Israel, Palestine and Iran

[Panto_Villan]

56 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

I am implying the conversation would be different. I think we’d have far more options and far more flexibility of response and far more time if the economy of the ‘west’ was less reliant on getting oil out of the Middle East and getting container ships past the Red Sea.

The U.S. were self sufficient in oil when Russia invaded Ukraine, we still had inflation and economic pain.

That’s nowhere near the same as ignoring the Middle East.

 

Fair enough. Yes, "ignoring the Middle East" was a bit of an exaggeration and was aimed as much at the vague stereotypes of the Middle East only being relevant due to oil and America only being there to secure their supplies of it than anything you'd posted.

The point I'm making is that I don't actually think we would have more options or flexibility if the West wasn't dependent on foreign oil. I think America would still be the only major Western player in the region and they'd still be faced with the same choices as they are now - their decisions would be the same, because they already have energy independence. And Europe having energy independence wouldn't really change things because I don't think Europe's economy factors into American thinking very much.

We'd be more insulated from pain caused by American decisions, sure, but I think the decisions themselves would ultimately remain the same.

Edited January 30 by Panto_Villan

[Panto_Villan]

33 minutes ago, villa89 said:

There's no chance Israel allow a Palestinian state. The current government take pride in having prevented that happening. Israel's policy is for all the brown people to leave and go back to Egypt where they belong leaving space for more Jewish settlements to take over. It's their right according to whatever nonsensical part of the bible you choose to believe. 

There needs to be a move on both sides to the centre and a similar peace plan that happened in northern Ireland. The difference in the middle east is that there are many more players and many people who want to keep the instability and conflict going. In northern Ireland I think people on all sides wanted progress. Netanyahu doesn't want peace, he wants genocide.

Not under the current government, no.

The one ray of hope is that the current Israeli government is rather unpopular. One of the reasons why the government policians are continually coming out with genocidal statements like the above is because they're propped up by (or represent) the far right and the settler movement - and that's precisely because the rest of Israeli society doesn't support Netanyahu.

There's no guarantee that after the next election that Israel will play a more constructive role in the peace process, but if there's a change of government then the chances will be much higher at least.

Edited January 30 by Panto_Villan

[villa89]

1 hour ago, Panto_Villan said:

There's no guarantee that after the next election that Israel will play a more constructive role in the peace process, but if there's a change of government then the chances will be much higher at least.

Israeli politics needs to move away from the right wing settler ideology but they never seem to manage it. I don't know enough about Israel to know why. Maybe they need to wait for all the old people to die and the younger more progressive & less devout population to take over.

Edited January 30 by villa89

[Chindie]

Perfectly normal and acceptable.

[sne]

Not sure there is much hope with the younger Israeli generation either considering they are indoctrinated through the (almost) compulsory military service they go through. 2-3 years of IDF propaganda.

Obviously a microscopic sample size ( maybe 100 or so) but the young Israeli men and women who have just finished their military service that I've met on various travels around the world have without exception been the most unpleasant people I have ever met. 

[LondonLax]

I think it’s pretty difficult for us to comprehend the mindset of a typical Jewish Israeli from the basis of our own perspective and lived experience.

When you’ve grown up with grandma recounting stories of the holocaust and lived with regular drills running to the family panic room or community bomb shelter it is bound to give someone a very different perspective of their world to the way I see things. 

[Chindie]

Equally that's not a justification for anything. You can use that to understand some actions but it doesn't excuse or forgive them.

[Panto_Villan]

51 minutes ago, villa89 said:

Israeli politics needs to move away from the right wing settler ideology but they never seem to manage it. I don't know enough about Israel to know why. Maybe they need to wait for all the old people to die and the younger more progressive & less devout population to take over.

One of the scarier things about Israel is the fact the ultra-orthodox Jews, who are closely linked to the settler movement (in no small part because they're poor and it's the cheapest way to live) have much higher birth rates than the rest of the population. Like six children per family levels of birth rate.

I read an article claiming that modern secular Israeli society only had another ten or twenty years to wrest control of their country back before the ultra-orthodox voting bloc would start to outnumber them. Might have been a bit of alarmist take, but it's certainly a trend to keep an eye on nonetheless.

31 minutes ago, sne said:

Not sure there is much hope with the younger Israeli generation either considering they are indoctrinated through the (almost) compulsory military service they go through. 2-3 years of IDF propaganda.

Obviously a microscopic sample size ( maybe 100 or so) but the young Israeli men and women who have just finished their military service that I've met on various travels around the world have without exception been the most unpleasant people I have ever met. 

I've not met as many as you have on my travels, but I'd absolutely agree with that assessment.

Edited January 30 by Panto_Villan

[tonyh29]

18 hours ago, bickster said:

I'm not sure Iran would get round a table especially with the possibility of another Trump presidency.

Don't forget that it was Trump pulling out of the Iran Nuclear Deal that kind of rattled the Iranian cage more than it needed to. The there was Trumps peace plan in Israel…

Trump is to blame for quite a bit of this.

There have been talks with the Biden administration , the main stumbling block on a  deal seemed to be the US reluctance to remove the "terrorist" label on the Iranian Republican Guard 

I don't know Biden's view but the  last vote in the US senate was 62 - 33  in favour of keeping them listed as terrorists   (16  democrats voting against it's removal  , without which I guess it would have passed 46 - 49  )

interestingly they did vote to remove the terrorist label from Houthi rebels even though the Houthis consider themselves in a war with the US  !! .This seems to have been Biden's administration  trying to move away from the Tump administrations  relationship with the Saudis  and allow them to give aid to the Houthis  ,No idea if that aid  included drones and missiles  ... now being used against US force ? 

presumably should Trump win , the merry go around begins again in that region  .. if Biden wins then we get more of the same  .. so essentially that region is kinda **** for while 

 

 

 

Edited January 30 by tonyh29

[omariqy]

 

[omariqy]

2 hours ago, LondonLax said:

I think it’s pretty difficult for us to comprehend the mindset of a typical Jewish Israeli from the basis of our own perspective and lived experience.

When you’ve grown up with grandma recounting stories of the holocaust and lived with regular drills running to the family panic room or community bomb shelter it is bound to give someone a very different perspective of their world to the way I see things. 

And for that reason many Jewish people vehemently oppose Zionism and Israel’s actions 

[meregreen]

2 hours ago, Chindie said:

Perfectly normal and acceptable.

The other side to that coin, is why we’re Hamas gunmen in a hospital?

[Chindie]

4 minutes ago, meregreen said:

The other side to that coin, is why we’re Hamas gunmen in a hospital?

At least one of them was a patient since October. Bad guys get medical treatment too.

Not sure a 'covert' assassination mission in a hospital is a good look.

[meregreen]

51 minutes ago, Chindie said:

At least one of them was a patient since October. Bad guys get medical treatment too.

Not sure a 'covert' assassination mission in a hospital is a good look.

That claim is yet to be corroborated. If they were Hamas, then it isn’t assassination. Wars a dirty business, it’s why it isn’t a good look for either side. 

[Chindie]

I think for a lot of people it wouldn't matter if he was a patient or not. It can be an assassination whoever they are. 

And yes war is dirty, Israel is just proving that there's not mud it won't splash around in. 

[magnkarl]

6 hours ago, LondonLax said:

I think it’s pretty difficult for us to comprehend the mindset of a typical Jewish Israeli from the basis of our own perspective and lived experience.

When you’ve grown up with grandma recounting stories of the holocaust and lived with regular drills running to the family panic room or community bomb shelter it is bound to give someone a very different perspective of their world to the way I see things. 

It's not isolated to Israeli Jews, I can tell you that much.

Even in relatively safe U.K I don't think I've had a year of my life where some yob hasn't targeted someone I know purely because they're Jewish, be it getting fired in the 80's, dealing with Neo-Nazi's in the 90's to this last current most hyperbole wave of people calling themselves 'lefties' while at the same time being absolute racist filth targeting my grandchildren's school because a state with the same religion as these kids are doing something bad half a world away.

None of that excuses what Israel has done in Gaza, and none of whatever hatred is built up for the Palestinian side excuses the actions of Oct 7th.

People are #¤%#¤%, regardless. With this recent wave a lot of people have found a new found joy in targeting a minority in the Western world who all in all have nothing to do with Benjamin Netanyahu and his hoodlums, and I assume the same can be said about people targeting Muslims for what Hamas did. Two doors down lives the most kind old couple I know, both are Shia Muslim and both are as depressed by what their 'sect' is doing as I am about what my Middle-Eastern cousins are doing to each other. It all feels like when America refused to step up and help the Jews during WW2 because there was clear antisemitism within the then Foreign Department in the US, it's just that it's now against Muslims rather than Jews.

That being said, I don't know how this moves forward. The Middle East has no well-functioning democracy, Arabs kill Arabs, Arabs kill Jews, Jews kill Arabs. If the darker sides of Islam gets their way ME will be the most ethnically clean area in the world, after Israel it'll be Kurdistan, Coptic Christians and whoever doesn't convert. In my opinion anyone who practices their religion in the way that the far right in Israel, Iran's priesthood or the house of Saud does furthers this problem. 

[Jareth]

17 hours ago, LondonLax said:

I think it’s pretty difficult for us to comprehend the mindset of a typical Jewish Israeli from the basis of our own perspective and lived experience.

When you’ve grown up with grandma recounting stories of the holocaust and lived with regular drills running to the family panic room or community bomb shelter it is bound to give someone a very different perspective of their world to the way I see things. 

As others have said, this doesn't serve as a basis for only developing far right views, although Israel's trouble is that it has continually elected Netanyahu, because it clearly leans right in terms of a majority of citizens, possibly far right now. I'm assuming the fear of being wiped out leads you to take the offensive at all times, and hit harder before you get hit. Understandable - but think I read earlier 15,000 orphans have been created by the military response in Gaza - in nobody's right mind can that be considered an appropriate military response to Oct 7th. For me, that's where the lefty liberal western criticism comes in, it's not a damning of Jewish people, but outrage at the actions of a genocidal regime.

[Mr_Dogg]

Israeli's would have a much different attitude if they weren't backed to the hilt by the US.

Edited January 31 by Mr_Dogg

[meregreen]

48 minutes ago, Mr_Dogg said:

Israeli's would have a much different attitude if they weren't backed to the hilt by the US.

I doubt that. When Israel fights, it’s in the knowledge that if they lose just once, their country will cease to exist. That would tend to engender a hard nosed attitude to any perceived threat.

[Chindie]

It's much more difficult to back that attitude up if they weren't being pumped with arms and cash by the US. Even with Israel's own arms industry, they would find their military capacity greatly reduced if the US abandoned them.