International Politics / Current Events Thread

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‘We’re just fed up’: French police revolt after successive violent protests

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/07/30/france-riots-police-officer-strikes-protests-europe/

But recently, the 44-year-old police officer has either been driving around aimlessly or sitting idle in the police station. If he sees a minor offence, he turns a blind eye. The only part of his job he fully complies with are emergency calls.

“For cops, there’s never a presumption of innocence. You’re guilty right away.” Because police are an essential service and not allowed to strike, hundreds more have revolted by calling in sick, resulting in fewer police escorts for suspects in court, and fewer night guards in French prisons.

Nicolas, one of 600 officers in Marseille who have taken sick leave, said he “can’t take it anymore” and is considering leaving the force. “We are not supported, neither hierarchically nor politically. So at some point, that’s enough,” he told radio station RTL.

“We are not asking to be above the law,” Olivier said. “We just ask that we be respected in relation to our professions. We know that no one is above the law, but no one is below the law either.”

“I think that we’ve reached a point where there has to be an evolution in the justice system and maybe in the police as well. We are not against evolution either,” Olivier said, pointing out the need for better police training on the job. “In France there have been a lot of changes over the last few years with the number of violent protests and we’re just fed up.”

Meanwhile, Valentin Gendrot, an investigative journalist who spent months working undercover as an officer in Paris, said he was “astounded” by the recent police revolt...“I saw police officers who delivered justice themselves. I saw police officers commit violence and beat people because they felt that the justice system didn’t act fast enough, that it was too lax. So they rendered justice themselves.”

Police officers everywhere, certainly here in the USA, need to be held to high accountability and standards. That said, they also need proper training and support. It's a balancing act, and sadly the pandemic saw stupid people make stupid decisions (defund the police) which coincidentally hurts black communities more than anything else --

How ‘defund the police’ hurt the black community -- Media narratives may have done more damage than the police themselves

https://thespectator.com/topic/how-defund-the-police-hurt-the-black-community/

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A great read!

Serhii Plokhy interview: ‘Putin wants control of Ukraine – but he is prepared to go for plan B’

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/08/09/serhii-plokhy-russia-ukraine-war-vladimir-putin-europe/

Plokhy, 66, a softly-spoken academic with a wry smile, has become an international celebrity. His books on Ukrainian history fly off the shelves as a domestic and international audience look to understand the history and culture of the country at the heart of the clash...for Plokhy, leading Western countries lost touch with developments inside the country. “The trick was that the world changed,” he says. “The Russia of Vladimir Putin is not the Soviet Union of Mikhail Gorbachev, or even of Leonid Brezhnev. It was a much more aggressive, revisionist power, much more so than the Soviet Union. But Germans continued basically on the old track. In the [2008] Russian invasion of Georgia, the German response was, ‘Let’s build Nord Stream 1’. The [2014] Russian annexation of the Crimea, the start of the war in Ukraine? Let’s build Nord Stream 2!...In reality, what was happening, Europe, Old Europe, partially new Europe as well – in exchange for Russian gas – was sending more and more money to Russia, really making Putin’s rearmament possible and contributing in that way to this war.”

"...[Putin's] overall goal is taking control of the whole of Ukraine, building a powerful Eurasian block of countries, but if that doesn’t work, he is prepared to go for plan B, and plan B – both in 2014 and in 2022 – has been just capturing the territories that he considers to be Russian historically, and he can go between these two models back and forth.”

The depressing conclusion Plokhy has come to after studying the parallels between the 1930s and the years leading up to 2022 is that Europe does not learn from history. “I, and probably many others, lived with this belief that somehow we as humanity, we learnt from our past, we learnt from our mistakes,” he says. “And looking at these parallels, the really uncomfortable idea comes to mind that actually we don’t learn or we don’t learn enough.”

 

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General Zhydko, who commanded occupying forces in Ukraine, dies in Russia

https://www.yahoo.com/news/general-zhydko-commanded-occupying-forces-151234246.html

Colonel General Gennady Zhydko, 57, who commanded all the occupying groups in Ukraine in May-July 2022, has died in Moscow.

Source: Russian mass media; Mikhail Degtyarev, governor of Khabarovsk Krai

Quote: "After a long illness, Colonel General Gennady Valerievich Zhydko, the Hero of Russia, died in Moscow."

Long illness? ... probably another case of Putinitis - which is a variant of the infamous Stalinititis, which killed millions of Russians and others decades ago. 

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The only thing potentially surprising is just how true, nearly word-for-word, both 1984 and Animal Farm are today.

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https://apnews.com/article/russia-wagner-prigozhin-jet-crash-a7859e4e57f2efa2547dfbe5bdbaa1b2

A private jet crashed in Russia on Wednesday, killing all 10 people aboard, emergency officials said. Mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin was on the passenger list, but it wasn’t immediately clear if he was on board.

So... anyone surprised? Anyone?

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‘I was an armed police officer – I’d never encourage someone to join the police today’

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/09/26/armed-police-officer-interview-firearms/

Despite carrying a gun, I was never really afraid of being shot myself. The only fear my colleagues and I had was being made the subject of an investigation for something that happened on the job – because if you fire a gun as an authorised firearms officer (AFO), you’re treated like anyone else firing a gun, that is, with deep suspicion.

For one serving armed officer with the Metropolitan Police, identified only as NX121, this fear has now been realised, after he appeared at Westminster magistrates’ court and the Old Bailey last week, charged with murdering Chris Kaba in south London on September 5 last year.

The case has triggered a wave of dejection among police across the country, but especially in the Met. Up to 300 Met officers initially responded by stepping back from firearms duties and the Army was temporarily put on standby to support London’s police force. There is an ongoing shortfall in the number of AFOs in the Met.

AFOs shouldn’t have to do their jobs in fear of being jailed, or in fear of their careers, their lives, being ruined. But they know that if they find themselves under investigation they will be treated as second class citizens. Many have taken their own lives while awaiting the outcome of an inquiry into their conduct.

We need more moral courage from police leaders. It’s right that the judicial process continues in the Kaba case; but in general the way AFOs are treated after discharging their weapons needs to change.

I absolutely believe police officers here in the USA and in the UK and elsewhere need to be held to the highest standards and need to have a great deal of training and be aware that they are here to serve and protect. That said, throwing police under the bus because it is politically expedient, as is often done here in the USA and clearly in the UK, is wrong on numerous levels.

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Horrible -- hundreds of Israeli civilians (NOT militants) including children (and I mean not even teenagers) are dead and hundreds of civilians (again, not soldiers) have been captured.

1)Clearly Israel was not expecting this and were overwhelmed.
2)World response is (apart from say Syria, Iran, and Lebanon) in full support of Israel.

3)Not sure what Hamas expects -- Israel will of course retaliate and there will be many thousands of civilians killed.

Fuck those terrorists.

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Israeli civilians were tortured, raped, and abused by Hamas fighters says forensic teams, Reuters reports

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-forensic-teams-describe-signs-torture-abuse-2023-10-15/

Military forensic teams in Israel have examined bodies of victims of last week's Hamas attack on communities around the Gaza Strip and found multiple signs of torture, rape and other atrocities, officers said on Saturday.

'Top secret' Hamas documents show that terrorists intentionally targeted elementary schools and a youth center

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna120310

Maps and documents recovered from the bodies of Hamas attackers reveal a coordinated plan to target children and take hostages inside an Israeli village near Gaza.

Hamas = ISIS = Shit of the Earth = Should all be eliminated with prejudice

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Israelis release footage of Hamas gunmen firing at driving civilians

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/10/23/dispatch-idf-shows-unseen-footage-of-hamas-atrocities/

The Israeli government invited a group of journalists to the 43-minute screening as it wanted the world to see the full extent of Hamas’ atrocities - and to counter what spokesman Eylon Levy called a “Holocaust-denial like phenomenon unfolding in real time”.

The film was for “journalists who can stomach the horrific truth.”

Indeed, it was appalling beyond measure. Within minutes, some of the audience had left the auditorium in tears. There are images in it that I will never be able to forget. I felt sick throughout. And at points my own tears blurred my vision.

When the terrorists reach Israeli dwellings, they follow the instructions of their manual: “shoot as many as possible”, “take hostages and take some of them to the Gaza Strip using various cars.” And so the staggering onslaught continues.

There are families murdered in their beds. A woman’s head mashed into her pillow. The burned corpses of babies still in their baby-grows.

And of course we have pure SHITE here in the USA -- namely "The Squad" that try to blame Israel for defending herself. I hope Israel wipes out these murderous terrorists. Of course I know there are innocent people in Gaza, just like there were innocent people in Germany and Japan during World War II. Sadly, innocent people always die in war, and this is entirely on Hamas.

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Putin Launches ‘New Evil Empire’ With North Korea and Hamas

https://www.thedailybeast.com/putin-launches-new-evil-empire-with-north-korea-and-hamas

A former deputy prime minister of Israel has told The Daily Beast that the world should see the Hamas terror attack on Israel, which killed at least 1400 people, as part of a larger conflict being stoked by the Kremlin.

“Putin—the real Hamas ally—has defined the lines of the big confrontation: Hamas, Iran, Russia, China on one side, and Israel, Ukraine and the United States on the other,” said Natan Sharansky.

Sharansky, who was a jailed dissident during the Soviet era before emigrating and moving into Israeli politics, said President Vladimir Putin was honing a “new evil empire” to take on the West.

100% correct. In Putler's deranged mind, anything that is anti-USA is pro-Russia.

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https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/conflict-between-israel-palestinians-gaza-2023-10-07/

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3 hours ago, Link said:

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/conflict-between-israel-palestinians-gaza-2023-10-07/

You have to keep in mind the conflict originally started some 75 years ago when many (not all) Arabs living in Israel as well as Egypt, Jordan (then Transjordan), Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, and Yemen attacked FIRST. They were 100% certain Israel would crumble instantly. Instead, Israel won. The now-Palestinians (they were actually Transjordanians) called it the "Nakba" or "catastrophe" because they lost and many were not allowed to return to Israel. Why not you ask? Well, for the same reason British sympathizers who tried to kill and destroy the Colonies in our War of Independence were not allowed to stay after they lost. That said, there were certainly Arabs in Israel that did not take part in the conflict, and although for some reason this seems to merely be a footnote, there were Arabs that fought FOR Israel and believed in a Jewish homeland. They certainly stayed, in Israel today 20% of the population is of Arab decent and they have the same rights as anyone else. Which is not to say Israel is without fault. However, Hamas is a terrorist organization that literally murders babies. They absolutely new Israel would strike back and they absolutely new, and counted on, that innocents would be killed. All part of their plan. In fact, remember that tragic hospital blast that "killed 500+ Palestinians" which was immediately blamed on Israel. First, the evidence is clear it was a misfired rocket. Don't take my word for it, listen to numerous intelligence agencies as well as the free press that also looked at all the evidence. Oh, and by some accounts less than 100 people were killed OR injured. Again, tragic for sure. Would never have happened if Hamas did not start the way and were not lobbying rockets on civilian populations in Israel -- which is another thing. I wonder how many countries would be okay with another country lobbying thousands upon thousands of rockets entirely on civilians?

How the Media Got the Hospital Explosion Wrong

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/10/gaza-hospital-explosion-misinformation-reporting/675719/

U.S. intel agencies believe hospital blast caused by Palestinian rocket that broke apart after engine failure

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/us-intel-agencies-believe-hospital-blast-caused-palestinian-rocket-bro-rcna122031

 

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Of course Putin is going along with Hamas. He likes taking advantage of problems to wreak his havoc anywhere he can. He is taking an opportunity that never should have existed. 

Israel won. 

Had they ended their occupation and ceded the land back long ago, there would be peace in the region. It’s not completely that cut and dried simple but they’ve always had a thousand to one the power, they’re showing it now, controlling the narrative, and we are sucking it up basically because of WW2, in my opinion. 

Even our own current neoliberal leadership has been making some rumblings that they should think about treading a little more lightly.  

I know people don’t like freedom fighters and guerillas, but they operate for a reason. Israel created Hamas. Just because that’s now biting them in the ass doesn’t mean they’re not the oppressors. Our great allies, doing the Gaza Strip just like American westward expansion, the British Empire, and Putin’s own encroachment on Ukraine. It’s all imperialism.

There are not only two sides to the story but Putin will absolutely play it up like it is because that works for his goals. He doesn’t like America (Israel’s ally) so he will go against Israel. He also doesn’t like the UN, who Israel is also having a problem with right now.

This is a very volatile situation and at this point it’s gonna be real tough to end peacefully, no doubt. But don’t point at Hamas and tell me Israel has never murdered babies. 

[G-type | 2,482]

14 hours ago, avatar! said:

You have to keep in mind the conflict originally started some 75 years ago

This started earlier than that.

This territory had previously been a part of the Ottoman empire and had a 90% Arab population. The Arabs allied with the British to drive out the Ottoman Turks during WW1 after being assured by the British that they would honor Arab independence. (Hollywood even made a movie about it: Lawrence of Arabia). Guess what? They lied. The British maintained military control over the area under the League of Nations "mandate system", and they decided they would support the establishment of a Jewish homeland in the region. Prior to this, Zionism had been a fringe movement, but it had gained support among many high ranking members of the British government.

With the Balfour declaration of 1917, they oversaw waves of European Jewish immigrants moving into Mandatory Palestine. When it became clear to the Palestinians that the British would never grant them independence, in 1936 they went on strike. The British tried to break the strike with arrests, executions, mass punishment. This escalated into a the Palestinian revolt with fighting between Palestinian fighters and British and Haganah forces carrying out alternating raids that continued for the next few years.

To settle the conflict, the British  proposed a two-state solution, and drew a line down the middle of the map (The Peel Commission resolution) give one side to the Jewish state, the other side to the Arabs, and make the remainder part of Transjordan. But because the Arabs were a majority of the population, 250k would have to be removed by force. This proposal did not help calm things down. Fighting continued until 1939, by which point about 10% of Palestinian men had been killed, arrested, or exiled. Then the British proposed a one-state solution, which would have imposed limits on Jewish land purchases and immigration. The zionists violently rejected this.

Then came WW2. With a large number of Jewish refugees trying to escape Europe, many tried to go Palestine. At this point Jews had increased from 10% to 30% of the population. By 1947, depleted by WW2, Britain announced they were leaving Palestine. The zionist militias now had modern weapons and officers with training and experience from WW2. November 1947, the U.N. voted to partition Palestine and set aside 55% of the country for a Jewish state, but did not explain how it would resolve that half the people in that territory were Palestinian. Arabs rejected this plan, but the zionists having the stronger military, used this opportunity to seize even more territory than what the UN had allocated to them, and drove the Palestinians out of the villages and cities in those areas out by force. Events were accelerated by the massacre at Deir Yeseen in April 1948, which set off a panic across the country. As news spread, people fled fearing their village would be next. Ben Gurion (the zionist leader) ordered evacuated villages to be razed to the ground, ensuring there would be nothing for them to return to. Ben Gurion announced the founding of the state of Israel in May 1948. Now dubbed the IDF, better equipped and organized, successfully fought off opposition forces and began pushing into more towns, driving out the Palestinian population.

Over the course of the 1948 Nabka, 700k Palestinian Arabs were displaced. 

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On 10/26/2023 at 1:58 PM, G-type said:

This started earlier than that.

This territory had previously been a part of the Ottoman empire and had a 90% Arab population. The Arabs allied with the British to drive out the Ottoman Turks during WW1 after being assured by the British that they would honor Arab independence. (Hollywood even made a movie about it: Lawrence of Arabia). Guess what? They lied. The British maintained military control over the area under the League of Nations "mandate system", and they decided they would support the establishment of a Jewish homeland in the region. Prior to this, Zionism had been a fringe movement, but it had gained support among many high ranking members of the British government.

With the Balfour declaration of 1917, they oversaw waves of European Jewish immigrants moving into Mandatory Palestine. When it became clear to the Palestinians that the British would never grant them independence, in 1936 they went on strike. The British tried to break the strike with arrests, executions, mass punishment. This escalated into a the Palestinian revolt with fighting between Palestinian fighters and British and Haganah forces carrying out alternating raids that continued for the next few years.

To settle the conflict, the British  proposed a two-state solution, and drew a line down the middle of the map (The Peel Commission resolution) give one side to the Jewish state, the other side to the Arabs, and make the remainder part of Transjordan. But because the Arabs were a majority of the population, 250k would have to be removed by force. This proposal did not help calm things down. Fighting continued until 1939, by which point about 10% of Palestinian men had been killed, arrested, or exiled. Then the British proposed a one-state solution, which would have imposed limits on Jewish land purchases and immigration. The zionists violently rejected this.

Then came WW2. With a large number of Jewish refugees trying to escape Europe, many tried to go Palestine. At this point Jews had increased from 10% to 30% of the population. By 1947, depleted by WW2, Britain announced they were leaving Palestine. The zionist militias now had modern weapons and officers with training and experience from WW2. November 1947, the U.N. voted to partition Palestine and set aside 55% of the country for a Jewish state, but did not explain how it would resolve that half the people in that territory were Palestinian. Arabs rejected this plan, but the zionists having the stronger military, used this opportunity to seize even more territory than what the UN had allocated to them, and drove the Palestinians out of the villages and cities in those areas out by force. Events were accelerated by the massacre at Deir Yeseen in April 1948, which set off a panic across the country. As news spread, people fled fearing their village would be next. Ben Gurion (the zionist leader) ordered evacuated villages to be razed to the ground, ensuring there would be nothing for them to return to. Ben Gurion announced the founding of the state of Israel in May 1948. Now dubbed the IDF, better equipped and organized, successfully fought off opposition forces and began pushing into more towns, driving out the Palestinian population.

Over the course of the 1948 Nabka, 700k Palestinian Arabs were displaced. 

Israel became a State on May 14, 1948 (the partition plan, to which the Jews agreed, was in 1947). On May 15, many of the Arabs living in what was now (1 day old) Israel, along with forces from Egypt, Transjordan, Syria, Iraq, attacked the Jews. The Israelis (not just Jews) quickly banded together because the war was literally for survival -- it parallels what is happening in Ukraine today to an extent. Regardless, it was not the Jews that attacked --
https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/arab-israeli-war
The Arab-Israeli War of 1948 broke out when five Arab nations invaded territory in the former Palestinian mandate immediately following the announcement of the independence of the state of Israel on May 14, 1948.

Why did they attack? -- again the US State Department notes --
On November 29, 1947, the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 181 (also known as the Partition Resolution) that would divide Great Britain’s former Palestinian mandate into Jewish and Arab states in May 1948. Under the resolution, the area of religious significance surrounding Jerusalem would remain under international control administered by the United Nations. The Palestinian Arabs refused to recognize this arrangement.

After Israel declared its independence on May 14, 1948, the fighting intensified with other Arab forces joining the Palestinian Arabs in attacking territory in the former Palestinian mandate. On the eve of May 14, the Arabs launched an air attack on Tel Aviv, which the Israelis resisted. This action was followed by the invasion of the former Palestinian mandate by Arab armies from Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Egypt. Saudi Arabia sent a formation that fought under the Egyptian command.

So the UN had decide that Jerusalem would be an international city. In 1948, the 150,000 Jewish inhabitants were under constant military pressure and some 2,500 Jews living in the Old City were victims of an Arab blockade that lasted five months before they were forced to surrender. Prior to the surrender, and throughout the siege on Jerusalem, Jewish convoys tried to reach the city to alleviate the food shortage, which, by April, had become critical -- so, nope, no humanitarian aid for Jews who just suffered through the Holocaust! The Arab forces, which had engaged in sporadic and unorganized ambushes since December 1947, began to cut off the highway which linked Tel-Aviv and Jerusalem. The Arabs controlled some vantage points overlooking the highway and were able to fire on the convoys carrying humanitarian supplies (mostly food). Deir Yassin was one of those vantage points. Before the attack on Deir Yassin, warnings to the civilians were broadcasted, at least attempted. What is known is that residents and foreign troops opened fire on the Israelis as soon as they approached. I'm not denying what happened at Deir Yassin was terrible, war is always terrible. Initially reports said that many hundreds had been killed. Now people realize that the death tool was closer to 100, the majority because of direct fighting rather than as collateral damage. Again, parallels between what is happening in Gaza today -- it's now clear that the 500+ dead at the hospital is much lower, and more importantly, it was a stray rocket fired from Gaza itself that struck. In fact, many stray rockets  launched by Hamas have killed Palestinians, but that rarely gets any notice. But, back to 1948, what happened at Deir Yassin, absolutely resulted in numerous Arabs fleeing Israel. The BBC reported --
https://www.amazon.com/Fifty-Years-War-Israel-Arabs-ebook/dp/B002TJLFCC

Hazam Nusseibi, who worked for the Palestine Broadcasting Service in 1948, admitted being told by Hussein Khalidi, a Palestinian Arab leader, to fabricate atrocities committed by Jews on Arabs. Abu Mahmud, a Deir Yassin resident in 1948 told Khalidi "there was no rape," but Khalidi replied, "We have to say this, so the Arab armies will come to liberate Palestine from the Jews." Nusseibeh told the BBC 50 years later, "This was our biggest mistake. We did not realize how our people would react. As soon as they heard that women had been raped at Deir Yassin, Palestinians fled in terror."

Yes, there is more to the Nakba than just Deir Yassin, but Deir Yassin is very important as you pointed out, and most people do not really know happened there, so hopefully what I noted above helps.

Edited October 28, 2023 by avatar!

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Also, to show people a new perspective they may not realize exists --

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/10/28/arabs-bedouin-idf-muslim-hamas-palestinians-jews-army/

Faour is one of a growing number of Israel’s Arab and Bedouin minorities volunteering with the Israeli army (IDF) as a pathway to escaping poverty and crime in the Arab towns and villages they live in.

He said: “In the last Lebanon war, rockets were fired and also hit the Arabs in Nazareth and the nearby villages. We live here together. Protecting the country from the terrorists on our borders is important for all of us, Muslims, Jews, all of us here. The army needs us and we need the army, so I feel that it is my duty to enlist and protect everyone, Jews or Arabs.”

Now, two years after signing up, his resolve is unwavering.

Unlike many in his community, he thinks service should be mandatory for all citizens. As air attacks grow increasingly frequent from Hezbollah in Lebanon just a few kilometres from his home near the border, his commitment to the army is stronger than ever. “We are all united in the goal of protecting our country from terror,” he said.

[Link | 2,714]

I’ve never considered this a religious war, regardless of what Israel puts on their flag. Of course Arabs and Jews and Muslims may be on the same side. Especially people coming to Israel to escape poverty - aka had fewer options. 

33 minutes ago, avatar! said:

The Arab-Israeli War of 1948 broke out when five Arab nations invaded territory in the former Palestinian mandate immediately following the announcement of the independence of the state of Israel on May 14, 1948.

You cut off the prior thirty years of timeline. Who had say in that mandate? Was this announcement a change or another step in the same direction?

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15 minutes ago, Link said:

I’ve never considered this a religious war, regardless of what Israel puts on their flag. Of course Arabs and Jews and Muslims may be on the same side. Especially people coming to Israel to escape poverty - aka had fewer options. 

You cut off the prior thirty years of timeline. Who had say in that mandate? Was this announcement a change or another step in the same direction?

One of the very first statements Hamas publicized is this -

Jihad is its path and death for the sake of Allah is the loftiest of its wishes

Article One in the Hamas doctrine is this -

The Islamic Resistance Movement: The Movement's programme is Islam. From it, it draws its ideas, ways of thinking and understanding of the universe, life and man. It resorts to it for judgement in all its conduct, and it is inspired by it for guidance of its steps.

Article 3:

The basic structure of the Islamic Resistance Movement consists of Muslims who have given their allegiance to Allah whom they truly worship

Their endgame:
Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it

Reference:
https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/hamas.asp

So yes, I would argue this is very much a religious war. As for claims to the land, Jews have lived in historic Israel for literally thousands of years, that's just fact. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_and_Judaism_in_the_Land_of_Israel

I'm glad you asked about the years prior to 1948. In 1922, the League of Nations recognized "the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine" although the British did not like this, because in their mind Palestine was supposed to be part of their empire --
https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/legality-of-a-jewish-state/was-jewish-statehood-endorsed-by-the-league-of-nations/B90723DED05B51B6D82460DF73DAB3AE

The British may argue their were "impartial" to Jews and Arabs, but again, that's far from the truth. In the 20s and 30s Jewish settlers were being attacked by Arabs. The British in Palestine set up the Shaw Commission in 1929 -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaw_Commission
The commission concluded that, among other reasons, Arabs were attacking Jews because of "racial animosity on the part of the Arabs". By 1936 the population of Jews in Palestine was over 30% and there were daily attacks against Jews. However, rather than increasing Jewish immigration or truly trying to keep order, the British government basically halted Jewish immigration to the promised homeland, which of course was popular with Arabs. Again, people do point out that the Arab population was much larger, which is true, because Jews were not allowed to immigrate to the land they had lived in for thousand of years, and again which was promised in the Balfour Declaration.

As noted, under Arab pressure, Britain severely limited immigration as well as not allowing Jews to purchase land. So yes, there were fewer Jews than Arabs, and the primarily reason is England. In fact, even though Jews were being murdered in Europe in the 1930s, England put a quote of no more than 75,000 Jewish immigrants to Palestine from 1936 to 1941 --
https://www.gchq.gov.uk/information/palestine-mandate
Despite what the UK gov may say, the English were absolutely antisemitic, which is not to say they were anything like Nazis, but they absolutely considered Jews (and blacks among other minorities for the record) as "inferior" and "not desirable". But primarily, they wanted to keep as much power as they could in the region and allowing Jews to have their homeland which was initially promised in 1917 was not to their imperialistic liking. Right up to 1948, England was hostile to Jewish immigrants --
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/exodus-1947

That's certainly not the entire history of life in Palestine prior to 1948, but it does provide important context.

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1 hour ago, avatar! said:

So yes, I would argue this is very much a religious war.

Fine but my point is that Jews, Arabs, and Muslims being together on a side, doesn’t mean I agree with their position. 

As you pointed out said Arabs fleeing to Israel (from the land Israel is bombing or occupying? Not a point in Israel’s favor). 

1 hour ago, avatar! said:

As for claims to the land, Jews have lived in historic Israel for literally thousands of years, that's just fact.

Who ever said anything in dispute of that? Israel is not Judaism nor is Judaism the country. 

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4 hours ago, Link said:

Fine but my point is that Jews, Arabs, and Muslims being together on a side, doesn’t mean I agree with their position. 

As you pointed out said Arabs fleeing to Israel (from the land Israel is bombing or occupying? Not a point in Israel’s favor). 

Who ever said anything in dispute of that? Israel is not Judaism nor is Judaism the country. 

I certainly agree with the first point.

Second point, I really wish none of this was happening, but I don't blame Israel for retaliating. I blame Hamas.

Third point, not sure. In general I would agree, but then Judaism certainly is tied to the country of Israel much as Mecca is the holiest place in Islam.

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British society will pay a terrible price for indulging extremism

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/29/british-society-will-pay-a-terrible-price-for-indulging-ext/

The most despicable thing about the rolling anti-Israel protests in London is that they first began not in response to Israeli military action, but to the atrocities committed by Hamas on October 7.

For three consecutive weekends now, around 100,000 people have lined the streets of London to show their opposition to Israel. In the words of Lord Austin, who witnessed Saturday’s march, there were “lots of signs calling for Israel to be eradicated. [But I] didn’t see any calling for peace, a two-state solution, Gaza to be freed from Hamas or hostages to be taken.”

For this is about hatred, not peace. Many of those attending the protests are unembarrassed about supporting the rape and murder of Israeli civilians. Some were content to cry “Allahu akbar!” and chant for “jihad”, a term that the police are eager to explain might sometimes mean a peaceful inner struggle. Some shouted “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”, a genocidal demand to destroy the state of Israel and cleanse the territory of its Jews.

Others were more precise. Some called for a new intifada, like the last one which killed more than a thousand civilians in terror attacks on buses, nightclubs and restaurants. Some chanted, “Khaybar Khaybar ya yahud jaish al Mohammed Sa’ar Yaud”, citing a famous massacre and warning Jews that “the army of Mohammed is coming”. Some protesters carried fake dead babies soaked in blood.

The desire to play things down, to convince ourselves that this is all about a quarrel in a far away country, might be understandable, but it is profoundly wrong. The people chanting this hatred are almost certainly mostly British nationals. They are doing so in such huge numbers that the police have opted not to enforce the law for fear of wider public disorder. And while the hatred for now is targeted at Jews, it is also meant for the rest of us. One man yelled, “white trash!” at those who lined up to protect the Cenotaph from protesters. One speaker promised an intifada “from London to Gaza”.

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

—Martin Niemöller

[G-type | 2,482]

On 10/28/2023 at 1:36 PM, Link said:

Who had say in that mandate?

The League of Nations (41 member states). After WWI, the areas once controlled by the Ottoman and German empires were put under the "tutelage of advanced nations" (yes, that's a direct quote), until they became independent. Britain was granted the mandate over Palestine, but the Palestinian people were never asked what they wanted or what independence would look like to them. Here's a direct quote from a correspondence between foreign secretary Sir Arthur Balfour, (the man behind the Balfour declaration of 1917) with one of his colleagues: "For in Palestine, we do not propose to even go through the form of consulting the wishes of the present inhabitants of the country." Instead, it was the Zionists who were consulted about what their vision for Palestine was... and so the mandate ended up incorporating not just the Balfour declaration, but several clauses requiring Britain to ensure the establishment of a Jewish home in Palestine.

[guillavoie | 1,210]

 

[avatar! | 1,819]

On 10/31/2023 at 2:04 PM, G-type said:

The League of Nations (41 member states). After WWI, the areas once controlled by the Ottoman and German empires were put under the "tutelage of advanced nations" (yes, that's a direct quote), until they became independent. Britain was granted the mandate over Palestine, but the Palestinian people were never asked what they wanted or what independence would look like to them. Here's a direct quote from a correspondence between foreign secretary Sir Arthur Balfour, (the man behind the Balfour declaration of 1917) with one of his colleagues: "For in Palestine, we do not propose to even go through the form of consulting the wishes of the present inhabitants of the country." Instead, it was the Zionists who were consulted about what their vision for Palestine was... and so the mandate ended up incorporating not just the Balfour declaration, but several clauses requiring Britain to ensure the establishment of a Jewish home in Palestine.

You're quoting out of context. What Balfour said to Lord Curzon in 1919 is:

The contradiction between the letters of the Covenant and the policy of the Allies is even more flagrant in the case of the ‘independent nation’ of Palestine than in that of the ‘independent nation’ of Syria. For in Palestine we do not propose even to go through the form of consulting the wishes of the present inhabitants of the country, though the American Commission has been going through the form of asking what they are.

When you see the whole quote, it's clear he's saying that Britain as a whole is not doing enough -- even less than what they are doing in Syria, which clearly he views as too little but is still more than England is doing with Palestine. He's not supporting not speaking with the Arabs, instead he's saying that in Palestine they;re not even consulting the Arabs and Jews living there -- which they should!

You are right though that Balfour was a Zionist, or at least supported them. He also had pointed out numerous times that Britain was being unsympathetic to Zionists, not to mention that the Arabs have vast lands and the historic ties of the Jewish people to Palestine are indisputable -- and yet, Jews have no homeland despite having to endure persecution over the centuries by both Christians and Muslims. By the way, people seem to forget that in 1929, Arabs decided to burn and destroy the Jewish community of Hebron

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1929_Hebron_massacre

This, was a catalyst for Jews living in Israel to start protecting themselves. Over the decades it became the IDF today, but it was started because innocent men, women, and of course children were butchered for just being Jewish. Sadly, history repeats itself...