Israel, Palestine and Iran

[Chindie]

And that's setting aside the potential for wide ranging legal and diplomatic incidents. If we decide we can't justify selling things to the Israelis and that in turn means the Israelis are troubled in buying or using a US product, that will be a disaster - would the US seek to end deals with UK companies? Would they reverse engineer a product to ensure a US company makes it which in turn would instantly threaten the UK companies involved and possibly put them out of business overnight?

[magnkarl]

4 hours ago, Genie said:

I see electing George Galloway has STILL not had the desired effect of ending the war in Gaza.

In fact I think since he won the local election things have got worse over there. He should be questioned in the HoC about what he’s doing and why things have escalated.

George Galloway and his paymasters (Iran\Russia) have absolutely no desire for this conflict to stop. Iran because Israel is slowly but surely breaking ties with the West for its barbarity and thereby weakening, and Russia because Gaza takes the spot light away from Vladimir bombing nurseries, schools and hospitals on a daily basis. The people that should be noticing that Vladimir bombed a nursery, school and clinic in Dnipro the other day are too occupied arguing with the pro-Israeli idiots on social media to notice. Everyone from the UN to NATO is too busy trying to look away from what Israel is doing to notice that the same thing is happening on a much larger scale in Ukraine with Russia glide bombing civilian homes on a daily basis with bombs twice the size of Israel's. Just this morning Russia bombed a row of houses in Kharkiv, then waited for the rescuers to arrive and killed 3 firemen with a so called 'double tap'. They've been doing this for 2 years. The 7 killed in Palestine the other day is horrendous, but the amount of killed aid workers in Gaza pales in comparison that what Putin is doing in Ukraine to first responderes and aid workers.

George Galloway is the worst of the worst, a man who shills out his propaganda channel to the worst parts of our society for rubles and rials. He'd be chased down the street by our forefathers in 1939.

Edited April 4 by magnkarl

[blandy]

30 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

Which makes it an even easier ‘gesture’ and message.

Possibly, though as @Chindie replied, it wouldn't be without consequence, and is as you say a "gesture" or "message" - but one which is of absolutely no consequence in terms of stopping the war crimes or genocide or barbarity. It would just be for our own edification. Gesture politics - "look at me, aren't I righteous". Well yes, we are (or might be), but especially in the realm of international relations, gesture politics doesn't work. Whether it be in relation to Israel or Russia or China or anyone else determined to do their own thing it's of no benefit at all in terms of fixing anything. I might be an old cynic, but I think it's almost lost in political discourse that what "Britain " thinks, says or does is mostly irrelevant, with some exceptions. And the politicians hide it, not willing to admit their lack of power or influence, and the general public is just kind of oblivious, fed by media which is very parochial and has a narrow world view and coverage. We just don't have any grasp of what is actually "out there".

[blandy]

47 minutes ago, Chindie said:

I had to be trained on export legalities that included a significant section on military and military adjacent products

Lucky you! It's horrendously complex and tedious and the most complex and tedious is the US version(s) ITAR, for example. It's kind of odd, at face value, to look at the US eager to sell F16s to Israel, right now, where they're being used to bomb civilians, but using ITAR  to really hold back for ages on allowing Ukraine to get any F16s to stop bombing of civilians...until you appreciate that ITAR isn't about morality, it's about preventing US weapons getting to non-approved places/nations and protecting US business interests (though they don't say that).

[chrisp65]

5 minutes ago, blandy said:

Possibly, though as @Chindie replied, it wouldn't be without consequence, and is as you say a "gesture" or "message" - but one which is of absolutely no consequence in terms of stopping the war crimes or genocide or barbarity. It would just be for our own edification. Gesture politics - "look at me, aren't I righteous". Well yes, we are (or might be), but especially in the realm of international relations, gesture politics doesn't work. Whether it be in relation to Israel or Russia or China or anyone else determined to do their own thing it's of no benefit at all in terms of fixing anything. I might be an old cynic, but I think it's almost lost in political discourse that what "Britain " thinks, says or does is mostly irrelevant, with some exceptions. And the politicians hide it, not willing to admit their lack of power or influence, and the general public is just kind of oblivious, fed by media which is very parochial and has a narrow world view and coverage. We just don't have any grasp of what is actually "out there".

Its ying and yang on the consequences isn’t it, on the one hand we could lose a small amount of trade and lose the influence we think we have but are afraid to actually use, on the other we wouldn’t be complicit in the killing of 10,000 children.

It really is quite the conundrum.

 

[blandy]

1 minute ago, chrisp65 said:

on the other we wouldn’t be complicit in the killing of 10,000 children

No, we're not complicit in the killing of 10,000 children. We're not "assisting genocide" either. I totally get that the words our politicians have used have been feeble and they've prevaricated and muttered sort of caveated platitudes and stuff. That's one thing. The practicality is that we're not assisting or enabling or encouraging or anything else along those lines. The words we use, for Israel to subsequently completely ignore, haven't been up to the standard many people expect "us" to use, but beyond that we're basically horrified onlookers, albeit onlookers who can't bring themselves to state the bleeding obvious, or who have any ability or influence to do anything to stop it.

We, the UK public, are way too introspective about it all - "David Cameron said this, Starmer didn't say that, the SNP said this, Sunak said this...how will this affect the polls and the next election"?

Now we've got to the stage of "this is still horrific, we must stop selling them arms, because the law says so, [argue some retired UK legal bods]" (and they're no doubt correct). I heard an MP, Zultana, I think, who seemed like a good person, on the radio saying that a British plane had been used to bomb Palestinians. That's not true, though the rest of her case was compelling around the horrors and the failings of British politicians' words to match the situation.

The best "we" can do is kind of team up with our fellow EU members* as a collective, with other nations, and try and pressure Israel and the US and Germany to take a very different course of action. But even then, with our "EU + others club" all calling for the horrors to be brought to an end, Israel is likely, while it has the current Government to carry on doing what it's doing for a while yet, and God knows what the consequences will be over the next decades.

 

*parently we're not in the EU, we're just a small other, now. 

[chrisp65]

No, we can make a statement that we’ve stopped selling them stuff that facilitates genocide.

It gets to a point where it becomes clear and simple, it’s time to piss or get off the pot.

 

 

 

[magnkarl]

54 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

No, we can make a statement that we’ve stopped selling them stuff that facilitates genocide.

It gets to a point where it becomes clear and simple, it’s time to piss or get off the pot.

 

 

 

*war crimes.

It isn't genocide. Everyone's been over this. 30.000 out of 2 million doesn't constitute genocide. That means that we'll need to reinvent the word for the actual genocides of this world. After 7 months we're not even a week into Turkey's slaughter of Armenians and Assyrians in example. That doesn't mean that it couldn't be a genocide in the future if people aren't fed and cared for, but as of now the number of deaths in this conflict is not even unique in the last year if you look at the civilian death toll.

Edited April 4 by magnkarl

[chrisp65]

7 minutes ago, magnkarl said:

*war crimes.

It isn't genocide. Everyone's been over this. 30.000 out of 2 million doesn't constitute genocide. That means that we'll need to reinvent the word for the actual genocides of this world. After 7 months we're not even a week into Turkey's slaughter of Armenians and Assyrians in example. That doesn't mean that it couldn't be a genocide in the future if people aren't fed and cared for, but as of now the number of deaths in this conflict is not even unique in the last year if you look at the civilian death toll.

Quote

On 11 December 1946 the General Assembly of the United Nations resolved that genocide was a crime under international law. This was approved and ratified as a Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide on 9 December 1948. The Convention defines genocide as:

‘any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

killing members of the group

causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group

deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part

imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group

forcibly transferring children of the group to another group

 

You’re right, we have been over it before.

As before, I’ve taken the above from the Holocaust Memorial website.

 

[Chindie]

15 hours ago, Chindie said:

It's almost like it's a lobbying organisation for a foreign state and shouldn't be anywhere near any politician, really. 

 

15 hours ago, chrisp65 said:

 

Some would say that’s a valid point that really needs some serious thought.

Others would say it’s a conspiracy theory about Israel and therefore anti semitic so your point is invalid and you cannot be a Labour MP.

 

On this point...

He's **** bang on.

[Jareth]

The moment some British ex servicemen got assassinated, possibly with British weapons, you could almost hear the British establishment waking up. I have a feeling there is exasperation from the non governmental state powers that politicians are being so easily bought by Israel's lobbying efforts, and that finally we will see a rebalancing of the relationship.  

[Jareth]

1 hour ago, Chindie said:

 

On this point...

He's **** bang on.

Alan Duncan explicitly name checks Conservative Friends of Israel, he's now being investigated by his party. Fascinated to know how they think this doesn't simply confirm what he's saying about Israeli influence in British politics. 

[bickster]

You should check out Teresa Villiers latest doublespeak pronouncement. Pure thick (of it)

[magnkarl]

19 hours ago, chrisp65 said:

You’re right, we have been over it before.

As before, I’ve taken the above from the Holocaust Memorial website.

 

But do you honestly think 30.000 killed in a war over 7 months constitutes genocide?

What do you call the war in Syria, the war in Yemen, the war in Myanmar, Ukraine, Sudan, Darfur, Mt. Sinjar +++, if 30.000 in your measuring stick? We're 10.000 deaths away from one night of the allies firebombing Hamburg in 1943.

And what do you then call the Armenian, Assyrian, Uighur, Holocaust, Holodomor and so forth?

Edited April 5 by magnkarl

[chrisp65]

Just now, magnkarl said:

But do you honestly think 30.000 killed in a war constitutes genocide?

What do you call the war in Syria, the war in Yemen, the war in Myanmar, Ukraine, Sudan, Darfur, Mt. Sinjar +++, if 30.000 in your measuring stick?

And what do you then call the Armenian, Uighur, Holocaust, Holodomor and so forth?

Don’t take it up with me, it’s the Holocaust Memorial Trust and the UN you’ve got an argument with. 

 

[magnkarl]

8 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

Don’t take it up with me, it’s the Holocaust Memorial Trust and the UN you’ve got an argument with. 

 

Where does it say in the Holocaust Memorial Trust's sources that they think what's happening in Gaza is genocide?

In my humble opionion, what is happening in Gaza is horrible war crimes, but to compare it to actual genocides cheapens the word for the millions of people killed in the other instances and lowers that bar for other conflicts too. It means that we've essentially got genocides going on in all active wars going on in the world at the moment (Sudan, Myanmar, Gaza, Yemen, Ukraine), and that essentially all wars going back many years were genocide too. Was Georgia in 2008 a genocide?

The genocides of this world have from 2-30 million civilian deaths, many of them over a shorter period than 7 months. Do you think 30.000 deaths should be placed in the same league? In the worst days of Khmer Rouge's genocide more people died in a day than what has died in 7 months in Gaza.

Edited April 5 by magnkarl

[chrisp65]

1 minute ago, magnkarl said:

Where does it say in the Holocaust Memorial Trust's sources that they think what's happening in Gaza is genocide?

In my humble opionion, what is happening in Gaza is horrible war crimes, but to compare it to actual genocides cheapens the word for the millions of people killed in the other instances and lowers that bar for other conflicts too. It means that we've essentially got genocides going on in all active wars going on in the world at the moment (Sudan, Myanmar, Gaza, Yemen, Ukraine), and that essentially all wars going back many years were genocide too. Was Georgia in 2008 a genocide?

I’ve already given you the quote, from their website, of what they and their lawyers believe is the definition of a genocide. 

It really isn’t me setting the definition. It’s your opinion against their legal statement, I’m not in this one.

 

[magnkarl]

19 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

I’ve already given you the quote, from their website, of what they and their lawyers believe is the definition of a genocide. 

It really isn’t me setting the definition. It’s your opinion against their legal statement, I’m not in this one.

 

Since you won't respond to the question, let's do it another way then.

‘any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

killing members of the group - Ukraine, Myanmar, Yemen, Bosnia, Croatia, Sudan, Darfur, Georgia, Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Yemen, Vietnam, Korea, Germany, Israel, Gaza, Syria, China, Armenia, Israel, Palestine

causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group - Ukraine, Myanmar, Yemen, Bosnia, Croatia, Sudan, Darfur, Georgia, Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Yemen, Vietnam, Korea, Germany, Israel, Gaza, Syria, China, Armenia, Israel, Palestine

deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part - Ukraine, Myanmar, Yemen, Bosnia, Croatia, Sudan, Darfur, Georgia, Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Yemen, Vietnam, Korea, Germany, Israel, Gaza, Syria, China, Armenia, Palestine

imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group - Ukraine, Myanmar, Yemen, Bosnia, Croatia, Sudan, Darfur, Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Yemen, Vietnam, Korea, Germany, Israel, Gaza, Syria, China, Armenia

forcibly transferring children of the group to another group - Ukraine, Yemen, Darfur, Sudan, Syria, Iraq, China, Armenia

Do you not think there is a sense of scale for the definition, or should we just apply the word genocide to most wars? The list above is by no means exhaustive, but for many conflicts recently you find the same, if not worse, conditions we now see in Gaza.

The Gaza\Palestinian focus means that a whole bunch of people are calling what's going on in Gaza a genocide, while, if you look at the death counts and grim things going on in most other conflicts around the globe it constitutes much graver cases of what you call 'genocide'. There are more kids kidnapped from Ukraine than people dead and injured in Gaza, yet the UN doesn't call that a genocide.

Edited April 5 by magnkarl

[chrisp65]

3 minutes ago, magnkarl said:

Since you won't respond to the question, let's do it another way then.

‘any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

killing members of the group - Ukraine, Myanmar, Yemen, Bosnia, Croatia, Sudan, Darfur, Georgia, Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Yemen, Vietnam, Korea, Germany, Israel, Gaza, Syria, China

causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group - Ukraine, Myanmar, Yemen, Bosnia, Croatia, Sudan, Darfur, Georgia, Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Yemen, Vietnam, Korea, Germany, Israel, Gaza, Syria, China

deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part - Ukraine, Myanmar, Yemen, Bosnia, Croatia, Sudan, Darfur, Georgia, Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Yemen, Vietnam, Korea, Germany, Israel, Gaza, Syria, China

imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group - Ukraine, Myanmar, Yemen, Bosnia, Croatia, Sudan, Darfur, Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Yemen, Vietnam, Korea, Germany, Israel, Gaza, Syria, China

forcibly transferring children of the group to another group - Ukraine, Yemen, Darfur, Sudan, Syria, Iraq, China

Do you not think there is a sense of scale for the definition, or should we just apply the word genocide to most wars? 

I’ve responded every time. I genuinely don’t know why you’re trying to insist I give an interpretation of what I think they ‘meant’. 

There is no way I am going to mansplain what the Holocaust Memorial people really meant or who it really applies to, or what percentage of death qualifies with their website definition. That would be a bad idea.

In a month or two, you’ll say we’ve had the genocide conversation before, and I’ll post up the definition again.

 

 

[magnkarl]

Just now, chrisp65 said:

I’ve responded every time. I genuinely don’t know why you’re trying to insist I give an interpretation of what I think they ‘meant’. 

There is no way I am going to mansplain what the Holocaust Memorial people really meant or who it really applies to, or what percentage of death qualifies with their website definition. That would be a bad idea.

In a month or two, you’ll say we’ve had the genocide conversation before, and I’ll post up the definition again.

 

 

All I'm interested in is what you think constitutes genocide, where does it start? You keep referring to a loose set of principles set by the Holocaust memorial as some sort of gage, when in reality that gage is achieved by a large proportion of wars since the Holocaust. The UN has shown that its incapable of adding the label 'genocide' equally, even if the same conditions are met in many other conflicts than the horrible #¤% going on in Gaza right now, partially due to veto powers, partially due to voting blocks.