Is there actually anything going on? Or are we just watching the Tories try and fill the dead air before their inevitable electoral wipeout next year?
What's the covid inquiry looking like? I hear Cummings has been dropping some bangers. He's gone from public enemy number one to some sort of folk hero. Bit of an unexpected turn.
And who is it going to turn out to be under the rubber face mask Keir Starmer is wearing, after all?
I know nobody really wants to talk about politics at the moment because it's all pretty hopeless, but let's at least post the vaguely amusing and/or rage inducing bits in here rather than making a new thread every time.
You can't start a thread like this and not ask about Suella Braverman. She's trolling the British people so hard that even her own party are turning against her. Her job is to represent fascists and racism within the Conservative Party, and to let fascists and racists know that they can still vote blue, and everyone knows this, and still she's being criticised by her own party for being just too deranged. She's gone rogue. She's claiming that people living in tents is a "lifestyle choice" and she wants to ban people from living in tents because their tents are a blot on the landscape. And yet she is comically unaware of the fact that people live in tents because her own government has let them down. And yet two weeks from now, we will all have forgotten this because the story will have moved on.
Following on from my previous post about Suella Braverman, it's looking like most of the protestors arrested on Armistice Day were far-right hooligans rather than bleeding-heart libconservative pro-Palestine hippies: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-67390514
>About 300,000 pro-Palestinian protesters marched to call for a ceasefire, in the biggest UK rally since the Israel-Gaza war began.
>Counter-protesters made up the "vast majority" of the 126 arrests, police said.
>The group, which had been chanting "England 'til I die" pushed through the police barrier, with some shouting "let's have them".
>However, a two-minute silence held at the Cenotaph at 11:00 GMT to mark Armistice Day was observed "respectfully", police added.
But, of course, if there really is a deep-state lefty conspiracy to arrest those brave defenders of the white race so that the Great Replacement can continue unopposed, which sounds like the sort of thing Suella Braverman might say next, then of course it was mostly Sun-readers rather than Guardian-readers who got arrested.
I love how you lefties screech about "muh FaR RigHt!" yet ally yourselves with people calling for Jews to be exterminated, who chant "from the river to the sea",openly wave Hamas flags, shoot fireworks at police and harass Jews leaving synagogues. But hey, the media has told you that you're on the right side of history, right on maaaaaaan.
>>98081 If it's just a question of who I'm allying myself with, rather than anything I'm actually saying or doing myself, then right-wingers are still known for allying themselves with worse people than that. Don't act like the far right only ever associate themselves with people who really like Jews.
These are your allies, people who openly rant about how "Hitler knew how to deal with these people". I rest my case, there's no debate to be had with those who think antisemitism is only bad when white people do it.
>>98075 I actually read her article in the Times and it was fairly reasonable. Everyone calls for even-handed policing and her warning was essentially a 'fuck around and find out' if the police took the easy road in how they handled disturbances. It's been completely blown out of proportion by the press.
https://archive.is/BqMGg
Given we've now had a 78 year old beaten by a mob for the crime of raising money for charity I think I've read enough. Everyone gets the water cannon and those Philly cheese stacks at Maccies are tits so anyone caught interfering with their production will be deported to rural Wales until they calm down. Seriously lads, they won't be around much longer before they replace them with Big Tasty for the nth time this year.
>>98087 No, having a megathread for all politics has destroyed many forums and should be purged. Everyone gets too angry when we start talking about politics rather than the technocratic policy of nuts and bolts regulation or silly stories.
Or at least move it to /iq/ so if anyone takes it too seriously they will feel daft.
I don't know what's more ignorant, making this stupid thread or backing Braverman's far right baiting lies. In both cases I'd recommend a long, hard, walk into the sea in the dead of night.
Apparently people who are susceptible to conspiracy theories are far more likely to be antisemitic, followed by those supporting (left or right wing) authoritarianism. The other big factor for the rise in antisemitism in this country is ethnicity; brown-eyed people are generally far more antisemitic than white people.
Such a study seems utterly meaningless without a high degree of clarity on the definition of their terms. The authors cite the IHRA definition of antisemitism, which directly ties criticism of Israel to antisemitism in a way which literally cannot apply to other countries:
>Manifestations might include the targeting of the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity. However, criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic.
The IHRA definition has been rightly criticised by many people for this sort of sweeping association of criticism of a state with 'targeting' Jews, and how it selectively applies only to a specific state.
For the other terms, like "anti-heirarchical aggression", the authors cite measurement instruments used by other researchers in psychology and cherry-pick the most inflammatory questions that the respondents might have said 'yes' to that would score them more highly on the test. They write:
>Anti-hierarchical Aggression, which corresponds to the desire for potentially violent revolution, and is measured through agreement with statements such as ‘When the tables are turned on the oppressors at the top of society, I will enjoy watching them suffer the violence that they have inflicted on so many others’
Note that it's measured through agreement with statements such as that one, not that respondents must have agreed with that specific statement. Unfortunately I can't comment any further on that instrument since the article they cite is behind a paywall. Unless you're familiar with the instruments, their questions, weighting, and scoring system, etc., it's very hard to know what the labels like "anti-heirarchical aggression" mean.
The worst is maybe measurement of belief in conspiracies by Brotherton et al., which is available. The questions they use are attached. I'll leave it to you lads to decide how much of a fair test this is, but number 1 is really striking to me. Consider that the British Reaper drone has flown over 5,000 missions in the last 10 years over Iraq and Syria, firing nearly 1,000 weapons. This post is long enough, I'll leave it at that.
>The authors cite the IHRA definition of antisemitism, which directly ties criticism of Israel to antisemitism in a way which literally cannot apply to other countries.
Israel is unique, because it's the only Jewish state. That's highly relevant to the issue of antisemitism. It's fine to call Netanyahu a cunt, because he is a cunt. It isn't OK to single out Israel and subject it to double standards.
The Saudis are currently hosting a summit for Arab leaders on Gaza. As you might imagine, there's a lot of criticism of Israel. It's a wee bit rich for Mohammed Bin Salman or Bashar al-Assad to call the Israelis bloodthirsty genocidal maniacs, when they've killed far more Arabs than Israel ever has. A lot of people (I'm not necessarily including you in this) who are outraged by the ~11,000 civilian deaths in Gaza have been silent for years on the 300,000 civilian deaths so far in Yemen, or the 370,000+ civilian deaths in Syria. If someone doesn't give a toss when Arabs kill Arabs, but is incensed when Jews kill Arabs, there's a fairly obvious conclusion to draw.
I've spoken to a lot of people recently who say that they agree with Israel's right to self defence, but go on to argue that anything Israel could actually do to defend itself is a war crime - the occupation pre-2005 is a war crime, the barrier is a war crime, control of the crossings into Israel is a war crime. They come out with platitudes about "working towards a two-state solution", but when challenged on what Israel is actually allowed to do in the here-and-now to defend themselves against an extremist group that is violently opposed to a two-state solution, they have literally no answers. That's obviously a blatant double-standard; there's no country on earth that we'd expect to simply sit on their hands in response to a military invasion. Some of them argue that the acts on 7/10 didn't constitute a military invasion, which is again a blatant double-standard - their position is essentially that Palestine should enjoy all of the rights and none of the responsibilities of a state, while the reverse should apply to Israel.
There are fuzzy edges and grey areas, but there's also a lot of antisemitism masquerading as anti-zionism. Graham Linehan claims to simply be standing up for the rights of women, but it's a bit sus that his feminism manifests as a relentless attack on trans rights. The same applies to some people who claim to be standing up for Palestine - they care passionately about the rights of Arabs, but only when Jews are involved. They're criticising Israel rather than attacking Jews, but the label "Zionist" is applied rather liberally to lots of Jews who have no particular connection to Israel.
We all have a right to criticise the policies of the government of Israel - I've done it myself plenty of times - but we have to recognise that a lot of people, knowingly or not, are using that legitimate criticism as a motte-and-bailey for antisemitism. If we can't say what Israel should do, or if our only answer boils down to "they should just shut up and let genocidal Islamist lunatics murder them in their beds", then our criticism isn't of the Israeli government, but of the existence of the only Jewish state on earth.
I read your post quite carefully, but I can only say I disagree, sorry mate. Conflating criticism of Israel with antisemitism is very plainly wrong.
For example, your point about people using a motte-and-bailey tactic is made redundant by the IHRA definition; if criticism of Israel is by itself antisemitic, then there is no antisemitism to "sneak in". To make any sense of what you're saying, which is that antisemitic views are being hidden under the guise of criticism of Israel, you need to define the two, which most sensible people are able to do. If it really is the case that people are using one to hide the other, then the IHRA definition should have made some attempt to distinguish them, otherwise it quite literally rules out (as you put it) calling Netanyahu a cunt.
I appreciate you not including me in the group you mention, because I did (and do) very much care about Yemen and Syria deaths particularly the UK's varying degree of involvement in them. I would take a step back from the "self-defense" argument, though, and don't like using that rhetoric because I find it to be extremely cynical. Israel very obviously has military superiority and the actual number of deaths of Palestinians versus Israelis illustrate this. I've searched for an updated version of the attached chart, but could only find one that goes up to 2021.
I also find the whole conversation of double-standards somewhat diversionary, especially for the general public. People tend to care about what activists fight for, and in turn that relies on either education or media to be made aware of it. In my experience, very few people care much to know the foreign policy of other countries, and they have even less interest in grading countries based on their ethics.
A more sensible approach would be to care first and foremost about what our own government is involved in -- it's right to single out states based on what the public can influence. The UK's relationship to Israel is extremely close, to the tune of several hundred million pounds worth of weapons sales. If protesting our government can change that relationship or push them to bring about a ceasefire, that is worth fighting for. There's nothing antisemitic about that.
>the IHRA definition should have made some attempt to distinguish them
It does, hence the inclusion of the caveat "criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic". Objecting to the current government or their policies is fine, because that's the sort of criticism that people would level against any country. The IHRA definition makes a clear distinction between specific criticisms of the actions or policies of Israel and criticisms of Israel as a whole. Antisemitism manifests when people start attacking the very existence of Israel, by (for instance) knowingly conflating the occupation of disputed territories in the West Bank with the idea that the entire state of Israel is a form of occupation, or arguing that the basic idea of a homeland for the Jews is a form of apartheid. You don't have to look far to see people making these sorts of arguments and I have seen them made by serving members of parliament.
> I would take a step back from the "self-defense" argument, though, and don't like using that rhetoric because I find it to be extremely cynical. Israel very obviously has military superiority and the actual number of deaths of Palestinians versus Israelis illustrate this.
Israel does have military superiority, but that doesn't mean they're the aggressor or that their actions are contrary to international law. There are numerous examples of asymmetric conflicts between a conventional military force and a guerilla army operating among their own civilian population; they invariably result in disproportionately high civilian casualties, by their very nature. "Proportionality" as defined in international humanitarian law refers to the proportionality of civilian casualties relative to the military objectives, not a tit-for-tat accounting of the number of casualties on each side.
The actions of Netanyahu's government (particularly in relation to settlements in the West Bank) have undoubtedly made a peaceful resolution more difficult, but the Palestinian leadership have consistently rejected any peaceful resolution proposed by any party, going all the way back to the 1947 UN resolution on partition; an indefinite guerilla resistance with no specific or achievable goals is inevitably going to have a disastrous cost in human lives.
I have no doubt that most of the people calling for a ceasefire are fundamentally motivated by humanitarianism, but it's essentially a unilateral call - nobody actually believes that a de-escalation by the IDF will lead to Hamas ending their rocket attacks or stopping preparations for their next attack. Israel fully understand that they can't destroy an ideology, but they absolutely can destroy the military assets of Hamas and there's a very realistic chance that they can remove their political leadership, paving the way for an Egypt-led interim government that can build state capacity in Gaza and slowly work towards a functioning government and a meaningful democracy. That's not necessarily a good plan, but it is at least a plan. Some of those calling for an immediate ceasefire simply haven't thought about what an alternative plan might look like, but others are well aware that in practice a ceasefire simply means allowing Hamas to consolidate, re-arm and resume their efforts to attack Israeli civilians.
The UK does have significant bilateral arms trade with Israel, but that is by no means unusual. We are the second-largest exporter of arms in the world and sell to the likes of China, Saudi Arabia and laplanderstan; Israel aren't even in the top 10 of our customers, because they have a large and capable domestic arms industry and a broad range of other trading partners. Refusing to sell arms to Israel isn't going to influence their actions or degrade their military capabilities in any meaningful way.
I genuinely don't know if Israel have committed serious breaches of international humanitarian law during this or previous hostilities, because many of the legal issues are extremely complex and have very limited precedent. The ICJ does have jurisdiction in Gaza and I fully support any efforts to bring a case before it, because there is a serious lack of clarity over the legal position; what I can't support is the frequent assertion that Israel is engaged in criminal behaviour based on gut instinct rather than serious legal analysis, often by institutions that really should know better.
>>98096 You really, honestly think the Israel we have today, the shooting the knees out from under people when they try peaceful protest, encouraging and enabling settlers on the west bank, cutting the water supply and actively killing tens of thousands of people with bombs in aid of "We're Rolling Out Nakba 2023", Israel would ever allow Palestinians to be in a position to 'build state capacity'? You really think that's what they want to happen here, honestly?
>>98096 >The IHRA definition makes a clear distinction between specific criticisms of the actions or policies of Israel and criticisms of Israel as a whole.
I understand what you're saying, but I do feel the need to point out that this is not the distinction that you were making in your previous post.
Taking the definition as you express it here, though, it still has a serious issues, mainly that it's ahistorical. Pointing out that the creation of Israel as it exists today has required displacing people is factually correct, but under this rubric would be perceived as questioning Israel's right to exist.
We've just moved from conflating criticism of Israel with antisemitism to conflating criticism of Israel with Israel's right to exist (which is also distinct from antisemitism, anyway).
It does not follow that someone recognising this history wants Israel to cease to exist. It's not enough to say that people are making "these sorts" of arguments and assume that's their endgame. As far as I can tell, a two-state solution has been more or less accepted, at least within the British political circles that care about this topic, for decades.
>"Proportionality" as defined in international humanitarian law refers to the proportionality of civilian casualties relative to the military objectives, not a tit-for-tat accounting of the number of casualties on each side.
This is another instance of a total failure of formal terminology, because if we choose to accept this definition, "proportionality" means absolutely nothing; anyone can claim that their military objectives require a greater number of civilian casualties.
Following a common sense understanding of proportionality, where we recognise that one military force is causing vastly greater damage than the other, might actually help to prevent more death.
>Israel fully understand that they can't destroy an ideology, but they absolutely can destroy the military assets of Hamas and there's a very realistic chance that they can remove their political leadership, paving the way for an Egypt-led interim government that can build state capacity in Gaza and slowly work towards a functioning government and a meaningful democracy.
There's no indication that the military actions in Gaza are supporting that state capacity by removing their political leadership. There is outright destruction of residential towers, buildings, schools, and likely hospitals, as well as UNRWA premises. You drew a false dichotomy earlier between "sitting on your hands" and attacks like this, when that's clearly not the case.
>We are the second-largest exporter of arms in the world and sell to the likes of China, Saudi Arabia and laplanderstan; Israel aren't even in the top 10 of our customers, because they have a large and capable domestic arms industry and a broad range of other trading partners. Refusing to sell arms to Israel isn't going to influence their actions or degrade their military capabilities in any meaningful way.
This is something that could absolutely be stopped by putting pressure on our government. The ongoing legal case brought against the UK Government by CAAT to the high court for its arms sales to Saudi Arabia during the destruction of Yemen is one such example:
https://caat.org.uk/homepage/stop-arming-saudi-arabia/caats-legal-challenge/
>>98094 >have been silent for years on the 300,000 civilian deaths so far in Yemen, or the 370,000+ civilian deaths in Syria.
It would be worth remembering that these conflicts are chronically under-reported, so it is not unexpected that many people might not understand both that these conflicts are still going on and the degree to which they're still killing people. We've had wall-to-wall coverage of Gaza for the past month, while the BBC's coverage of Yemen is running at about one story a month and its coverage of Syria (outside of Israel's operations there) is almost non-existent.
FWIW, while Israel does have a right to defend itself, anyone seriously claiming that what it's currently doing is defending itself or that any ceasefire would amount to surrender is lying, if not to others then at least to themselves.
Israel supporters are never, ever arguing in good faith. The IHRA definitions of anti-semitism are not in good faith. It is not a valid argument to just say "Israel exists legally under internatonal law" and therefore anyone who criticises the state or the validity of its existence is an anti-semite.
You don't just get to say "I made up these definitions and these rules, you're not allowed to dispute this premise and you're only allowed to debate within these boundaries", that's not how opinions or debates work. Arguing with an Israel supporter is like trying to rationally appeal to your mental narcissist ex; nothing you say matters no matter how charitable and accommodating will try to be.
Hamas are fanatics, but at least you are allowed to recognise them as fanatics and call them what they are.
The IDF have been looking for an excuse to do this for years. I'd be amazed if it doesn't come to light eventually that they knew Hama's were up to something and just let it slide.
Israelis dancing in the street about the strikes on Gazan hospitals.
Eskimos marching through London calling for the death of Jews.
Stockbrokers rubbing their hands gleefully as the military-industrial complex ticks along.
Politicians on both extremes swooping in like the vultures they are to wag their fingers, say "we told you so," and try to curry favour for their re-election.
>>98121 As far as I'm aware, both have happened. Without even bringing up what muzzers think of Israel, if you have over 300,000 in one place you're always bound to get knobheads.
>>98121 I believe otherlad is referring to a video where we specifically have a woman shouting 'death to Jews' which adds to a list of hate-crime incidents the Met are investigating. You seem awfully testy on this, are there some theories that you would like to share with us?
No. I've seen a recording of the former, but not the latter. I have also seen inflammatory videos recorded by Israelis showing off their running water to mock Gazans under the blockade.
None of these are particularly proud moments as far as humanity is concerned. Though as >>98122 points out, when you're dealing with sheer numbers, there's always going to be people getting emotional, making misjudgements, or just plain sadists and thickos.
>>98124 >when you're dealing with sheer numbers, there's always going to be people getting emotional, making misjudgements, or just plain sadists and thickos.
Going off on a tangent here but someone pointed out to me recently that, statistically speaking, if you look at your average classroom of kids there will be one child subject to paternity fraud, i.e. the man raising them as their father falsely thinks they're biologically theirs.
What I don't get is why so many people feel like they need a strong opinion on Israel and Palestine. There's just so much shit you'd need to wade through to have anything remotely resembling an informed view of what's going on and I have so many other things I'd rather invest my time in. Similarly, I don't give that much of a shit about what's going on Sudan or Yemen.
I guess it's like supporting a football team for people who dislike sports, but want flash points to talk about. The same internet shit talking about what's going on over there isn't really different to listening on TalkSport to someone wound up by the standard of the officiating during Chelsea vs. Man City. It was good of Hamas to beat the offside trap set by the IDF, but the referee has shown too much leniency when Israel retaliated and it's going to be a bloodbath because he's lost control.
Did you see that ludicrous display last night? What was Netanyahu doing bring his tank divisions on that early? Great defence by the Iron Dome though, they let nothing through all night.
Over 11,000 Palestinians have been killed in a bit less than six weeks. For context, that's more than Ukrainian civilian deaths since the Russian invasion nearly two years ago.
I know this is an imageboard and all, but the reason I care enough to make lengthy posts about Israel and Palestine is that it's something that the general public of the UK can pressure the government about. If you think about it, there are very few areas of life that have these sort of stakes.
>>98134 Does it really matter more than, say, arming the Saudis so they can get up to nefarious deeds? It feels like Israel gets disproportionately more reaction than other conflicts.
CR;LF
place to find the polices of the more right-wing Conservatives? We saw a bit of Liz Truss' utopia when she got the reins, and Braverman's clearly got some firmly held beliefs. There are more lined up, I'm sure, so where does one go for a look at a manifesto?
It's not been that way for me, personally. I'm the one that posted >>98099 (in case that wasn't obvious), and I backed that CAAT legal action wholeheartedly. The Saudis obliterated Yemen, including much of its sanitation facilities, causing rampant cholera and the worst humanitarian crisis in the world at that time. I wish an equal amount of attention had been paid to that.
I could speculate and say that it might be because the Israel-Palestine conflict has been going on so long and interest groups have had more time to form, but I can't be certain.
There's few other conflicts where the average person can see just quite so clearly, despite the best efforts of biased institutions like the BBC, that something abhorrent is going on.
Is there seriously any counterpoint that isn't just plain whataboutery and misdirection? They are just massacring people out there and it's savage, but the US and by extension all its allies just keep on supporting them.
Other conflicts are either obscure or much harder to get an understanding of. But in Israel it's plain to see. It doesn't matter who started it, or what led up to it, either way there's one side quite clearly fucking butchering the other with a complete lack of humanity.
>Is there seriously any counterpoint that isn't just plain whataboutery and misdirection? ... Other conflicts are either obscure or much harder to get an understanding of.
The Israel-Palestine conflict has been going on continuously since 1948. During that period there have been multiple invasions in both directions with Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. The majority of Israel's land borders are currently or have recently been the subject of international dispute; the international community is still greatly divided on whether to recognise the statehood of Israel, Palestine or both. Both sides have an extremely long list of grievances and neither side can agree among themselves as to what constitutes an acceptable outcome. It is fiendishly, nightmarishly complicated and there is no obvious route out.
The wars in Syria and Yemen are inarguably worse than the situation in Gaza and have been worse for more than a decade, but I suspect that most people have completely forgotten about those conflicts. What's the exchange rate between dead Yemeni kids and dead Palestinian kids in the market for attention? If we're going to ask questions about the BBC's impartiality, that's where I'd start.
You're proving the opposite point you're trying to make.
People have been hearing about the Israelis mass murdering Palestinians for the better part of the last 40-50 years, and you are wondering why they are more switched on to it than whatever other desert-stan country they couldn't even pinpoint on a map? You were asked if there's an argument that isn't whataboutism, and all you did was more whataboutism. You were asked if there's an argument that isn't misdirection, and all you are doing is misdirecting.
It's obviously a complex situation, but what isn't complex at all, what is incredibly, painfully fucking simple, is the fact that the casualties are so massively, outrageously, undeniably disproportionate from one side to the other. The only way to misunderstand that is wilfully.
>>98140 >there's one side quite clearly fucking butchering the other with a complete lack of humanity.
Did you miss all those news reports of the massive Hamas attack on Israel recently? There's whataboutism and then there's being wilfully ignorant on the butcher of innocent people because they're not on your team.
Yes, the ones Israel has already killed 10x the number of Palestinians in apparent retribution for just in the weeks since it happened, that's the one we're on about, yes? Who's being wilfully ignorant?
There's no reasoning with people like you. Israel has the clear military and economic advantage, it has the backing of the world's most powerful states, if it wanted to defend itself it fucking well certainly could do without committing genocide in the process. It just doesn't want to.
>>98147 >Israel has already killed 10x the number of Palestinians
Now whose engaging in whataboutism. No, lad, Hamas are rotters and the world isn't some black-and-white game for you to play.
>if it wanted to defend itself it fucking well certainly could do without committing genocide in the process
It's pretty arguable actually. The IDF need to rescue hostages and destroy Hamas, by design that's going to lead to enormous amounts of collateral damage and evidently continuing the long-running blockade to just seal Hamas off and call it a day doesn't work. The combined support of the West isn't going to magically not get people killed as the War on Terror and related siege of Mosul show - you're just being silly now.
It's actually really simple lad. Look at Ukraine. They are fighting a war of self defence. Look at Israel. They are using the pretext of self defence to just indiscriminately murder people belonging to a different arbitrary group.
The civilian casualties Israel is inflicting in order to fulfil its objectives are beyond excessive. Stop deflecting with "b-b-but Hamas are baddies", because we're not talking about Hamas, I couldn't give a shit about dead Hamas fighters. They knew what they were signing up for. We're talking about innocent civilians.
At best the argument you are making is that the IDF is the most incompetent counter-insurgency military force in the world, despite the fact that after 50 odd years of practice, it should be more experienced that anybody else. Swooping in and surgically assassinating daft militant wog organisers surgically and cleanly should be no problem for them by now- Bust instead they just drop an airstrike that kills 400 people just to get one suspected enemy operative.
I'm guessing this is the place to put this? General politics?
Regarding the flood my street recently suffered (>>/b/460902) - I heard a rumour that the local water boards license to pump overflow water into the sea was revoked, so they've been dumping it into the rivers instead. Cue the overflowing of the brook nearby (and others about the county) and the council forgetting to use the flood gates and turn the offshore pump on.
We're beginning to see the local flooding excaserbated by the potential incompetence of those in authority. But similar to those people sandbagging their above-waterline-properties while others are being actively submerged, I'm wondering if condemning the waterboard and local councils activity is simply passing the buck to people who're just looking out for their own.
It's an interesting view into politics; the water board is doing what it can under the circumstances (I assume), the local polititians are covering their tracks and managing the scenario as best they can .. but should the rumour be true I can see it being enough to sway a future election. Though would it really achieve anything to oust them from their chairs while any other person or party would be compelled do the same?
You can say foresight, and I'd definitely expect atleast the waterboard to realise pumping extra water into the rivers would swell them, but is that really
Is it worth persuing a story of scandal and incompetence? I don't know - maybe I'd be more sure if I actually suffered any property damage.
It reads like textbook incompetence. Any decision like this will usually involve a risk assessment, and those involved have missed several possible points at which the flooding could have been averted.
>>98154 Not him, but counterpoint: Hamas are underground in an urban maze. It's a bit different to Ukraine. Not that I'm defending the ethnic cleansing going on by Bibi Harris, but it's important to know why he chose that tack (it's the only viable one, arguably, and also this is convenient because it makes his retaliatory mass murder look 'necessary').
>>98259 Attacking civilians and civilian infrastructure is a war crime, and for that reason using tactics that require your opponent to do so (such as using human shields or hiding behind civilian infrastructure) is also a war crime.
>>98262 >Attacking civilians and civilian infrastructure is a war crime
That's a grey area for the law of armed conflict with obvious reason that collateral damage is a given in a war zone and civilian infrastructure can present legitimate military objectives. The obvious examples are civilian power plants, communications and transport infrastructure which have been bombed by everyone pretty much as soon as anyone could.
I'm not entirely sure I need to go into detail on why civilians may die in a warzone but it's generally accepted that collateral damage can happen in attacks. What's missing is proportionality and minimisation which is the kind of war we're used to seeing western countries fight and why it's such a big deal about whether Israel is showing genocidal intent or otherwise hurting people as a form of collective punishment. Hence why Israel is keen to show how every school was built on top of a bomb factory.
Sage ticked because this isn't what I pictured I'd be doing at 1am on a weekday when I grew up.
Intentionally targeting civilians is a war crime. An attack against a legitimate military target that would likely or certainly result in civilian casualties may be legal, conditional on the principle of proportionality. In International Humanitarian Law, proportionality is assessed in relation to the military objectives - an attack that causes substantial civilian casualties or damage to civilian objects is likely to be lawful if it also causes substantial damage to military assets. It is often assumed that if one party to a conflict suffers greater casualties, then the other party must have acted disproportionately; this is an understandable intuition, but it has no basis in law.
Civilian infrastructure loses all protection if it is used for military purposes - no grey area, either it's civilian or military. A hospital with a weapons cache is, under humanitarian law, just a weapons cache. Conversely, there's no excuse for bombing civilian infrastructure just on the off chance that it might be useful to enemy combatants. If civilians are present, then the principle of proportionality still applies.
Civilians are protected against attack unless and for such a time as they "take a direct part in hostilities". Unfortunately, the term "direct part" is not clearly defined in international law, which became a crucial issue during the most recent war in Afghanistan. If a civilian allows their home to be used as a weapons cache or a firing point, are they taking "direct part"? If they actively engage in providing reconnaissance for combatants? If they are a member of a paramilitary group and provide direct material support to combatants in a theatre of conflict, but do not themselves bear arms? There isn't anything near a consensus agreement on these issues, nor any substantive legal precedent.
The IDF are maybe doing some war crimes sometimes, they're definitely pushing right up to the line of what's legal, but this kind of conflict wasn't really imagined when the laws of war were being written and there's a huge amount of uncertainty; anyone who is making confident assertions one way or the other is either a legal genius or a bullshit merchant. Hamas are definitely doing loads of absolutely inarguable war crimes, but that doesn't absolve Israel for legal responsibility for their actions. The whole thing is horrible, but the distinction between "horrible" and "illegal" matters.
>>98266 >The IDF are maybe doing some war crimes sometimes, they're definitely pushing right up to the line of what's legal,
Shooting unarmed people under white flags, dressing as doctors to assassinate incapacitated patients, targeting medical aid and collective punishment by starvation aren't crossing that line?
>>98267 Are you unable to hold 2 opinions at once? It is undeniable that Hamas is deliberately using civilians and associated infrastructure with an intent to plan attacks and it's obvious that the IDF is also blurring the lines on what is and isn't a legitimate military target and doesn't really have an idea what it's doing.
There will be a lot of discussion as there always will be on what has sat where and if I wanted to go further there's so much blatant bullshit and rumour going around that it's difficult to know what is actually happening anyway.
>>98268 >Are you unable to hold 2 opinions at once?
If those opinions are "The IDF are working in a grey area and we just can't tell" and "I have seen filmed evidence of multiple war crimes committed by the IDF" then yes that's something I struggle with. I didn't mention hamas so can't see why you'd suggest I'm denying anything they've done. Unless the IDF had evidence showing that unarmed man waving a white flag had hamas tunnels inside him it seems openly in bad faith for you to use that argument. Same goes for the hostages they shot, maybe they had hamas hiding in their bellies.
Obviously illegal if targeted, unfortunate but legal if genuinely accidental. Civilian commentators tend to grossly under-estimate the chaos and uncertainty of war, particularly in urban environments. It's plausible that whoever was responsible was just a trigger-happy nutter who was shooting at anything that moved, but it's equally plausible that he was a scared young man who made an extremely poor split-second decision under acute stress. I wasn't there and I can't say.
International Humanitarian Law expects combatants to make all reasonable efforts to protect civilians, but it doesn't expect infallibility. A large proportion of coalition casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan were the result of friendly fire incidents, but I don't think that anyone would credibly argue that British troops simply didn't care about shooting their mates, or that the RAF were deliberately targeting Royal Marines.
>dressing as doctors to assassinate incapacitated patients
Complex and uncertain. The assassination bit is almost certainly legal, because nobody denies that the three men who were killed were combatants; some countries prohibit assassination behind enemy lines as part of their own codes of conduct, but there's no international consensus on the matter. The wounded bit is more complicated. If they were POWs in the care of the IDF then it would definitely have been illegal, but they weren't. Being sick or wounded does not in itself afford protection; someone must be hors de combat to be entitled to protection - defenceless due to unconsciousness or incapacitation, or freely surrendering. I don't know enough about the medical status of the three men who were killed to know if they were truly hors de combat.
The dressing up as doctors bit is on the cusp, but arguably legal. If any of them were wearing a protective emblem like the Red Cross then that would be a war crime in itself, but I haven't seen any evidence that they have and I doubt the IDF would be that daft. A combatant who disguises themselves as a civilian isn't acting illegally, but anyone not in uniform loses most of their protections as a combatant. Using disguise in order to kill someone would might constitute the crime of perfidy, but using disguise merely to get into the hospital likely doesn't. I've seen scholars arguing both ways, but the details do matter.
I'm not aware of anything that this might refer to, but I'd be happy to discuss it if you can point me to a specific incident.
>collective punishment by starvation
Statements by some members of the Israeli government clearly express an intention to use starvation as a means of war; those statements are unacceptable, possibly illegal under Israeli law, but not a war crime. Parties to a conflict must take all reasonable steps to facilitate the movement of humanitarian relief, but have no obligation to provide humanitarian relief. Completely blocking the entry of aid into Gaza as a siege tactic would be unquestionably illegal, but Israel haven't done that.
They did impede the movement of humanitarian relief during the early stages of the war, but they can quite legitimately argue that the security measures they imposed were reasonable and proportional, given Hamas's track record of using civilian vehicles and humanitarian agencies to traffic arms. If anyone who is directly responsible for control of the border crossings can be shown to have intentionally restricted the movement of aid for no legitimate reason, then that would clearly constitute a war crime.
Aid agencies have undoubtedly had a great deal of difficulty in their operations in Gaza, but I haven't seen evidence that they have been deliberately prevented from operating by the IDF and I have seen significant evidence that the IDF have taken steps to facilitate their operation (humanitarian corridors, scheduled pauses etc). If you have seen relevant evidence, then I'd be keen to see it.
I'm not setting out to defend Israel, I'm just concerned by the way in which terms like "war crime" have been thrown about quite carelessly by people who don't seem all that bothered about what the law actually says. Israel have been operating right at the limits of legality, but I think that it profoundly matters whether they're just the right side or just the wrong side of that limit. If we don't distinguish between blatant war crimes and stuff that is possibly iffy depending on the circumstances, then we open up a really dangerous slippery slope. I don't endorse the way that Israel have conducted the war, I think it's potentially a strategic blunder, Netanyahu is obviously a shithouse, but I'm very wary of false equivalences and a blurring of the line between moral arguments and legal arguments.
>>98270 >Obviously illegal if targeted, unfortunate but legal if genuinely accidental.
The man was standing still in the street for a protracted period of time while holding a large white flag. If you're going to extend this sort of implausible deniability on the grounds we can't truly know anyone's intent then nothing you say is credible.
>The man was standing still in the street for a protracted period of time
I haven't found any source to corroborate that claim; I've seen very little detail at all on the incident. We can fairly conclude that it was a breach of the IDF's rules of engagement, it was a catastrophic intelligence failure, but I don't see anywhere near enough information in the public domain to conclude that it was a war crime. If by "war crime" you mean "a thing that happened in a war that definitely shouldn't have happened", then I agree with you, but that's not what I mean by the term "war crime" - I mean a prosecutable offence under International Humanitarian Law.
If you or I were to "accidentally" shoot someone in the street, we'd have very limited grounds for defence, because what the fuck were we doing with a gun in the first place? An armed police officer who accidentally shoots someone in the street while responding to an armed incident has far more avenues for defence, because he's supposed to be carrying a gun and he's plausibly supposed to be shooting someone on that street. "I shot the wrong guy" is only a reasonable excuse if you have lawful authority to shoot some other guy.
In a warzone - a dusty, chaotic warzone where the enemy don't wear uniforms, launch ambushes from other people's houses and use civilians as bait - those grounds for defence are even broader. Our instincts for what is and isn't criminal conduct fundamentally don't apply, because we're dealing with a context in which killing some people is the entire premise and the consequence of not killing someone quickly enough is often your own death. "I wasn't sure what was going on, I thought I was in danger, so I just panicked and pulled the trigger" is no defence at all under civilian law, but is often a perfectly valid defence in the laws of armed conflict, whether you think that's fair or not.
Again, not saying it wasn't a war crime, just saying that I don't know nearly enough to say with any degree of confidence. I refer you back to my précis - the IDF are maybe doing some war crimes sometimes. Not an exoneration, not an indictment, just a recognition of the extraordinary complexity and uncertainty of the legal position and the facts on the ground. On the whole, I don't see reason to believe that their compliance with IHL is any worse than we'd expect from a NATO army in a similar conflict, as evidenced by the comparably high civilian death rate in a conflict like the battle of Mosul.
>>98272 > haven't found any source to corroborate that claim; I've seen very little detail at all on the incident.
The whole thing is on film, from multiple angles I believe. The sniper was never at any risk to themselves if they hadn't made the shot. Why are you going to such great lengths to create doubt in these contexts while taking it as read that hamas has committed war crimes and not extending them the same? There are statements from Israeli leaders saying they want and intend to do war crimes, there are the same from their military and there's footage of them committing war crimes. But you're hand waving that away on the grounds their intent can't be defined. Why not extend that to hamas? You can't prove the kidnappings weren't meant as a you've been framed style prank or that their tunnels are anything but the world's largest underground miniature railway. We only have their words and actions demonstrating otherwise. Same goes for the IDF.
>>98272 >Again, not saying it wasn't a war crime, just saying that I don't know nearly enough to say with any degree of confidence.
I've personally seen enough footage to be completely convinced that Israel is consciously and deliberately committing war crimes. Not to get into the sheer numbers of civilians being killed.
You are obviously entitled to your opinion but it seems insane to me.
>>98274 Not that lad, but to me the problem isn't that Israel is maybe committing war crimes. The problem is that we can't look at the actions and the stated intent and clearly determine that they are not war crimes. That there's even room to doubt whether what they're doing is legit is, in and of itself, something that should have even their staunchest allies publicly asking questions. War crimes and genocide are not things we should be giving anyone the benefit of the doubt over.
>>98396 When would a May election be announced? Are elections normally announced about a month in advance? I honestly don't remember, and I won't remember for this one when it happens either.
It has to be 28 working days in advance or some shit, IIRC. Don't quote me on the exact time frame but the process is they have to announce it a set length of time ahead, and then have to dissolve parliament, and they all lose their status as MP; that way there's no going "actually let's not have an election after all" because there are no MPs, and the only way of getting MPs is electing them.
The rules exist, otherwise you just know they'd spring it on us last thing on a Thursday afternoon that the election will be held tomorrow, so nobody has a chance to complain and nobody shows up to vote because who can be arsed on a Friday.
The assumption was for the government to complete the spending review before calling an election and for Jeremy Hunt to do some more giveaways in autumn when the economy is in a better state but now it's looking like the leaks of a May election are true. Unless Sunak bottles it an election is imminent.
Exactly 25 working days before polling day. The next local elections are on the 2nd of May, so if we are getting a General Election in May, it would almost certainly be announced on the 26th of March. Mark your calendar.
I think we're about 50/50 for a May GE. The Rwanda Bill is expected to pass on the 20th and that's about the only "good" news that the Tories can expect this year. The actual implementation of the Rwanda Bill will inevitably prove to be a miserable humiliation and there's nothing left in the piggybank for another tax giveaway. Sunak seems desperate to drag things out for as long as possible, but he's surely being advised that things are only getting worse. If nothing else, the Tories are losing about 800 voters a day to the grim reaper.
>>98401 >The Rwanda Bill is expected to pass on the 20th
It's going to need to ping-pong a bit. The Lords have thrown in a whole boatload of amendments, and that's one boat Sunak won't be able to stop easily. Though if the Lords simply capitulate in wash-up to a government that is about to lose its mandate I swear I will personally finish what Fawkes started.
He just wants to speak his mind. He doesn't know fancy words. He already left the Labour Party because of wokeness (sexist abuse of a female councilor), now he's had to do the same with the Tory Party (making up racist conspiracy theories with zero evidence).
>>98435 Has anyone actually asked Anderson, to his stupid face, "who are these Islamists that Khan is mates with?" because I feel as if a lot of the reason he can get traction for this bollocks is that no one makes him explain himself. Obviously it's racist and I've no problem with it being called that, but I feel like it would deflate, to a degree at least, a lot of the "just telling it like it is" people if they had to explain how it is, which would quite quickly expose that it's not like that and never was. It's at least going to make being a "brave truth teller" harder if they're repeatedly shown to be lying.
>>98437 "Real people aren't interested in your middle-class nitpicking. They know exactly who these Islamists are and it's not their fault you're too busy eating hummus to notice real people's real concerns."
+20% in the polls, right there. In politics, answering the question is overrated.
>>98438 Yeah, but you don't just get him to answer the question, you then rip him to pieces and call him a lying tosser when he dodges it. The question is merely the sheath from which you draw the blade.
I had no idea Barry Glendenning was a racist, a Tory and a millionaire. He always seemed so, well, not nice, but y'know, on the Football Weekly Podcast.
>>98440 His Diane Abbott comments really didn’t strike me as the worst things anyone has ever said about her. They’re so inoffensive that people have even been allowed to tell us what they actually were. It’s certainly nowhere near as outrageous as giving money to the Conservative Party.
>>98440 >>98441 Bloody fuck. I just saw this story on the news again, and it turns out that the man I've never heard of in your post is not the man I've never heard of from the news story at all. You were making a joke, and it sailed right over my head. This is why I like anonymous online communities.
Politics doesn't get much more general than this: did you know that there's a name for the prolonged ups and downs in society? We are currently in a down bit, and have been for years, as we've all noticed, and some guy called Kondratiev (or Kondratieff) first observed the waves of good and bad nearly 100 years ago. He didn't go into much more detail than that, so maybe his predictions aren't that impressive, but it's still interesting to read about.
>>98478 This is as bollocks as the "pendulum always swings back the other way" idea. Hard men making good times and so on. It's imposing an arbitrary two-dimensional pattern on something wildly complex and subjective.
Tell that to Stephen Hawking. Both chaos and order are subjective terms. "Order to the spider is chaos to the fly" if you're going to insist on communicating through cliché.
>>98478 I prefer the more mainstream view that we're going through a period of deglobalisation and there's a lot of consequences to that which will require stiff drink. This was happening with Brexit and Trump in the West but also in the East prior to 2014 as Russia and China prioritised generating self-sufficiency in the wake of the Financial Crisis (unfortunately the graphs all stop in 2022).
The systematic issue is that this process is now embedded into corporate and national decision making and has been reinforced by global shocks. The East and West are now trying to lock-in trade and technology barriers against each other in critical industries while coddling domestic production, this has spread internally to alliances creating a self-fulfilling prophecy where states and businesses that don't play the game end up losing out. In the 90s-00s the logic was a silicon valley globalist mindset based on growth potential but now it's turning into national and coalition blocs to secure resilience and strategic advantage which makes the strategy more viable. When Labour get in you can play a drinking game where you have a shot every time an industrial strategy is announced.
So to get really depressing:
- We already failed to build a global response to Covid and the next disaster will face an even more fragmented international system.
- The developing world will be in for a bad time as global shocks become more common and their growth prospects slow.
- Free market ideology sees this as a flashing red warning that we're about to have another world war and it has stopped being controversial for experts say we'll have one by 2030.
- Cooperation on climate change at the industrial level is dying, solar panels are a strategic industry.
This is going to be a rough time for the UK, we might be a major economy but we're an island nation with industries dependent on trade. Were mapped to provide the lawyers and components for global operations and our food and power resilience is pitiful outside of overpriced whisky. We can't just become France, we don't have an empire to retreat into and we're not an intermediary between East and West or the US and EU.
But I think we're liable to do the right moves in a bad situation, we're partnering with Japan, Australia and joining CPTPP is a major long-term hedge. Growth in the UK and globally will be sluggish but maybe it will recover simply owing to technological leaps in AI, space and material science.
Anyway, I feel well clever having built my investment portfolio on a geostrategic level. Call it illusionary all you want otherlad but I didn't get snarled by China/Russia and my big bet on Japan worked out bigly.
This is a good thing. I'm a devoted pinko commie but when the libertarian ancap tards talk about the strength of capitalism being in competition, they do have a point. The problem with globalisation is that there was no competition, at least not the type that benefits the average person. What we have now is just corporations competing to see who can make the most profit, and that's just a race to the bottom.
Before globalisation the nation states still had to compete in terms of giving their workforce the best conditions and opportunities, because international competition meant there was an incentive to actually develop your workforce and give them a better standard of living. Better off workers means better productivity and more money moving around the economy, which is something they have been able to ignore for the last 30 odd years and artificially pump the GDP with population growth instead.
>>98482 >But I think we're liable to do the right moves in a bad situation, we're partnering with Japan, Australia and joining CPTPP is a major long-term hedge.
It's a shame that our biggest misstep in this area was entirely self-inflicted.
