news & politics:discussion

[steviewevie]

9 minutes ago, lazyred said:

They have been close in the past so there's always hope. The PA might be willing but not Hamas at the moment. Each time they have gone to war with Isreal the Palestinians have ended up in a worse position. I can't see that changing so they need to compromise to get peace. 

Both Palestine and Israel have got their own internal problems...Israel has this coalition in govt with all sorts of right wing loons in there and there were all those huge protests...and Palestine have got Hamas in Gaza and Fatah in West Bank, both unpopular with their own populations (actually not sure if Hamas unpopular or not in Gaza). Hamas and Fatah are bitter rivals, but they have a common enemy in Israel.

[Neil]

1 hour ago, steviewevie said:

Ideally you'd go back to this. Won't happen of course. At the time even this was seen as unfair to Palestinians...the smaller Jewish population having a larger percentage of land.

the Jewish population would never have accepted that, they always wanted 'the promised land'  which is 'biblical Palestine'.

[Neil]

1 hour ago, lazyred said:

Each time they have gone to war with Isreal the Palestinians have ended up in a worse position. I can't see that changing so they need to compromise to get peace. 

nailed it!!

 

the Palestinians don't accept that they should lose their land and houses.

Edited October 19, 2023 by Neil

[steviewevie]

7 minutes ago, Neil said:

the Jewish population would never have accepted that, they always wanted 'the promised land'  which is 'biblical Palestine'.

the Jewish population did accept that, or their leaders did anyway...it was the Palestinians and surrounding Arab countries who didn't and as soon as the British f**ked off they invaded.

Edited October 19, 2023 by steviewevie

[Neil]

1 hour ago, Barry Fish said:

The two state solution is the only path to peace.

only if both sides accept the idea and its consequences.

[Neil]

Just now, steviewevie said:

the Jewish population did accept that, or their leaders did anyway...it was the Palestinians and surrounding Arab countries who didn't and as soon as the British f**ked off they invaded.

they might have accepted it in 1947 when they were getting the majority of the land, no way would they accept it now.

[steviewevie]

1 minute ago, Neil said:

they might have accepted it in 1947 when they were getting the majority of the land, no way would they accept it now.

no, they wouldn't. But Israel needs to make compromises and sacrifices for any good will in any negotiations. They need to get out of West Bank for starters and lift any blockade on Gaza. This obviously would need to come with security assurances from Palestine.

Really Gaza and West Bank should have a land route...they had this in that 1947 partition plan.

[steviewevie]

[Neil]

1 minute ago, steviewevie said:

make compromises and sacrifices for any good will in any negotiations. They need to get out of West Bank for starters

they won't give up Jerusalem, or the west bank settlements. Palestinians wouldn't accept a solution were the Jewish state had those.

[mattiloy]

4 minutes ago, steviewevie said:

Is netanyahu also very short then?

Explains quite a bit

[Guest]

5 hours ago, steviewevie said:

I don't know...maybe there is some prejudice, infact there's bound to be in this conflict where you have to pick a side...but a lot of main stream media as well as social media were all pointing finger at Israel initially...and they had been dropping a lot of bombs on Gaza already. 

For sure some of the media had labelled it was Israel which is irresponsible of them but there is definitely prejudice of some form coming into it. Equally I don’t know why people/these organisations seem to give Hamas (a terrorist organisation) the benefit of the doubt against Israel?

[steviewevie]

13 minutes ago, mattiloy said:

Is netanyahu also very short then?

Explains quite a bit

Bit heightist.

All the great men were short...Napolean, Churchill, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Gengis Khan, Alexander The Great, Prince, Punksnotdead.

Edited October 19, 2023 by steviewevie

[Punksnotdead]

12 minutes ago, mattiloy said:

Is netanyahu also very short then?

Explains quite a bit

Oi! Not all us shortarses are complete w*nkers!

[Neil]

11 minutes ago, Barry Fish said:

If only if it was as simple as having just two sides...  Its even more complex than that...

yeah, just because others don't accept why arabs should be losers at the say of 'the west'.

[steviewevie]

Urge the Israel Government to allow fuel, electricity and food into Gaza - Petitions (parliament.uk)

[pink_triangle]

4 hours ago, cellar said:

If an attack happened in Israel, people would assume its Hamas. They're in a conflict - if some sort of loss of life as a result of a bomb or whatever happens, the assumption is naturally going to be that the other side caused it. As new information comes to light you can take it on board. You saying that if Israel had said right away that it was Hamas that there would be scepticism, of course there would be - because its not how we would expect events to unfold naturally.

People have natural cognitive biases (read: biases in how they think, not biases towards specific people or groups). I guess it's easy to conflate the two biases with something like this, but they aren't the same thing.

My thought was though why would Israel bomb a hospital, that immediately signals me to wait for verification. Something many on the left are very quick to ask for if it’s claims against Hamas, but less quick against Israel.

As someone who will happily admit myself to be on the pragmatic centre left, I fear the direction of some of the left at present. As I said Corbyn the most high profile left wing figure in this country still has a tweet up about Israel air strikes on a hospital. The likes of Owen Jones have retweeted stuff about why we should doubt the Israel account, which in isolation is reasonable but no real examination of the evidence as you would expect of true journalism. I worry the left are joining the right in the world of conspiracy theories and think that’s not healthy.

 

[cellar]

13 minutes ago, pink_triangle said:

My thought was though why would Israel bomb a hospital, that immediately signals me to wait for verification. Something many on the left are very quick to ask for if it’s claims against Hamas, but less quick against Israel.

As someone who will happily admit myself to be on the pragmatic centre left, I fear the direction of some of the left at present. As I said Corbyn the most high profile left wing figure in this country still has a tweet up about Israel air strikes on a hospital. The likes of Owen Jones have retweeted stuff about why we should doubt the Israel account, which in isolation is reasonable but no real examination of the evidence as you would expect of true journalism. I worry the left are joining the right in the world of conspiracy theories and think that’s not healthy.

 

I would generally agree that people from anywhere on the political spectrum are susceptible to fake news, and the conspiracy mentality that has generally (recently) been associated with the right seems to be applicable to those on the left more. So yes, I agree on that point in general.

But I still find the outrage over this particular incorrect report to be a bit strange. When I first heard the news, my first thought was that it wouldn't have been targeted, but I still did assume that was a missile sent by Israel that had gone astray, for reasons outlined in my previous post. I now have more accurate information available and am happy to accept that. In any case, it's an horrific event, but it wasn't intentionally done which is some small solace.

I see absolutely nothing wrong with my assumptions. They weren't based in anything other than what I would say is statistical probability given the information I already had available to me. Maybe other people have other reasons for believing it was Israel, but since I find my own assumptions very natural and unproblematic, I also find it more likely that other people have followed a similar thought process. 

If there is any fault or blame to assign to any of this, it is, as I originally said, the fault of "fast news," and maybe companies like the BBC shouldn't be trying to compete with online news outlets to get news our quickly. Wait until the evening news and make sure you have a fully verified story. But blaming individuals and trying to insinuate racist undertones is incredibly presumptuous and judgemental (not saying you have insinuated that, but others definitely have).

[steviewevie]

27 minutes ago, pink_triangle said:

My thought was though why would Israel bomb a hospital, that immediately signals me to wait for verification. Something many on the left are very quick to ask for if it’s claims against Hamas, but less quick against Israel.

 

Because they had already dropped about 6000 bombs pulverising much of Gaza, including people's homes, including health and aid workers...so why not? Even if an accident. I agree would be stupid, but war is stupid and people do stupid things, and mistakes happen...and maybe this was a mistake, but by the other team...still doesn't get round the damage already done to Gaza, and this hospital was full of people injured because of Israeli bombs or sheltering because their homes had been destroyed.

[steviewevie]

I mean...this within humanitarian law thing is really getting stretched now...when people are being starved or bombed...

 

[pink_triangle]

7 minutes ago, cellar said:

 

. I now have more accurate information available and am happy to accept that. In any case, it's an horrific event, but it wasn't intentionally done which is some small solace.

I think my thoughts were not about you, I mean we all get things wrong and are hasty to jump to judgement at times. However as I have pointed out a high profile left figure like Corbyn still has a tweet suggesting that Israel bombed the hospital , no evidence and no criticism from his supporters. I say this as someone who voted (twice) for him to be PM, but thank god he isn’t PM now.
 

I feel (maybe naively ) the left should be the people who are guided by evidence and will change as facts change, rather than jump into conspiracy theories. It’s why I think Starmer will succeed as PM as I think he will take a more thoughtful and evidence based approach.

[steviewevie]

Why do they have to wait to tomorrow before letting any aid in?

[cellar]

10 minutes ago, pink_triangle said:

I think my thoughts were not about you, I mean we all get things wrong and are hasty to jump to judgement at times. However as I have pointed out a high profile left figure like Corbyn still has a tweet suggesting that Israel bombed the hospital , no evidence and no criticism from his supporters. I say this as someone who voted (twice) for him to be PM, but thank god he isn’t PM now.
 

I feel (maybe naively ) the left should be the people who are guided by evidence and will change as facts change, rather than jump into conspiracy theories. It’s why I think Starmer will succeed as PM as I think he will take a more thoughtful and evidence based approach.

To be clear, I don't think it was "wrong" to have made that assumption. I didn't post my opinion about it anywhere either, so I have nothing to backtrack on. Hindsight is a wonderful thing. But this is all getting quite epistemological now, and I don't think we disagree massively on the fundamental points.

I think to the second part of your post, the idea that the left should be guided by evidence doesn't sit with me well (the implications being that the right dont is what doesn't sit well with me - even if I don't agree with them, I'm sure they believe their thoughts and actions are based in evidence).

Also find it odd that you would vote for Corbyn twice and now have so much support for Starmer, they seem so far apart (although maybe you were just voting for Labour back then?)

[Skip997]

2 minutes ago, steviewevie said:

Why do they have to wait to tomorrow before letting any aid in?

There was something about road repairs.

Personally I'll be happily surprised if they ever let the aid in.

[squirrelarmy]

56 minutes ago, pink_triangle said:

As I said Corbyn the most high profile left wing figure in this country still has a tweet up about Israel air strikes on a hospital

Is it that same tweet that has all the misinformation warnings all over it?

[steviewevie]

1 minute ago, squirrelarmy said:

Is it that same tweet that has all the misinformation warnings all over it?

he really needs to either delete that or send an update.