gaza conflict

[Son of Mathonwy]

So much for the ceasefire. It's almost like Israel don't really want one.

Unless there are consequences for Israel, the genocide will continue.

[Puja]

Just looked up what had happened and was struck by the first sentence of the Guardian article, "Israel launched waves of lethal airstrikes on Sunday and cut off all aid into Gaza 'until further notice' after a reported attack by Hamas."

Sooooo, we're not longer even pretending anymore that they're not engaging in the war crime of collective punishment, huh? Just openly reporting Israel saying, "Yeah, two of our soldiers were killed, so we're cutting off food to the entire area," but somehow not making that our headline?

Wild.

Puja

[Son of Mathonwy]

Just looked up what had happened and was struck by the first sentence of the Guardian article, "Israel launched waves of lethal airstrikes on Sunday and cut off all aid into Gaza 'until further notice' after a reported attack by Hamas."

Sooooo, we're not longer even pretending anymore that they're not engaging in the war crime of collective punishment, huh? Just openly reporting Israel saying, "Yeah, two of our soldiers were killed, so we're cutting off food to the entire area," but somehow not making that our headline?

Wild.

Puja

Another day, another war crime. Except even a supposedly progressive newspaper has given up on calling them out. Another victory for the normalization of genocide.

And if you google IDF killed by own explosives you'll see that they've suffered a load of 'friendly fire' and Darwin-award-level deaths in the last 2 years. If an Israeli soldier dies now, why would we believe them when they say Hamas did it? More likely another case of genosuicide .

[Sandydragon]

So much for the ceasefire. It's almost like Israel don't really want one.

Unless there are consequences for Israel, the genocide will continue.

Its not entirely clear that all the Hamas leadership want one either. Regrettably, without courageous and sensible leadership on both sides, this wont last the long term.

[Puja]

So much for the ceasefire. It's almost like Israel don't really want one.

Unless there are consequences for Israel, the genocide will continue.

Its not entirely clear that all the Hamas leadership want one either. Regrettably, without courageous and sensible leadership on both sides, this wont last the long term.

The difference is very much one of collective punishment and scale though. Israel control the food, water, electricity, fuel, medicine, and internet supply for the entire territory, as well as having a fully-equipped and well-armed military who have the political cover to kill or imprison anyone for any reason and face zero repercussions for it. On the other side, Hamas are a bunch of terrorist fuckwits with guns. The two are very clearly not equivalent.

For Israel to say that deliberately starving 2 million people is an appropriate response to 2 soldiers being murdered, by terrorists, is utterly psychotic. One cannot just shake their head and say, "Ah, well, both sides are being bad, what can you do?"

Puja

[Sandydragon]

I’m not arguing with you on the disproportionate nature of Israeli policy. But if you want long term peace then both sides need to be prepared to take risk and make concessions. I don’t see much evidence of that.

Hamas is very happy to hide behind the Palestinian population and let them get killed, whilst senior leadership enjoys itself in the Gulf States.

For this to work there needs to be a change of government in Israel, which is quite possible, with the hardliners sidelines. There also needs to be regime change Gaza, which I suspect Hamas will not want.

[Son of Mathonwy]

I’m not arguing with you on the disproportionate nature of Israeli policy. But if you want long term peace then both sides need to be prepared to take risk and make concessions. I don’t see much evidence of that.

Hamas is very happy to hide behind the Palestinian population and let them get killed, whilst senior leadership enjoys itself in the Gulf States.

For this to work there needs to be a change of government in Israel, which is quite possible, with the hardliners sidelines. There also needs to be regime change Gaza, which I suspect Hamas will not want.

What is your view of the last couple of years in Israel and Palestine?

[Puja]

I’m not arguing with you on the disproportionate nature of Israeli policy. But if you want long term peace then both sides need to be prepared to take risk and make concessions. I don’t see much evidence of that.

Hamas is very happy to hide behind the Palestinian population and let them get killed, whilst senior leadership enjoys itself in the Gulf States.

For this to work there needs to be a change of government in Israel, which is quite possible, with the hardliners sidelines. There also needs to be regime change Gaza, which I suspect Hamas will not want.

One can't happen without the other though. Israel is keeping Hamas in power at present on two grounds. The first is logistical - there has not been an election since 2014 (and that one involved Hamas fighters "inspecting" polling stations) - Israel have controlled pretty much the entire Gazan security apparatus over that time, so they either do not want an election because it's politically useful to have the boogyman next door or didn't care enough about what Gaza did before the terrorist attack to make one happen.

The second is motivational - Israel has razed the entire area and killed 70,000 people (not including deaths from starvation or illness), and their politicians are openly speaking about continuing and doing worse. This does tend to increase public support for terrorist bastards who promise to take revenge. Plus crushed infrastructure and communities also means crushing any chance of non-democratic regime change because people can't group or organise.

...if you want long term peace then both sides need to be prepared to take risk and make concessions.

What further concessions can the Gazan populace make?

Puja

[Son of Mathonwy]

I initially thought this looked like good news - resignations over the BBC's pro-Israel bias (I thought). But no, too anti-Israel apparently. God knows who the replacements will be.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2025/ ... or-general

The editing if the Trump speech looks potentially dodgy though, although I would have to see the unedited speech to really know.

[Son of Mathonwy]

I’m not arguing with you on the disproportionate nature of Israeli policy. But if you want long term peace then both sides need to be prepared to take risk and make concessions. I don’t see much evidence of that.

Hamas is very happy to hide behind the Palestinian population and let them get killed, whilst senior leadership enjoys itself in the Gulf States.

For this to work there needs to be a change of government in Israel, which is quite possible, with the hardliners sidelines. There also needs to be regime change Gaza, which I suspect Hamas will not want.

What is your view of the last couple of years in Israel and Palestine?

Seriously - this wasn't a rhetorical question. I am interested in your overall view of the events in and around Gaza over the last 2 and a bit years.

[Puja]

I initially thought this looked like good news - resignations over the BBC's pro-Israel bias (I thought). But no, too anti-Israel apparently. God knows who the replacements will be.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2025/ ... or-general

The editing if the Trump speech looks potentially dodgy though, although I would have to see the unedited speech to really know.

The editing of the Trump speech was flat out wrong - they take two bits of speech that were not connected in any way and splice it together to make it look like he's being overt and saying the quiet part out loud. There's an argument that that's definitely what he was implying so it's not **really** a misrepresentation, but I personally think that argument's bullshit - making it seem like someone's said something they didn't isn't reporting, it's fiction. If someone's guilty and confesses, hang them with their words, but you can't edit their words and make it look like a confession because you've decided they're guilty.

Mind, Kuennsberg did worse to Corbyn a few years back (edited an interview so that an answer he gave was shown in response to a completely different question) and she got a promotion, so who knows how far this whole new "respect for the truth" thing goes at the BBC?

Puja

[Son of Mathonwy]

I initially thought this looked like good news - resignations over the BBC's pro-Israel bias (I thought). But no, too anti-Israel apparently. God knows who the replacements will be.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2025/ ... or-general

The editing if the Trump speech looks potentially dodgy though, although I would have to see the unedited speech to really know.

The editing of the Trump speech was flat out wrong - they take two bits of speech that were not connected in any way and splice it together to make it look like he's being overt and saying the quiet part out loud. There's an argument that that's definitely what he was implying so it's not **really** a misrepresentation, but I personally think that argument's bullshit - making it seem like someone's said something they didn't isn't reporting, it's fiction. If someone's guilty and confesses, hang them with their words, but you can't edit their words and make it look like a confession because you've decided they're guilty.

Mind, Kuennsberg did worse to Corbyn a few years back (edited an interview so that an answer he gave was shown in response to a completely different question) and she got a promotion, so who knows how far this whole new "respect for the truth" thing goes at the BBC?

Puja

Have you seen the missing text from the speech? I've seen it for the first part, ie the 'we'll all march down' really ends with and cheer on the representatives etc, but I haven't seen the words that really came before the 'fight like hell' bit. I'd like to know the actual context for the fighting talk.

Have to say the reporting on this is terrible. If we are to understand the magnitude of the misrepresentation we need to see the original words. None of the reporting I've seen does this fully (although there's a limit on what I've been able to read).

[Puja]

I initially thought this looked like good news - resignations over the BBC's pro-Israel bias (I thought). But no, too anti-Israel apparently. God knows who the replacements will be.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2025/ ... or-general

The editing if the Trump speech looks potentially dodgy though, although I would have to see the unedited speech to really know.

The editing of the Trump speech was flat out wrong - they take two bits of speech that were not connected in any way and splice it together to make it look like he's being overt and saying the quiet part out loud. There's an argument that that's definitely what he was implying so it's not **really** a misrepresentation, but I personally think that argument's bullshit - making it seem like someone's said something they didn't isn't reporting, it's fiction. If someone's guilty and confesses, hang them with their words, but you can't edit their words and make it look like a confession because you've decided they're guilty.

Mind, Kuennsberg did worse to Corbyn a few years back (edited an interview so that an answer he gave was shown in response to a completely different question) and she got a promotion, so who knows how far this whole new "respect for the truth" thing goes at the BBC?

Puja

Have you seen the missing text from the speech? I've seen it for the first part, ie the 'we'll all march down' really ends with and cheer on the representatives etc, but I haven't seen the words that really came before the 'fight like hell' bit. I'd like to know the actual context for the fighting talk.

Have to say the reporting on this is terrible. If we are to understand the magnitude of the misrepresentation we need to see the original words. None of the reporting I've seen does this fully (although there's a limit on what I've been able to read).

Have actually found a transcript helpfully enough: https://www.npr.org/2021/02/10/96639684 ... ment-trial

Puja

[Son of Mathonwy]

The editing of the Trump speech was flat out wrong - they take two bits of speech that were not connected in any way and splice it together to make it look like he's being overt and saying the quiet part out loud. There's an argument that that's definitely what he was implying so it's not **really** a misrepresentation, but I personally think that argument's bullshit - making it seem like someone's said something they didn't isn't reporting, it's fiction. If someone's guilty and confesses, hang them with their words, but you can't edit their words and make it look like a confession because you've decided they're guilty.

Mind, Kuennsberg did worse to Corbyn a few years back (edited an interview so that an answer he gave was shown in response to a completely different question) and she got a promotion, so who knows how far this whole new "respect for the truth" thing goes at the BBC?

Puja

Have you seen the missing text from the speech? I've seen it for the first part, ie the 'we'll all march down' really ends with and cheer on the representatives etc, but I haven't seen the words that really came before the 'fight like hell' bit. I'd like to know the actual context for the fighting talk.

Have to say the reporting on this is terrible. If we are to understand the magnitude of the misrepresentation we need to see the original words. None of the reporting I've seen does this fully (although there's a limit on what I've been able to read).

Have actually found a transcript helpfully enough: https://www.npr.org/2021/02/10/96639684 ... ment-trial

Puja

Jesus, he should have been arrested for the sheer volume of lies in that speech. But he has deniability. The 'we fight like hell' bit is pretty much on it's own, not connected to the things he says before or after. It's not good and should have been quoted, but it's terrible journalism to edit things the way they did.

Bad, but the BBC made it so much worse by trying to let it lie. Then the Gibb and Prescott (most likely) just leaked it to the Telegraph anyway. The Beeb could and should have admitted the edit was potentially misleading, corrected it and left it there. Might have been a bit of a storm but now everyone who wants to kill the BBC has a weapon. Christ help it if Farage gets power. Like the NHS it will be hard to recognise after 5 years of Reform.

[Son of Mathonwy]

Have you seen the missing text from the speech? I've seen it for the first part, ie the 'we'll all march down' really ends with and cheer on the representatives etc, but I haven't seen the words that really came before the 'fight like hell' bit. I'd like to know the actual context for the fighting talk.

Have to say the reporting on this is terrible. If we are to understand the magnitude of the misrepresentation we need to see the original words. None of the reporting I've seen does this fully (although there's a limit on what I've been able to read).

Have actually found a transcript helpfully enough: https://www.npr.org/2021/02/10/96639684 ... ment-trial

Puja

Jesus, he should have been arrested for the sheer volume of lies in that speech. But he has deniability. The 'we fight like hell' bit is pretty much on it's own, not connected to the things he says before or after. It's not good and should have been quoted, but it's terrible journalism to edit things the way they did.

Bad, but the BBC made it so much worse by trying to let it lie. Then the Gibb and Prescott (most likely) just leaked it to the Telegraph anyway. The Beeb could and should have admitted the edit was potentially misleading, corrected it and left it there. Might have been a bit of a storm but now everyone who wants to kill the BBC has a weapon. Christ help it if Farage gets power. Like the NHS it will be hard to recognise after 5 years of Reform.

Panorama has form for misleadingly editing others' words, but heads don't usually roll, eg when the editing helped to undermine Corbyn:

https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/news/ ... ma-341503/

https://www.jewishvoiceforlabour.org.uk ... -panorama/

[Son of Mathonwy]

You may well have seen this but this is a terrifying window on Zionist thinking, or what goes down well in a meeting of the Jewish Federation of North America. Sarah Hurwitz, a mainstream Democrat speechwriter (for Obama amongst others) has the following views:

She bemoans the fact that 'non-mainstream' views on Israel are now easily available in the US, rather than being confined to 'weird bookshops'. That and the 'post-literate' youth culture means that young people (including young Jews) are seeing daily videos of the carnage in Gaza, which makes them (for some reason) resistant to Hurwitz's arguments in favour of Israel (and makes her sound 'obscene' - a moment of almost self-realisation).

She doesn't even argue that the images they see aren't true - she just is unhappy that they see them at all (apparently because of algorithms made by billions of people who 'don't love Jews'). Imagine how unhappy she'd be if Israel allowed journalists into Gaza.

Then she says that 'the smart bet' that Holocaust education would serve as antisemitism education is no longer working because these naïve youngsters are taking the message of the Holocaust to be that big strong people hurting weak, skinny people is wrong, and therefore they are seeing Israel is the enemy. But that's not the message of the Holocaust apparently. Presumably it's that the Jews are always right.

It's just bizarre (and a little sociopathic) that she thinks Holocaust education is pushing young Jews this way rather than normal human empathy. It's clear how limited her own empathy is.

And then she talks about how Western Jews started to treat Judaism as a mere religion, like Protestants. So they see Israelis as mere co-religionists instead of, as she sees them, her siblings. Presumably this means she'd support her siblings even if they were mass-murderers.

All in all, a staggering display of ethnic supremacist thinking. And she probably thinks she's a moderate.

Her main bit is from 9:30-14:55 in the full video. But if you really want to be scared, watch the bald, Israel-based guy, who eagerly anticipates a 'third republic' of Israel to be kicked off by Gaza, presumably even more extreme than the current regime.

https://www.middleeasteye.net/trending/ ... -holocaust

[Son of Mathonwy]

Justice Chamberlain, the judge on the Palestine Action appeal has been removed without explanation. This is the second time he's been removed from a Palestine-related case, having been removed from the F-35 judicial review earlier in the year.

Coincidentally (or not?) Mrs Justice Steyn, one of the three judges replacing Chamberlain also replaced him in the F-35 review, which found in favour of the government.

Cynics might think this a stitch-up, but surely such things don't happen in Great Britain?

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 ... hamberlain

[paddy no 11]

Justice Chamberlain, the judge on the Palestine Action appeal has been removed without explanation. This is the second time he's been removed from a Palestine-related case, having been removed from the F-35 judicial review earlier in the year.

Coincidentally (or not?) Mrs Justice Steyn, one of the three judges replacing Chamberlain also replaced him in the F-35 review, which found in favour of the government.

Cynics might think this a stitch-up, but surely such things don't happen in Great Britain?

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 ... hamberlain

FFS

fair dues to those pensioners, wheelchair users etc who go out and embaress the police every weekend

What's the story with jess Philips? I've seen her defend the PA ban is she on the right of the Labour Party?

[Son of Mathonwy]

Justice Chamberlain, the judge on the Palestine Action appeal has been removed without explanation. This is the second time he's been removed from a Palestine-related case, having been removed from the F-35 judicial review earlier in the year.

Coincidentally (or not?) Mrs Justice Steyn, one of the three judges replacing Chamberlain also replaced him in the F-35 review, which found in favour of the government.

Cynics might think this a stitch-up, but surely such things don't happen in Great Britain?

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 ... hamberlain

FFS

fair dues to those pensioners, wheelchair users etc who go out and embaress the police every weekend

What's the story with jess Philips? I've seen her defend the PA ban is she on the right of the Labour Party?

Yeah, she's on the right of the Labour party. Not Wes Streeting right maybe, but still right. She has a left wing feel about her because of her regional accent and strong feminism but she strongly opposed Corbyn and supported Yvette Cooper and Owen Smith for leadership. To be fair, she did resign from the shadow cabinet over a Gaza ceasefire vote in Nov 2023. On the other hand she's part of Labour Friends of Israel.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jess_Phillips

[Puja]

Justice Chamberlain, the judge on the Palestine Action appeal has been removed without explanation. This is the second time he's been removed from a Palestine-related case, having been removed from the F-35 judicial review earlier in the year.

Coincidentally (or not?) Mrs Justice Steyn, one of the three judges replacing Chamberlain also replaced him in the F-35 review, which found in favour of the government.

Cynics might think this a stitch-up, but surely such things don't happen in Great Britain?

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 ... hamberlain

FFS

fair dues to those pensioners, wheelchair users etc who go out and embaress the police every weekend

What's the story with jess Philips? I've seen her defend the PA ban is she on the right of the Labour Party?

Yeah, she's on the right of the Labour party. Not Wes Streeting right maybe, but still right. She has a left wing feel about her because of her regional accent and strong feminism but she strongly opposed Corbyn and supported Yvette Cooper and Owen Smith for leadership. To be fair, she did resign from the shadow cabinet over a Gaza ceasefire vote in Nov 2023. On the other hand she's part of Labour Friends of Israel.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jess_Phillips

Also proudly a SWERF who's in favour of the Nordic model for criminisalising sex-work, which is a fucking awful thing for the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Safeguarding and Violence Against Women and Girls to hold as an opinion.

I'm pre-emptively providing context here, cause this annoys the fuck out of me, but I'm aware this isn't a well-known issue among the average person:

The laws around sex work in the UK at present are a mishmash of various different Acts and are a godawful mess. It is legal to sell sex and it is legal to buy sex, but it is illegal to solicit in public and it is illegal to run a brothel (the latter being a big mess because the law will define that as "more than one sex-worker in the same premises" meaning that sex-workers cannot house share or have a friend who's a sex-worker on the premises when meeting a new client. Cause there's never going to be any problems with making sure a sex-worker has to be isolated!). There is also a massive problem with sex-trafficking, which is a related but separate issue.

SWERF stands for Sex-Worker Exclusionary Radical Feminist (and, just like TERF, was originally a self-labelled badge of honour) which is someone believes sex work is inherently wrong, can never be a choice, and is never consensual. It's a viewpoint which on the surface does seem to have merits, considering that there is a great deal of exploitation and coercion, but it's conflating sex-trafficking with a consenting adult deciding how to make money, which are two very different groups. It normally comes from a puritanical viewpoint driven by personal ethics - someone wrecking their back working in a factory for minimum wage because they need money to live is normal capitalism, but being paid to strip/act in porn/provide sex is someone being coerced into something they don't want to do because they need the money. Both are "selling your body" to afford to eat, when you think about it.

The big thing among SWERFS is the "Nordic model" of criminalisation of selling sex, which proposes that selling sex itself should be legal, but that the buyers should be criminalised. The theory goes that, if you criminalise and heavily police the buyers, then it'll kill the demand and thus end the industry. Every organisation for the rights of sex-workers is vehemently against it, because a) it rarely comes with any kind of social programs to provide alternative employment for sex-workers, b) it doesn't do anything to actually help improve working conditions for sex-workers because it's pushing the industry underground, c) in every country that it's been tried, it's done absolutely nothing to reduce demand or do anything against sex-trafficking, and d) in every country that it's been tried, it's caused a drastic increase in violence against sex workers. D is incredibly obvious when you think about it - as it turns out, when you make visiting a sex-worker a crime in and of itself, clients have less compunction about committing other crimes while they're there. Who would've thunk? In Ireland, the number of crimes against sex workers almost doubled in the two years after the adoption of the Nordic model, compared to the two years before.

Jess Phillips loves the Nordic model and is very much in favour of it being brought in for the UK, despite it *never* having achieved its objectives in any of the countries that it's been introduced and despite Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, every single sex worker union (and every single sex worker that I know socially) is adamantly against it because it does nothing about trafficking and just makes non-trafficked sex-work significantly more dangerous.

So yeah, she's problematic and authoritarian and puritanical in a lot of ways. Not surprised that she'd defend the PA ban.

Puja

[paddy no 11]

Thanks for the replies