Israel, Palestine and Iran

[magnkarl]

25 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

It’s quite fascinating. 

You literally fence in a people for generations, an absolute strangle hold on their lives and the economy.

Then express distress that bad agents have got in there and influenced people. Express alarm that when the only income available to tens of thousands of people is work for the aid agencies, some taking UN jobs turn out to be working for or sympathising with the bad guys.

No **** shit Sherlock!

It’s almost like the entire restricted movement, minimised opportunity of displaced people / refugees is a system designed to perpetuate the very problem it claims to be trying to end.

 

 

If this was only an issue in UNRWAs Palestine operations, and not Lebanon and Syria too, that would be a great argument.

[OutByEaster?]

7 hours ago, magnkarl said:

What timing? As far as I can see this has been a recurring issue with UNRWA since about 2016 when Norway noticed that one of the schools they were sponsoring had books which essentially told kids that collective punishment of women was a okay and that women belong to the man.

Isn't that the question on the timing? If this has been a problem since 2016 - what triggered the defunding in the last few days?

47 minutes ago, magnkarl said:

The EU as a whole condemned UNRWA, PA and Hamas for this very thing in 2021.

Again, this raises the question on the timing - if it's been a problem for seven years and condemned since 2021 - why only stop funding it in the last few days?

[magnkarl]

18 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

Isn't that the question on the timing? If this has been a problem since 2016 - what triggered the defunding in the last few days?

Again, this raises the question on the timing - if it's been a problem for seven years and condemned since 2021 - why only stop funding it in the last few days?

I guess the argument would be that Hamas didn’t commit such widescale crimes against humanity before Oct 7th, and you’d be very unpopular if you wanted to defund a cause seeming to work for the Palestinian people.

I think UN needs to be much stricter about this, they can’t have organisations within their own that go against their own goals.

It’s no good if UN funds end up with Hamas, Hezbollah and the Syrian dictatorship because they can’t vet their people properly. As said many times, there’s tens of organisations that do the same as UNRWA without the down low support of Iranian proxies.

Edited January 29 by magnkarl

[OutByEaster?]

11 minutes ago, magnkarl said:

I guess the argument would be that Hamas didn’t commit such widescale crimes against humanity before Oct 7th, and you’d be very unpopular if you wanted to defund a cause seeming to work for the Palestinian people.

I think UN needs to be much stricter about this, they can’t have organisations within their own that go against their own goals.

It’s no good if UN funds end up with Hamas, Hezbollah and the Syrian dictatorship because they can’t vet their people properly. As said many times, there’s tens of organisations that do the same as UNRWA without the down low support of Iranian proxies.

So why not stop the funding on October the 8th? If there are tonnes of other aid agencies available (and there are), why stick with this one for 16 weeks then decide suddenly to defund it?

The attacks don't seem to have been the trigger for the defunding and you'd surely have to question the timing?

[chrisp65]

1 hour ago, magnkarl said:

If this was only an issue in UNRWAs Palestine operations, and not Lebanon and Syria too, that would be a great argument.

It’s an issue everywhere and has been for a very long time.

In Africa UN staff traded food for sex. To suddenly discover these alarming accusations and take such ‘immediate action’ is disingenuous.

I don’t see support for Israel being re examined whenever an IDF sniper kills a grandmother, or when militia in the West Bank threaten families to leave their homes or be shot in front of their children.

Hamas were evil before 7th October, were we blind to it, or funding it back then?

 

[omariqy]

We all know the reason. Let’s not pretend otherwise. Anyway 

 

Add this to the genocide evidence list 

 

[magnkarl]

1 hour ago, chrisp65 said:

It’s an issue everywhere and has been for a very long time.

In Africa UN staff traded food for sex. To suddenly discover these alarming accusations and take such ‘immediate action’ is disingenuous.

I don’t see support for Israel being re examined whenever an IDF sniper kills a grandmother, or when militia in the West Bank threaten families to leave their homes or be shot in front of their children.

Hamas were evil before 7th October, were we blind to it, or funding it back then?

 

Wasn’t mentioning other places in comparison to Gaza ‘whataboutism’ a page back?

You can’t on one hand defend SAs right to an argument without looking at motivation and then the next minute deny the same right for the other side. 

If UNRWA are finally shut down and other aid organisations who aren’t aiding terrorist organisations can step in and handle the massive amounts of cash and aid better then surely that’s a good thing, especially all the people who are suffering in Gaza.

From a quick google Israel and independent aid organisations have been airing this for years, to me it looks like it took people dying in droves for it to matter.

’There’s war everywhere, I don’t see why it suddenly matters now that it’s Israel doing it’..

Edited January 29 by magnkarl

[chrisp65]

2 minutes ago, magnkarl said:

Wasn’t mentioning other places in comparison to Gaza ‘whataboutism’ a page back?

You can’t on one hand defend SAs right to an argument without looking at motivation and then the next minute deny the same right for the other side. 

If UNRWA are finally shut down and other aid organisations who aren’t aiding terrorist organisations can step in and handle the massive amounts of cash and aid better then surely that’s a good thing.

’There’s war everywhere, I don’t see why it suddenly matters now that it’s Israel doing it’..

I haven’t got a clue what you’re trying to say there.

 

[magnkarl]

1 minute ago, chrisp65 said:

I haven’t got a clue what you’re trying to say there.

 

What I’m saying is that UNRWA are an absolute stain on the UN, and aid is much better served in hands of organisations that aren’t giving away aid to terror organisations, printing school books to praise sharia law and that other aid organisations and Israel have said this for years. The timing thing is irrelevant as it’s been said for years.

The fact that it took years and people dying in droves for people to notice the argument isn’t really ‘timing’.

[omariqy]

Israel schools promote killing Arabs. Should every country pause funding and selling weapons to them?

[magnkarl]

12 minutes ago, omariqy said:

Israel schools promote killing Arabs. Should every country pause funding and selling weapons to them?

That would be an idea that would at least do something. That goes for both sides. We need to stop handing two people fighting ammunition.

Compared to the people stopping aid to UNRWA there are many more countries who are not selling weapons to Israel, the US and UK are fairly alone in that regard after 2020, before that Germany and Canada delivered a small part of their arms.

Edited January 29 by magnkarl

[chrisp65]

14 minutes ago, magnkarl said:

What I’m saying is that UNRWA are an absolute stain on the UN, and aid is much better served in hands of organisations that aren’t giving away aid to terror organisations, printing school books to praise sharia law and that other aid organisations and Israel have said this for years. The timing thing is irrelevant as it’s been said for years.

The fact that it took years and people dying in droves for people to notice the argument isn’t really ‘timing’.

Right, got it.

So what I was saying, was when a people are starved of even recognition as a nation, are denied a voice or control over their borders, that don’t have any agency, then that allows those bad actors the access they crave to corrupt the next generation.

The timing is absolutely relevant. Did we not previously know this was happening, or were we content to fund it?

We have taken the opportunity to ‘discover’ this abuse at a time that supports our ally by further restricting the finances of the enemy. We can debate who the enemy is. We can debate why we were previously o.k. with funding it.

 

[desensitized43]

On 28/01/2024 at 17:27, Jareth said:

It sort of makes sense that the US go to town with Iran - save us all the foreplay. 

It certainly feels like the US are being tested on multiple fronts right now, in Ukraine, the Middle East and in Taiwan. 
 

They look weak and massive risk averse and it’s encouraging enemies to be bolder in their rhetoric and provocation. It might makes sense to strike inside Iran as a warning to everyone else that the US is still willing to make tough decisions.

[Panto_Villan]

Some of the difference might come because there's a legal and criminal distinction between knowingly paying money to members of a banned terrorist group, and paying money to a non-banned organisation that might still engage in activities we consider to be bad (indoctrinating children in extremist ideologies, etc).

Certainly for any individual or corporation, you'd be on the hook for a serious crime if you're knowingly transferring money to an organisation that you have evidence may then transfer some of it banned terrorist group. Whereas it's sort of irrelevent from a legal perspective what the UNRWA have previously been up to if they're not on the banned organisation list; giving them money for their own use isn't a crime.

I'd assume most Western countries have legislation in place that says government bodies are not legally allowed to authorise any payment to a banned terrorist group, and if so then they'd need to do a bit of due dilligence before they can continue to fund the UNRWA.

Edited January 29 by Panto_Villan

[OutByEaster?]

1 hour ago, magnkarl said:

The timing thing is irrelevant as it’s been said for years.

The fact that it took years and people dying in droves for people to notice the argument isn’t really ‘timing’.

The exact opposite is true - the timing thing is relevant BECAUSE it's been said for years without any action - so the question on timing is "Why now and not then?"

 

 

[OutByEaster?]

6 minutes ago, desensitized43 said:

It certainly feels like the US are being tested on multiple fronts right now, in Ukraine, the Middle East and in Taiwan. 

It can equally be argued that the US is pushing proxy wars against all of those nations that exist in defiance of it - I think the US is setting tests at least as much as it's taking them.

 

[Genie]

Maybe I’m wrong, but as a casual observer it seems unheard of that so many groups are directly attacking US targets.

Firing at their ships, attacking their military bases, this isn’t “normal” is it?

 

[Panto_Villan]

2 minutes ago, Genie said:

Maybe I’m wrong, but as a casual observer it seems unheard of that so many groups are directly attacking US targets.

Firing at their ships, attacking their military bases, this isn’t “normal” is it?

No, it's not normal. But they're all Iranian-aligned proxies so really it needs to be seen as Iran flexing it's muscles rather than lots of small groups acting independently.

[Genie]

8 minutes ago, Panto_Villan said:

No, it's not normal. But they're all Iranian-aligned proxies so really it needs to be seen as Iran flexing it's muscles rather than lots of small groups acting independently.

Obviously I don’t want more fighting, but from the US position they have to do something fairly big don’t they?

Hamas pulled the tigers tail and found out.

Will the US response be as disproportionate as Israel’s?

 

Edited January 29 by Genie

[Panto_Villan]

7 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

It can equally be argued that the US is pushing proxy wars against all of those nations that exist in defiance of it - I think the US is setting tests at least as much as it's taking them.

Out of interest, have you updated your thoughts on the Ukraine conflict since the proper war broke out?

Apologies if I'm misremembering but I seem to recall you talking about the democratic revolutions in Ukraine being carried out by CIA-funded fascists before Putin invaded. Is that what the US did to force Russia to invade, or was it something else?