Politics Thread!

[Orava]

A whole shitstorm in place in Israel, as a neutral Nordic observer I find this puzzling. Why now? Who supports which party? It is all bad, so many dead / taken hostages.

[tufty]

It suits everybody. Well, everybody who isn't being killed, obviously.

[snaff]

A whole shitstorm in place in Israel, as a neutral Nordic observer I find this puzzling. Why now? Who supports which party? It is all bad, so many dead / taken hostages.

Londoners are cheering Hamas while Westminster supports Israel. I don't have a dog in this fight.

[PFVA]

I'm above all surprised that the Hamas was able to infiltrate the Israeli side to launch this. Israel's secret service used to be a lot better than that.

And I'm not sure what Hamas thinks it's going to achieve. Most likely Israel is going to completely destroy the Gaza Strip after that. I wouldn't be surprised if it's the end of Palestine.

I hate wars.

[KlaxonCow]

I don't have a dog in this fight.

I can't have a dog in this fight. It just makes no sense whatsoever.

A fictional promise from a made-up god in a mythology book, and rightfully fleeing the most evil hatred of a broken nonsense ideology (a hatred brewed up by the later two revisions for being prohibited from usury, so grudgingly - and hypocritically - tolerated Jews in their midst for being the money lenders - as the only group religiously allowed to even do it - and then heaped all blame on them for their own made-up prohibition, which isn't actually real. Later proved by how, you know, everyone happily ignores the usury thing these days and no-one actually fucking cares), against a revision of that made-up god in a different mythology book, fearing an impossible "defilement" of a square of dirt, where a man supposedly flew to Heaven on a winged horse (which makes zero aerodynamic sense), by its more original Temple occupants. Who, on command of their god, stole it themselves by mass-murder in the first place (the made-up god's morals are surprisingly flexible, to match up with whatever human leaders at the time wanted, almost as if he wasn't real and is just a "bogeyman" used to scare people into compliance with completely man-made cultural laws of the time).

Cheered on by adherents of the second revision of this brutal anti-hero - Dawkins' most evil character in all of fiction, and he has a point - who cynically only want the Jews alive so that it matches the LSD trip that is "Revelations", that demands 144,000 of them remain for "conversion" by Jesus in the End Times. Seriously, Bible Belt nut jobs genuinely volunteer to help the Israeli Defence Force, in the most fucked up alliance imaginable. They're only helping them because they need some Jews alive to bring Jesus back. And the Israelis do perfectly well know that this is the case, in all its deep cynical offence, but as long as they're helping and it keeps America on-side then, fuck it, come on over.

It's all completely fucking insane. It's all just bollocks, from top to bottom, and side to side. The whole fucking thing bears no relation to actual reality in any way, and usefully serves absolutely no-one.

It's basically like, at a sci-fi convention, the Trekkies and the Warsies arguing over whether the fictional Han Solo or the fictional Captain Kirk is the bigger charming rogue... and then actually pulling out knives and stabbing each other over it, before one of them straps on a suicide belt and blows up the entire building, killing everyone.

For no good reason whatsoever. These characters are make believe, you fucking idiots. None of it is real. It doesn't fucking matter.

One day, alien archaeologists will come to Earth and dig up the remains of our civilisations and then double face-palm upon discovery that all of this was destroyed for the sake of a bunch of obviously fictional ancient comic books.

That humanity nuked itself out of existence, arguing over whether you're "Team Betty" or "Team Veronica" when it comes to the Archie comics.

it's utter, utter unadulterated insanity. Complete fucking madness.

It's just a fucking building on a rock, whichever one you're talking about. The Muslim one that's currently there, or the Jewish one that got destroyed.

Finally, your "team" wins the rock and puts its building up there. What have you won by all this death and destruction?

Absolutely nothing. It's just a rock. A formation of stone. There is nothing special about it whatsoever, save it being named in some bullshit mythology books.

Nothing is sacred. Quite literally, "sacred" is a made-up bullshit thing that doesn't actually exist. We invented it, it isn't real. There is nothing actually there to venerate, there is no-one listening and absolutely nothing will happen, one way or the other, whoever "wins" (if you can ever call tremendous death and destruction for no purpose nor gain "winning"). Because this "god" - whichever of the contradictory revisions of the character you're batting for - is just a story in a mythology book.

Look around. Look closely. This is a godless universe.

When we die, we just die. And then rot away.

This is our one and only chance to exist, and however shit we insist on making this world, that's as good as it can ever get.

I can't have a dog in this fight. None of it makes any sense.

[gilesgoat]

I'm above all surprised that the Hamas was able to infiltrate the Israeli side to launch this. Israel's secret service used to be a lot better than that.

And I'm not sure what Hamas thinks it's going to achieve. Most likely Israel is going to completely destroy the Gaza Strip after that. I wouldn't be surprised if it's the end of Palestine.

I hate wars.

What I don't understand either is "why?" also "why now ?" ..

I mean "ok the why, it's always been like that" .. but as you say "this could be the time they wipe out Palestine from the map", unless they start receiving "substantial help" from "some other powers".

And who on Earth is going to stick a finger in all that mess ?

Some places seems to have wars that will never end ...

[PFVA]

I was thinking about that yesterday.
Unless the Hamas planned to go out with a 'bang' meaning they know things weren't going good for them. Iran and Saudi Arabia have been making peace between them. And Saudi Arabia has been making peace with Israel. If things kept going that way the Hamas was going to vanish for lack of outside support. I wouldn't put past them to go out with a'last stand' against Israel.

I also wouldn't be surprised that inside al those countries plus in Israel there is people who don't like all the agreements that have been negotiated.

(All of this is just thoughts of mine)

[tufty]

It makes sense for everybody. It's not about one god or another, it's a fight for survival, for power.

Hamas need support. The more brutal Israel are, the more support Hamas have on the ground. The more Hamas are seen to be the plucky underdog fighting Israel, the more support Hamas have politically. No fight against Israel, no need for Hamas.

Israel has a largely far right government. It has the same support issues as Hamas. The more powerful Israel's enemies are seen to be, the more support Israel's government has on the ground. The more Israel is seen to be the victim of terrorist violence, the more support Israel has politically. When Israel has no enemies, the far right is no longer needed.

[snaff]

It makes sense for everybody. It's not about one god or another, it's a fight for survival, for power.

Hamas need support. The more brutal Israel are, the more support Hamas have on the ground. The more Hamas are seen to be the plucky underdog fighting Israel, the more support Hamas have politically. No fight against Israel, no need for Hamas.

Israel has a largely far right government. It has the same support issues as Hamas. The more powerful Israel's enemies are seen to be, the more support Israel's government has on the ground. The more Israel is seen to be the victim of terrorist violence, the more support Israel has politically. When Israel has no enemies, the far right is no longer needed.

Also lots of money and votes in it if the US can get involved, maybe with Iran.

[tufty]

Thats said, though.

[skab]

Israel has a largely far right government. It has the same support issues as Hamas. The more powerful Israel's enemies are seen to be, the more support Israel's government has on the ground. The more Israel is seen to be the victim of terrorist violence, the more support Israel has politically. When Israel has no enemies, the far right is no longer needed.

It's all about politics, indeed. With Hamas as disruptive force it's near impossible to reach the former goal of a two-state solution, a solution Netanyahu and his far-right government are opposed to themselves. In the end you get two political enemies somehow supporting and depending on each other.

Netanyahu is already being heavily criticized for the weak military presence on the Gaza border (they were focusing on the West Bank instead), and I actually read a quote from a Hamas representative that he was surprised at the scale of the Hamas operation and its success. He had expected some minor fighting amid fierce resistance from Israeli forces, but instead they were able to deeply invade the country and wreak havoc. So now Netanyahu is forced - not that he wouldn't like to do that anyway - to retaliate hard to strengthen his own domestic position. I wouldn't be surprised to see them flatten Gaza once and for all.

And of course there's already attacks from Hizbollah in the north and shelling of Syria from the Golan heights. Business as usual. See the news from 40 years ago, nothing has changed, basically.

[Rhythm]

It's all a fucking mess, innit. We now have Sunak declaring that anybody publicly supporting Hamas will be pulled up and Cruella's gone so far as to declare that flying the Palestine flag will be an offence.

And closer to home Starmer's just pulled the bellend move of "bomb-proofing" his pledges. He's the flip-floppiest opposition leader we've had for yonks and now he's promising to lock in the pledges? I can't believe he looked at the Ed-stone and thought that was a good idea.

[PFVA]

and Cruella's gone so far as to declare that flying the Palestine flag will be an offence.

It cannot be an offence flying the Palestinian state flag. Legal representations of the Palestinian state have not been closed anywhere in the world.
The Hamas flag it's possible since it has been long ago declared a terrorist group.

[Misfit]

It's all a fucking mess, innit. We now have Sunak declaring that anybody publicly supporting Hamas will be pulled up.

Whatever the right or wrongs of the situation out there, one thing is clear, Hamas are a terrorist group, this was not an act of war. We are talking about the murder of women, children and the elderly, beheaded babies. People raped and murdered in front of their families and kidnapping and torture.

Hundreds of people (many not from Isreal) mowed down in cold blood at a music festival etc etc

And then, around the world, we have people celebrating and chanting 'gas/kill the jews' and vandalising property.

We don't let people celebrate ISIS or Nazis in the streets, why should we allow them to support Hamas?

[Rhythm]

We don't let people celebrate ISIS or Nazis in the streets, why should we allow them to support Hamas?

Recent UK news shows that the first parts of your statement aren't especially verifiable. The last part... it's not hidden knowledge that we have a problematic history on this. Israel's globally-supported oppression of Palestine has been publicly objected to for decades. The areas of West Yorkshire I've lived in my entire life have always had many Palestinian flags up for as long as I remember. Support for ISIS/Al-qaeda isn't hidden round here either. Fuck, there's a fella in my part of town that drives around with the reg TAL48AN

It's only very recently (2016) that any opposition to Israel has been classed as inherently antisemitic. It's made it *incredibly* difficult to have any level of nuanced conversation.

The actions taken by Hamas over the weekend are horrific and inexcusable. But so is pretty much anything Israel has done over the past 60 years. For the govt to declare that support for any part of Palestine means you're somehow on the "wrong" side.... that doesn't feel good.