rxz wrote:
There is a rule of 3s when it come to human survival.  Three minutes without oxygen, 3 days without water, or 3 weeks without food generally means survival is greatly diminished.  It's been 3 months and most of the Palestinians in Gaza are still with us.  So they have had food and water in storage or they are likely being supplied by means other than via passage from Egypt.   And they still have Iranian rockets to launch almost daily into Israel, although not as many as 3 months ago.

Another  3 months have past. So some food and water are still available in Gaza, so Palestinians are still with us.  Muslims have been living in war with the Jews  in Israel/Palestine since 1948 versus in peace.  It has not fared well for them.  English rule there from 1919 to 1948 didn't help.
I did have a co-worker from Kenya 20 years ago where I spent lots of lunches together discussing African history.  He liked to credit the NAZIs during WWII for freeing Africa from European Colonialism.  Obviously he's not a fan of England.  European countries ruling for centuries was about exploitation and profit and not establishing stable governments.  For decades now we have witnessed the results. He's the only person I've known with passport entries to Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, and Israel.  His mother was an UN peacekeeper.

rxz wrote:
Another  3 months have past. So some food and water are still available in Gaza, so Palestinians are still with us.  Muslims have been living in war with the Jews  in Israel/Palestine since 1948 versus in peace.  It has not fared well for them.  English rule there from 1919 to 1948 didn't help.
I did have a co-worker from Kenya 20 years ago where I spent lots of lunches together discussing African history.  He liked to credit the NAZIs during WWII for freeing Africa from European Colonialism.  Obviously he's not a fan of England.  European countries ruling for centuries was about exploitation and profit and not establishing stable governments.  For decades now we have witnessed the results. He's the only person I've known with passport entries to Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, and Israel.  His mother was an UN peacekeeper.

It would be fair to say that the early military successes of the Germans and Japanese in WW2 were encouraging for independence movements, because they proved that the principal colonial powers weren't invincible. But North Africans were fighting for independence before World War Two;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rif_War

In the decades following WW2, colonialism died hard in Egypt, when the Egyptians fought France, Britain and Israel for control of the Suez Canal in 1956;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suez_Crisis

And also in Algeria of course;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algerian_War

JSouthworth wrote:
More video from Gaza here;

In your regular references to the conflict between Jews and Muslims, how many in the UK supported Brexit (mainly?) to keep emigrants entering EU countries out of England.   And I'm guessing a fare number of the emigrants coming from North Africa, Middle East and central Asia were Muslim. 

BTW, India is fine example on how Hindus and Muslims can live together.  English rulers did such a fine job with the residents  when they ruled the colony.

JSouthworth wrote:
the apartheid policy of the Israeli government of Benjamin Netenyahu towards the Palestinians.

Huh?

You're abusing the word "apartheid".

Apartheid takes place within a country. The Palestinians consider themselves independent and in Gaza they are effectively independent and autonomous. They are not Israelis and I suspect they'd want to murder you if you suggested that they are Israelis.

They do not claim the rights of Israeli citizens while plenty of other Muslims do.

Therefore Israel treats the Palestinians as a hostile people. Which they clearly are.

Even Egypt treats the Palestinians as a hostile people. Jordan does, too. Especially after the PLO tried to overthrow Jordan when the Jordanians were foolish enough to allow the Palestinians into Jordan as refugees.

Neither Egypt nor Jordan will allow Palestinians into their countries. Is that apartheid? I don't think so. To me it is common sense.

The Palestinians had a chance at sovereignty and Arafat pissed it away. The Palestinians hate the Jews more than they love their own children and until such time as that changes Israel and Egypt have every right to secure their borders and to keep the Palestinians behind fences and walls.

Not even Bill Clinton could get these idiots to make a rational deal:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/may/23/israel3

rxz wrote:

In your regular references to the conflict between Jews and Muslims, how many in the UK supported Brexit (mainly?) to keep emigrants entering EU countries out of England.

That has very little to do with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Gold Rush Studio wrote:
Huh?


Apartheid takes place within a country. The Palestinians consider themselves independent and in Gaza they are effectively independent and autonomous. They are not Israelis and I suspect they'd want to murder you if you suggested that they are Israelis.

They do not claim the rights of Israeli citizens while plenty of other Muslims do.

Under international law, Palestinian people have the same rights as Israeli citizens, or UK citizens, or American citizens. Rights which are being violated by the Israeli government and the IDF every day, in ways which would never be tolerated in Western Europe, the US or for that matter anywhere else in the world. We need to see an end to post-Holocaust Israeli exceptionalism, because in the absence of a political solution, meaning a Palestinian state, the conflict will inevitably continue to cause instability in the region.

I don't think the Biden administration can justify using it's veto in the UN Security Council to block recognition of Palestinian nationality on the grounds that HAMAS controls Gaza, I think they need to recognise the fact that the October 7 attacks were a response to provocative, illegal actions by the Israeli government as well as an expression of Palestinian frustration with the continuing lack of progress toward a Palestinian state, the establishment of which is a stated policy of the US government.

It's the familiar cycle of Israeli government violence, discrimination and obfuscation producing a terrorist response, which is then cited as justification for more government violence towards the Palestinians, usually resulting in the deaths of civilian non-combatants. There's a contradiction in US and Israeli policy, because as long as HAMAS controls Gaza, Israel does not, regardless of what the Israeli government may be claiming. I don't think the fighting in Gaza will lead to any kind of decision, just more casualties.

Joe Biden has a problem in that his military advisers will always give him an optimistic, pro-IDF assessment of the situation on the ground in Gaza while the CIA's perspective will tend to be coloured by their history of involvement in Iran before 1979.

Air strikes on Gaza have increased in recent days since the Iranian drone strike;

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/is … r-BB1lzExG

JSouthworth wrote:
That has very little to do with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

hahah.  England sucked as the administrator of Palestine from 1919 to 1948.  And having BP and England  ask the U.S. and CIA to disrupt the elected government in Persia in 1953 and put the West backed Shah in power to stop the nationalization of BP to Iranian control didn't help.   Kind of explains why Iran hates the west (US and Europe).  Palestinians are terrorists supporting Hamas for their government leaders.  They haven't stopped their government leaders from launching Iranian missiles into non-military Israeli sites.  Now they are paying the price.

rxz wrote:

JSouthworth wrote:
And having BP and England  ask the U.S. and CIA to disrupt the elected government in Persia in 1953 and put the West backed Shah in power to stop the nationalization of BP to Iranian control didn't help.   Kind of explains why Iran hates the west (US and Europe).

So you know a little about Iran. Surprise.

The CIA's covert operation in Iran in 1953, codenamed Operation Ajax and led by Kermit Roosevelt, was hailed as a major triumph for the agency at the time. In the longer term? Maybe not...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kermit_Roosevelt_Jr.

What policy would best serve US interests in the Middle East? Almost certainly not the present one. Decades of US support have led the Israeli political leadership to imagine themselves as being much more important to the US than they actually are, there is a clear parallel with South Vietnam.

If Israel changed sides in the New Cold War and formed an alliance with Russia, as Benjamin Netanyahu has hinted that it could do with his recent references to the liberation of Auschwitz by the Red Army, that might be the ideal situation from the diplomatic and economic perspectives. US defense companies with ties to Israel would lose out, but opportunities for other US based companies in the Middle East would be enhanced. But Netanyahu's veiled threat is also an empty one, because in that case the US government would cut off the supply of parts and ammunition for their aircraft and other weapons, rendering them largely useless.

At the present time, the Israelis are slowly losing a war and costing the US government a lot of money in the process, while embarrassing the US politically.

Interesting article here about how the Iranians were able to keep some of their US supplied F14 aircraft operational. Iran is now the only operator of this type;

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/reboo … page=0%2C1

More here;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grumman_F-14_Tomcat

JSouthworth wrote:
Under international law, Palestinian people have the same rights as Israeli citizens, or UK citizens, or American citizens.

True. And if the Palestinians want to rape and murder hundreds of kids peacefully attending a music festival then the Palestinians are entitled to obliteration and death.

Period.

Gold Rush Studio wrote:
True. And if the Palestinians want to rape and murder hundreds of kids peacefully attending a music festival then the Palestinians are entitled to obliteration and death.

Period.

So you think the Palestinians should be exterminated, is that it?

Violence begets more violence, and this has been a continuous cycle in Palestine since the 1930s. One of the few certainties in the present situation is that more Palestinians and Israelis will die before there is a political solution to the conflict.

The Palestinians understand that a homeland, a Palestinian state, cannot be achieved without sacrifice. So many of them support HAMAS and other Palestinian militant organisations even though the immediate result of their actions is retaliation from the IDF, because they understand the political necessity of bringing their situation to the attention of the world, by the means available to them. Years of indiscriminate bombing attacks by the Israeli air force have not broken their will; Netanyahu's policy of "mowing the grass" has proved a catastrophic failure.

If you talk about responsibility for the events of October 7, I think the US government has a share because they promoted an Israeli-Palestinian dialogue on Palestinian statehood but then failed to follow through on that, they allowed the negotiating process to stall after a few years. And they haven't been tough enough with the Israelis over the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Palestine is a war zone, this is what people need to consider before attending musical events there.

Gold Rush Studio wrote:
True. And if the Palestinians want to rape and murder hundreds of kids peacefully attending a music festival then the Palestinians are entitled to obliteration and death.

Period.

Looking at the events of October 7 in detail, the Israeli fatalities included 376 members of the security forces along with 767 civilians, roughly a 1-2 ratio. By normal standards, that's a better ratio than the Israeli Defence Force have achieved in Gaza.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Hama … _on_Israel

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualtie … 3Hamas_war

The IDF's claims for enemy personnel appear to be based on an assumption that every male Palestinian is a member of a militia unit. Their figures are not convincing, neither is their video evidence. Tactically, Israeli commanders in Gaza are limited by the pressure being placed on them to minimise losses. The Palestinians have demonstrated an ability to trap or ambush small Israeli units and eliminate them when they have the opportunity to do that. Palestinian militants appear to be initiating most engagements, often using mortars or sniper fire.