Israel - Palestine Discussion | Post Respectfully | Discuss more, tweet less

Simbo said:
Still shocked Hamas hasn't presented Israeli bomb fragments from the hospital. They clearly still have much to learn from Russia, I overestimated them. Your supposed to keep some in storage to use for exactly this type of event. Perhaps the Israeli strikes really are doing a number on their organisation.
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They have been incredibly shit at presenting their side of it. Everyone has been forensically picking apart the Israeli case, but the Hamas version bears no scrutiny whatsoever.
 
berbatrick said:
I posted this earlier (an Israeli woman getting arrested in Berlin for a silent lone protest, the tweet I'd posted was from a different account but I can't find it now). The resident Germans on this thread assured me that it was fine because protests were illegal on that day or topic.
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Yeah, as per what @VivaObertan said, they seem to be really shook up in Berlin at the moment and are not allowing any public protest about this. Which is mad to hear, knowing that Berlin is such a liberal city. Although @do.ob says that this is on the back of earlier protests/demonstrations getting out of hand and violent very quickly. Plus I do understand why Germany, of all countries, might set the bar for antisemitism almost irrationally low.

Anyway, this tangent of the discussion came from someone claiming that some of the really nasty and blatantly antisemitic protests that have happened in parts of Berlin are only happening because of this clamp-down. Which is, obviously, nonsense.
 
Murder on Zidane's Floor said:
Trouble I find is that all tropes and stereotypes always have to have a tiny amount of truth to them to be effective, hence why David Icke's we are run by lizard people isn't mainstream.

Doesn't mean it's incumbent across the entire group or can be used a predictive tool, not should be the basis for any worthwhile worldview.
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There is a conflation and crossover but it's deliberate and strategic.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Plus I do understand why Germany, of all countries, might set the bar for antisemitism almost irrationally low.
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I have a much darker view of the German response to Palestine in general. Because, like in this case where they arrested a Jewish Israeli woman, the lines between atoning for their past, and and whatever it is that Germany does, are really strange.
Ranted about it here.
 
11101 said:
We had people saying the Hamas attack was deserved and a virtual Twitter bot spamming everything Israel has ever done wrong. I don't it's that far off the mark.
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Not in this thread. And also not in the main. If any opposing sides pursue only the extreme end of the opposing view it fuels the division.
 
That_Bloke said:
And you're hardly using those brain cells of yours.

That's an operation that went over the head of some the highest positioned members of the Hamas itself and managed to blindside one of best the intelligence agencies in the world with all eyes on that particular prison region. Yet the guy in question is asking a British MP if she somehow heard about it. Just because she's also Palestinian. The dangerous implications are that she, and by extension, the whole population of Gaza, or at least a part of it, were somehow complicit or privy to one of the most repulsive terrorist attacks of the 21st century. See where I am going with this?

I'm (almost) certain that the guy didn't mean it that way, but it certainly is telling, and truly shocking that the question was even asked. Even more shocking is that it doesn't really seem to ruffle any feathers. I find it admirable that she didn't flinch and took the time to answer. I really don't know what I would've done if I was in her shoes.
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Oh I see where you're going. It doesn't mean it's anything other than you painting your own picture and making assumptions. The fact it didn't "ruffle feathers" is because it's not outrageous.
 
Drizzle said:
They have been incredibly shit at presenting their side of it. Everyone has been forensically picking apart the Israeli case, but the Hamas version bears no scrutiny whatsoever.
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They probably feel adding a zero to every casualty report and making sure there's plenty footage of every dead child is enough. To be fair, they are probably right.
 
moses said:
While that may be statistically true it was an outrageous and reductive question to ask. But you know that. Don't be deliberately obtuse, it doesn't help things.
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I'm not being anything. It wasn't outrageous. It was a question.
 
Camilo said:
I'm not being anything. It wasn't outrageous. It was a question.
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?

I wasn't answering you in the post you quoted.

And we we just disagree on whether it was just a question. As if questions cant be offensive.

As Wibble pointed out, we had it as Irish too. And I feel it is quite a racist and reductive question.

It insinuates that everyone of a certain 'type` is a terrorist or has terrorist connections.
 
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moses said:
Ah it's well known to anyone who has any level of interest. And in fairness it works, so why wouldn't they use it? It's up to others to make the distinction clear.
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I say this, obviously, in light of the reaction to Monday’s post on Israel and Palestine. (I really don’t want this to become a forum on Israel and Palestine, and I’m tempted to turn off comments again, but I won’t.) A position on this issue was much requested, and at some point not saying something amounts to saying something, so I wrote a piece.

And I said the same thing I’ve always said: basic liberal democratic principles require that the land historically referred to as Palestine has to be the site of peace and prosperity for every kind of person who lives there, an egalitarian and multi-ethnic state with equal political and legal rights for all. I also pointed out that Israel enjoys hegemonic military power over the region and that every meaningful institutional actor in the United States is aligned with the Israeli government.

See Joe Biden’s comments thus far, which express limitless support for Israel and then, in the barest and weakest terms possible, urges caution or restraint in entirely vague terms, barely able to mention the existence of the Palestinians.

That imbalance of influence has everything to do with our apprehension of this conflict. That does not strike me as radical position. But even if it did, that would seem to fit comfortably into the dimensions of what so many readers have told me that they value, my independence. Yet it appears Israel is not an ox I can gore. Is that independence?
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berbatrick said:
The centre-left is certainly making sure nothing breaks that unity, impressive!



e - tried not get get mad, but this one got me.
i don't like standpoint theory, but since everybody loves that in these cases: what we have here is a german telling a jewish man, with family that died in the nazi holocaust, that she can't meet with him because his statement mentions civilians in gaza. and she is getting almost unanimous support. what a sorry excuse for a political climate. what an amazing way to transfer collective guilt to a different population.

e again - @hasanejaz88 iirc you're in germany - from the replies to here, it seems that there is no acknowledgement/knowledge of apartheid or the status of gaza in germany. is that correct?
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Never realized you asked me, sorry for not replying.

Germany doesn't recognize Palestine and has adopted the IHRC definition of anti-semetism, which means calling Israel an apartheid or bring anti-zionist is anti-semetism. I haven't discussed this in public with anyone, neither has my wife. There certainly is a climate that is very pro-Israel. My wife is part of a Munich expats group on Facebook and when the conflict started they blanket banned any pro-Palestinan posts, while keeping pro-Israeli ones. The dean of the Technical University in Munich (TUM) sent an email to everyone saying that the university's stance is very openly to support Israel.

Haven't had such email in my company though, but I'm not going to open this topic at all at work.
 
berbatrick said:
I have a much darker view of the German response to Palestine in general. Because, like in this case where they arrested a Jewish Israeli woman, the lines between atoning for their past, and and whatever it is that Germany does, are really strange.
Ranted about it here.
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You're annoyed by Germany's obvious desire to do everything possible to side with Israel/Jews, to try and make up for the terrible wrongs they did in the past?

This sentence is interesting:

what an amazing way to transfer collective guilt to a different population.
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I wonder if you would ever use that phrase about reparations for slave trading, or colonialism?
 
Pogue Mahone said:
You're annoyed by Germany's obvious desire to do everything possible to side with Israel/Jews, to try and make up for the terrible wrongs they did in the past?
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We didn't invent the phrase "two wrongs don't make a right" for nothing.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
I wonder if you would ever use that phrase about reparations for slave trading, or colonialism?
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To German credit, very few of the colonial powers have faced their dark past so honestly and openly and woven it into their present. So the social reactions will be different.

Maybe massive hypotheticals are not whats needed in an already cloudy discussion.
 
do.ob said:
People have been holding illegal demonstrations with attendants in the thousands that turned violent in the end, so knowing that, they are probably taking a proactive stance and stop people, who think their opinion is so special it is above the law, in their tracks.
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"proactive stance".. "keep people in their tracks"

Straight from the book, not bad at all.
 
berbatrick said:
I posted this earlier (an Israeli woman getting arrested in Berlin for a silent lone protest, the tweet I'd posted was from a different account but I can't find it now). The resident Germans on this thread assured me that it was fine because protests were illegal on that day or topic.
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What's the point of bringing up her being Israeli? Do you think police should check for ethnicity or nationality before they enforce the law?
 


You can substitute South Africans/Afrikaner regime with Palestinians/Israeli government and it would be a perfect speech for today's issue. His current continuation of US-Israel support also doesn't really square given that he was also accused of supporting the IRA and it was resurfaced in his visit to Ireland by the British press.

 
Pogue Mahone said:
You're annoyed by Germany's obvious desire to do everything possible to side with Israel/Jews, to try and make up for the terrible wrongs they did in the past?

This sentence is interesting:



I wonder if you would ever use that phrase about reparations for slave trading, or colonialism?
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This. And I think people seriously underestimate how widespread antisemitism still is within German society. And that’s definitely not exclusive to Muslims living here. We like to pretend that we have everything under control and it’s just the imported antisemitism through migration that’s causing issues. But that’s quite far from the truth. The attack in Halle showed this. So do the many police intern chat groups with extremist views that were uncovered in the last years. Or the fact that a Bavarian politician actually climbed in the polls after it became public, that he created a flyer, demanding political enemies to be gassed in Auschwitz when he was 17.
Our past bears great responsibility for us as citizens. And that responsibility should never be doubted or dismissed.
I understand that this makes discussing certain topics more difficult. And this obviously creates new issues we need to deal with.
But this should never ever cast doubt onto our duty to fill the phrase „never again“ with life.
And honestly, despite all this I have always been able to voice crtiticism towards the state of Israel without anyone alleging antisemitism. Yes, you have to be more careful than you would have to with other topics. But that’s about it.
 
B. Munich said:
Why would I be? We all know that the Bush administration lied about the weapon of mass destruction.

Still I see an huge difference between democracies and dictatorships like Russia North Korea or China.
In Western countries such lies are at least investigated and come to light. In Russia investigating journalists are imprisoned or even killed.

There isn't a perfect country but if I had to choose between living in the US, Russia or China it's a quick and easy decision.
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B. Munich said:
This conflict is going for 75 years since the English gave the Jews land to settle. If anybody is to blame for here, it's the British.

The Palestinians started the first war in 1947/48 and lost. Since then Israel has been attached several times (e.g.1967, 1973) and the Arab countries always lost. If you lose a war, you will have to pay for it, especially if you started it.
Being German I know what I'm talking about here.
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Then you should also know that there was a strong sentiment to in 1945 to make Germany pay properly for the war, but instead common sense took hold and mistakes from June 1919 weren't repeated to the same extent.

All that is moot. This isn't a football match.

Were talking about a country that our PM is standing shoulder to shoulder with, one that basks in being the only modern liberal democratic regime in the middle East, and yet is committing atrocities on a daily basis.
 
The Corinthian said:
Well the Gazans said they have the warhead that proves it was Israel, although at the time of typing this they haven't presented it. Let's see what transpires.
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It will take time to get some old bits of Israeli missile moved to the hospital. It isn't that Israel couldn't have been responsible, but just that they probably weren't in this instance. The missing 3m+ wide crater means it wasn't a standard Israeli air strike. No matter how much people want it to be.
 
Simbo said:
They probably feel adding a zero to every casualty report and making sure there's plenty footage of every dead child is enough. To be fair, they are probably right.
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If someone took this tone with Israeli victims you would be screaming anti-semitism.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
You're annoyed by Germany's obvious desire to do everything possible to side with Israel/Jews, to try and make up for the terrible wrongs they did in the past?

This sentence is interesting:



I wonder if you would ever use that phrase about reparations for slave trading, or colonialism?
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I would have no issue if they just came out and said it as it is. If the German government came out and said "Look, we still feel heavy debt to Israel and Jews for what we did to them so we won't allow anyone to take a stance against them", it would be perfectly understandable.

The issue is when they make their support to be for morality, that "Israel has a right to defend itself" against the people it is oppressing and making out those who support Palestine as anti-semites, thereby demonizing any support. That exasebates an already negative impression of Muslims and makes it difficult for people who geniually only care for Palestinians and have nothing against Jews.

Those are two different things, to say "we are indebted to Israel so no criticism allowed" versus "people who support Palestine are anti-semites so no criticism allowed".
 
The last few pages have veered off into a discussion about antisemitism after a poster (wrongly, in my opinion) stated that there was a lot of antisemitism in this thread.

It's been anti-Israeli government.

The water situation, especially, must be reaching a tipping point in Gaza right now. Unless something major happens very quickly, I fear the death toll of the last two weeks will be dwarfed in the coming week.
 
Badunk said:
The last few pages have veered off into a discussion about antisemitism after a poster (wrongly, in my opinion) stated that there was a lot of antisemitism in this thread.

It's been anti-Israeli government.

The water situation, especially, must be reaching a tipping point in Gaza right now. Unless something major happens very quickly, I fear the death toll of the last two weeks will be dwarfed in the coming week.
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Just to clarify, i dont think there is 'a lot'. But from a small number of posters there is clearly some at the very least anti-Jewish feeling, and there is much more in the wider world than i had expected from people i hadn't expected it from.
 
berbatrick said:
The centre-left is certainly making sure nothing breaks that unity, impressive!



e - tried not get get mad, but this one got me.
i don't like standpoint theory, but since everybody loves that in these cases: what we have here is a german telling a jewish man, with family that died in the nazi holocaust, that she can't meet with him because his statement mentions civilians in gaza. and she is getting almost unanimous support. what a sorry excuse for a political climate. what an amazing way to transfer collective guilt to a different population.

e again - @hasanejaz88 iirc you're in germany - from the replies to here, it seems that there is no acknowledgement/knowledge of apartheid or the status of gaza in germany. is that correct?
Click to expand...

berbatrick said:
I have a much darker view of the German response to Palestine in general. Because, like in this case where they arrested a Jewish Israeli woman, the lines between atoning for their past, and and whatever it is that Germany does, are really strange.
Ranted about it here.
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Great posts

Iker Quesadillas said:
We didn't invent the phrase "two wrongs don't make a right" for nothing.
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You might not know football, but your posts in this thread have been informative and well written, appreciate you
 
Given the the Hamas version is 475 dead (last I read) it is safe to say it will be less than that. And given the lack of a missile crater a death toll so high from a missile misfire landing on a hospital with only 80 beds (plus lots of visitors and refugees) seems very high indeed.

Not saying 50 or indeed any number of course.
 
Wibble said:
It will take time to get some old bits of Israeli missile moved to the hospital. It isn't that Israel couldn't have been responsible, but just that they probably weren't in this instance. The missing 3m+ wide crater means it wasn't a standard Israeli air strike. No matter how much people want it to be.
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That's to be expected though. Hamas doesn't have a propaganda division as advanced as Israel so they obviously can't put out lies as fast as Israel can.
 
Badunk said:
The last few pages have veered off into a discussion about antisemitism after a poster (wrongly, in my opinion) stated that there was a lot of antisemitism in this thread.

It's been anti-Israeli government.

The water situation, especially, must be reaching a tipping point in Gaza right now. Unless something major happens very quickly, I fear the death toll of the last two weeks will be dwarfed in the coming week.
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UN aid agencies are warning about a cholera outbreak that could be potentially enormous in scale. And how these people going to be treated if there's a ground invasion? It can take upto 5 days for the virus to impact, so could have already started and we'll see the deadly outcomes soon enough...
 
HTG said:
This. And I think people seriously underestimate how widespread antisemitism still is within German society. And that’s definitely not exclusive to Muslims living here. We like to pretend that we have everything under control and it’s just the imported antisemitism through migration that’s causing issues. But that’s quite far from the truth. The attack in Halle showed this. So do the many police intern chat groups with extremist views that were uncovered in the last years. Or the fact that a Bavarian politician actually climbed in the polls after it became public, that he created a flyer, demanding political enemies to be gassed in Auschwitz when he was 17.
Our past bears great responsibility for us as citizens. And that responsibility should never be doubted or dismissed.
I understand that this makes discussing certain topics more difficult. And this obviously creates new issues we need to deal with.
But this should never ever cast doubt onto our duty to fill the phrase „never again“ with life.
And honestly, despite all this I have always been able to voice crtiticism towards the state of Israel without anyone alleging antisemitism. Yes, you have to be more careful than you would have to with other topics. But that’s about it.
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Not just Germany I feel.

This may appear really stupid, but I'm fascinatined with the far right and the rampant anti semitism is part of their vile make up, globally. Both of which, the right, and anti semitism seem to be on the rise.

Bizarrely this doesn't always, translate to anti Israeli sentiment and at times if anything it's the left that take issue with the state of Israel.

It's quite a tangle.
 
11101 said:
Just to clarify, i dont think there is 'a lot'. But from a small number of posters there is clearly some at the very least anti-Jewish feeling, and there is much more in the wider world than i had expected from people i hadn't expected it from.
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You should challenge them specifically on what they have said. I've seen anger, disgust, outrage, but nothing antisemitic.
 
Champ said:
By the Church that runs the hospital.
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Just out of interest. Minutes after the blast the internet and news outlets were full with reports of Israel has been bombing the hospital and over 400 people were dead and thousands injured.

How anybody is capable to assess not only the damage and casualties but also identify the culprit and then post send publish the findings in social media and sent it to all major press agencies. And all this in less than 4 minutes.
 
11101 said:
Just to clarify, i dont think there is 'a lot'. But from a small number of posters there is clearly some at the very least anti-Jewish feeling, and there is much more in the wider world than i had expected from people i hadn't expected it from.
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You should report them. It's anonymous and we stamp out any racism or sectarianism that we are aware of.

The report feature helps us moderate the forum for everyone.
 
moses said:
Not just Germany I feel.

This may appear really stupid, but I'm fascinatined with the far right and the rampant anti semitism is part of their vile make up, globally. Both of which, the right, and anti semitism seem to be on the rise.

Bizarrely this doesn't always, translate to anti Israeli sentiment and at times. If anything it's the left that take issue with the state of Israel.

It's quite a tangle.
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Yeah, that has me confused too.

I'm not on Twitter (in case there's anyone left on the planet I haven't told this) but I'm morbidly curious about how the blue ticks are squaring the circle of their longstanding antisemitism with wanting to crush what they probably portray as an Islamic terrorist state.
 
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