Youâd wonder about the 8% for whom the war isnât causing anxiety
1 Like
Theyâre probably all sitting in the Knesset.
2 Likes
This Tory MP has probably torched her career just by speaking a fact.
2 Likes
1 Like
This was a fucking car crash of an interview with UK Defence Secretary Grant Shapps just now. It was like The Thick Of It.
Call me a cynic but:
Whatâs that about? Religious thing?
The 2003 Iraq War was the major event which heralded mass disenchantment with politics in the western world and the rise of widespread ultra-cynicism.
What Israel does here and the total western support for it will likely massively accelerate that process and benefit extremism.
An upsurge in Islamist terrorism in the west is certain. Right wing extremists will benefit because of the rise in anti-Muslim hatred which will follow the rise in Islamist terrorism. Le Pen will likely come to power in France in 2027. The prospect of a Trump win in the US next year looks more and more likely.
Liberal centrism will probably totally collapse because the European Union and the Democratic party in the US will be seen to have discredited themselves Tony Blair style in supporting war crimes. When you are the self appointed guardians of international law, of right and wrong, when you fail on this scale and you go all in on the cavalier destruction of international law and support for war crimes, you lose all moral authority to pronounce on anything. The double standard of supporting Ukraine in fighting against invasion yet supporting a Russia style campaign of destruction by an occupying power against a civilian population will be too great to withstand.
There will be a continued and accelerated move towards mass conspiracism. Israel is likely securing the re-election of Mick Wallace and Clare Daly anyway. That Wallace and Daly are themselves total hypocrites who supported the butcher Assad in Syria and his war crimes will be cast aside.
Chaos has already been at Europeâs door for quite a while, but this could easily be the event that ends the west as we know it and plunges Europe and America into chaos for real. A war of all against all.
5 Likes
I suspect, with no real proper insight, that Israel will be given another few days to extract their revenge on Gaza before things are dialled back and a massive humanitarian and military crisis is averted.
Hamas have called for the people of the West Bank to march on Al Asqa Mosque today. If that doesnât materialise or if itâs a half hearted effort things might settle down a bit, but if that does go ahead and gathers huge support then it will get far worse very quickly.
1 Like
I prefer your scenario to @Cheasty cataclysmic one!
Itâs hard to see what is achieved by a ground invasion of Gaza - either in the short term or longer term. The hostage situation, and the fact that many are women and children deeply complicates the picture though.
1 Like
Alastair Crooke does a stunning job of explaining the importance of the mosque to Palestinians and right wing Israelis
I may have mentioned it before but I found the book âJerusalemâ by Simon Sebag Montefiore fascinating. Essentially a biography of the city from ancient times.
Conflict upon conflict, religion upon region, empire upon empire across thousands of years. Itâs hard to think of anywhere else in the world with such a chaotic history that still echoes today.
1 Like
The thing Iâve not figured out or seen answered is whats the route out for both sides? If there are no escalations, then how do they deescalate? Are they both at a point of no return. Did Hamas think Israel with strike hard enough to force international law?
Israel are not bound by international law, as a result of not being a member of the ICC, so there are no rules.
What Israel will probably say, and in some respects they might have a point - is that the battles for Fallujah and Mosul were waged with wide western acquiescence. Even if people in the west werenât actively supporting the US in waging those battles, there was a general view that Al Qaeda and ISIS were genuinely evil adversaries, and there was no sympathy for them. Israel will say âwhy is this differentâ?
But the reception to this in the west will be much different. Fallujah and Mosul might as well have been on the moon as far as a lot of people in the west were concerned. But people in the west are much more familiar with Gaza and Palestine and there is wide sympathy with the Palestinian cause in general. The overwhelming majority of people in the west repudiate Hamas and the majority of any sneaking regarderism for them has fallen away in the past week. But Palestine is a cause celebre. The prevailing view in the west is that Hamas is not Palestine and Hamas is not Gaza. That the population of Gaza are themselves victims of Hamas, that they themselves are hostages to Hamas who canât get out. That they themselves are similar to the Jews in the ghettoes of World War II, and that in a tragic irony, the ones doing the killing this time are the people who once had to suffer in those ghettoes.
2 Likes
In PJ OâRourkeâs classic work âHolidays in Hellâ he visited Jerusalem and called it âGodâs monkey houseâ.
No, thatâs completely incorrect. Israel is not a party to the international criminal court, which is a body set up to prosecute individuals for, mainly, war crimes. It doesnât encompass all of international law.
All of international applies to states all of the time. Humanitarian law, laws of war, mainly from the Geneva conventions, applies to conflict.
2 Likes
It may do, but only in the most abstract of ways, not in reality.
If you say so, but this is a subject youâre not strong on.
1 Like
So whoâs going to punish Israel for breaches of international law?