Israel, Hamas and now Hezbollah

act.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/a/israelis-demand-ceasefire

I’m tired of reading and listening to some using a different moral yardstick to judge Israel than the one used to judge other countries in the same region. It seems as if last weeks monstrous massacre is already fading in people’s minds. Regardless of filmed evidence many are still denying babies were beheaded and riddled with bullets as they lay in their cots. I saw a British reporter on the scene a few days ago speaking of the young mother laying on the ground covered by a sheet of some kind, just one foot visible. He said she’d been beheaded. He’d been shown what was under the sheet.

Social media has a lot to answer for. People read what’s on there instead of watching/listening to reputable news broadcasts. I haven’t seen one broadcaster on UK tv state that white phosphorous has been used. I’ve seen more than one report that footage of the convoy being blown up, killing 70 civilians, was an IED, which can’t have been placed by the Israelis.

Egypt have been blockading Gaza for a long time but they don’t receive the opprobrium that Israel does.

I find the whole situation extremely disturbing and feel desperately sad for all concerned. The sooner Netanyahu and his government go the better but then what? Hamas will still be there and why do some not understand that they cannot be negotiated with? Their aim is destruction of Israel and all Jews wiped out.

Israel have nuclear weapons and I sincerely hope that the day never comes when they’re so backed into a corner they take the decision to use them.

Sadly candelle (prev thread) there are now videos being posted of buildings being shelled in south Gaza, without warning. A child who has just moved down from the north, out buying bread, was almost killed. A hospital in southern most Gaza has been told by Israelis to evacuate - to where? There is nowhere else to go. All borders are closed - one of the key points of contention even in peace time - but now? Israelis tanks are assembling on the border of south Gaza - for what? When the space is as small as Gaza is and as heavily populated, even if warning is given, there is nowhere to go. Is genocide really intended?

Hamas wants Gaza citizens to stay put.
Human shields?
Collateral damage to make the world weep?

They’ve been given warnings to shift out by the Israeli Defence Force. Head for the south of Gaza.
I wouldn’t need telling twice.

tickingbird

I know there are rights and wrongs on both sides to some extent, but you are right about the horrific and inexcusable actions of Hamas last week. We all need this situation to be sorted out, and again, you're right, Netanyahu is not the answer.

I have tried quite hard to understand this situation, it is truly awful.

I don't however, really understand what is going on and would really like it explained to me in simple terms.

Am I alone in not being able to grasp the full story?

Desdemona

I have tried quite hard to understand this situation, it is truly awful.

I don't however, really understand what is going on and would really like it explained to me in simple terms.

Am I alone in not being able to grasp the full story?

Not enough time to explain the whole debacle. How far back do you want to go.
Then if all depends who’s writing the history.

abcnews.go.com/International/timeline-long-history-israeli-palestinian-conflict/story?id=103875134

This might help.

Israel this afternoon re-opened the water supply in south Gaza.

When I woke during the night for a bathroom visit I found myself thinking of all the innocents on both sides who do not want this war.

I looked up today what the time difference is as I was curious. Israel are 2 hours ahead of GMT.

tickingbird

I’m tired of reading and listening to some using a different moral yardstick to judge Israel than the one used to judge other countries in the same region. It seems as if last weeks monstrous massacre is already fading in people’s minds. Regardless of filmed evidence many are still denying babies were beheaded and riddled with bullets as they lay in their cots. I saw a British reporter on the scene a few days ago speaking of the young mother laying on the ground covered by a sheet of some kind, just one foot visible. He said she’d been beheaded. He’d been shown what was under the sheet.

Social media has a lot to answer for. People read what’s on there instead of watching/listening to reputable news broadcasts. I haven’t seen one broadcaster on UK tv state that white phosphorous has been used. I’ve seen more than one report that footage of the convoy being blown up, killing 70 civilians, was an IED, which can’t have been placed by the Israelis.

Egypt have been blockading Gaza for a long time but they don’t receive the opprobrium that Israel does.

I find the whole situation extremely disturbing and feel desperately sad for all concerned. The sooner Netanyahu and his government go the better but then what? Hamas will still be there and why do some not understand that they cannot be negotiated with? Their aim is destruction of Israel and all Jews wiped out.

Israel have nuclear weapons and I sincerely hope that the day never comes when they’re so backed into a corner they take the decision to use them.

I totally agree with you on 99% of what you have posted.

Benjamin Netanyahu is not the best leader, but I fear after the barbaric attacks committed by Hamas that the next Israeli leader could be even more hardline…

Fatah who control the West Bank haven’t held an election since 2006 (source Google)

According to Israeli sources their are currently 200 Hamas militants in the West Bank.

*their should be there

It’s now common to hear the refrain on “pro Palestine” marches “Khaybar, Khaybar ya Yahu, Jaish Mohammed Sauf Ya’ud”, meaning, “Watch out Jews, the army of Mohammed is returning”.

The funding of Hamas is very interesting.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader in Iran, denied any role, but said he “kisses the hands” of the terrorists who carried it out.

What is undeniable, analysts say, is that Iranian funding and training equipped Hamas, a group previously known largely for its ability to home-make rockets, with the skills needed for a multi-pronged attack that has so far killed more than 1,300 Israelis.

The border with Egypt is reported to be opening Monday to foreign passport holders and allow some aid in, also some water is to be restored to southern Gaza.

We will see what actually happens,

Water has been back on for a few hours now

I live in a former mill town. We have a large community with Pakistani Muslim heritage. There was a large pro Palestinian rally here yesterday.
I’m anxious that the relative peace and cooperation between various communities here is fragile. We don’t have a large Jewish community, but an area 7miles away does

garnet25
I’ve just read the two posts by you ( quoting Matthew Syrd) on the thread which has now reached 1000 comments.
Can you reproduce them again on this thread, as they were the last two posts and maybe nobody read them.
They were a brilliant and true explanation of religious fundamentalism and should be read by anyone who cares about this conflict.Thank you for taking the time to post.

Oreo I agree the posts by garnet25 quoting Mr Syrd were extremely informative

Oreo - garnet25 👍🏻

I will try.

Matthew Syed's Article part 1
Towards the end of the BBC news on Friday evening, a small item appeared long after the coverage of the Middle East had ended. It told of Mohamed Mogouchkov, an immigrant in France, who had stabbed a teacher to death and seriously wounded two other staff at a school in Arras, in the north of the country. As he wielded the blade, he is reported to have cried out: “Allahu Akbar” — God is great.

Those were the words used three years ago by an 18-year-old Muslim refugee who decapitated Samuel Paty, another teacher, in Éragny-sur-Oise, a suburb of Paris. The same words were used on the streets of Woolwich by the murderers of Lee Rigby, a fusilier with an impeccable service record and two-year-old son. The words were used by Isis as they maimed, raped and mutilated victims, often videoing their atrocities so they could showcase their handiwork to a horrified world.

And these were (I imagine) the words used by Hamas terrorists (yes, let us use the term) during their atrocities in Israel last weekend, in which women were violated, babies mutilated and hostages taken into Gaza, including a Holocaust survivor, traumatised children and a 17-year-old girl who suffers from muscular dystrophy.

One of the missing pieces in the analysis of events has been what Christopher Hitchens called the “virus” of fundamentalism, the way religious conviction is often the most potent weapon of barbarity. How could Hamas operatives have behaved in the way they did? Why did they inflict such gratuitous damage? In his novel The Prague Cemetery, Umberto Eco put it with precision: “People are never so completely and enthusiastically evil as when they act out of religious conviction.”

Fundamentalists lack that most civilising of human virtues: doubt. They have absolute truth, the certified word of God, so they are not merely justified in slaughtering infidels; they would be failing in their duty if they did not do so. If Hamas had the chance to kill more Jews, all Jews, they would seize it. Isn’t this the story of religious fanaticism throughout the ages, and not just the Islamic kind? Catholics burning Protestants in 16th century England cried out: “Oh, this is for the greater glory of God!”

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For some reason westerners struggle with these truths. When al-Qaeda visited carnage upon the World Trade Center, academic sociologists tied themselves in knots to deny the hijackers were motivated by religion. They said that these men were alienated, or were undereducated, or hadn’t had much sex, or were reacting against western suppression. When it turned out that many terrorists had university degrees and plenty of sex, and had benefited from western societies, new surrogate motives were found. Anything, in fact, to avoid taking these men at their word, many of whom made videos explicitly stating that they were murdering to “bring glory to Allah”.

The same dubious dance has taken place over recent days, people rushing to signal their support for the Palestinian cause in Gaza hours after the military wing of their leadership visited unspeakable atrocities. The problem was that these people were hemmed in or didn’t have enough land. Even those of us who worry deeply about Israeli excesses should be able to see that this rests on a category error. Do we think that Isis would have been tamed if it had been offered a neatly carved out territory in the Levant? Or do we think — as Isis explicitly boasted — that it would have used any advantage, territorial or otherwise, to escalate bloody jihad?

To reiterate, I have severe doubts about the Israeli response, but I think it is worth pondering the point often made that the retribution visited on Gaza (the full ground assault may be under way as you read these words) will kill innocent people, particularly children. Indeed, many have already died in this pitiless war. As one Times reader, by no means an antisemite, put it on Friday morning: “Hamas is not the Palestinian people.”

Part 2
That is true, but it illuminates another little-analysed aspect of this unfolding tragedy. According to Jennifer Jefferis, a Middle East expert at Georgetown University who spoke to the BBC last week, Hamas consistently polls over 50 per cent (more than any other party) across Gaza and the West Bank. Apologists claim this is Israel’s fault: that Palestinians are driven into the hands of Hamas by the actions of the Jewish state, just as Isis apologists said that its atrocities were incited by the “Great Satan” of America. There is, I suppose, a particular kind of liberal who can’t see an evil in the world without detecting western civilisation or a Jewish conspiracy as the root cause.
A different perspective emerges by looking at Hamas. For what does it do with power? That’s right: rather than focusing on growth, rational administration and the needs of its people, its priority is religious indoctrination. One recent report (among many) found that schools across the West Bank and Gaza Strip “regularly call for the murder of Jews, and create teaching materials that glorify terrorism, encourage martyrdom and incite antisemitism”. This is how it is possible for a religious cult to sustain what is euphemistically referred to as “popular legitimacy”.

And that is why many “solutions” to this problem are confused. Good people think that progress can be made with diplomacy or reconfiguring borders. They are, I fear, looking at the issue through the wrong lens. Until the virus of fundamentalism is contained, until its mechanisms of transmission are severed, this is futile. It is why it was nonsense when “experts” (including Jake Sullivan, the US national security adviser) told us — until last Saturday — that conflict in the Middle East had been contained. Had they not seen what was happening in Iran, Yemen, Lebanon and beyond? Had they not noticed the covert but ceaseless work of the madrassas and other machines of indoctrination?

Turning to Israel, I dearly hope it exercises restraint. It is in Israelis’ self-interest to do so to avoid igniting a wider war and thereby walking into the trap set by Iran. It would show the world that they are willing to go the extra mile to avoid killing civilians; that unlike their opponents, who murder out of conviction, they kill only as a last resort — and often because innocents are disgracefully used by Hamas as human shields. It would also signal that voices of moderation still hold sway in a state that has been moving towards its own kind of extremism under Binyamin Netanyahu’s coalition. Let me suggest that none of these aims were furthered by the appalling strike yesterday on a convoy fleeing south, killing up to 70 people, including children.

In the end, though, we have to face up to the truth that this conflict will end only when the germ of fanaticism is expunged from the Middle East, a prospect sadly no closer now than in 1948.
“The fundamentalist believes that we believe in nothing. In his world-view, he has his absolute certainties, while we are sunk in sybaritic indulgences. To prove him wrong, we must first know that he is wrong.” So wrote Salman Rushdie in the weeks after 9/11. The words are worth pondering as this terrible tragedy unfolds.

Tickingbird is right

The Hamas leadership must be exterminated. They don't care about ordinary Palestinians and what they perpetrated in the kibbutzes is disgusting. Hamas is an obstacle to peace.