The video I link below comes from Dr Tedros Adhanom, the head of the World Health Organisation.
I share the sentiments.
Let's stop pretending violence is a solution in Gaza.
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
I too share them.There will be no solution using violence. The armed conflict will remain at stalemate with the increasing risk of even more catastrophic consequences. Research suggests that there needs to be at least one generation who have no direct memory of violence and death before lasting peace is possible. The images are truly horrific. The US should immediately take a much stronger position and lead an intervention to enforce a ceasefire.
@Werner White
“The US should immediately take a stronger position……”
Hmmmmm……..
But the US is, and has been, arming and bankrolling Israel. Israel is the fifty-first state of the Union. How much stronger position would you have the US take ? The US is not a neutral and disinterested party in this ongoing horror. (Though I don’t doubt there are millions of Americans who abhor their government’s position)
It is not the US but the UN that needs to be firmer, but alas the UN has no clout in international affairs. The UN it seems cannot act without the approval and acquiescence of the US and certainly cannot act effectively against US interests.
The US is not the “policeman of the World”. And if by default it has that role it is as a bad apple (to coin a phrase). The US learned well from the behaviour of the British Empire (the demise of which it facilitated in the conflict of WW2).
Yes, it would be good if the US were to use its influence to create a ceasefire. The US alone has that much influence/power, but …….. well it’s not going to happen is it?
If the warmongers were in the front line, would they still be in favour of violence? No.
I looked at the Chatham House website the other day. One of their experts said ‘not even Israeli generals’ believe that they can eliminate Hamas’. It is not hard to see why. I watched a bit of Al Jazeerah this morning. Patients having to be pushed in wheelchairs and trolleys some 5-6 Km. Al Jazeerah reported that ambulances were prevented by the IDF from coming any nearer. As the Palestinians , hungry and traumatised, have to walk past shattered homes and de-composing bodies on the streets, they are unlikely to conclude that all this was a justified response the Oct. 7th atrocities. Or that their future must be citizens of an enclosed are of 141 sq. miles with little work or prospects and dependent on aid.
Israel and the US have managed to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state so far. I expect that the nature and widespread condemnation of the Israeli action will ensure that one emerges in the near future.
Even now the reporting by BBC etc – doesnt really reflect the sheer horror thats going on – as opposed to 24 hour repetition of Israel allowing ‘two tankers’ of fuel in thanks to Biden etc
Andrew, I found this article by a South African may offer some hope.
To their credit, many Israelis are in favour of the annexation program of Likud and its partners in government.
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2023/11/16/apartheid-south-africa-reached-a-tipping-point-israel-will-too
NOT in favour.
Typo.
I think that in terms of national self defence, violence must be met with violence.
But Israel missed the chance to respond to HAMAS because it was not ready to meet the threat on Oct 7th – something I find hard to believe to be honest. I’d always seen the Israeli military and intelligence apparatus as a top notch set up – world class in fact given what we know they are capable of. I can’t believe that they were caught out. This needs looking at – even before a response is authorised in my view.
But the violence now has to be commensurate in response.
We have not seen that in Gaza to the point that we are seeing a over-reaction now from Israel in my view which is unjustified and the tipping point between a ‘just war’ and murder I think has been breached well before now.
Of course, this is not a straight forward conflict. Transgressions on both sides mar reasoned analysis. I’m struck by those in Israel who have been calling out Israeli aggression and unauthorised settlements; how the U.S. has consistently vetoed international censure and probably emboldened Israel.
I’m worried that we will become used to Gaza’s suffering and feel outraged less and less; about how when it is over (????) how will they rebuild what’s left – where will the money come from; where will the refugees go; if Gaza is rebuilt will it be any good to live in?
But this – this will solve nothing as it is now. Maybe its too late.
“I think that in terms of national self defence, violence must be met with violence. ”
So everyone ends up dead?
“I’m worried that we will become used to Gaza’s suffering and feel outraged less and less”
I am sorry we reached that point in 1967
Pilgrim Slight Return says: But Israel missed the chance to respond to HAMAS because it was not ready to meet the threat on Oct 7th – something I find hard to believe to be honest. I’d always seen the Israeli military and intelligence apparatus as a top notch set up – world class in fact given what we know they are capable of. I can’t believe that they were caught out. This needs looking at – even before a response is authorised in my view.
…….
I also felt there was something quite fishy about how this incident all started. Seems a bit of a ‘gift’ to Israel, doesn’t it?
This is the only human response. Anything else is just politics
It’s impossible to “eliminate Hamas” because it’s an ideology – as futile as trying to defeat “optimism” or “faith in faeries”. Sure, you can kill all the people you find with guns, or look like they might have once owned/touched/seen a gun, or look like they’d like to be able to own/touch/see/fire a gun but the threat is still there because the conditions that brought rise to them is still there. So when the Israeli government says they want to “eliminate Hamas” what they can only mean is they intend to eliminate all the people in which such similar beliefs might arise. And as they keep stoking the fires that make those beliefs grow and multiply, then their intention must be to wage war indefinitely, because their very behaviours are the cause of the beliefs that they then attempt to suppress with violence and oppression.
And anyone who thinks violence in any form, is an appropriate response to violence, is part of the problem. Violence is never the answer. If it is, then we’ve already lost the argument and the fight. There has to be another way.
If you follow the history of terrorism and listen to experts on the subject, over the decades Israel has done everything guaranteed to foment it. Not just the blockaded ghetto that is Gaza, but it’s steady theft of Palestinian land on the West Bank along with the murder of 1,000s of its residents and destruction of property. Which even an Israeli general in the IDF described as pogroms (in Israeli media). The current Likud government with its ultra orthodox allies has made clear in words and deeds that it wishes to see the elimination of Palestine. Look them up. Look at a map of what settlers have taken over – no, not settlers, colonisers. And yet it is the supporters of Palestine who are condemned for the phrase land to the sea. Describing just what Israeli governments have been doing for the last 30 years plus – not just in words but by actions.
Again as experts have pointed out, by their actions in Gaza they have created generations of new supporters if not of Hamas itself, with a deep loathing of Israel. Actions reminiscent of Russia in Grozny or Assad in Aleppo. They have also trashed any hopes of building relationships with the Arab nations of the Middle East, and alienated many in the West who might have been neutral or even supportive. Strategically, deeply foolish and short sighted. I think it’s less a failure of intelligence and more a product of a racist and arrogant disdain for Palestinians that they did not believe they would be capable of such a response. Just look at the words of Netanyahu’s cabinet members such as Smotrich and their political supporters. Unashamedly promoting genocide by any official definition of the term.
Of course there is a section of Israeli society that deeply opposes Netanyahu and all he stands for, and they deserve every support. The likes of +972 and JFJFP, with their equivalents outside the country. Read what they say and maybe fund them. Deeply brave and principled people who are a reminder that this is about Israeli politics and their political supporters elsewhere, not surprisingly almost all on the Right. It is never an excuse for anti-Semitism. Or Islamophobia.
It seems increasingly clear that the primary aim of Israel is to clear the whole of Gaza from its inhabitants and existing infrastructure in order to annex Gaza for itself.They are bombing every building in their path to this end and driving those Gazans still alive further and further toward its southern border with Egypt. The terrible treatment of Palestinians over many years in the West Bank and Gaza appears to have inflamed Hamas to such an extent where it is unlikely that negotiation will occur or to be of any help in returning Israeli hostages, many of whom may already be dead as the frenzied killing of Palestinians continues.
The US,UK ,EU and a host of western organisations.media outlets etc all assume that there can be no peace unless Israel triumphs and Hamas magically disappears. Starmer and his crew clearly believe this when they decry a ceasefire because Hamas would survive then. (Along with thousands of Palestinian civilians. But they don,t count.)
But they ignore our own recent history.
The Irish Republican Army was not defeated as part of the “Peace Process”.
In fact, the IRA was in rude good health as the negotiations became really serious. The IRA leadership was so confident of winning major concessions and gaining a road to a United Ireland they welcomed the talks. And were so confident of their relative strength that initiating a ceasefire and even destroying a lot of weapons was not a problem.
We could conclude that peace negotiations in Palestine would be ENHANCED by a Palestinian side that was confident of its power and confident that their voice would be heard and that they would be able, by discussion, to achieve their national aspiration round the table.
Trying to weaken Palestinian resolve by military means and civilian slaughter is the very worst strategy if we want to see a peaceful resolution.
Hamas, itself aided in its path by the Israeli government, had been a tactical foil for the PLO and now an excuse for genocidal offense. The idea that Israel had no intelligence may well be rubbish for morons – put your Machiavellian hat on. The British government uses provocateurs and has done for years (e.g. spycops agitating for action). For the sociopaths in Israeli government (and Bibi, Smotrich etc are sociopaths), a few dead Israelis might well have been judged worthwhile to obtain the ultimate prize. Israel knew.
Fascism, nationalism, even neoliberalism – human beings are objects, their deaths collateral damage.