Pro Palestinian supporters destroy painting of Lord Balfour

eazybee

Trying to raise the faults of Israel is simply an attempt to minimise the crimes of Hamas.

I agree.

maddyone

All deaths in war are horrible and cruel, wherever the war takes place, be it Gaza, Ukraine, Cambodia, Sudan, Syria, or a multitude of other places. But the number that sticks in my mind is six million. Six million Jews murdered by the Nazis. And no one protested.

Sorry maddyone have you never heard of the Battle of Cable Street? Where the Labour Party and working class people protected Jews in the East End from fascists?

Of course those in authority who knew about the camps were in many cases anti semitic anyway, which is probably why they kept the information quiet and closed many of the routes which Jewish people were using to escape.

Racism is always present and the tropes which underlie it influence much of people's thinking. Unfortunately that's still as true for muslim and Arab peoples, and unlike anti semitism it isn't widely condemned. It has even been used by the Israelis who paint the Palestinian's as dirty and lazy, alleging that they never farmed the land properly, when in fact they led a low impact sustainable lifestyle, whereas Israel tends towards more industrialised agriculture.
I don't think having 6 million of your ancestors killed justifies deliberately killing women and children does it?

maddyone

eazybee

Trying to raise the faults of Israel is simply an attempt to minimise the crimes of Hamas.

I agree.

Hamas you have all said is a terrorist organisation, are you saying that elected governments should behave in the same manner as terrorist organisation? Because you seem to be setting the same standards for them both. Doesn't civilisation demand that governments act according to certain rules?

maddyone

eazybee

Trying to raise the faults of Israel is simply an attempt to minimise the crimes of Hamas.

I agree.

Do you really think that I am "trying to raise the faults of Israel" to minimise the crimes of Hamas? Have you actually read the things I have posted ? not just in the last few weeks but right back to the beginning of it, when I stated most clearly that I was NOT excusing the 7th October attack, and that I was most definitely NOT antisemitic.

You are so blinkered that you can't see anything, except that you believe that Israel is somehow born without sin and cannot possibly have made any mistakes, and that anyone who points out anything to the contrary is somehow in league with Hamas. Don't bully me with your accusations!

I see the faults of Hamas - but I also see the faults of the Israeli government. I mean of the Netanyahu regime, whose aim is expansion into Palestinian lands, without considering the prior rights of those already living in those lands - much like Hitler's aim of expanding for "lebesraum". The figures for Palestinian and Israeli fatalities and injuries in the link I gave illustrate the results of that expansion policy, and they pre-date the 7th October attacks. Since then over 30,000 Palestinians have been killed in retaliation for those attacks, and many more made homeless. Isn't that enough punishment?

More Palestinians killed in 5 months than Ukrainians in 2 years

The ‘faults’ of hamas! Oh Elegran

I don’t think it’s me who’s blinkered, but we’re all entitled to our opinions. I’m sorry if my opinions are not in accord with yours.
Have a nice evening.

Oreo

The ‘faults’ of hamas! Oh Elegran

Yes, Oreo It is a "fault" to assume that using random violence is a legitimate reply to random violence. Whoever it is who is doing it.

Random violence is an assault in the street, a fight in a bar.
What hamas did was medieval barbarity on an epic scale.
Minimising the absolute horror of that day does nobody any favours, just the opposite.

The damage to the painting, as with other acts of vandalism which people think will further their cause, does in fact have the opposite effect.

Of course not all protestors are vandals and acts of vandalism or violence do their cause no good at all.

I haven't seen anyone minimising that violence. Not a single poster has said it was nothing. I condemned it from the beginning, so did every post that I can remember.

It was random.
It was violent.

Killing people tenfold from planes and destroying homes in retaliation is also random.
And also violent.

Continuing to punish those who had no part in the attack is still random.
Continuing once the deaths have passed ten times the original ones is still violent.

Acts of vandalism or violence do NO-ONE'S cause any good at all. The reputations of both sides have suffered from this war, and their international relations will never be the same again. That applies to Israel as well as Palestine.

Sorry but I have minimised that so called "violence" damaging a painting is nothing compared with the devastation of a country. The painting is not "destroyed" the country is. I don't know who did the damage, but if I was a Palestinian with family still in Gaza I would want to do a lot more than damage paintings.
What should someone do, who has seen their family made refugees, living for generations in exile, and then seen the same country force them from their homes once again, and then slaughter them, supported by the US and the UK?

Wanton vandalism and destruction of buildings or artefacts, whatever the circumstances is never justified. As importantly, it never works in the favour of those who carry it out, I can’t think of a single incidence, anywhere in the world where it has had the effect that the perpetrators desired. .

Casdon

Wanton vandalism and destruction of buildings or artefacts, whatever the circumstances is never justified. As importantly, it never works in the favour of those who carry it out, I can’t think of a single incidence, anywhere in the world where it has had the effect that the perpetrators desired. .

👏👏👏

Destroying property to aid your protest is wrong and unacceptable.

What Hamas did kidnapping and killing hostages was wrong and unacceptable.

What the Israeli govt is current doing is also wrong and unacceptable.

Cossy

Destroying property to aid your protest is wrong and unacceptable.

What Hamas did kidnapping and killing hostages was wrong and unacceptable.

What the Israeli govt is current doing is also wrong and unacceptable.

Well that's interesting because that is how the state of Israel was established. Not through diplomatic means but by the actions of a violent group called the Irgun
.
The Irgun policy was based on what was then called Revisionist Zionism founded by Ze'ev Jabotinsky. According to Howard Sachar, "The policy of the new organization was based squarely on Jabotinsky's teachings: every Jew had the right to enter Palestine; only active retaliation would deter the Arabs; only Jewish armed force would ensure the Jewish state"

Two of the operations for which the Irgun is best known are the bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem on 22 July 1946 and the Deir Yassin massacre that killed at least 107 Palestinian Arab villagers, including women and children, carried out together with Lehi on 9 April 1948

So if you disapprove of violent actions then do you disapprove of states created through them?
Or if a people are oppressed do they have the right to use violence to achieve freedom?

Incidentally the Irgun are considered as directly linked to Likud the political party of Netanyahu