KentVillan

Read the quote from Emery again, not saying it’s a huge issue that will cause ongoing problems, but pretty clear he wants him to be more focused - not unusual for a player his age.

Yeah and that’s why I think Emery will hold him to different standards from a senior pro. He’ll be more forgiving of lapses of judgment, and he’ll give him more chances to **** up, but ultimately he’ll want him to buy into the process. The thing that has surprised me about Emery at Villa is how good a man manager he is. I knew he was a great tactician, but behind the awkward demeanour, he seems to have a good sense of how to handle people. Fairly confident he’ll work out how to deal with Jhon Duran and they’ll end up in a good place.

I think as far as opinion in this thread goes I am closer to yours than most, so worth trying to find some common ground maybe. Wasn’t claiming the Palestinian leadership have done even an okay job, nor that their leadership can be absolved of responsibility… but there are still many innocent civilians who are completely powerless and blameless. In the same way we shouldn’t hold Israelis (or even worse, the wider Jewish population) responsible for the crimes of leaders and governments, we shouldn’t hold Palestinians responsible for the actions of theirs. Try to stay calm in the debate, even if the situation itself is completely shocking for all involved. I know that’s much easier for me to say as someone with no dog in the fight, and I sympathise with your position, but you’re picking fights with people who are open to listening and discussing rationally. Edit: and FWIW, to draw a parallel example, I feel exactly the same way about ordinary Russians, who many expect to stand up to Putin despite the deluge of propaganda and appalling odds if they even wanted to act. Civilians are mostly innocent in these situations.

Let’s be realistic, no state exists in an isolated vacuum. There has been an awful lot of interference in Palestinian state building by Israel, other neighbours, western powers, and so on, and you can’t necessarily blame ordinary Palestinians split across two separate territories for not making a stellar job of this in the circumstances. Hamas itself was sponsored by elements in Israel to displace the PLO and Fatah, and there has been blowback from that. Israel’s most conciliatory leader was assassinated by a fellow Israeli. The story is complex, and there is lots of blame to throw around. In answer to your first question, yes I believe Israel has a right to exist in something like its current form, but it does not have the right to act with impunity whenever that is threatened.

Sadly this is definitely true, and you can see it in the rabidity of the obsession in some quarters where they simply do not pay much attention to similar atrocities anywhere else, and in their prescriptions for the future. At the same time, what is happening in Gaza is horrendous and indefensible. Israel is naturally focused on more in the west because it is a western ally, because many Israelis have European heritage or connections, and so on. It didn’t help that Netanyahu deliberately pushed the definition of antisemitism to encompass things that clearly weren’t antisemitism at all, in the political discourse of western nations, and the backlash has emboldened those who are genuinely antisemitic. And I say this as someone who is very sympathetic to the impact of all of this on British Jewish people, and who agrees with you on the double standards in the Arab world. As ever it needs calm, reasonable voices who can talk without hysteria about things that naturally evoke hysteria because they are so shocking at times.

“Modern” can mean different things, but Israel really originates with the creation of Mandatory Palestine over a century ago (1920) and that isn’t much later than the main waves of European settlement in Australia and New Zealand. My argument is that now you have multiple generations of born and bred Israeli Jews living in the country, something roughly resembling the current nation-state of Israel (in terms of borders and a majority Jewish population) is an essential and unavoidable part of the eventual outcome. I don’t see any realistic solution that doesn’t involve that. Do you think there is one? And if not, what is the practical relevance of Israel being a young / badly conceived state to the current situation? And I completely accept that democracy and conciliation hasn’t worked well on either side, but it’s still the only approach that has ever worked in a situation like this, besides the complete annihilation of one side. I can see the argument for attacks on Israeli military, govt buildings, etc but what Hamas did to innocent civilians was unconscionable and there’s a hint of “well, they had no other option” to some of the commentary. That seems to get bolstered by this idea that ordinary non-settler Israelis are recent colonisers. I can totally see Hamas’s frustration at being boxed in by Israeli govts who often act in bad faith and make land grabs while conceding almost nothing, but I find it pretty hard to empathise with anyone who gets joy out of murdering children?

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.

The USA (or any white majority country in the Americas), Australia, New Zealand, Northern Ireland, etc. And Israel was part of a carve up of the Middle East pre WWII which involved similar top down decisions by the colonial powers to give different groups (Hashemites, Sauds, etc) control over multiethnic regions, often where they started out as a minority group (and remember Jews were present in the region for millennia). I’m not saying any of this was right, but we don’t seriously expect to rewind any of these processes. The aim nowadays in any of these other parallel examples is usually to give equal rights to oppressed groups within established borders, and for any change in those borders (eg the reunification of Ireland) to be a democratic process. Once you have generations of people of the “new” ethnic group born on the land that was unjustly acquired, it does become “historic” yes, unfortunately. You go past the point of no return, which we have in Israel. None of this justifies Israel’s behaviour, but it also makes Hamas’s position untenable too. Any position that sees Israel as a state that shouldn’t exist (or that should be dramatically smaller than it is at the moment) just doesn’t work, even if you’re right to see the settler expansions and oppression of Palestinians as completely outrageous.

I don't think these arguments based on historical injustices get you anywhere (apart from understanding the context). We can all see that the creation of the state of Israel was deeply flawed, but we're now in a situation 75 years later where you have this enormous population of Israeli Jews who were born in Israel and have as much right to the land they grew up in as anyone else in the region. Just like today's Northern Irish Protestants are as legitimately Northern Irish as the Catholic community. Also, it's worth pointing out that many of the states in the region were a product of colonialism or colonial sponsorship... Jordan, Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia, etc. So singling Israel out as unique in this regard because it happens to be the only Jewish state, misses the point that most nation states are artificial in some way or another. I think Netanyahu is a complete piece of shit and that Israeli settlers are indefensible, and that Israel routinely commits war crimes against the Palestinians. But I also think there is an unnatural obsession with Israel's actions that isn't matched by similar interest in the ethnic cleansing and oppression of minority communities across the region and in many other parts of the world - e.g. Saudi treatment of Shias in Eastern Provinces, Iraqi/Turkish treatment of Kurds, and so on. We shouldn't demonise or glorify sides in these territorial disputes. They're all as bad as each other, and the only sustainable solution is for the decent people on each side to have more power, and the warmongers to have less power. But it's never a case of one ethnic group or nationality being better or worse, or more guilty or innocent, than the other. It's whether the good guys or the bad guys have managed to wield power within the community.

His passing is levels above any defender we’ve had at this club in a long time. And given how we play, it’s vital to getting players like Diaby on the ball in space. Defensively he’s decent enough, not world class, but when the team plays well he does his job

Still think this guy has a strong chance of captaining sides to Champions League and World Cup wins. Hopefully Villa in the first case. He’s just such a composed player, who looks better and better the more talent he has around him.

Do we actually know anything has happened or is it all just conjecture? He’s 19 years old, he isn’t a regular starter, he’s just been away in Colombia. I think managers handle these players differently regardless of whether they’ve said or done something behind the scenes.

It’s like we’re a system team *but* each week Emery also has plans to get the most out of certain individuals, and let them shine. And some of the natural talent across the squad then shows through too, as we exploit specific weaknesses in the opposition

Emery has always had a soft spot for him I think, even when most of us thought he was one to file away in all time worst transfers. Glad he’s starting to repay that faith a bit, because apart from @JAMAICAN-VILLANI don’t think it was obvious to anyone else. Beautiful goal today

The thing I love about the team he’s built is you know they’re going to play well most weeks, but you never know who the star players are going to be

Got a feeling tomorrow will be similar

I think the European point you made is still wrong, though. I agree with you on the point re settlers and the forcing Palestinians out of their homes, but let’s not pretend the Israelis (even the settlers) are European colonisers, it’s more complex than that. They were an unwanted and subjugated people in Europe with origins in the region they have returned to, and some of them are of more recent local heritage anyway. I do agree that a lot of what they have done has been an abuse of the rights of the people who had been living there for generations, not defending the illegal expansion of Israel.

Understood - fair point

@Thugthe ethnic origins of the Jewish population of Israel are much more complex than you seem to realise. Certainly not all Europeans, and the Mizrahi Jews have lived there as long as the Palestinians. Plus Zionist migrations started over a century ago, and we now have most of the population of Israel having been born there, so unless you’re now arguing that a black British person born in London doesn’t have a right to be here, I’m not sure what your point is. The historical rights and wrongs of the creation of Israel are something that can’t be reversed. The only relevant question is how we arrive at a solution which respects the rights of all the peoples of the region. That’s not very straightforward at all as long as there are influential Israelis who just want to bomb the Palestinians out of existence, and influential Palestinians who’d be keen on doing the same to Israel.

Moran’s mum is Palestinian Christian (and her father James Moran obviously isn’t Palestinian at all), so solid detective work there from Madeley Let’s take a moment to appreciate how consistently he drops these bangers though. Hall of fame bell end

Unsure on the story, but Richard Kemp isn’t a very reliable source on anything involving Muslims

Yeah this is what bothers me about the whole "eradicate Hamas" rhetoric. You can't bomb an idea out of existence. And I'm completely sympathetic to the idea of targeting the Hamas leadership militarily. I just don't think it gets you all that close to a solution when there is always a new generation coming through and all you are doing is radicalising them with their own experience of injustice. And as @chrisp65says, the exact same process is happening on the other side. This is just a gigantic blood feud with no obvious end in sight.

Most likely you're right, yes, but RWC knockouts have a habit of producing an upset. But yeah sensible prediction is NZ batter Argentina and SA batter us, at a canter.

That was an amazing weekend of rugby, two really top class matches, and two entertaining matches, all of them going down to the wire. Hard to see anything other than a NZ SA final, but those teams will have been battered getting through their QFs and maybe an upset is on the cards.

Yeah you can do it for tennis or golf. Arguably for team sports. For creative stuff… no