Hard To Not Dislike Israel

I get tired of pointing out that Israel and Judaism are two very different things and the two should not be conflated but unfortunately many do which is why we saw scenes such as those in London last week when two obviously Jewish men were stabbed and had many Jews complaining that they do not feel safe in Britain.
When the Government said that they would suspend the Pro-Palestine Marches they are guilty of conflating two separate issues although i have been to some of the marches and the rhetoric does range from people peacefully protesting the ongoing Genocide by Israel in Gaza to pure antisemitism   
which seems to unite some on the left and the right bizarrely.
We can argue whether it is right to stop the rights of thousands protesting because of a small minority with an intelligence which matches their shoe size but it does open the Government up to accusations of siding with a nation run by a wanted War Criminal who is actually committing a Genocide as we watch but that is for them to decide, i would go with more policing and hauling out any moron who waves an antisemitism banner who shouts out anti Jewish slogans myself rather than ban them but Israel has always had much to answer for and I can't see it getting any better.
Annoyingly, i have to give credit to Piers Morgan for a recent interview with Israeli Politician, Daniella Weiss, which summed up just why the problem with Israel is not going away anytime soon.
in his Interview for his show this week, Piers Morgan Uncensored, he asked her how she felt about over 20,000 Palestinian children being killed since October the 7th in Gaza and it quickly spiraled into this:

DW: I said Palestinians, the Gazans, and all Arabs around should stop attacking Israel.
PM:  I just asked you how you felt about 20,000 children being killed by the IDF. How do you feel about that?
DW: I think that that the parents should be very careful before they teach the their children to hate Jews and to kill Jews.
PM:  That wasn't my question. My question was, how do you personally feel about over 20,000
Palestinian children now being killed since October the 7th in Gaza? How do you feel about that?
DW: I think that Arabs, Gazans or Jordanians or Syrians, whoever should be very very careful with the way they educate the children.
PM: That wasn't my question. Can you answer my question?
DW: That was my answer.
PM: You don't care? You have no thoughts about these children at all?
DW: You choose your questions and I answer them the way I believe is right.
PM: Just to be clear, you have nothing to say about 20,000 children being killed? Nothing at all.
DW: I have a lot to say about everything that happened as a result of the massacre of the seventh.
PM: Now I understand you care about Israeli children who died as do I. But I'm able to care about both sides of children who've died. Why don't you care seemingly about the Palestinian children who've died? Why can't you express any sympathy or sorrow or empathy with the children who've died in Gaza? Are you able to do that?
DW: I warn all Arabs from all sides, from all borders, stop educating children to hate.
PM:  So, just to be clear, I've now offered you three times.
DW: I made myself very clear.
PM: Oh, you've made yourself very clear
DW: You asked me five times.
PM: I'm going to give you one last chance to offer some empathy or sympathy or sorrow about the deaths of 20,000 children in Gaza. Are you capable of doing that?
DW: I can tell you that had you cared and I don't believe you that that you care a tiny bit about one killed person if you do not use the means that you have as a media person to stop educating children.
PM: I gave you four chances.
DW: You gave me seven.
PM: You couldn't give a damn, could you? You couldn't give a damn. You don't care. And all you want is all the Palestinians gone. You can barely even bring yourself to say their name. All you want is to take over the West Bank and Gaza. You don't care how many die in the process. You want them all gone. You don't care, do you? That's the bottom line.
DW: As you said, the audience will judge.
PM: Yeah, they will.

With people like this in the Israeli Government, whose solution seems to be for people to just stop hating Israel, i cannot see how that is possible when they have killed a minimum of 80,000 people which means there are now the families of all these who have a reason to hate Israel, ask yourself if the military of another nation invaded your country, killed your family and demolished your house, wouldn't you feel immense animosity towards them?  
How can a people feel anything but hatred towards a nation which has committed a genocide against them and stolen their land for over 80 years? It's a vicious cycle which isn't being helped by the current crop of Israeli smug idiots, morons and simpletons like Netanyahu and Weiss who do not give a damn about the death and destruction they are imparting on other humans in Gaza and the West Bank, imparting so they can steal and take over their land for themselves.
Hamas were wrong for what they have done and have been rightly castigated for it but then so is Israel and we should show sympathy, empathy and utter horror at the numbers killed on both sides but it is near impossible for Gazan's to suddenly stop hating the very nation who have done this and continue to do this to them even during a so called ceasefire which is why even if the killing stopped tomorrow, the legacy will continue and Jews around the World will sadly, and very wrongly, continue to suffer.

Arming Israel Makes Us Complicit In Genocide

If a country is committing genocide, as defined by International Organisations such as the United Nations and the highest court in the World as well as countless human rights groups, then if you knowingly continue to supply that country with the weapons to continue it then you are complicit in committing that genocide so when the British Foreign Minister states that Britain will not stop selling arms to Israel, then we become implicated in what they do with the weapons we give them.
After over 33,000 deaths in Gaza including over 200 aid workers and 100 journalists, pressure is mounting on Israel’s allies to halt arms supplies with Joe Biden's America by far the major supplier, providing an estimated 68% of Israel’s foreign weapons with Germany, providing around 30% while Britain and Italy send an estimated 1.5%.
As well as weapons, America has provided $158 bn of financial support since the second world war and immediately after the Hamas attacks in October,
passed a bill that would provide $14.1bn in Israel-related supplemental spending, $3.5bn in foreign military financing, and $801.4m for ammunition procurement although it is currently tied up in the Senate.
Human Rights Lawyers in America are pointing to Section 502 (B) of the US Foreign Assistance Act which prohibits aid to governments engaged in gross human rights abuses and the 1961 Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 which forbids the state department or the Pentagon from providing funding to foreign units that have committed, according to 'credible information', human rights violations which is just , one of the many accusations Israel are accused of performing in Palestine. In February 2023, the Biden administration issued a Conventional Arms Transfer (Cat) policy stating that the US would not transfer weapons where they were deemed likely to be used to commit 'grave 'breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 1949, including attacks intentionally directed against civilian objects or civilians protected as such' but unlike Canada, the Netherlands, Japan, Spain and Belgium who have all announced they would stop shipping weapons to Israel, the arms flow continues.
One reason put forward is that punishing Israel risks alienating pro-Israel Jewish voters in an election year although that is coming at the expense of pro-Palestinian voters who are threatening to desert Biden over his stance on the war.
It is abhorrent that there are some nations who are decrying what Israel are doing in Gaza while providing them with the weapons to continue doing it and shamefully my own country is amongst them
and the murderous slaughtering of innocent Gazan's will continue long after any ceasefire, as has been happening for the past 60 years because this never started on October 7th, Israel has been killing and bombing Gaza for 60 years with weapons provided by it's allies and unless the Palestinian state is recognised and given security at the UN, it will continue long after any ceasefire.

Once, Twice, Three Times A War Crime

If a country broke one International Convention then you would expect an outcry, if they broke two in the same day then you would expect the howls to reach fever-point so we wait with bated breath to see what is going to happen to Israel after it broke three on the same day.
First up was the news that Israel had finished its 'operation' at Gaza’s Al Ahifa hospital and even made a claim that the IDF didn’t kill any civilians during it's two-week long attack.
Obviously anything Israel claims should be taken with the whole salt shaker and not just a pinch of it, especially as it claimed it attacked the Al-Shifa hospital previously due to Hamas using it as a military headquarters and showed the 'evidence' as a handful of guns and tunnels, tunnels which Israel had built themselves in the 1980's and analysis of IDF footage by CNN found that Israeli forces may have moved or rearranged weapons within the Hospital before providing international news organizations access to the scene which prompted questions of just how authentic the 'evidence' actually was.
Still got hold of that salt because the claim that no civilians were killed was questioned by the WHO and immediately asked if that was the case, who were the hundreds of bodies, including 'entire families dead and their bodies decomposing in houses around the hospital' were but this was overtaken by the breaking of International Convention two with the bombing of a Consulate in Syria.
Israeli forces attacked the Iranian Consular building in Damascus killing 11 people including seven members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard which is a violation of the Vienna Convention, and nations stepped up to condemn the attack on a 'diplomatic institutions' but while they were queuing up to condemn the first two, Israel went and broke a third one with the bombing and killing of World Central Kitchen aid workers, killing seven.
Obviously mistakes happen but the car containing the aid workers were travelling in a de-conflicted zone in cars branded with the WCK logo in movements coordinated with the IDF and was leaving a well know food warehouse and Western Governments were quick to respond just in case the Israeli's did something else atrocious.
The EU said they condemned the attack despite all the demands to protect civilians and humanitarian workers and after refusing to comment, Israel said they would investigate which if the murder of over 100 people at a an aide convoy last month is anything to go by, means it will be filed under the carpet where it will hopefully be forgotten so over to you United Nations and International Court of Justice, how much more Genocide and how many war crimes can you take before actually doing something to stop it?

Amsterdam Holocaust Museum Protests

I am so glad that the protesters demonstrating outside the new National Holocaust Museum in Amsterdam were at pains to point out that they were protesting against the presence of the Israeli President Isaac Herzog and not the museum and what it commemorates.
Also desperate to make their presence known was the Dutch Jewish group called Erev Rave who organised the protest and stood alongside those waving Palestinian flags and signs that said 'Jews against genocide' and 'Stop Gaza Holocaust'.
'For us Jews, these museums are part of our history, of our past' said one Jewish demonstrator addressing the crowd at the ceremony, adding 'How is it possible that such a sacred space is being used to normalise genocide today?'
Addressing the inauguration of the museum, Mr Herzog said: 'Remember the horrors born of hatred, antisemitism and racism. And never again allow them to flourish. Unfortunately, 'never again' is right now. Because right now, hatred and antisemitism are flourishing worldwide, and we must fight it, together' which seems to be a magnificent attempt at redirection considering that the top United Nations court earlier this year condemned Israel for inflicting on Gazan's, what comes under the Genocide banner.
Israel is quickly losing any friends it had with even America, who has a history of covering for Israeli awfulness, is beginning to grow wary of standing too close to the nation who has killed over 30,000 Palestinians and continues to collectively punish 2m people while it attempts to forcibly remove the
Palestinians in an attempt to fulfill it's pledge that Israel rejects the establishment of a Palestinian Arab state west of the Jordan river.

Israeli Genocide Continues With Another Gaza Massacre

112 Palestinians killed and 760 injured while surrounding an aide lorry in Gaza City this morning and immediately the Hamas and Israeli propaganda machines swung into effect, Hamas saying that they had been shot by the Israeli Defence Force while the Israeli's claimed the drivers of aid trucks were to blame as a truck ploughed into them as they surrounded the aid trucks and looted them.
Then the Gaza Health Ministry reported receiving bodies and severely wounded people with multiple gun shot wounds at their medical facilities, a claim backed up by the head of the hospital's ambulance service who said that they had used carts when they had no ambulances to spare to transport the tens of people to hospitals.
Eye witnesses spoke of the IDF opening fire on the crowd with machine guns from a checkpoint 70m away and it was then that the lorries began to move which led the Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, head of the Palestinian Authority to say that there had been 'an ugly massacre conducted by the Israeli occupation army' and the UN aid chief, Martin Griffiths, saying he was appalled'.
Joe Biden said reports of Israeli firing on unarmed Palestinians would complicate any ceasefire deal which he had hoped could be in place by Monday meanwhile during a congressional hearing, US defence secretary Lloyd Austin was asked how many Palestinian women and children had been killed by Israel since 7 October to which he replied: 'Over 25,000' and to the next question of how many precision guided munitions had been provided to Israel since the start of its war in Gaza, said 'Approximately 21,000'.
The White House has described the reports of 112 people killed in Gaza while waiting to receive humanitarian aid as a 'serious incident' and that they mourn the loss of innocent life and recognise the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza, where innocent Palestinians are just trying to feed their families which flies in the face of providing them with 21,000 munitions because what did they think they was going to do with them?
The International Court of Justice have already said what Israel is doing in Palestine fulfills the criteria for a genocide, i would argue that what they have been doing to them for the past 60 years fulfills it also but my question would be what are you going to do about it because from where i am sitting Israel is just carrying on their murderous genocide anyway.
The ICJ must now refer Israel to the United Nations Security Council and pass a resolution to take action including economic and trade sanctions, arms embargoes, travel bans and Benjamin Netanyahu and his abhorrent Government can have no place to hide and avoid arrest for war crimes.

Journalists In Gaza

Since October 7th, only one Journalist has been allowed into Gaza and the journalist from CNN was only allowed to stay for two hours, was not allowed out of her vehicle and was only allowed to travel directly to, and back, from the UAE field Hospital, couldn’t talk to any Palestinians and was accompanied by Israeli representatives at all times.
The only journalists working in Gaza are the ones who were there when the attacks began and although it's difficult to get absolutely accurate statistics, it is estimated over 90 journalists have been killed in Gaza in the past 124 days since the Israeli offensive began with many more injured.
In the immediate aftermath of the Hamas attacks, all foreign journalists had access via the Israeli army to many of the worst-hit Israeli border communities, obviously to show the World the horrors inflicted on them by Hamas but with the exception of the single CNN reporter, not one foreign journalist has been allowed into Gaza, not even embedded into the Israeli army as seems to have become the norm in recent times.
I have heard from Israeli supporters that the details which do come out of Gaza, courtesy of the brave journalists trapped inside, are not independent or 'real' Journalists but are just reporting Hamas propaganda but every media outlet has been trying to gain access to Gaza but have been denied by Israel, citing the Journalists safety concerns.
Media organisations have sent letters to the Israeli's and even took them to the Israeli High Court, arguing they would take responsibility for their own safety but they refuse to allow access and the BBC's Jeremy Bowen, reporting from Jerusalem has said: 'There's no foreign correspondent worth their salt who doesn't want that access - to evaluate the situation first-hand. Why aren't we getting it? I can only surmise that Israel is not allowing reporters to work freely inside Gaza, because their soldiers are doing things they do not want us to see.'
The Israel military like to describe themselves as the most moral army in the world but until journalists are allowed to see for themselves, and with the news that is getting out seeming to make a mockery of that statement, we can only speculate that the Israeli's concern is that journalists will uncover evidence that backs up those allegations of war crimes and genocide.
What are we to deduce otherwise?

Berating Israel Is Not Anti-Semitism

In 2016, the British Government decided to crack down on antisemitism by rewriting it's definition because the Prime Minister at the time, Theresa May, said culprits were getting away with antisemitic behaviour or language 'because the term is ill defined' so now the official definition is that antisemitism is 'language or behaviour that displays hatred towards Jews because they are Jews' which seems amazingly close to what i thought the definition was anyway.
The problem is when anyone criticises Israel, the Jews automatically scream 'antisemitism' to try and shut it down, i once had a long discussion here with someone who tried to choke off any criticism of Israel by calling me an antisemite during one of the many times when Israel was pounding Gaza and his argument was that by me having a go at Israel, i was also having a go at Jews because they are the only Jewish state.
My argument was if that is the criteria then any criticism of England he makes is anti-Church of England because we are the only Church of England nation which he said was absurd which it is, but it never seemed to dawn on him that it was exactly what he was doing.
Nobody went after Christians when George W Bush and Tony Blair were at their warmongering worst and it would have been ridiculous if they had.  
When it comes to Israel, the left doesn't have much love towards it due to their awful genocidal behaviour towards the Palestinians for decades and quite right to, we also went after Russia for what it was doing in Ukraine, Britain and America for what it did in Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan and hit out at Saudi Arabia for attacking Yemen and if any other nation decides to bomb another back to the stone age, they will feel the wrath of the left also, and so they should.
Israel may be a country of Jews, but we continue to berate and lambast the country and it's leaders for what it is doing, not because they are Jewish but because they are committing genocide so don't let the constant cries of 'you are being antisemitic' stop you from haranguing, boycotting or demonstrating against Israel, antisemitism is 'language or behaviour that displays hatred towards Jews because they are Jews' which isn't what we are doing, it is language or behaviour that displays a hatred for the way one nation is murdering and slaughtering another, as anyone with an ounce of compassion and empathy should be doing also.

Just A Thought

 
Since 2015, the UK has licensed at least £474 million worth of military exports to Israel, including components for combat aircrafts, missiles, tanks, technology, small arms and ammunition. The UK provides approximately 15% of the components in the F-35 stealth bomber aircraft currently being used in Gaza.
In December the U.S. sold nearly 14,000 rounds of tank ammunition worth more than $106 million to Israel which comes in addition to the annual $3.8 billion aid it sends Israels way every year.
Pointing to the 28,000 dead and Joe Biden’s comment last week that Israel’s military action in Gaza was 'over the top', the EU Foreign Affairs Representative Josep Fontelles came out with the line aimed at the American President: 'Well, if you believe that too many people are being killed, maybe you
should provide less arms in order to prevent so many people having been killed.'
The UK Foreign Secretary, David Cameron, has said this week that Israel is in breach of international law which comes hot on the heels of the highest Court on the planet, The International Court of Justice, agreeing that Israel does have a case to answer for what they are inflicting on the Palestinians does come under the banner of Genocide.
Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu (or that asshole as Biden has apparently referred to him on several occasions) has said that Israel are doing all they can to prevent civilian deaths although bombing and obliterating block of flats, schools, refugee centres and places where people are sheltering doesn't strike me as making that much of an effort.
The Israeli government also point out that is Hamas who are to blame for the civilian casualties because they put civilians in places that are targets but as these targets seem to be any built-up area in Gaza, and Palestinians do insist on living in the built-up areas, the Israeli logic is that the Palestinian's
should only live in the areas where no one lived to avoid being in the target areas.
The effort to avoid casualties has been so huge they’ve managed to keep the number of women and children they have murdered down to 17,000 so maybe as has been suggested, if Israel ARE trying to not kill civilians, America, the UK and all those other ignorant nations still giving Israel the green
light to carry on it's genocide and providing the weapons for them to do it, maybe they should keep their weapons to themselves until the results on not slaughtering tens of thousands of innocent people show a considerable improvement.

Disapointing But Not Surprising

Defence Secretary Grant Shapps has said that it is 'disappointing' that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected the prospect of a two-state solution but he can hardly be surprised because Netanyahu has scuppered every chance of peace with his neighbour and it is even part of his parties manifesto that: 'The Government of Israel flatly rejects the establishment of a Palestinian Arab state west of the Jordan river'.
Until now the land grab was building settlements on Palestinian land and despite multiple UN resolutions, Israel has continued to appropriate Palestinian land and now more than 700,000 settlers, 10% of Israel's nearly 7 million population, now live in 150 settlements and 128 outposts dotting the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Since October 7th, any premise that Israel had regarding a Palestinian state has been dropped and Gaza has been razed to make it inhabitable and the West Bank has seen daily Israeli raids into it's villages and cities destroying houses and allowing violent settlers to move into the now empty land.
America, under the ineffectual Joe Biden, has made noises about the settlers but shamefully continue to bankroll Israel in it's genocide with the commissioner-general of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, even reporting that Israel appears to be trying to clear Gaza of its Palestinian population through its military offensive, evacuation orders and attempts to push Palestinians into Egypt.
Israel is rightly facing growing international outrage as the death toll in Gaza tops 26,000, around two-thirds of them women and children, and 90% of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been displaced with the UN saying there is no safe place to flee but even the Americans, who have done so much to allow Israel to continue its atrocious, murderous behaviour towards Palestine for the past 75 years, seems to be coming to the conclusion that the departure from office of the current Israeli leader is essential to their own plans for Gaza and the region.
Biden has said that he is committed to work toward helping the Palestinians move toward statehood but until he stops America being Israel's bitch, and halts the ongoing genocide by withdrawing his financial and military support, his words are ringing very hollow and the immoral and foul deeds of the last 75 years will continue until they achieve the 'land without a people for a people without a land' which was used in the the movement to establish a Jewish homeland in a land that had people, the Palestinians. 

Israels End Game For Palestine

The Lukid manifesto, Israels Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Party, states that 'The Government of Israel flatly rejects the establishment of a Palestinian Arab state west of the Jordan river' which seems pretty conclusive as meaning no Palestinian State of their own in the West Bank or Gaza which explains why they have gone to such pains to sabotage any talk of a two state solution.
Their plan has always been to squeeze the Palestinians into ever smaller areas and 'steal' the land by building settlements on it and that is what they have been doing, and what the West have been turning a blind eye to, for decades and then October 7th came and suddenly the opportunity to claim all the land to themselves presented itself and that isn't me saying that, that is coming from the Israeli politicians themselves.
Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has called for Palestinian residents of Gaza to leave and make way for the Israelis who could 'make the desert bloom' and on Sky News, Israel’s former ambassador to the US, Danny Ayalon, said: 'The people of Gaza should evacuate and go to the vast expanses on the other side of Rafah at the Sinai border in Egypt'.
Days after the Hamas attack, the Misgav Institute for National Security and Zionist Strategy think tank of former security officials, urged Netanyahu to 'seize the unique and rare opportunity to evacuate the whole Gaza Strip' which was echoed by the Israeli Intelligence Ministry which has recommended Gazan's be relocated to Egypt’s northern Sinai.
Israel’s Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant, has said that Israels military response would be to 'eliminate everything. There will be no electricity and no water in Gaza, there will only be destruction' and Moshe Feiglin, a former Likud representative in Israel’s parliament, said: 'There is one and only one solution, which is to completely destroy Gaza before invading it. I mean destruction like what happened in Dresden and Hiroshima, without nuclear weapons. Gaza should be razed and Israel’s rule should be restored to the place. This is our country".
Amit Halevi, meanwhile, a Likud member in parliament, said one of the goals for the military action should be : 'No more Muslim land in the land of Israel'.
Nissim Vaturi, deputy speaker for Israel’s parliament, said 'Nakba? Expel them all' referring to the time when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were expelled and hundreds of villages demolished from 1947 to 1948 as the state of Israel was being established and when Netanyahu was asked if he supported his National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich who said that the end goal of the assault on Gaza was to push out much of the Palestinian population and build Israeli settlements, replied 'I have no problem with that'.  
The Times of Israel has reported that Israel was in negotiations with Congo to deport Palestinians there, though Israeli officials have called the report inaccurate and the Israeli 972mag has printed a leaked document from the Intelligence Ministry which declares an option should be 'the evacuation of civilians in Gaza to Sinai' and 'the establishment of tent cities and the construction of cities in a resettled area in northern Sinai' which would 'yield positive, long-term strategic outcomes for Israel'. 
It has been obvious for decades that the Israeli endgame is for Palestinians to be pushed out of Gaza and the West Bank and then claim all of Palestine for themselves and they are taking the opportunity of the horrific actions of Hamas to expedite this and do exactly that in one large round of ethnic cleansing and genocide all wrapped into one.
I have long written and spoken about the Israeli abhorrent actions towards their neighbour and how hard it is to like Israel and nothing they are doing in Gaza and the West Bank today is changing that.

Israeli Support Dwindling

A week after the Biden administration used an emergency authority to allow the sale of 14,000 tank shells to Israel, it is now warning them about their 'indiscriminate bombing of Gaza' using the same 14,000 shells they sold them because maybe Biden thought they wouldn't use them against the defenceless civilians they have been pulverizing and murdering for the past 60 years.
The US national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, today said the US would pressure Israel to hold 'extremist settlers accountable for violence against Palestinian civilians in the West Bank' and was joined by the UK, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the European Union who have signed a letter to the Israeli Government calling on them to take 'immediate steps' to tackle settler violence in West Bank which has seen more than 350 violent attacks, killing eight Palestinian civilians, injuring more than 83, and forcing 1,026 Palestinians from their homes.
The Settler violence has stepped up since the Hamas attacks in October but the settler violence has been going on for decades, usually with police and army cover who do nothing to stop the attacks and have been known to join in.
The long suspected plan has always been to force the Palestinians off their land and then move their own people into it in settlements, hence the suggestions that the Palestinians move into Egypt and surrounding nations and that has been laid bare this week when the two state solution was torpedoed by the Israeli Government who have said that there will be no Palestinian state and that Israel believes there is no prospect of a two-state solution.
The Western world continues to insist two states with Palestine and Israel side by side is the only answer but Israel seem to have decided that their is only enough room for one state, and that is Israel and they are razing the homes and infrastructure of the 2m people in Gaza and evicting the 3m people in the West Bank.
Biden has said that Israel is losing support in it's war with Hamas as the death toll nudges now 19,000 civilians with many more dead and buried under the rubble and it is although i am sure that this will be twisted into either supporting Hamas or antisemitism and that is untrue, it is more about not supporting the blatant and horrific bloody genocide of one nation by another that has been going on for far too many decades.    
The dwindling number of Israeli supporters point to Hamas wanting to wipe Israel off the map and that is true, but then Israel is escalate it's long term plan of wiping Palestine off the map whether by killing them or violently forcing them off their rightful land.

António Guterres Was Right

António Guterres, the UN Secretary General, commented that the attacks against Israel 'did not happen in a vacuum' and Israel responded as it always does when someone dares to criticise them by saying the UN is bias and have an anti-Israel agenda and is calling for Guterres to be removed from his post but he was completely right, the current situation did not start on October 7th as many would have us believe, it has been ongoing for 75 years of death and
displacement of the Palestinian people by Israel as it militarily and brutally occupied it's neighbour.
That sentiment was shared by Jordan’s Queen Rania who gave a very eloquent speech on how western leaders were guilty of 'a glaring double standard for not condemning Israel’s killing of Palestinian civilians in its bombardment of Gaza' with the latest grim figures showing 7,028 Palestinians have been killed since 7 October and among the dead were 2,913 children.
Rania said: 'The people all around the Middle East, including in Jordan, we are just shocked and disappointed by the world’s reaction to this catastrophe that is unfolding. When October 7 happened, the world immediately and unequivocally stood by Israel and condemned the attack but what we’re seeing in the last couple of weeks, we’re seeing silence in the world' and ended with a withering: 'Are we being told that it is wrong to kill a family, an entire family, at gunpoint, but it’s OK to shell them to death?'
Guterres also spoke of the 'epic suffering' in Gaza and said there had been 'clear violations of international law' which prohibits 'collective punishment under all circumstances. When a nation carries out collective punishment during an armed conflict, it is committing a war crime.'
Human Rights Watch have identified Israel’s use of airbursting white phosphorus in Gaza and Amnesty International asserted that Israel: 'Have shown a shocking disregard for civilian lives. They have pulverized street after street of residential buildings killing civilians on a mass scale and destroying essential infrastructure.'
A joint statement signed by the foreign ministers of nine Arab countries, UAE, Jordan, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait, Egypt and Morocco has condemned what it described as the targeting of civilians and until the Americans, Brits and other nations begin to condemn Israel for their actions as they
did Hamas, they are complicit in the Israeli war crimes murdering Palestinian civilians.

Not Much Protecting Of Lives I Can See

Another day of Israeli airstrikes and every spokesman that Israel wheel out to try and defend their bombing of Gaza explain that they are doing everything they possibly can to limit Palestinian to protect the Palestinian population but as as the death toll reaches an abhorrent 4,600 dead in 16 days they are obviously not doing very much.  
Compare that to the 9,614 Ukrainian civilians killed by the Russians who are another nation with little regard to who is under the bombs they drop over the past 18 months then it is an appalling number.
During conflicts all sides lie, it wasn't that long ago that Tony Blair went along with GW Bush to blatantly lied to start wars in Afghanistan and Iraq so maybe that's why the British public are not as quick to accept the Israeli propaganda about being concerned for innocent Palestinians especially when we see the shattered streets in Gaza lined with the rubble of bombed out buildings and lifeless bodies being dragged out of them.
With hospitals being hit along with schools, amenities and 5,000 Palestinian homes, how can anyone believe that Israel is targeting Hamas members only so when despite the staggering death toll, the American President and UK Prime Minister give the green light for the continuing indiscriminate bombing of an entrapped population with nowhere to go (the US vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution that called for a pause in the fighting to allow humanitarian assistance into Gaza, the UK abstained) then they do so with no regard for the civilians beneath the Israeli weapons dropped from high in collective punishment.
The West's leaders quite rightly condemned Hamas for their crimes against humanity but don't seem quite so ready to condemn Israel's which is why demonstrations broke out around the World yesterday, 100,000 marching for a ceasefire yesterday in London and that number was when the police stopped counting, but with troops massing on the Gaza border waiting for the nod to invade and send the death toll skyrocketing, but then Israel has had decades to talk peace with its neighbours but only took the opportunity to subjugate and steal their land.
The danger always has been that some of those on the receiving end of 65 years of one of the greatest atrocities since the 2nd World War would retaliate with some spectacular act of cruelty which happened on 7 October.
Hopefully the silver lining, once the dead have been buried and the Palestinians and Israeli's rebuild their broken lives, is that talks regarding a two state solution will be top of the agenda because what we have had for the past 6 decades hasn't worked and as it is America that bankroll Israel to continue the horrific status quo, Biden or whoever follows has to grasp the moment, condemn Israel's indiscriminate killing of civilians as much as they condemn Hamas's and end a very long running wrong.

Not A Good V Evil Thing

Israel and Palestine has always been a dividing issue, it seems you have to be either pro-Israel or pro-Palestine and in the UK it is not a left v right political thing or even a religious v atheist thing, i know people on both sides of both these divides who are pro or anti one or the other so i am not entirely sure where the line is drawn but i know where my sympathies lie and it is entirely on a human level.
I don't see an innocent child killed by a Hamas bullet fundamentally different from an innocent child killed by an Israeli missile strike on their home, both will have shattered families grieving over them.
Hamas war crimes seem to be used by some as a way to stop condemnation of Israeli war crimes against the Palestinians, you can't condemn one sides war crimes and not the other but you can have sympathy for the victims of both sides and call for the stopping of even more, that's just being human.  
It is fine to denounce yesterdays horror carried out by Hamas and express concern about the thousands of Palestinian civilians who are likely to be killed in tomorrows Israeli led carnage.
It is not good against evil however much the politicians try and paint it this way, it is natural to feel Israel’s fear and rage, horror at Hamas murdering people because it was humans beings the same as us and it will be human beings now being killed in Gaza.
Nobody with any conscience should be supporting Hamas or willing Israel to equal and surpass the death toll in Gaza in some knee jerk, ghastly revenge of mass deaths because neither bring us closer to a future in which the horrors in Israel and Gaza are less likely to recur.
Israeli's are calling it their 9/11 and in many ways it is similar but we can only hope that the response is different to America's which unleashed an orgy of mass killings in Afghanistan and Iraq and did not bring back one of the 3,000 killed that day, just made more families in both far away countries feel the exact
same way the victims families at home did.  
Unfortunately history tells us what Israel will do and also tells us that the Palestine death toll is going to be appalling and at the end of it all, once the smoke has cleared, all we will have left is tens of thousands of weeping families on both sides and if you are fine with that then your moral compass really needs some serious readjusting.

Only One Way Out Of This Never-Ending Conflict

On every news channel this past week, the main story has been the attack on Israel by the Palestinian militant group Hamas which horrifically killed more than 1,300 Israelis, most of them civilians, and taking more than 100 hostage.
Israel then responded by ordering a 'complete siege' of Gaza Strip and cutting off their gas, electricity and water and launched massive airstrikes which has killed more than 1,600 Palestinians and displaced more than 263,000 people, the vast majority of them also civilians.
With an Israeli land offensive being lined up Gazan's, in the North have been told to move south and stories are emerging of Israeli rockets landing amongst lines of retreating people so we now have an atrocious situation with civilians on both sides suffering the consequences and the response of our leaders has been utterly despicable because instead sending supplies of much needed food & medicines, they are sending warships to aid a nation which is already armed to the back teeth and giving Israel explicitly unconditional support to collectively punish the 2.38 million people in Gaza.
It is the same situation in Ukraine where rather than calling for a ceasefire on both sides, they send arms which just means more destruction, more death and more war.
I am no friend of Israeli policy towards the Palestinians but nor can i support the extremist murderers which are Hamas, nothing justifies the slaughter of innocent people including babies but sadly, that's exactly what is happening to innocent Palestinians now and will continue to happen until the Palestinian death toll inevitably escalates to such heart wrenching levels that the World unites in it calls for a ceasefire.
Any sympathy Israel receives is immediately devalued by it's disproportionate reaction to any attack and yet they never try to consider why they are being attacked so how can there not be even more attacks on them when nobody is even asking that question?
All the time the question of the Palestinians remained unresolved the cycle of violence will continue and create even more hatred on both sides of the conflict and fuel the next war which will see us back in this same situation, the same situation which has been going on for decades and which UN figures show have led to 7,187 Israeli and 103,826 Palestinian deaths since 2008. 
Warships and aiding and abetting more killing won't help, sensible leadership and finally sorting out an issue which has been dragging on since 1948 is the only way out of further bloodshed and why leaders either can't, or refuse to contemplate, joining up the dots saddens me

Israel & Being Jewish

It is always sadly inevitable that in light of what is happening in Gaza, the less intelligent among us take it upon themselves to attack Jews and synagogues in retaliation for Israels actions as they are unable to distinguish between a country and a countries religion.
Jewish schools have had to step up security as concerns grow about a rise in antisemitism and it being directed at children with some Jewish schools advising pupils not to wear blazers in public places so they cannot be identified as Jewish.
I expect in the coming days we will hear of attacks on Jews on synagogues and other Jewish buildings and anti-Semitic slogans daubed on shops in areas with a high Jewish contingent as well as physical assaults and we can expect them because it is a pattern with which we are sadly familiar with.
Police have stepped up patrols in the Jewish communities due to a violent minority here unable to separate Israel and Judaism and attack innocent civilians whose only connection with Israel is their religion.
Being Jewish does not make you an Israeli as being Roman Catholic does not make you Italian so engage the few braincells that you possess and stop the mindless violence against an innocent population. If you feel that strongly, boycott Israeli goods or join one of the many demonstrations against Israel but don't take out your anger on innocent people who are probably as disgusted at Israel over the past decades as you are if you only bothered to ask.

And So It Goes On

Horrific scenes on TV this morning after Hamas launched an attack it named 'Operation Al Aqsa Storm' on Israel with militants crossing into Israel using paragliders, boats and on foot while raining down 5,000 missiles on it's town and cities.
The number of dead inside Israel currently stands at 250 with 1,452 Israelis wounded and civilians and soldiers taken hostage and in retaliation, Israel attacked Gaza in what it called 'Swords of Iron' and 232 Palestinians have been killed and 1,610 wounded, many from an 11 story block of flats which was hit and in the bombing of two Gaza Hospitals which have resulted in the deaths of Medecins Sans Frontieres nurses and doctors.
As the Palestinians have been under a murderous Israeli military occupation for over 70 years, the reasons behind the Hamas attack are plenty but nobody should be condoning their actions, there is never any justification for murdering innocent people going about their business but Israel has been literally getting away with murder for decades and have been backed by America and Western allies.
Immediately following the attack we had the American President and UK Prime Minister saying Israel had the right to defend itself which it certainly does, but then the same goes for the Palestinians and many have pointed out the juxtaposition of the West's support for Ukraine in their struggle against the military occupation by Russia to the reaction of the military occupation of Palestine by Israel.
To me if you are supporting the occupier in any scenario then you are backing entirely the wrong side but both sides have to be condemned for their appalling acts, Hamas for attacking Israeli citizens and Israel for occupying and murdering Palestinians in their thousands for decades.
The fear is that the battle will escalate out with Lebanon groups saying they are watching the situation and Iran who have said they will 'stand by the Palestinian fighters until the liberation of Palestine and Jerusalem'.
The U.S. secretary of state Antony Blinken urged the Palestinian Authority to restore calm and stability in the West Bank in a call with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas but a return to calm and stability is the Palestinians standing by while Israel attacks them and steals their land so the cycle will continue until the International Community take steps to end the occupation, stop backing Israel so slavishly and move towards the feted two-state solution.
Until then Palestine will attack Israel, Israel will attack Palestine and the families of innocent Israeli's and Palestinians will continue to bury their dead relatives so something has to change.

New Israeli PM Bad For Human Rights

As Russia is discovering, any nation that invades and tried to steal land from another is rightly castigated but there is one nation that despite stealing land from its neighbours and militarily occupying them for 70 years, seems to get a free pass, Israel.
Considering that Israel was created following horrific persecution, that the same nation has been willingly imprisoning, murdering and occupying its neighbour for 7 decades doesn't seem to resonate with some, especially the American religious Churchy types who ask others to not only pray for Israel but demand that their Government continue to subside them in their efforts to wipe Palestine off the map.
One of the worst Israeli Prime Ministers has been Benjamin Netanyahu who to be sworn in as Israel's prime minister for the sixth time despite facing charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust by him and close political allies but as Israeli law allows a Prime Minister to remain in office until they are convicted of a crime, his swearing in will go ahead.
In the new extreme right wing Netanyahu government are people like Itamar Ben-Gvir who has been convicted of incitement to racism and urged police to shoot to kill during Palestinian protests against their brutal occupation and Bezalel Smotrich who will be the Defence Ministry and who advocates the annexation of the Occupied Territories.
Israel had been condemned in 45 resolutions by United Nations Human Rights Council, almost more resolutions condemning Israel than on the rest of the world combined, and they include condemnation of war crimes and crimes against humanity and there is a responsibility for the international community to take decisive action towards Israel taking a woefully long-overdue steps towards peace with their neighbour.
When a country acts badly, whether its Russia in Ukraine, Saudi Arabia in Yemen, UK and US in Iraq or Israel in Palestine, it should be condemned. When a country continually acts badly, it should be continually condemned and i don't buy the right to defend itself argument, every nation in the World has that right, including the Palestinians and your right to defend yourself is on shaky ground when you are defending yourself against the people you have been murdering and occupying for seven decades.
We should not meekly remain quiet for fear of being anti-Semite while Israel continues to violently colonize  Palestinian land in one of the greatest atrocities since the 2nd World War, and with Netanyahu at the helm, now is the time for the World to treat Israel as the Worlds Pariah.

Emma Watson Triggers Predictable Anti-Semite Alarm

Anyone who knows me, knows also that i don't think much of Israel due to their awful genocidal behaviour towards the Palestinians. Not the country but the people who run it and the way they conduct their affairs.
To some with no real argument, that makes me an anti-Semite, that handy, overly used catch-all phrase bandied about with abandon to try and dampen any criticism of Israel as Emma Watson has found out today after after she posted a message of support for the Palestinian cause.
Predictably, the anti-Semite alarm was triggered and calls of Watson being an anti-Semite came from Israel’s former ambassador to the United Nations who posted '10 points from Gryffindor for being an antisemite' and Israel’s current ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, who ranted about the evils of Hamas and the terror supporting Palestinian Authority.
Britain has recently rewrote the definition of antisemitism and defines it as: 'language or behaviour that displays hatred towards Jews because they are Jews' but when anyone criticises Israel, the Jews automatically scream 'anti-semitism' to try and shut it down which only waters down the shouts when real anti-semitism is spouted.
I have cringed and corrected people many times when they have failed to separate Judaism and Israel when criticising the countries actions and far worse is when they physically attack Jews whose only connection with Israel is their religion.
What some people fail to recognise is that being Jewish does not make you an Israeli as being Roman Catholic does not make you Italian so they fail to engage the few braincells that they possess and attack an innocent religion but criticizing Israel for it's actions as we criticize Russia, America or Britain if they did the same is not the same as criticizing Jews, nobody went after Christians when George W Bush and Tony Blair were at their warmongering worst and it would have been ridiculous if they had.   
I once had a long discussion here with someone who tried to choke off my criticism of Israel by calling me an anti-Semite during one of the many times when Israel was pounding Gaza and his argument was that by me having a go at Israel, I was also having a go at Jews because they are the only Jewish state.
My counter argument was if that is the criteria then any criticism of England is anti-Church of England because we are the only Church of England nation.
The Palestinians are heavily criticised when they fire their rockets into Israel but when Israel seize land and build settlements on it, defy UN resolutions, kill innocent Palestinians, hold over 9000 Palestinians in its prisons, destroy farms, bulldoze homes and businesses, builds a monstrous wall deemed illegal by the international court of justice amongst numerous other violations involving war crimes of using Palestinian children as human shields, deliberate bombing of civilian houses and UN buildings and targeting innocent civilians, we shouldn't stay silent.
When a country acts badly, whoever it is, it should be condemned. When a country continually acts badly, it should be continually condemned and i don't buy the right to defend itself argument, every nation in the World has that right, including the Palestinians and your right to defend yourself is on shaky ground when you are defending yourself against the people you have been murdering and occupying for the best part of seven decades.
The reason Israel is criticised so much is just has a lot to be criticised but what the Israeli Government want is for the Palestinians and the rest of us to meekly remain quiet while Israel continues to violently colonize their land in one of the greatest atrocities since the 2nd World War.

Israel's Right To Defend Itself Against The People It Is Oppressing

Something we hear every single time Israeli attack the Palestinians for firing rockets over the wall is that Israel has the right to defend itself and of course every nation in the World has that right, including the Palestinians who the Israeli's have been militarily occupying for the past 70 years and that trumps the right of the nation who launches a full out attack because the little guy they have been oppressing dares to throw a few punches back at it.
The mantra often repeated is that if Hamas stopped firing rockets into Israel then peace would prevail but while no rockets have been fired from the West Bank and Mahmoud Abbas acceding to almost all Israeli demands, Israel continue to make military incursions into it, stealing their land and uprooting Palestinians from their homes in a continuation of settler programs, continually adding to the 240,000 settlers illegally living on Palestine's West Bank.
How would the Government of any other nation, and Hamas is the legally elected Government of Palestine, react to being illegally occupied with the occupier blocking essential supplies of food, medicine and moving its own people to live on your land. I am pretty certain that no country on earth would sit quietly and let the occupier go merrily about its way and nobody would expect it to.  
Israel may wring it's hands and say that it regrets any loss of innocent life but it doesn't seem to be going out of its way to prevent it, the present action has seen 219 people, including almost 100 women and children, killed in Gaza so far forcing Israel into a PR exercise to counteract the images of dead Palestinian children being dragged from the rubble of their former homes.
This has gone on for decades and will continue all the time that the Palestinians are criticised more heavily when they fire rockets into Israel than Israel who are an occupying army illegally seizing and building settlements on Palestinian land, defying UN resolutions, killing Hamas politicians, holding over 9,000 Palestinians in its prisons, destroying farms, bulldozing homes and businesses and maintaining a monstrous wall deemed illegal by the international court of justice amongst numerous other human rights violations.
What Israel really want is for the Palestinians to meekly remain quiet while Israel continues to violently colonize their land so it doesn't matter what weak justifications Israeli spokesmen wheel out to try and calm the tide of angry criticisms aimed at them, there is no justification. Israel and its American backers are complicit in one of the greatest atrocities since the 2nd World War.
Your right to defend yourself is on shaky ground when you are defending yourself against the people you have been murdering and occupying for the best part of seven decades.