Middle East Conflict

[Ducado]

That's the first thing I'd do if I was poor. Start an 'Islamist Resistance Movement' and start procuring AK47's and building rockets. Maybe instead of dropping bombs on ISIS we should of just dropped pound notes and it would all be sorted?

When people say they're only doing this because they're poor, it's such a weak argument and completely misses the point of what is happening in that region. Poverty is rife because that region is tangled by religious nonsense. Look at Iran, it really could be an incredible ally and economic powerhouse but religion constantly ties it down.

WW2 shaped Germany into what it is today and it got there by defeat but that defeat led it to reject extremism and look where they are now. West and East Germany could of spent 100 years fighting over the geopolitics of the West and Soviets/Russia but ultimately that politics was rejected and literally torn down in 1989.

In the Vietnam war an American general said that they would have had better results if they had dropped money and televisions rather than bombs

It's not so much religion that courses poverty but bad government

 

[bluemoon1981]

Perhaps I should have made myself clearer

The root cause is the failure to give the Palestinians a meaningful contiguous state of their own and allowing the creation and expansion of settlements on land that really belongs to the Palestinians

The Palestinian leadership especially in the West Bank is not immune they are corrupt and ineffective led by an near 80 year old, and it does not help that the suspicion is they have helped Israel capture and jail rivals like Marwan Barghouti it appears for a time that PA and Israel were quite comfortable with the status que

But the failure of having their own state cannot be largely blamed on Israel. They were offered a two state solution back in 1949, it was rejected and has since been offered multiple times. Not only was it rejected but those Palestinians that lived there at the time were told to leave by their Arab neighbours so that they could get 'rid of the jews'. The same Jews that were persecuted by the same Arab neighbours in countries they called home (Yemen, Morocco, all the countries that people come from that put an angry emoji when City say Happy New Year to the Jewish community).

Those jews made their way back to the land now known as Israel to make yet another home because they were persecuted just because of their religion. It is not in general a bidirectional issue (I accept there are extremists on both sides).

You are right, we can pick any point in time to make an argument, the point I wanted to make is it is a misconception that there were no Jews (or a small number) there since biblical times, holocaust happened, then there were Jews. Its just not true.

So I'd dispute your comment that it is Palestinian land because that statement also picks a point in time to argue. Personally i think a statement of 'equal' rights is fair but after years of trying to form a state for them, it is constantly rejected either by their governments who have squandered huge sums of money in aid, or in fighting between Hamas and Fatah, or by the Arab countries around them who simply don't want a Jewish state next door, or by unrealistic demands given no attempts have been made to iterate to a common solution.

Sure, perhaps that's not down to your average Palestinian but that does not imply it is Israel's fault either. Israel has since grown and each year that moves on, inevitably the practicalities of what can be offered is going to diminish as resources are constrained on the land mass. Don't get me wrong I'm against the settlements near Gaza but that land, even if given to them, will not solve the problem. People seem to think we are talking about huge country sized land masses. It is an area around twice the size of Manchester with a similar population. Being able to spill over into Stockport doesn't solve the problem.

Move forward 70 years and you have an area of land that was originally absolute waste land for the most part, now a very prosperous, westernised, place to live, Israel is being penalised for moving on. The irony is that Israel is one of the larger contributors to Palestinians than almost all of the neighbouring countries, this is despite the regular suicide bombings throughout the 80s and 90s, despite the 100s of rockets sent on a regular basis, despite regular attacks at the borders. Israel is incredibly restrained considering the constant attacks on their daily lives. Imagine if France battered Dover with rockets every single day? Or attempted to send suicide bombers to supermarkets weekly? Or came and took out the whole of the City end against Arsenal, killing all of the Junior pull throughs in front of their parents? That child that each of us sat next to, having their throat slit. Imagine enduring that for 70 years? These aren't hypotheticals, this is what has been happening against Israelis for 70 years.

What restraint would the British public expect, irrespective of how we have got to this situation in the first place? There is absolutely no justification and even the arguments around Palestinians being in poverty are fundamentally flawed because it is simply not Israels fault for the situation the Palastinians find themselves in today.

And it is not just Jews. Many Muslims contribute to the prosperity of Israel. Many muslims did stay in 1949 and they form part of the 20% of the population of Israel today, 20% who have representation in nearly all areas of the economic and legislative system, and who have also been protecting villages today from Hezbollah in the north. There are no special hospitals for Arab Israelis, no special taxis, no special buses, Arabic is taught in Israeli schools, signs are in both hebrew and Arabic, there is no segregation in restaurants, no special toilets. It is not perfect. There are social and economic gaps between Jewish and Arab Citizens but hardly an apartheid. There are even gaps between secular and ultra orthodox jews, nothing is perfect, we can draw similarities all over the world, even within the UK so why is Israel singled out?

I don't want there to be any doubt around my comments, of course all of the Palestinian children and younger generations do not deserve to have their homes blown to bits or be casualties of this war, it is incredibly upsetting but what alternative does Israel really have? Sit back? Let Hamas continue to grow? Yeah Israel was caught off guard but in part that is because they allowed Hamas to grow for too long and too busy focused on their own political infighting. If they went in and destroyed Hamas before then there would be uproar. Now this has happened there is still uproar that they go in heavy handed to destroy the infrastructure.

People seem to think Hamas' infrastructure is isolated to some 'Hamas building' that are easily dealt with away from civilians. It is just not reality, hamas deliberately put their infrastructure in schools, hospitals, apartment blocks, near key infrastructure, use their own people as shields. Israel for the most part does try to protect civilians (I'm sure there are incidents when this is not true) but it is incredibly difficult given the way Hamas is so intertwined in Gazan society. Again what does Israel do? Just let it go? Continue like this for another 100 years?

There is no real end because the time to have dealt with this (especially in Gaza) has now passed, populations have grown, resources outstripping demand. It is incredibly sad, a vicious cycle for next generations of Gazans but that does not make it Israel's fault.

 

[Blue Maverick]

I watched a history of Israel on you tube, it was obviously only salient points, but even from that you know this will never ever be sorted Out, what I couldn’t get my head round is why the Gaza strip exists, it seems strange that one piece is separated from the rest of the Palestinian people.

 

[BringBackSwales]

Folk already up in arms that the FA have decided the Minutes silence should be for both Israelis & Palestinians.

View attachment 95742

Probably be better all round if they just made it for the dippers

 

[Millwallawayveteran1988]

I’d genuinely be more pissed off of the Welsh had us with our pants down to that extent and it’s not as if we’d be expecting it. Surely the IDF are ALWAYS on alert for such a thing.

The security failure is incredible. Forces didn’t arrive in some of the settlements for hours reportedly. I can’t understand this at all. Don’t they have satellites/observation posts watching Gaza at all times? It’s only 25km long isn’t it?

 

[west didsblue]

The security failure is incredible. Forces didn’t arrive in some of the settlements for hours reportedly. I can’t understand this at all. Don’t they have satellites/observation posts watching Gaza at all times? It’s only 25km long isn’t it?

I believe a lot more IDF than usual were deployed in the West Bank, and that along with reservists protesting against Netanyahu’s government left them undermanned down south. Netanyahu had prioritised supporting settlers above protecting normal Israelis. Once this is over he should be prosecuted for dereliction of duty along with his other crimes.

 

[Metal Biker]

A two-state solution is the only solution, until everyone accepts that then it'll just carry on. It requires negotiation away from whatever lines were drawn in the sand in the past, that's the only way to achieve peace. A state of Palestine should exist alongside a State of Israel.

The biggest obstacle as you say to a two-state solution is religion, fundamentally that's what shapes everything in this conflict. Religion is literally what defines the lands and borders from a political policy view but from a historical view you could go back thousands of years if you really wanted to.

Doing it like that is pretty stupid though. I mean look at the UK, who actually does 'British' land belong to? The Crown technically owns all land now but that history only goes back what 1000 years? What about the Vikings, Romans or even the French? Who is it really if we look at it from a whole historical perspective?

This is why it's really stupid for some people to consider land in terms of religious and historical ownership because then it is neither Palestinian nor Israeli land. This is especially true for ownership within the last century which is essentially just collateral of the collapse of the British empire.

Much longer than that, about 1500. The referenced Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy had defined the areas we stil refer to today. Vikings never established control over the entire nation, just Danelaw, which they abandoned after Alfred the Great's campaigns to unite all of England under one banner in 886. The Normans weren't French like many think, they only spoke it, they were much closer to Scandinavians yet despite victory in 1066 they never established themselves as a community in England aside from authority figures and positions of power. The Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Frisians and Danes who migrated in the 5th Century established the communities and culture we know of today, although Christianity played a large influential hand from the 8th Century onwards, (but that's another topic entirely, and anyone wishing to discuss can either PM or link in another thread.)

I've never gotten the UN's original 1947 map. I understand that Palestine and Gaza was intended to ensure Palestine has a port in the Meditterean, but splitting the territory in half was never going to work. I can only see Israel needed to secede part of southern Israel, linking Gaza and West Bank together, naturally with Jordan relinquishing any and all influence and control in West Bank. But it'd take some strong convincing.

 

[hilts]

If there was no religion would we all be able to live in peace?

No

 

[halfcenturyup]

I’d genuinely be more pissed off of the Welsh had us with our pants down to that extent and it’s not as if we’d be expecting it. Surely the IDF are ALWAYS on alert for such a thing.

Stories that they were warned days in advance by Egypt. Is it possible that Netanyahu turned a blind eye on purpose, maybe expecting some border skirmishes or a small incursion to justify revenge action and bolster his approval ratings? All seems a bit weird, the lack of security at the border and the unpreparedness of the response.

 

[bluemoon1981]

I watched a history of Israel on you tube, it was obviously only salient points, but even from that you know this will never ever be sorted Out, what I couldn’t get my head round is why the Gaza strip exists, it seems strange that one piece is separated from the rest of the Palestinian people.

The history is not so much the strip but the City of Gaza. It's 4000 years old. Like all historical cities someone wants to own it.

Britain got it after WW1 and took it in as Palestine. The Jewish Quarter was destroyed by the late 1920s Palestine Riots, Jews were thrown out, it expanded. After the Arab Israeli war in 1948. Egypt took control of the city and the surrounding area which was then to be known as the Gaza Strip. Equally some nearby villages were captured by Israelis and the refugees that fled ended up in the strip.

Eygpt kept it for a while under its control. Then there was the 6 day war in late 1960s (who started it is very much debated), Israel took it over as part of that war.

But you are right, it is just a land mass with no real ties to anywhere. Israel 'owned' it but allowed Gazans to administer itself, not perfect but why single Israel out for this model? Egypt did it, the Arab League did it, none were effective and led to an absolute squaller.

Under initial Israeli rule, many Gazans worked happily for Israeli companies but were targeted by their own people because of this (as I've said before, Israel really could not win). Huge rise in terrorism in the area because of this, yes, solely because the so called opressive Israel zionists gave jobs to those in Gaza.

There was then an incident where a Jewish family was killed when a terrorist threw a grenade in their car and that's how the earlier bulldozing of homes started. Israel had enough of trying to let the strip prosper only to be attacked for it so went in destroying the buildings that harbored terrorists.

It's then been back and forth since then. There was absolutely no reason why the Gaza Strip could not have prospered under Israeli control. To be clear, it was under an Arab league alliance before who did nothing, Israel gave it hope but a significant number of terrorist just would not accept Arabs working for Israelis and this grew and grew to what you see today.

This is why I struggle with the constant idea that Israel was against the formation of a two stage solution or that Israel is oppressive, the history is there, they tried when the neighbouring Arab countries left Gazans to rot.

Now they are over populated. The terrorists that prevented prosperity now rise up, Arab countries again do nothing except fund the terrorists and yet Israel is blamed.