Middle East Conflict

Prestwich_Blue said:
800,000 Jews displaced from their homes in Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia, Yemen and other communities as well over the years since 1948. Where's your concern for them?

Israel was pretty well the only place they could go in 1948, and the new country managed to absorb them, with help from Jewish charities and organisations. None had, or even wanted, a right of return, mainly because they finally felt safe, although it couldn't have been easy for them being uprooted from the communities and cultures which were the only things they knew up till then.

On top of the concentration camp survivors who tried to return to their former homes in Poland and weren't exactly made welcome. The Kielce pogrom involved Polish soldiers and police standing by while a group of Jews were beaten to death and even taking part themselves. Some of the injured survivors were attacked when being taken to hospital. Following that, most Polish Jews took the hint and left.

In pre-revolutionary Russia, the 'May Laws' of 1882, following a number of pogroms, forced Jews out of their homes and into the Pale of Settlement, which was effectively a large ghetto or Gaza on steroids. They had their land and homes taken from them and were restricted to the towns and cities in the Pale. Not surprisingly, over a million decided to leave for Europe, the USA and other places, including my own great-grandparents.

Now this doesn't justify bombing civilian areas, or forcing people out of their homes under threat. The point is that over the years, Jews have opted for living relatively safely somewhere unfamiliar, over living in the place they were born under threat. North African, French-speaking Arabs moved to France for a better life. Many Eastern Europeans came here after WWII because they wanted to live in a democracy, rather than under Stalin's rule. Huge numbers of Irish people came here to escape famine and poverty.

So why are Palestinians still living in refugee camps 75 years on and are apparently the only people who can't live anywhere else?
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PB, you are a contributor on many subjects in here that I always read with great interest and I have the utmost respect for, because I feel you deal in fact and don’t hypothesise on stuff you don’t know.
You usually say , you don’t know or don’t have sufficient information.

I would never suppose to have a better understanding of the region than people in here who have a vested first hand interest.

To me, I think the original idea of, a land without people for a people without land, was a noble but flawed concept from the start. There never was a land without people.
You can argue over a few millennia of history of who inhabited the land at any given time, but I always think if you displace one set of people and give their land to another you are setting up a whole load of future trouble.

If you go back a few centuries in Northern Ireland you will find the same thing with ‘The Plantations’, where Presbyterian Ulster Scots were enticed into NI and given the Catholic farmlands.
You also had the Penal Laws at the time where Catholics basically had no rights at all. It was in effect a clearing of the land.

It caused centuries of trouble all the way up to the present day.

I’m of the firm view that we are where we are and should acknowledge collectively all wrongs of the past, learn from the mistakes and find a way to live with a collective purpose going forward. Look for ways to unite rather than divide. Personally I thinking taking religion out of the equation is a step forward in rational thinking on a solution.

We had our chance for peace and we voted on the GFA, and I’ve defended this so many times in various threads. I know what I voted for and I knew what the consequences were. I voted to remove our claim of the six counties out of our constitution.

The point that should be loud and clear concerning the peaceful settlement of the region is, that it will never happen with right wing leadership on both sides solving everything with violence. Violence solves nothing but gives short term satisfaction of revenge.

I know Israel have the right to respond to what happened last week, but I would have a greater respect and see them as different to what they abhor, if they chose to act lawfully.

The only way forward, no matter how unlikely it seems now, is for true moderate leadership to emerge on both sides and dialogue to start with a clear honest agenda for accepting nothing but peace.
We won’t hold our breaths though, unfortunately.

The way things are progressing I genuinely fear we are being asked globally to pick a side because there is trouble coming that will snowball and involve a wider conflict. It could get so out of hand so very quickly.
 
hilts said:
He may as well have just said "listen of course loads of people won't get out in that time frame if they are trying but we have backed Israel and they will do what they will do anyway"

Its what he is saying anyhow without actually saying it. He knows it, the reporter knows it, I know it and you and everyone else does as well.
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Yep.
And I resent that a fucking turd like this fella is given a prestigious government job because the likes of Johnson and Sunak would rather have an idiot in place than a potential capable rival.
 
blueinsa said:
Absolutely there is consideration from the whole world about innocent civilians.

Israel and the IDF have issued warnings to these civilians to get out of what they deem is now an active battle zone. I appreciate the difficulty in that for many but the warning was and still is being given.

Hamas won’t come out into the open to fight the IDF, they will use innocent civilians as human shields as it adds to their political capitol and last Saturday, no such warnings where given to innocent Israeli civilians.

It’s an horrific situation for everyone involved.

Right or wrong and I firmly believe it right, Israel has decided to try and wipe Hamas out and won’t stop until they believe they have achieved that military goal. Sadly, Gaza will not be recognisable when they have finished, many many more will be dead on both sides but nothing is going to stop what is about to happen other than a Hamas ceasefire and the return of hostages and that simply will not happen.

My opinion is that lies with Hamas and its cowardly terrorist attacks.
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I highly doubt that the operational aims will be met i.e to wipe Hmas from the face of the earth without killing 100s of thousand civilians which will further exacerbate the problems as well as the appalling behavior of the settler movement on the West Bank and igniting a regional conflict

Rather than people arguing about who was in the land first or the religion or ethnicity, there should be bucket loads of empathy for the civilians of both sides who just want to live in peace, yes lets wipe out Hamas may they go to hell, but can we also wipe out the settler movement in the West Bank that is just pouring fuel on the fire
 
Ducado said:
I highly doubt that the operational aims will be met i.e to wipe Hmas from the face of the earth without killing 100s of thousand civilians which will further exacerbate the problems as well as the appalling behavior of the settler movement on the West Bank and igniting a regional conflict

Rather than people arguing about who was in the land first or the religion or ethnicity, there should be bucket loads of empathy for the civilians of both sides who just want to live in peace, yes lets wipe out Hamas may they go to hell, but can we also wipe out the settler movement in the West Bank that is just pouring fuel on the fire
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Settlers have votes.
So don't count on it.
 
lust overlord said:
Yep.
And I resent that a fucking turd like this fella is given a prestigious government job because the likes of Johnson and Sunak would rather have an idiot in place than a potential capable rival.
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In fairness whoever was in place would say the same thing or something very similar.
 
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