"We continue to race proudly as Israel – Premier Tech": Israel name removed from cycling team's vehicles as "precautionary measure"

Junaid wrote:

We've had more brutal & longer occupations in human history, but this has got to be the first where the occupier masquerades as a victim, as they continue the genocide and killing of thousands!

1000+ Israeli civilians were murdered on October 7th, so without in any way implying any approval of their retaliation, which is clearly grossly disproportionate, it's absolute nonsense to accuse them of masquerading as victims, they were victims. As for saying it's the first occupation where the occupier claims victimhood, more nonsense, you don't have to go too far back in history to find the USA occupying Iraq and Afghanistan on the spurious pretext of 9/11.

Rendel Harris wrote:

Junaid wrote:

We've had more brutal & longer occupations in human history, but this has got to be the first where the occupier masquerades as a victim, as they continue the genocide and killing of thousands!

1000+ Israeli civilians were murdered on October 7th, so without in any way implying any approval of their retaliation, which is clearly grossly disproportionate, it's absolute nonsense to accuse them of masquerading as victims, they were victims. As for saying it's the first occupation where the occupier claims victimhood, more nonsense, you don't have to go too far back in history to find the USA occupying Iraq and Afghanistan on the spurious pretext of 9/11.

I don't think that was what Junaid was saying, Rendel.  I think they were talking about how the Israeli Govt seems to handwave any criticism away by saying, "Yes, but look what happened in the 1930s in Europe".

At times they do seem to get dangerously close to using the Holocaust as a justification/defence for their actions.  For any of their actions.

Rendel Harris wrote:

1000+ Israeli civilians were murdered on October 7th, so without in any way implying any approval of their retaliation, which is clearly grossly disproportionate, it's absolute nonsense to accuse them of masquerading as victims, they were victims. As for saying it's the first occupation where the occupier claims victimhood, more nonsense, you don't have to go too far back in history to find the USA occupying Iraq and Afghanistan on the spurious pretext of 9/11.

It is not true that 1000+ civilians were murdered. By Israel's own figures, nearly 600 of the dead were Israeli military members. E.g., Hamas attacked IOF military bases and outposts - which are entirely legitimate military targets for resistance forces fighting against an illegitimate military force.

By reportage in Israeli press, based on testimony of civilian survivors and military, Israeli military response on the day involved *shelling* kibbutzes with tanks and using helicopters to shoot every moving vehicle around. By survivor testimony, the IOF response itself killed many people.

So we're at about 400 to 600 dead civilians. And some unknown - but non-trivial - proportion of those were not murdered by Hamas, but murdered by the IOF.

This is not to excuse murder of civilians. It is simply never justified in war. Regardless. Whether by Hamas, or by the IOF. There are no excuses, and "But the other side made me do it" doesn't cut it - especially not when uttered by the more powerful controlling power.

Counting just from October 7th onward, the IOF is responsible for at least 40 times more murders of civilians (erring in Israel's favour in assuming every dead male in Gaza was a "terrorist") than Hamas. If we look at the history of the Israeli state, it is much worse.

Israel is a fundamentally genocidal state. It is built on murder, theft and racist apartheid. Until it ceases its oppression and genocide, until it makes some lasting peace with those it has wronged, in a *mutually agreeable* way, it can have no legitimacy in the eyes of any decent human being.

This comment is full of lies, hate and inaccuracies. Certainly sounds like you are justifying the burning alive of soldiers and the kidnapping and raping of female soldiers who are still held captive in Gaza and continue to be raped. IDF called Gaza civilians to evacuate and never purposefully murders civilians. But continue to believe these lies, you probably feel morally superior to Israelis. There is no one to make peace with, Hamas doesn't want any peace or ceasefire.

Judith Acre wrote:

IDF called Gaza civilians to evacuate and never purposefully murders civilians.

Can I ask where the civilians were meant to evacuate to?

I mean, they were all told to go to the south, then not that bit of the south, then not that bit of the south, then it became "we're going to play Battleships and you'll get a grid reference of where is supposed to be safe today.  Unless we change our mind at the last minute - better make sure you've got a good mobile network connection so you can check."

Judith Acre wrote:

This comment is full of lies, hate and inaccuracies. Certainly sounds like you are justifying the burning alive of soldiers and the kidnapping and raping of female soldiers who are still held captive in Gaza and continue to be raped. IDF called Gaza civilians to evacuate and never purposefully murders civilians. But continue to believe these lies, you probably feel morally superior to Israelis. There is no one to make peace with, Hamas doesn't want any peace or ceasefire.

That Israeli military shelled and rocketed kibbutzes and fleeing cars, and killed Israeli civilians, is documented in *the Israeli media*, Ha'aretz and 1 other I don't have the name of to hand right now.

It is perfectly legitimate for Hamas to attack the soldiers of a force that has been engaging in war crimes against its people for decades - in particular, Israel has kept Gaza under siege, including /counting/ calories since the 00s. Which is a war crime against a civilian population. It is entirely legitimate to attack such soldiers in resistance - soldiers manning the very outposts from which Israel *shoots* an Gazan who tries to use the land near the walls.

There is little solid evidence of rape, though I do not say it did not happen. However, much of the narrative of rape on Oct 7th comes from a discredited source.

Hamas does want peace. It - like most of the world - would agree to a 2-state solution based on 1968 borders. Israel rejects that. Further, the dominant political party in Israel of the last 35 years - Likud - was expressly setup to *oppose* any kind of 2-state solution. "From the river to the sea" has been bandied around a lot recently, but it comes from *Likud's* founding rationale - only Israel from the river to the sea.

Indeed, many Likudis believe in an Eretz Israel - a "greater" Israel - that expands to take much of Lebanon and parts of Syria too. And Israel today is already occupying parts of Lebanon and Syria, illegally.

Israel is a state fundamentally created to steal land. And it is governed by a party which expressly wants to steal _more_ land.

It is not a state that wants peace.

You need to go back to 1948 when the first victims were Palestinians and it had continued for 40 years before Hamas was even created. When you suffer for decades then fight your oppressor you have legitimacy. I don't condone any attack on civilians on either side but they have a full legal and moral right to defend their country from an invading military or armed miitias - as we do.

stevemaiden wrote:

I don't condone any attack on civilians on either side but they have a full legal and moral right to defend their country from an invading military or armed miitias - as we do.

Attacks on civilians - from either side, as you say, and God knows Israel are horrendously guilty of that now and over the past seventy-odd years - do not come under "full legal and moral rights of defence" by any stretch of the imagination.

For the record, as it seems one cannot express the slightest nuance without being accused of being 100% pro-Israel, I fully support the Palestinian right to statehood and believe Israel should be made to withdraw within her 1948 boundaries, and I went on a number of protests regarding such issues long before it was fashionable. However, my sympathy for the Palestinian cause does not mean I regard the October 7th attacks on civilians as anything other than terrorism, and I regard Israel's subsequent behaviour in Gaza as the same thing.

You mean they were finally attacked for occupying stolen land.

No one would mean that unless they considered rape, torture, murder and kidnapping a legitimate response to someone else having occupied stolen land--as you presumably do.

Actually the occupation of Palestine is the longest in modern history. The rate of killing of children and women in occupied Palestine by Israel  is the fastest recorded ever in history. The siege on Gaza is the longest in modern history. Never before has an entire population been subjected to starvation as weapon of war. Famine has been used as a weapon of war previously but this is the first time in recorded history an entire population has been subjected to starvation by a genocidal state. 

BIRMINGHAMisaDUMP wrote:

Famine has been used as a weapon of war previously but this is the first time in recorded history an entire population has been subjected to starvation by a genocidal state. 

There really is nothing new under the sun and saying something is the "first time in history" is always pretty dubious. Look up the Holomodor, in which Stalin deliberately starved the population of Ukraine in order to suppress Ukrainian nationalism, killing an estimated 3.9 million people.

I do know about the starvation imposed on the Ukraine in the 1930s.  But I wasn't including  that. By 'modern' I meant post 1945.  The difference now, obvioulsy, is that the deliberate starvation and barbarity is recorded and visible not least becuase Israeli occupiers post their war crimes on-line such is their level of impunity. 

BIRMINGHAMisaDUMP wrote:

I do know about the starvation imposed on the Ukraine in the 1930s.  But I wasn't including  that. By 'modern' I meant post 1945.  The difference now, obvioulsy, is that the deliberate starvation and barbarity is recorded and visible not least becuase Israeli occupiers post their war crimes on-line such is their level of impunity. 

You didn't actually say modern history (the 1930s are of course part of modern history anyway), you said that "this is the first time in recorded history an entire population has been subjected to starvation by a genocidal state." In any case, even if you meant to say post 1945, it would still not be true. See, for example, the Nigerian government blockade of Biafra, 1967-1970, which starved approximately one million people to death.

Check your "facts".
And wait for this terror to hit your home before you believe all these "facts" you so easily spread.

Oh, it's definitely not the first😂

your confused, it's the other side that is truly genocidal.

Really?

Have you bothered to read the history or are you happy to be brainwashed by the msm?

Sorry that was directed at Lozcan.

That's not what the evidence shows. Just research the atrocities committed by the state of Israel on the Palestinians over the decades.  Then listen to the genocidal language of Israeli leadership and the media. Then summarise all the land stolen  from the Palestinians and the illegal settlemenst built in Palestine - for Israelis only to live in. then read the reports of aparthied in Palestine - by B'tselem, Human  Rights Watch and Amnesty. Then you will get a clearer picture of where the genocide is being committed and by whom 

And as ever, the atrocities of 7 October don't get a mention.

The list of atrocities committed on the Palestinians go back decades and are documented.  They are not reported however.  Just look at the number of civilians murdered by illegal settlers and the Occupation Forces in the West Bank - in the past 12 monthsalone. Palestinians have suffered aparthied, house demolitions, land seizures, kidnappings and imprisonment without charge, summary executions, beatings and the whole matrix of occupation for over 7 decades - and not just 1 day. 

While that is true, why don't we start listing all the atrocities committed and the death toll.

One side backed with money, weapons and personnel from the US, UK etc against a people with basically stones. Yeah, fair fight.

it's almost like your understanding of the history starts and ends with one day..

Car Delenda Est wrote:

it's almost like your understanding of the history starts and ends with one day..

Well, it was an okay TV series, definitely better than the film 

Sad.