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| The Ill Wind’s Beneficiary: George Galloway’s Rochdale by-election victory will make not one whit of difference to the unfolding catastrophe in Gaza. He will be despised by virtually the whole of the British Establishment, including the overwhelming majority of his parliamentary colleagues. Aside from making speeches in front of evermore bloodthirsty assemblies of Israel’s enemies, Galloway will have little to offer the people of his constituency, or the broader labour movement. |
GEORGE GALLOWAY’S STUNNING VICTORY in Rochdale has provoked a sharp response from leftists whose primary analytical focus remains socio-economic. Galloway turned the by-election into a referendum on the two main British political parties’ stance on the war in Gaza. Successfully exploiting the fact that 30 percent of the Rochdale electorate (located on the periphery of Greater Manchester) is Muslim, Galloway secured 40 percent of the votes cast.
A minority of leftist commentators lamented the fact that the immediate needs of the working-class people of Rochdale had been superseded by the needs of the Palestinians. Galloway’s win has, however, been hailed as a triumph by the sort of leftist who no longer sees white workers as a progressive force. For those who do, Rochdale isn’t worth the fuss all these “progressives” are making of it.
Too harsh? Not at all. Galloway’s victory will make not one whit of difference to the unfolding catastrophe in Gaza. He will be despised by virtually the whole of the British Establishment, including the overwhelming majority of his parliamentary colleagues. Aside from making speeches in front of evermore bloodthirsty assemblies of Israel’s enemies, Galloway will have little to offer the people of his constituency, or the broader labour movement. There are precious few red flags to be found amongst the thousands of Palestinian flags being brandished by anti-Israel demonstrators. And those that do appear are not announcing an English revolution.
Not that New Zealand has any need of a George Galloway to defend the Palestinian cause in its Parliament – not with the Green Party of Aotearoa so willing to do the job. New Zealand’s Labour Party, in sharp contrast to its British counterpart, is only marginally less supportive of Palestine than the Greens. Meanwhile, Te Pāti Māori has been quick to link the Palestinians’ fight against “racism” and “colonialism” with their own.
That a majority of New Zealanders stand with Israel in its war against Hamas, daunts not one of this country’s “left-wing” parties. On this issue, as on so many others dear to the hearts of “progressive” Kiwis, there is no room for dissidence; no possibility of debate.
How did the New Zealand Left come to abandon the politics of class, in favour of expressing unquestioning solidarity with emphatically non-progressive religious/political movements in far-off lands – and why? The following comparison may help to clarify at least some of the issues in play.
The Destiny Church is a fundamentalist Christian organisation pursuing a radical right-wing political agenda. It recruits most of its followers from the indigenous poor, to whom it offers practical, as well as spiritual, assistance. Its religious doctrine is theologically conservative, militantly patriarchal and virulently homophobic. Brian Tamaki, the Destiny Church’s charismatic leader, is constantly striving to win political power. His objective is to acquire the means to enforce what he believes to be the will of God upon a nation of unrepentant atheists, apostates and sinners.
Destiny’s pursuit of political power has been singularly unsuccessful. His parties’ share of the Party Vote in successive elections has hovered around 1 percent. Tamaki’s uncompromising religious fanaticism does not sit well with New Zealand’s largely secular electorate. Certainly, no one describing themselves as a leftist would ever consider voting for Tamaki’s religious/political enterprises.
Why, then, are so many leftists coming out on the streets in support of a Palestinian religious/political regime drawn from a movement bearing a more than passing resemblance to Brian Tamaki’s? Hamas is theologically conservative in its interpretation and application of the Muslim faith. It, too, is militantly patriarchal and virulently homophobic in its socio-cultural attitudes. It has also pursued political power relentlessly to restore spiritual order and punish the unfaithful. The fundamental difference between these two movements is that Destiny remains politically powerless, while Hamas has ruled the Gaza Strip since 2007.
All those “progressives” spluttering and guffawing at this comparison, should consider this follow-up question. If New Zealand was occupied by what its people considered an alien nation, a nation which New Zealand’s secular resistance movement, in spite of plentiful military and financial support, had consistently failed to defeat, how confident could they be that the passionate certainties of a body like the Destiny Church would continue to be rejected by a majority of voters?
Not confident at all, is the honest answer. Except Western “progressives” would never submit to the rule of such a government. Their innate sense of superiority, and their lofty disdain for the credulous and the ignorant, would prevent them supporting such a movement – unless, of course, it was a movement located in a country far enough away for them not to have to worry too much about the manner in which its people are governed.
The truth is that it’s not the people, or the nature of their government, or even the fact that they are suffering, that engages the western progressive, it’s the identity of the nation, or nations, inflicting the suffering. If the nation inflicting pain and suffering on the Palestinians was an Arab nation, a Muslim nation, would hundreds-of-thousands of westerners be marching in protest? After all, while tens-of-thousands of Gazans are dying at the hands of the IDF, similar numbers of Sudanese Christians are being shot and starved by their fellow citizens. Who is chanting and waving flags for them?
Not many, if any. Because, it isn’t death and suffering that western progressives are concerned about, it’s who’s to blame. If the pain isn’t being inflicted by human-beings like themselves, upon human-beings emphatically unlike themselves, then really, they’re not that interested.
Where is the international movement against the oppression of women in Afghanistan to equal the international movement that emerged to fight the oppression of Blacks in South Africa? There is no such movement. Why, because those responsible for oppressing Afghan women and girls are defiantly misogynistic, murderously homophobic, Islamist fanatics. If only they were Americans or Europeans! Then it would be a very different story!
Can it really be that simple? Is it simply a matter of the Western Left’s overwhelming self-loathing? Having failed to change their own societies – doubtless because “their” workers were too fat and happy to bother, or, more likely, too culturally conservative to see revolution as anything other than a mortal danger to all but the most unpleasant kinds of human-being – did the Western Left simply decide to stop cheering for the “genocidal” cowboys, and start rooting for the “colonised” Native Americans?
Or, in George Galloway’s case – the Palestinians.
Where is the international movement against the oppression of women in Afghanistan to equal the international movement that emerged to fight the oppression of Blacks in South Africa? There is no such movement. Why, because those responsible for oppressing Afghan women and girls are defiantly misogynistic, murderously homophobic, Islamist fanatics. If only they were Americans or Europeans! Then it would be a very different story!
Can it really be that simple? Is it simply a matter of the Western Left’s overwhelming self-loathing? Having failed to change their own societies – doubtless because “their” workers were too fat and happy to bother, or, more likely, too culturally conservative to see revolution as anything other than a mortal danger to all but the most unpleasant kinds of human-being – did the Western Left simply decide to stop cheering for the “genocidal” cowboys, and start rooting for the “colonised” Native Americans?
Or, in George Galloway’s case – the Palestinians.
This essay was originally posted on The Democracy Project of Monday, 4 March 2024.
30 comments:
Looking at this para I think of what I have read about the birth of the Mafia. They amassed and helped the poor and downtrodden when there was no-one else. Now they have much power and that help is limited to their decision and will; the veil of fairness and charity is removed and dominance is prevalent.
The Destiny Church is a fundamentalist Christian organisation pursuing a radical right-wing political agenda. It recruits most of its followers from the indigenous poor, to whom it offers practical, as well as spiritual, assistance. Its religious doctrine is theologically conservative, militantly patriarchal and virulently homophobic...
This about the start of the local protection groups in Sicily going back centuries.
For centuries, Sicily, an island in the Mediterranean Sea between North Africa and the Italian mainland, was ruled by a long line of foreign invaders, including the Phoenicians, Romans, Arabs, French and Spanish. The residents of this small island formed groups to protect themselves from the often-hostile occupying forces, as well as from other regional groups of Sicilians.
These groups, which later became known as clans or families, developed their own system for justice and retribution, carrying out their actions in secret. By the 19th century, small private armies known as “mafie” took advantage of the frequently violent, chaotic conditions in Sicily and extorted protection money from landowners. From this history, the Sicilian Mafia emerged as a collection of criminal clans or families...
Although its precise origins are unknown, the term Mafia came from a Sicilian-Arabic slang expression that means “acting as a protector against the arrogance of the powerful,” according to Selwyn Raab, author of “Five Families: The Rise, Decline, and Resurgence of America’s Most Powerful Mafia Empires...
https://www.history.com/topics/crime/origins-of-the-mafia#section_1
Is this a likely pattern for our future?
After all this time, they still don't get it. There is a VERY angry electorate out there in Anglophonia. Does anyone seriously think the voters who elected the likes of Galloway, Trump, or Fat Freddy's Cat imagine them to be messianic saviours? They are there to wipe the eye of established authority. If they do achieve something to the good of their constituency, that by-product will be a very welcome, no doubt.
Since their imperial masters are skimping on bread and circuses both, the plebs will provide their own lions for the socio-political arena. Galloway's job is to give the likes of the gross moral twerpitude that calls itself Conservative and/or Labour a good and thorough mauling. Donald Trump's voters will be hoping for something equally entertaining coming from the appropriately shaped Oval Office.
Meanwhile, there is an Internationally Legal obligation upon the government of this country to act - A.C.T. act - against genocide whenever and wherever it occurs. Where is it? Hiding behind Aunty Sam's skirts as usual, and the fiction that the war in Gaza (and the West Bank) began on 7 October 2023. It did not. The war began - the genocide began - in 1948 if not earlier...
Cheers,
Ion A. Dowman
Eddie Izzard when he was in his male cross-dressing phase did some funny sardonic shows. This is a clip on famous mass murderers. He talks about the reaction of free western nations at around 2.10mins.-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bk_pHZmn5QM
George Galloway is an eloquent fool and a carpet bagger willing to completely ignore, or excuse, the most vile atrocities provided they serve his hatred. The gang rapes, necrophilia, torture, beheadings, immolation, mutilation and murder of innocents are merely "a break out from a concentration camp" according to him. Meanwhile his pretenders here, the John Mintos and Cloe Swarbricks, are calling for a ceasefire and intifada, war and peace, in the same breath.
Ion: "The war began - the genocide began - in 1948 if not earlier..."
A lot earlier Ion, try the siege of Banu Qurayza in 627 and the beheading of hundreds of male Jew captives by the prophet himself. Yes, I know, "not all Muslims" but it's certainly a long and bloody history from the "religion of peace". Do you ever wonder what happened, and is still happening, to the beleaguered and terrified remnants of the Armenians, Buddhists, Berbers, Christians, Druze, Hindus, Jews, Kurds, Yazidis or Zoroastrians from the middle east and North Africa? Or the current murder and mutilation of Christians in sub Saharan Africa? Forced to submit or be put to the sword. The Israelis are under no illusion that they wouldn't be subject to the same; recent events have certainly confirmed their worst fears.
A lot of the modern Jihad can be traced to the creation of the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt in the 1920's and it's subsequent offshoots ISIS, Hamas etc. Here's a very good discussion with Somalian refugee Ayaan Hirsi Ali in which she explains the rise of the modern Jihad, a warning to the West and how our “Elites Have Allowed This To Happen!”.
https://youtu.be/QnctRKUQtwg
"Is it simply a matter of the Western Left’s overwhelming self-loathing? "
Yes, plus a need to belong because they have zero self esteem.
Imagine being a politician aspiring to be a leader when you haven't got a single clue about what to do when you become leader. What to do? Get a hundred working groups together stacked with people like yourself, clueless, and then get on with enjoying life disconnected from the people who elected you because you despise them. Sounds perfect.
The history of the Sicilian Mafia does not go back centuries. They and their Neapolitan cousins - the Camora - emerged as prison gangs in the mid-19th century.
The Calabrian Ndrangheta emerged as a prison gang in the 1880s
These parasitic termites followed the flood of poor people from southern Italy into the USA, Canada and Australia.
Thankfully, New Zealand did not let enough poor Italians move here to provide cover for their criminals. Oddly, the small Greek community in Wellington does harbour a small mafia - a fact that Hugh "Dean" Whitcliffe can attest to.
The Triads only arrived here after the Lange-Douglas government opened our doors to every Tom, Dick and Harry in 1987. Now Vietnamese cannabis growing operations have surfaced in New Zealand and have been in Australia and Britain for even longer.
It is an undeniable truth that if First World nations let in migrants from shady Third World nations, their indigenous organised crime organisations will follow.
Can't really agree with you here, Chris. You are quite (and indisputably) right in labeling Hamas an extremist, fundamentalist group attached to violence. In all likelihood its leaders and its committed members hate Jews as a group, not just Israelis -- in fact they probably hate the entire West. I don't support them. But Israel has brought this situation upon itself. It had several DECADES to come up with a decent compromise solution and deal with less extreme Palestinian/Arab/Moslem factions. By a compromise solution I mean either a viable Palestinian state with unified boundaries, or else a largely secular Israel where religious affiliation was not a defining characteristic of political, economic and social life. There were attempts at this brokered by Egypt in decades past. They were not implemented; they were never taken seriously. Is Israel a modern western democratic state -- the proof of the pudding, as they say, is in the eating, and it doesn't behave like a modern western state should. (Actually, well, do most "modern western democratic states" behave any better???) But back to my point -- Hamas has risen up because other alternatives failed. Do most people in Gaza support it? How would we know? And what alternative do they have?
Here's a great essay from US senator Josh Hawley. Our Christian Nation.
Excerpt:
"I’ll say it again: A Christian society requires a Christian economy. Why should we be hesitant to insist on this obvious truth? And why would we hesitate to insist that a Christian economy is one in which a man can support himself—and his wife and their children—by the work of his own hands, independent of government or charity? A Christian economy is one in which parents—and I mean everyday folks, not just the most talented and well-placed—can afford to have children and raise them, without turning to a government day care so that both parents can rush back to the service of the global corporations that claim every second of their waking energy, often in return for paltry wages.
Today we have the opposite of a Christian economy, one that privileges hedge funds and global capital over workers, the childless banker in Manhattan over the welder and his family in Missouri. The dirty little secret of Washington, D.C. is that for decades now both parties have embraced largely the same agenda: the free flow of global capital, unlimited imports of cheap foreign goods, tax handouts to corporations that ship away American jobs, and the ready supply of cheap labor. These policies add up to a massive system of preferences for a tiny set of industries—Wall Street, Hollywood, and Silicon Valley, principally—and one social class, the tippy top. This is not right. It is not just. And Christians who care about marriage, family, and labor should not stand for it."
https://www.firstthings.com/article/2024/02/our-christian-nation
Here and now can we concentrate on stopping more bad things happen in this ugly furore between sacred Israelis and base Palestinians. It is shocking to hear how wild your lack of reasoning becomes David George when you bring up very ancient tribulations. And you talk of disgraceful happenings now; well there is a war. In war men and women too, are trained to deny their values training and finer feelings, and atrocities happen. These then may make the basis for the next war, in retaliation and revenge, and so it goes as Kurt Vonnegut writes.
I have often thought that if we conducted ourselves to the rules laid out for sporting matches we might get a better civilisation. I think someone should blow the whistle on Israelis and yourself Mr George. You have virtually streaked across the pitch, and are upsetting any order that might show how to bring the game to a conclusion. It shouldn't play on into extra time.
The comparison of Hamas with Destiny Church may have limited application. I found it curious that Destiny Church members or supporters, wearing Man Up tee-shirts, were a notable presence at a pro-Israel rally in October last year. I missed the opportunity to discover their take on Israel, but clearly Tamaki is a keen supporter of it. He opposes Islam as a threat to Christianity and Western values, and in civilisationist terms he’s on point. On the other hand he may be hiding apocalyptic prophecies from the less gullible.
A lot of the modern Jihad can be traced to the creation of the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt in the 1920's and it's subsequent offshoots ISIS, Hamas etc. Here's a very good discussion with Somalian refugee Ayaan Hirsi Ali in which she explains the rise of the modern Jihad, a warning to the West and how our “Elites Have Allowed This To Happen!”.
I am reading a book on how Nazis began and Germany's attempt for a democracy got strangled, the Weimar Republic went down, 'The Death of Democracy' by Benjamin Carter Hett, who seems to make sense. I don't know his general standing. This was happening in Germany about the same time 1920's. It seems that many dark growths got going then.
This from Patrick Boucheron,'The Art of Teaching People What to Fear'.Spreading fear; the political uses of an emotion), asked whether the American way of fear might be exported around the world...The discussion touched on Machiavelli among others, who continually inquired about the fears of those who govern: What makes them truly afraid? When justice stops being effective (or when crimes of corruption stop being punished) and when political violence is no longer a threat, there is nothing left to cause fear in those who govern shamelessly; that is, buoyed by a mood they aren't in control of, and that no one is on hand to countervail. What will then happen to the republic?
This question inevitably arises when anxiety is felt about democracy, because the republic loses its stability where it no longer reflects a pacified equilibrium between the different fears that divide it.
I am ignorant about the importance of fear in moulding a society's combined response. It would be interesting to keep in mind.
Oh my god
Well your old audience was flagging .you've got a new one now.
By the way , people aren't going on to the streets to support Hamas, they're going on to the streets to protest the mass killing of Palestinian non militants, mostly women and children, the starvation and genocidal tactics as described by the Un's court of justice.
Most people , left or right , tend not to favour that sort of thing.
A lot earlier Ion, try the siege of Banu Qurayza in 627 and the beheading of hundreds of male Jew captives by the prophet himself. Yes, I know, "not all Muslims" but it's certainly a long and bloody history from the "religion of peace". Do you ever wonder what happened, and is still happening, to the beleaguered and terrified remnants of the Armenians, Buddhists, Berbers, Christians, Druze, Hindus, Jews, Kurds, Yazidis or Zoroastrians from the middle east and North Africa? Or the current murder and mutilation of Christians in sub Saharan Africa? Forced to submit or be put to the sword. The Israelis are under no illusion that they wouldn't be subject to the same; recent events have certainly confirmed their worst fears.
Long and bloody history? In historical terms, the epicentre of international antisemitism was not the Muslim world. It was Christian Europe, Tsarist Russia in particular, but with Catholic France as a (dis)-honourable mention. Some of us are even sufficiently well-acquainted with history to note that antisemitism was practically universal on the political Right throughout the Western World prior to the Second World War.
When even Jeremy Corbyn doesn't think too highly of George Galloway...
https://news.sky.com/story/complete-non-starter-jeremy-corbyn-allies-snub-george-galloways-plea-for-political-pact-with-ex-labour-leader-13088286
And lest we forget Galloway's cosiness with alt-Wrong apostle Steve Bannon...
https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/2019-05-27/ty-article-opinion/.premium/fascism-and-the-far-left-a-grim-global-love-affair/0000017f-e22b-d804-ad7f-f3fb62210000
The euphemistic Hamas "river to the sea" chant is essentially, and manifestly, a call for the expulsion and genocide of the Israelis.
The modern state of Israel was established as a haven for the Jews, a place where they didn't have to worry that people would kill them for being Jewish. Some people, the useful idiots, say that the very idea of their haven is an affront to human rights. It's a weak argument; firstly by completely ignoring the fact that Israel is a pluralistic, democratic and liberal state by most measures(and certainly by comparison to it's benighted neighbours) and secondly by ignoring the necessity for it's establishment in the past, and increasingly and obviously, it's necessity in the present.
The ethnic North African and Middle Eastern Jews have largely fled, exiled to Israel and elsewhere or been forced into submission or been killed. Here's a summary of that over the past 75 years.
Jews in Egypt 1948 63,550 now 3.
Syria 40,000 now 0.
Iran 100,000 now 8,500.
Iraq 150,000 now 4.
Lebanon 20,000 now 29.
Morocco 265,000 now 2,100.
Yemen 55,000 now 1
Algeria 140,000 now 200
Libya 38,000 now 0
Tunisia 105,000 now 1,000
Gaza 7,949 now 0
By contrast there are now 2,100,000 (from 156,000) Arabs in Israel and 2,000,000 (from 80,000) Arabs in Gaza.
Thanks Grey, it's not really the "ancient tribulations" that should concern us but, as you elaborate yourself, their transmission into the present. It's impossible to properly consider the current conflict without an understanding of it's roots.
Founded in Egypt in the 1920s the virulently anti Jewish Muslim Brotherhood promoted a pervasive anti-Semitism distinct from anti-Zionism and directed towards "Jews" in general. Likewise it's modern scions, ISIS and Hamas etc. The fundamentalist's Jew hatred goes back to the "hiding Jew" hadith, in which Muhammad is quoted as saying that Judgment Day "will not come until the Muslims fights the Jews and kill them," for instance.
The hadith predates the State of Israel by well over a millennium, so it certainly can't be attributed to Israeli provocation. I really do recommend that Ayaan Hirsi Ali discussion(posted above) to help understand what's going on.
Anonymous: "people aren't going on to the streets to support Hamas"
Yes they are, many of them, read the posters. Others, perhaps, just misguided enough to think this wouldn't be over tomorrow if the Palestinians simply released the hostages and handed over the perpetrators to justice.
Yes of course DS, they don't call it "the oldest hatred" for nothing. The Israelis fled persecution in Eastern and Central Europe as well as North Africa and the Middle East. That's why Israel is so important to them; they've nowhere else to go - even the relatively safe liberal Western countries have allowed Jew hatred to fester.
There was a proposal for a Jewish homeland in Uruguay. There was, and is, a strong Jewish community there having experienced a significant influx of Jewish
immigration in the early twentieth century. For the most part, these immigrants were fleeing pogroms and persecution in Russia and Eastern Europe.
Shame that didn't eventuate but here we are.
The show of support in our Parliament for Hamas led Gaza, from the left, ( mainly Greens and the Maori party) making a show of how morally superior and empathetic they are as compared to the cruel hard right coalition, was typically naive. This may have been half acceptable if they had left out their quote "from the river to the sea" which has tested their historical knowledge which is as shallow as a paddle pool. Most intelligent people may be loathing of the thousands of deaths that have occurred, but understand two thousand years of history has unfolded into the complicated situation that exists there. It was bewildering to me to see the now new co leader of the Greens and others wearing Keffiyeh chanting and smiling. It's a long while since I have seen anything so ignorant. I can only imagine how the media would have treated Luxon and company if they had done it. This immature need to have themselves seen as good and the National coalition seen as bad, is where the left is. Stuck in their philosophical bog.
Just to add and to emphasise, DS, "not all Muslims"; Muslim Brotherhood, ISIS, Hamas etc. are the enemies of much of the Middle East, not just Israel. Egypt declared MB a banned terrorist organisation and it's former leader is due to be executed. They seek, by whatever means, the overthrow of secular, monarchical or democratic governance and the establishment of a Caliphate over, ultimately, the whole world. A totalitarian, fundamentalist governance dictated by the beliefs of a medieval warlord essentially.
The Saudi royal family and the Egyptian government, among others, are all to well aware of the implications of that and the ever present danger of their popular support slipping away and towards sympathy for the Caliphatists. Much of Hamas propaganda is aimed at that end - and for the support of their useful idiots in the West.
As I suggested, that talk by Ali is well worth listening to for an insight into the "thinking"- she was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood.
The modern progressive left are a terrible mess of contradictions. Look no further than the Labour Green government just gone!
But what welds them together as a cult is their loathing of what looks back at them in the mirror, their white European faces.
Its that insane!
Zionism as expressed in Israel is a extreme sect of Judaism. Israel was formed as a result of western guilt born off the halocaust and is now governed by religious extremists.Palestinians are not Hamas and are not exclusively Muslim. Israel has waged war against them for decades, illegally occupies a significant secton of Palestine and now as a result of the awful Hamas raid is murdering them at a level that goes way beyond any sense of retribution and justice. What is happening is wanton murder, genocide, while the West coĺludes. Palestinians have been living with violence and persecution for decades, yet by far the majority want to live in peace and earn an honest living. However they cant even do this without settler and IDF violence. Confiscation and night raids abound. In both Israel and the US there is a growing Israeli lobby opposing this war. Self righteous pontificating on a computer keyboard on the sins of Palestinians is both misguided and hypocritical.
Thanks Chris, self righteous pontificating?
it's not every Palestinian, the problem is that Gaza is (was?) in the grip of Hamas. Hamas are committed to the destruction of Israel, that's what they've said and what they are (were?) doing. It's not a fight for freedom and rights; they don't even believe in those things - the brutal, repressive Iranian regime is more their ideal. Nor do their fellow jihadis ISIS, Boko Harm, Al-Qaeda etc. Blame the Israelis all you like but it can't explain the Islamist atrocities against the Yazidis or the Nigerian Christians - for example. Did they deserve it as well?
Do you genuinely blame Israel for wanting to defend themselves and contain Hamas, to restrict the flow of weapons from the Islamic Republic of Iran? Surely the near constant rain of rockets and terrorist attacks from Hamas isn't the sort of thing anyone wanting peace and trust to flourish would do.
The Queen of Jordan recently expressed sympathy for the Palestinians cause; of course she did. She has to, knowing the Islamists within her country would use anything vaguely pro Israel as fuel for their fight to overthrow her government. They, and the Saudis, Egyptians etc. won't open their door for the Palestinians knowing full well they would be infested with extremists intent on their destruction as well.
Chris, modern Zionism, the development of the concrete prospect of a Jewish homeland, pre-dates the Holocaust by 50 years - largely as a consequence of the oppression (and worse) of the Eastern European Jews. The Holocaust, the wholesale slaughter by the Nazis, certainly gave it impetus however. Though there is a religious aspect to it, it's expression in modern Israel is hardly an "extreme sect"; it's the commonly shared desire and need for a safe homeland . Recent events have certainly confirmed that need for the Israelis, including among the two million plus Arabs that live there, many of whom have taken up arms with their Jewish countrymen in their struggle for existence.
Yes Chris, Israel exists because of the Holocaust. But no one gave the land to the Jews, they took it at the point of a gun.
Attacked on all sides the Jews defeated everyone of their Arab enemies, except the British-trained Jordanian Legion.
They defeated their Arab enemies again in 1967 and 1973. You would think the Palestinians would accept the fact that they are never going to get a nation-state, but no; they have resorted to cowardly attacks on civilians.
Are you serious in thinking that cowardly terrorists of Hamas and the PLO are analogous to the Marquis?
As far as I know, anti-Nazi resistance movements attacked uniformed Germans and their allies. The only civilians they targeted - at least in western Europe - were collaborationists
The overwhelming majority of Palestinians are Muslims. Most of the Christian Palestinians are part of the diaspora. And most Muslims are as militantly anti-Jewish as the Nazis. Daily, Muslim clerics spew their anti-Jewish venom on the internet.
There are 22 Arab states and one Jewish state. The Arabs want it to be 23 Arab states.
For all their faults, the Israelis have a functioning democratic state. Every single Arab nation is totalitarian.
The West is hypocritical in its dealings with the Arab/ Muslim world. Not surprising given that Islam has been a military threat to Christians - and Jews, Zoroastrians, Pagans - since its very beginning. Islam was spread at the point of a sword. They raided places as far away as Iceland for slaves. The Muslims are bloody hypocrites too.
For the record, I am not a Zionist, I am not a Christian. I am a heathen and bloody proud of it.
The Egyptians (unlike some) are under no illusions as to the danger Hamas represents.
Wikipedia: "In December 2009, with help from the United States, Egypt started building a steel wall along the Gaza border. If it is finished, the wall will be 10–11 km (6–7 miles) long and extend 18 m (60 feet) below the surface. The wall was to be completed in 18 months.
On 29 October 2014, Egypt began demolishing homes on its side of the border with the Gaza Strip as part of a planned 500-metre (550-yard) buffer zone intended to prevent weapons smuggling into the Gaza Strip."
I see the head of the Muslim Brotherhood's army in Sudan has just ordered forces to attack civilians, occupy buildings, and deploy snipers. Already 14,000 killed and millions forcibly displaced in the past 11 months.
I expect this will be all over the media with worldwide protests coming up or "no Jews, no news"?
I find it interesting that many responses to my comments appear as a generalist hate tirade against the Muslim Arab world. I am surprised Chris T at who is attracted to your columns. True the majority might be of Arab descent and yes Muslim, however this does not totally define the Arab world let alone Palestinians. There many groups and cultures in the Middle East, all with their own distinctive identities and cultures.Some could possibly be described as pagan!! There are approx 7 million displaced Palestinians worldwide. Why? Go figure....Zionism? British imperialism and the Balfour Declaration? Europes racist answer to the Jewish question post WW2? American hypocracy and collusion? Whose interests are being protected here? Most Palestinians remaining in Palestine continue to suffer in the face of Israeli violence, religious extremism, illegal settlements and harassment. Most desperately want to live in peace.The Israeli state is not an open democracy, except only for a select few. Like most settler states it persecutes its indigenous peoples. Israel illegally occupies much of Palestine. In fact as the occupier, international law says that its actions against Palestinians are acts of aggression. Acts of retaliation can therefore be construed as acts of resistance can they not? Despite, and given their recent actions there may be justification in labeling Hamas a terrorist organisation, but also, given the disproportionate Israeli response and the slaughter in Gaza, to be consistent,Israel should be labeled a terrorist state. My point is that Palestinians have a right to live in peace,to have equal rights, to earn an honest living, the same as non Palestinians. Freedom, democracy, responsible and open government should not just be the perogative of a select powerful. The West's response to the Palestinian situation highlights its own moral poverty, hypocracy and total lack of honesty. Otherwise Israel will very justifiably be held to account for its murderous and genocidal actions. This war is not just about response and counter response. It is about human decency and respect. Once again sacrificed, no doubt, at the price of political expediency and greed.
Chris: "Palestinians have a right to live in peace"
Well maybe not starting wars and firing rockets into your neighbour's back yard would be a good idea. No?
The rest of it is just the very predictable "it's all the Jews fault" nonsense and this is a straight out lie " a generalist hate tirade against the Muslim Arab world". No it isn't. Stop trying to none too subtly demonise people for even discussing it.
The problem of Islamism (political/fundamentalist/militarist Islam) is a serious threat to peace and stability throughout the region - not just Israel. Watch that talk by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, she lays it out very clearly.
There is a lot of anger around the reported casualties in Gaza, fair enough, but how much of it is true, coming as it does from practiced and compulsive liars. Remember the widely reported "500" dead from an Israeli missile hitting a hospital and the "footage" that accompanied it? . Turned out that A/the hospital wasn't hit only it's carpark B/ there were a handful of victims and C/ it was Hamas's own rocket that hit it!
"One of the marks of anti-Semitism, George Orwell observed in 1945, is “an ability to believe stories that could not possibly be true”. Which brings us smartly to Hamas and how the broadcast media, aid organisations, international bodies and world leaders take its disinformation as gospel. Last week it became clear that this gullibility may have led to a crime against reality.
A new analysis of the group’s casualty statistics indicates that the rag-tag terror army may have pulled off one of the biggest propaganda coups of modern times. The figures, repeated by everyone from the White House to the BBC, are freighted with familiarity: 30,000 dead in Gaza, 70 per cent of whom are women and children. Yet it now seems overwhelmingly likely that these statistics are fabricated.
Professor Abraham Wyner, a data scientist at the University of Pennsylvania, has conducted a thorough analysis. He found that Hamas’s official civilian death toll was statistically impossible. “Most likely, the Hamas ministry settled on a daily total arbitrarily,” he wrote in an incendiary essay in Tablet. “We know this because the daily totals increase too consistently to be real. Then they assigned about 70 per cent of the total to be women and children, splitting that amount randomly from day to day. Then they in-filled the number of men as set by the predetermined total. This explains all the data observed.”
The giveaways were many. For example, the reported death toll mounted “with almost metronomical linearity”, Prof Wyner found, showing little daily variation. Obviously, this bore no resemblance to any plausible version of reality. Then there was the fact that, according to Hamas data from 29 October, 26 men came back to life; and the fact that on several days, no men were apparently killed at all, but only women. Were we really supposed to believe any of this?
In February, Hamas admitted to losing 6,000 of its fighters, representing more than 20 per cent of the total casualties reported. Given its claims that 70 per cent of the dead were women and children, there were two possible conclusions: either almost no male civilians had died, or almost all the men in Gaza were fighting for Hamas. Both were obviously absurd.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/03/16/could-be-devastating-proof-hamas-faking-death-figures/
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