Do we think Starmer’s intervention raises the chances of a ceasefire ?
Self determination is the Palestinians by right, it isn't a consolation prize for being massacred.
It'll be viewed quite rightly as incredibly racist.
Why is it a racist stance?
Because of the first sentence you quoted; it's something owed to the Palestinians by right, it's not something to tied to the bad behaviour of some other party.
Starmer's logic is that as long as there are 'substantive steps' (say there's one week ceasefire) the occupation can continue in perpetuity (including the continued ethnic cleansing of the West Bank)
Do we think Starmer’s intervention raises the chances of a ceasefire ?
Self determination is the Palestinians by right, it isn't a consolation prize for being massacred.
It'll be viewed quite rightly as incredibly racist.
Why is it a racist stance?
Starmer's logic is that as long as there are 'substantive steps' (say there's one week ceasefire) the occupation can continue in perpetuity (including the continued ethnic cleansing of the West Bank)
The reverse of that is even blunter. What the Palestinians do or do not get is contingent on what Israel does or doesn’t do.
That’s the biggest problem with it. The second biggest, regardless of their behaviour, is it’s being held out to Israel as a lopsided threat. Ie, ‘if you don’t do xyz well explicitly take sides and they’ll get abc. There are no similar restrictions on them.’
The reverse of that is even blunter. What the Palestinians do or do not get is contingent on what Israel does or doesn’t do.
Which is only an issue if you think this is an even remotely a good faith initiative to grant Palestinians self determination and also believe that self-determination *should* be contingent on some other party.
That’s the biggest problem with it. The second biggest, regardless of their behaviour, is it’s being held out to Israel as a lopsided threat. Ie, ‘if you don’t do xyz well explicitly take sides and they’ll get abc. There are no similar restrictions on them.’
The UK is already explicitly taking sides, and I'd ask you at which point in the last few decades Israel wouldn’t have viewed the prospect of self determination for the Palestinians as a "lopsided threat".
They have come under criticism on social media from Palestinians for not listening to Palestinian voices who were saying the same thing since late 2023.
The guardian has a piece about the continuity of the current situation with the pre-October 7th blockade of Gaza:
If you've read Eyal Weizman, or Sara Roy this will be familiar territory.
Finally Isaac Chotiner has a couple of pieces in the New Yorker interviewing a senior Israeli journalist and a former Israeli official on the politics of the blockade within Gaza:
So yesterday they bombed a hospital to take out a camera, then bombed it again once all the medics and journalists had arrived at the scene.
Fucking murderous bastards. It's absolutely clear that Palestinian lives have no value in the eyes of the Israeli government and military.
Of note, the Nassar Hospital is the only location that has wi fi in Gaza City. Palestinian Journalists will go to the Hospital to get their stories out, and since Israel will not let international journalists to cover the war, the Palestinians are taking a great risk when they gather at the Hospital.
You are right. There is no way this was an accident. They purposely waited until the Palestinians gathered covering the first bombing to release the second bomb. This is very likely a war crime.
Meanwhile 'Free Palestine' stickers are placed outside our local synagogue, and red crosses hung outside our local mosque (with chants of 'whose country? Our country')
@heron that post is a fine topic, but belongs in a different thread. This one is about genocide and conflict in the middle east, not about a crappy but non-genocidal act of anti-semitism in Great Britain.
Haaretz is now behind a paywall, but registering gets 6 free articles a month.
Haaretz has carried a number of first person articles from IDF soldiers describing the impact on them of killing civilians and children.
If you register, this article from 16/9 is a harrowing read.
From the article:
'I fire 50-60 bullets every day, I've stopped counting kills. I have no idea how many I've killed, a lot. Children.'
The officers do not care if children die, the also do not care what it does to my soul. To them, I am just another tool
(I hope it is OK to link to Haaretz as a source. In the circles I move in it is seen as left leaning and critical of the Israel - from within - but reliable)
Formal recognition of the Palestinian state by the UK, Australia and Canada - don’t know if this will in any way change the UK’s legal position on things like arms exports.
I once visited the British consulate-general building in East Jerusalem for a meeting. It's a pretty strange place and relatively small. To be fair, I haven't been inside an Embassy to compare, but from the outside every other British Embassy I've seen is much bigger.
I mention this because if the UK has really accepted the status of Palestine as a full state then the Palestinian representative in London, who I have also met, should in theory be upgraded to an Ambassador and the building upgraded to an Embassy. And the common practice would be to do the reverse.
But the building in Jerusalem stands on contested land. It was there before the state of Israel existed, when it was in Mandate Palestine. Today it is the only remaining "Consulate General" in the world. The status of the guy who represents the Palestinians in London is similarly strange. He is actually a representative of the PLO rather than the Palestinian Authority. As such semi-officially he speaks for all Palestinians, including the large number in Syria, Lebanon and so on.
I am not involved in diplomacy, I just can't see how this is going to work. Declaring a state that has no boundaries to its land, millions of people spread across a wide area with a range of statuses, no facilities, with a large percentage of the population at very least war traumatised... this isn't ever going to work. I don't understand what anyone thinks this will achieve.
I'm not sure if it is actually the only remaining British Consulate-General, I shouldn't have said that. It looks like that might also be the status of the British diplomat in Hong Kong.
Today she came. Pale. Trembling. A young woman no older than twenty-five, clutching in her arms her son, her last living fragment of hope. The boy was limp, his little arms hanging as though life itself had slipped from them. His eyes were two dead stars. Behind her walked the grandmother. A grandmother who had already buried too many. Her face so worn that it seemed older than the land itself, older than grief.
The mother spoke haltingly, every word torn from her throat like a piece of flesh.
"Diarrhea. Five days," she whispered, as if naming an unforgivable sin.
"But what frightens me..." Her voice cracked. "He no longer eats."
"Since when?" I asked, though I was afraid to know.
Ah, that silence. That silence was like a bell tolling for the dead. She looked at her mother, as though asking for permission to speak. Then, with a kind of resigned despair, she confessed: "For a long time."
I gave her medicine. A hollow gesture. A lie we tell ourselves so we do not collapse. She left without a word. But the grandmother stayed.
She came closer. Each step was heavy, as if she were carrying not her own body but the body of every mother who ever lived. She leaned toward me and spoke with the voice of someone who has seen hell.
"Do not ask her," she said. "She cannot say it. The child stopped eating on the day he saw his father fall. He saw the blood. He saw the body. He saw everything."
Then she too left, and I was alone with the weight of the world.
I am no psychologist. But I have seen the abyss in men's hearts, and I know what it means when a child refuses life itself. This is not a disease of the stomach. This is the soul crying out: No more.
Tell me, what happens to a child's mind when the first god he ever knew, his father, is struck down before him? What happens when the one who was meant to shield him from death becomes death?
The father's blood was not the only thing spilled that day. The child's faith was spilled with it. The world collapsed for him. There is no food sweet enough to make him want to taste life again.
And this is the deepest cruelty of genocide. It is not the heap of corpses that marks its victory. It is not the smoking ruins. It is not the screams at night. Its triumph is when a living child sits in the dust and refuses the breast, refuses the bread, refuses the world itself.
This child will grow, if he grows, with a hollow inside him no bread will ever fill. No embrace will ever close. He will learn to love with fear, to sleep with ghosts beside him. And one day, when he becomes a father, he will place into his child's hands not only his love but also his terror.
And this is how extermination stretches its fingers into the future. It kills not only the body but the capacity to live.
Gaza is not merely a place under bombs. It is a factory of grief, a workshop of despair. What is being forged here is not just ruin. It is a generation of children who will one day walk the earth carrying death in their memories, in their dreams, in the way they touch the world.
As I write this, my chest burns. My hands tremble. I feel as though my own heart is being gnawed from the inside by rats. If there is a God, and I dare still to believe, then He must be weeping over Gaza tonight.
Yes, the father was killed. But the greater crime, the eternal crime, is this: the slow, unseen murder of the child's soul.
This is our apocalypse. Not fire from heaven. Not angels with trumpets. But a child sitting in the rubble, lips pressed shut, eyes empty, refusing to swallow the world's cruelty.
So. The hostages released. Palestinian prisoners set free. Trump applauded in The Knesset.
Anyone here cautiously optimistic?
I share the view expressed by one pundit on Radio 4's The World at One just now, that a lasting peace won't be possible unless there's a change 'at the top' on both sides.
And even if there were how long will it take for the scars to heal - if ever?
I was nauseous hearing the speeches at the Knesset earlier. I felt like I needed to continuing listening to bear witness to what was said, but it was really difficult.
I'm not optimistic. The Gazan Palestinians are basically starving and traumatised and are living on top of a pile of broken buildings which in turn lie, unfortunately, on top of many bodies. What does the future hold for them? How does Trump's vision for a new Gaza work?
And perhaps more importantly, what is to stop the Israelis going back to "finish the job" at a later point?
And perhaps more importantly, what is to stop the Israelis going back to "finish the job" at a later point?
They will need a trigger event, put if one of the thousands of traumatised kids whose families they slaughtered doesn't provide one the I"D"F will goad one.
Whatever the case, Hamas apparently executing the leaders of rival groups and increasing illegal Israeli settlement on the West Bank doesn't augur well on either side.
Whatever the case, Hamas apparently executing the leaders of rival groups and increasing illegal Israeli settlement on the West Bank doesn't augur well on either side.
Actual indigenous rivals or the criminal gangs Israel armed and promoted?
Whatever the case, Hamas apparently executing the leaders of rival groups and increasing illegal Israeli settlement on the West Bank doesn't augur well on either side.
Actual indigenous rivals or the criminal gangs Israel armed and promoted?
Armed criminal gangs which the media has confusingly referred to as clans.
Whatever the case, Hamas apparently executing the leaders of rival groups and increasing illegal Israeli settlement on the West Bank doesn't augur well on either side.
Actual indigenous rivals or the criminal gangs Israel armed and promoted?
Either way, it doesn't bode well.
Would you give a free pass to any other group or authority that was executing 'criminal gangs'?
If a future Farage Fuhrer started summarily executing people deemed to be criminals you would be the first to protest.
Heck, it's not as if Hamas are squeaky clean. They are into all sorts of money-laundering and sharp practice quite apart from the atrocities they've committed.
Which doesn't justify IDF or settler atrocities of course.
Both sides during the Northern Irish Troubles carried out summary executions. Both Loyalist and Republican paramilitaries carried out 'punishment beatings' and worse. The British Government was complicit or colluded with some of this stuff.
I'd like to see both Hamas disarmed and Netanyahu out of The Knesset.
Sadly, I think there's a spiral of violence established that's going to take decades if not centuries to resolve.
Whatever the case, Hamas apparently executing the leaders of rival groups and increasing illegal Israeli settlement on the West Bank doesn't augur well on either side.
Actual indigenous rivals or the criminal gangs Israel armed and promoted?
Either way, it doesn't bode well.
Would you give a free pass to any other group or authority that was executing 'criminal gangs'?
If a future Farage Fuhrer started summarily executing people deemed to be criminals you would be the first to protest.
Heck, it's not as if Hamas are squeaky clean. They are into all sorts of money-laundering and sharp practice quite apart from the atrocities they've committed.
Which doesn't justify IDF or settler atrocities of course.
Both sides during the Northern Irish Troubles carried out summary executions. Both Loyalist and Republican paramilitaries carried out 'punishment beatings' and worse. The British Government was complicit or colluded with some of this stuff.
I'd like to see both Hamas disarmed and Netanyahu out of The Knesset.
Sadly, I think there's a spiral of violence established that's going to take decades if not centuries to resolve.
There are degrees to these things and differences in circumstances. Hamas are an awful organisation with plenty of human rights abuses and murders to their names, but dealing harshly with traitors (those who gave aid and comfort to the enemy in time of war, to use US phrasing) is different from eliminating rivals. One of the characteristics of this conflict has been how different language is used for the same things done by different people, like Hamas has "hostages" while Israel has "detainees".
I accept that the language used depends on the 'weight' attached to these things on either side of these kind of debates and conflicts.
The BBC did report that Hamas claimed that those summarily executed yesterday were collaborators and not simply political rivals.
That doesn't make it any the less heinous or worthy of criticism.
Israel locked up people without trial (among other awful things). That's heinous and to be deplored. Hamas executes people it considers traitors. That's heinous and to be deplored.
Israel locked up people without trial (among other awful things). That's heinous and to be deplored. Hamas executes people it considers traitors. That's heinous and to be deplored.
You think they should have somehow been disarmed, and then stood trial in court, in front of judges that are now dead and then consigned to prisons that have been bombed. How do you envisage that working exactly?
Heck, it's not as if Hamas are squeaky clean. They are into all sorts of money-laundering and sharp practice quite apart from the atrocities they've committed.
Which doesn't justify IDF or settler atrocities of course.
I'd like to see both Hamas disarmed and Netanyahu out of The Knesset.
Do you think the IDF should be similarly disarmed?
Hello, Can I remind people that we're aiming for own voice sources here - what do actual Palestinians and Israelis say about what is going on? It's not enough to opine on the basis of what was read on the BBC or whoever unless they are directly quoting people who actually live there - in which case it would be great if that was made clear and linked.
Middle East Eye have a report on the return of Palestinian bodies drawing together testimony from various sources on the ground. It makes for grim reading, and includes signs of torture, bodies that had been bound and blindfolded -- which some would take as evidence of field executions, and people having been run over by tanks:
@chrisstiles - in an ideal world, of course, there would be no need for either Hamas to be armed or for the IDF to exist.
But we aren't living in an ideal world and the situation in GAza isn't ideal for anyone, the Palestinians least of all.
Ideally - and I know this is unfeasible - I would like to see Hamas relieved of the ability to use arms to oppress the people they claim to represent or carry out murderous attacks on Jewish civilians. Equally, I'd like to see Netanyahu step down and for there to be no traction for right-wing Zionist extremists who carry out attacks on Palestinians whether Muslim or Christian.
If the IDF kept within accepted boundaries and did not commit war crimes then no, I wouldn't want to see them disarmed but to behave responsibly.
They keep citing the 'human-shields' and collateral damage arguments but there does appear to be incontrovertible evidence of war crimes, torture and deliberate targeting of unarmed civilians.
They need to be held to account. So does Hamas.
You appear to be suggesting that it's 'ok' for Hamas to summarily execute members of rival groups or criminal gangs because Israel has destroyed the infrastructure that would allow them to try these people through due process.
Hamas did this sort of thing before the current appalling conflict.
In saying that, I'm neither condoning nor justifying the IDF torturing or murdering Palestinian prisoners.
The whole thing is a bloody mess. Many of the Israeli civilians murdered or captured by Hamas were pro-Palestinian. We can blame Israel and its US backers for creating the situation in the first place, or Britain from the days of the Mandate. That doesn't get us very far.
We are where we are and somehow the Palestinian and Israeli people have to find a solution. Given the recalcitrance of their leaders on both sides I have no idea how this can be achieved.
@chrisstiles - in an ideal world, of course, there would be no need for either Hamas to be armed or for the IDF to exist.
But we aren't living in an ideal world and the situation in GAza isn't ideal for anyone, the Palestinians least of all.
Ideally - and I know this is unfeasible - I would like to see Hamas relieved of the ability to use arms to oppress the people they claim to represent or carry out murderous attacks on Jewish civilians.
If the IDF kept within accepted boundaries and did not commit war crimes then no, I wouldn't want to see them disarmed but to behave responsibly.
Your ideal scenario somehow includes both sides being unarmed but also only one side to be armed.
You appear to be suggesting that it's 'ok' for Hamas to summarily execute members of rival groups or criminal gangs because Israel has destroyed the infrastructure that would allow them to try these people through due process.
I'm saying they can be understand by comparison with similar events in other societies in similar circumstances (Alfred Nossig or the thousands of executions in France after liberation)
The Palestinian analyst Mouin Rabbani deals with the specifics of the executions here (timestamped, and for about 5 minutes):
Whether we like it or not, insofar as any Webberian state exists in Gaza it has been run by Hamas since their victory in the 2006 legislative elections. As far as we can tell they have gone after armed groups where they have either engaged in criminal activities or tried to escalate the situation with Israel outside periods of existing conflict. There are equally a number of armed groups that continue to exist without conflict with Hamas or the Gazan authorities, even when their founding philosophies aren't Islamist, a very good example being presented by the release of Nader Sadaqa a member of the PFLP (secular, nationalist):
Headline: TIME fact-checks Netanyahu interview: PM's claims on October 7, Hamas found to be false
On the topic of Israel’s tacit and direct financial support for Hamas before Oct. 7 in the August 4 interview, Netanyahu claimed, “It’s not only my government [that supported them]. It’s the previous government, the government before me, and the government after me. [My government] wasn’t bankrolling Hamas.”
However, as TIME pointed out, Netanyahu’s previous government reportedly began transferring $30 million a month to the Gaza Strip in 2014.
"Defense Minister Israel Katz, who ordered the blocks, warned that “anyone crossing the line will be met with fire.” BBC Verify documented at least two deadly incidents near the boundary, including footage from October 17 that killed 11 members of a single family about 125 meters beyond the expected line.
Analysts told BBC Verify the markers form a deliberate “kill zone,” expanding Israel’s control under cover of the ceasefire. Palestinians near the line told the BBC there are no clear markings and they remain “constantly exposed to danger.”"
A note that more than 100 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces since the ceasefire.
@chrisstiles - in an ideal world, of course, there would be no need for either Hamas to be armed or for the IDF to exist.
But we aren't living in an ideal world and the situation in GAza isn't ideal for anyone, the Palestinians least of all.
Ideally - and I know this is unfeasible - I would like to see Hamas relieved of the ability to use arms to oppress the people they claim to represent or carry out murderous attacks on Jewish civilians.
If the IDF kept within accepted boundaries and did not commit war crimes then no, I wouldn't want to see them disarmed but to behave responsibly.
Your ideal scenario somehow includes both sides being unarmed but also only one side to be armed.
I noticed that too. The armed group responsible for most of the deaths and injuries in Israel-Palestine is the only one permitted to remain armed. Serious "if only she didn't keep making him angry he wouldn't hit her" vibes.
Comments
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2025/jul/03/gaza-doctors-under-attack-review-channel-4-crucial-film-stuff-of-nightmares
And Mohammed El-Kurd has an own voice piece in The Nation:
https://www.thenation.com/article/world/mohammed-el-kurd-book-excerpt/
Marginally. Maybe. If anyone believes what Starmer says anymore.
Self determination is the Palestinians by right, it isn't a consolation prize for being massacred.
It'll be viewed quite rightly as incredibly racist.
It's good because it exposes the sub-colonial logic along which Starmer operates.
This is his idea of compromise because he cannot imagine a world in which Palestinians have rights.
No. But TBF, I'm not sure anyone's intervention is likely to raise the chances of a ceasefire. Not even Trump's.
Trump cutting off military supplies and imposing trade sanctions might do it, but that's about as likely as the Chief Rabbi dining on pork wings.
Why is it a racist stance?
Because of the first sentence you quoted; it's something owed to the Palestinians by right, it's not something to tied to the bad behaviour of some other party.
Starmer's logic is that as long as there are 'substantive steps' (say there's one week ceasefire) the occupation can continue in perpetuity (including the continued ethnic cleansing of the West Bank)
The reverse of that is even blunter. What the Palestinians do or do not get is contingent on what Israel does or doesn’t do.
That’s the biggest problem with it. The second biggest, regardless of their behaviour, is it’s being held out to Israel as a lopsided threat. Ie, ‘if you don’t do xyz well explicitly take sides and they’ll get abc. There are no similar restrictions on them.’
Which is only an issue if you think this is an even remotely a good faith initiative to grant Palestinians self determination and also believe that self-determination *should* be contingent on some other party.
The UK is already explicitly taking sides, and I'd ask you at which point in the last few decades Israel wouldn’t have viewed the prospect of self determination for the Palestinians as a "lopsided threat".
https://www.btselem.org/publications/202507_our_genocide
They have come under criticism on social media from Palestinians for not listening to Palestinian voices who were saying the same thing since late 2023.
The guardian has a piece about the continuity of the current situation with the pre-October 7th blockade of Gaza:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jul/31/the-mathematics-of-starvation-how-israel-caused-a-famine-in-gaza
If you've read Eyal Weizman, or Sara Roy this will be familiar territory.
Finally Isaac Chotiner has a couple of pieces in the New Yorker interviewing a senior Israeli journalist and a former Israeli official on the politics of the blockade within Gaza:
https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/how-the-israeli-right-explains-the-aid-disaster-it-created
https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/the-political-motives-behind-the-gaza-aid-catastrophe
Fucking murderous bastards. It's absolutely clear that Palestinian lives have no value in the eyes of the Israeli government and military.
Of note, the Nassar Hospital is the only location that has wi fi in Gaza City. Palestinian Journalists will go to the Hospital to get their stories out, and since Israel will not let international journalists to cover the war, the Palestinians are taking a great risk when they gather at the Hospital.
You are right. There is no way this was an accident. They purposely waited until the Palestinians gathered covering the first bombing to release the second bomb. This is very likely a war crime.
Meanwhile 'Free Palestine' stickers are placed outside our local synagogue, and red crosses hung outside our local mosque (with chants of 'whose country? Our country')
Gwai,
Epiphanies host
Haaretz has carried a number of first person articles from IDF soldiers describing the impact on them of killing civilians and children.
If you register, this article from 16/9 is a harrowing read.
From the article:
'I fire 50-60 bullets every day, I've stopped counting kills. I have no idea how many I've killed, a lot. Children.'
The officers do not care if children die, the also do not care what it does to my soul. To them, I am just another tool
(I hope it is OK to link to Haaretz as a source. In the circles I move in it is seen as left leaning and critical of the Israel - from within - but reliable)
Gwai,
Epiphanies Host
I mention this because if the UK has really accepted the status of Palestine as a full state then the Palestinian representative in London, who I have also met, should in theory be upgraded to an Ambassador and the building upgraded to an Embassy. And the common practice would be to do the reverse.
But the building in Jerusalem stands on contested land. It was there before the state of Israel existed, when it was in Mandate Palestine. Today it is the only remaining "Consulate General" in the world. The status of the guy who represents the Palestinians in London is similarly strange. He is actually a representative of the PLO rather than the Palestinian Authority. As such semi-officially he speaks for all Palestinians, including the large number in Syria, Lebanon and so on.
I am not involved in diplomacy, I just can't see how this is going to work. Declaring a state that has no boundaries to its land, millions of people spread across a wide area with a range of statuses, no facilities, with a large percentage of the population at very least war traumatised... this isn't ever going to work. I don't understand what anyone thinks this will achieve.
Today she came. Pale. Trembling. A young woman no older than twenty-five, clutching in her arms her son, her last living fragment of hope. The boy was limp, his little arms hanging as though life itself had slipped from them. His eyes were two dead stars. Behind her walked the grandmother. A grandmother who had already buried too many. Her face so worn that it seemed older than the land itself, older than grief.
The mother spoke haltingly, every word torn from her throat like a piece of flesh.
"Diarrhea. Five days," she whispered, as if naming an unforgivable sin.
"But what frightens me..." Her voice cracked. "He no longer eats."
"Since when?" I asked, though I was afraid to know.
Ah, that silence. That silence was like a bell tolling for the dead. She looked at her mother, as though asking for permission to speak. Then, with a kind of resigned despair, she confessed: "For a long time."
I gave her medicine. A hollow gesture. A lie we tell ourselves so we do not collapse. She left without a word. But the grandmother stayed.
She came closer. Each step was heavy, as if she were carrying not her own body but the body of every mother who ever lived. She leaned toward me and spoke with the voice of someone who has seen hell.
"Do not ask her," she said. "She cannot say it. The child stopped eating on the day he saw his father fall. He saw the blood. He saw the body. He saw everything."
Then she too left, and I was alone with the weight of the world.
I am no psychologist. But I have seen the abyss in men's hearts, and I know what it means when a child refuses life itself. This is not a disease of the stomach. This is the soul crying out: No more.
Tell me, what happens to a child's mind when the first god he ever knew, his father, is struck down before him? What happens when the one who was meant to shield him from death becomes death?
The father's blood was not the only thing spilled that day. The child's faith was spilled with it. The world collapsed for him. There is no food sweet enough to make him want to taste life again.
And this is the deepest cruelty of genocide. It is not the heap of corpses that marks its victory. It is not the smoking ruins. It is not the screams at night. Its triumph is when a living child sits in the dust and refuses the breast, refuses the bread, refuses the world itself.
This child will grow, if he grows, with a hollow inside him no bread will ever fill. No embrace will ever close. He will learn to love with fear, to sleep with ghosts beside him. And one day, when he becomes a father, he will place into his child's hands not only his love but also his terror.
And this is how extermination stretches its fingers into the future. It kills not only the body but the capacity to live.
Gaza is not merely a place under bombs. It is a factory of grief, a workshop of despair. What is being forged here is not just ruin. It is a generation of children who will one day walk the earth carrying death in their memories, in their dreams, in the way they touch the world.
As I write this, my chest burns. My hands tremble. I feel as though my own heart is being gnawed from the inside by rats. If there is a God, and I dare still to believe, then He must be weeping over Gaza tonight.
Yes, the father was killed. But the greater crime, the eternal crime, is this: the slow, unseen murder of the child's soul.
This is our apocalypse. Not fire from heaven. Not angels with trumpets. But a child sitting in the rubble, lips pressed shut, eyes empty, refusing to swallow the world's cruelty.
So. The hostages released. Palestinian prisoners set free. Trump applauded in The Knesset.
Anyone here cautiously optimistic?
I share the view expressed by one pundit on Radio 4's The World at One just now, that a lasting peace won't be possible unless there's a change 'at the top' on both sides.
And even if there were how long will it take for the scars to heal - if ever?
And how do we begin to try and heal them?
I'm not optimistic. The Gazan Palestinians are basically starving and traumatised and are living on top of a pile of broken buildings which in turn lie, unfortunately, on top of many bodies. What does the future hold for them? How does Trump's vision for a new Gaza work?
And perhaps more importantly, what is to stop the Israelis going back to "finish the job" at a later point?
They will need a trigger event, put if one of the thousands of traumatised kids whose families they slaughtered doesn't provide one the I"D"F will goad one.
Whatever the case, Hamas apparently executing the leaders of rival groups and increasing illegal Israeli settlement on the West Bank doesn't augur well on either side.
Actual indigenous rivals or the criminal gangs Israel armed and promoted?
Armed criminal gangs which the media has confusingly referred to as clans.
Either way, it doesn't bode well.
Would you give a free pass to any other group or authority that was executing 'criminal gangs'?
If a future Farage Fuhrer started summarily executing people deemed to be criminals you would be the first to protest.
Heck, it's not as if Hamas are squeaky clean. They are into all sorts of money-laundering and sharp practice quite apart from the atrocities they've committed.
Which doesn't justify IDF or settler atrocities of course.
Both sides during the Northern Irish Troubles carried out summary executions. Both Loyalist and Republican paramilitaries carried out 'punishment beatings' and worse. The British Government was complicit or colluded with some of this stuff.
I'd like to see both Hamas disarmed and Netanyahu out of The Knesset.
Sadly, I think there's a spiral of violence established that's going to take decades if not centuries to resolve.
There are degrees to these things and differences in circumstances. Hamas are an awful organisation with plenty of human rights abuses and murders to their names, but dealing harshly with traitors (those who gave aid and comfort to the enemy in time of war, to use US phrasing) is different from eliminating rivals. One of the characteristics of this conflict has been how different language is used for the same things done by different people, like Hamas has "hostages" while Israel has "detainees".
The BBC did report that Hamas claimed that those summarily executed yesterday were collaborators and not simply political rivals.
That doesn't make it any the less heinous or worthy of criticism.
Israel locked up people without trial (among other awful things). That's heinous and to be deplored. Hamas executes people it considers traitors. That's heinous and to be deplored.
You think they should have somehow been disarmed, and then stood trial in court, in front of judges that are now dead and then consigned to prisons that have been bombed. How do you envisage that working exactly?
Do you think the IDF should be similarly disarmed?
Thanks!
Louise
Epiphanies host
https://bsky.app/profile/unrwa.org/post/3m3cfhtpkix2f
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/outcry-after-israel-returns-palestinian-bodies-horrific-condition-gaza
https://sabeel.org/category/wave-of-prayers/
Lord, have mercy
But we aren't living in an ideal world and the situation in GAza isn't ideal for anyone, the Palestinians least of all.
Ideally - and I know this is unfeasible - I would like to see Hamas relieved of the ability to use arms to oppress the people they claim to represent or carry out murderous attacks on Jewish civilians. Equally, I'd like to see Netanyahu step down and for there to be no traction for right-wing Zionist extremists who carry out attacks on Palestinians whether Muslim or Christian.
If the IDF kept within accepted boundaries and did not commit war crimes then no, I wouldn't want to see them disarmed but to behave responsibly.
They keep citing the 'human-shields' and collateral damage arguments but there does appear to be incontrovertible evidence of war crimes, torture and deliberate targeting of unarmed civilians.
They need to be held to account. So does Hamas.
You appear to be suggesting that it's 'ok' for Hamas to summarily execute members of rival groups or criminal gangs because Israel has destroyed the infrastructure that would allow them to try these people through due process.
Hamas did this sort of thing before the current appalling conflict.
In saying that, I'm neither condoning nor justifying the IDF torturing or murdering Palestinian prisoners.
The whole thing is a bloody mess. Many of the Israeli civilians murdered or captured by Hamas were pro-Palestinian. We can blame Israel and its US backers for creating the situation in the first place, or Britain from the days of the Mandate. That doesn't get us very far.
We are where we are and somehow the Palestinian and Israeli people have to find a solution. Given the recalcitrance of their leaders on both sides I have no idea how this can be achieved.
And yes, we need 'own voice' perspectives.
Your ideal scenario somehow includes both sides being unarmed but also only one side to be armed.
I'm saying they can be understand by comparison with similar events in other societies in similar circumstances (Alfred Nossig or the thousands of executions in France after liberation)
The Palestinian analyst Mouin Rabbani deals with the specifics of the executions here (timestamped, and for about 5 minutes):
https://youtu.be/iM_q3uG_quQ?t=962
His mention of ISIS isn't hyperbole https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheikh_Omar_Hadid_Brigade
Whether we like it or not, insofar as any Webberian state exists in Gaza it has been run by Hamas since their victory in the 2006 legislative elections. As far as we can tell they have gone after armed groups where they have either engaged in criminal activities or tried to escalate the situation with Israel outside periods of existing conflict. There are equally a number of armed groups that continue to exist without conflict with Hamas or the Gazan authorities, even when their founding philosophies aren't Islamist, a very good example being presented by the release of Nader Sadaqa a member of the PFLP (secular, nationalist):
https://www.palestinechronicle.com/samaritans-of-the-resistance-nader-sadaqa-a-palestinian-jewish-prisoner-freed-by-israel/
https://x.com/MiddleEastEye/status/1979263248697372949
Headline: For years, Netanyahu propped up Hamas. Now it’s blown up in our faces
https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up-hamas-now-its-blown-up-in-our-faces/
From 972 mag
Headline: The not-so-secret history of Netanyahu’s support for Hamas
https://www.972mag.com/netanyahu-hamas-october-7-adam-raz/
From the Jerusalem Post
Headline: TIME fact-checks Netanyahu interview: PM's claims on October 7, Hamas found to be false
https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/benjamin-netanyahu/article-815186
Which has led to a number of incidents:
"Defense Minister Israel Katz, who ordered the blocks, warned that “anyone crossing the line will be met with fire.” BBC Verify documented at least two deadly incidents near the boundary, including footage from October 17 that killed 11 members of a single family about 125 meters beyond the expected line.
Analysts told BBC Verify the markers form a deliberate “kill zone,” expanding Israel’s control under cover of the ceasefire. Palestinians near the line told the BBC there are no clear markings and they remain “constantly exposed to danger.”"
A note that more than 100 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces since the ceasefire.
I noticed that too. The armed group responsible for most of the deaths and injuries in Israel-Palestine is the only one permitted to remain armed. Serious "if only she didn't keep making him angry he wouldn't hit her" vibes.