Highgate

'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.

I assume they want nothing of the sort. Iran's regime is appalling, as it has been ever since the US and UK toppled their nascent democracy in the 1950s. The point was merely that your suggestion that Iran 'wants to kill all the Jews' isn't accurate. What they want is to overthrow the state of Israel and bring Palestine back into existence as it were. They would happily do it peacefully if they could, obviously that's not viable. Whatever their plans, things would be far better if they would stay out of it altogether. Yeah, the actions of Hamas and the Israeli government will only serve to prolong the hatred and conflict. Of that there isn't really any doubt. I don't know why comparing the Palestine protests to the plight of the Uighurs is helpful. The point is that Israel is carrying out this bombing of Gaza with the full support of many, even most, western governments. Hence people protest at that support as well as the Israeli actions themselves. Was the point to suggest that the opponents of Israel and Netanyahu are actually really motivated by anti-Semitism (in the narrower anti-Jewish meaning of the word)? If so, that's a pretty weak argument to be making. I think implying that Hamas are not 'the focus of criticism or entreaties', is wildly wide of the mark. Is there anyone here who doesn't criticize Hamas? I think being critical of Hamas is the default position for the majority in the West. I certainly don't want to see the destruction of Israel, although it's easy to argue that the state should never have been created in the manner it was. The irony is, in order to compensate the Jews for the horrors committed against them in Europe during the holocaust (at least that was part of the motivation), the West, I suppose I should say the UK with the assent of the US, gifted them something that wasn't theirs to give, namely land belonging to the Palestinians. It is easy to understand why Israel is so belligerent, they have suffered centuries of persecution without good reason (more from Christians than Muslims it should be noted) and now after the creation of their state they are surrounded by nations who believe that the creation of Israel in the first place was unjust (not an unfounded belief) and who believe also that Israel's treatment of the native Palestinians has been itself brutal and unjust (obviously true). So Israel has always been in a precarious position and they know it. What's not likely to be on people minds much are the events of the 7th century.... unfortunately much more recent events are likely to be occupying people's thoughts on every side.

I'm sure lots of people think that. It's seems like a depressing inevitability really. To defeat or reduce terrorism, history seems to suggest that removing or reducing the legitimate grievances that caused the terrorism in the first place seems to be the best course. It seems too late for anything like that now in Israel/Palestine, and there is no hope of it anyway with the likes of Netanyahu in charge.

Not wishing to defend the dreadful Iranian regime for a moment, but when people or regime's call 'death to Israel' or to wipe 'Israel off the map', that's usually translated in the Israeli or Western media as a genocidal threat against the Jewish people in general. Whereas it seems to more plausible that what they really want to do is just destroy and remove the state of Israel and replace it with the state of Palestine, presumably where Jews could still exist like they had always done before. Indeed Khameni himself has said as much, “The disappearance of Israel does not mean the disappearance of the Jewish people, because we have nothing against [Jews]....wiping out Israel means that the Palestinian people, including Muslims, Christians and Jews, should be able to determine their fate and get rid of thugs such as [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu,” In other words they want to reverse the process of the 1930s and 1940s. Not that this goal seems plausible anymore, not while the US exists anyway, but I don't think it sounds like a desire for genocide as such. Unfortunately I do fear that there are elements within Hamas now, possibly somewhat inspired by ISIS in recent years, that have more genocidal motivations or at least want to expel Jewish people from a future Palestine, and set up a strict Islamic state there instead. Those sort of beliefs seem completely incompatible with any sort of lasting peace in the region.

You were in good company as far as much of Europe were concerned. The non-binding (and therefore probably useless anyway) resolution passed 141-14 with 44 abstentions. But in the EU 27 it was only 8-4 in favour with 13 abstentions. Also the UK abstained, while the US obviously voted against the resolution.

I don't oppose Israel. I think Israelis should be able to live in peace and security in that part of the world without fear of attack. They have every right to do so in my opinion. The problem Israel is that it declared itself a Jewish state from the start, so instead of Israel/Palestine being a country where Jewish people could live or migrate to, safe from their European persecutors, it instead became a place where Israelis dominated Palestinian. Even to the extent of not allowing Palestinians who fled of the war of 1948 to return to their homeland ever, while permitting European or North Americans Jews claim citizenship without any impediment. In short I oppose Israel's treatment of Palestinians ever since 1948 at least. Hamas are an appalling terrorist organization and their attack on 10/7 was barbarous. It's hard to say what an appropriate response would be now, but an appropriate response at the time would have been for the IDF to engage Hamas as it happened and eliminate the threat before they could do too much damage. Unfortunately the IDF were caught napping to an alarming degree. Increasing security at the border would be an appropriate response, increase intelligence efforts would be another appropriate step. There is no good answer really, given the situation as it is. Bombing civilians and an invasion of Gaza...will kill more innocent people than were killed in Hamas' attack. In fact that's probably happened already, it will also end any possibility for peace in the region for decades, as another generation of Hamas terrorists will inevitably be created. Exactly what Hamas would want in fact. The bombing will not only be an inappropriate response but it will also be counter-productive. Disarming Hamas is a justifiable goal for the Israeli government, I just don't see how it can be done without making things even worse. The best long term solution is, and always was, treating the Palestinian people with justice and to stop occupying and settling the little land they have left. If they do that, the support for Hamas from within their own community would steadily diminish. Regrettably, I can't see anything like that happening.

That doesn't seem like a reasonable conclusion to draw. All that has been demonstrated is that Israel didn't protect it's citizens this time. It seems they may have become overconfident in their overwhelming military superiority and let their guard down. They were simply under prepared for this barbaric attack, possibly partially due to a government distracted by political upheaval and, of course, huge intelligence failure. The border with Gaza is 50kms in total and Israel can turn that into a fortress if they so wanted to. Even more so than it has been before. I can't see Israel being as easy to attack from Gaza ever again. The notion that Israel can simply wipe out Hamas is just bonkers, I don't know how else to describe it. Imagine the enormous loss of civilian life that would entail. If Israel kills that many Palestinians, then they would probably turn around and find out that half the West Bank would all of a sudden be Hamas supporters too. You don't wipe out an embedded terrorist group like that.....it just doesn't happen. I don't know the solutions for Israel or for Palestine, but I know trying to bomb Hamas out of existence in one of the most densely populated areas in the world is not the answer.

Yeah, that's quite incriminating! It's amazing how much bipartisan support Israel has always had in the US and even among the general population. It's been wavering somewhat in recent years but it's still at a remarkable level. The US record of supporting Israel at the UN, often against the wishes of the vast majority of members, has probably only served to prolong the conflict in my opinion. When the most powerful country in the world has clearly sided with the occupier rather than the occupied, what chance have the Palestinians really had. Unfortunately some have turned to Hamas for solutions and that just leads to more violence, suffering and conflict for everyone involved.

So the US vetoed the UN resolution that called for a pause in the fighting to allow humanitarian assistance into Gaza. They don't even try to look impartial do they? I had hoped that they may be using their enormous influence in Israel to urge as much restraint as possible...but I can't see any evidence of that yet. I know I'm just repeating another poster, @Eddie I think, but the UN is completely broken and toothless until the veto system is abolished.