Highgate

But how can you justify making, in my opinion, the most inaccurate and biased post on the thread and then ask others to 'dial it down'?

That's absurd. The state of Israel have been committing unarguable crimes against the Palestinian people since 1948. That's not even debatable. Hamas commit them too, no doubt, but to say it's only them...?? That's surely an example of a profound pro-Israeli bias.

It could happen to anyone I suppose...

I'm starting to realize I should be grateful that it was President Bush in charge and not President Leeds Ram. 😂 I mean what could possibly go wrong with the US invading Russia's biggest ally in the region as well as Iraq? Scary stuff.

'Bush's incomplete freedom agenda?' That's how you are summing up his Middle East legacy? I'm not sure we have enough common ground for a fruitful debate here.. 🤔

It was terribly incompetent, but I think the problems with that war are far deeper than just post war planning, as inept as that was. Not wishing to defend Obama's record in the least, but I'm not sure there is any such thing as being 'worse than George W. Bush' in the Middle East.

Didn't Bush start a catastrophic war in Iraq?

It's hard to even comprehend the courage of someone like this.

I'm certainly not accusing you of approaching this form a jingoistic perspective, but in my opinion the highlighted sentence isn't nearly critical enough of Empire. I don't think that's me adhering to an agenda, that's just an honest assessment of the history as I see it. The phrase 'wasn't all beneficence and roses' seems to be suggesting that the whole imperial enterprise was something of a mixed bag in terms of outcome for everyone involved. However, for me empires, particularly those of the 19th century, were just theft and wealth extraction on a global scale. That's the foundation and motivation for them and we don't usually talk about the crime of armed theft in terms of pros and cons. It's to be expected that within the countries that benefitted financially from empire building that public opinion will typically be more defensive or even positive about the imperial past. However if you were to ask the populations of the countries that have been colonized, especially those that remained so in the relatively recent past, I think you would find that public opinion would be overwhelmingly negative. That tells it's own story in my opinion. By all means reply but I'll leave it at that for now, this all really belongs in another thread.

Nearly 50% of Israeli Jews consider themselves secular. It clearly can't be a religious conflict for them. Which leaves a smaller glimmer of hope for the future. We should start a thread on whaling sometime!

Yeah, I can't argue that history isn't filled with example of groups of people being appalling to one another. And of course violence breeds violence. It's hard to think of the barbaric attack by Hamas on Oct.7 without thinking of the line in an Auden poem which read; 'Those to whom evil is done, do evil in return.' The decades long unjust treatment of the Palestinian people, creates Hamas, and their violence brings about further violence from the Israelis. The current relentless bombing of Gaza will result in more violence in return, and the cycle will continue on and on with no end in sight.

Of that there is no doubt at all. The rest is a bit more dubious in my view. For what was the rule of law instigated, for the good of the conquered or to make them easier to rule? The Indian railways are often held up as a benefit to the benighted Indians, as if unconquered nations could never build a railway. But in reality, they were payed for by Indian taxes (earning British shareholders enormous profits) and they always seemed to head towards a port, all the more convenient to extract raw materials out of India. They were never built for the Indians but rather to make India a profitable and governable colony, the fact that have inadvertently benefited Indians afterwards is a side-effect. Yes Britain led the world in abolition, but also led the world, by volume, in slavery and bizarrely in reparations for slaveholders too. I think the reason why the Empire is heavily scrutinized and criticized in many quarters is, partially at least, is because by many others it is still seen as something to celebrate or be proud of, so therefore the reaction is to try to explain why those sort of feelings should be inappropriate.

We can study back as far as we want and sources allow. Reparations for any group based on historical grievances is hugely problematic and probably totally unworkable for all sorts of reasons. Maybe the people with the best case for reparations were the Jews themselves after WWII. All the European countries who persecuted them could have paid into a fund and with the money they could have bought land for themselves, somewhere safe from all the inexplicable hatreds that they traditionally faced. Maybe in hindsight, Palestine wasn't the best spot to escape to given that it was already well populated by Palestinians who were quite attached to their homeland. Maybe Iceland would have been a better spot....? I'm watching Trapped at the moment, and there is practically nobody there by the looks of things! 😄 Apologies @ramit

I can readily agree with some of that, but disagree with other aspects. I totally agree that nobody today should feel personally guilty for the wrongs committed by their nation in the past. That would thoroughly unfair and unnecessary. I agree that it's something that needs to be acknowledged and learned from as you say. But I don't agree that we need to remove the 'critical' eye from imperialism, in fact I think we should, to twist your words somewhat, lambast it as fundamentally wrong. That is lambasting the practice of conquest and empire building, and again leaving the current descendants of the imperialists blameless. Empires often destroy the existing hierarchy in the conquered country, rule as they please, and then withdraw for whatever reason, leaving a vacuum. What happens in such situations? Often the result is a very nasty civil war, which can very plausibly be blamed on the Empire, who had presumably removed the original rulers and therefore caused the dangerous power vacuum when they left. Or, as is often the case, the relevant Empire be it British or French or whatever, has simply created a country with traditionally antagonistic ethnicities within entirely new borders, again sowing the seeds for further war. Yes, the indigenous populations of wherever are well capable of fighting their own wars with their neighbours or with themselves, nobody is saying that there was a utopia anywhere, but I can't really see anyway reason to withhold criticism for some of the most extensive examples of exploitation the world has ever seen. It's ok to look back and say that those systems were brutal and unjust, rather than just say, 'well ok...that happened'.

Yeah, but I don't think you can feel sorry for anything that's founded on exploitation and the systematic extraction of wealth from other nations. But I agree, when you remove the Imperial tyranny, often the anarchy that's left behind is just as bad. And domestic populations are often able to mess things up all on their own, without any help from Empires.

I definitely don't. If there was a list of people I don't have sympathy for, the avaricious, mendacious, self important Imperialists would be right near the top. Still trying to clean up their mess all over the world. And failing in a lot of places, unfortunately.

The most important point on the whole thread I think. The only way to end this conflict is to treat the Palestinians with equality and justice, then support for Hamas will start to wither away over time. It hasn't happened since 1948 and I can't see it happening now, but it's the only way forward. Bombing Gaza will just kill thousands and prolong the conflict for decades more. Every day is a tragedy there now.