparison given a solution that is a final victory sounds rather the same as a final solution!}}

[Pettytyrant101]

{{ Netanyahu continues to show his true colours-

“Israel outright rejects international dictates regarding a permanent settlement with the Palestinians,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said, he added that Israel will “continue to oppose the unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state”.

At least on of the leading UK Rabbis sees the lunacy of this for Israel-

"over a million Palestinian civilians, many already in flight from the north of Gaza, are now trapped with nowhere to go. In countless references, Judaism has, throughout its history, stressed our duty to refugees and the helpless. How can we be unmoved by their grief and unbearable suffering?
I write out of dread at the future hatred this is likely to engender, and out of fear that these actions may haunt us, and the good name of Israel and the Jewish people, for generations."

He is not wrong, this will not be easily forgiven now or forgotten.}}

[Pettytyrant101]