Israel, Palestine and Iran

[foreveryoung]

23 hours ago, Wainy316 said:

If Netanyahu's actions drive up oil prices I'll kill him myself

You farting, is enough of an excuse to put up oil prices.

[ender4]

4 hours ago, OutByEaster? said:

Can we get a count of how many nations Israel has bombed since October 7th?

 

Is it five? From Israeli viewpoint:

Palestine (assuming they call that a nation) after Hamas did what they did.

 

The Iranian embassy in Syria where Hamas leaders were hiding/meeting.

 

Iran after they launched 300 missiles and rockets at Israel. 
 

Hezbollah in Lebanon. Would the Lebanese government by happy about this, not sure if they are for or against Hezbollah?
 

Iranian targets in Iraq. I assume the Iraq government sanctioned these strikes. 

[Panto_Villan]

4 hours ago, ender4 said:

Is it five? From Israeli viewpoint:

Palestine (assuming they call that a nation) after Hamas did what they did.

 

The Iranian embassy in Syria where Hamas leaders were hiding/meeting.

 

Iran after they launched 300 missiles and rockets at Israel. 
 

Hezbollah in Lebanon. Would the Lebanese government by happy about this, not sure if they are for or against Hezbollah?
 

Iranian targets in Iraq. I assume the Iraq government sanctioned these strikes. 

Presumably they’ve also bombed the Houthis in Yemen recently too?

[sne]

1 minute ago, Panto_Villan said:

Presumably they’ve also bombed the Houthis in Yemen recently too?

And in a couple of weeks they are likely to bomb at the Eurovision in Sweden.

[ender4]

15 hours ago, Panto_Villan said:

Presumably they’ve also bombed the Houthis in Yemen recently too?

Not sure, isn’t that the UK and USA doing that bombing?

[Panto_Villan]

9 hours ago, ender4 said:

Not sure, isn’t that the UK and USA doing that bombing?

Genuinely not sure. The US and UK are definitely doing bombing them, but I don't know if Israel are joining in - I'm sure they'd like to given the Houthis are targeting Israeli shipping, but given the fact Saudi Arabia is between them I'm not sure if its actually practical.

[bickster]

10 hours ago, Panto_Villan said:

given the Houthis are targeting Israeli shipping,

The only people that ever claimed that were the Houthis, in reality, they are attacking ships from an awful lot of countries most of which have nothing to do with Israel. Sure they aren’t attacking ships from BRICs countries etc but other than that they are attacking anything

[Panto_Villan]

48 minutes ago, bickster said:

The only people that ever claimed that were the Houthis, in reality, they are attacking ships from an awful lot of countries most of which have nothing to do with Israel. Sure they aren’t attacking ships from BRICs countries etc but other than that they are attacking anything

Indeed. I didn’t say they were exclusively targeting Israeli ships, but they’re making a big song and dance about doing that specifically.

[blandy]

1 hour ago, bickster said:

they aren’t attacking ships from BRICs countries

They attacked a Chinese ship a week or so ago

Quote

The Houthis launched five anti-ship ballistic missiles at a Chinese-owned and operated oil tanker, U.S. Central Command announced on Saturday.

One of the missiles hit MV Huang Pu, which sails under a Panamanian flag of convenience, according to the Central Command release. The ship sent out a distress call, but it did not request assistance. The ship had minimal damage...

 

[chrisp65]

I see that the investigation in to Israel’s allegations against UNRWA have hit a bit of a snag. Israel has presented no evidence of any of its claims.

Quote

“Israel made public claims that a significant number of UNRWA employees are members of terrorist organisations. However, Israel has yet to provide supporting evidence of this,” according to the 54-page final report, Independent review of mechanisms and procedures to ensure adherence by UNRWA to the humanitarian principle of neutrality.

Remember, we took Israel at its word and stopped funding to UNRWA in Gaza.

They lie, and they lie, and they lie, and they lie….

[Chindie]

Well there is a shock.

[blandy]

52 minutes ago, Chindie said:

Well there is a shock.

Indeed. The thing is, various leaders of friendly nations acted in response to the claims. So when Israel is unable to present any evidence to validate the claim, what do these leaders think?

I suppose another way of asking the question is “how cynical are we?”

But either way lying to your buddies should lead to extreme future scepticism.

 

[Chindie]

2 minutes ago, blandy said:

Indeed. The thing is, various leaders of friendly nations acted in response to the claims. So when Israel is unable to present any evidence to validate the claim, what do these leaders think?

I suppose another way of asking the question is “how cynical are we?”

But either way lying to your buddies should lead to extreme future scepticism.

 

I mean yeah it should but we all know there literally isn't a length Israel could go to that would waiver the support we give it. 

It's shameful and scandalous but there we are. Apparently this is what we must accept. To think otherwise is to be worse than Hitler.

[chrisp65]

1 hour ago, blandy said:

Indeed. The thing is, various leaders of friendly nations acted in response to the claims. So when Israel is unable to present any evidence to validate the claim, what do these leaders think?

I suppose another way of asking the question is “how cynical are we?”

But either way lying to your buddies should lead to extreme future scepticism.

 

I’d like to imagine the murder of tens of thousands of refugees whilst denying food and turning off the water might have already lead to some scepticism.

 

 

[blandy]

1 hour ago, chrisp65 said:

I’d like to imagine the murder of tens of thousands of refugees whilst denying food and turning off the water might have already lead to some scepticism.

Well, yeah, obviously.  But it seems, at face value, to make no difference, or not to be the case. The reasons why are what I’d like to understand.

[magnkarl]

Israel is clearly fumbling here, though the UNRWA is clearly not without fault on many things:

Report alleges ethical abuses at UN agency for Palestinian refugees

Quote

It says the allegations include senior management engaging in "sexual misconduct, nepotism, retaliation, discrimination and other abuses of authority, for personal gain, to suppress legitimate dissent, and to otherwise achieve their personal objectives."

Or that time when they lied about how many 'Palestinians' they serve to increase aid:

Lebanon census turns up two-thirds fewer Palestinians than expected

Quote

Official numbers reveal only 174,422 original refugees and their descendants, far less than the 450,000 previously thought

Or, that time shortly after Oct 7th where a whole bunch of UNRWA teachers praised the attack.

Group of 3,000 UNRWA teachers celebrates Hamas massacre and rape

Quote

• UNRWA teacher Waseem Ula, who regularly posts information on salaries that he passes on from UNRWA Gaza head of human resources Sami Abu Kamil, calls to kill Israelis, and glorifies the Oct. 7th massacre. At one moment, Ula informs the group’s 3,000 UNRWA teachers that “salaries will be paid on Sunday.”Another moment, he shares a video glorifying Hamas attacks, and posts a photo of a suicide bomb vest wired with explosives, with the caption: “Wait, sons of Judaism.” Ula also glorified terrorist Akran Abu Hasanen — a perpetrator of the October 7th massacre — as a “Qassami martyr,” “friend” and “brother.” He prayed to Allah to “admit him to paradise without judgment.”

Here's the US hearing on it, full of sources, incriminating articles and research from people not connected to Israeli media, some of it obviously has people from Israel testifying, and some of it is based on internal reports from the UN.

I think it's likely a case here that the UNRWA clearly isn't fit for purpose. Why does the UN need its own agency for Palestinians when lots of other groups suffer the same or worse and don't have one? The way UNRWA has propped up Gaza for years now clearly hasn't worked, it's gotten worse and worse, and the organisation seems to lose sight of what its purpose originally was. Hamas controls the aid and the population is off worse. PA/Fatah heads controls the money and amasses wealth at an unprecedented rate. Israel clearly has a habit of trying to discredit UNRWA, though I don't really think UNRWA does a great job at making that job hard for Israel. 

The historical narrative for UNRWA is that you can't possibly talk about their issues and failures, that doing so somehow discredits Palestinians. I'd say it's the other way around. When this organisation keeps the current cycle going we need to look at it. Just like we need to seriously consider how we could've prevented Israel from committing war crimes while being our ally.

Edited April 23 by magnkarl

[chrisp65]

I can’t imagine there would be many places in the world where you could steal a population’s land, kettle them in to a refugee camp for generations, make the act of getting bread or a shelter dependent on their connections with a militia, and then find 3,000 neutral local residents with no opinions about the situation themselves, or amongst their families.

 

 

[magnkarl]

12 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

I can’t imagine there would be many places in the world where you could steal a population’s land, kettle them in to a refugee camp for generations, make the act of getting bread or a shelter dependent on their connections with a militia, and then find 3,000 neutral local residents with no opinions about the situation themselves, or amongst their families.

 

 

The bread and shelter being dependent on a militia is exactly why the UNRWA needs to be looked at. And, while I get your point, I don't think any sort of UN or Western aid should go to a teacher who posts pictures online of bombs and wanting to execute any people, no matter where they are from. If you don't see that that is an issue, then that might be part of the problem for UNRWA.

'Oh it's fine that kids are being taught by extremists, the extremists hold those views because of Israel!'.

The striking amounts of aid given to Palestine over the years have ensured two things, rich, fat-cat politicians in Hamas\Fatah\PA and a population held ransom by extremists in Gaza. The UN has both the power and military to do the handouts themselves and not rely on a terrorist organisation to do so.

Edited April 23 by magnkarl

[chrisp65]

36 minutes ago, magnkarl said:

The bread and shelter being dependent on a militia is exactly why the UNRWA needs to be looked at. And, while I get your point, I don't think any sort of UN or Western aid should go to a teacher who posts pictures online of bombs and wanting to execute any people, no matter where they are from. If you don't see that that is an issue, then that might be part of the problem for UNRWA.

'Oh it's fine that kids are being taught by extremists, the extremists hold those views because of Israel!'.

The striking amounts of aid given to Palestine over the years have ensured two things, rich, fat-cat politicians in Hamas\Fatah\PA and a population held ransom by extremists in Gaza. The UN has both the power and military to do the handouts themselves and not rely on a terrorist organisation to do so.

Yes, agreed, it actually currently needs greater intervention. greater intervention could educate and coach some of the extremism out of the culture. We learn by example, and generations of kids are seeing that what gets things done, what makes you a man, is a scarf and a gun.

But the UN can’t just be a nicer jailer. It needs to show Israel its a two way street and they can’t be a thieving murdering terror state either.

There is still some work to do.

 

[magnkarl]

47 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

Yes, agreed, it actually currently needs greater intervention. greater intervention could educate and coach some of the extremism out of the culture. We learn by example, and generations of kids are seeing that what gets things done, what makes you a man, is a scarf and a gun.

But the UN can’t just be a nicer jailer. It needs to show Israel its a two way street and they can’t be a thieving murdering terror state either.

There is still some work to do.

 

In my opinion both Israel and PA/Hamas needs to be removed from Gaza. What have they got to show for? Both sides have had 70 years to sort things out, Palestinians were offered great parts of the land at multiple points but refused (and when you now look at the same people's bank accounts you can understand why), the Israelis have one way of reacting to everything which is violence, it makes them a pawn in Iran/Russia's geo-political games and extremely unreliable. 

West-Germany after the war is a model of how it should be done. Get peacekeepers in there to control the aid and money, push Hamas out and start educating the people to a point where prosperity ensures that they're not dependent on running around with their AK-47 because Hamas gives you UN-aid as payment. The Palestinian people have been a pawn for the Arabic world for way too long, and they've suffered at the hands of Israel often because other Arab nations have invaded Israel. We've got to end the mindset that got us here, and that also includes admitting that their side isn't always 100% right in whatever for the hawks on both sides in the world.

Edited April 23 by magnkarl