icouldtelltheworld

Has its faults but we would soon miss it if it was gone IMO.

News coverage isn't the best, but at least it has the semblance of neutrality, I could see us descending into American-style polarisation if we all depended on more partisan sources of information

Quiet today, but I liked seeing him calming the other players down when they were celebrating Carlos' disallowed goal. I had my doubts but he's grown into a really strong captain for us

8 hours ago, ender4 said:

It’s just generally a **** up region of the world. But I do believe it’ll get better year on year, but very very slowly. Give it 20 or 40 or 60 years. 

I admire your optimism here, as all the evidence suggests that things in the region have got a lot worse just this year alone

2 hours ago, sidcow said:

Zero idea where that came from 

Pretty sure he came from Venice

On 15/11/2023 at 12:00, stewiek2 said:

He got that perfect hat trick in 2008 under MON. I missed the game as was at V festival.

Scored a hat trick against them in an early round league cup game in Lamberts first season too. Think Gareth Barry scored an own goal

Just now, magnkarl said:

Saying that we're no fans (I'm not either by the way), has done nothing. As a Western alliance we like to preach about values of different kinds, but when push comes to shove we're more than happy to do pretty much the same as Israel, even going so far as to fund other nations in their wiping out of millions of people (SA). What the average Israeli sees here is someone with a whole lot of 'holier than thou' until we're attacked ourselves, just that we're miles removed from fundamentalist Islamic nations, while Israel is regularly attacked by pretty much their whole neighbourhood, often based on their race or religion.

 

And what we see is the systematic imprisonment of children, the continued erosion and removal of Palestinian lands to make room for ever more settlers and a culture in which clearly at least some elements of the Israeli political elite would happily oversee the complete destruction of Gaza.

The average Israeli may see things that way, fair enough. For the rest of the world, it is not just about the current bombardment of Gaza but about a range of issues that have bubbled away for many decades now.

Whataboutery regarding NATO bombing of Middle Eastern countries or the atrocities wreaked by the Assad regime really don't do anything to contextualise or improve perceptions of Israel by outside observers. In fact, they do the total opposite.

Anyway, I've tried my utmost to show respect for your positions and be mindful that your perspective differs from my own, whilst offering my own view on some of the nuances of the debate. You unfortunately seem to only want to address singular points within my posts and introduce the same circular arguments and strawmen. We aren't going to solve the crisis by arguing on a football forum, so I'll bow out now and we'll agree to disagree.

I'm sure that we both want most of all is a peaceful solution and stability in the region, here's hoping some progress can be made towards that, no matter how unlikely it may seem currently 

Just now, magnkarl said:

Then we are back at this argument. Do you feel like 'we' follow those rules ourselves? Israel doesn't.

It seems to my friends that we're okay with carpet bombing Falluja, Tripoli, Kabul, Mogadishu, Mosul, Raqqa+++ to get at terrorists with plenty of civilian casualties, while when Israel does it everyone in the West likes to point at breaches of whichever rules 'the club' appears to be having.

I'm no fan of British foreign policy, hence attending protests regarding issues like Yemen. It doesn't follow that I believe there is really any equivalence or mitigating factors to be drawn from that regarding Israels treatment of the Palestinians

5 minutes ago, magnkarl said:

Do you honestly think Hamas cares about these kids when it comes to swapping them for Israeli and Western captives? 

Hamas will want to trade for their fighters, not kids who throw rocks at soldiers.

Everyone knows Hamas are evil. The question is really whether Israel, as a supposed Liberal democracy, should be engaged in the arbitrary and wholly disproportionate detention of Palestinian minors for minor acts of resistance

10 minutes ago, magnkarl said:

I don't necessarily disagree, and I argue your points to my friends in Israel too. I guess their followup question would be how many people attended said marches, compared to those who are going on now for Palestine. I think you understand what they're trying to say, and it's not entirely untrue.

Palestine is popular, Yemen isn't. Even though in pretty much every metric except for on an individual level, Palestine's horrors don't come close to that of the people of Yemen. In my humble opinion that is because the Houthis are in control in Yemen, so Iran doesn't need to get it's rabble rousers in the UK (GG, CW, No2NATO, Daley et. all) to talk about what the Houthis/SA have done in Yemen.

I don't deny that there's a certain 'popularity' to the Israel/Palestine issue that other causes don't receive, but from my own first hand experience of attending other demonstrations, I know that many of those involved in the planning/organisation of protests with regards Yemen and the Kurds are also active in Palestine solidarity campaigns. Unfortunately, the 'meme quality' of the issue will only be exacerbated due to its adoption by actors across both sides of the culture war.

However, there are other factors at play. Everyone knows that we turn a blind eye to the actions of the Saudis as it suits the interests of the British state. That a highly autocratic regime perpertrates devastation is of no surprise to anyone, but as Israel insists it is a Liberal democracy (and is treated as such by its Western allies), then it is always going to come under closer scrutiny. If Israel wants to be in the club then it can have no complaints about being judged in accordance with the rules of the game.

Beyond that though, Israel/Palestine has a much longer pedigree as a prominent issue with British politics. I'm in my early 30s and can remember it being frequently on the news from my childhood onwards, but it has obviously been a source of debate and tension for many decades before that.

Then you have the settler-colonial aspects. None of the other conflicts you have mentioned have the removal of native people from their lands in order that they can be settled by (often) people European countries/the USA. It makes the issue somewhat of an outlier amongst modern conflicts (I know that you have lamented the influence of the settler movement on Israeli politics so I am not meaning to attack you personally here or insinuate anything about your own beliefs).

And I don't deny also that for many people, the conflict does provide a useful cover for antisemitism. However, there a range of factors which combine to shed more light on Israel/Palestine within the Western conscious than issues in Yemen, Kurdistan and other such similar places

On 22/11/2023 at 09:54, magnkarl said:

How about when Saudi Arabia bombs Yemen with British made missiles and American made planes? Or when Iraqi police use Abrams tanks to drive into Kurdish villages in Northern Iraq to throw people out? The question surely has more to it than just being our allies, in that case there should be protests for the 1.4 million civilian deaths in Yemen, a lot of which are caused by Saudi forces with our backing. That's many times over the casualties in Israel\Palestine. In fact the situation in Yemen is fairly similar where you have an Iranian backed terrorist organisation who's attacked the country and taken over, and our ally is bombing them whilst hitting an awful lot of civilians in the process.

There have been several demonstrations in Birmingham over the past few years protesting against Britain's role in the Yemeni civil war, and also several in support of various Kurdish causes. It's weird how some people of a more pro-Israeli persuasion seem to overlook this and try to act as though those on pro-Palestinian marches ignore/aren't bothered by other similar injustices elsewhere. It's an entirely false representation and about as helpful to the overall debate as circular arguments about the rights and wrongs surrounding the establishment of Israel in the 1940s.

Of course, the core difference between Israel/Palestine and the ongoing situations in Yemen or Northern Syria is that Israel paints itself as a Liberal democracy. As such, it can expect to be held to a much higher standard by the international community (particularly those in Western Liberal democracies) when it commits mass atrocities 

3 hours ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

I wonder if we’ve ever lost a game with 73 possession before.

Paul Lambert says hello

Such a low quality game, incredible how United have managed to spend this much money to assemble such a poor team

5 hours ago, Genie said:

I’m going to get a poppy tattoo on my face

I've got one on my cock. When I tell people about this, they often tell me that my claim is poppycock, but those people presumably are just anti-British Marxist Islamist terrorists

44 minutes ago, magnkarl said:

Hezbollahs top bloke saying they'll kill Jews 'again and again' really tells you what predicament the Palestinian people is stuck in. Their leaders are controlled by a country who's got killing Jews in their constitution, and they're being occupied by Jews. Meanwhile the leaders of Hamas are lounging on the beach in Turkey and Qatar.

Between a rock used in stoning women for dancing and a JDAM fired at a civilian building.

 Boycott Israel, boycott Lebanon and Iran.

You have repeated the claim about the elimination of Jews featuring in Iran's constitution on several occasions, but I haven't been able to find any evidence of that whatsoever. 

Not saying that you're lying, but just wondering if you could provide evidence of this? For various reasons, I have an interest in Iranian history and it is not a claim I have ever heard anywhere else, nor have I read it anywhere when I've scanned the constitution.

Khomeini has certainly made genocidal claims regarding Jews in the ME, but that's very different to the elimination of Jews being written into the country's constitution

12 minutes ago, KentVillan said:

My point was about the position of the Protestant community there - the international community doesn’t seriously believe that Protestants born and bred in Ulster shouldn’t be there, and nor do many people (inc on Catholic side) nowadays believe that it could be justly resolved with a war of independence.

If Ireland were to reunify it would be via a democratic process.

You’re right that resolving this through power sharing and concessions seems extremely unlikely any time soon in Israel-Palestine, but that isn’t purely because of Israeli reluctance - both sides have too many people in power who want the winner-takes-all outcome.

 

All fair points

9 hours ago, KentVillan said:

Just like today's Northern Irish Protestants are as legitimately Northern Irish as the Catholic community.

This really doesn't work as a comparison, seeing as a majority of the Catholic population don't really recognise the legitimacy of the Northern Irish state and would favour unification with the Republic.

Where it might work as a comparison is that the Good Friday Agreement gave the Catholic/Irish Nationalist/Republican population the same citizenship rights as the Protestants and enshrined power sharing constitutionally. However, the likelihood of any such agreement being agreed by the Israelis that makes similar concessions seems somewhat unlikely...

11 minutes ago, Philosopher said:

Anyone who says adding Grealish to what we have would not strengthen us is on crack!

Incredibly offensive comment, I've been smoking crack all morning and I can still see how adding JG would improve us 

17 minutes ago, useless said:

I was the second person to mention him on this forum, when he left bc he was already a very good player, them retiring his shirt wasn't crazy because he was average - I remember people kept referencing his goals and assists, it was crazy because retiring a player's shirt is usually reserved for those that have stayed with a club for a long time and become legends, as in all time greats, or have tragically died.

Think they retired his shirt because he could've gone to Man U for free and esrnt a lot more money for himself, but chose Dortmund which got them £25m and got the club out of a pretty dire financial hole.

I mean, it's still laughable, but it provides some context 

2 hours ago, DCJonah said:

The two most frustrating narratives in recent VT history have been Hogan's world class movement and you don't understand football if you didn't appreciate what Westwood did. 

You don't understand football if you didn't appreciate what Westwood did

Statement

Just now, Davkaus said:

Noticed Zaniolo looking soaked through about 15 minutes in.

 

Probably worried about his acca not coming in

55 minutes ago, Genie said:

All the big guns saying their bit

 

Always preferred Gareth Gates

27 minutes ago, sheepyvillian said:

Primary school. I actually thought it was a senior school. I would imagine with the pupils being so young it's a lot easier for the teachers to create a certain amount of harmony. 

80.per cent, I  think that's a reflection of how small the Birmingham Jewish community is.

Moazzem Begg, one of the British Muslims that was held in Guantanamo went to the King David school

13 hours ago, The Moustache of Teale said:

Who or what is Bebe Rexha? Sounds like a random collection of Scrabble tiles.

Proper shite Scrabble hand, that