Israel And The Palestinians (now with added Iran/Lebanon)

[LongTimeLurker]

1 hour ago, BFTD said:

...Which areas of the UK does P&B think our government would like to abandon...

Large portions of NI's two largest cities were abandoned as no go areas between the start of the Troubles and Operation Motorman so that's not as farfetched a scenario as you might think.

[Trogdor]

1 hour ago, Granny Danger said:

If this escalates then successive governments in the US and Europe will be largely to blame.

For years governments of these countries both on the right and the (nominal) left have given Israel a free pass when it came to their treatment of those in Gaza and the West Bank.  Token criticism while 20 people are killed here and 100 families displaced there.   Barring a major incident like the latest one when has a senior US or European politician voiced their concern about the Palestinian situation?

You've got your blamethrower out pointed in a familar direction.

The Palestines have been failed by a lot more than just the Western governments. I'm not sure why the bad actors in the region and beyond are spared your blamethrower. 

[Melanius Mullarkey]

7 minutes ago, Trogdor said:

blamethrower. 

 

[O'Kelly Isley III]

49 minutes ago, Trogdor said:

You've got your blamethrower out pointed in a familar direction.

The Palestines have been failed by a lot more than just the Western governments. I'm not sure why the bad actors in the region and beyond are spared your blamethrower. 

Sure there are other bad actors but the tendency has been for Israel to have been bankrolled and tankrolled to such an unquestioning degree that we are now in the current situation.

[RandomGuy.]

2 hours ago, BFTD said:

Always a chance it'll make a return once we've all had another lesson in the realities of war. It's clearly been too long for civilians in Western Europe and North America.

As a species, we're really struggling to get past the "I'm alright, Jack" mentality.

I have been wondering similar tbh.

Like people are just assuming Israel wont wipe out the millions of Palestinians in Gaza, but what if they actually do?

Too many people think this is a movie where everything works out for these made up characters who dont affect their life at all. In reality we could see a gigantic death toll, followed by a 3rd World War at a scale dwarfing the other 2, as countries realise "International law" wont be enforced when nuclear weapons are involved due to fear. You could see India/Pakistan, China/Taiwan turn into Russia/Ukraine situations, with Iran likely attacking Israel and "western powers" trying to involve themselves in all 3.

[LongTimeLurker]

19 minutes ago, RandomGuy. said:

...Like people are just assuming Israel wont wipe out the millions of Palestinians in Gaza, but what if they actually do?

Think Netanyahu's actual preferred end game would be to engineer a humanitarian catastrophe that leads to the Gaza Palestinians fleeing en masse into Egypt so they can then outright annex the territory like they have with the Golan Heights but the problem they have is that the Egyptians are not playing along with the idea that the Sinai peninsula can be used as a refuge for humanitarian reasons.

Don't think it's a given Israel will actually invade because there appears to be a lot of skepticism as to how well their soldiers would perform against Hamas fighters if they did and whether they could handle having the Iranians turning up on their northern border via Syria and Lebanon if things escalated further from there.

Not having Saddam and a mainly Sunni backed regime in power in Baghdad any more could come back to haunt them and by extension the Americans in geostrategic terms. There's a reason Israel and the western powers badly wanted a regime change where Bashar Assad's Syria was concerned because a Shiite-Alawite crescent of control from Tehran to Baghdad to Damascus to South Beirut was very bad news for them.

[RandomGuy.]

23 minutes ago, LongTimeLurker said:

Think Netanyahu's actual preferred end game would be to engineer a humanitarian catastrophe that leads to the Gaza Palestinians fleeing en masse into Egypt so they can then outright annex the territory like they have with the Golan Heights but the problem they have is that the Egyptians are not playing along with the idea that the Sinai peninsula can be used as a refuge for humanitarian reasons.

Don't think it's a given Israel will actually invade because there appears to be a lot of skepticism as to how well their soldiers would perform against Hamas fighters if they did and whether they could handle having the Iranians turning up on their northern border via Syria and Lebanon if things escalated further from there.

Im not even sure it would happen on purpose/through a direct attack. If conditions in Gaza are as bad as claimed they cant be far off a kind of mini-epidemic of diseases running unchecked through the population. 

Dense population + no sanitation + no hospitals = plague

Edited October 22, 2023 by RandomGuy.

[Trogdor]

2 hours ago, Melanius Mullarkay said:

That's exactly how I envisage the brexit voting GD.

[Granny Danger]

7 minutes ago, RandomGuy. said:

Im not even sure it would happen on purpose/through a direct attack. If conditions in Gaza are as bad as claimed they cant be far off a kind of mini-epidemic of diseases running unchecked through the population. 

Dense population + no sanitation + no hospitals = plague

If there’s a major health related crisis that leads to multiple deaths then it will will be as the result of a purposeful act.

[Melanius Mullarkey]

42 minutes ago, Trogdor said:

That's exactly how I envisage the brexit voting GD.

Aye, about 600 years ago.

[Jaggy McJagface]

I find it interesting that an actual ground invasion hasn’t even occurred yet and public perception of Israel in the west seems to be swinging against them, despite their social media astroturfing blitz. Our government and official opposition’s position on the conflict seems to be pretty out of step with public opinion.

Is there a chance - however unlikely - that Israel could shite out of a full scale invasion and we see some of the tension start to dissipate?

[vikingTON]

9 hours ago, JokerD said:

Try swapping Zionist for Russian empire...

Anyone who thinks that a nefarious 'Russian lobby' operates in every element of society and shaping decisions is demented too. That's just the comfort blanket for liberals whenever the public don't do what they want: Trump instead of Clinton; Leave instead of Remain. 

There has not however been more than a century of dog whistle, conspiratorial nonsense about the 'Russian lobby', that has actually driven policies of absolute racial extermination. 

Edited October 22, 2023 by vikingTON

[TxRover]

6 hours ago, Newbornbairn said:

It kinda feels like we're moving towards a major war. 

I suspect this is but the pregame for a main event that is driven by climate change rendering large swarths of territory effectively uninhabitable. The movement of masses of impoverished and starving people, followed by the scenes at the wire of whatever country they approach will most likely be roughly akin to film of the boys going over the top at the Somme. There will almost certainly be a brutal reckoning down the road a ways, but it’s likely to be a long, drawn out affair versus the feared nuclear holocaust.

https://interaktiv.morgenpost.de/klimawandel-hitze-meeresspiegel-wassermangel-stuerme-unbewohnbar/

[Sergeant Wilson]

9 minutes ago, TxRover said:

. There will almost certainly be a brutal reckoning down the road a ways, but it’s likely to be a long, drawn out affair versus the feared nuclear holocaust.

 

Tickety boo then.

[TxRover]

Just now, Sergeant Wilson said:

Tickety boo then.

Indeed, like you, I’ll be beyond caring at that point…something that seems to drive our “leaders” too.

[Silvio Tattiescone]

I shouldn't cancel the milk for next week then?

[O'Kelly Isley III]

6 minutes ago, TxRover said:

Indeed, like you, I’ll be beyond caring at that point…something that seems to drive our “leaders” too.

I'll be on celestial social media by then.

[Brother Blades]

Does anyone have (to hand) figures on the immigration of Jewish people to Israel? I understand there is a decent “re-settlement” package on offer from the Israeli government? Just wondering if these figures are available & whether the trend was upwards or downwards? @TxRover?

[Brother Blades]

34 minutes ago, O'Kelly Isley III said:

I'll be on celestial social media by then.

Facebook & Twitter are already “Hell” 

[btb]

5 hours ago, Trogdor said:

You've got your blamethrower out pointed in a familar direction.

The Palestines have been failed by a lot more than just the Western governments. I'm not sure why the bad actors in the region and beyond are spared your blamethrower. 

Whilst true it remains the case that Western governments remain the only hope for ordinary Palestinians.