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  4. I am deeply shocked by the events of this weekend.

    All of it was obviously very meticulously planned. How did Hamas manage that without Mossad suspecting something was afoot?

    And this appalling massacre at a music festival must have been very much part of the plan.

    Hamas wanted international headlines. They certainly succeeded in that.

    Probably irrelevantly, it makes me think of the Norwegian massacre on the island of Utøya carried out by Anders Behring Breivik when one lone gunman murdered 77 young people at a summer camp. In both cases, the victims didn’t have a chance.

    But OK, I know that one shouldn’t compare two very different scenarios. I do not want to belittle the sufferings of the Palestinians.

    What happened this weekend will play into the hands of the Israeli hard right who will push for all out war with Hamas.

    Which will lead to even more suffering for ordinary Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, on the West Bank and in Lebanon.

    It’s a nightmare.

        • Because they believe the sacrifices are worth it to recover what they regard as a homeland stolen.
          You can take your own view on the righteousness of their cause or whether the ends justifies their means but the rationale seems quite plain to me.

          • Quite so. From today’s AFR:
            The lessons from Hamas’s assault on Israel
            Two decades of Israeli policy towards the Palestinians have gone up in flames.

            Oct 9, 2023 – 1.12pm
            It is hard to see past the shock of Hamas’s bloodthirsty assault on Israel. That is because it involved thousands of rockets, and fighters attacking the south of the country by land, sea and air. And because it was completely unforeseen despite its scale, inflicting a humiliating blow against Israel’s vaunted intelligence services. But most of all because of the killing of hundreds of innocent people and the taking of scores of hostages by Hamas. As the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) ponder how to respond, the world’s attention will be caught up in their desperate plight.

            It is too soon to know how the next few weeks will unfold. Israel’s prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, has vowed to exact “a huge price” and he is right: Hamas must be made to pay for its atrocities, which include the massacre of more than 250 young Israelis at a festival in the south. But Israel’s response comes with grave risks. Sending IDF ground troops into Gaza could draw them into bloody urban fighting—and endanger the hostages, too. The longer the fighting drags on, the greater the chance that violence spreads to the West Bank or Lebanon. The death of many civilians in Gaza, especially if seen as wanton, would harm Israel’s standing in the world as well as being profoundly wrong in its own terms.

            However, it is not too soon to be clear that this attack marks the end of a decades-old belief in Israel that Palestinian aspirations for sovereignty could be indefinitely put aside while the rest of the Middle East forged ahead. Whatever else emerges from this conflict, one thing will be a new search for answers to the question of how Israelis and Palestinians can live in peace.

            Netanyahu’s policy of sidelining the Palestinians depended on three calculations, each of which has been thrown up into the air by the Hamas assault. The first is that, even if the Palestinian question was left to rot, Israelis could remain safe. As a result of the terrible casualties of the second intifada, which finished in 2005, Israel shut Palestinian populations away behind security walls. Superior intelligence and overwhelming firepower, including the Iron Dome anti-rocket system, meant that the armed threat from Palestinian fighters was manageable.

            That notion now looks broken. One reason the intelligence services may have been distracted from Gaza is that the West Bank has been thrown into disarray by the expansionist aims of Israel’s far right. In southern Lebanon Hizbullah has a fearsome arsenal, much of it supplied by Iran. No doubt, Israel will be able to re-establish its military dominance over the Palestinians. But even if its soldiers and spies believe that this ensures Israeli citizens are protected, voters themselves are unlikely to conclude that a return to the status quo is good enough.

            The second assumption was that the existence of Hamas helps Israel deal with Fatah, the Palestinian party that runs the West Bank. It was assumed that divide-and-rule kept the Palestinians weak and that the influence of radical factions would undermine the credibility of moderates as partners for peace—all of which suited Netanyahu just fine.

            With these attacks, that notion has also run its course. One reason for Hamas to strike was that divide-and-rule has created the conditions in which Fatah has become decadent and out of touch; its leader, Mahmoud Abbas, is ailing. With this assault, Hamas is claiming to be the true voice of Palestinian resistance. Inter-Palestinian rivalry was supposed to protect Israelis; it has ended up making them targets.

            The third assumption was that Israel could strengthen its position in the Middle East by pursuing regional diplomacy even as it left the Palestinians to fester. That view was endorsed by the signing of the Abraham Accords between Bahrain, Israel and the United Arab Emirates in 2020—and the addition of Morocco and Sudan later. Until this weekend, it had looked as if Saudi Arabia might join, too. Eventually, it still may, but Hamas has shown that the Palestinians have a say, too.

            The coming operation against Hamas will only add to the sense that the time has come for a new approach. After Saturday’s bloodshed, Israel cannot wreck Hamas only for it to remain in power in Gaza as if nothing had happened.

        • The goal of Hamas is the destruction of Israel and the death of the Jews.

          We know this, because it’s all in the written charter they only changed 5 years ago. See quotes below. When someone tells us who they are, we should listen.

          They’re a massive blocker to any kind of peace in the region. They’ve attacked now because of the risk of a peaceful settlement between Israel and Saudi Arabia, something their backers in Iran have publicly stated they won’t tolerate.

          But the reason they’re kidnapping children and parading the naked bodies of dead women in the streets? That’s because they’re mad bastard anti semites who hate Jews.

          Fuck Hamas.

          Article 7

          “The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews.”

          Article 13

          “There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors.”

          Article 22

          “For a long time, the enemies have been planning, skillfully and with precision, for the achievement of what they have attained. They were behind the French Revolution, the Communist revolution and most of the revolutions we heard and hear about, here and there. With their money they formed secret societies, such as Freemasons, Rotary Clubs, the Lions and others in different parts of the world for the purpose of sabotaging societies and achieving Zionist interests. With their money they were able to control imperialistic countries and instigate them to colonize many countries in order to enable them to exploit their resources and spread corruption there.
          You may speak as much as you want about regional and world wars. They were behind World War I, when they were able to destroy the Islamic Caliphate, making financial gains and controlling resources. There is no war going on anywhere, without having their finger in it.”

          • All of the above is true of Hamas and their twisted ideology, but the way the state of Israel’s leaders have mishandled things thus far has helped these mad anti-semite bastards entrench their power in Gaza.
            Netanyahu’s promise of exacting “a huge price” is not going to solve the problem, because that twisted ideology will remain, no matter how many Hamas fighters and their human shields that the IDF kills in the coming operation.

        • It’s fairly easy to explain, unfortunately.
          They are ideologues who value their ideology higher than the lives of those they claim they are fighting for.

  5. It’s so disgustingly cynical to target young people out there enjoying life, not thinking for a minute that they could be targeted by terrorists.
    Between the real news and the fake news, the world seems to become more and more insane. But that’s also a cynical view, one I don’t want to give in to. But on days like this, it’s very difficult.

  7. I’ve just been reading an analysis on what happens when Trump gets re-elected. Europe ignored, Ukraine abandoned, alliance with Russia against China, on and on and on.
    For the majority of my life things kept getting better – fewer wars, people across the world generally better off, threat of nuclear war diminished, collapse of communism etc etc
    This last decade (even longer?) has changed all that. If we don’t first destroy our planet with climate change it looks like mad bad fuckers like Putin, Trump et al will finish the job themselves.
    And re Palestine, it surely isn’t enough just to say Hamas is evil (which it is)? Israel hasn’t exactly conducted itself these last eighty years with honour and integrity. I, along with everyone else, have no idea how to sort this awful, awful nonsense out but in the long-run massive retaliation is no solution.

    • Yep, pretty much my thoughts too. I think that, in the age of nuclear weapons and advanced technology, fundamentalist “religious” nutters like Hamas need to be eradicated if the world is to survive, yet the collateral cost and consequences of eradicating them are potentially terrifying in themselves if not handled correctly.

        • It is about homeland, but Hamas define themselves a fundamentalist Islamic organisation (“religious”, in inverted commas because no true religion can condone murder). I see Israeli fear of Islamic fundamentalism as similar to the Protestant fear of Catholicism that led to the Troubles. A Catholic state, as Eire was, was seen as repressive and anachronistic in its laws and freedoms and the Protestants understandably wanted no part of that. I believe the elimination of so-called religious fundamentalism that relies on repression (plus the complete separation of State and Church) is a necessary condition for world peace.

        • I agree it is about homeland, Junior.

          But I don’t see much Realpolitik in what Hamas did this weekend. Will that really help the Palestinian people to achieve their homeland?

          Here’s an editorial from the Israeli newspaper Haaretz which a friend posted on Facebook.

          (Haaretz is an Israeli daily newspaper founded in 1919 in Jerusalem. It is published in Hebrew, with a condensed version published in English as an annex to the International Herald Tribune edition distributed in Israel.)

          ——-
          Netanyahu is responsible for this Israel-Gaza war

          8th of October 2023
          “The disaster that befell Israel on Simchat Torah holiday is one person’s clear responsibility: Benjamin Netanyahu. The Prime Minister, who prides himself on his vast political experience and his irreplaceable wisdom on security matters, completely failed to identify the dangers he would consciously lead Israel to in establishing a government of annexation and disappropriation, by naming Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir key positions, too. time that adopted a foreign policy that openly ignored the existence and rights of Palestinians.

          Netanyahu will certainly try to run away from his responsibility and place the blame on the Chiefs of Army, Military Intelligence and Shin Bet Security Service who, like his predecessors on the eve of the Yom Kippur War, saw low likelihood of war. They despised the enemy and their offensive military capabilities.
          In the coming days and weeks, when the Israeli Defense Forces advancement and intelligence failures come to light, there will certainly be a justified demand to replace them and take a balance.

          However, military and intelligence failure does not exempt Netanyahu from his global responsibility for the crisis, since he is the ultimate arbitrator of Israeli foreign and security affairs. Netanyahu is no rookie to this role, as Ehud Olmert was in Lebanon War II. Not even ignorant in military matters, as stated by Golda Meir in 1973 and Menachem Begin in 1982.

          Netanyahu also shaped the policy adopted by the ephemeral “government of change” led by Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid: a multidimensional effort to crush the Palestinian national movement on both its wards, in Gaza and the West Bank, at a price that seems acceptable to the Israeli public.

          Netanyahu has previously disguised himself as a cautious leader who avoided wars and multiple killings on Israel’s side. Following his victory in the last elections, he replaced this caution with the policy of a “right-wing government”, with evident measures taken to annex West Bank, to bring about ethnic cleansing in parts of Area C set by the Oslo Agreements, including the Hebron hills and the valley of Jordan.

          This also included massive expansion of settlements and strengthening Jewish presence on the Temple Mount, near the Al-Aqsa Mosque, as well as boasting of an impending peace deal with the Saudis, in which the Palestinians would receive nothing, with open talk about a “second Nakba” in your government coalition. As expected, signs of an outbreak of hostilities have begun in the West Bank, where Palestinians have begun to feel the heavier hand of the Israeli occupier. Hamas used the opportunity to launch their surprise attack on Saturday.

          Above all else, the danger looming over Israel in the last few years has been fully understood. A Prime Minister nominated in three corruption cases cannot take care of State affairs, as national interests will be necessarily subordinated to free him from possible conviction and jail sentence.

          This was the reason for the establishment of this horrible coalition and the coup promoted by Netanyahu, and for the weakening of senior military and intelligence officials who were seen as political opponents. The price was paid for the victims of the invasion in Western Neguev. “

            • Yes, it does make me wonder if the Israeli government didn’t perhaps know something was coming and allowed it to happen, so as to provide a rationale for a ‘final solution’ of the Palestinian question.

              • I very much doubt that.
                Getting into the realms of conspiracy theory there.

                Israel’s security just got complacent. Took their eye off the ball.

                Israel claim to have spies within Hamas, but what if Hamas know who the spies are and have kept them out of the planning for this operation?
                What if Israeli intelligence were tipped off and didn’t believe the tipoff was credible?

                They wouldn’t be the first intelligence service to get completely wrong-footed. 9/11 is a prime example.

        • It’s about homeland for some people, and religion for others. Some of the latter were to be found celebrating on the streets in major European cities on Saturday night. Not nice.

          • Not nice at all! And we haven’t seen the last of that either, I’m sure.

            I realise that I was rather naive when I wrote that the attacks had little “realpolitik”. Gary is right. Hamas are fundamentalist and as such, like their sponsors, Iran, refuse to accept the existence of the state of Israel in any form.

            “The Zionist Project” must be brought to an end and compromise of any kind is out of the question. That Saudi Arabia was approaching normalisation of their relationship with Israel was anathema to them.

          • For most of the celebrants delighting at this evil, there’s nothing high-minded about it, it’s just giving people they’ve decided they don’t like (though don’t know, and who never harmed them) what-for as they are in the wrong tribe due to history. I recall a line about previous atrocities: “the banality of evil”. The rationalisers and excusers of these things help the evil along nicely.

          • The Palestinian hatred of Israel and Jews in general is mainly about homeland, but with antisemitism an integral part of it.
            Antisemitism is widespread among adherents of the other Judaism-derived religions. The behaviour of the state of Israel towards Palestinians has reinforced it greatly since the country was formed. For the Islamic extremists antisemitism is a handy peg to hang their own ideology on.

            • From just reading online, it’s very hard to gauge the mood of the various pro-Palestine protests yesterday. Some commentators see them as provoked by anti-semitism, others as pro-Hamas and celebrating terrorism, others as protesting for Palestinian rights and/or against Israeli policy in a wider context than just the present, and others as simply a voice crying out for peace and an end to all the violence. I’ve seen or read about examples of all of those, but am unclear as to the dominant mood.

              • Israel, in many eyes justifiably, flattens Gaza and kills most of Hamas. Most, not all. Impossible to kill them all. Hamas, or whatever offshoot arises from the flames, will not die
                Sometime in the future there will be another bloodbath. And again. And again.
                I’m getting more convinced by my cunning plan – roughly 8 million Jews in Israel. Give them a state in the USA (Colorado?), call it New Israel.

                • Michael Chabon’s novel “The Yiddish Policemen’s Union” is set in an alternative reality where the fledgling state of Israel collapsed in 1948 and Jews were offered a “temporary” safe haven in the federal district of Sitka, in Alaska.
                  Sixty years of federal government neglect later, Sitka District is a vibrant and prosperous frontier city that is set to revert to Alaskan control. The dream is about to come to an end, it seems.
                  Meanwhile, a homicide detective, Meyer Landsman, has a disintegrating private life and a former chess prodigy’s murder to solve.

                    • The flipsie of this is that few, if any, Palestinian people seem to have been offered or found homes in the Gulf. These are, after all, societies almost entirely reliant on migrant labour, both skilled and unskilled. And yet the UAE, Oman, even Qatar, home of some Hamas leaders, hqve instead imported hundreds of thousands of Indians, Filipinos, Nepalese etc. Does anyone know why that might be ?

                  • Good suggestion, Mike. The Chabon novel is excellent.

                    Here’s a little back ground about the creation of the State of Israel from a US perspective.

                    https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/creation-israel

                    “The British, who held a colonial mandate for Palestine until May 1948, opposed both the creation of a Jewish state and an Arab state in Palestine as well as unlimited immigration of Jewish refugees to the region. Great Britain wanted to preserve good relations with the Arabs to protect its vital political and economic interests in Palestine.”

                    • It all came about from the collapse of the Ottoman Empire after WW1.
                      T.E. Lawrence encouraged the arabs in the area to chuck the Turks out and after, when it was all divvied up, Britain ended up with Palestine. I don’t think they wanted it much at the time, but they didn’t want anyone else to grab it.
                      They don’t appear to have been interested in the people living there, just in retaining control of the territory and the hope that some oil might be found there some day.

      • Nobody’s come up with a way of handling them correctly so far. Israel declared a state of emergency on the very first day of its existence in 1948, and that’s pretty much the way it’s been ever since. Israel itself isn’t short of religious nutters these days either.

    • @henpetsgi

      Was that the Edward Lucas article in the Times, Lodey?

      I thought it was not only a very good analysis but also a very timely (no pun intended) warning.

      Problem is the feeling that Trump is going to get back in seems to be gaining
      quite a lot of traction.

      Given the fact that the US has always done more than its fair share of heavy lifting for the NATO countries in Europe is always going to be a free pass for a demagogue like Trump. Especially when coupled with his highlighting Europe’s historic lack of respect for their benefactors.

      US hstory shows that Isolationism is a Pavlov’s bell that always riles up low income, poorly educated US voters who – rightly or wrongly – feel disenfranchised.

      Unless Europe and the US wakes up, Trump may very well get back in and his doing so holds terrifying consequences for each and every one of us.

  8. A couple of friends are currently in the West Bank – they were visiting Bethlehem on what was supposed to be the trip of a lifetime. They were supposed to be going home on Saturday but are now trapped in their lodgings, relying on the kindness of strangers for food as missiles constantly fly overhead. Really worried about them and hope they finally find an escape route to Jordan today.

  9. There are a lot of simple minded left leaning naïfs who have previously oversimplified the issue, in their conscience, as, broadly, Israel bad and Palestine good. Until these recent events. I know, as I was one of them.

    • But @retropath2 under Netanyahu Isreal was most emphatically going in the wrong direction. Ignoring any consideration to improve the Palestinian rights to a homeland and becoming so right wing and extreme that even their own people were protesting.
      I don’t like this situation at all but if anyone says they couldn’t see this coning they need to look at Israeli news since their nutter got back into power.

      • Hence my point. By staying quiet(ish) and suffering, the Palestinian right to their land was a lot more sustainable, in the world view, than Hamas have now made it appear. Not all Palestinians are card/gun carrying members of that organisation, any more than every Israeli, including the settlers, will subscribe to Zionist right wing fever. Meanwhile the “innocent”, living on the land, whether as settlers or rightful owners, can see nothing ahead but ongoing carnage.

  10. Quite – even now you can see people in certain quarters looking for angles and trying to work out how cold the bodies need to be before they justify the unjustifiable and promote the interests of their side.

    This isn’t a conflict in which any sensible person should be picking sides. It’s far too deep rooted and complex for that. It’s not Israel vs Palestine, it’s the factions who will never allow peace to be given a chance vs basic humanity. And where those factions show themselves we should call them out without ifs, buts, maybes, victim blaming or whataboutery.

    To get back to the OP, those 250+ people went to a music festival. Nothing justifies what was deliberately done to them. Nothing.

      • @Gary

        Apologies, G, Easy to forget that not all AWers live in the UK or Ireland.

        FWIW, Magic Grandpa is the former UK Labour Party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, who lead Labour to its worst electoral defeat in 85 years in 2019 and has continually been accused of anti-semitism

        • I know all that. I wondered what he’d done to undermine Starmer. The only things I see in the recent news are his “refusal to condemn Hamas” (“I condemn all attacks”) and his statement on Twitter (“The unfolding events in Israel and Palestine are deeply alarming. We need an immediate ceasefire and urgent de-escalation. And we need a route out of this tragic cycle of violence: ending the occupation is the only means of achieving a just and lasting peace.”). Can’t find anything about him undermining Starmer or knocking points off his lead in the polls.

          • Leaving aside the Hamas attacks and his rather mealy mouthed “condemnation”: of them, Corbyn’s presence in Liverpool was always intended to detract from Starmer and his achievement in moving Labour back to a position from which it might actually win an election for a change.

            It’s what a lot of former leaders do. Just ask Ted Heath and Maggie Thatcher

            • If so, he’d do well to watch The Labour Files to learn how a party can successfully undermine its own leadership.
              It’s ironic that people who showed no loyalty to him as party leader, thereby enabling a Tory victory, should expect him to show loyalty to Starmer, especially as he’s now an independent MP, with no obligation of loyalty to Starmer whatsoever.

              As to his rather mealy mouthed “condemnation” of the atrocious attacks on Israel, I’m more confused about Starmer’s position. Starmer declared “we stand with Israel and support its right to defend itself”. Does he include in “its right to defend itself” its right to retaliation? If so, to what degree? Does it, for example, include its right to engage in collective punishment against innocent Palestinians by cutting off water, food and fuel supplies and bombing the fuck out of them? I don’t “stand with” that, Corbyn clearly doesn’t either, however I’m not quite sure where Starmer stands on that.

                • What makes you think that? He’s an MP who regularly gets doorstepped by journalists, does interviews and he tweets and stuff. All normal. He doesn’t seem particularly self-promoting or demanding of attention. (Personally, I think the journalists shouldn’t bother with him so much any more and instead, as regards politicians, should be concentrating more on the present and future, not the past.)

                  • He still has his dwindling core of devotees on the left.
                    He’s no longer very relevant in UK politics but the right-wing press in particular are always seeking quotes from him to criticize or misrepresent. If he refused to speak to them, they’d criticize him for that too.

                    • Seen the MP for Leicester East, and the one for Coventry? Corbynista useful idiots. There’s enough around to make Labour less attractive to sensible centrists still

              • He previously described Hamas as friends and invited them for a meeting in parliament.

                I’m not offering a judgment of those actions (although obviously I can do if needed), but that’s the reason the press are on him this week, ahead of the party conference.

  12. The Palestinian community is simultaneously celebrating on the streets of Western Sydney and protesting at the opera house because they (stupidly) lit the sails in the colours of the Israeli flag. While I’m generally sympathetic to the plight of Palestine and believe that Israel have often (usually) behaved despicably towards them, the sight of hordes of religious fundamentalists gleefully celebrating this idiotic slaughter here in Australia genuinely unsettles me. Didn’t they move here to get away from this? So much for the multicultural dream.

  13. My entirely emotional response is that when I see images of the half-naked and broken body of a woman being paraded through the streets, and women and children kidnapped at gunpoint, and people shot in cold blood at a bus stop, I can’t help but think “the people who did this are not like me”. And I care just a little bit less about what’s going to happen to them.

    • “It was a revolt of the hopeless by the hopeless for the hopeless. Sometimes suffering becomes so unbearable that anything goes. ”

      The borderline approving tone of this article is god awful.

      This is what I was talking about above when I spoke of justifying the unjustifiable. The Israelis are suffering this week – does the same “anything goes” logic also apply to them? Did it apply to the 7/7 bombers or the 9/11 attackers? Will it apply to whatever horrors the IDF cooks up for the Palestinians next?

      I’m afraid that if one’s reaction to the weekend’s events, to watching a terror group who have committed their virulent antisemitism to writing kill and defile Jews on camera is to say “anything goes” then you’re profoundly lost as a human being. It’s the opposite of pragmatism, in my view. It’s the logic that will only see this whole grotesque carnival roll endlessly on, each atrocity justifying the next, each eye justifying the next until we’re all blind. It’s the logic of children fighting on the backseat.

      As for the question of whether the goal of the attack was to destabilise peace talks between Israel and other Arab nations, here’s the President of Iran, three weeks ago, publicly warning the Saudis not to make peace with Israel.

      https://news.sky.com/story/irans-president-warns-saudi-arabia-not-to-make-peace-with-israel-12965998#:~:text=News%20%7C%20Sky%20News-,Iran's%20president%20warns%20Saudi%20Arabia%20not%20to%20make%20peace%20with,back%20of%20the%20Palestinian%20people‘.&text=Iran’s%20president%20is%20warning%20Saudi%20Arabia%20against%20making%20peace%20with%20Israel.

      Here’s a Hamas spokesperson on the BBC thanking Iran for their help with the attacks.

      https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/israel-hamas-gaza-rockets-attack-palestinians/card/hamas-says-attacks-on-israel-were-backed-by-iran-kb2ySPwSyBrYpQVUPyM9

      Again, these people are telling you who they are and why they’re doing what they’re doing. And we can condemn them without supporting the Israeli army. And we very much should.

      • Bingo, I don’t see any sign of “approval” in this article. Opinion and facts is all I see. Only the worst kind of fucker can justify the actions of Hamas but by allowing settlers to steadily steal huge tracts of land and making little or no attempt to engage with ordinary Palestinians who just want a country they can call their own, Israel has helped create a horrifying situation where religious fuckwits can portray the massacre of innocents as the only hope of salvation.
        Short of lifting the entire country of Israel and dropping it into the middle of the USA (surely enough room?) there seems no hope soon of any kind of peace and reconciliation. Simply calling Hamas evil bastards will do nothing to change this.

        • Why would “opinion” exclude approval?

          Per the above, the article fails to condemn the actions of Hamas (perhaps fair enough), but also justifies them – see quotes I’ve already given – before listing a string of objectives achieved by the weekend’s atrocities.

          The lack of condemnation, explicit justification and positioning as a strategic victory (“Hamas will lose the military battle but it may well win the war”) combines to give a sense of approval.

          I agree that calling Hamas evil bastards alone will not solve the problem, but I would suggest that failing to acknowledge that Hamas are evil bastards, and that they are and will always be an impediment to any kind of meaningful peace, is a serious error of analysis.

            • The evil bastards are certainly not confined to Hamas. There are plenty of them on both sides, and watching on from the sidelines.

              I’ve no idea how you solve this problem. It may even be unsolvable.

              I just think a really good start is to be honest in identifying the forces clearly opposed to peace, and then bearing in mind that the whole shebang doesn’t have to be defined by binary oppositions. You can condemn Hamas without implicitly supporting the Israeli government, and vice versa. People seem to really struggle with that last point.

    • That is a very thought-provoking piece, Junior. He makes some excellent points.

      He mentions how the attacks at the weekend means that Hamas

      “establishes itself as the legitimate voice of Palestinian nationalism”

      That cannot be good news for the average, moderately secular Palestinians. Or for any kind of peace process.

  16. I think it’s about time we heard from an Israeli, via Jews for Justice for Palestinians:

    Israeli Jewish stand up comedian Daphna Baram, who is resident in London, has just come back from visiting her family in Israel. She wrote this on her Facebook page. She is happy for people to share by cutting and pasting. It is hard to imagine anything more touching, more generous, more honest, more perceptive, more full of profound understanding:
    “Thank you for the supportive messages, and for the requests for information and for contextualisation. I am not used to having my words fail me, but they did this time. I read incisive words in Hebrew from wiser friends and I am in awe. I just want to crawl under a rock and cry. But I can try and tell you some stuff.
    I was in Jerusalem on Friday night, and my niece Maya, 11, wanted to host me for the night in her newly decorated room, across from my mother’s flat. I woke up in the early morning from the sound of an alarm going up and down. That’s the sign of a true alarm, we all know that; Maya does too. She pulled a face and waved her hand dismissively but then, almost automatically, got up and led the way to the “safe space” on the stairs, where my family, together with the other neighbours in the 8-floor development, gathered, and we waited for the explosion sound that told us we can go back to the flat. It happened six more times throughout the morning.
    My aunt, who was visiting us, was silently mouthing at me that we should look after my mum, who had lost her arm in 1967 in similar circumstances, but my mum just took the washing out of the washing machine and went to hang it on the roof, as one does.
    Meantime news started streaming in from the south. Horrors that defy belief, insurgents in kibbutzim and towns on the Gaza border, families hiding in safety rooms, families being killed en mass, hostages being taken into Gaza. Some people I know, some relatives of friends. A friend’s uncle hiding under a capsized boat, a friend’s friend who was at my show what felt like years ago, at the beginning of the week, listened over the phone as her sister’s whole family was murdered, a friend’s nephew killed in a rave, a cousin’s daughter escaped the same rave by the skin of her teeth.
    Message by message the catastrophe unfolds. What we couldn’t imagine, but always knew: that if you keep two million people in the largest concentration camp on earth and bomb thousands of them to death on occasion, you create a volcano that is bound to erupt in your face one day, causing horrid atrocities in its wake. But this was only half the reckoning.
    The other had hit most Israelis much harder: the state’s apparatus failed. People in the south were hiding in safe-rooms, under beds and in wardrobes, hoping and believing that help was forthcoming; that in this kind of situation, the army and police would come to their rescue within minutes. But no one came.
    They had to wait for a whole day, calling television newsrooms and whispering in their cries for help; many did not survive. The army was nowhere in sight. A few regiments were obliterated by the invading Palestinian forces, but most of the army was stationed far away in the West Bank, securing settlers’ provocations at the heart of Palestinian villages.
    The prime Minister had taken his time to return from his holiday in the North. He has shown his face on television only in the early afternoon, promising vengeance, rivers of blood and balls of fire to people who were still being held captive and whose loved ones were taken hostages without even mentioning what he was about to do in order to save them from this plight. Ever since, the huge mismanagement of the country under his reckless government is being exposed with every minute that goes by. The army lacks supplies, soldiers have no shoes, civilians volunteer to prepare food for them and to provide supplies for fellow civilians who were uprooted and abandoned. The governments now wants to provide a “victory image” of distraction in Gaza, as if we have not been shown the outcomes of such massacres thousands of times, to no avail.
    Cabinet ministers call to “flatten Gaza regardless of the hostages”. The “Hannibal routine” – normally referring to shooting at soldiers who are captured – was often mentioned in relation to the taken citizens, including children and elderly people.
    But feeding the desire of some Israelis for revenge is not going to save Netanyahu and his cronies.
    This day of reckoning, like that of 1973, will be their day of doom, too. The protest that engulfed Israel over the last few months, and which now turned into a determined spirit of helpfulness and volunteering, will turn back at them. Would it come with a new understanding of the futility of the occupation and the blockade of Gaza is another question, but experience tells us that it would be a mistake to think that the murderousness of the current attack makes such conclusions impossible. Israelis often say that Arabs only understand the language of force, but this is, more often than not, a sad reflection of our own nature.
    My flight back was booked for Saturday night, and I made it, leaving my family behind with a heavy heart. While waiting to board, there was another alarm. Who knew the safe-space at the airport was the duty-free shop. While I was wondering whether this was just a clever marketing ploy, I got a message from my other brother, and another friend. The rocket we were sheltering from has landed just between their houses.
    Attila the cab driver picked me up at Luton and was, as ever, full of chat. Mainly he wanted to know why people hurt each other. Had I known, maybe I’d have had the heart to quote Rihanna to him: “shut up and drive”.
    Sunday was all about doing the washing, distracting myself by watching the football with friends, and calling my father to tell him the one good news of the weekend: West Ham drew against Newcastle. I am grateful that the care home is in an underground floor. He is safe there. “Describe that second goal it to me”, he asked, and again came the tears. I am terrible at describing goals; And at holding back tears.
    My friends and family are still struggling to shelter their children from the more graphic and distressing bits of news, and to monitor what they watch and consume on their telephones; but they all know that this is a losing battle. This same building where my brother and I grew up was a young couples’ development in the early 70s. Everybody had young children. I remember meeting my mates in the building’s shelter in 1973. Now my nephews meet their friends in the “safe space” on the stairs. In-between, they enjoy my brother’s lax attitude towards “screen times”. He lets them play as much Xbox as they want. Anything to make sure they do not accidentally stumble upon a news channel.
    On Wednesday I am to speak and perform at a conference in Brunel University about my PhD research, which is about Immigrants’ stand-up comedy in the UK. I have no idea how I am going to do it. The only thing that comes to my mind are the words of Emanuel Levinas, which I found in my search for what is it that makes the “other” able to communicate with those who view themselves as “us”, whether through laughter, or any other embodiment of our own experience: “The face of the other in its precariousness and defencelessness is for me at once the temptation to kill and the call for peace, the ‘thou shall not kill”‘. May we finally be able to hear that call.”

  18. I completely agree with what Harari say in this interview and understand that the left-wing in Israel must feel very let down.

    It is sad to observe the lack of compassion among those who are so ardent in their support of the Palestinian cause that they turn a completely blind eye to the merciless killing spree that took place.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/24/yuval-noah-harari-backs-critique-of-leftist-indifference-to-hamas-atrocities?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

    I feel certain that Hamas must be delighted about the unspeakably ruthless way in which the IDF is reaping revenge in Gaza right now.

  19. The October Declaration was written by Alison Pearson & Toby Young – two very good reasons to stay well away from it.
    Absolutely concur that some of the so-called “leftist declarations of solidarity” with Gaza and hence Hamas are odious and repulsive.
    The question remains – does the awful slaughter, rape etc of 500 people justify the deaths of 5000 (and counting)?
    What happens when Israel has flattened Gaza and liquidated most of Hamas?They’ll never get 100% rid of Hamas or similar terrorist groups until they come to some sort of agreement re an independent Palestine. No idea how that could happen, no idea if there is a “solution” to all of this. Desperate, desperate times

    • The treatment of Palestinians by Israel is used as justification for the Hamas attacks. The Hamas attacks are used to justify the Israeli attacks. People on both sides are making increasingly awful accusations. People on both sides claiming lies are being told. And all the while the media and social media are bombarded with the awful tales and images of children who have nothing to do with any of this insane adult shit being orphaned, wounded or killed. All so terribly depressing and sickening.
      It has struck me that some of the most compassionate and mature voices I’ve come across crying out for peace have come from admirably strong and brave members of victims’ families, both Israeli and Palestinian.

      • Desperate times indeed, @Lodestone of Wrongness.

        And you are darn right about the attack on Gaza being quite indefensible.

        Hamas are not stupid. Their attack was meticulously planned and they knew very well how the IDF would react and must have prepared for that.
        For every day that goes by, Israel is losing more and more support in the international community. Quite rightly too.

        It has now got into a row with the UN secretary – General, António Guterres.

        https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2023/oct/25/israel-hamas-war-live-news-gaza-child-deaths-unicef-jenin-west-bank-strike?filterKeyEvents=false&page=with:block-653920dc8f0808b5315bb1ac#block-653920dc8f0808b5315bb1ac

        Good for him that he’s saying what he thinks.

        And he’s getting support from world leaders.
        Pedro Sanchez, acting PM of Spain wrote this on social media.

        “All my support to António Guterres. We have to find a diplomatic way out of this conflict.”

        In comments to reporters, Sánchez added: “I’d like to offer the Spanish government’s full support – and doubtless the support of the majority of Spaniards – to our UN secretary general, Portugal’s António Guterres.

        “I think what he’s doing is speaking out on behalf of the great majority of societies around the world who want a humanitarian pause and humanitarian aid, who want this humanitarian disaster to end, and who want this indiscriminate death to end.

        “They want a diplomatic route that will lead to a solution to this grave crisis, whose clear origin was Hamas’s attack on Israeli soil, which deserves the full condemnation of Spanish society, the Spanish government and of the international community.”

        I was moved by what you wrote about the families of the victims,@Gary.

        Maybe there is a glimmer of hope there on a grassroots level.

        Neither the Israeli government nor the leadership of Hamas have any hope to offer.

  20. I like watching the Oxford Union talks and debates, especially when the guest is someone I don’t generally like or agree with. Ben Shapiro is definitely such a character.
    He has some interesting things to say and I certainly agree with him that the eradication of Hamas would make the world a better place. I also accept that there is a moral differentiation to be made between cold-blooded murder and the tragic costs of war.
    There are two points where I think we’d disagree. Firstly, I’m not convinced Hamas can be defeated by violent means. I say this as someone who has never been to Palestine and is far from knowledgeable on the subject, but I have the impression that Hamas are too entrenched within Palestine and also that they are not just confined to Palestine. I think the destruction and violence we are seeing now will just breed more anger and hatred and that today’s orphans will become tomorrow’s terrorists. Secondly, I think that, as with anything that has a “cost”, there comes a point when the price is too high and I think with this “war” things have gone way, way past that point already.

    However, what strikes most about this Q and A is how unknowledgeable (“Britain didn’t bomb civilians in WW2”) and downright rude (“shut up”) some of the Oxford University students are.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1NFirxhXWE

    • Going off topic, don’t suppose you’ve been watching this week’s UK Covid Enquiry? I guess most of us thought that the bunch of tossers in Government back then with an ex-Oxford guy as their boss was indeed a bunch of tossers. The evidence given this week reveals them as far worse than that: it’s like an episode of Yes, Minister or worse still, a Ricky Gervais-like sketch where you think “Nah, they couldn’t have been so stupid and self-serving as that”. But they were. They were. And in many cases, they still are, bumbling along in the corridors of power.. God help us all.

      • I haven’t been following it, tbh. Doesn’t surprise me though. (I still find it astonishing that people at the time -including here on the AW- were more frightened by the idea of a Corbyn government than they were of Johnson.)

        • No one here was frightened by the idea of a Corbyn Government. Many people did however think the country deserved an opposition leader who wouldn’t lose an election to Johnson and hand the Tories an 80 seat majority.

          • Your first sentence simply isn’t true. Just type his name in the search box and look at old threads from back then, it won’t take you long to find comments that contradict it.
            Moreover, while I don’t know how you yourself voted at the last election, I know a lot of people refused to vote for him and then subsequently blamed him for not winning, which is a plainly absurd position to take.
            (Also, correct me if I’m wrong, but I think the party got more actual votes under his leadership, both in 2017 and 2019, than it ever did under Tony Blair, Gordon Brown or Ed Miliband.)

          • Suffice it to say that with instances of anti-semitism in Western Europe at their highest since the holocaust most people will certainly not lament missing out on the opportunity to have a Prime Minister who’s a self-described friend of genocidal maniacs sworn to kill every Jewish person on the planet and a Home Secretary who publicly doesn’t believe that racism against Jews exists at all.

            The 2019 election was the authentic low point of British political history; the public were asked to choose between a punch in the face and a kick in the balls.

            The electorate should move on, and they have. We really don’t need to figure out who was the lesser of two evils when the option is available to simply consign both evils to the dustbin, where they belong.

            • I’m very reluctant to engage in any discussion with you as you have in the past proved incapable of refraining from unnecessary and unpleasant ad hominem attack. You’ve also made it very clear that you refuse to even look at evidence that claims to contradict your views, which makes discussion seem somewhat futile.
              Nonetheless, I will repeat that while I accept that Corbyn made mistakes as Leader of the Opposition (he has explained his use of the word “friends” and expressed his regret at using it) and would undoubtedly have made mistakes had he been elected PM, to consider him as having the same level of immorality and incompetence as Johnson struck me as ridiculous in 2019 and even more so in hindsight.

              Also, while I think Corbyn is no longer relevant in the context of present-day British politics, looking back at history -especially political history- is not something I would discourage.

              • If you’re reluctant to engage with me then by all means don’t. My comment above was a response to Chiz, rather than yourself. I am assuming that since you have responded to me I am, in turn, free to respond to you.

                The suggestion that I refuse to look at evidence that contradicts my views is ironic, but it’s also incorrect.

                On a previous occasion when the subject of anti-semitism came up (I think it was the time before you asked whether a powerful lobby of Jews control the United States) you recommended that we should check out one of your favoured information sources, “Electronic Intifada”. Dutifully, I did so, and here’s what I found:

                https://electronicintifada.net/content/israel-its-colonial-deathbed/38746#:~:text=Israel%20is%20an%20intensely%20violent,is%20all%20that%20Israel%20has.

                You have to read the whole thing to really digest the full horror, but here are some choice quotes re: the 7 October attacks:

                “a stunning display of low-tech guerilla warfare”

                “a spectacular moment that shocked the world”

                “brave Palestinian fighters overtook Israeli colonies”

                “The vast network of Zionist organizations acts as appendages of the Israeli state that extend into all our lives around the world”

                “But we are to believe the Israelis had no idea what was planned right under their noses? They probably knew. And they waited for it…. Israel has probably been salivating at the possibilities for its own such moment.”

                “those few freedom fighters inspired not only the whole of Palestine, but the oppressed masses worldwide, to imagine what freedom looks like; what resistance is possible; and what life is attainable. Their sacrifices have split the world in two and forced Arab governments to take heed of the will of their people”

                If you have anything else you’d like looked at I’ll try to find the time, but I can confirm that this one was definitely anti-semitic.

                Incidentally, since we are looking back, Corbyn also invited Hamas to visit parliament on multiple occasions and indeed went to visit them in Israel.

                • “I am assuming that since you have responded to me I am, in turn, free to respond to you.
                  Of course. I really enjoy interesting and thought-provoking discussions. As long as they don’t descend into personal attack.

                  I certainly never asked whether “a powerful lobby of Jews control the United States”. A bizarre claim to make. I asked in good faith whether a Jewish lobby existed in the United States because Roger Waters had referred to it and it is a subject that has never touched my life and I know absolutely nothing about. As I said at the time, if anyone were to ask me about lobby groups in Italy, I wouldn’t dream of insulting the enquirer.

                  I don’t think I’ve ever heard (or perhaps simply failed to notice) the name Electronic Intafada. I may well have cited something from it in the past that I came across on the internet, but to see it described as one of my “favoured information sources” is, again, completely bizarre to me. The name literally means nothing to me.

                  I’ve made my views on Hamas and the 7th October attacks very clear in this thread and I think it should be pretty obvious I find those quotes vile, disgusting and indefensible.

                  “The suggestion that I refuse to look at evidence that contradicts my views is ironic, but it’s also incorrect.
                  I thought that because when I asked your opinion of The Labour Files you replied that you refused to watch it, saying “I’m allergic to documentaries which openly set out to prove one side of an argument”. I presume that would include any documentary that merely presented evidence contradicting your own one side.

                  Why do you say that’s “ironic”? Because you think the same of me? If so, I’d like to know why.

                  Lasting peace in Northern Ireland was achieved through including the IRA in talks. I think that’s what Corbyn hoped to achieve with Hamas. I don’t believe for one second that he supports violent terrorist actions any more than you or I do.

                  • Roger Waters (Again!)

                    “So the questions I would ask are: “Does a Jewish lobby, as Raymond defines it, really exist in America?” and “If so, is it or is it not extremely powerful? Powerful enough to discourage musicians from expressing pro-Palestine opinions?”

                    You’re absolutely correct that I’m not particularly interested in three hour long YouTube polemics which explicitly set out to prove one side. Life simply does not permit such a misuse of time.

                    The IRA comparison is a misnomer. Corbyn didn’t attend peace talks in the Middle East. He didn’t sit down with anyone from the Israeli side. He met, consistently, with a group who had committed in their written constitution to the global destruction of all Jews and who explicitly reject the concept of a peaceful solution. I would bold and underline that final section if the site allowed.

                    As to whether he supports violent terrorist actions, I think that’s entirely up for debate. Certainly, a material section of the UK left appear to do so, including the aforementioned Electronic Intifada, Novara Media (prominent Corbyn cheerleaders whose founder asked following the 7 October attacks “Do we support the rights of an occupied people to fight an occupier or not?”) and the Socialist Worker (https://socialistworker.co.uk/international/rejoice-as-palestinian-resistance-humiliates-racist-israel/).

                  • So you went from this:
                    “So the questions I would ask are: “Does a Jewish lobby, as Raymond defines it, really exist in America?” and “If so, is it or is it not extremely powerful? Powerful enough to discourage musicians from expressing pro-Palestine opinions?”
                    to:
                    “you asked whether a powerful lobby of Jews control the United States“?

                    And this:
                    The suggestion that I refuse to look at evidence that contradicts my views is ironic, but it’s also incorrect.
                    Doesn’t contradict this at all?:
                    “You’re absolutely correct that I’m not particularly interested in three hour long YouTube polemics which explicitly set out to prove one side. Life simply does not permit such a misuse of time.”

                    I would still very much like to know why you described my comment as “ironic”.

                    I believe Corbyn’s intention is, as he has stated on numerous occasions, to be an advocate for peace. I also believe, as stated above, that he has made mistakes as a politician.
                    I don’t know anything about Novara Media, but I’m sure that many (I would imagine the vast majority) of the people who voted for him and who share my overall opinion of him are not supporters of violence or terrorism or anti-semitism and don’t believe he is. I’ve certainly never seen any quotes of his that would support such an idea, but many that contradict it.

                    You haven’t spoken at all about what you think of the current war against Hamas and what is happening in Gaza. Do you have an opinion on that?

                    • It’s ironic because whatever contradictory information is provided to you on this subject is simply ignored in favour of deflection and obfuscation, as beautifully demonstrated above.

                      There is blatantly no evidence bar which will ever satisfy you on this topic – I can give you Corbyn publicly praising a man who contends that 9/11 was perpetrated by the Jews, but we both know that won’t even make a dent. We’ll just get another round of “well I don’t think he’s mean and neither do the people who voted for him”.

                      I’m going to be quite frank here. I don’t believe that any amount of faux politeness is compensation for posting anti-semitic conspiracy theories and suggestions to check out anti-semitic news sources.

                      My opinion on what is happening in Gaza is very simple. The hostages should be returned, the IDF should immediately thereafter cease hostilities, and both sides should swiftly remove their respective leaderships, all of whom are demonstrably committed to the avoidance of any sort of meaningful peace, and come to the table to prevent anything like this from ever happening again. Anyone who has glorified or revelled in the violence, on either side, ought to be properly ashamed of themselves.

                      It’s also my view that this country has negligible real influence on events in Gaza, and that our absolute priority should be preventing what is fundamentally an ethno-religious conflict from being imported to our shores, as some as clearly very keen to do.

                      On that front, I think we should be particularly alive to anti-semitism, and call it out wherever we see it. Hence these conversations, which go round in the same circles every single time without fail.

                      As to your question, no a statement that I won’t look at a specific form of information (regardless of its viewpoint) because I consider it to be low value by its very nature clearly does not support the generalised statement “you refuse to even look at evidence that claims to contradict your views”.

                    • And thus we descend into personal attack. Quelle surprise.

                      “It’s ironic because whatever contradictory information is provided to you on this subject is simply ignored in favour of deflection and obfuscation, as beautifully demonstrated above.”

                      Where is it demonstrated above, exactly? I might disagree and I have my opinions, but I am always very interested in evidence to the contrary. It’s weird for me, for example, that you aren’t remotely curious to watch the Labour Files. In your position I would be. This whole conversation started because I posted my interest in watching Ben Shapiro’s Oxford Uni talk and Q&A, a man whose views I for the most part disagree with.
                      I don’t think I’ve intentionally ignored anything you’ve said, so please tell me specifically and concisely what you would like me to respond to. Disagreeing does not constitute deflection and is most certainly not the same as refusing to read/watch something.

                      “There is blatantly no evidence bar which will ever satisfy you on this topic”
                      This topic being Jeremy Corbyn? I can present you with credible evidence that supports my opinion of him but we both know you won’t look at it, not because I’m choosing to make personal assumptions but because you’ve said as much.
                      I haven’t posted any anti-semitic conspiracy theories and have never knowingly posted anti-semitic news sources. The urge to label and dismiss contrary opinions as being “anti-semitic” (or “racist” or “homophobic” or “transphobic” etc) is Twitter level discussion. I don’t think we have the same concept of what “politeness” is. When someone makes such assumptions about a person they have never even met and about whose life they know very little, those assumptions quite clearly reflect far more on the prejudices inside the mind of the person making the assumptions than they possibly can on anyone else. That seems obvious to me.
                      If you were to ask me whether there is a Catholic lobby in Italy powerful enough to stop gay pop stars performing here because that’s what someone else wrote, should I then assume you’re anti-Catholic?

                      I won’t look at a specific form of information (regardless of its viewpoint) because I consider it to be low value
                      What do you mean “low value”?

                      As regards Gaza (if it’s possible to discuss that without you getting unnecessarily personal), why would Hamas return the hostages? Of course they should, but why would they? To stop the bloodshed in Gaza? I don’t believe they give a shit about the bloodshed in Gaza. In fact, I suspect it’s exactly what they want.

                    • I should flag that I will probably simply peace out of this discussion shortly. It’s clear where it’s going and I’ve said most of what I have to say. Nonetheless…

                      1. If it’s an ad hominem personal attack for me to say that you ignore contradictory information it must also be an ad hominem personal attack for you to say that I will not look at evidence that contradicts my views, which is how you began this conversation. Pots and kettles.

                      2. At this point in proceedings given the sheer amount of hectoring over them I can honestly say I would sooner chew my own arm off than devote 3 hours of my life to watching the Labour Files. I understand what the documentary contains, that is enough. Rather than the mark of sophisticated reasoning, your interest in Ben Shapiro seems to me simply more evidence that you consider a balanced political view to be the art of listening to crackpots at both ends of the political spectrum (albeit with far greater concentration to one particular end).

                      4. On the subject of never posting anti-semitic sources, to give yet another example in the above linked discussion you recommended that hedgepig read Asa Winstanley.

                      Here’s Asa Winstanley very recently writing on Electronic Intifada (there’s that name again – quelle surprise indeed, he’s a regular contributor) on the “growing body of evidence” that Israeli forces actually killed some of the victims of 7 October.

                      https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/asa-winstanley/watch-video-about-7-october-youtube-doesnt-want-you-see

                      I can’t link it as I don’t have an account, but Winstanley was also to be found on Twitter literally this morning bemoaning that two women who wore badges depicting Hamas paragliders to a pro-Palestinian march in London have been charged. How do I know this? I googled him half an hour ago, knowing full well that he would have gone mask off in the last month.

                      5. Your question about Catholicism; if Catholics did not in fact control Italy and their doing so was a well-worn and racist Anti-Catholic trope still in circulation less than a century after an attempt to wipe them off the face of the planet then yes, this statement would indeed obviously suffice to conclude that someone was Anti-Catholic. Obviously, most statements cease being racist if you remove all the context of the racism.

                      6. Why would Hamas return the hostages? What a question. Because abducting them was a war crime, continuing to hold them remains an ongoing war crime and any half serious attempt to foster security for Palestinians, much less peace in the region is very clearly contingent on their release. In a saner universe enormous international pressure would be descending on Hamas making just this point, and it’s eyebrow raising that there appear to be some/many who do not consider this step to be particularly important. I do agree that Hamas probably feel very much that they’re getting what they want so far, and particularly that they’re winning the propaganda war and converting new recruits both domestically and abroad to their deep-seated hatred. Not least via useful idiots such as Electronic Intifada and their ilk.

                    • 1. You said yourself that you will not look.

                      2. I guess so. I’m curious to hear different points of view. Though I don’t think Shapiro is a crackpot. Even though I don’t agree with him much and I certainly don’t like him (or at least his public persona) I think he’s intelligent and articulate.

                      I’d be very interested to hear the views of someone who thinks Corbyn is anti-semitic (and by association anyone who defends him) regarding the Labour Files. But it’s nigh on impossible to find any such person who’ll give them. Which I think is a shame. I think the documentary is very interesting.

                      3. There isn’t a 3.

                      4. I most certainly did not recommend that Hedgepig read Asa Winstanley. How could I when I have never read anything by him myself? I can’t remember exactly but I imagine I asked Hedepig if he’d read Asa Winstanley’s “The Weaponisation of Antisemitism” as I’d be more curious to know what he thought of it than I would to read the reviews of those who simply agree with Winstanley. But to say I recommended it is, once again, simply not true.

                      5. Catholics do not in fact control Italy and their doing so is a well-worn Anti-Catholic trope still in circulation. They have suffered a great deal of persecution and discrimination throughout history. Not least in the UK and America. Nowhere near as much as Jews, but I think my comparison is valid in terms of highlighting the ridiculousness of labelling someone as racist on the basis of asking a question. (For the record, I am actually very anti-Catholic, whereas I have no anti-Jewish views.)

                      6. You’re giving reasons why Hamas should release the hostages. Reasons I 100% agree with. But my question is a very different one. From their point of view, why would they? Ie. what could be done to persuade them to do so?

                    • Can I buy you two a half pint of shandy each? Maybe even a packet of cheese& onion crisps?
                      I think, think, Jeremy Corbyn is a decent chap who undoubtedly was unelectable (due almost entirely to the UK Media) and therefore paved the way for Boris and his absolutely bonkers version of Brexit.
                      I think Hamas is evil and that what the Israeli Army is doing right now is even worse.
                      Move Israel to Colorado, give Palestine back to Palestine and we can get back to discussing whether or not Taylor’s 1989 revisit is a crushing disappointment.

                    • Here’s your statement in the above post:

                      “Have you watched The Labour Files? Or viewed Simon Maginn’s videos? Or read Asa Winstanley’s book ‘The Weaponisation of Anti-Semitism’? I’d be very interested to know what you think of them.”

                      Given the self-evident anti-semitism of Winstanley I would suggest that the above very clearly constitutes a “suggestion to check out anti-semitic sources”, and that you’re simply distancing yourself from said suggestion now because the association has become unpleasant/inconvenient.

                      But then this is an example of the semantic tedium into which this discussion has been (fairly deliberately, in my view) dragged, so I’ll step out there.

                    • I agree with your comment Lodes, except the bit about Colorado.
                      But I’m afraid neither I nor Bingo drink alcohol. Not even shandy.

                    • “Given the self-evident anti-semitism of Winstanley I would suggest that the above very clearly constitutes a “suggestion to check out anti-semitic sources”, and that you’re simply distancing yourself from said suggestion now because the association has become unpleasant/inconvenient.

                      No, no, no, no and no. You are so wrong. Again, I asked a question in good faith. I wondered what Hedgepig thought of it. I haven’t read it myself, but thought he might have done considering his interest in the subject and, as said, would be interested to hear his opinion, given his opposition to its premise.
                      Please stop making ridiculous assumptions about me based entirely on your own agenda and start taking what I say at face value.

    • Basically, there’s so much shit flying around from every direction, from the unpleasant to the absolutely horrific, and it all seems so utterly, depressingly irrelevant while children are being killed.

      On a completely different note, last night I watched Ben Shapiro’s recent talk and Q & A at Cambridge University. The difference between that and his appearance at Oxford that I previously mentioned was quite striking. The Cambridge students, with one notable exception, were considerably more polite and informed (and less scruffy!) than their Oxford counterparts and their questions far more intelligent.

    • Excellent article, Lodestone. We had another big, pro-Palestine demo here in Stockholm. I heard them chanting “From the mountains to the sea….

      There’s a dilemma for many people right now.
      Do I want to protest again the unspeakable attacks on Gaza by the IDF?
      Yes definitely.

      Do I want to attend a demo that in any way could be seen as offering support or approval to the murderous actions of Hamas?
      Out of the question!

      I thought Rifkind describes all this rather well.

      “The Chief Rabbi, I thought, was unassailable in his horror that people “seem to have lost sight of the moral distance” between the group and Israel. Did every marcher, he wondered, “truly wish to associate themselves with acts of such barbarity? I sincerely hope that they did not.”
      No such hope, though, was offered by Suella Braverman, our home secretary. “To my mind,” she said, “there is only one way to describe those marches: they are hate marches.” No space there even for the excuse of ignorance. Certainly no space for the idea that some protesters, even just a handful, might be motivated by some of that stuff up above. Braverman is no fan of protest and probably thought British Jews would be grateful. I expect many were. To my mind, though, people have the right to march against falling bombs, no matter who is dropping them. And I cannot suppress my horror at the idea of the Jewish community being used as a pretext for taking this right away.”

      There was an Israeli commentator on Swedish TV explaining that the current attack on Gaza will eradicate Hamas once and for all. How can they possibly believe that? Hamas is probably more popular than ever. And support for Israel in the international community is decreasing every day. Their indifference to the innocent victims of their attack is deplorable.

      • It’s a great article.

        I sympathise with your desire to join a march that aims for peace. Preconditions of such a march would include neither combatants flag being flown, calls for a cessation of hostilities by both sides (which, quite obviously, would entail the release of civilian hostages), an avoidance of chants that are considered offensive by an ethnic minority and a clear indication that anyone amidst the crowd spewing grotesque racism will be ejected/immediately and unequivocally condemned, rather than simply marched alongside.

        What we’re witnessing here is a cycle of violence. You don’t end a cycle of violence by picking a team, parroting its argument lines and cheering it on. The best you can do, to the extent you have any power at all, is to remain firm in your belief that one side’s atrocities do not, cannot, justify the other’s. In either direction.

        The Israelis need to recognise that they are not going to solve this problem or achieve peace via military force, much less the kind of inhuman military force currently being deployed. The Palestinians need to recognise that they will never achieve their own goals under Hamas or while they are vessels for the anti-semitism of third parties.

        On the home front, which is the only place we have any real influence to shape events, we should also bear in mind the incredible danger of handing to our politicians too much power to determine who gets to protest what, and when, and we should not tolerate any group, much less a minority, being made to feel unsafe on our streets.

  22. So what’s going to happen in London tomorrow? This week we’ve learned that marching for peace on Armistice Day is an insult to the Fallen. The Cenotaph needs to be protected from a march that doesn’t go near it, and the two-minute silence will presumably get roughly the same level of compliance as it does on any other year.

    The Patriots on guard on Whitehall will need someone to punch, as they’ve given up a day at the football for this, so unless the protesters deliberately turn up outside Downing St, that will have to be the police.

    Some of the marchers will cover their faces with scarfs and masks, in the name of peace.

    Some clueless young protester, who only heard of Gaza a month ago and is live-streaming their painted face to You Tube, will carry a banner which is unequivocally anti-semitic, and that will be the one that’s on the front of the Mail the next day.

    There will be some pro-Hamas groups on the fringes, and they will be conflated with the ceasefire mob by everyone who benefits from doing that.

    Police officers will be asked to make countless instant decisions on the limits of free speech, and some of them will get it wrong.

    Everyone will disagree on the number of people involved, but all sides will agree the BBC’s coverage was biased.

    • I think that’s pretty much bang on. As I understand it the march doesn’t even start until 2 hours after the silence (which is even less likely than usual to be observed in central London).

      We passed the demo on Trafalgar Square twice on Saturday, before and after a west end matinee. As we sat on the steps of St Martin in the Fields eating a lunchtime sandwich it look lively but good natured. A significant number of those who passed us on the way to and from the Square were young white women with keffiyeh scarves wrapped around their heads for whom I guess this was just a good day out. I may underestimate their understanding of the wider situation, but then again I may not.

      We passed the demo again after the show by which time darkness was falling and at least from the outside it seemed to be taking on a bit of an edge. A firework went off on the far side, from somewhere near the 4th plinth. I understand some of the arrests made were related to fireworks and public safety in what was still a crowded place.

      We were heading to Waterloo for a gig but took a detour down Whitehall and past Westminster because we wanted to see the Covid memorial wall. There were a few more barriers around the end of Downing Street than usual and a small police cordon around the Cenotaph, but all the usual activity was going on as well. A crew of Navy sailors in uniform was having a great laugh on the pavement outside the Clarence, people were wandering at will across Horseguards Parade, lots of excited tourist were taking photos outside Parliament. Away from the actual demo it was a standard Saturday night in the west end.

      • Who is “we”, exactly? Could you be more specific? Only I’m sure some AWers are extremely nosey about such details, the saddos.

        It’s hard to gauge the mood of these marches from afar. I would have imagined a lot of the people are political simpletons and hypocrites who have never taken much interest in the Middle East beyond thinking both sides in any of its conflicts are “not very nice”, but are currently so distraught by the constant barrage of images of maimed and dead children that they feel the need to do something, anything, to express how sickened they are. People just like me, in fact. I do see lots of flags though.

        • I was with my partner whom I sometimes refer to as The Light in these pages.

          Like most people I would just like everyone to stop killing each other and each other’s children in particular, if that’s not too much to ask, but know things aren’t as simple as that. I admit that this is not a sophisticated analysis and on those grounds avoid weighing in with opinions to which I don’t feel entitled.

            • Me too. Just to be clear, I hope it doesn’t seem I was in any way implying Gatz is a political simpleton. I was referring to myself (and my fellow simpletons on the marches). My views on the Middle East have always been pretty simplistic. I don’t like the way Israel treats Palestinians but totally sympathise with their fear of terrorism. That’s about as far as I got. I also feel pretty hypocritical as I’ve never taken much interest in the atrocities committed in Syria and elsewhere.
              I haven’t been on any marches, they’re really not my thing, but speaking as a political simpleton and hypocrite, I’m finding some of the videos going around too heartbreaking.

          • What I should have added to the above, though The Light and I discussed it at the time, is that there is no way I would have risked being on the fringes of that gathering if either of us was Jewish.

        • “So distraught by the constant barrage of images of maimed and dead children that they feel the need to do something, anything, to express how sickened they are.”

          You hit the nail on the head there, Gary. One can’t everyone on the march to have an in-depth understanding of the history of Israel and Palestine. Buy anyone with any compassion must feel shocked and horrified by what the IDF are doing in Gaza.

          The Swedish Foreign Minister this week described the attack on Gaza as a “proportional” response to Hamas’s brutal terror attack on Israel.
          I am lost for words.

          How anyone can see the deaths of thousands of civilians (OK, I am sure Hamas are doctoring the figures) as proportional?

          I am confused and upset. But what should we do?

          Write a letter to the Home Secretary perhaps? That’s bound to help!

          • It’s so utterly and relentlessly upsetting, isn’t it? One feels so useless and such despondency in humanity. I appreciate the light relief I find here that helps distract from it all.

            • Very true. A little trivial banter goes a long way.

              If there was a demo/march here in favour of a ceasefire, organised by the Swedish Church, Oxfam, Save the Children or any other “neutral” organisation whose only agenda was humanitarian, I would be there tomorrow.

              It’s not going to happen.

    • The only things I can add to the above is that our appalling Home Secretary will shortly leave her job, better to plot her leadership bid, and all of my Jewish friends will spend another weekend avoiding central London and trying not to think too much about the cars bedecked with Palestinian flags which drove through their neighbourhoods just two years ago screaming “Fuck the Jews… Fuck all of them. Fuck their mothers, fuck their daughters and show your support for Palestine. Rape their daughters and we have to send a message like that. Please do it for the poor children in Gaza.”

      The men who drove those cars and shouted those words were identified, but had the charges against them dropped earlier this year.

  23. I suspect that the safest place in London tomorrow might be standing next to a policeman in Grosvenor Square. However, I would be very, very , very careful on my way back from the march.
    It is then when casual violence against a relatively easy target, or targets, might be carried out.

  24. Jon Lansman makes some very pertinent comments in this article.

    250 Massacred at a Music Festival

    “History itself is a weapon in the present. My generation remembers when Israel was led by the left and supported by the left elsewhere. My children’s generation see an Israel where there is not a sizeable left to speak of.

    I might have no religious faith and I do not believe that the land was given to Jews by anyone other than the UN, but I celebrate the same festivals they do and eat the same food. I still feel an affinity I cannot explain.

    There is no military solution to this conflict. But 7 million Jews and 7 million Palestinians are not going to go away. They need leaders who will work for peace, and bring Palestinians and Israelis together. There can be no role for those who want perpetual war.”

    The UN are saying that when the war is over, there should negotiations towards a two-state solution. Sadly that is a solution that neither Hamas or Netanyahu is remotely interested in.

    • I think you pressed the wrong button somewhere, KFD. I’m not seeing the link to the article, but I presume it’s this:
      https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/nov/20/leftwing-jew-show-support-israelis-and-palestinians

      “when the war is over” – Right now, I can’t even envisage that. What will “over” look like? No more Palestinians alive and Gaza completely destroyed? Or a ceasefire, with the remaining Palestinians grieving and angered and more hateful towards Israel than ever?

      Talking of the UN, did you watch the intervention by Palestine representative Nada Abu Tarbush a couple of days ago? A very powerful speech.

      • Thanks for sorting that out and posting the right link @Gary. Much appreciated.

        Yes, that is a very powerful speech.

        I’m very glad that there are international politicians who are daring to criticise Israel.

        As Jon Lansman comments, back in the 60s Israel was the plucky underdog with the odds stacked against them. Now they are anything but.

        And they don’t it when people dare to criticise. Greta Thunberg recently commented about the “genocide” going on in Gaza and Israel was livid. I’m not surprised.

        Greta has a lot of supporters and credibility all over the world. Not someone you want taking a stand against you!

        • Imagine an alternative reality with an Israeli Prime Minister with the strength and courage to opt for peace talks as a response to 7/10. Obviously it would have been very difficult to garner much support for such an approach among the Israeli population, but not only would it have avoided the slaughter of so many innocents, in the long term I feel it would have been so much more beneficial to Israel, earning them the political leverage of international support.

          • I would be inclined to agree with this, but it’s unclear to me with whom the Israeli government was supposed to negotiate after 7 October.

            Hamas are the appointed leaders of the Palestinian people in Gaza. They have made it quite clear that they are not amenable to peace (again: it’s written in their founding covenant; “there can be no peaceful settlement, only Jihad”), that they are committed to the destruction of Israel, and that they will repeat the atrocity at the next opportunity. They could not be clearer that peace is not on the table, not least because it would have entailed returning their hostages.

            The challenge here is that while Hamas remain in power there can be no peace. A statement that is to a material extent also true of the current Israeli government, although removing them is a little more straightforward if the Israeli people wish to do so.

            • I don’t know to what extent negotiation with Hamas’s political wing could have achieved anything. There were many peace activists -Israeli, Palestinian and international- working in Palestine who would presumably be able to answer that question better than I. And showing the world that terrorism can achieve its desired results certainly wouldn’t have been an ideal response. But I think it would have been a less terrible response, obviously for the innocents in Gaza but possibly also for Israel.

              • Ironically, and quite tragically, in this instance I think the course of action taken will prove to be precisely terrorism achieving its desired results.

                I think this is a conflict where there have historically been short windows of opportunity during which meaningful peace might have been possible, and that we’re almost certainly not in one of them right now.

                When the dust settles and both sets of people survey the damage done it can only be hoped that they each reach the conclusion that they need new leadership.

  25. I like your “alternative reality” scenario, @Gary. But you are absolutely right, @Bingo Little. Hamas will not rest until the state of Israel is no more, so a peace settlement with them would be short-lived.

    Israel thinks they can bomb Hamas into extinction. So idiotic. Hamas is now more popular than ever.

    Despite the fact that, due to their terror attack, thousands have died in Gaza.

    And many people throughout the world who were indifferent or mildly sympathetic to Israel now see them as one of the most ruthless, heartless nations in the world who have blood on their hands. All the smart PR initiatives in the world will not put that right.

    Anti-semitism is on the rise globally.

    Talk about an own goal.

  26. The irony is that is there is a ‘pause’ or ( hopefully) a ceasefire, it will probably have been brokered by the US and Qatar. Ironic in the sense that the US is loathed by many of the people who have been marching demanding a ceasefire, and Qatar is a country which take s a very dim view of protests ( and quite a lot of things.
    Anyway, the inconvenient truism seems to that countries tend to listen to critical friends, not enemies, including those who, from the Israeli perectice, appear to be calling for its destruction.
    As an aside this was, pf course, always the fatal flaw in Jeremy Corbyn’s approach. Not becuase there is any problem with saying one should always talk rather than rest of violence, but this does require you to talk to people you don’t agree with or like. JC only ever seemed minded to talk to the side he agreed with, be they Irish Republicans, Palestinians etc.

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