Gaza

[mewshkin]

People do seem to have been avoiding this, for good reason, I couldn't even get my sister to this weekend's demo as the whole thing upset her too much.
Rather than get dragged into a fruitless pro/anti argument, maybe a simple poll of how people felt and why, without any back and forth, at least to start with.
Just, what do you think?

[Andy Turnbull]

I'm totally against Israel's actions against Gaza, but then I've long held the fact that there should be no occupied territories in Gaza or Palestine. Creating ghettos for the people who live there should be eerily familiar to most and deeply abhorrent.

Andy

[The Doctor]

The whole situation just makes me feel very sad.

I really wish the US would step up to the plate and tell Israel to stop it. Sadly, I do not forsee this happening.

-Ralph

[Fortmax2020]

I agree that the situation is bad and don't think either side can claim any sort of high moral ground in the current time. Israel are indeed killing more than Hamas, but could just as easily flatten Gaza and kill hundreds of thousands more, but don't while Hama's continue to fire rockets indiscriminately at Israeli civilians. Meanwhile the people of Gaza continue to be caught in the middle.

[legios]

Unfortunately it is one of those situations that as fallen into a bit of a feedback loop - Hamas fire rockets at Israel and injure or kill a half-dozen people, the IDF start hitting targets in Gaza, so Hamas make retaliatiory strikes at Israel so the IDF... and so on and so forth. Regrettably the IDF don't really do "proportionality" - they lean towards the "irritate us and we come back against you with the fury of a storm" approach. Which I find deeply distasteful to say the least.

I do agree that the idea that Israel is attempting to claim the moral high ground, whilst penning up the Palestinian, Druze etc population in ghettos is deeply disturbing and you would think it would be something that would have disturbing resonances for Israelis.

Not that Hamas is in any way in the right, given that they have the stated policy aim of destroying Israel by force and are the ones firing rockets fairly indiscriminately at civilian targets. I think there are probably more effective ways to confront Hamas than by the use of tanks and airstrikes though. Those have never proven anything other than counterproductive when conducting counter-insurgency warfare.

It would be lovely if America were to quietly make it plain to the Israeli government that actions like this do make it more difficult for them to offer protection though. With the way the American political system works though I don't see how that could ever be possible.

Sadly I have an uncomfortable feeling that this may not be a situation that is going to resolve itself in our life time.

Karl

[Grand Moff Muffin]

Well, miracles do happen - see Northern Ireland - though I know there are differences.

Without getting into the moral right and wrong, Israel's tactics do appear to be counterproductive in that they are creating more and more sympathisers for Hamas among the Palestinians, and now the Israeli Arabs are feeling persecuted by having their political parties banned from the upcoming elections for speaking against the war. The Israeli government will have more people who resent it at the end of this than they did at the start.

At the same time, Hamas seem to be completely bonkers, continuing to fire rockets that do relatively little damage to their enemies, but which keep Israel's attacks going on Gaza. If Hamas had stopped firing rockets, 900+ Palestinians may not now be dead.

Boths sides' tactics are lowering their reputations externally, and resulting in numerous deaths, and yet both sides' tactics are popular with their own voters. Madness.

Martin

[The Doctor]

It's so sad. This should indeed be 'the holy land'.

I almost want to round up both the Hamas and Israeli's who are trying to kill each other and locking them in a room for 7 days with food, water and an enormous supply of weapons so they can kill each other in peace without innocents being caught in their crossfire. I'm not particularly proud that such extreme thoughts go through my mind but I must admit that sometimes they do. Indeed, these are the kind of thoughts that lead to such trouble in the first place (rather than the more sensible and humane option of, say, sitting down and trying to talk through differences).

-Ralph

[legios]

Jan 13, 2009 8:18:28 GMT Grand Moff Muffin said:

Without getting into the moral right and wrong, Israel's tactics do appear to be counterproductive in that they are creating more and more sympathisers for Hamas among the Palestinians,

I'd agree with you there. The only real way to fight an insurgent force that is able to take cover amongst the local population is to win the hearts and minds of the locals, thus depriving your opponent of them as a resource. This is something that Israel seems fundamentally unwilling to do, for whatever reason - my knowledge of Israeli politics isn't sufficiently deep that I would want to speculate about the reasons why.

Karl

[Grand Moff Muffin]

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7829946.stm

The idea of a "war on terror" is a "mistake", putting too much emphasis on military force, Foreign Secretary David Miliband has said.

Writing in the Guardian, Mr Miliband said the idea had unified disparate "terrorist groups" against the West.

He said the right response to the threat was to champion law and human rights - not subordinate it.

Better late than never. Next thing we know, they'll realise icebergs weren't good for the Titanic.

Also hearing interesting discussions on the radio about the possibility of both Israel and Hamas being simultaneously charged with war crimes...

Martin

[Andy Turnbull]

Jan 15, 2009 7:48:58 GMT Grand Moff Muffin said:

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7829946.stm

The idea of a "war on terror" is a "mistake", putting too much emphasis on military force, Foreign Secretary David Miliband has said.

Writing in the Guardian, Mr Miliband said the idea had unified disparate "terrorist groups" against the West.

He said the right response to the threat was to champion law and human rights - not subordinate it.

Better late than never. Next thing we know, they'll realise icebergs weren't good for the Titanic.

Also hearing interesting discussions on the radio about the possibility of both Israel and Hamas being simultaneously charged with war crimes...

Martin

I'd certainly endorse both of them being charged accordingly.

Andy

[The Doctor]

I agree, but I don't see it happening for as long as the US Administration complicitly backs Israel.

-Ralph

[legios]

Jan 15, 2009 7:48:58 GMT Grand Moff Muffin said:

Better late than never. Next thing we know, they'll realise icebergs weren't good for the Titanic.

I was going to say "in other news, David Milliband realises water is wet". Always good to hear of some reality trickling into politics, it is just a shame it takes such a long time to sink in.


[/quote]
Also hearing interesting discussions on the radio about the possibility of both Israel and Hamas being simultaneously charged with war crimes...
Martin[/quote]

It would be fair and just to charge the pair of them. I'm not entirely sure how it would work in practice however. It would be like expecting any consequences for the long string of UN resolutions that Israel have broken over the years.
I'm not sure that anyone has the jurisdiction to try the case in any event sadly.

Karl

[Grand Moff Muffin]

Please donate whatever you can afford here.

(Ironically, got link from the BBC, which has ended up giving the appeal far more publicity than it would have got had they just broadcast the TV spot. What a silly world we live in.)

But yeah, click it and contribute as you can. Maybe you can spare the price of a plastic robot at least.

Martin

[mewshkin]

To my mind this is several orders of magnitude more obscene than the ridiculous prank call thing. The Beeb deserves every shoe thrown at it. Impartial my arse. As you say, hopefully there will be a boost to the appeal out of all this.
Unfortunately "whatever I can afford" isn't that much right now, but it all helps, as the kindly chap at my Post Office said.

[Grand Moff Muffin]

To be fair, BBC News did show coverage of the suffering as the top news story throughout the conflict, had some very brave people on the ground inside the war zone reporting out, made Israel look bad, and basically gave it loads of air time. I think it's because they spent so much time showing us what a bad situation it was, and no doubt defending themselves behind the scenes, by saying "We're just showing the facts and letting people make up their own minds," that they find it very difficult to say afterwards, "We've spent all this time showing you the facts, now we're going to tell you what you should think about them," without losing some of their sure footing.

It's easier for ITV, Channel 4 and Five to broadcast and endorse something cobbled together from what is probably BBC-originated footage with an emotive appeal soundtrack substituting the original dispassionate factual one, when they weren't the ones at the forefront of embarrassing Israel through opinion-free factual reporting at the time. At the end of the day, even during the appeal controversy, the BBC kept it at the top of the headlines, showing and telling people what it was about, and providing the contact details. They interviewed people and let those people make the appeal as part of their responses in the interview. All they didn't do was say, the BBC think people should think and do such-and-such and are giving straight airtime to a pre-prepared film arguing the case.

Martin

[mewshkin]

You're likely to have seen this Martin, but it sums up my objections to your apology quite well, and I've been far too angry lately to articulate mine so well:

"This is not a row about impartiality but rather about humanity. This situation is akin to that of British military hospitals who treat prisoners of war as a result of their duty under the Geneva convention. They do so because they identify need rather than cause. This is not an appeal by Hamas asking for arms but by the Disasters Emergency Committee asking for relief. By declining their request, the BBC has already taken sides and forsaken impartiality."

Even I'll admit, the CofE isn't totally rubbish.

And my italics; if the BBC's effectiveness (decidedly unproven, I might add) at marshalling opposition to an absolutely outrageous slaughter relies on their impartiality, what effect does this decision have if it is widely interpreted as being highly partial?

I might also have italicised the Archbishop's opening line. Impartiality is a far less exalted goal than humanity, no?

[Grand Moff Muffin]

Jan 30, 2009 22:18:54 GMT mewshkin said:

I might also have italicised the Archbishop's opening line. Impartiality is a far less exalted goal than humanity, no?

They are both essential. Humanity alone is simply uninformed good intentions. Impartiality alone is just cold intelligence. To be most effective you need both to remain uncompromised, and, perhaps, separate.

In a single case you could argue, the BBC have served their purpose in providing the cold intelligence, which we have now, so they can afford to let humanity take over and move from simply reporting to endorsing an appeal that they of course believe in privately. Perhaps that is the correct argument. But perhaps if they did that, then next time things flare up, when they try to go back to reporting the cold hard facts, the side that felt the appeal showed political bias won't believe the reporting is impartial.

Maybe the BBC made a mistake. Maybe they were right. But (perhaps because I work in environmental politics) I am always inclined to defend those who risk immediate unpopularity because they are trying to do the most good in the long term.

(And speaking personally, after seeing the facts on the news I don't need to be cajoled by an appeal to donate. It is the news, not charity publicity, that makes me go to the charities' websites and enter my bank details. I need the BBC to provide my information. I don't need an outside source to provide the humanity argument in specific cases.)

Martin