For the most part the row triggered by talking about this issue isn’t worth the row, but with over 200 dead I am prepared to make a seasonal exception. This scale of killing is absurdly disproportionate. If Israel imagines that it can kill of the widespread support for Hamas (a democratically elected body) in this fashion they have failed to learn from the distinct absence of success when they adopted much the same strategy over the past decade.

If you want a shot of despair then try reading this.

My choice quotes:

Even if the end figure of deaths has more naughts at the end, I am still in support of Israel’s response.

And:

Hamas had it coming. They are completely to blame.

Well let us hope that only Hamas were killed in these effectively indscriminate killings over 200+…

I may have spotted this a little late in the day. Worth putting up, though:

FREE THE SHMINISTIM – ISRAEL’S YOUNG CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTORS. The Shministim are Israeli high school students who have been imprisoned for refusing to serve in an army that occupies the Palestinian Territories. Join Ronnie Gilbert, Adrienne Rich, Robert Meeropol, Adam Hochschild, Rabbi Lynn Gottleib, Howard Zinn, Rela Mazali, Debra Chasnoff, Ed Asner and Aurora Levins-Morales and show your support by contacting the Israeli Minister of Defense.

The concept of conscription is one I find abhorrent. The state exists to protect and enhance the freedom of every individual. And yet to compel any individual into a situation where they might have to kill, and might be killed is surely the greatest possible infringement of liberty. Especially when this compulsion targets a particular section of society that has only just gained the ability to influence that state through the vote.

(Hat-tip: BenSix)

Well, compared to this fellow.

It takes quite a dire situation for any Prime Minister to look like he’s in a worse spot than Gordon, but when there’s a strong chance that a court might not only turf you out of power but also close down your party and lock you away then you’ve just about managed it. As I mentioned in this post a defeat for vigorous Islamists actually might not be so great for Turkey: the secularists are largely a pack of vicious nationalists who’ll imprison those who write content condemning Turkey’s history. Which, for a nation which once committed genocide, is a pretty deranged restriction.

If the likely prospect of this party being either shamed or outlawed outright occurs then the secularist nationalists will doubtless profit. This would be an outcome that would lead to further Turkish isolation from Europe and most likely scupper its chances of joining the EU (at least for a decade or so). Whether this is beneficial for the Europeans or not is questionable. For the time being, though, perhaps our own Prime Minister can take heart in knowing that he is not in the most dire position possible. He’ll be shamed, but is far more likely to end up in an interview on the BBC explaining his take on the Tory landslide and its reasons for occurring than banged up in a cell.

There are, however, a few members of government over here that I wouldn’t mind seeing locked up.

Andrew Sullivan has the transcript for Obama’s speech. If there was any doubt that the man is merry leagues ahead of any other politician active in the Anglosphere a read of that ought to dispell it.

Bold words. But given the continuing mystery over Israel’s strike on Syria late last year they might not be wise.

Good news. It seems like Israel has finally come to terms with the fact that Hamas are a democratically elected group that they can not simply ignore diplomatically. In fact their agreement seems promising. Unfortunately I am still not reassured that they will cease delivering the conditions that promote them. That would required them stamping out incidents like this or, better still, closing down all of the illegal settlements presently located upon stolen land instead of allowing more to be built. Frankly, I’m not holding my breath.

As for Hamas, I am uncertain as to whether they are interested in keeping the conditions that keep their popularity amongst the base in place or replacing bitterness for gratitude by delivering what the Palestinians hope. A new face to the previously entirely militant organisation was revealed when they stood for election but whether the change is shallow and surface only remains to be seen. I would suggest anyone wishing to accept the cartoon version of them so commonly and sloppily etched and so frequently and lazily swallowed avoid reading this.

On a final note it is rather amusing to me that Egypt brokered the deal. Perhaps after the break-through into their territory staged by the residents of the Gaza Strip they decided that the peace protest was in their interest after all.

After the drama clogging our comments section {which I hope continues} I found this article highly timely.

I confess I rather conflated moderate Zionist and its more extreme, land-thieving, forms in my comments, which was rather an error given that in it’s peaceful form Zionism effectively consists of everything I would have encouraged had I lived in the appropriate era: settlement which accommodates and exists around the inhabitants already there. Unfortunately the ethnic cleansers won out, Ben-Gurion amongst them; rending the positive light he is depicted in in that article rather curious but rather understandable given that he seems to have been a family friend.

The saddest irony of this is that it undermines Barenboim’s argument for the necessity of Israel: the Jew he imagines may well go their own way back to Israel, but it seems that they will oft be little safer there. The mainstream, violent form of Zionism demanded theft of other’s territory instead of merely settlement in the deserts they would later claim that all of Palestine had consisted of before their arrival. Consequentially the pragmatic two or three state solution that Barenboim covets seems an impossibility. Even a return to the 1967 boundaries would be a return to lands filled with Jews only courtesy of all others being cleansed and thus would be unlikely to end the matter. A ceasefire would save lives but not return land stolen.

As strong as I found this article it does little to dismiss my view that it is far too late.

I had assumed that the mistreatment of those in the Occupied Territories was something that I knew the horrific basics of until I read this. It seems that 94% of the settlements have inadequate provisions for their sewage, often resulting in excrement being pumped in fashions that can either contaminate drinking water or occasionally sweep free of their position and drown infants and the elderly. This is usually the point where I’m expected to say something balancing about the terrible suffering of the Jews in the Holocaust {perpetrated by the Palestinians, of course} or talk about suicide bombings or rocket attacks or so on, or at least state that I acknowledge Israel’s “right to exist” to show everyone that I’m not a raging anti-semite.

I won’t.

This is horrific and I shouldn’t have to compromise my belief in the merits of internationalism to say so. The settlers have such little regard {or perhaps so much contempt} for those who’s land they have stolen that they are prepared to allow their waste to flood them. That is not something that you can argue the suffering of “Your people” has mitigated, it is a basically accepted point amongst civilised humanity that you do not flood other people with your shit. To try and bring in some non sequiters about a group of deranged bigots that stand little hope of ever defeating the equally prejudiced and unhinged IDF is effectively an act of apologism.

This sort of horrible nonsense is the sort of natural conclusion that Zionism can’t help itself but lead to. If you base any philosophy around the principle that your own group’s interest can be advanced over that of another you will lead to somewhere dire and anyone saying that this sort of treatment of people isn’t has obviously become such a ruthless partisan that any attempts at debate are bound to be futile.

530 new illegal houses.

An interesting response that. Rather like if the Amish reacted to the shooting of their schoolgirls last year by annexing a sizable chunk of mainstream America and rapidly using their low-tech methods of house construction to claim it. Apparently the settlers want to build eight new towns, one for each of the dead children. Because clearly the best way to cope with the work of a lone lunatic is to place further children at far more danger and actively provoke the Palestinians. Clearly.

Meanwhile the loathsome cocktail of Islamic supremacism and arab nationalism that breeds in Palestine gets a few galleons of fuel dumped on it. The fire continues to rage the beat goes on.

And on and on and on…

Oh yes, and 200 more once those are done too! We’ll have a peaceful, two-state solution in no time that way. All from a group that protect a school that is

renowned for encouraging students to become soldiers.

Ah, Zionism… Jews have never been the monsters depicted but the philosophy dominating Israel seems utterly determined that no arab ever figure that out.