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They’ve ran out of kids to kill in Gaza.

What, that the uk/us should also have intercepted bombs that have been raining down upon Gaza for the past 7 months? Must be blind lad or you've been taking STDs load into your eyes

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/mar/29/gaza-israel-palestinian-war-ecocide-environmental-destruction-pollution-rome-statute-war-crimes-aoe The western backed act of terrorism has potentially made Gaza unliveable.

Iran wants Americans out of Iraq and Syria. They are the ones who cooked all this shit in Gaza up and Netanyahu has embraced it because it suits him domestically. And the ones killed in Damascus were basically an Iranian HQ for operations against Israel and most likely the masterminds of the October 7 attack. Hopefully they now don't hit anything serious in Israel and Israel is satisfied that the Damascus attack can cover include the retaliation for this tonight from Iran.

Interesting view on the events of October 7th. https://new.thecradle.co/articles-id/18526 Israeli officials allege that Hamas carried out a pre-mediated and carefully executed massacre of 364 Israeli civilians at the Nova music festival near Gaza on 7 October as part of the Palestinian resistance's Operation Al-Aqsa Flood. They claim that Hamas and other Palestinians had hours to murder Israeli partygoers before the army reached the scene. However, new details have emerged showing that Israel's Border Police was deployed at the Nova site before Hamas stumbled on the festival, causing the eruption of a major battle. While some ravers were indeed killed by the Palestinian resistance - whether by intent or in the chaos of battle - the evidence now suggests that the majority of civilian deaths were likely inflicted by Israeli forces themselves. This was due to the overwhelming firepower employed by occupation forces - including from Apache attack helicopters - and because Tel Aviv issued the controversial Hannibal Directiveto prevent Hamas from taking Israeli party-goers as captives. Operation Philistine Horseman At 6:30 am, just after sunrise on 7 October, fighters from the Hamas military wing, the Qassam Brigades, launched its military operation, firing a barrage of missiles toward Israel. Thousands of its fighters and those from other factions breached the Gaza border fence in multiple locations to attack surrounding Israeli military bases and take captives in settlements as leverage for a mass prisoner swap deal. Though it would take the army hours to respond, units of the Border Police were quickly deployed. At 6:42 am, a mere 12 minutes after Operation Al-Aqsa Flood was launched, the Southern District Commander of the Israeli Police, Amir Cohen, gave an order code-named “Philistine Horseman,” sending police officers and Border Police who were on alert to the sites of various battles. This included members of the Yamam, and Tequila commando units that have no police duties but conduct military and counter-terrorism operations, including undercover assassinations in the Gaza Strip and occupied-West Bank. According to a senior Israeli officer speaking with by the New York Times, the first formal reinforcements to southern Israel came from commandos that arrived by helicopter. Sagi Abitbol, a policeman working as a security guard at the festival, was among the first to confront Hamas fighters near Nova, and witnessed the early arrival of these helicopters. During the fighting, 59 Israeli police officers were killed, including at least 17 at the Nova festival. Hamas did not plan to attack the festival Avi Mayer of the Jerusalem Post asserted that Hamas carefully planned to attack the concert in advance, intending to murder as many Israeli civilians as possible. The facts, though, tell an entirely different story. An Israeli police investigation reported by Haaretz indicates that Hamas was unaware of the festival in advance. The official findings suggest that the intended target was Re’im, a settlement and military base located just down the road - on Route 232 - from the Nova site. A major fight did indeed take place at Re’im, home to the Israeli army's Gaza Division, the Palestinian resistance's stated military target. The commander of the base was forced to call in airstrikes from an Apache helicopter on the base itself just to repel the Hamas attack. The police investigation also indicates that Hamas fighters reached the festival site from Route 232, rather than from the Gaza border fence, further supporting the claim that the festival was not a planned target. Following the launch of missiles from Gaza - and before Palestinian resistance fighters arrived on the scene - the organizers of the festival promptly ceased the music and initiated an evacuation. According to a senior police officer quoted by Haaretz, roughly 4,400 people were present at Nova and the “vast majority managed to escape following a decision to disperse the event that was made four minutes after the rocket barrage,” while the first shots were not heard for another half hour. Trapping civilians: Israel police blocked the vital 232 Road exit However, as people exited the festival site by car and moved onto Route 232, Israeli police established roadblocks in both directions, leading to a traffic jam that trapped many partygoers in the area where fighting between Hamas and the Border Police would eventually break out. “There was a lot of confusion. The police barricaded the road, so we couldn’t go near Be’eri. We couldn’t go near Re’im, the two near kibbutzim,” says one witness, Yarin Levin, who was trying to evacuate the area with his friends. Levin, a former Israeli soldier, said this is when they had their “first encounter of the terrorists… fighting against the police that are there… two terrorists got lost in some kind of gun fight, so they found us.” Another witness, Shye Weinstein, also confirms the Israeli police roadblocks that blocked the main exit from the festival. He took photos of a Border Police vehicle and a heavily armed policeman in combat gear impeding the road in front of his car. A cell phone video from a concert attendee shows Israeli police and security forces using their vehicles to block the road near the festival site and exchanging fire with Hamas fighters. When gunfire erupted, those trapped on the road fled east into open fields, whether in their cars or by foot. Many made it past the fields and hid near trees, under bushes, and in ravines. But body cam footage shows heavily armed Israeli police units taking up positions on the road and firing across the open field into the trees where civilians had taken cover. http://thecradle-main.oss-eu-central-1.aliyuncs.com/public/articles_media/5fce4816-b276-11ee-90ab-00163e02c055.jpegPhotos of destroyed cars near the Nova music festival As Nova attendee Gilad Karplus, also a former Israeli soldier, told the BBC: Though Karplus and other partygoers were being fired on by the Border Police, they couldn’t make sense of this, and initially believed the shooting was from Hamas fighters disguised as police or soldiers. In other words, these witnesses actually saw Israeli forces firing on them. For Hamas to have executed a plan involving elaborate disguises, the Nova operation would have had to be pre-planned, and the Israeli police investigation has already ruled that Hamas was unaware of the festival in advance. Moreover, no other site of clashes on 7 October reported sightings of Palestinian fighters donning Israeli uniforms - neither at the various breached settlements, nor at the Israeli military bases they entered. Friendly fire In short, both the Border Police and Apache attack helicopters were deployed to the festival site immediately. According to Israeli Air Force (reserve) Colonel Nof Erez, the helicopters were in the air by 7:15 am - 45 minutes after the launch of Al-Aqsa Flood - with a significantly larger number deployed throughout southern Israel within a few hours. A survivor of the festival, Noa Kalash described hearing gunfire from both Hamas and Israeli forces, as well as airstrikes from attack helicopters and warplanes, while hiding in the bushes for hours to stay alive. It is abundantly clear that helicopter fire killed some of the terrified concertgoers. Haaretzquotes a police source saying that Apache helicopters “fired at the terrorists and apparently also hit some of the revelers who were there.” Multiple eyewitnesses who visited the Nova site after the battle ended described the horrific destruction. As another news report states: A Times of Israel journalist who visited the site days later recounted that, “dozens of cars were parked in rows, some of them burnt husks containing charred bodies of young festival-goers who were shot and burned alive.” Saving bullets for soldiers Incredibly, Israeli officials claim it was Hamas fighters who destroyed hundreds of cars at Nova, burning their passengers alive. But Hamas did not have this kind of firepower. The group's fighters were armed only with light machine guns and RPGs, and their ammunition was limited to what they could bring with them in pick-up trucks from Gaza. Guardian journalist Owen Jones noted this while discussing a 43-minute compilation of video footage from 7 October shown to select journalists by the Israeli army. He says Hamas fighters “urge bullets to be saved for killing soldiers. One terrified reveler in a car is asked, ‘Are you a soldier?’” As Jones notes: “So there is clearly some distinction being made between civilians and soldiers in the footage selected by Israel of the thousands of hours of footage which we don’t see.” While Hamas’ ammunition was limited, the Border Police were heavily armed and Apache helicopters are equipped with Hellfire missiles and 30 mm automatic chain guns, which can hold up to 1,200 rounds of ammunition and fire 625 rounds a minute. This suggests Israeli forces caused most of the death and destruction at Nova - which could be confirmed If Israel were to release all of its video footage from 7 October. The Hannibal Directive Israeli forces had not only the fire power, but also an official order to kill Israelis at Nova. A major reason Hamas launched the Al-Aqsa Flood operation was to take Israeli captives that could be exchanged for the thousands of Palestinians held captive in Israeli prisons. But Israeli forces were determined to prevent Hamas from taking captives back to Gaza, even if this meant killing the captured civilians. An investigation of Israel's long-controversial Hannibal Directive concludes that “from the point of view of the army, a dead soldier is better than a captive soldier who himself suffers and forces the state to release thousands of captives in order to obtain his release.” But, on 7 October, according to a Yedioth Ahronoth investigation, the Hannibal Directive - which has previously only applied to army captives - was issued against Israeli civilians as well. The Hebrew-language daily writes that "at noon on October 7, the IDF [Israeli army] ordered all of its combat units in practice to use the ‘Hannibal Procedure’ although without clearly mentioning this explicitly by name.” The order was to stop “at all costs any attempt by Hamas terrorists to return to Gaza, that is, despite the fear that some of them have abductees,” the investigation concludes. In the days and weeks after the incident, Israeli authorities made a great show of distributing images of vehicles destroyed at the festival site, fully implying that the cars - and the dead victims inside - had been burned to a crisp by Palestinian fighters. The Yediot report completely upends that claim: Nof Erez, the Israeli Air Force colonel noted above, similarly concluded, in regard to Israel's indiscriminate use of helicopter firepower that day, that “The Hannibal directive was probably deployed because once you detect a hostage situation, this is Hannibal.” An apparent instance of this at the Nova festival was inadvertently documented by the BBC, which reported that video footage showed a woman who was taken hostage, but who: The rationale for the Hannibal Directive was further explained by Brigadier General Barak Hiram, who ordered a tank to open fire on a home to resolve a hostage situation in Kibbutz Be’eri, “even at the cost of civilian casualties.” The strike killed 12 Israelis, including 12-year-old Liel Hetzroni, and dozens of Hamas fighters.

But you're taking it out all context. Yes Putin is a Pysco, yes Ukraine needed support but you mention Paragliding in a dramatic sense which it undoubtedly is but why would those in Gaza need to use Paraglidiers? Is it something to do with that big high steel wall thats hemmed them in for decades? Ukraine or Russia or whoever wouldn't need to go Paragliding because no other country on earth has its people trapped within a big steel wall. After South Africa not many nations have to live under the rule of apartheid. Why are those who've got so much to say about the poor innocents in Ukraine so silent when it comes to this slaughter of women and children in Gaza? Why no outrage there?

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has appointed his longtime economic adviser Mohammed Mustafa to be the next prime minister. Mustafa, a US-educated economist and political independent, now faces the task of forming a new government for the PA, which has limited powers in parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank. In a statement announcing the appointment on Thursday, Abbas asked Mustafa to put together plans to re-unify administration in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, lead reforms in the government, security services and economy and fight corruption. Mustafa replaces former Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh who, along with his government, resigned in February citing the need for change amid Israel's war on Gaza and escalating violence in the occupied West Bank. The internationally recognised PA, which is dominated by the Fatah party, exercises limited self-rule in the occupied West Bank, but lost control of Gaza to Hamas in 2007. Fatah and Hamas are expected to meet in Moscow this week for talks.

Chuck Schumer has come out calling for Netanyahu's democratic removal, and for a new approach vis-a-vis Gaza and the Palestinians. Netanyahu “has been too willing to tolerate the civilian toll in Gaza, which is pushing support for Israel worldwide to historic lows. Israel cannot survive if it becomes a pariah”. And more. He listed Netanyahu, who has long opposed Palestinian statehood, as among several obstacles to the two-state solution supported by the United States, alongside rightwing Israelis, Hamas and the Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas. “These are the four obstacles to peace, and if we fail to overcome them, then Israel and the West Bank and Gaza will be trapped in the same violent state of affairs they’ve experienced for the last 75 years,” Schumer said. Amazing.

So many really brilliant Jewish people. So many brainwashed idiots. Exactly the same for every religion. However the blind eye “shrug” about what is happening in Gaza is unforgivable. I hope Stephen Pollard dies a slow painful death the fat lying cunt

If the BBC and people like Jeremy Bowen were allowed into Gaza we rely on the residents on the ground sending out information. The information problem in Gaza in not with the BBC, CNN or even Twitter it's the Israeli forces sending out their own false information and also killing and silencing bona fida journalists from sending out theirs. Once again.. https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/02/1146132 PTS can provide no other credible sources reporting from Gaza because their are no other credible sources who are allowed to report from Gaza and in truth he/they do not want sources to report from Gaza. Which is why he got upset when the pics from Lebanon being bombed were shown last night. Which again proved to be true.

Hamas has proposed a ceasefire plan that would quiet the guns in Gaza for four-and-a-half months, during which all hostages would go free, Israel would withdraw its troops from the Gaza Strip and an agreement would be reached on an end to the war. According to a draft document seen by Reuters, the Hamas counterproposal envisages three phases of a truce, lasting 45 days each. Hamas would exchange remaining Israeli hostages they captured on Oct. 7 for Palestinian prisoners. The reconstruction of Gaza would begin, Israeli forces would withdraw completely, and bodies and remains would be exchanged. According to the document, during the first 45-day phase, all Israeli women hostages, males under 19 and the elderly and sick would be released, in exchange for the release of Palestinian women and children from Israeli jails. Israel would also withdraw its troops from populated areas during the first phase.Implementation of the second phase would not begin until the sides conclude "indirect talks over the requirements needed to end the mutual military operations and return to complete calm".The second phase would include the release of remaining male hostages and "the withdrawal of Israeli forces outside the borders of all areas of the Gaza Strip".Bodies and remains would be exchanged during the third phase. The truce would also increase the flow of food and other aid to Gaza's desperate civilians, who are facing hunger and dire shortages of basic supplies."People are optimistic, at the same time they pray that this hope turns into a real agreement that will end the war," said Yamen Hamad, a father of four, living in a UN school in Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip. https://english.aawsat.com/arab-world/4838916-hamas-proposal-calls-135-day-ceasefire-israeli-withdrawal-talks-end-war

Great piece from Thomas Friedman in today's NYT. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/19/opinion/biden-speech-israel-gaza.htmlIsrael Is About to Make a Terrible MistakeOct. 19, 2023I have great admiration for how President Biden has used his empathy and physical presence in Israel to convince Israelis that they are not alone in their war against the barbaric Hamas, while trying to reach out to moderate Palestinians. Biden, I know, tried really hard to get Israeli leaders to pause in their rage and think three steps ahead — not only about how to get into Gaza to take down Hamas but also about how to get out — and how to do it with the fewest civilian casualties possible.While the president expressed deep understanding of Israel’s moral and strategic dilemma, he pleaded with Israeli military and political leaders to learn from America’s rush to war after Sept. 11, which took our troops deep into the dead ends and dark alleys of unfamiliar cities and towns in Iraq and Afghanistan.However, from everything I have gleaned from senior U.S. officials, Biden failed to get Israel to hold back and think through all the implications of an invasion of Gaza for Israel and the United States. So let me put this in as stark and clear language as I can, because the hour is late:I believe that if Israel rushes headlong into Gaza now to destroy Hamas — and does so without expressing a clear commitment to seek a two-state solution with the Palestinian Authority and end Jewish settlements deep in the West Bank — it will be making a grave mistake that will be devastating for Israeli interests and American interests.It could trigger a global conflagration and explode the entire pro-American alliance structure that the United States has built in the region since Henry Kissinger engineered the end of the Yom Kippur War in 1973.I am talking about the Camp David peace treaty, the Oslo peace accords, the Abraham Accords and the possible normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia. The whole thing could go up in flames.This is not about whether Israel has the right to retaliate against Hamas for the savage barbarism it inflicted on Israeli men, women, babies and grandparents. It surely does. This is about doing it the right way — the way that does not play into the hands of Hamas, Iran and Russia.If Israel goes into Gaza and takes months to kill or capture every Hamas leader and soldier but does so while expanding Jewish settlements in the West Bank — thereby making any two-state solution there with the more moderate Palestinian Authority impossible — there will be no legitimate Palestinian or Arab League or European or U.N. or NATO coalition that will ever be prepared to go into Gaza and take it off Israel’s hands.There will be no one to extract Israel and no one to help Israel pay the cost of caring for more than two million Gazans — not if Israel is run by a government that thinks, and acts, as if it can justifiably exact its revenge on Hamas while unjustifiably building an apartheidlike society run by Jewish supremacists in the West Bank. That is a completely incoherent policy.Alas, though, a senior U.S. official told me that the Biden team left Jerusalem feeling that while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel understands that overreach in Gaza could set the whole neighborhood ablaze, his right-wing coalition partners are eager to fan the flames in the West Bank. Settlers there have killed at least seven Palestinian civilians in acts of revenge in just the past week.Meanwhile, U.S. officials told me, the representatives of those settlers in the cabinet are withholding tax money owed the Palestinian Authority, making it harder for it to keep the West Bank as under control as it has been since the start of the Hamas war.Netanyahu should not allow this, but he has trapped himself. He needs those right-wing extremists in his coalition to keep himself out of jail on corruption charges.But he is going to put all of Israel into the jail of Gaza unless he breaks with those Jewish supremacists.Unfortunately, the senior U.S. official told me, Israeli military leaders are actually more hawkish than the prime minister now. They are red with rage and determined to deliver a blow to Hamas that the whole neighborhood will never forget.I understand why. But friends don’t let friends drive while enraged. Biden has to tell this Israeli government that taking over Gaza without pairing it with a totally new approach to settlements, the West Bank and a two-state solution would be a disaster for Israel and a disaster for America. We can help, we can even insist, that our Arab and European allies work to create a more effective, less corrupt and more legitimate Palestinian Authority in the West Bank that, after some transition in Gaza, could help govern there as well. But not without a fundamental change in Israeli policy toward the PA and the Jewish settlers.Otherwise, what began as a Hamas onslaught against Israel has the potential to trigger a Middle East war with every great power and regional power having a hand in it — which would make it very difficult to stop once it started.In the first week of this conflict, the supreme leader of Iran and Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the Hezbollah militia in Lebanon, appeared to be keeping very tight control of their militiamen on the border with Israel and in Iraq, Syria and Yemen. But as the second week has gone on, U.S. officials have picked up increasing signs that both leaders are letting their forces more aggressively attack Israeli targets and that they might attack American targets if the United States intervenes. They smell the logic of how much an Israeli invasion of Gaza could help their goal of driving America out of the whole region.On Thursday, a U.S. Navy warship in the northern Red Sea shot down three cruise missiles and several drones, apparently launched by the pro-Iranian Houthi militia in Yemen, that might have been headed toward Israel. More missiles, likely from pro-Iranian militias, were fired at U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria.So many rockets are now coming from the pro-Iranian Hezbollah militia in South Lebanon that we are one degree away from a full-scale missile war between Israel and Iran’s proxies — and very possibly directly between Israel and Iran.Israel is not likely to let Iran use its proxies to hit Israel without eventually firing a missile directly at Tehran. Israel has missile-armed submarines that are probably in the Persian Gulf as we speak. If that gets going, it’s Katie, bar the door.The United States, Russia and China could all be drawn in directly or indirectly.What makes the situation triply dangerous is that even if Israel acts with herculean restraint to prevent civilian deaths in Gaza, it won’t matter. Think of what happened at Gaza City’s Ahli Arab Hospital on Tuesday.As the Israeli columnist Nahum Barnea pointed out to me, Palestinian Islamic Jihad achieved more this week with an apparently misfired rocket “than it achieved in all of its successful missile launches.”How so? After that rocket failed and fell on the Palestinian hospital in Gaza, killing scores of people, Hamas and Islamic Jihad rushed out and claimed — with no evidence — that Israel had deliberately bombed the hospital, setting streets ablaze across the Arab world. When Israel and the United States offered compelling evidence a few hours later that Islamic Jihad accidentally hit the Gaza hospital with its own rocket, it was already too late. The Arab street was on fire, and a meeting of Arab leaders with Biden was canceled.If people cannot talk openly and honestly about a misfired rocket, imagine what will happen when the first major Israeli invasion of Gaza begins in our wired world, linked by social networks and polluted with misinformation amplified by artificial intelligence.That is why I believe that Israel would be much better off framing any Gaza operation as “Operation Save Our Hostages” — rather than “Operation End Hamas Once and for All” — and carrying it out, if possible, with repeated surgical strikes and special forces that can still get the Hamas leadership but also draw the brightest possible line between Gazan civilians and the Hamas dictatorship.But if Israel feels it must reoccupy Gaza to destroy Hamas and restore its deterrence and security — I repeat — it must pair that military operation with a new commitment to pursue a two-state solution with those Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza ready to make peace with Israel.The hour is late. I have never written a column this urgent before because I have never been more worried about how this situation could spin out of control in ways that could damage Israel irreparably, damage U.S. interests irreparably, damage Palestinians irreparably, threaten Jews everywhere and destabilize the whole world.I beg Biden to tell Israelis this immediately — for their sake, for America’s sake, for the sake of Palestinians, for the sake of the world.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2024/mar/25/israel-gaza-live-unrwa-aid-north-gaza-un-security-council-vote-ceasefire-middle-east-latest?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

As the reported death toll of the Israeli invasion of Gaza tops 22,000, senior Israeli politicians have grown more explicit in their goal for the Palestinian enclave: the movement of a large number of Gazans out of Gaza entirely. The rhetoric has garnered charges of ethnic cleansing and forced displacement, and a rare rebuke from U.S. officials. But there are no signs of the calls losing steam within Israel. “What needs to be done in the Gaza Strip is to encourage emigration,” Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said Sunday. Referring to Gaza as a “ghetto,” he added: “If in Gaza there will be 100,000 or 200,000 Arabs and not 2 million, the entire conversation on ‘the day after’ will look different.” The following day, Smotrich referred to the Jewish settlement of the territory as “important” and said Palestinians should be encouraged to leave the Gaza Strip. The idea of expelling ― or encouraging the “voluntary” migration of ― Palestinians from Gaza, once a fringe view held by extremists like Meir Kahane, has become normalized in Israeli society since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack that resulted in the deaths of some 1,200 Israelis and the abduction of 240 more, according to Israeli officials. National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir said Monday that the current war presented an “opportunity to concentrate on encouraging the migration of the residents of Gaza.” Such a policy, he added, was “a correct, just, moral and humane solution.” And last week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told one lawmaker who’d called for “voluntary immigration” from Gaza that he was working to facilitate that movement. “Our problem is [finding] countries that are willing to absorb Gazans, and we are working on it,” Netanyahu said. One unnamed senior source in Israel’s security cabinet (Smotrich and Ben Gvir are both members) told Zman Israel, The Times of Israel’s Hebrew sister site, “Congo will be willing to take in migrants, and we’re in talks with others.” Huffpost

Palestinian PM Shtayyeh hands resignation to Abbas over Gaza ‘genocide’ Shtayyeh’s move comes amid US pressure on Palestinian Authority to work on a political structure that can govern a Palestinian state after Gaza war. Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh has announced the resignation of his government, which rules parts of the occupied West Bank, due to the escalating violence in the occupied territory and the war on Gaza. “I see that the next stage and its challenges require new governmental and political arrangements that take into account the new reality in Gaza and the need for a Palestinian-Palestinian consensus based on Palestinian unity and the extension of unity of authority over the land of Palestine,” he said. Last week, Israeli lawmakers backed Netanyahu’s rejection of any “unilateral” recognition of a Palestinian state. But the Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs slammed the vote and accused Israel of holding the rights of Palestinians hostage due to the occupation of Palestinian territories. “The ministry reaffirms that the State of Palestine’s full membership in the United Nations and its recognition by other nations does not require permission from Netanyahu,” it said in a statement. Play Video

Hate to push Slippers blood pressure up any higher but.. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/22/us-gaza-ceasefire-resolution-explainer Also, wonder why giving voice to those suffering appalling atrocities in Gaza (such as below) so upsets certain people? Especially as its common knowledge all major news outlets are banned.

News. At least three sons and three grandchildren of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh killed in Israeli air attack on Gaza refugee camp. Haniyeh says that Palestinian leaders will not back down if their families are targeted by the Israeli army, and that the killings will not affect Hamas’s demands in ceasefire talks.

Accessibility LinksSkip to content MENU sunday february 25 2024 Subscribe You are reading this article for free. Enjoy unlimited articles, free for one month. View offer After a week of chaos, Sir Lindsay Hoyle is running out of options The SNP and the Conservatives are readying a fresh attack on the beleaguered Speaker of the House of Commons Caroline Wheeler , Tim Shipman , Harry Yorke and John Boothman Sunday February 25 2024, 12.01am, The Sunday Times Share Sir Lindsay Hoyle could be forgiven for hoping that the chaos that had threatened to engulf him last week was receding. That after a weekend in their constituencies, the MPs who called for his resignation would feel they had made their point. In fact the opposite appears to be true. The Speaker faces a fresh threat this week after the SNP called for a Brexit-style “meaningful vote” on an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. It was Hoyle’s handling of the party’s motion on the same issue — allowing Labour to amend it — that triggered the outrage in parliament. Now Stephen Flynn, the SNP’s Westminster leader, is keen for a rerun. He says he wants to “refocus the discussion away from the Westminster circus and onto what really matters: doing everything we can to secure an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and Israel”. ADVERTISEMENT Worryingly for the Speaker, Flynn wants a “meaningful vote” on the issue — a controversial procedure used during the Brexit wars fought by Theresa May’s government. Such motions are not normally amendable or binding on the government but when John Bercow was Speaker, he on occasion broke parliamentary convention and made them so. The affair has helped SNP’s Westminster leader Stephen Flynn to paint the Commons as rotten to the core and biased against the nationalists JESSICA TAYLOR/UK PARLIAMENT/AFP Tory MPs said at the time that Bercow’s meddling contributed to May’s inability to pass her Brexit deal, despite three attempts. In the current case it would also open the door to an opposition party setting policy on a highly controversial topic. Hoyle has been warned by senior Tories that granting the SNP such a vote would be seen as another significant departure from protocol, following last week’s debacle. It would also put him on a collision course with Simon Hart, the chief whip, who is understood to have written to him to raise his concerns. Hoyle was told it would only “add to the tensions” that erupted in parliament last week. The warning has been interpreted by the Speaker’s allies as a veiled threat that the Tories could yet move to topple him. SPONSORED It leaves him two options, each unpalatable. He can either grant a debate, which could reignite efforts to oust him, or refuse — and risk a fresh outburst of wrath from the SNP. The nationalists are well versed in disruptive tactics and would be an irritant the Speaker could do without. Last week Hoyle was left clinging to his job after 72 MPs, 30 of them from the SNP, backed an early day motion, initiated by William Wragg, the Conservative MP, calling for him to resign. The row began on Wednesday, after he took the unusual step of overruling advice from his clerks to allow a vote on a Labour amendment to an SNP motion to call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. This allowed Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, to sidestep a rebellion from his MPs. It provoked a furious backlash from the Conservatives. Labour bosses had feared rebel MPs would defy the party whip by supporting the strongly worded SNP motion. ADVERTISEMENT As the first vote approached, Penny Mordaunt, the Commons leader, accused the Speaker of “undermining the confidence” of the House in him, announcing that the Conservatives would take no further part in the proceedings. This lead to a mass walkout by Tory and SNP MPs. Senior Labour sources have said this was because the Conservatives lacked support for their motion. After various points of order calling for the Speaker to return to the chamber to explain himself, and shouts of “resign”, a visibly emotional Hoyle told the Commons he had made his decision because of concerns about the security of MPs and their families, alluding to threats issued to politicians over their stances on the war. “I regret … that it has ended up in this position, it was never my intention,” the former Labour MP said. “I did not want it to end like this.” The chaotic scenes reminded many MPs of the tenure of John Bercow as Speaker TIMES PHOTOGRAPHER JACK HILL However, that did not stop him from facing a barrage of criticism. Rebecca Harris, a senior whip, complained to colleagues about Hoyle going the “full Bercow” — a reference to his predecessor’s laissez faire approach to convention. Another said the Speaker would be “out of a job by Tuesday”. Much of the fury stemmed from reports that Starmer had met Hoyle minutes before he made his decision to allow the Labour and government amendments. MPs near the dingy “reasons room” behind the Commons chamber say that Hoyle met senior figures with his clerks present — but then kicked them out so he could speak to Starmer privately. A witness produced a contemporaneous note of events in the corridor behind the Speaker’s chair and passed it to the Tory whips’ office. Those who have seen it say the Speaker retreated there with his clerks after prime minister’s questions, while a doorkeeper stood guard and sent away MPs who tried to talk to him, including Labour’s Zarah Sultana. A short while later Sir Alan Campbell, Labour’s chief whip, was allowed in by the doorkeeper. Ten minutes later he came out looking “deeply unhappy”. Campbell disappeared at high speed through the “No” lobby. At this point other Labour whips and several MPs gathered behind the Speaker’s chair, near the reasons room, talking loudly of how “Keir is going to fix the Speaker”. Chris Elmore, a Labour whip, told one group of Labour MPs to “use every procedural measure possible to delay”, using points of order during the ten-minute rule bill. Chris Bryant even forced a vote to eat up more time. Sir Keir Starmer has denied making threats during his meeting with the Speaker JACOB KING/PA ADVERTISEMENT Ten minutes after he left, Campbell returned to the reasons room with Starmer. Both were immediately admitted by the doorkeeper and the clerks “kicked out”, and after five minutes alone with Hoyle, the Labour leader and his chief whip emerged smiling. The clerks then returned to the room for another five minutes, during which time it is believed they protested against Hoyle’s decision on the standing orders, before Hoyle went to the Speaker’s chair to announce his ruling to MPs. Hoyle’s allies dispute this version of events. They say the Speaker had decided what he would do before seeing Starmer. Hoyle asked Tom Goldsmith, the Commons clerk and an authority on procedure for the chamber, to publish his advice, which said that his decision represented a “departure from the long-established convention for dealing with such amendments on opposition days, [made] during that morning’s ‘Speaker’s conference’ meeting”. They also claim he spelt out the likely outcome of his decision to Owen Thompson, the SNP chief whip, before his unprompted meeting with Starmer. Both Starmer and Hoyle deny any threats were made during the meeting — but that has not stopped Neale Hanvey, an Alba Party MP, reporting the Labour leader to the privileges committee over allegations of intimidating the Speaker. A cabinet minister said: “It is most unusual to see Starmer and Campbell without the clerks present while Labour MPs, in a co-ordinated action in the chamber, were busy buying time. It is disgraceful. They should never have put the Speaker in that position and he shouldn’t have gone along with it, but he has apologised. This looks as though it’s a serious breach of parliamentary process. What we appear to have seen is something more befitting a banana republic. ADVERTISEMENT “It shows that the leader of the Labour Party is a slippery lawyer who shilly-shallies around in terror that 100 of his own MPs would vote with the SNP.” Sir Lindsay Hoyle has admitted making mistakes after his handling of the SNP motion triggered outrage in parliament NORDIN CATIC/GETTY SNP MPs believe that throughout their discussions with the Speaker “it was all about pleasing Labour”. Going forward, one idea being discussed is to engage in guerrilla tactics to disrupt parliament, which would raise the SNP’s profile and unite the party in a general election year. The government has for now decided not to move against Hoyle, with cabinet ministers Michael Gove, James Cleverly and Mordaunt instead seeking to shift the blame onto Starmer. However, while ministers have been told they cannot join the campaign to oust Hoyle, in private several junior mid-ranking ministers condemned his handling of the controversy. They include transport minister Anthony Browne, technology minister Saqib Bhatti, health minister Maria Caulfield and defence minister James Cartlidge. From an SNP point of view, last week was a good one. They feel they are at the centre of the row and believe they have dragged Starmer kicking and screaming into calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. In November, they embarrassed Starmer when they split his party by attracting 56 Labour MPs to support a ceasefire, including ten frontbenchers. This affair has done Flynn no end of good within the party. He has brought his MPs together in what is a challenging period for the SNP, has burnished his future leadership credentials, and has allowed his supporters to paint Westminster as rotten to the core and biased against the nationalists. Conservative Party Labour Party UK politics Keir Starmer Related articles LEADING ARTICLE Fear Factor February 22 2024, 9.30pm The Times Leading Articles PATRICK MAGUIRE Hoyle is falling into the same trap as Bercow February 22 2024, 9.00pm Patrick Maguire POLITICS PM criticises Hoyle for ‘bending to intimidation by extremists’ February 22 2024, 8.30pm Steven Swinford , Oliver Wright , Matt Dathan Like what you have read? Enjoy unlimited articles, free for one month.View offer Already a subscriber? 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I'm not a war strategist (appreciate you are very knowledgeable in that) but it's beyond the simplistic point of how a few hundred Bradleys would help now. That is chicken scratch and so far short of what will/would be needed as you well know. It is the fact that even that can be used as a political theater that irks me the most, but it is reality. And you have to be honest - the situation in Gaza has refocused how "border wars" will need to be dealt with in modern times. How that pans out will have more influence on US/China relations than the actual geographic outcomes. That said I am quite sure there will be continued military assistance to both US "allies".

The Arab League has called for urgent aid to be sent to Gaza as it convened in Cairo for the 161st session of its council on Monday. "It is urgent and there is no time to wait. The international community is obligated to deal with the famine that has started to ravage elders and children," Hussein Sidi Abdellah Deh, Mauritania's permanent representative to the Arab League and chairman of session told delegates. Aid groups say it has become nearly impossible to deliver humanitarian assistance in most of Gaza because of the difficulty of coordinating with the Israeli military, ongoing hostilities and the breakdown of public order, with crowds of desperate people overwhelming aid convoys. The United Nations said last week that at least one quarter of Gaza's population is on the verge of famine and said that virtually all of the area's 2.3 million people desperately need food.

I wouldn't call the SNPs stance on Gaza disingenuous at all. Their position has been consistent from day one. Their leader in Westminster has consistently brought up the issue of Gaza at PMQs for the past 3 months. Their leader in Scotland had family trapped in Gaza and his wife is Scottish/Palestinian. His brother is a doctor in Gaza. Far from being "disingenuous" along with Layla Moran imo he's been the most genuine politician in Britain on the issue. He speaks here at the start of the conflict. In my opinion he's well measured and heartfelt. Every parliament in the world is discussing Israel. Probably because they dropped the most amount of bombs since World War 2 and are currently on trial for genocide in the Hague. Brazil, the largest country in South America have just banned their ambassadors. As we were responsible for modern day Israel itd be strange if we didn't debate it. Even for historical purposes. Humza Yousaf again (bottom vid) Talking about why he believes politicians speaking up is not pointless. Jones again!! He's been employed by the Independent, the New Statesman, the London Evening Standard, Tribune, The Scotsmen, the Guardian as a journalist to write about politics and current affairs. It's his job. It's why they've employed him over the past three decades. During the Covid epidemic he wrote about politicians response to Covid etc. What in your eyes exactly is he have an opinion on? And what should that opinion be? As for 'menatalism" and "ignorant" the people of Ireland mental? Or ignorant? South Africa? Brazil? Spain etc for voicing concerns over Israel. The 76% of British you want a ceasefire? Are the also mental and ignorant?

https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/mar/21/labour-party-cancelling-membership-policies It’s difficult to disentangle Labour from my sense of self. Grew up in Stockport, looks a bit like Macaulay Culkin, bad dress sense … the Labour party always seemed to fit in there somewhere. My great-grandfather, a railwayman who had his wages docked in the General Strike nearly a century ago, was a Labour councillor. So was my grandmother; her proudest achievement was stopping a family being evicted by a private landlord over Christmas. My parents met at an open-air Labour meeting outside Tooting Bec in the 1960s (romantic). My mother bought me a Labour membership as a 15th birthday present. Under every Labour leader in my 21 years of adult life, I’ve plumped for the party’s candidates at local, national and European level, and campaigned for them to boot. And yet, after a uniquely calamitous 14-year stretch of Tory rule, just as Labour looks set to reconquer No 10 by a landslide, I’ve just emailed the party cancelling my membership. My committed critics will understandably seek to link the two: Labour has shed its aversion to electability, and off sulks Home Alone’s patron saint of unelectable ideas. But my decision isn’t based on a desire to see Labour for ever in the wilderness. Reaching it has been a gradual, painful process of realising the party won’t even do the bare minimum to improve people’s lives, or to tackle the crises that have led Britain to catastrophe; and that it will, in fact, wage war on anyone who wants to do either– making anyone with politics to the left of Peter Mandelson feel like a pariah on borrowed time. Yes, my relatives had conflicted relationships with the party, and were often frustrated by its insufficient radicalism. But they could always point to policies that transformed the lives of the people Labour was founded to represent, from the welfare state to the minimum wage and the NHS, where my grandmother worked for her whole life. The premise of Keir Starmer’s leadership bid in 2020 was that popular policies such as taxing the rich to invest in public services, scrapping tuition fees and promoting public ownership were not to blame for the party’s 2019 electoral rout. Jeremy Corbyn’s 2017 election manifesto, Starmer declared, was the party’s “foundational document” – centred around such commitments and credited with the party’s biggest surge in vote share since 1945, even if it wasn’t enough to win two years after a shattering defeat. “Jeremy Corbyn made our party the party of anti-austerity,” Starmer told shattered Labour members, “and he was right to do so.” Though I didn’t vote for him, his pitch gave hope for the broad church my ancestors believed in. In response, I wrote a column titled: “Starmer can succeed, and he deserves our support.” Yet five years on, Labour has become a hostile environment for anyone believing in the very policies Starmer relied upon to secure the leadership. Sure, Tony Blair’s leadership bid didn’t include laying waste Iraq, but he didn’t pretend to be a slicker version of Tony Benn either. “Circumstances changed,” plead Starmer’s defenders. Weird, then, that according to Margaret Hodge, she was led to believe by a Starmer ally during the leadership election that he was “lying” in order to get the job. Weird, too, that during that same campaign Starmer told Andrew Neil that nationalisation of utilities would feature in a Labour manifesto, but 18 months later said: “I never made a commitment to nationalisation.” Ah, the luxury of a Guardian columnist, goes the predictable retort, demanding the most vulnerable pay the price for his lofty principles. Consider, though, that ending the two-child benefit cap would lift 250,000 children out of poverty, and lessen the effects of poverty on a further 850,000, but Starmer backed keeping it anyway. Why? To sound tough, presumably. On who? Impoverished children, like those I grew up with in Stockport? This is the same Labour party that has ruled out bringing back a cap on bankers’ bonuses or instituting a wealth tax. The same Labour party committed to Tory fiscal rules that lock the country into dismal austerity policies that have delivered collapsing public services and an unprecedented decline in living standards. The same Labour party that gutted its one distinctive flagship policy, a £28bn-a-year green investment fund, not because it came under pressure, but because it feared it might. Some argue that Labour is doing a Clark Kent, and will unveil its hidden progressive Superman upon assuming office. Yet those fiscal rules make that approach impossible, even if you disregard the propensity of Labour governments to become more rightwing in office. The assault on Gaza, the great crime of our age, adds moral indecency to the pile of dishonesty and vacuity. When Starmer declared Israel had the right to cut off energy and water to Palestinian civilians, he did so as a human rights lawyer who understands the Geneva conventions. After letting shadow cabinet ministers defend him, he claimed it “has never been my view that Israel had the right to cut off water, food, fuel or medicines”. We all have political red lines: mine is supporting what would amount to war crimes against innocent civilians, toddlers and newborn babies among them, then gaslighting the public over doing so. Where is my gratitude for Starmer delivering a now inevitable landslide victory, you may ask? Well, he didn’t force Boris Johnson and his cronies to violate their own pandemic rules, or to trash the NHS, or oversee the worst squeeze in living standards in history. Nor did he propel to power Liz Truss, whose unhinged economic experiment crashed the economy – the moment when the electorate turned on this Tory party for good. The absolute power a landslide victory will give Labour should scare you. When Starmer allies deployed antisemitic tropes – with one jokingabout a “run on silver shekels” when two Jewish businessmen missed out on peerages, and another calling a Jewish Tory donor a “puppet master” – an apology was deemed to be sufficient. When another racially abused a journalist and had a sexual harassment complaint upheld, they were reinstated after investigation. Contrast this with Diane Abbott, Britain’s first Black female MP, who was suspended after immediately apologising for an Observer letter in which she argued that Irish, Jewish and Traveller people are not subject to racism “all their lives”. She has been left in limbo for 10 months and counting while the party investigates – only for Labour to use the racist abuse directed at her by a Tory donor for political capital, while still refusing to reinstate her. Another fellow leftwinger, Kate Osamor – again, a Black female MP – was suspended for describing the assault on Gaza as a genocide on the day the international court of justice placed Israel on trial for alleged genocide. Questions of racism, then, seem to be judged on whether they have a factional use – a sure sign of moral bankruptcy. This leadership style is crude in opposition; with an overwhelming majority, it will be chilling. That is why I think those who believe in real change from the Tories’ bankrupt model should vote for Green or independent candidates. A new initiative – We Deserve Better – is raising money to support such candidates, judged on whether they believe in, say, taxing the well-off to invest, or public ownership, or opposing war crimes, even if they differ on this or that. Those seeking transformative policies are now fragmented, but they don’t have to be. The premise of this new initiative is simple: if the left doesn’t band together, the only pressure on Labour will come from the migrant-bashing, rich-worshipping right. The Tories’ chance of winning is infinitesimally small. What matters now is whether anyone who wants to redistribute wealth and power is denied a voice in Starmer’s administration. That is certainly the ambition of his lieutenants. When inevitable disillusionment with a government rooted in deceit and lacking any solutions to Britain’s woes seeps in, it will be the radical right that stands to benefit. So bid me farewell, even cry “good riddance”, but before you do, ask yourself: what do you think will happen next?

In what should be a tight race it could lose him his Presidency. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/1/27/war-criminal-arab-americans-rebuff-biden-campaign-outreach-over-gaza https://www.businessinsider.com/young-americans-vote-trump-over-biden-israel-gaza-war-poll-2023-12 https://jacobin.com/2023/11/joe-biden-polls-reelection-israel-war-gaza-palestine-democratic-party https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/4367226-voters-broadly-disapprove-biden-handling-gaza/ https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/19/politics/biden-poll-israel-gaza-young-voters/index.html Loads more of them.

https://jewishcurrents.org/a-textbook-case-of-genocide ON FRIDAY, Israel ordered the besieged population in the northern half of the Gaza Strip to evacuate to the south, warning that it would soon intensify its attack on the Strip’s upper half. The order has left more than a million people, half of whom are children, frantically attempting to flee amid continuingairstrikes, in a walled enclave where no destination is safe. As Palestinian journalist Ruwaida Kamal Amer wrote today from Gaza, “refugees from the north are already arriving in Khan Younis, where the missiles never stop and we’re running out of food, water, and power.” The UN has warned that the flight of people from the northern part of Gaza to the south will create “devastating humanitarian consequences” and will “transform what is already a tragedy into a calamitous situation.” Over the last week, Israel’s violence against Gaza has killed more than 1,800 Palestinians, injured thousands, and displaced more than 400,000 within the strip. And yet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised today that what we have seen is “only the beginning.” Israel’s campaign to displace Gazans—and potentially expel them altogether into Egypt—is yet another chapter in the Nakba, in which an estimated 750,000 Palestinians were driven from their homes during the 1948 war that led to the creation of the State of Israel. But the assault on Gaza can also be understood in other terms: as a textbook case of genocide unfolding in front of our eyes. I say this as a scholar of genocide, who has spent many years writing about Israeli mass violence against Palestinians. I have written about settler colonialism and Jewish supremacy in Israel, the distortion of the Holocaust to boost the Israeli arms industry, the weaponization of antisemitism accusations to justify Israeli violence against Palestinians, and the racist regime of Israeli apartheid. Now, following Hamas’s attack on Saturday and the mass murder of more than 1,000 Israeli civilians, the worst of the worst is happening. Under international law, the crime of genocide is defined by “the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such,” as noted in the December 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. In its murderous attack on Gaza, Israel has loudly proclaimed this intent. Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant declared it in no uncertain terms on October 9th: “We are imposing a complete siege on Gaza. No electricity, no food, no water, no fuel. Everything is closed. We are fighting human animals, and we will act accordingly.” Leaders in the West reinforced this racist rhetoric by describing Hamas’s mass murder of Israeli civilians—a war crime under international law that rightly provoked horror and shock in Israel and around the world—as “an act of sheer evil,” in the words of US President Joe Biden, or as a move that reflected an “ancient evil,” in the terminology of President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen. This dehumanizing language is clearly calculated to justify the wide scale destruction of Palestinian lives; the assertion of “evil,” in its absolutism, elides distinctions between Hamas militants and Gazan civilians, and occludes the broader context of colonization and occupation. The UN Genocide Convention lists five acts that fall under its definition. Israel is currently perpetrating three of these in Gaza: “1. Killing members of the group. 2. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group. 3. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.” The Israeli Air Force, by its own account, has so far dropped more than 6,000 bombs on Gaza, which is one of the most densely populated areas in the world—more bombs than the US dropped on all of Afghanistan in any year of its war there. Human Rights Watch has confirmed that the weapons used included phosphorous bombs, which set fire to bodies and buildings, creating flames that aren’t extinguished on contact with water. This demonstrates clearly what Gallant means by “act accordingly”: not targeting individual Hamas militants, as Israel claims, but unleashing deadly violence against Palestinians in Gaza “as such,” in the language of the UN Genocide Convention. Israel has also intensified its 16-year siege of Gaza—the longest in modern history, in clear violation of international humanitarian law—to a “complete siege,” in Gallant’s words. This turn of phrase that explicitly indexes a plan to bring the siege to its final destination of systematic destruction of Palestinians and Palestinian society in Gaza, by killing them, starving them, cutting off their water supplies, and bombing their hospitals. It’s not only Israel’s leaders who are using such language. An interviewee on the pro-Netanyahu Channel 14 called for Israel to “turn Gaza to Dresden.” Channel 12, Israel’s most-watched news station, published a report about left-leaning Israelis calling to “dance on what used to be Gaza.” Meanwhile, genocidal verbs—calls to “erase” and “flatten” Gaza—have become omnipresent on Israeli social media. In Tel Aviv, a banner reading “Zero Gazans” was seen hanging from a bridge. Indeed, Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza is quite explicit, open, and unashamed. Perpetrators of genocide usually do not express their intentions so clearly, though there are exceptions. In the early 20th century, for example, German colonial occupiers perpetrated a genocide in response to an uprising by the Indigenous Herero and Nama populations in southwest Africa. In 1904, General Lothar von Trotha, the German military commander, issued an “extermination order,” justified by the rationale of a “race war.” By 1908, the German authorities had murdered 10,000 Nama, and had achieved their stated goal of “destroying the Herero,” killing 65,000 Herero, 80% of the population. Gallant’s orders on October 9th were no less explicit. Israel’s goal is to destroy the Palestinians of Gaza. And those of us watching around the world are derelict in our responsibility to prevent them from doing so.

So far, Arab states have not permitted the resettlement of Palestinians in their territory. What’s struck you most about their response to Israel’s war in Gaza? What’s noteworthy in this entire conflict since Oct. 7 has been the lack of reaction or response from the Arab world. Saudi Arabia continues to hold the door open for a peace agreement with Israel. The UAE, Morocco and Bahrain didn’t even withdraw ambassadors. Jordan did, but of course with about half of its population being Palestinian, Jordan has a particular problem. That lack of reaction I think is very telling. If you needed another example that Arab states are not viscerally concerned about the Palestinians and their fate, this would be it. The Biden administration is pushing hard to end the conflict by demanding that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu begin discussing a postwar settlement for the Palestinians, including a future state. In return, Saudi Arabia and other Arab states would help rebuild and continue normalizing relations with Israel. But if the Arab states are merely giving lip service to the Palestinian cause without caring much about it, that suggests that all Netanyahu would have to do is make the right noises about giving the Palestinians some autonomy, but not much more. Correct? I think you’ve got it exactly right. Netanyahu wouldn’t have to do very much to put this back on track again, but I think it’s unlikely he will do even that. [Netanyahu has refused to consider any negotiations over a Palestinian state.] How far back does this history of Arab antipathy to the Palestinians go? If the Palestinians were forced out of Gaza, would anyone accept them? They are truly a people without a land or a refuge anywhere. We’ve all seen the horror of Gaza, and that’s overshadowed the nightmare of the West Bank, which is appalling in its own right. Then you look at the Palestinian diaspora, where they have had an existence of pure hell by and large. I was in Beirut at the time of the Israeli invasion [of Lebanon in 1982] and the massacre at the Shatila Palestinian refugee camp carried out by Lebanese forces. But it was just one of many massacres. Tall al-Za'Tar, the big Palestinian refugee camp in East Beirut, was besieged by Lebanese forces and reduced to rubble in the early days of the Lebanese civil war in 1975. And just three years after the Shatila massacre, in 1985, something started called the “War of the Camps.” That was Lebanese Shia, backed by Syria and Iran, laying siege to the Shatila and Bourj el-Barajneh camps for almost three years with untold numbers of dead and wounded among the Palestinians. And the irony there of course is when you fast forward to today and the supposed Iranian support for Hamas and the Palestinian cause generally — well, not so much. It is a marriage of convenience. All part of Iran’s larger strategy of exporting force beyond its borders with allies and proxies. We in the West do not remember the War of the Camps, but I assure you that the Iranians and Palestinians do. They understand there is no love in Tehran on the part of Ayatollahs for the Palestinians or their cause.