You wrote:

Just pretending that Galloway and Viva palestina's actions were the only ones with consequences is in my mind a lie.

Not suggesting that for a minute, I'm just saying they didn't work and weren't a safe bet. As a PR exercise, spawning articles about the blockade, on that level it worked, and was a safe bet. Not at a humanitarian level.

I don't understand why anyone expects that any hostile border would permit free movement. The blockade is a security measure. It is not pleasant, there are medical issues and other examples of it failing morally, but it is successfully limiting Hamas resources without starving Gazans. Is it worth it? What are Israel's options? These are questions I can't answer. Like you I would only prefer a deal for peace.

I don't believe Galloway was helpful or expected to be helpful in any of his anti-war campaigns. He has aligned himself not against Muslim suffering but alongside Arab pride, which has taken many harsh knocks. Historically Israel is a very minor factor but for the propaganda, the absoluteness of not tolerating Israel, and the obsession with taking Israel on. I am past giving a damn about Arab pride, because in fact Arabs will do what they do and reap what they sow, what's done is done and Arab nations are historically as well as presently culpable for subjugation, particularly in centuries of slave trading. Arab pride and humiliation makes sense but it is an irrelevant trick. What I do not like to do is ignore genuine present hurt, or well described appeals for compensation and autonomy. If that is the Palestinian cause I am behind that and for peace.

Perhaps in discussion with a Hamas member you would not merely defend their complaints and allow them to weave a terrible tale with a disastrous end, since you said for your part that borders are not the point and that peace is. I think in that discussion you would not find Hamas very peaceable and I would hope to be wrong about that.

Joie de Vivre wrote:

I hear that you're saying that whilst Muslims seem to care about something, its hard to figure out what apart from "stop hurting the ummah."

I'm not saying that. I'm saying that Muslim rally around the issues that involve non-Muslims, and that loyalty is not about about rights or peace. If it was, there would be as much if not more outrage over situations in Muslim lands.

OK but is that what you mean when you say you don't know where Muslims stand?

Dawud wrote:

OK but is that what you mean when you say you don't know where Muslims stand?

Dawud I have not questioned your character, and if I overgeneralised please forgive me. As a whole it concerns me that there is not more open criticism of Hamas when the issues arise, and I have been describing why I think that is.

And generally, what I would want to know from Muslims who are active on the issue, is what Admin has said, that there is a reasonable objective in all this. Following that I would expect to see pressure on all sides to concur around that objective. I know or at least suspect you to be a totally decent guy, and I was not asking you for anything.

Relax, I trust you, you'll never need to apologise to me.

Right, I understand.

You realise thought that from the many possible reasons Muslims tend not criticise Hamas but hate on Israeli foreign policy is because their are two versions of what's going on in that part of the world.

One version basically goes that there are conservative elements in the Israeli government which have an agenda to increase their borders and remove the non-Jewish population from within those borders. Those elements support the tactics of wearing down the Palestinian populations in the surrounding territories so much that they eventually decide to up and leave. These elements also work to ensure that no truce is held and try to provoke Palestinian militants into breaking truces.

The other version goes that there are conservative/orthodox elements within the Israel who would like to see a return of the 'Greater Israel' but these people are a minority voice amongst other voices. However whilst the government goes about trying to defend its borders from an ethnicity which resents its existence and is trying to destroy them by funding militants, the constant rockets coming over the border and wounding Israelis makes the conservative voice that much more appealing to otherwise liberal Israelis.
Thus the government finds itself trying to pacify extremists on both sides.

The problem isn't that Galloway and co. are purely in front of the cameras for name and fame, the problem runs deeper, it's that they believe a different version of events to the ones others might believe.

Thanks.

There will be evidence in some politicians of the more villainous story, that stems from what were malicious perceptions at the outset and now exchanges arguments with antisemites just like I could if I were a dick join hands with Griffin. I have to emphasise, when you go outside of your western comfort zone you remember nobody is politically correct. Lovely people, dangerous talk.

Historically in a nutshell: The whole Jewish religion has been in disarray for a very long time because the Romans trashed the land and expelled the Jews, so the Jews had no temple, no context for the communal and tribal rites of worship. As a result, however symbolic all that had been, prayer and ritual became mega-symbolic, themselves representing the old rituals. The one constant was a longing to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple. Jews were persecuted wanderers and sometime traders, and in troubled times often would settle in Israel. Following 19th century Russian and European unrest a formal network of Zionists sought to purchase large tracts of land, eventually to found a Jewish state. They were largely secular, and wanted only to protect Jews and Jewish culture. They even considered (but rejected) a bizarre colonial offer for Uganda.

The ownership of the land might have been open to dispute, since a feudal system operated, but one in which landlords could also lay claim to fields that were not being used. As a result, the arrival of Jews was contentious. High-ups could sell the land and tell nobody, or not object when a Bedouin seeing fertile land decided to lay claim. Additionally, efforts were made to geld the Dome of the Rock to enhance its status, and rumours were spread that now the Jews would seek to rebuild their temple where it had once lain. Indeed some Jews would echo this fantasy, but it is CATEGORICALLY not a Jewish or zionist policy.

So when it came to evicting poor Palestinians, the landlords instead of taking responsibility urged uprisings against the newcomers. There were many skirmishes but in particular the riots of the 1920s are well known. By then Palestine was a British mandate, wrestled from Ottoman rule in WWI.

By the time Israel declared its independence, bolstered by waves of Jews who had fled the Nazis, to the Arabs it was a final indignity. This despite much initial Ottoman encouragement of Jewish settlement, even some limited support for autonomy, and the creation of employment that followed Jewish settlement. Some Sabra Jews also mourned the loss of Semitic goodwill. In this time some hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were displaced, some harshly in the wars that took place. At least as many Jews were displaced from Muslim lands. It is on that basis many argue rights of return are redundant. I don't. Each case must be judged on its merits.

And since that time things have been dreadful and both sides have been dreadful.

It ought not be too difficult to sort this out.

Yes, there are belligerent Israelis and expansionist settlers. But any evidence that Israel seeks expansion but of very localised suburbs is sparse and extremely weak.

At times, especially during war, Jews certainly wanted all of biblical Judea and Samaria; and Eilat is not really part of the biblical land of Israel. So if politics was about prophecies we would be talking about xyz borders, but what Israel wants is peaceful autonomy and borders something like those that have been bandied around this past century, that have never yet been agreed upon in league with the various Arab parties who have a stake or have gotten involved.

Galloway is a narrator of events and a brilliant rabble rouser though, not a naif. He gives speeches that encourage radicalism. There is loads and loads of that. And I have met some brilliant and lovely Muslims who are not into that. They themselves tell me it will be a very long time before the structure of the Muslim community allows for really open discussion outside of small fairly powerless groups. I don't see why it has to be a long time in this day and age, that's partly why I come here.