Israel must lose

[DexterTCN]

oh sorry did i use a long word?

No, but some grammar and punctuation would be nice.

 

[rioted]

politics is about the acheivable

How boring!

No, politics is about struggle. And that will go on whatever the UK left do, say or even exist.

 

[Spion]

how could it lose spion? if hundreds of israeli kids died? that woudl only happen if tens of thousends of palestinians died too? or if sderot was blown away? and if that happenned gaza city would be dresdened

No, you fuckwit. It could lose by Israelis refusing to carry out the genocidal war aims of the IDF and telling their bosses they can stuff their wars and their neo-liberal offensive against the w/c up their arses and instead reaching out to their class brothers and sisters among the Palestinians.

Get some fucking left wing politics will you!!!

 

[Fuchs66]

Im hoping that Barack Obama feels the same way. Hes the best hope we have. Im hoping that he can work with the EU to completely stop selling arms to the region - both sides. Its heinous and inhuman. Id rather be poor than profit from that.
.........If you read between the lines there is a lot of love shown on this board. I think we all share the same values of compassion and love. It seems that sometimes gets lost in the detail.

Wow that rarest of animals, an Optimist

I would hope that too but seen too much reality to believe in it all that much.

 

[nino_savatte]

oh sorry did i use a long word?

No one could ever accuse you of using a long word, durutti. In fact, no one could ever accuse you of being erudite. You despise learning.

 

[nino_savatte]

you want to change israel/palestine .. change your street first

LOL!!! Another durutti classic. How does "changing my street" affect those that have already been killed by Israeli shells and bullets? It doesn't. How will this insular attitude going to affect change in Israel? It won't.

What you are doing is sticking your head in the sand in the hope that the world will go away.

You're a proper numpty and no mistake.

 

[100% masahiko]

you want to change israel/palestine .. change your street first

What's wrong with his street?

How many kids died there today? Was his street built on many homes? Does his street massacre? Kill? Maim?

And as we live in the west, in a supposedly free-society, it's best we - as a universal collective - take a stand against Israel. Things do change through public opinion/pressure...

 

[ViolentPanda]

how could it lose spion? if hundreds of israeli kids died? that woudl only happen if tens of thousends of palestinians died too? or if sderot was blown away?

How you manage to miss the point quite so consistently is a puzzle to me.
It's not about force of arms, the state of Israel has shown that to be the case from the very start of this offensive, it's about them winning or losing the media war, and what that grip on the media represents, i.e. the dominant discourse. If the state of Israel can be shown, despite the best efforts of politicians and media outlets around the world, to be presenting falsehood as truth, to be acting in oppression rather than defence, then they lose, and lose they must, or the slaughter won't stop.

and if that happenned gaza city would be dresdened

Like Rafah, you mean?

no israel was NEVER going to lose .. and to call for it to do so is nonsense .. we must only call for what we can acheive .. and this is why it is crap and irrelevent .. and by a bunch of bullshiote academics .. maybe they should try to deal with something real where they live but stuck in their post modern ivory towers they have no sense fo reality.

That would be hilarious if it didn't illustrate just how far away from having any point your witterings are.

politics is about the acheivable and the UTTER failure of the uk left is based in its fetishim of the far away the unacheivable and the irrelevent ..

Please tell me exactly who this UK left is comprised of, because I was labouring under the presumption that there was no such homogeneous entity.

you want to change israel/palestine .. change your street first

Sometimes parochialism is a good thing, other times it's utterly irrelevant. At the moment it's the latter.

 

[durruti02]

No, you fuckwit. It could lose by Israelis refusing to carry out the genocidal war aims of the IDF and telling their bosses they can stuff their wars and their neo-liberal offensive against the w/c up their arses and instead reaching out to their class brothers and sisters among the Palestinians.

Get some fucking left wing politics will you!!!

you are, like so many lefties, living in a fantasy world spion .. utter fantasy .. get some basics mate .. have a re read of some IWCA stuff .. proper working class politics instead of your daft middle class fantasys

 

[durruti02]

How boring!

No, politics is about struggle. And that will go on whatever the UK left do, say or even exist.

maybe if people did it here first then we could help the palestinians!! without power all the morals and appeals in the world are empty and meaningless .. the sooner the left understand this the better

 

[Spion]

you are, like so many lefties, living in a fantasy world spion .. utter fantasy .. get some basics mate .. have a re read of some IWCA stuff .. proper working class politics instead of your daft middle class fantasys

telling the bosses to stuff their war and their neo-liberal assault on the w/c is middle class now is it?

The world is turned upside down

 

[durruti02]

How you manage to miss the point quite so consistently is a puzzle to me.
It's not about force of arms, the state of Israel has shown that to be the case from the very start of this offensive, it's about them winning or losing the media war, and what that grip on the media represents, i.e. the dominant discourse. If the state of Israel can be shown, despite the best efforts of politicians and media outlets around the world, to be presenting falsehood as truth, to be acting in oppression rather than defence, then they lose, and lose they must, or the slaughter won't stop.

Like Rafah, you mean?

That would be hilarious if it didn't illustrate just how far away from having any point your witterings are.

Please tell me exactly who this UK left is comprised of, because I was labouring under the presumption that there was no such homogeneous entity.

Sometimes parochialism is a good thing, other times it's utterly irrelevant. At the moment it's the latter.

so the war / attacks are over for now .. and israel won .. it massacred 1200 palestinans without a major reaction against it .. are we then now to spend the next period building up solidairty and neglecting YET again local work?? VP until we have power we are impotent in these struggles

 

[durruti02]

telling the bosses to stuff their war and their neo-liberal assault on the w/c is middle class now is it?

The world is turned upside down

yes cos as it is meanigngless it benefits no one but the m/c .. get stuck into some real work spion .. what happenned to openly classist! lol

 

[cesare]

Thing is what does 'lose' mean here?

For Barak and Livni as far as I can figure it out, 'winning' appears to consist of inflicting enough damage on Gaza to look tougher than Netanyahu and hence to head off the surge in popularity that the Israeli far(ther) right have been experiencing since Olmert made an arse of himself against Hezbollah.

So I guess 'losing' in this context could mean a situation in which it turned out that Israeli military casualities inflicted by Hamas were much worse than have been declared so far. This seems unlikely to me.

What the people who wrote the letter seem to envisage though, is a situation where Israel was held accountable for the war crimes it has committed in Gaza, and became subject to embargo and so on by the international community.

This would presumably be intended to send some sort of 'crime doesn't pay' message to the Israeli government, but it's not at all clear to me that it would do that, rather than having the less desirable effect of making the incumbents appear even tougher to whatever segment of the Israeli voting public it is that apparently measures candidates fitness for office by the number of war crimes they're being accused of by the UN, Red Cross etc.

Yes, I rather think you're right.

And Israel steps back neatly with a ceasefire at their own convenience & with their own terms, leaving ... well it's pretty predictable what's going to happen next isn't it?

And in the meantime, Israel & Egypt work together at moving Gaza civilians out (or so it seems alleged).

 

[ViolentPanda]

so the war / attacks are over for now ..

Really?

and israel won .. it massacred 1200 palestinans without a major reaction against it ..

There was I thinking that there have been major reactions against it, like for example, the UN even talking of bringing war crimes charges (something they've never even countenanced before).

are we then now to spend the next period building up solidairty and neglecting YET again local work?? VP until we have power we are impotent in these struggles

You may be lazy enough to believe that one can only concentrate on a single field of endeavour at a time, but some of us are capable of "multi-tasking. Doing one doesn't mean ignoring the other.

 

[cesare]

There was I thinking that there have been major reactions against it, like for example, the UN even talking of bringing war crimes charges (something they've never even countenanced before).

They're not going to actually do anything effective though, are they?

It's not a Nicosia style Greek Cypriot -> UN ->Turkish Cypriot border intervention equivalent being proposed? They're not going to entirely piss off the US?

They're treading water and making the right noises until the US, Israel and possibly Egypt come up with a solution that effectively takes the Israeli position further forward (but not tooooo much further forward, mind) but without too much loss of face for all interested.

 

[Corax]

What's wrong with his street?

How many kids died there today? Was his street built on many homes? Does his street massacre? Kill? Maim?

I think the point is, that by establishing a properly left-wing system here with the working class making their own decisions, it would create a utopian paradise, and thus prove irresistibly attractive to the populations of other countries, and thus spread. At that point the Israelis would refuse to carry out the genocidal war aims of the IDF and tell their bosses they can stuff their wars and their neo-liberal offensive and instead reach out to their class brothers and sisters among the Palestinians.

Although a fantastic idea, I'm afraid my view is that in reality, this belongs in the realms of

the far away the unacheivable and the irrelevent

 

[Pinette]

I can't argue with the sentiments of the letter published here by the OP. It's quite clear the path to peace between Arab, Christian and Jew cannot be paved with the bodies of small children, blown apart from huge bombs dropped by cowards from the skies. War is not Peace, no matter how far along the Orwellian Doublespeak culture we have gone.

I completely agree. And tonight, having watched, for the first time since this whole massacre, tv footage of the total devastation of Gaza (remember the Israelis would not allow any foreign news correspondents into Gaza until yesterday) the thought of any kind of lasting peace between Israel and Palestine is tenuous at the very least.

 

[TomUS]

Israel has lost. Nothing has really changed for the better from the Israeli point of view. A bunch of Hamas buildings & some % of the smuggling tunnels destroyed & a few hundred Hamas fighters killed & a few of the Hamas leadership (& I certainly don't weep for them). And the rockets have stopped.....for now, but I doubt for long.

The # of jihadists & Muslim extremists will increase in Gaza, the WB, Lebanon, Iran, Turkey, Afghanistan, Pakistan. Hamas will be seen as heroes...defender of the faith & the innocent. Fatah will be seen as weak & collaborators. Israel & the US will be more isolated & hated than ever.

Guess BB might get to be PM though. What a great hope for peace.

 

[ViolentPanda]

They're not going to actually do anything effective though, are they?

It's not a Nicosia style Greek Cypriot -> UN ->Turkish Cypriot border intervention equivalent being proposed? They're not going to entirely piss off the US?

They're treading water and making the right noises until the US, Israel and possibly Egypt come up with a solution that effectively takes the Israeli position further forward (but not tooooo much further forward, mind) but without too much loss of face for all interested.

I think that's fairly obvious.
That said, they've crossed a line that they hadn't previously, which means that next time (and there will, G-d forgive us, be a next time) there's a precedent for going further.

The big issue should be to sideline the US as much as possible from a lead role in any negotiations without, as you put it, entirely pissing them off. A "peace process" led by the US is an automatic route to another 15 years of waffling, equivocation and pro-Israel partisanship.

 

[cesare]

I think that's fairly obvious.
That said, they've crossed a line that they hadn't previously, which means that next time (and there will, G-d forgive us, be a next time) there's a precedent for going further.

The big issue should be to sideline the US as much as possible from a lead role in any negotiations without, as you put it, entirely pissing them off. A "peace process" led by the US is an automatic route to another 15 years of waffling, equivocation and pro-Israel partisanship.

Enter Barack Obama ...

 

[ViolentPanda]

Enter Barack Obama ...

indeed.

 

[cesare]

indeed.

Doesn't bode well, does it? (She asked, rhetorically)

 

[Corax]

Doesn't bode well, does it? (She asked, rhetorically)

The hype may be unearnt, and his appointments so far aren't exactly a cause for joy in the most part, but... better than dubya, surely?

 

[cesare]

The hype may be unearnt, and his appointments so far aren't exactly a cause for joy in the most part, but... better than dubya, surely?

He's a better public speaker, that's for sure. As to the rest, I guess we'll have to wait and see whether US foreign policy differs from business as usual.

 

[Corax]

He's a better public speaker, that's for sure. As to the rest, I guess we'll have to wait and see whether US foreign policy differs from business as usual.

Absolutely. The proof is in the dessert of your choice.

The previous comments seemed a little overly pessimistic from my PoV; I was wondering why.

 

[durruti02]

Really?

There was I thinking that there have been major reactions against it, like for example, the UN even talking of bringing war crimes charges (something they've never even countenanced before).

You may be lazy enough to believe that one can only concentrate on a single field of endeavour at a time, but some of us are capable of "multi-tasking. Doing one doesn't mean ignoring the other.

israel has been condemned at the UN many times ..

in the recent history of the middle east this was not the worst of israels crimes .. nor the worst of it's conflicts ( arafat alleges Jordan massacred 25,000 palestinians in 'black september' ).. and there was not a major reaction in the west bank and jordan or lebanon

israel did what it wanted to .. olmert showed he is a tough guy .. they showed their determination ( intransigence) to the new US president .. they took out some key hamas players .. and terrorised gaza .. and it lost a minimal amount of soldiers and civilians ( remember thousends of israelis have died in suicide and rocket attacks )

 

[nino_savatte]

israel has been condemned at the UN many times ..

...and the rest.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

israel has been condemned at the UN many times ..

in the recent history of the middle east this was not the worst of israels crimes .. nor the worst of it's conflicts ( arafat alleges Jordan massacred 25,000 palestinians in 'black september' ).. and there was not a major reaction in the west bank and jordan or lebanon

israel did what it wanted to .. olmert showed he is a tough guy .. they showed their determination ( intransigence) to the new US president .. they took out some key hamas players .. and terrorised gaza .. and it lost a minimal amount of soldiers and civilians ( remember thousends of israelis have died in suicide and rocket attacks )

I thought only twenty or so had been killed by the Hamas rocket attacks?

What else are you including in the 'thousands' you refer to?

 

[nino_savatte]

Yes, I'd like to know where you got this figure from too.