1000's of years now. Yet the 2 state solution that's been bandied about for many decades now and the Palestinians want it, yet the Israeli government continues to block it and send in their murdering terrorist so called "settlers" to kill and steal more land and when they get done in Benji and his terrorist government send in the terrorist troops where they shouldn't be in the 1st place and then as usual the Palestinians react. Wouldn't you if your homes and land are continually being stolen?

I agree about settlement policy. But not 1000s of years. From the Middle Ages until 20th century, Jews were mostly persecuted by Christians, while Muslim rulers protected them. Ancient Christian hatred of Jews led to Zionism, the Jew's dream to return to Jerusalem rebuilding their state. Most (brainwashed) Palestinians don't want two states, don't accept Israel's very existence. Israel blocks it? Not true. In the year 2000 Ehud Barak offered Yassir Arafat 100% of Gaza, 97% of West Bank. Arafat stubbornly insisted on Jerusalem's Temple Mount AND the Western Wall, rejecting any compromise to separate sovereignty over these holy places. So the process died. Ehud Barak was swept away by the 2nd Intifada, hawkish Sharon took over. Today's Mahmoud Abbas is a well-paid, well-fed rude idiot who offends political leaders in the West. No interest in any agreement. He lives well off the status quo. The Crème de la Crème of Palestina: PLO's Mahmud Abbas and Hamas' Ismail Haniyya. No point negotiating with them.

Settlers have to be stopped, their interest ignored. Benji violates international law enlarging settlements. They have to be part of a peace treaty, regardless of what settlers think about it.

The west has allowed the far right terrorist Zionist influenced government to get away with plain outright genocide for decades and it's time for it to stop and stop now.

Any sovereign state decides in democratic elections who forms the government, isn't it? It wasn't far right most of the time. And... genocide is a defined term; the state-driven extermination of a people, their culture or language. I can't see that. Mahmoud Abbas expressed in front of the German Chancelor, Israel perpetrated 50 massacres, 50 Holocausts on Palestinians. Such comparisons are inadmissible, unacceptable for us. Genocides were committed to Jews by Germans, to Armenians by Turks, to Circassians by Russians....

It'll only get worse if Benji and his Zionist mob arn't pulled into line and into line very quickly. Also remember that Benji is just like Trump and doing his best to escape many corruption and fraud charges by trying his hardest to dilute the power of the courts (whereas Donny installed pet judges instead).

+1

Any imagined right to resist never justifies terror. Even acts of war must have a tactical goal and avoid collateral damage if possible.

The fire bombing of Hamburg, Dresden and Tokyo

... Yet the 2 state solution that's been bandied about for many decades now and the Palestinians want it, yet the Israeli government continues to block it...

How can there be any cooperative negotiation when the dictators controlling the Palestinians uncompromisingly demand the entirety of what they call their Palestine and the total dismantling of Israel and the extermination of everything and anyone Israeli?

Note also that nowhere in history has "Palestine" ever existed as any sort of country. That description is a modern day propaganda invention.


Meanwhile, the civilians and unbelievable proportion of children that are the population in Gaza are political pawns in a forever war that is keeping the dictators in Iran propped up.

How to undo the modern day decades of that mess?

All in a game of very deadly politics,
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
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And on that basis I have some sympathy with Hamas...

Sympathy with deliberate, wilful child-murderers? (As opposed to indiscriminate bombing, or sympathy with the innocent people of Palestine.) I was awaiting third-party confirmation of the beheaded babies that Israeli soldiers reported finding, but we have it for deliberate murders of children.

I don't seem to remember other colonized people ie South Africans or Indians behaving this way or making excuses for it... because:

the United Nations have condemned the violence in the starkest terms, with the U.N. secretary general saying, “Nothing can justify these acts of terror and the killing, maiming and abduction of civilians.”

Nothing can justify these acts.

Yes, Israel has treated the Palestinians terribly, but this is much worse. And with only a choice between terrible and much worse, terrible is the better choice every time.

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both Isral and Hamas are commting mass war crimes, a pox on both of them.

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Note also that nowhere in history has "Palestine" ever existed as any sort of country. That description is a modern day propaganda invention.

Invention of the line in the sand gang. Now whose propaganda is that?

both Isral[sic] and Hamas are commting mass war crimes, a pox on both of them.

Both sides need to all be, and I do mean all, hauled in front of a Nuremberg court, convicted and dispatched from the planet. It is only when the hard line that has worked themselves into a fury froth are gone that coexistence can happen.

Simple test, anyone demanding you pick sides, dispatch them.

Any imagined right to resist never justifies terror. Even acts of war must have a tactical goal and avoid collateral damage if possible.

The fire bombing of Hamburg, Dresden and Tokyo

What's your statement?

On Feb 15, 1945, US Army Air Forces send 459 B17s to destroy large parts of my city, Cottbus, especially the area around the train station, a large railway junction with a lot of freight traffic at the time. An ammunition train was hit but also trains with wounded and refugees. In the city and on the outskirts there were assembly plants for half-track military vehicles and for fighter aircraft (Focke-Wulf Fw 190 ). Around 1,500 civilians died, among them 400 children from a children's refugee train. 2,500 were wounded, 13,000 became homeless. The attack was aimed at the logistics of German warfare using the military means of the time (carpet bombing).

In my opinion, a war crime was perfecting the destructive effects of carpet bombing through the clever, staggered dropping of explosive and incendiary bombs. They were supposed to first remove the roof tiles from houses and then set the roof trusses on fire. When this was successful, the suction of heat from fires in entire districts created a firestorm; a violent air movement that fanned fires so much that attempts to extinguish them became futile. This almost completely wiped out cities which was the fate of Hamburg and Dresden.

This method was researched starting in 1943 in Utah at the "Dugway Proving Ground", where emigrated German architects, among them Konrad Wachsmann, rebuilt typical appartment buildings of densely populated poorer quarters of Berlin. Different types of incendiary and explosive bombs were tested on these homes to determine the most destructive combination. Today streets and schools here are named after Konrad Wachsmann. I don't think that's right. He was one of the founders of modular, industrial prefabricated construction of residential buildings.

WW2 is off-topic... Let's return to Israel.

Just before we leave - a reminder of Arthur "Bomber" Harris.

The aim of the Combined Bomber Offensive ... should be unambiguously stated [as] the destruction of German cities, the killing of German workers, and the disruption of civilised life throughout Germany ... the destruction of houses, public utilities, transport and lives, the creation of a refugee problem on an unprecedented scale, and the breakdown of morale both at home and at the battle fronts by fear of extended and intensified bombing, are accepted and intended aims of our bombing policy. They are not by-products of attempts to hit factories.

Just before we leave - a reminder of Arthur "Bomber" Harris

I deliberately didn't mention the British Air Marshal.

Moral bombing doesn't work, never has, never will. Infrastructure can be destroyed, but morale cannot.

Putin has scored a big hit against the world media for deflecting ALL attention away from his Hamas-style attacks all across Ukraine...

Putin also loves anniversaries to make some sort of explosive comment...

And note that the Hamas attack was 50 years from the Yom Kippur War...

And there are Russian, North Korean, and Iranian weapons recovered from the skirmishes with Hamas...


Coincidence?

Politics??

The slow trickle into WWIII?

And appeasement never works... Never...


Stay safe folks?
Martin


Yom Kippur War: "... The war began on 6 October 1973, when the Arab coalition jointly launched a surprise attack against Israel on the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur, which had occurred during the 10th day of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan in that year...."

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

Just before we leave - a reminder of Arthur "Bomber" Harris

Mentioning Harris... As early as 1936 he expressed ideas on how to solve the problems in the Palestine Arab revolt [see Richard's article]:

"one 250 lb. or 500 lb. bomb in each village that speaks out of turn" would satisfactorily solve the problem.

Putin also loves anniversaries to make some sort of explosive comment...

Yes, he does... and did you notice his birthday? It's October 7, 1952.

No... just kidding. This attack was years in the making. Surely they set the date on the 50th anniversary of Yom Kippur. But I don't think Putin initiated it or decided on the date. Russia may have supplied weapons. But who knows... Anna Politkovskaya, author for newspaper "Novaya Gazeta" and a powerful Putin critic, was also assassinated on this day in 2006 in the elevator of her appartment house in downtown Moscow.

both Isral[sic] and Hamas are commting mass war crimes, a pox on both of them.

Both sides need to all be, and I do mean all, hauled in front of a Nuremberg court, convicted and dispatched from the planet. It is only when the hard line that has worked themselves into a fury froth are gone that coexistence can happen.

Simple test, anyone demanding you pick sides, dispatch them.

"[...] all, hauled [...] and dispatched [...]"?

All? That are many countries, all of its leaders and the majority of their citizens. You don't believe me? Why is Israel mobilizing hundreds of thousands of soldiers now? To invade Gaza? No. They have to secure their borders to Lebanon and Syria with hundreds (thousands?) of tanks, artillery, infantry. Those in power in these two countries must also be hauled to a Nuremberg 2.0 or immediately dispatched from earth's surface. After the three full-scale wars these countries initiated against Israel, both never signed any peace treaty.

After the Six-Day War of 1967, many Palestinians fled to Jordan. Egypt's President Nasser founded the PLO, a political representation for them. Yasser Arafat turned it into a terror organization and fought a bloody civil war in Jordan in 1970...1971. They even tried to assassinate the King, which expelled all Palestinians then from his country (and to this day refrains from giving them passports or visas). PLO and Palestinians moved on to southern Lebanon, started a civil war there immediately. Soon PLO attacks and raids into northern Israel began, finally bloody massacres to civilians. So, in 1982 Israel invaded Lebanon, a fragile multi-ethnic, multi-religious country, and occupied its south to force the PLO out. Deja vu, anyone? (yes, Israel became a player in the civil war and committed war crimes against civilians cooperating with Christian rebels).

What about today? There's Hezbollah in Lebanon. They are a thousand times more powerful, more dangerous than PLO ever was in the past---a fully equipped army. Now we need a US president to divert a US Navy aircraft carrier off Lebanon's coast who publicly utters: Don't! Don't! Don't! That is: shut up, calm down, and be quiet! ... and in the background, for many decades now, there is this fat and ugly octopus with its many tentacles reaching wide and far and these tentacles are growing in length and become thicker each year.

Until 1989, this octopus was the USSR, which held Eastern and half of Central Europe firmly in its grip and continued to reach into Africa and Asia for decades. Now what will you do with 21th centuries' octopus in the Middle East?

It's ML1 who frequently comments:

And appeasement never works... Never...

Just before we leave - a reminder of Arthur "Bomber" Harris

I deliberately didn't mention the British Air Marshal.
Moral[sic?] bombing doesn't work, never has, never will. Infrastructure can be destroyed, but morale cannot.

So why does Israel bulldoze the houses of the relatives fo suicide bombers if it doesn't work?

Why is Israel bombing apartment blocks if it doesn't work?

https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20231011-israel-pounds-gaza-targets-as-pm-condemns-hamas-savagery wrote:

In Gaza, officials reported more than 1,000 people killed in Israel's sustained campaign of air and artillery strikes on the crowded Palestinian enclave, sending black smoke billowing into the sky and razing entire city blocks.

Arthur "Bomber" Harris wrote:

The aim of the Combined Bomber Offensive ... should be unambiguously stated [as] the destruction of German cities, the killing of German workers, and the disruption of civilised life throughout Germany ... the destruction of houses, public utilities, transport and lives, the creation of a refugee problem on an unprecedented scale, and the breakdown of morale both at home and at the battle fronts by fear of extended and intensified bombing, are accepted and intended aims of our bombing policy. They are not by-products of attempts to hit factories.

Of course you didn't mention Mr. Harris. To do so would require you to make comparisons you don't want to because such thinking is hard and painful and might lead to your opinions changing.

There is no moral ground in this continuing atrocity. Not any high moral ground, not any low moral ground, no morals whatsoever.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_of_apartheid wrote:

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".
Article II of the ICSPCA defines the crime of apartheid as:
For the purpose of the present Convention, the term 'the crime of apartheid', which shall include similar policies and practices of racial segregation and discrimination as practiced in southern Africa, shall apply to the following inhumane acts committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group of persons over any other racial group of persons and systematically oppressing them:

Denial to a member or members of a racial group or groups of the right to life and liberty of person
By murder of members of a racial group or groups;
By the infliction upon the members of a racial group or groups of serious bodily or mental harm, by the infringement of their freedom or dignity, or by subjecting them to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment;
By arbitrary arrest and illegal imprisonment of the members of a racial group or groups;
Deliberate imposition on a racial group or groups of living conditions calculated to cause its or their physical destruction in whole or in part;
Any legislative measures and other measures calculated to prevent a racial group or groups from participation in the political, social, economic and cultural life of the country and the deliberate creation of conditions preventing the full development of such a group or groups, in particular by denying to members of a racial group or groups basic human rights and freedoms, including the right to work, the right to form recognised trade unions, the right to education, the right to leave and to return to their country, the right to a nationality, the right to freedom of movement and residence, the right to freedom of opinion and expression, and the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association;
Any measures including legislative measures, designed to divide the population along racial lines by the creation of separate reserves and ghettos for the members of a racial group or groups, the prohibition of mixed marriages among members of various racial groups, the expropriation of landed property belonging to a racial group or groups or to members thereof;
Exploitation of the labour of the members of a racial group or groups, in particular by submitting them to forced labour;
Persecution of organizations and persons, by depriving them of fundamental rights and freedoms, because they oppose apartheid.

According to the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD),
the term "racial discrimination" shall mean any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin which has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life.

Neither of the sides should be breathing the same air as humanity.

Putin has scored a big hit against the world media for deflecting ALL attention away from his Hamas-style attacks all across Ukraine...

You didn't comment on his prediction just before the atrocity started that the Ukraine war would be over in a week.

The media has turned away from mother Russia and Pootin has his MAGATS blocking the US congress. Masterfully played.

Just escalating the problem further.

Israel’s military orders civilians to evacuate Gaza City, ahead of a feared ground offensive.

UN Calls Israel Army’s Evacuation Order in Gaza ‘Impossible’.

So why does Israel bulldoze the houses of the relatives fo suicide bombers if it doesn't work?

Palestinian mothers and fathers are very proud when their sons are fighting Israel, very proud when they managed to kill as many Jews as possible before they were stopped (killed). Then they receive financial compensations and monthly payments from Hamas or Mahmoud Abbas' government. Their social status within their community raises. They have developed a different understanding of their offspring. Because they have so many, some of them seem to be dispensable. How should Israel send a clear signal to the responsible people to stop suicide bombing at meeting places, bus stops, running busses? That's immoral, that's brutal. But what's the alternative? Mahmoud Abbas' government spend 8% of its finances for compensations to relatives of killed Jihad fighters. We, the West, the EU, the UN, we finance these compensations from our taxes. That's ridiculous. Bulldozing the houses of assassins intends to make families of future assassins think carefully because it will exact a price on them personally. They will loose their house. This is pure and brutal, like Matthew 5:38 frowns upon:

[...] "‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’

This is immoral, completely sick, medieval. But our Western standards don't work in the Middle East. Only strength counts there. Anyone who is weak will be eaten up. Wolf pack rules apply. Israel has not yet found a better idea, if not to stop suicide bombers, then at least to limit their number. How do you call Hamas fighters assaulting Israel? How many of them survived? How many surrendered and were arrested? So, most of them are 'suicide bombers/killers/monsters'. It's easy to condemn Israel from the outside. How would we deal with such a problem in our country? The British, the League of Nations, the United Nations have never in history had a viable solution. Do we have a solution for this? Then why don’t we just explain it to Israel? Instead, we give billions to the Palestinians and expect peace there. We don't want to see misery on TV news. We also know that Qatar gives billions to Hamas, we know that Iran supplies weapons and missiles on a large scale to Hamas, to Hezbollah, ... to any enemy of Israel. Hamas rockets are no longer the primitive 'Kassams' from 10 years ago, manufactured in basements and backyard workshops in Gaza. These rockets now fly into Tel Aviv and hit their intended destinations. Not a couple, but thousands of them.

So, the Israeli-American "Iron Dome" is another lazy solution within this conflict. Dozens of billions were invested in a highly sophisticated technical solution that is intended to stop thousands of murderers, terrorists from killing your own citizens. This avoids confronting these monsters directly because that always gets ugly and bloody. A lazy compromise. It's appeasement which apparently doesn't work.

[A mind game:] The oppressed Kurds, a people of 40 million without a state of their own, are setting up a fighting force like Hamas within their operations base in Mosul, northern Iraq. They launch an attack, surprising the Turkish army. More than thousands fanatic Kurds advance dozen kilometers into Turkish territory. There they murder 1,500 turkish women, children, youngsters and elderlies in many villages and towns. They kidnap 150 hostages and take them back to Mosul. What would Turkey do? They would wipe out this city, drive its residents, independent if Kurds, Shias or Sunnis into the desert, occuping the area and permanently annexing it to their state territory. They would reject any criticism of this.

Why is Israel bombing apartment blocks if it doesn't work?

Where are the forts, depots, barracks, i.e. Hamas' military facilities that are spatially separated from the city's civilian infrastructure? That is the responsibility under international law of any belligerent power to ensure this. It is an intolerable scandal that we in the West tolerated this situation for so long, which has been slowly emerging for at least a decade. We maintain contacts with Hamas. We finance the civil infrastructure and even the entire lives of millions in Gaza, without to impose harsh conditions and to demand guarantees from Gaza's leaders and then enforce them. Gaza has been a hotbed of terror for a long time. Since Hamas came to power, it's been completely out of control. A spatial separation between civil and military is deliberately avoided by Hamas. Their operating bases are in hospitals, in basements, rocket positions next to apartment blocks, and long tunnels between high-rise buildings across the city. These serve exclusively military purposes. The current situation in Gaza should never have been allowed to arise. Appeasement doesn't work. It postpones conflict. It worsens conflicts. It increases the depth of the crater the final explosion will leave behind, as well as the number of victims, both among fanatics and innocents.

What should Israel do instead? Bomb Tehran? Give Brussels tough ultimatums? Liquidate some people in Qatar (e.g. the Hamas chief), in Damascus, in Beirut? This would affect those responsible, those who block any solution to this conflict. Israel cannot do that. If it were to prepare such Harakiri, the USA would probably intervene, just as they stopped them in Lebanon in the 1980s. Yes, Israels settlement policy, its occupation policy in West Bank is not sustainable. Benji is responsible for worst failure exposing Israels security in 50 years. He shoud be fired ASAP. But voters elect ruling coalitions. Their opinion decides whether doves or hawks.

Of course you didn't mention Mr. Harris. To do so would require you to make comparisons you don't want to because such thinking is hard and painful and might lead to your opinions changing.

We are long past making this topic emotionally charged. Only far right idiots, radicals still abuse the memory of the victims and denounce an unpunished guilt of the Anglo-Americans. Wherever they appear, there are ten times as many against these fanatics, die-hards, neo-Nazis. From history we learned one important thing, which Harris expressed watching the London Blitz in 1940:

[...] quoting Hosea 8:7 from the Old Testament, "The Nazis entered this war under the rather childish delusion that they were going to bomb everyone else, and nobody was going to bomb them. At Rotterdam, London, Warsaw and half a hundred other places, they put their rather naive theory into operation. They sowed the wind, and now they are going to reap the whirlwind."

There is no moral ground in this continuing atrocity. Not any high moral ground, not any low moral ground, no morals whatsoever.

I agree, but Matthew 5:39 doesn't helps here...

"But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also."

No government on earth can ignore a blow like the one delivered by Hamas without declaring war. If Israel were to accept this, it would be demonstrating it cannot and will no longer fulfill its most fundamental task. Israel then dissolves. It would be an invitation to any opponent: just hit harder and we will disappear in the dust of history. Was it wrong to hunt Bin Laden in Afghanistan after 9/11? The idea of introducing democracy there was stupid and naive. But should the US have let the Taliban continue to harbor al-Qaeda to avoid further atrocities? (The comparison is flawed, I can't think of a better one at the moment).

Neither of the sides should be breathing the same air as humanity.

While the UN is brain dead we need true statesmen leading the world's major powers, who are willing to resolve interstate conflicts peacefully, who are willing to spend the effort and time on identifying causes, analyzing them, working out solutions with all involved, even if it takes years, and who then use their influence (reputation, political and military power) to enforce agreed solutions to keep the peace. These statesmen (or women) no longer exist. There are only dwarves today in democratic states... resp. autocrats, potentates elsewhere. Or rather, they once existed. Several generations of such statesmen wasted their reputation, their power, their political lives in the search for a solution to the Middle East conflict. Nobody wants to do it anymore. A bomb in a crowded bus in Jaffa, a suicide bomber in Tel Aviv or [fill in an unthinkable cruelty] in Jerusalem will destroy any compromise that has been worked on for years.

There is no moral ground in this continuing atrocity. Not any high moral ground, not any low moral ground, no morals whatsoever.

I agree, but Matthew 5:39 doesn't helps here...

"But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also."

No government on earth can ignore a blow like the one delivered by Hamas without declaring war.

Jesus was a Jew. Did he speak for Jews? As you seem Christian are those not the commands of your God? Are the commands of your God only applicable when it suits you, when you can profit? How do you expect to be judged on your death?

In any case Israel seems ready to commit a Holocaust on Gaza city. History repeats itself. The world will stand by and watch it happen again.

Jesus was a Jew. Did he speak for Jews? As you seem Christian are those not the commands of your God? Are the commands of your God only applicable when it suits you, when you can profit? How do you expect to be judged on your death?

Now I ventured too far and was promptly caught. I grew up in a socialist urban society among working-class children, where communists in power pushed back any influence of religion and churches for several generations. An atheist society remained, with a small diaspora of Christians scattered mostly in rural areas. I am interested in the history of religions their basic narratives, but never had a personal connection to it, like my parents and grandparents. I better avoid such quotes.

[EDIT to add:] Israel must separate innocents from terrorists and either destroy Hamas completely or force them out of Gaza. It would be desirable that neighboring Arab countries would also recognize this and contribute in whatever way they can (political influence). There is no alternative. How is that supposed to be done? I have no idea. Doing it is unthinkable. Not doing it is equally unthinkable. A dead end. Hamas thinks it can blackmail Israel with 150 hostages for years to come, impose its will, and free all of its prisoners. Absolutely unthinkable. I cannot and will not judge that.

As a German, I learned the definition of genocide and Holocaust. This is not what Israel intends. Constantly accusing them of doing so trivializes the Holocaust and genocides that actually happened. I don't want to offend anyone. Just to explain: This terms are taken very seriously in public discussion in Germany. You pay close attention to which events it is appropriate for.