KentVillan

It's a good question. Firstly, it's worth remembering that there were already Jews there since time immemorial. Secondly, that the migration of foreign Jews to Israel/Palestine started happening in the 1880s, well before the Holocaust. But I imagine the major driving factor is that Anti-Semitism has been a problem across much of the world, and many Jews felt like Israel would offer them *more* safety and security, and more freedom to practice their culture and religion. That may have been misguided, may have turned out to be wrong... but you can at least understand the thought process? And like you, I massively sympathise with all the Palestinians who were displaced in this process, and who are justifiably angry. The whole thing is a mess.

I disagree. One side has the upper hand, but they are surrounded by allies of the other side, and sceptical of how reliable their allies are. Put it this way, forgetting the ethics and morals, would you want to be in the shoes of either party in this conflict? I think both sides are dealing with a level of fear and paranoia that we in the west can’t really relate to.

All good, I know you're not picking an argument. Where I would disagree is you can't just look at it from a humanitarian scorecard perspective, because you also have to factor in the hypotheticals - what does each side fear might happen if they don't act aggressively. And this is where it becomes incredibly complicated. Both sides fear the complete loss of their people and what they see as their land. When hardliners on both sides have entirely contradictory goals, you end up with a situation where atrocities are justified in their minds as the natural price to pay for their own safety. That doesn't mean justifying the atrocities, it's just you can see the moral complexities that play out in even rational, empathetic people caught up in this, let alone bloodthirsty sociopathic people.

What's clear is that virtually everybody has a side in this conflict that they sympathise more with, and every argument just turns into people sharing the worst or best examples from each side of the conflict, as fits their views. There's really no objective position you can take on something like this. You can be relatively neutral, but even that is your subjective opinion. Both sides lie, both sides use propaganda, both sides commit atrocities. Depending on how you zoom in or zoom out, you can find more fault with one side. In terms of raw numbers, many more Palestinians have died or been forced to live lives of poverty and squalor. But the Israelis understandably fear the complete extermination of their people, which is indeed the stated objective of some of their opponents. A "hit first, hit hardest" mentality is the natural consequence of that. So you end up with "defence" that turns into extreme aggression that results in appalling war crimes. Not that different from the Allied fire bombing of Dresden, or the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I'm not defending Israel and especially not Netanyahu and the Israeli far right, but there are just so many people on both sides who don't want the only solution that could possibly work (a peace treaty and two-state solution), so naturally the hard liners have outsize influence on what happens. It turned out in Northern Ireland that it wasn't really the peaceful voices in the centre who turned it around. It was the hardliners realising that their nihilism wasn't getting them anywhere. Until that shifts in this case, nothing will ever change IMO. I'm not sure America or "the west" or the Saudis or Iran or whoever have much influence over that. It will have to come from within eventually, but this seems much more deep rooted than most conflicts of this nature.

Is it particularly important if the babies were beheaded or shot or stabbed? Whatever the method, it seems clear a lot of innocent children were murdered.

Indeed. Nothing worse than seeing a village where the last pub and post office have been converted to houses

Thought this was well written. Disagreed with the bit about Israel abiding by international law, but otherwise spoke a lot of sense

I think his point is that Iran is Shi'ite

While we're on the subject though, cold butter straight out of the fridge, especially when it's one of those little foil wrapped things... can **** off

Israel Palestine makes more sense when you see the strength of feeling on both sides of the butter debate. Some problems are intractable

In countries where avocados grow naturally they’re a cheap staple food, and usually delicious. Easy to get a load of ripe ones for pennies and you can throw any bad ones away. Problem here is you spend a fortune on like one or two avocados and then they’re rock solid and taste of nothing. Don’t think we realise sometimes how crap our “versions” of non native fruit and veg are. Same with supermarket tomatoes, same with bananas. It’s really hard to eat well here without spending a bit extra on good quality produce, and seems to have got worse since Brexit and Covid.

No doubt at all that these things have happened in the past and could happen again. BUT in this case it’s hard to imagine how the Israelis could pull it off without someone on the inside whistleblowing that they’ve deliberately allowed babies to be beheaded, young women raped, etc. I just don’t see how the conspiracy holds together. Makes much more sense that the whole regime has become distracted and weakened by scandals and division, leading to a major security lapse. One theory is that they became too dependent on hacking and tapping phones, and took their eye off old fashioned human intelligence, and Hamas successfully coordinated this without using electronic comms.

Cancel culture

Communication breakdowns and resentment can fester for years and then you need something big and drastic to happen for everything to come out and the air to clear. I agree she didn’t handle it correctly, and that responsibility needs to be shared out and accepted equally, rather than placed on one guilty party. But feels like it’s taken a positive turn, and that’s the main thing.

Shocked to hear this

Spam / scam calls from overseas spoofing UK numbers, just so annoying even if you don’t get caught out by them. There must be a way of solving it

Mostly agree with this altho still not convinced he should have accepted the offer. Did sound a bit light and when you know you’re injury prone probably better to stick with the guaranteed pay to end of contract. But yeah by my reckoning he made 13 Premier League appearances in his entire career, so the attitude towards the 23s and his mate JT and all of that comes off as a player who thought he was a bit better than he was. Jacob Ramsey has already had a more successful career than him. Won’t be long before Aaron does too. I do have a lot of sympathy for these players who clearly were good enough to play top flight football but couldn’t stay fit long enough… but just admit it to yourself Henri. Don’t act like you were a shining example to those lads.

Tbf Level 10 is mostly semi pro sides with stadiums, and I think they would comfortably beat any pub side (and probably an elite women’s side). But yes that still has very little to do with punditry. The elite women’s player’s lifestyle and depth of tactical coaching will have been much closer to the Premier League men’s players than some lad who works as a plumber during the week.

Yeah she’s very good. Ultimately what you want is for them to actually do their job of spending several hours before the game brushing up on things you might not know, and combining that with their general football knowledge. You do see the difference when they get (most) managers on as pundits. They just have a better work ethic and better analysis of what’s happened. Big Ron was good for this, as much as he was a dinosaur, he watched the game like a manager not like a dossing ex pro trying to get through unscathed for the pay cheque. I don’t care whether they’re male or female. And as @chrisp65says, I’d probably rather just have an extra minute or two of highlights from the game.

The problem is it doesn’t really help him. And there is a more mundane explanation which is that the involvement of more and more incompetent far right loons in the Israeli administration has just weakened their ability to keep on top of threats. The military and intelligence were understaffed because so many young Israelis wanted nothing to do with Netanyahu. Hamas have seized the opportunity and most likely this now forces Netanyahu to do things he didn’t really want to do, to demonstrate his tough guy credentials, while still likely getting forced out. It’s just a mess. The conspiracy theories will do the rounds, but do we really need an explanation for why Hamas or Israel would behave in the ways they’re behaving beyond the obvious?

Yeah this is correct I think. Picking sides based on who is the underdog kind of ignores what the underdog’s objectives are. Hamas wants to wipe out the state of Israel. Plenty of hardline Israelis want to pretty much do the same to Palestine. These kind of people on either side can never really get you anywhere near a solution. Was the same in Northern Ireland, same in Yugoslavia, etc. They always think history is on their side and that they are correcting a historic injustice, but who’s to say the world in 100 BC or 1800 or 1949 is the appropriate time to say when a plot of land rightly belonged to a particular “people” (if that even means anything definable either). Zionism was a misguided, utopian project IMO because it involved displacing a settled population, but now the state of Israel has existed for nearly a century there’s no reversing that, and so the only thing that makes sense is a two state solution. But there will always be people on both sides who will try to stop that from happening. And the victims are all the civilians who just want to live normal lives where they were born and raised.

The female commentators and pundits have more to prove as well, so they often come across as having done more research. It’s not just about understanding the patterns of play, it’s about doing the boring work knowing who has been in form, who’s been injured, who’s in favour with the manager, who the fans like, etc. Nothing worse than a commentator who doesn’t know this stuff and just makes it up on the fly.

I'll be honest with you, my assumption when you first shared all of this was that your side of the story was lacking a few details that would have explained her behaviour better. You're clearly having a tough time, especially with the health problems, but she must be too. Looks like she's left the door wide open for some conversations which could rescue and hopefully improve your marriage. Hope you make the most of that opportunity, and wish you all the best with the illness.

Strawman argument because who on earth is saying that for the first time