This is the News!

[Funt Solo]

[Responding to Lorenzo's last post.]

Well, compared to the UN I also count myself in the group "some random", yes.

---

Now you're intimating that people who want civilian deaths in the Gaza conflict to stop are anti-Semitic. That's a ludicrous statement, given that a lot of the people you're talking about are Jewish.

At no point since the UN data was posted have you agreed that you'd like the civilian deaths in the Gaza conflict (on either side, mind you) to stop. I've invited you to several times. I can only assume, then, that you don't. All the other things you're saying seem like hand waving to avoid that central point.

I suppose this brings up the question of why you want the civilian deaths to continue? You don't need to answer.

[Funt Solo]

And, y'know, this is not really about scoring points on a silly little message board. It's really happening, and it's really avoidable. We can protest to our governments, we can donate in the hope that aid will reach them.

Trigger warning - this C4 news report is not easy to look at (even just clicking the link shows you an image none of us would like to see):

• Inside Northern Gaza: kids desperate for food and medicine

[Definitely Not Mister Pops]

[Responding to Lorenzo's last post.]
I suppose this brings up the question of why you want the civilian deaths to continue?

That's an incredibly scurrilous accusation.

[Funt Solo]

...that you've quoted outside of the context it was placed within.

[Tjm86]

Lorenzo makes an excellent point. Where were people like me while all this was going on in the past?

Personally I didn't really understand the situation, thinking it was some ancient and complicated religious feud I simply wasn't informed enough to comment on beyond the most basic blanket condemnations of human-on-human violence.

On one level this is not a wholly inaccurate understanding.  There certainly is that dimension to this conflict although it has grown inevitably far more complex over time.

There is the small matter of the Crusades to factor in as the massed ranks of European chivalry answered the papal call to 'free the holy lands' (again, this doesn't accurately describe events during this period).

If you skip forward several centuries, quite a bit of the current conflict is rooted in the machinations of the late 19th Century and the post WW1 dismantling of the Ottoman Empire.  This is where Britain really comes into its own as a villain of the piece with its chicanery around many of the nations currently involved in the conflicts and tensions of the region although America and France are equally implicated with their manoeuvring around oil.

Skip forward to the post WW2 decisions in the wake of the Holocaust and you add another layer of challenge.  The establishment of Israel once more as a distinct nation, rejection of a two state solution and general indifference towards Palestinians even among other nations in the region, coupled with the approach of Israel to how it approached Palestinians as well, is arguably the latest phase in this age-old problem.

Another jump to the tail-end of the 20th Century with the Iranian and Iraqi revolutions and the establishment of two nations implacably hostile to Israel ... well, you can guess how that worked out, really.  The obvious hostility of both nations to America, and by default to the nation they sometimes see as America's regional proxy (although in Iran's case there is also a profound thread of Anti-Semitism) has only really been tempered by the decades long feud they were engaged in.

In Iran's case though, taking a leaf out of the Russian and American playbooks, proxy fighting has become the preferred approach over the years.  As a relatively low-cost approach with limited exposure, provisioning 'freedom fighters' and other assorted groups has kept the conflict simmering.

Of course the rather aggressive approach of settler groups in Israel has not helped either.  To argue that this is all the fault of Iranian-backed groups misses this dimension.  In allowing such activity, the Israeli state has given credence to the grievances of groups like Hamas.  As circumstances in places like the Gaza Strip have become increasingly dire, Israel has almost become a recruiting sergeant for its own enemies.

Even this is a gross over-simplification of an insanely complex issue that the greatest political minds of the last few generations have been grappling with.  It is highly doubtful that these issues will resolve themselves shortly.

[Hawkmumbler]

TLDR version: Its all fucked, I'm going to the pub.

[The Legendary Shark]

Israel gives more than just credence: Netanyahu: Money to Hamas part of strategy to keep Palestinians divided. (Jerusalem Post.)

[Definitely Not Mister Pops]

Amidst all the mayhem, this easily falsifiable nonsense gave me a wee chuckle:

Irish Ambassador to Israel tells audience that during the troubles, she lived in Belfast and spent every second night in bomb shelters. (reddit link)

[Definitely Not Mister Pops]

Another thing that gave me a chuckle was the BBC  unironically accusing the Russians of holding a corrupt and unfair election.

[Funt Solo]

I hear Princess Anne is a pod-person from Alpha Centauri now, father.

[Funt Solo]

So did Varadkar resign because the recent poll thing was a bust?

[Definitely Not Mister Pops]

Nah, it's cos he fucked up the photoshop for Princess Kate.

[JayzusB.Christ]

Ha!

Yeah, I'm guessing the referendum was a big factir in it, but I think that was just a part of the bigger picture of the ruling parties steadily hemorrhaging popular support, and Sinn Féin mopping it up.

Not that Sinn Féin will be getting my vote either any time soon, mind you.

[Funt Solo]

Grumpy gran aged 75 is global Fortnite gaming sensation

[JayzusB.Christ]

Fair play.  I remember my Mam in the 80s pouring scorn on our Spectrum games, all of which she said were variations of the theme of 'little men running along shelves' (and in fairness, there were a lot of Jet Set Willy clones back then).

She's 80 in a few weeks and these days she's Candy-Crushing away with the best of them, along with many other phone games.