The Big Middle Eastern Thread

[OrangeKhrush]

On 03/06/2024 at 19:46, Dr. Gonzo said:

The two biggest extremists in Israel's government say they'll have their party (parties?) leave their coalition with Netanyahu if he accepts the ceasefire agreement with Hamas.

Seems win-win to me.

It pretty much is,  but then they will just go with Benny Gantz so the cycle continues.  

[Dr. Gonzo]

1 hour ago, OrangeKhrush said:

It pretty much is,  but then they will just go with Benny Gantz so the cycle continues.  

Doesn’t really matter cos Hamas rejected it.

[Dr. Gonzo]

15 hours ago, Redcanuck said:

Hamas hides among civilians and uses them as human shields.  Any civilian deaths which really aren't that many are on Hamas and Hamas alone.

The thing is Israel's demonstrated it can carry out very targetted attacks while minimising innocent loss of life, or even avoiding it entirely. When they assassinated the Iranian nuclear scientist, they had their robot machine gun programmed to only fire on him with facial recognition technology. So he was the only casualty. When they targeted the consulate attached to the Iranian embassy, they managed to only kill IRGC members with a missile strike.

Israel can hit its enemies with extreme precision. The leaders of Hamas aren't even in Gaza - they're in Turkey now I believe. Israel could be using Mossad to go after them and cut the head off the snake. What Israel has demonstrated it is capable of in terms of precision tactics and what Israel has demonstrated in the way it's been fighting Hamas is they don't have any regard for civilian life if they think they can get away with it. And the current tactics don't do anything in the long term - it just causes short term misery for Palestinians in Gaza who will then be easily radicalised by what they've been through that they continue the cycle of violence for the next generations.

The way Israel is fighting the war is sad honestly. At best, it's attempted genocide and several war crimes. People in Gaza are held hostage by Hamas, who have no actual regard for their safety - in fact, they view Israel not giving a shit about the use of human shields as a great thing for them propaganda wise... and it works. And Israeli leadership doesn't give a shit about their safety either - it seems any dead civilian in Israel is viewed as a potential terrorist so no sweat off anyone's back if any civilians die.

It's an ugly war. You can't remove Hamas's culpability in the death they've brought to Gaza's doorstep... but you certainly also can't remove Israel's culpability.

I also think it's weird too. We see Russia bomb Ukraine's hospitals and schools and they get universal condemnation for it. Quite rightly, too. But when Israel does the same thing, we're told it's not anywhere near as bad as what the Russians have done. Maybe war crimes should just be recognised as war crimes. Hamas are committing them by using civilians as human shields, absolutely.

But Israel's also committing them by going ahead and declaring schools and hospitals legitimate targets of war and then having people tell them the blood of the dead kids is certainly not on their hands.

[OrangeKhrush]

Hamas have nothing to lose,  they will be treated like heroes.  They have nothing to lose,  they hide amongst their own and want them to be in harms way, an enemy that has no losing situation and seeks no peace can lead to a situation that if Israel slips a gear this could get catastrophic. 

The international powers that be seem to not really care about the situation other than pay lip service for political gain,  Hamas are getting absolutely no pressure to cease and desist their tactics or talk about a ceasefire.    

[6666]

Israel really upset with the UN not supporting their genocide. Get away with intentionally killing, raping, and torturing Palestinians for decades isn't good enough. They want to be applauded for it as well. This terrorist state really has no self awareness.

[Redcanuck]

Statically speaking civilian deaths in Gaza aren't that high.  The only figures we hear are from Hamas and they are exaggerated and Hamas does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.  This is a war and civilians die in wars, usually in large numbers, and that's not happening in Gaza.  Traditionally it was claimed that for every combatant killed 3 civilians are killed, but in the last 30 or 40 years it has increased significantly.   In Gaza the ratio is much less than the traditional ratio of 3 to 1 and most of the civilian deaths happened in the first months of the war.   Since Israel changed its battlefield tactics civilian deaths are dropping and will continue to drop.

People have a tender to throw around words like genocide too easily.  The Holocaust,  the Holodmor, and what happened in Rwanda, Cambodia , Bosnia and what happened to the Armenians is genocide .  By definition what is happening in Gaza and to the people who claim to be Palastinian,  is in no way, no how a genocide.  There is no deliberate killing of a large number of people in Gaza or any attempt to destroy their country.  Any civilian deaths in Gaza are collateral damage, incidental and undesired due to Hamas hiding among them.   If Hamas would have come out into the open and fought like men, civilian deaths would have been minimal and this would have been over in weeks.

Edited June 8 by Redcanuck

[6666]

17 hours ago, Redcanuck said:

There is no deliberate killing of a large number of people in Gaza or any attempt to destroy their country.  Any civilian deaths in Gaza are collateral damage, incidental and undesired due to Hamas hiding among them. If Hamas would have come out into the open and fought like men, civilian deaths would have been minimal and this would have been over in weeks.

If every IDF terrorist threw themselves into the sea, this would've been over decades ago and there wouldn't have even been a need for Hamas to form.

Israel is a terrorist state. Israeli supporters can't even hide behind being naive anymore. What they are is clear for all to see.

[OrangeKhrush]

Four hostages recovered today in a successful extraction operation in Nuseirat.  

[6666]

1 hour ago, OrangeKhrush said:

Four hostages recovered today in a successful extraction operation in Nuseirat.  

Great that they weren't a victim to Israel's bombings that killed a lot of other hostages. They seem well fed and in good shape as well so thankfully Hamas treats hostages better than Israel treats every Palestinian.

The other side of it of the "successful extraction" included murdering over 100 refugees and injuring many others. Zionist extremists obviously see that as a bonus rather than Israel using it as another opportunity to go on a murder spree.

But I'm sure you'd be okay with a few Palestinians, wrongly held by Israel, being freed at the expense of 100 Israelis. You'd never be a hypocrite.

Hostages were freed but it was yet another example of the IDF being complete and utter scum.

[OrangeKhrush]

12 hours ago, 6666 said:

Great that they weren't a victim to Israel's bombings that killed a lot of other hostages. They seem well fed and in good shape as well so thankfully Hamas treats hostages better than Israel treats every Palestinian.

The other side of it of the "successful extraction" included murdering over 100 refugees and injuring many others. Zionist extremists obviously see that as a bonus rather than Israel using it as another opportunity to go on a murder spree.

But I'm sure you'd be okay with a few Palestinians, wrongly held by Israel, being freed at the expense of 100 Israelis. You'd never be a hypocrite.

Hostages were freed but it was yet another example of the IDF being complete and utter scum.

The US had surveillance and reported no civilians deliberately killed in fierce fighting with hundreds of Hamas insurgents.   Hamas sold it as civilians but this was a US and Israeli joint operation.   It shows the same pattern, hamas start to lose fall back and throw civilians in the way.   

Hundreds of insurgents got killed and sadly one casualty.  

Genevas conventions on war require a party holding POWs or hostages to keep them safe,  intentionally exposing them to a warzone without notifying the other belligerent that the area has hostages is a war crime, killing POWs is a war crime.  To this day Hamas have not really said how many are alive or where they are.

Can this conflict end, possibly however it is looking like the real benefactors are in Riyad and Washington.  The US get coastal exploratory rights and a Mediterranean deep sea port, the Saudis get american weapons of destruction and all israel and palastine gets is a "certificate of recognition".

[6666]

8 hours ago, OrangeKhrush said:

Hundreds of insurgents got killed and sadly one casualty.

You can't be this naive.

[6666]

When even the New York Times are in a position where they feel they have to expose Israel, you know their influence isn't as strong as it was at the start of this round of the conflict.

How anyone sides with these bastards is mind boggling. Nazis.

Edited June 10 by 6666

[MUFC]

 

[Azeem]

[Azeem]

On 15/02/2022 at 02:04, nudge said:

"Allowed self-determination"  Gee, I guess we should be thankful that we were "allowed" to restore our legitimate 980 year old state after 200 years of oppressive yet unsuccessful Russification policies.

 

On 15/02/2022 at 02:22, nudge said:

Lithuania. First mention of Lithuania in 1009, unified under one Duke in the 13th century, Kingdom of Lithuania founded in 1253. Grand Duchy of Lithuania was the largest country in Europe by the 14th century, then it was transformed into the Commonwealth of Poland and Lithuania in 1569, then got partitioned three times by the Russian Empire, Prussia, and the Habsburg Monarchy in the late 18th century. Two unsuccessful uprisings in the mid 19th century, and then finally regained independece in 1918, only to lose it thanks to  Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and be occupied first by the Germans and then given to the Soviets after the WWII. Then after ongoing partisan and dissident activities for over 40 years, the first Soviet-occupied state to announce the restitution of independence in 1990. 

Was going through the Russia-Ukraine thread and came across these posts by nudge with regards to Lithuania which a lot of members were up-voting. And my mind immediately went to Palestine. Literally replace Lithuania with Palestine and everything feels the same.

'I guess Palestine should be thankful that they were "allowed" to restore their legitimate state after nearly 100 years of oppressive yet unsuccessful Israelification policies'

Similarly Palestine was unified and partitioned by many empires over time, then were promised a unified Arab state by Brits who duped them, occupied it and then gave it to Israelis after WWII. Then partisan and dissident activities are ongoing for 70 something years now. 

But people who would be up-voting these posts bring up flimsy apologetic arguments to justify Israel's creation muh but Holocaust etc as if Palestinians had anything to do with it. 

It took Lithuania 200 years to take its independence so give Palestinians time they have a bigger uphill task since they are mostly abandoned by every relevant power circle and have the full might of current superpower against them.

 

[Rucksackfranzose]

1 hour ago, Beelzebub said:

 

Was going through the Russia-Ukraine thread and came across these posts by nudge with regards to Lithuania which a lot of members were up-voting. And my mind immediately went to Palestine. Literally replace Lithuania with Palestine and everything feels the same.

'I guess Palestine should be thankful that they were "allowed" to restore their legitimate state after nearly 100 years of oppressive yet unsuccessful Israelification policies'

Similarly Palestine was unified and partitioned by many empires over time, then were promised a unified Arab state by Brits who duped them, occupied it and then gave it to Israelis after WWII. Then partisan and dissident activities are ongoing for 70 something years now. 

But people who would be up-voting these posts bring up flimsy apologetic arguments to justify Israel's creation muh but Holocaust etc as if Palestinians had anything to do with it. 

It took Lithuania 200 years to take its independence so give Palestinians time they have a bigger uphill task since they are mostly abandoned by every relevant power circle and have the full might of current superpower against them.

 

There is a difference, though. Palestine never existed as a souvereign state contrary to Lithuania.

[Azeem]

 

[Spike]

10 hours ago, Rucksackfranzose said:

There is a difference, though. Palestine never existed as a souvereign state contrary to Lithuania.

I’d say the difference is that Lithuania wasn’t colonised during its occupation and partitioning, as far as I know. Correct me if I’m wrong but even as a Soviet state Lithuanians weren’t displaced(?). @nudge

[Azeem]

48 minutes ago, Spike said:

I’d say the difference is that Lithuania wasn’t colonised during its occupation and partitioning, as far as I know. Correct me if I’m wrong but even as a Soviet state Lithuanians weren’t displaced(?). @nudge

a lot Lithuanians along with others were taken to those Gulags if I'm not wrong which imo is displacing them

[Azeem]

This is the fourth such act recently, three of them related to Palestine. 

We were having the discussion on Discord about boycotting Boeing and how we can't boycott everything since we'll end up giving up almost everything then. It's true but there is also a dark message in it that the more you percept how the world works on a macro level the more evil you start seeing from corporations to governments. This can make people lose their sanity. 

People just brush off these cases ah they must've been wackos but it's much deeper than that

[nudge+]

6 hours ago, Spike said:

I’d say the difference is that Lithuania wasn’t colonised during its occupation and partitioning, as far as I know. Correct me if I’m wrong but even as a Soviet state Lithuanians weren’t displaced(?). @nudge

From 1941 to 1953 (so until Stalin's death), there were 35 mass deportation waves where Lithuanians - mostly landowners, political activists, culture figures and intellectuals - were forcibly removed and sent to remote, barely habitable areas in Siberia and Gulag forced labour camps (like Azeem mentioned already, although that was mainly reserved for guerilla fighters and political prisoners) together with their families. The official numbers, depending on the source, vary from 150.000  to 300.000 people, mostly women and children, so that makes up around 6-12% of the population at the time. In addition to that, around 200.000 ethnic Russians were moved to Lithuania at that time as another part of Sovietization policies. 

Around 250.000 people were displaced before the occupation, but that was mostly due to war and impeding annexation. 

During the time in the Russian Empire earlier, displacement was not really a thing, and assimilative russification policies such as banning Lithuanian press, schools, religion, cultural events etc. were preferred. I think we are the only nation in the world that has a word for "book smuggler", lol

[Dr. Gonzo]

Netanyahu formally disbands his war cabinet after Gantz and the other member of his unity government have fucked off.

[Azeem]

And this militancy/terrorism by Zionists was not aimed at the Palestinians but chiefly at the British. To understand this the key event was the White Paper of 1939 about Palestine issued by the British parliament.

In early 1939, it was clear that another world war was on the horizon, British were worried about their two prized colonies Palestine and subcontinent. There were fears Germany Italy will aid the Arabs in Middle East and the Japanese would aid the Indians in subcontinent against Britain and the locals had all the reasons to take their support since Brits had duped and molested them so many times ,the Arab revolt of 1936 and Indian revolt of 1857 which although failed but left lasting acrimony in the local populations.

Eventually many figures like Mufti Hussaini and Chandra Bose from India who indeed sought help from Axis powers to liberate their countries, even Gandhi once threatened that he will consider allying with Japan if Brits don't give Indian demands.

To placate the situations above British knew the issue of Palestine was one of the main reasons why the Arabs and Indian Muslims loathed the Brits. So in Feb 1939 House of Commons passed the White Paper on Palestine which practically said that the Balfour declaration of 1917 was unfair and never actually meant that a Jewish state must be established, restricted Jewish immigration and sale of land for 5 years and insured creation of a Palestinian state in 10 years with representative bodies based on population proportion which obviously meant Palestinian majority. 

While eventually none of these promises apart from restricted immigration were fulfilled, but this paper greatly pissed off the Zionists. Ben-Gurion famously said in a speech that now we will act as the state in Palestine until we actually become the state and if Brits try to supress us, our rebellion will be more unpleasant than the Arab rebellion. 

After this the Zionists concluded that

a) Britain was no longer the patron for their Zionist ambitions and they need a new patron

b) Britain intends to keep Palestine like other colonies and they need to force the British out of Palestine even through violence

For the first, they started to shift their overseas lobbying efforts from Britain to you guessed it right, USA. A conference was held at Biltmore Hotel in NY in 1942 to signal this shift.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biltmore_Conference

For the second,multiple Zionist militias started attacks on British personnel and assests in Palestine. They attacked British rail networks, killed British soldiers and civilians, destroyed ships which were meant to stop illegal immigration. These gradual attacks kept happening throughout WW2 with varying intensity.

Infamous among of these acts of militancy/terrorism by Zionists was the assassination of British minister of Middle East affairs in Cairo, Lord Moyne in 1944.

Churchill was livid after the murder of Moyne bcz not only was he a high ranking official but also a personal friend. He gave the following angry speech in the parliament following his murder.

" If the dreams of Zionism are to end in the smoke of assassin's pistols and our labor for its future only to produce a new set of gangsters worthy of Nazi Germany, many like myself will have to reconsider our position... "

This was a serious threat and many Zionist leaders like Ben-Gurion condemned the murder, disassociating with it but that was temporary as Ben-Gurion a year later was in full support of violence and contacted affluent Zionists in US to send ammunition and even setup plants in Palestine.

In 1946, Zionists first carried out a series of attacks on bridges that connected Palestine to neighboring areas which were vital for logistics for the British. The Brits had enough after that and started to crackdown on Zionist settlements, confiscated enough ammunition to arm whole infantries, some documents outlying Zionist plans and arrested a number of Zionists including one future Israeli PM.

In retaliation to this, Zionists carried out the most famous incident of militancy/terrorism, the King David Hotel in Jerusalem. The hotel housed many British offices and was the primary seat of British administration. Multiple bombs rocked the building killing around a hundred people, destroyed many offices and the documents confiscated by Brits outlying Zionist plans were also destroyed. 

The attacks continued in 1947, Zionists attacked a British officer's club killing around 38 people and tried a jail break to free the captured Zionist militant/terrorists. During the jail-break the British captured 5 militants/terrorists, two of them were pardoned due to being underage but rest three were sentenced to death. In retaliation, Zionists captured two British sergeants as hostages and demanded the release of their comrades. Brits didn't kowtowed and executed the three and the Zionists also keeping their word hanged the two sergeants, booby trapped their hanging bodies with explosives in case anyone tried to cut them down. 

It was under these circumstances the Brits decided to take the case of Palestine to U.N themselves. Then British foreign minister, Ervin Bevin, openly denounced the creation of a Jewish state and gave a sarcastic livid speech aimed at the Americans for supporting Zionist militancy/terrorism and forwarded his case to UN that Palestine should remain in a trusteeship under British assurance. However Zionists and Americans wanted to partition Palestine with the lion's share going to Zionists and rest is history.

 

One less understood point from all this is that Brits and Zionists was a transactional relationship, they went from best chumps to active hostilities and one cannot help but think that US-Israel bromance will also go down the same route one day ? with younger American generation more aware of the ground situation due to social media and boomer politician class like Biden Trump one feet in the grave, Zionists lobby groups will eventually decide to ditch US as hub of their activities. 

 

[MUFC]

 

[OrangeKhrush]

9 hours ago, MUFC said:

 

He got absolutely embarrassed by Douglas Murray and Natasha Hausdorff,  it started of with him misquoting Belfour then contorting it before going off the rails with "anti zionism" schtick.   The guy was fired from Al Jezeera in 2012 for publishing a piece on how hating Jews is a muslims dirty secret.