Israel / Gaza / Lebanon / Iran War Thread

[El Cid]

3 minutes ago, geared said:

 

Civilian deaths will be off the chart if multiple countries get involved.

 

Surely there have been many deaths already, this decade Israeli deaths have been less than 30 deaths per year, much more 'other' deaths.

The Israelis have killed 30,000+ this year and its not over yet.

 

[Al Bundy]

1 hour ago, Colin Foster said:

Just cannot stay out of things can we?

Damned if we do, damned if we don't.

 

 

[Bamanamanana]

46 minutes ago, Tony said:

Perhaps you didn't read the above? Annexation through war is legitimate, especially when you weren't the instigator.

 

The ICC does not appear to support your view, finding that Israel's occupation was illegal and ruling that Israel had "an obligation to cease immediately all new settlement activities and to evacuate all settlers" from the occupied territories.

 

There's been plenty of annexation and seizing of land to establish settlements outside of war.

 

Numerous cases going back decades of settlers attacking people who've lived there for years, burning them out in the night, beating them up, killing them, or land being poisoned.

 

I think your claims are more than a little bit disingenuous. Ostensibly @banjodeanohas a point, but, but, but...

[Bamanamanana]

Damned spellchecker... Objectively!

[Tony]

3 minutes ago, Bamanamanana said:

 

The ICC does not appear to support your view, finding that Israel's occupation was illegal and ruling that Israel had "an obligation to cease immediately all new settlement activities and to evacuate all settlers" from the occupied territories.

 

There's been plenty of annexation and seizing of land to establish settlements outside of war.

 

Numerous cases going back decades of settlers attacking people who've lived there for years, burning them out in the night, beating them up, killing them, or land being poisoned.

 

I think your claims are more than a little bit disingenuous. Ostensibly @banjodeanohas a point, but, but, but...

 

It was the ICJ which is something of a kangaroo civil court (not all that dissimilar to ACAS in function ) giving political pronouncements favourable to the direction of the wind from its parent body, the United Nations. The ICC is a proper criminal court with international legal underpinnings and remedies,  but putting that to one side,  the "judgement" of the ICJ was handed down by a Lebanese Palestinian president with a track record of antisemitism. We should treat it with due caution.   

 

As I said earlier, there is much to discuss on historic grievances on all sides (particularly around settlements I would agree) but that doesn't move anything forward. Could I make a suggestion of what a big picture might look like to see if that gives us something to discuss? 

 

Imagine 5 years from now:

Israel continued its military campaign and effectively destroyed Hamas, Hezbollah and eliminated Syria and Iran's military. Maybe with ME, US, UK, assistance. 

The UN has disbanded UNRWA and put the UN Refugee Agency into Gaza. 

All exceptionalism claims for endless generational "Palestinian refugee" status are ended and the UN / NGO gravy train has stopped.

A UN backed coalition of ME, US, UK, EU, JPN, AUS, NZ military has sterilised a 5 mile wide border zone from the Lebanese coast through the Syrian  Iraqi borders to Iran. 

Egypt takes over administration of Gaza for a planned 10 years with UN / ME agreed 5 year route to modern democracy as a single nation.

Jordan does the same for the West Bank as a separate nation to Gaza.

Golan, Shabbaa and Jerusalem is formally recognised internationally as Israeli territory. 

The modern world is invited to transform the economies of the WB and Gaza.

Iran? Well, Iranians know how to run a nation if they don't have religious death cults running the place so they will probably be okay after the death cult is removed.

... etc, etc. 

 

No hard and fast proposals there, just a few creative ideas of what might be needed to resolve issues long term. 

[cressida]

53 minutes ago, Al Bundy said:

Damned if we do, damned if we don't.

 

 

We could easily have stayed out of this conflict,  are we going to risk being attacked by their missiles?

Edited October 2 by cressida

[banjodeano]

2 minutes ago, cressida said:

We could easily have stayed out of this conflict,  are we going to risk being attacked by their missiles?

of course we will be at risk, if America starts bombing Iran then perhaps Russia may get involved...then all hell will break lose..

[Bamanamanana]

19 minutes ago, Tony said:

It was the ICJ which is something of a kangaroo civil court (not all that dissimilar to ACAS in function ) giving political pronouncements favourable to the direction of the wind from its parent body, the United Nations. The ICC is a proper criminal court with international legal underpinnings and remedies,  but putting that to one side,  the "judgement" of the ICJ was handed down by a Lebanese Palestinian president with a track record of antisemitism. We should treat it with due caution.   

 

Apologies for the typo.

 

With due caution, yes.

 

Completely discount out of hand, no.

 

 

21 minutes ago, Tony said:

As I said earlier, there is much to discuss on historic grievances on all sides (particularly around settlements I would agree) but that doesn't move anything forward.

 

Indeed, it's clear that the claims of land being "stolen", really aren't a million miles from the truth after all. 🙄

 

Trying to pretend it doesn't happen or doesn't matter, also doesn't move anything forward.

 

[Tony]

@Bamanamanana the trouble is that it doesn't get anyone anywhere because the claim of "stolen" extends to the entirety of Israel, not a sliced and diced bunch of individual or local nuances. So everything in that claim has to be put to one side to make any  progress. 

 

This cycle has to be broken. Israel isn't going anywhere.

 

 

 

 

What did you think to any of my suggestions above? 

[geared]

5 hours ago, cressida said:

UK forces were involved in supporting Israel in the conflict in the Middle East after Iran launched a missile attack on the country.

Defence Secretary John Healey, who is Cyprus to visit personnel based on the island, said British forces had "played their part in attempts to prevent further escalation”, without giving more details.

The BBC understands UK fighter jets were involved, as they were in April when Iran last attacked Israel with missiles.

 

5 hours ago, Colin Foster said:

Just cannot stay out of things can we?

 

MOD has now said they didn't shoot down and missiles.

 

Quote

The BBC understands that British military jets did not shoot down any Iranian ballistic missiles fired overnight. Nor did the Royal Navy Destroyer, HMS Duncan, fire any of her Sea Viper missiles.
 

Royal Air Force Typhoon jets based in Cyprus are not equipped to track and shoot down ballistic missiles.
 

In a later update, the MoD confirmed two Typhoon fighter jets and a Voyager air-to-air tanker were involved, but provided no more detail than to confirm they did not "engage any targets".