And yet……
“Tzipi Hotovely has previously advocated for a one-state solution. In an extended interview with UnHerd this week, Israeli Ambassador to the UK Tzipi Hotovely was confronted with a historic statement in which she claimed that “between the sea and the Jordan River, there needs to be one state, only the state of Israel.”
Fancy that, as Private Eye would say.
Meanwhile….
I’ve had it with Starmer 
Given that the phrase means different things to Israelis and Palestinians surely it’s better to simply not use it when discussing the conflict?
IMO both sides have that aspiration, but opinion differs as to which state should run ‘from the river to the sea.’
Well, it’s not only ambiguous, it’s unlikely to increase any remote chance of a resolution,
Never mind from-the-river-to-the-sea, some cannot even cross the road
So many things have been going on for so long that go some way to explaining the present state of hatred.
Genocide, ethnic cleansing, apartheid, call it what you like, Israel is a rogue state and the World is standing by and facilitating it.
Is Hamas any better? Wanting the same
No-one here would consider defending the actions of Hamas on Oct 7th for a moment. Their actions were coldy calculated to cause maximum outrage and shock. But the coldly progressive killing of ordinary Palestinians in the process of possibly eliminating Hamas is also undefendable.
So far, no doubt it has. However, after all the dirty laundry has been dragged out, no one any more can say they didn’t know all the miserable things that have happened over many years.
My hope is that the powers will be quietly and vigorously and tirelessly working behind the scenes to achieve an ending that all can live with. At least for a time, if not all time.
A writer with NYT who holds podcasts with citizens in both Israel and Gaza in an effort to listen, wrote this:
I’ve been thinking lately about a line from Yossi Klein Halevi’s book “Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor.” He writes, “We must recognize not only each other’s right to self-determination but also each side’s right to self-definition.”
That’s harder than it sounds, I think. The Israel-Palestine conflict is a fight over land and security and freedom. But it’s also a fight over narratives. Anyone who has engaged with it even glancingly has witnessed the ferocious contestation of even the most minute historical facts.
One thing I appreciate about Halevi’s book is its insistence that reconciliation does not come because one side or the other finally accepts that its story is wrong. Halevi, an ardent Zionist, believes that reconciliation comes — if it comes — because both sides accept that the other’s story is right, at least to them. There is wisdom in that, I think. You’re not going to be able to go door to door in the region and argue everyone out of their positions. Somehow, these narratives will have to live alongside each other.
Perhaps if the factions concerned did more listening and less self defensive shouting……
Then they would lose power and control. Start a rumpus and you lead the narrative. Start a war and you appear significant, even if you cannot survive it.
Yikes!
Doesn’t hold much hope for the future of mankind 
Hamas is a terrorist organisation, reviled by all civilised people. Israel has decided to sink to its level… This is who Israel is fighting.
From the Guardian war blog just now.
Germany is a pendulum, too far one any and then too far the other way. They’ll never learn.
I’m pleased to see the British police are arresting those that DO support terrorism.
Surely the key words are preserving and respecting long standing international agreements about ‘land’ and ‘security’ . Illegal fundamentalist Jewish settlements have been one of the biggest drivers of the present conflict. Successive Israeli governments have done nothing to prevent this illegal creep of ‘occupation’.
I can’t give an appraisal of this sober debate, two years ago, between Noam Chomsky (aged 92) and Rudy Rochman (aged 28), on opposite sides of the Israel/Palestine conflict, but can recommend watching/listening. Unfortunately, Noam Chomsky had to leave before the end of the debate!
But even this mature debate led to serious disagreement about some issues. So how the conflict will end satisfying both sides is anyone’s guess, I guess!
I’m not a political animal, neither am I a Tory, but I heard a few brief words on LBC this morning from a former Tory minister, Sir Alan Duncan, which caught my ear. I chased down the video.
I think I agree with all his sentiments about Israel/Palestine, and also about the current Tory mayhem.
The pictures of the charity workers’ cars hit by Israel are truly appalling - they were precision strikes aimed deliberately, on vehicles clearly marked with the charity’s logo and about whose movements the IDF had been notified.
It most definitely was not a case of dropping a bomb in the wrong place - in three different locations…
I was prepared to give Israel the benefit of the doubt after the original Hamas attack in October, but they are behaving in just as much of a cruel and evil way as the terrorists they claim to be attacking - and the collateral damage to innocent civilians is now clearly out of control and completely unjustified.
