I really do think Israil has lost the plot and is out of control. IMHO, this is very dangerous.
Israel says it has refused visa to UN official to ‘teach them a lesson’
Israel says it has refused a visa to UN humanitarian affairs chief Martin Griffiths as a result of comments at the UN by secretary-general António Guterres.
Israeli media reports that Israel’s ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan said on army radio:
Due to his remarks we will refuse to issue visas to UN representatives. We have already refused a visa for under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs Martin Griffiths. The time has come to teach them a lesson.
Israel has called on UN secretary general Guterres to resign after he said that the“appalling attacks” by Hamas against Israel on 7 October cannot justify the “collective punishment of the Palestinian people”, and spoke of “the clear violations of international humanitarian law that we are witnessing in Gaza.”
Guterres had said “Nothing can justify the deliberate killing, injuring and kidnapping of civilians – or the launching of rockets against civilian targets. All hostages must be treated humanely and released immediately and without conditions.”
00:01:28
UN chief expresses concern over ‘clear violations of international law’ in Gaza – video
Addressing the UN, the secretary-general then went on to say the attack on Israel did not happen “in a vacuum” and followed “56 years of suffocating occupation” for the Palestinian people by Israel, adding “They have seen their land steadily devoured by settlements and plagued by violence; their economy stifled; their people displaced and their homes demolished. Their hopes for a political solution to their plight have been vanishing.”
Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, said Guterres should resign, calling the speech “shocking”, saying that “he views the massacre committed by Nazi Hamas terrorists in a distorted and immoral manner”.
The man of the year in my estimation, if not the decade, if not ever. Absolutely nothing he said I could have put better, and I have been trying as long as I can remember.
Now any criticism, and that includes by Israeli citizens, makes you not only an antisemite but a supporter of Hamas and their slaughter of people. They really have lost the plot.
Well I watched it on the news earlier too and fully support what the man said, it is true. The more this goes on, the more I feel less support morally for Israel and their attitude. I do not understand why Palestine was not given more land and more power when the state of Israel was formed, I don’t know the actual history but am speaking as someone who cannot understand why idigenous peoples were treated so badly and crowded into a small space. The perpetrators of these vile acts against citizens of Israel are the enemy, not the ordinary palestinians and now they will not recover if at all.
Well a lot of it is bog standard racism because Theodore Herzl and co. were obv Europeans and the Palestinians are “just dirty Arabs”. Buying land from Turkish absentee landlords was easy enough and nobody cared about the local tenant farmers anyway.
To me, the people of Gaza probably feel they have been forgotten by the rest of the world and this has created hatred more and more in each generation. I don’t think its about the “west” any more but establishing a terrorist state on the backs of the ordinary people of Palestine who are collateral damage as we are seeing.
This is true, I heard a radio interview today, a perfectly reasonable, quietly spoken, in good English, Palestinian woman was very matter of fact with no hysterics and the last question asked was whether she approved of the actions of Hamas on October the 7th.
Her answer was calm and to the point. ‘Before the 7th, nobody was concerned about the plight of the Palestinians’. That was all, but it was very telling.
The time is massively overdue for new world organisations to be formed without the USA.
Whether it is climate change, the establishment of the Guantanamo Bay prison, the illegal invasion of countries or supporting rogue states such as Israel, the USA has repeatedly proved itself to be an utterly selfish and immoral country.
I guess the issue is that since the end of the cold war there’s been no counterbalance. That’s changing. but as unhappy I am with the US but I’m not too enamoured with China either, or India for that matter. We in the EU need to be very smart to maintain our values. We need far smarter people than von der Leyen for example.
Listening to 'Today at Westminster ’ last night, it seems as though there is a Bill going through Parliament to stop public bodies from imposing bans on countries with which they profoundly disagree, unless it is also government policy.
Big Brother is alive and well in UK.
The repercussions would not be immediate and may not save too many lives, but Israel would become a pariah state which would have a long term impact. However, I’m not sure that they aren’t already on that road given the suffering and slaughter they are inflicting on women and children.
I have considered Israel a rogue state (along with Saudi, funny the friends the US chooses) for forty years, they’re moving that up a gear now.
And they don’t bother them at all. Naftali Bennett and Benjamin Netanyahu have both said “Palestinians are nazis” (not Hamas, not Islamic Jihad, not Hizbollah, not the PLO, just ordinary Palestinians) so I think they are beyond reason.
Yes, I wonder if that would be the same Nazis who now target women and children as well as their men simply for the colour of their skin and their religion?
And before anyone denies the word ‘target’, how else could you describe the thousands who fled, on Israeli orders, from the north to the south only to be bombed out of existence.
