inspectorfrost

So why are Israel reacting in the way they are? National security? Fine. They've got every justification to go after Hamas themselves. The problem is they are doing far more than that, and a lot of it counter-productive. The US and all of Israel's allies are openly condemning how they are going about the war, millions of Israelis want Netanyahu out and openly protesting against him, IDF soldiers are being videoed cheering whilst they blow up Palestinian schools weeks after the last militant has left the building, the WCK boss is now openly saying that Israel are deliberately targeting aid vehicles. Do you not see that the problem might just go beyond Hamas here? You don't need to get defensive with 'simplistic hippy' comments, you can do better than that

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-68722308 A good summary

A lot of these people have also had Israelis kick them and their families/neighbours out of their homes and bulldoze them to the ground, will full support from the Israeli government/military. What would you have done? Israel have spent years employing the tactic of gradual incursion, and Hamas' countered with an attack of which the whole aim is escalation and destabilising the entire region. Of course Israel needed to respond to the October attacks, but doing the same thing that has failed time and time again isn't likely to solve it. What Netanyahu's currently doing is what created Hamas in the first place. It's one reason why thousands of Israelis are currently protesting in Israel calling for Netanyahu's head. They'll get rid of Hamas and create something worse in the process.

He didn't really do too much wrong today but he's simply continually playing at a level that is above him. Friends of mine on the dark side were genuinely baffled when we signed him, they didn't think him good enough for league one

Bazunu may be a league 2 standard keeper but a draw wasn't enough today. We had to win to have any chance of automatic promotion.

The last 5 mins of injury time summed that game up. From the start we needed to win to have any chance of automatic promotion. It's 2-2, 93rd minute and we have an attacking throw in. Literally no urgency whatsoever, we took at least half a minute to take the throw in. Ipswich go up the other end, drive forward, put a few passes together and find a way (assisted by our ball watching defence) That's the difference. Ipswich wanted it more.

Hamas' leadership currently live in complete safety in Qatar Israel have been putting the needle in for decades (extremist settler violence, illegal settlement expansion) which actually led to Hamas's creation in the first place in the 80s. The 7/10 attacks were a calculated and carefully planned escalation in the existing conflict, and were carried out with significant external logistical and military support. It was sophisticated, deliberately brutal and was helped by levels of military intelligence which dwarfed anything that Israel anticipated. The whole idea was to provoke this response from Israel. The US are trying (and failing) to reign in the Israelis because support for Hamas has surged since Israel responded to the 7/10 attacks, a group that not long ago was making rockets out of drain pipes and fertilizer. The problem is going way beyond Gaza and Hamas.

Putting the rivalry aside my Pompey supporting friends thought he was a bizarre signing for us. He's doing his best but he's constantly playing at a level that is above him. For every decent save he makes there's 2 of 3 howlers/shots that he really should be doing better with.

The double standards after the condemnation of Russia-Ukraine a year or two back aren't hard to find The attempted cancelling of Russia/#standwithUkraine was never about humanity, it was about money and power ie. the usual. We currently have over 800 serving officials openly stating their own governments positions on Israel-Gaza war could amount to complicity in "grave violations of international law". https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-68177357

Yes But are you referring to Hamas, who carried out the attack? Or the vast majority of the 20-25000 Palestinian civilians that Israel have indiscriminately bombed and killed since, that had nothing to do with the attack or Hamas? As for Arab nations potentially 'boycotting', the idea would be so the event(s) descend into farce.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-68006126 More coming out. . . I've not read the ins and outs of the Gary Lineker story regarding the tweet calling for Israel to be banned from international football/events etc. but think we're heading for incidents in events like the Olympics with Arab nations in particular refusing to compete against them etc.

To address the story in the above link itself, it was widely reported including in the I newspaper. https://www.state.gov/rejection-of-irresponsible-statements-on-resettlement-of-palestinians-outside-of-gaza/ "Irresponsible statements" is one way of putting it, seem to remember there an ICC arrest warrant issued for Putin earlier this year for doing similar in Ukraine

I don't think a lot of people realise that the Israelis were aware of how dangerous Netanyahu's regime is long before October last year. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-67859177 Hopefully this Egyptian plan to resolve the conflict gains some traction, but it'd need a complete change of leadership on both sides for a start to achieve any lasting peace.

500 Palestinians have died this year alone in attacks like the below, which is approaching half of the number of Israelis that died on 7/10. The Palestinians were never going to do nothing whilst the west turns a blind eye. Hamas's attack wasn't the start of anything. https://news.sky.com/story/settlers-armed-with-long-rifles-guns-knives-and-machetes-came-west-bank-palestinian-family-driven-from-their-home-13038093 I wouldn't be surprised if the Russians had a hand in organising Hamas's attack, given it's sophistication/scale and the timing. The western governments try to cancel Russia over the Ukraine invasion, (just under 10000 civilians have died in 18 months), then a conflict escalates where a western ally invades/indiscriminately bombs Gaza (just over 21500 civilians have died in less than 3 months, the vast majority women and children). Very good article by Frank Gardner summing things up https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-67845056

Think the IOC have acknowledged that banning the Russian/Belarussian athletes based on their nationality would violate the Olympic charter. If they banned every country who'd invaded a different country where the indiscriminate killing of civilians followed the 'individual neutral athletes' would have the largest contingent of athletes by a distance When the invasion started tens of thousands of Russians openly protested against the war knowing full well they'd likely be thrown into jail by the end of that day. It was the biggest rebellion against the Russian authorities for a long time. Sadly Zelensky never used it to his advantage. It was only 20 years ago when a lot of our population supported invading Iraq because they believed Saddam Hussein could deploy WMDs in 45 minutes. Less "nutcase population" and more "Different governments, but the lies stay the same."

You've written the above after having previously written comments like "Hamas started all this" when they didn't exist until decades after Israel were occupying Palestinian land, and then you've started talking about other people being naive, very impressionable and keen to read any old horseshit. Go back through the thread and you'll find that none of my last sentence is my opinion. Knowing the historical context is vital, and there are a lot of people on this thread have read about the cycle of violence in Israel-Palestine for decades (that's not arrogance). Alicia Kearns/Ben Wallace's comments today are significant, they know full well Israel are committing war crimes in Palestine but the words used are being massaged. I believe I read recently that 80% of Gaza's 2.3 million people have been displaced, Hamas' (the ones responsible) membership is 20000-25000. The two links below show why you need to be wary reading coverage about any conflict. See how the narrative has shifted over the 8 years.

And it's the barbaric attacks by Hamas a while ago that got all the news coverage where you'd struggle to find much on the (government supported) Israeli settler attacks on Palestinians that took place beforehand. Practically every non-UK born person I've met would you tell the idea the BBC etc. is 'independent from government' is absurd. The news coverage is based on political/financial interest, not on the premise of the value of human life. News is merely an artificial construction designed to represent reality. As soon as you start getting the 'good guy, bad guy' narrative it's an indicator it's being controlled, the world is never that simple. I've seen numerous stories like the below happening in Ukraine where words like "atrocity" and "crimes against humanity" were used. The difference in reporting is subtle but effective. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-67736723 The problem Israel has is that the world is way too multi-cultural now and communications are far too effective so more of their army's actions are being called out. There are people in senior political positions in this country whose own family are directly witnessing what the IDF are doing. There's a report that Israel's finance minister recently claimed that there are 2 million Nazis in the West Bank. History would suggest that's a rather chilling and disturbing statement. Hamas may be barbaric/vile scum etc. etc. but you may want to look behind you. . .

You're being gaslighted. For political/economic reasons they're just reporting the same story to you over and over again with different details to sell the idea the Israelis are still the only victims in this conflict and that Israel are doing anything other than 'indiscriminately bombing' (as Biden's just called it)/starving out countless civilians who had nothing to do with Hamas's attacks whatsoever. You won't get anywhere near the personalisation of the Palestinian victims or some of their horrific deaths, even with the death toll now 17-18 times of the Israeli one. As for the families of the current Hamas extremists It's highly likely they were killed in bombings/violence.starvation but that would have been 15-20 years ago when the current Hamas extremists were kids, hence why they are so radicalised now and Hamas over time have only got stronger.

A rare example of the BBC reporting the other side, shame about the "since 7th October" narrative https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-67617920

Mainly motoring ones -Putting zebra crossings within 20 yards of roundabouts so the roundabout gridlocks everytime someone crosses the road -People in traffic jams that leave a 200 yard gap between them and the car in front. Just takes a few people to do this and it makes the jam ten times worse. There's a sensible gap, then there's stupidity. -'Bike friendly' road layout changes that benefit no-one. Special mention to whoever designed the traffic light junction approach near Cambridge railway station where they put the cycle lane in between the inside and middle lanes. At peak times you effectively have to mow an entire peloton of cyclists down to turn left at the junction. They couldn't have designed it to be more downright dangerous if they tried. -The current roadworks at the M25/A3 junction. After a 1-2 mile tailback, they only split the lanes/filter the traffic for each direction in the final 100 yards -Binmen who can't be arsed to close the bin lids in pouring rain after emptying our bins. Then soaking myself when tipping all the rainwater out. -Having to ask twice to cancel parts of my Sky package, after the human assistant I eventually get through to gives me an automated message of how wonderful each thing is I want to cancel after I ask the first time

I'll always remember that gridwalk classic from 15-20 years ago "Kimi, did you see Michael Schumacher pick up his lifetime achievement award? "No, I was having a shit"

Haaland would have been garbage for Man City if they'd signed him and played him at LB the entire time. He had limited opportunities under 2 of the worst managers the premier league has ever seen. No target man would flourish in a team who either passed the ball 5 yards sideways/backwards or gave the ball away. It's less him being a poor player and more him wondering what the hell he came in to at that time, HCDAJFU in the Championship, but very much doubt he'll be back.

Hamas didn't exist until 20 years after Israel first started occupying the West Bank/Gaza in the 1960s. It's entire extremist existence was born out of decades of frustration/anger from Israeli occupation. Jewish settler violence/land grabs against Palestinians have been going on for decades, with government/army support. It was actually increasing before Hamas launched their recent attack. Ever wondered why the Hamas attack was so systematic and brutal, when they knew full well what Israel's response would be? The fact that Hamas are utterly barbaric doesn't even scratch the surface. The whole point was to provoke this reaction from Israel

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/sharpened-censure-us-calls-suspected-israeli-settler-attack-terrorism-2023-08-06/