Israel, Palestine and Iran (and Lebanon)

[chrisp65]

2 minutes ago, bickster said:

Let me get this right.

Hezbollah in Lebanon launch missiles at Israel, daily.

Israel retaliates and this is wrong

Iran attacks Israel

No one should help Israel defend itself.

On the one hand its wrong for Israel to attack Lebanon because of the innocent people who could die but on the other hand the UK shouldn't help Israel defend itself against a massive missile attack from Iran, so we shouldn't be preventing loss of life on the Israeli side?

 

Thats some mad logic wrapped up in that

If that’s for me (it might not be), I haven’t said that.

 

[bickster]

7 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

If that’s for me (it might not be), I haven’t said that.

 

If it was in relation to a particular poster's comment, I'd have quoted it

 

[Jon]

1 hour ago, bickster said:

 

On the one hand its wrong for Israel to attack Lebanon because of the innocent people who could die but on the other hand the UK shouldn't help Israel defend itself against a massive missile attack from Iran, so we shouldn't be preventing loss of life on the Israeli side?

 

 

So we should actively help Israel defend itself, but we should not actively help Palestine/Iran/Lebanon defend itself? 

We've picked a side in this.  

We appear to be doing next to nothing to stop this conflict either, aside from a few measly words. 

[blandy]

1 hour ago, Jon said:

So we should actively help Israel defend itself, but we should not actively help Palestine/Iran/Lebanon defend itself? 

We've picked a side in this.  

We appear to be doing next to nothing to stop this conflict either, aside from a few measly words. 

That's (your analysis, I mean) broadly correct, I think. 2 Caveats though - first we should (try to) help prevent loss of life anywhere and second, on the "doing next to nothing", there actually is "next to nothing" we can do - Israel and Netanyahu take absolutely no heed of anything we say or do - other than angrily shout if we do a token gesture. Iran doesn't care what the UK says or does either. We're deluded if we think we have some kind of "control" or influence - we don't. It's just, what's the word? performative bloviating - whether it's Sunak or Starmer or any of the other politicians or political activists. 

[Jareth]

If Macron can come out and state that Israel should receive no more weapons, then what is stopping Starmer the human rights lawyer exactly?

[GrootVilla]

3 minutes ago, Jareth said:

If Macron can come out and state that Israel should receive no more weapons, then what is stopping Starmer the human rights lawyer exactly?

LFOI

[Jareth]

2 minutes ago, GrootVilla said:

LFOI

Yup, who's previous organiser is now 'the' Israeli spokesperson. 

[blandy]

2 minutes ago, Jareth said:

If Macron can come out and state that Israel should receive no more weapons, then what is stopping Starmer the human rights lawyer exactly?

The law. Of course it's easy to "say" something, but it has to have meaning beyond just hot air. We have law around the sale of weapons. And as has been posted numerous times we don't sell (as far as I'm aware) "weapons" to Israel - we sell some military or dual use items to Israel, but almost nothing. We also make the empennage (back end) of F35s which we "sell" to the USA, who in turn sold some F35s to Israel. But they've already got them.

Secondly, it would be a dumb thing to say , because Israel needs "weapons" to protect itself and its civillians from Iranian and Hamas and Hezbollah's rockets and terrorism.

None of that is to remotely accept that Israel's treatment of and genocide of Palestinians is anything but abhorrent.

[Jareth]

1 minute ago, blandy said:

The law. Of course it's easy to "say" something, but it has to have meaning beyond just hot air. We have law around the sale of weapons. And as has been posted numerous times we don't sell (as far as I'm aware) "weapons" to Israel - we sell some military or dual use items to Israel, but almost nothing. We also make the empennage (back end) of F35s which we "sell" to the USA, who in turn sold some F35s to Israel. But they've already got them.

Secondly, it would be a dumb thing to say , because Israel needs "weapons" to protect itself and its civillians from Iranian and Hamas and Hezbollah's rockets and terrorism.

None of that is to remotely accept that Israel's treatment of and genocide of Palestinians is anything but abhorrent.

TBF that was the answer given by the Labour panelist on QT - that they've assessed what is sold to Israel and that if international law says it's gonna be used for nefarious purposes then they have revoked the licence. So hands up I agree with you. But - he can still say the words, no weapons to kill folks will be sold. I'm understanding of the role that a PM with alliances to maintain must take, but wow is Netanyahu getting the maximum extended to him and his gov. I believe the other day Starmer and Lammy were refused a meeting at a critical moment, they were shut out. It's all rather impotent.  

[Jareth]

British Israeli hostage's mum 

Quote

“How is it that she is still imprisoned there after one year? Why isn't the whole world, especially Britain, fighting every moment to secure her release.”

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce3we9n0v79o

Quite right. Why is she still a hostage? 

[ender4]

1 hour ago, Jareth said:

British Israeli hostage's mum 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce3we9n0v79o

Quite right. Why is she still a hostage? 

It is weird why this isn’t being made into a huge thing by the UK media?  A British person is being held hostage by a terrorist group and no-one is saying anything.  
 

Imagine if China or Russia or Iran or Somalia were holding British hostages, it would be wall to wall coverage.

[Jareth]

Just now, ender4 said:

It is weird why this isn’t being made into a huge thing by the UK media?  A British person is being held hostage by a terrorist group and no-one is saying anything.  
 

Imagine if China or Russia or Iran or Somalia were holding British hostages, it would be wall to wall coverage.

It opens the debate - there are British people committing war crimes with the IDF - there are British people fleeing Lebanon. 

[blandy]

1 hour ago, Jareth said:

Why is she still a hostage? 

Because Hamas haven't released her, because the IDF haven't managed to find or rescue her, because it's a war zone, because no nation (including the USA, with all their resources and capabilities) has managed to get any of their citizen Hostages out (apart from Israel, obviously). Because we (the UK) have no capability to do anything, other than try and get Israel to find her and the others and we're totally reliant on Israel to do anything for her, and because they've sent like 20,000 troops to look for hostages and have managed to get to some, have killed some by mistake and others as "collateral damage". It's absolutely tragic for her and her family and friends, but in terms of the media, she's a tiny part of an enormous horror and it's not all about her, when tens of thousands are maimed and dying and the ME is on the brink of a clusterpork war.

I guess you knew all that, I'm just venting, I guess. 

[chrisp65]

Doesn’t Iran always keep a minimum of one British hostage? Sorry, not hostage, suspected spy.

I suspect the lack of publicity specific to anyone with a UK connection is not unusual. It’s very difficult to keep these cases in the news and often it’s actively discouraged by the powers that be.

Who could name the current Iranian hostage? How much do we hear about Jimmy Lai? Nnamdi Kanu in Nigeria? Abd-El Fattah in Egypt?

I wouldn’t read anything exceptional in to the same happening in Gaza, but with more confusion and less diplomatic channels.
 

 

[magnkarl]

3 hours ago, Jareth said:

British Israeli hostage's mum 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce3we9n0v79o

Quite right. Why is she still a hostage? 

She’s likely dead, before she died she was likely sexually assaulted daily like most of the other female hostages. The community in Britain who’ve gone through this has long since given up hope when we saw what Hamas did to women they took on Oct 7th, some of which came back in literal parts after Jeremy’s good friends took to using gardening tools on their bodies and parading them through Gaza.