Off Topic Politics Thread

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Are you suggesting they haven't been provoked by Israel? And that the Palestinians are the initial aggressors in this conflict?

I can't condone the kidnapping and murder of civilians but frankly any country which has ever been part of a major war has committed atrocities and you can't completely ignore the part Israel have played in bringing it to this point. It absolutely doesn't make it right though of course and should still be called out.

Exactly the same way as our actions in the middle east and Afghanistan doesn't justify ****s blowing themselves up on the underground. It undoubtedly played a part though and you can't just ignore that, every action has a reaction and all that.

I think it's easy for us to say how violence is wrong and never the answer. If you're actually living there and though, witnessing your friends and family being subject to ethnic cleansing and forced to leave homes, while the world stands by and does NOTHING. Then I can see why violence may become more appealing.

Imo condemning the Palestinians for attacking Israel is like condemning the Ukrainianians for attacking Russia. Maybe we should send them some storm missiles and modern tanks?

No I'm not. If you take another look at my post you will see that I've said that the Israeli's are far from innocent. And to make it clear my post is not to defend Israel in their part of this conflict.
My anger was directed at the posters who were glossing over what has happened in this atrocity. The general theme was yes it's terrible but..... and then quickly moving on to why Israel have brought it on themselves or this is bad judgment by hamas because it gives Israel the green light to make them pay for it.
Nowhere was there an outright condemnation of hamas for the atrocity without it being somehow justified.

Below are actual comments from yesterday.
"but popping the boys out to kill about 30 civilians isn’t the way to go." and "This won’t do Palestine any good." and "This was an idiotic decision by Hamas"

" Popping the boys out to kill about 30 civilians" (now about 700 BTW) what sort of person writes something like that after a mass public execution and their bodies then dragged through the streets?

Another way of looking at this is, had it been Israel that had gone into Gaza, shot hundreds of Palestinians (including women and children) and paraded their bodies in public, and I then posted "Mon the Israelis :emoticon-0165-muscl " you would have quite rightly been disgusted.
 
No I'm not. If you take another look at my post you will see that I've said that the Israeli's are far from innocent. And to make it clear my post is not to defend Israel in their part of this conflict.
My anger was directed at the posters who were glossing over what has happened in this atrocity. The general theme was yes it's terrible but..... and then quickly moving on to why Israel have brought it on themselves or this is bad judgment by hamas because it gives Israel the green light to make them pay for it.
Nowhere was there an outright condemnation of hamas for the atrocity without it being somehow justified.

Below are actual comments from yesterday.
"but popping the boys out to kill about 30 civilians isn’t the way to go." and "This won’t do Palestine any good." and "This was an idiotic decision by Hamas"

" Popping the boys out to kill about 30 civilians" (now about 700 BTW) what sort of person writes something like that after a mass public execution and their bodies then dragged through the streets?

Another way of looking at this is, had it been Israel that had gone into Gaza, shot hundreds of Palestinians (including women and children) and paraded their bodies in public, and I then posted "Mon the Israelis :emoticon-0165-muscl " you would have quite rightly been disgusted.

Though I agree with the gist of your post, I don't think anyone is going to write that "after a mass execution and their bodies dragged through the streets" (I wouldn't have thought) once that had been reported. I suspect (though could of course be wrong) that whoever posted that did so prior to that realisation.

PS - I haven't really commented, but my main thought is that Hamas are an utter bunch of ***** if anyone was wanting to know.
 
BREAKING: Hamas announces they will execute one hostage live on TV for every airstrike on Gaza

I have no words to describe how horrifying this situation is
 
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I few points regarding the news from Israel in the last few days that I think are salient:-

1. Listening to Radio 4 tonight there is still some debate but the consensus over the weekend was that the raid by Hamas was at least sanctioned by Iran if not planned by them. I find that the Iranian government is full of rhetoric but, when push comes to a shove, they are not putting boots on the ground to assist the Palestinian people or are their airplanes / missles attacking the Israeli defence forces who are about to pummel Gaza. In a nutshell, Iranian support is effectively to diminish Israel by proxy and effectively leave the Palestinians at the mercy of the Isaeli military.

2. No one has really commented on the fact that so many foreigners appear to have been murdered at the rave nor asked the question as to what they are doing there. Israel would not be top of most ordinary people's holiday destination and it is not clear that they were all Jewish. The photos of the young people who sadly fell victim all appear to be young, healthy and vibrant and totally oblivious to the manner in which their contemporaries across the border in Gaza have t ive their lives. There is an undercurrent in the media reporting that their lives are somehow worth more than those of the Palestinians.

3. I don't think that pumping money into the Israeli economy by supporting their tourism industry is ethical.

4. I agree that a Palestinian administration led by Hamas will ever solve the problems in that part of the world regardless of whether Israel exists or not.

5. Whilst the degree of violence meted out by the Hamas militants has been shocking, I feel that the situation since the Nakba in 1948 has certainly dehumanised the Palestinianans. There were several images on the TV yesterday of septuagenarians waving AK-47's in the air. I am not sure how these people are supposed to reacts as they are effectively pawns in a wider, geo-politcal situation that has pitched America and her ally Israel in a precarious position with most other countries in the region. At the moment, both sides in the conflict appear to be having their fortunes directed by the US and Iran.


6. I am really disgusted at how the debate in the UK has been shut down. Criticism of Israel is being described as anti-semantic with more sensible and pragmatic politicians like Jeremy Corbyn being ridiculed. I am stagged by how these issues are being reported in the British media as I feel that , as a national population, the UK is generally pro-Palestinian. It is saddening to see Israeli flags projected on buildings both in the UK and Europe not only as this is hugely problematic but also because most people in the UK are not sympathetic to Israel. It is also staggering to see this replicated in countries like France where one sixth of the country is Muslim. It feels like the sensible majority in Europe are being ignored as most people recognise the scenario is extrmely nuanced. Given Sunak's ties with the government on India which also has a dubious reputation against it's Muslim population, I suppose the stance is no surprise yet Starmer's recent statements are clear in their support for Israel. I would imagine that the position Starmer and his cabinet are taking is in marked contrast to Labour Party members.

7. The other issue no one seems to be commenting on is that I believe some 300,000 Israeli reservists have been drafted up from other countries.. British citizens serving in the Israeli defence force have already been killed in action. I would like to know what our government is going to do when Uk citizens start flying out to Israel on a mission to kill more Palestinians. Why aren't the courts trying to stop this like they did with those wisihing to joint ISIS ten years ago ?


8. Why has no Western nation condemned America for the projected deployment of an air craft carrier to the region ?
 
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On another note, is anyone else skeptical of this so called complete intelligence failure?

Given the scale of this it must have been in the works for quite some time and the idea that an intelligence agency as renowned as Mossad knew absolutely nothing about it beggars belief.

The cynic in me says they knew it was coming but let it happen as it can now be used as an excuse to step up their attacks and further expand settlements.

Hubris and motivated reasoning. Shin Bet had warned that Hamas would retaliate for the campaign of settler violence that has been tacitly encouraged by the current government. That didn't fit their worldview, and so it was dismissed as Shin Bet having gone woke, of all things.

https://www.ft.com/content/aa7eb6ba-6dc1-46dc-b96a-b7c3a1b0446e

When the head of Shin Bet, the Israeli domestic intelligence service, warned Netanyahu earlier this year that deadly attacks by settlers on Palestinians would increase the security threat to Israel, he was roundly denounced by members of Netanyahu’s Likud party. One Likud member of parliament complained: “The ideology of the left has reached the top echelons of the Shin Bet. The deep state has infiltrated the leadership of the Shin Bet and the IDF.

https://www.ynetnews.com/article/sy7gkzpsh

Members of Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition on Sunday criticized Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar, for reportedly telling the prime minister that Jewish terrorism was an accelerator for Palestinian terror. "We see there is confusion as to who is an enemy," Limor Son Har-Melech a member of Otzsma Yehudit told Ynet in an interview.

Bar said that violence against Palestinians perpetrated by settlers posed a strategic danger, bolstering the Islamic Jihad and Hamas and compromising the Palestinian Authority's efforts to prevent terror from their operatives in the West Bank. He warned that the physical harm and the damage to Palestinian property would lead to acts of revenge that may cost Jewish lives. Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi also warned that violence perpetrated by settlers was increasing the motivation of terrorists to act.

[...]A member of Netanyahu's ruling Likud Party, firebrand Tali Gottlieb agreed. "The ideology of the left has reached the top echelons of the Shin Bet," she said. The deep state has infiltrated the leadership of the Shin Bet and the IDF", Gottlieb added.
 
I few points regarding the news from Israel in the last few days that I think are salient:-

1. Listening to Radio 4 tonight there is still some debate but the consensus over the weekend was that the raid by Hamas was at least sanctioned by Iran if not planned by them. I find that the Iranian government is full of rhetoric but, when push comes to a shove, they are not putting boots on the ground to assist the Palestinian people or are their airplanes / missles attacking the Israeli defence forces who are about to pummel Gaza. In a nutshell, Iranian support is effectively to diminish Israel by proxy and effectively leave the Palestinians at the mercy of the Isaeli military.

2. No one has really commented on the fact that so many foreigners appear to have been murdered at the rave nor asked the question as to what they are doing there. Israel would not be top of most ordinary people's holiday destination and it is not clear that they were all Jewish. The photos of the young people who sadly fell victim all appear to be young, healthy and vibrant and totally oblivious to the manner in which their contemporaries across the border in Gaza have t ive their lives. There is an undercurrent in the media reporting that their lives are somehow worth more than those of the Palestinians.

3. I don't think that pumping money into the Israeli economy by supporting their tourism industry is ethical.

4. I agree that a Palestinian administration led by Hamas will ever solve the problems in that part of the world regardless of whether Israel exists or not.

5. Whilst the degree of violence meted out by the Hamas militants has been shocking, I feel that the situation since the Nakba in 1948 has certainly dehumanised the Palestinianans. There were several images on the TV yesterday of septuagenarians waving AK-47's in the air. I am not sure how these people are supposed to reacts as they are effectively pawns in a wider, geo-politcal situation that has pitched America and her ally Israel in a precarious position with most other countries in the region. At the moment, both sides in the conflict appear to be having their fortunes directed by the US and Iran.


6. I am really disgusted at how the debate in the UK has been shut down. Criticism of Israel is being described as anti-semantic with more sensible and pragmatic politicians like Jeremy Corbyn being ridiculed. I am stagged by how these issues are being reported in the British media as I feel that , as a national population, the UK is generally pro-Palestinian. It is saddening to see Israeli flags projected on buildings both in the UK and Europe not only as this is hugely problematic but also because most people in the UK are not sympathetic to Israel. It is also staggering to see this replicated in countries like France where one sixth of the country is Muslim. It feels like the sensible majority in Europe are being ignored as most people recognise the scenario is extrmely nuanced. Given Sunak's ties with the government on India which also has a dubious reputation against it's Muslim population, I suppose the stance is no surprise yet Starmer's recent statements are clear in their support for Israel. I would imagine that the position Starmer and his cabinet are taking is in marked contrast to Labour Party members.

7. The other issue no one seems to be commenting on is that I believe some 300,000 Israeli reservists have been drafted up from other countries.. British citizens serving in the Israeli defence force have already been killed in action. I would like to know what our government is going to do when Uk citizens start flying out to Israel on a mission to kill more Palestinians. Why aren't the courts trying to stop this like they did with those wisihing to joint ISIS ten years ago ?


8. Why has no Western nation condemned America for the projected deployment of an air craft carrier to the region ?

1. Maybe. Both sides are used by larger countries

2. Israel is a fantastic & beautiful holiday destination and has been relatively safe for a while. I doubt the people at “the festival for peace” excepted to be targeted. They were naive to the true nature of Hamas unfortunately.

3. why is tourism unethical?

4. probably the only sensible thing in your post

5. maybe they should act by… not murdering innocent civilians and raping women and children?

6. Jeremy corbyn is not a sensible politician. He is a socialist anti-Semite. How is debate being shut down? There has been more pro-Palestine sentiment than people condemning the terrorist attacks

7. What? You’re basically making that up

8. Because most of the sane world not living in a socialist bubble agrees that sending an aircraft carrier there is a good show of support & strength.
 
1. Maybe. Both sides are used by larger countries

2. Israel is a fantastic & beautiful holiday destination and has been relatively safe for a while. I doubt the people at “the festival for peace” excepted to be targeted. They were naive to the true nature of Hamas unfortunately.

3. why is tourism unethical?

4. probably the only sensible thing in your post

5. maybe they should act by… not murdering innocent civilians and raping women and children?

6. Jeremy corbyn is not a sensible politician. He is a socialist anti-Semite. How is debate being shut down? There has been more pro-Palestine sentiment than people condemning the terrorist attacks

7. What? You’re basically making that up

8. Because most of the sane world not living in a socialist bubble agrees that sending an aircraft carrier there is a good show of support & strength.


Point 7 - that figure was quoted by the BBC on Radio 4 this morning.
 
Point 7 - that figure was quoted by the BBC on Radio 4 this morning.

Fair enough - hadn’t heard about that.

I am sorry if my post was abrupt. I find it hard to stomach a lot of the victim blaming going on here and across the world today.

These Israeli civilians did not deserve this act of atrocity and many people are trying to justify it. It’s sickening
 
No I'm not. If you take another look at my post you will see that I've said that the Israeli's are far from innocent. And to make it clear my post is not to defend Israel in their part of this conflict.
My anger was directed at the posters who were glossing over what has happened in this atrocity. The general theme was yes it's terrible but..... and then quickly moving on to why Israel have brought it on themselves or this is bad judgment by hamas because it gives Israel the green light to make them pay for it.
Nowhere was there an outright condemnation of hamas for the atrocity without it being somehow justified.

Below are actual comments from yesterday.
"but popping the boys out to kill about 30 civilians isn’t the way to go." and "This won’t do Palestine any good." and "This was an idiotic decision by Hamas"

" Popping the boys out to kill about 30 civilians" (now about 700 BTW) what sort of person writes something like that after a mass public execution and their bodies then dragged through the streets?

Another way of looking at this is, had it been Israel that had gone into Gaza, shot hundreds of Palestinians (including women and children) and paraded their bodies in public, and I then posted "Mon the Israelis :emoticon-0165-muscl " you would have quite rightly been disgusted.

Fair enough mate. I've gone back and had another read and I can see that now, though still think it's unclear and the part I bolded very much comes across as if it's unreasonable to suggest they've been provoked by Israel which I found absurd.

I take your point re my 'mon the Palestinians' comment, though I will say that was made without any knowledge of the attack details as was out most of weekend (only read about the concert this morning for example) and Palestine doesn't = Hamas. I'll also add that I still massively support the Palestinian cause here despite not agreeing with their methods here and hoping that some of the perpetrators get their karma.

I don't think it's irrelevant or unreasonable to point out Israel have been party to similar disgusting behaviours personally.

Not saying it's right but people are generally less shocked/surprised by war crimes when they're committed by oppressed people. Don't think I've seen anyone on here ever criticise Ukraine for war crimes for example. Again I'm not saying this right.

As for 'had it been Israel' then my entire point is these sorts of things have been done by Israel, for years and years and years, and that's why people will mention it whenever Hamas commit these sorts of atrocities. Weren't the IDF airstriking refugee camps just a month or two ago?

Overall I find this situation so sad and don't think we've ever been further from peace (in my lifetime at least). When I was younger and first aware of the conflict there was a lot of talk of the two state solution but neither party want this and instead won't settle for less than the destruction of each other.
 
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Palestine was never actually a sovereign nation btw
"The State of Palestine is a de jure sovereign state in the Middle East consisting of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The "State of Palestine" is officially recognized by the United Nations as a Non-Member Observer State, the status was granted on 29 November 2012. The state's designated capital is East Jerusalem, however the administrative center is located in the city of Ramallah (West Bank). The State of Palestine is recognized by more than 130 countries worldwide, but not by France, the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, Republic of Korea, Spain and Switzerland."
https://www.nationsonline.org/onewo...e of Palestine is,granted on 29 November 2012.
 
"The State of Palestine is a de jure sovereign state in the Middle East consisting of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The "State of Palestine" is officially recognized by the United Nations as a Non-Member Observer State, the status was granted on 29 November 2012. The state's designated capital is East Jerusalem, however the administrative center is located in the city of Ramallah (West Bank). The State of Palestine is recognized by more than 130 countries worldwide, but not by France, the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, Republic of Korea, Spain and Switzerland."
https://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/palestinian_territory.htm#:~:text=The State of Palestine is,granted on 29 November 2012.

Exactly - or don’t you live in the UK?
 
Exactly - or don’t you live in the UK?
No I don't as you well know. What don't you understand by "The State of Palestine is officially recognized by the United Nations as a Non-Member Observer State, the status was granted on 29 November 2012. The state's designated capital is East Jerusalem, however the administrative center is located in the city of Ramallah (West Bank). "The State of Palestine is recognized by more than 130 countries worldwide".
 
What the **** has where I live got to do with the fact that State of Palestine exists and is recognised by the UN. Your post is 100% untrue.
Edit: bullshit.

“but not by France, the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, Republic of Korea, Spain andSwitzerland”

Where do you live?
 
I few points regarding the news from Israel in the last few days that I think are salient:-

1. Listening to Radio 4 tonight there is still some debate but the consensus over the weekend was that the raid by Hamas was at least sanctioned by Iran if not planned by them. I find that the Iranian government is full of rhetoric but, when push comes to a shove, they are not putting boots on the ground to assist the Palestinian people or are their airplanes / missles attacking the Israeli defence forces who are about to pummel Gaza. In a nutshell, Iranian support is effectively to diminish Israel by proxy and effectively leave the Palestinians at the mercy of the Isaeli military.

2. No one has really commented on the fact that so many foreigners appear to have been murdered at the rave nor asked the question as to what they are doing there. Israel would not be top of most ordinary people's holiday destination and it is not clear that they were all Jewish. The photos of the young people who sadly fell victim all appear to be young, healthy and vibrant and totally oblivious to the manner in which their contemporaries across the border in Gaza have t ive their lives. There is an undercurrent in the media reporting that their lives are somehow worth more than those of the Palestinians.

3. I don't think that pumping money into the Israeli economy by supporting their tourism industry is ethical.

4. I agree that a Palestinian administration led by Hamas will ever solve the problems in that part of the world regardless of whether Israel exists or not.

5. Whilst the degree of violence meted out by the Hamas militants has been shocking, I feel that the situation since the Nakba in 1948 has certainly dehumanised the Palestinianans. There were several images on the TV yesterday of septuagenarians waving AK-47's in the air. I am not sure how these people are supposed to reacts as they are effectively pawns in a wider, geo-politcal situation that has pitched America and her ally Israel in a precarious position with most other countries in the region. At the moment, both sides in the conflict appear to be having their fortunes directed by the US and Iran.


6. I am really disgusted at how the debate in the UK has been shut down. Criticism of Israel is being described as anti-semantic with more sensible and pragmatic politicians like Jeremy Corbyn being ridiculed. I am stagged by how these issues are being reported in the British media as I feel that , as a national population, the UK is generally pro-Palestinian. It is saddening to see Israeli flags projected on buildings both in the UK and Europe not only as this is hugely problematic but also because most people in the UK are not sympathetic to Israel. It is also staggering to see this replicated in countries like France where one sixth of the country is Muslim. It feels like the sensible majority in Europe are being ignored as most people recognise the scenario is extrmely nuanced. Given Sunak's ties with the government on India which also has a dubious reputation against it's Muslim population, I suppose the stance is no surprise yet Starmer's recent statements are clear in their support for Israel. I would imagine that the position Starmer and his cabinet are taking is in marked contrast to Labour Party members.

7. The other issue no one seems to be commenting on is that I believe some 300,000 Israeli reservists have been drafted up from other countries.. British citizens serving in the Israeli defence force have already been killed in action. I would like to know what our government is going to do when Uk citizens start flying out to Israel on a mission to kill more Palestinians. Why aren't the courts trying to stop this like they did with those wisihing to joint ISIS ten years ago ?


8. Why has no Western nation condemned America for the projected deployment of an air craft carrier to the region ?

Well, I agree with points one and four. I sort of agree-ish with point five. The rest I don't.

Corbyn being described as either sensible or pragmatic has left me punching myself in the face.
 
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Sick terrorist supporting ****s.

Why aren’t they all being arrested? Wtf has happened to this country. Makes me sick