Cycling UK Forum

Pebble wrote: 3 Nov 2023, 5:08pm

Tangled Metal wrote: 3 Nov 2023, 3:53pm

Pebble wrote: 3 Nov 2023, 8:47am not sure it can be compared to Ukraine, Russia clearly invaded their country - for a comparison we would need protests about the Ukrainians fighting back.

Israel invaded when it took Golan heights and AFAIK at least part of the west Bank.

The difference between Israel and the other Arab on Arab conflicts is that those places were undemocratic basket cases at the time and were in state of war. Israel had periods of peace and democracy until Netanyahu joining up with the only groups who'd join with him such as extremist zionist and right wing parties. Corruption isn't an issue if it will support your illegal zionist /settler pov. If I was Israelis I'd hope we'd not be compared to Yemen and Syria personally. Says how bad Israel is that it's compared against Yemen!

the comparison was with the views of the far left, how they seem to turn a blind eye to Arabs killing each other in the hundreds of thousands. Then when Israel tries to defend itself the protests and hatred are soon out in force.

So back to my earlier question, why is this the case, why do we sometimes not care? Is it the media that leads us, or do the media just follow popular opinion and we get stuck into some feedback loop.

For years, Netanyahu propped up Hamas. Now it’s blown up in our faces
The premier’s policy of treating the terror group as a partner, at the expense of Abbas and Palestinian statehood, has resulted in wounds that will take Israel years to heal from.

For years, the various governments led by Benjamin Netanyahu took an approach that divided power between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank — bringing Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to his knees while making moves that propped up the Hamas terror group.

The idea was to prevent Abbas — or anyone else in the Palestinian Authority’s West Bank government — from advancing toward the establishment of a Palestinian state.

Thus, amid this bid to impair Abbas, Hamas was upgraded from a mere terror group to an organization with which Israel held indirect negotiations via Egypt, and one that was allowed to receive infusions of cash from abroad.

Hamas was also included in discussions about increasing the number of work permits Israel granted to Gazan laborers, which kept money flowing into Gaza, meaning food for families and the ability to purchase basic products.

Israeli officials said these permits, which allow Gazan laborers to earn higher salaries than they would in the enclave, were a powerful tool to help preserve calm.

In March 2019, Netanyahu told his Likud colleagues: “Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas … This is part of our strategy – to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank.”

In 2017, Israeli far-right parliamentarian Bezalel Smotrich proposed what he termed a “decisive plan” to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Smotrich, who is now serving as finance minister in Netanyahu’s cabinet, argued (correctly) that the root of the conflict was competing claims to the same land from two distinct national groups. But, unlike his centrist peers, Smotrich claimed that these ambitions were incommensurable: that no territorial compromise could ever be reached between Israelis and Palestinians. In such a zero-sum conflict, one side has to win and the other has to lose.

The key to Israel winning such a total victory, he wrote, is simple: Break the Palestinians’ spirit.

“Terrorism derives from hope — a hope to weaken us,” Smotrich argued. “The statement that the Arab yearning for national expression in the Land of Israel cannot be ‘repressed’ is incorrect.”

Doing this, he continued, begins by annexing the West Bank and rapidly expanding Jewish settlements there. Once Israel has declared its intention to never let that land go, and created realities on the ground that make its withdrawal unimaginable, the Palestinians will reconcile themselves to the new reality — accept a second-class form of citizenship, leave voluntarily, or attempt violent resistance and be crushed.

Smotrich has used his time in Netanyahu’s cabinet to try to implement this plan — working both to de facto annex the West Bank and to rapidly expand Jewish settlement. The result has been the exact opposite of what Smotrich thought would happen: Atrocities by emboldened settler extremists ignited Palestinian anger. Atrocities committed by Palestinians led to settler retaliation, creating an unstable situation requiring a significant redeployment of Israel Defense Forces resources to the West Bank — whose raids themselves became a source of Palestinian grievance.

And that, per the Washington Post, is why those troops weren’t on Gaza’s border. Israel’s forces, who should have been defending against terrorists in Gaza, had been dragged to the West Bank as a consequence, at least in part, of the far right’s ideological project.

pwa wrote: 3 Nov 2023, 6:29pm If declaring the current Israeli government extremist and barbaric is deemed anti-Semitic, we will all be deemed anti-Semitic soon. I have just been watching BBC coverage of the plight of civilians in Gaza, and it is appalling. Appalling on a scale way beyond the massacre committed by Hamas on October 7th. So decent people must stand up and say that what is happening is not justified by October 7th. Civilised people do not respond to a massacre by committing another massacre, only bigger. Civilised people do not show such callous indifference to the suffering and death of children. There is no excuse for this.

Time for our own politicians to develop backbones, I think.

pwa wrote: 3 Nov 2023, 6:29pm If declaring the current Israeli government extremist and barbaric is deemed anti-Semitic, we will all be deemed anti-Semitic soon. I have just been watching BBC coverage of the plight of civilians in Gaza, and it is appalling. Appalling on a scale way beyond the massacre committed by Hamas on October 7th. So decent people must stand up and say that what is happening is not justified by October 7th. Civilised people do not respond to a massacre by committing another massacre, only bigger. Civilised people do not show such callous indifference to the suffering and death of children. There is no excuse for this.

Time for our own politicians to develop backbones, I think.

Jon in Sweden wrote: 3 Nov 2023, 6:51pm

pwa wrote: 3 Nov 2023, 6:29pm If declaring the current Israeli government extremist and barbaric is deemed anti-Semitic, we will all be deemed anti-Semitic soon. I have just been watching BBC coverage of the plight of civilians in Gaza, and it is appalling. Appalling on a scale way beyond the massacre committed by Hamas on October 7th. So decent people must stand up and say that what is happening is not justified by October 7th. Civilised people do not respond to a massacre by committing another massacre, only bigger. Civilised people do not show such callous indifference to the suffering and death of children. There is no excuse for this.

Time for our own politicians to develop backbones, I think.

Completely agree.

I have a lot of time to listen to podcasts at work, so have been following some of the phone ins on James O'Brian on LBC. On several occasions, there have been Israelis callers who have genuinely defended the IDFs actions and actually stated that the actions of the IDF weren't as bad as those of Hamas, even though in both instances children were killed. If you can't be horrified at the violent death of any child, there is something wrong with you.

In the interests of balance, there have been an equal number of Jewish callers who have (like the rest of us) expressed horror at the massacre in Gaza.

Pebble wrote: 3 Nov 2023, 10:25pm
Do you think amongst the 700,000 killed in Yemen and Syria in recent years that there was no children involved, you remember when they were dropping the chemical weapons on the civilians - where you horrified then, did you protest ? or did it not matter as Israel was not involved?

JamesOBrian - do you really think that Looney Left Shock Jock is a balanced source of news ? jeez

Pebble wrote: 3 Nov 2023, 10:25pm

Jon in Sweden wrote: 3 Nov 2023, 6:51pm

pwa wrote: 3 Nov 2023, 6:29pm If declaring the current Israeli government extremist and barbaric is deemed anti-Semitic, we will all be deemed anti-Semitic soon. I have just been watching BBC coverage of the plight of civilians in Gaza, and it is appalling. Appalling on a scale way beyond the massacre committed by Hamas on October 7th. So decent people must stand up and say that what is happening is not justified by October 7th. Civilised people do not respond to a massacre by committing another massacre, only bigger. Civilised people do not show such callous indifference to the suffering and death of children. There is no excuse for this.

Time for our own politicians to develop backbones, I think.

Completely agree.

I have a lot of time to listen to podcasts at work, so have been following some of the phone ins on James O'Brian on LBC. On several occasions, there have been Israelis callers who have genuinely defended the IDFs actions and actually stated that the actions of the IDF weren't as bad as those of Hamas, even though in both instances children were killed. If you can't be horrified at the violent death of any child, there is something wrong with you.

In the interests of balance, there have been an equal number of Jewish callers who have (like the rest of us) expressed horror at the massacre in Gaza.

Do you think amongst the 700,000 killed in Yemen and Syria in recent years that there was no children involved, you remember when they were dropping the chemical weapons on the civilians - where you horrified then, did you protest ? or did it not matter as Israel was not involved?

JamesOBrian - do you really think that Looney Left Shock Jock is a balanced source of news ? jeez

pwa wrote: 4 Nov 2023, 7:33am

Pebble wrote: 3 Nov 2023, 10:25pm

Jon in Sweden wrote: 3 Nov 2023, 6:51pm

Completely agree.

I have a lot of time to listen to podcasts at work, so have been following some of the phone ins on James O'Brian on LBC. On several occasions, there have been Israelis callers who have genuinely defended the IDFs actions and actually stated that the actions of the IDF weren't as bad as those of Hamas, even though in both instances children were killed. If you can't be horrified at the violent death of any child, there is something wrong with you.

In the interests of balance, there have been an equal number of Jewish callers who have (like the rest of us) expressed horror at the massacre in Gaza.

Do you think amongst the 700,000 killed in Yemen and Syria in recent years that there was no children involved, you remember when they were dropping the chemical weapons on the civilians - where you horrified then, did you protest ? or did it not matter as Israel was not involved?

JamesOBrian - do you really think that Looney Left Shock Jock is a balanced source of news ? jeez

I remember very well the way the Syrian army conducted itself during the civil war, and unlike many I was in favour of Western intervention. The West lost its nerve, leaving the door wide open for Russia to step in and back up Assad's barbaric regime. And yes, many of us have been very critical of Saudi Arabia for its actions in Yemen. Also Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and the massacre committed by Hamas on October 7th. And now, in reprisal, Israel has thrown out of the window the rule book on how to conduct a war and is bombarding urban areas where large numbers of civilians are known to be. Are there any more you want added to the list? Speaking just for myself, I have been critical of Israeli governments for decades. But I have also been critical of Saudi Arabia and other non-democratic Arab regimes for decades. I am very critical of the Chinese "Big Brother" government. I used to be critical of the apartheid South African government. What is so special about Israel that it should be protected from my criticisms when I dislike the way it acts?

francovendee wrote: 4 Nov 2023, 9:02am
.......And that's the problem facing us and the politicians. How can you criticise the actions of the Israeli government without having the charge of being anti-semitic being thrown at you.....

pwa wrote: 3 Nov 2023, 6:29pm If declaring the current Israeli government extremist and barbaric is deemed anti-Semitic, we will all be deemed anti-Semitic soon. I have just been watching BBC coverage of the plight of civilians in Gaza, and it is appalling. Appalling on a scale way beyond the massacre committed by Hamas on October 7th. So decent people must stand up and say that what is happening is not justified by October 7th. Civilised people do not respond to a massacre by committing another massacre, only bigger. Civilised people do not show such callous indifference to the suffering and death of children. There is no excuse for this.

Time for our own politicians to develop backbones, I think.