Hamas strike on Israel - mod warning in OP updated 19/10/23

Leo meeting the man who is funding the genocide in Gaza.

That's Irish hypocrisy for you.

That is the sort of argument the British army had in Derry in 1972. That worked out well!

What is about to happen in Rafah is the culmination of colonialism and the subjugation and dehumanisation of the native population. Colonial projects always end up genocidal.

israel is not a democracy, it is not similar to the western world and whe not only should not be supporting it.

we should be bankrupting it and sanctioning it to hell.

it is a threat to us all and to the middle east, all of the issues in the middle east stem from it and it's funding of international terrorism.

it is a genocidal, racist, apartheid state which needs to be forced back within it's original borders and hemmed in.

neither are good allys.

this is all incorrect.

israel are deliberately targeting civilians including slaughtering their own people who were hostages of hamas.

their claimed objectives have all failed, hamas is stronger and the hostages who were not released in the last round or who have not been killed are still hostages.

slaughtering and raping won't prevent anything in the long term against israel, nothing or nobody has been saved, it has failed and the world are seeing it for the terrorist basket case that it really is

Surely that goes double for Israel who place their military in occupied territories and residential areas??

Not only did you fail to address my post you doubled down justifying Israeli war crimes. All the while laying everything at the feet of Hamas while failing to acknowledge anything Israel has done to “light a fire”

I encourage you to look up news from the months and years prior to October 7 and climb out of your memory hole.

Nothing Hamas does justifies annexation, war crimes, illegal settlements, raiding religious centers, terrorizing civilians, killing children, killing journalists, raping kids in lockup - shall I continue? You’re not worth the effort. Loves a Nazi waving an Israeli flag. “A good clear out” shame on you.

Of course Irish people are supporting Hamas indirectly as Hamas view themselves as the defacto representative of the Palestinian people. Hamas is the whole reason why this thread has been created. Why the whole thing has bubbled over again.

Hamas are using people as sympathy trip or calcualted losses to try and get sympathy they know well what they are at. They were worried the Saudi's and Israel might get pally. So they needed a well planned spark to enrage Israel provoking them into attack. Then Hamas can play the sympathy trip, while Israel retaliates. Then if enough Palestinians die they might be the "moral high ground.

But if one side wants to destroy the other it is never going to be solved. There is only one thing I have learnt from the conflict over the decades, those scarves look cool in fairness.

At least with Ukraine/Israel for example it will end when Putin wins or dies.

But Hamas v Israel it will never end. They both have claims to land depending on how far back you want to go. And they both have very strong ideologies on either side.

A terrorist basket case is a very apt description.

Hamas are widely acknowledged as an international terror organization in the US, UK, and many other countries world wide.

Despite all that, many people here continue to accept and promote talking points and propaganda from Hamas.

Unfortunately, many Irish people are fulfilling the purpose of being the useful idiots of Hamas.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/proscribed-terror-groups-or-organisations--2/proscribed-terrorist-groups-or-organisations-accessible-version

Hamas is a terror organization.

I know I brought an unrelenting stream of criticism (some of it amounting to misrepresentation) on myself for critising the Irish Ballet boycott of an Israeli choreographer. Interesting then to see this called out in the Irish Times:

And don't shoot the messenger!

Israel is by far the biggest terrorist in the region. By far. Dropping 2,000lb bombs on women and children, snipers murdering nuns, shooting journalists, murdering aid workers and deliberately starving 2 million people etc etc etc.

So you claim, but the facts don't stack up. Israel is a tiny country, little more than a micro-state, and even if they took all of the disputed territories in full, still more than 99% of the MENA region would be occupied by Muslim states, whether Arab or Persian.

And it's been under attack its entire history. So there isn't much nuance here. You're either on their side, or you're against them. One might pretend that they're just against Israel's policies, but not on the side of Hamas, ISIS etc, but if one supports things like BDS, it's not really credible.

And yet Israel has proven repeatedly that it is willing to make concessions for peace, whether by conceding the Sinai peninsula, or by withdrawing from Gaza in full in 2005. The problem is that Israel's proclaimed borders, its leadership etc is totally irrelevant. Most of the surrounding Arab countries don't really care about the Palestinians one way or the other and Hamas, PIJ, ISIS, Iran, AQ etc. likewise don't care what Israel's policies or leadership are, they just want all the Israelis dead.

And modern history shows that when Israel does withdraw from territory, like the Gaza strip, its enemies simply turn the surrendered land into a military base from which to attack Israel. Why then, should Israel withdraw from more territory when the end result will probably be the same?

The only countries that Israel "attacked" AFAIK were pre-emptive attacks on those countries that were massing forces on its borders in 1967. If you're suggesting that Israel attacked every country in the MENA region (more than 99% of which belongs to Islamic states), I'd like to see your basis for that.

And yes, Israel is borderline micro-state that's constantly under attack, so I stand over the "poor Israel drum" as you call it. Funny that the only non-Muslim state in the region is getting so much hate from all sides (including the Western Left).