Highgate

It seems to me that you almost support the decision to instigate the coup that removed Mossadegh in '53. If so then we definitely have different perspectives. 
Yeah, absolutely Israel has committed war crimes (as Hamas have). Are their actions better or worse than Assad? It's a needless comparison, suffice to say that Assad is awful in his own right. As for genocide, it's an unhelpful word really, mainly because the UN's  definition is so vague. 'An intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a religious, national or ethnic group' or something along those lines. An intent by whom, the decision maker?, the army that carried it out? individual soldiers? everyone involved? And In whole or in part? How big is a part?  Are 100 people a part? 1,000?  Who knows? So vague, the definition is almost meaningless. To debating what is and what isn't genocide seems like a wasted endeavour to me. And yet we know war crimes when we see them, and we know that Israel have been committing extensive war over the last several weeks.  It even announces them to the world beforehand. 
Orwellian because at a time when Israel was brutally bombarding Gaza, killing literally thousands of children, to be suggesting that the same IDF are some sort of world leader in the exercise of military restraint was just a bizarre moment on the DCFC forum. 

Hold on, are you saying Hamas are not great people? Wow, big news! Let's bomb to death 1000s of Palestinian children to teach them a lesson.

This makes a lot of sense, for Mars especially. I think some of the timescales being mentioned for a colony on Mars are just wildly optimistic. And with a few billion years before the Earth is toast, we are not exactly racing against the clock here. I'm totally in favour of these projects in principal, but I don't see the need to rush anything.
When you see the state of astronauts when they return from the ISS after a few months, in what is effectively a zero gravity environment, not being able to walk unassisted without the ground crew's support, you've got to wonder how we expect people to cope on Mars after a 6 month minimum trip, without any helpful ground crews to hold their weakened bodies upright. And we think those people would be in a condition to start building a base on Mars? it all seems unrealistic to me. For now. 
Now if we were planning building a giant telescope on the moon, I'd be all for it.  
 

Sounds like the West should have just left him alone to get on with it then. 
You've misunderstood me if you think I'm saying we should be making those comparisons, I've been saying that we should be judging Israel's actions on their own merits and forego relative judgements. 
I'm not sure Israel being a country that historically accepted legal limitations on how to conduct warfare is particular relevant now, given the indiscriminate bombing of Gaza that the world has just witnessed.  Nor do I think the news would be much comfort to the tens of thousands of Palestinians who are currently mourning the death of a loved one.  I'm not sure why anyone would bother mentioning it at this point to be honest. It's all a bit Orwellian if you ask me.  

True, they've always been in a precarious position and with their particularly tragic history in the background their siege mindset is completely understandable.  But the dodgy way in which Israel was created in the first place and the forced expulsion of so many Palestinians in 1948 are the injustices that have placed Israel in this unenviable position from the start.  

I agree with you about the Moon and Mars, but I'm thinking in terms of hundreds of years away rather than decades. 

If you've got relatively clear skies tonight it might be worth nipping outside quick, fantastic view of a Moon Halo - looks like full rainbow around the moon up in North Yorkshire atm.
My phone camera is pretty crap, but there are plenty of decent images like this one on t'internet
 

A weak argument I would say, considering the man involved, but by all means make it. Obviously, as with all historical counterfactuals, we have no idea how things would have turned out, but what we do know is that the US and UK had no interest in allowing the Iranian democratic experiment take hold as they perceived it to be a potential threat to their own political and financial interests. 
The reflexive support for Israel by many commentators in the West, on the basis that it's more democratic (provided you are not a Palestinian) than it's neighbours, has always been irritating, given the West's full support of many authoritarian regimes in the region and even their outright opposition to the birth of democracy in Iran.  
Furthermore, even though you'll get no argument from me that democracy is better than the alternatives, we still have to hold countries that are democracies (genuine ones as well as those that are merely democratic for some of their citizens) to the same standards as we hold other forms of government.  There is a tendency in the West to be more lenient when judging Israel  because it's a 'democracy'. The structure of a country's government is neither here nor there when that country is killing people en masse. 
 

This is the guy that said something along the lines of a free state of Palestine wouldn't be the utopia many imagine and would give terrorists more room to operate. 
That's what he thinks of Palestinians. 
And it's beautifully ironic that the democratic state of Israel (which isn't so democratic if your not the right type of citizen) is a state that breaches international law, murders Palestinians taking their homes, refuses to sign off on human rights laws/Rome Statute, ignores the International Criminal Court demands, doesn't show up to UN hearings on their military operations, holds Palestinians prisoners without charge....
The Arabs should just stop moaning and accept it's for the best. They're so uncivilised. 
 

No, I'm really not.

I'm not sure how the systematic slaughter of 14,000 civilians speaks to 'democracy'. When a state's response to losing 1,400 of their civilians is to kill ten times as many in retribution, debates for the moral high ground seem more than a tad fatuous. 

It is, if you are not a Palestinian. Especially one of those that was born there but never allowed to return to the country of their birth by the 'democratic' state of Israel. 
It's interesting to speculate what the situation in the Middle East would look like now if Iran had been allowed to keep it's nascent democracy in the 1950s, rather than having the US and UK destroy it, and replace it with a pliant, if brutal, dictator. I guess that's something we will never know. 
It seems to me that the Hamas attack was intended to prolong the war with Israel and prevent peace at all costs. A twisted and immoral strategy no doubt, but the overwhelming response from the IDF is probably exactly what they hoped for. 

It is, if you are not a Palestinian. Especially one of those that was born there but never allowed to return to the country of their birth by the 'democratic' state of Israel. 
It's interesting to speculate what the situation in the Middle East would look like now if Iran had been allowed to keep it's nascent democracy in the 1950s, rather than having the US and UK destroy it, and replace it with a pliant, if brutal, dictator. I guess that's something we will never know. 
It seems to me that the Hamas attack was intended to prolong the war with Israel and prevent peace at all costs. A twisted and immoral strategy no doubt, but the overwhelming response from the IDF is probably exactly what they hoped for. 

Shameless violently ruthless cowardly terrorist.... you're describing IDF? I have an open invite to West Bank that I've not taken up. You can be my +1 and tell the Palestinians there how brave, courageous and noble the law abiding IDF are. 
I'm suggesting Hamas are smart. Not good. 
Being the most liberal democratic state is not a free pass to do whatever they like to other people. Including the Muslim Arabs in Israel that are not equal. And the African Jews. 
https://decolonizepalestine.com/myth/israel-is-a-democracy/

It is, if you are not a Palestinian. Especially one of those that was born there but never allowed to return to the country of their birth by the 'democratic' state of Israel. 
It's interesting to speculate what the situation in the Middle East would look like now if Iran had been allowed to keep it's nascent democracy in the 1950s, rather than having the US and UK destroy it, and replace it with a pliant, if brutal, dictator. I guess that's something we will never know. 
It seems to me that the Hamas attack was intended to prolong the war with Israel and prevent peace at all costs. A twisted and immoral strategy no doubt, but the overwhelming response from the IDF is probably exactly what they hoped for. 

Crikey.
Someone says one bad thing about Musk and the whole thread explodes quicker than one of his rockets.

Explosion 2 incoming , personally think he’s a bit of a knob but to be fair my impression was that Twitter was run by knobs before him , question seems more do you prefer your knob hanging to the left or hanging to the right 🤷🏻‍♂️, standing straight up the middle is a bit to much to ask for 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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'? 

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.