WAR! What is it good for?

I'll have to make adjustments for the weather.

Visibility is really poor when it's peeing down like this.

 

Still waiting for your apology for that outrageous claim that you'd prefer Michail Antonio over Harry Kane.

 

Best summary of the situation I've heard in a year.

 

Why are the UN peacekeepers in Lebanon? They shouldn’t be in the middle of a conflict.

Why haven’t they been working in Israel as that country is also under fire?

Why were their staff involved in slaughtering Israelis last October?

Fairly straightforward why Israel don’t like or trust the ****s. They can’t be trusted and are clearly one sided.

 

Palestinian and Israeli people both seem to be largely a set of cnuts who share the same ideology and that is they want to see each other wiped out.

There’s no good guys in this war, imho.

 

You're confusing UNWRA for UNIFIL.

Some UNWRA staff were also members of Hamas, with a few dozen directly involved in Oct 7th. They operate in several places across the region and are one of the UN's largest and most costly operations, with close to 32,000 staff servicing appx. 5.8 million Palestinian refugees. It is the only permanent UN aid task force set up for a specific group of people, to the exclusion of others (for example if refugees from Sudan, Eritrea, Chad etc., the UNWRA is permitted to flat-out ignore them). This translates to 1 UN staff member per 181 Palestinians.

By contrast, the GLOBAL UN High Commission for Refugees employs 20,300 people to take care of the remaining 37.2 million refugees around the world. This translates to 1 UN staff member per 1832 non-Palestinian refugees.

The discrepancy is staggering. No one dares talk about it. That's UNWRA. Colossal waste of taxpayer money and the light in which its existence casts other refugees in desperate need is frankly disgusting.

Then there's UNIFIL. This is the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon.

Despite being 'Interim', it has been in place since 1978. Its mandate is:

1) Oversee Hezbollah disarmament
2) Support the Lebanese army in stopping weapons smuggling
3) Confirm full Israeli withdrawal from sovereign Lebanese territory
4) Support the elected government of Lebanon to extend its authority and jurisdiction over south Lebanon.

It employs over 10,000 soldiers and costs the taxpayer $500million per year.

To date, it has only succeeded in delivering #3. The other points have gotten significantly worse since its involvement.

 

That's what UN peacekeepers do, go to conflict zones.

They aren't in Israel because Israel won't let them in.

It's disputed whether UNWRA staff were directly involved in Oct 7th attacks as the admissions were obtained under torture.

According to February 2024 UNRWA report, Israeli officials detained and tortured UN staff, coercing them into falsely stating that agency staff had participated in the 7 October attack.[162][163] The allegations of torture came from staff who stated they were forced to make confessions under torture and ill-treatment, including "beatings, sleep deprivation, sexual abuse and threats of sexual violence against both men and women" in Israeli detention.[164] Detainees reported being stripped down to their underwear and forced completely naked.[165] The report found that UN staff were "pressured to make false statements against the Agency, including that the Agency has affiliations with Hamas and that UNRWA staff members took part in the 7 October 2023 atrocities" through beatings, waterboarding, and threats to their families.[166]

Although the UN fired the 12 people who were alleged to have been involved.

Israel has never accepted UNWRA as they were set up to help Palestinian refugees.

 

Yeah I mean I'm miles away from your view on the whole Israel Palestine situation as I believe the primary factor in it all is the Israeli settlements and violence towards the Palestinians.

But I really don't get the 'sympathy' (for want of a better word) that Hezbollah seem to garner from some people here (as in UK). They're scumbags who bring on all the violence they face themselves, **** 'em.

Truly bizarre.

 

They are scumbags, as are the people in Hamas who targeted innocent civilians. If they had the same sort of weaponry as is afforded to the IDF, I've no doubt they would be unleashing the same kind of hell that Israel has in Gaza.

Anybody who kills women, children, the elderly, disabled etc. And deliberately targets them in their homes, schools, hospitals etc are morally bankrupt sick individuals, whichever 'cause' they claim to represent.

 

... agree with both posts - Hezbollah are an Iranian puppet and probably have as many (probably more) detractors/ opponents amongst Lebanese people as they do supporters ...

The worrying thing is that Israel seems to have lost control and is now striking out seemingly indiscriminately ... not just in the aggression towards the UN Peacekeepers but they've now killed 18 people in a Maronite Christian enclave in Northern Lebanon ...

 

Israel have become a rouge state imo. They should have been made to withdraw their occupation years ago, like Libby says, the root of this particular conflict. But they have been enabled by the US and the west to act with impunity, because the west is more concerned with arming Israel to prevent Iran gaining a foothold.

The result is that you now have a state that believes it can claim whatever land it wants as its own, can make incursions into other territories militarily, and is intent on crushing anybody who they see as a threat, no matter how many innocent people they kill. They ignore UN resolutions and IJC rulings, attack doctors, medical staff, schools, hospitals and refugee camps and deliberately target civilians, shooting dead children in the street.

They try and justify it all on the premise of protecting their borders, but imo they lost that right to talk about borders when they invaded other people's. Israel are now the main aggressor in the region, despite their claims that that is what they are fighting against.

 

Sounds like we should drop a nuke on both. Give both side 5 days, israelies to move to texas and palestinians to saudi arabia.

Ponks to be the logistics man for all this

 

Would love to know what UNIFIL have been doing for the last year and the years building up to Hezbollah choosing daily rocket attacks from October 8th on a nation posing no threat to them because they assumed they’d be too weak to fight on two fronts. Mustn’t attack Lebanon though. Just sit there and take it or people will be upset.

 

I’m sure they can re-assess the figures and get it above 30 by the end of the day.

 

That'll be all that blood on their hands

... but I know what you mean ...

 

Different story for a change, Canada expel 6 Indian diplomats and in turn India expel 6 Canadian diplomats.

Canadian police said the criminal activity had particularly targeted supporters of the pro-Khalistan movement which seeks a separate homeland for Sikhs in India.

Officials said a dozen agents had been involved, but did not confirm if they were directly linked to the June 2023 murder of Sikh separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada.

Delhi rejected the allegations as "preposterous".

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clyle3py4nko

Relations between Delhi and Ottawa have been strained since Trudeau said Canada had credible evidence linking Indian agents to Nijjar's murder.
India has accused Trudeau of pandering to Canada’s large Sikh community for political gain.

 

Need to stop teasing this thread, it's slightly depressing.

 

Morning.

 

I see what you did there...

 

You little teaser you