The Iran equation is a more abstracted issue that permeates across the Middle East. A lot like the US, Iran arms, funds and trains small militia to fight strategic battles that are in their interest, without putting boots on the ground from their own troops. The reason the Isreal/Palestine issue gets discussed at length here over Iran is because it is Israel who are killing tens of thousands of innocent civilians at the moment. Maybe we should be talking about the US in the same way we do Iran, because they are the ones funding and arming Israel
Problem is sorting out Israel and Palestine would not work without sorting out all the other conflicts and making the Middle East somewhere that people want to live in again and prosper
The Sykes-Picot Agreement was signed before the Balfour Declaration. I'm certainly not discounting the possibility that the former was signed with one eye on the latter eventually being made, but there was an 18 month gap between them.
Happy to clarify that - yes I do hold Iran responsible for a huge amount of the current situation - their sponsorship of Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houtis certainly hasn't encouraged tolerance and mutual respect in the region... but where we probably differ most is on the illegal occupation and continued expansion of illegal settlements position - they need to be addressed urgently and without further procrastination...
I'm not remotely a fan of US foreign policy, but I would never compare it to Iran's. Totally different aims and whereas the US has mastered the PR machine of obfuscation and cloak n' dagger diplomacy, Iran are very open about theirs. I think it is pretty clear that we disagree quite widely on the Iran question. And while I won't put words in your mouth, I will say that my take on the Iran question definitely influences my take on the Palestinian question, and that I can fully understand why someone who views the Iran question differently will also view the Palestinian question differently.
You're still not there. "Not encouraging tolerance and mutual respect in the region" is understatement of the year vis-a-vis what Iran is actually doing. I don't disagree re settlement expansion etc., nor have I ever disagreed.
I don’t think we’re a million miles apart on the Iran equation. But other than PR, both they and the US arm, fund and train small militia and supply weapons, money and backing to states that they both feel further their strategic influence in the world Whatever you think about Iran though, the responsibility lies with Isreal directly for the huge loss of life in Palestine The responsibly also lies with Isreal to withdraw its settlements in Palestinian Territories and to end the illegal occupation, blockades and crippling stranglehold it has on Palestine That in turn would imo go some way to addressing the wider issues in the Middle East that Israel faces from Iranian backed milita.
I believe the USA's foreign policy is largely driven by the same thing that drives everything else there: money. I'm not so naive as to believe that Iran don't care about cash at all, but when you look at the sunk costs they've "invested" in their proxies with very little ROI ($16billion in Syria, $300million and counting in Sudan etc. and from a country that is economically on its arse), I think it is reasonable to say that we are looking at very different motives: Namely a fundamentalist ideology rooted in an extreme interpretation of Islam that sees the presence of infidels on holy soil as a grievous insult and regional dominance of other strands of Islam as an intolerable threat. This isn't far-fetched either, Iranian media and academia is constantly spreading this message, even if it isn't obvious to English-speaking audiences. I also look to the somewhat surprising reaction of the Sunni-majority Gulf States to the ongoing conflict in Gaza. They have been incredibly restrained, and to date not a single Arab country has fully broken off ties with Israel in protest. Here too, it is fair to wonder why this is. Again, the answer could be as crude as profitability - it is financially better for them to remain close to Israel and the West, but that paints a horrifically cold and heartless picture of States that until recently were considered the strongest supporters of the Palestinian cause. Which is what leads me to my position: I want to see the Israel/Palestinian conflict resolved asap. I have outlined the steps I believe necessary to achieve this. Some of those steps are frankly way beyond me to work out though. But I firmly believe that the day that conflict comes to an end, the wider conflict will only intensify, not least of all because a final agreement will bring a peace treaty between Saudi and Israel, and if the lunatics are still in charge in Iran, that will trigger a backlash that will dwarf whatever we are seeing now. And I believe this is why the response from Sunni states has been so restrained. They know and understand far better than any of us that after decades of neglect and apathy, the Israel-Palestinian conflict morphed into a piece of a far bigger puzzle that directly concerns and threatens them all.
The US is interested in oil, money and strategic regional influence. They want Israel to be the big player in the middle east, because it broadly reflects their views and opposes Iran, who they are desperate for them not to gain any more of a foothold in the region. We can talk about morals, religion, ethnic interests etc. But it's all a smokescreen. The US will tolerate the Saudi's beheading journalists critical of their regime because it suits US interests. If Iran does something similar, it's a Pariah state led by callous madmen. So there's a moral vacuum when any western leader tries to paint Iran as the big evil in the region. The same principle applies to the Israel/Palestine equation. If the boot were on the other foot and it was a wealthy, well armed and internationally funded Muslim country that was terrorising a small Jewish territory with their foot on the neck of the population, the West would be up in arms about it and would likely have already unleashed the might of their militaries on them. Double standards abound in the whole region. But the immediate issue at hand is that Israel need to stop the barbaric slaughter of innocent civilians and they need to accept that without a Palestinian state, there is never going to be peace in Israel.
Saudi Arabia narrowly misses out on election to the UN Human Rights Council. Good. A record 212 executions this year along with thousands of unexplained disappearances and appalling conditions for migrant workers means that this is good news. However, as with everything that happens at the UN Circus, you have to take the trickle of good news with an open sewer of bad. The Council includes Qatar, Bolivia, Colombia, Gambia, Kenya and Ethiopia. Which is why I take the HRC's opinion about as seriously as I would a 14 year old's Twitter account.
On the bright side the UNRWA has been nominated for the Nobel peace award. Back it in a double with Saxton to win next year’s London marathon.
Israeli Army Deliberately Killed Doctors in Gaza, UN Panel Says Israel has carried out a concerted effort to destroy Gaza’s health-care system, including by deliberately killing medical staff in the war zone, a United Nations panel said. The Israeli military has “deliberately killed, wounded, arrested, detained, mistreated and tortured” health-care personnel and has targeted medical vehicles and facilities amid its war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, a UN-backed commission said in a report out Thursday. Those violations constitute war crimes, it said. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...-in-gaza-un-panel-says?embedded-checkout=true
UN peacekeepers in Lebanon say Israel has fired on their bases deliberately Unifil said Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers also fired at a UN observation post at Labbouneh a few hundred metres from the border, “hitting the entrance to the bunker where peacekeepers were sheltering, and damaging vehicles and a communications system”. The Unifil statement made it clear that the peacekeepers thought the attacks on their positions were no accident, suggesting there had been premeditation. “An IDF drone was observed flying inside the UN position up to the bunker entrance,” it said. “Yesterday, IDF soldiers deliberately fired at and disabled the position’s perimeter-monitoring cameras.” Unifil also said Israeli forces had “deliberately fired” on a UN facility at a border point on the coast where peacekeepers hosted tripartite meetings with Israeli and Lebanese officers before the outbreak of the current conflict. Unifil said any deliberate attack on peacekeepers was a “grave violation of international humanitarian law” and of security council resolution 1701. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...-israel-has-fired-on-their-bases-deliberately
I dismissed them well before they highlighted **** all. They and their leadership have proven themselves to be inept and pointless throughout the last year. Barely a peep from them on the hostages. Barely a peep from them about anything in fact but people like Gutierres crying for a one-sided ceasefire.
