Palestine v Israel.

[Scot Dutchy]

There is no thread on this I wonder why?

When in doubt belt Gaza. The Israelis Just love it which is why Netanyahu is doing it. He is up shitcreek so what does he do; give Palestine a good going over. Hamas is always ready. Well they have to be as the Israelis have paid them. Where did all those rockets come from?

[JimC]

Getting very conspiracy-theory minded here. Israel pays Hamas to obtain rockets to fire at Israel so Netanyahu can look tough responding?

[pErvinalia]

Scot's in Galaxian's league these days.

[JimC]

I mean, I don't dispute that Netanyahu would, in at least some sense, welcome the Hamas attacks as a way of distracting from his own political woes, but I doubt that he's Machiavellian enough to instigate it...

[Cunt]

One place has gay disco's and diverse political representation.

I don't feel as comfortable teasing the other about their excesses or quirks.

[JimC]

One place has gay disco's and diverse political representation.

I don't feel as comfortable teasing the other about their excesses or quirks.

It's complicated. Sure, aspects of Israeli life (for Jews at least, at least the ones who aren't crazed orthodox) are socially liberal, and some aspects of Palestinian life are blighted by Islam.

But that doesn't change the fact that Israel is squeezing out Palestinian families to allow Zionist settlers to simply steal their land. Or that Arab citizens of Israel are second-class citizens in a way reminiscent of Apartheid...

[JimC]

In some ways, this is a partial support for Scot's initial post:

https://www.theage.com.au/world/middle- ... 57rp0.html

“Objective allies” generally don’t even talk to each other. They don’t have common values, their ultimate goals may be completely incompatible, they often hate each other. But they share some intermediate goal, and are clever enough to realise they can both get what they want by acting together in certain ways.

Sometimes those ways may even involve shooting at each other, but if acting that way brings a result that serves their various purposes, they are still objective allies. So Benjamin Netanyahu, still prime minister of Israel despite his parlous political position, and Hamas, the Islamist Palestinian organisation that controls the Gaza Strip, are objective allies.

Right now the missiles are flying and people are dying in both the Gaza Strip and Israel, and as usual it’s hard to say who or what started it. Was it the Israeli air strikes that hit 150 targets in Gaza and
killed around 30 people including nine children on Tuesday? Or the Hamas fighters who launched 130 of their homemade missiles at Israeli towns earlier in the day and killed three Israelis?

Or the Israeli police who fired stun grenades Monday night at Palestinian demonstrators taking shelter in the al-Aqsa mosque on what Israelis call Temple Mount? Or the Palestinian protesters who threw rocks and other missiles at the police every night during the last week of Ramadan? Or the founders of Hamas in 1987, or the authors of the Balfour Declaration in 1917?

Never mind who started it. The right question is: who benefits from what is happening right now? It’s the same old “objective allies” who have been playing this game for a quarter-century already: Hamas and Netanyahu. And yes, they do hate each other, but nevertheless ...

Consider Netanyahu’s position. For the fourth time in a row, he has just failed to get an election outcome that will let him create and lead a coalition government. He is on trial on serious corruption charges, and may go to jail if he does not remain prime minister.

The opposition parties that want to see Netanyahu gone now have a month to try to make a different coalition that excludes him, but they have a problem. The electoral arithmetic means that their coalition must contain the United Arab List, or UAL, one of the parties that represent Israel’s 20 per cent minority of Arab citizens.

No Arab party has ever been part of an Israeli government before, so putting this coalition together was already quite tricky. Doing it while Israelis and Palestinians are killing each other is impossible. UAL chairman Mansour Abbas has already suspended the talks with his potential Jewish coalition partners.

If these Coalition talks fail, Israel will have to have another election (the fifth in 30 months) next autumn. Netanyahu will remain prime minister in the meantime, and will then have another, fifth chance to get a durable right-wing majority coalition that will pass legislation safeguarding him from further prosecution.

I can’t read Netanyahu’s mind, but if he were a ruthlessly self-serving politician he would certainly find this little war politically useful. How about his alleged “objective ally”, Hamas?

Hamas needs a war right now less than Netanyahu does, but it’s always up for one. Its business model is perpetual rejection of peace with Israel, in the expectation that divine intervention will one day deliver total victory and eliminate the Jewish state.

Hamas is therefore in permanent competition with Fatah, the rival Palestinian political movement that accepted the (now moribund) “two-state solution” which envisaged Israeli and Palestinian states living side by side. A little war with Israel now and then is good for Hamas’s image.

The Hamas-Netanyahu “objective alliance” is based on the fact that Netanyahu hates the idea of a two-state solution just as much as Hamas does. Indeed, they began by strangling that deal together in 1995-96, and most of the shooting since has been about keeping it dead.

The deal came out of the Oslo Accord of 1992, in which Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat agreed to move towards two parallel states living in peace.

Rabin was assassinated by a Jewish right-wing extremist, but everybody expected his successor, Shimon Peres, to win the 1996 election on a sympathy vote and go through with the Oslo deal. Instead, Hamas went on a terrorist spree, bombing buses in Israel to cause maximum casualties, in order to drive Israeli voters into the arms of the anti-Oslo Accords nationalist right instead.

It succeeded, and the right-wing candidate, ex-commando Binyamin Netanyahu, became prime minister instead and sabotaged the “peace process”. It was never very likely to succeed, but Hamas and Netanyahu both act as objective allies whenever the corpse of the two-state solution threatens to rise from its shallow grave.

Gwynne Dyer is a London-based independent journalist.

[Scot Dutchy]

I mean, I don't dispute that Netanyahu would, in at least some sense, welcome the Hamas attacks as a way of distracting from his own political woes, but I doubt that he's Machiavellian enough to instigate it...

You dont think so? How did Hamas get so many rockets into Gaza under the noses of the Mossad. Gaza is riddled with Mossad spies. They know everything that goes on there. Israel has an anti-rocket shield. Or does it not strike you as strange that Hamas could fire a single rocket?

A 119 deaths against 8 good collateral figures. Hamas has fired 1700 rockets and nobody saw them being moved?
Netanyahu is so corrupt Jim he would do anything to remain in power.

Israel air and ground forces hit targets in Gaza Strip as death toll climbs

Military says ground forces are carrying out strikes on Gaza Strip – but are not operating inside territory – amid escalating crisis

Israel’s military has said its ground and air forces are attacking targets in the Gaza Strip as residents reported a massive bombardment, amid fears that Israel would launch an incursion into the blockaded territory.

“[Israel Defense Forces] air and ground troops are currently attacking in the Gaza Strip,” the military said in a statement just after midnight local time, without providing further details.

The military later issued a statement saying there were no troops inside the Gaza Strip, suggesting it was not a ground invasion but artillery and tank fire from the border. “Clarification: there are currently no IDF ground troops inside the Gaza Strip. IDF air and ground forces are carrying out strikes on targets in the Gaza Strip,” the statement said.

The attacks nevertheless marked a significant escalation in the worst bout of fighting in years, which has seen Israel bombard Gaza and Palestinian militants fire rockets at Israeli towns and cities. Shortly after the initial military announcement, in an apparent reference to the operation, Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, tweeted: “The last word was not said and this operation will continue as long as necessary.”

Gaza’s health ministry said the death toll has climbed to 119 Palestinians, including 31 children. Eight people have been killed in Israel.


Later on Friday morning, the IDF released a statement saying that an operation of 160 aircraft had “struck over 150 underground targets in the northern Gaza Strip” over the course of the night. The statement claimed that the purpose of the operation was to damage underground tunnels built by Hamas. Israel’s forces destroyed “many kilometres” of the tunnels during the attack, it claimed.

Remember Hamas does not have the full support of all Palestinians. There are many that would like to see them destroyed.

[Scot Dutchy]

Oh what a coincidence:

Violence and mayhem offer Benjamin Netanyahu refuge

Analysis: The Israeli PM seemed to be on the way out, until the eruption of conflict with the Palestinians

The escalating conflict between Israel and Gaza has put efforts to form a coalition government that excludes Israel’s longest-serving prime minister on the back burner.

Until violence erupted this week, Benjamin Netanyahu appeared to be on the verge of losing his position at the helm of Israeli politics after 12 years as prime minister.

The country’s fourth inconclusive general election in the past two years had led to the opposition leader, Yair Lapid, being asked to try to put together a coalition. But the flow of rockets and missiles between Israel and Gaza, plus intercommunal violence within Israel itself, has complicated those efforts.

Lapid has a deadline of 2 June to form a workable coalition, although that timeframe is likely to be in doubt should the current hostilities continue. Meanwhile, Netanyahu is seeking to reinforce his reputation as a strong leader willing to stand up to Palestinian militants with uncompromising rhetoric about inflicting mortal blows on Hamas and “iron fists”.

Alluding to his own “united, strong and forceful leadership”, Netanyahu said on Wednesday: “We are working with all our might to protect Israel from enemies outside and rioters within.”


Louis Fishman, an associate professor at Brooklyn College, wrote in Haaretz that Netanyahu’s “greatest magic trick” had been to blind Israeli Jews to their state’s oppression of the Palestinians. “But even the most carefully constructed house of cards eventually starts tumbling down, and that exactly is what is happening now … Impregnable Netanyahuism, the work of a master illusionist, is shattering.”

For a few dollars more...

[pErvinalia]

Ok Galaxian.

[Svartalf]

You know pErvo, when he says that bibi might just have fostered the recent violence to distract people from casting him down, there's definitely something to it... these last few years, it's been a cycle : bibi gets under fire for this or that indelicacy he commited, blamm O, there comes a crisis and he leads the country to victory and whatever should have caused his fall gets buried in the rubble.

[pErvinalia]

I've got no doubt that Bibi views a war as a good re-election strategy. What I think is conspiratorial nonsense is that him and Hamas are working together for their mutual benefit.

[Scot Dutchy]

It would not be the first time that Hamas and Mossad work together. It is a symbiotic relationship. Hamas needs Netanyahu and Netanyahu needs Hamas. Peace is the last thing they both want as it would take away any justification of their existence. In the Middle East the reality of existence depends on many factors especially who your enemies are. Peace is the greatest enemy to many sides especially western arm dealers.

[Cunt]

One place has gay disco's and diverse political representation.

I don't feel as comfortable teasing the other about their excesses or quirks.

It's complicated. Sure, aspects of Israeli life (for Jews at least, at least the ones who aren't crazed orthodox) are socially liberal, and some aspects of Palestinian life are blighted by Islam.

But that doesn't change the fact that Israel is squeezing out Palestinian families to allow Zionist settlers to simply steal their land. Or that Arab citizens of Israel are second-class citizens in a way reminiscent of Apartheid...

All that IS the offered narrative, but when you hear Jews talking about this, they want to keep their land, and argue with the arab members of their government.

When the Palestinians talk about this, they want Israel GONE.

It's pretty sharply different, and the 'kill all the jews' team has never been that attractive to me.

Shapiro, who is predictably biased, said that Machmoud was up for reelection, and this allows him to avoid risking being replaced.

I really only heard about that Machmoud fellow from a Tom Waits song before this, so no doubt have lots remaining to learn.

[Hermit]

The rulers of each side want the other gone. It's been thus for thousands of years.