Quote Originally Posted by the other bob wilson View Post
Even if what happened on 7 October was the start of the problem, which it definitely wasn’t, the Israeli Government’s reaction to it is completely disproportionate and it was absurd to see David Cameron trying to make out that Iran’s attack on Israel on Saturday night, which in effect was as effective as a pop gun when it came to the amount of damage done, was some kind of outrage against the backdrop of what Israel has been doing to Gaza for months. Cameron and other mainstream political leaders in the west (and I include representatives of the leadership of the Labour Party in this) have grudgingly started to be critical of Israel’s actions, but they’ve fallen into place behind them again after Saturday - it will be interesting to see what the reaction is to the attack on Iran overnight.

It might be in this thread somewhere, but in the last week or so I read a post by James Wales comparing Israel to the various Arab states surrounding it in which he claimed that Israel was the only true democracy among them - essentially it seemed he was saying that they were more civilised than their neighbours.

In a way I agree, but with that superiority which James claims Israel has comes responsibilities. I try to think of greater examples of the indiscriminate slaughter of innocents in my lifetime by a so called civilised nation and struggle to come up with anything worse than what has happened to Gaza over the last six months or so. I strongly believe that those Western politicians who have been so quick to defend Israel over Gaza are out of step with the thinking of most of the populations of their countries in this respect.


As for comparisons with Hitler, they are nearly always made, and argued against, by people who did not live through his time in charge of Germany, so have no direct experience of what happened. However, what that holocaust survivor said to Suella Braverman about her use of language regarding immigration a few years back made a strong impression on me at a time when I was already thinking that recent times have been the closest thing I’ve experienced to living through the thirties as the Second World War approached - I don’t think people of my age or younger have ever lived through a time when Hitler comparisons were more likely to be made.
I agree with much of this, although not the last section, but it's all a matter of personal opinion.

Israel has gone far too far and is losing its allies but they are dealing with an enemy intent on seeing their destruction that then hides amongst civilians. Their response is either to do nothing or to see death. Had Egypt opened their doors to allow refugees in? Where's the criticism there? In my opinion their response goes far too far, the death of innocents is always absolutely appalling, but I think we would have made more progress if from day one across the west people had made their revulsion to groups like Hamas at least equal to their revulsion of Israel. War is always absolute hell. Israel would argue they are fighting for their very existence and to prevent a second holocaust. Do I agree with that? Not really, but I can tilt my head 45 degrees and see how they may.

As it is, the protests and general language we see here has got us absolutely no where. If anything its made Israel's response harder. I doubt Hamas care less and Israel clearly care little

One thing is for sure. People calling Israel Nazis on the internet isn't going to solve a single damned thing. As I said, if anything it probably emboldens them.

I've got nothing more to say on it really. I would agree with most of the points made, but not when you all get into a circle jerk over calling everyone Nazis. I'll opt out of that one.