A clever handling of such a tragic topic.
No, I think they expected the rabid Netanyahu and his right wing cronies to do exactly what they are doing. The innocents on both sides are just collateral damage, for both sides.
Many years ago in my first term as an undergraduate in the UK I came nose to nose with someone howling at me in the college bar that I was anti-Semitic because I was reading Arabic and Persian. Stupid and it pissed me off. Quite apart from anything else the Arabs are Semites, Arabic is a Semitic language, and he knew precisely 0 about me apart from my choice of course.
Well you were a female as well so you were probably fair game.
I know I should not be watching and reading about this so much. I just thought I could squeeze in a BBC Panorama before pulling away
Then, half way through I looked up where is the Palestinian reporter Rushdi Al-Sarraj now
I have no doubt that Israel is, and has been for some time, targeting journalists. That’s also why they have now hit communications in Gaza. Genocide is better practised in the dark.
Wonderful jewish lady from London says it like is is from 04:00…
I concur.
Understanding the war in Gaza.
Naomi sounded genuine and compassionate. And spot on.
I really didn’t think much of the judgemental sounding program presenter though.
No, but I’ve not been impressed with her on any topic really, ever.
Nevertheless, there are probably more effective chat-up strategies…
Here’s a n interesting Youtube video of an interview with Ilan Pappe, who talks about his book The Ethnic Cleansing Of Palestine.
Another very wise article by NYT Pulitzer Prize winning author, Thomas Friedman, which I feel everyone should be able to read
I am watching the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza today and thinking about one of the world leaders I’ve most admired: Manmohan Singh. He was India’s prime minister in late November 2008, when 10 Pakistani jihadist militants from the Lashkar-e-Taiba group, widely believed to be linked to Pakistan’s military intelligence, infiltrated Indiaand killed more than 160 people in Mumbai, including 61 people at two luxury hotels. What was Singh’s military response to India’s Sept. 11?
He did nothing.
Singh never retaliated militarily against the nation of Pakistan or Lashkar camps in Pakistan. It was a remarkable act of restraint. What was the logic? In his book “Choices: Inside the Making of India’s Foreign Policy,” India’s foreign minister at the time, Shivshankar Menon, explained why, making these key points:
“I myself pressed at that time for immediate visible retaliation” against the jihadist bases or against Pakistani military intelligence, “which was clearly complicit,” Menon wrote. “To have done so would have been emotionally satisfying and gone some way toward erasing the shame of the incompetence that India’s police and security agencies displayed.”
He continued, “But on sober reflection and in hindsight, I now believe that the decision not to retaliate militarily and to concentrate on diplomatic, covert and other means was the right one for that time and place.”
Chief among the reasons, Menon explained, was that any military response would have quickly obscured just how outrageous and terrible the raid on Indian civilians and tourists was; “the fact of a terrorist attack from Pakistan on India with official involvement on the Pakistan side” would have been lost. Once India retaliated, the world would immediately have had what Menon called a “ho-hum reaction.” Just another Pakistani-Indian dust-up — nothing unusual here.
Moreover, Menon wrote, “an Indian attack on Pakistan would have united Pakistan behind the Pakistan Army, which was in increasing domestic disrepute,” and “an attack on Pakistan would also have weakened the civilian government in Pakistan, which had just been elected to power and which sought a much better relationship with India than the Pakistan Army was willing to consider.” He continued, “A war scare, and maybe even a war itself, was exactly what the Pakistan Army wanted to buttress its internal position.”
In addition, he wrote, “a war, even a successful war, would have imposed costs and set back the progress of the Indian economy just when the world economy in November 2008 was in an unprecedented financial crisis.”
In conclusion, said Menon, “by not attacking Pakistan, India was free to pursue all legal and covert means to achieve its goals of bringing the perpetrators to justice, uniting the international community to force consequences on Pakistan for its behavior and to strengthen the likelihood that such an attack would not take place again.”
I understand that Israel is not India —….
Israel should keep the door open for a humanitarian cease-fire and prisoner exchange that will also allow Israel to pause and reflect on exactly where it is going with its rushed Gaza military operation — and the price it could pay over the long haul.
That is why I raise the Indian example. Because targeted use of force with limited, achievable goals may serve Israel’s long-term security and prosperity more than an open-ended war to eradicate Hamas. At least Israel should be asking that question.
Such a pause could also allow the people of Gaza to take stock of what Hamas’s attack on Israel — and Israel’s totally predictable response — has done to their lives, families, homes and businesses. What exactly did Hamas think it was going to accomplish by this war for the people of Gaza, thousands of whom were going to work in Israel every day or exporting agricultural products and other goods across the Gaza-Israel border just a few weeks ago? Hamas has gotten way too much understanding and not enough hard questions.
I want to see Hamas’s leaders come out from their tunnels under hospitals and look their people, and the world’s media, in the eye and tell us all why they thought it was such a great idea to mutilate and kidnap Israeli children and grandmothers and trigger this terrible blowback on the children and grandmothers of their Gaza neighbors — not to mention their own.
Interview between an Al-Arabiya journalist and Hamas’ political head. Speaking from an Arab perspectives she doesn’t pull her punches. Members may prefer to mute the sound and just read the subtitles
https://twitter.com/arash_tehran/status/1715354932595847322
Hamas clearly think there is no limit to the amount of Palestinian lives they are willing to martyr in the cause of winning a ‘liberation’ from Isreal. Not that the Palestinian people were consulted.
Worrying too is the declared intention that other Arab nations and peoples may join in raising a war against……?
It is obvious there are edit cuts in this video, broadcast for Arab world consumption. Particularly interesting is the cut made during the answer about Iran’s involvement. Sometimes, the space between what is said is very revealing.
Below is a link to an extremely good analysis of possible regional developments.
Thank you Nigel for this link. Very well done.
I rather think, especially if Iran was involved, that this current mess was the intended result.
The poor Palestinian people in Isreal, valued as expendable by Hamas and collateral damage by IDF, had and have no hope.
I don’t think there is any doubt whatsoever that they are bankrolling, directing and ultimately controlling what is going on at the moment 
