Prime Minister Chris Hipkins is correct to condemn Hamas killing Israeli civilians in its attacks on Israel this week.
The killing of civilians or taking them hostage is a war crime under the Fourth Geneva Convention and should be universally condemned.
However the Labour government has been deathly silent on the war crimes committed by Israel against Palestinians under Labour’s watch these past six years.
Under his Prime Ministerial watch Chris Hipkins has looked the other way while Israel has built more Israeli settlement homes on Palestinian land; killed more than 250 Palestinian civilians; supported Israeli settler pogroms against Palestinian towns and villages across the occupied West Bank and encouraged highly-provocative Israeli ministerial and settler incursions into the Al Aqsa compound in occupied East Jerusalem.
Why does he only wake up when Israelis are killed? Why does he think Israeli lives are more important than Palestinian lives?
The Prime Minister’s pro-Israel stance is one-sided and blatantly racist.
New Zealand, along with other western countries, bears heavy responsibility for the deaths of Palestinians and Israelis in recent days because we have never held Israel to account for its crimes against the Palestinian people.
We have given Israel a free pass to murder and abuse Palestinians and this led to the inevitable tragedy last weekend.
It is precisely the attitude of western leaders such as our Prime Minister which has meant so many lives have been lost.
The Prime Minister has the blood of Palestinians and Israelis on his hands.
Agree with John, countries looking away, hundreds of UN Resolutions ignored, US Imperialism pouring in cash and arms, have led to the Hamas resistance actions.
The Israelis have made it clear overnight, that they are going to turn Gaza into a 21st century mid East Warsaw Ghetto, the strip addition to being bombed the shit out of, is to be blockaded, no food, water, electricity, or medical aid.
Gaza was already a warsaw ghetto
free palestine
Sooner or later, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s destructive political magic, which has kept him in power for 15 years, was bound to usher in a major tragedy. A year ago, he formed the most radical and incompetent government in Israel’s history. Not to worry, he assured his critics, ‘I’ll have two hands firmly on the steering wheel.’
But by ruling out any political process in Palestine and boldly asserting, in his government’s binding guidelines, that ‘the Jewish people have an exclusive and inalienable right to all parts of the Land of Israel’, Netanyahu’s fanatical government made bloodshed inevitable.
(Shlomo Ben-Ami, a former Israeli foreign minister, is vice president of the Toledo International Center for Peace and the author of Prophets without honor: the 2000 Camp David Summit and the end of the two-state solution.)
https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/hubris-meets-nemesis-in-israel/
Agree .. The silence is deafening when it comes to any criticism of Israel.
For those who want a massive escalation and response from Isreal, or against them please consider the cost. This will be urban warfare, very nasty as explained here https://sonar21.com/
May calmer heads prevail.
I’d happily contribute to send john to Gaza
John has never been Kirk28, he is a staunch advocate for Palestine…but from a safe distance of course.
Same with Israel, rails against them constantly, but again never been there.
So to understand the situation you must go there.
Don’t be ridiculous!
Yes of course.
Apparently he’s already been there? But I’ll be grateful to send zionist supporters to Gaza to fight against the Palestinian Jihad liberation groups.
I have been to Gaza.
We had entered Gaza (illegally according to the Israelis) through the Rafah crossing. While we were in Gaza a part of Rafah near the tunnels was bombed by Israeli Jets. We heard the jets as they passed over our hotel. The hotel itself had signs of war damage. The lifts didn’t work so I had to use the stairwell to get to my room. Most of the public areas of the hotel had been fixed up, but in the stairwells you could see the bullet holes from the last Israeli incursion.
As a member of the Kia Ora Gaza mission. I have met the people and witnessed the devastation and destruction caused by the frequent Israeli incursions aerial bombardment.
What I also witnessed was the indomitable spirit of the Palestinian people.
The Hamas government who the locals refer to as the ‘Municipality’ pay people to collect up the rubble of destroyed buildings and a bring it to a huge central area where it can be broken down and repurposed. From a slight rise I witnessed a scene find hard to describe, I felt like I was witnessing something from the Bible. A huge flat area stretching into the distance with dust rising from all the human activity. Hundreds of huge neatly stacked piles of rubble where thousands of people were labouring, picking and sorting and breaking the rubble down by hand. The difference from a biblical scene being some huge dump trucks dumping their loads, and a few rare hydraulic diggers swinging their arms as they worked to stack the piles of collected rubble. Everything is recycled. I passed an an area where a group of women were sitting using little pipe benders to straighten lengths of mangled steel reinforcing rods salvaged from the rubble to use again. I passed another workshop where new cinder blocks were being cast from what I guessed was recycled ground up concrete. All building materials are blocked from entering Gaza by the Israelis. Everything that cannot be recycled, or made, like the fuel for the trucks and diggers has to be smuggled in through the tunnels under border at Rafah in defiance of the siege and blockade imposed by Israel and enforced by the pro-Israel regime in Egypt.
I also witnessed the destruction the Israelis had wrought. A bombed cement factory with burnt out concrete trucks either side of the road leading up to it. A graveyard where all the grave stones had been crushed by Israeli tank treads. A burnt down chicken farm that had housed thousands of chickens burnt to death.
But I also witnessed the little donkey carts of the people collecting up the bits of broken concrete and masonry to take to be recycled.
I witnessed teams of men in white overalls tidying and cleaning the road sides and verges. I asked my guide, “Who pays these men to do this work?”. The answer always came back, “The Municipality” ie the government of Hamas.
No one can tell me these people will ever be defeated or subdued.
Pat O’Dea, awesome Pat
Yes, awesome Pat
Medal in the post Pat
What a hero.
Thanks for sharing Pat – and thanks for going there in the first place.
It was a privilege.
Oh yes, they will be thoroughly defeated. They voted for Hamas and they will reap what they sowed.
You really are a nasty type, aren’t you. How many of the children voted for Hamas?
Big deal.
Pat, it’s unfortunate that in providing much needed context regarding Palestine/Israel that you give none when it comes to Ukraine/Russia. Further damaging an already tattered reputation when it comes to objectivity. So you agree with the media reporting on Russia but disagree with their reporting on Israel? Pick a side bud because the war machine is firmly behind Ukraine and Israel.
Thanks.
Much appreciated Pat.
Well timed comment on here.
I’ll throw in $100 so long as it is a one way ticket.
I read this “Gaza ‘soon without fuel, medicine and food’ – Israel authorities”
They do have a boarder with Egypt. Can’t they help?
…At roughly $1.3 billion, Egypt is the second-largest recipient of US foreign military financing after Israel. For fiscal year 2022…..
https://www.murphy.senate.gov/newsroom/in-the-news/why-senate-democrats-are-urging-biden-to-withhold-part-of-egypts-military-aid#
Smartarse, or ignorant?
“They do have a boarder with Egypt. Can’t they help?” ds
Either ds is completely ignorant of the reality of the situation in Egypt. Or, is knowingly making a cynical comment trying to be a smartarse.
Under the rule of the far right military dictator, General Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, Egypt is a classic case study of a Far Right US backed military junta. And the second biggest recipient of US military aid after Israel.
General El-Sisi has on the orders of his US backers and on behalf of Israel ruthlessly enforced the siege on Gaza’s Southern border. General El-Sisi has decreed that the whole of the Sinai Desert bordering the Rafah border is a military no go zone, with shoot on sight orders for anyone crossing it. On General El-Sisi’s orders the siege of Gaza that is strangling the life out of the 1.5 million Palestinians trapped in the enclave has never been more rigidly and violently enforced.
Pat O’Dea, I generally don’t agree with your Russia narrative but a big ups from myself as a Palestinian supporter thanks for you input Pat
Free Palestine
Agreed Pat.
Slava Ukraine
And now you have to go and ruin it!
In our thousands and our millions we are all Palestinians
Good heavens what next.
I’m not.
“Pat O’Dea, I generally don’t agree with your Russia narrative…” Stephen
Stephen if you oppose one occupation you need to oppose the other.
Don’t believe all the pro-war Kremlin bullshit. Even they don’t believe it.
Read my post on the current court case in the Hague where lawyers working for the Kremlin are fighting hard not to have to lay out Russia’s reasons for the war.
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2023/10/08/guest-blog-patrick-odea-ukraine-takes-itself-to-court/
Pat O’Dea, the historic context are very different as you’re well aware of! The Palestinian people weren’t involved in the genocide of European Jews, Gypsies, etc… but they were made scapegoats to create a jewish state.
The Russia/Ukraine is a western proxy war by NATO simple.
Free Palestine
You are a fool.
If you support the Russian slaughter in Ukraine you are supporting the Israeli’s slaughter in Gaza.
The war in Ukraine is an unjust war.
The reality of the Rafa border crossing, controlled by Egypt and Hamas:
UN & other stats shows 50,000 Gazans left via Rafah Jan to Apr 2023 or 150,000 annualized =7.5% of population! 145,000 left in 2022. It’s not a mere trickle, or a few days a year, or impossible to leave or Egypt allows few to enter. That’s all lies. 3/
ds, If you’re so venerably concerned about apartheid Israel why don’t you volunteer to fight Hamas suicide soldiers? I’ll donate 100 bucks which will no doubt be a one way ticket.
The thing is John actually knows what it is like in Gaza but smug self-righteous people like yourself are ignorant of the ongoing suffering of the local people. John explicitly described the Hamas attack as a war crime so that shows that he is unbiased whereas you obviously think that Israel can do no wrong. Decades ago I used to believe the MSM propaganda about the ‘evil’ PLO etc but I have seen & experienced the actual situation so while I don’t want to see harm done to the Jewish people the state can only be described as corrupt & getting worse.
You and ds obviously feel uncomfortable in the face of hard data.
I second that motion.
John, NZ parrots the European, Anglo Saxon, 5 eyes Worldview that says Russia, China & Brown people in Africa, Sth America & the Global South are Bad & that we, the so called enlightened, Democratic & Civilised West are the Good guys? The West provides no CONTEXT on how the situation in Palestine began & how all this started, it began in 1948 with the meddling British who created the Zionist State of Israel in Palestine with repatriated European Jews after WW2 to a Land already occupied by Arabs for Centuries! Since then the Zionist State have been stealing Land from Palestinians & killing thousands of Arabs in the process, corralling them into Gaza, the biggest Concentration Camp in History! For the last 75 yrs the Israeli’s have acted with impunity, armed to the teeth with US nukes & weapons, used as America’s buttress & forward staging Military base & Imperial outpost in the Middle East, with no one calling them out for their Terror? Well the Palestinians have had enough, when your got nothing left to lose & got nothing to live for, you lash out like this? It’s unfortunate to see people on both sides getting killed, it’s so sad & tragic but it is what it is? Oh & by the way I’m a Jewish descendant who condemns Zionism & rejects it! And from a Biblical perspective, we, the Jews as a Race & people where rejected by God, it was even prophesied that we would lose the right to inhabit these Lands when we killed Gods Son, the Messiah, Jesus Christ, who said that Israel’s House (Country) is abandoned from you? We lost the right, privilege & protection as Gods people & the Land was inherited by the Arabs & became Palestine ever since? The modern day State of Israel is a abomination that shouldn’t exist, a artificial construct that is now setting the Stage for WW3!
Antforce62, agree mostly with you analysis however this issue of Palestine started in 1917 when an anti-Semite Arthur Balfour agreed to the establishment of a jewish state in Palestine after the defeat of the Ottoman empire. This is the beginning of Palestinians demise IMHO. The Jewish terrorist groups the Haganah, Palmach, Stern gang were created leading up to 1948 specifically trained by british commanders one name springs to mind ‘Orde Wingate’ a racist bigot who profess to being a zionist.
Yes I’m aware that Balfour was the Man who dreamed this up in 1917, I was referring to the Zionist Nation State of Israel being established in 1948 & Balfour was the Architect of setting this up, at the Time, Palestine was a British Protectorate after WW1! But what most people don’t know is that these Zionists who were encouraged to emigrate to Palestine & displace the Arab population started doing Terrorist attacks on the British who tried to keep the peace & were forced out, these Zionists even tried to assassinate Winston Churchill, thats the thanks the Poms got from these Jews for repatriating this lot back to the Bible Lands that they lost forever & were never supposed to inhabit again according to Bible Prophecy when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem in 70 BCE,
the Jews were then scattered to the four winds having lost their Inheritance & their Homeland!
Sorry but jews aren’t a race they’re an ethno-religious group made up from a variety of races. The Zionist like Hitler used this racial classification of Jews to justify their ideology. Those Jews that emigrated to Palestine were Europeans, then they had to bring the Arab Jews into the fold to get their numbers up. The treatment of the arab & african jews by white jews was and is appalling. The racism that exist in Israel /Palestine is horrendous and on a whole different level which is why white supremacist far-right groups don’t have a problem with apartheid Israel and its treatment of the indigenous Palestinians.
Free Palestine.
You are totally off beam Stephen. Your alternative ’history’ is so flawed it is cracked.
You are obviously anti-Semitic if you even deny the Jewish race their identity! Do you deny the holocaust as well?
For the last time! Palestinians are not indigenous. They are Arabs from the Arabian peninsula.
Stop being a moron!
Ovod, The Jewish race??????? Their are Arab Jews, African Jews, Chinese Jews, European Jews but apparently they’ll all the same race??? And the anti-semitic canard is BS used to discredit alternative views which is a against ‘Free Speech’ under a liberal democracy that apartheid Israel claims to practice.
If you can’ get the fundamental basics right that being Jewish is a “Race” compared to a religion then it follows on the rest of your post is BS.
fingrinn, Zionist Historical Claims
Based on the stories narrated in the Torah, the Zionist Jews claim that they are the indigenous people of Palestine and that this land belongs only to them; everybody who entered this land came after them and is considered a colonizer of the land of Israel; he deserves then to be expelled for taking a land that is not his. Many historical studies were directed to support this contention; but they are far from being academic and are value driven as they disregard a huge amount of historical evidence.
Palestinian are the descendants of the Canaanites the original inhabitants of Palestine. The Jews immigrated from Egypt. Prophet Ibrahim (Abraham) came to Palestine around the year 1900 B.C.; in narrating this story the Torah called the area “The Land of Canaan”, admitting the existence of a civilization in Palestine prior even to the coming of Prophet Ibrahim, the great grandfather of Arabs and Jews. His grandson, Ya^qoob (Jacob or Israel), from whom Jews descended, migrated with his children from the Land of Canaan to Egypt, where they stayed until 1250 B.C. in which Moses took them to the Holy Land.
The History of the Jews in Palestine started during this period, between 1250-1000 B.C., but they managed only to settle in few areas, around Al-Quds and in the north. From that time, the reign of Prophets Dawud (David) and Sulayman (Solomon) started, marking the real beginning of Jewish reign over Palestine. The reign of the two Prophets lasted only for 80 years (1004-923 B.C.).
The Palestinians are not the descendants of the Canaanites. What the a load of bs. The ‘Palestinians’ are Arabs from the Arabian peninsula. They speak Arabic ffs!
You may be referring to the Philistines but there is no proof that they are related to the Arabic Palestinians. I suggest you read some objective sources instead of relying on your confirmation bias.
It not pleasant to realise that there are holocaust deniers in New Zealand.
right ant lets sort this once and for all….it’s not the british fault, they left(admittedly a dogs dinner) but truman gave ben gurion the nod to found the state of isreal….now you know, no need to repeat popular misconceptions
“We have given Israel a free pass to murder and abuse Palestinians and this led to the inevitable tragedy last weekend.”
This is typical Western behavior – we all think we are the good guys – and thanks to our captured, by State and moneyed interest, mainstream media, we will continue to think this way. Whom and what we believe to be good or bad is chiefly determined by this tainted media.
One bright note, at least some media allows us to critique this dire circumstance for time being….
The west has no moral compass when it comes to Palestine. We have allowed Israeli terrorist (IDF) into our country for holidays for a bit of down time knowingly that these individuals have committed war-crimes during their services targeting innocent civilians.
Our govts have busted Israeli Mossad in Aotearoa stealing NZ identities and gave them a slap on the rist. We even allowed an Israeli war criminal Moshe Yaalon to visit NZ and shielded him from being arrested by judicial process. When Israel say jump we say how high!!
Free Palestine
Yoav Gallant: “I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and we act accordingly.”
John – Encouraging Peace Talks yet??
Neihana, John a reporter not a diplomat maybe you should be directing your question to the Foreign affairs minister Nanaia Mahuta?
You can’t blame Hipkins for the Palestine Israel conflict, he’s only responsible for destroying education, racial division, covid over reach and flip flopping on every other Labour policy in NZ.
No question Israel has its own human rights violations.
But deliberate murder and parading of dead civilians has no justification.
It’s horrific and will attract a terrible retribution that will also kill civilians, for which Hamas is also responsible.
After seeing the barbarity of Hamas against women and children circulating on social media, i think the Tankie left need to step back and see what their Hamas Palestinian “freedom fighters” are: barbaric terrorists.
Hamas want an Islamic state, they are no different to the ISIS extremists.
Under these videos there are overwhelming comments from Muslim people condemning Hamas actions against women as unIslamic.
Of course the comfortable woke white left know better, pro Palestinian demonstrations in the US and Australia at this time are wrong.
So the Egyptian Intel Agencies gave Netanyahoo, Israel and the US a heads-up 10 days before this attack. They did nothing! So now the Israelis are cutting off power, food, and water from Gaza and what does the UN and the rest of the world say about Human Rights? Yeah right you wankas!
Great idea, let’s send John to Gaza so he can hang out with the terrorists he admires so much, and who revere him as their useful idiot. Do your stats mean you want more dead Jews, John?
“The Prime Minister has the blood of Palestinians and Israelis on his hands.”
Crikey. Talk about a long bow!
In any event, Chris probably has quite enough on his hands on the local scene, which is where most of us live.
John is so confused its sad really.
Hipkins and his ilk are nothing more than scabs to the American empire and by default Israel. Well said JM.
With perhaps the exception of Pat O’Dea I’d wager none of the contributors here have been to Israel or even the wider Middle East so are as some have observed just pontificating from the comfort of their nice Kiwi homes.
Hamas is a murderous maniacal terrorist group fully funded and controlled by Iran. This latest tragic episode in the everlasting misery of the levant was started by Hamas and Iran to try and destabilise the Saudi / Israel peace agreement and its not beyond reason that Russia is in there too knowing full well that this will distract the US (and having seen a full carrier group being deployed towards Israel it clearly has).
Israel isn’t an innocent party but no one is in the Middle East be they Shia, Sunni, Jew, Christian or Baha’i.
I lived across the Middle East for far too long and have good friends on both sides. Those of you calling for a Free Palestine should ask yourselves what that would actually be – if it’s Hezbollah or Hamas in charge then you’re looking at a slightly less radical Taliban with better coffee. Hardly the sort of society that liberals would normally support.
Israel on the other hand is at the very least a democracy and committed to societal values much closer to those in the west.
Sadly, all that we’re going to see now for the next few years is the steady yet total destruction of Gaza. The whole thing is just so tragic and unnecessary.
At the very least it would be good to see those of you supporting the Palestinian cause (for which I have much sympathy) acknowledge the utterly inhumane and barbaric atrocities that Hamas have and are committing.
“Israel on the other hand is at the very least a democracy and committed to societal values much closer to those in the west.”
It is not a democracy, but to be fair to them, democracy is an illusion n most places anyway. You are right about their societal values aligning with the West however.
“Sadly, all that we’re going to see now for the next few years is the steady yet total destruction of Gaza. The whole thing is just so tragic and unnecessary. ”
The same old same old but perhaps, on an even greater scale then.
“At the very least it would be good to see those of you supporting the Palestinian cause (for which I have much sympathy) acknowledge the utterly inhumane and barbaric atrocities that Hamas have and are committing.”
That’s a two way street and this is to put this nicely. Hamas are rank amateurs in barbarism and inhumanity next to what has been done and is being done to the people they purportedly represent. Nonetheless, just like our own history and most Western history is steeped in blood, we only worry or take note when it is our blood being spelt. When we do it to others, nary a word is said.
Yes, I would be nice to acknowledge all sides of human suffering but that is not the way our world works.
I’ve been and spent considerable time there.
Most comments here make me ill.
Bob the Last, got proof?
What proof do you want?
I pretty much agree with all you said yeti. But I don’t believe Russia would be behind the attack as there are quite significant bonds between Russia and Israel (and Ukraine and Israel) because of the diaspora.
Mind you a cynical scenario would be that Russia did not want Israel to help Ukraine so it encouraged the attack. This is unlikely though. I don’t believe in conspiracy theories.
Ovod, You’ve answered your ‘Jews are a race’ meme that most of those Jews that emigrate to Palestine before and after the second world war were from the slavic region. They have jewish diaspora in Israel naming their country of origin. This far-right conspiracy to claim that jews are a separate race to other humans is a fallacy that needs to be put to bed.
Free Palestine
They are ashkenazy Jews ffs. You illiterate moron!
Spell it right Ovod. Ashkenazi Jews.
That’s a point of interpretation actually. Stop being an idiot FG.
Um NO, Askenazi is the correct spelling of which 80% are Israeli.
AshkeNAZI are from Europe.
It is not a democracy. There are 60plus laws that apply to Palestinians who live in Israel, I am sure you know this, how then does that make it a democracy?
And the Germans killed the Jews
and the Jews killed the Arabs
and the Arabs killed the hostages
and that is the news
Isn’t it any wonder the monkeys confused?
That great alleged anti Semite Roger Waters. Sums it all up really.
A large number of those festival goers were peacenik Germans, and Germany is the largest source of voluntary donations to Palestinian charities. So I’m guessing those funds will suddenly dry up and the AfD will get even more votes in future.
Should do.
Seems your on the losing side of world opinion Mr Minto….I guess it’s how you like it?
Now how about taking the greens and a Muslim loving LGBT+ crowd with you and visit Palestine, let’s see how much they welcome you?! lol
Shame you can’t discuss this rationally, but just want to throw bones out why do you bother.
Muslim loving, what is that meant to mean?
Genocide
That is all Israel’s response can be called.
Where are Hipkins words of condemnation?
Ukraine and Russia can have hostage exchanges in the middle of a full scale war.
But Israel has no interest in rescuing the hostages. If Israel was interested in returning the hostages to their families, instead of airstrikes and cutting off the water and power they would have offered a hostage exchange.
Cutting the water, power, food for 2 million people, plus bombing them from the air, with no means of escape, no safety corridors. Trapped.
When an imperialist or colonialist power cannot subdue a subject people they try to exterminate them.
Four of the hostages are reported to have been killed in the Israeli airstrikes being rained down on the Palestinians.
Israel is carrying out a campaign of extermination.
Minto still defending the terrorists who killed young festival-goers and who then dragged the bodies of young victims through the streets so others could spit on them. Stay classy, Minto.
Minto said “Why does he only wake up when Israelis are killed? Why does he think Israeli lives are more important than Palestinian lives?’
For the same reason that Jordan, Egypt, the UAE, Morocco and other states think it – for 70 years the so-called Palestinians have never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity. Nations, other than the medieval douchebags running Iran, tire of the death cult mentality.
The only death cult is the Jewish state that practices apartheid!!
The crime of apartheid is defined by the 2002 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court as inhumane acts of a character similar to other crimes against humanity “committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime”.
And severing the Achilles tendons of those they captured, so that they couldn’t escape, and be executed later at leisure. Charming people, these Palestinians.
The difference between the IDF and Hamas: the IDF don’t and won’t intentionally kill civilians in Gaza because of ethics – Hama’s won’t kill all Isreali civilians in Tel Aviv simply because they don’t have the ability to do so.
Israel pounds Gaza neighbourhoods, as people scramble for safety in sealed-off territory
Josef Federman Issam Adwan
03:20, Oct 11 2023
https://www.stuff.co.nz/world/middle-east/300986650/israel-pounds-gaza-neighbourhoods-as-people-scramble-for-safety-in-sealedoff-territory
….The war began after Hamas militants stormed into Israel on Saturday,
That’s a lie. The Hamas assault was a reprisal for Israel’s escalation of violence against Palestinians on the Westbank. Josef Federman and Issam Adwan who penned this lie need to be ashamed of themselves.
The undisputed Ist law of physics as written by Sir Isaac Newton – every action has an equal and opposite reaction – is not confined to the test lab and the petri dish. Talmud following jewish people slaughter & enslave Palestinian and other races with impunity since 1917 or so, there is no surprise they have pushed as far as they can go and an equal and opposite reaction ensues.
I applaud Lord Warner, https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-39483745
Can’t help thinking there’s a close relation of Herzl currently somewhere north of this conflict area https://socialistworker.org/2017/11/06/zionism-anti-semitism-and-lord-balfour
I don’t know anyone who thinks that the murder of civilians and the taking of hostages is okay, however it seems to have conveniently been ignored by the West when the IDF were doing it, hauling Palestinians out of their homes.
I think a few of you writing here defending to the hilt Israel and his superior power backed up by the United States should probably do some reading. Just start with this lot. Then perhaps we could have some rational conversation.
The Great War for Civilisation – Robert Fisk
The Question of Palestine – Edward Said
The biggest prison on earth – Ilane Pappe
On Palestine – Noam Chomsky
The Ethnic cleansing of Palestine – Ilane Pappe
Palestine a four thousand year history – Nurma Masalha
The Invention of the land of Israel – Shlomo Sand
Freedom Next Time – Resisting the empire – John Pilger
I met Fisk and he really was a surly old bastard even though I bought his book.
Methinks that your reading list lacks balance Michal.
https://thehill.com/video/4247431-watch-live-biden-to-give-remarks-on-israel-hamas-conflict/?fbclid=IwAR3GRyjIx3mj0UKxr7NhbxV1hEwlnLmSR6qPH6Wf1Lx5sPwLCfLy5w4IQKo
New respect for President Biden. He nails it. There is NO moral equivalence between Israel and Hamas. There are also 14 Americans amongst the dead and among the hostages too.
Only 14!? I’m sure there will be a few more after the rubble is sifted through in Gaza. The lDFs carpet bombing terrorism campaign in Gaza will cough up a few more I suspect.
There is an amoral equivalence. It’s horrible for everyone.
” Israel on the other hand is at the very least a democracy and committed to societal values much closer to those in the west ”
Hardly a ringing endorsement of the west with the U.S and its patsy allies who have encouraged right wing interference and funds to encourage a coup de tat and the wholesale slaughter of leftist enemies against a democratically elected government like Allende in Chile who was prepared to take action against western financial interests and their stranglehold against that country and its people.
The West is hardly a shinning example of democratic rights and values but the approach and policies of Israel against the Palestinian people in their own country underpins where the ” West ‘ stands on the total subjugation of an oppressed race in their own territories , or what is left of their own country before the shinning western example of the Israeli state they created began to invade and seize land and control from a race of people who were there before they were.
Those societal values of the west aren’t values if they have continued to encourage the state of Israel to imprison , torture , kill and consistently invade the Palestinian territories whenever their political right wing government sees an opportunity to stoke fear and oppression for their and the Wests political aims.
“ A boot stamping on a human face forever”. Orwell’s prophetic vision of the future has been seen in ersatz Israel since1947. We now find out what happens when the boot is temporarily, whether by accident or design, on the other foot. The consequences are appalling for all but those who profit from war.
Comments are closed.