Off Topic Politics Thread

Being quite honest, I tend to like Brendan O Neil's articles as he echoes my own thoughts on quite a lot of things however quite early on in this war I stopped reading his articles on it because on this issue, he suddenly became exactly like Owen Jones, dog with a bone stuff and I had to wonder if he had converted to Judaism and he has been at it now for over a year.

Its pretty obvious that both Israel is stepping over the mark and Hamas is quite happy to aid their efforts and make them increasingly worse. It is also possible to believe this as well as understanding that the suffering is not "fake." And even then that some reports may be fake within the genuine ones! We do however all know the current leader's of the technocracy are very susceptible to exaggeration and outright lies at times.

But that does not mean anyone is exonerated on either side. There is a real starvation / malnutrition / medicines problem and it doesn't matter whose fault it is nor "who started it." War needs to end. I personally hate religions but I think this is more about territory the longer it goes on!

 

I'm gonna post videos on tock tick of me and my bulldog stamping on them.

 

Well, they used to give it ($$$) straight to Hamas in actual suitcases via the Qataris. BN arranged for $30m via Qatari envoy Mohammed al-Emadi to be driven into Gaza to give to Hamas every month for two years 2018-20. But why??



Lets spring open the suitcase and consider the most revealing contradiction in Netanyahu's Gaza policy may be this: his government proved more willing to facilitate funding for Hamas - a designated terrorist organization - than to work constructively with the Palestinian Authority, the very body created under the Oslo Accords to serve as a partner for peace.

The civil service in Gaza still, by and large, consists of employees loyal to the former Palestinian Authority (PA) government, who now live under Hamas rule. These workers long depended on salaries sent from the PA in the West Bank - though the PA was under no binding obligation to continue paying them.

From 2017 onward, Mahmoud Abbas and the PA began cutting those wages as a strategy to weaken Hamas politically and militarily. The aim was twofold: either force Hamas to divert scarce resources into paying civil servants (at the expense of arms and tunnel-building), or else stir public unrest that might undermine Hamas’s grip on Gaza.

This created a dangerous vacuum. To prevent total economic collapse - and fearing that the PA might use the crisis to claw its way back into Gaza (an outcome that could revive international pressure for Palestinian unity and statehood) - Netanyahu stepped in. Realising it would be politically untenable to finance Hamas directly, his government instead approved Qatari cash transfers as a workaround. Suitcases of Qatari money, entering Gaza with Israel’s blessing, helped sustain Hamas’s governance indirectly, while insulating Israel from direct responsibility.

This arrangement was particularly murky. Delivering millions of dollars in untraceable cash, via suitcases, to a group internationally recognised as a terrorist organisation created an obvious contradiction. Hamas openly neglected to pay much of Gaza’s civil service or invest in public infrastructure, choosing instead to channel resources into its military wing and tunnel network. Yet the Netanyahu policy was sold publicly under the banner of “Cash for Calm” or “Cash for Peace” - as though it were a stabilising humanitarian measure. In reality, it blurred the line between humanitarian relief and direct financing of Hamas, leaving both Israel and Qatar open to accusations of propping up an armed faction while ordinary Gazans continued to live amid failing services and collapsing infrastructure. Israel’s choice to allow the funds to enter as cash rather than through transparent banking channels only deepened the ambiguity, ensuring there was no clear record of where the money ultimately went - and making it easier to maintain plausible deniability over the policy’s real consequences.

When Israel bombards Gaza in its war with Hamas, much of the destruction falls not on Hamas’s own installations - since Hamas invests little in civilian institutions - but on the PA-built infrastructure that still runs the Strip: schools, ministries, hospitals, and utilities. Publicly, however, much of this is spun as “Hamas infrastructure,” as though every functioning institution in Gaza were a militant asset. In reality, what is being destroyed are the very institutions the Palestinian Authority established and maintained - the tangible foundations of governance, not just a symbolic claim to authority. In effect, Israel’s campaigns erode the PA’s legacy and infrastructure in Gaza, even as Netanyahu’s government propped up Hamas financially. To a large degree Israel's the war against Hamas and Palestinian civilians has also functioned as a proxy war against the Palestinian Authority itself.

A Times of Israel piece supporting this:
https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up-hamas-now-its-blown-up-in-our-faces/

 

I don't want be rude richie but your ears mate, they're whoppers.

 

Not the first time I have been told that

 

@ChilcoSaint

As he's carried it on surely that's a ban?

 

Wow

 

Rules are rules fella,came from the man himself.

 

Sigh

 

The whole conversation is getting too much like a school playground name-calling session. It’s ****ing boring and it stops now.

 

I think it's more about getting rid of Hamas once and for all.

 

Fair enough.

 

Are you ready to respond to the post you requested?

 

SS asking for bans is akin a player asking for cards and often enough to warrant a sanction.

 

Last week there was a new driver coming in to collect for Evri and bar the discussion about him saying he could only take a pallet when they are booked to take 3 pallets a day............he asked me if I was Polish.........to which I of course replied "No I am English" and no word of a lie, 5 minutes after first meeting the guy he said "Are you sure? You look Slav, you have a slav big nose!." He didn't say it in a nasty way. More just saying what he thought in a general small talk way. lol.

Of course I didn't over react and called the coastguard to deal with him. <----joke..........Coastguard said they were on strike.

 

@chilco was on about the direct insults, not the "bantz" light hearted jokey stuff........I think.

 

Just been re listening to Manic Street Preachers - The Holy Bible and imagining what sort of lyrics Richey Edwards would be writing to describe the current state of the World.

 

My original post was a general comment for all, it was not to or about you. But like most posts on here, it now seems they have to get past you before anyone else gets a say.

What I requested was that people who comment on posts they don't agree with should argue the points in the article not try to discredit the author like you and BFB did. You eventually managed to do that but I wasn't requesting an audience with you thanks all the same.

I put up articles and comments for people to read and if someone wants to engage without a sneering attitude or insulting accusations, I'll happily reply in the same manner. You though, seem to be incapable of that and I've told you before I have no intention of involving myself in discussions with you if that's how you want to continue. You should look back at your own posts to see where the source of the animosity comes from when conversations inevitably turn into arguments.

 

Weird. You name check me every other post…

 

Oh I don't know. You calling me far right , an basically playing the race card on my views against someone, which you even had to tag up your self! You'd piss the bed roles reversed. Clown