Middle East conflict

[Marty_d]

Jeezus Jerry, I'm almost afraid to say anything now in case it brings forth another 50,000 words of reply! 😄

 

Look.  If you want to ignore the almost daily reports of civilian killings, starvation, refusing to allow food and medical delivery by truck or ship, lack of any legal consequence for extrajudicial killings, targeting of noncombatants, etc - that's up to you.

 

And no one is trying to hold Israel to any higher standard than anyone else.  Is Hamas a terrorist organisation that should be disarmed?  Of course it is.  Do you keep killing a country's civilians until that terrorist organisation is disarmed?  No you bloody don't.  

 

And as for throwing around the anti-semitic label at anyone who dares to speak out against Israel's invasions - Lebanon too now, as well as Iran - that's just lazy.  I'm totally against Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Trump's invasions of Venezuela and Iran, Hamas's October 7th invasion of Israel, and anyone else who takes uninvited military action in a country that isn't theirs.  But because I'm also against Netanyahu's invasions of Gaza, Lebanon and Iran, I'm somehow anti semitic?

[Jerry_Atrick]

I will keep it short this time. 

 

I don't ignore the daily reports - I know that the media has to sell and there is nothing like sensationalism nor whipping up hatred that sells. We seem to accept that on the reporting of the local issues with Muslim population, but accept blindly what is reported about Israel. So, I try and look behind the reports amd find the context. Even the "killing a country's civilians until the terrorists are disarmed" is very simplistic and ignores many other things, IMHO. 

 

I didn't say criticisng Israel's invasion was anti-semetic. I would ask you read what I wrote again.  I said a lot of people hide behind criticising Zionism as being anti-semetic (or holding Israel to a different/higher standard than others is anto-semetic). They are two very different things. 

 

If you can tell me why actos of other countries you mention or those that were far worse (I provided the numbers) don't generate the same backlash as Israel (not on these fora, but more across the population) who that is not anti-semitc, I am happy to be wrong. 

 

[rgmwa]

2 hours ago, Jerry_Atrick said:

I don't think it was all about that. Israel is more of a democracy than most; not the highest in the world, but top quartile or third by this index: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/democracy-index-eiu

 

And, so I would expect that while that is certainly part of his motivation, if that was all of it, but didn't accord with the rest of his government, it wouldn't be happening. 

Jerry, I didn't say it was all about Netanyahu trying to stay in power and out of prison. I said `also'. We're not disagreeing here.